CHAPTER II.
"Here comes Captain Ernest!" cried a youthful voice. And a beautiful, blue-eyed girl of nineteen stood at the garden gate of a pretty farm house, watching the approach of a horseman, who, gayly attired in a hussar uniform, was galloping up the road. At her shout of delight, a sturdy old gray-haired man came forth and stood beside her.
"Captain Ernest!" he repeated. "That sounds well. When I was of his age, I only carried a musket in the ranks. I never dreamed then that a son of mine could ever aspire to the epaulet."
Ernest, waving his hand to Meena Altenburg and his father, rode past them to the stable, where he left his horse. He then rushed into the farm house where his father met him.
"What is the meaning of this, boy?" he said. "How wild and haggard you look! And you have avoided Meena—and this, too, upon your wedding day."
"My wedding day—O Heavens! I shall die," said the young man, sinking into a seat.
As soon as he could collect himself, he told his father that he could not marry Meena, and the reason—he had pledged himself to another. The old man, who was the soul of honor, burst forth in violent imprecations, and drove him from his presence. As he left the house, the unfortunate young man encountered a person whom he at once recognized as the Baron Von Dangerfeld, the reputed suitor of Madame Von Berlingen.
"I have been looking for you, Captain Walstein," said the baron, sternly.
"And you have found me," answered the young man, shortly.
"Yes—and I thank Heaven you wear that uniform. It entitles you to meet a German noble, and answer for your conduct."
"I am answerable for my conduct to no living man," retorted Ernest.
"You wear a sword."
"Yes."
"Very well—if you refuse to give satisfaction for the injury you have done me, in robbing me of my mistress, I will proclaim you a coward in the presence of the regiment upon parade."
"O, make yourself easy on that score, baron," answered Ernest. "Life is of too little worth for me to think of shielding it. If you will step with me into the shadow of yonder grove, we can soon regulate our accounts."
The two men walked silently to the appointed spot, and without any preliminary, drew their swords and engaged in combat. The struggle was not of long duration, for Ernest wounded his adversary in the sword arm, and disarmed him.
"Are you satisfied?" he asked.
"I must be so for the present," replied the baron, sullenly. "When I recover, you shall hear from me again."
"As you please," said Ernest, coldly. "In the mean time, suffer me to bind up your arm."
The young man bandaged the wound of his adversary, and as he faltered from the loss of blood, led him towards the farm house. As they approached it, two ladies advanced to meet them—one of them was Meena, the other Madame Von Berlingen.
"Dangerfeld wounded!" cried the latter, bursting into tears—"O, I have been the cause of this: forgive me—forgive me, Dangerfeld, or you will kill me."
"You forget, madame, that you belong to another."
"I am yours only—I can never love another. Nor does the person you allude to," added the lady, turning to Ernest, "cherish any attachment to me."
"My only feeling for you, madame," said Ernest, with meaning, "would be gratitude, were a certain paper destroyed."
"What is the meaning of all this?" asked the father of Ernest, coming forward.
"It means," said Ernest, tearing to atoms the promissory note he received from the widow's hands, "that I had very ugly dreams last night—I dreamed that I played at rouge-et-noir, and lost all the money you gave me to purchase my commission with, and then that I made up the loss by promising——"
"Hush!" said the widow, laying her finger on her lips.
"Then it was all a dream," said the old man.
"Look at my uniform," replied the captain.
"And what did you mean in the story you told me just now?" asked the old man.
"Forget it, father," said Ernest. "Dear Meena, look up, my love. It is our wedding day; and if you do but smile, I'm the happiest dog that wears a sabre and a doliman."
That very day two weddings were celebrated in the farm house, those of Captain Ernest Walstein with the Fraulein Meena Altenburg, and Baron Von Dangerfeld with the yet beautiful and wealthy widow. The captain never tried his luck again at any GAME OF CHANCE.
THE SOLDIER'S SON.
Many, many years ago, at the close of a sultry summer's day, a man of middle age was slowly toiling up a hill in the environs of the pleasant village of Aumont, a small town in the south of France. The wayfarer was clad in the habiliments of a private of the infantry of the line; that is to say, he wore a long-skirted, blue coat, faced with red, much soiled and stained; kerseymere breeches that were once white, met at the knee by tattered gaiters of black cloth, an old battered chapeau, and a haversack, which he carried slung over his right shoulder, on a sheathed sabre. From time to time, he paused and wiped the heavy drops of perspiration that gathered constantly upon his forehead.
"Courage, François, courage," said the soldier to himself; "a few paces more, and you will reach home. Ah, this is sufficiently fatiguing, but nothing to the sands of Egypt. May Heaven preserve my eyesight long enough to see my home—my wife—my brave boy Victor, once more! Grant me but that, kind Heaven, and I think I will repine at nothing that may happen further."
