THE LAST SHOT.
The ten minutes that elapsed before I reached the door of the Hall seemed to be protracted to an age, and were spent in an agony of mind no pen can describe. Oh! to be thus deceived—to part from Annette as we had parted—to think of her by day and dream of her by night—to look forward to our meeting with a thrill of hope, and strive to win renown that I might shed a lustre around my bride—and then, after all my toils, and hopes, and struggles, to come back and find her wedded—God of heaven! it was too much. But, notwithstanding my agony, my pride revolted at the display of any outward emotion. I would not for worlds that Annette should know the torture her faithlessness had inflicted on my bosom. No! I would smooth my brow, subdue my tongue, and control my every look. I would jest, smile, and be the gayest of the gay. I would wish Annette and her husband a long and happy life, and no one should suspect that, under my assumed composure, I wore a heart rankling with a wound that no time nor circumstance could cure. I resolved to see Annette, to play my part to the end, and then, returning to my post, to find an honorable death on the first deck we should surmount. My reflections, however, were cut short by the stoppage of the vehicle before the door of the mansion. A servant hastened to undo the coach steps, and, nerving myself for the interview that was at hand, I stepped out. The man’s face was strange to me, and I saw that it displayed some embarrassment.
“Will you announce me to Mr. St. Clair,” I said, “as Lieutenant Cavendish?”
“Mr. St. Clair, I regret to say,” replied the man politely, “is not at the Hall. The carriages have just driven off, and if they had not taken the back road through the park, would have met you in the avenue. Mr. St. Clair accompanies the bride and groom on a two weeks’ tour.”
My course was at once taken; and, as the criminal feels a lightening of the heart when reprieved, so I experienced a relief in escaping the trying experiment of mingling with the bridal party. Hastily re-ascending the carriage steps, I left my name with the servant, and ordering the coachman to drive off, left Pomfret Hall, with the resolution never again to return. At the village I paused a few minutes to indite a letter to Mr. St. Clair, in which I regretted my inopportune arrival, and wished a long life of happiness to him and to Annette. Then, re-entering the coach, I threw myself back on the seat, and, while I was being whirled away from Pomfret Hall, gave myself up to the most bitter reflections. As I now and then looked out of the window and recognized familiar objects along the road, I contrasted my present despondency with the hope that had thrilled my heart when I passed them a few hours before. Then, every pulse beat faster with delicious anticipations: now, I scarcely wished for more than an honorable death. At length my thoughts took a turn, and I reviewed the past, calling to mind every little word and act of Annette, from which I could draw either hope or despair.
“Fool that I was,” I exclaimed, “to think that the wealthy heiress could stoop to love a penniless officer. And yet,” I continued, “my fathers were as noble as hers, aye! and enjoyed wealth and honors to which the St. Clairs never aspired.” But again a revulsion came across my feelings, and I said, “Oh! Annette, Annette, could you but know my misery, you might have paused. But God grant you may find a heart as true to you as mine.” Thus harassed by contending emotions, now giving way to my love, and now yielding to indignation and pride, I spent the day, and when at night, preparatory to retiring, I happened to cast a look into the mirror, I started back at my haggard appearance. But there are moments of agony which do the work of years.
My messmates, one and all, were astonished at my speedy return, but luckily it had been determined to put to sea at once, so that if I had remained at Pomfret Hall until the expiration of my leave of absence I should have lost the cruise. One or two of my companions, who prided themselves on their superior intelligence, gave me the credit of having, by some unknown means, heard of the change in our day of sailing, and so hastened my return to my post. They little dreamed of the true cause, for to them, as to all others, I wore the same mask of assumed gaiety.
We sailed in company with The Arrow, but, ere we had been out a week, were separated from our consort. Our orders were, in such an emergency, to make the best of our way southward, and rendezvous at St. Domingo.
I had turned in one night, after having kept watch on deck until midnight, when, in the midst of a refreshing sleep, I was suddenly awoke by a hand laid on my shoulder, at the same time that a voice said—
“Hist! Cavendish; don’t talk in your sleep.”
I started to my feet, but, for a moment, my faculties were in such a whirl that the dream in which I had been reveling, mingling with the scene before my waking senses, confused and bewildered me so that I knew not what I uttered.
“St. Clair! Pomfret Hall! why your wits are wool gathering, my dear fellow,” said the doctor—for I now recognised my old friend—“of what have you been dreaming? You look as if you thought me a spectre sent to call you from Paradise.”
I had indeed been dreaming. I fancied I was far away, wandering amid the leafy shades of Pomfret Hall with Annette leaning on my arm, and ever and anon gazing up into my face with looks of unutterable love. I heard the rustle of the leaves, the jocund song of the birds, and the soothing sound of the woodland waterfall, but sweeter, aye! a thousand times sweeter than all these, came to my ears the low whisper of my affianced bride. Was I not happy? And we sat down on a verdant bank, and, with her hand clasped in mine, and her fair head resting on my bosom, we talked of the happiness which was in store for us, and projected a thousand plans for the future. From visions like this I awoke to the consciousness that Annette was lost to me forever, and that even now the smiles and caresses of which I had dreamed were being bestowed upon another. A pang of keenest agony, a sharp, sudden pang, as if an icebolt had shot through my heart, almost deprived me for a moment of utterance, and I was fain to lean against a timber for support. But this weakness was only momentary, for, rallying every energy, I conquered my feelings, though not so soon but that the doctor saw my emotion.
“Are you sick, my dear fellow?” he said anxiously. “No! well, you do look better now. But I came to inform you that as rake-helly a looking craft as ever you saw is dogging us to windward, and the Lord only knows whether we wont all be prisoners, and mayhap dead men, before night.”
I hurried on my clothes, and, following him to the deck, saw, at the first glance, that the good doctor’s fears respecting the strange sail were not without foundation. She was a sharp, low brig, with masts raking far aft, and a spread of canvass towering from her decks sufficient to have driven a sloop of war. The haze of the morning had concealed her from sight until within the last five minutes; but now the broad disc of the sun, rising majestically behind her, brought out her masts, tracery and hull in bold and distinct relief. When first discovered, she was within long cannon shot, but standing off to windward. She altered her course immediately, however, on perceiving us, and was already closing. She carried no ensign, but there was that in her crowded decks and jaunty air which did not permit me to doubt a moment as to her character.
“A rover, by ——,” said the skipper, who had been scrutinizing the strange sail through a glass; “and she is treble our force,” he continued, in a whisper to me. “We have no choice, either, but to fight.”
I shook my head, for it was evident that escape was impossible.
“She sails like a witch, too,” I replied, in the same low tone, “and would overhaul us, no matter what her position might be.”
“I wish we were a dozen leagues away,” said the captain, shrugging his shoulders, “there is little honor and no profit in fighting these cut-throats, and if we are whipt, as we shall be, they will slit our windpipes as if we were so many sheep in a slaughter-house. Bah!”
“Not so,” I exclaimed enthusiastically, “we will die sword in hand. Since these murderers have crossed our path we must, if every thing else fail, suffer them to board us, and then blow the schooner out of water. I myself will fire the train.”
“Now, by the God above us, you speak as a brave man should, and shame my momentary disgust, for fear I will not call it. No, Jack Merrivale never wanted courage, however prudence might have been lacking. But little did I think that you, Cavendish, would ever show less prudence than myself, as you have to-day. You seem a changed man.”
“I am one,” I exclaimed; “but that is neither here nor there. When once yon freebooter gets alongside, Harry Cavendish will not be behindhand in doing his duty.”
My superior, at any other time, could not have failed to notice the excitement under which I spoke, but now his mind was too fully occupied to give my demeanor a second thought, and our conversation was cut short by a ball from the pirate, which, whistling over our heads, plumped into the sea some fathoms distant. At the same instant a mass of dark bunting shot up to the gaff of the brig, and, slowly unrolling, blew out steadily in the breeze, disclosing a black flag, unrelieved by a single emblem. But we well knew the meaning of that ominous ensign.
“He taunts us with his accursed flag,” said the skipper energetically; “by the Lord that liveth, he shall feel that freemen know how to defend their lives and honor. Call aft the men, and then to quarters. We will blow yon scoundrels out of water, or die on the last plank.”
Never did I listen to more vehement, more soul-stirring eloquence than that which rolled, like a tide of fire, from the captain’s lips when the men had gathered aft. Every eye flashed with indignation, every bosom heaved with high and noble daring, as he pointed impetuously to the foe and asked if there was one who heard him that wished to shrink from the contest. To his impassioned appeal they answered with a loud huzza, brandishing their cutlasses above their heads and swearing to stand by him to the last.
“I know it, my brave boys—I remember how you fought the privateer’s men,” for most of his old crew had re-entered, “but yonder cut-throats are still more deceitful and blood-thirsty. We have nothing to hope for from them but a short shrift and the yard-arm. We fight, not for our country and property alone, but for our lives also. The little Falcon has struck down too many prizes already, to show the coward’s feather now. Let us make these decks slippery with our best blood rather than surrender. Stand by me, if they board us, and—my word on it—the survivors will long talk of this glorious day. And now, my brave lads, splice the main-brace, and then to quarters.”
Another cheer followed the close of this harangue, when the men gathered at their quarters, each one as he passed to his station receiving a glass of grog. As I ran my eye along the decks, and saw the stalwart frames and flashing eyes of the crew, I felt assured that the day was destined to be desperately contested; and when I thought of the vast odds against which we had to contend, and the glorious deeds which this superiority would make room for, I experienced an exultation which I cannot describe. The time for which, in the bitterness of my heart, I had prayed, was come; and I resolved to dare things this day which, if they ever reached the ears of Annette, should prove to her that I died the death of a gallant soldier. The thought that, perhaps, she might regret me when I was gone, was sweeter to me than the song of many waters.
Little time, however, was left for such emotions, for scarcely had the men taken their stations when the pirate, who had hitherto been manœuvering for a favorable position and only occasionally firing a shot, opened his batteries on us, discharging his guns in such quick succession that his sides seemed one continuous blaze, and his tall masts were to be seen reeling backwards from the shock of his broadside. Instantaneously the iron tempest came hurtling across us, and for a space I was bewildered by the rending of timbers, the falling of spars, and the agonizing shrieks of the wounded. The main-top-mast came rattling to the deck with all its hamper at the very moment that a messmate fell dead beside me. For a few minutes all was consternation and confusion. So rapid had been the discharges, and so well aimed had been each shot, that, in the twinkling of an eye, we saw ourselves almost a wreck on the water, and comparatively at the mercy of our foe.
“Clear away this hamper,” shouted the skipper, “stand to your guns forward there, and give it to the pirate.”
