Part 5

The Professor joined us at the gate, radiant and communicative. “All this soil, you will observe, is mingled with oyster shells to the depth of several feet,” he began. “This was done by the Spaniards for the purpose of enriching the ground. Ah! Miss Iris, I did not at first perceive you in the shadow. You have a rose, I see. Although--ahem--not given to the quotation of poetry, nevertheless there is one verse which, with your permission, I will now repeat as applicable to the present occasion:

“‘Fair Phillis walks the dewy green; A happy rose lies in her hair; But, ah! the roses in her cheeks Are yet more fair!’”

“Pray, Miss Sharp, can you not dispense with that horrible bone?” said Aunt Diana, in an under-tone. “Really, it makes me quite nervous to see it dangling.”

“Oh, certainly,” replied the governess, affably, dropping the relic into her pocket. “I myself, however, am never nervous where science is concerned.”

“Over there on the left,” began the Professor again, “is the site of a little mission church built as long ago as 1592 on the banks of a tide-water creek. A young Indian chieftain, a convert, conceiving himself aggrieved by the rules of the new religion, incited his followers to attack the missionary. They rushed in upon him, and informed him of his fate. He reasoned with them, but in vain; and at last, as a final request, he obtained permission to celebrate mass before he died. The Indians sat down on the floor of the little chapel, the father put on his robes and began. No doubt he hoped to soften their hearts by the holy service, but in vain; the last word spoken, they fell upon him and--”

“Massacred him,” concluded Sara. “You need not go on, Sir. I know all about it. I was there.”

“You were there, Miss St. John!”

“Certainly,” replied Sara, calmly. “I am now convinced that in some anterior state of existence I have assisted, as the French say, at all the Florida massacres. Indian, Spanish, or Huguenot, it makes no difference to me. I was there!”

“I trust our young friend is not tinged with Swedenborgianism,” said the Professor aside to John Hoffman. “The errors of those doctrines have been fully exposed. I trust she is orthodox.”

“Really, I do not know what she is,” replied John.

“Oh yes, you do,” said Sara, overhearing. “She is heterodox, you know; decidedly heterodox.”

In the mean while Aunt Diana kept firmly by the side of the Captain. It is safe to say that the young man was never before called upon to answer so many questions in a given space of time. The entire history of the late war, the organization of the army, the military condition of Europe, and, indeed, of the whole world, were only a portion of the subjects with which Aunt Di tackled him on the way home. Iris stood it a while, and then, with the happy facility of youth, she slipped aside, and joined John Hoffman. Iris was a charming little creature, but, so far, for “staying” qualities she was not remarkable.

A second time we passed the cemetery. “I have not as yet investigated the subject,” said the Professor, “but I suppose this to be the Huguenot burying-ground.”

“Oh yes,” exclaimed Miss Sharp; “mentioned in my guide-book as a spot of much interest. How thrilling to think that those early Huguenots, those historical victims of Menendez, lie _here_--here in this quiet spot, so near, you know, and yet--and yet so far!” she concluded, vaguely conscious that she had heard that before somewhere, although she could not place it. She had forgotten that eye which, mixed in some poetic way with a star, has figured so often in the musical performances of the female seminaries of our land.

“Very thrilling; especially when we remember that they must have gathered up their own bones, swum up all the way from Matanzas, and buried each other one by one,” said Sara.

“And even that don’t account for the last man,” added John.

Miss Sharp drew off her forces, and retired in good order.

“Iris,” I said, the next morning, “come here and give an account of yourself. What do you mean, you gypsy, by such performances as that of last night?”

“I only meant a moonlight walk, Cousin Martha. I knew I never could persuade Aunt Di, so I took Miss Sharp.”

“I am surprised that she consented.”

“At first she did refuse; but when I told her that the Professor was going, she said that under those circumstances, as we might expect much valuable information on the way, she would give her consent.”

“And the Professor?”

“Oh, I asked him, of course; he is the most good-natured old gentleman in the world; I can always make him do any thing I please. But poor Miss Sharp--how Aunt Di has been talking to her this morning! ‘How you, at your age,’ was part of it.”

