Chapter 3

"THE PASSAGE OF THE RHINE."

I parted from my friend Eugene at Treves, where he remained in garrison, while I was sent forward to Coblentz to join my regiment, at that time forming part of Ney's division.

Were I to adhere in my narrative to the broad current of great events, I should here have to speak of that grand scheme of tactics by which Kleber, advancing from the Lower Rhine, engaged the attention of the Austrian Grand Duke, in order to give time and opportunity for Hoche's passage of the river at Strasbourg, and the commencement of that campaign which had for its object the subjugation of Germany. I have not, however, the pretension to chronicle those passages which history has forever made memorable, even were my own share in them of a more distinguished character. The insignificance of my station must, therefore, be my apology if I turn from the description of great and eventful incidents to the humble narrative of my own career.

Whatever the contents of Colonel Mahon's letter, they did not plead very favorably for me with Colonel Hacque, my new commanding officer; neither, to all seeming, did my own appearance weigh any thing in my favor. Raising his eyes at intervals from the letter to stare at me, he uttered some broken phrases of discontent and displeasure; at last he said--"What's the object of this letter, sir; to what end have you presented it to me?"

"As I am ignorant of its contents, mon colonel," said I calmly, "I can scarcely answer the question."

"Well, sir, it informs me that you are the son of a certain Count Tiernay; who has long since paid the price of his nobility; and that being a special protégé of the writer, he takes occasion to present you to me; now I ask again, with what object?"

"I presume, sir, to obtain for me the honor which I now enjoy--to become personally known to you."

"I know every soldier under my command, sir," said he, rebukingly, "as you will soon learn if you remain in my regiment. I have no need of recommendatory letters on that score. As to your grade of corporal, it is not confirmed; time enough when your services shall have shown that you deserve promotion. Parbleu, sir, you'll have to show other claims than your ci-devant countship."

"Colonel Mahon gave me a horse, sir, may I be permitted to retain him as a regimental mount?" asked I, timidly.

"We want horses--what is he like?"

"Three quarters Arab, and splendid in action, sir."

"Then of course, unfit for service and field man[oe]uvres. Send him to the Etat Major. The Republic will find a fitting mount for _you_; you may retire."

And I did retire, with a heart almost bursting between anger and disappointment. What a future did this opening present to me! What a realization this of all my flattering hopes!

This sudden reverse of fortune, for it was nothing less, did not render me more disposed to make the best of my new condition, nor see in the most pleasing light the rough and rude fraternity among which I was thrown. The Ninth Hussars were reputed to be an excellent service-corps, but, off duty, contained some of the worst ingredients of the army. Play, and its consequence dueling, filled up every hour not devoted to regimental duty; and low as the tone of manners and morals stood in the service generally, "Hacques Tapageurs," as they were called, enjoyed the unflattering distinction of being the leaders. Self-respect was a quality utterly unknown among them--none felt ashamed at the disgrace of punishment--and as all knew that, at the approach of the enemy, prison doors would open, and handcuffs fall off, they affected to think the Salle de Police was a pleasant alternative to the fatigue and worry of duty. These habits not only stripped soldiering of all its chivalry, but robbed freedom itself of all its nobility. These men saw nothing but licentiousness in their newly-won liberty. Their "Equality" was the permission to bring every thing down to a base and unworthy standard; their "Fraternity," the appropriation of what belonged to one richer than themselves.

It would give me little pleasure to recount, and the reader, in all likelihood, as little to hear, the details of my life among such associates. They are the passages of my history most painful to recall, and least worthy of being remembered; nor can I even yet write without shame the confession, how rapidly _their_ habits became _my own_. Eugene's teachings had prepared me, in a manner, for their lessons. His skepticism extending to every thing and every one, had made me distrustful of all friendship, and suspicious of whatever appeared a kindness. Vulgar association, and daily intimacy with coarsely-minded men, soon finished what he had begun; and in less time than it took me to break my troop-horse to regimental drill, I had been myself "broke in" to every vice and abandoned habit of my companions.

It was not in my nature to do things by halves; and thus I became, and in a brief space too, the most inveterate Tapageur of the whole regiment. There was not a wild prank or plot in which I was not foremost, not a breach of the discipline unaccompanied by my name or presence, and more than half the time of our march to meet the enemy, I passed in double irons under the guard of the Provost-marshal.

It was at this pleasant stage of my education that our brigade arrived in Strasbourg, as part of the corps d'armée under the command of General Moreau.

He had just succeeded to the command on the dismissal of Pichegru, and found the army not only dispirited by the defeats of the past campaign, but in a state of rudest indiscipline and disorganization. If left to himself, he would have trusted much to time and circumstances for the reform of abuses that had been the growth of many months long. But Regnier, the second in command, was made of "different stuff;" he was a harsh and stern disciplinarian, who rarely forgave a first, never a second offense, and who deeming the Salle de Police as an incumbrance to an army on service, which, besides, required a guard of picked men, that might be better employed elsewhere, usually gave the preference to the shorter sentence of "four spaces and a fusillade." Nor was he particular in the classification of those crimes he thus expiated: from the most trivial excess to the wildest scheme of insubordination, all came under the one category. More than once, as we drew near to Strasbourg, I heard the project of a mutiny discussed, day after day. Some one or other would denounce the "scelerat Regnier," and proclaim his readiness to be the executioner; but the closer we drew to head-quarters, the more hushed and subdued became these mutterings, till at last they ceased altogether; and a dark and forboding dread succeeded to all our late boastings and denunciations.

This at first surprised and then utterly disgusted me with my companions. Brave as they were before the enemy, had they no courage for their own countrymen? Was all their valor the offspring of security, or could they only be rebellious when the penalty had no terrors for them? Alas! I was very young, and did not then know that men are never strong against the right, and that a bad cause is always a weak one.

It was about the middle of June when we reached Strasbourg, where now about forty thousand troops were assembled. I shall not readily forget the mingled astonishment and disappointment our appearance excited as the regiment entered the town. The Tapageurs, so celebrated for all their terrible excesses and insubordination, were seen to be a fine corps of soldier-like fellows, their horses in high condition, their equipments and arms in the very best order. Neither did our conduct at all tally with the reputation that preceded us. All was orderly and regular in the several billets; the parade was particularly observed; not a man late at the night muster. What was the cause of this sudden and remarkable change? Some said we were marching against the enemy; but the real explanation lay in a few words of a general order read to us by our colonel the day before we entered the city:

"The 9th Hussars have obtained the unworthy reputation of being an ill-disciplined and ill-conducted regiment, relying upon their soldier-like qualities in face of the enemy to cover the disgrace of-their misconduct in quarters. This is a mistake that must be corrected. All Frenchmen are brave; none can arrogate to themselves any prerogative of valor. If any wish to establish such a belief, a campaign can always attest it. If any profess to think so without such proof, and acting in conformity with this impression, disobey their orders or infringe regimental discipline, I will have them shot.

"REGNIER, "_Adjutant-general_."

This was, at least, a very straight-forward and intelligible announcement, and as such my comrades generally acknowledged it. I, however regarded it as a piece of monstrous and intolerable tyranny, and sought to make converts to my opinion by declaiming about the rights of Frenchmen, the liberty of free discussion, the glorious privilege of equality, and so on; but these arguments sounded faint in presence of the drum-head; and while some slunk away from the circle around me, others significantly hinted that they would accept no part of the danger my doctrines might originate.

However I might have respected my comrades, had they been always the well-disciplined body I now saw them, I confess, that this sudden conversion from fear, was in nowise to my taste, and rashly confounded their dread of punishment with a base and ignoble fear of death. "And these are the men," thought I, "who talk of their charging home through the dense squares of Austria--who have hunted the leopard into the sea! and have carried the flag of France over the high Alps!"

A bold rebel, whatever may be the cause against which he revolts, will always be sure of a certain ascendency. Men are prone to attribute power to pretension, and he who stands foremost in the breach will at least win the suffrages of those whose cause he assumes to defend. In this way if happened that exactly as my comrades fell in my esteem, I was elevated in theirs; and while I took a very depreciating estimate of their courage, _they_ conceived a very exalted opinion of mine.

It was altogether inexplicable to see these men, many of them the bronzed veterans of a dozen campaigns--the wounded and distinguished soldiers in many a hard-fought field, yielding up their opinions and sacrificing their convictions to a raw and untried stripling, who had never yet seen an enemy.

With a certain fluency of speech I possessed also a readiness at picking up information, and arraying the scattered fragments of news into a certain consistence, which greatly imposed upon my comrades. A quick eye for man[oe]uvres, and a shrewd habit of combining in my own mind the various facts that came before me, made me appear to them a perfect authority on military matters, of which I talked, I shame to say, with all the confidence and presumption of an accomplished general. A few lucky guesses, and a few half hints, accidentally confirmed, completed all that was wanting; and what says "Le Jeune Maurice," was the inevitable question that followed each piece of flying gossip, or every rumor that rose of a projected movement.

I have seen a good deal of the world since that time, and I am bound to confess, that not a few of the great reputations I have witnessed, have stood upon grounds very similar, and not a whit more stable than my own. A bold face, a ready tongue, a promptness to support, with my right hand, whatever my lips were pledged to, and, above all, good luck, made me the king of my company; and although that sovereignty only extended to half a squadron of hussars, it was a whole universe to me.

So stood matters when, on the 23d of June, orders came for the whole _corps d'armée_ to hold itself in readiness for a forward movement. Rations for two days were distributed, and ammunition given out, as if for an attack of some duration. Meanwhile, to obviate any suspicion of our intentions, the gates of Strasbourg, on the eastern side, were closed--all egress in that direction forbidden--and couriers and estafettes sent off toward the north, as if to provide for the march of our force in that direction. The arrival of various orderly dragoons during the previous night, and on that morning early, told of a great attack in force on Manheim, about sixty miles lower down the Rhine, and the cannonade of which some avowed that they could hear at that distance. The rumor, therefore, seemed confirmed, that we were ordered to move to the north, to support this assault.

The secret dispatch of a few dismounted dragoons and some rifle-men to the banks of the Rhine, however, did not strike me as according with this view, and particularly as I saw that, although all were equipped, and in readiness to move, the order to march was not given, a delay very unlikely to be incurred, if we were destined to act as the reserve of the force already engaged.

Directly opposite to us, on the right bank of the river, and separated from it by a low flat, of about two miles in extent, stood the fortress of Kehl, at that time garrisoned by a strong Austrian force; the banks of the river, and the wooded islands in the stream, which communicated with the right by bridges, or fordable passes, being also held by the enemy in force.

These we had often seen, by the aid of telescopes, from the towers and spires of Strasbourg; and now I remarked that the general and his staff seemed more than usually intent on observing their movements. This fact, coupled with the not less significant one, that no preparations for a defense of Strasbourg were in progress, convinced me that, instead of moving down the Rhine to the attack on Manheim, the plan of our general was, to cross the river where we were, and make a dash at the fortress of Kehl. I was soon to receive the confirmation of my suspicion, as the orders came for two squadrons of the ninth to proceed, dismounted, to the bank of the Rhine, and, under shelter of the willows, to conceal themselves there. Taking possession of the various skiffs and fishing boats along the bank, we were distributed in small parties, to one of which, consisting of eight men under the orders of a corporal, I belonged.

About an hour's march brought us to the river side, in a little clump of alder willows, where, moored to a stake, lay a fishing boat with two short oars in her. Lying down beneath the shade, for the afternoon was hot and sultry, some of us smoked, some chatted, and a few dozed away the hours that somehow seemed unusually slow in passing.

There was a certain dogged sullenness about my companions, which proceeded from their belief, that we and all who remained at Strasbourg, were merely left to occupy the enemy's attention, while greater operations were to be carried on elsewhere.

"You see what it is to be a condemned corps," muttered one; "it's little matter what befalls the old ninth, even should they be cut to pieces."

"They didn't think so at Enghein," said another, "when we rode down the Austrian cuirassiers."

"Plain enough," cried a third, "we are to have skirmishers' duty here, without skirmishers' fortune in having a force to fall back upon."

"Eh! Maurice, is not this very like what you predicted for us?" broke in a fourth ironically.

"I'm of the same mind still," rejoined I, coolly, "the general is not thinking of a retreat; he has no intention of deserting a well-garrisoned, well-provisioned fortress. Let the attack on Manheim have what success it may, Strasbourg will be held still. I overheard Colonel Guyon remark, that the waters of the Rhine have fallen three feet since the drought set in, and Regnier replied, 'that we must lose no time, for there will come rain and floods ere long.' Now what could that mean, but the intention to cross over yonder?"

"Cross the Rhine in face of the fort of Kehl!" broke in the corporal.

"The French army have done bolder things before now!" was my reply, and whatever the opinion of my comrades, the flattery ranged them on _my_ side. Perhaps the corporal felt it beneath his dignity to discuss tactics with an inferior, or perhaps he felt unable to refute the specious pretensions I advanced; in any case he turned away, and either slept, or affected sleep, while I strenuously labored to convince my companions that my surmise was correct.

I repeated all my former arguments about the decrease in the Rhine, showing that the river was scarcely two-thirds of its habitual breadth, that the nights were now dark, and well suited for a surprise, that the columns which issued from the town took their departure with a pomp and parade far more likely to attract the enemy's attention than escape his notice, and were, therefore, the more likely to be destined for some secret expedition, of which all this display was but the blind. These, and similar facts, I grouped together with a certain ingenuity, which, if it failed to convince, at least silenced my opponents. And now the brief twilight, if so short a struggle between day and darkness deserved the name, passed off, and night suddenly closed around us--a night black and starless, for a heavy mass of lowering cloud seemed to unite with the dense vapor that arose from the river, and the low-lying grounds alongside of it. The air was hot and sultry, too, like the precursor of a thunder-storm, and the rush of the stream as it washed among the willows sounded preternaturally loud in the stillness.

A hazy, indistinct flame, the watch-fire of the enemy, on the island of Eslar, was the only object visible in the murky darkness. After a while, however, we could detect another fire on a smaller island, a short distance higher up the stream. This, at first dim and uncertain, blazed up after a while, and at length we descried the dark shadows of men as they stood around it.

It was but the day before that I had been looking on a map of the Rhine, and remarked to myself that this small island, little more than a mere rook in the stream, was so situated as to command the bridge between Eslar and the German bank, and I could not help wondering that the Austrians had never taken the precaution to strengthen it, or at least place a gun there, to enfilade the bridge. Now, to my extreme astonishment, I saw it occupied by the soldiery, who, doubtless, were artillery, as in such a position small arms would prove of slight efficiency. As I reflected over this, wondering within myself if any intimation of our movements could have reached the enemy, I heard along the ground on which I was lying the peculiar tremulous, dull sound communicated by a large body of men marching. The measured tramp could not be mistaken, and as I listened I could perceive that a force was moving toward the river from different quarters. The rumbling roll of heavy guns and the clattering noise of cavalry were also easily distinguished, and awaking one of my comrades I called his attention to the sounds.

"Parbleu!" said he, "thou'rt right; they're going to make a dash at the fortress, and there will be hot work ere morning. What say you now, corporal, has Maurice hit it off this time?"

"That's as it may be," growled the other, sulkily; "guessing is easy work ever for such as thee! but if he be so clever, let him tell us why are we stationed along the river's bank in small detachments. We have had no orders to observe the enemy, nor to report upon any thing that might go forward; nor do I see with what object we were to secure the fishing boats; troops could never be conveyed across the Rhine in skin's like these!"

"I think that this order was given to prevent any of the fishermen giving information to the enemy in case of a sudden attack," replied I.

"Mayhap thou wert at the council of war when the plan was decided on," said he, contemptuously. "For a fellow that never saw the smoke of an enemy's gun thou hast a rare audacity in talking of war!"

"Yonder is the best answer to your taunt," said I, as in a little bend of the stream beside us, two boats were seen to pull under the shelter of the tall alders, from which the clank of arms could be plainly heard; and now another larger launch swept past, the dark shadows of a dense crowd of men showing above the gunwale.

"They are embarking, they are certainly embarking," now ran from mouth to mouth. As the troops arrived at the river's bank they were speedily "told off" in separate divisions of which some were to lead the attack, others to follow, and a third portion to remain as a reserve in the event of a repulse.

The leading boat was manned entirely by volunteers, and I could hear from where I lay the names called aloud as the men stepped out from the ranks. I could hear that the first point of attack was the island of Eslar. So far there was a confirmation of my own guessing, and I did not hesitate to assume the full credit of my skill from my comrades. In truth, they willingly conceded all or even more than I asked for. Not a stir was heard, not a sight seen, not a movement made of which I was not expected to tell the cause and the import; and knowing that to sustain my influence there was nothing for it but to affect a thorough acquaintance with every thing, I answered all their questions boldly and unhesitatingly. I need scarcely observe that the corporal in comparison sunk into down-right insignificance. He had already shown himself a false guide, and none asked his opinion further, and I became the ruling genius of the hour. The embarkation now went briskly forward, several light field guns were placed in the boats, and two or three large rafts, capable of containing two companies each, were prepared to be towed across by boats.

Exactly as the heavy hammer of the cathedral struck one, the first boat emerged from the willows, and darting rapidly forward, headed for the middle of the stream; another and another in quick succession followed, and speedily were lost to us in the gloom; and now, two four-oared skiffs stood out together, having a raft, with two guns, in tow; by some mischance, however, they got entangled in a side current, and the raft swerving to one side, swept past the boats, carrying them down the stream along with it. Our attention was not suffered to dwell on this mishap, for at the same moment the flash and rattle of fire-arms told us the battle had begun. Two or three isolated shots were first heard, and then a sharp platoon fire, accompanied by a wild cheer, that we well knew came from our own fellows. One deep mellow boom of a large gun resounded amid the crash, and a slight streak of flame, higher up the stream, showed that the shot came from the small island I have already spoken of.

"Listen, lads," said I, "that came from the 'Fels Insel.' If they are firing grape yonder, our poor fellows in the boats will suffer sorely from it. By Jove there is a crash!"

As I was speaking a rattling noise like the sound of clattering timber was heard, and with it a sharp, shrill cry of agony, and all was hushed.

"Let's at them, boys; they can't be much above our own number. The island is a mere rock," cried I to my comrades.

"Who commands this party?" said the corporal, "you or I?"

"You, if you lead us against the enemy," said I; "but I'll take it if my comrades will follow me. There goes another shot, lads--yes or no--now is the time to speak."

"We're ready," cried three, springing forward, with one impulse.

At the instant I jumped into the skiff, the others took their places, and then came a fourth, a fifth, a sixth, and a seventh, leaving the corporal alone on the bank.

"Come along, corporal," cried I, "we'll win your epaulets for you;" but he turned away without a word; and not waiting further, I pushed out the skiff, and sent her skimming down the stream.

"Pull steady, boys, and silently," said I; "we must gain the middle of the current, and then drop down the river without the least noise. Once beneath the trees, we'll give them a volley, and then the bayonet. Remember, lads, no flinching; it's as well to die here as be shot by old Regnier to-morrow."

The conflict on the Eslar island was now, to all seeming, at its height. The roll of musketry was incessant, and sheets of flame, from time to time, streaked the darkness above the river.

"Stronger and together, boys--once more--there it is--we are in the current, now; in with you, men, and look to your carbines--see that the priming is safe; every shot soon will be worth a fusilade. Lie still now, and wait for the word to fire."

The spreading foliage of the nut-trees was rustling over our heads as I spoke, and the sharp skiff, borne on the current, glided smoothly on till her bow struck the rock. With high-beating hearts we clambered up the little cliff; and as we reached the top, beheld immediately beneath us, in a slight dip of the ground, several figures around a gun, which they were busy in adjusting. I looked right and left to see that my little party were all assembled, and without waiting for more, gave the order--fire!

We were within pistol range, and the discharge was a deadly one. The terror, however, was not less complete; for all who escaped death fled from the spot, and dashing through the brushwood, made for the shallow part of the stream, between the island and the right bank.

Our prize was a brass eight pounder, and an ample supply of ammunition. The gun was pointed toward the middle of the stream, where the current being strongest, the boats would necessarily be delayed; and in all likelihood some of our gallant comrades had already experienced its fatal fire. To wheel it right about, and point it on the Eslar bridge, was the work of a couple of minutes; and while three of our little party kept up a steady fire on the retreating enemy, the others loaded the gun and prepared to fire.

Our distance from the Eslar island and bridge, as well as I could judge from the darkness, might be about two hundred and fifty yards; and as we had the advantage of a slight elevation of ground, our position was admirable.

"Wait patiently, lads," said I, restraining, with difficulty, the burning ardor of my men. "Wait patiently, till the retreat has commenced over the bridge. The work is too hot to last much longer on the island: to fire upon them there, would be to risk our own men as much as the enemy. See what long flashes of flame break forth among the brushwood: and listen to the cheering now. That was a French cheer! and there goes another! Look! look, the bridge is darkening already! That was a bugle-call, and they are in full retreat. Now, lads--now!"

As I spoke; the gun exploded, and the instant after we heard the crashing rattle of the timber, as the shot struck the bridge, and splintered the wood-work in all directions.

"The range is perfect, lads," cried I. "Load and fire with all speed."

Another shot, followed by a terrific scream from the bridge, told how the work was doing. Oh! the savage exultation, the fiendish joy of my heart, as I drank in that cry of agony, and called upon my men to load faster.

Six shots were poured in with tremendous precision and effect, and the seventh tore away one of the main supports of the bridge, and down went the densely crowded column into the Rhine; at the same instant, the guns of our launches opened a destructive fire upon the banks, which soon were swept clean of the enemy.

High up on the stream, and for nearly a mile below also, we could see the boats of our army pulling in for shore; the crossing of the Rhine had been effected, and we now prepared to follow.

_To be continued._

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

AN AERIAL VOYAGE.

Of all the wonderful discoveries which modern science has given birth to, there is perhaps not one which has been applied to useful purposes on a scale so unexpectedly contracted as that by which we are enabled to penetrate into the immense ocean of air with which our globe is surrounded, and to examine the physical phenomena which are manifested in its upper strata. One would have supposed that the moment the power was conferred upon us to leave the surface of the earth, and rise above the clouds into the superior regions, a thousand eager inquirers would present themselves as agents in researches in a region so completely untrodden, if such a term may here be permitted.

Nevertheless, this great invention of aerial navigation has remained almost barren. If we except the celebrated aerial voyage of Gay-Lussac in 1804, the balloon, with its wonderful powers, has been allowed to degenerate into a mere theatrical exhibition, exciting the vacant and unreflecting wonder of the multitude. Instead of being an instrument of philosophical research, it has become a mere expedient for profit in the hands of charlatans, so much so, that, on the occasion to which we are now about to advert, the persons who engaged in the project incurred failure, and risked their lives, from their aversion to avail themselves of the experience of those who had made aerostation a mere spectacle for profit. They thought that to touch pitch they must be defiled, and preferred danger and the risk of failure to such association.