It will be seen from the above, that François Bertrand belonged to the army which had recently covered itself with glory in the Egyptian campaign, under the command of General Bonaparte, a name already famous in military annals. He had fought like a hero in the battle of the Pyramids, when the squares of the French infantry repulsed the brilliant cavalry of Murad Bey, and destroyed the flower of the Mamelukes by the deadly fire of their musketry. Wounded in that memorable battle, he was afterwards attacked by the ophthalmia of the country; but his eyesight, though impaired, was not yet utterly destroyed. Honorably discharged, he had just arrived at Marseilles, from Egypt, and was now on his way home, eager to be folded in the arms of his beloved wife and his young son. So the soldier toiled bravely up the hill, for he knew that the white walls of his cottage and the foliage of his little vineyard would be visible in the valley commanded by the summit.
At length he reached the brow of the hill, and gazed eagerly in the direction of his humble home; but O, agony, it was gone! In its place, a heap of blackened ruins lay smouldering in the sunlight that seemed to mock its desolation. Fatigue—weakness—were instantly forgotten, and the soldier rushed down the brow of the hill to the scene of the disaster. At the gate of his vineyard, he was met by little Victor, a boy of ten.
"A soldier!" cried the boy, who did not recognize his father. "O sir, you come back from the wars, don't you? Perhaps you can tell me something about my poor papa?"
"Victor, my boy, my dear boy! don't you know me?" cried the poor soldier; and he strained his son convulsively in his arms.
"O, I know you now, my dear, dear papa," said the boy, sobbing. "I knew you by the voice—but how changed you are! Why, your mustaches are turned gray."
"Victor, Victor, where is your mother?" gasped the soldier.
"Speak—I charge you, boy."
"She is dead."
"Dead!" François fell to the ground as if a bullet had passed through his brain. When he recovered his senses, he saw Victor kneeling beside him, and bathing his head with cold water, which he had brought in his hat from a neighboring spring. In a few words, the child told him their cottage had taken fire in the night, and been burned to the ground, and his mother had perished in the flames.
A kind cottager soon made his appearance, and conducted the unfortunate father and son to his humble cabin. Here they passed the night and one or two days following. During that time, François Bertrand neither ate nor slept, but wept over his misfortune with an agony that refused all consolation. On the third day only he regained his composure; but it was only to be conscious of a new and overwhelming misfortune. His eyesight was gone. The agony of mind he had suffered, and the tears he had shed, had completed the ravages of his disorder.
"Where are you, Victor?" said the soldier.
"Here, by your side, father; don't you see me?"
"Alas! no, my boy. I can see nothing. Give me your little hand. Your poor father is blind."
The agonizing sobs of the boy told him how keenly he appreciated his father's misfortune.
"Dry your eyes, Victor;" said the soldier. "Remember the instructions of your poor mother, how she taught you to submit with resignation to all the sufferings that Providence sees fit to inflict upon us in this world of sorrow. Henceforth you must see for both of us; you will be my eyes, my boy."
"Yes, father; and I will work for you and support you."
"You are too young and delicate, Victor. We must beg our bread."
"Beg, father?"
"Yes, you shall guide my footsteps. There are good people in the world who will pity my infirmities and your youth. When they see my ragged uniform, they will say, 'There is one of the braves who upheld the honor of France upon the burning sands of Egypt,' and they will not fail to drop a few sous into the old soldier's hat. Come, Victor, we must march. We have been too long a burden on our poor neighbor. Courage, mon enfant, le bon temps viendra."
And so the boy and his father set forth upon their wanderings. Neither asked alms; but when seated by the roadside, under the shadow of an overhanging tree, the passer-by would halt, and bestow a small sum upon the worn and blind soldier. Victor was devoted to his father, and Heaven smiled upon his filial affection. Though denied the society and sports so dear to his youth, he was always cheerful and happy in the accomplishment of his task. Often did his innocent gayety beguile his father into a temporary forgetfulness of his sufferings. Then he would place his hand upon the boy's head, and stroking his soft, curling locks, smile sweetly as his sightless eyes were turned towards him, and commence some stirring narrative of military adventure.
In this way, days, weeks, months, and even years rolled by. They were every where well received and kindly treated; and all their physical wants were supplied. But the old soldier often sighed to think of the burden his misfortunes imposed upon his boy, and of his wearing out his young life without congenial companionship, without instruction, without a future beyond the life of a mendicant. He often prayed in secret that death might liberate, his little guide from his voluntary service.
One day, François was seated alone on a stone by the roadside, Victor having gone to the neighboring village on an errand, when he suddenly heard a carriage stop beside him. The occupant, a man of middle age, alighted, and approached the soldier.
"Your name," said the stranger, "is, I think, François Bertrand."
"The same."
"A soldier of the army of Egypt?"
"Yes."
"And that pretty boy who guides you is your son?"
"He is—Heaven bless him!"
"Amen! But has it never occurred to you, my friend, that you are doing him great injustice in keeping him by you at an age when he ought to be getting an education to enable him to push his way in the world?"
