Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol III, No 13, 1851

by Various

THE SIGHT OF AN ANGEL.

'Tis to create, and in creating live
A being more intense, that we endow
With form our fancy, gaining as we give
The life we image.

The date of the year was—no matter what; the day of the month was—no matter what; when a great general undertook to perform a great victory—a great statesman undertook to pass a great political measure—a great diplomatist undertook a most important mission—a great admiral undertook the command of a great fleet; all which great undertakings were commanded by the very same great monarch of a very great nation. At the same time did a great nobleman give a great entertainment at a great house, and a great beauty made a great many great conquests. On the same day, in the same year, in a very small room, in a very small house, in a very small street, in a very small town in Germany, did a very poor mason commence a very rude carving on a very rough stone. All the public journals of the day told a thousand times over the names of the great general, the great statesman, the great diplomatist, the great admiral, and the great monarch; all the fashionable papers of the day did the same of the great nobleman, the great company, and the great beauty: but none of them spoke of poor Johan Schmit, of the little town of ——, on the Rhine.

Many years had passed away, and the date of the year was—no matter what; but history was telling of a great general who, with consummate wisdom, courage, and skill, and at the cost of numberless nameless lives, gained a great victory, which determined the fate and fortune of a great monarch and a great nation; consequently affecting the fate and fortunes of the world. It entered into minute detail of how his forces were disposed; where lay the right wing, where lay the left; where the cavalry advanced, and how the infantry sustained the attack; how the guns of the artillery played upon the enemy's flank and rear; and how the heavy dragoons rode down the routed forces, and how, finally, the field was covered with the enemy's dead and wounded, while so few of "our own troops" were left for the kite and the carrion crow. Then did history speak of the honors that awaited and rewarded the triumphant hero, of the clamorous homage of his grateful country, and the approving smiles of his grateful monarch; of the fêtes, the banquets, the triumphal processions, all in his honor; of the new titles, the lands, estates, and riches poured upon him; of the state and luxury in which he lived: until the tolling of every bell throughout the kingdom, the eight-horse hearse, the mile-long procession, the Dead March in "Saul," and the volley over the grave, announced that a public statue, on a column a hundred feet high, in the largest square of the largest town, was all that could now record the name of the greatest general of the greatest nation in the world.

History then spoke of a great statesman who on a certain day in a certain year, passed a certain most important measure, affecting the interest of a great nation, and consequently of the whole world. It spoke of his wisdom and foresight, the result of great intellect, energy and labor, giving a biographic sketch of his career from cradle to coffin; dismissing him with a long eulogium on his talents, integrity, and activity, and lamenting the loss such great men were to their country. Then came the name of the great diplomatist whose services had been equally important, and who was dismissed with a similar memoir and eulogium. Then the great admiral, who lived through a whole chapter all to himself, and had his name brought in throughout the whole history of the great monarch whose reign had been rendered so brilliant by the great deeds of so many great men. Of the great feast given by the great nobleman, and the conquests of the great beauty, there remains to this day a record, of the former in the adulatory poems of his flatterers, though the giver was gone—no matter where; of the latter many fair portraits and many fond sonnets, though the object had gone—no matter where. But no scribe told the history, no poet made a sonnet, no artist drew the portrait of poor Johan Schmit, the mason, who made the rude carving on the rough stone in the little town of ——, on the Rhine. This task remains for an historian as obscure as himself, who now begins a rude carving on the rough stone of a human life.

After the example of the great historian already alluded to, I shall touch but lightly on the early history of my hero; merely stating that thirty years before the present date, Johan Schmit was born to Johan Schmit the elder, by his wife Gretchen, after a similar presentation of five others; that he got through the usual maladies childhood is heir to, and was at the age of fifteen apprenticed to Herman Schwartz, a master-builder in the town of Bonn. There, after some years of hod-carrying, mortar-spreading, and stone-cutting—ascending steadily, both literally and metaphorically, the ladder of his profession—honest Johan took a prudent, diligent woman to wife, who lost no time in making him the father of three thriving heirs to his house and his hod. Johan was in tolerably good work, lived in the small house in the small street already mentioned, and kept his family, without much pinching on the part of the thrifty Gertrude, in their beer, thick bread, and sauerkraut. His work, his wife, his children, and his two companions, Karl Vratz, and Caspar Katzheim, with whom he drank very hoppy beer at the "Gold Apfel," just round the corner of the street, comprised the whole interests which occupied the heart and brain of Johan Schmit, of the little town of ——, on the Rhine. Johan had no other idea in his head when he rose in the morning than the day's work, the same as it was yesterday, and would be to-morrow; no other thought when he returned from it in the evening than that Frudchen had his supper ready for him, that little Wilhelm and Johan would run to meet him, and that little Rosechen, the baby, would crow out of her cradle at him, if awake, and that after his supper he would just walk down to the "Gold Apfel," and smoke a pipe with Karl and Caspar as usual. But Johan went to church occasionally with his wife, going through his routine of crossings, genuflexions, and sprinklings with holy water as orderly as any man. He heard the priest speak of doing his duty and obeying the church. Johan believed he did both; his duty—hard work—lay plainly before him; he was honest, sober, and kind to his family, and had certainly no idea or intention of disobeying the church. Thus, in a monotonous task of hard labor for daily bread and the support of an increasing family, plodded contentedly away the life of Johan Schmit of the little town of ——, on the Rhine.

But there is an era in the life of every one, even the most plodding and homely; and so it was with Johan Schmit. It happened one day that he was sent for to repair a broken wall in the château of the Count von Rosenheim, situated not far from the town where Johan lived, on the Rhine; and having completed his job, the housekeeper (the count being absent) took the poor mason through the splendid rooms as a treat. Here he beheld what he had never seen in his life before; velvet curtains, silken sofas, crystal mirrors, gilded frames, paintings, and sculpture; until his eyes were more dazzled than they had been since the first time he entered the cathedral of Bonn. But after gazing his fill upon all this gorgeous spectacle, his eyes happened to fall upon a small bronze statuette of an angel, which the housekeeper informed him was a copy of the Archangel Michael, from some church, she knew not where.

Here was Johan arrested, and here would he have stood forever; for, after looking upon this angel, he saw nothing more: every thing vanished from before him, and nothing remained but the small bronze statuette. Johan had seen plenty of angels before in the churches, fresh-colored, chubby children, and he often thought his own little Rosechen would look just like them if she had wings; but this was something far different. A youth under twenty, and yet it gave no more idea of either age or sex than of any other earthly condition. Clad in what Johan supposed would represent luminous scale-armor, something dazzling and transparent, like what he had heard the priests call the "armor of God"—the hands crossed upon the bosom, the head slightly bowed, the attitude so full of awe, obedience, and humility; and yet what attitude of human pride or defiance was half so lofty, so noble, so dignified? The sword hung sheathed by the side, the long wings folded; but the face—oh, how could he describe that face, so full of high earnestness and holy calm? so bright, so serious, so serene! He felt awed, calmed, and elevated as he looked at it.

"You must go now," exclaimed Madame Grossenberg; and Johan started from his reverie, made his bow, replaced his paper cap, and went home, with his head full of the angel instead of his work. He saw it there instead of stout Frudchen and the children, who climbed about, and wondered at his abstraction. He went to bed, and dreamed of the angel—glorified it seemed to be—and, perhaps for the first time in his life, recalled his dream, and saw the beautiful vision before his waking eyes all the next day at his work—even in the "Gold Apfel," the most unlikely place for an angel; and again when he closed his eyes to sleep. In short, the angel became to him what his gold is to the miser, his power is to the ambitious man, and his mistress to the lover: he saw nothing else in the whole world but the angel; and this now filled the heart and brain of poor Johan Schmit, of the little town of ——, on the Rhine.

There are some things we desire to possess, and other things we desire to produce; the former is the feeling of the connoisseur and collector: the latter, of the artist. The first requires taste and money; the latter—we won't say what it requires, or what it evinces, for enough has been said on the subject already. Johan Schmit had no money; taste he must have had, or he could not have admired the angel; he was no artist, certainly; he had never drawn a line, or cut any thing but a stone in his life; and yet he felt he must do something about that angel. He saw it so plainly and so constantly before him, that he felt he could copy it, if he only knew how. Now, as he could not draw, he could not copy it in that manner; but as he could cut stone, no matter how hard, he did not see why he might not attempt to cut the angel upon a large stone, which he procured, and brought quietly up to a small garret at the top of his house for that purpose.