It is now about two months since M. Barral, a chemist of some distinction at Paris, and M. Bixio, a member of the Legislative Assembly (whose name will be remembered in connection with the bloody insurrection of June, 1848, when, bravely and humanely discharging his duty in attempting to turn his guilty fellow-citizens from their course, he nearly shared the fate of the Archbishop, and was severely wounded), resolved upon making a grand experiment with a view to observe and record the meteorological phenomena of the strata of the atmosphere, at a greater height and with more precision than had hitherto been accomplished. But from the motives which we have explained, the project was kept secret, and it was resolved that the experiment should be made at an hour of the morning, and under circumstances, which would prevent it from degenerating into an exhibition. MM. Arago and Regnault undertook to supply the aerial voyagers with a programme of the proposed performance, and instruments suited to the projected observations. M. Arago prepared the programme, in which was stated clearly what observations were to be made at every stage of the ascentional movement.

It was intended that the balloon should be so managed as to come to rest at certain altitudes, when barometric, thermometric, hygrometric, polariscopic, and other observations, were to be taken and noted; the balloon after each series of observations to make a new ascent.

The precious instruments by which these observations were to be made were prepared, and in some cases actually fabricated and graduated, by the hands of M. Regnault himself.

To provide the balloon and its appendages, recourse was had to some of those persons who have followed the fabrication of balloons as a sort of trade, for the purposes of exhibition.

In this part of their enterprise the voyagers were not so fortunate, as we shall presently see, and still less so in having taken the resolution to ascend alone, unaccompanied by a practiced æronaut. It is probable that if they had selected a person, such as Mr. Green, for example, who had already made frequent ascents for the mere purpose of exhibition, and who had become familiar with the practical management of the machine, a much more favorable result would have ensued. As it was, the two voyagers ascended for the first time, and placed themselves in a position like that of a natural philosopher, who, without previous practice, should undertake to drive a locomotive, with its train on a railway at fifty miles an hour, rejecting the humble but indispensable aid of an experienced engine-driver.

The necessary preparations having been made, and the programme and the instruments prepared, it was resolved to make the ascent from the garden behind the Observatory at Paris, a plateau of some elevation, and free from buildings and other obstacles, at day-break of Saturday, the 29th June. At midnight the balloon was brought to the spot, but the inflation was not completed until nearly 10 o'clock, A.M.

It has since been proved that the balloon was old and worn, and that it ought not to have been supplied for such an occasion.

It was obviously patched, and it is now known that two seamstresses were employed during the preceding day in mending it, and some stitching even was found necessary after it had arrived at the Observatory.

The net-work which included and supported the car was new, and not originally made with a view to the balloon it inclosed, the consequences of which will be presently seen.

The night, between Friday and Saturday, was one of continual rain, and the balloon and its netting became thoroughly saturated with moisture. By the time the inflation had been completed, it became evident that the net-work was too small; but in the anxiety to carry into effect the project, the consequences of this were most unaccountably overlooked. We say unaccountably, because it is extremely difficult to conceive how experimental philosophers and practiced observers, like MM. Arago and Regnault, to say nothing of numerous subordinate scientific agents who were present, did not anticipate what must have ensued in the upper regions of the air. Nevertheless, such was the fact.

On the morning of Saturday, the instruments being duly deposited in the car, the two enterprising voyagers placed themselves in it, and the balloon, which previously had been held down by the strength of twenty men, was liberated, and left to plunge into the ocean of air, at twenty-seven minutes after ten o'clock.

The weather, as we have already stated, was unfavorable, the sky being charged with clouds. As it was the purpose of this project to examine much higher regions of the atmosphere than those which it had been customary for aeronautic exhibitors to rise to, the arrangements of ballast and inflation which were adopted, were such as to cause the ascent to be infinitely more rapid than in the case of public exhibitions; in short, the balloon darted upward with the speed of an arrow, and in two minutes from the moment it was liberated, that is to say, at twenty-nine minutes past ten, plunged into the clouds, and was withdrawn from the anxious view of the distinguished persons assembled in the garden of the Observatory.

While passing through this dense cloud, the voyagers carefully observed the barometer, and knew by the rapid fall of the mercury that they were ascending with a great velocity. Fifteen minutes elapsed before they emerged from the cloud; when they did so, however, a glorious spectacle presented itself. The balloon, emerging from the superior surface of the cloud, rose under a splendid canopy of azure, and shone with the rays of a brilliant sun. The cloud which they had just passed, was soon seen several thousand feet below them. From the observations taken with the barometer and thermometer, it was afterward found that the thickness of the cloud through which they had passed, was 9800 feet--a little less than two miles. On emerging from the cloud, our observers examined the barometer, and found that the mercury had fallen to the height of 18 inches; the thermometer showed a temperature of 45° Fahr. The height of the balloon above the level of the sea was then 14,200 feet. At the moment of emerging from the cloud, M. Barral made polariscopic observation, which established a fact foreseen by M. Arago, that the light reflected from the surface of the clouds, was unpolarized light.

The continued and somewhat considerable fall of the barometer informed the observers that their ascent still continued to be rapid. The rain which had previously fallen, and which wetted the balloon, and saturated the cordage forming the net-work, had now ceased, or, to speak more correctly, the balloon had passed above the region in which the rain prevailed. The strong action of the sun, and almost complete dryness of the air in which the vast machine now floated, caused the evaporation of the moisture which enveloped it. The cordage and the balloon becoming dry, and thus relieved of a certain weight of liquid, was affected as though a quantity of ballast had been thrown out, and it darted upward with increased velocity.

It was within one minute of eleven, when the observers finding the barometer cease the upward motion, and finding that the machine oscillated round a position of equilibrium by noticing the bearing of the sun, they found the epoch favorable for another series of observations. The barometer there indicated that the balloon had attained the enormous height of 19,700 feet. The moisture which had invested the thermometer had frozen upon it, and obstructed, for the moment, observations with it. It was while M. Barral was occupied in wiping the icicles from it, that, turning his eye upward, he beheld what would have been sufficient to have made the stoutest heart quail with fear.

To explain the catastrophe which at this moment, and at nearly 20,000 feet above the surface of the earth, and about a mile above the highest strata of the clouds, menaced the voyagers, we must recur to what we have already stated in reference to the balloon and the net-work. As it was intended to ascend to an unusual altitude, it was of course known, that in consequence of the highly rarefied state of the atmosphere, and its very much diminished pressure, the gas contained in the balloon would have a great tendency to distend, and, consequently, space must be allowed for the play of this effect. The balloon, therefore, at starting, was not nearly filled with gas, and yet, as we have explained it, very nearly filled the net-work which inclosed it. Is it not strange that some among the scientific men present did not foresee, that when it would ascend into a highly rarefied atmosphere, it would necessarily distend itself to such a magnitude, that the netting would be utterly insufficient to contain it? Such effect, so strangely unforeseen, now disclosed itself practically realized to the astonished and terrified eyes of M. Barral.

The balloon, in fact, had so swelled as not only completely to fill the netting which covered it, but to force its way, in a frightful manner, through the hoop under it, from which the car, and the voyagers were suspended.

In short, the inflated silk protruding downward through the hoop, now nearly touched the heads of the voyagers. In this emergency the remedy was sufficiently obvious.

The valve must be opened, and the balloon breathed, so as to relieve it from the over-inflation. Now, it is well known, that the valve in this machine is placed in a sort of sleeve, of a length more or less considerable, connected with the lower part of the balloon, through which sleeve the string-of the valve passes. M. Barral, on looking for this sleeve, found that it had disappeared. Further search showed that the balloon being awkwardly and improperly placed in the inclosing net-work, the valve-sleeve, instead of hanging clear of the hoop, had been gathered up in the net-work above the hoop; so that, to reach it, it would have been necessary to have forced a passage between the inflated silk and the hoop.

Now, here it must be observed, that such an incident could never have happened to the most commonly-practiced balloon exhibitor, whose first measure, before leaving the ground, would be to secure access to, and the play of the valve. This, however, was, in the present case, fatally overlooked. It was, in fine, now quite apparent, that either of two effects must speedily ensue--viz.: either the car and the voyagers would be buried in the inflated silk which was descending upon them, and thus they would he suffocated, or that the force of distention must burst the balloon. If a rupture were to take place in that part immediately over the car, then the voyagers would be suffocated by an atmosphere of hydrogen; if it should take place at a superior part, then the balloon, rapidly discharged of its gas, would be precipitated to the earth, and the destruction of its occupants rendered inevitable.

Under these circumstances the voyagers did not lose their presence of mind, but calmly considered their situation, and promptly decided upon the course to be adopted. M. Barral climbed up the side of the car, and the net-work suspending it, and forced his way through the hoop, so as to catch hold of the valve-sleeve. In this operation, however, he was obliged to exercise a force which produced a rent in a part of the silk below the hoop, and immediately over the car. In a moment the hydrogen gas issued with terrible force from the balloon, and the voyagers found themselves involved in an atmosphere of it.

Respiration became impossible, and they were nearly suffocated. A glance at the barometer, however, showed them that they were falling to the ground with the most fearful rapidity.

During a few moments they experienced all the anguish attending asphyxia. From this situation, however, they were relieved more speedily than they could then have imagined possible; but the cause which relieved them soon became evident, and inspired them with fresh terrors.

M. Barral, from the indications of the barometer, knew that they were being precipitated to the surface of the earth with a velocity so prodigious, that the passage of the balloon through the atmosphere dispelled the mass of hydrogen with which they had been surrounded.

It was, nevertheless, evident that the small rent which had been produced in the lower part of the balloon, by the abortive attempt to obtain access to the valve, could not have been the cause of a fall so rapid.

M. Barral, accordingly, proceeded to examine the external surface of the balloon, as far as it was visible from the car, and, to his astonishment and terror, he discovered that a rupture had taken place, and that a rent was made, about five feet in length, along the equator of the machine, through which, of course, the gas was now escaping in immense quantities. Here was the cause of the frightful precipitation of the descent, and a source of imminent danger in the fall.

M. Barral promptly decided on the course to be taken.

It was resolved to check the descent by the discharge of the ballast, and every other article of weight. But this process, to be effectual, required to be conducted with considerable coolness and skill. They were some thousand feet above the clouds. If the ballast were dismissed too soon, the balloon must again acquire a perilous velocity before it would reach the earth. If, on the other hand, its descent were not moderated in time, its fall might become so precipitate as to be ungovernable. Nine or ten sand-bags being, therefore, reserved for the last and critical moment, all the rest of the ballast was discharged. The fall being still frightfully rapid, the voyagers cast out, as they descended through the cloud already mentioned, every article of weight which they had, among which were the blankets and woolen clothing which they had brought to cover them in the upper regions of the atmosphere, their shoes, several bottles of wine, all, in fine, save and except the philosophical instruments. These they regarded as the soldier does his flag, not to be surrendered save with life. M. Bixio, when about to throw over a trifling apparatus, called an aspirator, composed of copper, and filled with water, was forbidden by M. Barral, and obeyed the injunction.

They soon emerged from the lower stratum of the cloud, through which they had fallen in less than two minutes, having taken fifteen minutes to ascend through it. The earth was now in sight, and they were dropping upon it like a stone. Every weighty article had been dismissed, except the nine sand-bags, which had been designedly reserved to break the shock on arriving at the surface. They observed that they were directly over some vine-grounds near Lagny, in the department of the Seine and Marne, and could distinctly see a number of laborers engaged in their ordinary toil, who regarded with unmeasured astonishment the enormous object about to drop upon them. It was only when they arrived at a few hundred feet from the surface that the nine bags of sand were dropped by M. Barral, and by this man[oe]uvre the lives of the voyagers were probably saved. The balloon reached the ground, and the car struck among the vines. Happily the wind was gentle; but gentle as it was it was sufficient, acting upon the enormous surface of the balloon, to drag the car along the ground, as if it were drawn by fiery and ungovernable horses. Now arrived a moment of difficulty and danger, which also had been foreseen and provided for by M. Barral. If either of the voyagers had singly leaped from the car, the balloon, lightened of so much weight, would dart up again into the air. Neither voyager would consent, then, to purchase his own safety at the risk of the other. M. Barral, therefore, threw his body half down from the car, laying hold of the vine-stakes, as he was dragged along, and directing M. Bixio to hold fast to his feet. In this way the two voyagers, by their united bodies, formed a sort of anchor, the arms of M. Barral playing the part of the fluke, and the body of M. Bixio that of the cable.

In this way M. Barral was dragged over a portion of the vineyard rapidly, without any other injury than a scratch or contusion of the face, produced by one of the vine-stakes.

The laborers just referred to meanwhile collected, and pursued the balloon, and finally succeeded in securing it, and in liberating the voyagers, whom they afterward thanked for the bottles of excellent wine which, as they supposed, had fallen from the heavens, and which, wonderful to relate, had not been broken from the fall, although, as has been stated, they had been discharged above the clouds. The astonishment and perplexity of the rustics can be imagined on seeing these bottles drop in the vineyard.

This fact also shows how perpendicularly the balloon must have dropped, since the bottles dismissed from such a height, fell in the same field where, in a minute afterward, the balloon also dropped.

The entire descent from the altitude of twenty thousand feet was effected in seven minutes, being at the average rate of fifty feet per second.

In fine, we have to report that these adventurous partisans of science, nothing discouraged by the catastrophe which has occurred have resolved to renew the experiment under, as may he hoped, less inauspicious circumstances; and we trust that on the next occasion they will not disdain to avail themselves of the co-operation and presence of some one of those persons, who having hitherto practiced aerial navigation for the mere purposes of amusement, will, doubtless, be too happy to invest one at least of their labors with a more useful and more noble character.

(From the Dublin University Magazine.)

ANDREW CARSON'S MONEY; A STORY OF GOLD.

The night of a bitter winter day had come; frost, and hail, and snow carried a sense of new desolation to the cold hearths of the moneyless, while the wealthy only drew the closer to their bright fires, and experienced stronger feelings of comfort.

In a small back apartment of a mean house, in one of the poorest quarters of Edinburgh, a young man sat with a pen in his fingers, endeavoring to write, though the blue tint of his nails showed that the blood was almost frozen in his hands. There was no fire in the room; the old iron grate was rusty and damp, as if a fire had not blazed in it for years; the hail dashed against the fractured panes of the window; the young man was poorly and scantily dressed, and he was very thin, and bilious to all appearance; his sallow, yellow face and hollow eyes told of disease, misery, and the absence of hope.

His hand shook with cold, as, by the light of the meanest and cheapest of candles, he slowly traced line after line, with the vain thought of making money by his writings. In his boyish days he had entered the ranks of literature, with the hopes of fame to lead him on, but disappointment after disappointment, and miserable circumstances of poverty and suffering had been his fate: now the vision of fame had become dim in his sick soul--he was writing with the hope of gaining money, any trifle, by his pen.

Of all the ways of acquiring money to which the millions bend their best energies, that of literature is the most forlorn. The artificers of necessaries and luxuries, for the animal existence, have the world as their customers; but those who labor for the mind have but a limited few, and therefore the supply of mental work is infinitely greater than the demand, and thousands of the unknown and struggling, even though possessed of much genius, must sink before the famous few who monopolize the literary market, and so the young writer is overlooked. He may be starving, but his manuscripts will be returned to him; the emoluments of literature are flowing in other channels; he is one added to the thousands too many in the writing world; his efforts may bring him misery and madness, but not money.

The door of the room opened, and a woman entered; and advancing near the little table on which the young man was writing, she fixed her eyes on him with a look in which anger, and the extreme wretchedness which merges on insanity, were mingled. She seemed nearly fifty; her features had some remaining traces of former regularity and beauty, but her whole countenance now was a volume filled with the most squalid suffering and evil passions; her cheeks and eyes were hollow, as if she had reached the extreme of old age; she was emaciated to a woeful degree; her dress was poor dirty, and tattered, and worn without any attempt at proper arrangement.

"Writing! writing! writing! Thank God, Andrew Carson, the pen will soon drop from your fingers with starvation."

The woman said this in a half-screaming, but weak and broken-down voice.

"Mother, let me have some peace," said the young writer, turning his face away, so that he might not see her red glaring eyes fixed on him.

"Ay, Andrew Carson, I say thank God that the force of hunger will soon now make you drop that cursed writing. Thank God, if there _is_ the God that my father used to talk about in the long nights in the bonnie highland glen, where it's like a dream of lang syne that I ever lived."

She pressed her hands on her breast, as if some recollections of an overpowering nature were in her soul.

"The last rag in your trunk has gone to the pawn; you have neither shirt, nor coat, nor covering now, except what you've on. Write--write--if you can, without eating; to-morrow you'll have neither meat nor drink here, nor aught now to get money on."

"Mother, I am in daily expectation of receiving something for my writing now; the post this evening may bring me some good news."

He said this with hesitation, and there was little of hope in the expression of his face.

"Good news! good news about your writing! that's the good news 'ill never come; never, you good-for-nothing scribbler!"

She screamed forth the last words in a voice of frenzy. Her tone was a mixture of Scotch and Irish accents. She had resided for some years of her earlier life in Ireland.

As the young writer looked at her and listened to her, the pen shook in his hand.

"Go out, and work, and make money. Ay, the working people can live on the best, while you, with that pen in your fingers, are starving yourself and me."

"Mother, I am not strong enough for labor, and my tastes are strongly, very strongly, for literature."

"Not strong enough! you're twenty past. It's twenty long years since the cursed night I brought you into the world." The young writer gazed keenly on his mother, for he was afraid she was under the influence of intoxication, as was too often the case; but he did not know how she could have obtained money, as he knew there was not a farthing in the house. The woman seemed to divine the meaning of his looks--

"I'm not drunk, don't think it," she cried; "it's the hunger and the sorrow that's in my head."

"Well, mother, perhaps this evening's post may have some good intelligence."

"What did the morning's post bring? There, there--don't I see it--them's the bonnie hopes of yours."

She pointed to the table, where lay a couple of returned manuscripts. Andrew glanced toward the parcel, and made a strong effort to suppress the deep sigh which heaved his breast.

"Ay, there it is--there's a bundle of that stuff ye spend your nights and days writing; taking the flesh off your bones, and making that face of yours so black and yellow; it's your father's face, too--ay--well it's like him now, indeed--the ruffian. I wish I had never seen him, nor you, nor this world."

"My father," said Andrew, and a feeling of interest overspread his bloodless face. "You have told me little of him. Why do you speak of him so harshly?"

"Go and work, and make money, I say. I tell you I must get money; right or wrong, I must get it; there's no living longer, and enduring what I've endured. I dream of being rich; I waken every morning from visions where my hands are filled with money; that wakening turns my head, when I know and see there is not a halfpenny in the house, and when I see you, my son, sitting there, working like a fool with pen and brain, but without the power to earn a penny for me. Go out and work with your hands, I say again, and let me get money--do any thing, if it brings money. There is the old woman over the way, who has a working son; his mother may bless God that he is a shoemaker and not a poet; she is the happy woman, so cozily covered with warm flannel and stuff this weary weather, and her mutton, and her tea, and her money jingling in her pocket forever; that's what a working son can do--a shoemaker can do that."

At this some noise in the kitchen called Mrs. Carson away, to the great relief of Andrew. He rose, and closed the door gently after her. He seated himself again, and took up his pen, but his head fell listlessly on his hand; he felt as if his mother's words were yet echoing in his ears. From his earliest infancy he had regarded her with fear and wonder, more than love.

Mrs. Carson was the daughter of a Scotch Presbyterian clergyman, who was suspected by his brethren in the ministry of entertaining peculiar views of religion on some points, and also of being at intervals rather unsound in his mind. He bestowed, however, a superior education on his only daughter, and instructed her carefully himself until his death, which occurred when she was not more than fourteen. As her father left her little if any support, she was under the necessity of going to reside with relations in Ireland, who moved in a rather humble rank. Of her subsequent history little was known to Andrew; she always maintained silence regarding his father, and seemed angry when he ventured to question her. Andrew was born in Ireland, and resided there until about his eighth year, when his mother returned to Scotland.

It was from his mother Andrew had gained all the little education that had been bestowed on him. That education was most capriciously imparted, and in its extent only went the length of teaching him to read partially; for whatever further advances he had made he was indebted to his own self-culture. At times his mother would make some efforts to impress on him the advantages of education: she would talk of poetry, and repeat specimens of the poets which her memory had retained from the period of her girlhood in her father's house; but oftenest the language of bitterness, violence, and execration was on her lips. With the never-ceasing complaints of want--want of position, want of friends, but, most of all, want of money--sounding in his ears, Andrew grew up a poet. The unsettled and aimless mind of his mother, shadowed as it was with perpetual blackness, prevented her from calmly and wisely striving to place her son in some position by which he could have aided in supporting himself and her. As a child, Andrew was shy and solitary, caring little for the society of children of his own years, and taking refuge from the never-ceasing violence of his mother's temper in the privacy of his own poor bedroom, with some old book which he had contrived to borrow, or with his pen, for he was a writer of verses from an early age.

Andrew was small-sized, sickly, emaciated, and feeble in frame; his mind had much of the hereditary weakness visible in his mother; his imagination and his passions were strong, and easily excited to such a pitch as to overwhelm for the moment his reason. With a little-exercised and somewhat defective judgment; with no knowledge of the world; with few books; with a want of that tact possessed by some intellects, of knowing and turning to account the tendencies of the age in literature, it was hardly to be expected that Andrew would soon succeed as a poet, though his imagination was powerful, and there was pathos and even occasional sublimity in his poetry. For five long years he had been toiling and striving without any success whatever in his vocation, in the way of realizing either fame or emolument.

Now, as he sat with his eyes fixed on the two returned manuscripts on his table, his torturing memory passed in review before him the many times his hopes had been equally lost. He was only twenty years of age, yet he had endured so many disappointments! He shook and trembled with a convulsive agony as he recalled poem after poem, odes, sonnets, epics, dramas--he had tried every thing; he had built so many glorious expectations on each as, night after night, shivering with cold and faint with sickness, he had persisted in gathering from his mind, and arranging laboriously, the brightest and most powerful of his poetical fancies, and hoped, and was often almost sure, they would spread broadly, and be felt deeply in the world. But there they had all returned to him--there they lay, unknown, unheard of--they were only so much waste paper.

As each manuscript had found its way back to him, he had received every one with an increasing bitterness and despair, which gradually wrought his brain almost to a state of mental malady. By constitution he was nervous and melancholy: the utmost of the world's success would hardly have made him happy; he had no internal strength to cope with disappointment--no sanguine hopes pointing to a brighter future: he was overwhelmed with present failures. One moment he doubted sorely the power of his own genius: and the thought was like death to him, for without fame--without raising himself a name and a position above the common masses--he felt he could not live. Again, he would lay the whole blame on the undiscerning publishers to whom his poetry had been sent; he would anathematize them all with the fierce bitterness of a soul which was, alas! unsubdued in many respects by the softening and humbling influences of the religion of Christ. He had not the calm reflection which might have told him that, young, uneducated, utterly unlearned in the world and in books as he was, his writings must of necessity have a kind of inferiority to the works of those possessed of more advantages. He had no deep, sober principles or thoughts; his thoughts were feelings which bore him on their whirlwind course to the depths of agony, and to the brink of the grave, for his health was evidently seriously impaired by the indulgence of long-continued emotions of misery.

