GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.
1847.
Engraved by W.E. Tucker, Esq.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXX.      January, 1847.      No. 1.

Table of Contents

Fiction, Literature and Articles

Poetry and Fashion

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

. . . . . .

1847.

POETRY.

REVIEWS.

MUSIC.

ENGRAVINGS.

Transcriber’s Notes can be found at the end of this eBook.

PAINTED BY HORACE VERNET.         ENGRAVED BY JOHN SARTAIN.

DEPARTING FOR THE CHASE.

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.

GRAHAM’S MAGAZINE.

Vol. XXX.     PHILADELPHIA, JANUARY, 1847.     No. 1.

A STORY OF THE REVOLUTION.

———

BY CHARLES J. PETERSON.

———

[PRIZE STORY—for which the Premium of $200 was awarded by the Committee.]

CHAPTER I.

“Did you get the pass, Macdonald?” said a young man, looking up, as his servant entered the room of a lodging-house in Charleston, in the latter part of the year 1780.

“Yes, sir, and the baggage and horses are ready,” was the reply of a stalwart youth, whose dress betokened a condition removed from that of an ordinary menial, and partaking rather of that of a familiar, though humble companion. “I think we can give them the slip, sir—Lord! how I wish for a crack at these fellows! and once with Marion, we’ll not long want an opportunity.”

“Be in waiting for me at midnight, then,” said the first speaker; and, as Macdonald retired, he threw himself back again in his chair, and fixing his eyes on the floor, resigned himself to the abstraction out of which he had been roused.

Howard Preston, the hero of our story, had just returned from Europe, where he had been fulfilling the injunctions of his father’s will, by a course of study and travel until his twenty-fourth year. The first great sorrow of his life had been his parting, at sixteen, with the only child of his guardian, Kate Mowbray, then a lovely little girl, who for years had been his pet and playmate. Many were the tears she also shed at the separation, and faithfully did she promise not to forget her boy lover. Such childish preferences usually end with youth; but it was not so in the present instance. With every letter from abroad came a gift for Kate, which she requited with some trifle worked by her own hands. But as years elapsed, and Kate approached womanhood, these presents were no longer returned, and Preston, piqued at what he thought neglect, gradually came to confine himself, in his letters home, to a cold inquiry after her health, instead of devoting, as heretofore, two-thirds of the epistle to her. Yet he never thought of America without also thinking of Kate; and when he landed at Charleston, a month before our tale begins, he was wondering into what kind of a woman she had grown up.

Still his old feeling of pique was uppermost when shown into her father’s magnificent parlor; and this, combined with his astonishment at seeing a graceful and high bred woman announced as his old playmate, lent an air of coldness and embarrassment to his greetings. Whether it was this or some other cause, Kate, who was advancing eagerly, suddenly checked herself, colored, and put on all her dignity. The interview, so inauspiciously begun, was short and formal, and to Preston, at least, unsatisfactory. He had expected, in spite of their tacit misunderstanding, that Kate would meet him as rapturously as of old, forgetting that the child had now become a woman. He overlooked, also, the effect his own restraint might have produced. Thus he returned to his lodgings, dissatisfied and angry, half disposed to dislike, yet half compelled to admire, the beautiful and dazzling creature from whom he had just parted. The truth was, Preston, though hitherto ignorant of it, had loved his old playmate from boyhood. This had made him feel her neglect so acutely, and this had led him secretly to hope that her welcome on his return would heal the past. No wonder he went home angry, yet quite as much in love as ever!

Preston and Kate often met after this, but they seemed destined to misunderstand each other. Kate was really ignorant of the mischief she had done. She had come down to meet him with a heart full of the memories of other days, and, if truth must be told, a little nervous and anxious how he, of whom she had so often thought in secret, would receive her. His proud demeanor had chilled her. Nor on subsequent occasions were their interviews more satisfactory. Indeed Kate was puzzled and vexed at Preston’s manner. No one could, at times, be more interesting; yet no one was so often haughty and disagreeable. Kate sighed to think how changed he had become; then she was angry at herself for sighing.

Kate was accordingly as wayward as Preston—and who, indeed, had greater excuse? Rich and well born, beautiful and high-spirited, she was positively the reigning belle in Charleston during the whole of that gay winter. To a complexion delicately fair, and a person of the most exquisite proportions, she united those graces of mind and manner, which, in that courtly day, were considered the unerring accompaniments of high breeding. Report awarded to her numbers of unsuccessful suitors; but all had tacitly resigned their claims in favor of Major Lindsay, an English officer of noble blood, between whom and an earldom there was only a single life. Gay and splendid in person and equipage, the Major no sooner laid siege to the heart of the heiress, than her less favored suitors gave over in despair; and what between lounging most of his mornings away in her parlor, and attending her abroad on all occasions, he speedily came to have the field nearly altogether to himself.

The arrival of the major anticipated that of Preston about a month, and when our hero returned, he found his rival almost domesticated at Mr. Mowbray’s house. Jealousy soon revealed to Preston the secret of his own long hidden love; but it made him heartily hate the major. The two gentlemen seemed perfectly to understand each other. But the Englishman knew better than his rival how to suppress his feelings, and accordingly possessed every advantage over him in superior ease and self-command. Had Kate wished otherwise, she could not but have given the larger share of her attention to the graceful, brilliant and composed man of fashion, rather than to his more irritable and wayward rival, whom a fancied slight, in word or look, was sufficient to make dumb for a whole evening. Depend on it, the worst possible use to which a lover can put himself is to be sulky.

Perhaps it was the enmity he nourished against his more successful rival; perhaps it was the natural indignation of a frank and noble heart against oppression; perhaps, which is more natural, it was both combined, but Preston had not been long at home before he formed the resolution to take part with his countrymen in the war then going on; and the sudden appearance of General Marion on the Santee, where he began a partisan conflict with the invaders, opened to him a favorable way for carrying out his design, which he only postponed until he could part from Kate on better terms. He flattered himself that she herself was secretly on the side of the colonists, for her father had once held a commission under the provisional government, although since the fall of Charleston and the apparent conquest of the colony, he, like many others, had been induced to take a royal protection, and ground his arms as a neutral.

One morning Preston found Kate alone in her little parlor. It was rare that she was without visiters, for Major Lindsay, at least, was usually at her side. Kate wore a pretty morning-dress, and was sewing, her little tiny foot, that rested on a cushioned stool, peeping provokingly out beneath the snowy muslin. A woman one admires never looks lovelier than when occupied in this truly feminine employment; and as Kate made room for Preston beside her, with her sweetest smile, he thought she had never seemed half so charming. Lovers can imagine how happy Preston soon was. He and Kate talked of old times, she busily plying her needle, but every now and then looking up with animation into his face. His heart beat quicker, and he longed to tell her how he loved her; it would, I fear, have set your head or mine, reader, topsy-turvy at once. A dozen long forgotten incidents were called to mind: how Preston had once rescued Kate from the river, how they both wept when her old nurse died, and a score of other things. The color of both heightened, and Preston felt every instant as if he could snatch the dear girl to his arms. In the eagerness of conversation, all at once Kate placed her hand familiarly on his.

“And do you remember,” she said, gazing up with sparkling eyes into his face, “do you remember when the pony ran away with you? Oh! I was half dead with fright, and screamed lustily. Those were happy days—I wonder if we are ever as happy as in childhood. I sometimes wish we were back again on that old lawn.” And she sighed.

“Do you, indeed?” said Preston, his whole face lighting up, and he took her hand by an impulse he could no longer resist.

At that moment the words which would have decided his fate were rising to Preston’s lips, and Kate, as if secretly forewarned, began to tremble and be confused, when the door was flung open and the servant in a loud voice announced Major Lindsay.

If any of my readers has ever been interrupted when about to declare himself, and had to come plump down from rapture to foolishness, he can imagine Preston’s chagrin at the entrance of the visiter. However, he had tact enough to think of Kate’s embarrassment, and as he rose to make his bow, adroitly placed himself so as to conceal her for a moment, and allow her time to recover from her confusion. The major gave both parties, on the instant, a suspicious glance, but his softest smile immediately succeeded, and with easy assurance taking the seat Preston had vacated, he glided into a strain of brilliant small talk, such as would have done honor to any gallant of the day, incomparable at compliments and snuff-boxes. Preston was angry at this unceremonious supplanting, but even more angry to see how quickly Kate recovered herself, and dashed out into the strife of repartee, with a spirit and ease superior even to the major’s. Preston chafed, and thought she might have been a little less interested. At first he was silent and reserved, then he began to be uneasy, and once or twice he yielded to his irritability in words. He cursed his folly for imagining, as he did five minutes before, that she thought more of him than she did of others. He fixed his eyes half frowningly, half contemptuously on Kate. She colored immediately, he thought with conscious guilt. The next instant she turned haughtily away and addressed the major. Now, for the first time, Preston became convinced of the existence of the engagement respecting which he had heard so much. Burning with mortification, after sitting a few seconds, during which Kate did not once address him, he arose and abruptly took his leave.

“She loves him,” he exclaimed bitterly. “Dazzled by the glitter of a coronet, she casts aside her old and tried friend like a worn-out trinket. Oh! God, was it for this I hastened home? was it for this I treasured her memory through long years?”

For hours he remained alone, now pacing his chamber with rapid strides, now burying his face moodily in his hands. He recalled all his various interviews with Kate, and strove to remember her every word and look: the result was to curse himself for his egregious folly in fancying for a moment that she loved him. But after awhile his feelings grew less exasperated. He reflected on Kate’s manner that morning, before the arrival of Major Lindsay, and hope once more dawned in his bosom.

“I will lose no time,” he said, “in learning my fate decisively. I shall see Kate at her aunt’s ball, and her manner there will determine my suspense. If she is cold and haughty I will understand that she wishes to rebuke my presumption this morning. In that case, I will trifle here no longer, but at once join Gen. Marion. Macdonald, my foster-brother, loves me too well to desert me, but he has been crazy to be gone this fortnight past. I will order him to get a pass and have every thing ready in case of the worst, which my heart forebodes.”

It was after arriving at this determination, and receiving Macdonald’s message, that Preston gave himself up to his melancholy, nor did he rise from his desponding position until it was time to dress for Mrs. Blakeley’s ball.

The sound of gay music, the flashing of diamonds and the twinkling of light forms met his sight as he entered the ball-room; but he had eyes only for one object: and he soon sought out Kate amid her crowd of admirers. Never had she looked so transcendently lovely. It is thought a mark of taste and fashion now-a-days to laugh at the enormous hoops and powdered hair of our grandmothers: but let us tell you, good reader, that a belle of the present age, with her deformed tournure and Dutch amplitude of skirt, though she may create a sort of matter-of-fact sensation, very suitable perhaps for this money-making generation, never awakens that deep sentiment of adoration, that respectful, awe-struck, Sir Charles Grandison feeling, bestowed on the beauty of the last century, august in silver tissue and high-heeled shoes. The veriest stickler for modern ease would have given up the point at sight of Kate. She wore, as was then the custom, a petticoat of rich brocade, a single yard of which cost more than the twenty ells of lute-string flaunted by a beauty now. Over this was a robe of white satin, made high on the shoulders, but opening in front so as partially to reveal the swelling bust, and expose the richly-gemmed stomacher and glittering petticoat. The edge of this robe from the neck down was trimmed with a quilling of blue ribbon, which was also continued around the bottom. The tight sleeve, with bands like the trimming of the robe, reached to the elbow: and the deep ruffle of Valenciennes lace which nearly hid the round white arm, heightened with rare art the beauties it affected to conceal. Her hair was gathered back from the forehead, richly powdered, and trimmed coquettishly with blue ribbon. Now, if there be any heretical repudiator of the past, denying the brilliancy that powder gave a fair complexion, we wish he would go and look at one of Copley’s portraits, or—what is better!—could have seen Kate then! We trow his mouth would have watered. We doubt if justice is done to those good old times. Ah! those were the days of courtly dames and high-bred cavaliers—when the stately minuet still held sway—when gentlemen bowed reverently over the hand they scarcely dared to kiss—and when it was the crowning felicity of a whole evening’s devotion to hand a partner to the table by the tips of the fingers. Now-a-days people bounce through frisky quadrilles, while gallants tuck the arm of a mistress under their own as cozily as an old codger does his umbrella.

Preston was advancing toward Kate, when a buzz of admiration announced that Major Lindsay was about to lead her forth to the minuet. He won accordingly only a hasty curtsey in reply to his bow. He was meanwhile subjected to the mortification of hearing from a dozen bystanders the rumor of Kate’s engagement to the major; and one or two officiously applied to him to confirm the rumor, knowing his intimacy with the family. When the dance was concluded, which attracted general admiration, Major Lindsay still remained at Kate’s side. Never before had Preston noticed such meaning and delicate assiduity in his attentions. Between the incidents of the morning and those of the evening, no wonder Preston’s anger continued unabated. Still he made several attempts to obtain a moment’s tête-à-tête with Kate: but the crowd of her admirers frustrated this. At length, toward the close of the ball, he approached her.

“I come to bid you farewell,” he said abruptly; “to-morrow I leave Charleston.”

“Leave Charleston!” repeated a dozen voices in dismay. “What shall we do without you?” Kate alone betrayed neither surprise nor emotion. “Ah! indeed,” was her unconcerned reply.

Preston turned pale with suppressed mortification at this indifference; mere friendship, he said to himself, demanded some expression of regret at least. His feelings were not allayed by what followed.

“You’re not going to join Marion, are you?” said Major Lindsay, in a tone of triumphant banter, little imagining how near he was to the truth. “Has he frightened you by the great oath he has sworn to revenge his nephew, who was shot for a rebel? I hear he threatens some mighty deed. Only think of his doing any thing with that brigade of invincible tatterdemalions—Falstaff’s ragged regiment over again!”

“Take care that you are not one of those to pay the penalty of Marion’s oath,” retorted Preston, stung by the insolence of his successful rival, and reckless what he said. “It was a foul deed, and will be terribly revenged.”

Major Lindsay flushed to the brow, and his hand mechanically sought his sword hilt; but he controlled himself immediately, and said with a sneer—

“That might be called sedition, only we know you are a man of peace, Mr. Preston. But he is certainly Marion-bit, is he not?” and he turned to Kate.

Now Kate felt piqued at this unceremonious leave of her lover, as well as at his haughty conduct in the morning. She fancied herself trifled with, and answered cuttingly,

“Never fear Mr. Preston’s joining Marion. Our American gentlemen, on both sides, are but carpet knights of late. They resemble Sancho Panza, who, good soul, would not stir a step till a rich island was promised for his share.”

Preston tingled in every vein at this speech, which he regarded as aimed at himself. He bowed sarcastically to Kate, and glanced angrily at Major Lindsay, as he replied,

“One might almost be tempted to join Marion after this, in order to raise the reputation of American courage, since just now British bravery has it dead hollow.”

“Oh! pray,” said Kate, laughingly, “play the Atlas for the patriots then. That’s a good man: Be the St. George to destroy this British dragon.”

Major Lindsay looked for a moment as if he thought there was more in this than met the ear; but he contented himself with retorting on Preston.

“Do, by all means,” he said, “and, if you take Bobadil’s plan, you may defeat a whole army yourself. You know he proposed to challenge a single enemy and slay him by duello: then challenge a second, and slay him: then a third, and dispose of him also: and so on until the whole army was annihilated.”

Kate, as well as the rest, laughed at this sally. Preston needed but this to complete his anger and disgust. The field, he saw, was his rival’s, and he was glad when other persons approached and broke up the colloquy, which, to tell the truth, was growing too personal. But Kate was piqued and Preston enraged: and as for the major, seeing there was a quarrel between his rival and mistress, he had striven to widen the breach.

Preston hurried from the ball-room, and taking time only to change his dress, repaired to the rendezvous where Macdonald awaited him. Without a word he flung himself into the saddle, and his companion imitating his example, they were soon without the city. They had passed the outposts for some time, when Macdonald, pushing his horse close to Preston’s, opened the conversation.

“We’re clear of that confounded town at last, thank Heaven!” he said, “and I, for one, aint sorry. Them Englishmen are as saucy as princes, and think nobody has any courage but themselves. But I know one stout fellow that can snuff a candle with his rifle at two hundred yards, and before a week we’ll have a rap at ’em, for I s’pose you go direct, sir, to Marion’s camp?”

Preston nodded a gloomy assent, for buried in his own thoughts he cared not to be disturbed. Macdonald saw this, and, defeated in his attempt to open a conversation, dropped back, but when out of hearing muttered,

“I see how it is. Them women’s always getting a man into trouble. For my part I’ll be a bachelor. Marrying’s like getting tipsy, very pleasant except for the after repentance.”

——

CHAPTER II.

The period of which we write was one that will ever be memorable in the annals of our country. Never had the fortunes of the patriots been at so low an ebb in the south, as between the defeat of Gates, at Camden, and the inroad of Cornwallis into North Carolina. After the fall of Charleston no time had been lost in overrunning the colony. All organized resistance being at an end, a proclamation was published, inviting the citizens to return to his majesty’s government, and stipulating for little more on their part than neutrality. Large numbers, even of the Whigs, accepted these terms: and had Cornwallis adhered to his promises, then indeed might liberty have been despaired of. But the royal leader soon threw off the mask, and required all who had accepted the protection, as it was called, to declare themselves openly on the royal side, in the further prosecution of the war. Finding themselves thus basely deceived, many flew to arms; but such, whenever captured, were executed as rebels. The fate of Col. Hayne, who was put to death at Charleston under these circumstances, was but a type of that of hundreds of lesser note, who perished often without a trial.

The war, meanwhile, was carried on with savage ferocity against the Whigs. Their plantations were laid waste, their negroes carried off, their houses given to the flames. The seven vials of wrath were literally poured out on South Carolina. Instances of cruelty without number are left on record. One may suffice. An innocent Quaker who took care of a sentry’s musket for a few minutes, while the soldier went on an errand, was seized for this pretended crime and thrown into prison. His wife hurried to the jail to see him. She was told to wait a few minutes and she should be conducted to him. With this brutal jest on their lips, the royal myrmidons hurried to the man’s cell, dragged him forth and hung him at the jail window: then, returning to his wife, they led her into the yard, and showed her husband to her quivering in the agonies of death. But God at last raised up an avenger for these and other atrocities. Suddenly, in the very heart of the oppressed district, there arose a defender, bitter, sleepless, unforgiving—seemingly endowed with miraculous powers of intelligence—whose motions were quick as lightning—who dealt blows now here, now there, at points least expected—and who, by a series of rapid and brilliant successes, soon made his name a terror to the British. Volunteers flocked in crowds to his standard. His boldness and gallantry filled the colony with astonishment and rejoicing. Wherever a surprise took place—wherever a convoy was cut off—wherever a gallant deed was unexpectedly done, men said that Marion had been there.

Preston had succeeded in raising a troop, for his name was an influential one in his neighborhood, and he was soon one of Marion’s most trusted adherents. A man who is willing to throw his life away on every occasion, speedily acquires the reputation of daring and bravery. The country around the Santee, which was the chief scene of his exploits, rung with the name of our hero. Nor was his foster-brother, now a serjeant in Preston’s troop, and one of Marion’s acutest scouts, without his share of renown.

Meantime the gay society of Charleston had suffered considerable diminutions. Many of the royal officers were absent with their commands, and a large portion of the gentry had retired to their estates. Among these was Mr. Mowbray, who secretly meditated joining the continental side again. Kate, too, was absent with her aunt, at the estate of the latter.

To this place the course of our story now carries us. Mrs. Blakeley’s mansion had heretofore escaped the visitation of war, but within a few days a detachment under Col. Watson had halted there on its march to Camden. With him came Major Lindsay, still an eager suitor for Kate. But scarcely had Col. Watson encamped on the plantation, when a body of Marion’s men, conspicuous among whom was Capt. Preston, made their appearance, and daily harassed the British officer, by cutting off his communications, assailing his pickets, and sometimes even beating up his camp.

One evening Kate was sitting sewing with her aunt in the parlor, conversing with Col. Watson, and several of his officers, who were their guests, when the servant came in to light the candles. Old Jacob, as he was called, filled the office of butler in the family, and was quite a character. He was a Whig at heart, and cordially disliked his mistress’s compulsory visiters. Having been his deceased master’s personal servant, he had thus acquired a footing of familiarity which allowed him to have his joke even at the table where he waited. He piqued himself moreover on what he thought his breeding and fine diction. He was a source of constant amusement to the British officers, who, however, found him sometimes their overmatch in repartee.

“Well, Jacob, what news?” said Major Lindsay. “Any more rebels captured?”

Old Jacob turned, bowed his head profoundly, and showing his teeth in a broad grin, said—

“Dare is no news yet, sar, dat I know on; but ’spose dare will be some afore mornin’; for, sartain, Capt. Preston will beat up your quarters as usual: and den, how de red-coats run!”

Kate looked up archly, yet colored when she caught the major’s eye. That personage bit his lip, and remarked—

“Never mind Capt. Preston, Jacob: he’ll be our prisoner very soon. Has the flag of truce come back?”

“Oh! yes, sar,” said old Jacob, his face radiant with delight. “Habn’t you heard? Dat great news, sar. ’Spose you know Sargent Macdonald?”

“What of him?” said the major, beginning to suspect he was making a ridiculous figure. “He’s a savage. Why he shot Lieut. Torriano yesterday three hundred yards off.”

“Dat he did,” said the old butler, waxing grandiloquent, “he hit de leftenant judgematically, I insure you. But dat is not de news. You knows Sargent Macdonald sent in word, toder day, dat if his baggage, took in de sally, was not recorded immediately to him again, he would kill eight of your men. You know dat? To-day de baggage was sent back, for dat sargent be de berry debbil, and now he send word dat, since his baggage be recorded punctiliousy, he will only kill four of your men!” And the speaker, though too well-bred to laugh at what he considered so good a joke, grinned from ear to ear.

“The cannibal!” said Lindsay, shrugging his shoulders, “but what can be expected of the men when their leaders countenance the firing on pickets.”

“Yet you hang them for rebels,” said Kate, with spirit.

“They shoot down officers,” continued Lindsay, not thinking it advisable to reply to her palpable hit, “as if this Mr. Marion paid for them at so much a head. I never saw such unchristian fighting. They are a set of boors; and cowards at heart, all of them, I’ll be sworn.”

“Cowards they are not,” said Kate, her eyes flashing to hear her countrymen thus stigmatized. “At least you did not seem to think them such when Capt. Preston, at the head of his troop, dashed up to your lines, and challenged you to fight singly, or otherwise. I heard myself the alarm with which the soldiers cried, ‘Here comes Preston again!’ ”

“He well knew no one would accept his challenge: so his bravado cost him nothing.”

“Go meet him when he comes again, and see whether he meant it for bravado!” retorted Kate; then, all at once remembering the enthusiasm into which she had been hurried, she colored, and resumed her work in some embarrassment.

Major Lindsay stifled a muttered execration on his American rival, for he began to fear, from the spirit which Kate had shown, that the chivalric exploits of Capt. Preston were making a decided impression on her heart. The desperate daring which the rebel officer had shown within the last few days, Major Lindsay had attributed, in his own mind, to a desire on the part of Preston to dazzle his mistress; but Kate’s behavior toward himself had been so flattering, in comparison to that bestowed on others, that, until this moment, he had consoled himself that these exploits had been thrown away. He sat, therefore, silent and moody; and the conversation ceased.

Gradually, one by one, the visiters thinned off and returned to their quarters, until only Col. Watson and himself were left. The Colonel and Mrs. Blakeley had sat down to a game of cards in a distant corner of the apartment. Here was an opportunity to decide his fate. It might be the last time he would find Kate alone, for the camp was expected to move in a few days. The occasion was not to be neglected, and, doubtful as he felt of the issue, he arose, and leaning over her, said, in a low voice,

“I fear, my dear Miss Mowbray, that I offended you by what I said of Capt. Preston. I forgot, for a moment, that he was an old playmate of yours. You cannot tell how pained I am that any thing I said should displease you.”

“It matters little—I am not at all displeased,” said Kate, keeping her eyes on her work, her heart beating violently. “Capt. Preston needs no defender in me, nor asks one. I but spoke generally in behalf of my countrymen.”

Major Lindsay saw her embarrassment, and, misinterpreting the cause, drew a favorable omen from it.

“You relieve my heart from a load,” he said. “I could bear any thing rather than your displeasure. Indeed you must long have seen how I loved you. Nay, do not rise from the table. I worship the very ground you tread on—my life itself is bound up in your smiles—all I have, heart, fortune, reputation, I lay at your feet⁠—”

He would have continued in the same impassioned strain, but Kate, summoning up all her self-command, rose with dignity.

“It pains me to hear this, Major Lindsay,” she said. “I will be frank. That you sought my society, I saw, but that you loved me I never believed.”

The face of Major Lindsay flushed, but he controlled his features, and detained her as she would have moved away.

“Do not bid me despair,” he said. “In time I may be allowed to hope. Let me fancy that my devotion may at last win me this fair hand.”

“No time can alter my sentiments,” said Kate, coldly.

“I will serve for you as for a second Rachel,” and the major still detained her.

“Nay! I can listen to this no more. You forget yourself!” said Kate, severely.

At this instant, and before Major Lindsay could reply, Kate saw that her aunt had finished the game of cards, and was coming toward her. The major with chagrin turned away. He would have given worlds if the tête-à-tête could have been protracted, for then he would have endeavored to discover if Kate really loved Preston, or was indifferent to all.

“Rejected, by George!” he muttered. “But I must have her, however,” he soliloquized. “She is too lovely, too charming altogether, to be sacrificed on a provincial—what a sensation she would create at court! Then she is heiress to one of the best properties in this colony, and since my cousin has married again, there is no telling how many new lives may come in between impoverished me and the earldom. By Jove! I wish this Preston had remained abroad a little longer, or that he would get knocked over in some skirmish. I wouldn’t hesitate to give him his coup de grâce myself, if I had a chance. But he shan’t foil me. I’ll have Kate in spite of him. What a delicious creature she is! What eyes!—what an arm!”

Major Lindsay met Kate the ensuing day with an unruffled brow and without embarrassment. If there was any change in his demeanor, it was perceptible only in the assumption of greater deference toward her than before. Not Lord Orville himself, the preux chevalier of Evelina, could have shown more tact and delicacy in bestowing those thousand little attentions which go so far toward winning the female heart. Kate was annoyed. She saw that Major Lindsay, in spite of her decided language, still cherished the hope of winning her favor; but his conduct was so guarded as to forbid maiden modesty again alluding to the subject. She could only, therefore, endeavor, by a cold though polite behavior, to show that her sentiments were unchanged, hoping that in time he would tire of the pursuit. She little knew the pertinacity and unscrupulousness of the man with whom she had to deal.

Kate dared not, meanwhile, too closely to examine her own heart. She could not forget the exquisite pleasure which attended her last tête-à-tête with Preston, and her bosom thrilled whenever she thought of what might have been his words if Major Lindsay had not come in. The subsequent coldness and suspicion of Preston had piqued her, and she had resolved to punish him for his want of confidence and jealousy, by a little innocent coquetry with Major Lindsay in the evening. Fatal error! When she heard of his speedy departure from his own lips, she regretted for a moment her revenge; but her second feeling was that of anger at his conduct, and hence her assumed indifference. And yet, after the lapse of months, she felt herself the aggrieved party. Preston ought not to have been so jealous. He had no right to be offended at the show of only ordinary courtesy to a visiter. If he chose to be suspicious and proud, he ought to be taught better by neglect. He had trifled with her, else he would have called again, and sought an explanation. But perhaps he did not love her, perhaps he had meant nothing by his words. She usually ended her reveries at this point with a sigh, and a haughty resolution to discard him from her heart. She would love no one who did not love her.

In a few days Col. Watson left his encampment for Georgetown, where he arrived, harassed by constant attacks, Major Lindsay accompanying him.

——

CHAPTER III.

The war meanwhile went on with increased ferocity. The tide of battle, which at first ran in Marion’s favor, had now turned, and his enemies were everywhere in the ascendant. The army of Greene was in North Carolina, occupied in watching Cornwallis. Lord Rawdon held Camden with a strong force. All the other important posts were in the hands of the British. Marion, for the first time disheartened, talked of retiring behind the mountains. Armed bodies of Tories, in the mean time, traversed the country, plundering at will, and hanging, without even the form of a trial, those of their unfortunate prisoners they had found in arms.

Mr. Mowbray had long contemplated rising in favor of his country again, and no time seemed to him so proper as the present, when all others were becoming disheartened. His daughter he knew to be in safety with her aunt, who had always maintained a strict neutrality: so there was nothing to withhold him longer from his purpose. He had accordingly secretly exerted himself to raise a troop among the young men of his neighborhood, and his recruiting had been attended with such success, that their rising only waited the removal of a large body of armed Tories who had lately infested the vicinity. On the first signal from Mr. Mowbray, they were to rendezvous at the Hall.

Mowbray Hall was one of those fine old mansions a few of which linger in South Carolina, fast fading monuments of the departing splendors of her old provincial nobility. The building stood at the head of a long avenue of trees, and was a large double house, with an immense hall in the centre. The outhouses had suffered considerably since the war began, and many of the fields lay bare and uncultivated; but the mansion itself was still in a remarkably fine state of preservation, and the architectural boast of the county.

It was a fine, clear morning when Mr. Mowbray stood on the steps of his house, to welcome the recruits who, in obedience to his long expected signal, were on that day to repair to the rendezvous. His feelings, as one stout yeoman after another rode up, were those of exultation, dashed a little perhaps with regret for having ever despaired of his country.

“How fortunate that Capt. Ball, with his Tories, has moved up the river,” said his lieutenant, who stood beside him. “We shall have time to discipline our men, and rally a greater number to our ranks. Our twenty tall fellows, though brave enough, could scarcely make head against his hundred troopers. We have a good week before us.”

“Very true; and we have assurances of nearly thirty more, provided we display our banner. Three days of quiet is all I ask. Then, I hope, we shall be able to give a good account of ourselves even if Ball’s Tories return,” said Mr. Mowbray.

“If we are gone when he comes back, my dear sir, he will wreak his vengeance, I fear, on our homes,” said the other, with something of a sigh.

“I hope you do not think of drawing back,” replied Mr. Mowbray. “In this cause a man must be willing to sacrifice father and mother, house and land, good repute, and all else he holds dear in the world. God help us!”

“I am with you till death,” said the lieutenant, thinking at that moment how much more his superior had to lose than himself: and affected by such heroic and self-sacrificing patriotism.

At this instant a horseman was seen galloping furiously down the avenue, and as he came onward, he waved his cap as if desirous to call their attention to something in the road which he had left. Mr. Mowbray looked in that direction, but a clump of woodland shut out the highway from sight; however, after a moment’s delay, the voice of one of the recruits called his attention to what seemed a cloud of dust rising above the tree tops. Almost at the same instant a number of troopers appeared at the head of the avenue. The approaching horseman now had reached the lawn.

“We are betrayed,” he cried, almost exhausted. “Ball’s Tories are behind, and have chased me for two miles. To arms—to arms!”

The time was too short to allow of barricading the house; but the great hall was speedily turned into a fortification. The doors at either end were closed, barred, and further defended by chairs and tables piled against them; while the entrances into the parlors were closed effectually in the same way. The great window at the head of the staircase, and the one at the other extremity of the upper hall were guarded by a proper force. These dispositions had scarcely been completed when the Tories galloped up to the lawn, on which they dismounted with loud shouts, and began instant preparations for the attack.

When Mr. Mowbray’s scanty troop was mustered, it was found to contain but ten exclusive of himself, for nearly half of the expected recruits had not yet had time to arrive. It was evident there had been treachery somewhere among them; for none but those who had enlisted knew of this rendezvous; and the sudden disappearance of the enemy two days before, it was now apparent, had been a feint. However, nothing remained but to sell their lives as dearly as possible.

Mr. Mowbray walked around among his men, and himself saw that every thing was ready. He exhorted them, in a few words, to do their duty manfully. His short harangue was brought to a speedy conclusion by a loud cheer on the part of the assailants, and by a shower of bullets aimed at the hall window, as they advanced to the attack.

“Fire coolly—and waste no shot!” he said, sternly, himself handling a musket.

Four men fell at that first discharge; and, mad with rage and shame, the assailants strove to climb up the pilasters of the hall door; but they were beaten thence by the butts of the defenders’ muskets. The men, however, who achieved this were severely wounded by the rifles of the Tories, who, keeping watch, aimed wherever a head appeared. An effort was now made to break in the hall door. An axe was brought, and, after several blows, one of the heavy panels gave way. But the moment the wood fell crashing in, a volley poured through the aperture drove back the assailants, who, thus foiled at every point, retreated to the cover of the outhouses, as if to hold a consultation.

The little garrison was now mustered. One of its members had been shot dead at the great hall window, and several were wounded. The hurts were bandaged as well as possible, and the stock of ammunition was distributed more equally. Their slight successes had inspirited the men; they began now to talk of foiling the enemy; and when notice was again given of his approach they repaired to their posts with alacrity and exultation.

The Tories now seemed to have resolved trying a combined attack on all parts of the house. One party advanced toward the hall door in front—another made the circuit of the mansion to assail the one in the rear—and a third remained at one angle, as if contemplating an assault on the side when the rest should be fully engaged. Mr. Mowbray’s heart forewarned him of the result when he saw these preparations.

“They are breaking into the parlors,” exclaimed one of the men, rushing up the staircase, at the very instant that a new volley was discharged on the house from the assailants.

Mr. Mowbray listened and heard the dull crash of an axe, followed by the breaking of glass. The parlor shutters had merely been barred, and the parlors once gained it was only necessary to break down the doors leading to the entry, which were comparatively weak, and slightly barricaded. To desert the hall up stairs would be to seduce the Tories in front and rear from their cover, and throw open an entrance to them by the way they had first essayed. It became necessary, therefore, to divide his already small force, and, leaving a few to maintain the old positions, defend the threatened door with two or three trusty arms.

“We must sell our lives dearly,” he said, as he took his station behind the door, posting a man on each side.

The enemy was now heard leaping into the parlor, and simultaneously a general attack began on all sides. The bullets rattled against the wall; shouts and cries of encouragement rose on both sides. From the quick firing overhead Mr. Mowbray knew that his men in that quarter were actively engaged. The axe was now heard against the parlor door before him, and the frail wood quivered under every blow. Another stroke and the panel gave way. Instantly the musket of Mr. Mowbray was aimed through the aperture at the man who wielded the axe, who fell dead at the explosion. But another promptly seized the instrument, and, posting himself with more caution at the side of the opening, dealt such vigorous strokes that the door speedily fell in. As the planks crashed to the floor there was a general rush on the part of the Tories in the parlor, toward the aperture.

“Meet them bravely!” shouted Mr. Mowbray. “Strike home, and we drive them back.”

He fired a pistol as he spoke at the foremost assailant; but the Tory knocked up the weapon, and the ball lodged in the ceiling.

“Hurrah! we have them now,” shouted this man, who was their leader. “Revenge your comrades!”

“Stand fast!” cried Mr. Mowbray, the lion of his nature aroused.

For a few seconds the melee was terrific. Now that the foe had effected an entrance, the defence of the other posts was no longer necessary, and the followers of Mr. Mowbray crowded to his assistance. On the other hand the Tories poured into the parlor, and thence struggled to make their way into the hall. Inch by inch they fought their road with overpowering numbers; and inch by inch, with desperate but unavailing courage, the Whigs gave ground. The clash of swords, the explosion of pistols, the shouts of either party were mingled in wild disorder with the oaths and shrieks of the wounded and dying. Swaying to and fro, now one party, now the other giving ground, the combat raged with increasing fury. But numbers at last prevailed. When most of his followers had fallen, Mr. Mowbray, however, still remained, wounded yet erect, struggling like a noble stag at bay.

“Surrender, and we give quarter!” shouted the Tory leader, who, throughout the conflict, had seemed desirous rather of taking him prisoner than slaying him.

Mr. Mowbray thought of his child and faltered: but remembering that the enemy never showed clemency he said, striking at his adversary,

“Never, so help me God!”

But that moment of indecision sealed his fate. The Tory leader made a sign to his followers, two of whom rushed in on the old man; and, as he spoke, his sword was knocked from his hand, and himself overthrown and bound.

Two days after he was led in triumph into the streets of Georgetown, nor was it concealed from him that his life had been spared only that he might expiate his rebellion on the scaffold.

His captor immediately repaired to Major Lindsay’s quarters, where he remained for nearly an hour. When left alone, Major Lindsay exclaimed, “My information was true, then; he has been caught with arms in his hands. So far all goes well. That proud beauty is now mine, for she will marry me to save her father’s life.”

[To be continued.

———

BY KATE DASHWOOD.

———

A TALE.

On a cold December night, in the winter of 183-, four persons were assembled in an upper chamber of an old out-house in one of the crooked streets at the “North End” of Boston. This was in former times the most fashionable part, the court end, as it were, of the town, and the house of which I speak had been the residence of one of the old colonial governors, and bore traces of its former magnificence, now almost effaced by the ravages of time and neglect.

It was a dark and tempestuous night. The wind howled mournfully through the narrow streets and around the tall houses of the “North End,” and the few passengers who were abroad wrapped their garments tighter about them, and hurried to seek shelter from the cutting blast. Within doors the aspect of things was more cheerful. An old-fashioned wood fire burned brightly on the hearth; the heavy folds of the crimson curtains excluded every breath of cold air, and the usual conveniences of comfort and luxury were distributed through the apartment. The company, consisting of myself and three female friends, were drawn closely up to the cheerful blaze, apparently as comfortable as possible. The cause of our meeting here was this. A neighbor, one Mr. Helger, had died very suddenly the day before. He had formerly been engaged largely in trade, but meeting with reverses which soured his disposition, and cast a shade of gloom over his character, he had withdrawn entirely from the world, and lived all alone by himself in this large house. We, being neighbors, had offered our services to watch with the corpse, as was the custom. The room in which we were had been the apartment of the deceased, and was fitted up with much taste, and even luxury, but all the rest of the house was bare and unfurnished, and was said by the neighbors to be haunted. The corpse was placed in a room just across the entry, so that we could hear a noise or disturbance if there should be any. Refreshments had been provided, and we had nothing to do but to make ourselves comfortable, and amuse ourselves until morning should release us from our duty.

The time flew by very quickly in pleasant chat, and when, during a lull of the storm, we heard the neighboring clock on the steeple of the North church strike the hour of twelve, we were all surprised at the lateness of the hour.

said I; “can’t some of you ladies tell a genuine, old-fashioned, terrific ghost-story for our edification? Surely, Mrs. Johnstone, you must know one; you always have plenty of interesting stories.”

The lady addressed thought a moment in silence, and then replied, “I can tell you a ghost-story, and what is more, vouch for its reality, for the incident happened to myself. It was a good many years ago, but it is as distinctly imprinted on my memory as if it took place yesterday.” A ghost-story, told by one of the actors in it, could not fail to be interesting; so we drew our chairs nearer the fire, assumed a listening attitude, and the lady began.

“You must know, in the first place, that I was married at a very early age, and a year or two after, left my native place, and went with my husband to live in the interior of Vermont. The country was little settled at that time, being mostly covered with unbroken forests. I felt the change of situation very strongly. I had lived all my life in the midst of a large city, surrounded by a numerous family of brothers and sisters. We had gone into society a good deal, and had been in the habit of seeing many people, and engaging in all the amusements of the day. My present residence was in the midst of dense forests, the next neighbor lived two miles off, and the nearest town was on the Connecticut, more than ten miles from our farm. The house stood on one corner of the clearing, not more than a hundred yards from the woods, through which, on stormy nights, the winds howled in mournful and sad tones. In winter the deep snows cut off all communication with the other parts of the country, and sometimes we did not see a stranger for months. To this lonely spot I had removed, after having always been accustomed to the noise and bustle of a city, and it was not strange that it should seem gloomy to me.

“One day in autumn, in the month of November I think it was, my husband told me that he was going to take his men and go over to the next town for some necessary articles, and he was afraid that he should not be able to get home that night. So away he went, and left me alone in the house, with the exception of my infant child. I had brought a black woman with me from home, but the change of situation did not agree with her. She had been taken ill, and had died about a fortnight before the time of which I speak. On account of the difficulty of procuring servants, I had not been able to get another woman to supply her place, so I was entirely alone.

“After supper I sat by the kitchen fire some time, till at last I dropped asleep in my chair. I was awakened by the shrill sound of the tall, old-fashioned clock, striking the hour of ten. The candle had burned low in its socket, and the expiring embers diffused a faint glow through the room. I jumped up, rubbed my eyes, and prepared to go to bed. I took the light and was leaving the room, when somebody knocked at the outside door of the house. I was a little startled that any one should knock at the door at that time of night, but presently I thought that my husband had changed his mind and returned home after all. I went and opened the door, but nobody was there. I shut the door, rather surprised, and sat down by the fire.

“To understand my story clearly, you must know the arrangement of the room in which I was. On one side was the door leading into the open air, on the opposite side, the doors leading to the parlors, etc. On the third side of the room was the fireplace, and on the fourth, the door of a bed-room in which black Charlotte had slept, and where, as I have said, she died a fortnight before. This door was a little way open. I went and shut it, and had hardly done so, when the knocking was repeated with startling distinctness, and a moment after I saw the door of the bed-room slowly open, and remain ajar. I went again to the door and looked out, but, as before, I could see no one. I then shut the door of the bed-room and latched it fast. I began to feel frightened, for I could find no one who could have knocked at the door, nor could I account for the mysterious opening of the bed-room door. All the stories of ghosts and witches that I had ever heard came into my head, and hundreds of imaginary horrors beside. I made up my mind, however, that if I should hear the knocking again, I would go into the bed-room and see if any thing was there. I listened. All was quiet, and I could hear nothing but the beating of my own heart. A third time the knocking was repeated, slowly and distinctly, and a third time the haunted door slowly opened. I seized the candle and rushed in. I looked every where, but nothing was to be seen. I came out, shut the door behind me, and then went out into the open air. No one was in sight. There was a storm coming up, and the wind howled mournfully through the branches of the tall trees. To my excited fancy every thing looked strangely and differently from its usual appearance. By the dim light of the waning moon, which was half obscured by the driving clouds that shrouded her disk, I fancied I saw something moving in the deep shadow of the trees. I shuddered and closed the door. I went up stairs and looked at my child. He lay calmly sleeping in his cradle, and his deep breathing was the only sound that disturbed the stillness of the house. I felt more assured after looking at the innocent face of the little boy. I felt that even if God should permit an evil spirit to work its will for a time, he would never allow it to harm a thing so holy and innocent as that little child. I endeavored to calm my mind by the reflection that I had always treated the dead woman with kindness, and if it was really her ghost that was haunting the house, it would have no reason to injure me. But my heart grew sick within me when I heard again—‘Knock! knock! knock!’ and saw the door of the haunted room slowly open as before.”

Here Mrs. Johnstone stopped talking, and listened intently, as if she was trying to catch some distant sound.

“I certainly heard it,” at length she said. “I hear it now—I certainly hear a noise as of some one moving in the death-chamber. Let us go in and see if any thing is there.”

So saying she arose, took a candle in her hand, and went across the entry to the neighboring apartment. Presently she shrieked and ran back into the room where we were, with her face as pale as death, and said, in a very excited tone⁠—

“Oh! such a sight as I have seen! The corpse sat upright in his coffin, and seemed as if trying to speak to me.”

“You want to frighten us, Mrs. Johnstone,” said I. “First you tell an awful story about a mysterious knocking, and then, to increase the effect, you come in and tell us this. I am sorry to say that I don’t believe a word of it.”

“It is no time for jesting now, young man,” rejoined she. “God forbid that I should sport with such an awful thing as death. But as true as I hope for salvation I saw Mr. Helger sitting erect in his coffin, and such a look as he gave me—it will haunt me till my dying day. But, if you don’t believe me, go and look for yourself.”

I hastily seized a candle, and went to the room where the corpse was laid. The rest of the company followed at a little distance. Just as I approached the door I thought I heard a step in the inside of the room, as of one coming to meet me. I said nothing, however, and took hold of the door-handle to open the door—but to my horror it was grasped on the inside and violently turned. I seized the door and held it to with all my strength, while it was pulled strongly against me by whatever infernal shape was in the room. The women screamed dreadfully and dropped the lights, which went out, leaving us only the dim light from the fire in the opposite room. The storm without howled round the old house with redoubled fury. It was a fearful scene. I felt faint and sick—my strength gave way—I let go the door. Mr. Helger, in his grave-clothes, stood in the door-way, deathly pale, his face streaming with blood, and his features distorted by a ghastly grin. We turned and ran frantically down stairs, tumbling over each other in our haste.

Just as we were running out of the house we heard Mr. Helger behind us. We ran up the street all the faster, the women screaming at the top of their voices. The noise and hubbub at last woke up a watchman, who had been peaceably slumbering in a sheltered corner. That functionary, wrathful at being disturbed from his nap, arrested our farther progress with his hook.

“An’ what the divil wud yees be doin’ wid yerselves here, the night?” inquired he, in a decided brogue.

This pertinent question brought me to my senses. I pulled some money from my pocket, and told the son of Erin to come back with us and he should be well paid for his services. We went back toward the house, and there, near the door, we found Mr. Helger, lying exhausted and fainting on the ground.

We raised him up and carried him back into the house, and put him into bed; and then I despatched Pat for a physician. He soon returned, bringing one whom he had roused from his slumbers. The physician took out his lancet and bled the patient, and, having administered the usual remedies, I had the satisfaction of hearing him say that he thought it probable in a few days Mr. Helger would recover, and be as well as ever. He advised us to remain with him, however, that night, and give him hot drinks from time to time. I paid the physician and the watchman for their trouble and dismissed them.

It was understood that Mr. Helger’s death had been very sudden, and it turned out that instead of really dying, he had only fallen into a deep trance, and on arousing from it had frightened us so dreadfully. We were all put in excellent spirits by this happy termination of our adventure—this restoration of the dead to life.

“Supposing you let us hear the rest of your ghost story now, Mrs. Johnstone,” said one of the ladies—“if that awful interruption hasn’t taken away all your desire to finish it.”

