  In the first scene of this act the apparent and the real are inexplicably mingled together. Lady Macbeth “receives, at once, the benefit of sleep, and does the effects of watching,” which the doctor pronounces “a great perturbation in nature.” Her eyes are open, but their sense is shut; and she seems to wash her hands. Though she is now under the dominion of an awakened conscience, the formality of her nature still displays itself. “Fie, my lord, fie!” she exclaims, “a soldier, and afeard? What need we fear who knows it, when none can call our power to account?” The Doctor, however, is cautious about drawing conclusions even from such appearances, and remarks that he has known those which have walked in their sleep, who have died holily in their beds. The reader will readily perceive other illustrations of the theme in this scene, in which for the first time Lady Macbeth appears stripped of the mask of ceremony. We are permitted to see the workings of her mind, and the beating of her heart, when her conscience is emancipated from the control of her formal habits and her stern will. The next scene, which is a very short one, contains several allusions to the unsubstantial nature of Macbeth’s power. Those he commands move only in command, Nothing in love, etc. In the 3d Scene Macbeth still relies on the promises of the weird sisters. He interprets the look of the “cream-faced loon” as indicative of alarming news; and then falls into that memorable train of reflection on his “way of life,” and the emptiness of all his honors—which everybody knows by heart and can at once apply to the theme. In his answer to the Doctor, who tells him of Lady Macbeth’s “thick-coming fancies,” the remedies he proposes, are, it will be observed, adapted to the unsubstantial character of the disease; the troubles of the brain are to be “razed out,” and the stuffed bosom cleansed with “some sweet oblivious antidote.” On the other hand, when he asks the Doctor to “scour the English hence,” he suggests the use of rhubarb, or senna, which, indeed, at first sight, strikes one as very appropriate remedies. In the 4th Scene, the soldiers are made to hew down boughs in Birnam wood, in order to conceal their numbers; thus giving a literal construction to the language of the weird sisters. Scene 5th. Macbeth now trusts to the strength of his castle, and proclaims his confidence by ordering his banners to be hung on the outward walls. When he hears the cry of women, he comments on the effect of custom. I have almost forgot the taste of fears. . . . . . . . Direness, familiar to my slaughterous thoughts, Can not once start. When told of the queen’s death, he says it is unseasonable: “she should have died hereafter;” and his reflections on life have the same relation to the theme as those on his “way of life” in Scene 3d. It is a tale Told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, Signifying nothing. He is now told that Birnam wood is coming to Dunsinane; and the rock on which he has heretofore stood so firmly begins to crumble beneath his feet. He begins to pall in resolution, and to “doubt the equivocation of the fiend, that lies like truth.” Scene 6th contains less than a dozen lines. The soldiers throw away their leafy screens, and show their true strength. In the next and last scene the remaining promise of the weird sisters is literally kept to the ear, but “broken to the hope”—for it turns out that Macduff was not of woman born. The force of professional habit appears in old Siward’s conduct on hearing of the death of his son. “Had he his hurts before?” he asks; and, being satisfied on that point, ceases to mourn for him. Finally, ceremony is employed by Malcolm in rewarding substantial merit; his thanes and kinsmen are created earls; and all other proper forms observed “in measure, time, and place.” The reader will readily perceive that different aspects of the theme predominate in the several stages of the play; and if these stages seem somewhat irregular, it must be borne in mind that the present division into acts and scenes was not the work of Shakspeare, but of his editors. In Macbeth we see a perpetual conflict between the real nature of man, and the assumed character of the usurper. He is “full o’ the milk of human kindness;” loves truth and sincerity; and sets a high value on the good opinions and the sincere friendship of others. But he is also ambitious; he is urged forward by the demoniac spirit of his wife, and entangled in the snare of the weird sisters. Under these influences he endeavors to play the part of a remorseless tyrant; but his kindlier nature is constantly breaking out; and though he strives so hard to maintain his assumed character, that he at length refuses to “scan” his deeds until they have been “acted,” yet we find him in the height of his power mournfully regretting his own blood-guiltiness, and the hollow-heartedness of all around him. But there is nothing of this spirituality in the character of Lady Macbeth. Her ambition is satisfied with the name of queen, and she cares not whether the obedience of her followers is constrained or voluntary, whether their love is feigned or real. Remorse has no power over her except when she is asleep; and even old Shylock—whose whole character, as has been well said, is a dead letter—might, perhaps, betray similar emotions, if one could see him thus off his guard. If the reader of this play should ever be tempted to the commission of crime for the sake of ambition, let him remember the air-drawn dagger, and the ghost of Banquo; if in danger of being seduced by the specious appearance of vice, let him remember the equivocation of the fiends; if lured by the hope that success will gild o’er the offense and “trammel up the consequence,” let him think of Macbeth’s withered heart after he had won the crown and sceptre; and finally, if he imagine that he can so school his passions and harden his nature that remorse will have no power over him, let him contemplate Lady Macbeth walking in her sleep. Whereever he turns, he will find, in all the incidents of this play, the same great lesson, that “the letter killeth, but the spirit giveth life.”
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| Spain, and Tercera. | } |
| AD. 1583. | } |
If the weekly mails brought me the Spirit of the Times instead of the Literary World, or in other words, I inclined to a sporting habit of speech, I would “lay an even wager” that not one of Graham’s readers has formed a correct idea of the personal appearance of Hilo de Ladron, from the foregoing account of that unscrupulous young gentleman’s proceedings. I say nothing of his morals, but refer merely to the harmony between features and character which Nature tries hard, and generally with success, to maintain, and which constitutes the main prop of the science of physiognomy. But no lawgiver allows more frequent exceptions to established rules than Nature; and thus, instead of being slouchy and red-haired, or big-whiskered and ferocious, SeÑor de Ladron, seated on the bows of one of De Chaste’s caravels, full sail for Tercera, belied his ill-name by the delicate beauty of his face and person. I use the word beauty, because his straight features, smooth skin and well-shaped hands, were feminine properties not usually looked for in male attire, and in company such as the owner was keeping. The French men-at-arms were well enough, but I would not fancy sleeping a night in the room with the thick-set Walloon standing next; people with such faces, coarse, crafty about the eyes and treacherous at the mouth—by the way, his laugh, always of an evil sort, was twofold, from a seam in the upper lip reaching half-way up the cheek, and exposing the teeth and gums at every contraction of the muscles thereabouts—should be called by names to correspond, and this man’s, Wolfang, showed remarkable foresight in his parents or sponsors. This face, which had not its duplicate any where in ill-looks, would be recognizable as that of an old acquaintance, if muffling, and false-hair and whiskers, frequently changed while begging an alms of DoÑa Hermosa, had not destroyed all identity with his natural features as now seen, for Wolfang was one with the free-captain who lived at the expense of that estimable if injudicious lady, until Don Peter turned him loose upon the world again. It was reasonable, under the circumstances, he should bear no great love for the truth-loving knight, and it was probably this feeling in common, accidentally communicated, which had first drawn Hilo and himself together. Don Hilo having inherited most of his father’s hate to the latter’s half-brother; not that he could lay claim to much personal cause for antipathy, having seen Sir Pedro but twice in his life, and one of those when little more than an infant, but it came quite easy to this chip-of-the-block to bear malice. With some grains of redeeming quality, it must be allowed, for he was not wanting in that sort of curious courtesy, common to all Spaniards I believe, which makes taking off his hat with a buÈnos nÒches imperative on the very man who carries his hand from his sombrero to his dagger, to plunge the last under your shoulder blade the moment your back is turned. Friendship, in its usual acceptation, had little to do with the league existing between these worthies, and no small amount of self-interest must have been requisite to keep two such sweet dispositions from open rupture; however, they contrived to get along well enough, by each playing a part designed to dupe the other, although, with less success perhaps than the self esteem of each caused him to imagine. Capt. Carlo, ready, cunning in counsel, and cringing like a tiger ready to seize his keeper’s hand in his jaws, but fearing the short Roman sword in its clutch, followed the guidance of his junior, half through a brute instinct of inferiority, of which he himself was ignorant, and half for the furtherance of certain plans of his own, which will appear at intervals upon the surface of this narrative; but on the whole the pair were not ill-matched, their main characteristics uniting harmoniously enough, by a rule which more resembles dove-tailing in carpentry, than welding in iron-work, the joint being tight and fast so long as force is applied in one way, but easily dislocated by a lateral blow. Thus Wolfang scoffed at every thing holy or otherwise, seldom neglected a chance of shedding blood, when not withheld by manifest interest or personal risk; for the fellow was a coward in the depth of his heart, just as any other savage beast is, frightened by a parasol flirted in a child’s hand, but leaping unhesitatingly upon an unwary man, and in his thirst for gain, played any part however vile by which a maravedi might be dishonestly got. Don Hilo, to give the scapegrace his due, was murderous only in the heat of passion, and somewhat overawed his profane comrade by the resolute devotion he chose to entertain for certain saints in succession, it being a freak of his to hold in disgrace or honor, as the case might be, the celestial patron invoked prior to his last piece of rascality. Moreover the lad had the indefinable sense of pride, much as he lacked cause, which, I verily believe, constitutes the third element of Spanish blood and gives a dignified fold even to the dirty serape of the Mexican half-breed; and this pride kept his fingers from small pilferings if not from wholesale swindling; a turn of virtue which must have afforded high satisfaction to a certain alert fosterer of little errors, who has never been slow to avail himself of the like since the time of Adam and Eden. Even in general quickness of temper there was difference in kind, that of Capt. Carlo settling commonly into a smouldering fire incapable of being extinguished by any kindness whatever, and blown by the breath of opportunity into an instant flame; while Hilo’s, on the contrary, more dangerous and violent at
I like to gossip confidentially now and then about matters which indirectly affect my characters, and so don’t mind mentioning a circumstance or two occurring in the early acquaintance of Capt. Carlo and SeÑor De Ladron, not noticed by historians of the time. The captain, it seems, after relinquishing in a highly praiseworthy manner, his annuity drawn from the unconscious countess, when no longer able to retain it, betook himself to the capital, where, falling in with the seÑor, the two soon came to understand each other’s projects, so far as it was good for either to do. Hilo made no secret of his hate for DoÑa Viola, whom he regarded as an incumbrance and interloper, but for whom he would long since have received an estate of more doubloons’ worth than he had ever possessed cobrÈs. The joint sagacity of the fathers and their notaries having been exhausted in drawing up a contract so stringent that nothing short of total forfeiture of the twin estates to the benefit of one of the infant parties, could release the other. No one knew what bond of union existed between the worse than dissolute half-brother of Sir Pedro, and so honorable a knight as Inique, but the contract stood fast on parchment, and the admirable wisdom of its conditions was shown in due season, when Viola, living at ease in her father’s house, grew up with a love amounting to mania for the handsome cavalier she regarded as her rightful husband, and whose vices she knew little of, until any thing like a just estimate of their enormity had become impossible to her biased mind. On the other side, Hilo, cursing in his heart Inique and his worthy father as founders of the scheme which his magnificent pride prevented his profiting by, even with the temptation of a twofold fortune attached, because it took the form of compulsory action in an affair it suited his humor to decide for himself, ransacked his brain to drive into outraged vindication of her woman’s dignity the innocent girl who stood between him and his claim. The poor little thing, without proper guidance or information in her own concerns, surmised nothing of the true state of the case, but affectionate and trustful to a fault, continued to love the young rouÉ, long after his dislike found stronger expression than in words, with a docile patience and hopefulness for his reform, capable of touching any heart less villainous at the core. For the girl was no fool, I would have it clearly understood, weak as her affection for this Hilo might argue her; error in judgment, to which we are all subject, not necessarily indicating habitual silliness, least of all in one circumstanced as DoÑa Viola. This helpless child our worthy pair found it to their mutual interest to persecute, or fancied it so, and played very readily into each other’s hands; for Capt. Carlo had got it into his ugly head that such a prize (he was thinking of her money) was fitter for a manly-looking fellow like himself, with a beard to rub a soft cheek against, than for a stick of a lad whose weakly mustache broke the back-bone of the oaths he swore through it.
