An extremely wicked way of punishing children is by shutting them up in a dark place. Darkness is naturally fearful to human beings, and the stupid ghost-stories of many nurses make it especially fearful to a child. It is a stupid and wicked thing to send a child on an errand in a dark night. I do not remember passing through a greater trial in my youth than once walking three miles alone (it was not going on an errand) in the dark, along a road thickly shaded with trees. I was a little fellow; but I got over the distance in half an hour. Part of the way was along the wall of a church-yard, one of those ghastly, weedy, neglected, accursed-looking spots where stupidity has done what it can to add circumstances of disgust and horror to the Christian's long sleep. Nobody ever supposed that this walk was a trial to a boy of twelve years old: so little are the thoughts of children understood. And children are reticent: I am telling now about that dismal walk for the very first time. And in the illnesses of childhood, children sometimes get very close and real views of death. I remember, when I was nine years old, how every evening, when I lay down to sleep, I used for about a year to picture myself lying dead, till I felt as though the coffin were closing round me. I used to read at that period, with a curious feeling of fascination, Blair's poem, "The Grave." But I never dreamed of telling anybody about these thoughts. I believe that thoughtful children keep most of their thoughts to themselves, and in respect of the things of which they think most are as profoundly alone as the Ancient Mariner in the Pacific. I have heard of a parent, an important member of a very strait sect of the Pharisees, whose child, when dying, begged to be buried not in a certain foul old hideous church-yard, but in a certain cheerful cemetery. This request the poor little creature made with all the energy of terror and despair. But the strait Pharisee refused the dying request, and pointed out with polemical bitterness to the child that he must be very wicked indeed to care at such a time where he was to be buried, or what might be done with his body after death. How I should enjoy the spectacle of that unnatural, heartless, stupid wretch tarred and feathered! The dying child was caring for a thing about which Shakspeare cared; and it was not in mere human weakness, but "by faith," that "Joseph, when he was a-dying, gave commandment concerning his bones."

I believe that real depression of spirits, usually the sad heritage of after-years, is often felt in very early youth. It sometimes comes of the child's belief that he must be very bad, because he is so frequently told that he is so. It sometimes comes of the child's fears, early felt, as to what is to become of him. His parents, possibly, with the good sense and kind feeling which distinguish various parents, have taken pains to drive it into the child, that, if his father should die, he will certainly starve, and may very probably have to become a wandering beggar. And these sayings have sunk deep into the little heart. I remember how a friend told me that his constant wonder, when he was twelve or thirteen years old, was this: If life was such a burden already, and so miserable to look back upon, how could he ever bear it when be had grown older?

* * * * *

But now, my reader, I am going to stop. I have a great deal more marked down to say; but the subject is growing so thoroughly distressing to me, as I go on, that I shall go on no farther. It would make me sour and wretched for the next week, if I were to state and illustrate the varied sorrows of childhood of which I intended yet to speak: and if I were to talk out my heart to you about the people who cause these, I fear my character for good-nature would be gone with you forever. "This genial writer," as the newspapers call me, would show but little geniality: I am aware, indeed, that I have already been writing in a style which, to say the least, is snappish. So I shall say nothing of the first death that comes in the family in our childish days,—its hurry, its confusion, its awe-struck mystery, its wonderfully vivid recalling of the words and looks of the dead; nor of the terrible trial to a little child of being sent away from home to school,—the heart-sickness, and the weary counting of the weeks and days before the time of returning home again. But let me say to every reader who has it in his power directly or indirectly to do so, Oh, do what you can to make children happy! oh, seek to give that great enduring blessing of a happy youth! Whatever after-life may prove, let there be something bright to look back upon in the horizon of their early time! You may sour the human spirit forever, by cruelty and injustice in youth. There is a past suffering which exalts and purifies; but this leaves only an evil result: it darkens all the world, and all our views of it. Let us try to make every little child happy. The most selfish parent might try to please a little child, if it were only to see the fresh expression of unblunted feeling, and a liveliness of pleasurable emotion which in after-years we shall never know, I do not believe a great English barrister is so happy when he has the Great Seal committed to him as two little and rather ragged urchins whom I saw this very afternoon. I was walking along a country-road, and overtook them. They were about five years old. I walked slower, and talked to them for a few minutes, and found that they were good boys, and went to school every day. Then I produced two coins of the copper coinage of Britain: one a large penny of ancient days, another a small penny of the present age. "There is a penny for each of you," I said, with some solemnity: "one is large, you see, and the other small; but they are each worth exactly the same. Go and get something good." I wish you had seen them go off! It is a cheap and easy thing to make a little heart happy. May this hand never write another essay, if it ever wilfully miss the chance of doing so! It is all quite right in after-years to be careworn and sad. We understand these matters ourselves. Let others bear the burden which we ourselves bear, and which is doubtless good for us. But the poor little things! I can enter into the feeling of a kind-hearted man who told me that he never could look at a number of little children but the tears came into his eyes. How much these young creatures have to bear yet! I think you can, as you look at them, in some degree understand and sympathize with the Redeemer, who, when he "saw a great multitude, was moved with compassion toward them"! Ah, you smooth little face, (you may think,) I know what years will make of you, if they find you in this world! And you, light little heart, will know your weight of care!

And I remember, as I write these concluding lines, who they were that the Best and Kindest this world ever saw liked to have near him; and what the reason was he gave why he felt most in his element when they were by his side. He wished to have little children round him, and would not have them chidden away; and this because there was something about them that reminded him of the Place from which he came. He liked the little faces and the little voices,—he to whom the wisest are in understanding as children. And oftentimes, I believe, these little ones still do his work. Oftentimes, I believe, when the worn man is led to him in childlike confidence, it is by the hand of a little child.

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THE REHABILITATION OF SPAIN.

Three hundred and fifty years ago, a Spanish gentleman sailed on a cruise that may be considered remarkable even in the history of the wonderful adventures of the age of Columbus and Da Gama. Juan Ponce de Leon, having lost the government of Porto Rico, resolved to discover a world for himself, and so become as renowned as "The Admiral." With the strong fanaticism of his time and his race, he believed that there was a third world to be found, and that it "had been saved up" for him, a gentleman of Leon, and a loyal subject of their Catholic Majesties, who had done good service for his sovereigns and the faith in Granada, and later in the Indies. While he was thinking of the course in which he should sail, he was told that to the North there lay a land which not only contained unlimited gold, and many other material good things, but also a fountain of such marvellous nature that to bathe in it was to secure the return of youth. This revival of an old classic story[A] fired the imagination of the adventurous cavalier, and he sailed forthwith (March 3, 1512) in search of a land so rich in things that all men, from philosophers to politicians, desire to have,—perfect health and boundless wealth. We need not say that Ponce de Leon failed as completely as if he had sailed in search of the Northwest Passage, for he died in less than ten years, a worn-out old man, aged beyond his years, leaving little gold behind him, and presenting at his parting hour anything but the appearance of youth. He was a type of the Spaniards of those days, who believed everything, and whose valor was as great as their credulity; and his cruise in search of the Fontaine de Jouvence was quite worthy of a native of a country which seems to be allowed the privilege of an occasional "dip" into that fountain, though at long intervals, but is denied the power of constantly bathing in it.

[Footnote A: The belief in the existence of the Fountain of Youth belongs to many countries and to all times. Not to mention other instances, Herodotus, in his third book, (23,) tells of a fountain of the kind which was possessed by "the long-lived Ethiopians," and which caused the bather's flesh to become sleek and glossy, and sent forth an odor like that of violets. Peter Martyr, to whom we owe so many lively pictures of the effect on the European mind of the discovery of America and its consequences, wrote to Leo X. of the marvellous fountain which was sought by Ponce de Leon, and in terms that leave no doubt that he was well inclined to place considerable faith in the truth of the common story. The clever Pope probably believed as much of it as he did of the New Testament. Peter Martyr does not, we think, mention the Ethiopian fountain, of which, as he was a good scholar, and that was the age of the revival of classic learning, he must have read.]