It was at this time that the general, the statesman, the diplomatist, and the admiral, all severally planned their great undertakings; and it was at this time that a strange thought passed through the brain of Johan Schmit, as he sate looking at the great rough stone before him. Johan was, as we have seen, quite an uneducated man; he hardly knew enough of writing to spell his own name; and as to reading, he had never looked into a book since he left school, at the age of twelve; he therefore hardly knew the nature of his own ideas. His thoughts, never arranged, were but like vague sensations passing through his mind, which he could not define; but if he could have defined them they would have taken something like the following expression:

The angel seemed to have awakened a new world within him; not that he thought of the legend of the Archangel Michael, which he had heard long ago, and forgotten; but of the first idea of the artist who designed that particular angel: what must have been his thoughts! what image must he have had before him as he made that form grow from the marble block into living beauty! Whence could such an idea have come? It must surely have been a visitation from God—a spark of his own creative power. And how must the artist have felt as, day by day and hour by hour, he saw his work developing and perfecting before him, until at last it stood up, a sight to make men wonder and almost worship—an embodiment of all that was pure, lofty, and holy. Then came the contrast of his own sordid work, so low, so slave-like, so brute-like. What human idea could be put into hod-carrying, mortar-spreading, and stone-cutting? Could not an animal or a machine do as much? For the first time, perhaps, in his life, Johan felt that he had a soul not to be bounded by the limits of his work or the daily necessities of existence; and in his rough way he asked himself: How can the higher aspirations of that soul be reflected in man's every-day life? and whether a human mind should be bounded by the narrow routine of plodding toil, for the supplying of common wants? And all these thoughts, vague, unformed, a dim and undefined sense of something, passed through Johan's brain as he sate cutting away at the stone, and trying to form the angel in his little garret, in the little town of ——, on the Rhine. Patiently he labored at it after his day's work was over; patiently he bore all his failures, when he saw in the indistinct outline that the angel's arm was too short, its right leg crooked, its wings shapeless, and its head, instead of bending gracefully, stuck upon its breast like an excrescence; patiently he bore the scoldings of his wife for his dullness and abstraction, and the tricks of his children to arouse him; patiently he listened to the remonstrances of Karl and Caspar, for his bad companionship at the "Gold Apfel;" and patiently he bore the still more serious remonstrances of his master, at the careless and negligent manner in which he often performed his work, when a vision of the angel chanced to flit with more than usual vividness before him. Time wore on; and if Johan did not progress rapidly with his angel, Gertrude was far more active and diligent in presenting him with images in another material, and urging loudly at the same time the necessity of working hard for an increasing family. Poor Gertrude: she was a good woman, and loved her husband without understanding him; but she had a quick temper, and was what is commonly called a shrew. She thought Johan wanted rousing; and to rouse him she rated him: he bore it all patiently, and thought of the angel—it was strange how that angel soothed and consoled him! Caspar, his fellow-workman, fell from a scaffold, and broke his leg. Caspar, too, had a wife and children: Johan undertook his work—he worked double hours, and divided his wages with Caspar.

Karl revealed to him in confidence over his pipe at the "Gold Apfel," that he was in debt, and had been threatened with a jail: Johan lent him the money unknown to Gertrude, and worked hard to make it up; as he knew Karl could never pay him.

He had now no time to work at the angel; and time was going on with him. By his little broken looking-glass he could see his beard growing gray; but strange to say, the angel, though less distinct in form than when he saw it, was still firmly fixed in his memory; and though it seemed to be etherialized, he could always call up its image before him; and still, every moment he could spare, did he hasten to his garret, and cut away at the rough stone. But these hours were stolen from his natural rest, and nature punished the theft; his strength visibly declined. Yet he could not abandon his work—and this not from any ambitious ideas of its success, for he never dreamed of succeeding—he felt his own inability too much to hope for it;—but there was something in the exercise of will, mind, and heart—something which seemed to elevate him in spite of himself, while at his employment, that balanced all other feelings of disappointment and weariness, making him a happier—no, that is not the word, but a nobler—man. And now Johan Schmit had contrived to apprentice his eldest son, send his second to school, pay the doctor's long bill for two children, and bury another; besides having helped Caspar during his illness, and paid Karl's debt. Thrifty Gertrude managed to keep things together; and in her cleaning and bustling had no time to observe the wan face and wasted frame of her husband. The stone had been gradually cut into a form which was nearly as shapeless as before Johan touched it; and yet, to his eyes, it did bear some rude resemblance to the angel of his inspiration—which appeared before his eyes so vividly as he returned from an unusually-long and hard day's work to his home, that he thought he could just put one or two finishing strokes before going to bed which would recall his dimly-remembered model. Without touching supper or pipe, he embraced his wife and children, and went to his garret. He looked long on the rude block before him, and then took up his hammer and chisel to complete his work. After two or three attempts, an unwonted languor stole over him; the tools dropped from his hands, and he worked no more; but the vision of the angel before his eyes grew stronger and stronger, and of something brighter and more glorious than the angel, but he did not attempt to carve it.

In the early morning Gertrude awoke, and was surprised not to see her husband. Thinking he might have risen to his work earlier than usual, she arose and went down stairs; the door was bolted, and there were no signs of Johan. She called; no answer: then, becoming alarmed, she roused the children to look for him. The small house was soon searched, but no Johan discovered; when Wilhelm, remembering the garret he had seen his father steal away into, ascended the ladder leading to it—and there, on his knees, his head resting on the rude block of stone, lay the lifeless body of Johan Schmit. The last thing his eyes beheld on earth was that angel;—but who can say on what vision they opened.

His wife and children removed to Bonn, to her father; who had saved money, and promised to take care of them. His body was laid in the little cemetery of the little town: his widow placed a wooden cross at the head of his grave, which in time, rotted and fell down; so that the place is now left unmarked by any thing. That stone, on which a human heart had carved itself out, was broken up to mend the town wall. And thus, while a large marble slab, with a long inscription, covers the remains of the great general, the great statesman, the great diplomatist, the great admiral, the great nobleman, and the great beauty—not even a piece of wood or a block of stone tells of the mere existence of poor Johan Schmit, of the little town of ——, on the Rhine.

They could work out their idea of life, and the objects for which it was given, by their successful dedication of it to pride, ambition, vanity, and coquetry. He could not; but who can tell what effect that futile effort, that unknown and profitless toil, may have had upon the fate of his soul where it now is?

---

MAURICE TIERNAY, THE SOLDIER OF FORTUNE.[1]

CHAPTER XXIX.

"THE BREAKFAST AT LETTERKENNY."

Early the next morning, a messenger arrived from the Cranagh, with a small packet of my clothes and effects, and a farewell letter from the two brothers. I had but time to glance over its contents, when the tramp of feet and the buzz of voices in the street attracted me to the window, and on looking out I saw a long line of men, two abreast, who were marching along as prisoners, a party of dismounted dragoons, keeping guard over them on either side, followed by a strong detachment of marines. The poor fellows looked sad and crest-fallen enough. Many of them wore bandages on their heads and limbs, the tokens of the late struggle. Immediately in front of the inn door stood a group of about thirty persons; they were the staff of the English force and the officers of our fleet, all mingled together, and talking away with the greatest air of unconcern. I was struck by remarking that all our seamen, though prisoners, saluted the officers as they passed, and in the glances interchanged I thought I could read a world of sympathy and encouragement. As for the officers, like true Frenchmen, they bore themselves as though it were one of the inevitable chances of war, and, however vexatious for the moment, not to be thought of as an event of much importance. The greater number of them belonged to the army, and I could see the uniforms of the staff, artillery, and dragoons, as well as the less distinguished costume of the line.

Perhaps they carried the affectation of indifference a little too far, and in the lounging ease of their attitude, and the cool unconcern with which they puffed their cigars, displayed an over-anxiety to seem unconcerned. That the English were piqued at their bearing was still more plain to see; and indeed in the sullen looks of the one and the careless gayety of the other party, a stranger might readily have mistaken the captor for the captive.

My two friends of the evening before were in the midst of the group. He who had questioned me so sharply now wore a general officer's uniform, and seemed to be the chief in command. As I watched him, I heard him addressed by an officer, and now saw that he was no other than Lord Cavan himself, while the other was a well-known magistrate and country gentleman, Sir George Hill.

The sad procession took almost half an hour to defile; and then came a long string of country cars and carts, with sea chests and other stores belonging to our officers, and, last of all, some eight or ten ammunition wagons and gun carriages, over which an English union-jack now floated in token of conquest.