"Alas! sir, I have often thought of it. But what could supply his place? and then, who would befriend and educate him?"
"His place might be supplied by a dog—and for his protector, I, myself, who have no son, should be glad to adopt and educate him."
His son's place supplied by a dog! The thought was agony. And to part with Victor! The idea was as cruel as death itself. The old soldier was silent.
"You are silent, my friend. Has my offer offended you?"
"No sir—no. But you will pardon a father's feelings."
"I respect them—and I do not wish to hurry you. Take a day to think of my proposition, and to inform yourself respecting my character and position. I am a merchant. My name is Eugene Marmont, and I reside at No. 17 Rue St. Honoré, Paris. I will meet you at this spot to-morrow at the same hour, and shall then expect an answer. Au revoir." He placed a golden louis in the hand of the soldier, and departed.
A little reflection convinced Bertrand that it was his duty to accept the merchant's offer. But cruel as was the task of reconciling himself to parting with his son, that of inducing Victor to acquiesce in the arrangement was yet more difficult. It required the exercise of authority to sever the ties that bound the son to the father. But it was done—Victor resigned his task to a little dog that was procured by the merchant, and after an agonizing farewell was whirled away in Marmont's carriage.
Years passed on. Victor outstripped all his companions at school, and stood at the head of the military academy; for he was striving to win a name and fortune for his father. The good Marmont, from time to time, endeavored to obtain tidings of the soldier; but the latter had purposely changed his usual route, and, satisfied that his son was in good hands, felt a sort of pride in not intruding his poverty and misfortunes on the notice of Victor's new companions. The boy, himself, was much distressed at not seeing or hearing from his father; but he kept struggling on, saying to himself, "Courage, Victor—le bon temps viendra—the good time will come."
On the death of Marmont, he entered the army as a sub-lieutenant, and fought his way up to a captaincy under the eye of the emperor. At the close of a brilliant campaign he was invited to pass a few weeks at the chateau of a general officer named Duvivier, a few leagues from Paris. The company there was brilliant, composed of all that was most beautiful, talented, and distinguished in the circle in which the general moved. But the "star of that goodly company" was Julie Duvivier, the youthful and accomplished daughter of the general. Many distinguished suitors contended for the honor of her hand; but the moment Victor appeared, they felt they had a formidable rival. The belle of the chateau could not help showing her decided preference for him, though, with a modesty and delicacy natural to his position, he refrained from making any decided advances.
One night, however, transported beyond himself by passion, he betrayed the secret of his heart to Julie, as he led her to her seat after an intoxicating waltz. The reception of his almost involuntary avowal was such as to convince him that his affection was returned. But he felt that he had done wrong—and a high sense of honor induced the young soldier immediately to seek the general, and make him a party to his wishes.
He found him alone in the embrasure of a window that opened on the garden of the chateau.
"General," said he, with military frankness, "I love your daughter."
The general started, and cast a glance of displeasure on the young man.
"I know you but slightly, Captain Bertrand," he answered, "but you are aware that the man who marries my daughter must be able to give her her true position in society. Show me the proofs of your nobility and wealth, and I will entertain your proposition."
"Alas!" answered the young soldier in a faltering voice, "I feel that I have erred—pity me—forgive me—I was led astray by a passion too strong to be controlled. I have no name—and my fortune is my sword."
The general bowed coldly, and the young soldier passed out into the garden. It was a brilliant moonlight evening. Every object was defined as clearly as if illuminated by the sun's rays. Removing his chapeau, that the night air might cool his fevered brow, he was about to take his favorite seat beside the fountain where he had passed many hours in weaving bright visions of the future, when he perceived that it was already occupied. An old man in a faded military uniform sat there, with a little dog lying at his feet. One glance was sufficient—the next instant Victor folded his father in his arms.
"Father!" "My boy!" The words were interrupted by convulsive sobs.
After the first passionate greeting was over, the old man passed his hand over his son's dress, and a smile of joy was revealed by the bright moonbeams.
"A soldier! I thought I heard the clatter of your sabre," said the old man. "Where did you get these epaulets?"
"At Austerlitz, father—they were given me by the emperor."
"Long live the emperor!" said the old man. "He never forgets his children."
"No, father. For when he gave me my commission, he said, thoughtfully, 'Bertrand! your name is familiar.' 'Yes, sire—my father served under the tricolor.' 'I remember—he was one of my old Egyptians.' And then—father—then he gave me the cross of the legion—and told me, when I found you, to affix it to your breast in his name."
"It is almost too much!" sighed the old soldier, as the young officer produced the cross and attached it to his father's breast.
"And now," said the young man, "give me your hand as of old, dear father, and let me lead you."
"Whither?"
"Into the saloon of the chateau, to present you to General Duvivier and his guests."
"What! in my rags! before all that grand company?"
"Why not, father? The ragged uniform of a brave soldier who bears the cross of honor on his breast is the proudest decoration in the world. Come, father."
