A MILITARY SKETCH.
It was a great day for Dogtown, being no other than the anniversary of the annual militia muster; and on this occasion not only the Dogtown Blues were on parade upon the village green, but the entire regiment of which they formed a part, commanded by the gallant Colonel Zephaniah Slorkey, postmaster and variety-store keeper, was to engage in a sham fight, representing the surrender of Cornwallis. There was no attempt at historical costume, but it was understood that Slorkey, with his cowhide boots and rusty plated spurs, his long, swallow-tailed blue coat, and threadbare chapeau with a cock's tail feather in it, mounted on his seventy-five dollar piebald mare, promoted from the plough and "dump cart," was the representative of General Washington. Major Israel Ryely, his second in command, a native of the rival village of Hardscrabble, was to figure as Lord Cornwallis; and the selection was the more appropriate, since the private relations of these two great men were any thing but amicable, and they espoused opposite sides in politics. Dr. Galenius Jalap, an apothecary and surgeon of the regiment, a man with a hatchet face, hook nose, and thin, weeping whiskers, the color of sugar gingerbread, undertook the character of La Fayette at very short notice, and a very dim conception of the character he had.
The entire population of Dogtown and Hardscrabble turned out to witness the stupendous military operations of the day. On the American side were the Dogtown Blues, with four companies of ununiformed militia, armed with rifles, fowling pieces, and rusty muskets, and typifying the continental army. Their artillery consisted of two light field pieces, served by a select band of volunteers. These pieces were posted on an eminence commanding the entire plain. At the foot of this hill, Colonel Slorkey drew up his troops in line of battle, his left wing protected by an impassable frog pond, and his right resting on a large piggery, whose extent prevented the enemy from turning his flank in that direction.
On the descent of an opposing eminence, likewise strengthened by two guns, Major Ryely placed the Hardscrabble Guards, the Sheet Iron Riflemen, the Mudhollow Invincibles, the Dandelion Fireeaters, and the Scrufftown Sharpshooters. A thousand bright eyes, from the commanding eminences, looked down on the serried ranks of bayonets, the brazen-throated artillery, the panoplied plough horses, the plumed commanders, the rustling banners, and all the "pomp, pride, and circumstance of glorious war."
Preliminaries being thus settled, the commanding officers put spurs to their horses, and met in the centre of the plain, there saluting with their scythe-blade swords.
"Major Ryely," said the colonel, rising in his stirrups, "the follerin' are the odder of pufformances: we open with eour artillery—you reply with yourn. Under kiver of eour guns we advance to the attack. You do the same to meet us—firin' like smoke. Arter a sharp scrimmedge you retire—send us a flag of truce with terms—and finally lay down your arms."
The major bowed till his ostrich feather touched the mane of his wall-eyed plough horse, then turned bridle, and regained his ranks at a gait something between a stumble and a rack. The representative of General Washington rejoined his men at a hard trot, rising two feet from his saddle at every concussion of his bony steed.
"Fellur sogers!" roared the temporary father of his country; "yonder stands Cornwallis and his redcoats—only they haint got red coats, partickerlarly them in blue swaller-tails. We air bound to lick 'em—hurrah for our side! Go inter 'em like a thousand of bricks fallin' off 'n a slated rufe. The genius of Ammerikin liberty, in the shape of the carnivorous eagle, soarin' aloft on diluted pillions, seems to mutter E Pluribus Unum—we are one of 'em! Hail Columby happy land! Sing Yankee Doodle that fine tune—cry havock! and let looset the dogs of war."
Then commenced the horror of the sham fight. The continental guns opened in thunder tones. The British artillery hurled back their terrific echoes. Bang! bang! boom! boom! The canopy of heaven was stained with the sulphurous smoke. The drummers rattled away on their sheepskins—the fifers distended their cheeks till they resembled blown bladders. In the midst of all this noise and tumult, the undaunted Slorkey, and the indomitable Jalap, rushed to and fro, with clanking scabbards, and brandished scythe blades, twin thunderbolts of war.
"Forrard march!" roared Slorkey. With the yell of demons, his fierce followers advanced to the onset, firing their blank cartridges with desperate valor.
Equally alert were Major Ryely and his followers.
"Their swords were a thousand, their bosoms were one."
Their faces begrimed with powder, their eyes gleaming with ferocity, they descended to the plain—an avalanche of heroes. The soul of Headly would have swelled within him had he seen them.
For more than one hour that deadly consumption of blank cartridges endured, and then Ryely and his troops retired in good order.
"Boys," said the major, "old Slorkey wants us to gin out—send a flag of truce—a white pocket handkerchief on a beanpole—and propose to surrender. But it goes agin my grit for Hardscrabble to cave in to Dogtown, when we could knock the hindsights off 'em, if we was only a mind to."
"Hurray for the major!" responded the Hardscrabblers.
"I've got a grudge agin the kurnil," said the major, "and if you'll stand by me, I'll take it out of 'em. What say?"
"Agreed!" was the spontaneous response.
While Slorkey was waiting for the covenanted flag of truce, he saw the hated Ryely rise in his stirrups, and heard his stentorian voice roar out the word, "Charge!"
A deafening shout answered his appeal. In an instant Hardscrabble and its allies were down on Dogtown and its defenders. The latter stood it for a moment, but Ryely knocked the colonel off his horse, the surgeon had his nose pulled, the Dogtown Blues justified their name by their looks, and, seized with a sudden panic, fled—fled ingloriously from their native training field. The audacious outrage was consummated—history was violated—and General Washington was beaten by Cornwallis.
Dire were the threats against Ryely uttered by the colonel, as he was carried home on a shutter; nothing short of a court martial was his slightest menace. But no court martial ever took place. The military pride and glory of Dogtown were wounded to the quick; the force of popular opinion compelled Slorkey to resign, and to consummate his chagrin, his treacherous rival was chosen colonel of the regiment. So unstable are human honors—so ungrateful are republics.
THE THREE BRIDES.
Towards the close of a chilly afternoon, in the latter part of last November, I was travelling in New Hampshire on horseback. The road was solitary and rugged, and wound along through gloomy pine forests and over abrupt and stony hills. Several circumstances conduced to my discomfort. I was not sure of my way; I had a hurt in my bridle hand, and evening was approaching, heralded by an icy rain and a cold, searching wind. I felt a sinking of spirits which I could not dispel by rapid riding; for my horse, fatigued by a long day's journey, refused to answer spur and whip with his usual animation. In an hour after, I was convinced that I had mistaken my road, and night surprised me in the forest. I had been in more unpleasant situations; so I adopted my usual expedient of letting the reins fall upon my courser's neck. He, however, blundered on, with his nose drooping to the ground, stumbling every moment, though ordinarily as surefooted as a roebuck. So we plodded on for a mile, while the landscape grew darker and darker. At length, finding my horse less intelligent or more despairing than myself, I resumed the rein, and endeavored to cheer my brute companion. To tell the truth, I stood in need of something exhilarating myself. The sombre air of the eternal pines struck a deathly gloom to my heart, as one by one they seemed to rise on my path, like threatening genii extending their scathed limbs to meet me. The rain, fine and cold, bedewed me from head to foot, and I question if a more miserable pair of animals ever threaded their way through the mazes of an enchanted forest. I thought of the comfortable home I had left for my forlorn pleasure excursion, of that cheerful hearth around which my family were gathered, of wine, music, love, and the thousand endearments I had left behind, and then I gazed into the recesses of the shadowy wood that closed about me, almost in despair. I began to dread the apparition of some giant intruder, and was seriously meditating the production of a pair of pistols, when my quick glance caught the glimmer of distant lights, twinkling through some opening in the trees, and darting a beam of hope upon the wanderer's soul. My reins were instantly grasped, and my rowels were struck into the sides of my charger. He snorted, pricked up his ears, erected his head, and sprang forth in an uncontrollable gallop. Up hill and down hill I pricked my gallant gray; and when the forest was past, and his hoofs glinted on the stones of a street leading through a small village, I felt an animation that I cannot well describe. A creaking signboard, swinging in the wind on rusty irons, directed me to the only inn of the village. It was a two-story brick building, standing a little back from the road. I drew rein at the door, and dismounted my weary nag. My loud vociferations summoned to my side a bull dog, cursed with a most unhappy disposition, and a hostler whose temper was hardly more amiable. He took my horse with an air of surly indifference, and gruffly directed me to the bar room.
This apartment was tenanted by half a dozen rough farmers, rendered savage and morose by incessantly imbibing alcohol; and by the proprietor of the tavern, a bluff man, with a portly paunch, a hard gray eye, and a stern Caledonian lip. He welcomed me without much frankness or cordiality, and I sank into a wooden settle, eyed by the surly guests of mine host, and the subject of sundry muttered remarks. The group, as it was lighted up by the strong red glare of the fire, had certainly a bandit appearance, which, however delightful to a Salvator Rosa, was by no means inviting to a traveller who had sought the bosom of the hills for pleasure. After making a few remarks, which elicited only monosyllables in answer, I relapsed into silence; from which, however, I was soon aroused by the entrance of the surly hostler, who in no very gracious manner informed me that my horse was lame, and likely to be sick. This intelligence produced a visit to the stable, and the conviction that I could not possibly resume my journey on the ensuing day; which was somewhat disagreeable to a man who had taken up a decided prejudice against the inn and all its inmates.
Having succeeded in procuring a private room and a fire, I ignited an execrable cigar, (ah, how unlike thy principes, dear S.,) and endeavored to lose myself in the agreeable occupation of castle building while supper was preparing. Alas! my fancy came not at my call. I had lost my power of abstraction—the realities around me were too engrossing. Ere the dying shriek of a majestic rooster had ceased to sound in my ear, his remains were served upon my table, together with a cup or two of very villanous gunpowder tea, and a pitcher of cider, with coarse bread and butter ad libitum. Supper was soon despatched, and in answer to a bell, lightly touched, a vinegar-visaged waiting-maid, of the interesting age of forty-five, entered and removed the scarcely touched viands—the rudis indigestaque moles. I ventured to address her, with a request that I might be supplied with a few books, to enable me to while away the evening. I anticipated a literary feast from the readiness with which she rushed from the room; but she reappeared, bringing only Young's Night Thoughts, (very greasy,) a volume of tales with the catastrophes torn out, a set of plays consisting only of first acts, and an odd number of the Eclectic Magazine. This was sufficiently provoking; but I read a few pages, and tried a second cigar, and made the tour of the apartment, examining a family mourning-piece worked in satin, a genealogical tree done in worsted, and a portrait of the mutton-headed landlord and his snappish wife. I counted the ticks of the clock for half an hour, and was finally reduced to the forlorn expedient of seeing likenesses in the burning embers. When the clock struck nine, I rang for slippers and a guide to my bed room, and the landlord appeared, candle in hand, to usher me to my sleeping apartment. As I followed him up the creaking staircase, and along the dark upper entry, I could not help regretting that fancy was unable to convert him into the seneschal of a baronial mansion, and the room to which I was going a haunted chamber. It seemed as if my surly host had the power of divining what was passing in my mind, for when he had ushered me into the room, and placed the candle on the light stand, he said,—
"I hope you'll sleep comfortable, for there ain't many rats here, sir. And as for the ghost they say frequents this chamber, I believe that's all in my eye, though, to be sure, the window does look out on the burial ground."
"Umph! a comfortable prospect."
"Very, sir; you have a fine view of the squire's new tomb and the poorhouse, with a wing of the jail behind the trees. And I've stuck my second-best hat in that broken pane of glass, and there's a chest of drawers to set against the door; so you'll be warm and free from intrusion. I wish you good night, sir."
All that night I was troubled with strange dreams, peopled by phantoms from the neighboring churchyard; but a bona fide ghost I cannot say I saw. In the morning I rose very early, and took a look from the window, but the prospect was very uninviting. The churchyard was a bleak, desolate place, overgrown with weeds, and studded with slate stones, bounded by a ruinous brick wall, and having an entrance through a dilapidated gateway. One or two melancholy-looking cows were feeding on the rank herbage that sprang from the unctuous soil, spurning many a hic jacet with their cloven hoofs. But afar, in the most distant part of the field, I espied the figure of a man who was busily occupied in digging a grave. There was something within that impelled me to stroll forth and accost him. I dressed, descended, and having ordered breakfast, left the inn, clambered over the ruinous wall, and stood within the precincts of the burial-place. The spot had evidently been used for the purposes of sepulture for a number of years, for the ground rose into numerous hillocks, and I could hardly walk a step without stumbling upon some grassy mound. Even where the perishable gravestones had been shattered by the hand of time, the length of the elevations enabled me to judge of the age of the deceased. This slight swell rose over the remains of some beloved child, who had been committed to the dust with only the simple ceremonies of the Protestant faith, bedewed by the tears of parents, and blessed by the broken voice of farewell affection. This mound, of larger dimension, was heaped above the giant frame of manhood. Some sturdy tiller of the soil, or rough dweller in the forest, perhaps cut off by a sudden casualty, had been laid here in his last leaden sleep—no more to start at the rising beam of the sun, no more to rush to the glorious excitement of the hunt, no more to pant in noonday toil. Over the whole field of the dead there seemed to brood the spirit of desolation. Stern heads, rudely chiselled, from the grave stones, and frightful emblems met the eye at every turn. Here was none of that simple elegance with which modern taste loves to invest the memorials of the departed; no graceful acacias, or nodding elms, or sorrowing willows shed their dews upon the turf—every thing spoke of the bitterness of parting, of the agony of the last hour, of the passing away from earth—nothing of the reunion in heaven!
I passed on to where the grave digger was pursuing his occupation. He answered my morning salutation civilly enough, but continued intent upon his work. He was a man of about fifty years of age, spare, but strong, with gray hair, and sunken cheeks, and certain lines about the mouth which augured a propensity to indulge in dry jest, though the sternness of his gray eye seemed to contradict the tacit assertion.
"An unpleasant morning, sir, to work in the open air," said I.
"He that regardeth the clouds shall not reap," replied the grave digger, still plying his spade. "Death stalks abroad fair day and foul day, and we that follow in his footsteps must prepare for the dead, rain or shine."
"A melancholy occupation."
"A fit one for a moralist. Some would find a pleasure in it. Deacon Giles, I am sure, would willingly be in my place now."
"And why so?"
"This grave is for his wife," replied the grave digger, looking up from his occupation with a dry smile that wrinkled his sallow cheek and distorted his shrunken lips. Perceiving that his merriment was not infectious, he resumed his employment, and that so assiduously, that in a very short time he had hollowed the last resting-place of Deacon Giles's consort. This done, he ascended from the trench with a lightness that surprised me, and walking a few paces from the new-made grave, sat down upon a tombstone, and beckoned me to approach. I did so.
"Young man," said he, "a sexton and a grave digger, if he is one who has a zeal for his calling, becomes something of an historian, amassing many a curious tale and strange legend concerning the people with whom he has to do, living and dead. For a man with a taste for his profession cannot provide for the last repose of his fellows without taking an interest in their story, the manner of their death, and the concern of the relatives who follow their remains so tearfully to the grave."
