"With your hard head and shrewd notions, I should say you were likely to make a sensation in the mercantile world," he observed. "It's a hopeful scheme, altogether. Oh, hang it!" proceeding from sarcasm to remonstrance, "that'll never do, Everett! You'll be getting into some precious scrape or other. You're not the fellow for a merchant's office, trust me. Now something in the way of a government appointment is much more like it. A pleasant, poetical sort of sinecure,—there are lots of them to be had. You just trundle down for an hour or two every day, write letters, or poems, or whatever you like, with the official stationery, and receive your salary quarterly. You can't do any mischief in a place like that. Now that's the sort of thing for you,—if one could get hold of some of those fellows in power. Why!" brightening with the sudden dash of an idea, "there are the Beauchamps themselves! They've a legion of influential relatives. Couldn't they get you into a snug berth? Oh, the Devil!"—for Everett's look was not to be mistaken,—"if you bring your high-flown ideas of dignity and independence into this plain, practical question of subsistence, it's all up with you. Do you mean to tell me that you seriously think of this Canada scheme?"

Everett assented.

"Have you informed Lady Beauchamp of your intention of becoming a merchant's clerk? I should like to see her face when you tell her; she's such a shrewd old soul; and when a woman does take to the sharp and worldly style of thing, it's the very deuse! Expect no indulgence in that quarter."

"I don't ask it. Rosa, of course, cannot become my wife till I am able to give her a worthy home. Her mother will not wish to cancel our engagement in the mean time."

"The deuse she won't! Trust her!" the consolatory brother rejoined. "Why, it will be her first natural step. The idea of her daughter betrothed to a merchant's clerk is preposterous on the face of it. You yourself must see that."

"No, I don't," Everett said, smiling.

"Oh, I suppose you intend to make a large fortune in a twelvemonth, and then return and marry?"

"No,—but in ten years,—less than that, God helping me,—if I live, I will return and marry Rosa."

"You don't say so? And poor little Rosa is to wait patiently for you all that time! By Jove! a modest expectation of yours! It's a likely notion that Miss Beauchamp will remain unmarried for ten years, because you choose to go to Canada."

"She will never marry, if she does not marry me," Everett said, with simple gravity. "It is not alone the outward sacrament of marriage that sanctifies a union. The diviner and more vital consecration that binds us together, it is too late, now, to seek to undo."

"Oh, hang it! It's of no use talking poetry to me. I don't understand that sort of thing," Captain Gray frankly said. "I'll tell you what,—it'll never do to take those transcendental ideas with you into the world. All very well to poetize and maunder about in quiet Hazlewood; but, by Jove! you'll find it won't do in practical life. Take my word for it, if you go to Canada, long before the ten years are out, Rosa Beauchamp will be wooed and won over again. 'Tisn't in nature that it should be otherwise. In books, very likely, those sort of things happen often enough,—but not in real life, my dear fellow, I assure you. When you return, it will be to find her a thriving matron, doing the honors of one of the neighboring mansions. Make up your mind to that. Foresee your future, before you decide."

Everett smiled, sadly, but trustfully. His brother's arguments neither persuaded nor disturbed him. He stood very quiet and thoughtful. Visionary-like, he saw pictures of the future, indeed,—but very different from the one just drawn. He was not afraid.

And Captain Gray left him unconvinced and unmoved. It was not probable the two brothers would see this matter in the same light. They stood on different levels. They must be content to differ.