“Oh, no,” replied Mrs. Johnstone, “I will tell you the rest with much pleasure—perhaps it may turn out as well as our present adventure has.

“I believe I left off where the knocking was again repeated at the door. Well—the mysterious door again opened, but nobody was there. I felt desperate. I felt that my reason would give way if I should remain quiet any longer without doing something, and I determined that, if the knocking was repeated, I would take my child in my arms and run round the house, and see if any thing was there which could have produced these unaccountable sounds. I waited patiently till the knocking was repeated, and then went out of doors and ran round the house. The mystery was solved.

“The sheep had come down from the woods, through fear of bears, and were collected in a crowd behind the house. I stood looking at them, and presently one raised his fore-leg and knocked against the house. It is done with the bent joint of the fore-leg, and those who are acquainted with the habits of sheep know that it produces a sound exactly like the knocking of a human being at a door. I went back into the house, and in a few moments I heard the sheep knock, and saw the door open a moment afterward. The house, built in a hurry, as is usual in a newly settled country, had not been clap-boarded, so that the jarring of the knock was easily communicated to the bed-room door, and the latch being worn, it opened a little way by its own weight, and then remained fixed.

“Thus was the mystery cleared up, and you may conceive what a load was taken off of my heart. I went to bed and slept soundly till morning, when the glorious sun with his cheerful beams effectually dispelled all the phantoms and terrors of the preceding night.

“Next day my husband returned home, and I related to him all the circumstances of my fright. He praised me for the courage I had shown in going out to investigate the cause of the sounds, and said that he thought that few men would have been as brave as I was. And sure enough, on the very next night, my husband and I were sitting in the parlor, when suddenly the man-servant, a great strapping fellow, came running in, as white as a sheet, and cried out,

“ ‘Oh, Lord! we’re haunted! we’re haunted! Charlotte’s ghost has come to haunt us!’

“ ‘What do you mean, you foolish fellow?’ said my husband, ‘go back into the kitchen, and don’t let me hear any more such nonsense.’

“He went back again, somewhat abashed, but soon returned, almost frightened to death.

“ ‘I wouldn’t go back into that room again if you’d give me fifty dollars,’ said he; ‘it’s haunted. There was a dreadful knocking, but nobody was at the door, and then I saw Charlotte’s ghost open the door of the bed-room. Oh, Lord! what will become of us! what will become of us!’

“My husband took pity on him, seeing that he was so much alarmed, and showed him the cause of the phenomena. He was very much ashamed of his fright, and we heard no more of Charlotte’s ghost after that.”

Here Mrs. Johnstone finished her story, which we all declared was an excellent one, and praised not a little the courage she had shown. By this time the morning had dawned;

———

BY F. E. F.

———

CHAPTER I.

“Did you ever hear a man talk so like a fool as Mr. Barton did yesterday, Sarah?” said Mary Minturn to Miss Gorham. “I declare, I pitied his wife—did not you?”

“No, certainly not,” replied her friend. “Why should I? Mr. Barton does not talk more like a fool now than he did before his marriage. Fanny chose him with her eyes or rather ears open, and if she could put up with his folly then, she may now.”

“True enough,” answered Mary. “And how she came to fall in love with him passes my comprehension. I would not have believed it had it not actually happened.”

“Really, Mary,” said Sarah laughing, “your sympathies and compassions often pass my comprehension. Here you are pitying Fanny for having married a man, who, by your own account, she is in love with.”

“No, Sarah,” replied Mary, “I am not pitying her for marrying the man she is in love with, but for being ashamed of the man she loves.”

“Ashamed of the man she loves!” repeated Miss Gorham with infinite contempt. “Now, really, Mary, you had better reserve your compassion for a more deserving object. If Fanny has married a man she is ashamed of, she should be ashamed of herself.”

“Did you see how painfully she colored as she caught the glance you gave me, when he was attempting an account of Dr. H’s lecture? I could not help feeling for her.”

“I did not remark it,” replied Miss Gorham, “and I have no sympathy for a woman who has so little feeling or principle, I care not which, as to marry a man she despises. She probably does not feel for herself, and I do not know why we should put ourselves to the pain of feeling for her. I remember the time when Fanny Jones used to laugh at Tom Barton as much as either you or I.”

“So do I,” replied Mary. “She little thought then she would ever have him.”

“But finding she could get nobody better, she has thought it as well to marry him, and that is what you call falling in love, Mary.”

“Not at all,” rejoined her friend warmly. “But remember it is three years since Mr. Barton first addressed Fanny, and although she ridiculed him then, she has become attached to him since. His devotion and constancy have really won her.”

“If then she is in love with him,” said Sarah, “she should be satisfied with him; and if she is not she should not have married him; so arrange it any way you will, Mary, I do not see that she is deserving of much pity. If she fancies he has grown wiser during the last three years, so much the better for her; and if she knows he has not, so much the worse. Either way I have no sympathy to bestow upon her, Mary.”

“Well, I have,” replied Mary. “I always pity a sensible person who does a silly thing. It is laying up themselves such a store of suffering for the future.”

“’Pon my word, Mary, you amuse me,” said Sarah, laughing. “Now I might possibly feel for a fool who was committing a folly, as I would for a blind man who walked into the fire, but as to wasting my compassion on those who do such things with their eyes open, is really more than I can undertake. But then,” she continued, half contemptuously, “I have not your stock of sensibilities to go upon, and consequently, perhaps, do well to economize mine, or I certainly should exhaust them before they were called upon for a really deserving object.”

“I consider all suffering as deserving pity,” replied Mary quietly.

“That is more than I do,” returned Sarah with spirit. “Sin and suffering may go together, but I do not consider them equally deserving of compassion, or I should go to the jails and work-houses to bestow my sympathies.”

“And if you did,” replied Mary, “I believe you would go to the places of all others where they would be most called forth. I never pass the city prison without thinking of the many unwritten tragedies it contains. Could we but know the true history of every heart, and the real anguish of every crime that have peopled its walls, I believe we should feel more sorrow than indignation for its unhappy inmates.”

“Then,” replied Sarah, almost angrily, “I think it is well we do not. If in your fine sensibilities we are to lose all sense of right and wrong, I think your ‘unwritten tragedies’ had better remain ‘unwritten’ and unread. They would do infinitely more harm than good. ‘Sorrowing for the unhappy inmates of prisons and work-houses!’ Who would imagine you were talking of jail-birds and vagrants! This is the sickly sentimentality of the day, and I am sorry to see you falling into it, Mary. Let sin meet with its due punishment, and crime call forth the righteous indignation it merits, and then we may hope to see them somewhat diminished.”

“That sin meets with its punishment, even in this world, there can be no doubt, Sarah,” said Mary.

“Does it?” said Sarah, with some bitterness. “And roguery is never successful, nor dishonesty prosperous, I suppose. I think some of our broken institutions and flourishing directors might tell a different story! However, that it will be punished in the next,” she added, in a tone that implied she would be much disappointed if it were otherwise, “is certain, but in this sin and impudence decidedly carry the day. You have only to look around you to see the truth of what I say.”

The discussion, which was growing rather warm, was here fortunately interrupted by the entrance of Mrs. Eldon, a married sister of Sarah’s, who as usual had much to hear and to say when she had not seen Sarah for several days, as happened to be the case on the present occasion. A lively and somewhat satirical description of the dinner at Mrs. Barton’s formed the chief topic of conversation for some time, which highly amused Mrs. Eldon, and even Mary could not help joining in the laugh, although she could not always agree with her quick-witted and rather merciless friend. In fact they seldom did agree, for two more opposite characters than Mary and Sarah could scarcely be met; and what the bond of attraction could be that rendered them so intimate, would have puzzled most people to determine. Sarah was endowed with more than an ordinary share of sense, but it was that kind of good clear hard sense that seldom attracts, although it often amuses. Her chief virtue was her justice, on which she prided herself, and she valued principle, while she placed little faith on feeling. Sensibility and imagination she utterly despised.

Mary, on the contrary, was full of quick sympathies and bright theories, and though often wrong in her premises, was always amiable in her conclusions.

Notwithstanding that they seldom thought alike on any subject, Sarah loved Mary, and, moreover, loved to put her down, which, being easily done, was perhaps a charm in itself; and then she could take liberties with Mary’s good temper, which she could not do with every body’s. And Mary respected Sarah’s mind and relied upon her integrity, although she was somewhat afraid of the severity of her judgments. And besides, they had grown up together, and had got used to each other, which, after all, explains more attachments than any theory of sympathies and associations we have yet met with.

Mrs. Eldon was often amused with the opposite accounts the young friends gave of the same occurrence, and would frequently say, as she laughed,

“One would really suppose, girls, you had been at different places.”

Sarah boasted that she told things just as she saw them, and was very fond of what she called “the plain English of the case;” while Mary perhaps arrived quite as nearly at the truth in making some allowance for human weakness, and in having some compassion for its inconsistencies.

“Why did you not come to tea last evening, Charlotte?” said Sarah, addressing Mrs. Eldon. “I kept the table waiting almost an hour for you.”

“My dear child, I was in such a fright and agitation at that time, that I forgot all about you and your tea-table. Master Georgey escaped from his nurse, and we could not find him for hours. I was almost wild with anxiety and alarm.”

“Indeed!” exclaimed her sister, with much interest; “and where did you find him?”

“Nearly a mile and a half from home. I don’t know how he managed to wander so far, for you know he is not quite two years old yet.”

“And what did you do to him when you found him?” inquired Miss Gorham.

“Do to him? poor little soul; why I gave him his supper and put him to bed,” replied Mrs. Eldon. “The child was exhausted with crying, besides being half dead with fright and fatigue.”

“You don’t mean to say that you did not punish him for his excursion?” exclaimed Sarah, almost incredulously.

“Punish him! No, certainly not,” replied her sister; “but I did what was much wiser. I had a padlock put upon the gate through which the little dog made his escape; so it cannot happen again, and that, you know, is all that is wanted.”

But upon that point Sarah did not at all agree with her sister. She wanted a little summary justice besides, and she said,

“Well, if that is not spoiling children, I do not know what is. And this is the way you let Georgey disobey with impunity, is it?”

“I am sure even you would have been satisfied if you had seen the state the poor little fellow was in when he was brought home,” replied Mrs. Eldon. “You would have thought him quite punished enough. She will not be so hard-hearted by and by, Mary, when she has children of her own,” continued Mrs. Eldon, smiling.

But Sarah was far from satisfied, and was disposed to contend the point, when her sister, rising, said,

“It is time for me to be going home. Is there any thing you want, or that I can do for you?”

“Nothing,” replied Sarah.

“Without,” said Mary, laughing, “you will give Georgey a whipping as soon as you get home. Now acknowledge, Sarah, that you would feel better if Mrs. Eldon would promise to act upon the suggestion.”

“I think Georgey would be the better, if I am not,” replied Sarah. “It is of great importance that he learns early that no misdemeanor will be overlooked.”

“When I can prevent the recurrence of a fault, I am satisfied,” replied Mrs. Eldon.

But Sarah was not. She was always for punishing the past, whether it had reference to the future or not.

Her sister bade her good morning, and Sarah remarking that “Charlotte would ruin her children if she persisted in her present system,” the subject dropped, and the friends soon after parted.

“Do you think Sarah will ever marry, Mrs. Eldon?” Mary asked one day; to which she replied,

“No, Mary, I fear she never will. Sarah, from having been placed so young, I suppose, at the head of my father’s house, has acquired an independence both of manner and temper, that, I think, will prevent her marrying. With her quick insight into character, and satirical turn of mind, too, she is not easily interested,” and, Mrs. Eldon might have added, was not interesting; for Sarah was now two-and-twenty, and never had had a lover, nor any thing that approached to one.

She was not handsome, and had no charm of manner that supplied the attraction of beauty. It is true she had more mind and information than usually falls to the lot of women, but though she often amused, she never won. She was upright, true, sincere, but there was a hardness in her uprightness, a brusquerie in her truths, and a downrightness in her sincerity, that rendered them any thing but attractive; and, in fact, she was not popular, and never had been admired. The few young men who from time to time visited at her father’s house she ridiculed without mercy, and Mrs. Eldon soon gave up all hope of ever seeing her married. She consoled herself for the fact by saying that Sarah was one of the few women to whose happiness it was not necessary, and that though with her strong mind and active habits she would have made an admirable head of a family, yet, as it was, she would probably become what is termed a “society woman,” and as such be a most useful member of the community. And, in fact, she seemed gradually falling into the course her sister had in her own mind marked out for her. There was so much good sense in all her views, and so much efficiency in carrying them out, that when once she fell into the class just indicated, she was found too useful to be readily relinquished. Nor was the occupation distasteful to her. Her high sense of duty forbade her living for her own pursuits alone, and watching over the poor, and correcting the idle, and directing and dictating generally, suited not less with her tastes than her principles. It was wonderful how much good she did, and how little gratitude she got for it. No one detected an impostor as quickly as she did, and all doubtful and difficult cases were turned over to her management, and every department that fell to her share was directed with vigilance and understanding, but at the same time many of her poor feared, and some of them hated her. She relieved their necessities while she scolded their recklessness, and most of them, as she turned away, said with bitterness, “that she was a hard lady,” while they blessed Mary’s bonny face when she accompanied her, and never failed to call her “a sweet spoken young lady,” for though she seldom went among them, and gave little, she listened kindly, and felt for their trials and distresses. The difference was, that Sarah’s charity was that of principle, Mary’s of feeling, and to the latter the poor and ignorant always respond, while they shrink from the former.

“Sarah,” said Mary one day, with some embarrassment, “I have a secret to tell you.”

“A secret,” said Sarah, “well, what is it?”

Mary colored as she answered, “Perhaps it may surprise you, and yet it seems to me you must half suspect it.”

“I am sure I do not know what you mean,” replied Sarah, “but if it is a long story give me that flannel petticoat I was making. There,” said she, threading her needle, “begin, I am ready.”

But it did not seem so easy to begin as Sarah supposed, for Mary cleared her throat and then said with an effort,

“I am going to be married.”

“You!” exclaimed Sarah, with extreme surprise. “Why, who to?”

“Oh, Sarah!” said Mary with some disappointment, “how can you ask? To Frank Ludlow, to be sure.”

“To Frank Ludlow!” repeated Sarah.

“Yes; you suspected it before, did you not?”

“Not I, indeed,” replied Sarah, so decidedly that Mary saw the surprise was perfect. “I have noticed that he was attentive to you, but I never dreamt of your liking him.”

“And why not?” asked Mary, not without a little mortification.

“Oh! I don’t know,” answered Sarah carelessly. Her manner seemed to imply that she saw nothing in Frank Ludlow to like particularly.

“You are not pleased,” said Mary presently, in a low voice. “I hope you don’t dislike Frank, Sarah?”

“Who! I dislike him?” said Sarah, looking up from her sewing with surprise. “Not at all. I don’t care about him either one way or the other. But that is not the point in question. If you are in love with him, that is enough, provided,” she added with a smile, “you do not require all your friends to be the same.”

Mary smiled faintly as she said, “Oh no!” for there was something in Sarah’s manner that disappointed and chilled her. She made an effort to say something about her long knowledge of his character and principles, to which Sarah replied,

“I dare say he is a very nice young man, Mary,” while she inwardly wondered what Mary could see in him, to think him worth all the sacrifices she must make if she married him.

Mary could say no more. There was something so slighting in the phrase “nice young man,” and it was so evident that Sarah did not think much of him, that her spirits sunk, and she soon after left her friend, more dejected than she had been since her engagement had taken place.

Mary soon after married, and Sarah was left more to herself and her independent ways than ever, and what with her societies and Sunday-schools, and the many occupations she contrived to make for herself, time rolled quietly on, and Sarah continued very much fulfilling the destiny her sister had long since predicted would be her fate.

“Charlotte,” said Mr. Eldon to his wife one day about this time, “what is Allen doing forever at your father’s? It seems to me that I never go there that I do not meet him.”

“I don’t know,” answered Mrs. Eldon carelessly. “Yet, now that you speak of it, I remember that he is there a good deal. He is such a quiet, silent person that one sees him without thinking of him. I wonder what does take him there. I suppose it is a habit he has fallen into. You know young men will sometimes visit at a house without any particular object.”

“That may be,” replied her husband, “but I do not think it is so in the present instance. I think Allen admires Sarah.”

“Do you?” said his wife with surprise, for the idea of Sarah’s exciting particular admiration was new to her. “I should be sorry for him if it were so,” she added.

“Why so?” inquired Mr. Eldon.

“Because,” she replied, “he seems an amiable young man, and I should be sorry for his disappointment.”

“But I am not so sure he will be disappointed,” pursued Mr. Eldon.

“My dear husband!” exclaimed Mrs. Eldon almost indignantly, “you surely do not suppose that Sarah would have a man so inferior to herself as Allen—he is a gentlemanly, amiable person, but decidedly weak.”

“Sarah would not be the first clever woman who has married a fool,” continued Mr. Eldon.

“But he must be younger than herself,” pursued Mrs. Eldon.

“About the same age, I imagine,” said her husband. “However, if the idea has not occurred to you before, look to it now. If I am not much mistaken, Sarah is interested in him. It would not be a bad match for her, though certainly not one we would have expected her to make.”

And, strange as it may seem, Mr. Eldon’s observations had not deceived him. Weak men generally admire clever women. Not having the capacity to entertain themselves, they like somebody who can do it for them. Sarah was now upon the point of doing what she had ridiculed others for all her life, viz., falling in love with one who was not her equal. She had often wondered before where the charm, where even the flattery could be, of the admiration of an inferior. But Sarah had reached her twenty-seventh year without even exciting that admiration, and consequently did not understand the charm, and it is wonderful what a difference the thing’s being personal makes in these matters. We often refuse with the utmost sincerity for our friends somebody who, perhaps, would be accepted for ourselves. So it proved with Sarah. She would not have hesitated had Mr. Allen proposed for Mary, but the case was changed when she found herself the object of his humble and devoted attentions, her sayings admired, her opinions adopted, her looks watched, as they had never been admired, adopted, or watched before. Flattery is certainly bewitching, and few can withstand genuine admiration. But when they come with the freshness of novelty, and the charm of unexpectedness, the head must be very sound, or the heart very cold that can altogether repel them. Sarah had abandoned herself to their influence before she was aware of it. She did not yield gracefully, however, nor without a struggle; and she had been engaged several weeks before she could summon courage to communicate the intelligence to Mrs. Eldon. It was in vain she repeated to herself that she “had only her own happiness to consult,” and that “she cared not what others said.” Her usual independence almost deserted her, and for the first time in her life she dreaded a smile, and shrank from hearing “plain English.”

“Dear, dear Sarah!” exclaimed Mrs. Ludlow, as she embraced her friend most affectionately, “how could you keep me so long in the dark? But I am come to congratulate, and not scold you. And now tell me all about it;” and the how, and the when, and the where, followed in quick succession, and was listened to with such animated interest and cordial sympathy, and all that Mary knew or thought, or had ever heard, that was favorable to Mr. Allen, was poured forth so kindly, that Sarah’s spirits rose, and, as she parted with her friend, she felt an elasticity and joyousness of heart that she had not experienced since her engagement.

“Heaven bless her kind nature!” said Sarah, with a degree of enthusiasm that was unusual to her; “I always feel better after I have been with her.”

Had the same observation ever been made on parting with Sarah? We doubt it.

——

CHAPTER II.

“Mr. Allen looks feeble, Sarah,” said Mrs. Eldon to her sister, some time after her marriage—“Is he well?”

“Yes, perfectly,” replied Sarah. “Pray don’t put it into his head that he is not, or you will make him more indolent than ever. He wants exercise, that is all. I wish him to ride on horseback before breakfast.”

“At what hour do you breakfast?” inquired Mrs. Eldon.

“At six,” replied her sister.

“At six at this season!” exclaimed Mrs. Eldon. “Why it can scarcely be light. Does Mr. Allen like such early hours?”

“No,” answered Mrs. Allen, laughing, “he would greatly prefer nine, I believe. But such indolent habits destroy all order and regularity in a household.”

“Now, Mrs. Eldon, I appeal to you,” said her brother-in-law, good-humoredly, “if there is any use in being up at candle-light. I tell Sarah we have the twenty-four hours before us. I do not see the use of hurrying so. It appears to me I hardly get asleep before the bell rings for breakfast.”

“The use of early rising,” replied Sarah, “is that we need never hurry. There is time for every thing, and unless the master and mistress are up, every thing stands still. And, after all, it only depends upon habit whether we dislike it or not;” and there was something in her tone and manner that implied it was a habit her husband must acquire.

Now in fact Mr. Allen was not strong; but Sarah, who had never been ill for an hour, and scarcely knew what it was to be fatigued, had no more comprehension of the languor of a feeble frame, than she had mercy for a weak mind, and, consequently, the breakfast bell rang as pitilessly at break of day, as if Mr. Allen had been endowed with her own “steel and whalebone constitution.” Strong health makes one sometimes unfeeling, and so it was with Sarah. She thought a good walk or long ride a panacea for all the ills flesh is heir to, and that if sickness was not sin, it was what she considered next to it—laziness.

“And now, Sarah,” said Mrs. Eldon, “I want a favor of you. I want you to ask young Brandon and his wife to your party next week.”

“Which one?” inquired Mrs. Allen. “I did not know Frank was married, for I don’t suppose you mean the other.”

“Yes I do,” replied her sister.

“Not the one who was implicated in that affair some years since?” pursued Mrs. Allen.

“The same,” continued Mrs. Eldon. “He was almost a boy when that happened, and he has quite redeemed himself since. And now that he is married, his friends wish to make an effort to bring him forward again; and I promised to ask you to invite him. It will be of service to him to be seen here.”

“Never!” said Sarah, with decision; “I never will countenance any one who could be guilty of such conduct. I am astonished you could ask it.”

“My dear Sarah, remember what a lad he was at the time,” urged Mrs. Eldon.

“He was old enough to know better,” replied Mrs. Allen.

“Undoubtedly,” resumed her sister—“but, Sarah, if you had a family of boys growing up around you, as I have, you would learn to look with more leniency upon their errors.”

“If I countenance such young men as Brandon,” replied Sarah, “I don’t know what right I should have to look for better things in my own sons. When society overlooks such acts, we may as well abandon all principle and order at once.”

“As a general rule, I agree with you,” returned Mrs. Eldon; “but situated as we are with regard to the Brandon family, I should wish here to make an exception. They were my mother’s earliest friends, and we are under many obligations to them.”

“Any thing that I could do for them but this, I would do cheerfully,” replied Sarah.

“But there is nothing else you can do, Sarah,” persisted Mrs. Eldon. “They want nothing else; and it seems to me that friendship is but a name, if we are not willing to make a sacrifice for our friends.”

“Any but that of principle I am willing to make for them,” replied Mrs. Allen, resolutely.

When Sarah took it up as a matter of principle, her sister desisted at once, as she knew the business to be hopeless. She only sighed, and hoped Sarah might never know some of the trials of a mother’s heart, to teach her mercy and compassion.

Sarah continued, as a married woman, to be very much what she had been as a girl, for marriage does not modify the character as much as people think it does. Her active and energetic nature, which had formerly been expended on societies and paupers, was now devoted to her household, husband and children, and all were managed with the same upright principle and relentless decision which she had ever shown in all her undertakings.

The attachment between herself and husband was strong, although the perfect harmony did not always exist between them that might have been expected, from the sense on her side and the good temper on his.

Mr. Allen, like most weak men, was obstinate, and when he wanted to do a thing, generally did it, and only showed his consciousness of Sarah’s disapprobation by not telling her of what he had done; and many a time was she bitterly provoked to find that projects which she had opposed, and supposed abandoned, had long since been quietly effected. Her heart was often in a “lime kiln,” though perhaps about trifles. Yet upon the whole she enjoyed as much of happiness, probably, as her nature was capable of. Her children were pattern children, orderly, correct and obedient. No act of rebellion had ever been known in the little circle, but one, and that was in her eldest boy, which had been so severely punished that it had become a matter of fearful tradition with the rest. In fact, Sarah was a stern mother, more feared than loved by her children, yet they were generally looked upon as a “remarkably well brought up family,” and Mrs. Allen received no small praise for her admirable management of her young flock.

“Who do you think was suspended to-day?” said Charles Eldon, as he threw down his books on his return from college.

“Who? who?” exclaimed his young brothers and sisters.

“Tom Allen!”

“What, Tommy good-shoes!” exclaimed the children, with shouts of merriment. “Oh, that is too good! Mamma, only think, Tom Allen is suspended!”

“Hush, hush, my dear!” said Mrs. Eldon, gravely, “I am sorry to hear it.”

“That is more than I am,” said Fanny, in a low voice. “It is the best news I have heard this many a day. Aunt Sarah made such a fuss when Lewis got into that scrape, and it was not much after all.”

“What has been the matter, my son?” inquired Mrs. Eldon.

“Nothing of much consequence—only Tom has lagged behind the class almost ever since he has been in it, so now the Puts have suspended him, and he must take a tutor, and try and pull up.”

“To think of one of those pattern children being suspended!” said Frank, laughing. “It is the best joke I ever heard.”

And in spite of all their mother’s proper admonitions and grave looks, the news was matter of perfect jubilee with the young Eldons. Not that they had positively unkind feelings toward their young cousins, but they disliked their aunt heartily, and, in short, pattern children always incur a certain share of unpopularity among juveniles of their own standing. Free and spirited natures will not brook the superiority which is often accorded by their elders to the tame and correct inferiority of such children. Then, too, the sins of the parents are often visited heavily on their offspring under similar circumstances; and “Aunt Sarah’s lectures,” and “the fuss Aunt Sarah made on such and such an occasion,” “and now Aunt Sarah need not make big eyes at Charley any more,” and “let Aunt Allen shut up about Lewis now,” and many more such reminiscences and ejaculations of the kind, broke forth on all sides. In fact, if the whole truth were known, Mrs. Eldon herself, in spite of her efforts to maintain the proprieties, did not feel, at the bottom of her heart, the sorrow for her sister’s mortification she assumed. “It will do her good,” she said to herself. “Sarah is too hard upon other people’s children. The thing is not a matter of importance in itself, but it is enough to show her that her boys are like other boys.”

“I thought your sister was wrong when she insisted upon that boy’s taking a collegiate education,” remarked Mr. Eldon. “He resembles his father in mind: that is to say, he has none, and besides, is naturally indolent. He showed a disposition to enter the counting-house, and he would have done better there.”

“Sarah thinks it great weakness in parents to yield to what she calls the whims of young people.”

“Undoubtedly; but, at the same time, not to study and make allowances for their natural capacities and dispositions, is equally unwise. Nature is to be guided, but not controlled.”

“You would find it difficult to persuade Sarah that she could not control all events falling within the sphere of her domestic circle,” replied Mrs. Eldon.

“Then probably she has a bitter lesson yet to learn,” replied Mr. Eldon—and so the conversation dropped.

The summer coming on, Mrs. Eldon left the city early with her family, and consequently did not see Mrs. Allen for several months. When she did, she was much struck with the change in her appearance.

“Are you well, Sarah?” she asked.

“No, I am not,” replied Mrs. Allen. “I have heard people talk of being weak and miserable, but I never knew what they meant before. I saw they were not really ill, and I thought it was only imagination or indolence. I now feel that I was wrong. For the first time in my life, I know what it is to be oppressed with languor. Every thing is a burden to me; and when I try to rouse myself and shake it off, my limbs refuse to obey my will.”

“My dear sister,” said Mrs. Eldon, “don’t attempt that. You need repose—If you overtask yourself now, you may feel the ill effects all your life.”

“That is what my dear, kind husband says,” replied Mrs. Allen. “And oh,” she continued, with much emotion, “you don’t know, Charlotte, how my conscience reproaches me for my former want of consideration—for my unkindness, in fact, to him. You always told me he was not strong, but I thought it was only one of your notions, and I laughed at his dislike of early rising, and had, in short, no sympathy for much that I now am convinced was bodily indisposition. Formerly, I could not comprehend what possible good it could do him, even supposing, according to you, that he was not well, to rise an hour later in the morning. The idea seemed to me absolutely absurd. And now when I wake so languid, I feel that an hour’s rest is of such infinite importance, and I ask myself, ‘Where is the use in getting up?—what matters it whether the household commences its daily routine an hour earlier or later?’ Charlotte, I sometimes feel that this breaking down of my health is sent as a punishment, and a lesson to teach me sympathy and mercy for those of a naturally different constitution from my own.”

When Mrs. Eldon repeated this observation of Mrs. Allen’s to her husband, he dryly remarked that, “it was a pity the lesson had not come earlier.”

Pecuniary losses, too, fell heavily upon the Allens about this time. A public institution failed, in which Mr. Allen had invested much of his wife’s property. It had never been an institution in which she had much confidence, and when he had consulted her on the subject, she decidedly objected to the changing certain for what she considered uncertain property. But Mr. Allen, as we have said, was a weak man, who, when he had once got a notion in his head, never rested until he had executed it. He was just sufficiently under his wife’s influence to make him conceal the fact when it was done. If circumstances discovered it, he would only reply to her remonstrances, which were not always of the gentlest, “Well, well, it is done now, and there is no use in talking about it.” Sarah was not often to be pacified in that way, and if any thing could have provoked her more than the facts themselves, it would have been the quiet, meek, yet obstinate air withal, with which he listened to her lectures on the subject.

Either Sarah was not the woman she once had been, or the magnitude of the present offence seemed to stun her into silence, for she bore with dignity and fortitude what she felt to be a serious misfortune.

What was grief to her, was matter of gossip, however, to the circle of her immediate acquaintance, and that, too, not always in the most sympathizing and good-natured spirit.

“Are you not sorry for the Allens?” inquired one of her set. “It is said they have lost the greater part of their fortune in this company that has just failed.”

The lady thus addressed was one who prided herself on her frankness, and she answered, with a spirit and promptness that caused the other to laugh,

“No, I can’t say I am. Mrs. Allen has hitherto thought that every body else’s misfortunes were their faults. Let her now bring the matter home.”

The other seemed to enjoy the remark, although hardly daring to say as much herself, and she only replied, with an affectation of amiability that her gratified looks denied—

“But it is a hard lesson to learn.”

“My dear Mrs. Binney,” replied her friend, “we have all of us hard lessons to learn in our experience through life. But I have no sympathy for those who need them before they can feel for others.”

“She certainly has been rather hard upon those who fell into misfortune,” gently resumed Mrs. Binney.

“Rather hard!” ejaculated the other—“I never shall forget when my brother failed—” and then came a stored up host of bitter remembrances and old offences against Mrs. Allen, speeches long forgotten, that had rankled deep, to rise up in judgment when her turn came to call for public sympathy and general discussion.

Mr. Allen seemed to escape without either sympathy or animadversion. If alluded to, he was called “a poor, weak fool,” by the men, and “oh, he is nobody,” was all the consideration deigned him by the women. But Mrs. Allen was canvassed and talked over according to the feelings of the speakers, as if she were both master and mistress of the establishment. Mrs. Ludlow, her early friend, was still her friend, and sympathized, from the bottom of her heart, in all her trials.

Prosperity often seems to mark certain families for its own for years—but when the tide changes, misfortune frequently clings as obstinately to those who have hitherto seemed the favorites of fortune. To most of us, life is as an April day, checkered by clouds and sunshine; but there are others whose brilliant morning and calm noonday suddenly darken into clouds and storm. A certain portion of sorrow is the lot of all, whether it comes drifting through life, or is compassed within any particular period of existence. Come, however, it must to all.

Sarah’s life had hitherto been blessed above that of most women. But youth, health and wealth had now passed from her, and her proud, stern spirit had yet to undergo trials she had never dreamed within the scope of possibility as falling to her lot. Her eldest boy, the “Tommy good-shoes” of former days, was now the source of an anguish a mother’s heart alone can know. Forced upon a course of education for which he had no taste and scarcely any capacity, the four years allotted to collegiate studies were to him four years of unbroken idleness. The same easy, docile nature that had made him the “Tommy good-child” of early years, rendered him still pliant to the influences about him. These, unhappily, as is generally the case in idleness, were not good. College suspensions and remonstrances were the commencement of a course of which little bills soon followed in the wake. When these fell into his father’s hands, they were often paid without a word, for he had learned to dread, scarce less than the boy, the bitterness of his wife’s indignation when they reached her knowledge.

To his mother’s keen reproaches, Tom listened in silence, the same kind of frightened, meek, obstinate silence with which his father had endured many a harangue before him. But they did not mend his ways.

Mrs. Eldon had heard from time to time rumors that “Tom Allen was very wild,” but she had thought that “boys will be boys,” and her husband said “young men will be young men,” and thus they had both attributed the rumors they had heard to the indiscretions of a youthful spirit. But here they were mistaken. Tom’s were not the errors of a youthful but of a weak nature. The influence abroad was bad, and the conduct at home injudicious. If Mr. Allen’s children did not exactly say with the world, “Oh! he is nobody,” they yet felt the fact; while their mother was to them “the everybody” they feared and looked up to. Consequently, if Tom got into a scrape there was nothing he so much dreaded as his mother’s hearing of it. There was scarcely any public opprobrium he would not rather have endured than her anger. In fact, the sort of Coventry in which he was put, the sad, severe looks that were bestowed upon him at home were slight inducements to a weak and timid spirit to reveal difficulties, pour forth confession and implore relief, and thus what had begun in weakness ended in disgrace.

A debt which, though not large in itself, yet of considerable magnitude in the eyes of a youth, had been contracted almost unconsciously, and which he had not courage to avow at home. Harassed, tormented, terrified, he made use of funds which were not his own, and which his situation in a counting-house, where he had at last been placed, put within his reach. Weak, timid and reserved, he neither revealed his situation, nor asked for aid from either his young companions or natural friends—but when he found detection could no longer be warded off—fled.

Public disgrace was the consequence; and the insignificance of the sum and the magnitude of the offence were alike the theme of general discussion. Mingled commiseration and blame were bestowed upon the unhappy parents. People generally love to think that a faulty education is the root of the evil. Some, therefore, censured the system that had restricted him in means; others thought a too ample allowance had been the origin of the sin.

The affair was canvassed in every possible spirit, and though commiseration could not be refused to the heart-stricken parents, yet the tone of it was often qualified by the personal sentiments of the speakers, for it is wondrous how unpopularity will cling to those who have incurred it, even under calamities which one would suppose were enough to bury all old griefs.

“I cannot but feel sorry for any mother under such circumstances,” had been said, “but I feel as little for Mrs. Allen as I could feel for any one so situated. She meets with more sympathy now than she ever would have given to another.”

“Had it been any one else’s son but Sarah Allen’s,” exclaimed another, “I should have been sorry indeed. But hers is a hard temper. Now, however, she knows what trials are.”

“I am sorry for any one so situated, but if such things will happen, I had rather it had fallen on Mrs. Allen than on any one else I know.”

The Brandons breathed a deeper but silent comment upon the blow that had fallen on the haughty and unfeeling woman whose early slight they never had forgiven.

“My early, only friend,” cried Mrs. Allen, as she threw herself into Mary Ludlow’s arms, who, ever true to her in sorrow as in joy, was with her now in her hour of bitterest anguish, “you, you alone feel for one who did not feel for others. The heart that was hardened by prosperity deserved to be broken by sorrow.” And then the full tide of anguish, and repentance, and confession, gushed forth with a freedom and humility that wells up alone from a broken and a contrite heart.

The stern lesson had been taught, and received in a spirit that shows that where there is Sense, experience must teach Sympathy. The rock had been smitten, and the waters that gushed forth were pure and regenerating.

———

BY WILLIAM CULLEN BRYANT.

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BY MRS. E. J. EAMES.

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BY MRS. J. C. CAMPBELL.

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CHAPTER I.

At the annual commencement of one of our colleges, the youth who delivered the valedictory had, by the vigor and beauty of thought displayed in his address, and by his polished and graceful elocution, drawn down the applause of the large audience assembled on that occasion. Not a few eyes were moistened as he bade farewell to the venerable men under whose care and tuition he had gained the highest honors, and to the schoolmates with whom he had passed so many happy hours, and who now, like barques again put forth to sea that had long been safely moored in one quiet haven, were each to stem alone on life’s great deep.

“He! he! he! that’s Bobby Dunning, his father keeps a grocery-store,” said a foppish-looking stripling who wore the academic gown, as he pointed with his finger to the speaker on the platform, and at the same time seated himself beside a young lady in the gallery.

“He! he!” echoed his companion, “I dare say he has weighed many a pound of sugar in his time. A grocery-store! What queer associates you have at college, Gus.”

“Associates! No indeed, Sophy, when Bob first entered I thought him a fine, generous fellow, and was just about to ask him to our house, when I found out who his father was. A lucky escape, by Jupiter! I soon cut his acquaintance, and made him feel by my cool, contemptuous manner that the son of a grocer was no fit associate for the son of a gentleman.”

Again the young lady tittered, “That’s just like you, Gus, you are always so high spirited.”

“So my father says; he often calls me his ‘gallant Hotspur,’ and laughs heartily when he hears of my waggish pranks.”

Many honors were that day borne away by the ambitious youths who had late and early sought to win them, but none had been awarded to Gus, or as he liked best to write himself, Gustavus Adolphus Tremaine.

“Why, Gus, you’re a lazy dog,” said his father on their return home; “come, you must do better next time. And so Bob Dunning, the grocer’s son, graduated to-day, and carried away more honors than any of the other students; rather strange that!”

“There was nothing strange about it, father. Bobby knew he had to get his living somehow or other, and as Latin and Greek smacked more of gentility than brown paper and pack-thread, he abandoned the latter, and took to the former with such avidity, that he has grown thin and pale as a shadow. A capital village pedagogue Bob will make, to be sure! But something more manly than poring over musty old books, or flogging ragged little boys, must be my occupation through life. I say, father, when does that race come off between Lady Helen and Bluebeard?”

“Next week,” answered Mr. Tremaine, who was a member of a jockey club—“next week. Well remembered, Gus.—I dine with the club to-day, and this devilish college concern had nearly driven the engagement out of my head. We are to have splendid arrangements on the race ground for the accommodation of the ladies—a fine stand erected, covered with an awning—wines, ices, patés, and I don’t know what all. Sarah,” turning to his wife, “I expect you to be there; mind, none of your vapors—and, Gus, do you bring Sophy Warren; she is a spirited creature, and would make a capital jockey herself.” And with this equivocal compliment to Miss Sophia Warren, the elder Tremaine left the house.

A tyrant at home, a capital fellow abroad, was Oscar Tremaine. Over his wife, a mild, gentle creature, he had exercised his authority until she had become a perfect cipher in her own house; and, unnatural as it may appear, he had encouraged their son to flout his mother’s opinions and scorn her advice. It was not strange, then, that Mrs. Tremaine had remained silent while her husband and son were speaking, but now, looking on the boy with tenderness, she said,

“I regret, my dear Gustavus, that you have not been more successful in your studies; how happy and how proud I should have been had you brought home some token of reward, some prize, on which I might have looked, and said, ‘My child has won it!’ ”

“Fudge! this is all nonsense, mother. What do you know about such matters? Father has more money than I can ever spend, and why should I be compelled to mope away my lifetime over the midnight oil, as they call it? I’d rather have a canter on Fancy in the afternoon, and then to the theatre or opera at night—that is the life for me;” and, humming a fashionable air, he turned from the room.

His mother gazed after him sorrowfully. “God help thee, my child!—alas! I fear the worst; God help thee!” she repeated in anguish, and, feeling how “sharper than a serpent’s tooth it is to have a thankless child,” she bowed her head on her hands, and wept bitterly.

In less than a month after the commencement, Robert Dunning began the study of the law, and Gustavus Adolphus Tremaine was expelled from college.

——

CHAPTER II.

“Confound the fellow! I can’t take up a newspaper without having his name staring me in the face. Eminent lawyer, superior talents—superior—nonsense; I don’t believe a word of it. I always hated him;” and the speaker flung the offending paper on the floor, apparently unconscious that that very hatred made him blind to the merits of the man whom he so berated.

“What’s the matter now, Gus?—angry again? Was there ever such a man!” exclaimed an ultra-fashionable lady, who swept into the apartment “with all her bravery on.” “Come, I want you to go with me this morning, to select a new jewel-case. I saw a superb one the other day for a few hundred dollars; but it is no matter what it may cost.”

“It is a matter, and a serious one, too, Sophia. I told you, six months ago, we should be ruined by your extravagance, and, by heaven! you must put a stop to it.”

“And I told you, twelve months ago, Mr. Tremaine, that if you did not quit betting at the race ground and the gambling table, we should certainly be ruined. You spend thousands, for no earthly good whatever, while I only make use of hundreds, to purchase things absolutely necessary for one holding my position in society. Once for all, let me tell you, Mr. Tremaine, I will have whatever I want;” and, turning to the piano, the amiable lady ran her fingers over the keys, with the most provoking indifference.

“Mrs. Tremaine, you are enough to drive a man mad. Do you think I’m a fool, that I will bear to be treated thus?”

“Oh no, Gussy dear, I should be sorry to suppose such a thing; but you know the lesson by which I profited was learned in your home. There I saw how well your father could enact the tyrant, and how your gentle mother was treated like a slave; and I silently resolved, that from the hour we were married, I would be mistress in my own house.”

“Where is the use of repeating that nonsense continually? I have heard the same story a dozen times before.”

“And shall hear it a dozen times again, or at least as often as I hear the word must from your lips, Mr. Tremaine. But come, you have not yet told me why you were so angry when I came in. Let me see,” she continued, taking up the newspaper, “let me see whether this will not solve the mystery. Ah, now I have it—Robert Dunning, Esq.!”

“Yes, now you have it—that upstart, whom I so hate—to see his name paraded in this manner before the public, is enough to drive me mad.”

“No wonder you hate him, Gus. Only to think of his being retained as counsel for the heirs of old Latrobe, and gaining the suit by which you lost one hundred thousand dollars! Now this reminds me of what I heard yesterday, that Dunning was about to be married to Fanny Austin.”

“Nonsense, Sophia, the Austins move in the first circles.”

“So they do, my dear, but Fanny has strange ideas, and there is no knowing what freak she may perform. However, I shall drive there today, and ask her about it. I ordered the carriage at one—ah! there it is—will you assist me with my cloak, Mr. Tremaine, or shall I ring for my maid? Thank you—thank you—I don’t know when I shall return.”

“And I don’t care,” muttered her husband as she drove from the door. For a few moments he stood under the heavy crimson curtains at the window, looking listlessly in the direction in which the carriage had gone, and then taking his hat and cane left the house.

Just one little year had passed since Gustavus Tremaine and Sophia Warren were wedded—but one little year since he had promised to love and cherish her as his wife, and she had vowed to love and obey him as her husband, and yet such scenes as the one above related were daily occurring. The mother of young Tremaine had long since sunk broken-hearted to her grave, and his father had died in consequence of injuries received by falling from a staging erected on a race-course.

Shortly before the death of the elder Tremaine, the law-suit had terminated, by which he lost one hundred thousand dollars, and on the settlement of his affairs it was found that but a comparatively small fortune would be possessed by his heir. Sophia Warren, “the capital jockey,” prided herself on her marriage, with being wife to one of the richest men (that was to be) in the city, and it was a bitter disappointment when she found her husband’s income would not be one-third of what she had anticipated.

As the union had not been one of affection—where heart and soul unite in uttering the solemn and holy vows—where “for richer for poorer” is uttered in all sincerity—as it had not been such a union, but one of eligibility—a question of mere worldly advantage, no wonder the peevish word, and the angry retort, were daily widening the breach between a spendthrift husband and an arrogant wife—no wonder each sought refuge in the world, from the ennui and the strife that awaited them at home—no wonder that the wife was recklessly whirling through the giddy maze of fashion, while the husband was risking health, honor, reputation on the hazard of a die.

When Mrs. Tremaine reached Mr. Austin’s, young Dunning was just leaving the house, so here was a fine opportunity for bantering Fanny Austin. “Ah! I’ve caught you, my dear, and Madam Rumor is likely to speak truth at last—ha! blushing! well this is confirmation strong—and it is really true that Mr. Dunning and Miss Austin are engaged.”

Too honest-hearted to prevaricate, too delicate-minded not to feel hurt at the familiar manner in which Mrs. Tremaine alluded to her engagement, Fanny remained silent, her cheek glowing, and her bright eye proudly averted from the face of her visiter.

A woman of more delicate feeling than Mrs. Tremaine would have hesitated on witnessing the embarrassment caused by her remarks, but she had no such scruples, and continued,

“I contradicted the statement; for it was impossible to believe any thing so absurd.”

Fanny Austin looked up inquiringly, and the glow on her cheek deepened to crimson as she said,

“Absurd! may I ask your meaning, Mrs. Tremaine?”

“Why, I mean that you would not render yourself so ridiculous in the eyes of society. You marry Bob Dunning—the son of a grocer—you, who belong to the first families, and who ought to make a most advantageous match! Why, Fanny dear, no wonder I contradicted it.”

“I regret that you took the trouble.”

“Oh! it was none at all, and our families had been so long on friendly terms, that I thought it but right to say you would not throw yourself away.”

“Allow me to ask why you speak in this manner,” said Miss Austin, now fully roused, and recovering her self-possession, “if I should marry Mr. Dunning, how could I be thought to throw myself away?”

“What a question! Why the man has neither family nor fortune to boast of, while you have both.”

“As far as money is concerned, I grant you I have the advantage; but as for family, few of us republicans can boast on that score. My grandmother, and yours too, Mrs. Tremaine, superintended their own dairies, made butter and cheese with their own hands, and sent them to market to be sold, nor did I ever hear that the good ladies were ashamed of their domestic employments. Your father and mine commenced life with naught save probity and perseverance; they were first clerks, then junior partners, and at last great capitalists, and we their children have thus been placed at the head of society.”

“I know nothing at all of this nonsensical grandmother story about butter and cheese. I never heard of such a thing in our family.”