With the word the two light pieces and the gun amidships opened on the now rapidly closing foe; but the metal of all except the swivel was so light that it did no perceptible damage on the thick-ribbed hull of our antagonist. The ball from the long eighteen, however, swept the decks of the foe, and appeared to have carried no little havoc in its course. But the broadside did not check the approach of the rover. His object was manifestly to run us afoul and board us. Steadily, therefore, he maintained his course, swerving scarcely a hair’s breadth at our discharge, but keeping right on as if scorning our futile efforts to check his progress. We did not, however, intermit our exertions. Although crippled we were not disheartened—despairing, we entertained no thought of submission, but rallying around our guns, we fought them like lions at bay, firing with such rapidity that our decks, and the ocean around, soon came to be almost obscured in the thick fleecy veil of smoke that settled slowly on the water. Every few minutes a ball from the pirate whizzed by in our immediate vicinity, or crashed among our spars; but the increasing clouds of vapor, clinging about the pathway of our foe as well as of ourselves, made his fire naturally less deadly than at first. For a short space we even lost sight of our antagonist, and the gunners paused, uncertain where to fire; but suddenly the lofty spars of the pirate were seen riding above the white fog, scarcely a pistol shot from us, and in another minute, with a deafening crash, the rover ran us aboard, his bowsprit jamming in our fore-rigging as he approached us head on. Almost before we could recover from our surprise we heard a stern voice crying out in the Spanish tongue for boarders, and immediately a dark mass of ruffians gathered, like a cluster of bees, on the bowsprit of the foe, with cutlasses brandished aloft, preparatory to a descent on our decks.
“Rally to repel boarders!” thundered the skipper, springing forward, “ho! beat back the bloodhounds from your decks,” and with the word, he made a blow at a desperado who, at that moment, sprang into the fore-rigging; when my superior drew back his sword it was red with the heart’s blood of the assailant, who, falling heavily backwards with a dull plash, squatted a second on the water, like a wounded water-fowl, and then sank forever. For a single breath his companions stood appalled, and then, with a savage yell, leaping on our decks, fiercely attacked our little band. In vain our gallant tars disputed every inch of ground—in vain one after another of the assailants dyed the deck with his blood—in vain by word and deed the skipper incited the crew to almost gigantic exertions; nothing could resist the overpowering tide of assailants which poured on in an unremitting stream from the brig, bearing down every thing before it as an avalanche from the hills. Step by step our brave lads were steadily forced backwards, until at length the whole forecastle was in possession of the foe, and a solid mass of freebooters was advancing on the starboard side of the open main-hatch, in eager pursuit of the retreating crew. I had foreseen this result to the conflict, and instead, therefore, of aiding to repel the boarders, had been engaged in loading one of the lighter guns with grape, and dragging it around, so as to command this very path;—a duty which I had been enabled to perform unnoticed by either party in the fierce excitement of the mêlée. I had hardly masked my little battery, and not three minutes had elapsed from the first onset of the boarders, when my messmates came driving towards me, as I have described, beaten in by the solid masses of the enemy. Already the fugitives had passed the hatchway, and the foremost desperados of the assailing column were even now within three feet of the muzzle of my gun, when I signed to my confederate to jerk off the tarpaulin which had masked our piece. The pirates started back in horror when they saw their peril, but I gave them no time to escape. Quick as lightning I applied the match, and the whole fiery cataract was belched upon them. Language cannot depict the fearful havoc of that discharge. The hurricane of fire and shot mowed its way lengthwise, through the narrow and crowded column, scattering the dying and the dead beneath its track, as a whirlwind uproots the forest trees; while groans, and imprecations, and shrieks of anguish rent the air, drowning the sounds of the explosion, and the crashing of the grape, amongst its victims.
“Now charge!” I shouted, as if seized with a sudden frenzy, springing into the very midst of the foe, “charge them, my gallant braves, and sweep the murderers from the deck. No quarter to the knaves! Hew them to the brisket,” and following every word with a blow, and seconded by our men who seemed to catch my fury, we made such havoc among those of the pirates whom the grape had spared, that, astonished, paralized, disconcerted, and finally struck with mortal fear, they fled wildly from the schooner, some regaining their craft by the bowsprit, some plunging overboard and swimming to her, and some leaping headlong into the deep never to rise again. Seizing an axe, and springing forward, I hastily cut our hamper loose from the foe, and with the next swell the two vessels slowly parted.
“Now to your guns, my men,” shouted the skipper, unconscious of a dangerous wound, in the excitement of the moment, “give it to them before they can rally to their quarters. Fire!”
We poured in our broadsides like hail, riddling even the solid sides of our foe, and making his decks slippery with blood, and all this before the discomfited freebooters could rally to their guns and return our shots. Our men, fired with an enthusiasm which approached to madness, loaded with a speed that seems to me now incredible, and the third broadside was shaking every timber of our little craft, before a solitary gun was discharged in reply from the pirate.
“Ah! he has woke up at last,” said my old friend, the captain of our long Tom, “and she may yet regain the day if we don’t fight like devils. Bring me that shot from the galley.”
“In God’s name, what do you mean?” said I, as he coolly sat down by his piece. “In with the ball and let the rover have it—not a moment is to be lost.”
“Aye! I knows that, leftenant; and here comes the settler for which I waited,” he exclaimed, as the cook brought a red-hot shot from the galley, “I thought I’d venture on a little experiment of my own, and I’ve seen ’em do wonders with these fiery comets afore now. There—there she has it,” he exclaimed, as the shot was sent home, “now God have mercy on them varmint’s souls.”
From some strange, unaccountable presentiment, I stepped mechanically backward and cast an eye at the brig, which had now floated to some distance. As I did so, a trail of fire glanced before my sight, and I saw the simmering shot enter her side. Thought was not quicker than the explosion which followed, shaking the sea beneath and the sky above, and almost deafening the ear with its unearthly concussion, while instantaneously a gush of flame shot far up into the sky; the masts of the vessel were lifted perpendicularly upwards, and the whole air was filled with shattered timbers and mangled human bodies that fell the next minute pattering around us into the deep. Oh God! the fearful sight! The shrieks of the wounded and drowning—the awful struggles of the poor wretches in the water—the sullen cloud that settled over the scene of death, will they ever pass away from my memory? But I drop a veil over a sight too horrible to recount. Suffice it to say, of all the rover’s crew, not one survived to see that sun go down. A few we picked up with our boats, but they died ere night. The cause of the explosion is soon told. The brig’s magazine had been struck and fired by our LAST SHOT.
THE SONG OF MADOC.
———
BY G. FORRESTER BARSTOW.
———
Away! away! the bright blue waves are dashing
With sparkling crests like spotless mountain snow,
As in the fight our mighty falchion’s flashing
Above the foe.
Away! away! old ocean spreads before us
Its broad domain, where sunk the sun’s last ray,
While in the deep blue sky that arches o’er us
Stars shine to light our way.
Away! away! from home’s entrancing pleasures
The festal board, the bower of lady fair,
The roof that holds our hearts’ most valued treasures,
The loved ones there,
We go: and while the burning tear is starting
From eyes that gaze upon a shoreless main,
Fill! fill to those from whom we now are parting,
And ne’er may see again.
Fill to the loved ones whose bright eyes are beaming
As yonder stars in their pure heaven of blue,
Bright as the stars those brilliant eyes are gleaming
With heaven’s own hue.
Fill to the loved ones whose bright cheeks are glowing
As eastern heaven in morning’s virgin ray,
Whose necks, down which their auburn locks are flowing,
Would shame the dashing spray.
Away! away! above the waves careering,
Our ship speeds lightly on an unknown way,
Far to the west our course we now are steering
With spirits gay.
Far to the west, where brilliant gems are shining,
And mighty rivers roll o’er golden sands,
Where sweetest flowers and richest grapes are twining,
Wooing the stranger’s hands.
AN APPEAL
TO AMERICAN AUTHORS AND THE AMERICAN PRESS
IN BEHALF OF AN INTERNATIONAL COPYRIGHT.
Gentlemen:—You have the credit, at this moment, of ruling the world—at least your part of it; and cannot yet enact a single statute by which your share of worldly right and profit shall be secured to you. Walking, in the world’s eye, as strong and beautiful as angels, you cannot perform the day’s work, counted either in money or in bill-making influence, of a rude Missourian or a lean Atlantic citizen.
Aiding, as you do, by your inventive genius in all the great enterprises of the day—pushing forward every great and good undertaking to an issue of success—you lack the will or the skill to create a simple mill-contrivance by which your grain may be ground and bread furnished to your board.
You project, but do not realize. You sow, but do not reap. You sail to and fro—merchantmen and carriers to all the world of thought—the whole ocean over, but find no harbor and acquire no return. How much longer you will consent to keep the wheels of opinion in motion: to do the better part of the thinking and writing of these twenty-six States, without hire or fee, it rests with you to say. I merely put the case to you to see how it strikes you.
I address you in the mass, writers of books and framers of paragraphs together, because, at bottom, all who wield the pen have interests in common; and because I am anxious (I confess it) to have the whole force of the Press, whatever shape it takes, combined and consolidated against an injustice which could not live an hour if the Press knew its rights and its strength. The rights and the respectability of the one are, in the end, the rights and the respectability of the other; based in both cases on the worth and dignity of literary property.
No community is secure, it seems to me, where any law or fundamental right is systematically violated.
Either by instant vindication, through blood, and pillage, and massacre; or by the more silent and deadlier agency of the opposite wrong and a whole brood of fierce allies sprung from its loins, is this truth, at all times, asserted and made good. From the original wrong, lying in many cases close to the heart of society, there spreads a secret and invisible atmosphere of pestilence, in which all kindred rights moulder and decay, until their life at last goes out at a moment when no man had guessed at such a result. Neither statesmen nor people are, therefore, wise in tampering with a single principle: or in yielding a jot of the immutable truth to plausible emergency or the fair-seeming visage of an immediate good.
The law of property, in all its relations and aspects, is one of these primary anchors and fastenings of the social frame. And what evils, I am asked, have grown from the alleged neglect of literary property? I will mention one by way of illustration.
You are all of you aware, by this time, that the extensive printing and publishing establishment of Harper & Brothers, Cliff street, New York, was burned in the early part of June; and that a heavy loss accrued to them from the burning.