The next conference on the subject was between Everett and Lady Beauchamp; and the mother of Rosa was, it must be admitted, a rather formidable person to encounter in such wise. She was a busy, clever, worldly woman,—kind-hearted, too, and with both a strong will and strong affections. She was one of those people in whom even an astute observer might often be deceived, by failing to give her credit for certain good qualities which are commonly coexistent with worldliness,—especially in a woman. There was a spice of something better latent amid her shrewdness and hard-headed sagacity; the echo of more generous aspirations lingered through all the noise of this earth's Babel in her heart. And so, when she heard of Everett's resolve to pay his father's debts by parting with the property, her better and higher nature warmed to the young man; and though she protested against his Quixotism, and frowned, and talked of prudence, and so forth, her busy brain was, in fact, all the while setting itself to work for his benefit. She was, in a way, fond of the young man. No woman is quite insensible to that chivalrous deference which a Visionary like Everett always manifests to womanhood, collective and individual. And though she certainly held him to be rash, foolish, unfit to deal with the world, "poetical," (a capital crime in her eyes,) and dreamy, she yet liked him, and was glad to discover a plan whereby the objections to his marriage with her daughter, under the present adverse circumstances, might be smoothed away.

She was sitting at her big desk, strewn with accounts, in the sober-looking library where she always spent her mornings, and she rose to receive her prospective son-in-law, with an aspect serious and business-like, yet not stern.

"Well, my dear Everett, what is all this that I hear about you? A very, very sad affair, of course; but you must come and tell me how you intend to act. Yes, yes,—I've heard something about it; but I don't quite understand the state of the case. I want to have a talk with you."

And she leaned her comely face upon her plump, white hand, while gravely listening to Everett's brief statement of what he had already done, and what were his plans for the future.

"You will sell Hazlewood, pay your father's debts, and begin life on your own account, by going to Canada and becoming a merchant's clerk!" She then recapitulated his plans in a sharp, pitiless tone. "Very well! and we have only to bid you good-bye and wish you success. Is it so? For it appears to me that my daughter is left entirely out of your calculations, and very properly so. You cannot, as a merchant's clerk on a hundred a year, marry Rosa Beauchamp, I presume."

"No," Everett said, steadily, and holding her, as it were, with his earnest eyes, "I cannot have Rosa for my wife till I am able to give her a home worthy of her; but you will not refuse to sanction our engagement during the years in which I shall work for that home?"

Lady Beauchamp tapped the table with her fingers in an ominous manner.

"Long engagements are most unsatisfactory, silly, not to say dangerous things. They never end well. No man ought to wish so to bind a young girl, unless he has a reasonable chance of soon being in a position to marry her. Now I ask you, have you such a chance? If you go to Canada, it may be years before you return. Just look at the thing in a common-sense light, and tell me, can you expect my daughter to wait an indefinite time, while you go to seek and make your fortune?"

She looked at him with an air of bland candor, while thus appealing to his "common sense." Everett's aspect remained unchanged, however, in its calm steadfastness.

"I would not bind her," he said, "unless she herself felt it would be a comfort and a help, in some sort, during the weary years of separation, so to be bound. And that she does feel it, you know, Lady Beauchamp."

"My dear Sir, you are not talking reasonably," she rejoined, impatiently. "A young girl like Rosa, in love for the first time, of course wishes to be bound, as you say, to the object of her first love. But it would be doing her a cruel injustice to take her at her word. Surely you feel that? It is very true, she might not forget you for six months, or more, perhaps. But, in the course of time, as she enters on life and sees more of the world and of people, it is simply impossible that she should remain constant to a dreamy attachment to some one thousands of miles away. She would inevitably wish to form other ties; and then the engagement that she desires to-day would be the blight and burden of her life. No. I say it is a cruel injustice to let young people decide for themselves on such a point. Half the misery in the world springs from these mistakes. Think over the matter coolly, and you will see it as I do."

"It is you who do Rosa injustice," Everett answered, and paused. "Were it to be as you wish," he added, "and we to separate utterly, with no outwardly acknowledged tie to link us, no letters to pass between us, no word or sign from one to the other during all the coming years,—suppose it so,—you would shadow our lives with much unnecessary misery; but you are mistaken, if you think you would really part us. You do not understand."

"Nonsense! You talk like a young man in love. You must be reasonable."

Lady Beauchamp, by this time, had worked herself into the usual warmth with which she argued all questions, great and small, and forgot that her original intention in speaking to Everett had only been to set before him the disadvantages of his plans, in order that her own might come to the rescue with still greater brilliancy and effect.