Leading his blind father, young Bertrand reëntered the saloon he had so lately left, and went directly to the general, who was standing, surrounded by his glittering staff.
"General," said he, "here is my title of nobility—my father is all the wealth I possess in the world."
Tears started to the general's eyes, and he shook the old soldier warmly by the hand. Then beckoning to Julie, he led her to Victor, and placed her trembling hand in his.
"Let this dear girl," said he, "make amends for my coldness a moment since. A son so noble hearted is worthy of all happiness."
In a word, Captain, afterwards Colonel, Bertrand married the general's daughter, and the happiness of their fireside was completed by the constant presence of the good old soldier, to whose self-denial Victor owed his honors and domestic bliss.
TAKING CHARGE OF A LADY.
The steamer Ben Franklin—it was many years ago, reader—was just on the point of leaving her dock at Providence, when a slender, pale young man, with sandy whiskers and green eyes, who had just safely stowed away his valise, honorably paid his fare, and purchased a supper ticket, and now stood on the upper deck, leaning on his blue cotton umbrella in a mild attitude of contemplation, was accosted by a benevolent-looking old gentleman, in gold-bowed spectacles, upon whose left arm hung a feminine, in a bright mazarine blue broadcloth travelling habit, with a gold watch at her waist, and a green veil over her face, with the (to a timid young man) startling question of,—
"Pray, sir, will you be so kind as to take charge of a lady?"
The slender young man with the blue cotton umbrella blushed up to the roots of his sandy hair, but he bowed deeply and affirmatively.
"We were disappointed in not meeting a friend, sir," continued the benevolent-looking old gentleman, "and so I had to trust to chance for finding an escort to Fanny. Only as far as New York, sir; my daughter will give you very little trouble. She's a strong-minded, independent woman, sir, and abundantly able to take care of herself; but I don't like the idea of ladies travelling alone. If the boat sinks, sir, she's abundantly able to swim ashore. Good by, Fanny."
"Father," said the lady in the blue habit, in a deep and mellow baritone,—rather a queer voice for a woman, though,—"a parting salute!" She threw back her veil, displaying a pair of piercing black eyes, kissed the paternal cheek, veiled the black eyes a moment with a lace-bordered handkerchief, as her sire descended the gang plank,—his exit being deprived of dignity by the sudden withdrawal of the board,—and then placed her arm within that of the sandy-haired young gentleman, and began walking him up and down the promenade deck.
"Isn't this delightful?" said she. "O, what can exceed the pleasure of travelling, when one has a sympathizing friend as a companion!" And she rather pressed the arm of her companion. She was strong-handed as well as strong-minded.
Mr. Brown, for that was the name of the timid young gentleman with the sandy hair and the blue cotton umbrella, was not particularly susceptible, for he had already lost his heart to a sandy-haired young lady, who resided in New York; and, besides, he didn't like strong-minded women; so he asked, very unromantically, but sensibly, if the happy parent of the lady in the blue habit had purchased her a ticket.
"I believe—I am certain that he did not," was the reply. "Father is so forgetful!"
"I'll do it myself then, ma'am—if you'll excuse me a moment. What name?"
"Brown," said the lady.
"My own name!" cried the young man.
"Is it possible?" cried the blue beauty. "What a coincidence! How striking! charming!"
She made no offer of money, and Brown invested his own funds in a passage and supper ticket.
"You dear creature!" cried the lady, when he handed them to her, "you are very attentive. But there was no necessity for this supper ticket. I am the least eater in the world."
She said nothing about the cost of the tickets; and how could Brown broach the subject?
"There's that bell, at last!" she cried, when the supper bell rang; "do let's hurry down, Brown, for people are so rude and eager on board steamboats, that unless you move quick you lose your chance."
Brown was hurried along by his fair friend, and she struggled through the crowd till she headed the column and got an excellent seat at the table. Our sandy-haired friend had exalted opinions of the delicacy of female appetites; he had never helped ladies at a ball, or seen them in a pantry at luncheon time, and fancied they fed as lightly as canary birds. He was rather glad to hear Fanny make that remark about the supper ticket on the promenade deck. But now he found she could eat. The cold drops of perspiration stood upon his forehead as he watched the evidences of her voracity. She was helped four times, by the captain, to beefsteak—no miniature slices either, but huge, broad cubes of solid flesh. A dish of oysters attracted her eye, and she gobbled them up every one. Toast and hot bread disappeared before her ravenous appetite. Sponge and pound cake were despatched with fearful celerity. She took up the attention of one particular nigger, and he looked weary and collapsed when the supper was finished.
Yet, after all this, Fanny paraded the deck, and had the heart to talk about the "orbs of heaven," and Shelley, and Byron, and Tennyson, and Ralph Waldo Emerson, and Fanny Ellsler, and Schiller. Brown was very glad when she retired to the lady's cabin.
The morning he rose late, purposely to avoid her till the boat touched the wharf. He engaged a carriage and hunted up the lady's baggage; fortunately there was not much of it. This done, he escorted her on shore, and handed her into the coach.