This was the wording of the meditation which occupied Don Wolfang’s brain while on his way to make himself known to his intended wife; not that Hilo would have refused his friend an introduction, he would have been only too gratified to present a Hottentot, if by so doing he could have caused her a pang of shame; but the captain, acting with unusual caution, chose to be independent of his hot-headed associate, perhaps fearing the latter might insist upon more than his legal share of the spoils, or from a natural aversion to working, except in the dark. Whatever his reasons, its cool impudence tempts me from my resolution of only hinting at these villainies, to give some account of the proceeding.
One night the house of DoÑa Viola was attacked by a gang of robbers, who, having no fear of police before their eyes in Philip the Second’s time, seemed every moment on the point of breaking in. Within was neither garrison nor protector worth the name, for the virtuous duenna, who was the young lady’s present guardian and companion, only rocked herself to and fro in a garment more snowy than becoming, and lamented her hard (approaching) fate with such heartfelt ay-de-mÌ’s, that it was evident nothing but the hope of ultimate rescue prevented her false hair (in which, for better self-deception, she slept) being plucked out by the roots. Moreover, the butler was busied in secreting the family plate, and a few little properties of his own, and the men-servants, with Spanish devotion, found occupation enough in quieting the maids and supplicating the saints; no doubt they would have fought, too, the race being noted for pluck—but there was no one to lead them on. At this opportune moment, who should appear before the terror-stricken ladies but Capt. Wolfang Carlo, all ruffles, ribbon-knots and rings, like a gay cavalier returning from some late merry-making, flying sword-in-hand to the rescue of besieged innocence. How he got in was a mystery; I suppose by dint of valor, for, as the number of the assailants was diminished by one on his entrance, it is more than likely one at least of the robbers was run through the body by this paladin, and the breach the former made turned to account by the latter.
When the party outside had been routed, which was accomplished immediately on the captain’s sallying forth at the head of the revived household,
“Sir,” said DoÑa Viola, to the disinterested hero who stood regarding her with a smile, as one should say, “look at me! Danger cannot shake my nerves: I am quite in my clement in it; it is just such a protector you need,” but which reminded for all that of the supple waving of a cat’s tail just before the animal springs. “Sir, if my father, Don Augustino, were present, he would know better how to thank you than I.”
“Oh,” interrupted her deliverer, with more truth than was common in his speech, and bowing low, partly because he designed to be exceedingly polite, and partly to hide his rectangular grin, “I am delighted to find he is not, DoÑa Viola.”
“I understand your noble motives, seÑor, and by your calling me by name, you probably know SeÑor Inique also.”
“Intimately,” said the unblushing vagabond; “we were comrades in arms against the Moors in the last war; and but that my mother’s being a Portuguese induces a reasonable distaste to waging war on one’s own kindred, we would have been lying side by side in Portugal, at this very hour. We disagree, perhaps, in this little matter, but there is no ill-feeling between us; and you may imagine, seÑora, the haste I made to snatch my distinguished friend’s daughter from such pressing danger.”
“SeÑor,” cried the lady at this, simply, “the house and all it contains is yours. (Capt. Carlo wished it was.) Command me; you have only to make known your wishes.”
Saying this, she left the room to order refreshments for her guest. Don Wolfang, in high feather at his success, and looking upon a part of the DoÑa’s property as his own in right of salvage, which saved any scruples arising in his tender conscience, pocketed a few valuables lying about, and assumed the bearing of a Rico, occupying four chairs with his burly person, for the better, that is, more truthful enactment of the character in hand. In which easy attitude he lolled until the tray, with its choice eatables, arrived; and it was while on the point of putting into his mouth a pÂtÉ-de-fois-gras (I use the word generally, as designating something good; but did you ever hear Dr. C. talk of real pÂtÉs) that—
But what happened I must begin in a different manner to relate, or the moral of this episode will be lost.
I have said DoÑa Viola was no fool, and here I intend bringing forward proof of my position. No one would have supposed any thing like nerve existed in so delicate a creature, unless they had seen her descending the stairs with a light in one hand, and a great sword, too stiff for her to draw, in the other, to rally the servants, while that timid old soul, her duenna, was creeping under the bed above as fast as a sudden weakness in her ancient knees would allow. The girl was brimfull of character, and made a worse impression on her first appearance, because fevered and crushed in spirit by the final wickedness of her betrothed husband, and its likely consequences; possibly the fever which afterward brought her to death’s door, had begun to show itself already in unnatural excitement of the brain, for it is not easy otherwise to reconcile the crazy eagerness she showed with her usual modesty.
But this is straying from the truffle-eating captain. Poor, simple, lamb-like captain! what could have induced him to pull off his leathern doublet and mask under the eyes of a girl not out of her teens, to be sure, but whose Gallician blood was all afire while watching from a dark window what was passing beneath. I am filled with pity and admiration for DoÑa Viola, when I think how, with one protector leagues away in Portugal, and the other up stairs, making her toilette to appear becoming in the eyes of this prince who had come to their rescue, she traversed the whole house, accompanied by a desperado whose only restraint lay in the greatness of his hopes dependent in part on present good conduct. She was a little fluttered, and ready to faint with fear, as any other woman short of a novel heroine would have been, but for all that she spoke so connectedly, and showed such faith in the captain’s will and ability to protect her, that it never entered his slow, Netherlandish brain, the figure before him was possessed of no more vitality in itself than an electro-magnetized body, or that she had noticed without start or scream his left, jetty whisker slip down far enough to expose the scrubby red growth underneath. Still less did it occur to him as a remote possibility, the idea of taking him, Captain Wolfang Carlo, fairly in the trap, could be occupying her head at the very moment he talked of “his dear friend, Don Augustino, her father;” and when one servant went up with the tray, a second went out with a summons to the Hermandad.
So Capt. Carlo was on the point (as I have said) of putting a pÂtÉ into his capacious mouth, when there came a rapping at the street-door, such as only the Hermandad made, it being the custom of the holy brotherhood to give due notice of their arrival on such occasions, lest one of themselves should prove to be the culprit. The captain knew to a stroke what mercy he would be likely to receive if arrested, and alert enough when danger pressed, clapped a couple of goblets in his pockets, and in the same instant seized by the throat the tray-bearer, (who had his hand already on the latch,) so that the poor simpleton had not breath enough in his body to whisper, when his assailant threw him into the corner limp as a bundle of rags.
The former had not perambulated the house without using his eyes, and knew the shortest way to the leads, where he dodged the Hermandad until an opportunity presented itself for making good his descent, the citizen police probably being not wide awake at two o’clock in the morning.
That estimable youth, Hilo, was highly amused when the adventure reached his ears, and in his customary reckless speech gave his Flemish associate to understand he was not wise beyond his years, and had quite overshot his aim by too much caution; nothing could have caused himself more pleasure than to be rid of that (what I don’t choose to write in Spanish or English,) who had cheated him out of his estate by her artful behavior. And he would not mind settling a round sum out of the to be recovered fortune on Wolfang, provided he could contrive to enter the house a second time, without so much useless stir; but our prudent friend had the Hermandad in too vivid remembrance, and excused himself, suggesting, however, a scheme no less rascally, which all readers of this true history know already to have been carried out to its full extent.
To return to the caravel; some one was talking of Neptune.
“What a clatter about your Neptune,” cried a soldier, peevishly, “I wish I’d never heard the name, and had stayed where I was. Here we are pitched from one storm into another, and land just in sight. I’m sick of it.”
“La casa quemada, acudir con el agua!” put in Hilo, who was swinging his legs over the bowsprit, and did not trouble himself to take his eyes from the blue land ahead.
“What does he say?” demanded the Frenchman, eagerly, looking suspiciously about.
“He says your house is burnt, and you run for the water,” exclaimed Wolfang, with a short chuckle.
“Ha!” retorted the other, setting down a steel cap he was polishing, to gesticulate and call attention to Hilo with his forefinger. “Look here, comrades, here’s a man to talk to another as if he had never made any blunders he would like to take back. But this kind of talking behind you, is the way with all these cowardly Spaniards.”
Hilo turned his head just sufficiently to send a glance at the irascible speaker from his wicked black eyes. “Take care!” it said.
“Take care!” repeated the Netherlander, warningly, this time translating the look. “You’re a born fool, Jean, to tempt the devil in him.”
“Fool!” cried Jean. “Who meddled with him first? He kicked my casque out of his way yesterday, and set me to work cleaning and straightening it out this morning. As to running for water when it’s too late, he’ll think so too some day when SeÑor Inique catches him, and he gets down on his knees to beg for life, or the Marquis of Villenos’s friends corner him. He needn’t think he’s thought less a villain by us Frenchmen than by his own countryfolks.”
Here the man-at-arms stopped to take breath and glower at SeÑor De Ladron, who lifting in his feet, walked coolly over, opposite the first, saying, with a smile on his face, “Come, come, there is no use in comrades quarreling. Do you suppose I knew it was your casque? Give me your hand, and let’s make it up.”
The soldier looked down distrustfully at his slight enemy, but not being able to make up his mind what to do at this unexpected proposal, hesitatingly laid his broad palm in Hilo’s.
“That’s as it should be,” said a shrunken little cannonier, perched on his gun. “Hey! I remember how we shook hands all round at St. German-en-Laye. You see, we had been fighting like mad at Montcontour, and when one cools it isn’t pleasant to think you’ve knocked on the head your old chum at bird-nesting, and the like, only because he differs from you a little when grown up.”
“So you fetch water!” interrupted Hilo, mockingly, half to the speaker and half to Jean, whose fingers suddenly wrenched back forced him to stamp and foam with rage and pain while struggling to loosen the iron hold of the speaker.
“SacrÈ! Devil!” he stammered, “let go; my wrist is out of joint.”
“It will be worse for you if you don’t recant,” muttered our Don, speaking faster than before, and holding a dagger to the side of his throat.
“Stop!” cried two or three men-at-arms, springing up, “that is not fair play. We are Frenchmen, not cut-throats, here.” Capt. Carlo merely grinned in his usual agreeable fashion.
“Don’t bite!” cried Hilo fiercely to his prisoner, drawing back his hand to strike. And, perhaps, as that amiable young gentleman was in no wise particular in such matters, and took no heed of the interruption, Hilo’s hand might have been the last bit of flesh held between the Frenchman’s teeth for evermore, (as the raven would say.) But the officer on duty came down the deck at this crisis, demanding the cause of the disturbance.
“Ha! you, sir?” he cried, directly he caught sight of the chief actor, as if he might have guessed as much. “I order you under arrest. Give up your dagger.”
SeÑor de Ladron faced his superior with an audacious smile, saying, “You jest?”
“Noose that rope,” ordered the lieutenant, purple with fury. “Close around, men; we will hang up this mutineer without trial.”
