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Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. 22, March, 1852, Volume 4.

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Title: Harper's New Monthly Magazine, No. 22, March, 1852, Volume 4.


        
Release date: June 26, 2010 [eBook #32983]
                Most recently updated: June 16, 2020

Language: English

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*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK HARPER'S NEW MONTHLY MAGAZINE, NO. 22, MARCH, 1852, VOLUME 4. ***





                                 Harper’s

                           New Monthly Magazine

                     No. XXII.—March, 1852.—Vol. IV.





CONTENTS


Rodolphus.—A Franconia Story. By Jacob Abbott.
Recollections Of St. Petersburg.
A Love Affair At Cranford.
Anecdotes Of Monkeys.
The Mountain Torrent.
A Masked Ball At Vienna.
The Ornithologist.
A Child’s Toy.
“Rising Generation”-Ism.
A Taste Of Austrian Jails.
Who Knew Best?
My First Place.
The Point Of Honor.
Christmas In Germany.
The Miracle Of Life.
Personal Sketches And Reminiscences. By Mary Russell Mitford.
   Recollections Of Childhood.
   Married Poets.—Elizabeth Barrett Browning—Robert Browning.
   Incidents Of A Visit At The House Of William Cobbett.
   A Reminiscence Of The French Emigration.
The Dream Of The Weary Heart.
New Discoveries In Ghosts.
Keep Him Out!
Story Of Rembrandt.
The Viper.
Esther Hammond’s Wedding-Day.
My Novel; Or, Varieties In English Life.
A Brace Of Blunders By A Roving Englishman.
Public Executions In England.
What To Do In The Mean Time?
The Lost Ages.
Blighted Flowers.
Monthly Record of Current Events.
   United States.
   Mexico.
   Great Britain.
   France.
   Austria And Hungary.
Editor’s Table.
Editor’s Easy Chair
Editor’s Drawer.
Literary Notices.
A Leaf from Punch.
Fashions for March.
Footnotes






RODOLPHUS.—A FRANCONIA STORY.(1) BY JACOB ABBOTT.


SCENE OF THE STORY.

Franconia, a village among the mountains at the North.

PRINCIPAL PERSONS.

RODOLPHUS.

ELLEN LINN: his sister, residing with her aunt up the glen.

ANNIE LINN, a younger sister.

ANTOINE BIANCHINETTE, a French boy, at service at Mrs. Henry’s, a short
distance from the village. He is called generally by grown people Antonio,
and by the children Beechnut.

MALLEVILLE, Mrs. Henry’s niece.

ALPHONZO, called commonly Phonny, her son.

MR. KEEP, a lawyer.




Chapter I.


The manner in which indulgence and caprice on the part of the parent, lead
to the demoralization and ruin of the child, is illustrated by the history
of Rodolphus.



I. Bad Training.


Rodolphus, whatever may have been his faults, was certainly a very
ingenious boy. When he was very young he made a dove-house in the end of
his father’s shed, all complete, with openings for the doves to go in and
out in front, and a door for himself behind. He made a ladder, also, by
which he could mount up to the door. He did all this with boards, which he
obtained from an old fence, for material, and an ax, and a wood saw, for
his only tools. His father, when he came to see the dove-house, was much
pleased with the ingenuity which Rodolphus had displayed in the
construction of it—though he found fault with him for taking away the
boards from the fence without permission. This, however, gave Rodolphus
very little concern.

                             [Illustration.]

                            The Rabbit House.


When the dove house was completed, Rodolphus obtained a pair of young
doves from a farmer who lived about a mile away, and put them into a nest
which he made for them in a box, inside.

At another time not long after this, he formed a plan for having some
rabbits, and accordingly he made a house for them in a corner of the yard
where he lived, a little below the village of Franconia. He made the house
out of an old barrel. He sawed a hole in one side of the barrel, near the
bottom of it, as it stood up upon one end—for a door, in order that the
rabbits might go in and out. He put a roof over the top of it, to keep out
the rain and snow. He also placed a _keg_ at the side of the barrel, by
way of wing into the building. There was a roof over this wing, too, as
well as over the main body of the house, or, rather, there was a board
placed over it, like a roof, though in respect to actual use this covering
was more properly a _lid_ than roof, for the keg was intended to be used
as a _store-room_, to keep the provisions in, which the rabbits were to
eat. The board, therefore, which formed the roof of the wing of the
building, was fastened at one edge, by leather hinges, and so could be
lifted up and let down again at pleasure.

Rodolphus’s mother was unwilling that he should have any rabbits. She
thought that such animals in Rodolphus’s possession would make her a great
deal of trouble. But Rodolphus said that he _would_ have some. At least,
he said, he would have _one_.

Rodolphus was standing in the path, in front of the door of his mother’s
house, when he said this. His mother was upon the great flat stone which
served for a step.

“But Beechnut asks a quarter of a dollar for his rabbits.” said his
mother, in an expostulating tone, “and you have not got any money.”

“Ah, but I know where I can get some money,” said Rodolphus.

“Where?” said his mother.

“Father will give it to me,” said Rodolphus.

“But I shall ask him not to give it to you,” said his mother.

“I don’t care,” said Rodolphus. “I can get it, if you do.”

“How?” asked his mother.

Rodolphus did not answer, but began to turn summersets and cut capers on
the grass, making all sorts of antic gestures and funny grimaces toward
his mother. Mrs. Linn, for that was his mother’s name, laughed, and then
went into the house, saying, as she went, “Oh, Rolf, Rolf, what a little
rogue you are!”

Rodolphus’s father was a workman, and he was away from home almost all the
day, though sometimes Rodolphus himself went to the place where he worked,
to see him. When Mr. Linn came home at night, sometimes he _played_ with
Rodolphus, and sometimes he quarreled with him: but he never really
_governed_ him.

For example, when Rodolphus was a very little boy, he would climb up into
his father’s lap, and begin to feel in his father’s waistcoat pockets for
money. If his father directed him not to do so, Rodolphus would pay no
regard to it. If he attempted to take Rodolphus’s hands away by force,
Rodolphus would scream, and struggle; and so his father, not wishing to
make a disturbance, would desist. If Mr. Linn frowned and spoke sternly,
Rodolphus would tickle him and make him laugh.

Finally, Rodolphus would succeed in getting a cent, perhaps, or some other
small coin, from his father’s pocket, and would then climb down and run
away. The father would go after him, and try all sorts of coaxings and
threatenings, to induce Rodolphus to bring the cent back—while Mrs. Linn
would look on, laughing, and saying, perhaps, “Ah; let him have the cent,
husband. It is not much.”

Being encouraged thus by his mother’s interposition, Rodolphus would of
course persevere, and the contest would end at last by his keeping the
money. Then he would insist the next day, on going into the little village
close by, and spending it for gingerbread. He would go, while eating his
gingerbread, to where his father was at work, and hold it up to his father
as in triumph—making it a sort of trophy, as it were, of victory. His
father would shake his finger at him, laughing at the same time, and
saying, “Ah, Rolf! Rolf! what a little rogue you are!”

Rodolphus, in fact, generally contrived to have his own way in almost
every thing. His mother did not attempt to govern him; she tried to
_manage_ him; but in the end it generally proved that he managed her. In
fact, whenever he was engaged in any contest with his mother, his father
would usually take the boy’s part, just as his mother had done in his
contests with his father.

For instance, one winter evening when he was quite a small boy, he was
sitting in a corner playing with some blocks. He was building a saw-mill.
His mother was at work in a little kitchen which opened into the room
where he was at play. His father was sitting on the settle, by the fire,
reading a newspaper. The door was open which led into the kitchen, and
Rodolphus, while he was at work upon his mill, watched his mother’s
motions, for he knew that when she had finished the work which she was
doing, and had swept up the room, she would come to put him to bed. So
Rodolphus went on building the mill, and the bridge, and the flume which
was to convey the water to his mill, listening all the time to the sounds
in the kitchen, and looking up from time to time, with a very watchful
eye, at the door.

At length he heard the sound of the sweeping, and a few minutes afterward
his mother appeared at the door, coming in. Rodolphus dropped his blocks,
sprang to his feet, and ran round behind the table—a round table which
stood out in the middle of the room.

“Now, Rodolphus,” said his mother, in a tone of remonstrance, looking at
the same time very seriously at him. “It is time for you to go to bed.”

Rodolphus said nothing, but began to dance about, looking at his mother
very intently all the time, and moving this way and that, as she moved, so
as to keep himself exactly on the opposite side of the table from her.

“Rodolphus!” said his mother, in a very stern and commanding tone. “Come
to me this minute.”

Rodolphus continued his dancing.

Rodolphus’s mother was a very beautiful young woman. Her dark glossy hair
hung in curls upon her neck.

When she found that it did no good to command Rodolphus, the stern
expression of her face changed into a smile, and she said,

“Well, if you won’t come, I shall have to catch you, that’s all.”

So saying, she ran round the table to catch him. Rodolphus ran too. His
mother turned first one way and then the other, but she could not get any
nearer to the fugitive. Rodolphus kept always on the farthest side of the
table from her. Presently Mr. Linn himself looked up and began to cheer
Rodolphus, and encourage him to run; and once when Mrs. Linn nearly caught
him and he yet escaped, Mr. Linn clapped his hands in token of his joy.

Mrs. Linn was now discouraged: so she stopped, and looking sternly at
Rodolphus again, she said,

“Now, Rodolphus, you _must_ come to me. Come this minute. If you don’t
come, I shall certainly punish you.” She spoke these words with a great
deal of force and emphasis, in order to make Rodolphus think that she was
really in earnest. But Rodolphus did not believe that she was in earnest,
and so it was evident that he had no intention to obey.

Mrs. Linn then thought of another plan for catching the fugitive, which
was to push the table along to one side of the room, or up into a corner,
and get Rodolphus out from behind it in that way. So she began to push.
Rodolphus immediately began to resist her attempt, by pushing against the
table himself, on the other side. His mother was the strongest, however,
and she succeeded in gradually working the table, with Rodolphus before
it, over to the further side of the room, notwithstanding all the efforts
that he made to prevent it. When he found at last that he was likely to be
caught, he left the table and ran behind the settle where his father was
reading. His mother ran after him and caught him in the corner.

She attempted to take him, but Rodolphus began to struggle and scream, and
to shake his shoulders when she took hold of them, evincing his
determination not to go with her. At the same time he called out, “Father!
father!”

His father looked around at the end of the settle to see what was the
matter.

“He won’t let me put him to bed,” said Mrs. Linn, “and it was time half an
hour ago.”

“Oh, let him sit up a little while longer if he likes,” said Mr. Linn.
“It’s of no use to make him cry.”

Mrs. Linn reluctantly left Rodolphus, murmuring to herself that he ought
to go to bed. Very soon, she said, he would be asleep upon the floor. “I
would _make_ him go,” she added, “only if he cries and makes a noise, it
will wake Annie.”

In fact Annie was beginning to move a little in the cradle then. The
cradle in which Annie was sleeping was by the side of the fire, opposite
to the settle. Mrs. Linn went to it, to rock it, so that Annie might go to
sleep again, and Rodolphus returned victorious to his mill.

These are specimens of the ways in which Rodolphus used to manage his
father and mother, while he was quite young. He became more and more
accomplished and capable in attaining his ends as he grew older, and
finally succeeded in establishing the ascendency of his own will over that
of his father and mother, almost entirely.

He was about four years old when the incidents occurred which have been
just described. When he was about five years old, he used to begin to go
and play alone down by the water. His father’s house was near the water,
just below the bridge. There were some high rocks near the shore, and a
large flat rock rising out of the water. Rodolphus liked very much to go
down to this flat rock and play upon it. His mother was very much afraid
to have him go upon this rock, for the water was deep near it, and she was
afraid that he might fall in. But Rodolphus would go.

The road which led to Mr. Linn’s from the village, passed round the rocks
above, at some distance above the bank of the stream. There was a fence
along upon the outer side of the road, with a little gate where Rodolphus
used to come through. From the gate there was a path, with steps, which
led down to the water. At one time, in order to prevent Rodolphus from
going down there, Mr. Linn fastened up the gate. Then Rodolphus would
climb over the fence. So his father, finding that it did no good to fasten
up the gate, opened it again.

Not content with going down to the flat stone contrary to his mother’s
command, Rodolphus would sometimes threaten to go there and jump off, by
way of terrifying her, when his mother would not give him what he wanted.
This would frighten Mrs. Linn very much, and she would usually yield at
once to his demands, in order to avert the danger. Finally she persuaded
her husband to wheel several loads of stones there and fill up the deep
place, after which she was less uneasy about Rodolphus’s jumping in.

Rodolphus was about ten years old when he made his rabbit house. Annie,
his sister, had grown up too. She was two years younger than Rodolphus,
and of course was eight. She was beautiful like her mother. She had blue
eyes, and her dark hair hung in curls about her neck. She was a gentle and
docile girl, and was often much distressed to see how disobedient and
rebellious Rodolphus was toward his father and mother.

She went out to see the rabbit house which Rodolphus had made, and she
liked it very much See wished that her mother would allow them to have a
rabbit to put into it, and she said so, as she stood looking at it, with
her hands behind her.

“I am sorry, that mother is not willing that you should have a rabbit,”
said she.

“Oh, never mind that,” said Rodolphus, “I’ll have one for all that, you
may depend.”

                  ‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐‐

That evening when Mr. Linn came home from his work, he took a seat near
the door, where he could look out upon the little garden. His mother was
busy setting the table for tea.

“Father,” said Rodolphus, “I wish you would give me a quarter of a
dollar.”

“What for,” said Mr. Linn.

“To buy a rabbit,” said Rodolphus.

“No,” said his mother, “I wish you would not give him any money. I have
told him that I don’t wish him to have any rabbits.”

“Yes,” said Rodolphus, speaking to his father. “Do, it only costs a
quarter of a dollar to get one, and I have got the house all ready for
him.”

“Oh, no, Rolfy,” said his father. “I would not have any rabbits. They are
good for nothing but to gnaw off all the bark and buds in the garden.”

Here there followed a long argument between Rodolphus on the one side, and
his father and mother on the other, they endeavoring in every possible way
to persuade him that a rabbit would be a trouble and not a pleasure. Of
course, Rodolphus was not to be convinced. His father however, refused to
give him any money, and Rodolphus ceased to ask for it. His mother thought
that he submitted to his disappointment with very extraordinary
good-humor. But the fact was, he was not submitting to disappointment at
all. He had formed another plan.

He began playing with Annie about the yard and garden, saying no more, and
apparently thinking no more about his rabbit, for some time. At last he
came up to his father’s side and said,

“Father, will you lend me your keys?”

“What do you want my keys for?” asked his father.

“I want to whistle with them,” said Rodolphus. “Annie is my dog, and I
want to whistle to her.”

“No,” said his father, “you will lose them. You must whistle with your
mouth.”

“But I can’t whistle with my mouth, Annie makes me laugh so much. I must
have the keys.”

So saying, Rodolphus began to feel in his father’s pockets for the keys.
Mr. Linn resisted his efforts a little, remonstrating with him all the
time, and saying that he could not let his keys go. Rodolphus, however,
persevered, and finally succeeded in getting the keys, and running away
with them.

His father called him to come back, but he would not come.

Rodolphus whistled in one of the keys a few minutes, playing with Annie,
and then, after a little while, he said to her, in a whisper, and in a
very mysterious manner,

“Annie, come with me!”

So saying, he went round the corner of the house, and there entering the
house by means of a door which led into the kitchen, he passed through
into the room where his father was sitting, without being seen by his
father. He walked very softly as he went, too, and so the sound of his
footsteps was not heard. Annie remained at the door when Rodolphus went
in. She asked him as he went in what he was going to do, but Rodolphus
only answered by saying in a whisper, “Hush! Wait here till I come back.”

Rodolphus crept slowly up to a bureau which stood behind a door. There was
a certain drawer in this bureau where he knew that his father kept his
money. He was going to open this drawer and see if he could not find a
quarter of a dollar. He succeeded in putting the key into the key-hole,
and in unlocking the drawer without making much noise. He made a little
noise, it is true, and though his father heard it as he sat at the door
looking out toward the garden, his attention was not attracted by it. He
thought, perhaps, that it was Rodolphus’s mother, doing something in that
corner of the room.

Rodolphus pulled the drawer open as gently and noiselessly as he could. In
a corner of the drawer he saw a bag. He knew that it was his father’s
money-bag. He pulled it open and put his hand in, looking round at the
same time stealthily, to see whether his father was observing him.

Just at that instant, Mr. Linn looked round.

“Rolf, you rogue,” said he, “what are you doing’”

Rodolphus did not answer, but seized a small handful of money and ran. His
father started up and pursued him. Among the coins which Rodolphus had
seized there was a quarter of a dollar, and there were besides this
several smaller silver coins, and two or three cents. Rodolphus took the
quarter of a dollar in one hand, as he ran, and threw the other money down
upon the kitchen floor. His father stopped to pick up this money, and by
this means Rodolphus gained distance. He ran out from the kitchen into the
yard, and from the yard into the road—his father pursuing him. Rodolphus
went on at the top of his speed, filling the air with shouts of laughter.

He scrambled up a steep path which led to the top of the rocks; his father
stopped below.

“Ah, Rolfy!” said his father, in an entreating sort of tone. “Give me back
that money; that’s a good boy.”

Rolfy did not answer, but stood upon a pinnacle of the rock, holding one
of his hands behind him.

“Did you throw down all the money that you took,” said his father.

“No,” said Rodolphus.

“How much have you got now?” said his father.

“A quarter of a dollar,” said the boy.

“Come down, then, and give it to me,” said his father. “Come down this
minute.”

“No,” said Rodolphus, “I want it to buy my rabbit.”

Mr. Linn paused a moment, looking perplexed, as if uncertain what to do.

At length he said,

“Yes, bring back the money, Rolfy, that’s a good boy, and to-morrow I’ll
go and buy you a rabbit myself.”

Rodolphus knew that he could not trust to such a promise, and so he would
not come. Mr. Linn seemed more perplexed than ever. He began to be
seriously angry with the boy, and he resolved, that as soon as he could
catch him, he would punish him severely: but he saw that it was useless to
attempt to pursue him.

Rodolphus looked toward the house, and there he saw his mother standing at
the kitchen-door, laughing. He held up the quarter of a dollar toward her,
between his thumb and finger, and laughed too.

“If you don’t come down, I shall come up there after you,” said Mr. Linn.

“You can’t catch me, if you do,” said Rodolphus.

Mr. Linn began to ascend the rocks. Rodolphus, however, who was, of
course, more nimble than his father, went on faster than his father could
follow. He passed over the highest portion, of the hill, and then
clambered down upon the other side, to the road. He crossed the road, and
then began climbing down the bank, toward the shore. He had often been up
and down that path before, and he accordingly descended very quick and
very easily.

When he reached the shore, he went out to the flat rock, and there stopped
and turned round to look at his father. Mr. Linn was standing on the brink
of the cliff, preparing to come down.

“Stop,” said Rodolphus to his father. “If you come down, I will throw the
quarter of a dollar into the water.”

So saying, Rodolphus extended his hand as if he were about to throw the
money off, into the stream.

                             [Illustration.]

                               The Pursuit.


Mrs. Linn and Annie had come out from the house, to see how Mr. Linn’s
pursuit of the fugitive would end; but instead of following Rodolphus and
his father over the rocks, they had come across the road to the little
gate, where they could see the flat rock on which Rodolphus was standing,
and his father on the cliffs above. Mrs. Linn stood in the gateway. Annie
had come forward, and was standing in the path, at the head of the steps.
When she saw Rodolphus threatening to throw the money into the river, she
seemed very much concerned and distressed. She called out to her brother,
in a very earnest manner.

“Rodolphus! Rodolphus! That is my father’s quarter of a dollar. You _must
not_ throw it away.”

“I _will_ throw it away,” said Rodolphus, “and I’ll jump into the water
myself, in the deepest place that I can find, if he won’t let me have it
to buy my rabbit with.”

“I would let him have it, husband,” said Mrs. Linn, “if he wants it so
very much. I don’t care much about it, on the whole. I don’t think the
rabbit will be any great trouble.”

When Rodolphus heard his mother say this, he considered the case as
decided, and he walked off from the flat rock to the shore, and from the
shore up the path to his mother. There was some further conversation
between Rodolphus and his parents in respect to the rabbit, but it was
finally concluded that the rabbit should be bought, and Rodolphus was
allowed to keep the quarter of a dollar accordingly.

Such was the way in which Rodolphus was brought up in his childhood. It is
not surprising that he came in the end to be a very bad boy.



II. Ellen.


The next morning after Rodolphus had obtained his quarter of a dollar in
the manner we have described, he proposed to Annie to go with him to buy
his rabbit. It would not be very far, he said.

“I should like to go very much,” said Annie, “if my mother will let me.”

“O, she will let you,” said Rodolphus, “_I_ can get her to let you.”

Rodolphus waited till his father had gone away after breakfast, before
asking his mother to let Annie go with him. He was afraid that his father
might make some objection to the plan. After his father had gone, he went
to ask his mother.

