Chapter 3

"DEAR FRED,--I try to find heart and life to tell you that it is all over with dear old Nolan. I have been with him on this voyage more than I ever was, and I can understand wholly now the way in which you used to speak of the dear old fellow. I could see that he was not strong, but I had no idea the end was so near. The doctor had been watching him very carefully, and yesterday morning came to me and told me that Nolan was not so well, and had not left his state-room,--a thing I never remember before. He had let the doctor come and see him as he lay there,--the first time the doctor had been in the state-room,--and he said he should like to see me. Oh, dear! do you remember the mysteries we boys used to invent about his room, in the old Intrepid days? Well, I went in, and there, to be sure, the poor fellow lay in his berth, smiling pleasantly as he gave me his hand, but looking very frail. I could not help a glance round, which showed me what a little shrine he had made of the box he was lying in. The stars and stripes were triced up above and around a picture of Washington, and he had painted a majestic eagle, with lightnings blazing from his beak and his foot just clasping the whole globe, which his wings overshadowed. The dear old boy saw my glance, and said, with a sad smile, 'Here, you see, I have a country!' And then he pointed to the foot of his bed, where I had not seen before a great map of the United Stales, as he had drawn it from memory, and which he had there to look upon as he lay. Quaint, queer old names were on it, in large letters: 'Indiana Territory,' 'Mississippi Territory,' and 'Louisiana Territory,' as I suppose our fathers learned such things: but the old fellow had patched in Texas, too; he had carried his western boundary all the way to the Pacific, but on that shore he had defined nothing.

"'Oh, Danforth,' he said, 'I know I am dying. I cannot get home. Surely you will tell me something now?--Stop! stop! Do not speak till I say what I am sure you know, that there is not in this ship, that there is not in America,--God bless her!--a more loyal man than I. There cannot be a man who loves the old flag as I do, or prays for it as I do, or hopes for it as I do. There are thirty-four stars in it now, Danforth. I thank God for that, though I do not know what their names are. There has never been one taken away: I thank God for that. I know by that, that there has never been any successful Burr. Oh, Danforth, Danforth,' he sighed out, 'how like a wretched night's dream a boy's idea of personal fame or of separate sovereignty seems, when one looks back on it after such a life as mine! But tell me,--tell me something,--tell me everything, Danforth, before I die!'"

"Ingham, I swear to you that I felt like a monster that I had not told him everything before. Danger or no danger, delicacy or no delicacy, who was I, that I should have been acting the tyrant all this time over this dear, sainted old man, who had years ago expiated, in his whole manhood's life, the madness of a boy's treason? 'Mr. Nolan,' said I, 'I will tell you everything you ask about. Only, where shall I begin?'

"Oh, the blessed smile that crept over his white face! and he pressed my hand and said, 'God bless you!' 'Tell me their names,' he said, and he pointed to the stars on the flag. 'The last I know is Ohio. My father lived in Kentucky. But I have guessed Michigan and Indiana and Mississippi,--that was where Fort Adams is,--they make twenty. But where are your other fourteen? You have not cut up any of the old ones, I hope?'

"Well, that was not a bad text, and I told him the names, in as good order as I could, and he bade me take down his beautiful map and draw them in as I best could with my pencil. He was wild with delight about Texas, told me how his brother died there; he had marked a gold cross where he supposed his brother's grave was; and he had guessed at Texas. Then he was delighted as he saw California and Oregon;--that, he said, he had suspected partly, because he had never been permitted to land on that shore, though the ships were there so much. 'And the men,' said he, laughing, 'brought off a good deal besides furs.' Then he went back--heavens, how far!--to ask about the Chesapeake, and what was done to Barron for surrendering her to the Leopard, and whether Burr ever tried again,--and he ground his teeth with the only passion he showed. But in a moment that was over, and he said, 'God forgive me, for I am sure I forgive him.' Then he asked about the old war,--told me the true story of his serving the gun the day we took the Java,--asked about dear old David Porter, as he called him. Then he settled down more quietly, and very happily, to hear me tell in an hour the history of fifty years.