Spain, unlike most other countries, rises and falls, and apparently is never so near to degradation as when she is most strong, and never so near to power as when she is at the weakest point to which a nation can sink and still remain a nation. All states have had both good and evil fortune, but no other great European kingdom has known the extreme and extraordinary changes that have been experienced by Spain. France has met with heavy reverses, but she has been a great and powerful country ever since the days of Philip Augustus, whose body was turned up the other day, after a repose of more than six centuries. Even the victories of the English Plantagenets could but temporarily check her growth; and notwithstanding the successes of Eugene and Marlborough, Louis XIV. left France a greater country than he found it. England's lowest point was reached during the reigns of her first four Stuart monarchs, but her weakness was exhibited only on the side of foreign politics: it being absurd to suppose that the country which could produce Hampden and Cromwell, Strafford and Falkland, and the men who formed the Cavalier and Roundhead armies, was then in a state of decay. At the worst, she was but depressed, and the removal of such dead weights from her as Charles I. and James II. was all that was necessary to enable her to vindicate her claim to a first-rate place in the European family. In 1783, at the close of the American War, men said that all was over with England; but so mistaken were they, that at that very time were growing up the men who were to lead her fleets and armies with success in contests compared with which the combats of Gates and Burgoyne, of Cornwallis and Washington, were but as skirmishes. No other nation, perhaps, ever had so sudden and so great a fall as that which France met with in 1814-15. It was the most perfect specimen of the "grand smash" order of things that history mentions, if we consider both what was lost, and how quickly it was lost. But it was humiliating merely, and was attended with no loss of true strength. There was taken from France that which she had no right to hold, any more than England has at this moment to hold Gibraltar and Aden and India. France remained much as she had been under the old monarchy, and there were some millions more of Frenchmen than had ever lived under a Bourbon of former days, and they were of a better breed than the political slaves, and in some instances the personal serfs, who had existed under kings that misruled at Versailles and Marly. How rapidly France rose above the effects of her fall we have seen, as her recovery belongs to contemporary history. Her various mind was never more vigorous than it has been since 1815. As to her political and military greatness, millions of men who were living on Waterloo's day, and who read of that "dishonest victory" as "news," lived to read the details of Solferino, and of the redemption of Italy.

Not so has it been with Spain. Unlike all other nations in all other respects, she could not allow herself to resemble them even in the matter of making sacrifices to Mutability. Had Juan Ponce de Leon been so unlucky as to find the Fountain of Youth, and had he been so unwise as to reserve its waters for his own private washing and drinking, and so have lived from the age of American discovery to the age of American secession, he would, as a Spaniard, have been forced to undergo many mortifications in the course of the dozen generations that he would then have survived beyond his originally appointed time. Spain has been a greater country than any other in Europe, but she has experienced greater changes than any other European country. She has never known such a catastrophe as that which befell France in the early part of our century, but her losses have been far beyond those which France has ever met with. It was the lot of France to fall at once, to pass from the highest place in the world to the lowest at one step, to abdicate her hegemony with something of that rapidity which is common in dreams, but which is of rare occurrence in real life. It has been the lot of Spain to perish by the dry rot, and to lose imperial positions through the operation of internal causes. So situated as to be almost beyond the reach of effective foreign attack, Spain has had to contend against the processes of domestic decay more than any other leading nation of modern times. To these she has often had to succumb, but she has never failed in due time to redeem herself, and, after having been a by-word for imbecility, to rise again to a commanding place. Three times in less than three centuries have the Spaniards fallen so low as to become of less account in the European system than the feeblest of the Northern peoples; and on each occasion has the native, inherent vigor of the race enabled it to astonish mankind by entering again upon the career of greatness, not always, it must be allowed, after the wisest fashion, but so as to testify to the continued existence of those high qualities which made the Castilian the Roman of the sixteenth century.

Spain was of considerable importance in Europe from a very early period of modern history; but the want of union among her communities, and the presence of Mussulman power in the Peninsula, prevented her from exercising more influence in the Old World than would fall to our share in the New, should the principles of the Secession party prevail. It was not until a union had been effected through the marriage of Ferdinand and Isabella, that the power of Christian Spain was brought to bear upon the remnant of the Mussulmans of that country, and rounded and completed the work of redeeming it from the dominion of the followers of the Prophet, who had, on the whole, ruled their possessions better than the Christian states had been ruled. The fall of Granada, in 1492, was hailed throughout Christendom as a great triumph for the Cross, as in one sense it was; but there was not a Christian country which would not have been the gainer, if the Mussulmans of Spain had risen victorious from the last game which they played with the adversaries of their religion in a duel that had endured for more than seven hundred years. Many a Pagan country, too, which had never heard either of Jesus or of Mahomet, was interested in the event of the War of Granada. Montezuma and Atahuallpa, who never had so much as dreamed of Europe, had their fate determined by the decision of the long struggle between the rival religions and peoples of the Peninsula; and Boabdil was not the only monarch, by many, who then and there had his lot decided. Much of America, and not a little of Europe, were conquered on the Plains of Granada; and "the Last Sigh of the Moor" may have been given, not so much to his own sad fate, as over the evil that was to come, and which was to affect popes and princes and peoples alike. There was not a country in the world but might have served itself well, if it had sent aid to the struggling Moors. Instead of rejoicing over the victory of the Spanish Christians, the world might have sent forth a wail in consequence of it, as best expressing the sense that should have existed of the woes which that victory was to be the means of bringing upon mankind. The issue of that Peninsular contest was in every way bad, and no good has ever come from it, but evil in abundance. The fountain that was then unsealed was one of bitter waters only. The sympathies of men should be with the Moors, who were the more enlightened, the more liberal, and the wiser of the two races that then grappled for a final encounter. Being the weaker party, they fell, but they were destined to have grand funeral games.

Freed from the presence of any Mussulman states, Spain was enabled to begin a grand European career in the latter years of the fifteenth century, the conquest of Granada and the discovery of America having given her a degree of power that gained for her the world's profoundest respect. Partly by success in war, and partly through a series of fortunate marriages, she became the first member of the European commonwealth in a quarter of a century after the overthrow of the Moors. The first of her Austro-Burgundian kings was made Emperor of Germany, and by birth he was lord of the Netherlands. In a few years, and after the conquest of Mexico, he had a French king among his captives, and the Pope was shut up by one of his armies in the Castle of St. Angelo. Yet a few years more, and Peru was added to the dominions of Spain. The position and principles of the Emperor-King made him the champion of the old order of things in Europe as against the Reformation, which added immensely to his power. Spain was then, as she is now, and as probably she ever will be, intensely Catholic, and as Papal as any country valuing its independence well could be. How she regarded Protestantism, and all other forms of "heresy," we know from the fiery energy—it was literally of a fiery character—with which she disposed of all the Reformers, of every degree, upon whom her iron hand could be laid. Had Charles V. been inclined to favor the Reformation, from his position as Emperor of Germany, he would soon have been diverted from any such thought by considerations drawn from his position as King of the Spains. A Mussulman, or a Hebrew, or an avowed atheist would have had a better chance of being a powerful and popular sovereign at Valladolid than a pious man who should have been inclined to look with favor upon Dr. Luther. It may be doubted if even a king could have been safe from the inquiries of the Inquisition. Thus Spain was not only at the head of Europe because of her military superiority and the extent of her home territory and foreign dominion, but, as the champion of the Church, she had a moral power such as no other country has ever possessed, her championship of the Pope being something very different from Napoleon III.'s championship of the Pope of to-day. The German aristocracy might be after the loaves and fishes of the Church, when they professed readiness to aid in warfare against the Reformers; but no one could doubt the zeal of the Spanish patricians, when they dedicated their swords and lances to the work of extirpating all enemies of the faith. An Englishman of 1857 could not have been more hostile to a Sepoy than a Spaniard of 1557 was to a Protestant. Religious power, political power, military power, and long-continued success in the cabinet and in the field, all combined to place Spain in a position such as no other nation had ever known, such as no other nation ever will know. Even the failures of Charles V.—his flight before Maurice of Saxony, and his defeat at Metz—did not sensibly abate the power of Spain, for they concerned Germany more than they did the Peninsular subjects of the disappointed monarch.

