A SERMON BY A MARMOT—OR THE EXILE OF CONNECTICUT.
“But come thy ways!—we’ll go along together;
And ere we have thy youthful wages spent,
We’ll light upon some settled, low content.”
As You Like It.
Every subject of observation presents itself under a variety of aspects, regulated, not only by the situation of the observer, but by his moral peculiarities also. The little animal whose name dignifies the caption of this article, though it may be better known to many of my readers by the title of ground-hog, or wood-chuck, is usually regarded as a terror, or a pest, to the farmer. Contributing in no appreciable degree to the comfort or advantage of man, and seemingly created solely for the purpose of digging unsightly holes in the ground, eating corn, and diffusing an odour by no means agreeable; it is commonly hated or despised, according to the profession of those who honor it with notice. But nothing that springs from creative wisdom is a proper subject for contempt, and good may be derived, in many instances, from the most unpromising sources, by those who devote themselves to the study of nature. Among the tribes of animals that seem to have least connection with man and his interests, there are many whose habits may teach us more effective lessons than we often derive from the homilies of more pretending instructors.
The individual wood-chuck, here introduced to the reader, was more fortunate than most of his species, for he had succeeded in winning the affections of a worthy agriculturalist, in whose family he was regularly domiciliated during the months of his activity, (for the Marmot is a hybernating animal,) and he reciprocated the attachment of his human protectors with a gratitude apparently as warm as that of any other quadruped familiar of the kitchen.
The late distinguished philanthropist, Mr. Anthony Benezette, extended his benevolence to every thing possessing life that came within the sphere of his influence, and he regularly fed the rats in his cellar, until he attracted a colony of these predatory vermin, by no means agreeable to the taste or interest of his next-door neighbor. When the latter at last endeavored to eradicate the nuisance by regularly shooting every adventurous member of the murine fraternity that ventured upon his premises, Mr. B., with tears in his eyes, protested against this murderous proceeding. “Don’t shoot the poor innocent creatures!” he said. “If thou wilt only feed them regularly every day, as I do, they’ll never do thee any harm.” Whether a similar policy had been the origin of the kindness shown our little friend, the Marmot, I know not, but he had the felicity to be born in a land where corn is cheap, and society difficult of access, and he probably owed his protection to a masculine edition of the feeling that so frequently promotes the happiness of a poodle or a parrot.
His guardian moved in a humble sphere, and most travellers might have passed the brute and his human associates alike unnoticed: but I propose to employ him as a hook, on which to hang the observations and reflections of a day in the woods, and a night in the log-cabin. It is a slender theme at best, and if discretion be the test of wisdom, I know not but our Marmot displays as high a grade of intellectual endowment as any of the other actors in the tale.
One of these was an eastern merchant, who had purchased some thousands of acres of land—wild, lonely, and far removed from practicable roads or navigable streams.—He had purchased it in utter ignorance of its resources, and was then upon his way to give it an inspection.
The next was the narrator—recently appointed to a chair in a Collegiate Institution, almost embosomed in the wilderness. He had accepted the station in a moment of depression, all uninformed of the condition of the country where it flourished, and had just arrived to blush beneath the honors of the professional gown in halls that rejoiced in a faculty—lucus a non lucendo!—of three persons, and wanted but a library, an apparatus, influence, and a class, to render it an honor to the state that chartered it!
The third was a thriving specimen of the sturdy woodsman and pains-taking farmer of the border—the intermediate step between the adventurous pioneer and the established settler. He had emigrated from the beautiful valley of the Connecticut—a valley where nature has done so much and man so little! to seek a more promising asylum west of the Alleghany Mountains, and he carried all his fortune with him. A young and lovely wife followed his footsteps from town to town—from wilderness to wilderness.—An axe was on his shoulder, two hundred dollars in his pocket, and he possessed much of that shrewdness which ordinarily passes current for talent.
He was moderate in his desires, and only took up three hundred acres to begin with; choosing a location where a rude and cellarless hut of logs graced one angle of the plot of ground,—its site selected because a spring and streamlet there supplied the most important necessary of life—good water.
Four acres of unfenced clearing marked the progress of his less prosperous predecessor in taming the primeval forest. Alas! The want of capital!—Two years of bootless labor on the part of that predecessor, left the ground encumbered still with girdled timber. The long and naked limbs of many a stately tree—all sapless now—stood pale and inflexible in the summer gale—a monument of desolation. Some rough, irregular furrows,—ploughed with borrowed oxen, and ornamented with the vine of an occasional refuse potato creeping through the starting briars and brush-wood,—alone gave evidence of human industry; for the wilderness was rapidly reclaiming its own.
There was a half-burnt brand on the deserted hearth within the hovel; but the blasts that entered freely through the intervals between the logs,—from which, mass by mass, the clay was falling;—had scattered the ashes widely over the room. A rusty tin basin on the floor, and a broken axe-helve lying athwart the doorless lintel, completed the household inventory. The ground had reverted to the noble and wealthy company from whom it was originally purchased—their funds enriched by the payment of the first instalment, and the value of the improvements added to their property.—But where is the former owner? Probably renewing the same improvident game in the wilds of Michigan or Wisconsin.
Such was the home to which our adventurous representative of the land of steady habits had introduced his amiable and delicate wife, four years before the time of our journey.
The station enjoyed many advantages. Civilization was slowly tending thitherward, and every year enhanced the nominal, if not the real value of the land. Moreover, there were many neighbors to break the tedium of life in the wilds. Nine miles to the westward—that being the direction of the older settlements,—there lived a veteran of two wars, whose pension made him rich in a country where a dollar is a rarity, and trade is carried on exclusively by barter. He was the most important man within the circuit of twenty miles; for he owned the only forge. Not even the influence of Squire Tomkins, whose aristocratical residence, five miles deeper in the forest, was furnished with the luxury of weather-boarding, and flanked by a regular barn and stables, could outweigh, in public opinion, the claims of one whose labors contributed so essentially to the every-day comfort of life, if not to its preservation, in the rude contest between the settler and nature. Public opinion did I say?—Why! besides these three high personages and their families, a migratory trapper and bee-hunter on the one hand, and a half-cast Indian basket-maker on the other, there was no public; yet here was found not only public opinion, but party feeling also—politics and sectarianism!—And where did ever society exist without them? But it is time to commence our journey.
One morning, during the autumn of 1828, I strolled into the principal store of the beautiful little village of ——, in Western Pennsylvania, to exchange the latest paper from the American Athens, for another daily sheet from the Commercial Emporium. An old friend, Mr. W——, of Philadelphia, entered at about the same time, with a map of the surrounding counties, to enquire the road to certain tracts of land but recently conveyed to him. A tall man, who had seen some forty summers, but whose keen dark eye, such as you can only find in the wilderness, seemed to have gathered a smouldering fire, beneath the shadow of the forest leaves, which few would wish to wake, stept forward to give the required information. Rude shoes, unstockinged feet, coarse woolen pantaloons, and a hunting shirt, composed his whole attire:—A rifle, with a richly chased silver breeching, swinging athwart his back, raised him above the ordinary hunter in the curious scale of conventional rank that men acknowledge in obedience to their nature, even in the heart of unfrequented woods; but the cart-whip in his right hand, and a basket of eggs hanging upon the left arm seemed irrelevant to his other accoutrements. A finely chiselled nose, verging on the Roman character, and a strong habitual compression of the jaws, marked great decision, firmness, and desperate daring—while his manly tread, in which the foot seemed to cling for a moment to the surface and as instantly rose upon the toe with a slow, but elastic and graceful motion, seemed better fitted to follow the mountain-side, or the torrent’s track, than the dull routine of the furrow. His traits and carriage, thus mingled and contrasted, would have proved a puzzle to the keenest judges of human nature,—the bar-keeper of a hotel, or the agent of a rail-road—but his origin was still distinctly marked, notwithstanding his change of residence and habits, in the somewhat sharpened expression of the face, the narrowness of the external angle of the eye, the covert curl of the lip, and the faintest perceptible elevation of the corresponding corner of the mouth. He was the Connecticut farmer of our story, on whose original stock of character four years of close communion with bears and deer, had engrafted a twig of that which graces the western hunter.