He took up one of the rejected manuscripts in his hand: it was a legendary poem, modeled something after the style of Byron, though the young author would have violently denied the resemblance. He thought of the pains he had bestowed on it--of the amount of thought and dreams--the sick, languid headaches, the pained breast, the weary mind it had so often occasioned him; then he saw the marks of tears on it--the gush of tears which had come as if to extinguish the fire of madness which had kindled in his brain. When he saw that manuscript returned to him, the marks of the tears were there staining the outside page. He looked fixedly on that manuscript, and his thin face became darker, and more expressive of all that is hopeless in human sorrow; the bright light of success shone as if so far away from him now--away at an endless distance, which neither his strength of body or mind could ever carry him over.

At that moment the sharp, rapid knock of the postman sounded in his ears. His heart leaped up, and then suddenly sank with suffocating fear, for the dark mood of despair was on him--could it be another returned manuscript? He had only one now in the hands of a publisher; the one on which he had expended all his powers--the one to which he had trusted most: it was a tragedy. He had dreamed the preceding night that it had been accepted; he had dreamed it had brought him showers of gold; he had been for a moment happy beyond the bounds of human happiness, though he had awoke with a sense of horror on his mind, he knew not why. The publisher to whom he had sent his tragedy was to present it to the manager of one of the London theatres. Had it been taken, performed, successful?--a dream of glory, as if heaven had opened on him, bewildered his senses.

The door was rudely pushed open; his mother entered, and flung the manuscript of the returned tragedy on the table.

"There--there's another of them!" she cried, rage choked her voice for a moment.

Andrew was stunned. Despair seemed to have frozen him all at once into a statue. He mechanically took up the packet, and, opening it, he read the cold, polite, brief note, which told of the rejection of his play both by theatres and publishers.

"Idiot--fool--scribbling fool!"

The unfortunate poet's mother sank into a chair, as if unable to support the force of her anger.

"Fool!--scribbling madman! will ye never give over?"

Andrew made no answer; but every one of his mother's furious words sank into his brain, adding to the force of his unutterable misery.

"Will ye go now, and take to some other trade, will ye?--will ye, I say?"

Andrew's lips moved for a moment, but no sound came from them.

"Will ye go out, and make money, I say, at some sensible work? Make money for me, will you? I'll force you out to make money at some work by which there's money to be made; not the like of that idiot writing of yours, curse it. Answer me, and tell me you'll go out and work for money now?"

She seized his arm, and shook it violently; but still he made no response.

"You will not speak. Listen, then--listen to me, I say; I'll tell it all now; you'll hear what you never heard before. I did not tell you before, because I pitied you--because I thought you would work for me, and earn money; but you will not promise it. Now, then, listen. You are the very child of money--brought into existence by the influence of money; you would never have been in being had it not been for money. I always told you I was married to your father; I told you a falsehood--he bound me to him by the ties of money only."

A violent shudder passed over Andrew's frame at this intelligence, but still he said nothing.

"You shall hear it all--I shall tell you particularly the whole story. It was not for nothing you were always afraid of being called a bastard. It's an ugly word, but it belongs to you--ay, ay, ye always trembled at that word, since ye were able to go and play among the children in the street. They called ye that seven years ago--ten years ago, when we came here first, and you used to come crying to me, for you could not bear it, you said. I denied it then--I told you I was married to your father; I told you a lie: I told you that, because I thought you would grow up and work for me, and get me money. You won't do it; you will only write--write all day and all night, too, though I've begged you to quit it. You have me here starving. What signifies the beggarly annuity your father left to me, and you, his child? It's all spent long before it comes, and here we are with nothing, not a crust, in the house, and it's two months till next paying time.

"Listen--I'll tell you the whole story of your birth; maybe that will put you from writing for a while, if you have the spirit you used to have when they told you what you were."

She shook his arm again, without receiving any answer; his head had fallen on his hands, and he remained fixed in one position. His mother's eyes glared on him with a look in which madness was visible, together with a tigress-like expression of ferocity which rarely appears on the face of a mother, or of any human being, where insanity does not exist. When she spoke, however, her words were collected, and her manner was impressive and even dignified; the look of maniac anger gradually wore away from her face, and in every sentence she uttered there were proofs that something of power had naturally existed in her fallen and clouded mind.

"Want of money was the earliest thing I remember to feel," she said, as she seated herself, with something more of composure in her manner. "There was never any money in my father's house. I wondered at first where it could all go; I watched and reflected, and used all means of finding out the mystery. At last I knew it--my father drank; in the privacy of his room, when no eye was on him, he drank, drank. He paid strict enough attention to my education. I read with him much; he had stores of books. I read the Bible with him, too; often he spent long evenings expounding it to me. But I saw the hollowness of it all--he hardly believed himself; he doubted--doubted all, while he would fain have made me a believer. I saw it well: I heard him rave of it in a fever into which drink had thrown him. All was dark to him, he said, when he was near dying; but he had taught his child to believe; he had done his best to make her believe. He did not know my heart; I was his own child; I longed for sensual things; my heart burned with a wish for money, but it all went for drink. Had I but been able then to procure food and clothes as others of my rank did, the burning wish for money that consumed my heart then and now might never have been kindled, and I might have been rich as those often become who have never wished for riches. Yes, the eagerness of my wishes has always driven money far away from me; that cursed gold and silver, it flows on them who have never worshiped it--never longed for it till their brain turned; and it will not come to such as me, whose whole life has been a desire for it. Well, my father died, and I was left without a penny; all the furniture went to pay the spirit-merchant. I went to Ireland; I lived with relations who were poor and ignorant: I heard the cry of want of money there too. A father and mother and seven children, and me, the penniless orphan: we all wanted money--all cried for it. At last my cry was answered in a black way; I saw the sight of money at last; a purse heaped, overflowing with money, was put into my hands. My brain got giddy at the sight; sin and virtue became all one to me at the sight. Gold, gold! my father would hardly ever give me one poor shilling; the people with whom I lived hardly ever had a shilling among them. I became the mistress of a rich man--a married man; his wife and children were living there before my eyes--a profligate man; his sins were the talk of the countryside. I hated him; he was old, deformed, revolting; but he chained me to him by money. Then I enjoyed money for a while; I kept that purse in my hand; I laid it down so as my eyes would rest on it perpetually. I dressed; I squandered sum after sum; the rich man who kept me had many other expenses: his money became scantier; we quarreled; another offered me more money--I went to him."

A deep groan shook the whole frame of the unfortunate young poet at this statement--a groan which in its intensity might have separated soul and body.

"Let me go--let me go!" he cried, raising himself for a moment, and then sinking back again in his chair in a passive state.

His mother seemed a little softened by his agitation, though she made no comment on it, but continued her narrative as if no interruption had taken place.

"Money took me to a new master; he was richer than the first; he bound my heart to him by the profusion of his money. He was old and withered, but his gold and silver reflected so brightly on his face, I came to think him handsome; he was your father; you were born; after your birth I think I even loved him. I urged him to marry me; he listened; he even promised--yes, marriage and money--money--they were almost in my very grasp. I was sure--sure--when he went to England to arrange some business, he said; he wrote fondly for a while; I lived in an elysium; money and an honorable marriage were my own. I had not one doubt; but he ceased to write to me--all at once he ceased; had it been a gradual drawing off, my brain would not have reeled as it did. At last, when fear and anxiety had almost thrown me into a fever, a letter came. It announced in a few words that your father was married to a young, virtuous, and wealthy lady; he had settled a small annuity on me for life, and never wished to see or hear from me again. A violent illness seized me then; it was a kind of burning fever. All things around me seemed to dazzle, and assume the form of gold and silver; I struggled and writhed to grasp the illusion; they were forced to tie my hands--to bind me down in my bed. I recovered at last, but I had grown all at once old, withered, stricken in mind and body by that sickness. For a long time--for years--I lived as if in a lingering dream; I had no keen perceptions of life; my wishes had little energy; my thoughts were confused and wandering; even the love of money and the want of money failed to stir me into any kind of action. I have something of the same kind of feeling still," she said, raising her hand to her head. "The burning fever into which I was thrown when your father's love vanished from me, is often here even yet, though its duration is brief; but it is sufficient to make me incapable of any exertion by which I could make money. I have trusted to you; I have hoped that you might be the means of raising me from my poverty; I have long hoped to see the gold and silver of your earning. I did not say much at first, when I saw you turning a poet; I had heard that poetry was the sure high-road to poverty, but I said little then. I was hardly able to judge and know rightly what you should do when you commenced writing in your boyhood; but my head is a little cooler now; the scorching fire of the money your father tempted me with, and then withdrew, is quenched a little by years. Now at last I see that you are wasting your time and health with that pen; you have not made one shilling--one single sixpence for me, yet, with that pen of yours; your health is going fast; I see the color of the grave on your thin cheeks. Now I command you to throw away your pen, and make money for me at any trade, no matter how low or mean."

As she spoke, there was a look approaching to dignity in her wasted face, and her tones were clear and commanding--the vulgar Irishism and Scoticism of dialect which, on common occasions, disfigured her conversation, had disappeared, and it was evident that her intellect had at one period been cultivated, and superior to the ordinary class of minds.

Andrew rose without saying one syllable in answer to his mother's communication; he threw his manuscripts and the sheets which he had written into a desk; he locked it with a nervous, trembling hand, and then turned to leave the room. His face was of the most ghastly paleness; his eyes were calm and fixed; he seemed sick at heart by the disclosure he had heard; his lips trembled and shook with agitation.

"Where are you going, Andrew? It's a bitter night."

"Mother, it is good enough for me--for a--"

He could not speak the hated word which rose to his lips; he had an early horror of that word; he had dreaded that his was a dishonorable birth: even in his boyish days he had feared it; his mother had often asserted to the contrary, but now she had dispelled the belief in which he had rested.

He opened the door hastily, and passed out into the storm, which was rushing against the windows.

A feeling of pity for him--a feeling of a mother's affection and solicitude, was stirred in Mrs. Carson's soul, as she listened to his departing footsteps, and then went and seated herself beside the embers of a dying fire in the kitchen; it was a small, cold, miserably-furnished kitchen; the desolation of the severe season met no counterbalancing power there; no cheering appearances of food, or fire, or any comforts were there. But the complaining spirit which cried and sighed perpetually was for once silent within Mrs. Carson's mind; something--perhaps the death-like aspect of her son, or a voice from her long stifled conscience--was telling her how ill she had fulfilled the duties of a mother. She felt remorse for the reproaches she had heaped on him before he had gone out in the storm.

She waited to hear his knock at the door; she longed for his returning steps; she felt that she would receive him with more of kindness than she had for a length of time displayed to him; she kept picturing to herself perpetually his thin face and emaciated figure, and a fear of his early death seized on her for the first time; she had been so engrossed by her own selfish wants, that she had scarcely remarked the failing health of her son. She started with horror at the probabilities which her naturally powerful fancy suggested. She resolved to call in medical aid immediately, for she was sure now that Andrew's constitution was sinking fast. But how would she pay for medical aid? she had not one farthing to procure advice. At this thought the yearning, burning desire for money which had so long made a part of her existence came back with full force; she sat revolving scheme after scheme, plan after plan, of how she could procure it. Hours passed away, but still she sat alone, silently cowering over the cinders of the fire.

At length she started up, fully awake, to a sense of wonder and dread at Andrew's long absence. She heard the sound of distant clocks striking twelve. It was unusual for Andrew to be out so late, for he had uniformly kept himself aloof from evil companions. The high poetical spirit within him, a spirit which utterly engrossed him, had kept him from the haunts of vice. His mother went to the door, and opening it, gazed on the narrow, mean street. The storm had passed away; the street was white with hail and snow; the moon shone clearly down between the tall but dilapidated houses of which the street or lane was composed; various riotous-looking people were passing by; and from a neighboring house the brisk strains of a violin came, together with the sound of voices and laughter. The house had a bad repute in the neighborhood, but Mrs. Carson never for an instant suspected her son was there. She looked anxiously along the street, and at every passing form she gazed earnestly, but none resembled her son.

For a long time she stood waiting and watching for the appearance of Andrew, but he did not come. At last, sinking with cold and weariness, and with a host of phantom fears rising up in her bewildered brain, and almost dragging her mind down into the gulf of utter madness, on the brink of which she had so long been, Mrs. Carson returned to the kitchen. As she looked on the last ember dying out on the hearth, a feeling of frenzy shook her frame. Andrew would soon return, shivering with cold, and she had no fire to warm him--no money to purchase fire. She thought of the wealthy--of their bright fires--and bitter envy and longing for riches gnawed her very heart and life. A broken deal chair was in a corner of the kitchen; she seized it, and after some efforts succeeded in wrenching off a piece, which she placed on the dying ember, and busied herself for some time in fanning; then she gathered every remaining fragment of coals from the recess at one side of the fire-place, in which they were usually kept, and with the pains and patience which poverty so sorely teaches, she employed herself in making some appearance of a fire. Had she been in her usual mood, she would have sat anathematizing her son for his absence at such an hour; but now every moment, as she sat awaiting his return, her heart became more kindly disposed toward him, and an uneasy feeling of remorse for her past life was each instant gaining strength amidst the variety of strange spectral thoughts and fancies which flitted through her diseased mind. At some moments she fancied she saw her father seated opposite to her on the hearth, and heard him reading from the Bible, as he did so often in her girlish days: then again he was away in the privacy of his own room, and she was watching him through a crevice of the door, and she saw him open the cabinet he kept there, and take out liquor, ardent spirits, and he drank long and deep draughts, until gradually he sank down on his bed in the silent, moveless state of intoxication which had so long imposed on her, for she had once believed that her father was subject to fits of a peculiar kind. She groaned and shuddered as this vision was impressed on her; she saw the spirit of evil which had destroyed her father attaching itself next to her own fate, and leading her into the depths of guilt, and she trembled for her son. Had he now fallen in sin? was some evil action detaining him to such an hour? He was naturally inclined to good, she knew--strangely good and pure had his life been, considering he was her child, and reared so carelessly as she had reared him; but now he had been urged to despair by her endless cry for money, and, perhaps, he was at that very instant engaged in some robbery, by which he would be able to bring money to his mother.

So completely enslaved had her mind become to a lust for money, that the thought of his gaining wealth by any means was for some time delightful to her; she looked on their great poverty, and she felt, in her darkened judgment, that they had something of a right to take forcibly a portion of the superabundant money of the rich. Her eyes glared with eagerness for the sight of her son returning with money, even though that money was stolen; the habitual mood of her mind prevailed rapidly over the impressions of returning goodness and affection which for a brief period had awoke within her.

In the midst of the return of her overwhelming desire for money, Andrew's knock came to the door. The eager inquiry whether he had brought any money with him was bursting from her lips the moment she opened the door and beheld him, but she was cheeked by the sight of two strangers who accompanied him. Andrew bade the men follow him, and walked rapidly to the kitchen; the tones of his voice were so changed and hollow that his mother hardly recognized him to be her son.

He requested the men to be seated, telling them that when the noise on the street would be quiet and the people dispersed they would get that for which they had come. At that moment a drunken broil on the street had drawn some watchmen to the neighborhood.

He bade his mother follow him, and proceeded hastily to his own room. By the aid of a match he lighted the miserable candle by which, some hours previously, he had been writing.

"Mother, here is money--gold--here--your hand." He pressed some gold coins into her hand. "Gold! ay, gold, gold, indeed!" gasped his mother, the intensity of her joy repressing for the instant all extravagant demonstrations of it.

"Go, go away to the kitchen; in about five or ten minutes let the men come here, and they will get what I have sold them."

"Money! money at last; gold--gold!" cried his mother, altogether unconscious of what her son was saving, and only awake to the blessed sense of having at last obtained money.

"Away, I say; go to the kitchen. I have no time to lose."

"Money! blessings, blessings on you and God--money!" She seemed still in ignorance of Andrew's request that she would withdraw.

"Away, I say, I must be alone; away to the kitchen, and leave me alone; but let the men come here in a few minutes and take what they have purchased."

He spoke with a strange energy. She obeyed him at last, and left the room: she remembered afterward that his face was like that of a dead man when he addressed her.

She returned to the kitchen. The two men were seated where she had left them, and were conversing together: their strong Irish accent told at once their country. Mrs. Carson paid no attention to them; she neither spoke to them nor looked at them; she held tightly clasped in her hand the few gold coins her son had given her; she walked about like one half distracted, addressing audible thanksgiving to God one instant, and the next felicitating herself in an insane manner on having at last obtained some money. The two men commented on her strange manners, and agreed that she was mad, stating their opinions aloud to each other, but she did not hear them.

The noise and quarreling on the street continued for some time, and the men manifested no impatience while it lasted. All became quiet after a time; the desertion and silence of night seemed at last to have settled down on the street. The two men then manifested a strong wish to finish the business on which they had come.

"I say, whereabouts is it--where's the snatch, my good woman?" said one of the men, addressing Mrs. Carson.

She looked on him and his companion with amazement mingled with something of fear, for the aspects of both were expressive of low ruffianism.

"She's mad, don't you see," said the one who had not addressed her.

The other cursed deeply, saying that as they had given part payment, they would get their errand, or their money back again.

At this, a gleam of recollection crossed Mrs. Carson's mind, and she informed them that her son had mentioned about something they had purchased, which was in his room. She thought at the instant, that perhaps he had disposed of one of his manuscripts at last, though she wondered at the appearance of the purchasers of such an article.

"That's it," cried the men; "show us the way to the room fast; it's all quiet now."

Anxious to get rid of the men, Mrs. Carson proceeded hastily to her son's room, followed closely by the men. The first object she saw, on opening the door, was Andrew, leaning on his desk; the little desk stood on the table, and Andrew's head and breast were lying on it, as if he was asleep. There was something in his fixed attitude which struck an unpleasant feeling to his mother's heart.

"Andrew!" she said; "Andrew, the men are here."

All was silent. No murmur of sleep or life came from Andrew. His mother ran to his side, and grasped his arm: there was no sound, no motion. She raised his head with one hand, while at the same time she glanced at an open letter, on which a few lines were scrawled in a large, hurried hand. Every word and letter seemed to dilate before her eyes, as in a brief instant of time she read the following:

"Mother, I have taken poison. I have sold my body to a doctor for dissection; the money I gave you is part of the price. You have upbraided me for never making money: I have sold all I possess--my body--and given you money. You have told me of the stain on my birth; I can not live and write after that; all the poetical fame in this world would not wash away such a stain. Your bitter words, my bitter fate, I can bear no longer; I go to the other world; God will pardon me. Yes, yes, from the bright moon and stars this night, there came down a voice, saying, God would take me up to happiness amid his own bright worlds. Give my body to the men who are waiting for it, and so let every trace of Andrew Carson vanish from your earth."

With a lightning rapidity Mrs. Carson scanned each word; and not until she had read it all, did a scream of prolonged and utter agony, such as is rarely heard even in this world of grief burst from her lips; and with a gesture of frenzied violence she flung the money she had kept closely grasped in her hand at the men. One of them stooped to gather it up, and the other ran toward Andrew, and raised his inanimate body a little from its recumbent position. He was quite dead, however; a bottle, marked "Prussic Acid," was in his hand. The two men, having recovered the money, hurried away, telling Mrs. Carson they would send immediate medical aid, to see if any thing could be done for the unfortunate young man. Mrs. Carson did not hear them; a frenzied paroxysm seized her, and she lay on the floor screaming in the wild tones of madness, and utterly incapable of any exertion. She saw the money she had received with such rapture carried away from before her eyes, but she felt nothing: money had become terrible to her at last.

Her cries attracted a watchman from the street. A doctor was soon on the spot; but Andrew Carson was no more connected with flesh, and blood, and human life; he was away beyond recall, in the spirit-world.

An inquest was held on the body, and a verdict of temporary insanity returned, as is usual in such cases of suicide. The young poet was buried, and soon forgotten.

Mrs. Carson lingered for some weeks; her disease assumed something of the form of violent brain-fever; in her ravings she fancied perpetually that she was immersed in streams of fluid burning gold and silver. They were forcing her to drink draughts of that scorching gold, she would cry; all was burning gold and silver: all drink, all food, all air, and light, and space around her. At the very last she recovered her senses partially, and calling, with a feeble but calm voice, on her only beloved child, Andrew, she died.

NEANDER.

Germany has just lost one of her greatest Protestant theologians, AUGUSTUS NEANDER. He was born at Göttingen, Jan. 16, 1789, and died at Berlin, July 13, 1850, in his sixty-second year. He was of Jewish descent, as his strongly-marked features sufficiently evidence; but at the age of seventeen he embraced the Christian religion, to the defense of which his labors, and to the exemplification of which his life, were thenceforth devoted. Having studied theology at Halle, under Schleiermacher, he was appointed private lecturer at Heidelberg in 1811, and in the following year the first Professor of Theology at the Royal University of Berlin, which post he held to the time of his death, a period of thirty-eight years. Deservedly high as is his reputation abroad, it is still higher in his own country, where he was known not only as an author, but as a teacher, a preacher, and a man. The following is a list of his published works: The Emperor Julian and his Times, 1812; Bernard and his Times, 1813; Genetical Development of the Principal Gnostic Systems, 1818; Chrysostom and the Church in his Times, 1820 and 1832; Memorabilia from the History of Christianity and the Christian Life, 1822 and 1845-46; A Collection of Miscellanies, chiefly exegetical and historical, 1829; A Collection of Miscellanies, chiefly biographical, 1840; The Principle of the Reformation, or, Staupitz and Luther, 1840; History of the Planting and Training of the Christian Church, 4th ed., 1847; The Life of Jesus Christ in its Historical Connection and Historical Development, 4th ed., 1845; General History of the Christian Religion and Church, 1842-47. Neander is best known to readers of English by the last two works, both of which have been made accessible to them by American scholars.

The Life of Christ was undertaken to counteract the impression made by STRAUSS'S "Life of Christ," in which the attempt was made to apply the mythical theory to the entire structure of evangelical history. According to Strauss, the sum of the historical truth contained in the narratives of the evangelists is, that Jesus lived and taught in Judea, where he gathered disciples who believed that he was the Messiah. According to their preconceived notions, the life of the Messiah, and the period in which he lived, were to be illustrated by signs and wonders. Messianic legends existed ready-made, in the hopes and expectations of the people, only needing to be transferred to the person and character of Jesus. The appearance of this work produced a great sensation in Germany. It was believed by many that the book should be prohibited; and the Prussian government was inclined to this measure. Neander, however, advised that the book should rather be met by argument. His Life of Christ which was thus occasioned, wears, in consequence, a somewhat polemical aspect. It has taken the rank of a standard authority, both in German and in English, into which it has been admirably translated by Professors M'CLINTOCK and BLUMENTHAL.

The great work of Neander's life, and of which his various writings in the departments of Ecclesiastical History, Biography, Patristics, and Dogmatics are subsidiary, is the General History of the Christian Religion and Church. The first part of this, containing the history of the first three centuries, was published in 1825, and, improved and enlarged, in 1842--43. The second part, which brings the history down to the close of the sixth century, appeared originally in 1828, and in a second edition in 1846--47. These two parts, comprising four volumes of the German edition, are well known to English readers through the excellent version of Professor TORREY. This is a history of the inner development of Christian doctrines and opinions rather than of the external progress of the Church, and in connection with GIESELER'S Text-Book, furnishes by far the best apparatus for the study of ecclesiastical history now extant.