There was nothing like exultation or triumph exhibited by the peasantry as this pageant passed by. They gazed in silent wonderment at the scene, looked like men that scarcely knew whether the result boded more of good or evil to their own fortunes. While keenly scrutinizing the looks and bearing of the bystanders I received a summons to meet the general and his party at breakfast.

Although the occurrence was one of the most pleasurable incidents of my life, which brought me once more into intercourse with my comrades and my countrymen, I should perhaps pass it over with slight mention, were it not that it made me witness to a scene which has since been recorded in various different ways, but of whose exact details I profess to be an accurate narrator.

After making a tour of the room, saluting my comrades, answering questions here, putting others there, I took my place at the long table, which, running the whole length of the apartment, was indiscriminately occupied by French and English, and found myself with my back to the fire-place, and having directly in front of me a man of about thirty-three or four years of age, dressed in the uniform of a chef de brigade; light-haired and blue-eyed, he bore no resemblance whatever to those around him, whose dark faces and black beards, proclaimed them of a foreign origin. There was an air of mildness in his manner, mingled with a certain impetuosity that betrayed itself in the rapid glances of his eye, and I could plainly mark that while the rest were perfectly at their ease, he was constrained, restless, watching eagerly every thing that went forward about him, and showing unmistakably a certain anxiety and distrust widely differing from the gay and careless indifference of his comrades. I was curious to hear his name, and on asking, learned that he was the Chef de Brigade Smith, an Irishman by birth, but holding a command in the French service.

I had but asked the question, when pushing back his chair from the table, he arose suddenly, and stood stiff and erect, like a soldier on the parade.

"Well, sir, I hope you are satisfied with your inspection of me," cried he, and sternly addressing himself to some one behind my back. I turned and perceived it was Sir George Hill, who stood in front of the fire, leaning on his stick. Whether he replied or not to this rude speech I am unable to say, but the other walked leisurely round the table, and came directly in front of him. "You know me now, sir, I presume," said he, in the same imperious voice, "or else this uniform has made a greater change in my appearance than I knew of."

"Mr. Tone!" said Sir George, in a voice scarcely above a whisper.

"Ay, sir, Wolfe Tone; there is no need of secrecy here; Wolfe Tone, your old college acquaintance in former times, but now chef de brigade in the service of France."

"This is a very unexpected, a very unhappy meeting, Mr. Tone," said Hill, feelingly; "I sincerely wish you had not recalled the memory of our past acquaintance. My duty gives me no alternative."

"Your duty, or I mistake much, can have no concern with me, sir," cried Tone, in a more excited voice.

"I ask for nothing better than to be sure of this, Mr. Tone," said Sir George, moving slowly toward the door.

"You would treat me like an emigré rentré," cried Tone, passionately; "but I am a French subject and a French officer."

"I shall be well satisfied if others take the same view of your case, I assure you," said Hill, as he gained the door.

"You'll not find me unprepared for either event, sir," rejoined Tone, following him out of the room, and banging the door angrily behind him.

For a moment or two the noise of voices was heard from without, and several of the guests, English and French, rose from the table, eagerly inquiring what had occurred, and asking for an explanation of the scene, when suddenly the door was flung wide open, and Tone appeared between two policemen, his coat off, and his wrists inclosed in handcuffs.

"Look here, comrades," he cried in French; "this is another specimen of English politeness and hospitality. After all," added he, with a bitter laugh, "they have no designation in all their heraldry as honorable as these fetters, when worn for the cause of freedom! Good-by, comrades; we may never meet again, but don't forget how we parted!"

These were the last words he uttered, when the door was closed, and he was led forward under charge of a strong force of police and military. A post-chaise was soon seen to pass the windows at speed, escorted by dragoons, and we saw no more of our comrade.

The incident passed even more rapidly than I write it. The few words spoken, the hurried gestures, the passionate exclamations, are yet all deeply graven on my memory; and I can recall every little incident of the scene, and every feature of the locality wherein it occurred. With true French levity many reseated themselves at the breakfast-table; while others, with perhaps as little feeling, but more of curiosity, discussed the event, and sought for an explanation of its meaning.

"Then what's to become of Tiernay," cried one, "if it be so hard to throw off this 'coil of Englishman?' His position may be just as precarious."

"That is exactly what has occurred," said Lord Cavan; "a warrant for his apprehension has just been put into my hands, and I deeply regret that the duty should violate that of hospitality, and make my guest my prisoner."

"May I see this warrant, my lord?" asked I.

"Certainly, sir. Here it is; and here is the information on oath through which it was issued, sworn to before three justices of the peace by a certain Joseph Dowall, late an officer in the rebel forces, but now a pardoned approver of the Crown; do you remember such a man, sir?"

I bowed, and he went on.

"He would seem a precious rascal; but such characters become indispensable in times like these. After all, M. Tiernay, my orders are only to transmit you to Dublin under safe escort, and there is nothing either in my duty or in your position to occasion any feeling, of unpleasantness between us. Let us have a glass of wine together."

I responded to this civil proposition with politeness, and after a slight interchange of leave-takings with some of my newly-found comrades, I set out for Derry on a jaunting-car, accompanied by an officer and two policemen, affecting to think very little of a circumstance which, in reality, the more I reflected over the more serious I deemed it.

CHAPTER XXX.

A SCENE IN THE ROYAL BARRACKS.

It would afford me little pleasure to write, and doubtless my readers less to read my lucubrations, as I journeyed along toward Dublin. My thoughts seldom turned from myself and my own fortunes, nor were they cheered by the scenes through which I traveled. The season was a backward and wet one, and the fields, partly from this cause, and partly from the people being engaged in the late struggle, lay untilled and neglected. Groups of idle, lounging peasants stood in the villages, or loitered on the high roads, as we passed, sad, ragged-looking, and wretched. They seemed as if they had no heart to resume their wonted life of labor, but were waiting for some calamity to close their miserable existence. Strongly in contrast with this were the air and bearing of the yeomanry and militia detachments, with whom we occasionally came up. Quite forgetting how little creditable to some of them, at least, were the events of the late campaign, they gave themselves the most intolerable airs of heroism, and in their drunken jollity, and reckless abandonment, threatened, I know not what—utter ruin to France and all Frenchmen. Bonaparte was the great mark of all their sarcasms, and, from some cause or other, seemed to enjoy a most disproportioned share of their dislike and derision.

At first it required some effort of constraint on my part to listen to this ribaldry in silence; but prudence, and a little sense, taught me the safer lesson of "never minding," and so I affected to understand nothing that was said in a spirit of insult or offense.

On the night of the 7th of November we drew nigh to Dublin; but instead of entering the capital, we halted at a small village outside of it called Chapelizod. Here a house had been fitted up for the reception of French prisoners, and I found myself, if not in company, at least under the same roof with my countrymen.

Nearer intercourse than this, however, I was not destined to enjoy, for early on the following morning I was ordered to set out for the Royal Barracks, to be tried before a court-martial. It was on a cold, raw morning, with a thin, drizzly rain falling, that we drove into the barrack-yard, and drew up at the mess-room, then used for the purposes of a court. As yet none of the members had assembled, and two or three mess-waiters were engaged in removing the signs of last night's debauch, and restoring a semblance of decorum to a very rackety-looking apartment. The walls were scrawled over with absurd caricatures, in charcoal or ink, of notorious characters of the capital, and a very striking "battle-piece" commemorated the "Races of Castlebar," as that memorable action was called, in a spirit, I am bound to say, of little flattery to the British arms. There were to be sure little compensatory illustrations here and there of French cavalry in Egypt, mounted on donkeys, or revolutionary troops on parade, ragged as scarecrows, and ill-looking as highwaymen; but a most liberal justice characterized all these frescoes, and they treated both Trojan and Tyrian alike.

I had abundant time given me to admire them, for although summoned for seven o'clock, it was nine before the first officer of the court-martial made his appearance, and he having popped in his head, and perceiving the room empty; sauntered out again, and disappeared. At last a very noisy jaunting-car rattled into the square, and a short, red-faced man was assisted down from it, and entered the mess-room. This was Mr. Peters, the Deputy Judge Advocate, whose presence was the immediate signal for the others, who now came dropping in from every side, the President, a Colonel Daly, arriving the last.

A few tradespeople, loungers, it seemed to me, of the barrack, and some half-dozen non-commissioned officers off duty, made up the public; and I could not but feel a sense of my insignificance in the utter absence of interest my fate excited. The listless indolence and informality, too, offended and insulted me; and when the President politely told me to be seated, for they were obliged to wait for some books or papers left behind at his quarters, I actually was indignant at his coolness.

