Chapter 6

A LANDED PROPRIETOR.

After Michael had spent a month in France, he discovered that he must still travel on, and still sacrifice time and exertion, if he hoped to bring his unfortunate parent's affairs to a satisfactory issue. Many things had happened since his arrival to give him great pain and annoyance. In the first place, he had learned, with a sickening heart, that the private debts of his father considerably exceeded in amount those which had appeared in the testamentary memorandum. He had seen with his own eyes his father's acknowledgment of liabilities, the existence of which was thus revealed to him for the first time. In his immediate and violent disgust, he burned to expose his parent's cupidity and dishonesty, and to rid himself of the burden which he had voluntarily taken as his own; but pride, shame, and other low incentives, came between him and the fulfilment of a rash resolution, and he had nothing to do but to look his difficulty fully and bravely in the face. In addition to this trial, he found it necessary to proceed without delay as far eastward as Vienna; for thither his chief creditor had taken himself on urgent business, which threatened to detain him on the spot until the following year. Nor was this all; a Lyonese merchant, who held old Allcraft's note of hand for a considerable sum, advanced under assurances of early payment, had grown obstinate and restive with disappointment and anxiety. He insisted upon the instant discharge of his claim, and refused to give another hour's grace. To rid himself of this plague, Michael had not hesitated to draw upon his house for a sum somewhat greater than five thousand pounds. The act had not been committed without some distress of mind--some murmurings of conscience; but the necessity was great--the compulsion not to be avoided. To put an end to all further and importunate demands, he posted into Austria fast as he could be conveyed. The chief creditor was destined to be Michael's chief misery. He was an obdurate, unyielding man, and, after days of negotiation, would finally listen to nothing but the chink of the gold that was due to him. And how much that was, Michael dared not trust himself to think. Now, what was to be done? To draw again upon the bank--to become himself, to his partners, an example of recklessness and extravagance, was out of the question. He had but one course before him, and it was one which he had solemnly vowed never to adopt. To beg a loan from his wife so early in the morning of their union, seemed a thing impossible--at least it seemed so in the outset, when the thought first blushed upon him, and there remained a chance, a hope, of escaping from the miserable alternative. But as the creditor got clamorous, and every prospect of satisfying his demand--every means save one--grew dim, and shadowy, and blank, the wrongfulness, the impropriety of making an appeal to her, whose heart was willing as her hand was able to release him from despair, became less evident, and by degrees not evident at all. It would have been well for Allcraft, and for Margaret too, had the latter resisted his demand, or opposed it with one kind word of remonstrance. Michael was prepared for this, and the gentlest opposition would have saved them both. But what did Margaret possess, which she wished not to share with him who was her idol--dearer to her than her life--the joy and light of life! He hinted his request; she hardly suffered him to hint it. She placed her substance at his command, and bade him use it. Like a guilty man--one guilty of his first but heavy fault--blushing and faltering, Allcraft thanked his Margaret for the loan, promised speedy payment, and vowed that he would beg no more. Fond Margaret! she kissed the vow away, and bade him clear his brow, smile, and be happy. It was a woman's part, who loves not wisely, but too well. The day that gave him the means of satisfying the claims of one great creditor, bound Allcraft more seriously to another; but he rejoiced at his success, which brought him temporary ease, and he congratulated himself upon his deliverance from failure and exposure. There was little to do. The lady's broker was written to; the legal adviser of the gentleman, at Michael's own request, prepared an instrument to secure repayment of the loan; the money came--the debts of Allcraft senior to the last farthing were discharged, and scarcely discharged before Michael, eager and anxious to be at home, quitted Vienna, ready to travel by night and day, and longing to feel his footing safely in the banking-house again.

It is now proper to state, that on the very day that Michael's draft of five thousand pounds applied for honourable reception at the counter of his most respectable establishment, by a curious coincidence another demand for double that amount appeared there likewise; not in the shape of cheque or written order, but in that of a request, personal and oral, proceeding from the proud and high-born lips of Walter Bellamy, Esquire, lord of the manor--gentleman and banker. Mr Bellamy was not the first man, by a great number, who has attempted to clothe and conceal real poverty in the stately apparel of arrogance and offensive self-sufficiency. He, man of the world, knew well enough, that, thus disguised, _necessity_ need never fear discovery--might look and laugh in secret at mankind--might feed and thrive upon its faults and weaknesses. How comparatively easy it is to avoid the shoals and rocks of life--to sail smoothly and pleasantly on its waters, when we take for our rudder and our guide the world's great axiom, "RICHES ARE VIRTUE--POVERTY IS VICE." "Assume the _virtue_, if you have it not;" assume its shows and appearances, its tricks, its offences, and its crimes, rather than confess your nakedness. Be liberal and prodigal, if it must be, with the crown you need to pay your necessary lodging; adorn with velvet and with silk the body that grows sick for lack of wholesome food; bribe, beyond their expectation, the pampered things in livery that stand between you and the glory you aspire to--bribe them, though to part with money is to lose your meal. Upon this broad principle it was, that Walter Bellamy existed--in virtue of it he held lands, and by its means he had become a partner in the bank, an active one, as very soon he proved himself to be. His property was estimated by shrewd calculators at a hundred thousand pounds--that, at the very least. And Bellamy chuckled at his fireside--no one being by--at the universal gullibility of man. A hundred thousand pounds! Why, he could not--at any one period during the last twenty years, command as many farthings. What right had strangers to calculate for him? What right had Allcraft to depend upon such calculations? We may well ask the question, since Mr Bellamy did so, when he endeavoured, as the worst of us will do, to justify bad conduct to an unfaithful conscience. Why, what was he? a simple _locum tenens_ of a dozen mortgagees, who had advanced upon the estate a great deal more money than it would ever realize, if forced to sale--a haughty, overbearing man, (though very benevolent to postboys and other serving men,) a magistrate, and a great disciplinarian. This was the amount of his pretensions, and yet men worshipped him. It was surely not the fault of Mr Bellamy, but rather his good fortune; and if he chose to make the most of it, he was a wise and prudent personage. When it is borne in mind that the possessions of Mr Bellamy were involved beyond their actual worth--that for some time he had lived in a perpetual dread of exposure and utter ruin--that for years he had looked abroad for some kind friend, who, if not altogether willing, might still be prevailed upon to release him from his difficulties--it will be easy to understand his very great desire to confer on Michael Allcraft all the advantages of his own position and high character.

The part which Bellamy had taken in the business of the house, was very inconsiderable until Michael's departure. Up to that time, he came to the bank in his carriage with much ceremony--spoke to the dependents there with becoming _hauteur_, and took his leave, on all occasions, as a rich man should, with abundant fuss, scarcely troubling himself with the proceedings of the day. "He had," he was always repeating the words, "he had the greatest confidence in Allcraft. It was unbounded. He felt that he could trust to him entirely and unreservedly." Gratefully did such expressions fall upon the flattered ear of Michael, applauding himself ever upon his victory--upon the acquisition of such a man. Of what service he would be to him in his well-laid plans! Of what use was his name already--and how much more serviceable than all would be the noble sum of money which he had _promised_ to bring into the bank at the close of the year! Michael, in his moments of chivalry, standing in the presence of Bellamy, looked upon him almost with an eye of pity and self-reproach. Whilst he himself could only plead guilty to a most refined and cunning policy, his innocent partner was but too full of trust; too simple and too unsuspecting. Somebody remarks, that God reserves unto himself that horrid sight--a naked, human heart. Had Allcraft and Bellamy, during one of their early interviews, suddenly stripped, and favoured each other with reciprocal glances--one or both would have been slightly startled by the unexpected exhibition. Planner had always looked upon Mr Bellamy as a very great man indeed--had contemplated him with that exact admixture of awe and admiration, that was pleasing and acceptable to the subject of it. Mr Bellamy, in his turn, conducted himself towards the schemer with much cordiality and kindness. Proud men never unbend until their supremacy is acknowledged through your servility. Your submission turns their gall to honey--converts their vinegar to milk--to the very cream of human complaisance. Mr Bellamy acted his part in this respect, as in every other--well; a tiger to such as would not cringe, he could become a playful lamb to all who were content to fawn. Planner and he were on the best possible terms. Looking into what is called the nature of things, we shall think it very natural on the part of Mr Bellamy, when he found himself so agreeably situated in regard to the circulating medium, if he took an early opportunity to help himself of the abundance by which he was surrounded. The truth is, that some time before the visit of Allcraft to the Continent, he had entertained a very serious intention of drawing out of the concern the anticipatory profits of a few years, in order to relieve himself and fine estate from certain engagements which pressed inconveniently on both--but his object had not, for many reasons, been carried into effect. In the first place, a moderate degree of actual shame withheld him--and again, he had begged for time from his creditor, and obtained it. Allcraft absent, the sense of shame diminished; before he could return to England, the grateful respite was at an end. It was a fine bright morning when Mr Bellamy's grand carriage drew up in state before the banking-house, and the highly respectable proprietor descended from it with his accustomed style and dignity. Mr Planner was, at the moment, at his desk, very busy with the prospectus of the _Pantamorphica_ Association, in which he had just completed some very striking additions--but perceiving his respected colleague, he jumped from his seat, and hastened to give him greeting.

"Don't let me disturb you, my dear friend," said the gracious Mr Bellamy. "I beg you'll prosecute your labours."

"Don't mention it, I pray--so like you, Mr Bellamy--always considerate and kind."

"Busy, Mr Planner--eh?--a deal to do now in the absence of our good friend?"

"Enough, enough sir, I assure you--but business, sir, is pleasure to the active mind."

"Very true--we feel your worth, sir--the house acknowledges your ability, Mr Planner."

"Dear Mr Bellamy--you are very flattering."

"No--not at all. Have you any engagement, Mr Planner, for this evening? Can you find time to dine with us at the Hall? I am positively angry with you for your repeated excuses."

"I shall be too proud, sir--business hitherto"----

"Ay--ay--but, my good sir, we must not sacrifice ourselves to business. A little recreation is absolutely necessary."

"So it is, sir--so it is--and you, sir, with your splendid fortune and superior taste"----

"Ah, ah--_apropos_! have you heard from Mr Allcraft lately?"

"This morning, sir."

"When does he return, pray?"

"In about a week from this. He writes he leaves Vienna this very day."

"Dear me, how very inconvenient, how very vexing!"

"What is it, may I ask, sir?"

"Oh, a trifle, Mr Planner. Dear me--dear me--it is annoying too!"

"Is it nothing that we can do, sir? Any thing the bank can offer?"

"Why--my dear sir--it is rather awkward, certainly. I have engaged to complete a purchase, and it must be done to-morrow. What cash have we in the house? There can be no impropriety in withdrawing a few thousand pounds for a short time. What do you think--Mr Allcraft being away?"

Now, Planner himself, during the last few days, had been very busy with the cash-box, in order to meet the expenses of certain preliminaries essential to the success of the infant _Pantamorphica_--into which speculation, by the way, he had entered heart and soul--and it was quite a relief and a joy to him to find his partner turning his attention to the same quarter; so true it is, that no pleasure is so sweet to a sinner, as the wickedness and companionship of a brother criminal.

"Impropriety, sir!" exclaimed the schemer. "Certainly not. Draw your cheque, sir. If we have not the money here, we have a heavy purse in London--and I beg you will command it."

"You think, then, that until our friend's return"----

"I am perfectly satisfied, Mr Bellamy," said Planner, with an emphasis on every word, as men will sometimes use, feeling and believing all that they assert. "I am thoroughly convinced that nothing would give Mr Allcraft greater pain than to know you had needed a temporary loan, and had not availed yourself of every opportunity that the bank affords you. I entreat you not to hesitate one instant. How much may you require?"

"Well, my dear sir--you will dine with us this evening. We will talk the matter over. Don't be late. Upon consideration, it may be quite as well, perhaps, to draw upon the bank."

"Much better, sir, I am sure, in every way. Will you walk into the private room? You'll find pen, ink, and paper there. We can accommodate you, sir--no doubt."

"Thank you, Mr Planner, thank you."

How very few of the numerous clients of Messrs Allcraft, Bellamy, Brammel, and Planner, in their worst dreams that night, dreamt of the havoc which was making with their beloved and hard-earned cash!

COLLEGE THEATRICALS.

It wanted but two or three weeks to the Christmas vacation, and we--the worshipful society of under-graduates of ---- College, Oxford--were beginning to get tired of the eternal round of supper parties which usually marked the close of our winter's campaign, and ready to hail with delight any proposition that had the charm of novelty. A three weeks' frost had effectually stopped the hunting; all the best tandem leaders were completely screwed; the freshmen had been "larked" till they were grown as cunning as magpies; and the Dean had set up a divinity lecture at two o'clock, and published a stringent proclamation against rows in the Quad. It was, in short, in a particularly uninteresting state of things, with the snow falling lazily upon the grey roofs and silent quadrangle, that some half dozen of us had congregated in Bob Thornhill's rooms, to get over the time between lunch and dinner with as little trouble to our mental and corporal faculties as possible. Those among us who had been for the last three months promising to themselves to begin to read "next week," had now put off that too easy creditor, conscience, till "next term." One alone had settled his engagements of that nature, or, in the language of his "_Testamur_"--the prettiest bit of Latin, he declared, that he ever saw--"_satisfecit examinatoribus_." Unquestionably, in his case, the examiners must have had the rare virtue of being very easily satisfied. In fact, Mr Savile's discharge of his educational engagements was rather a sort of "whitewashing" than a payment in full. His passing was what is technically called a "shave," a metaphor alluding to that intellectual density which finds it difficult to squeeze through the narrow portal which admits to the privileges of a Bachelor of Arts. As Mr S. himself, being a sporting man, described it, it was "a very close run indeed;" not that he considered that circumstance to derogate, in any way, from his victory; he was rather inclined to consider, that, having shown the field of examiners capital sport, and fairly got away from them in the end without the loss of his brush, his examination had been one of the very best runs of the season. In virtue whereof he was now mounted on the arm of an easy-chair, with a long _chibouque_, which became the gravity of an incipient bachelor better than a cigar, and took upon himself to give Thornhill (who was really a clever fellow, and professing to be reading for a first) some advice as to his conducting himself when his examination should arrive.

"I'll tell you what, Thornhill, old boy, I'll give you a wrinkle; it doesn't always answer to let out all you know at an examination. That sly old varmint, West of Magdalen, asked me who Hannibal was. 'Aha!'--said I to myself--'that's your line of country, is it? You want to walk me straight into those botheration Punic Wars, it's no go, though; I sha'n't break cover in that direction.' So I was mute. 'Can't you tell me something about Hannibal?' says old West again. 'I can,' thinks I, 'but I won't.' He was regularly flabbergasted; I spoilt his beat entirely, don't you see? so he looked as black as thunder, and tried it on in a fresh place. If I had been fool enough to let him dodge me in those Punic Wars, I could have been run into in no time. Depend upon it, there's nothing like a judicious ignorance occasionally."

"Why," said Thornhill, "'when ignorance is bliss,' (_i. e._ when it gets through the schools,) 'tis folly to be wise.'"

"Ah! that's Shakspeare says that, isn't it? I wish one could take up Shakspeare for a class! I'm devilish fond of Shakspeare. We used to act Shakspeare at a private school I was at."

"By Jove!" said somebody from behind a cloud of smoke--whose the brilliant idea was, was afterwards matter of dispute--"why couldn't we get up a play?"

"Ah! why not? why not? Capital!"

"It's such a horrid bore learning one's part," lisped the elegant Horace Leicester, half awake on the sofa.

"Oh, stuff!" said Savile, "it's the very thing to keep us alive! We could make a capital theatre out of the hall; don't you think the little vice principal would give us leave?"

"You had better ask for the chapel at once. Why, don't you know, my dear fellow, the college hall, in the opinion of the dean and the vice, is held rather more sacred of the two? Newcome, poor devil, attempted to cut a joke at the high table one of the times he dined there after he was elected, and he told me that they all stared at him as if he had insulted them; and the vice (in confidence) explained to him that such 'levity' was treason against the '_reverentia loci_!'"

"Ay, I remember when that old villain Solomon, the porter, fined me ten shillings for walking in there with spurs one day when I was late for dinner; he said the dean always took off his cap when he went in there by himself, and threatened to turn off old Higgs, when he had been scout forty years, because he heard him whistling one day while he was sweeping it out! Well," continued Savile, "you shall have my rooms; I sha'n't trouble them much now. I am going to pack all my books down to old Wise's next week, to turn them into ready _tin_; so you may turn the study into a carpenter's shop, if you like. Oh, it can be managed famously!"

So, after a few _pros_ and _cons_, it was finally settled that Mr Savile's rooms should become the Theatre Royal, ---- College; and I was honoured with the responsible office of stage-manager. What the play was to be was a more difficult point to settle. Savile proposed _Romeo and Juliet_, and volunteered for the hero; but it passed the united strength of the company to get up a decent _Juliet_. _Richard the Third_ was suggested; we had "six _Richards_ in the field" at once. We soon gave up the heroics, and decided on comedy; for, since our audience would be sure to laugh, we should at least have a chance of getting the laugh in the right place. So, after long discussion, we fixed on _She Stoops to Conquer_. There were a good many reasons for this selection. First, it was a piece possessing that grand desideratum in all amateur performances, that there were several parts in it of equal calibre, and none which implied decided superiority of talent in its representative. Secondly, there was not much _love_ in it; a material point where, as an Irishman might say, all the ladies were gentlemen. Thirdly, the scenery, dresses, properties, and decorations, were of the very simplest description: it was easily "put upon the stage." We found little difficulty in casting the male characters; old Mrs Hardcastle, not requiring any great share of personal attractions, and being considered a part that would tell, soon found a representative; but when we came to the "donnas"--_prima_ and _secunda_--then it was that the manager's troubles began. It was really necessary, to ensure the most moderate degree of success to the comedy, that Miss Hardcastle should have at least a lady-like deportment. The public voice, first in whispers, then audibly, at last vociferously, called upon Leicester. Slightly formed, handsome, clever and accomplished, with naturally graceful manners, and a fair share of vanity and affectation, there was no doubt of his making a respectable heroine if he would consent to be made love to. In vain did he protest against the petticoats, and urge with affecting earnestness the claims of the whiskers which for the last six months he had so diligently been cultivating; the chorus of entreaty and expostulation had its effect, aided by a well-timed compliment to the aristocratically small hand and foot, of which Horace was pardonably vain. Shaving was pronounced indispensable to the due growth of the whiskers; and the importance of the character, and the point of the situations, so strongly dwelt upon, that he became gradually reconciled to his fate, and began seriously to discuss the question whether Miss Hardcastle should wear her hair in curls or bands. A freshman of seventeen, who had no pretensions in the way of whiskers, and who was too happy to be admitted on any terms to a share in such a "fast idea" as the getting up a play, was to be the Miss Neville; and before the hall bell rang for dinner, an order had been despatched for a dozen acting copies of "She Stoops to Conquer."