When Philip II. succeeded to most of his father's abdicated thrones, there was no diminution of Spanish pretensions, and he became the mightiest sovereign that Europe had known since Charlemagne. Philip's failure to obtain the Imperial throne was a personal disappointment to both father and son, but it was no loss of real power to the elder branch of the House of Austria. The death of Mary of England, though it prevented Philip from availing himself of the men and money of his wife's kingdom, was rather beneficial to him, as chief of the Spanish dominion, than otherwise. What could he have done with the haughty, arrogant, self-sufficient islanders, who were as proud as the Castilians themselves, without any of the imperial pretensions of the Castilians to justify their pride, had Mary lived and reigned, while he alone should have ruled? There would have been civil war in England but for Mary's death, which occurred at a happy time both for her and for her subjects. Philip also lost a portion of his Northern hereditary dominions, because he would have a tyranny established in the Netherlands. But all that he lost in Germany, in the Netherlands, and in Britain was compensated by his easy conquest of Portugal after the extinction of the House of Avis. The Portugal of those times was a very different country from the Portugal of these times. It was not only Portugal and the Algarves that Philip added to the dominions of Spain,—and that alone would have been a great thing, for it would have perfected the Spanish rule of the Peninsula, always a most desirable event in the eyes of Castilians,—but the enormous and wide-spread possessions of Portugal in Africa, in America, and in Asia became subject to the conqueror. Portugal alone was of far more value to Spain than England could have been; but Portugal and her colonies together made a greater prize than England, Holland, and Germany could have made, recollecting how full of "heretics" those countries were, and that the more heretical subjects Philip should have had, the less powerful he would have been. Portugal was as "Faithful" as Spain was "Catholic," and both titles now belonged to Philip. At that time, Philip's power, to outward seeming, was at its height. It was not certain that he would lose Holland, and it was certain that he had gained Portugal and all her dependencies. He was absolute master of the Spanish Peninsula, and his will was law over nearly all the Italian Peninsula except that portion of it which was ruled by Venice. He alone of European sovereigns had vast possessions in both Indies, the East and the West. He was monarch of no insignificant part of Africa, and in America he was the Great King, his dominion there being almost as little disputed as was that of Selkirk in his island. He was still master of the best part of the Low Countries, and the Hollanders were regarded as nothing more than his rebellious subjects. He was the sole Western potentate who had lieutenants in the East, who ruled over Indian territories that never had been reached even by the Macedonian Alexander. From his cabinet in Madrid, he fixed the fate of many millions of the first peoples in the world, members of the races most advanced in all the arts of war and of peace. His least whisper could affect the every-day life of men in the principal cities of both hemispheres. He who was sovereign at Madrid and Lisbon, at Naples and Milan, at Brussels and Antwerp, was sovereign also at Mexico and Lima, at Goa and Ormuz.

Philip's power was by no means to be measured solely by the extent and various character of his dominions. His position, as a great monarch, and as the chief champion of the Catholic cause, made him, at times, master of many European countries over which he could exercise no direct rule. England trembled before him even after the "Armada's pride" had been rebuked, and Elizabeth came much nearer being vanquished by him than is generally supposed. Nothing but the blockade of Parma's forces by the Dutch, and the occurrence of storms, saved England from experiencing that sad fate which she has ever been so ready, with cause and without cause, to visit upon other countries. In Ireland the Spanish monarch was more respected than Elizabeth, its nominal ruler, and he was regarded by the Irish not only with reverence as the first of Catholic princes, but also with that affection which men ever feel for the enemies of their enemies. Whoso hates England is sure of Irish affection, and as it is today so was it three hundred years ago, and so will it ever be, unless the very human heart itself shall undergo a complete change. Scotland furnished a Spanish party that might have become formidable to England, had events taken a slightly different turn; and the old Caledonian hatred of Southrons had not been extinguished by the success of the Reform party in both countries. The Scotch Catholics called Philip "the pillar of the Christian commonwealth," (Totius reipublicae Christianae columen,) and sought his assistance to restore the old religion to their country. France was for several years more at the command of Philip than at that of any of its own sovereigns, the weak dregs of the line of Valois. The League would willingly have transferred the French crown to any person whom he might have named to wear it; and perhaps nothing but the sensible decision of Henry IV., that Paris was worth a mass, prevented that crown from passing to some member of the Spanish branch of the House of Austria. In Germany Philip had an influence corresponding to his power, which was all the greater because he was the head of a Germanic house that under him seemed destined to develop an old idea that it should become ruler of the world. If anything marred his strength in that quarter, it was the fact that the junior branch of the Austrian family was at that time inclined to liberalism in politics,—an offence against the purposes and traditions of the whole family of which few members of it have ever been guilty, before or since.

But this mighty Spanish power came to an end with the monarch in whom it was represented. The sources of Spanish strength had been drying up for a century, but the personal character of the successive monarchs, and vast foreign acquisitions, had disguised the fact from the world. Philip died in 1598, and in reality left his empire but a skeleton to his son, a youth of feeble mind, but under whose rule a change of policy was effected, not, as has been sometimes supposed, from any deep views on the part of the Count-Duke Lerma, but because it was impossible for Spain to maintain the place she had held under Philip II. Even had Philip III. been as able a man as his father, or his grandfather, he could not have preserved the ascendency of Spain,—that country having changed much, and Europe more. Every European nation, with the exception of Turkey,—and the Turks were only encamped in Europe,—had advanced during the sixteenth century, except Spain, which had declined. Thus had she become weak, positively and relatively. Rest was necessary to her, and under the rule of Lerma she obtained it. He supported the peace policy of that old aristocratical party of which Ruy Gomez had been the chief, but which had been hardly heard of in the last twenty years of Philip II.'s reign. That monarch, on his death-bed, regretted that "to his grace in bestowing on him so great a realm, God had not been pleased to add the grace of granting him a successor capable of continuing to rule it"; but had his son been all that the most unreasonable parent could have desired, he could not have pursued his father's policy. Lerma did but act as he was forced to act. The circumstance that the Catholic Reaction had triumphed was alone sufficient to make a change necessary. Spanish greatness was no longer the leading political interest of the Church, and Rome was at liberty to have some regard to the new powers that were growing up in Europe. Pacific ideas prevailed. Spain ceased to make war in every direction, and husbanded her resources, and began to renew her native strength. The skeleton bequeathed by Philip II. became clothed with flesh, and sinewy. Could this policy have been continued for a generation, Spanish history might have been made to read differently from the melancholy text it now presents. But the process of rehabilitation was not allowed to go on. There had always been a strong party opposed to Lerma, and that statesman's friendliness to the English and the Dutch made him liable to the charge of favoring heresy,—a charge that was the heaviest that could be brought against any one in the estimation of Philip III., who was as bigoted as his father. The Catholic and warlike policy of Idiaquez, Granvella, and Moura was revived. The two branches of the Austrian family were again brought into the closest alliance, and at a time when the German branch had become even more Catholic than the elder branch. Spain stepped once more into the European arena, and her generals and armies by their abilities and exploits revived recollections of what had been done by Parma and his hosts. Spinola, who was scarcely inferior to Farnese, conquered the Palatinate, and so began the Thirty Years' War favorably to the Catholic cause. The great victory of Nordlingen, won by the Catholics in 1635, was due to the valor of the Spanish troops in the Imperial army. Spain appeared to be as powerful as at any former period, and the revival of her ascendency might have been expected by those who judged only from external indications of strength. Yet a few years, however, and it was clear to all politicians at least that Spain was far gone into a decline, and that the course of Olivarez had been fatal to her greatness; and the mass of mankind, who judge only from glaring actions, could not fail to appreciate the nature of such events as the defeat of Rocroi and the loss of Portugal, the latter including the loss of all the dependencies of the Portuguese in Africa, America, and India. No historical transaction of the seventeenth century testifies so strongly to the weakness of a first-class power as the Revolution of Portugal. Though Portugal lay at the very door of Spain, that country slipped from her feeble hands, and she never could recover it. Having resumed her encroaching, domineering course before she had fairly recovered her strength, she broke down in less than a quarter of a century, though even then the full extent of her weakness was not generally understood. It is an amusement to read works that were written in the reigns of Philip IV. and Charles II., in which Spain is spoken of as a great power, and to compare the words of their writers with the actual facts of the case. If we were to fix upon any one date as indicating the final breaking down of Austrian Spain, it would be the year 1659, when the treaty of the Pyrenees was made, and when the old rival of France became virtually her vassal. From that time we must date the beginning of that strange interference in Spanish affairs which has formed so much of the public business of France, whereby one of the proudest of peoples have become, as it were, provincials to one of the vainest of peoples. It is true that there were more wars between Austrian Spain and France, but they served only to show that the former had lost the power to contend with her rival, who might look forward to the day when the empire of Philip II. should fall to pieces, and furnish spoil to those strong nations that watch over the beds of sick men in purple.

