CONTENTS
[A CRUISE ON LAKE LADOGA.]
[WET-WEATHER WORK.]
[THE REAPER'S DREAM.]
[THE NEW-ENGLAND REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.]
[SOME ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY LIFE OF AN OLD BACHELOR.]
[THE SNOW-MAN.]
[THE GOLD-FIELDS OF NOVA SCOTIA.]
[LIFE ON THE SEA ISLANDS.]
[GOLD HAIR.]
[CALIFORNIA AS A VINELAND.]
[TO A YOUNG GIRL DYING:]
[THE RIM.]
[TYPES.]
[HOUSE AND HOME PAPERS.]
[REENLISTED.]
[THE PRESIDENTIAL ELECTION.]
[REVIEWS AND LITERARY NOTICES.]
A CRUISE ON LAKE LADOGA.
"Dear Q.,—The steamboat Valamo is advertised to leave on Tuesday, the 26th, (July 8th, New Style,) for Serdopol, at the very head of Lake Ladoga, stopping on the way at Schlüsselburg, Konewitz Island, Kexholm, and the island and monastery of Valaam. The anniversary of Saints Sergius and Herrmann, miracle-workers, will be celebrated at the last-named place on Thursday, and the festival of the Apostles Peter and Paul on Friday. If the weather is fine, the boat will take passengers to the Holy Island. The fare is nine rubles for the trip. You can be back again in St. Petersburg by six o'clock on Saturday evening. Provisions can be had on board, but (probably) not beds; so, if you are luxurious in this particular, take along your own sheets, pillow-cases, and blankets. I intend going, and depend upon your company. Make up your mind by ten o'clock, when I will call for your decision.
"Yours,
"P."
I laid down the note, looked at my watch, and found that I had an hour for deliberation before P.'s arrival. "Lake Ladoga?" said I to myself; "it is the largest lake in Europe,—I learned that at school. It is full of fish; it is stormy; and the Neva is its outlet. What else?" I took down a geographical dictionary, and obtained the following additional particulars: The name Lad'oga (not Lado'ga, as it is pronounced in America) is Finnish, and means "new." The lake lies between 60° and 61° 45' north latitude, is 175 versts—about 117 miles—in length, from north to south, and 100 versts in breadth; receives the great river Volkhoff on the south, the Svir, which pours into it the waters of Lake Onega, on the east, and the overflow of nearly half the lakes of Finland, on the west; and is, in some parts, fourteen hundred feet deep.
Vainly, however, did I ransack my memory for the narrative of any traveller who had beheld and described this lake. The red hand-book, beloved of tourists, did not even deign to notice its existence. The more I meditated on the subject, the more I became convinced that here was an untrodden corner of the world, lying within easy reach of a great capital, yet unknown to the eyes of conventional sight-seers. The name of Valaam suggested that of Barlaam, in Thessaly, likewise a Greek monastery; and though I had never heard of Sergius and Herrmann, the fact of their choosing such a spot was the beginning of a curious interest in their history. The very act of poring over a map excites the imagination: I fell into conjectures about the scenery, vegetation, and inhabitants, and thus, by the time P. arrived, was conscious of a violent desire to make the cruise with him. To our care was confided an American youth, whom I shall call R.,—we three being, as we afterwards discovered, the first of our countrymen to visit the northern portion of the lake.
The next morning, although it was cloudy and raw, R. and I rose betimes, and were jolted on a droshky through the long streets to the Valamo's landing-place. We found a handsome English-built steamer, with tonnage and power enough for the heaviest squalls, and an after-cabin so comfortable that all our anticipations of the primitive modes of travel were banished at once. As men not ashamed of our health, we had decided to omit the sheets and pillow-cases, and let the tooth-brush answer as an evidence of our high civilization; but the broad divans and velvet cushions of the cabin brought us back to luxury in spite of ourselves. The captain, smoothly shaven and robust, as befitted his station,—English in all but his eyes, which were thoroughly Russian,—gave us a cordial welcome in passable French. P. drove up presently, and the crowd on the floating pier rapidly increased, as the moment of departure approached. Our fellow-pilgrims were mostly peasants and deck—passengers: two or three officers, and a score of the bourgeois, were divided, according to their means, between the first and second cabins. There were symptoms of crowding, and we hastened to put in preëmption-claims for the bench on the port—side, distributing our travelling sacks and pouches along it, as a guard against squatters. The magic promise of na chaï (something to buy tea with) further inspired the waiters with a peculiar regard for our interest, so that, leaving our important possessions in their care, we went on deck to witness the departure.
By this time the Finnish sailors were hauling in the slack hawsers, and the bearded stevedores on the floating quay tugged at the gangway. Many of our presumed passengers had only come to say good-bye, which they were now waving and shouting from the shore. The rain fell dismally, and a black, hopeless sky settled down upon the Neva. But the Northern summer, we knew, is as fickle as the Southern April, and we trusted that Sergius and Herrmann, the saints of Valaam, would smooth for us the rugged waters of Ladoga. At last the barking little bell ceased to snarl at the tardy pilgrims. The swift current swung our bow into the stream, and, as we moved away, the crowd on deck uncovered their heads, not to the bowing friends on the quay, but to the spire of a church which rose to view behind the houses fronting the Neva. Devoutly crossing themselves with the joined three fingers, symbolical of the Trinity, they doubtless murmured a prayer for the propitious completion of the pilgrimage, to which, I am sure, we could have readily echoed the amen.
The Valamo was particularly distinguished, on this occasion, by a flag at the fore, carrying the white Greek cross on a red field. This proclaimed her mission as she passed along, and the bells of many a little church pealed God-speed to her and her passengers. The latter, in spite of the rain, thronged the deck, and continually repeated their devotions to the shrines on either bank. On the right, the starry domes of the Smolnoi, rising from the lap of a linden—grove, flashed upon us; then, beyond the long front of the college of demoiselles nobles and the military storehouses, we hailed the silver hemispheres which canopy the tomb and shrine of St. Alexander of the Neva. On the left, huge brick factories pushed back the gleaming groves of birch, which flowed around and between them, to dip their hanging boughs in the river; but here and there peeped out the bright green cupolas of some little church, none of which, I was glad to see, slipped out of the panorama without its share of reverence.
For some miles we sailed between a double row of contiguous villages,—a long suburb of the capital, which stretched on and on, until the slight undulations of the shore showed that we had left behind us the dead level of the Ingrian marshes. It is surprising what an interest one takes in the slightest mole-hill, after living for a short time on a plain. You are charmed with an elevation which enables you to look over your neighbor's hedge. I once heard a clergyman, in his sermon, assert that "the world was perfectly smooth before the fall of Adam, and the present inequalities in its surface were the evidences of human sin." I was a boy at the time, and I thought to myself, "How fortunate it is that we are sinners!" Peter the Great, however, had no choice left him. The piles he drove in these marshes were the surest foundation of his empire.
The Neva, in its sudden and continual windings, in its clear, cold, sweet water, and its fringing groves of birch, maple, and alder, compensates, in a great measure, for the flatness of its shores. It has not the slow magnificence of the Hudson or the rush of the Rhine, but carries with it a sense of power, of steady, straightforward force, like that of the ancient warriors who disdained all clothing except their swords. Its naked river-god is not even crowned with reeds, but the full flow of his urn rolls forth undiminished by summer and unchecked beneath its wintry lid. Outlets of large lakes frequently exhibit this characteristic, and the impression they make upon the mind does not depend on the scenery through which they flow. Nevertheless, we discovered many points the beauty of which was not blotted out by rain and cloud, and would have shone freshly and winningly under the touch of the sun. On the north bank there is a palace of Potemkin, (or Potchómkin, as his name is pronounced in Russian,) charmingly placed at a bend, whence it looks both up and down the river. The gay color of the building, as of most of the datchas, or country-villas, in Russia, makes a curious impression upon the stranger. Until he has learned to accept it as a portion of the landscape, the effect is that of a scenic design on the part of the builder. These dwellings, these villages and churches, he thinks, are scarcely intended to be permanent: they were erected as part of some great dramatic spectacle, which has been, or is to be, enacted under the open sky. Contrasted with the sober, matter-of-fact aspect of dwellings in other countries, they have the effect of temporary decorations. But when one has entered within these walls of green and blue and red arabesques, inspected their thickness, viewed the ponderous porcelain stores, tasted, perhaps, the bountiful cheer of the owner, he realizes their palpable comforts, and begins to suspect that all the external adornment is merely an attempt to restore to Nature that coloring of which she is stripped by the cold sky of the North.
A little farther on, there is a summer villa of the Empress Catharine,—a small, modest building, crowning a slope of green turf. Beyond this, the banks are draped with foliage, and the thinly clad birches, with their silver stems, shiver above the rush of the waters. We, also, began to shiver under the steadily falling rain, and retreated to the cabin on the steward's first hint of dinner. A table d'hôte of four courses was promised us, including the preliminary zakouski and the supplementary coffee,—all for sixty copéks, which is about forty-five cents. The zakouski is an arrangement peculiar to Northern countries, and readily adopted by foreigners. In Sweden it is called the smörgås, or "butter-goose" but the American term (if we had the custom) would be "the whetter." On a side-table there are various plates of anchovies, cheese, chopped onions, raw salt herring, and bread, all in diminutive slices, while glasses of corresponding size surround a bottle of kümmel, or cordial of caraway-seed. This, at least, was the zakouski on board the Valamo, and to which our valiant captain addressed himself, after first bowing and crossing himself towards the Byzantine Christ and Virgin in either corner of the cabin. We, of course, followed his example, finding our appetites, if not improved, certainly not at all injured thereby. The dinner which followed far surpassed our expectations. The national shchee, or cabbage-soup, is better than the sound of its name; the fish, fresh from the cold Neva, is sure to be well cooked where it forms an important article of diet; and the partridges were accompanied by those plump little Russian cucumbers, which are so tender and flavorous that they deserve to be called fruit rather than vegetables.
When we went on deck to light our Riga cigars, the boat was approaching Schlüsselburg, at the outlet of the lake. Here the Neva, just born, sweeps in two broad arms around the island which bears the Key-Fortress,—the key by which Peter opened this river-door to the Gulf of Finland. The pretty town of the same name is on the south bank, and in the centre of its front yawn the granite gates of the canal which, for a hundred versts, skirts the southern shore of the lake, forming, with the Volkhoff River and another canal beyond, a summer communication with the vast regions watered by the Volga and its affluents. The Ladoga Canal, by which the heavy barges laden with hemp from Mid-Russia, and wool from the Ural, and wood from the Valdaï Hills, avoid the sudden storms of the lake, was also the work of Peter the Great. I should have gone on shore to inspect the locks, but for the discouraging persistence of the rain. Huddled against the smoke-stack, we could do nothing but look on the draggled soldiers and mujiks splashing through the mud, the low yellow fortress, which has long outlived its importance, and the dark-gray waste of lake which loomed in front, suggestive of rough water and kindred abominations.
There it was, at last,—Lake Ladoga,—and now our prow turns to unknown regions. We steamed past the fort, past a fleet of brigs, schooners, and brigantines, with huge, rounded stems and sterns, laden with wood from the Wolkonskoi forests, and boldly entered the gray void of fog and rain. The surface of the lake was but slightly agitated, as the wind gradually fell and a thick mist settled on the water. Hour after hour passed away, as we rushed onward through the blank, and we naturally turned to our fellow-passengers in search of some interest or diversion to beguile the time. The heavy-bearded, peasants and their weather-beaten wives were scattered around the deck in various attitudes, some of the former asleep on their backs, with open mouths, beside the smoke-stack. There were many picturesque figures among them, and, if I possessed the quick pencil of Kaulbach, I might have filled a dozen leaver of my sketch-book. The bourgeoisie were huddled on the quarter-deck benches, silent, and fearful of sea-sickness. But a very bright, intelligent young officer turned up, who had crossed the Ural, and was able to entertain us with an account of the splendid sword-blades of Zlatáoust. He was now on his way to the copper mines of Pitkaranda, on the northeastern shore of the lake.
About nine o'clock in the evening, although still before sunset, the fog began to darken, and I was apprehensive that we should have some difficulty in finding the island of Konewitz, which was to be our stopping-place for the night. The captain ordered the engine to be slowed, and brought forward a brass half-pounder, about a foot long, which was charged and fired. In less than a minute after the report, the sound of a deep, solemn bell boomed in the mist, dead ahead. Instantly every head was uncovered, and the rustle of whispered prayers fluttered over the deck, as the pilgrims bowed and crossed themselves. Nothing was to be seen; but, stroke after stroke, the hollow sounds, muffled and blurred in the opaque atmosphere, were pealed out by the guiding bell. Presently a chime of smaller bells joined in a rapid accompaniment, growing louder and clearer as we advanced. The effect was startling. After voyaging for hours over the blank water, this sudden and solemn welcome, sounded from some invisible tower, assumed a mystic and marvellous character. Was it not rather the bells of a city ages ago submerged, and now sending its ghostly summons up to the pilgrims passing over its crystal grave?
Finally a tall mast, its height immensely magnified by the fog, could be distinguished; then the dark hulk of a steamer, a white gleam of sand through the fog, indistinct outlines of trees, a fisherman's hut, and a landing-place. The bells still rang out from some high station near at hand, but unseen. We landed as soon as the steamer had made fast, and followed the direction of the sound. A few paces from the beach stood a little chapel, open, and with a lamp burning before its brown Virgin and Child. Here our passengers stopped, and made a brief prayer before going on. Two or three beggars, whose tattered dresses of tow suggested the idea of their having clothed themselves with the sails of shipwrecked vessels, bowed before us so profoundly and reverently that we at first feared they had mistaken us for the shrines. Following an avenue of trees, up a gentle eminence, the tall white towers and green domes of a stately church gradually detached themselves from the mist, and we found ourselves at the portal of the monastery. A group of monks, in the usual black robes, and high, cylindrical caps of crape, the covering of which overlapped and fell upon their shoulders, were waiting, apparently to receive visitors. Recognizing us as foreigners, they greeted us with great cordiality, and invited us to take up our quarters for the night in the house appropriated to guests. We desired, however, to see the church before the combined fog and twilight should make it too dark; so a benevolent old monk led the way, hand in hand with P., across the court-yard.
The churches of the Greek faith present a general resemblance in their internal decorations. There is a glitter of gold, silver, and flaring colors in the poorest. Statues are not permitted, but the pictures of dark Saviours and Saints are generally covered with a drapery of silver, with openings for the head and hands. Konewitz, however, boasts of a special sanctity, in possessing the body of Saint Arsenius, the founder of the monastery. His remains are inclosed in a large coffin of silver, elaborately chased. It was surrounded, as we entered, by a crowd of kneeling pilgrims; the tapers burned beside it, and at the various altars; the air was thick with incense, and the great bell still boomed from the misty tower. Behind us came a throng of our own deck-passengers, who seemed to recognize the proper shrines by a sort of devotional instinct, and were soon wholly absorbed in their prayers and prostrations. It is very evident to me that the Russian race requires the formulas of the Eastern Church; a fondness for symbolic ceremonies and observances is far more natural to its character than to the nations of Latin or Saxon blood. In Southern Europe the peasant will exchange merry salutations while dipping his fingers in the holy water, or turn in the midst of his devotions to inspect a stranger; but the Russian, at such times, appears lost to the world. With his serious eyes fixed on the shrine or picture, or, maybe, the spire of a distant church, his face suddenly becomes rapt and solemn, and no lurking interest in neighboring things interferes with its expression.
One of the monks, who spoke a little French, took us into his cell. He was a tall, frail man of thirty-five, with a wasted face, and brown hair flowing over his shoulders, like most of his brethren of the same age. In those sharp, earnest features, one could see that the battle was not yet over. The tendency to corpulence does not appear until after the rebellious passions have been either subdued, or pacified by compromise. The cell was small, but neat and cheerful, on the ground-floor, with a window opening on the court, and a hard, narrow pallet against the wall. There was also a little table, with books, sacred pictures, and a bunch of lilacs in water. The walls were whitewashed, and the floor cleanly swept. The chamber was austere, certainly, but in no wise repulsive.
It was now growing late, and only the faint edges of the twilight glimmered overhead, through the fog. It was not night, but a sort of eclipsed day, not much darker than our winter days under an overcast sky. We returned to the tower, where an old monk took us in charge. Beside the monastery is a special building for guests, a room in which was offered to us. It was so clean and pleasant, and the three broad sofa-couches with leather cushions looked so inviting, that we decided to sleep there, in preference to the crowded cabin. Our supply of shawls, moreover, enabled us to enjoy the luxury of undressing. Before saying good-night, the old monk placed his hand upon R.'s head. "We have matins at three o'clock," said he; "when you hear the bell, get up, and come to the church: it will bring blessing to you." We were soon buried in a slumber which lacked darkness to make it profound. At two o'clock, the sky was so bright that I thought it six, and fell asleep again, determined to make three hours before I stopped. But presently the big bell began to swing: stroke after stroke, it first aroused, but was fast lulling me, when the chimes struck in and sang all manner of incoherent and undevout lines. The brain at last grew weary of this, when, close to our door, a little, petulant, impatient bell commenced barking for dear life. R. muttered and twisted in his sleep, and brushed away the sound several times from his upper ear, while I covered mine,—but to no purpose. The sharp, fretful jangle went through shawls and cushions, and the fear of hearing it more distinctly prevented me from rising for matins. Our youth, also, missed his promised blessing, and so we slept until the sun was near five hours high,—that is, seven o'clock.
The captain promised to leave for Kexholm at eight, which left us only an hour for a visit to the Konkamen, or Horse-Rock, distant a mile, in the woods. P. engaged as guide a long-haired acolyte, who informed us that he had formerly been a lithographer in St. Petersburg. We did not ascertain the cause of his retirement from the world: his features were too commonplace to suggest a romance. Through the mist, which still hung heavy on the lake, we plunged into the fir-wood, and hurried on over its uneven carpet of moss and dwarf whortleberries. Small gray boulders then began to crop out, and gradually became so thick that the trees thrust them aside as they grew. All at once the wood opened on a rye-field belonging to the monks, and a short turn to the right brought us to a huge rock, of irregular shape, about forty feet in diameter by twenty in height. The crest overhung the base on all sides except one, up which a wooden staircase led to a small square chapel perched upon the summit.
The legends attached to this rock are various, but the most authentic seems to be, that in the ages when the Carelians were still heathen, they were accustomed to place their cattle upon this island in summer, as a protection against the wolves, first sacrificing a horse upon the rock. Whether their deity was the Perun of the ancient Russians or the Jumala of the Finns is not stated; the inhabitants at the present day say, of course, the Devil. The name of the rock may also be translated "Petrified Horse," and some have endeavored to make out a resemblance to that animal, in its form. Our acolyte, for instance, insisted thereupon, and argued very logically—"Why, if you omit the head and legs, you must see that it is exactly like a horse." The peasants say that the Devil had his residence in the stone, and point to a hole which he made, on being forced by the exorcisms of Saint Arsenius to take his departure. A reference to the legend is also indicated in the name of the island, Konewitz,—which our friend, the officer, gave to me in French as Chevalisé, or, in literal English, The Horsefied.
The stones and bushes were dripping from the visitation of the mist, and the mosquitoes were busy with my face and hands while I made a rapid drawing of the place. The quick chimes of the monastery, through which we fancied we could hear the warning boat-bell, suddenly pierced through the forest, recalling us. The Valamo had her steam up, when we arrived, and was only waiting for her rival, the Letuchie (Flyer), to get out of our way. As we moved from the shore, a puff of wind blew away the fog, and the stately white monastery, crowned with its bunch of green domes, stood for a moment clear and bright in the morning sun. Our pilgrims bent, bareheaded, in devotional farewell; the golden crosses sparkled an answer, and, the fog rushed down again like a falling curtain.
We steered nearly due north, making for Kexholm, formerly a frontier Swedish town, at the mouth of the River Wuoxen. For four hours it was a tantalizing struggle between mist and sunshine,—a fair blue sky overhead, and a dense cloud sticking to the surface of the lake. The western shore, though near at hand, was not visible; but our captain, with his usual skill, came within a quarter of a mile of the channel leading to the landing-place. The fog seemed to consolidate into the outline of trees; hard land was gradually formed, as we approached; and as the two river-shores finally inclosed us, the air cleared, and long, wooded hills arose in the distance. Before us lay a single wharf, with three wooden buildings leaning against a hill of sand.
"But where is Kexholm?"
"A verst inland," says the captain; "and I will give you just half an hour to see it."
There were a score of peasants, with clumsy two-wheeled carts and shaggy ponies at the landing. Into one of these we clambered, gave the word of command, and were whirled off at a gallop. There may have been some elasticity in the horse, but there certainly was none in the cart. It was a perfect conductor, and the shock with which it passed over stones and leaped ruts was instantly communicated to the os sacrum, passing thence along the vertebræ, to discharge itself in the teeth. Our driver was a sunburnt Finn, who was bent upon performing his share of the contract, in order that he might afterwards with a better face demand a ruble. On receiving just the half, however, he put it into his pocket, without a word of remonstrance.
"Suomi?" I asked, calling up a Finnish word with an effort.
"Suomi-laïnen" he answered, proudly enough, though the exact meaning is, "I am a Swamplander."
Kexholm, which was founded in 1295, has attained since then a population of several hundreds. Grass grows between the cobble-stones of its broad streets, but the houses are altogether so bright, so clean, so substantially comfortable, and the geraniums and roses peeping out between snowy curtains in almost every window suggested such cozy interiors, that I found myself quite attracted towards the plain little town. "Here," said I to P., "is a nook which is really out of the world. No need of a monastery, where you have such perfect seclusion, and the indispensable solace of natural society to make it endurable." Pleasant faces occasionally looked out, curiously, at the impetuous strangers: had they known our nationality, I fancy the whole population would have run together. Reaching the last house, nestled among twinkling birch-trees on a bend of the river beyond, we turned about, and made for the fortress,—another conquest of the Great Peter. Its low ramparts had a shabby, neglected look; an old drawbridge spanned the moat, and there was no sentinel to challenge us as we galloped across. In and out again, and down the long, quiet street, and over the jolting level to the top of the sandhill,—we had seen Kexholm in half an hour.
At the mouth of the river still lay the fog, waiting for us, now and then stretching a ghostly arm over the woods and then withdrawing it, like a spirit of the lake, longing and yet timid to embrace the land. With the Wuoxen come down the waters of the Saïma, that great, irregular lake, which, with its innumerable arms, extends for a hundred and fifty miles into the heart of Finland, clasping the forests and mountains of Savolax, where the altar-stones of Jumala still stand in the shade of sacred oaks, and the song of the Kalewala is sung by the descendants of Waïnamöinen. I registered a vow to visit those Finnish solitudes, as we shot out upon the muffled lake, heading for the holy isles of Valaam. This was the great point of interest in our cruise, the shrine of our pilgrim-passengers. We had heard so little of these islands before leaving St. Petersburg, and so much since, that our curiosity was keenly excited; and thus, though too well seasoned by experience to worry unnecessarily, the continuance of the fog began to disgust us. We shall creep along as yesterday, said we, and have nothing of Valaam but the sound of its bells. The air was intensely raw; the sun had disappeared, and the bearded peasants again slept, with open mouths, on the deck.
Saints Sergius and Herrmann, however, were not indifferent either to them or to us. About the middle of the afternoon we suddenly and unexpectedly sailed out of the fog, passing, in the distance of a ship's length, in to a clear atmosphere, with a far, sharp horizon! The nuisance of the lake lay behind us, a steep, opaque, white wall. Before us, rising in bold cliffs from the water and dark with pines, were the islands of Valaam. Off went hats and caps, and the crowd on deck bent reverently towards the consecrated shores. As we drew near, the granite fronts of the separate isles detached themselves from the plane in which they were blended, and thrust boldly out between the dividing inlets of blue water; the lighter green of birches and maples mingled with the sombre woods of coniferæ; but the picture, with all its varied features, was silent and lonely. No sail shone over the lake, no boat was hauled up between the tumbled masses of rock, no fisher's hut sat in the sheltered coves,—only, at the highest point of the cliff, a huge wooden cross gleamed white against the trees.
As we drew around to the northern shore, point came out behind point, all equally bold with rock, dark with pines, and destitute of any sign of habitation. We were looking forward, over the nearest headland, when, all at once, a sharp glitter, through the tops of the pines, struck our eyes. A few more turns of the paddles, and a bulging dome of gold flashed splendidly in the sun! Our voyage, thus far, had been one of surprises, and this was not the least. Crowning a slender, pointed roof, its connection with the latter was not immediately visible: it seemed to spring into the air and hang there, like a marvellous meteor shot from the sun. Presently, however, the whole building appeared,—an hexagonal church, of pale-red brick, the architecture of which was an admirable reproduction of the older Byzantine forms. It stood upon a rocky islet, on either side of which a narrow channel communicated with a deep cove, cleft between walls of rock.
Turning in towards the first of these channels, we presently saw the inlet of darkest-blue water, pushing its way into the heart of the island. Crowning its eastern bank, and about half a mile distant, stood an immense mass of buildings, from the centre of which tall white towers and green cupolas shot up against the sky. This was the monastery of Valaam. Here, in the midst of this lonely lake, on the borders of the Arctic Zone, in the solitude of unhewn forests, was one of those palaces which Religion is so fond of rearing, to show her humility. In the warm afternoon sunshine, and the singular luxuriance of vegetation which clothed the terraces of rock on either hand, we forgot the high latitude, and, but for the pines in the rear, could have fancied ourselves approaching some cove of Athos or Eubœa. The steamer ran so near the rocky walls that the trailing branches of the birch almost swept her deck; every ledge traversing their gray, even masonry, was crowded with wild red pinks, geranium, saxifrage, and golden-flowered purslane; and the air, wonderfully pure and sweet in itself, was flavored with delicate woodland odors. On the other side, under the monastery, was an orchard of large apple-trees in full bloom, on a shelf near the water; above them grew huge oaks and maples, heavy with their wealth of foliage; and over the tops of these the level coping of the precipice, with a balustrade, upon which hundreds of pilgrims, who had arrived before us, were leaning and looking down.
Beyond this point, the inlet widened into a basin where the steamer had room to turn around. Here we found some forty or fifty boats moored to the bank, while the passengers they had brought (principally from the eastern shore of the lake, and the district lying between it and Onega) were scattered over the heights. The captain pointed out to us a stately, two-story brick edifice, some three hundred feet long, flanking the monastery, as the house for guests. Another of less dimensions, on the hill in front of the landing-place, appeared to be appropriated especially to the use of the peasants. A rich succession of musical chimes pealed down to us from the belfry, as if in welcome, and our deck-load of pilgrims crossed themselves in reverent congratulation as they stepped upon the sacred soil.
We had determined to go on with our boat to Serdopol, at the head of the lake, returning the next morning in season for the solemnities of the anniversary. Postponing, therefore, a visit to the church and monastery, we climbed to the summit of the bluff, and beheld the inlet in all its length and depth, from the open, sunny expanse of the lake to the dark strait below us, where the overhanging trees of the opposite cliffs almost touched above the water. The honeyed bitter of lilac and apple blossoms in the garden below steeped the air; and as I inhaled the scent, and beheld the rich green crowns of the oaks which grew at the base of the rocks, I appreciated the wisdom of Sergius and Herrmann that led them to pick out this bit of privileged summer, which seems to have wandered into the North from a region ten degrees nearer the sun. It is not strange if the people attribute miraculous powers to them; naturally mistaking the cause of their settlement on Valaam for its effect.