"Now, then," said the one-eyed driver,—he had recently lost his eye in a fight, on the first night of his return from Blackwell's Island,—"where away? Oyster House, Merrikin, or Globe?"
"Where are you going, madam?" asked Brown.
"Where are you going?" asked the lady.
"To the American, ma'am."
"What a coincidence!" exclaimed the lady, rolling up her black eyes.
"American House, driver."
"All right—in with you!" cried the one-eyed man, as he pitched Brown headlong into the coach, slammed the rickety door on him, sprang to his box, and lashed his sorry steeds into a gallop. In due time they arrived, and a room was engaged for the lady, and one for her cavalier.
Brown went up town as soon as he had dressed, to see his sweetheart, taking particular care to say nothing of his namesake, the fair Fanny.
The next day he was promenading Broadway with Miss S., when he was confronted, opposite St. Paul's, by a furious man, with black whiskers, who halted directly in his path.
"Do you call yourself Brown?" asked the furious man, furiously.
"That's my name, sir," said the sandy-haired young gentleman, meekly.
"It's my name, sir," shouted the furious man. "John Brown. Now you know who I am. Do you know Mrs. Brown?"
"I don't know," stammered the unfortunate young man with sandy hair.
"Who did you come from Providence with? answer me that!" roared the furious man, getting as black as his whiskers with apoplectic rage.
"I—I took charge of a lady, certainly," stammered the guiltless but confounded young man.
"You took charge of Mrs. Brown, sir—Fanny Sophonisba Brown, sir, who has left my bed and board without provocation, sir,—vide the Providence papers, sir,—left me, sir, because I didn't approve of her strong-minded goings on, sir, her woman's-rights meetings, sir, and her nigger colonizations, sir, and her—but that's enough, sir."
Here Miss Sumker, who was a mild, freckled-faced girl, dropped the arm of her companion, and meekly sat down on a doorstep, and covered her face with a handkerchief.
"Mr. Brown, sir!" cried our poor young friend, finally plucking up a spirit.
"Go it, lemons!" shouted a listening drayman, as he hung over the scene from one of his cart stakes.
"Captain Brown," suggested the furious man, with smothered rage.
"Well then, Captain Brown," said Brown, 2d., spitefully, "the lady you allude to is a total stranger to me. She was put under my care by a benevolent-looking old gentleman, with gold-bowed spectacles, and she has already cost me ten dollars, money advanced on her account."
"All persons are forbidden to trust the same, as I will pay no debts of her contracting," said the furious man, with gleams of unmitigated ferocity and savage exultation.
"Then I'm done brown, that's all," said the young man, gloomily. "As for Mrs. Fanny Sophonisba Brown, I never want to see her face again. She is at the American House, and you can recover her by proving property and paying charges. And, for my part, I hope I may be kicked to death by grasshoppers if ever I take charge of a lady again."
This was the largest speech, probably, that the sandy-haired young man had ever made in his life. It was a regular "stunner," though. It convinced Miss Sumker, who had for a moment thought of withdrawing the light of her freckles from him forever, and who now hastened to replace her arm in his; and it convinced Captain Brown, who became suddenly as mild as moonbeams, shook his new acquaintance by the hand, and declared him a "fine young fellow."
But the drayman was disgusted at the affair ending without a fight, and expressed his feelings, as he laid the lash across his horse, by the single exclamation, "Pickles!" thereby insinuating that the nauseous sweetness of the reconciliation required a strong dash of acidity to neutralize its flavor.
The captain regained his strong-minded wife, and our sandy-haired friend went home with Miss Sumker, metamorphosed into Mrs. Brown, having "taken charge" of her for life.
THE NEW YEAR'S BELLS.
How the wind blew on the evening of the 31st December, in the year—but no matter for the date. It came roaring from the north, fraught with the icy chillness of those hyperborean regions that are lost to the sunlight for six months, the realm of ice-ribbed caverns, and snow mountains heaped up above the horizon in the cold and cheerless sky. On it came, that northern blast, howling and tearing, and menacing with destruction every obstacle that crossed its path. It dashed right through a gorge in the mountains, and twisted the arms of the rock-rooted hemlock and the giant oak, as if they were the twigs of saplings. Then it swept over the wild, waste meadows, rattling the frozen sedge, and whirling into eddies the few dry leaves that remained upon the surface of the earth. Next it invaded the principal street of the quaint old village, and played the mischief with the tall elms and the venerable buttonwoods that stood on either side like sentinels guarding the highway. How the old gilt lion that swung from the sign post of the tavern, hanging like a malefactor in irons, was shaken and disturbed! Backwards and forwards the animal was tossed, like a bark upon the ocean. Now he seemed as if about to turn a somerset and circumnavigate the beam from which he hung, creaking and groaning dismally all the while, like an unhappy soul in purgatory. The loose shutters of the upper story of the tavern chattered like the teeth of a witch-ridden old crone. But cheerful fires of hickory and maple were burning within doors; a merry group was gathered in the old oak parlor, and little recked the guests of the elemental war without. In fact, they knew nothing of it, till the driver of the village stage coach, making his appearance with a few flakes of snow on his snuff-colored surtout, announced, as he expanded his broad hands to the genial blaze, that it was a "wild night out of doors."