The state of decay in which the first Bourbon king of Spain found his inheritance, in 1701, is well known. The War of the Succession soon followed, and Spain was shorn of some of her most magnificent foreign possessions. All that she had held in Flanders was lost,—and so were Naples, and Sicily, and Sardinia, and the Milanese, and other lands that had been ruled, and wellnigh ruined, by the Austro-Burgundian kings. The English had Gibraltar, and were holding Minorca also. Bourbon Spain was not to be Austrian Spain,—that was clear. But this trimming and pruning of the Peninsular monarchy were very useful to it; and Spain, having been ploughed up by the sword for twelve successive years, was in condition to yield something beyond what it had produced since the death of Philip II. Accordingly, under the ascendency of the Italian Alberoni, Spain became rapidly powerful; and could that remarkable statesman have confined his labors to affairs purely Spanish in their character and purpose, that country might have taken, and have continued to hold, the first place in Europe. He, however, with all his talents, was intellectually deficient in some important respects, and so all his schemes came to nought, and he fell. He tried to effect too much, and though fully sensible of the necessity of peace to Spain, he plunged into war. He did, in fact, what the rulers of Spain are doing to-day: he sought to restore the old Castilian influence by engaging the country in wars that would have been foolish, even if they had not been unjust, when he should have continued to direct all his attention to its internal affairs. Had he been at the head of any other than a Spanish ministry, Alberoni would probably have borne himself rationally; but there is something in the politics of Spain that affects even the wisest of heads, often turning them, as it were, and rendering their owners the strangest of caricatures. It is sometimes said that the most Irish of the people of Ireland are those who have come latest into the green island, there being something in its air and soil that soon converts the stranger into a true Hibernian in all moral respects; but the remark is more applicable to Spain than to Ireland, as in the former country foreign statesmen have more than once made Spanish policy ridiculous by taking that one step which separates that quality from the sublime. What in the person of a Castilian is at the worst but Quixotic becomes in the foreigner, or man of foreign descent, the merest burlesque upon statesmanship.

Alberoni's fall did not imply the fall of Spain. The renewal of vigor that she had gained under his direction was sufficiently great to carry her well through more than seventy years, during which she stood on an equal footing with France, the Empire, and Great Britain, and for most of the time was the superior of Russia and Prussia, whose European greatness did not begin until the second half of the eighteenth century had become somewhat advanced. It is difficult for the men of to-day to understand that Spain was really a great power under the Bourbon kings, down to the first years of the French Revolution. We have seen her, until very recently, a country of little more European account than Portugal; and that she should, but eighty years since, have treated with England as equal with equal, after having assisted at the work of England's humiliation, it is hard to comprehend. But such was the fact. Several of the Spanish statesmen of the last Century were very superior men, the kingdom itself was strong, and the Indies did not experience any disturbances calculated seriously to embarrass the mother-country. Then the close union that was brought about between France and Spain, in the early days of Charles III. and the last days of Louis XV., had no unimportant effect on the fortunes of Spain. The Pacte de Famille was one of the greatest political transactions of those days. It was effected just a hundred years ago, and but for the occurrence of the French Revolution it would have proved most fruitful of remarkable events. Had it never been made, it may well be doubted if the American Revolution could have been a successful movement. That Revolution France was bound to support, both by interest and by sentiment; and the Family-Compact enabled her to take Spain on to the side of America, where it is evident that her interests scarcely could have taken her; and Spain's aid, which was liberally afforded, was necessary to the success of our ancestors. That it was possible thus to place Spain was owing to one of those displays of English insolence that have made the islanders abhorred by the rulers and the ruled of almost every land. "Charles III. of Spain," says Macaulay, "had early conceived a deadly hatred of England. Twenty years before, when he was King of the Two Sicilies, he had been eager to join the coalition against Maria Theresa. But an English fleet had suddenly appeared in the Bay of Naples. An English captain had landed, had proceeded to the palace, had laid a watch on the table, and had told his Majesty that within an hour a treaty of neutrality must be signed, or a bombardment would commence. The treaty was signed; the squadron sailed out of the bay twenty-four hours after it had sailed in; and from that day the ruling passion of the humbled prince was aversion to the English name. He was at length in a situation in which he might hope to gratify that passion. He had recently become King of Spain and the Indies. He saw, with envy and apprehension, the triumphs of our navy, and the rapid extension of our colonial empire. He was a Bourbon, and sympathized with the distress of the house from which he sprang. He was a Spaniard; and no Spaniard could bear to see Gibraltar and Minorca in the possession of a foreign power. Impelled by such feelings, Charles concluded a secret treaty with France. By this treaty, known as the Family-Compact, the two powers bound themselves, not in express words, but by the clearest implication, to make war on England in common." Such was the origin of an alliance that changed the fate of America, and which might have done as much for Europe but for the fall of the French Bourbons. The statesmen of England, with that short-sightedness which is the badge of all their tribe, were nursing the power of Russia, at an enormous expense, in order that, at a still greater expense, their grandsons might attempt the bridling of that power, in which they succeeded about as well as did Doria in bridling the horses of St. Mark. The partition of Poland showed what Europe had most to fear, and French statesmen were preparing for the Northern blast, while those of England, according to one of their own number, who was a Secretary of State, spoke of it as something indeed inconsistent with national equity and public honor, and therefore engaging their master's disapprobation, but as not so immediately interesting as to deserve his interposition. Time, however, would have brought England right, from regard to her own safety, and she would have united herself with France, Spain, and Naples to resist Russian encroachments; and Austria, it may be assumed, would have gone with the West and the South against the North, for her statesmen had the sagacity to see that the partition of Poland was adverse to their country's interests, and the part they had in that most iniquitous of modern transactions was taken rather from fear than from ambition. They could not prevent a robbery, and so they aided in it, and shared in the spoil. But the revolutionary storm came, and broke up the old European system. Passional politics took the place of diplomacy, and party-spirit usurped that of patriotism. It was the age of the Reformation repeated, and men could hail the defeats of their own country with joy, because their country and their party were on opposite sides in the grand struggle which opinions were making for supremacy.

In that storm Spain broke down, but not until she had exhibited considerable power in war, first with France, and then as the ally of France. Her navy was honorably distinguished, though unfortunate, at St. Vincent and Trafalgar, and elsewhere, showing that Spanish valor was not extinct. Napoleon I., unequal to bearing well the good-fortune that had been made complete at Tilsit, and maddened by the success of England in her piratical attack on Denmark, resolved to add Spain to his empire, virtually, if not in terms. He was not content with having her as one of his most useful and submissive dependencies, whose resources were at his command as thoroughly as were those of Belgium and Lombardy, but must needs insist upon having her throne at his disposal. Human folly never perpetrated a grosser blunder than this, and he established that "Spanish ulcer" which undermined the strength of the most magnificent empire that the world had seen for ten centuries; for, if his empire was in some respects inferior to that of Philip II., in others it was superior to the Castilian dominion. Out of his action in the Peninsula grew the Peninsular War, which was to the Spain of our age what the Succession War had been to the Spain of a century earlier. That country was prepared by it for another revival, which came at last, but which also came slowly. Had Ferdinand VII. been a wise and truthful man, or had there been Spanish statesmen capable of governing both monarch and monarchy, the days of Alberoni would have been repeated before 1820. But there was neither an honest monarch nor a great statesman in the kingdom, and Spain daily became weaker and more contemptible. Her colonial empire disappeared, with a few exceptions, such as Cuba and the Philippines. The sun ceased to shine constantly on that empire which had been warmed by his beams through three centuries, and transferred that honor to England. Spanish politics became the world's scorn; and a French army, acting as the police of the Holy Alliance, crossed the Pyrenees, and made Ferdinand VII. once more an absolute king. After his death, a civil war raged for a long time between the Christinos and the Carlists, parties which took their names from the Queen-Mother and from Don Carlos, who claimed to be the legitimate King of the Spains. At length that war was brought to an end, and the throne of Isabella II. appears to be as well established as was that of Isabella I.

