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BY THOMAS G. SPEAR

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BY JESSE E. DOW.

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“Maurice stay and go with me to the ball at Mrs. Wilson’s this evening,” said a fairy formed creature with eyes that sparkled with anticipated delight, as she rested her hand upon a young naval officer’s arm and gazed upon his manly features.

“Mary, dearest Mary,” replied the young man in a hesitating manner. “The stage will leave here at eleven to-night, and if I miss it I shall lose my only chance of reaching my Frigate. She is under sailing orders—and will be off in the twinkling of a marline spike, and there’s glory to be won and——”

“A seaman’s sepulchre—” said the lovely girl, as the tears started into her eyes and glittered like tiny pearls upon her long dark eye-lashes.

“But Maurice, you can go at eleven and accompany me to the ball beside. The last evening you spend at Belleview should be spent with your friends.”

The young man hesitated no longer. “Mary,” said he, “you have conquered, I will accompany you to Mrs. Wilson’s and leave at eleven—I shall then bear with me your last impression; and when the tempest howls and the billows toss their snowy spray around me, when the never wearied Petril sings in the hollows of ocean astern, and the thunder awakes the echo of the deep—then while the good ship scuds along her lightning way, will I recall this evening of light and beauty, and with my dread-nought wrapped about me, keep my midnight watch, happier far, than the lazy commodore who snores in a velvet night-cap in his luxurious cabin.”

“Well, Maurice, you have finished at last,” said the laughing girl leaning upon his arm, “I never expected to hear the end of your rhapsody when you commenced—but come let us go in for I have much to do and the evening approaches.” The young man returned her animated glance with a gaze of deep devotion and following her, entered the house from the garden Verandah. There was no one in the drawing-room when Maurice Fitzgerald and Mary Howard entered.

“Maurice,” said the young maiden as she pointed out upon the ocean, and then turned to a table of magazines and annuals, “Nature and art are placed before you, and I shall leave you to be amused by them until my father’s return.” Thus saying, the light hearted girl bounded away to dress for the coming rout. Fitzgerald answered with a smile and then turned to gaze upon the prospect that spread out before his uncle’s mansion. The broad Atlantic was seen for several miles rolling in the crimson light of the setting sun, and the hollow roar of its distant breakers burst upon his ear. The sea-birds in forked trains were seen winging their garrulous flight toward the land, and the successful fishermen were casting their scaly spoil upon the beach. It was a quiet evening, notwithstanding the wind in cat’s paws ruffled the surface of the deep, and wailed sadly amid the branches of the elm trees that lined the avenue in front of the mansion.

As Fitzgerald gazed upon the scene he thought of his lovely cousin and then of the glorious profession that he had chosen. The eye of the mariner loves the ocean. His ear delights in its hollow murmurs, its lashing surges, its misty shadows, and its constant motion. He feels that the land is not for him and that his home is on the deep, deep sea. He sickens in the forest. He grows weary upon the mountain side, the fairest valley smiles in vain for him, and the babbling river but carries him away to that mightier deep whose ebb and flood surrounds the world. The very air—the scent of the sea is far more pleasant to him than the spicy breezes that sigh o’er India’s isles, and the stout ship with its tar and rope-yarn, its salt junk, called by sea-men mahogany, and its duff puddings that defy the tooth of time, is far more agreeable to him than the altar’d palace of an eastern prince with tables crushing beneath the weight of costly viands and richest wines. No one can appreciate the beauty and majesty of the heavens but him who has been shut out from every other prospect for days and weeks together. How beautiful it is to lean upon the taffrail in a moonlight night upon an eastern sea while the sails of the gallant ship from sky to water are gently filled by the dying Levanter, and watch the broad bright moon as she travels up the high way of heaven and sheds a brighter lustre upon the stars. Then the eye penetrates, aye even into the deep blue space beyond her and as when gazing upon the calm bosom of the middle ocean sees naught but mysterious shadowings—a waving curtain of eternal blue.

