Surely never was there a more forlorn little town, trying to scramble up a hillside covered with the tall trunks of dead trees and blackened stumps, shut out from one world by the waste of waters before it, shut in from another by dreary, verdureless hills. Surely nobody lived there; those could not be homes, those desolate frame houses where people were "staying" awhile. It seemed as if the whole town, like "Poor Joe," would soon be told by a vigilant policeman to "move on."

And we, who were looking forward to Colorado, needed no policeman to urge us to "move on" by the earliest train to St. Paul.

ALICE WELLINGTON ROLLINS.

* * * * *



AURORA.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

ROSE AND GOLD.

Aurora wrote to the address given her by the Duke of Sassovivo, and received an immediate reply. The tone of her letter might be described as dutiful. She could assume no other. That pale face and weary voice were ever before her. She wrote much as she might have written to Fra Antonio, though with less ease; and the reply was not calculated to change this new position in which the two stood to each other. D'Rubiera wrote freely of his movements and plans, and of his son, but made no reference to his feelings, and did not mention the past, or any future beyond his travels.

"I trust that you will not leave me in ignorance of any contemplated change in your mode of life," he concluded, "and that you will come to no decision on any subject of importance without giving me the privilege of offering my advice, even if you should think best not to follow it."

The letter included a note to Mrs. Lindsay, which she answered; and her answer called forth a letter addressed to herself. There seemed to be no reason why Aurora should write again, and, by the tacit consent of all, the correspondence fell into Mrs. Lindsay's hands. Sometimes Aurora did not see these letters, or saw but a part of them,—though her friend always told her the duke's movements and plans and read her out some message from him to herself.

Possibly the reason of this reserve lay in the fact that Mrs. Lindsay made Aurora the principal theme of her letters. Her triumphs, her beauty, her goodness, her admirers, her acts, her sayings, even her little whims, were all recounted.

The lady was a good letter-writer. She wrote in a simple, self-colored way a clear narrative of their life in Venice, ignoring sentiment and reflections; yet the many little incidents and phrases which she set down were like so many touches with a full brush, and gave life to what she told.

The duke remained in England but a short time. Robertino was perfectly contented, he wrote, and better without him. He crossed the ocean, and threw himself into the life of the New World, going east, west, north, and south, glancing at the agriculture, commerce, and manufactures of that prodigious country, which astonished him. The magnificent strength and vitality of it all braced him, waked him up, and dispelled his miasmas. Back to England; and, before they knew that he was there, off to Spain; and when they thought of him as in Spain, he had returned to England.

And here at length he took a brief repose. He began to go into society, and wrote Mrs. Lindsay the names of persons he met and whom she might know. Among those whom he saw constantly was Lady Maud Churchill, whom he pronounced exquisitely beautiful.

Mr. Edward Churchill was with them when the letters were brought, and Mrs. Lindsay read out this compliment to him.

"Lady Maud is my cousin," he said. "She is a woman carved in alabaster."

Mrs. Lindsay gave Aurora the letter to read when she went to her room, and she sat there by her window after having read it, the open sheet in her lap.

"Exquisitely beautiful," she repeated, looking down at the words. "He will marry her. I am glad that he is going to marry an Englishwoman. She must be good, if she is like her cousin."

She looked out at the bright April sunlight dreamily, and for a long time without stirring. She was considering if she had not better accept Mrs. Lindsay's invitation to accompany them to America in June. She would like to see that wonderful golden land where nobody is ragged and nobody poor, —to see its prairies and forests, its cities sprung up since yesterday, its wide, clean streets with trees in them, its people, unresting, truth-telling, generous and courageous, if not always polite.

"Fancy a country where the people drink water!" exclaimed a Frenchman, on seeing water sold in the streets of Seville.

"Fancy a nation where the people are for the most part truthful!" thought this Italian, sitting in the window of a Venetian palace and looking out into the Canal Grande.

"I had better go," she said. "I shall never again have so good an opportunity. And I really do not know what else to do. There is nothing to keep me here."

And then, with the thought that she might indeed go to the ends of the earth and never come back, for any tie that held her, came the bitter remembrance of her losses.

"Oh, mamma!" she whispered, and began to cry,—not with the passion of her first sorrow, but piteously and low, with a sense of desolation.

The next day Mrs. Lindsay wrote the duke, "A name you mention in your letter opens the way to a story I have to tell you. Lady Maud Churchill has a cousin in Venice who is a frequent visitor of ours, and more than an admirer of Aurora's. It has been on my mind, to write you of this gentleman, but I always put off doing so with the expectation of having something of importance to communicate concerning him the next time. Last evening he confided to me that he offered himself to Aurora a month ago, and was refused, but so kindly that he could not give up all hope. She told him that she was free, and had a sincere regard for him, but that she did not mean to marry any one.

"Of course no man would believe his case hopeless with such a reply; and Mr. Churchill seems to think that Aurora is softening toward him. It really seems so to me also. Last evening she sat apart and talked with him nearly two hours; and this morning, as we sat alone, she suddenly exclaimed, 'I wish that Mr. Churchill would come in!'

"It is true that, having refused him once, she may feel free to show that she likes him as a friend. However it may turn out, I hope that she may be as happy as she deserves. For my part, I could not wish her a more honorable and devoted lover. He is a man calculated to win affection and esteem."

This letter was brought to the duke just as he was going out to a ball. He went back to his room to read it; and, having read it, he flung it angrily into the lighted grate.

"What does the woman mean! I'll shoot the fellow if he dares to wring a promise out of Aurora. And this stuff about Lady Maud. What did I write? Do they fancy that I care for her? I like her as I like Wenham ice. Aurora 'softening' toward this impudent Englishman! She would soften toward a cat if it cried. Mr. Edward Churchill her devoted lover! Arcidiavolo!"

With this growl of rage, rolling and deep-drawn, the Italian went to his escritori, and wrote, "Aurora should not think of marrying an Englishman. Sooner or later he is sure to return to England; and what would she do here? I do not at all approve of the match; and I hope that you will do all that you can to prevent it. Above all, do not let anything be concluded in haste."

An event of importance in Mrs. Lindsay's family prevented her replying to this note. Shortly after its reception her first child was laid in her arms. Nor did she show the note to Aurora, though she requested her to write a line to the duke, informing him that a young lady of the most tender age but obstinate will had placed a veto on her writing at present.

It would be impossible to say whether father or mother was more happy and proud over the advent of this little girl, but there could be no doubt that the mother was the more peremptory and authoritative concerning it. If Mrs. Lindsay had been queen of the household before, she was empress now, and that in her own right.

"You are only prince consort, John," she remarked to her husband, when he suggested that the child might be baptized in the house by the resident Protestant minister. "I am regnant. My daughter may be baptized by a Protestant minister, and welcome, if—but she is going to be baptized in San Marco, and Aurora Coronari is to be her godmother and Prince P—— her godfather. If you can reconcile that with your minister, do so."

The prince consort bowed his head meekly. "I have no particular objection that a priest should baptize her," he said. "I am very much pleased to have the prince and Aurora stand sponsors for her. Of course it doesn't make any difference what they promise for her now. She will be sure to do as she pleases when she grows up,—if she should turn out to be like her mother."

The baptism took place on the first day of May, in the morning; and the company invited to assist were to return to Palazzo Pesaro to breakfast in honor of the event.

Mrs. Lindsay had her gondola—the baby's gondola pro tem..—decorated for the occasion. An immense white umbrella, lined with gold-colored silk, was fixed to cover the seats, and the whole gondola was lined and carpeted with white and pale blue. A blue fringe fell over the edge almost to the water, and bouquets of flowers were bespoken.

Not only this: she had made a pact with Aurora, who declared that a girl baptized in the month of May should have Mary for one of her names. Mrs. Lindsay would include the name if Aurora would attend the ceremony dressed like the Madonna of an ancient picture of hers, she herself to furnish the dress; and Aurora consented.

This Madonna on a sparkling gold ground had a long veil of dim blue falling over her head and shoulders, and wore a dress of dull-red wool with faint golden reflection. It was a Raphael dress, and had a band of fine gold embroidery across the neck and round the wrists.

The dress came home the evening before, and was tried on and displayed to the family, with whom was Mr. Edward Churchill.

"There! wasn't I right?" exclaimed Mrs. Lindsay in triumph.

"Suppose we should scrape out the Madonna and have Aurora painted in her place," Mr. Lindsay proposed, with perfect seriousness.

"The Madonna is an antiquity," his wife said, with dignity.

"But her eyes are turned like a Chinese's," the gentleman persisted. "And her expression is cross."

"I wouldn't do it for the world," Aurora declared. "I feel almost wicked in assuming her dress."

"Well," Mr. Lindsay sighed. "Only don't assume her squint, and I think you will be forgiven the clothes."

Every night when Aurora went to her room she extinguished her candle and sat awhile by the open window. The custom had at first been a poetical one, it was now a sign of trouble. She had seen that evening but too clearly that one refusal was not enough for Mr. Edward Churchill.

"It is another reason for going away," she thought. "I must take myself out of his sight. And yet I like him so! Why cannot he be friendly and nothing more?"