But on—on sped the wild wind, driving the snow flakes before it as a victorious army sweeps away the routed skirmishers and outposts of the enemy. Away went the night wind on its wild errand, reaching at last a solitary cottage on the outskirts of the village. Here it revelled in unwonted fury, ripping up the loose shingles from the moss-grown rooftree, and forcing an entrance through many a yawning crevice.
The scene within the cottage presented a strange and painful contrast to the interior of most of the comfortable houses in the flourishing village through which we have been hurrying on the wings of the cold north wind. The room was scantily furnished. There were two or three very old-fashioned, rickety, straw-bottomed chairs, an oaken stool or two, and a pine table. The hour hand of a wooden clock on the mantel piece pointed to eleven. A fire of chips and brushwood was smouldering on the hearth. In one corner of the room, near the fireplace, on a heap of straw, covered with a blanket, two little boys lay sleeping in each other's arms. Crouched near the table, her features dimly lighted by a tallow candle, sat a woman advanced in life, clad in faded but cleanly garments, whose hollow cheeks and sunken eye told a painful tale of sorrow and destitution. Those sad eyes were fixed anxiously and imploringly upon the stern, grim face of a hard-featured old man, who, with hat pulled over his shaggy gray eyebrows, was standing, resting on a stout staff, in the centre of the floor.
"So, you haven't got any money for me," said the old man, in the harshest of all possible voices.
"Alas! no, Mr. Wurm—if I had I should have brought it to you long ago," answered the poor woman. "I had raked and scraped a little together—but the sickness of these poor children—poor William's orphans—swept it all away—I haven't got a cent."
"So much the worse for you, Mrs. Redman," answered the old man, harshly. "I've been easy with you—I've waited and waited—trusting your promises. I can't wait any longer. I want the money."
"You want the money! Is it possible? Report speaks you rich."
"It's false—false!" said the old man, bitterly. "I'm poor—I'm pinched. Ask the townspeople how I live. Do I look like a rich man? No, no! I tell you I want my dues—and I will have 'em."
"I can't pay you," said the woman, sadly.
"Then you must abide the consequences!"
"What consequences?"
"I've got an execution—that's all," said the hardhearted landlord.
"An execution! what's that?"
"A warrant to take all your goods."
"My goods!" said the poor woman, looking round her with a melancholy smile. "Why I have nothing but what few things you see in this room. You surely wouldn't take those."
"I'll take all I can get."
"And leave me here with the bare walls."
"No, no! you walk out of this to-morrow."
"In the depth of winter! You cannot be so hardhearted."
"We shall see that."
"I care not for myself; but what is to become of these poor children?"
"Send 'em to work in the factory."
"But they are just recovering from sickness; they are too young to work. O, where, where can we go?"
"To the poorhouse," said the landlord, fiercely.
The poor woman rose, and approaching the landlord's feet, fell upon her knees, clasped her hands, and looked upward in his stern and unrelenting face.
"Israel Wurm," she said, "has your heart grown as hard as the nether millstone? Have you forgotten the days of old lang syne? O, remember that we were once prosperous and happy; remember that misfortune and not sin has reduced me and mine to the deplorable state in which you find us. Remember that my husband was your early friend—your schoolfellow—your playmate. Remember that when he was rich and you poor, he gave you from his plenty—freely—bountifully—not gave with the expectation of a return; his gifts were bounties, not loans."
"Therefore I owed him nothing," said the obdurate miser, turning away.
"You shall hear me out," said the woman, starting to her feet. "I ask for a further delay; I ask you to stay the hard hand of the law. You profess to be a Christian; I demand justice and mercy in the name of those sleeping innocents, my poor grandchildren, whose father is in heaven. You shall be merciful."
"Heyday!" exclaimed the miser; "this is fine talk, upon my word. You demand justice, do you? Well, you shall have it. The law is on my side, and I will carry it out to the letter."
"Then," said the outraged woman, stretching forth her trembling hand, "the curse of the widow and the orphan shall be upon you. Sleeping or waking, it shall haunt you; and on your miserable death bed, when the ugly shapes that throng about the pillow of the dying sinner shall close around you, our malediction shall weigh like lead upon you, and your palsied lips shall fail to articulate the impotent prayer for that mercy to yourself which you denied to others. And now begone. This house is mine to-night, at least. Afflict it no longer with your presence. Go forth into the night; it is not darker than your benighted soul, nor is the north wind one half so pitiless as you."