The topsails of a ship now flashed upon the edge of the horizon, the quick eye of Fitzgerald soon discovered her to be a vessel of war. He watched her with intense interest, and as she approached the land the sun went down to his rest in the deep.

As the last ray of the golden orb flashed upon the vessel, Fitzgerald saw plainly that the Cross of Saint George floated at her ensign peak and that she was an enemy of his country. The stranger having drawn in sufficiently near to the land, now tacked, and in the uncertain haze of evening, faded away.

“I will be the first to communicate the glad tidings to my commander,” said the young officer, proudly; “and ere many days the haughty Briton shall humble himself to the stars of the republic.”

“Well said, my gallant boy,” cried Col. Howard, as he hobbled up to his future son-in-law, who started like one awakened from a glorious dream.

“Uncle,” said Fitzgerald with a smile, “I did not hear you enter.”

“No matter, boy,” said the old soldier, as he screwed his features into the proper expression for a severe twinge of the gout, and stood silent for a moment, and then as the pain evaporated, continued, “I heard you and am pleased with your thoughts; you must leave this evening.”

“Certainly,” said Fitzgerald, smiling.

The tea urn was now brought in, and the family of Colonel Howard assembled around the well spread table. A short blessing interrupted by a few short pishes and pshaws! on account of the severe pains that constantly seized the old gentleman’s leg, was now said by him; and then the evening meal was quietly and systematically disposed of. Sage surmises as to the course of the belligerent stranger, and sager speculations as to the result of her meeting with an American cruizer, now occupied the thoughts and conversational powers of the little party; at length Colonel Howard began to grow drowsy. His arm chair was now wheeled to the right about—he gave his blessing to his nephew with a good will, grasped his hand with the frankness of a soldier, and bade him adieu; then bringing his crutch to the third position of the manual, he went to sleep. Soon the young couple heard the old man muttering in his visions of the revolution, “on to Princeton—ha, there goes Knox, I know his fire—onward my boys—huzza, they fly—the day is ours,” and then a twinge of the gout played the deuce with his dream, and when it past away he slumbered as sweetly as a child upon its mother’s breast. Fitzgerald and Mary now departed for Mrs. Wilson’s, the former having taken his baggage in the carriage, so as to be ready to step from the ball room to the stage-coach.

Mrs. Wilson was one of those comets of fashion who regularly appear with every cycle of time, and who after setting the cities in a blaze, retire to the inland towns to renew their fires, and shine forth as planets of the first magnitude amid inferior stars; believing it to be better to be the head of a village than the tail of a city. It was currently reported by scandalising spinsters that she had been a milliner in England, and having a handsome person was hired by the manager of a country theatre, there to act the goddess in the play of Cherry and Fair Star. Here she entrapped the affections of a young nobleman, who by a mock marriage became her reputed husband. The honey moon soon passed away, and with the realities of wedded life, came the astounding denouement that the nobleman’s coachman had officiated as chaplain on the occasion, and that the marriage was a humbug. This was a downfall to Mrs. Wilson, but she had no help excepting to marry the butler of his lordship, a man of considerable wealth, and emigrate to America. His lordship was generous on the occasion: and the honest butler found himself with a wife, an estate, and an heir presumptive, all at the same moment. Having money and a handsome person, the beautiful and well dressed Mrs. Wilson soon imposed herself upon an aristocratic family in New York as a branch of a noble stock in England. Mr. Wilson, it may be proper to observe, died on his passage, and Mrs. Wilson was a widow when she made the highlands of Neversink.