The deck was comparatively deserted, as we once more entered the lake. There were two or three new passengers, however, one of whom inspired me with a mild interest. He was a St. Petersburger, who, according to his own account, had devoted himself to Art, and, probably for that reason, felt constrained to speak in the language of sentiment. "I enjoy above all things," said he to me, "communion with Nature. My soul is uplifted, when I find myself removed from the haunts of men. I live an ideal life, and the world grows more beautiful to me every year." Now there was nothing objectionable in this, except his saying it. Those are only shallow emotions which one imparts to every stranger at the slightest provocation. Your true lover of Nature is as careful of betraying his passion as the young man who carries a first love in his heart. But my companion evidently delighted in talking of his feelings on this point. His voice was soft and silvery, his eyes gentle, and his air languishing; so that, in spite of a heavy beard, the impression he made was remarkably smooth and unmasculine. I involuntarily turned to one of the young Finnish sailors, with his handsome, tanned face, quick, decided movements, and clean, elastic limbs, and felt, instinctively, that what we most value in every man, above even culture or genius, is the stamp of sex,—the asserting, self-reliant, conquering air which marks the male animal. Wide-awake men (and women, too) who know what this element is, and means, will agree with me, and prefer the sharp twang of true fibre to the most exquisite softness and sweetness that were ever produced by sham refinement.
After some fifteen or twenty miles from the island, we approached the rocky archipelago in which the lake terminates at its northern end,—a gradual transition from water to land. Masses of gray granite, wooded wherever the hardy Northern firs could strike root, rose on all sides, divided by deep and narrow channels. "This is the scheer," said our captain, using a word which recalled to my mind, at once, the Swedish skär, and the English skerry, used alike to denote a coast-group of rocky islets. The rock encroached more and more as we advanced; and finally, as if sure of its victory over the lake, gave place, here and there, to levels of turf, gardens, and cottages. Then followed a calm, land-locked basin, surrounded with harvest-fields, and the spire of Serdopol arose before us.
Of this town I may report that it is called, in Finnish, Sordovala, and was founded about the year 1640. Its history has no doubt been very important to its inhabitants, but I do not presume that it would be interesting to the world, and therefore spare myself a great deal of laborious research. Small as it is, and so secluded that Ladoga seems a world's highway in comparison with its quiet harbor, it nevertheless holds three races and three languages in its modest bounds. The government and Its tongue are Russian; the people are mostly Finnish, with a very thin upper-crust of Swedish tradition, whence the latter language is cultivated as a sign of aristocracy.
We landed on a broad wooden pier, and entered the town through a crowd which was composed of all these elements. There was to be a fair on the morrow, and from the northern shore of the lake, as well as the wild inland region towards the Saïma, the people had collected for trade, gossip, and festivity. Children in ragged garments of hemp, bleached upon their bodies, impudently begged for pocket-money; women in scarlet kerchiefs curiously scrutinized us; peasants carried bundles of freshly mown grass to the horses which were exposed for sale; ladies with Hungarian hats crushed their crinolines into queer old cabriolets; gentlemen with business-faces and an aspect of wealth smoked paper cigars; and numbers of hucksters offered baskets of biscuit and cakes, of a disagreeable yellow color and great apparent toughness. It was a repetition, with slight variations, of a village-fair anywhere else, or an election-day in America.
Passing through the roughly paved and somewhat dirty streets, past shops full of primitive hardware, groceries which emitted powerful whiffs of salt fish or new leather, bakeries with crisp padlocks of bread in the windows, drinking-houses plentifully supplied with qvass and vodki, and, finally, the one watch-maker, and the vender of paper, pens, and Finnish almanacs, we reached a broad suburban street, whose substantial houses, with their courts and gardens, hinted at the aristocracy of Serdopol. The inn, with its Swedish sign, was large and comfortable, and a peep into the open windows disclosed as pleasant quarters as a traveller could wish. A little farther the town ceased, and we found ourselves upon a rough, sloping common, at the top of which stood the church with its neighboring belfry. It was unmistakably Lutheran in appearance,—very plain and massive and sober in color, with a steep roof for shedding snow. The only attempt at ornament was a fanciful shingle-mosaic, but in pattern only, not in color. Across the common ran a double row of small booths, which had just been erected for the coming fair; and sturdy young fellows from the country, with their rough carts and shaggy ponies, were gathering along the highway, to skirmish a little in advance of their bargains.
The road enticed us onward, into the country. On our left, a long slope descended to an upper arm of the harbor, the head of which we saw to be near at hand. The opposite shore was fairly laid out in grain-fields, through which cropped out, here and there, long walls of granite, rising higher and higher towards the west, until they culminated in the round, hard forehead of a lofty hill. There was no other point within easy reach which promised much of a view; so, rounding the head of the bay, we addressed ourselves to climbing the rocks, somewhat to the surprise of the herd-boys, as they drove their cows into the town to be milked.
Once off the cultivated land, we found the hill a very garden of wild blooms. Every step and shelf of the rocks was cushioned with tricolored violets, white anemones, and a succulent, moss-like plant with a golden flower. Higher up there were sheets of fire-red pinks, and on the summit an unbroken carpet of the dwarf whortleberry, with its waxen bells. Light exhalations seemed to rise from the damp hollows, and drift towards us; but they resolved themselves into swarms of mosquitoes, and would have made the hill-top untenable, had they not been dispersed by a sudden breeze. We sat down upon a rock and contemplated the widespread panorama. It was nine o'clock, and the sun, near his setting, cast long gleams of pale light through the clouds, softening the green of the fields and forests where they fell, and turning the moist evening haze into lustrous pearl. Inlets of the lake here and there crept in between the rocky hills; broad stretches of gently undulating grain-land were dotted with the houses, barns, and clustered stables of the Finnish farmers; in the distance arose the smokes of two villages; and beyond all, as we looked inland, ran the sombre ridges of the fir-clad hills. Below us, on the right, the yellow houses of the town shone in the subdued light,—the only bright spot in the landscape, which elsewhere seemed to be overlaid with a tint of dark, transparent gray. It was wonderfully silent. Not a bird twittered; no bleat of sheep or low of cattle was heard from the grassy fields; no shout of children, or evening hail from the returning boats of the fishers. Over all the land brooded an atmosphere of sleep, of serene, perpetual peace. To sit and look upon it was in itself a refreshment like that of healthy slumber. The restless devil which lurks in the human brain was quieted for the time, and we dreamed—knowing all the while the vanity of the dream—of a pastoral life in some such spot, among as ignorant and simple-hearted a people, ourselves as untroubled by the agitations of the world.
We had scarce inhaled—or, rather, insuded, to coin a paradoxical word for a sensation which seems to enter at every pore—the profound quiet and its suggestive fancies for the space of half an hour, when the wind fell at the going down of the sun, and the humming mist of mosquitoes arose again. Returning to the town, we halted at the top of the common to watch the farmers of the neighborhood at their horse-dealing. Very hard, keen, weather-browned faces had they, eyes tight-set for the main chance, mouths worn thin by biting farthings, and hands whose hard fingers crooked with holding fast what they had earned. Faces almost of the Yankee type, many of them, but relieved by the twinkling of a humorous faculty or the wild gleam of imagination. The shaggy little horses, of a dun or dull tan-color, seemed to understand that their best performance was required, and rushed up and down the road with an amazing exhibition of mettle. I could understand nothing of the Finnish tongue except its music; but it was easy to perceive that the remarks of the crowd were shrewd, intelligent, and racy. One young fellow, less observant, accosted us in the hope that we might be purchasers. The boys, suspecting that we were as green as we were evidently foreign, held out their hands for alms, with a very unsuccessful air of distress, but readily succumbed to the Russian interjection "proch" (be off!) the repetition of which, they understood, was a reproach.
That night we slept on the velvet couches of the cabin, having the spacious apartment to ourselves. The bright young officer had left for the copper mines, the pilgrims were at Valaam, and our stout, benignant captain looked upon us as his only faithful passengers. The stewards, indeed, carried their kindness beyond reasonable anticipations. They brought us real pillows and other conveniences, bolted the doors against nightly intruders, and in the morning conducted us into the pantry, to wash our faces in the basin sacred to dishes. After I had completed my ablutions, I turned dumbly, with dripping face and extended hands, for a towel. My steward understood the silent appeal, and, taking a napkin from a plate of bread, presented it with alacrity. I made use of it, I confess, but hastened out of the pantry, lest I should happen to see it restored to its former place. How not to observe is a faculty as necessary to the traveller as its reverse. I was reminded of this truth at dinner, when I saw the same steward take a napkin (probably my towel!) from under his arm, to wipe both his face and a plate which he carried. To speak mildly, these people on Lake Ladoga are not sensitive in regard to the contact of individualities. But the main point is to avoid seeing what you don't like.
We got off at an early hour, and hastened back to Valaam over glassy water and under a superb sky. This time the lake was not so deserted, for the white wings of pilgrim-boats drew in towards the dark island, making for the golden sparkle of the chapel-dome, which shone afar like a light-house of the daytime. As we rounded to in the land-locked inlet, we saw that the crowds on the hills had doubled since yesterday, and, although the chimes were pealing for some religious service, it seemed prudent first to make sure of our quarters for the night. Accordingly we set out for the imposing house of guests beside the monastery, arriving in company with the visitors we had brought with us from Serdopol. The entrance-hall led into a long, stone-paved corridor, in which a monk, bewildered by many applications, appeared to be seeking relief by promises of speedy hospitality. We put in our plea, and also received a promise. On either side of the corridor were numbered rooms, already occupied, the fortunate guests passing in and out with a provoking air of comfort and unconcern. We ascended to the second story, which was similarly arranged, and caught hold of another benevolent monk, willing, but evidently powerless to help us. Dinner was just about to be served; the brother in authority was not there; we must be good enough to wait a little while;—would we not visit the shrines, in the mean time?
The advice was sensible, as well as friendly, and we followed it. Entering the great quadrangle of the monastery, we found it divided, gridiron-fashion, into long, narrow court-yards by inner lines of buildings. The central court, however, was broad and spacious, the church occupying a rise of ground on the eastern side. Hundreds of men and women—Carelian peasants—thronged around the entrance, crossing themselves in unison with the congregation. The church, we found, was packed, and the most zealous wedging among the blue caftans and shining flaxen heads brought us no farther than the inner door. Thence we looked over a tufted level of heads that seemed to touch,—intermingled tints of gold, tawny, silver-blond, and the various shades of brown, touched with dim glosses through the incense-smoke, and occasionally bending in concert with an undulating movement, like grain before the wind. Over these heads rose the vaulted nave, dazzling with gold and colors, and blocked up, beyond the intersection of the transept, by the ikonostast, or screen before the Holy of Holies, gorgeous with pictures of saints overlaid with silver. In front of the screen the tapers burned, the incense rose thick and strong, and the chant of the monks gave a peculiar solemnity to their old Sclavonic litany. The only portion of it which I could understand was the recurring response, as in the English Church, of, "Lord, have mercy upon us!"
Extricating ourselves with some difficulty, we entered a chapel-crypt, which contains the bodies of Sergius and Herrmann. They lie together, in a huge coffin of silver, covered with cloth-of-gold. Tapers of immense size burned at the head and foot, and the pilgrims knelt around, bending their foreheads to the pavement at the close of their prayers. Among others, a man had brought his insane daughter, and it was touching to see the tender care with which he led her to the coffin and directed her devotions. So much of habit still remained, that it seemed, for the time being, to restore her reason. The quietness and regularity with which she went through the forms of prayer brought a light of hope to the father's face. The other peasants looked on with an expression of pity and sympathy. The girl, we learned, had but recently lost her reason, and without any apparent cause. She was betrothed to a young man who was sincerely attached to her, and the pilgrimage was undertaken in the hope that a miracle might be wrought in her favor. The presence of the shrine, indeed, struck its accustomed awe through her wandering senses, but the effect was only momentary.
I approached the coffin, and deposited a piece of money on the offering-plate, for the purpose of getting a glimpse of the pictured faces of the saints, in their silver setting. Their features were hard and regular, flatly painted, as if by some forerunner of Cimabue, but sufficiently modern to make the likeness doubtful. I have not been able to obtain the exact date of their settlement on the island, but I believe it is referred to the early part of the fifteenth century. The common people believe that the island was first visited by Andrew, the Apostle of Christ, who, according to the Russian patriarch Nestor, made his way to Kiev and Novgorod. The latter place is known to have been an important commercial city as early as the fourth century, and had a regular intercourse with Asia. The name of Valaam does not come from Balaam, as one might suppose, but seems to be derived from the Finnish varamo, which signifies "herring-ground." The more I attempted to unravel the history of the island, the more it became involved in obscurity, and this fact, I must confess, only heightened my interest in it. I found myself ready to accept the tradition of Andrew's visit, and I accepted without a doubt the grave of King Magnus of Sweden.
On issuing from the crypt, we encountered a young monk who had evidently been sent in search of us. The mass was over, and the court-yard was nearly emptied of its crowd. In the farther court, however, we found the people more dense than ever, pressing forward towards a small door. The monk made way for us with some difficulty,—for, though the poor fellows did their best to fall back, the pressure from the outside was tremendous. Having at last run the gantlet, we found ourselves in the refectory of the monastery, inhaling a thick steam of fish and cabbage. Three long tables were filled with monks and pilgrims, while the attendants brought in the fish on large wooden trenchers. The plates were of common white ware, but the spoons were of wood. Officers in gay uniforms were scattered among the dark anchorites, who occupied one end of the table, while the bourgeoisie, with here and there a blue-caftaned peasant wedged among them, filled the other end. They were eating with great zeal, while an old priest, standing, read from a Sclavonic Bible. All eyes were turned upon us as we entered, and there was not a vacant chair in which we could hide our intrusion. It was rather embarrassing, especially as the young monk insisted that we should remain, and the curious eyes of the eaters as constantly asked, "Who are these, and what do they want?" We preferred returning through the hungry crowd, and made our way to the guests' house.
Here a similar process was going on. The corridors were thronged with peasants of all ages and both sexes, and the good fathers, more than ever distracted, were incapable of helping us. Seeing a great crowd piled up against a rear basement-door, we descended the stairs, and groped our way through manifold steams and noises to a huge succession of kitchens, where caldrons of cabbage were bubbling, and shoals of fish went in raw and came out cooked. In another room some hundreds of peasants were eating with all the energy of a primitive appetite. Soup leaked out of the bowls as if they had been sieves; fishes gave a whisk of the tail and vanished; great round boulders of bread went off, layer after layer, and still the empty plates were held up for more. It was grand eating,—pure appetite, craving only food in a general sense: no picking out of tidbits, no spying here and there for a favorite dish, but, like a huge fire, devouring everything that came in its way. The stomach was here a patient, unquestioning serf, not a master full of whims, requiring to be petted and conciliated. So, I thought, people must have eaten in the Golden Age: so Adam and Eve must have dined, before the Fall made them epicurean and dyspeptic.
We—degenerate through culture—found the steams of the strong, coarse dishes rather unpleasant, and retreated by a back-way, which brought us to a spiral staircase. We ascended for a long time, and finally emerged into the garret of the building, hot, close, and strawy as a barn-loft. It was divided into rooms, in which, on the floors covered deep with straw, the happy pilgrims who had finished their dinner were lying on their bellies, lazily talking themselves to sleep. The grassy slope in front of the house, and all the neighboring heights, were soon covered in like manner. Men, women, and children threw themselves down, drawing off their heavy boots, and dipping their legs, knee-deep, into the sun and air. An atmosphere of utter peace and satisfaction settled over them.
Being the only foreign and heterodox persons present, we began to feel ourselves deserted, when the favor of Sergius and Herrmann was again manifested. P. was suddenly greeted by an acquaintance, an officer connected with the Imperial Court, who had come to Valaam for a week of devotion. He immediately interested himself in our behalf, procured us a room with a lovely prospect, transferred his bouquet of lilacs and peonies to our table, and produced his bottle of lemon-syrup to flavor our tea. The rules of the monastery are very strict, and no visitor is exempt from their observance. Not a fish can be caught, not a bird or beast shot, no wine or liquor of any kind, nor tobacco in any form, used on the island. Rigid as the organization seems, it bears equally on every member of the brotherhood: the equality upon which such associations were originally based is here preserved. The monks are only in an ecclesiastical sense subordinate to the abbot. Otherwise, the fraternity seems to be about as complete as in the early days of Christianity.
The Valamo, and her rival, the Letuchie, had advertised a trip to the Holy Island, the easternmost of the Valaam group, some six miles from the monastery, and the weather was so fair that both boats were crowded, many of the monks accompanying us. Our new-found friend was also of the party, and I made the acquaintance of a Finnish student from the Lyceum at Kuopio, who gave me descriptions of the Saïma Lake and the wilds of Savolax. Running eastward along the headlands, we passed Chernoi Noss, (Black-Nose,) the name of which again recalled a term common in the Orkneys and Shetlands,—noss, there, signifying a headland. The Holy Island rose before us,—a circular pile of rock, crowned with wood, like a huge, unfinished tower of Cyclopean masonry, built up out of the deep water. Far beyond it, over the rim of the lake, glimmered the blue eastern shore. As we drew near, we found that the tumbled fragments of rock had been arranged, with great labor, to form a capacious foot-path around the base of the island. The steamers drew up against this narrow quay, upon which we landed, under a granite wall which rose perpendicularly to the height of seventy or eighty feet. The firs on the summit grew out to the very edge and stretched their dark arms over us. Every cranny of the rock was filled with tufts of white and pink flowers, and the moisture, trickling from above, betrayed itself in long lines of moss and fern.
I followed the pilgrims around to the sunny side of the island, and found a wooden staircase at a point where the wall was somewhat broken away. Reaching the top of the first ascent, the sweet breath of a spring woodland breathed around me. I looked under the broken roofage of the boughs upon a blossoming jungle of shrubs and plants which seemed to have been called into life by a more potent sun. The lily of the valley, in thick beds, poured out the delicious sweetness of its little cups; spikes of a pale-green orchis emitted a rich cinnamon odor; anemones, geraniums, sigillarias, and a feathery flower, white, freckled with purple, grew in profusion. The top of the island, five or six acres in extent, was a slanting plane, looking to the south, whence it received the direct rays of the sun. It was an enchanting picture of woodland bloom, lighted with sprinkled sunshine, in the cold blue setting of the lake, which was visible on all sides, between the boles of the trees. I hailed it as an idyl of the North,—a poetic secret, which the Earth, even where she is most cruelly material and cold, still tenderly hides and cherishes.
A peasant, whose scarlet shirt flashed through the bushes like a sudden fire, seeing me looking at the flowers, gathered a handful of lilies, which he offered to me, saying, "Prekrasnie" (Beautiful). Without waiting for thanks, he climbed a second flight of steps and suddenly disappeared from view. I followed, and found myself in front of a narrow aperture in a rude wall, which had been built up under an overhanging mass of rocks. A lamp was twinkling within, and presently several persons crawled out, crossing themselves and muttering prayers.
"What is this?" asked a person who had just arrived.
"The cave of Alexander Svirski," was the answer.
Alexander of the Svir—a river flowing from the Onega Lake into Ladoga—was a hermit who lived for twenty years on the Holy Island, inhabiting the hole before us through the long, dark, terrible winters, in a solitude broken only when the monks of Valaam came over the ice to replenish his stock of provisions. Verily, the hermits of the Thebaïd were Sybarites, compared to this man! There are still two or three hermits who have charge of outlying chapels on the islands, and live wholly secluded from their brethren. They wear dresses covered with crosses and other symbols, and are considered as dead to the world. The ceremony which consecrates them for this service is that for the burial of the dead.
I managed, with some difficulty, to creep into Alexander Svirski's den. I saw nothing, however, but the old, smoky, and sacred picture before which the lamp burned. The rocky roof was so low that I could not stand upright, and all the walls I could find were the bodies of pilgrims who had squeezed in before me. A confused whisper surrounded me in the darkness, and the air was intolerably close. I therefore made my escape and mounted to the chapel, on the highest part of the island. A little below it, an open pavilion, with seats, has been built over the sacred spring from which the hermit drank, and thither the pilgrims thronged. The water was served in a large wooden bowl, and each one made the sign of the cross before drinking. By waiting for my turn I ascertained that the spring was icy-cold, and very pure and sweet.
I found myself lured to the highest cliff, whence I could look out, through the trees, on the far, smooth disk of the lake. Smooth and fair as the Ægean it lay before me, and the trees were silent as olives at noonday on the shores of Cos. But how different in color, in sentiment! Here, perfect sunshine can never dust the water with the purple bloom of the South, can never mellow its hard, cold tint of greenish-blue. The distant hills, whether dark or light, are equally cold, and are seen too nakedly through the crystal air to admit of any illusion. Bracing as is this atmosphere, the gods could never breathe it. It would revenge on the ivory limbs of Apollo his treatment of Marsyas. No foam-born Aphrodite could rise warm from yonder wave; not even the cold, sleek Nereïds could breast its keen edge. We could only imagine it disturbed, temporarily, by the bath-plunge of hardy Vikings, whom we can see, red and tingling from head to heel, as they emerge.
"Come!" cried P., "the steamer is about to leave!"
We all wandered down the steps, I with my lilies in my hand. Even the rough peasants seemed reluctant to leave the spot, and not wholly for the sake of Alexander Svirski. We were all safely embarked and carried back to Valaam, leaving the island to its solitude. Alexis (as I shall call our Russian friend) put us in charge of a native artist who knew every hidden beauty of Valaam, and suggested an exploration of the inlet, while he went back to his devotions. We borrowed a boat from the monks, and impressed a hardy fisherman into our service. I supposed we had already seen the extent of the inlet, but on reaching its head a narrow side-channel disclosed itself, passing away under a quaint bridge and opening upon an inner lake of astonishing beauty. The rocks were disposed in every variety of grouping,—sometimes rising in even terraces, step above step, sometimes thrusting out a sheer wall from the summit, or lying slant-wise in masses split off by the wedges of the ice. The fairy birches, in their thin foliage, stood on the edge of the water like Dryads undressing for a bath, while the shaggy male firs elbowed each other on the heights for a look at them. Other channels opened in the distance, with glimpses of other and as beautiful harbors in the heart of the islands. "You may sail for seventy-five versts," said the painter, "without seeing them all."
The fearlessness of all wild creatures showed that the rules of the good monks had been carefully obeyed. The wild ducks swam around our boat, or brooded, in conscious security, on their nests along the shore. Three great herons, fishing in a shallow, rose slowly into the air and flew across the water, breaking the silence with their hoarse trumpet-note. Farther in the woods there are herds of wild reindeer, which are said to have become gradually tame. This familiarity of the animals took away from the islands all that was repellent in their solitude. It half restored the broken link between man and the subject-forms of life.
The sunset-light was on the trees when we started, but here in the North it is no fleeting glow. It lingers for hours even, fading so imperceptibly that you scarcely know when it has ceased. Thus, when we returned after a long pull, craving the Lenten fare of the monastery, the same soft gold tinted its clustering domes. We were not called upon to visit the refectory, but a table was prepared in our room. The first dish had the appearance of a salad, with the accompaniment of black bread. On carefully tasting, I discovered the ingredients to be raw salt fish chopped fine, cucumbers, and—beer. The taste of the first spoonful was peculiar, of the second tolerable, of the third decidedly palatable. Beyond this I did not go, for we had fresh fish, boiled in enough water to make a soup. Then the same, fried in its own fat, and, as salt and pepper were allowed, we did not scorn our supper. P. and R. afterwards walked over to the Skit, a small church and branch of the monastery, more than a mile distant; while I tried, but all in vain, to reproduce the Holy Island in verses. The impression was too recent.
The next day was the festival of Peter and Paul, and Alexis had advised us to make an excursion to a place called Jelesniki. In the morning, however, we learned that the monastery and its grounds were to be consecrated in solemn procession. The chimes pealed out quick and joyously, and soon a burst of banners and a cloud of incense issued from the great gate. All the pilgrims—nearly two thousand in number—thronged around the double line of chanting monks, and it was found necessary to inclose the latter in a hollow square, formed by a linked chain of hands. As the morning sun shone on the bare-headed multitude, the beauty of their unshorn hair struck me like a new revelation. Some of the heads, of lustrous, flossy gold, actually shone by their own light. It was marvellous that skin so hard and coarse in texture should produce such beautiful hair. The beards of the men, also, were strikingly soft and rich. They never shave, and thus avoid bristles, the down of adolescence thickening into a natural beard.
As the procession approached, Alexis, who was walking behind the monks, inside the protecting guard, beckoned to us to join him. The peasants respectfully made way, two hands unlinked to admit us, and we became, unexpectedly, participants in the ceremonies. From the south side the procession moved around to the east, where a litany was again chanted. The fine voices of the monks lost but little of their volume in the open air; there was no wind, and the tapers burned and the incense diffused itself, as in the church. A sacred picture, which two monks carried on a sort of litter, was regarded with particular reverence by the pilgrims, numbers of whom crept under the line of guards to snatch a moment's devotion before it. At every pause in the proceedings there was a rush from all sides, and the poor fellows who formed the lines held each other's hands with all their strength. Yet, flushed, sweating, and exhausted as they were, the responsibility of their position made them perfectly proud and happy. They were the guardians of cross and shrine, of the holy books, the monks, and the abbot himself.
From the east side we proceeded to the north, where the dead monks sleep in their cemetery, high over the watery gorge. In one corner of this inclosure, under a group of giant maples, is the grave of King Magnus of Sweden, who is said to have perished by shipwreck on the island. Here, in the deep shade, a solemn mass for the dead was chanted. Nothing could have added to the impressiveness of the scene. The tapers burning under the thick-leaved boughs, the light smoke curling up in the shade, the grave voices of the monks, the bending heads of the beautiful-haired crowd, and the dashes of white, pink, scarlet, blue, and gold in their dresses, made a picture the solemnity of which was only heightened by its pomp of color. I can do no more than give the features; the reader must recombine them in his own mind.
The painter accompanied us to the place called Jelesniki, which, after a walk of four miles through the forests, we found to be a deserted village, with a chapel on a rocky headland. There was a fine bridge across the dividing strait, and the place may have been as picturesque as it was represented. On that side of the islands, however, there was a dense fog, and we could get no view beyond a hundred yards. We had hoped to see reindeer in the woods, and an eagle's nest, and various other curiosities; but where there was no fog there were mosquitoes, and the search became discouraging.
On returning to the monastery, a register was brought to us, in which, on looking back for several years, we could find but one foreign visitor,—a Frenchman. We judged, therefore, that the abbot would possibly expect us to call upon him, and, indeed, the hospitality we had received exacted it. We found him receiving visitors in a plain, but comfortable room, in a distant part of the building. He was a man of fifty-five, frank and self-possessed in his manners, and of an evident force and individuality of character. His reception of the visitors, among whom was a lady, was at once courteous and kindly. A younger monk brought us glasses of tea. Incidentally learning that I had visited the Holy Places in Syria, the abbot sent for some pictures of the monastery and its chosen saints, which he asked me to keep as a souvenir of Valaam. He also presented each of us with a cake of unleavened bread, stamped with the cross, and with a triangular piece cut out of the top, to indicate the Trinity. On parting, he gave his hand, which the orthodox visitors devoutly kissed. Before the steamer sailed, we received fresh evidence of his kindness, in the present of three large loaves of consecrated bread, and a bunch of lilacs from the garden of the monastery.
Through some misunderstanding, we failed to dine in the refectory, as the monks desired, and their hospitable regret on this account was the only shade on our enjoyment of the visit. Alexis remained, in order to complete his devotions by partaking the Communion on the following Sabbath; but as the anniversary solemnities closed at noon, the crowd of pilgrims prepared to return home. The Valamo, too, sounded her warning bell, so we left the monastery as friends where we had arrived as strangers, and went on board. Boat after boat, gunwale-deep with the gay Carelians, rowed down the inlet, and in the space of half an hour but a few stragglers were left of all the multitude. Some of the monks came down to say another good-bye, and the under-abbot, blessing R., made the sign of the cross upon his brow and breast.