The fire was attributed, immediately after it occured, by the public prints to the hand of design. “It is supposed that one object of the incendiaries was to obtain copies of a new novel, by James, of which the Messrs. Harper had the exclusive possession.” Another paper enlarges this statement—“we see suspicions expressed that the object was to get possession of a new novel, ‘Morley Ernstein,’ which was in sheets, for cheap publication.” Here is a natural, logical sequence, and just such a one as might have been expected. If the conjecture should not prove a fact, it ought to be one, because this is just the period and the very order in which we might expect an incident of this kind to occur; perhaps not on quite so large a scale, nor with the necessary melo-dramatic admixture of fire. It might have been a plain burglary, prying a ware-house door open with a bar, for a copy; or, knocking a man over, at the edge of evening, and plucking the sheets from under his arm.
Piracy and burning are, perhaps, so nearly akin that, after all, they have wrought out the sequence more naturally than if it had been left to the friends of copyright to suggest to them in what order they should occur. In Elia’s legend, a building is burned that a famishing Chinaman may have roast pig; in the reality of the present fire a publisher’s warehouse was put in flames, not only to prevent a famishing author from having roast pig in presenti, but also, by a decisive blow, to further the good principle, that there should be no roast pig (nor even salt and a radish) for famishing authors in all future time. Let it not be said I press this point, a mere surmise, too far. Surmise as it is, it receives countenance and consistency from a previous fact, namely, that one of the large republishing newspapers was charged, not long since, by the other—and this was made a matter for the Sessions—with the felony of abstracting the sheets of an English work from the office of its rival. This—an invasion of property—is only one of the external evils growing out of a false and lawless state of things. Of others which strike deeper; which create confusion and error of opinion; which tend to unsettle the lines that divide nation from nation; to obliterate the traits and features which give us a characteristic individuality as a nation—there will be another and more becoming opportunity to speak.
As it is, by fair means or foul, the weekly newspaper press, with its broad sheet spread to the breeze, is making great head against the slow-sailing progress of such as trust to the more regular trade-winds for their speed. And this, fortunately (as error cannot long abide in itself,) is creating changes of opinion of infinite advantage to the great cause of international copyright.
A little while ago, we had the publishers petitioning and declaiming against an international copyright, (I forget what arguments they employed;) and, lo! their breath is scarcely spent when the ground slides from under them, and the whole publishing business—at least a considerable section of it—which they meant to uphold by false and hollow props, has tumbled into chaos, and an organic change has passed through the world of publication. Now they begin—and we are glad to have so powerful and so respectable a body convert to our side, on whatever terms—to see the matter in a new light; the affection for the people, and the cheap enlightenment of the people, and the people’s wives and children, which they made bold (out of an exceeding philanthropy) to proclaim in market-places and the lobbies of Congress, is wonderfully dwindled.
It isn’t a pleasant thing, after all, to have one’s printing-house and bindery burned to the ground, even for so laudable an object. Suppose we have the law: a little civilized recognition of the rights of authors (merely by way of clincher, however, to the absolute, primary and indefeasible rights of publishers) might be an agreeable change from this barbarous system of non-protection. The old plan, it must be admitted, has its disadvantages. Let’s have the law! And here you may suppose the hats of certain old, respected and enterprising publishers to rise into the air, in a sort of fervor or ecstasy, which it is entirely out of their power to control.
Is there or is there not a property in a book: a primitive, real, fundamental right in its ownership as in any estate or property? Often and clearly as this question has been determined, the opponents of a law, by stress of argument, are driven upon denying it over and over again, and making use of every sort of ridiculous and irrelevant illustration to crowd the right out of the way. They fly into all corners of creation in pursuit of an analogy, and come back without as much as a sparrow in their bag.
One of them, for example, says, “We buy a new foreign book; it is ours; we multiply copies and diffuse its advantages. We also buy a bushel of foreign wheat, before unknown to us; we cultivate, increase it, and spread its use over the country. Where is the difference? If one is stealing, the other is so. Nonsense! neither is stealing. They are both praiseworthy acts, beneficial to mankind, injurious to nobody, right and just in themselves, and commendable in the sight of God.” This reasoner, of a pious inclination and most excellent moral tendencies, has made but a single error—he thinks the type, stitching and paper are THE BOOK! He forgets that when you buy a book you do not buy the whole body of its thoughts in their entire breadth and construction, to be yours in fee simple for all uses, (if you did, the vender would be guilty of a fraud in selling more than a single copy of any one work;) but simply the usufruct of the book as a reader. Any processes of your own mind exerted upon that work, or parts of it, make the result, so far, your legitimate property, and is one of the incidents of your purchase. To reprint the work in any shape, as a complete, symmetrical composition, is a violation of the original contract between the vender and yourself; whether it be in folio or duodecimo, in the form of newspaper or pamphlet—there lies THE BOOK, unchanged by any action of your own mind. The wheat, of which you have purchased the bushel, in the mean time has been sown in your field, (there’s a difference to begin;) which has been prepared by your plough and plough-horse for its reception; the kindly dews and rains of heaven—which would answer to the genial inspirations and movements of the mind, in the other case—descend upon it; it is guarded by walls and hedges from inroad; the weeds and tares which would fain choke it are plucked out by a careful hand; at last it is reaped and gathered in by the harvestman to his garners. The one bushel has become a thousand; but it has passed through a thousand appropriating and fructifying processes to swell it to that extent. It has not been merely poured out of one bushel measure into another bushel measure. Though the one plough the earth, and the other plough the sea, the world will recognize a distinction, a delicate line of demarcation between farmer (man’s first occupation) and pirate (his last.) The republishers—the proprietors of the mammoth press—groan under the aspersion of piracy and pillage laid at their door: they complain of the harshness of epithet which denounces them as Kyds and MacGregors. They must bear in mind that authors and republishers are likely to regard this question from very different points of view: that the poor writer, regarding himself as plundered, defrauded of a positive right, and of a property as real and substantial as guineas, or dollars, or doubloons, may feel a soreness of which the other party, living as he does on the denial of that right, and the seizure of that property, without charge or cost, may not be quite as susceptible. Let us make an effort to bring this point home to these gentlemen in an obvious and intelligible illustration.
How would the worthy proprietors of “The Brother Jonathan” like it, if, when their editions of Barnaby Rudge or Zanoni had been carefully worked off, at some expense of composition, paper and press-work, and lay ready folded in their office for delivery: How would they be pleased if, just at that moment, when the newsboys were gathered at the office door, pitching their throats for the new cry, a gang of stout-handed fellows should descend upon their premises, and without as much as “by your leave,” or, “gentlemen an you will!” sweep the entire edition off, bear it into the next street, and there proceed to issue and vend it with the utmost imaginable steadiness of aspect, with an equanimity of demeanor quite edifying and perfect? Why, gentlemen, to speak the truth plainly, you would have a hue-and-cry around the corner in an instant! Your ejaculations of thief, robber and burglar would know no pause till you were compelled to give over for very lack of breath; and the whole community would be startled, at its breakfast the next morning, by an appeal to its moral sensibilities so loud and lightning-like, that the coffee would be unpalatable, and the very toast turn to a cinder in the mouth.
Now, it should be borne in mind that the large weekly press, whose influence we are anxious to counteract, and whose interest is rapidly becoming the leading one in opposition to the proposed law, has arisen since the agitation of this question; has embarked its capital, and has grown to its present power and influence in the very teeth of a solemn protest of the authors whose labors they appropriate. It should also, in fairness, be added that some members of this huge fraternity only avail themselves of this law as it now stands, as they think they have a right, and hold themselves ready to abandon the field or adapt themselves to the change whenever a new law requires it; in the mean time, meeting the question fairly, and reasoning it through in good temper. The very paper which I have employed in illustration is chargeable with no offence against literature, society, or good morals, save the single taint of appropriating the labors of authors without pay, and defending the appropriation as matter of strict right and propriety. Only in a community where a contempt for literary rights has been engendered by long mal-practice, could such sentiments have obtained lodgment in minds of general fairness and honesty.
If the hostility to a law of reciprocal copyright be as deep rooted as is alleged, why has there not been some able argument (raised above sordid considerations, and looking wide and far upon the question in all its vast bearings) expounding to us the grounds on which this professed antagonism is based? When we ask them for a syllogism they give us an assertion. “My dear sir, how can you waste time, perplexing yourself and the public with this barren question! We supply readers with a novel, a good three-volume novel, for a shilling; and as long as we do that they will remain deaf to all your appeals. The argumentum ad crumenam, the syllogism of the pocket has, in all ages, carried the sway!” This is the head and front of their declamation, of their invective and their facts. This is the Fact! This boulder (offered in lieu of bread) they beg us of the author-tribe to digest: this is their bulwark, their fortress—no, their burrow rather—into which they skulk at the approach of a poor author, quill in hand, prepared to drive off the game—feræ naturæ—that lay waste his preserves and make free in his clover-field.
Now of all arguments this of cheapness is most questionable and unsafe. It has a comely and alluring visage, is smooth-spoken and full of promise, but we must have a caution where it may lead us, for it is as full of trick and foul play as a canting quaker; as precarious a foothold as the trap of the scaffold the minute before the check is slipped. Cheap and good are a pleasant partnership: but it does not happen that they always do business together. Taking cheapness as our guide and conductor, we can readily make our way, in imagination, to a publishing shop where the principle is expanded into a pleasing practical illustration. The shop is of course in a cellar, (rent twelve shillings a quarter;) the attendant is a second-hand man cast off from the current population of the upper world into this depository (wages seven shillings a week;) his hat, being still on the cheap tendency, has followed him out of Chatham street in company with a coat rejected of seven owners, the last of whom was a dustman, trowsers to match and boots borrowed of a pauper (cost of the entire outfit five shillings and a penny;) behind a counter that totters to the earth at an expense of five pence or more for repairs, he dispenses the frugal Literature of which he is the genius—the paper being of such an exquisite delicacy and cheapness that a good eye, by glancing through, can read both sides at once; the purchaser plunges down with a sixpence (most economical of small coin) in his pocket, and bears off, in a triumphant apotheosis, four and twenty columns to be read by the light of a tallow twopenny that sputters cheapness as it burns. This is the glory of the age; the crowning honor and triumph of America. Who would have the heart or the hardihood to blur that fair picture of popular knowledge and cheap enjoyment? Why, sirs—to speak a serious word or two in your ear—this plea of cheapness—a miserable escape at best, where a question of right and wrong is concerned—pushed to its extreme (and as cheapness is urged as the sole criterion and measure of advantage, we are warranted in so doing,) would drive literature to the almanac, which can be afforded at a penny; and the age of the brown ballad would return upon us with all its primitive graces of an unclean sheet, a cloudy typography, and a style of thought and expression quite as pure and lucid.
