Chapter LIII. A Loss And A Gain.

To apologize to my reader for not strictly tracing out each day of my history, would be, in all likelihood, as great an impertinence as that of the tiresome guest who, having kept you two hours from your bed by his uninteresting twaddle, asks you to forgive him at last for an abrupt departure. I am already too full of gratitude for the patience that has been conceded to me so far, to desire to trifle with it during the brief space that is now to link us together. And believe me, kind reader, there is more in that same tie than perhaps you think, especially where the intercourse had been carried on, and, as it were, fed from month to month. In such cases the relationship between him who writes and him who reads assumes something like acquaintanceship; heightened by a greater desire on one side to please, than is usually felt in the routine business of everyday life. Nor is it a light reward, if one can think that he has relieved a passing hour of solitude or discomfort, shortened a wintry night, or made a rainy day more endurable. I speak not here of the greater happiness in knowing that our inmost thoughts have found their echo in far away hearts, kindling noble emotions, and warming generous aspirations, teaching courage and hope by the very commonest of lessons; and showing that, in the moral as in the vegetable world, the bane and antidote grow side by side; and, as the eastern poet has it, “He who shakes the tree of sorrow, is often sowing the seeds of joy.” Such are the triumphs of very different efforts from mine, however, and I come back to the humble theme from which I started.

If I do not chronicle the incidents which succeeded to the events of my last chapter, it is, in the first place, because they are most imperfectly impressed upon my own memory; and, in the second, they are of a nature which, whether in the hearing or the telling, can afford little pleasure; for what if I should enlarge upon a text which runs but on suffering and sickness, nights of feverish agony, days of anguish, terrible alternations of hope and fear, ending, at last, in the sad, sad certainty, that skill has found its limit. The art of the surgeon can do no more, and Maurice Tiernay must consent to lose his leg! Such was the cruel news I was compelled to listen to as I awoke one morning dreaming, and for the first time since my accident, of my life in Kuffstein. The injuries I had received before being rescued from the Danube, had completed the mischief already begun, and all chance of saving my limb had now fled. I am not sure if I could not have heard a sentence of death with more equanimity than the terrible announcement that I was to drag out existence maimed and crippled. To endure the helplessness of age with the warm blood and daring passions of youth, and, worse than all, to forego a career that was already opening with such glorious prospects of distinction.

Nothing could be more kindly considerate than the mode of communicating this sad announcement; nor was there omitted any thing which could alleviate the bitterness of the tidings. The undying gratitude of the Imperial family; their heartfelt sorrow for my suffering; the pains they had taken to communicate the whole story of my adventure to the Emperor Napoleon himself, were all insisted on; while the personal visits of the Archdukes, and even the Emperor himself, at my sick bed, were told to me with every flattery such acts of condescension could convey. Let me not be thought ungrateful, if all these seemed but a sorry payment for the terrible sacrifice I was to suffer; and that the glittering crosses which were already sent to me in recognition, and which now sparkled on my bed, appeared a poor price for my shattered and wasted limb; and I vowed to myself that to be once more strong and in health I’d change fortunes with the humblest soldier in the grand army.

After all, it is the doubtful alone can break down the mind and waste the courage. To the brave man, the inevitable is always the endurable. Some hours of solitude and reflection brought this conviction to my heart, and I recalled the rash refusal I had already given to submit to the amputation, and sent word to the doctors that I was ready. My mind once made up, a thousand ingenious suggestions poured in their consolations. Instead of incurring my misfortune as I had done, my mischance might have originated in some commonplace or inglorious accident. In lieu of the proud recognitions I had earned, I might have now the mere sympathy of some fellow-sufferer in an hospital; and instead of the “Cross of St. Stephen,” and the “valor medal” of Austria, my reward might have been the few sous per day allotted to an invalided soldier.

As it was, each post from Vienna brought me nothing but flattering recognitions; and one morning a large sealed letter from Duroc conveyed the Emperor’s own approval of my conduct, with the cross of commander of the Legion of Honor. A whole life of arduous services might have failed to win such prizes, and so I struck the balance of good and evil fortune, and found I was the gainer!

Among the presents which I received from the Imperial family was a miniature of the young Archduchess, whose life I saved, and which I at once dispatched by a safe messenger to Marshal Marmont, engaging him to have a copy of it made and the original returned to me. I concluded that circumstances must have rendered this impossible, for I never beheld the portrait again, although I heard of it among the articles bequeathed to the Duc de Reichstadt at St. Helena. Maria Louisa was, at that time, very handsome; the upper lip and mouth were, it is true, faulty, and the Austrian heaviness marred the expression of these features; but her brow and eyes were singularly fine, and her hair of a luxuriant richness rarely to be seen.

Count Palakzi, my young Hungarian friend, and who had scarcely ever quitted my bedside during my illness, used to jest with me on my admiration of the young Archduchess, and jokingly compassionate me on the altered age we lived in, in contrast to those good old times when a bold feat or a heroic action was sure to win the hand of a fair princess. I half suspect that he believed me actually in love with her, and deemed that it was the best way to treat such an absurd and outrageous ambition. To amuse myself with his earnestness, for such had it become, on the subject, I affected not to be indifferent to his allusions, and assumed all the delicate reserve of devoted admiration. Many an hour have I lightened by watching the fidgety uneasiness the young count felt at my folly; for now instead of jesting, as before, he tried to reason me out of this insane ambition, and convince me that such pretensions were utter madness.

I was slowly convalescing, about five weeks after the amputation of my leg, when Palakzi entered my room one morning with an open letter in his hand. His cheek was flushed, and his air and manner greatly excited.

“Would you believe it, Tiernay,” said he, “Stadion writes me word from Vienna, that Napoleon has asked for the hand of the young Archduchess in marriage, and that the Emperor has consented?”

“And am _I_ not considered in this negotiation?” asked I, scarcely suppressing a laugh.

“This is no time nor theme for jest,” said he, passionately; “nor is it easy to keep one’s temper at such a moment. A Hapsburgher Princess married to a low Corsican adventurer! to the—”

“Come, Palakzi,” cried I, “these are not words for me to listen to; and having heard them, I may be tempted to say, that the honor comes all of the other side; and that he who holds all Europe at his feet ennobles the dynasty from which he selects his empress.”

“I deny it—fairly and fully deny it!” cried the passionate youth. “And every noble of this land would rather see the provinces of the empire torn from us, than a Princess of the Imperial House degraded to such an alliance!”

“Is the throne of France, then, so low?” said I, calmly.

“Not when the rightful sovereign is seated on it,” said he. “But are we, the subjects of a legitimate monarchy, to accept as equals the lucky accidents of your Revolution? By what claim is a soldier of fortune the peer of King or Kaiser? I, for one, will never more serve a cause so degraded; and the day on which such humiliation is our lot shall be the last of my soldiering;” and so saying, he rushed passionately from the room, and disappeared.

I mention this little incident here, not as in any way connecting itself with my own fortunes, but as illustrating what I afterward discovered to be the universal feeling entertained toward this alliance. Low as Austria then was—beaten in every battle—her vast treasury confiscated—her capital in the hands of an enemy—her very existence as an empire threatened; the thought of this insult—for such they deemed it—to the Imperial House, seemed to make the burden unendurable; and many who would have sacrificed territory and power for a peace, would have scorned to accept it at such a price as this.

I suppose the secret history of the transaction will never be disclosed; but living as I did, at the time, under the same roof with the royal family, I inclined to think that their counsels were of a divided nature; that while the Emperor and the younger Archdukes gave a favorable ear to the project, the Empress and the Archduke Charles as steadily opposed it. The gossip of the day spoke of dreadful scenes between the members of the Imperial House, and some have since asserted that the breaches of affection that were then made never were reconciled in after life.

With these events of state or private history I have no concern. My position and my nationality, of course, excluded me from confidential intercourse with those capable of giving correct information; nor can I record any thing beyond the mere current rumors of the time. This much, however, I could remark, that all whom conviction, policy, or perhaps bribery inclined to the alliance, were taken into court favor, and replaced in the offices of the household those whose opinions were adverse. A total change, in fact, took place in the persons of the royal suite, and the Hungarian nobles, many of whom filled the “Hautes Chargés,” as they are called, now made way for Bohemian grandees, who were understood to entertain more favorable sentiments toward France. Whether in utter despair of the cause for which they had suffered so long and so much, or that they were willing to accept this alliance with the oldest dynasty of Europe as a compromise, I am unable to say; but so was it. Many of the emigré nobility of France, the unflinching, implacable enemies of Bonaparte, consented to bury their ancient grudges, and were now seen accepting place and office in the Austrian household. This was a most artful flattery of the Austrians, and was peculiarly agreeable to Napoleon, who longed to legalize his position by a reconciliation with the old followers of the Bourbons, and who dreaded their schemes and plots far more than he feared all the turbulent violence of the “Faubourg.” In one day, no fewer than three French nobles were appointed to places of trust in the household, and a special courier was sent off to Gratz to convey the appointment of maid of honor to a young French lady who lived there in exile.

Each of my countrymen on arriving came to visit me. They had all known my father by name, if not personally, and most graciously acknowledged me as one of themselves, a flattery they sincerely believed above all price.

I had heard much of the overweening vanity and conceit of the Legitimatists, but the reality far exceeded all my notions of them. There was no pretense, no affectation whatever about them. They implicitly believed that in “accepting the Corsican,” as the phrase went, they were displaying a condescension and self-negation unparalleled in history. The tone of superiority thus assumed, of course made them seem supremely ridiculous to my eyes—I, who had sacrificed heavily enough for the Empire, and yet felt myself amply rewarded. But apart from these exaggerated ideas of themselves, they were most amiable, gentle-mannered, and agreeable.

The ladies and gentlemen of what was called the “Service,” associated all together, dining at the same table, and spending each evening in a handsome suite appropriated to themselves. Hither some one or other of the Imperial family occasionally came to play his whist, or chat away an hour in pleasant gossip; these distinguished visitors never disturbing in the slightest degree the easy tone of the society, nor exacting any extraordinary marks of notice or attention.

The most frequent guest was the Archduke Louis, whose gayety of temperament and easy humor induced him to pass nearly every evening with us. He was fond of cards, but liked to talk away over his game, and make play merely subsidiary to the pleasure of conversation. As I was but an indifferent “whister,” but a most admirable auditor, I was always selected to make one of his party.

It was on one of the evenings when we were so engaged, and the Archduke had been displaying a more than ordinary flow of good spirits and merriment, a sudden lull in the approving laughter, and a general subsidence of every murmur, attracted my attention. I turned my head to see what had occurred, and perceived that all the company had risen, and were standing with eyes directed to the open door.

“The Archduchess, your Imperial Highness!” whispered an aid-de-camp to the Prince, and he immediately rose from the table, an example speedily followed by the others. I grasped my chair with one hand, and with my sword in the other, tried to stand up, an effort which hitherto I had never accomplished without aid. It was all in vain—my debility utterly denied the attempt. I tried again, but overcome by pain and weakness, I was compelled to abandon the effort, and sink down on my seat, faint and trembling. By this time the company had formed into a circle, leaving the Archduke Louis alone in the middle of the room; I, to my increasing shame and confusion, being seated exactly behind where the Prince stood.

There was a hope for me still; the Archduchess might pass on through the rooms without my being noticed. And this seemed likely enough, since she was merely proceeding to the apartments of the Empress, and not to delay with us. This expectation was soon destined to be extinguished; for, leaning on the arm of one of her ladies, the young Princess came straight over to where Prince Louis stood. She said something in a low voice, and he turned immediately to offer her a chair; and there was I seated, very pale, and very much shocked at my apparent rudeness. Although I had been presented before to the young Archduchess, she had not seen me in the uniform of the Corps de Guides (in which I now served as colonel), and never recognized me. She therefore stared steadily at me, and turned toward her brother as if for explanation.

“Don’t you know him?” said the Archduke, laughing; “it’s Colonel de Tiernay, and if he can not stand up, _you_ certainly should be the last to find fault with him. Pray, sit quiet, Tiernay,” added he, pressing me down on my seat; “and if you won’t look so terrified, my sister will remember you.”

“We must both be more altered than I ever expect if I cease to remember M. de Tiernay,” said the Archduchess, with a most courteous smile. Then leaning on the back of a chair, she bent forward and inquired after my health. There was something so strange in the situation: a young, handsome girl condescending to a tone of freedom and intimacy with one she had seen but a couple of times, and from whom the difference of condition separated her by a gulf wide as the great ocean, that I felt a nervous tremor I could not account for. Perhaps, with the tact that royalty possesses as its own prerogative, or, perhaps, with mere womanly intuition, she saw how the interview agitated me, and, to change the topic, she suddenly said:

“I must present you to one of my ladies, Colonel de Tiernay, a countrywoman of your own. She already has heard from me the story of your noble devotion, and now only has to learn your name. Remember you are to sit still.”

As she said this, she turned, and drawing her arm within that of a young lady behind her, led her forward.

“It is to this gentleman I owe my life, Mademoiselle D’Estelles.”

I heard no more, nor did she either; for, faltering, she uttered a low, faint sigh, and fell into the arms of those behind her.

“What’s this, Tiernay!—how is all this?” whispered Prince Louis; “are you acquainted with mademoiselle?”

But I forgot every thing; the presence in which I stood, the agony of a wounded leg, and all, and, with a violent effort, sprung from my seat.

Before I could approach her, however, she had risen from the chair, and in a voice broken and interrupted, said:

“You are so changed, M. de Tiernay—so much changed—that the shock overpowered me. We became acquainted in the Tyrol, madame,” said she to the Princess, “where monsieur was a prisoner.”

What observation the Princess made in reply I could not hear, but I saw that Laura blushed deeply. To hide her awkwardness perhaps it was, that she hurriedly entered into some account of our former intercourse, and I could observe that some allusion to the Prince de Condé dropped from her.

“How strange, how wonderful is all that you tell me!” said the Princess, who bent forward and whispered some words to Prince Louis; and then, taking Laura’s arm, she moved on, saying in a low voice to me, “Au revoir, monsieur,” as she passed.

“You are to come and drink tea in the Archduchess’s apartments, Tiernay,” said Prince Louis; “you’ll meet your old friend, Mademoiselle D’Estelles, and of course you have a hundred recollections to exchange with each other.”

The Prince insisted on my accepting his arm, and, as he assisted me along, informed me that old Madame D’Acgreville was dead about a year, leaving her niece an immense fortune—at least a claim to one—only wanting the sanction of the Emperor Napoleon to become valid; for it was one of the estreated but not confiscated estates of La Vendée. Every word that dropped from the Prince extinguished some hope within me. More beautiful than ever, her rank recognized, and in possession of a vast fortune, what chance had I, a poor soldier of fortune, of success?

“Don’t sigh, Tiernay,” said the Prince, laughing; “you’ve lost a leg for us, and we must lend you a hand in return;” and with this we entered the salon of the Archduchess.

Maurice Tiernay’s “Last Word And Confession.”