"Then," replied I, taking a seat beside the sexton, "methinks you could relate some interesting tales."
Again the withering smile that I had before observed passed over the face of the sexton, as he answered,—
"I am no story teller, sir; I deal in fact, not fiction. Yes, yes, I could chronicle some strange events. But of all things I know, there is nothing stranger than the melancholy history of the three brides."
"The three brides?"
"Ay. Do you see three hillocks yonder, side by side? There they sleep, and will till the last trumpet comes wailing and wailing through the heart of these lone hills, with a tone so strange and stirring, that the dead will start from their graves at its first awful note. Then will come the judgment and the retribution. But to my tale. Look there, sir; on yonder hill you may observe a little isolated house, with a straggling fence in front, and a few stunted apple trees on the ascent behind it. It is sadly out of repair now, and the garden is all overgrown with weeds and brambles, and the whole place has a desolate appearance. If the wind were high now, you might hear the old crazy shutters flapping against the sides, and the wind tearing the gray shingles off the roof. Many years ago, there lived in that house an old man and his son, who cultivated the few acres of arable land which belong to it.
"The father was a self-taught man, deeply versed in the mysteries of science, and, as he could tell the name of every flower that blossomed in the wood and grew in the garden, and used to sit up late of nights at his books, or reading the mystic story of the starry heavens, men thought he was crazed or bewitched, and avoided him, and even hated him, as the ignorant ever shun and dread the gifted and enlightened. A few there were, and among others the minister, and lawyer, and physician of the place, who showed some willingness to afford him countenance; but they soon dropped his acquaintance, for they found the old man somewhat reserved and morose, and, moreover, their vanity was wounded by discovering the extent of his knowledge. To the minister he would quote the Fathers and the Scriptures in the original tongues and showed himself well armed with the weapons of polemical controversy. He astonished the lawyer by his profound acquaintance with jurisprudence; and the physician was surprised at the extent of his medical knowledge. So they all deserted him, and the minister, from whom the old man differed in some trifling points of doctrine, spoke very slightingly of him; and by and by all looked upon the self-educated farmer with eyes of aversion. But he little cared for that, for he derived his consolation from loftier resources, and in the untracked paths of science found a pleasure as in the pathless woods! He instructed his son in all his lore—the languages, literature, history, philosophy, science, were unfolded, one by one, to the enthusiastic son of the solitary. Years rolled away, and the old man died. He died when a storm convulsed the face of nature, when the wind howled around his shattered dwelling, and the lightning played above the roof; and though he went to heaven in faith and purity, the vulgar thought and said that the evil one had claimed his own in the thunder and commotion of the elements. I cannot paint to you the grief of the son at his bereavement. He was, for a time, as one distracted. The minister came and muttered a few cold and hollow phrases in his ear, and a few neighbors, impelled by curiosity to see the interior of the old man's dwelling, came to his funeral. With a proud and lofty look the son stood beside the departed in the midst of the band of hypocritical mourners, with a pang at his heart, but a serenity on his brow. He thanked his friends for their kindness, acknowledged their courtesy, and then strode away from the grave to bury his grief in the privacy of his deserted dwelling.
"He found, at first, the solitude of the mansion almost insupportable, and he paced the echoing floors from morning till night, in all the agony of woe and desolation, vainly imploring Heaven for relief. It came to him first in the guise of poetic inspiration. He wrote with a wonderful ease and power. Page after page came from his prolific pen, almost without an effort; and there was a time when he dreamed (vain fool!) of immortality. Some of his productions came before the world. They were praised and circulated, and inquiries were set on foot in the hope of discovering the author. He, wrapped in the veil of impenetrable obscurity, listened to the voice of applause, more delicious because it was obtained by stealth. From the obscurity of yonder lone mansion, and from this remote region, to send forth lays which astonished the world, was, indeed, a triumph to the visionary bard.
"His thirst for fame was gratified, and now he began to yearn for the companionship of some sweet being of the other sex, to share the laurels he had won, to whisper consolation in his ear in moments of despondency, and to supply the void which the death of his old father had occasioned. He would picture to himself the felicity of a refined intercourse with a highly intellectual and beautiful woman, and, as he had chosen for his motto, What has been done may still be done, he did not despair of success. In this village lived three sisters, all beautiful and all accomplished. Their names were Mary, Adelaide, and Madeleine. I am far enough past the age of enthusiasm, but never can I forget the beauty of those young girls. Mary was the youngest, and a fairer-haired, more laughing damsel never danced upon a green. Adelaide, who was a few years older, was dark haired and pensive; but of the three, Madeleine, the eldest, possessed the most fire, spirit, cultivation, and intellectuality. Their father was a man of taste and education, and, being somewhat above vulgar prejudices, permitted the visits of the hero of my story. Still he did not altogether encourage the affection which he found springing up between Mary and the poet. When, however, he found that her affections were engaged, he did not withhold his consent from her marriage, and the recluse bore to his solitary mansion the young bride of his affections. O sir, the house assumed a new appearance within and without. Roses bloomed in the garden, jessamines peeped through its lattices, and the fields about it smiled with the effects of careful cultivation. Lights were seen in the little parlor in the evening, and many a time would the passenger pause by the garden gate to listen to strains of the sweetest music, breathed by choral voices from the cottage. If the mysterious student and his wife were neglected by their neighbors, what cared they? Their endearing and mutual affection made their home a little paradise. But death came to Eden. Mary fell suddenly sick, and, after a few hours' illness, died in the arms of her husband and her sister Madeleine. This was the student's second heavy affliction.
"Days, months, rolled on, and the only solace of the bereaved was to sit with the sisters of the deceased, and talk of the lost one. To Adelaide, at length, he offered his widowed heart. She came to his lone house like the dove, bearing the olive branch of peace and consolation. Their bridal was not one of revelry and mirth, for a sad recollection brooded over the hour. Yet they lived happily; the husband again smiled, and, with a new spring, the roses again blossomed in their garden. But it seemed as if a fatality pursued this singular man. When the rose withered and the leaf fell, in the mellow autumn of the year, Adelaide, too, sickened and died, like her younger sister, in the arms of her husband and of Madeleine.
"Perhaps you will think it strange, young man, that, after all, the wretched survivor stood again at the altar. But he was a mysterious being, whose ways were inscrutable, who, thirsting for domestic bliss, was doomed ever to seek and never to find it. His third bride was Madeleine. I well remember her. She was a beauty, in the true sense of the word. It may seem strange to you to hear the praise of beauty from such lips as mine; but I cannot help expatiating upon hers. She might have sat upon a throne, and the most loyal subject, the proudest peer, would have sworn the blood within her veins had descended from a hundred kings. She was a proud creature, with a tall, commanding form, and raven tresses, that floated, dark and cloud-like, over her shoulders. She was a singularly-gifted woman, and possessed of rare inspiration. She loved the widower for his power and his fame, and she wedded him. They were married in that church. It was on a summer afternoon—I recollect it well. During the ceremony, the blackest cloud I ever saw overspread the heavens like a pall, and, at the moment when the third bride pronounced her vow, a clap of thunder shook the building to the centre. All the females shrieked, but the bride herself made the response with a steady voice, and her eyes glittered with wild fire as she gazed upon her bridegroom. He remarked a kind of incoherence in her expressions as they rode home-ward, which surprised him at the time. Arrived at his house, she shrunk upon the threshold: but this was the timidity of a maiden. When they were alone he clasped her hand—it was as cold as ice! He looked into her face.
"Madeleine," said he, "what means this? your cheeks are as pale as your wedding gown!" The bride uttered a frantic shriek.
"My wedding gown!" exclaimed she; "no, no—this—this is my sister's shroud! The hour for confession has arrived. It is God that impels me to speak. To win you I have lost my soul! Yes—yes—I am a murderess! She smiled upon me in the joyous affection of her young heart—but I gave her the fatal drug! Adelaide twined her white arms about my neck, but I administered the poison! Take me to your arms: I have lost my soul for you, and mine must you be!"
"She spread her long, white arms, and stood like a maniac before him," said the sexton, rising, in the excitement of the moment, and assuming the attitude he described; "and then," continued he, in a hollow voice, "at that moment came the thunder and the flash, and the guilty woman fell dead upon the floor!" The countenance of the narrator expressed all the horror that he felt.
"And the bridegroom," asked I; "the husband of the destroyer and the victims—what became of him?"
"He stands before you!" was the thrilling answer.
CALIFORNIA SPECULATION.
Mose Jenkins did not take the California fever when it first broke out; for he was, as he acknowledged himself, "slow-motioned," and his skull was of such formidable thickness, that it required a good many months for an idea to penetrate into his brain. In the interim, he delved and digged away on a corner of his father's farm, having leased the land of the old gentleman, and purchased his time of the same respectable individual for the purpose of working it. But to work a farm where the rocks are so near together, that the sheep's noses have to be sharpened before they can graze between them, is not a very profitable business; and Mose, by dint of hard thinking, arrived at the conclusion that there might possibly be some other occupation less laborious and quite as lucrative.
"Confound these granite rocks!" he exclaimed, one day, as he was ploughing, after he had broken his trace chains for a second time; "they hev another kind er rocks in Calliforny. Jehosaphat! If I was only thar. There a fellur hez to dig; but he gets pretty good wages—five thousand dollars a month is middlin', not to say fair."
In short, Mose Jenkins made up his mind to go to San Francisco, having got the wherewithal to carry him in a packet to the land of promise. Fearful of opposition, he communicated his project neither to the author of his days, the venerable Zephaniah Jenkins, nor to the beloved of his heart, Miss Prudence Salter, a cherry-cheeked damsel in a state of orphanage; but wrote down to a friend in Boston to secure a passage. He reserved his communications to the very last moment, when he was all ready for starting. His father gave him his blessing; Prudence was more difficult to manage.
"It's a breach of promise case," said she, "I don't believe you mean to marry me arter all."
"Yes, I do, ye silly critter," said Mose. "I'll come and make you Mrs. Jenkins; but I want to get the rocks first."
"Ain't there rocks enough here?" asked Prudence, simply.
"Pooh! I mean the rocks what folks carries in their pockets, an' treats every body with—all sollid gold."
"I don't believe half them stories," said Prudence, contemptuously.
"They're as true as gospil," said Mose, "'cause I see it in a paper. And there's Curnil Hateful Slowboy, that went from here last year—you'd ort to know him, Prudence, coz he was one of your old beaux—wall, now, they say he's one of the richest men in Calliforny. I tell you I'm bound to make my fortin' there."
"And so am I," said Prudence, resolutely.
"You!" exclaimed Mose.
"Yes. I'm bound to go, too; and I'll follow you in the next ship, else you'll be green enough to marry one of them 'ere Ingine gals."
"Prudence, you're spunk!" exclaimed Mose, in terms of the warmest admiration. "Good by! And I swow I'll marry you jest as soon as you set foot in Calliforny."
Not to amplify on details, our adventurer landed there safely, and was, of course, like all verdant voyagers, much surprised at the tariff of prices subjected to his notice. The porter who carried his trunk to the hotel charged him ten dollars; and though that same hotel was a leaky tent, a plate of tough beef was charged seventy-five cents, and a watery potato fifty. Business was very dull, too, at the moment of his arrival; the accounts from the mines were disastrous, and every thing announced an approaching crisis. Moses confided his griefs to Colonel Hateful Slowboy, his fellow-townsman, who was really one of the richest men in California, winding up with lamentations over the expected arrival of Prudence, whom he had promised to marry.
"What kin I do with a wife," said he, "when I can't support myself, even?"
"Very true," said the colonel. "Now, if it were me, the case would be very different."
"Prudence done all the courtin' herself, curnil," said our hero, sulkily. "I never should have offered if it hadn't been for her. I kinder like 'er pretty well, though: she's a sort of pretty nice gal."
"Well, Mose," said the colonel, "what do you say to giving up your claim?"
"Eh?" said Mose, pricking up his ears.
"What'll you take for your right and title—cash down—no questions asked?"
"Wall, I dunnow," said Mose, opening his jackknife and picking up a chip. "Prudence is a pretty nice gal, as you said, curnil."
"As you said, Mr. Jenkins."
"Wall, it's all the same. The critter's very fond of me and so be I of her. I had plaguy hard work, I tell you, to get her consent."
"Come, come," said the colonel, "you want to drive a hard bargain with me. I'm willing to give you a fair price, say twenty thousand; but I don't want to be swindled."
"Say twenty-five thousand and take her, curnil."
"No—twenty."
"Cash down?"
"Cash down."
"Done."
"The money's ready whenever Prudence is."
In a few days another ship from Boston came in, and Prudence was among the first to land. Mose met her with very little ardor, the colonel remaining in the background. After some little conversation, the young lady reminded her lover of their agreement.
"I can't do it, Prudence; I've swore off—I've jined the old bachelor society."
"But you promised me," screamed Prudence.
"Can't help that; you can't get a verdict here for breaches of promise; there ain't no law here; every body goes on his own individual hook."
"You cruel monster, why can't you marry me?"
"'Cause."
"'Cause what?"
"'Cause," said Mose, retreating to a safe distance, "I've traded you away!"
Colonel Slowboy was at hand to catch the fair one as she came near falling. He was her old beau, and he knew the weak points of her character; moreover he had splendid red whiskers and a million of money—she married him, partly from ambition and partly from revenge.
The moment they were united, Moses set sail for the United States, with his twenty thousand dollars, and arrived back safely. When asked how he had accumulated such a sum in so short a time, he answered, "trading," and when questioned about the prospects of the El Dorado, would answer, with a grin, that it was a "great country for women." And this was the end of his California speculation.
THE FRENCH GUARDSMAN.
With the army of Marshal Saxe, encamped near Fontenoy ready to give battle to the allies, there were not a few ladies, who, impelled by a chivalric feeling, or personally interested in the fate of some of the combatants, had followed the troops to witness the triumph of the French arms. Their presence was at once the incitement and reward of valor, for what soldier would not fight with tenfold gallantry when he knew that his exploits were witnessed by the eyes of her he loved as wife, mistress, or mother, and whose safety or honor, perhaps, depended on his prowess?
Among those most distinguished for their beauty was the youthful Heloise, the lovely daughter of the Baron de Clairville, a French general officer. The beaux yeux of the demoiselle had enslaved more than one young officer, but of the host of suitors none could boast with reason of encouragement, except Henri de Grandville, and Raoul, Count de St. Prix, both commanding companies in the French Guards. Both were handsome and accomplished young men, and both had yet their spurs to win upon the field of battle. They had been fast friends until the pursuit of the same lady had created a sort of estrangement between them. Little was known of Henri de Grandville previous to his reception of his commission in the guards. He had been brought up by his mother in an old provincial chateau, and though his manners and education were those of a gentleman, still he seemed but little acquainted with the world, and above all ignorant of the lighter accomplishments of the courtier. Perhaps this very simplicity of manner and frankness of character, contrasting so strangely with the fashionable affectations of the court, endeared him to his comrades, and strongly prepossessed Heloise de Clairville in his favor. His rival was of a different stamp. Raoul de St. Prix was a dashing, brilliant officer, brave as steel, but fond of dress, reckless, dissipated, and extravagant. Yet his faults were those of his age, and belonged to the circumstances by which he was surrounded. The Baron de Clairville, while he left his daughter free to make her election, yet, as a plain, blunt soldier, rather than a courtier, secretly inclined to favor the pretensions of Henri. Still, his treatment of the two young guardsmen was the same, for they gave equal promise of military gallantry.