Times have materially changed since Queen Elizabeth's visit to Christ-Church; the University, one of the earliest nurses of the infant drama, has long since turned it out of doors for a naughty child; and forbid it, under pain of worse than whipping, to come any nearer than Abingdon or Bicester. Taking into consideration the style of some of the performances, in which under-graduates of some three hundred years ago were the actors, the "Oxford Theatre" of those days, if it had more wit in it than the present, had somewhat less decency: the ancient "moralities" were not over moral, and the "mysteries" rather Babylonish. So far we have had no great loss. Whether the judicious getting up of a tragedy of Sophocles or Aeschylus, or even a comedy of Terence--classically managed--as it could be done in Oxford--and well acted, would be more unbecoming the gravity of our collected wisdom, or more derogatory to the dignity of our noble "theatre," than the squalling of Italian singers, masculine, feminine, and neuter--is a question which, when I take my M.A., I shall certainly propose in convocation. Thus much I am sure of, if a classical play-bill were duly announced for the next grand commemoration, it would "draw" almost as well as the Duke; the dresses might be quite as showy, the action hardly less graceful, than those of the odd-looking gentlemen who are dubbed doctors of civil law on such occasions; and the speeches of Prometheus, Oedipus, or Antigone, would be more intelligible to the learned, and more amusing to the ladies, than those Latin essays or the Creweian oration.

However, until I am vice-chancellor, the legitimate drama, Greek, Roman, or English, seems little likely to revive in Oxford. _Our_ branch of that great family, I confess, bore the bar-sinister. The offspring of our theatrical affections was unrecognized by college authority. The fellows of ---- would have done any thing but "smile upon its birth." The dean especially would have burked it at once had he suspected its existence. Nor was it fostered, like the former Oxford theatricals to which we have alluded, by royal patronage; we could not, consistently with decorum, request her Majesty to encourage an illegitimate. Nevertheless--spite of its being thus born under the rose--it grew and prospered. Our plan of rehearsal was original. We used to adjourn from dinner to the rooms of one or other of the company; and there, over our wine and dessert, instead of quizzing freshmen and abusing tutors, open each our copy, and, with all due emphasis and intonation, go regularly through the scenes of "She Stoops to Conquer." This was all the study we ever gave to our parts: and even thus it was difficult to get a muster of all the performers, and we had generally to play dummy for some one or more of the characters, or "double" them, as the professionals call it. The excuses for absenteeism were various. Mrs Hardcastle and Tony were gone to Woodstock with a team, and were not to be waited for; Diggory had a command to dine with the principal; and once an interesting dialogue was cut short by the untoward event of Miss Neville's being "confined"--in consequence of some indiscretion or other--"to chapel." It was necessary in our management, as much as in Mr Bunn's or Mr Macready's, to humour the caprices of the stars of the company: but the lesser lights, if they became eccentric at all in their orbits, were extinguished without mercy. Their place was easily supplied; for the moment it became known that a play was in contemplation, there were plenty of candidates for dramatic fame, especially among the freshmen: and though we mortally offended one or two aspiring geniuses by proffering them the vacant situations of Ralph, Roger, and Co., in Mr Hardcastle's household, on condition of having their respective blue dress coats turned up with yellow to represent the family livery, there were others to whom the being admitted behind the scenes, even in these humble characters, was a subject of laudable ambition. Nay, unimportant as were some parts in themselves, they were quite enough for the histrionic talent of some of our friends. Till I became a manager myself, I always used to lose patience at the wretched manner in which some of the underlings on the stage went through the little they had to say and do: there seemed no reason why the "sticks" should be so provokingly sticky; and it surprised me that a man who could accost one fluently enough at the stage door, should make such a bungle as some of them did in a message of some half dozen words "in character." But when I first became initiated into the mysteries of amateur performances, and saw how entirely destitute some men were of any notion of natural acting, and how they made a point of repeating two lines of familiar dialogue with the tone and manner, but without the correctness of a schoolboy going through a task--then it ceased to be any matter of wonder that those to whom acting was no joke, but an unhappily earnest mode of getting bread, should so often make their performance appear the uneasy effort which it is. There was one man in particular, a good-humoured, gentlemanly fellow, a favourite with us all; not remarkable for talent, but a pleasant companion enough, with plenty of common sense. Well, "he would be an actor"--it was his own fancy to have a part, and, as he was "one of us," we could not well refuse him. We gave him an easy one, for he was not vain of his own powers, or ambitious of theatrical distinction; so he was to be "second fellow"--one of Tony's pot-companions. He had but two lines to speak; but, from the very first time I heard him read them, I set him down as a hopeless case. He read them as if he had just learned to spell the words; when he repeated them without the book, it was like a clergyman giving out a text. And so it was with a good many of the rank and file of the company; we had more labour to drill them into something like a natural intonation than to learn our own longest speeches twice over. So we made their attendance at rehearsals a _sine qua non_. We dismissed a promising "Mat Muggins" because he went to the "Union" two nights successively, when he ought to have been at "The Three Pigeons." We superseded a very respectable "landlord" (though he had actually been measured for a corporation and a pair of calves) for inattention to business. The only one of the supernumeraries whom it was at all necessary to conciliate, was the gentleman who was to sing the comic song instead of Tony, (Savile, the representative of the said Tony, not having music in his soul beyond a view-holloa.) He was allowed to go and come at our readings _ad libitum_, upon condition of being very careful not to take cold.

When we had become tolerably perfect in the words of our parts, it was deemed expedient to have a "dress rehearsal"--especially for the ladies. It is not very easy to move safely--let alone gracefully--in petticoats, for those who are accustomed to move their legs somewhat more independently. And it would not have been civil in Messrs Marlow and Hastings to laugh outright at their lady-loves before company, as they were sure to do upon their first appearance. A dress rehearsal, therefore, was a very necessary precaution. But if it was difficult to get the company together at six o'clock under the friendly disguise of a wine-party, doubly difficult was it to expect them to muster at eleven in the morning. The first day that we fixed for it, there came a not very lady-like note, evidently written in bed, from Miss Hardcastle, stating, that having been at a supper-party the night before, and there partaken of brandy-punch to an extent to which she was wholly unaccustomed, it was quite impossible, in the present state of her nervous system, for her to make her appearance in character at any price. There was no alternative but to put off the rehearsal; and that very week occurred a circumstance which was very near being the cause of its adjournment _sine die_.

"Mr Hawthorne," said the dean to me one morning, when I was leaving his rooms, rejoicing in the termination of lecture, "I wish to speak with you, if you please." The dean's communications were seldom of a very pleasing kind, and on this particular morning his countenance gave token that he had hit upon something more than usually _piquant_. The rest of the men filed out of the door as slowly as they conveniently could, in the hope, I suppose, of hearing the dean's fire open upon me, but he waited patiently till my particular friend, Bob Thornhill, had picked up carefully, one by one, his miscellaneous collection of note-book, pencil, penknife, and other small wares, and had been obliged at length to make an unwilling exit; when, seeing the door finally closed, he commenced with his usual--"Have the goodness to sit down, sir."

Experience had taught me, that it was as well to make one's-self as comfortable as might be upon these occasions; so I took the easy-chair, and tried to look as if I thought the dean merely wanted to have a pleasant half-hour's chat. He marched into a little back-room that he called his study, and I began to speculate upon the probable subject of our conference. Strange! that week had been a more than usually quiet one. No late knocking in; no cutting lectures at chapel; positively I began to think that, for once, the dean had gone on a wrong scent, and that I should repel his accusations with all the dignity of injured innocence; or had he sent for me to offer his congratulations on my having commenced in the "steady" line, and to ask me to breakfast? I was not long to indulge such delusive hopes. Re-enter the dean, O. P., as our stage directions would have had it, with--a pair of stays!

By what confounded ill-luck they had got into his possession I could not imagine; but there they were. The dean touched them as if he felt their very touch an abomination, threw them on the table, and briefly said--"These, sir, were found in your rooms this morning. Can you explain how they came there?"

True enough, Leicester had been trying on the abominable articles in my bedroom, and I had stuffed them into a drawer till wanted. What to say was indeed a puzzle. To tell the whole truth would, no doubt, have ended the matter at once, and a hearty laugh should I have had at the dean's expense; but it would have put the stopper on "She Stoops to Conquer." It was too ridiculous to look grave about; and blacker grew the countenance before me, as, with a vain attempt to conceal a smile, I echoed his words, and stammered out--"In my rooms, sir?"

"Yes, sir, in your bed-room." He rang the bell. "Your servant, Simmons, most properly brought them to me."

The little rascal! I had been afraid to let him know any thing about the theatricals; for I knew perfectly well the dean would hear of it in half an hour, for he served him in the double capacity of scout and spy. Before the bell had stopped, Dick Simmons made his appearance, having evidently been kept at hand. He did look rather ashamed of himself, when I asked him, what business he had to search my wardrobe?

"Oh dear, sir! I never did no sich a thing; I was a-making of your bed, sir, when I sees the tag of a stay-lace hanging out of your topmost drawer, sir--("I am a married man, sir," to the dean apologetically, "and I know the tag of a stay-lace, sir")--and so I took it out, sir; and knowing my duty to the college, sir, though I should be very sorry to bring you into trouble, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----

"Yes, yes, Simmons, you did quite right," said the dean. "You are bound to give notice to the college authorities of all irregularities, and your situation requires that you should be conscientious."

"I hope I am, sir," said the little rascal; "but indeed I am very sorry, Mr Hawthorne, sir"----

"Oh! never mind," said I; "you did right, no doubt. I can only say those things are not mine, sir; they belong to a friend of mine."

"I don't ask who they belong to, sir," said the dean indignantly; "I ask, sir, how came they in your rooms?"

"I believe, sir, my friend (he was in my rooms yesterday) left them there. Some men wear stays, sir," continued I, boldly; "it's very much the fashion, I'm told."

"Eh! hum!" said the dean, eyeing the brown jean doubtingly. "I have heard of such things. Horrid puppies men are now. Never dreamt of such things in my younger days; but then, sir, _we_ were not allowed to wear white trousers, and waistcoats of I don't know what colours; we were made to attend to the statutes, sir. '_Nigri aut suspici_,' sir, Ah! times are changed--times are changed, indeed! And do you mean to say, sir, you have a friend, a member of this university, who wears such things as these?"

I might have got clear off, if it had not been for that rascal Simmons. I saw him give the dean a look, and an almost imperceptible shake of the head.

"But I don't think, sir," resumed he, "these can be a man's stays--eh, Simmons?" Simmons looked diligently at his toes. "No," said the dean, investigating the unhappy garment more closely--"no, I fear, Simmons, these are female stays!"

The conscientious Simmons made no sign.

"I don't know, sir," said I, as he looked from Simmons to me. "I don't wear stays, and I know nothing about them. If Simmons were to fetch a pair of Mrs Simmons's, sir," resumed I, "you could compare them."

Mrs Simmons's figure resembled a sack of flour, with a string round it; and, if she did wear the articles in question, they must have been of a pattern almost unique--made to order.

"Sir," said the dean, "your flippancy is unbecoming. I shall not pursue this investigation any further; but I am bound to tell you, sir, this circumstance is suspicious--very suspicious." I could not resist a smile for the life of me. "And doubly suspicious, sir, in your case. The eyes of the college are upon you, sir." He was evidently losing his temper, so I bowed profoundly, and he grew more irate. "Ever since, sir, that atrocious business of the frogs, though the college authorities failed in discovering the guilty parties, there are some individuals, sir, whose conduct is watched attentively. Good-morning, sir."

The "business of the frogs," to which the dean so rancorously alluded, had, indeed, caused some consternation to the fellows of----. There had been a marvellous story going the round of the papers, of a shower of the inelegant reptiles in question having fallen in some part of the kingdom. Old women were muttering prophecies, and wise men acknowledged themselves puzzled. The Ashmolean Society had sat in conclave upon it, and accounted so satisfactorily for the occurrence, that the only wonder seemed to be that we had not a shower of frogs, or some equally agreeable visitors, every rainy morning. Now, every one who has strolled round Christ-Church meadows on a warm evening, especially after rain, must have been greeted at intervals by a whole gamut of croaks; and, if he had the curiosity to peer into the green ditches as he passed along, he might catch a glimpse of the heads of the performers. Well, the joint reflections of myself and an ingenious friend, who were studying this branch of zoology while waiting for the coming up of the boats one night, tended to the conclusion, that a very successful imitation of the late "Extraordinary Phenomenon" might be got up for the edification of the scientific in our own college. Animals of all kinds find dealers and purchasers in Oxford. Curs of lowest degree have their prices. Rats, being necessary in the education of terriers, come rather expensive. A pole-cat--even with three legs only--will command a fancy price. Sparrows, larks, and other small birds, are retailed by the dozen on Cowley Marsh to gentlemen under-graduates who are aspiring to the pigeon-trap. But as yet there had been no demand for frogs, and there was quite a glut of them in the market. They were cheap accordingly; for a shilling a hundred we found that we might inflict the second plague of Egypt upon the whole university. The next evening, two hampers, containing, as our purveyor assured us, "very prime 'uns," arrived at my rooms "from Mr S----, the wine merchant;" and, by daylight on the following morning, were judiciously distributed throughout all the come-at-able premises within the college walls. When I awoke the next morning, I heard voices in earnest conversation under my window, and looked out with no little curiosity. The frogs had evidently produced a sensation. The bursar, disturbed apparently from his early breakfast, stood robed in an ancient dressing-gown, with the _Times_ in his hand, on which he was balancing a frog as yellow as himself. The dean, in cap and surplice, on his way from chapel, was eagerly listening to the account which one of the scouts was giving him of the first discovery of the intruders.

"Me and my missis, sir," quoth John, "was a-coming into college when it was hardly to say daylight, when she, as I reckon, sets foot upon one of 'em, and was like to have been back'ards with a set of breakfast chiney as she was a-bringing in for one of the fresh gentlemen. She scritches out in course, and I looks down, and then I sees two or three a' 'oppin about; but I didn't take much notice till I gets to the thoroughfare, when there was a whole row on 'em a-trying to climb up the bottom step; and then I calls Solomon the porter, and"----

Here I left my window, and, making a hasty toilet, joined a group of under-graduates, who were now collecting round the dean and bursar. I cast my eyes round the quadrangle, and was delighted with the success of our labours. There had been a heavy shower in the night, and the frogs were as lively as they could be on so ungenial a location as a gravelled court. In every corner was a goodly cluster, who were making ladders of each other's backs, as if determined to scale the college walls. Some, of more retiring disposition, were endeavouring to force themselves into crevices, and hiding their heads behind projections to escape the gaze of academic eyes; while a few active spirits seemed to be hopping a sweepstakes right for the common-room door. Just as I made my appearance, the principal came out of the door of his lodgings, with another of the fellows, having evidently been summoned to assist at the consultation. Good old soul! his study of zoology had been chiefly confined to the class edibles, and a shower of frogs, authenticated upon the oaths of the whole Convocation, would not have been half so interesting to him as an importation of turtle. However, to do him justice, he put on his spectacles, and looked as scientific as any body. After due examination of the specimen of the genus _Zana_ which the bursar still held in captivity, and pronouncing an unanimous opinion, that, come from where he would, he was a _bona fide_ frog, with nothing supernatural about him, the conclave proceeded round the quadrangle, calculating the numbers, and conjecturing the probable origin of these strange visitors. Equally curious, if not equally scientific, were the under-graduates who followed them; for, having strictly kept our own secret, my friend and myself were the only parties who could solve the mystery; and though many suspected that the frogs were unwilling emigrants, none knew to whom they were indebted for their introduction to college. The collected wisdom of the dons soon decided that a shower of full-grown frogs was a novelty even in the extraordinary occurrences of newspapers; and as not even a single individual croaker was to be discovered outside the walls of ----, it became evident that the whole affair was, as the dean described it, "another of those outrages upon academic discipline, which were as senseless as they were disgraceful."

I daresay the dean's anathema was "as sensible as it was sincere;" but it did not prevent our thoroughly enjoying the success of the "_outrage_" at the time; nor does it, unfortunately, suffice at this present moment to check something like an inward chuckle, when I think of the trouble which it cost the various retainers of the college to clear it effectually of its strange visitors. Hopkins, the old butler, who was of rather an imaginative temperament, and had a marvellous tale to tell any one who would listen, of a departed bursar, who, having caught his death of cold by superintending the laying down of three pipes of port, might ever afterwards be heard, upon such interesting occasions, walking about the damp cellars after nightfall in pattens. Hopkins, the oracle of the college "tap," maintained that the frogs were something "off the common;" and strengthened his opinion by reference to a specimen which he had selected--a lank, black, skinny individual, which really looked ugly enough to have come from any where. Scouts, wives, and children, (they always make a point of having large families, in order to eat up the spare commons,) all were busy, through that eventful day, in a novel occupation, and by dinnertime not a frog was to be seen; but long, long afterwards, on a moist evening, fugitives from the general prescription might be seen making their silent way across the quadrangle, and croakings were heard at night-time, which might (as Homer relates of _his_ frogs) have disturbed Minerva, only that the goddess of wisdom, in chambers collegiate, sleeps usually pretty sound.

The "business of the stays," however, bid fair to supersede the business of the frogs, in the dean's record of my supposed crimes; and as I fully intended to clear myself, even to his satisfaction, of any suspicion which might attach to me from the possession of such questionable articles so soon as our theatre closed for the season, I resolved that my successful defence from this last imputation would be an admirable ground on which to assume the dignity of a martyr, to appeal against all uncharitable conclusions from insufficient premises, and come out as the personification of injured innocence throughout my whole college career.