Pass a copyright bill and we are told, “we should soon learn the difference between £1 10, the London price of Bulwer’s Zanoni, and the American price of twenty-five cents.” How long—it is triumphantly asked—would our “reading public, almost commensurate with the entire population, continue at such a rate?”—what if it did not last a minute? Truth and honesty are of a little more worth than a reading public even as wide as the borders of the land. Of the elevation of the people—the instruction of the people, I hold myself a friend—no man more: but I do not propose to begin their enlightenment with a new version of the decalogue; so amended as to admit all the opposites against which it is directed, as virtues which we are enjoined to cultivate.
Suppose these gentlemen do furnish your literature at a low price by dint of paying the author nothing, they should bear in mind that there is a place where it is paid for, or it would most assuredly prove as miserable as it is cheap. The literature is valuable, not because they spread it before the world in large sheets, every Saturday morning, at sixpence a copy; but because there happened to be in another country certain enterprising publishers, of a somewhat different stamp, who thought it worth their while to cheer the writer in his labors by paying him a good round sum for his copyright. I repeat it, an unpaid literature cannot contend with a paid one; nor can it—while money is a representative of value and a motive of exertion—be as good. Do I imagine then that an international law will create great writers? Not at all. Under any law—oppressed by whatever bondage or tyranny custom chooses to lay upon them—men of great genius will struggle into light and cast before the world the thoughts with which their own souls have been moved. They will speak though mountains pressed upon them. But there is a wide class—comprising the body of a national literature—who can claim no such power; essayists, philosophers, whose impulses are not great, periodical writers—all are silent when the law and the trade fail to befriend them. It is these that need the constant stimulus—the genial inspiration (denied to them in any great measure by Nature) of pay. It is the shining gold—decry it as we may—that breeds the shining thought.
It may be asked, how does this question affect the Press? The Press, forming a part of the great body of writers, is affected by whatever affects the writers of books; for the bond by which the entire brotherhood is held together, is so close that it cannot be struck in any part without feeling the shock in its whole length. The same injustice by which the author falls in station and place, drags down the journalist. The rights of all who use the pen are rights in common; varying only in degree, and, as they may be affected from time to time, by circumstances of the hour or day. Beyond this the actual and immediate pressure of a vast amount of reading from abroad, poured upon us without limit or regulation, begins to be felt by the daily and weekly Press. They find attention drawn off from the article or political speculation in their own columns, prepared with care and judgment, to the cheap reprint; and are driven upon abandoning the field or joining in a pernicious system of unpaid appropriation against which their better judgment revolts.
I now close this Appeal, and in doing so I would venture to urge upon you the importance of concert and a steady action in behalf of this law, at all times and in all places where you are called on to employ that sacred instrument of thought, whose immunities are so grossly outraged.
The popular mind has, in this country, made wonderful advances in the appreciation of political truths and principles. There is no reason why it should not make an equal—though perhaps a later—progress in truths that relate to literature and art. The popular mind, as all our institutions require, is essentially just and true; and, once enlightened by a sufficient array of facts, and with time to arrange and digest them, will act with energy and wisdom—on this as on all other questions of which it is the arbiter. Depend upon it this bill, although adversely regarded by your Senate and Representatives at this time, will ultimately triumph. It will go up to the Senate-chamber, year after year, with new facts, pleading for it with an urgency which considerate legislators cannot resist. In the mean time it is your duty, as I trust it is your desire, to enlighten the general mind as to the truths on which I have ventured to insist. Seize the instant. In town, in homestead and city, let these principles be spread as wide as the writings they would protect; and search, with a fearless eye, the national heart to find whether there be not some kindly corner where it is willing the seeds of a national literature should be lodged. Speaking in the accents of persuasion with which God and Nature have endowed you; and through the organs of opinion which every one of you may, more or less, command—you cannot be long resisted. Together, in a phalanx, before which kings and princes grow pale, enter upon the mighty task. Hand in hand, voice answering to voice, in tones of mutual trust and cheerful hope press forward in the noble labor to which you are summoned. That Union which, in politics and war, is Strength, will prove in Literature, as well, your champion and deliverer.
CORNELIUS MATHEWS.
New York, June, 1842.
THE APPROACH OF AUTUMN.
But late the song of reaper
Was heard amid the corn,
But now an anthem deeper
Unto my ear is borne,
Of winds among the mountains,
In their unruly play,
With voice of swollen fountains,
That bear the leaves away.
The golden garb of summer,
Like earth, my soul has lost,
The breath of the dark comer
Its rosy mirth has crost;
For my spirit changeth
With the varying sky,
As a cloud estrangeth
The wood-bird’s melody.
W. F.
THE SISTERS.
A TALE OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
———
BY H. W. HERBERT, AUTHOR OF “RINGWOOD THE ROVER,” “THE BROTHERS,” “CROMWELL,” ETC. ETC.
———
(Concluded from page 78.)
When next she opened her eyes, she lay on her own bed, in her own well known chamber, and her old nurse, with the good vicar’s wife, was watching over her—as her lids rose and she looked about her, all her intelligence returned upon the moment, and she was perfectly aware of all that had already passed, of all that she had still to undergo. “Well—” she replied to the eager and repeated inquiries after her state of body and sensations which were poured out from the lips of her assiduous watchers—“Oh! I feel quite well, I do assure you—I was not hurt at all—not in the least—only I was so foolish as to faint from terror—but Marian, how is Marian?”
“Not injured in the least, but very anxious about you, sweet Annabel,” replied good mistress Summers—“so much so that I was obliged to force her from the chamber, so terrible was her grief, so violent her terror and excitement—Lord De Vaux snatched her from the horse and saved her, before he even saw your danger—he too is in a fearful state of mind, he has been at the door twenty times, I believe, within the hour—hark, that is his foot now—will you see him, dearest?”
A quick and chilly shudder ran through the whole frame of the lovely girl, and a faint hue glowed once again in her pale cheek, but mastering her feelings, she made answer in her own notes of sweet calm music—“Not yet, dear mistress Summers—not yet—but tell him, I beseech you, that I am better—well indeed! and will receive his visit by and by—and in the mean time, my good friend, I must see Marian—must see her directly and alone—No! no!” she added, seeing that the old lady was about to remonstrate—“No! no! you must not hinder me of my desire—you know—” she went on, with a faint, very melancholy smile—“you know, of old, I am a wilful stubborn girl when I make up my mind—and it is quite made up now, my good friend—so, pray you, let me see her—I am quite strong enough I do assure you—so do you, I beseech you, go and console my lord; and let nurse bring me Marian!—” So firmly did she speak, and so resolved was the expression of her soft gentle features, that they no longer hesitated to comply with her request, and both retired with soft steps from the chamber. Then Annabel half uprose from the pillows which had propped her, and clasped her hands in attitude of prayer, and turned her beautiful eyes upward—her lips moved visibly, not in irregular impulsive starts, but with a smooth and ordered motion, as she prayed fervently indeed but tranquilly, for strength to do, and patience to endure, and grace to do and to endure alike with Christian love and Christian fortitude. While she was thus engaged, a quick uncertain footstep, now light and almost tripping, now heavy and half faltering, approached the threshold—a gentle hand raised the latch once, and again let it fall, as if the comer was fluctuating between the wish to enter and some vague apprehension which for the moment conquered the desire. “Is it you, Marian?—” asked the lovely sufferer—“oh! come in, come in, sister!—” and she did come in, that bright lovely creature, her naturally high complexion almost unnaturally brilliant now from the intensity of her hot blushes, her eyes were downcast, and she could not so much as look up into the sad sweet face of Annabel; her whole frame trembled visibly as she approached the bed, and her foot faltered very much, yet she drew near, and sitting down beside the pillow, took Annabel’s hand tenderly between her own, and raised it to her warm lips and kissed it eagerly and often. Never for a moment’s space did the eyes of Annabel swerve from her sister’s features, from the moment she entered the door until she sat down by her side, but rested on them steadily as if through them they would peruse the secret soul with a soft gentle scrutiny, that savored not at all of sternness or reproach—at last, as if she was now fully satisfied, she dropped her eyelids and for a little space kept them close shut, while again her lips moved silently—and then pressing her sister’s hand fondly, she said in a quiet soothing voice, as if she were alluding to an admitted fact rather than asking a question, “So you have met him before, Marian?—” a violent convulsion shook every limb of her whom she addressed, and the blood rushed in torrents to her brow—she bowed her head upon her sister’s hand, and burst into a paroxysm of hysterical tears and sobbing, but answered not a word. “Nay! nay! dear sister,” exclaimed Annabel, bending down over her and kissing her neck which like her brow and cheeks was absolutely crimson—“Nay! nay! sweet Marian, weep not thus, I beseech you, there is no wrong done—none at all—there was no wrong in your seeing him, when you did so—it was at York, I must believe—nor in your loving him either, when you did so—for I had not then seen him, and of course could not love him. But it was not right, sweetest Marian, to let me be in ignorance—only think, dearest; only think, what would have been my agony, when I had come to know after I was a wife, that in myself becoming happy I had brought misery on my second self—my own sweet sister!—nay!—do not answer me yet, Marian, for I can understand it all—almost all, that is—and I quite appreciate your motives—I am sure that you did not know that he loved you—for he does love you, Marian—but fancied that he loved me only, and so resolved to control yourself, and crush your young affections, and sacrifice yourself for me—thank God! oh! thank God, dearest, that your strength was not equal to the task—for had it been so we had been most wretched—oh! most wretched. But you must tell me all about it, for there is much I cannot comprehend—when did you see him first, and where?—why did he never so much as hint to me that he had known you?—why, when I wrote you word that he was here, and after that I liked—loved—was about to marry him—why did you never write back that you knew him?—and why, above all, when you came and found him here—here in your mother’s house—why did you meet him as a stranger?—I know it will be painful to you, dear one; but you must bear the pain, for it is necessary now that there shall be no more mistakes—be sure of one thing, dearest Marian, that I will never wed him—oh! not for worlds!—I could not sleep one night!—no not one hour in the thought that my bliss was your bane—but if he love you, as he ought, and as you love him, sister, for I can read your soul, he shall be yours at once, and I shall be more happy so—more happy tenfold—than pillowing my head upon a heart which beats for any other—but he must explain—he must explain all this—for I much fear me he has dealt very basely by us both—I fear me much, he is a bold false man—”
“No! no!” cried Marian eagerly, raising her clear eyes to her sister’s, full of ingenuous truth and zealous fire—“No! no! he is all good, and true, and noble!—I—it is I only who have, for once, been false and wicked—not altogether wicked, Annabel—perhaps more foolish than to blame, at least in my intentions—but you shall hear all—you shall hear all, Annabel, and then judge for yourself—” and then still looking her sister quite steadily and truthfully in the face, she told her how, at a ball in York, she had met the young nobleman, who had seemed pleased with her, danced with her many times, and visited her, but never once named love, nor led her in the least to fancy he esteemed her beyond a chance acquaintance—“But I loved him—oh! how I loved him, Annabel—almost from the first time I saw him—and I feared ever—ever and only—that by my bold frank rashness, he might discover his power, and believe me forward and unmaidenly—weeks passed, and our intimacy ripened, and I became each hour more fondly, more devotedly, more madly,—for it was madness all!—enamored of him. He met me ever as a friend; no more! The time came when he was to leave York, and as he took leave of me he told me that he had just received despatches from his father directing him to visit mine; and I, shocked by the coolness of his parting tone, and seeing that indeed he had no love for me, scarcely noting what he said, told him not that I had no father—but I did tell him that I had one sweet sister, and suddenly extorted from him, unawares, a promise that he would never tell you he had known me—my manner, I am sure, was strange and wild, and I have no doubt that my words were so likewise—for his demeanor altered on the instant—his air, which had been that of quiet friendship, became cool, chilling, and almost disdainful, and within a few minutes he took his leave, and we never met again till yester even. You will, I doubt not, ask me wherefore I did all this—I cannot tell you—I was mad, mad with love and disappointment, and the very instant he said that he was coming hither, I knew as certainly that he would love you, and you him, Annabel, as though it had been palpably revealed to me. I could not write of him to you—I could not!—and when your letters came and we learned that he was here, I confessed all this to our aunt, and though she blamed me much for wild and thoughtless folly, she thought it best to keep the matter secret. This is the whole truth, Annabel—the whole truth! I fancied that the absence, the knowledge that I should see him next my sister’s husband, the stern resolve with which I bound my soul, had made me strong to bear his presence—I tried it, and I found myself, how weak—this is all, Annabel; can you forgive me, sister?”