“’Pshaw!” answered our scapegrace, throwing his weapon overboard. “What a stir about a trifle, SeÑor mine. Better do this than hang.”
So Don Hilo de Ladron, when the island of Tercera lay close under the bows of the fleet, sat in the hold with irons around his ankles, and there probably would have remained, in obscurity, until the vessel returned to France, had not his fast friend, the captain, contrived to say a word or two to Commander De Chaste in person, while that brave knight was reviewing his forces on shipboard preparatory to landing.
“Who are you?” asked the commander, looking from a bit of paper he now twisted between his fingers to the bearer. “I have seen your face before.”
“Your excellency must be mistaken,” returned the unblushing Wolfang, who nevertheless remembered perfectly the gold piece the knight once put in the mouth of a holy war soldier without arms or feet, if appearances were true.
“Well,” interrupted De Chaste, “this scrawl tells me your friend was not materially to blame in the affair, his honor being concerned in repelling the charges.”
“True to a letter,” replied Wolfang, bowing low, as usual, to hide his unprepossessing grin. “Besides, the officer on duty owed the poor young gentleman a grudge.”
“That has nothing to do with it, sir. A man’s honor is his best possession, and needs unsleeping guardianship; but this taking its vindication into his own hands, must not be allowed in the service. However, the error is one on the side of right, and let him behave well in the field and we will pass over his indiscretion. We want every brave man we can get,” he added, turning to one of his officers.
“But, M. de Commandant,” objected the gentleman addressed, “is it likely a renegade like this fellow should prove a good soldier, or even be really possessed of ordinary honor!”
“How!” cried De Chaste, quickly. “I did not think the ranks of our little army contained any such. Is he a Spaniard, M. de Haye?”
“Yes, and guilty of every manner of crime.”
“Ha! Well, he must remain as he is until we find time to look into his case. How is it, Mr. What’s-your-name, Carlo, you suppressed his place of birth?”
“His mother was a French lady, Monseigneur, and fighting for one’s mother country is as good, any day, as fighting for a father’s.”
“True, in a measure, sir,” returned the knight. “What’s the prisoner’s name?”
“Hilo de Ladron.” This was said in no unusual tone, yet it seemed singularly to catch the commander’s attention, for he eyed the speaker keenly and then fell into a fit of musing, which lasted while he paced the deck between the officers of his suite. “M. de Haye,” he said at last, pausing before that officer and looking up, “you may be mistaken in your charges. They are grave ones and should be advanced when they can be examined at leisure, not at a hurried moment like this. I have need of every man in our too feeble squadron, and will take it upon myself to entrust the restoration of his character to M. de Ladron himself for the present.”
The gentleman addressed bowed, shrugged his shoulders, as well as a Frenchman could in a steel cuirass, and there the matter dropped.
Hilo laughed when the captain told him the favorable result of his application, and professed equal curiosity as to the commander’s motives—professions which honest Wolfang received as attempts to impose on his credulity—(he was probably touchy on the subject since his introduction to DoÑa Viola)—with less justice than usual, however, as Hilo, for a wonder, was telling the truth.
About this time the Sieur Cusson returned in his sloop from reconnoitering the island, and his report being that the Spanish squadron had not yet arrived, the little armament of De Chaste ran gallantly into the harbor, and came to anchor amidst a great firing of cannon and arquebuses from the Portuguese, who liked expending powder in this way much better than in front of an enemy, and besides, had lived in such daily dread of the descent of the Spanish fleet, that they could not sufficiently viva their delight at finding out who the new comers really were. The Viceroy, de Torrevedros, himself, came down to the water side to receive the commander, and made such a brave appearance in his embroidered surcoat and gilded harness, surrounded by other cavaliers equally well dressed, that the Frenchmen, walking with unsteady legs after their twenty-four days of stormy weather on shipboard, and in shabby doublets, presented nothing very imposing in their march through the streets.
But if the Portuguese gentlemen, riding on either hand, could scarce suppress their mirth at the ill looks of their allies, the ladies were anxious to propitiate men who would prove their main defence, and threw down showers of all sorts of gay flowers from the windows and balconies; some of the young seÑoritas even meeting the procession at unexpected corners, and flinging orange water into the knight’s face, who would have been more gratified by the ablution (it being a hot June day) had not the thought of his best ruff growing limper at each sprinkling interfered with the enjoyment.
“Better smell of gunpowder.” he said shortly, to a French gentleman from the court, whose nose was audibly expressing its delight at the fine perfume.
But the satisfaction of the Portuguese was as nothing compared with the joy of a few hundred Frenchmen, a remnant of the Strossy expedition of the year before, who had lost all hope of ever leaving the Azores again, and, having little money at the first, had been treated with any thing but hospitality by their unwilling hosts. These poor fellows mixed with the crowd in the streets, kept the commandant’s company in sight, and running into the quarters assigned the latter, met them with such antics and embraces as caused the Gallic army to suppose at first that they had fallen into an ambuscade of madmen. Their two captains gave De Chaste a full narration of their sufferings, which was impartial in the main, and tended very little to elevate the Portuguese residents in the eyes of their audience, whose fancy for that people was not great from the beginning.
“Sirs,” replied the commandant at the end, with his customary high-toned suavity, looking around him, “we must only remember this is done at the will of our queen, and act as loyal gentlemen should. For my part, I will be content with brown bread and water and living in the open air, as we are all accustomed to, to have the satisfaction of defeating the landing of so good a soldier as the Marquis of Santa-Cruz, and to-morrow I will examine in person the accessible points of the island, which are only three in number.”
“Three!” cried Capt. Baptista, an Italian, one of the Strossy fugitives, “there are thirty! He must have been a rank liar, who told you so, M. le Commandant.”
“That can hardly be,” returned De Chaste, gravely, “for it was the king of Portugal himself who gave the information.”
“Oh, if it comes to that one had best bite his tongue,” grumbled the Italian to De Haye, who stood next him. “But a parrot’s word is no better than a magpie’s, and so our general will find out.”
———
BY MRS. L. H. SIGOURNEY.
———
I have always had an especial fondness for islands. When, in earlier days, Fancy fashioned some favorite abode, it was often in the aspiration of Moore, “Oh! had we some green little Isle of our own!” I am inclined to think there is something in Nature to sanction this preference. Perhaps the safety of an insular situation from border inroad, and the wild foray, might have given it pre-eminence in feudal or barbarous times. A strange illusion seemed to linger around it, in days of yore: “We, islanders,” said Camden, “are lunares—or the moon’s men.”
The tuneful king of Israel considered the praise of the Creator incomplete, until “the multitude of the Isles,” should swell that chorus. The islands are required to “keep silence,” when an eloquent prophet was about to declare a message from Jehovah. The apostle, to whom the dread future unveiled itself, “was in the island that is called Patmos,” when he saw in
Heathen mythology sang to her disciples of the “isles of the blessed.” Classic Greece fixed the birth-place of her deity of the seven-stringed lyre in wave-girdled Delphos, and bade her most beautiful goddess from the foam of the sea.
Modern Poetry has not forgotten to invoke the island-spirits. Shakspeare lifts the magic wand of Prospero in a strange, wild isle, full of
“Sweet sounds and airs that give delight, and hurt not.”
He makes another less lofty character propose “to
“this isle,
The greatest and the best of all the main,
He quarters to his blue-haired deities.”
The Bard of the Seasons still further glorified it, as the
“Island of bliss amid the subject seas.”
It is as easy as it would be tautological to multiply suffrages in praise of insular regions. Still less necessary is it to bespeak popular favor for the island that gives this sketch a subject and a name.
The Dutch settlers of Staten Island seem to have regarded it with an enthusiasm quite in contrast with their usual phlegmatic temperament. Scarcely a century after its occupation by them, the patient and true-hearted Huguenots came to solace the woes of their exile amid its sheltering shades. The armies of Great Britain held it in possession during the whole of our revolutionary contest; and even the indurating influences of war did not render them insensible to its surpassing loveliness.
In later times, the States of New York and New Jersey have contended for its jurisdiction with the warmth of lovers, and the jealousy of rivals. The latter approaches with extended arms, as if to enfold it in an earnest embrace, its bright shores curving closely around the coveted treasure; but the Empire State, upon whose waters it reposes “as a star on the breast of the billow,” has bound the gem to her bosom forever.
Yet neither the taciturn Hollander, nor the mournful alien from France, nor the warring Saxon, nor the native-born American, yearned over it with such intense affection as the poor red man, its earliest lord. He longed to rear his cone-roofed cabin upon its sunny slopes, and to sweep with light canoe into its quiet coves, as his fathers had done of old. Forced by his pale-faced and powerful brother to yield this dearest birthright, he sold for as poor a compensation as the hunter-patriarch, then repented, retracted, reclaimed, re-sold, contended, and vanished like the smoke-wreath among the hills that he loved. Still, he cast the Parthian arrow, and the forests where he lingered and lay in ambush were crimsoned with blood.
Still, his parting sigh, wreathed itself into a name of blessing. “Monocnong,” or the Enchanted Woods, was the epithet he bestowed upon his beloved and forsaken heritage. In the bitterness of parting, he said that no noxious reptile had ever been found there, till the white man, like a wily serpent, coiled himself amid its shades.
MONOCNONG.
Gem of the Bay! enchased in waves of light,
That ’neath the sunbeam rear a diamond crest,
But to the wrathful spirit of the night
Turn unsubdued, with thunder in their breast—
Fair Isle! where beauty lingereth as a dower
O’er rock and roof, and densely-wooded dell,
And in the bosom of the autumnal flower
Foiling the frost-king in its quiet cell,
The Indian hunter of the olden time
Saw thee with love, and on his wandering way
Staid the keen bow, at morning’s earliest prime,
A name of blessing on thy head to lay—
Baptism of tears! it liveth on thy shore,
Though he, the exiled one, returneth never more.
The sail from the city of New York to Staten Island is delightful. The bay sparkled in the broad sunbeam; six miles of diamonds set in turquoise and amethyst. We land, and are borne rapidly along, amid tasteful abodes imbosomed in trees and shrubbery, and adorned with flowers. We pass also the Hospital, a spacious building, where many beds and pillows spread in the open air for purification, denote that disease and death have given a ghastly welcome to some mournful emigrants. Often are we reminded, amid the most luxuriant scenery, that even “in the garden there is a sepulchre.”
New Brighton, as seen from the water, is like a cluster of palaces. Large and well arranged boarding-houses furnish accommodations to numerous strangers, who seek in summer the invigorating atmosphere of this island. Among these, the Pavilion and Belmont are conspicuous.
In descriptive writing, I had formerly a fastidious delicacy about using the names of individuals. When in Europe, I was so fearful of drawing the curtain from the sanctuary of the hearth-stone, as to fail in a free tribute for the most liberal and changeless hospitality. Time, which is wont to destroy undue sensibility on many subjects, has led me to deem this an error. So I will here avoid it, and say with equal frankness and gratitude that those who, like myself, are admitted as guests at the elegant island-residence of George Griffin, Esq., and to share the intellectual society of his warm-hearted and right-minded home-circle, will never lose the pleasant memory of such a privilege.