The canal was almost deserted, though the Lagoon below was alive with boats. The water was a dark mirror below. She could see the stars in it, and the sound of its liquid touch to step and mooring-post was almost inaudible.

As she sat there, a gondola slid along inside the posts and stopped under her window. A moment after, a chord was struck on the strings of a mandolin.

Ah! a serenade! It was not her first one by far, and she leaned forward with pleasure to hear it. The scene was well set for music. But as the first words fell on her ear she shrank back again. It was Edward Churchill's mellow voice, and he sang a serenade of Mrs. Norton's, in English:

Soft o'er the fountain, Lingering, shines the southern moon; Far o'er the mountain Breaks the day,—too soon. In thy dark eyes' splendor, Where the warm light loves to dwell, Weary looks, yet tender, Speak their fond farewell. Nita, Juanita, ask thy soul if we should part! Nita, Juanita, lean thou on my heart!

When, in thy dreaming, Hours li'ke these shall shine again, And morning beaming Prove thy dream is vain, Wilt thou not, relenting, For thine absent lover sigh, In thy heart consenting To a prayer gone by? Nita, Juanita, let me linger by thy side! Nita, Juanita, be my own dear bride!

Silence fell, continued, and pressed. There was no note of music from below, no response from above. Then there was a stroke of oars lightly falling, then ceasing, and again silence. Not a sign of response. Slowly the gondola glided away and disappeared in the night.

"I am so sorry for him!" Aurora murmured, and softly closed her window. "So sorry!"

She recollected what Mrs. Lindsay had said of the fascination of this serenade: "If the woman who hears this sung to her—well sung—on a beautiful night does not at once accept the singer, it is because she is in love with some one else."

"I am in love with freedom and with poetry," Aurora exclaimed, and hastily put the subject away.

The cortege that accompanied the babe to church the next morning was a picturesque one. A dozen gondolas brought their loads to the palace steps, and the company entered and paid their respects to the mother while waiting for the procession from the nursery.

Mrs. Lindsay, on this her first appearance, received in one of the front salons,—a room lined with gold-colored satin, with sofas and chairs covered with maroon velvet flowers on a gold satin ground. She wore a marvellous toilet, which looked like sea-foam, so covered was it with laces.

"The difficulty with these rooms is that they extinguish almost anything that you can wear," she said. "Nothing looks well against these draperies but old point-lace. That asserts itself anywhere."

She certainly contrived to make herself a very lovely and interesting object seen against those rich cushions. No color reflected upon her but light, in her slight languor and pallor of convalescence, her cheeks delicately thinned, she was like a white rose drooping in the heat of noonday.

The nursery sent down its treasure. First came Aurora in her Madonna dress, and was received with acclamations. Then came a footman, then two wondrously-dressed nurses, with their heads a halo of silver filigree pins, one of the nurses bearing the lace-wrapped infant in a white embroidered mantle that fell almost to the floor. Two maids followed.

This little company filled the babe's gondola, that swept out, the others following and surrounding it as they glided down to San Marco. The place of honor was the infant's, and Aurora sat at her left hand, and bent to talk to her and keep her in good humor.

"She looks at you, Donna Aurora," the nurse said. "And, see! she smiles."

In fact, it had been found that Aurora had the right magic "Coo-coo!" and the cunning hand and soothing cheek which babies require.

At starting, she had observed a covered gondola at rest opposite the house, and saw that some one was watching them from its curtained window. It was not surprising, for their little pageant was pretty. But she was surprised when the gondola slipped forward beside her own and became almost entangled with their followers. For a moment she thought that it might be Mr. Churchill, but a swift, stolen glance showed her that the arm which rested by the window wore a military sleeve.

"Some officer who knows the family," she concluded. They knew a good many officers.

The entanglement was but momentary, and might have been accidental, the person inside having evidently given orders to let them pass. Leaning on his oar against the out-flowing tide, the gondolier took his hat off and bowed lowly, smiling at the babe.

"E riverita, Madama Innocenza!" he said.

Aurora gave him a kind glance. "But you will be more innocent still in a few minutes," she said to the infant.

They reached the landing, and walked across the piazza to Saint Mark's, and entered the baptistery. A good many people gathered about the door during the ceremony, and among them Aurora was aware of a military officer who stood leaning against the grating. She did not look at him, or she would have known that his eyes were fixed on her alone.

When, after holding the infant at the font, and giving it a string of names as long as a rosary, she turned to restore it to its nurse, and bent to kiss its rosy face as she released it, the officer smiled, gazing earnestly at her downcast eyes. He saw her lips move in a whisper.

She was repeating the gondolier's salutation: "E riverita, Madama Innocenza!"

As they went out, her veil brushed the gold-banded sleeve, and she heard a faint sigh from the wearer. It required a force not to look at him, not to show that she was conscious of his presence and pleased by it. Any one who wore a soldier's dress touched her heart, from general down to orderly.

Home through the sunshine, in through the shaded court, up the stair with its painted lords and ladies looking down upon them from the painted arcade.

Mrs. Lindsay came out to the stair to receive them, and to embrace her infant before dismissing it to the nursery.

Mr. Churchill had joined them at Saint Mark's, and returned with them, sitting beside Aurora at breakfast. Both ignored the serenade as if it had never been.

"My cousin Edith and Mrs. Graham arrived last evening," he said. "They will stop here a week or two before returning to England."

"Oh, I should like to see them!" Aurora said cordially. "Tell me where they are, and I will leave a card today. I am sure, too, that Mrs. Lindsay will wish to make their acquaintance."

The breakfast ended with coffee in the beautiful garden the dining-room windows looked into; then one by one the company departed. Mr. Churchill lingered a few minutes after the others, then went, seeing no hope of an interview with Aurora.

As soon as he had left the room, Mr. Lindsay accompanying him, Mrs. Lindsay turned with an almost impatient vivacity to Aurora. "At last I can tell you!" she exclaimed. "Do you know who is in Venice, who sent me a note while you were at church, and who will dine with us this evening?"

She looked triumphant and joyful.

Aurora was silent a moment. "I can guess," she said. "And yet—"

"D'Rubiera has come!" Madama announced. "What other coming could be so joyful to us? He has left the boy in England, has himself been to Rome on a flying visit for business purposes, and is come back to see us. Is it not delightful? That was all I needed to make this the loveliest day of my life."

"Did you see him?" Aurora asked.

"Why, no! His note was left immediately after you started. I sent a reply instantly to his hotel, asking him to dine with us. His acceptance was handed me while we were taking coffee. Did you not see Febiano present the note? It was a comedy. That man cannot resign the idea that we are official people, I and John both, and he never lets a note wait, whoever may be with me. He comes with a solemn, gliding discretion, a sort of secret-stairway manner, and half presents, half slides the note to me, as if it were a call to a council of inquisitors in the ducal palace."

"I hope that the duke is not so unhappy as he was when last I saw him," Aurora said gravely.

"What should he be unhappy about?" demanded Madama, who seemed indeed to be in the highest of spirits. "He has youth, health, wealth, rank, a character worthy all these blessings, and a beautiful boy. Do you imagine that he is going to mourn forever for a woman whom he never really loved, and who disgraced and tormented him? Poor thing! let her rest. It is almost a year since she died, and he has paid sufficient respect to her memory. I take it for granted that the duke is as full of life and spirit and joy as a man can be."

"Madama Teresa mia," said Aurora, "whom are you scolding? Allow me to remind you that I expressed a wish that the duke would not prove to be unhappy."

"And the wish implied a doubt," her friend retorted. "And your reference to the past was a shadow. And I will have no shadows to-day. Now I am going to have my repose, and I advise you to do the same. And you will wear the same dress at dinner, will you not? It is so pretty. Besides, you are looking rather pale, and it gives you a glow."

She went; and Aurora, instead of following her advice to go to rest, took refuge in the ball-room, which was her in-door promenade. She was never interrupted there. When she was in the ball-room, and they heard her light step going to and fro, it was taken for granted that she was composing, and the room became a sanctuary. No profane foot must cross the threshold.

She was very far from composing verses on this May afternoon. She was trying to tranquillize her mind, which Mrs. Lindsay's news had disturbed. She would be glad to see the duke, surely, dear kind friend that he was! Yet what meant the shrinking which accompanied that pleasant anticipation? She felt that she should tremble at his approach, and that her voice would falter. It would be a strange folly; and yet she feared that it would be impossible to control herself.

"It is because of all that happened before I left Sassovivo," she murmured to herself. "I have got him tangled up in my mind with those miserable affairs. I am certainly growing nervous, and it will never do. Away with all that has passed since he became Duke of Sassovivo! Su, Rubiera, whom I knew a soldier years ago, who bade me sing, and laid your drawn sword across the keys of my piano-forte for a motive, —Rubiera, who came across a chasm to me as I stood clinging to the broken wall, and smiled courage into my sinking heart. Su, Rubiera, who divided the olive-twig with me, promising to challenge me when we met again with Fuori il verde! It was I who showed the green and gave the challenge when we met, and I have the three leaves yet." She drew a locket from her breast, and opened it to look at the memento, and at her mother's miniature enclosed with it.

She was smiling now. That bright past had thrust aside all painful recollections, and the old cordial, loving confidence was coming up again.