At first she said very decidedly that Annie could not go.

“Why not?” asked Rodolphus.

“Oh, I could not trust her with you so far,” replied his mother, “she is
too little.”

There followed a long and earnest debate between Rodolphus and his mother,
which ended at last in her consent that Annie should go.

Rodolphus found a basket in the shed, which he took to bring his rabbit
home in. He put a cloth into the basket, and also a long piece of twine.
The cloth was to spread over the top of the basket, and the twine to tie
round it, in order to keep the rabbit in.

When Rodolphus was ready to go, his mother told him that she was afraid
that he might lose his quarter of a dollar on the way, and in order to
make it more secure, she proposed to tie it up for him in the corner of a
pocket handkerchief.

“Why, that would not do any good, mother,” said Rodolphus, “for then I
should only lose handkerchief and all.”

“No,” replied his mother. “You would not be so likely to lose the
handkerchief. The handkerchief could not be shaken out of your pocket so
easily, nor get out through any small hole. Besides, if you should by any
chance lose the money, you could find it again much more readily if it was
tied up in a handkerchief, that being so large and easily seen.”

So Mrs. Linn tied the money in the corner of a pocket handkerchief, and
then put the handkerchief itself in Rodolphus’s pocket.

The place where Rodolphus lived was in Franconia, just below the village.
There was a bridge in the middle of the village with a dam across the
stream just above it. There were mills near the dam. Just below the dam
the water was very rapid.

Rodolphus walked along with Annie till he came to the bridge. On the way,
as soon as he got out of sight of the house, he pulled the handkerchief
out of his pocket, and began untying the knot.

“What are you going to do?” asked Annie.

“I am going to take the money out of this pocket handkerchief,” said
Rodolphus.

So saying he untied the knot, and when he had got the money out he put the
money itself in one pocket and the handkerchief in the other, and then
walked along again.

When Rodolphus reached the bridge he turned to go over it. Annie was at
first afraid to go over it. She wanted to go some other way.

“There _is_ no other way,” said Rodolphus.

“Where is it that you are going to get the rabbit?” asked Annie.

“To Beechnut’s,” said Rodolphus.

“Beechnut’s,” repeated Annie, “that’s a funny name.”

“Why, his real name is Antonio,” said Rodolphus. “But, come, walk along;
there is no danger in going over the bridge.”

Notwithstanding her brother’s assurances that there was no danger, Annie
was very much afraid of the bridge. She however walked along, but she kept
as near the middle of the roadway as she could. Sometimes she came to wide
cracks in the floor of the bridge, through which she could see the water
foaming and tumbling over the rocks far below. There was a sort of
balustrade or railing each side of the bridge, but it was very open.
Rodolphus went to this railing and putting his head between the bars of
it, looked down.

Annie begged him to come back. But he said he wished to look and see if
there were any fishes down there in the water. In the mean time Annie
walked along very carefully, taking long steps over the cracks, and
choosing her way with great caution. Presently she heard a noise behind
her, and looking round she saw a wagon coming. This frightened her more
than ever. So she began to run as fast as she could run, and very soon she
got safely across the bridge. When she reached the land, she went out to
the side of the road to let the wagon go by, and sat down there to wait
for her brother.

Presently Rodolphus came. Annie left her seat and went back into the road
to meet him, and so they walked along together.

“If his name is truly Antonio,” said Annie, “why don’t you call him
Antonio?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Rodolphus, “the boys always call him Beechnut.”

“_I_ mean to call him Antonio,” said Annie, “if I see him.”

“Well, you _will_ see him,” said Rodolphus, “for we go right where he
lives.”

“Where does he live?” asked Annie.

“He lives at Phonny’s,” said Rodolphus.

“And where is Phonny’s?” asked Annie.

“Oh, it is a house up here by the valley. Didn’t you ever go there?”

“No,” said Annie.

“It is a very pleasant house,” said Rodolphus. “There is a river in front
of it, and a pier, and a boat. There is a boat-house, too. There used to
be a little girl there, too—just about as big as you.”

“What was her name?” asked Annie.

“Malleville,” replied Rodolphus.

“I have heard about Malleville,” said Annie.

“How did you hear about her?” asked Rodolphus.

“My sister Ellen told me about her,” said Annie.

“We can go and see Ellen,” said Rodolphus, “after we have got the rabbit.”

“Well,” said Annie, “I should like to go and see her very much.”

Rodolphus and Annie had a sister Ellen. She was two years older than
Rodolphus. Rodolphus was at this time about ten. Ellen was twelve. Antonio
was fourteen. Ellen did not live at home. She lived with her aunt. She
went to live with her aunt when she was about eight years old. Her aunt
lived in a small farm-house among the mountains, and when Ellen was about
eight years old, she was taken sick, and so Ellen went to the house to
help take care of her.

Ellen was a very quiet and still, and at the same time a very diligent and
capable girl. She was very useful to her aunt in her sickness. She took
care of the fire, and kept the room in order; and she set a little table
very neatly at the bedside, when her aunt got well enough to take food.

It was a long time before her aunt was well enough to leave her bed, and
then she could not sit up much, and she could not walk about at all. She
could only lie upon a sort of sofa, which her husband made for her in his
shop. So Ellen remained to take care of her from week to week, until at
last her aunt’s house became her home altogether.

Ellen liked to live at her aunt’s very much, for the house was quiet, and
orderly, and well-managed, and every thing went smoothly and pleasantly
there. At home, on the other hand, every thing was always in confusion,
and Rodolphus made so much noise and uproar, and encroached so much on the
peace and comfort of the family by his self-will and his domineering
temper, that Ellen was always uneasy and unhappy when she was at her
mother’s. She liked to be at her aunt’s, therefore, better; and as her
aunt liked _her_, she gradually came to make that her home. Rodolphus used
frequently to go and see her, and even Annie went sometimes.

Annie was very much pleased with the plan of going now to make Ellen a
visit. They walked quietly along the road, talking of this plan, when
Annie suddenly called out;

“Oh, Rodolphus, look there!”

Rodolphus looked, and saw a drove of cattle coming along the road. It was
a very large drove, and it filled up the road almost entirely.

“Who cares for that?” said Rodolphus.

Annie seemed to care for it very much. She ran out to the side of the
road.

Rodolphus walked quietly after her, saying, “Don’t be afraid, Annie. You
can climb up on the fence, if you like, till they get by.”

There was a large stump by the side of the fence, at the place where
Rodolphus and Annie approached it, and Rodolphus, running to it, said,
“Quick, Annie, quick! climb up on this stump.”

Rodolphus climbed up on the stump, and then helped Annie up after him.
They had, however, but just got their footing upon it, when Rodolphus
looked down at his feet and saw a hornet crawling out of a crevice in the
side of the stump. “Ah, Annie, Annie! a hornet’s nest! a hornet’s nest!”
exclaimed Rodolphus; “we must run.”

So saying, Rodolphus climbed down from the stump, on the side opposite to
where he had seen the hornet come out, and then helped Annie down.

“We must run across to the other side of the road,” said he.

So saying, he hurried back into the road again, leading Annie by the hand.
They found, however, that they were too late to gain the fence on the
other side, for several of the cattle had advanced along by the green bank
on that side so far that the fence was lined with them, and Rodolphus saw
at a glance, that he could not get near it.

“Never mind, Annie,” said Rodolphus, “we will stay here, right in the
middle of the road. Stand behind me, and I will keep the cattle off with
my basket.”

So Annie took her stand behind Rodolphus, in the middle of the road, while
Rodolphus, by swinging his basket to and fro, toward the cattle as they
came on, made them separate to the right and left, and pass by on each
side. Rodolphus, besides waving his basket at the cattle, shouted to them
in a very stern and authoritative manner, saying, “Hie! Whoh! Hie-up,
there! Ho!” The cattle were slow to turn out—but they did turn out, just
before they came to where Rodolphus and Annie were standing—crowding and
jamming each other in great confusion. The herd closed together again as
soon as they had passed the children, so that for a time Rodolphus and
Annie stood in a little space in the road, with the monstrous oxen all
around them.

At length the herd all passed safely by, and then Rodolphus and Annie went
on. After walking along a little farther, they came to the bank of a
river. The road lay along the bank of this river. There was a smooth sandy
beach down by the water. Rodolphus and Annie went down there a few minutes
to ploy. There was an old raft there. It was floating in the water, but
was fastened by a rope to a stake in the sand.

“Ah, here is a raft, Annie,” said Rodolphus. “I’ll tell you what we will
do. We will go the rest of the way by water, on this raft. I’m tired of
walking so far.”

“Oh, no,” said Annie, “I’m afraid to go on that raft. It will sink.”

“O, no,” said Rodolphus, “it will not sink. See.” So saying, he stepped
upon the raft, to show Annie how stable it was.

“I’ll get a block,” he continued, “for you to sit on.”

Annie was very much afraid of the raft, though she was not quite so much
afraid of it as she had been of the bridge, because the bridge was very
high up above the water, and there was, consequently as she imagined,
danger of a fall. Besides the water where the raft was lying, was smooth
and still, while that beneath the bridge was a roaring torrent. Finally,
Annie allowed herself to be persuaded to get upon the raft. Rodolphus
found a block lying upon the shore, and he put that upon the raft for
Annie to sit upon. When Annie was seated, Rodolphus stepped upon the raft
himself, and with a long pole he pushed it out from the shore, while Annie
balanced herself as well as she could upon the block.

The water was not very deep, and Rodolphus could push the raft along very
easily, by setting the end of his pole against the bottom Annie sat upon
her block very still. It happened, however, unfortunately, that the place
where Antonio lived was up the stream, not down, and Rodolphus found that
though he could move his raft very easily round and round, and even back
and forth, he could not get forward much on his way, on account of the
force of the current, which was strong against him. He advanced a little
way, however, and then he began to be tired of so difficult a navigation.

“I don’t think we shall go very far, on the raft,” said he, to Annie,
“there is such a strong tide.”

Just then Rodolphus began to look very intently into the water before him.
He thought he saw a pickerel. He was just going to attempt to spear him
with his pole, when his attention was arrested by hearing Annie call out,
“Oh, Rolfy! Rolfy! the raft is all coming to pieces”

                             [Illustration.]

                                The Raft.


Rodolphus looked round, and saw that the boards of which the raft had been
made, were separating from each other at the end of the raft where Annie
was sitting, and one of the boards was shooting out entirely.

“So it is,” said Rodolphus. “Why didn’t they nail it together? You sit
still, and I will push in to the shore.”

Rodolphus attempted to push in to the shore, but in the strenuous efforts
which he made for that purpose, he stepped about upon the raft irregularly
and in such a manner, as to make the boards separate more and more. At
length the water began to come up around Annie’s feet, and Rodolphus
alarmed at this, hurriedly directed her to stand up, on the block. Annie
tried to do so, but before she effected her purpose, the raft seemed
evidently about going to pieces. It had, however, by this time got very
near the shore, so Rodolphus changed his orders, and called out, “Jump,
Annie, jump!”

Annie jumped; but the part of the raft on which she was standing gave way
under her feet, and she came down into the water. The water was not very
deep. It came up, however, almost to Annie’s knees. Rodolphus himself had
leaped over to the shore, and so had, himself, escaped a wetting. He took
Annie by the hand, and led her also out to the dry land.

Annie began to cry. Rodolphus soothed and quieted her as well as he could.
He took off her stockings and shoes. He poured the water out of the shoes,
and wrung out the stockings. He also wrung out Annie’s dress as far as
possible. He told her not to mind it; her clothes would soon get dry. It
was all the fault of the boys, he said, who made the raft, for not nailing
it together.

Rodolphus had had presence of mind enough to seize his basket, when he
leaped ashore, so that that was safe. The raft, however, went all to
pieces, and the fragments of it floated away down the stream.

Rodolphus and Annie then resumed their journey. Rodolphus talked fast to
Annie, and told her a great many amusing stories, to divert her mind from
the misfortune which had happened to them. He charged her not to tell her
mother, when she got home, that she had been in the water, and made her
promise that she would not.

At length they came to a large house which stood back from the road a
little way, at the entrance to a valley. This was the house, Rodolphus
said, where Beechnut lived. Rodolphus opened a great gate, and he and
Annie went into the yard.

“I think that Beechnut is in some of the barns, or sheds, or somewhere,”
said Rodolphus.

So he and Annie went to the barns and sheds. There was a horse standing in
one of the sheds, harnessed to a wagon, but there were no signs of
Beechnut.

“Perhaps he is in the yard,” said Rodolphus.

So Rodolphus led the way through a shed to a sort of back-yard, where
there was a plank-walk, with lilac-bushes and other shrubbery on one side
of it. Rodolphus and Annie walked along upon the planks. Presently, they
came to a place where there was a ladder standing up against the house.

“Ah!” said Rodolphus, “he is upon the house. Here is the ladder. I think
he is doing something on the house. I mean to go and see.”

“No,” said Annie, “you must not go up on such a high place.”

“Oh, this is not a very high ladder,” said Rodolphus. So saying he began
to go up. Annie stood below, looking up to him as he ascended, and feeling
great apprehension lest he should fall.

The top of the ladder reached up considerably above the top of the house,
and Rodolphus told Annie that he was not going to the top of the ladder,
but only high enough to see if Beechnut was on the house. He told her,
too, that if she walked back toward the garden gate, perhaps _she_ could
see too. Annie accordingly walked back, and looking upward all the time,
she presently saw a young man who she supposed was Beechnut, doing
something to the top of one of the chimneys. By this time Rodolphus had
reached the eaves of the house, in climbing up the ladder, and he came in
sight of Beechnut, too.

                             [Illustration.]

                              Up The Ladder.


“Hie-yo! Dolphin!” said Beechnut, “is that you!”

Beechnut often called Rodolphus, Dolphin.

“May I come up where you are?” said Rodolphus.

“No,” said Beechnut.

When Rodolphus heard this answer, he remained quietly where he was upon
the ladder.

“What are you doing?” said Rodolphus.

“Putting a wire netting over the chimney,” said Beechnut.

“What for!” asked Rodolphus.

“To keep the chimney-swallows from getting in,” said Beechnut.

“Are you coming down pretty soon?” asked Rodolphus.

“Yes,” said Beechnut. “Go down the ladder and wait till I come.”

So Rodolphus went down the ladder again to Annie.

“What is the reason,” said Annie, “that you obey Beechnut so much better
than you do my father?”

“Oh, I don’t know,” said Rodolphus. “He makes me, I suppose.”

It was true that Beechnut made Rodolphus obey him—that is, in all cases
where he was under any obligation to obey him. One day, when he first
became acquainted with Beechnut, he went out upon the pond in Beechnut’s
boat. He wished to row, but Beechnut preferred that some other boy should
row, and directed Rodolphus to sit down upon one of the thwarts. Rodolphus
would not do this, but was determined to row, and he attempted to take
away one of the oars by force. Beechnut immediately turned the head of the
boat toward the shore, and when he reached the shore he directed four of
the strongest boys to put Rodolphus out upon the sand, and then when they
had done this he sailed away in the boat again. Rodolphus took up clubs
and stones, and began to throw them at the boat. Beechnut came back again,
and seizing Rodolphus, he tied his hands behind him with a strong cord.
When he was thus secured Beechnut said to him,

“Now, you may have your choice of two things. You may stay here till we
come back from our excursion, and then, if you seem pretty peaceable, I
will untie you. Or you may go home now, as you are, with your hands tied
behind you in disgrace.”

Rodolphus concluded to remain where he was; for he was well aware that if
he were to go home through the village with his hands tied behind him,
every body would know that the tying was one of Beechnut’s punishments,
and that it had not been resorted to without good reason. Some of the boys
thought that after this occurrence Beechnut would not be willing to have
Rodolphus go with them again in the boat, but Beechnut said “Yes; he may
go with us whenever he pleases. I don’t mind having a rebel on board at
all. I know exactly what to do with rebels.”

“But it is a great trouble,” said one of the boys, “to have them on
board.”

“Not at all,” said Beechnut, “on the other hand it is a pleasure to me to
discipline them.”

Rodolphus very soon found that it was useless to resist Beechnut’s will,
in any case where Beechnut had the right to control; and so he soon formed
the habit of obeying him. He liked Beechnut too, very much. He liked him
in fact, all the better, on account of his firmness and decision.

When Beechnut came down from the housetop, Rodolphus told him he had come
to get a rabbit, and at the same time held out the quarter of a dollar to
view.

“Where did you get the money?” said Beechnut.

“My father gave it to me,” said Rodolphus.

“No,” said Annie, very earnestly, “my father did not give it to you. You
took it away from him.”

“But he gave it to me afterward,” said Rodolphus.

Beechnut inquired what this meant, and Annie explained to him, as well as
she could, the manner in which Rodolphus had obtained his money. Beechnut
then said, that he would not take the quarter of a dollar. The money was
not honestly come by, he said. It was not voluntarily given to Rodolphus,
and therefore was not honestly his. “The money was stolen,” said he, “and
I will not have any stolen money for my rabbits. I would rather give you a
rabbit for nothing.”

This, Beechnut said finally, he would do. “I will _give_ you a rabbit,”
said he, “for the present, and whenever you get a quarter of a dollar,
which is honestly your own, you may come and pay for it, if you please,
and if not, not. But don’t bring me any money which is not truly your own.
And carry that quarter of a dollar back and give it to your father.”

So saying, Beechnut led the way, and Rodolphus and Annie followed him,
into one of the barns. They walked along a narrow passageway, between a
hay-mow on one side, and a row of stalls for cattle on the other. Then
they turned and passed through an open room, and finally came to a place
which Beechnut called a bay. Here there was a little pen, with a house in
it, for the rabbits, and a hole at one side where the rabbits could run in
under the barn. Beechnut called “Benny! Benny! Benny!” and immediately
several rabbits came running out from the hole.

“There,” said Beechnut, “which one will you have?”

The children began immediately to examine the different rabbits, and to
talk very fast and very eagerly about them. Finally, Rodolphus decided in
favor of a gray one, though there was one which was perfectly white, that
Annie seemed to prefer. Beechnut said that he would give Rodolphus the
gray one.

“As to the white one,” said he, “I am going to let you take it, Annie, for
Ellen. I can’t give it to _you_. I give it to Ellen; but, perhaps, she
will let you carry it home with you, and take care of it for her, and so
keep it with Rodolphus’s.”

Annie seemed very much pleased with this plan, and so the two rabbits were
caught and put into the basket. The cloth was then tied over them, and
Rodolphus and Annie prepared to go away.

“But, stop,” said Beechnut, “I am going directly by your aunt’s in my
wagon, and I can give you a ride.”

“Well,” said Annie, dancing about and clapping her hands. It was very
seldom that Annie had an opportunity to take a ride. She ran to the wagon.
Rodolphus followed her slowly, carrying the basket. Beechnut helped in the
two children, and then got in himself, and took his seat between them.
Rodolphus held the basket between his knees, peeping in under the cloth,
now and then, to see if the rabbits were safe.

                             [Illustration.]

                        The Yard at Mr. Randon’s.


The party traveled on by a winding and very pleasant road among the
mountains, for about a mile, and at length they drove up to the door of a
pleasant little farm-house in a sort of dell. There was a high hill behind
it—overhung with forest trees. There was a spacious yard at the end of the
house, with ducks, and geese, and chickens, in the back part of it. There
was a large dog lying asleep on the great flat stone step when the wagon
came up, but when he heard the wagon coming, awoke, opened his eyes, got
up, and walked away. There was a well in the middle of the yard. Beechnut
rode round the well, and drove up to the door. Ellen was sitting at the
window. As soon as she saw the wagon, she got up and ran to the door.

“How do you do, Ellen!” said Beechnut.

“How do you do, Antonio!” said Ellen, “I am much obliged to you for
bringing my brother and sister to see me.”

So saying, she came to the wagon and helped Annie out. Rodolphus, who was
on the other side of Beechnut, then handed her his basket, saying, “Here,
Ellen, take this very carefully. There are two rabbits in it, and one of
them is for you.”

“For me,” said Ellen.

“Yes,” said Annie, “only I am to take care of it for you.”

“Good-by,” said Beechnut. He was just beginning, as he said this, to drive
the wagon away.

“Good-by, Beechnut,” said Rodolphus.

“I am much obliged to you for my ride,” said Annie.

“Stop a minute, Antonio,” said Ellen, “I have got something for you.”

So saying, Ellen went into the house and brought out a small flat parcel,
neatly put up and addressed on the outside, ANTONIO.

She took it out to the wagon, and handed it up to Antonio, saying that
there were the last drawings that he had lent her. In fact, Ellen was one
of Beechnut’s pupils in drawing. He was accustomed to lend her models,
which, when she had copied them, she sent back to him. Ellen was one of
Antonio’s favorite pupils; she was so faithful, and patient, and
persevering. Besides, she was a very beautiful girl.

“I must not stop to see your copies now,” said Antonio, “but I shall come
again pretty soon. Good-by.”

“Good-by,” said Ellen: and then she went back to the door where Rodolphus
and Annie were standing.