A correspondent of the _Boston Traveler_, writing under date of Berlin, July 22, gives the following graphic sketch of the personal characteristics of Neander:

"NEANDER is no more! He who for thirty-eight years has defeated the attacks upon the church from the side of rationalism and philosophy--who, through all the controversies among theologians in Germany, has remained true to the faith of his adoption, the pure and holy religion of Jesus Christ--Neander, the philosopher, the scholar--better, the great and good man--has been taken from the world.

"He was never married, but lived with his maiden sister. Often have I seen the two walking arm in arm upon the streets and in the parks of the city. Neander's habit of abstraction and short-sightedness rendered it necessary for him to have some one to guide the way whenever he left his study for a walk or to go to his lecture room. Generally, a student walked with him to the University, and just before it was time for his lecture to close, his sister could be seen walking up and down on the opposite side of the street, waiting to accompany him home.

"Many anecdotes are related of him illustrative of his absence of mind, such as his appearing in the lecture room half dressed--if left alone, always going to his old residence, after he had removed to another part of the city--walking in the gutter, &c, &c. In the lecture room, his manner was in the highest degree peculiar. He put his left arm over the desk, clasping the book in his hand, and after bringing his face close to the corner of his desk, effectually concealed it by holding his notes close to his nose.

"In one hand was always a quill, which, during the lecture, he kept constantly twirling about and crushing. He pushed the desk forward upon two legs, swinging it back and forth, and every few minutes would plunge forward almost spasmodically, throwing one foot back in a way leading you to expect that he would the next moment precipitate himself headlong down upon the desks of the students. Twirling his pen, occasional spitting, jerking his foot backward, taken with his dress, gave him a most eccentric appearance in the lecture room. Meeting him upon the street, with his sister, you never would have suspected that such a strange looking being could be Neander. He formerly had two sisters, but a few years ago the favorite one died. It was a trying affliction, and for a short interval he was quite overcome, but suddenly he dried his tears, calmly declared his firm faith and reliance in the wise purpose of God in taking her to himself, and resumed his lectures immediately as if nothing had over taken him to disturb his serenity.

"Neander's charity was unbounded. Poor students were not only presented with tickets to his lectures, but were also often provided by him with money and clothing. Not a farthing of the money received for his lectures ever went to supply his own wants; it was all given away for benevolent purposes. The income from his writings was bestowed upon the Missionary, Bible, and other societies, and upon hospitals. Thoughts of himself never seemed to have obtruded upon his mind. He would sometimes give away to a poor student all the money he had about him at the moment the request was made of him, even his new coat, retaining the old one for himself. You have known this great man in your country more on account of his learning, from his books, than in any other way; but here, where he has lived, one finds that his private character, his piety, his charity, have distinguished him above all others.

"It would be difficult to decide whether the influence of his example has not been as great as that of his writings upon the thousands of young men who have been his pupils. Protestants, Catholics, nearly all the leading preachers throughout Germany, have attended his lectures, and all have been more or less guided by him. While philosophy has been for years attempting to usurp the place of religion, Neander has been the chief instrument in combating it, and in keeping the true faith constantly before the students.

"He was better acquainted with Church History and the writings of the Fathers than any one of his time. It has been the custom upon the recurrence of his birth-day, for the students to present to him a rare edition of one of the Fathers, and thus he has come to have one of the most complete sets of their writings to be found in any library. Turning from his great literary attainments, from all considerations suggested by his profound learning, it is pleasant to contemplate the pure Christian character of the man. Although born a Jew, his whole life seemed to be a sermon upon the text, 'That disciple whom Jesus loved said unto Peter, _It is the Lord!'_ Neander's life resembled more 'that disciple's' than any other. He was the loving John, the new Church Father of our times.

"His sickness was only of a few days' duration. On Monday he held his lecture as usual. The next day he was seized with a species of cholera. A day or two of pain was followed by a lucid interval, when the physicians were encouraged to hope for his recovery. During this interval he dictated a page in his Church History, and then said to his sister--'I am weary--let us go home.' He had no time to die. He needed no further preparation; his whole life had been the best preparation, and up to the last moment we see him active in his master's service. The disease returned with redoubled force; a day or two more of suffering, and on Sunday, less than a week from the day of attack, he was dead.

"On the 17th of July I attended the funeral services. The procession of students was formed at the university, and marched to his dwelling. In the meantime, in the house, the theological students, the professors from Berlin, and from the University of Halle, the clergy, relatives, high officers of government, etc., were assembled to hear the funeral discourse. Professor Strauss, for forty-five years an intimate friend of Neander, delivered a sermon. During the exercises, the body, not yet placed in the coffin, was covered with wreaths and flowers, and surrounded with burning candles.

"The procession was of great length, was formed at 10 A.M. and moved through Unter den Linden as far as Frederick-street, and then the whole length of Frederick-street as far as the Elizabeth-street Cemetery. The whole distance, nearly two miles, the sides of the streets, doors and windows of the houses were filled with an immense concourse of people who had come to look upon the solemn scene. The hearse was surrounded with students, some of them from Halle, carrying lighted candles, and in advance was borne the Bible and Greek Testament which had ever been used by the deceased.

"At the grave, a choir of young men sang appropriate music, and a student from Halle made an affecting address. It was a solemn sight to see the tears gushing from the eyes of those who had been the pupils and friends of Neander. Many were deeply moved, and well might they join with the world in mourning for one who had done more than any one to keep pure the religion of Christ here in Germany.

"After the benediction was pronounced, every one present, according to the beautiful custom here, went to the grave and threw into it a handful of dirt, thus assisting at the burial. Slowly, and in scattered groups the crowd dispersed to their various homes.

"How insignificant all the metaphysical controversies of the age, the vain teachings of man, appeared to us as we stood at the grave-side of Neander. His was a far higher and holier faith, from which, like the Evangelist, he never wavered. In his life, in his death, the belief to which he had been converted, his watchword remained unchanged: 'It is the Lord!' His body has been consigned to the grave, but the sunset glory of his example still illumines our sky, and will forever light us onward to the path he trod."

THE DISASTERS OF A MAN WHO WOULDN'T TRUST HIS WIFE.

A TALE OF A TAILOR.

BY WM. HOWITT.

There are a multitude of places in this wide world, that we never heard of since the day of creation, and that never would become known to a soul beyond their own ten miles of circumference, except to those universal discoverers, the tax-gatherers, were it not that some sparks of genius may suddenly kindle there, and carry their fame through all countries and all generations. This has been the case many times, and will be the case again. We are now destined to hear the sound of names that our fathers never dreamed of; and there are other spots, now basking in God's blessed sunshine, of which the world knows and cares nothing, that shall, to our children, become places of worship, and pilgrimage. Something of this sort of glory was cast upon the little town of Rapps, in Bohemia, by the hero whose name stands conspicuously in this article, and whose pleasant adventures I flatter myself that I am destined to diffuse still further. HANS NADELTREIBER was the son of Mr. Strauss Nadeltreiber, who had, as well as his ancestors before him, for six generations, practiced, in the same little place, that most gentlemanly of all professions, a tailor--seeing that it was before all others, and was used and sanctioned by our father Adam.

Now Hans, from boyhood up, was a remarkable person. His father had known his share of troubles, and having two sons, both older than Hans, naturally looked in his old age to reap some comfort and assistance from their united labors. But the two elder sons successively had fled from the shop-board. One had gone for a soldier, and was shot; the other had learned the craft of a weaver, but being too fond of his pot, had broken his neck by falling into a quarry, as he went home one night from a carousal. Hans was left the sole staff for the old man to lean upon; and truly a worthy son he proved himself. He was as gentle as a dove, and as tender as a lamb. A cross word from his father, when he had made a cross stitch, would almost break his heart; but half a word of kindness revived him again--and he seldom went long without it; for the old man, though rendered rather testy and crabbed in his temper, by his many troubles and disappointments, was naturally of a loving, compassionate disposition, and, moreover, regarded Hans as the apple of his eye.

Hans was of a remarkably light, slender, active make, full of life and mettle. This moment he was on the board, stitching away with as much velocity as if he were working for a funeral or a wedding, at an hour's notice; the next, he was dispatching his dinner at the same rate; and the third beheld him running, leaping, and playing, among his companions, as blithe as a young kid. If he had a fault, it was being too fond of his fiddle. This was his everlasting delight. One would have thought that his elbow had labor enough, with jerking his needle some thirty thousand times a day; but it was in him a sort of universal joint--it never seemed to know what weariness was. His fiddle stood always on the board in a corner by him, and no sooner had he ceased to brandish his needle, than he began to brandish his fiddlestick. If ever he could be said to be lazy, it was when his father was gone out to measure, or try on; and his fiddle being too strong a temptation for him, he would seize upon it, and labor at it with all his might, till he spied his father turning his next corner homeward. Nevertheless, with this trifling exception, he was a pattern of filial duty; and now the time was come that his father must die--his mother was dead long before; and he was left alone in the world with his riddle. The whole house, board, trade--what there was of it--all was his. When he came to take stock, and make an inventory--in his head--of what he was worth, it was by no means such as to endanger his entrance into heaven at the proper time. Naturally enough, he thought of the Scripture simile of the rich man, and the camel getting through the eye of a needle; but it did not frighten him. His father never had much beforehand, when he had the whole place to himself; and now, behold! another knight of the steel-bar had come from--nobody knew where--a place often talked of, yet still a _terra incognita_; had taken a great house opposite, hoisted a tremendous sign, and threatened to carry away every shred of Hans's business.

In the depth of his trouble, he took to his fiddle, from his fiddle to his bed, and in his bed he had a dream--I thought we had done with these dreams!--in which he was assured, that could he once save the sum of fifty dollars, it would be the seed of a fortune; that he should flourish far beyond the scale of old Strauss; should drive his antagonist, in utter despair, from the ground; and should, in short, arrive eventually at no less a dignity than--Bürgermeister of Rapps!

Hans was, as I believe I have said, soon set up with the smallest spice of encouragement. He was, moreover, as light and nimble as a grasshopper, and, in his whole appearance, much such an animal, could it be made to stand on end. His dream, therefore, was enough. He vowed a vow of unconquerable might, and to it he went. Springing upon his board, he hummed a tune gayly:

There came the Hippopotamus, A sort of river-bottom-horse, Sneezing, snorting, blowing water From his nostrils, and around him Grazing up the grass--confound him! Every mouthful a huge slaughter!

Beetle, grasshopper, and May-fly, From his muzzle must away fly, Or he swallowed them by legions, His huge foot, it was a pillar; When he drank, it was a swiller! Soon a desert were those regions.

But the grasshoppers so gallant Called to arms each nimble callant, With their wings, and stings, and nippers, Bee, and wasp, and hornet, awful; Gave the villain such a jawful, That he slipped away in slippers!

"Ha! ha!--slipped down into the mud that he emerged from!" cried Hans, and, seizing his fiddle, dashed off the Hippopotamus in a style that did him a world of good, and makes us wish that we had the musical notes of it. Then he fell to, and day and night he wrought. Work came; it was done. He wanted little--a crust of bread and a merry tune were enough for him. His money grew; the sum was nearly accomplished, when, returning one evening from carrying out some work--behold! his door was open! Behold! the lid of his pot where he deposited his treasure was off! The money was gone!

This was a terrible blow. Hans raised a vast commotion. He did not even fail to insinuate that it might be the interloper opposite--the Hippopotamus. Who so likely as he, who had his eye continually on Hans's door? But no matter--the thief was clear off; and the only comfort he got from his neighbors, was being rated for his stinginess. "Ay," said they, "this comes of living like a curmudgeon, in a great house by yourself, working your eyes out to hoard up money. What must a young man like you do with scraping up pots full of money, like a miser? It is a shame!--it is a sin!--it is a judgment! Nothing better could come of it. At all events, you might afford to have a light burning in the house. People are ever likely to rob you. They see a house as dark as an oven; they see nobody in it; they go in and steal; nobody can see them come out--and that is just it. But were there a light burning, they would always think there was somebody in. At all events, you might have a light."

"There is something in that," said Hans. He was not at all unreasonable: so he determined to have a light in future: and he fell to work again.

Bad as his luck had been, he resolved not to be cast down: he was as diligent and as thrifty as ever; and he resolved, when he became Bürgermeister of Rapps, to be especially severe on sneaking thieves, who crept into houses that were left to the care of Providence and the municipal authorities. A light was everlastingly burning in his window; and the people, as they passed in the morning, said, "This man must have a good business that requires him to be up thus early;" and they who passed in the evening, said, "This man must be making a fortune, for he is busy early and late." At length Hans leaped down from his board with the work that was to complete his sum, a second time; went; returned, with the future Bürgermeister growing rapidly upon him; when, as he turned the corner of the street--men and mercies!--what a spectacle! His house was in a full burst of flame, illuminating, with a ruddy glow, half the town, and all the faces of the inhabitants, who were collected to witness the catastrophe. Money, fiddle, shop-board--all were consumed! and when poor Hans danced and capered, in the very ecstasy of his distraction--"Ay," said his neighbors, "this comes of leaving a light in an empty house. It was just the thing to happen. Why don't you get somebody to take care of things in your absence?"

Hans stood corrected; for, as I have said, he was soon touched to the quick, and though in his anger he did think it rather unkind that they, who advised the light, now prophesied after the event; when that was a little abated, he thought there was reason in what they now said. So, bating not a jot of his determination to save, and to be Bürgermeister of Rapps, he took the very next house, which luckily happened to be at liberty, and he got a journeyman. For a long time, his case appeared hard and hopeless. He had to pay three hundred per cent, for the piece of a table, two stools, and a couple of hags of hay, which he had procured of a Jew, and which, with an odd pot, and a wooden spoon or two, constituted all his furniture. Then, he had two mouths to feed instead of one wages to pay; and not much more work done than he could manage himself. But still--he had dreamed; and dreams, if they are genuine, fulfill themselves. The money grew--slowly, very slowly, but still it grew; and Hans pitched upon a secure place, as he thought, to conceal it in. Alas! poor Hans! He had often in his heart grumbled at the slowness of his _Handwerks-Bursch_, or journeyman; but the fellow's eyes had been quick enough, and he proved himself a hand-work's fellow to some purpose, by clearing out Hans's hiding-place, and becoming a journeyman in earnest. The fellow was gone one morning; no great loss--but then the money was gone with him, which _was_ a terrible loss.

This was more than Hans could bear. He was perfectly cast down, disheartened, and inconsolable. At first, he thought of running after the fellow; and, as he knew the scamp could not go far without a passport, and as Hans had gone the round of the country himself, in the three years of his _Wandel-Jahre_, as required by the worshipful guild of tailors, he did not doubt but that he should some day pounce upon the scoundrel. But then, in the mean time, who was to keep his trade together? There was the Hippopotamus watching opposite! No! it would not do! and his neighbor, coming in to condole with him, said--"Cheer up, man! there is nothing amiss yet. What signify a few dollars? You will soon get plenty more, with those nimble fingers of yours. You want only somebody to help you to keep them. You must get a wife! Journeymen were thieves from the first generation. You must get married!"

"Get married!" thought Hans. He was struck all on a heap at the very mention of it "Get married! What! fine clothes to go a-wooing in, and fine presents to go a-wooing with; and parson's fees, and clerk's fees; and wedding-dinner, and dancing, and drinking; and then, doctor's fees, and nurse's fees, and children without end! That is ruin!" thought Hans--"without end!" The fifty dollars and the Bürgermeistership--they might wait till doomsday.

"Well, that is good!" thought Hans, as he took a little more breath. "They first counseled me to get a light--then went house and all in a bonfire; next, I must get a journeyman--then went the money; and now they would have me bring more plagues upon me than Moses brought upon Egypt. Nay, nay!" thought Hans; "you'll not catch me there, neither."

Hans all this time was seated upon his shop-board, stitching, at an amazing rate, upon a garment which the rascally Wagner should have finished to order at six o'clock that morning, instead of decamping with his money; and, ever and anon, so far forgetting his loss in what appeared to him the ludicrousness of this advice, as freely to laugh out. All that day, the idea continued to run in his head; the next, it had lost much of its freshness; the third, it appeared not so odd as awful; the fourth, he began to ask himself whether it might be quite so momentous as his imagination had painted it; the fifth, he really thought it was not so bad neither; the sixth, it had so worked round in his head, that it had fairly got on the other side, and appeared clearly to have its advantages--children did not come scampering into the world all at once, like a flock of lambs into a meadow--a wife might help to gather, as well as spend--might possibly bring something of her own--ay! a new idea!--would be a perpetual watch and storekeeper in his absence--might speak a word of comfort, in trouble when even his fiddle was dumb; on the seventh--he was off! Whither?

Why, it so happened that in his "wander-years," Hans had played his fiddle at many a dance--a very dangerous position; for his chin resting on "the merry bit of wood," as the ancient Friend termed that instrument, and his head leaned on one side, he had had plenty of opportunity to watch the movements of plenty of fair maids in the dance, as well as occasionally to whirl them round in the everlasting waltz himself. Accordingly, Hans had left his heart many times, for a week or ten days or so, behind him, in many a town and dorf of Bohemia and Germany; but it always came after him and overtook him again, except on one occasion. Among the damsels of the Böhmer-Wald who had danced to the sound of his fiddle, there was a certain substantial bergman's or master-miner's daughter, who, having got into his head in some odd association with his fiddle, was continually coming up as he played his old airs, and could not be got out again, especially as he fancied that the comely and simple-hearted creature had a lurking fondness for both his music and himself.

Away he went: and he was right. The damsel made no objection to his overtures. Tall, stout, fresh, pleasant growth of the open air and the hills, as she was, she never dreamed of despising the little skipping tailor of Rapps, though he was shorter by the head than herself. She had heard his music, and evidently had danced after it. The fiddler and fiddle together filled up her ambition. But the old people!--they were in perfect hysterics of wrath and indignation. Their daughter!--with the exception of one brother, now absent on a visit to his uncle in Hungary, a great gold-miner in the Carpathian mountains, the sole remnant of an old, substantial house, which had fed their flocks and their herds on the hills for three generations, and now drew wealth from the heart of these hills themselves! It was death! poison! pestilence! The girl must be mad; the hop-o'-my-thumb scoundrel must carry witch-powder!

Nevertheless, as Hans and the damsel were agreed, every thing else--threats, denunciations, sarcasms, cuttings-off with a shilling, and loss of a ponderous dowry--all went for nothing. They were married, as some thousands were before them in just the like circumstances. But if the Bohemian maid was not mad, it must be confessed that Hans was rather so. He was monstrously exasperated at the contempt heaped by the heavy bergman on the future Bürgermeister of Rapps, and determined to show a little spirit. As his fiddle entered into all his schemes, he resolved to have music at his wedding; and no sooner did he and his bride issue from the church, than out broke the harmony which he had provided. The fiddle played merrily, "You'll repent, repent, repent; you'll repent, repent, repent;" and the bassoon answered, in surly tones, "And soon! and soon!" "I hope, my dear," said the bride, "You don't mean the words for us." "No, love," explained Hans, gallantly; "I don't say 'we,' but 'you'--that is, certain haughty people on these hills that shall be nameless." Then the music played till they reached the inn where they dined, and then set off in a handsome hired carriage for Rapps.

It is true, that there was little happiness in this affair to any one. The old people were full of anger, curses, and threats of total disownment. Hans's pride was pricked, and perforated, till he was as sore as if he had been tattooed with his own needle; and his wife was completely drowned in sorrow at such a parting with her parents, and with no little sense of remorse for her disobedience. Nevertheless, they reached home; things began gradually to assume a more composed aspect. Hans loved his wife; she loved him; he was industrious, she was careful; and they trusted, in time, to bring her parents round, when they should see that they were doing well in the world.

Again the saving scheme began to haunt Hans; but he had one luckless notion, which was destined to cost him no little vexation. With the stock of the shop, he had inherited from his father a stock of old maxims, which, unluckily, had not got burnt in the fire with the rest of the patrimonial heritage. Among these was one, that a woman can not keep a secret. Acting on this creed, Hans not only never told his wife of the project of becoming Bürgermeister of Rapps, but he did not even give her reason to suppose that he laid up a shilling; and that she might not happen to stumble upon his money, he took care to carry it always about him. It was his delight, when he got into a quiet corner, or as he came along a retired lane, from his errands, to take it out and count it; and calculate when it would amount to this and that sum, and when the full sum would be really his own. Now, it happened one day, that having been a good deal absorbed in these speculations, he had loitered a precious piece of time away; and suddenly coming to himself, he set off, as was his wont, on a kind of easy trot, in which, his small, light form thrown forward, his pale, gray-eyed, earnest-looking visage thrown up toward the sky, and his long blue coat flying in a stream behind him, he cut one of the most extraordinary figures in the world; and checking his pace as he entered the town, he involuntarily clapped his hand on his pocket, and behold! his money was gone! It had slipped away through a hole it had worn. In the wildness and bitterness of his loss, he turned back, heartily cursing the spinner and the weaver of that most detestable piece of buckram that composed his breeches-pocket, for having put it together so villainously that it broke down with the carriage of a few dollars, halfpence, thimbles, balls of wax and thread, and a few other sundries, after the trifling wear of seven years, nine months, and nineteen days.

He was peering, step by step, after his lost treasure, when up came his wife, running like one wild, and telling him that he must come that instant; for the Ritter of Flachenflaps had brought in new liveries for all his servants, and threatened if he did not see Hans in five minutes, he would carry the work over to the other side of the street. There was a perplexity! The money was not to be found, and if it were found in the presence of his wife, he would regard it as no better than lost. He was therefore obliged to excuse his conduct, being caught in the act of poring after something, to tell, if not a lie, at least the very smallest part of the truth, and say that he had lost his thimble. The money was not found, and to make bad worse, he was in danger of losing a good job, and all the Ritter's work forever, as a consequence.

Away he ran, therefore, groaning inwardly, at full speed, and, arriving out of breath, saw the Ritter's carriage drawn up at his opponent's door. Wormwood upon wormwood! His money was lost; his best customer was lost, and thrown into the jaws of the detested Hippopotamus. There he beheld him and his man in a prime bustle from day to day, while his own house was deserted. All people went where the Ritter went, of course. The Hippopotamus was now grazing and browsing through Hans's richest meadows with a vengeance. He was flourishing out of all bounds. He had got a horse to ride out on and take orders, and to all appearance was likely to become Bürgermeister ten years before Hans had got ten dollars of his own.

It was too much for even his sanguine temperament; he sank down to the very depths of despair; his fiddle had lost its music; he could not abide to hear it; he sate moody and disconsolate, with a beard an inch long. His wife for some time hoped it would go off; but, seeing it come to this, she began to console and advise, to rouse his courage and his spirits. She told him it was that horse which gave the advantage to his neighbor. While he went trudging on foot, wearying himself, and wasting his time, people came, grew weary, and would not wait. She offered, therefore, to borrow her neighbor's ass for him; and advised him to ride out daily a little way. It would look as though he had business in the country. It would look as if his time was precious; it would look well, and do his health good into the bargain. Hans liked her counsel; it sounded well--nay, exceedingly discreet. He always thought her a gem of a woman, but he never imagined her half so able. What a pity a woman could not be trusted with a secret! Were it not for that, she would be a helpmate past all reckoning.