When we reached the golden dome of St. Nicholas, at the outlet of the harbor, the boats had set their sails, and the lake was no longer lonely. Scores of white wings gleamed in the sun, as they scattered away in radii from the central and sacred point, some north, some east, and some veering south around Holy Island. Sergius and Herrmann gave them smooth seas, and light, favorable airs; for the least roughness would have carried them, overladen as they were, to the bottom. Once more the bells of Valaam chimed farewell, and we turned the point to the westward, steering back to Kexholm.
Late that night we reached our old moorage at Konewitz, and on Saturday, at the appointed hour, landed in St. Petersburg. We carried the white cross at the fore as we descended the Neva, and the bells of the churches along the banks welcomed our return. And now, as I recall those five days among the islands of the Northern Lake, I see that it is good to go on a pilgrimage, even if one is not a pilgrim.
WET-WEATHER WORK.
BY A FARMER.
VI.
I begin my day with a canny Scot, who was born in Edinburgh in 1726, near which city his father conducted a large market-garden. As a youth, aged nineteen, John Abercrombie (for it is of him I make companion this wet morning) saw the Battle of Preston Pans, at which the Highlanders pushed the King's-men in defeat to the very foot of his father's garden-wall. Whether he shouldered a matchlock for the Castle-people and Sir John Hope, or merely looked over from the kale-beds at the victorious fighters for Prince Charley, I cannot learn; it is certain only that before Culloden, and the final discomfiture of the Pretender, he avowed himself a good King's-man, and in many an after-year, over his pipe and his ale, told the story of the battle which surged wrathfully around his father's kale-garden by Preston Pans.
But he did not stay long in Scotland; he became gardener for Sir James Douglas, into whose family (below-stairs) he eventually married; afterwards he had experience in the royal gardens at Kew, and in Leicester Fields. Finally he became proprietor of a patch of ground in the neighborhood of London; and his success here, added to his success in other service, gave him such reputation that he was one day waited upon (about the year 1770) by Mr. Davis, a London bookseller, who invited him to dine at an inn in Hackney; and at the dinner he was introduced to a certain Oliver Goldsmith, an awkward man, who had published four years before a book called "The Vicar of Wakefield." Mr. Davis thought John Abercrombie was competent to write a good practical work on gardening, and the Hackney dinner was intended to warm the way toward such a book. Dinners are sometimes given with such ends even now. The shrewd Mr. Davis was a little doubtful of Abercrombie's style, but not at all doubtful of the style of the author of "The Traveller." Dr. Goldsmith was not a man averse to a good meal, where he was to meet a straightforward, out-spoken Scotch gardener; and Mr. Davis, at a mellow stage of the dinner, brought forward his little plan, which was that Abercrombie should prepare a treatise upon gardening, to be revised and put in shape by the author of "The Deserted Village." The dinner at Hackney was, I dare say, a good one; the scheme looked promising to a man whose vegetable-carts streamed every morning into London, and to the Doctor, mindful of his farm-retirement at the six-mile stone on the Edgeware Road; so it was all arranged between them.
But, like many a publisher's scheme, it miscarried. The Doctor perhaps saw a better bargain in the Lives of Bolingbroke and Parnell;[A] or perhaps his appointment as Professor of History to the Royal Society put him too much upon his dignity. At any rate, the world has to regret a gardening-book in which the shrewd practical knowledge of Abercrombie would have been refined by the grace and the always alluring limpidity of the style of Goldsmith.
I know that the cultivators pretend to spurn graces of manner, and affect only a clumsy burden of language, under which, I am sorry to say, the best agriculturists have most commonly labored; but if the transparent simplicity of Goldsmith had once been thoroughly infused with the practical knowledge of Abercrombie, what a book on gardening we should have had! What a lush verdure of vegetables would have tempted us! What a wealth of perfume would have exuded from the flowers!
But the scheme proved abortive. Goldsmith said, "I think our friend Abercrombie can write better about plants than I can." And so doubtless he could, so far as knowledge of their habits went. Eight years after, Abercrombie prepared a book called "Every Man his own Gardener"; but so doubtful was he of his own reputation, that he paid twenty pounds to Mr. Thomas Mawe, the fashionable gardener of the Duke of Leeds, to allow him to place his name upon the title-page. I am sorry to record such a scurvy bit of hypocrisy in so competent a man. The book sold, however, and sold so well, that, a few years after, the elegant Mr. Mawe begged a visit from the nurseryman of Tottenham Court, whom he had never seen; so Abercrombie goes down to the seat of the Duke of Leeds, and finds his gardener so bedizened with powder, and wearing such a grand air, that he mistakes him for his Lordship; but it is a mistake, we may readily believe, which the elegant Mr. Mawe forgives, and the two gardeners become capital friends.
Abercrombie afterward published many works under his own name;[B] among these was "The Gardener's Pocket Journal," which maintained an unflagging popularity as a standard book for a period of half a century. This hardy Scotchman lived to be eighty; and when he could work no longer, he was constantly afoot among the botanical gardens about London. At the last it was a fall "down-stairs in the dark" that was the cause of death; and fifteen days after, as his quaint biographers tell us, "he expired, just as the clock upon St. Paul's struck twelve,—between April and May": as if the ripe old gardener could not tell which of these twin garden-months he loved the best; and so, with a foot planted in each, he made the leap into the realm of eternal spring.
A noticeable fact in regard to this out-of-door old gentleman is, that he never took "doctors'-stuff" in his life, until the time of that fatal fall in the dark. He was, however, an inveterate tea-drinker; and there was another aromatic herb (I write this with my pipe in my mouth) of which he was, up to the very last, a most ardent consumer.
In the year 1766 was published for the first time a posthumous work by John Locke, the great philosopher and the good Christian, entitled, "Observations upon the Growth and Culture of Vines and Olives,"—written, very likely, after his return from France, down in his pleasant Essex home, at the seat of Sir Francis Masham. I should love to give the reader a sample of the way in which the author of "An Essay concerning Human Understanding" wrote regarding horticultural matters. But, after some persistent search and inquiry, I have not been able to see or even to hear of a copy of the book.[C] No one can doubt but there is wisdom in it. "I believe you think me," he writes in a private letter to a friend, "too proud to undertake anything wherein I should acquit myself but unworthily." This is a sort of pride—not very common in our day—which does not go before a fall.
I name a poet next,—not because a great poet, for he was not, nor yet because he wrote "The English Garden,"[D] for there is sweeter garden-perfume in many another poem of the day that does not pique our curiosity by its title. But the Reverend William Mason, if not among the foremost of poets, was a man of most kindly and liberal sympathies. He was a devoted Whig, at a time when Whiggism meant friendship for the American Colonists; and the open expression of this friendship cost him his place as a Royal Chaplain. I will remember this longer than I remember his "English Garden,"—longer than I remember his best couplet of verse:—
"While through the west, where sinks the crimson day,
Meek twilight slowly sails, and waves her banners gray."
It was alleged, indeed, by those who loved to say ill-natured things, (Horace Walpole among them,) that in the later years of his life he forgot his first love of Liberalism and became politically conservative. But it must be remembered that the good poet lived into the time when the glut and gore of the French Revolution made people hold their breath, and when every man who lifted a humane plaint against the incessant creak and crash of the guillotine was reckoned by all mad reformers a conservative. I think, if I had lived in that day, I should have been a conservative, too,—however much the pretty and bloody Desmoulins might have made faces at me in the newspapers.
I can find nothing in Mason's didactic poem to quote. There are tasteful suggestions scattered through it,—better every way than his poetry. The grounds of his vicarage at Aston must have offered charming loitering-places. I will leave him idling there,—perhaps conning over some letter of his friend the poet Gray; perhaps lounging in the very alcove where he had inscribed this verse of the "Elegy,"—
"Here scattered oft, the loveliest of the year,
By hands unseen, are showers of violets found;
The redbreast loves to build and warble here,
And little footsteps lightly print the ground."
If, indeed, he had known how to strew such gems through his "English Garden," we should have had a poem that would have out-shone "The Seasons."
And this mention reminds me, that, although I have slipped past his period, I have said no word as yet of the Roxburgh poet; but he shall be neglected no longer. (The big book, my boy, upon the third shelf, with a worn back, labelled THOMSON.)
This poet is not upon the gardeners' or the agricultural lists. One can find no farm-method in him,—indeed, little method of any sort; there is no description of a garden carrying half the details that belong to Tasso's garden of Armida, or Rousseau's in the letter of St. Preux.[E] And yet, as we read, how the country, with its woods, its valleys, its hillsides, its swains, its toiling cattle, comes swooping to our vision! The leaves rustle, the birds warble, the rivers roar a song. The sun beats on the plain; the winds carry waves into the grain; the clouds plant shadows on the mountains. The minuteness and the accuracy of his observation are something wonderful; if farmers should not study him, our young poets may. He never puts a song in the throat of a jay or a wood-dove; he never makes a mother-bird break out in bravuras; he never puts a sickle into green grain, or a trout in a slimy brook; he could picture no orchis growing on a hillside, or columbine nodding in a meadow. If the leaves shimmer, you may be sure the sun is shining; if a primrose lightens on the view, you may be sure there is some covert which the primroses love; and never by any license does a white flower come blushing into his poem.
I will not quote, where so much depends upon the atmosphere which the poet himself creates, as he waves his enchanter's wand. Over all the type his sweet power compels a rural heaven to lie reflected; I go from budding spring to blazing summer at the turning of a page; on all the meadows below me (though it is March) I see ripe autumn brooding with golden wings; and winter howls and screams in gusts, and tosses tempests of snow into my eyes—out of the book my boy has just now brought me.
One verse, at least, I will cite,—so full it is of all pastoral feeling, so brimming over with the poet's passion for the country: it is from "The Castle of Indolence":—
"I care not, Fortune, what you me deny:
You cannot rob me of free Nature's grace;
You cannot shut the windows of the sky,
Through which Aurora shows her brightening face;
You cannot bar my constant feet to trace
The woods and lawns, by living stream at eve:
Another Scotchman, Lord Kames, (Henry Home by name,) who was Senior Lord of Sessions in Scotland about the year 1760, was best known in his own day for his discussion of "The Principles of Equity"; he is known to the literary world as the author of an elegant treatise upon the "Elements of Criticism"; I beg leave to introduce him to my readers to-day as a sturdy, practical farmer. The book, indeed, which serves for his card of introduction, is called "The Gentleman Farmer";[F] but we must not judge it by our experience of the class who wear that title nowadays. Lord Kames recommends no waste of money, no extravagant architecture, no mere prettinesses. He talks of the plough in a way that assures us he has held it some day with his own hands. People are taught, he says, more by the eye than the ear; show them good culture, and they will follow it.
As for what were called the principles of agriculture, he found them involved in obscurity; he went to the book of Nature for instruction, and commenced, like Descartes, with doubting everything. He condemns the Roman husbandry as fettered by superstitions, and gives a piquant sneer at the absurd rhetoric and verbosity of Varro.[G] Nor is he any more tolerant of Scotch superstitions. He declares against wasteful and careless farming in a way that reminds us of our good friend Judge ——, at the last county-show.
He urges good ploughing as a primal necessity, and insists upon the use of the roller for rendering the surface of wheatlands compact, and so retaining the moisture; nor does he attempt to reconcile this declaration with the Tull theory of constant trituration. A great many excellent Scotch farmers still hold to the views of his Lordship, and believe in "keeping the sap" in fresh-tilled land by heavy rolling; and so far as regards a wheat or rye crop upon light lands, I think the weight of opinion, as well as of the rollers, is with them.
Lord Kames, writing before the time of draining-tile, dislikes open ditches, by reason of their interference with tillage, and does not trust the durability of brush or stone underdrains. He relies upon ridging, and the proper disposition of open furrows, in the old Greek way. Turnips he commends without stint, and the Tull system of their culture. Of clover he thinks as highly as the great English farmer, but does not believe in his notion of economizing seed: "Idealists," he says, "talk of four pounds to the acre; but when sown for cutting green, I would advise twenty-four pounds." This amount will seem a little startling, I fancy, even to farmers of our day.
He advises strongly the use of oxen in place of horses for all farm-labor; they cost less, keep for less, and sell for more; and he enters into arithmetical calculations to establish his propositions. He instances Mr. Burke, who ploughs with four oxen at Beaconsfield. How drolly it sounds to hear the author of "Letters on a Regicide Peace" cited as an authority in practical farming! He still further urges his ox-working scheme, on grounds of public economy: it will cheapen food, forbid importation of oats, and reduce wages. Again, he recommends soiling,[H] by all the arguments which are used, and vainly used, with us. He shows the worthlessness of manure dropped upon a parched field, compared with the same duly cared for in court or stable; he proposes movable sheds for feeding, and enters into a computation of the weight of green clover which will be consumed in a day by horses, cows, or oxen: "a horse, ten Dutch stone daily; an ox or cow, eight stone; ten horses, ten oxen, and six cows, two hundred and twenty-eight stone per day,"—involving constant cartage: still he is convinced of the profit of the method.
His views on feeding ordinary store cattle, or accustoming them to change of food, are eminently practical. After speaking of the desirableness of providing a good stock of vegetables, he continues,—"And yet, after all, how many indolent farmers remain, who for want of spring food are forced to turn their cattle out to grass before it is ready for pasture! which not only starves the cattle, but lays the grass-roots open to be parched by sun and wind."
Does not this sound as if I had clipped it from the "Country Gentleman" of last week? And yet it was written ninety-seven years ago, by one of the most accomplished Scotch judges, and in his eightieth year,—another Varro, packing his luggage for his last voyage.
One great value of Lord Kames's talk lies in the particularity of his directions: he does not despise mention of those minutiæ a neglect of which makes so many books of agricultural instruction utterly useless. Thus, in so small a matter as the sowing of clover-seed, he tells how the thumb and finger should be held, for its proper distribution; in stacking, he directs how to bind the thatch; he tells how mown grass should be raked, and how many hours spread;[I] and his directions for the making of clover-hay could not be improved upon this very summer. "Stir it not the day it is cut. Turn it in the swath the forenoon of the next day; and in the afternoon put it up in small cocks. The third day put two cocks into one, enlarging every day the cocks till they are ready for the tramp rick [temporary field-stack]."
A small portion of his book is given up to the discussion of the theory of agriculture; but he fairly warns his readers that he is wandering in the dark. If all theorists were as honest! He deplores the ignorance of Tull in asserting that plants feed on earth; air and water alone, in his opinion, furnish the supply of plant-food. All plants feed alike, and on the same material. Degeneracy appearing only in those which are not native: white clover never deteriorates in England, nor bull-dogs.
But I will not linger on his theories. He is represented to have been a kind and humane man; but this did not forbid a hearty relish (appearing often in his book) for any scheme which promised to cheapen labor. "The people on landed estates," he says, "are trusted by Providence to the owner's care, and the proprietor is accountable for the management of them to the Great God, who is the Creator of both." It does not seem to have occurred to the old gentleman that some day people might decline to be "managed."
He gave the best proof of his practical tact, in the conduct of his estate of Blair-Drummond,—uniting there all the graces of the best landscape-gardening with profitable returns.
I take leave of him with a single excerpt from his admirable chapter of Gardening in the "Elements of Criticism":—"Other fine arts may be perverted to excite irregular, and even vicious emotions; but gardening, which inspires the purest and most refined pleasures, cannot fail to promote every good affection. The gayety and harmony of mind it produceth inclineth the spectator to communicate his satisfaction to others, and to make them happy as he is himself, and tends naturally to establish in him a habit of humanity and benevolence."
It is humiliating to reflect, that a thievish orator at one of our Agricultural Fairs might appropriate page after page out of the "Gentleman Farmer" of Lord Kames, written in the middle of the last century, and the county-paper, and the aged directors, in clean shirt-collars and dress-coats, would be full of praises "of the enlightened views of our esteemed fellow-citizen." And yet at the very time when the critical Scotch judge was meditating his book, there was erected a land light-house, called Dunston Column, upon Lincoln Heath, to guide night travellers over a great waste of land that lay a half-day's ride south of Lincoln. And when Lady Robert Manners, who had a seat at Bloxholme, wished to visit Lincoln, a groom or two were sent out the morning before to explore a good path, and families were not unfrequently lost for days[J] together in crossing the heath. And this same heath, made up of a light fawn-colored sand, lying on "dry, thirsty stone," was, twenty years since at least, blooming all over with rank, dark lines of turnips; trim, low hedges skirted the level highways; neat farm-cottages were flanked with great saddle-backed ricks; thousands upon thousands of long-woolled sheep cropped the luxuriant pasturage, and the Dunston column was down.
About the time of Lord Kames's establishment at Blair-Drummond, or perhaps a little earlier, a certain Master Claridge published "The Country Calendar; or, The Shepherd of Banbury's Rules to know of the Change of the Weather." It professed to be based upon forty years' experience, and is said to have met with great favor. I name it only because it embodies these old couplets, which still lead a vagabond life up and down the pages of country-almanacs:—
"If the grass grows in Janiveer,
It grows the worst for't all the year."
"The Welshman had rather see his dam on the bier.
Than to see a fair Februeer."
"When April blows his horn,
It's good both for hay and corn."
"A cold May and a windy
Makes a full barn and a findy."
"A swarm of bees in May
Is worth a load of hay;
But a swarm in July
Is not worth a fly."
Will any couplets of Tennyson reap as large a fame?
About the same period, John Mills, a Fellow of the Royal Society, published a work of a totally different character,—being very methodic, very full, very clear. It was distributed through five volumes. He enforces the teachings of Evelyn and Duhamel, and is commendatory of the views of Tull. The Rotherham plough is figured in his work, as well as thirteen of the natural grasses. He speaks of potatoes and turnips as established crops, and enlarges upon their importance. He clings to the Virgilian theory of small farms, and to the better theory of thorough tillage.
In 1759 was issued the seventh edition of Miller's "Gardener's Dictionary,"[K] in which was for the first time adopted (in English) the classical system of Linnæus. If I have not before alluded to Philip Miller, it is not because he is undeserving. He was a correspondent of the chiefs in science over the Continent of Europe, and united to his knowledge a rare practical skill. He was superintendent of the famous Chelsea Gardens of the Apothecaries Company, He lies buried in the Chelsea Church-yard, where the Fellows of the Linnæan and Horticultural Societies of London have erected a monument to his memory. Has the reader ever sailed up the Thames, beyond Westminster? And does he remember a little spot of garden-ground, walled in by dingy houses, that lies upon the right bank of the river near to Chelsea Hospital? If he can recall two gaunt, flat-topped cedars which sentinel the walk leading to the river-gate, he will have the spot in his mind, where, nearly two hundred years ago, and a full century before the Kew parterres were laid down, the Chelsea Garden of the Apothecaries Company was established. It was in the open country then; and even Philip Miller, in 1722, walked to his work between hedge-rows, where sparrows chirped in spring, and in winter the fieldfare chattered: but the town has swallowed it; the city-smoke has starved it; even the marble image of Sir Hans Sloane in its centre is but the mummy of a statue. Yet in the Physic Garden there are trees struggling still which Philip Miller planted; and I can readily believe, that, when the old man, at seventy-eight, (through some quarrel with the Apothecaries,) took his last walk to the river-bank, he did it with a sinking at the heart which kept by him till he died.
I come now to speak of Thomas Whately, to whom I have already alluded, and of whom, from the scantiness of all record of his life, it is possible to say only very little. He lived at Nonsuch Park, in Surrey, not many miles from London, on the road to Epsom. He was engaged in public affairs, being at one time secretary to the Earl of Suffolk, and also a member of Parliament. But I enroll him in my wet-day service simply as the author of the most appreciative and most tasteful treatise upon landscape-gardening which has ever been written,—not excepting either Price or Repton. It is entitled, "Observations on Modern Gardening," and was first published in 1770. It was the same year translated into French by Latapie, and was to the Continental gardeners the first revelation of the graces which belonged to English cultivated landscape. In the course of the book he gives vivid descriptions of Blenheim, Hagley, Leasowes, Claremont, and several other well-known British places. He treats separately of Parks, Water, Farms, Gardens, Ridings, etc., illustrating each with delicate and tender transcripts of natural scenes. Now he takes us to the cliffs of Matlock, and again to the farm-flats of Woburn. His criticisms upon the places reviewed are piquant, full of rare apprehension of the most delicate natural beauties, and based on principles which every man of taste must accept at sight. As you read him, he does not seem so much a theorizer or expounder as he does the simple interpreter of graces which had escaped your notice. His suggestions come upon you with such a momentum of truthfulness, that you cannot stay to challenge them.
There is no argumentation, and no occasion for it. On such a bluff he tells us wood should be planted, and we wonder that a hundred people had not said the same thing before; on such a river-meadow the grassy level should lie open to the sun, and we wonder who could ever have doubted it. Nor is it in matters of taste alone, I think, that the best things we hear seem always to have a smack of oldness in them,—as if we remembered their virtue. "Capital!" we say; "but hasn't it been said before?" or, "Precisely! I wonder I didn't do or say the same thing myself." Whenever you hear such criticisms upon any performance, you may be sure that it has been directed by a sound instinct. It is not a sort of criticism any one is apt to make upon flashy rhetoric, or upon flash gardening.
Whately alludes to the analogy between landscape-painting and landscape-gardening: the true artists in either pursuit aim at the production of rich pictorial effects, but their means are different. Does the painter seek to give steepness to a declivity?—then he may add to his shading a figure or two toiling up. The gardener, indeed, cannot plant a man there; but a copse upon the summit will add to the apparent height, and he may indicate the difficulty of ascent by a hand-rail running along the path. The painter will extend his distance by the diminuendo of his mountains, or of trees stretching toward the horizon: the gardener has, indeed, no handling of successive mountains, but he may increase apparent distance by leafy avenues leading toward the limit of vision; he may even exaggerate the effect still further by so graduating the size of his trees as to make a counterfeit perspective.
When I read such a book as this of Whately's,—so informed and leavened as it is by an elegant taste,—I am most painfully impressed by the shortcomings of very much which is called good landscape-gardening with us. As if serpentine walks, and glimpses of elaborated turf-ground, and dots of exotic evergreens in little circlets of spaded earth, compassed at all those broad effects which a good designer should keep in mind! We are gorged with petit-maître-ism, and pretty littlenesses of all kinds. We have the daintiest of walks, and the rarest of shrubs, and the best of drainage; but of those grand, bold effects which at once seize upon the imagination, and inspire it with new worship of Nature, we have great lack. In private grounds we cannot of course command the opportunity which the long tenure under British privilege gives; but the conservators of public parks have scope and verge; let them look to it, that their resources be not wasted in the niceties of mere gardening, or in elaborate architectural devices. Banks of blossoming shrubs and tangled wild vines and labyrinthine walks will count for nothing in park-effect, when, fifty years hence, the scheme shall have ripened, and hoary pines pile along the ridges, and gaunt single trees spot here and there the glades, to invite the noontide wayfarer. A true artist should keep these ultimate effects always in his eye,—effects that may be greatly impaired, if not utterly sacrificed, by an injudicious multiplication of small and meretricious beauties, which in no way conspire to the grand and final poise of the scene.
But I must not dwell upon so enticing a topic, or my wet day will run over into sunshine. One word more, however, I have to say of the personality of the author who has suggested it. The reader of Sparks's Works and Life of Franklin may remember, that, in the fourth volume, under the head of "Hutchinson's Letters," the Doctor details difficulties which he fell into in connection with "certain papers" he obtained indirectly from one of His Majesty's officials, and communicated to Thomas Gushing, Speaker of the House of Representatives of Massachusetts Bay. The difficulty involved others besides the Doctor, and a duel came of it between a certain William Whately and Mr. Temple. This William Whately was the brother of Thomas Whately,—the author in question,—and secretary to Lord Grenville,[L] in which capacity he died in 1772.[M] The "papers" alluded to were letters from Governor Hutchinson and others, expressing sympathy with the British Ministry in their efforts to enforce a grievous Colonial taxation. It was currently supposed that Mr. Secretary Whately was the recipient of these letters; and upon their being made public after his death, Mr. Whately, his brother and executor, conceived that Mr. Temple was the instrument of their transfer. Hence the duel. Dr. Franklin, however, by public letter, declared that this allegation was ill-founded, but would never reveal the name of the party to whom he was indebted. The Doctor lost his place of Postmaster-General for the Colonies, and was egregiously insulted by Wedderburn in open Council; but he could console himself with the friendship of such men as Lawyer Dunning, (one of the suspected authors of "Junius,") and with the eulogium of Lord Chatham.
There are three more names belonging to this period which I shall bring under review, to finish up my day. These are Horace Walpole, (Lord Orford,) Edmund Burke, and Oliver Goldsmith. Walpole was the proprietor of Strawberry Hill, and wrote upon gardening: Burke was the owner of a noble farm at Beaconsfield, which he managed with rare sagacity: Goldsmith could never claim land enough to dig a grave upon, until the day he was buried; but he wrote the story of "The Vicar of Wakefield," and the sweet poem of "The Deserted Village."
I take a huge pleasure in dipping from time to time, into the books of Horace Walpole, and an almost equal pleasure in cherishing a hearty contempt for the man. With a certain native cleverness, and the tact of a showman, he paraded his resources, whether of garden, or villa, or memory, or ingenuity, so as to carry a reputation for ability that he never has deserved. His money, and the distinction of his father, gave him an association with cultivated people,—artists, politicians, poets,—which the metal of his own mind would never have found by reason of its own gravitating power. He courted notoriety in a way that would have made him, if a poorer man, the toadying Boswell of some other Johnson giant, and, if very poor, the welcome buffoon of some gossiping journal, who would never weary of contortions, and who would brutify himself at the death, to kindle an admiring smile.
He writes pleasantly about painters, and condescendingly of gardeners and gardening. Of the special beauties of Strawberry Hill he is himself historiographer; elaborate copper plates, elegant paper, and a particularity that is ludicrous, set forth the charms of a villa which never supplied a single incentive to correct taste, or a single scene that has the embalmment of genius. He tells us grandly how this room was hung with crimson, and that other with gold; how "the tearoom was adorned with green paper and prints, ...on the hearth, a large green vase of German ware, with a spread eagle, and lizards for handles,"—which vase (if the observation be not counted disloyal by sensitive gentlemen) must have been a very absurd bit of pottery. "On a shelf and brackets are two potpourris of Hankin china; two pierced blue and white basons of old Delft; and two sceaus [sic] of coloured Seve; a blue and white vase and cover; and two old Fayence bottles."
When a man writes about his own furniture in this style for large type and quarto, we pity him more than if he had kept to such fantastic nightmares as the "Castle of Otranto." The Earl of Orford speaks in high terms of the literary abilities of the Earl of Bath: have any of my readers ever chanced to see any literary work of the Earl of Bath? If not, I will supply the omission, in the shape of a ballad, "to the tune of a former song by George Bubb Doddington." It is entitled, "Strawberry Hill."
"Some cry up Gunnersbury,
For Sion some declare;
And some say that with Chiswick House
No villa can compare.
But ask the beaux of Middlesex,
Who know the country well,
If Strawb'ry Hill, if Strawb'ry Hill
Don't bear away the bell?
"Since Denham sung of Cooper's,
There's scarce a hill around
But what in song or ditty
Is turned to fairy ground.
Ah, peace be with their memories!
I wish them wondrous well;
But Strawb'ry Hill, but Strawb'ry Hill
Must bear away the bell."
It is no way surprising that a noble poet capable of writing such a ballad should have admired the villa of Horace Walpole: it is no way surprising that a proprietor capable of admiring such a ballad should have printed his own glorification of Strawberry Hill.
I am not insensible to the easy grace and the piquancy of his letters; no man could ever pour more delightful twaddle into the ear of a great friend; no man could more delight in doing it, if only the friend were really great. I am aware that he was highly cultivated,—that he had observed widely at home and abroad,—that he was a welcome guest in distinguished circles; but he never made or had a real friend; and the news of the old man's death made no severer shock than if one of his Fayence pipkins had broken.