“No, I suppose you did not. You have been taught to look on praiseworthy industry as derogatory to your ideas of gentility; but my father has always delighted in recurring to those days of boyhood, and he venerates the memory of his mother, whom he regarded while living as a pattern of domestic virtue.”

“Oh, it is all nonsense talking in this way, Fanny. I wonder what Baron d’Haut-ton will say when he hears that the lady he wooed so unsuccessfully has been won by the heir of a man in the ‘sugar line?’ ”

“Pardon me, Mrs. Tremaine, if I say you are forgetting yourself, or at least that you are presuming too far on your long acquaintance. My parents have no such ideas as yours, about fortune and family, and with their approval my heart is proud of its choice—proud, too, that it has been the chosen of the gifted, the noble-minded Dunning.”

“Well, Fanny,” persisted Mrs. Tremaine, nothing abashed by the gentle rebuke which had been given—“well, Fanny, depend upon it you will place yourself in a false position. The friends who are now eager to court the society of Miss Austin, will stand aloof when invited to the house of Mrs. Dunning.”

“Friends! did you ever know a true friend do aught that would depreciate the husband in the eyes of his wife, or lessen the wife in the esteem of her husband? For such of my so-called friends as would not honor the man I had chosen, when he was well worthy of their highest regard, I can but say the sooner we part company the better. It is not the long array of names upon my visiting list of which I am proud, but the worth of those who proffer me their friendship.”

“Two o’clock!” said Mrs. Tremaine, glancing at the pendule on the chimney-piece—“two o’clock! Good morning, Miss Austin. How surprised Tremaine will be to hear that you are really going to marry Bob Dunning.”

And Robert Dunning and Fanny Austin were married—and never was there a happier home than theirs. The wife watched for her husband’s step as the maiden watches for that of her lover. Daily she met him with smiles, while her heart throbbed with a love as warm and as pure as that she had vowed at the altar. And Robert Dunning idolized his wife, and his fine endowments drew around him a host of admirers and friends, until Fanny’s former acquaintances, including Mrs. Tremaine, contended for the honor of an invitation to the gifted circle, which weekly met at the house of Mrs. Dunning.

——

CHAPTER III.

“So it has come at last—ruin, final, irretrievable ruin—every thing gone—the very house I’m in mortgaged. Confusion! But I’ll not give up yet—no, not yet! I’ll see Browne to-night—what if we should fail? But that is impossible. Browne has been too long engaged in getting his living from the dear public to let it scrutinize very closely the process by which the needful is obtained. If I thought I could win any thing at play—but I have had such an infernal run of ill luck lately that there is no chance in that quarter. Well—well! There appears to be no alternative—and when it is once done, then ho! for England!”

Thus soliloquized Gustavus Tremaine, as he sat at a late hour in the morning sipping his coffee in his room, for his wife and he had long ceased to take their meals together. Separate rooms and separate tables had served to complete the estrangement which caprice and ill temper had begun, and they now exhibited that pitiable spectacle of a house divided against itself. And what is more pitiable than to see those who should mutually encourage and support each other, who should bear one another’s burdens, and in the spirit of blessed charity endure all things, and hope all things—what is more pitiable than to see them unkind, self-willed, bandying bitter sarcasms and rude reproaches?

Oh, that the duties, the responsibilities, the self-sacrifices of wedded life were better understood, their sacred character more fully appreciated, how would each home become a temple of love, each fireside an altar, on which was daily laid an offering of all the amenities, all the sweet charities of social life. How would the child who, in his early home, had heard none save kind words, had seen none other than heart-warm deeds, who had been trained to habits of submission, and taught to yield the gratification of his own wishes for the good or the pleasure of others, taught to do this even as a child may be taught, in the meek spirit of the gospel—how would such an one grow up a crown of glory to the hoary hairs of his parents, and a blessing to society. But, alas! the spirit of insubordination is rife in the world. The child spurns the yoke of domestic discipline, sets at naught the counsels of his father, and hearkens not to the voice of his mother—and the man disregards the voice of conscience, sets the laws of his country at defiance, and becomes an outcast and a felon!

It was a cold winter evening, and the heavy clouds were looming up in broad masses over the troubled sky, while the wind howled through every cranny, and sent the snow-mist, which began rapidly to descend, into the faces of the stray pedestrians who were either hardy enough to venture abroad in search of pleasure, or wretched enough to be obliged from dire necessity to leave their homes. Mr. Tremaine was among the few who were braving the fury of the storm. He had left his elegant but cheerless mansion in the upper part of the city, and sped onward, regardless alike of wind and snow, to the place of his destination.

It was the haunt of vice, but in no dark alley nor out-of-the-way nook did it seek to hide itself from public contempt. No—it reared its front unblushingly in the public thoroughfare—within sound of the church-going bell—it was fitted up with every luxury; silver and gold, polished marble, and costly hangings, in lavish profusion, adorned the place which fostered every malignant and evil passion, and made human beings, endowed with immortal souls, ripe for deeds of desperation. The man who robbed his employer, the defaulter, the forger, the destroyer of female virtue, the murderer, the suicide, each and all of these had been within its walls—each and all of these had taken their first lessons in iniquity in that place, so truly and emphatically called a hell. And it was to this place of pollution that Tremaine was hastening. Here he had staked, and lost, and cursed his ill luck; yet, with the desperate infatuation of a confirmed gamester, he had staked again and again, until all was gone. On entering he looked round with a furtive and eager glance, and, evidently disappointed, sauntered toward a roulette table round which a crowd was standing.

“Do you play to-night?” The speaker was a tall, slender young man, scarcely past his minority, but with a wan, sickly countenance, and the premature stoop of old age. “Do you play to-night?” he repeated.

“I—I believe not,” answered Tremaine, again glancing round the room.

“You are a foolish fellow; the fickle goddess may even now be turning the wheel in your favor. Come,” he continued, laughing, “if you have not been at your banker’s to-day, I have, and can accommodate you with a few hundreds;” and he took a roll of bills from his pocket, and handed them to Tremaine.

“But when shall I return this, Gladsden?”

“Oh, a fortnight hence will be time enough.”

Tremaine turned to the table and staked the money—he won; staked the whole amount—won again; the third time. “You had better stop now,” whispered a voice in his ear. He turned, and saw the person for whom, a short time before, he had been looking so eagerly; but he was elated with success, and paid no heed to the speaker. The fourth—the fifth time, he won. Such a run of luck was most extraordinary; he trembled with excitement, and now determined that he would try but once more, and, if successful, he might yet retrieve the past.

“Are you mad, Tremaine?—you surely will not risk all?” again whispered the voice.

“All or nothing. I am fortune’s chief favorite to-night. All or nothing,” repeated the gamester, as if communing with himself, “all or nothing!”

The bystanders looked on earnestly; for a few moments there was a dead silence—then Tremaine’s face became livid, his brow contracted, and his lips compressed. He had risked all; he had gained—nothing!

“What a fool you have made of yourself!” once more whispered the ominous voice.

“Not a word, Browne; perhaps it needed this to make me wholly yours,” replied Tremaine, as he walked through the crowd, which opened to let him and his companion pass. When in the street, the two walked on for a time in moody silence, which was first broken by Browne.

“Well, Tremaine, that last was a bad stake of yours, and may cost one of us the halter.”

“Why, I thought you told me there would be no blood spilt?”

“Well, blood is rather ugly looking, I must confess; but if the man should wake?”

“Did you not say you would have him well drugged?”

“I did, but by the slightest possible chance, I find it cannot be done!”

“How so?”

“You know it was expected that he would sail in the packet from this port, but I find he has determined on going by the steamer, and will start to-morrow morning by the Long Island railroad; so that we must do it now or never.”

“Now or never be it, then. I am a ruined man, and ripe for mischief.”

Again the two walked on in silence, until they reached a fine looking house in the vicinity of the Battery. Here Browne applied his key to the night latch, and in a few moments he and Tremaine had entered one of the upper rooms and locked the door.

“Where does he sleep?” abruptly inquired Tremaine.

“In the opposite room.”

“And you are sure that you can effect an entrance without arousing any of the boarders?”

“Sure! I wish I was as sure that he would not wake,” and Browne smiled contemptuously. “But you are not growing faint-hearted, eh, Tremaine? Come, here is something will give you courage, man;” and, taking a bottle from a side closet, he placed it on the table before them, and continued—“fifty thousand dollars! I saw him count it over this afternoon. What fools some men are! Because I flattered him, and pretended to take an interest in his love affair, he opened his whole heart, and, what was of far more value, his purse, and displayed its contents before me. But it grows late, and we must to business. Remember, when I have secured the money, you are to take it and make your escape out of the house, while I shall return quietly to bed to lull suspicion, and to-morrow evening will meet you where we met to-night. Now do you hold this dark lantern while I open the lock. That will do—put it in my room again—so—all right; come in a little farther,” continued he, in a low whisper, “we must be cautious—the money is under his pillow.”

Stealthily approaching the bed of the unconscious sleeper, Browne put his hand softly under the pillow and drew forth a wallet. Thus far they were successful, but in groping their way out of the room, Browne stumbled and fell; the noise awoke the sleeping man, and the cries of “Help!—robbers!—help!” rang through the house. In one moment Browne was on his feet, in another in his room, where the money was given to Tremaine, and in the noise and confusion of hastily opening and shutting doors, the latter escaped.

It is unnecessary to detail the causes which led to the suspicion and arrest of Browne, and the implication of Tremaine. Suffice it that on the following evening, when entering the place in which he had appointed to meet his accomplice and divide the booty, Tremaine was taken into custody, and the money found in his possession.

Sophia was dressing for the opera. It was the first night on which she had laid aside the mourning worn for the loss of her parents, and, determined on appearing in a style of almost regal magnificence, she had placed a circlet of jewels on her brow, and a diamond bracelet was seen flashing on her arm amid the rich lace of a demi-sleeve as she reached out her hand to receive a note brought in by the servant. On opening it her agitation was extreme, and, hastily dismissing her attendants, she read over word by word the news of her husband’s crime, and subsequent imprisonment.

And now was she tortured by conflicting emotions. She had never believed that her husband’s affairs were in the ruinous state in which he had represented them to be—but she could no longer doubt. Crime had been committed—disgrace had fallen upon them—and then came the thought, “Have not I helped to goad him on to ruin?” and pity for him brought a momentary forgetfulness of self—the woman was not wholly dead within her!

The next day the hateful news was bruited abroad that Tremaine, the dashing Tremaine, was imprisoned for robbery! His fashionable friends wisely shook their heads, and raised their hands, and uttered sundry exclamations. But they stood aloof—not one offered to go forward as bail for the unfortunate man. Not one of Mrs. Tremaine’s gay lady visiters went to speak a word to the humbled woman as she sat writhing under her disgrace. But we forget—there was one! Fanny Dunning, like a ministering angel, strove to soothe and comfort her, promised that her husband would do his utmost to aid Mr. Tremaine, and, when the mortgage on the house was foreclosed, took the weeping Sophia to her own home and was to her as a sister.

——

CHAPTER IV.

It was not in human nature to forget the repeated slights and insults with which Tremaine had sought to wound the feelings of his old school-mate; but it was in human nature to imitate the divine exemplar, to forgive injuries, and to return good for evil, and Robert Dunning promised Sophia that he would do all in his power to effect the liberation of her husband. For this purpose it became necessary that he should visit Tremaine in prison. But the culprit obstinately refused to see him, until at length, finding the time draw near when he would be publicly arraigned at the bar, he consented to his admittance. Dunning gave him to understand that he must know the facts of the case, at the same time assuring him that he would plead his cause with pleasure, and that there was no doubt of his acquittal.

“The thing can be easily managed,” said Tremaine, doggedly—“I intend to plead an alibi.”

Dunning started.

“Is this necessary, Mr. Tremaine? I thought the charge could not be proven against you?”

“Nor can it, if you are the expert lawyer you are said to be.”

“Mr. Tremaine, let us understand each other. Is it important that you should plead an alibi?”

“It is.”

“Then I regret that I cannot undertake your cause. I was still under the impression that you were innocent.”

“And who dares say I am not? Did you, sir, come here to entrap me in my words? Who will dare say I am not innocent, when the most famous lawyer in town shall have proven that I was far from here on the night of the robbery?”

The last words were said in a sneering and almost contemptuous manner.

“I must repeat my regret that I cannot undertake your cause, while at the same time I assure you that I shall be silent as to what has transpired between us.”

“Puppy!” exclaimed Tremaine, thoroughly enraged. “Who asked you to undertake it? Who asked you to come and thrust yourself upon me? Puppy—plebeian! did I seek advice or assistance from you?”

“Mr. Tremaine,” replied Dunning, with a calm and gentlemanly dignity—“Mr. Tremaine, it is vain talking in this manner. I came to you in the spirit of kindness—but my errand has been a fruitless one.”

Before Tremaine had time to reply the door was opened by the keeper, and Dunning passed out of the cell.

It was with a heavy heart Fanny heard from her husband that he could not undertake to plead for the accused, and, gently as she could, she broke the sad news to Sophia. Browne and Tremaine were tried, convicted and sentenced to the State prison. And now the hand which had sinfully lavished thousands—the hand that had been kept so daintily white and soft—the hand of the “son of a gentleman” was roughly manacled, and linked to the brown, hard, weather-beaten hand of a fellow convict. He who had been the pampered heir of luxury was now to be the partaker of coarse fare—the daily companion of all that was base and vile—and the nightly dweller in the lone dark cell of a prison. He, the once flattered, courted and caressed, was to pass shamefully from the haunts of his fellow-man, and, after a few exclamations of wonder and reproach, was finally to be forgotten.

But there was one secretly at work, one who had been spurned, one whose noble hand had been flung aside with contempt—and that one was now busily employed in writing petitions, in traveling to and fro, and doing all in his power to obtain the liberation of the man who had ever treated him with insult and scorn. At length he was successful, and Tremaine was pardoned on condition of his leaving the State. But for Browne, who had been recognized as an old offender, there were no attempts made to procure his release.

It was with mingled feelings of shame and defiance that Tremaine ungraciously received the assurance of his freedom from the mouth of Dunning; for, the better to avoid observation, the latter went himself for the prisoner, brought him from his convict cell, and conveyed him to the warm hospitalities of a happy home, where he was received by Mrs. Dunning with that refined delicacy and unobtrusive kindness which soon placed him comparatively at ease in their society.

A strange and embarrassed meeting was that of Tremaine and his wife. Sophia’s first impulse was to break out into invective against him who had thus brought disgrace and ruin, not only upon himself, but upon her. Better feelings, however, prevailed, for she had learned many a lesson of late, and had already begun to catch the kind and forgiving spirit of those with whom she dwelt; so, after a few moments’ hesitation, a few moments’ struggle between pride, anger and womanly tenderness, she drew near to her husband, laid her head upon his bosom, and sobbed in very grief and sorrow of heart. “Sophia!” “Tremaine!” were the only words uttered during that first outburst of anguish. But soon the fountain of thought was unsealed, when, instead of taunts and mutual upbraidings, the bitter lessons learned in the school of adversity made them self-accusing, and willing to excuse each other.

But little time was given to make arrangements for the departure of Tremaine, who had determined not only on leaving the State, but the country. Mr. and Mrs. Dunning wished Sophia to remain with them, at least until her husband had procured some situation which might afford him a competent support. But Sophia would not listen to this—she would go with him—“she could do many things,” she said, “to aid him.” Fanny Dunning smiled, but she knew that Sophia was right in thus fulfilling her wifely duties, and both herself and her husband prepared every thing necessary for the comfort of the voyagers.

It was a bright morning in May, when these true and tried friends accompanied Tremaine and his wife in the noble ship which bore them down the bay, and with many a warm tear and repeated blessing wished them a prosperous voyage to England, and returned to the city.

And now we cannot better conclude their story than by giving an extract from a letter, written some time after the occurrence of the events already related, by Mr. Tremaine to his friend Judge Dunning.

“I must congratulate you, my dear Dunning, on your elevation to the bench; but I must not allow myself to utter all the praises that are swelling at my heart, nor does it require words to convey to you my respect, my esteem, my gratitude, and my love—ay, my love—for I do love you as a brother.

“Sophy bids me haste and tell you our good fortune—softly, dear wife, I will do so in a moment or two. You may perhaps recollect, my dear friend, that I wrote you how difficult it was for me to procure employment on my first arrival in Liverpool, and that this was mainly owing to my total ignorance of any kind of business. Indeed, had it not been for the few valuables belonging to my wife, which she cheerfully parted with, and had it not been for her kind and encouraging words, I should have yielded to despair. You know, too, my dear Dunning, that, glad to do any thing in honesty, I at last obtained a situation as clerk in a grocery store.

“How often has my cheek burned with shame, at the recollection of my silly contempt for trades-people, when I was worse than idling away my time at college? How often has my heart smote me when I thought of my conduct toward you, my noble-minded, my best earthly friend? But why repeat all this? You have long since forgiven me, and yet I never can forgive myself. And now for my good fortune. My employer has enlarged his business and taken me into partnership, so that I am in a fair way of being once more a rich man, (and may I not add a wiser one?) and your little namesake here, Robert Dunning, who is standing at my knee, is in an equally fair way of remaining what he now is—the son of a grocer. Heaven grant that he may in every thing resemble the man to whom his father once used the words as a term of reproach. This is now my highest earthly ambition for my boy, and I pray that my own lessons in the school of adversity may enable me to teach him to place a juster estimate on the empty distinctions of society, and to learn how true are the words of the poet—

———

BY J. BAYARD TAYLOR.

———

———

BY ELIZABETH OAKES SMITH.

———

———

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

———

In the famous city of Bagdad there lived a rich merchant, named Abdallah, of whose numerous offspring the youngest alone survived in the person of Musa, an ingenuous and sprightly youth, in whom all the hopes and affections of the father were centered. He often pondered on the course of life to which he should direct the attention of his beloved son, and at length consulted the sage dervise Motalleb, celebrated for his learning, wisdom and virtue above all the inhabitants of that renowned city, where the Kaliph Haroun Al Raschid once reigned amid the splendors of oriental magnificence. Motalleb answered in few words, after the manner of wise men, “Thy son will be rich without the labor of acquiring wealth. Make him good, and, for that purpose, let him be taught to distinguish what is true from what is false; for I say unto thee, O Abdallah! that the knowledge and the love of Truth is the foundation of all virtue.”

At the earnest solicitation of Abdallah, the dervise consented to superintend the education of his son, and Musa was accordingly committed to his care. His first lesson was never to depart from the truth, whatever might be the danger or temptation. This was continually repeated, until one day Musa, with all the simplicity of youth, asked, “What is Truth?”

“Truth,” replied the dervise, “is that which is confirmed by the evidence of the senses, or sanctioned by the assent of the understanding. What thou seest, hearest, and feelest, thou mayst be certain is true; and what is sustained by thy reason, or understanding, though it may not be true, thou mayest assert, and believe, without being guilty of falsehood.”

Musa pondered on these definitions until his young and tender intellect became involved in a maze of mystery; and the next time Motalleb repeated his daily injunction, he again asked, “What is truth?” “Have I not already told thee?” replied Motalleb. “True,” answered the other, “but I confess I cannot comprehend what I heard. I may believe what is not true, and if I assert it to be the truth, surely I speak falsely?” “But,” replied the dervise, “thou wouldst not commit a crime, since it is the wilful violation of Truth that constitutes the guilt.”

Just at that moment a great crowd passed, with loud shouting and tumult, outside the garden where Musa received his instructions, and, with the curiosity natural to youth, he climbed up the wall to see what caused the uproar. “What seest thou, my son?” asked the dervise. “I see a man with his hands tied behind him, followed by an enraged multitude, pulling his beard, spitting in his face, and beating him with staves and stones, while he is staggering toward the river. What means all this, O wise Motalleb?” “Allah be praised!” cried Motalleb, who had been tempted by these details to look over the wall, “Allah be praised! it is the recreant Mussulman, who, incited by the spirit of darkness, the other day renounced the Koran and the true Prophet, for the Bible and the false prophets of the Christian dogs. He is going to suffer the penalty of his crime by being impaled alive.”

Musa fell into a profound reverie, from whence suddenly rousing himself, he asked, “If the follower of Mahomet is convinced by the evidence of his senses, or the dictates of his reason, that the religion of the Christian dogs is the true faith, is he guilty of a crime in forsaking that which he believes to be false?” “But,” rejoined Motalleb, “he is deceived by the angel of darkness, or more probably only affects to believe in his accursed creed.” “Methinks, then,” said Musa, with perfect simplicity, “that he must be a great fool either to suffer himself to be deceived, or to sacrifice his life for that in which he does not believe.” “But if his belief in the creed of the Christian dogs should be serious, what then, my son?” asked Motalleb. “Then,” replied Musa, “he ought not to die, for you have often told me, that what is sanctioned by our reason may be adopted without being guilty of falsehood or committing a crime.”

Motalleb hereupon fell into a long dissertation, involving various nice distinctions between wilful and involuntary errors of opinion, owing, in a great measure, sometimes to the influence of early education, habits and example; sometimes to the seduction of the passions, and at others to the weakness or perverseness of the understanding. When he thought he had made the subject quite clear to the comprehension of his pupil, the latter, after reflecting a few moments, asked him how he could distinguish those opinions which were adopted through the influence of education, passion, habit and example, from those derived from the convictions of pure impartial reason. “That is impossible,” said Motalleb; “Allah alone can see into the human heart, and detect the secret springs by which it is directed.” “It seems to me, then,” said the youth, doubtingly, “that to Allah alone should be left the punishment of errors of opinion, since none other can know whether they are wilful or involuntary. But,” continued he, after another pause of deep reflection, “surely there must be some standard of truth, equally invariable and universal, to which mankind may appeal, instead of sacrificing each other, as this poor man is about to be, for a difference of opinion.” “Thou art right, my son, there is such a standard. Thou shalt study the Koran, for that is the fountain of truth, the only exposition of the wisdom of Allah himself.”

Motalleb placed the Koran in the hands of his pupil, who studied it with equal ardor and intelligence, the dervise having, by his repeated exhortations, inspired him with a fervent admiration of truth, as well as a longing desire to obtain its possession. But there were many portions of the book which neither corresponded with the evidence of his senses nor the dictates of his reason. When he read that the Prophet had, according to his own assertions, ascended to the seventh heaven in company with the angel Gabriel, on the back of a white camel, and advanced alone so near the throne of the Almighty as to be touched on the shoulder by his hand; and that he had, in less than the tenth part of a single night, thus performed a journey of at least a thousand years—these and other miraculous tales confounded his understanding, and contradicted not only the lessons of past experience, but the evidences of his senses. He tried to believe, but found it impossible; and when his preceptor, after allowing him sufficient time to study the great work of the Prophet, asked him whether he had not at length drank at the pure fountain of truth, he frankly expressed his doubts as to the miraculous journey. The dervise stroked his long beard, and frowned indignantly. “What!” cried he, “dost thou disbelieve the revelations of the Prophet himself?”

“I am compelled to do so,” replied Musa, “since they neither accord with the evidence of my senses nor are confirmed by the assent of my reason.”

Motalleb grew angry, and cried out with a loud voice, “What hath the evidence of the senses or the assent of reason to do with that which is beyond the reach of the senses or the comprehension of reason? Know, foolish youth, that these things are miracles, and that neither the understanding nor the reason of mortals can comprehend them. Dost thou doubt the testimony of him who communed with angels, and was inspired by Allah himself?”

“I am neither learned nor wise as thou art, O! Motalleb,” answered Musa, bowing his head, and touching his forehead reverently, “but it seemeth to me that thy words do not exactly accord with the definition of truth which was one of my earliest lessons, and which thou hast repeated to me every day. Thou didst tell me that truth was the evidence of the senses, confirmed by the assent of the understanding. Now thou sayest otherwise, and I am to believe what neither my reason can comprehend, nor my senses realize as possible, because it contradicts all my experience.”

“Thy reason! thy experience!” answered Motalleb, contemptuously. “Thy beard is not yet grown; thou hast as yet read little and seen nothing. When thou hast mastered all the learning of Arabia, and traversed the distant regions of the earth, thou mayest then found thy belief on the evidence of thy senses, the dictates of reason, and the results of experience. Go thy ways, my son. Thou art already too wise for me, since thou doubtest the miracles of the Prophet.” Saying this, he dismissed his pupil, who bent his way homeward, thoughtful and depressed.

Abdallah received him with his usual affection, and being told of the dismissal of Musa by his preceptor, straightway went forth and purchased great store of costly manuscripts, containing all the learning, science and philosophy of the East, together with many translations from the Grecian sages and poets. To these Musa applied himself with such zeal and perseverance for several years, that he at length possessed himself of all the wisdom they contained. Every step, however, that he proceeded in his search after truth, only seemed to render its existence more doubtful. Scarcely any two of those illustrious wise men agreed in their religious, moral or political opinions, and he counted among the philosophers upwards of three hundred different definitions of the summum bonum—that is, the great constituent of human happiness. “Strange,” thought Musa; “surely that which leads to happiness can be only the truth; and yet, in this most important of all concerns, these sages almost invariably dissent from each other. I will henceforth see with my own eyes, instead of those of others. Surely truth must exist somewhere in this world. I will traverse the earth, according to the advice of Motalleb, until I find it, or perish in the search.”

At this moment he heard a loud cry at the door which opened toward the street, and going hastily forth, encountered four slaves bringing in the body of his father, who had been suddenly smitten by the angel of death, while drinking from a cool fountain in one of the public gardens of the city. Musa fell on the body and wept, and mourned a long while with all the depth and sincerity of filial love. But when time had assuaged his sorrows, he recalled to mind the anxious wishes of his parent, that he should seek and find out the truth; and being now rich, and his own master, he resolved to set out on his pilgrimage without delay. Placing the management of his affairs in the hands of a discreet friend of his father, he one morning, just at the dawning of day, mounted his Arabian steed, and turned his back on the once splendid capital of the Kaliphs.

In the course of twenty years, Musa visited a great portion of the habitable globe, with the exception of the new world, which was not then discovered. He sojourned among the Persians, whom he found almost equally divided between the worshippers of fire and the followers of the sect of Ali, abhorred by all the faithful. Each believed in the truth of their faith, and were ready to die in its defence. He then joined a caravan of merchants, and bent his way toward Hindostan, where, having safely arrived, he quitted his companions, and pursued his journey alone. The first thing that attracted his attention was a party of young people of both sexes bathing promiscuously together, who seemed to be utterly unconscious of any impropriety, and laughed and gamboled with all the hilarity of innocence. To a disciple of Mahomet, accustomed to the jealous seclusion of females, the spectacle was revolting in the extreme, and he turned away in bitter disgust, exclaiming against such a violation not only of decency, but the law of the Prophet.

Proceeding onward, he observed several persons with a piece of fine muslin or gauze before the mouth, and others walking slowly, with brooms, carefully brushing away the dust before they ventured to take a step forward. On inquiring the reason, he was told that the former method was adopted lest they might accidentally swallow some insect, and the latter to prevent their treading on some living thing, and thus depriving it of life—a crime which subjected them to severe penance and mortification, as being against one of the fundamental principles of their faith. On hearing this, Musa pursued his way laughing, though a grave Mussulman; and, having crossed a river, encountered a person uttering the most horrid execrations against an evil spirit, who, it seems, had, in the shape of a dragon or serpent, raised a great thunder storm, which laid waste his fields and destroyed his crop of rice.

“Head of Mahomet!” said Musa, “what a set of ignorant barbarians are these! There is no use in seeking for truth among them. I will visit their wise men, and hear what they have got to say for themselves.”

Learning, on inquiry, that the sect or caste of the Brahmins were considered the most wise and enlightened of all the people of Hindostan, he sought and obtained the society of some of the chief bonzes, under the character of a traveler in search of the truth. From these he learned, with no little surprise, that their religion was a perfect mystery, confined altogether to the priests, and that so far from wishing to make proselytes of strangers, none could be admitted among them but by hereditary succession. “Strange,” thought Musa, “that people should be so selfish. If they believe their faith the only true one, it is cruel to keep it from the knowledge of others.”

Passing away from these exclusives, he came to a temple, where he beheld a number of persons undergoing a variety of the most extraordinary tortures, to which they were voluntarily submitting. Some of these had held up one arm in the same position till it became fixed and inflexible, and so remained during the rest of their lives. Others had clenched their fists with such force, and kept them thus so long, that the nails had grown through the palms, and projected from the back of the hand. Others had turned their faces over one shoulder, until they were irrevocably fixed in that direction. Others were suspended, by iron hooks fixed in the shoulder-blade, to a beam which turned round with great velocity on a pivot at the top of a long pole, while the penitent sometimes sung a song, or blew a trumpet, as he whirled around, to the great admiration of the spectators. On inquiring the meaning of all this, he was told that they were celebrating their religious rites, and exemplifying the sincerity of their devotion.

Musa turned away from this exhibition with mingled feelings of pity and contempt, and pursued his way pondering on the strange diversities of human opinion, most especially on subjects involving not only the temporal but eternal welfare of mankind.

“All cannot be true,” exclaimed he, “and yet one must be the truth. I will not be discouraged, but continue my pilgrimage until I find the fountain of truth, or become involved in endless, inextricable doubt, and believe nothing.”

Continuing his journey, he entered the great empire of China, where he found three hundred millions of people, divided into the followers of Loo Tsee, Fokè, and Confucius, or Confutsee, each equally convinced of the truth of their creed, and each equally despising the others. Thence he proceeded to Japan, where he arrived at the period of celebrating a great religious festival, and saw them trampling the cross under foot, and sacrificing human beings to a great idol, which resembled neither beast, bird, fish, nor man, but exhibited a monstrous combination of the deformities of almost every species of animal.

It would be tedious to follow him throughout his various peregrinations through Asia and Africa. Suffice it to say, that he everywhere encountered the strangest diversities of manners, habits, opinions and modes of faith, and every day became more hopeless of gaining the object of his weary pilgrimage. The course of his wanderings at length brought him to Cairo in Egypt, where he accidentally fell into the company of a learned European traveler, who had visited the country to unravel the mystery of the pyramids, and decipher hieroglyphics. On learning from Musa the object of his journeyings, he turned up his nose somewhat scornfully and exclaimed⁠—

“Pooh! what is the use of seeking for Truth among the barbarians of the East? You should visit enlightened Europe, the seat of learning, philosophy and true religion. I have completed the purposes which brought me hither, and am about to return home, where, I flatter myself, I shall prove to the satisfaction of all reasonable people that the whole tribe of travelers who preceded me are no better than a parcel of ignorant blockheads. You shall accompany me to Europe, where alone is to be found true religion and true philosophy.”

Musa caught at the proposal. They embarked together in a vessel destined for Marseilles, where in good time they arrived without accident. On the night of his first sojourn in that city he was suddenly roused from a sweet sleep by a series of heart-rending shrieks and groans, mingled with loud imprecations and shouts of triumph, that seemed to come from all quarters of the city. Starting from his bed, he ran to the window, where he beheld bodies of armed ruffians raging through the streets, massacring men, women and children without mercy, breaking open the houses, tearing forth their wretched inmates, whom they slaughtered with every species of barbarous ingenuity, and committing their bodies to the flames of their consuming habitations. While shivering at this exhibition of barbarity, and meditating an escape from its horrors, he was interrupted by his friend, and addressed him in a voice trembling with apprehension,

“In the name of the Prophet!” cried he, “what does all this mean? Is the city become a prey to banditti or hostile barbarians, who spare neither sex nor age, and riot in blood and fire?”

“It is nothing,” answered the other, coolly. “They are only punishing the heretics for not believing in the Pope.”

“And is that the name of your God?” asked Musa, with perfect simplicity.

“No—he is only his vicar on earth.”

“But do not these poor people believe in your Bible, which you have told me is the great volume of Truth, and in that Supreme Being who you say is the only true God?”

“Yes—but they deny the supremacy of the Pope, and deserve to be punished with fire and sword.”

“Then the Pope must be greater than your God,” said Musa.

His friend turned away with a gesture of impatient contempt, and muttered something of which he could only distinguish the words—“Ignorant barbarians!”

At dawn of day he left the city in disgust, but wherever he came he found the country smoking with the blood of helpless innocence and unresisting weakness, and was told by the priests in tones of triumph that in one night all the heretics of the kingdom had been exterminated. He asked then what these poor people had done, whether they were thieves and robbers, traitors or rebels, that they should be cut down in one single night without discrimination and without mercy. But all the answer he received was⁠—

“They deny the supremacy of the Pope!”

“Strange!” thought Musa. “But I am among true believers and enlightened philosophers, and no doubt shall find the Truth at last.”

He, however, determined to leave the country as soon as possible, and bending his course to the seaside, embarked in a vessel destined for England, but which was driven by stress of weather into a port of Ireland. Here he found every thing in confusion. People were setting fire to the churches, pulling down stately abbeys and convents, and driving their inmates before them with every species of violence and of opprobrium.

“Who are these people?” asked he—“and what have they done—most especially those poor women and children, whom I see fleeing from their pursuers, pale with affright, and crying out in despair?”

“They are heretics and believe in the Pope,” was the cool reply.

“That is very strange,” said Musa—“I am just from a land where they were massacring men, women and children because they did not believe in the Pope. How is this?”

“We are only retaliating their persecutions. When they had the upper hand they oppressed us, and it is but just that they should suffer in turn.”

“But does not your religion inculcate forgiveness of enemies?”

Before Musa could receive a reply, an aged, bald-headed friar ran tottering past, with a nun holding by his hand, and pursued by several people who seemed half mad with hate and eagerness, and assailed them with missiles of every kind. His companion joined the throng, and left him without an answer. He inquired of another what the old man, and especially the poor woman, had done to merit such unworthy treatment, and was told that one was a friar of the Order of Mercy, and the other a Sister of Charity.

“And what are their occupations?” inquired Musa.

“One is employed in the redemption of captives among the infidels—the other passes her life attending the bedside of the sick, relieving their wants, administering to their comfort, without fee or reward, and devoting herself to charity and devotion. But they both believe in the Pope, and that is the great original sin.”

“Head of the Prophet!” exclaimed Musa—“and yet you persecute these people! Surely that cannot be the true religion which deals thus with the votaries of mercy and charity.”

The man, instead of answering, stooped down and seizing a stone, threw it at Musa with such good aim that it grazed his turban, and began crying out—“A Papist!—A Papist!” whereupon Musa made the best of his way to the ship, where he sought shelter from an angry crowd that was shouting and shrieking in his rear. He continued his journey through England, Spain, Holland, Germany, Switzerland and Italy, and wherever he went perceived such strange diversities and contrasts in the standard of morals and religion, that in despair he at length resolved to return home, having come to the conclusion that there was no such thing as truth in this world. With this intention he arrived at Rome, on his way to Venice, whence it was his purpose to embark for Smyrna, and thence to proceed by land through Asia Minor to Constantinople, on his way to Bagdad. At Rome he saw the Pope, a feeble, decrepit old man, who had, in order to give more imposing dignity to the ceremony, consented to preside at the burning of a heretic, who was convicted before the Inquisition of having pulled off his hat and made a bow to the statue of Hercules and the Centaurs. The poor victim, who was an ignorant peasant, solemnly declared that he mistook Hercules for a saint; but all would not do. He perished at the stake, after which Te Deum was sung, and high mass celebrated throughout the ancient capital of the world.

Sickened and disgusted with Europe, he embarked for Smyrna, and crossing Mount Sipylus on his way to Constantinople, was benighted and lost his way. He wandered about amid the deep recesses, until at length he descried a light at a distance, which, on approaching, was found to proceed from a cave, where Musa beheld an aged man, with a long white beard, reading by the light of a lamp. So deeply was he engaged, that the lost traveler entered the cave and stood beside him ere he was aware of his presence. He was not, however, in the least startled when he perceived the stranger, but courteously requesting him to be seated, closed the manuscript volume in which he had been reading, and kindly inquired into his wants and desires.

Musa related to the old man how he had lost his way in returning homeward, after an absence of twenty years, and requested his hospitality. The old man assured him he was welcome, and having provided a frugal repast of milk, dates and bread, they sat and conversed together, making mutual inquiries of each other. The aged hermit informed his guest that he was of the sect of the Maronites, and had many years ago sought refuge from the persecutions of his fellow Christians in this spot, where he could alone enjoy liberty of conscience. “But thou,” continued he, “hast just informed me that thou art returning home after twenty years of travel. Thou must have gathered vast stores of wisdom and many truths during thy long pilgrimage.”

“I did indeed set forth in search of the truth,” replied Musa, “but am returning only more in doubt than before. I have sought for some standard of manners, morals and religion, by which all mankind might regulate their opinions and conduct, for such a standard can be only the truth.”

“And didst thou find it?” asked the hermit, smiling.

“Alas! no, venerable father,” replied Musa. “I found no two nations agreeing in one or the other. A river, a mountain, or even an imaginary line of separation, not only produced a contrast in all these, but a bitter feeling of hostility, the parent of broils and bloodshed, seeming to proceed from mere differences in opinion, of which a great portion knew neither the grounds of their belief nor the source of their convictions. Even in matters involving their eternal welfare, I found no standard of truth, for millions differ with millions on the subject, and shed each other’s blood for a diversity in creeds which are alike derived from the great book in which they all believe.”

“And to what conclusion has all this travel, study and experience brought thee at last?” asked the hermit.

“I scarcely dare tell thee, O! venerable father. But if I have formed a decided opinion on any one thing, it is that there is no such virtue as truth on earth, and no Supreme Being in Heaven, since there are so many different opinions with regard to one, and so many modes of worshiping the other. Surely where such diversities exist, it is the height of presumption for men to persecute each other for not believing alike.

“But,” asked the hermit, “amid these endless varieties of faith, didst thou ever encounter, in all thy pilgrimage, a people who believed not in a Supreme Being, either by himself or his ministers, presiding over the government of the universe?”

Musa reflected awhile, and then answered, “No; however different might be their faith, in their modes of manifesting it, I do not recollect ever to have found a people, civilized or barbarous, where I could not distinctly perceive, even among the darkest clouds of ignorance, a recognition, more or less distinct, of a Supreme Intelligence, in some shape or other. Even where they worshiped beasts or idols, I thought I could always trace their devotion, step by step, to a Supreme Being.”

“Then,” said the old man, “thou mightest have found in thy long search, hadst thou made a wise use of thine experience, at least one great truth, of more importance to the welfare of mankind than all the conclusions of learning and philosophy. Instead of drawing, from the various modes in which religion manifests itself, the conclusion that there is no God, thou shouldst have gathered, from the universal belief of all mankind, that there is assuredly such a Being, since neither the most wise nor the most ignorant deny his existence.

“This is one great truth thou mightest have learned in thy twenty years of travel. A second, scarcely less important, at least to the temporal happiness of mankind, is, that since almost all nations and communities differ in a greater or lesser degree in their modes of worship, and there is no earthly standard to which all are willing to submit, it becomes us short-sighted, erring beings, instead of persecuting each other by fire, sword and defamation, to be tolerant of that which we call error of opinion in morals or religion. However we may differ in the modes by which these are manifested, we may be assured that though we may be mistaken in abstract points of faith or morality, still there is one great universal truth which all may comprehend, namely—that charity for human errors must be the bounden duty of all, since without such charity on the part of the Most High, the gates of Heaven would be forever closed against his sinful creatures.”

Musa remained several days in the cave of the hermit, during which time the old man often repeated the lesson he had given, and then bent his way toward Bagdad, which he reached without any adventure. Here he passed the remainder of his life in practising the precepts of the wise hermit of Mount Sipylus. He became the friend of the ignorant, the benefactor of the needy; nor did he ever inquire, ere he relieved them, to what sect they belonged, or pamper the pride of superior wisdom by despising their inferiority. And when, after many years of happy repose and wide-spread benevolence, he was smitten by the angel of death, he died in the full conviction that he had found the truth, and that it consisted in reverence for the Creator of the world, and charity toward all his creatures—charity not only for their wants, but their errors and opinions.

IN THE LIFE OF THE PAINTER ANGELICA KAUFFMANN.

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BY MISS H. B. MACDONALD.

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PART I.

There is perhaps no scenery in the world so ravishingly beautiful as that offered by those vast plains of northern Italy situated at the base of the Rhætian Alps. A champaign elaborately tilled, and laid out into those regular divisions of meadow, corn-field, and vineyard, which make so much of the beauty of cultivated landscape; groves and belts of trees so disposed as to be productive of the highest effect; classic looking villas, villages and towns, with their surrounding orchards and pleasure-grounds; bright rivers winding their way through all this beauty till they lose themselves in those magic lakes, which, with their green banks kissed by the waters, and bordered on every winding promontory and inlet by belts of overshadowing trees, reflect the sunset splendors of the Alps, and seem, in every rainbow grotto and crystal palace mirrored in their lucid depths, meet homes for those genii of the waters with which a graceful superstition peoples their enchanted caverns. All these, with the back ground of gigantic mountains, pile on pile, that seem to raise a barrier from earth to heaven between this Paradise and a ruder world beyond, fill us with the idea of wandering amid some remnant of the scenery of the Golden Age, where of old, as the fables tell, the primeval deities used to dwell with a purer humanity, and in a younger and lovelier earth.

From a village situated at a considerable elevation on the surface of the slopes into which these smiling plains incline themselves as they approach the mountains, one bright spring evening, a troop of young girls might have been seen issuing, apparently as if broken loose from school, so joyous were their gestures, so wild their mirth, as with the vivacious grace belonging to the children of the South they bounded over the grass, some gliding in imitation of the motions of a dance, some skipping, some chasing others with the speed of the wind, till at a call from one, “to the water—to the water!” echoed by a dozen voices, they descended a hollow leading to the bed of the bright Ticino, and in a few moments were plunging and gliding in the stream.

One of them, apparently between fourteen and fifteen years of age, instead of following the example of her companions, had, in the excitement attending this operation, slipped away unperceived, and wandering listlessly along the windings of the river soon found herself out of hearing and sight. Proceeding on her way, and picking up a pebble or a flower just as it suited her, and stopping to observe every effective point of view in the landscape, with a narrowness of observation and sense of its beauty uncommon in one so young, she came to a ravine leading up from the side of the stream, which she ascended, till arriving on a high point that overlooked the channel of the river, she witnessed one of the most superb sunsets that ever gladdened an enthusiast’s eye. Amidst an array of purple clouds, fringed with silver, the sun was descending, gold colored, behind a peak of Mount Rosa, and suffusing the surrounding Alpine masses with a dim violet vapor. At her feet, and flowing in a direction opposite to the eye, was the river, now transformed into a stream of rich ruddy amber, with its sloping and picturesque banks and wooded islands, that diversified its brilliance with emerald shadows, taking its way in a hundred windings, whose succession she could trace, curve beyond curve, as it clove its course through the opening hills—far away, till, in the termination of the vista, gleamed the shining roofs of the Pania, with the white spire of its cathedral seeming to lose itself in the gold of the evening sky. To the left, immediately at the foot of the eminence where she stood, was the little white village, with its orchards and trim vineyards, and, beyond, those vast slopes on which the mountains lose themselves in the Italian plains. To the right, arose perpendicularly from the river a wall of sparkling granite rocks, now of the deepest vermilion in the alchemy of evening; and behind, towered grandly into the sky those white wildernesses of Julian Alps, receiving from their brethren, the Rhætians, the reflections of the opposite sunset in a thousand tints of lingering rose.

A singular effect was produced on the girl by the contemplation of this scene. Her bosom heaved, her cheeks flushed, her eyes filled with tears. “Oh! for the voice of a poet,” said she, speaking to herself, “to celebrate these splendors in some immortal song! Or the hand of a painter, to retain them in undying hues, for a joy to the worshipers of beauty forever. Alas! they are fading—they shall soon be lost to the universe; and there is none here who, with the power of inhaling them into his spirit as I, hath the happier gift of reproducing them in some diviner form. Alas! I am weak, with no power but to feel; as when gazing on some noble statue—some magic scene—some surpassing human form—an irrepressible emotion seizes me, which, when I would invest with expression, my heart dies away in utter impotence!”

Ah! innocent soul, thou didst not then know that the first power of an artist is to feel; that in his susceptibility for emotion lie his strength and the spirit of his calling; and that the achievement of the painter, the poet, or the sculptor, is but the expression of that emotion which our common language is too weak to supply, and only acquired, like any other language, through practice and experience. The girl who mused thus was very beautiful, now rendered more so by the freshness and vivacity of her extreme youth. Long tresses of chestnut hair, braided across her temples and slightly twisted up behind, were then suffered to fall in ringlets over her neck. Her complexion was brilliantly fair, with that rather deep carmine tinge on cheek and lip common to the Teutonic race, on the confines of whose clime she was born; while her slender figure and regular features betrayed the vicinage of classic Italy. But the most remarkable feature were the eyes; they were large and of the deepest black, in whose serious, melting, intellectual expression we could read all the soul of Angelica Kauffmann.