It was on the eve of the battle of Fontenoy that Henri sought an interview with Heloise, who occupied a gay pavilion near her father's tent. He found her alone and weeping.
"Mademoiselle," said he, "you are unhappy. Will you permit a friend to inquire the cause of your sorrow?"
"Can you ask me, Monsieur de Grandville! Of the thousands of brave men who lie down to-night in peaceful slumber, how many sleep their last sleep on earth! How many eyes, that will witness to-morrow's sun arise, will be closed forever before it goes down at evening! O, what a dreadful business is this trade of war! My poor father, he never cares for himself, he never asks his men to go where he is unwilling to lead. I fear for his safety in the deadly conflict of to-morrow."
"If the devotion of one faithful follower can save him, lady," answered Henri, "be assured of his safety. I would pour out the blood in my veins as freely as water to shield the father of Heloise de Clairville."
"But you—you—Henri—Monsieur de Grandville—you think nothing of your own life."
"If I fall," answered the young soldier, "my poor mother will weep bitterly for her only son, though he perish on the field of honor. But who else will shed a tear for the poor guardsman?"
"Henri!" exclaimed the young girl, reproachfully, and the soft eyes she raised to his were filled with tears.
"Is it possible?" cried the young soldier. "Can my fate awaken even a momentary interest in the heart of the loveliest, the gentlest of her sex? Ah, why do you render life so dear to me at the moment I must peril it?"
"Believe me," answered Heloise, drying her tears, "that I would not hold you back, when honor beckons you. It is to such hands as yours that the honor of the golden lilies is committed. I am the daughter of a soldier, and though these tears confess my sex, I honor bravery when it is displayed in a good cause. I honor the soldier as much as I detest the duellist."
"Then listen to one whose sword was never stained with his brother's blood. I had thought to go to the field with my secret concealed in my own breast, but something impels me to speak out. I love you, Heloise—I have dared to love—to adore you."
The fair girl blushed till her very temples were crimsoned over with eloquent blood. The young soldier threw himself at her feet, and taking the fair hand she abandoned to him, covered it with kisses; nor did he rise till he had received confirmation of his new-born hopes, and knew that, for good or ill, the heart of Heloise was irrevocably his. Finally, he was compelled to tear himself away, but he carried to his tent a feeling of delicious joy which steeled his mind against all thought of the chances of the morrow.
The moments passed away in delirious revery, but at length he was interrupted by St. Prix.
The count was in the worst of humors—his brow was dark with passion, and he threw himself into a seat, and flung his plumed hat on the table with an energy that betrayed the violence of his emotions.
"What's the matter, Raoul?" asked Henri. "Has Saxe changed his plans? Do we fall back instead of advancing?"
"No, thank God! there will be plenty of throat-cutting to-morrow, and the French Guards have the post of honor."
"Thank Heaven!" exclaimed Henri, joyfully.
"You seem in excellent spirits to-night, Captain Henri de Grandville."
"I wish I could say as much of you, Captain Raoul de St. Prix."
"Tell me the cause of your felicity."
"Enlighten me respecting your ill humor."
"Willingly, on condition that you will explain your satisfaction."
"Agreed."
"Well, then—you know the marked preference—marked preference, I say—always shown me by Mademoiselle Heloise de Clairville."
"I will not dispute with you—go on."
"You must have been blinded by absurd hopes not to have noticed it; every officer in the army looked to me as the futur of the lady. Well, sir, encouraged and led on by this siren, I made my proposals to her to-night. Ventre St. Gris! I had engaged to settle with my creditors out of her marriage portion."
"Go on—go on—this is excellent, St. Prix."
"Well, sir, she rejected me—me, the Count de St. Prix. A prior engagement, forsooth! I wish to Heaven I knew the fellow! Before sunrise he should have more button holes in his doublet than ever his tailor made."
"Captain St. Prix," replied Henri, "you have not far to look. In me behold the fortunate suitor. Come, come; confess that your pride, and not your heart, was engaged in the affair. The game was fairly played; the stakes are mine."
"This trifling will not pass muster with me, sir," said the count, sternly. "Know—if you knew it not before—that Raoul de St. Prix never fixed his eye on a prize that he did not obtain, or missing it, failed to punish his successful rival. You are a soldier, and you understand me, sir," he added, touching his sword knot with his gloved hand.
"This is midsummer madness, Raoul," answered Henri, with good temper. "Had I been unsuccessful, painful, fatal as the disappointment would have been, I should have resigned the lady to you without a struggle."
"That shows the difference between a gentleman and a parvenu," retorted St. Prix.
"A parvenu!" cried De Grandville, starting to his feet.
"Yes. Who knows you? Whence came you? You are an intruder in our ranks."
"I bear the king's commission."
"Yes, and have not courage enough to sustain it. I have defied you to your teeth, and you refuse to fight."
"My principles are opposed to duelling. In the words of the lady whose preference honors me, 'I honor the soldier as much as I detest the duellist.' Besides, has not the marshal strictly forbidden duels in the camp? Conscience, reason, authority, every consideration forbids my acceptance of the challenge."
"Then," said St. Prix, "you shall submit to an indignity that disgraces a French gentleman forever." And raising his sheathed sword, he struck De Grandville with the flat of the scabbard.
Henri's sword instantly flashed in the lamplight, and St. Prix drawing his rapier, they were instantly engaged in deadly combat. Both were expert swordsmen, and while one fought with the ferocity of hatred and disappointment, the arm of the other was nerved by a sense of wrong. The metallic ring of their blades was unintermitted, for neither paused to take breath, but, with teeth set and eyes glaring, thrust, parried, advanced, and fell back in the fierce ardor of the combat. At last, De Grandville, seeing an opportunity, sent his adversary's blade whirling through the air, and drawing back his weapon, prepared to thrust it through his breast.
"Strike!" said St. Prix; "you have vanquished me in love and in arms, and there is nothing left me but to die."
"Die, then, but on the field of battle, brave Raoul," said de Grandville, "and since I have deprived you of your sword, take mine; I shall be honored by the exchange."
"Hold!" said a stern voice; and turning, Henri beheld with confusion the countenance of Marshal Saxe, who, attended by a file of musketeers, had entered the tent at the close of the duel. "You will give up your sword to this officer, Captain de Grandville," added he, pointing to a commissioned officer by whom he was accompanied. "Count de St. Prix, you will pick up your weapon, also, and surrender it. Officers who forget themselves so far as to seek each other's lives upon the eve of battle, with the enemy before them, are unworthy of command. This is matter for the provost marshal."
And the old soldier seated himself at the table, and eyed the offenders angrily and sternly.
"May it please your excellency," said St. Prix, "I alone deserve to suffer. I insulted the gentleman, and forced him to fight."
"Forced him to fight?" said the marshal. "Hadn't he read the orders of the day?"
"I do not claim your clemency, marshal," said Henri. "I committed this fault with my eyes open. But a man cannot always command his passions."
"That's true, my lad. But what were you fighting about?"
"A woman, your excellency," said St. Prix.
"A woman! fools! a woman that's not to be had without fighting for isn't worth having. Well, well—boys will be boys. I pardon you on two conditions. In the first place, you must shake hands." Henri and Raoul advanced and joined their hands. "And in the next place, that you give a good account of yourselves to-morrow. Sacre nom de Dieu! I can ill spare two lads of spirit from the guards. And now," said the marshal, rising, after restoring their swords to the officers, "good night, gentlemen; and plenty of hard knocks to-morrow."
The next day witnessed one of those terrible encounters, whose sanguinary prints make a more indelible impression on the page of history than the records of the more generous deeds of peaceful life. The greatest gallantry was displayed on both sides, and on the part of the French no officers were more distinguished for their valor than the two guardsmen whose encounter on the previous evening we have just related. Raoul de St. Prix, in the early part of the engagement, fell sword in hand at the head of his company, thus meeting with honor a fate he had earnestly desired. Henri de Grandville, in the course of the day, found himself in command of the regiment, every officer of higher rank having fallen. When the carnage had ceased, he laid a stand of captured colors at the feet of the commander-in-chief, and was complimented by Marshal Saxe at the head of the army, receiving assurance that his gallantry should be at once reported to the king.
Flushed with triumph, the young guardsman flew to the presence of his mother, to receive her embrace and recount in modest terms the story of his deeds. She rejoiced in his safety, and sympathized with his joy. But all at once, as he made her the confident of other hopes, and enlarged on the prospect of his speedy union with Heloise de Clairville, her countenance changed, and her eyes became suffused with tears.
"Dear Henri," said she, "I knew nothing of this. Why did you not sooner apprise me of this fatal passion?"
"Fatal passion, dear mother! Why do you thus characterize the love I bear to the purest, the most beautiful of her sex?"
"She is, indeed, all that you paint her, Henri; but you must learn the hard task of renouncing your hopes. You can never marry her."
"And why so? Do you refuse your consent?"
"Alas! no. But the Baron de Clairville—"
"He regards me with a favorable eye. I have reason to think he knows of my attachment to his daughter, and approves of it. Even now, his congratulations had a marked meaning, which could hardly be ambiguous."
"But a fatal, an insurmountable barrier lies between you and the object of your hopes."
"Do not keep me in suspense," cried the young soldier, "Explain this mystery, I implore you."
"Have you fortitude to listen to a dreadful secret, the possession of which has well nigh destroyed the life of your mother?"
"God will give me strength to bear any stroke," replied Henri. "Thanks to your instruction and example, I have schooled myself to suffer, unrepining, whatever Providence, in its infinite wisdom, sees fitting to inflict. If I have a soul for the dangers of the field, I have also, I think, the courage to confront those trials that pierce the heart with keener agonies than any the steel of a foeman can inflict. Fear not to task me beyond my strength."
"I will be as brief as possible," said the lady. "Your father, Henri, was of noble birth and possessed of fortune. My own share of the world's goods was small, and yet it was on this pittance alone that we were sustained, till the exertions of a generous friend procured you, under the name of De Grandville, (my maiden name,) a commission in the guards."
"Then De Grandville was not the name of my father."
"No—he belonged to the noble house of Montmorenci. The early years of our married life were passed in happiness that I always feared was too great to be enduring. It was brought to a bitter and miserable end. Deadly enemies—for the best and noblest have their foes—conspired against your father, and he was accused—falsely accused, mark me—of treason to his king and country. I will not tell you by what forgery and perjury he was made to appear guilty—but he was convicted—and sentenced—"
"Sentenced!"
"Ay, sentenced, and suffered. He died by the hands of Monsieur de Paris!"
"Monsieur de Paris!"
"The executioner!"
Henri uttered a piercing cry, and covered his face with his hands. He remained a long time in this attitude, his frame convulsed by the agonies of grief, while his mother watched, with streaming eyes, the effect of her communication. At length he removed his hands, and raised his head. His countenance was deadly pale,—the only indication of the train of emotions which had just convulsed him,—but his look was firm and high.
"Mother," said he, pressing her hand, "I thank you. It was better to learn this dreadful secret from your lips than from the words of another. Henceforth we will live for each other—we shall have a common sorrow and a common fate. I pray you to excuse me for a few moments. I will soon rejoin you, but I have first a duty to perform."
The young guardsman passed from his mother's presence to that of the Baron de Clairville.
"Welcome, welcome! my brave boy," said the old soldier. "You have fairly won your spurs."
"Sir, you flatter me," replied Henri, gravely.
"Not at all. Saxe himself says that more distinguished gallantry never fell beneath his notice."
"You think then, baron, I can claim a post of honor and danger in the next engagement?"
"You can lead the Forlorn Hope if you like."
"Enough, baron. I came to ask your forgiveness."
"My forgiveness!"
"Yes, sir, for having wronged you unconsciously so lately as last evening."
"Wronged me, and how, strange boy? you talk in riddles."
"Last evening, sir, on the eve of battle, which might well, considering what followed, have been my last of life, I sought your daughter. Her manner, some unguarded words she dropped, emboldened me to declare a secret which I had hitherto kept fast locked in my breast. I threw myself at her feet, and told her that I loved her."
"And she—"
"Confessed that she loved me in return."
"Henri! my boy—my son—my hero! this news makes me young again! it gladdens my old heart like the shout of victory upon a stricken field. Is this your offence? I freely pardon it."
"You know not all, baron. You knew that I was a poor and obscure soldier of fortune."
"The man who has distinguished himself as you have done this day, might claim the hand of an emperor's daughter."
"Baron, between me and Heloise there lies a black shadow—a memory—a horror, which forbids our meeting. The very name I bear does not belong to me."
"And how may you be named, young man, if not De Grandville?"
"Henri de Montmorenci," replied the young soldier.
"De Montmorenci!" cried the baron. "That is a noble and historic name. The house of Montmorenci has been well represented in the field."
"And on the scaffold!" added Henri, with deep emotion.
"The scaffold!" exclaimed the baron. "Yes, yes; I remember now a dreadful tragedy. But he suffered unjustly."
"No matter," answered Henri. "The ignominious punishment remains a stain upon our escutcheon. Men will point to me as the son of a condemned and executed traitor. Could I forget for a moment the tragedy which has rendered my poor mother an animated image of death, the finger of the world would recall my wandering thoughts to the horrors of the fact. The scaffold, with all its bloody paraphernalia, would rise up before me."
"Henri, you are too sensitive," said the baron. "The best and bravest of France (alas for our history!) have closed their lives upon the scaffold. I believe your father innocent. If it were otherwise, you have redeemed the honor of your race. You deserve my daughter's hand—take her and be happy."
"Make her the companion of my agony! Never."
"Come with me," said the baron; "her smiles shall dispel these gloomy fantasies."
"No, no! urge me not," said the young guardsman. "Let me return to my poor mother. She has need of all my consolation. I renounce forever my ill-fated attachment. Heaven, for its own wise purposes, has chosen to afflict me. Farewell, baron; I thank you for your kindness—your generous friendship. You and Heloise will soon learn that Henri de Montmorenci is no more. After the next battle, if you seek me out, you will find me where the French dead lie thickest on the field."
"Noble-hearted fellow!" cried the baron, when Henri had left him. "He ought to be a field marshal."
"Marshal Saxe requests your immediate presence, baron," said an aide-de-camp, presenting himself with a salute.
"Monsieur de Baron," said the commander-in-chief, when De Clairville had obeyed the summons, "I have chosen you to carry my despatches to the king; you will find yourself honorably mentioned therein, and I think the favor of royalty will reward your merit."