When my interview with the dean was over, I ordered some luncheon up to Leicester's rooms, where, as I expected, I found most of my own "set" collected, in order to hear the result. A private conference with the official aforesaid seldom boded good to the party so favoured; the dean seldom made his communications so agreeable as he might have done. In college, as in most other societies, La Rochefoucauld's maxim holds good--that "there is always something pleasant in the misfortunes of one's friends;" and, whenever an unlucky wight did get into a row, he might pretty confidently reckon upon being laughed at. In fact, under-graduates considered themselves as engaged in a war of stratagem against an unholy alliance of deans, tutors, and proctors; and in every encounter the defeated party was looked upon as the deluded victim of superior ingenuity--as having been "done," in short. So, if a lark succeeded, the authorities aforesaid were decidedly done, and laughed at accordingly; if it failed, why the other party were done, and there was still somebody to laugh at. No doubt, the jest was richer in the first case supposed; but, in the second, there was the additional gusto, so dear to human philanthropy, of having the victim present, and enjoying his discomfiture, which, in the case of the dons being the sufferers, was denied us. It may seem to argue something of a want of sympathy to find amusement in misfortunes which might any day be our own; but any one who ever witnessed the air of ludicrous alarm with which an under-graduate prepares to obey the summons, (capable of but one interpretation,)--"The dean wishes to see you, sir, at ten o'clock"--which so often, in my time at least, was sent as a whet to some of the assembled guests at a breakfast party; whoever has been applied to on such occasions for the loan of a tolerable cap, (that of the delinquent having its corners in such dilapidated condition as to proclaim its owner a "rowing man" at once,) or has responded to the pathetic appeal--"Do I look _very_ seedy?"--any one to whom such absurd recollections of early days occur--and if you, good reader, are a university man, as, being a gentleman, I am bound in charity to conclude you are, and yet have no such reminiscences--allow me to suggest that you must have been a very slow coach indeed;--any one, I say once more, who knows the ridiculous figure which a man cuts when "hauled up" before the college Minos, or Radamanthus, will easily forgive his friends for being inclined to laugh at him.

However, in the present case, any anticipations of fun at my expense, which the party in Leicester's rooms might charitably entertain, were somewhat qualified by the fear, that the consequences of any little private difference between the dean and myself might affect the prosperity of our unlicensed theatre. And when they heard how very nearly the discovery of the stays had been fatal to our project, execrations against Simmons's espionage were mingled with admiration of my escape from so critical a position.

The following is, I apprehend, an unique specimen of an Oxford bill--and the only one, out of a tolerably large bundle which I keep for the sake of the receipts attached, (a precaution by no means uncalled for,) which I find any amusement in referring to.

---- Hawthorne, Esq.,

To M. Moore.

2 pr. brown jean corsets, 8 0 Padding for do., made to order, 2 6 ----- 10 6 Rec'd. same day, M. M.

(Savile, when I showed it to him, said the receipt was the only one of the kind he had seen in the course of a long experience.) Very much surprised was the old lady, of whom I made the purchase in my capacity of stage-manager, at so uncommon a customer in her line of business; and when, after enjoying her mystification for some time, I let her into the secret, so delighted was she at the notion, that she gave me sundry hints as to the management of the female toilet, and offered to get made up for me any dresses that might be required. So I introduced Leicester and his fellow-heroines to my friend Mrs Moore, and by the joint exertions of their own tastes and her experience, they became possessed of some very tolerable costumes. There was a good deal of fun going on, I fancy, in fitting and measuring, in her back parlour; for there was a daughter, or a niece, or something of the sort, who cut out the dresses with the prettiest hands in the world, as Leicester declared; but I was too busy with carpenters, painters, and other assistants, to pay more than a flying visit to the ladies' department.

At last the rehearsal did come on. As Hastings, I had not much in the way of dress to alter; and, having some engagement in the early part of the morning, I did not arrive at the theatre until the rest of the characters were already dressed and ready to begin. Though I had been consulted upon all manner of points, from the arranging of a curl for Miss Neville to the colour of Diggory's stockings, and knew the costume of every individual as well as my own, yet so ludicrous was the effect of the whole when I entered the room, that I threw myself into the nearest chair, and laughed myself nearly into convulsions. The figure which first met my eyes was a little ruddy freshman, who had the part of the landlord, and who, in his zeal to do honour to our preference, had dressed the character most elaborately. A pillow, which he could scarcely see over, puffed out his red waistcoat; and his hair was cut short, and powdered with such good-will, that for weeks afterwards, in spite of diligent brushing, he looked as grey as the principal. There he stood--his legs clothed in grey worsted, retreating far beyond his little white apron, as if ashamed of their unusual appearance,

"The mother that him bare, She had not known her son."

Every one, however, had not been so classical in their costume. There was Sir Charles Marlow in what had been a judge's wig, and Mr Hardcastle in a barrister's; both sufficiently unlike themselves, at any rate, if not very correct copies of their originals. Then the women! As for Mrs Hardcastle, she was perfection. There never was, I believe, a better representation of the character. It was well dressed, and turned out a first-rate bit of acting--very far superior to any amateur performance I ever saw, and, with practice, would have equalled that of any actress on the stage. Her very curtsy was comedy itself. When I recovered my breath a little, I was able to attend to the dialogue which was going on, which was hardly less ridiculous than the strange disguises round me. "Now, Miss Hardcastle," (Marlow _loquitur_,) "I have no objection to your smoking cigars during rehearsal, of course--because you won't do that on Monday night, I suppose; but I must beg you to get out of the practice of standing or sitting crosslegged, because it's not lady-like, or even barmaid-like--and don't laugh when I make love to you; for if you do, I shall break down to a certainty." "Thornhill, do you think my waist will do?" said the anxious representative of the fair Constance. "I have worn these cursed stays for an hour every evening for the last week, and drawn them an inch tighter every time; but I don't think I'm a very good figure after all--just try if they'll come any closer, will you?" "Oh! Hawthorne, I'm glad you are come," said Savile, whom I hardly knew, in a red wig; "now, isn't there to be a bowl of real punch in the scene at the Three Pigeons--one can't _pretend_ to drink, you know, with any degree of spirit?" "Oh! of course," said I; "that's one of the landlord's properties: Miller, you must provide that, you know--send down for some cold tankards now; they will do very well for rehearsal." At last we got to work, and proceeded, with the prompter's assistance, pretty smoothly, and mutually applauding each other's performance, going twice over some of the more difficult scenes, and cutting out a good deal of love and sentiment. The play was fixed for the next Monday night, playbills ordered to be printed, and cards of invitation issued to all the performers' intimate friends. Every scout in the college, I believe, except my rascal Simmons, was in the secret, and probably some of the fellows had a shrewd guess at what was going on; but no one interfered with us. We carried on all our operations as quietly as possible; and the only circumstances likely to arouse suspicion in the minds of the authorities, was the unusual absence of all disturbances of a minor nature within the walls, in consequence of the one engrossing freak in which most of the more turbulent spirits were engaged.

At length the grand night arrived. By nine o'clock the theatre in Savile's rooms was as full as it could be crammed with any degree of comfort to actors and audience; and in the study and bedroom, which, being on opposite sides, served admirably for dressing-rooms behind the scenes, the usual bustle of preparation was going on. As is common in such cases, some essential properties had been forgotten until the last moment. No bonnet had been provided for Mrs Hardcastle to take her walks abroad in; and when the little hairdresser, who had been retained to give a finishing touch to some of the coiffeurs, returned with one belonging to his "missis," which he had volunteered to lend, the roar of uncontrollable merriment which this new embellishment of our disguised friend called forth, made the audience clamorous for the rising of the curtain--thinking, very excusably, that it was quite unjustifiable to keep all the fun to ourselves.

After some little trial of our "public's" patience, the play began in good earnest, and was most favourably received. Indeed, as the only price of admission exacted was a promise of civil behaviour, and there were two servants busily employed in handing about punch and "bishop," it would have been rather hard if we did not succeed in propitiating their good-humour. With the exception of two gentlemen who had been dining out, and were rather noisy in consequence, and evinced a strong inclination occasionally to take a part in the dialogue, all behaved wonderfully well, greeting each performer, as he made his first entrance, with a due amount of cheering; rapturously applauding all the best scenes; laughing, (whether at the raciness of the acting or the grotesque metamorphoses of the actors, made no great difference,) and filling up any gap which occurred in the proceedings on the stage, in spite of the prompter, with vociferous encouragement to the "sticket" actor. With an audience so disposed, each successive scene went off better and better. One deserves to be particularized. It was the second in the first act of the comedy; the stage directions for it are as follow:--"Scene--An ale-house room.--Several shabby fellows with punch and tobacco; Tony at the head of the table, &c., discovered." Never perhaps, in any previous representation, was the _mise en scène_ so perfect. It drew three rounds of applause. A very equivocal compliment to ourselves it may be; but such jolly-looking "shabby fellows" as sat round the table at which our Tony presided, were never furnished by the supernumeraries of Drury or Covent-garden. They were as classical, in their way, as Macready's Roman mob. Then there was no make-believe puffing of empty pipes, and fictitious drinking of small-beer for punch; every nose among the audience could appreciate the genuineness of both liquor and tobacco; and the hearty encore which the song, with its stentorian chorus, was honoured with, gave all the parties engaged time to enjoy their punch and their pipes to their satisfaction. It was quite a pity, as was unanimously agreed, when the entrance of Marlow and Hastings, as in duty bound, interrupted so jovial a society. But "all that's bright must fade"--and so the Three Pigeons' scene, and the play, too, came to an end in due course. The curtain fell amidst universal applause, modified only by the urgent request, which, as manager, I had more than once to repeat, that gentlemen would be kind enough to restrain their feelings for fear of disturbing the dons. The house resolved itself into its component elements--all went their ways--the reading men probably to a Greek play, by way of afterpiece--sleepy ones to bed, and idle ones to their various inventions--and the actors, after the fatigues of the night, to a supper, which was to be the "finish." It was to take place in one of the men's rooms which happened to be on the same staircase, and had been committed to the charge of certain parties, who understood our notions of an unexceptionable spread. And a right merry party we were--all sitting down in character, Mrs Hardcastle at the top of the table, her worthy partner at bottom, with the "young ladies" on each side. It was the best _tableau_ of the evening; pity there was neither artist to sketch, nor spectators to admire it! But, like many other merry meetings, there are faithful portraits of it--proof impressions--in the memories of many who were present; not yet obliterated, hardly even dimmed, by time; laid by, like other valuables, which, in the turmoil of life, we find no time to look at, but not thrown aside or forgotten, and brought out sometimes, in holidays and quiet hours, for us to look at once more, and enjoy their beauty, and feel, after all, how much what we have changed is "_calum non animum_." I am now--no matter what. Of my companions at that well-remembered supper, one is a staid and orthodox divine; one a rising barrister; a third a respectable country gentleman, justice of the peace, "and quorum;" a fourth, they tell me, a semi Papist, but set us all down together in that same room, draw the champagne corks, and let some Lethe (the said champagne, if you please) wash out all that has passed over us in the last five years, and my word on it, three out of four of us are but boys still; and though much shaving, pearl powder, and carmine, might fail to make of any of the party a heroine of any more delicate class than Meg Merrilies, I have no doubt we could all of us once more smoke a pipe in character at "The Three Pigeons."

Merrily the evening passed off, and merrily the little hours came on, and song and laugh rather grew gayer than slackened. The strings of the stays had long ago been cut, and the tresses, which were in the way of the cigars, were thrown back in dishevelled elegance. The landlord found his stuffing somewhat warm, and had laid aside half his fleshy incumbrance. Every one was at his ease, and a most uproarious chorus had just been sung by the whole strength of the company, when we heard the ominous sound of a quiet double rap at the outer door.

"Who's there?" said one of the most self-possessed of the company.

"I wish to speak to Mr Challoner," was the quiet reply.

The owner of the rooms was luckily in no more _outré_ costume than that of Sir Charles Marlow; and having thrown off his wig, and buttoned his coat over a deep-flapped waistcoat, looked tolerably like himself as he proceeded to answer the summons. I confess I rather hoped than otherwise, that the gentleman, whoever he was, would walk in, when, if he intended to astonish us, he was very likely to find the tables turned. However, even college dons recognize the principle, that every man's house is his castle, and never violate the sanctity of even an under-graduate's rooms. The object of this present visit, however, was rather friendly than otherwise; one of the fellows, deservedly popular, had been with the dean, and had left him in a state of some excitement from the increasing merriment which came somewhat too audibly across the quadrangle from our party. He had called, therefore, to advise Challoner, either to keep his friends quiet, or to get rid of them, if he wished to keep out of the dean's jurisdiction. As it was towards three in the morning, we thought it prudent to take this advice as it was meant, and in a few minutes began to wend our respective ways homewards. Leicester and myself, whose rooms lay in the same direction, were steering along, very soberly, under a bright moonlight, when something put it into the heads of some other stragglers of the party to break out, at the top of their voices, into a stanza of that immortal ditty--"We won't go home till morning." Instantly we could hear a window, which we well knew to be the dean's, open above us, and as the unmelodious chorus went on, his wrath found vent in the usual strain--"Who is making that disturbance?"

No one volunteering an explanation, he went on.

"Who are those in the quadrangle?" Leicester and I walked somewhat faster. I am not sure that our dignity did not condescend to run, as we heard steps coming down from No. 5, at a pace that evidently portended a chase, and remembered for the first time the remarkable costume, which, to common observers, would indicate that there was a visitor of an unusual character enjoying the moonlight in the quadrangle. When we reached the "thoroughfare," the passage from the inner to the outer quadrangle, we fairly bolted; and as the steps came pretty fast after us, and Leicester's rooms were the nearest, we both made good our retreat thither, and sported oak.

The porter's lodge was in the next number; and hearing a knocking in that quarter, Leicester gently opened the window, and we could catch the following dialogue:--

"Solomon! open this door directly--it is I--the dean."

"Good, dear sir!" said Solomon, apparently asleep, and fumbling for the keys of the college gates--"let you out? Oh yes! sir, directly."

"Listen to me, Solomon: I am not going out. Did you let any one out just now--just before I called you?"

"No, sir, nobody whatsomdever."

"Solomon! I ask you, did you not, just now, let a _woman_ out?"

"Lawk! no, sir, Lord forbid!" said Solomon, now thoroughly wakened.

"Now, Solomon, bring your light, and come with me, this must be enquired into. I saw a woman run this way, and, if she is not gone through the gate, she is gone into this next number. Whose rooms are in No. 13?"

"There's Mr Dyson's, sir, on the ground floor."

Mr Dyson was the very fellow who had called at Challoner's rooms.

"Hah! well, I'll call Mr Dyson up. Whose besides?"

"There's Mr Leicester, sir, above his'n."

"Very well, Solomon; call up Mr Dyson, and say I wish to speak with him particularly."

And so saying, the dean proceeded up stairs.

The moment Leicester heard his name mentioned, he began to anticipate a domiciliary visit. The thing was so ridiculous that we hardly knew what to do.

"Shall I get into bed, Hawthorne? I don't want to be caught in this figure?"

"Why, I don't know that you will be safe there, in the present state of the dean's suspicions. No; tuck up those confounded petticoats, clap on your pea-jacket, twist those love-locks up under your cap, light this cigar, and sit in your easy-chair. The dean must be 'cuter than usual, if he finds you out as the lady he is in search of."

Leicester had hardly time to take this advice, the best I could hit upon at the moment, when the dean knocked at the door.

"Who are you? Come in," said we both in a breath.

"I beg your pardon, Mr Leicester," said the dean in his most official tone; "nothing but actually imperative duty occasions my intrusion at this unseasonable hour, but a most extraordinary circumstance must be my excuse. I say, gentlemen--I saw with my own eyes," he continued, looking blacker as he caught sight of me, and remembering, no doubt, the little episode of the stays--"I saw a female figure pass in this direction but a few minutes ago. No such person has passed the gate, for I have made enquiry; certainly I have no reason to suppose any such person is concealed here, but I am bound to ask you, sir, on your honour as a gentleman--for I have no wish to make a search--is there any such person concealed in your apartments?"

"On my honour, sir, no one is, or has been lately here, but myself and Mr Hawthorne."

Here Dyson came into the room, looking considerably mystified.

"What's the matter, Mr Dean?" said he, nodding good-humouredly to us.

"A most unpleasant occurrence, my dear sir; I have seen a woman in this direction not five minutes back. Unfortunately, I cannot be mistaken. She either passed into the porter's lodge or into this staircase."

"She is not in my rooms, I assure you," said he, laughing; "I should think you made a mistake: it must have been some man in a white mackintosh."

I smiled, and Leicester laughed outright.

"I am not mistaken, sir," said the dean warmly. "I shall take your word, Mr Leicester; but allow me to tell you, that your conduct in lolling in that chair as if in perfect contempt, and neither rising, nor removing your cap, when Mr Dyson and myself are in your rooms, is neither consistent with the respect due from an under-graduate, or the behaviour I should expect from a gentleman."

Poor Leicester coloured, and unwittingly removed his cap. The chestnut curls, some natural and some artificial, which had been so studiously arranged for Miss Hardcastle's head-dress, fell in dishevelled luxuriance round his face, and as he half rose from his previous position in the chair, a pink silk dress began to descend from under the pea-jacket. Concealment was at an end; the dean looked bewildered at first, and then savage; but a hearty laugh from Dyson settled the business.

"What, Leicester! you're the lady the dean has been hunting about college! Upon my word, this is the most absurd piece of masquerading!--what on earth is it all about?"

I pitied Leicester, he looked such an extraordinary figure in his ambiguous dress, and seemed so thoroughly ashamed of himself; so displaying the tops and cords in which I had enacted Hastings, I acknowledged my share in the business, and gave a brief history of the drama during my management. The dean endeavoured to look grave: Dyson gave way to undisguised amusement, and repeatedly exclaimed, "Oh! why did you not send me a ticket? When do you perform again?"

Alas! never. Brief, as bright, was our theatrical career. But the memory of it lives in the college still: of the comedy, and the supper, and the curious mistake which followed it: and the dean has not to this hour lost the credit which he then gained, of having a remarkably keen eye for a petticoat.

LINES WRITTEN IN THE ISLE OF BUTE.

BY DELTA.

I.

Ere yet dim twilight brighten'd into day, Or waned the silver morning-star away, Shedding its last, lone, melancholy smile, Above the mountain-tops of far Argyle; Ere yet the solan's wing had brush'd the sea, Or issued from its cell the mountain bee; As dawn beyond the orient Cumbraes shone, Thy northern slope, Byrone, From Ascog's rocks, o'erflung with woodland bowers, With scarlet fuschias, and faint myrtle flowers, My steps essay'd; brushing the diamond dew From the soft moss, lithe grass, and harebell blue. Up from the heath aslant the linnet flew Startled, and rose the lark on twinkling wing, And soar'd away, to sing A farewell to the severing shades of night, A welcome to the morning's aureate light. Thy summit gain'd, how tranquilly serene, Beneath, outspread that panoramic scene Of continent and isle, and lake and sea, And tower and town, hill, vale, and spreading tree, And rock and ruin tinged with amethyst, Half-seen, half-hidden by the lazy mist, Volume on volume, which had vaguely wound The far off hills around, And now roll'd downwards; till on high were seen, Begirt with sombre larch, their foreheads green.

II.