Throwing herself on the grass, she gave way to a delicious reverie on the enchantments of the scene, which the twilight, the fading colors and the silence soon deepened into a sort of dream. She thought herself in the midst of a vast temple, whose dome expanded into the skyey concave above her head, lamp-lighted with its thousand stars. Its area, whose termination on any side she could not descry, seemed to extend into an interminable space, lost amid a wilderness of surrounding columns. By degrees she became aware of the presence of groups of majestic statues, that seemed, by some enchantment, one after another to strike her view, like the scenery of a diorama. Watching them attentively, she saw that though raised on pedestals, in the attitudes and repose of statuary, they were endowed with all the features of animated life, but a life more than human—it seemed immortal, divine; and she recognized in these forms the presence of that gifted and glorious company enshrined in the temple of the immortal heart of man. Amidst the group in whose immediate vicinity she found herself, stood “Rafaelle the Divine,” with that countenance of his so expressive of the spirit of the sainted religion whose attributes he has embodied in glorious painting, and his melancholy eyes filled with the presentiment of his early death. Angelo, grand and majestic like his own Moses, and a brow worthy of the conception of that great St. Peter’s—the temple of the Christian world. Murillo, glorifying in his aspect the stolid simplicity of that humble life whence he drew his origin, and the delineation of which he made peculiarly the subject of his design. Carracci, with that forsaken look when the child of genius, like, alas! too many of his calling, lay down to die of a broken heart. Titian, beautiful as his own Apollos—and many more. But among these her attention was directed in surprise to a conspicuous pedestal, deficient of its statue, whereon was engraven in large letters, on the granite of its base, the name of “Angelica Kauffmann.” Looking up at the same moment to the vast sky-blue dome above her head, she saw blazing directly over the vacant pedestal a large, bright, solitary star, that lighted the whole temple with its radiance. After a long riveted gaze toward it, she became slowly sensible of looking on the true sky, from which the sunset and the twilight had now quite faded, abandoning it to the deep cobalt blue of the approaching darkness. The statues had vanished; the pillars had resolved themselves into the surrounding trees of the landscape; and, instead of the temple, were the familiar features of the scenery, though now almost lost in the darkness, she had gazed upon before falling into slumber. Every thing had vanished except that bright, solitary star, which, though now restored to complete consciousness, she continued to gaze upon with eyes riveted by wonder and delight. Familiar with the geography of the heavenly world, she was wholly unable to account to herself for the appearance of this particular star, which differed in position and lustre from any of the heavenly bodies she had hitherto been familiar with. It was evidently some new comer, and the girl thought to herself of those presiding stars that were of old said to arise over the destinies of the great ones of the earth, and dreamed—who can tell in that hour—wild dreams to herself of future glory and renown.^[3]

——

PART II.

There were preparations for a festival in the halls of the “Royal Academy” of London. A distinguished foreign member of the profession was expected to be present, and the first individual not a native on whom the fellowship of the Academy had hitherto been conferred. The king and royal family had promised the honor of their attendance, and the prize medals of the exhibition were to be presented, of which the eminent foreign artist alluded to had carried off the first. The saloons were gorgeously lighted. All the pictures of the exhibition had been removed from the walls, except those few favored masterpieces obtaining the award of the prizes—and one surpassing work of art that hung by itself at the head of the principal saloon, with a delicate wreath of laurel suspended above it, betokening it the first in honor as in place. It consisted of two figures, of which the most conspicuous was that of a shrinking, prostrate female, expressing the highest ideal of loveliness and grace, joined to utter abandonment, contrition and shame; appearing as if the whole soul had imbued itself through every muscle and lineament of the frame, for the delineation of these emotions, that none could mistake that model of penitential sorrow, afterward so celebrated as “The Weeping Magdalene.” The face was completely buried in her hands, but so far from the absence of this most essential tablet of female beauty being felt as a defect, it was rather an adjunct to the effect, inasmuch as it left to the imagination’s heightening conception the modeling of a countenance meet for such a form, and such magic tones of color—burning with blushes—we know it from the roseate tint that almost seemed reflected from it along the pearly edges of the enshrouding hands—and drowned in tears, that fell like liquid diamonds over the snow of the Redeemer’s feet. The accompanying figure was somewhat inferior, yet it expressed that union of majesty and sweetness joined to godlike compassion, in as great a degree as human art has ever been able to embody in its ideas of the Divine man. On the side of the hall opposite the picture was erected a pavilion, emblazoned with the royal arms of England, and surmounted by a crown, under which George the Third had just seated himself, habited in his usual dress of a marshal’s uniform, with the rather vulgar, squat figure of his queen, the German Charlotte, surrounded by their suite, who gazed, with curious though certainly not very connoisseur like eyes, occasionally through their opera glasses at the divine picture suspended in front of them on the opposite wall.

The Academicians had severally arrived in their badges; there were gentlemen in the splendid Windsor uniform—officers glittering in epaulettes and gold lace—collars and grand crosses of knighthood—ladies in coronets and plumes. The music played, and the festival was begun. The élite of England’s ennobled by birth and ennobled by mind were there, and mingled in conversation—some in animated groups round the pictures and statuary—some promenading the halls, when suddenly the buzz of conversation ceased, and an expression of eagerness pervaded the assembly, greater than that which had greeted the entrance of royalty itself, and there entered through the yielding crowds, conducted by a gentlemanly looking person in the badge of the Academy, a young slender girl—a child indeed no more, but still retaining the chestnut ringlets and glorious black eyes of Angelica Kauffmann. Conducting the young Academician, and the first woman ever invested with such a distinction, toward the pavilion, Sir Joshua Reynolds presented her to their majesties; when the peasant girl of the Alps, as she knelt before them, told that high-born and high-bred throng of a grace derived from the sense of the beautiful in the soul, and which the atmosphere of a court could neither add to nor bestow. Raising her hastily, George the Third, after a few words addressed to her, and graciously made in German by his queen, conducted her, leaning on his arm, through the saloons, rendering her the envied of all the envious.

“Such amiable condescension! But his majesty has such a passion for foreigners—beside his patronage of the Fine Arts—quite indeed auspicious of their restoration to the age.”

“It is whispered,” said another, “that she has been commanded to paint the royal family.”

“By no means,” interposed a gentleman in plain clothes. “My information came from an individual who had it from a high quarter, that such a report is incorrect. I understood that this honor was in contemplation for the signora, but no positive orders have been yet issued on the subject.”

It is to be doubted whether the object of these remarks was so highly sensible of these distinctions as a refined education would have taught her; and we have even a suspicion that she might have gone so far as to wish to escape from the gracious condescension of the conversation with which George honored her, as promenading round the hall she found herself obliged to stand answer to the abrupt and sometimes ridiculous questions originating in the royal mind, after the catechumenical method of conversation then in vogue in intercourse with majesty.

But higher honors awaited the young artist. Sir Joshua Reynolds, then President of the Academy, having mounted the chair, proceeded to descant upon the excellencies of the several productions distinguished by the Society’s prizes—but there was one, he said, which he could not pass over without some more especial notice.

“Need I direct attention,” said he, “to that noble work at the head of the hall, whose magic beauties, as they shine from the canvas, have enchained the admiration of the most distinguished connoisseurs, and evidence stronger reasons for the decision we have come to in its favor than any words of mine could adduce. Although the age and sex of the artist invested the work with an interest in our eyes it would not otherwise perhaps so strongly possess, we would not for a moment have it supposed that they exercised the smallest influence upon our suffrages. We adore beauty, womanhood and youth, but we adore Art more, and have too high a sense of its dignity to permit any extrinsic consideration, however fascinating to the imagination, to divert us from our undivided homage toward it. It is to the solid excellence of the work itself—the new principles which it involves—principles, for the acquirement of which, I am not ashamed to say that I myself, as well as many others grown old in honors as in years, are not unwilling to descend into the character of pupilage—and not the less that we sit at the feet of a genius and a woman. While awarding in this direction the highest distinction, we can speak for our brethren of Art that have come forward in competition for the honors of this day, that they will feel satisfied in withdrawing into an inferior place before her who, from a distant land, chose to throw her merits upon our judgment, and her talents into the service of the British nation. Therefore I bestow the First Prize of the Institution upon the ‘Weeping Magdalene,’ property of the Academy, and executed by the Signora Angelica Kauffman, of the Grisons, whom I have great pleasure in investing with the medal.”

So saying, the President descended, and presented to Angelica, who stood up to receive him, a massive gold medal and chain. There was neither bashfulness nor awkwardness in her demeanor as she stood up amid that vast assembly, whose shouts and plaudits now shook the building to its foundation—only a vivid blush passed over her face as she gazed round the assembly for a moment with an almost bewildered look; but it seemed of some higher emotion than vanity—as if the consciousness and the exultation of genius—the satisfaction of having achieved something for Art—the experienced realization of the hopes and the labors of years—and the knowledge of having won for herself a place among the Immortals, and in the sympathies of her race, which is, perhaps, the principal ingredient in a woman’s passion for fame—were all crowded into the emotion which gave it birth. The simplicity of her appearance contrasted strangely with the splendor of her reputation—young looking for her years, which then amounted to no more than twenty-two, her dress, too, plain and unadorned, and as much after the modest form of the antique as conformity with modern usage would allow without the charge of being particular or fantastic—no less added to this effect, contrasted, as it was, with the gauds and superfluity of hoop and head-dress then in vogue; her arms were bare nearly to the shoulder—and her hair, confined by a bandeau of pearls made to imitate a pointed coronet, was braided over her temples, and twisted up into a loose knot behind, as in times long ago, from which a few rich tresses escaping, fell over a neck possessing the contour and graceful set of an antique statue.

Fatigued and excited, she was glad to escape from the glare of the rooms into an adjoining balcony, to cool her eyes in the dim gleam of the stars—in all moments of excitement or passion, still the same bright, unchanging stars, ever ready to tranquilize us with thoughts of that world where passion and excitement cannot enter. A young man, who had watched her unceasingly all the evening with a deeper interest in his glance than mere curiosity, followed her hastily and in a moment was by her side. She did not attempt to conceal her pleasure at his appearance. “Where have you been, Alexander?” she said; “I often looked for you, but could not recognize yours among the bewildering crowd of faces that swarm in these busy halls.”

“And you thought of me, amid honors and applause, and the caresses of the enlightened, and the smiles of a king!—but oh! Angelica, they may give you praise, they may give you wealth; they may elevate you to a lofty place in the world’s view, where thy beauty and thy worth being recognized, may command the homage of the great and good; they may appoint you to a high rank among the hierarchy of genius that minister in the temple of fame—but I, only I, love thee! Poor in circumstances, poor in dignity, with no other advantage to offer you but a heart rich in affection, I have chosen this moment to lay it at your feet, in homage to a nobleness which, if my thought mistakes not, knows how to esteem such above all other gifts the world else can bestow.” And with many more impassioned words and adoring glances did he woo her, she responding in tones and looks as endearing as his own. Just then, in the midst of her triumphs of art, honors, and of love, she looked up toward the heavens, and saw shining above her that bright, still, solitary star—the same that had risen above the fantasies of her childhood, when she dreamed amid the sunny hills of Italy, far away! Many a strange experience, many a scene had passed before her since it first met her gaze; and now they all seemed to be crowded, as bestirred from her memory, into one moment of review. Her progress from the child to the woman—the strange intervening changes—the same, as she felt herself, yet not the same;—the vistas of fame opened to her with the first appearance of that star—her early struggles, and the space between, to the exulting consciousness of the pinnacle where she now stood, loftier than even her visions had conceived.

“The star triumphs!” thought she; “I am not superstitious,” she continued, aloud, “but, Alexander, I have seen that orb once before, and feel as if I should see it but once again. With every hour of joy does there not mingle a pang?—that telling of the dark reverse, which, in this unstable scene, must sooner or later await the most fortunate.”

“Hush! dear Angelica,” said her lover, laying his finger on her lips; “to-night let us only think of being happy.”

“You are right,” replied she, and, seizing his arm, they were soon mingling and jesting with the crowds of the saloon.

——

PART III.

It had been a day of clouds and heavy rain, and now the night was closing over a dreary and scantily furnished apartment in one of those ruined palaces of Florence, which, like so many objects in Italy, are invested with the romantic prestige of grandeur passed away. A single rushlight threw into view the dilapidated marble walls, on which were the tattered remains of what might once have been gorgeous tapestry, and a large oriel window, in whose immediate vicinity stood a mean uncurtained bed, where lay a woman apparently dying. A single female, sitting near her to administer such assistance as she needed, and a cold, indifferent looking man, who had his chair drawn up in an opposite corner of the room, and evidently stationed there more from duty or necessity than any feeling of interest, were the sole occupants beside. Low murmuring sounds broke from the lips of the dying woman. She was talking incessantly, as in that thronging of indistinct, though perhaps not undelightful images that often flit across the brain of the departing, her thoughts seemed to be wandering over many varied scenes, and her consciousness of existence to be quickened as it was about to be closed forever. Her speech was of flowers and of sunshine, and of every thing fullest of life. Distant, happy years seemed to be restored to her, for her imagination transported her back to the era of her childhood, and she talked of wandering in old familiar places with her companions, many of them dead and gone—for by some subtle process of association, those of them mainly seemed present to her visions—and of “bounding,” as she said, “fast, fast” after something she could not detain. “Let me rest!” she would murmur, “I am breathless with running—let me rest!” The passionless placidity of the countenance was in strange contrast with this—and the helplessness of the limbs, which, cold and nearly motionless, began to assume the semblance of that clay to which they were fast returning. Suddenly she opened her eyes, restored to the full consciousness of her situation. The eyes—those mirrors of the soul which neither time nor sorrow can rob of their magic, as long as they are the reflection of that which is immortal—were all that told of Angelica Kauffmann—and the long chestnut hair, which, though now hard and icy to the touch, still clung round her temples with some of the old luxuriance of those days when she dreamed inspired visions by the Alpine streams, or shone, the star of genius, in metropolitan saloons. For the rest, her features were faded and pale, their classic outline vanished in the hollows of time and the sharpness of death—haggard, too, but bearing that pathetic expression which told it might be the result more of suffering than years. And that cold, almost repulsive looking man!—can he be the same who knelt beside her beneath the stars and talked of unperishing love? Yes, such is life! In those worldly reverses which are too often the doom of the mentally gifted, poverty and neglect arrived—years of indifference followed, the character of the lover soon merging into that of the selfish and somewhat exacting husband—and now it had come to this. Calling him toward her, he took her proffered hand with a look of cold compassion. “I have been dreaming strangely to-night, Alexander,” said she, “and have the strangest sensations, as if all past life were passing in review before me, and its experiences crowded into a few fleeting hours—circumstances which I had believed long since forgotten, and feelings which I had thought to have outlived or crushed into oblivion. Yet there is none that return to me with a more vivid consciousness than my old feeling for you; and even now I seem to leap back over long, weary years of coldness, indifference, and estrangement, and the sad imprints with which they have dimmed your features, and to see you stand before me, ardent and beautiful as when I dreamed that Heaven had no brighter reflection than the fondness of your eyes. You will pardon this,” said she, on perceiving that such sympathies moved him not; “I have no wish to recall you to the past, nor too late to revive an extinguished affection, which can so seldom be brought into review without pain—far less with a thought of reproach for any, except for myself. It is but to testify to you in parting, that with the life I have led, happy as it was before I knew you—spent amid dreams of beauty, and the caresses of a family that sympathized with the delights of my calling, and were proud of my fame, honored as it afterward became when my achievements as an artist, extolled in every country in Europe, drew me forth from my retreat to receive that brief and brilliant homage, less intoxicating to me on the score of my individual self, than as a tribute to the success of that art to which I had consecrated the energies of my existence—yet there is no part of it I would willingly live over again but the early, too brief moments spent near you—no part of it than this I more fervently hold to my heart, as the true gold hoarded from what else appears, in this hour whose solemnity dispels all illusions, the dross and scum of existence. Does not this prove that love is immortal? And now a thought has struck me, that that sweet, bright blossoming which, alas! for us yielded so little fruit, may yet offer a harvest to be reaped in some other world. Will you think of this, Alexander?—let us part forgiving each other—our next meeting will be happier—and brighter!”

She turned her eyes toward the window, which had been thrown open to admit the cool air of the evening, for the wind had died away, and the heavens were clear—and there, conspicuous amongst its fiery brethren, shone that bright, still, solitary star—still fair and tranquil, when life with all its excitements and hopes was passing away, as when shining above the passion of her young life. It spoke to her of the glory of other worlds contrasted with the vapidity of this, which she had weighed in the balance and found wanting—a high and unchangeable emblem of that which is above us amid all the storms, treacherous calms, and exulting yet bewildering spring-tides of life—the star of her destiny, indeed, if it pointed to Heaven as the haven where her hopes should at last find rest! Her soul passed away in that gaze; they could not tell the exact moment when, but by the dull fixture of the eye, and the dead weight of the hand which lay in his, Alexander knew that he gazed upon the dead.

That oracle spoke truth, which told there is nothing stable in the universe but Heaven and Love!

OR COUSIN FRANK.

———

BY MRS. CAROLINE H. BUTLER.

———

CHAPTER I.

HUSBAND AND WIFE.

Back and forth, up and down—creak, creak, creak, strides Mr. Hazleton. From the back parlor to the front, from the front to the back—his head down, his lips firmly compressed, his arms crossed behind his back, while, by the knitting of his brows and the occasional jerk he gives his head, it is very easy to see that the mind of Mr. Hazleton is crossed also.

And how perfectly unconscious sits the lady in black satin upon the sofa! With what a nonchalant air she beats the time with her foot, upon the little brioche, to the air she is humming. The spirit of the storm—yet herself how calm! Nothing vexes an angry man more, perhaps, than indifference to his anger. Mrs. Hazleton knew her advantage, and she also knew she was idolized, as young and pretty wives are apt to be, whose husbands, like poor Mrs. ——, are a “score of years too old.” Pretty sure, therefore, of carrying her point in the matter under debate, she highly enjoyed this unwonted ebullition of anger in her usually placid husband. By degrees the features of Mr. Hazleton softened—his step became slower and lighter, and then approaching the sofa, he said, in a tone which was evidently meant to be conciliatory,

“Come, come, this is all very foolish. I think I know your goodness of heart too well, my dear Anna, to believe you serious, or that you will receive so ungraciously the child of my only sister.”

“Mr. Hazleton, I tell you again,” replied the lady, carelessly playing with her eye-glass, “you are demanding a most unheard-of thing! Were she only coming here for a few days, to see the lions and be off to the woods again, I assure you I would be the most attentive chaperone. I would escort her from one end of the city to the other with the greatest pleasure, and load her off with ribbons, gew-gaws, and the latest novel, when the joyful moment came for my release. But a fixture for the winter—and that, too, my dear Julia’s first winter—O, heavens!”

Something very like an oath whistled through the teeth of Mr. Hazleton.

“Madam—Mrs. Hazleton—let me tell you I consider your remark as reflecting upon myself. No relative of mine, madam, can ever disgrace either yourself or your daughter, in any society.”

“Indeed!” was the cool reply.

“And I insist upon your treating my niece, Alice Churchill, not only with politeness, but with kindness—and your daughter also must be schooled to meet her as her equal.”

“Her equal, indeed!” and now the ire of Mrs. Hazleton was fast kindling to a flame. “Her equal! I would ask you, Mr. Hazleton, if the Ninnybrain blood flows in her veins?—the Ninnybrains, Mr. Hazleton, one of whom was maid of honor to a queen—another⁠—”

“Pish!” interrupted Mr. Hazleton, “and confound all the Ninnybrains!”

“Confound the Ninnybrains! Very pretty, really—yes, so much for marrying beneath me! Confound all the Ninnybrains, I think you said!”

“Yes, and I repeat, confound them all! What have they to do with my poor little Alice?”

It was now Mrs. Hazleton’s turn to sail majestically from room to room, muttering,

“Hem! very pretty treatment—very pretty, indeed!”

While her husband, throwing himself into the seat she had just occupied upon the sofa, very coolly knocked his heels upon the unfortunate footstool. At length the lady paused in her walk, and turning to her husband, said,

“My dear,” (and when Mrs. Hazleton said “my dear,” it was no idle word,) “I think you misjudge my motives entirely for what I have said. It is only for the good of your dear niece, for of course she must be very dear to you, and no doubt she is a very sweet girl, that I have raised any objections to her becoming a member of our happy family—no doubt, my love, she would prove a great acquisition—but—hem—but I think I have heard you say your sister, our sister Churchill, was in rather limited circumstances, and has been obliged to use great economy in bringing up her family. Now I ask you, my dear, if—if—we should not be doing wrong, very wrong, to vitiate the simple, happy tastes of Alice, and render dull and uncongenial the home of contentment in which she has ever so peacefully dwelt? This surely would be the case were we to introduce her into the gay world. So perfectly unsophisticated as she is, she would the more easily be led astray by the frivolities of fashionable life. Would it not be better for her, then, better for her dear mother, that this visit should not take place?”

“No, I tell you no!—she shall come, she shall go everywhere, she shall see every thing the city has to boast.”

“That can easily be done, love, in a few days,” replied the plausible lady. “Some pleasant morning you can go with her to the Museum, and Girard College, and the Water-Works. When I spoke of her going out, I meant to parties⁠—”

“And I mean to parties, and to theatres, and concerts, and⁠—”

“You are absurd, Mr. Hazleton!”

“Go on!”

“You have no regard for my feelings!”

“Go on.”

“You would willingly mortify me, and embarrass my sweet Julia, by linking her in companionship with this uncultivated hoyden!”

“Go on.”

“And also ruin the girl!”

“What next?”

“No, let me tell you, Mr. Hazleton, it must not, shall not be. Julia shall not be put to the blush continually for the solecisms this niece of yours will commit upon the rules of etiquette!”

“Little dear!”

“And, and—and, Mr. Hazleton—Lord, I wish I had never married!” and Mrs. Hazleton burst into tears.

Mr. Hazleton walked out.

——

CHAPTER II.

A BACHELOR IN CUPID’S NET.

In blessed bachelorhood had passed sixty years of Mr. Hazleton’s life. With no one’s whims but his own to nurse—no one to scold but his tailor and washerwoman, their flight had left little trace save in the silver threads with which Time weaves experience—linking the what has been to the what is and what will be. It is true, in early life he had wooed but not won, and it might be from disgust at the willful blindness of the lady of his love, he from that moment looked coldly upon the whole sex—blind to their beauty—deaf to their voices, and invulnerable to all their witchery, “charmed they never so wisely.”

But, alas! the work of years may be shattered in a moment! Hard as the heart of Mr. Hazleton had become, it melted like the frost of an autumn morning under the sunny beams of Mrs. Ketchim’s eyes! It was at Saratoga, that great hunting-ground of Cupid, that Mr. Hazleton first encountered the glances of the pretty widow. Whether that lady was in truth on a matrimonial chase cannot be definitely stated. Yet one thing is certain, no sooner did she meet with this rich, hard-hearted old bachelor than she determined to forget her departed Ketchim, and catch him—thus nobly avenging in her own person the slights her sex had received. What could not a fair and handsome widow accomplish with “sparkling black e’en and a bonnie sweet man!” Mr. Hazleton was lost.

The age of the widow was an enigma which no one but herself could solve. She did acknowledge she was too young—she did also own to the interesting fact that one sweet child called her “mother.” “Ah, a little golden-haired cherub, of some four or five summers!” thought our lover. What, then, was the surprise of Mr. Hazleton when, a few weeks after their marriage, a tall, beautiful girl of seventeen rushed into the parlor, and, giving him a hearty kiss, called him “papa!”

He had abjured spectacles, using only the eyes of love, but he now for a moment involuntarily resumed them, and gazed long and inquiringly at his charming wife. He was satisfied. Mrs. Hazleton smiled as sweetly, and looked just as young and bewitching as she had appeared to him before—so he returned the filial salute of his daughter with a paternal embrace, and unlocked another chamber of his heart to receive her.

Some months passed pleasantly on, and the honey-moon waxed not old. The so long time bachelor almost wept with sorrow over those lost years spent alone, and blessed the hour which had harbingered his present happiness. By degrees a little, a very little difference of opinion began to display itself—but insensibly gathering strength from frequent recurrence. Most generally, however, the husband yielded, and harmony was restored.

Julia was a lively, good-hearted girl—her faults more the result of her mother’s mismanagement than her own willfulness. In fact, it was Julia herself who first suggested the invitation which Alice Churchill received from her uncle.

“Dear me, papa, how dull it is! Pray have not you any relations?” she inquired one evening, when they were left tête-à-tête.

This was rather a posing question, for indeed Mr. Hazleton could hardly remember whether he had any or not.

“No sisters, or nieces?” continued Julia.

“Or nice young nephews?” added Mr. Hazleton.

“Yes, papa—a cousin would be so delightful!” and here Julia sighed and looked sad. Why she sighed the reader shall know bye and bye.

This careless remark of Julia aroused a train of long banished reflections in the mind of Mr. Hazleton. Early associations came thronging upon him, vividly calling up the image of his only sister, as tearfully and patiently she had turned from his reproaches at their last meeting, to follow the fortunes of him she loved. Ere Mr. Hazleton sought his pillow, the letter to his long neglected sister was written, and not even the possession of the late Mrs. Ketchim had made his heart so light as this simple act of duty and kindness.

Mrs. Hazleton had many weak points, but there were two upon which she was peculiarly sensitive. The first, viz.—her family. The Ninnybrains could trace a pedigree almost as far back as Adam—a sprig of nobility, too, had once engrafted itself upon the family tree, which important item had been handed down from generation to generation, and Mrs. Hazleton never lost an opportunity of proclaiming her noble lineage, while at the same time she indulged an almost slavish fear of deviating from the code of gentility, in her acceptation of the term. Her second tangible weakness was an affectation of juvenility. The idea of growing old gracefully was preposterous. Although she saw the seams and creases of Time’s fingers on other faces, she would not see them on her own, and while all the world were growing old around her, she resolved to set the gray-beard at defiance.

Mrs. Hazleton loved her daughter as much as she was capable of loving, yet she could not forgive her for the very contradictory evidence she brought against her youthfulness—could not pardon her for stepping forth from the nursery a tall, grown up girl, instead of quietly contenting herself with pantalettes and pinafores. The widow felt there must be a rapid race, or her daughter would reach the goal of Hymen before her—hence her conquest of Mr. Hazleton. Her own purpose attained, she then generously resolved to give Julia a chance, who, nothing loth, was summoned from a country boarding-school to catch a husband as quick as possible. To be sure this latter clause was not expressed in so many words—it was the ultimatum of the mother alone. As for Julia, she thought only of escaping from the odious Mrs. Rulem—of new dresses, theatres, and dancing till two o’clock in the morning. For once, then, Mrs. Hazleton concluded to assume maternity gracefully, and to matronize her daughter with all the dignity of the Ninnybrain school.

She was exceedingly annoyed, therefore, when she found her plans might all be defeated by the arrival of Alice Churchill. No way could she reconcile herself to this unavoidable evil. If handsome and engaging, she would only be in the way of her daughter’s advancement—if awkward and ugly, a constant source of mortification. Every device of which she was mistress was put in practice to thwart the expected visit, but that she did not accomplish her object has already been shown.

——

CHAPTER III.

THE ARRIVAL.

Alice Churchill was none of those fragile beauties whose step is too light to bend “a hare-bell ’neath its tread”—whose eyes are compared to those of the gazelle, or to violets and dew-drops—with cheeks like the blush rose, and lips vieing with sea-corals, contrasted by teeth of pearls! No such wealth of beauty had Alice, but she was a very sweet girl notwithstanding—just pretty enough to escape being called plain, and yet plain enough to escape being spoiled for her prettiness. Mrs. Churchill was a widow of very moderate fortune, living in a retired village of Pennsylvania, more than fifty miles from any town of note, and which even in the year ’45, (happy little village!) could boast of neither steam-boat nor railroad. It was here she had removed with her husband soon after their marriage, and here for a few brief years their happiness had been unclouded—until the shadow of death resting on that happy home severed all earthly ties. Peaceful now in the quiet grave-yard is the sleep of the husband and father.

Seventeen summers of Alice’s life had passed away—not all cloudless, but happily—for she was kind and affectionate—in making others happy she was herself so—indeed, as I said before, although she had no wealth of beauty, Alice was rich in goodness and purity of heart. Mrs. Churchill had offended her family by marrying a poor man, and there had been little or no intercourse since that period. When, therefore, she received a letter from her brother, not only affectionate, but accompanied also by a kind invitation for her daughter Alice to pass a few months in Philadelphia, it is difficult to say whether joy or surprise preponderated. Anxious alone to promote the happiness of Alice, Mrs. Churchill, sacrificing her own feelings at parting with her child, hesitated not to accept the offer. Little did Alice know of the world, except from books. Books had been her only companions, and, under her mother’s judicious selection, these best of friends had wrought a silent influence over her mind, preparing her to meet the realities of life, its pleasures and its trials also, with rationality.

Such, then, was Alice Churchill, the innocent cause of the matrimonial fracas illustrated in a preceding chapter.

The boat touched the wharf, and the motley crowd which had been watching her approach, noisily sprang on her deck. “Have a cab, miss?” “Cab, sir?” “Take your baggage, ma’am?” “Have a carriage?” Poor Alice shrank back into the farthest corner of the ladies’ cabin, perfectly bewildered with the noise and confusion. At length she heard her own name called, and, stepping forward, she was the next moment in the arms of her uncle. Mr. Hazleton embraced her affectionately, and then, gazing long and earnestly upon her, exclaimed, as he wiped a tear from his eye⁠—

“Yes, you do look like your dear mother!”

But this was no time for sentiment, especially as the stewardess, anxious herself to be on shore, already began to bustle about preparatory to the next trip—so, after attending to the baggage, they left the boat, and were soon rattling through the streets at the mercy of an independent cabman who “had another job.”

Who that has passed through the streets of a great city for the first time cannot imagine the feelings of our simple country-girl, as she found herself thus borne amid the busy throng—the side-walks crowded with people hurrying to and from their business—the gaily ornamented windows—elegantly dressed ladies—beggars—squeaking hand-organs—dancing monkeys—the cry of the fish-man, mingling with the noisy bell of the charcoal-vender—carriages clashing rapidly past—omnibuses rattling heavily along—dust, din, smoke—no wonder the poor girl rejoiced when the cab stopped at her uncle’s dwelling, and she found herself safe within its walls.

“My dear love, let me have the pleasure of introducing you to my niece,” said Mr. Hazleton, advancing with the blushing Alice on his arm.

Mrs. Hazleton coldly raised her eyes from the book on which they had been pertinaciously fixed, and with a slight bow and a formal “How do you do, Miss Churchill!” as coldly dropped them again.

Not so Julia, who, in spite of the lessons her ma’ma had been teaching her for the last half hour, could not see this young, blushing stranger so repulsed—she therefore rushed forward, exclaiming⁠—

“O papa, do stand away, and let me greet my new cousin.”

“Julia! my dear!” emphasized Mrs. Hazleton.

“Now, my dear Alice—that’s your name, is it not? Mine is Julia—Julia Ketchim—horrible! don’t you think so? Now you must not wonder at ma’ma—she is a great reader—she has got hold of Carlyle—but she is very glad to see you—so are we all—but that’s her way. Come, sit down—or would you prefer to go to your room?”

“Julia, I am surprised!” and Mrs. Hazleton rang the bell.

A servant entered.

“Show Miss Churchill her apartment.”

“O no, ma’ma, I am going with Alice.”

“Nancy, attend Miss Churchill. Julia, I want you—Julia!—Julia!” and with pouting lips and a very flushed face Julia was forced to obey, but not until she had whispered to Alice, who, almost terrified, was following the servant maid:

“Never mind ma’ma, dear—she is great upon etiquette—she is a Ninnybrain you know.”

There was an attempt at a Caudle lecture after Alice had left, but to her dismay Mrs. Hazleton found her influence, like the honey-moon, rapidly on the wane! When Alice again appeared in the drawing-room escorted by Julia, who, in spite of ma’ma, had contrived to slip away to her apartment, Mrs. Hazleton for the first time allowed her eyes to dwell searchingly upon the person of her unwelcome guest. To her inexpressible relief she found Miss Churchill presented that happy medium of which she had never dreamed, viz. that although her countenance was pleasing, yet she was by no means handsome enough to cause her one moment’s fear on the score of rivalship—while her natural ease of manner at once removed her from that awkward simplicity she had expected to find in an unskilled country girl. The effect of her scrutiny, therefore, was so satisfactory that Mrs. Hazleton with a pretty, girlish air instantly embraced her, and trusted she would feel herself as much at home as under her own dear mother’s roof. Although somewhat surprised, Alice did not doubt the sincerity of her welcome, and grateful for her kindness, returned her aunt’s embrace. Mr. Hazleton gave his wife a smile of approbation, while Julia whispered:

“There, I told you so—O that odious Carlyle—I knew ma’ma would be glad to see you when she had put down her book.”

At the close of the evening, after the girls had retired, Mrs. Hazleton affirmed that really Miss Churchill was quite passable, and that if her manners only had a little of the Ninnybrain air—as, for instance, Julia’s or her own—one would hardly suspect that she had never been accustomed to good society! Upon which wondrous conclusion of his lady, Mr. Hazleton shrugged his shoulders and went to bed.

——

CHAPTER IV.

COUSIN FRANK

Alice and Julia were soon good friends—and by degrees Alice became the confidante of a little episode in the life of her cousin which she feared might bear heavily upon her future happiness, unless her affections were as the wind-kissed lakelet—disturbed only on the surface—the heart-depths unmoved.

At first Julia only spoke of “Cousin Frank” as being such a “dear, merry soul,” “so pleasant,” “so kind”—she next admitted that she loved him “dearly, very dearly,” indeed she did—and that he loved her just as well, poor fellow!—and finally, blushing like a rose, she acknowledged that both hand and heart were pledged to “dear Cousin Frank!”

But did ma’ma know any thing about it? Not she indeed! A pretty fuss she would make to find out she loved Frank—a poor midshipman in the navy, that had not even a drop of the Ninnybrain blood to compensate for want of fortune! No indeed! But they had vowed to be faithful, and that was enough—Cousin Frank was too proud to say a word to ma’ma until he had won laurels as well as money—poor fellow! and so Julia cried one moment and laughed the next.

It appeared they had become acquainted at the house of a mutual relative in the village where Julia had been placed at school by her youthful mother. Cousins are without doubt a very dangerous allotment of the human family, as it proved in this case, for Frank Reeve came near losing his examination before the navy-board, while Julia, instead of treasuring up the wisdom of Mrs. Rulem, was filling her little brain with love, and such nonsense—just as naughty girls will sometimes do for their cousins!

Mrs. Hazleton would indeed have made a fuss had she known of this. Far different views had she for her daughter, and she would have spurned the poor midshipman’s love as most presumptuous.

It was now the joyous season of the holydays—when happiness and mirth, pleasure and folly trip hand in hand, gladdening this once a year the beggar and the bondman, and sweeping triumphantly through the halls of wealth and fashion. Parties and balls followed each other in rapid succession, and on the topmost wave of this tumultuous sea giddily floated Mrs. Hazleton. How the money fled from the well-lined pockets of Mr. Hazleton into the hands of tradesmen and milliners—smooth hard dollars, and soft silky scraps of paper exchanged for rings and bracelets, that the dress of both mother and daughter might be all as fine as money could purchase or fashion form. Alice seldom accompanied her aunt and cousin into these gay scenes. A short essay in fashionable life sufficed for her quiet tastes and habits, and she preferred therefore remaining at home with her uncle, who was no less pleased to have her do so, as with her he could talk over the scenes of his early life, and he loved too to listen to her own artless details of mother and home. Nor was Mrs. Hazleton sorry for Alice’s decision. She was often surprised to find that her modest pretty face, and her unaffected manners, attracted nearly or quite as much attention as the brilliant charms of Julia, so that on the whole she rather countenanced her remaining tête-à-tête with her uncle. “O you dear, quiet little soul,” she would often say, “you must marry a country parson, and knit stockings.”

One evening, Mrs. Hazleton came home from a large party in high spirits. She had marked her future son-in-law, and Julia had now only to bring down the game! Full, therefore, was she of the praises of young Herman Wallace. He was not only very rich, very handsome, very graceful, but of an ancient Scottish family—could trace his descent even from the great hero, Sir William Wallace—at least Mrs. Pryout had said so.

“But, ma’ma,” interposed Julia, “he is the stiffest, coldest mortal—a beautiful petrifaction of man! When at last you got an opportunity to introduce me,”—and Julia, sly girl, remembered how blind she had been to many winks and nods and “wreathed smiles” of managing ma’ma,—“he looked down upon me with those great black eyes—oh, so cold and disdainful—he might just suit you, Alice, but as for me—”

“Nonsense!” interrupted Mrs. Hazleton, “he did no such thing. I tell you what first drew my particular attention to him, was his very evident admiration of you!”

“Indeed, ma’ma!”

“Yes, indeed, silly child. I overheard him asking who that very beautiful girl was in blue and silver⁠—”

“O, ma’ma!”

“I don’t wonder he asked, however, for you did look sweetly. It was when you were waltzing with young Langden, and as you floated so sylph-like around the room, I could not help thinking of a portrait I once saw of⁠—”

“A Ninnybrain, ma’ma?”

Mr. Hazleton burst into a hearty laugh, in which the saucy girl as heartily joined, and even Alice could not refrain a smile. Mrs. Hazleton was evidently disconcerted, but too well pleased with her plans to be angry.

“You will see him again to-morrow evening, love,” she continued, “and I think you will alter your opinion.”

“By the way, Alice, you promised to go to Mrs. Dashwood’s grand party,” cried Julia; “so you will be able to judge of ma’ma’s prodigy;” and then, as they left the room, she whispered, “Talk of Herman Wallace, indeed! I would not give one of dear Frank’s heart-glances for all his frozen lordly looks!”

——

CHAPTER V.

MRS. DASHWOOD’S PARTY.

The toilet of the fair Julia, for this eventful evening, was made under the tasteful eye of Mrs. Hazleton herself, who wished her daughter to look her loveliest—to eclipse all other stars in that brilliant galaxy of youth and beauty. Next, the adornment of her own person was her chief care—upon Alice she bestowed not a thought. Julia would fain have had the dress of her friend as beautiful as her own, but this Alice rejected as unsuitable, and made her appearance in the dressing-room of her aunt in a simple white muslin, her only ornaments a set of corals, the gift of her uncle. Mrs. Hazleton enrobed in crimson velvet, and Julia radiantly lovely in white satin and blonde, offered a striking contrast to the unpretending Alice.

“Well, child, you really look quite well—don’t she, love?” was the careless remark of Mrs. Hazleton, “but only see what a rich color Julia has!—I think I never saw her look so perfectly lovely—quite mature, don’t you think so?—more like me! Why what have you got on?—white muslin over a plain cambric! Mercy, had you not a silk skirt? Julia’s tunic is magnificent—I paid one hundred dollars for the lace at Levy’s. Corals are too warm, child—but they will do very well for you—they won’t be noticed. Come here, Julia, and let Alice examine the chasteness of that beautiful aquamarine bracelet—now the ruby—and look at her pin, Alice, is it not superb!”

But a brighter jewel was in the breast of Alice—a heart free from envy!

And now over the tessellated floor fair and lovely forms are gliding—music pours its enchanting strains, and voices scarcely less sweet float on the perfumed air—jewels flash, feathers wave—there are smiles on the brow of beauty, soft speeches on the lips of manhood.

But why, amid this joyous scene, is the brow of Mrs. Hazleton clouded? Admiration can find no higher aim than the charms of Julia; nor does her own ear drink in unwelcome the flatterer’s whisper—yet still the cloud is there. Would you know the reason? Herman Wallace makes not one of the festive throng. She is almost angry with Julia for being so carelessly happy—with Alice for her composure. Suddenly her eye brightens. Ah, the game’s in view! And in a few moments Mrs. Hazleton, now all smiles, presses on to the gay circle of which Wallace seems to be the attraction. She soon fastened upon him, and led him off triumphant to the spot where she had a moment before seen Julia—but Julia was gone, and Alice alone remained, quietly viewing the scene before her. Mrs. Hazleton, however, took not the slightest notice of her, but continued a ceaseless strain in the ears of Wallace. Did not Mr. Wallace like waltzing? Mr. Wallace did not. The polka? Decidedly not. Was Mr. Wallace fond of music? Not in a crowded room.

Mr. Wallace now turned his eye upon Alice. Could Mrs. Hazleton tell him who that interesting looking girl was?

“O, a niece of my husband’s—poor child! You know, my dear sir, every family cannot look back upon a pedigree like yours—like mine, I was going to say—a very good sort of girl, though, but poor, and all that sort of thing.”

Yet the descendant of a “noble pedigree” asked for an introduction to that “good sort of a girl,” which, with a very ill grace, was granted. Julia now joined them, and a lively conversation ensued, which Mrs. Hazleton with great chagrin saw interrupted. The fair hand of Julia was claimed for a dance, and away she tripped. Mrs. Hazleton, too, soon followed, to bring her back the earliest moment, leaving Alice and Wallace alone.

There was a pause of a few moments, when, with some embarrassment, Wallace said,

“The interest I feel, Miss Churchill, in a very dear friend, must be my apology for what I am about to say. He is a noble, generous fellow, but I fear has recklessly given his affections where they are but too lightly prized. You look surprised, Miss Churchill—I allude to Francis Reeve. I think you can be no stranger to the relationship existing between him and Miss Ketchim.”

“I have frequently heard Julia speak of her cousin, Mr. Reeve,” replied Alice.

“And no more! Has she never told you they stand in a far nearer light than mere cousins?”

“I will be candid with you, Mr. Wallace. Julia has confessed to me her affection for your friend.”

“Her affection! Then you think she does love him?”

“Most sincerely.”

“Is it possible! And has she a heart—she who seems to be the mere sport and puppet of fashion!” exclaimed Wallace.

“Indeed she has, and a warm one, too,” replied Alice. “You must not judge of her as you now see her—that she is very volatile I acknowledge, but most affectionate and sincere.”

“I rejoice to hear you say so,” answered Wallace. “You know not, Miss Churchill, the ardor of my friend’s attachment. True love is always jealous—and you surely then cannot blame poor Frank, when, on his return from a long voyage, he hears of her only as the gayest among the gay, receiving with apparent pleasure the flatterer’s insidious praises!”

“She is not alone to blame, Mr. Wallace. Believe me, with all her seeming indifference, she is worthy the love of your friend,” said Alice.

“I surely can no longer doubt her worth when I find her so ably defended, and by so amiable a champion,” answered Wallace, bowing. “May I then ask you to deliver her this note, with which poor Frank, in an agony of jealous doubts, has entrusted me?”

Ere Alice could reply Mrs. Hazleton and Julia joined them. What could have brought such a glow to the cheek of Alice? thought her aunt—and Wallace, too, how animated! whose eyes were bent on the plain country-girl with an expression of admiration which caused the heart of this worldly woman to swell with envy and mortification. But dressing her countenance in well-feigned smiles, she exclaimed⁠—

“Really, you seem to be having a very interesting discussion—I have been watching you some time. Come, I am dying to know what it is—and here is Julia, too, all curiosity.”

Wallace made some cool reply to Mrs. Hazleton, and then, turning to the latter, began conversing with her so entirely different from his former manner, that she was astonished. He was no longer the “petrifaction” she had pronounced him, but animated and agreeable. She little thought how much she was indebted to the praises of Alice for this change. Mrs. Hazleton noticed this also, and her jealous fears subsided. The deer is wounded at last! was her exulting conclusion.

That may be, my good madam—but the shaft may have sped from another source, nevertheless!

“Do come into my room,” said Julia to Alice, upon their return from Mrs. Dashwood’s party. “For mercy’s sake! let me get away from that Scotch bag-pipe ma’ma is ever sounding! One would think she was in love with Herman Wallace herself—but I’m sure I am not—though, just as plain as looks can speak, she tells him, ‘Here she is—you may have her for the asking.’ If this is Ninnybrain dignity, I beg to be excused from sharing it. I wonder what poor Frank would say? But how happy you look, Alice—what is the matter? After all, I believe poor ma’ma’s trouble has all been thrown away.

Ah, ah! Alice—now confess—has not this descendant of heroes been saying tender things to you?”

“He has, indeed, talked of love!” said Alice, laughing.

“Oh, excellent!” cried the giddy girl, clapping her hands.

“But alas for your theory, you were the object,” continued Alice.

“Me?”

“Yes, you—and one other—and that other was—can’t you guess?”

“No, Ally dear, you talk in enigmas.”

“Which perhaps this may solve,” and kissing her blushing cheek, Alice placed the note in her hand.

Julia screamed with surprise and pleasure, as she recognized the beloved handwriting. When she looked up her friend had left the room.

There was a light tap at the door of Alice’s chamber, and Julia entering threw herself upon her neck, covered with tears and blushes.

“Oh, my dear Alice, he has come! Frank is here—in this city! How happy I am—and—and, oh dear, what shall I do? He wishes to come and see me! Ma’ma will be so angry—I dare not—what shall I do? Dear Alice, do tell me.”

Alice advised her to accede unhesitatingly to the wishes of her lover, urging her no longer to have any concealment from her mother. Perhaps, after all, her fears were groundless, and she might sanction her choice. In any event, this clandestine intercourse must not continue, and Alice, “severe in youthful beauty,” endeavored to point out the great fault she would be committing against her parent by allowing it to proceed further. Julia was overcome by the serious manner in which Alice spoke. She had never before allowed herself to reflect upon her error in its true light—her mother’s anger had been her only fear—but she now resolved to break the subject at once to her mother, and ask forgiveness for her fault.

——

CHAPTER VI.

COUSIN FRANK AGAIN.

Breakfast was over—Mr. Hazleton gone to his office—Alice to pen a letter to her mother—and Julia was left alone with Mrs. Hazleton. It was no light errand upon which she was bent, and gladly would she have followed her cousin from the room—but an encouraging smile from Alice re-assured her. Yet how to open the dreaded subject? Several times she essayed to speak, but the words died upon her lips. Meanwhile Mrs. Hazleton, in a most voluble strain, was planning characters and dresses for a fancy ball. So far as Julia herself was concerned, the Scottish Chiefs were chosen for the field of display—deciding she should go as Helen Mar, and she was now trying to fix upon some character calculated to set forth her own charms to the best advantage.

“What do you think of Die Vernon?” said she turning to Julia—“or would Flora McIvor suit my style better—perhaps Mary, Queen of Scots, or—but what is the matter with you? How stupid you are! Why don’t you speak? I declare I believe you will get to be as dull as Alice Churchill. What ails you?”

“Nothing, ma’ma—I—I only⁠—”

“Only what? do speak!” cried Mrs. Hazleton, impatiently.

“I only wanted to tell you that—that Frank Reeve is in town,” stammered poor Julia.

“And pray who is Frank Reeve, to call such a blush to your cheek?”

“Why, dear me, ma’ma, you know Cousin Frank Reeve!”

“No, I don’t know Cousin Frank Reeve!” exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton, turning very red—“neither do I wish to know him.”

“Why, ma’ma, he is so pleasant—so delightful!”

“Is he? Well, Miss Julia, that is no reason why I should know him, or you either—and, let me tell you, if you have any ridiculous, childish penchant for ‘Cousin Frank,’ you had better banish it at once!” and Mrs. Hazleton looked very knowing.