There is over all those stale meat pies, ycleped large cities, a self-styled upper crust that rises in puffs above the solids. It rejects every thing that is not as light and as trifling as itself, and to say the least of it, has but little virtue or consistency. It covers the virtues and the vices of the social compact, and smothers in flour and paste the unhappy genius who endeavors to penetrate it. As nothing was made in vain, perhaps this self-important crust, like the web of the spider, was designed to catch the painted and gilded drones, whose presence and senseless buzzing might otherwise have disturbed the working party of mankind at their labors, and have caused them to leave the world to starve. To this upper stratum of society in New York, Mrs. Wilson was introduced by her new made friends, and she continued in the ascendent for three months, but unfortunately for human greatness, one evening at a large and fashionable rout, a noble marquis was announced, who to the astonishment of every person present exclaimed, as he was presented to Mrs. Wilson, “Poll Johnson are you here, when did you leave the millinary line?” This was sufficient—the party broke up in confusion, as though a case of plague had occurred in the circle. Mrs. Wilson fainted, and was sent home in a hack as a bundle of soiled linen is sent to the washerwomen, duly marked and numbered upon the outside; and the aristocratic family who had been imposed upon by her, went through with a three weeks’ purification at Saratoga Springs, whence they returned with a sin offering, in the shape of a real nobleman—a perfect simpleton of a count—whose soul lay in whiskers, and whose heart was in bottle green.

Mrs. Wilson, like the jack daw, stripped of borrowed plumes, left New York in great haste, and settled upon a country farm near Belleview, where at the opening of my sketch she reigned mistress of the ton.

As Mary Howard and Fitzgerald entered the saloon, a number of light footed creatures preceded by the super-human Mrs. W. came sailing across the room to meet them.

The ball had commenced, and numbers were dancing to a tune which was then in vogue, and which had been made for these words—

Here the ladies all curtesied to the gentlemen, and the gentlemen all bowed to the ladies, and all continued for five seconds looking in their partners faces with pendent arms, straight under-pinnings, body and breast bent into a half circle, and head erect—

but as soon as the note expressive of the word claw was ended, which in the language of Milton, was like

every body like an unstrung bow, resumed its straight position, and then such a double shuffle commenced as bade defiance to the most agile of the monkeys of Paraguay, and would have caused a mutiny in the lodge of the Upper Mandans had the dance been introduced there by the incomparable Mrs. Wilson.

The ball went on in its vigor—small talk and sour lemonade, with some of the thinnest slices of smoked beef, between two equally thin slices of bread, oiled on one side, and patted down on the other, filled up the interstices of the evening, and the company were as amiable and as ceremonious as possible.

A young gentleman in checkered pantaloons, and a bottle green coat, with a spotted cravat, and a retiring dickey around his neck, now approached Miss Howard and her cousin, and was introduced by the presiding deity as Count Frederick Ampisand, of Hesse Cassel, Germany.

Fitzgerald did not like the appearance of the count; he gave him a formal return of civilities and retired to another corner of the room. Mary Howard who was a perfectly artless creature; but still perverse in her nature from the indulgence of an invalid mother, and proud of having her own way, became pleased with the foreigner as Fitzgerald became disgusted. She admired his pretty broken sentences; his captivating lisp, his manner of pulling up his dickey, and of raising his quizzing glass whenever a lady passed him. Forgetting all but her own gratification, and being desirous of giving Fitzgerald a commentary upon jealousy—that green-eyed jade—she neglected her lover, and hung upon the Count’s aspirations as Eve did upon the devil’s whisper in Eden’s bower.

Fitzgerald was piqued. In fact he became angry, and joining the dance, which he had heretofore declined, became the gayest of the gay. He skipped through a cotillion like a reefer at a dignity ball in Barbadoes, and the light-footed Mrs. Wilson declared that she discovered new graces in Mr. Fitzgerald every time he jumped over the music-stool. Mary Howard now became piqued in turn, and she joined heartily in the laugh against her lover. A rude remark of the Count’s, and a heartier laugh of his beloved, at his expense, now stung the young officer to the soul. He looked at the little knot of critics. The Count was gazing at him through an enormous quizzing glass, and a smile of scorn curled his moustached lip.

Fitzgerald was impetuous and brave. Nature had given him great strength, and a good share of modest assurance. He walked deliberately up to the party—“Miss Howard,” said he, “I beg of you to excuse the Count for a moment. I have a laughable trick to show him in the hall.” The Count did not relish the proposition to go into the dark entry with the officer. He had discovered a spice of devil lurking in his eye. But Mary, suspecting that her cousin was about to divert them with a sea trick that required the aid of a second person, insisted upon Count Ampisand’s going with him to oblige her.