As we thus waited, the officers gathered around the fire-place, chatting and laughing pleasantly together, discussing the social events of the capital, and the gossip of the day; every thing, in fact, but the case of the individual on whose future fate they were about to decide.

At length the long-expected books made their appearance, and a few well-thumbed volumes were spread over the table, behind which the Court took their places, Colonel Daly in the centre, with the Judge upon his left.

The members being sworn, the Judge Advocate arose, and in a hurried, humdrum kind of voice, read out what purported to be the commission under which I was to be tried; the charge being, whether I had or had not acted treacherously and hostilely to his Majesty, whose natural born subject I was, being born in that kingdom, and, consequently, owing to him all allegiance and fidelity. "Guilty or not guilty, sir?"

"The charge is a falsehood; I am a Frenchman," was my answer.

"Have respect for the Court, sir," said Peters; "you mean that you are a French officer, but by birth an Irishman."

"I mean no such thing;—that I am French by birth, as I am in feeling—that I never saw Ireland till within a few months back, and heartily wish I had never seen it."

"So would General Humbert, too, perhaps," said Daly, laughing; and the Court seemed to relish the jest.

"Where were you born, then, Tiernay?"

"In Paris, I believe."

"And your mother's name, what was it?"

"I never knew; I was left an orphan when a mere infant, and can tell little of my family."

"Your father was Irish, then?"

"Only by descent. I have heard that we came from a family who bore the title of 'Timmahoo'—Lord Tiernay of Timmahoo."

"There was such a title," interposed Peters; "it was one of King James's last creations after his flight from the Boyne. Some, indeed, assert that it was conferred before the battle. What a strange coincidence, to find the descendant, if he be such, laboring in something like the same cause as his ancestor."

"What's your rank, sir?" asked a sharp, severe-looking man, called Major Flood.

"First Lieutenant of Hussars."

"And is it usual for a boy of your years to hold that rank; or was there any thing peculiar in your case that obtained the promotion?"

"I served in two campaigns, and gained my grade regularly."

"Your Irish blood, then, had no share in your advancement?" asked he again.

"I am a Frenchman, as I said before," was my answer.

"A Frenchman, who lays claim to an Irish estate and an Irish title," replied Flood. "Let us hear Dowall's statement."

And now, to my utter confusion, a man made his way to the table, and, taking the book from the Judge Advocate, kissed it in token of an oath.

"Inform the Court of any thing you know in connection with the prisoner," said the Judge.

And the fellow, not daring even to look toward me, began a long, rambling, unconnected narrative of his first meeting with me at Killala, affecting that a close intimacy had subsisted between us, and that in the faith of a confidence, I had told him how, being an Irishman by birth, I had joined the expedition in the hope that with the expulsion of the English I should be able to re-establish my claim to my family rank and fortune. There was little coherence in his story, and more than one discrepant statement occurred in it; but the fellow's natural stupidity imparted a wonderful air of truth to the narrative, and I was surprised how naturally it sounded even to my own ears, little circumstances of truth being interspersed through the recital, as though to season the falsehood into a semblance of fact.

"What have you to reply to this, Tiernay?" asked the Colonel.

"Simply, sir, that such a witness, were his assertions even more consistent and probable, is utterly unworthy of credit. This fellow was one of the greatest marauders of the rebel army: and the last exercise of authority I ever witnessed by General Humbert was an order to drive him out of the town of Castlebar."

"Is this the notorious Town-Major Dowall?" asked an officer of artillery.

"The same, sir."

"I can answer, then, for his being one of the greatest rascals unhanged," rejoined he.

"This is all very irregular, gentlemen," interposed the Judge Advocate; "the character of a witness can not be impugned by what is mere desultory conversation. Let Dowall withdraw."

The man retired, and now a whispered conversation was kept up at the table for about a quarter of an hour, in which I could distinctly separate those who befriended from those who opposed me, the Major being the chief of the latter party. One speech of his which I overheard made a slight impression on me, and for the first time suggested uneasiness regarding the event.

"Whatever you do with this lad must have an immense influence on Tone's trial. Don't forget that if you acquit him you'll be sorely puzzled to convict the other."

The Colonel promptly overruled this unjust suggestion, and maintained that in my accent, manner, and appearance, there was every evidence of my French origin.

"Let Wolfe Tone stand upon his own merits," said he, "but let us not mix this case with his."

"I'd have treated every man who landed to a rope," exclaimed the Major, "Humbert himself among the rest. It was pure 'brigandage,' and nothing less."

"I hope if I escape, sir, that it will never be my fortune to see you a prisoner of France," said I, forgetting all in my indignation.

"If my voice have any influence, young man, that opportunity is not likely to occur to you," was the reply.

This ungenerous speech found no sympathy with the rest, and I soon saw that the Major represented a small minority in the Court.

The want of my commission, or of any document suitable to my rank or position in the service, was a great drawback; for I had given all my papers to Humbert, and had nothing to substantiate my account of myself. I saw how unfavorably this acknowledgement was taken by the Court; and when I was ordered to withdraw that they might deliberate, I own that I felt great misgivings as to the result.

The deliberation was a long, and as I could overhear, a strongly disputed one. Dowall was twice called in for examination, and when he retired on the last occasion, the discussion grew almost stormy.

As I stood thus awaiting my fate, the public, now removed from the Court, pressed eagerly to look at me; and while some thronged the door-way, and even pressed against the sentry, others crowded at the window to peep in. Among these faces, over which my eye ranged in half vacancy, one face struck me, for the expression of sincere sympathy and interest it bore. It was that of a middle-aged man of an humble walk in life, whose dress bespoke him from the country. There was nothing in his appearance to have called for attention or notice, and at any other time I should have passed him over without remark, but now, as his features betokened a feeling almost verging on anxiety, I could not regard him without interest.

Whichever way my eyes turned, however my thoughts might take me off, whenever I looked toward him, I was sure to find his gaze steadily bent upon me, and with an expression quite distinct from mere curiosity. At last came the summons for me to reappear before the Court, and the crowd opened to let me pass in.

The noise, the anxiety of the moment, and the movement of the people confused me at first, and when I recovered self-possession, I found that the Judge Advocate was reciting the charge under which I was tried. There were three distinct counts, on each of which the Court pronounced me "Not Guilty," but at the same time qualifying the finding by the additional words—"by a majority of two;" thus showing me that my escape had been a narrow one.

"As a prisoner of war," said the President, "you will now receive the same treatment as your comrades of the same rank. Some have been already exchanged, and some have given bail for their appearance to answer any future charges against them."

"I am quite ready, sir, to accept my freedom on parole," said I; "of course, in a country where I am an utter stranger, bail is out of the question."

"I'm willing to bail him, your worship; I'll take it on me to be surety for him," cried a coarse, husky voice from the body of the court; and at the same time a man dressed in a great coat of dark frieze pressed through the crowd and approached the table.

"And who are you, my good fellow, so ready to impose yourself on the Court?" asked Peters.

"I'm a farmer of eighty acres of land, from the Black Pits, near Baldoyle, and the Adjutant there, Mr. Moore, knows me well."

"Yes," said the Adjutant, "I have known you some years, as supplying forage to the cavalry, and always heard you spoken of as honest and trust-worthy."

"Thank you, Mr. Moore; that's as much as I want."

"Yes; but it's not as much as we want, my worthy man," said Peters; "we require to know that you are a solvent and respectable person."

"Come out and see my place then; ride over the land and look at my stock; ask my neighbors my character; find out if there's any thing against me."

"We prefer to leave all that trouble on your shoulders," said Peters; "show us that we may accept your surety and we'll entertain the question at once."

"How much is it?" asked he, eagerly.

"We demanded five hundred pounds for a Major on the staff; suppose we say two, Colonel, is that sufficient?" asked Peters of the President.

"I should say quite enough," was the reply.

"There's eighty of it any way," said the farmer, producing a dirty roll of bank notes, and throwing them on the table; "I got them from Mr. Murphy in Smithfield this morning, and I'll get twice as much more from him for asking; so if your honors will wait 'till I come back, I'll not be twenty minutes away."

"But we can't take your money, my man; we have no right to touch it."

"Then what are ye talking about two hundred pounds for?" asked he, sternly.

"We want your promise to pay in the event of this bail being broken."

"Oh, I see, it's all the same thing in the end; I'll do it either way."

"We'll accept Mr. Murphy's guarantee for your solvency," said Peters; "obtain that and you can sign the bond at once."

"Faith I'll get it sure enough, and be here before you've the writing drawn out;" said he, buttoning up his coat.

"What name are we to insert in the bond?"

"Tiernay, sir."

"That's the prisoner's name, but we want yours."