During all those unhappy years, Spain had, to use the common phrase, been making progress. Foreign war and civil war, and political convulsions of every kind, had been eminently useful to her. The Arachne webs and dust of ages had been blown away by the cannon of France and England. Old ideas were exploded. Young Spain had displaced Old Spain. A generation had grown up who had no sympathy with the antique world. In spite of repeated invasions, and almost unbroken bad government, and colonial losses such as no other country ever had experienced, the material power of Spain had vastly advanced between 1808 and 1850. Since 1850 the Spaniards have been prosperous people, and every year has seen their power increased; and they are now demanding for their country admission into the list of the Great Powers of Europe. They have formed a numerous army, and a navy that is more than respectable. They are constructing railways, and encouraging business in all its forms. The public revenue is equal to about ninety millions of our money, which would liberally provide for every expenditure that the Government ought to make, but which cannot meet the wants of that Government, because the Spanish statesmen of 1862 are as unwise as were any of their predecessors, most of whom treated the dollar as if it contained twelve dimes. "To spend half a crown out of sixpence a day" requires the possession of as much ingenuity as would, if rationally employed, serve to convert the sixpence into a crown; but Spain rarely permits common sense to govern her action, and prefers debt to prosperity, when she can fairly make her choice between the two. As to her public morality, a very little observation proves that she is not an iota more merciful or consistent now than she was when she banished the Moriscos. At the very time when she is engaged in making war on Mexico because of alleged wrongs received at the hands of that country, she refuses to pay her own debts, thus placing herself on the level of Mississippi, which can raise money to aid in warring against the Union, and yet will not liquidate its bonds, which are held by the English allies of American rebels. This does not promise much for the future of Spain, and she may find her armies brought to a stand in Mexico from the want of money; and thus will be repeated the blunder of the sixteenth century, when the victories of the Spaniards in the Low Countries were made fruitless because their sovereign was unable to pay his soldiers, and so they became mutineers at the very time when it was most requisite that their loyalty should be perfect, in order that the Castilian ascendency might be entirely restored. Spain walks in a circle, and she repeats the follies of her past with a pertinacity that would seem to indicate, that, while she has forgotten everything, she has learned nothing.

This third revival of Spain has been attended with a liberal exhibition of the same follies which we know it was her custom to display after preceding revivals. Instead of attending to her internal affairs, which demanded all her attention and the use of all her means, she has plunged into the great sea of foreign politics, with the view, it should seem, of being admitted formally into the list of leading European Powers. That she should desire a first place is by no means discreditable to her; but her manner of seeking it is to the last degree childish, and unworthy of a country that has had so much experience. That place which she seeks can never long be denied to any European nation which is really strong, and modern strength does not consist merely in great fleets and armies, to be employed in attacking the weak, and in promoting a system of intervention in the affairs of foreign countries. Such, however, is not the opinion of Spanish statesmen, if they are to be judged by their actions. No sooner did Spain begin to feel her strength, than she determined to make other countries feel it, in a very disagreeable fashion. She directed her attention to Italy, and nothing but a salutary dread of Napoleon III prevented her from becoming the champion of all the tyrants and abuses of that country. It was at one time supposed that she meant to revive her pretensions to territorial rule in the Italian Peninsula, and to contend for the restoration of the state of things which there ended with the ending of the Austro-Burgundian rule of the Spanish Empire in 1700; and though it would have been preposterous to have thought such pretensions possible in the case of any other country,—as preposterous as it would be to suppose England capable of thinking of the restoration of her power over the United States,—yet it was perfectly reasonable to believe that Spain would revive claims that were barred by the lapse of one hundred and fifty years. No statute of limitations is known to her, and what she has held once she thinks herself entitled to reclaim on any day through all time. Weakness may prevent her from enforcing her title, but that title never becomes weak. What is ridiculous in the eyes of the statesmen of Paris and London is eminently commonplace in those of the statesmen of Madrid, who are the most industrious of builders, Chateaux en Espagne employing their energies. Although it is more than two centuries since Portugal threw off the Spanish yoke, they have never yet given up the hope in Spain of adding that spirited little kingdom to the Peninsular monarchy. They would absorb it, as so many other kingdoms have been absorbed by the power that has issued its decrees from Madrid and Valladolid. The attack made by Spain on Morocco was a silly affair, and was resolved upon only to convince the world that Spain could make war abroad, a point in which the world felt but small interest, as at that time it was not thought that the Spaniards would seriously endeavor to regain their old American possessions. That what had been lost through one class of errors would be sought through resort to another class of errors, it entered not the minds of men to conceive. They would as soon have thought of Spain making a demand on Holland, with the view of restoring in that country the rule that was lost there in the days of Alva and Parma, as of her entering upon a war for a second conquest of Mexico. Nor would they have been astonished by the breaking out of such a war, had it not been for the breaking down of the American Republic. America's calamity was Spain's opportunity. She had been successful in her crusade against the modern Moors, because bad government had unfitted those Mussulmans to make effectual resistance to her well-led and well-appointed armies, which were supported by well-equipped ships. Then, flushed with victory, and beholding America in convulsions, she resolved to direct her energies against Mexico, where, unfortunately, bad government had done its work even more perfectly than it had been done in Morocco. The Spaniards are a brave and a spirited people, but their conduct in St. Domingo and their attack on Mexico cannot be cited as evidence of their bravery and spirit. They never would have dared to move against the Mexicans, if our condition had remained what it was but eighteen months ago; and yet they had just as good cause to assail them in the summer of 1860 as they now have in the winter of 1862. All the grounds of complaint that they have against Mexico were in existence then,—but we heard of no modern Spanish Armada at that time, and might then as rationally have expected to see a French fleet in the St. Lawrence as a Spanish fleet in the Mexican Gulf. The American sword was then sharp, and the American shield broad, and so Spain stayed her chivalrous hand. Her conduct is as bad as was our own, when we "picked a quarrel" with Mexico, and bestowed upon her weak back the blows we should have visited on the stout shoulders of England. Our Mexican contest was the effect of our fear of a stronger adversary. We had brought the Oregon question to such a point that it was difficult to avoid war with Great Britain. The West had been cheated by the cry for "the whole of Oregon," and the men who had got up that cry were afraid to face the people whom they had deceived by the light of common day; and so we had the Mexican War improvised, to distract public attention from the lame and impotent manner in which we had settled the Oregon question. Having kissed the Briton's boot, it became necessary to soothe our exasperated feelings by applying our own boot to the person of the Aztec. The man having been too much for us, we were bound to give the boy a sound beating, and that beating he received. True, we had cause of quarrel with Mexico, which we had long overlooked, and which had seldom moved us to anger, and never to the point of falling foul, until we had become excessively angry both with the English and ourselves; and equally true is it that Spain has some reason to make Mexico feel the weight of her arm, now that it has become strong again,—but, imitating our prudence, she has chosen her own time for calling Mexico to account. All chivalrous nations are partial to this form of shabbiness; and though we are told that honor is the distinction of a monarchy, we see that under the Spanish monarchy its requirements can be dispensed with when a gain can be secured by walking in the path of dishonor.