There, save when all, except the lark, was mute, Oh, beauty-breathing Bute On thee entranced I gazed; each moment brought A new creation to the eye of thought: The orient clouds all Iris' hues assumed, From the pale lily to the rose that bloom'd, And hung above the pathway of the sun, As if to harbinger his course begun; When, lo! his disk burst forth--his beams of gold Seem'd earth as with a garment to enfold, And from his piercing eye the loose mists flew, And heaven with arch of deep autumnal blue Glow'd overhead; while ocean, like a lake, Seeming delight to take In its own halcyon-calm, resplendent lay, From Western Kames to far Kilchattan bay. Old Largs look'd out amid the orient light, With its grey dwellings, and, in greenery bright, Lay Coila's classic shores reveal'd to sight; And like a Vallombrosa, veil'd in blue, Arose Mount Stuart's woodlands on the view; Kerry and Cowall their bold hill-tops show'd, And Arran, and Kintire; like rubies glow'd The jagged clefts of Goatfell; and below, As on a chart, delightful Rothesay lay, Whence sprang of human life the awakening sound, With all its happy dwellings, stretching round The semicircle of its sunbright bay.

III.

Byrone, a type of peace thou seemest now, Yielding thy ridges to the rustic plough, With corn-fields at thy feet, and many a grove Whose songs are but of love; But different was the aspect of that hour, Which brought, of eld, the Norsemen o'er the deep, To wrest yon castle's walls from Scotland's power, And leave her brave to bleed, her fair to weep; When Husbac fierce, and Olave, Mona's king,[5] Confederate chiefs, with shout and triumphing, Bade o'er its towers the Scaldic raven fly, And mock each storm-tost sea-king toiling by!-- Far different were the days, When flew the fiery cross, with summoning blaze, O'er Blane's hill, and o'er Catan, and o'er Kames, And round thy peak the phalanx'd Butesmen stood,[6] As Bruce's followers shed the Baliol's blood, Yea! gave each Saxon homestead to the flames!

IV.

Proud palace-home of kings! what art thou now? Worn are the traceries of thy lofty brow! Yet once in beauteous strength like thee were none, When Rothesay's Duke was heir to Scotland's throne;[7] Ere Falkland rose, or Holyrood, in thee The barons to their sovereign bow'd the knee: Now, as to mock thy pride The very waters of thy moat are dried; Through fractured arch and doorway freely pass The sunbeams, into halls o'ergrown with grass; Thy floors, unroof'd, are open to the sky, And the snows lodge there when the storm sweeps by; O'er thy grim battlements, where bent the bow Thine archers keen, now hops the chattering crow; And where the beauteous and the brave were guests, Now breed the bats--the swallows build their nests! Lost even the legend of the bloody stair, Whose steps wend downward to the house of prayer; Gone is the priest, and they who worshipp'd seem Phantoms to us--a dream within a dream; Earth hath o'ermantled each memorial stone, And from their tombs the very dust is gone; All perish'd, all forgotten, like the ray Which gilt yon orient hill-tops yesterday; All nameless, save mayhap one stalwart knight, Who fell with Graeme in Falkirk's bloody fight-- Bonkill's stout Stewart,[8] whose heroic tale Oft circles yet the peasant's evening fire, And how he scorn'd to fly, and how he bled-- He, whose effigies in St Mary's choir, With planted heel upon the lion's head, Now rests in marble mail. Yet still remains the small dark narrow room, Where the third Robert, yielding to the gloom Of his despair, heart-broken, laid him down, Refusing food, to die; and to the wall Turn'd his determined face, unheeding all, And to his captive boy-prince left his crown.[9] Alas! thy solitary hawthorn-tree, Four-centuried, and o'erthrown, is but of thee A type, majestic ruin: there it lies, And annually puts on its May-flower bloom, To fill thy lonely courts with bland perfume, Yet lifts no more its green head to the skies;[10] The last lone living thing around that knew Thy glory, when the dizziness and din Of thronging life o'erflow'd thy halls within, And o'er thy top St Andrew's banner flew.

V.

Farewell! Elysian island of the west, Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast! May calms for ever sleep around thy coast, And desolating storms roll far away, While art with nature vies to form thy bay, Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast! Green link between the High-lands and the Low-- Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea-- May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow, And health--though elsewhere lost--be found in thee! May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek Of sickness ever roseate hues restore, And they who shun the rabble and the roar Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek! Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone, Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before, And ne'er may see thee more After yon autumn sun hath westering gone; Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away, 'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn, And to the happy homesteads that adorn Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.

ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY, ROTHESAY, September 1843.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228. Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was, however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of Largs.

[6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of Bute and the troops of Lisle, the English governor, in which that general was slain, and his severed head, presented to the Lord High Steward, was suspended from the battlements of the castle.

[7] In 1398, Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke of Rothesay, a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal dignity--originally a Norman one--into Scotland.

[8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog, with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the "Stout Stewart of Bonkill" of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame at the battle of Falkirk--although that hero was buried near the field of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records.

Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High Steward, at that time a minor.

A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately sculptured in black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under them, in alto-relievo, are several figures in religious habits. Another effigies of a knight, but much defaced, lies on the ground-floor of the choir--the whole of which was cleaned out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in 1827.

[9] On the 4th of April 1406, this unfortunate prince, overwhelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son, David, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in Falkland Castle; and the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger son, Prince James, by the English--died in the Castle of Rothesay of a broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he breathed his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner of the castle.

[10] In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree, which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which, at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still vigorous in growth.

TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.

CONCLUSION.

While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper place an incident of some interest--his presence at the opening of the Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the Queen in person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a member of the royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to the House of Lords, and was placed in a position which afforded him an excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their sovereign. "When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression of all the magnificence around me, I could compare it only to the Garden of Trem[11]--nay, it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous place. At twelve o'clock, twenty-one peals of artillery announced the approach of the Queen, who shortly after entered with Prince Albert, followed by her train-bearers, &c. All rose as she advanced; and when the Lords were again seated, the _cadhi-ab-codhat_ (Lord Chancellor) put a piece of paper in her hands, and placed himself on the right of the throne, while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the gentlemen of the House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a loud voice from the paper to the following effect." We need not, however, follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the debate on the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, "that under the emperors of Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the sovereign, would inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at least have ensured his spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka." On the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that "the justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of Nushirvan from the face of the earth!" But the remarks of the simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their honest sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter--"We saw in an instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be, a queen; we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to believe that she could, though meek and amiable, be firm and decisive; ... that no man or set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and that, knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of her people, she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the lustre of her reign, that the period of her sway in Britain would be quoted as the golden age."

After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an occasional attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was present at a debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took part--"These three being the most eloquent of the speakers, and the chiefs of their respective parties, though several other members spoke at great length either for or against the motion, according as each was attached to one or other of the great factions which divide the House of Commons, and hold the destinies of the people in their hands." Of the speeches of these three leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts to give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived, we imagine, principally through the medium of an interpreter, this first essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if we are to conclude, from his constant use of the phrase _zemindars_ to denote the landed interest, that he considered the estates of the English proprietors to be held by _zemindarry_ tenures similar to those in Bengal, his notions on the subject of the debate must have been considerably perplexed. "At length, however, as the debate had already been protracted to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy termination to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the constitution. With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom--so that here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact is the reverse--for from these debates result those measures which mark the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."

But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a definition of the essential differences which separate them; and, for a statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories, as represented to an oriental, we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf Kooli, who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted with this abstruse subject. "The Tories," says the Persian prince, "argue as follows:--'Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now _reform_ and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs reply--'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and circumstances. Moreover, by the old policy, only a few were benefited; and, as government is for the general good, we must observe that which is best for the whole nation, so that all should be profited.'" The Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament, and his summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech, are marked by the same amusing _naïveté_--"When all are met, the king, arrayed in all his majestic splendour and state, with the crown on his head, stands up with his face to the assembly, and makes a speech with perfect eloquence as follows:--'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you will thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every day, Sunday excepted, from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after sunset. They take all things into consideration, and decide all questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise loud voices and vehement disputes."

But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the Lord Mayor's dinner, described in our last Number, in the world of amusement which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he recovered from the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but his account of the wonders of this celebrated place of resort, perhaps from his faculties still being in some measure abstracted, is less full than might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere, till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak, so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to attempt to describe it in detail. After this," continues the Khan, "I passed under ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases, bearing in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance in the world of encountering a grinning hyaena, or some such beast; and it was with some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not being exactly acquainted with their nature."

The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps, the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious displays--Vauxhall. "A large garden! a paradise!"--such is the rapturous description of the Persian princes--"filled with roses of various hues, with cool waters running in every direction on the beautiful green, and pictures painted on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps, each of a different colour; and we saw here such fire-works, as made us forget all others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank _moons_ (ladies) led by the hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their beautiful cheeks." The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of the illumination; "thousands of lights distributed over the gardens, suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful devices, so as to form flowers, names, &c.; and when it became dark, one blaze of bright light was presented, extending over a vast space." He was fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the gardens on the evening of a balloon ascent, "and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I ever saw--a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider to be a _Feringhi_ fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not see it, and many even who were present, believed that their senses had been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a _howdah_ was swung by ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated themselves, besides the aeronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat, telling me he had performed nearly three hundred aerial voyages, and that, if any accident should happen, he himself would be the first to suffer. I certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending to the skies, but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me, who said it was safer to remain on _terra firma_, and look on at the voyagers; and accordingly I did so."

Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of the British Museum, his description of that institution, "one like which I had never before heard of," is reserved almost to the last in the catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze, form one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history, and particularly of the humming birds "from the far isles of the Western Sea," the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest degree--"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library, "containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of bygone mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste--the Egyptian colossi are alluded to as "the work in former days, I suppose, of some of the mummies up stairs;" and the Grecian statues "would appear, to an unbiassed stranger, a quantity of useless, mutilated _idols_, representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English, it is a most valuable collection, said to have cost seven _lakhs_ of rupees, (L.70,000,) and venerated as containing some of the finest sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be attached in Europe to this art, since the use of all images is as distinctly forbidden by the _Tevrat_, (Bible,) as it is by our own law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which contains specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the bowels of the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains, being a branch of that relating to minerals, of which there is in the next room a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases, with the names written on them.... Among these, the most extraordinary were some stones said to have fallen from the sky, one of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most generally received opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in the moon, thus assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there; secondly, their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a distance, according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000 miles; and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown. This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system; indeed, it is in direct contravention to it."

The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus, by which the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the centre of the universe, to a subordinate grade in the solar system, seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan; "since," as he remarks, "the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told, however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon, mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are distinctly visible." After satisfying his curiosity on these points, the Khan proceeded to inspect the hospital, where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great hall; "most of these had lost their limbs, and those who were not maimed were very old, and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed, it was a very interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the English nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have shed their blood in her defence." To the charitable institutions of the country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do justice; "there is no better feature than this in the national character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted are lodged, fed, and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!" In pursuance of this feeling, we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these establishments, and the proficiency which many of them had attained in trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their privations, sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character, which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:--"I obtained a seat near the officiating _imam_ or high priest, and saw near ten thousand children of both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary establishments, which are deservedly the pride of this country, all clothed in an uniform dress, while every corner was filled with spectators. After the _khotbah_ (prayer) was read, they began to sing, not in the ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged to many schools,[12] and are brought here once a year, that those who contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made, as well as their health and appearance."

The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the cadets of the East India Company's army, would naturally be to the Khan an object of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired, in company with several of his friends, apparently members of the Indian direction, on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel Pasley.[13] "After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we went to the students' room, where they were examined in various branches of the military science, as mathematics, fortification, drawing, &c., besides various languages, one of which was the Oordoo."[14] After the close of the examination, and the distribution of prizes to the successful candidates,[15] the company repaired to the grounds, where the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery--"a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] "The sight was extremely exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron, against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."

The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the _top-khana_, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the production of a _Feringhi_ pen, present one of the most faithful pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank matters:--"When we came to the guns," says the eximious Hajji Baba, "by my beard, existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and denominations, enough to have paved the way, if placed side by side, from Tehran to Tabriz--if placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they would have reached--into the very grave of the father of all the Russians, perhaps!" "The cannon distributed over the whole place," says the graver narrative of the Khan, "are said to amount to 40,000! all ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses; and, as if these were not sufficient for the destruction of the human race, other pieces are constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India, where the guns are cast in moulds--whereas here a solid cylinder is cast, and afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by steam power.... There are, moreover, a considerable number taken from enemies in battle, two of which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam, have their muzzles in the form of a lion's mouth, and are very well cast and elaborately ornamented; having their date, with the weight of powder and ball they carry, expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also three from Bhurtpore, and three others from Aden, the inscriptions on which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor, _Mahmood_[17] Ibn Soliman." After leaving the arsenal, the Khan proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely enumerates the various departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of the hydraulic press, impressed him, as it must do every one who has witnessed that astonishing process, with the idea of almost illimitable power. "On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days before in the presence of Prince Albert, and when I was there four men were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel, the force produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I arrived it began to give way, when they desisted. The force here produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of some 200,000 elephants, which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent (steam,) the results of which I meet with in so many different places, and under so many different circumstances!" After visiting the convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which, as well as the electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in Oordoo,") by which communication is effected between the two ends of the line, he soon after paid another visit to inspect. "This railway is carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of the ground was unusually high, I was told that it cost, though only three miles and a half in length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees, (L.1,000,000!")

With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative of the Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his native land, which we believe took place soon after this period. The remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix, consisting chiefly of dissertations on the manners, institutions, &c., of Great Britain, as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an elaborate retrospect of English history, from the Britons downwards; excepting, however, the four centuries from the death of William the Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.--an interval which he perhaps considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on the struggles for power between the crown and the barons, and the consequent origin and final constitution of parliament, related in a previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation was, as he informs us, "for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are to this day entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been extended over so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is felt in the remotest corners of the globe." The manner in which the Khan has performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his industry and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of the facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been bestowed, is particularly complete and well written--unless (as, indeed, we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation _in toto_ from some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of English history, indeed, is sometimes more accurate than his acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when, in comparing Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi, Raziah Begum, he speaks of the latter princess as "daughter of Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor of Delhi;" whereas a reference to Ferishta, or any other native historian, will inform us that Raziah died A.D. 1239, more than 200 years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this, either in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan's sketch of English history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it. His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18] thus summing up his character:--"To describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and moral, attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial; affable, and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he was a man especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit the human race!"

The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady, are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom before the conquering swords of the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive monarch Canute "was looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very extraordinary man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world, the sovereign of the seas and the land." The well-known story of his pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of incompetency. "One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the waves reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated to the ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the king whose mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as by the children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe, and was called Canute _the Great_, as we should say _Sahib-i-kiran_," (the Lord of the Conjunction, implying a man born under a peculiar conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to distinguished fortunes.)

But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan, the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic king, in his estimation--a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being abhorred by the Moslems--is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the "gospel light that beamed from Boleyn's eyes," or of the doom which overtook more than one of his consorts, is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his achievements; such allusions, indeed, would probably be regarded by the Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to encounter, we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal power, and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries previously, by the Pope. "This personage was the monarch of Christendom, something analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his blessing and forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover, if the king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure, his people were excommunicated, and anathemas published against them to the whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of camels." He then proceeds to state how Henry, by holding forth to his nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the church, induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the papal ascendency. "He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged from the _khotbah_, and his own to be substituted as head of the church; while the _idols_ and pictures were removed from the churches, and not allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for himself, the second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and distributed the third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion.

"The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all to undertake a _holy war_ against Henry, who was not only a heretic, but an infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would be rained on them from heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war accordingly against Henry, and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed; and the King of Denmark and other potentates, perceiving that the Pope's threats were not accomplished, and that no fire fell from heaven, followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe, so that at the present day his name is read in the _khotbah_ only in the city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry, and which is so different from the ancient faith, has existed in England ever since, a period of above three hundred years."

We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on English history, of which the passages already given afford a sufficient specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of Delhi, and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the climate, productions, and statistics of the country, its division into _zillahs_ or counties, the law of primogeniture as regards succession to landed property, &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws regulating the succession to the throne, the responsibility of ministers, the election of the members of the House of Commons, and the mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his remarks on these subjects, though creditable from their general accuracy, possess little originality; and may be left without comment for the edification of his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of ministers, (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had occasion to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to have lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its practical bearings; and is pronounced to be "the best law which the English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a check on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam, though with us the check is still more powerful and effectual, as the judge is empowered by the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!" The details of the British finances are briefly touched upon, with a special denunciation of "that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the sun when it comes through a window:"--but the Khan contents himself with stating the amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid to the public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction, like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the pressure of the taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably, erelong, produce a revolution, in which the whole debt would be cancelled, it would be far better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of their claim, and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the feasibility, as well as equity of this plan, the Mirza does not appear to entertain the smallest doubt:--"and thus," he triumphantly concludes, "in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be liquidated; some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished, and others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper, and the people be rendered happy, and grateful to the government."

"When in Hindustan," says the Khan, "I had heard, like millions of others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers, called _Company_; but no one knew whether this was a man, or a medicine, or a weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing else. The most prevalent notion was, that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us, and their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum, with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding that _Company_ was so far from being one and indivisible, that _Companies_ "exist by thousands for multifarious objects--many even for speculation in human life. The most recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve directors, and other officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on this sum they put a per centage, varying according to his age and state of health, which he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money. People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of providing, by small annual contributions, for the support of their families after their decease--and consequently the man's own relations often rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company) grieve."

On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected. Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on such subjects can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his knowledge of the country being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from ballrooms and crowded soirées, than from the private circles of family réunions. With these limited opportunities of observation, his remarks on the mass of the people are necessarily confined, in a great measure, to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship, into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The important point of the comparative deference paid to women, and the amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them, in the social systems of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively, is taken up by the Khan in behalf of the former, with as much warmth as in past years by his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb,[19] and in much the same line of argument--to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the fickleness and caprice of her partner, ("whose _interest_ it thus becomes, setting affection wholly out of the question, to remain on good terms with her,") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where a wife, though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the Mohammedan system of divorces, may still be driven, without misconduct on her part, from her husband's house, and left to seek redress by the slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with whom he conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many years of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess, that if they were correctly stated, "the ladies in India are far better off than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it in one day if they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property, but are given us by our husbands." But if we allow the Khan all due credit for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion the cause of his fair countrywomen, we can scarcely acquit him of something like disingenuousness in a discussion with "another lady," apparently one who had _not_ been in India, and who lamented the hard fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again after the death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the priests, who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to prevent their doing so. "With regard to this last idea, it is so utterly groundless, that there is no word in our language corresponding with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world, Islam is the least influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is, besides, expressly enjoined in the Koran, that widows should marry; they may do so as often as they like, if they survive their husbands; and if they do not, it is their own choice." Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan's is perfectly true as regards _Moslem_ law and _Moslem_ widows, he must have been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus, those customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of the Brahmins, and the impediments to the marriage of a widow,[20] exist in full force at this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan, even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his fair opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.