“Aye, ver well to oblige Miss ’Oward. I will go with Neptune,” said the Count magnanimously.

“Get your hat,” said Fitzgerald, as the Count left the saloon.

“I ave him in my pocket,” said Ampisand, pulling from his coat an opera hat, that answered the double purpose of a “bustle” and a beaver, and clapping it upon his head. The two lovers now stood at the outside door from which several steps led to the muddy street.

“Count Ampisand,” said Fitzgerald, “you are an imposter and a pitiful scoundrel. I have called you out to insult you. Now, sir, take that, and be off.” So saying, before the thunder-stricken Ampisand could reply, Fitzgerald seized him by the nose, and, after giving it no infant’s pull, presented his front to the street, and administered an impetus to his after body that carried him into a horse-pond in the middle of the road.

“I will ave the satisfacione, begar, Mr. Lieutenant to shoot you wid de small sword dis night,” said the Count, gathering himself up, and retreating to the two Golden Eagles in no small haste. Fitzgerald laughed aloud, and closing the door behind him, walked lazily toward the shore of the ocean. After walking for half an hour upon the wild sea beach, Fitzgerald turned his steps toward Mrs. Wilson’s for the purpose of bidding his cousin farewell.

Coming footsteps now aroused him from his reverie, and soon a young gentleman from the city, accompanied by a surgeon, and Count Ampisand, came up to him. A challenge was received and accepted, and Fitzgerald named the present as the only time. After much haggling about the unseasonableness of the hour, and the disturbance the duel might create in the vicinity of Mrs. Wilson’s,—on the part of the challenging party—the count, who had been refreshing his courage with some old port, prepared to meet his antagonist on the spot.

Small swords had been brought by Ampisand’s friend, and the surgeon, who was an acquaintance of Fitzgerald, undertook to act as his second. The gentle breeze was singing a lullaby to the ocean, and the sound of the distant viol broke upon their ears. The ground was now paced out—the principals were placed, and the words, one! two! three! guard! were given, and the duel commenced. For a few seconds the parties appeared to be equally matched, but at length the count, whose body seemed wonderfully to have increased in size since the insult, began to pant and blow like a porpoise out of water. Fitzgerald now caught the count’s sword in the fleshy part of his arm, and ran him through the body. The wounded man dropped his weapon, and fell heavily upon the ground. Fitzgerald and the surgeon ran up to him,—“Forgive me,” said the apparently dying man, whispering in Fitzgerald’s ear, “I loved Mary Howard, and would have borne her away from you, but now, alas, my prospects are blighted, and I must pay for my folly with my blood.”

“He does not bleed,” said the surgeon, mournfully.

“Alas, my friend is mortally wounded,” said the count’s second, putting a bottle of Scotch snuff to his mouth, instead of a phial of brandy. The wounded man grated his teeth violently, and rejected all aid. Lights now came from Mrs. Wilson’s toward them, notwithstanding the moon shone brightly to dim them.

“Is there no hope?” said Fitzgerald to the surgeon. The medical man raised the body up—a cold sweat was upon the face—death seemed nigh at hand. He shook his head.

“Fly, sir,” said Ampisand’s second, “or you will be taken, the crowd are near at hand.”

“Go to my lodgings,” said the surgeon, “and I will meet you there in a few minutes.”

Ampisand’s friend and Fitzgerald now took the swords and ran across the churchyard, which made a short cut to the surgeon’s. As they reached the street they heard a stage-coach rattling furiously down the main street. Fitzgerald stopped. He saw it was far ahead—he uttered a faint cry—his chance of reaching his frigate was past. The surgeon soon came. The wounded man was in the charge of a German doctor, at Mrs. Wilson’s. The ladies had nearly all gone home in fainting fits, and Mary Howard had left in a flood of tears. This confirmed Fitzgerald’s suspicions. “She loved him,” said he “and, oh, what have I lost by this evening’s devotion!”