I have been very frank with my readers in these memoirs of my life. If I have dwelt somewhat vain-gloriously on passing moments of success, it must be owned that I have not spared my vanity and self-conceit, when either betrayed me into any excess of folly. I have neither blinked my humble beginnings, nor have I sought to attribute to my own merits those happy accidents which made me what I am. I claim nothing but the humble character—a Soldier of Fortune. It was my intention to have told the reader somewhat more than these twenty odd years of my life embrace. Probably, too, my subsequent career, if less marked by adventure, was more pregnant with true views of the world and sounder lessons of conduct; but I have discovered to my surprise that these revelations have extended over a wider surface than I ever destined them to occupy, and already I tremble for the loss of that gracious attention that has been vouchsafed me hitherto. I will not trust myself to say how much regret this abstinence has cost me; enough if I avow that in jotting down the past I have lived my youth over again, and in tracing old memories, old scenes, and old impressions, the smouldering fire of my heart has shot up a transient flame so bright as to throw a glow even over the chill of my old age.

It is, after all, no small privilege to have lived and borne one’s part in stirring times; to have breasted the ocean of life when the winds were up and the waves ran high; to have mingled, however humbly, in eventful scenes, and had one’s share in the mighty deeds that were to become history afterward. It is assuredly in such trials that humanity comes out best, and that the character of man displays all its worthiest and noblest attributes. Amid such scenes I began my life, and, in the midst of similar ones, if my prophetic foresight deceive me not, I am like to end it.

Having said this much of and for myself, I am sure the reader will pardon me if I am not equally communicative with respect to another, and if I pass over the remainder of that interval which I spent at Komorn. Even were love-making—which assuredly it is not—as interesting to the spectator as to those engaged, I should scruple to recount events which delicacy should throw a vail over; nor am I induced, even by the example of the wittiest periodical writer of the age, to make a “feuilleton” of my own marriage. Enough that I say, despite my shattered form, my want of fortune, my unattested pretension to rank or station, Mademoiselle D’Estelles accepted me, and the Emperor most graciously confirmed her claims to wealth, thus making me one of the richest and the very happiest among the Soldiers of Fortune.

The Père Delamoy, now superior of a convent at Pisa, came to Komorn to perform the ceremony; and if he could not altogether pardon those who had uprooted the ancient monarchy of France, yet did not conceal his gratitude to him who had restored the Church and rebuilt the altar.

There may be some who deem this closing abrupt, and who would wish for even a word about the bride, her bouquet, and her blushes. I can not afford to gratify so laudable a curiosity, at the same time that a lurking vanity induces me to say, that any one wishing to know more about the “personnel” of my wife or myself, has but to look at David’s picture, or the engraving made from it, of the Emperor’s marriage. There they will find, in the left hand corner, partly concealed behind the Grand Duke de Berg, an officer of the Guides, supporting on his arm a young and very beautiful girl, herself a bride. If the young lady’s looks are turned with more interest on her companion than upon the gorgeous spectacle, remember that she is but a few weeks married. If the soldier carry himself with less of martial vigor or grace, pray bear in mind that cork legs had not attained the perfection to which later skill has brought them.

I have the scene stronger before me than painting can depict, and my eyes fill as I now behold it in my memory!

ANECDOTES AND APHORISMS.

As it is likely some of our readers have never read “Napier’s Life of Montrose,” we think it may not be amiss to insert an extract descriptive of the execution of that nobleman. It need scarcely be mentioned that this is the famous Graham of Claverhouse, whom Sir Walter Scott has drawn with such fine effect in one of his best novels.

It was resolved to celebrate his entrance into Edinburgh with a kind of mock solemnity. Thus on Sunday, the 18th of May, the magistrates met him at the gates, and led him in triumph through the streets. First appeared his officers, bound with cords, and walking two and two; then was seen the Marquis, placed on a high chair in the hangman’s cart, with his hands pinioned, and his hat pulled off, while the hangman himself continued covered by his side. It is alleged in a contemporary record, that the reason of his being tied to the cart was, in hope that the people would have stoned him, and that he might not be able by his hands to save his face. In all the procession there appeared in Montrose such majesty, courage, modesty, and even somewhat more than natural, that even these women who had lost their husbands and children in his wars, and were hired to stone him, were, upon the sight of him, so astonished and moved, that their intended curses turned into tears and prayers. Of the many thousand spectators only one, Lady Jane Gordon, Countess of Haddington, was heard to scoff and laugh aloud. Montrose himself continued to display the same serenity of temper, when at last, late in the evening, he was allowed to enter his prison, and found there a deputation from the Parliament. He merely expressed to them his satisfaction at the near approach of the Sunday as the day of rest.

“For,” said he, “the compliment you put upon me this day was a little tedious and fatiguing.”

Montrose told his persecutors that he was more proud to have his head fixed on the top of the prison walls than that his picture should hang in the king’s bed-chamber, and that far from being troubled at his legs and arms being dispersed among the four principal cities, he only wished he had limbs to send to every city in Christendom, as testimonies of his unshaken attachment to the cause in which he suffered. When Sir Archibald Johnson of Warriston, the Clerk-Register, entered the prisoner’s cell, and found him employed, early in the morning, combing the long curled hair which he wore according to the custom of the cavaliers, the visitor muttered:

“Why is James Graham so careful of his locks?”

Montrose replied with a smile:

“While my head is my own, I will dress and adorn it; but when it becomes yours, you may treat it as you please.”

Montrose, proud of the cause in which he was to suffer, clad himself, on the day of his execution, in rich attire—“more becoming a bridegroom,” says one of his enemies, “than a criminal going to the gallows.” As he walked along, and beheld the instrument of his doom, his step was not seen to falter nor his eye quail; to the last he bore himself with such steadfast courage, such calm dignity, as had seldom been equaled, and never surpassed. At the foot of the scaffold, a further and parting insult was reserved for him: the executioner brought Dr. Wishart’s narrative of his exploits and his own manifesto, to hang round his neck; but Montrose himself assisted in binding them, and smiling at this new token of malice, merely said:—“I did not feel more honored when his majesty sent me the garter.”

He then asked whether they had any more indignities to put upon him, and finding there were none, he prayed for some time, with his hat before his eyes. He drew apart some of the magistrates, and spoke awhile with them, and then went up the ladder in his red scarlet cassock, in a very stately manner, and never spoke a word; but when the executioner was putting the cord about his neck, he looked down to the people upon the scaffold, and asked:

“How long shall I hang here?”

His head was afterward affixed to a spike at the top of the Tolbooth, where it remained a ghastly spectacle, during ten years.

There is another execution scene, that of the courtly and enterprising Walter Raleigh, not usually accessible to general readers.

Sir Walter Raleigh, on the morning of his execution, received a cup of sack, and remarked that he liked it as well as the prisoner who drank of St. Giles’s bowl in passing through Tyburn, and said, “It is good to drink if a man might but tarry by it.” He turned to his old friend, Sir Hugh Ceeston, who was repulsed by the sheriff from the scaffold, saying:

“Never fear but _I_ shall have a place.”

When a man extremely bald pressed forward to see Raleigh, and to pray for him, Sir Walter took from his own head a richly embroidered cap, and placing it on that of the aged spectator, said:

“Take this, good friend, to remember me, for you have more need of it than I.”

“Farewell, my lords,” he exclaimed to a courtly group, who took an affectionate leave of him; “I have a long journey before me, and must say good-by.”

“Now I am going to God,” said he, as he reached the scaffold; and gently touching the ax, continued, “This is a sharp medicine, but it will cure all diseases.”

The very executioner shrunk from beheading one so brave and illustrious, until the unintimidated knight encouraged him, saying:

“What dost thou fear? Strike, man!”

In another moment the great soul had fled from its mangled tenement.

Next shall be related the story of the Tower Ghost; “communicated by Sir David Brewster to Professor Gregory,” and authentically recorded in “Letters on Animal Magnetism?”

At the trial of Queen Caroline, in 1821, the guards of the Tower were doubled; and Colonel S——, the keeper of the Regalia, was quartered there with his family. Toward twilight one evening, and before dark, he, his wife, son, and daughter were sitting, listening to the sentinels, who were singing and answering one another, on the beats above and below. The evening was sultry, and the door stood ajar, when something suddenly rolled in through the open space. Colonel S—— at first thought it was a cloud of smoke, but it assumed the shape of a pyramid of dark thick gray, with something working toward its centre. Mrs. S—— saw a form. Miss S—— felt an indescribable sensation of chill and horror. The son sat at the window, staring at the terrified and agitated party; but saw nothing. Mrs. S—— threw her head down upon her arms on the table, and screamed. The Colonel took a chair, and hurled it at the phantom, through which it passed. The cloud seemed to him to revolve round the room, and then disappear, as it came, through the door. He had scarcely risen from his chair to follow, when he heard a loud shriek, and a heavy fall at the bottom of the stair. He stopped to listen, and in a few minutes the guard came up and challenged the poor sentry, who had been so lately singing, but who now lay at the entrance in a swoon. The sergeant shook him rudely, declared he was asleep at his post, and put him under arrest. Next day the soldier was brought to a court-martial, when Colonel S—— appeared on his behalf, to testify that he could not have been asleep, for that he had been singing, and the Colonel’s family had been listening, ten minutes before. The man declared that, while walking toward the stair-entrance, a dreadful figure had issued from the doorway, which he took at first for an escaped bear on its hind legs. It passed him, and scowled upon him with a human face, and the expression of a demon, disappearing over the Barbican. He was so frightened that he became giddy, and knew no more. His story, of course, was not credited by his judges; but he was believed to have had an attack of vertigo, and was acquitted and released on Colonel’s S——’s evidence.

That evening Colonel S—— went to congratulate the man, but he was so changed that he did not know him. From a glow of rude health in his handsome face, he had become of the color of bad paste. Colonel S—— said to him:

“Why do you look so dejected, my lad? I think I have done you a great favor in getting you off; and I would advise you in future to continue your habit of singing.”

“Colonel,” replied the sentry, “you have saved my character, and I thank you; but as for any thing else, it little signifies. From the moment I saw that infernal demon, I felt I was a dead man.”

He never recovered his spirits, and died next day, forty-eight hours after he had seen the spectre. Colonel S—— had conversed with the sergeant about it, who quietly remarked:

“It was a bad job, but he was only a recruit, and must get used to it like the rest.”

“What!” said Colonel S——, “have you heard of others seeing the same?”

“Oh, yes,” answered the sergeant, “there are many queer, unaccountable things seen here, I assure you, and many of our recruits faint a time or two; but they get used to it, and it don’t hurt them.”

“Mrs. S—— never got used to it. She remained in a state of dejection for six weeks, and then died. Colonel S—— was long recovering from the impression, and was reluctant to speak of it; but he said he would never deny the thing he had seen.”

What explanation Sir David Brewster has given of this singular apparition, the present writer does not happen to know. We quote it for its strangeness, and leave the reader to make of it what he can. We proceed with a curious instance of mental absence:

Lessing, the German philosopher, being remarkably absent, knocked at his own door one evening, when the servant looking out of the window, and not recognizing him, said:

“The professor is not at home!”

“Oh, very well!” replied Lessing, composedly walking away; “I shall call another time.”

There is an anecdote of successful coolness, of earlier date, which will serve very well to accompany the foregoing:

Charles II., after his restoration, appears, according to custom, to have neglected his most faithful adherent, Lord St. Albans, who nevertheless was a frequenter of the court. One day, when a gentleman had requested an interview of his majesty to ask for a valuable office then vacant, the king in jest desired the Earl of St. Albans to personate him, which he did before the whole court; but, after hearing the stranger’s petition with an air of dignified authority, he said that the office was by no means too great for so deserving a subject. “But,” added the earl, gravely, “I have already conferred it on my faithful adherent, Lord St. Albans, who constantly followed my father’s fortunes and my own, having never before received any reward.” The king was so amused by this ready jest that he instantly confirmed the gift to his clever representative.

But we have yet a cooler thing (though somewhat different in character) than either of the preceding to bring forward, and which, if true, is really one of the strangest incidents that could happen in a man’s experience.

Barthe, a writer of French comedies, hearing that his intimate friend Colardeau was on the point of death, instantly hastened to the sick man’s chamber, and finding him still in a condition to listen, addressed him thus:

“My dear friend, I am in despair at seeing you in this extremity, but I have still one favor to ask of you; it is that you will hear me read my ’Homme Personnel.’”

“Consider,” replied the dying man, “that I have only a few hours to live.”

“Alas! yes; and this is the very reason that makes me so desirous of knowing what you think of my play.”

His unhappy friend heard him to the end without saying a word, and then in a faint voice, observed, that there was yet one very striking feature wanted to complete the character which he had been designing.

“You must make him,” said he, “force a friend who is dying to listen to a comedy in five acts.”

Our collector has treasured up two or three tolerable anecdotes of that artfullest of “dodgers,” Talleyrand, which, though not new to every body are likely to have a novelty for some, and there fore may bear quoting.

After the Pope had excommunicated him, he is reported to have written to a friend, saying, “Come and comfort me; come and sup with me. Every body is going to refuse me fire and water; we shall therefore have nothing this evening but iced meats, and drink nothing but wine.” When Louis XVIII., at the restoration, praised Talleyrand for his talents and influence, the latter modestly disclaimed the compliment, but added, with an arch significance, “There is, however, some inexplicable thing about me which prevents any government from prospering that attempts to set me aside.” The next is exquisitely _diplomatic_. A banker, anxious about the rise or fall of stocks, came once to Talleyrand for information respecting the truth of a rumor that George III. had suddenly died, when the statesman replied, in a confidential tone, “I shall be delighted if the information I have to give be of any use to you.” The banker was enchanted at the prospect of obtaining authentic intelligence from so high a source; and Talleyrand, with a mysterious air continued, “Some say the King of England is dead; others, that he is not dead; for my own part, I believe neither the one nor the other. I tell you this in confidence, but do not commit me.” No better parody on modern diplomacy could easily be written.

A CURIOUS PAGE OF FAMILY HISTORY.

The Chambellans were an old Yorkshire family, which once had held a high place among the landed gentry of the county. A knight of that family had been a Crusader in the army of Richard Cœur de Lion; and now he lay, with all his insignia about him, in the parish church, while others of his race reposed in the same chancel, under monuments and brasses, which spoke of their name and fame during their generation. In the lapse of time the family had become impoverished, and gradually merged into the class of yeomen, retaining only a remnant of the broad lands which had once belonged to them. In 1744-5, the elder branch of the family, consisting of the father, two sons, and a daughter, resided at what had once been the mansion-house. It had been built originally in the reign of Stephen, and was a curious specimen of different kinds of architecture, bearing traces of its gradual transformation from the stronghold of the days when it was no metaphor to say that every man’s house was his castle, down to the more peaceful dwelling of lawful and orderly times, It had now become little more than a better sort of farm-house. What had been the tilt-yard was filled with a row of comfortable barns, cart-sheds, and hay-stacks: a low wall of rough gray stones inclosed a small garden: a narrow gravel walk, edged on each side with currant-trees and gooseberry-bushes, led up to the fine old porch, embowered in the ivy and creepers which covered nearly the whole of the building with its luxuriant growth. The old gateway at the entrance of the yard was still surmounted with the “coat armor” of the family, carved in stone; but the gates themselves had long ago disappeared, and been replaced by a common wooden farm-yard gate. The “coat armor” itself was covered with moss, and a fine crop of grass and house-leek grew among the stones of the walls, to which it would have communicated a desolate appearance, if the farm-yard arrangements had been less orderly.

Halsted Hall, as it was called, was six miles from the city of York, and stood about a mile from the main road. The only approach to it was by a long rough lane, so much cut up by the carts and cattle that it was almost impassable to foot-passengers, except in the height of summer or depth of winter, when the mud had been dried up by the sun or the frost.