But what most irks me is the absurd dilettanteism and presumption of the man. He writes a tale as if he were giving dignity to romance; he applauds an artist as Dives might have thrown crumbs to Lazarus; vain to the last degree of all that he wrote or said, he was yet too fine a gentleman to be called author; if there had been a way of printing books, without recourse to the vulgar media of type and paper,—a way of which titled gentlemen could command the monopoly,—I think he would have written more. As I turn over the velvety pages of his works, and look at his catalogues, his bon-mots, his drawings, his affectations of magnificence, I seem to see the fastidious old man shuffling with gouty step up and down, from drawing-room to library,—stopping here and there to admire some newly arrived bit of pottery,—pulling out his golden snuff-box, and whisking a delicate pinch into his old nostrils,—then dusting his affluent shirt—frill with the tips of his dainty fingers, with an air of gratitude to Providence for having created so fine a gentleman as Horace Walpole, and of gratitude to Horace Walpole for having created so fine a place as Strawberry Hill.
I turn from this ancient specimen of titled elegance to a consideration of Mr. Burke, with much the same relief with which I would go out from a perfumed drawing-room into the breezy air of a June morning. Lord Kames has told us that Mr. Burke preferred oxen to horses for field-labor; and we have Burke's letters to his bailiff, showing a nice attention to the economies of farming, and a complete mastery of its working details. But more than anywhere else does his agricultural sagacity declare itself in his "Thoughts and Details on Scarcity."[N]
Will the reader pardon me the transcript of a passage or two? "It is a perilous thing to try experiments on the farmer. The farmer's capital (except in a few persons, and in a very few places) is far more feeble than is commonly imagined. The trade is a very poor trade; it is subject to great risks and losses. The capital, such as it is, is turned but once in the year; in some branches it requires three years before the money is paid; I believe never less than three in the turnip and grass-land course ...It is very rare that the most prosperous farmer, counting the value of his quick and dead stock, the interest of the money he turns, together with his own wages as a bailiff or overseer, ever does make twelve or fifteen per centum by the year on his capital. In most parts of England which have fallen within my observation, I have rarely known a farmer who to his own trade has not added some other employment traffic, that, after a course of the most remitting parsimony and labor, and persevering in his business for a long course of years, died worth more than paid his debts, leaving his posterity to continue in nearly the same equal conflict between industry and want in which the last predecessor, and a long line of predecessors before him, lived and died."
In confirmation of this last statement, I may mention that Samuel Ireland, writing in 1792, ("Picturesque Views on the River Thames,") speaks of a farmer named Wapshote, near Chertsey, whose ancestors had resided on the place ever since the time of Alfred the Great; and amid all the chances and changes of centuries, not one of the descendants had either bettered or marred his fortunes. The truthfulness of the story is confirmed in a number of the "Monthly Review" for the same year.
Mr. Burke commends the excellent and most useful works of his "friend Arthur Young," (of whom I shall have somewhat to say another time,) but regrets that he should intimate the largeness of a farmer's profits. He discusses the drill-culture, (for wheat,) which, he says, is well, provided "the soil is not excessively heavy, or encumbered with large, loose stones, and provided the most vigilant superintendence, the most prompt activity, which has no such day as to-morrow in its calendar,[O] combine to speed the plough; in this case I admit," he says, "its superiority over the old and general methods." And again he says,—"It requires ten times more of labor, of vigilance, of attention, of skill, and, let me add, of good fortune also, to carry on the business of a farmer with success, than what belongs to any other trade."
May not "A Farmer" take a little pride in such testimony as this?
One of his biographers tells us, that, in his later years, the neighbors saw him on one occasion, at his home of Beaconsfield, leaning upon the shoulder of a favorite old horse, (which had the privilege of the lawn,) and sobbing. Whereupon the gossiping villagers reported the great man crazed. Ay, crazed,—broken by the memory of his only and lost son Richard, with whom this aged saddle-horse had been a special favorite,—crazed, no doubt, at thought of the strong young hand whose touch the old beast waited for in vain,—crazed and broken,—an oak, ruined and blasted by storms. The great mind in this man was married to a great heart.
It is almost with a feeling of awe that I enter upon my wet-day studies the name of Oliver Goldsmith: I love so much his tender story of the good Vicar; I love so much his poems. The world is accustomed to regard that little novel, which Dr. Johnson bargained away for sixty guineas, as a rural tale: it is so quiet; it is so simple; its atmosphere is altogether so redolent of the country. And yet all, save some few critical readers, will be surprised to learn that there is not a picture of natural scenery in the book of any length; and wherever an allusion of the kind appears, it does not bear the impress of a mind familiar with the country, and practically at home there. The Doctor used to go out upon the Edgeware road,—not for his love of trees, but to escape noise and duns. Yet we overlook literalness, charmed as we are by the development of his characters and by the sweet burden of his story. The statement may seem extraordinary, but I could transcribe every rural, out-of-door scene in the "Vicar of Wakefield" upon a single half-page of foolscap. Of the first home of the Vicar we have only this account:—"We had an elegant house, situated in a fine country and a good neighborhood." Of his second home there is this more full description:—"Our little habitation was situated at the foot of a sloping hill, sheltered with a beautiful underwood behind, and a prattling river before: on one side a meadow, on the other a green. My farm consisted of about twenty acres of excellent land, having given a hundred pounds for my predecessor's good-will. Nothing could exceed the neatness of my little inclosures: the elms and hedge-rows appearing with inexpressible beauty. My house consisted of but one story, and was covered with thatch, which gave it an air of great snugness." It is quite certain that an author familiar with the country, and with a memory stocked with a multitude of kindred scenes, would have given a more determinate outline to this picture. But whether he would have given to his definite outline the fascination that belongs to the vagueness of Goldsmith, is wholly another question.
Again, in the sixth chapter, Mr. Burchell is called upon to assist the Vicar and his family in "saving an after-growth of hay." "Our labors," he says, "went on lightly; we turned the swath to the wind." It is plain that Goldsmith never saved much hay; turning a swath to the wind may be a good way of making it, but it is a slow way of gathering it. In the eighth chapter of this charming story, the Doctor says,—"Our family dined in the field, and we sat, or rather reclined, round a temperate repast, our cloth spread upon the hay. To heighten our satisfaction, the blackbirds answered each other from opposite hedges, the familiar redbreast came and pecked the crumbs from our hands, and every sound seemed but the echo of tranquillity." This is very fascinating; but it is the veriest romanticism of country-life. Such sensible girls as Olivia and Sophia would, I am quite sure, never have spread the dinner-cloth upon hay, which would most surely have set all the gravy aflow, if the platters had not been fairly overturned; and as for the redbreasts, (with that rollicking boy Moses in my mind,) I think they must have been terribly tame birds.
But this is only a farmer's criticism,—a Crispin feeling the bunions on some Phidian statue. And do I think the less of Goldsmith, because he wantoned with the literalism of the country, and laid on his prismatic colors of romance where only white light lay? Not one whit. It only shows how Genius may discard utter faithfulness to detail, if only its song is charged with a general simplicity and truthfulness that fill our ears and our hearts.
As for Goldsmith's verse, who does not love it? It is wicked to consume the pages of a magazine with extracts from a poem that is our daily food, else I would string them all down this column and the next, and every one should have a breezy reminder of the country in it. Not all the arts of all the modernists,—not "Maud," with its garden-song,—not the caged birds of Killingworth, singing up and down the village-street,—not the heather-bells out of which the springy step of Jean Ingelow crushes perfume,—shall make me forget the old, sweet, even flow of the "Deserted Village."
Down with it, my boy, from the third shelf! G-O-L-D-S-M-I-T-H—a worker in gold—is on the back.
And I sit reading it to myself, as a fog comes weltering in from the sea, covering all the landscape, save some half-dozen of the city-spires, which peer above the drift-like beacons.
THE REAPER'S DREAM.
The road was lone; the grass was dank
With night-dews on the briery bank
Whereon a weary reaper sank.
His garb was old,—his visage tanned;
The rusty sickle in his hand
Could find no work in all the land.
He saw the evening's chilly star
Above his native vale afar;
A moment on the horizon's bar
It hung,—then sank as with a sigh:
And there the crescent moon went by,
An empty sickle down the sky.
To soothe his pain, Sleep's tender palm
Laid on his brow its touch of balm,—
His brain received the slumberous calm;
And soon, that angel without name,
Her robe a dream, her face the same,
The giver of sweet visions, came.
She touched his eyes: no longer sealed,
They saw a troop of reapers wield
Their swift blades in a ripened field:
At each thrust of their snowy sleeves,
A thrill ran through the future sheaves,
Bustling like rain on forest-leaves.
They were not brawny men who bowed
With harvest-voices rough and loud,
But spirits moving as a cloud:
Oh, bid the morning-stars combine
To match the chorus clear and fine
That rippled lightly down the line,—
A cadence of celestial rhyme,
The language of that cloudless clime,
To which their shining hands kept time!
Behind them lay the gleaming rows,
Like those long clouds the sunset shows
On amber meadows of repose:
But like a wind the binders bright
Soon followed in their mirthful might,
And swept them into sheaves of light.
Doubling the splendor of the plain,
There rolled the great celestial wain
To gather in the fallen grain:
Its frame was built of golden bars,
Its glowing wheels were lit with stars,
The royal Harvest's car of cars.
The snowy yoke that drew the load
On gleaming hoofs of silver trode,
And music was its only goad:
To no command of word or beck
It moved, and felt no other check
Than one white arm laid on the neck,—
The neck whose light was overwound
With bells of lilies, ringing round
Their odors till the air was drowned:
The starry foreheads meekly borne,
With garlands looped from horn to horn,
Shone like the many-colored morn.
The field was cleared. Home went the bands,
Like children linking happy hands
While singing through their father's lands;
Or, arms about each other thrown,
With amber tresses backward blown,
They moved as they were Music's own.
The vision brightening more and more,
He saw the garner's glowing door,
And sheaves, like sunshine, strew the floor,—
The floor was jasper,—golden flails,
Swift sailing as a whirlwind sails,
Throbbed mellow music down the vales.
He saw the mansion,—all repose,—
Great corridors and porticos
Propped with the columns' shining rows;
And these—for beauty was the rule—
The polished pavements, hard and cool,
Redoubled, like a crystal pool.
And there the odorous feast was spread:
The fruity fragrance widely shed
Seemed to the floating music wed.
Seven angels, like the Pleiad Seven,
Their lips to silver clarions given,
Blew welcome round the walls of heaven.
In skyey garments, silky thin,
The glad retainers floated in,—
A thousand forms, and yet no din:
And from the visage of the Lord,
Like splendor from the Orient poured,
A smile illumined all the board.
Far flew the music's circling sound,
Then floated back with soft rebound,
To join, not mar, the converse round,—
Sweet notes that melting still increased,
Such as ne'er cheered the bridal feast
Of king in the enchanted East.
Did any great door ope or close,
It seemed the birth-time of repose,—
The faint sound died where it arose;
And they who passed from door to door,
Their soft feet on the polished floor
Met their soft shadows,—nothing more.
Then once again the groups were drawn
Through corridors, or down the lawn,
Which bloomed in beauty like a dawn:
Where countless fountains leap alway,
Veiling their silver heights in spray,
The choral people held their way.
There, 'mid the brightest, brightly shone
Dear forms he loved in years agone,—
The earliest loved,—the earliest flown:
He heard a mother's sainted tongue,
A sister's voice who vanished young,
While one still dearer sweetly sung!
No further might the scene unfold,
The gazer's voice could not withhold,
The very rapture made him bold:
"O master of these broad estates,
Behold, before your very gates
A worn and wanting laborer waits!
Let me but toil amid your grain,
Or be a gleaner on the plain,
So I may leave these fields of pain!
"A gleaner, I will follow far,
With never look or word to mar,
Behind the Harvest's yellow car:
All day my hand shall constant be,
And every happy eve shall see
The precious burden borne to Thee!"
At morn some reapers neared the place,
Strong men, whose feet recoiled apace,—
Then gathering round the upturned face,
They saw the lines of pain and care,
Yet read in the expression there
The look as of an answered prayer.
THE NEW-ENGLAND REVOLUTION OF THE SEVENTEENTH CENTURY.
In the first week of March, 1689, Sir Edmund Andros returned to Boston from an expedition against the Indians of Maine. He had now governed New England more than two years for King James II., imitating, in his narrow sphere, the insolent despotism of his master.
The people had no share in the government, which was conducted by Andros with the aid of Counsellors appointed by the King. Some of these were the Governor's creatures,—English adventurers, who came to make their fortunes. Their associates of a different character were so treated that they absented themselves from the Council-Board, and at length not even formal meetings were held. Heavy taxes were arbitrarily imposed on the inhabitants. Excessive fees were demanded for the transaction of business in the courts and public offices. Town-meetings were forbidden, except one to be held in each year for the choice of assessing-officers. The ancient titles to land in the Colony were declared to be worthless, and proprietors were required to secure themselves by taking out new patents from the Governor, for which high prices were extorted. Complaint of these usurpations was severely punished by fine and imprisonment. An order that "no man should remove out of the country without the Governor's leave" cut off whatever small chance existed of obtaining redress in England. The religious feelings of the people were outraged. The Governor directed the opening of the Old South Church in Boston for worship according to the English ritual. If the demand had been for the use of the building for a mass, or for a carriage-house for Juggernaut, it would scarcely have given greater displeasure.
Late in the autumn of 1688, the Governor had led a thousand New-England soldiers into Maine against the Indians. His operations there were unfortunate. The weather was cold and stormy. The fatigue of long marches through an unsettled country was excessive. Sickness spread among the companies. Shelter and hospital-stores had been insufficiently provided. The Indians fled to the woods, and there laughed at the invader.
The costliness, discomforts, and miserable ill-success of this expedition, while they occasioned clamor in the camp, sharpened the discontents existing at the capital. Suspicions prevailed of treachery on the Governor's part, for he was well known to be without the excuse of incompetence. Plausible stories were told of his being in friendly relations with the murderous Indians. An apprehension that he was instructed by his Popish master to turn New England over to the French, in the contingency of a popular outbreak in England, was confirmed by reports of French men-of-war hovering along the coast for the consummation of that object. When, in mid-winter, Andros was informed of the fears entertained at Court of a movement of the Prince of Orange, he issued a proclamation, commanding His Majesty's subjects in New England, and especially all officers, civil and military, to be on the alert, should any foreign fleet approach, to resist such landing or invasion as might be attempted. Not causelessly, even if unjustly, the Governor's object was understood to be to hold New England for King James, if possible, should the parent-country reassert its rights.
Of course, no friendly welcome met him, when, on the heels of his proclamation, he returned to Boston from the Eastern Country. He was himself so out of humor as to be hasty and imprudent, and one of his first acts quickened the popular resentment. The gloomy and jealous state of men's minds had gained some degree of credit for a story that he had furnished the hostile natives with ammunition for the destruction of the force under his command. An Indian declared, in the hearing of some inhabitants of Sudbury, that he knew this to be true. Two of the townsmen took the babbler to Boston, ostensibly to be punished for his license of speech. The Governor treated the informers with great harshness, put them under heavy bonds, and sent one of them to jail. The comment of the time was not unnatural nor uncandid:—"Although no man does accuse Sir Edmund merely upon Indian testimony, yet let it be duly weighed whether it might not create suspicion and an astonishment in the people of New England, in that he did not punish the Indians who thus charged him, but the English who complained of them for it."
The nine-days' wonder of this transaction was not over, when tidings of far more serious import claimed the public ear. On the fourth day of April, a young man named John Winslow arrived at Boston from the Island of Nevis, bringing a copy of the Declarations issued by the Prince of Orange on his landing in England. Winslow's story is best told in the words of an affidavit made by him some months after.
"Being at Nevis," he says, "there came in a ship from some part of England with the Prince of Orange's Declarations, and brought news also of his happy proceedings in England, with his entrance there, which was very welcome news to me, and I knew it would be so to the rest of the people in New England; and I, being bound thither, and very willing to convey such good news with me, gave four shillings sixpence for the said Declarations, on purpose to let the people in New England understand what a speedy deliverance they might expect from arbitrary power. We arrived at Boston harbor the fourth day of April following; and as soon as I came home to my house, Sir Edmund Andros, understanding I brought the Prince's Declarations with me, sent the Sheriff to me. So I went along with him to the Governor's house, and, as soon as I came in, he asked me why I did not come and tell him the news. I told him I thought it not my duty, neither was it customary for any passenger to go to the Governor, when the master of the ship had been with him before, and told him the news. He asked me where the Declarations I brought with me were. I told him I could not tell, being afraid to let him have them, because he would not let the people know any news. He told me I was a saucy-fellow, and bid the Sheriff carry me away to the Justices of the Peace; and as we were going, I told the Sheriff I would choose my Justice. He told me, No, I must go before Dr. Bullivant, one picked on purpose (as I judged) for the business. Well, I told him, I did not care who I went before, for I knew my cause was good. So soon as I came in, two more of the Justices dropped in, Charles Lidgett and Francis Foxcroft, such as the former, fit for the purpose. So they asked me for my papers. I told them I would not let them have them, by reason they kept all the news from the people. So when they saw they could not get what I bought with my money, they sent me to prison for bringing traitorous and treasonable libels and papers of news, notwithstanding I offered them security to the value of two thousand pounds."
The intelligence which reached Winslow at Nevis, and was brought thence by him to Boston, could scarcely have embraced transactions in England of a later date than the first month after the landing of the Prince of Orange. Within that time, the result of the expedition was extremely doubtful. There had been no extensive rising against the King, and every day of delay was in his favor. He had a powerful army and fleet, and it had been repeatedly shown how insecure were any calculations upon popular discontent in England, when an occasion arose for putting English loyalty to the last proof. Should the clergy, after all, be true to their assertions of the obligation of unqualified obedience,—should the army be faithful,—should the King, by artifice or by victory, attract to his side the wavering mass of his subjects, and expel the Dutch invader,—there would be an awful reckoning for all who had taken part against the Court. The proceedings after the insurrection under Monmouth had not entirely shown how cruel James could be. His position then had been far less critical than now. Then he enjoyed some degree of popular esteem, and the preparations against him were not on a formidable scale. Now he was thoroughly frightened. In proportion to his present alarm would be his fury, if he should come off victorious. The last chance was pending. If now resisted in vain, he would be henceforward irresistible. Englishmen who should now oppose their king must be sure to conquer him, or they lost all security for property, liberty, and life. Was it any way prudent for the feeble, colony of Massachusetts, divided by parties, and with its administration in the hands of a tool of the tyrant, to attempt to throw itself into the contest at this doubtful stage?
It is unavoidable to suppose that these considerations were anxiously weighed by the patriots of Massachusetts after the reception of the intelligence from England. It is natural to believe, that, during the fortnight which followed, there were earnest arguments between the more and the less sanguine portions of the people. It seems probable that the leaders, who had most to fear from rashness, if it should be followed by defeat, pleaded for forbearance, or at least for delay. If any of them took a different part, they took it warily, and so as not to be publicly committed. But the people's blood was up. Though any day now might bring tidings which would assure them whether a movement of theirs would be safe or disastrous, their impatience could not be controlled. If the leaders would not lead, some of the followers must take their places. Massachusetts must at all events have her share in the struggle,—and her share, if King James should conquer, in the ruin.
It may be presumed that Andros saw threatening signs, as, when next heard of, he was within the walls of the work on Fort Hill. Two weeks had passed after Winslow came with his news, when suddenly, at an early hour of the day, without any note of preparation, Boston was all astir. At the South end of the town a rumor spread that armed men were collecting at the North end. At the North it was told that there was a bustle and a rising at the South; and a party having found Captain George, of the Rose frigate, on shore, laid hands on him, and put him under a guard. "About nine of the clock the drums beat through the town, and an ensign was set up upon the beacon." Presently Captain Hill marched his company up King [State] Street, escorting Bradstreet, Danforth, Richards, Cooke, Addington, and others of the old Magistrates, who proceeded together to the Council-Chamber. Meantime, Secretary Randolph, Counsellor Bullivant, Sheriff Sherlock, and "many more" of the Governor's party, were apprehended and put in gaol. The gaoler was added to their company, and his function was intrusted to "Scates, the bricklayer."
About noon, the gentlemen who had been conferring together in the Council-Chamber appeared in the eastern gallery of the Town-House in King Street, and there read to the assembled people what was entitled a "Declaration of the Gentlemen, Merchants, and Inhabitants of Boston, and the Country Adjacent." The document contains a brief narrative of the oppressions that had been suffered by the Colony, under the recent maladministration. Towards the end it refers in a few words to "the noble undertaking of the Prince of Orange, to preserve the three kingdoms from the horrible brinks of Popery and Slavery, and to bring to a condign punishment those worst of men by whom English liberties have been destroyed." One point was delicate; for among the recent Counsellors of the Governor had been considerable men, who, it was hoped, would hereafter act with the people. It is thus disposed of:—"All the Council were not engaged in these ill actions, but those of them which were true lovers of their country were seldom admitted to, and seldomer consulted at, the debates which produced these unrighteous things. Care was taken to keep them under disadvantages, and the Governor, with five or six more, did what they would." The Declaration concludes as follows:—
"We do therefore seize upon the persons of those few ill men which have been (next to our sins) the grand authors of our miseries; resolving to secure them, for what justice, orders from his Highness, with the English Parliament, shall direct, lest, ere we are aware, we find (what we may fear, being on all sides in danger) ourselves to be by them given away to a foreign power before such orders can reach unto us; for which orders we now humbly wait. In the mean time, firmly believing that we have endeavored nothing but what mere duty to God and our country calls for at our hands, we commit our enterprise unto the blessing of Him who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to join with us in prayers and all just actions for the defence of the land."
Andros sent the son of the Chief Justice with a message to the ministers, and to two or three other considerable citizens, inviting them to the Fort for a conference, which they declined. Meanwhile the signal on Beacon Hill had done its office, and by two o'clock in the afternoon, in addition to twenty companies in Boston under arms, several hundred soldiers were seen on the Charlestown side, ready to cross over. Fifteen principal gentlemen, some of them lately Counsellors, and others Assistants under the old Charter, signed a summons to Andros. "We judge it necessary," they wrote, "you forthwith surrender and deliver up the government and fortification, to be preserved and disposed according to order and direction from the Crown of England, which suddenly is expected may arrive, promising all security from violence to yourself or any of your gentlemen or soldiers in person or estate. Otherwise we are assured they will endeavor the taking of the fortification by storm, if any opposition be made."
"The frigate, upon the news, put out all her flags and pendants, and opened all her ports, and with all speed made ready for fight, under the command of the lieutenant, he swearing that he would die before she should be taken." He sent a boat to bring off Andros and his attendants; but it had scarcely touched the beach when the crew were encountered and overpowered by the party from the Town-House, which, under the command of Mr. John Nelson, was bearing the summons to the Governor. The boat was kept, with the sailors manning it, who were disarmed. Andros and his friends withdrew again within the Port, from which they had come down to go on board the frigate. Nelson disposed his party on two sides of the Fort, and getting possession of some cannon in an outwork, pointed them against the walls. The soldiers within were daunted. The Governor asked a suspension of the attack till he should send West and another person to confer with the Provisional Council at the Town-House. The reply, whatever it was, decided him how to proceed, and he and his party "came forth from the Fort, and went disarmed to the Town-House, and from thence, some to the close gaol, and the Governor, under a guard, to Mr. Usher's house."
So ended the first day of the insurrection. The Castle and the frigate were still defiant in the harbor. The nineteenth of April is a red-letter day in Massachusetts. On the nineteenth of April, 1861, Massachusetts fought her way through Baltimore to the rescue of the imperilled capital of the United States. On the nineteenth of April, 1775, she began at Lexington the war of American Independence. On the nineteenth of April, 1689, King James's Governor was brought to yield the Castle of Boston by a threat, that, "if he would not give it presently, under his hand and seal, he would be exposed to the rage of the people." A party of Colonial militia then "went down, and it was surrendered to them with cursings, and they brought the men away, and made Captain Fairweather commander in it. Now, by the time the men came back from the Castle, all the guns, both in ships and batteries, were brought to bear against the frigate, which were enough to have shattered her in pieces at once, resolving to have her."
Captain George, who had long nursed a private quarrel with the arch-disturber of Massachusetts, and chief adviser of the Governor, "cast all the blame now upon that devil, Randolph; for, had it not been for him, he had never troubled this good people;—earnestly soliciting that he might not be constrained to surrender the ship, for by so doing both himself and all his men would lose their wages, which otherwise would be recovered in England; giving leave to go on board, and strike the top-masts, and bring the sails on shore." The arrangement was made, and the necessity for firing on a ship of the royal navy was escaped. The sails were brought on shore, and there put away, and the vessel swung to her anchors off Long Wharf, a harmless and a ridiculous hulk. "The country-people came armed into the town, in the afternoon, in such rage and heat that it made all tremble to think what would follow; for nothing would satisfy them, but that the Governor should be bound in chains or cords, and put in a more secure place, and that they would see done before they went away; and to satisfy them, he was guarded by them to the Fort."
The Fort had been given in charge to Nelson, and Colonel Lidgett shared the Governor's captivity. West, Graham, Palmer, and others of his set, were placed in Fairweather's custody at the Castle. Randolph was taken care of at the common gaol, by the new keeper, "Scates, the bricklayer." Andros came near effecting his escape. Disguised in woman's clothes, he had safely passed two sentries, but was stopped by a third, who observed his shoes, which he had neglected to change. Dudley, the Chief Justice, was absent on the circuit at Long Island. Returning homeward, he heard the great news at Newport. He crossed into the Narragansett Country, where he hoped to keep secret at Major Smith's house; but a party got upon his track, and took him to his home at Roxbury. "To secure him against violence," as the order expresses it, a guard was placed about his house. Dudley's host, Smith, was lodged in gaol at Bristol.
To secure Dudley against popular violence might well be an occasion of anxious care to those who had formerly been his associates in public trusts. Among the oppressors, he it was whom the people found hardest to forgive. If Andros, Randolph, West, and others, were tyrants and extortioners, at all events they were strangers; they had not been preying on their own kinsmen. But this man was son of a brave old emigrant Governor; he had been bred by the bounty of Harvard College; he had been welcomed at the earliest hour to the offices of the Commonwealth, and promoted in them with a promptness out of proportion to the claims of his years. Confided in, enriched, caressed, from youth to middle life by his native Colony beyond any other man of his time, he had been pampered into a power which, as soon as the opportunity was presented, he used for the grievous humiliation and distress of his generous friends. That he had not brought them to utter ruin seemed to have been owing to no want of resolute purpose on his part to advance himself as the congenial instrument of a despot.
A revolution had been consummated, and the government of the King of England over Massachusetts was dissolved. The day after Andros was led to prison, the persons who had been put forward in the movement assembled again to deliberate on the state of affairs. The result was, that several of them, with twenty-two others whom they now associated, formed themselves into a provisional government, which took the name of a "Council for the Safety of the People and Conservation of the Peace." They elected Simon Bradstreet, the last Charter Governor, now eighty-seven years of age, to be their President, and Wait Winthrop, grandson of the first Governor, to command the Militia. Among the orders passed on the first day of this new administration was one addressed to Colonel Tyng, Major Savage, and Captains Davis and Willard, serving in the Eastern Country, to send certain officers to Boston, and dismiss a portion of their force. There was probably a threefold purpose in this order: to get possession of the persons of some distrusted officers; to gratify a prevailing opinion that the exposures of the campaign had been needless as well as cruel; and to obtain a reinforcement of skilled troops at the centre of affairs.