Fitzgerald’s arm pained him considerably, and the surgeon dressed it. A carriage was then sent for, to bear the young officer to his post; and while it was being made ready, he threw himself upon the surgeon’s truckle bed, and caught an unquiet nap. It was nearly 3 o’clock of a cold wet morning,—for a storm had ushered in the day,—when the unhappy Fitzgerald departed in a close carriage from Belleview.

For the first stage he had a hope of overtaking the post, but his horses began to lag with the advance of day, and it was three P. M. before he arrived at the point of embarkation. As he drew up at the Bowery House, he watched eagerly for some one of his brother officers, but none appeared to greet him. He paid his coachman and bounded into the passage. The bar-keeper met him at the door.

“Where is the Frigate, Dennis?” said he impatiently.

“She sailed at nine this morning,” said the bar-keeper, “and is now out at sea.”

Maurice Fitzgerald, I have said, was a brave man. He could have faced death upon the blood-stained deck, and gloriously braved the brunt of battle, but now he felt his strength depart, and retiring suddenly to his room, burst into a flood of tears. After a few moments, his moral courage returned. “I have merited this,” said he, “by acceding to her girlish whims. I must now make the best of a bad matter, and trust to fortune for success.” He now proceeded to act in a calm manner. He wrote a hasty note to Col. Howard, detailing the circumstances of the case as they occurred, and sending his formal respects to Mary. He wrote a line to his aged father, of the same character, and furthermore stated his intention of joining his vessel by the aid of a pilot boat. Having paid his bill, he sold a check upon his banker, purchased a sea-cloak and a brace of pistols, and with his valise in his hand, boarded a fast sailing pilot, at Beckman’s Slip. A bargain was soon struck, and the light craft, with Fitzgerald at the helm, turned her head to the sea. On the way down, they met the pilot who had taken the frigate to sea, and ascertained her course. Trusting, then, to the swiftness of the boat, that had several days provision on board, the young officer boldly steered for the Atlantic, and when the sun set, the highlands of Neversink were astern.

During the night, which continued wet and gloomy, the wind, in fitful puffs, hurled them swiftly o’er the waves, and, when the morning came, the long, swelling billows of the ocean tumbled o’er them, and the sheer-water darted ahead along the thunder-chaunting waves. Nothing was to be seen but the clouds above, and the gloomy waves below, which came together at the edge of the horizon like the lid and bottom of a circular tobacco box, when closed. The old pilot was now confident that the frigate had changed her course during the evening preceding, and that all possibility of his overtaking her was gone. With a heavy heart, therefore, Fitzgerald put his helm down, the tacks and sheets were shifted, the snowy canvass felt again the side-long breath of the gale, and the little bark drew in toward the distant shore.

A suspicious looking schooner now hove in sight, and bore down upon them with the swiftness of the wind. The pilot, from the first, did not like her appearance, and Fitzgerald, although he said nothing to alarm his companion, felt confident that she was a pirate. In less than an hour, the warlike stranger shot across their bows, fired a gun, loaded with grape, at their sails, and hoisted the black flag of the Bucaniers.

All resistance to this antagonist would have been madness, and the pilot obeyed the hoarse hail, and ran alongside the pirate. Twenty rough looking rascals, each armed to the teeth, with a young man of higher rank at their head, sprang into the pilot boat, and after making sundry motions, which seemed to imply a speedy cutting of their throats, bound the pilot and his men. Fitzgerald, however, resisted the party that came upon him, and with his pistols soon wounded two of the pirates. A cutlass now flashed before his eyes, and sense and reason departed.

When Fitzgerald again became conscious of existence, he found himself in a cot, swinging in a beautiful cottage, in the vicinity of the sea, for he could hear the solemn roar of breakers, and the screams of the sea-birds, as they revelled amid the foam. A beautiful Creole maiden stood by his bed side, chaunting a low, mournful tune, while she brushed away the flies from his pillow with a long fan made of peacock’s feathers.

He looked at her for some seconds, and then as the thought of his cousin past across his brain, a deep sigh burst from his lips. The maiden started—“hush,” said she, putting her finger to her lips, and stepping to the side table, handed him a composing draught in a silver goblet. He drank the contents with gratitude, and soon fell into a sweet sleep.