"How I wished it had been somebody who knew something! But I did as well as I could. I told him of the English war. I told him about Fulton and the steamboat beginning. I told him about old Scott, and Jackson; told him all I could think about the Mississippi, and New Orleans, and Texas, and his own old Kentucky. And do you think he asked who was in command of the "Legion of the West." I told him it was a very gallant officer, named Grant, and that, by our last news, he was about to establish his head-quarters at Vicksburg. Then, 'Where was Vicksburg?' I worked that out on the map; it was about a hundred miles, more or less, above his old Fort Adams; and I thought Fort Adams must be a ruin now. 'It must be at old Vicks's plantation,' said he; 'well, that is a change!'

"I tell you, Ingham, it was a hard thing to condense the history of half a century into that talk with a sick man. And I do not now know what I told him,--of emigration, and the means of it,--of steamboats and railroads and telegraphs,--of inventions and books and literature,--of the colleges and West Point and the Naval School,--but with the queerest interruptions that ever you heard. You see it was Robinson Crusoe asking all the accumulated questions of fifty-six years:

"I remember he asked, all of a sudden, who was President now; and when I told him, he asked if Old Abe was General Benjamin Lincoln's son. He said he met old General Lincoln, when he was quite a boy himself, at some Indian treaty. I said no, that Old Abe was a Kentuckian like himself, but I could not tell him of what family; he had worked up from the ranks. 'Good for him!' cried Nolan; 'I am glad of that. As I have brooded and wondered, I have thought our danger was in keeping up those regular successions in the first families.' Then I got talking about my visit to Washington. I told him of meeting the Oregon Congressman, Harding; I told him about the Smithsonian and the Exploring Expedition; I told him about the Capitol,--and the statues for the pediment,--and Crawford's Liberty,--and Greenough's Washington: Ingham, I told him everything I could think of that would show the grandeur of his country and its prosperity; but I could not make up my mouth to tell him a word about this infernal Rebellion!

"And he drank it in, and enjoyed it as I cannot tell you. He grew more and more silent, yet I never thought he was tired or faint. I gave him a glass of water, but he just wet his lips, and told me not to go away. Then he asked me to bring the Presbyterian 'Book of Public Prayer,' which lay there, and said, with a smile, that it would open at the right, place,--and so it did. There was his double red mark down the page; and I knelt down and read, and he repeated with me,--'For ourselves and our country, O gracious God, we thank Thee, that, notwithstanding our manifold transgressions of Thy holy laws, Thou hast continued to us Thy marvellous kindness,'--and so to the end of that thanksgiving. Then he turned to the end of the same book, and I read the words more familiar to me,--'Most heartily we beseech Thee with Thy favor to behold and bless Thy servant, the President of the United States, and all others in authority,'--and the rest of the Episcopal collect. 'Danforth,' said he, 'I have repeated those prayers night and morning, it is now fifty-five years.' And then he said he would go to sleep. He bent me down over him and kissed me; and he said, 'Look in my Bible, Danforth, when I am gone.' And I went away.

"But I had no thought it was the end. I thought he was tired and would sleep. I knew he was happy, and I wanted him to be alone.

"But in an hour, when the doctor went in gently, he found Nolan had breathed his life away with a smile. He had something pressed close to his lips. It was his father's badge of the Order of Cincinnati.

"We looked in his Bible, and there was a slip of paper, at the place where he had marked the text,--

"'They desire a country, even a heavenly: wherefore God is not ashamed to be called their God: for he hath prepared for them a city.'

"On this slip of paper he had written,--

"'Bury me in the sea; it has been my home, and I love it. But will not some one set up a stone for my memory at Fort Adams or at Orleans, that my disgrace may not be more than I ought to bear? Say on it,--

"'_In Memory of_

"'PHILIP NOLAN,

"'_Lieutenant in the Army of the United States._

"'He loved his country as no other man has loved her; but no man deserved less at her hands.'"