But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the eyes of the Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances of real friendship, on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places, from the collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. "They dispute in parliament, they dispute in their social circles, they dispute in steam-boats, on railroads, in eating and drinking; and I verily believe that, but for some slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to each other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together, the more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart, as well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the men--they are more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to strangers, less reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed. Wherever I have been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a difficulty occurred on any topic, the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters, and ask for an explanation, thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only apparent, and arose from the desire the men might have to display the accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it is the real state of the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of the people."

We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is enhanced by its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands." But the impression produced on the Khan by the contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be viewed in another light--in its relations to the government of India under Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the people at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the words of our author,) that in Mohammedan countries "every prince is a tyrant; every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in depravity, ignorance, and misery:" and who cling to the comfortable delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of our civil government, in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this important subject _from the other side of the question_, taken by one, however, by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as the meritorious features of the English administration, the Khan's comparative summary, though not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses considerable interest: and it must be admitted, that with respect to the internal improvement of the country, his strictures have hitherto had but too much foundation, though the schemes of the present governor-general, if carried into effect, will go far to remove the stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a conversation with an English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings under the Moslem rule, with the slow process of the English courts in India, to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which, according to the Khan's statement, not a single individual of the number who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he proceeds--

"Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who talk of the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I could prove by many instances, were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore, a distance of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles, and at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai, where all travellers were fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this, canals were dug, and public edifices built, at the expense of millions, without taxing the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand, and will endure for many years, as monuments of the munificence of the monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English dominion in India, what has been done which would remind the people fifty years hence, if they should retire from the country, that such a nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave, would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to indicate what has been done _in_, if not _for_ India! In some cases also, they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have employed thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense profit to government, and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the high qualities of energy and enterprise, united with superior education and intelligence, unquestionably possessed by its masters, they display so lamentable and apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and skill which I see every where and in every department, I cannot but the more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries, and strange and unheard-of inventions, in every branch of science and art, are likely to remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return all the wonders I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established, the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years, nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been founded on the principle of those built and endowed by the emperors, they might have produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since, in various parts of the empire, in which some thousands of children, both Hindoo and Moslem, have received education, they have never turned out a single man of superior attainments in any department of literature there taught:--and it is remarkable that not an instance exists, as far as I am aware, of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having been selected for the high judicial offices of _Sadr-ameen_, and principal _Sadr-ameen_ (judges in the local courts;) but that these functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have established schools professing to give superior instruction to the people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and how can it be accounted for, except by these institutions having been conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India, I must be like the free-masons, silent and reserved, unless when I meet one who has been, like myself, in England, and with whom I can converse on the wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country, and which, if I venture to narrate them in public, or even among my own immediate friends and relatives, would draw on me such disbelief, that I would certainly die from grief of heart."--Here leave we Kerim Khan; not without a hope, that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the passage just quoted, of incurring the reproach to which "travellers' tales" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which has been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we are acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization, the want of which he so feelingly deplores, and that he may live a thousand years in the full fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting, we now take leave of him.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The palace constructed, in the early ages of the world, by the giant-king Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and supposed still to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the recesses of the Desert--See LANE'S _Thousand and One Nights_, vol, ii. p. 342.

[12] The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected from all parts of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this procession!

[13] The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of visitors on that day occur the names of _Kurreen_ Khan, Mohabet Khan, and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who will be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that season.

[14] The _polite_ dialect of Hindustani, which differs considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is derived from _Oorda_, the court, or camp, of the sovereign--whence our word _horde_.

[15] "One hundred and fifty-three of the students," he adds, "were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to India;" but the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here, as the number actually selected was only thirty-one.

[16] This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was launched June 21, 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the Queen personally performed the ceremony of _christening_ the ship, since that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson, who used on the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when Nelson fell.

[17] This must be a slip of the pen for _Selim_, or perhaps for Soliman Ibn Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)

[18] "At this epoch," adds the Khan in a note, "reigned the great Harun-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."

[19] The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in England a treatise, entitled "Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women," which was translated by Captain Richardson, and published first in the _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1801, and again as an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet, and well worth perusal.

[20] Great efforts have of late been made, among the more enlightened Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal, a wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe the prize has been since claimed:--and in the _Asiatic Journal_ (vol. xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of the establishment, in 1842, of a "Hindu widow re-marrying club" at Calcutta!

NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.

BY JOSEPH DOWNES.

Author of "The Mountain Decameron."

Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire, September 9.

"And this is the '_disturbed district!_'--this is the seat of war!--the '_Agrarian civil war!_'--the headquarters of the '_Rebecca rebels!_" I soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9, 1843--a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day--while thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards, stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said "street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of watches (_silver_, too!) displayed, without a token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road, only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.

It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight, confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip" among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic _Mynydd Du_, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And _this_ is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.

I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition--also, a great love of rural quiet, joined to some _trifling_ degree of cowardice, as my family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," _bivouacking_ in their wildest solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up in measureless content."

"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony--_bloody_ felony--was at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent, helpless, and--a woman!!

But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.

As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son, we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from them, survey us with surly eyes, as _Sabbath-breakers_, for travelling on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three expressions _at_ us among themselves--I say, how curious a fact in the _pathology_ of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of _felons_, midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men, against society itself. For a _system_ which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society--it is a casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that _the_ Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to _act_ the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give _effect_ to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as _the_ Guy Fawkes.

It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the _female_ faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for elsewhere, humble civility has _always_ met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts--'Becca has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed for by every _honest_ farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent 'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the looks of the Welsh women.

We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked--no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of the road by tramp of horses--like the spider showing himself at his hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left--and huge stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a road!--that payment which the laws of the land had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or neglected to--erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had pronounced _her_ law--"sic volo, sic jubeo"--and we rode through, by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict--cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I never was transported--never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this strange triumph of anarchy--after looking down on these works of mob law, unreversed, tamely endured--after fancying I saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying helpless--the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted, unrestored--left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable blessing--I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings--let me whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure _did_ creep up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money, snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any man--Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride _toll free_ through, or rather over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in short--without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for I surely loved 'Becca at _heart_ at that moment!

My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws--but it wouldn't do. "But you don't _look_ altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are Rebeccaites _to the backbone_, and to a man? I fear they must be more than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities _in the first instance_, in not _instantly_ re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains _pro tempore_, protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few military at _first_, stationed near the gates, would have awed rustic rebels. It is the _impunity_ which this unheard-of palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of _all_ payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay--the vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict--the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "_peccavi_" too manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of all. A _bonus_ in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine, besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then, in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long, if government do not do something more than send down _a_ gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people, by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house--fire its contents--murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"

Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has accepted it, and "justice"--justice keeps her promise religiously, for no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?

* * * * *

Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10. Sunday.

A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a "sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat, with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes, surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable, "magna componere parvis."

Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.

Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine, water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in, impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye, directed to nature only--to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's God--was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and darkest passions; that the _army_--that odious, hideous, necessary curse of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace, (though uncongenial to both)--was at that moment evoked by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and scene--emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood, and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy Dying"--of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example--where even still, nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret operation!

In that very park of _Dynevor_, whose beauty we were admiring from the bridge, a little walk would have led us to--a _grave!_--no consecrated one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; _dug, in savage threatening of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living_--the son of the noble owner of that ancient domain--dug in sight of his father's house, in his own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save that of being a magistrate--a sworn preserver of the public peace!

Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out from the meeting-houses.

Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of _ha--a--h?_ "long drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem "conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.

To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls--this outbreak of a devilish spirit--this crusade against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The _Times_ newspaper has ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such daring subornation of crime would have brought _themselves_ into trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You did not _excite_ your followers to rebellion and arson! _You_, with your unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions--you, who are all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from violence is easier than to commit it?

The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion, (the _feeler_ put forth being the toll grievance,) and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very eyes--in your daily path--which no good man can view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable suspension of your influence--and I find it in _self-interest_--love of "filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to conciliate--is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your interest in direct opposition."

* * * * *

Llanon, Carmarthenshire.

The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was _fear of the house being set fire to_, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men, now prisoners, were of this village, the _focus_ of this rebellion that dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared _at their command_. They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however, soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or _in_) on a "Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.

And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a _man's_ just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very villagers--against the night-masked assassins, who had just before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women--against the chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!

* * * * *

Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday.

The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives" that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every corner to _cabal_, rather than to _dispute_, it seems; for, fond as they are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you _from_ what they dissent, or _to_ what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or midnight surprisals) against right.

In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record--_the first dwelling-house_, not being a toll-house, _was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed_ by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here. And _here_ resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition, an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine, called Y Diwygiwr, (the "_Reformer!_")--God bless the mark!

This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The _Times_ newspaper did good service in _gibbeting_ this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of _Welsh_ society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!--

"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see _Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism_. These are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He goes on to say, "_there must be a hard-blowing storm_ before the high places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about "_moral_ force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon in his day. The _array_ of _thousands_ is intelligible "to the meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed--the brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' _minds_ alone!--by the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining _their_ convictions, (the _illuminati_ of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly _tack_--put the vessel of State right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of Radicalism! And why _physical_ "array" to wield such shadowy arms as "_moral_" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government." The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence maintained--the holding of the breath--by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the _Trojan_, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive _force_ of the garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, and then--_tell_ them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer; oh, no! tell them that _force_ means to stand still--or disperse--or gabble--any thing but to--_fight!_ And such vile "juggling with us in a double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!

In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not sanction the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate pretensions to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this, the editor of the _Welshman_, a Liberal journal, published at Carmarthen, has ably castigated this sedition-monger, who has exposed his own ignorance in venting his wrath at the infliction.

* * * * *

Pontardulais. Monday Evening.

It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury, pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial monsters, equally in physionomy and nature--"a mixture of dirt and blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame _for Wales_, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green, quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two, with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near, prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude, smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of autumn.

We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts, meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries, with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds, had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.

Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage. The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly, though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.

Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured, but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a British _man_, incapable of perjury, of parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, _himself_, who will ever forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought, execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_)

There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured, no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say, that to any one _viewing_ the body as we thus happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the sight--the mute pleading of that mouth full of cloated blood--the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked assassin's cruelty--the helplessness of the aged woman--her innocence--all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a foul murder "murder"--to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching slaves into _men_! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the only known British protective power--trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under _instant_ danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict.

The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from effusion of blood, _but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!!_ The designed _trick_--the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be defeated--a possibility, so they flattered themselves, that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs were actually found _in_ the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly, inhuman, and devilish--to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder, and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her term!

Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us hope that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double crime against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw--to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind--to adopt his beloved "'Becca's" disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of justice:--"To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the perjured protectors of murder--The Hendy Gate Jury!"

Most revolting was the _betrayed_ bias of almost all we spoke with, toward palliation of this dark act. "_Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?_" was a frequent question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy. "_What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?_" Even from her own sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the _dissenting_ ministers of religious instruction, for the lower orders. And seeing these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one turns with astonishment to those professing _teachers_ of the Welsh, and is ready to exclaim--"What is it that you _do_ teach?" Only the _mechanical_ part of religion, only the necessary outer _mummery_, I shall venture to say, which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice of _true_ religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like, can sear against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury, and connivance at murder!

* * * * *

Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Sept. 12.

Riding from Llanelly to this place, by a road skirting the coast, we, for the first time, heard the horn of Rebecca sounded, and replied to from among the darkling hills, the night being one of dusky moonlight. We at first believed it the signal of some persons in the collieries, but learned that "'Becca's company" had been out round Kidwelly that night, and an incendiary fire was the "good work" accomplished. It being near ten o'clock at night, and our road wild and solitary, we felt rather pleased to gain the covert of this usually most quiet little town, with its air of antiquity and dead repose, as agreeable to a sentimental traveller, as unwelcome to its few traders and dwellers.

The innkeepers and shopkeepers, _being much injured in their trades by_ the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers, who have kept aloof all the summer, lift up the voice (but cautiously) against this terrible lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the poor victim at Hendy Gate reaches our ears; but rather, they seem to visit on her the anticipated severity of future dealing with the rioters, which they foresee.

We see already posted placards, offering L.500 for the discovery of the actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is headed "Murder," in the teeth of the audacious, solemn declaration by the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death. _Query_, Was a coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not empowered--required--to send the jury back to learn common sense?

* * * * *

Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo.

Just as we were sauntering in the rural road, admiring the placidity of the night, about ten o'clock, and the twilight landscape of the banks of the Towey, a sudden light opened up to us the whole night prospect, where the farther side of this broad vale rises finely covered with woods, round Middleton Hall, and soon learned the nature of this sudden illumination and pyramidal fire, being the conflagration of extensive property belonging to its owner, Mr Adams, close to the mansion.

The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined, there being, I believe, not any male inmates but servants at home, and the incendiaries doing their work at that early hour in the most daring manner, firing guns, blowing horns, &c. Mr Adams drove in just as the fire was at its height, (having, indeed, believed the house to be in flames while he approached,) and found the goods and moveables all brought out in fear of its catching fire; but it escaped--so did the Rebeccaites, of course.

Not to extend too far these hasty Notes, I shall throw together the heads of a few made on the spot. Our "sentimental journey" occupied about three weeks, and brought us to almost every part infested by the disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the outskirts of a town in Cardiganshire for the night, leaving the horses, we walked to the town. As we returned, the night being rather dark, I was not conscious of any one being on the same road behind, and was talking to my son, rather earnestly, of the iniquitous verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury, when a voice behind asked in English, saucily, if _I_ was going to attend the future trial of the "Hugheses, and them of the Llanon village, then in Swansea jail?" The tone clearly indicated how alien to the Welshman's feelings were those I was expressing, though but those of common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer, refusing to satisfy him, as the question deserved, and with responsive bluffness, we left the man behind, who, it proved, was bound to our inn. We found our parlour filled with farmers, who instantly became _mum_ as we entered, but their eyes suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven o'clock, so we retired to our double-bedded chamber, which happened to be situated over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were _ultra_ "Welshly," speaking English very badly,) was well situated for holding a midnight council of (Rebecca) war, being lonely, at the confluence of two roads, and this proved to be the nature of this late assemblage. We were just in bed, (having _secured the door as well as we could_,) when we heard through the imperfect flooring a very animated _mêlée_ of Welsh tongues all astir at once, and I fancied I recognized the voice of the pious Christian in the dark, who had been moved by the spirit (of religion of course) to hint or betray his dissent from the Saxon "stranger's" rebuke of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes after, several hurried out, and three or four discharges of guns followed in front of the house, but nothing more. I was pleased to think that the said house and windows were "mine host's," and not mine, otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the "short thunder;" but as it was, nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it to have been) occurred.

A great deal of _solo_ spouting, by orators in orderly succession, went on till near two in the morning--_Sunday_. At least, falling asleep, I left this little patriot parliament sitting, and found it in full tongue on awaking at that hour. I suppose this sitting in judgment on toll-houses (and possibly _other_ houses) of these anti-landlord committees, are _not_ breaches of the observance of the Sabbath.

On the whole, we may remark, that neither Poor-Law, nor Tory, nor Whig, nor right rule, nor misrule, nor politics, nor party, had the slightest influence in this astounding moral revolution among an agricultural people. Utterly false is almost all that the London Press broached and broaches, implicating ministers in the provocation of this outbreak. Twenty years of residence, and leisure for observation among them, allows me to positively deny that any feeling of discontent, any sense of oppression, any knowledge of "Grievances," now so pompously heading columns of twaddle--ever existed before the _one_ daily, weekly spur in their side, goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of resistance to it.

Why, not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert Peel's accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows whether they live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one in a hundred _care_ which, or form one guess about their comparative merits.

The only idea they have of Chartists, is a vague identification of them with "_rebels_," as they _used_ to call _all_ sorts of rioters, not dreaming of their forming any party with definite views, unless that of seizing the good things of the earth, and postponing, _sine die_, the day of payment.

Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have here among them, especially under the difficulty of haranguing them through interpreters!

The Poor-Law they certainly hate, but from no pity for paupers. The dislike arises from a wide spread belief, that the host of "officers" attached to it swallows up great part of what they pay for the poor. They grudged the poor-rate before, even when their own overseer paid it away to poor old lame Davy or blind Gwinny; but now that it reaches them by a more circuitous route, and in the altered form of loaves or workhouse support, they seem to lose sight of it, and fancy that it stops _by the way_, in the pockets of these "strange" new middlemen, as we may call them, thrust in between the farmers and their poor and worn-out labourers.

The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance which is at the root of the mischief. Of their _native_ writers, I have given a specimen from the monthly magazine published at Llanelly, and the evil of these is uncorrected by English information.

The work of mounting heavenward was, we are told, defeated by a confusion of tongues--the advance of civilization (which we may designate a progress toward a divine goal, that of soul-exalting and soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse system between the civilized and the _half_ civilized; which, with all deference to the ancient Britons, I must venture to consider them. Camden, the antiquary, has preserved a tradition, that "certain Brittaines" (Britons) going over into Armorica, and taking wives from among the people of Normandy, "_did cut out their tongues_," through fear that, when they should become mothers, they might corrupt the Welsh tongue of the children, by teaching them that foreign language! The love of their own tongue thus appears to be of very old standing, if we are to believe this agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of Welsh, as a spoken language, would pioneer the way to knowledge, civilization, and _religion_ here, of which last blessing there is a grievous lack, judging from the morals of the people.

ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.

NO. II.

A TRIAL BY JURY.

When I recovered from my state of insensibility, and once more opened my eyes, I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My horse was grazing quietly a few yards off, and beside me stood a man with folded arms, holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This was all I was able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me from getting up and looking around me.

"Where am I?" I gasped.

"Where are you, stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are _by_ it, and not _in_ it, is no fault of your'n, I reckon."

There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in which these words were spoken, and in the grating scornful laugh that accompanied them, that jarred upon my nerves, and inspired me with a feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my deliverer; that he had saved my life, when my mustang, raging with thirst, had sprung head-foremost into the water; that, without him, I must inevitably have been drowned, even had the river been less deep than it was; and that it was by his care, and the whisky he had made me swallow, and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue, that I had been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had fallen. But had he done ten times as much for me, I could not have repressed the feeling of repugnance, the inexplicable dislike, with which the mere tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in order not to see him. There was a silence of some moments' duration.

"Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable," said the man at last.

"Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my tongue."

"Hallo! That's a lie," shouted the man with another strange wild laugh. "You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it, certainly, but it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast ain't your'n."

"Mr Neal's," answered I.

"See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a good seventy mile to his plantation, right across the prairie. Ain't stole the horse, have you?"

"Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."

These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk.

"Four days without eatin'," cried the man, with a laugh like the sharpening of a saw, "and that in a Texas prairie, and with islands on all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies was like the prairies in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn't know how to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the earth?"

"Bees? Strawberries?" repeated I.

"Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees, eh? Perhaps you don't know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are, and that _they_ don't grow upon the trees."

All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before, with the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder, while his features were distorted into a contemptuous grin.

"And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey without an axe?"

"How did you lose yourself?"

"My mustang--ran away"--

"I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But what d'ye mean to do now?"

"I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an inn--anywhere where men are."

"Where men are," repeated the stranger, with his scornful smile. "Where men are," he muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.

I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange in the man's movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent effort, I changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again. He had drawn a long knife from his girdle, which he clutched in one hand, while he ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now for the first time got a full view of his face, and the impression it made upon me was any thing but favourable. His countenance was the wildest I had ever seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire in their sockets; while his movements and manner were indicative of a violent inward struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds together, but paced backwards and forwards with hurried irregular steps, casting wild glances over his shoulder, his fingers playing all the while with the knife, with the rapid and objectless movements of a maniac.

I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly going on within him, that my life or death was what he was deciding upon. But in the state I then was, death had no terror for me. The image of my mother, sisters, and father, passed before my eyes. I gave one thought to my peaceful happy home, and then looked upwards and prayed.

The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little more round, and, as I did so, I caught sight of the sane magnificent phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings. The colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour, at the distance of a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it, and reflecting on the strange ill luck that had made me pass within so short a distance of the river without finding it, I saw my new acquaintance approach a neighbouring cluster of trees, amongst which he disappeared.

After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved his claim to white blood. But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so frightfully wild in their expression, a look of terror and desperation, like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead, cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife, which was nearly two feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle, but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in his hand.

Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"You don't seem to like the company you've got into," said he. "Do I look so very desperate, then? Is it written so plainly on my face?"

"What should there be written upon your face?"

"What? What? Fools and children ask them questions."

"I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as my countryman, I beseech you"----

"Christian!" interrupted he, with a hollow laugh. "Countryman!" He struck the but of his rifle hard upon the ground. "That is my countryman--my only friend!" he continued, as he examined the flint and lock of his weapon. "That releases from all troubles; that's a true friend. Pooh! perhaps it'll release you too--put you to rest."

These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.

"Put him to rest, as well as---- Pooh! One more or less--Perhaps it would drive away that cursed spectre."

All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.

"Will you swear not to betray me?" cried he to me. "Else, one touch"----

As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointed full at my breast.

I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the piece.

"If you can answer it to your God, to your and my judge and creator, do your will."

My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible, had, nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled from head to foot, let the but of his gun fall heavily to the ground, and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.

"This one, too, comes with his God!" muttered he. "God! and your and my creator--and--judge."

He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were uttered by gasps and efforts, as though something had been choking him.

"His and my--judge"--groaned he again. "Can there be a God, a creator and judge?"

As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became fixed, and his features horribly distorted.

"Do it not!" cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that rang through my head. "It will bring no blessin' with it. I am a dead man! God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!"

The rifle fell from his hands, and he smote his breast and forehead in a paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to behold the conscience-stricken wretch, stamping madly about, and casting glances of terror behind him, as though demons had been hunting him down. The foam flew from his mouth, and I expected each moment to see him fall to the ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually, however, he became more tranquil.

"D'ye see nothin' in my face?" said he in a hoarse whisper, suddenly pausing close to where I lay.

"What should I see?"

He came yet nearer.

"Look well at me--_through_ me, if you can. D'ye see nothin' now?"

"I see nothing," replied I.

"Ah! I understand, you can see nothin'. Ain't in a spyin' humour, I calkilate. No, no, that you ain't. After four days and nights fastin', one loses the fancy for many things. I've tried it for two days myself. So, you are weak and faint, eh? But I needn't ask that, I reckon. You look bad enough. Take another drop of whisky; it'll strengthen you. But wait till I mix it."

As he spoke, he stepped down to the edge of the river, and scooping up the water in the hollow of his hand, filled his flask with it. Then returning to me, he poured a little into my mouth.

Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged in a compassionate act, and the wild desperado I had fallen in with, seemed softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His voice sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder.

"You wish to go to an inn?"

"For Heaven's sake, yes. These four days I have tasted nothing but a bit of tobacco."

"Can you spare a bit of that?"

"All I have."

I handed him my cigar case, and the roll of _dulcissimus_. He snatched the latter from me, and bit into it with the furious eagerness of a wolf.

"Ah, the right sort this!" muttered he to himself. "Ah, young man, or old man--you're an old man, ain't you? How old are you?"

"Two-and-twenty."

He shook his head doubtingly.

"Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie, and nothin' to eat. Well, it may be so. But, stranger, if I had had this bit of tobacco only ten days ago--A bit of tobacco is worth a deal sometimes. It might have saved a man's life!"

Again he groaned, and his accents became wild and unnatural.

"I say, stranger!" cried he in a threatening tone. "I say! D'ye see yonder live oak? D'ye see it? It's the Patriarch, and a finer and mightier one you won't find in the prairies, I reckon. D'ye see it?"

"I do see it."

"Ah! you see it," cried he fiercely. "And what is it to you? What have you to do with the Patriarch, or with what lies under it? I reckon you had best not be too curious that way. If you dare take a step under that tree."--He swore an oath too horrible to be repeated.

"There's a spectre there," cried he; "a spectre that would fright you to death. Better keep away."

"I will keep away," replied I. "I never thought of going near it. All I want is to get to the nearest plantation or inn."

"Ah! true, man--the next inn. I'll show you the way to it. I will."

"You will save my life by so doing," said I, "and I shall be ever grateful to you as my deliverer."

"Deliverer!" repeated he, with a wild laugh. "Pooh! If you knew what sort of a deliverer--Pooh! What's the use of savin' a life, when--yet I will--I will save yours, perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then. Will you not? Will you not?" cried he, suddenly changing his scornful mocking tones to those of entreaty and supplication, and turning his face in the direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner returned, and his eyes became fixed, as he gazed for some moments at the gigantic tree. Then darting away, he disappeared among the trees, whence he had fetched his rifle, and presently emerged again, leading a ready saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine, but seeing that I was unable even to rise from the ground, he stepped up to me, and with the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand, so light had I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my lasso, he got upon his own horse and set off, leading my mustang after him.

We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept up a sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his rear, I could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would raise his rifle to his shoulder then lower it again, and speak to it, sometimes caressingly, sometimes in anger. More than once he turned his head, and cast keen searching glances at me, as though to see whether I were watching him or not.

We had ridden more than an hour, and the strength which the whisky had given me was fast failing, so that I expected each moment to fall from my horse, when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge, and almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse became visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me, and I endeavoured, but in vain, to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round, fixed his wild eyes upon me, and spoke in a threatening tone.

"You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now, perhaps"----

"I am dying," was all I could utter. In fact, my senses were leaving me from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour was come.

"Pooh! dyin'! One don't die so easy. And yet--d----n!--it might be true."

He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his arms as I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however, restored me to consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang, and after passing through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn, and a small grove of peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse.

I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged to lift me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me down upon a bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say, however, I was never better able to observe all that passed around me, than during the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness.

The blockhouse in which we now were, was of the poorest possible description; a mere log hut, consisting of one room, that served as kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings, and formed a clumsy substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it; windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their stead a few holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay, stamped hard and dry in the middle of the hut, but out of which, at the sides of the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a foot or more high. In one corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another a sort of table or counter, on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the ground, and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently belonged to some chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there was a date, and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two, and three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles of wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.

Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an undersized, stooping figure, red-haired, large mouthed, and possessed of small, reddish, pig's eyes, which he seemed totally unable to raise from the ground, and the lowering, hang-dog expression of which, corresponded fully with the treacherous, panther-like stealthiness of his step and movements. Without greeting us either by word or look, this personage dived into a dark corner of his tenement, brought out a full bottle, and placing it on the table beside the glasses, resumed the monotonous sort of exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance.

My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was getting out the bottle, although he seemed to watch all his movements with a keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits, and tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this, he spoke for the first time.

"Johnny!"

Johnny made no answer.

"This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days."

"Indeed," replied Johnny, without looking up, or intermitting his sneaking, restless walk from one corner of the room to the other.

"I said four days, d'ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea immediately, strong tea, and then make some good beef soup. The tea must be ready directly, the soup in an hour at farthest, d'ye understand? And then I want some whisky for myself, and a beefsteak and potatoes. Now, tell all that to your Sambo."

Johnny did not seem to hear, but continued his walk, creeping along with noiseless step, and each time that he turned, giving a sort of spring like a cat or a panther.

"I've money, Johnny," said my guide. "Money, man, d'ye hear?" And so saying, he produced a tolerably full purse.

For the first time Johnny raised his head, gave an indefinable sort of glance at the purse, and then springing forward, fixed his small, cunning eyes upon those of my guide, while a smile of strange meaning spread over his repulsive features.

The two men stood for the space of a minute, staring at each other, without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended Johnny's coarse mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp for breath.

"I've money," cried he at last, striking the but of his rifle violently on the ground. "D'ye understand, Johnny? Money; and a rifle too, if needs be."

He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits, which disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank, Johnny stole out of the room so softly that my companion was only made aware of his departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to me, took me in his arms without saying a word, and, carrying me to the bed, laid me gently down upon it.

"You make yourself at home," snarled Johnny, who just then came in again.

"Always do that, I reckon, when I'm in a tavern," answered my guide, quietly pouring out and swallowing another glassful. "The gentleman shall have your bed to-day. You and Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You have none though, I believe?"

"Bob!" screamed Johnny furiously.

"That's my name--Bob Rock."

"For the present," hissed Johnny, with a sneer.

"The same as yours is Johnny Down," replied Bob in the same tone. "Pooh! Johnny, guess we know one another?"

"Rayther calkilate we do," replied Johnny through his teeth.

"And have done many a day," laughed Bob. "You're the famous Bob from Sodoma in Georgia?"

"Sodoma in Alabama, Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama," said Bob, filling another glass. "Don't you know that yet, you who were above a year in Columbus, doin' all sorts of dirty work?"

"Better hold your tongue, Bob," said Johnny, with a dangerous look at me.

"Pooh! Don't mind him, he won't talk, I'll answer for it. He's lost the taste for chatterin' in the Jacinto prairie. But Sodoma," continued Bob, "is in Alabama, man! Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the Chatahoochie. Ah! that was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But nothin' lasts in this world, as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh! They've druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it was a glorious life--warn't it?"

Again he filled his glass and drank.

The information I gathered from this conversation as to the previous life and habits of these two men, had nothing in it very satisfactory or reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western states there was no place that could boast of being the resort of so many outlaws and bad characters as the town of Sodoma. It is situated, or was situated, at least, a few years previously to the time I speak of, in Alabama, on Indian ground, and was the harbour of refuge for all the murderers and outcasts from the western and south-western parts of the Union. Here, under Indian government, they found shelter and security; and frightful were the crimes and cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day passed without an assassination, not secretly committed but in broad sunlight. Bands of these wretches, armed with knives and rifles, used to cross the Chatahoochie, and make inroads into Columbus; break into houses, rob, murder, ill-treat women, and then return in triumph to their dens, laden with booty, and laughing at the laws. It was useless to think of pursuing them, or of obtaining justice, for they were on Indian territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At length General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were driven over the Mississippi, the outlaws and murderers fled, Sodoma itself disappeared; and, released from its troublesome neighbours, Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west.

The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass, and the conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little of what they said, for they spoke a sort of thieves' jargon. After a time, their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears, the objects in the room became gradually less distinct, and I fell asleep.

I was roused, not very gently, by a mulatto woman, who poured a spoonful of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She at first did not appear to be attending to me with any great degree of good-will; but by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful her womanly sympathies began to be awakened, and her manner became kinder. The tea did me an infinite deal of good, and seemed to infuse new life into my veins. I finished the cup, and the mulatto laid me down again on my pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted me up.

"Gor! Gor!" cried she, "what poor young man! Berry weak. Him soon better. One hour, massa, good soup."

"Soup! What do you want with soup?" grumbled Johnny.

"Him take soup. I cook it," screamed the woman.

"Worse for you if she don't, Johnny," said Bob.

Johnny muttered something in reply, but I did not distinguish what it was, for my eyes closed, and I again fell asleep.

It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when the mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me, but this gave me strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my bed.

While the woman was feeding me, Bob was eating his beefsteak. It was a piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons, but the man seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He cut off wedges half as big as his fist, swallowed them with ravenous eagerness, and, instead of bread, bit into some unpeeled potatoes. All this was washed down with glass after glass of raw spirits, which had the effect of wakening him up, and infusing a certain degree of cheerfulness into his strange humour. He still spoke more to himself than to Johnny, but his recollections seemed agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly, and sometimes laughed aloud. At last he began to abuse Johnny for being, as he said, such a sneaking, cowardly fellow--such a treacherous, false-hearted gallows-bird.

"It's true," said he, "I am gallows-bird enough myself, but then I'm open, and no man can say I'm a-fear'd; but Johnny, Johnny, who"----

I do not know what he was about to say, for Johnny sprang towards him, and placed both hands over his mouth, receiving in return a blow that knocked him as far as the door, through which he retreated, cursing and grumbling.

I soon fell asleep again, and whilst in that state I had a confused sort of consciousness of various noises in the room, loud words, blows, and shouting. Wearied as I was, however, I believe no noise would have fully roused me, although hunger at last did.

When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed, and keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the soup, and promised, if I would sleep a couple of hours more, to bring me a beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke, hungrier than ever. After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow me, which was a very moderate quantity, she brought me a beer-glass full of the most delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she had got the rum and lemons, and she told me that it was she who had bought them, as well as a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was her partner, but that he had done nothing but build the house, and badly built it was. She then began to abuse Johnny, and said he was a gambler; and, worse still, that he had had plenty of money once, but had lost it all; that she had first known him in Lower Natchez, but he had been obliged to run away from there in the night to save his neck. Bob was no better, she said; on the contrary--and here she made the gesture of cutting a man's throat--he was a very bad fellow, she added. He had got drunk after his dinner, knocked Johnny down, and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep outside the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere.

How long she continued speaking I know not, for I again fell into a deep sleep, which this time lasted six or seven hours.

I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm, which made me cry out, more, however, from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my bedside; the traces of the preceding night's debauch plainly written on his haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed and swollen, and rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his mouth was open, and the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had just come from committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the first murderer to have worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of his slaughtered brother. I shrank back, horror-struck at his appearance.

"In God's name, man, what do you want?"

He made no answer.

"You are in a fever. You've the ague!"

"Ay, a fever," groaned he, shivering as he spoke; "a fever, but not the one you mean; a fever, young man, such as God keep you from ever having."

His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was a short pause.

"Curious that," continued he; "I've served more than one in the same way, but never thought of it afterwards--was forgotten in less than no time. Got to pay the whole score at once, I suppose. Can't rest a minute. In the open prairie it's the worst; there stands the old man, so plain, with his silver beard, and the spectre just behind him."

His eyes rolled, he clenched his fists, and, striking his forehead furiously, rushed out of the hut.

In a few minutes he returned, apparently more composed, and walked straight up to my bed.

"Stranger, you must do me a service," said he abruptly.

"Ten rather than one," replied I; "any thing that is in my power. Do I not owe you my life?"

"You're a gentleman, I see, and a Christian. You must come with me to the squire--the Alcalde."

"To the Alcalde, man! What must I go there for?"

"You'll see and hear when you get there; I've something to tell him--something for his own ear."

He drew a deep breath, and remained silent for a short time, gazing anxiously on all sides of him.

"Something," whispered he, "that nobody else must hear."

"But there's Johnny there. Why not take him?"

"Johnny!" cried he, with a scornful laugh; "Johnny! who's ten times worse than I am, bad as I be; and bad I am to be sure, but yet open and above board, always, till this time; but Johnny! he'd sell his own mother. He's a cowardly, sneakin', treacherous hound, is Johnny."

It was unnecessary to tell me this, for Johnny's character was written plainly enough upon his countenance.

"But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?"

"Why does one want people before the judge? He's a judge, man; a Mexican one certainly, but chosen by us Americans; and an American himself, as you and I are."

"And how soon must I go?"

"Directly. I can't bear it any longer. It leaves me no peace. Not an hour's rest have I had for the last eight days. When I go out into the prairie, the spectre stands before me and beckons me on, and if I try to go another way, he comes behind me and drives me before him under the Patriarch. I see him just as plainly as when he was alive, only paler and sadder. It seems as if I could touch him with my hand. Even the bottle is no use now; neither rum, nor whisky, nor brandy, rid me of him; it don't, by the 'tarnel.--Curious that! I got drunk yesterday--thought to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove me out. I was obliged to go. Wouldn't let me sleep; was forced to go under the Patriarch."

"Under the Patriarch? the live oak?" cried I, in astonishment.--"Were you there in the night?"

"Ay, that was I," replied he, in the same horribly confidential tone; "and the spirit threatened me, and said I will leave you no peace, Bob, till you go to the Alcalde and tell him"----

"Then I will go with you to the Alcalde, and that immediately," said I, raising myself up in bed. I could not help pitying the poor fellow from my very soul.

"Where are you going?" croaked Johnny, who at this moment glided into the room. "Not a step shall you stir till you've paid."

"Johnny," said Bob, seizing his less powerful companion by the shoulders, lifting him up like a child, and then setting him down again with such force, that his knees cracked and bent under him;--"Johnny, this gentlemen is my guest, d'ye understand? And here is the reckonin', and mind yourself, Johnny--mind yourself, that's all."

Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto woman, however, did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated. Sticking her arms in her sides, she waddled boldly forward.

"You not take him 'way, Massa Bob?", screamed she. "Him stop here. Him berry weak--not able for ride--not able for stand on him foot."

This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed, I could hardly stand upright when I got out of it.

For a moment Bob seemed undecided, but only for one moment; then, stepping up to the mulatto, he lifted her, fat and heavy as she was, in the same manner as he had done her partner, at least a foot from the ground, and carried her screaming and struggling to the door, which he kicked open. Then setting her down outside, "Silence!" roared he, "and some good strong tea instead of your cursed chatter, and a fresh beefsteak instead of your stinking carcass. That will strengthen the gentleman; so be quick about it, you old brown-skinned beast, you!"