A few adroitly managed questions placed him immediately in possession of the residence, the destination, views and purposes of my friend, the merchant; and, in terms of courtesy, conveyed in phrase more polished than one would anticipate from his attire, he tendered his services as a guide, and the best his house afforded by the way, as host,—extending the invitation most politely to myself.
Having long been anxious to observe what charm in domestic life upon the borders, could so fascinate mankind as to impel such crowds of restless adventurers annually to plunge into the gloomy forest, there to remain socially buried for years, until the growth of settled population again environs them; I immediately ordered horse, and mounting with my Athenian friend, followed, or accompanied the light wagon of the settler, as the road or path permitted.
We had made but ten miles of progress, when the farms by the way-side began to appear few and far between. Around us, gathered, deep and more deeply still, the shadows of tall trees, which interlocked their arms above us, until mysterious twilight was substituted for the bright sunshine that made its existence known at intervals through openings in the foliage. These were met with only where some giant of the wilderness had laid him down in his last repose, when the slowly gnawing tooth of time had sapped his moss-grown trunk. Occasionally, the wagon jolted heavily over fallen trees, where the lightning had riven or the gale uprooted them. It seemed a sacrilege to disturb the dread repose of nature with our idle voices; and for miles we rode in total silence.—How startling, then, and how incongruous to our ears was the lively voice of our guide, exclaiming, as we passed a blaze, “we shall soon be home now!” Home! and here!—I gazed around on every hand. Over the tops of the low shrubbery the eye was carried along interminable aisles of stately trees! Interminable arches rested on their summits! An awful unity of gloom engulphed us!
“High mountains are with me a feeling,”
And no man has rioted more wildly in scenes of solitude and desolation. My shoulder is familiar with the rifle, my feet with cliff and precipice, and my arms with the torrent and breaker.—Nay! more than this! I have stood alone in cities! The limitless current of life has whirled and eddied by, and I have felt no fellowship!—have felt the sternest check of all that linked me with my kind, and buried myself in egoism! “There runs not a drop of the blood of Logan in the veins of any living creature.”
But never yet came over me the thought of home with such a thrilling shudder as when the word was spoken in those close and soul-oppressing woods! There was no resonance from the leafy ground—no echo from those long drawn gothic passages! The sound fell flat upon the ear, and its very cheerfulness of tone, deadened by the dark and inelastic leaves, resembled the convulsive laugh of terror or of pain!
Man is moulded for the contest. There is rapture in the strife, be it with physical or moral evils—a glory in the conquest, that repays the suffering! If vanquished,—he may fly and bide his time! If crushed,—he falls back upon his self-esteem, enfolds his robe around him, and dies, like Cæsar—bravely! Abroad—in calm or storm, in sun-shine or in tempest—man feels himself the ruler, and his pride supports him in the worst of woes; but at home—he is dependent! There woman rules the emotions!—Who ever knew a joy beside a gloomy hearth! Or when the wearing cares of life, or the oppression of habitual solitude has furrowed the fore-head, and fixed the features of the wife, what husband ever smiled again as once he smiled!
But away! Our path is onward!—soon we passed along the margin of a precipitate descent, and the day burst in upon us, presenting a momentary view of a long range of hills, over which the fire had swept in the preceding year. Brown furze and blackened masses of charcoal covered the slope for miles, with here and there a waving line of foliage climbing the ascent, wherever some highland rivulet had checked the progress of the flames, and preserved the grass. I had thought that Nature furnished no more spectral object than a girdled tree in a barren clearing; but the tall gnarled trunks, with charred and stunted limbs, that sentineled that ruined hill-side were more spectral still!
Descending the hill, the forest again closed around us: but presently we entered the track of a tornado—a wind-fall. It had traversed a forest of pines—and, for about two hundred yards in width, had made a passage through the woods, as straight and regular as art could have rendered it. On either hand—far as the eye could reach—arose the unbroken wall of verdure, a hundred feet in height, while in the midst, the vision stretched away over an almost level carpet of scrub-oak and whortleberries, forming a vista of unparalleled beauty; one which would have graced the palace-grounds of an emperor. Not a stump, a root, or tree was visible in all the range of sight. “God made this clearing,” I remarked. The charm of silence was broken by the comment, and the conversation immediately became general.
We had ridden about three miles farther, when the road, if road it could be called, forked suddenly; and, turning to the left, we found ourselves in front of the cottage of our host. It deserved this title richly; for never, in my many journeys beyond the margin of a regular American forest, have I seen more neatness and propriety, than was here displayed in all the accidents of a residence of logs. True! there were none of those vines and graceful shrubs that beautify the grounds around a thrifty cottage in New England; but, even here, a garden was attempted. The building, two stories in height, stood near the summit of an acclivity which formed a sort of irregular lawn, and was actually shaded by two stately trees!—the only instance of such preservation I have witnessed in the wilds of Pennsylvania.
On the right, at a decent distance from the house, were a stable with a loft, and several stacks of hay; and on the left, a natural meadow, of some ten or fifteen acres, had been cleared of brush and sedge, and furnished ample pasturage for four handsome cows. This, with twelve acres of upland, formed the extent of the clearing. Several sugar maples were scattered about the lawn, and a few young fruit trees ornamented the arable land behind the house.
Here, then, was comfort—almost the aristocracy of the woods! We drove rapidly to the door, but the sound of wheels had already drawn the family without the house. The wife, a pale and delicate woman, about twenty-eight or thirty years of age, held in one hand, a bare-foot boy of three; while a little girl, still younger, folded herself in the skirt of her mother’s woollen frock—her snow-white head, and light-blue eye peeping out fearfully from her concealment, as we dismounted. A stout lad, employed by the farmer, took charge of our horses, and we were presented to our hostess.
“We have but poor accommodations to offer the gentlemen, John! but they are welcome to what we have, such as they are. You are the first strangers from the old settlements I have seen since we came to this clearing! Were you ever in Connecticut?” Anxiety and hope were most plainly depicted in the care-worn face of the speaker. I could not bear to reply in the negative, and evaded the question by noticing the children as we entered the house. Here, my companion was surprised at the progress that had been made in four short years by the labor of a settler of such slender means. Six decent chairs and a cherry-wood table ornamented the apartment—a well-made dough-trough, with a wide and smoothly planed top, served the purpose of a side-board—a large cup-board, with curious, home-made wooden locks and hinges, occupied one corner, and a rude settee contained, beneath the seat, a tool-chest and a receptacle for table-linen. The ample fire-place, with its wooden chimney, was festooned with strings of venison, hung up to smoke in pieces, and the roughly plastered wall was ornamented with two rude engravings, in domestic frames—Adam and Eve driven from Paradise, and the victory of Lake Erie. To these was added a printed copy of the Declaration of Independence. A Bible stood open upon the table when we entered, and a prayer-book, Young’s Night Thoughts, The Lady of the Lake, and a few torn old numbers of a monthly magazine, adorned a shelf above the fire. We missed the usual utensils of the cuisine, but these we afterwards discovered in a more fitting place. The universal ticking of the wooden clock was heard; but whence it came, we knew not, until the hour for retiring. It stood upon the stairway.
Hanging his rifle and powder-flask on the wooden hooks, depending, according to custom, from a beam, our host remarked that we were dusty with travel.