The Council felt the weakness of their position. They held their place neither by deputation from the sovereign, nor by election of the people. They hesitated to set up the Colonial Charter again, for it had been formally condemned in the King's courts, and there was a large party about them who bore it no good-will; nor was it to be expected that their President, the timid Bradstreet, whatever were his own wishes, could be brought to consent to so bold a measure. Naturally and not improperly desirous to escape from such a responsibility, they decided to summon a Convention of delegates from the towns.
On the appointed day, sixty-six delegates came together. They brought from their homes, or speedily reached, the conclusion that of right the old Charter was still in force; and they addressed a communication to that effect to the Magistrates who had been chosen just before the Charter government was superseded, desiring them to resume their functions, and to constitute, with the delegates just now sent from the towns, the General Court of the Colony, according to ancient law and practice. Their request was denied. Either the wisdom or the timidity of the Magistrates held them back from so bold a venture. The delegates then desired the Council to continue to act as a Committee of Public Safety till another Convention might assemble, of delegates bringing express instructions from their towns.
Fifty-four towns were represented in the new Convention. All but fourteen of them had instructed their delegates to insist on the resumption of the Charter. In the Council, the majority was opposed to that scheme. After a debate of two days, the popular policy prevailed, and the Governor and Magistrates chosen at the last election under the Charter consented to assume the trusts then committed to them, and, in concert with the delegates recently elected, to form a General Court, and administer the Colony for the present according to the ancient forms. They desired that the other gentlemen lately associated with them in the Council should continue to hold that relation. But this the delegates would not allow; and accordingly those gentlemen, among whom were Wait Winthrop, the newly appointed commander-in-chief, and Stoughton, whom the people could not yet forgive for his recent subserviency, relinquished their part in the conduct of affairs. They did so with prudence and magnanimity, engaging to exert themselves to allay the dissatisfaction of their friends, and only avowing their expectation that the state-prisoners would be well treated, and that there should be no encouragement to popular manifestations of hostility to England.
Scarcely had this arrangement been made, when it became known, that, if dangers still existed, at least the chief danger was over. On the twenty-sixth of May a ship arrived from England with an order to the authorities on the spot to proclaim King William and Queen Mary. Never, since the Mayflower groped her way into Plymouth harbor, had a message from the parent-country been received in New England with such joy. Never had such a pageant as, three days after, expressed the prevailing happiness been seen in Massachusetts. From far and near the people flocked into Boston; the Government, attended by the principal gentlemen of the capital and the towns around, passed in procession on horseback through the thoroughfares; the regiment of the town, and companies and troops of horse and foot from the country, lent their pomp and noise to the show; there was a great dinner at the Town-House for the better sort; wine was served out in the streets; and the evening was made noisy with acclamations till the bell rang at nine o'clock, and families met to thank God at the domestic altar for causing the great sorrow to pass away, and giving a Protestant King and Queen to England.
The revolution in Massachusetts determined the proceedings in the other Colonies of New England. On learning what had been done in Boston, the people of Plymouth seized the person of their townsman, Nathaniel Clark, one of Andros's Counsellors and tools, and, recalling Governor Hinckley, set up again the ancient government. When the news reached Rhode Island, a summons was issued to "the several towns," inviting them to send their "principal persons" to Newport "before the day of usual election by Charter, ... there to consult of some suitable way in this present juncture." Accordingly, at a meeting held on the day appointed by the ancient Charter for annual elections, it was determined "to reassume the government according to the Charter," and "that the former Governor, Deputy-Governor, and Assistants that were in place ... before the coming over of Sir Edmund Andros, the late Governor, should be established in their respective places for the year ensuing, or further order from England." Walter Clarke was the Governor who had been superseded by Andros. But he had no mind for the hazardous honor which was now thrust upon him, and Rhode Island remained without a Governor.
On the arrival in Connecticut of the news of the deposition of Andros, the plan of resuming the Charter of that Colony, and reëstablishing the government under it, was immediately canvassed in all the settlements. Agreeably to some general understanding, a number of principal men, most of them elected as Deputies by their respective towns, assembled, on the eighth of May, at Hartford, to consult together on the expediency of taking that step. They determined to submit, the next day, to the decision of the assembled freemen three questions, namely: 1. "Whether they would that those in place and power when Sir Edmund Andros took the government should resume their place and power as they were then; or, 2. Whether they would continue the present government; or, 3. Whether they would choose a Committee of Safety."
The adoption of any one of these proposals disposed of the others. The first of them was first submitted to a vote, and prevailed. A General Court after the ancient pattern was constituted accordingly. The persons just deputed from the towns made the Lower House. Governor Treat and Lieutenant-Governor Bishop resumed their functions, with ten Magistrates elected with them two years before, besides others now chosen to fill the places of Magistrates who had died meanwhile.
The first measure of the Court was, to order "that all the laws of this Colony formerly made according to Charter, and courts constituted in this Colony for administration of justice, as they were before the late interruption, should be of full force and virtue for the future, and till the Court should see cause to make further and other alteration and provision according to Charter." The second vote was, to confirm "all the present military officers." Justices of the Peace were appointed for the towns. The armament of the fort at Saybrook was provided for. The Governor was charged to convene the General Court, "in case any occasion should come on in reference to the Charter or Government." It was soon convened accordingly, in consequence of the arrival of intelligence of the accession of William and Mary to the throne; a day of Thanksgiving was appointed; and the King and Queen were proclaimed with all solemnity.
Again Englishmen were free and self-governed in all the settlements of New England.
SOME ACCOUNT OF THE EARLY LIFE OF AN OLD BACHELOR.
Allusion was made in "The Schoolmaster's Story," told in these pages last month, to two old bachelors. I am one of them. Early this morning, while taking my walk, I saw, growing about a rock, some little blue flowers, such as I used to pick when a child. I had broken off a few, and was stooping for more, when some one near said, "Good morning, Captain Joseph!"
It was Mrs. Maylie, the minister's wife, going home from watching. After a little talk, she told me, in her pleasant way, that I had two things to do, of which, by the doing, I should make but one: I was to write a story, and to show good reason for keeping myself all to myself.
"Mrs. Maylie," said I, "do I look like a person who has had a story? I am a lonely old man,—a hard old man. A story should have warmth. Don't you see I'm an icicle?"
"Not quite," said she. "I know of two warm spots. I see you every day watching the children go past; and then, what have you there? Icicles never cling to flowers!"
After she had gone, I began thinking what a beautiful story mine might have been, if things had been different,—if I had been different. And at last it occurred to me that a relation of some parts of it might be useful reading for young men; also, that it might cause our whole class to be more kindly looked upon.
Suppose it is not a pleasant story. Life is not all brightness. See how the shadows chase each other across our path! To-day our friend weeps with us; to-morrow we weep with our friend. The hearse is a carriage which stops at every door.
No picture is without its shading. We have before us the happy experiences of my two friends. By those smiling groups let there stand one dark, solitary figure, pointing out the moral of the whole.
There is one thing, however, in the story of my neighbor Browne, pleasant as it is, which reminds me of a habit of my own. I mean, his liking to watch pretty faces. I do, when they belong to children.
This practice of mine, which I find has been noticed by my valued friend, Mrs. Maylie, is partly owing to the memories of my own childhood.
When the past was so suddenly recalled, on that stormy day,—as mentioned by my friend Allen,—I felt as I have often felt upon the sea, when, after hours of dull sailing, through mist and darkness, I have looked back upon the lights of the town we were leaving.
My life began in brightness. And now, amid that brightness, appear fresh, happy little faces, which haunt me more and more, as I become isolated from the humanity about me, until at times it is those only which are real, while living forms seem but shadows.
I see whole rows of these young faces in an old school-house, far from here, close by the sea,—can see the little girls running in, when the schoolma'am knocked, and settling down in their forms, panting for breath.
One of these the boys called my girl. I liked her, because she had curls and two rows of cunning teeth, and because she never laughed when the boys called me "Spunky Joe." For I was wilful, and of a hasty temper. Her name was Margaret. My father took me a long voyage with him, and while I was gone she moved down East. I never saw her afterwards. If living, it must have been a score of years since she bought her first glasses.
No doubt I should have been of a pleasanter disposition, had I not been the only boy and the youngest child. I was made too much of. Aunt Chloë, who was aunt to the neighborhood, and did its washing, said I was "humored to death."
We had a great family of girls, but Mary was the one I loved best. She was a saint. Her face made you think of "Peace on earth, and good-will to men." Aunt Chloë used to say that "Mary Bond was pretty to look at, and facultied; pity she hadn't the 'one thing needful.'" For Mary was not a professor.
I went pretty steadily to school until about sixteen. At that time I had a misunderstanding with father. I got the idea that he looked upon me as an incumbrance, and declared I would go to sea.
Mother and the girls were full of trouble, but I wasn't used to being crossed, and to sea I went. I knew afterwards that father had set his heart upon my getting learning.
He said going to sea was a dog's life. But I liked it, and followed it up. I think it was in my twentieth year that I shipped on board the Eliza Ann, Captain. Saunders, bound from Boston to Calcutta. This was my first long voyage as a sailor. Among the crew was one they called Jamie, as smart as a steel-trap, and handsome as a picture. He was not our countryman. I think he was part Scotch. The passengers were always noticing him. One day, when he stood leaning against the foremast, with his black hair blowing out in the wind, a young man with a portfolio got me to keep him there, still, for a while: he was an artist, and wanted to make a drawing of him. The sailors all liked him because he was so clever, and so lively, and knew so many songs, and could hop about the rigging, light as a bird. Only a few knew him. They said he had no home but the sea.
He afterwards told me this himself, one dark night, when we were leaning together over the rail, as if listening to the splash of the water. He began his sea-life by running away. He said but little, and that in a mournful way that made me pity him, and wonder he could be so lively. I didn't know then that sometimes people have to laugh to keep from crying. "I was all she had," said he; "and I left her. I never thought how much she cared for me until I got among all strangers; then I wanted my mother." At another time he told me about his return home and finding no mother. And I told him of my own home and my great flock of sisters.
After this he rather clung to me. And thus it happened, from my liking Jamie's handsome face, and from Jamie's telling me his trouble, that we became fast friends.
When the ship arrived in Boston, I took him home with me. Father had left off going to sea; but some of the girls were married, and mother called her family small. I knew she would take the homeless boy into her great motherly heart, along with the rest of us.
We couldn't have arrived at a better time. Thanksgiving was just at hand, work was plenty, and Jamie soon in the thickest of it. 'Twas so good to him, being in a home, though none of his. The girls were glad enough of his help and his company; for he was full of his fun, and never at a loss for a word. We never had so much light talk in the house before. Mother was rather serious, and father did his laughing at the stores.
When Thanksgiving-Day came, however, and the married ones began to flock in with their families, he spoke of going,—of not belonging. But we persuaded him, and the girls did all they could to take up his mind, knowing what his feelings must be.
The Thanksgiving dinner was a beautiful sight to see. I mean, of course, the people round it. Father talked away, and could eat. But mother sat in her frilled cap, looking mildly about, with the tears in her eyes, making believe eat, helping everybody, giving the children two pieces of pie, and letting them talk at table. This last, when we were little, was forbidden. Mother never scolded. She had a placid, saintly face, something like Mary's. But if we ever giggled at table, she used to say, "Sho! girls! Don't laugh over your victuals."
At sunset we missed Jamie. I found him in the hay-mow, crying as if his heart would break. "Oh, Joseph," said he, "she was just as pleasant as your mother!" It was sunset when he first ran away, and sunset when he returned to find his mother dead. He told me that "God brought him home at that hour to make him feel."
Our ship was a long while repairing. Then freights were dull, and so it lingered along, week after week. Jamie often spoke of going, but nobody would let him. Father said he had always wanted another boy. Mother told him I should be lonesome without him. The girls said as much as they thought it would do for girls to say, and he stayed on. I knew he wanted to badly enough, for I saw he liked Mary. I thought, too, that she liked him, because she said so little about his staying. To be sure, they were in nothing alike; but then, as Aunt Chloë said, "Opposites are more harmonious."
My sister Cynthia was going to be published soon, and all the rest were helping her "make her fix." Coverlets were being got into the loom, and the great wheel and little wheel going all day Jamie liked to help them "quill." But the best of all, both for him and me, were the quiltings; for these brought all the young folks together.
Our nearest neighbor was a large, stout-looking man, by the name of Wilbur. He was called Mr. Nathaniel, to distinguish him from his brother. His house was next ours, with a hill between. He was a good, jolly soul, had no children of his own, and was always begging mother for a few of her girls. Nothing suited him better than a good time. If there was anything going on at our house, he was always on the spot.
One December evening, our kitchen was full of young people. The best bed-quilt had been quilted, and Jamie and I had been helping "roll over," all the afternoon. In the evening, as soon as the young men came, we hung over the molasses, and set Mr. Nathaniel stirring it. We all sat around, naming apples. All at once he called out, "Which of you chaps has got pluck enough to ride over to Swampsey Village to-morrow, after a young woman he never saw?"
They all looked up, especially the girls who had beaux present. Then came questions,—"Who is she?" "Give her name"; "Good-looking?" and many others.
"Be thinking it over awhile," said he, and kept on stirring. But when he was pulling the candy, he explained, dropping a few words at every pull.
"The girl," said he, "is a nice girl, and I'll be bound she's handsome. I used to have dealings with her father, while he kept store in Boston. We've never let the acquaintance die out. When he wrote me that he was going to take his wife a journey South, and inquired if I knew of a safe, quiet family where he could leave his daughter, wifey and I concluded to take her ourselves. We couldn't think of a quieter family, or one where daughters were more needed. I promised to meet her at Swampsey Village; but if any of you young men want the chance, you can have it."
There was one fellow in the company who hardly ever spoke. He was looked upon as a sort of crooked stick. As he sat in the corner, paring his apple, he said in a drawling voice, without looking up,—
"Better send Joe."
"Oh, he won't go, I'll bet anything," said two or three at once.
"What'll you bet?" said I.
"Bet a kiss from the prettiest girl in the room!"
"Done!" said I, and jumped up as if to pick out the girl. But they all cried out, "Wait till you've done it."
They thought I wouldn't go, because I'd never been particular to any girl.
After we went to bed that night, Jamie offered to go in my stead. But I had made up my mind, and was not so easily turned.
Early next morning, Mr. Nathaniel drove up to the door in his yellow-bottomed chaise. The wheeling was better than the sleighing, except in the woods.
"Here," he said, "I've ballasted your craft, and made out your papers. You go in ballast, but'll have good freight back. When you get to Swampsey-Village meeting-house, turn off to the left, and it's the second house. The roof behind slants almost to the ground."
The "ballast" was heated stones. The "papers" consisted of a letter, addressed to "Miss Margaret Holden, at the house of Mr. Oliver Barrows."
The road to Swampsey Village, after running a few miles along by the sea, branched off to the southwest, over a range of high, wooded hills, called "The Mountains." 'Twas a long ride, and I couldn't help guessing what manner of girl would in a few hours be sitting by my side. Would she be sober, or sociable? pretty, or homely? I hoped she wouldn't be citified, all pride and politeness. And of all things, I hoped she would not be bashful. Two dummies, one in each corner, riding along in the cold!
"Any way," I thought at last, "it's no affair of mine. I'm only sent of an errand. It's all the same as going for a sheep or a bag of corn." And with this idea, I whipped up. But the sight of the slanting roof made me slacken the reins; and when I found myself really hitching my horse, I was sorry I came.
Before I reached the door, it opened, and there stood a white-haired old man, leaning upon two canes. He wanted to see who had come. I told my errand. He asked me into the kitchen. As I entered, I looked slyly about, to see what I could see. But there was only a short old woman. She was running candles. She looked straight in my face. The old man stooped down and shouted in her ear,—
"He's come arter Peggy! where is she?"
"Denno," said she, toddling along to the window, and looking up and down the road. "Denno. Mile off, mebbe. Master critter to be on the go!"
"There she is!" cried Mr. Barrows, from a back-window,—"in the parster, slidin' down-hill on her jumper. Guess you'll have to go look her, young man; the old woman's poorly, an' so be I."
But the old woman told me to sit up to the fire and warm my feet; said she would hang out a cloth, and Peggy would be in directly. I would have gone very willingly; for, after expecting to be introduced to Miss Margaret Holden, being sent out after Peggy was just nothing.
'Twas but a little while before we heard the jumper rattling along, and then a stamping in the porch. Then we heard her hand upon the latch.
"She's a little young thing," said the old man, almost in a whisper; "but she's knowin'.—Peggy," he continued, as she entered, "you'm sent for."
That was the first time I ever saw Margaret. She had on some little child's hood, and an old josey-coat, which covered her all over. The hood was red, and ruffled about the border, which made her face look like a little girl's.
"To go to Mr. Wilbur's?" she asked, looking towards me.
I rose to explain, and handed the letter.
She threw off her things, opened it, and began reading. When I saw the smile spreading over her face, I knew Mr. Nathaniel had been writing some of his nonsense.
"Perhaps," said I, as she was folding it up, "you don't know Mr. Nathaniel. He says anything. I don't know what he's been writing, but"—
"Oh, nothing bad," said she, laughing. "He only says you are a nice young man."
"Ah!" I replied. "Well, he does sometimes speak the truth."
Then we both laughed, and, for new acquaintances, seemed on pretty good terms.
There was something about her face which made me think of the little Margaret who had moved away. She had the same pretty laugh, the same innocent-looking mouth,—only the child Margaret was not so fair-complexioned. Her figure, and the way of carrying her head, reminded me of the West-India girls, as I had seen them riding out in their volantes. I decided that I was pleased with her. When she was ready to go, with her blue silk pelisse and the plumes in her hat, I was glad I came, and thought, "How much better is a girl than a sheep!"
The old man made us stay to dinner; but then he hurried us off, that we might be over The Mountains before dark.
The air was chilly when we started, and a few snow-flakes were flying. But we had everything to make us comfortable. The old horse always stepped quick, going home; the wind was in our favor; our chaise had a boot which came up, and a top which tipped down. We should soon be home. There is nothing very bad, after all, in being sent for a girl you never saw!
And we were not two dummies. She was willing to do her part in talking, and I could always hold my own, if no more.
She seemed, in conversation, not at all like a "little young thing,"—so that I kept turning round to see if the look of the child Margaret was still in her face. Oh, how that face played the mischief with me! And in more ways than one.
We were speaking of large families; I had told her about ours. All at once she exclaimed at a big rock ahead, which overhung the road.
The moment I placed my eye on it, I turned the horse's head.
"Wrong road," said I.
The horse had turned off, when I wasn't minding, and was taking us to Cutler's Mills. We tried several ways to set ourselves right by a short cut, but were finally obliged to go all the way back to where we turned off. In a summer day this would only have been lengthening out a pleasant ride. But the days were at the shortest. Snow-flakes fell thicker, and, what was worse, the wind changed, and blew them straight into our faces. By the time we reached the foot of The Mountains it was nearly dark, and snowing furiously. I never knew a storm come on faster. 'Twas a regular, old-fashioned, driving snow-storm, with the wind to the eastward.
Margaret seemed noways down-hearted. But I feared she would suffer. I shook the snow from the blanket and wrapped her in it. I drew it over her head, pinned it under her chin, and tucked it all about her.
'Twas hard pulling for the old horse, but he did well. I felt uneasy, thinking about the blind roads, which led nowhere but to wood-lots. 'Twas quite likely that the horse would turn into one of these, and if he did, we should be taken into the very middle of the woods.
It seemed to me we were hours creeping on in the dark, right in the teeth of the storm. 'Twas an awful night; terribly cold; seemed as if it was window-glass beating against our faces.
By the time I judged we had reached the top of The Mountains, the wind blew a hurricane. Powerful gusts came tearing through the trees, whirling the snow upon us in great smothering heaps. The chaise was full. My hands grew numb, and I began slapping them upon my knees. Margaret threw off the blanket with a jerk, and seized the reins.
"Stupid!" said she, "to be sitting here wrapped up, letting you freeze!"
But the horse felt a woman's hand upon the reins, and stopped short.
I urged him on a few yards, but we were in a cleared place, and the snow had drifted. 'Twas no use. He was tired out.
"Take him out!" cried Margaret; "we can ride horseback."
I sprang out, knowing that no time should be lost. Margaret had not complained. But I was chilled through. My feet were like blocks of wood. I knew she must be half frozen. It seemed as if I never should do anything with the tackling. My fingers were numb, and I could hardly stand up, the wind blew so.
With the help of my jack-knife I cleared the horse. I rode him round to the chaise, and took Margaret up in front of me, then let him take his own course.
I asked Margaret if she was cold. She said, "Yes," in a whisper. Throwing open the blanket had let in the snow upon her, and the sharp wind. The horse floundered about in the drifts. Every minute I expected to be thrown off. Time never seemed so long before.
All at once it occurred to me that Margaret was very quiet. I asked again if she was cold. She said, "No; only sleepy." I knew in a minute what that meant. That was a terrible moment. Freezing as I was, the sweat started out at every pore. The pretty, delicate thing would die! And I, great strong man, couldn't save her!
But I wouldn't despair. I made her talk. Kept asking her questions: If the wind had not gone down? If she heard the surf upon the beach? If she saw a light?
"Yes," said she at last,—"I see a light."
At first I was frightened, thinking her mind wandered. But directly I saw that towards the right, and a little in advance of us, was a misty spot of light.
When we were near enough to see where it came from, it seemed as if all my strength left me at once,—the relief was so sudden.
'Twas a squaw's hut. I knew then just where we were. I climbed up the bank, with Margaret in my arms, and pounded with all my might upon the side of the hut, calling out, "For God's sake, open the door!" A latch rattled close to my ears, and a door flew open. 'Twas Old Suke. I had, many a time, when a boy, called out to her, "Black clouds arising!"—for we always would torment the colored folks, when they came down with their brooms.
I pushed past her into the hut,—into the midst of rushes, brooms, and baskets,—into a shelter. I never knew before what the word meant.
The fireplace was full of blazing pine-knots, which made the room as light as day. Old Suke showed herself a Christian. She told me where to find a shed for my horse; and while I was gone, she took the wet things off Margaret, and rubbed her hands and feet with snow. She took red peppers from a string over the fireplace, boiled them in milk, and made us drink it. I thought of "heaping coals of fire." She dipped up hulled corn from a pot on the hearth, and made us eat. I felt like singing the song of Mungo Park.
Margaret kept pretty still. I knew the reason. The warm blood was rushing back to her fingers and toes, and they ached like the toothache. Mine did. 'Twas a long while before Old Suke would let us come nearer the fire. Her old mother was squatting upon the hearth. She looked to be a hundred and fifty. Her face was like a baked apple,—for she was part Indian, not very black. She had a check-handkerchief tied round her head, and an old pea-jacket over her shoulders, with the sleeves hanging. She hardly noticed us, but sat smoking her pipe, looking at the coals. 'Twas curious to see Margaret's face by hers in the firelight.
A little after midnight the storm abated, and by four o'clock the stars were out. I asked Margaret if she would be afraid to stay there, while I went home to tell the folks what had become of us.
"Oh, no," she said. "'Twas just what she'd been thinking about. She would be making baskets."—Some girls would never have dared stay in such a place.
I promised to be back as soon as possible, and left her there by the old woman.
'Twas just about daylight when I came in sight of father's. Mr. Nathaniel was walking about the yard, looking up the road at every turn. He hurried towards me.
"All safe!" I called out.
"Thank God!" he cried. "It has been a dreadful night."
Jamie was in the house. They two had been sitting up. They wouldn't hear of my going back, but put me into bed, almost by main strength. Then they started with fresh horses. They took a pillion for Margaret, and a shovel to dig through the drifts when they couldn't go round.
Mother gave me warm drinks, and piled on the bed-clothes. But I couldn't sleep for worrying about Margaret. I was afraid the exposure would be the death of her.
About noon Mary came running up to tell me they had just gone past. The window was near my bed. I pulled aside the curtain, and looked out. They were just going over the hill,—Jamie, with Margaret on the pillion, and Mr. Nathaniel along-side.
I often think what a mysterious Providence it was that made me the means of bringing together the two persons who, as it turned, controlled my whole life. In fact, it seems as if it were only then that my real life began.
Nobody could have been more pleased with a bright, beautiful, grown-up daughter than was Mr. Nathaniel. He was always bragging about her. And well he might,—for never was a better-dispositioned girl, or a livelier. She entered right into our country-life, was merry with the young folks and wise with the old ones. Aunt Chloë said she was good company for anybody.
She was a real godsend to our neighborhood, especially at the merry-makings; for she could make fun for a roomful, and tell us what they played at the Boston parties.
Of course, that long ride with her in the snow-storm had given me an advantage over the other young men. It seemed to be taken for granted by them, that, as I brought her to town, I should be the one privileged to wait upon her about. 'Twas a privilege I was glad enough to claim, and she never objected. Many would have been glad to be in my place, but they never tried to cut me out. Margaret was sociable enough with them,—sometimes I thought too much so. But then I knew 'twas only her pleasant way. When we two were walking home together, she dropped her fun, and seemed like another person. I felt pleased that she kept the best part of herself for me.
I was pleased, too, to see that she took to Mary, and Mary to her. The women were hurried with their sewing, and Margaret used to be often at our house helping. Cynthia was glad enough of her help, because she knew the fashions, and told how weddings were carried on in Boston. Thus it happened that she and Mary were brought much together; and before winter was over they were like two sisters.
And before winter was over, what was I? Certainly not the same Joseph who went to Swampsey Village. My eagerness to be on the sea, my pride, my temper, were gone; and all I cared for was to see the face and hear the voice of Margaret Holden.
At first, I would not believe this thing of myself; said it was folly to be so led about by a woman. But the very next moment, her sitting down by my side would set me trembling, I didn't know myself; it seemed as if I were wrong side up, and all my good feelings had come to the top.
Our names were always called together, but I felt noways sure. I couldn't think that a girl every way so desirable as Margaret should take up with a fellow so undesirable as myself. I felt that she was too good for me. I thought then that this was peculiar to our case. But I have since observed, that, as a general thing, all women are too good for all men. I am very sure I have seen something of the kind in print.
Then there was another feeling which worked itself in by degrees,—one which would come back as often as I drove it away. And once admitted, it gained strength. 'Twas not a pleasant feeling, and it had to do with Jamie.
I had all along felt sure that he was attached to Mary. I had therefore never thought anything of his being on pretty good terms with Margaret. They were both of a lively turn, and thrown much together. But by degrees the idea got possession of me that there was a secret understanding between them about something. They had long talks and walks together. And, in fact, I observed many little things, trifling in themselves, but much to me after my thoughts were once turned that way.
Sometimes I think, that, if I had never gone to sea, or had never met Jamie, or had not brought him home, my life might have been very different. But then, if we once begin upon the "ifs," we might as well go back to the beginning, and say, "If we had never been born."
Jealousy. And my proud, flashy temper. That was it.
Jamie was like a brother to me. He was a noble fellow, with a pleasant word and smile for everybody. Not a family in the place but was glad to see him enter their doors. It looks strange now that I could have distrusted him so. Still, I must say, there seemed some cause.
But it's not pleasant dwelling on this. The daily events which stirred me up so then seem too trifling to mention. I don't like to call up all those dead feelings, now I'm an old man, and ashamed of them.
Jamie and Margaret became a mystery to me. And I was by no means one to puzzle it out, as I would a sum in the rule-of-three. 'Twas not all head-work. However, I said nothing. I was mean enough to watch, and too proud to question.
At last I began to ask myself what I really knew about Jamie. He was only a poor sailor-boy, whom I had picked up and befriended. And, once put upon thought, what did I know of Margaret? What did anybody in the place? Even Mr. Nathaniel only knew her father. Her simple, childish ways might be all put on. For she could act. I had seen her, one evening, for our entertainment, imitate the actresses upon the stage. First, she was a little girl, in a white frock, with a string of coral about her neck, and curls hanging over her pretty shoulders. She said a little hymn, and her voice sounded just like a child's. Afterwards, she was a proud princess, in laces and jewels, a long train, and a bright crown. Dressed in this way, with her head thrown back, her bosom heaving, and reciting something she had heard on the stage, we hardly knew our Margaret.