“Sweet, innocent Marian,” exclaimed the elder sister through her tears, for she had wept constantly through the whole sad narration, “there is not any thing for me to forgive—you have wronged yourself only, my poor sister!—But yet—but yet!—I cannot understand it—he must have seen—no man could fail to see that one so frank and artless, as you are, Marian, was in love with him—he must, if not before, have known it certainly when you extorted from him, as you call it, that strange promise—besides he loves you, Marian; he loves you—then wherefore—wherefore, in God’s name, did he woo me—for woo he did, and fervently and long before he won me to confession?—oh! he is base!—base, base, and bad at heart, my sister!—answer me nothing, dear one, for I will prove him very shortly—send Margaret hither to array me, I will go speak with him forthwith—if he be honest, Marian, he is yours—and think not that I sacrifice myself, when I say this; for all the love I ever felt for him has vanished utterly away—if he is honest, he is yours—but be not over confident, dear child, for I believe he is not—and if not—why then, sweet Marian, can we not comfort one another, and live together as we used, dear, innocent, united happy sisters? Do not reply now, Marian—your heart is too full—haste and do as I tell you; before supper time to-night all shall be ended, whether for good or evil, HE only knows to whom the secrets of the heart are visible, e’en as the features of the face. Farewell—be of good cheer, and yet not over cheerful!”
Within an hour after that most momentous conversation Annabel sat beside the window in that fair summer parlor, looking out on the fair prospect of mead and dale and river, with its back ground of purple mountains—the very window from which she had first looked upon De Vaux. Perhaps a secret instinct had taught her to select that spot now that she was about to renounce him forever—but if it were so, it was one of those indefinable impulsive instincts of which we are unconscious, even while they prompt our actions. De Vaux was summoned to her presence, and Annabel awaited him—arbiter of her own, her sister’s destinies! “Ernest—” she said, as he entered, cutting across his eager and impetuous inquiries, “Ernest De Vaux, I have learned to-day a secret—” she spoke with perfect ease, and without a symptom of irritation, or anxiety, or sorrow, either in her voice, or in her manner—nor was she cold or dignified, or haughty. Her demeanor was not indeed that of a fond maid to her accepted suitor; nor had it the flutter which marks the consciousness of unacknowledged love—a sister’s to a dear brother’s would have resembled it more nearly than perhaps anything to which it could be compared, yet was not this altogether similar. He looked up in her face with a smile, and asked at once,
“What secret, dearest Annabel?”
“A secret, Ernest,” she replied, “which I cannot but fancy you must have learned before, but which you certainly have learned, as well as I, to-day. My sister loves you, Ernest!” The young man’s face was crimson on the instant, and he would have made some reply, but his voice failed him, and after a moment of confused stuttering, he stood before her in embarrassed silence, but she went on at once, not noticing apparently his consternation. “If you did know this, as I fear must be the case, long long ago! most basely have you acted, and most cruelly, to both of us—for never! never! even if it had been a rash and unsought, and unjustifiable passion on her part, would I have wedded, knowingly, the man who held my sister’s heart strings!”
“It was,” he answered instantly, “it was a rash and unsought, and unjustifiable passion on her part—believe me, oh! believe me, Annabel! that is—that is—” he continued, reddening again, at feeling himself self-convicted—“that is—if she felt any passion!”
“Then you did know it—then you did know it—” she interrupted him, without paying any regard to his attempt at self-correction, “then you did know it from the very first—oh! man! man! oh! false heart of man—oh! falser tongue that can speak thus of a woman whom he loves! yes! loves!” she added in a clear high voice, thrilling as the alarm blast of a silver trumpet—“yes! loves—Ernest De Vaux—with his whole heart and spirit—never think to deny it—did I not see you, when you rushed to save her from a lesser peril, when you left me, as you must have thought, to perish—did I not see love, written as clearly as words in a book, on every feature of your face—even as I heard love crying out aloud in every accent of her voice?”
“What! jealous, Annabel? the calm and self-controlling Annabel! can she be jealous—of her own sister, too?”
“Not jealous! sir—” she answered, now most contemptuously, “not jealous in the least, I do assure you—for though most surely love can exist without one touch of jealousy, as surely cannot jealousy exist where there is neither love, nor admiration, nor esteem, nor so much as respect existing.”
“How—do I hear you—” he asked somewhat sharply—“do I understand you aright? what have become, then, of your vows and protestations—your promises of yester even?”
“You do hear me—you do understand me—” she replied, “entirely aright—entirely! In my heart, for I have searched it very deeply—in my heart there is not now one feeling of love, or admiration, or esteem—much less respect for you, alas! that I should say so—alas! for me and you—alas! for one, more to be pitied twenty-fold than either!”
“Annabel Hawkwood, you have never loved me!”
“Ernest De Vaux, you never have known—never will know—because you are incapable of knowing the depth, the singleness, the honesty of a true woman’s love. So deeply did I love you, that I have come down hither, seeing that long before you knew me, you had won Marian’s heart—seeing that you loved her, as she loves you, most ardently—and hoping that you had not discovered her affections, nor suspected your own feelings until to-day—I came down hither with that knowledge, in that hope—and had I found that you had erred no further than in trivial fickleness, loving you all the while beyond all things on earth, I purposed to resign your hand to her, thus making both of you happy, and trusting for my own contentment to consciousness of rights and to the love of THEM, who, all praise be to Him therefore, has constituted so the spirit of Annabel Hawkwood, that when she cannot honor, she cannot, afterward forever, feel either love or friendship—you are weighed, Ernest De Vaux, weighed in the balance and found wanting—I leave you now, sir, to prepare my sister to bear the blow your baseness has inflicted—our marriage is broken off at once, now and forever—lay all the blame on me!—on me!—if it so please you—but not one word against my own or Marian’s honor—my aunt I shall inform instantly, that for sufficient reasons our promised union will not take place at all—the reasons I shall lock in my own bosom. You will remain here—you must do so—this one night, to-morrow morning we will bid you adieu forever!”
“Be it so”—he replied—“Be it so, lady—the fickleness I can forgive—but not the scorn! I will go now and order that the regiment march hence forthwith, what more recruits there be can follow at their leisure—and I will overtake the troops before noon, on the march, to-morrow,” and with the words he left the room apparently as unconcerned as if he had gone thence but for a walk of pleasure, as if he had not left a breaking heart behind him.
And was it true, that Annabel no longer loved him? True!—oh believe it not—where woman once has fixed her soul’s affections there they will dwell forever—principle may compel her to suppress it—prudence may force her to conceal it—the fiery sense of instantaneous wrongs may seem to quench it for a moment—the bitterness of jealousy may turn it into gall, but like that Turkish perfume, where love has once existed it must exist forever, so long as one fragment of the earthly vessel which contained it survives the wreck of time and ruin. She believed that she loved him not—but she knew not herself—what woman ever did?—what man?—when the spring-tide of passion was upon them. And she too left the parlor, and within a few minutes Marian had heard her fate, and after many a tear, and many a passionate exclamation, she too apparently was satisfied of Ernest’s worthlessness—oh! misapplied and heartless term! She satisfied?—satisfied by the knowledge that her heart’s idol was an unclean thing—an evil spirit—a false God!—she satisfied?—oh Heaven!