The sun, declining to the palace roofs opposite, flooded the room with light. It made Aurora's red dress brilliant, and played and sparkled on the gold she wore. Twenty little golden chains of Venice hung around her neck, slender thread after thread from throat to girdle, invisible now with fineness, and now showing a misty flash in the sun. There was a gold filigree rose in her hair, which at certain movements changed to a red rose, and then to a pallid flame, and in the shadow it had all the softness of a yellow rose just blown.

Aurora walked to and fro in the light, a brilliant figure, counting over the treasures of her memory.

"I wonder what I sang that night!" she murmured. "I never copied it. It was something about my country. When I ended they crossed their swords above my head, D'Rubiera and General Pampara. What did I sing? I wish I could remember."

She was so absorbed that a step crossing the next room failed to attract her attention. She did not even hear the light tap at the door. But when it opened, and some one entered, closing the door behind him, she turned abruptly and faced the intruder, fully conscious now.

He was an officer, who tossed his cap away at sight of her, and he had the face she had been thinking of,—the same face, full of life, and more full of joyous excitement than she had ever seen it.

They stood so for a moment, the length of the room between them, gazing at each other, with some sense of floating in all that light, as if they were far up in the sky, they two alone, on their way to heaven.

Then the soldier held up some tiny object in his hand, and came rapidly forward.

"Fuori il verde!!" he cried out.

As in a dream, as though they were indeed being sucked up through the blue unsteady air, Aurora tried to pull the locket from her bosom, and desisted, for, throwing aside the faded leaf, D'Rubiera extended his arms with an "Aurora!" which held all pleading and all command, all passion and all delight, that love can give to the human voice.

Light as a gazelle she rushed into his embrace, pressing her cheek to his.

"Oh, my soldier! my soldier!" she murmured. "My soldier and my Love!"

"What a circuit I have made to reach you!" D'Rubiera said at length, holding her back at arm's length to look at her. "Are you glad to have me back, signora duchessa? Are you happy, my red rose?"

"And to think that you have entered the army again!" she said, drawing a caressing finger-tip along the gold-work on his sleeve.

"I did it to please you," he declared.

The sudden tide of joy and surprise made speech and thought almost impossible.

"I do not believe it all," Aurora said. "It is a dream I have been conjuring up." She withdrew from him. "Stay here, vision of a soldier. Do not stir. I am going to get my reason back." She turned, and walked slowly away the length of the room. "He is not here: it was a dream," she said, then turned again, uttered a sweet cry of joy, and, holding her arms out, met him half-way, and dropped against his breast again.

"I feel the motions of the earth as it flies around the sun and turns on itself," she said,—"two dizzinesses in one. As at first, so now, and so forever, without you I fall, D'Rubiera."



CHAPTER XXXV.

A FOUNTAIN.

That evening Mr. Churchill dined with his cousin and Mrs. Graham at their hotel, and afterward sat with his cousin in their balcony.

He found Edith wonderfully improved. She was either prettier, or her educated taste made her look so. She knew how to dress now, and her manner was better. She was cheerful, and she carried her head higher. The hair he once had thought red he knew now was the color the Venetian painters loved, and he looked admiringly at the rich coils that crowned her graceful head.

Besides, there was no sign of that too evident love which had driven him from her. She looked at him calmly, and spoke with a familiarity which had an undefined coolness in it.

While they sat there alone, talking pleasantly, a servant brought a note for Mr. Churchill. It had been taken to his house and forwarded to him. Excusing himself, he went into the room to read it by the shaded lamp.

His cousin turned her head, and watched him unseen. She saw his face grow crimson as he read, the veins standing out on his forehead, then grow pale again. She had thought while they sat at dinner that he was looking pale.

He stood bent down, with his eyes fixed on the page, and, without turning the leaf, gazing at what he had read as if he did not understand it.

"My dear friend," Mrs. Lindsay had written, "after a certain conversation which we had some time ago, I think I ought to tell you my news without delay. The Duke of Sassovivo is with us, and this evening he has presented Aurora to us as his future wife."

He stood so long gazing at the words that his cousin went to him.

"Excuse me, Edith, I must go out," he said, in a stifled voice.

"Good-night, Edward," she said, and asked no questions, but held out her hand.

The hand that took hers was cold, and her good-night received not a word of response.

He went out and called a gondola.

"Where to?" the gondolier asked.

"Anywhere!"

They went up and down, and across to the Giudecca, and down again, and turned the point of the Public Garden, and the gondolier was about returning, when for the first time his passenger spoke:

"Go round by San Pietro and inside by San Daniele. Go where it is dark."

"He is disappointed in love, or jealous," the man thought as they threaded the inner ways of the city, now by a lighted piazza, now under shadowing bridges, or along the gloomy, silent walls of palaces that shut them in.

"Where shall I go now?" he ventured to ask, when they had gone the whole length of the city. "We are in the Cannareggio."

The passenger raised himself. He had sat all the time with his head bowed down. "Let her drop down the canal," he said, his voice grown gentler. "Keep well to the left."

They went out into the canal and downward. Passing under the Rialto, there rose a deep sigh from the gondola, and the echoing arch whispered back a sigh.

The passenger was alert now, looking at all the palaces at the left, as though he had never seen them before. As they passed Palazzo Pesaro a gondola touched its steps, and a lady and gentleman got out and walked up to the portone. The moonlight sparkled on, the uniform of one and on the gilded fan of the other. They had been out together, and alone, drawing sweetness from the same air where he had breathed in bitterness.

"Well, it is fitting," he sighed. "Her head was made to wear a coronet. God bless her!—and him."

He looked at them standing in the archway of the palace saying good-night till distance hid them from him. He was in front of his cousin's hotel, and, looking up, he saw her still sitting in the balcony where he had left her.

Late as it was, he landed and went up to her again. She recognized him when he stepped out of the gondola, and was not too much surprised when he appeared. He seated himself beside her, and looked out over the water without saying a word.

"Are you not well?" she asked at length, timidly.

He started. "Why do you ask?"

"You look pale," she answered.

For a moment he did not speak. Then he said, "I have had a disappointment, Edith."

She leaned toward him with a sigh and a hand half extended, compassion in all her attitude.

He took the hand, and rose. "Let me tell you all, dear," he said. "I need comfort. Come and let me tell you,—if it will not be a bore,"

She went at once, pain and delight struggling together in her heart. He led her to the sofa, and sank down to the cushion at her feet, bowing his head to her knees. And there he poured out his whole story, sparing her nothing.

Perhaps an instinct of justice and mercy ran through his passion. Perhaps, guessing in the soft, tremulous, soothing hands that touched his hair and forehead the love that he had believed to be dead, and with an unconscious feeling that she was to be the consoler and companion of his future life, he felt also that all the pain she was to suffer for this love of his must be gone through with now.

He could not understand that her only pain was for him, and that for herself she was blest. For she had his confidence, and she could console him.

From that night he became her constant escort and companion. He wrote a brief note in answer to Mrs. Lindsay's, and then he seemed to forget that he knew any one in Palazzo Pesaro.

"For the present I am de trop" he wrote, "but I will see you before you go away. All happiness to Aurora and her chosen husband."

Impossibility is a wonderful extinguisher of desire; and what suffering was left to him was not so much a sickness as the languor of convalescence. He saw Aurora but seldom, and always at a distance; but he knew that Venetian society was rejoicing over the engagement, and that the duke was a devoted lover.

Once, in passing by, he glanced involuntarily at the windows, and saw a group inside, the sight of which gave him a momentary pang. D'Rubiera seemed to be placing something on Aurora's head, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands.

The duke was, in fact, trying a coronet on his future wife. He had sent for the family jewels, and was to have them reset, and Mrs. Lindsay clapped her hands at seeing the diamonds on Aurora's hair.

D'Rubiera was an impatient and peremptory wooer, and he won the day. They were to be married in June; and the Lindsays would stay in Venice a month longer to witness the ceremony.

Fra Antonio came from Sassovivo and joined their hands in Saint Mark's, gold and rank smoothing away all obstacles. Then they went to England for the boy, and came back in time for a week at Bellmar. After Bellmar, they went to Sassovivo, unannounced, to break open the walled-up gate and carry jubilee into the castle, the duke said.

In fact, they spent a whole day long in the castle, tranquilly watching from its windows the visitors who went to the villa in vain to ossequiare the master and his new duchess. It was the last time that they would enter the castle as master and mistress; for the Signora Paula and Martina were coming to live there,—forever, if they pleased.

The Signora Paula had found herself de trop in her brother's house. The Count Clemente had offered himself to the younger of his two first lodgers, the girl of fifty, and been beamingly accepted; and, though months must elapse before all the necessary preparations could be made for their marriage, the Sposa was now mistress of the house. She smiled as before, but she had her way. The sacred dirt of centuries was being cleaned out, and immemorial grime was growing pale before the soap and sand of a civilization to which the Signora Paula was a stranger. Where duchesses had swept their silks in uncomplaining tranquillity, the smiling Americana walked on tiptoe with her skirts upheld, and pointed out her orders to the wondering scrubbers with the toe of her slipper, both hands being employed.

