"This is my own, my native land!"
Then they all saw something was to pay; but he expected to get through,
I suppose, turned a little pale, but plunged on:—
"Whose heart hath ne'er within him burned
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?—
If such there breathe, go, mark him well,"—
By this time the men were all beside themselves, wishing there was any way to make him turn over two pages; but he had not quite presence of mind for that; he gagged a little, colored crimson, and staggered on:—
"For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite these titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,"—
and here the poor fellow choked, could not go on, but started up, swung the book into the sea, vanished into his stateroom, and we did not see him for two months again. He never entered in with the young men exactly as a companion again; but generally he had the nervous, tired look of a heart-wounded man.
And when Nolan died, there was found in his Bible a slip of paper at the place where he had marked the text:—
"They desire a country, even a heavenly; wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God; for He hath prepared for them a city."
On this slip of paper he had written:—
"Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not
some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that
my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it:—
"In Memory of
"PHILIP NOLAN,
"Lieutenant in the Army of the United States.
"He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but
no man deserved less at her hands."