The father and brothers attended the different fairs and markets in the ordinary course of business; their sister, Mary Chambellan, managed the affairs of the house and dairy. She led a very secluded life, for they had no neighbors, and of general society there was none nearer than the city itself. Mary, however, had plenty of occupation, and was quite contented with her lot. She was nearly seventeen, tall, well-formed, and with an air of composed dignity which suited well with her position, which was of great responsibility for so young a person. Her mother, who had been dead rather more than a year, had been a woman of superior education and strong character. To her Mary owed all the instruction she had ever received, and the tinge of refinement which made her manners very superior to those of either her father or brothers. She, however, was quite unconscious of this, and they all lived very happily together in the old out-of-the-way place.

It happened that, in the spring of 1745, an uncle of her mother’s, who resided at York, was about to celebrate the marriage of one of his daughters; Mary Chambellan, with her father and brothers, were invited to the festivities. The father would have sent an excuse for himself and Mary; he was getting old, and did not like to be put out of his usual ways. The brothers, however, pleaded earnestly that their sister might have a little recreation. Finally consent was obtained, and she went with her brothers.

It was a very fine wedding, and a ball and supper finished the rejoicings. Some of the officers, quartered with their regiments in York, were invited to this ball. Among others was a certain Captain Henry Pollexfen. He was a young man of good family in the south of England, heir to a large fortune; and extremely handsome and attractive on his own account, independent of these advantages.

He was, by all accounts, a type of the fine, high-spirited young fellow of those days; good-tempered, generous, and overflowing with wild animal life and spirits, which he threw off in a thousand impetuous extravagances. He could dance all night at a ball, ride a dozen miles to meet the hounds the following morning, and, after a hard day’s sport, sit down to a deep carouse, and be as fresh and gay after it as if he had been following the precepts of Lewis Cornaro. The women contended with each other to attract his attentions; but although he was devoted to every woman he came near, and responded to their universal good-will by flirting indefatigably, his attentions were so indiscriminate, that there was not one belle who could flatter herself that she had secured him for her “humble servant”—as lovers were then wont to style themselves. Mary Chambellan was not, certainly, the belle of the wedding ball-room, and by no means equal in fortune or social position to most of the women present; but whether from perverseness, or caprice, or love of novelty, Henry Pollexfen was attracted by her, and devoted himself to her exclusively.

The next York Assembly was to take place in a few days; and this young man, who did not know what contradiction meant, made Mary promise to be his partner there. Old Mr. Chambellan, however, who thought his daughter had been away from home quite long enough, fetched her back himself on the following day; and Mary would as soon have dared to ask to go to the moon as to remain to go to the assembly. Henry Pollexfen was extremely disappointed when he found that Miss Chambellan had returned home; but he was too much caressed and sought after to be able to think long about the matter, and so his sudden fancy soon passed away.

In the autumn of the same year he met one of her brothers in the hunting field. Accident threw them together toward the close of a hard day’s run; when, in clearing a stone fence, some loose stones were dislodged, and struck Captain Pollexfen’s horse, laming him severely. Night was coming on; it was impossible to return to his quarters on foot; and young Chambellan invited his fellow-sportsman to go home with him—Halsted Hall being the nearest habitation. The invitation was accepted. Although old Mr. Chambellan would as soon have opened his doors to a dragon; yet even he could find no fault under the circumstances, and was constrained to welcome their dangerous guest with old-fashioned hospitality. He soon became so charmed with his visitor, that he invited him to return, and the visitor gladly did so.

His almost forgotten admiration for Mary revived in full force the moment he saw her again. He soon fell desperately and seriously in love with her. Mary’s strong and gentle character assumed great influence over his mercurial and impetuous disposition. That she became deeply attached to him was nothing wonderful; she could scarcely have helped it, even if he had not sought to win her affections.

In a short time, he made proposals of marriage for her to her father, who willingly consented, feeling, if the truth must be told, very much flattered at the prospect of such a son-in-law.

Henry Pollexfen then wrote a dutiful letter to his own father, telling him how much he was in love, and how earnestly he desired permission to follow his inclinations. Old Mr. Pollexfen had, like many other fathers, set his heart upon his son’s making a brilliant match; and although, after consulting the “History of Yorkshire,” where he found honorable mention made of the Chambellan family, he could offer no objection on the score of birth; yet he thought his son might do better. He was too wise to make any direct opposition; on the contrary, he gave his conditional consent, only stipulating for time. He required that twelve months should elapse before the marriage took place, when his son would be little more than two-and-twenty, while Mary would be not quite nineteen. He wrote paternal letters to Mary, and polite epistles to her father. He even applied at head-quarters for leave of absence for his son; whom he immediately summoned up to London, where his own duties, as member of parliament, would detain him for some time.

Under any other circumstances, Captain Pollexfen would have been delighted with this arrangement; but, as it was, he would infinitely have preferred being allowed to marry Mary at once. However, there was no help for it. Old Mr. Chambellan, himself urged the duty of immediate obedience to his father’s summons, and Pollexfen departed.

For many weeks his letters were as frequent as the post would carry them. He was very miserable under the separation; and, much as she loved him, Mary could not wish him to be otherwise. His regiment was suddenly ordered abroad; the necessary hurry of preparation, and the order to join his detachment at Canterbury without delay, rendered it quite impossible for Captain Pollexfen to see Mary before his departure. He wrote her a tender farewell, sent her his picture, and exhorted her to write frequently, and never to forget him for an instant; promising, of course, everlasting constancy for himself.

There was little chance that Mary should forget him, in that old lonely house, without either friends or neighbors. Besides, the possibility of ceasing to love her affianced husband never occurred to her. With Captain Pollexfen it was different. Under no circumstances was his a character that would bear absence unchanged; and the distraction of foreign scenes, and the excitement of his profession, soon banished the image of Mary from his mind. At length he felt it a great bore that he was engaged to be married. The regiment remained sixteen months absent, and he heartily hoped that she would have forgotten him.

Mary’s father died shortly after her lover’s departure; the family property descended to her brothers, and she was left entirely dependent upon them. Captain Pollexfen’s letters had entirely ceased; Mary had received no communication for more than six months, when she saw the return of his regiment announced, and his name gazetted as colonel. He, however, neither came to see her, nor wrote to her, and Mary became seriously ill. She could no longer conceal her sufferings from her brothers. Under the impression that she was actually dying, they wrote to her lover, demanding the cause of his silence, and telling him of her situation. Colonel Pollexfen was conscience-stricken by this letter. He declared to the brothers that he intended to act as became a man of honor, and wrote to Mary with something of his old affection, revived by remorse; excusing his past silence, begging forgiveness, and promising to go down to see her, the instant he could obtain leave of absence.

Under the influence of this letter Mary revived; but the impression made upon her future husband soon passed away—he daily felt less inclination to perform his promise. He was living in the midst of fashionable society, and was more courted than ever, since by the death of his father he had come into possession of his fortune. He began to feel that he had decidedly thrown himself away; and by a most unnatural transition, he hated Mary for her claims upon him and considered himself a very ill-used victim.

Mary’s brothers, finding that Colonel Pollexfen did not follow his letter, nor show any signs of fulfilling his engagement, would not submit to any more trifling. The elder made a journey to London, and demanded satisfaction, with the intimation that the younger brother would claim the same right when the first affair was terminated.

Colonel Pollexfen was not, of course, afraid of having even two duels on his hands at once; he had already proved his courage too well to allow a suspicion of that sort. His answer was characteristic. He told young Chambellan that he was quite ready to meet both him and his brother, but that he was under a previous engagement to marry their sister, which he wished to perform first, as otherwise circumstances might occur to prevent it; he should then be quite at their service, as it was his intention to quit his bride at the church-door, and never to see her again!

The brothers, looking upon this as a pretext to evade the marriage altogether, resolved, after some deliberation, to accept his proposal. They had great difficulty in prevailing upon their sister to agree to their wishes; but they none of them seriously believed that he would carry out his threat, and Mary fancied that all danger of a duel would be evaded. A very liberal settlement was drawn up by Colonel Pollexfen’s direction, which he signed, and sent down to the bride’s family. On the day appointed, Mary and her brothers repaired to the church; a traveling chariot and four horses stood at the door. On entering, they found Colonel Pollexfen pointing out to a friend who accompanied him the monuments belonging to the Chambellan family. As soon as he perceived them he took his place at the altar, and the ceremony commenced without delay. As soon as it was concluded, he bowed with great politeness to all present, and said, “You are all here witnesses that I have performed my engagement!” Then, without even looking at his bride, he quitted the church, and, accompanied by his friend, entered the carriage which was in waiting, and drove rapidly away! Mary was carried senseless from the church, and for several weeks continued dangerously ill.

The real strength of her character now showed itself. She made no complaint; she did not even assume her husband’s name, but took the appellation of Mrs. Chambellan. The settlement was returned to Colonel Pollexfen’s lawyer, with an intimation that it would never be claimed. She stilled the anger of her brothers, and would not endure a word to be said against her husband. She never alluded to him herself. A great change came over her; she did not seem to suffer nearly so much from her cruel position as might have been expected; her melancholy and depression gave place to a steady determination of purpose. In the brief space during which she and her husband had stood before the altar, she had realized the distance that existed between their positions in life. With a rare superiority, she understood how natural it was that he should have felt no desire to fulfill his boyish engagement; she owned in her heart that she was not fitted to be the wife and companion of such a man as he had now become. Had she seen all this sooner, she would have at once released him; now she could no longer do so, and she resolved to fit herself to fill the station to which, as his wife, she had been raised.

The brief interview before the altar had stimulated to desperation her attachment to him: and she felt that she must win him back or die. Mary had received very little education. In those days the education bestowed on most women was very limited; but Mary fancied that all gentlewomen, who moved in society, were well-informed; and her first step was to obtain some elementary books from the master of a boy’s school at York, and begin, with undoubting simplicity, to learn history and geography, and all the things which she supposed every lady of her husband’s acquaintance knew. A thirst for information was soon aroused in her; she had few advantages and very little assistance; but her energies and perseverance surmounted all obstacles, and she found a present reward in her labor. Her life ceased to seem either lonely or monotonous. Still, the spirit that worked within her was far more precious than any actual result she obtained. She had a noble object in view; and, unconsciously to herself, it purified her heart from all bitterness, or wounded vanity, or impatience. A great sorrow nobly borne, is a great dignity. The very insult which had seemed to condemn her to a wasted existence, was transformed into a source of life and fruitfulness, by the wise humility with which she accepted it.

Ten years passed thus, and in the matured woman of thirty, few could have recognized the forsaken girl of nineteen. But the present only fulfilled the promise which was then latent in her character.

All this time her husband had endeavored to forget that he was married. Shortly after the ceremony, he went abroad with his regiment; and after some time spent in active service, he returned to England, and quitted the army with the brevet rank of general. He resided partly in London and partly in Bath, leading the usual life of a man of fashion in those days, and making himself remarkable for his brilliant extravagances.

About that time a young and beautiful actress appeared, who speedily became the object of adoration to all the young men of fashion about town.

General Pollexfen was one of her lovers, and carried her off one night from the theatre, when she came off the stage between the acts. He allowed her to assume his name, and lavished a fortune upon her caprices; although her extravagance and propensity to gambling involved him in debt.

Ten years had thus passed, when the cousin, whose marriage was mentioned at the beginning of this story, was ordered to Bath by her physician. She entreated Mary to accompany her, who, after some persuasion, consented. It was a formidable journey in those days, and they were to stay some months. They found a pleasant lodging. Mary, with some reluctance, was drawn into society, and occasionally accompanied her cousin to the Assemblies, which were then in high vogue.

General Pollexfen was absent from Bath when his wife arrived there. He had been called up to London by some lawyer’s business, and calculated upon being absent three weeks.

It so chanced, however, that the business was concluded sooner than he expected, and that he returned to Bath without announcing his coming. He went at once to the Assembly, and was walking through the rooms in a chafed and irritable mood (having that night discovered the treachery of the beautiful actress, which had long been known to every body else), when a voice struck his ear which caused him to turn suddenly. He saw, near at hand, a dignified and beautiful woman, who reminded him of some one he had seen before. She turned away on perceiving him—it was Mary. She had recognized her husband, and, scarcely able to stand, she took the arm of her cousin, and reached the nearest seat. Her husband, forgetting every thing else in his impatience to learn who it was who had thus startled vague recollections, went hastily up to the Master of the Ceremonies, and desired to be introduced to—his own wife!

By some fatality, the Master of the Ceremonies blundered, and gave the name of Mary’s cousin. This mistake gave Mary courage; for years she had dreamed of such a meeting, and the fear of losing the opportunity nerved her to profit by it. She exerted herself to please him. He had been rudely disenchanted from the graces of fine ladies, and was in a humor to appreciate the gentle home influence of Mary’s manners; he was enchanted with her, and begged to be allowed to follow up the acquaintance, and to wait upon her the next morning. Permission was of course given, and he handed Mary and her cousin to their chairs.

Mary was cruelly agitated; she had not suffered so much during the ten preceding years; the suspense and anxiety were too terrible to endure; it seemed as though morning would never come. Her husband was not much more to be envied. He had discovered that she resembled the woman he had once so much loved, and then so cruelly hated—whom he married, and deserted; but though tormented by a thousand fancied resemblances, he scarcely dared to hope that it could be she. The next day, long before the lawful hour for paying morning visits, he was before her door and obtained admittance. The resemblance by daylight was more striking than it had been on the previous evening; and Mary’s agitation was equal to his own. His impetuous appeal was answered. Overwhelmed with shame and repentance, and at the same time happy beyond expression, General Pollexfen passionately entreated his wife’s forgiveness. Mary not only won back her husband, but regained, with a thousandfold intensity, the love which had once been hers—regained it, never to lose it more!

The story soon became known, and created an immense sensation. They quitted Bath, and retired to her husband’s family seat in Cornwall, where they continued chiefly to reside. They had one son, an only child, who died when he was about fifteen. It was an overwhelming affliction, and was the one mortal shadow on their happiness. They died within a few weeks of each other; their honors and estates passing to a distant branch of the family.

THE ASS OF LA MARCA.

I. The Hog-Boy.

In the year 1530, a Franciscan was traveling on foot in the papal territory of Ancona. He was proceeding to Ascoli; but, at that time, the roads were bad, where there were any roads at all, and after wandering in what appeared to be a wilderness, he lost his bearings altogether, and came to a stand-still. A village was visible in the distance, but he was unwilling to proceed so far to ask his way, lest it might prove to be in the wrong direction. While listening intently, however, for some sound that might indicate the propinquity of human beings—for the scrubby wood of the waste, marshy land intercepted his view—he heard what appeared to be a succession of low sobs close by. Mounting a little eminence a few paces off, he saw a small company of hogs widely scattered, and searching with the avidity of famine for a dinner; and rightly conjecturing that the sounds of human grief must proceed from the swineherd, he moved on to the nearest clump of bushes, where he saw on the other side a boy about nine years of age, lying upon the soft ground, and endeavoring to smother his sobs in a tuft of coarse moss, while he dug his fingers into the mud in an agony of grief and rage. The good father allowed the storm of emotion to sweep past, and then inquired what was the matter.

“Have you lost any of your hogs?” said he.

“I don’t know—and I don’t care,” was the answer.

“Why were you crying then?”

“Because they have been using me worse than a hog: they have been beating me—they never let me alone; always bad names, and worse blows; nothing to eat but leavings, and nothing to lie upon but dirty straw!”

“And for what offense are you used thus?”