Among the fine views in this vicinity, that from the Telegraph Station is especially magnificent. I shall not attempt to describe it, not being willing to sustain or inflict the disappointment that must inevitably be the result. Let all who have opportunity see it as often as possible. They can never tire of it. Among the many interesting objects that there rivet the gaze, there will often be descried passing through the Narrows, that highway of nations, some white-winged wanderer of the deep, voyaging to foreign shores. Within her how many hearts are faint with the pangs of separation! How many buoyed up with the vain fluttering of curiosity to visit stranger lands. Adventurous ones! ye know not yet the extent of the penalty ye must pay for this shadowy good. Tempests without, misgivings within, yearnings after your distant dear ones, sickness—that shall make this “round world, and all it doth inherit,” a blank, and a mockery—longings to set foot once more on solid earth, which have no parallel, save the wail of the weaned child for its mother.
Many, and of almost endless variety, are the pleasant drives that will solicit you. The Clove Road, the Quarantine, the lovely, secluded grove, with the townships of Richmond, Stapleton, Castleton, Tompkinsville, Clifton, etc. are among them. Seldom, in a circumference of a few miles, are such contrasts of scenery displayed. At one point you fancy yourself in the Isle of Wight, then you are reminded of the Vale of Tempo, and the fabled gardens of the Hesperides. Fair, sunny lawns—deep, solemn forests, the resounding wheels of mechanical industry, alternate like a dream, with clusters of humble cottages, the heavy ricks of the agriculturist, and rude, gray rocks, from whose solitary heights, you talk only with Ocean, while he answers in thunder.
In our exploring excursions, we often admired, amid its fringed margin of trees, a circular expanse of water, from whence ice is obtained for the use of the residents, and which bears the appellation of
SYLVAN LAKE.
Imbosomed deep in cedars, lonely lake!
Thy solemn neighbors that in silence dwell,
Save when to searching winds they answer make,
Then closer scan thee, in thy guarded cell,
No rippling keel hath vexed thee from thy birth,
No fisher’s net thy cloistered musing broke,
Nor aught that holds communion with the earth
Thy sky-wrapt spirit to emotion woke,
For thou from man wert fain to hide away,
Nursing a vestal purity of thought,
And only when stern Winter’s tyrant sway
A seal of terror on thy heart had wrought,
Gave him one icy gift, then turned away,
Unto the pure-eyed heavens, in penitence to pray.
There are several pleasantly situated churches on Staten Island. The small one at Clifton, with its dark grained arches of oak, strongly resembles those of the mother land. An ancient, low-browed one, at Richmond, was built and endowed by Queen Anne, in 1714. Around it sleep the dead, with their simple memorials. The sacred music that varied the worship, was sweet and touching, and conducted almost entirely by the seven daughters of its worthy and venerable clergyman, Dr. David Moore, a son of the former bishop of Virginia. He has also charge of another church, at Port Richmond. There we attended divine worship, one cloudless autumnal Sunday, not deeming the distance of thirteen miles, going and returning, as any obstacle. It was a simple edifice, on a green slope, that stretched downward to meet the sea. In his discourse, the white-haired pastor reminded his flock that for twice twenty years he had urged them to accept the invitations of the gospel, on that very spot, where the voice of his sainted father had been also uplifted, beseeching them to be reconciled to God. Earnest zeal gave eloquence to his words; and when they ceased, the solemn organ did its best to uplift the listening soul in praise.
At the close of the service many lingered in the church-yard, to exchange kind greetings with their revered guide. Old and young pressed near to take his hand, while with affectionate cordiality he asked of their welfare, as a father among his children. It was patriarchal and beautiful. Religion in its pageantry and pomp hath nothing like it.
A boat, with its flashing oars, bore a portion of the worshipers to their homes on the opposite shore. But on the rocks beneath us sat some listless fishermen, idling away the hours of the consecrated day. Ah! have ye not missed salvation’s priceless pearl? The wondrous glory of the setting sun, as we pursued our homeward way, and the tranquil meditations arising from the simplicity of devotion, made this a Sabbath to be much remembered.
We were interested more than once in attending divine service in the chapel of the Sailor’s Snug Harbor—a noble building, the gift of private munificence, where the bronzed features and neat, tranquil appearance of these favored sons of the sea, spoke at once of past hardships upon the briny wave and of the unbroken comfort of their present state of repose.
The cliffs and vales of this enchanted island are crowned with the elegant mansions of the merchant princes. Among them are those of the brothers Nesmyth, Mr. Anthon, Mr. Aspinwall, Mr. Morgan, and others, that I greatly admired, without knowing the names of their occupants. That of Mr. Comstock exhibits a model of perfect taste. All the appointments within—the pictures, vases, and furniture of white and gold, bespeak Parisian elegance, while the grounds and conservatory are attractive; and in the centre of a rich area of turf, a dial points out the hours to which beauty and fragrance give wings.
The residence of Mr. Jones, at “The Cedars,” has a very extensive prospect, and is embellished by highly cultivated gardens of several acres, loaded with fruits and flowers; and also, by an interesting apiary, aviary, and poultry establishment, where hundreds of domestic fowls, of the finest varieties, revel in prosperity.
The habitation of George Griswold, Esq. is princely, and of a truly magnificent location. While in an unfinished state, the prospect from the windows excited the following effusion:
GRISWOLD HILL.
Earth, sea and sky, in richest robes arrayed,
Wide spreads the glorious panorama round,
Charming the gazer’s eye. O’er wind-swept height,
Villa, and spire, and ocean’s glorious blue
Floats the mild, westering sun. Fast by our side
Frowns Fort Knyphausen, whence, in olden time,
The whiskered Hessian, bought with British gold,
Aimed at my country’s heart. Wild cedars wrap
Its ruined base, stretching their arras dark
O’er mound and mouldering bastion.
With what grace
New Jersey’s shores expand. Hillock and grove,
Hamlet and town, and lithe promontory,
Engird this islet, as a mother clasps
Some beauteous daughter. Still, opposing straits,
With their strong line of indentations, mar
The entire embrace.
Broad spreads the billowy bay,
Forever peopled by the gliding sail,
From the slight speck where the rude fisher toils,
To forms that, like a mountain, tread the wave,
Or those that, moved by latent fires, compel
The awe-struck flood.
Lo! from his northern home,
The bold, unswerving Hudson. He hath burst
The barrier of his palisades, to look
On this strange scene of beauty, and to swell
With lordly tribute what he scans with pride.
Behold the peerless city, lifting high
Its hallowed spires, and fringed with bristling masts,
In whose strong breast beat half a million hearts,
Instinct with hurrying life. The gray-haired sires
Remember well, how the dank waters crept
Where now, in queenly pomp, her court she holds.
Next gleams that Isle, whose long-drawn line of coast
Is loved by Ceres. On its western heights
Towereth a busy mart, and ’neath its wing,
One, whose pure domes are wrapped in sacred shade,
Silent, yet populous. Through its still gates
Pass on the unreturning denizens.
Oh, Greenwood! loveliest spot for last repose,
When the stern pilgrimage of life is o’er,
Even thy dim outline through the haze is dear.
Onward, by Coney Island’s silvery reef,
To where, between its lowly valves of sand,
Opes the Highway of Nations. Through it flows
The commerce of the world. The Mother Realm
Sends on its tides her countless embassies;
Bright France invokes the potency of steam
To wing her message; from his ice-clad pines
The Scandinavian, the grave, turbaned Turk,
The Greek mercurial, even the hermit-sons
Of sage Confucius, like the sea-bird, spread
Fleet pinions toward this city of the west,
That like a money-changer for the earth
Sits ’neath her temple-dome.
Yon ocean-gate,
With telegraphic touch, doth chronicle
The rushing tide of sea-worn emigrants,
Who reach the land that gives the stranger bread,
Perchance a grave. And he who ventureth forth,
The willing prisoner of some white-winged ship,
To seek Hygeia o’er the wave, or test
What spells do linger round those classic climes
That woke his boyhood’s dream, fails not his heart
As the blest hills of Neversink withdraw
Their misty guardianship?
Speech may not tell—
For well I know its poverty to paint
The rapture, when the homeward glance descries,
That native land, whose countless novelties,
And forms of unimagined life, eclipse
The worn-out wonders of an Older World,
That, with its ghostly finger, only points
To things that were.
Oh! great and solemn Deep,
Profound magician of the musing thought,
Release my strain, that to the beauteous Isle
Which hath so long enchained me, thanks may flow,
Warm, though inadequate.
The changeful hand
Of Autumn sheds o’er forest, copse, and grove,
In gorgeous hues, the symbol of decay;
But here and there some fondly lingering flower,
Sweet resonance of Summer, cheers the rocks
Where warm suns latest smile.
Oh, fairest Isle!
I grieve to say farewell. Still for the sake
Of those I love, and for the memories dear,
And sacred hospitalities that cling
Around the mansion, whence my steps depart,
Peace be within the palace-domes that crest
Thy sea-girt hills, and ’neath the cottage roofs
That nestle ’mid thy dells. For when I dream
Of some blest Eden that survived the fall,
That dream shall be of thee.
Shades of Evening! ye remind me
Of my own declining sun,
And of scenes I’ll leave behind me
When my sands of life are run!
Should that change come ere to-morrow,
Grant that I may sink to rest,
And from Virtue’s glory borrow
Hues to make my Evening blest.
J. HUNT, JR.
OR THE OTHER SIDE OF THE MEDAL.
———
BY F. E. F., AUTHOR OF A “MARRIAGE OF CONVENIENCE,” ETC.
———
’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.
Campbell.
“What are you thinking of so intently, Annie?” asked Kate Leslie, of her cousin. “You have not spoken for the last half hour.”
Annie roused herself and answered with a smile, “Only of last night’s Opera. Nothing very important, you see.”
“And what of the Opera?” pursued Kate. “Come, I should like to hear a genuine, unsophisticated opinion of our most fashionable city amusement.”
“I was thinking less of the music, Kate!” returned Annie, “than of the audience.”
“And of the audience?” persisted Kate.
“Well, Kate, if you will have it, I was only thinking how happy and gay they all looked. What a different world it was from any I had ever seen before; and thinking what a difference of fate there was between those elegant-looking girls who sat opposite, and myself.”
“Ah! the Hautons, they are fortune’s favorites indeed. They have every thing, fortune, family, fashion—and elegant, high-bred looking things they are. They called yesterday and left a card for you; but Mrs. Hauton told mamma last night that they were moving out to Woodlawn, and hoped we would return the visit there. I should like it of all things, for the place is magnificent, and I am told they entertain delightfully. We have always visited in the city, but have never before been invited out of town. As soon as Mrs. Hauton is settled there, I presume we shall hear from her. Fanny Elliot spent a week with them last summer, and she said it was a continued round of dinner and evening-parties all the time. Beside invited guests, they have always preparations made for unexpected company. The table is laid every day as for a dinner-party, with silver, and I don’t know how many men in attendance. And then they have a billiard-room and library, and green-house and horses—and all in the handsomest style.”
“And an opera-box in town,” said Annie, with something that approached a sigh.
“Oh, yes, an opera-box, and every thing else you can think of. They live in the city in the winter, and their parties are always the most elegant of the season. The girls dress exquisitely, too. They import most of their things; and, in short, I don’t know any one I’d rather be than one of those Hautons.”
Annie, who lived in the quiet little village of C——, where her father, the principal lawyer in the place, could just manage to maintain his family in a plain, comfortable, but rather homespun way, was rather dazzled by this picture of the Hautons; and her heart quite died within her at the idea of paying a visit among such grand people. She looked upon Kate’s fearlessness on the subject with some surprise. But then Kate, she remembered, was “used to such people.” But how should she, a little village-girl, appear among these fashionables. Then her dress, (that first thought among women,) she almost hoped Mrs. Hauton would forget to follow up her invitation.