In all these innovations every care was taken that the count should not be disturbed. But he had his cross, and an unexpected one. When it became time to talk of settlements, and it had to be owned that the gentleman had nothing to settle on his wife but the shadow of a coronet, of which she would have to buy the substance if she ever wore it, the lady announced blandly that she would pay all their living-expenses and give her husband five hundred dollars a year spending-money if he would pay the rent to the duke,—this arrangement to hold as long as they should live together.

"But we shall always live together," said the count, with a contortion meant for a smile.

"If we should live," the lady said. "But life is uncertain."

"Oh, in case of death, one makes different arrangements," the count said, somewhat impatiently. "That is another question."

"But I want it so," persisted the lady coquettishly; "and I must have my way. I have always had my way."

And, ever smiling, never appearing to dream that he was in earnest or to suspect the rage that was gnawing his heart, she had her way. She smiled at his coarse and open grasping, smiled at his scarcely hidden anger, and smiled at the half-insulting consent he flung at her, as if it were all a jest. And he believed her the simpleton she seemed, and did not know that he had found a mistress who would rule him with a rod of iron.

On the second day of their stay in Sassovivo the duke and duchess drove down early in the morning to the campagna, and left another brewing of ossequii to fizz itself out in unresponsive air.

Aurora was going to erect a memorial fountain to her mother in the midst of the long, hot, dusty road to the station. A wild spring of delicious water lay back in a rocky pasture. This was to be brought forward and run into marble basins for man and beast. Above should be a carved relief of Christ and the Samaritan woman at the well, with, underneath, "And the woman said, Lord, give me of this water to drink, that I may never thirst again."

An artist had come out from Rome to see the place and make suggestions; and they walked over the green grass, and visited the spring in its own home, and drank of its sparkling tide.

"Would you like to be a missionary, little spring?" Aurora asked, bending toward it. "Many will call you blessed, and the image of your Master will forever look down upon you."

The artist looked at her in surprise and smiling admiration. He had found her a very dignified lady, and this unexpected turn reminded him that she was a poetess as well as a duchess.

"What does it say?" D'Rubiera asked.

She took his arm, smiled into his face, but made no answer.

They went back to the carriage, took leave of their artist, and drove slowly to the town.

"I hope that mamma likes the idea of the fountain," the duchess said thoughtfully.

MARY AGNES TINCKER.

[THE END.]

* * * * *



EPITAPH WRITTEN IN THE SAND ON A BUTTERFLY DROWNED IN THE SEA.

Poor Psyche, to a Power supernal wed, How strong a fate on this thy frailness fell! What strange ironic word shall here be read? Dead sign of immortality, farewell!

I sigh not that the summer fields have lost One flying flower: who counts the butterflies? I sigh not that thy sunny hour was crossed: The self-same Shadow surely waits mine eyes,

Thy piteous terror of the appointed end, For this I sigh! The billow, poised above, Fell on thee like a beast that leaps to rend: Thou couldst not know thy bridegroom Death was Love!

How otherwise thy sister, yea, the Soul, Bent brooding o'er these broken wings of thine! Through all her house of mystery once she stole To the inmost room, and found a Face benign.

Now whirl her where ye must, ye waves of Law,— Ay, tear her vans, her painted hopes, apart! She cannot fear, remembering what she saw: Dark bridegroom Death, she knows thee who thou art!

HELEN GRAY CONE.

* * * * *



THE PIONEERS OF THE SOUTHWEST.

TWO PAPERS.—I.

It is related of Daniel Boone that when (in 1764) he climbed to the summit of the Alleghanies and looked down upon the vast herds of deer and buffalo that were grazing at his feet, he said to his companion Callaway, "I am richer than the man in Scripture who owned the cattle on a thousand hills: I own the wild beasts in a thousand valleys."

It may be questioned if Boone had an adequate conception of the stupendous possessions of the "man in Scripture," but he was certainly justified in boasting of the wide magnificence of this domain which, by right of discovery, he claimed as his own. An Indian might have told him that it would require "three moons, two paddles, and two stout braves" to skirt its southern and western boundaries and reach its northern limit on the Ohio; but no phraseology known to the Red Man could have expressed the boundless wealth, animate and inanimate, that lay hidden in its unexplored recesses. By the leaves on the trees, or the stars in a cloudless night, he might have indicated the countless herds of wild animals that roamed upon it; but how would he picture the leafy magnificence of its forests, or the grassy luxuriance of the many "openings" that everywhere dotted its surface?

It was a tract of country larger than the combined kingdoms of England and Scotland, and, from the exceeding richness of its soil, it was capable of sustaining a far denser population than now inhabits the British Islands. And yet throughout its entire extent there was at this period not a single human habitation, not the solitary hut of a white settler nor the smoky wigwam of a roving Indian. It was the hunting-ground and battle-field of the Indians, claimed by hostile tribes, but occupied by none, and hence the more inviting as a field for civilized settlement.

It is difficult for us to conceive of the enthusiasm which this new country awoke in the mind of the primitive explorer. To him it was a new world, more genial in climate, more beautiful in scenery, and more magnificent in extent than any he had ever beheld; and it is not surprising that the glowing accounts he gave of it on his return were received with wondering incredulity by the simple farmers on the sterile banks of the Yadkin. Accustomed to a sandy soil a few inches in thickness and covered with a scanty growth of slender pines, how could they believe in a yellow loam four feet or more in depth, and supporting dense forests of oak and poplar ten feet in diameter and towering aloft a hundred feet before they broke into branches? The tale was incredible, and it was years before the wonderful story was believed among the rural population of North Carolina, and then not until it was confirmed by the report of one of their number,—a young farmer, selected by themselves to accompany Boone on his third exploration, in 1769.

This young man was James Robertson, of Wake County, North Carolina, and, as he was to become a principal agent in the settlement of the Southwest, he requires here a few words of description. He was at this time about twenty-seven years of age, a little above the medium height, and of a well-knit, robust, manly frame. He had prominent features, and thick dark hair falling loosely over a square, full forehead which rose in the coronal region into an almost abnormal development. His eyes were large, of a light blue, and shaded by heavy dark eyebrows; and they had an habitual look of introspection, showing a mind of more than common thoughtfulness. He was grave, earnest, self-contained, with the quiet consciousness of power which is natural to a born leader of men. And yet there was in his manner no self-assumption or arrogance. On the contrary, he was courteous and conciliatory, and had that rare blending of self-respect and deference for others which, while it repelled undue familiarity, put the rudest at his ease, and extracted from an old Cherokee chieftain, who all his life had been the enemy of the white race, the unwilling praise, "He has winning ways, and he makes no fuss."

Though clad in homespun, and too much absorbed in things of greater moment to be over-careful of his personal appearance, he was a man of so marked a character that he would have attracted attention in almost any assemblage. Cautious, careful of consequences, and watchful of danger, he was at the same time bold, fearless, and ever ready to undertake enterprises which would stagger men of fewer mental resources. So exactly was he fitted to the time and the circumstances in which he was placed, that the conclusion is irresistible that he was a providential man, especially appointed to his work by a Higher Power.

This was his own conviction, but he came to it at a later time, when experience had shown that he bore a charmed life, and he had realized what his single arm and brain might accomplish. But now, in his own eyes, as in those of others, he was a simple countryman, able to "read, write, and cipher" and to do small jobs of surveying, but with little knowledge of any book except the Bible, though in that so deeply versed that it moulded his speech and regulated his every action. His nature was deeply religious, but he had, as yet, no higher aim in life than to make a home for himself, his wife and child in some new region, where he might acquire a competence, and rise, perhaps, to a station of some little influence and consideration.

And now, merely stating that he was born in Brunswick County, Virginia, of Scotch-Irish parentage, on the 28th of June, 1742, and that at the age of twenty-five he had married Charlotte B. Reeves, a woman nine years younger than himself, but everyway worthy to be his wife, I will go on with him and Boone in his first journey over the Alleghanies.

His equipment was a horse, a blanket, a hatchet, and a hunting-knife. Over his shoulder were slung a long Deckard rifle, a powder-horn, and a bag of bullets; and on the horse behind him were balanced a sack well filled with parched corn, a package of salt, and a tin cup for drinking purposes. This was his entire outfit. On the parched corn and the game to be procured by his rifle he was to subsist on his journey.

There were half a dozen in the party, and they followed the trail hitherto taken by Boone, for there was no road, nor even a bridle-path. After leaving the settlements their way lay through an almost unbroken forest; but there was no difficulty in keeping the trail, for it had been carefully blazed by Boone on his previous journeys. At night they encamped under some spreading tree, and, tethering their horses among the timbers, lighted a fire with the extra flint which each one carried in his bullet-pouch. Their mode of lighting a fire is peculiar to the backwoodsman. A handful of dry grass or leaves is gathered, then twisted into a nest, in which is placed a piece of ignited punk; then the grass is closed over the punk, and the ball is waved, in the air till it breaks into a blaze, when it readily ignites the bundle of dry sticks with which the fire is kindled. Then the limbs of dead trees are heaped upon the blaze, and one of the travellers sets about preparing supper for the whole party. It is probably of venison, for there are plenty of deer in that region. As soon as the burning logs have deposited a good bed of ashes, a hole is scooped in them, and in it is deposited the haunch or other portion. When sufficiently done, it is taken out, the ashes are knocked away, and then—no civilized man, whose appetite has never been sharpened by open-air exposure in the woods, can understand the keen avidity with which the delicious viand is consumed.