Rodolphus lifted up the corner of the cloth, which covered the basket, and
let Ellen see the rabbits. Ellen was very much pleased to find that one of
them was hers. She said that she would put a collar on its neck, as a mark
that it was hers, and she asked Rodolphus and Annie to go in with her into
the house, where she said she would get the collar.

So they all went in. The room was a very pleasant room, indeed. It was
large and it was in perfect order. There was a very spacious fire-place in
it, but scarcely any fire. As it was summer, no fire was necessary. At one
side of the room, near a window, there was a table, which Ellen said was
_her_ table. There were two drawers in this table. These drawers contained
books, and papers, and various articles of apparatus for writing and
drawing. In one corner of one of the drawers there was a little paint box.

There was a small bedroom adjoining the room where the children were. They
all pretty soon heard a voice calling from this room, in a pleasant tone,
“Ellen, bring the children in here.”

“Yes; come Rolfy,” said Ellen—“and Annie—come and see aunt.” So all the
children went into their aunt’s room.

They found her half-sitting and half-lying upon her sofa, by a pleasant
window, which looked out upon a green yard and upon an orchard which was
beyond the yard. She was sewing. She looked pale, but she seemed contented
and happy—and she said that she was very glad to see Rodolphus and Annie.
She talked with them some time, and then asked Ellen to get them some
luncheon. Ellen accordingly went into the other room and set the table for
luncheon, by _her_ window as she called it. This window was a very
pleasant one, near her table. The luncheon consisted of a pie, some cake,
warm from the oven, and some baked apples, and cream. Ellen said that she
made the cake, and the pie, and baked the apples herself.

The children ate their luncheon together very happily, and then spent some
time in walking about the yards, the barns, and the garden, to see what
was to be seen. Rodolphus walked about quietly and behaved well. In fact,
he was always a good boy at his aunt’s, and obeyed all her directions—she
would not allow him to do otherwise.

At length Rodolphus and Annie set out on their return home. It was a long
walk, but in due time they reached home in safety. Rodolphus determined
not to give the money back to his father, and so he hid it in a crevice,
which he found in a part of the fence behind his rabbit house. He put the
rabbits in their house, and put a board up before the door to keep them
in.

That night when Mrs. Linn took off Annie’s stockings by the kitchen fire,
when she was going to put her to bed, she found them very damp.

“Why, Annie,” she said, “what makes your stockings so damp? You must have
got into the water somewhere to-day.”

Annie did not answer. Rodolphus had enjoined it upon her not to tell their
mother of their adventure on the raft, and so she did not know what to
say.

“Damp?” said Rodolphus. “Are they damp? Let me feel.” So he began to feel
of Annie’s stockings.

“No,” said he, “they are not damp. _I_ can’t feel that they are damp.”

“They certainly are,” said his mother. “They are very damp indeed.”

“Then,” said Rodolphus, “we must have spilled some water into them when we
were getting a drink, Annie, at the well.” Annie said nothing, and Mrs.
Linn hung the stockings up to dry.



III. Sickness.


Ellen’s aunt was the sister of Mr. Linn, Ellen’s father; and her name was
Anne. Ellen used to call her Aunt Anne. Her husband’s name was Randon, so
that sometimes Ellen called her Aunt Randon.

Though Mr. Randon’s house appeared rather small, as seen from the road by
any one riding by, it was pretty spacious and very comfortable within. Mr.
Randon owned several farms in different places, and he was away from home
a great deal attending to his other farms and to the flocks of sheep and
herds of cattle which he had upon them. During these absences Mrs. Randon
of course remained at home with Ellen. There was a girl named Martha who
lived at the house to do the work of the family, and also a young man
named Hugh. Hugh was employed in the mornings and evenings in taking care
of the barns and the cattle, and in the day-time, especially in the
winter, he hauled wood—sometimes to the house for the family to burn, and
sometimes to the village for sale.

The family lived thus very happily together, whether Mr. Randon was at
home or away. Mrs. Randon could not walk about the house at all, but was,
on the other hand, confined all day to her bed or her sofa; but she knew
every thing that was done; and gave directions about every thing. Ellen
was employed as messenger to carry her aunt’s directions out, and to bring
back intelligence and answers. Mrs. Randon knew exactly what was in every
room, and where it was in the room. She knew what was in every drawer, and
what was on every shelf in every closet, and what and how much was in
every bin in the cellar. So that if she wanted any thing she could direct
Ellen where to go to get it with a certainty that it would be exactly
there. The house was very full of furniture, stores, and supplies, and all
was so well arranged and in such an orderly and complete condition, that
in going over it every room that the visitor entered seemed pleasanter
than the one seen before.

On one occasion, Rodolphus himself had proof of this admirable order. He
had cut his finger, in the shed, and when he came in, Mrs. Randon, after
binding it up very nicely, turned to Ellen, and said,

“Now, Ellen, we must have a cot. Go up into the garret, and open the third
trunk, counting from the west window. In the right-hand front corner of
this trunk you will find a small box. In the box you will find three cots.
Bring the smallest one to me.”

Ellen went and found every thing as Mrs. Randon had described it.

There was a room in the front part of the house called the Front Room,
which was usually kept shut up. It was furnished as a parlor very
prettily. It had very full curtains to the windows, a soft carpet on the
floor, and a rug before the fire-place. There was a bookcase in this room,
with a desk below. Mr. Randon kept his valuable papers in this desk, and
the book-case above was filled with interesting books. There were several
very pretty pictures on the walls of this room, and some curious ornaments
on the mantle shelf. The blinds of the windows in this apartment were
generally closed and the curtains drawn, and Ellen seldom went into it,
except to get a new book to read to her aunt, out of the secretary.

The room which the family generally used, was a back room. It was quite
large, and it had a very spacious fire-place in it. Being larger than any
other room in the house it was generally called the Great Room. The
windows of this room looked out upon a pretty green yard, with a garden
and an orchard beyond. There was a door too at one end of the room opening
to a porch. In this porch was an outer door, which led to a large yard at
the end of the house. This was the door that Antonio had driven up to,
when he brought Rodolphus and Annie to see Ellen. On the other side of the
kitchen from the porch-door, was a door leading to Mrs. Randon’s bed-room.
The situation of these rooms, and of the other apartments of the house as
well as of the principal articles of furniture hereafter to be described,
may be perfectly understood by the means of the following plan.

                             [Illustration.]

   Plan of Mrs. Randon’s House. B: Bed in Mrs Randon’s bed-room. W: The
 closed windows. B. E.: Back entry. pl: Back Platform. P: Porch. C: Mrs.
  Randon’s couch or sofa. ff: Fire-places. H: Hugh’s seat. S: Settle. L:
                               Lutie’s bed.


Mrs. Randon was accustomed to remain in her bedroom almost all the time in
the summer, but in the winter she had her sofa or couch brought out and
placed by the side of the fire-place in the great room, as represented in
the plan. Here, in the long stormy evenings of winter, the family would
live together very happily. Mrs. Randon would lie reclining upon her sofa,
knitting, and talking to Martha and Ellen while they were getting supper
ready. Ellen would set the table, while Martha would bake the cakes and
bring up the milk out of the cellar, and make the tea; and then when all
was ready, they would move the table up close to Mrs. Randon’s sofa, and
after lifting her up and supporting her with pillows at her back, they
would themselves sit down on the other side of the table, and all eat
their supper together in a very happy manner.

                             [Illustration.]

                             The Great Room.


Then, after supper, when the table had been put away, and a fresh fire had
been made on the great stone hearth, Ellen would sit in a little
rocking-chair by her aunt’s side, and read aloud some interesting story,
while Martha sat knitting on the settle, at the other side of the fire,
and Hugh, on a bench in the corner, occupied himself with making
clothes-pins, or shaping teeth for rakes, or fitting handles into tools,
or some other work of that kind. Hugh found that unless he had such work
to do, he always fell asleep while Ellen was reading.

Ellen found that her aunt, instead of growing better, rather grew worse.
She was very pale, though very delicate and beautiful. Her fingers were
very long, and white, and tapering. Ellen thought that they grew longer
and more tapering every day. At last, one winter evening, just after tea,
and before Hugh and Martha had come in to sit down, Ellen went up to the
sofa, and kneeling down upon a little bear-skin rug which was there, and
which had been put there to look warm and comfortable, although the poor
invalid could never put her feet upon it, she bent down over her aunt and
said,

“It seems to me Aunt Anne, that you don’t get better very fast.”

The patient, putting her arm over Ellen’s neck, and drawing Ellen down
closely to her, kissed her, but did not answer.

“Do you think you shall ever get well, aunty?” said Ellen.

“No,” said her aunt, “I do not think that I shall. I think that before a
great while I shall die.”

“Why, aunty!” said Ellen. She was much shocked to hear such a declaration.
“I _hope_ you will not die,” she continued presently, speaking in a very
low and solemn manner. “What shall I do if you should die!—What makes you
think that you will die?”

“There are two reasons why I think that I shall die,” said her aunt. “One
is, that I feel that I am growing weaker and weaker all the time. I have
grown a great deal weaker within a few days.”

“Have you?” said Ellen, in a tone of great anxiety and concern.

“Yes,” said her aunt. “The other reason that makes me think that I am
going to die is greater still; and that is I begin to feel so _willing_ to
die.”

“I thought that you were always willing to die,” said Ellen. “I thought we
ought to be all willing to die, always.”

“No,” said her aunt, “or yes, in one sense we ought. We ought always to be
willing to submit to whatever God shall think best for us. But as to life
and death, we ought undoubtedly, when we are strong and well, to desire to
live.”

“God means,” she continued, “that we should desire to live, and that we
should do all that we can to prolong life. He has given us an instinct
impelling us to that feeling. But when sickness comes and death is nigh,
then the instinct changes. We do not _wish_ to live then—that is, if we
feel that we are prepared to die. It is a very kind and merciful
arrangement to have the instinct change, so that when we are well, we can
be happy in the thought of living, and when we are sick and about to die,
we can be happy in the thought of dying. Our instincts often change thus,
when the circumstances change.”

“Do they?” said Ellen, thoughtfully.

“Yes,” said her aunt. “For instance, when you were an infant, your
mother’s instinctive love for you led her to wish to have you always near
her, with your cheek upon her cheek, and your little hand in her bosom.
Mothers all have such an instinct as that, while their children are very
young. It is given to them so that they may love to have their children
very near them while they are so young and tender that they would not be
safe if they were away.

“But _now_,” she continued, “you have grown older, and the instinct has
changed. Your mother loves you just as much as she did when you were an
infant, but she loves you in a different way. She is willing to have you
absent from her, if you are only well provided for and happy.”

“And is it so with death?” asked Ellen.

“Yes,” replied her aunt; “when we are well, we love life, and we ought to
love it. It then seems terrible to die. God means that it should seem
terrible to us then. But when sickness comes and we are about to die, then
he changes the feeling. Death seems terrible no more. We become perfectly
willing to die.”

Here Mrs. Randon paused, and Ellen remained still, thinking of what she
had heard, but without speaking. After a few minutes her aunt continued.

“I have had a great change in my feelings within a short time, about
dying,” said she, “I have always, heretofore, desired to live and to get
well; and it has seemed to me a terrible thing to die;—to leave my
pleasant home, and my husband, and my dear Ellen, and to see them no more.
But somehow or other, lately, all this is changed. I feel now perfectly
willing to die. It does not seem terrible at all. I have been a great
sinner all my days, but I feel sure that my sins are forgiven for Christ’s
sake, and that if I die I shall be happy where I go, and that I shall see
my husband and you too there some day.”

Ellen laid her head down by the side of her aunt’s, with her face to the
pillow and her cheek against her aunt’s cheek, but said nothing.

“When I am gone,” continued her aunt, “you will go home and live with your
mother again.”

“Shall I?” said Ellen, faintly.

“Yes,” replied her aunt, “it will be better that you should. You can do a
great deal of good there. You can gradually get the house in order, taking
one thing at a time, and so not only help your mother, but make it more
pleasant and comfortable for your father. You can also teach Annie, and be
a great help to her as she grows up; and you can also perhaps do a great
deal of good to Rodolphus.”

“I don’t know what I shall do with Rodolphus,” said Ellen. “He troubles my
mother very much indeed.”

“I know he does,” said her aunt, “but then you will soon get a great
influence over him, and it is possible that you will succeed in making him
a good boy.”

As Mrs. Randon said this, Ellen heard the sound of a door opening in the
back entry, and a stamping of feet upon the floor, as if some one were
coming in out of the snow.

“There comes Hugh,” said Ellen, “and I think there is going to be a
storm.”

Signs of a gathering storm had in fact been appearing all that day. For
several days before, the weather had been very clear and cold, but that
morning the cold had diminished, and a thin haze had gradually extended
itself over the sky. At sunset the sky looked thick and murky toward the
southeast, and it became dark much sooner than usual. A moment after Ellen
had spoken, Hugh came in. He said that it was snowing, and that two or
three inches of snow had already fallen; and that if it snowed much during
the night he should not be able to go into the woods the next morning.

When Ellen rose the next morning and looked at the windows, she saw that
the snow was piled up against the panes of glass on the outside, and on
going to the window to look out, she found that it was snowing still, and
that all the old snow and all the roads and tracks upon it, were entirely
covered. Ellen went out into the great room, and there she found a blazing
fire in the fireplace, and Martha before it getting breakfast ready.
Pretty soon Hugh came in.

“What a great snow-storm,” said Ellen.

“No,” said Hugh, “it is not a very great snow-storm. It does not snow very
fast.”

“Can you go into the woods to-day?” said Ellen.

“Yes,” said Hugh, “I am going into the woods for a load of wood to haul to
the village. The snow is not very deep yet.”

Hugh went to the woods, got his load, hauled it to the village, and
returned to dinner. After dinner he went again. Ellen was almost afraid to
have him go away in the afternoon, for her aunt appeared to be more and
more unwell. She lay upon her sofa by the side of the fire, silent and
still, apparently without pain, but very faint and feeble. She spoke very
seldom, and then only in a whisper. At one time about the middle of the
afternoon, Ellen went and stood a moment at the window to see the snow
driving by—blown by the wind along the crests of the drifts, and over the
walls, down the road. When she turned round, she saw that her aunt was
beckoning to her with her white and slender finger. Ellen went immediately
to her.

“Is Hugh going to the village this afternoon?” she asked.

“Yes, aunt,” said Ellen, “I believe he is.”

“I wish you would ask him to call at my brother George’s, and tell him
that I am very sick, and ask him if he can not come up and see me this
evening.”

“Yes, aunt,” said Ellen, “I will.”

Ellen accordingly watched for Hugh when he came down the mountain-road
with the load of wood, on the way to the village. She gave him the
message, standing at the stoop-door. The wind howled mournfully over the
trees of the forest, and the air was thick with falling and driving snow.
Hugh said that he had almost concluded not to go to the village. The snow
had become so deep, and the storm was increasing so fast, that he doubted
very much whether he could get back if he should go. On receiving Ellen’s
message, however, he decided at once to go on. He could get _to_ the
village well enough, he said, for it was a descending road all the way;
but there would be more uncertainty about the return.

So he started his four oxen again, and they went wallowing on, followed by
the great loaded sled, with the runners buried in the drift. Hugh’s cap
and shaggy coat, and the handkerchief which he had tied about the collar
of his coat, after turning it up to cover his ears, were all whitened with
the snow, and from among all these various mufflings his face, reddened
with the cold, peeped out, though almost wholly concealed from view.

As soon as Hugh was gone, Ellen, who was by this time almost blinded by
the snow which the wind blew furiously into her face and eyes, came into
the house and shut the door.

Ellen watched very diligently all the afternoon for the coming of her
father. She hoped that he would bring her mother with him. She went to the
window again and again, and looked anxiously down the road, but nothing
was to be seen but the thick and murky atmosphere, the increasing drifts,
and the scudding wreaths of snow. The fences and the walls gradually
disappeared from view; the great wood pile in the yard was soon completely
covered and concealed; and a deep drift, of the form of a wave just
curling over to break upon the shore, slowly rose directly across the
entrance to the yard, until it was higher than the posts on each side of
the gateway, so that Ellen began to fear that if her father and mother
should come, they would not be able to get into the yard.

At length it gradually grew dark, and then, though Ellen went to the
window as often as before, and attempted to shade her eyes from the
reflection of the fire, by holding up her hands to the side of her face,
she could watch these changes no longer. Nothing was to be seen, but the
trickling of the flakes down the panes of glass on the outside, and a
small expanse of white immediately below the window.

In the mean time, within the room where Ellen’s aunt was reposing, all
seemed, at least in appearance, very bright and cheerful. A great log was
lying across the andirons, behind and beneath which there was a blazing
and glowing fire. There was a tin baker before this fire, with a pan of
large apples in it, which Martha was baking, to furnish the table with,
for the expected company. Martha herself was busy at a side-table too,
making cakes for supper. The tea-kettle was in a corner, with a column of
steam rising gently from the spout, and Ellen’s little gray kitten, Lutie,
was in the other corner asleep. Ellen herself was busy, here and there,
about the room. She went often to the window, even after it was too dark
to see, and she watched her aunt continually with a countenance expressive
of much affection and concern. Her aunt lay perfectly quiet and still, as
if she were asleep, only she would now and then open her eyes and smile
upon Ellen, if she saw Ellen looking at her, and then close them again.

The couch that she was lying upon had little wheels at the four corners of
it toward the floor, so that it could be moved to and fro. Ellen had been
accustomed, when the time arrived for her aunt to go to bed, to ask Martha
to help her move the couch into the bedroom, by the side of the bed, and
then assist her in moving the patient from one to the other. Ellen,
accordingly, about an hour after it became dark, went to her aunt’s couch,
and asked her in a gentle tone if she would not like to go to bed. But her
aunt said no. She would not be moved, she said, but would remain as she
was until her brother should come. She said, too, that Martha and Ellen
might eat their supper when it was ready, and leave her where she was.

Martha and Ellen finished their supper about seven o’clock. Martha then
took her place upon the settle with her knitting-work as usual, and Ellen
went and sat down upon the little bear-skin rug, and leaned her head
toward her aunt. Her aunt put out her hand toward Ellen’s cheek and
pressed her head gently down upon the pillow, by the side of her own, and
then very slowly and feebly moved her fingers, once or twice, down the
hair on Ellen’s temple, as if she were pleased to have her little niece
lying near her. Ellen shut her eyes, and for a few minutes enjoyed very
much the thought that she was such an object of affection to one whom she
loved so much; but after a few minutes, she began to lose her
consciousness, and soon fell fast asleep.

She slept more than an hour. It was in fact nearly half-past eight when
she awoke. She raised her head and looked up. She found that Martha had
fallen asleep too. Her knitting-work had dropped from her hand. Ellen did
not wish to disturb her, so she rose softly, went to the fire, and put up
a brand which had fallen down, and then crossed the room to the window,
parted the curtains, and putting her face close to the glass, attempted to
look out. Nothing was to be seen. She listened. Nothing was to be heard
but the dreadful roaring of the wind, and the clicking of the snow-flakes
against the windows.

Ellen came back to the couch again, and looked at her aunt as she lay with
her cheek upon her pillow, apparently asleep. At first Ellen thought that
she was really asleep, but when she came near, she found that her eyes
were not entirely closed. She kneeled down by the side of the couch and
said gently, “Aunt Anne, Aunt Anne, how do you feel now?”

Ellen saw that her aunt moved a little, and she heard a faint whispering
sound, but there was no audible answer.

Ellen was now frightened. She feared that her aunt might be dying. She
went to Martha and woke her. Martha started up much alarmed. Ellen told
her that she was afraid that her aunt was dying. Martha went to the couch.
She thought so too.

“I must go,” said she, “to some of the neighbors and get them to come.”

“But you can not get to any of the neighbors,” said Ellen.

“Perhaps I can,” said Martha, “and at any rate I must try.”

So Martha began to prepare herself, as well as she could, to go out into
the storm, Ellen standing by, full of apprehension and anxiety, and
helping her so far as she was able to do so. There was a neighbor who
lived about a quarter of a mile from the house, by a road which lay
through the woods, and which was, therefore, ordinarily not very much
obstructed with the snow. It was to this house that Martha was going to
attempt to make her way. When she was ready, she went forth, leaving Ellen
with her aunt alone.

(To Be Continued.)





RECOLLECTIONS OF ST. PETERSBURG.


“To-morr punkt at ’leven wir schiff for St. Petersburg,” was the polyglot
announcement by which all of us, Swedes, Germans, English, and one
solitary American, were given to understand at what hour on the ensuing
day we were to commence our voyage from Stockholm for the Russian capital.
With praiseworthy punctuality the steam was up at the appointed hour of
eleven, and as our steamer shot out into the Baltic we took our farewell
view of Stockholm, the “City of Piles.” As we steamed northward we dashed
through archipelago after archipelago of islands, some with bold and rocky
shores, and others sloping greenly down to the tranquil sea. Having passed
the Aland Islands, one of which, not thirty miles from the coast of
Sweden, has been seized and strongly fortified by her powerful and
unscrupulous neighbor, we turned into a narrow inlet, and touched Russian
soil at Abo, the ancient capital of Finland.

