Names of all his wife should visit I would find upon the roll:— Found I none I loved within it—not one friend upon the scroll!

And my mother, God forgive me! I was glad to see her go, Ere the current of her loving heart had turned like mine to snow.

Must I still seem fair and stately, choking down my bosom's strife, Because 'all deep emotions were unseemly in his wife'?

Must I gasp 'neath diamonds' glitter—walk in lustrous silken sheen— Leaving those I love in anguish while I play some haughty scene?

I am choking! closer round me crowds convention's stifling vault— Every meanness's called a virtue—every virtue deemed a fault!

Every generous thought is scandal; every noble deed is crime; Every feeling's wrapped in fiction, and truth only lives in rhyme!

No;—I am not fashion's minion,—I am not convention's slave! If 'obedience is for woman,' still she has a soul to save.

Must I share their haughty falsehood, take my part in social guile, Cut my dearest friends, and stab them with a false, deceitful smile?

Creeping like a serpent through me, faint, I feel a deadly chill, Freezing all the good within me, icy fetters chain my will.

Do I grow like those around me? will I learn to bear my part In this glittering world of fashion, taming down a woman's heart?

Must I lower to my husband? is it duty to abate All the higher instincts in me, till I grow his fitting mate?

Shall I muse on noble pictures, turn the poet's stirring page, And grow base and mean in action, petty with a petty age?

I am heart-sick, weary, weary! tell me not that this life, Where all that's truly living must be pruned by fashion's knife!—

I can make my own existence—spurn his gifts, and use my hands, Though the senseless world of fashion for the deed my memory brands.

Quick! unbraid the heavy tresses of my coroneted hair— Let its gold fall in free ringlets such as I was wont to wear.

I am going back to nature. I no more will school my heart To stifle its best feelings, play an idle puppet's part.

I will seek my banished mother, nestle closely on her breast; Noble, faithful, kind, and loving, there the tortured one may rest.

We will turn the Poets' pages, learn the noblest deeds to act, Till the fictions in their beauty shall be lived as simple fact.

I will mould a living statue, make it generous, strong, and high, Humble, meek, self-abnegating, formed to meet the Master's eye.

Oh, the glow of earnest culture! Oh, the joy of sacrifice! The delight to help another! o'er all selfish thoughts to rise!

Farewell, cold and haughty splendor—how you chilled me when a bride! Hollow all your mental efforts; meanness all your dazzling pride!

Put the diamonds in their caskets! pearls and rubies, place them there! I shall never sigh to wear them with the violets in my hair.

Freedom! with no eye upon me freezing all my fiery soul; Free to follow nature's dictates; free from all save God's control.

I am going to the cottage, with its windows small and low, Where the sweetbrier twines its roses and the Guelder rose its snow.

I will climb the thymy mountains where the pines in sturdy might Follow nature's holy bidding, growing ever to the light;

Tracking down the leaping streamlet till the willows on it rise, Watch its broad and faithful bosom strive to mirror back the skies.

Through the wicker gate at evening with my mother I will come, With a little book, the Poet's, to read low at set of sun.

'Tis a gloomy, broken record of a love poured forth in death, Generous, holy, and devoted, sung with panting, dying breath.

By the grassy mound we'll read it where he calmly sleeps in God,— My gushing tears may stream above—they cannot pierce the sod!

Hand in hand we'll sit together by the lowly mossy grave— Oh, God! I blazed with jewels, but the noble dared not save!

I am going to the cottage, there to sculpture my own soul, Till it fill the high ideal of the Poet's glowing roll.

* * * * *

Stay, lovely dream! I waken! hear the clanking of my chain! Feel a hopeless vow is on me—I can ne'er be free again!

His wife! I've sworn it truly! I must bear his freezing eye, Feel his blighting breath upon me while all nobler instincts die!

Feel the Evil gain upon me as the weary moments glide, Till I hiss, a jewelled serpent, fit companion, at his side.

Vain is struggle—vain is writhing—vain are sobs and stifled gasps— I must wear my brilliant fetters though my life-blood stain their clasps!

Hark! he calls! tear out the violets! quick! the diamonds in my hair! There's a ball to-night at Travers'—'tis his will I should be there.

Splendid victim in his pageant, though my tortured head should ache, Yet I must be brilliant, joyous, if my throbbing heart should break!

I shudder! quick! my dress of rose, my tunic of point lace— If fine enough, he will not read the anguish in my face!

I know one place he dare not look—it is so still and deep— He dare not lift the winding sheet that veils my last, long sleep!

He dreads the dead! the coffin lid will shield me from his breath— His eye no more will torture——Joy! I shall be free in death!

Free to rest beside the Poet. He will shun the lowly grave: There my mother soon will join us, and the violets o'er us wave.



THE SKEPTICS OF THE WAVERLEY NOVELS.

It is remarkable that while, in a republic, which is the mildest form of government, respect for law and order are most highly developed, there is in an aristocracy (which is always the most deeply based form of tyranny) a constant revolt against all law. Puritanism in England, Pietism in Germany, and Huguenotism in France, were all directly and strongly republican and law-abiding in their social relations; while for an example of the contrary we need only glance at our own South. Aristocracy—a regularly ordered system of society into ranks—is the dream of the slaveholder, and experience is showing us how extremely difficult it is to uproot the power of a very few wicked men who have fairly mudsilled the majority; and yet, despite this strength, there was never yet a country claiming to be civilized, in which the wild caprices and armed outrages of the individual were regarded with such toleration.

Republicanism is Christian. When will the world see this tremendous truth as it should, and realize that as there is a present and a future, so did the Saviour lay down one law whereby man might progress in this life, and another for the attainment of happiness in the next, and that the two are mutually sustaining? There was no real republicanism before the Gospels, and there has been no real addition to the doctrine since. The instant that religion or any great law of truth falls into the hands of a high caste, and puts on its livery, it becomes—ridiculous. What think you of a shepherd's crook of gold blazing with diamonds?

It is interesting to trace an excellent illustration of the natural affinity between the fondness for feudalism and the love of law-breaking in Sir WALTER SCOTT. Whatever his head and his natural common sense dictated (and as he was a canny Scot and a shrewd observer, they dictated many wise truths), his heart was always with the men of bow and brand; with dashing robbers, moss troopers, duellists, wild-eagle barons, wild-wolf borderers, and the whole farrago of autocratic scoundrelism. With his soul devoted to dreams of feudalism, his fond love of its romance was principally based on the constant infractions of law and order to which a state of society must always be subject in which certain men acquire power out of proportion to their integrity. The result of this always is a lurking sympathy with rascality, a secret relish for bold selfishness, which is in every community the deadliest poison of the rights of the poor, and all the disinherited by fortune.

It is very remarkable that Walter Scott, a Tory to the soul, should, by his apparently contradictory yet still most consistent love of the outre, have had a keen amateur sympathy for outlaws. It is much more remarkable, however, that, still retaining his faith in king and nobles, Church and State, he should have pushed his appreciation of such men to the degree of marvellously comprehending—nay, enjoying—certain types of skepticism which sprang up in fiercest opposition to authority; urged into existence by its abuses, as germs of plants have been thought to be electrified into life by sharp blows. And it is most remarkable of all, that he did this at a time when none among his English readers seem to have had any comprehension whatever of these characters, or to have surmised the fact that to merely understand and depict them, the writer must have ventured into fearful depths of reflection and of study. In treating these characters, Walter Scott seems to become positively subjective—and I will venture to say that it is the only instance of the slightest approach to anything of the kind to be found in all his writings. Unlike Byron, who was painfully conscious, not of the nature of his want in this respect, but of something wanting, Scott nowhere else betrays the slightest consciousness of his continual life under limitations, when, plump! we find him making a headlong leap right into the very centre of that terrible pool whose waters feed the forbidden-fruit tree of good and of evil.

The characters to which I particularly refer in Sir Walter Scott's novels are those of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, in 'Ivanhoe;' of the gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin in 'Quentin Durward;' of Dryfesdale, the steward, in 'The Abbot;' and of the 'leech' Henbane Dwining, in 'The Fair Maid of Perth.' There are several others which more or less resemble these, as, for instance, Ranald Mac Eagh, the Child of the Mist, in 'Montrose,' and Rashleigh, in 'Rob Roy;' but the latter, considered by themselves, are only partly developed. In fact, if Scott had given to the world only one of these outlaws of faith, there would have been but little ground for inferring that his mind had ever taken so daring a range as I venture to claim for him. It is in his constant, wistful return, in one form or the other, to that terrible type of humanity—the man who, as a matter of intensely sincere faith, has freed himself from all adherence to the laws of man or GOD—that we find the clue to the real nature of the author's extraordinary sympathy for the most daring, yet most subtle example of the law-breaker. In comparing these characters carefully, we find that each by contrast appears far more perfect than when separate—as the bone, which, however excellent its state of preservation may be, never seems to the eye of the physiologist so complete as when in its place in the complete skeleton. And through this contrast we learn that Scott, having by sympathy and historical-romantic study, comprehended the lost secret of all illuminee mysteries—that of human dependence on nought save the laws of a mysterious and terrible Nature—could not refrain from ever and anon whispering the royal secret, though it were only to the rustling reeds and rushes of fashionable novels. Having learned, though in an illegitimate way, that the friend of PAN, the great king of the golden touch, had ass's ears, he must tell it again, though in murmurs and whispers:

'Qui cum ne prodere visum Dedecus auderet, cupiens efferre sub auras, Nec posset reticere tamen, secedit, humumque Effodit: et domini quales aspexerit aures, Vox refert parva; terraeque immurmurat haustae.'[10]

It is to be remarked, in studying collectively these outlaws as set forth by Scott, that while the same characteristic lies at the basis of each, there is very great variety in its development, and that the author seems to have striven to present it in as many widely differing phases as he was capable of doing. When we reflect that Scott himself could not be fairly said to be perfectly at home in more than half a dozen departments of history, and yet that he has taken pains to set forth as many historical varieties of minds absolutely emancipated from all faith, and finally, when we recall that at the time when he wrote, the great proportion of the characteristics of these dramatis personae were utterly unappreciated, and that by even the learned they were simply reviewed as 'infidels,' we cannot but smile at the care with which (like the sculptor in the old story) he carved his images, and buried them to be dug up at a future day by men who, as he possibly hoped, would appreciate more fully than did his contemporaries his own degree of forbidden knowledge. I certainly do not exaggerate the importance of these characters when speaking in this manner. They could not have been conceived without a very great expenditure of study and of reflection. They are, as I said, subjective, and such portraits of humanity always involve a vastly greater amount of penetrative and long-continued thought, than do the mere historical and social photographs which constitute the bulk of Scott's, as of all novels, and form the favorites of the mass of readers for entertainment.

First among these characters, and most important as indicating direct historical familiarity with the obscure subject of the Oriental heresies of the Middle Ages in Europe, I would place that of the Templar, Brian de Bois Guilbert, who is generally regarded by readers as simply 'a horrid creature,' who chased 'that darling Rebecca' out of the window to the verge of the parapet; or at best as a knightly ruffian, who, like most ruffianly sinners, quieted conscience by stifling it with doubt. Very different, however, did the Templar appear to Scott himself, who, notwithstanding the poetic justice meted to the knight, evidently sympathized in secret more warmly with him than with any other character in the gorgeous company of 'Ivanhoe.' Among them all he is the only one who fully and fairly appreciates the intellect of Rebecca, and, seen from the stand-point of rigid historical probability which Scott would not violate, all allowance being made for what the Templar was, he appears by far the noblest and most intelligent of all the knightly throng. I say that though a favorite, Scott would not to favor him, violate historical probability. Why should he? It formed no part of his plan to give the public of his day lessons in illuminee-ism. Had he done so he would have failed like 'George Sand' in 'Consuelo;' but a very small proportion indeed of whose readers retain a recollection of the doctrines which it is the main object of the book to set forth. I trust there is no slander in the remark, but I must believe it to be true until I see that the majority of the readers of that work have also taken to zealously investigating the sources of that most forbidden lore, which has most certainly this peculiarity, that no one can comprehend it ever so little without experiencing an insatiable, never-resting desire to exhaust it, like everything which is prohibited. There is no such thing as knowing it a little. As one of its sages said of old, its knowledge rushes forth into infinite lands.

It was, I believe, some time before 'Ivanhoe' appeared, that Baron von Hammer Purgstall had published his theory that the Knights Templars were, although most unjustly treated, still guilty, in a certain sense, of the extraordinary charges brought against them. It seems at least to be tolerably certain that during their long residence in the East they had acquired the Oriental secrets of initiation into societies which taught the old serpent-lore of eritis sicut Deus, and positive knowledge; the ultimate secret, being the absolute nothingness of all faith, creeds, laws, ties, or rules to him who is capable of rising above them and of drawing from Nature by an 'enlightened' study of her laws the principles of action, of harmony with fellow men, and of unlimited earthly enjoyment. Such had been for ages the last lessons of all the 'mysteries' of the East—mysteries which it was the peculiar destiny of the Hebrew race to resist through ages of struggle. It was through the teaching of such mysteries of pantheistic naturalism that, as the unflinching Jewish deists and anthropomorphists believed, man fell, and their belief was set forth in their very first religious tradition—the history of the apple, the serpent, and the Fall. And it is to the very extraordinary nature of the Hebrew race, by which they presented for the first time in history the spectacle of a people resisting nature-worship, that they owe their claim to be a peculiar people.

The Templars, under the glowing skies of the East, among its thousand temptations, those of superior knowledge not being the least; in an age when the absurdities of the Roman church were, to an enlightened mind, at their absurdest pitch, fell readily into 'illumination.' Whether they literally worshipped the Oriental Baphomet, a figure with two heads, male and female, girt with a serpent, typifying the completest abnegation of all moral relations, and the rights of knowledge, no one can say now—it is, however, significant that this symbol, which they undoubtedly used, actually found its way under the freemasons into the Christian churches of the West, as a type of 'prudence' among the representations of Christian virtues. When we remember that the Gnostics taught that prudence alone was virtue,[11] we have here a coincidence which sufficiently explains the meaning of this emblem of 'the baptism of mind.'

Nothing is more likely than that a portion of the Knights Templars were initiated in the mysteries of such Oriental sects as those of the House of Wisdom of Al Hakem, the seventh and last degree of which at first 'inculcated the vanity of all religion, and the indifference of actions which are neither visited with recompense nor chastisement here or hereafter.' At a later age, when the doctrines of this society had permeated all Islam, it seems to have labored very zealously to teach both women and men gratuitously all learning, and give them the freest use of books. At this time it was in the ninth degree that the initiate 'learnt the grand secret of atheism, and a code of morals, which may be summed up in a few words, as believing nothing and daring everything.'[12]

Bearing this in mind, Walter Scott may be presumed to have studied with shrewd appreciation the character of the Templars, and to have conjectured with strange wisdom their great ambition, when we find Brian de Bois Guilbert declaring to Rebecca that his Order threatened the thrones of Europe, and hinting at tremendous changes in society—'hopes more extended than can be viewed from the throne of a monarch.' For it was indeed the hope—it must have been—for the proud and powerful brotherhood of the Temple to extend their secret doctrines over Europe, regenerate society, and overthrow all existing powers, substituting for them its own crude and impossible socialism, and for Christianity the lore of the serpent. How plainly is this expressed in the speech of Bois Guilbert to Rebecca:

'Such a swelling flood is that powerful league. Of this mighty Order I am no mean member, but already one of the Chief Commanders, and may well aspire one day to hold the baton of Grand Master. The poor soldiers of the Temple will not alone place their foot upon the necks of Kings—a hemp-sandall'd monk can do that. Our mailed step shall ascend their throne—our gauntlet shall wrench the sceptre from their gripe. Not the reign of your vainly expected Messiah offers such power to your dispersed tribes as my ambition may aim at. I have sought but a kindred spirit to share it, and I have found such in thee.'

'Sayest thou this to one of my people?' answered Rebecca. 'Bethink thee'—

'Answer me not,' said the Templar, 'by urging the difference of our creeds; within our secret conclaves we hold these nursery tales in derision. Think not we long remain blind to the idiotic folly of our founders, who forswore every delight of life for the pleasures of dying martyrs by hunger, by thirst, and by pestilence, and by the swords of savages, while they vainly strove to defend a barren desert, valuable only in the eyes of superstition. Our Order soon adopted bolder and wider views, and found out a better indemnification for our sacrifices. Our immense possessions in every kingdom of Europe, our high military fame, which brings within our circle the flower of chivalry from every Christian clime—these are dedicated to ends of which our pious founders little dreamed, and which are equally concealed from such weak spirits as embrace our Order on the ancient principles, and whose superstition makes them our passive tools. But I will not further withdraw the veil of our mysteries.'

We may well pause for an instant to wonder what would have been the present state of the now civilized world had this order with its Oriental illumineeism actually succeeded in undermining feudal society and in overthrowing thrones. That it was jointly dreaded by Church and State appears from the excessive, implacable zeal with which it was broken up by Philip the Fair and Pope Clement the Fifth—a zeal quite inexplicable from the motives of avarice usually attributed to them by the modern freemasonic defenders of the Knights of the Temple. I may well say modern, since in a freemasonic document bearing date 1766, reprinted in a rare work,[13] we find the most earnest protest and denial that freemasonry had anything in common with the Templars. But the Order did not die unavenged. It is by no means improbable that the secret heresies which, bearing unmistakable marks of Eastern origin, continually sprang up in Europe, and finally led the way to Huss and the Reformation, were in their origin encouraged by the Templars.