“Tin is scarce with us here, gentlemen! and crockery is brittle,” said he; “so if you wish to wash your hands and faces, and will pardon our wild ways, follow me to the cellar, and you shall be accommodated!”
Taking a coarse but clean towel from the chest in the settee, he opened a door beneath the stairs, and descended; leading the way on this singular excursion. A cellar is a luxury in the simple cabin; but here we were provided with an apartment more complete, in its conveniencies, than those of older countries, the floor being well levelled, and the walls faced with stones of ample size. The settler had formed, in one corner, a large cavity about three feet deep. This was lined with mortar, and paved with smooth, round pebbles from the brook. A tunnel, with a wooden trunk and sliding flood-gate, about four inches square, led from the bottom of this basin, through the foundations of the wall, to the bed of a rivulet at some distance on the lawn. The greater part of the waters of a spring, which rose very near the house and fed this runnel, being diverted from their original course, were conveyed through hollow logs, cleaned out and smoothed by burning, through the wall of the cellar, about four feet above the floor, and fell in a beautiful cascade into the basin below. But our host was far too fertile in resources to permit the whole of the current to take this direction. A well made milk-trough, constructed of timbers, some of which betrayed more intimate acquaintance with the axe than the plane, occupied nearly the whole remaining portion of that side of the cellar which corresponded with the earthen basin. It was supplied with water by means of a small canal composed of pieces of bark suspended from the beams above, and capable of being projected into the cascade, so as to receive any desirable portion of the falling fluid. Another tunnel, communicating with the first, carried off the surplus. As we viewed these curious results of Yankee ingenuity and perseverance, several fine speckled trout were seen disporting among pans or crocks of the richest milk and cream, into which, we were informed, they sometimes leaped, to the no small discomforture of the tidy house-wife, when in their hide-and-whoop gambols, their daring over-acted their discretion. Here, then, we found, combined by the most simple means, the luxury of the washing-room, the drain, the bath, and the milk-house. Nor was this all! The waters of a spring, when flowing pleno rivo, never freeze. They carry with them, for a time, the heat which is the expression of the mean temperature of the earth, and share it with surrounding objects. The very stream, that thus contributed to his domestic comforts, and, as we afterwards discovered, rendered, in its excess, services equally important to his cattle in the farm-yard, preserved his stock of necessaries from the effects of frost, and contributed to lessen the exertions required to procure fuel for the long and dreary winter. These arrangements rendered our host still more an object of curiosity and interest—for seldom had we seen such striking evidences of philosophical deduction in house-hold affairs:—and we could not avoid the hope, that the permanent enjoyment and gradual increase of the comforts created by his genius, might be his ultimate reward. But, alas! the prevalent disposition of his tribe, when once removed from home, is—roving! Never contented with the status quo—or satisfied with possession; they leave the enjoyment of ease for the hope of wealth, and are ever ready to sacrifice reality for a dream. Yet, it was not for us to censure our host severely, should he ultimately pursue the course so admirably described in one short technicality of the American woods-man—“Flitting!” Had we not both been flitting ourselves!—the one for honor, and the other for gold! My gown and my friend’s land were of equal value, and both had been purchased at the expense of solid sacrifices; but little does it concern us now, that the progress of population has thrown the former over shoulders well clad in broad-cloth, bought with the surplus of a decent salary, or that the other is studded with profitable farms! In many parts of America, twelve years form an age in human affairs, and, in western Pennsylvania, we are of the last!
Our ablutions completed, we returned to the sitting-room. The tea-table was spread with a tidy cloth, and a smoking pot of Liverpool ware made its appearance, replete with a beverage, by the name of tea; though, by the test of the olfactories, it might have been supposed some compound discovered among the ruins of the last Piquot village, in the days when the venerable Mr. Hooker first raised the standard of his faith among the ancestors of her whose hand distilled it.—Peace be with the spirit of the good old man! Long since our journey, I have gazed, as a stranger on his venerable tomb-stone in the central church-yard of Hartford, and felt at the moment,—it may be with some bitterness—that the descendants of his flock had lost but little in frankness and hospitality, by being transplanted to the Wilds of the west! But revennons ou nos moutons.[[3]]
The table was soon amply furnished with preserves, in nameless variety, formed from the wild fruits of the neighbouring woods, by the aid of maple sugar. The unvarying hard-crusted pie, sweet, well-baked corn-bread, and the constant attendant of the lighter meals in New England, the fried potato, completed the repast. We were seated, and—after a well-spoken grace—a service which the really respectable exile of Connecticut rarely neglects in any of the changing scenes of life—we did it ample justice.
Economy of light is a matter of serious importance in the log-cabin; and after tea, we gathered round the blazing hearth, (for the autumnal nights were beginning to be cool,) adding, occasionally, a pine knot from a group collected in the corner of the fire-place, by way of illuminating an idea or a face, whenever the subject-matter of the discourse became peculiarly interesting.
Quick and puzzling were the questions with which our hostess plied us, on all things relating to the “old settlements,” as she already styled the sea-board;—for the language and habits of the “far west,” are still strangely preserved in these mid-land wildernesses, over which the genius of civilization has bounded, to wave his omnipotent wand over the regions of the setting sun, like the last of the mammoths when he disappeared from the banded hunters of the olden time.
For a while, something like the liveliness of earlier days, stole over the features of the querist, which were fast settling into the habitual gloom, that gives character to the physiognomy of the recluse and the blind. But whatever direction might be given to the discourse, in a few moments it was sure to centre in Connecticut; until, evasion proving impracticable, we were compelled, reluctantly, to confess that our travels had never extended northward or eastward of the Housatonic—the American Tweed.—A deep sigh succeeded this announcement, and our hostess drew back her chair within the shadow of—what shall I call it?—jams, properly so styled, the fire-place had none! Its sides were formed of short, projecting logs, about three feet in length, piled, one above another, interlocking, by deep notches, with those which formed the walls of the building, at one end, and at the other, secured by short cross-sections of a smaller tree, similarly notched, set thwartwise between their projecting extremities, and bolted with strong wooden pips. This structure supported the ample chimney, which was constructed in like manner, and shared with it the usual protection against fire, a thick internal coat of clay, admixed with a very little lime. These chimney sides formed deep recesses on either hand, in one of which, the cup-board was accommodated, while the other was graced by the dining-table.
Near to one of these shaded recesses, our hostess drew her chair, and left the conversation, for a long time, to her husband.
He inquired, with an interest, seemingly as intense as a statesman, into the politics of the East, with the tenor of which he had contrived to keep pace astonishingly, when his isolated position is considered. I was curious to know how he managed to obtain such accurate information as to men and measures at the seat of government, in the midst of so many obstacles and such untiring agricultural efforts as his rapid improvements must have demanded. His reply furnished a melancholy proof of the natural disputatiousness of our species, while it illustrated the pertinacity with which a mind, once awakened to party feelings, will cling to its old friendships and antipathies when all interests in the result have ceased.
“Why,” said he, “for a while it was easy enough; for the Post rides through here once a week, and leaves a New York paper to Squire Tomkins—so the winter I first came to these clearings, I used to walk over to read the paper every other Saturday afternoon, except when the snow was too deep, and came back on Sunday after dinner—so I learned what was going on pretty well. And sometimes one or other of the old blacksmith’s boys—that’s his grand-children!—for his two sons have gone off to Illinois—would come over of odd Saturdays, a horse-back—for the old soldier kept a horse—he’s been many years in these parts, and has cleared and sold three farms, before he fixed where he is—and he’d take up Mary behind him, and ride over to the squire’s—for one of us had to stay and tend the cow and feed the pigs; so we could not both go together—and bring her back again the next day.—And a great treat it was to Mary!—for sometimes she would see something in the paper about Connecticut.—She used to teach school in Connecticut for a while.—Poor Mary! she had a better education than I had—though mine wasn’t a bad one, for a common school, the way the world goes; and I used to be able to say my say with any body; but somehow these woods are so lonely, that I’m out of practice.