The baron bowed low as he received the despatches from the hand of the marshal, and was soon ready for the journey, first taking a hasty farewell of his daughter, whom he commended to the care of Madame de Grandville, (or rather Montmorenci,) during his absence.
In five days thereafter, he reported himself to the marshal, and was then at liberty to attend to his private concerns. He found Heloise in the company of Henri and his mother, and the gloom depicted on their countenances presented a singular contrast to the radiant joy that sparkled in the eyes and smiled on the lips of the genial and warm-hearted old soldier. He kissed his daughter, saluted Madame de Grandville, and then, shaking the young guardsman warmly by the hand, exclaimed,—
"Good news, Henri; I bring you a budget of them. The king has heard of your gallantry, and inquired into your story."
"Heaven bless him!" exclaimed the mother.
"The memory of your father," continued the baron, "has been vindicated by a parliamentry decree affirming his innocence. His forfeited estates are restored to his family; and I bring you, under the king's seal, your commission as full colonel in the French Guards, and letters patent of nobility, Count Henri de Montmorenci!"
Henri and his mother were nearly overwhelmed by this good news; while Heloise clung to her father's arm for support.
"No fainting, girl," said the happy baron. "That will never do for a soldier's wife. Here, take her, count, make her happy—and let us hear no more of your volunteering on Forlorn Hopes—at least, during the honeymoon."
We need not add that the baron's injunctions were implicitly obeyed.
PERSONAL SATISFACTION.
Mrs. Tubbs had been a very fine woman—she was still good looking at the period of which we write, but then—
"Fanny was younger once than she is now,
And prettier of course."
She had been married some years. Tubbs was a gentleman farmer, and lived out in Roxbury, when land was cheaper there than it is now, and a man of moderate means could own a few acres within three miles of Boston State House. On retiring from the wholesale West India goods business, he had purchased a little estate in the vicinity of the Norfolk House, and raised vegetables and other "notions" with the usual success attendant upon the agricultural experiments of gentlemen amateurs; that is, his potatoes cost him about half a dollar a peck, and his quinces ninepence apiece. He had a greenhouse one quarter of a mile long, and kept a fire in it all the year round, at the suggestion of a rascally gardener, whose brother kept a wood and coal yard. We could tell some droll stories about Tubbs's gardening, if they were to the purpose. We will mention, however, that when he went into the vegetable business he was innocent as a lamb, and verdant as one of his own green peapods, and of course he made some curious mistakes. He was not aware that the infant bean, like the pious Æneas, was "in the habit of carrying its father on its back," and so thinking that nature had made a mistake, he reversed the order of the young sprouts, and reinterred the aged beans. This was one of his many blunders. However, we have nothing to do with his gardening. We have said he was innocent as a lamb, but he was by no means so pacific; on the contrary, his temper was as inflammable as gun cotton—the slightest spark would set it in a blaze.
To return to Mrs. Tubbs, whom we have most ungallantly left in the lurch since the first paragraph. She had been into Boston one day, shopping, and returned home in the omnibus. She sat between two young men. The one on her right was modest and well-behaved, while the other was entirely the reverse. He might have been drinking—he might have been partially insane—these are charitable suppositions; but at all events, he had the impertinence to address Mrs. Tubbs in a low tone, audible only to herself. He muttered some compliment to her appearance—talked a little nonsense—inoffensive in itself, but intolerable as coming from a stranger. Mrs. Tubbs made no reply, but she was glad to spring from the conveyance when the driver pulled up at the Norfolk House. To her great joy she espied the faithful Tubbs, attired in a blouse, and wheeling a barrow full of gravel down Bartlett Street, with all the dignity of a gentleman farmer, conscious of being a useful, if not an ornamental, member of society. She accosted him with,—
"Tubbs, love, I've got something to tell you."
Tubbs relinquished the handles of the barrow, and sat down in the gravel.
"Mr. Tubbs!" screamed the lady, "you've got your best pantaloons on."
"Never mind, my dear; out with your story, for I'm busy."
"Mr. Tubbs! I've been insulted!"
Mr. Tubbs's head instantly became as red as one of his own blood beets.
"Who is the miscreant?" he yelled, jumping up.
"A young man who sat next to me in the omnibus."
"Describe him!"
"Dark hair and eyes, with a black stock, light waistcoat, dark-colored coat and pantaloons—"
"Which way did he go?" interrupted Mr. Tubbs.
"Into the hourly office."
"'Tis well! Mrs. T., I'll have his heart's blood!"
"Now, T., be calm!" interposed his better half.
"Mrs. T., I will be calm," was the dignified reply, "calm as the surface of Mount Ætna, on the eve of an eruption. Farewell, love, for a moment. Have an eye to the wheelbarrow while I have a settlement with this scoundrel!"
With these words, Tubbs marched up the hill. He entered the hourly office, and looked round him. His first glance lighted on a young man who answered the description given by Mrs. Tubbs; but he wished to make assurance doubly sure, and so he accosted him politely,—
"Fine growing weather, sir."
"Yes, sir," replied the stranger.
"Peas are doing finely," said Mr. Tubbs.
"Indeed!"
"If the weather holds, we can plant corn next week."
"Indeed!"
"Pray, sir," continued Tubbs, "did you come out in the last coach?"
"Was there a lady in the coach?"
"There was, sir. I recollect a lady sat next to me."
"You scoundrel! what did you mean by insulting my wife?"
This question was followed by a blow, which sent the young gentleman sprawling on the floor. Tubbs stood him up, and knocked him down again and again, like a man practising on a single pin in a bowling alley. The sufferer showed some fight, but Tubbs's blood was up, and he hammered down all opposition. The drivers looked on in admiration to see "Old Tubbs vollop the chap as had insulted his wife," and so he had it all his own way. He dragged the offender out of the office, and finished him off on the sidewalk. He was engaged in this laudable occupation, when his better half, tired of mounting guard over the wheelbarrow, appeared upon the field.
"Mr. Tubbs!" she screamed.
"Wait a minute, my dear. I've only done one side of his head."
"But, Mr. Tubbs! That wasn't the man!"
Tubbs suspended operations, and stood fixed in horror. The remains of the injured individual were taken into the hourly office. Then came remorse and apologies unaccepted and unacceptable—a lawyer's letter—an action for assault and battery, and heavy damages. The real offender had escaped, and was never heard of; the victim was the well-behaved young gentleman, who had sat on Mrs. Tubbs's right. Her description, which had answered for both, had occasioned the dilemma, which, while it proved an expensive lesson to Mr. Tubbs, was also an effectual one, and saved him from many a rash and hasty action, and induced him ever afterwards to adopt Colonel Crockett's golden maxim, "Be always sure you're right, then go ahead."
THE CASTLE ON THE RHINE.
In one of those old feudal castles, which, perched, like eagle nests, upon the picturesque hills that overhang
"The wide and winding Rhine,"
and with their crumbling and ivy-grown towers, arrest the eyes of the delighted traveller, as he views them from the deck of the gliding steamer, there dwelt, some years ago, the Baron Von Rosenburg and his lady Mathilde. The baron was a very proud man, and continually boasting of his descent from a "long and noble line of martial ancestors," gentlemen who were wont, in the "good old times," to wear steel on head, back, and breast, and each of whom supported a score of retainers in his feudal castle. Where the money comes from to support a princely housekeeping, when the head of the family has no property or employment, is sometimes a mystery nowadays; but no such doubt attached to the resources of the baron's ancestors. These gentlemen, when short of provisions, would sally forth at the head of their followers, and capture the first drove of cattle they encountered, without stopping to inquire into the ownership. Sometimes they made excursions on the river, and levied contributions on the little barks of traders who often carried valuable cargoes from one Rhine town to another.
But the privileges of the robber knights and bandit nobles were sadly shorn by the progressive spirit of modern civilization. With a total disregard of the immunities of chivalry, modern legislators declared that it was as great a crime for a baron to seize on a herd of cattle as for a peasant to steal a sheep. Hence the great families along the Rhine went into decay. The castles were dismantled, many noble names died out, very few remained, the representatives of the ancestral glory of olden times.
Among them was the baron. He had been a soldier and a courtier in his youth, had spent some time abroad, and was about forty when he married a lady of the same age, and settled down in the old family castle of Rosenberg. Here he lorded it over the surrounding valley, the simple inhabitants of which, though exempt from all feudal obligations, yet in some sort regarded themselves as vassals of the baron. They made him presents of fish, accompanied him to the chase, and lent him a willing hand, whenever he required assistance at the castle.
The baron, though he had the wherewithal to live comfortably enough, was yet a poor representative of the race he sprang from. His army consisted of a few farm servants, his cavalry of a ploughboy on a cart-horse, and his navy of a fishing boat. But, on the whole, he was happy. He passed his days either in trimming his vines or hunting, and his evenings in poring over mildewed parchments or books of heraldry, hunting up long pedigrees, and puffing a monstrous meerschaum till the atmosphere was as dense as the interior of a smokehouse. The lady Mathilde embroidered from morning till night.
They had, however, a common source of grief. Fate had not blessed them with children. The lady yearned for the companionship of a daughter; the baron mourned at the prospect of the extinction of his name for want of a male heir.
It was while pondering on this subject one day, as they were strolling out together, that the baron and his lady came upon the cottage of an old soldier named Karl Mueller, who cultivated a little vineyard not far from the castle.
The old man was seated on a bench before his door, smoking, and so deeply plunged in revery, that he was not aware of the approach of visitors till the baron touched him on the shoulder.
"In a brown study, Karl?" said the baron.
"I have enough to think about," returned the soldier "I'm getting old, and one thing troubles me."
"What's that, my good fellow?"
"Why, you see, baron, I'm not alone here."
"Not alone?"
"No, sir—I—have—I have a little child here."
"I never knew you were married, Karl."
"Nor was I, your honor. For I always thought an infantry soldier ought to be in marching order, and never have more baggage than he could carry in his knapsack. No, no; the child is none of mine."
"But it is related to you," said the baroness.
"It is my grandchild, madam," replied the soldier, fixing his eyes on the lady; "and the child of as brave a man as ever faced the fire of the enemy. He might have been a field marshal, for the matter of that. I saw him at Oberstadt when the hussars went down to charge the enemy's light cavalry. Faith, madam, they made daylight shine through their ranks. Their curved sabres cut them up as the sickle does the corn. I saw him, the girl's father, madam, go into that affair with the hussars; but he came not out safe. It was pitiful to see his uniform all dabbled with blood, as he lay on the ground, and to see his pale lips quivering, as he prayed for water. I gave him the last drop in my canteen, and I swore I'd protect the child. But I fear I'm getting too old for the task."
The baroness, whose eyes were filled with tears, turned to her husband, and asked,—
"Shall we not give a shelter to the child of a brave man?"
The baron nodded, and the proposal was accepted by Karl, who retired into his cottage, and immediately reappeared, bringing forth a beautiful girl of ten, with fair hair and blue eyes, and a form of graceful symmetry.
"A girl! nonsense!" said the baron, in a tone of disappointment. But the baroness folded the child in her arms with rapture. The child responded to the caresses of the lady with equal ardor.
So the little Adelaide was soon domesticated in the castle which her frolic spirit filled with gayety. The baroness renewed her youth in gazing upon hers, and the baron never scolded her, even when she took his pipe out of his mouth, or rummaged among his parchments.
As she grew up to womanhood, she became more serious and thoughtful. She was anxious to learn every thing touching her father, but on this subject the baroness could give her no information; and Karl, her grandfather, seemed equally averse to speaking of it. When hard pressed, he promised to speak out at some future time.
One day she was summoned in great haste to the cottage of old Karl. The old man had suddenly been taken ill, and required the presence of his granddaughter. It was evident, at a glance, that he was on his death bed.
"Adelaide," said he, "forgive me, before I die, that I may depart in peace."
"Forgive you, dear grandfather! am I not deeply indebted to you?"
"I should have reposed more confidence in you; I should have spoken to you about your parents."
"My father?" asked Adelaide.
"Was a brave and good man. But of your mother—your good mother—she was—"
Here a spasm interrupted his utterance, and he lay back on his pillow gasping for breath. After a brief space he seemed to revive again, and made strong efforts to express himself, but his breath failed him. He motioned to Adelaide to fetch him writing materials, and while she held a sheet of paper on a book before him, he essayed with feeble fingers to trace a sentence with a pen. But the rapid approach of death foiled all his endeavors to communicate a secret that evidently lay close to his heart; and while the young girl bent over him in an agony of grief, he gently sighed away his last. The baron and baroness found their protégée, an hour afterwards, still sorrowing by the bedside of her early friend and protector. With gentle violence they removed her from the chamber of death, and took her home to the castle, where they gave directions to the proper persons to take charge of the old soldier's remains, and inter them with that decent respect which was due to his character and station. Among his effects was found a will, in which he made Adelaide his heiress, bequeathing to her his little landed estate, and a small sum in gold, the produce of his toil and frugality. This event cast a gloom over the spirits of the young maiden, from which, however, her religious persuasions, the attention of her friends, and the elasticity of her youth, eventually relieved her.
The old castle on the Rhine was gay once more, when Rudolph Ernstein, a nephew of the baron, a gay young captain of hussars, whose gallantry and beauty had given him reputation at Vienna, came to pay a long visit to his uncle. He was a high-spirited and accomplished young man, had served with distinction, was a devoted admirer of the ladies, and one of those military Adonises who are born to conquest. He was charmed to find domesticated beneath the old roof tree so fair and lovable a girl as Adelaide, and of course did his best to render his society agreeable to her. He sang to her songs of his own writing, to airs of his own composition, accompanied on his guitar; he told her tales of strange lands that he had visited, of cavalry skirmishes in which he had participated, sketched her favorite scenes in pencil, and offered to teach her the newest dances in vogue at Vienna. He was a dangerous companion to a young girl whose imagination needed but a spark to kindle it, and for a time she indulged in the wild hope that she had made a conquest of Rudolph. But then her reason told her, that even if he loved her, it would be impossible for a young man of family to offer his hand to an almost portionless girl, about whose origin a veil of mystery seemed wrapped. The names of her parents, even, had never been disclosed to her, by the lips of probably the only man who knew her history, and those lips were now cold and mute in death. Hence the little gleam of sunshine which had for a moment penetrated her heart was speedily quenched in a deeper darkness than that which reigned in it before, and she could not help viewing the visit of Rudolph as an ominous event.
One morning, she was witness to a scene which dashed out the last faint glimmering of hope. They were all seated at a huge oaken table, from which the servants had just removed the apparatus of the morning meal.
"Rudolph," said the baron, after lighting his pipe,—an operation of great solemnity and deliberation, and taking a few whiffs to make sure that its contents were duly ignited,—"Rudolph, do you know why I sent for you to Rosenburg?"
"Why, sir," replied the hussar, "I suppose it was because you really have a sort of regard for an idle, good-for-nothing fellow, whose redeeming quality is an attachment to a very kind old uncle, and whose nonsense and good spirits are perhaps a partial compensation for the trouble he gives every body in this tumble-down old castle."