Certain it is that the character of Bois Guilbert as drawn by Scott—his habitual oath 'by earth and sea and sky!' his scorn of 'the doting scruples which fetter our free-born reason,' and his atheistic faith that to die is to be 'dispersed to the elements of which our strange forms are so mystically composed,' are all wonderful indications of insight into a type of mind differing inconceivably from the mere infidel villain of modern novels, and which could never have been attributed to a knight of the superstitious Middle Ages without a strong basis of historical research. Very striking indeed is his fierce love for Rebecca—his intense appreciation of her great courage and firmness, which he at once recognizes as congenial to his own daring, and believes will form for him in her a fit mate. There is a spirit of reality in this which transcends ordinary conceptions of what is called genius. To deem a woman requisite aid in such intellectual labor—for so we may well call the system of the Templars—would at that era have been incomprehensibly absurd to any save the worshippers of the bi-sexed Baphomet and the disciples of the House of Wisdom, with whom the equal culture of the sexes was a leading aim. The extraordinary tact with which Scott has contrived to make Bois Guilbert repulsive to the mass of readers, while at the same time he really—for himself—makes him undergo every sacrifice of which the Templar's nature is consistently capable, is perhaps the most elaborately artistic effort in his works. To have made Bois Guilbert sensible to the laws of love and of chivalry, which in his mystical freedom he despised, to rescue her simply from death, which in his view had no terrors beyond short-lived pain, would not have agreed with his character as Scott very truly understood it. Himself a sacrifice to fate, he was willing that she, whom he regarded as a second self, should also perish. This reserving the true comprehension of a certain character to one's self by a writer is not, I believe, an uncommon thing in romance writing. 'Blifil' was the favorite child of his literary parent, and was (it is to be hoped) seen by him from a stand-point undreamed of by nearly all readers.

Closely allied in the one main point of character to Bois Guilbert, and to a certain degree having his Oriental origin, yet differing in every other detail, we have Hayraddin Maugrabin, the gypsy, in 'Quentin Durward.'

When Walter Scott drew the outlines of this singular subordinate actor in one of the world's greatest mediaeval romances, so little was known of the real condition of the 'Rommany,' that the author was supposed to have introduced an exaggerated and most improbable character among historical portraits which were true to life. The more recent researches of George Borrow and others have shown that, judged by the gypsy of the present day, Hayraddin is extremely well drawn in certain particulars, but improbable in other respects. He has, amid all his villany, a certain firmness or greatness which is peculiar to men who can sustain positions of rank—a marked Oriental 'leadership,' which Scott might be presumed to have guessed at. Yet all of this corresponds closely to the historical account of the first of these wanderers, who in 1427 came to Europe, 'well mounted,' and claiming to be men of the highest rank, and to the condition and character of certain men among them in the Slavonian countries of the present day. If we study carefully all that is accessible both of the present and the past relative to this singular race, we shall find that Scott, partly from knowledge and partly by poetic intuition, has in this gypsy produced one of his most marvellous and deeply interesting studies.

Like Bois Guilbert, Hayraddin is a man without a God, and the peculiarity of his character lies in a constant realization of the fact that he is absolutely free from every form or principle of faith, every conventional tie, every duty founded on aught save the most natural instincts. He revels in this freedom; it is to him like magic armor, making him invulnerable to shafts which reach all around him—nay, which render him supremely indifferent to death itself. Whether this extreme of philosophical skepticism and stoicism could be consistently and correctly attributed to a gypsy of the fifteenth century, will be presently considered. Let me first quote those passages in which the character is best set forth. The first is that in which Hayraddin, in reply to the queries of Quentin Durward, asserts that he has no country, is not a Christian, and is altogether lawless:

'You are then,' said the wondering querist, 'destitute of all that other men are combined by—you have no law, no leader, no settled means of subsistence, no house or home. You have, may Heaven compassionate you, no country—and, may Heaven enlighten and forgive you, you have no God! What is it that remains to you, deprived of government, domestic happiness, and religion?'

'I have liberty,' said the Bohemian—'I crouch to no one—obey no one—respect no one.—I go where I will—live as I can—and die when my day comes.'

'But you are subject to instant execution at the pleasure of the Judge?'

'Be it so,' returned the Bohemian; 'I can but die so much the sooner.'

'And to imprisonment also,' said the Scot; 'and where then is your boasted freedom?'

'In my thoughts,' said the Bohemian, 'which no chains can bind; while yours, even when your limbs are free, remain fettered by your laws and your superstitions, your dreams of local attachment, and your fantastic visions of civil policy. Such as I are free in spirit when our limbs are chained. You are imprisoned in mind, even when your limbs are most at freedom.'

[14]'Yet the freedom of your thoughts,' said the Scot, 'relieves not the pressure of the gyves on your limbs.'

'For a brief time that may be endured,' answered the vagrant, 'and if within that period I cannot extricate myself, and fail of relief from my comrades, I can always die, and death is the most perfect freedom of all.'

Again, when asked in his last hour what are his hopes for the future, the gypsy, after denying the existence of the soul, declares that his anticipations are:

'To be resolved into the elements. * * * My hope and trust and expectation is, that the mysterious frame of humanity shall melt into the general mass of nature, to be recompounded in the other forms with which she daily supplies those which daily disappear, and return under different forms,—the watery particles to streams and showers, the earthy parts to enrich their mother earth, the airy portions to wanton in the breeze, and those of fire to supply the blaze of Aldebaran and his brethren. In this faith I have lived, and will die in it. Hence! begone!—disturb me no further! I have spoken the last word that mortal ears shall listen to!'

That such a strain as this would be absurd from 'Mr. Petulengro,' or any other of the race as portrayed by Borrow, is evident enough. Whether it is inappropriate, however, in the mouth of one of the first corners of the people in Europe, of direct Hindustanee blood, is another question. Let us examine it.

In his notes to 'Quentin Durward,' Scott declares his belief that there can be little doubt that the first gypsies consisted originally of Hindus, who left their native land when it was invaded by Timur or Tamerlane, and that their language is a dialect of Hindustanee. That the gypsies were Hindus, and outcast Hindus or Pariahs at that, could be no secret to Scott. That he should have made Hayraddin in his doctrines marvellously true to the very life to certain of this class, indicates a degree either of knowledge or of intuition (it may have been either) which is at least remarkable.

The reader has probably learned to consider the Hindu Pariah as a merely wretched outcast, ignorant, vulgar, and oppressed. Such is not, however, exactly their status. Whatever their social rank may be, the Pariahs—the undoubted ancestors of the gypsies—are the authors in India of a great mass of philosophy and literature, embracing nearly all that land has ever produced which is tinctured with independence or wit. In confirmation of which I beg leave to cite the following passages from that extremely entertaining, well-edited, and elegantly published little work, the 'Strange Surprising Adventures of the Venerable Goroo Simple and his Five Disciples':

'The literature of the Hindoos owes but little to the hereditary claimants to the sole possession of divine light and knowledge. On the contrary, with the many things which the Brahmins are forbidden to touch, all science, if left to them alone, would soon stagnate, and clever men, whose genius cannot be held in trammels, therefore soon become outcasts and swell the number of Pariars in consequence of their very pursuit of knowledge. * * * To the writings of the Poorrachchameiyans, a sect of Pariars odious in the eyes of a Brahman, the Tamuls owe the greater part of works on science. * * * To the Vallooran sect of Pariars, particularly shunned by the Brahmans, Hindoo literature is indebted almost exclusively for the many moral poems and books of aphorisms which are its chief pride.

'This class of literature' (satiric humor and fables) 'emanated chiefly from those despised outcasts, the Pariars, the very men who (using keener spectacles than Dr. Robertson, our historian of Ancient India, did, who singularly became the panegyrist of Gentoo subdivisions) saw that to bind human intellect and human energy within the wire fences of Hindoo castes is as impossible as to shut up the winds of heaven in a temple built by man's hand, and boldly thought for themselves.'

Of the literary Vallooran Pariah outcasts and scientific Poorrachchameiyans, we know from the best authority—Father Beschi—that they form society of six degrees or sects, the fifth of which, when five Fridays occur in a month, celebrate it avec de grandes abominations, while the sixth 'admits the real existence of nothing—except, perhaps, GOD.' This last is a mere guess on the part of the good father. It is beyond conjecture that we have here another of those strange Oriental sects, 'atheistic' in its highest school and identical in its nature with that of the House of Wisdom of Cairo, and with the Templars; and if Scott's gypsy Hayraddin Maugrabin is to be supposed one of that type of Hindu outcasts, which were of all others most hateful to the orthodox Moslem invader, we cannot sufficiently admire the appropriateness with which doctrines which were actually held by the most deeply initiated among the Pariahs were put into his mouth. To have made a merely vulgar, nothing-believing, and as little reflecting gypsy, as philosophical as the wanderer in 'Quentin Durward,' would have been absurd. There is a vigor, an earnestness in his creed, which betrays culture and thought, and which is marvellously appropriate if we regard him as a wandering scion of the outcast Pariah illuminati of India.

Did our author owe this insight to erudition or to poetic intuition? In either case we discover a depth which few would have surmised. It was once said of Scott, that he was a millionaire of genius whose wealth was all in small change—that his scenes and characters were all massed from a vast collection of little details. This would be equivalent to declaring that he was a great novelist without a great idea. Perhaps this is true, but the clairvoyance of genius which seems to manifest itself in the two characters which I have already examined, and the cautious manner in which he has treated them, would appear to prove that he possessed a rarer gift than that of 'great ideas'—the power of controlling them. Such ideas may make reformers, critics, politicians, essayists—but they generally ruin a novelist—and Scott knew it.

A third character belonging to the class under consideration, is Henbane Dwining, the 'pottingar,' apothecary or 'leech,' in the novel of 'The Fair Maid of Perth.'