It was at our house, one stormy evening. Mother would never allow it again. She said it was countenancing the theatre. Besides, I thought she'd rather not have me look at Margaret when under the excitement of acting, for the next day she cautioned me against earthly idols. But Margaret was my idol.
It was because she was so bewitching to me that I thought it could not be but that Jamie must be bewitched as well. And it was because he was so taking in his manner that I felt certain she must be taken with him. Thus I puzzled on from day to day, drifting about among my doubts and fears, like a ship in a fog.
I knew that Margaret thought my conduct strange. Sometimes I seemed scarcely to live away from her; then I would change about, and not go near her for days. To Jamie, too, I was often unfriendly, for it maddened me to think he might be playing a double game. Mary seemed just as she always did. But then she was simple-minded, and would never suspect anything or anybody. It was astonishing, the state of excitement I finally worked myself into. That was my make. Once started upon a road, I would run its whole length.
February and March passed, and still we were not sent for to join our ship. Jamie was getting uneasy, living, as he said, so long upon strangers. Besides, I knew my manner troubled him.
One evening, as we were sitting around our kitchen-fire, Margaret with the rest, Mr. Nathaniel came in, all of a breeze, scolding away about his fishermen. His schooner was all ready for The Banks, and two of his men had run off, with all their fitting-out.
"Come, you two lazy chaps," said he, "you will just do to fill their places."
"Agreed!" said Jamie. "I'll go, if Joseph will."
"I'll go," said I. For I thought in a minute that he would rather not leave me behind, and I knew he needed the chance.
The women all began to exclaim against it,—all but Margaret. She turned pale, and kept silence. That was Friday. The vessel would sail Monday. Mother was greatly troubled, but said, if I would go, she must make me comfortable; and all night I could hear her opening and shutting the bureau-drawers. Margaret stopped with Mary: I think they sewed till near morning.
The next evening the singers met in the vestry, to practise the tunes for the Sabbath. We all sat in the singing-seats. I played the small bass-viol. Jamie sang counter, and the girls treble. Margaret had a sweet voice,—not very powerful. She sat in the seats because the other girls did.
I went home with her that night. She seemed so sad, so tender in her manner, that I came near speaking,—came near telling her how much she was to me, and owning my feeling about Jamie. But I didn't quite. Something kept me from it. If there is such a thing as fate, 'twas that.
Going home, however, I made a resolution that the next night I would certainly know, from her own lips, whether it was me she liked, or Jamie.
I walked slowly home, and directly up-stairs to bed. I lay awake a long time, heard father and mother go to their chamber, then Mary and Sophy to theirs. At last I wondered what had become of Jamie.
I pushed aside the window-curtain and looked out. 'Twas bright moonlight. I saw Jamie coming over the hill from Mr. Nathaniel's. He came in softly. I pretended sleep. He was still so long that I looked up to see what he could be doing. He was leaning his elbow on the desk, looking straight at the floor, thinking.
All that night I lay awake, staring at the moonlight on the curtains. I was again on the old track, for I could not possibly imagine what he should have to say to Margaret at that hour.
Towards morning I fell asleep, and never woke till the people were getting ready for meeting. I hurried, for the instruments met before the rest to practise.
Nearly all the young folks sat in the seats. Jamie stood at the head of the back row, on the men's side. His voice was worth all the rest. Margaret came in late. She looked like a beauty that day. Her place was at the head of the first row of girls. I, with my bass-viol, was behind all.
The minister read the hymn beginning with this verse,—
"We are a garden walled around,
Chosen and made peculiar ground;
A little spot inclosed by grace,
Out of the world's wide wilderness."
While he was reading it, I saw her write a little note, and hand it across the alley to Jamie. He smiled, and wrote another back. After meeting, they had a talk. These things sound small enough now. But now I am neither young, nor in love, nor jealous.
That night was our last at home. After supper, I strolled off towards the meeting-house. 'Twas about sundown. I walked awhile in the graveyard, and then followed the path into the wood at the back of it.
I see that I have been telling my story in a way to favor myself,—that even now I am unwilling wholly to expose my folly. I could not, if I tried, tell how that night in the wood I was beset at once by jealousy, pride, love, and anger, and so well-nigh driven mad.
I passed from the wood to the open field, and reached the shore. The vessel lay at the wharf. I climbed the rigging, and watched the moon rising over the water. It must have been near midnight when I reached home.
The vessel sailed early in the morning. I did not see Margaret,—never bid her good-bye. After we were under way, and were out of the windings of the channel, Jamie came and leaned with me against the rail. And there in silence we stood until the homes of those we loved so well had faded from our sight.
Poor Jamie! I knew afterwards how troubled he was at the way I treated him that summer. He wanted to be friendly, but I stood off. He wanted to speak of the folks at home, but I would never join him. At last he left off trying.
If he had not met with an accident, maybe I should never have spoken another kind word to him. It happened towards the end of the voyage. The schooner had wet her salt, and all hands were thinking of home. I was down in the cabin. I was marking a piece of meat to boil,—for then each fisherman carried his own provisions. All at once I heard something fall upon the deck. Then a great trampling. I hurried up, and saw them lifting up Jamie. He had fallen from the rigging. It was old and rotten. They carried him down, and laid him in his berth. He wouldn't have known, if they had dropped him into the sea.
When I saw him stretched out there, every unkind feeling left me. My old love for him came back. All I could think of was what he said in our first talk,—"Then I wanted my mother." None of us could say whether he would live or die. We feared for his head, because he took no notice, but seemed inclined to sleep. I wanted to do everything for him myself. I had borne him ill-will, but now my strong feelings all set towards him.
It was in the middle of the night that he first came to himself. 'Twas a blowy night, and most of the crew were on deck. A couple of men were sleeping in their berths.
The cabin of a fishing-schooner is a dark, stifled place, with everything crowded into it. The berths were like a double row of shelves along the sides. In one of these, with his face not far from the beams overhead, was stretched my poor, ill-treated Jamie. I was so afraid he would die! I had no pride then.
On this night I stood holding by the side of his berth, to steady myself. I turned away a moment to snuff the candle, and when I stepped back he looked up in my face and smiled. I couldn't help throwing my arms around his neck and kissing him. I never kissed a man before,—nor since.
"Joseph has come back," said he, with a smile.
I thought he was wandering, and made no answer. After that he frequently roused from his stupor and seemed inclined to talk.
One stormy night, when all hands were upon deck, he seemed like himself, only very sad, and began of his own accord to talk of what was always in my mind. He spoke low, being weak.
"Joseph," said he, "there is one question I want to ask you."
"Hush!" said I,—"you mustn't talk, you must be quiet." For I dreaded his coming to the point.
"I can't be quiet," said he, "and I must talk. You've something against me. What is it?"
I made no answer.
"But I know," he continued. "I have known all along. You've heard something about my old life. You think Mary is too good for me. And she is. But she is willing to take me just as I am. I'm not what I was. She has changed me. She will keep me from harm."
"Jamie," said I, "I don't know what you mean. I've heard nothing. I'm willing you should have Mary,—want you to."
He looked perplexed.
"Then what is it?" he asked.
I turned my head away, hardly knowing how to begin. At last I said,—
"I wasn't sure, Jamie, that you wanted Mary. You know there was some one else you were often with."
He lay for some time without speaking. At last he said, slowly,—"I see,—I see,—I see,"—three times. Then, turning his eyes away from me, he kept on,—"What should you think, Joseph, if I were to tell you that I had seen Margaret before she came to your place?"
"Seen Margaret?" I repeated.
"Yes," he replied; "and I will tell you where. You see, when I found mother was dead, and nobody cared whether I went up or down in the world, that I turned downwards. I got with a bad set,—learned to drink and gamble. One night, in the streets of Boston, I got into a quarrel with a young man, a stranger. We were both drunk. I don't remember doing it, but they told me afterwards that I stabbed him. This sobered us both. He was laid on a bed in an upper room in the Lamb Tavern. I was awfully frightened, thinking he would die. That was about two months before I shipped aboard the Eliza Ann.
"After his wound was dressed, he begged me to go for his sister, and gave me the street and number. His name was Arthur Holden. His sister was your Margaret. Our acquaintance began at his bedside. We took turns in the care of him.
"They were a family well off in the world, with nothing to trouble them but his wickedness. He would not be respectable, would go with bad company.
"After he was well enough to be taken home, I never saw Margaret until that morning after the snow-storm. I was very eager to go for her, for I felt sure, from what Mr. Nathaniel had said during the night, that she was the same.
"Riding along, she told me all about Arthur's course, and the grief he had caused them ever since. It had made her mother ill. He was roaming about the country, always in trouble, and it was on his account that she stayed behind, when her father and mother went South. She said he must have some one to befriend him in case of need.
"And here," continued he, "was where I took a wrong step. I begged Margaret not to speak of our former acquaintance. I could not bear to have you all know. I was afraid Mary would despise me, she was so pure.
"Margaret was willing to keep silence about it, for she would rather not have the people know of her brother. He would have been the talk of the neighborhood. Everybody would have been pitying her. She used to like to speak of him to me, because I was the only one who knew the circumstances.
"But don't think," he continued, earnestly, "that I would have married Mary and never told her. We had a long, beautiful talk the last evening. I had never before spoken quite freely of my feelings, though she must have seen what they were. But that night I told everything,—my past life, and all. And she forgave all, because she loved me.
"I meant to tell you as soon as we were off; but you turned the cold shoulder,—you would not talk about home."
Here he stopped. I hoped he would say no more, for every word he spoke made me feel ashamed. But he went on.
"The day before we agreed to go this voyage, Margaret told me that Arthur was concealed somewhere in the neighborhood. She didn't know what he had done, but only that he was running away from an officer. I found him out, and went every night to carry him something to eat."
"Why didn't she tell me?" I exclaimed. "I would have done the same."
"She would, perhaps," said he, "only that for some time you had acted so strangely. She never said a word, but I knew it troubled her. If I had only known of your feeling so, I would have told everything. But I thought you must see how much I cared for Mary. Everybody else was sure who Margaret loved, if you were not.
"Oh, Joseph," he continued, clasping my hand, "how beautiful it will be, when we get home, now that everything is cleared up! But I haven't quite finished. Sunday, if you remember, Margaret came in late to meeting. While the hymn was being read, she wrote me on a slip of paper that Arthur was gone. I wrote her back, 'Good news.' Afterwards she told me that he came in the night to her bedroom-window to bid her good-bye,—that he had promised her he certainly would do better. Margaret was in better spirits that day than I had seen her for a long while. I thought there had been an explanation between you two. Never fear, Joseph, but that she loves you."
Jamie seemed tired after talking so much, and soon after fell asleep. I crept into the berth underneath him. I felt like creeping somewhere. Sleep was long coming, and no sooner was I unconscious of things about me than I began to dream bad dreams. I thought I was stumbling along in the dark, 'Twas over graves. I fell over a heap of earth, and heard the stones drop down into one newly made. As I was trying to walk away, Margaret came to meet me. "You didn't bid me good-bye," said she, smiling; "but it's not too late now." Then she held out her hand. I took it, but the touch waked me. 'Twas just like a dead hand.
I kept sleeping and waking; and every time I slept, the same dream came to me,—exactly the same. At last I rushed upon deck, sent a man below, and took his place. He was glad to go, and I was glad to be where the wind was blowing and everything in commotion.
The next day I told Jamie my dream. He said it was a lucky one, and he hoped it meant two weddings. So I thought no more of it. I was never superstitious: my mother had taught me better.
We had just started for home, but this gale blew us off our course. Soon after, however, the wind shifted to the eastward, and so kept, for the biggest part of the time, until we sighted Boston Lights. Jamie was nearly well. Still he could not walk much. He was quite lame. The skipper thought some of the small bones of the foot were put out. But Jamie didn't seem to care anything about his feet. He was just as gay as a lark, singing all day.
As soon as we caught sight of The Mountains, we ran up our flag. It was about noon, and the skipper calculated on dropping anchor in the channel by sundown, at the farthest. And so we should, but the wind hauled, and we couldn't lay our course. Tacking is slow work, especially all in sight of home. About ten o'clock in the evening we made Wimple's Creek. Then we had the tide in our favor, and so drifted into the channel. Our bounty wasn't quite out, or we should have gone straight in to the wharf, over everything.
When things were made snug, we pulled ashore in the boat. It being in the night, we went just as we were, in fishermen's rig. 'Twas a wet, drizzly, chilly night, so dark we could hardly make out the landing. We coaxed Jamie to stop under a shed while I went for a horse. I was the only one of the crew who lived beyond the meeting-house. But I had so much to think of, was so happy, thinking I was home again, and that everything would be right, that I never minded being alone. Passing by the graveyard made me remember my dream. "Joseph," said I to myself, "you don't dare walk through there!" 'Twas only a post-and-rail fence, and I sprang over, to show myself I dared do it. I felt noways agitated until I found, that, on account of its being so dark, I was stumbling just as I had dreamed. I kept on, however; for, by going that way, I could reach home by a short cut. When I got behind the meeting-house I nearly fell down over a heap of earth. My fall started a few stones, and I could hear them drop. Then my courage left me. I shook with fear. I hardly had strength to reach the road. That was the first time it occurred to me that I might not find all as I left them.
As I came to dwelling—houses, however, I grew calm again, and even smiled at my foolishness,—or tried to.
Mr. Nathaniel's house came before ours. I saw there was a light in the kitchen, and stepped softly through the back-yard, thinking some one might be sick. The windows were small and high. The curtains were made of house-paper. One of them was not quite let down. I looked in underneath it, and saw two old women sitting by the fire. Something to eat was set out on a table, and the teapot was on the hearth. One stick had broken in two. The smoking brands stood up in the corners. There was just a flicker of flame in the candlestick. It went out while I was looking. I saw that the old women were dozing. I opened the outside-door softly, and stood in the porch. There was a latch-string to the inner one. As soon as I pulled it the door opened. In my agitation I forgot there was a step up, and so stumbled forward into the room. They both started to their feet, holding on by the pommels of the chairs. They were frightened.
"What are you here for?" I gasped out.
"Watching with the dead!" whispered one of them.
"Who?"
They looked at each other; they knew me then.
I remember their eyes turning towards the front-room door, of placing my hand on the latch, of standing by a table between the front-windows, of a coffin resting on the white cloth, of people crowding about me,—but nothing more that night. Nothing distinctly for weeks and months. Some confused idea I have of being led about at a funeral, of being told I must sit with the mourners, of the bearers taking off their hats, of being held back from the grave. But a black cloud rests over all. I cannot pierce it. I have no wish to. I can't even tell whether I really took her cold hand in mine, and bid her good-bye, or whether that was one of the terrible dreams which came to me every night. I know that at last I refused to go to bed, but walked all night in the fields and woods.
I believe that insane people always know the feelings and the plans of those about them. I knew they were thinking of taking me to an asylum. I knew, too, that I was the means of Jamie's being sick, and that they tried to keep it from me. I read in their faces,—"Jamie got a fever that wet night at the shore; but don't tell Joseph."
As I look back upon that long gloom, a shadowy remembrance comes to me of standing in the door-way of a darkened chamber. A minister in white bands stood at the foot of the bed, performing the marriage-ceremony. I remember Jamie's paleness, and the heavenly look in Mary's face, as she stood at the bedside, holding his right hand in hers. Mother passed her hand over my head, and whispered to me that Mary wanted to take care of him.
One of my fancies was, that a dark bird, like a vulture, constantly pursued me. All day I was trying to escape him, and all the while I slept he was at my pillow.
As I came to myself I found this to be a form given by my excited imagination to a dark thought which would give me no rest. It was the idea that my conduct had been the means of Margaret's death. I never dared question. They said it was fever,—that others died of the same. If I could but have spoken to her,—could but have seen, once more, the same old look and smile! This was an ever-present thought.
But I did afterwards. I told her everything. She knows my folly and my grief.
It was in the night-time. I was walking through the woods, on the road to Swampsey Village. Margaret walked beside me for a long way. Just before she left me, she said,—
"Do you hear the surf on the beach?"
I said, "Yes, I hear the surf."
"And what is it saying?"
I listened a moment, then answered,—
"It says, 'Woe! woe! woe!'"
She said, "Listen again."
While I was listening, she disappeared. But a moment afterwards I heard a voice speaking in the midst of the surfs roaring. It was just as plain and distinct as the minister's from the pulpit. It said, "Endure! endure! endure."
I might think that all this, even my seeing Margaret, was only a creation of my disordered mind, were it not for something happening afterwards which proved itself.
One evening, about twilight, I walked through the graveyard, and stood leaning against her tombstone. I soon knew that she was coming, for I heard the ringing sound in the air which always came before her. A moment after, she stood beside me. She placed her hand on my heart, and said, "Joseph, all is right here,"—then upon my forehead, and said, "But here all is wrong."
Then she told me there was a ship ready to sail from Boston, and that I must go in her,—said it troubled her that I wasted my life so. She gave me the name of the ship and of the captain, and told me when to go.
I did exactly as she said. And it all came true. When the captain saw me, he started back and exclaimed,—"What sent you here?"
I said, "An angel."
"And an angel told me you were coming," he replied.
Active work saved me. For years I never dared rest. I shrank back from a leisure hour as from a dark chasm.
The greater part of my life has been passed upon the sea. As I approached middle age, people would joke me upon my single life. They could never know what a painful chord they struck, and I could never tell them. Beautiful girls were pointed out to me. I could not see them. Margaret's face always came between.
This bantering a single man is very common. I often wonder that people dare do it. How does the world know what early disappointment he may be mourning over? Is it anything to laugh about, that he has nobody to love him,—nobody he may call his own,—no home? Seated in your pleasant family-circle, the bright faces about him fade away, and he sees only a vision of what might have been. Yet nobody supposes we have feeling. No mother, dressing up her little boy for a walk, thinks of our noticing how cunning he looks, with the feather in his hat. No mother, weeping over the coffin of her child, dreams that we have pity and sorrow in our hearts for her.
Thus the world shuts us out from all sympathy with its joys or afflictions. But the world doesn't know everything,—least of all what is passing in the heart of an old bachelor.
Jamie and Mary are old folks now. He never went to sea after his marriage. Father set him up in a store. I should make it my home with them, but they live at the old place, and I am always better away from there.
Mrs. Maylie was right about my noticing children. I like to sit on the stone wall and talk with them. No face comes between theirs and mine,—unless it's the little girl's who moved away. Farmer Hill's is a pleasant family. His grandchildren call me Captain Joseph. I humor them almost as much as he does. When huckleberries come, they wonder why I won't let them take that little rough-looking basket that hangs over the looking-glass. 'Tis the one Margaret made that night in the hut on The Mountains.
THE SNOW-MAN.
The fields are white with the glittering snow,
Save down by the brook, where the alders grow,
And hang their branches, black and bare,
O'er the stream that wanders darkly there;
Or where the dry stalks of the summer past
Stand shivering now in the winter blast;
Or where the naked woodlands lie,
Bearded and brown against the sky:
But over the pasture, and meadow, and hill,
The snow is lying, all white and still.
But a loud and merry shout I hear,
Ringing and joyous, fresh and clear,
Where a troop of rosy boys at play
Awaken the echoes far away.
They have moulded the snow with hand and spade,
And a strange, misshapen image made:
A Caliban in fiendish guise,
With mouth agape and staring eyes,
Come hither and listen to me, my son,
And a lesson of life I'll read thereon.
You have made a man of the snow-bank there;
He stands up yet in the frosty air:
Go out from your home, so bright and warm,
And throw yourself on his frozen form;
Wind him around with your soft caress;
Tenderly up to his bosom press;
Ask him for sympathy, love, and cheer;
Plead for yourself with prayer and tear;
Tell him you hope and dream and grieve;
Beg him to comfort and relieve:
The form that you press will be icy cold;
A frozen heart to your breast you hold,
That turns into stone the tears you weep;
And the chill of his touch through your soul will creep.
So over the field of life are spread
Men who have hearts as cold and dead,—
Who nothing of sympathy know, nor love,—
To whom your prayers would as fruitless prove
As those that you now might go and say
To the grim snow-man that you made to-day.
But soon the soft and gentle spring
The balmy southern breeze will bring;
The snow, that shrouds the landscape o'er,
Will melt away, and be seen no more;
The gladsome brook shall rippling run,
'Neath the alders greening in the sun;
The grass shall spring, and the birds shall come,
In the verdant woodlands to find a home;
And the softened heart of your man of snow
Shall bid the blue violets blossom below.
Oh, let us hope that time may bring
To earth some sweet and gentle spring,
When human hearts shall thaw, and when
The ice shall melt away from men;
And where the hearts now frozen stand,
Love then shall blossom o'er all the land!
THE GOLD-FIELDS OF NOVA SCOTIA.
It will probably be thought a startling statement, by the good people of our staid Northern metropolis,—certainly by those of them whose attention has not been called to the recent developments on this subject,—that within thirty-six hours' travel from their own doors, by conveyance as safe and even luxurious as any in the world, there exist veins of auriferous quartz, practically inexhaustible in extent, teeming throughout with virgin gold of a standard of almost absolute purity, and yielding a return to the labors of the scientific miner, rivalling, if not fairly surpassing, in their comparative results, the richest deposits of California, Colorado, and Australia.
But then, if one has a startling fact to tell, why is it not best to tell it out, all at once, and in a startling manner? If the house-maid of our modest menage should on a sudden discover that Aladdin's lamp had come home from the auction-room among some chance purchases of her mistress, and that the slave or genie thereof was actually standing in the middle of our own kitchen-floor at the moment, and grumbling audibly at lack of employment in fetching home diamonds and such like delicacies by the bale for the whole household, could we reasonably expect the girl to announce the fact, in the parlor above, in the same tone in which she ordinarily states that the butcher has called for his orders? Aesop, in his very first fable, (as arranged by good Archdeacon Croxall,) has inculcated but a mean opinion of the cock who forbore to crow lustily when he turned up a jewel of surpassing richness, in the course of his ordinary scratching, and under his own very beak; why, then, should we render ourselves liable to the same depreciatory moral? Something, at least, must be pardoned to the certaminis gaudia of this new-found contest with the secrets of Nature,—and though the fact we have stated be a startling one, the statements and authorities which go to support it will, perhaps, in the end, surprise us still more. We shall give them, at any rate, in such a form as "to challenge investigation and to defy scrutiny." How far they will bear out our sensational opening paragraph, then, the readers of the "Atlantic" cannot choose but judge.
But let us hasten, in the very outset, to warn the individual gold-hunter that he, at least, will get no crumb of comfort from these pages. That the precious metal is there,—to use Dr. Johnson's expression, "the potentiality of growing rich beyond the dreams of avarice,"—no one, we think, after reading what we have now to offer, will be inclined to deny. But it is to be sought successfully, as we shall show, only by the expenditure of capital, and under the direction of science and the most experienced skill. The solitary adventurer may tickle the stern ribs of Acadia with his paltry hoe and pick in vain,—she will laugh for him and such as he with no sign of a golden harvest. Failure and vexation, disappointment, loss, and ruin, will be again, as they have already been, his only reward. With this full disclaimer, therefore, at the commencement of our remarks, we trust that we shall, at least, have no sin of enticement laid at our door. If any one chooses to go there and try it on his own individual responsibility, and in the face of this energetic protest and solemn warning, it must surely be no further affair of ours.
The authorities, official, statistical, and scientific, from which our knowledge of the Gold-Fields of Nova Scotia is mainly derived, are as follows:—
1. Report of a Personal Inspection of the Gold-Fields of Nova Scotia, in the Consecutive Order in which they were visited. Made by Lord Mulgrave to His Grace the Duke of Newcastle, and dated at Government House, Halifax, N.S., 21st June, 1862.
2. Report of the Chief Gold-Commissioner for the Province of Nova Scotia for the Year 1862. Made to the Honorable the Provincial Secretary, and dated at Halifax, January 23, 1863.
3. Report of the Provincial Geologist, Mr. Campbell. Made to the Honorable Joseph Howe, Provincial Secretary, at Halifax, N.S., 25th February, 1863. Accompanied by a Section across the Gold-bearing Rocks of the Atlantic Coast of Nova Scotia.
4. Report on the Gold-Districts of the Province of Nova Scotia. Made to the President and Directors of the Oldham Gold-Mining Company, December 28, 1863, by George I. Chace, Professor of Chemistry in Brown University, Providence, R.I. Manuscript.
5. Introductory Remarks on the Gold-Region of Nova Scotia. Prefixed to a Report made to the President and Directors of the Atlantic Mining Company, December 31, 1863. By Benjamin Silliman, Jr., Professor of General and Applied Chemistry in Yale College, New Haven, Ct. Manuscript.
6. Report on the Montague Gold-Field, near Halifax, N.S., by the Same, and on the Gold-Fields of the Waverley District, by the Same. Manuscript.
7. Quarterly Report of the Chief Gold-Commissioner of the Province of Nova Scotia. Made to the Provincial Secretary at Halifax, October 1, 1863.
8. The Royal Gazette, issued by the Chief Gold-Commissioner, Halifax, January 20, 1863. Published by Authority.
In confirmation of these documents, we shall only need to add the "testimony of the rocks" themselves, as shown in more than sixty specimens of the gold-bearing quartz of these remarkable mines. Some of these were brought to Boston by Professors Chace and Silliman, on their return a few weeks since from exploring the rich leads of the Provinces,—but by far the larger number were forwarded by some of the resident superintendents of the mines, by the Cunard steamer Africa, arriving in Boston, Sunday, January 10, 1864, to the care of Captain Field, then residing at the Tremont House. We may add that the eight finest of these specimens are now lying on the table before us, their mottled sides thickly crusted with arsenical pyrites and streaked through and through with veins and splashes of twenty-two-carat gold. Incredulity, when raised to its highest pitch, might perhaps discredit all written testimony, whether official or scientific; but we have as yet seen no case so confirmed that the sight of these extraordinary fragments did not compel belief.
In drawing our narrative from the authorities above cited, we shall prefer to follow as closely as possible the precise statements of the documents themselves,—interspersed only with such remarks of our own as may be necessary best to preserve an intelligible connection between the different portions. The agreement between all the authorities is so substantial, and in fact entire, that we shall experience none of the usual difficulties in the reconciling of contradictions or the balancing of conflicting theories or statements.
The gold-fields of Nova Scotia consist of some ten or twelve districts of quite limited area in themselves, but lying scattered along almost the whole southeastern coast of the Province. The whole of this coast, from Cape Sable on the west to Cape Canso on the east, a distance of about two hundred and fifty miles, is bordered by a fringe of hard, slaty rocks,—slate and sandstone in irregular alternations,—sometimes argillaceous, and occasionally granitic. These rocks, originally deposited on the grandest scale of Nature, are always, when stratified, found standing at a high angle,—sometimes almost vertical,—and with a course, in the main, very nearly due east and west. They seldom rise to any great elevation,—the promontory of Aspatogon, about five hundred feet high, being the highest land on the Atlantic coast of the Province. The general aspect of the shore is low, rocky, and desolate, strewn often with huge boulders of granite or quartzite,—and where not bleak and rocky, it is covered with thick forests of spruce and white birch.
The picture is not enticing,—but this is, nevertheless, the true arida nutrix of the splendid masses before us. The zone of metamorphic rocks which lines this inhospitable coast varies in width from six or eight miles at its eastern extremity to forty or fifty at its widest points,—presenting in its northern boundary only a rude parallelism with its southern margin,—and comprising, over about six thousand square miles of surface, the general outline of what may, geologically speaking, be called the Gold-Region of Nova Scotia.