Around the hospitable board once more—once more they were assembled—but oh! how sadly altered—the fiat had been distinctly, audibly pronounced—and all assembled there had heard—though none except the sisters and De Vaux knew it—none probably, but they suspected—well was it that there were no young men—no brothers with high hearts and strong hands to maintain, or question—well was it that the only relatives of those much injured maidens, the only friends, were superannuated men of peace; the ministers of pardon, not of vengeance—and weak old helpless women—there had been bloodshed else—and as it was, among the serving men there were dark brows and writhing lips, and hands alert to grasp the hilt at a word spoken—had they been of rank one grade higher—had they dared even as they were——there had been bloodshed! Cold, cold and cheerless was the conversation, forward and dignified civilities in place of gay familiar mirth, forced smiles for hearty laughter, pale looks and dim eyes for the glad blushes of the promised bride—for the bright sparkles of her eye! The evening passed—the hour of parting came, and it was colder yet and sadder—Ernest De Vaux, calm and inscrutable, and seemingly unmoved, kissed the hands of his lovely hostesses, and uttered his adieu, and thanks for all their kindness, and hopes for their prosperity and welfare, while the old clergyman looked on with dark and angry brows, and the help-mate with difficulty could refrain from loud and passionate invective. His lip had a curl upon it, a painful curl, half smile, half sneer, as he bowed to the rest and left the parlor, but none observed that as he did so he spoke three or four words in a low whisper, so low that it reached Marian’s ear alone of all that stood around him, yet of such import that her color came and went ten times within the minute, and that she shook from head to foot, and quivered like an aspen. For two hours longer the sisters sat together in Annabel’s bedchamber, and wept in one another’s arms, and comforted each other’s sorrows, and little dreamed that they should meet no more for years—perchance forever! The morning broke like that which had preceded it, serene and bright, and lovely—the great sun rushed up the blue vault in triumphant splendor, all nature laughed out his glory—but at a later hour, far later than usual, no smoke was seen curling from the chimneys of the hall, no sign of man or beast was visible about its precincts. The passionate scenes—the wild excitement of the preceding day, had brought about, as usual, a dull reaction; and sleep sat heavy on the eyelids, on the souls of the inmates. The first who woke up was Annabel—Annabel, the bereaved, the almost widowed bride. Dressing herself in haste, she sought, as usual, her mother’s chamber, found her—oh happy! how happy in her benighted state, since she knew not, nor understood at all, the sorrows of those whom she once had loved so tenderly—found her in deep calm slumber—kissed her brow silently, and breathed a fond prayer over her, then hurried thence to Marian’s chamber—the door stood open; it was vacant! Down the stairs to the garden—the door that led to that sweet spot was barred and bolted—the front door stood upon the latch, and by that Annabel passed out into the fresh young morning—how fair, how peaceable, how calm was all around her—how utterly unlike the strife, the toils, the cares, the sorrows, the hot hatreds of the animated world—how utterly unlike the anxious pains which were then gnawing at that fair creature’s heartstrings! She stood awhile, and gazed around and listened; but no sound met her ears, except the oft-heard music of the wind and water—except the well-known points of that familiar scene—she walked—she ran—a fresh fear struck her, a fear of she knew not what—she flew to the garden—“Marian! Marian!”—but no Marian came! no voice made answer to her shrill outcries—back! back! she hurried to the house, but in her way she crossed the road conducting to the stables—there were fresh horse tracks—several fresh horse tracks—one which looked like the print of Marian’s palfrey—without a moment’s hesitation she rushed into the stable court, no groom was there, nor stable boy, nor helper—and yet the door stood open, and a loud tremulous neighing, Annabel knew it instantly to be the call of her own jennet, was wakening unanswered echoes. She stood a moment like a statue before she could command herself to cross the threshold—she crossed, and the stall where Marian’s palfrey should have stood next her own, was vacant. The chargers of De Vaux were gone; the horses of his followers—she shrieked aloud—she shrieked till every pinnacle and turret of the old hall, till every dell and headland of the hills, sent back a yelling echo. It scarcely seemed a moment before the court yard, which, a moment since so silent and deserted, was full of hurrying men and frightened women—the news was instantly abroad that mistress Marian had been spirited away by the false lord. Horses were saddled instantly, and broadswords girded on, and men were mounting in hot haste ere Annabel had in so much recovered from the shock, as to know what to order, or advise—evil and hasty counsels had been taken, but the good vicar and the prebendary came down in time to hinder them. A hurried consultation was held in the house, and it was speedily determined that the two clergymen should set forth on the instant, with a sufficient escort, to pursue, and, if it should be possible, bring back the fugitive—and although Annabel at the first was in despair, fancying that there could be no hope of her being overtaken, yet was she somewhat reassured on learning that De Vaux could not quit his regiment, and that the slow route of a regiment on a long march could easily be caught up with, even by aged travellers. The sun was scarce three hours high, when the pursuers started—all that day long it lagged across the sky—it set, and was succeeded by night, longer still, and still more dreary—another day! and yet another! Oh the slow agony of waiting! the torture of enumerating minutes—each minute seemingly an age—the dull, heart-sickening suspense of awaiting tidings—tidings which the heart tells us—the heart, too faithful prophet of the future—cannot by possibility be good; while reason interposes her vain veto to the heart’s decision, and hope uplifts her false and siren song. The third night came, and Annabel was sitting at the same window—how often it occurs that one spot witnesses the dozen scenes most interesting, most eventful to the same individual. Is it that consciousness of what has passed leads man to the spot marked by one event when he expects another? or can it be indeed a destiny? The third night came, and Annabel was sitting at that same window, when, on the distant highway, she beheld her friends returning, but they rode heavily and sadly onwards, nor was there any flutter of female garbs among them—Marian was not among them! They came—the story was soon told—they had succeeded in overtaking the regiment, they had seen Ernest, and Marian was his wife! The register of her marriage, duly attested, had been shown to her uncle in the church at Rippon, and though she had refused to see them, she had sent word that she was well and happy, with many messages of love and cordiality to Annabel, and promises that she would write at short and frequent intervals. No more was to be done—nothing was said at all. Men marvelled at De Vaux, and envied him! Women blamed Marian Hawkwood, and they too envied! But Annabel said nothing, but went about her daily duties, tending her helpless mother and answering her endless queries concerning Marian’s absence, and visiting her pensioners among the village poor, seemingly cheerful and contented. But her cheek constantly grew paler, and her form thinner and less round. The sword was hourly wearing out the scabbard! The spirit was too mighty for the vessel that contained it.
Five years had passed—five wearisome, long years—years of domestic strife and civil war, of bloodshed, conflagration and despair throughout all England. The party of the king, superior at the first, was waxing daily weaker, and all was almost lost. For the first years Marian did write, and that, too, frequently and fondly to her sister; never alluding to the past, and seldom to De Vaux, except to say that he was all she wished him, and she herself more happy than she hoped or deserved to be. But gradually did the letters become less frequent and more formal; communications were obstructed, and posts were intercepted, and scarce, at last, did Annabel hear twice in twelve months of her sister’s welfare. And when she did hear, the correspondence had become cold and lifeless; the tone of Marian, too, was altered, the buoyancy was gone—the mirth—the soul—and though she complained not, nor hinted that she was unhappy, yet Annabel saw plainly that it was so. Saw it, and sorrowed, and said nothing! Thus time passed on, with all its tides and chances, and the old paralytic invalid was gathered to her fathers, and slept beside her husband in the yard of the same humble church which had beheld their union, and Annabel was more alone than ever. Thus things went on until some months after the deadly fight and desperate defeat at Marston. Autumn had come again—brown autumn—and Annabel was in her garden tending her flowers, and listening to her birds, and thinking of the past, not with the anguish of a present sorrow, but with the mellowed recollection of regret. She stood beside the stream—the stream that, all unchanged itself, had witnessed such sad changes in all that was around it—close to the spot where she had talked so long to Marian on that eventful morning, when a quick, soft step came behind her—she turned and Marian clasped her! Forced, after years of sufferance, to fly from the outrageous cruelty of him for whom she had thrown up all but honor, she had come home—home, like the hunted hare to her form, like the wounded bird to her own nest—she had come home to die. What boots it to repeat the old and oft-told tale, how eager passion made way for uncertain and oft interrupted gleams of fondness—how a love, based on no esteem or real principle, melted like wax before the fire—how inattention paved the way for neglect—and infidelity came close behind—and open profligacy and insult, and cool, maddening outrage followed. How the ardent lover became the careless husband, the cold master, the unfeeling tyrant, and, at last, the brutal despot. Marian came home to die—the seeds of that invincible disease were sown deep in her bosom—her exquisitely rounded shape was angular and thin, emaciated by disease, and suffering, and sorrow. A burning hectic spot on either cheek were now the only remnants of that once all-radiant complexion; her step so slow and faltering, her breath drawn sob by sob with actual agony, her quick, short cough, all told too certainly the truth! Her faults were punished bitterly on earth, and happily that punishment had worked its fitting end—these faults were all repented, were all amended now. Perhaps at no time of her youthful bloom had Marian been so sweet, so truly lovely, as now when her young days were numbered. All the asperity and harshnesses, the angles as it were of her character, mellowed down into a calm and unrepining cheerfulness. And oh! with what delicious tenderness did Annabel console, and pray with, and caress—oh! they were indeed happy! indeed happy for those last months, those lovely sisters. For Annabel’s delight at seeing the dear Marian of happier and better days once more beside her in their old chamber, beside her in the quiet garden, beside her in the pew of the old village church, had, for the time, completely overpowered her fears for her sister’s health, and, as is almost invariably the case in that most fatal, most insidious of disorders, she constantly was flattered with vain hopes that her Marian was amending, that the next spring would see her again well and happy. Vain hopes! indeed vain hopes—but which of mortal hopes is other?
The cold mists of November were on the hills and in the glens of Wharfdale, the trees were stripped of their last leaves, the grass was sere and withered, the earth cheerless, the skies comfortless, when, at the same predestined window, the sisters sat watching the last gleam of the wintry sun fade on the distant hill tops. What was that flash far up the road? That sound and ringing report? Another! and another! the evident reports of musketry. And lo! a horseman flying—a wild, fierce troop pursuing—the foremost rides bareheaded, but the blue scarf that flutters in the air shows him a loyal cavalier; the steel caps and jack boots of the pursuers point them out evidently puritans; there are but twenty of them; and lo! the fugitive gains on them—heaven! he turns from the highroad, crosses the steep bridge at a gallop, he takes the park-gate at a leap, he cuts across the turf, and lo! the dalesmen and the tenants have mustered to resist; a short, fierce struggle—the roundheads are beat back—the fugitive, now at the very hall doors, is preserved. The door flew open, he staggered into the well-known vestibule, opened the parlor door with an accustomed hand, and reeled into the presence of the sisters, exhausted with fatigue, pale from the loss of blood, faint with his mortal wounds; yet he spoke out in a clear voice—“In time, in time, thank God, in time to make some reparation, to ask for pardon ere I die!” and with these words De Vaux, for he it was, staggered up to his injured wife, and, dropping on his knees, cast his arms round her waist, and burying his head in her lap, exclaimed in faltering tones—“Pardon me, Marian, pardon before I die—pardon me as you loved me once!”
“Oh! as I love you now, dear Ernest, fully, completely, gladly, do I pardon you, and take you to my heart, never again to part, my own dear husband.”
Groaning she clasped him close, and in that act,
And agony, her happy spirit fled.
Annabel saw her head fall on his neck, and, fancying that she had fainted, ran to relieve her, but ere she did so both were far away beyond the reach of any mortal sorrow—nor did the survivor long survive them—she faded like a fair flower, and lies beside them in the still bosom of one common tomb. The Hall was tenanted no more, and soon fell into ruin, but the wild hills of Wharfdale must themselves pass away before the children of the dalesmen shall forget the sad tale of The Sisters.
THE WALK AND THE PIC-NIC.
———
BY ALFRED B. STREET.
———
The sky is a sapphire, the clouds pearly white,
The wind from the west winnows blandly and light,
Deep and rich is the gloss of the sunshine below—
The grass, leaves, and flowers all rejoice in the glow;
The shadows, cast down by the air-skimming sails,
Are rippling o’er hill-tops and glancing o’er vales;
’Tis the day for our pic-nic; let’s haste, or the sun
Will be dipping below e’er our long path is won.