This man is rather developed by his deeds than his words, and these are prompted by two motives, terrible vindictiveness and the pride of superior knowledge. He is vile from the former, and yet almost heroic from the latter, for it is briefly impossible to make any man intensely self-reliant, and base this self-reliance on great learning in men and books, without displaying in him some elements of superiority. He is so radically bad that by contrast one of the greatest villains in Scottish history, Sir John Ramorney, appears rather gray than black; and yet we dislike him less than the knight, possibly because we know that men of the Dwining stamp, when they have had the control of nations, often do good simply from the dictates of superior wisdom—the wisdom of the serpent—which, no Ramorney ever did. The skill with which the crawling, paltry leech controls his fierce lord; the contempt for his power and pride shown in Dwining's adroit sneers, and above all, the ease with which the latter casts into the shade Ramorney's fancied superiority in wickedness, is well set forth—and such a character could only have been conceived by deep study of the motives and agencies which formed it. To do so, Scott had recourse to the same Oriental source—the same fearful school of atheism which in another and higher form gave birth to the Templar and the gypsy. 'I have studied,' says Dwining, 'among the sages of Granada, where the fiery-souled Moor lifts high his deadly dagger as it drops with his enemy's blood, and avows the doctrine which the pallid Christian practises, though, coward-like, he dare not name it.' His sneers at the existence of a devil, at all 'prejudices,' at religion, above all, at brute strength and every power save that of intellect, are perfectly Oriental—not however of the Oriental Sufi, or of the initiated in the House of Wisdom, whose pantheistic Idealism went hand in hand with a faith in benefiting mankind, and which taught forgiveness, equality, and love, but rather that corrupted Asiatic vanity of wisdom which abounded among the disciples of Aristotle and of Averroes in Spain, and which was entirely material. I err, strictly speaking, therefore, when I speak of this as the same Oriental school, though in a certain sense it had a common origin—that of believing in the infinite power of human wisdom. Both are embraced indeed in the beguiling eritis sicut Deus, 'ye shall be as GOD,' uttered by the serpent to Eve.

Quite subordinate as regards its position among the actors of the novel, yet extremely interesting in a historical point of view, is the character of Jasper Dryfesdale the steward of the Douglas family, in 'The Abbot.' In this man Scott has happily combined the sentiment of absolute feudal devotion to his superiors with a gloomy fatalism learned 'among the fierce sectaries of Lower Germany.' If carefully studied, Dryfesdale will be found to be, on the whole, the most morally instructive character in the entire range of Scott's writings. In the first place, he illustrates the fact, so little noted by the advocates of loyalty, aristocracy, 'devoted retainers,' and 'faithful vassals,' that all such fidelity carried beyond the balance of a harmony of interests, results in an insensibility to moral accountability. Thus in the Southern States, masters often refer with pride to the fact that a certain negro, who will freely pillage in other quarters, will 'never steal at home.' History shows that the man who surrenders himself entirely to the will of another begins at once to cast on his superior all responsibility for his own acts. Such dependence and evasion is of itself far worse than the bold unbelief which is to the last degree self-reliant; which seeks no substitute, dreads no labor, scorns all mastery, and aims at the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. Such unbelief may possibly end in finding religious truth after its devious errors, but what shall be said of those who would have men sin as slaves?

Singularly and appropriately allied to a resignation of moral accountability from feudal attachment, is the contemptible and cowardly doctrine of fatalism, which Dryfesdale also professes. It is not with him the philosophic doctrine of the concurring impulses of circumstance, or of natural laws, but rather the stupendously nonsensical notion of the Arabian kismet, that from the beginning of time every event was fore-arranged as in a fairy tale, and that all which is, is simply the acting out of a libretto written before the play began—a belief revived in the last century by readers of Leibnitz, who were truer than the great German himself to the consequences of his doctrine, which he simply evaded.[15] In coupling this humiliating and superstitious means of evading moral accountability with the same principle as derived from feudal devotion, Scott, consciously or unconsciously, displayed genius, and at the same time indirectly attacked that system of society to which he was specially devoted. So true is it that genius instinctively tends to set forth the truth, be the predilections of its possessor what they may. And indeed, as Scott nowhere shows in any way that he, for his part, regarded the blind fidelity of the steward as other than admirable, it may be that he was guided rather by instinct than will, in thus pointing out the great evil resulting from a formally aristocratic state of society. Such as it is, it is well worth studying in these times, when the principles of republicanism and aristocracy are brought face to face at war among us, firstly in the contest between the South and the North, and secondly in the rapidly growing division between the friends of the Union, and the treasonable 'Copperheads,' who consist of men of selfish, aristocratic tendencies, and their natural allies, the refuse of the population.

It is very unfortunate that the term 'Anabaptists' should have ever been applied to the ferocious fanatics led by John of Leyden, Knipperdolling, and Rothmann, since it has brought discredit on a large sect bearing the same name with which it had in reality even less in common than the historians of the latter imagine. It is not a difficult matter for the mind familiar with the undoubted Oriental origin of the 'heresies' of the middle ages, to trace in the origin at least of the fierce and licentious socialists of Muenster the same secret influence which, flowing from Gnostic, Manichaean, or Templar sources, founded the Waldense and Albigense sects, and was afterward perceptible in a branch of the Hussites. At the time of the Reformation their ancient doctrines had subsided into Biblical fanaticism; but the old leaven of revolt against the church, and against all compulsion—keenly sharpened by their experiences, in the recent Peasant's War—was as hot as ever among them. They had no great or high philosophy, but were in all respects chaotic, contradictory, and stormy. Unable to rise to the cultivated and philanthropic feelings which accompanied the skepticism of their remote founders, they based their denial of moral accountability—as narrow and vulgar minds naturally do—on a predestination, which is as insulting to GOD as to man, since it is consistently comprehensible only by supposing HIM a slave to destiny. Among such vassals to a worse than earthly tyranny, the man who as 'a Scottish servant regarded not his own life or that of any other save his master,' would find doctrines congenial enough to his grovelling nature. So he was willing to believe that 'that which was written of me a million years before I saw the light must be executed by me.' 'I am well taught, and strong in belief,' he says, 'that man does nought for himself; he is but the foam on the billow, which rises, bubbles, and bursts, not by its own effort, but by the mightier impulse of fate which urges him.' And the combination of his two wretched doctrines is well set forth in the passage wherein he tells his mistress that she had no choice as regarded accepting his criminal services. 'You might not choose, lady,' answered the steward. 'Long ere this castle was builded—ay, long ere the islet which sustains it reared its head above the blue water—I was destined to be your faithful slave, and you to be my ungrateful mistress.'

Freethinkers, infidels, and atheists abound in novels, but it is to the credit of Sir Walter Scott that wherever he has introduced a sincere character of this description, he has gone to the very origin for his facts, and then given us the result without pedantry. The four which I have examined are each a curious subject for study, and indicate, collectively and compared, a train of thought which I believe that few have suspected in Scott, notwithstanding his well-known great love for the curious and occult in literature. That he perfectly understood that absurd and vain character, the so-called 'infidel,' whose philosophy is limited to abusing Christianity, and whose real object is to be odd and peculiar, and astonish humble individuals with his wickedness, is most amusingly shown in 'Bletson,' one of the three Commissioners of Cromwell introduced into 'Woodstock.' Scott has drawn this very subordinate character in remarkable detail, having devoted nearly seven pages to its description,[16] evidently being for once carried away by the desire of rendering the personality as clearly as possible, or of gratifying his own fancy. And while no effort is ever made to cast even a shadow of ridicule on the Knight Templar, on Dryfesdale, on the gypsy, or even on the crawling Dwining, he manifestly takes great pains to render as contemptible and laughably absurd as possible this type of the very great majority of modern infidels, who disavow religion because they fear it, and ridicule Christianity from sheer, shallow ignorance. Our own country at present abounds in 'Bletsons,' in conceited, ignorant 'infidel' scribblers of many descriptions, in of all whom we can still trace the cant and drawl of the old-fashioned fanaticism to which they are in reality nearly allied, while they appear to oppose it. For the truth is, that popular infidelity—to borrow Mr. Caudle's simile of tyrants—is only Puritanism turned inside out. We see this, even when it is masked in French flippancy and the Shibboleth of the current accomplishments of literature—it betrays itself by its vindictiveness and conceit, by its cruelty, sarcasms, and meanness—with the infidel as with the bigot. The sincere seeker for truth, whether he wander through the paths of unbelief or of faith, never forgets to love, never courts notoriety, and is neither a satirical court-fool nor a would-be Mephistopheles.

In reflecting on these characters, I am irresistibly reminded of an anecdote illustrating their nature. A friend of mine who had employed a rather ignorant fellow to guide him through some ruins in England, was astonished, as he entered a gloomy dungeon, at the sudden remark, in the hollow voice of one imparting a dire confidence, of: 'I doan't believe in hany GOD!' 'Don't you, indeed?' was the placid reply. 'Noa,' answered the guide; 'H'I'm a HINFIDEL!' 'Well, I hope you feel easy after it,' quoth my friend.