"Tumble-down old castle!" exclaimed the baron, in high dudgeon, the latter part of the soldier's speech cancelling the former; "why, you jackanapes, it will stand for centuries. It resisted the cannon of Napoleon, and it bids defiance to the battering of time. Yes, sir, Rosenburg will stand long after your great-great-grandchildren are superannuated."
"I am not likely to be blessed in the way you hint at, uncle," said the soldier, carelessly. "I am likely, for aught I see, to die a bachelor."
"Nonsense!" said the baron. "What's to become of your family name? Do you think I will allow it to die out, like the Pumpernickels, the Snaphausens, and the Ollenstoffenburgers? No, boy. I sent for you to tell you that I have contracted for your hand with my friend the Baron Von Steinberg."
"Really, sir, you dispose of me in a very cavalier way."
"That's because you're too careless or lazy to look out for yourself," retorted the baron. "But then you can have no possible objection to the present match. The fair Julia is just twenty—eyes, you dog—lips, you rascal—a shape, you blockhead, to bewitch an anchorite. And then she has the gelt—the money, my boy."
"A commodity of which I happen to be minus," said the soldier.
"Arn't you my heir?" asked the baron.
"You are very kind," said the hussar, with a slight sigh.
He glanced at Adelaide, but he read no sentiment on her calm and pensive countenance.
"She's as cold as a glacier on the Donderberg!" he muttered to himself.
"Well, sir—you haven't given me an answer," said the baron, impatiently.
"My dear uncle," said the soldier, jumping up, and snatching his fowling-piece, "it's a glorious morning for sport; and I'm much mistaken if I don't add a half dozen brace of birds to your bill of fare to-day."
"But the fair Julia Von Steinberg?" said the baron.
"O! I forgot," said Rudolph. "I'm entirely in your hands. Do with me as you please. My profession, you know, has given me habits of obedience. I suppose I must sacrifice myself. Good morning."
And away he went to enjoy his sport upon the mountains.
"Young, lovely, and rich!" said poor Adelaide, with a sigh, when she had regained her room. "If this be true, she is indeed worthy of Ernstein. He will love her—they will be happy—and I—I can but wish them joy, and die."
There was great preparation in the castle Von Rosenburg, that day week, for the reception of the prospective bride. Every thing was cleaned and furbished up, from battlement to dungeon keep. An old flag with the family arms was hoisted from the rampart, and the butler, who had served in the wars of the Alliance, mounted an old swivel on the ramparts with the intention of firing it off, on the approach of the old family carriage of the Von Steinbergs, Captain Rudolph Von Ernstein, in his splendid hussar uniform, looked the beau ideal of a soldier lover. Even the baron was rejuvenated by a court suit that had not seen the light since the nuptials of Maria Louisa and the Emperor Napoleon.
At last the carriage appeared. The villagers and hangers on of the establishment hurrahed in the court yard as it drew up, the old butler applied the match to the priming of the swivel and was prostrated by the discharge, while the baron came near tumbling over his sword in his eagerness to welcome his old friend and his old friend's daughter.
The Baron Von Steinberg alighted and bowed his thanks; while Captain Rudolph handed out the lovely Julia. As her light foot touched the pavement, Adelaide advanced to offer a bouquet; at one glance she appreciated the exquisite beauty of her rival, and dropping the flowers, retired to an obscure corner of the court yard to conceal her anguish and despair.
The festive train swept into the castle. All was gayety and uproar within doors. The baron could scarce contain the transports of his joy; and Von Steinberg was equally excited. The excitement, however, seemed to be too much for the fair Julia, whose cheek was paler than the satin robe she wore, while Rudolph, perhaps from sympathy, was uneasy and agitated.
At last the bell of the castle was rung for dinner, and the party proceeded to the great hall. But Adelaide did not make her appearance. Search was made for her; she was not in her apartment. An angry flush overspread the brow of old Rosenburg at this announcement, and after some minutes passed in waiting for her appearance, he ordered dinner to be served without her. The repast was not a very gay one, notwithstanding the efforts of the master of the house to make it so. Night had long fallen, and Adelaide did not reappear. The family, from being vexed, now became alarmed, and it was determined to go in search of her. Rudolph and the baron went forth with two servants and torches to scour the woods, after vainly searching through the castle. One of the men went on in advance. He had been gone but a short time when he came back speechless with grief and amazement. Rudolph and his uncle pushed forward through the thickets, and on the banks of a small stream, dammed up to form a lake, they found the bonnet and shawl of the missing girl.
"Good God!" exclaimed Rudolph, "she has destroyed herself. I have noticed a strange wildness in her appearance for several days past; in a fit of mental aberration she has wandered away, and here found her death."
A piercing scream was heard at this moment. The baroness, who had followed them, had recognized the garments of Adelaide.
"My child! my child!" she shrieked, "my own! my beautiful! she is no more."
"This is worse and worse," said the baron, wringing his hands. "This will make us all mad."
But at this moment a boat was seen approaching. It was the miller, who brought with him the body of Adelaide, dripping as it had been drawn from the water. He laid her fair form upon the bank. The baroness, who could not be restrained, threw herself beside her, and kissed her pale lips. Rudolph, too, seized the cold hands.
"She lives!" he exclaimed. "She is not lost to us!"
"Rudolph—dear Rudolph!" murmured the poor girl.
"My child! my child! she lives!" cried the baroness.
And it was indeed so. She had thrown herself into the water, indeed, but the miller, who happened to be at hand, had flown to her rescue, and she was now, by the united efforts of her friends, restored to consciousness.
"Dear, dear Adelaide!" cried the baroness; "your life repays me now for all my sufferings. Yes, dearest, you are my own, my only child. Yes, baron," she added, noticing the incredulous expression of her husband—"the supposed death of a daughter has wrung from a mother's heart the despairing cry that betrayed her secret. In former days, I married, secretly, Colonel Schonfeldt, a brave soldier of the emperor, against whom my parents cherished a deadly enmity. He fell upon the field of battle, and this poor girl, the fruit of our love, was committed to the hands of strangers, till such time as I could take her to my heart. I avow it without shame, nor can you, baron, whose noble qualities won my heart, reproach me with the love I bear this dear girl."
"She is my child now," said the baron, "as well as yours. Let us take her back to the castle; she is a precious charge."
"I will see to her," said Rudolph, "and it shall not be my fault if she ever have another protector."
So the party regained the castle, where Von Steinberg and Julia were anxiously awaiting their return.
When Adelaide had been carefully attended to, Rudolph sought his uncle and guests in the great hall.
"Miss Julia Von Steinberg," said the soldier, "since confessions are the order of the night, I must place mine on record. I met you to-day in obedience to orders, believing my heart was my own. The event of to-night has told me too truly that I had unconsciously lost it. But I am a man of honor, and if you will accept my hand without my heart, it is yours."
"Captain Ernstein," replied the beauty, "I thank you for your frank confession. I cannot possibly accept your hand without your heart. Nay—do not frown, father—I have a secret for your ear, and if you do not wish to wreck your daughter's happiness, you will urge me no further."
Von Steinberg frowned, and pshawed, and pished, and then, clearing his voice, addressed the baron.
"Come, Von Rosenberg," said he, "confess that we have been acting like a couple of old fools, in trying our hand at match making—it is a business for the young people themselves, and not for old soldiers like us. Say, shall we reduce the mutineers to obedience, or shall we let them have it their own way?"
"Circumstances alter cases," answered the baron. "When I proposed for Julia's hand, I didn't know my wife had a daughter to marry. And if that were not the case, I am inclined to think the secret alluded to by the young lady, would prove an insuperable obstacle to the ratification of our treaty."
This secret was no other than a love affair between the fair Julia and a certain count who had waltzed with her at the baths of Baden-Baden, the preceding summer. We are glad to say that the flirtation thus happily commenced ended in matrimony. As for Rudolph, he was shortly after united to the fair Adelaide, on which occasion the baron gave such a rouse as the old towers of Von Rosenberg had not known since the rollicking days of its first feudal masters. It was illuminated at every window and loophole, so that the waters of the Rhine rolled beneath it a sea of fire, or as if their channels were overflowed with generous Asmanshausen; and the old butler discharged his swivel so many times that he had to be taken down from the battlements and drenched with Rhenish to preserve his life.
Thus ended all that is worthy commemorating in the modern history of the Castle on the Rhine.
LOVE IN A COTTAGE.
"Tell me, Charley, who is that fascinating creature in blue that waltzes so divinely?" asked young Frank Belmont of his friend Charles Hastings, as they stood "playing wallflower" for the moment, at a military ball.
"Julia Heathcote," answered Charles, with a half sigh, "an old flame of mine. I proposed, but she refused me."
"On what ground?"
"Simply because I had a comfortable income. Her head is full of romantic notions, and she dreams of nothing but love in a cottage. She contends that poverty is essential to happiness—and money its bane."
"Have you given up all hopes of her?"
"Entirely; in fact, I'm engaged."
"Then you have no objections to my addressing this dear, romantic angel?"
"None whatever. But I see my fiancée—excuse me—I must walk through the next quadrille with her."
Frank Belmont was a stranger in Boston—a New Yorker—immensely rich and fashionable, but his reputation had not preceded him, and Charley Hastings was the only man who knew him in New England. He procured an introduction to the beauty from one of the managers, and soon danced and talked himself into her good graces. In fact, it was a clear case of love at first sight on both sides.
The enamoured pair were sitting apart, enjoying a most delightful tête-à-tête. Suddenly Belmont heaved a deep sigh.
"Why do you sigh, Mr. Belmont?" asked the fair Julia, somewhat pleased with this proof of sensibility. "Is not this a gay scene?"
"Alas! yes," replied Belmont, gloomily; "but fate does not permit me to mingle habitually in scenes like this. They only make my ordinary life doubly gloomy—and even here I deem to see the shadow of a fiend waving me away. What right have I to be here?"
"What fiend do you allude to?" asked Miss Heathcote, with increasing interest.
"A fiend hardly presentable in good society," replied Belmont, bitterly. "One could tolerate a Mephistophiles—a dignified fiend, with his pockets full of money—but my tormentor, if personified, would appear with seedy boots and a shocking bad hat."
"How absurd!"
"It is too true," sighed Belmont, "and the name of this fiend is Poverty!"
"Are you poor?"
"Yes, madam. I am poor, and when I would fain render myself agreeable in the eyes of beauty—in the eyes of one I could love, this fiend whispers me, 'Beware! you have nothing to offer her but love in a cottage.'"
"Mr. Belmont," said Julia, with sparkling eyes, and a voice of unusual animation, "although there are sordid souls in this world, who only judge of the merits of an individual by his pecuniary possessions, I am not one of that number. I respect poverty; there is something highly poetical about it, and I imagine that happiness is oftener found in the humble cottage than beneath the palace roof."
Belmont appeared enchanted with this encouraging avowal. The next day, after cautioning his friend Charley to say nothing of his actual circumstances, he called on the widow Heathcote and her fair daughter in the character of the "poor gentleman." The widow had very different notions from her romantic offspring, and when Belmont candidly confessed his poverty on soliciting permission to address Julia, he was very politely requested to change the subject, and never mention it again.
The result of all this manœuvring was an elopement; the belle of the ball jumping out of a chamber window on a shed, and coming down a flight of steps to reach her lover, for the sake of being romantic, when she might just as well have walked out of the front door.
The happy couple passed a day in New York city, and then Frank took his beloved to his "cottage."
An Irish hack conveyed them to a miserable shanty in the environs of New York, where they alighted, and Frank, escorting the bride into the apartment which served for parlor, kitchen, and drawing room, and was neither papered nor carpeted, introduced her to his mother, much in the way Claude Melnotte presents Pauline. The old woman, who was peeling potatoes, hastily wiped her hands and face with a greasy apron, and saluted her "darter," as she called her, on both cheeks.
"Can it be possible," thought Julia, "that this vulgar creature is my Belmont's mother?"
"Frank!" screamed the old woman, "you'd better go right up stairs and take off them clothes—for the boy's been sent arter 'em more'n fifty times. Frank borried them clothes, ma'am," she added to Julia, by way of explanation, "to look smart when he went down east."
The bridegroom retired on this hint, and soon reappeared in a pair of faded nankeen pantaloons, reaching to about the calf of the leg, a very shabby black coat, out at the elbows, a ragged black vest, and, instead of his varnished leather boots, a pair of immense cowhide brogans.
"Now," said he, sitting quietly down by the cooking stove, "I begin to feel at home. Ah! this is delightful, isn't it, dearest?" and he warbled,—
"Though never so humble, there's no place like home."
Julia's heart swelled so that she could not utter a word.
"Dearest," said Frank, "I think you told me you had no objection to smoking?"
"None in the least," said the bride; "I rather like the flavor of a cigar."
"O, a cigar!" replied Belmont; "that would never do for a poor man."
And O, horror! he produced an old clay pipe, and filling it from a little newspaper parcel of tobacco, began to smoke with a keen relish.
"Dinner! dinner!" he exclaimed at length; "ah! thank you, mother; I'm as hungry as a bear. Codfish and potatoes, Julia—not very tempting fare—but what of that? our aliment is love!"
"Yes, and by way of treat," added the old woman, "I've been and gone and bought a whole pint of Albany ale, and three cream cakes, from the candy shop next block."
Poor Julia pleaded indisposition, and could not eat a mouthful. Before Belmont, however, the codfish and potatoes, and the ale, and cream cakes disappeared with a very unromantic and unlover-like velocity. At the close of the meal, a thundering double knock was heard at the door.
"Come in!" cried Belmont.
A low-browed man, in a green waistcoat, entered.
"Now, Misther Belmont," he exclaimed, in a strong Hibernian accent, "are ye ready to go to work? By the powers! if I don't see ye sailed to-morrow on the shopboard, I'll discharge ye without a character—and ye shall starve on the top of that."
"To-morrow morning, Mr. Maloney," replied Belmont, meekly, "I'll be at my post."
"And it'll be mighty healthy for you to do that same," replied the man as he retired.
"Belmont, speak—tell me," gasped Julia, "who is that man—that loafer?"
"He is my employer," answered Belmont, smiling.
"And his profession?"
"He is a tailor."
"And you?"
"Am a journeyman tailor, at your service—a laborious and thankless calling it ever was to me—but now, dearest, as I drive the hissing goose across the smoking seam, I shall think of my own angel and my dear cottage, and be happy."
That night Julia retired weeping to her room in the attic.
"That 'ere counterpin, darter," said the old woman, "I worked with these here old hands. Ain't it putty? I hope you'll sleep well here. There's a broken pane of glass, but I've put one of Frank's old hats in it, and I don't think you'll feel the draught. There used to be a good many rats here, but I don't think they'll trouble you now, for Frank's been a pizinin' of 'em."