With a bitter curse upon his lips, but trembling and dismayed in spite of himself, Israel Wurm left the presence of the indignant victim of his cruelty, and turned his footsteps in the direction of his home. His home! It scarcely deserved the name. There was no fire there to thaw his chilled and trembling frame—no light to gleam athwart the darkness, and send forth its pilgrim rays to meet him and guide his footsteps to his threshold. No wife, no children, waited eagerly his return. It was the miser's home—dark, desolate, stern, and repulsive. Its deep cellars, its thick walls held hidden stores of gold, and notes, and bonds, but there were garnered up no treasures of the heart.
The miser's path lay through the churchyard, a desolate place enough even in the gay noon of a midsummer day, now doubly repulsive in the wild midnight of midwinter. The wall was ruinous. The black iron gateway frowned, naked and ominous. The field of death was crowded with headstones of slate, and innumerable mounds marked the resting-place of many generations. The snow was now gathering fast over the dreary and desolate abode, as the miser stumbled along the beaten pathway, bending against the blast and drift. A strange numbness and drowsiness crept over him. He no longer felt the cold; an uncontrollable desire of slumber possessed him. He sat down upon a flat tombstone, and soon lost all consciousness of his actual situation.
Suddenly he saw before him the well-known figure of the old sexton of the village, busily occupied in digging a grave. The winter had passed away; it was now midsummer. The birds were singing in the trees, and from the far green meadows sounded the low of cattle, and the tinkling of sheep bells. Even the graveyard looked no longer desolate, for on many of the little hillocks bright flowers were springing into bloom and verdure, attesting the affection that outlived death, and decorating with living bloom the precincts of decay.
"My friend, for whom are you digging that grave?" asked Israel.
The sexton looked up from his work, but did not seem to recognize the spokesman.
"For a man that died last night; he is to be buried to-day."
"Methinks this haste is somewhat indecorous," said Israel Wurm.
"O, for the matter of that," said the sexton, "the sooner this fellow's out of the way the better. There's nobody to mourn for him."
"Is he a pauper, then?"
"O no! he was immensely rich."
"And had he no relations—no friends?"
"For relations, he had a nephew, who inherits all his property. The young dog will make the money fly, I tell you. As for friends, he had none. The poor dreaded him—the good despised him; for he was a hardhearted, selfish, griping man. In a word, he was a miser," said the sexton.
"A miser," faltered the trembling dreamer; "what was his name?"
"Israel Wurm," replied the sexton.
Graveyard and sexton faded away; in their place arose a splendid grove of trees—a clearing—a village school house. Two boys were sauntering along the roadside, engaged in serious, childish talk. One was fair, with golden locks; the other dark-haired and grave of aspect. Israel started, for in the latter he recognized himself—a boy of fifty years ago.
"Israel," said the golden-haired boy, "it's 'lection day to-morrow; we'll hire Browning's horse and chaise, and go to Boston, and have a grand time on the Common, seeing all the shows."
"You forget, Mark," said the dark-haired boy, sadly, "that I have no money."
"What of that?" replied the other; "I have a pocket full; and what's mine is yours, you know. Come, cheer up, you'll one day he as rich as I am; and then it will be your turn to treat, you know. I can afford to be generous, and so would you be, if you had the means."
Then the shadow passed from the face of the dark-haired boy, and a smile lighted up his countenance, and the two schoolfellows passed on their way together.
Grove and school house passed away, melting into another scene like one of the dissolving views. Israel stood before a huge illuminated screen, in the midst of a gaping company of sight seers. He could see nothing but a confused mass of heads, vaguely lighted by the rays from that vast screen. It was some kind of an exhibition.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said a strange voice issuing from the darkness, "we shall show you the wonders of the oxy-hydrogen microscope; natural objects magnified five thousand times. Look and behold the proboscis of the common house fly."
Israel gazed with the rest, and soon a huge object, resembling the trunk of a monster elephant, appeared on the illuminated disk. It passed away.
"Now, ladies and gentlemen," said the voice, "look well to the illuminated screen. What do you see now?"
"Nothing!" was the universal and indignant answer.
"I thought so," replied the voice. "Yet you have before you a miser's soul magnified five thousand times; a million such would not produce an image on the screen."
The illuminated disk grew dark and disappeared; then a lurid light seemed to fill all space; and soon huge billows of flames rolled upward, and writhed and twisted together like a myriad of gigantic serpents. Shrieks and howls of anguish issued from the fiery mass, but above all was heard the startling clangor of a bell.
"Halloo! who's this?" cried a voice that evidently issued from a set of powerful human lungs. The miser felt himself roughly shaken by the shoulder, and awoke.
"What's the noise?—fire?" he asked; for the bell he had heard in his dream now jarred upon his waking senses.
"Fire! no!" said the man who had awakened him—the butcher of the village. "It's the boys ringing in the new year. By the way, I wish you a happy new year, Mr. Wurm."
"A happy new year, Mr. Wurm," said the schoolmaster for he, too, was present.
"A happy new year," said Farmer Harrowby.