At length, from all ports of the village, we throng—
O’er the maple-lin’d sidewalk we scatter along,
With baskets well stor’d; and so loud our delight,
That we start Taggett’s team from Nate’s store in affright:
We pass by the office—“Alf, why do you wait?”
To a laggard shouts Cady—“you’re always too late!”
We turn the stone store—up the Pleasant Pond road:
Green richer the fields on each side never show’d;
We pass the flat rock, where we often found rest,
When, on our return-walk, gleam’d golden the west;
On the hill-brow we turn, the white village to view,
Its three modest steeples trac’d clear on the blue;
To the right Brownson’s pond—now we enter the wood:
Its echoes leap out to our frolicsome mood;
The sweet ringing laugh of gay Martha is heard,
And Kate trips along with the grace of a bird;
To the wind’s downy kisses bares Sarah her brow,
And Mary’s black eyes were ne’er brighter than now,
While one, grave and thoughtful, to each proffers aid,—
My friend! sleeping now in the valley of shade,
As the cloud over sunshine, remembrance of thee,
My boyhood’s companion! draws sadness o’er me.
“Alf, faster!” cries Cady, “and think where you are;
Bring your thoughts from the clouds, or we’ll never be there!”
We all move on speedily; down the descent,
With song, talk and laughter, our journey is bent:
“Alf, carry this basket!” says Wright, in a huff
At the speed of our way, “I’ve had trouble enough!”
“See that rose!” cries Louisa, and instant the stem
Is mourning the loss of its beautiful gem.
Our party has reach’d now the foot of the hill,
And we rest for a space on the trunk by the rill;
One twists from the hopple a chalice of green,
And stoops, for the lymph, the dense thicket between;
One whirls a thick branch, as a fine twanging sound
On the ear tells the hungry musketoe is round,
Whilst Wright, never loath, takes immediate seat,
Complaining in bass of the dust and the heat.
We leave the green spot, our swift journey resume—
The forest twines closer its cool verdant gloom;
Above, like an arbor, the green branches meet,
And the moss springs elastic, yet soft, to our feet.
The shade is so dense, the gray rabbit scarce fears
To show, o’er the fern clump, his long peering ears,
And the saucy red-squirrel, erect on his spray,
Were unseen, if his chatter-tongue did not betray;
A scatter of viands, with plunge in the brake,
As one stumbles o’er a coil’d root like a snake,
There’s a laugh from the group, and a lofty perch’d crow
Lifts his foot, with a croak, and looks wisely below;
But onward we journey—we catch, as we pass
Through the vistas, quick glimpses of rock, stream and grass,
Then fitful we loiter by mounds plump with moss,
With sunbeams, like fluid gold, streaking across,
We peel the sweet birch bark, we pluck from the ground
The rich, pungent wintergreen growing around,
We taste the sour sorrel, in handfulls we pick
The bright partridge-berry sown crimson and thick,
We hear the near quail, from the rye stubble, call,
And we watch the black beetle on rolling his ball;
Then forward again, with new strength, on our way,
Our footsteps as light as our bosoms are gay,
A whirr—and, so sudden, the heart gives a bound,
The partridge bursts up from his basin of ground;
Three clear, fife-like notes—first, a low, liquid strain,
Then high, and then shrill—all repeated again,
’Tis the brown-thresher, perch’d on yon pine grim and dark,
Our sweetest of minstrels—our own native lark.
We pass the low sawmill—the bridge o’er the brook,
Where it glides, slow and deep, by each alder-cloth’d nook,
We toil up the hill—o’er the fields are the frames
Of hemlocks, scath’d black by the fierce fallow-flames,
Or girdled, with half naked trunks smooth and gray,
To catch the red lightning, or sink in decay.
Again the wood closes—still wend we along,
The robin is cheering our hearts with his song,
The black snake, warm basking, his sunlight forsakes,
As, at the loud beat of our steps, he awakes,
The trees shrink away—one more hill to our feet,
And our eyes, Pleasant Pond, in its beauty will greet;
There glitters the outlet—still, upward, we pass,
And there, spreads its smooth polish’d bosom of glass.
On the East, lifts a hill, low and rounded, its crown
With a slope, like a robe, on each side falling down,
All verdant with meadow, and bristling with grain,
From its top, to the edge of the bright liquid plain,
Thence the banks, sweeping round to the North and the West,
With clearing and field interspersed on their breast,
Are lost in the black frowning gloom of the wood
That hides, with its shadows, the Southernmost flood.
How quiet, how peaceful, how lovely, the scene!
The glossy black shades, from yon headlands of green,
That sheet of bright crystal, which spreads from the shore,
Now dark’ning, as lightly the breeze tramples o’er,
Those shafts of quick splendor—these dazzles of light—
So painful, so blinding, eyes shrink from the sight;
And still, to our fix’d gaze, new colors reveal,
Here, gleaming like silver—there, flashing like steel.
We hear, in the stillness, the low of the herd,
The sound of the sheep-bell, the chirp of the bird,
All borne from the opposite border—and hark!
How the echoes long mimic the dog’s rapid bark!
See that white gleaming streak—’tis the wake of the loon
As she oars her swift passage—her dive will be soon;
She’s vanish’d—but upward again to the sight,
Her dappled back lit by a pencil of light,
But the bark has arous’d her—she’s seeking to fly;
She stretches her neck, with shrill, tremulous cry,
She flounders in low heavy circles just o’er,
Till nerv’d by the loud hostile sounds from the shore
Uprising, she shoots, like a dart, to her brood
Close hid in the water-plants edging the wood.
On this lap of green grass, the white cloth is display’d,
A maple sheds over its golden streak’d shade,
We place cup and trencher—the viands are spread,
Whilst a pile of pine-knots flame a pillar of red,
We slice the rich lemon—the gifts of the spring
Bubbling up in its gray sandy basin, we bring
The white glistening sugar—the butter, like gold,
And the fruits of the garden, our baskets unfold,
The raspberry bowl-shap’d—the jet tiny cone
Or the blackberry, pluck’d from the thickets are strown,
All grace the grass-table—our cups mantle free
With the dark purple coffee, and light amber tea,
Wood, water, and bank tongue the laugh, and the jest,
And the goddess or mirth reigns supreme in each breast.
The sunset is slanting—a pyramid bright
Is traced on the waters, in spangles of light;
A grey blending glimmer then steals like a pall;
Gold, leaves hill and tree-top—brown, deepens o’er all;
The bat wheels around—sends the nighthawk his cry,
And the cross-bill commences her sweet lullaby;
In the grass chirps the cricket—the tree-toad crows shrill,
And the bark of the watch-dog sounds faint from the hill.
We smile at the hoarse heav’d-up roar of the frog,
And his half smother’d gulp as he dives from his log,
And then hasten homeward, fatigu’d, but still gay,
With the moon’s lustrous silver to brighten our way.
TO FANNY H***.
———
BY MRS. SEBA SMITH.
———
Careless maiden, careless smiling,
Tossing back thy raven hair,
Guileless thou, though all beguiling,
Scarcely conscious thou art fair.
Playful words with music ringing
Lightly falling from thy tongue—
Snatches of old minstrels singing,
Telling that thy heart is young—
Flashing now thy radiant eyes
Liquid with the light of youth,
Stealing gladness from the skies
Only known to souls of truth—
Maiden, on thy heart hereafter
Will a holier spell be wrought,
That shall mellow down thy laughter,
Deepen every inmost thought.
Then thine eye shall droop in sadness,
Shielding thus the fount within—
Hope, now speaking in its gladness,
Then shall be to rear akin.
And a spell shall be around thee—
Love thy spirit shall control—
Yet rejoice when it hath bound thee—
Love creates for thee a Soul.
BEN BLOWER’S STORY;
OR HOW TO RELISH A JULEP.
———
BY C. F. HOFFMAN.
———
“Are you sure that’s The Flame over by the shore?”
“Certing, manny! I could tell her pipes acrost the Mazoura.”[[1]]
“And you will overhaul her?”
“Won’t we though! I tell ye, Stranger, so sure as my name’s Ben Blower, that that last tar bar’l I hove in the furnace has put jist the smart chance of go-ahead into us to cut off The Flame from yonder pint, or send our boat to kingdom come.”
“The devil!” exclaimed a bystander who, intensely interested in the race, was leaning the while against the partitions of the boiler-room, “I’ve chosen a nice place to see the fun near this infernal powder barrel!”
“Not so bad as if you were in it!” coolly observed Ben, as the other walked rapidly away.
“As if he were in it! in what? in the boiler?”
“Certing! Don’t folks sometimes go into bilers, manny?”
“I should think there’d be other parts of the boat more comfortable.”
“That’s right; poking fun at me at once’t; but wait till we get through this brush with the old Flame and I’ll tell ye of a regular fixin scrape that a man may get into. It’s true, too, every word of it—as sure as my name’s Ben Blower.”
• • • • • •
“You have seen the Flame then afore, Stranger? Six year ago, when new upon the river, she was a real out and outer, I tell ye. I was at that time a hand aboard of her. Yes, I belonged to her at the time of her great race with the ‘Go-liar.’ You’ve heern, mayhap, of the blow-up by which we lost it? They made a great fuss about it; but it was nothing but a mere fiz of hot water after all. Only the springing of a few rivets, which loosened a biler plate or two, and let out a thin spirting upon some niggers that hadn’t sense enough to get out of the way. Well, the ‘Go-liar’ took off our passengers, and we ran into Smasher’s Landing to repair damages, and bury the poor fools that were killed. Here we laid for a matter of thirty hours or so, and got things to rights on board for a bran new start. There was some carpenter’s work yet to be done, but the captain said that that might be fixed off jist as well when we were under way—we had worked hard—the weather was sour, and we needn’t do any thing more jist now—we might take that afternoon to ourselves, but the next morning he’d get up steam bright and airly, and we’d all come out new. There was no temperance society at Smasher’s Landing, and I went ashore upon a lark with some of the hands.”
I omit the worthy Benjamin’s adventures upon land, and, despairing of fully conveying his language in its original Doric force, will not hesitate to give the rest of his singular narrative in my own words, save where, in a few instances, I can recall his precise phraseology, which the reader will easily recognize.