A few days after, however, Kate entered the room, saying, “Here is a note from Mrs. Hauton, Annie, as I expected. She wishes us to pass a few days at Woodlawn. Mamma desired me to show it to you before she answered it. So what do you say?”
“Just what you do, of course,” replied Annie. “They are almost strangers to me, you know; so you must decide for us both. I am ready to accept or refuse—”
“Oh, my dear,” interrupted Kate, quickly, “I would not have you refuse on any account. I am particularly glad, for your sake, that the invitation should have come while you are with us. Indeed, Annie, I consider you quite in luck that we are asked just at this time.”
“How long are we to stay?” inquired Annie.
“We are invited from Monday to Wednesday, in English style,” replied Kate, “which I like. Of all things I hate that indefinite period of ‘as long as you find it agreeable,’ when half your time is spent in trying to find out how long you are expected to remain, and your hostess is equally occupied in endeavoring to ascertain when you mean to go.”
Annie’s eyes dilated with surprise at this definition of city hospitality, which sounded to her fresh country ears and primitive ideas as somewhat remarkable, but concluding that her cousin was in jest, she smiled as she said,
“Is it usual to fix a time for your friends’ departure as it is for their coming, Kate?”
“No,” answered Kate. “I wish it were. It would not, then, be such a formidable matter to ask them.”
“Are you in earnest?” asked Annie, looking up surprised.
“To be sure I am,” replied Kate. “You don’t know what a bore it is to have a place near the city, Annie, and to have people coming forever, without an idea when they are going.”
“Then why do you ask them at all, if you don’t want them?” inquired Annie.
“Oh, because you must,” said Kate. “Some expect it, to others you owe civilities; and its all very well if the time of their going was only fixed. Two or three days for people you don’t care for, and who don’t care for you, is long enough.”
“Plenty, I should think,” answered Annie, emphatically. “And I should not think, Kate, there was any danger of guests under such circumstances remaining longer.”
“Much you know of it, my dear!” said Kate, in a droll tone of despair. “The less you care for them, and the greater the bores, the longer they stay. But papa and mamma have such old-fashioned notions of hospitality, that they wont adopt this new style of naming the days of the invitation. The Hautons understand the matter better.”
“Come, Annie,” said Kate, the next day, “as we are to breakfast at Woodlawn, we shall have no time to do any thing in the morning, so we may as well pack our trunk now. I suppose you’ll ride out in your gray barÈge,” she continued, as she opened the wardrobe to take down some of her own and her cousin’s dresses.
Now as this gray barÈge was one of Annie’s two best dresses, and which she was accustomed to think quite full dress, she hesitated, and said, with some surprise,
“My gray barÈge for the morning?”
“Yes, it will do very well,” continued Kate, supposing her hesitation proceeded from diffidence as to its being too plain. “The simpler a breakfast-dress the better; and gray is always a good unnoticeable color.”
Annie almost gasped. If she was to begin with her barÈge for breakfast, what should she do for dinner. But Kate proceeded with,
“Take the sleeves out of your book-muslin, Annie, and that will do for dinner. You are always safe in white, and I suppose they will supply us with Camelias from the green-house for our heads.”
“Book-muslins, short sleeves, and Camelia’s for dinner.” Annie’s heart beat high between expectation and fear. She almost wished the visit over, and yet would not have given it up for the world.
Monday morning arrived, and an hour’s drive brought them to Woodlawn. And as they drove up through the beautiful avenues of elms, and stopped before a very large, handsome house, which commanded a beautiful lawn, Annie felt that the place quite equalled her expectations.
Mrs. Hauton received them with great politeness, made a slight apology for her “lazy girls,” who were not yet down, and showed them into the breakfast-room before the young ladies made their appearance.
They came gliding in presently, looking very elegant and high-bred, dressed in the finest white lawn negligÉes, with the prettiest little thread-lace
They did not seem to feel called upon to apologize for their not being ready to receive their guests, but only found it “very warm,” asked at what time they left the city, and were quite shocked at the early hour they mentioned, and thought it “must have been very disagreeable,” and it was evident from their manner that they would not have risen so early to come and see them.
The conversation became general, if that can be called conversation which consisted of some remarks upon the long-continued drought from Mrs. Hauton, with rejoinders as to the heat and dust of the city, from Mrs. Leslie. Mr. Leslie inquired something about the state of the crops of Mr. Hauton, and Mr. Hauton asked a question or two about the new rail-road. The young ladies kept up a little scattering small-talk, consisting chiefly of questions as to who had left town, and who remained yet in the city, and where the Leslies were going, etc., all of which Annie would have thought very dull, if she had not been too much oppressed by the novelty and elegance of every thing around her to dare to think at all.
After breakfast a walk was proposed through the garden, and Mrs. Hauton, with Mrs. Leslie, walking on before, the young ladies followed. Mrs. Hauton commenced a long story about her head gardener, who had behaved, she said, “very ungratefully
Annie could not help thinking that if a rich woman like Mrs. Hauton thought so much of additional wages, it was not surprising that her gardener, who probably had a family depending on him, did not value them less; nor did she see the call upon his gratitude for having been engaged at less than his worth.
Then Mrs. Hauton proceeded to tell Mrs. Leslie how many men they kept at work on the place, and how much they gave them a day, and at what an enormous cost they kept up the green-house, which “was, after all, of no use to them, as they spent their winters in the city, and the girls had more bouquets sent to them than they wanted.” And then followed her complaints of the grapery, which were equally pathetic, and all was excessively pompous and prosy.
Annie was in admiration of her aunt’s good breeding, which supplied her with patience and attention, and suitable rejoinders to all Mrs. Hauton’s enumeration of the calls on her purse, and the plagues of her wealth. Indeed, Annie began rather to doubt whether her aunt could be as tired as she at first thought she must be, she kept up the conversation with so little appearance of effort. She did not herself listen to the half of it, but whenever she did, she always found it was some long story about the dairy-woman, who would do what she should not, or the price of the luxuries by which they were surrounded, which Mrs. Hauton seemed to think a great imposition that they could not have for nothing.
Meantime the Miss Hautons kept up a languid complaint of the heat, and asked Kate if she did not find it “horrid.” And when Annie stopped to look at some beautiful and rare flowers, and asked their name, they replied they did not know, “the gardener could tell her,” and seemed rather annoyed at her stopping in the sun to look at them, and wondered at her curiosity about any thing so uninteresting. Annie was something of a botanist, and would gladly have lingered over other plants that were new to her, for the garden was under the highest cultivation; but she saw that it was an interruption to the rest of the party, and they sauntered on.
She could not help, however, pausing again with an exclamation of delight before a moss rose-tree in full bearing, when Miss Hauton said, somewhat sarcastically,
“You are quite an enthusiast in flowers, Miss Cameron.”
“I am very fond of them,” replied Annie, coloring at the tone in which the remark was made; “Are not you?”
“No,” replied the young lady, carelessly, “I don’t care for them at all. I like a bouquet well enough in the winter. It finishes one’s dress, but I don’t see the use of them at all in summer.”
“Oh, I hate them,” added her sister, almost pettishly. “They are such a plague. People who come out are always wanting some; and then the gardener is to be sent for, and he always grumbles at cutting them, and half the time he has not cord to tie them up, and papa sends me to the house for some. If I had a place, I would not have a flower on it; but mamma says the gardener has not any thing to do but to attend to the garden, so she will have flowers.”
“Why, certainly, my dear,” said Mrs. Hauton, who caught this last remark, “what should we pay Ralston such wages to do nothing. He gets his money easy enough now. If he had merely the green-house to take care of, I think it would be too bad.”
So flowers were cultivated, it seemed, chiefly that the gardener might not gain his living without “the sweat of his brow.”
As they came within sight of the river, to which the lawn sloped, Annie proposed that they should walk down to it; but the young ladies assured her at once that she would find it “very disagreeable;” and asking if they were not tired, turned their footsteps toward the house.
They returned to the drawing-room, and after a little dawdling conversation, Miss Hauton took down her embroidery frame, and began to sort worsteds, while Miss Fanny produced a purse and gold beads, of which she offered to show Kate the stitch.
Kate congratulated herself in the depths of her heart, that she had had
Fortunately for Mrs. Leslie, Mrs. Hauton’s stream of talk was unceasing. She told innumerable and interminable stories (at least so they seemed to Annie) of the impositions of poor people; was very indignant at the sums they were called upon to give, and highly excited at the prices which were demanded of them, and which she thought people in more moderate circumstance were not asked. But more indignant yet was she when, on some occasions, they had not been treated with more prompt attention, and had superior comforts to others who were not as rich as themselves. She only, it seemed, expected to be put on a level with poorer people when the paying was in question. She evidently had an idea that the knowledge of her wealth was to procure her civilities which she was very angry at being called upon to pay for.
Annie thought it the longest morning she had ever passed; and when the servants announced the luncheon, she awoke as from a nightmare.
Gathering round the table, everybody
Another hour
“Miss Cameron is literary, I see;” and Annie, coloring, again dropped the book, and returned to her wearisome place on the sofa.
Kate found to her great delight that company was expected to dinner, and when the preparation-bell rang, the girls, almost in a state of exhaustion, retired to dress.
“Kate,” exclaimed Annie, “I am almost dead. I don’t know what has tired me so, but I feel as if I had been in an exhausted receiver.”
Kate laughed.
“You should have brought some work with you, Annie. If you had only been counting stitches, as I have been, you don’t know what a support it would have been to you under Mrs. Hauton’s talk. She is intolerable if you listen to her—but that I did not do. However, take courage. The Langtrees and Constants, and Merediths, are coming to dinner. Here, let me put this wreath of honeysuckle in your hair. There, it’s very becoming; only, Annie, you must not look so tired,” she continued, laughing, “or I am afraid you’ll make no conquests. And Constant and Meredith are coming with their sisters.”
After half an hour’s free and unconstrained chat, and conscious of a pretty and becoming toilet, refreshed and invigorated for a new attempt in society, Annie accompanied her aunt and cousin again to the drawing-room.
The new comers had arrived; a stylish-looking set—the girls in full dress, the young men so whiskered and mustachioed that Annie was surprised to hear them speak English. They were received with great animation by the Hautons, who seemed to belong to that class of young ladies who never thoroughly wake but at the approach of a gentleman.
The young men glanced slightly at Annie, and Mr. Meredith even gave her a second look. He thought her decidedly pretty, and a “new face,” which was something; but after a remark or two, finding she “knew nobody,” and did not belong to the clique, the trouble of finding topics of mutual interest seemed greater than he thought her worth, and so he turned to Miss
“So, the wedding has come off at last,” said Susan Hauton to Mr. Constant. “I hope the Gores are satisfied now. Were you there? How did Mr. Langley look?”
“Resigned,” replied the young man, slightly shrugging his shoulders.
Susan laughed, though at what Annie could not very well perceive, and continued with,
“And the bride—how did she look?”
“As brides always do—charmingly, of course,” he replied, languidly. “You ladies, with your veils, and flowers, and flounces, may set nature herself at defiance, and dare her to recognize you such as she made you.”
“If Fanny Gore looked charming,” said Ellen Hauton, sarcastically, “I think it might have puzzled more than dame Nature to recognize her. I doubt whether Mr. Langley would have known her under such a new aspect.”