"And a happy new year" chorused a dozen other voices. It was great fun wishing a miser a happy new year.
"Thank you, neighbors; I wish you a thousand," replied Israel, cheerfully.
"How came you asleep there?" asked Farmer Harrowby. "Why, you might have perished in the drift."
"I was overcome by drowsiness," answered Israel. "I was very cold; I'd been to make a call on Widow Redman, and the poor soul was out of wood. By the way, farmer, the first thing after sunrise, I want you to be sure to gear up your ox team, and take a cord of your best hickory and pitch pine to the widow."
"And who'll pay me?" asked the farmer, doubtfully.
"I will, to be sure," answered Israel. "Have not I got money enough? Here—hold your hand;" and he put a handful of silver in the farmer's honest palm. "And you, Mr. Wilkins," he added, addressing the butcher, "take her the best turkey you've got, and half a pig, with my compliments, and a happy new year to her."
"And how about that execution?" asked the constable, who was round with the rest, 'seeing the old year out and the new year in.'
"Confound the execution! Don't let me hear another word about it," said Israel, magnanimously. "And now, neighbors," he added, "I owe you something for your good wishes; come along with me to the Golden Lion, and I'll give you the best supper the tavern affords. Hurrah! New year don't come but once in a twelvemonth."
We will be bound that a merrier party never left a churchyard, even after a funeral, nor a merrier set ever sat down to a festal board, than that which gathered to greet the hospitality of Israel Wurm. In the course of the evening, an old Scotch gardener gave it as his opinion that the "miser was fey." (When a man suddenly changes his character, as when a spendthrift becomes saving, or a niggard generous, the Scotch say that he is fey, and consider the change a forerunner of sudden death.)
"No, my friends," said Israel, overhearing the remark, "I am not fey; and I mean to live a long while, Heaven willing, for I have just learned that the true secret of enjoying life is to do good to others. I had a dream to-night which has, I trust, made me a wiser and better man. The miser lies buried in yonder churchyard; Israel Wurm, a new man, has risen in his place; and as far as my means go, I intend that this shall be a happy new year to every one of my acquaintances."
Israel was as good as his word, and never relapsed into his old habits. The widow and the orphan children were provided for by his bounty; he gave liberally to every object of charity. Hospitals, schools, and colleges were the recipients of his bounty; and when he died, in the fulness of years, the blessings of old and young followed him to his last resting-place in the old churchyard where he had dreamed the mysterious dream, and been awakened to a better life by the pealing of the New Year's Bells.
THE OLD YEAR AND THE NEW.
"O, this is beautiful—beautiful indeed!" cried a young and silvery voice, musical as fairy bells heard at midnight. "How white this snowy drapery hangs upon the roofs of these bright palaces!" and the speaker, a gay boy, danced trippingly along, following in the footsteps of an old, gray-bearded man who was tottering before him.
The old man turned. "You call that snowy drapery beautiful?" said he.
"Yes—it is like the raiment of a bride," said the boy.
"To me it seems a shroud thrown over the grave of buried hopes," answered the old man.
"But what are these joy bells ringing for?" said the boy.
"For a death and for a birth!" replied the old man.
"You speak riddles."
"I speak truth. The same sounds have a different import to different ears. To mine there is a death knell in these tremulous vibrations of the air."
"You are very old, father—and age has cankered you."
"A twelvemonth since, young child of Time," replied the old man, "I was like you."
"A twelvemonth! Your back is bent, your locks are silvery, your voice is tremulous. How is this?"
"Wrinkles and gray hairs are the work of sorrows, not of years. Eyes that are weary of the sight of suffering grow dim apace."
"But hark!" said the youth. "Hear you not that music—the peals of laughter that come from yonder illuminated house? It is a wedding festival."
"Yes," replied the old man, sadly. "A twelvemonth since, I heard the same sounds in the same house. There was music and feasting—it was, as now, a wedding festival. Where is the bride? Go to yonder churchyard. You will find her name inscribed on a simple stone. If you pass out of the city to the north, you will see some huge buildings of brick, towering upon an eminence. If you linger by the garden wall you will hear shrieks and curses, the howls of despair, the ravings of hopeless lunacy. The husband is there—the victim of his own evil passions—a raving maniac."
"Away with these croaking reminiscences!" cried the younger voice. "Let the music peal—let the dance go on. The wine is red within the cup."
"Yes—and the deadly serpent lurks below."
"Then the world is all desolate!" cried the New Year.
"No! there are green spots in the desert!" said the Old Year; "but beware of deeming it all fairyland! But a little while and you will follow me. But the end is not here—after Time, Eternity! There suffering and sin are unknown. There each departed spirit, after making the circuit of its appointed sphere, shall rise to a higher and a higher, while boundless love and wisdom illuminate all, radiating from a centre whose brightness no human senses can conceive."
The old man was gone. The joyous bells had rung his requiem. The young heir was enthroned—and with mingled hope and foreboding commenced the reign of 1853.