* * * * *

THE BIRDS OF KILLINGWORTH.

It was the season when through all the land The merle and mavis build, and building sing Those lovely lyrics written by His hand Whom Saxon Cædmon calls the Blithe-Heart King,-- When on the boughs the purple buds expand, The banners of the vanguard of the Spring, And rivulets, rejoicing, rush and leap, And wave their fluttering signals from the steep.

The robin and the bluebird, piping loud, Filled all the blossoming orchards with their glee; The sparrows chirped as if they still were proud Their race in Holy Writ should mentioned be; And hungry crows, assembled in a crowd, Clamored their piteous prayer incessantly, Knowing who hears the ravens cry, and said, "Give us, O Lord, this day our daily bread!"

Across the Sound the birds of passage sailed, Speaking some unknown language strange and sweet Of tropic isle remote, and passing hailed The village with the cheers of all their fleet,-- Or, quarrelling together, laughed and railed Like foreign sailors landed in the street Of seaport town, and with outlandish noise Of oaths and gibberish frightening girls and boys.

Thus came the jocund Spring in Killingworth, In fabulous days, some hundred years ago; And thrifty farmers, as they tilled the earth, Heard with alarm the cawing of the crow, That mingled with the universal mirth, Cassandra-like, prognosticating woe: They shook their heads, and doomed with dreadful words To swift destruction the whole race of birds.

And a town-meeting was convened straightway To set a price upon the guilty heads Of these marauders, who, in lieu of pay, Levied black-mail upon the garden-beds And cornfields, and beheld without dismay The awful scarecrow, with his fluttering shreds,-- The skeleton that waited at their feast, Whereby their sinful pleasure was increased.

Then from his house, a temple painted white, With fluted columns, and a roof of red, The Squire came forth,--august and splendid sight!-- Slowly descending, with majestic tread, Three flights of steps, nor looking left nor right; Down the long street he walked, as one who said, "A town that boasts inhabitants like me Can have no lack of good society!"

The Parson, too, appeared, a man austere, The instinct of whose nature was to kill; The wrath of God he preached from year to year, And read with fervor Edwards on the Will; His favorite pastime was to slay the deer In Summer on some Adirondack hill; E'en now, while walking down the rural lane, He lopped the way-side lilies with his cane.

From the Academy, whose belfry crowned The hill of Science with its vane of brass, Came the Preceptor, gazing idly round, Now at the clouds, and now at the green grass, And all absorbed in reveries profound Of fair Almira in the upper class, Who was, as in a sonnet he had said, As pure as water, and as good as bread.

And next the Deacon issued from his door, In his voluminous neck-cloth, white as snow; A suit of sable bombazine he wore; His form was ponderous, and his step was slow; There never was so wise a man before; He seemed the incarnate "Well, I told you so!" And to perpetuate his great renown, There was a street named after him in town.

These came together in the new town-hall, With sundry farmers from the region round; The Squire presided, dignified and tall, His air impressive and his reasoning sound. Ill fared it with the birds, both great and small; Hardly a friend in all that crowd they found, But enemies enough, who every one Charged them with all the crimes beneath the sun.

When they had ended, from his place apart, Rose the Preceptor, to redress the wrong, And, trembling like a steed before the start, Looked round bewildered on the expectant throng; Then thought of fair Almira, and took heart To speak out what was in him, clear and strong, Alike regardless of their smile or frown, And quite determined not to be laughed down.

"Plato, anticipating the Reviewers, From his Republic banished without pity The Poets; in this little town of yours, You put to death, by means of a Committee, The ballad-singers and the Troubadours, The street-musicians of the heavenly city, The birds, who make sweet music for us all In our dark hours, as David did for Saul.