Supper over, each traveller lights his pipe of fragrant "Honey-Dew," or still more fragrant "Kinnikinnick"; and the evening is most likely whiled away in pleasant talk and narrative of "moving accidents" by field and forest. Boone was a good narrator, and, though but five years the senior of Robertson, had already a large experience of thrilling adventure. At last, heaping fresh logs upon the fire, to keep up the blaze till morning and scare away the wolves and panthers that might be attracted by the scent of the venison, the travellers would spread their blankets upon the ground, turn their feet to the fire, and sink into slumber.

Thus they encamped by night and journeyed by day, till they reached the summit of the Stone Mountains, the northerly portion of the long range which is now the boundary between Tennessee and North Carolina. And here a view broke upon them such as Robertson, accustomed as he was to the comparatively tame scenery of Wake County, had never beheld. Spread out at their feet was a beautiful valley, some thirty miles in length by twenty in width, and covered by a luxuriant forest, broken here and there by grassy openings, one of which, larger than the rest, was the "Watauga Old Fields" of the Pioneers. Some twenty miles away, two small rivers united their currents and flowed together to the west through a gap in the encircling mountains. Tracing their courses up among the hills, the explorers would catch glimpses of numerous smaller streams, which feed the larger ones and water the whole of this enchanting region.

The valley, which is itself two thousand feet above the sea, is hemmed in by huge mountain-ranges,—the Holston on the north and west, and the Iron and Stone Mountains on the south and east,—which break into peaks—the White-Top, the Bald, and the Roan—the lowest of which towers more than a mile into the air. These mountains protect the valley from the chill winds of winter, and temper the summer breezes to a delicious coolness, making the atmosphere the most delightful that can be imagined. The bottoms along the rivers are wide and productive, bearing then a thick crop of tall grass, on which multitudes of deer, elk, and buffalo were browsing. The soil of the bottoms is a deep, dark loam, capable of yielding immense crops of wheat and Indian corn, while the higher and less fertile land along the base of the mountain will produce fruits of the most delicate flavor and in astonishing abundance.

Altogether, the scene is picturesque beyond description,—a charming valley, threaded by limpid streams, and dotted with dense forests of oak, pine, poplar, cherry, and walnut, the whole encircled by huge sandstone ridges, their loftier peaks capped by the clouds, and standing there grim, silent, and sublime, like giant sentinels guarding the gates of an earthly paradise. Years afterward, speaking of the scene as it then broke upon him, Robertson said, "It seemed to me the Promised Land."

As the explorers prepared to descend into the valley, they noticed a few miles away, at the north, a slight smoke curling up from among the trees near the banks of what is now known as Boone's Creek, a small tributary of the Watauga. Was it from the encampment of some Indian hunter, or the cabin of a white man who had settled there since the visit of Boone, five years before? With the caution of old hunters they descended the mountain and approached the spot whence the smoke issued. It was a log hut, newly built, and around it, in the stacked corn and the cattle browsing near, were evidences of a white inhabitant. He was a former comrade of Boone, his companion during his visit here in 1760, and he had returned during the previous summer and built a home for his family. His name was William Bean, and he was the first white settler west of the Alleghanies.

The explorers were hospitably entertained by Bean and his wife, but, after a few days spent in piloting Robertson about the valley, Boone set out on his first long tramp through Kentucky. Robertson remained behind, and was not long in deciding that he had happened upon the right spot for a settlement. This decided on, he set about making preparations for the incoming settlers. Selecting a spot of fertile soil, he broke it up and planted a crop of corn,—enough to carry the expected colonists through another season,—meanwhile making his home with Bean, the hospitable first settler.

It was autumn before his corn was gathered, and the rainy season had set in when he started to return to North Carolina. He had carefully husbanded his small stock of powder and lead, and with what remained, and enough parched corn and jerked venison to last, with what game he might kill, for ten or more days, he set out on his solitary journey homeward. There soon came on a heavy rain, which drenched him completely, and, worse than this, wet through and through every ounce of his powder. Wrapping his blanket closely about him, he tried to dry the powder with the warmth of his naked flesh; but all his efforts were unavailing: the precious grains had totally lost the power of ignition. Reduced now to his prepared food, he determined to push on with all speed, and, before his supply should be exhausted, reach the settlements on the other side of the mountains.

On the westerly part of the route the explorers had neglected to blaze the way, and now, day after day, the sun was hidden by thick clouds. Robertson had no difficulty so long as he could take his bearings by the course of the Watauga, but when he had passed the sources of that stream he was all at sea, with neither sun nor star nor compass to guide him. He scanned the heavens with anxious eye, but they disclosed no glimpse of the blessed sun: all was mist and rain by day, and by night the blackest of darkness. Tired, drenched, bewildered, he wandered aimlessly on, lost, completely lost, in an almost interminable forest. His food, too, was fast running low, and the scant herbage still left among the trees would no longer sustain his jaded animal. Then he turned the trusty beast adrift, to find its own way out of starvation.

He had eked out his scanty provisions with the nuts of the beech and chestnut, but now this resource was exhausted; the last handful of corn was consumed, and he was in a region of rocks and precipices (probably near the western base of the mountain), where nothing grew that would sustain life. Exhausted nature could hold out no longer. His strength was gone, he could not articulate above a whisper, and, sinking down at the foot of a cliff, he resigned himself to the inevitable.

How long he lay there he never told, and perhaps never knew; but at last, when his senses were nearly gone, he heard voices, and then approaching footsteps. They were two hunters, probably the only two human beings within a radius of a hundred miles. They came directly to the spot where he was lying, but did not see him till actually upon him. Dismounting from their horses, they lifted him in their arms, revived him with some spirits, and then, sparingly at first, ministered to him of the food in their knapsacks. Slowly his strength returned, but they stayed by him, and, when he was able to mount, seated him on one of their horses, and then guided him out of the mountain and for more than fifty miles on his way to the settlements. Then the good Samaritans went as they came, into the wide forest, leaving not even their names to a wondering tradition.

His friends and neighbors were enraptured with the description Robertson gave of the country he had discovered. To them the sterile plains and rocky uplands of Wake County lost their attractions when compared with the fertile valley which he pictured, and sixteen families prepared to go with him in the following spring to a new home west of the mountains.

When the April rains were over, they set out, about eighty souls, men, women, and children. They journeyed slowly, the men mostly on foot, the women on pack-horses, with the younger children in their arms or strapped upon the horses behind them, and the older ones trudging along by the side of their fathers, or aiding to drive the neat cattle, a score or more of which were the advance-guard of the cavalcade. The outfit of the party was simple. The men carried the usual equipment of the hunter, the women some light articles of clothing; and loaded on several led horses were such bedding and kitchen-utensils as would be needed at the end of the journey. They followed the route taken by the explorers, sleeping at night on the ground, beneath the open air, or sheltered by an improvised tent made of two forked poles thrust into the ground and supporting a longer pole, over which was stretched a heavy blanket. Should it rain, these tents were quickly pitched and all the travellers were soon under shelter. At the halting-place for the night a fire was built, the cows were milked, the journey-boards unpacked, and the delicious journey-cake (misnamed "Johnny-cake") was set before the fire or baked in the ashes. To this was added the deer or wild turkey shot by the men during the day, and they had a repast "fit to set before a king." The same was done before setting out in the morning; but at noon only a short halt was made for a cold lunch from the remains of the breakfast.

Thus they journeyed for about ten days, until they reached the base of Stone Mountain. Here they struck into a cove which breaks into the mountainside, and climbed by a winding route, but by easy stages, to the summit. Robertson rode by the side of his wife, and in front of her, astride of the pommel of the saddle, was their child, now a bright little fellow of two or three years. Later on he will appear again in our pages, and then disappear forever from human history.

As they wearily climbed the toilsome way, and paused to rest, as they probably did, at the summit, did not that young wife and mother look back, to gaze again upon the scenes she was leaving behind her? What girlhood associations she had I do not know, but she was leaving them all, and the old roof-tree beneath which she had spent her young days: all were about to pass out of her life forever. As she glanced forward into the tangled wilderness, would she not have turned back had a vision come to her of the hardships and dangers and death that lay before her?—her life at first buried amid the solitudes and dangers of Watauga, and then consigned to a frail boat which was to bear her a thousand miles, through untold perils, to a still more distant wilderness, where her home would be encircled with savage fire and the babe at her breast would be laid scalped and dying at her feet!

As they began the descent of the western slope of the mountain, an unexpected scene met the eyes of Robertson. When he left it in the previous autumn, the valley was an almost unbroken solitude; now the smoke was rising from a score of cabins, about which were many evidences of civilization. Nearly a hundred settlers were there, and the place was already a busy community.