“They say I am unhandy at field-work; that I am useless in the house and the barn; that I am unfit to be a servant to the horses in the stable; and that I can’t even keep the hogs together. They are hogs themselves—they be! I was clever enough at home; but my father could not keep me any longer, and so he sent me to be a farmer’s drudge, and turned me out to the—the—hogs!” and the boy gave way to another passionate burst of grief. The Franciscan endeavored to soothe him, and talked of submission to Providence; but finding he could do no good he inquired the name of the village.

“Montalto,” replied the boy, sulkily.

“Montalto? Then in what direction lies Ascoli?”

“Are you going to Ascoli?” demanded the hog-boy, suddenly, as he fixed a pair of blazing eyes on the Franciscan’s face in a manner that made him start. “I will show you the way,” continued he, in a tone of as much decision as if he spoke of some mighty enterprise; and leaping to his feet like a boy made of India-rubber, he led through the scrubby wood of the common, kicking the hogs aside with a fierceness that drew a remonstrance from the good father. This seemed to have the desired effect. His manner softened instantaneously. He spoke in a mild, low voice; answered the questions that were addressed to him with modesty and good-sense; and astonished the Franciscan by a display of intelligence rare enough even where natural abilities are developed by education. It was in vain, however, that he reminded his young companion that it was time for him to turn; the hog-boy seemed fascinated by the father’s conversation, and always made some excuse for accompanying him a little further.

“Come, my son,” said the Franciscan at length, “this must have an end, and here we part. There is a little trifle which I give you with my blessing, and so God speed you!”

“I am going further,” replied the boy, quickly.

“What! to Ascoli?”

“Ay, to Ascoli—or to the end of the earth! Ah, father, if you would but get me something to do—for I am sure you can if you will; any drudgery, however humble—any thing in the world but tending hogs!”

“You forget my profession, my son, and that I am powerless out of it. You would not become a monk yourself?”

“A monk! Oh! wouldn’t I? Only try me!”

“To be a monk is to toil, watch, and pray; to live meagrely, to submit to innumerable hardships—”

“And to learn, father! to read—to think! O, what would I not submit to for the sake of knowing what there is in books!” The boy spoke with enthusiasm, and yet with nothing of the coarse impetuosity which had at first almost terrified his new acquaintance. The Franciscan thought he beheld in him the elements of a character well adapted for a religious order; and after some further conversation, he finally consented to take the stripling with him to Ascoli. They were now at the summit of an eminence whence they saw that town lying before them, and the village of Montalto hardly discernible in the distance behind. The father looked back for a moment at his companion, in some curiosity to see how he would take leave, probably forever, of the place of his birth. The hog-boy’s hands were clenched as if the nails were imbedded in his flesh; and one arm, trembling with agitation, was stretched forth in a fierce farewell. When he turned away, the blazing eyes again flashed upon the Franciscan’s face; but, in an instant, they softened, grew mild and tearful, and Felix—for that was the lad’s name—followed his patron meekly into the town.

Their destination was a monastery of Cordeliers, where the ex-hog-boy was introduced to the superior, and pleased him so much by his sensible answers and modest demeanor, that he at once received the habit of a lay-brother, and was set to assist the sacristan in sweeping the church and lighting the candles. But at leisure hours he was still busier with the dust of the schools, and the lamp of theology. The brethren taught him the responses and grammar; but he never ceased to teach himself every thing he could get at; so that in the year 1534, when he was only fourteen, he was permitted to enter on his novitiate, and after the usual probation, to make his profession. He was, in short, a monk; and in ten years he had taken deacon’s orders, been ordained a priest, and graduated as bachelor and doctor. Felix the hog-boy was now known as Father Montalto.

II. The Assistant.

The world was now before the Ancona hog-boy. In his boyhood he had suffered stripes and starvation, herded unclean animals, and almost broken his heart with impotent, and, therefore, secret rage. In his youth he had been the patient drudge of a convent, and passed his leisure hours in persevering study, and the accumulation of book-knowledge. But now he was a man, ready for his destiny, and in the midst of troublous times, when a bold, fierce, and fearless character is sure to make its way. No more secret sobs—no more cringing servility—no more studious solitude. Montalto threw himself into the vortex of the world, and struck out boldly, right and left. An impetuous and impatient temper, and haughty and dictatorial manner, were now his prominent characteristics; and these, united as they were with natural talent and solid acquirements, soon pointed him out for congenial employment. The rising monk was seen and understood by the Cardinals Carpi and Alexandrino; and by the latter he was appointed Inquisitor-general at Venice. Here was fortune for the poor trampled boy of Ancona! But to rest there was not his purpose. A little of the tranquillity he knew so well how to assume, or even the mere abstinence from violence and insult, would have retained him in his post; but, instead of this he became harsh, stern, and peremptory to a degree that outraged every body who came near him, and carried out the measures he determined on with an arbitrary vehemence that bordered on frenzy. The jealous republicans were astonished, but not terrified: the liberties of their strange tyranny were at stake: and, at length, the Venetian magnates rose like one man, and Father Montalto only escaped personal violence by flight. And so he was a martyr to the cause of the church! And so all eyes were drawn upon him, as a man ready in action, and inflexible in will. He was now invited by the Cardinal Buon-Campagno to accompany him to Madrid as his chaplain and inquisitorial adviser, the cardinal being sent thither as legate from the Pope to his Catholic majesty. Montalto’s was an office both of power and dignity, and he acquitted himself in it so zealously, that on the legate’s recall he was offered all sorts of ecclesiastical honors and preferment to induce him to settle in Spain. But the monk had other aspirations. The news of the death of Pius IV. had reached Madrid, and Montalto’s patron, Cardinal Alexandrino, would doubtless succeed to the papal throne. He would want assistance, and, what is more, he could repay it; and Father Montalto, rejecting the Spanish offers, hastened to Rome. He found his friend, now Pius V., mindful of his former services, and perhaps flattered by the reputation which his protégé had made in the world. He was kindly received, and immediately appointed general of his order.

And now the _ci-devant_ hog-boy set to sweep the church anew, but in a different way. He no longer troubled himself with theological controversies, but punished his contumacious opponents. In four years after the accession of the new Pope he was made a bishop, and handsomely pensioned; and in the year 1570 our adventurer was admitted into the College of Cardinals.

Montalto was now fifty years of age, when the will is at its proudest, and the intellectual nature smiles at the changing hair and its prophecies of physical decay. It might be supposed that the fierce inquisitor ripened into the stern and inflexible cardinal; but no such process of development took place. And truly it would have been somewhat inconvenient as matters stood; for his new associates—ranking with kings, every man of them, hog-boy and all!—were the intellectual flower of the time, deep and sagacious statesmen, immersed in a game of policy of which the tiara was the prize, and qualified for the lofty contention not more by their talents than by the blood of the Medici, the Caraffa, the Colonna, and the Frangipani, that flowed in their veins. The wild nature of Montalto appeared to be awed by the association into which he had thus been elevated. It seemed as if a vision of his stripes, and his hogs, and his besoms came back upon him, and he walked gingerly along the marble floors of the Vatican, as if alarmed at the echo. He became mild, affable, good-natured; his business was over in the world; he had nothing more to do than to enjoy. Why should he concern himself with intrigues in which he could have no possible interest? Why should he permit even his own family to disturb his dignified repose? One of his nephews, on his way to Rome to see his prodigious uncle and claim his favor, was murdered; but the cardinal, so ready in former days to punish even crimes of thought, interceded for the pardon of the assassin. The relatives who did arrive at the Mecca of their pilgrimage he lodged at an inn, and sent them home to their families the next day with a small present, telling them to trouble him no more. The only promise he made for the future was that, by-and-by, when old age and its infirmities came on, he might, perhaps, send for one of them to nurse his declining years.

Time wore on, and his patron, Pope Pius V., died, and was buried. This was a trouble as well as a grief to our cardinal; for, being obliged to enter the conclave like the rest, he was asked by one and another for his vote. How should he vote? He did not know whom to vote for. He was an obscure and insignificant man—he was; and the rest were all so admirably well-fitted to be Pope, that he could not tell the difference. Besides, this was the first conclave he had been in, and in a path so much loftier than he was accustomed to tread, he was afraid of making a false step. He only wished he could vote for them all; but, as it was, he entreated them to manage the affair without him. And so they did; and Cardinal Buon-Campagno being elected, assumed the papal crown and the name of Gregory XIII.

As for Montalto, he grew more meek, modest, and humble every day. He lived frugally, even meanly, considering his rank, and gave the residue of his income to the poor. He submitted patiently to all sorts of insults and injuries, and not only forgave his enemies, but treated them with the utmost tenderness. At this time a change appeared to take place in his health. Violent internal pains destroyed his repose; and, although he consulted all the doctors in Rome, and took physic from them all, he got no better. His disease was not the less lamentable that it was nameless. He grew thin and pale. Some said he took too much medicine. He leaned heavily on his staff. His body was bent toward the ground: he seemed like a man who was looking for his grave. Public prayers were offered up in the churches for his recovery: and sometimes with so much effect, that he appeared to be a little convalescent. At such intervals, being humble himself, he delighted to converse with humble persons—such as the domestics of cardinals and embassadors; and, above all things, auricular confession, if it had not been the sick man’s duty, would have been called his hobby. He confessed every body he could bring to his knees: his mind became a sink through which constantly poured all the iniquities of Rome. His brother cardinals smiled at these weaknesses. The poor man was doubtless sinking into premature dotage. They gave him in ridicule a name, taken from the muddy wastes of Ancona, in the midst of which he had been picked up by the stray Franciscan: they called him THE ASS OF LA MARCA.

III. The Pope.

Time wore on in this way, till at length Gregory XIII. died. The event took place at a perplexing moment, for never had the College of Cardinals been so completely torn asunder by conflicting interests. There were three powerful parties so singularly well-balanced, that each felt sure of being able to elect the new Pope, and the poor Ass of La Marca, who was once more obliged to join the conclave, was half-distracted with their various claims. All they cared about was his vote; but that was important. They were compelled, however, by tradition, to go through the form of consulting him from time to time; and the cardinal, though never giving way to impatience, was pathetic in his entreaties to be let alone. According to the custom of this solemn council, each member of the holy college was shut up in a separate room; and the messengers always found Montalto’s door bolted. He would reply to their eminences, he said, the moment his cough abated, the moment he felt any intermission of his excruciating pains. But why could they not proceed to business without him? The opinions of so insignificant a person could not at any time be necessary; but, surely, it was inhuman to disturb a man fast sinking under disease, and whose thoughts were fixed upon that world to which he was hastening. The conclave sat fourteen days, and even then the votes of the three parties were equally divided. What was to be done? The best way was to have a nominal Pope, for the shortest possible time, so that the struggle of the real competitors might begin anew. They accordingly elected unanimously to the papal throne—the Ass of La Marca!

On this announcement the new monarch came instantly forth from his cell, leaving behind him his staff, his cough, his stoop, his pains, his infirmities, and his humility! He advanced with an erect figure, and a firm and dignified step into the midst of the conclave, and thanked their eminences for the honor they had conferred upon him, which he would endeavor to merit by discharging its high functions conscientiously. As he passed from the sacred council the _vivas_ of the people rent the air. “Long live the Pope!” they cried: “justice, plenty, and large loaves!” “Address yourselves to God for plenty,” was the answer: “_I will give you justice._”

And he kept his word: ready, stern, severe, inflexible, impartial justice! He was impatient to see the triple crown; and before preparations could be made for his coronation, he caused the bauble to be produced, and placed on a velvet cushion in the room where he sat. The bauble? It was no bauble to him. It was the symbol of Power, just as he was himself the personification of Will. It was the thought which had governed his whole life—which had blazed even in the unconscious eyes of his boyhood. With what memories was that long gaze filled—with what resolves. The room was crowded with spectres of the past, and visions of the future, that met and blended in one homogeneous character; and as Pope Sixtus V. rose from his chair, he felt proudly that there rose with him—within him—throughout him—the hog-boy of Montalto.

The dissimulation which was so remarkable a trait in this remarkable character was now at an end, and only the fierceness, sternness, and indomitable will of the man remained. He felt himself to be placed on a height from which every thing beneath him appeared on one level. The cardinals, with their ancient blood and accomplished statesmanship, were no more to him than the meanest drudges in his dominions; and when they first attempted remonstrate at his proceedings, he answered them with such withering disdain, that the proudest of them quailed beneath his eye. He told them distinctly that he was not only their spiritual head but their temporal king, and that in neither capacity would he brook any interference with his authority. It was the custom, on the accession of a pope, for the prisoners to be manumitted in all the jails of Rome; and the consequence of this equivocal mercy was, that these places of durance were always full at such a time—the whole villainy of the city taking the opportunity of committing murders, robberies, and other great crimes that would be cheaply visited by a brief imprisonment. When Sixtus was asked, as a matter of form, for his sanction to the discharge of the prisoners, he peremptorily refused it. In vain the members of the holy college, in vain the civic authorities, implored him not to set tradition at defiance: he ordered for instant execution those legally deserving of death, and in the case of the others, did not abate a single day of their confinement. Even the respect paid to his own person by the populace became a crime, since it interfered with his designs. The perpetual _vivas_ with which he was greeted made his whereabout so public that he could not come unawares into any suspected place, and he issued an order forbidding such demonstrations. One day, however, two citizens were so enthusiastic in their loyalty that they could not repress the cry of “Long live the Pope!” which rose to their lips; whereupon the offenders were instantly laid hold of by the orders of Sixtus, and received a hearty flogging.

This _parvenu_ pope treated with other monarchs with the unbending dignity which might have been looked for in the descendant of a line of kings; and in some cases—more especially that of Spain—he exhibited the uncompromising sternness of his character. But where the interest of his policy was not involved—where the actors in the drama of life moved in circles that had no contact with his—he admired with all his impulsive soul a masculine and independent spirit. So far did he carry his admiration of our Protestant Queen Elizabeth, who was his contemporary, that one might almost fancy the solitary monk day-dreaming of those times when even popes were permitted a mortal bride. He is said to have given her secret intimation of the approaching Armada of his Catholic majesty; and when the head of the Catholic Queen of Scotland rolled under the ax of the executioner, he is described as having emitted an exclamation of fierce and exulting applause at this memorable exhibition of will and power.

And so Sixtus lived, and reigned, and died—a stern, strong spirit of his day and generation, leaving a broad trail in history, and a lasting monument in the architectural stones of Rome. In the biography of common men, who are swayed by changing currents of passion and circumstance, it would be vain to attempt to explain actions and reconcile inconsistencies, as we have done here, by viewing all their doings, and all the phases of their character, with reference to a leading principle. But Sixtus was governed from his birth by one great thought, though fully developed only by the force of events—a thought as obvious in the hog-boy of Ancona, or the drudge of the Cordeliers, as in the monk Montalto, the inquisitor, the cardinal, and the pope.

THE LEGEND OF THE WEEPING CHAMBER.

A strange story was once told me by a Levantine lady of my acquaintance, which I shall endeavor to relate—as far as I am able with the necessary abridgments—in her own words. The circumstances under which she told it were peculiar. The family had just been disturbed by the visit of a ghost—a real ghost, visible, if not palpable. She was not what may be called superstitious; and though following with more or less assiduity the practices of her religion, was afflicted now and then with a fit of perfect materialism. I was surprised, therefore, to hear her relate, with every appearance of profound faith, the following incidents:

There is an old house in Beyrout, which, for many successive years, was inhabited by a Christian family. It is of great extent, and was of yore fitted for the dwelling of a prince. The family had, indeed, in early times been very rich; and almost fabulous accounts are current of the wealth of its founder, Fadlallah Dahân. He was a merchant; the owner of ships, the fitter-out of caravans. The regions of the East and of the West had been visited by him; and, after undergoing as many dangers and adventures as Sinbad, he had returned to spend the latter days of his life in his native city. He built, accordingly, a magnificent dwelling, the courts of which he adorned with marble fountains, and the chambers with silk divans; and he was envied on account of his prosperity.