“Ma’ma, I—I don’t understand you.”

“O yes you do. I have said enough—so no more of Frank Reeve. Now tell me if you can what were the colors of the Vich-ian Vohr plaid—Alice knows I dare say—go and ask her.” And glad of an excuse to leave the room, Julia quickly withdrew.

Mrs. Hazleton spoke the truth—she did not know Cousin Frank, though the nephew of the departed Ketchim. She had never seen him—but she had heard of moonlight walks and tender billet-doux. In her widowhood, so long as Julia was out of the way, she cared little which most occupied her time—books or a lover. The case was now altered. She had a higher object to be accomplished, to which the plighted affections of her daughter must be made to yield—what did she care for the affections!

Poor Julia’s eyes were swollen with weeping—her head ached intolerably, but her heart ached worse. There was a ring at the door—she listened—O happiness! ma’ma was out—and there was Cousin Frank! What could Julia do! What did she do but rush down stairs and burst into a fresh flood of tears on Cousin Frank’s shoulders! Very improper, was it not? However, we will not stop to argue the matter now, but rather adopt Jack Easy’s system—finish the story first and have the argument afterward!

As interesting as our pair of lovers undoubtedly were to themselves, a third party might not form the same opinion. We will not intrude, therefore, but content ourselves with marking the result of this interview, which was that Julia from that hour appeared in excellent spirits, quite delighting ma’ma with her praises of Herman Wallace, and never once mentioning the name of Cousin Frank again—simply amusing herself when alone with kissing mysteriously folded billets, and penning little rose-colored notes—surely there was no harm in that!

In the meanwhile Wallace had become a constant visiter. Although Alice was generally in the room upon these occasions, Mrs. Hazleton had no longer any fears. Wallace to be sure was very polite and agreeable—brought her books—sometimes reading a favorite passage—of course, why should he not? and so Mrs. Hazleton herself began to treat her with more attention—but with Julia he would chat in a low voice in snug window seats, or remote corners, while she in turn seemed to lend a willing ear—blushing, smiling, and evidently very happy. “Ah, there certainly must be some understanding between them!” thought the delighted Mrs. Hazleton.

——

CHAPTER VII.

MASQUERADING.

Mrs. Hazleton resolved to give a party which should eclipse in splendor all those to which the gay season had given rise, and Mr. Hazleton, willing to gratify her, had placed both his purse and time at her command. For once every thing went favorably—the presiding Fates were all on the side of Mrs. Hazleton. Taste and elegance marked the upholsterer’s high finish—the rooms were flooded with that soft, mellow light which throws so becoming a shade o’er the cheek of beauty—music was to lend its charms—and the luxuries of every clime were gathered on the refreshment tables, mingled with all those tasteful little devices which the skill of the confectioner can compound. So far well, and Mrs. Hazleton, bowing to herself as she took a last survey in her mirror, pronounced the image superb!

Mr. Wallace had begged permission to bring a friend—certainly, any friend of his would be most welcome. The rooms were already rapidly filling, when trembling and blushing Julia saw Mr. Wallace approaching, and with him—Cousin Frank! And how handsome the fellow looked, too, and what a joyous, happy glance met hers!

“Allow me to present my friend, Mr. Francis—” the rest was somewhat unintelligible—and Mrs. Hazleton most gracefully bent to the modest salute of the stranger, and then turned to introduce her daughter also. It certainly was praiseworthy in Julia not to know cousin Frank, as her mother had so positively forbidden; so she merely bowed, and that, too, in the stiffest manner, which bow was as stiffly returned, and then immediately turning from her, Mr. Francis began an animated conversation with her mother. It is true that, in the course of the evening, he very formally invited Miss Julia to dance, who, with a toss of her pretty head, gave him her hand to lead her off—and that no sooner were they free from the vicinity of Mrs. Hazleton, than they both laughed right merrily, and said a great many things which must have been interesting to themselves, to judge from their looks; nay, more than this, instead of joining the dancers as they had proposed, they strolled off into the conservatory!

Mrs. Hazleton seemed blessed this evening with wonderful ubiquity of vision. She could not only look to the wants of her numerous guests, and see that each one was placed in his or her peculiar sphere for display—that the feet of the merry dancers stayed not for music—that the waiters were all in the quiet performance of their duties; but also that the actors in her private play of “Manœuvering” should not fail in the favorite parts she had allotted them. Thus when she suddenly came upon Herman Wallace and Alice evidently much engrossed by some interesting topic, and discovered the fact that the latter had never looked so well as on this evening, how adroitly she contrived to separate them by despatching Alice upon some trifling commission to another part of the room, and then, with a bland smile, requesting Wallace to go in search of her dear Julia! In a few moments, however, Julia appeared, leaning on the arm of Frank, who, by his graceful compliments, soon restored her good humor; nay, so well did he top his part in a play of his own, that, although Mrs. Hazleton’s eyes were almost blasted by seeing Wallace leading that odious Alice Churchill to the dance, while Julia herself was disengaged, she yet had not courage to break away from his flattering speeches.

“How very much your sister resembles you!” said Frank, recovering from a sudden fit of absence, during which his eyes had been watching the movements of Julia.

“My sister!” cried Mrs. Hazleton, blushing and laughing, “my sister!—my daughter you mean.”

“Daughter! good heavens!” and here Cousin Frank gave a tragedy start—“you don’t mean to say that lady is your daughter! O, no, it cannot be—the resemblance is certainly striking—the same expressive eyes, the same noble brow, the full red lip, and luxuriant hair the same—but your daughter—it cannot be!”

Mrs. Hazleton, however, was obliged to own the “soft impeachment,” while she mentally wished she had not visited Saratoga, or that she had allowed some other of the sex to avenge the sisterhood on Mrs. Hazleton, for here indeed was a prize which might else have been hers!

——

CHAPTER VIII.

UNMASKING!

A few mornings after the party, both Wallace and Francis had a long and confidential interview with Mr. Hazleton, which resulted in the penning of a letter by the former to Mrs. Churchill, not, however, without the consent of the blushing Alice. Mr. Hazleton then went in search of his wife, whom he found absorbed in reflections which, could he have read her heart’s frivolous page, he would have found not at all flattering to himself.

“Ah, my dear Anna, I have news for you! Who would have thought young Wallace so much in love!”

“Ha! why what is it, Mr. Hazleton?” demanded his lady, eagerly.

“Why that he has this morning proposed.”

“Indeed! and to you—I should have thought—but no matter, I am truly rejoiced at the dear girl’s good fortune—however, I think it would have been more proper if Wallace had spoken to me first.”

“I don’t think so, my dear,” said Mr. Hazleton.

“No, I dare say not,” replied the lady, evidently piqued; “it is to be sure a mark of respect to your—your years.”

“On the contrary, I think it a mark of respect to Mrs. Churchill.”

“Mrs. Churchill!” exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton, “what has Mrs. Churchill to do with Herman Wallace’s proposals for my daughter?”

“Nothing at all—but a great deal to do with his proposals for her own.”

“What! Alice Churchill! You don’t mean to say that Herman Wallace has made proposals of marriage to her!”

“Certainly I do—and I have given my consent with all my heart, and I doubt not, from my representations, her mother will also give hers.”

“He is a villain!” exclaimed Mrs. Hazleton. “Have all his devoted attentions come to this? My poor Julia! has he been trifling with her affections merely for his own amusement—and has he now the audacity to offer his hand to another!”

“I thought you were aware, my dear,” said Mr. Hazleton, mildly, “that the affections of Julia were already given to a very deserving nephew of yours.”

“Ridiculous, Mr. Hazleton! I should like to see Julia disposing of her affections without my consent. Pray, where did you hear this nonsense?”

“From Julia herself,” answered Mr. Hazleton. “She would have made a confidante of you, Anna, but you would not listen to her. She has acknowledged to me, therefore, her long attachment for Frank Reeve, and has requested me to intercede with you to sanction their engagement.”

“That I will never do,” cried Mrs. Hazleton, in a towering passion. “What!—consent to her marrying a poor midshipman? No, never!”

“But he will rise—he will be promoted.”

“No matter if he is—he shall never marry Julia Ketchim!”

“She loves him, my dear, sincerely,” interposed Mr. Hazleton. “It has been an attachment since childhood—would you break her heart?”

“Yes, I would—before I would consent to her becoming his wife.”

“But, my dear, will you not see your nephew, and let him plead his own cause? Do, my dear, reflect upon the consequences of what you are now doing.”

“No, Mr. Hazleton—I tell you I will not see him, and I have already forbidden Julia. If it had not been for him, and for the artful machinations of your niece, I might have seen Julia properly allied—rank with rank.”

Mr. Hazleton could swallow a great deal, and he therefore swallowed this, though with something of a take-physic face. He then resumed:

“Since such, then, is your firm decision, I feel more free to inform you that the friend of Mr. Wallace, Mr.⁠——”

“Francis.”

“The same—has also requested permission to pay his addresses to Julia.”

“Ah, indeed!” and now Mrs. Hazleton began to look pleased again.

“He is an old friend of Wallace,” continued Mr. Hazleton—“is of a good family—has great expectations, I am told—and, for my own part, I see no reasonable objection against encouraging his addresses—that is, if Julia herself can be persuaded.”

“I shall take care of that, Mr. Hazleton. Thank Heaven! the Ninnybrains are no such obstinate people as some other people I could name. None of my family ever married against the wishes of their friends, as some other people’s friends have done! Julia will receive Mr. Francis—I shall command her to do so.”

And as Julia had made up her mind to be henceforth very dutiful to ma’ma, she promised, like a good girl, to transfer all her affections from Cousin Frank to Mr. Francis, and most submissively and demurely consented to receive his visits.

The wooing sped rapidly, and the happy day was already appointed for their nuptials, when Julia took an unaccountable freak in her head that she could not be married unless Cousin Frank was present at the ceremony! Mrs. Hazleton ridiculed—Julia insisted—and finally Mrs. Hazleton concluded to do the amiable, and wrote:

How brightly dawned the morning—how lovely looked the fair young bride—how happy the bridegroom, dear reader mine, determine in your own mind. Every one seemed particularly happy, but no one more so than Mr. Hazleton—although several times, with a very grave face, he demanded of the blushing bride if Cousin Frank had not come yet?

Alice, whose return home had only been postponed that she might be present at her friend’s wedding, stood by the side of Julia, while Wallace performed the same pleasing office for his friend.

And now the priest has blessed them. Mrs. Hazleton has gracefully folded her daughter to her bosom, and turned her cheek modestly to the salute of her son-in-law. The carriage whirls to the door—tender adieus are interchanged, and with a “blush on her cheek and a tear in her eye,” Julia is borne off by the exulting bridegroom!

As the carriage rolled from the door, Mrs. Hazleton sank down on the sofa, and folded her hands, and threw up her beautiful eyes complacently, exclaiming—

“Thank Heaven! my duty to Julia is done—she is off my hands! She has certainly made a most eligible match—as Lady Lackwit, who married into the Ninnybrain family in the reign of George the Second, observed——how, a letter for me?—where did you get it, John?”

“The postman just brought it, ma’am.”

Mrs. Hazleton broke the seal and read:

COMMON DUCK OR MALLARD.

The common wild duck is the one which is usually meant when the word duck is used without any other qualification, and it is the species which is most frequently seen in the markets. They breed in all parts of the country, from Pennsylvania north as far as the inland woody districts of the fur countries, and it is met with everywhere in Europe, up to Spitzbergen. As a bird of passage it is seen in every part of the United States, always showing more activity in the night than in the day; its conduct even in a domesticated state presenting evidences of noisy watchfulness in the evening and at dawn. Its food is small fish, fry snails, aquatic insects and plants, and all kinds of seeds and grain. In England, ducks are very highly esteemed, and many expedients are resorted to by the fowlers who supply the London markets with this kind of food. Some account of their operations may prove interesting as well as instructive. The chief method employed in capturing them is the decoy, and instances have been known of eight hundred pounds being cleared in one year by a single decoy on the Essex coast. These decoys consist, in the first place, of an expanse of water which is called the pond, and which is placed in the shelter of reeds, and generally speaking also of bushes. The banks of the pond are left clear for some little way, so that the birds may rest upon land, and, in short, this portion of the contrivance is made as tempting as possible, as much of the success depends upon this requisite. But though the ducks resort to the pond in vast numbers, and pass the day in an inactive state, yet still great skill, or at all events practice, is required in examining the pond, because they are exceedingly watchful, take wing on the least alarm, and do not readily settle. The sense of smelling is remarkably acute in these birds, as one might naturally suppose from the margins of their bills being so copiously supplied with nerves. In consequence of this, when it becomes necessary to approach them on the windward, it is usual to carry a bit of burning turf, the acid smoke of which counteracts the smell of the carrier, which would be sufficient to alarm the birds except for this precaution. The inland extremity of the pond is formed into pipes or funnel-shaped channels which narrow gradually, and have at the end a permanent net placed upon hoops. This net forms the trap in which the birds are taken, often in vast numbers at one time. In order that the decoy may be worked in all weathers, it is necessary that there should be one to suit each of the prevailing winds. We need not go farther into the details of this mode of bird catching. The ducks are enticed by tame ones, which are trained to the purpose.

These birds begin to be taken in October, and the taking continues, by law, only until the following February. Beside these decoys, there are, in the places where ducks are numerous, many of the country people who shoot them, and these are called Punt Shooters or Punt Gunners—in the creeks and openings of the streams, in the lower part of the Thames estuary, and, as they ply night and day, according as the tide answers, their labor is very severe and hazardous. This occupation once led a fowler into singular distress. It happened in the day-time. Mounted on his mud pattens (flat, square pieces of board, tied to the foot, to avoid sinking in the ooze) he was traversing one of these oozy plains in search of ducks, and being intent only on his game, suddenly found the water, which had been accelerated by some peculiar circumstance affecting the tide, had made an alarming progress around him, and he found himself completely encircled. In this desperate situation, an idea struck him as the only hope of safety. He retired to that part which seemed the highest from its being yet uncovered by water, and striking the barrel of his long gun deep in the ooze, he resolved to hold fast by it, as well as for a support as a security against the waves, and to wait the ebbing of the tide. He had reason to believe a common tide would not have flowed above his waist; but, in the midst of his reasoning on the subject, the water reached him. It rippled over his feet, it gained his knees, his waist, button after button was swallowed up, until at length it advanced over his shoulders. Fortunately for himself, he preserved his courage and hope—he held fast by his anchor, and with his eye looked anxiously about in search of some boat which might accidentally be passing. None appeared. A head upon the surface of the water, and that sometimes covered by a wave, was no object to be descried from the land at the distance of half a league; nor could he make any sounds of distress that could be heard so far. He finally concluded that his destruction was inevitable. Just now a new object attracted his attention. He thought he saw the topmost button of his coat begin to appear. No mariner, floating on a wreck, could behold succor approach with greater transport than he felt at this transient view of the button; but the fluctuation of the water was such, and the turn of the tide so slow, that it was yet some time before he dared venture to assure himself that the button was yet fairly above the level of the flood. At length, a second button appearing at intervals, his sensations may rather be imagined than described, and his joy gave him spirits and resolution to hold on four or five hours longer, until the waters had fully retired.

One of the most tender and delicately flavored of the ducks which find their way into our markets is the Shoveller, (Anas Clypeata). The Shoveller is a very handsome bird, though its bill is disproportionally large, and very peculiar in shape—it is about three inches in length, of a black color, widened toward the extremity; and the fibres along the margin are so much produced that the bill has the appearance of being surrounded all along the gape with a fringe of hairs. The form of the bill is well adapted to the habit of the animal, which is that of picking up very small animal matters in the shallows and runs of the rivers, and as these fibrous appendages are very sensitive, they enable it to detect with great nicety all substances that are edible. The Shoveller is an inland bird, and somewhat discursive. It is found, we believe with very little difference of appearance, as well in the Eastern continent as in our own; but, so far as is known, it is a bird of the northern hemisphere, and is not met with in any part of the south. On the continent of Europe it is pretty abundant, and it breeds in the marshes of the middle latitudes; but in Britain it is not common, even in the fens, and, in our own country, it is much more migratory than in the eastern continent. This, however, does not establish a difference in the birds themselves, but may readily be accounted for in the difference of the two countries. The American summer is more dry than the European, and the American marshes in the middle latitudes partake of this drought; or, if they do not, they are covered with pumpers and other evergreens, so that they do not answer well for the summer resort of dabbling birds. The northern latitudes of America, again, are remarkably well adapted on account of their flatness, the abundance of water, the high temperature, and the corresponding great production of small animals. Yet, in respect of latitude, the climate to which the shoveller moves northward during the American summer is not more northerly than those in which it breeds in central Europe, although, from the different character of the seasons, it ranges more in the one country than in the other. In all countries where it is known, this bird forms its nest in the tallest and thickest tufts of rushes and other aquatic herbage, and generally also in places which are not accessible by man, or indeed by any of the land mammalia. The nest is rudely formed of withered grass, collected in considerable quantity, and the female is a close sitter. The young Shovellers have to find their food in the water, and therefore they have the feet and the bill in a tolerably complete state when they come out of the shell, whereas the organs of flight are then in a rudimental state; and they continue so much longer than they do in birds which are obliged to make use of the wing at an early stage of their existence. This slow production of the organs of flying is general among birds which seek their food upon the ground, whether in the shallow waters, the marshes, the fields, or the uplands; but all of them are better provided for the use of their bills and feet than birds of more early flight. Thus we see how well these creatures are adapted to the places in which they reside, and to which they are of course drawn by this very adaptation. The Shoveller is thus accurately described by Nuttall. The head, adjoining half of the neck, medial stripe to the interscapulars; the whole back, interior scapulars and primaries, umber brown; sides of the head, the neck and crest, glossed with duck green; the rump and tail coverts, above and below, with blackish green; lower half of the neck, the breast, shoulders, shorter scapulars, ends of the greater wing coverts and sides of the rump, white; longer scapulars, striped with pale blue, white and blackish brown; lesser coverts, pale blue; speculum or wing-spot, brilliant grass green, broadly bordered above and narrowly edged below with white, bounded interiorly with greenish black; belly and flanks, deep orange brown, the latter waved posteriorly with black; bill, black; legs, orange.

OR, ROSE BUDD.

———

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

———

“D’ye hear there, Mr. Mulford?” called out Capt. Stephen Spike, of the half-rigged brigantine Swash, or Molly Swash, as was her registered name, to his mate—“we shall be dropping out as soon as the tide makes, and I intend to get through the Gate, at least, on the next flood. Waiting for a wind in port is lubberly seamanship, for he that wants one should go outside and look for it.”

This call was uttered from a wharf of the renowned city of Manhattan, to one who was in the trunk-cabin of a clipper-looking craft, of the name mentioned, and on the deck of which not a soul was visible. Nor was the wharf, though one of those wooden piers that line the arm of the sea that is called the East River, such a spot as ordinarily presents itself to the mind of the reader, or listener, when an allusion is made to a wharf of that town which it is the fashion of the times to call the Commercial Emporium of America—as if there might very well be an emporium of any other character. The wharf in question had not a single vessel of any sort lying at, or indeed very near it, with the exception of the Molly Swash. As it actually stood on the eastern side of the town, it is scarcely necessary to say that such a wharf could only be found high up, and at a considerable distance from the usual haunts of commerce. The brig lay more than a mile above the Hook (Corlaer’s, of course, is meant—not Sandy Hook) and quite near to the old Alms-House—far above the ship-yards, in fact. It was a solitary place for a vessel, in the midst of a crowd. The grum, top-chain voice of Captain Spike had nothing there to mingle with, or interrupt its harsh tones, and it instantly brought on deck Harry Mulford, the mate in question, apparently eager to receive his orders.

“Did you hail, Captain Spike?” called out the mate, a tight, well-grown, straight-built, handsome sailor-lad of two or three-and-twenty—one full of health, strength and manliness.

“Hail! If you call straining a man’s throat until he’s hoarse, hailing, I believe I did. I flatter myself there is not a man north of Hatteras that can make himself heard further in a gale of wind than a certain gentleman who is to be found within a foot of the spot where I stand. Yet, sir, I’ve been hailing the Swash these five minutes, and thankful am I to find some one at last who is on board to answer me.”

“What are your orders, Capt. Spike?”

“To see all clear for a start as soon as the flood makes. I shall go through the Gate on the next young flood, and I hope you’ll have all the hands aboard in time. I see two or three of them up at that Dutch beer-house, this moment, and can tell ’em, in plain language, if they come here with their beer aboard them, they’ll have to go ashore again.”

“You have an uncommonly sober crew, Capt. Spike,” answered the young man, with great calmness. “During the whole time I have been with them, I have not seen a man among them the least in the wind.”

“Well, I hope it will turn out that I’ve an uncommonly sober mate in the bargain. Drunkenness I abominate, Mr. Mulford, and I can tell you, short metre, that I will not stand it.”

“May I inquire if you ever saw me, the least in the world, under the influence of liquor, Capt. Spike?” demanded the mate, rather than asked, with a very fixed meaning in his manner.

“I keep no log-book of trifles, Mr. Mulford, and cannot say. No man is the worse for bowsing out his jib when off duty, though a drunkard’s a thing I despise. Well, well—remember, sir, that the Molly Swash casts off on the young flood, and that Rose Budd and the good lady, her aunt, take passage in her, this v’y’ge.”

“Is it possible that you have persuaded them into that, at last!” exclaimed the handsome mate.

“Persuaded! It takes no great persuasion, sir, to get the ladies to try their luck in that brig. Lady Washington herself, if she was alive and disposed to a sea-v’y’ge, might be glad of the chance. We’ve a ladies’ cabin, you know, and it’s suitable that it should have some one to occupy it. Old Mrs. Budd is a sensible woman, and takes time by the forelock. Rose is ailin’—pulmonary, they call it, I believe, and her aunt wishes to try the sea for her constitution⁠—”

“Rose Budd has no more of a pulmonary constitution than I have myself,” interrupted the mate.

“Well, that’s as people fancy. You must know, Mr. Mulford, they’ve got all sorts of diseases now-a-days, and all sorts of cures for ’em. One sort of a cure for consumption is what they tarm the Hyder-Ally⁠—”

“I think you must mean hydropathy, sir⁠—”

“Well, it’s something of the sort, no matter what—but cold water is at the bottom of it, and they do say it’s a good remedy. Now Rose’s aunt thinks if cold water is what is wanted, there is no place where it can be so plenty as out on the ocean. Sea-air is good, too, and by taking a v’y’ge her niece will get both requisites together, and cheap.”

“Does Rose Budd think herself consumptive, Capt. Spike?” asked Mulford, with interest.

“Not she—you know it will never do to alarm a pulmonary, so Mrs. Budd has held her tongue carefully on the subject before the young woman. Rose fancies that her aunt is out of sorts, and that the v’y’ge is tried on her account—but the aunt, the cunning thing, knows all about it.”

Mulford almost nauseated the expression of his commander’s countenance while Spike uttered the last words. At no time was that countenance very inviting, the features being coarse and vulgar, while the color of the entire face was of an ambiguous red, in which liquor and the seasons would seem to be blended in very equal quantities. Such a countenance, lighted up by a gleam of successful management, not to say with hopes and wishes that it will hardly do to dwell on, could not but be revolting to a youth of Harry Mulford’s generous feelings, and most of all to one who entertained the sentiments which he was quite conscious of entertaining for Rose Budd. The young man made no reply, but turned his face toward the water, in order to conceal the expression of disgust that he was sensible must be strongly depicted on it.

The river, as the well known arm of the sea in which the Swash was lying is erroneously termed, was just at that moment unusually clear of craft, and not a sail, larger than that of a boat, was to be seen between the end of Blackwell’s Island and Corlaer’s Hook, a distance of about a league. This stagnation in the movement of the port, at that particular point, was owing to the state of wind and tide. Of the first, there was little more than a southerly air, while the last was about two-thirds ebb. Nearly every thing that was expected on that tide, coast-wise, and by the way of the Sound, had already arrived, and nothing could go eastward, with that light breeze and under canvas, until the flood made. Of course it was different with the steamers, who were paddling about like so many ducks, steering in all directions, though mostly crossing and re-crossing at the ferries. Just as Mulford turned away from his commander, however, a large vessel of that class shoved her bows into the view, doubling the Hook, and going eastward. The first glance at this vessel sufficed to drive even Rose Budd momentarily out of the minds of both master and mate, and to give a new current to their thoughts. Spike had been on the point of walking up the wharf but he now so far changed his purpose as actually to jump on board the brig and spring up alongside of his mate, on the taffrail, in order to get a better look at the steamer. Mulford, who loathed so much in his commander, was actually glad of this, Spike’s rare merit as a seaman forming a sort of attraction that held him, as it might be against his own will, bound to his service.

“What will they do next, Harry?” exclaimed the master, his manner and voice actually humanized, in air and sound at least, by this unexpected view of something new in his calling—“What will they do next?”

“I see no wheels, sir, nor any movement in the water astern, as if she were a propeller,” returned the young man.

“She’s an out-of-the-way sort of a hussy! She’s a man-of-war, too—one of Uncle Sam’s new efforts.”

“That can hardly be, sir. Uncle Sam has but three steamers, of any size or force, now the Missouri is burned, and yonder is one of them, lying at the Navy Yard, while another is, or was lately, laid up at Boston. The third is in the Gulf. This must be an entirely new vessel, if she belong to Uncle Sam.”

“New! She’s as new as a Governor, and they tell me they’ve got so now that they choose five or six of them, up at Albany, every fall. That craft is sea-going, Mr. Mulford, as any one can tell at a glance. She’s none of your passenger-hoys.”

“That’s plain enough, sir—and she’s armed. Perhaps she’s English, and they’ve brought her here into this open spot to try some new machinery. Ay, ay! she’s about to set her ensign to the navy men at the yard, and we shall see to whom she belongs.”

A long, low, expressive whistle from Spike succeeded this remark, the colors of the steamer going up to the end of a gaff on the sternmost of her schooner-rigged masts, just as Mulford ceased speaking. There was just air enough, aided by the steamer’s motion, to open the bunting, and let the spectators see the design. There were the stars and stripes, as usual, but the last ran perpendicularly, instead of in a horizontal direction.

“Revenue, by George!” exclaimed the master, as soon as his breath was exhausted in the whistle. “Who would have believed they could have screwed themselves up to doing such a thing in that bloody service?”

“I now remember to have heard that Uncle Sam was building some large steamers for the revenue service, and, if I mistake not, with some new invention to get along with, that is neither wheel nor propeller. This must be one of these new craft, brought out here, into open water, just to try her, sir.”

“You’re right, sir, you’re right. As to the natur’ of the beast, you see her buntin’, and no honest man can want more. If there’s any thing I do hate, it is that flag, with its unnat’ral stripes, up and down, instead of running in the true old way. I have heard a lawyer say, that the revenue flag of this country is onconstitutional, and that a vessel carrying it on the high seas might be sent in for piracy.”

Although Harry Mulford was neither Puffendorf nor Grotius, he had too much common sense, and too little prejudice in favor of even his own vocation, to swallow such a theory, had fifty Cherry-Street lawyers sworn to its justice. A smile crossed his fine, firm-looking mouth, and something very like a reflection of that smile, if smiles can be reflected in one’s own countenance, gleamed in his fine, large, dark eye.

“It would be somewhat singular, Capt. Spike,” he said, “if a vessel belonging to any nation should be seized as a pirate. The fact that she is national in character would clear her.”

“Then let her carry a national flag, and be d—d to her,” answered Spike fiercely. “I can show you law for what I say, Mr. Mulford. The American flag has its stripes fore and aft by law, and this chap carries his stripes parpendic’lar. If I commanded a cruiser, and fell in with one of these up and down gentry, blast me if I wouldn’t just send him into port, and try the question in the old Alms-House.”

Mulford probably did not think it worth while to argue the point any further, understanding the dogmatism and stolidity of his commander too well to deem it necessary. He preferred to turn to the consideration of the qualities of the steamer in sight, a subject on which, as seamen, they might better sympathise.

“That’s a droll-looking revenue cutter, after all, Capt. Spike,” he said—“a craft better fitted to go in a fleet, as a look-out vessel, than to chase a smuggler in-shore.”

“And no goer in the bargain! I do not see how she gets along, for she keeps all snug under water; but, unless she can travel faster than she does just now, the Molly Swash would soon lend her the Mother Carey’s Chickens of her own wake to amuse her.”

“She has the tide against her, just here, sir; no doubt she would do better in still water.”

Spike muttered something between his teeth, and jumped down on deck, seemingly dismissing the subject of the revenue entirely from his mind. His old, coarse, authoritative manner returned, and he again spoke to his mate about Rose Budd, her aunt, the “ladies’ cabin,” the “young flood,” and “casting off,” as soon as the last made. Mulford listened respectfully, though with a manifest distaste for the instructions he was receiving. He knew his man, and a feeling of dark distrust came over him, as he listened to his orders concerning the famous accommodations he intended to give to Rose Budd and that “capital old lady, her aunt;” his opinion of “the immense deal of good sea-air and a v’y’ge would do Rose,” and how “comfortable they both would be on board the Molly Swash.”

“I honor and respect Mrs. Budd, as my captain’s lady, you see, Mr. Mulford, and intend to treat her accordin’ly. She knows it—and Rose knows it—and they both declare they’d rather sail with me, since sail they must, than with any other ship-master out of America.”

“You sailed once with Capt. Budd yourself, I think I have heard you say, sir?”

“The old fellow brought me up. I was with him from my tenth to my twentieth year, and then broke adrift to see fashions. We all do that, you know, Mr. Mulford, when we are young and ambitious, and my turn came as well as another’s.”

“Capt. Budd must have been a good deal older than his wife, sir, if you sailed with him when a boy,” Mulford observed a little drily.

“Yes; I own to forty-eight, though no one would think me more than five or six-and-thirty, to look at me. There was a great difference between old Dick Budd and his wife, as you say, he being about fifty when he married, and she less than twenty. Fifty is a good age for matrimony, in a man, Mulford; as is twenty in a young woman.”

“Rose Budd is not yet nineteen, I have heard her say,” returned the mate, with emphasis.

“Youngish, I will own, but that’s a fault a liberal-minded man can overlook. Every day, too, will lessen it. Well, look to the cabins, and see all clear for a start. Josh will be down presently with a cart-load of stores, and you’ll take ’em aboard without delay.”

As Spike uttered this order, his foot was on the plank-sheer of the bulwarks, in the act of passing to the wharf again. On reaching the shore, he turned and looked intently at the revenue steamer, and his lips moved, as if he were secretly uttering maledictions on her. We say maledictions, as the expression of his fierce, ill-favored countenance too plainly showed that they could not be blessings. As for Mulford, there was still something on his mind, and he followed to the gangway ladder and ascended it, waiting for a moment, when the mind of his commander might be less occupied, to speak. The opportunity soon occurred, Spike having satisfied himself with the second look at the steamer.

“I hope you don’t mean to sail again without a second mate, Capt. Spike?” he said.

“I do, though, I can tell you. I hate Dickies—they are always in the way, and the captain has to keep just as much of a watch with one as without one.”

“That will depend on his quality. You and I have both been Dickies in our time, sir; and my time was not long ago.”

“Ay—ay—I know all about it—but you didn’t stick to it long enough to get spoiled. I would have no man aboard the Swash who made more than two v’y’ges as second officer. As I want no spies aboard my craft, I’ll try it once more without a Dicky.”

Saying this in a sufficiently positive manner, Capt. Stephen Spike rolled up the wharf, much as a ship goes off before the wind, now inclining to the right, and then again to the left. The gait of the man would have proclaimed him a sea-dog, to any one acquainted with that animal, as far as he could be seen. The short squab figure, the arms bent nearly at right angles at the elbow, and working like two fins with each roll of the body, the stumpy, solid legs, with the feet looking in the line of his course and kept wide apart, would all have contributed to the making up of such an opinion. Accustomed as he was to this beautiful sight, Harry Mulford kept his eyes riveted on the retiring person of his commander, until it disappeared behind a pile of lumber, waddling always in the direction of the more thickly peopled parts of the town. Then he turned and gazed at the steamer, which, by this time, had fairly passed the brig, and seemed to be actually bound through the Gate. That steamer was certainly a noble-looking craft, but our young man fancied she struggled along through the water heavily. She might be quick at need, but she did not promise as much by her present rate of moving. Still, she was a noble-looking craft, and, as Mulford descended to the deck again, he almost regretted he did not belong to her; or, at least, to any thing but the Molly Swash.

Two hours produced a sensible change in and around that brigantine. Her people had all come back to duty, and what was very remarkable among seafaring folk, sober to a man. But, as has been said, Spike was a temperance man, as respects all under his orders at least, if not strictly so in practice himself. The crew of the Swash was large for a half-rigged brig of only two hundred tons, but, as her spars were very square, and all her gear as well as her mould seemed constructed for speed, it was probable more hands than common were necessary to work her with facility and expedition. After all, there were not many persons to be enumerated among the “people of the Molly Swash,” as they called themselves; not more than a dozen, including those aft, as well as those forward. A peculiar feature of this crew, however, was the circumstance that they were all middle-aged men, with the exception of the mate, and all thorough-bred sea-dogs. Even Josh, the cabin-boy, as he was called, was an old, wrinkled, gray-headed negro, of near sixty. If the crew wanted a little in the elasticity of youth, it possessed the steadiness and experience of their time of life, every man appearing to know exactly what to do, and when to do it. This, indeed, composed their great merit; an advantage that Spike well knew how to appreciate.

The stores had been brought alongside of the brig in a cart, and were already stowed in their places. Josh had brushed and swept, until the ladies’ cabin could be made no neater. This ladies’ cabin was a small apartment beneath a trunk, which was, ingeniously enough, separated from the main cabin by pantries and double doors. The arrangement was unusual, and Spike had several times hinted that there was a history connected with that cabin; though what the history was Mulford never could induce him to relate. The latter knew that the brig had been used for a forced trade on the Spanish Main, and had heard something of her deeds in bringing off specie, and proscribed persons, at different epochs in the revolutions of that part of the world, and he had always understood that her present commander and owner had sailed in her, as mate, for many years before he had risen to his present station. Now, all was regular in the way of records, bills of sale, and other documents; Stephen Spike appearing in both the capacities just named. The register proved that the brig had been built as far back as the last English war, as a private cruiser, but recent and extensive repairs had made her “better than new,” as her owner insisted, and there was no question as to her sea-worthiness. It is true the insurance offices blew upon her, and would have nothing to do with a craft that had seen her two score years and ten; but this gave none who belonged to her any concern, inasmuch as they could scarcely have been underwritten in their trade, let the age of the vessel be what it might. It was enough for them that the brig was safe, and exceedingly fast, insurances never saving the lives of the people, whatever else might be their advantages. With Mulford it was an additional recommendation, that the Swash was usually thought to be of uncommonly just proportions.

By half past two, P. M., every thing was ready for getting the brigantine under way. Her foretopsail—or foretawsail, as Spike called it—was loose, the fasts were singled, and a spring had been carried to a post in the wharf that was well forward of the starboard bow, and the brig’s head turned to the southwest, or down stream, and consequently facing the young flood. Nothing seemed to connect the vessel with the land but a broad gangway plank, to which Mulford had attached life-lines, with more care than it is usual to meet with on board of vessels employed in short voyages. The men stood about the decks with their arms thrust into the bosoms of their shirts, and the whole picture was one of silent, and possibly of somewhat uneasy expectation. Nothing was said, however; Mulford walking the quarter-deck alone, occasionally looking up the still little tenanted streets of that quarter of the suburbs, as if to search for a carriage. As for the revenue-steamer, she had long before gone through the southern passage of Blackwell’s, steering for the Gate.

“Dat’s dem, Mr. Mulford,” Josh at length cried, from the look-out he had taken in a stern-port, where he could see over the low bulwarks of the vessel. “Yes, dat’s dem, sir. I know dat old gray horse dat carries his head so low and sorrowful like, as a horse has a right to do dat has to drag a cab about dis big town. My eye! what a horse it is, sir!”

Josh was right, not only as to the gray horse that carried his head “sorrowful like,” but as to the cab and its contents. The vehicle was soon on the wharf, and in its door soon appeared the short, sturdy figure of Capt. Spike, backing out, much as a bear descends a tree. On top of the vehicle were several light articles of female appliances, in the shape of bandboxes, bags, &c., the trunks having previously arrived in a cart. Well might that over-driven gray horse appear sorrowful, and travel with a lowered head. The cab, when it gave up its contents, discovered a load of no less than four persons besides the driver, all of weight, and of dimensions in proportion, with the exception of the pretty and youthful Rose Budd. Even she was plump, and of a well-rounded person; though still light and slender. But her aunt was a fair picture of a ship-master’s widow; solid, comfortable and buxom. Neither was she old, nor ugly. On the contrary, her years did not exceed forty, and being well preserved, in consequence of never having been a mother, she might even have passed for thirty-five. The great objection to her appearance was the somewhat indefinite character of her shape, which seemed to blend too many of its charms into one. The fourth person, in the fare, was Biddy Noon, the Irish servant and factotum of Mrs. Budd, who was a pock-marked, red-faced, and red-armed single woman, about her mistress’s own age and weight, though less stout to the eye.

Of Rose we shall not stop to say much here. Her deep-blue eye, which was equally spirited and gentle, if one can use such contradictory terms, seemed alive with interest and curiosity, running over the brig, the wharf, the arm of the sea, the two islands, and all near her, including the Alms-House, with such a devouring rapidity as might be expected in a town-bred girl, who was setting out on her travels for the first time. Let us be understood; we say town-bred, because such was the fact; for Rose Budd had been both born and educated in Manhattan, though we are far from wishing to be understood that she was either very-well born, or highly educated. Her station in life may be inferred from that of her aunt, and her education from her station. Of the two, the last was, perhaps, a trifle the highest.

We have said that the fine blue eye of Rose passed swiftly over the various objects near her, as she alighted from the cab, and it naturally took in the form of Harry Mulford, as he stood in the gangway, offering his arm to aid her aunt and herself in passing the brig’s side. A smile of recognition was exchanged between the young people, as their eyes met, and the color, which formed so bright a charm in Rose’s sweet face, deepened, in a way to prove that that color spoke with a tongue and eloquence of its own. Nor was Mulford’s cheek mute on the occasion, though he helped the hesitating, half-doubting, half-bold girl along the plank with a steady hand and rigid muscles. As for the aunt, as a captain’s widow, she had not felt it necessary to betray any extraordinary emotions in ascending the plank, unless, indeed, it might be those of delight on finding her foot once more on the deck of a vessel!

Something of the same feeling governed Biddy, too, for, as Mulford civilly extended his hand to her also, she exclaimed—

“No fear of me, Mr. Mate—I came from Ireland by wather, and knows all about ships and brigs, I do. If you could have seen the times we had, and the saas we crossed, you’d not think it nadeful to say much to the likes iv me.”

Spike had tact enough to understand he would be out of his element in assisting females along that plank, and he was busy in sending what he called “the old lady’s dunnage” on board, and in discharging the cabman. As soon as this was done, he sprang into the main-channels, and thence, viâ the bulwarks, on deck, ordering the plank to be hauled aboard. A solitary laborer was paid a quarter to throw off the fasts from the ring-bolts and posts, and every thing was instantly in motion to cast the brig loose. Work went on as if the vessel were in haste, and it consequently went on with activity. Spike bestirred himself giving his orders in a way to denote he had been long accustomed to exercise authority on the deck of a vessel, and knew his calling to its minutiæ. The only ostensible difference between his deportment to-day and on any ordinary occasion, perhaps, was in the circumstance that he now seemed anxious to get clear of the wharf and that in a way which might have attracted notice in any suspicious and attentive observer. It is possible that such a one was not very distant, and that Spike was aware of his presence, for a respectable-looking, well-dressed, middle-aged man had come down one of the adjacent streets, to a spot within a hundred yards of the wharf and stood silently watching the movements of the brig, as he leaned against a fence. The want of houses in that quarter enabled any person to see this stranger from the deck of the Swash, but no one on board her seemed to regard him at all, unless it might be the master.

“Come, bear a hand, my hearty, and toss that bow-fast clear,” cried the captain, whose impatience to be off seemed to increase as the time to do so approached nearer and nearer. “Off with it, at once, and let her go.”

The man on the wharf threw the turns of the hawser clear of the post, and the Swash was released forward. A smaller line, for a spring, had been run some distance along the wharves, ahead of the vessel, and brought in aft. Her people clapped on this, and gave way to their craft, which, being comparatively light, was easily moved, and was very manageable. As this was done, the distant spectator who had been leaning on the fence, moved toward the wharf with a step a little quicker than common. Almost at the same instant, a short, stout, sailor-like looking little person, waddled down the nearest street, seeming to be in somewhat of a hurry, and presently he joined the other stranger, and appeared to enter into conversation with him; pointing toward the Swash, as he did so. All this time, both continued to advance toward the wharf.

In the meanwhile, Spike and his people were not idle. The tide did not run very strong near the wharves and in the sort of a bight in which the vessel had lain, but, such as it was, it soon took the brig on her inner bow, and began to cast her head off shore. The people at the spring pulled away with all their force, and got sufficient motion on their vessel to overcome the tide, and to give the rudder an influence. The latter was put hard a-starboard, and helped to cast the brig’s head to the southward.

Down to this moment, the only sail that was loose on board the Swash, was the fore-topsail, as mentioned. This still hung in the gear, but a hand had been sent aloft to overhaul the buntlines and clew-lines, and men were also at the sheets. In a minute the sail was ready for hoisting. The Swash carried a wapper of a fore-and-aft mainsail, and, what is more, it was fitted with a standing gaff, for appearance in port. At sea, Spike knew better than to trust to this arrangement, but in fine weather, and close in with the land, he found it convenient to have this sail haul out and brail like a ship’s spanker. As the gaff was now aloft, it was only necessary to let go the brails to loosen this broad sheet of canvas, and to clap on the out-hauler, to set it. This was probably the reason why the brig was so unceremoniously cast into the stream, without showing more of her cloth. The jib and flying-jibs, however, did at that moment drop beneath their booms, ready for hoisting.

Such was the state of things as the two strangers came first upon the wharf. Spike was on the taffrail, overhauling the main-sheet, and Mulford was near him, casting the fore-topsail braces from the pins, preparatory to clapping on the halyards.

“I say, Mr. Mulford,” asked the captain, “did you ever see either of them chaps afore? These jokers on the wharf I mean.”

“Not to my recollection, sir,” answered the mate, looking over the taffrail to examine the parties. “The little one is a burster! The funniest looking little fat old fellow I’ve seen in many a day.”

“Ay, ay, them fat little bursters, as you call ’em, are sometimes full of the devil. I don’t like either of the chaps, and am right glad we are well cast, before they got here.”

“I do not think either would be likely to do us much harm, Capt. Spike.”

“There’s no knowing, sir. The biggest fellow looks as if he might lug out a silver oar at any moment.”

“I believe the silver oar is no longer used, in this country at least,” answered Mulford, smiling. “And if it were, what have we to fear from it? I fancy the brig has paid her reckoning.”

“She don’t owe a cent, nor ever shall for twenty-four hours after the bill is made out, while I own her. They call me ready-money Stephen, round among the ship-chandlers and caulkers. But I don’t like them chaps, and what I don’t relish I never swallow, you know.”

“They’ll hardly try to get aboard us, sir; you see we are quite clear of the wharf, and the mainsail will take now, if we set it.”

Spike ordered the mate to clap on the out-hauler, and spread that broad sheet of canvas at once to the little breeze there was. This was almost immediately done, when the sail filled, and began to be felt on the movement of the vessel. Still, that movement was very slow, the wind being so light, and the vis inertiæ of so large a body remaining to be overcome. The brig receded from the wharf, almost in a line at right angles to its face, inch by inch, as it might be, dropping slowly up with the tide at the same time. Mulford now passed forward to set the jibs, and to get the topsail on the craft, leaving Spike on the taffrail, keenly eyeing the strangers, who, by this time, had got down nearly to the end of the wharf, at the berth so lately occupied by the Swash. That the captain was uneasy was evident enough, that feeling being exhibited in his countenance, blended with a malignant ferocity.

“Has that brig any pilot?” asked the larger and better-looking of the two strangers.

“What’s that to you, friend?” demanded Spike, in return. “Have you a Hell-Gate branch?”

“I may have one, or I may not. It is not usual for so large a craft to run the Gate without a pilot.”

“Oh! my gentleman’s below, brushing up his logarithms. We shall have him on deck to take his departure before long, when I’ll let him know your kind inquiries after his health.”

The man on the wharf seemed to be familiar with this sort of sea-wit, and he made no answer, but continued that close scrutiny of the brig, by turning his eyes in all directions, now looking below, and now aloft, which had in truth occasioned Spike’s principal cause for uneasiness.

“Is not that Capt. Stephen Spike, of the brigantine Molly Swash?” called out the little, dumpling-looking person, in a cracked, dwarfish sort of a voice, that was admirably adapted to his appearance. Our captain fairly started; turned full toward the speaker; regarded him intently for a moment, and gulped the words he was about to utter, like one confounded. As he gazed, however, at little dumpy, examining his bow-legs, red broad cheeks, and coarse snub nose, he seemed to regain his self-command, as if satisfied the dead had not really returned to life.

“Are you acquainted with the gentleman you have named?” he asked, by way of answer. “You speak of him like one who ought to know him.”

Josh educating a Pig
Philadelphia 1847

“A body is apt to know a shipmate. Stephen Spike and I sailed together twenty years since, and I hope to live to sail with him again.”

“You sail with Stephen Spike? when and where, may I ask, and in what v’y’ge, pray?”

“The last time was twenty years since. Have you forgotten little Jack Tier, Capt. Spike?”

Spike looked astonished, and well he might, for he had supposed Jack to be dead fully fifteen years. Time and hard service had greatly altered him, but the general resemblance in figure, stature, and waddle, certainly remained. Notwithstanding, the Jack Tier Spike remembered was quite a different person from this Jack Tier. That Jack had worn his intensely black hair clubbed and curled, whereas this Jack had cut his locks into short bristles, which time had turned into an intense gray. That Jack was short and thick, but he was flat and square; whereas this Jack was just as short, a good deal thicker, and as round as a dumpling. In one thing, however, the likeness still remained perfect. Both Jacks chewed tobacco, to a degree that became a distinct feature in their appearance.