"You must be reasonable," she repeated. "You don't suppose I have not my child's happiness at heart in all I plan and purpose? Trust me, I have had more experience of life than either of you, and it is for me to interpose between you and the dangers you would blindly rush upon. Some day you will both thank me for having done so, hard and cruel as you may think me now."

"No, I do not think you either hard or cruel. You are mistaken, simply. I believe you desire our happiness. I do not reproach or blame you, Lady Beauchamp," Everett said, sadly.

"Come, come," she cried, touched by his look and manner to an immediate unfolding of her scheme, "let us look at things again. Perhaps we shall not find them so hopeless as they look. If I am prudent, Everett, I am not mercenary. I only want to see Rosa happy. I don't care whether it is on hundreds a year, or thousands. And the fact is, I have not condemned your plans without having a more satisfactory one to offer to your choice. Listen to me."

And she proceeded, with a cleared brow, and the complacency of one who feels she is performing the part of a good genius, setting everything to rights, and making everybody comfortable, to unfold the plan she had devised, by which Everett's future was to be secured, and his marriage with Rosa looked to as something better than a misty uncertainty at the end of a vista of years.

Everett must go into the Church. That was, in fact, the profession most suited to him, and which most naturally offered itself for his acceptance. His education, his tastes, his habits, all suited him for such a career. By a happy coincidence, too, it was one in which Lady Beauchamp could most importantly assist him through her connections. Her eldest son, the young baronet, had preferment in his own gift, which was to say, in hers; and not only this, but her sister's husband, the uncle of Rosa, was a bishop, and one over whom she, Lady Beauchamp, had some influence. Once in orders, Everett's prosperity was assured. The present incumbent of Hollingsley was aged; by the time Everett was eligible, he might, in all probability, be inducted into that living, and Rosa might then become his wife. Five hundred a year, beside Miss Beauchamp's dowry, with such shining prospects of preferment to look forward to, was not an unwise commencement; for Rosa was no mere fine lady, the proud mother said,—she was sensible and prudent; she would adapt herself to circumstances. And though, of course, it was not such an establishment as she well might expect for her daughter, still, since the young people loved one another, and thought they could be happy under these reduced circumstances, she would not be too exacting. And Lady Beauchamp at last paused, and looked in Everett's face for some manifestation of his joy.

Well,—of his gratitude there could be no question. The tears stood in his earnest eyes, as he took Lady Beauchamp's hand and thanked her,—thanked her again and again.

"There, there, you foolish boy! I don't want thanks," cried she, coloring with pleasure though, as she spoke. "My only wish is to see you two children happy. I am fond of you, Everett; I shall like to see you my son," she said. "I have tried to smooth the way for you, as far as I can, over the many difficulties that obstruct it; and I fancy I have succeeded. What do you say to my plan? When can you be ordained?"

Everett sighed, as he released her hand, and looked at her face, now flushed with generous, kindly warmth. Well he knew the bitter change that would come over that face,—the passion of disappointment and displeasure which would follow his answer to that question.

He could never enter the Church. Sorrowfully, but firmly, he said it,—with that calm, steady voice and look, of which all who knew him knew the significance. He could not take orders.

Lady Beauchamp, at first utterly overwhelmed and dumfounded, stood staring at him in blank silence. Then she icily uttered a few words. His reasons,—might she ask?

They were many, Everett said. Even if no other hindrance existed, in his own mind and opinions, his reverence for so sacred an office would not permit him to embrace it as a mere matter of worldly advantage to himself.

"Grant me patience, young man! Do you mean to tell me you would decline this career because it promises to put an end to your difficulties? Are you quite a fool?" the lady burst out, astonishment and anger quite startling her from all control.

"Bear with what may at first seem to you only folly," Everett answered her, gently. "I don't think your calmer judgment can call it so. Would you have me take upon myself obligations that I feel to be most solemn and most vital, feeling myself unfitted, nay, unable, rightly to fulfil them? Would you have me commit the treachery to God and man of swearing that I felt called to that special service, when my heart protested against my profession?"