The ass, however, was got: out rode Hans; looked amazingly hurried; and, being half-crazed with care, people thought he was half-crazed with stress of business. Work came in; things went flowingly on again; Hans blessed his stars; and as he grasped his cash, he every day stitched it into the crown of his cap, taking paper-money for the purpose. No more pots, no more hiding-holes, no more breeches-pockets for him; he put it under the guardianship of his own strong thread and dexterous needle; and all went on exceedingly well.

Accidents will, however, occur, if men will not trust their wives; and especially if they will not avoid awkward habits. Now, Hans had a strange habit of sticking his needles on his breeches-knees as he sat at work; and sometimes he would have half-a-dozen on each knee for half-a-dozen days. His wife often told him to take them out when he came down from his board, and often took them out herself; but it was of no use. He was just in this case one day as he rode out to take measure of a gentleman, about five miles off. The ass, to his thinking, was in a remarkably brisk mood. Off it went, without whip or spur, at a good active trot, and, not satisfied with trotting, soon fairly proceeded to a gallop. Hans was full of wonder at the beast. Commonly it tired his arm worse with thrashing it during his hour's ride, than the exercise of his goose and sleeve-board did for a whole day; but now he was fain to pull it in. It was to no purpose; faster than ever it dashed on, prancing, running sideways, wincing, and beginning to show a most ugly temper. What, in the name of all Balaams, could possess the animal, he could not for his life conceive! The only chance of safety appeared to lie in clinging with both arms and legs to it, like a boa-constrictor to its victim, when, shy!--away it flew, as if it were driven by a legion of devils. In another moment, it stopped; down went its head, up went its infernal heels; and Hans found himself some ten yards off, in the middle of a pool. He escaped drowning, but the cap was gone; he had been foolish enough to stitch some dollars, in hard cash, recently received, into it along with his paper, and they sunk it, past recovery! He came home, dripping like a drowned mouse, with a most deplorable tale; but with no more knowledge of the cause of his disaster than the man in the moon, till he tore his fingers on the needles, in abstracting his wet clothes.

Fortune now seemed to have said, as plainly as she could speak, "Hans, confide in your wife. You see all your schemes without her fail. Open your heart to her--deal fairly, generously, and you will reap the merits of it." It was all in vain--he had not yet come to his senses. Obstinate as a mule--he determined to try once more. But good-by to the ass! The only thing he resolved to mount was his shop board--that bore him well, and brought him continued good, could he only continue to keep it.

His wife, I said, came from the mountains; she, therefore, liked the sight of trees. Now, in Hans's back-yard there was neither tree nor turf, so she got some tubs, and in them she planted a variety of fir-trees, which made a pleasant appearance, and gave a help to her imagination of the noble firs of her native scenes. In one of these tubs, Hans conceived the singular design of depositing his future treasure. "Nobody, will meddle with them," he thought, so accordingly, from week to week, he concealed in one of them his acquisitions. It had gone on a long time. He had been out one day, collecting some of his debts--he had succeeded beyond his hopes, and came back exulting. The sum was saved; and, in the gladness of his heart, he bought his wife a new gown. He bounded into the house with the lightness of seventeen. His wife was not there--he looked into the back-yard. Saints and angels! what is that? He beheld his wife busy with the tubs. The trees were uprooted, and laid on the ground, and every particle of soil was thrown out of the tubs. In the delirium of consternation, he flew to ask what she had been doing.

"Oh! the trees, poor things, did not flourish; they looked sickly and pining; she determined to give them some soil more suitable to their natures; she had thrown the earth into the river, at the bottom of the yard."

"And you have thrown into the river," exclaimed Hans, frantically, "the hoarding of three years; the money which had cost me many a weary day--many an anxious night. The money which would have made our fortunes--in short, that would have made me Bürgermeister of Rapps." Completely thrown off his guard, he betrayed his secret.

"Good gracious!" cried his wife, exceedingly alarmed; "why did you not tell me of it?"

"Ay, that is the question!" said he. And it was a question; for, spite of himself, it had occurred to his mind some dozens of times, and now it came so overwhelmingly, that even when he thought he treated it with contempt, it had fixed itself upon his better reason, and never left him till it had worked a most fortunate revolution. He said to himself, "Had I told my wife of it at the first, it could not possibly have happened worse; and it is very likely it would have happened better. For the future, then, be it so."

Thereupon, he unfolded to her the whole history and mystery of his troubles, and his hopes. Now, Mrs. Hans Nadeltreiber had great cause to feel herself offended, most grievously offended; but she was not at all of a touchy temperament. She was a sweet, tender, patient, loving creature, who desired her husband's honor and prosperity beyond any thing; so she sate down, and in the most mild, yet acute and able manner, laid down to him a plan of operations, and promised him such aids and succors, that, struck at once with shame, contrition, and admiration, he sprung up, clasped her to his heart, called her the very gem of womanhood, and skipped two or three times across the floor, like a man gone out of his senses. The truth is, however, he was but just come into them.

From this day, a new life was begun in Hans's house. There he sat at his work; there sat his wife by his side; aiding and contriving with a woman's wit, a woman's love, and a woman's adroitness. She was worth ten journeymen. Work never came in faster; never gave such satisfaction; never brought in so much money; nor, besides this, was there ever such harmony in the house, nor had they ever held such delectable discourse together. There was nothing to conceal. Hans's thoughts flowed like a great stream; and when they grew a little wild and visionary, as they were apt to do, his wife smoothened and reduced them to sobriety, with such a delicate touch, that, so far from feeling offended, he was delighted beyond expression with her prudence. The fifty dollars were raised in almost no time; and, as if prognostic of its becoming the seed of a fortune, it came in most opportunely for purchasing a lot of cloth, which more than trebled its cost, and gave infinite satisfaction to his customers. Hans saw that the tide was rapidly rising with him, and his wife urged him to push on with it; to take a larger house; to get more hands; and to cut such a figure as should at once eclipse his rival. The thing was done; but as their capital was still found scanty enough for such an undertaking, Mrs. Nadeltreiber resolved to try what she could do to increase it.

I should have informed the reader, had not the current of Hans's disasters ran too strong for me, that his wife's parents were dead, and had died without giving her any token of reconciliation--a circumstance which, although it cut her to the heart, did not quite cast her down, feeling that she had done nothing but what a parent might forgive, being all of us creatures alike liable to error, demanding alike some little indulgence for our weaknesses and our fancies. Her brother was now sole representative of the family; and knowing the generosity of his nature, she determined to pay him a visit, although, for the first time since her marriage, in a condition very unfit for traveling. She went. Her brother received her with all his early affection. In his house was born her first child; and so much did she and her bantling win upon his heart, that when the time came that she must return, nothing would serve but he would take her himself. She had been so loud in Hans's praise, that he determined to go and shake him by the hand. It would have done any one good to have seen this worthy mountaineer setting forth, seated in his neat, green-painted wicker wagon; his sister by his side, and the child snugly-bedded in his own corn-hopper at their feet. Thus did they go statelily, with his great black horse drawing them. It would have been equally pleasant to see him set down his charge at the door of Hans's house, and behold with wonder that merry mannikin, all smiles and gesticulation, come forth to receive them. The contrast between Hans and his brother-in-law was truly amusing. He, a shadow-like homunculus, so light and dry, that any wind threatened to blow him before it; the bergman, with a countenance like the rising sun, the stature of a giant, and limbs like an elephant. Hans watched, with considerable anxiety, the experiment of his kinsman seating himself in a chair. The chair, however, stood firm; and the good man surveyed Hans, in return, with a curious and critical air, as if doubtful whether he must not hold him in contempt for the want of that solid matter of which he himself had too much. Hans's good qualities, however, got the better of him. "The man's a man, though," said he to himself, very philosophically, "and as he is good to my sister, he shall know of it." Hans delighted him every evening, by the powers of his violin; and the bergman, excessively fond of music, like most of his countrymen, declared that he might perform in the emperor's orchestra, and find nobody there to beat him. When he took his leave, therefore, he seized one of Hans's hands with a cordial gripe that was felt through every limb, and into the other he put a bag of one thousand rix dollars, saying, "My sister ought not to have come dowerless into a good husband's house. This is properly her own: take it, and much good may it do you."

Our story need not be prolonged. The new tailor soon fled before the star of Hans's ascendency. A very few years saw him installed into the office of Bürgermeister, the highest of earthly honors in his eyes; and if he had one trouble left, it was only in the reflection that he might have attained his wishes years before had he understood the heart of a good woman. The worshipful Herr Bürgermeister, and Frau Bürgermeisterin of Rapps, often visited their colossal brother of the Böhmerwald, and were thought to reflect no discredit on the old bergman family.

[From Dickens's "Household Words."]

LITTLE MARY.--A TALE OF THE IRISH FAMINE.

That was a pleasant place where I was born, though 'twas only a thatched cabin by the side of a mountain stream, where the country was so lonely, that in summer time the wild ducks used to bring their young ones to feed on the bog, within a hundred yards of our door; and you could not stoop over the bank to raise a pitcher full of water, without frightening a shoal of beautiful speckled trout. Well, 'tis long ago since my brother Richard, that's now grown a fine, clever man, God bless him! and myself, used to set off together up the mountain to pick bunches of the cotton plant and the bog myrtle, and to look for birds' and wild bees' nests. 'Tis long ago--and though I'm happy and well off now, living in the big house as own maid to the young ladies, who, on account of my being foster-sister to poor darling Miss Ellen, that died of decline, treat me more like their equal than their servant, and give me the means to improve myself; still, at times, especially when James Sweeney, a dacent boy of the neighbors, and myself are taking a walk together through the fields in the cool and quiet of a summer's evening, I can't help thinking of the times that are passed, and talking about them to James with a sort of peaceful sadness, more happy, maybe, than if we ware laughing aloud.

Every evening, before I say my prayers, I read a chapter in the Bible that Miss Ellen gave me; and last night I felt my tears dropping forever so long over one verse, "And God shall wipe away all tears from their eyes; and there shall be no more death, neither sorrow, nor crying, neither shall there be any more pain; for the former things are passed away." The words made me think of them that are gone--of my father, and his wife that was a true, fond mother to me; and above all, of my little sister Mary, the _clureen bawn_[F] that nestled in her bosom.

I was a wild slip of a girl, ten years of age, and my brother Richard about two years older, when my father brought home his second wife. She was the daughter of a farmer up at Lackabawn, and was reared with care and dacency; but her father held his ground at a rack-rent, and the middleman that was between him and the head landlord did not pay his own rent, so the place was ejected, and the farmer collected every penny he had, and set off with his family to America. My father had a liking for the youngest daughter, and well become him to have it, for a sweeter creature never drew the breath of life; but while her father passed for a _strong_[G] farmer, he was timorous-like about asking her to share his little cabin; however, when he found how matters stood, he didn't lose much time in finding out that she was willing to be his wife, and a mother to his boy and girl. _That_ she was, a patient loving one. Oh! it often sticks me like a knife, when I think how many times I fretted her with my foolishness and my idle ways, and how 'twas a long time before I'd call her "mother." Often, when my father would be going to chastise Richard and myself for our provoking doings, especially the day that we took half-a-dozen eggs from under the hatching hen, to play "Blind Tom" with them, she'd interfere for us, and say, "Tim, _aleagh_, don't touch them this time; sure 'tis only _arch_ they are: they'll get more sense in time." And then, after he was gone out, she'd advise us for our good so pleasantly, that a thundercloud itself couldn't look black at her. She did wonders, too, about the house and garden. They were both dirty and neglected enough when she first came over them; for I was too young and foolish, and my father too busy with his out-door work, and the old woman that lived with us in service too feeble and too blind to keep the place either clean or decent; but my mother got the floor raised, and the green pool in front drained, and a parcel of roses and honey-suckles planted there instead. The neighbors' wives used to say, 'twas all pride and upsetting folly, to keep the kitchen-floor swept clean, and to put the potatoes on a dish, instead of emptying them out of the pot into the middle of the table; and, besides, 'twas a cruel, unnatural thing, they said, to take away the pool from the ducks, that they were always used to paddle in so handy. But my mother was always too busy and too happy to heed what they said; and, besides, she was always so ready to do a kind turn for any of them, that, out of poor shame, they had at last to leave off abusing her "fine English ways."

West of our house there was a straggling, stony piece of ground, where, within the memory of man nothing ever grew but nettles, docks, and thistles. One Monday, when Richard and myself came in from school, my mother told us to set about weeding it, and to bring in some basketfuls of good clay from the banks of the river; she said that if we worked well at it until Saturday, she'd bring me a new frock, and Dick a jacket, from the next market-town; and encouraged by this, we set to work with right good will, and didn't leave off till supper time. The next day we did the same; and by degrees, when we saw the heap of weeds and stones that we got out, growing big, and the ground looking nice and smooth and red and rich, we got quite anxious about it ourselves, and we built a nice little fence round it to keep out the pigs. When it was manured, my mother planted cabbages, parsnips, and onions in it; and, to be sure, she got a fine crop out of it, enough to make us many a nice supper of vegetables stewed with pepper, and a small taste of bacon or a red herring. Besides, she sold in the market as much as bought a Sunday coat for my father, a gown for herself, a fine pair of shoes for Dick, and as pretty a shawl for myself, as e'er a colleen in the country could show at mass. Through means of my father's industry and my mother's good management, we were, with the blessing of God, as snug and comfortable a poor family as any in Munster. We paid but a small rent, and we had always plenty of potatoes to eat, good clothes to wear, and cleanliness and decency in and about our little cabin.

Five years passed on in this way, and at last little Mary was born. She was a delicate fairy thing, with that look, even from the first, in her blue eyes, which is seldom seen, except where the shadow of the grave darkens the cradle. She was fond of her father, and of Richard, and of myself, and would laugh and crow when she saw us, but _the love in the core of her heart_ was for her mother. No matter how tired, or sleepy, or cross the baby might be, one word from _her_ would set the bright eyes dancing, and the little rosy month smiling, and the tiny limbs quivering, as if walking or running couldn't content her, but she must fly to her mother's arms. And how that mother doted on the very ground she trod! I often thought that the Queen in her state carriage, with her son, God bless him! alongside of her, dressed out in gold and jewels, was not one bit happier than my mother, when she sat under the shade of the mountain ash, near the door, in the hush of the summer's evening, singing and _cronauning_ her only one to sleep in her arms. In the month of October, 1845, Mary was four years old. That was the bitter time, when first the food of the earth was turned to poison; when the gardens that used to be so bright and sweet, covered with the purple and white potato blossoms, became in one night black and offensive, as if fire had come down from heaven to burn them up. 'Twas a heart-breaking thing to see the laboring men, the crathurs! that had only the one half-acre to feed their little families, going out, after work, in the evenings to dig their suppers from under the black stalks. Spadeful after spadeful would be turned up, and a long piece of a ridge dug through, before they'd get a small kish full of such withered _crohauneens_,[H] as other years would be hardly counted fit for the pigs.

It was some time before the distress reached us, for there was a trifle of money in the savings' bank, that held us in meal, while the neighbors were next door to starvation. As long as my father and mother had it, they shared it freely with them that were worse off than themselves; but at last the little penny of money was all spent, the price of flour was raised; and, to make matters worse, the farmer that my father worked for, at a poor eight-pence a day, was forced to send him and three more of his laborers away, as he couldn't afford to pay them even _that_ any longer. Oh! 'twas a sorrowful night when my father brought home the news. I remember, as well as if I saw it yesterday, the desolate look in his face when he sat down by the ashes of the turf fire that had just baked a yellow meal cake for his supper. My mother was at the opposite side, giving little Mary a drink of sour milk out of her little wooden piggin, and the child didn't like it, being delicate and always used to sweet milk, so she said:

"Mammy, won't you give me some of the nice milk instead of that?"

"I haven't it _asthore_, nor can't get it," said her mother, "so don't ye fret."

Not a word more out of the little one's mouth, only she turned her little cheek in toward her mother, and staid quite quiet, as if she was hearkening to what was going on.

"Judy," said my father, "God is good, and sure 'tis only in Him we must put our trust; for in the wide world I can see nothing but starvation before us."

"God _is_ good, Tim," replied my mother; "He won't forsake us."

Just then Richard came in with a more joyful face than I had seen on him for many a day.

"Good news!" says he, "good news, father! there's work for us both on the Droumcarra road. The government works are to begin there to-morrow; you'll get eight-pence a day, and I'll get six-pence."

If you saw our delight when we heard this, you'd think 'twas the free present of a thousand pounds that came to us, falling through the roof, instead of an offer of small wages for hard work.

To be sure the potatoes were gone, and the yellow meal was dear and dry and chippy--it hadn't the _nature_ about it that a hot potato has for a poor man; but still 'twas a great thing to have the prospect of getting enough of even that same, and not to be obliged to follow the rest of the country into the poor-house, which was crowded to that degree that the crathurs there--God help them!--hadn't room even to die quietly in their beds, but were crowded together on the floor like so many dogs in a kennel. The next morning my father and Richard were off before daybreak, for they had a long way to walk to Droumcarra, and they should be there in time to begin work. They took an Indian meal cake with them to eat for their dinner, and poor dry food it was, with only a draught of cold water to wash it down. Still my father, who was knowledgeable about such things, always said it was mighty wholesome when it was well cooked; but some of the poor people took a great objection against it on account of the yellow color, which they thought came from having sulphur mixed with it--and they said, Indeed it was putting a great affront on the decent Irish to mix up their food as if 'twas for mangy dogs. Glad enough, poor creatures, they were to get it afterward, when sea-weed and nettles, and the very grass by the roadside, was all that many of them had to put into their mouths.

When my father and brother came home in the evening, faint and tired from the two long walks and the day's work, my mother would always try to have something for them to eat with their porridge--a bit of butter, or a bowl of thick milk, or maybe a few eggs. She always gave me plenty as far as it would go; but 'twas little she took herself. She would often go entirely without a meal, and then she'd slip down to the huckster's, and buy a little white bun for Mary; and I'm sure it used to do her more good to see the child eat it, than if she had got a meat-dinner for herself. No matter how hungry the poor little thing might be, she'd always break off a bit to put into her mother's mouth, and she would not be satisfied until she saw her swallow it; then the child would take a drink of cold water out of her little tin porringer, as contented as if it was new milk.

As the winter advanced, the weather became wet and bitterly cold, and the poor men working on the roads began to suffer dreadfully from being all day in wet clothes, and, what was worse, not having any change to put on when they went home at night without a dry thread about them. Fever soon got among them, and my father took it. My mother brought the doctor to see him, and by selling all our decent clothes, she got for him whatever was wanting, but all to no use: 'twas the will of the Lord to take him to himself, and he died after a few days' illness.

It would be hard to tell the sorrow that his widow and orphans felt, when they saw the fresh sods planted on his grave. It was not grief altogether like the grand stately grief of the quality, although maybe the same sharp knife is sticking into the same sore bosom _inside_ in both; but the _outside_ differs in rich and poor. I saw the mistress a week after Miss Ellen died. She was in her drawing-room with the blinds pulled down, sitting in a low chair, with her elbow on the small work-table, and her cheek resting on her hand--not a speck of any thing white about her but the cambric handkerchief, and the face that was paler than the marble chimney-piece.

When she saw me (for the butler, being busy, sent me in with the luncheon-tray), she covered her eyes with her handkerchief, and began to cry, but quietly, as if she did not want it to be noticed. As I was going out, I just heard her say to Miss Alice in a choking voice:

"Keep Sally here always; our poor darling was fond of her." And as I closed the door, I heard her give one deep sob. The next time I saw her, she was quite composed; only for the white cheek and the black dress, you would not know that the burning feel of a child's last kiss had ever touched her lips.

My father's wife mourned for him after another fashion. _She_ could not sit quiet, she must work hard to keep the life in them to whom he gave it; and it was only in the evenings when she sat down before the fire with Mary in her arms, that she used to sob and rock herself to and fro, and sing a low, wailing keen for the father of the little one, whose innocent tears were always ready to fall when she saw her mother cry. About this time my mother got an offer from some of the hucksters in the neighborhood, who knew her honesty, to go three times a week to the next market-town, ten miles off, with their little money, and bring them back supplies of bread, groceries, soap, and candles. This she used to do, walking the twenty miles--ten of them with a heavy load on her back--for the sake of earning enough to keep us alive. 'Twas very seldom that Richard could get a stroke of work to do: the boy wasn't strong in himself, for he had the sickness too; though he recovered from it, and always did his best to earn an honest penny wherever he could. I often wanted my mother to let me go in her stead and bring back the load; but she never would hear of it, and kept me at home to mind the house and little Mary. My poor pet lamb! 'twas little minding she wanted. She would go after breakfast and sit at the door, and stop there all day, watching for her mother, and never heeding the neighbors' children that used to come wanting her to play. Through the live-long hours she would never stir, but just keep her eyes fixed on the lonesome _boreen_;[I] and when the shadow of the mountain-ash grew long, and she caught a glimpse of her mother ever so far off, coming toward home, the joy that would flush on the small, patient face, was brighter than the sunbeam on the river. And faint and weary as the poor woman used to be, before ever she sat down, she'd have Mary nestling in her bosom. No matter how little she might have eaten herself that day, she would always bring home a little white bun for Mary; and the child, that had tasted nothing since morning, would eat it so happily, and then fall quietly asleep in her mother's arms.

At the end of some months I got the sickness myself, but not so heavily as Richard did before. Any way, he and my mother tended me well through it. They sold almost every little stick of furniture that was left, to buy me drink and medicine. By degrees I recovered, and the first evening I was able to sit up, I noticed a strange, wild brightness in my mother's eyes, and a hot flush on her thin cheeks--she had taken the fever.

Before she lay down on the wisp of straw that served her for a bed, she brought little Mary over to me: "Take her, Sally," she said--and between every word she gave the child a kiss--"take her; she's safer with you than she'd be with me, for you're over the sickness, and 'tisn't long any way, I'll be with you, my jewel," she said, as she gave the little creature one long close hug, and put her into my arms.

'Twould take long to tell all about her sickness--how Richard and I, as good right we had, tended her night and day; and how, when every farthing and farthing's worth we had in the world was gone, the mistress herself came down from the big house, the very day after the family returned home from France, and brought wine, food, medicine, linen, and every thing we could want.

Shortly after the kind lady was gone, my mother took the change for death; her senses came back, she grew quite strong-like, and sat up straight in the bed.

"Bring me the child, Sally, _aleagh_," she said. And when I carried little Mary over to her, she looked into the tiny face, as if she was reading it like a book.

"You won't be long away from me, my own one," she said, while her tears fell down upon the child like summer-rain.

"Mother," said I, as well as I could speak for crying, "sure you _Know_ I'll do my best to tend her."

"I know you will, _acushla_; you were always a true and dutiful daughter to me and to him that's gone; but, Sally, there's _that_ in my weeny one that won't let her thrive without the mother's hand over her, and the mother's heart for hers to lean against. And now--" It was all she could say: she just clasped the little child to her bosom, fell back on my arm, and in a few moments all was over. At first, Richard and I could not believe that she was dead; and it was very long before the orphan would loose her hold of the stiffening fingers; but when the neighbors came in to prepare for the wake, we contrived to flatter her away.