"Mine's Tiernay too, sir, Pat Tiernay of the Black Pits."

Before I could recover from my surprise at this announcement he had left the Court, which, in a few minutes afterward, broke up, a clerk alone remaining to fill up the necessary documents and complete the bail-bond.

The Colonel, as well as two others of his officers, pressed me to join them at breakfast, but I declined, resolving to wait for my name-sake's return, and partake of no other hospitality than his.

It was near one o'clock when he returned, almost worn out with fatigue, since he had been in pursuit of Mr. Murphy for several hours, and only came upon him by chance at last. His business, however, he had fully accomplished; the bail-bond was duly drawn out and signed, and I left the barrack in a state of happiness very different from the feeling with which I had entered it that day.

CHAPTER XXXI.

A BRIEF CHANGE OF LIFE AND COUNTRY.

My new acquaintance never ceased to congratulate himself on what he called the lucky accident that had led him to the barracks that morning, and thus brought about our meeting. "Little as you think of me, my dear," said he, "I'm one of the Tiernays of Timmahoo myself; faix, until I saw you, I thought I was the last of them! There are eight generations of us in the church-yard at Kells, and I was looking to the time when they'd lay my bones there, as the last of the race, but I see there's better fortune before us."

"But you have a family I hope?"

"Sorrow one belonging to me. I might have married when I was young, but there was a pride in me to look for something higher than I had any right, except from blood, I mean; for a better stock than our own isn't to be found; and that's the way years went over and I lost the opportunity, and here I am now an old bachelor, without one to stand to me, barrin' it be yourself."

The last words were uttered with a tremulous emotion, and on turning toward him I saw his eyes swimming with tears, and perceived that some strong feeling was working within him.

"You can't suppose I can ever forget what I owe you, Mr. Tiernay."

"Call me Pat, Pat Tiernay," interrupted he, roughly.

"I'll call you what you please," said I, "if you let me add friend to it."

"That's enough; we understand one another now, no more need be said; you'll come home and live with me. It's not long, maybe, you'll have to do that same; but when I go you'll be heir to what I have: 'tis more, perhaps, than many supposes, looking at the coat and the gaiters I'm wearin'. Mind, Maurice, I don't want you, nor I don't expect you to turn farmer like myself. You need never turn a hand to any thing. You'll have your horse to ride—two if you like it. Your time will be all your own, so that you spend a little of it, now and then, with me, and as much divarsion as ever you care for."

I have condensed into a few words the substance of a conversation which lasted till we reached Baldoyle; and passing through that not over-imposing village, gained the neighborhood of the sea-shore, along which stretched the farm of the "Black Pits," a name derived, I was told, from certain black holes that were dug in the sands by fishermen in former times, when the salt tide washed over the pleasant fields where corn was now growing. A long, low, thatched cabin, with far more indications of room and comfort than pretension to the picturesque, stood facing the sea. There were neither trees nor shrubs around it, and the aspect of the spot was bleak and cheerless enough, a coloring a dark November day did nothing to dispel.

It possessed one charm, however, and had it been a hundred times inferior to what it was, that one would have compensated for all else—hearty welcome met me at the door, and the words, "This is your home, Maurice," filled my heart with happiness.

Were I to suffer myself to dwell even in thought on this period of my life, I feel how insensibly I should be led away into an inexcusable prolixity. The little meaningless incidents of my daily life, all so engraven on my memory still, occupied me pleasantly from day till night. Not only the master of myself and my own time, I was master of every thing around me. Uncle Pat, as he loved to call himself, treated me with a degree of respect that was almost painful to me, and only when we were alone together, did he relapse into the intimacy of equality. Two first-rate hunters stood in my stable; a stout-built half-deck boat lay at my command beside the quay; I had my gun and my grayhounds; books, journals; every thing, in short, that a liberal purse and a kind spirit could confer—all but acquaintance. Of these I possessed absolutely none. Too proud to descend to intimacy with the farmers and small shopkeepers of the neighborhood, my position excluded me from acquaintance with the gentry; and thus I stood between both, unknown to either.

For a while my new career was too absorbing to suffer me to dwell on this circumstance. The excitement of field sports sufficed me when abroad, and I came home usually so tired at night that I could barely keep awake to amuse Uncle Pat with those narratives of war and campaigning he was so fond of hearing. To the hunting-field succeeded the Bay of Dublin, and I passed days, even weeks, exploring every creek and inlet of the coast; now cruising under the dark cliffs of the Welsh shore, or, while my boat lay at anchor, wandering among the solitary valleys of Lambay; my life, like a dream full of its own imaginings, and unbroken by the thoughts or feelings of others! I will not go the length of saying that I was self-free from all reproach on the inglorious indolence in which my days were passed, or that my thoughts never strayed away to that land where my first dreams of ambition were felt. But a strange fatuous kind of languor had grown upon me, and the more I retired within myself, the less did I wish for a return to that struggle with the world which every active life engenders. Perhaps—I can not now say if it were so—perhaps I resented the disdainful distance with which the gentry treated me, as we met in the hunting-field or the coursing-ground. Some of the isolation I preferred may have had this origin, but choice had the greater share in it, until at last my greatest pleasure was to absent myself for weeks on a cruise, fancying that I was exploring tracts never visited by man, and landing on spots where no human foot had ever been known to tread.

If Uncle Pat would occasionally remonstrate on the score of these long absences, he never ceased to supply means for them, and my sea store and a well-filled purse were never wanting, when the blue Peter floated from "La Hoche," as in my ardor I had named my cutter. Perhaps at heart he was not sorry to see me avoid the capital and its society. The bitterness which had succeeded the struggle for independence was now at its highest point, and there was what, to my thinking at least, appeared something like the cruelty of revenge in the sentences which followed the state trials. I will not suffer myself to stray into the debatable ground of politics, nor dare I give an opinion on matters, where, with all the experience of fifty years superadded, the wisest heads are puzzled how to decide; but my impression at the time was, that lenity would have been a safer and a better policy than severity, and that in the momentary prostration of the country lay the precise conjuncture for those measures of grace and favor, which were afterward rather wrung from than conceded by the English government. Be this as it may, Dublin offered a strange spectacle at that period. The triumphant joy of one party—the discomfiture and depression of the other. All the exuberant delight of success here; all the bitterness of failure there. On one side festivities, rejoicings, and public demonstrations; on the other, confinement, banishment, or the scaffold.

The excitement was almost madness. The passion for pleasure, restrained by the terrible contingencies of the time, now broke forth with redoubled force, and the capital was thronged with all its rank, riches, and fashion, when its jails were crowded, and the heaviest sentences of the law were in daily execution. The state trials were crowded by all the fashion of the metropolis; and the heart-moving eloquence of Curran was succeeded by the strains of a merry concert. It was just then, too, that the great lyric poet of Ireland began to appear in society, and those songs which were to be known afterwards as "The Melodies," par excellence, were first heard in all the witching enchantment which his own taste and voice could lend them. To such as were indifferent to or could forget the past, it was a brilliant period. It was the last flickering blaze of Irish nationality, before the lamp was extinguished for ever.

Of this society I myself saw nothing. But even in the retirement of my humble life the sounds of its mirth and pleasure penetrated, and I often wished to witness the scenes which even in vague description were fascinating. It was then in a kind of discontent at my exclusion, that I grew from day to day more disposed to solitude, and fonder of those excursions which led me out of all reach of companionship or acquaintance. In this spirit I planned a long cruise down channel, resolving to visit the Island of Valencia, or, if the wind and weather favored, to creep around the southwest coast as far as Bantry or Kenmare. A man and his son, a boy of about sixteen, formed all my crew, and were quite sufficient for the light tackle and easy rig of my craft. Uncle Pat was already mounted on his pony, and ready to set out for market, as we prepared to start. It was a bright spring morning—such a one as now and then the changeful climate of Ireland brings forth, in a brilliancy of color and softness of atmosphere that are rare in even more favored lands.

"You have a fine day of it, Maurice, and just enough wind," said he, looking at the point from whence it came. "I almost wish I was going with you."

"And why not come, then?" asked I. "You never will give yourself a holiday. Do so for once, now."

"Not to-day, any how," said he, half sighing at his self-denial. "I have a great deal of business on my hands to-day; but the next time—the very next you're up to a long cruise, I'll go with you."

"That's a bargain, then?"

"A bargain. Here's my hand on it."

We shook hands cordially on the compact. Little knew I it was to be for the last time, and that we were never to meet again.