A week later we were taken to see the old Buckingham Smith place, now the property of a Northern gentleman, who has built a modern winter residence on the site of the old house.

“This is her creek, Aunt Di,” I said, as the avenue leading to the house crossed a small muddy ditch.

“Whose, Niece Martha?”

“Maria Sanchez, of course. Don’t you remember the mysterious watery heroine who navigated these marshes several centuries ago? She perfectly haunts me! Talk about Huguenots arising and glaring at you, Sara; they are nothing to this Maria. The question is, Who was she?”

“I know,” answered Iris. “She is my old friend of the Dismal Swamp. ‘They made her a grave too cold and damp,’ you know, and she refused to stay in it. ‘Her fire-fly lamp I soon shall see, her paddle I soon shall hear--’”

“Well, if you do, let me know,” I said. “She must be a very muddy sort of a ghost; there isn’t more than a spoonful of water in her creek as far down as I can see.”

“But no doubt it was a deep tide-water stream in its day, Miss Martha,” said John Hoffman; “deep enough for either romance or drowning.”

Beyond the house opened out the long orange-tree aisles--beautiful walks arched in glossy green foliage--half a mile of dense leafy shade.

“This is the sour orange,” said our guide, “a tree extensively cultivated in the old days for its hardy growth and pleasant shade. It is supposed to be an exotic run wild, for the orange is not indigenous here. When Florida was ceded to England in exchange for Cuba, most of the Spanish residents left, and their gardens were then found well stocked with oranges and lemons, figs, guavas, and pomegranates.”

“Poor Florida! nobody wanted her,” said John. “The English only kept her twenty years, and then bartered her away again to Spain for the Bahamas, and in 1819 Spain was glad to sell her to the United States. The latter government, too, may have had its own thoughts as to the value of the purchase, which, although cheap at five millions in the first place, soon demanded nineteen more millions for its own little quarrel with that ancient people, the Seminoles.”

“Headed, do not forget to mention, by Osceola,” added Sara.

“Beautiful fruit, at least in appearance,” I said, picking up one of the large oranges that lay by the hundreds on the ground. “Are they of no use?”

“The juice is occasionally sold in small quantities,” replied our guide. “At one time it commanded a price of a dollar per gallon, and was used in place of vinegar in the British navy. It makes a delicious acid drink when fresh--better than lemonade.”

We lingered in the beautiful orange aisles, and heard the story of the old place: how it had descended from father to son, and finally, upon the death of the owner who was childless, it came into the possession of a nephew. But among other papers was found one containing the owner’s purpose to bequeath his property to the poor colored people of St. Augustine. This will, if it could so be called, without witnesses, and in other ways informal, was of no value in the eyes of the law. The owner had died suddenly away from home, and there was no testimony to prove that the paper expressed even a cherished intention. Nevertheless, the heir at law, with rare disinterestedness, carried out the vague wish; the place was sold, and all the proceeds invested for the benefit of the colored people, the charity taking the form of a Home for their aged and infirm, which is supported by the income from this money, the building itself having been generously given for the purpose by another prominent citizen of St. Augustine.

“You must see old Uncle Jack,” concluded the speaker. “Before the war his master sent him several times to Boston with large sums of money, and intrusted him with important business, which he never failed to execute properly. By the terms of the will he has a certain portion of the land for his lifetime. That is his old cabin. Let us go over there.”

Close down under the walls of the grand new mansion stood a low cabin, shaded by the long drooping leaves of the banana; hens and chickens walked in and out the open door, and most of the household furniture seemed to be outside, in the comfortable Southern fashion. Uncle Jack came to meet us--a venerable old man, with white hair, whose years counted nearly a full century.

“The present owner of the place has ordered a new house built for Jack, a picturesque porter’s lodge, near the entrance,” said our guide, “but I doubt whether the old man will be as comfortable there as in this old cabin where he has lived so long. The negroes, especially the old people, have the strongest dislike to any elevation like a door-step or a piazza; they like to be right on the ground; they like to cook when they are hungry, and sleep when they are tired, and enjoy their pipes in peace. Rules kill them, and they can not change: we must leave them alone, and educate the younger generation.”