Left alone, Julia threw herself into a chair, and burst into a flood of tears. Even Belmont had ceased to be attractive in her eyes—the stern privations that surrounded her banished all thoughts of love. The realities of life had cured her in one day of all her Quixotic notions.
"Well, Julia, how do you like poverty and love in a cottage?" asked Belmont, entering in his bridal dress.
"Not so well, sir, as you seem to like that borrowed suit," answered the bride, reddening with vexation.
"Very well; you shall suffer it no longer. My carriage awaits your orders at the door."
"Your carriage, indeed!"
"Yes, dearest, it waits but for you, to bear us to Belmont Hall, my lovely villa on the Hudson."
"And your mother?"
"I have no mother, alas! The old woman down stairs is an old servant of the family."
"Then you've been deceiving me, Frank—how wicked!"
"It was all done with a good motive. You were not born to endure a life of privation, but to shine the ornament of an elegant and refined circle. I hope you will not love me the less when you learn that I am worth nearly half a million—that's the melancholy fact, and I can't help it."
"O Frank!" cried the beautiful girl, and hid her face in his bosom.
She presided with grace at the elegant festivities of Belmont Hall, and seemed to support her husband's wealth and luxurious style of living with the greatest fortitude and resignation, never complaining of her comforts, nor murmuring a wish for living in a cottage.
THE CAREER OF AN ARTIST.
I woke up one morning and found myself famous.—Byron.
Julian Montfort was a farmer's boy; bred up to the plough handle and cart tail. His father and mother were plain, honest people, of hard-working habits and limited ideas, and without the slightest dash of romance in their temperaments. Their house, their lands were unprepossessing in appearance. The soil was impoverished by long and illiberal culture; and old Montfort had a true old-fashioned prejudice against trees. Instead of smiling hedgerows, with here and there a weeping elm or plumy evergreen to cast their graceful shadows upon the pasture land, his acres were enclosed with harsh stone walls, or an unpicturesque Virginia fence with its zigzag of rude rails. The farmer had an equal prejudice against books, "book larnin', and book-larned men." Of course, with these ideas, Julian's education was limited to a few quarters' schooling under an old pedagogue, whose native language was Dutch, and who never took very kindly to the English tongue. Besides, teaching was only an episode with him; for his vocation was that of a clergyman, and he held forth on Sundays in alternate Dutch and English to his little congregation—as is still the custom in many of the small agricultural parishes in New York State, where the scene of our veritable story lies.
Our hero, young Julian, early began to show a restiveness under the training he received, which sadly perplexed his plain matter-of-fact father. The latter could not conceive why the boy should sometimes leave his plough in the furrow, and sit upon a hillock, gazing curiously and admiringly upon a simple wild flower. He knew not why the youth should stand with his eyes fixed upon the western sky when it was pavilioned with crimson, and gold, and purple; or later yet, when, one by one, the stars came timidly forth and took their places in the darkening heaven. He shook his head at these manifestations, and confidently informed his help-mate that he feared the boy was "not right"—significantly touching, as he spoke, that portion of his anatomy where he fondly imagined a vast quantity of brain of very superior quality was safely stowed away, guarded by a sufficient quantity of skull to protect it against any accident. Neither he nor the good wife imagined, for a moment, that Julian was a genius, and that his talent, circumscribed by circumstances, was struggling for an outlet for its development.
At last the divine spark within him was kindled into flame. An itinerant portrait painter came round, with his tools of trade, and did the dominie in brown and red, and the squire's daughter in vermilion and flake white, and set the whole village agog with his marvellous achievements. Julian cultivated his acquaintance, received some secret instructions in the A B C of art, and bargained for some drawing and painting materials. His aspirations had at length found an object. Long and painfully he labored in secret; but his advances were rapid, for he took nature as a model. At last he ventured to display his latest achievement—a small portrait of his father. It was first shown to his mother, and filled her with astonishment and delight. It is the privilege of woman, however circumstanced, to appreciate and applaud true genius. Of course, Moliere's housekeeper occurs to the reader as an illustration. The picture was next shown to the old man. He gazed at it with a sort of silent horror, puffing the smoke from his pipe in short, spasmodic jerks, and slowly shaking his head before he spoke.
"Do you know it, father?" asked the young artist.
"Know it!" exclaimed the old man. "Yes—yes—I see myself there like I was lookin' into a glass. There's my nose, and eyes, and mouth, and hair; yes, and there's my pipe. It ain't right—it can't be right—it's witchcraft. Satan must ha' helped you, boy—you couldn't never ha' done it without the aid of the evil one."
This was a sad damper. But just then the dominie luckily happened in to take a pipe with his parishioner. He pronounced the work excellent, and satisfied his old friend's doubts as to the honesty of the transaction. Julian blessed the old man in his heart for the comfort he afforded.
And now the fame of the young painter flew through the village. The tavern keeper ordered a head of General Washington for his sign board, the old one—originally a portrait of the Duke of Cambridge with the court dress painted out—not satisfying some of his critical customers. And for the blacksmith, Montfort painted a rampant black horse, prevented from falling backward by a solid tail. The stable keeper also gave him orders for sundry coats of arms to be depicted on wagon panels and sleigh dashers, so that the incipient artist had plenty of orders and not a little cash.
But he soon grew tired of this local reputation. He panted for the association of kindred spirits; for the impulse and example to be found in some great centre of civilization; for refinement, fame—all that is dear to an ardent imagination. And so, one morning, he announced his intention of seeking his fortune in the city of New York.
His mother was sad, but did not oppose his wishes; his father shook his head, as he always did when any thing was proposed—no matter what. The old gentleman seemed to derive great pleasure from shaking his head, and no one interfered with so harmless an amusement.
"Goin' to York, hey?" said he, emitting sundry puffs of smoke. "The Yorkers are a curious set of people, boy. I read into a paper once't about how they car' on—droppin' pocket books, and sellin' brass watches for gold, and knockin' people down and stompin' onto 'em."
"But the dominie thinks I might make money there," said the young man.
"O, then you'd better go. The dominie's got a longer head than you or I, boy," said the old man.
"Yes, father," said the youth, kindling with animation. "In New York I am sure to win fame and fortune. I shall come back, then, and buy you a better farm, and hire hands for you, so that you won't be obliged to work so hard—and you can set out trees."
"Hain't no opinion of trees," said the old man, shaking his head.
"Well, well, father, you shall have money, and do what you like with it; for my part I shall be content with fame."
"Fame! what is that?" said the old man, laying down his pipe in bewilderment.
"Fame! Do you ask what fame is?" exclaimed the romantic boy. But he paused, convinced in a moment of the perfect futility of attempting to convey an idea of the unsubstantial phantom to the old man's intellect. Perhaps the old farmer was the better philosopher of the two.
But Julian gained his point, and departed for the great city—the goal of so many struggles, the grave of so many hopes. He was at first dazzled by the splendors of the artificial life, into the heart of which he plunged; and then, with a homesick feeling, he sighed for that verdurous luxury of nature he had left. He missed the trees—for he thought the shabby and rusty foliage of the Battery and Park hardly worthy of that name. But, in time to save him from utter disappointment and heart sickness, there opened on his vision the glorious dawning of the world of art. He passed from gallery to gallery, and from studio to studio, drinking in the beauties that unfolded before him with the eyes of his body and his soul. He was enraptured, dazzled, enchanted. Then he settled down to work in his humble room, economizing the scanty funds he had brought with him to the city. Like many young aspirants, he grasped, at first, at the most difficult subjects. He constantly groped for a high ideal. He would fly before he had learned to walk. With an imperfect knowledge of architecture and anatomy, and a limited stock of information, he would paint history—mythology. He sought to illustrate poetry, and dared attempt scenes from the Bible, Shakspeare, and Milton. He failed, though there were glimpses of grandeur and glory in his faulty attempts.
Then he turned back, with a sickening feeling, to the elements of art, distasteful as he found them. It was hard to pore over rectangles and curves, bones and muscles, angles and measurements, after sporting with irregular forms and fascinating colors. He tried portraiture, but he had no feeling for the business. He could not transfigure the dull and commonplace heads he was to copy. He had not the nice tact that makes beauty of ugliness without the loss of identity. He could not ennoble vulgarians. The sordid man bore the stamp of baseness on his canvas. His pictures were too true; and truth is death to the portrait painter.
He began to grow morbid in his feelings, and was fast verging to a misanthrope. His clothes grew shabby, and looked shabbier for his careless way of wearing them. He was often cold and hungry. There were times when he viewed with envy and hate the evidences of prosperity he saw about him. He railed against those pursuits of life which made men rich and prosperous. He began to think with the French demagogue, that "property was a theft," and to regard with great favor the socialistic doctrines then coming into vogue. The American social system he pronounced corrupt and rotten, and deserving to be uprooted and subverted. And this was the rustic boy, who, a few months before, had left his home so full of hope, and generous feeling, and high aspiration.
There were times when he yearned for the humble scenes of his boyhood. But he was too proud to throw up his pencils and palette, and go back to the old farm house; and so he found a vent for his home feeling in painting some of the scenes of his earliest life—the rustic dances, the huskings, the haymakings, and junketings with which he was so familiar.
One of these pictures—a rustic dance was the subject—he sent to a gilder's to be framed. He had consecrated three dollars to this purpose, and went one day to see how his commission had been executed. He found the picture framer, who was also a picture dealer, in his shirt sleeves, talking with a middle-aged gentleman, who was praising his performance.
"Really a very clever thing," said the gentleman, scanning the painting through his gold-bowed eye glasses.
"The composition, coloring, and light and shade, are admirable; but the life, animation, and naturalness of the figures make its great charm. Ah, why don't our artists study to produce life as it exists around them, and as they themselves know it and feel it, instead of giving us the gods and goddesses of a defunct and false religion, and scenes three thousand miles and years away?"
"Mr. Greville," said the picture framer, "allow me to make you acquainted with the artist, Mr. Montfort; he's a next-door neighbor of yours—lives at No ——, Broadway."
"Mr. Montfort," said the gentleman, warmly shaking the hand the artist shyly extended, "you found me admiring your work. And I'm sure I did not know I had so talented a neighbor. I shall be glad to be better acquainted with you. I presume your picture is for sale."
"Not so, sir," replied the artist, coldly. "It is a reminiscence of earlier and happier days. It was painted for my own satisfaction, and I shall keep it as long as I have a place to hang it in. It is a common mistake, sir, with our patrons, to suppose they can buy our souls as well as our labor."
Mr. Greville's cheek flushed; but as he glanced at the shabby exterior and wan face of the artist, his color faded, and he answered gently—
"Believe me, Mr. Montfort, I am not one of the persons you describe—if, indeed, they exist elsewhere but in your imagination. I should be the last person to fail in sympathy for the high-toned feelings of an artist; for in early life I was thought to manifest a talent for art—and, indeed, I had a strong desire to follow the vocation."
"And you abandoned it—you turned a deaf ear to the divine inspiration—you preferred wealth to glory—to be one of the vulgar many rather than to belong to the choice few. I congratulate you, Mr. Greville, on your taste."
"You judge me harshly, Mr. Montfort," replied the gentleman, pleasantly. "I am hardly required to justify my choice of calling to a perfect stranger; and yet your very frankness induces me to say a word or two of the motives which impelled me. My parents were poor. An artist's life seemed to hold no immediate prospects of competence. They to whom I owed my being might die of want before I had established a reputation. I had an opportunity to enter commercial life advantageously. I prospered. I have lived to see the declining days of my parents cheered by every comfort, and to rear a family in comfort and opulence. One of my boys promises to make a good artist. Fortunately, I can bestow on him the means of following the bent of his inclination. Instead of being an indifferent painter myself, I am an extensive purchaser of works of art, so that my conscience acquits me of any very great wrong in the course I adopted."
Montfort was silent; he was worsted in the argument.
"Mr. Montfort," pursued the gentleman, after a pause, "my evenings are always at my disposal, and I like to surround myself with men of talent. I have already a large circle of acquaintances among artists, musicians, and literary men, and once a week they meet at my house; I shall be very happy to see you among us. To-night is my evening of reception—will you join us?"
Proud and shy as he was, Montfort could not help accepting an invitation so frankly and pleasantly tendered. He promised to come.
"One favor more," said Mr. Greville. "You won't sell that picture. Will you lend it to me for a day or two?"
"I cannot refuse you, of course, Mr. Greville."
"If you have the slightest objection, say so frankly," said the kind-hearted merchant.
"I have not the slightest objection, Mr. Greville. It is entirely at your disposal."
Mr. Greville was profuse in his thanks.
"Shall I send it to your house?" said the picture framer.
"No, Mr. Tennant," replied the merchant. "It is too valuable to be trusted out of my hands. I am personally responsible, and I fear that I am not rich enough to remunerate the artist, if any harm happens to it."
With these words, bowing to the artist, Mr. Greville took the picture carefully under his arm, and left the shop, Montfort soon following.
"Well, I declare," said the picture framer, when he was left alone, "artists is queer animils, and no mistake. Neglect 'em, and it makes 'em as mad as a short-horned bull in fly time; coax 'em and pat 'em, and they lets fly their heels in your face. Seems to me, if I was an artist, I shouldn't be particular about being a hog, too. There ain't no sense in it. Now, it beats my notion all to pieces to see how Mr. Greville could talk so pleasantly and gentlemanly to that dratted Montfort, and he flyin' into his face all the time like a tarrier dog. I'd a punched his head for him, I would—if they'd had me up afore the Sessions for saltin' and batterin'. Consequently it's better to be a pictur' framer than a pictur' painter. Cause why?—a pictur' framer is a gentleman, and a pictur' painter is a hog."
There was a good deal of truth in what Mr. Tennant said, mixed up with a good deal of uncharitableness. But what did he know of the genus irritabile vatum?
Evening came; and after many misgivings, Montfort, in an eclectic costume, selected from his whole wardrobe, at a late hour, ventured to emerge from his humble domicile, and present himself at the rosewood portal of his aristocratic neighbor. He soon found himself in the dazzling drawing room, bewildered by the lights, and the splendor of the decoration and the furniture. Mr. Greville saw his embarrassment, and hastened to dispel it. He shook him warmly by the hand, and presented him to his lady and daughter, and then to a crowd of guests. A distinguished artist begged the honor of an introduction to him, and he soon found himself among people who understood him, and with whom he could converse at his ease. Though he was lionized, he was lionized by people who understood the sensitiveness of artistic natures. They flattered delicately and tastefully. Their incense excited, but did not intoxicate or suffocate. In one of the drawing rooms the gratified artist beheld his picture placed in an admirable light, the cynosure of all eyes, and the theme of all lips.
"I am certainly very much indebted to you for placing it so advantageously," said the artist to his host. "It owes at least half its success to the arrangement of the light."
"Do you hear that, Caroline?" asked Mr. Greville, turning to his beautiful daughter, who stood smiling beside him.
"I was afraid I had made some mistake in the arrangement," said the beautiful girl, blushing with pleasure.