Here we made our first acquaintance with those fascinating gentry, whom
his Imperial Majesty deputes to watch that nothing treasonable or
contraband finds entrance into his dominions. Our intercourse here was,
however, brief, our passports merely being demanded, and permission
granted us to go on shore while the steamer was detained. At Cronstadt and
St. Petersburg we formed a more intimate if not more agreeable
acquaintance with these functionaries. Setting out again we coasted
eastward up the Gulf of Finland, passing the grim fortress of Sveaborg,
with its eight hundred guns, and garrison of fifteen thousand men, and
shot up the beautiful bay to Helsingfors, one of the great naval stations
of Russia. Touching at Revel, on the opposite shore of the Gulf of
Finland, we ran due east up the Gulf, encountering the great Russian
summer fleet, which was performing its annual manœuvres, and on the
morning after leaving Helsingfors came in sight of the shipping and
fortifications of Cronstadt. As we crept slowly up the narrow and winding
channel, by which alone the harbor can be reached, and passed successively
the grim lines of batteries which command every portion of it, we were
forced to confess that it formed a fitting outpost to a great military
power.

Cronstadt is not only the chief naval dépôt of Russia, but is properly the
port of St. Petersburg, as the capital is inaccessible to vessels drawing
more than eight or nine feet of water. Hence Cronstadt is included in the
St. Petersburg customs-district, and vessels clear indifferently for
either, and are subject to only a single customs-house examination. It
forms the key to the capital, which would be entirely at the mercy of any
fleet which should once pass its batteries. It has therefore been
fortified so strongly as to be apparently impregnable to all the navies of
the world. We came to anchor under the guns of the fortress; and were soon
put under the charge of our amiable friends of the custom-house, who took
complete possession of the deck, while the passengers and officers of the
vessel were directed to repair to the cabin to give an account of
themselves, their occupations, pursuits, and designs to these rude and
filthy representatives of the Czar. It was well for us that we had been in
a measure hardened to these annoyances by our previous Continental
experiences. Police and custom-house functionaries are nowhere famous for
civility, but the rudest and most unendurable specimens of that class whom
it has ever been my fortune to encounter are the lower orders of the
Russian officials. We could, however, congratulate ourselves that the
infliction was light in comparison to what it would have been had we
proceeded by land from Abo. There trunks, pockets, and pocket-books are
liable to repeated searches at different stations along the route. We were
told of travelers who had their boxes of tooth-powder carefully emptied,
and their soap-balls cut in two, in quest of something treasonable or
contraband.

But there is an end to all things human, even to Russian
police-examinations. Our passports were luckily all in order, and as our
steamer was cleared for St. Petersburg we escaped the vexations attendant
upon an inspection of luggage and a change of vessel. Every thing was put
under seal, even to an ancient umbrella which had borne the brunt of many
a shower in half the countries of Europe, to say nothing of storms it had
weathered previous to its transatlantic voyage.

After our seven hours’ detention, we found ourselves at last steaming up
the transparent Neva, and straining our eyes to get a first view of the
City of Peter. After something more than an hour’s paddling against the
rapid current of the river, the gilt dome of the Cathedral first caught
the eye, followed by the sight of dome after dome, tower upon tower, spire
after spire, gilt and spangled with azure stars, long before the flat
roofs and walls of the city were visible.

No sooner had our steamer touched the granite _quai_ than it was taken
possession of by a horde of custom-house and police officers, a shade or
two less filthy and disgusting than their Cronstadt brethren; for it is a
noticeable fact, the higher you proceed in official grade, the more
endurable do the Russian officials become, till you reach the heads of the
departments, who are as civil and well-behaved a body of functionaries as
ever clasped fingers upon a bribe. A few copecks or rubles, as the case
may require, insinuated into the expectant palms of the searching
officials have a wonderful tendency to abate the rigor of the
examinations, which being completed, and a silver ruble paid to the
officer in attendance, the traveler is at liberty to go on shore in search
of a hotel or lodgings.

The instructed traveler will resist the seductions of the Russian hotels,
with their magnificent fronts, and Russian, German, and French signboards;
for once past the portals he will find that the noble staircases and broad
passages are filthy beyond all western imagination; and the damask
curtains and velvet sofas are perfect parks for all those “small deer” who
make day and night hideous. If he be wise, he will make his way to some
boarding-house upon the _Quai Anglais_, conducted by an emigrant from some
country where the primitive faith in the virtues of dusters and soap and
water is cherished.

No sooner is the stranger established than he must take an interpreter,
and make the best of his way to the police office, to get a permit of
residence. This he obtains after an interrogation from a very civil
functionary, to whom must be paid a proportionate fee. But this permit is
good only for the capital and its immediate vicinity. If the Russians are
slow to welcome the coming, they are none the more ready to speed the
parting guest. Mr. Smith and his friend Brown must not leave the capital
till they have published an advertisement announcing their intention in
three successive numbers of the Gazette, an operation which consumes a
space of from a week to ten days.

These preliminaries duly attended to, we were at liberty to commence our
examination of St. Petersburg. The traveler who first sees the city under
a summer sun is always struck with amazement. Its public places are so
vast, its monuments so numerous and imposing, its quays so magnificent,
and its edifices, public and private, so enormous, and constructed
apparently of materials so massive and enduring, that he is ready to
pronounce it the most magnificent city upon earth.

A century and a half ago the low marshy shores of the Neva, and the
islands formed by the branches into which it separates just before it
empties itself into the Gulf of Finland were inhabited only by a few
scattered Finnish fishermen. But commanding the entrance to Lake Ladoga,
it was a military position of some importance, and the Swedes had long
maintained there a fortress, the possession of which had been often
unavailingly contested by the Russians, up to 1703, when Peter the Great
made himself master of it. He determined to found upon this desolate spot
the future capital of his vast empire, and at once commenced the task,
without waiting for peace to confirm the possession of the site. He
assembled a vast number of the peasantry from every quarter of his empire,
and pushed forward the work with the energy of an iron will armed with
absolute power. The surrounding country, ravaged by long years of war,
could furnish no supplies for these enormous masses, and the convoys which
brought them across Lake Ladoga were frequently detained by contrary
winds. Ill fed and worse lodged, laboring in the cold and wet, multitudes
yielded to the hardships, and the foundations of the new metropolis were
laid at the cost of a hundred thousand lives, sacrificed in less than six
months.

With Peter to will was to perform; he willed that a capital city should be
built and inhabited, and built and inhabited it was. In April, 1714, a
ukase was issued directing that all buildings should be erected in a
particular manner; another, three months later, ordered a large number of
nobles and merchants to erect dwellings in the new city. In a few months
more another ukase prohibited the erection of any stone mansion in any
other portion of the empire, while the enterprise of the capital was in
progress; and that the lack of building materials should be no obstacle,
every vessel, whether large or small, and every peasant’s car which came
to the city, was ordered to bring a certain specified number of building
stones. The work undertaken with such rigid determination, and carried on
with such remorseless vigor by Peter, was continued in the same
unflinching spirit by his successors; and the result was the present St.
Petersburg, with its aspect more imposing than that of any other city on
the globe, but bearing in its bosom the elements of its own destruction,
the moment it is freed from the control of the iron will, which created
and now maintains it:—a fitting type and representative of the Russian
Empire.

The whole enterprise of founding and maintaining St. Petersburg was and is
a struggle against nature. The soil is a marsh so deep and spongy that a
solid foundation can be attained only by constructing a subterranean
scaffolding of piles. Were it not for these the city would sink into the
marsh like a stage ghost through the trap-door. Every building of any
magnitude rests on piles; the granite quays which line the Neva rest on
piles. The very foot-pavements can not be laid upon the ground, but must
be supported by piles. A great commercial city is maintained, the harbor
of which is as inaccessible to ships, for six months in the year, as the
centre of the desert of Sahara. In the neighboring country no part
produces any thing for human sustenance save the Neva, which furnishes ice
and fish. The severity of the climate is most destructive to the erections
of human hands; and St. Petersburg, notwithstanding its gay summer
appearance, when it emerges from the winter frosts, resembles a
superannuated belle at the close of the fashionable season; and can only
be put in proper visiting order by the assiduous services of hosts of
painters and plasterers. Leave the capital for a half century to the
unrepaired ravages of its wintry climate, and it would need a Layard to
unearth its monuments.

But sure as are the wasting inroads of time and the climate, St Petersburg
is in daily peril of an overthrow whose accomplishment would require but a
few hours. The Gulf of Finland forms a vast funnel pointing eastward, at
the extremity of which stands the city. No portion of the city is fifteen
feet above the ordinary level of the water. A strong westerly wind,
blowing directly into the mouth of the funnel, piles the water up so as to
lay the lower part of the city under water. Water is as much dreaded here,
and as many precautions are taken against it, as in the case of fire in
other cities. In other cities alarm-signals announce a conflagration; here
they give notice of an inundation. The firing of an alarm-gun from the
Admiralty, at intervals of an hour, denotes that the lower extremes of the
islands are under water, when flags are hung out from the steeples to give
warning of danger. When the water reaches the streets, alarm-guns are
fired every quarter of an hour. As the water rises the alarms grow more
and more frequent, until minute-guns summon boats to the assistance of the
drowning population.

So much for the lower jaw of the monster that lies in wait for the Russian
capital; now for the upper:—Lake Ladoga, which discharges its waters
through the Neva, is frozen over to an enormous thickness during the long
winter. The rapid northern spring raises its waters and loosens the ice
simultaneously; when the waters of the Gulf are at their usual level, the
accumulated ice and water find an easy outlet down the broad and rapid
Neva. But let a strong west wind heap up the waters of the Gulf just as
the breaking up of Lake Ladoga takes place, and the waters from above and
from below would suffice to inundate the whole city, while all its
palaces, monuments, and temples would be crushed between the masses of
ice, like “Captain Ahab’s” boat in the ivory jaws of “Moby Dick.” Nothing
is more probable than such a coincidence. It often blows from the west for
days together in the spring; and it is almost a matter of certainty that
the ice will break up between the middle and the end of April. Let but a
westerly storm arise on the fatal day of that brief fortnight, and
farewell to the City of the Czars. Any steamer that bridges the Atlantic
may be freighted with the tidings that St. Petersburg has sunk deeper than
plummet can sound in the Finnish marshes from which it has so magically
risen.

                             [Illustration.]

                         The Inundation of 1824.


Nor is this merely a matter of theory and speculation. Terrible
inundations, involving enormous destruction of life and property have
occurred. The most destructive of these took place on the 17th of
November, 1824. A strong west wind heaped the waters of the Gulf up into
the narrow funnel of the Neva, and poured them, slowly at first, along the
streets. As night began to close in the rise of the waters became more and
more rapid. Cataracts poured into doors, windows, and cellars. The sewers
spouted up columns, like whales in the death-agony. The streets were
filled with abandoned equipages, and deserted horses struggling in the
rising waters. The trees in the public squares were crowded with those who
had climbed them for refuge. During the night the wind abated, and the
waters receded. But the pecuniary damage of that one night is estimated at
twenty millions of dollars, and the loss of lives at eight thousand. All
through the city a painted line traced upon the walls designates the
height to which the waters reached. Were ever house-painters before
engaged upon a task so ghastly? But suppose that, instead of November,
April had been written as the date of this inundation, when the waters
from the Lake above had met those from the Gulf below; St. Petersburg
would have been numbered among the things that were—_Ilium fuit_.

Nothing of the kind can be more imposing than the view of St. Petersburg
from the tower of the Admiralty upon some bright June day, such as that on
which I first beheld it from that post. Under foot, as it seemed, from the
galleries, lay the Admiralty-yards, where great ships were in process of
erection, destined for no nobler service than to perform their three
months’ summer cruise in the Baltic, and to be frozen immovably in the
harbors for six months out of twelve. The will of the Czar can effect
much, but it can not convert Russia into a naval power until he can secure
a seacoast, and harbors which can not be shut up to him by a single
hostile fortification. Russia can not be a maritime power till she is
mistress of the entrance to the Baltic and the Black Sea.

To the right and the left of the Admiralty stretch the great squares upon
which stand the principal public edifices and monuments of the capital;
the Winter Palace, with its six thousand constant occupants; the _Hotel de
l’Etat Major_, whence go forth orders to a million of soldiers, the Senate
House, and the Palace of the Holy Synod, the centres of temporal and
spiritual law for the hundred nations blended into the Russian Empire; the
Church of St. Isaac, with its four porticoes, the lofty columns of which,
sixty feet in height, are each of a single block of granite, and the walls
of polished marble; its cupola covered with copper overlaid with gold,
gleaming like another sun, surmounted by a golden cross, and forming the
most conspicuous object to the approaching visitor, whether he comes up
the Gulf, or across the dreary Finnish marshes; yet, high as it rises in
the air, it sinks scarcely a less distance below the ground, so deep was
it necessary to drive into the marsh the forest of piles upon which it
rests, before a firm foundation could be secured. Here is the Statue of
Peter—the finest equestrian statue in the world—reining his steed upon the
brink of the precipice up which he has urged it, his hand stretched out in
benediction toward the Neva, the pride of his new-founded city. Here is
the triumphal column to Alexander, “the Restorer of Peace,” the whole
elevation of which is 150 feet, measuring to the head of the angel who—the
cross victorious over the crescent—bears the symbol of the Christian faith
above the capital cast from cannon captured from the Turks. The shaft is a
single block eighty-four feet in height—the largest single stone erected
in modern times; and it would have been still loftier had it not been for
the blind unreasoning obedience to orders, so characteristic of the
Russian. When the column had been determined upon, orders were dispatched
to the quarries to detach, if possible, a single block for the shaft of
the length of eighty-four feet, though with scarcely a hope that the
attempt would succeed. One day a dispatch was received by the Czar from
the superintendent, with the tidings that a block had been detached, free
from flaw, one hundred feet long; but that he was about to proceed to
reduce it to the required length. The sovereign mounted in hot haste to
save the block from mutilation, and to preserve a column so much exceeding
his hopes. But he was too late; and arrived just in time to see the
sixteen feet severed from the block, which would otherwise have been the
noblest shaft in the world.

The length of these public places, open and in full view, right and left,
from the Admiralty tower, is a full mile.

Stretching southward from the tower lies the “Great Side” of St.
Petersburg, cut into three concentric semicircular divisions, of which the
Admiralty is the centre, by three canals, and intersected by the three
main avenues or _Prospekts_ (Perspectives). These three Perspectives
diverge like the spokes of a wheel from the Admiralty and run straight
through the city, through the sumptuous quarters of the aristocracy, the
domains of commerce, and the suburbs of the poor; while the view is closed
by the mists rising from the swamps of Ingermanland.

Turning from the “Great Side,” and looking northward, the arms of the Neva
diverge from near the foot of the Admiralty tower, as the Perspectives do
from the southern side. The width of the Neva, its yielding bottom and
shores, and the masses of ice which it sweeps down, make the erection of
bridges so difficult that they are placed at very rare intervals, so that
a person might be obliged to go miles before reaching one. But the stream
is enlivened by boats and gondolas ready to convey passengers from one
bank to the other. We were never weary of watching with a glass from the
Admiralty tower, alternately, the river gay with boats and shipping, and
the Perspectives thronged with their brilliant and motley crowd. With a
somewhat different, but certainly no less absorbing interest, we gazed
down from the same elevation into the works of the citadel, upon
Petersburg Island, whose minutest details were clearly visible. This
citadel is useless as a defense of the city against a hostile attack; but
it furnishes a ready means of commanding the capital, and furnishes a
refuge for the government in case of an insurrection. Like the
fortifications of Paris, it is designed not so much to defend as to
control the city.

St. Petersburg is certainly the most imposing city, and Russia is the most
imposing nation in the world—at first sight. But the imposing aspect of
both is to a great extent an _imposition_. The city tries to pass itself
off for granite, when a great proportion is of wood or brick, covered with
paint and stucco, which peels off in masses before the frosts of every
winter, and needs a whole army of plasterers and painters every spring to
put it in presentable order. You pass what appears a Grecian temple, and
lo, it is only a screen of painted boards. A one-storied house assumes the
airs of a loftier building, in virtue of a front of another story bolted
and braced to its roof. And much even that is real is sadly out of place.
Long lines of balconies and pillars and porticoes, which would be
appropriate to Greece or Italy, are for the greater part of the year piled
with snow-drifts. St. Petersburg and Russian civilization are both of a
growth too hasty, and too much controlled from without, instead of
proceeding from a law of inward development, to be enduring.

The capital to be seen to advantage must be viewed during the few weeks of
early summer; or in the opening winter, when the snow forms a pavement
better than art can produce, and when the cold has built a continuous
bridge over the Neva, without having as yet become severe enough to drive
every body from the streets.

The Neva is the main artery through which pours the life-blood of St.
Petersburg. But the life-current is checked from the time when the ice is
too far weakened by the returning sun to be passable, and not yet
sufficiently broken up to float down to the Gulf. At that time all
intercourse between portions of the city on its opposite batiks is
suspended. Every body is anxious for the breaking-up of the ice. Luxuries
from more genial climes are waiting in the Baltic for the river to be
navigable. No sooner is the ice so far cleared as to afford a practicable
passage for a boat, than the glad news is announced by the artillery of
the citadel, and, no matter what the hour, the commandant and his suite
hurry into a gondola and push over to the Imperial palace, directly
opposite. The commandant fills a large goblet with the icy fluid, and
presents it to the Emperor, informing him that his gondola, the first
which has that year crossed the river, is the precursor of navigation. The
Czar drains the cup to the health of the capital, and returns it, filled
with ducats, to the commandant. Formerly it was observed, by some
mysterious law of natural science, that this goblet grew larger and
larger, year by year, so that the Czar who had swallowed Poland without
flinching, and stood ready to perform the same operation upon Turkey,
stood in danger of suffocation from his growing bumpers. Some wise man at
last suggested that this tendency to the enlargement of the goblet might
be counteracted, by limiting the number of ducats returned by way of
acknowledgment. The suggestion was acted upon, and, greatly to the comfort
of the Imperial purse and stomach, was found to be perfectly successful.
The sum now given is two hundred ducats. This goblet of Neva water is
surely the most costly draught ever quaffed since the time when
brown-fronted Cleopatra dissolved the pearl in honor of mad Mark Antony.

The most striking winter spectacle of St. Petersburg, to a foreigner, is
that of the ice mountains. They are in full glory during “Butter Week”—of
which more anon—when Russia seems to forget her desire to be any thing but
Russian. The great Place of the Admiralty is given up to the popular
celebrations, and filled with refreshment-booths, swings, and slides. To
form these ice mountains a narrow scaffold is raised to the height of some
thirty or forty feet. This scaffold has on one side steps for the purpose
of ascending it; on the other it slopes off, steeply at first, and then
more gradually, until it finally terminates on a level. Upon this long
slope blocks of ice are laid, over which water is poured, which by
freezing unites the blocks, and furnishes a uniform surface, down which
the merry crowd slide upon sledges, or more frequently upon blocks of
smooth ice cut into an appropriate form.

Two of these mountains usually stand opposite and fronting each other,
their tracks lying close together, side by side.

                             [Illustration.]

                              Ice Mountain.


This is a national amusement all over Russia. Ice mountains are raised in
the court-yards of all the chief residents in the capital. And an
imitation of them, for summer use, covered with some polished wood,
instead of ice, is often found in the halls of private dwellings. In the
Imperial palace is such a slide, built of mahogany.

Street-life in St. Petersburgh presents many aspects strange to one who
comes fresh from the capitals of other countries. One of the first things
which will strike him is the silence and desertion of most of the streets.
The thronging, eager crowd of other cities is here unknown. There is room
enough, and to spare here. Broad streets, lined with rows of palaces, are
as silent and lonely as deserted Tadmor, and a solitary _droshka_ breaking
the uniformity of the loneliness, heightens the effect. Leaving these
broad, still streets, and mingling in the throng that presses in and
through the Admiralty Place, the Nevskoi Perspective, or the Place of St.
Isaac, the most noticeable feature, at first glance, is the preponderance
of the military. The ordinary garrison of the capital amounts to 60,000
men. The Russian army comprises an almost infinite variety of uniforms,
and specimens of these, worn by the _élite_ of every corps, are constantly
in the capital.

There are the Tartar guards, and the Circassian guards, Cossacks from the
Don, from the Ural, and from Crimea; guards with names ending with “_off_”
and “_ski_,” unpronounceable by Western lips. The wild Circassian—enacting
the double part of soldier and hostage—silver-harnessed and mail-coated,
alternates with the skin-clad Cossack of the Ural, darting, lance in rest,
over the parade-ground. There are regiments uniform not only in size of
the men, color of the horses, and identity of equipments, but in the
minutiæ of personal appearance. Of one, all the men are pug-nosed,
blue-eyed, and red bearded; of another, every man has a nose like a hawk,
with eyes, hair and beard as black as a raven’s wing. Half the male
population of St. Petersburg wear uniform; for, besides these 60,000
soldiers, it is worn by officers of every grade, by the police, and even
by professors of the university, and by teachers and pupils in the public
schools.