Days passed on; the child was very quiet; she used to go as usual to sit at the door, and watch, hour after hour, along the road that her mother always took coming home from market, waiting for her that could never come again. When the sun was near setting, her gaze used to be more fixed and eager; but when the darkness came on, her blue eyes used to droop like the flowers that shut up their leaves, and she would come in quietly without saying a word, and allow me to undress her and put her to bed.

It troubled us and the young ladies greatly that she would not eat. It was almost impossible to get her to taste a morsel; indeed the only thing she would let inside her lips was a bit of a little white bun, like those her poor mother used to bring her. There was nothing left untried to please her. I carried her up to the big house, thinking the change might do her good, and the ladies petted her, and talked to her, and gave her heaps of toys and cakes, and pretty frocks and coats; but she hardly noticed them, and was restless and uneasy until she got back to her own low, sunny door-step.

Every day she grew paler and thinner, and her bright eyes had a sad, fond look in them, so like her mother's. One evening she sat at the door later than usual.

"Come in, _alannah_," I said to her. "Won't you come in for your own Sally?"

She never stirred. I went over to her; she was quite still, with her little hands crossed on her lap, and her head drooping on her chest. I touched her--she was cold. I gave a loud scream, and Richard came running; he stopped and looked, and then burst out crying like an infant. Our little sister was dead!

Well, my Mary, the sorrow was bitter, but it was short. You're gone home to Him that comforts as a mother comforteth. _Agra machree_, your eyes are as blue, and your hair as golden, and your voice as sweet, as they were when you watched by the cabin-door; but your cheeks are not pale, _acushla_, nor your little hands thin, and the shade of sorrow has passed away from your forehead like a rain-cloud from the summer sky. She that loved you so on earth, has clasped you forever to her bosom in heaven; and God himself has wiped away all tears from your eyes, and placed you both and our own dear father, far beyond the touch of sorrow or the fear of death.

FOOTNOTES:

[F] White dove.

[G] Rich.

[H] Small potatoes.

[I] By-road.

THE OLD WELL IN LANGUEDOC.

The proof of the truth of the following statement, taken from the _Courrier de l'Europe_, rests not only upon the known veracity of the narrator, but upon the fact that the whole occurrence is registered in the judicial records of the criminal trials of the province of Languedoc. We give it as we heard it from the lips of the dreamer, as nearly as possible in his own words.

As the junior partner in a commercial house at Lyons, I had been traveling some time on the business of the firm, when, one evening in the month of June, I arrived at a town in Languedoc where I had never before been. I put up at a quiet inn in the suburbs, and, being very much fatigued, ordered dinner at once; and went to bed almost immediately after, determined to begin very early in the morning my visits to the different merchants.

I was no sooner in bed than I fell into a deep sleep, and had a dream that made the strongest impression upon me.

I thought that I had arrived at the same town, but in the middle of the day, instead of the evening, as was really the case; that I had stopped at the very same inn, and gone out immediately, as an unoccupied stranger would do, to see whatever was worthy of observation in the place. I walked down the main street, into another street, crossing it at right angles, and apparently leading into the country. I had not gone very far, when I came to a church, the Gothic portico of which I stopped to examine. When I had satisfied my curiosity, I advanced to a by-path which branched off from the main street. Obeying an impulse which I could neither account for nor control, I struck into the path, though it was winding, rugged, and unfrequented, and presently reached a miserable cottage, in front of which was a garden covered with weeds. I had no difficulty in getting into the garden, for the hedge had several gaps in it, wide enough to admit four carts abreast. I approached an old well, which stood solitary and gloomy in a distant corner; and looking down into it, I beheld distinctly, without any possibility of mistake, a corpse which had been stabbed in several places. I counted the deep wounds and the wide gashes whence the blood was flowing.

I would have cried out, but my tongue clove to the roof of my mouth. At this moment I awoke, with my hair on end, trembling in every limb, and cold drops of perspiration bedewing my forehead--awoke to find myself comfortably in bed, my trunk standing beside me, birds warbling cheerfully around my window; while a young, clear voice was singing a provincial air in the next room, and the morning sun was shining brightly through the curtains.

I sprung from my bed, dressed myself, and, as it was yet very early, I thought I would seek an appetite for breakfast by a morning stroll. I accordingly entered the main street, and went along. The farther I walked, the stranger became the confused recollection of the objects that presented themselves to my view. "It is very strange," I thought; "I have never been here before; and I could swear that I have seen this house, and the next, and that other on the left." On I went, till I came to the corner of a street, crossing the one down which I had come. For the first time, I remembered my dream, but put away the thought as too absurd; still, at every step, some fresh point of resemblance struck me. "Am I still dreaming!" I exclaimed, not without a momentary thrill through my whole frame. "Is the agreement to be perfect to the very end?" Before long, I reached the church, with the same architectural features that had attracted my notice in the dream; and then the high-road, along which I pursued my way, coming at length to the same by-path that had presented itself to my imagination a few hours before. There was no possibility of doubt or mistake. Every tree, every turn, was familiar to me. I was not at all of a superstitious turn, and was wholly engrossed in the practical details of commercial business. My mind had never dwelt upon the hallucinations, the presentiments, that science either denies, or is unable to explain; but I must confess, that I now felt myself spell-bound, as by some enchantment; and, with Pascal's words on my lips, "A continued dream would be equal to reality," I hurried forward, no longer doubting that the next moment would bring me to the cottage; and this really was the case. In all its outward circumstances, it corresponded to what I had seen in my dream. Who, then, could wonder that I determined to ascertain whether the coincidence would hold good in every other point? I entered the garden, and went direct to the spot on which I had seen the well; but here the resemblance failed--well, there was none. I looked in every direction; examined the whole garden, went round the cottage, which appeared to be inhabited, although no person was visible; but nowhere could I find any vestige of a well.

I made no attempt to enter the cottage, but hastened back to the hotel, in a state of agitation difficult to describe. I could not make up my mind to pass unnoticed such extraordinary coincidences; but how was any clew to be obtained to the terrible mystery?

I went to the landlord, and after chatting with him for some time on different subjects, I came to the point, and asked him directly to whom the cottage belonged that was on a by-road which I described to him.

"I wonder, sir," said he, "what made you take such particular notice of such a wretched little hovel. It is inhabited by an old man with his wife, who have the character of being very morose and unsociable. They rarely leave the house--see nobody, and nobody goes to see them; but they are quiet enough, and I never heard any thing against them beyond this. Of late, their very existence seems to have been forgotten; and I believe, sir, that you are the first who, for years, has turned his steps to the deserted spot."

These details, far from satisfying my curiosity, did but provoke it the more. Breakfast was served, but I could not touch it; and I felt that if I presented myself to the merchants in such a state of excitement, they would think me mad; and, indeed, I felt very much excited. I paced up and down the room, looked out at the window, trying to fix my attention on some external object, but in vain. I endeavored to interest myself in a quarrel between two men in the street; but the garden and the cottage preoccupied my mind; and, at last, snatching my hat, I cried, "I will go, come what may."

I repaired to the nearest magistrate, told him the object of my visit, and related the whole circumstance briefly and clearly. I saw directly that he was much impressed by my statement.

"It is, indeed, very strange," said he, "and after what has happened, I do not think I am at liberty to leave the matter without further inquiry. Important business will prevent my accompanying you in a search, but I will place two of the police at your command. Go once more to the hovel, see its inhabitants, and search every part of it. You may, perhaps, make some important discovery."

I suffered but a very few moments to elapse before I was on my way, accompanied by the two officers, and we soon reached the cottage. We knocked, and after waiting for some time, an old man opened the door. He received us somewhat uncivilly, but showed no mark of suspicion, nor, indeed, of any other emotion, when we told him we wished to search the house.

"Very well, gentlemen; as fast, and as soon as you please," he replied.

"Have you a well here?" I inquired.

"No, sir; we are obliged to go for water to a spring at a considerable distance."

We searched the house, which I did, I confess, with a kind of feverish excitement, expecting every moment to bring some fatal secret to light. Meantime, the man gazed upon us with an impenetrable vacancy of look, and we at last left the cottage without seeing any thing that could confirm my suspicions. I resolved to inspect the garden once more; and a number of idlers having been by this time collected, drawn to the spot by the sight of a stranger with two armed men engaged in searching the premises, I made inquiries of some of them whether they knew any thing about a well in that place. I could get no information at first, but at length an old woman came slowly forward, leaning on a crutch.

"A well!" cried she; "is it the well you are looking after? That has been gone these thirty years. I remember, as if it were only yesterday, many a time, when I was a young girl, how I used to amuse myself by throwing stones into it, and hearing the splash they used to make in the water."

"And could you tell where that well used to be?" I asked, almost breathless with excitement.

"As near as I can remember, on the very spot on which your honor is standing," said the old woman.

"I could have sworn it!" thought I, springing from the place as if I had trod upon a scorpion.

Need I say, that we set to work to dig up the ground. At about eighteen inches deep, we came to a layer of bricks, which, being broken up, gave to view some boards, which were easily removed; after which we beheld the mouth of the well.

"I was quite sure it was here," said the woman. "What a fool the old fellow was to stop it up, and then have so far to go for water!"

A sounding-line, furnished with hooks, was let down into the well; the crowd pressing around us, and breathlessly bending over the dark and fetid hole, the secrets of which seemed hidden in impenetrable obscurity. This was repeated several times without any result. At length, penetrating below the mud, the hooks caught an old chest, upon the top of which had been thrown a great many large stones; and after much effort and time, we succeeded in raising it to daylight. The sides and lid were decayed and rotten; it needed no locksmith to open it; and we found within, what I was certain we should find, and which paralyzed with horror all the spectators, who had not my pre-convictions--we found the remains of a human body.

The police-officers who had accompanied me now rushed into the house, and secured the person of the old man. As to his wife, no one could at first tell what had become of her. After some search, however, she was found hidden behind a bundle of fagots.

By this time, nearly the whole town had gathered around the spot; and now that this horrible fact had come to light, every body had some crime to tell, which had been laid to the charge of the old couple. The people who predict after an event, are numerous.

The old couple were brought before the proper authorities, and privately and separately examined. The old man persisted in his denial, most pertinaciously; but his wife at length confessed, that, in concert with her husband, she had once--a very long time ago--murdered a peddler, whom they had met one night on the high-road, and who had been incautious enough to tell them of a considerable sum of money which he had about him, and whom, in consequence, they induced to pass the night at their house. They had taken advantage of the heavy sleep induced by fatigue, to strangle him; his body had been put into the chest, the chest thrown into the well, and the well stopped up.

The peddler being from another country, his disappearance had occasioned no inquiry; there was no witness of the crime; and as its traces had been carefully concealed from every eye, the two criminals had good reason to believe themselves secure from detection. They had not, however, been able to silence the voice of conscience; they fled from the sight of their fellow-men; they trembled at the slightest noise, and silence thrilled them with terror. They had often formed a determination to leave the scene of their crime--to fly to some distant land; but still some undefinable fascination kept them near the remains of their victim.

Terrified by the deposition of his wife, and unable to resist the overwhelming proofs against him, the man at length made a similar confession; and six weeks after, the unhappy criminals died on the scaffold, in accordance with the sentence of the Parliament of Toulouse. They died penitent.

The well was once more shut up, and the cottage leveled to the ground. It was not, however, until fifty years had in some measure deadened the memory of the terrible transaction, that the ground was cultivated. It is now a fine field of corn.

Such was the dream and its result.

I never had the courage to revisit the town where I had been an actor in such a tragedy.

[From the Dublin University Magazine.]

SUMMER PASTIME.

Do you ask how I'd amuse me When the long bright summer comes, And welcome leisure woos me To shun life's crowded homes; To shun the sultry city, Whose dense, oppressive air Might make one weep with pity For those who must be there?

I'll tell you then--I would not To foreign countries roam, As though my fancy could not Find occupance at home; Nor to home-haunts of fashion Would I, least of all, repair, For guilt, and pride, and passion, Have summer-quarters there.

Far, far from watering-places Of note and name I'd keep, For there would vapid faces Still throng me in my sleep; Then contact with the foolish, The arrogant, the vain, The meaningless--the mulish, Would sicken heart and brain.

No--I'd seek some shore of ocean Where nothing comes to mar The ever-fresh commotion Of sea and land at war; Save the gentle evening only As it steals along the deep, So spirit-like and lonely, To still the waves to sleep.

There long hours I'd spend in viewing The elemental strife, My soul the while subduing With the littleness of life; Of life, with all its paltry plans, Its conflicts and its cares-- The feebleness of all that's man's-- The might that's God's and theirs!

And when eve came I'd listen To the stilling of that war, Till o'er my head should glisten The first pure silver star; Then, wandering homeward slowly, I'd learn my heart the tune Which the dreaming billows lowly, Were murmuring to the moon!

R.C.

[From Dickens's Household Words.]

THE CHEMISTRY OF A CANDLE.

The Wilkinsons were having a small party, it consisted of themselves and Uncle Bagges, at which the younger members of the family, home for the holidays, had been just admitted to assist after dinner. Uncle Bagges was a gentleman from whom his affectionate relatives cherished expectations of a testamentary nature. Hence the greatest attention was paid by them to the wishes of Mr. Bagges, as well as to every observation which he might be pleased to make.

"Eh! what? you sir," said Mr. Bagges, facetiously addressing himself to his eldest nephew, Harry--"Eh! what? I am glad to hear, sir, that you are doing well at school. Now--eh! now, are you clever enough to tell me where was Moses when he put the candle out?"

"That depends, uncle," answered the young gentleman, "on whether he had lighted the candle to see with at night, or by daylight to seal a letter."

"Eh! very good, now! 'Pon my word, very good," exclaimed Uncle Bagges. "You must be Lord Chancellor, sir--Lord Chancellor, one of these days."

"And now, uncle," asked Harry, who was a favorite with the old gentleman, "can you tell me what you do when you put a candle out?"

"Clap an extinguisher on it, you young rogue, to be sure."

"Oh! but I mean, you cut off its supply of oxygen," said Master Harry.

"Cut off its ox's--eh? what? I shall cut off your nose, you young dog, one of these fine days."

"He means something he heard at the Royal Institution," observed Mrs. Wilkinson. "He reads a great deal about chemistry, and he attended Professor Faraday's lectures there on the chemical history of a candle, and has been full of it ever since."

"Now, you sir," said Uncle Bagges, "come you here to me, and tell me what you have to say about this chemical, eh? or comical; which? this comical chemical history of a candle."

"He'll bore you, Bagges," said Mrs. Wilkinson. "Harry, don't be troublesome to your uncle."

"Troublesome! Oh, not at all. He amuses me. I like to hear him. So let him teach his old uncle the comicality and chemicality of a farthing rushlight."

"A wax candle will be nicer and cleaner, uncle, and answer the same purpose. There's one on the mantle-shelf. Let me light it."

"Take care you don't burn your fingers, or set any thing on fire," said Mrs. Wilkinson.

"Now, uncle," commenced Harry, having drawn his chair to the side of Mr. Bagges, "we have got our candle burning. What do you see?"

"Let me put on my spectacles," answered the uncle.

"Look down on the top of the candle around the wick. See, it is a little cup full of melted wax. The heat of the flame has melted the wax just round the wick. The cold air keeps the outside of it hard, so as to make the rim of it. The melted wax in the little cup goes up through the wick to be burnt, just as oil does in the wick of a lamp. What do you think makes it go up, uncle?"

"Why--why, the flame draws it up, doesn't it?"

"Not exactly, uncle. It goes up through little tiny passages in the cotton wick, because very, very small channels, or pipes, or pores, have the power in themselves of sucking up liquids. What they do it by is called cap--something."

"Capillary attraction, Harry," suggested Mr. Wilkinson.

"Yes, that's it; just as a sponge sucks up water, or a bit of lump-sugar the little drop of tea or coffee left in the bottom of a cup. But I mustn't say much more about this, or else you will tell me I am doing something very much like teaching my grandmother to--you know what."

"Your grandmother, eh, young sharpshins?"

"No--I mean my uncle. Now, I'll blow the candle out, like Moses; not to be in the dark, though, but to see into what it is. Look at the smoke rising from the wick. I'll hold a bit of lighted paper in the smoke, so as not to touch the wick. But see, for all that, the candle lights again. So this shows that the melted wax sucked up through the wick is turned into vapor; and the vapor burns. The heat of the burning vapor keeps on melting more wax, and that is sucked up too within the flame, and turned into vapor, and burnt, and so on till the wax is all used up, and the candle is gone. So the flame, uncle, you see is the last of the candle, and the candle seems to go through the flame into nothing--although it doesn't, but goes into several things, and isn't it curious, as Professor Faraday said, that the candle should look so splendid and glorious in going away."

"How well he remembers, doesn't he?" observed Mrs. Wilkinson.

"I dare say," proceeded Harry, "that the flame of the candle looks flat to you; but if we were to put a lamp glass over it, so as to shelter it from the draught, you would see it is round, round sideways, and running up to a peak. It is drawn up by the hot air; you know that hot air always rises, and that is the way smoke is taken up the chimney. What should you think was in the middle of the flame?"

"I should say, fire," replied Uncle Bagges.

"Oh, no! The flame is hollow. The bright flame we see is something no thicker than a thin peel, or skin; and it doesn't touch the wick. Inside of it is the vapor I told you of just now. If you put one end of a bent pipe into the middle of the flame, and let the other end of the pipe dip into a bottle, the vapor or gas from the candle will mix with the air there; and if you set fire to the mixture of gas from the candle and air in the bottle, it would go off with a bang."

"I wish you'd do that, Harry," said Master Tom, the younger brother of the juvenile lecturer.

"I want the proper things," answered Harry. "Well, uncle, the flame of the candle is a little shining case, with gas in the inside of it, and air on the outside, so that the case of flame is between the air and the gas. The gas keeps going into the flame to burn, and when the candle burns properly, none of it ever passes out through the flame; and none of the air ever gets in through the flame to the gas. The greatest heat of the candle is in this skin, or peel, or case of flame."

"Case of flame!" repeated Mr. Bagges. "Live and learn. I should have thought a candle flame was as thick as my poor old noddle."

"I can show you the contrary," said Harry. "I take this piece of white paper, look, and hold it a second or two down upon the candle flame, keeping the flame very steady. Now I'll rub off the black of the smoke, and--there--you find that the paper is scorched in the shape of a ring; but inside the ring it is only dirtied, and not singed at all."

"Seeing is believing," remarked the uncle.

"But," proceeded Harry, "there is more in the candle flame than the gas that comes out of the candle. You know a candle won't burn without air. There must be always air around the gas, and touching it like to make it burn. If a candle hasn't got enough air, it goes out, or burns badly, so that some of the vapor inside of the flame comes out through it in the form of smoke, and this is the reason of a candle smoking. So now you know why a great clumsy dip smokes more than a neat wax candle; it is because the thick wick of the dip makes too much fuel in proportion to the air that can get to it."

"Dear me! Well, I suppose there is a reason for every thing," exclaimed the young philosopher's mamma.

"What should you say, now," continued Harry, "if I told you that the smoke that comes out of a candle is the very thing that makes a candle light? Yes; a candle shines by consuming its own smoke. The smoke of a candle is a cloud of small dust, and the little grains of the dust are bits of charcoal, or carbon, as chemists call it. They are made in the flame, and burned in the flame, and, while burning, make the flame bright. They are burned the moment they are made; but the flame goes on making more of them as fast as it burns them; and that is how it keeps bright. The place they are made in, is in the case of flame itself, where the strongest heat is. The great heat separates them from the gas which comes from the melted wax, and, as soon as they touch the air on the outside of the thin case of flame, they burn."

"Can you tell how it is that the little bits of carbon cause the brightness of the flame?" asked Mr. Wilkinson.

"Because they are pieces of solid matter," answered Harry. "To make a flame shine, there must always be some solid--or at least liquid--matter in it."

"Very good," said Mr. Bagges--"solid stuff necessary to brightness."

"Some gases and other things," resumed Harry, "that burn with a flame you can hardly see, burn splendidly when something solid is put into them. Oxygen and hydrogen--tell me if I use too hard words, uncle--oxygen and hydrogen gases, if mixed together and blown through a pipe, burn with plenty of heat but with very little light. But if their flame is blown upon a piece of quick-lime, it gets so bright as to be quite dazzling. Make the smoke of oil of turpentine pass through the same flame, and it gives the flame a beautiful brightness directly."

"I wonder," observed Uncle Bagges, "what has made you such a bright youth."

"Taking after uncle, perhaps," retorted his nephew. "Don't put my candle and me out. Well, carbon or charcoal is what causes the brightness of all lamps, and candles, and other common lights; so, of course, there is carbon in what they are all made of."

"So carbon is smoke, eh? and light is owing to your carbon. Giving light out of smoke, eh? as they say in the classics," observed Mr. Bagges.

"But what becomes of the candle," pursued Harry, "as it burns away? where does it go?"

"Nowhere," said his mamma, "I should think. It burns to nothing."

"Oh, dear, no!" said Harry, "every thing--every body goes somewhere."

"Eh!--rather an important consideration that," Mr. Bagges moralized.

"You can see it goes into smoke, which makes soot, for one thing," pursued Harry. "There are other things it goes into, not to be seen by only looking, but you can get to see them by taking the right means--just put your hand over the candle, uncle."

"Thank you, young gentleman, I had rather be excused."

"Not close enough down to burn you, uncle; higher up. There--you feel a stream of hot air; so something seems to rise from the candle. Suppose you were to put a very long, slender gas-burner over the flame, and let the flame burn just within the end of it, as if it were a chimney, some of the hot steam would go up and come out at the top, but a sort of dew would be left behind in the glass chimney, if the chimney was cold enough when you put it on. There are ways of collecting this sort of dew, and when it is collected it turns out to be really water. I am not joking, uncle. Water is one of the things which the candle turns into in burning--water, coming out of fire. A jet of oil gives above a pint of water in burning. In some lighthouses they burn, Professor Faraday says, up to two gallons of oil in a night, and if the windows are cold, the steam from the oil clouds the inside of the windows, and, in frosty weather, freezes into ice."

"Water out of a candle, eh?" exclaimed Mr. Bagges. "As hard to get, I should have thought, as blood out of a post. Where does it come from?"

"Part from the wax, and part from the air, and yet not a drop of it comes either from the air or the wax. What do you make of that, uncle?"

"Eh? Oh! I'm no hand at riddles. Give it up."

"No riddle at all, uncle. The part that comes from the wax isn't water, and the part that comes from the air isn't water, but when put together they become water. Water is a mixture of two things, then. This can be shown. Put some iron wire or turnings into a gun-barrel open at both ends. Heat the middle of the barrel red-hot in a little furnace. Keep the heat up, and send the steam of boiling water through the red-hot gun-barrel. What will come out at the other end of the barrel won't be steam; it will be gas, which doesn't turn to water again when it gets cold, and which burns if you put a light to it. Take the turnings out of the gun-barrel, and you will find them changed to rust, and heavier than when they were put in. Part of the water is the gas that comes out of the barrel, the other part is what mixes with the iron turnings, and changes them to rust, and makes them heavier. You can fill a bladder with the gas that comes out of the gun-barrel, or you can pass bubbles of it up into a jar of water turned upside down in a trough, and, as I said, you can make this part of the water burn."