It will be most interesting hereafter to mark the gradual changes already beginning to take place in this rich, but limited district. It is destined throughout, we may be sure, to very thorough and systematic exploration. For, although it is true that gold is not to be found in all parts of it, still it is not unreasonable to search for the precious metal throughout this whole region, wherever the occurrence of true quartz-veins—the almost sole matrix of the gold—is shown by boulders on the surface. Back from the coast-line, a large part of the district named is now little better than an unexplored wilderness; and the fact that the remarkable discoveries which have been made are in a majority of cases almost on the sea-shore, and where the country is open and the search easy, by no means diminishes the probabilities that continued exploration in the less frequented parts of the district will be rewarded with new discoveries as important as any which have yet been made.
The earliest discovery of gold in the Province, yet made known to the public, occurred during the summer of 1860, at a spot about twelve miles north from the head of Tangier Harbor, on the northeast branch of the Tangier River,—shown on McKinley's excellent map of Nova Scotia as about fifty-eight miles east from Halifax. Subsequent discoveries at Wine Harbor, Sherbrooke, Ovens, Oldham, Waverley, Hammond's Plains, and at Lake Loon,—a small lake only five miles distant from Halifax,—have fully determined the auriferous character of particular and defined localities throughout the district already described, and abundantly justify the early opinion of Lord Mulgrave, that "there is now little or no doubt that this Colony will soon rank as one of the gold-producing countries of the world."
As a specimen of one of the most interesting mineral veins of this region, it may answer to select the Montague lode at Lake Loon for a specific description. The course of this vein is E. 10° N., that being the strike of the rocks by the compass in that particular district. It has been traced by surface-digging a long distance,—not less, probably, than half a mile. At one point on this line there is a shift or fault in the rocks which has heaved the most productive portion of the vein about thirty-five feet to the north; but for the rest of the distance, so far as yet open, the whole lead remains true and undisturbed.
Its dip, with the rocks around it, is almost vertical,—say from 85° to 80° south. The vein is contained between walls of slate on both sides, and is a double or composite vein, being formed, 1st, of the main leader; 2d, of a smaller vein on the other side, with a thin slate partition-wall between the two; and, 3d, of a strongly mineralized slate foot-wall, which is in itself really a most valuable portion of the ore-channel.
The quartz which composes these interposed sheets, thus separated, yet combined, is crystallized throughout, and highly mineralized,—belonging, in fact, to the first class of quartz lodes recognized in all the general descriptions of the veins of this region. The associated minerals are, here, cuprite or yellow copper, green malachite or carbonate of copper, mispickel or arsenical pyrites, zinc blende, sesquioxyde of iron, rich in gold, and also frequent "sights" or visible masses of gold itself. The gold is also often visible to the naked eye in all the associated minerals, and particularly in the mispickel and blende.
The main quartz vein of this interesting lead varies from three to ten inches in thickness at different points on the surface-level, but is reported as increasing to twenty inches thick at the bottom of the shaft, already carried down to a depth of forty feet. This very considerable variation in thickness will be found to be owing to the folds or plications of the vein, to which we shall hereafter make more particular allusion.
The minerals associated with the quartz in this vein, especially the cuprite and mispickel, are found most abundantly upon the foot-wall side, or underside of the quartz itself. The smaller accompanying vein before alluded to appears to be but a repetition of the larger one in all its essential characteristics, and is believed by the scientific examiners to be fully as well charged with gold. That this is likely to come up to a very remarkable standard of productiveness, perhaps more so than any known vein in the world, is to be inferred from the official statement in the "Royal Gazette" of Wednesday, January 20, 1864, published by authority, at the Chief Gold-Commissioner's office in Halifax, in which the average yield of the Montague vein for the month of October, 1863, is given as 3 oz. 3 dwt. 4 gr., for November as 3 oz. 10 dwt. 13 gr., and for December as 5 oz. 9 dwt. 8 gr., to the ton of quartz crushed during those months respectively. Nor is the quartz of this vein the only trustworthy source of yield. The underlying slate is filled with bunches of mispickel, not distributed in a sheet, or in any particular order, so far as yet observed, but developed throughout the slate, and varying in size from that of small nuts to many pounds in weight, masses of over fifty pounds having been frequently taken out. This peculiar mineral has always proved highly auriferous in this locality, and a careful search will rarely fail to detect "sights" of the precious metal imbedded in its folds, or lying hidden between its crystalline plates.
Nor is the surrounding mass of slate in which this vein is inclosed without abundant evidences of a highly auriferous character. Scales of gold are everywhere to be seen between its laminæ, and, when removed and subjected to the processes of "dressing," there can be little doubt of its also yielding a very handsome return. In fact, the entire mass of material which is known to be auriferous is not less than twelve to fifteen inches at the surface, and will doubtless be found, as all experience and analogy in the district have hitherto shown to be the case, to increase very considerably with the increased depth to which the shafts will soon be carried. No difficulties whatever are apprehended here in going to a very considerable depth, as the slate is not hard, and easily permits the miner in his progress to bear in upon it without drilling upon the closer and more tenacious quartz.
The open cut, made by the original owners of the Montague property, and by which the veins have been in some degree exposed, absurd and culpable as it is as a mode of mining, has yet served a good purpose in showing in a very distinct manner the structure of these veins,—a structure which is found to be on the whole very general in the Province. The quartz is not found, as might naturally be supposed from its position among sedimentary rocks, lying in anything like a plain, even sheet of equal thickness. On the contrary, it is seen to be marked by folds or plications, occurring at tolerably regular intervals, and crossing the vein at an angle of 40° or 45° to the west. Similar folds may be produced in a sheet which is hung on a line and then drawn at one of the lower corners. The cross-section of the vein is thus made to resemble somewhat the appearance of a chain of long links, the rolls or swells alternating with plain spaces through its whole extent. Perhaps a better comparison is that of ripples or gentle waves, as seen following each other on the ebbtide in a still time, on the beach.
The distribution of the gold in the mass of the quartz appears to be highly influenced by this peculiar wavy or folded structure. All the miners are agreed in the statement that the gold abounds most at the swells, or highest points of the waves of rock, and that the scarcely less valuable mispickel appears to follow the same law. The spaces between are not found to be so rich as these points of undulation; and this structure must explain the signal contrast in thickness and productiveness which is everywhere seen in sinking a shaft in this district. As the cutting passes through one of these original swells, the thickness of the vein at once increases, and again diminishes with equal certainty as the work proceeds,—below this point destined again to go through with similar alternations in its mass.
"There can be no fear, however," says Mr. Silliman, (Report, p. 10,) "that there will be any failure in depth" (i.e., at an increased depth of excavation) "on these veins, either in gold product or in strength. The formation of the country is on too grand a scale, geologically, to admit of a doubt on this point, so vital to mining success." Mr. Campbell, whose masterly survey and analysis of the whole gold-region forms, with the colored section accompanying it, the basis for a general and thorough understanding of the whole subject, adds (Report, p. 5) that "the yield per ton of such quartz when crushed cannot fail to prove highly satisfactory." And Mr. Chace, in the Preface to his Report on the Oldham District, (p. 6,) remarks, that, "if, as there are reasons for believing, the gold-bearing quartz of Nova Scotia is of sedimentary origin, in that case I see no reason why depth should cause any decline in the richness of the ore. As yet, none of the shafts have been carried down sufficiently far to test this question practically,"—he must, we think, mean to its fullest extent, since he adds immediately after, that, "as far as they have gone, the ore is very generally believed to have improved with increase of depth."
Such, then, is a brief and imperfect description of the general character of one of the representative veins or "leads" of the gold-fields of Nova Scotia. Of the extent and number of similar deposits it is scarcely possible at present to give any definite idea. The line along which Mr. Campbell's section is made out extends from the sea-shore at the south-east entrance of Halifax Harbor to the Renfrew Gold-Field, a distance a little over thirty miles to the northeast, intersecting in that distance no less than six great anticlinal folds. The points at which the east and west anticlinal lines are intersected by north and south lines of upheaval form the localities in which the quartzite group of gold-bearing rocks are brought to the surface, and it is here that their outcroppings form the surface of the country. The official "Gazette" for January, 1864, enumerates nine of these districts as already under a course of active exploration, namely, Stormont, Wine Harbor, Sherbrooke, Tangier, Montague, Waverley, Oldham, Renfrew, and Ovens. When we add, in the words of Mr. Silliman's second conclusion to his Report on the Atlantic Gold-Field at Tangier, "that the gold-bearing veins already explored on this estate alone are in number not less than thirty, and that there is every reason to expect more discoveries of importance, as the results of future explorations, already foreshadowed by facts which have been stated," enough, we think, will have been deduced, on the highest kind of scientific testimony, to bear out our opening statement, that there exist in Nova Scotia veins of auriferous quartz practically inexhaustible, by any known methods of mining, at least for the next two hundred years.
One very remarkable characteristic of all the gold hitherto produced in Nova Scotia is its exceeding purity, it being on the average twenty-two carats fine, as shown by repeated assay. In this respect it possesses an advantage of about twenty-five per cent. of superior fineness, and consequently of value, over most of the yield of California, much of which latter reaches a standard of only sixteen or seventeen carats' fineness, and is therefore inferior by five or six carats in twenty-four to the standard of the gold of Nova Scotia. The gold from all the districts named is sold commonly in Halifax in bars or ingots, at about $20 the ounce. Professor Silliman states the value of some of this gold, assayed under his direction at the Sheffield Laboratory in New Haven, Connecticut, at $19.97 per ounce, while the standard of another lot, from the Atlantic Mine in the Tangier District, is fixed by him as high as $20.25 per ounce. The Official Report of the Provincial Gold-Commissioner for the year 1862 assumes the sum of $19.50, Nova-Scotia currency, as the basis upon which his calculations of gold-value of the yield of all the mines is made up. A quantity of gold from the "Boston and Nova-Scotia" mines in the Waverley District, just coined into eagles at the United-States Mint, and the results of which process are officially returned to the President of that Company, required a considerable amount of alloy to the ore as received from the mines, in order to bring it down to the standard fineness of the United-States gold-currency. All the Nova-Scotia gold is uncommonly bright and beautiful to the eye, and it has often been remarked by jewellers and other experts to whom it has been shown, that it more nearly resembles the appearance of the gold of the old Venetian ducats—coined mostly, it is supposed, from the sands of Guinea—than any other bullion for many years brought into the gold-market.
In regard to the most important point of the whole subject, namely, the average yield per ton of quartz crushed at the various mills, we are fortunately enabled to give the official returns of the Deputy Gold-Commissioners for the several districts, as made to the Chief Commissioner at Halifax. A few words of explanation as to the definite and statistical character of these returns may be of value here, in order to prevent or to correct much misconception and want of knowledge with regard to their absolute reliability.
In the first place, then, every miner, or the agent or chief superintendent of each mine, is required by law to make a quarterly return of the amount of days' labor expended at his mine, the number of tons of quartz raised and crushed, and the quantity of gold obtained from the whole,—neglecting to do which, he forfeits his entire claim, and the Gold-Commissioner is then empowered to grant it to another purchaser.
These returns are therefore made with the utmost regularity and with the greatest care. But as the royalty of three per cent. to the Government is exacted on the amount of this return, whatever it may be, it is obvious that there exists no motive on the part of the miner to exaggerate the amount in making his statement. We may be as sure that his exhibit of the gold admitted to have been extracted by him does not, at any rate, exceed the amount obtained, as that the invoices of importations entered at the Custom-House in Boston do not overstate the value of the goods to which they refer. The practice is generally suspected, at least, to tend in quite the opposite direction.
As the next step for ascertaining the yield of the mines, there comes in a form of scrutiny which it would be still more difficult to evade. All owners of quartz-mills are also required to render official returns under oath, and in a form minutely prescribed by the Provincial law, of all quartz crushed by them during the month, stating particularly from what mine it was raised, for whose account it has been crushed, and what was the exact quantity in ounces, pennyweights, and grains. And this is designed also as a check on the miner, as the two statements, if correct, will be found, of course, to balance each other.
The Chief Gold-Commissioner resides in Halifax, and has his deputy in each gold-district, whose duty it is, as a sworn officer of the Government, to see that the provisions of the law are carried out; and the returns, as collected, are duly made by him each month, accompanied by a general report on the industrial condition of the district represented. It is from these returns, thus collected, that the Gold-Commissioner-in-Chief prepares a quarterly exhibit, which he issues on a broad sheet in a so-called "Royal Gazette." The last of these documents issued was published by authority at Halifax, Wednesday, January 20th, 1864, and a copy thereof, ornamented at the head with the familiar lion and unicorn, is now lying with several of its predecessors on the table before us. If skeptics desire any better authority than this for the average yield of these mines, they must seek it elsewhere for themselves. By the majority of persons capable of judging of the value and weight of testimony, we presume it will be regarded as amply sufficient.
After this explanation of the official character of these returns, a transcript of the figures given in the last exhibit as the average yield of gold per ton of quartz crushed will be all we think necessary in answer to the inquiry we have proposed. We give them just as they stand in the returns for December, 1863, only premising that the relative yield of the several mines is found to vary very considerably from month to month, being at one time higher, and at other times again somewhat lower, and this from natural causes which have already been explained, while the total amounts, when taken together, exhibit a steady increase in the general yield of the whole. The figures stand as follows:—
DECEMBER, 1863.
District. Yield of Gold per Ton of Quartz.
Stormont (Isaac's Harbor) 2 oz. 10 dwt. 0 gr.
Wine Harbor 10 " 6 "
Sherbrooke 1 " 7 " 0 "
Tangier 14 " 12 "
Montague 5 " 9 " 8 "
Waverley 9 " 11 "
Oldham 15 " 12 "
Renfrew 1 " 2 " 0 "
Ovens[P] 18 " 9 "
The difference in yield between the districts is here very considerable, as it happens,—yet in the month of October the average yield at Oldham was 1 oz. 16 dwt, 20 gr., and at Renfrew 2 oz.; while for November it was at Stormont 3 oz. 2 dwt. 12 gr., at Tangier 1 oz. 10 dwt, at Waverley I oz. 3 dwt. 12 gr., and at Oldham 1 oz. 8 dwt. The maximum yield per ton was 50 oz. at Wine Harbor, 12 oz. at Sherbrooke, 11 oz. 12 dwt. at Oldham, and 5 oz. 15 dwt. at Stormont, for the same period.
"The average yield," says Professor Chace, "per ton of quartz, of the gold-fields of Nova Scotia will, it is believed, compare favorably with that of either Australia or California, while some of the maximum yields indicate ores of unsurpassed richness."
In regard to the best and most effectual methods of dressing and amalgamating these rich ores, it seems to be conceded that the modes hitherto in use in Nova Scotia have been very defective. Much larger returns of gold are to be expected from the introduction of the new processes, which scientific research is every day bringing to a greater degree of efficiency in Colorado and California. The promoters of the Nova-Scotia mining-enterprises, thanks to the skill and pains of their scientific advisers, are fully awake to the importance of this vital point. Pyrites—the mineral mixture so universally found with the gold of this region—is well known to escape, or rather to resist, the attraction of the mercury used in the amalgamating process, and it has hitherto been allowed to pass away with the "tailings", or refuse from the mills. When we state that it has been repeatedly shown to be from ten to twelve per cent. of the components of the ore, and that by test of the United-States Assay-Office its average yield is one hundred and twenty-eight dollars to the ton,—and by the careful experiments of Professor Silliman, at the Sheffield Laboratory in New Haven, it has yielded even as high as two hundred and seventy-six dollars and forty-nine cents to the ton,—the oversight and bad economy of its waste will be sufficiently apparent. It may safely be estimated, therefore, that the process of Dr. Keith, or some other equally simple and efficacious method of extracting this hitherto wasted portion of the precious metal from the accompanying sulphurets, will produce an amount quite equal, at least, to the previous minimum yield. The effect of such an increase in the returns will readily be appreciated by others besides the merely scientific reader.
In regard to the capacity of the various mines for the regular supply of quartz to the mills, it may be stated that ten tons daily is the average amount fixed upon, by the different experts, as a reasonable quantity to be expected from either of the well-conducted properties. Works of exploration and of "construction", such as will hereafter be pointed out, must, it is true, always precede those of extraction; but a very moderate quartz-mill will easily "dress" ten tons of quartz daily, or three thousand tons per annum, requiring the constant labor of thirty men, as shown by the large experience already gained throughout the Province. And this, says Professor Silliman, "is not a very formidable force for a profitable mine,"—particularly when we consider that the price of miners' labor in Nova Scotia rarely rises above the moderate sum of ninety cents per day.
If the quartz cost, to turn its product into gold bars, as high as twenty dollars a ton, there would be, says the same eminent authority, "a deduction of one-fourth [as expense] from the gross gold-product. The gold is about nine-hundred-and-sixty thousandths fine, and is worth, as already shown, over twenty dollars per ounce. But the cost of the quartz cannot be so much by one-half as that named above; and there is the additional value of gold from the pyrites and mispickel, as well as probably fifteen per cent, saving on the total amount of gold produced by improved methods of working."
The reason why so little alluvial gold is to be found throughout this district may be very simply and concisely stated. It will be observed, that the length of the gold-field lies mainly from east to west, while its width from north to south is over a much less distance, and therefore lies almost at right angles to the scouring and grinding action of the glacial period. No long Sacramento Valley, stretching away to the south and west of the quartzite upheavals, has here retained and preserved the spoils of those long ages of attrition and denudation. The alluvial gold has mostly been carried, by the action alluded to, into the sands and beneath the waves of the Atlantic Ocean; and it is only at the bottom of the numerous little lakes which dot the surface of the country, that the precious metal, in this, its most obvious and attractive form, has ever been found in any remunerative quantity in Nova Scotia.
This statement brings us naturally to the consideration of another of our opening positions, namely, that the gold of Nova Scotia is to be successfully sought only under the application of the most scientific and systematic methods of deep quartz-mining. That no pains nor expense has been spared by the present promoters of these important enterprises, in the very commencement of their mining-works, will perhaps be sufficiently evident from the fact that no step has been taken without the full advice and concurrence of the eminent mining authorities already cited. A summary of the methods now employed for developing the rich yield of these deposits may not be out of place in this connection.
The ill-considered system of allotting small individual claims, at first adopted by the Colonial Government, was founded, probably, on a want of exact knowledge of the peculiar nature of the gold-district, and the consequent expectation that the experiences of California and Australia, in panning and washing, were to be repeated here. This totally inapplicable system in a manner compelled the early single adventurers to abandon their claims, as soon as the surface-water began to accumulate in their little open pits or shallow levels, beyond the control of a single bucket, or other such primitive contrivance for bailing. Even the more active and industrious digger soon found his own difficulties to accumulate just in proportion to his own superior measure of activity; since, as soon as he carried his own excavation a foot or two deeper than his neighbor's, he found that it only gave him the privilege of draining for the whole of the less enterprising diggers, whose pits had not been sunk to the same level as his own. Thus the adventurers who should ordinarily have been the most successful were soon drowned out by the accumulated waters from the adjacent, and sometimes abandoned, claims. Nearly all of these early efforts at individual mining are now discontinued, and the claims, thus shown to be worthless in single hands, have been consolidated in the large companies, who alone possess the means to work them with unity and success.
The present methods of working the lodes, as now practised in Nova Scotia, proceed on a very different plan. Shafts are sunk at intervals of about three hundred feet on the course of the lodes which it is proposed to work,—as these are distinctly traced on the surface of the ground. When these shafts have been carried down to the depth of sixty feet,—or, in miners' language, ten fathoms,—horizontal drifts or levels are pushed out from them, below the ground, and in either direction, still keeping on the course of the lode. Whilst these subterranean levels are being thus extended, the shafts are again to be continued downwards, until the depth of twenty fathoms, or one hundred and twenty feet, has been attained. A second and lower set of levels are then pushed out beneath and parallel to the first named. At the depth of thirty fathoms, a third and still lower set of levels will extend beneath and parallel to the second. This work of sinking vertical shafts, and excavating horizontal levels to connect them, belongs to what is denominated the "construction of the mine", and it is only after this has been completed that the work of mining proper can be said to begin.
The removal of the ore, as conducted from the levels by which access to it has thus been gained, may be carried on either by "direct" or by "inverted grades,"—that is, either by breaking it up from underneath, or down from overhead, in each of the levels which have now been described,—or, as it is more commonly called in mining language, by "understoping" or by "overstoping." When the breadth of the lode is equal to that of the level, it is perhaps not very material which plan be adopted. But when, as at Oldham, Montague, or Tangier, the lodes are only of moderate-width, and much barren rock, however soft and yielding, has, of necessity, to be removed along with the ore, so as to give a free passage for the miner through the whole extent of the drifts, we shall easily understand that the working by inverted grades, or "overstoping," is the only proper or feasible method. In this case, the blasts being all made from the roof, or "back," as it is called, of the drift, the barren or "dead" rock containing no gold is left on the floor of the drift, and there is then only the labor and expense of bringing the valuable quartz itself, a much less amount in bulk, to the surface of the ground. The accumulating mass of the dead rock underfoot, will then be constantly raising the floor of the drift, and as constantly bringing the miners within convenient working-distance of the receding roof. In the case of "understoping," however, in which the blasts are made from the floor of the drift, it will be perceived that all the rock which is moved, of whatever kind, must equally be brought to the surface, which entails a much greater labor and expense in the hoisting; and gravity, moreover, instead of cooperating with, counteracts, it will easily be understood, the effective force of the powder.
Such is a necessarily brief and condensed account of the novel and interesting branch of industry which has thus been opened almost at our very doors. The enterprise is as yet merely in its infancy, and will doubtless for some time be regarded with incredulity and even distrust. But if there be any weight to be attached to the clearest, most explicit scientific and practical testimony, we must henceforth learn to look upon Nova Scotia with an increased interest, and, perhaps a somewhat heightened respect. The spies that came out of Canaan were not, at any rate, more completely unanimous in their reports of the richness of the land than the eminent persons who have been sent to examine the auriferous lodes of our Acadian neighbors. If gold does not really exist there, and in very remunerative quantities, it will be hard for us henceforth to believe in the calculations of even a spring-tide, a comet, or an eclipse.
"Up to the present time," (June, 1862,) says Lord Mulgrave, "there has been no great influx of persons from abroad; and the gradual development of the richness of the gold-fields is chiefly due to the inhabitants of the country. Some few have arrived from the United States, and from the neighboring Provinces; but they are chiefly persons destitute of capital, and without any practical knowledge of mining-operations. This, I fear, is likely to produce some discouragement, as many of them will undoubtedly prove unsuccessful; and, returning to their homes, will spread unfavorable reports of the gold-fields, while their failure should more properly be ascribed to their own want of capital and skill."
In contrast with this sensible prediction, and to show the very different results of associated capital and labor noticed in the outset of our remarks, we give the following on the authority of the "Commercial Bulletin" of February 13, 1864:—
"At a meeting of the Directors of the St. Croix Mining Company, held on the 14th ult., a dividend of sixty per cent., payable in gold, was declared, and, in addition to this, a sum sufficient to work the claim during the winter was reserved for that purpose."
The latest information from this highly interesting region is contained in the Annual Report of the Chief Gold-Commissioner for the year 1863, issued at Halifax on the 26th of January, 1864. The present incumbent of this responsible office is Mr. P.S. Hamilton, of Halifax,—the former Commissioner, Mr. Creelman, having gone out of service in consequence of the change of Ministry which occurred in the early part of last year. Mr. Hamilton's Report is singularly clear and concise, and exhibits throughout a highly flattering prospect in all the Districts now being worked, except that of Ovens,—the reasons for this exception being, however, fully explained by the Commissioner. "Taking the average yield at what it appears by these [official] tables," says Mr. Hamilton, "these mines show, a higher average productiveness than those of almost any other gold-producing country, if, indeed, they are not, in this respect, the very first now being worked in the world. I may here mention one fact affording increased hopes for the future, which although unquestionably a fact, the exact measure of its importance cannot well be shown, as yet, by any statistical returns. Excavations have not yet, it is true, been carried to any great depth. Few mining-shafts upon any of the gold-fields exceed one hundred feet in depth; but, as a general rule,—indeed, in nearly every instance,—the quartz seams actually worked have been found to increase in richness as they descend." "The yield of gold to each man engaged during the year is very much higher than has yet been attained in quartz-mining in any other country."
Wine Harbor, almost at the eastern extremity of the peninsula, has, it appears from this official statement, "the distinction of having produced a larger amount of gold during 1863 than any other district in the Province. During each one of five out of the last six months of the year, it showed the highest maximum yield of gold per ton of quartz;[Q] and on the whole year's operations it ranks next to Sherbrooke in the average amount produced per man engaged in mining." In the table giving the entire returns of gold for the year, the whole yield of the Wine-Harbor mines is set down as 3,718 oz. 2 dwt. 19 gr.,—equal, at the present price of gold in New York and Boston, to about $125,000 for the twelve months,—certainly a very hopeful return for a first year's operations. It is evident that the Commissioner regards this district and the neighboring one of Sherbrooke, as specially entitled to his consideration, for he continues,—"Here, as at Sherbrooke, gold-mining has become a settled business; and the prospects of the district are of a highly satisfactory character." But he adds, (p. 7,)—"From every one of the gold-districts, without exception, the accounts received from the most reliable sources represent the mining-prospects to be good, and the men engaged in mining to be in good spirits,—content with their present success and future prospects." To those who consider the accounts of Nova-Scotia gold as mere myths we commend the attentive study of these Government returns. "Miners' stories" are one thing,—but a certified royalty from a staff of British officials, in ounces, pennyweights, and grains, on the first day of each month, is, in our modest opinion, quite another. They "have a way of putting things," as Sydney Smith expressed it, which is apt to be rather convincing.
It would not be surprising, if so marked an addition to the resources of a small, and not an eminently wealthy Province, had been productive, in some degree, of excitement, idleness, and disorder. But we have reason to believe that hitherto this has not been found to be the case. Lord Mulgrave bears willing testimony to "the exemplary conduct of the miners," and Mr. Creelman, the late Chief-Commissioner, is still more explicit. "It affords me the highest satisfaction," he concludes, "to be able to bear testimony to the orderly conduct and good behavior of those who have hitherto undertaken to develop the resources of our gold-fields. I have visited every gold-district in the Province twice, and, with one or two exceptions, oftener, during the past season; I have seen the miners at work in the shafts and trenches; I have noticed them in going to and returning from their work, at morning, noon, and night; I have witnessed their sports after the labors of the day were over; and I have never heard an uncivil word nor observed an unseemly action amongst them. And although the 'Act relating to the Gold-Fields' authorized the appointment of a bailiff in every gold-district, it has not been deemed necessary to make more than three such appointments, and, with one single exception, no service from any of these officers has been required.... It may be said, in general, that the respect for law and order, the honest condition, and the moral sentiment which pervade our gold-district, are not surpassed in many of the rural villages of the country."
LIFE ON THE SEA ISLANDS.
[To THE EDITOR OF THE "ATLANTIC MONTHLY."—The following graceful and picturesque description of the new condition of things on the Sea Islands of South Carolina, originally written for private perusal, seems to me worthy of a place in the "Atlantic." Its young author—herself akin to the long-suffering race whose Exodus she so pleasantly describes—is still engaged in her labor of love on St. Helena Island.—J.G.W.]
PART I.
It was on the afternoon of a warm, murky day late in October that our steamer, the United States, touched the landing at Hilton Head. A motley assemblage had collected on the wharf,—officers, soldiers, and "contrabands" of every size and hue: black was, however, the prevailing color. The first view of Hilton Head is desolate enough,—a long, low, sandy point, stretching out into the sea, with no visible dwellings upon it, except the rows of small white-roofed houses which have lately been built for the freed people.
After signing a paper wherein we declared ourselves loyal to the Government, and wherein, also, were set forth fearful penalties, should we ever be found guilty of treason, we were allowed to land, and immediately took General Saxton's boat, the Flora, for Beaufort. The General was on board, and we were presented to him. He is handsome, courteous, and affable, and looks—as he is—the gentleman and the soldier.