“I think we may give him credit for differing from others on that point,” said Kate. “A woman has a right to be thought pretty once in her life, and Cupid’s blind, fortunately.”
“Cupid may be, but Mr. Langley is not,” replied Miss Hauton, in the same careless, sneering tone.
“A take in!” repeated Kate, with surprise.
“Yes, certainly,” replied Miss Hauton. “He did not want to marry her.”
“Then why did he?” asked Kate. “He was surely a free agent.”
“No, he was not,” persisted Miss Susan. “The Gores would have him; they followed him up, and never let him alone until they got him.”
“Do you believe,” returned Kate, with some spirit, “that any man is to be made to marry against his will? There’s no force can do it.”
“But the force of flattery,” said young Meredith;
“Then,” said Kate, laughing, “every match is a ‘take in,’ on that ground. Is not every bride flattered till she feels as if she had entered a new state of being? Is not every girl turned, for the time being, into a beauty? Do you suppose any body ever yet fell in love on the truth?”
“No, indeed,” replied the gentleman. “Truth’s kept where she should be, at the ‘bottom of a well.’ A most ill-bred personage, not fit for ‘good society,’ certainly.”
Then the conversation branched off to other matches, and to Annie’s surprise she heard these high-bred, delicate looking girls, talk of their friends making “dead sets” and “catches,” and of young men being “taken in,” in a style that struck her as decidedly vulgar. Kate, to turn the subject, asked Mr. Constant if he had been to the opera the night before.
“I looked in,” he replied. “Vita was screaming away as usual.”
“Oh, is not she horrid?” exclaimed Miss Hauton.
“The opera’s a bore,” pursued her sister. “Caradori’s detestable and Vita a horror. I hope they’ll get a new
“I thought you were fond of the opera,” remarked Kate. “You are there always.”
“Yes; we have a box, and one must go somewhere; but I was tired to death before the season was half over. Here, Mr. Meredith, hold this silk for me,” she continued, calling to the young gentleman, who was looking out of the window, meditating the possibility of making his escape to the refreshment of a cigar.
“That’s right, make him useful, Miss Hauton,” said Mr. Constant, as the reluctant Meredith declared himself most happy and honored in being so employed; but he set his back teeth firmly, and with difficulty suppressed a yawn, which was evident
“What bores these girls are, with their confounded worsteds and nonsense.”
The evening passed in pretty much the same way. Much gossip, varied with some very bad music, for Miss Hauton sang, and, like most amateurs, would undertake more than she could
“Oh,” said Kate, as they retired to their room at night, “did not the Hauton’s ‘Casta Diva’ set your teeth on edge? Such an absurdity, for a girl like her to attempt what few professional persons can sing. You look tired to death, Annie, and no wonder, for, between you and I, these Hautons are very common girls. Strange! I’ve known them for years, and yet never knew them before. Dress and distance make such a difference.”
“They seem to have so little enjoyment in anything,” remarked Annie. “Every thing seems, in their phrase, ‘a bore.’ Now, to us in the country, every thing is a pleasure. I suppose it is because we have so little,” she continued, smiling, “that we must make the most of it.”
“Well,” said Kate, doubtfully, as if the idea was quite new to her, “is not that better than to be weary with much?”
“And yet you would laugh at one of our little meetings,” replied Annie, “where we talk of books, sing ballads, and sometimes dance after the piano.”
“That is primitive, to be sure,” said Kate, with something of contempt in her heart for such gothic amusements.
“It’s pleasant, at any rate,” thought Annie, as she laid her head on her pillow and remembered, with infinite satisfaction, that she had only one day more to stay among these very fine, very common people.
“And is it possible,” she thought, “that I should be such a fool as to envy them because they looked gay and graceful across the opera house? And half of the rest of them are, doubtless, no better. Oh for one pleasant, spirited talk with Allan Fitzhugh.” And then her mind traveled off to home and a certain clever young lawyer, and she fell asleep dreaming she was in C——, and was once again a belle, (as one always is in one’s dreams,) and awoke to another dull day of neglect and commonplaces, to return home more disenchanted of the gay world and its glitter, more thoroughly contented than she ever would have been with her own intelligent and animated home, had she not passed three days at Woodlawn, amid the dullness of wealth, unembellished by true refinement or enlightened by a ray of wit.
But it was all right. To Annie had been given that which she most appreciated; to the Hautons all that they were capable of enjoying.
Would either party have changed? No. The pity was mutual, the contempt was mutual, and the satisfaction of both sides as complete as ever falls to the lot of mortals. Annie had seen the other side of the medal, and the Hautons did not know there was another side to be seen.
———
BY MISS L. VIRGINIA SMITH.
———
“The trees of the forest shall blossom again,
The song-bird shall warble its soul-thrilling strain,
But the heart Fate hath wasted no spring can restore,
And its song shall be joyful—no more, never more.”
A blush was deepening through the folded leaves
Of that young, guileless heart, and far within
Upon the altar of her soul a flame
Like to an inspiration came; she felt
That she had learned to love as e’en the heart
Of woman seldom loves.
She was an orphan child, and sorrow’s storm
With bitter breath had swept her gentle soul;
But that was past—and fresh in purity
It reveled in a blissful consciousness—
It loved, and was beloved.
She knew she loved—and when the twilight dim
Stole on with balmy silence, she would list
A coming step, whose music fall kept time
To all the hurried throbbings of her heart,
And when it stayed, a softened glance would seek
Her drooping eye, whose deepest faith had poured
Its dreamy worship forth so fearlessly;
Eyes that to him alone were never silent,
Whose glances sometimes sought for his, and threw
Their light far through his spirit, till it thrilled
To music every tightened nerve that strung
The living lyre of being.
At such an hour his burning passion slept
Before the portals of their azure heaven,
Like to some wandering angel who has sunk
To rest beside the glory-shadowed gate
Of a lost Paradise; and when he bowed
To press his lip upon the brow that lay
Soft pillowed on his bosom, she would start
Up from his half embrace, and then, to hide
Her sweet confusion, turn aside to part
With white and jeweled fingers, tremblingly,
The rich, dark masses of his waving hair.
Then joyous hopes came crowding brightly through
Their dreaming souls, as did the evening stars
Through the calm heaven above them, and the world
Of happiness that lay upon their hearts
Was silent all, for language had no words
To shadow forth the fond imaginings,
That made its very atmosphere a heaven
Of dreamy, rich, voluptuous purity.
An angel bowed before the mercy-seat
Trusts not more purely in the changeless One
To whom his prayer ascendeth, than did she
The proud, bright being whom her deathless love
Had made its idol-god—she could have laid
Her soft white hand in his without one thought
Except of love and trust, and bade him lead
Her to the end of life’s bewildered maze,
Blindfolded, while her heart on his would rest
Without one care for Time, one lonely fear
For that Eternity which mortals dread.
Such, then, is woman’s love—and wo to him
By whom her trusting nature is betrayed!
——
A change—a fearful, sad and blighting change—
Came o’er them—how or why it matters not—
Enough to know it came—enough to feel
That they shall meet as they have met, no more.
Of him we speak not—we but know he lives;
And she whose heart, whose very life was his,
Could tell you nothing more.
Lost—lost forever—and her life stood still,
And gazed upon the future’s cold gray heaven,
As if to catch one gleam of hope’s fair star—
No hope was there for her—the hand of God
Lay darkly in the cloud that shadowed it.
A never-ending, living death was hers,
And one by one she saw her hopes expire,
But shed no tear, because the fount was dry;
Hers was a grief too strangely sad for tears.
You heard no shriek of anguish as the tide
Of cold and leaden loneliness swept in
Upon her gentle bosom, though the fall
Of earth upon the coffin of the loved
And lost was not more fearful.
She prayed for power to “suffer and be still.”
And God was merciful—it came at last,
As dreamless slumber to a heart that mourns.
She smoothed her brow above a burning brain,
Her eye was bright, and strangers never knew
That all its brilliancy and light was drawn
From out the funeral pyre of every hope
That in an earlier, happier hour had glowed
On passion’s hidden altar. Months rolled on,
And when the softened color came again
To cheek and lip, it was as palely bright
As though from out a sleeping
Its sweetest life had faded tranquilly.
She mingled with the world—its gay saloons
Gave back the echo of her joyous laugh;
Her ruby lip, wreathed with its winning smile,
Gently replied to gentler flatteries,
And when her soul flowed forth upon the waves
Of feeling in the charmÉd voice of song,
You would have deemed that gushing melody
The music of a purest, happiest heart,
So bird-like was its very joyousness.
And many envied that lone orphan girl
Her light and happy spirit—oh! it was
A bitter, burning mockery! when her life
Was one continued struggle with itself
To seem what it could never be—to hide
Its gnawing vulture ’neath a sunny smile—
To crush the soul that panted to be free—
And force her gasping heart to drink again
The love that fed upon itself and wore
Her inner life away!
They could not know her—could not understand
How one could live, and smile, and still be cursed,
Cursed with a “living judgment,” once to be
Beloved—and then to be beloved no more,
And never to forget. Her life was like
Some pictured lily which the artist’s hand
Gives its proportion—shades its virgin leaves
With nature’s beauty—but the bee can find
No banquet there—the breeze waft no perfume.
The shadows of the tomb have lengthened o’er
Her sky that blushes with the morn of life;
Far on the inner shrine of Memory’s fane,
Lie the cold ashes of her “wasted heart,”
By burning sighs that sweep the darkened soul,
By lava-drops wrung from a fevered brain,
Or e’en the breath of God to be rekindled
Never—no “never more!”
——
And thus it is that woman’s sacrifice
Upon the altar of existence is
(That pulse of life) her warm and loving heart!
Far other tongues beside the poet’s lyre
There are to teach us that we often do
But “let our young affections run to waste
And water but the desert”—that we make
An idol to ourselves—we bow before
Its worshiped altar-stone, and even while
Our incense-wreaths of adoration rise
It crumbles down before that breath, a mass
Of shining dust; we garner in our hearts
A stream of love undying, but to pour
Its freshness out at last upon a shrine
Of gilded clay!
Our
The waves of Time may bear us calmly o’er
This life’s deep under-current—but the tones
Of love that woke the echoes of the Past
Are stilled, or only murmur mournfully,
“No more—oh! never more!”
And other hearts who bow before the shrine
Of young though shadowed beauty—can they know
What is the idol that they seek to win?
A mind the monument—a form the grave—
Where sleep the ashes of a “wasted heart!”
———
BY R. PENN SMITH.
———
Fill the bowl to the brim, there’s no use in complaining;
We’ll drown the dark dream, while a care is remaining;
And though the sad tear may embitter the wine,
Drink half, never fear, the remainder is mine.
True, others may drink in the lightness of soul,
But the pleasure I think is the tear in the bowl;
Then fill up the bowl with the roseate wine,
And the tears of my soul shall there mingle with thine.
And that being done, we will quaff it, my brother;
Who drinks of the one should partake of the other.
Thy head is now gray, and I follow with pain.—
Pshaw! think of our day, and we’re children again.
’Tis folly to grieve that our life’s early vision
Shone but to deceive, and then flit in derision.
A fairy-like show, far too fragile to last;
As bright as the rain-bow, and fading as fast.
’Tis folly to mourn that our hearts’ foolish kindness
Received in return but deceit for their blindness;
And vain to regret that false friends have all flown;
Since fortune hath set, we can buffet alone.