Turning from the military to the civil portion of the population, the same
brilliant variety of costumes every where meets the eye. The sober-suited
native of western and civilized Europe, jostles the brilliant silken robes
of the Persian or Bokharian; the Chinaman flaunts his dangling pig-tail,
ingeniously pieced out by artificial means, in the face of the
smoothly-shorn Englishman; the white-toothed Arab meets the
tobacco-stained German; Yankee sailors and adventurers, portly English
merchants, canny Scotchmen, dwarfish Finlanders, stupid Lettes, diminutive
Kamtschatkians, each in his own national costume, make up a lively
picture; while underlying all, and more worthy of note than all, are the
true Russian peasantry; the original stock out of which Peter and his
successors have fashioned their mighty empire.

The Russian of the lower orders is any thing but an inviting personage, at
first sight. The name by which they have been designated, in their own
language, time out of mind, describes them precisely. It is _tschornoi
narod_, “the dirty people,” or as we might more freely render it, “The
Great Unwashed.” An individual of this class is called a _mujik_. He is
usually of middle stature, with small light eyes, level cheeks, and flat
nose, of which the tip is turned up so as to display the somewhat expanded
nostril. His pride and glory is his beard, which he wears as long and
shaggy as nature will allow. The back of the head is shaved closely; and
as he wears nothing about his neck, his head stands distinctly away from
his body. His ideal of the beauty of the human head, as seen from behind,
seems to be to make it resemble, as nearly as may be, a turnip. He is
always noisy and never clean; and when wrapped in his sheepskin mantle, or
_caftan_ of blue cloth reaching to his knees, might easily enough be taken
for a bandit. As he seldom thinks of changing his inner garments more than
once a week, and as his outer raiment lasts half his lifetime, and is
never laid aside during the night, and never washed, he constantly affords
evidence of his presence any thing but agreeable to the organs of smell.
But a closer acquaintance will bring to light many traits of character
which belie his rude exterior; and will show him to be at bottom a
good-natured, merry, friendly fellow. His most striking characteristic is
pliability and dexterity. If he does not possess the power of originating,
he has a wonderful faculty of copying the ideas of others, and of yielding
himself up to carry out the conceptions of any one who wishes to use him
for the accomplishment of his ends. There is an old German myth which says
that the Teutonic race was framed, in the depths of time, out of the hard,
unyielding granite. The original material of the Russian race must have
been Indian rubber, so easily are they compressed into any form, and so
readily do they resume their own, when the pressure is removed. The raw,
untrained _mujik_ is drafted into the army, and in a few weeks attains a
precision of movement more like an automaton than a human being. He
becomes a trader, and the Jews themselves can not match him in cunning and
artifice.

The _mujik_ is a thoroughly good-tempered fellow. Address him kindly, and
his face unbends at once, and you will find that he takes a sincere
delight in doing you a kindness. In no capital of Europe are the
temptations to crimes against the person so numerous as in St. Petersburg,
with its broad lonely streets, unlighted at night, and scantily patrolled;
but in no capital are such crimes of so rare occurrence.

But the _mujik_ has two faults. He is a thorough rogue, and a great
drunkard. He will cheat and guzzle from sheer love for the practices; and
without the least apparent feeling that there is any thing out of the way
in so doing. But in his cups he is the same good-natured fellow. The
Irishman or Scotchman when drunk is quarrelsome and pugnacious; the German
or the Englishman, stupid and brutal; the Spaniard or Italian, revengeful
and treacherous. The first stages of drunkenness in the _mujik_ are
manifested by loquacity. The drunker he is the more gay and genial does he
grow; till at last he is ready to throw himself upon the neck of his worst
enemy and exchange embraces with him. When the last stage has been
reached, and he starts for his home, he does not reel, but marches
straight on, till some accidental obstruction trips him up into the mire,
where he lies unnoticed and unmolested till a policeman takes charge of
him. This misadventure is turned to public advantage, for by an old custom
every person, male or female, of what grade soever, taken up drunk in the
street by the police, is obliged the next day to sweep the streets for a
certain number of hours. In our early rambles we often came across a
woeful group thus improving the ways of others, in punishment for having
taken too little heed of their own.

_In vino veritas_ may perhaps be true of the juice of the grape; but it is
not so of the bad brandy which is the favorite drink of the _mujik_. He is
never too drunk to be a rogue, but yet you do not look upon his roguery as
you do upon that of any other people. He never professes to be honest; and
does not see any reason why he should be so. He seems so utterly
unconscious of any thing reprehensible in roguery, that you unconsciously
give him the benefit of his ignorance. If he victimizes you, you look upon
him as upon a clever professor of legerdemain, who has cheated you in
spite of your senses; but you hardly hold him morally responsible. Upon
the whole, though you can not respect the _mujik_, you can hardly avoid
having a sort of liking for him.

                             [Illustration.]

                       Punishment For Drunkenness.


Perhaps the most thoroughly Russian of all the _tschornoi narod_ are the
_isvoshtshiks_, or public drivers; at least they are the class with whom
the traveler comes most immediately and necessarily into contact, and from
whom he derives his idea of them. Such is the extent of St. Petersburg,
that when the foreigner has sated his curiosity with the general aspect of
the streets, he finds that he can not afford time to walk from one object
of interest to another. Moreover, in winter—and here winter means fully
six months in the year—the streets are spread with a thick covering of
snow, which soon becomes beaten up into powdered crystals, through which
locomotion is as difficult as through the deepest sands of Sahara; and the
wind whirls these keen crystals about like the sand-clouds of the desert.
Every body not to the manner born, whose pleasures or avocations call him
abroad, is glad to draw his mantle over his face, and creeping into a
sledge, wrap himself up as closely as he may in furs. In spring and
summer, when the streets are usually either a marsh or choked with
intolerable dust, pedestrianism is equally disagreeable. All this has
called into requisition a host of Jehus, so that the stranger who has
mastered enough Russian to call out _Davai ishvoshtshik_! “Here, driver!”
or even lifts his hand by way of signal, has seldom need to repeat the
summons.

Like his cart-borne kindred, the Tartars and Scythians, the _ishvoshtshik_
makes his vehicle his home. In it he eats, drinks, and often sleeps,
rolling himself up into a ball in the bottom, to present as little surface
as possible to the action of the cold.—Russian-like, he always names a
price for his services that will leave ample room for abatement. But once
engaged, and he is for the time being your servant, and accepts any amount
of abuse or beating as the natural condition of the bargain.

                             [Illustration.]

                              Ishvoshtshiks.


The _mujik_ of every class seems indeed to be born ready bitted, for the
use of anyone who has a hand steady enough to hold the reins. They are the
best servants in the world for one who has the gift of command. It is this
adaptation between the strong-willed autocrats who since Peter have swayed
the destinies of Russia, and the serviceable nature of the people, that
has raised the empire to its present position. A single weak ruler would
change the whole destiny of Russia.

Notwithstanding the hardships of their lives, the _isvoshtshiks_ are
good-natured, merry, harmless, fellows, whether waiting for a fare or
bantering a customer. But they have one thorn; and that is the pedestrian.
Woe to the driver who runs against a foot-man; fine and flogging are his
portion. If the pedestrian be thrown down, visions of Siberia float before
the driver’s eye; to say nothing of the pleasant foretaste of the
policeman’s cane and the confiscation of his vehicle.

Notwithstanding the general characteristic of laxity of principle,
instances are by no means wanting of the most scrupulous and even romantic
fidelity on the part of the Russians of the lower orders. It would be an
interesting subject of investigation, how far this patent trait of
national character is to be attributed to inherent constitutional defects
in the race; and how far to the state of serfdom in which they have
existed from generation to generation. But the investigation does not fall
within the scope of our “Recollections.”

Our friends in the greasy sheepskins or woolen caftans have strong
religious tendencies, though they may smack a little too much of those of
the tight-fingered Smyrniote whom we detected purchasing candles to light
before his patron saint, with the first-fruits of the purse of which he
had not ten minutes before relieved our pocket. In all places where men
congregate there are pictures of saints before which the _mujik_ crosses
himself on every occasion. In an inn or restaurant each visitor turns to
the picture and crosses himself before he sits down to eat. If a _mujik_
enters your room he crosses himself before saluting you. Every church is
saluted with a sign of the cross. At frequent intervals in the streets
little shrines are found, before which every body stops and makes the
sacred sign, with bared head. The merchant in the _gostunoi dvor_ or
bazaar, every now and then walks up to his _bog_ or saint, and with a
devout inclination prays for success in trade.

No one has seen St. Petersburg who has not been there at Easter. The Greek
Church finds great virtues in fasting; and a prolonged fast-time implies a
subsequent carnival. The rigor of the Russian fasts strictly excludes
every article of food containing the least particle of animal matter.
Flesh and fowl are, of course, rigorously _tabooed_; so are milk, eggs,
butter; and even sugar, on account of the animal matter used in refining
it, of which a small portion might possibly remain. The fast preceding
Easter, called, by way of eminence, “The Great Fast,” lasts seven full
weeks, and is observed with a strictness unknown even in Catholic
countries. The lower classes refrain even from fish during the first and
last of these seven weeks, as well as on Wednesdays and Fridays in the
remaining five. When we reflect how large a part some or all of these
animal substances form of the _cuisine_ of all northern nations, and in
Russia most of all, we shall be ready to believe that this Great Fast is
an important epoch in the Russian calendar, and is not to be encountered
without a preparatory period of feasting, the recollection of which may
serve to mitigate the enforced abstinence.

Among the upper classes in St. Petersburg balls, routs, and all carnival
revelries begin to crowd thick and fast upon each other as early as the
commencement of February. But the mass of the people compress these
preparatory exercises into the week before the beginning of the fast. This
is the famous _Masslänitza_ or “Butter Week,” which contains the sum and
substance of all Russian festivity. All the butter that should naturally
have gone into the consumption of the succeeding seven weeks is
concentrated into this. Whatever can be eaten with butter is buttered;
what can not, is eschewed. The standard dish of the week is _blinni_, a
kind of pancake, made with butter; fried in butter, and eaten with
butter-sauce. For this one week the great national dish of _shtshee_ or
cabbage-soup is banished from the land.

Breakfast dispatched, then come the amusements. Formerly the swings,
ice-mountains, and temporary theatres were erected upon the frozen plain
of the Neva. But some years since, the ice gave way under the immense
pressure, and a large number of the revelers were drowned. Since that time
the great square of the Admiralty has been devoted to this purpose. For
days previous, long trains of sledges are seen thronging to the spot,
bearing timbers, poles, planks, huge blocks of ice, and all the materials
necessary for the erection of booths, theatres, swings, and slides. These
temporary structures are easily and speedily reared. A hole is dug in the
frozen ground, into which the end of a post is placed. It is then filled
with water, which under the influence of a Russian February binds it in
its place as firmly as though it were leaded into a solid rock. The
carnival commences on the first Sunday of the Butter Week, and all St.
Petersburg gives itself up to sliding and swinging, or to watching the
sliding and swinging of others. By a wise regulation eating and drinking
shops are not allowed in the square, and the staple potable and
comestibles are tea, cakes, and nuts. Few more animated and stirring
sights are to be seen than the Admiralty square at noon, when the mirth is
at the highest among the lower orders, and when all the higher classes
make their appearance driving in regular line along a broad space, in
front of the booths, reserved for the equipages. Every body in St.
Petersburg of any pretensions to rank or wealth keeps a carriage of some
kind; and every carriage, crowded with the family in their gayest attire,
joins in the procession.

Butter Week, with its _blinni_ and ice mountains passes away all too
quickly, and is succeeded by the grim seven weeks’ fast. The Admiralty
square looks desolate enough, lumbered over with fragments of the late
joyous paraphernalia, and strewed with nut-shells and orange-peel. Public
amusements, of almost all kinds are prohibited, and time passes on with
gloomy monotony, only broken by a stray saint’s day, like a gleam of
sunshine across a murky sky. It is worth while to be a saint, in Russia,
if his day falls during the Great Fast, for it will be sure to be
celebrated with most exemplary fervor.

As the fast draws near its close, preparation s on tiptoe for a change.
The egg-market begins to rise, owing to the demand for “Easter-eggs,” for
on that day it is customary to present an egg to every acquaintance on
first greeting him. This has given rise to a very pretty custom of giving
presents of artificial eggs of every variety of material, and frequently
with the most elegant decorations. The Imperial glass manufactory
furnishes an immense number of eggs of glass, with cut flowers and
figures, designed as presents from the Czar and Czarina.

Saturday night before Easter at last comes and goes. As the midnight hour
which is to usher in Easter-day approaches, the churches begin to fill.
The court appears in the Imperial chapel in full dress; and the people, of
all ages, ranks, and conditions, throng their respective places of
worship. Not a priest, however, is to be seen until the midnight hour
strikes, when the entrance to the sanctuary of the church is flung open,
and the song peals forth—_Christohs vosskress! Christohs vosskress ihs
mortvui_—“Christ is risen! Christ is risen from the dead!” The priests in
their richest robes press through the throng, bowing and swinging their
censers before the shrine of the saints, repeating the “Christ is risen!”
The congregation grasp each other’s hands, those acquainted, however
distantly, embracing and kissing, repeating the same words. The churches
are at once in a blaze of illumination within and without; and all over
the city cannons boom, rockets hiss, and bells peal in token of joy. The
Great Fast is over, and the Easter festival has begun.

In the churches the ceremony of blessing the food is going on. The whole
pavement, unencumbered with pews or seats, is covered with dishes ranged
in long rows, with passages between for the officiating priests, who pace
along, sprinkling holy water to the right and left, and pronouncing the
form of benediction; the owner of each dish all the while on a keen
look-out that his food does not fail of receiving some drops of the
sanctifying fluid. Before daylight all this is accomplished; and then come
visitings and banquets, congratulations of the season, bowings,
hand-shakings, and, above all, kissing.

                         [Illustration: Kissing.]

                         [Illustration: Kissing.]

                         [Illustration: Kissing.]

                         [Illustration: Kissing.]

All Russia breaks out now into an Oriental exuberance of kisses. What
arithmetic shall undertake to compute the osculatory expenditure? Every
member of a family salutes every other member with a kiss. All
acquaintances, however slight, greet with a kiss and a _Christohs
vosskress_. Long-robed _mujiks_ mingle beards and kisses, or brush their
hirsute honors over the faces of their female acquaintances. In the public
offices all the _employées_ salute each other and their superiors. So in
the army. The general embraces and kisses all the officers of the corps;
the colonel of a regiment those beneath him, besides a deputation of the
soldiers; and the captain salutes all the men of his company. The Czar
does duty at Easter. He must of course salute his family and retinue, his
court and attendants. But this is not all. On parade he goes through the
ceremony with his officers, and a selected body of privates, who stand as
representatives of the rest, and even with the sentinels at the palace
gates. So amid smiles and handshakings, and exclamations of “Christ has
arisen!” pass on the days of the Easter festival. Ample amends are made
for the long abstinence of the Great Fast, by unbounded indulgence in the
coveted animal food, to say nothing of the copious libations of
brandy—evidences of which are visible enough in groups of amateur
street-sweepers who subsequently are seen plying their brooms in the early
morning hours. Such is St. Petersburg, when most Russian.





A LOVE AFFAIR AT CRANFORD.


I am tempted to relate it, as having interested me in a quiet sort of way,
and as being the latest intelligence of Our Society at Cranford.

I thought, after Miss Jenkyns’s death, that probably my connection with
Cranford would cease; at least that it would have to be kept up by
correspondence, which bears much the same relation to personal intercourse
that the books of dried plants I sometimes see (“Hortus Siccus,” I think
they call the thing), do to the living and fresh flowers in the lanes and
meadows. I was pleasantly surprised, therefore, by receiving a letter from
Miss Pole (who had always come in for a supplementary week after my annual
visit to Miss Jenkyns), proposing that I should go and stay with her; and
then, in a couple of days after my acceptance, came a note from Miss
Matey, in which, in a rather circuitous and very humble manner, she told
me how much pleasure I should confer, if I could spend a week or two with
her, either before or after I had been at Miss Pole’s; “for,” she said,
“since my dear sister’s death, I am well aware I have no attractions to
offer; it is only to the kindness of my friends that I can owe their
company.”

Of course, I promised to come to dear Miss Matey, as soon as I had ended
my visit to Miss Pole; and the day after my arrival at Cranford, I went to
see her, much wondering what the house would be like without Miss Jenkyns,
and rather dreading the changed aspect of things. Miss Matey began to cry
as soon as she saw me. She was evidently nervous from having anticipated
my call. I comforted her as well as I could; and I found the best
consolation I could give, was the honest praise that came from my heart as
I spoke of the deceased. Miss Matey slowly shook her head over each virtue
as it was named, and attributed to her sister; at last she could not
restrain the tears which had long been silently flowing, but hid her face
behind her handkerchief, and sobbed aloud.

“Dear Miss Matey!” said I, taking her hand—for indeed I did know in what
way to tell her how sorry I was for her, left deserted in the world. She
put down her handkerchief, and said,

“My dear, I’d rather you did not call me Matey. _She_ did not like it; but
I did many a thing she did not like, I’m afraid—and now she’s gone! If you
please, my love, will you call me Matilda?”

I promised faithfully, and began to practice the new name with Miss Pole
that very day; and, by degrees, Miss Matilda’s feelings on the subject
were known through Cranford, and the appellation of Matey was dropped by
all, except a very old woman who had been nurse in the rector’s family,
and had persevered through many long years, in calling the Miss Jenkynses
“the girls;” she said “Matey,” to the day of her death.

My visit to Miss Pole was very quiet. Miss Jenkyns had so long taken the
lead in Cranford, that, now she was gone, they hardly knew how to give a
party. The Honorable Mrs. Jamieson, to whom Miss Jenkyns herself had
always yielded the post of honor, was fat and inert and very much at the
mercy of her old servants. If they chose her to give a party, they
reminded her of the necessity for so doing; if not, she let it alone.
There was all the more time for me to hear old-world stories from Miss
Pole, while she sat knitting, and I making my father’s shirts. I always
took a quantity of plain sewing to Cranford; for, as we did not read much,
or walk much, I found it a capital time to get through my work. One of
Miss Pole’s stories related to the love affair I am coming to; gradually,
not in a hurry, for we are never in a hurry at Cranford.

Presently, the time arrived, when I was to remove to Miss Matilda’s house.
I found her timid and anxious about the arrangements for my comfort. Many
a time, while I was unpacking, did she come backward and forward to stir
the fire, which burned all the worse for being so frequently poked.

“Have you drawers enough, dear?” asked she. “I don’t know exactly how my
sister used to arrange them. She had capital methods. I am sure she would
have trained a servant in a week to make a better fire than this, and
Fanny has been with me four months.”

This subject of servants was a standing grievance, and I could not wonder
much at it; for if gentlemen were scarce, and almost unheard of in the
“genteel society” of Cranford, they or their counterparts—handsome young
men—abounded in the lower classes. The pretty, neat servant-maids had
their choice of desirable “followers;” and their mistresses, without
having the sort of mysterious dread of men and matrimony that Miss Matilda
had, might well feel a little anxious, lest the heads of their comely
maids should be turned by the joiner, or the butcher, or the gardener; who
were obliged by their callings, to come to the house; and who, as ill-luck
would have it, were generally handsome and unmarried. Fanny’s lovers, if
she had any—and Miss Matilda suspected her of so many flirtations, that,
if she had not been very pretty, I should have doubted her having one—were
a constant anxiety to her mistress. She was forbidden, by the articles of
her engagement, to have “followers;” and though she had answered
innocently enough, doubling up the hem of her apron as she spoke, “Please,
ma’am, I never had more than one at a time,” Miss Matey prohibited that
one. But a vision of a man seemed to haunt the kitchen. Fanny assured me
that it was all fancy; or else I should have said myself that I had seen a
man’s coat-tails whisk into the scullery once, when I went on an errand
into the store-room at night; and another evening when, our watches having
stopped, I went to look at the clock, there was a very odd appearance,
singularly like a young man squeezed up between the clock and the back of
the open kitchen-door; and I thought Fanny snatched up the candle very
hastily, so as to throw the shadow on the clock-face, while she very
positively told me the time half-an-hour too early, as we found out
afterward by the church-clock. But I did not add to Miss Matey’s anxieties
by naming my suspicions, especially as Fanny said to me, the next day,
that it was such a queer kitchen for having odd shadows about it, she
really was almost afraid to stay; “for you know, Miss,” she added, “I
don’t see a creature from six o’clock tea, till missus rings the bell for
prayers at ten.”