"The thrush, that carols at the dawn of day From the green steeples of the piny wood; The oriole in the elm; the noisy jay, Jargoning like a foreigner at his food; The bluebird balanced on some topmost spray, Flooding with melody the neighborhood; Linnet and meadow-lark, and all the throng That dwell in nests, and have the gift of song.

"You slay them all! and wherefore? For the gain Of a scant handful more or less of wheat, Or rye, or barley, or some other grain, Scratched up at random by industrious feet Searching for worm or weevil after rain, Or a few cherries, that are not so sweet As are the songs these uninvited guests Sing at their feast with comfortable breasts.

"Do you ne'er think what wondrous beings these? Do you ne'er think who made them, and who taught The dialect they speak, where melodies Alone are the interpreters of thought? Whose household words are songs in many keys, Sweeter than instrument of man e'er caught! Whose habitations in the tree-tops even Are half-way houses on the road to heaven!

"Think, every morning when the sun peeps through The dim, leaf-latticed windows of the grove, How jubilant the happy birds renew Their old melodious madrigals of love! And when you think of this, remember, too, 'Tis always morning somewhere, and above The awakening continents, from shore to shore, Somewhere the birds are singing evermore.

"Think of your woods and orchards without birds! Of empty nests that cling to boughs and beams, As in an idiot's brain remembered words Hang empty 'mid the cobwebs of his dreams! Will bleat of flocks or bellowing of herds Make up for the lost music, when your teams Drag home the stingy harvest, and no more The feathered gleaners follow to your door?

"What! would you rather see the incessant stir Of insects in the windrows of the hay, And hear the locust and the grasshopper Their melancholy hurdy-gurdies play? Is this more pleasant to you than the whirr Of meadow-lark, and its sweet roundelay, Or twitter of little fieldfares, as you take Your nooning in the shade of bush and brake?

"You call them thieves and pillagers; but know They are the winged wardens of your farms, Who from the cornfields drive the insidious foe, And from your harvests keep a hundred harms; Even the blackest of them all, the crow, Renders good service as your man-at-arms, Crushing the beetle in his coat of mail, And crying havoc on the slug and snail.

"How can I teach your children gentleness, And mercy to the weak, and reverence For Life, which, in its weakness or excess, Is still a gleam of God's omnipotence, Or Death, which, seeming darkness, is no less The self-same light, although averted hence, When by your laws, your actions, and your speech, You contradict the very things I teach?"

With this he closed; and through the audience went A murmur, like the rustle of dead leaves; The farmers laughed and nodded, and some bent Their yellow heads together like their sheaves: Men have no faith in fine-spun sentiment Who put their trust in bullocks and in beeves. The birds were doomed; and, as the record shows, A bounty offered for the heads of crows.

There was another audience out of reach, Who had no voice nor vote in making laws, But in the papers read his little speech, And crowned his modest temples with applause; They made him conscious, each one more than each, He still was victor, vanquished in their cause: Sweetest of all the applause he won from thee, O fair Almira at the Academy!

And so the dreadful massacre began; O'er fields and orchards, and o'er woodland crests, The ceaseless fusillade of terror ran. Dead fell the birds, with blood-stains on their breasts, Or wounded crept away from sight of man, While the young died of famine in their nests: A slaughter to be told in groans, not words, The very St. Bartholomew of Birds!

The Summer came, and all the birds were dead; The days were like hot coals; the very ground Was burned to ashes; in the orchards fed Myriads of caterpillars, and around The cultivated fields and garden-beds Hosts of devouring insects crawled, and found No foe to check their march, till they had made The land a desert without leaf or shade.

Devoured by worms, like Herod, was the town, Because, like Herod, it had ruthlessly Slaughtered the Innocents. From the trees spun down The canker-worms upon the passers-by,-- Upon each woman's bonnet, shawl, and gown, Who shook them off with just a little cry; They were the terror of each favorite walk, The endless theme of all the village-talk.