There was not house-room for the large influx of strangers, but the spring weather was mild and genial, and they could encamp under the spreading trees until half-faced cabins were erected for their temporary shelter. These cabins were built of split saplings, one end resting on the ground, the other supported by a frame of forked poles about high enough for a man to enter standing upright. They were open at the front, but the sides and rear were covered with thick blankets, so as to afford shelter and privacy. Of no recognized order of civilized architecture, they would still serve to keep out the wind and the rain, and under them, on blankets, or now and then on the precious feather bed, spread on the ground, the tired immigrants might sleep as soundly as the renowned Sancho Panza of sleepy memory.

Their food was supplied from the corn planted and harvested by Robertson on his previous visit, and from the deer, buffalo, or wild turkey brought down by the unerring riflemen among them. On deer and wild turkey they had regaled before, but buffalo-meat was a delicacy with which they were not acquainted, and, its rich, juicy, tender steak once tasted, all other meat lost its flavor. None of them had ever even seen the animal, and we may imagine the wonder with which they first beheld the vast herds that almost darkened the valley. Lolling in the shade of the trees, or cropping leisurely the thick grass of the "openings," their coal-black beards sweeping the ground, and their long tails lashing their sleek dun sides, the noble beasts would gaze unconcernedly on the intruder, totally unconscious that this slender biped, with the slim smoke-breathing tube he bore in his hand, was ere long to wellnigh exterminate the lordly race and drive its scanty remnant far west of the Rocky Mountains. They were an easy prey to the early hunter, and thus the rude larders of the first settlers were filled to abundance.

Their wives and children provided with temporary shelter, the immigrants looked about for locations for more permanent dwellings, Virginia offered to every actual settler who should erect a log cabin and cultivate a small patch of ground four hundred acres so located as to include his improvements, together with the right to buy a thousand acres adjoining, at a price scarcely more than enough to cover the cost of surveying. The immigrants knew they were near the North Carolina boundary, but they supposed they were north of the line which starts "at a white stake on the Atlantic Ocean, at north 39 deg. 20', and runs thence west to the South Seas," and thus were within the limits of Virginia and entitled to avail themselves of its cheap munificence,—cheap, because the whole territory had been bought by King George from the Six Nations for a few trinkets the total value of which did not exceed the cost of the wedding-outfit of a modern lady of fashion.

This line, "west to the South Seas," had not then been run farther west than the "Steep Rock," near the White-Top Mountain. When it was subsequently extended, the settlers found themselves within the limits of North Carolina and not entitled to the benefit of the Virginia law. But of this more hereafter. Now they were unconscious of encroaching on any rights of white man or red, and went on with their improvements, confident that they were acquiring an indefeasible title to their new possessions.

Nearly all the settlers whom Robertson found at Watauga were from Fairfax County, Virginia, and they had been attracted to the country by the report given of it by Dr. Thomas Walker, who with other gentlemen had made a hunting and exploring-tour through it as early as 1748. They were mostly from the farming population, somewhat uncouth in manner, and not much acquainted with books, but not illiterate, for in a document subscribed soon afterward by upward of a hundred of them only two names are signed with a cross. They had but little wealth; but they had what in a new community is far better,—frugal and industrious habits, enterprise, firm self-reliance, and the cool intrepidity which is fostered by frequent exposure to danger. No better material could have been selected to subdue the wilderness to the purposes of agriculture.

Among them, however, were some who had received the best education then afforded by the colonies. Prominent among these were the Seviers,—a father and four sons, who some time before had emigrated from Shenandoah County, Virginia, and settled about thirty miles farther north, near what is now Bristol, in Tennessee. There they were neighbors to the Shelbys, —another father and four sons,—who also have left an heroic record in the history of the Revolution.

Some of the younger Seviers, coming upon this valley on a hunting-expedition, had induced their father to remove to it; and here, "higher up the river, on its north side, and near the closing in of a ridge," he had built a roomy log mansion, a portion of which was still standing in 1844. The sons had erected dwellings lower down the river, and nearer the "Watauga Old Fields."

The Seviers were of French descent. The family name in France was Xavier, and they originally came from Xavier, a town at the foot of the Pyrenees, in Navarre, which was the birthplace of the famous ecclesiastic and missionary St. Francis Xavier. After the death of the saint the family became Huguenots, and on the revocation of the Edict of Nantes in 1685 the direct ancestor of the Seviers of whom I am writing fled from France and settled in London, where he is said to have engaged in trade and prospered. The grandson of this man, Valentine Sevier, emigrated to Shenandoah County, Virginia, shortly prior to 1740; and this is the gentleman who, with his four sons, had now settled in the valley of the Watauga.

Each of these young men displayed qualities in after-life that would have rendered him worthy of notice in the annals of any community; but the oldest, John, born in 1744, is the one whose life and exploits will demand much the larger space in the following pages. Though so young, he had already acquired some distinction in his native State, for he had been appointed a captain in the "Virginia line" by the Earl of Dunmore, the last royalist governor of Virginia. In that capacity he had come in contact with Washington, who was a colonel in the same service; and it was doubtless owing to their early association that twenty years afterward, when Sevier was under the ban of outlawry by North Carolina, Washington appointed him to the military command of East Tennessee.

This young man was destined to become one of the most unique characters in American history. I know of no other of whom it can be said that he was loved by both his friends and his enemies. Indian mothers were wont to hush their children to sleep with the terror of his name, but Indian chieftains were known to plead when in distress, "Send us John Sevier. He is a good man, and he will do us right." In the times that "tried men's souls" to the uttermost he was to stand firm when most men faltered. He was to be "the rear-guard of the Revolution," and in its darkest days was to throw his sword into the trembling scale and turn it to final victory at King's Mountain.

At this time he was about twenty-six years of age, nearly six feet in height, and of a slender but wiry and athletic figure. His carriage was erect, his movements quick and energetic, and his bearing commanding. He had light hair, a fair skin, and a ruddy complexion, and his large dark-blue eyes were singularly expressive of vivacity, good feeling, and fearlessness. He had handsome features, a lofty forehead, a prominent nose, and a mouth and chin of absolute perfection. His manners were exceedingly winning, and he had about him a sort of magnetic force that would convert into a friend the most stubborn of enemies. However, it is doubtful if, with but one exception, he ever had an enemy. His individuality was so marked that, if told John Sevier was present, any stranger could have pointed him out in the most crowded assemblage. His career will read more like romance than history, but it was entirely in keeping with the man, who was altogether great, unselfish, heroic, one of those choice spirits who are now and then sent into the world to show us of what our human nature is capable. Next to the landing of the Pilgrims at Plymouth, the coming together of those two bodies of emigrants on the Watauga was the most important event which up to that time had occurred in American history; but it was no more important than the meeting there of John Sevier and James Robertson, for, humanly speaking, had those two men not met, and acted thereafter in harmony together, the civilization there planted could never have survived the struggle it was destined to encounter with savage foes and fratricidal enemies.

There were now between thirty and forty men in the settlement, and, the location of the new-comers being decided on, they all set about the erection of their dwellings. Trees were felled, cut into logs, hewn into joists, split into flooring, and rived into shingles, and in an incredibly short time the various families were domiciled in their new abodes. These were generally one and a half stories high, about twenty feet square, and built of rough logs, chamfered at the ends, so as to fit closely together. They had a solid plank door, hung on wooden hinges, and two or three small windows, formed by sawing through one or two of the outer logs. The windows were entirely open, or closed only with a stout blind, and glazed with thick paper saturated with bear's grease to render it transparent; but the larger number of the cabins, if destitute of glazing, were furnished with blinds, which were necessary as a protection against intruders. The roof was covered with large split shingles, held down by long weight-poles, and the floors were of puncheons,—wide pieces of oak or poplar, two or three inches thick, split and hewn with an axe, and laid upon sleepers. If the hewing is well done, such floors are as level and smooth as if fashioned of machine-made material. The chimney was of sticks or stones, laid up in clay, and it went up on the outside in a pyramidal form, and of a size totally disproportioned to the dwelling, for these people were fond of a wide roaring fire in winter, and in summer the huge flue was the best of all ventilators. If it is added that the roof of some of these cabins was extended in front so as to cover a wide veranda, that the bark and moss were left clinging to the logs, which by another season would be covered with honeysuckles and the Virginia creeper, we shall see that they must have presented no unpicturesque appearance.

The interiors need only a brief description. There were generally but two rooms, one below, the other above, approached by a ladder in a corner. The lower floor was parlor, kitchen, and often bedroom. The fireplace was deep and wide, surmounted, perhaps, by a broad mantel of unpainted oak, on which were a few trinkets and the violin so precious to the backwoodsman. In one corner was a spinning-jenny, in another an uncushioned settle, and opposite the fireplace a bureau or chest of drawers of native wood and home manufacture. These, with a small table, a few chairs with rustic frames and deerskin coverings, also of home manufacture, and a couple of forked sticks nailed to one of the logs and supporting the trusty rifle, would probably complete the furniture of the apartment.

This is a description of the smaller houses. Others, adapted to larger families, were what were termed "double-barrelled" cabins, having two rooms on the ground-floor, separated by an open passage-way, and a "lean-to" in the rear to serve as a kitchen. Still others, it may be, were like the mansion of the elder Sevier,—half a dozen single cabins tacked one upon the other and covering space enough to serve for the foundation of a cathedral.