I was soon aboard, and with a free mainsail skimming rapidly over the bright waters of the bay. The wind freshened as the day wore on, and we quickly passed the Kish light-ship, and held our course boldly down channel. The height of my enjoyment in these excursions consisted in the unbroken quietude of mind I felt, when removed from all chance of interruption, and left free to follow out my own fancies, and indulge my dreamy conceptions to my heart's content. It was then I used to revel in imaginings which sometimes soared into the boldest realms of ambition, and at other strayed contemplatively in the humblest walks of obscure fortune. My crew never broke in upon these musings; indeed old Tom Finnerty's low crooning song rather aided than interrupted them. He was not much given to talking, and a chance allusion to some vessel afar off, or some head-land we were passing, were about the extent of his communicativeness, and even these often fell on my ear unnoticed.

It was thus, at night, we made the Hook Tower; and on the next day passed, in a spanking breeze, under the bold cliffs of Tramore, just catching, as the sun was sinking, the sight of Youghal Bay, and the tall headlands beyond it.

"The wind is drawing more to the nor'ard," said old Tom, as night closed in, "and the clouds look dirty."

"Bear her up a point or two," said I, "and let us stand in for Cork harbor, if it comes on to blow."

He muttered something in reply, but I did not catch the words, nor, indeed, cared I to hear them, for I had just wrapped myself in my boat-cloak, and stretched at full length on the shingle ballast of the yawl, was gazing in rapture at the brilliancy of the starry sky above me. Light skiffs of feathery cloud would now and then flit past, and a peculiar hissing sound of the sea told, at the same time, that the breeze was freshening. But old Tom had done his duty in mentioning this once; and thus having disburdened his conscience, he closehauled his mainsail, shifted the ballast a little to midships, and, putting up the collar of his pilot-coat, screwed himself tighter into the corner beside the tiller, and chewed his quid in quietness. The boy slept soundly in the bow, and I, lulled by the motion and the plashing waves, fell into a dreamy stupor, like a pleasant sleep. The pitching of the boat continued to increase, and twice or thrice, struck by a heavy sea, she lay over, till the white waves came tumbling in over her gunwale. I heard Tom call to his boy, something about the head-sail, but for the life of me I could not or would not arouse myself from a train of thought that I was following.

"She's a stout boat to stand this," said Tom, as he rounded her off, at a coming wave, which, even thus escaped, splashed over her like a cataract. "I know many a bigger craft wouldn't hold up her canvas under such a gale."

"Here it comes, father. Here's a squall," cried the boy, and with a crash like thunder, the wind struck the sail, and laid the boy half-under.

"She'd float if she was full of water," said the old man, as the craft "righted."

"But maybe the spars wouldn't stand," said the boy, anxiously.

"'Tis what I'm thinking," rejoined the father. "There's a shake in the mast, below the caps."

"Tell him it's better to bear up, and go before it," whispered the lad, with a gesture toward where I was lying.

"Troth it's little he'd care," said the other; "besides, he's never plazed to be woke up."

"Here it comes again," cried the boy. But this time the squall swept past ahead of us, and the craft only reeled to the swollen waves, as they tore by.

"We'd better go about, sir," said Tom to me; "there's a heavy sea outside, and it's blowing hard now."

"And there's a split in the mast as long as my arm," cried the boy.

"I thought she'd live through any sea, Tom!" said I, laughing; for it was his constant boast that no weather could harm her.

"There goes the spar," shouted he, while with a loud snap the mast gave way, and fell with a crash over the side. The boat immediately came head to wind, and sea after sea broke upon her bow, and fell in great floods over us.

"Cut away the stays—clear the wreck," cried Tom, "before the squall catches her."

And although we now labored like men whose lives depended on the exertion, the trailing sail and heavy rigging, shifting the ballast as they fell, laid her completely over; and when the first sea struck her, over she went. The violence of the gale sent me a considerable distance out, and for several seconds I felt as though I should never reach the surface again. Wave after wave rolled over me, and seemed bearing me downward with their weight. At last I grasped something; it was a rope—a broken halyard—but by its means I gained the mast, which floated alongside of the yawl as she now lay keel uppermost. With what energy did I struggle to reach her. The space was scarcely a dozen feet, and yet it cost me what seemed an age to traverse. Through all the roaring of the breakers, and the crashing sounds of storm, I thought I could hear my comrades' voices shouting and screaming, but this was in all likelihood a mere deception, for I never saw them more.

Grasping with a death-grip the slippery keel, I hung on the boat through all the night. The gale continued to increase, and by day-break it blew a perfect hurricane. With an aching anxiety I watched for the light to see if I were near the land, or if any ship were in sight, but when the sun rose nothing met my eyes but a vast expanse of waves tumbling and tossing in mad confusion, while overhead some streaked and mottled clouds were hurried along with the wind. Happily for me, I have no correct memory of that long day of suffering. The continual noise, but more still, the incessant motion of the sea and sky around brought on a vertigo, that seemed like madness; and although the instinct of self-preservation remained, the wildest and most incoherent fancies filled my brain. Some of these were powerful enough to impress themselves upon my memory for years after, and one I have never yet been able to dispel. It clings to me in every season of unusual depression or dejection; it recurs in the half nightmare sleep of over fatigue, and even invades me when, restless and feverish, I lie for hours incapable of repose. This is the notion that my state was one of after-life punishment; that I had died, and was now expiating a sinful life by the everlasting misery of a castaway. The fever brought on by thirst and exhaustion and the burning sun which beamed down upon my uncovered head, soon completed the measure of this infatuation, and all sense and guidance left me.

By what instinctive impulse I still held on my grasp I can not explain, but there I clung during the whole of that long dreadful day, and the still more dreadful night, when the piercing cold cramped my limbs, and seemed as if freezing the very blood within me. It was no wish for life; it was no anxiety to save myself that now filled me. It seemed like a vague impulse of necessity that compelled me to hang on. It was, as it were, part of that terrible sentence which made this my doom forever!

An utter unconsciousness must have followed this state, and a dreary blank, with flitting shapes of suffering, is all that remains to my recollection....

Probably within the whole range of human sensations, there is not one so perfect in its calm and soothing influence as the first burst of gratitude we feel when recovering from a long and severe illness! There is not an object, however humble and insignificant, that is not for the time invested with a new interest. The air is balmier, flowers are sweeter, the voices of friends, the smiles and kind looks, are dearer and fonder than we have ever known them. The whole world has put on a new aspect for us, and we have not a thought that is not teeming with forgiveness and affection. Such, in all their completeness, were my feelings as I lay on the poop-deck of a large three-masted ship, which, with studding and top-gallant sails all set, proudly held her course up the Gulf of St. Lawrence.

She was a Dantzig barque, the "Hoffnung," bound for Quebec, her only passengers being a Moravian minister and his wife, on their way to join a small German colony established near Lake Champlain. To Gottfried Kröller and his dear little wife I owe not life alone, but nearly all that has made it valuable. With means barely removed from absolute poverty, I found that they had spared nothing to assist in my recovery; for, when discovered, emaciation and wasting had so far reduced me that nothing but the most unremitting care and kindness could have succeeded in restoring me. To this end they bestowed not only their whole time and attention, but every little delicacy of their humble sea-store. All the little cordials and restoratives meant for a season of sickness or debility were lavished unsparingly on me, and every instinct of national thrift and carefulness gave way before the more powerful influence of Christian benevolence.

I can think of nothing but that bright morning, as I lay on a mattress on the deck, with the "Pfarrer" on one side of me, and his good little wife, Lyschen, on the other; he, with his volume of "Wieland," and she working away with her long knitting-needles, and never raising her head save to bestow a glance at the poor sick boy, whose bloodless lips were trying to mutter her name in thankfulness. It is like the most delicious dream as I think over those hours, when, rocked by the surging motion of the large ship, hearing in half distinctness the words of the "Pfarrer's" reading, I followed out little fancies—now self-originating, now rising from the theme of the poet's musings.

How softly the cloud shadows moved over the white sails and swept along the bright deck! How pleasantly the water rippled against the vessel's side! With what a glad sound the great ensign flapped and fluttered in the breeze! There was light, and life, and motion on every side, and I felt all the intoxication of enjoyment.

And like a dream was the portion of my life which followed. I accompanied the Pfarrer to a small settlement near "Crown Point," where he was to take up his residence as minister. Here we lived amid a population of about four or five hundred Germans, principally from Pomerania, on the shores of the Baltic, a peaceful, thrifty, quiet set of beings, who, content with the little interests revolving around themselves, never troubled their heads about the great events of war or politics; and here in all likelihood should I have been content to pass my days, when an accidental journey I made to Albany, to receive some letters for the Pfarrer, once more turned the fortune of my life.