But though the policy of Spain is base toward Mexico, it has the merit of being perfectly intelligible, which is generally the case with things of the kind. Much fault has been found with Spain by our Unionists because she has exhibited some partiality for the Secessionists, and apparently is ready to go as far as England means to go in helping them to the full enjoyment of independence and national life. It has been pointed out, that it was the South, not the North, which favored the "acquisition" of Cuba by force, fraud, or falsehood, according to circumstances; that the men who met at Ostend, and proclaimed that Cuba must be ours, were Democrats, not Republicans; and that the buccaneers who used to fit out expeditions for the redemption of the "faithful" island from Spanish rule were Southrons, while other Southrons refused to convict those buccaneers who were tried at New Orleans, and elsewhere in Secessia, of being guilty of crimes against the laws of America and of nations. And it is asked, with looks of wonder, "How can Spain be so blind to her interests, and so regardless of insults that ordinarily disturb even the mildest of nations, as to sympathize with and aid her enemies, men who, if successful in their present purpose, would be sure to attack Cuba, to help themselves to Mexico, and to become masters of all the Spanish-American countries on this continent?" Pertinent to the matter as this question is, Spain has an answer to give that would be very much to the point. "True," she might say, "it was the South that sent land pirates to Cuba, and it was a Federal Government that was dominated by Southrons that used to insult us semiannually by insisting that we should part with Cuba, though we should as soon have thought of selling Cadiz. But it was the American Government, which spoke in the name of the whole American nation, that made the demand for Cuba, and which protected the pirates. Had you made war on us to obtain possession of Cuba, as you would have done but for the occurrence of your civil troubles, that war would have been waged by the United States, and not by the South and by the Democratic party. It would have been the work of you all, of Republicans as well as Democrats, of Yankees as well as Southrons, of Abolitionists as well as Slaveholders. There would have come soldiers from your Southern States, to tear from the Spanish monarchy its most valuable foreign possession; but whence would have come the men who would have manned your fleets, that would have acted with your armies, protecting their landing, and thus alone making Cuba's conquest possible? They would have been Northern men, New-Englanders and New-Yorkers, perhaps descendants of some of the very men who helped to conquer a portion of the island a century ago. It was American strength that we feared, not the strength of the North or that of the South, for neither of which do we care. Who would have furnished the capital to pay the expenses of the war? Who but the rich men of the North? Money is the sinew of all war, foreign and civil, and not a little of that Northern capital which we have seen so lavishly poured out in aid of the Union would have been subscribed in aid of a project to bring the curse of disunion upon our country. You know this to be the fact, and we challenge you as truthful men to deny it, that for many years it has been a favorite idea with some of your statesmen, and not of leaders of the Democratic party only, to stave off the troubles that were rapidly growing out of the slavery question, by having recourse to a 'distraction' based on the acquisition of Cuba. You know, or ought to know, that the very man who is now at the head of the Southern Confederacy was advised, at the North, in 1853, to pursue such a course with regard to Cuba, he being then the most influential member of the Pierce administration, as should 'distract' American attention from slavery as a local matter; and that he thought this Northern advice good, and would have given the administration's support to the project it involved, and probably with success, and to our great loss and disgrace, when a new turn was given to your strange politics by the movement in behalf of the repeal of the Missouri compromise, a movement that has brought safety to us, and loss and disgrace upon yourselves. We admit that your cause is the cause of law, of order, and of constitutional freedom; but why should we desire the triumph of the cause of law, of order, and of constitutional freedom in the United States, when that triumph would be but preliminary to a triumph over our own country? Had your internal peace been continued for ten years longer, your free population would have reached to forty millions, and your wealth would have grown at a greater rate than your population. You would have been able to give law to America, and you would, under one plausible pretext or another, have taken possession of all the European colonies of the Occident. Nothing short of a European alliance could have prevented your becoming supreme from the region of eternal snows to the regions of eternal bloom; and such an alliance it would have been difficult to form, as there are nations in Europe that would have been as ready to back you in your day of strength as they are now both ready and anxious to back your enemy in this your hour of weakness. In plain words, it is for our interest that you should fall; and as your fall can be best promoted through the success of the Secessionists, therefore do we give them our moral support, and sympathize with them in their struggle to establish their national freedom on the basis of everlasting slavery. Why should we not sympathize with them, and even aid, at an early day, in raising the blockade of their ports? Are they not doing our work? As to their seizure of Spanish-American countries, it would be long before they could attempt an extension of their dominion; and by reestablishing our rule over Mexico we shall be in condition to bridle them for fifty years to come, even if they should remain united. But it is not at all probable that they would continue united. What Mexico has been, that the Southern Confederacy would be. The revolutions, the pronunciamientos, the murders, and the robberies which it is our intention to banish from Mexico, would take up their abode in the Southern Confederacy, in which Secession would do its perfect work. Such things are the natural fruits of the Secession tree, which is as poisonous as the upas and as productive as the palm. You we shall have no occasion to fear, as, once cut down, Europe would never again permit you to endanger the integrity of the possessions of any of her countries in the West."

Such might be the language of Spain in reply to the remonstrances of our Unionists, and although it embodies nothing but the intensest selfishness, it would not be the worse diplomatic expression on that account. When was diplomacy otherwise than sordid in its nature? When was it the custom with nations to "spare the humble and subdue the proud"? Never. The Romans said that such was their practice, but every page of their bloody history gives the lie to the poetical boast. It is the humble who are subdued, and the proud who are spared. Good Samaritans are rare characters among men, but who ever heard of a Good Samaritan among nations? The custom of nations is far worse than was the conduct of those persons who would not relieve the man who had fallen among thieves. They simply abstained from doing good, while nations unite their powers to annoy and annihilate the distressed. There is, it is probable, an understanding existing between France, England, and Spain to aid the Southern Confederacy at an early day, and when we shall have become sufficiently reduced to admit of their giving such aid without hazard to themselves, they being little inclined to engage in hazardous wars.

In one respect the reconquest of Mexico by Spain would prove beneficial to us. If the Southern Confederacy should be established through the action of foreign powers, it would be for our interest that Mexico should have a strong government ruling over a united people. If the anarchical condition of Mexico should be continued, that country would afford a fine field for the energy and enterprise of all the lawless spirits of the South, who could be precipitated upon it to the great gain of their countrymen; and England, in pursuance of her great Christian principle of creating markets for cotton and cottons, would encourage the Confederates to enter Mexico. But if Mexico should be converted into an orderly country, and have an army capable of treating buccaneers as the Spanish army treated Lopez and his followers, it would be no place for the discharged soldiers of Davis and Stephens. They would have to stay at home, and they would make of that home a hell. The welfare of the North would be promoted by the misery of the Southrons, who ought to be made to pay the full penalty of their extraordinary crime. Without provocation, and making of that want of provocation an absolute boast, they have brought war upon their country, and are endeavoring to spread its flames over the world. The misery they have wrought is incalculable, and no narrative of it, let it be as minute and as detailed as it could be made, will ever furnish a full picture of it. It would be but the merest justice, that men who make war in the spirit of wantonness be compelled to drink off the red cup they have filled, to the very lees. Such would probably be their doom, should they prevail. The least successful thing to them would be success.

It is not certain, however, that the revival of Spanish power is to be lasting in its nature; and if Spain should fall as suddenly as she has risen, the way to Mexico would be open to the Southrons, who might then and there add so tremendously to the dominions of King Cotton as to make him even more powerful than ever he has been in the imagination of his votaries,—and they have ranked him only one step below the Devil. Spanish revivals are so much like certain other revivals, that they are apt to be followed by reaction, leaving the unduly excited subject in a worse condition than ever. European affairs, too, may demand Spain's attention, and require her to leave Mexico to take care of herself. Europe is full of causes of war, occasion for waging which must soon arise. The American war has tended to the promotion of peace in Europe, but that cannot be much longer maintained. Let war break out in Europe, and Spain would probably feel herself called upon to assume a principal part in it, and then the Southern Confederacy would be at liberty to spread slavery over the finest cotton country on earth, under the patronage of England, which hates slavery, but worships its results. The future of Mexico it lies in the power of the American Union to decide, and our armies are contending as much for Mexican freedom as they are for American nationality.

* * * * *



A RAFT THAT NO MAN MADE.

I am a soldier: but my tale, this time, is not of war.

The man of whom the Muse talked to the blind bard of old had grown wise in wayfaring. He had seen such men and cities as the sun shines on, and the great wonders of land and sea; and he had visited the farther countries, whose indwellers, having been once at home in the green fields and under the sky and roofs of the cheery earth, were now gone forth and forward into a dim and shadowed land, from which they found no backward path to these old haunts, and their old loves:—

[Greek: Eeri kai nephele kekalummenoi oude pot' autous Eelios phaeuon kataderketai aktinessin.] Od. XI.

At the Charter-House I learned the story of the King of Ithaca, and read it for something better than a task; and since, though I have never seen so many cities as the much-wandering man, nor grown so wise, yet have heard and seen and remembered, for myself, words and things from crowded streets and fairs and shows and wave-washed quays and murmurous market-places, in many lands; and for his [Greek: Kimmerion undron demos],—his people wrapt in cloud and vapor, whom "no glad sun finds with his beams,"—have been borne along a perilous path through thick mists, among the crashing ice of the Upper Atlantic, as well as sweltered upon a Southern sea, and have learned something of men and something of God.

I was in Newfoundland, a lieutenant of Royal Engineers, in Major Gore's time, and went about a good deal among the people, in surveying for Government. One of my old friends there was Skipper Benjie Westham, of Brigus, a shortish, stout, bald man, with a cheerful, honest face and a kind voice; and he, mending a caplin-seine one day, told me this story, which I will try to tell after him.

We were upon the high ground, beyond where the church stands now, and Prudence, the fisherman's daughter, and Ralph Barrows, her husband, were with Skipper Benjie when he began; and I had an hour by the watch to spend. The neighborhood, all about, was still; the only men who were in sight were so far off that we heard nothing from them; no wind was stirring near us, and a slow sail could be seen outside. Everything was right for listening and telling.

"I can tell 'ee what I sid[A] myself, Sir," said Skipper Benjie. "It isn' like a story that's put down in books: it's on'y like what we planters[B] tells of a winter's night or sech: but it's feelun, mubbe, an' 'ee won't expect much off a man as couldn' never read,—not so much as Bible or Prayer-Book, even."

[Footnote A: Saw.] [Footnote B: Fishermen.]

Skipper Benjie looked just like what he was thought: a true-hearted, healthy man, a good fisherman, and a good seaman. There was no need of any one's saying it. So I only waited till he went on speaking.