Returning down the arched walks, we crossed over into a modern sweet-orange grove, the most beautiful in St. Augustine or its vicinity. Some of the trees were loaded with blossoms, some studded with the full closed buds which we of the North are accustomed to associate with the satin of bridal robes, some had still their golden fruit, and others had all three at once, after the perplexing fashion of the tropics.

“There are about eight hundred trees here,” said our guide, “and some of them yield annually five thousand oranges each. There is a story extant, one of the legends of St. Augustine, that formerly orange-trees covered the Plaza, and that one of them yielded annually twelve thousand oranges.”

“What an appalling mass of sweetness!” said Sara. “I am glad that tree died; it was too good to live, like the phenomenal children of Sunday-school literature.”

“In the old Spanish days,” said John, “this neighborhood was one vast orange grove; ships loaded with the fruit sailed out of the harbor, and the grandees of Spain preferred the St. Augustine orange to any other. In Spain the trees live to a great age; some of them are said to be six hundred years old, having been planted by the Moors, but here an unexpected frost has several times destroyed all the groves, so that the crop is by no means a sure one.”

“So the frost does come here,” I said. “We have seen nothing of it; the thermometer has ranged from sixty-eight to seventy-eight ever since we arrived.”

“They had snow in New York last week,” said Aunt Di.

“It has melted, I think,” said John. “At least I saw this item last evening in a New York paper: ‘If the red sleigher thinks that he sleighs to-day, he is mistaken!’”

“Shades of Emerson and Brahma, defend us!” said Sara.

Then we all began to eat oranges, and make dripping spectacles of ourselves generally. I defy any one to be graceful, or even dainty, with an orange; it is a great, rich, generous, pulpy fruit, and you have got to eat it in a great, rich, generous, pulpy way. How we did enjoy those oranges under the glossy green and fragrant blossoms of the trees themselves! We gave it up then and there, and said openly that no bought Northern oranges could compare with them.

“I don’t feel politically so much disturbed now about the cost of that sea-wall,” said Sara, “if it keeps this orange grove from washing away. It is doing a sweet and noble duty in life, and herein is cause sufficient for its stony existence.”

We strolled back to the town by another way, and crossed again the Maria Sanchez Creek.

“Observe how she meanders down the marsh, this fairy streamlet,” I said, taking up a position on the stone culvert. “Observe how green are her rushes, how playful her little minnows, how martial her fiddler-crabs! O lost Maria! come back and tell your story. Were you sadly drowned in these overwhelming waves, or were you the first explorer of these marshes, pushing onward in your canoe with your eyes fixed on futurity!”

Nobody knew; so we went home. But in the evening John produced the following, which he said had been preserved in the archives of the town for centuries. “I have made a free translation, as you will see,” he said; “but the original is in pure Castilian.”

“THE LEGEND OF MARIA SANCHEZ CREEK.

“Maria Sanchez Her dug-out launches, And down the stream to catch some crabs she takes her way, A Spanish maiden, With crabs well laden; When evening falls she lifts her trawls to cross the bay.

“Grim terror blanches Maria Sanchez, Who, not to put too fine a point, is rather brown; A norther coming, Already humming, Doth bear away that Spanish mai--den far from town.

“Maria Sanchez, Caught in the branches That sweetly droop across a creek far down the coast, That calm spectator, The alligator, Doth spy, then wait to call his mate, who rules the roast.

“She comes and craunches Maria Sanchez, While boat and crabs the gentle husband meekly chews. How _could_ they eat her, That señorita, Whose story still doth make quite ill the Spanish Muse?”

We heaped praises upon John’s pure Castilian ode--all save the Professor, who undertook to criticise a little. “I have made something of a study of poetry,” he began, “and I have noticed that much depends upon the selection of choice terms. For instance, in the first verse you make use of the local word ‘dug-out.’ Now in my opinion, ‘craft’ or ‘canoe’ would be better. You begin, if I remember correctly, in this way:

“‘Maria Sanchez Launches her dug-out--’”

“Oh no, Professor,” said Sara; “this is it:

“‘Maria Sanchez Her dug-out launches.’”