Spike had many reasons for wishing Jack Tier were not resuscitated in this extraordinary manner, and some for being glad to see him. The fellow had once been largely in his confidence, and knew more than was quite safe for any one to remember but himself while he might be of great use to him in his future operations. It is always convenient to have one at your elbow who thoroughly understands you, and Spike would have lowered a boat and sent it to the wharf to bring Jack off, were it not for the gentleman who was so inquisitive about pilots. Under the circumstances, he determined to forego the advantages of Jack’s presence, reserving the right to hunt him up on his return.

The reader will readily enough comprehend that the Molly Swash was not absolutely standing still while the dialogue related was going on, and the thoughts we have recorded were passing through her master’s mind. On the contrary, she was not only in motion, but that motion was gradually increasing, and by the time all was said that has been related, it had become necessary for those who spoke to raise their voices to an inconvenient pitch in order to be heard. This circumstance alone would soon have put an end to the conversation, had not Spike’s pausing to reflect brought about the same result, as mentioned.

In the mean time, Mulford had got the canvas spread. Forward, the Swash showed all the cloth of a full-rigged brig, even to royals and flying gib; while aft, her masts was the raking, tall, naked pole of an American schooner. There was a taut top-mast, too, to which a gaff-topsail was set, and the gear proved that she could also show, at need, a staysail in this part of her, if necessary. As the Gate was before them, however, the people had set none but the plain, manageable canvas.

The Molly Swash kept close on a wind, luffing athwart the broad reach she was in, until far enough to weather Blackwell’s, when she edged off to her course, and went through the southern passage. Although the wind remained light, and a little baffling, the brig was so easily impelled, and was so very handy, that there was no difficulty in keeping her perfectly in command. The tide, too, was fast increasing in strength and velocity, and the movement from this cause alone was getting to be sufficiently rapid.

As for the passengers, of whom we have lost sight in order to get the brig under way, they were now on deck again. At first, they had all gone below, under the care of Josh, a somewhat rough groom of the chambers, to take possession of their apartment, a sufficiently neat, and exceedingly comfortable cabin, supplied with every thing that could be wanted at sea, and, what was more, lined on two of its sides with state-rooms. It is true, all these apartments were small, and the state-rooms were very low, but no fault could be found with their neatness and general arrangements, when it was recollected that one was on board a vessel.

“Here ebbery t’ing heart can wish,” said Josh, exultingly, who, being an old-school black, did not disdain to use some of the old-school dialect of his caste. “Yes, ladies, ebbery t’ing. Let Capt. Spike alone for dat! He won’erful at accommodation! Not a bed-bug aft—know better dan come here; jest like de people, in dat respects, and keep deir place forrard. You nebber see a pig come on the quarter-deck, nudder.”

“You must maintain excellent discipline, Josh,” cried Rose, in one of the sweetest voices in the world, which was easily attuned to merriment—“and we are delighted to learn what you tell us. How do you manage to keep up these distinctions, and make such creatures know their places so well?”

“Nuttin easier, if you begins right, miss. As for de pig, I teach dem wid scaldin’ water. Whenever I sees a pig come aft, I gets a little water from de copper, and just scald him wid it. You can’t t’ink, miss, how dat mend his manners, and make him squeel fuss, and t’ink arter. In that fashion I soon gets de ole ones in good trainin’, and den I has no more trouble with dem as comes fresh aboard; for de ole hog tell de young one, and ’em won’erful cunnin’, and know how to take care of ’emself.”

Rose Budd’s sweet eyes were full of fun and expectation, and she could no more repress her laugh than youth and spirits can always be discreet.

“Yes, with the pigs,” she cried, “that might do very well; but how is it with those—other creatures?”

“Rosy, dear,” interrupted the aunt, “I wish you would say no more about such shocking things. It’s enough for us that Capt. Spike has ordered them all to stay forward among the men, which is always done on board well disciplined vessels. I’ve heard your uncle say, a hundred times, that the quarter-deck was sacred, and that might be enough to keep such animals off it.”

It was barely necessary to look at Mrs. Budd in the face to get a very accurate general notion of her character. She was one of those inane, uncultivated beings, who seem to be protected by a benevolent Providence in their pilgrimage on earth, for they do not seem to possess the power to protect themselves. Her very countenance expressed imbecility and mental dependence, credulity and a love of gossip. Notwithstanding these radical weaknesses, the good woman had some of the better instincts of her sex, and was never guilty of any thing that could properly convey reproach. She was no monitress for Rose, however, the niece much oftener influencing the aunt than the aunt influencing the niece. The latter had been fortunate in having had an excellent instructress, who, though incapable of teaching her much in the way of accomplishments, had imparted a great deal that was respectable and useful. Rose had character, and strong character, too, as the course of our narrative will show; but her worthy aunt was a pure picture of as much mental imbecility as at all comported with the privileges of self-government.

The conversation about “those other creatures” was effectually checked by Mrs. Budd’s horror of the “animals,” and Josh was called on deck so shortly after as to prevent its being renewed. The females staid below a few minutes, to take possession, and then they re-appeared on deck, to gaze at the horrors of the Hell-Gate passage. Rose was all eyes, wonder and admiration of every thing she saw. This was actually the first time she had ever been on the water, in any sort of craft, though born and brought up in sight of one of the most thronged havens in the world. But there must be a beginning to every thing, and this was Rose Budd’s beginning on the water. It is true the brigantine was a very beautiful, as well as an exceedingly swift vessel, but all this was lost on Rose, who would have admired a horse-jockey bound to the West Indies, in this the incipient state of her nautical knowledge. Perhaps the exquisite neatness that Mulford maintained about every thing that came under his care, and that included every thing on deck, or above board, and about which neatness Spike occasionally muttered an oath, as so much senseless trouble, contributed somewhat to Rose’s pleasure; but her admiration would scarcely have been less with anything that had sails, and seemed to move through the water with a power approaching that of volition.

It was very different with Mrs. Budd. She, good woman, had actually made one voyage with her late husband, and she fancied that she knew all about a vessel. It was her delight to talk on nautical subjects, and never did she really feel her great superiority over her niece, so very unequivocally, as when the subject of the ocean was introduced, about which she did know something, and touching which Rose was profoundly ignorant, or as ignorant as a girl of lively imagination could remain with the information gleaned from others.

“I am not surprised you are astonished at the sight of the vessel, Rosy,” observed the self-complacent aunt at one of her niece’s exclamations of admiration. “A vessel is a very wonderful thing, and we are told what extr’orny beings they are that ‘go down to the sea in ships.’ But you are to know this is not a ship at all, but only a half-jigger rigged, which is altogether a different thing.”

“Was my uncle’s vessel, The Rose In Bloom, then, very different from the Swash?”

“Very different, indeed, child! Why, The Rose In Bloom was a full-jiggered ship, and had twelve masts—and this is only a half-jiggered brig, and has but two masts. See, you may count them—one—two!”

Harry Mulford was coiling away a top-gallant-brace, directly in front of Mrs. Budd and Rose, and, at hearing this account of the wonderful equipment of The Rose In Bloom, he suddenly looked up, with a lurking expression about his eye that the niece very well comprehended, while he exclaimed, without much reflection, under the impulse of surprise⁠—

“Twelve masts! Did I understand you to say, ma’am, that Capt. Budd’s ship had twelve masts?”

“Yes, sir, twelve! and I can tell you all their names, for I learnt them by heart—it appearing to me proper that a ship-master’s wife should know the names of all the masts in her husband’s vessel. Do you wish to hear their names, Mr. Mulford?”

Harry Mulford would have enjoyed this conversation to the top of his bent, had it not been for Rose. She well knew her aunt’s general weakness of intellect, and especially its weakness on this particular subject, but she would suffer no one to manifest contempt for either, if in her power to prevent it. It is seldom one so young, so mirthful, so ingenuous and innocent in the expression of her countenance, assumed so significant and rebuking a frown as did pretty Rose Budd when she heard the mate’s involuntary exclamation about the “twelve masts.” Harry, who was not easily checked by his equals, or any of his own sex, submitted to that rebuking frown with the meekness of a child, and stammered out, in answer to the well-meaning, but weak-minded widow’s question⁠—

“If you please, Mrs. Budd—just as you please, ma’am—only twelve is a good many masts—” Rose frowned again—“that is—more than I’m used to seeing—that’s all.”

“I dare say, Mr. Mulford—for you sail in only a half-jigger; but Capt. Budd always sailed in a full-jigger—and his full-jiggered ship had just twelve masts, and, to prove it to you, I’ll give you the names—first, then, there were the fore, main, and mizzen masts⁠—”

“Yes—yes—ma’am,” stammered Harry, who wished the twelve masts and The Rose In Bloom at the bottom of the ocean, since her owner’s niece still continued to look coldly displeased—“that’s right, I can swear!”

“Very true, sir, and you’ll find I am right as to all the rest. Then, there were the fore, main, and mizzen top-masts—they make six, if I can count, Mr. Mulford?”

“Ah!” exclaimed the mate, laughing, in spite of Rose’s frowns, as the manner in which the old sea-dog had quizzed his wife became apparent to him. “I see how it is—you are quite right, ma’am—I dare say The Rose In Bloom had all these masts, and some to spare.”

“Yes, sir—I knew you would be satisfied. The fore, main and mizzen top-gallant-masts make nine—and the fore, main and mizzen royals make just twelve. Oh, I’m never wrong in any thing about a vessel, especially if she is a full-jiggered ship.”

Mulford had some difficulty in restraining his smiles each time the full-jigger was mentioned, but Rose’s expression of countenance kept him in excellent order—and she, innocent creature, saw nothing ridiculous in the term, though the twelve masts had given her a little alarm. Delighted that the old lady had got through her enumeration of the spars with so much success, Rose cried, in the exuberance of her spirits⁠—

“Well, aunty, for my part, I find a half-jigger vessel so very, very beautiful, that I do not know how I should behave were I to go on board a full-jigger.”

Mulford turned abruptly away, the circumstance of Rose’s making herself ridiculous giving him sudden pain, though he could have laughed at her aunt by the hour.

“Ah, my dear, that is on account of your youth and inexperience—but you will learn better in time. I was just so, myself when I was of your age, and thought the fore-rafters were as handsome as the squared-jiggers, but soon after I married Capt. Budd I felt the necessity of knowing more than I did about ships, and I got him to teach me. He didn’t like the business, at first, and pretended I would never learn; but, at last, it came all at once like, and then he used to be delighted to hear me ‘talk ship,’ as he called it. I’ve known him laugh, with his cronies, as if ready to die, at my expertness in sea-terms, for half an hour together—and then he would swear—that was the worst fault your uncle had, Rosy—he would swear, sometimes, in a way that frightened me, I do declare!”

“But he never swore at you, aunty?”

“I can’t say that he did exactly do that, but he would swear all round me, even if he didn’t actually touch me, when things went wrong—but it would have done your heart good to hear him laugh! He had a most excellent heart, just like your own, Rosy dear; but, for that matter, all the Budds have excellent hearts, and one of the commonest ways your uncle had of showing it was to laugh, particularly when we were together and talking. Oh, he used to delight in hearing me converse, especially about vessels, and never failed to get me at it when he had company. I see his good-natured, excellent-hearted countenance at this moment, with the tears running down his fat, manly cheeks, as he shook his very sides with laughter. I may live a hundred years, Rosy, before I meet again with your uncle’s equal.”

This was a subject that invariably silenced Rose. She remembered her uncle, herself, and remembered his affectionate manner of laughing at her aunt, and she always wished the latter to get through her eulogiums on her married happiness, as soon as possible, whenever the subject was introduced.

All this time the Molly Swash kept in motion. Spike never took a pilot when he could avoid it, and his mind was too much occupied with his duty, in that critical navigation, to share at all in the conversation of his passengers, though he did endeavor to make himself agreeable to Rose, by an occasional remark, when a favorable opportunity offered. As soon as he had worked his brig over into the south or weather passage of Blackwell’s, however, there remained little for him to do, until she had drifted through it, a distance of a mile or more, and this gave him leisure to do the honors. He pointed out the castellated edifice on Blackwell’s as the new penitentiary, and the hamlet of villas, on the other shore, as Ravenswood, though there is neither wood nor ravens to authorize the name. But the “Sunswick,” which satisfied the Delafields and Gibbses of the olden time, and which distinguished their lofty halls and broad lawns, was not elegant enough for the cockney tastes of these later days, so “wood” must be made to usurp the place of cherries and apples, and “ravens” that of gulls, in order to satisfy its cravings. But all this was lost on Spike. He remembered the shore as it had been twenty years before, and he saw what it was now, but little did he care for the change. On the whole, he rather preferred the Grecian Temples, over which the ravens would have been compelled to fly, had there been any ravens in that neighborhood, to the old fashioned and highly respectable residence that once alone occupied the spot. The point he did understand, however, and on the merits of which he had something to say, was a little farther ahead. That, too, had been re-christened—the Hallet’s Cove of the mariner being converted into Astoria—not that bloody-minded place at the mouth of the Oregon, which has come so near bringing us to blows with our “ancestors in England,” as the worthy denizens of that quarter choose to consider themselves still, if one can judge by their language. This Astoria was a very different place, and is one of the many suburban villages that are shooting up, like mushrooms, in a night, around the great Commercial Emporium. This spot Spike understood perfectly, and it was not likely that he should pass it without communicating a portion of his knowledge to Rose.

“There, Miss Rose,” he said, with a didactic sort of air, pointing with his short, thick finger at the little bay which was just opening to their view; “there’s as neat a cove as a craft need bring up in. That used to be a capital place to lie in, to wait for a wind to pass the Gate; but it has got to be most too public for my taste. I’m rural, I tell Mulford, and love to get in out-of-the-way berths with my brig, where she can see salt-meadows, and smell the clover. You never catch me down in any of the crowded slips, around the markets, or any where in that part of the town, for I do love country air. That’s Hallet’s Cove, Miss Rose, and a pretty anchorage it would be for us, if the wind and tide didn’t sarve to take us through the Gate.”

“Are we near the Gate, Capt. Spike?” asked Rose, the fine bloom on her cheek lessening a little, under the apprehension that formidable name is apt to awaken in the breasts of the inexperienced.

“Half a mile, or so. It begins just at the other end of this island on our larboard hand, and will be all over in about another half mile, or so. It’s no such bad place, a’ter all, is Hell-Gate, to them that’s used to it. I call myself a pilot in Hell-Gate, though I have no branch.”

“I wish, Capt. Spike, I could teach you to give that place its proper and polite name. We call it Whirl-Gate altogether now,” said the relict.

“Well, that’s new to me,” cried Spike. “I have heard some chicken-mouthed folk say Hurl-Gate, but this is the first time I ever heard it called Whirl-Gate—they’ll get it to Whirlagig-Gate next. I don’t think that my old commander, Capt. Budd called the passage any thing but honest, up and down Hell-Gate.”

“That he did—that he did—and all my arguments and reading could not teach him any better. I proved to him that it was Whirl-Gate, as any one can see that it ought to be. It is full of Whirlpools, they say, and that shows what Nature meant the name to be.”

“But, aunty,” put in Rose, half reluctantly, half anxious to speak, “what has gate to do with whirlpools? You will remember it is called a gate—the gate to that wicked place I suppose is meant.”

“Rose, you amaze me! How can you, a young woman of only nineteen, stand up for so vulgar a name as Hell-Gate?”

“Do you think it as vulgar as Hurl-Gate, aunty? To me it always seems the most vulgar to be straining at gnats.”

“Yes,” said Spike, sentimentally, “I’m quite of Miss Rose’s way of thinking—straining at gnats is very ill-manners, especially at table. I once knew a man who strained in this way, until I thought he would have choked, though it was with a fly to be sure; but gnats are nothing but small flies, you know, Miss Rose. Yes, I’m quite of your way of thinking, Miss Rose; it is very vulgar to be straining at gnats and flies, more particularly at table. But you’ll find no flies or gnats aboard here, to be straining at, or brushing away, or to annoy you. Stand by there, my hearties, and see all clear to run through Hell-Gate. Don’t let me catch you straining at any thing, though it should be the fin of a whale!”

The people forward looked at each other, as they listened to this novel admonition, though they called out the customary “ay, ay, sir,” as they went to the sheets, braces and bowlines. To them the passage of no Hell-Gate conveyed the idea of any particular terror, and with the one they were about to enter, they were much too familiar to care any thing about it.

The brig was now floating fast, with the tide, up abreast of the east end of Blackwell’s, and in two or three more minutes she would be fairly in the Gate. Spike was aft, where he could command a view of every thing forward, and Mulford stood on the quarter-deck, to look after the head-braces. An old and trustworthy seaman, who acted as a sort of boatswain, had the charge on the forecastle, and was to tend the sheets and tack. His name was Rove.

“See all clear,” called out Spike. “D’ye hear there, for’ard! I shall make a half-board in the Gate, if the wind favor us, and the tide prove strong enough to hawse us to wind’ard sufficiently to clear the pot—so mind your⁠—”

The captain breaking off in the middle of this harangue, Mulford turned his head, in order to see what might be the matter. There was Spike, leveling a spy-glass at a boat that was pulling swiftly out of the north channel, and shooting like an arrow directly athwart the brig’s bows into the main passage of the Gate. He stepped to the captain’s elbow.

“Just take a look at them chaps, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, handing his mate the glass.

“They seem in a hurry,” answered Harry, as he adjusted the glass to his eye, “and will go through the Gate in less time than it will take to mention the circumstance.”

“What do you make of them, sir?”

“The little man who called himself Jack Tier is in the stern-sheets of the boat, for one,” answered Mulford.

“And the other, Harry—what do you make of the other?”

“It seems to be the chap who hailed to know if we had a pilot. He means to board us at Riker’s Island, and make us pay pilotage, whether we want his services or not.”

“Blast him and his pilotage too! Give me the glass”—taking another long look at the boat, which by this time was glancing, rather than pulling, nearly at right angles across his bows. “I want no such pilot aboard here, Mr. Mulford. Take another look at him—here, you can see him, away on our weather bow, already.”

Mulford did take another look at him, and this time his examination was longer and more scrutinising than before.

“It is not easy to cover him with the glass,” observed the young man—“the boat seems fairly to fly.”

“We’re forereaching too near the Hog’s Back, Capt. Spike,” roared the boatswain, from forward.

“Ready about—hard a-lee,” shouted Spike. “Let all fly, for’ard—help her round, boys, all you can, and wait for no orders! Bestir yourselves—bestir yourselves.”

It was time the crew should be in earnest. While Spike’s attention had been thus diverted by the boat, the brig had got into the strongest of the current, which, by setting her fast to windward, had trebled the power of the air, and this was shooting her over toward one of the greatest dangers of the passage on a flood tide. As everybody bestirred themselves, however, she was got round and filled on the opposite tack, just in time to clear the rocks. Spike breathed again, but his head was still full of the boat. The danger he had just escaped as Scylla met him as Charybdis. The boatswain again roared to go about. The order was given as the vessel began to pitch in a heavy swell. At the next instant she rolled until the water came on deck, whirled with her stern down the tide, and her bows rose as if she were about to leap out of water. The Swash had hit the Pot Rock.

——

PART II.

We left the brigantine of Capt. Spike in a very critical situation, and the master himself in great confusion of mind. A thorough seaman, this accident would never have happened, but for the sudden appearance of the boat and its passengers; one of whom appeared to be a source of great uneasiness to him. As might be expected, the circumstance of striking a place as dangerous as the Pot Rock in Hell-Gate, produced a great sensation on board the vessel. This sensation betrayed itself in various ways, and according to the characters, habits, and native firmness of the parties. As for the ship-master’s relict, she seized hold of the main-mast, and screamed so loud and perseveringly, as to cause the sensation to extend itself into the adjacent and thriving village of Astoria, where it was distinctly heard by divers of those who dwelt near the water. Biddy Noon had her share in this clamor, lying down on the deck in order to prevent rolling over, and possibly to scream more at her leisure, while Rose had sufficient self-command to be silent, though her cheeks lost their color.

Nor was there any thing extraordinary in females betraying this alarm, when one remembers the somewhat astounding signs of danger by which these persons were surrounded. There is always something imposing in the swift movement of a considerable body of water. When this movement is aided by whirlpools and the other similar accessories of an interrupted current, it frequently becomes startling, more especially to those who happen to be on the element itself. This is peculiarly the case with the Pot Rock, where, not only does the water roll and roar as if agitated by a mighty wind, but where it even breaks, the foam seeming to glance up stream, in the rapid succession of wave to wave. Had the Swash remained in her terrific berth more than a second or two, she would have proved what is termed a “total loss;” but she did not. Happily the Pot Rock lies so low, that it is not apt to fetch up any thing of a light draught of water; and the brigantine’s fore-foot had just settled on its summit, long enough to cause the vessel to whirl round and make her obeisance to the place, when a succeeding swell lifted her clear, and away she went down stream, rolling as if scudding in a gale, and, for a moment, under no command whatever. There lay another danger ahead, or it would be better to say astern, for the brig was drifting stern foremost, and that was in an eddy under a bluff, which bluff lies at an angle in the reach, where it is no uncommon thing for craft to be cast ashore, after they have passed all the more imposing and more visible dangers above. It was in escaping this danger, and in recovering the command of his vessel, that Spike now manifested the sort of stuff of which he was really made, in emergencies of this sort. The yards were all sharp up when the accident occurred, and springing to the lee-braces, just as a man winks when his eye is menaced, he seized the weather fore-brace with his own hands, and began to round in the yard, shouting out to the man at the wheel to “port his helm” at the same time. Some of the people flew to his assistance, and the yards were not only squared, but braced a little up on the other tack, in much less time than we have taken to relate the evolution. Mulford attended to the main-sheet, and succeeded in getting the boom out in the right direction. Although the wind was in truth very light, the velocity of the drift filled the canvas, and taking the arrow-like current on her lee bow, the Swash, like a frantic steed that is alarmed with the wreck made by his own madness, came under command, and sheered out into the stream again, where she could drift clear of the apprehended danger astern.

“Sound the pumps,” called out Spike to Mulford, the instant he saw he had regained his seat in the saddle. Harry sprang amidships to obey, and the eye of every mariner in that vessel was on the young man, as, in the midst of a death-like silence, he performed this all-important duty. It was like the physician’s feeling the pulse of his patient before he pronounces on the degree of his danger.

“Well, sir?” cried out Spike, impatiently, as the rod re-appeared.

“All right, sir,” answered Harry, cheerfully—“the well is nearly empty.”

“Hold on a moment longer, and give the water time to find its way amidships, if there be any.”

The mate remained perched up on the pump, in order to comply, while Spike and his people, who now breathed more freely again, improved the leisure to brace up and haul aft, to the new course.

“Biddy,” said Mrs. Budd, considerately, during this pause in the incidents, “you needn’t scream any longer. The danger seems to be past, and you may get up off the deck now. See, I have let go of the mast. The pumps have been sounded, and are found tight.”

Biddy, like an obedient and respectful servant, did as directed, quite satisfied if the pumps were tight. It was some little time, to be sure, before she was perfectly certain whether she were alive or not—but, once certain of this circumstance, her alarm very sensibly abated, and she became reasonable. As for Mulford, he dropped the sounding rod again, and had the same cheering report to make.

“The brig is tight as a bottle, sir.”

“So much the better,” answered Spike. “I never had such a whirl in her before in my life, and I thought she was going to stop and pass the night there. That’s the very spot on which ‘The Hussar’ frigate was wrecked.”

“So I have heard, sir. But she drew so much water that she hit slap against the rock, and started a butt. We merely touched on its top, with our fore-foot, and slid off.”

This was the simple explanation of the Swash’s escape, and every body being now well assured that no harm had been done, things fell into their old and regular train again. As for Spike, his gallantry, notwithstanding, was upset for some hours, and glad enough was he when he saw all three of his passengers quit the deck to go below. Mrs. Budd’s spirits had been so much agitated that she told Rose she would go down into the cabin and rest a few minutes on its sofa. We say sofa, for that article of furniture, now-a-days, is far more common in vessels than it was thirty years ago in the dwellings of the country.

“There, Mulford,” growled Spike, pointing ahead of the brig, to an object on the water that was about half a mile ahead of them, “there’s that bloody boat—d’ye see? I should like of all things to give it the slip. There’s a chap in that boat I don’t like.”

“I don’t see how that can be very well done, sir, unless we anchor, repass the gate at the turn of the tide, and go to sea by the way of Sandy Hook.”

“That will never do. I’ve no wish to be parading the brig before the town. You see, Mulford, nothing can be more innocent and proper than the Molly Swash, as you know from having sailed in her these twelvemonths. You’ll give her that character, I’ll be sworn?”

“I know no harm of her, Capt. Spike, and hope I never shall.”

“No, sir—you know no harm of her, nor does any one else. A nursing infant is not more innocent than the Molly Swash, or could have a clearer character, if nothing but truth was said of her. But the world is so much given to lying, that one of the old saints, of whom we read in the good book, such as Calvin and John Rogers, would be vilified if he lived in these times. Then, it must be owned, Mr. Mulford, whatever may be the raal innocence of the brig, she has a most desperate wicked look.”

“Why, yes, sir—it must be owned she is what we sailors call a wicked-looking craft. But some of Uncle Sam’s cruisers have that appearance also.”

“I know it—I know it, sir, and think nothing of looks myself. Men are often deceived in me, by my looks, which have none of your long-shore softness about ’em, perhaps; but my mother used to say I was one of the most tender-hearted boys she had ever heard spoken of—like one of the babes in the woods, as it might be. But mankind go so much by appearances, that I do not like to trust the brig too much afore their eyes. Now, should we be seen in the lower bay, waiting for a wind, or for the ebb tide to make, to carry us over the bar, ten to one but some philotropic or other would be off with a complaint to the District Attorney, that we looked like a slaver, and have us all fetched up to be tried for our lives as pirates. No, no—I like to keep the brig in out-of-the-way places, where she can give no offence to your ’tropics, whether they be philos, or of any other sort.”

“Well, sir, we are to the eastward of the Gate, and all’s safe. That boat cannot bring us up.”

“You forget, Mr. Mulford, the revenue craft that steamed up, on the ebb. That vessel must be off Sands’ Point by this time, and she may hear something to our disparagement from the feller in the boat, and take it into her smoky head to walk us back to town. I wish we were well to the eastward of that steamer! But there’s no use in lamentations. If there is really any danger, it’s some distance ahead yet, thank Heaven!”

“You have no fears of the man who calls himself Jack Tier, Capt. Spike?”

“None in the world. That feller, as I remember him, was a little bustlin’ chap that I kept in the cabin, as a sort of steward’s mate. There was neither good nor harm in him, to the best of my recollection. But Josh can tell us all about him—just give Josh a call.”

The best thing in the known history of Spike was the fact that his steward had sailed with him for more than twenty years. Where he had picked up Josh no one could say, but Josh and himself, and neither chose to be very communicative on the subject. But Josh had certainly been with him as long as he had sailed the Swash, and that was from a time actually anterior to the birth of Mulford. The mate soon had the negro in the council.

“I say, Josh,” asked Spike, “do you happen to remember such a hand aboard here as one Jack Tier?”

“Lor’ bless you, yes, sir—’members he as well as I do the pea-soup that was burnt, and which you t’rowed all over him to scald him for punishment.”

“I’ve had to do that so often, to one careless fellow or other, that the circumstance doesn’t recall the man. I remember him, but not as clear as I could wish. How long did he sail with us?”

“Sebberal v’y’ge, sir, and got left ashore down on the Main, one night, when ’e boat war obliged to shove off in a hurry. Yes, ’members little Jack, right well I does.”

“Did you see the man that spoke us from the wharf, and hailed for this very Jack Tier?”

“I see’d a man, sir, dat was won’erful Jack Tier built like, sir; but I didn’t hear the conwersation, habbin’ the ladies to ’tend to. But Jack was oncommon short in his floor timbers, sir, and had no length of keel at all. His beam was won’erful for his length, altogedder—what you call jolly-boat or bum-boat build, and was only good afore ’e wind, Capt. Spike.”

“Was he good for any thing aboard ship, Josh? Worth heaving-to for, should he try to get aboard of us again?”

“Why, sir, can’t say much for him in dat fashion. Jack was handy in the cabin, and capital feller to carry soup from the galley, aft. You see, sir, he was so low-rigged that the brig’s lurchin’ and pitchin’ couldn’t get him off his pins, and he stood up like a church in the heaviest wea’der. Yes, sir, Jack was right good for dat.”

Spike mused a moment—then he rolled the tobacco over in his mouth, and added, in the way a man speaks when his mind is made up⁠—

“Ay, ay!—I see into the fellow. He’ll make a handy lady’s maid, and we want such a chap, just now. It’s better to have an old friend aboard, than to be pickin’ up strangers, ’long shore. So, should this Jack Tier come off to us, from any of the islands or points ahead, Mr. Mulford, you’ll round to and take him aboard. As for the steamer, if she will only pass out into the Sound, where there’s room, it shall go hard with us but I get to the eastward of her, without speaking. On the other hand, should she anchor this side of the Fort, I’ll not attempt to pass her. There is deep water inside of most of the islands, I know, and we’ll try and dodge her in that way, if no better offer. I’ve no more reason than another craft, to fear a government vessel; but the sight of one of them makes me oncomfortable—that’s all.”

Mulford shrugged his shoulders, and remained silent, perceiving that his commander was not disposed to pursue the subject any further. In the mean time, the brig had passed beyond the influence of the bluff, and was beginning to feel a stronger breeze, that was coming down the wide opening of Flushing Bay. As the tide still continued strong in her favor, and her motion through the water was getting to be four or five knots, there was every prospect of her soon reaching Whitestone, the point where the tides meet, and where it would become necessary to anchor; unless, indeed, the wind, which was now getting to the southward and eastward, should come round more to the south. All this Spike and his mate discussed together, while the people were clearing the decks, and making the preparations that are customary on board a vessel before she gets into rough water.

By this time, it was ascertained that the brig had received no damage by her salute of the Pot Rock, and every trace of uneasiness on that account was removed. But Spike kept harping on the boat, and “the pilot-looking chap who was in her.” As they passed Riker’s Island, all hands expected a boat would put off with a pilot, or to demand pilotage; but none came, and the Swash now seemed released from all her present dangers, unless some might still be connected with the revenue steamer. To retard her advance, however, the wind came out a smart working breeze from the southward and eastward, compelling her to make “long legs and short ones” on her way towards Whitestone.

“This is beating the wind, Rosy dear,” said Mrs. Budd, complacently, she and her niece having returned to the deck a few minutes after this change had taken place. “Your respected uncle did a great deal of this in his time, and was very successful in it. I have heard him say, that in one of his voyages between Liverpool and New York, he beat the wind by a whole fortnight, every body talking of it in the insurance offices as if it was a miracle.”

“Ay, ay, Madam Budd,” put in Spike, “I’ll answer for that. They’re desperate talkers in and about them there insurance offices in Wall street. Great gossips be they, and they think they know every thing. Now, just because this brig is a little old or so, and was built for a privateer in the last war, they’d refuse to rate her as even B, No. 2, and my blessing on ’em.”

“Yes, B, No. 2, that’s just what your dear uncle used to call me, Rosy—his charming B, No. 2, or Betsy, No. 2; particularly when he was in a loving mood. Captain Spike, did you ever beat the wind in a long voyage?”

“I can’t say I ever did, Mrs. Budd,” answered Spike, looking grimly around, to ascertain if any one dared to smile at his passenger’s mistake; “especially for so long a pull as from New York to Liverpool.”

“Then your uncle used to boast of the Rose In Bloom’s wearing and attacking. She would attack any thing that came in her way, no matter who, and, as for wearing, I think he once told me she would wear just what she had a mind to, like any human being.”

Rose was a little mystified, but she looked vexed at the same time, as if she distrusted all was not right.

“I remember all my sea education,” continued the unsuspecting widow, “as if it had been learnt yesterday. Beating the wind and attacking ship, my poor Mr. Budd used to say, were nice manœuvres, and required most of his tactics, especially in heavy weather. Did you know, Rosy dear, that sailors weigh the weather, and know when it is heavy and when it is light?”

“I did not, aunt; nor do I understand now how it can very well be done.”

“Oh! child, before you have been at sea a week, you will learn so many things that are new, and get so many ideas of which you never had any notion before, that you’ll not be the same person. My captain had an instrument he called a thermometer, and with that he used to weigh the weather, and then he would write down in the log-book ‘to-day, heavy weather, or to-morrow, light weather,’ just as it happened, and that helped him mightily along in his voyages.”

“Mrs. Budd has merely mistaken the name of the instrument—the ‘barometer’ is what she wished to say,” put in Mulford, opportunely.

Rose looked grateful, as well as relieved. Though profoundly ignorant on these subjects herself she had always suspected her aunt’s knowledge. It was, consequently, grateful to her to ascertain that, in this instance, the old lady’s mistake had been so trifling.

“Well, it may have been the barometer, for I know he had them both,” resumed the aunt. “Barometer, or thermometer, it don’t make any great difference; or quadrant, or sextant. They are all instruments, and sometimes he used one, and sometimes another. Sailors take on board the sun, too, and have an instrument for that, as well as one to weigh the weather with. Sometimes they take on board the stars, and the moon, and ‘fill their ships with the heavenly bodies,’ as I’ve heard my dear husband say, again and again! But the most curious thing at sea, as all sailors tell me, is crossing the line, and I do hope we shall cross the line, Rosy, that you and I may see it.”

“What is the line, aunty, and how do vessels cross it?”

“The line, my dear, is a place in the ocean where the earth is divided into two parts, one part being called the North Pole, and the other part the South Pole. Neptune lives near this line, and he allows no vessel to go out of one pole into the other, without paying it a visit. Never! never!—he would as soon think of living on dry land, as think of letting even a canoe pass, without visiting it.”

“Do you suppose there is such a being, really, as Neptune, aunty?”

“To be sure I do; he is king of the sea. Why shouldn’t there be? The sea must have a king, as well as the land.”

“The sea may be a republic, aunty, like this country; then, no king is necessary. I have always supposed Neptune to be an imaginary being.”

“Oh! that’s impossible—the sea is no republic; there are but two republics, America and Texas. I’ve heard that the sea is a highway, it is true—the ‘highway of nations,’ I believe it is called, and that must mean something particular. But my poor Mr. Budd always told me that Neptune was king of the seas, and he was always so accurate, you might depend on every thing he said. Why, he called his last Newfoundland dog Neptune, and do you think, Rosy, that your dear uncle would call his dog after an imaginary being?—and he a man to beat the wind, and attack ship, and take the sun, moon and stars aboard! No, no, child; fanciful folk may see imaginary beings, but solid folk see solid beings.”

Even Spike was dumfounded at this, and there is no knowing what he might have said, had not an old sea-dog, who had just come out of the fore-topmast cross-trees, come aft, and, hitching up his trowsers with one hand while he touched his hat with the other, said, with immovable gravity,

“The revenue-steamer has brought up just under the Fort, Capt. Spike.”

“How do you know that, Bill?” demanded the captain, with a rapidity that showed how completely Mrs. Budd and all her absurdities were momentarily forgotten.

“I was up on the fore-topgallant yard, sir, a bit ago, just to look to the strap of the jewel-block, which wants some sarvice on it, and I see’d her over the land, blowin’ off steam and takin’ in her kites. Afore I got out of the cross-trees, she was head to wind under bare poles, and if she hadn’t anchored, she was about to do so. I’m sartain ’twas she, sir, and that she was about to bring up.”

Spike gave a long, low whistle, after his fashion, and he walked away from the females, with the air of a man who wanted room to think in. Half a minute later, he called out⁠—

“Stand by to shorten sail, boys. Man fore-clew-garnets, flying jib down-haul, topgallant sheets, and gaff-topsail gear. In with ’em all, my lads—in with every thing, with a will.”

An order to deal with the canvas in any way, on board ship, immediately commands the whole attention of all whose duty it is to attend to such matters, and there was an end of all discourse while the Swash was shortening sail. Every body understood, too, that it was to gain time, and prevent the brig from reaching Throg’s Neck sooner than was desirable.

“Keep the brig off,” called out Spike, “and let her ware—we’re too busy to tack just now.”

The man at the wheel knew very well what was wanted, and he put his helm up, instead of putting it down, as he might have done without this injunction. As this change brought the brig before the wind, and Spike was in no hurry to luff up on the other tack, the Swash soon ran over a mile of the distance she had already made, putting her back that much on her way to the Neck. It is out of our power to say what the people of the different craft in sight thought of all this, but an opportunity soon offered of putting them on a wrong scent. A large coasting schooner, carrying every thing that would draw on a wind, came sweeping under the stern of the Swash, and hailed.

“Has any thing happened, on board that brig?” demanded her master.

“Man overboard,” answered Spike—“you havn’t seen his hat, have you?”

“No—no,” came back, just as the schooner, in her onward course, swept beyond the reach of the voice. Her people collected together, and one or two ran up the rigging a short distance, stretching their necks, on the lookout for the “poor fellow,” but they were soon called down to “’bout ship.” In less than five minutes, another vessel, a rakish coasting sloop, came within hail.

“Didn’t that brig strike the Pot Rock, in passing the Gate?” demanded her captain.

“Ay, ay!—and a devil of a rap she got, too.”

This satisfied him; there being nothing remarkable in a vessel’s acting strangely that had hit the Pot Rock, in passing Hell-Gate.

“I think we may get in our mainsail on the strength of this, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike. “There can be nothing oncommon in a craft’s shortening sail, that has a man overboard, and which has hit the Pot Rock. I wonder I never thought of all this before.”

“Here is a skiff trying to get alongside of us, Capt. Spike,” called out the boatswain.

“Skiff be d——d! I want no skiff here.”

“The man that called himself Jack Tier is in her, sir.”

“The d——l he is!” cried Spike, springing over to the opposite side of the deck to take a look for himself. To his infinite satisfaction he perceived that Tier was alone in the skiff, with the exception of a negro, who pulled its sculls, and that this was a very different boat from that which had glanced through Hell-Gate, like an arrow darting from its bow.

“Luff, and shake your topsail,” called out Spike. “Get a rope there to throw to this skiff.”

The orders were obeyed, and Jack Tier, with his clothes-bag, was soon on the deck of the Swash. As for the skiff and the negro, they were cast adrift the instant the latter had received his quarter. The meeting between Spike and his quondam steward’s mate was a little remarkable. Each stood looking intently at the other, as if to note the changes which time had made. We cannot say that Spike’s hard, red, selfish countenance betrayed any great feeling, though such was not the case with Jack Tier’s. The last, a lymphatic, puffy sort of a person at the best, seemed really a little touched, and he either actually brushed a tear from his eye, or he affected so to do.

“So, you are my old shipmate, Jack Tier, are ye?” exclaimed Spike, in a half-patronizing, half-hesitating way—“and you want to try the old craft ag’in. Give us a leaf of your log, and let me know where you have been this many a day, and what you have been about. Keep the brig off, Mr. Mulford. We are in no particular hurry to reach Throg’s, you’ll remember, sir.”

Tier gave an account of his proceedings, which could have no interest with the reader. His narrative was any thing but very clear, and it was delivered in a cracked, octave sort of a voice, such as little dapper people not unfrequently enjoy—tones between those of a man and a boy. The substance of the whole story was this. Tier had been left ashore, as sometimes happens to sailors, and, by necessary connection, was left to shift for himself. After making some vain endeavors to rejoin his brig, he had shipped in one vessel after another, until he accidentally found himself in the port of New York, at the same time as the Swash. He know’d he never should be truly happy ag’in until he could once more get aboard the old hussy, and had hurried up to the wharf, where he understood the brig was lying. As he came in sight, he saw she was about to cast off, and, dropping his clothes-bag, he had made the best of his way to the wharf, where the conversation passed that has been related.

“The gentleman on the wharf was about to take boat, to go through the Gate,” concluded Tier, “and so I begs a passage of him. He was good-natured enough to wait until I could find my bag, and as soon a’terwards as the men could get their grog we shoved off. The Molly was just getting in behind Blackwell’s as we left the wharf, and, having four good oars, and the shortest road, we come out into the Gate just ahead on you. My eye! what a place that is to go through in a boat, and on a strong flood! The gentleman, who watched the brig as a cat watches a mouse, says you struck on the Pot, as he called it, but I says, ‘no,’ for the Molly Swash was never know’d to hit rock or shoal in my time aboard her.”

“And where did you quit that gentleman, and what has become of him?” asked Spike.

“He put me ashore on that point above us, where I see’d a nigger with his skiff, who I thought would be willin’ to ’arn his quarter by giving me a cast along side. So here I am, and a long pull I’ve had to get here.”

As this was said, Jack removed his hat and wiped his brow with a handkerchief, which, if it had never seen better days, had doubtless been cleaner. After this, he looked about him, with an air not entirely free from exultation.

This conversation had taken place in the gangway, a somewhat public place, and Spike beckoned to his recruit to walk aft, where he might be questioned without being overheard.

“What became of the gentleman in the boat, as you call him?” demanded Spike.

“He pulled ahead, seeming to be in a hurry.”

“Do you know who he was?”

“Not a bit of it. I never saw the man before, and he didn’t tell me his business, sir.”

“Had he any thing like a silver oar about him?”

“I saw nothing of the sort, Capt. Spike, and knows nothing consarning him.”

“What sort of a boat was he in, and where did he get it?”

“Well, as to the boat, sir, I can say a word, seein’ it was so much to my mind, and pulled so wonderful smart. It was a light ship’s yawl, with four oars, and came round the Hook just a’ter you had got the brig’s head round to the eastward. You must have seen it, I should think, though it kept close in with the wharves, as if it wished to be snug.”

“Then the gentleman, as you call him, expected that very boat to come and take him off?”

“I suppose so, sir, because it did come and take him off. That’s all I knows about it.”

“Had you no jaw with the gentleman? You wasn’t mum the whole time you was in the boat with him?”

“Not a bit of it, sir. Silence and I doesn’t agree together long, so we talked most of the time.”

“And what did the stranger say of the brig?”

“Lord, sir, he catechised me like as if I had been a child at Sunday-school. He asked me how long I had sailed in her; what ports we’d visited, and what trade we’d been in. You can’t think the sight of questions he put, and how cur’ous he was for the answers.”

“And what did you tell him in your answers? You said nothin’ about our call down on the Spanish Main, the time you were left ashore, I hope, Jack?”

“Not I, sir. I played him off surprisin’ly. He got nothin’ to count upon out of me. Though I do owe the Molly Swash a grudge, I’m not goin’ to betray her.”

“You owe the Molly Swash a grudge! Have I taken an enemy on board her, then?”

Jack started, and seemed sorry he had said so much; while Spike eyed him keenly. But the answer set all right. It was not given, however, without a moment for recollection.

“Oh, you knows what I mean, sir. I owe the old hussy a grudge for having desarted me like; but it’s only a love quarrel atween us. The old Molly will never come to harm by my means.”

“I hope not, Jack. The man that wrongs the craft he sails in can never be a true-hearted sailor. Stick by your ship in all weathers is my rule, and a good rule it is to go by. But what did you tell the stranger?”

“Oh! I told him I’d been six v’y’ges in the brig. The first was to Madagascar⁠—”

“The d—l you did! Was he soft enough to believe that?”

“That’s more than I know, sir. I can only tell you what I said; I don’t pretend to know how much he believed.”

“Heave ahead—what next?”

“Then I told him we went to Kamschatka for gold-dust and ivory.”

“Whe-e-e-w! What did the man say to that?”

“Why, he smiled a bit, and a’ter that he seemed more curious than ever to hear all about it. I told him my third v’y’ge was to Canton, with a cargo of broom-corn, where we took in salmon and dun-fish for home. A’ter that we went to Norway with ice, and brought back silks and money. Our next run was to the Havana, with salt and ’nips⁠—”

“’Nips! what the devil be they?”

“Turnips, you knows, sir. We always calls ’em ’nips in cargo. At the Havana I told him we took in leather and jerked beef, and came home. Oh! he got nothin’ from me, Capt. Spike, that’ll ever do the brig a morsel of harm!”

“I am glad of that, Jack. You must know enough of the seas to understand that a close mouth is sometimes better for a vessel than a clean bill of health. Was there nothing said about the revenue-steamer?”

“Now you name her, sir, I believe there was—ay, ay, sir, the gentleman did say, if the steamer fetched up to the westward of the Fort, that he should overhaul her without difficulty, on this flood.”

“That’ll do, Jack; that’ll do, my honest fellow. Go below, and tell Josh to take you into the cabin again, as steward’s mate. You’re rather too Dutch built, in your old age, to do much aloft.”

One can hardly say whether Jack received this remark as complimentary, or not. He looked a little glum, for a man may be as round as a barrel, and wish to be thought genteel and slender; but he went below, in quest of Josh, without making any reply.

The succeeding movements of Spike appeared to be much influenced by what he had just heard. He kept the brig under short canvas for near two hours, sheering about in the same place, taking care to tell every thing which spoke him that he had lost a man overboard. In this way, not only the tide, but the day itself, was nearly spent. About the time the former began to lose its strength, however, the fore-course and the main-sail were got on the brigantine, with the intention of working her up toward Whitestone, where the tides meet, and near which the revenue-steamer was known to be anchored. We say near, though it was, in fact, a mile or two more to the eastward, and close to the extremity of the Point.

Notwithstanding these demonstrations of a wish to work to windward, Spike was really in no hurry. He had made up his mind to pass the steamer in the dark, if possible, and the night promised to favor him; but, in order to do this, it might be necessary not to come in sight of her at all; or, at least, not until the obscurity should in some measure conceal his rig and character. In consequence of this plan, the Swash made no great progress, even after she had got sail on her, on her old course. The wind lessened, too, after the sun went down, though it still hung to the eastward, or nearly ahead. As the tide gradually lost its force, moreover, the set to windward became less and less, until it finally disappeared altogether.