However, it so fell out that Fanny had to leave; and Miss Matilda begged
me to stay and “settle her” with the new maid; to which I consented, after
I had heard from my father that he did not want me at home. The new
servant was a rough, honest-looking country-girl, who had only lived in a
farm-place before; but I liked her looks when she came to be hired; and I
promised Miss Matilda to put her in the ways of the house. These said ways
were religiously such as Miss Matilda thought her sister would approve.
Many a domestic rule and regulation had been a subject of plaintive
whispered murmur, to me, during Miss Jenkyns’s life; but now that she was
gone, I do not think that even I, who was a favorite, durst have suggested
an alteration. To give an instance: we constantly adhered to the forms
which were observed, at meal times, “in my father the rector’s house.”
Accordingly, we had always wine and dessert; but the decanters were only
filled when there was a party; and what remained was seldom touched,
though we had two wine glasses apiece every day after dinner, until the
next festive occasion arrived; when the state of the remainder wine was
examined into, in a family council. The dregs were often given to the
poor; but occasionally when a good deal had been left, at the last party
(five months ago, it might be) it was added to some of a fresh bottle,
brought up from the cellar. I fancy poor Captain Brown did not much like
wine; for I noticed he never finished his first glass, and most military
men take several. Then, as to our dessert, Miss Jenkyns used to gather
currants and gooseberries for it herself, which I sometimes thought would
have tasted better fresh from the trees; but then, as Miss Jenkyns
observed, there would have been nothing for dessert in summer-time. As it
was, we felt very genteel with our two glasses apiece, and a dish of
gooseberries at the top, of currants and biscuits at the sides, and two
decanters at the bottom. When oranges came in, a curious proceeding was
gone through. Miss Jenkyns did not like to cut the fruit; for, as she
observed, the juice all ran out, nobody knew where; sucking (only, I
think, she used some more recondite word) was in fact the only way of
enjoying oranges; but then there was the unpleasant association with a
ceremony frequently gone through by little babies; and so, after dessert,
in orange season, Miss Jenkyns and Miss Matey used to rise up, possess
themselves each of an orange in silence, and withdraw to the privacy of
their own rooms, to indulge in sucking oranges.

I had once or twice tried, on such occasions, to prevail on Miss Matey to
stay; and had succeeded in her sister’s life-time. I held up a screen, and
did not look, and, as she said, she tried not to make the noise very
offensive; but now that she was left alone, she seemed quite horrified
when I begged her to remain with me in the warm dining-parlor, and enjoy
her orange as she liked best. And so it was in every thing. Miss Jenkyns’s
rules were made more stringent than ever, because the framer of them was
gone where there could be no appeal. In every thing else Miss Matilda was
meek and undecided to a fault. I have heard Fanny turn her round twenty
times in a morning about dinner, just as the little hussy chose; and I
sometimes fancied she worked on Miss Matilda’s weakness, in order to
bewilder her, and to make her feel more in the power of her clever
servant. I determined that I would not leave her till I had seen what sort
of a person Martha was; and, if I found her trustworthy, I would tell her
not to trouble her mistress with every little decision.

Martha was blunt and plain-spoken to a fault; otherwise she was a brisk,
well-meaning, but very ignorant girl. She had not been with us a week
before Miss Matilda and I were astounded one morning by the receipt of a
letter from a cousin of hers, who had been twenty or thirty years in
India, and who had lately, as we had seen by the Army List, returned to
England, bringing with him an invalid wife, who had never been introduced
to her English relations. Major Jenkyns wrote to propose that he and his
wife should spend a night at Cranford, on his way to Scotland—at the inn,
if it did not suit Miss Matilda to receive them into her house; in which
case they should hope to be with her as much as possible during the day.
Of course, it must suit her, as she said; for all Cranford knew that she
had her sister’s bedroom at liberty; but I am sure she wished the Major
had stopped in India and forgotten his cousins out and out.

“Oh! how must I manage!” asked she, helplessly. “If Deborah had been
alive, she would have known what to do with a gentleman-visitor. Must I
put razors in his dressing-room? Dear! dear! and I’ve got none. Deborah
would have had them. And slippers, and coat-brushes?” I suggested that
probably he would bring all these things with him. “And after dinner, how
am I to know when to get up, and leave him to his wine? Deborah would have
done it so well; she would have been quite in her element. Will he want
coffee, do you think?” I undertook the management of the coffee, and told
her I would instruct Martha in the art of waiting, in which it must be
owned she was terribly deficient; and that I had no doubt Major and Mrs.
Jenkyns would understand the quiet mode in which a lady lived by herself
in a country town. But she was sadly fluttered. I made her empty her
decanters, and bring up two fresh bottles of wine. I wished I could have
prevented her from being present at my instructions to Martha; for she
continually cut in with some fresh direction, muddling the poor girl’s
mind, as she stood open-mouthed, listening to us both.

“Hand the vegetables round,” said I (foolishly, I see now—for it was
aiming at more than we could accomplish with quietness and simplicity);
and then, seeing her look bewildered, I added, “Take the vegetables round
to people, and let them help themselves.”

“And mind you go first to the ladies,” put in Miss Matilda. “Always go to
the ladies before gentlemen, when you are waiting.”

“I’ll do it as you tell me, ma’am,” said Martha; “but I like lads best.”

We felt very uncomfortable and shocked at this speech of Martha’s; yet I
don’t think she meant any harm; and, on the whole, she attended very well
to our directions, except that she “nudged” the Major, when he did not
help himself as soon as she expected, to the potatoes, while she was
handing them round.

The Major and his wife were quiet, unpretending people enough when they
did come; languid, as all East Indians are, I suppose. We were rather
dismayed at their bringing two servants with them, a Hindoo body-servant
for the Major, and a steady elderly maid for his wife; but they slept at
the inn, and took off a good deal of the responsibility by attending
carefully to their master’s and mistress’s comfort. Martha, to be sure,
had never ended her staring at the East Indian’s white turban, and brown
complexion, and I saw that Miss Matilda shrunk away from him a little as
he waited at dinner. Indeed, she asked me, when they were gone, if he did
not remind me of Blue Beard? On the whole, the visit was most
satisfactory, and is a subject of conversation even now with Miss Matilda;
at the time it greatly excited Cranford, and even stirred up the apathetic
and Honorable Mrs. Jamieson to some expression of interest when I went to
call and thank her for the kind answers she had vouchsafed to Miss
Matilda’s inquiries as to the arrangement of a gentleman’s
dressing-room—answers which I must confess she had given in the wearied
manner of the Scandinavian prophetess—


    “Leave me, leave me to repose.”


And _now_ I come to the love affair.

It seems that Miss Pole had a cousin, once or twice removed, who had
offered to Miss Matey long ago. Now, this cousin lived four or five miles
from Cranford on his own estate; but his property was not large enough to
entitle him to rank higher than a yeoman; or rather, with something of the
“pride which apes humility,” he had refused to push himself on, as so many
of his class had done, into the ranks of the squires. He would not allow
himself to be called Thomas Holbrook, Esq.; he even sent back letters with
this address, telling the postmistress at Cranford that his name was Mr.
Thomas Holbrook, yeoman. He rejected all domestic innovations; he would
have the house door stand open in summer, and shut in winter, without
knocker or bell to summon a servant. The closed fist or the knob of the
stick did this office for him, if he found the door locked. He despised
every refinement which had not its root deep down in humanity. If people
were not ill, he saw no necessity for moderating his voice. He spoke the
dialect of the country in perfection, and constantly used it in
conversation; although Miss Pole (who gave me these particulars) added,
that he read aloud more beautifully and with more feeling than any one she
had ever heard, except the late Rector.

“And how came Miss Matilda not to marry him?” asked I.

“Oh, I don’t know. She was willing enough, I think; but you know Cousin
Thomas would not have been enough of a gentleman for the Rector, and Mrs.
and Miss Jenkyns.”

“Well! but they were not to marry him,” said I, impatiently.

“No; but they did not like Miss Matey to marry below her rank. You know
she was the Rector’s daughter, and somehow they are related to Sir Peter
Arley: Miss Jenkyns thought a deal of that.”

“Poor Miss Matey!” said I.

“Nay, now, I don’t know any thing more than that he offered and was
refused. Miss Matey might not like him—and Miss Jenkyns might never have
said a word—it is only a guess of mine.”

“Has she never seen him since?” I inquired.

“No, I think not. You see, Woodley, Cousin Thomas’s house, lies half-way
between Cranford and Misselton; and I know he made Misselton his
market-town very soon after he had offered to Miss Matey; and I don’t
think he has been into Cranford above once or twice since—once, when I was
walking with Miss Matey in High-street; and suddenly she darted from me,
and went up Shire-lane. A few minutes after I was startled by meeting
Cousin Thomas.”

“How old is he?” I asked, after a pause of castle-building.

“He must be about seventy, I think, my dear,” said Miss Pole, blowing up
my castle, as if by gunpowder, into small fragments.

Very soon after—at least during my long visit to Miss Matilda—I had the
opportunity of seeing Mr. Holbrook; seeing, too, his first encounter with
his former love, after thirty or forty years’ separation. I was helping to
decide whether any of the new assortment of colored silks which they had
just received at the shop, would help to match a gray and black
mousseline-de-laine that wanted a new breadth, when a tall, thin, Don
Quixote-looking old man came into the shop for some woolen gloves. I had
never seen the person (who was rather striking) before, and I watched him
rather attentively, while Miss Matey listened to the shopman. The stranger
wore a blue coat with brass buttons, drab breeches, and gaiters, and
drummed with his fingers on the counter until he was attended to. When he
answered the shop-boy’s question, “What can I have the pleasure of showing
you to-day, sir?” I saw Miss Matilda start, and then suddenly sit down;
and instantly I guessed who it was. She had made some inquiry which had to
be carried round to the other shopman.

“Miss Jenkyns wants the black sarcenet two-and-twopence the yard;” and Mr.
Holbrook had caught the name, and was across the shop in two strides.

“Matey—Miss Matilda—Miss Jenkyns! God bless my soul! I should not have
known you. How are you? how are you?” He kept shaking her hand in a way
which proved the warmth of his friendship; but he repeated so often, as if
to himself, “I should not have known you!” that any sentimental romance
which I might be inclined to build, was quite done away with by his
manner.

However, he kept talking to us all the time we were in the shop; and then
waving the shopman with the unpurchased gloves on one side, with “Another
time, sir! another time!” he walked home with us. I am happy to say my
client, Miss Matilda, also left the shop in an equally bewildered state,
not having purchased either green or red silk. Mr. Holbrook was evidently
full with honest, loud-spoken joy at meeting his old love again; he
touched on the changes that had taken place; he even spoke of Miss Jenkyns
as “Your poor sister! Well, well! we have all our faults;” and bade us
good-by with many a hope that he should soon see Miss Matey again. She
went straight to her room; and never came back till our early tea-time,
when I thought she looked as if she had been crying.

A few days after, a note came from Mr. Holbrook, asking us—impartially
asking both of us—in a formal, old-fashioned style, to spend a day at his
house—a long June day—for it was June now. He named that he had also
invited his cousin, Miss Pole; so that we might join in a fly, which could
be put up at his house.

I expected Miss Matey to jump at this invitation; but, no! Miss Pole and I
had the greatest difficulty in persuading her to go. She thought it was
improper; and was even half-annoyed when we utterly ignored the idea of
any impropriety in her going with two other ladies to see her old lover.
Then came a more serious difficulty. She did not think Deborah would have
liked her to go. This took us half a day’s good hard talking to get over;
but, at the first sentence of relenting, I seized the opportunity, and
wrote and dispatched an acceptance in her name—fixing day and hour, that
all might be decided and done with.

The next morning she asked me if I would go down to the shop with her; and
there, after much hesitation, we chose out three caps to be sent home and
tried on, that the most becoming might be selected to take with us on
Thursday.

She was in a state of silent agitation all the way to Woodley. She had
evidently never been there before; and, although she little dreamt I knew
any thing of her early story, I could perceive she was in a tremor at the
thought of seeing the place which might have been her home, and round
which it is probable that many of her innocent girlish imaginations had
clustered. It was a long drive there, through paved jolting lanes. Miss
Matilda sate bolt upright, and looked wistfully out of the windows, as we
drew near the end of our journey. The aspect of the country was quiet and
pastoral. Woodley stood among fields; and there was an old-fashioned
garden, where roses and currant-bushes touched each other, and where the
feathery asparagus formed a pretty back-ground to the pinks and
gilly-flowers; there was no drive up to the door; we got out at a little
gate, and walked up a straight box-edged path.

“My cousin might make a drive, I think,” said Miss Pole, who was afraid of
ear-ache, and had only her cap on.

“I think it is very pretty,” said Miss Matey, with a soft plaintiveness in
her voice, and almost in a whisper; for just then Mr. Holbrook appeared at
the door, rubbing his hands in very effervescence of hospitality. He
looked more like my idea of Don Quixote than ever, and yet the likeness
was only external. His respectable housekeeper stood modestly at the door
to bid us welcome; and, while she led the elder ladies upstairs to a
bed-room, I begged to look about the garden. My request evidently pleased
the old gentleman; who took me all round the place, and showed me his
six-and-twenty cows, named after the different letters of the alphabet. As
we went along, he surprised me occasionally by repeating apt and beautiful
quotations from the poets, ranging easily from Shakspeare and George
Herbert to those of our own day. He did this as naturally as if he were
thinking aloud, that their true and beautiful words were the best
expression he could find for what he was thinking or feeling. To be sure
he called Byron “my Lord Byron,” and pronounced the name of Goethe
strictly in accordance with the English sound of the letters—“As Goëthe
says, ’Ye ever verdant palaces,’” &c. Altogether, I never met with a man,
before or since, who had spent so long a life in a secluded and not
impressive country, with ever-increasing delight in the daily and yearly
change of season and beauty.

When he and I went in, we found that dinner was nearly ready in the
kitchen—for so I suppose the room ought to be called, as there were oak
dressers and cupboards all round, all over by the side of the fire-place,
and only a small Turkey-carpet in the middle of the flag-floor. The room
might have been easily made into a handsome dark-oak dining-parlor, by
removing the oven, and a few other appurtenances of a kitchen, which were
evidently never used; the real cooking-place being at some distance. The
room in which we were expected to sit was a stiffly furnished, ugly
apartment; but that in which we did sit was what Mr. Holbrook called the
counting-house, where he paid his laborers their weekly wages, at a great
desk near the door. The rest of the pretty sitting-room—looking into the
orchard, and all covered over with dancing tree-shadows—was filled with
books. They lay on the ground, they covered the walls, they strewed the
table. He was evidently half ashamed and half proud of his extravagance in
this respect. They were of all kinds—poetry, and wild weird tales
prevailing. He evidently chose his books in accordance with his own
tastes, not because such and such were classical, or established
favorites.

“Ah!” he said, “we farmers ought not to have much time for reading; yet
somehow one can’t help it.”

“What a pretty room!” said Miss Matey, _sotto voce_.

“What a pleasant place!” said I, aloud, almost simultaneously.

“Nay! if you like it,” replied he; “but can you sit on these great black
leather three-cornered chairs? I like it better than the best parlor; but
I thought ladies would take that for the smarter place.”

It was the smarter place; but, like most smart things, not at all pretty,
or pleasant, or home-like; so, while we were at dinner, the servant-girl
dusted and scrubbed the counting-house chairs, and we sate there all the
rest of the day.

We had pudding before meat; and I thought Mr. Holbrook was going to make
some apology for his old-fashioned ways, for he began,

“I don’t know whether you like newfangled ways.”

“Oh! not at all!” said Miss Matey.

“No more do I,” said he. “My housekeeper _will_ have things in her new
fashion; or else I tell her, that when I was a young man, we used to keep
strictly to my father’s rule, ‘No broth, no ball; no ball, no beef;’ and
always began dinner with broth. Then we had suet puddings, boiled in the
broth with the beef; and then the meat itself. If we did not sup our
broth, we had no ball, which we liked a deal better; and the beef came
last of all, and only those had it who had done justice to the broth and
the ball. Now folks begin with sweet things, and turn their dinners
topsy-turvy.”

When the ducks and green pease came, we looked at each other in dismay; we
had only two-pronged, black-handled forks. It is true, the steel was as
bright as silver; but, what were we to do? Miss Matey picked up her peas,
one by one, on the point of the prongs, much as Aminé ate her grains of
rice after her previous feast with the Ghoul. Miss Pole sighed over her
delicate young peas as she left them on one side of her plate untasted;
for they _would_ drop between the prongs. I looked at my host: the peas
were going wholesale into his capacious mouth, shoveled up by his large
round-ended knife. I saw, I imitated, I survived! My friends, in spite of
my precedent, could not muster up courage enough to do an ungenteel thing;
and, if Mr. Holbrook had not been so heartily hungry, he would, probably,
have seen that the good pease went away almost untouched.

After dinner, a clay-pipe was brought in, and a spittoon; and, asking us
to retire to another room, where he would soon join us, if we disliked
tobacco-smoke, he presented his pipe to Miss Matey, and requested her to
fill the bowl. This was a compliment to a lady in his youth; but it was
rather inappropriate to propose it as an honor to Miss Matey, who had been
trained by her sister to hold smoking of every kind in utter abhorrence.
But if it was a shock to her refinement, it was also a gratification to
her feelings to be thus selected; so she daintily stuffed the strong
tobacco into the pipe; and then we withdrew.

“It is very pleasant dining with a bachelor,” said Miss Matey, softly, as
we settled ourselves in the counting-house. “I only hope it is not
improper; so many pleasant things are!”

“What a number of books he has!” said Miss Pole, looking round the room.
“And how dusty they are!”

“I think it must be like one of the great Dr. Johnson’s rooms,” said Miss
Matey. “What a superior man your cousin must be!”

“Yes!” said Miss Pole; “he is a great reader; but I am afraid he has got
into very uncouth habits with living alone.”

“Oh! uncouth is too hard a word. I should call him eccentric; very clever
people always are!” replied Miss Matey.

When Mr. Holbrook returned, he proposed a walk in the fields; but the two
elder ladies were afraid of damp and dirt; and had only very unbecoming
calashes to put over their caps; so they declined; and I was again his
companion in a turn which he said he was obliged to take, to see after his
niece. He strode along, either wholly forgetting my existence, or soothed
into silence by his pipe—and yet it was not silence exactly. He walked
before me, with a stooping gait, his hands clasped behind him; and, as
some tree, or cloud, or glimpse of distant upland pastures struck him, he
quoted poetry to himself; saying it out loud in a grand, sonorous voice,
with just the emphasis that true feeling and appreciation give. We came
upon an old cedar-tree, which stood at one end of the house;


    “More black than ash-buds in the front of March,
    A cedar spread his dark-green layers of shade.”


“Capital term—‘layers!’ Wonderful man!” I did not know whether he was
speaking to me or not; but I put in an assenting “wonderful,” although I
knew nothing about it; just because I was tired of being forgotten, and of
being consequently silent.

He turned sharp round. “Ay! you may say ‘wonderful.’ Why, when I saw the
review of his poems in ‘Blackwood,’ I set off within an hour, and walked
seven miles to Misselton (for the horses were not in the way), and ordered
them. Now, what color are ash-buds in March?”

Is the man going mad? thought I. He is very like Don Quixote.

“What color are they, I say?” repeated he, vehemently.

“I am sure I don’t know, sir,” said I, with the meekness of ignorance.

“I knew you didn’t. No more did I—an old fool that I am! till this young
man comes and tells me. ‘Black as ash-buds in March.’ And I’ve lived all
my life in the country; more shame for me not to know. Black; they are
jet-black, madam.” And he went off again, swinging along to the music of
some rhyme he had got hold of.

When he came home nothing would serve him but that he must read us the
poems he had been speaking of; and Miss Pole encouraged him in his
proposal, I thought, because she wished me to hear his beautiful reading,
of which she had boasted; but she afterward said it was because she had
got to a difficult part of her crotchet, and wanted to count her stitches
without having to talk. Whatever he had proposed would have been right to
Miss Matey; although she did fall sound asleep within five minutes after
he began a long poem called “Locksley Hall,” and had a comfortable nap,
unobserved, till he ended; when the cessation of his voice wakened her up,
and she said, feeling that something was expected, and that Miss Pole was
counting:

“What a pretty book!”

“Pretty! madam! it’s beautiful! Pretty, indeed!”

“Oh, yes! I meant beautiful!” said she, fluttered at his disapproval of
her word. “It is so like that beautiful poem of Dr. Johnson’s my sister
used to read—I forget the name of it; what was it, my dear?” turning to
me.

“Which do you mean, ma’am? What was it about?”

“I don’t remember what it was about, and I’ve quite forgotten what the
name of it was; but it was written by Dr. Johnson, and was very beautiful,
and very like what Mr. Holbrook has just been reading.”

“I don’t remember it,” said he, reflectively, “but I don’t know Dr.
Johnson’s poems well. I must read them.”

As we were getting into the fly to return, I heard Mr. Holbrook say he
should call on the ladies soon, and inquire how they got home; and this
evidently pleased and fluttered Miss Matey at the time he said it; but
after we had lost sight of the old house among the trees, her sentiments
toward the master of it were gradually absorbed into a distressing wonder
as to whether Martha had broken her word, and seized on the opportunity of
her mistress’s absence to have a “follower.” Martha looked good, and
steady, and composed enough, as she came to help us out; she was always
careful of Miss Matey, and to-night she made use of this unlucky speech:

“Eh! dear ma’am, to think of your going out on an evening in such a thin
shawl! It is no better than muslin. At your age, ma’am, you should be
careful.”