Montfort attempted a complimentary remark, but his tongue failed him. He would have given worlds for the self-possession of some of the nonchalant dandies he saw hovering around the peerless beauty. He was forced to content himself with awkwardly bowing his thanks.
In the latter part of the evening, one of the rooms was cleared for a dance. Montfort was solicited to join in a quadrille, and a beautiful partner was even presented to his notice; but he wanted confidence and knowledge, and he had no faith in the integrity of the gaiter shoes he had vamped up for the occasion, so that he was forced to decline. This incident revived some of his morbid feelings that had begun to slumber, and he caught himself muttering something about the "frivolities of fashion."
He thought to make his exit unnoticed; but Mr. Greville detected him, and urged him to repeat his visit.
The next day, during his reception hours, several visitors called—an unheard-of thing. They glanced indifferently at his mythological daubs, but were enthusiastic in their praises of his rustic subjects. The day following, more visitors came. He was offered and accepted four hundred dollars for one of his cabinet pictures. In a word, orders flowed in upon him; he could hardly paint fast enough to supply the demand. He became rather fastidious in his dress—patronized the first tailors and boot makers, cultivated the graces, and took lessons in the waltz and polka. At Mr. Greville's, and some of the other houses he visited, he was remarked as being somewhat of a dandy. And this was Montfort the misanthrope—Montfort the socialist—Montfort the agrarian.
An important episode in his career was an order to paint the portrait of Miss Caroline Greville. He had already had three or four sittings, and the picture was approaching completion; then the work suddenly ceased. Day after day the artist pleaded engagements. At the same time he discontinued his visits at the house.
Mr. Greville, somewhat offended, called on Montfort for an explanation. He found his daughter's picture covered by a curtain.
"My dear sir," said he, "how does it happen that you can't go on with that picture? My wife is very anxious about it."
"I can never finish it," said the artist sadly.
"How so, my young friend?"
"Mr. Greville, I will be frank with you. I love your daughter; I, a poor artist, have dared to lift my eyes to the child of the opulent merchant. I have never in look or word, though, led her to divine my feelings—the secret is in my own keeping. But I cannot see her day after day—I cannot scan her beautiful and innocent features, or listen to the brilliant flow of her conversation, without agony. This has compelled me, sir, to suspend my work."
"Mr. Julian Montfort," said the merchant, "you seem bent—excuse me—on making yourself miserable. You are no longer a poor artist; you have a fortune in your pencil. Your profession is now a surer thing than mine. There is no gentleman in the city who ought not to be proud of your alliance; and if you can make yourself acceptable to my daughter, why, take her and be happy."
How Julian sped in his wooing may be inferred from the fact that, at a certain wedding ceremony in Grace Church, he performed the important part of bridegroom to the bride of Miss Caroline Greville; and after the usual quantity of hand shakings, and tears, and kisses, and all the usual efforts to make a wedding resemble a funeral as much as possible, Mr. and Mrs. Montfort took passage in one of the Havre steamers for an extensive tour upon the European continent.
When they returned, Mr. Montfort's reputation rose higher than ever, of course, and he made money with marvellous rapidity. He is now as well known in Wall Street as in his studio, has a town and country house, is a strong conservative in politics, and talks very learnedly about the moneyed interest. He has made some efforts to transplant his good old father and mother to New York; but they prefer residing at his villa, and taking care of his Durham cattle and Suffolk pigs, and seeing that his "Cochin Chinas" and "Brahma Pootras" do not trample down the children when they go out to feed the poultry of a summer morning.
SOUVENIRS OF A RETIRED OYSTERMAN IN ILL HEALTH.
Samivel, my boy, always stick to the shop; and if ever you become a millionhair, like me, never be seduced by any womankind into enterin' fash'nable society, and moving among the circles of bong tong. (I have been obligated to study French without a master; 'cause the Upper Ten always talks in bad French, and so a word or two will slip in onawares, even ven talking to a friend—just as a bad oyster will sometimes make its way into a good stew, spite of the best artist.)
I envies you, Samivel. You don't know what a treat it is to me to be admitted confidentially behind the counter, and to find myself surrounded once more by these here congenial bivalves. I can't escape from old associations. Oysters stare me in the face wherever I go. They're fash'nable, Samivel, and it's about the only think in fash'n as I reg'larly likes.
The other day we gave a derjerner, (that's French for brekfax, Samivel,) which took place about dinner time, and consisted of several distinguished pussons of the city, and three or four Hungry'uns as came over in the last steamer—reg'lar rang-a-tangs, vith these 'ere yaller anchovies growin' onto their upper lips. The old ooman, or madame, as she calls herself, was on hand to receive—but I was out of the way. She was mightily flustered, for she know'd I could talk a little Dutch, and she wanted me for to interpret with the Hungry'uns.
So she speaks up werry sharp, (the old ooman can speak werry sharp by times,) and says to my youngest, a boy,—
"Where on airth can your father be?"
"O, daddy's in the sink room," says the young 'un, "a openin' eyesters."
The whole derjerner bust into a hoss larff—for these Upper Ten folks, Samivel,—betwixt you and me and the pump, my boy,—ain't got no more manners than hogs. The child was voted an ongfong terriblee—but it wor a fack. I had went down into the sink room, as a mere looker-on in Veneer, and I seen one of my employees a making such botchwork of openin', hagglin' up his hands, and misusin' the oysters, than I off coat, tucked up sleeves, and went to work, and rolled 'em off amazin'—I tell you. The past rushed back on me—the familiar feel of the knife almost banished my dyspepsy—I lived—I breathed—I vas a oysterman again. Did I ever show you them lines I wrote into my darter's album? No. Vell, then, 'ere goes:—
TO AN UNOPENED OYSTER.
Thou liest fair within thy shell;
Thy charms no mortal eye can see;
And so, as Lamprey[A] says, of old
Was Wenus lodged—the fairest she.
But beauties such as yourn and hern
Were never born unseen to waste;
Like her, you're bound to come to light,
To gratify refinement's taste.
The fairest of the female race
To Ilium vent vith Priam's boy;
So the best oysters that I see
Are sent by railroad off to Troy.
Sleep on—sleep on—nor dream of woe
Until the horrid deed be done—
Then out and die, like Simile,[B]
In thy first glance upon the sun.
[A] Probably Lempriere.
[B] Semele (?)
Well, and 'ows bizness, Samivel? You've got a good stand, and you're bound to succeed. But beware of the Cracker-Fiend. I'll tell you about him.
There vas a chap as used to patronize me that vas one of the hungriest customers you ever did see. He was werry shabbily dressed, and he looked for all the world like the picturs I've seen of Shakspeare's "lean and hungry Cashier."
He used to come in, give his order, (generally a stew,) and then go and set down in a box and drop the curting. It allers looks suspicious for a customer to drop his curting afore you bring him the oysters—arterwards it's all perfectly proper, in course. Afore the stew was ready, he would call out—
"Waiter! crackers!"
The boy would hand him a basket; but when his stew was set before him, there warn't no crackers in his box.
So ve put him on a allowance of a dozen crackers, which is werry liberal, considerin' as pickles and pepper-sarce is throw'd in gratis. But he used to step out quietly and snake baskets of crackers outen other boxes, so's the other customers, as alvays conducted themselves like perfick gen'lemen, vas all the time a singing out, "Waiter! plate of crackers."
Then we kept a boy a-watching of him, so's to keep him in his box till he'd eat his oysters, and then you had to keep a werry sharp eye on him ven he was paying, and you vas a-makin' change, els't you'd hev all the crackers took off the counter.
One day arter he vas gone, ve found all the crackers missin' from one side of the room. Of course, ve suspected he done it, but how he done it vas as much a puzzle as the Spinks.
Next day, arter ve got him into his box, ve vatched and listened. Ve heard a queer kind of sound, like a man trying to play the jewsharp vith his boots; and, sir, ve detected the cracker-fiend a climbin' over the partitions into the neighborin' boxes, and a collarin' all the crackers he could come acrost.
Perhaps you think I vent into him like a knife into a Prince's Bay. But I didn't do no such think. I treated him werry perlite, and gin him two dollars, a keg of crackers, and a jar of pickled oysters, on condition he'd go and patronize some other establishment. Keep an eye open for him, Samivel.
Be generous, Samivel, but don't carry generosity to XS, for an antidote I'm about to relate, out of my pusnol experience, illustrates the evil effex of excessive philanthrophy.
A little gal used to come into my shop to buy oysters. I seen she was some kind of a foreigner, so I set her down for Dutch—as them vas the only foreigners I vas acquainted vith at the time. I artervards discovered she was French. She was werry thin, and as pale as a soft-shelled clam; there was a dark blue color under her eyes, like these here muscle shells. At first, she used to buy ninepence worth of oysters. Arter a while it came down to fourpence; and one day she only vanted two cents vorth. I asked her who they vas for, and she said,—
"For my grandfather; he is very sick, sare."
I followed her, and found out where her grandfather lived. So one night I opened four gallons of prime New Yorkers, put 'em in a kettle, took a lot of crackers and soft bread, and started for the Frenchman's. The little gal came to the door, and showed me up stairs. The poor old customer was all alone, in bed, and yaller as a blanket. He start up ven he see us, and exclaimed,—
"Ah! mon Dieu! Antoinette, priez le gentilhomme de 'asseoir."
The leetle gal offered me a stool, but I didn't set down.
"Mounseer," said I, in some French manufactured for the occasion, "I havey broughtee you sommey oysteries," and I showed him the kittle, with the kiver off.
I thought his eyes kind of vatered at the sight, but he sighed, and turnin' to the leetle gal, said,—
"Antoinette, dites à Monsieur, que je n'ai plus d'argent—pas un sou."
I guessed it was something about money, so afore the leetle gal could translate it, I sang out,—
"I don't want no money, Mounseer; these here are free gratis, for nothin' at all. I always treats my customers once in a while."
That was a lie, Samivel—but never mind, I gin him a dozen, and the old fellur seemed to like 'em fust rate. Then I offered him some more, but he hung back. However I made him swallow 'em, and offered some to the leetle gal.
"After grandpapa," said she.
So I offered him some more.
"No more, I zank you; I 'ave eat too moosh."
I know'd he was only sogerin' out of delixy. So I says as perlite as possible,—
"None of that, old fellur—catch hold. I fetched 'em for you, and I'm bound to see you eat 'em."
"Sare, you are too kind," said he; and he vent to vork again. Arter a spell, he stopped.
"Don't like 'em—hey?" says I, pretendin' to be mad.
"I sall prove ze contraire," said he, in a kind of die-away manner, and he went into 'em agin.
Presently, he gin over, and fell back on his piller murmurin'—
"Sare, you are too good."
I gin the balance to the leetle gal, and told her to come round in the mornin', and I'd fill her kittle for her, adding that her grandfather would be all straight in the mornin'.
Samivel! he vas all straight in the morning, but just as stiff as a cold poker. The last two or three dozen finished him; his digestion wasn't strong enough for 'em, and he know'd it, but he eat himself to death out of politeness. The French are certingly the perlitest people on the face of the yairth.
Howsever, I see him buried decently, and I adopted the leetle gal. She was well brung up and educated, and she larned my darters French—the real Simon Pure—for she was a Canadian, and her grandfather came from Gascony. But his fate vos a orful lesson. Benevolence, like an oyster-roast, is good for nothink if it's over done. And now, Samivel, my boy, a-jew, for I have a sworray this evenin', and receive half Beacon Street. A-jew.
THE NEW YEAR'S STOCKINGS.
"Never crosses his t's, nor dots his i's, and his n's and v's and r's are all alike!" said, almost despairingly, Mr. Simon Quillpen, the painstaking clerk of old Lawyer Latitat, as he sat late at night, on the last day of the year, digging away at the copy of a legal document his liberal patron and employer had placed in his hands in the early part of the evening. "Thank Heaven!" he added, laying down his pen, and consulting a huge silver bull's eye which he pulled from a threadbare fob, "I shall soon get through this job, and then, hey for roast potatoes and the charming society of Mrs. Q.!" And with this consolatory reflection, he resumed his work with redoubled energy.
Mr. Quillpen was a little man; not so very little as to pass for a phenomenon, but certainly too small to be noticed by a recruiting grenadier sergeant. His nose was quite sharp and gave his mild, thin countenance, particularly as he carried his head a little on one side, a very bird-like air. He trod, too, gingerly and lightly, very like a sparrow or a tomtit; and, to complete the analogy, his head being almost always surmounted by a pen, he had a sort of crested, blue-jayish aspect, that was rather comical. Quillpen had a very little wife and three very little children, Bob, Chiffy, and the baby; the last the ultimate specimen of the diminuendo. It was well for them that they were so small, for Quillpen obtained his starvelihood by driving the quill for Mr. Latitat at four hundred dollars a year, to which Mrs. Quillpen added, from time to time, certain little sums derived from making shirts and overalls at the rate of about ten cents the million stitches.
Whether Mr. Latitat was able to pay more was a question that never entered the minute brain of Simon Quillpen; for he had so humble an opinion of his own merits, and was always so contented and cheerful, that he regarded his salary as enormous, and was wont playfully to sign little confidential notes Crœsus Quillpen and Girard Quillpen, and on rare convivial occasions would sometimes style himself Baron Rothschild. But this last title was very rarely indulged in, because it once sent his particular crony, a chuckle-headed clerk in the post-office, into a cachinnatory fit which was "rayther in the apoplectic line."
"To return to our muttons." Simon dug away at his copying with an occasional reverential glance at a certain low oaken door, opening into the penetralia of this abode of law and righteousness, behind which oaken door, at that very moment, sat Mr. Lucius Latitat, either deeply engaged in the solution of some vast legal problem, or calculating the interest on an outstanding note, or consulting with chuckling delight a list of mortgages to be foreclosed.
Well—Quillpen finished his document, wiped his pen on a thick velvet butterfly, laid it in the rack above the ink, pushed back his chair from the table, withdrew the cambric sleeve from his right arm, and smoothed down his wristbands, having first put on his India rubber overshoes. The fact is, he was very anxious to get home, and he could not go without first seeing Mr. Latitat. The idea of knocking at Mr. Latitat's door on business of his own never once occurred to him. He would do that for a client, but not for himself. So he ventured on a series of low coughs, and finding no notice was taken of them, he dropped the poker into the coalhod, the most daring act he had ever perpetrated. The slight noise thus produced crashed on his guilty ears like thunder, or rather with the roar of a universal earthquake. Slight, however, as it was, it brought out Mr. Latitat from his interior.
"What the deuse are you making such a racket for?" he exclaimed in tones that thrilled to the heart of his employee; then, without waiting for an answer, he slightly glanced at the table, and asked, "Have you got through that job?"
"Yes'm—I mean, yes'r" replied the quivering Simon.
"Well, then, you can go. I'm going myself. You blow out the lights and lock the room. And mind and be here early to-morrow morning. Nothing like beginning the New Year well. Good night."
"Mr. Latitat, sir!" cried Quillpen, with desperate resolution, as he saw the great man about to disappear—"please, sir—could you let me have a little money to-night?"