But, in the restlessness of his early years, he had omitted to marry, and now found himself near the close of his career without an heir to inherit his wealth and to perpetuate his name. This reflection often disturbed him; yet he was unwilling to take a wife because he was old. Every now and then, it is true, he saw men older than he, with fewer teeth and whiter beards, taking to their bosoms maidens that bloomed like peaches just beginning to ripen against a wall; and his friends, who knew he would give a magnificent marriage-feast, urged him to do likewise. Once he looked with pleasure on a young person of not too tender years, whose parents purposely presented her to him; but having asked her in a whisper whether she would like to marry a withered old gentleman like himself, she frankly confessed a preference for his handsome young clerk, Harma, who earned a hundred piastres a month. Fadlallah laughed philosophically, and took care that the young couple should be married under happy auspices.

One day he was proceeding along the street gravely and slowly—surrounded by a number of merchants proud to walk by his side, and followed by two or three young men, who pressed near in order to be thought of the company, and thus establish their credit—when an old woman espying him, began to cry out, “Yeh! yeh! this is the man who has no wife and no child—this is the man who is going to die and leave his fortune to be robbed by his servants, or confiscated by the governor! And yet, he has a sagacious nose”—(the Orientals have observed that there is wisdom in a nose)—“and a beard as long as my back! Yeh! yeh! what a wonderful sight to see!”

Fadlallah Dahân stopped, and retorted, smiling, “Yeh! yeh! this is the woman that blames an old man for not marrying a young wife. Yeh! yeh! what a wonderful sight to see!”

Then the woman replied, “O, my lord, every pig’s tail curls not in the same direction, nor does every maiden admire the passing quality of youth. If thou wilt, I will bestow on thee a wife, who will love thee as thou lovest thyself, and serve thee as the angels serve Allah. She is more beautiful than any of the daughters of Beyrout, and her name is Selima, a name of good augury.”

The friends of Fadlallah laughed, as did the young men who followed in their wake, and urged him to go and see this peerless beauty, if it were only for a joke. Accordingly, he told the woman to lead the way. But she said he must mount his mule, for they had to go some distance into the country. He mounted and, with a single servant, went forth from the gates—the woman preceding—and rode until he reached a village in the mountains. Here, in a poor little house, he found Selima; clothed in the very commonest style, engaged in making divan cushions. She was a marvelously beautiful girl, and the heart of the merchant at once began to yearn toward her: yet he endeavored to restrain himself, and said, “This beautiful thing is not for me.” But the woman cried out, “Selima, wilt thou consent to love this old man?” The girl gazed in his face a while, and then, folding her hands across her bosom, said, “Yes; for there is goodness in his countenance.” Fadlallah wept with joy; and, returning to the city, announced his approaching marriage to his friends. According to custom, they expressed civil surprise to his face; but, when his back was turned, they whispered that he was an old fool, and had been the dupe of a she-adventurer.

The marriage took place with ceremonies of royal magnificence; and Selima, who passed unmoved from extreme poverty to abundant riches, seemed to merit the position of the greatest lady in Beyrout. Never was woman more prudent than she. No one ever knew her previous history, nor that of her mother. Some said that a life of misery, perhaps of shame, was before them, when this unexpected marriage took place. Selima’s gratitude to Fadlallah was unbounded; and out of gratitude grew love. The merchant daily offered up thanks for the bright diamond which had come to shine in his house.

In due time a child was born; a boy lovely as his mother; and they named him Halil. With what joy he was received, what festivities announced the glad intelligence to the town, may easily be imagined. Selima and Fadlallah resolved to devote themselves to his education, and determined that he should be the most accomplished youth of Bar-er-Shâm. But a long succession of children followed, each more beautiful than the former—some boys, some girls; and every new-comer was received with additional delight and still grander ceremonies; so that the people began to say, “Is this a race of sovereigns?”

Now Halil grew up to the age of twelve—still a charming lad; but the parents, always fully occupied by the last arrival, had not carried out their project of education. He was as wild and untamed as a colt, and spent more of his time in the street than in the company of his mother; who, by degrees, began to look upon him with a kind of calm friendship due to strangers. Fadlallah, as he took his accustomed walk with his merchant friends, used from time to time to encounter a ragged boy fighting in the streets with the sons of the Jew butcher; but his eyes beginning to grow dim, he often passed without recognizing him. One day, however, Halil, breathless and bleeding, ran up and took refuge beneath the skirts of his mantle from a crowd of savage urchins. Fadlallah was amazed, and said, “O, my son—for I think thou art my son—what evil hath befallen thee, and wherefore do I see thee in this state?” The boy, whose voice was choked by sobs, looked up into his face, and said, “Father, I am the son of the richest merchant of Beyrout, and behold, there is no one so little cared for as I.”

Fadlallah’s conscience smote him, and he wiped the boy’s bleeding face with the corner of his silk caftan, and blessed him; and, taking him by the hand, led him away. The merchants smiled benignly one to the other, and, pointing with their thumbs, said, “We have seen the model youth!”

While they laughed and sneered, Fadlallah, humbled, yet resolved, returned to his house, leading the ragged Halil, and entered his wife’s chamber. Selima was playing with her seventh child, and teaching it to lisp the word “Baba”—about the amount of education which she had found time to bestow on each of her offspring. When she saw the plight of her eldest son she frowned, and was about to scold him; but Fadlallah interposed, and said, “Wife, speak no harsh words. We have not done our duty by this boy. May God forgive us; but we have looked on those children that have bloomed from thee, more as play-things than as deposits for which we are responsible. Halil has become a wild out-of-door lad, doubting with some reason of our love. It is too late to bring him back to the destiny we had dreamt of; but he must not be left to grow up thus uncared for. I have a brother established in Bassora; to him will I send the lad to learn the arts of commerce, and to exercise himself in adventure, as his father did before him. Bestow thy blessing upon him, Selima (here the good old man’s voice trembled), and may God in his mercy forgive both thee and me for the neglect which has made this parting necessary. I shall know that I am forgiven if, before I go down into the tomb, my son return a wise and sober man; not unmindful that we gave him life, and forgetting that, until now, we have given him little else.”

Selima laid her seventh child in its cradle of carved wood, and drew Halil to her bosom; and Fadlallah knew that she loved him still, because she kissed his face, regardless of the blood and dirt that stained it. She then washed him and dressed him, and gave him a purse of gold, and handed him over to his father; who had resolved to send him off by the caravan that started that very afternoon. Halil, surprised and made happy by unwonted caresses, was yet delighted at the idea of beginning an adventurous life; and went away, manfully stifling his sobs, and endeavoring to assume the grave deportment of a merchant. Selima shed a few tears, and then, attracted by a crow and a chuckle from the cradle, began to tickle the infant’s soft double chin, and went on with her interrupted lesson, “Baba, Baba!”

Halil started on his journey, and having passed through the Valley of Robbers, the Valley of Lions, and the Valley of Devils—this is the way in which Orientals localize the supposed dangers of traveling—arrived at the good city of Bassora; where his uncle received him well, and promised to send him as supercargo on board the next vessel he dispatched to the Indian seas. What time was spent by the caravan upon the road, the narrative does not state. Traveling is slow work in the East; but almost immediately on his arrival in Bassora, Halil was engaged in a love adventure. If traveling is slow, the approaches of manhood are rapid. The youth’s curiosity was excited by the extraordinary care taken to conceal his cousin Miriam from his sight; and having introduced himself into her garden, beheld, and, struck by her wonderful beauty, loved her. With an Oriental fondness, he confessed the truth to his uncle, who listened with anger and dismay, and told him that Miriam was betrothed to the Sultan. Halil perceived the danger of indulging his passion, and promised to suppress it; but while he played a prudent part, Miriam’s curiosity was also excited, and she, too, beheld and loved her cousin. Bolts and bars can not keep two such affections asunder. They met and plighted their troth, and were married secretly, and were happy. But inevitable discovery came. Miriam was thrown into a dungeon; and the unhappy Halil, loaded with chains, was put on board a vessel, not as supercargo, but as prisoner; with orders that he should be left in some distant country.

Meanwhile a dreadful pestilence fell upon Beyrout, and among the first sufferers was an eighth little one, that had just learned to say “Baba!” Selima was almost too astonished to be grieved. It seemed to her impossible that death should come into her house, and meddle with the fruits of so much suffering and love. When they came to take away the little form which she had so often fondled, her indignation burst forth, and she smote the first old woman who stretched out her rough unsympathetic hand. But a shriek from her waiting-woman announced that another victim was singled out; and the frantic mother rushed like a tigress to defend the young that yet remained to her. But the enemy was invisible; and (so the story goes) all her little ones drooped one by one and died; so that on the seventh day Selima sat in her nursery gazing about with stony eyes, and counting her losses upon her fingers—Iskender, Selima, Wardy, Fadlallah, Hanna, Hennenah, Gereges—seven in all. Then she remembered Halil, and her neglect of him; and, lifting up her voice, she wept aloud; and, as the tears rushed fast and hot down her cheeks, her heart yearned for her absent boy, and she would have parted with worlds to have fallen upon his breast—would have given up her life in return for one word of pardon and of love.

Fadlallah came in to her; and he was now very old and feeble. His back was bent, and his transparent hand trembled as it clutched a cane. A white beard surrounded a still whiter face; and as he came near his wife, he held out his hand toward her with an uncertain gesture, as if the room had been dark. This world appeared to him but dimly. “Selima,” said he, “the Giver hath taken. We, too, must go in our turn. Weep, my love; but weep with moderation, for those little ones that have gone to sing in the golden cages of Paradise. There is a heavier sorrow in my heart. Since my first-born, Halil, departed for Bassora, I have only written once to learn intelligence of him. He was then well, and had been received with favor by his uncle. We have never done our duty by that boy.” His wife replied, “Do not reproach me; for I reproach myself more bitterly than thou canst do. Write, then, to thy brother to obtain tidings of the beloved one. I will make of this chamber a weeping chamber. It has resounded with merriment enough. All my children learned to laugh and to talk here. I will hang it with black, and erect a tomb in the midst; and every day I will come and spend two hours, and weep for those who are gone and for him who is absent.” Fadlallah approved her design; and they made a weeping chamber, and lamented together every day therein. But their letters to Bassora remained unanswered; and they began to believe that fate had chosen a solitary tomb for Halil.

One day a woman, dressed in the garb of the poor, came to the house of Fadlallah with a boy about twelve years old. When the merchant saw them he was struck with amazement, for he beheld in the boy the likeness of his son Halil; and he called aloud to Selima, who, when she came, shrieked with amazement. The woman told her story, and it appeared that she was Miriam. Having spent some months in prison, she had escaped and taken refuge in a forest in the house of her nurse. Here she had given birth to a son, whom she had called by his father’s name. When her strength returned, she had set out as a beggar to travel over the world in search of her lost husband. Marvelous were the adventures she underwent, God protecting her throughout, until she came to the land of Persia, where she found Halil working as a slave in the garden of the Governor of Fars. After a few stolen interviews, she had again resumed her wanderings to seek for Fadlallah, that he might redeem his son with wealth; but had passed several years upon the road.

Fortune, however, now smiled upon this unhappy family, and in spite of his age, Fadlallah set out for Fars. Heaven made the desert easy, and the road short for him. On a fine calm evening he entered the gardens of the governor, and found his son gayly singing as he trimmed an orange tree. After a vain attempt to preserve an incognito, the good old man lifted up his hands, and shouting, “Halil, my first born!” fell upon the breast of the astonished slave. Sweet was the interview in the orange grove, sweet the murmured conversation between the strong young man and the trembling patriarch, until the perfumed dew of evening fell upon their heads. Halil’s liberty was easily obtained, and father and son returned in safety to Beyrout. Then the Weeping Chamber was closed, and the door walled up; and Fadlallah and Selima lived happily until age gently did its work at their appointed times; and Halil and Miriam inherited the house and the wealth that had been gathered for them.

The supernatural part of the story remains to be told. The Weeping Chamber was never again opened; but every time that a death was about to occur in the family, a shower of heavy teardrops was heard to fall upon its marble floor, and low wailings came through the walled doorway. Years, centuries, passed away, and the mystery repeated itself with unvarying uniformity. The family fell into poverty, and only occupied a portion of the house, but invariably before one of its members sickened unto death, a shower of heavy drops, as from a thunder cloud, pattered on the pavement of the Weeping Chamber, and was heard distinctly at night through the whole house. At length the family quitted the country in search of better fortunes elsewhere, and the house remained for a long time uninhabited.

The lady who narrated the story went to live in the house, and passed some years without being disturbed; but one night she was lying awake, and distinctly heard the warning shower dripping heavily in the Weeping Chamber. Next day the news came of her mother’s death, and she hastened to remove to another dwelling. The house has since been utterly abandoned to rats, mice, beetles, and an occasional ghost seen sometimes streaming along the rain-pierced terraces. No one has ever attempted to violate the solitude of the sanctuary where Selima wept for the seven little ones taken to the grave, and for the absent one whom she had treated with unmotherly neglect.

AN OLD MAID’S FIRST LOVE.

I went once to the south of France for my health; and being recommended to choose the neighborhood of Avignon, took my place, I scarcely know why, in the diligence all the way from Paris. By this proceeding I missed the steam-voyage down the Rhône, but fell in with some very pleasant people, about whom I am going to speak. I traveled in the _intérieur_, and from Lyon had no one for companion but a fussy little lady, of a certain age, who had a large basket, a parrot in a cage, a little lapdog, a band-box, a huge blue umbrella, which she could never succeed in stowing any where, and a moth-eaten muff. In my valetudinarian state I was not pleased with this inroad—especially as the little lady had a thin, pinched-up face, and obstinately looked out of the window, while she popped about the _intérieur_ as if she had just taken lodgings, and was putting them in order, throwing me every now and then some gracious apology in a not unpleasant voice. “Mince as you please, madam,” thought I; “you are a bore.” I am sorry to add that I was very unaccommodating, gave no assistance in the stowing away of the umbrella, and when Fanfreluche came and placed his silken paws upon my knees, pushed him away very rudely. The little old maid—it was evident this was her quality—apologized for her dog as she had done for herself, and went on arranging her furniture—an operation not completed before we got to St. Saphorin.

For some hours a perfect silence was preserved, although my companion several times gave a short, dry cough, as if about to make an observation. At length, the digestion of a hurried dinner being probably completed, I felt all of a sudden quite bland and sociable, and began to be mightily ashamed of myself. “Decidedly,” thought I, “I must give this poor woman the benefit of my conversation.” So I spoke, very likely with that self-satisfied air assumed sometimes by men accustomed to be well received. To my great vexation the old maid had by this time taken offense, and answered in a very stiff and reserved manner. Now the whole absurdity of my conduct was evident to me, and I determined to make amends. Being naturally of a diplomatic turn, I kept quiet for a while, and then began to make advances to Fanfreluche. The poor animal bore no malice, and I won his heart by stroking his long ears. Then I gave a piece of sugar to the parrot; and having thus effected a practicable breach, took the citadel by storm by pointing out a more commodious way of arranging the great blue umbrella.