Then fill up the glass, there’s no use in repining
That friends quickly leave us, when fortune’s declining—
Let each drop a tear in the roseate bowl;
A tear that’s sincere, and then pledge to the soul.
OR THE INFLUENCE OF AN EXAMPLE.
———
BY ALICE B. NEAL.
———
Good, therefore, is the counsel of the Son of Sirach. “Show not thy valiantness in wine; for wine hath destroyed many.”
Jeremy Taylor.
“I am glad you admire my pretty cousin,” said Isabel Gray to a gentleman seated near her. “She deserves all her good fortune, which is the highest possible compliment when you see how devoted her husband is and what a palace-like home he has given her.”
“It does, indeed, seem the very abode of taste and elegance,” and the speaker looked around the luxurious apartment with undisguised admiration.
The room, with its occupants, seemed, in the mellow light which came from lotus shaped vases, like a fine old picture set in a gorgeous frame. The curtains, falling in fluted folds, shut out the dreariness of a chill November night—a glowing carpet, on whose velvet surface seemed thrown the richest flowers and the most luscious fruits, in wild but graceful confusion, muffled the tread of the well-trained servants. A few rare pictures hung upon the walls, and a group of beautiful women were conspicuous among the guests who this evening shared the hospitality of the master of the mansion. The dessert had just been placed upon the table—rare fruits were heaped in baskets of delicate SÈvres, that looked woven rather than moulded into their graceful shapes; cones and pyramids of delicately tinted ices, and sparkling bon-bons—in fine, all that could tempt the most fastidious appetite, had been gathered together for this bridal feast.
Very happy was William Rushton that night, and how fondly he glanced, in the pauses of conversation, toward his lovely wife, who, for the first time, had assumed her place as mistress of all this elegance. But hers was a subdued and quiet loveliness,
“Not radiant to a stranger’s eye,”
and many wondered that his choice should have fallen upon her, when Isabel Gray seemed so much better suited to his well known fastidiousness. Isabel had passed the season of early girlhood, yet her clear brow was as smooth, and her complexion as glowing, as when she had first entered society the belle of the season. Four winters had passed, and, to the astonishment of many an acquaintance, she was still unmarried; and now, as the bridemaid of the wealthy Mrs. Rushton, she was once more the centre of fashion—the observed of all.
Glittering glasses, of fanciful shape and transparent as if they had been the crystal goblets of Shiraz, were sparkling among the fruits and flowers. Already they were foaming to the brim with wines, that might have warmed the heart of the convivial Clarence himself, whose age was the topic of discourse among the gentlemen and of comment to their pretty listeners, who were well aware that added years would be no great advantage to them in the eyes of these boasting connoisseurs.
“No one can refuse that,” came to the ears of Isabel Gray, in the midst of an animated conversation.
“The health of our fair hostess,” said her companion, by way of explanation. “We are all friends, you know. Your glass, Miss Gray,” and he motioned the attendant to fill it.
“Excuse me,” said she, in a quick, earnest voice, which drew the attention of all. “I will drink to Lucy with all my heart, but in water, if you please,” and she playfully filled the tall glass from a water goblet near her.
“May I be permitted to follow Miss Gray’s example? She must not claim all the honor of this new fashion,” and the speaker, a young man with a fine though somewhat sad face, suited the action to the word.
Courtesy subdued the astonishment and remonstrances of the host and his fashionable friends, and this strange freak of Miss Gray’s formed the topic of conversation after the ladies withdrew.
“I do not think it a fancy—Isabel Gray always acts from principle,” said one of the party, with whom she had been conversing; and Robert Lewis, for so they called her supporter in this unparalleled refusal, gayly declared himself bound, for that night at least, to drink nothing but water, for her sake.
“Oh, Isabel, how could you do so?” said her cousin, as they re-entered the drawingroom, and the ladies had dispersed in various groups to examine and admire its decorations.
“Do what, dear Lucy?”
“Why, act in such a strange way. I never knew you to refuse wine before. You might, at least, have touched the glass to your lips, as you always have done. Mr. Rushton was too polite to remonstrate, but I saw he looked terribly annoyed. He is so proud of his wines, too, and I wanted him to like you so much. I would not have had it happen—oh, for any thing,” and the little lady clasped her hands with a most tragical look of distress.
“How very terrible! Is it such a mighty offense? But, seriously, it was not a freak. I shall never take wine again.”
“And all my parties to attend? You will be talked about all winter. Why, nothing is expected of a lady now-a-days but to sip the least possible quantity; and, besides, champagne, you know, Isabel—champagne never hurt any one.”
“I have seen too much of its ill effects to agree with you there, Lucy. It has led to intemperance again and again. My heart has long condemned the practice of convivial drinking, and I cannot countenance it even by seeming to join. Think of poor Talfourd—what made him a beggar and a maniac! He was your husband’s college friend.”
“Oh, that is but one in a thousand; and, besides, what influence can you possibly have. Who, think you, will be the better man for seeing you so rude—I must say it—as to refuse to take wine with him?
“We none of us know the influence we exert—perhaps never will know it in this world. But, still, the principle remains the same. To-night, however, I had a definite object in my pointed refusal. Young Lewis has recently made a resolution to avoid every thing that can lead him into his one fault. Noble, generous to “the half of his kingdom”—highly cultivated, and wealthy, he nearly shipwrecked his fortune when abroad, brother tells me, by dissipation—the effect of this same warm-hearted, generous nature. It is but very lately that he has seen what a moral and mental ruin threatened him, and has resolved to gain a mastery over the temptation. I knew of it by accident, and I should not tell it, even to you, only that it may prevent his being rallied by Mr. Rushton or yourself. To-night was his first trial. I saw the struggle between custom, pride, and good resolutions. If he had yielded then, he would have become disheartened on reflection, and, perhaps, abandoned his new life altogether. I cannot tell—our fate in this world is decided by such trivial events. At any rate, I have spared him one stroke—he will be stronger next time to refuse for himself.”
“I should not have dreamed of all this! Why I thought it was only his Parisian gallantry that made him join with you; but, then, if he has once been dissipated, the case is hopeless.”
“Oh, no Lucy, not hopeless; when a strong judgment is once convinced, it is the absence of reflection, or a little moral courage, at first, that ruins so many.”
“Excellent, excellent,” cried the lively Mrs. Moore, who came up just in time to hear Isabel’s closing sentence—“If Miss Gray is not turned temperance lecturer! Come, ladies, let her have a numerous audience while she is about it. Ah, I know you think to get into Father Mathew’s good graces. Shall you call upon him when he arrives, and offer your services as assistant?”
“We were discussing the possibility of entire reformation,” said Isabel, calmly, quite unmoved by Mrs. Moore’s covert sarcasms, to the ladies who now gathered round the lounge on which she sat. “The reformation of a man who has been once intemperate, I mean.”
“Oh, intemperance is so shockingly vulgar, my dear,” quavered forth Mrs. Bradford, the stately aunt of the hostess. “How can you talk about such things. No, to be sure, when a man is once dissipated, you might as well give him up. He’s lost to society, that’s certain; besides, we women have nothing to do with it.”
“I beg your pardon, my dear madam, but I think we have a great deal to do, though not in the way of assisting Father Matthew to address Temperance Conventions, as Mrs. Moore kindly suggests. Moreover, I have known a confirmed inebriate, so supposed, to give up all his old associations, and become a useful and honorable member of society.”
“Tell us about it, please, Miss Gray,” urged Emily Bradford, deeply interested. “There will be plenty of time before the gentlemen come in.”
And as the request was seconded by many voices, Isabel told her simple tale.
“There was a piece of linen to be made up one vacation; and I remember going into my aunt’s room and finding her surrounded by ‘sleeves and gussets and bands’—cutting out and arranging them with the most exemplary patience. ‘Pray, aunt, why do you bother yourself with such things,’ I said, for I was full of boarding-school notions on the dignity of idleness. ‘Why don’t you leave it for a seamstress.’
“‘If you will go with me this afternoon to see my seamstress, you will find out. I should like you to see her.’ And that afternoon our walk ended at a plain brown frame house, with nothing to relieve its unsightliness but a luxuriant morning-glory vine, which covered one of the lower windows.
“‘How is Mrs. Hall to-day?’ aunt said to a dirty little fellow who was making sand pies on the front step.
“‘She’s in there,’ was all the answer we received, as he pointed toward a door on the right of the little hall.
“‘Come in,’ said a faint and very gentle voice; and, at first, I could hardly see who had spoken, the room was so shaded by the leafy curtain which had interlaced its fragile stems over the front window. There was a neat rag carpet on the floor; a few plain chairs, a table, and a bureau, ranged round the room; but drawn near the window, so that the light fell directly upon it, was a bed, covered by a well-worn counterpane, though, like everything else, it was very neat and clean—and here, supported in a sitting posture by pillows, was my aunt’s seamstress. I do not think she had been naturally beautiful—but her features, wasted by long illness, were very delicate, and her eyes were large, and with the brilliancy you sometimes see in consumptives, yet a look of inexpressible sadness. She was very pale in that soft emerald light made by the foliage, and this was relieved by a faint hectic that, if possible, increased the pallor. She smiled as she saw my aunt, and welcomed us both very gratefully. As she held out her long thin hand, you could see every blue vein distinctly. I noticed that she wore a thimble, and around her, on the bed, were scattered bits of linen and sewing implements. You cannot tell how strange it seemed to see her take up a wristband and bend over it, setting stitch after stitch with the regularity of an automaton, while she talked with us. She seemed already dying, and this industry was almost painful to witness.
“I gathered from her conversation with my aunt,—while I looked on and wondered,—that Mrs. Hall had long been a confirmed invalid. They even spoke of a ruptured blood-vessel, from the effects of which she was now suffering. She did not complain—there was not a single murmur at her illness, or the hard fate that compelled her to work for her daily bread. I never saw such perfect cheerfulness, and yet I knew, from the contracted features and teasing cough, that she was suffering intensely. The little savage we had seen on our arrival, proved to be the son of her landlady, who was also her nurse and waiting-maid.
“I was very much interested, and, by the time we bade her good-bye, I had sketched out quite a romance, in which I was sure she had been the principal actor.
“‘Poor lady,’ said I, the instant we were out of the gate. ‘Why do you let her work, aunt? Why don’t you take her home, you have so many vacant rooms—or, at least, I should think, there were rich people enough in Milton to support her entirely. She does not look fit to hold a needle. Has she no children? and when did her husband die?—was she very wealthy?’
“I poured out my questions so fast that aunt had no time to answer any one of them, and I had been so much engaged, that I had not noticed a man reeling along the side-walk toward us, until just in time to escape the rude contact of his touch, from which I shrunk, almost shrieking.
“‘Who told you that Mrs. Hall was a widow, Isabel?’ said aunt, to divert me from my mishap.
“‘Nobody; but I knew it at once, as soon as I looked at her; how lonely she must be—and how terrible to see one’s best friend die, and know you cannot call them back again.’
“‘Not half so dreadful, dear,’ answered she, very seriously, ‘as to live on from day to day and see the gradual death of the soul, while the body is unwasted. It would be a happy day for Mrs. Hall that made her a widow, though she, poor thing, might not think so. That wretched inebriate’—and she pointed to the man we had just met—‘is her husband; and this is why she plies her needle when we would willingly save her from all labor. She cannot bear that he should be indebted to the charity of strangers.’
“It was even so, for the poor fellow had reached the garden-gate, and was staggering in.