It was a great incident in the quiet monotony of my life, when I set out one morning, arrayed in a full suit of coarse glossy black, with buttons like small saucers, and a hat whose brim almost protected my shoulders. I was, indeed, an object of very considerable envy to some, and I hope, also, not denied the admiring approval of some others. Had the respectable city I was about to visit been the chief metropolis of a certain destination which I must not name, the warnings I received about its dangers, dissipations, and seductions, could scarcely have been more earnest or impressive. I was neither to speak with, nor even to look at, those I met in the streets. I was carefully to avoid taking my meals at any of the public eating-houses, rigidly guarding myself from the contamination of even a chance acquaintance. It was deemed as needless to caution me against theatres or places of amusement, as to hint to me that I should not commit a highway robbery or a murder, and so, in sooth, I should myself have felt it. The patriarchal simplicity in which I had lived for above a year, had not been without its effect in subduing exaggerated feeling, or controlling that passion for excitement so common to youth. I felt a kind of drowsy, dreamy languor over me, which I sincerely believed represented a pious and well-regulated temperament. Perhaps in time it might have become such. Perhaps with others, more happily constituted, the impression would have been confirmed and fixed; but in my case it was a mere lacker that the first rubbing in the world was sure to brush off.

I arrived safely at Albany, and having presented myself at the bank of Gabriel Shultze, was desired to call the following morning, when all the letters and papers of Gottfried Kröller should be delivered to me. A very cold invitation to supper was the only hospitality extended to me. This I declined on pretext of weariness, and set out to explore the town, to which my long residence in rural life imparted a high degree of interest.

I don't know what it may now be: doubtless a great capital, like one of the European cities; but at the time I speak of, Albany was a strange, incongruous assemblage of stores and wooden houses, great buildings like granaries, with whole streets of low sheds around them, where open to the passer-by, men worked at various trades, and people followed out the various duties of domestic life in sight of the public; the daughters knitted and sewed; mothers cooked and nursed their children; men ate, and worked, and smoked, and sang, as if in all the privacy of closed dwellings, while a thick current of population poured by, apparently too much immersed in their own cares, or too much accustomed to the scene, to give it more than passing notice.

It was curious how one bred and born in the great city of Paris, with all its sights and sounds, and scenes of excitement and display, could have been so rusticated by time, as to feel a lively interest in surveying the motley aspect of this quaint town. There were, it is true, features in the picture very unlike the figures in "Old World" landscape. A group of red men, seated around a fire in the open street, or a squaw carrying on her back a baby, firmly tied to a piece of curved bark; a Southern-stater, with a spanking wagon-team, and two grinning negroes behind, were new and strange elements in the life of a city. Still, the mere movement, the actual busy stir and occupation of the inhabitants, attracted me as much as any thing else; and the shops and stalls where trades were carried on were a seduction I could not resist.

The strict puritanism in which I had lately lived taught me to regard all these things with a certain degree of distrust. They were the impulses of that gold-seeking passion of which Gottfried had spoken so frequently; they were the great vice of that civilization, whose luxurious tendency he often deplored; and here, now, more than one-half around me were arts that only ministered to voluptuous tastes. Brilliant articles of jewelry; gay cloaks, worked with wampum, in Indian taste; ornamental turning, and costly weapons, inlaid with gold and silver, succeeded each other, street after street; and the very sight of them, however pleasurable to the eye, set me a-moralizing, in a strain that would have done credit to a son of Geneva. It might have been, that in my enthusiasm I uttered half aloud what I intended for soliloquy: or perhaps some gesture, or peculiarity of manner, had the effect; but so it was: I found myself an object of notice; and my queer-cut coat and wide hat, contrasting so strangely with my youthful appearance and slender make, drew many a criticism on me.

"He ain't a Quaker, that's a fact," cried one, "for they don't wear black."

"He's a down-Easter—a horse jockey chap, I'll be bound," cried another. "They put on all manner of disguises and 'masqueroonings.' I know 'em!"

"He's a calf preacher—a young bottle-nosed Gospeller," broke in a thick, short fellow, like the skipper of a merchant ship. "Let's have him out for a preachment."

"Ay, you're right," chimed in another. "I'll get you a sugar hogshead in no time;" and away he ran on the mission.

Between twenty and thirty persons had now collected; and I saw myself, to my unspeakable shame and mortification, the centre of all their looks and speculations. A little more aplomb or knowledge of life would have taught me coolness enough in a few words to undeceive them: but such a task was far above me now; and I saw nothing for it but flight. Could I only have known which way to take, I need not have feared any pursuer, for I was a capital runner, and in high condition; but of the locality I was utterly ignorant, and should only surrender myself to mere chance. With a bold rush, then, I dashed right through the crowd, and set off down the street, the whole crew after me. The dusk of the closing evening was in my favor; and although volunteers were enlisted in the chase at every corner and turning, I distanced them, and held on my way in advance. My great object being not to turn on my course, lest I should come back to my starting point, I directed my steps nearly straight onward, clearing apple-stalls and fruit tables at a bound; and more than once taking a flying leap over an Indian's fire, when the mad shout of the red man would swell the chorus that followed me. At last I reached a network of narrow lanes and alleys, by turning and winding through which, I speedily found myself in a quiet secluded spot, with here and there a flickering candle-light from the windows, but no other sign of habitation. I looked anxiously about for an open door; but they were all safe barred and fastened; and it was only on turning a corner I spied what seemed to me a little shop, with a solitary lamp over the entrance. A narrow canal, crossed by a rickety old bridge, led to this; and the moment I had crossed over, I seized the single plank which formed the footway, and shoved it into the stream. My retreat being thus secured, I opened the door, and entered. It was a barber's shop; at least, so a great chair before a cracked old looking glass, with some well-worn combs and brushes, bespoke it; but the place seemed untenanted, and although I called aloud several times, none came or responded to my summons.

I now took a survey of the spot which seemed of the poorest imaginable. A few empty pomatum pots, a case of razors that might have defied the most determined suicide, and a half-finished wig, on a block painted like a red man, were the entire stock in trade. On the walls, however, were some colored prints of the battles of the French army in Germany and Italy. Execrably done things they were, but full of meaning and interest to my eyes in spite of that. With all the faults of drawing and all the travesties of costume, I could recognize different corps of the service, and my heart bounded as I gazed on the tall shakos swarming to a breach, or the loose jacket as it floated from the hussar in a charge. All the wild pleasures of soldiering rose once more to my mind, and I thought over old comrades who doubtless were now earning the high rewards of their bravery in the great career of glory. And as I did so, my own image confronted me in the glass, as with long, lank hair, and a great bolster of a white cravat, I stood before it. What a contrast!—how unlike the smart hussar, with curling locks and fierce mustache! Was I as much changed in heart as in looks. Had my spirit died out within me. Would the proud notes of the bugle or the trumpet fall meaningless on my ears, or the hoarse cry of "Charge!" send no bursting fullness to my temples? Ay, even these coarse representations stirred the blood in my veins, and my step grew firmer as I walked the room.

In a passionate burst of enthusiasm I tore off my slouched hat and hurled it from me. It felt like the badge of some ignoble slavery, and I determined to endure it no longer. The noise of the act called up a voice from the inner room, and a man, to all appearance suddenly roused from sleep, stood at the door. He was evidently young, but poverty, dissipation, and raggedness made the question of his age a difficult one to solve. A light-colored mustache and beard covered all the lower part of his face, and his long blonde hair fell heavily over his shoulders.

"Well," cried he, half angrily, "what's the matter; are you so impatient that you must smash the furniture?"

Although the words were spoken as correctly as I have written them, they were uttered with a foreign accent; and, hazarding the stroke, I answered him in French by apologizing for the noise.

"What! a Frenchman," exclaimed he, "and in that dress; what can that mean?"

"If you'll shut your door, and cut off pursuit of me, I'll tell you every thing," said I, "for I hear the voices of people coming down that street in front."

"I'll do better," said he, quickly, "I'll upset the bridge, and they can not come over."

"That's done already," replied I; "I shoved it into the stream as I passed."

He looked at me steadily for a moment without speaking, and then approaching close to me, said, "Parbleu! the act was very unlike your costume!" At the same time he shut the door, and drew a strong bar across it. This done, he turned to me once more—"Now for it: who are you, and what has happened to you?"

"As to what I am," replied I, imitating his own abruptness, "my dress will almost save the trouble of explaining; these Albany folk, however, would make a field-preacher of me, and to escape them I took to flight."