There is yet another skeptic set forth by Scott, whose peculiarities may be deemed worthy of examination. I refer to Agelastes, the treacherous and hypocritical sage of 'Count Robert of Paris.' In this man we have, however, rather the refined sensualist and elegant scholar who amuses himself with the subtleties of the old Greek philosophy, than a sincere seeker for truth, or even a sincere doubter. His views are fully given in a short lecture of the countess:

'Daughter,' said Agelastes, approaching nearer to the lady, 'it is with pain I see you bewildered in errors which a little calm reflection might remove. We may flatter ourselves, and human vanity usually does so, that beings infinitely more powerful than those belonging to mere humanity are employed daily in measuring out the good and evil of this world, the termination of combats or the fate of empires, according to their own ideas of what is right or wrong, or more properly, according to what we ourselves conceive to be such. The Greek heathens, renowned for their wisdom, and glorious for their actions, explained to men of ordinary minds the supposed existence of Jupiter and his Pantheon, where various deities presided over various virtues and vices, and regulated the temporal fortune and future happiness of such as practised them. The more learned and wise of the ancients rejected such the vulgar interpretation, and wisely, although affecting a deference to the public faith, denied before their disciples in private, the gross fallacies of Tartarus and Olympus, the vain doctrines concerning the gods themselves, and the extravagant expectations which the vulgar entertained of an immortality supposed to be possessed by creatures who were in every respect mortal, both in the conformation of their bodies, and in the internal belief of their souls. Of these wise and good men some granted the existence of the supposed deities, but denied that they cared about the actions of mankind any more than those of the inferior animals. A merry, jovial, careless life, such as the followers of Epicurus would choose for themselves, was what they assigned for those gods whose being they admitted. Others, more bold or more consistent, entirely denied the existence of deities who apparently had no proper object or purpose, and believed that such of them, whose being and attributes were proved to us by no supernatural appearances, had in reality no existence whatever.'

In all this, and indeed in all the character of Agelastes, there is nothing more than shallow scholarship, such as may be found in many of 'the learned' in all ages, whose learning is worn as a fine garment, perhaps as one of comfort, but not as the armor in which to earnestly do battle for life. A contempt for the vulgar, or at best a selfish rendering of life agreeable to themselves, is all that is gathered from such systems of doubt—and this was in all ages the reproach of all Greek philosophy. It was not meant for the multitude nor for the barbarian. It embraced no hope of benefiting all mankind, no scheme for even freeing them from superstition. Such ideas were only cherished by the Orientals, and (though mingled with errors) subsequently and fully by the early Christians. It was in the East that the glorious doctrine of love for all beings, not only for enemies, but for the very fiends themselves, was first proclaimed as essential to perfect the soul—as shown in the beautiful Hindu poem of 'The Buddha's Victory,'[17] in which the demon Wassywart, that horror of horrors, whose eyes are clots of blood, whose voice outroars the thunder, who plucks up the sun from its socket the sky, defies the great saint-god to battle:

'The unarmed Buddha mildly gazed at him, And said in peace: 'Poor fiend, even thee I love.' Before great Wassywart the world grew dim; His bulk enormous dwindled to a dove. * * * —Celestial beauty sat on Buddhas face, While sweetly sang the metamorphosed dove: 'Swords, rocks, lies, fiends, must yield to moveless love, And nothing can withstand the Buddha's grace.'

And again, in 'The Secret of Piety'—the secret 'of all the lore which angelic bosoms swell'—we have the same pure faith:

'Whoso would careless tread one worm that crawls the sod, That cruel man is darkly alienate from God; But he that lives embracing all that is in love, To dwell with him God bursts all bounds, below, above.'

The Greek philosophy knew nothing of all this, and the result is that even in the atheism which sprang from the East, and in its harshest and lowest 'tinctures,' we find a something nobler and less selfish than is to be found in the school of Plato himself. And however this may be, the reader will admit, in examining the six skeptics set forth by Scott, that each is a character firmly based in historical truth; that all, with the exception of 'Bletson,' are sketched with remarkable brevity; and that a careful comparative analysis of the whole gives us a deeper insight into the secret tendencies of the author's mind, and at the same time into the springs of his genius, than the world has been wont to take. And the study of the subject is finally interesting, since we may learn from it that even in the works of one who is a standard poetic authority among those who would, if possible, subject all men to feudalism, we may learn lessons of that highest social truth—republicanism.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote 10: OVID. Metamorphoseon, lib. xi. v. 183.]

[Footnote 11: Haec autem erat Gnosticorum doctrina ethica, quod omnem virtutem in prudentia sitim esse credebant, quam Ophitae per Metem (Sophiam) et Serpentem exprimebant, desumpto iterum ex Evangelii praecepto; estote prudentes ut serpentes,—ob innatem hujus animalis astutiam?—VON HAMMER, Fundgruben des Orients, tom. vi. p. 85.]

[Footnote 12: New Curiosities of Literature. By GEO. SOANE, London, 1849.]

[Footnote 13: Developpement des Abus introduits dans la Franc Maconnerie. Ecossois de Saint ANDRE d'Ecosse, &c., &c. Paris, 1780.]

[Footnote 14: London. Truebner &. Co., No. 60 Paternoster Row. 1861.]

[Footnote 15: 'Tota haec humanae vitae fabula, quae universitatem naturae et generis humani historiam constituit tota prius in intellectu divino praeconcepta fuit cum infinitis aliis.'—LEIBNITZ, Theodicaea, part 11, p. 149.]

[Footnote 16: Tickner and Fields' edition of Waverley Novels, Boston, 1858.]

[Footnote 17: The Poetry of the East. By WILLIAM ROUNSEVILLE ALGER. Boston. Whittemore, Niles & Hall, 1856.]



A CHORD OF WOOD.

Well, New York, you've made your pile Of Wood, and, if you like, may smile: Laugh, if you will, to split your sides, But in that Wood pile a nigger hides, With a double face beneath his hood: Don't hurra till you're out of your Wood.



A MERCHANT'S STORY.

'All of which I saw, and part of which I was.'

CHAPTER XIX.

The moon and the stars were out, and the tall, dark pines cast long, gloomy shadows over the little rows of negro houses which formed the rearguard to Preston's mansion. They were nearly deserted. Not a solitary fire slumbered on the bare clay hearths, and not a single darky stood sentry over the loose pork and neglected hoecakes, or kept at bay the army of huge rats and prowling opossums which beleaguered the quarters. Silence—death's music—was over and around them. The noisy revelry of the dancers had died away in the distance, and even the hoarse song of the great trees had sunk to a low moan as they stood, motionless and abashed, in the presence of the grim giant who knocks alike at the palace and the cottage gate.

A stray light glimmered through the logs of a low hut, far off in the woods, and, making our way to it, we entered. A bright fire lit up the interior, and on a rude cot, in one corner, lay the old preacher. His eyes were closed; a cold, clammy sweat was on his forehead—he was dying. One of his skeleton hands rested on the tattered coverlet, and his weazened face was half buried in a dilapidated pillow, whose ragged casing and protruding plumage bespoke it a relic of some departed white sleeper.

An old negress, with gray hair and haggard visage, sat at the foot of the bed, wailing piteously; and Joe and half a dozen aged saints stood around, singing a hymn, doleful enough to have made even a sinner weep.

Not heeding our entrance, Joe took the dying man by the hand, and, in a slow, solemn voice, said:

'Brudder Jack, you'm dyin'; you'm gwine ter dat lan' whence no trabeller returns; you'm settin' out fur dat country which'm lit by de smile ob de Lord; whar dar ain't no sickness, no pain, no sorrer, no dyin'; fur dat kingdom whar de Lord reigns; whar trufh flows on like a riber; whar righteousness springs up like de grass, an' lub draps down like de dew, an' cobers de face ob de groun'; whar you woan't gwo 'bout wid no crutch; whar you woan't lib in no ole cabin like dis, an' eat hoecake an' salt pork in sorrer an' heabiness ob soul; but whar you'll run an' not be weary, an' walk an' not be faint; whar you'll hab a hous'n builded ob de Lord, an' sit at His table—you' meat an' drink de bread an' de water ob life!

'I knows you's a sinner, Jack; I knows you's lub'd de hot water too much, an' dat it make you forgit you' duty sometime, an' set a bad 'zample ter dem as looked up ter you fur better tings; but dar am mercy wid de Lord, Jack; dar am forgibness wid Him; an' I hopes you'm ready an' willin' ter gwo.'

Old Jack opened his eyes, and, in a low, peevish tone, said:

'Joe, none ob you' nonsense ter me! I'se h'ard you talk dis way afore. You can't preach—you neber could. You jess knows I ain't fit ter trabble, an' I ain't willin' ter gwo, nowhar.'

Joe mildly rebuked him, and again commenced expatiating on the 'upper kingdom,' and on the glories of 'the house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens;' but the old darky cut him short, with—

'Shet up, Joe! no more ob dat. I doan't want no oder hous'n but dis—dis ole cabin am good 'nuff fur me.'

Joe was about to reply, when Preston stepped to the bedside, and, taking the aged preacher's hand, said:

'My good Jack, master Robert has come to see you.'

The dying man turned his eyes toward his master, and, in a weak, tremulous voice, exclaimed:

'Oh! massa Robert, has you come? has you come ter see ole Jack? Bress you, massa Robert, bress you! Jack know'd you'd neber leab him yere ter die alone.'

'No, my good Jack; I would save you if I could.'