"Why! what do you want of money?" retorted the lawyer. "O! I 'spose you have a host of unpaid bills."
"No, sir; no, sir; that's not it," Simon hastened to say. "I hain't got narry bill standing. I pay as I go. Cash takes the lot!"
"None of your coarse, vulgar slang to me!" said Latitat. "Reserve it for your loose companions. If not to pay bills, what for?"
"Please, sir,—we, that is Mrs. Q. and myself, want to put something in the children's stockings, sir."
"Then put the children's legs in 'em!" said the lawyer with a grin. "I make no payments to be used for any such ridiculous purposes. Good night. Yet stay—take this letter—there's money in it—a large amount—put it in the post-office with your own hands as you go home."
"And you can't let me have a trifle?" gasped Simon.
"Not a cent!" snarled the lawyer; and he slammed the door behind him, and went heavily down the stairs.
"I wonder how it feels to punch a man's head," said Simon, as he stood rooted to the spot where Mr. Latitat left him. "It's illegal—it's actionable—there are fines and penalties provided by the statute: but it seems as if there were cases that might justify the operation—morally. But then, again—what good would it do to punch his head? Punching his head wouldn't get me money—and if I was to try it, on finding that the licks didn't bring out the cash, I might be tempted to help myself to the cash, and that would be highway robbery; and when the punchee ventured to suggest that, the puncher might be tempted to silence him. O Lord! that's the way these murders in the first degree happen; and I think that I was almost on the point of taking the first step. I really think I look a little like Babe the pirate," added the poor man, glancing at his mild but disturbed features in the glass; "or like Captain Kidd, or leastways like Country McClusky—a regular bruiser!"
Sitting down before the grate, and stirring it feebly with the poker, he tried to devise some feasible plan for supplying the vacuum in his treasury. He might borrow, but then all his friends were very poor, and particularly hard up—at this particular season of the year. The bull's eye watch might have been "spouted," if he had foreseen this contingency; but every avuncular relative was now at this hour of the night snug abed to a dead certainty. Purchasing on credit was not to be thought of, and the only toy shop which kept open late enough for his purchases, was kept by a man to whom he was totally unknown. Time galloped on, meanwhile, and the half-hour struck.
"I'll slip that letter in the post-office, and then go home," said Simon sorrowfully, rising as he spoke, and grasping his inseparable umbrella.
"Hallo! shipmate! where-away?" cried a hoarse voice. And Mr. Quillpen became aware of the presence of an "ancient mariner," enveloped in a very rough dreadnought, and finished off with a large amount of whiskers and tarpaulin.
"I was going home, sir," replied Simon, with the deferential air of a very little to a very big man.
"Ay—going to clap on hatches and deadlights. Well, tell me one thing—where-away may one find one Mr. Latitat—a shore-going cove, a regular land-shark, d'ye see?"
"This is Mr. Latitat's office, sir," said Simon.
"Ay—and is he within hail?"
"No, sir, he has gone home."
"Slipped his cable—hey? just my luck! Well, one might snooze comfortably on this here table—mightn't he? You can clear out, and I'll take care of the shop till morning."
"That would be perfectly inadmissible, sir," said Simon, "the idea of a stranger's sleeping here!"
"A stranger!" cried the sailor. "Why, shipmate, do you happen to know who I am? Look at me! Don't you find somewhat of a family likeness to Lucius in my old weather-beaten mug? Why, man-alive, I'm his brother,—his own blood brother! You must a heard him speak of me. Been cruising round the world in chase of Fortune, but could never overhaul her. Been sick, shipwrecked, and now come back as poor as I went. But Lucius has got enough for both of us. How glad he'll be to see me to-morrow, hey, old Ink-and-tape?"
Simon had his doubts about that matter, but told the sailor to come in the morning, and see.
"That I will," said the tar, "and start him up with a rousing Happy New Year! But I say, shipmate, I don't want to sleep in the watch-house. Have you never a shilling about your trousers?"
Simon answered that he hadn't a cent.
"Why, don't that brother of mine give you good wages?"
"Enormous!" said Simon.
"What becomes of it all?"
"I spend it all—I'm very extravagant," said Simon, shaking his head. "And then, I'm sorry to say, your brother isn't always punctual in his payments. To-night, for instance, I couldn't get a cent from him."
"Then I tell you what I'd do, shipmate," said the sailor, confidentially. "I'd overhaul some of his letters. Steam will loosen a wafer, and a hot knife-blade, wax. I'd overhaul his money-letters and pay myself. Ha! ha! do you take? Now, that letter you've got in your fin, my boy, looks woundy like a dokiment chock full of shinplasters. What do you say to making prize of 'em? wouldn't it be a jolly go?"
"Stand off!" said Simon, assuming a heavy round ruler and a commanding attitude. "Don't you come anigh me, or there'll be a case of justifiable homicide here. How dare you counsel me to commit a robbery on your own brother? I wonder you ain't ashamed to look me in the face."
"A chap as has cruised as many years as I have in the low latitudes ain't afraid to look any body in the face," answered the "ancient mariner," grimly. "I made you a fair offer, shipmate, and you rejected it like a long-shore jackass as you are. Good night to ye."
Much to his relief, the sailor took himself off, and Simon, after locking and double locking his door, went to the post-office and deposited the letter with which he had been intrusted. As he lived a great way up on the Neck, he did not reach home until after all the clocks of the city had struck twelve, so that he was able to surprise his little wife, who was sitting up for him, with a "Happy New Year!"
He cast a rueful eye at the line of stockings hung along the mantel-piece in the sitting room, and then sorrowfully announced to his wife his failure to obtain money of Mr. Latitat.
"There'll be nothing for the stockings, Meg," said he, "unless what the poor children put in ours."
"I am very sorry," said his wife, who bore the announcement much better than he anticipated; "but we'll have a happy New Year for all that."
Simon's roasted potatoes were completely charred, he had been detained so late; but there was a little meal in the centre of each, and charcoal is not at all unhealthy. He went to bed, and in spite of his cares, slept the sleep of the just.
A confused babbling awoke him at daylight. Master Bobby was standing on his stomach, Miss Chiffy was seated nearly on his head, and baby was crowing in its cradle. Happy New Years and kisses were exchanged. "O, dear papa and mamma!" cried Bobby, "what a beautiful horse I found in my stocking!"
"And what a beautiful wax doll, with eyes that move, in mine," said Chiffy,—"and such a splendid rattle and coral in baby's. Now, pray go down and see what there is in yours."
"This is some of your work, little woman," whispered Simon to his wife. But the little woman denied it emphatically. Much mystified, he hurried down to the breakfast room. The children had made the usual offering of very hard and highly-colored sugar plums; but in each of the two large stockings, stowed away at the bottom, was a roll of bank notes, five hundred dollars in each.
"Somebody wants to ruin us!" cried Simon, bursting into tears. "This is stolen money, and they want to lay it on to us."
"All I know about it," said Mrs. Quillpen, "is, that last night, just before you came home, a sailor man came here with all these things, and said they were for us, and made me promise to put them in the stockings, as he directed, and say nothing about his visit to you."
"A sailor!" cried Simon—"I have it! I think I know who it is. Good by—I'll be back to breakfast directly."
Simon ran to the office, and found, as he anticipated, Mr. Latitat there before him.
"A happy New Year to you, sir," said he. "Have you seen your brother?"
"I have not," replied Mr. Latitat.
Simon then told him all that happened on the preceding night; the apparition of the sailor,—the temptation,—the money found in the stockings, in proof of which he showed the thousand dollars, and stating his fears that they had been stolen, offered to deposit the sum in his employer's hands.
"Keep 'em, shipmate; they were meant for you!" exclaimed Mr. Latitat, suddenly and queerly, assuming the very voice and look of the nautical brother of the preceding evening.
While Simon stared his eyes out of his head, Mr. Latitat informed him that he had no brother—that he had disguised himself for the purpose of putting his clerk's long-tried fidelity to a final test, and, that sustained triumphantly, had rewarded him in the manner we have seen. He told how, disgusted in early life by the treachery and ingratitude of friends and relations who had combined to ruin him, he had become a misanthrope and miser; how the spectacle of Simon's disinterested fidelity, rigid sense of honor, self-denial and cheerfulness, had won back his better nature; and he wound off, as he shook Quillpen warmly by the hand, by announcing that he had raised his salary to twelve hundred dollars per annum.
The good news almost killed Simon. "Please your honor," said he, endeavoring to frame an appropriate reply,—"no—that ain't it—please your excellency—you've gone and done it—you've gone and done it! I was Baron Rothschild before, and now—no—I can't tell what I am—it isn't in no biographical dictionary, and I don't believe it's in the 'Wealth of Nations!'"
"Well, never mind," said Latitat, laughing, "go home and tell Mrs. Q. the office won't be open till to-morrow, and that I shall depend on dining with you all to-day."
THE OBLIGING YOUNG MAN.
"Cars ready for Boston and way stations!" shouted the conductor of a railroad train, as the steamhorse, harnessed for his twenty mile trip, stood chafing, snorting, and coughing, throwing up angry puffs of mingled gray and dingy vapor from his sturdy lungs. "Cars ready for Boston and way stations!"
"O, yes!" replied a brisk young man, with a bright eye, peculiar smirk, spotted neckcloth, and gray gaiters with pearl buttons. "Cars ready for Boston and way stations. All aboard. Now's your time—quick, or you'll lose 'em. Now then, ma'am."
"But, sir," remonstrated the old lady he addressed, and whom he was urging at the steps of a first class car.
"O, never mind!" replied the brisk young man. "Know what you're going to say—too much trouble—none whatever, I assure you. Perfect stranger, true—but scriptural injunction, do as you'd be done by. In with you—ding! ding!—there's the bell—off we go."
And so in fact they did go off at forty miles an hour.
"But, sir," said the old lady, trembling violently.
"I see," interrupted the obliging young man; "want a seat—here it is—a great bargain—cars full—quick, or you'll lose it."
"But, sir," said the old lady, with nervous trepidation, "I—I—wasn't going to Boston."
"The deuce you weren't. Well, well, well, why couldn't you say so? Hullo! Conductor! Stop the cars!"
"Can't do it," replied the conductor. "This train don't stop short of Woburn watering station."
"Woburn watering station!" whimpered the old woman, wringing her hands. "O, what shall I do?"
"Sit still; take it easy—no use crying for spilt milk; what can't be cured must be endured. I'll look out sharp; you might have saved yourself all this trouble."
Away went the cars, racketting and oscillating, while the obliging young man was looking round for another recipient of his good services.
"Ha!" he muttered to himself. "There's a poor young fellow quite alone. Lovesick, perhaps; pale cheek—sunken eye—never told his love; but let—Shakspeare—I'm his man! Must look out for the old woman. Here we are, ma'am, fifteen miles to Lowell—out with you—look out for the cars on the back track. Good by—pleasant trip!"
Ding dong, went the bell again.
"Hullo! here's her bundle! Catch, there—heads! All right—get on, driver!"
And having tossed a bundle after the old woman, he resumed his seat.
"Confound it!" roared a fat man in a blue spencer. "You're treading on my corns."
"Beg pardon," said the obliging young man. "Bad things, corns,—'trifling sum of misery new added to the foot of your account;' old author—name forgotten. Never mind—drive on!"
"But where's my bundle?" asked the fat man. "Conductor! Where's my bundle? Brown paper—red string. Saw it here a moment since."
The conductor knew nothing about it. The obliging young man did. It was the same he had thrown out after the old woman.
"You'll find it some where," he said, with a consolatory wink. "Can't lose a brown paper bundle. I've tried—often—always turned up; little boy sure to bring it. 'Here's your bundle, sir; ninepence, please.' All right—go ahead!"
Here the obliging young man took his seat beside the pale-faced youth.
"Ill health, sir?"
"No, sir," replied the pale-faced youth, fidgeting.
"Mental malady—eh?"
The young man sighed.
"See it all. Don't say a word, man! Cupid, heart from heart, forced to part. Flinty-hearted father?"
"No, sir."
"Flinty-hearted mother?"
"No, sir."
"Flinty-hearted aunt?"
The lovesick young man sighed, and nodded assent.
"Tell me the story. I'm a stranger—but my heart is here, sir." Whereupon the obliging young man referred to a watch pocket in his plaid vest, and nodded with a great deal of intelligence. "Tell me all—like to serve my fellows—no other occupation; out with it, as the doctor said to the little boy that swallowed his sister's necklace."
The lovesick youth informed the obliging young man that he loved and was beloved by a young lady of Boston, whose aunt, acting as her guardian, opposed his suit. He was going to Boston to put a plan of elopement into operation. He had prepared two letters, one to the aunt renouncing his hopes, to throw her off her guard; the other to the young lady, appointing a meeting at the Providence cars. The difficulty was to get the letters delivered. This the obliging young man readily undertook to do in person. Both the aunt and niece bore the same name—Emeline Brown; but the aunt's letter was sealed with black, the niece's with red wax. The letters were delivered with many injunctions to the obliging young man, and the two new-made friends parted on the arrival of the cars in Boston.
The Providence cars were just getting ready to start, when, amid all the bustle and confusion, a pale-faced young man "might have been seen," as Mr. James, the novelist, says, nervously pacing to and fro, and occasionally darting into Pleasant Street, and scrutinizing every approaching passenger and vehicle. At last, when there was but a single moment to spare, a hack drove up furiously, and a veiled lady hastily descended, and gave her hand to her expectant admirer.
"Quick, Emeline, or we shall lose the train!"
The enamoured couple were soon seated beside each other, and whirling away to Providence. The lady said little, but sat with downcast head and veiled face, apparently overwhelmed with confusion at the step she had taken. But it was enough for young Dovekin to know she was beside him, and he poured forth an unbroken stream of delicious nonsense, till the train arrived at its destination.
In the station house the lady lifted her veil. Horror and confusion! It was the aunt! The obliging young man had delivered the wrong letter.
"Yes, sir," said Miss Brown, "I am the person whom you qualified, in your letter intended for my niece, as a 'hateful hag, in whose eyes you were throwing dust'. What do you say to that, sir?"
"Say!" replied the disconsolate Dovekin. "It's no use to say any thing; for it is my settled purpose to spring over the parapet of the railroad bridge and seek oblivion in a watery grave. But first, if I could find that obliging young man, I'd be the death of him."
"No you wouldn't," said the voice of that interesting individual, as he made his appearance with a lady on his arm. "Here she is—take her—be happy. After I'd given the notes, mind misgave me—went back to the house—found the aunt gone—niece in tears—followed after—same train—last car—here she is!"
"I hope this will be a lesson," said Dovekin.
"So it is. Henceforth, I shall mind my own business; for every thing I've undertaken lately, on other folks' account, has gone amiss. Come, aunty, give your blessing—let 'em go. Train ready—I'm off—best of wishes—good by. Cars ready for Boston and way stations!—all aboard."
The aunt gave her blessing; and this was the last that any of the party saw of the Obliging Young Man.