“My age!” said Miss Matey, almost speaking crossly, for her; for she was
usually gentle. “My age! Why, how old do you think I am, that you talk
about my age?”

“Well, ma’am! I should say you were not far short of sixty; but folks’
looks is often against them—and I’m sure I meant no harm.”

“Martha, I’m not yet fifty-two!” said Miss Matey, with grave emphasis; for
probably the remembrance of her youth had come very vividly before her
this day, and she was annoyed at finding that golden time so far away in
the past.

But she never spoke of any former and more intimate acquaintance with Mr.
Holbrook. She had probably met with so little sympathy in her early love,
that she had shut it up close in her heart; and it was only by a sort of
watching, which I could hardly avoid, since Miss Pole’s confidence, that I
saw how faithful her poor heart had been in its sorrow and its silence.

She gave me some good reason for wearing her best cap every day, and sate
near the window, in spite of her rheumatism, in order to see, without
being seen, down into the street.

He came. He put his open palms upon his knees, which were far apart, as he
sate with his head bent down, whistling, after we had replied to his
inquiries about our safe return. Suddenly, he jumped up.

“Well, madam! have you any commands for Paris? I’m going there in a week
or two.”

“To Paris!” we both exclaimed.

“Yes, ma’am! I’ve never been there, and always had a wish to go; and I
think if I don’t go soon, I mayn’t go at all; so as soon as the hay is got
in I shall go, before harvest-time.”

We were so much astonished, that we had no commissions.

Just as he was going out of the room, he turned back, with his favorite
exclamation:

“God bless my soul, madam! but I nearly forgot half my errand. Here are
the poems for you, you admired so much the other evening at my house.” He
tugged away at a parcel in his coat-pocket. “Good-by, Miss,” said he;
“good-by, Matey! take care of yourself.” And he was gone. But he had given
her a book, and he had called her Matey, just as he used to do thirty
years ago.

“I wish he would not go to Paris,” said Miss Matilda, anxiously. “I don’t
believe frogs will agree with him; he used to have to be very careful what
he ate, which was curious in so strong-looking a young man.”

Soon after this I took my leave, giving many an injunction to Martha to
look after her mistress, and to let me know if she thought that Miss
Matilda was not so well; in which case I would volunteer a visit to my old
friend, without noticing Martha’s intelligence to her.

Accordingly I received a line or two from Martha every now and then; and,
about November, I had a note to say her mistress was “very low, and sadly
off her food;” and the account made me so uneasy, that, although Martha
did not decidedly summon me, I packed up my things and went.

I received a warm welcome, in spite of the little flurry produced by my
impromptu visit, for I had only been able to give a day’s notice. Miss
Matilda looked miserably ill; and I prepared to comfort and cosset her.

I went down to have a private talk with Martha.

“How long has your mistress been so poorly?” I asked, as I stood by the
kitchen fire.

“Well! I think it’s better than a fortnight; it is, I know: it was one
Tuesday after Miss Pole had been here that she went into this moping way.
I thought she was tired, and it would go off with a night’s rest; but, no!
she has gone on and on ever since, till I thought it my duty to write to
you, ma’am.”

“You did quite right, Martha. It is a comfort to think she has so faithful
a servant about her. And I hope you find your place comfortable?”

“Well, ma’am, missus is very kind, and there’s plenty to eat and drink,
and no more work but what I can do easily—but—” Martha hesitated.

“But what, Martha?”

“Why, it seems so hard of missus not to let me have any followers; there’s
such lots of young fellows in the town; and many a one has as much as
offered to keep company with me; and I may never be in such a likely place
again, and it’s like wasting an opportunity. Many a girl as I know would
have ’em unbeknownst to missus; but I’ve given my word, and I’ll stick to
it; or else this is just the house for missus never to be the wiser if
they did come: and it’s such a capable kitchen—there’s such good dark
corners in it—I’d be bound to hide any one. I counted up last Sunday
night—for I’ll not deny I was crying because I had to shut the door in Jem
Hearn’s face; and he’s a steady young man, fit for any girl; only I had
given missus my word.” Martha was all but crying again; and I had little
comfort to give her, for I knew, from old experience, of the horror with
which both the Miss Jenkynses looked upon “followers;” and in Miss Matey’s
present nervous state this dread was not likely to be lessened.

I went to see Miss Pole the next day, and took her completely by surprise;
for she had not been to see Miss Matilda for two days.

“And now I must go back with you, my dear, for I promised to let her know
how Thomas Holbrook went on; and I’m sorry to say his housekeeper has sent
me word to-day that he hasn’t long to live. Poor Thomas! That journey to
Paris was quite too much for him. His housekeeper says he has hardly ever
been round his fields since; but just sits with his hands on his knees in
the counting-house, not reading or any thing, but only saying, what a
wonderful city Paris was! Paris has much to answer for, if it’s killed my
cousin Thomas, for a better man never lived.”

“Does Miss Matilda know of his illness?” asked I; a new light as to the
cause of her indisposition dawning upon me.

“Dear! to be sure, yes! Has she not told you? I let her know a fortnight
ago, or more, when first I heard of it. How odd, she shouldn’t have told
you!”

Not at all, I thought; but I did not say any thing. I felt almost guilty
of having spied too curiously into that tender heart, and I was not going
to speak of its secrets—hidden, Miss Matey believed, from all the world. I
ushered Miss Pole into Miss Matilda’s little drawing-room; and then left
them alone. But I was not surprised when Martha came to my bedroom door,
to ask me to go down to dinner alone, for that missus had one of her bad
headaches. She came into the drawing-room at tea-time; but it was
evidently an effort to her; and, as if to make up for some reproachful
feeling against her late sister, Miss Jenkyns, which had been troubling
her all the afternoon, and for which she now felt penitent, she kept
telling me how good and how clever Deborah was in her youth; how she used
to settle what gowns they were to wear at all the parties (faint, ghostly
ideas of dim parties far away in the distance, when Miss Matey and Miss
Pole were young!) and how Deborah and her mother had started the benefit
society for the poor, and taught girls cooking and plain sewing; and how
Deborah had once danced with a lord; and how she used to visit at Sir
Peter Arley’s, and try to remodel the quiet rectory establishment on the
plans of Arley Hall, where they kept thirty servants; and how she had
nursed Miss Matey through a long, long illness, of which I had never heard
before, but which I now dated in my own mind as following the dismissal of
the suit of Mr. Holbrook. So we talked softly and quietly of old times,
through the long November evening.

The next day Miss Pole brought us word that Mr. Holbrook was dead. Miss
Matey heard the news in silence; in fact, from the account on the previous
day, it was only what we had to expect. Miss Pole kept calling upon us for
some expression of regret, by asking if it was not sad that he was gone:
and saying,

“To think of that pleasant day last June, when he seemed so well! And he
might have lived this dozen years if he had not gone to that wicked Paris,
where they are always having revolutions.”

She paused for some demonstration on our part. I saw Miss Matey could not
speak, she was trembling so nervously; so I said what I really felt: and
after a call of some duration—all the time of which I have no doubt Miss
Pole thought Miss Matey received the news very calmly—our visitor took her
leave. But the effort at self-control Miss Matey had made to conceal her
feelings—a concealment she practiced even with me, for she has never
alluded to Mr. Holbrook again, although the book he gave her lies with her
Bible on the little table by her bedside; she did not think I heard her
when she asked the little milliner of Cranford to make her caps something
like the Honorable Mrs. Jamieson’s, or that I noticed the reply,

“But she wears widows’ caps, ma’am?”

“Oh! I only meant something in that style; not widows’, of course, but
rather like Mrs. Jamieson’s.”

This effort at concealment was the beginning of the tremulous motion of
head and hands which I have seen ever since in Miss Matey.

The evening of the day on which we heard of Mr. Holbrook’s death, Miss
Matilda was very silent and thoughtful; after prayers she called Martha
back, and then she stood uncertain what to say.

“Martha!” she said at last; “you are young,” and then she made so long a
pause that Martha, to remind her of her half-finished sentence, dropped a
courtesy, and said:

“Yes, please, ma’am; two-and-twenty last third of October, please, ma’am.”

“And perhaps, Martha, you may some time meet with a young man you like,
and who likes you. I did say you were not to have followers; but if you
meet with such a young man, and tell me, and I find he is respectable, I
have no objection to his coming to see you once a week. God forbid!” said
she, in a low voice, “that I should grieve any young hearts.” She spoke as
if she were providing for some distant contingency, and was rather
startled when Martha made her ready, eager answer:

“Please, ma’am, there’s Jim Hearn, and he’s a joiner, making
three-and-sixpence a day, and six foot one in his stocking-feet, please
ma’am; and if you’ll ask about him to-morrow morning, every one will give
him a character for steadiness; and he’ll be glad enough to come to-morrow
night, I’ll be bound.”

Though Miss Matey was startled, she submitted to Fate and Love.





ANECDOTES OF MONKEYS.


During a short stay on the Essequibo, a little monkey of the Jackowai Ris
tribe, in return for some slight attention I had shown him, permitted me
so far to gain his favor and confidence, that he was seldom away from my
person; indeed, he treated me like one mentioned by a distinguished
traveler, which every morning seized on a pig belonging to a mission on
the Orinoco, and rode on its back during the whole day, while it wandered
about the savannahs in search of food. Nothing pleased him better than to
perch on my shoulder, when he would encircle my neck with his long hairy
tail, and accompany me in all my rambles. His tail formed a no very
agreeable neckcloth, with the thermometer above one hundred degrees; but
he seemed so disappointed when I refused to carry him, that it was
impossible to leave him behind. In appearance he was particularly
engaging—squirrel-like in form—with a light brown coat slightly tinged
with yellow, and arms and legs of a reddish cast—pleasingly contrasting
with a pale face, and small black muzzle; the expressive and merry twinkle
of his sparkling black eye betokened fun, roguery, and intelligence. The
Jackowai Ris are a fierce race, and approach the carnivora in their habits
and dispositions. One reason of our intimacy was the sameness of our
pursuits—both being entomologists; but he was a far more indefatigable
insect-hunter than myself. He would sit motionless for hours among the
branches of a flowering shrub or tree, the resort of bees and butterflies,
and suddenly seize them when they little expected danger. Timid in the
presence of strangers, he would usually fly to the branches of a
neighboring tree at their approach, uttering a plaintive cry, more
resembling a bird than an animal. He was apt to be troublesome, even to
me, unless I found him some amusement; this, fortunately, was not
difficult; for his whole attention was soon engrossed by a flower, or by a
leaf from my note-book, which he would industriously pull to pieces, and
throw on the surface of the water, earnestly watching the fragments with
his quick black eye, as they glided away.

At other times, when sitting on my shoulder, he was an incessant plague,
twitching the hairs from my head by twos and threes, filling my ears with
fragments of plants and other rubbish, and taking a malicious pleasure in
holding on by those members when the boat lurched, and he was in danger of
falling. I think it was one of the same family that Humboldt found capable
of recognizing, as resemblances of their originals, even uncolored
zoological drawings; and would stretch out its hand to endeavor to capture
the bees and grasshoppers. I was unable to test the sagacity of my little
comrade, as the only accessible work with engravings was a copy of
Schomburgk’s “Fishes of Guiana;” and when I showed him the plates he
manifested no signs of a knowledge of any of his finny compatriots; never,
perhaps, having seen them. He was dreadfully afraid of getting himself
wet, particularly his hands and feet; in this respect showing a very
different disposition to a large long-haired black monkey, belonging to a
family settled a short distance from our residence.

This animal—an object of the greatest terror to the little Jackowinki,
from his having caught him one day and ducked him in the river—was one of
the most tractable and docile I ever remember having met. He was in the
habit of accompanying his master in all his fishing and shooting
expeditions, taking his allotted seat in the canoe, and plying his small
paddle for hours together with the utmost gravity and composure; all the
while keeping excellent time, and being never “out of stroke.” Like his
companions, he would now and then dip the handle of his paddle in the
water, to destroy the squeaking grate of the dry surface, and again would
lean over the side and wash his hands. His domestic habits were perfectly
human. The first thing every morning he cleansed his teeth, by taking a
mouthful of water, and using his finger as a tooth-brush; like the other
members of the family, whom he also imitated in their daily bath in the
river. Perhaps one at least of these peculiarities was not entirely
imitative, as a credible authority (Captain Stedman, in his “Narrative of
an Expedition to Surinam”) assures us that he once saw a monkey at the
water’s edge, rinsing his mouth, and appearing to clean his teeth with his
fingers.

As for my little friend, I intended to bring him home; but the day before
my departure he suddenly decamped. We were taking our usual trip up the
creek, and I was just thinking of returning, when, on rounding a sharp
bend in the tortuous channel, I perceived two Jackowinkis sitting on a
branch about twenty yards distant, as yet unaware of our vicinity, and
from their chattering and grimaces seemingly engaged in some matrimonial
squabble. Anxious to obtain a specimen for stuffing, I fired at one, which
proved to be the male, who dropped to the ground.

When he saw his brother fall, he seemed instantly to understand that I was
a murderer. He took immediate revenge. He sprang to my shoulder, tore a
handful of hair from my head, and swiftly clambered away among the
overhanging branches. When I recovered from surprise at this unexpected
attack, he had paused in his flight; and, with his face turned toward me,
was grinning, showing his sharp little teeth, and throwing down glances of
fierceness and hate. In another instant he was pursuing the female, whose
plaintive twitterings were distinctly audible, as she scampered away among
the trees. In the course of time, he no doubt managed to console the
widow; and, free from all shackles and restraints, is probably, at this
moment, quietly enjoying a married life in his native woods.





THE MOUNTAIN TORRENT.




I.


My family, by the paternal side, was originally of Berne, in Switzerland,
whence a branch of it removed to the Milanese, to improve its fortunes.
The name of Reding—well-known in the Cantons—was sustained with credit by
my father. He inherited a thriving mill and farm, about a quarter of a
league from the straggling village and venerable Castle of St. Michael,
within sight of the Tyrolese Alps. Traveling to Zurich, where he had
distant connections, he returned with a companion who weaned him from the
desire of wandering any more.

The Castle of St. Michael, with the estate on which our little property
was situated, belonged to an Austrian noble, who managed it by deputy, and
lived in courtly splendor at Vienna. Count Mansfeldt was equitably
represented by his steward, Engel; and under him, our house enjoyed
prosperity from the days of my grandsire.

I had but one sister; my mother was the sole superintendent of her
education; she thought the feminine mind, so susceptible of impressions,
should never be spontaneously consigned to foreign culture. Katherine was
worthy of her preceptress. It is not for me to dilate upon her
excellence—a portrait by my hand might be deemed the glowing creation of a
brother’s fondness. It is enough to mention the strength of our
attachment. I was two years her senior; and when her age qualified her for
sharing in childish pastimes, she was the welcome partner of all my
amusements. I showered into her lap the first flowers of spring, and
brought her the wild-strawberry from heights where few would venture. In
her friendship, I reposed the confidence of ripening boyhood—frequently
were the overflowings of a sanguine temperament repressed by her mildness.
With innocent wiles she endeavored to vail my errors from parental eyes;
when I did incur displeasure, her accustomed gayety was gone, and the
voice that recalled her truant smile, was ever that which pardoned the
offender.




II.


I was entering my twentieth year, when our situation underwent an
important change. Our landlord was gathered to his ancestors, having
bequeathed his Lombardy estate to his second son, Count Rainer. Engel, the
good old steward, was soon after dismissed from office, and retired, with
the fruits of faithful service, to his native town in Carniola.

Count Rainer was a captain in the imperial army. He was with his regiment
at Pavia when informed of his father’s death. Devolving his authority on
an emancipated sergeant of hussars, the purveyor of his libertine
pleasures, he dispatched him to St. Michael to wring money from the
tenantry, and prepare for his reception.

Ludolf was a swaggering bravo, emulous, at middle age, of the vices of
profligate youth. On his arrival, he circulated a pompous intimation that
he came vested with full powers to treat with the vassals of the count,
and renew their engagements.

My sister had gone to the village to make purchases, and I left the mill
at vesper chime with the intention of meeting her. The path was abrupt,
and little frequented. I was cherishing discontent at the husbandman’s
unvaried existence, when I was roused by the distant accents of a female
in distress. They were clearly distinguishable, and I rushed to the
quarter whence they proceeded. In a corner of an open spot, backed by a
deep ditch, fenced with luxuriant underwood, Katherine was keeping a man,
unknown to me, at bay: he was above the middle size, and in his beard and
costume affected the fashion of the military. He faced me as I approached,
and my sister, with disordered dress and agitated frame, flew to my side.
Defenseless as I was, my first impulse was to chastise the ruffian, though
he wore a sabre; but consideration for the terrified girl, who clung to me
imploringly, induced me to forego my purpose. We had not receded many
paces, when Katherine relinquished her hold, and uttered a warning cry:
the hand of violence was already at my throat; and a harsh voice, unsteady
from rage or intemperance, demanded why a contemptible slave dared to
interfere with the representative of Count Rainer.

Unequal to my opponent in bulk and inert force, I was far above him in
activity and the resources of a vigorous constitution. A sudden jerk freed
me from his hold, and a well-applied push sent him reeling to the verge of
the ditch. He drew his weapon with a rapidity on which I had not
calculated; Katherine’s coolness saved my life: she arrested his arm in
its sweep. Ere he could disengage himself, I collected all my energy for
one buffet, and laid him supine in the reservoir of mud.




III.


Count Rainer was greeted at St. Michael with the show of rustic rejoicing
usual on the appearance of a new master. He was accompanied by a train of
riotous associates. The roar of Bacchanalian merriment shook the dusky
halls of his patrimonial fabric, which, in the blaze of unwonted
festivity, seemed to have renewed its youth. Naught, from the evening of
the rencounter, had we heard or seen of Ludolf. His rudeness might have
originated in the coarse jocularity of a soldier, stimulated by too fervid
an application to the bottle. Prudence required that I should abstain from
needlessly irritating a man whose enmity might mar my father’s
arrangements with his lord: I therefore avoided the chance of collision.

I was strolling about the fields with my gun on my shoulder, when a pet
pigeon of Katherine’s whirred past me, pursued by a hawk. I fired at the
bird of prey, which dropped in an adjoining meadow. Springing across the
intervening hedge, I found myself in the presence of a group of mounted
sportsmen and their attendants. One of the horsemen was examining the dead
hawk; his attention was directed toward me by a retainer, in whose brawny
proportions, husky voice, and ferocious mustaches, I recognized my
adversary, Ludolf.

My gun was demanded, in the name of Count Rainer: I refused to surrender
it. The party formed a circle around, pinioned me, and wrested it from me,
ere I could attempt resistance. “Mr. Steward,” said the count, “you may
now acquaint your friend with the consequences of destroying a nobleman’s
falcon.”

The ready villain and his servile followers dragged me to the earth; they
profaned my person by stripes. When they left me in my abasement, the air
felt pestilent with their brutal laughter.

I lay with my face to the greensward long after their departure. My brain
was eddying in a hell-whirl. I could have welcomed the return of chaos,
that the circumstance of my shame might be obliterated in the clash of
contending elements. Had the sun been blotted from the heavens, and the
summer earth turned to blackness and desolation, I should have thought
them fit and natural occurrences. I raised my burning brow; but the orb of
day was riding high in his glory, and the meadow-grass and wild flowers
were fresh and fragrant as if they had not witnessed the act of
degradation. I discovered that a stranger had been regarding me with a
vigilant eye. I confronted him, and darted at him a devouring glance; his
firm, contemplative look remained unaltered. Placing a hand on my
shoulder, he said, “Albert Reding, consider me your friend.”

“I know you not,” I answered, “nor care to know you.” He smiled
benevolently:

“Young man, I am no Austrian. I shall be with you to-morrow.”




IV.


The stranger kept his word: on the ensuing day he came to our dwelling.
Making, he said, a tour through the north of Italy, the picturesque
scenery tempted him to prolong his sojourn at St. Michael. In his
excursions, he had chanced to hold random converse with my father, whom he
professed to value as the worthy descendant of an independent and
intelligent people.

I had forborne to grieve my family by the story of my disgrace, nor had it
yet been detailed to them by the officious communicativeness of pretended
friends. Our visitor made no allusion to it, but expatiated very agreeably
on topics of general interest. He described the passes of the Alps with
the accuracy of a mountaineer, and displayed an intimacy with the
localities of the cantons that filled my parents with pleasure and
surprise. In pursuit of knowledge he had traversed the most remarkable
sections of the globe; and his observations, affluent in instruction,
proved that his wanderings had been of a different order from the
capricious migrations of sight-seeking wealth.

The warmth with which I seconded some of his sentiments appeared to please
him. He complimented my father on my education; adding, that the judgment
with which I developed its resources designated me for a wider sphere of
action than belonged to a tiller of the soil of Lombardy. I had been vain
enough to entertain the same opinion; and its confirmation by a competent
authority was balm to my spirit. Gladly I acceded to his request, of
guiding him to the Baron’s Font, a romantic cascade, where, to use his own
language, he sighed to offer allegiance to Nature.