'But you can't sabe me, massa Robert; I'se b'yond dat. I'se dyin', massa Robert. I'se gwine ter de good missus. She tell'd me ter get ready ter foller har, an' I is. I'se gwine ter har now, massa Robert!'

'I know you are, Jack. I feel sure you are.'

'Tank you, massa Robert—tank you fur sayin' dat. An' woan't you pray fur me, massa Robert—jess a little pray? De good man's prayer am h'ard, you knows, massa Robert.'

All kneeling down on the rough floor, Preston prayed—a short, simple, fervent prayer. At its close, he rose, and, bending over the old negro, said:

'The Lord is good, Jack; His mercy is everlasting.'

'I knows dat; I feels dat,' gasped the dying man. 'I lubs you, massa Robert; I allers lub'd you; but I'se gwine ter leab you now. Bress you! de Lord bress you, massa Robert' I'll tell de good missus'—

He clutched convulsively at his master's hand; a wild light came out of his eyes; a sudden spasm passed over his face, and—he was 'gone whar de good darkies go.'

CHAPTER XX.

On the following day Frank and I were to resume our journey; and, in the morning, I suggested that we should visit Colonel Dawsey, with whom, though he had for many years been a correspondent of the house in which I was a partner, I had no personal acquaintance.

His plantation adjoined Preston's, and his house was only a short half mile from my friend's. After breakfast, we set out for it through the woods. The day was cold for the season, with a sharp, nipping air, and our overcoats were not at all uncomfortable.

As we walked along I said to Preston:

'Dawsey's 'account' is a good one. He never draws against shipments, but holds on, and sells sight drafts, thus making the exchange.'

'Yes, I know; he's a close calculator.'

'Does he continue to manage his negroes as formerly?'

'In much the same way, I reckon.'

'Then he can't stand remarkably well with his neighbors.'

'Oh! people round here don't mind such things. Many of them do as badly as he. Besides, Dawsey is a gentleman of good family. He inherited his plantation and two hundred hands.'

'Indeed! How, then, did he become reduced to his present number?'

'He was a wild young fellow, and, before he was twenty-five, had squandered and gambled away everything but his land and some thirty negroes. Then he turned square round, and, from being prodigal and careless, became mean and cruel. He has a hundred now, and more ready money than any planter in the district.'

A half hour's walk took us to Dawsey's negro quarters—a collection of about thirty low huts in the rear of his house. They were not so poor as some I had seen on cotton and rice plantations, but they seemed unfit for the habitation of any animal but the hog. Their floors were the bare ground, hardened by being moistened with water and pounded with mauls; and worn, as they were, several inches lower in the centre than at the sides, they must have formed, in rainy weather, the beds of small lakes. So much water would have been objectionable to white tenants; but negroes, like their friends the alligators, are amphibious animals; and Dawsey's were never known to make complaint. The chimneys were often merely vent-holes in the roof, though a few were tumble-down structures of sticks and clay; and not a window, nor an opening which courtesy could have christened a window, was to be seen in the entire collection. And, for that matter, windows were useless, for the wide crevices in the logs, which let in the air and rain, at the same time might admit the light. Two or three low beds at one end, a small pine bench, which held half a dozen wooden plates and spoons, and a large iron pot, resting on four stones, over a low fire, and serving for both washtub and cook-kettle, composed the furniture of each interior.

No one of the cabins was over sixteen feet square, but each was 'home' and 'shelter' for three or four human beings. Walking on a short distance, we came to a larger hovel, in front of which about a dozen young chattels were playing. Seven or eight more, too young to walk, were crawling about on the ground inside. They had only one garment apiece—a long shirt of coarse linsey—and their heads and feet were bare. An old negress was seated in the doorway, knitting. Approaching her, I said:

'Aunty, are not these children cold?'

'Oh! no, massa; dey'm use' ter de wedder.'

'Do you take care of all of them?'

'In de daytime I does, massa. In de night dar mudders takes de small 'uns.'

'But some of them are white. Those two are as white as I am!'

'No, massa; dey'm brack. Ef you looks at dar eyes an' dar finger nails, you'll see dat.'

'They're black, to be sure they are,' said young Preston, laughing; 'but they're about as white as Dawsey, and look wonderfully like him—eh, aunty Sue?'

'I reckons, massa Joe!' replied the woman, running her hand through her wool, and grinning widely.

'What does he ask for them, aunty?'

'Doan't know, massa, but 'spect dey'm pooty high. Dem kine am hard ter raise.'

'Yes,' said Joe; 'white blood—even Dawsey's—don't take naturally to mud.'

'I reckons not, massa Joe!' said the old negress, with another grin.

Joe gave her a half-dollar piece, and, amid an avalanche of blessings, we passed on to Dawsey's 'mansion'—if mansion it could be called—a story-and-a-half shanty, about thirty feet square, covered with rough, unpainted boards, and lit by two small, dingy windows. It was approached by a sandy walk, and the ground around its front entrance was littered with apple peelings, potato parings, and the refuse of the culinary department.

Joe rapped at the door, and, in a moment, it opened, and a middle-aged mulatto woman appeared. As soon as she perceived Preston, she grasped his two hands, and exclaimed:

'Oh! massa Robert, do buy har! Massa'll kill har, ef you doan't.'

'But I can't, Dinah. Your master refuses my note, and I haven't the money now.'

'Oh! oh! He'll kill har; he say he will. She woan't gib in ter him, an' he'll kill har, shore. Oh! oh!' cried the woman, wringing her hands, and bursting into tears.

'Is it 'Spasia?' asked Joe.

'Yas, massa Joe; it'm 'Spasia. Massa hab sole yaller Tom 'way from har, an' he swar he'll kill har 'case she woan't gib in ter him. Oh! oh!'

'Where is your master?'

'He'm 'way wid har an' Black Cale. I reckon dey'm down ter de branch. I reckon dey'm whippin' on har now!'

'Come, Frank,' cried Joe, starting off at a rapid pace; 'let's see that performance.'

'Hold on, Joe; wait for us. You'll get into trouble!' shouted his father, hurrying after him. The rest of us caught up with them in a few moments, and then all walked rapidly on in the direction of the small run which borders the two plantations.

Before we had gone far, we heard loud screams, mingled with oaths and the heavy blows of a whip. Quickening our pace, we soon reached the bank of the little stream, which there was lined with thick underbrush. We could see no one, and the sounds had subsided. In a moment, however, a rough voice called out from behind the bushes:

'Have you had enough? Will you give up?'

'Oh! no, good massa; I can't do dat!' was the half-sobbing, half-moaning reply.

'Give it to her again, Cale!' cried the first voice; and again the whip descended, and again the piercing cries: 'O Lord!' 'Oh, pray doan't!' 'O Lord, hab mercy!' 'Oh! good massa, hab mercy!' mingled with the falling blows.

'This way!' shouted Joe, pressing through the bushes, and bounding down the bank toward the actors in this nineteenth-century tournament, wherein an armed knight and a doughty squire were set against a weak, defenceless woman.

Leaning against a pine at a few feet from the edge of the run, was a tall, bony man of about fifty. His hair was coarse and black, and his skin the color of tobacco-juice. He wore the ordinary homespun of the district; and long, deep lines about his mouth and under his eyes told the story of a dissipated life. His entire appearance was anything but prepossessing.

At the distance of three or four rods, and bound to the charred trunk of an old tree, was a woman, several shades lighter than the man. Her feet were secured by stout cords, and her arms were clasped around the blackened stump, and tied in that position. Her back was bare to the loins, and, as she hung there, moaning with agony, and shivering with cold, it seemed one mass of streaming gore.

The brawny black, whom Boss Joe had so eccentrically addressed at the negro meeting, years before, was in the act of whipping the woman; but with one bound, young Preston was on him. Wrenching the whip from his hand, he turned on his master, crying out:

'Untie her, you white-livered devil, or I'll plough your back as you've ploughed hers!'

'Don't interfere here, you d—d whelp!' shouted Dawsey, livid with rage, and drawing his revolver.

'I'll give you enough of that, you cowardly hound!' cried Joe, taking a small Derringer from his pocket, and coolly advancing upon Dawsey.

The latter levelled his pistol, but, before he could fire, by a dexterous movement of my cane, I struck it from his hand. Drawing instantly a large knife, he rushed on me. The knife was descending—in another instant I should have 'tasted Southern steel,' had not Frank caught his arm, wrenched the weapon from his grasp, and with the fury of an aroused tiger, sprung on him and borne him to the ground. Planting his knee firmly on Dawsey's breast, and twisting his neckcloth tightly about his throat, Frank yelled out:

'Stand back. Let me deal with him!'

'But you will kill him.'

'Well, he would have killed you!' he cried, tightening his hold on Dawsey's throat.

'Let him up, Frank. Let the devil have fair play,' said Joe; 'I'll give him a chance at ten paces.'

'Yes, let him up, my son; he is unarmed.'

Frank slowly and reluctantly released his hold, and the woman-whipper rose. Looking at us for a moment—a mingled look of rage and defiance—he turned, without speaking, and took some rapid strides up the bank.

'Hold on, Colonel Dawsey!' cried Joe, elevating his Derringer; 'take another step, and I'll let daylight through you. You've just got to promise you won't whip this woman, or take your chance at ten paces.'