“Poor Mary! her heart’s in Connecticut still, though she never tells me so,—but she looks it sometimes—except may-be about Thanks-giving day,—and then she can’t help saying it too! I’m sometimes a’most sorry she ever married such a wild and wandering fellow as me.”
“Why, John!”—in a tone of the tenderest expostulation, sounded from the corner. Almost unconsciously, I threw a pine knot on the fire, and the sudden flame lighted up a countenance, which would have reassured the most desponding husband. All traces of the inanity of solitude were gone; and over the cloud of sorrow, in which early recollections had veiled the features,—even while the tears of memory were starting from the eye,—the moon-beam of unalterable love poured its silvery light, and the pride of the wife spoke plainly in the curve of a lip already raised and trembling with affectionate reproach. The moisture lingered threateningly upon the lids, but did not fall!—It paused a moment, as in doubt, what emotion called it there, and then retreated to its source.
The husband’s face was wreathed in smiles; his voice became firmer; his language lost its parenthetic confusion on the instant, and he resumed his discourse.
“Well! well! It’s all my fault, if fault there be. She never had a fault! and she’s a blessing that would pay for twenty thousand faults of mine! There, Mary! Put the little ones to bed in the loft, and hear them say their prayers.” He dismissed them with a parting kiss, and when his wife retired—continued his narrative.
“The squire and I were friends, all through the winter and spring. He and his two sons, with the blacksmith’s boys, and three men from the furnace ten miles down the stream, assisted me to build my house; and I borrowed a horse from the smith and a wagon in town, to bring my lime for the plastering; so, when my new house was finished, we turned the old one, that I told you of as we came along, into a right good stable. I had laid up a full supply of provisions in the old house, the fall before,—bought me a plough and some tools,—felled a good deal of valuable pine timber, and put the four acres of clearing into winter grain. With the first spring-floods, I floated the pines, by the help of the squire’s oxen, and carried enough down to the saw-mill, (it’s only twelve miles,) to bring me a good round sum; and then I had money enough to pay my first instalment, buy me another cow and a pair of oxen, and pay my way till harvest, without draining all the savings I brought out with me. In the winter, I had also got three acres girdled, and the meadow half cleared; for it wanted but little attention; so, as my potatoes turned out uncommon well, and every thing prospered—I bought me a horse and wagon in the fall, and saved just enough to pay the second instalment;—trusting to Providence and the stores for the little we should want to buy next season.
“But this is not what I was talking of—I had like to have forgot the squire!—We got along very well till June or July—when we were mowing the meadow.—Yes! it was in July.—And the squire was a churchman and a democrat, but I was a federalist and a congregationalist—I did not much mind his jokes about the pilgrim fathers, though he said the Piquots were better men than those that planted the state; and laughed at them for hanging the Quakers in Boston. For the squire was a well read man before he came to the west—and he hated Connecticut, because he came from Lancaster county, and his father was killed in a quarrel with the settlers in Wyoming, long after the troubles were over. But when he said that Jefferson was a better man than General Washington, I could not stand it, and we quarrelled. I said what no Christian should say, and what I wont repeat;—so the squire and I have never spoken since, except when poor Mary was taken down! and then I had to speak; for there was no other woman within ten miles, and no doctor but a quack, within twenty-five. But Mrs. Tomkins is a nurse and a doctor both—God bless her!
“I’m getting to be very comfortable now, for I’ve got every thing around me that a man can desire in the woods, except money; and I’ve little use for that except to pay the last instalment; but I can’t bear to keep that woman so lonely and sad for want of company! The old soldier’s daughter comes over to see us once a month; but that is little for one who used to have a dozen young friends always around her in Connecticut, even if she was poor. To tell the truth, though the woods are full of venison and wild turkies, and quails and squirrels to be had for the shooting, and though Tom can catch a mess of trout in the milk trough at any time,—for he lets his line run into the tunnel and there seems to be no end to them—yet I can’t help thinking that if I had laid out my three hundred dollars of hers and my savings in old Connecticut—if I had worked half as hard there as I have done here, and she had gone on teaching school, we should both have been happier and richer than we are now. So I think I shall soon pull up stakes, sell out, and go to the prairies, where God makes the clearings, as you said, on the road—and it’s real hard work for a man, I can tell you!”
This last remark threw me into a revery of no pleasing nature; and I, in turn, retreated into the shade, as the light of the pine-knot subsided and the wife reëntered. I was dreaming of the future, when, the buoyancy of early manhood being over, stubborn habit would compel our really worthy host after all rational motive for change should have flown!—“Thou art one of a genus,” I mentally ejaculated. “The mark of the wanderer is on thy brow—
“For thus I read thy destiny,
And cannot be mistaken.”
There was much conversation afterwards; and at intervals I gleaned the strong points of his history, and that of her whose fate he now controlled. But I was busy with my dream! Peering into the far off future, I saw him in the last of his flittings!—deserted by those who should be the props of his age, but whose youthful fire would not permit them to remain inactive in the wilderness, after pictures of eastern wealth and luxury, clad in all the glorious hues of memory, had been rendered familiar as nursery tales by their suicidal parents. I saw him in the evening of his days—and where?—seated by his feeble and exhausted, though still affectionate partner, at the door of an ill-provided cabin, far in the north-west—Far beyond the present range of the pioneer! The gloom of night was slowly dropping its curtain around them, though the phosphorescent snow gave dim illumination to the broad and trackless expanse of the prairie—trackless then, even by the exterminated Buffalo. There were none even of the few conveniences of his present wood-land home; for the genius and the skill which had once enabled him to bend the stubborn gifts of nature to his will, were chilled by the frosts of age.
I could even hear the voices of future years stealing on the autumnal night breeze, as it moaned through the rough and ill-joined casement where we sat.
“Why, John, this is Thanks-giving night! Where can our oldest boy be wandering now? He was just thirty yesterday, and we have not heard from him these six years!—Not since you made your last flitting, John! He was always a good boy, and I’m sure he has written to us! John! you may depend upon it, there must be a letter in the office at St. Louis—St. Louis, was it? or was it Chicago? My memory begins to fail me so! He sent us fifty dollars the last time, when we lived in Wisconsin, away down in the States. It must have been in Chicago; for it was there he wrote before!”
“Ah! Mary! Mary! boys forget their mothers and their fathers too, when they are old and feeble! He is getting rich somewhere far over yonder, and little he thinks of us! But there’s little Mary, where can she be? Her husband was just gone to New Orleans with a load of furs when the hunters went down to the bluffs in the fall, and they sent our letter after them—but may-be she never got it!”
“Yes, it’s Thanks-giving night, Mary! and if I had loved the graves of my parents as I ought, we should not be here, where our children that are away will never find our own. Well, well! I’m too old to hunt, and if the trapping turns out no better than it did last year, we’ll have our next Thanks-giving, Mary, where there will be no end to it! and sure you have earned the right to be at rest, by your faithfulness, however it may go with me!”
While this picture was floating through my mind, I had learned from occasional sentences, that our host was the son of parents of respectability; but his father had foolishly left the agricultural life, which he understood and was pursuing prosperously, for cities and merchandize, for which he had no talent. He died a bankrupt, leaving one son at the age of eight years and a daughter of eighteen. The latter had been affianced, during her father’s prosperity, to the son of a man of wealth; but that wealth had been the result of the closest selfishness in early life. As usual, the native vulgarity of feeling and heartlessness of character which had caused his unwonted and undeserved pecuniary success, remained unchanged in the days of his spurious social elevation. He forbade the further visits of his son the moment the disaster of the parent of his intended wife was known. He forbade it suddenly and without a warning. The consequences were such as are almost too frequent to attract attention. A lovely woman pined a few years over the ill-requited needle, and died “in a decline.”