We were capital friends thenceforward; and I soon knew the history of Mlle. Nathalie Bernard by heart. A mightily uninteresting history it was to all but herself; so I shall not repeat it: suffice to say, that she had lived long on her little income, as she called it, at Lyon, and was now on her way to Avignon, where a very important object called her. This was no other than to save her niece Marie from a distasteful marriage, which her parents, very good people, but dazzled by the wealth of the unamiable suitor, wished to bring about.

“And have you,” said I, “any reasonable hope of succeeding in your mission?”

“_Parbleu!_” replied the old maid, “I have composed a little speech on ill-assorted unions, which I am sure will melt the hearts of my sister and my brother-in-law; and if that does not succeed—why, I will make love to the _futur_ myself, and whisper in his ear that a comfortable little income available at once, and a willing old maid, are better than a cross-grained damsel with expectations only. You see I am resolved to make any sacrifice to effect my object.”

I laughed at the old maid’s disinterestedness, which was perhaps greater than at first appeared. At least she assured me that she had refused several respectable offers, simply because she liked the independence of a single life; and that if she had remained single to that age, it was a sign that marriage had nothing attractive for her in itself. We discussed the point learnedly as the diligence rolled; and what with the original turn of my companion’s mind, the sportive disposition of Fanfreluche, and the occasional disjointed soliloquies of Coco, the parrot, our time passed very pleasantly. When night came, Mlle. Nathalie ensconced herself in the corner behind her parcels and animals, and endeavored to sleep; but the jolting of the diligence, and her own lively imagination, wakened her every five minutes; and I had each time to give her a solemn assurance, on my word of honor as a gentleman, that there was no particular danger of our being upset into the Rhône.

We were ascending a steep hill next day, both had got out to walk. I have omitted to note that it was autumn. Trees and fields were touched by the golden fingers of the season. The prospect was wide, but I forget the precise locality. On the opposite side of the Rhône, which rolled its rapid current in a deepening valley to our right, rose a range of hills, covered with fields that sloped wonderfully, and sometimes gave place to precipices or wood-lined declivities. Here and there the ruins of some old castle—reminiscences of feudal times—rose amid lofty crags, and traced their jagged outline against the deep-blue sky of Provence. Nathalie became almost sentimental as she gazed around on this beautiful scene.

We had climbed about half of the hill; the diligence was a little way behind; the five horses were stamping and striking fire from the pavement as they struggled up with the ponderous vehicle: the other passengers had lingered in the rear with the conductor, who had pointed out a little _auberge_ among some trees. We here saw a man preceding us upon the road carrying a little bundle at the end of a stick over his shoulder: he seemed to advance painfully. Our attention was attracted—I scarcely knew why. He paused a moment—then went on with an uncertain step—paused again, staggered forward, and fell on his face just as we came up. Mlle. Nathalie, with a presence of mind that surprised me, had her smelling-bottle out in an instant, and was soon engaged in restoring the unfortunate traveler to consciousness. I assisted as well as I was able, and trust that my good-will may atone for my awkwardness. Nathalie did every thing; and, just as the diligence reached us, was gazing with delight on the languid opening of a pair of as fine eyes as I have ever seen, and supporting in her lap a head covered with beautiful curls. Even at that moment, as I afterward remembered, she looked upon the young man as a thing over which she had acquired a right of property. “He is going our way,” said she: “let us lift him into the diligence.”

“A beggarly Parisian; yo, yo!” quoth the postillion as he passed, clacking his long whip.

“Who will answer for his fare?” inquired the conductor.

“I will,” replied Nathalie, taking the words out of my mouth.

In a few minutes the young man, who looked bewildered and could not speak, was safely stowed away among Nathalie’s other parcels; and the crest of the hill being gained, we began rolling rapidly down a steep descent. The little old maid, though in a perfect ecstasy of delight—the incident evidently appeared to her quite an adventure—behaved with remarkable prudence. While I was puzzling my head to guess by what disease this poor young man had been attacked, she was getting ready the remedies that appeared to her the most appropriate, in the shape of some excellent cakes and a bottle of good wine, which she fished out of her huge basket. Her protégé, made tame by hunger, allowed himself to be treated like a child. First, she gave him a very small sip of Burgundy, then a diminutive fragment of cake; and then another sip and another piece of cake—insisting on his eating very slowly. Being perfectly useless, I looked quietly on, and smiled to see the submissiveness with which this fine, handsome fellow allowed himself to be fed by the fussy old maid, and how he kept his eyes fixed upon her with an expression of wondering admiration.

Before we arrived at Avignon we knew the history of the young man. He was an artist, who had spent several years studying in Paris, without friends, without resources, except a miserable pittance which his mother, a poor peasant woman, living in a village not far from Aix, had managed to send him. At first he had been upheld by hope; and although he knew that his mother not only denied herself necessaries, but borrowed money to support him, he was consoled by the idea that the time would come when, by the efforts of his genius, he would be able to repay every thing, with the accumulated interest which affection alone would calculate. But his expenses necessarily increased, and no receipts came to meet them. He was compelled to apply to his mother for further assistance. The answer was one word—“impossible.” Then he endeavored calmly to examine his position, came to the conclusion that for several years more he must be a burden to his mother if he obstinately pursued his career, and that she must be utterly ruined to insure his success. So he gave up his art, sold every thing he had to pay part of his debts, and set out on foot to return to his village and become a peasant, as his father had been before him. The little money he had taken with him was gone by the time he reached Lyon. He had passed through that city without stopping, and for more than two days, almost for two nights, had incessantly pursued his journey, without rest and without food, until he had reached the spot where, exhausted with fatigue and hunger, he had fallen, perhaps to perish had we not been there to assist him.

Nathalie listened with eager attention to this narrative, told with a frankness which our sympathy excited. Now and then she gave a convulsive start, or checked a hysterical sob, and at last fairly burst into tears. I was interested as well as she, but retained more calmness to observe how moral beauty almost vainly struggled to appear through the insignificant features of this admirable woman. Her little eyes, reddened with weeping; her pinched-up nose, blooming at the point; her thin lips, probably accustomed to sarcasm; her cheeks, with a leaden citron hue; her hair that forked up in unmanageable curls—all combined to obscure the exquisite expression of respect and sympathy, perhaps already of love, sparkling from her kindled soul, that could just be made out by an attentive eye. At length, however, she became for a moment perfectly beautiful, as, when the young painter had finished his story, with an expression that showed how bitterly he regretted his abandoned art, she took both his hands in hers, and exclaimed, “No, _mon enfant_, you shall not be thus disappointed. Your genius”—she already took for granted he had genius—“shall have an opportunity for development. Your mother can not do what is necessary—she has played her part. I will be a—second mother to you, in return for the little affection you can bestow on me without ingratitude to her to whom you owe your life.”

“My life has to be paid for twice,” said he, kissing her hand. Nathalie could not help looking round proudly to me. It was so flattering to receive the gallant attentions of so handsome a young man, that I think she tried to forget how she had bought them.

In the exuberance of her hospitality, the little old maid invited both Claude Richer and myself to spend some time in the large farm-house of her brother-in-law. I declined, with a promise to be a frequent visitor; but Claude, who was rather commanded than asked, could do nothing but accept. I left them at the diligence office, and saw them walk away, the little Nathalie affecting to support her feeble companion. For the honor of human nature let me add, that the conductor said nothing about the fare. “It would have been indelicate,” he said to me, “to remind Mlle. Nathalie of her promise in the young man’s presence. I know her well; and she will pay me at a future time. At any rate, I must show that there is a heart under this waistcoat.” So saying, the conductor thumped his breast with simple admiration of his own humanity, and went away, after recommending me to the Café de Paris—indeed an excellent house.

I shall say nothing of a variety of little incidents that occurred to me at Avignon, nor about my studies on the history of the popes who resided there. I must reserve myself entirely for the development of Nathalie’s romance, which I could not follow step by step, but the chief features of which I was enabled to catch during a series of visits I paid to the farm-house. Nathalie herself was very communicative to me at first, and scarcely deigned to conceal her sentiments. By degrees, however, as the catastrophe approached, she became more and more reserved; and I had to learn from others, or to guess the part she played.

The farm-house was situated on the other side of the river, in a small plain, fertile and well wooded. Old Cossu, the owner, was a fine jolly fellow, but evidently a little sharp in money-matters. I was surprised at first that he received the visit of Claude favorably; but when it came out that a good part of his capital belonged to Nathalie, every circumstance of deference to her was explained. Mère Cossu was not a very remarkable personage; unless it be remarkable that she entertained the most profound veneration for her husband, quoted his commonest sayings as witticisms, and was ready to laugh herself into convulsions if he sneezed louder than usual. Marie was a charming little person; perhaps a little too demure in her manners, considering her wicked black eyes. She was soon very friendly with Claude and me, but seemed to prefer passing her time in whispered conversations with Nathalie. I was let into the secret that their conversation turned principally on the means of getting rid of the husband-elect—a great lubberly fellow, who lived some leagues off, and whose red face shone over the garden-gate, in company with a huge nosegay, regularly every Sunday morning. In spite of the complying temper of old Cossu in other respects when Nathalie gave her advice, he seemed obstinately bent on choosing his own son-in-law. Parents are oftener correct than romancers will allow in their negative opinions on this delicate subject, but I can not say as much for them when they undertake to be affirmative.

I soon observed that Nathalie was not so entirely devoted to the accomplishment of the object for which she had undertaken the journey as she had promised; and, above all, that she spoke no more of the disinterested sacrifice of herself as a substitute for Marie. I maliciously alluded to this subject in one of our private confabulations, and Nathalie, instead of being offended, frankly answered that she could not make big Paul Boneau happy and assist Claude in his studies at the same time. “I have now,” she said, “an occupation for the rest of my life—namely, to develop this genius, of which France will one day be proud; and I shall devote myself to it unremittingly.”

“Come, Nathalie,” replied I, taking her arm in mine as we crossed the poplar-meadow, “have you no hope of a reward?”

“I understand,” quoth she, frankly; “and I will not play at cross-purposes with you. If this young man really loves his art, and his art alone, as he pretends, could he do better than reward me—as you call it—for my assistance? The word has a cruel signification, but you did not mean it unkindly.”

I looked at her wan, sallow countenance, that had begun for some days to wear an expression of painful anxiety. At that moment I saw over a hedge—but she could not—Claude and Marie walking in a neighboring field, and pausing now and then to bend their heads very close together in admiration of some very common flower. “Poor old maid,” thought I, “you will have no reward save the consciousness of your own pure intentions.”

The minute development of this drama without dramatic scenes would, perhaps, be more instructive than any elaborate analysis of human passions in general; but it would require a volume, and I can only here give a mere summary. Nathalie, in whom alone I felt particularly interested, soon found that she had deceived herself as to the nature of her sentiments for Claude—that instead of regarding him with almost maternal solicitude, she loved him with an intensity that is the peculiar characteristic of passions awakened late in life, when the common consolation is inadmissible—“after all, I may find better.” This was her last, her only chance of a happiness which she had declared to me she had never dreamed of, but which in reality she had only declined because it did not present itself to her under all the conditions required by her refined and sensitive mind. Claude, who was an excellent fellow, but incapable of comprehending her or sacrificing himself, never swerved from grateful deference to her; but I could observe, that as the state of her feelings became more apparent, he took greater care to mark the character of his sentiments for her, and to insist with some affectation on the depth of his filial affection. Nathalie’s eyes were often red with tears—a fact which Claude did not choose, perhaps, to notice, for fear of an explanation. Marie, on the contrary, became more blooming every day, while her eloquent eyes were still more assiduously bent upon the ground. It was evident to me that she and Claude understood one another perfectly well.

At length the same thing became evident to Nathalie. How the revelation was made to her I do not know; but sudden it must have been, for I met her one day in the poplar-field, walking hurriedly along with an extraordinary expression of despair in her countenance. I know not why, but the thought at once occurred to me that the Rhône ran rapid and deep not far off, and I threw myself across her path. She started like a guilty thing, but did not resist when I took her hand and led her back slowly toward the farm-house. We had nearly reached it in silence, when she suddenly stopped, and bursting into tears, turned away into a by-lane where was a little bench under an elm. Here she sat down and sobbed for a long time, while I stood by. At length she raised her head and asked me, “Do morality and religion require self-sacrifice even to the end—even to making half a life a desert, even to heart-breaking, even unto death?”

“It scarcely belongs to a selfish mortal to counsel such virtue,” I replied; “but it is because it is exercised here and there, now and then, once in a hundred years, that man can claim some affinity with the divine nature.”

A smile of ineffable sweetness played about the poor old girl’s lips. She wiped her eyes, and began talking of the changing aspect of the season, and how the trees day by day more rapidly shed their leaves, and how the Rhône had swelled within its ample bed, and of various topics apparently unconnected with her frame of mind, but all indicating that she felt the winter was coming—a long and dreary winter for her. At this moment Fanfreluche, who had missed her, came down the lane barking with fierce joy; and she took the poor little beast in her arms, and exhaled the last bitter feeling that tormented her in these words: “Thou at least lovest me—because I have fed thee!” In her humility she seemed now to believe that her only claim to love was her charity; and that even this claim was not recognized except by a dog!

I was not admitted to the secret of the family conclave that took place, but learned simply that Nathalie pleaded with feverish energy the love that had grown up between Marie and Claude as an insuperable bar to the proposed marriage between Paul Boneau and her niece. Matters were arranged by means of large sacrifices on the part of the heroic maid. Paul’s face ceased to beam over the garden-gate on a Sunday morning; and by degrees the news got abroad that Marie was betrothed to the young artist. One day a decent old woman in _sabots_ came to the farm-house; it was Claude’s mother, who had walked from Aix to see him. It was arranged that Claude should pursue his studies a year longer, and then marry. Whether any explanation took place I do not know; but I observed that the young man sometimes looked with the same expression of wondering admiration I had observed in the diligence on the little Nathalie—-more citron-hued than ever. At length she unhooked the cage of Coco, the parrot, took Fanfreluche under one arm and her blue umbrella under the other, and went away in company with the whole family, myself included, every one carrying a parcel or a basket to the diligence office. What a party that was! Every one was in tears except Nathalie. She bore up manfully if I may use the word; laughed, and actually joked; but just as I handed Coco in, her factitious courage yielded, and she burst into an agony of grief. With officious zeal I kept at the window until the diligence gave a lurch and started; and then turning round I looked at Claude and Marie, who were already mingling their eyes in selfish forgetfulness of their benefactress, and said, solemnly: “There goes the best woman ever created for this unworthy earth.” The artist, who, for an ordinary man, did not lack sentiment, took my hand and said: “Sir, I will quarrel with any man who says less of that angel than you have done.”

The marriage was brought about in less time than had been agreed upon. Nathalie of course did not come; but she sent some presents and a pleasant letter of congratulation, in which she called herself “an inveterate old maid.” About a year afterward I passed through Lyon and saw her. She was still very yellow and more than ever attentive to Fanfreluche and Coco. I even thought she devoted herself too much to the service of these two troublesome pets, to say nothing of a huge cat which she had added to her menagerie, as a kind of hieroglyphic of her condition. “How fare the married couple?” cried she, tossing up her cork-screw curls. “Still cooing and billing?”