"'T was one time I goed to th' Ice, Sir. I never goed but once, an' 't was a'most the first v'yage ever was, ef 't wasn' the very first; an' 't was the last for me, an' worse agen for the rest-part o' that crew, that never goed no more! 'T was tarrible sad douns wi' they!"

This preface was accompanied by some preliminary handling of the caplin-seine, also, to find out the broken places and get them about him. Ralph and Prudence deftly helped him. Then, making his story wait, after this opening, he took one hole to begin at in mending, chose his seat, and drew the seine up to his knee. At the same time I got nearer to the fellowship of the family by persuading the planter (who yielded with a pleasant smile) to let me try my hand at the netting. Prudence quietly took to herself a share of the work, and Ralph alone was unbusied.

"They calls th' Ice a wicked place,—Sundays an' weekin days all alike; an' to my seemun it's a cruel, bloody place, jes' so well,—but not all thinks alike, surely.—Rafe, lad, mubbe 'ee'd ruther go down cove-ways, an' overhaul the punt a bit."

Ralph, who perhaps had stood waiting for the very dismissal that he now got, assented and left us three. Prudence, to be sure, looked after him as if she would a good deal rather go with him than stay; but she stayed, nevertheless, and worked at the seine. I interpreted to myself Skipper Benjie's sending away of one of his hearers by supposing that his son-in-law had often heard his tales; but the planter explained himself:—

"'Ee sees, Sir, I knocked off goun to th' Ice becase 't was sech a tarrible cruel place, to my seemun. They swiles[C] be so knowun like,—as knowun as a dog, in a manner, an' lovun to their own, like Christens, a'most, more than bastes; an' they'm got red blood, for all they lives most-partly in water; an' then I found 'em so friendly, when I was wantun friends badly. But I s'pose the swile-fishery's needful; an' I knows, in course, that even Christens' blood's got to be taken sometimes, when it's bad blood, an' I wouldn' be childish about they things: on'y,—ef it's me,—when I can live by fishun, I don' want to go an' club an' shoot an' cut an' slash among poor harmless things that 'ould never harm man or 'oman, an' 'ould cry great tears down for pity-sake, an' got a sound like a Christen: I 'ouldn' like to go a-swilun for gain,—not after beun among 'em, way I was, anyways."

[Footnote C: Seals.]

This apology made it plain that Skipper Benjie was large-hearted enough, or indulgent enough, not to seek to strain others, even his own family, up to his own way in everything; and it might easily be thought that the young fisherman had different feelings about sealing from those that the planter's story was meant to bring out. All being ready, he began his tale again:—

"I shipped wi' Skipper Isra'l Gooden, from Carbonear: the schooner was the Baccaloue, wi' forty men, all told. 'T was of a Sunday morn'n 'e 'ould sail, twel'th day o' March, wi' another schooner in company,—the Sparrow. There was a many of us wasn' too good, but we thowt wrong of 'e's takun the Lord's Day to 'e'sself.—Wull, Sir, afore I comed 'ome, I was in a great desert country, an' floated on sea wi' a monstrous great raft that no man never made, creakun an' crashun an' groanun an' tumblun an' wastun an' goun to pieces, an' no man on her but me, an' full o' livun things,—dreadful!

"About a five hours out, 't was, we first sid the blink,[D] an' comed up wi' th' Ice about off Cape Bonavis'. We fell in wi' it south, an' worked up nothe along: but we didn' see swiles for two or three days yet; on'y we was workun along; pokun the cakes of ice away, an' haulun through wi' main strength sometimes, holdun on wi' bights o' ropes out o' the bow; an' more times, agen, in clear water: sometimes mist all round us, 'ee couldn' see the ship's len'th, sca'ce; an' more times snow, jes' so thick; an' then a gale o' wind, mubbe, would a'most blow all the spars out of her, seemunly.

[Footnote D: A dull glare on the horizon, from the immense masses of ice.]

"We kep' sight o' th' other schooner, most-partly; an' when we didn' keep it, we'd get it agen. So one night 't was a beautiful moonlight night: I think I never sid a moon so bright as that moon was; an' such lovely sights a body 'ouldn' think could be! Little islands, an' bigger, agen, there was, on every hand, shinun so bright, wi' great, awful-lookun shadows! an' then the sea all black, between! They did look so beautiful as ef a body could go an' bide on 'em, in a manner; an' the sky was jes' so blue, an' the stars all shinun out, an' the moon all so bright! I never looked upon the like. An' so I stood in the bows; an' I don' know ef I thowt o' God first, but I was thinkun o' my girl that I was troth-plight wi' then, an' a many things, when all of a sudden we comed upon the hardest ice we'd a-had; an' into it; an' then, wi' pokun an' haulun, workun along. An' there was a cry goed up,—like the cry of a babby, 't was, an' I thowt mubbe 't was a somethun had got upon one o' they islands; but I said, agen, 'How could it?' an' one John Harris said 'e thowt 't was a bird. Then another man (Moffis 'e's name was) started off wi' what they calls a gaff, ('t is somethun like a short boat-hook,) over the bows, an' run; an' we sid un strike, an' strike, an' we hard it go wump! wump! an' the cry goun up so tarrible feelun, seemed as ef 'e was murderun some poor wild Inden child 'e'd a-found, (on'y mubbe 'e wouldn' do so bad as that: but there've a-been tarrible bloody, cruel work wi' Indens in my time,) an' then 'e comed back wi' a white-coat[E] over 'e's shoulder; an' the poor thing wasn' dead, but cried an' soughed like any poor little babby."

[Footnote E: A young seal.]

The young wife was very restless at this point, and, though she did not look up, I saw her tears. The stout fisherman smoothed out the net a little upon his knee, and drew it in closer, and heaved a great sigh: he did not look at his hearers.

"When 'e throwed it down, it walloped, an' cried, an' soughed,—an' its poor eyes blinded wi' blood! ('Ee sees, Sir," said the planter, by way of excusing his tenderness, "they swiles were friends to I, after.) Dear, oh, dear! I couldn' stand it; for 'e might ha' killed un', an' so 'e goes for a quart o' rum, for fetchun first swile, an' I went an' put the poor thing out o' pain. I didn' want to look at they beautiful islands no more, somehow. Bumby it comed on thick, an' then snow.

"Nex' day swiles bawlun[F] every way, poor things! (I knowed their voice, now,) but 't was blowun a gale o' wind, an' we under bare poles, an' snow comun agen, so fast as ever it could come: but out the men 'ould go, all mad like, an' my watch goed, an' so I mus' go. (I didn' think what I was goun to!) The skipper never said no; but to keep near the schooner, an' fetch in first we could, close by; an' keep near the schooner.

[Footnote F: Technical word for the crying of the seals.]

"So we got abroad, an' the men that was wi' me jes' began to knock right an' left: 't was heartless to see an' hear it. They laved two old uns an' a young whelp to me, as they runned by. The mother did cry like a Christen, in a manner, an' the big tears 'ould run down, an' they 'ould both be so brave for the poor whelp that 'ould cuddle up an' cry; an the mother looked this way an' that way, wi' big, pooty, black eyes, to see what was the manun of it, when they'd never doned any harm in God's world that 'E made, an' would n', even ef you killed 'em: on'y the poor mother baste ketched my gaff, that I was goun to strike wi', betwixt her teeth, an' I could n' get it away. 'T was n' like fishun! (I was weak-hearted like: I s'pose 't was wi' what was comun that I did n' know.) Then comed a hail, all of a sudden, from the schooner; (we had n' been gone more 'n a five minutes, ef't was so much,—no, not more 'n a three;) but I was glad to hear it come then, however: an' so every man ran, one afore t' other. There the schooner was, tearun through all, an' we runnun for dear life. I failed among the slob,[G] and got out agen. 'T was another man pushun agen me doned it. I could n' 'elp myself from goun in, an' when I got out I was astarn of all, an' there was the schooner carryun on, right through to clear water! So, hold of a bight o' line, or anything! an' they swung up in over bows an' sides! an' swash! she struck the water, an' was out o' sight in a minute, an' the snow drivun as ef't would bury her, an' a man laved behind on a pan of ice, an' the great black say two fathom ahead, an' the storm-wind blowun 'im into it!"

[Footnote G: Broken ice, between large cakes, or against the shore.]