“‘So he goes home to her day after day,’ continued aunt; ‘and so it has been since a few years after their marriage. When I first came here, he had a neat shop in the village, and was considered one of the most promising young men in the neighborhood. Such an excellent workman—such a clever fellow—so fond and proud of his wife; and everybody said that Charlotte Adams had married ‘out of all trouble,’ in the country phrase. Poor girl! she had only entered a sea of misfortunes—for, from the death of her only child, a fine little fellow, they have been going down. It is a common story. First, the shop was given up, and he worked by the day; not long after, they moved to a smaller house, and sold most of their furniture. It was then she first commenced sewing, and, with all her industry she could scarcely get along. She could never deny him money when she had it—and this, with his own earnings, were spent at the tavern. She remonstrated in vain. He would promise to do better—in his sober moments he was all contrition, and called himself a wretch to grieve such a good wife. I do not believe she has ever reproached him, save by a glance of sorrowful entreaty, such as I have often seen her give when he entered as now he is going to her.
“‘She was never very well, and under repeated trials, and sorrow and mortification, her health gave way. Many a time have I parted with her, never expecting to see her alive again; but there is some concealed principle of vitality which supports her. Perhaps it is the hope that she will yet see her husband what he has been. I fear she hopes in vain, for if there was ever a man given over to the demon of intemperance it is James Hall. But it is for this reason that she refuses the assistance of her acquaintances, and works on from day to day, sometimes as now unable to leave her bed. Of course she is well paid, and has plenty of work, for everybody pities her, and all admire the wonderful patience, cheerfulness and industry which she exhibits. She never speaks to any one, even to me, of her husband’s faults. If she ever mentions him it is to say, ‘James has been such a good nurse this week—he has the kindest heart in the world.’ ‘She is a heroine,’ exclaimed my aunt warmly. ‘The best wife I ever knew—and if there is mercy in heaven, she will be repaid for all she has suffered in this world.’
“‘Poor lady,’ I thought and said a hundred times that week. I suppose I must have tired everybody with talking about Mrs. Hall.”
“And did you ever see her again—did she die, Miss Gray?” asked Emily Bradford, as Isabel paused in her narration.
“I told you she made those pretty habit shirts for me. They were not in fashion in those days if you will recollect. The first summer after my debut in society I passed at Milton. I never shall forget the second evening of my visit. If you recollect, there was a great temperance movement through all our towns and villages just about that time. Reformed inebriates had become the apostles of temperance, and went from village to village, rousing the inhabitants by their unlearned but wonderful eloquence. Mass meetings were held in the town-ball at Milton nightly, and by uncle’s invitation, for he went heart and hand with the newly awakened spirit of reform, aunt and myself accompanied him to one of these strange gatherings. It was with the greatest difficulty we could get a seat. Rough laborers, with their wives and children, crowded side by side with the Élite of the little place; boys of every age and size filled up the interstices, with a strange variety of faces and expressions. The speaker of the evening was introduced just as we entered. He was tall, with a wan, haggard-looking face, and the most brilliant, flashing eyes I ever saw. A few months ago he had been on outcast from society, and now, with a frame weakened by past excesses, but with a spirit as strong as that which animated the old reformers, he stood forth, going as it were ‘from house to house, saying peace be unto you.’ Peace which had fled from his own hearth when he gave way to temptation, but which now returning urged him to bear glad tidings to other homes.
“I never listened to such strange and thrilling eloquence. I have seen Fanny Kemble as Portia plead with Shylock with all the energy of justice, and the force of her passionate nature, but though that was beyond my powers of conception, I was not moved as now. With what touching pathos he recounted the sorrows, the wasting, mournful want endured by the drunkard’s wife! The sickness of hope deferred and crushed—the destruction of all happiness here, or hope of it hereafter! It was what his own eyes had seen, his own acts had caused—and it was the eloquence of simple truth. More than one thought of poor Mrs. Hall, I am sure. As for myself, I know not when I have been so excited, and after the exhausted speaker had concluded his thrilling appeal, and the whole rude assembly joined in a song arranged to the plaintive air of Auld Lang Syne—more like a triumphal chant it seemed, as it surged through the room—I forgot all rules of form, and though I had sung nothing but tame Italian cavatinas for years, my voice rose with the rest, forgetful of all but the scene around me.
“Scarce had the last strains died away, when through the crowded aisles, passing the very seat we occupied, some one pressed forward with trembling eagerness. At first I did not recognize him—but uncle started and made way for him to the table in front of the speaker’s seat. A confused murmur of voices ran through the room, as one and another saw him grasp the printed pledge which was lying there, with the eagerness of a dying man. The first name subscribed to the solemn promise of total abstinence that night was James Hall. When it was announced by my uncle himself, whose voice was fairly tremulous with pleasure, the effect was electrical. The whole assembly rose, and the room rang with three cheers from stentorian voices. All order was at an end. Men of all classes and conditions pressed forward to take him by the hand, and more names were affixed to the pledge that night than any one could have counted on.
“It was a proud tribute paid to woman’s influence, when James Hall grasping the hand of the speaker ejaculated—‘Oh! it was the picture you drew of what my poor wife has suffered. Heaven bless her! she has been an angel to me—poor wretch that I am.’
“My aunt’s first impulse was to fly to Mrs. Hall with the good news, but ‘let him be the bearer of the glad tidings himself,’ she said afterward. ‘We will offer our congratulations to-morrow.’ And never were congratulations more sincerely received than by that pale invalid, trembling even yet with the fear that her great happiness was not real.”
“Oh! very well,” broke in Mrs. Bradford. “Quite a scene, my dear; you should have been a novelist. But did he keep it?—that’s the thing.”
“You would not ask, my dear madam,” answered Isabel, “if you could have witnessed another ‘scene,’ as you term it, in which Mrs. Hall was an actor.
“There is a pretty little cottage standing at the very foot of the lane which leads to my uncle’s house. This has been built since that memorable evening by Mr. Hall, now considered the best workman, and one of the most respected men in Milton; and it was furnished by his wife’s industry. Her health was restored as if by a miracle; it was indeed such, but wrought by the returned industry, self-respect, and devotion of her husband. My aunt and myself were her guests only a few months ago, the evening of her removal to her new home.
“We entered before her little preparations were quite finished, and found Mrs. Hall arranging some light window curtains for the prettily furnished parlor, while a fine curly-haired, blue-eyed little fellow was rolling on the carpet at her feet. She was still pale, and will never be strong again, but a happier wife and mother this world cannot contain. Her reward has been equal to her great self-sacrifice, and not only this, but the example of her husband has reformed many of his old associates, who at first jeered at him when he refused to join them. There is not a bar now in all Milton, for one cannot be supported.”
More than one thoughtless girl in the little group clustered around Isabel began, for the first time, to feel their responsibility as women, when her little narrative was concluded. But the current of thought and education is not so easily turned, and by the time the gentlemen entered the room, most of them had forgotten every thing but a desire to outshine each other in their good graces.
Emily Bradford alone remained in the shadow of a curtain, quiet and apart; and as she stood there musing, her heart beat faster, it may be, with an unacknowledged pang of jealousy as she saw Robert Lewis speaking earnestly with Isabel.
“Heaven bless you, Miss Gray, I confess I wavered—you have made me ashamed of my weakness; I will not mind their taunting now,” was all that the grateful, warm-hearted man could say; and he knew by the friendly clasp of Isabel’s hand that nothing more was needed. Who among that group of noble and beautiful women had more reason for happiness than Isabel Gray? Ah, my sisters, if you could but realise that all beauty and grace are but talents entrusted to your keeping, and that the happiness of many may rest upon the most trivial act, you would not use that loveliness for an ignoble triumph, or so thoughtlessly tread the path of daily life!
“Oh, Isabel,” said Lucy Rushton, bursting into her cousin’s room, some two years from the scenes we have recorded, “what am I to do? Pray advise me, for you always know every thing.”
“Not quite as wise as that, dear, but what am I to do for you?”
“Oh, Emily Bradford has been proposed for by young Lewis, and aunt, who sees only his wealth and connections, is crazy for the match. Emily really loves him devotedly; and what am I to do, knowing how near he once came to downright intemperance? Is it my duty, or is it not, to tell aunt? It has no effect on Emily, and, besides, he confessed it all to her when he proposed.”
“And what does she say?”
“Why, it’s your fault, after all, for she quotes a story you told that same night I heard about his folly. You told me that, too. Well, he declares he has not drank a glass of wine since then, and never will again. Particularly if he has Emily for his guiding angel, I suppose, and all that sort of thing. And she believes him, of course.”
“Well, ‘of course’—don’t say it so despairingly; why not? I do, most assuredly. I might perhaps have distrusted the reformation if it had been solely on Emily’s account, a pledge made to gain her, but if I am not very much mistaken, I think I can trace their attachment to that same eventful night, but I am very certain he did not declare himself until quite recently.”
“So I am to let Emily run the risk?”
“Yes, if she chooses it; though I do not think there is much. I should have no hesitation to marry Lewis if I loved him. Emily is a thoughtful, sensible girl. She does not act without judgment, and she is just the woman to be the wife of an impulsive, generous man like Lewis. Sufficient time has elapsed to try his principles, and her companionship will strengthen them.”
And so it proved, for there are now few happier homes than the cheerful, hospitable household over which Emily Lewis presides. Isabel Gray is always a favorite guest, and Robert predicts that she will never marry. It may prove so, for she is not of those who would sacrifice herself for fortune, or give her hand to any man she did not thoroughly respect and sympathise with, to escape that really very tolerable fate—becoming an old maid.
| The circumstances here related are substantially true. |
———
BY JAMES T. FIELDS.
———
“Paint me as I am,” said Cromwell,
Rough with age, and gashed with wars—
“Show my visage as you find it—
Less than truth my soul abhors!”
This was he whose mustering phalanx
Swept the foe at Marston Moor;
This was he whose arm uplifted
From the dust the fainting poor.
God had made his face uncomely—
“Paint me as I am,” he said,
So he lives upon the canvas
Whom they chronicled as dead!
Simple justice he requested
At the artist’s glowing hands,
“Simple justice!” from his ashes
Cries a voice that still commands.
And, behold! the page of History,
Centuries dark with Cromwell’s name,
Shines to-day with thrilling lustre
From the light of Cromwell’s fame!
———
BY ENNA DUVAL.
———
These white-capped waves roll on with pride, as if
The myth that ancient poËsy did tell
Were true, and they did bear upon their breasts
King NÉreus with state most royal. How
They leap and toss aloft their snowy crests;
And now a tumbling billow springing up
In air, does dash and bound—another comes—
Then playfully they meet, with bursting swell
Dashing their spray-wreaths on the shelving shore,
And quick the ripples hasten back, as if
To join the OcËanides wild glee.
But when the beaming sunlight fades away
And storm-clouds gather—then the rolling waves,
Without a light, sweep on, and soon is heard
The under-current’s deep and solemn tones,
As on the shore it breaks.
How like to life
These ocean waves! When beaming with the rays
Of sunny Joy, Youths cresting billows bound,
Its frolick waves leap up with gleeful laugh,
Glitt’ring with pleasure’s light; but lo! a cloud
Obscures Life’s sky, and sorrow’s storm awakes,
The heavy swell of grief comes rolling on,
And all the sparkles of Life’s waves are gone!
A SOUTHERN NOVELET.
———
BY W. GILMORE SIMMS.
———
(Concluded from page 91.)