“The same idea, I opine, Miss St. John,” said the Professor, loftily.

“But the rhymes, Sir?”

The Professor had not noticed the rhymes; poetry should be above rhymes altogether, in his opinion.

The pleasant days passed, we sailed up and down the Matanzas, walked on the sea-wall, and sat in the little overhanging balcony, which, like all others in St. Augustine, was hung up on the side of the house like a cupboard without any support from below. Letters from home meanwhile brought tidings of snow and ice and storm, disasters by land and by sea. A lady friend, a new arrival, had visited the Ancient City forty years before, in the days of the _ancien régime_. “It is much changed,” she said. “These modern houses springing up every where have altered the whole aspect of the town. I am glad I came back while there is still something left of the old time. Another five years and the last old wall will be torn down for a horrible paling fence. Forty years ago the town was largely Spanish or Moorish in its architecture. The houses were all built of coquina, with a blank wall toward the north, galleries running around a court-yard behind, where were flowers, vines, and a central fountain. The halls, with their stone arches, opened out into this greenery without doors of any kind, tropical fashion. Those were the proud days of St. Augustine; the old families reigned with undisputed sway; the slaves were well treated, hospitality was boundless, and the intermixture of Spanish and Italian blood showed itself in the dark eyes that glanced over the balconies as the stranger passed below. It has all vanished now. The war effaced the last fading hue of the traditional grandeur, and broke down the barriers between the haughty little city and the outside world. The old houses have been modernized, and many of them have given place to new and, to my ideas, thoroughly commonplace dwellings. There is one left, however, the very mansion where I was so charmingly entertained forty years ago; its open arches remain just as they were, and the old wall still surrounds the garden. Up stairs is the large parlor where we had our gay little parties, with wines, and those delicious curled-up cakes, all stamped with figures, thin as a wafer, crisp and brittle, which seemed to be peculiar to St. Augustine.”

“Did you know there was a native artist here?” said John, calling up one morning as he sat on the balcony, Sara and myself endeavoring to write duty letters.

“Painter or sculptor?” I inquired, pen in hand, pausing over an elaborate description of a sunset with which I was favoring a soul-to-soul correspondent. “Let me see: standing on the glacis with the look-out tower outlined against--”

“Sculptor,” answered John. “His studio is on Charlotte Street not far from here. Let us walk down and see him.”

“Look-out tower outlined against the golden after-glow. Is it worth going to see?”

“Indeed it is. There is a fine design--a lion carved in stone, and also a full-length figure of Henry Clay walking in the gardens of Ashland; and what is more, these statues are on top of the house outlined against--”

“The golden after-glow,” I suggested.

“Certainly,” said John. “And inside you will find rare antique vases, Egyptian crocodiles, Grecian caskets, and other remarkable works, all executed in stone.”

“I have long craved an alligator, but could not undertake the cigar-box discipline,” I answered, rising. “A crocodile carved in stone will be just the thing. Come, Sara.”

We walked down Charlotte Street, and presently came to a small house with a low wing, whose open shutter showed the studio within. On the roof were two figures in coquina, one a nondescript animal like the cattle of a Noah’s ark, the other a little stone man who seemed to have been so dwarfed by the weight of his hat that he never smiled again.

“The lion, and Henry Clay,” said John, introducing the figures.

“Passé for the lion; but how do you make out the other?”

“Oh, Henry seems to be the beau ideal of the South. You meet him every where on the way down in a plaster and marble dress-coat, extending his hand in a conversational manner, and so, of course, I supposed this to be another one. And as to the gardens of Ashland, as he has his hat on--indeed, he is principally hat--he must be taking a walk somewhere, and where so likely as his own bucolic garden?”

“I shall go back to my after-glow, Mr. Hoffman. Your Henry Clay is a fraud.”