From Hilton Head to Beaufort the same long, low line of sandy coast, bordered by trees; formidable gunboats in the distance, and the gray ruins of an old fort, said to have been built by the Huguenots more than two hundred years ago. Arrived at Beaufort, we found that we had not yet reached our journey's end. While waiting for the boat which was to take us to our island of St. Helena, we had a little time to observe the ancient town. The houses in the main street, which fronts the "Bay," are large and handsome, built of wood, in the usual Southern style, with spacious piazzas, and surrounded by fine trees. We noticed in one yard a magnolia, as high as some of our largest shade-maples, with rich, dark, shining foliage. A large building which was once the Public Library is now a shelter for freed people from Fernandina. Did the Rebels know it, they would doubtless upturn their aristocratic noses, and exclaim in disgust, "To what base uses," etc. We confess that it was highly satisfactory to us to see how the tables are turned, now that "the whirligig of time has brought about its revenges." We saw the market-place, in which slaves were sometimes sold; but we were told that the buying and selling at auction were usually done in Charleston. The arsenal, a large stone structure, was guarded by cannon and sentinels. The houses in the smaller streets had, mostly, a dismantled, desolate look. We saw no one in the streets but soldiers and freed people. There were indications that already Northern improvements had reached this Southern town. Among them was a wharf, a convenience that one wonders how the Southerners could so long have existed without. The more we know of their mode of life, the more are we inclined to marvel at its utter shiftlessness.
Little colored children of every hue were playing about the streets, looking as merry and happy as children ought to look,—now that the evil shadow of Slavery no longer hangs over them. Some of the officers we met did not impress us favorably. They talked flippantly, and sneeringly of the negroes, whom they found we had come down to teach, using an epithet more offensive than gentlemanly. They assured us that there was great danger of Rebel attacks, that the yellow fever prevailed to an alarming extent, and that, indeed, the manufacture of coffins was the only business that was at all flourishing at present. Although by no means daunted by these alarming stories, we were glad when the announcement of our boat relieved us from their edifying conversation.
We rowed across to Ladies Island, which adjoins St. Helena, through the splendors of a grand Southern sunset. The gorgeous clouds of crimson and gold were reflected as in a mirror in the smooth, clear waters below. As we glided along, the rich tones of the negro boatmen broke upon the evening stillness,—sweet, strange, and solemn:—
"Jesus make de blind to see,
Jesus make de cripple walk,
Jesus make de deaf to hear.
Walk in, kind Jesus!
No man can hender me."
It was nearly dark when we reached the island, and then we had a three-miles' drive through the lonely roads to the house of the superintendent. We thought how easy it would be for a band of guerrillas, had they chanced that way, to seize and hang us; but we were in that excited, jubilant state of mind which makes fear impossible, and sang "John Brown" with a will, as we drove through the pines and palmettos. Oh, it was good to sing that song in the very heart of Rebeldom! Harry, our driver, amused us much. He was surprised to find that we had not heard of him before. "Why, I thought eberybody at de Nort had heard o' me!" he said, very innocently. We learned afterward that Mrs. F., who made the tour of the islands last summer, had publicly mentioned Harry. Some one had told him of it, and he of course imagined that he had become quite famous. Notwithstanding this little touch of vanity, Harry is one of the best and smartest men on the island.
Gates occurred, it seemed to us, at every few yards' distance, made in the oddest fashion,—opening in the middle, like folding-doors, for the accommodation of horsemen. The little boy who accompanied us as gate-opener answered to the name of Cupid. Arrived at the headquarters of the general superintendent, Mr. S., we were kindly received by him and the ladies, and shown into a large parlor, where a cheerful wood-fire glowed in the grate. It had a home-like look; but still there was a sense of unreality about everything, and I felt that nothing less than a vigorous "shaking-up," such as Grandfather Smallweed daily experienced, would arouse me thoroughly to the fact that I was in South Carolina.
The next morning L. and I were awakened by the cheerful voices of men and women, children and chickens, in the yard below. We ran to the window, and looked out. Women in bright-colored handkerchiefs, some carrying pails on their heads, were crossing the yard, busy with their morning work; children were playing and tumbling around them. On every face there was a look of serenity and cheerfulness. My heart gave a great throb of happiness as I looked at them, and thought, "They are free! so long down-trodden, so long crushed to the earth, but now in their old homes, forever free!" And I thanked God that I had lived to see this day.
After breakfast Miss T. drove us to Oaklands, our future home. The road leading to the house was nearly choked with weeds. The house itself was in a dilapidated condition, and the yard and garden had a sadly neglected look. But there were roses in bloom; we plucked handfuls of feathery, fragrant acacia-blossoms; ivy crept along the ground and under the house. The freed people on the place seemed glad to see us. After talking with them, and giving some directions for cleaning the house, we drove to the school, in which I was to teach. It is kept in the Baptist Church,—a brick building, beautifully situated in a grove of live-oaks. These trees are the first objects that attract one's attention here: not that they are finer than our Northern oaks, but because of the singular gray moss with which every branch is heavily draped. This hanging moss grows on nearly all the trees, but on none so luxuriantly as on the live-oak. The pendants are often four or five feet long, very graceful and beautiful, but giving the trees a solemn, almost funereal look. The school was opened in September. Many of the children had, however, received instruction during the summer. It was evident that they had made very rapid improvement, and we noticed with pleasure how bright and eager to learn many of them seemed. They sang in rich, sweet tones, and with a peculiar swaying motion of the body, which made their singing the more effective. They sang "Marching Along," with great spirit, and then one of their own hymns, the air of which is beautiful and touching:—
"My sister, you want to git religion,
Go down in de Lonesome Valley,
My brudder, you want to git religion,
Go down in de Lonesome Valley.
CHORUS.
"Go down in de Lonesome Valley,
Go down in de Lonesome Valley, my Lord,
Go down in de Lonesome Valley,
To meet my Jesus dere!
"Oh, feed on milk and honey,
Oh, feed on milk and honey, my Lord,
Oh, feed on milk and honey,
Meet my Jesus dere!
Oh, John he brought a letter,
Oh, John he brought a letter, my Lord,
Oh, Mary and Marta read 'em,
Meet my Jesus dere!
CHORUS.
"Go down in de Lonesome Valley," etc.
They repeat their hymns several times, and while singing keep perfect time with their hands and feet.
On our way homeward we noticed that a few of the trees were beginning to turn, but we looked in vain for the glowing autumnal hues of our Northern forests. Some brilliant scarlet berries—the cassena—were growing along the roadside, and on every hand we saw the live-oak with its moss-drapery. The palmettos disappointed me; stiff and ungraceful, they have a bristling, defiant look, suggestive of Rebels starting up and defying everybody. The land is low and level,—not the slightest approach to a hill, not a rock, nor even a stone to be seen. It would have a desolate look, were it not for the trees, and the hanging moss and numberless vines which festoon them. These vines overrun the hedges, form graceful arches between the trees, encircle their trunks, and sometimes climb to the topmost branches. In February they begin to bloom, and then throughout the spring and summer we have a succession of beautiful flowers. First comes the yellow jessamine, with its perfect, gold-colored, and deliciously fragrant blossoms. It lights up the hedges, and completely canopies some of the trees. Of all the wild-flowers this seems to me the most beautiful and fragrant. Then we have the snow-white, but scentless Cherokee rose, with its lovely, shining leaves. Later in the season come the brilliant trumpet-flower, the passion-flower, and innumerable others.
The Sunday after our arrival we attended service at the Baptist Church. The people came in slowly; for they have no way of knowing the hour, except by the sun. By eleven they had all assembled, and the church was well filled. They were neatly dressed in their Sunday-attire, the women, mostly wearing clean, dark frocks, with white aprons and bright-colored head-handkerchiefs. Some had attained to the dignity of straw hats with gay feathers, but these were not nearly as becoming nor as picturesque as the handkerchiefs. The day was warm, and the windows were thrown open as if it were summer, although it was the second day of November. It was very pleasant to listen to the beautiful hymns, and look from the crowd of dark, earnest faces within, upon the grove of noble oaks without. The people sang, "Roll, Jordan, roll," the grandest of all their hymns. There is a great, rolling wave of sound through it all.
"Mr. Fuller settin' on de Tree ob Life,
Fur to hear de ven Jordan roll.
Oh, roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan roll!
CHORUS.
"Oh, roll, Jordan, roll! oh, roll, Jordan, roll!
My soul arise in heab'n, Lord,
Fur to hear de ven Jordan roll!
"Little chil'en, learn to fear de Lord,
And let your days be long.
Oh, roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan! roll, Jordan,
roll!
CHORUS.
"Oh, march, de angel, march! oh, march, de
angel, march!
My soul arise in heab'n, Lord,
Fur to hear de ven Jordan roll!"
The "Mr. Fuller" referred to was their former minister, to whom they seem to have been much attached. He is a Southerner, but loyal, and is now, I believe, living in Baltimore. After the sermon the minister called upon one of the elders, a gray-headed old man, to pray. His manner was very fervent and impressive, but his language was so broken that to our unaccustomed ears it was quite unintelligible. After the services the people gathered in groups outside, talking among themselves, and exchanging kindly greetings with the superintendents and teachers. In their bright handkerchiefs and white aprons they made a striking picture under the gray-mossed trees. We drove afterward a mile farther, to the Episcopal Church, in which the aristocracy of the island used to worship. It is a small white building, situated in a fine grove of live-oaks, at the junction of several roads. On one of the tombstones in the yard is the touching inscription in memory of two children,—"Blessed little lambs, and art thou gathered into the fold of the only true shepherd? Sweet lillies of the valley, and art thou removed to a more congenial soil?" The floor of the church is of stone, the pews of polished oak. It has an organ, which is not so entirely out of tune as are the pianos on the island. One of the ladies played, while the gentlemen sang,—old-fashioned New-England church-music, which it was pleasant to hear, but it did not thrill us as the singing of the people had done.
During the week we moved to Oaklands, our future home. The house was of one story, with a low-roofed piazza running the whole length. The interior had been thoroughly scrubbed and whitewashed; the exterior was guiltless of whitewash or paint. There were five rooms, all quite small, and several dark little entries, in one of which we found shelves lined with old medicine-bottles. These were a part of the possessions of the former owner, a Rebel physician, Dr. Sams by name. Some of them were still filled with his nostrums. Our furniture consisted of a bedstead, two bureaus, three small pine tables, and two chairs, one of which had a broken back. These were lent to us by the people. The masters, in their hasty flight from the islands, left nearly all their furniture; but much of it was destroyed or taken by the soldiers who came first, and what they left was removed by the people to their own houses. Certainly, they have the best right to it. We had made up our minds to dispense with all luxuries and even many conveniences; but it was rather distressing to have no fire, and nothing to eat. Mr. H. had already appropriated a room for the store which he was going to open for the benefit of the freed people, and was superintending the removal of his goods. So L. and I were left to our own resources. But Cupid the elder came to the rescue,—Cupid, who, we were told, was to be our right-hand man, and who very graciously informed us that he would take care of us; which he at once proceeded to do by bringing in some wood, and busying himself in making a fire in the open fireplace. While he is thus engaged, I will try to describe him. A small, wiry figure, stockingless, shoeless, out at the knees and elbows, and wearing the remnant of an old straw hat, which looked as if it might have done good service in scaring the crows from a cornfield. The face nearly black, very ugly, but with the shrewdest expression I ever saw, and the brightest, most humorous twinkle in the eyes. One glance at Cupid's face showed that he was not a person to be imposed upon, and that he was abundantly able to take care of himself, as well as of us. The chimney obstinately refused to draw, in spite of the original and very uncomplimentary epithets which Cupid heaped upon it,—while we stood by, listening to him in amusement, although nearly suffocated by the smoke. At last, perseverance conquered, and the fire began to burn cheerily. Then Amaretta, our cook,—a neat-looking black woman, adorned with the gayest of head-handkerchiefs,—made her appearance with some eggs and hominy, after partaking of which we proceeded to arrange our scanty furniture, which was soon done. In a few days we began to look civilized, having made a table-cover of some red and yellow handkerchiefs which we found among the store-goods,—a carpet of red and black woollen plaid, originally intended for frocks and shirts,—a cushion, stuffed with corn-husks and covered with calico, for a lounge, which Ben, the carpenter, had made for us of pine boards,—and lastly some corn-husk beds, which were an unspeakable luxury, after having endured agonies for several nights, sleeping on the slats of a bedstead. It is true, the said slats were covered with blankets, but these might as well have been sheets of paper for all the good they did us. What a resting-place it was! Compared to it, the gridiron of St. Lawrence—fire excepted—was as a bed of roses.
The first day at school was rather trying. Most of my children were very small, and consequently restless. Some were too young to learn the alphabet. These little ones were brought to school because the older children—in whose care their parents leave them while at work—could not come without them. We were therefore willing to have them come, although they seemed to have discovered the secret of perpetual motion, and tried one's patience sadly. But after some days of positive, though not severe treatment, order was brought out of chaos, and I found but little difficulty in managing and quieting the tiniest and most restless spirits. I never before saw children so eager to learn, although I had had several years' experience in New-England schools. Coming to school is a constant delight and recreation to them. They come here as other children go to play. The older ones, during the summer, work in the fields from early morning until eleven or twelve o'clock, and then come into school, after their hard toil in the hot sun, as bright and as anxious to learn as ever.
Of course there are some stupid ones, but these are the minority. The majority learn with wonderful rapidity. Many of the grown people are desirous of learning to read. It is wonderful how a people who have been so long crushed to the earth, so imbruted as these have been,—and they are said to be among the most degraded negroes of the South,—can have so great a desire for knowledge, and such a capability for attaining it. One cannot believe that the haughty Anglo-Saxon race, after centuries of such an experience as these people have had, would be very much superior to them. And one's indignation increases against those who, North as well as South, taunt the colored race with inferiority while they themselves use every means in their power to crush and degrade them, denying them every right and privilege, closing against them every avenue of elevation and improvement. Were they, under such circumstances, intellectual and refined, they would certainly be vastly superior to any other race that ever existed.
After the lessons, we used to talk freely to the children, often giving them slight sketches of some of the great and good men. Before teaching them the "John Brown" song, which they learned to sing with great spirit, Miss T. told them the story of the brave old man who had died for them. I told them about Toussaint, thinking it well they should know what one of their own color had done for his race. They listened attentively, and seemed to understand. We found it rather hard to keep their attention in school. It is not strange, as they have been so entirely unused to intellectual concentration. It is necessary to interest them every moment, in order to keep their thoughts from wandering. Teaching here is consequently far more fatiguing than at the North. In the church, we had of course but one room in which to hear all the children; and to make one's self heard, when there were often as many as a hundred and forty reciting at once, it was necessary to tax the lungs very severely.
My walk to school, of about a mile, was part of the way through a road lined with trees,—on one side stately pines, on the other noble live-oaks, hung with moss and canopied with vines. The ground was carpeted with brown, fragrant pine-leaves; and as I passed through in the morning, the woods were enlivened by the delicious songs of mocking-birds, which abound here, making one realize the truthful felicity of the description in "Evangeline,"—
"The mocking-bird, wildest of singers,
Shook from his little throat such floods of delirious music
That the whole air and the woods and the waves seemed silent to listen."
The hedges were all aglow with the brilliant scarlet berries of the cassena, and on some of the oaks we observed the mistletoe, laden with its pure white, pearl-like berries. Out of the woods the roads are generally bad, and we found it hard work plodding through the deep sand.
Mr. H.'s store was usually crowded, and Cupid was his most valuable assistant. Gay handkerchiefs for turbans, pots and kettles, and molasses, were principally in demand, especially the last. It was necessary to keep the molasses-barrel in the yard, where Cupid presided over it, and harangued and scolded the eager, noisy crowd, collected around, to his heart's content; while up the road leading to the house came constantly processions of men, women, and children, carrying on their heads cans, jugs, pitchers, and even bottles,—anything, indeed, that was capable of containing molasses. It is wonderful with what ease they carry all sorts of things on their heads,—heavy bundles of wood, hoes and rakes, everything, heavy or light, that can be carried in the hands; and I have seen a woman, with a bucketful of water on her head, stoop down and take up another in her hand, without spilling a drop from either.
We noticed that the people had much better taste in selecting materials for dresses than we had supposed. They do not generally like gaudy colors, but prefer neat, quiet patterns. They are, however, very fond of all kinds of jewelry. I once asked the children in school what their ears were for. "To put ring in," promptly replied one of the little girls.
These people are exceedingly polite in their manner towards each other, each new arrival bowing, scraping his feet, and shaking hands with the others, while there are constant greetings, such as, "Huddy? How's yer lady?" ("How d' ye do? How's your wife?") The hand-shaking is performed with the greatest possible solemnity. There is never the faintest shadow of a smile on anybody's face during this performance. The children, too, are taught to be very polite to their elders, and it is the rarest thing to hear a disrespectful word from a child to his parent, or to any grown person. They have really what the New-Englanders call "beautiful manners."
We made daily visits to the "quarters," which were a few rods from the house. The negro-houses, on this as on most of the other plantations, were miserable little huts, with nothing comfortable or home-like about them, consisting generally of but two very small rooms,—the only way of lighting them, no matter what the state of the weather, being to leave the doors and windows open. The windows, of course, have no glass in them. In such a place, a father and mother with a large family of children are often obliged to live. It is almost impossible to teach them habits of neatness and order, when they are so crowded. We look forward anxiously to the day when better houses shall increase their comfort and pride of appearance.
Oaklands is a very small plantation. There were not more than eight or nine families living on it. Some of the people interested us much. Celia, one of the best, is a cripple. Her master, she told us, was too mean to give his slaves clothes enough to protect them, and her feet and legs were so badly frozen that they required amputation. She has a lovely face,—well-featured and singularly gentle. In every household where there was illness or trouble, Celia's kind, sympathizing face was the first to be seen, and her services were always the most acceptable.
Harry, the foreman on the plantation, a man of a good deal of natural intelligence, was most desirous of learning to read. He came in at night to be taught, and learned very rapidly. I never saw any one more determined to learn. "We enjoyed hearing him talk about the "gun-shoot,"—so the people call the capture of Bay Point and Hilton Head. They never weary of telling you "how Massa run when he hear de fust gun."
"Why didn't you go with him, Harry?" I asked.
"Oh, Miss, 't wasn't 'cause Massa didn't try to 'suade me. He tell we dat de Yankees would shoot we, or would sell we to Cuba, an' do all de wust tings to we, when dey come. 'Bery well, Sar,' says I. 'If I go wid you, I be good as dead. If I stay here, I can't be no wust; so if I got to dead, I might's well dead here as anywhere. So I'll stay here an' wait for de "dam Yankees."' Lor', Miss, I knowed he wasn't tellin' de truth all de time."
"But why didn't you believe him, Harry?"
"Dunno, Miss; somehow we hear de Yankees was our friends, an' dat we'd be free when dey come, an' 'pears like we believe dat."
I found this to be true of nearly all the people I talked with, and I thought it strange they should have had so much faith in the Northerners. Truly, for years past, they had had but little cause to think them very friendly. Cupid told us that his master was so daring as to come back, after he had fled from the island, at the risk of being taken prisoner by our soldiers; and that he ordered the people to get all the furniture together and take it to a plantation on the opposite side of the creek, and to stay on that side themselves. "So," said Cupid, "dey could jus' sweep us all up in a heap, an' put us in de boat. An' he telled me to take Patience—dat's my wife—an' de chil'en down to a certain pint, an' den I could come back, if I choose. Jus' as if I was gwine to be sich a goat!" added he, with a look and gesture of ineffable contempt. He and the rest of the people, instead of obeying their master, left the place and hid themselves in the woods; and when he came to look for them, not one of all his "faithful servants" was to be found. A few, principally house-servants, had previously been carried away.
In the evenings, the children frequently came in to sing and shout for us. These "shouts" are very strange,—in truth, almost indescribable. It is necessary to hear and see in order to have any clear idea of them. The children form a ring, and move around in a kind of shuffling dance, singing all the time. Four or five stand apart, and sing very energetically, clapping their hands, stamping their feet, and rocking their bodies to and fro. These are the musicians, to whose performance the shouters keep perfect time. The grown people on this plantation did not shout, but they do on some of the other plantations. It is very comical to see little children, not more than three or four years old, entering into the performance with all their might. But the shouting of the grown people is rather solemn and impressive than otherwise. We cannot determine whether it has a religious character or not. Some of the people tell us that it has, others that it has not. But as the shouts of the grown people are always in connection with their religious meetings, it is probable that they are the barbarous expression of religion, handed down to them from their African ancestors, and destined to pass away under the influence of Christian teachings. The people on this island have no songs. They sing only hymns, and most of these are sad. Prince, a large black boy from a neighboring plantation, was the principal shouter among the children. It seemed impossible for him to keep still for a moment. His performances were most amusing specimens of Ethiopian gymnastics. Amaretta the younger, a cunning, kittenish little creature of only six years old, had a remarkably sweet voice. Her favorite hymn, which we used to hear her singing to herself as she walked through the yard, is one of the oddest we have heard:—
"What makes old Satan follow me so?
Satan got nuttin' 't all fur to do wid me.
CHORUS.
"Tiddy Rosa, hold your light!
Brudder Tony, hold your light!
All de member, hold bright light
On Canaan's shore!"
This is one of the most spirited shouting-tunes. "Tiddy" is their word for sister.
A very queer-looking old man came into the store one day. He was dressed in a complete suit of brilliant Brussels carpeting. Probably it had been taken from his master's house after the "gun-shoot"; but he looked so very dignified that we did not like to question him about it. The people called him Doctor Crofts,—which was, I believe, his master's name, his own being Scipio. He was very jubilant over the new state of things, and said to Mr. H.,—"Don't hab me feelins hurt now. Used to hab me feelins hurt all de time. But don't hab 'em hurt now no more." Poor old soul! We rejoiced with him that he and his brethren no longer have their "feelins" hurt, as in the old time.
On the Sunday before Thanksgiving, General Saxton's noble Proclamation was read at church. We could not listen to it without emotion. The people listened with the deepest attention, and seemed to understand and appreciate it. Whittier has said of it and its writer,—"It is the most beautiful and touching official document I ever read. God bless him! 'The bravest are the tenderest.'"
General Saxton is truly worthy of the gratitude and admiration with which the people regard him. His unfailing kindness and consideration for them—so different from the treatment they have sometimes received at the hands of other officers—have caused them to have unbounded confidence in General "Saxby," as they call him.
After the service, there were six couples married. Some of the dresses were unique. One was particularly fine,—doubtless a cast-off dress of the bride's former mistress. The silk and lace, ribbons, feathers and flowers, were in a rather faded and decayed condition. But, comical as the costumes were, we were not disposed to laugh at them. We were too glad to see the poor creatures trying to lead right and virtuous lives. The legal ceremony, which was formerly scarcely known among them, is now everywhere consecrated. The constant and earnest advice of the minister and teachers has not been given in vain; nearly every Sunday there are several couples married in church. Some of them are people who have grown old together.
Thanksgiving-Day was observed as a general holiday. According to General Saxton's orders, an ox had been killed on each plantation, that the people might that day have fresh meat, which was a great luxury to them, and, indeed, to all of us. In the morning, a large number—superintendents, teachers, and freed people—assembled in the Baptist Church. It was a sight not soon to be forgotten,—that crowd of eager, happy black faces, from which the shadow of Slavery had forever passed. "Forever free! forever free!" those magical words of the Proclamation were constantly singing themselves in my soul. After an appropriate prayer and sermon by Mr. P., and singing by the people, General Saxton made a short, but spirited speech, urging the young men to enlist in the regiment then forming under Colonel Higginson. Mrs. Gage told the people how the slaves in Santa Cruz had secured their liberty. It was something entirely new and strange to them to hear a woman speak in public; but they listened with great attention, and seemed much interested. Before dispersing, they sang "Marching Along," which is an especial favorite with them. It was a very happy Thanksgiving-Day for all of us. The weather was delightful; oranges and figs were hanging on the trees; roses, oleanders, and japonicas were blooming out-of-doors; the sun was warm and bright; and over all shone gloriously the blessed light of Freedom,—Freedom forevermore!
One night, L. and I were roused from our slumbers by what seemed to us loud and most distressing shrieks, proceeding from the direction of the negro-houses. Having heard of one or two attempts which the Rebels had recently made to land on the island, our first thought was, naturally, that they had forced a landing, and were trying to carry off some of the people. Every moment we expected to hear them at our doors; and knowing that they had sworn vengeance against all the superintendents and teachers, we prepared ourselves for the worst. After a little reflection, we persuaded ourselves that it could not be the Rebels; for the people had always assured us, that, in case of a Rebel attack, they would come to us at once,—evidently thinking that we should be able to protect them. But what could the shrieks mean? They ceased; then, a few moments afterwards, began again, louder, more fearful than before; then again they ceased, and all was silent. I am ashamed to confess that we had not the courage to go out and inquire into the cause of the alarm. Mr. H.'s room was in another part of the house, too far for him to give us any aid. We hailed the dawn of day gladly enough, and eagerly sought Cupid,—who was sure to know everything,—to obtain from him a solution of the mystery. "Why, you wasn't scared at dat?" he exclaimed, in great amusement; "'twasn't nuttin' but de black sogers dat comed up to see der folks on t' oder side ob de creek. Dar wasn't no boat fur 'em on dis side, so dey jus' blowed de whistle dey hab, so de folks might bring one ober fur 'em. Dat was all 't was." And Cupid laughed so heartily that we felt not a little ashamed of our fears. Nevertheless, we both maintained that we had never seen a whistle from which could be produced sounds so startling, so distressing, so perfectly like the shrieks of a human being.
Another night, while staying at a house some miles distant from ours, I was awakened by hearing, as I thought, some one trying to open the door from without. The door was locked; I lay perfectly still, and listened intently. A few moments elapsed, and the sound was repeated; whereupon I rose, and woke Miss W., who slept in the adjoining room. We lighted a candle, took our revolvers, and seated ourselves on the bed, keeping our weapons, so formidable in practised male hands, steadily pointed towards the door, and uttering dire threats against the intruders,—presumed to be Rebels, of course. Having maintained this tragical position for some time, and hearing no further noise; we began to grow sleepy, and extinguished our candle, returned to bed, and slept soundly till morning. But that mystery remained unexplained. I was sure that the door had been tried,—there could be no mistaking it. There was not the least probability that any of the people had entered the house, burglars are unknown on these islands, and there is nobody to be feared but the Rebels.
The last and greatest alarm we had was after we had removed from Oaklands to another plantation. I woke about two o'clock in the morning, hearing the tramp of many feet in the yard below,—the steady tramp of soldiers' feet. "The Rebels! they have come at last! all is over with us now!" I thought at once, with a desperate kind of resignation. And I lay still, waiting and listening. Soon I heard footsteps on the piazza; then the hall-door was opened, and steps were heard distinctly in the hall beneath; finally, I heard some one coming up the stairs. Then I grasped my revolver, rose, and woke the other ladies.
"There are soldiers in the yard! Somebody has opened the hall-door, and is coming up-stairs!"
Poor L., but half awakened, stared at me in speechless terror. The same thought filled our minds. But Mrs. B., after listening for a moment, exclaimed,—
"Why, that is my husband! I know his footsteps. He is coming up-stairs to call me."
And so it proved. Her husband, who was a lieutenant in Colonel Montgomery's regiment, had come up from camp with some of his men to look after deserters. The door had been unfastened by a servant who on that night happened to sleep in the house. I shall never forget the delightful sensation of relief that came over me when the whole matter was explained. It was almost overpowering; for, although I had made up my mind to bear the worst, and bear it bravely, the thought of falling into the hands of the Rebels was horrible in the extreme. A year of intense mental suffering seemed to have been compressed into those few moments.