"Well, if a fellow will wear his hair that fashion, he must take the consequence," said he, drawing out my long lank locks as they hung over my shoulders. "And so you wouldn't hold forth for them; not even give them a stave of a conventical chant." He kept his eyes riveted on me as he spoke, and then seizing two pieces of stick for the firewood, he beat on the table the ran-tan-plan of the French drum. "That's the music you know best, lad, eh?—that's the air, which, if it has not led heavenward, has conducted many a brave fellow out of this world at least: do you forget it?"

"Forget it! no," cried I; "but who are you; and how comes it that—that—" I stopped in confusion at the rudeness of the question I had begun.

"That I stand here, half-fed, and all but naked; a barber in a land where men don't shave once a month. Parbleu! they'd come even seldomer to my shop if they knew how tempted I feel to draw the razor sharp and quick across the gullet of a fellow with a well-stocked pouch."

As he continued to speak, his voice assumed a tone and cadence that sounded familiarly to my ears as I stared at him in amazement.

"Not know me yet," exclaimed he, laughing; "and yet all this poverty and squalor isn't as great a disguise as your own, Tiernay. Come, lad, rub your eyes a bit, and try if you can't recognize an old comrade."

"I know you, yet can not remember how or where we met," said I, in bewilderment.

"I'll refresh your memory," said he, crossing his arms, and drawing himself proudly up. "If you can trace back in your mind to a certain hot and dusty day, on the Metz road, when you, a private in the seventh Hussars, were eating an onion and a slice of black bread for your dinner, a young officer, well-looking and well-mounted, cantered up, and threw you his brandy flask. Your acknowledgment of the civility showed you to be a gentleman; and the acquaintance thus opened, soon ripened into intimacy."

"But he was the young Marquis de Saint Trone," said I, perfectly remembering the incident.

"Or Eugene Santron, of the republican army, or the barber at Albany, without any name at all," said he, laughing. "What, Maurice, don't you know me yet?"

"What, the lieutenant of my regiment! The dashing officer of Hussars!"

"Just so, and as ready to resume the old skin as ever," cried he, "and brandish a weapon somewhat longer, and perhaps somewhat sharper, too, than a razor."

We shook hands with all the cordiality of old comrades, meeting far away from home, and in a land of strangers; and although each was full of curiosity to learn the other's history, a kind of reserve held back the inquiry, till Santron said, "My confession is soon made, Maurice; I left the service in the Meuse, to escape being shot. One day, on returning from a field manœuvre, I discovered that my portmanteau had been opened, and a number of letters and papers taken out. They were part of a correspondence I held with old General Lamarre, about the restoration of the Bourbons, a subject, I'm certain, that half the officers in the army were interested in, and, even to Bonaparte himself, deeply implicated in too. No matter, my treason, as they called it, was too flagrant, and I had just twenty minutes' start of the order which was issued for my arrest, to make my escape into Holland. There I managed to pass several months in various disguises, part of the time being employed as a Dutch spy, and actually charged with an order to discover tidings of myself, until I finally got away in an Antwerp schooner, to New York. From that time my life has been nothing but a struggle, a hard one, too, with actual want, for in this land of enterprise and activity, mere intelligence, without some craft or calling, will do nothing.

"I tried fifty things—to teach riding, and when I mounted into the saddle, I forgot everything but my own enjoyment, and caracolled, and plunged, and passaged, till the poor beast hadn't a leg to stand on; fencing, and I got into a duel with a rival teacher, and ran him through the neck, and was obliged to fly from Halifax; French, I made love to my pupil, a pretty looking Dutch fraulein, whose father didn't smile on our affection; and so on I descended from a dancing-master to a waiter, a laquais de place, and at last settled down as a barber, which brilliant speculation I had just determined to abandon this very night; for to-morrow morning, Maurice, I start for New York and France again; ay, boy, and you'll go with me. This is no land for either of us."

"But I have found happiness, at least contentment, here," said I, gravely.

"What! play the hypocrite with an old comrade! shame on you, Maurice," cried he. "It is these confounded locks have perverted the boy," added he, jumping up; and before I knew what he was about, he had shorn my hair, in two quick cuts of the scissors, close to the head. "There," said he, throwing the cut-off hair toward me, "there lies all your saintship; depend upon it, boy, they'd hunt you out of the settlement if you came back to them cropped in this fashion."

"But you return to certain death, Santron," said I; "your crime is too recent to be forgiven or forgotten."

"Not a bit of it; Fouche, Cassaubon, and a dozen others now in office, were deeper than I was. There's not a public man in France could stand an exposure, or hazard recrimination. It's a thieves' amnesty at this moment, and I must not lose the opportunity. I'll show you letters that will prove it, Maurice; for, poor and ill-fed as I am, I like life just as well as ever I did. I mean to be a general of division one of these days, and so will you too, lad, if there's any spirit left in you."

Thus did Santron rattle on, sometimes of himself and his own future; sometimes discussing mine; for while talking, he had contrived to learn all the chief particulars of my history, from the time of my sailing from La Rochelle for Ireland.

The unlucky expedition afforded him great amusement, and he was never weary of laughing at all our adventures and mischances in Ireland. Of Humbert, he spoke as a fourth or fifth-rate man, and actually shocked me by all the heresies he uttered against our generals, and the plan of campaign; but, perhaps, I could have borne even these better than the sarcasms and sneers at the little life of "the settlement." He treated all my efforts at defense as mere hypocrisy, and affected to regard me as a mere knave, that had traded on the confiding kindness of these simple villagers. I could not undeceive him on this head; nor what was more, could I satisfy my own conscience that he was altogether in the wrong; for, with a diabolical ingenuity, he had contrived to hit on some of the most vexatious doubts which disturbed my mind, and instinctively to detect the secret cares and difficulties that beset me. The lesson should never be lost on us, that the devil was depicted as a sneerer! I verily believe the powers of temptation have no such advocacy as sarcasm. Many can resist the softest seductions of vice: many are proof against all the blandishments of mere enjoyment, come in what shape it will; but how few can stand firm against the assaults of clever irony, or hold fast to their convictions when assailed by the sharp shafts of witty depreciation.

I'm ashamed to own how little I could oppose to all his impertinences about our village, and its habits; or how impossible I found it not to laugh at his absurd descriptions of a life which, without having ever witnessed, he depicted with a rare accuracy. He was shrewd enough not to push this ridicule offensively, and long before I knew it I found myself regarding, with his eyes, a picture in which, but a few months back, I stood as a fore-ground figure. I ought to confess, that no artificial aid was derived from either good cheer, or the graces of hospitality; we sat by a miserable lamp, in a wretchedly cold chamber, our sole solace some bad cigars, and a can of flat, stale cider.

"I have not a morsel to offer you to eat, Maurice, but to-morrow we'll breakfast on my razors, dine on that old looking-glass, and sup on two hard brushes and the wig!"

Such were the brilliant pledges, and we closed a talk which the flickering lamp at last put an end to.

A broken, unconnected conversation followed for a little time, but at length, worn out and wearied, each dropped off to sleep—Eugene on the straw settle, and I in the old chair—never to awake till the bright sun was streaming in between the shutters, and dancing merrily on the tiled floor.

An hour before I awoke he had completed the sale of all his little stock in trade, and, with a last look round the spot where he had passed some months of struggling poverty, out we sallied into the town.

"We'll breakfast at Jonathan Hone's," said Santron. "It's the first place here. I'll treat you to rump steaks, pumpkin pie, and a gin twister that will astonish you. Then, while I'm arranging for our passage down the Hudson, you'll see the hospitable banker, and tell him how to forward all his papers, and so forth, to the settlement, with your respectful compliments and regrets, and the rest of it."

"But am I to take leave of them in this fashion?" asked I.

"Without you want me to accompany you there, I think it's by far the best way," said he, laughingly. "If, however, you think that my presence and companionship will add any lustre to your position, say the word and I'm ready. I know enough of the barber's craft now to make up a head 'en Puritan,' and, if you wish, I'll pledge myself to impose upon the whole colony."

Here was a threat there was no mistaking; and any imputation of ingratitude on my part were far preferable to the thought of such an indignity. He saw his advantage at once, and boldly declared that nothing should separate us.

"The greatest favor, my dear Maurice, you can ever expect at my hands is, never to speak of this freak of yours; or, if I do, to say that you performed the part to perfection."

My mind was in one of those moods of change when the slightest impulse is enough to sway it, and more from this cause than all his persuasion, I yielded; and the same evening saw me gliding down the Hudson, and admiring the bold Kaatskills, on our way to New York.

(TO BE CONTINUED.)

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