The planter stopped speaking. We had all gone along so with the story, that the stout seafarer, as he wrought the whole scene up about us, seemed instinctively to lean back and brace his feet against the ground, and clutch his net. The young woman looked up, this time; and the cold snow-blast seemed to howl through that still summer's noon, and the terrific ice-fields and hills to be crashing against the solid earth that we sat upon, and all things round changed to the far-off stormy ocean and boundless frozen wastes.

The planter began to speak again:—

"So I failed right down upon th' ice, sayun, 'Lard, help me! Lard, help me!' an' crawlun away, wi' the snow in my face, (I was afeard, a'most, to stand,) 'Lard, help me! Lard, help me!'

"'T was n' all hard ice, but many places lolly;[H] an once I goed right down wi' my hand-wristes an' my armes in cold water, part-ways to the bottom o' th' ocean; and a'most head-first into un, as I'd a-been in wi' my legs afore: but, thanks be to God! 'E helped me out of un, but colder an' wetter agen.

[Footnote H: Snow in water, not yet frozen, but looking like the white ice.]

"In course I wanted to folly the schooner; so I runned up along, a little ways from the edge, an' then I runned down along: but 't was all great black ocean outside, an' she gone miles an' miles away; an' by two hours' time, even ef she'd come to, itself, an' all clear weather, I could n' never see her; an' ef she could come back, she could n' never find me, more'n I could find any one o' they flakes o' snow. The schooner was gone, an' I was laved out o' the world!

"Bumby, when I got on the big field agen, I stood up on my feet, an' I sid that was my ship! She had n' e'er a sail, an' she had n' e'er a spar, an' she had n' e'er a compass, an' she had n' e'er a helm, an' she had n' no hold, an' she had n' no cabin. I could n' sail her, nor I could n' steer her, nor I could n' anchor her, nor bring her to, but she would go, wind or calm, an' she'd never come to port, but out in th' ocean she'd go to pieces! I sid 't was so, an' I must take it, an' do my best wi' it. 'T was jest a great, white, frozen raft, driftun bodily away, wi' storm blowun over, an' current runnun under, an' snow comun down so thick, an' a poor Christen laved all alone wi' it. 'T would drift as long as anything was of it, an' 't was n' likely there'd be any life in the poor man by time th' ice goed to nawthun; an' the swiles 'ould swim back agen up to the Nothe!

"I was th' only one, seemunly, to be cast out alive, an' wi' the dearest maid in the world (so I thought) waitun for me. I s'pose 'ee might ha' knowed somethun better, Sir; but I was n' larned, an' I ran so fast as ever I could up the way I thowt home was, an' I groaned, an' groaned, an' shook my handes, an' then I thowt, 'Mubbe I may be goun wrong way.' So I groaned to the Lard to stop the snow. Then I on'y ran this way an' that way, an' groaned for snow to knock off.[I] I knowed we was driftun mubbe a twenty leagues a day, and anyways I wanted to be doun what I could, keepun up over th' Ice so well as I could, Noofundland-ways, an' I might come to somethun,—to a schooner or somethun; anyways I'd get up so near as I could. So I looked for a lee. I s'pose 'ee'd ha' knowed better what to do, Sir," said the planter, here again appealing to me, and showing by his question that he understood me, in spite of my pea-jacket.

[Footnote I: To stop.]

I had been so carried along with his story that I had felt as if I were the man on the Ice, myself, and assured him, that, though I could get along pretty well on land, and could even do something at netting, I should have been very awkward in his place.

"Wull, Sir, I looked for a lee. ('T wouldn' ha' been so cold, to say cold, ef it hadn' a-blowed so tarrible hard.) First step, I stumbled upon somethun in the snow, seemed soft, like a body! Then I comed all together, hopun an' fearun an' all together. Down I goed upon my knees to un, an' I smoothed away the snow, all tremblun, an' there was a moan, as ef 't was a-livun.

"'O Lard!' I said, 'who's this? Be this one of our men?'

"But how could it? So I scraped the snow away, but 't was easy to see 't was smaller than a man. There wasn' no man on that dreadful place but me! Wull, Sir, 't was a poor swile, wi' blood runnun all under; an' I got my cuffs[J] an' sleeves all red wi' it. It looked like a fellow-creatur's blood, a'most, an' I was a lost man, left to die away out there in th' Ice, an' I said, 'Poor thing! poor thing!' an' I didn' mind about the wind, or th' ice, or the schooner goun away from me afore a gale, (I wouldn' mind about 'em,) an' a poor lost Christen may show a good turn to a hurt thing, ef 't was on'y a baste. So I smoothed away the snow wi' my cuffs, an' I sid 't was a poor thing wi' her whelp close by her, an' her tongue out, as ef she'd a-died fondlun an' lickun it; an' a great puddle o' blood,—it looked tarrible heartless, when I was so nigh to death, an' wasn' hungry. An' then I feeled a stick, an' I thowt, 'It may be a help to me,' an' so I pulled un, an' it wouldn' come, an' I found she was lyun on it; so I hauled agen, an', when it comed, 't was my gaff the poor baste had got away from me, an' got it under her, an' she was a-lyun on it. Some o' the men, when they was runnun for dear life, must ha' struck 'em, out o' madness like, an' laved 'em to die where they was. 'T was the whelp wasn' quite dead. 'Ee'll think 't was foolish, Sir, but it seemed as though they was somethun to me, an' I'd a-lost the last friendly thing there was.

[Footnote J: Mittens.]

"I found a big hummock an' sheltered under it, standun on my feet, wi nawthun to do but think, an' think, an' pray to God; an' so I doned. I couldn' help feelun to God then, surely. Nawthun to do, an' no place to go, tull snow cleared away; but jes' drift wi' the great Ice down from the Nothe, away down over the say, a sixty mile a day, mubbe. I wasn' a good Christen, an' I couldn' help a-thinkun o' home an' she I was troth-plight wi', an' I doubled over myself an' groaned,—I couldn' help it: but bumby it comed into me to say my prayers, an' it seemed as thof she was askun me to pray, (an' she was good, Sir, al'ays,) an' I seemed all opened, somehow, an' I knowed how to pray."

While the words were coming tenderly from the weather-beaten fisherman, I could not help being moved, and glanced over toward the daughter's seat; but she was gone, and, turning round, I saw her going quietly, almost stealthily, and very quickly, toward the cove.

The father gave no heed to her leaving, but went on with his tale:—

"Then the wind began to fall down, an' the snow knocked off altogether, an' the sun comed out; an' I sid th' Ice, field-ice an' icebargs, an' every one of 'em flashun up as ef they'd kendled up a bonfire, but no sign of a schooner! no sign of a schooner! nor no sign o' man's douns, but on'y ice, every way, high an' low, an' some places black water, in-among; an' on'y the poor swiles bawlun all over, an' I standun amongst 'em.

"While I was lookun out, I sid a great icebarg (they calls 'em) a quarter of a mile away, or thereabouts, standun up,—one end a twenty fathom out o' water, an' about a forty fathom across, wi' hills like, an' houses,—an' then, jest as ef 'e was alive an' had tooked a notion in 'e'sself, seemunly, all of a sudden 'e rared up, an' turned over an' over, wi' a tarrible thunderun noise, an' comed right on, breakun everything an' throwun up great seas: 't was frightsome for a lone body away out among 'em! I stood an' looked at un, but then agen I thowt I may jes' so well be goun to thick ice an' over Noofundland-ways a piece, so well as I could. So I said my bit of a prayer, an' told Un I could n' help myself; an' I made my confession how bad I'd been, an' I was sorry, an' ef 'E'd be so pitiful an' forgive me; an' ef I mus' loss my life, ef 'E'd be so good as make me a good Christen first,—an' make they happy, in course.

"So then I started; an' first I goed to where my gaff was, by the mother-swile an' her whelp. There was swiles every two or three yards a'most, old uns an' young uns, all round, everywhere; an' I feeled shamed in a manner: but I got my gaff, an' cleaned un, an' then, in God's name, I took the big swile, that was dead by its dead whelp, an' hauled it away, where the t' other poor things could n' si' me, an' I sculped[K] it, an' took the pelt;—for I thowt I'd wear un, now the poor dead thing did n' want to make oose of un no more,—an' partly becase't was sech a lovun thing. An' so I set out, walkun this way, for a spurt, an' then t' other way, keepun up mostly a Nor-norwest, so well as I could: sometimes away round th' open, an' more times round a lump of ice, an' more times, agen, off from one an' on to another, every minute. I did n' feel hungry, for I drinked fresh water off th' ice. No schooner! no schooner!