“The night was raw and sleety when I regained the deck of our boat. The officers, instead of leaving a watch above, had closed up every thing, and shut themselves in the cabin. The fire-room only was open. The boards dashed from the outside by the explosion had not yet been replaced. The floor of the room was wet and there was scarcely a corner which afforded a shelter from the driving storm. I was about leaving the room, resigned to sleep in the open air, and now bent only upon getting under the lee of some bulkhead that would protect me against the wind. In passing out I kept my arms stretched forward to feel my way in the dark, but my feet came in contact with a heavy iron lid; I stumbled, and, as I fell, struck one of my hands into the ‘manhole,’ (I think this was the name he gave to the oval-shaped opening in the head of the boiler,) through which the smith had entered to make his repairs. I fell with my arm thrust so far into the aperture that I received a pretty smart blow in the face as it came in contact with the head of the boiler, and I did not hesitate to drag my body after it, the moment I recovered from this stunning effect and ascertained my whereabouts. In a word, I crept into the boiler resolved to pass the rest of the night there. The place was dry and sheltered. Had my bed been softer, I would have had all that man could desire; as it was, I slept and slept soundly.
“I should mention though, that, before closing my eyes, I several times shifted my position. I had gone first to the farther end of the boiler, then again I had crawled back to the manhole, to put my hand out and feel that it was really still open. The warmest place was at the farther end, where I finally established myself, and that I knew from the first. It was foolish in me to think that the opening through which I had just entered could be closed without my hearing it, and that, too, when no one was astir but myself; but the blow on the side of my face made me a little nervous perhaps; besides, I never could bear to be shut up in any place—it always gives a wild-like feeling about the head. You may laugh, Stranger, but I believe I should suffocate in an empty church, if I once felt that I was so shut up in it that I could not get out. I have met men afore now just like me, or worse rather—much worse. Men that it made sort of furious to be tied down to anything, yet so soft-like and contradictory in their natures that you might lead them anywhere so long as they didn’t feel the string. Stranger, it takes all sorts of people to make a world! and we may have a good many of the worst kind of white-men here out west. But I have seen folks upon this river—quiet looking chaps, too, as ever you see—who were so teetotally carankterakterous that they’d shoot the doctor who’d tell them they couldn’t live when ailing, and make a die of it, just out of spite, when told they must get well. Yes, fellows as fond of the good things of earth as you or I, yet who’d rush like mad right over the gang-plank of life, if once brought to believe that they had to stay in this world whether they wanted to leave it or not. Thunder and bees! if such a fellow as that had heard the cocks crow as I did—awakened to find darkness about him—darkness so thick you might cut it with a knife—heard other sounds, too, to tell that it was morning, and scrambling to fumble for that manhole, found it, too, black—closed—black and even as the rest of the iron coffin around him, closed, with not a rivet-hole to let God’s light and air in—why—why—he’d ’a swounded right down on the spot, as I did, and I ain’t ashamed to own it to no white-man.”
The big drops actually stood upon the poor fellow’s brow, as he now paused for a moment in the recital of his terrible story. He passed his hand over his rough features, and resumed it with less agitation of manner.
“How long I may have remained there senseless I don’t know. The doctors have since told me it must have been a sort of fit—more like an apoplexy than a swoon, for the attack finally passed off in sleep—Yes I slept, I know that, for I dreamed—dreamed a heap o’ things afore I awoke—there is but one dream, however, that I have ever been able to recall distinctly, and that must have come on shortly before I recovered my consciousness. My resting place through the night had been, as I have told you, at the far end of the boiler. Well, I now dreamed that the manhole was still open—and, what seems curious, rather than laughable, if you take it in connection with other things, I fancied that my legs had been so stretched in the long walk I had taken the evening before, that they now reached the whole length of the boiler and extended through the opening.
“At first, (in my dreaming reflections) it was a comfortable thought that no one could now shut up the manhole without awakening me. But soon it seemed as if my feet, which were on the outside, were becoming drenched in the storm which had originally driven me to seek this shelter. I felt the chilling rain upon my extremities. They grew colder and colder, and their numbness gradually extended upward to other parts of my body. It seemed, however, that it was only the under side of my person that was thus strangely visited. I laid upon my back, and it must have been a species of nightmare that afflicted me, for I knew at last that I was dreaming, yet felt it impossible to rouse myself. A violent fit of coughing restored, at last, my powers of volition. The water, which had been slowly rising around me, had rushed into my mouth; I awoke to hear the rapid strokes of the pump which was driving it into the boiler!
“My whole condition—no—not all of it—not yet—my present condition flashed with new horror upon me. But I did not again swoon. The choking sensation which had made me faint, when I first discovered how I was entombed, gave way to a livelier, though less overpowering, emotion. I shrieked even as I started from my slumber. The previous discovery of the closed aperture, with the instant oblivion that followed, seemed only a part of my dream, and I threw my arms about and looked eagerly for the opening by which I had entered the horrid place—yes, looked for it, and felt for it, though it was the terrible conviction that it was closed—a second time brought home to me—which prompted my frenzied cry. Every sense seemed to have tenfold acuteness, yet not one to act in unison with another. I shrieked again and again—imploringly—desperately—savagely. I filled the hollow chamber with my cries till its iron walls seemed to tingle around me. The dull strokes of the accursed pump seemed only to mock at while they deadened my screams.
“At last I gave myself up. It is the struggle against our fate which frenzies the mind. We cease to fear when we cease to hope. I gave myself up and then I grew calm!
“I was resigned to die—resigned even to my mode of death. It was not, I thought, so very new after all as to awaken unwonted horror in a man. Thousands have been sunk to the bottom of the ocean shut up in the holds of vessels—beating themselves against the battened hatches—dragged down from the upper world shrieking, not for life but for death only beneath the eye and amid the breath of heaven. Thousands have endured that appalling kind of suffocation. I would die only as many a better man had died before me. I could meet such a death. I said so—I thought so—I felt so—felt so, I mean, for a minute—or more; ten minutes it may have been—or but an instant of time. I know not—nor does it matter if I could compute it. There was a time then when I was resigned to my fate. But, good God! was I resigned to it in the shape in which next it came to appal? Stranger, I felt that water growing hot about my limbs, though it was yet mid-leg deep. I felt it, and, in the same moment, heard the roar of the furnace that was to turn it into steam before it could get deep enough to drown one!
“You shudder—It was hideous. But did I shrink and shrivel, and crumble down upon that iron floor, and lose my senses in that horrid agony of fear?—No!—though my brain swam and the life-blood that curdled at my heart seemed about to stagnate there forever, still I knew! I was too hoarse—too hopeless, from my previous efforts, to cry out more. But I struck—feebly at first, and then strongly—frantically with my clenched fist against the sides of the boiler. There were people moving near who must hear my blows! Could not I hear the grating of chains, the shuffling of feet, the very rustle of a rope, hear them all, within a few inches of me? I did—but the gurgling water that was growing hotter and hotter around my extremities, made more noise within the steaming caldron than did my frenzied blows against its sides.
“Latterly I had hardly changed my position, but now the growing heat of the water made me plash to and fro; lifting myself wholly out of it was impossible, but I could not remain quiet. I stumbled upon something—it was a mallet!—a chance tool the smith had led there by accident. With what wild joy did I seize it—with what eager confidence did I now deal my first blows with it against the walls of my prison! But scarce had I intermitted them for a moment when I heard the clang of the iron door as the fireman flung it wide to feed the flames that were to torture me. My knocking was unheard, though I could hear him toss the sticks into the furnace beneath me, and drive to the door when his infernal oven was fully crammed.
“Had I yet a hope? I had, but it rose in my mind side by side with the fear that I might now become the agent of preparing myself a more frightful death—Yes! when I thought of that furnace with its fresh-fed flames curling beneath the iron upon which I stood—a more frightful death even than that of being boiled alive! Had I discovered that mallet but a short time sooner—but no matter, I would by its aid resort to the only expedient now left.
“It was this—I remembered having a marline-spike in my pocket, and in less time than I have taken in hinting at the consequences of thus using it, I had made an impression upon the sides of the boiler, and soon succeeded in driving it through. The water gushed through the aperture—would they see it?—No, the jet could only play against a wooden partition which must hide the stream from view—it must trickle down upon the decks before the leakage would be discovered. Should I drive another hole to make that leakage greater? Why, the water within seemed already to be sensibly diminished—so hot had become that which remained—should more escape, would I not hear it bubble and hiss upon the fiery plates of iron that were already scorching the soles of my feet?
• • • • • •
“Ah! there is a movement—voices—I hear them calling for a crowbar—The bulkhead cracks as they pry off the planking. They have seen the leak—they are trying to get at it!—Good God! why do they not first dampen the fire?—Why do they call for the—the—
“Stranger, look at that finger! it can never regain its natural size—but it has already done all the service that man could expect from so humble a member—Sir, that hole would have been plugged up on the instant, unless I had jammed my finger through!
“I heard the cry of horror as they saw it without—the shout to drown the fire—the first stroke of the cold water pump. They say, too, that I was conscious when they took me out—but I—I remember nothing more till they brought a julep to my bed-side arterwards, And that julep!—”
“Cooling! was it?”
“Strannger!!!”
Ben turned away his head and wept—He could no more.
| [1] | The name “Missouri” is thus generally pronounced upon the western waters. |
“YOU CALL US INCONSTANT.”
———
BY H. T. TUCKERMAN.
———
You call us inconstant—you say that we cease
Our homage to pay, at the voice of caprice;
That we dally with hearts till their treasures are ours,
As bees drink the sweets from a cluster of flowers;
For a moment’s refreshment at love’s fountain stay,
Then turn, with a thankless impatience, away.
And think you, indeed, we so cheerfully part
With hopes that give wings to the o’erwearied heart,
And throw round the future a promise so bright
That life seems a glory, and time a delight?
From our pathway forlorn can we banish the dove,
And yield, without pain, the enchantments of love?
You know not how chill and relentless a wave
Reflection will cast o’er the soul of the brave—
How keenly the clear rays of duty will beam,
And startle the heart from its passionate dream,
To tear the fresh rose from the garland of youth,
And lay it, with tears, on the altar of truth!
We pass from the presence of beauty, to think—
As the hunter will pause on the precipice brink—
“For me shall the bloom of the gladsome and fair
Be wasted away by the fetters of care?
Shall the old, peaceful nest, for my sake, be forgot,
And the gentle and free know a wearisome lot?
“By the tender appeal of that beauty, beware
How you woo her thy desolate fortunes to share.
O pluck not a lily so sheltered and sweet,
And bear it not off from its genial retreat.
Enriched with the boon thy existence would be,
But hapless the fate that unites her to thee!”
Thus, dearest, the spell that thy graces entwined,
No fickle heart breaks, but a resolute mind;
The pilgrim may turn from the shrine with a smile,
Yet, believe me, his bosom is wrung all the while,
And one thought alone lends a charm to the past—
That his love conquered selfishness nobly at last.
DE PONTIS.
A TALE OF RICHELIEU.
———
BY THE AUTHOR OF “HENRI QUATRE; OR THE DAYS OF THE LEAGUE.”
———
(Continued from page 68.)