"Romantic nonsense! A mere matter of modest scruples! You underrate yourself, Everett. You are the very man for a clergyman, trust me."

But Everett went on to explain, that it was no question of under-estimation of himself.

"You do not know, perhaps," he proceeded, while Lady Beauchamp, sorely tried, tapped her fingers on the table, and her foot upon the floor,—"you do not know, that, when I was a boy, and until two or three years ago, my desire and ambition were to be a minister of the Church of England."

"Well, Sir,—what has made you so much better, or so much worse, since then, as to alter your opinion of the calling?"

"The reasons which made me abandon the idea three years since, and which render it impossible for me to consider it now, have nothing to do with my mental and moral worthiness or unworthiness. The fact is simply, I cannot become a minister of a Church with many of whose doctrines I cannot agree, and to which, indeed, I can no longer say I belong. In your sense of the word, I am far from being a Churchman."

"Do you mean to say you have become a Dissenter?" cried Lady Beauchamp; and, as if arrived at the climax of endurance, she stood transfixed, regarding the young man with a species of sublime horror.

"Again, not in your sense of the term," Everett said, smiling; "for I have joined no sect, attached myself to no recognized body of believers."

"You belong to nothing, then? You believe in nothing, I suppose?" she said, with the instinctive logic of her class. "Oh, Everett!" real distress for the moment overpowering her indignation, "it is those visionary notions of yours that have brought you to this. It was to be expected. You poets and dreamers go on refining your ideas, forsooth, till even the religion of the ordinary world isn't good enough for you."

Everett waited patiently till this first gust had passed by. Then, with that steady, calm lucidity which, strange to say, was characteristic of this Visionary's mind and intellect, he explained, so far as he could, his views and his reasons. It could not be expected that his listener should comprehend or enter into what he said. At first, indeed, she appeared to derive some small consolation from the fact that at least Everett had not "turned Dissenter." She hated Methodists, she declared,—intending thus to include with sweeping liberality all denominations in the ban of her disapproval. She would have deemed it an unpardonable crime, had the young man deserted the Church of his fathers in order to join the Congregation, some ranting conventicle. But if her respectability was shocked at the idea of his becoming a Methodist, her better feelings were outraged when she found, as she said, that he "belonged to nothing." She viewed with dislike and distrust all forms of religion that differed from her own; but she could not believe in the possibility of a religion that had no external form at all. She was dismayed and perplexed, poor lady! and even paused midway in her wrathful remonstrance to the misguided young man, to lament anew over his fatal errors. She could not understand, she said, truly enough, what in the world he meant. His notions were perfectly extraordinary and incomprehensible. She was deeply, deeply shocked, and grieved for him, and for every one connected with him.

In fact, the very earnestness and sincerity in their own opinions of a certain calibre of minds make them incapable of understanding such a state of things. That a man should believe differently from all they have been taught to believe appears to them as simply preposterous as that he should breathe differently. And so it is that only the highest order of belief can afford to be tolerant; and, as extremes meet, it requires a very perfect Faith to be able to sympathize and bear patiently with Doubt.

There was no chance of Lady Beauchamp's "comprehending" Everett in this matter. There was something almost pathetic in her mingled anger, perplexity, and disappointment. She could only look on him as a headstrong young man, suicidally bent on his own ruin,—turning obstinately from every offered aid, and putting the last climax of wretchedness to his isolated and fallen position by "turning from the faith of his fathers," as she rather imaginatively described his secession from Orthodoxy.

And, as may be concluded, the mother of Rosa was inexorable, as regarded the engagement between the young people. It must at once be cancelled. She could not for one moment suffer the idea of her daughter's remaining betrothed to the mere adventurer she considered Everett Gray had now become. If, poor as he was, he had thought fit to embrace a profession worthy of a gentleman, the case would have been different. But if his romantic notions led him to pursue such an out-of-the-way course as he had laid out for himself, he must excuse her, if she forbade her child from sharing it. Under present circumstances, his alliance could but be declined by the Beauchamp family, she said, with her stateliest air. And the next minute, as Everett held her hand, and said good-bye, she melted again from that frigid dignity, and, looking into the frank, manly, yet gentle face of the young man, cried,—

"Are you quite decided, Everett? Will you take time to consider? Will you talk to Rosa about it, first?"