“Mademoiselle,” said I, “they are getting on pretty well. Claude, finding the historic pencil not lucrative, has taken to portrait-painting; and being no longer an enthusiastic artist, talks even of adopting the more expeditious method of the Daguerreotype. In the mean time, half the tradesmen of Avignon, to say nothing of Aix, have bespoken caricatures of themselves by his hand. Marie makes a tolerable wife, but has a terrible will of her own, and is feared as well as loved.”

Nathalie tried to laugh; but the memory of her old illusions coming over her, she leaned down toward the cat she was nursing, and sparkling tears fell upon its glossy fur.

THE POISON-EATERS.

A very interesting trial for murder took place lately in Austria. The prisoner, Anna Alexander, was acquitted by the jury, who, in the various questions put to the witnesses, in order to discover whether the murdered man, Lieutenant Matthew Wursel, was a poison-eater or not, educed some very curious evidence relating to this class of persons.

As it is not generally known that eating poison is actually practiced in more countries than one, the following account of the custom, given by a physician, Dr. T. von Tschudi, will not be without interest.

In some districts of Lower Austria and in Styria, especially in those mountainous parts bordering on Hungary, there prevails the strange habit of eating arsenic. The peasantry in particular are given to it. They obtain it under the name of _hedri_ from the traveling hucksters and gatherers of herbs, who, on their side, get it from the glass-blowers, or purchase it from the cow-doctors, quacks, or mountebanks.

The poison-eaters have a twofold aim in their dangerous enjoyment: one of which is to obtain a fresh, healthy appearance, and acquire a certain degree of _embonpoint_. On this account, therefore, gay village lads and lasses employ the dangerous agent, that they may become more attractive to each other; and it is really astonishing with what favorable results their endeavors are attended, for it is just the youthful poison-eaters that are, generally speaking, distinguished by a blooming complexion, and an appearance of exuberant health. Out of many examples I select the following:

A farm-servant who worked in the cow-house belonging to —— was thin and pale, but nevertheless well and healthy. This girl had a lover whom she wished to enchain still more firmly; and in order to obtain a more pleasing exterior she had recourse to the well-known means, and swallowed every week several doses of arsenic. The desired result was obtained; and in a few months she was much fuller in the figure, rosy-cheeked, and, in short, quite according to her lover’s taste. In order to increase the effect, she was so rash as to increase the dose of arsenic, and fell a victim to her vanity: she was poisoned, and died an agonizing death.

The number of deaths in consequence of the immoderate enjoyment of arsenic is not inconsiderable, especially among the young. Every priest who has the cure of souls in those districts where the abuse prevails could tell such tragedies; and the inquiries I have myself made on the subject have opened out very singular details. Whether it arise from fear of the law, which forbids the unauthorized possession of arsenic, or whether it be that an inner voice proclaims to him his sin, the arsenic-eater always conceals as much as possible the employment of these dangerous means. Generally speaking, it is only the confessional or the death-bed that raises the vail from the terrible secret.

The second object the poison-eaters have in view is to make them, as they express it, “better winded!”—that is, to make their respiration easier when ascending the mountains. Whenever they have far to go and to mount a considerable height, they take a minute morsel of arsenic and allow it gradually to dissolve. The effect is surprising; and they ascend with ease heights which otherwise they could climb only with distress to the chest.

The dose of arsenic with which the poison-eaters begin, consists, according to the confession of some of them, of a piece the size of a lentil, which in weight would be rather less than half a grain. To this quantity, which they take fasting several mornings in the week, they confine themselves for a considerable time; and then gradually, and very carefully, they increase the dose according to the effect produced. The peasant R——, living in the parish of A——g, a strong, hale man of upward of sixty, takes at present at every dose a piece of about the weight of four grains. For more than forty years he has practiced this habit, which he inherited from his father, and which he in his turn will bequeath to his children.

It is well to observe, that neither in these nor in other poison-eaters is there the least trace of an arsenic cachexy discernible; that the symptoms of a chronic arsenical poisoning never show themselves in individuals who adapt the dose to their constitution, even although that dose should be considerable. It is not less worthy of remark, however, that when, either from inability to obtain the acid, or from any other cause, the perilous indulgence is stopped, symptoms of illness are sure to appear, which have the closest resemblance to those produced by poisoning from arsenic. These symptoms consist principally in a feeling of general discomfort, attended by a perfect indifference to all surrounding persons and things, great personal anxiety, and various distressing sensations arising from the digestive organs, want of appetite, a constant feeling of the stomach being overloaded at early morning, an unusual degree of salivation, a burning from the pylorus to the throat, a cramp-like movement in the pharynx, pains in the stomach, and especially difficulty of breathing. For all these symptoms there is but one remedy—a return to the enjoyment of arsenic.

According to inquiries made on the subject, it would seem that the habit of eating poison among the inhabitants of Lower Austria has not grown into a passion, as is the case with the opium-eaters in the East, the chewers of the betel nut in India and Polynesia, and of the coco-leaves among the natives of Peru. When once commenced, however, it becomes a necessity.

In some districts sublimate of quicksilver is used in the same way. One case in particular is mentioned by Dr. von Tschudi, a case authenticated by the English embassador at Constantinople, of a great opium-eater at Brussa, who daily consumed the enormous quantity of forty grains of corrosive sublimate with his opium. In the mountainous parts of Peru the doctor met very frequently with eaters of corrosive sublimate; and in Bolivia the practice is still more frequent, where this poison is openly sold in the market to the Indians.

In Vienna the use of arsenic is of every-day occurrence among horse-dealers, and especially with the coachmen of the nobility. They either shake it in a pulverized state among the corn, or they tie a bit the size of a pea in a piece of linen, which they fasten to the curb when the horse is harnessed, and the saliva of the animal soon dissolves it. The sleek, round, shining appearance of the carriage-horses, and especially the much-admired foaming at the mouth, is the result of this arsenic-feeding.(4) It is a common practice with the farm-servants in the mountainous parts to strew a pinch of arsenic on the last feed of hay before going up a steep road. This is done for years without the least unfavorable result; but should the horse fall into the hands of another owner who withholds the arsenic, he loses flesh immediately, is no longer lively, and even with the best feeding there is no possibility of restoring him to his former sleek appearance.

The above particulars, communicated by a contributor residing in Germany, are curious only inasmuch as they refer to poisons of a peculiarly quick and deadly nature. Our ordinary “indulgences” in this country are the same in kind, though not in degree, for we are all poison-eaters. To say nothing of our opium and alcohol consumers, our teetotallers are delighted with the briskness and sparkle of spring-water, although these qualities indicate the presence of carbonic acid or fixed air. In like manner, few persons will object to a drop or two of the frightful corrosive, sulphuric acid (vitriol), in a glass of water, to which it communicates an agreeably acid taste; and most of us have, at some period or other of our lives, imbibed prussic acid, arsenic, and other deadly poisons under the orders of the physician, or the first of these in the more pleasing form of confectionary. Arsenic is said by Dr. Pearson to be as harmless as a glass of wine in the quantity of one-sixteenth part of a grain; and in the cure of agues it is so certain in its effects, that the French Directory once issued an edict ordering the surgeons of the Italian army, under pain of military punishment, to banish that complaint, at two or three days’ notice, from among the vast numbers of soldiers who were languishing under it in the marshes of Lombardy. It would seem that no poison taken in small and diluted doses is immediately hurtful, and the same thing may be said of other agents. The tap of a fan, for instance, is a _blow_, and so is the stroke of a club; but the one gives an agreeable sensation, and the other fells the recipient to the ground. In like manner the analogy holds good between the distribution of a blow over a comparatively large portion of the surface of the body and the dilution or distribution of the particles of a poison. A smart thrust upon the breast, for instance, with a foil does no injury; but if the button is removed, and the same momentum thus thrown to a point, the instrument enters the structures, and perhaps causes death.

But the misfortune is, that poisons swallowed for the sake of the agreeable sensations they occasion owe this effect to their action upon the nervous system; and the action must be kept up by a constantly increasing dose till the constitution is irremediably injured. In the case of arsenic, as we have seen, so long as the excitement is undiminished all is apparently well; but the point is at length reached when to proceed or to turn back is alike death. The moment the dose is diminished or entirely withdrawn, symptoms of poison appear, and the victim perishes because he has shrunk from killing himself. It is just so when the stimulant is alcohol. The morning experience of the drinker prophesies, on every succeeding occasion, of the fate that awaits him. It may be pleasant to get intoxicated, but to get sober is horror. The time comes, however, when the pleasure is at an end, and the horror alone remains. When the habitual stimulus reaches its highest, and the undermined constitution can stand no more, then comes the reaction. If the excitement could go on _ad infinitum_, the prognosis would be different; but the poison-symptoms appear as soon as the dose can no longer be increased without producing instant death, and the drunkard dies of the want of drink! Many persons, it can not be denied, reach a tolerable age under this stimulus; but they do so only by taking warning in time—perhaps from some frightful illness—and carefully proportioning the dose to the sinking constitution. “I can not drink now as formerly,” is a common remark—sometimes elevated into the boast, “I _do_ not drink now as formerly.” But the relaxation of the habit is compulsory; and by a thousand other tokens, as well as the inability to indulge in intoxication, the _ci-devant_ drinker is reminded of a madness which even in youth produced more misery than enjoyment, and now adds a host of discomforts to the ordinary fragility of age. As for arsenic-eating, we trust it will never be added to the madnesses of our own country. Think of a man deliberately condemning himself to devour this horrible poison, on an increasing scale, during his whole life, with the certainty that if at any time, through accident, necessity, or other cause, he holds his hand, he must die the most agonizing of all deaths! In so much horror do we hold the idea, that we would have refrained from mentioning the subject at all if we had not observed a paragraph making the round of the papers, and describing the agreeable phases of the practice without mentioning its shocking results.

A CHILD’S HISTORY OF KING JOHN’S REIGN. BY CHARLES DICKENS.

At two-and-thirty years of age, John became King of England. His pretty little nephew Arthur had the best claim to the throne; but John seized the treasure, and made fine promises to the nobility, and got himself crowned at Westminster within a few weeks after his brother Richard’s death. I doubt whether the crown could possibly have been put upon the head of a meaner coward, or a more detestable villain, if the country had been searched from end to end to find him out.

The French King, Philip, refused to acknowledge the right of John to his new dignity, and declared in favor of Arthur. You must not suppose that he had any generosity of feeling for the fatherless boy; it merely suited his ambitious schemes to oppose the King of England. So, John and the French King went to war about Arthur.

He was a handsome boy, at that time only twelve years, old. He was not born when his father, Geoffrey, had his brains trampled out at the tournament; and, beside the misfortune of never having known a father’s guidance and protection, he had the additional misfortune to have a foolish mother (Constance by name), lately married to her third husband. She took Arthur, upon John’s accession, to the French King, who pretended to be very much his friend, and made him a knight, and promised him his daughter in marriage; but, who cared so little about him in reality, that finding it his interest to make peace with King John for a time, he did so without the least consideration for the poor little Prince, and heartlessly sacrificed all his interests.

Young Arthur, for two years afterward, lived quietly; and in the course of that time his mother died. But, the French King then finding it his interest to quarrel with King John again, again made Arthur his pretense, and invited the orphan boy to court. “You know your rights, Prince,” said the French King, “and you would like to be a king. Is it not so?” “Truly,” said Prince Arthur, “I should greatly like to be a King!” “Then,” said Philip, “you shall have two hundred gentlemen who are knights of mine, and with them you shall go to win back the provinces belonging to you, of which your uncle, the usurping King of England, has taken possession. I myself, meanwhile, will head a force against him in Normandy.” Poor Arthur was so flattered and so grateful, that he signed a treaty with the crafty French King, agreeing to consider him his superior Lord, and that the French King should keep for himself whatever he could take from King John.

Now, King John was so bad in all ways, and King Philip was so perfidious, that Arthur, between the two, might as well have been a lamb between a fox and a wolf. But, being so young, he was ardent and flushed with hope; and, when the people of Brittany (which was his inheritance) sent him five hundred more knights and five thousand foot soldiers, he believed his fortune was made. The people of Brittany had been fond of him from his birth, and had requested that he might be called Arthur, in remembrance of that dimly-famous English Arthur, of whom I told you early in this book, whom they believed to have been the brave friend and companion of an old king of their own. They had tales among them about a prophet called Merlin (of the same old time), who had foretold that their own king should be restored to them after hundreds of years; and they believed that the prophecy would be fulfilled in Arthur; that the time would come when he would rule them with a crown of Brittany upon his head; and when neither King of France nor King of England would have any power over them. When Arthur found himself riding in a glittering suit of armor on a richly caparisoned horse, at the head of his train of knights and soldiers, he began to believe this too, and to consider old Merlin a very superior prophet.

He did not know—how could he, being so innocent and inexperienced?—that his little army was a mere nothing against the power of the King of England. The French King knew it; but the poor boy’s fate was little to him, so that the King of England was worried and distressed. Therefore, King Philip went his way into Normandy, and Prince Arthur went his way toward Mirebeau, a French town near Poictiers, both very well pleased.

Prince Arthur went to attack the town of Mirebeau, because his grandmother Eleanor, who has so often made her appearance in this history (and who had always been his mother’s enemy), was living there, and because his knights said, “Prince, if you can take her prisoner, you will be able to bring the king your uncle to terms!” But she was not to be easily taken. She was old enough by this time—eighty—but she was as full of stratagem as she was full of years and wickedness. Receiving intelligence of young Arthur’s approach, she shut herself up in a high tower, and encouraged her soldiers to defend it like men. Prince Arthur with his little army besieged the high tower. King John, hearing how matters stood, came up to the rescue with _his_ army. So here was a strange family-party! The boy-Prince besieging his grandmother, and his uncle besieging him!

This position of affairs did not last long. One summer night King John, by treachery, got his men into the town, surprised Prince Arthur’s force, took two hundred of his knights, and seized the Prince himself in his bed. The knights were put in heavy irons, and driven away in open carts drawn by bullocks, to various dungeons, where they were most inhumanly treated, and where some of them were starved to death. Prince Arthur was sent to the castle of Falaise.

One day, while he was in prison at that castle, mournfully thinking it strange that one so young should be in so much trouble, and looking out of the small window in the deep dark wall, at the summer sky and the birds, the door was softly opened, and he saw his uncle the King standing in the shadow of the archway, looking very grim.

“Arthur,” said the King, with his wicked eyes more on the stone floor than on his nephew, “will you not trust to the gentleness, the friendship, and the truthfulness, of your loving uncle?”

“I will tell my loving uncle that,” replied the boy, “when he does me right. Let him restore to me my kingdom of England, and then come to me and ask the question.”

The King looked at him and went out. “Keep that boy close prisoner,” said he to the warden of the castle.

Then the King took secret counsel with the worst of his nobles how the Prince was to be got rid of. Some said, “Put out his eyes, and keep him in prison, as Robert of Normandy was kept.” Others said, “Have him stabbed.” Others, “Have him hanged.” Others, “Have him poisoned.”

King John, feeling that, in any case, whatever was done afterward, it would be a satisfaction to his mind to have those handsome eyes burnt out that had looked at him so proudly while his own royal eyes were blinking at the stone floor, sent certain ruffians to Falaise to blind the boy with red-hot irons. But Arthur so pathetically entreated them, and shed such piteous tears, and so appealed to Hubert de Bourg, the warden of the castle, who had a love for him, and was an honorable, tender man, that Hubert could not bear it. To his eternal honor he prevented the torture from being performed, and, at his own risk, sent the savages away.