From these details we can easily form for ourselves a picture of the first civilized settlement beyond the Alleghanies. A score or more of these cabins were scattered here and there in the very heart of the forest, the great trees crowding so closely around them as often to overhang their very roofs. Near them horses and cattle were grazing on the thick native grass that grows among the trees, or housed in rude sheds at the rear of the dwellings, while farther away, along the margin of the many streams, deer and elk and buffalo were browsing. Glimpses of foot-paths leading from one widely-separated dwelling to another might be here and there seen; but there were no roads, for no wheeled vehicle had yet invaded the sylvan solitude.

Their families being properly housed, the settlers began to think of a school for the instruction of their children. Books were scarce among them, especially such as were suited to the instruction of the young. Paper, ink, slates, and pencils, also, were not easily procured. Even years later important letters and despatches were often written with ink made of gunpowder and on a blank leaf torn from a family Bible. But books and writing-implements were now imported from Virginia, and, a teacher being selected from among the better educated of the settlers, a school was opened, and the young ideas were taught to shoot in the right direction.

The people now numbered, all told, about two hundred souls, not more than forty of whom were able to bear arms. On the east a mountain barrier shut them off from all civilized aid and succor, and on every other side they were exposed to savage tribes, at least a hundred thousand strong, of whom not less than fifteen thousand were warriors. Three thousand of these, and those nearest the settlement, were Cherokees, a fierce, warlike race, by instinct and tradition the foe of the white man. How this handful of pioneers came to venture upon such dangerous ground, or, being there, escaped total extermination, may well excite our wonder. They understood their exposed situation, but they went peacefully about their daily pursuits, tilling the soil, planting and harvesting, and "gathering into barns," or, more correctly, into ricks,—for as yet there were no barns among them,—unmolested by the Indians, and in harmony with one another, for two full years of genuine prosperity. They send accounts of their prosperity to the friends they have left beyond the mountains, and new immigrants come to the settlement, some of them men of means, who aid materially in its development. However, they are an abnormal community. Two colonies claim jurisdiction over them, but the claim is never enforced, and never extends beyond a discussion in State papers; so they are without law or anything to assert its majesty. There is no power to enforce a right or punish a wrong, and not a solitary lawyer in the settlement. Every man is a law unto himself, but, strange to say, not a single crime is committed among them.

The new-comers spread, in search of choice locations, west as far as the Chimney-Top Mountain, and south to the fertile valley of the Nolachucky. The more remote settlers were therefore in a very exposed position, —almost alone, and beyond them a wide wilderness,—but they had no fear from the Indians. The few who came to the settlements were friendly, and, after smoking and eating with the settler, they would go away, grasping his hand and assuring him that the red man was his brother. Those were halcyon days; but Satan entered into Paradise, and one of his legitimate children,—a Scotchman named Cameron,—in the early spring of 1772, invaded this Eden on the Watauga.

He was the British agent residing among the Cherokees; and he came with several of the chieftains to warn the settlers that they had encroached upon the Indian lands, and must move off, or be removed by the British soldiery. However, he whispered into the ear of Sevier and Robertson that for a reasonable consideration paid to him—the representative of the British government—the settlers would be permitted to remain undisturbed in their possessions.

Unfortunately, the Indian agent was right. Virginia had left her exposed citizens to the tender mercy of the Cherokees by admitting that they had settled upon Indian territory. By a treaty made with the tribe only a short time before, the State had acknowledged the Cherokee title to the entire region lying south of a line running due west from the White-Top Mountain. It was idle for the white settlers to say that the Six Nations, who had been the original owners of the soil, had in 1768 transferred it to the government by treaty, and that the Cherokees had never before claimed any right to it but as a hunting-ground. The parent colony had acknowledged in the Cherokees a right to the soil, and hence, as the settlers were south of the treaty-line, had made them trespassers upon the Cherokee territory. It was an unfortunate and dangerous position; but Robertson and Sevier were not disposed to purchase security by bribery. They spurned the overtures of the British agent, and decided to negotiate directly with the Indians.

Some of the visiting Indians expressed a desire that the order of the British agent should not be enforced; others were willing that the settlers should remain, provided they made no further encroachments. But Robertson and Sevier were not willing to occupy their homes by any title so precarious as the word of a few Indian warriors. They determined, while they ignored the British agent, to recognize the Indian title, but to treat for their lands with the whole Cherokee nation. Accordingly, they requested the visiting chiefs to call together the head-men of the tribe in a friendly council at the "Watauga Old Fields."

They came at the appointed time,—six hundred half-naked red men, clad in buckskin leggings and hunting—shirts and head-dress of turkey-feathers, and all the male settlers, now nearly a hundred, together with all the women and children in the near-by plantations, assembled to receive them. Robertson, from his "winning ways," had been appointed master of ceremonies, and he resorted to every device to placate and amuse the savage gentlemen. Dances, ball-plays, and foot-races were improvised, in which the young men of both races joined in good-natured rivalry; but, while attending to the festivities, Robertson did not forget the real object of the gathering. For the consideration of five thousand dollars, to be paid in powder, lead, muskets, and other goods of value to the Indians, he obtained from them a ten years' lease of all the lands on the Watauga and tributary streams. This lease was executed by the head-king, Oconostota, and other leading men of the tribe, and it was supposed that it would remove for a long time to come all difficulty with the Cherokees. But this dream was only the next day rudely dispelled by a most unfortunate occurrence.

It was the last day of the convocation, and it had been arranged that a great foot-race should take place on the open ground near the river, between the younger braves and the young men of the settlement. The race was in full progress, and among the younger men all was mirth, hilarity, and good-natured emulation, while even the older chiefs, catching the spirit of the occasion, had relaxed from their habitual gravity and were cheering on the contestants, when suddenly a musket-shot echoed over the grounds, and one of the young Indians—a near kinsman of a chief—fell in his tracks lifeless. The smoke came from the woods near the race-ground, and pursuit failed to discover the assassin, but he was evidently a white man.

It was as if the shot had been fired into a magazine of gunpowder. The Indians had come without arms, or there might have followed a bloody tragedy. As it was, they gathered their blankets about them, and, with threatening gestures and faces presaging a terrible revenge, silently stole away into the forest.

It was afterward learned that the murderer was a man named Crabtree, from the Wolf Hills, now Abingdon, in Virginia. A brother of his had been killed by the Shawnees a short time before while exploring with Boone in Kentucky, and, lurking in the woods near by, he had taken this inopportune time to wreak a bloody revenge.

The Indians had left hastily, giving no time for explanation or parley. Revenge—blood for blood—was the cardinal doctrine of their theology, and, unless something were done to avert it, war, bloody and exterminating, would soon be upon the white settlers.

But what could be done? To flee the country was only to invite pursuit; to remain would be to invite a conflict with three thousand infuriated savages. Hastily they gathered in council; and then it was that Robertson volunteered, like Curtius, to ride into the breach,—at the peril of his life to visit and endeavor to pacify the Indians. It was a journey of a hundred and fifty miles through an unbroken forest, and death might lurk behind every bush and tree on the way; but what was one life perilled to save perhaps five hundred? Thus Robertson reasoned with his friends and neighbors, and then, mounting his horse and giving a parting kiss to his wife and child, he rode off into the wilderness.

EDMUND KIRKE.

* * * * *



DIEU DISPOSE.

Edward Lindsay and his wife were unmistakably favorites of Fortune. They were happily married, their love for each other being firmly established on a basis of sympathy and respect; they were young and blessed with sound health; they were very popular among their friends, of whom they had many; they were clever, Edward in a literary, his wife in an artistic way; they were prosperous, far beyond the expectations they had formed when, shortly before their marriage, Edward left his position in the Crescent Bank and went into real estate on his own account. It is hardly to be wondered at that they were regarded with envy by more than a few of their acquaintances in the comfortable city of St. Louis.

But there was, after all, a cloud that cast a shadow upon the happiness of the Lindsays,—a cloud of which they rarely spoke, but about which each of them thought a great deal: they were childless. In the early months of their married life they had been wont to talk of their prospective children, and to say what they would do and what they would not do when they had a child; but when the months lengthened into years, and still there was neither son nor daughter to carry out their plans, they gradually left off alluding to these things, though they never ceased to hope that they might some day have a child.

At first the cloud was very small, so that they refused to recognize its presence; but every day it lengthened and broadened, until at last it darkened the brightest moments of their life. For each knew that the thoughts of the other ran much upon this one thing, and each was troubled that the other should brood upon it. And then, in course of time, they grew to be a little morbid. It seemed to them as if by their friends who had children they were regarded with an ill-concealed, patronizing pity. They felt an unreasonable antipathy toward young parents who loved to discourse of the ailments and accomplishments of their babies, and they even avoided the houses of many acquaintances wherein, they knew from experience, the conversation must be principally devoted to some young hopeful.

But after three winters had come and gone since their marriage, Edward began to reflect more and more seriously upon a scheme of which he had often thought as a relief from this unsatisfactory state of things, and one April morning he broached it at the breakfast-table.

"Ellen," he asked abruptly, "how would you like to adopt a child?"

His wife arrested the coffee-pot over a half-filled cup and gazed at him with sparkling eyes.

"Oh, Edward!" she exclaimed, as if a reply were quite unnecessary. "Why have we never thought of that before?"