I had slept in my clothes, and my toilet was consequently soon made, by the help of a bowl of water and towel, which Bob made Johnny bring, and then ordered him to go and get our horses ready.

A hearty breakfast of tea, butter, Indian corn bread, and steaks, increased my strength so much, that I was able to mount my mustang. I had still pains in all my limbs, but we rode slowly; the morning was bright, the air fresh and elastic, and I felt myself getting gradually better. Our path led through the prairie; the river fringed with wood, on the one hand; the vast ocean of grass, sprinkled with innumerable islands of trees, on the other. We saw abundance of game, which sprang up under the very feet of our horses; but although Bob had his rifle, he made no use of it. He muttered continually to himself, and seemed to be arranging what he should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of things which I would just as soon not have listened to, if I could have helped it. I was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation of the Alcalde.

It seemed a very considerable one, and the size and appearance of the framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building was surrounded by a group of China trees, which I should have thought about ten years of age, but which I afterwards learned had not been planted half that time, although they were already large enough to afford a very agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a live oak, inferior in size to the one in the prairie, but still of immense age and great beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres of cotton fields, extending to the bank of the Jacinto, which at this spot made a sharp turn, and winding round the plantation, enclosed it on three sides. Before the house lay the prairie, with its archipelago of islands, and herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to the right, more cotton fields; and in rear of the dwelling, the negro cottages and out-buildings. There was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading the whole scene, which seemed to strike even Bob. He paused as though in deep thought, and allowed his hand to rest for a moment on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a sudden and resolute jerk, bespeaking an equally sudden resolution, he pushed open the gate, and we entered a garden planted with orange, banana, and citron trees, the path through which was enclosed between palisades, and led to a sort of front court, with another lattice-work door, beside which hung a bell. Upon ringing this, a negro appeared.

The black seemed to know Bob very well, for he nodded to him as to an old acquaintance, and said the squire wanted him, and had asked after him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour, very handsomely furnished for Texas, and in which we found the squire, or more properly speaking, the Alcalde, sitting smoking his cigar. He had just breakfasted, and the plates and dishes were still upon the table. He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony, or to partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he answered our salutation with a laconic "good-morning," and scarcely even looked at us. At the very first glance, it was easy to see that he came from Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in which one finds men of his gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head rose above those of the negro servants in waiting. Nor was his height alone remarkable; he had the true West-Virginian build; the enormous chest and shoulders, and herculean limbs, the massive features and sharp grey eyes; altogether an exterior well calculated to impose on the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had to deal.

I was tired with my ride, and took a chair. The squire apparently did not deem me worthy of notice, or else he reserved me for a later scrutiny; but he fixed a long, searching look upon Bob, who remained standing, with his head sunk on his breast.

The judge at last broke silence.

"So here you are again, Bob. It's long since we've seen you, and I thought you had clean forgotten us. Well, Bob, we shouldn't have broke our hearts, I reckon; for I hate gamblers--ay, that I do--worse than skunks. It's a vile thing is play, and has ruined many a man in this world, and the next. It's ruined you too, Bob."

Bob said nothing.

"You'd have been mighty useful here last week; there was plenty for you to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you weren't to be found, we had to send to Joel to shoot us a buck and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah, Bob! one might still make a good citizen of you, if you'd only leave off that cursed play!"

Bob still remained silent.

"Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast."

Bob neither answered nor moved.

"D'ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat. And, Ptoly"--added he to the negro--"tell Veny to give him a pint of rum."

"Don't want yer rum--ain't thirsty"--growled Bob.

"Very like, very like," said the judge sharply. "Reckon you've taken too much already. Look as if you could swallow a wild cat, claws and all. And you," added he, turning to me--"What the devil are you at, Ptoly? Don't you see the man wants his breakfast? Where's the coffee? Or would you rather have tea?"

"Thank you, Alcalde, I have breakfasted already."

"Don't look as if. Ain't sick, are you? Where do you come from? What's happened to you? What are you doing with Bob?"

He looked keenly and searchingly at me, and then again at Bob. My appearance was certainly not very prepossessing, unshaven as I was, and with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently considering what could be the motive of our visit, and what had brought me into Bob's society. The result of his physiognomical observations did not appear very favourable either to me or my companion. I hastened to explain.

"You shall hear how it was, judge. I am indebted to Bob for my life."

"Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!" repeated the judge, shaking his head incredulously.

I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into the Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been drowned but for Bob's aid.

"Indeed!" said the judge, when I had done speaking. "So, Bob saved your life! Well, I am glad of it, Bob, very glad of it. Ah! if you could only keep away from that Johnny. I tell you, Bob, Johnny will be the ruin of you. Better keep out of his way."

"It's too late," answered Bob.

"Don't know why it should be. Never too late to leave a debauched, sinful life; never, man!"

"Calkilate it is, though," replied Bob sullenly.

"You calculate it is?" said the judge, fixing his eyes on him. "And why do you calculate that? Take a glass--Ptoly, a glass--and tell me, man, why should it be too late?"

"I ain't thirsty, squire," said Bob.

"Don't talk to me of your thirst; rum's not for thirst, but to strengthen the heart and nerves, to drive away the blue devils. And a good thing it is, taken in moderation."

As he spoke he filled himself a glass, and drank half of it off. Bob shook his head.

"No rum for me, squire. I take no pleasure in it. I've something on my mind too heavy for rum to wash away."

"And what is that, Bob? Come, let's hear what you've got to say. Or perhaps, you'd rather speak to me alone. It's Sunday to-day, and no business ought to be done; but for once, and for you, we'll make an exception."

"I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I had to say," answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table, and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked thoughtfully at the judge, and then threw the cigar through the open window.

"It don't relish, squire; nothin' does now."

"Ah, Bob! if you'd leave off play and drink! They're your ruin; worse than ague or fever."

"It's no use," continued Bob, as if he did not hear the judge's remark; "it must out. I fo't agin it, and thought to drive it away, but it can't be done. I've put a bit of lead into several before now, but this one"----

"What's that?" cried the judge, chucking his cigar away, and looking sternly at Bob. "What's up now? What are you saying about a bit of lead? None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez tricks, I hope? They won't do here. Don't understand such jokes."

"Pooh! they don't understand them a bit more in Natchez. If they did, I shouldn't be in Texas."

"The less said of that the better, Bob. You promised to lead a new life here; so we won't rake up old stories."

"I did, I did!" groaned Bob; "but it's all no use. I shall never be better till I'm hung."

I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took another cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke, said, very unconcernedly"--

"Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here, but in Texas, under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder. Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."

"Send away the nigger, squire," said Bob. "What a free white man has to say, shouldn't be heard by black ears."

"Go away, Ptoly," said the judge. "Now, then," added he, turning to Bob, "say what you have to say; but mind, nobody forces you to do it, and it's only out of good will that I listen to you, for to-day's Sunday."

"I know that," muttered Bob; "I know that, squire; but it leaves me no peace, and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac, every where, but it's all no use. Wherever I go, the spectre follows me, and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."

"Under the Patriarch!" exclaimed the judge.

"Ay, under the Patriarch!" groaned Bob. "Don't you know the Patriarch; the old live oak near the ford, on the Jacinto?"

"I know, I know!" answered the Judge. "And what drives you under the Patriarch?"

"What drives me? What drives a man who--who"----

"A man who"---- repeated the judge, gently.

"A man," continued Bob, in the same low tone, "who has sent a rifle bullet into another's heart. He lies there, under the Patriarch, whom I"----

"Whom you?" asked the judge.

"_Whom I killed!_" said Bob, in a hollow whisper.

"Killed!" exclaimed the judge. "You killed him? Whom?"

"Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your palaver," growled Bob.

"You are getting saucy, Bob," said the judge impatiently. "Go on, however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."

Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment, and then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.

"Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"

"I dragged him there, and buried him there," replied Bob.

"Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"

"Because he couldn't go himself, with more than half an ounce of lead in his body."

"And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob? Well, if it was Johnny, you've done the country a service, and saved it a rope."

Bob shook his head negatively.

"It wasn't Johnny, although---- But you shall hear all about it. It's just ten days since you paid me twenty dollars fifty."

"I did so, Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents, and I advised you at the same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of hundred dollars, or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio land; but advice is thrown away upon you."

"When I got the money, I thought I'd go down to San Felipe, to the Mexicans, and try my luck; and, at the same time, see the doctor about my fever. As I was goin' there, I passed near Johnny's house, and fancied a glass, but determined not to get off my horse. I rode up to the window, and looked in. There was a man sittin' at the table, havin' a hearty good dinner of steaks and potatoes, and washin' it down with a stiff glass of grog. I began to feel hungry myself, and while I was considerin' whether I should 'light or not, Johnny came sneakin' out, and whispered to me to come in, that there was a man inside with whom somethin' might be done if we went the right way to work; a man who had a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and that, if we got out the cards and pretended to play a little together, he would soon take the bait and join us.

"I wasn't much inclined to do it," continued Bob; "but Johnny bothered me so to go in, that I got off my horse. As I did so the dollars chinked in my pocket, and the sound gave me a wish to play.

"I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass followed another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too, but I only eat a couple of mouthfuls. When I had drank two, three, ay, four glasses, Johnny brought the cards and dice. 'Hallo, Johnny!' says I; 'cards and dice, Johnny! I've twenty dollars fifty in my pocket. Let's have a game! But no more drink for me; for I know you, Johnny, I know you'----

"Johnny larfed slyly, and rattled the dice, and we sat down to play. I hadn't meant to drink any more, but play makes one thirsty; and with every glass I got more eager, and my dollars got fewer. I reckoned, however, that the stranger would join us, and that I should be able to win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat quite quiet, and eat and drank as if he didn't see we were there. I went on playin' madder than ever, and before half an hour was over, I was cleaned out; my twenty dollars fifty gone to the devil, or what's the same thing, into Johnny's pocket.

"When I found myself without a cent, I _was_ mad, I reckon. It warn't the first time, nor the hundredth, that I had lost money. Many bigger sums than that--ay, hundreds and thousands of dollars had I played away--but they had none of them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part of the trouble to get that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full months had I been slavin' away in the woods and prairies to airn them, and I caught the fever there. The fever I had still, but no money to cure it with. Johnny only larfed in my face, and rattled my dollars. I made a hit at him, which, if he hadn't jumped on one side, would have cured him of larfin' for a week or two.

"Presently, however, he came sneakin' up to me, and winkin' and whisperin'; and, 'Bob!' says he, 'is it come to that with you? are you grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round his body?' said he, lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin, I guess; and all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"

"Did he say that?" asked the judge.

"Ay, that did he, but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he wanted the stranger's purse, he might take it himself, and be d----d; that I wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I got on my horse, and rode away like mad.

"My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you, for I knew you'd scold me."

"I shouldn't have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it would only have been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me, called together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got you back your twenty dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the country; or, better still, out of the world."

These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the Alcalde with a melancholy look.

"It's too late," muttered he; "too late, squire."

"Perhaps not," replied the judge, "but let's hear the rest."

"Well," continued Bob, "I kept riding on at random, and when evenin' came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto. As I was ridin' past it, I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could only see two things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me.

"'Whence come, countryman, and whither going?' it said.

"'Whence and whether,' answered I, as surly as could be; 'to the devil at a gallop, and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.'

"'You can do the errand yourself,' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my road don't lie that way.'

"As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure of before, that it was the man with the belt full of money.

"'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he.

"'And if I am,' says I; 'what's that to you?'

"'Nothin',' said he; 'nothin', certainly.'

"'Better ride on,' says I; 'and leave me quiet.'

"'Will so, stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word ain't a tomahawk, I reckon,' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and, if I was you, I'd keep my dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.'

"This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way.

"'You're a nice feller,' said I, 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A pitiful chap _you_ are,' says I.

"I thought to provoke him, and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble like--

"'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you with your losses! I'm sorry for you, on the contrary. Don't look like a man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his money by hard work.'

"We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake, close to the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse, and was frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to me, and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it was, plain enough, though he had buttoned his coat over it.

"'Hard work, indeed,' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent left for a quid of baccy.'

"'If that's all,' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself, and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children, and want every cent I've got, but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for tobacco and a dram.'

"And so sayin', he took a purse out of his pocket, in which he carried his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if the devil laughed and nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse.

"'Halves!' cried I.

"'No, not that,' says he; 'I've wife and child, and what I have belongs to them; but half a dollar'----

"'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'----

"'Or else?' repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the purse back into his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder.

"'Don't force one to do you a mischief,' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.'

"I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were possessin' me.

"'Halves!' I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he sprang out of the saddle, and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground.

"'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!'"

Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair. Without the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.

There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge broke silence.

"A hard, hard case!" said he. "Father, mother, children, all at one blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"

"A great villain," groaned Bob. "The ball was gone right through his breast."

"Perhaps your gun went off by accident," said the judge anxiously. "Perhaps it was his own ball."

Bob shook his head.

"I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said, 'Don't force me to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle.

"When I saw him lie dead before me, I can't tell you what I felt. It warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug a grave with my huntin' knife; for I found him there afterwards."

"You found him there?" repeated the judge.

"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I recollect nothin' about it."

The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.

"What have you done with his money?"

"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"

The judge and I stared at him.

"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there. I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, _he_ stood before me. If I turned, _he_ turned too. Sometimes he came behind me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him agin."

"Queer that," observed the judge.

"Ay, very queer!" said Bob mournfully. "But it's all no use. Nothin' does me any good. I sha'n't be better--I shall never have peace till I'm hung."

Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed sentence on himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar feeling, and could not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an unmoved countenance.

"Indeed!" said he, "indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're hung."

"Yes," answered Bob, with eager haste. "Hung on the same tree under which _he_ lies buried."

"Well, if you will have it so, we'll see what can be done for you. We'll call a jury of the neighbours together to-morrow."

"Thank ye, squire," murmured Bob, visibly comforted by this promise.

"We'll summon a jury," repeated the Alcalde, "and see what can be done for you. You'll perhaps have changed your mind by that time."

I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds, but he did not seem to notice my surprise.

"There is, perhaps, another way to get rid of your life, if you are tired of it," he continued. "We might, perhaps, hit upon one that would satisfy your conscience."

Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement.

"At any rate, we'll hear what the neighbours say," added the judge.

Bob stepped up to the judge, and held out his hand to bid him farewell. The other did not take it, and turning to me, said--"_You_ had better stop here, I think."

Bob turned round impetuously.

"The gentleman must come with me."

"Why must he?" said the judge.

"Ask himself."

I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had fallen in with one another, and what care and attention he had shown me at Johnny's.

The judge nodded approvingly. "Nevertheless," said he, "you will remain here, and Bob will go alone. You are in a state of mind, Bob, in which a man is better alone, d'ye see; and so leave the young man here. Another misfortune might happen; and, at any rate, he's better here than at Johnny's. Come back to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done for you."

These words were spoken in a decided manner, which seemed to have its effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly, and left the room. I remained staring at the judge, and lost in wonder at these strange proceedings.

When Bob was gone, the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell, which supplied the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box, he tried one cigar after another, broke them peevishly up, and threw the pieces out of the window. The negro whom the shell had summoned, stood for some time waiting, while his master broke up the cigars, and threw them away. At last the judge's patience seemed quite to leave him.

"Hark ye, Ptoly!" growled he to the frightened black, "the next time you bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke, I'll make your back smoke for it. Mind that, now;--there's not a single one of them worth a rotten maize stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny's, that I'll have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie's and fetch a box. And, d'ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with him and the neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him to-morrow morning. And mind you're home again by two o'clock. Take the mustang we caught last week. I want to see how he goes."

The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and staring eyes, then giving a perplexed look at his master, shot out of the room.

"Where away, Ptoly?" shouted the Alcalde after him.

"To Massa Ducie."

"Without a pass, Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr Ducie?"

"Him nebber send bad cigar again, him coffee-cullud hag. Massa speak to Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours here."

"I thought as much," said the judge with perfect equanimity. "Wait a minute, I'll write the pass, and a couple of lines for Mr Ducie."

This was soon done, and the negro dispatched on his errand. The judge waited till he heard the sound of his horse's feet galloping away, and then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars, lit the first which came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also one that I took. They were Principes, and as good as I ever tasted.

I passed the whole of that day _tête à tête_ with the judge, who, I soon found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the circumstances under which I had come to Texas, and the intention I had of settling there, should I find the country to my liking. During our long conversation, I was able to form a very different, and much more favourable estimate of his character, than I had done from his interview with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great energy, sound judgment, enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. They looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted, idle, and ignorant Mexicans, while the difference of religion, and interference of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the Spanish and Anglo-American races.

Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it was discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. "It is the interest of every man to keep it secret," said the judge; "and there can be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause, by the success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in Texas, the offscourings of the United States, men like Bob, or far worse than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken villains though they be, they are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time arrives, they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their fellow citizens, and of the new and independent republic of Texas. At this moment, we must wink at many things which would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each man's arm is of immense value to the State; for, on the day of battle, we shall have, not two to one, but twenty to one opposed to us."

I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet; and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang. The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner, that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken off the rack.

Hastily pulling on my clothes, I hurried down stairs, and opened the house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck, and his hands crossed, shivering, and groaning. When I spoke to him, he looked up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post, and taking his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a child, apparently without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him in a chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him, and shook the house. I could not get him to speak, and was about to return to my room to complete my toilet, when I again heard the tramp of mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen horsemen, all dressed in hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets, and armed with rifles and bowie-knives; stout, daring looking fellows, evidently from the south-western states, with the true Kentucky half horse half alligator profile, and the usual allowance of thunder, lightning, and earthquake. It struck me when I saw them, that two or three thousand such men would have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the latter were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in each hand.

They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes in the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into the house with the air of people who make themselves at home every where, and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a "good-morning" to me, rather coldly to be sure, for they had seen me talking with Bob, which probably did not much recommend me. Presently, four more horsemen rode up, and then a third party, so that there were now fourteen of them assembled, all decided-looking men, in the prime of life and strength. The judge, who slept in an adjoining room, had been awakened by the noise. I heard him jump out of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before he entered the parlour.

After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me to them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the others _buenos hombres_, or freeholders. They did not seem, however, to prize their titles much, for they addressed one another by their surnames only.

The negro brought a light, opened the cigar box, and arranged the chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard, and to the cigars, and then sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.

Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in certain provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at his council fire, and of the stern, religious gravity of the early puritan settlers in America.

During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his face concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when all had drank and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.

"Men!" said he.

