“That romance proved a great success. Again, like Byron, he put his well-worn gown, one morning, about one wakened to fame and fortune.
“The first remittance took the restless soldier of fortune from us, never to return. He would not have been content to remain as long as he did, but for the fact that he was desperately in love with a fair inmate of our house. But in her big blue eyes the gallant Irishman did not find favour, and he at last gave up the pursuit.
“From the station where he awaited his train he wrote us two letters. One of these I never saw. The other contained the following lines, which, without possessing any remarkable poetic merit, gracefully put on record his kind feelings on parting from the house he had made his home for nearly a year.”
Mac-o-Chee Adieu.
Fade from my sight the valley sweet,
The brown, old, mossy mill,
The willows, where the wild birds keep
Song watch beside the rill;
The cottage, with its rustic porch,
Where the latest flower blooms,
And autumn, with her flaming torch,
The dying year illumes.
Within mine ears the sad farewell
In music lingers yet,
And casts upon my soul a spell
That bids it not forget;
Forget, dear friends, I never may,
While yet there lives a strain,
A flower, a thought, a favoured lay
To call you back again.
When evening comes you fondly meet
About the firelit hearth,
And hours fly by on winged feet,
In music and in mirth;
Ah! give a thought to one whose fate
On thorny pathway lies,
Who lingered fondly near the gate
That hid his paradise.
I hear, along the ringing rails,
My fate, that comes apace,
A moment more and strife prevails,
Where once were peace and rest;
Unrest begins, my furlough ends,
The world breaks on my view,
Ah! peaceful scene; ah! loving friends,
A sad and last adieu.
“Between that parting and our next encounter some twenty years intervened. Mayne Reid had made his fame and fortune, throwing the last away upon a Mexican ranch in England, and I yet floating about on spars had just begun to use my pen as a means of support. He was grey, stout and rosy, living with his handsome little wife in rooms in Union Square. I told him that the old homestead upon the Mac-o-chee had fallen into decay, and of the little family circle he so fondly remembered I alone remained.
“That made him so sad that I proposed a bottle of wine to alleviate our sorrow, and he led the way to a subterranean excavation in Broadway, where we had not only the bottle, but a dinner and several bottles.”
The following are short extracts from some public notices of his life:
In The Times, October 24th, 1883—“Every schoolboy, and every one who has ever been a schoolboy, will learn with sorrow of the death of Captain Mayne Reid. Who has forgotten those glorious rides across the Mexican prairies, when we galloped, mounted upon a mustang—a horse would have been too flat and unromantic—on the war trail, and surprised our enemy. The very titles of the books are enough to stir the blood. What a vista they open out of wild adventure, of mystery, of savage heroism!”
In The Standard—“It is an odd incident in the life of Captain Mayne Reid, that its active part ended suddenly, just when he might be supposed to think that it was seriously beginning. In 1849 he came to London, and began to pour forth that wonderful stream of romance, which never quite failed through thirty-four years, to the day of his death. Captain Mayne Reid wrote for men and women, as well as boys; but there was not, we believe, a word in his books which a schoolboy could not read aloud to his mother and sisters.”
In The Daily News—“An active man of adventurous temperament, he imparted his own animal spirits and his passion for the marvellous into the products of his busy brain. He was born with a zest for travel, which he contrived to indulge at a very early age. He explored American backwoods, hunted with Indians up the Red River, and roamed the boundless prairie on his own account. On behalf of the United States, in whose army he received a commission, he fought against Mexico. When his sword was in its sheath, and his fingers held the pen, he wrote with vigour and impetuosity as if under fire. Captain Mayne Reid gave by his books a great deal of innocent pleasure, and they could always be admitted without scruple or inquiry into the best-regulated families.”