The farmers grew impatient, but a few Confessed their error, and would not complain; For, after all, the best thing one can do, When it is raining, is to let it rain. Then they repealed the law, although they knew It would not call the dead to life again; As school-boys, finding their mistake too late, Draw a wet sponge across the accusing slate.

That year in Killingworth the Autumn came Without the light of his majestic look, The wonder of the falling tongues of flame, The illumined pages of his Doom's-Day Book. A few lost leaves blushed crimson with their shame, And drowned themselves despairing in the brook, While the wild wind went moaning everywhere, Lamenting the dead children of the air.

But the next Spring a stranger sight was seen, A sight that never yet by bard was sung,-- As great a wonder as it would have been, If some dumb animal had found a tongue: A wagon, overarched with evergreen, Upon whose boughs were wicker cages hung, All full of singing-birds, came down the street, Filling the air with music wild and sweet.

From all the country round these birds were brought, By order of the town, with anxious quest, And, loosened from their wicker prisons, sought In woods and fields the places they loved best, Singing loud canticles, which many thought Were satires to the authorities addressed, While others, listening in green lanes, averred Such lovely music never had been heard.

But blither still and louder carolled they Upon the morrow, for they seemed to know It was the fair Almira's wedding-day, And everywhere, around, above, below, When the Preceptor bore his bride away, Their songs burst forth in joyous overflow, And a new heaven bent over a new earth Amid the sunny farms of Killingworth.

* * * * *

LITERARY LIFE IN PARIS.

THE GARRET.

Would you know something of the way in which men live in Paris? Would you penetrate a little beneath the brilliant, glossy epidermis of the French capital? Would you know other shadows and other sights than those you find in "Galignani's Messenger" under the rubric, "Stranger's Diary"? Listen to us. We hope to be brief. We hope to succeed in tangling your interest. We don't hope to make you merry,--oh, no, no, no! we don't hope that! Life isn't a merry thing anywhere,--least of all in Paris; for, look you, in modern Babylon there are so many calls for money, (which Southey called "a huge evil" everywhere,) there are so many temptations to expense, one has to keep a most cool head and a most silent heart to live in Paris and to avoid debt. Few are able successfully to achieve this charmed life. The Duke of Wellington, who was in debt but twice in his life,--first, when he became of age, and, like all young men, _felt_ his name by indorsing it on negotiable paper, and placing it in a tradesman's book; secondly, when he lived in Paris, master of all France by consent of Europe,--the Duke of Wellington involved himself in debt in Paris to the amount of a million of dollars. Blücher actually ruined himself in the city he conquered. The last heir to the glorious name and princely estates of Von Kaunitz lost everything he possessed, even his dignity, in a few years of life in Paris. Judge of the resistless force and fury of the great maelström!

And I hope, after you have measured some degree of its force and of its fury by these illustrious examples, that you may be softened into something like pity and terror, when I tell you how a poor fellow, who had no name but that he made with his pen, who commanded no money save only that he obtained by transmuting ink and paper into gold, strove against it with various success, and often was vanquished. You will not judge him too harshly, will you? You will not be the first to throw a stone at him, neither will you add your stone, to those that may be thrown at him: hands enough are raised against him! We do not altogether absolve him for many a shortcoming; but we crave permission to keep our censure and our sighs for our study. Permit us to forbear arraigning him at the public bar. He is dead,--and everybody respects the dead, except profligate editors, prostitutes, and political clergymen. Besides, his life was such a hard one,--so full of clouds, with so few gleams of sunshine,--so agitated by storm,--so bereaved of halcyon days,--'twould be most cruel to deny him the grave's dearest privilege, peace and quiet. Amen! Amen! with all my heart to thy benediction and prayer, O priest! as, aspersing his lifeless remains with holy-water, thou sayest, _Requiescat!_ So mote it be! _Requiescat! Requiescat! Requiescat in pace!_