The chafed and disappointed King bethought himself of the stabbing suggestion next, and with his shuffling manner and his cruel face, proposed it to one William de Bray. “I am a gentleman, and not an executioner,” said William de Bray, and left the presence with disdain.

But it was not difficult for a king to hire a murderer in those days. King John found one for his money, and sent him down to the castle of Falaise. “On what errand dost thou come?” said Hubert to this fellow. “To dispatch young Arthur,” he returned. “Go back to him who sent thee,” answered Hubert, “and say that I will do it!”

King John very well knowing that Hubert would never do it, but that he courageously sent this reply to save the Prince, or gain time, dispatched messengers to convey the young prisoner to the castle of Rouen.

Arthur was soon forced from the good Hubert—of whom he had never stood in greater need than then—carried away by night, and lodged in his new prison: where, through the grated window, he could hear the deep waters of the river Seine, rippling against the stone wall below.

One dark night, as he lay sleeping, dreaming perhaps of rescue by those unfortunate gentlemen who were obscurely suffering and dying in his cause, he was roused, and bidden by his jailer to come down the staircase to the foot of the tower. He hurriedly dressed himself and obeyed. When they came to the bottom of the winding stairs, and the night air from the river blew upon their faces, the jailer trod upon his torch and put it out. Then, Arthur, in the darkness, was hurriedly drawn into a solitary boat. And in that boat he found his uncle and one other man.

He knelt to them, and prayed them not to murder him. Deaf to his entreaties, they stabbed him and sunk his body in the river with heavy stones. When the spring morning broke, the tower-door was closed, the boat was gone, the river sparkled on its way, and never more was any trace of the poor boy beheld by mortal eyes.

The news of this atrocious murder being spread in England, awakened a hatred of the King (already odious for his many vices, and for his having stolen away and married a noble lady while his own wife was living) that never slept again through his whole reign. In Brittany, the indignation was intense. Arthur’s own sister Eleanor was in the power of John and shut up in a convent at Bristol, but his half-sister Alice was in Brittany. The people chose her, and the murdered prince’s father-in-law, the last husband of Constance, to represent them; and carried their fiery complaints to King Philip. King Philip summoned King John (as the holder of territory in France) to come before him and defend himself. King John refusing to appear, King Philip declared him false, perjured, and guilty; and again made war. In a little time, by conquering the greater part of his French territory, King Philip deprived him of one-third of his dominions. And, through all the fighting that took place, King John was always found, either to be eating and drinking, like a gluttonous fool, when the danger was at a distance, or to be running away, like a beaten cur, when it was near.

You might suppose that when he was losing his dominions at this rate, and when his own nobles cared so little for him or his cause that they plainly refused to follow his banner out of England, he had enemies enough. But he made another enemy of the Pope, which he did in this way.

The Archbishop of Canterbury dying, and the junior monks of that place wishing to get the start of the senior monks in the appointment of his successor, met together at midnight, secretly elected a certain Reginald, and sent him off to Rome to get the Pope’s approval. The senior monks and the King soon finding this out, and being very angry about it, the junior monks gave way, and all the monks together elected the Bishop of Norwich, who was the King’s favorite. The Pope, hearing the whole story, declared that neither election would do for him, and that _he_ elected Stephen Langton. The monks submitting to the Pope, the King turned them all out bodily, and banished them as traitors.—The Pope sent three bishops to the King, to threaten him with an Interdict. The King told the bishops that if any Interdict were laid upon his kingdom, he would tear out the eyes and cut off the noses of all the monks he could lay hold of, and send them over to Rome in that undecorated state as a present for their master. The bishops, nevertheless, soon published the Interdict, and fled.

After it had lasted a year, the Pope proceeded to his next step; which was excommunication. King John was declared excommunicated, with all the usual ceremonies. The King was so incensed at this, and was made so desperate by the disaffection of his barons and the hatred of his people, that it is said that he even privately sent embassadors to the Turks in Spain, offering to renounce his religion and hold his kingdom of them if they would help him. It is related that the embassadors were admitted to the presence of the Turkish Emir, through long lines of Moorish guards, and that they found the Emir with his eyes seriously fixed on the pages of a large book from which he never once looked up. That they gave him a letter from the King containing his proposals, and were gravely dismissed. That presently the Emir sent for one of them, and conjured him, by his faith in his religion, to say what kind of man the King of England truly was? That the embassador, thus pressed, replied that the King of England was a false tyrant, against whom his own subjects would soon rise. And that this was quite enough for the Emir.

Money being, in his position, the next best thing to men, King John spared no means of getting it. He set on foot another oppressing and torturing of the unhappy Jews (which was quite in his way), and invented a now punishment for one wealthy Jew of Bristol. Until such time as that Jew should produce a certain large sum of money, the King sentenced him to be imprisoned, and, every day, to have one tooth violently wrenched out of his head—beginning with the double teeth. For seven days the oppressed man bore the daily pain and lost the daily tooth; but, on the eighth, he paid the money. With the treasure raised in such ways, the King made an expedition into Ireland, where some English nobles had revolted. It was one of the very few places from which he did not run away; because no resistance was shown. He made another expedition into Wales—whence he _did_ run away in the end: but not before he had got from the Welsh people, as hostages, twenty-seven young men of the best families; every one of whom he caused to be slain in the following year.

To Interdict and Excommunication, the Pope now added his last sentence—Deposition. He proclaimed John no longer King, absolved all his subjects from their allegiance, and sent Stephen Langton and others to the King of France to tell him that, if he would invade England, he should be forgiven all his sins—at least, should be forgiven them by the Pope, if that would do.

As there was nothing that King Philip desired more than to invade England, he collected a great army at Rouen, and a fleet of seventeen hundred ships to bring them over. But the English people, however bitterly they hated the King, were not a people to suffer invasion quietly.—They flocked to Dover, where the English standard was, in such great numbers to enroll themselves as defenders of their native land, that there were not provisions for them, and the King could only select and retain sixty thousand. But, at this crisis, the Pope, who had his own reasons for objecting to either King John or King Philip being too powerful, interfered. He intrusted a legate, whose name was Pandolf, with the easy task of frightening King John. He sent him to the English camp, from France, to terrify him with exaggerations of King Philip’s power, and his own weakness in the discontent of the English barons and people. Pandolf discharged his commission so well, that King John, in a wretched panic, consented to acknowledge Stephen Langton; to resign his kingdom “to God, Saint Peter, and Saint Paul”—which meant the Pope; and to hold it, ever afterward, by the Pope’s leave, on payment of an annual sum of money. To this shameful contract he publicly bound himself in the church of the Knights Templars at Dover: where he laid at the legate’s feet a part of the tribute, which the legate haughtily trampled upon. But they _do_ say, that this was merely a genteel flourish, and that he was afterward seen to pick it up and pocket it.

There was an unfortunate prophet, of the name of Peter, who had greatly increased King John’s terrors by predicting that he would be unknighted (which the King supposed to signify that he would die) before the Feast of Ascension should be past. That was the day after this humiliation. When the next morning came, and the King, who had been trembling all night, found himself alive and safe, he ordered the prophet—and his son too—to be dragged through the streets at the tails of horses, and then hanged, for having frightened him.

As King John had now submitted, the Pope, to King Philip’s great astonishment, took him under his protection, and informed King Philip that he found he could not give him leave to invade England. The angry Philip resolved to do it without his leave; but, he gained nothing and lost much; for, the English, commanded by the Earl of Salisbury, went over, in five hundred ships, to the French coast, before the French fleet had sailed away from it, and utterly defeated the whole.

The Pope then took off his three sentences, one after another, and empowered Stephen Langton publicly to receive King John into the favor of the church again, and to ask him to dinner. The King, who hated Langton with all his might and main—and with reason too, for he was a great and a good man, with whom such a King could have no sympathy—pretended to cry and to be very grateful. There was a little difficulty about settling how much the King should pay, as a recompense to the clergy for the losses he had caused them; but, the end of it was, that the superior clergy got a good deal, and the inferior clergy got little or nothing—which has also happened since King John’s time, I believe.

When all these matters were arranged, the King in his triumph became more fierce, and false, and insolent to all around him than he had ever been. An alliance of sovereigns against King Philip, gave him an opportunity of landing an army in France; with which he even took a town! But, on the French King’s gaining a great victory, he ran away, of course, and made a truce for five years.

And now the time approached when he was to be still further humbled, and made to feel, if he could feel any thing, what a wretched creature he was. Of all men in the world, Stephen Langton seemed raised up by Heaven to oppose and subdue him. When he ruthlessly burnt and destroyed the property of his own subjects, because their lords, the Barons, would not serve him abroad, Stephen Langton fearlessly reproved and threatened him. When he swore to restore the laws of King Edward, or the laws of King Henry the First, Stephen Langton knew his falsehood, and pursued him through all his evasions. When the Barons met at the abbey of Saint Edmund’s-Bury, to consider their wrongs and the King’s oppressions, Stephen Langton roused them by his fervid words to demand a solemn charter of rights and liberties from their perjured master, and to swear, one by one, on the high altar, that they would have it, or would wage war against him to the death. When the King hid himself in London from the Barons, and was at last obliged to receive them, they told him roundly they would not believe him unless Stephen Langton became a surety that he would keep his word. When he took the Cross, to invest himself with some interest, and belong to something that was received with favor, Stephen Langton was still immovable. When he appealed to the Pope, and the Pope wrote to Stephen Langton in behalf of his new favorite, Stephen Langton was deaf, even to the Pope himself, and saw before him nothing but the welfare of England and the crimes of the English King.

At Easter time, the Barons assembled at Stamford in Lincolnshire, in proud array, and, marching near to Oxford where the King was, delivered into the hands of Stephen Langton and two others, a list of grievances. “And these,” they said, “he must redress, or we will do it for ourselves?” When Stephen Langton told the King as much, and read the list to him, he went half mad with rage. But that did him no more good than his afterward trying to pacify the Barons with lies. They called themselves and their followers, “The army of God and the Holy Church.” Marching through the country, with the people thronging to them every where (except at Northampton, where they failed in an attack upon the castle), they at last triumphantly set up their banner in London itself, whither the whole land, tired of the tyrant, seemed to flock to join them. Seven knights alone, of all the knights in England, remained with the King; who, reduced to this strait, at last sent the Earl of Pembroke to the Barons to say that he approved of every thing, and would meet them to sign their charter when they would. “Then,” said the Barons, “let the day be the 15th of June, and the place, Runny-Mead.”

On Monday, the fifteenth of June, one thousand two hundred and fourteen, the King came from Windsor Castle, and the Barons came from the town of Staines, and they met on Runny-Mead, which is still a pleasant meadow by the Thames, where rushes grow in the clear waters of the winding river, and its banks are green with grass and trees. On the side of the Barons, came the General of their army, ROBERT FITZ-WALTER, and a great concourse of the nobility of England. With the King, came, in all, some four-and-twenty persons of any note, most of whom despised him and were merely his advisers in form. On that great day, and in that great company, the King signed MAGNA CHARTA—the great charter of England—by which he pledged himself to maintain the church in its rights; to relieve the Barons of oppressive obligations as vassals of the Crown—of which the Barons, in their turn, pledged themselves to relieve _their_ vassals, the people; to respect the liberties of London and all other cities and boroughs; to protect foreign merchants who came to England; to imprison no man without a fair trial; and to sell, delay, or deny justice to none. As the Barons knew his falsehood well, they further required, as their securities, that he should send out of his kingdom all his foreign troops; that for two months they should hold possession of the city of London, and Stephen Langton of the Tower; and that five-and-twenty of their body, chosen by themselves, should be a lawful committee to watch the keeping of the charter, and to make war upon him if he broke it.

All this he was obliged to yield. He signed the charter with a smile, and, if he could have looked agreeable, would have done so, as he departed from the splendid assembly. When he got home to Windsor Castle, he was quite a madman in his helpless fury. And he broke the charter immediately afterward.

He sent abroad for foreign soldiers, and sent to the Pope for help, and plotted to take London by surprise, while the Barons should be holding a great tournament at Stamford, which they had agreed to hold there as a celebration of the charter. The Barons, however, found him out and put it off. Then, when the Barons desired to see him and tax him with his treachery, he made numbers of appointments with them, and kept none, and shifted from place to place, and was constantly sneaking and skulking about. At last he appeared at Dover, to join his foreign soldiers of whom numbers came into his pay; and with them he besieged and took Rochester Castle, which was occupied by knights and soldiers of the Barons. He would have hanged them every one; but the leader of the foreign soldiers, fearful of what the English people might afterward do to him, interfered to save the knights; therefore the King was fain to satisfy his vengeance with the death of all the common men. Then he sent the Earl of Salisbury, with one portion of his army to ravage the eastern part of his own dominions, while he carried fire and slaughter into the northern part; torturing, plundering, killing, and inflicting every possible cruelty upon the people; and, every morning, setting a worthy example to his men by setting fire, with his own monster-hands, to the house where he had slept the last night. Nor was this all; for the Pope, coming to the aid of his precious friend, laid the kingdom under an Interdict again, because the people took part with the Barons. It did not much matter, for the people had grown so used to it now, that they had begun to think about it. It occurred to them—perhaps to Stephen Langton too—that they could keep their churches open, and ring their bells, without the Pope’s permission as well as with it. So they tried the experiment—and found that it succeeded perfectly.

It being now impossible to bear the country, as a wilderness of cruelty, or longer to hold any terms with such a foresworn outlaw of a king, the Barons sent to LOUIS, son of the French monarch, to offer him the English crown. Caring as little for the Pope’s excommunication of him if he accepted the offer, as it is possible his father may have cared for the Pope’s forgiveness of his sins, he landed at Sandwich (King John immediately running away from Dover, where he happened to be) and went on to London. The Scottish King, with whom many of the Northern English Lords had taken refuge; numbers of the foreign soldiers, numbers of the Barons, and numbers of the people, went over to him every day—King John, the while, continually running away in all directions. The career of Louis was checked, however, by the suspicions of the Barons, founded on the dying declaration of a French Lord, that when the kingdom was conquered he was sworn to banish them as traitors, and to give their estates to some of his own Nobles. Rather than suffer this, some of the Barons hesitated; others even went over to King John.

It seemed to be the turning point of King John’s fortunes, for, in his savage and murderous course, he had now taken some towns and met with some successes. But, happily for England and humanity, his death was near. Crossing a dangerous quicksand, called the Wash, not very far from Wisbeach, the tide came up and nearly drowned his army. He and his soldiers escaped; but, looking back from the shore when he was safe, he saw the roaring water sweep down in a torrent, overturn the wagons, horses, and men that carried his treasure, and engulf them in a raging whirlpool from which nothing could be delivered.

Cursing, and swearing, and gnawing his fingers, he went on to Swinestead Abbey, where the monks set before him quantities of pears, and peaches, and new cider—some say poison too, but there is very little reason to suppose so—of which he ate and drank in an immoderate and beastly way. All night he lay ill of a burning fever, and haunted with horrible fears. Next day, they put him in a horse-litter, and carried him to Sleaford Castle, where he passed another night of pain and horror. Next day, they carried him, with greater difficulty than on the day before, to the castle of Newark-upon-Trent; and there, on the eighteenth of October, in the forty-ninth year of his age, and the seventeenth of his vile reign, was an end of this miserable brute.

MY NOVEL; OR, VARIETIES IN ENGLISH LIFE.(5)