"No, dear Lady Beauchamp. I know already what she would say. I have quite decided. Thank you for all your purposed kindness. Believe that I am not ungrateful, even if I seem so."

"Oh, Everett,—Everett Gray! I am very sorry for you, and for your mother, and for all connected with you. It is a most unhappy business. It gives me great pain thus to part with you," said Lady Beauchamp, with real feeling.

And so the interview ended, and so ended the engagement.

Nothing else could have been expected, every one said who heard the state of the case, and knew what Lady Beauchamp had wished and Everett had declined. There were no words to describe how foolishly and weakly he had acted. "Everybody" quite gave him up now. With his romantic, transcendental notions, what would become of him, when he had his own way to make in the world?

But Everett had consolation and help through it all; for Rosa, the woman he loved, his mother, and his sister believed in him, and gloried in what other people called his want of common sense. Ay, though the horrible wrench of parting was suffered by Rosa every minute of every day, and the shadow of that dreadful, unnatural separation began to blacken her life even before it actually fell upon her,—through it all, she never wavered. When he first told her that he must go, that it was the one thing he held it wise and right to do, she shrunk back affrighted, trembling at the coming blankness of a life without him. But after a while, seeing the misery that came into his face reflected from hers, she rose bravely above the terrible woe, and then, with her arms round him and her eyes looking steadfastly into his, she said, "I love you better than the life you are to me. So I can bear that you should go."

And he said, "There can be no real severance between those who love as we do. God, in His mercy and tenderness, will help us to feel that truth, every hour and every day."

For they believed thus,—these two young Visionaries,—and lived upon that belief, perhaps, when the time of parting came. And it may be that the thought of each was very constantly, very intimately present to the other, during the many years that followed. It may be that this species of mental atmosphere, so surrounding and commingling with all other things more visibly and palpably about them, did cause these dreamers to be happier in their love than many externally united ones, whose lot appears to us most fair and smooth and blissful. Time and distance, leagues of ocean and years of suspense, are not the most terrible things that can come between two people who love one another.

* * * * *

And so Everett Gray, his mother, and his sister, went to Canada. A year after, Agnes was married to Charles Barclay, then a thriving merchant in Montreal. When the people at home heard of this, they very wisely acknowledged "how much good there had been in that young man, in spite of his rashness and folly in early days. No fear about such a man's getting on in life, when once he gave his mind to it," and so forth.

Meanwhile, our Visionary——But what need is there to trace him, step by step, in the new life he doubtless found fully as arduous as he had anticipated? That it was a very struggling, difficult, and uncongenial life to him can be well understood. These reminiscences of Everett Gray relate to a long past time. We can look on his life now as almost complete and finished, and regard his past as those in the valley look up to the hill that has nothing between it and heaven.

Many years he remained in Canada, working hard. Tidings occasionally reached England of his progress. Rosa, perhaps, heard such at rare intervals,—though somewhat distorted, it may be, from their original tenor, before they reached her. But it appeared certain that he was "getting on." In defiance and utter contradiction of all the sapient predictions there anent, it seemed that this dreamy, poetizing Everett Gray was absolutely successful in his new vocation of man-of-business.

The news that he had become a partner in the firm he had entered as a clerk was communicated in a letter from himself to Lady Beauchamp. In it he, for the first time since his departure, spoke of Rosa; but he spoke of her as if they had parted but yesterday; and, in asking her mother's sanction to their betrothal now, urged, as from them both, their claim to have that boon granted at last.

Lady Beauchamp hastily questioned her daughter.

"You must have been corresponding with the young man all this time?" she said.

But Rosa's denial was not to be mistaken.