"I can't imagine," he rejoined shamelessly. "But I happened to think yesterday of the unlimited possibilities before such a child as we should adopt. You see, we could make sure of a vigorous constitution, of sturdy and respectable parents, of physical beauty, of any combination of good qualities, if we only exercised proper care in our selection. And then, with the training and education we should give a child of ours—"

"Of course we should always consider it our own child," said Ellen.

"Of course," assented her husband. "Perhaps," he added, "it would be better that he should never know the facts of the case."

"Oh, no! I should never be happy myself if I felt I was deceiving the child," she protested.

"Well, it would be rather a difficult thing to manage, anyway, his—"

"Or her," interrupted Ellen.

"Whichever you may prefer," Edward returned, with prompt liberality. "I was thinking of a boy, simply because I realize that a boy's chances of reaching distinction are much greater than a girl's."

His wife sent him a glance of obviously feigned reproach, and thereupon confessed that she should be as happy with one as with the other. But Edward felt that he ought to represent the matter in its proper light, and affirmed that every girl anxious to work goes into life handicapped, and that nine times out of ten when a girl marries she reaches the goal of her ambition. In adopting a girl, therefore, while they might contribute much to their own happiness, they could not reasonably hope to enrich the world greatly. On the other hand, from a boy properly selected, carefully reared, and soundly educated, they might with good reason expect the very highest results. Ellen took some mental exceptions to this argument, on behalf of her sex, but she deemed it unnecessary to express them. She entered enthusiastically into his project, and they speedily agreed that Dr. Kreiss, their titular family physician, they had never yet had occasion to consult him, should be requested to look about for a suitable boy.

Edward hailed the doctor on Fourth Street the next day, and presented his case.

"I see exactly what you want, said the doctor. "Must be 'young, sound, and kind,' I reckon we can fill the bill. You would rather have an orphan, I suppose?"

"Oh, by all means! There might be some unpleasant results otherwise."

"Likely enough," replied the doctor. "But it will not be so easy to lay our hands on a first-class orphan baby. I could get you plenty of boys four or five years old."

But Edward explained that infancy was a sine qua non. They especially wished that the child should be too young to have acquired tastes or habits of any kind, whether good or the reverse. They did not seek to gratify a mere whim of the moment,—simply to provide themselves with a plaything,—but hoped to aid in shaping a life of more than ordinary usefulness and worth. The doctor made answer that he would gladly do his best to find such a child as they wished, that he had no doubt of ultimate success, but that they must be prepared to wait.

This interview having been reported to Ellen, the life of the Lindsays at once assumed a brighter character. Edward went to his business with greater zest, and in his wife's eyes was a light he had not seen there for many a day. They now revived their old-time theories of education and physical training. They dispassionately reviewed the respective advantages of European and American universities. They spent a good deal of time in discussing the eligibility of the professions as well as of the sciences and arts. Edward argued that business of any kind was practically out of the question, because, with real estate in its present favorable condition, a few more years would render mere money-getting wholly unnecessary for a child of theirs. They speculated, of course, upon the personal appearance of their expected heir, but they wisely deferred any expression of preference in this respect to the time of his arrival. Names were debated upon daily, until, after many discussions, they made choice of "John," a title which had done honorable service in Ellen's family, and which, Edward said, commended itself as being simple and strong. Meanwhile, though a month passed away without word from the doctor, they waited in confidence. They had no wish, they told each other, that he should act hastily: it was merely a question of time; they could afford to be patient. And at last the doctor sent them a laconic note,—"Come and see me."

Dr. Kreiss had a deservedly large practice, and when the Lindsays presented themselves at his office they were obliged to wait until the numerous company of invalids that preceded them could be attended to. A dead silence prevailed in the room, and both Edward and his wife began to feel uncomfortable after a few minutes had elapsed. They endeavored to amuse themselves by studying the faces of the doctor's patients and guessing at their complaints; but this was not enlivening, and Edward at last essayed conversation. He whispered several things which he thought quite bright and appropriate, but Ellen took them all very seriously and vouchsafed only monosyllables in reply. It being evident that she was not in a mood for pleasantry, he relapsed into silence. But he went on to think of sundry occasions upon which he had waited in a certain dark little anteroom at Primary No.—until the principal might find leisure to flog him. Having exhausted this subject, he looked about for something to read, and descried some books on a table at the farther end of the room. He shrank, however, from the idea of walking over to them and back again in a pair of shoes which he knew very well would squeak. After vainly searching his pockets for a newspaper, he resigned himself to the inevitable, and occupied himself with his watch-chain and in tracing figures on the carpet with his cane.

Finally the doctor got through with the patients who were before them, and the Lindsays were ushered into his presence.

"I've got you a splendid boy," he said, with enthusiasm; whereat they glanced furtively about the room. "Oh, he isn't here," he laughed, "but ready for delivery whenever you say the final word. I only wish to make sure that you are satisfied with the prospect. It's a short story. The mother died at the child's birth, about a year and a half ago. Less than a week ago the father, who was a fine, broad shouldered young fellow engaged in some sort of a shipping business, got an ugly fall on one of the steamers and used himself up pretty thoroughly. I was called to attend the case, and did my best for the poor fellow; but it was no use. He died yesterday morning."

The doctor paused, as if for a leading question. Ellen was mute, and Edward felt constrained to say something: so he asked, "Did you know the mother?"

"Very well," answered the doctor, "She was one of the sweetest girls I ever met anywhere. She was a teacher in one of the public schools before she married, but she was capable of better work than school-teaching, and if she had lived she would have proved it. She had some very bright ideas, I assure you. She was uncommonly pretty, too, with a lot of dark-brown hair, fine eyes, and rather classical features. You'll see it all in the boy. He's his mother from head to heels."

"How does it happen that his relatives are willing to part with him?" Edward asked.

"Because his father was an orphan himself, and his mother's family is so poor that the child would be a serious burden to them. For all that, I had to make use of some eloquence to get possession of the baby, and only succeeded after representing the many excellencies of the young people who wish to adopt him."

The doctor bowed gracefully. Ellen then found words to say that he had been more than kind, and that if he was satisfied of the child's good health there was no reason for hesitation. Edward, who wished to terminate these preliminaries as speedily as possible, added, "Most certainly not."

"Very well, then," said the doctor: "we will consider the thing settled. The boy is as sound as a dollar, has a splendid digestion, sleeps like a top, and cuts his teeth as if he enjoyed it. Now, if you will call with a carriage to-morrow about this time, I will go with you—for that will be necessary—to get the little fellow."

But Ellen would not take Edward from his business again the next day, and—to his relief, it must be admitted—declared that she could attend to further arrangements without his assistance. This she did, and Edward found her in an ecstatic state when he came home to his dinner in the evening.

"We can never thank the doctor enough," she exclaimed imprimis, meeting her husband at the door. "I have never seen such a beautiful baby. Such a sweet little face, and such dear little ways! You must come up into the nursery immediately. I should have brought him down to welcome you, but it is just his supper-time, and Mrs. Doly thought he'd better not wait."

And Edward was forthwith hurried up-stairs into the room which his wife composedly designated as "the nursery," where, in the arms of a middle-aged, motherly-looking woman, reposed the little waif chance had intrusted to his care. He was certainly a very handsome boy, and his fine head, big blue eyes, and clear, rosy complexion justified enthusiasm. As Edward appeared in the door-way, the child regarded him intently for a moment, and then, whether by accident or by some working of intelligence, with a little jump of emphasis ejaculated, "Da-da," which everybody knows to be early English for "papa." Of course Edward capitulated on the spot, and, like a child with a new toy, he could scarcely be torn away at the sound of the dinner-bell.

"Little John," as they came to call him,—because his grave and dignified manners seemed to render inappropriate both "Johnny" and "Jack,"—had securely established himself in the affections of his foster-parents before the end of a week. He was a mine of entertainment. Literature and art languished in the house, while the Lindsays amused themselves in playing with their baby or in discussing his good qualities and in planning for his future. And now when they went about among their married friends they not only felt themselves en rapport, but considered that they occupied a position of decided superiority, for everybody conceded that there was no more lovely and winning child in St. Louis than little John Lindsay; and when people spoke only of other children than their own, they frankly admitted that they never had seen such a wonderful boy. It was one of his characteristics that he never cried in good, sober earnest. Upon rare occasions he would sob a little over a delayed repast, a bumped nose, or some other tribulation incident to his age, but he was extremely susceptible to argument, and could always be restored to his normal tranquillity by a proper explanation of the case. To be sure, he was a picture of health, and seldom had occasion for tears on the score of ailments; but it should be remembered, as Mrs, Doly, the nurse, proudly claimed, that babies are very apt to cry when there is nothing the matter with them.

"Oh, Mrs. Doly," Ellen exclaimed one morning, when by some means or other Little John had specially excited her admiration, "what a lovely woman his mother must have been! How I wish I might have known her before she died! Sometimes I feel as if it cannot be right for me to have this dear little baby without her consent."

Not long after this it suddenly occurred to her that some legal steps ought probably to be taken in order that Little John might be secure against all demands. She went to Edward in alarm, and felt no peace again until he reported compliance with every necessary formality.