"Eh?" cried Mr. Bagges. "Upon my word. One of these days, we shall have you setting the Thames on fire."

"Nothing more easy," said Harry, "than to burn part of the Thames, or any other water; I mean the gas that I have just told you about, which is called hydrogen. In burning, hydrogen produces water again, like the flame of the candle. Indeed, hydrogen is that part of the water, formed by a candle burning, that comes from the wax. All things that have hydrogen in them produce water in burning, and the more there is in them, the more they produce. When pure hydrogen burns, nothing comes from it but water, no smoke or soot at all. If you were to burn one ounce of it, the water you would get would be just nine ounces. There are many ways of making hydrogen, besides out of steam by the hot gun-barrel. I could show it you in a moment by pouring a little sulphuric acid mixed with water into a bottle upon a few zinc or steel filings, and putting a cork in the bottle with a little pipe through it, and setting fire to the gas that would come from the mouth of the pipe. We should find the flame very hot, but having scarcely any brightness. I should like you to see the curious qualities of hydrogen, particularly how light it is, so as to carry things up in the air; and I wish I had a small balloon to fill with it and make go up to the ceiling, or a bag-pipe full of it to blow soap-bubbles with, and show how much faster they rise than common ones, blown with the breath."

"So do I," interposed Master Tom.

"And so," resumed Harry, "hydrogen, you know, uncle, is part of water, and just one-ninth part."

"As hydrogen is to water, so is a tailor to an ordinary individual, eh?" Mr. Bagges remarked.

"Well, now, then, uncle, if hydrogen is the tailor's part of the water, what are the other eight parts? The iron-turnings used to make hydrogen in the gun-barrel, and rusted, take just those eight parts from the water in the shape of steam, and are so much the heavier. Burn iron turnings in the air, and they make the same rust, and gain just the same in weight. So the other eight parts must be found in the air for one thing, and in the rusted iron turnings for another, and they must also be in the water; and now the question is, how to get at them?"

"Out of the water? Fish for them, I should say," suggested Mr. Bagges.

"Why, so we can," said Harry. "Only instead of hooks and lines, we must use wires--two wires, one from one end, the other from the other, of a galvanic battery. Put the points of these wires into water, a little distance apart, and they instantly take the water to pieces. If they are of copper, or a metal that will rust easily, one of them begins to rust, and air-bubbles come up from the other. These bubbles are hydrogen. The other part of the water mixes with the end of the wire and makes rust. But if the wires are of gold, or a metal that does not rust easily, air-bubbles rise from the ends of both wires. Collect the bubbles from both wires in a tube, and fire them, and they turn to water again; and this water is exactly the same weight as the quantity that has been changed into the two gases. Now, then, uncle, what should you think water was composed of?"

"Eh? well--I suppose of those very identical two gases, young gentleman."

"Right, uncle. Recollect that the gas from one of the wires was hydrogen, the one-ninth of water. What should you guess the gas from the other wire to be?"

"Stop--eh?--wait a bit--eh--oh!--why, the other eight-ninths, to be sure."

"Good again, uncle. Now this gas that is eight-ninths of water is the gas called oxygen that I mentioned just now. This is a very curious gas. It won't burn in air at all itself, like gas from a lamp, but it has a wonderful power of making things burn that are lighted and put into it. If you fill a jar with it--"

"How do you manage that?" Mr. Bagges inquired.

"You fill the jar with water," answered Harry, "and you stand it upside down in a vessel full of water too. Then you let bubbles of the gas up into the jar, and they turn out the water and take its place. Put a stopper in the neck of the jar, or hold a glass plate against the mouth of it, and you can take it out of the water, and so have bottled oxygen. A lighted candle put into a jar of oxygen blazes up directly and is consumed before you can say 'Jack Robinson.' Charcoal burns away in it as fast, with beautiful bright sparks--phosphorus with a light that dazzles you to look at--and a piece of iron or steel just made red-hot at the end first, is burnt in oxygen quicker than a stick would be in common air. The experiment of burning things in oxygen beats any fire-works."

"Oh, how jolly!" exclaimed Tom.

"Now we see, uncle," Harry continued, "that water is hydrogen and oxygen united together, that water is got wherever hydrogen is burnt in common air, that a candle won't burn without air, and that when a candle burns there is hydrogen in it burning, and forming water. Now, then, where does the hydrogen of the candle get the oxygen from, to turn into water with it?"

"From the air, eh?"

"Just so. I can't stop to tell you of the other things which there is oxygen in, and the many beautiful and amusing ways of getting it. But as there is oxygen in the air, and as oxygen makes things burn at such a rate, perhaps you wonder why air does not make things burn as fast as oxygen. The reason is, that there is something else in the air that mixes with the oxygen and weakens it."

"Makes a sort of gaseous grog of it, eh?" said Mr. Bagges. "But how is that proved?"

"Why, there is a gas, called nitrous gas, which, if you mix it with oxygen, takes all the oxygen into itself, and the mixture of the nitrous gas and oxygen, if you put water with it, goes into the water. Mix nitrous gas and air together in a jar over water, and the nitrous gas takes away the oxygen, and then the water sucks up the mixed oxygen and nitrous gas, and that part of the air which weakens the oxygen is left behind. Burning phosphorus in confined air will also take all the oxygen from it, and there are other ways of doing the same thing. The portion of air left behind is called nitrogen. You wouldn't know it from common air by the look; it has no color, taste, nor smell, and it won't burn. But things won't burn in it either; and any thing on fire put into it goes out directly. It isn't fit to breathe; and a mouse, or any animal, shut up in it dies. It isn't poisonous, though; creatures only die in it for want of oxygen. We breathe it with oxygen, and then it does no harm, but good; for if we breathe pure oxygen, we should breathe away so violently, that we should soon breathe our life out. In the same way, if the air were nothing but oxygen, a candle would not last above a minute."

"What a tallow-chandler's bill we should have!" remarked Mrs. Wilkinson.

"'If a house were on fire in oxygen,' as Professor Faraday said, 'every iron bar, or rafter, or pillar, every nail and iron tool, and the fire-place itself; all the zinc and copper roofs, and leaden coverings, and gutters, and; pipes, would consume and burn, increasing the combustion.'"

"That would be, indeed, burning 'like a house on fire,'" observed Mr. Bagges.

"'Think,'" said Harry, continuing his quotation, "'of the Houses of Parliament, or a steam-engine manufactory. Think of an iron-proof chest--no proof against oxygen. Think of a locomotive and its train--every engine, every carriage, and even every rail would be set on fire and burnt up.' So now, uncle, I think you see what the use of nitrogen is, and especially how it prevents a candle from burning out too fast."

"Eh?" said Mr. Bagges. "Well, I will say I do think we are under considerable obligations to nitrogen."

"I have explained to you, uncle," pursued Harry, "how a candle, in burning, turns into water. But it turns into something else besides that; there is a stream of hot air going up from it that won't condense into dew; some of that is the nitrogen of the air which the candle has taken all the oxygen from. But there is more in it than nitrogen. Hold a long glass tube over a candle, so that the stream of hot air from it may go up through the tube. Hold a jar over the end of the tube to collect some of the stream of hot air. Put some lime-water, which looks quite clear, into the jar; stop the jar, and shake it up. The lime-water, which was quite clear before, turns milky. Then there is something made by the burning of the candle that changes the color of the lime-water. That is a gas, too, and you can collect it, and examine it. It is to be got from several things, and is a part of all chalk, marble, and the shells of eggs or of shell-fish. The easiest way to make it is by pouring muriatic or sulphuric acid on chalk or marble. The marble or chalk begins to hiss or bubble, and you can collect the bubbles in the same way that you can oxygen. The gas made by the candle in burning, and which also is got out of the chalk and marble, is called carbonic acid. It puts out a light in a moment; it kills any animal that breathes it, and it is really poisonous to breathe, because it destroys life even when mixed with a pretty large quantity of common air. The bubbles made by beer when it ferments, are carbonic acid, so is the air that fizzes out of soda-water--and it is good to swallow though it is deadly to breathe. It is got from chalk by burning the chalk as well as by putting acid to it, and burning the carbonic acid out of chalk makes the chalk lime. This is why people are killed sometimes by getting in the way of the wind that blows from lime-kilns."

"Of which it is advisable carefully to keep to the windward," Mr. Wilkinson observed.

"The most curious thing about carbonic acid gas," proceeded Harry, "is its weight. Although it is only a sort of air, it is so heavy that you can pour it from one vessel into another. You may dip a cup of it and pour it down upon a candle, and it will put the candle out, which would astonish an ignorant person; because carbonic acid gas is as invisible as the air, and the candle seems to be put out by nothing. A soap-bubble of common air floats on it like wood on water. Its weight is what makes it collect in brewers' vats; and also in wells, where it is produced naturally; and owing to its collecting in such places it causes the deaths we so often hear about of those who go down into them without proper care. It is found in many springs of water, more or less; and a great deal of it comes out of the earth in some places. Carbonic acid gas is what stupefies the dogs in the Grotto del Cane. Well, but how is carbonic acid gas made by the candle?"

"I hope with your candle you'll throw some light upon the subject," said Uncle Bagges.

"I hope so," answered Harry. "Recollect it is the burning of the smoke, or soot, or carbon of the candle that makes the candle-flame bright. Also that the candle won't burn without air. Likewise that it will not burn in nitrogen, or air that has been deprived of oxygen. So the carbon of the candle mingles with oxygen, in burning, to make carbonic acid gas, just as the hydrogen does to form water. Carbonic acid gas, then, is carbon or charcoal dissolved in oxygen. Here is black soot getting invisible and changing into air; and this seems strange, uncle, doesn't it?"

"Ahem! Strange, if true," answered Mr. Bagges. "Eh? well! I suppose it's all right."

"Quite so, uncle. Burn carbon or charcoal either in the air or in oxygen, and it is sure always to make carbonic acid, and nothing else, if it is dry. No dew or mist gathers in a cold glass jar if you burn dry charcoal in it. The charcoal goes entirely into carbonic acid gas, and leaves nothing behind but ashes, which are only earthy stuff that was in the charcoal, but not part of the charcoal itself. And now, shall I tell you something about carbon?"

"With all my heart," assented Mr. Bagges.

"I said that there was carbon or charcoal in all common lights--so there is in every common kind of fuel. If you heat coal or wood away from the air, some gas comes away, and leaves behind coke from coal, and charcoal from wood; both carbon, though not pure. Heat carbon as much as you will in a close vessel, and it does not change in the least; but let the air get to it, and then it burns and flies off in carbonic acid gas. This makes carbon so convenient for fuel. But it is ornamental as well as useful, uncle The diamond is nothing else than carbon."

"The diamond, eh? You mean the black diamond."

"No; the diamond, really and truly. The diamond is only carbon in the shape of a crystal."

"Eh? and can't some of your clever chemists crystallize a little bit of carbon, and make a Koh-i-noor?"

"Ah, uncle, perhaps we shall, some day. In the mean time, I suppose, we must be content with making carbon so brilliant as it is in the flame of a candle. Well; now you see that a candle-flame is vapor burning, and the vapor, in burning, turns into water and carbonic acid gas. The oxygen of both the carbonic acid gas and the water comes from the air, and the hydrogen and carbon together are the vapor. They are distilled out of the melted wax by the heat. But, you know, carbon alone can't be distilled by any heat. It can be distilled, though, when it is joined with hydrogen, as it is in the wax, and then the mixed hydrogen and carbon rise in gas of the same kind as the gas in the streets, and that also is distilled by heat from coal. So a candle is a little gas manufactory in itself, that burns the gas as fast as it makes it."

"Haven't you pretty nearly come to your candle's end?" said Mr. Wilkinson.

"Nearly. I only want to tell uncle, that the burning of a candle is almost exactly like our breathing. Breathing is consuming oxygen, only not so fast as burning. In breathing we throw out water in vapor and carbonic acid from our lungs, and take oxygen in. Oxygen is as necessary to support the life of the body, as it is to keep up the flame of a candle."

"So," said Mr. Bagges, "man is a candle, eh? and Shakspeare knew that, I suppose (as he did most things), when he wrote

"'Out, out, brief candle!'

"Well, well; we old ones are moulds, and you young squires are dips and rushlights, eh? Any more to tell us about the candle?"

"I could tell you a great deal more about oxygen, and hydrogen, and carbon, and water, and breathing, that Professor Faraday said, if I had time; but you should go and hear him yourself, uncle."

"Eh? well! I think I will. Some of us seniors may learn something from a juvenile lecture, at any rate, if given by a Faraday. And now, my boy, I will tell you what," added Mr. Bagges, "I am very glad to find you so fond of study and science: and you deserve to be encouraged: and so I'll give you a what-d'ye-call-it? a Galvanic Battery on your next birth-day; and so much for your teaching your old uncle the chemistry of a candle."

THE MYSTERIOUS COMPACT.

A FREE TRANSLATION FROM THE GERMAN.

IN TWO PARTS.--PART I.

In the latter years of the last century, two youths, Ferdinand von Hallberg, and Edward von Wensleben were receiving their education in the military academy of Marienvheim. Among their schoolfellows they were called Orestes and Pylades, or Damon and Pythias, on account of their tender friendship, which constantly recalled to their schoolfellows' minds the history of these ancient worthies. Both were sons of officers, who had long served the state with honor, both were destined for their father's profession, both accomplished and endowed by nature with no mean talents. But fortune had not been so impartial in the distribution of her favors--Hallberg's father lived on a small pension, by means of which he defrayed the expenses of his son's schooling at the cost of the government; while Wensleben's parents willingly paid the handsomest salary in order to insure to their only child the best education which the establishment afforded. This disparity in circumstances at first produced a species of proud reserve, amounting to coldness, in Ferdinand's deportment, which yielded by degrees to the cordial affection that Edward manifested toward him on every occasion. Two years older than Edward, of a thoughtful and almost melancholy turn of mind, Ferdinand soon gained a considerable influence over his weaker friend, who clung to him with almost girlish dependence.

Their companionship had now lasted with satisfaction and happiness to both, for several years, and the youths had formed for themselves the most delightful plans--how they were never to separate, how they were to enter the service in the same regiment, and if a war broke out, how they were to fight side by side and conquer, or die together. But destiny, or rather Providence, whose plans are usually opposed to the designs of mortals, had ordained otherwise for the friends than they anticipated.

Earlier than was expected, Hallberg's father found an opportunity to have his son appointed to an infantry regiment, and he was ordered immediately to join the staff in a small provincial town, in an out-of-the-way mountainous district. This announcement fell like a thunder-bolt on the two friends; but Ferdinand considered himself by far the more unhappy, since it was ordained that he should be the one to sever the happy bond that bound them, and to inflict a deep wound on his loved companion. His schoolfellows vainly endeavored to console him by calling his attention to his new commission, and the preference which had been shown him above so many others. He only thought of the approaching separation; he only saw his friend's grief, and passed the few remaining days that were allowed him at the academy by Edward's side, who husbanded every moment of his Ferdinand's society with jealous care, and could not bear to lose sight of him for an instant. In one of their most melancholy hours, excited by sorrow and youthful enthusiasm, they bound themselves by a mysterious vow, namely, that the one whom God should think fit to call first from this world should bind himself (if conformable to the Divine will) to give some sign of his remembrance and affection to the survivor.

The place where this vow was made was a solitary spot in the garden, by a monument of gray marble, overshadowed by dark firs, which the former director of the institution had caused to be erected to the memory of his son, whose premature death was recorded on the stone.

Here the friends met at night, and by the fitful light of the moon they pledged themselves to the rash and fanciful contract, and confirmed and consecrated it the next morning, by a religious ceremony. After this they were able to look the approaching separation in the face more manfully, and Edward strove hard to quell the melancholy feeling which had lately arisen in his mind on account of the constant foreboding that Ferdinand expressed of his own early death. "No," thought Edward, "his pensive turn of mind and his wild imagination cause him to reproach himself without a cause for my sorrow and his own departure. Oh, no, Ferdinand will not die early--he will not die before me. Providence will not leave me alone in the world."

The lonely Edward strove hard to console himself, for after Ferdinand's departure, the house, the world itself, seemed a desert; and absorbed by his own memories, he now recalled to mind many a dark speech which had fallen from his absent friend, particularly in the latter days of their intercourse, and which betokened but too plainly a presentiment of early death. But time and youth exercised, even over these sorrows, their irresistible influence. Edward's spirits gradually recovered their tone; and as the traveler always has the advantage over the one who remains behind, in respect of new objects to occupy his mind, so was Ferdinand even sooner calmed and cheered, and by degrees he became engrossed by his new duties, and new acquaintances, not to the exclusion, indeed, of his friend's memory, but greatly to the alleviation of his own sorrow. It was natural, in such circumstances, that the young officer should console himself sooner than poor Edward. The country in which Hallberg found himself was wild and mountainous, but possessed all the charms and peculiarities of "far off" districts--simple, hospitable manners, old-fashioned customs, many tales and legends which arise from the credulity of the mountaineers, who invariably lean toward the marvelous, and love to people the wild solitudes with invisible beings.

Ferdinand had soon, without seeking for it, made acquaintance with several respectable families in the town; and, as it generally happens in such cases, he had become quite domesticated in the best country houses in the neighborhood; and the well-mannered, handsome, and agreeable youth was welcomed every where. The simple, patriarchal life in these old mansions and castles--the cordiality of the people, the wild, picturesque scenery, nay, the very legends themselves were entirely to Hallberg's taste. He adapted himself easily to his new mode of life, but his heart remained tranquil. This could not last. Before half a year had passed, the battalion to which he belonged was ordered to another station, and he had to part with many friends. The first letter which he wrote after this change, bore the impression of impatience at the breaking up of a happy time. Edward found this natural enough; but he was surprised in the following letters to detect signs of a disturbed and desultory state of mind, wholly foreign to his friend's nature. The riddle was soon solved. Ferdinand's heart was touched for the first time, and, perhaps, because the impression had been made late, it was all the deeper. Unfavorable circumstances opposed themselves to his hopes: the young lady was of an ancient family, rich, and betrothed since her childhood to a relation, who was expected shortly to arrive in order to claim her promised hand. Notwithstanding this engagement, Ferdinand and the young girl had become sincerely attached to each other, and had both resolved to dare every thing with the hope of being united. They pledged their troth in secret; the darkest mystery enveloped not only their plans, but their affections; and as secrecy was necessary to the advancement of their projects. Ferdinand entreated his friend to forgive him if he did not intrust his whole secret to a sheet of paper that had at least sixty miles to travel, and which must pass through so many hands. It was impossible from his letter to guess the name of the person or the place in question. "You know that I love," he wrote, "therefore you know that the object of my secret passion is worthy of any sacrifice; for you know your friend too well to believe him capable of any blind infatuation, and this must suffice for the present. No one must suspect what we are to each other; no one here or round the neighborhood must have the slightest clew to our plans. An awful personage will soon make his appearance among us. His violent temper, his inveterate obstinacy (according to all that one hears, of him), are well calculated to confirm in _her_ a well-founded aversion. But family arrangements and legal contracts exist, the fulfillment of which the opposing party are bent on enforcing. The struggle will be hard, perhaps unsuccessful; notwithstanding, I will strain every nerve. Should I fall, you must console yourself, my dear Edward, with the thought, that it will be no misfortune to your friend to be deprived of an existence rendered miserable by the failure of his dearest hopes, and separation from his dearest friend. Then may all the happiness which heaven has denied me be vouchsafed to you and her, so that my spirit may look down contentedly from the realms of light, and bless and protect you both."

Such was the usual tenor of the letters which Edward received during that period. His heart was full of anxiety--he read danger and distress in the mysterious communications of Ferdinand; and every argument that affection and good sense could suggest aid he make use of, in his replies, to turn his friend from this path of peril which threatened to end in a deep abyss. He tried persuasion, and urged him to desist for the sake of their long-tried affection. But when did passion ever listen to the expostulations of friendship?

Ferdinand only saw one aim in life--the possession of the beloved one. All else faded from before his eyes, and even his correspondence slackened; for his time, was much taken up in secret excursions, arrangements of all kinds, and communications with all manner of persons; in fact every action of his present life tended to the furtherance of his plan.

All of a sudden his letters ceased. Many posts passed without a sign of life. Edward was a prey to the greatest anxiety; he thought his friend had staked and lost. He imagined an elopement, a clandestine marriage, a duel with a rival, and all these casualties were the more painful to conjecture, since his entire ignorance of the real state of things gave his fancy full range to conjure up all sorts of misfortunes. At length, after many more posts had come in without a line to pacify Edward's fears, without a word in reply to his earnest entreaties for some news, he determined on taking a step which he had meditated before, and only relinquished out of consideration for his friend's wishes. He wrote to the officer commanding the regiment, and made inquiries respecting the health and abode of Lieutenant von Hallberg, whose friends in the capital had remained for nearly two months without news of him, he who had hitherto proved a regular and frequent correspondent.

Another fortnight dragged heavily on, and at length the announcement came in an official form. Lieutenant von Hallberg had been invited to the castle of a nobleman whom he was in the custom of visiting, in order to be present at the wedding of a lady; that he was indisposed at the time, that he grew worse, and on the third morning had been found dead in his bed, having expired during the night from an attack of apoplexy.

Edward could not finish the letter, it fell from his trembling hand. To see his worst fears realized so suddenly, overwhelmed him at first. His youth withstood the bodily illness which would have assailed a weaker constitution, and perhaps mitigated the anguish of his grief. He was not dangerously, ill, but they feared many days for his reason; and it required all the kind solicitude of the director of the college, combined with the most skillful medical aid, to stem the torrent of his sorrow, and to turn it gradually into a calmer channel, until by degrees the mourner recovered both health and reason. His youthful spirits, however, had received a blow from which they never rebounded, and one thought lay heavy on his mind which he was unwilling to share with any other person, and which, on that account, grew more and more painful. It was the memory of that holy promise which had been mutually contracted, that the survivor was to receive some token of his friend's remembrance of him after death. Now two months had already passed since Ferdinand's earthly career had been arrested, his spirit was free, why no sign? In the moment of death Edward had had no intimation, no message from the passing spirit, and this apparent neglect, so to speak, was another deep wound in Edward's breast. Do the affections cease with life? Was it contrary to the will of the Almighty that the mourner should taste this consolation? Did individuality lose itself in death and with it memory? Or did one stroke destroy spirit and body? These anxious doubts, which have before now agitated many who reflect on such subjects, exercised their power over Edward's mind with an intensity that none can imagine save one whose position is in any degree similar.

Time gradually deadened the intensity of his affliction. The violent paroxysms of grief subsided into a deep but calm regret; it was as if a mist had spread itself over every object which presented itself before him, robbing them indeed of half their charms, yet leaving them visible, and in their real relation to himself. During this mental change, the autumn arrived, and with it the long-expected commission. It did not indeed occasion the joy which it might have done in former days, when it would have led to a meeting with Ferdinand, or at all events to a better chance of meeting, but it released him from the thralldom of college, and it opened to him a welcome sphere of activity. Now it so happened that his appointment led him accidentally into the very neighborhood where Ferdinand had formerly resided, only with this difference, that Edward's squadron was quartered in the lowlands, about a short day's journey from the town and woodland environs in question.