"Squire!" answered they.

"We've a business before us, which I calculate will be best explained by him whom it concerns."

The men looked at the squire, then at Bob, then at me.

"Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to say, say it!" continued the judge.

"Said it all yesterday," muttered Bob, his face still covered by his hands.

"Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither judge you, nor allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday. Besides, it was all between ourselves, for I don't reckon Mr Rivers as any thing; I count him still as a stranger."

"What's the use of so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said Bob peevishly, raising his head as he spoke.

The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to behold, his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow, his beard wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and deep sunk in their sockets. His appearance was scarcely human.

"I tell you, again," said the judge, "I will condemn no man upon his own word alone; much less you, who have been in my service, and eaten of my bread. You accused yourself yesterday, but you were delirious at the time--you had the fever upon you."

"It's no use, squire," said Bob, apparently touched by the kindness of the judge, "You mean well, I see; butt though you might deliver me out of men's hands, you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies buried."

The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another, but said nothing.

"It's no use," again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonized tone. "If he had attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child. What you intend, brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle down--levelled--fired."

The man's agony was so intense, that even the iron featured jury seemed moved by it. They cast sharp, but stolen glances at Bob. There was a short silence.

"So you have killed a man?" said a deep bass voice at last.

"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.

"And how came that?" continued his questioner.

"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me his belt full of money."

"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.

"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my twenty dollars fifty"----

"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting game."

The men nodded.

"And then because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same deep-toned voice as before.

"No--some hours after--by the Jacinto, near the Patriarch--met him down there and killed him."

"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"

Mr Heart nodded.

"Met him by the river, and cried, halves of his money," continued Bob mechanically. "He said he'd give me something to buy a quid, and more than enough for that, but not halves 'I've wife and child,' said he"----

"And you?" asked the juror with the deep voice, which this time, however, had a hollow sound in it.

"Shot him down," said Bob, with a wild hoarse laugh.

For some time no word was spoken.

"And who was the man?" said a juror at last.

"Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a mudhead, is more than I can say."

"The thing must be investigated, Alcalde," said another of the jury after a second pause.

"It must so," answered the Alcalde.

"What's the good of so much investigation?" grumbled Bob.

"What good?" repeated the Alcalde. "Because we owe it to ourselves, to the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you without having held an inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your attention to," continued he, turning to the jury; "the man is half out of his mind--not _compos mentis_, as they say. He's got the fever, and had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved that gentleman's life yonder, Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers."

"Did he so?" said one of the jury. "That did he," replied I, "not only by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me, half dead and helpless, into the river, but also by the care and attention he forced Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be alive at this moment."

Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.

"It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to this?" said one of the jurors.

"I didn't say that. I only said that he pointed to the man's money bag, and said---- But what is it to you what Johnny said? I'm the man who did it. I speak for myself, and I'll be hanged for myself."

"All very good, Bob," interposed the Alcalde; "but we can't hang you without being sure you deserve it. What do you say to it, Mr Whyte? You're the procurador--and you, Mr Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves to rum or brandy; and, Mr Bright and Irwin, take another cigar. They're considerable tolerable the cigars--ain't they? That's brandy, Mr Whyte, in the diamond bottle."

Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion, as I thought, but I was mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard, took up a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, every movement being performed with the greatest deliberation.

"Well, squire," said he, "or rather _Alcalde_"----

After the word _Alcalde_, he filled the glass half full of rum.

"If it's as we've heard," added he, pouring about a spoonful of water on the rum, "and Bob has killed the man"--he continued, throwing in some lumps of sugar--"murdered him"--he went on, crushing the sugar with a wooden stamp--"I rather calkilate"--here he raised the glass--"Bob ought to be hung," he concluded, putting the tumbler to his mouth and emptying it.

The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath, as if a load were taken off his breast.

"Well," said the judge, who did not look over well pleased; "if you all think so, and Bob is agreed, I calculate we must do as he wishes. I tell you, though, I don't do it willingly. At any rate we must find the dead man first, and examine Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob."

"Certainly," said the jury with one voice.

"You are a dreadful murderer, Bob a very considerable one," continued the judge; "but I tell you to your face, and not to flatter you, there is more good in your little finger than in Johnny's whole hide. And I'm sorry for you, because, at the bottom, you are not a bad man, though you've been led away by bad company and example. I calculate you might still be reformed, and made very useful--more so, perhaps, than you think. Your rifle's a capital good one."

At these last words the men all looked up, and threw a keen enquiring glance at Bob.

"You might be of great service," continued the judge encouragingly, "to the country and to your fellow-citizens. You're worth a dozen Mexicans any day."

While the judge was speaking, Bob let his head fall on his breast, and seemed reflecting. He now looked up.

"I understand, squire; I see what you're drivin' at. But I can't do it--I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me. Wherever I go, by day or by night, he's always there, standin' before me, and drivin' me under the Patriarch."

There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed.

"So be it, then," said he with a sort of suppressed sigh. "We'll see the body to-day, Bob, and you may come to-morrow at ten o'clock."

"Couldn't it be sooner?" asked Bob impatiently.

"Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?" asked Mr Heart.

"What's the use of palaverin'?" said Bob sulkily. "I told you already I'm sick of my life. If you don't come till ten o'clock, by the time you've had your talk out and ridden to the Patriarch, the fever'll be upon me."

"But we can't be flying about like a parcel of wild geese, because of your fever," said the procurador.

"Certainly not," said Bob humbly.

"It's an ugly customer the fever, though, Mr Whyte," observed Mr Trace; "and I calculate we ought to do him that pleasure. What do you think, squire?"

"I reckon he's rather indiscreet in his askin's," said the judge, in a tone of vexation. "However, as he wishes it, and if it is agreeable to you," added he, turning to the Ayuntamiento; "and as it's you, Bob, I calculate we must do what you ask."

"Thankee," said Bob.

"Nothing to thank for," growled the judge. "And now go into the kitchen and get a good meal of roast beef, d'ye hear?" He knocked upon the table. "Some good roast beef for Bob," said he to a negress who entered; "and see that he eats it. And get your self dressed more decently, Bob--like a white man and a Christian, not like a wild redskin."

The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned upon Johnny, who appeared, from all accounts, to be a very bad and dangerous fellow; and after a short discussion, they agreed to lynch him, in backwoodsman's phrase, just as cooly as if they had been talking of catching a mustang. When the men had come to this satisfactory conclusion, they got up, drank the judge's health and mine, shook us by the hand, and left the house.

The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The judge, too, was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should be hung who might render the country much and good service if he remained alive. That Johnny, the miserable, cowardly, treacherous Johnny, should be sent out of the world as quickly as possible, was perfectly correct, but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I remind him of the crime of which Bob had been guilty--of the outraged laws of God and man--and of the atonement due. It was of no use. If Bob had sinned against society, he could repair his fault much better by remaining alive than by being hung; and, for anything else, God would avenge it in his own good time. We parted for the night, neither of us convinced by the other's arguments.

We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, when a man, dressed in black, rode up to the door. It was Bob, but so metamorphosed that I scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained handkerchief round his head, he wore a hat; instead of the leathern jacket, a decent cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too, and looked quite another man. His manner had altered with his dress; he seemed tranquil and resigned. With a mild and submissive look, he held out his hand to the judge, who took it and shook it heartily.

"Ah, Bob!" said he, "if you had only listened to what I so often told you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from New Orleans, in order that, on Sundays at least, you might look like a decent and respectable man. How often have I asked you to put them on, and come with us to meeting, to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is same truth in the saying, the coat makes the man. With his Sunday coat, a man often puts on other and better thoughts. If that had been your case only fifty-two times in the year, you'd have learned to avoid Johnny before now."

Bob said nothing.

"Well, well! I've done all I could to make a better men of you. All that was in my power."

"That you have," answered Bob, much moved. "God reward you for it!"

I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I did so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye, which he suppressed, however, and, turning to his breakfast table, bade us sit down. Bob thanked him humbly, but declined, saying that he wished to appear fasting before his offended Creator. The judge insisted, and reasoned with him, and at last he took a chair.

Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day began to drop in, and some of them joined at the meal. When they had all taken what they chose, the judge ordered the negroes to clear away, and leave the room. This done, he seated himself at the upper end of the table, with the Ayuntamiento on either side, and Bob facing him.

"Mr Whyte," said the Alcade, "have you, as procurador, any thing to state?"

"Yes, Alcalde," replied the procurador. "In virtue of my office, I made a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock, and there found the body of a man who had met his death by a gunshot wound. I also found a belt full of money, and several letters of recommendation to different planters, from which it appears that the man was on his way from Illinois to San Felipe, in order to buy land of Colonel Austin, and to settle in Texas."

The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags, out of which he took a leathern belt stuffed with money, which he laid on the table, together with the letters. The judge opened the belt, and counted the money. It amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars, in gold and silver. The procurador then read the letters.

One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto had left their house and fled. He, the corregidor, had sent people in pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture. This piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly, but he made no remark on it at the time.

"Bob Rock!" cried he.

Bob stepped forward.

"Bob Rock, or by whatever other name you may be known, are you guilty or not guilty of this man's death?"

"Guilty!" replied Bob, in a low tone.

"Gentlemen of the jury, will you be pleased to give your verdict?"

The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned.

"Guilty!" said the foreman.

"Bob Rock," said the judge solemnly, "your fellow-citizens have found you guilty; and I pronounce the sentence--that you be hung by the neck until you are dead. The Lord be merciful to your soul!"

"Amen!" said all present.

"Thank ye," murmured Bob.

"We will seal up the property of the deceased," said the judge, "and then proceed to our painful duty."

He called for a light, and he and the procurador and corregidors sealed up the papers and money.

"Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be put in execution?" said the Alcalde, with a glance at me.

"He saved my life, judge and fellow-citizens," cried I, deeply moved.

Bob shook his head mournfully.

"Let us go, then, in God's name," said the judge.

Without another word being spoken, we left the house and mounted our horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on, a little in front, with Bob, doing his best to prepare him for the eternity to which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some time; but at last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang into so fast a trot, that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to escape the doom he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he feared the fever might return before the expiration of the short time he yet had to live.

After an hour's ride, we came to the enormous live oak distinguished as _the Patriarch_. Two or three of the men dismounted, and held aside the heavy moss-covered branches which swept the ground, and formed a complete curtain round the tree. The party rode through the opening thus made, and drew up in a circle beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre of this ring stood Bob, trembling like an aspen-leaf, and with his eyes fixed on a small mound of fresh earth, partly concealed by the branches, and which had escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was the grave of the murdered man.

A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings and arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal half light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. It was imposingly beautiful.

Bob, the judge, and the corregidors, remained sitting on their horses, but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter cut the lasso from Bob's saddle, and threw an end of it over one of the lowermost branches; then uniting the two ends, formed them into a strong noose, which he left dangling from the bough. This simple preparation completed, the Alcalde took off his hat and folded his hands. The others followed his example.

"Bob!" said the judge to the unfortunate criminal, whose head was bowed on his horse's mane; "Bob! we will pray for your poor soul, which is about to part from your sinful body."

Bob raised his head. "I had something to say," exclaimed he, in a wondering and husky tone. "Something I wanted to say."

"What have you to say?"

Bob stared around him; his lips moved, but no word escaped him. His spirit was evidently no longer with things of this earth.

"Bob!" said the judge again, "we will pray for your soul."

"Pray! pray!" groaned he. "I shall need it."

In slow and solemn accents, and with great feeling, the judge uttered the Lord's Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him. When it was ended--

"God be merciful to your soul!" exclaimed the judge.

"Amen!" said all present.

One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round Bob's neck, another bound his eyes, a third person drew his feet out of the stirrups, while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a heavy riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word was breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There was something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that reigned in the vast enclosure.

The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same moment Bob made a desperate clutch at the bridle, and a loud "Hold!" burst in thrilling tones from the lips of the judge.

It was too late, Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed forward, nearly riding down the man who held the whip, and seizing Bob in his arms, raised him on his own horse, supporting him with one hand, while with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole gigantic frame trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador, corregidors, all, in short, stood in open-mouthed wonder at this strange proceeding.

"Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?" shouted the judge.

One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask, another supported the body, and a third the feet, of the half-hanged man, while the judge poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The cravat, which had not been taken off, had hindered the breaking of the neck. Bob at last opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around him.

"Bob," said the judge, "you had something to say, hadn't you, about Johnny?"

"Johnny," gasped Bob; "Johnny."

"What's become of him?"

"He's gone to San Antonio, Johnny."

"To San Antonio!" repeated the judge, with an expression of great alarm overspreading his features.

"To San Antonio--to Padre José," continued Bob; "a Catholic. Beware!"

"A traitor, then!" muttered several.

"Catholic!" exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard seemed to deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and gradually by his side, and Bob was again hanging from the lasso.

"A Catholic! a traitor!" repeated several of the men; "a citizen and a traitor!"

"So it is, men!" exclaimed the judge. "We've no time to lose," continued he, in a harsh, hurried voice; "no time to lose; we must catch him."

"That must we," said several voices, "or our plans are betrayed to the Mexicans."

"After him immediately to San Antonio!" cried the judge with the same desperately hurried manner.

"To San Antonio!" repeated the men, pushing their way through the curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were outside, those who were dismounted sprang into the saddle, and, without another word, the whole party galloped away in the direction of San Antonio.

The judge alone remained, seemingly lost in thought; his countenance pale and anxious, and his eyes following the riders. His reverie, however, had lasted but a very few seconds, when he seized my arm.

"Hasten to my house," cried he; "lose no time, don't spare horse-flesh. Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over to San Felipe, and tell Stephen Austin what has happened, and what you have seen and heard."

"But, judge"----

"Off with you at once, if you would do Texas a service. Bring my wife and daughter back."

And so saying, he literally drove me from under the tree, pushing me out with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of violent impatience and anxiety which his features assumed, that, without venturing to make further objection, I struck the spurs into my mustang and galloped off. Before I had got fifty yards from the tree, I looked round. The judge had disappeared.

I rode full speed to the judge's house, and thence on a fresh horse to San Felipe, where I found Colonel Austin, who seemed much alarmed by the news I brought him, had horses saddled, and sent round to all the neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge had made their preparations to accompany me home, he started with fifty armed men in the direction of San Antonio.

I escorted the ladies to their house, but scarcely had we arrived there, when I was seized with a fever, the result of my recent fatigues and sufferings. For some days my life was in danger, but at last a good constitution, and the kindest and most watchful nursing, triumphed over the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse, I set out for Mr Neal's plantation, in company with his huntsman Anthony, who, after spending many days, and riding over hundreds of miles of ground in quest of me, had at last found me out.

Our way led up past the Patriarch, and, as we approached it, we saw innumerable birds of prey, and carrion crows circling round it, croaking and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but, nevertheless, I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree. Anthony had ridden on, and was already hidden from view behind its branches. Presently I heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I jumped off my horse, and led it through a small opening in the leafage.

Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso from the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob, however, for the corpse was much too short and small for him.

I drew nearer. "Johnny!" I exclaimed "That's Johnny!"

"It _was_," answered Anthony. "Thank Heaven, there's an end of him!"

I shuddered. "But where is Bob?"

"Bob?" cried Anthony. "Bob!"

He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me larger and higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the murderer lay beside his victim.

"Shall we not render the last service to this wretch, Anthony?" asked I.

"The scoundrel!" answered the huntsman. "I won't dirty my hands with him. Let him poison the kites and the crows!"

We rode on.

DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.

As when a monstrous snake, with flaming crest, Some wretch within its glittering folds has press'd-- He vainly struggles to escape its fangs, The reptile triumphs, and the victim hangs His head in agony, and bending low, Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow. On through his veins the burning poison speeds, Drinks up his spirit--on his vitals feeds, Till, tortured life extinct, the senseless clay In hideous dissolution melts away.

M. J.

GIFTS OF TÉREK.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW.

Térek[21] bellows, wildly sweeping Past the cliffs, so swift and strong; Like a tempest is his weeping, Flies his spray like tears along. O'er the steppe now slowly veering-- Calm but faithless looketh he-- With a voice of love endearing Murmurs to the Caspian sea:

"Give me way, old sea! I greet thee; Give me refuge in thy breast; Far and fast I've rush'd to meet thee-- It is tine for me to rest. Cradled in Kazbék, and cherish'd From the bosom of the cloud, Strong am I, and all have perish'd Who would stop my current proud. For thy sons' delight, O Ocean! I've crush'd the crags of Dariál, Onward my resistless motion, Like a flock, hath swept them all."

Still on his smooth shore reclining, Lay the Caspian as in sleep; While the Térek, softly shining, To the old sea murmur'd deep:--

"Lo! a gift upon my water-- Lo! no common offering-- Floating from the field of slaughter, A Kabárdinetz[22] I bring. All in shining mail he's shrouded-- Plates of steel his arms enfold; Blood the Koran verse hath clouded, That thereon is writ in gold: His pale brow is sternly bended-- Gory stains his wreathed lip dye-- Valiant blood, and far-descended-- 'Tis the hue of victory! Wild his eyes, yet nought he noteth; With an ancient hate they glare: Backward on the billow floateth, All disorderly, his hair."

Still the Caspian, calm reclining, Seems to slumber on his shore; And impetuous Térek, shining, Murmurs in his ear once more:--

"Father, hark! a priceless treasure-- Other gifts are poor to this-- I have hid, to do thee pleasure-- I have hid in my abyss! Lo! a corse my wave doth pillow-- A Kazáichka[23] young and fair. Darkly pale upon the billow Gleams her breast and golden hair; Very sad her pale brow gleameth, And her eyes are closed in sleep; From her bosom ever seemeth A thin purple stream to creep. By my water, calm and lonely, For the maid that comes not back, Of the whole Stanilza,[24] only Mourns a Grébenskoi Kazák.

"Swift on his black steed he hieth; To the mountains he is sped. 'Neath Tchetchén's kinjál[25] now lieth, Low in dust, that youthful head."

Silent then was that wild river; And afar, as white as snow, A fair head was seen to quiver In the ripple, to and fro.

In his might the ancient ocean, Like a tempest, 'gan arise; And the light of soft emotion Glimmer'd in his dark-blue eyes;

And he play'd, with rapture flushing, And in his embraces bright, Clasp'd the stream, to meet him rushing With a murmur of delight.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] A river which, rising on the eastern side of the ridge of the Caucasus, falls, after a rapid and impetuous course, into the Caspian, near Anápa.

[22] A mountaineer of the tribe of Kabárda.

[23] A Kazák girl.

[24] Village of Kazáks.

[25] Kinjál, a large dagger, the favourite weapon of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus, among which the Tchetchénetzes are distinguished for bravery.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.