“A young man about town” looked sad for a few months, and then married an heiress to extend the curse of hereditary meanness.
In the little village where our host was reared, by a near relative in the original occupation of his father, he formed his attachment to his present companion: She was then a teacher, starving upon the liberal salary that rewards the principal of a female common school in “the State where education is universal.” To marry at home would have required sacrifices of conventional rank on the part of his intended, to which his pride would not suffer him to reduce her; for how could he ask her to share the fortunes of a laborer in the field? To wait until their united efforts would enable them to secure a farm, was more than his impatience could endure. In evil hour a bright dream of the west had thrown him into the wilderness, and rendered him dependent upon the accidents of sun and rain for protection against the tender mercies of a Land Company—which calculated upon the profits of indiscretion and extended credit willingly, while accepting actual payment with regret. His energies might probably bear him through his trials, could he be contented to avoid expansion until the flood-tide of civilization might have time to reach his retreat, but already he was restless, and his eyes were directed to the fatal west—and it appeared painfully probable that a few short years would find him again dependent on his axe, or a prey to larger speculations in a deeper wilderness.
We soon retired to our comfortable cat-tail beds, by the light of a domestic candle, regretting that our kind entertainers refused us the extempore lodging on the floor to which, in true woodland courtesy, they condemned themselves.
It was long before sleep relieved the unpleasant thoughts awakened by the conversation of the evening. My mind wandered over many a tale of the woods, in which blighted hopes and ruined prospects constituted the prominent features. True, I had seen much of happiness in similar situations,—for Providence has constructed some one of the human family peculiarly fitted to occupy each niche in the great temple of society,—but how frequently the abuse of the inestimable privilege of free will renders it a curse instead of a blessing. I sometimes think that the exceptions constitute the rule, and that a small minority only ever accomplish the destiny for which they were created. Jarring, confusion, and disorder mark every page of nature,—every paragraph of history! Here was a man of spirit, enterprise, energy, and talent, who had fled from the only field where happiness was proffered at a slight expense of pride, to waste his powers upon a wilderness for the benefit, in all probability, of certain merchants and capitalists in Holland. He dragged down with him an amiable being who was fitted by her moral excellencies, and even by her education, humble as it may have been, for a far wider sphere of usefulness; and why? Because he could not bear to ask a fond and loving woman to descend to a station which she would have gloried to share with him!
How little men know of the true character of the self-sacrificing sex, until the frosts of old age begin to crown their venerable fronts, and they find their knowledge useless!
It is said that there is but one step from the sublime to the ridiculous; but, although legend upon legend crowded on my memory, the pathetic had still the ascendancy, and I entertained my companion with stories, not all of which were colored in rain-bow hues, until the moon-light deserted the casement, and the fatigue of nearly forty miles of travel enabled us to sink into repose. As one of these recollections is pertinent to the occasion, and illustrative of life in the woods, it may not be amiss to offer it to the reader. It furnishes an instance of indiscretion which, could the effect have been foreseen, would be esteemed an act of cruelty worthy of the worst days of the inquisition. And yet it was perpetrated by a female—by one who should have known the peculiarities of her sex!
“Our highly intelligent friend, Mc——,” said I, “has resided for some years in the town of ——, and has become familiar with the independent life of a western village. She owns a considerable tract of wild land on the New York border, and, as her husband’s eccentricities (for he is an American Old Mortality) are equal with his fame and classical acquirements, she thought it best to proceed by herself, on horse-back, to visit the property and examine its resources. After journeying for several days by every stages and frequented routes, she took an appropriate path and plunged into the forest.”
After much difficulty and fatigue, she arrived at the cabin of a squatter, which she knew to have been located for many years on or near her line. The visit of the owner was not unsafe, for the man was a bee-hunter, trapper, and timber thief of the most gentle manners, and utterly despised all efforts at clearing beyond the acre. His pigs—his only stock—ran wild in the woods, and he cared nothing for real estate so long as there were trees left for a deer-cover, timber to be stolen, bees to be limed, and a bounty for wolves. He looked upon a new settlement as only another market and prowling ground, incommoding him in nothing, and likely to increase the dainties of his larder by an occasional chicken and eggs. He lived for the present—dreamed neither of the past nor the future—and nothing but habitual laziness prevented him from being perpetually peripatetic. He was absent from home when Mrs. —— arrived, and she was received with back-woods hospitality by his wife;—for even this creature, whose only beverage was “Le vin ordinaire de ce pays ci—un liqueur abominable qu’on appelle Ouiskey!” actually had a wife, and an affectionate one, who had resided on or near the spot since the days of Jefferson! After a comfortable night of repose upon a bundle of dried leaves, in her riding suit, Mrs. —— arose, and made preparations for viewing the property. No lady neglects the toilet, even in the most distressing circumstances. I have several times heard death preferred to the loss of a fine head of hair, in the wards of a hospital, and it is not to be supposed that Mrs. R. was unprovided with a looking-glass. She proceeded to withdraw the several appurtenances of the dressing-room from her well-stored portmanteau, narrowly and wonderingly watched by her kind hostess. But the instant the mirror appeared, the lonely denizen of the wilds exclaimed, with startling energy—
“Oh! dear Mrs. R.! That’s a looking-glass! Do let me look in it! I have not seen my face plainly for thirty years! I go down to the spring sometimes and try to see myself; but the water is so rough that it don’t look at all like me! Do let me look at it! Do now!”
The glass was handed to the delighted woman. She cast but one glance upon it. The mirror fell in fragments on the floor, the unfortunate creature fainted and fell back on the rude bench behind her, and Mrs. R. visited her ample domain, that day, with a head half combed.
The very early breakfast the next morning was a cheerful one. When it was completed, we rode over by the squire’s, with our host for a guide, and after proceeding about three miles into the woods, tied our horses at the termination of all signs of road, and advanced on foot. We soon separated, the merchant and the farmer to estimate the chances of water-power, iron beds, timber, and lime-quarries, and I, with my host’s rifle, a paper of pins, a botanical box, and a pocket insect net, to my favorite pursuits. We agreed to rendezvous at the place of parting when the hour of three arrived; and, being all familiar with the art of navigating the forest, there was no danger of a failure in meeting the engagement. When we returned from our excursions, and I observed the disappointed look of my Athenian friend, I felt myself the richer, notwithstanding he styled himself possessor of five thousand acres, and I bore upon my shield the footless birds of a younger son; for my hat was serried with glittering insects, impaled upon its crown and sides; my box was stored with rarities, and, on a hickory pole across my shoulder, hung a great horned owl, a hawk, twelve headless black squirrels, and a Canada porcupine!