He proceeded to his quarters, and found an agreeable occupation in the exercise of his new duties.

He had no wish to make acquaintances, yet he did not refuse the invitations that were pressed upon him, lest he should be accused of eccentricity and rudeness; and so he found himself soon entangled in all sorts of engagements with the neighboring gentry and nobility. If these so-called gayeties gave him no particular pleasure, at least for the time they diverted his thoughts; and, with this view, he accepted an invitation (for the new year and carnival were near at hand) to a great shooting-match which was to be held in the mountains--a spot which it was possible to reach in one day with favorable weather and the roads in a good state. The day was appointed, the air tolerably clear; a mild frost had made the roads safe and even, and Edward had every expectation of being able to reach Blumenberg in his sledge before night, as on the following morning the match was to take place. But as soon as he got near the mountains, where the sun retires so early to rest, snow-clouds drove from all quarters, a cutting wind came roaring through the ravines, and a heavy fall of snow began. Twice the driver lost his way, and daylight was gone before he had well recovered it; darkness came on sooner than in other places, walled in as they were by dark mountains, with dark clouds above their heads. It was out of the question to dream of reaching Blumenberg that night; but in this hospitable land, where every house-holder welcomes the passing traveler, Edward was under no anxiety as to shelter. He only wished, before the night quite set in, to reach some country house or castle; and now that the storm had abated in some degree, that the heavens were a little clearer, and that a few stars peeped out, a large valley opened before them, whose bold outline Edward could distinguish, even in the uncertain light. The well-defined roofs of a neat village were perceptible, and behind these, half-way up the mountain that crowned the plain, Edward thought he could discern a large building which glimmered with more than one light. The road led straight into the village. Edward stopped and inquired.

That building was, indeed, a castle; the village belonged to it, and both were the property of the Baron Friedenberg. "Friedenberg!" repeated Edward: the name sounded familiar to him, yet he could not call to mind when and where he had heard it. He inquired if the family were at home, hired a guide, and arrived at length, by a rugged path which wound itself round steep rocks, to the summit of them, and finally to the castle, which was perched there like an eagle's nest. The tinkling of the bells on Edward's sledge attracted the attention of the inmates; the door was opened with prompt hospitality--servants appeared with torches; Edward was assisted to emerge from under the frozen apron of his carriage, out of his heavy pelisse, stiff with hoar frost, and up a comfortable staircase into a long saloon of simple construction, where a genial warmth appeared to welcome him from a spacious stove in the corner. The servants here placed two large burning candles in massive silver sconces, and went out to announce the stranger.

The fitting-up of the room, or rather saloon, was perfectly simple. Family portraits, in heavy frames, hung round the walls, diversified by some maps. Magnificent stags' horns were arranged between; and the taste of the master of the house was easily detected in the hunting-knives, powder-flasks, carbines, smoking-bags, and sportsmen's pouches, which were arranged, not without taste, as trophies of the chase. The ceiling was supported by large beams, dingy with smoke and age; and on the sides of the room were long benches, covered and padded with dark cloth, and studded with large brass nails; while round the dinner-table were placed several arm-chairs, also of an ancient date. All bore the aspect of the "good old times," of a simple patriarchal life with affluence. Edward felt as if there were a kind welcome in the inanimate objects which surrounded him, when the inner door opened, and the master of the house entered, preceded by a servant, and welcomed his guest with courteous cordiality.

Some apologies which Edward offered on account of his intrusion, were silenced in a moment.

"Come, now, lieutenant," said the baron, "I must introduce you to my family. You are no such a stranger to us, as you fancy."

With these words he took Edward by the arm, and, lighted by the servant, they passed through several lofty rooms, which were very handsomely furnished, although in an old-fashioned style, with faded Flemish carpets, large chandeliers, and high-backed chairs: everything in keeping with what the youth had already seen in the castle. Here were the ladies of the house. At the other end of the room, by the side of an immense stove, ornamented with a large shield of the family arms, richly emblazoned, and crowned by a gigantic Turk, in a most comfortable attitude of repose sat the lady of the house, an elderly matron of tolerable circumference, in a gown of dark red satin, with a black mantle, and a snow-white lace cap. She appeared to be playing cards with the chaplain, who sat opposite to her at the table, and the Baron Friedenberg to have made the third hand at ombre, till he was called away to welcome his guest. On the other side of the room were two young ladies, an elder person, who might be a governess, and a couple of children, very much engrossed by a game at loto.

As Edward entered, the ladies rose to greet him; a chair was placed for him near the mistress of the house, and very soon a cup of chocolate and a bottle of tokay were served on a rich silver salver, to restore the traveler after the cold and discomfort of his drive; in fact it was easy for him to feel that these "far-away" people were by no means displeased at his arrival. An agreeable conversation soon began among all parties. His travels, the shooting match, the neighborhood, agriculture, all afforded subjects, and in a quarter of an hour Edward felt as if he had long been domesticated with these simple but truly well informed people.

Two hours flew swiftly by, and then a bell sounded for supper; the servants returned with lights, announced that the supper was on the table, and lighted the company into the dining-room--the same into which Edward had first been ushered. Here, in the background, some other characters appeared on the scene--the agent, a couple of subalterns, and the physician. The guests ranged themselves round the table. Edward's place was between the baron and his wife. The chaplain said a short grace, when the baroness, with an uneasy look, glanced at her husband over Edward's shoulder, and said, in a low whisper,

"My love, we are thirteen--that will never do."

The baron smiled, beckoned to the youngest of the clerks, and whispered to him. The youth bowed, and withdrew. The servant took the cover away, and served his supper in the next room.

"My wife," said Friedenberg, "is superstitious, as all mountaineers are. She thinks it unlucky to dine thirteen. It certainly has happened twice (whether from chance or not who can tell?) that we have had to mourn the death of an acquaintance who had, a short time before, made the thirteenth at our table."

"This idea is not confined to the mountains. I know many people in the capital who think with the baroness," said Edward. "Although in a town such ideas, which belong more especially to the olden time, are more likely to be lost in the whirl and bustle which usually silences every thing that is not essentially matter of fact."

"Ah, yes, lieutenant," replied the baroness, smiling good-humoredly, "we keep up old customs better in the mountains. You see that by our furniture. People in the capital would call this sadly old-fashioned."

"That which is really good and beautiful can never appear out of date," rejoined Edward, courteously; "and here, if I mistake not, presides a spirit that is ever striving after both. I must confess, baron, that when I first entered your house, it was this very aspect of the olden time that enchanted me beyond measure."

"That is always the effect which simplicity has on every unspoiled mind," answered Friedenberg; "but townspeople have seldom a taste for such things."

"I was partly educated on my father's estate," said Edward, "which was situated in the Highlands; and it appeared to me as if, when I entered your house, I were visiting a neighbor of my father's, for the general aspect is quite the same here as with us."

"Yes," said the chaplain, "mountainous districts have all a family likeness: the same necessities, the same struggles with nature, the same seclusion, all produce the same way of life among mountaineers."

"On that account the prejudice against the number thirteen was especially familiar to me," replied Edward. "We also dislike it; and we retain a consideration for many supernatural, or at least inexplicable things, which I have met with again in this neighborhood."

"Yes, here, almost more than any where else," continued the chaplain. "I think we excel all other mountaineers in the number and variety of our legends and ghost stories. I assure you that there is not a cave, or a church, or, above all, a castle, for miles round about, of which we could not relate something supernatural."

The baroness, who perceived the turn which the conversation was likely to take, thought it better to send the children to bed; and when they were gone, the priest continued, "Even here, in this castle--"

"Here!" inquired Edward, "in this very castle?"

"Yes, yes, lieutenant!" interposed the baron, "this house has the reputation of being haunted; and the most extraordinary thing is, that the matter can not be denied by the skeptical, or accounted for by the reasonable."

"And yet," said Edward, "the castle looks so cheerful, so habitable."

"Yes, this part which we live in," answered the baron; "but it consists of only a few apartments sufficient for my family and these gentlemen; the other portion of the building is half in ruins, and dates from the period when men established themselves on the mountains for greater safety."

"There are some who maintain," said the physician, "that a part of the walls of the eastern tower itself are of Roman origin; but that would surely be difficult to prove."

"But, gentlemen," observed the baroness, "you are losing yourselves in learned descriptions as to the erection of the castle, and our guest is kept in ignorance of what he is anxious to hear."

"Indeed, madam," replied the chaplain, "this is not entirely foreign to the subject, since in the most ancient part of the building lies the chamber in question."

"Where apparitions have been seen?" inquired Edward, eagerly.

"Not exactly," replied the baroness; "there is nothing fearful to be seen."

"Come, let us tell him at once," interrupted the baron. "The fact is, that every guest who sleeps for the first time in this room (and it has fallen to the lot of many, in turn, to do so), is visited by some important, significant dream or vision, or whatever I ought to call it, in which some future event is prefigured to him, or some past mystery cleared up, which he had vainly striven to comprehend before."

"Then," interposed Edward, "it must be something like what is known in the Highlands under the name of second sight, a privilege, as some consider it, which several persons and several families enjoy."

"Just so," said the physician, "the cases are very similar; yet the most mysterious part of this affair is, that it does not appear to originate with the individual, or his organization, or his sympathy with beings of the invisible world; no, the individual has nothing to say to it--the locality does it all. Every one who sleeps in that room has his mysterious dream, and the result proves its truth."

"At least in most instances," continued the baron, "when we have had an opportunity of hearing the cases confirmed. I remember once in particular. You may recollect, lieutenant, that when you first came in I had the honor of telling you, you were not quite a stranger to me."

"Certainly, baron; and I have been wishing for a long time to ask an explanation of these words."

"We have often heard your name mentioned by a particular friend of yours--one who could never, pronounce it without emotion."

"Ah!" cried Edward, who now saw clearly why the baron's name had sounded familiar to him also; "ah! you speak of my friend Hallberg; truly do you say, we were indeed dear to each other."

"Were!" echoed the baron, in a faltering tone, as he observed the sudden change in Edward's voice and countenance; "can the blooming, vigorous youth be--"

"Dead!" exclaimed Edward; and the baron deeply regretted that he had touched so tender a chord, as he saw the young officer's eyes fill with tears, and a dark cloud pass over his animated features.

"Forgive me," he continued, while he leaned forward and pressed his companion's hand; "I grieve that a thoughtless word should have awakened such deep sorrow. I had no idea of his death; we all loved the handsome young man, and by his description of you were already much interested in you before we had ever seen you."

The conversation now turned entirely on Hallberg. Edward related the particulars of his death. Every one present had something to say in his praise; and although this sudden allusion to his dearest friend had agitated Edward in no slight degree, yet it was a consolation to him to listen to the tribute these worthy people paid to the memory of Ferdinand, and to see how genuine was their regret at the tidings of his early death. The time passed swiftly away in conversation of much interest, and the whole, company were surprised to hear ten o'clock strike; an unusually late hour for this quiet, regular family. The chaplain read prayers, in which Edward devoutly joined, and then he kissed the matron's hand, and felt almost as if he were in his father's house. The baron offered to show his guest to his room, and the servant preceded them with lights. The way led past the staircase, and then on one side into a long gallery, which communicated with another wing of the castle.

The high-vaulted ceilings, the curious carving on the ponderous doorways, the pointed gothic windows, through many broken panes of which a sharp night wind whistled, proved to Edward that he was in the old part of the castle, and that the famous chamber could not be far off.

"Would it be impossible for me to be quartered there," he began, rather timidly; "I should like it of all things."

"Really!" inquired the baron, rather surprised; "have not our ghost stories alarmed you?"

"On the contrary," was the reply, "they have excited the most earnest wish--"

"Then, if that be the case," said the baron, "we will return. The room was already prepared for you, being the most comfortable and the best in the whole wing; only I fancied, after our conversation--"

"Oh, certainly not," exclaimed Edward; "I could only long for such dreams."

During this discourse they had arrived at the door of the famous room. They went in. They found themselves in a lofty and spacious apartment, so large that the two candles which the servant carried, only, shed a glimmering twilight over it, which did not penetrate to the furthest corner. A high-canopied bed, hung with costly but old-fashioned damask, of a dark green, in which were swelling pillows of snowy whiteness, tied with green bows, and a silk coverlet of the same color, looked very inviting to the tired traveler. Sofa and chairs of faded needlework, a carved oak commode and table, a looking-glass in heavy framework, a prie-dieu and crucifix above it, constituted the furniture of the room, where, above all things, cleanliness and comfort preponderated, while a good deal of silver plate was spread out on the toilet-table.

Edward looked round. "A beautiful room!" he said. "Answer me one question, baron, if you please. Did he ever sleep here?"

"Certainly," replied Friedenberg; "it was his usual room when he was here, and he had a most curious dream in that bed, which, as he assured us, made a great impression on him."

"And what was it?" inquired Edward, eagerly.

"He never told us, for, as you well know, he was reserved by nature; but we gathered from some words that he let slip, that an early and sudden death was foretold. Alas! your narrative has confirmed the truth of the prediction."

"Wonderful! He always had a similar foreboding, and many a time has he grieved me by alluding to it," said Edward; "yet it never made him gloomy or discontented. He went on his way firmly and calmly, and looked forward with joy, I might almost say, to another life."

"He was a superior man," answered the baron, "whose memory will ever be dear to us. But now I will detain you no longer. Good-night. Here is the bell," he showed him the cord in between the curtains; "and your servant sleeps in the next room."

"Oh, you are too careful of me," said Edward, smiling; "I am used to sleep by myself."

"Still," replied the baron, "every precaution should be taken. Now, once more, good night."

He shook him by the hand, and, followed by the servant, left the room.

Thus Edward found himself alone in the large, mysterious-looking, haunted room, where his deceased friend had so often reposed--where he also was expected to see a vision. The awe which the place itself inspired, combined with the sad and yet tender recollection of the departed Ferdinand, produced a state of mental excitement which was not favorable to his night's rest. He had already undressed with the aid of his servant (whom he had then dismissed), and had been in bed some time, having extinguished the candles. No sleep visited his eyelids; and the thought recurred which had so often troubled him, why he had never received the promised token from Ferdinand, whether his friend's spirit were among the blest--whether his silence (so to speak) proceeded from unwillingness or incapacity to communicate with the living. A mingled train of reflections agitated his mind: his brain grew heated; his pulse beat faster and faster. The castle clock tolled eleven--half past eleven. He counted the strokes; and at that moment the moon rose above the dark margin of the rocks which surrounded the castle, and shed her full light into Edward's room. Every object stood out in relief from the darkness. Edward gazed, and thought, and speculated. It seemed to him as if something moved in the furthest corner of the room. The movement was evident--it assumed a form--the form of a man, which appeared to advance, or rather to float forward. Here Edward lost all sense of surrounding objects, and he found himself once more sitting at the foot of the monument, in the garden of the academy, where he had contracted the bond with his friend. As formerly, the moon streamed through the dark branches of the fir-trees, and shed its cold, pale light on the cold, white marble of the monument. Then the floating form which had appeared in the room of the castle became clearer, more substantial, more earthly-looking; it issued from behind the tombstone, and stood in the full moonlight. It was Ferdinand, in the uniform of his regiment, earnest and pale, but with a kind smile on his features.

"Ferdinand, Ferdinand!" cried Edward, overcome by joy and surprise, and he strove to embrace the well-loved form, but it waved him aside with a melancholy look.

"Ah! you are dead," continued the speaker; "and why then do I see you just as you looked when living?"

"Edward," answered the apparition, in a voice that sounded as if it came from afar, "I am dead, but my spirit has no peace."

"You are not with the blest?" cried Edward, in a voice of terror.

"God is merciful," it replied; "but we are frail and sinful creatures; inquire no more, but pray for me."

"With all my heart," cried Edward, in a tone of anguish, while he gazed with affection on the familiar features; "but speak, what can I do for thee?"

"An unholy tie still binds me to earth. I have sinned. I was cut off in the midst of my sinful projects. This ring burns." He slipped a small gold ring from his left hand. "Only when every token of this unholy compact is destroyed, and when I recover the ring which I exchanged for this, only then can my spirit be at rest. Oh, Edward, dear Edward, bring me back my ring!"

"With joy--but where, where am I to seek it?"

"Emily Varnier will give it thee herself; our engagement was contrary to holy duties, to prior engagements, to earlier vows. God denied his blessing to the guilty project, and my course was arrested in a fearful manner. Pray for me, Edward, and bring back the ring, my ring," continued the voice, in a mournful tone of appeal.

Then the features of the deceased smiled sadly but tenderly; then all appeared to float once more before Edward's eyes--the form was lost in mist, the monument, the fir grove, the moonlight, disappeared: a long, gloomy, breathless pause followed. Edward lay, half sleeping, half benumbed, in a confused manner; portions of the dream returned to him--some images, some sounds--above all, the petition for the restitution of the ring. But an indescribable power bound his limbs, closed his eyelids, and silenced his voice; mental consciousness alone was left him, yet his mind was a prey to terror.

At length these painful sensations subsided--his nerves became more braced, his breath came more freely, a pleasing languor crept over his limbs, and he fell into a peaceful sleep. When he awoke it was already broad daylight; his sleep toward the end of the night had been quiet and refreshing. He felt strong and well, but as soon as the recollection of his dream returned, a deep melancholy took possession of him, and he felt the traces of tears which grief had wrung from him on his eyelashes. But what had the vision been? A mere dream engendered by the conversation of the evening, and his affection for Hallberg's memory, or was it at length the fulfillment of the compact?

There, out of that dark corner, had the form risen up, and moved toward him. But might it not have been some effect of light and shade produced by the moonbeams, and the dark branches of a large tree close to the window, when agitated by the high wind? Perhaps he had seen this, and then fallen asleep, and all combined had woven itself into a dream. But the name of Emily Varnier! Edward did not remember ever to have heard it; certainly it had never been mentioned in Ferdinand's letters. Could it be the name of his love, of the object of that ardent and unfortunate passion? Could the vision be one of truth? He was meditating, lost in thought, when there was a knock at his door, and the servant entered. Edward rose hastily, and sprang out of bed. As he did so, he heard something fall with a ringing sound; the servant stooped and picked up a gold ring, plain gold, like a wedding-ring. Edward shuddered; he snatched it from the servant's hand, and the color forsook his cheeks as he read the two words "Emily Varnier" engraved inside the hoop. He stood there like one thunderstruck, as pale as a corpse, with the proof in his hand that he had not merely dreamed, but had actually spoken with the spirit of his friend. A servant of the household came in to ask whether the lieutenant wished to breakfast in his room, or down stairs with the family. Edward would willingly have remained alone with the thoughts that pressed heavily on him, but a secret dread lest his absence should be remarked, and considered as a proof of fear, after all that had passed on the subject of the haunted room, determined him to accept the last proposal. He dressed hastily, and arranged his hair carefully, but the paleness of his face and the traces of tears in his eyes, were not to be concealed, and he entered the saloon, where the family were already assembled at the breakfast-table, with the chaplain and the doctor.

The baron rose to greet him; one glance at the young officer's face was sufficient; he pressed his hand in silence, and led him to a place by the side of the baroness. An animated discussion now began concerning the weather, which was completely changed; a strong south wind had risen in the night, so there was now a thaw. The snow was all melted--the torrents were flowing once more, and the roads impassable.

"How can you possibly reach Blumenberg, to-day?" the baron inquired of his guest.

"That will be well nigh impossible," said the doctor. "I am just come from a patient at the next village, and I was nearly an hour performing the same distance in a carriage that is usually traversed on foot in a quarter of an hour."

Edward had not given a thought this morning to the shooting-match. Now that it had occurred to him to remember it, he felt little regret at being detained from a scene of noisy festivity which, far from being desirable, appeared to him actually distasteful in his present frame of mind. Yet he was troubled, by the thought of intruding too long on the hospitality of his new friends; and he said, in a hesitating manner,

"Yes! but I must try how far---"

"That you shall not do," interrupted the baron. "The road is always bad, and in a thaw it is really dangerous. It would go against my conscience to allow you to risk it. Remain with us; we have no shooting-match or ball to offer you, but--"

"I shall not certainly regret either," cried Edward, eagerly.

"Well, then, remain with us, lieutenant," said the matron, lying her hand on his arm, with a kind, maternal gesture. "You are heartily welcome; and the longer you stay with us, the better shall we be pleased."

The youth bowed, and raised the lady's hand to his lips, and said,

"If you will allow me--if you feel certain that I am not intruding--I will accept, your kind offer with joy. I never care much for a ball, at any time, and to-day in particular--" he stopped short, and then added, "In such bad weather as this, the small amusement--"

"Would be dearly bought," interposed the baron. "Come, I am delighted you will remain with us."

He shook Edward warmly by the hand.

"You know you are with old friends."

"And, besides," said the doctor, with disinterested solicitude, "it would be imprudent, for M. de Wensleben does not look very well. Had you a good night, sir?"

"Very good," replied Edward.

"Without much dreaming?" continued the other, pertinaciously

"Dreaming! oh, nothing wonderful," answered the officer.

"Hem!" said the doctor, shaking his head, portentously. "No one yet--"

"Were I to relate my dream," replied Edward, "you would understand it no more than I did. Confused images--"

The baroness, who saw the youth's unwillingness to enlarge upon the subject, here observed,

"That some of the visions had been of no great importance--those which she had heard related, at least."

The chaplain led the conversation from dreams themselves, to their origin, on which subject he and the doctor could not agree; and Edward and his visions were left in peace at last. But when every one had departed, each to his daily occupation, Edward followed the baron into his library.

"I answered in that manner," he said, "to get rid of the doctor and his questioning. To you I will confess the truth. Your room has exercised its mysterious influence over me."

"Indeed!" said the baron, eagerly.

"I have seen and spoken with my Ferdinand, for the first time since his death. I will trust to your kindness--your sympathy--not to require of me a description of this exciting vision. But I have a question to put to you."

"Which I will answer in all candor, if it be possible."

"Do you know the name of Emily Varnier?"

"Varnier!--certainly not."

"Is there no one in this neighborhood who bears that name?"

"No one; it sounds like a foreign name."

"In the bed in which I slept I found this ring," said Edward, while he produced it; and the apparition of my friend pronounced that name.

"Wonderful! As I tell you, I know no one so called--this is the first time I ever heard the name. But it is entirely unaccountable to me, how the ring should have come into that bed. You see, M. von Wensleben, what I told you is true. There is something very peculiar about that room; the moment you entered, I saw that the spell had been working on you also, but I did not wish to forestall or force your confidence."

"I felt the delicacy, as I do now the kindness, of your intentions. Those who are as sad as I am can alone tell the value of tenderness and sympathy."

Edward remained this day and the following at the castle, and felt quite at home with its worthy inmates. He slept twice in the haunted room. He went away, and came back often; was always welcomed cordially, and always quartered in the same apartment. But, in spite of all this, he had no clew, he had no means of lifting the vail of mystery which hung round the fate of Ferdinand Hallberg and of Emily Varnier.