My companion noted the peculiarities of the route, and committed to
writing the information I furnished respecting the district. We rested on
the summit of a steep, skirted by the foaming stream of the cascade,
beyond which rose wooded grounds in bold acclivity, mellowing, with their
dusky greenness, the gloomy grandeur of a mouldering tower.

The stranger abruptly adverted to the hateful humiliation of the preceding
day. He descanted on the contumely I had suffered, with a vehement
bitterness that chafed my young blood to flame. I denounced endless
hostility against the count and his minions. He calmly commented on the
futility of the threat. In the frenzy of exasperation, I insinuated the
possibility of resorting to the darkest means of accomplishing revenge. He
replied, that in cooler moments I would spurn the idea of Italian
vengeance. Requiring a pledge of secrecy, he proceeded to point out an
honorable mode of lowering the crest of the oppressor.

“My name,” he said, “is Philippon—my profession, a military engineer, in
the service of the French Republic. The armies of Liberty only await the
capture of Toulon to sever the chains of Italy. I am terminating a secret
journey of observation through Piedmont and the Milanese. Come with me to
Paris, and join the standard of Freedom. In France, no parchment barrier
excludes untitled youth from fame and fortune; draw a blade in her cause,
and relieve the place of your nativity from the thralldom of its petty
tyrant. These brutal and stolid Austrians must be driven to their land of
hereditary bondage—justice demands it. The time has gone by for insulted
and injured Humanity to shed tears in secret. Five dreary years I pined in
the dismal solitudes of the Bastile—I saw it fall, amid the curses of my
countrymen; and never shall the spirit of a liberated nation taste repose,
until every stronghold of remorseless power is patent to the winds of
heaven as yon grim old fortress, where the Count Rainers of the past
outraged with impunity the natural equality of man!”

The majesty of generous indignation irradiated his brow: the eloquent
thunders of the Roman forum seemed to roll around me. I agreed to attend
him to the capital of the young Republic.




V.


Bent on entering the field of martial adventure, I anticipated much
difficulty in obtaining the concurrence of my father. A lover of
tranquillity, he had sickened at the sanguinary measures that had
crimsoned the cradle of the French Revolution. Yielding also to age and
infirmity, he had been accustomed to the prospect of resigning to me the
chief management of our affairs. The narrative of my shame, however, which
led him to tremble for the consequences, determined him against opposing
my departure. Of my military project, and the pursuits of my patron, I
made no disclosure—I barely stated the fact, that he had promised to
provide for me at Paris, and proposed, in the mean time, giving me
employment as an amanuensis.

Sorrow and joy are twin daughters of affection. Notwithstanding the
excitement of curiosity and ambition, reluctantly and despondingly I
crossed our humble threshold. I went away at night, and this added to the
melancholy character of the separation. My mother was unwell, and at her
bedside I received her blessing. The features of my gentle-natured sister
gave dim and pallid testimony to the fullness of her affliction. When I
had parted with my parents, she escorted me to the extremity of the
orchard. “Oh, Albert!” were the only words she had power to utter; and her
face looked so mournful—so heart-appealing, in the moonlight—that to
desert her smote me as a sin. One embrace, and I bounded off like a
chamois—then paused, till weeping relieved my soul—Katherine! Katherine!




VI.


I remained about a year at Paris in the house of my patron. Toulon had
fallen, and the army of Italy had commenced operations by a successful
movement on the Sardinian frontier. Profiting by the opportunity I
possessed of studying the theory of the military art, I was rewarded with
a commission in a regiment of the line—one of those destined for the
invasion of the Milanese. I received, with alacrity, the order to proceed
to Nice. I was shocked and disgusted by the dreary spectacle of civil
broil, and I thirsted for distinction. The memory of wrong also rankled in
my bosom, and in my dreams I planted the revolutionary banner on the
battlements of St. Michael, and heard myself hailed in the halls of the
insolent Austrian with the acclamations due to a hero.

I joined my regiment; but a government weakened by vacillations in its
form, and dissensions in the capital, permitted the army, with which my
hopes were associated, to languish ill-appointed and inactive. Instead of
running a career of glory, it was forced to contend with the most
depressing privations. In my despondency, a long-delayed letter arrived
from my father. Its contents were almost limited to the earnest request,
that I would immediately hasten home.

Its emphatic urgency, unaccompanied by explanation, assured me that all
went not well. I would fain have obeyed the summons, but it was
impracticable. The Directory, established in authority, ordered the army
of Italy to the field. General Bonaparte, an officer in his twenty-sixth
year, marshaled the way to the Alps.

Napoleon’s campaigns in 1796 are familiar to all Europe. It was my fortune
to be present in the most remarkable engagements, and to escape without a
wound. When Wurmser, after repeated defeats, succeeded in recruiting his
forces in the Tyrol, a strong body of our troops, headed by the
commander-in-chief, advanced against a division of 20,000 Austrians
stationed at Roveredo. Our line of march lay through the district of my
birth. A few hours before we were in motion I was summoned to the quarters
of the general. It was the well-known characteristic of this extraordinary
man scrupulously to ascertain the extent of his resources, even to the
qualifications of an individual soldier.

Aware of my knowledge of the country he was about to penetrate, he wished
to make it subservient to his purpose. He questioned me as to the
correctness of some local information, which I perceived had been derived
from the documents of Philippon. Satisfied on these points, he sportively
inquired, if I had any dislike to act as his herald to my old neighbors. I
related my obligations to our German superior, and he promised me ample
powers for discharging them in full.

We were evidently unexpected. No artificial obstacle opposed our progress,
and we proceeded with unexampled celerity. Our advanced posts were only
separated from St. Michael by a few miles of broken ground, when I was
dispatched with a detachment to surprise it. The troops halted in a
chestnut grove, about half a league from the mill, while I, grappling a
fowling-piece, assuming a light hunting-cap, and covering my uniform with
an ordinary cloak, went forth to reconnoitre the place, and to provide for
the safety of my relatives.

I skirted round the village and castle, which I found were occupied by a
company of Hungarian infantry under Count Rainer. Not anticipating the
irruption of an enemy into their secluded fastness, camp indulgences had
relaxed order. My informer, a poor peasant, seemed afraid of confiding to
a stranger his opinion of the count and his followers. I asked concerning
my family, but with the name of Reding he was unacquainted.

It was the beginning of September. There had been a continuance of
unusually sultry weather, and the melting of the mountain snows had
swelled the stream at St. Michael to an impetuous torrent. Twilight was
approaching when I reached a sheltered position opposite the castle. The
waters dashed furiously against the base of the building, and the crazy
supports of the antiquated bridge quivered like a harpstring.

I resolved on a nocturnal attack, and was about to seek a passing
interview with the dear domestic circle, when, looking toward the castle,
I saw what stayed my step. A female ran wildly to the stream, pursued by
some menials, in the rear of whom, on horseback, came the count their
master. The fugitive cleared the bridge just as her pursuers gained it. At
that moment the centre of the infirm structure gave way to the torrent.
Concealed among the trees, I perceived the female on bended knees,
distractedly blessing God for her deliverance; and I knew that it was
Katherine, my only—my beloved sister!

I fired a shot at him who had been foremost in the chase—the infamous
Ludolf—as he clambered up a remnant of the shattered bridge. He stood
unhurt amidst the group that surveyed me, while I sheltered the dove of my
boyhood in my bosom. In the confusion I exposed my uniform; the alarm was
given, and every instant became precious. I supported Katherine until out
of sight of the foe. “Fly!” I cried; “fly to our parents, dear sister!
tell them I shall bring glad tidings in the morning!”

I counseled in vain. The sense of injury had unsettled her mind—she hung
helplessly upon me—her lips moved, but I could distinguish nothing of what
she spoke, save the repetition of the words, “Home! I have no home!”—Oh,
God! she was sadly altered!

A bugle echoed among the cliffs. I bore her to a cavern, the discovery of
my youth, and wrapped her in my cloak. Hurrying, by familiar paths, with a
speed I had never before exerted, I rejoined my associates.




VII.


An intricate and circuitous track brought us at midnight to the isolated
church of St. Michael, commanding the village and the narrow road to the
castle. We crouched in the church-yard, until every sound ceased, and the
lights that had blazed in different directions were no longer visible.
Leaving part of my force to intercept the communication with the village,
I led the remainder to a point of the fortress which I had scaled in my
youthful rambles.

The pacing of the sentinels, and the noisy vigils of the count and his
guests, were clearly audible as I descended the ivied wall. My party
followed, one by one, and our success would have been signally complete,
but for the accidental discharge of a musket. This was answered by a
volley from the guard, the din of arms, and the hasty gathering of a
tumultuous body of defenders. Ordering my men to keep close and follow me,
we pressed forward to a private door that opened into the body of the
pile.

This barrier was quickly shattered by a shower of balls, and in a second
the great hall resounded with the groans of the dying and the shouts of
the triumphant. In that arena of slaughter I was collected as I am now.
Once had Rainer’s bloated visage confronted me in the fray, but the
baleful meteor vanished, and bootless to me was the issue of the conflict,
until blade or bullet did its work on him and his subordinate.

The hall gave indications of a carousal. The red wine streaming from
flagons overturned in struggle, mingled with the life-drops of the
wassailers. Death derived a more appalling aspect from the relics of
recent revelry. Some intoxicated wretches had been bayoneted with the
goblets in their hands. One had fallen backward on the hearth above the
burning embers; he was mortally wounded, and the blood gushed freely in
the flames. I stooped to raise him from his bed of torture. The streaks of
gore did not disguise the lineaments of Ludolf. The reprobate had closed
his reckoning with mortality.

Victory was ours, but discipline was at an end; I could with difficulty
muster sentinels for the night; the cellars were ransacked, and weariness
and intemperance soon produced their effects. Sending confidential
messengers to attend to my sister’s safety, and convey intelligence to my
father, I prepared to await the dawn of morning.

Feverish from anxiety, I felt no inclination to grant my wearied limbs
repose. My brain was racked with the thought of Katherine, and
apprehension for my parents. I had seen enough to convince me that Rainer
had done his worst. What confederate demon had enabled him to escape me?

I paced from post to post, execrating the sluggish march of time. Leaning
over an eminence near the broken bridge, I listened to the turbulent music
of the waters. A subterraneous opening cut in the rocky soil below
communicated with the vaults of the castle. Hearing the echo of a
foot-fall, I bent cautiously over the outlet. A lamp glimmered beneath. A
muffled figure raised it aloft to guide its egress, then extinguished it
hastily. The light fell on the face of the count.

I grasped his cloak as he emerged, but, slipping it from his shoulders, he
retreated toward a shelving wood-walk on the margin of the stream. Had he
gained it, the darkness must have saved him. Both my pistols missed fire.
I outstripped in the race, and bore him back to the very edge of the
ravine. He made a thrust at me with his sword. I neither paused for a
trial of skill, nor attempted to ward off the weapon; the butt-end of a
pistol found its way to his forehead; not a sound passed his lips; down he
went—down—down—passively bounding over the jagged declivity, till a heavy
plash told that he was whirling with the torrent.

Vengeance was satisfied: I recoiled involuntarily from the scene of the
encounter. Suddenly arose an explosion, as if a volcano had torn up the
foundation of the castle: I was felled to the earth ere I could speculate
upon the cause.




VIII.


My campaigns were over. Rainer had laid a train, and fired the powder
magazine of his captured hold. The bravest of my men perished; and I,
crushed beneath a fragment of the toppling towers, lived to curse the art
that returned me mutilated and miserable, to a world in which I was
henceforth to have no portion.

I left the hospital a phantom, and set forth on a pilgrimage, the
performance of which was the only business that remained to me in life.
The tide of battle had ebbed from St. Michael, when I crawled up its
steep—the church and castle were blackened ruins—the habitations of the
villagers roofless and deserted—the mill a shapeless mass of timber and
stones. Our orchard was unfolding the buds of spring—I fancied that the
hoary apple-trees wore the aspect of friends—the voice of singing floated
on my ear, as I neared the dwelling of my infancy, and the fountain of my
heart re-opened.

Close to the spot where our pretty porch once stood, a matron, in the garb
of extreme penury, was bending over the trampled remains of a plot of
flowers. Her features were only partially revealed, but the mountain
melody she sang could not be mistaken—I fell at my mother’s feet! Shading
back the hair from my scarred temples, she asked me if I had come from her
children!

Mercy was vouchsafed to her and to me. She soon slumbered with the clods
of the valley. My father had died, ere my departure from France; and the
story of our injuries from the Austrian lightened the burden of remorse
for the shedding of blood. I have discovered no trace of Katherine since I
quitted her at the cave.





A MASKED BALL AT VIENNA.


It is a bitterly cold night, and the snow which has been for three days
tumbling down upon the roofs and pavements of Vienna, tumbles down upon us
still. The theatres, which get through their performances by half-past
nine, are closed already; and there is a lull now in the muffled streets.
I mean to go out as a muffled man, and use the ticket I have bought for a
Masked Ball at the palace. The sale of tickets for such balls, which take
place now and then during the winter, raises enormous sums, which are
applied to charitable purposes, so that the luxury of the rich is made to
minister, in this case, also to the comforts of the poor.

Here I stand ankle-deep in snow, and look up at the palace; all the
windows on the first story are being lighted up, and cold gentlemen
converging toward the door from all parts, are the members of Strauss’s
band. And now lights have begun to flash about the streets, and masks are
beginning to arrive. Splendid carriages of the nobility; and positively
some of the imperial family do not disdain to be among the first arrivals!
The beau from the suburbs, in a light fiacre. Actresses and officers in
their broughams. Sledges from the country, drawn by merry little horses,
frisking through the snow, and jingling bells over their harness. A chaos
of lights, a coachman, and the long poles of sedan chairs in the way of a
chaos of legs, hats, shoulders, coach-tops, and every thing else, powdered
with snow that tumbles silently and steadily upon the scene of riot. A
crush of revelers upon the staircase. Half-past eleven; all the most
important people having now entered—except myself—it is quite time for me
to follow to the ball-room.

A vast room. Think of the Great Exhibition, if you want a notion of it;
and take off a discount for exaggeration. Walk to the end of this room,
and a door opens into another ball-room, almost twice as large. In each of
these great halls, there are raised orchestras, in which the bands are
stationed; and when one band ceases playing, another is prepared
immediately to begin. Galleries, to which you ascend by flights of stairs
at each end, run round both the rooms; and into these galleries open
innumerable ice and supper-rooms, passages, and out-of-the-way cells,
wherein you may lose yourself, but not your company. Masks are to be found
sitting in every corner; wherever a mask is, there is mischief.

You see nothing vulgar, no rude costume, no monstrous noses, no absurd
pairs of spectacles, or woolly wigs. You hear no boisterous shouts of
mirth; beautiful music reigns incessantly supreme over all other sounds.
Only the ladies are disguised; their faces are hidden behind elegant
little black silk masks, and they vie with each other in the costliness
and beauty of their costumes and dominoes. The men are all in simple
evening dress; they walk about, defenseless game, and yield sport in
abundance to the dames and damsels. Most of the ministers are here—grave,
steady gentlemen, with bald heads or gray hair. Each of them is surrounded
by a swarm of masks—princesses, perhaps—milliners, perhaps—and some of
them are evidently making wry mouths at what they are obliged to hear.
This is the time for home truths. The ladies at a masked ball make good
use of their disguise, and scatter about their wholesome mischief
abundantly.

A vision in black and gold beckons to me. I place myself at her disposal.
“You are an Englishman,” the vision says; “I know you.” “How, madam?” “By
your awkwardness.” “Are Britons awkward?” “Yes, and wearisome. Go, you are
not amusing. Take care of your gloves; they are so large that I fear they
will fall off.” The vision laughs at me and vanishes. I have a secret or
two which I don’t mean to print. I did think that those mysteries were
locked up in my bosom. If you ever happen to be at Vienna, with some
secrets in your keeping, and desire to know whether you hold them safe, go
to a Masked Ball. Mocking voices, behind black silk masks, will very much
surprise you with some samples of the penetration proper to a sex which
seems, in Vienna, to be made of Blue Beard wives. Twenty ladies honor me
with minute details of the contents of one apartment in my mind, which I
had considered quite a patent safe, with a fastening like that of the box
in the talisman of Oromanes.

The night wears on; at three o’clock the instrumental music ceases, but
the music of the mischievous and merry tattlers still continues to be
ringing in all ears, and making them to tingle. Every man is destined to
go home abundantly informed and criticised upon the subject of his
foibles. Until six o’clock, supping, and taking tea and coffee, will
continue, and the relish for amusement will be as keen as ever. Nobody is
dancing—nobody has danced; that is no part of the business. At length, the
multitude has dwindled down to a few stragglers; the remainder of the
cloaks, and coats, and wrappers, are brought out and scattered, as so many
hints to their possessors, in the middle of the great room. We immediately
dive and scramble for them. In another hour, the lights are put out; all
is over, and I travel home over the snow.





THE ORNITHOLOGIST.


I was still young, when a sudden reverse of fortune deprived me of a kind
father and affluence at the same time. A home was offered for my
acceptance by Mrs. Priestly, a widow lady, whom I had never seen since my
infancy, distance and circumstances having combined to effect this
separation. Mrs. Priestly was not only my godmother, but she had been the
earliest chosen friend of my own lamented mother, and now came forward to
extend succor to the destitute orphan. In former years, I remembered to
have heard that she had suffered deep sorrow, from the loss of her only
child, a fine boy, who was heir to a princely fortune, independent of his
mother’s considerable possessions. There were rumors afloat, at the period
of this bereavement, of a peculiarly distressing nature—strange,
half-suppressed whispers of some fearful accident that had rendered the
widow childless; but the memory of these things had passed away, and Mrs.
Priestly’s first despair and agony had settled down to a resigned
melancholy. On her fine countenance premature age was stamped, a smile
seldom visible, while her mourning garb was never cast aside; she was a
lifelong mourner.

The outward aspect of Lodimer—so Mrs. Priestly’s domain was called—was but
little in accordance with the sad heart of its owner, for a more cheerful
or animated scene I had rarely witnessed. The villa, surrounded by
colonnades, stood on the side of a gently swelling hill, at the base of
which flowed a broad and sparkling river, on which numerous boats and
picturesque-looking barges were continually passing and repassing. Roses
and thatch, light French windows and exotics, trimly-kept
pleasure-grounds, slopping down to the water’s edge, drooping willows and
silver birches were accessories, doubtless, to produce an effect of
combined elegance and grace, while on the opposite banks richly wooded
hills were studded with white cottages, glancing in the sunshine; though
even during rainy seasons Lodimer never looked gloomy, an indescribable
air of joyousness and hilarity pervading it. The calamity which
overshadowed Mrs. Priestly’s existence had not occurred at this pleasant
home, but at the distant seat of the widow’s brother, Mr. Lovell, of
Lovell Castle, where she and her son were on a visit at the time; and
still Mrs. Priestly continued to pay an annual visit thither, never
leaving Lodimer save for that purpose, but leading a life of extreme
seclusion. I had the satisfaction of believing that my society tended to
enhance the comfort of Mrs. Priestly; who, with the utmost delicacy and
kindness, lavished a thousand nameless attentions—trifling in themselves,
but keenly felt by the dependent; calling me her adopted daughter, while
her candor demanded and received my grateful thanks, for I fully
appreciated the excellent motives actuating Mrs. Priestly’s avowal. She
wished to prevent false expectations on my part, and yet to set at rest
all anxiety respecting the future; informing me, that the bulk of her
wealth she designed to bequeath to her nephew, Mr. Lovell’s son, but that
a moderate provision was secured for her dear orphan god-daughter. But my
agitation gave place to surprise, when Mrs. Priestly continued, addressing
me, “You have sense and discretion beyond your years, Evelin, my love, and
when you came to reside here with me, I determined first to ascertain if
this were the case, ere I confided my secret to your keeping—for I _have_
a secret—which may not be mentioned at Lovell Castle, when you accompany
me thither shortly. A few miles hence, an individual resides, to whom I
intend shortly to introduce you. He is a most unfortunate person, and
desires the strictest privacy; but Mr. Edwin is not unhappy, because he
knows the ’peace within which passeth show,’ while his intellectual
attainments are of the highest order. But, in case you should weave a
romance, Evelin, out of these details,” added Mrs. Priestly, faintly
smiling, “it is but fair I warn you, that romance and Edwin may not be
coupled together, for he is—alas! poor fellow—an unsightly and deformed
creature; his captivations are those only of the heart and mind—in this he
shines pre-eminent. Again let me remind you, my love, not to allude to Mr.
Edwin in conversation; forget him altogether, except when you speak to me.
I know that you are not tormented with feminine curiosity, or I would tell
you to ask no questions. This is my secret, Evelin, which I fearlessly
confide to your keeping.”

However, Mrs. Priestly did me more than justice, for though I certainly
endeavored to indulge no idle speculations on the forbidden topic, yet I
was not apathetic enough to forget it; more especially after accompanying
Mrs. Priestly to see her mysterious friend, whos

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