It was nearly sunset when Fitzgerald awoke, completely invigorated in body and mind. He looked around him,—no one was to be seen. He called, but no one answered his summons. He now determined to find out where he was. His clothes were in a chair beside his cot, and his valise was upon the dressing table. He raised himself slowly upon his arm,—finding that he was not in want of strength, he sprang out of the cot and dressed himself. He now viewed his face in a huge Spanish mirror, that hung over a taper, with the holy letters I. H. S. below it. He started back in astonishment. A cruel cut had laid open his marble forehead to the scull, and a long, purple scar, scarcely healed, marked the track of the cutlass. Having brushed his long, black hair over the disfiguration, he went to the window and looked out upon the surrounding face of nature. He saw he was upon a small island, in the midst of a host of others, and that the narrow passes between them were filled with clippers and man-o’-war boats, apparently returning from cruizes upon the main. It was a romantic spot, unlike any other in the world. About sixty cottages, like the one he occupied, rose in the distance, each with its garden and verandah. Groves of orange and lemon trees, loaded with ripe fruit, waved their tops of eternal green around, and filled the atmosphere with a delicious odor.

The waves broke over the long, bold reefs that lined the islands, and the sky was dotted with flocks of sea-birds. Here and there a solitary pine tree sprung from a crevice in the rocks, where its cone had been thrown up by the dash of some sweeping wave whose crest had borne it across the sea. It was Noman’s Group, and was not far from Cape Flyaway.

Fitzgerald had hardly made the discoveries above related, when the lovely Creole, with an officer in a naval uniform, entered the chamber. They saluted Fitzgerald with kindness, and appeared to be astonished at his sudden improvement. He now found a ready market for the smattering of Spanish he had picked up among the Dagos of Mahon, and in half an hour his store was exhausted.

From them he learned that the pilot had been set adrift in his boat, after having furnished all the information desired; but that he, from his resistance, had been retained to be killed at leisure. Having, however, from a fever of the brain, continued insensible so long,—it being then the thirtieth day,—the pirates concluded to send him to the Hospital Island, to be restored to health. He was now with his surgeon and attentive nurse, and would be reported “well,” on the coming Saturday. His attendants refused to tell him where he was. All distances and names of places were carefully concealed, and all that he could ascertain was, that a direct communication was kept up with the American Continent, and that newspapers were brought to the islands from the United States weekly, and would be furnished him if he desired them.

Fitzgerald was lavish of his thanks for such kindness, and begged that the latest newspapers from New York might be given him.

The Creole girl left the room immediately, and presently a boat was seen putting off to a brig in the pass, opposite the cottage.

The surgeon now drew his chair closer to that of his patient, and became less reserved. The latter soon understood that it had been decided by the pirates that upon his recovery he should join them or be shot upon the cliff. The blood of Fitzgerald boiled in his veins at the bare proposal of the Bucanier, but before he gave his anger words, his lovely Creole approached with a package of New York dailies, taken the week previous from an outward bound brig. Forgetting every thing else in his desire to hear from his native land, he opened the first paper that met his eye, and read the following:—“Arrived, the United States Frigate ——, with His Britannic Majesty’s Ship —— of forty-four guns, in tow, as a prize. The action lasted thirty minutes, when the British frigate struck her flag. Capt. —— immediately left the frigate and proceeded to Washington with the enemy’s flag. The official account of this gallant action will be given to-morrow. Suffice it to say that every officer and man did his duty, and that promotion, and the thanks of a grateful country await the victors.” In another paper he read a list of promotions in the navy, and his own dismissal from the service. The marriage list now caught his eye, and he read,—“Married in Belleview, on the 1st instant, by the Reverend Mr. Smell Fungus, Count Frederick Ampisand, of Hesse Cassel, Germany, to Miss Mary Howard, the only daughter of Col. John Howard, of the revolutionary army.

“Love is the silken cord that binds

 Two willing hearts together.”