There is necessarily a short reach in this passage, where it is always slack water, so far as current is concerned. This is precisely where the tides meet, or, as has been intimated, at Whitestone, which is somewhat more than a mile to the westward of Throgmorton’s Neck, near the point of which stands Fort Schuyler, one of the works recently erected for the defence of New York. Off the pitch of the point, nearly mid-channel, had the steamer anchored, a fact of which Spike had made certain, by going aloft himself, and reconnoitering her over the land, before it had got to be too dark to do so. He entertained no manner of doubt that this vessel was in waiting for him, and he well knew there was good reason for it; but he would not return and attempt the passage to sea by way of Sandy Hook. His manner of regarding the whole matter was cool and judicious. The distance to the Hook was too great to be made in such short nights ere the return of day, and he had no manner of doubt he was watched for in that direction, as well as in this. Then he was particularly unwilling to show his craft at all in front of the town, even in the night. Moreover, he had ways of his own for effecting his purposes, and this was the very spot and time to put them in execution.

While these things were floating in his mind, Mrs. Budd and her handsome niece were making preparations for passing the night, aided by Biddy Noon. The old lady was factotum, or factota, as it might be most classical to call her, though we are entirely without authorities on the subject, and was just as self-complacent and ambitious of seawomanship below decks, as she had been above board. The effect, however, gave Spike great satisfaction, since it kept her out of sight, and left him more at liberty to carry out his own plans. About nine, however, the good woman came on deck, intending to take a look at the weather, like a skilful marineress as she was, before she turned in. Not a little was she astonished at what she then and there beheld, as she whispered to Rose and Biddy, both of whom stuck close to her side, feeling the want of good pilotage, no doubt, in strange waters.

The Molly Swash was still under her canvas, though very little sufficed for her present purposes. She was directly off Whitestone, and was making easy stretches across the passage, or river, as it is called, having nothing set but her huge fore-and-aft mainsail and the jib. Under this sail she worked like a top, and Spike sometimes fancied she traveled too fast for his purposes, the night air having thickened the canvas as usual, until it “held the wind as a bottle holds water.” There was nothing in this, however, to attract the particular attention of the ship-master’s widow, a sail, more or less, being connected with observation much too critical for her schooling, nice as the last had been. She was surprised to find the men stripping the brig forward, and converting her into a schooner. Nor was this done in a loose and slovenly manner, under favor of the obscurity. On the contrary, it was so well executed that it might have deceived even a seaman under a noon-day sun, provided the vessel were a mile or two distant. The manner in which the metamorphosis was made was as follows. The studding-sail booms had been taken off the topsail yard, in order to shorten it to the eye, and the yard itself was swayed up about half mast, to give it the appearance of a schooner’s fore-yard. The brig’s real lower yard was lowered on the bulwarks, while her royal yard was sent down altogether, and the topgallant-mast was lowered until the heel rested on the topsail yard, all of which, in the night, gave the gear forward very much the appearance of that of a fore-topsail schooner, instead of that of a half rigged brig, as the craft really was. As the vessel carried a try-sail on her foremast, it answered very well, in the dark, to represent a schooner’s foresail. Several other little dispositions of this nature were made, about which it might weary the uninitiated to read, but which will readily suggest themselves to the mind of a sailor.

These alterations were far advanced when the females re-appeared on deck. They at once attracted their attention, and the captain’s widow felt the imperative necessity, as connected with her professional character, of proving the same. She soon found Spike, who was bustling around the deck, now looking around to see that his brig was kept in the channel, now and then issuing an order to complete her disguise.

“Captain Spike, what can be the meaning of all these changes? The tamper of your vessel is so much altered that I declare I should not have known her!”

“Is it, by George! Then, she is just in the state I want her to be in.”

“But why have you done it—and what does it all mean?”

“Oh, Molly’s going to bed for the night, and she’s only undressing herself—that’s all.”

“Yes, Rosy dear, Captain Spike is right. I remember that my poor Mr. Budd used to talk about the Rose In Bloom having her clothes on, and her clothes off, just as if she was a born woman! But don’t you mean to navigate at all in the night, Captain Spike? Or will the brig navigate without sails?”

“That’s it—she’s just as good in the dark, under one sort of canvas, as under another. So, Mr. Mulford, we’ll take a reef in that mainsail; it will bring it nearer to the size of our new foresail, and seem more ship-shape and Brister fashion—then I think she’ll do, as the night is getting to be rather darkish.”

“Captain Spike,” said the boatswain, who had been sent to look-out for that particular change—“the brig begins to feel the new tide, and sets to windward.”

“Let her go, then—now is as good a time as another. We’ve got to run the gantlet, and the sooner it is done the better.”

As the moment seemed propitious, not only Mulford, but all the people, heard this order with satisfaction. The night was star-light, though not very clear at that. Objects on the water, however, were more visible than those on the land, while those on the last could be seen well enough, even from the brig, though in confused and somewhat shapeless piles. When the Swash was brought close by the wind, she had just got into the last reach of the “river,” or that which runs parallel with The Neck for near a mile, doubling where the Sound expands itself, gradually, to a breadth of many leagues. Still the navigation at the entrance of this end of the Sound was intricate and somewhat dangerous, rendering it indispensable for a vessel of any size to make a crooked course. The wind stood at south-east, and was very scant to lay through the reach with, while the tide was so slack as barely to possess a visible current at that place. The steamer lay directly off the Point, mid-channel, as mentioned, showing lights, to mark her position to any thing which might be passing in or out. The great thing was to get by her without exciting her suspicion. As all on board, the females excepted, knew what their captain was at, the attempt was made amid an anxious and profound silence; or, if any one spoke at all, it was only to give an order in a low tone, or its answer in a simple monosyllable.

Although her aunt assured her that every thing which had been done already, and which was now doing, was quite in rule, the quick-eyed and quick-witted Rose noted these unusual proceedings, and had an opinion of her own on the subject. Spike had gone forward, and posted himself on the weather-side of the forecastle, where he could get the clearest look ahead, and there he remained most of the time, leaving Mulford on the quarter-deck, to work the vessel. Perceiving this, she managed to get near the mate, without attracting her aunt’s attention, and at the same time out of ear-shot.

“Why is every body so still and seemingly so anxious, Harry Mulford?” she asked, speaking in a low tone herself as if desirous of conforming to a common necessity. “Is there any new danger here? I thought the Gate had been passed altogether, some hours ago?”

“So it has. D’ye see that large dark mass on the water, off the Point, which seems almost as huge as the Fort, with lights above it? That is a revenue steamer which came out of York a few hours before us. We wish to get past her without being troubled by any of her questions.”

“And what do any in this brig care about her questions? They can be answered, surely.”

“Ay, ay, Rose—they may be answered, as you say, but the answers sometimes are unsatisfactory. Capt. Spike, for some reason or other, is uneasy, and would rather not have any thing to say to her. He has the greatest aversion to speaking the smallest craft when on a coast.”

“And that’s the reason he has undressed his Molly, as he calls her, that he might not be known.”

Mulford turned his head quickly toward his companion, as if surprised by her quickness of apprehension, but he had too just a sense of his duty to make any reply. Instead of pursuing the discourse, he adroitly contrived to change it, by pointing out to Rose the manner in which they were getting on, which seemed to be very successfully.

Although the Swash was under much reduced canvas, she glided along with great ease and with considerable rapidity of motion. The heavy night air kept her canvas distended, and the weatherly set of the tide, trifling as it yet was, pressed her up against the breeze, so as to turn all to account. It was apparent enough, by the manner in which objects on the land were passed, that the crisis was fast approaching. Rose rejoined her aunt, in order to await the result, in nearly breathless expectation. At that moment, she would have given the world to be safe on shore. This wish was not the consequence of any constitutional timidity, for Rose was much the reverse from timid, but it was the fruit of a newly awakened and painful, though still vague, suspicion. Happy, thrice happy was it for one of her naturally confiding and guileless nature, that distrust was thus opportunely awakened, for she was without a guardian competent to advise and guide her youth, as circumstances required.

The brig was not long in reaching the passage that opened to the Sound. It is probable she did this so much the sooner because Spike kept her a little off the wind, with a view of not passing too near the steamer. At this point, the direction of the passage changes at nearly a right angle, the revenue-steamer lying on a line with the Neck, and leaving a sort of bay, in the angle, for the Swash to enter. The land was somewhat low in all directions but one, and that was by drawing a straight line from the Point, through the steamer, to the Long Island shore. On the latter, and in that quarter, rose a bluff of considerable elevation, with deep water quite near it; and, under the shadows of that bluff, Spike intended to perform his nicest evolutions. He saw that the revenue vessel had let her fires go down, and that she was entirely without steam. Under canvas, he had no doubt of beating her hand over hand, could he once fairly get to windward, and then she was at anchor, and would lose some time in getting under way, should she even commence a pursuit. It was all important, therefore, to gain as much to windward as possible, before the people of the government vessel took the alarm.

There can be no doubt that the alterations made on board the Swash served her a very good turn on this occasion. Although the night could not be called positively dark, there was sufficient obscurity to render her hull confused and indistinct at any distance, and this so much the more when seen from the steamer outside, or between her and the land. All this Spike very well understood, and largely calculated on. In effect he was not deceived; the look-outs on board the revenue vessel could trace little of the vessel that was approaching beyond the spars and sails which rose above the shores, and these seemed to be the spars and sails of a common fore-topsail schooner. As this was not the sort of craft for which they were on the watch, no suspicion was awakened, nor did any reports go from the quarter-deck to the cabin. The steamer had her quarter watches, and officers of the deck, like a vessel of war, the discipline of which was fairly enough imitated, but even a man-of-war may be overreached on an occasion.

Spike was only great in a crisis, and then merely as a seaman. He understood his calling to its minutiæ, and he understood the Molly Swash better than he understood any other craft that floated. For more than twenty years had he sailed her, and the careful parent does not better understand the humors of the child, than he understood exactly what might be expected from his brig. His satisfaction sensibly increased, therefore, as she stole along the land, toward the angle mentioned, without a sound audible but the gentle gurgling of the water, stirred by the stem, and which sounded like the ripple of the gentlest wave, as it washes the shingle of some placid beach.

As the brig drew nearer to the bluff, the latter brought the wind more ahead, as respected the desired course. This was unfavorable, but it did not disconcert her watchful commander.

“Let her come round, Mr. Mulford,” said this pilot-captain, in a low voice—“we are as near in as we ought to go.”

The helm was put down, the head sheets started, and away into the wind shot the Molly Swash, forereaching famously in stays, and, of course, gaining so much on her true course. In a minute she was round, and filled on the other tack. Spike was now so near the land, that he could perceive the tide was beginning to aid him, and that his weatherly set was getting to be considerable. Delighted at this, he walked aft, and told Mulford to go about again as soon as the vessel had sufficient way to make sure of her in stays. The mate inquired if he did not think the revenue people might suspect something, unless they stood further out toward mid-channel, but Spike reminded him that they would be apt to think the schooner was working up under the southern shore because the ebb first made there. This reason satisfied Mulford, and, as soon as they were half way between the bluff and the steamer, the Swash was again tacked, with her head to the former. This manœuvre was executed when the brig was about two hundred yards from the steamer, a distance that was sufficient to preserve, under all the circumstances, the disguise she had assumed.

“They do not suspect us, Harry!” whispered Spike to his mate. “We shall get to windward of ’em, as sartain as the breeze stands. That boatin’ gentleman might as well have staid at home, as for any good his hurry done him or his employers!”

“Whom do you suppose him to be, Capt. Spike?”

“Who?—a feller that lives by his own wicked deeds. No matter who he is. An informer, perhaps. At any rate, he is not the man to outwit the Molly Swash, and her old, stupid, foolish master and owner, Stephen Spike. Luff, Mr. Mulford, luff. Now’s the time to make the most of your leg—luff her up and shake her. She is setting to windward fast, the ebb is sucking along that bluff like a boy at a molasses hogshead. All she can drift on this tack is clear gain; there is no hurry, so long as they are asleep aboard the steamer. That’s it—make a half-board at once, but take care and not come round. As soon as we are fairly clear of the bluff, and open the bay that makes up behind it, we shall get the wind more to the southward, and have a fine long leg for the next stretch.”

Of course Mulford obeyed, throwing the brig up into the wind, and allowing her to set to windward, but filling again on the same tack, as ordered. This, of course, delayed her progress toward the land, and protracted the agony, but it carried the vessel in the direction she most wished to go, while it kept her not only end on to the steamer, but in a line with the bluff, and consequently in the position most favorable to conceal her true character. Presently, the bay mentioned, which was several miles deep, opened darkly toward the south, and the wind came directly out of it, or more to the southward. At this moment the Swash was near a quarter of a mile from the steamer, and all that distance dead to windward of her, as the breeze came out of the bay. Spike tacked his vessel himself now, and got her head up so high that she brought the steamer on her lee quarter, and looked away toward the island which lies northwardly from the Point, and quite near to which all vessels of any draught of water are compelled to pass, even with the fairest winds.

“Shake the reef out of the mainsail, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, when the Swash was fairly in motion again on this advantageous tack. “We shall pass well to windward of the steamer, and may as well begin to open our cloth again.”

“Is it not a little too soon, sir?” Mulford ventured to remonstrate; “the reef is a large one, and will make a great difference in the size of the sail.”

“They’ll not see it at this distance. No, no, sir, shake out the reef, and sway away on the topgallant-mast rope; I’m for bringing the Molly Swash into her old shape again, and make her look handsome once more.”

“Do you dress the brig, as well as undress her, o’nights, Capt. Spike?” inquired the ship-master’s relict, a little puzzled with this fickleness of purpose. “I do not believe my poor Mr. Budd ever did that.”

“Fashions change, madam, with the times—ay, ay, sir—shake out the reef, and sway away on that mast-rope, boys, as soon as you have manned it. We’ll convert our schooner into a brig again.”

As these orders were obeyed, of course, a general bustle now took place. Mulford soon had the reef out, and the sail distended to the utmost, while the topgallant-mast was soon up and fidded. The next thing was to sway upon the fore-yard, and get that into its place. The people were busied at this duty, when a hoarse hail came across the water on the heavy night air.

“Brig ahoy!” was the call.

“Sway upon that fore-yard,” said Spike, unmoved by this summons—“start it, start it at once.”

“The steamer hails us, sir,” said the mate.

“Not she. She is hailing a brig; we are a schooner yet.”

A moment of active exertion succeeded, during which the foreyard went into its place. Then came a second hail.

“Schooner, ahoy!” was the summons this time.

“The steamer hails us again, Capt. Spike.”

“The devil a bit. We’re a brig now, and she hails a schooner. Come, boys, bestir yourselves, and get the canvas on Molly for’ard. Loose the fore-course before you quit the yard there, then up aloft and loosen every thing you can find.”

All was done as ordered, and done rapidly, as is ever the case on board a well ordered vessel when there is occasion for exertion. That occasion now appeared to exist in earnest, for while the men were sheeting home the topsail a flash of light illuminated the scene, when the roar of a gun came booming across the water, succeeded by the very distinct whistling of its shot. We regret that the relict of the late Capt. Budd did not behave exactly as became a ship-master’s widow, under fire. Instead of remaining silent and passive, even while frightened, as was the case with Rose, she screamed quite as loud as she had previously done that very day in Hell-Gate. It appeared to Spike, indeed, that practice was making her perfect; and, as for Biddy, the spirit of emulation became so powerful in her bosom, that, if any thing, she actually outshrieked her mistress. Hearing this, the widow made a second effort, and fairly recovered the ground some might have fancied she had lost.

“Oh! Captain Spike,” exclaimed the agitated widow, “do not—do not, if you love me, do not let them fire again!”

“How am I to help it!” asked the captain, a good deal to the point, though he overlooked the essential fact, that, by heaving-to, and waiting for the steamer’s boat to board him, he might have prevented a second shot, as completely as if he had the ordering of the whole affair. No second shot was fired, however. As it afterward appeared, the screams of Mrs. Budd and Biddy were heard on board the steamer, the captain of which, naturally enough, supposing that the slaughter must be terrible where such cries had arisen, was satisfied with the mischief he had already done, and directed his people to secure their gun and go to the capstan-bars, in order to help lift the anchor. In a word, the revenue vessel was getting under way, man-of-war fashion, which means somewhat expeditiously.

Spike understood the sounds that reached him, among which was the call of the boatswain, and he bestirred himself accordingly. Experienced as he was in chases and all sorts of nautical artifices, he very well knew that his situation was sufficiently critical. It would have been so, with a steamer at his heels, in the open ocean; but, situated as he was, he was compelled to steer but one course, and to accept the wind on that course as it might offer. If he varied at all in his direction it was only in a trifling way, though he did make some of these variations. Every moment was now precious, however, and he endeavored to improve the time to the utmost. He knew that he could greatly outsail the revenue vessel, under canvas, and some time would be necessary to enable her to get up her steam; half an hour at the very least. On that half hour, then, depended the fate of the Molly Swash.

“Send the booms on the yards, and set stun’sails at once, Mr. Mulford,” said Spike, the instant the more regular canvas was spread forward. “This wind will be free enough for all but the lower stun’sail, and we must drive the brig on.”

“Are we not looking up too high, Capt. Spike? The Stepping-Stones are ahead of us, sir.”

“I know that very well, Mulford. But it’s nearly high water, and the brig’s in light trim, and we may rub and go. By making a short cut here, we shall gain a full mile on the steamer; that mile may save us.”

“Do you really think it possible to get away from that craft, which can always make a fair wind of it, in these narrow waters, Capt. Spike?”

“One don’t know, sir. Nothin’ is done without tryin’, and by tryin’ more is often done than was hoped for. I have a scheme in my head, and Providence may favor me in bringing it about.”

Providence! The religionist quarrels with the philosopher if the latter happen to remove this interposition of a higher power, even so triflingly as by the intervention of secondary agencies, while the biggest rascal dignifies even his success by such phrases as Providential aid! But it is not surprising men should misunderstand terms, when they make such sad confusion in the acts which these terms are merely meant to represent. Spike had his Providence as well as a priest, and we dare say he often counted on its succor, with quite as rational grounds of dependence as many of the pharisees who are constantly exclaiming, “The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord are these.”

Sail was made on board the Swash with great rapidity, and the brig made a bold push at the Stepping-Stones. Spike was a capital pilot. He insisted if he could once gain sight of the spar that was moored on those rocks for a buoy, he should run with great confidence. The two lights were of great assistance, of course, but the revenue vessel could see these lights as well as the brig, and she, doubtless, had an excellent pilot on board. By the time the studding-sails were set on board the Swash, the steamer was aweigh, and her long line of peculiar sails became visible. Unfortunately for men who were in a hurry, she lay so much within the bluff as to get the wind scant, and her commander thought it necessary to make a stretch over to the southern shore, before he attempted to lay his course. When he was ready to tack, an operation of some time with a vessel of her great length, the Swash was barely visible in the obscurity, gliding off upon a slack bowline, at a rate which nothing but the damp night air, the ballast-trim of the vessel, united to her excellent sailing qualities, could have produced with so light a breeze.

The first half hour took the Swash completely out of sight of the steamer. In that time, in truth, by actual superiority in sailing, by her greater state of preparation, and by the distance saved by a bold navigation, she had gained fully a league on her pursuer. But, while the steamer had lost sight of the Swash, the latter kept the former in view, and that by means of a signal that was very portentous. She saw the light of the steamer’s chimneys, and could form some opinion of her distance and position.

It was about eleven o’clock when the Swash passed the light at Sands’ Point, close in with the land. The wind stood much as it had been. If there was a change at all, it was half a point more to the southward, and it was a little fresher. Such as it was, Spike saw he was getting, in that smooth water, quite eight knots out of his craft, and he made his calculations thereon. As yet, and possibly for half an hour longer, he was gaining, and might hope to continue to gain on the steamer. Then her turn would come. Though no great traveler, it was not to be expected that, favored by smooth water and the breeze, her speed would be less than ten knots, while there was no hope of increasing his own without an increase of the wind. He might be five miles in advance, or six at the most; these six miles would be overcome in three hours of steaming, to a dead certainty, and they might possibly be overcome much sooner. It was obviously necessary to resort to some other experiment than that of dead sailing, if an escape was to be effected.

The Sound was now several miles in width, and Spike, at first, proposed to his mate, to keep off dead before the wind, and by crossing over to the north shore, let the steamer pass ahead, and continue a bootless chase to the eastward. Several vessels, however, were visible in the middle of the passage, at distances varying from one to three miles, and Mulford pointed out the hopelessness of attempting to cross the sheet of open water, and expect to go unseen by the watchful eyes of the revenue people.

“What you say is true enough, Mr. Mulford,” answered Spike, after a moment of profound reflection, “and every foot that they come nearer, the less will be our chance. But here is Hempstead Harbor a few leagues ahead; if we can reach that before the blackguards close we may do well enough. It is a deep bay, and has high land to darken the view. I don’t think the brig could be seen at midnight by any thing outside, if she was once fairly up that water a mile or two.”

“That is our chance, sir!” exclaimed Mulford cheerfully. “Ay, ay, I know the spot, and every thing is favorable—try that, Capt. Spike; I’ll answer for it that we go clear.”

Spike did try it. For a considerable time longer he stood on, keeping as close to the land as he thought it safe to run, and carrying every thing that would draw. But the steamer was on his heels, evidently gaining fast. Her chimneys gave out flames, and there was every sign that her people were in earnest. To those on board the Swash these flames seemed to draw nearer each instant, as indeed was the fact, and just as the breeze came fresher out of the opening in the hills, or the low mountains, which surround the place of refuge in which they designed to enter, Mulford announced that by aid of the night-glass he could distinguish both sails and hull of their pursuer. Spike took a look, and throwing down the instrument, in a way to endanger it, he ordered the studding-sails taken in. The men went aloft like cats, and worked as if they could stand in air. In a minute or two the Swash was under what Mrs. Budd might have called her “attacking” canvas, and was close by the wind, looking on a good leg well up the harbor. The brig seemed to be conscious of the emergency, and glided ahead at capital speed. In five minutes she had shut in the flaming chimneys of the steamer. In five minutes more Spike tacked, to keep under the western side of the harbor, and out of sight as long as possible, and because he thought the breeze drew down fresher where he was than more out in the bay.

All now depended on the single fact whether the brig had been seen from the steamer or not, before she hauled into the bay. If seen, she had probably been watched; if not seen, there were strong grounds for hoping that she might still escape. About a quarter of an hour after Spike hauled up, the burning chimneys came again into view. The brig was then half a league within the bay, with a fine dark back-ground of hills to throw her into shadow. Spike ordered every thing taken in but the trysail, under which the brig was left to set slowly over toward the western side of the harbor. He now rubbed his hands with delight, and pointed out to Mulford the circumstance that the steamer kept on her course directly athwart the harbor’s mouth! Had she seen the Swash no doubt she would have turned into the bay also. Nevertheless, an anxious ten minutes succeeded, during which the revenue vessel steamed fairly past, and shut in her flaming chimneys again by the eastern headlands of the estuary.

——

PART III.

At that hour, on the succeeding morning, when the light of day is just beginning to chase away the shadows of night, the Molly Swash became visible within the gloom of the high land which surrounds so much of the bay of Hempstead, under easy sail, backing and filling, in order to keep within her hiding place, until a look could be had at the state of things without. Half an hour later, she was so near the entrance of the estuary, as to enable the look-outs aloft to ascertain that the coast was clear, when Spike ordered the helm to be put up, and the brig to be kept away to her course. At this precise moment, Rose appeared on deck, refreshed by the sleep of a quiet night, and with cheeks tinged with a color even more delicate than that which was now glowing in the eastern sky, and which was almost as brilliant.

“We stopped in this bit of a harbor for the night, Miss Rose, that is all;” said Spike, observing that his fair passenger was looking about her, in some little surprise, at finding the vessel so near the land, and seemingly so much out of her proper position. “Yes, we always do that, when we first start on a v’y’ge, and before the brig gets use to traveling—don’t we, Mr. Mulford?”

Mr. Mulford, who knew how hopeless was the attempt to mystify Rose, as one might mystify her credulous and weak-minded aunt, and who had no disposition to deal any way but fairly by the beautiful, and in one sense now helpless young creature before him, did not see fit to make any reply. Offend Spike he did not dare to do, more especially under present circumstances; and mislead Rose he would not do. He affected not to hear the question, therefore, but issuing an order about the head-sails, he walked forward as if to see it executed. Rose herself was not under as much restraint as the young mate.

“It is convenient, Capt. Spike,” she coolly answered for Mulford, “to have stopping places for vessels that are wearied, and I remember the time when my uncle used to tell me of such matters, very much in the same vein; but, it was before I was twelve years old.”

Spike hemmed, and he looked a little foolish, but Clench, the boatswain, coming aft to say something to him in confidence, just at that moment, he was enabled to avoid the awkwardness of attempting to explain. This man Clench, or Clinch, as the name was pronounced, was deep in the captain’s secrets; far more so than was his mate, and would have been filling Mulford’s station at that very time, had he not been hopelessly ignorant of navigation. On the present occasion, his business was to point out to the captain, two or three lines of smoke, that were visible above the water of the Sound, in the eastern board; one of which he was apprehensive might turn out to be the smoke of the revenue craft, from which they had so recently escaped.

“Steamers are no rarities in Long Island Sound, Clench,” observed the captain, leveling his glass at the most suspected of the smokes. “That must be a Providence, or Stonington chap, coming west with the Boston train.”

“Either of them would have been further west, by this time, Capt. Spike,” returned the doubting, but watchful boatswain. “It’s a large smoke, and I fear it is the revenue fellow coming back, after having had a look well to the eastward, and satisfying himself that we are not to be had in that quarter.”

Spike growled out his assent to the possibility of such a conjecture, and promised vigilance. This satisfied his subordinate for the moment, and he walked forward, or to the place where he belonged. In the mean time, the widow came on deck, smiling, and snuffing the salt air, and ready to be delighted with any thing that was maritime.

“Good morning, Capt. Spike,” she cried—“are we in the offing, yet—you know I desired to be told when we are in the offing, for I intend to write a letter to my poor Mr. Budd’s sister, Mrs. Sprague, as soon as we get to the offing.”

“What is the offing, aunt?” enquired the handsome niece.

“Why you have hardly been at sea long enough to understand me, child, should I attempt to explain. The offing, however, is the place where the last letters are always written to the owners, and to friends ashore. The term comes, I suppose, from the circumstance that the vessel is about to be off, and it is natural to think of those we leave behind, at such a moment. I intend to write to your aunt Sprague, my dear, the instant I hear we are in the offing; and what is more, I intend to make you my amanuensis.”

“But how will the letter be sent, aunty?—I have no more objections to writing than any one else, but I do not see how the letter is to be sent. Really, the sea is a curious region, with its stopping places for the night, and its offings to write letters at!”

“Yes, it’s all as you say, Rose—a most remarkable region is the sea! You’ll admire it, as I admire it, when you come to know it better; and as your poor uncle admired it, and as Capt. Spike admires it, too. As for the letters, they can be sent ashore by the pilot, as letters are always sent.”

“But, aunty, there is no pilot in the Swash—for Capt. Spike refused to take one on board.”

“Rose!—you don’t understand what you are talking about! No vessel ever yet sailed without a pilot, if indeed any can. It’s opposed to the law, not to have a pilot; and now I remember to have heard your dear uncle say it wasn’t a voyage if a vessel didn’t take away a pilot.”

“But if they take them away, aunty, how can they send the letters ashore by them?”

“Poh! poh! child; you don’t know what you’re saying; but you’ll overlook it, I hope, Capt. Spike, for Rose is quick, and will soon learn to know better. As if letters couldn’t be sent ashore by the pilot, though he was a hundred thousand miles from land! But, Capt. Spike, you must let me know when we are about to get off the Sound, for I know that the pilot is always sent ashore with his letters, before the vessel gets off the Sound.”

“Yes, yes,” returned the captain, a little mystified by the widow, though he knew her so well, and understood her so well—“you shall know, ma’am, when we get off soundings, for I suppose that is what you mean.”

“What is the difference? Off the Sound, or off the soundings, of course, must mean the same thing. But, Rosy, we will go below and write to your aunt at once, for I see a light-house yonder, and light-houses are always put just off the soundings.”

Rose, who always suspected her aunt’s nautical talk, though she did not know how to correct it, and was not sorry to put an end to it, now, by going below, and spreading her own writing materials, in readiness to write, as the other dictated. Biddy Noon was present, sewing on some of her own finery.

“Now write, as I tell you, Rose,” commenced the widow⁠—

“My dear sister Sprague—Here we are, at last, just off the soundings, with light-houses all round us, and so many capes and islands in sight, that it does seem as if the vessel never could find its way through them all. Some of these islands must be the West Indies”⁠—

“Aunty, that can never be!” exclaimed Rose—“we left New York only yesterday.”

“What of that? Had it been old times, I grant you several days might be necessary to get a sight of the West Indies, but, now, when a letter can be written to a friend in Boston and an answer received in half an hour, it requires no such time to go to the West Indies. Besides, what other islands are there in this part of the world?—they can’t be England⁠—”

“No—no”—said Rose, at once seeing it would be preferable to admit they were the West Indies; so the letter went on:⁠—

“Some of these islands must be the West Indies, and it is high time we saw some of them, for we are nearly off the Sound, and the light-houses are getting to be quite numerous. I think we have already seen four since we left the wharf. But, my dear sister Sprague, you will be delighted to hear how much better Rose’s health is already becoming⁠—”

“My health, aunty! Why, I never knew an ill day in my life!”

“Don’t tell me that, my darling; I know too well what all these deceptive appearances of health amount to. I would not alarm you for the world, Rosy dear, but a careful parent—and I’m your parent in affection, if not by nature—but a careful parent’s eye is not to be deceived. I know you look well, but you are ill, my child; though, Heaven be praised, the sea air and hydropathy are already doing you a monstrous deal of good.”

As Mrs. Budd concluded, she wiped her eyes, and appeared really glad that her niece had a less consumptive look than when she embarked. Rose sat, gazing at her aunt, in mute astonishment. She knew how much and truly she was beloved, and that induced her to be more tolerant of her connection’s foibles than even duty demanded. Feeling was blended with her respect, but it was almost too much for her, to learn that this long, and, in some respects painful voyage, was undertaken on her account, and without the smallest necessity for it. The vexation, however, would have been largely increased, but for certain free communications that had occasionally occurred between her and the handsome mate, since the moment of her coming on board the brig. Rose knew that Harry Mulford loved her, too, for he had told her as much with a seaman’s frankness; and, though she had never let him know that his partiality was returned, her woman’s heart was fast inclining toward him, with all her sex’s tenderness. This made the mistake of her aunt tolerable, though Rose was exceedingly vexed it should ever have occurred.

“Why, my dearest aunt,” she cried, “they told me it was on your account that this voyage was undertaken!”

“I know they did, poor, dear Rosy, and that was in order not to alarm you. Some persons of delicate constitutions⁠—”

“But my constitution is not in the least delicate, aunt; on the contrary, it is as good as possible; a blessing for which, I trust, I am truly grateful. I did not know but you might be suffering, though you do look so well, for they all agreed in telling me you had need of a sea-voyage.”

“I, a subject for hydropathy! Why, child, water is no more necessary to me, than it is to a cat.”

“But going to sea, aunty, is not hydropathy⁠—”

“Don’t say that, Rosy; do not say that, my dear. It is hydropathy on a large scale, as Capt. Spike says, and when he gets us into blue water, he has promised that you shall have all the benefits of the treatment.”

Rose was silent and thoughtful; after which she spoke quickly, like one to whom an important thought had suddenly occurred.

“And Capt. Spike, then, was consulted in my case?” she asked.

“He was, my dear, and you have every reason to be grateful to him. He was the first to discover a change in your appearance, and to suggest a sea voyage. Marine Hydropathy, he said, he was sure would get you up again; for Capt. Spike thinks your constitution good at the bottom, though the high color you have proves too high a state of habitual excitement.”

“Was Dr. Monson consulted at all, aunt?”

“Not at all. You know the doctors are all against hydropathy, and mesmerism, and the magnetic telegraph, and every thing that is new; so we thought it best not to consult him.”

“And my aunt Sprague?”

“Yes, she was consulted after every thing was settled, and when I knew her notions could not undo what had been already done. But she is a seaman’s widow, as well as myself, and has a great notion of the virtue of sea air.”

“Then it would seem that Dr. Spike was the principal adviser in my case!”

“I own that he was, Rosy dear. Capt. Spike was brought up by your uncle, who has often told me what a thorough seaman he was. ‘There’s Spike, now,’ he said to me one day, ‘he can almost make his brig talk’—this very brig, too, your uncle meant, Rosy, and of course one of the best vessels in the world, to take hydropathy in.”

“Yes, aunty,” returned Rose, playing with the pen, while her air proved how little her mind was in her words. “Well, what shall I say next to my aunt Sprague?”

“Rose’s health is already becoming confirmed,” resumed the widow, who thought it best to encourage her niece by as strong terms as she could employ, “and I shall extol hydropathy to the skies, as long as I live. As soon as we reach our port of destination, my dear sister Sprague, I shall write you a line to let you know it, by the magnetic telegraph⁠—”

“But there is no magnetic telegraph on the sea, aunty,” interrupted Rose, looking up from the paper, with her clear, serene, blue eyes, expressing even her surprise, at this touch of the relict’s ignorance.

“Don’t tell me that, Rosy child, when every body says the sparks will fly round the whole earth, just as soon as they will fly from New York to Philadelphia.”

“But they must have something to fly on, aunty; and the ocean will not sustain wires, or posts.”

“Well, there is no need of being so particular; if there is no telegraph, the letter must come by mail. You can say telegraph, here, and when your aunt gets the letter, the post-mark will tell her how it came. It looks better to talk about telegraphic communications, child.”

Rose resumed her pen, and wrote at her aunt’s dictation, as follows:—“By the magnetic telegraph, when I hope to be able to tell you that our dear Rose is well. As yet, we both enjoy the ocean exceedingly; but when we get off the Sound, into blue water, and have sent the pilot ashore, or discharged him, I ought to say, which puts me in mind of telling you that a cannon was discharged at us only last night, and that the ball whistled so near me, that I heard it as plain as ever you heard Rose’s piano.”

“Had I not better first tell my aunt Sprague what is to be done when the pilot is discharged?”

“No; tell her about the cannon that was discharged, first, and about the ball that I heard. I had almost forgot that adventure, which was a very remarkable one, was it not Biddy?”

“Indeed, Missus, and it was! and Miss Rose might put in the letter how we both screamed at that cannon, and might have been heard as plainly, every bit of it, as the ball.”

“Say nothing on the subject, Rose, or we shall never hear the last of it. So, darling, you may conclude in your own way, for I believe I have told your aunt all that comes to mind.”

Rose did as desired, finishing the epistle in a very few words, for, rightly enough, she had taken it into her head there was no pilot to be discharged, and consequently that the letter would never be sent. Her short, but frequent conferences with Mulford were fast opening her eyes, not to say her heart, and she was beginning to see Capt. Spike in his true character, which was that of a great scoundrel. It is true, that the mate had not long judged his commander quite so harshly; but had rather seen his beautiful brig and her rare qualities, in her owner and commander, than the man himself; but jealousy had quickened his observation of late, and Stephen Spike had lost ground sensibly with Harry Mulford, within the last week. Two or three times before, the young man had thought of seeking another berth, on account of certain distrusts of Spike’s occupations; but he was poor, and so long as he remained in the Swash, Harry’s opportunities of meeting Rose were greatly increased. This circumstance, indeed, was the secret of his still being in the “Molly,” as Spike usually called his craft; the last voyage having excited suspicions that were rather of a delicate nature. Then the young man really loved the brig, which, if she could not be literally made to talk, could be made to do almost every thing else. A vessel, and a small vessel, too, is rather contracted as to space, but those who wish to converse can contrive to speak together often, even in such narrow limits. Such had been the fact with Rose Budd and the handsome mate. Twenty times since they sailed, short as that time was, had Mulford contrived to get so near to Rose, as to talk with her, unheard by others. It is true, that he seldom ventured to do this, so long as the captain was in sight, but Spike was often below, and opportunities were constantly occurring. It was in the course of these frequent but brief conversations, that Harry had made certain dark hints touching the character of his commander, and the known recklessness of his proceedings. Rose had taken the alarm, and fully comprehending her aunt’s mental imbecility, her situation was already giving her great uneasiness. She had some undefined hopes from the revenue steamer, though, strangely enough as it appeared to her, her youngest and most approved suitor betrayed a strong desire to escape from that craft, at the very moment he was expressing his apprehensions on account of her presence in the brig. This contradiction arose from a certain esprit de corps, which seldom fails, more or less, to identify the mariner with his ship.

But the writing was finished, and the letter sealed with wax, Mrs. Budd being quite as particular in that ceremony as Lord Nelson, when the females again repaired on deck. They found Spike and his mate sweeping the eastern part of the sound, with their glasses, with a view to look out for enemies; or, what to them, just then, was much the same thing, government craft. In this occupation, Rose was a little vexed to see that Mulford was almost as much interested as Spike himself, the love of his vessel seemingly overcoming his love for her, if not his love of the right—she knew of no reason, however, why the captain should dread any other vessel, and felt sufficiently provoked to question him a little on the subject, if it were only to let him see that the niece was not as completely his dupe as the aunt. She had not been on deck five minutes, therefore, during which time several expressions had escaped the two sailors touching their apprehensions of vessels seen in the distance, ere she commenced her inquiries.

“And why should we fear meeting with other vessels?” Rose plainly demanded—“here in Long Island Sound, and within the power of the laws of the country?”

“Fear!” exclaimed Spike, a little startled, and a good deal surprised at this straight-forward question—“Fear, Miss Rose! You do not think we are afraid, though there are many reasons why we do not wish to be spoken by certain craft that are hovering about. In the first place, you know it is war time—I suppose you know, Madam Budd, that America is at war with Mexico?”

“Certainly,” answered the widow, with dignity—“and that is a sufficient reason, Rose, why one vessel should chase, and another should run. If you had heard your poor uncle relate, as I have done, all his chasings and runnings away, in the war times, child, you would understand these things better. Why, I’ve heard your uncle say that, in some of his long voyages, he has run thousands and thousands of miles, with sails set on both sides, and all over his ship!”

“Yes, aunty, and so have I, but that was ‘running before the wind,’ as he used to call it.”

“I s’pose, however, Miss Rose,” put in Spike, who saw that the niece would soon get the better of the aunt;—“I s’pose, Miss Rose, that you’ll acknowledge that America is at war with Mexico?”

“I am sorry to say that such is the fact, but I remember to have heard you say, yourself, Capt. Spike, when my aunt was induced to undertake this voyage, that you did not consider there was the smallest danger from any Mexicans.”

“Yes, you did, Capt. Spike,” added the aunt—“you did say there was no danger from Mexicans.”

“Nor is there a bit, Madam Budd, if Miss Rose, and your honored self will only hear me. There is no danger, because the brig has the heels of any thing Mexico can send to sea. She has sold her steamers, and, as for any thing else under her flag, I would not care a straw.”

“The steamer from which we ran, last evening, and which actually fired off a cannon at us, was not Mexican, but American,” said Rose, with a pointed manner that put Spike to his trumps.

“Oh! that steamer—” he stammered—“that was a race—only a race, Miss Rose, and I wouldn’t let her come near me, for the world. I should never hear the last of it, in the insurance offices, and on ’change, did I let her overhaul us. You see, Miss Rose—you see, Madam Budd—” Spike ever found it most convenient to address his mystifying discourse to the aunt, in preference to addressing it to the niece—“You see, Madam Budd, the master of that craft and I are old cronies—sailed together when boys, and set great store by each other. We met only last evening, just a’ter I had left your own agreeable mansion, Madam Budd, and says he, ‘Spike, when do you sail?’ ‘To-morrow’s flood, Jones,’ says I—his name is Jones;—Peter Jones, and as good a fellow as ever lived. ‘Do you go by the Hook, or by Hell-Gate⁠—’ ”

“Hurl-Gate, Capt. Spike, if you please—or Whirl-Gate, which some people think is the true sound; but the other way of saying it is awful.”

“Well, the captain, my old master, always called it Hell-Gate, and I learned the trick from him⁠—”

“I know he did, and so do all sailors; but genteel people, now-a-days, say nothing but Hurl-Gate, or Whirl-Gate.”

Rose smiled at this, as did Mulford; but neither said any thing, the subject having once before been up between them. As for ourselves, we are still so old fashioned as to say, and write, Hell-Gate, and intend so to do, in spite of all the Yankees that have yet passed through it, or who ever shall pass through it, and that is saying a great deal. We do not like changing names to suit their uneasy spirits.

“Call the place Hurl-Gate, and go on with your story,” said the widow, complacently.

“Yes, Madam Budd—‘Do you go by the Hook, or by Whirl-Gate?’ said Jones. ‘By Whirl-a-Gig-Gate,’ says I. ‘Well,’ says he, ‘I shall go through the Gate myself, in the course of the morning. We may meet somewhere to the eastward, and, if we do, I’ll bet you a beaver,’ says he, ‘that I show you my stern.’ ‘Agreed,’ says I, and we shook hands upon it. That’s the whole history of our giving the steamer the slip, last night, and of my not wishing to let her speak me.”

“But you went into a bay, and let her go past you,” said Rose, coolly enough as to manner, but with great point as to substance. “Was not that a singular way of winning a race?”

“It does seem so, Miss Rose, but it’s all plain enough, when understood. I found that steam was too much for sails, and I stood up into the bay to let them run past us, in hopes they would never find out the trick. I care as little for a hat, as any man, but I do care a good deal about having it reported on ’change that the Molly was beat, by even a steamer.”

This ended the discourse, for the moment, Clench again having something to say to his captain in private.

“How much of that explanation am I to believe, and how much disbelieve?” asked Rose, the instant she was left alone with Harry. “If it be all invention, it was a ready and ingenious story.”

“No part of it is true. He no more expected that the steamer would pass through Hell-Gate, than I expected it myself. There was no bet, or race, therefore; but it was our wish to avoid Uncle Sam’s cruiser, that was all.”

“And why should you wish any such thing?”

“On my honor, I can give you no better reason, so far as I am concerned, than the fact that, wishing to keep clear of her, I do not like to be overhauled. Nor can I tell you why Spike is so much in earnest in holding the revenue vessel at arm’s length; I know he dislikes all such craft, as a matter of course, but I can see no particular reason for it just now. A more innocent cargo was never struck into a vessel’s hold.”

“What is it?”

“Flour; and no great matter of that. The brig is not half full, being just in beautiful ballast trim, as if ready for a race. I can see no sufficient reason, beyond native antipathy, why Capt. Spike should wish to avoid any craft, for it is humbug his dread of a Mexican, and least of all, here in Long Island Sound. All that story about Jones is a tub for whales.”

“Thank you for the allusion; my aunt and myself being the whales.”

“You know I do mean—can mean nothing, Rose, that is disrespectful to either yourself or your aunt.”

Rose looked up, and she looked pleased. Then she mused in silence, for some time, when she again spoke.

“Why have you remained another voyage, with such a man, Harry?” she asked, earnestly.

“Because, as his first officer, I have had access to your house, when I could not have had it otherwise; and because I have apprehended that he might persuade Mrs. Budd, as he had boasted to me it was his intention to do, to make this voyage.”

Rose now looked grateful; and deeply grateful did she feel, and had reason to feel. Harry had concealed no portion of his history from her. Like herself, he was a ship-master’s son, but one better educated and better connected than was customary for the class. His father had paid a good deal of attention to the youth’s early years, but had made a seaman of him, out of choice. The father had lost his all, however, with his life, in a ship-wreck, and Harry was thrown upon his own resources, at the early age of twenty. He had made one or two voyages as a second mate, when chance threw him in Spike’s way, who, pleased with some evidences of coolness and skill, that he had shown in a foreign port, on the occasion of another loss, took him as his first officer; in which situation he had remained ever since, partly from choice and partly from necessity. On the other hand, Rose had a fortune; by no means a large one, but several thousands in possession, from her own father, and as many more in reversion from her uncle. It was this money, taken in connection with the credulous imbecility of the aunt, that had awakened the cupidity, and excited the hopes of Spike. After a life of lawless adventures, one that had been chequered by every shade of luck, he found himself growing old, with his brig growing old with him, and little left beside his vessel and the sort of half cargo that was in her hold. Want of means, indeed, was the reason that the flour barrels were not more numerous.

Rose heard Mulford’s explanation favorably, as indeed she heard most of that which came from him, but did not renew the discourse, Spike’s conference with the boatswain just then terminating. The captain now came aft, and began to speak of the performances of his vessel in a way to show that he took great pride in them.

“We are traveling at the rate of ten knots, Madam Budd,” he said exultingly, “and that will take us clear of the land, before night shuts in ag’in. Montauk is a good place for an offing; I ask for no better.”

“Shall we then have two offings, this voyage, Capt. Spike?” asked Rose, a little sarcastically. “If we are in the offing now, and are to be in the offing when we reach Montauk, there must be two such places.”

“Rosy, dear, you amaze me!” put in the aunt. “There is no offing until the pilot is discharged, and when he’s discharged there is nothing but offing. It’s all offing. On the Sound, is the first great change that befalls a vessel as she goes to sea; then, comes the offing; next the pilot is discharged—then—then—what comes next, Capt. Spike?”

“Then the vessel takes her departure—an old navigator like yourself, Madam Budd, ought not to forget the departure.”

“Quite true, sir. The departure is a very important portion of a seaman’s life. Often, and often have I heard my poor, dear Mr. Budd talk about his departures. His departures, and his offings and his⁠—”

“Land-falls,” added Spike, perceiving that the ship-master’s relict was a little at fault.

“Thank you, sir; the hint is quite welcome. His land-falls, also, were often in his mouth.”

“What is a land-fall, aunty?” enquired Rose—“It appears a strange term to be used by one who lives on the water.”