“Wait and see the artist, Martha,” said Sara. “He is a colored man and a cripple.”

We tapped on the shutter, and the artist appeared, supporting himself on crutches; a young negro, with a cheerful shining countenance, and an evident pride in the specimens of his skill scattered about the floorless studio--alligators, boxes, roughly cut vases, all made of the native coquina; or, as the artist’s sign had it,

“It must require no small amount of skill to cut any thing out of this crumbling shell-rock,” I said, as, after purchasing a charming little alligator, and conversing some time with the dusky artist, we turned homeward.

“It does,” replied John. “Ignorant as he is, that man is not without his ideas of beauty and symmetry--another witness to the capability for education which I have every where noticed among the freedmen of the South.”

“I too have been impressed with this capability,” said Sara--“strongly impressed. Last Sunday I went to the Methodist colored Sunday-school on St. George Street. The teachers are Northerners; some resident here, some winter visitors; and the classes were filled up with full-grown men and women, some of them aged and gray-haired, old uncles and aunties, eager to learn, although they could scarcely see with their old eyes. They repeated Bible texts in chorus, and then they began to read. It was a pathetic sight to see the old men slowly following the simple words with intense eagerness, keeping the place under each one with careful finger. The younger men and girls read fluently, and showed quick understanding in the answers given to the teachers’ questions. Then the little children filed in from another room, and they all began to sing. Oh, how they sang! The tenor voice of a young jet-black negro who sat near me haunts me still with its sweet cadences. Singularly enough, the favorite hymn seemed to be one whose chorus, repeated again and again, ended in the words,

“‘Shall wash me white as snow-- White as snow.’”

“The negroes of St. Augustine were formerly almost all Romanists,” said John, “and many of them still attend the old cathedral on the Plaza, where there is a gallery especially for them. But of late the number of Methodists and Baptists has largely increased, while the old cathedral and its bishop, who once ruled supreme over the consciences of the whole population of la siempre fiel Ciudad de San Augustin, find themselves in danger of being left stranded high and dry as the tide of progress and education sweeps by without a glance. The Peabody Educational Fund supports almost entirely two excellent free schools here, one for white and one for colored children; and in spite of opposition, gradually, year by year, even Roman Catholic parents yield to the superior advantages offered to their children, and the church schools hold fewer and fewer scholars, especially among the boys. The Presbyterian church, with its pastor and earnest working congregation, has made a strong battle against the old-time influences, and it now looks as though the autocratic sway of the religion of Spain were forever broken in this ancient little Spanish city.”

“At least, however, the swarthy priests _look_ picturesque and appropriate as they come and go between their convent and the old cathedral through that latticed gate in their odd dress,” said Sara. “Do you remember, in _Baddeck_, the pleasing historical Jesuit, slender too corpulent a word to describe his thinness, his stature primeval? Warner goes on to say that the traveler is grateful for such figures, and is not disposed to quarrel with the faith that preserves so much of the ugly picturesque.”

“The principal interest I have in the old cathedral is the lost under-ground passage which, according to tradition, once extended from its high altar to Fort San Marco,” I remarked. “I am perpetually haunted by the possibility of its being under my feet somewhere, and go about stamping on the ground to catch hollow echoes down below. We moderns have discovered at San Marco a subterranean dungeon and bones: then why not an under-ground passage?”

“And bones?” asked Sara.

“No; Spanish jewels, plate, and all kinds of mediæval treasures. I consider the possibility far more promising than Captain Kidd’s chest. I have half a mind to begin digging.”

“You would be obliged to take the shovel yourself, then, Miss Martha,” said John. “Do you suppose you could hire the St. Augustiners to dig, really dig, day after day, Northern fashion? Why, they would laugh in your face at the mere idea. I am inclined to think there would never be another house built here if regular foundations and cellars were required; as it is, they set up the timbers as the children set up their houses of blocks. How clearly that sail-boat is outlined against the gray water, like a sketch in India ink! Is not that Miss Carew on board?”

“Yes, with Mr. Mokes,” said Sara.