We stopped at the squire’s for a dinner; and, strange to say, succeeded in inducing our host to bear us company, despite his political aversions; so that we have reason to believe that our visit was successful in settling a feud which had seriously curtailed the comforts of both parties for nearly three long years. As we were rambling over the ground, while our meal was in preparation, our attention was called to a tamed marmot or ground hog, that had been a favorite of the family during several years. He had just commenced burrowing a residence for his long months of hybernation—for the coolness of the nights forewarned him that the period of activity was nearly over. By the orchard fence, upon a little mound commanding a broad view of the squire’s improvements, he sat upright on the grass, by the side of the yellow circle of dust which his labors already rendered sufficiently conspicuous. The sun obliquely shed a milder and more contemplative light over a scene softened by the autumnal haze. The foliage wore the serious depth of green which precedes the change of the leaf, and, on the higher ground, small patches of yellow, red and brown began to vary the uniformity of the forest. He sat with his fore-paws gently crossed upon his bosom, like an old man reposing at evening by the door of his cottage, calmly and peacefully reflecting that the labors of life were drawing to a close. The autumn wind soughed by, with a premonitory moan, and our philosophic friend threw up one ear to drink the ominous sound, shook his head, as it died away, with an obvious shudder, as though some chilly dream of winter disturbed his repose, and turning slowly round, commenced digging deliberately at his burrow. In a few minutes he reappeared and seemed again buried in contemplating the beauty of the scenery. Ere long another and a stronger blast swept through the trees, with a more threatening voice—bearing upon its wings a few withered leaves.
One of these fell close to the person of the marmot. The intimation was not to be mistaken. He gently descended to the horizontal attitude, crawled towards the unwelcome courier of decay, applied his nose to it for a moment, then, wheeling rapidly round, plunged suddenly into his hole and sent the dirt flying into the air by the rapid action of his fore-paws. I turned to the Exile of Connecticut, who had also watched this interesting scene, and remarked: “You propose to go to the prairies! It is summer with you yet, but I see that the leaves are beginning to turn: there are a few grey hairs gathering about your brow. Is it not time to choose your last resting place? to dig your last burrow?”
He felt the force of the query, and remained in thought for several minutes.
“If it were not for the next instalment, I think I should stay where I am till the neighborhood could grow up around us, and Mary could go to church and little John to school. But—I don’t know!—I think I shall have to sell out and flit in the spring, if I could find a purchaser! I’m young yet; and that little beast did not throw the dirt so high in the spring.”
Poor fellow! I hear that the ground reverted to the company two years afterwards; but whether he sold out and flitted with a full purse, or started on foot with his Mary and the children, and an axe on his shoulder, I have never heard.
| [3] | It were ungrateful in the writer, not to acknowledge the marked courtesy and kindness received from several friends during a short residence at Hartford, and if tempted to speak a little severely of the manners of the place, there is much more pleasure in the thought, that a town, honored by the residence of Mrs. Sigourney, Mr. Wordsworth, the liberal patron of the fine arts, and the model of fine feeling, and Rev. Mr. Gualladet, the devoted philanthropist, can endure some censure upon its general hospitality. On a more suitable occasion, I should be most happy to extend this list, partly, because it would be no more than just to do so, “And partly that bright names will hallow song!” |
SONNET.
Still he is absent though the buds of Spring
Bursting, have flung their freshness o’er the earth,
And all its brightest flowers have waked to birth
The perfume in their petals slumbering;—
The bright green leaves of Summer’s garnishing
Have blanched away;—the wild bird’s song of mirth
Is hushed into an echo, and his wing
Chill’d by the breath the north wind scatters forth:—
And yet the loved one is not with us, yet
He lingers in some foreign beauty’s bower,
While we the lonely, we in vain regret
The distant rapture of the greeting hour,
Till hope seems, poised upon its wavering wings,
Departing like the fair earth’s loveliest things.
E. J. P.
THE FALSE LADYE.
———
BY THE AUTHOR OF “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” ETC.
———
There were merriment and music in the Chateau des Tournelles—at that time the abode of France’s Royalty!—Music and merriment, even from the break of day! That was a singular age—an age of great transitions. The splendid spirit-stirring soul of chivalry was alive yet among the nations—yet! although fast declining, and destined soon to meet its death blow in the spear thrust that hurled the noble Henry, last victim of its wondrous system, at once from saddle and from throne!—In every art, in every usage, new science had effected even then mighty changes; yet it was the old world still! Gunpowder, and the use of musquetry and ordnance, had introduced new topics; yet still knights spurred their barbed chargers to the shock, still rode in complete steel—and tilts and tournaments still mustered all the knightly and the noble; and banquets at high noon, and balls in the broad day-light, assembled to the board or to the dance, the young, the beautiful, and happy.
There were merriment and music in the court—the hall—the stair-case—the saloons of state! All that France held of beautiful, and bright, and brave, and wise, and noble, were gathered to the presence of their King.—And there were many there, well known and honored in those olden days; well known and honored ever after!—The first, in person as in place, was the great King!—the proud and chivalrous and princely!—becoming his high station at all times and in every place—wearing his state right gracefully and freely—the second Henry!—and at his side young Francis, the King-Dauphin; with her, the cynosure of every heart, the star of that fair company—Scotland’s unrivalled Mary hanging upon his manly arm, and gazing up with those soft, dove-like eyes, fraught with unutterable soul, into her husband’s face—into her husband’s spirit.—Brissac was there, and Joyeuse, and Nevers; and Jarnac, the renowned for skill in fence, and Vielleville; and the Cardinal Lorraine, and all the glorious Guises,—and Montmorenci, soon to be famous as the slayer of his King, and every peer of France, and every peerless lady.
Loud pealed the exulting symphonies; loud sang the chosen minstrelsy—and as the gorgeous sun-beams rushed in a flood of tinted lustre through the rich many-colored panes of the tall windows, glancing on soft voluptuous forms and eyes that might out-dazzle their own radiance, arrayed in all the pomp and pride of that magnificent and stately period—a more resplendent scene could scarcely be imagined. That was a day of rich and graceful costumes, when men and warriors thought it no shame to be adorned in silks and velvets, with chains of goldsmith’s work about their necks, and jewels in their ears, and on their hatbands, buttons, and buckles, and sword-hilts; and if such were the sumptuous attire of the sterner and more solid sex, what must have been the ornature of the court ladies, under the gentle sway of such a being as Diane de Poitiers, the lovely mistress of the monarch, and arbitress of the soft follies of the Court?
The palace halls were decked with every fanciful variety, some in the pomp of blazoned tapestries with banners rustling from the cornices above the jocund dancers, some filled with fresh green branches, wrought into silver arbors, sweet garlands perfuming the air, and the light half excluded or tempered into a mild and emerald radiance by the dense foliage of the rare exotics. Pages and ushers tripped it to and fro, clad in the royal liveries, embroidered with the cognizance of Henry, the fuigist salamander, bearing the choicest wines, the rarest cates, in every interval of the resounding dance.—It would be tedious to dwell longer on the scene; to multiply more instances of the strange mixture, which might be witnessed everywhere, of artificial luxury with semibarbarous rudeness—to specify the graces of the company, the beauty of the demoiselles and dames, the stately bearing of the warrior nobles, as they swept back and forth in the quaint mazes of some antiquated measure, were a task to be undertaken only by some old chronicler, with style as curious and as quaint as the manners he portrays in living colors.—Enough for us to catch a fleeting glimpse of the grand pageantry! to sketch with a dashy pencil the groups which he would designate with absolute and accurate minuteness!