“Oh! there is no end to the curiosities of sailors! A ‘land-fall,’ my dear, means a ship-wreck of course. To fall on the land, and a very unpleasant fall it is, when a vessel should keep on the water. I’ve heard of dreadful land-falls in my day, in which hundreds of souls have been swept into eternity, in an instant.”

“Yes; yes, Madam Budd—there are such accidents truly, and serious things be they to encounter,” answered Spike, hemming a little to clear his throat, as was much his practice whenever the widow ran into any unusually extravagant blunder; “yes, serious things to encounter. But the land-fall that I mean is a different sort of thing; being, as you well know, what we say when we come in sight of land a’ter a v’y’ge; or, meaning the land we may happen first to see. The departure is the beginning of our calculation when we lose sight of the last cape or head-land, and the land-fall closes it, by letting us know where we are, at the other end of our journey, as you probably remember.”

“Is there not such a thing as clearing out in navigation?” asked Rose quickly, willing to cover a little confusion that was manifest in her aunt’s manner.

“Not exactly in navigation, Miss Rose, but clearing out, with honest folk, ought to come first and navigation a’terwards. Clearing out means going through the Custom House, accordin’ to law.”

“And the Molly Swash has cleared out, I hope?”

“Sartain—a more lawful clearance was never given in Wall Street; it’s for Key West and a market. I did think of making it Havana and a market, but port-charges are lightest at Key West.”

“Then Key West is the place to which we are bound?”

“It ought to be, agreeable to papers; though vessels sometimes miss the ports for which they clear.”

Rose put no more questions, and her aunt being conscious that she had not appeared to advantage in the affair of the “land-fall,” was also disposed to be silent. Spike and Mulford had their attention drawn to the vessel, and the conversation dropped.

The reader can readily suppose that the Molly Swash had not been standing still all this time. So far from this, she was running “down Sound,” with the wind on her quarter, or at south-west, making great head-way, as she was close under the south shore, or on the island side of the water she was in. The vessel had no other motion than that of her speed, and the females escaped every thing like sea-sickness, for the time being. This enabled them to attend to making certain arrangements necessary to their comforts below, previously to getting into rough water. In acquitting herself of this task, Rose received much useful advice from Josh, though his new assistant, Jack Tier, turned out to be a prize indeed, in the cabins. The first was only a steward; but the last proved himself not only a handy person of his calling, but one full of resources; a genius, in his way. Josh soon became so sensible of his own inferiority, in contributing to the comforts of females, that he yielded the entire management of the “ladies’ cabin,” as a little place that might have been ten feet square, was called, to his uncouth-looking, but really expert deputy. Jack waddled about below, as if born and brought up in such a place, and seemed every way fitted for his office. In height, and in build generally, there was a surprising conformity between the widow and the steward’s deputy, a circumstance which might induce one to think they must often have been in each other’s way, in a space so small; though, in point of fact, Jack never ran foul of any one. He seemed to avoid this inconvenience, by a species of nautical instinct.

Towards the turn of the day, Rose had every thing arranged, and was surprised to find how much room she had made for her aunt and herself, by means of Jack’s hints, and how much more comfortable it was possible to be, in that small cabin, than she had, at first, supposed.

After dinner, Spike took his siesta. He slept in a little state-room that stood on the starboard side of the quarter-deck, quite aft; as Mulford did in one on the larboard. These two state-rooms were fixtures; but a light deck over-head, which connected them, shipped and unshipped, forming a shelter for the man at the wheel, when in its place, as well as for the officer of the watch, should he see fit to use it, in bad weather. This sort of cuddy, Spike termed his “coach-house.”

The captain had no sooner gone into his state-room, and closed its window, movements that were understood by Mulford, than the latter took occasion to intimate to Rose, by means of Jack Tier, the state of things on deck, when the young man was favored with the young lady’s company.

“He has turned in for his afternoon’s nap, and will sleep for just one hour, blow high, or blow low,” said the mate, placing himself at Rose’s side on the trunk, which formed the usual seat for those who could presume to take the liberty of sitting down on the quarter-deck. “It’s a habit with him, and we can count on it, with perfect security.”

“His doing so, now, is a sign that he has no immediate fears of the revenue steamer?”

“The coast is quite clear of her. We have taken good looks at every smoke, but can see nothing that appears like our late companion. She has doubtless gone to the eastward, on duty, and merely chased us, on her road.”

“But why should she chase us, at all?”

“Because we ran. Let a dog run, or a man run, or a cat run, ten to one but something starts in chase. It is human nature, I believe, to give chase; though I will admit there was something suspicious about that steamer’s movements—her anchoring off the Fort, for instance. But let her go, for the present; are you getting things right, and to your mind, below decks?”

“Very much so. The cabin is small, and the two state-rooms the merest drawers that ever were used, but, by putting every thing in its place, we have made sufficient room, and no doubt shall be comfortable.”

“I am sorry you did not call on me for assistance. The mate has a prescriptive right to help stow away.”

“We made out without your services,” returned Rose, slightly blushing—“Jack Tier, as he is called, Josh’s assistant, is a very useful person, and has been our adviser and manager. I want no better, for such services.”

“He is a queer fellow, all round. Take him altogether, I hardly ever saw so droll a being! As thick as he’s long, with a waddle like a duck, a voice that is cracked, hair like bristles, and knee high, the man might make a fortune as a show. Tom Thumb is scarcely a greater curiosity.”

“He is singular in ‘build,’ as you call it,” returned Rose, laughing, “but, I can assure you, that he is a most excellent fellow in his way—worth a dozen of Josh. Do you know, Harry, that I suspect he has strong feelings towards Capt. Spike; though whether of like or dislike, friendship or enmity, I am at a loss to say.”

“And why do you think that he has any feeling, at all? I have heard Spike say, he left the fellow ashore, somewhere down on the Spanish Main, or in the Islands, quite twenty years since, but a sailor would scarce carry a grudge so long a time, for such a thing as that.”

“I do not know—but feeling there is, and much of it, too; though, whether hostile, or friendly, I will not undertake to say.”

“I’ll look to the chap, now you tell me this. It is a little odd, the manner in which he got on board us, taken in connection with the company he was in, and a discovery may be made. Here he is, however, and, as I keep the keys of the magazine, he can do us no great harm, unless he scuttles the brig.”

“Magazine! Is there such a thing here?”

“To be sure there is, and ammunition enough in it, to keep eight carronades in lively conversation for a couple of hours.”

“A carronade is what you call a gun, is it not?”

“A piece of a one—being somewhat short, like your friend Jack Tier, who is shaped a good deal like a carronade.”

Rose smiled—nay, half laughed, for Harry’s pleasantries almost took the character of wit in her eyes, but she did not the less pursue her inquiries.

“Guns! And where are they, if they be on this vessel?”

“Do not use such a lubberly expression, my dear Rose, if you respect your father’s profession. On a vessel is a new fangled Americanism, that is neither fish, flesh, nor red-herring, as we sailors say—neither English nor Greek.”

“What should I say, then? My wish is not to parade sea-talk, but to use it correctly, when I use it at all.”

“The expression is hardly ‘sea-talk,’ as you call it, but every-day English—that is when rightly used. On a vessel is no more English, than it is nautical—no sailor ever used such an expression.”

“Tell me what I ought to say, and you will find me a willing, if not an apt scholar. I am certain of having often read it, in the newspapers, and that quite lately.”

“I’ll answer for that, and it’s another proof of its being wrong. In a vessel is as correct as in a coach, and on a vessel as wrong as can be; but you can say on board a vessel, though not ‘on a vessel!’ Not on the ‘boards of a vessel,’ as Mrs. Budd has it.”

“Mr. Mulford!”

“I beg a thousand pardons, Rose, and will offend no more—though she does make some very queer mistakes!”

“My aunt thinks it an honor to my uncle’s memory to be able to use the language of his professional life, and if she do sometimes make mistakes that are absurd, it is with a motive so respectable that no sailor should deride them.”

“I am rebuked for ever. Mrs. Budd may call the anchor a silver spoon, hereafter, without my even smiling. But, if the aunt has this kind remembrance of a seaman’s life, why cannot the niece think equally well of it.”

“Perhaps she does,” returned Rose, smiling again—“seeing all its attractions through the claims of Capt. Spike.”

“I think half the danger from him gone, now that you seem so much on your guard. What an odious piece of deception, to persuade Mrs. Budd that you were fast falling into a decline!”

“One so odious that I shall surely quit the brig at the first port we enter, or even in the first suitable vessel that we may speak.”

“And Mrs. Budd—could you persuade her to such a course?”

“You scarce know us, Harry Mulford. My aunt commands, when there is no serious duty to perform, but we change places, when there is. I can persuade her to any thing that is right, in ten minutes.”

“You might persuade a world!” cried Harry, with strong admiration expressed in his countenance; after which he began to converse with Rose, on a subject so interesting to themselves that we do not think it prudent to relate any more of the discourse, forgetting all about the guns.

About four o’clock, of a fine summer’s afternoon, the Swash went through the Race, on the best of the ebb, and with a staggering south-west wind. Her movement by the land, just at that point, could not have been less than at the rate of fifteen miles in the hour. Spike was in high spirits, for his brig had got on famously that day, and there was nothing in sight to the eastward. He made no doubt, as he had told his mate, that the steamer had gone into the Vineyard Sound, and that she was bound over the shoals.

“They want to make political capital, out of her,” he added, using one of the slang phrases that the “business habits” of the American people are so fast, and so rapidly incorporating with the common language of the country—“They want to make political capital out of her, Harry, and must show her off to the Boston folk, who are full of notions. Well, let them turn her to as much account in that way, as they please, so long as they keep her clear of the Molly. Your sarvant, Madam Budd”—addressing the widow, who just at that moment came on deck—“a fine a’ternoon, and likely to be a clear night to run off the coast in.”

“Clear nights are desirable, and most of all at sea, Capt. Spike,” returned the relict, in her best, complacent, manner, “whether it be to run off a coast, or to run on a coast. In either case, a clear night, or a bright moon must be useful.”

Capt. Spike rolled his tobacco over in his mouth, and cast a furtive glance at the mate, but he did not presume to hazard any further manifestations of his disposition to laugh.

“Yes, Madam Budd,” he answered, “it is quite as you say, and I am only surprised where you have picked up so much of what I call useful nautical knowledge.”

“We live and learn, sir. You will recollect that this is not my first voyage, having made one before, and that I passed a happy, happy, thirty years in the society of my poor, dear husband, Rose’s uncle. One must have been dull, indeed, not to have picked up, from such a companion, much of a calling that was so dear to him, and the particulars of which were so very dear to him. He actually gave me lessons in the ‘sea dialect,’ as he called it, which probably is the true reason I am so accurate and general in my acquisitions.”

“Yes, Madam Budd—yes—hem—you are—yes, you are wonderful in that way. We shall soon get an offing, now, Madam Budd—yes, soon get an offing, now.”

“And take in our departure, Capt. Spike—” added the widow with a very intelligent smile.

“Yes, take our departure. Montauk is yonder, just coming in sight; only some three hours’ run from this spot. When we get there, the open ocean will lie before us, and give me the open sea, and I’ll not call the king my uncle.”

“Was he your uncle, Capt. Spike?”

“Only in a philanthropic way, Madam Budd. Yes, let us get a good offing, and a rapping to’gallant breeze, and I do not think I should care much for two of Uncle Sam’s new-fashioned revenue craft, one on each side of me.”

“How delightful do I find such conversation, Rose! It’s as much like your poor, dear uncle’s, as one pea is like another. ‘Yes,’ he used to say, too, ‘let me only have one on each side of me, and a wrapper round the topgallant sail to hold the breeze, and I’d not call the king my uncle.’ Now I think of it, he used to talk about the king as his uncle, too.”

“It was all talk, aunty. He had no uncle, and what is more, he had no king.”

“That’s quite true, Miss Rose,” rejoined Spike, attempting a bow, which ended in a sort of a jerk. “It is not very becoming in us republicans to be talking of kings, but a habit is a habit. Our forefathers had kings, and we drop into their ways without thinking of what we are doing. Fore-topgallant yard, there?”

“Sir.”

“Keep a bright look-out, ahead. Let me know the instant you make any thing in the neighborhood of Montauk.”

“Ay, ay, sir.”

“As I was saying, Madam Budd, we seamen drop into our forefather’s ways. Now, when I was a youngster, I remember, one day, that we fell in with a ketch—you know, Miss Rose, what a ketch is, I suppose?”

“I have not the least notion of it, sir.”

“Rosy, you amaze me!” exclaimed the aunt—“and you a ship-master’s niece, and a ship-master’s daughter! A catch is a trick that sailors have, when they quiz landsmen.”

“Yes, Madam Budd, yes; we have them sort of catches, too, but I now mean the vessel with a peculiar rig, which we call a ketch, you know.”

“Is it the full-jigger, or the half-jigger sort, that you mean?”

Spike could hardly stand this, and he had to hail the top-gallant-yard again, in order to keep the command of his muscles, for he saw by the pretty frown that was gathering on the brow of Rose, that she was regarding the matter a little seriously. Luckily, the answer of the man on the yard diverted the mind of the widow from the subject, and prevented the necessity of any reply.

“There’s a light, of course sir, on Montauk, is there not, Capt. Spike?” demanded the seaman who was aloft.

“To be sure there is—every head-land, here-abouts, has its light; and some have two.”

“Ay, ay, sir—it’s that which puzzles me; I think I see one light-house, and I’m not certain but I see two.”

“If there is any thing like a second, it must be a sail. Montauk has but one light.”

Mulford sprang into the fore-rigging, and in a minute was on the yard. He soon came down and reported the light-house in sight, with the afternoon’s sun shining on it, but no sail near.

“My poor, dear Mr. Budd used to tell a story of his being cast away on a light-house, in the East Indies,” put in the relict, as soon as the mate had ended his report, “which always affected me. It seems there were three ships of them together, in an awful tempest directly off the land⁠—”

“That was comfortable any how,” cried Spike;—“if it must blow hard, let it come off the land, say I.”

“Yes, sir, it was directly off the land, as my poor husband always said, which made it so much the worse you must know, Rosy, though Capt. Spike’s gallant spirit would rather encounter danger than not. It blew what they call a Hyson, in the Chinese seas⁠—”

“A what, aunty?—Hyson is the name of a tea, you know.”

“A Hyson, I’m pretty sure it was, and I suppose the wind is named after the tea, or the tea after the wind.”

“The ladies do get in a gale, sometimes, over their tea,” said Spike gallantly. “But I rather think Madam Budd must mean a Typhoon.”

“That’s it—a Typhoon, or a Hyson—there is not much difference between them, you see. Well, it blew a Typhoon, and they are always mortal to somebody. This my poor Mr. Budd well knew, and he had set his chronometer for that Typhoon⁠—”

“Excuse me aunty, it was the barometer that he was watching—the chronometer was his watch.”

“So it was—his watch on deck was his chronometer, I declare. I am forgetting a part of my education. Do you know the use of a chronometer, now, Rose? You have seen your uncle’s often, but do you know how he used it?”

“Not in the least, aunty. My uncle often tried to explain it, but I never could understand him.”

“It must have been, then, because Capt. Budd did not try to make himself comprehended,” said Mulford, “for I feel certain nothing would be easier than to make you understand the uses of the chronometer.”

“I should like to learn it from you, Mr. Mulford,” answered the charming girl, with an emphasis so slight on the ‘you,’ that no one observed it but the mate, but which was clear enough to him, and caused every nerve to thrill.

“I can attempt it,” answered the young man, “if it be agreeable to Mrs. Budd, who would probably like to hear it, herself.”

“Certainly, Mr. Mulford, though I fancy you can say little on such a subject, that I have not often heard, already, from my poor, dear, Mr. Budd.”

This was not very encouraging, truly, but Rose continuing to look interested, the mate proceeded.

“The use of the chronometer is to ascertain the longitude,” said Harry, “and the manner of doing it, is simply this: A chronometer is nothing more nor less, than a watch made with more care than usual, so as to keep the most accurate time. They are of all sizes, from that of a clock, down to this which I wear in my fob, and which is a watch in size and appearance. Now, the nautical almanacs are all calculated to some particular meridian⁠—”

“Yes,” interrupted the relict, “Mr. Budd had a great deal to say about meridians.”

“That of London, or Greenwich, being the meridian used by those who use the English Almanacs, and those of Paris or St. Petersburgh, by the French and Russians. Each of these places has an observatory, and chronometers that are kept carefully regulated, the year round. Every chronometer is set by the regulator of the particular observatory or place to which the almanac used is calculated.”

“How wonderfully like my poor, dear Mr. Budd, all this is, Rosy! Meridians, and calculated and almanacs! I could almost think I heard your uncle entertaining me with one of his nautical discussions, I declare!”

“Now the sun rises earlier in places east, than in places west of us.”

“It rises earlier in the summer, but later in the winter, every where, Mr. Mulford.”

“Yes, my dear Madam, but the sun rises earlier every day, in London, than it does in New York.”

“That is impossible,” said the widow, dogmatically—“Why should not the sun rise at the same time in England and America?”

“Because England is east of America, aunty. The sun does not move, you know, but only appears to us to move, because the earth turns round from west to east, which causes those who are farthest east to see it the first. That is what Mr. Mulford means.”

“Rose has explained it perfectly well,” continued the mate. “Now the earth is divided into 360 degrees, and the day is divided into 24 hours. If 360 be divided by 24, the quotient will be 15. It follows, that for each fifteen degrees of longitude, there is a difference of just one hour in the rising of the sun, all over the earth, where it rises at all. New York is near five times 15 degrees west of Greenwich, and the sun consequently rises five hours later at New York than at London.”

“There must be a mistake in this, Rosy,” said the relict in a tone of desperate resignation, in which the desire to break out in dissent, was struggling oddly enough, with an assumed dignity of deportment. “I’ve always heard that the people of London are some of the latest in the world. Then I’ve been in London, and know that the sun rises in New York, in December, a good deal earlier than it does in London, by the clock—yes, by the clock.”

“True enough, by the clock, Mrs. Budd, for London is more than ten degrees north of New York, and the farther north you go, the later the sun rises in winter, and the earlier in summer.”

The relict merely shrugged her shoulders, as much as to say that she knew no such thing; but Rose, who had been well taught, raised her serene eyes to her aunt’s face, and mildly said⁠—

“All true, aunty, and that is owing to the fact that the earth is smaller at each end, than in the middle.”

“Fiddle faddle with your middles and ends, Rose—I’ve been in London, dear, and know that the sun rises later there than in New York, in the month of December, and that I know by the clock, I tell you.”

“The reason of which is,” resumed Mulford, “because the clocks of each place keep the time of that place. Now, it is different with the chronometers, they are set in the observatory of Greenwich, and keep the time of Greenwich. This watch chronometer was set there, only six months since, and this time, as you see is near nine o’clock, when in truth it is only about four o’clock, here, where we are.”

“I wonder you keep such a watch, Mr. Mulford!”

“I keep it,” returned the mate smiling, “because I know it to keep good time. It has the Greenwich time; and, as your watch has the New York time, by comparing them together, it is quite easy to find the longitude of New York.”

“Do you, then, keep watches to compare with your chronometers?” asked Rose, with interest.

“Certainly not, as that would require a watch for every separate part of the ocean, and then we should only get known longitudes. It would be impracticable, and load a ship with nothing but watches. What we do, is this: We set our chronometers at Greenwich, and thus keep the Greenwich true time, wherever we go. The greatest attention is paid to the chronometers, to see that they receive no injuries, and usually there are two, and often more of them, to compare one with another, in order to see that they go well. When in the middle of the ocean, for instance, we find the true time of day at that spot, by ascertaining the height of the sun. This we do by means of our quadrants, or sextants; for, as the sun is always in the zenith at twelve o’clock, nothing is easier than to do this, when the sun can be seen, and an arc of the heavens measured. At the instant the height of the sun is ascertained by one observer, he calls to another, who notes the time on the chronometer. The difference in these two times, or that of the chronometer and that of the sun, gives the distance in degrees and minutes, between the longitude of Greenwich and that of the place on the ocean, where the observer is; and that gives him his longitude. If the difference is three hours and twenty minutes, in time, the distance from Greenwich is fifty degrees of longitude, because the sun rises there three hours and twenty minutes sooner in London, than in the fiftieth degree of west longitude.”

“A watch is a watch, Rosy,” put in the aunt, doggedly—“and time is time.—When it’s four o’clock at our house, it’s four o’clock at your aunt Sprague’s, and it’s so all over the world. The world may turn round—I’ll not deny it, for your uncle often said as much as that, but it cannot turn in the way Mr. Mulford says, or we should all fall off it, at night, when it was bottom upwards. No, sir, no; you’ve started wrong. My poor, dear, late Mr. Budd always admitted that the world turned round, as the books say; but, when I suggested to him the difficulty of keeping things in their places, with the earth upside down, he acknowledged candidly—for he was all candor, I must say that for him—and owned that he had made a discovery, by means of his barometer, which showed that the world did not turn round, in the way you describe, or by rolling over, but by whirling about as one turns in a dance. You must remember your uncle’s telling me this, Rose?”

Rose did remember her uncle’s telling her aunt this, as well as a great many other similar prodigies. Capt. Budd had married his silly wife, on account of her pretty face, and when the novelty of that was over, he often amused himself by inventing all sorts of absurdities, to amuse both her and himself. Among other things, Rose well remembered his quieting her aunt’s scruples about falling off the earth, by laying down the theory that the world did not “roll over,” but “whirl round.” But Rose did not answer the question.

“Objects are kept in their places on the earth, by means of attraction,” Mulford ventured to say, with a great deal of humility of manner. “I believe it is thought there is no up or down, except as we go from, or towards the earth; and that would make the position of the last a matter of indifference, as respects objects keeping on it.”

“Attractions are great advantages, I will own, sir, especially to our sex. I think it will be acknowledged there has been no want of them in our family, any more than there has been of sense and information. Sense, and information, we pride ourselves on; attractions being gifts from God, we try to think less of them. But all the attractions in the world could not keep Rosy, here, from falling off the earth, did it ever come bottom upwards. And, mercy on me, where would she fall to!”

Mulford saw that argument was useless, and he confined his remarks, during the rest of the conversation, to showing Rose the manner in which the longitude of a place might be ascertained, with the aid of the chronometer, and by means of observations to get the true time of day, at the particular place itself. Rose was so quick witted, and already so well instructed, as easily to comprehend the principles; the details being matters of no great moment to one of her sex and habits. But Mrs. Budd remained antagonist to the last. She obstinately maintained that twelve o’clock was twelve o’clock; or, if there was any difference, “London hours were notoriously later, than those of New York.”

Against such assertions, arguments were obviously useless, and Mulford, perceiving that Rose began to fidget, had sufficient tact to change the conversation altogether.

And still the Molly Swash kept in swift motion. Montauk was, by this time, abeam, and the little brigantine began to rise and fall, on the long swells of the Atlantic, which now opened before her, in one vast sheet of green and rolling waters. On her right, lay the termination of Long Island; a low, rocky cape, with its light, and a few fields in tillage, for the uses of those who tended it. It was the “land’s end” of New York, while the island that was heaving up out of the sea, at a distance of about twenty miles to the eastward, was the property of Rhode Island, being called Blok Island. Between the two, the Swash shaped her course for the ocean.

Spike had betrayed uneasiness, as his brig came up with Montauk; but the coast seemed clear, with not even a distant sail in sight, and he came aft rubbing his hands with delight, speaking cheerfully.

“All right, Mr. Mulford,” he cried—“every thing ship-shape and brister-fashion—not even a smack fishing here-away, which is a little remarkable. Ha!—what are you staring at, over the quarter, there?”

“Look here, sir, directly in the wake of the setting sun, which we are now opening from the land—is not that a sail?”

“Sail! Impossible, sir. What should a sail be doing in there, so near Montauk—no man ever saw a sail there, in his life. It’s a spot in the sun, Madam Budd, that my mate has got a glimpse at, and, sailor-like, he mistakes it for a sail! Ha—ha—ha—yes, Harry, it’s a spot in the sun.”

“It is a spot on the sun, as you say, but it’s a spot made by a vessel—and here is a boat pulling towards her, might and main; going from the light, as if carrying news.”

It was no longer possible for Spike’s hopes to deceive him. There was a vessel sure enough, though, when first seen, it was so directly in a line with the fiery orb of the setting sun, as to escape common observation. As the brig went foaming on towards the ocean, however, the black speck was soon brought out of the range of the orb of day, and Spike’s glass was instantly leveled at it.

“Just as one might expect, Mr. Mulford,” cried the captain, lowering his glass, and looking aloft to see what could be done to help his craft along; “a bloody revenue cutter, as I’m a wicked sinner! There she lies, sir, within musket shot of the shore, hid behind the point, as it might be in waiting for us, with her head to the southward, her helm hard down, topsail aback, and foresail brailed; as wicked looking a thing as Free Trade and Sailor’s Rights ever ran from. My life on it, sir, she’s been put in that precise spot, in waiting, for the Molly to arrive. You see, as we stand on, it places her as handsomely to windward of us, as the heart of man could desire.”

“It is a revenue cutter, sir; now she’s out of the sun’s wake, that is plain enough. And that is her boat, which has been sent to the light to keep a lookout for us. Well, sir; she’s to windward, but we have every thing set for our course, and as we are fairly abeam, she must be a great traveler to overhaul us.”

“I thought these bloody cutters were all down in the Gulf,” growled the captain, casting his eyes aloft, again, to see that every thing drew. “I’m sure the newspapers have mentioned as many as twenty that are down there, and here is one, lying behind Montauk, like a snake in the grass!”

“At any rate, by the time he gets his boat up, we shall get the start of him—ay; there he fills and falls off, to go and meet her. He’ll soon be after us, Capt. Spike, at racing speed.”

Every thing occurred as those two mariners had foreseen. The revenue cutter, one of the usual fore-topsail schooners that are employed in that service, up and down the coast, had no sooner hoisted up her boat, than she made sail, a little off the wind, on a line to close with the Swash. As for the brig, she had hauled up to an easy bowline, as she came round Montauk, and was now standing off south south-east, still having the wind at south-west. The weatherly position of the cutter enabled her to steer rather more than one point freer. At the commencement of this chase, the vessels were about a mile and a half apart, a distance too great to enable the cutter to render the light guns she carried available, and it was obvious from the first, that every thing depended on speed. And speed it was, truly; both vessels fairly flying; the Molly Swash having at last met with something very like her match. Half an hour satisfied both Spike and Mulford that, by giving the cutter the advantage of one point in a freer wind, that she would certainly get along side of them, and the alternative was to keep off.

“A starn chase is a long chase, all the world over,” cried Spike—“edge away, sir; edge away, sir, and bring the cutter well on our quarter.”

This order was obeyed, but to the surprise of those in the Swash, the cutter did not exactly follow, though she kept off a little more. Her object seemed to be to maintain her weatherly position, and in this manner, the two vessels ran on, for an hour longer, until the Swash had made most of the distance between Montauk and Blok Island. Objects were even becoming dimly visible on the last, and the light on the point was just becoming visible, a lone star above a waste of desert, the sun having been down now fully a quarter of an hour, and twilight beginning to draw the curtain of night over the waters.

“A craft under Blok,” shouted the look-out, that was still kept aloft as a necessary precaution.

“What sort of a craft?” demanded Spike, fiercely; for the very mention of a sail, at that moment, aroused all his ire. “Arn’t you making a frigate out of an apple orchard?”

“It’s the steamer, sir. I can now see her smoke. She’s just clearing the land, on the south side of the island, and seems to be coming round to meet us.”

A long, low, eloquent whistle from the captain, succeeded this announcement. The man aloft was right. It was the steamer, sure enough; and she had been lying hid behind Blok Island, exactly as her consort had been placed behind Montauk, in waiting for their chase to arrive. The result was to put the Molly Swash in exceeding jeopardy, and the reason why the cutter kept so well to windward, was fully explained. To pass out to sea between these two craft was hopeless. There remained but a single alternative from capture, by one or by the other, and that Spike adopted instantly. He kept his brig dead away, setting studding-sails on both sides. This change of course brought the cutter nearly aft, or somewhat on the other quarter, and laid the brig’s head in a direction to carry her close to the northern coast of the island. But the principal advantage was gained over the steamer, which could not keep off, without first standing a mile or two, or even more, to the westward, in order to clear the land. This was so much clear gain to the Swash, which was running off at racing speed, on a northeast course, while her most dangerous enemy was still heading to the westward. As for the cutter, she kept away; but, it was soon apparent that the brig had the heels of her, dead before the wind.

Darkness now began to close around the three vessels; the brig and the schooner soon becoming visible to each other principally by means of their night-glasses; though the steamer’s position could be easily distinguished by means of her flaming chimney. This latter vessel stood to the westward for a quarter of an hour, when her commander appeared to become suddenly conscious of the ground he was losing, and he wore short round, and went off before the wind, under steam and canvas; intending to meet the chase off the northern side of the island. The very person who had hailed the Swash, as she was leaving the wharf, who had passed her in Hell-Gate, with Jack Tier in his boat, and who had joined her off Throgmorton’s, was now on her deck, urging her commander, by every consideration, not to let the brig escape. It was at his suggestion that the course was changed. Nervous, and eager to seize the brig, he prevailed on the commander of the steamer to change his course. Had he done no more than this, all might have been well; but, so exaggerated were his notions of the Swash’s sailing, that, instead of suffering the steamer to keep close along the eastern side of the island, he persuaded her commander of the necessity of standing off, a long distance to the northward and eastward, with a view to get ahead of the chase. This was not bad advice, were there any certainty that Spike would stand on, of which, however, he had no intention.

The night set in dark and cloudy, and, the instant that Spike saw, by means of the flaming chimney, that the steamer had wore, and was going to the eastward of Blok, his plan was laid. Calling to Mulford, he communicated it to him, and glad to find that his intelligent mate was of his own way of thinking. The necessary orders were given, accordingly, and every thing was got ready for its execution.

In the meantime, the two revenue craft were much in earnest. The schooner was one of the fastest in the service, and had been placed under Montauk, as described, in the confident expectation of her being able to compete with even the Molly Swash successfully; more especially if brought upon a bowline. Her commander watched the receding form of the brig with the closest attention, until it was entirely swallowed up in the darkness, under the land, towards which he then sheered himself, in order to prevent the Swash from hauling up, and turning to windward, close in under the shadow of the island. Against this manœuvre, however, the cutter had now taken an effectual precaution, and her people were satisfied that escape in that way was impossible.

On the other hand, the steamer was doing very well. Driven by the breeze, and propelled by her wheels, away she went, edging further and further from the island, as the person from the Custom House succeeded, as it might be, inch by inch, in persuading the captain of the necessity of his so doing. At length a sail was dimly seen ahead, and then no doubt was entertained that the brig had got to the northward and eastward of them. Half an hour brought the steamer along side of this sail, which turned out to be a brig, that had come over the shoals, and was beating into the ocean, on her way to one of the southern ports. Her captain said there had nothing passed to the eastward.

Round went the steamer, and in went all her canvas. Ten minutes later the look-out saw a sail to the westward, standing before the wind. Odd as it might seem, the steamer’s people now fancied they were sure of the Swash. There she was, coming directly for them, with square yards! The distance was short, or a vessel could not have been seen by that light, and the two craft were soon near each other. A gun was actually cleared on board the steamer, ere it was ascertained that the stranger was the schooner! It was now midnight, and nothing was in sight but the coasting brig. Reluctantly, the revenue people gave the matter up; the Molly Swash having again eluded them, though by means unknown.

[To be continued.

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BY E. M. SIDNEY.

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In the opinion of Carlyle this is the best philosophical history that Germany has produced. The Harpers have reprinted it in the cheap and elegant series of valuable books, entitled their “New Miscellany.” The volume presents a graphic and exceedingly interesting view of one of the most terrible and devastating wars with which Europe was ever cursed. It represents the struggle of the Protestant States against the overgrown power of Austria, and the various motives, religious and devilish, which animated the parties during the contest. The skill and bravery of the commanders engaged in the war, give a personal as well as general interest to the narrative. On the one side we have Gustavus Adolphus, Count Thorn, Mansfield, Bernard of Weimar, Banner, Torstensohn, on the other Wallenstein, Tilly, Piccolimini, Pappenheim, and Hatzfeld. Gustavus Adolphus and Wallenstein are, of course, the leading objects of interest. In reading this history the mind becomes so accustomed to the devastation of provinces, the murder of peasants, and horrible outrages on all the decencies and sanctities of life,—that fire, famine and slaughter become mere commonplaces and matters of course. We read, at last, the most terrible accounts of wretchedness and cruelty, with hardly a shudder. Schiller, in summing up the various evils of this war, a war which devastated whole provinces, reduced towns and cities to ashes, “smothered the glimmering sparks of civilization in Germany, and threw back the improving manners of the country into their pristine barbarity and wildness,” still finds consolation in the thought that from this fearful war Europe came forth free and independent. “In it she first learned to recognize herself as a community of nations; and this intercommunion of States, which originated in the thirty years’ war, would alone be sufficient to reconcile the philosopher to its horrors.” There is, in truth, some consolation in the idea that a soul of goodness abides in things evil,—that men, mad with passion or drunk with fanaticism, cannot hack each other to pieces, without having their blind fury directed by a higher power to a good result.

No person can have watched the course of the prominent American publishers of the United States, without observing a manifest improvement, within the last three or four years, in the character of the books they reprint, and the style of their execution. The house of Appleton & Co. have been especially distinguished for the intrinsic value, and the cheapness and elegance, of their publications. Their mercantile daring, in hazarding capital on books which were not considered, until lately, profitable speculations, deserves the highest praise. The present edition of Guizot’s admirable work on Civilization, is one of their most important additions to the stock of works, combining great learning and profound thought, with some of the most charming qualities of style. The first portion of the present publication, on the General History of Civilization in Europe, is well known; but the other three volumes, containing Guizot’s lectures on the History of Civilization in France, have been but lately translated. Guizot is probably the greatest historian that France has produced, in the combination of those qualities which go to make up a genius for history. He yields to none in the research which collects facts, the understanding which analyses and arranges them, and the imagination which represents them as realities, and endows them with substantial life and meaning. To all these advantages, he adds a beautiful clearness, vigor and brilliancy of style, in narrating the progress of events and setting forth their laws and principles. The present history is at once popular and profound. It is calculated to delight and instruct the common reader as well as the student. We cordially recommend it to all, as a book containing a vast amount of erudition and thought, devoted to the illustration of a subject in which everybody has an interest, and calculated to improve the literary taste of the reader, as well as to inform and enlarge his understanding.

This is one of the most entertaining volumes of the season. It contains a summary in prose of Dante’s Divine Comedy, and various stories from the poems of Pulci, Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso, with occasional passages versified, and some interesting critical notices of the lives and genius of the poets. In the criticisms Hunt evinces a knowledge of his authors, founded on a long acquaintance with them, and a keen enjoyment of their excellencies. The account of the Divine Comedy is the best, for the general mind, which we have yet seen in English, and is calculated to give delight to thousands, to whom Cary’s translation would be a bore. The stories from Pulci are exquisite for their mirthful beauty. The tales from Boiardo, Ariosto and Tasso, will introduce the common novel reader into a new world of beauty, heroism and romance. The passages of grandeur and sublimity, of pathos and sweetness,—the images both delicate and magnificent, with which the volume abounds,—make its circulation in this country a thing devoutly to be wished. It will enable the reader to obtain some idea of the splendor and opulence of the Italian mind, in all which enchants the senses and thrills the imagination.

Hunt’s critical notices and occasional comments are very characteristic. His style has the same sweetness and felicity which constitute the charm of his other essays; and is dotted over with those little impertinences of personal opinion, from which nothing that he writes is wholly free. His remarks on Dante throw more light upon his own character than that of his subject. From the very constitution of his mind he revolts at all infliction of suffering, even for sin. He would have ice-creams in Pandemonium. He is inexpressibly shocked at Dante’s severity and spleen, and speaks many a fair word for the poor rascals whom the austere Florentine has consigned to perdition. His comments on the remorseless severity of the punishments in Hell,—his indignation that Cato should be placed in Purgatory while his wife, Marcia, sojourns in the pit,—his exceptions to some of the persons placed on high seats in heaven,—are often exquisitely amusing. It requires a man like Hunt to criticise a man like Dante.

This is a splendid edition of one of the most popular of English poets. It has ten fine steel embellishments, and its general execution places it very nearly on a level with the English edition. As a specimen of American typography it is very honorable to the enterprising publishers. It is the only complete edition of Moore ever published in this country, being reprinted from the London collection, lately edited by the poet himself, and containing his autobiographical prefaces and illustrations. In these the poet very pleasantly prattles about his own life and works, and is exhibited as the most graceful of egotists. The volume contains an immense number of brilliant verses, ranging in subject from the romantic poem to the political squib. Without depth of passion, elevation of sentiment, or grandeur of imagination, the poems of Moore still evince a quickness of sensibility, an opulence of fancy, and a brilliancy of wit, which have made them among the most popular works produced within the present century. His poems are lit up with an incessant shower of sparkling fancies. Almost everything he has written is full of glitter and point—his sentiment as well as his satire. His songs are often epigrams of feeling. Though, as a poet, he can hardly stand by the side of Wordsworth, Shelley, Coleridge, or Byron, in the greatest qualities of the bard, yet no one can glance over the present volume without being impressed with the brilliant genius of its author, and fascinated with the stores of wit, fancy, learning and sentiment, which glisten and gleam on every page.

This is Carlyle’s grandest work—a prose epic on the great event of modern history. In our narrow limits we cannot hope to do any thing like justice, to the imagination, fancy, learning, humor, pathos, sublimity, characterization, with which the volumes abound. In spite of some obstinate faults, in spite of much false and pernicious doctrine, in spite of the style, no work ever written on the French Revolution equals this in the clearness with which it represents the causes of that revolution, in the vividness with which it brings up its different events in magnificent pictures, speaking directly to the eye, and in the grandeur of its delineations of the principal actors in the drama. The portraits of Mirabeau, Danton, Robespierre, are masterpieces. Every page glows with vital life. The words are all alive with meaning. They paint objects so distinctly that we become observers of the scenes to which they relate. Carlyle, in truth, is a master of expression as distinguished from mere fluency. He selects the “inevitable best word,” or compounds it, with an unmistakable tact and sureness. If to his other great qualities he joined calmness, comprehension, mental honesty, the present work would be almost perfect. Viewing it with an eye to all its faults, it must be pronounced a work of great genius and power.

Foster is well known as the author of a volume of essays, laden with weighty thought and acute observations on character and life. The present volume, containing his letters and journals from his earliest to his latest years, is one of great value, not merely to his own sect, the Baptists, but to all who can appreciate originality of character and thought. Foster was a hard, determined, patient thinker, gifted with much imagination, and impressing on every thing he wrote the invincible honesty of his character. His correspondence reveals to us the inmost recesses of his mind and disposition, and constitutes a kind of psychological autobiography, replete with materials of interest and instruction. The separate thoughts scattered over these volumes would alone be sufficient to reward abundantly the trouble of its perusal. One of the strongest peculiarities of genius, Foster says in one place, “is the power of lighting its own fire.” Of a soft and pensive evening, he remarks—“It is as if the soul of Eloisa pervaded all the air.” Shakspeare, he observes, had perceptions of every kind; “he could think every way. His mind might be compared to that monster the prophet saw in his vision, which had eyes all over.” Again he says—“Lord Chatham did not reason; he struck, as by intuition, directly on the results of reasoning; as a cannon-shot strikes the mark without your seeing its course through the air as it moves towards its object.” When shown a piece of ornamental worsted-work, with a great deal of red in it, he said “it was red with the blood of murdered time.” The volumes are full of thoughts and observations equally striking and pointed.

This poem has excited no inconsiderable interest in London. It is reprinted from the third English edition. Bulwer has been mentioned as the probable author, but this must be a mistake, unless Bulwer has essentially changed his literary opinions. Wordsworth, Keats and Tennyson, each of whom the author of “Pelham” has warmly praised, the author of “Timon” most ignorantly and pertly ridicules. The poem, it must be admitted, has much merit. It is written in a vigorous style, contains numerous passages of flashing description, much keen portraiture of prominent English politicians, and many beautiful scenes of pathos and passion. The pith and nerve of the verse, the half-misanthropic, half-romantic tone of the sentiment, the frequent allusion to contemporary events and persons, and the bitter sharpness of the satire on social evils,—often remind the reader of Byron. The work evidences a brilliant and restless intellect, ill at ease with the manners and institutions of society, scornful, dogmatic and perverse, but quite felicitous in running keen observations into the moulds of fancy and wit. Kinglake, the author of Eothen, might have written it. The author’s character is a composite, made up of Diogenes and Alcibiades.

The publishers of this volume have started a “Library for the People,” of which the Life of Addison constitutes No. 5. It makes a volume of about 300 pages, elegantly printed. The price is only fifty cents, or one-fourteenth of the cost of the English edition. All the mistakes of the English edition, so acutely pointed out by Macaulay, have been corrected in the American reprint. The work is well written, and introduces us to a most interesting period of English literature and history. The correspondence of Addison confers great value upon the work. Most of the letters were never before printed. The beautiful character of the subject, joined to the immense influence which his writings have exerted on English letters and manners, give to the details of his virtuous and well-spent life a peculiar interest and charm. A volume which introduces us so completely to Addison, and strengthens that affectionate companionship with him, which his works may have commenced, cannot fail to be popular.

The matter of this book will ensure its success. It contains extracts from Chaucer, Shakspeare, Ben Jonson, Beaumont and Fletcher, Suckling, Dryden, Pope, Goldsmith and Wolcot, with running comments on the authors and on particular passages of the poems. The essay on Wit and Humor, though it does not exhaust the topic, is ingenious, and pleasantly illustrated. We do not think that in the case of a few of the authors, Hunt has hit upon the happiest selections. Few, for example, would obtain an idea of the comic genius of Fletcher from the specimens quoted in the volume. The task, however, was a difficult one to perform; and the editor, in compiling an entertaining volume, has done all that perhaps could be expected, in the limited space to which he was confined.

The most superficial glance over this volume would convince even the supercilious critic, that the author is destined to take a high rank among American poets. “The Island Bride” contains nine Cantos of Spenserian verse, finished in diction, poetical in feeling, and replete with thought, fancy and imagination. It is one of the very few long poems in American literature, which more than repay perusal. The other pieces are of much merit, and bear unmistakable marks of power. The most surprising quality manifested in the volume, is perhaps the correct taste which is everywhere observable throughout its pages. It seems the work of a veteran in composition, rather than the first volume of a youthful poet. We should be pleased, had we time, to make it the subject of a more extended notice; but at present, we can do little more than cordially commend it to the notice of our readers.

The object of this volume is a good one, and it will be found eminently useful. To read modern books understandingly, some knowledge of the religion, government and manners and customs of the Greeks and Romans, is indispensable, from the multitude of allusions to them throughout every department of modern literature. In addition to this, the subject of Classical Antiquities is sufficiently interesting of itself, to justify the reading of a much larger book than the present. The “way of life” among two nations, which have once held a vast dominion on earth, by virtue of their power and policy, and still hold even a vaster dominion over the mind by virtue of their literature, must be interesting to every reflective and curious mind.

The character of this volume is indicated by its title. It is the application of the principles of phrenology to the phenomena of crime. The notions of the author are illustrated by a number of portraits of criminals and other persons, the shape of whose heads are said to indicate the bent of their characters. The book is readable, even to unbelievers in the science of bumps. Phrenology, however, to all intents and purposes, is an exploded system; and thieves and murderers cannot, at this day, save themselves from punishment, by exhibiting in extenuation of their crime, the most gigantic organs of acquisitiveness and destructiveness.

A work like this has long been wanted. The large mass of readers are singularly deficient in accurate knowledge respecting the great region of which it treats. Mr. Bradford has interesting chapters on the physical geography, history, topography, pursuits, health, geology, botany, monuments, and aboriginal inhabitants of the Northwest. Under this name he includes the country between Lakes Superior and Michigan, east,—the Illinois and Missouri Rivers, and the Northern Boundary of the United States,—including Iowa and Wisconsin, part of Michigan northwest of the Straits of Mackinaw, and Northern Illinois and Missouri.

It is singular that this is the first good English translation of the celebrated work of Goethe on his own life. As a record of the external influences and internal experiences, which went to form the character of Germany’s master-intellect, it is one of the most important works of the age. Carlyle, in referring to it, well says—“what would we give for such an autobiography of Shakspeare, of Milton, even of Pope or Swift?” The publishers have included it in their series of “Choice Books”—an enterprise which they have successfully extended to eighty numbers, without any evidence of exhausting their materials.

This book well bears out its title. It is a collection of anecdotes, personal adventures, and hits upon popular errors. The author is a shrewd observer of life and character, and has an eye for the tendencies of popular movements. There is much sense and humor in his remarks on the various moral reforms of the day. He is “a gentleman of the old school,” and perhaps does not always do complete justice to the objects of his sarcasm or indignation; but he well probes their weak points.

This edition of Carlyle’s celebrated work on the philosophy of clothes, is revised by the author; and Wiley & Putnam are authorized by him, to “print and vend the same in the United States.” The book, itself, with all its wildness of style, is one of the most fascinating works of the century—full of splendid imagination, deep thought, and humorous insight into life, character and manners. Its wealth of pictorial expression, would alone entitle it to a high rank among works of imagination. The present edition is altogether the best and most elegant ever published in the United States.

This work presents the results of an extensive series of original experiments, undertaken by order of the British government. It is full of matter important at once to the practical agriculturist and the scientific physiologist. The publishers have issued it in a cheap form, so as to bring it within the reach of the humblest means. The author is evidently a patient man of science, who may be relied upon as a close observer of facts, and strict reasoner from them. No farmer can well dispense with the book.

Transcriber’s Notes:

Table of Contents has been added for reader convenience. Archaic spellings and hyphenation have been retained. Punctuation has been corrected without note. Other errors have been corrected as noted below. For illustrations, some caption text may be missing or incomplete due to condition of the originals available for preparation of the eBook.

[End of Graham's Magazine, Vol. XXX, No. 1, January 1847, George Rex Graham, Editor]