[I afterward learned that Joe was deadly sure with the pistol.]

Dawsey turned slowly round, and, in a sullen tone, asked:

'Who are you, gentlemen, that interfere with my private affairs?'

'My name, sir, is Kirke, of New York; and this young man is my son.'

'Not Mr. Kirke, my factor?'

'The same, sir.'

'Well, Mr. Kirke, I'm sorry to say you're just now in d—d pore business.'

'I have been, sir. I've done yours for some years, and I'm heartily ashamed of it. I'll try to mend in that particular, however.'

'Well, no more words, Colonel Dawsey,' said Joe. 'Here's a Derringer, if you'd like a pop at me.'

'Tain't an even chance,' replied Dawsey; 'you know it.'

'Take it, or promise not to whip the woman. I won't waste more time on such a sneaking coward as you are.'

Dawsey hesitated, but finally, in a dogged way, made the required promise, and took himself off.

While this conversation was going on, Preston and the negro man had untied the woman. Her back was bleeding profusely, and she was unable to stand. Lifting her in their arms, the two conveyed her to the top of the bank, and then, making a bed of their coats, laid her on the ground. We remained there until the negro returned from the house with a turpentine wagon, and conveyed the woman 'home.' We then returned to the plantation, and that afternoon, accompanied by Frank and Joe, I resumed my journey.

By way of episode, I will mention that the slave woman, after being confined to her bed several weeks, recovered. Then Dawsey renewed his attack upon her, and, from the effects of a second whipping, she died.

CHAPTER XXI.

Returning from the South a few weeks after the events narrated in the previous chapter, Frank and I were met at Goldsboro by Preston and Selma, when the latter accompanied us to the North, and once more resumed her place in David's family.

On the first of February following, Frank, then not quite twenty-one, was admitted a partner in the house of Russell, Rollins, & Co., and, in the succeeding summer, was sent to Europe on business of the firm. Shortly after his return, in the following spring, he came on from Boston with a proposal from Cragin that I should embark with them and young Preston in an extensive speculation. Deeming any business in which Cragin was willing to engage worthy of careful consideration, I listened to Frank's exposition of the plan of operations. He had originated the project, and in it he displayed the comprehensive business mind and rare blending of caution and boldness which characterized his father. As the result of this transaction had an important influence on the future of some of the actors in my story, I will detail its programme.

It was during the Crimean war. The Russian ports were closed, and Great Britain and the Continent of Europe were dependent entirely on the Southern States for their supply of resinous articles. The rivers at the South were low, and it was not supposed they would rise sufficiently to float produce to market before the occurrence of the spring freshets, in the following April or May. Only forty thousand barrels of common rosin were held in Wilmington—the largest naval-store port in the world; and it was estimated that not more than two hundred thousand were on hand in the other ports of Savannah, Ga., Georgetown, S. C., Newbern and Washington, N. C., and in New York, Boston, and Philadelphia. Very little was for sale in London, Liverpool, or Glasgow, the largest foreign markets for the article; and Frank thought that a hundred and fifty thousand barrels could be purchased. That quantity, taken at once out of market, would probably so much enhance the value of the article, that the operation would realize a large profit before the new crop came forward. The purchases were to be made simultaneously in the various markets, and about two hundred thousand dollars were required to carry through the transaction. One hundred thousand of this was to be furnished in equal proportions by the parties interested; the other hundred thousand would be realized by Joseph Preston's negotiating 'long exchange' on Russell, Rollins & Co.

I declined to embark in the speculation, but the others carried it out as laid down in the programme; the only deviation being that, at Frank's suggestion, Mr. Robert Preston was apprised of the intended movement, and allowed to purchase, on his own account, as much produce as could be secured in Newbern. He bought about seven thousand barrels, paid for them by drawing at ninety days on Russell, Rollins, & Co., and held them for sale at Newbern, agreeing to satisfy his drafts with the proceeds. These drafts amounted to a trifle over eighty-two hundred dollars.

About a month after this transaction was entered into, our firm received the following letter from Preston:

'GENTLEMEN: An unfortunate difference with my son prevents my longer using him as my indorser. I have not, as yet, been able to secure another; and, our banks requiring two home names on time drafts, I have to beg you to honor a small bill at one day's sight. I have drawn for one thousand dollars. Please honor.'

To this I at once replied:

'DEAR SIR: We have advice of your draft for one thousand dollars. To protect your credit, we shall pay it; but we beg you will draw no more, till you forward bills of lading.

'You are now overdrawn some five thousand dollars, which, by the maturing of your drafts, has become a cash advance. The death of our senior, Mr. Randall, and the consequent withdrawal of his capital, has left us with an extended business and limited means. Money, also, is very tight, and we therefore earnestly beg you to put us in funds at the earliest possible moment.'

No reply was received to this letter; but, about ten days after its transmission, Preston himself walked into my private office. His clothes were travel stained, and he appeared haggard and careworn. I had never seen him look so miserably.

He met me cordially, and soon referred to the state of his affairs. His wife, the winter before, had agreed to reside permanently at Newbern, and content herself with an allowance of three thousand dollars annually; but at the close of the year he found that she had contracted debts to the extent of several thousand more. He was pressed for these debts; his interest was in arrears, and he could raise no money for lack of another indorser. Ruin stared him in the face, unless I again put my shoulder to the wheel, and pried him out of the mire. The turpentine business was not paying as well as formerly, but the new plantation was encumbered with only the original mortgage—less than six thousand dollars—and was then worth, owing to an advance in the value of land, fully twenty thousand. He would secure me by a mortgage on that property, but I must allow the present indebtedness to stand, and let him increase it four or five thousand dollars. That amount would extricate him from present difficulties; and, to avoid future embarrassments, he would take measures for a legal separation from his wife.

I heard him through, and then said:

'I cannot help you, my friend. I am very sorry; but my own affairs are in a most critical state. I owe over a hundred thousand dollars, maturing within twenty days, and my present available resources are not more than fifty thousand. I have three hundred thousand worth of produce on hand, but the market is so depressed that I cannot realize a dollar upon it. The banks have shut down, and money is two per cent. a month in the street. What you owe us would aid me wonderfully; but I can rub through without it. That much I can bear, but not a dollar more.'

He walked the room for a time, and was silent; then, turning to me, he said—each separate word seeming a groan:

'I have cursed every one I ever loved, and now I am bringing trouble—perhaps disaster—upon you, the only real friend I have left.'

'Pshaw! my good fellow, don't talk in that way. What you owe us is only a drop in the bucket. We have made twice that amount out of you; so give yourself no uneasiness, if you never pay it.'

'But I must pay it—I shall pay it;' and, continuing to pace the room silently for a few moments, he added, giving me his hand: 'Good-by; I'm going back to-night.'

'Back to-night!—without seeing Selly, or my wife? You are mad!'

'I must go.'

'You must not go. You are letting affairs trouble you too much. Come, go home with me, and see Kate. A few words from her will make a new man of you.'

'No, no; I must go back at once. I must raise this money somehow.'

'Send money to the dogs! Come with me, and have a good night's rest. You'll think better of this in the morning. And now it occurs to me that Kate has about seven thousand belonging to Frank. He means to settle it on Selly when they are married, and she might as well have it first as last. Perhaps you can get it now.'

'But I might be robbing my own child.'

'You can give the farm as security; it's worth twice the amount.'

'Well, I'll stay. Let us see your wife at once.'

While we were seated in the parlor, after supper, I broached the subject of Preston's wants to Kate. She heard me through attentively, and then quietly said:

'Frank is of age—he can do as he pleases; but I would not advise him to make the loan. I once heard my father scout at the idea of taking security on property a thousand miles away. I would not wound Mr. Preston's feelings, but—his wife's extravagance has led him into this difficulty, and her property should extricate him from it. Her town house, horses, and carriages should be sold. She ought to be made to feel some of the mortification she has brought upon him.'

Preston's face brightened; a new idea seemed to strike him. 'You are right. I will sell everything.' His face clouded again, as he continued: 'But I cannot realize soon enough. Your husband needs money at once.'

'Never mind me; I can take care of myself. But what is this trouble with Joe? Tell me, I will arrange it. Everything can go on smoothly again.'

'It cannot be arranged. There can be no reconciliation between us.'

'What prevents? Who is at fault—you, or he?'

'I am. He will never forgive me!'

'Forgive you! I can't imagine what you have done, that admits of no forgiveness.'