But there was one among that gay assemblage, who must not be passed over with so slight a regard, since she attracted on that festive day, as much of wondering admiration for her unequalled beauties as she excited grief, and sympathy, and fear, in after days, for her sad fortunes,—but there was now no cloud upon her radiant beauty, no dimness prophetic of approaching tears in her large laughing eyes, no touch of melancholy thought upon one glorious feature—Marguerite de Vaudreuil, the heiress of a ducal fortune, the heiress of charms so surpassing, that rank and fortune were forgotten by all who gazed upon her pure high brow, her dazzling glances, her seductive smile, the perfect symmetry of her whole shape and person! Her hair, of the darkest auburn shade, fell in a thousand ringlets, glittering out like threads of virgin gold when a stray sunbeam touched them, fell down her snowy neck over the shapely shoulders and so much of a soft heaving bosom—veined by unnumbered azure channels, wherein the pure blood coursed so joyously—as was displayed by the falling laces which decked her velvet boddice—her eyes, so quick and dazzling was their light, almost defied description, possessing at one time the depth and brilliance of the black, melting into the softer languor of the blue—yet they were of the latter hue, and suited truly to the whole style and character of her voluptuous beauty. Her form, as has been noticed, was symmetry itself; and every movement, every step, was fraught with natural and unstudied grace.—In sooth, she seemed almost too beautiful for mere mortality—and so thought many an one who gazed upon her, half drunk with that divine delirium which steeps the souls of men who dwell too steadfastly upon such wondrous charms, as she bounded through the labyrinth of the dance, lighter and springier than the world-famed gazelle, or rested from the exciting toil in panting abandonment upon some cushioned settle! and many inquired of themselves, could it be possible that an exterior so divine should be the tenement of a harsh worldly spirit—that a demeanor and an air so frank, so cordial, and so warm, should be but the deceptive veil that hid a selfish, cold, bad heart. Aye! many asked themselves that question on that day, but not one answered his own question candidly or truly—no! not one man!—for in her presence he had been more or less than mortal, who could pronounce his sentence unmoved by the attractions of her outward seeming.
For Marguerite de Vaudreuil had been but three short months before affianced as the bride of the young Baron de La-Hirè—the bravest and best of Henry’s youthful nobles. It had been a love treaty—no matter of shrewd bartering of hearts—no cold and worldly convenance—but the outpouring, as it seemed, of two young spirits, each warm and worthy of the other!—and men had envied him, and ladies had held her more fortunate in her high conquest, than in her rank, her riches, or her beauties; and the world had forgotten to calumniate, or to sneer, in admiration of the young glorious pair, that seemed so fitly mated. Three little months had passed—three more, and they had been made one!—but, in the interval, Charles de La-Hirè, obedient to his King’s behest, had buckled on his sword, and led the followers of his house to the Italian wars. With him, scarcely less brave, and, as some thought, yet handsomer than he, forth rode upon his first campaign, Armand de Laguy, his own orphaned cousin, bred like a brother on his father’s hearth; and, as Charles well believed, a brother in affection. Three little months had passed, and in a temporary truce, Armand de Laguy had returned alone, leading the relics of his cousin’s force, and laden with the doleful tidings of that cousin’s fall upon the field of honor. None else had seen him die, none else had pierced so deeply into the hostile ranks; but Armand had rushed madly on to save his noble kinsman, and failing in the desperate attempt, had borne off his reward in many a perilous wound. Another month, and it was whispered far and near, that Marguerite had dried her tears already; and that Armand de Laguy had, by his cousin’s death, succeeded, not to lands and to lordships only, but to the winning of that dead cousin’s bride.—It had been whispered far and near—and now the whisper was proved true. For, on this festive day, young Armand, still pale from the effects of his exhausting wounds, and languid from loss of the blood, appeared in public for the first time, not in the sable weeds of decent and accustomed wo, but in the gayest garb of a successful bridegroom—his pourpoint of rose-colored velvet strewn thickly with seed pearl and broideries of silver, his hose of rich white silk, all slashed and lined with cloth of silver, his injured arm suspended in a rare scarf of the lady’s colors, and, above all, the air of quiet confident success with which he offered, and that lovely girl received, his intimate attentions, showed that for once, at least, the tongue of rumor had told truth.
Therefore men gazed in wonder—and marvelled as they gazed, and half condemned!—yet they who had been loudest in their censure when the first whisper reached their ears of so disloyal love, of so bold-fronted an inconstancy, now found themselves devising many an excuse within their secret hearts for this sad lapse of one so exquisitely fair. Henry himself had frowned, when Armand de Laguy led forth the fair betrothed, radiant in festive garb and decked with joyous smiles—but the stern brow of the offended prince had smoothed itself into a softer aspect, and the rebuff which he had determined—but a second’s space before—to give to the untimely lovers, was frittered down into a jest before it left the lips of the repentant speaker.
The day was well-nigh spent—the evening banquet had been spread, and had been honored, duly—and now the lamps were lit in hall, and corridor, and bower; and merrier waxed the mirth, and faster wheeled the dance. The company were scattered to and fro, some wandering in the royal gardens, which overspread at that day, most of the Isle de Paris; some played with cards or dice; some drank and revelled in the halls; some danced unwearied in the grand saloons; some whispered love in ladies’ ears in dark sequestered bowers—and of these last were Marguerite and Armand—a long alcove of thick green boughs, with orange trees between, flowering in marble vases, and myrtles, and a thousand odorous trees mingling their perfumed shadows, led to a lonely bower—and there alone in the dim star-light—alone indeed! for they might now be deemed as one, sat the two lovers. One fair hand of the frail lady was clasped in the bold suitor’s right—while his left arm, unconscious of its wound, was twined about her slender waist; her head reclined upon his shoulder, with all its rich redundancy of ringlets floating about his neck and bosom, and her eyes, languid and suffused, fondly turned up to meet his passionate glances. “And can it be”—he said, in the thick broken tones that tell of vehement passion—“And can it be that you indeed love Armand?—I fear, I fear, sweet beauty, that I, like Charles, should be forgotten, were I, like Charles, removed—for him thou didst love dearly—while on me never didst thou waste thought or word.”
“Him—never, Armand, never!—by the bright stars above us—by the great gods that hear us—I never—never did love Charles de La-Hirè—never did love man, save thee, my noble Armand.—False girlish vanity and pique led me to toy with him at first; now to my sorrow I confess it—and when thou didst look coldly upon me, and seem’dst to woo dark Adeline de Courcy, a woman’s vengeance stirred up my very soul, and therefore to punish thee, whom only did I love, I well nigh yielded up myself to torture by wedding one whom I esteemed indeed and honored—but never thought of for one moment with affection—wilt thou believe me, Armand?”
“Sweet Angel, Marguerite!” and he clasped her to his hot heaving breast, and her white arms were flung about his neck, and their lips met in a long fiery kiss.
Just in that point of time—in that soft melting moment—a heavy hand was laid quietly on Armand’s shoulder—he started, as the fiend sprang up, revealed before the temper of Ithuriel’s angel weapon—he started like a guilty thing from that forbidden kiss.
A tall form stood beside him, shrouded from head to heel in a dark riding cloak of the Italian fashion; but there was no hat on the stately head, nor any covering to the cold stern impassive features. The high broad forehead as pale as sculptured marble, with the dark chestnut curls falling off parted evenly upon the crown—the full, fixed, steady eye, which he could no more meet than he could gaze unscathed on the meridian sun, the noble features, sharpened by want and suffering and wo—were all! all those of his good cousin.
For a moment’s space the three stood there in silence!—Charles de La-Hirè reaping rich vengeance from the unconquerable consternation of the traitor! Armand de Laguy bent almost to the earth with shame and conscious terror! and Marguerite half dead with fear, and scarcely certain if indeed he who stood before her were the man in his living presence, whom she had vowed to love for ever; or if it were but the visioned form of an indignant friend returned from the dark grave to thunderstrike the false disturbers of his eternal rest.
“I am in time”—he said at length, in accents slow and unfaltering, as his whole air was cold and tranquil—“in time to break off this monstrous union!—Thy perjuries have been in vain, weak man; thy lies are open to the day.—He whom thou didst betray to the Italian’s dungeon—to the Italian’s dagger—as thou didst then believe and hope—stands bodily before thee.”
A long heart-piercing shriek burst from the lips of Marguerite, as the dread import of his speech fell on her sharpened ears—the man whom she had loved—first loved!—for all her previous words were false and fickle—stood at her side in all his power and glory—and she affianced to a liar, a base traitor—a foul murderer in his heart!—a scorn and by-word to her own sex—an object of contempt and hatred to every noble spirit!
But at that instant Armand de Laguy’s pride awoke—for he was proud, and brave, and daring!—and he gave back the lie, and hurled defiance in his accuser’s teeth.
“Death to thy soul!” he cried—“ ’tis thou that lieth!—Charles!—did I not see thee stretched on the bloody plain? did I not sink beside thee, hewed down and trampled under foot, in striving to preserve thee?—and when my vassals found me, wert thou not beside me—with thy face scarred, indeed, and mangled beyond recognition, but with the surcoat and the arms upon the lifeless corpse, and the sword in the cold hand?—’Tis thou that liest, man!—’tis thou that, for some base end, didst conceal thy life; and now wouldst charge thy felonies on me—but ’twill not do—fair cousin.—The King shall judge between us!—Come lady”—and he would have taken her by the hand, but she sprang back as though a viper would have stung her.
“Back traitor!—” she exclaimed, in tones of the deepest loathing.—“I hate thee, spit on thee! defy thee!—Base have I been myself, and frail, and fickle—but, as I live, Charles de La-Hirè—but as I live now, and will die right shortly—I knew not of this villany! I did believe thee dead, as that false murtherer swore—and—God be good to me!—I did betray thee dead; and now have lost thee living! But for thee, Armand de Laguy, dog! traitor! villain! knave!—dare not to look upon me any more; dare not address me with one accent of thy serpent tongue! for Marguerite de Vaudreuil, fallen although she be, and lost for ever, is not so all abandoned as, knowing thee for what thou art, to bear with thee one second longer—no! not though that second could redeem all the past—and wipe out all the sin!—”
“Fine words! Fine words, fair mistress!—but on with me thou shalt!” and he stretched out his arm to seize her, when, with a perfect majesty, Charles de La-Hirè stepped in and grasped him by the wrist, and held him for a moment there, gazing into his eye as though he would have read his soul; then threw him off with force, that made him stagger back ten paces before he could regain his footing!—then! then! with all the fury of the fiend depicted on his working lineaments, Armand unsheathed his rapier and made a full lunge, bounding forwards as he did so, right at his cousin’s heart! but he was foiled again, for with a single, and, as it seemed, slight motion of the sheathed broadsword, which he held under his cloak, Charles de La-Hirè struck up the weapon, and sent it whirling through the air to twenty paces distance.
Just then there came a shout “the King! the King!”—and, with the words, a glare of many torches, and, with his courtiers and his guard about him, the Monarch stood forth in offended majesty.
“Ha!—what means this insolent broil?—What men be these who dare draw swords within the palace precincts?”
“My sword is sheathed, sire,” answered De La-Hirè, kneeling before the King and laying the good weapon at his feet—“nor has been ever drawn, save at your highness’ bidding, against your highness’ foes!—But I beseech you, sire, as you love honesty and honor, and hate deceit and treason, grant me your royal license to prove Armand de Laguy, recreant, base, and traitorous, a liar and a felon, and a murtherer, hand to hand, in the presence of the ladies of your court, according to the law of arms and honor!”
“Something of this we have heard already”—replied the King, “Baron de La-Hirè!—But say out now, of what accuse you Armand de Laguy?—shew but good cause, and thy request is granted; for I have not forgot your good deeds in my cause against our rebel Savoyards and our Italian foemen—of what accuse you Armand de Laguy?”
“That he betrayed me wounded into the hands of the Duke of Parma! that he dealt with Italian bravoes to compass my assassination! that by foul lies and treacherous devices, he has trained from me my affianced bride: and last, not least, deprived her of fair name and honor.—This will I prove upon his body, so help me God and my good sword.”
“Stand forth and answer to his charge De Laguy—speak out! what sayest thou?”
“I say,” answered Armand boldly—“I say that he lies!—that he did feign his own death for some evil ends!—and did deceive me, who would have died to succor him!—That I, believing him dead, have won from him the love of this fair lady, I admit.—But I assert that I did win it fairly, and of good right!—And for the rest, I say he lies doubly, when he asserts that she has lost fair name, or honor—this is my answer, sire; and I beseech you grant his prayer, and let us prove our words, as gentlemen of France and soldiers, forthwith, by singular battle!”
“Amen!” replied the King—“the third day hence at noon, in the tilt yard, before our court, we do adjudge the combat—and this fair lady be the prize of the victor!—”
“No! sire,” interposed Charles de La-Hirè, again kneeling—but before he had the time to add a second word, Marguerite de Vaudreuil, who had stood all the while with her hands clasped and her eyes rivetted upon the ground, sprung forth with a great cry—
“No! no! for God-sake! no! no! sire—great King—good gentleman—brave knight! doom me not to a fate so dreadful.—Charles de La-Hirè is all that man can be, of good, or great, or noble! but I betrayed him, whom I deemed dead; and he can never trust me living!—Moreover, if he would take me to his arms, base as I am and most false hearted, he should not—for God forbid that my dishonor should blight his noble fame.—As for the slave De Laguy—the traitor and low liar, doom me, great monarch, to the convent or the block—but curse me not with such contamination!—For, by the heavens I swear! and by the God that rules them! that I will die by my own hand, before I wed that serpent!”
“Be it so, fair one,” answered the King very coldly—“be it so! we permit thy choice—a convent or the victor’s bridal bed shall be thy doom, at thine own option!—Meanwhile your swords, sirs; until the hour of battle ye are both under our arrest. Jarnac be thou Godfather to Charles de La-Hirè!—Nevers, do thou like office for de Laguy.”
“By God! not I, sire;” answered the proud duke. “I hold this man’s offence so rank, his guilt so palpable, that, on my conscience! I think your royal hangman were his best Godfather!”
“Nevertheless, De Nevers—it shall be, as I say!—this bold protest of thine is all sufficient for thine honor—and it is but a form!—no words, duke! it must be as I have said!—Joyeuse, escort this lady to thy duchess—pray her accept of her as the King’s guest, until this matter be decided. The third day hence at noon, on foot, with sword and dagger—with no arms of defence or vantage—the principals to fight alone, until one die or yield—and so God shield the right!”
SONNETS.
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BY PARK BENJAMIN.
———
EVENING.
In robes of crimson glory sinks the Day;
The Earth in slumber closes her great eye
Like to a dying god’s; from hills, that lie
Like altars kindled by the sunset ray,
The smoke in graceful volumes soars away;
From every wood a chorus soundeth nigh;
Those veils of day, the shadows, floating high
Around the tree-tops, fall upon the gay
And gem-like flowers that bloom beneath; the West
Its burnished gold throws back in softened lines
Upon the East, and, as it sweetly shines
On lapsing river and reposing dell,
Tinges with rosy light the hovering breast
Of the small, tremulous lark—boon Nature’s evening bell.
HEREAFTER.
Oh, man is higher than his dwelling-place;
Upward he looks, and his soul’s wings unfold,
And, when like minutes sixty years have rolled,
He rises, kindling, into boundless space.
Then backward to the Earth, his native place,
The ashes of his feathers lightly fall,
And his free soul, unveiled, disrobed of all
That cumbered it, begins its heavenly race,
Pure as a tone and brilliant as a star.
Even through the shadows on life’s desert lawn
Hills of the future world he sees afar
In morning rays that beam not here below.
Thus doth the dweller in the realm of snow
Through his long night perceive the distant dawn.
HARRY CAVENDISH.
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BY THE AUTHOR OF “CRUISING IN THE LAST WAR,” “THE REEFER OF ’76,” ETC. ETC.
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“And I have loved thee, ocean! and my joy
Of youthful sports was on thy breast to be
Borne, like thy bubbles, onward: from a boy
I wantoned with thy breakers.”
Childe Harold.