He rose, and walked the room for a while in gloomy silence, then said:

'I will tell you. It is right you should know. You both should know the sort of man you have esteemed and befriended for so many years;' and, resuming his seat, he related the following occurrences:

'Everything went on as usual at the plantation, till some months after Rosey's marriage to Ally. Then a child was born to them. It was white. Rosey refused to reveal its father, but it was evidently not her husband. Ally, being a proud, high-spirited fellow, took the thing terribly to heart. He refused to live with his wife, or even to see her. I tried to reconcile them, but without success. Old Dinah, who had previously doted on Rosey, turned about, and began to beat and abuse her cruelly. To keep the child out of the old woman's way, I took her into the house, and she remained there till about two months ago. Then, one day, Larkin, the trader, of whom you bought Phylly and the children, came to me, wanting a woman house-servant. I was pressed for money, and I offered him—a thing I never did before—two or three of my family slaves. They did not suit, but he said Rosey would, and proposed to buy her and the child. I refused. He offered me fifteen hundred dollars for them, but I still refused. Then he told me that he had spoken to the girl, and she wished him to buy her. I doubted it, and said so; but he called Rosey to us, and she confirmed it, and, in an excited way, told me she would run away, or drown herself, if I did not sell her. She said she could live no longer on the same plantation with Ally. I told her I would send Ally away; but she replied: 'No; I am tired of this place. I have suffered so much here, I want to get away. I shall go; whether alive or dead, is for you to say.' I saw she was in earnest; I was hard pressed for money; Larkin promised to get her a kind master, and—I sold her.'

'Sold her! My God! Preston, she was your own child!'

'I know it,' he replied, burying his face in his hands. 'The curse of GOD was on it; it has been on me for years.' After a few moments, he added: 'But hear the rest, and you will curse me, too.'

Overcome with emotion, he groaned audibly. I said nothing, and a pause of some minutes ensued. Then, in a choked, broken voice, he continued:

'The rosin transaction had been gone into. I had used up what blank indorsements I had. Needing more, and wanting to consult with Joe about selling the rosin, I went to Mobile. It was five weeks ago. I arrived there about dark, and put up at the Battle House. Joe had boarded there. I was told he had left, and gone to housekeeping. A negro conducted me to a small house in the outskirts of the town. He said Joe lived there. Wishing to surprise him, I went in without knocking. The house had two parlors, separated by folding doors. In the back one a young woman was clearing away the tea things; in the front one, Joe was seated by the fire, with a young child on his knee. I put my hand on his shoulder, and said: 'Joe, whose child have you here?' He looked up, and laughingly said: 'Why, father, you ought to know; you've seen it before!' I looked closely at it—it was Rosey's! I said so. 'Yes, father,' he replied; 'and there's Rosey herself. Larkin promised she should have a kind master, and—he kept his word.' The truth flashed upon me—the child was his! My only son had seduced his own sister! I staggered back in horror. I told him who Rosey was, and then'—no words can express the intense agony depicted on his face as he said this—'then he cursed me! O my God! HE CURSED ME!'

I pitied him, I could but pity him; and I said:

'Do not be so cast down, my friend. I once heard you say: 'The Lord is good. His mercy is everlasting!''

'But he cannot have mercy on some!' he cried. 'My sins have been too great; they cannot be blotted out. I embittered the life of my wife; I have driven my daughter from her home; sold my own child; made my generous, noble-hearted boy do a horrible crime—a crime that will haunt him forever. Oh! the curse of God is on me. My misery is greater than I can bear.'

'No, my friend; God curses none of his creatures. You have reaped what you have sown, that is all; but you have suffered enough. Better things, believe me, are in store for you.'

'No, no; everything is gone—wife, children, all! I am alone—the past, nothing but remorse; the future, ruin and dishonor!'

'But Selly is left you. She will always love you.'

'No, no! Even Selly would curse me, if she knew all!'

No one spoke for a full half hour, and he continued pacing up and down the room. When, at last, he seated himself, more composed, I asked:

'What became of Rosey and the child?'

'I do not know. I was shut in my room for several days. When I got out, I was told Joe had freed her, and she had disappeared, no one knew whither. I tried every means to trace her, but could not. At the end of a week, I went home, what you see me—a broken-hearted man.'

The next morning, despite our urgent entreaties, he returned to the South.

* * * * *

The twenty days were expiring. By hard struggling I had met my liabilities, but the last day—the crisis—was approaching. Thirty thousand dollars of our acceptances had accumulated together, and were maturing on that day. When I went home, on the preceding night, we had only nineteen thousand in bank. I had exhausted all our receivables. Where the eleven thousand was to come from, I did not know. Only one resource seemed left me—the hypothecation of produce; and a resort to that, at that time, before warehouse receipts became legitimate securities, would be ruinous to our credit. My position was a terrible one. No one not a merchant can appreciate or realize it. With thousands upon thousands of assets, the accumulations of years, my standing among merchants, and, what I valued more than all, my untarnished credit, were in jeopardy for the want of a paltry sum.

I went home that night with a heavy heart; but Kate's hopeful words encouraged me. With her and the children left to me, I need not care for the rest; all might go, and I could commence again at the bottom of the hill. The next morning I walked down town with a firm spirit, ready to meet disaster like a man. The letters by the early mail were on my desk. I opened them one after another, hurriedly, eagerly. There were no remittances! I had expected at least five thousand dollars. For a moment my courage failed me. I rose, and paced the room, and thoughts like these passed through my mind: 'The last alternative has come. Pride must give way to duty. I must hypothecate produce, and protect my correspondents. I must sacrifice myself to save my friends!

'But here are two letters I have thrown aside. They are addressed to me personally. Mere letters of friendship! What is friendship, at a time like this?—friendship without money! Pshaw! I wouldn't give a fig for all the friends in the world!'

Mechanically I opened one of them. An enclosure dropped to the floor. Without pausing to pick it up, I read:

'DEAR FATHER: Mother writes me you are hard pressed. Sell my U. S. stock—it will realize over seven thousand. It is yours. Enclosed is Cragin's certified check for ten thousand. If you need more, draw on him, at sight, for any amount. He says he will stand by you to the death.

'Love to mother. FRANK.'

'P. S.—Fire away, old fellow! Hallet is ugly, but I'll go my pile on you, spite of the devil. CRAGIN.'

'SAVED! saved by my wife and child!' I leaned my head on my desk. When I rose, there were tears upon it.

It wanted some minutes of ten, but I was nervously impatient to blot out those terrible acceptances. I should then be safe; I should then breathe freely. As I passed out of my private office, I opened the other letter. It was from Preston. Pausing a moment, I read it:

'MY VERY DEAR FRIEND: I enclose you sight check of Branch Bank of Cape Fear on Bank of Republic, for $10,820. Apply what is needed to pay my account; the rest hold subject to my drafts.

'I have sold my town house, furniture, horses, etc., and the proceeds will pay my home debts. I shall therefore not need to draw the balance for, say, sixty days. God bless you!'

'Well, the age of miracles is not passed! How did he raise the money?'

Stepping back into the private office, I called my partner:

'Draw checks for all the acceptances due to-day; get them certified, and take up the bills at once. Don't let the grass grow under your feet. I shall be away the rest of the day, and I want to see them before I go. Here is a draft from Preston; it will make our account good.'

He looked at it, and, laughing, said:

'Yes, and leave about fifty dollars in bank.'

'Well, never mind; we are out of the woods.'

When he had gone, I sat down, and wrote the following letter:

'MY DEAR FRANK: I return Cragin's check, with many thanks. I have not sold your stock. My legitimate resources have carried me through.

'I need not say, my boy, that I feel what you would have done for me. Words are not needed between us.

'Tell Cragin that I consider him a trump—the very ace of hearts.

'Your mother and I will see you in a few days.'

In half an hour, with the two letters in my pocket, I was on my way home. Handing them to Kate, I took her in my arms; and, as I brushed the still bright, golden hair from her broad forehead, I felt I was the richest man living.

* * * * *

Within the same week I went to Boston. I arrived just after dark; and then occurred the events narrated in the first chapter.



WAR.

[J. G. PERCIVAL.]

For war is now upon their shores, And we must meet the foe, Must go where battle's thunder roars, And brave men slumber low; Go, where the sleep of death comes on The proudest hearts, who dare To grasp the wreath by valor won, And glory's banquet share.



A CHAPTER ON WONDERS.

'Obstupui! steteruntque comae, et vox faucibus haesit.'

There is a certain portion of mankind ever on the alert to see or hear some wonderful thing; whose minds are attuned to a marvellous key, and vibrate with extreme sensitiveness to the slightest touch; whose vital fluid is the air of romance, and whose algebraic symbol is a mark of exclamation! This sentiment, existing in some persons to a greater degree than in others, is often fostered by education and association, so as to become the all-engrossing passion. Children, of course, begin to wonder as soon as their eyes are opened upon the strange scenes of their future operations. The first thing usually done to develop their dawning intellect, is to display before them such objects as are best calculated to arrest their attention, and keep them in a continual state of excitement. This course is succeeded by a supply of all sorts of toys, to gratify the passion of novelty. These are followed by wonderful stories, and books of every variety of absurd impossibilities;—which system of development is, it would seem, entirely based upon the presumption, that the faculty of admiration must be expanded, in order that the young idea may best learn how to shoot. It is therefore quite natural, that—the predisposition granted—a faculty of the mind so auspiciously nurtured under the influence of exaggeration should mature in a corresponding degree.

Thus we have in our midst a class, into whose mental economy the faculty of wonder is so thoroughly infused, that it has inoculated the entire system, and forms an inherent, inexplicable, and almost elementary part of it. These persons sail about in their pleasure yachts, on roving expeditions, under a pretended 'right of search,' armed to the teeth, and boarding all sorts of crafts to obtain plunder for their favorite gratification. They are most uneasy and uncomfortable companions, having no ear for commonplace subjects of conversation, and no eye for ordinary objects of sight.