"He has heard of you, then, through some one," the practical lady went on; "or, for anything he knows, you may be married, or going to be married, instead of waiting for him, as he seems to take it for granted you have been all this time."

"He was right, mother," Rosa only said.

"Right, you foolish girl? You haven't half the spirit I had at your age. I would have scorned that it should have been said of me that I 'waited' for any man."

"But if you loved him?"

"Well, if he loved you, he should have taken more care than to leave you on such a Quixotic search for independence as his."

"He thought it right to go, and he trusted me; we had faith in one another," Rosa said; and she wound her arms round her mother, and looked into her face with eyes lustrous with happy tears. For, from that lady's tone and manner, despite her harsh words, she knew that the opposition was withdrawn, and that Everett's petition was granted.

They were married. It is years ago, now, since their wedding-bells rung out from the church-tower of Hazlewood, blending with the sweet spring-air and sunshine of a joyous May-day. The first few years of their married life were spent in Canada. Then they returned to England, and Everett Gray put the climax to the astonishment of all who knew him by purchasing back a great part of Hazlewood with the fruits of his commercial labors in the other country.

At Hazlewood they settled, therefore. And there, when he grew to be an old man, Everett Gray lived, at last, the peaceful, happy life most natural and most dear to him. No one would venture to call the successful merchant a Visionary; and even his brother owns that "the old fellow has got more brains, after all, by Jove! than he ever gave him credit for." Yet, as the same critic, and others of his calibre, often say of him, "He has some remarkably queer notions. There's no making him out,—he is so different from other people."

Which he is. There is no denying this fact, which is equally evident in his daily life, his education of his children, his conduct to his servants and dependants, his employment of time, his favorite aims in life, and in everything he does or says, in brief. And of course there are plenty who cavil at his peculiar views, and who cannot at all understand his unconventional ways, and his apparent want of all worldly wisdom in the general conduct of his affairs. And yet, somehow, these affairs prosper. Although he declined a valuable appointment for his son, and preferred that he should make his own way in the profession he had chosen, bound by no obligation, and unfettered by the trammels of any party,—although he did this, to the astonishment of all who did not know him, yet is it not a fact that the young barrister's career has been, and is, as brilliant and successful as though he had had a dozen influential personages to advance him? And though he permitted his daughter to marry, not the rich squire's son, nor the baronet, who each sought her hand, but a man comparatively poor and unknown, who loved her, and whom she loved, did it not turn out to be one of those marriages that we can recognize to have been "made in heaven," and even the worldly-wise see to be happy and prosperous?

But our Everett is growing old. His hair is silver-white, and his tall figure has learned to droop somewhat as he walks. Under the great beech-trees at Hazlewood you may have seen him sitting summer evenings, or sauntering in spring and autumn days, sometimes with his grandchildren playing about him, but always with one figure near him, bent and bowed yet more than his own, with a still sweet and lovely face looking placidly forth from between its bands of soft, white hair.

How they have loved, and do love one another, even to this their old age! All the best and truest light of that which we call Romance shines steadily about them yet. No sight so dear to Everett's eyes as that quiet figure,—no sound so welcome to his ears as her voice. She is all to him that she ever was,—the sweetest, dearest, best portion of that which we call his life.

Yes, I speak advisedly, and say he is, they are. It is strange that this Visionary, who was wont to be reproached with the unpracticality of all he did or purposed, the unreality of whose life was a byword, should yet impress himself and his existence so vividly on those about him that even now we cannot speak of him as one that is no more. He seems still to be of us, though we do not see him, and his place is empty in the world.

His wife went first. She died in her sleep, while he was watching her, holding her hand fast in his. He laid the last kisses on her eyes, her mouth, and those cold hands.

After that, he seemed to wait. They who saw him sitting alone under the beech-trees, day by day, found something very strangely moving in the patient serenity of his look. He never seemed sad or lonely through all that time,—only patiently hopeful, placidly expectant. So the autumn twilights often came to him as he stood, his face towards the west, looking out from their old favorite spot.

One evening, when his daughter and her husband came out to him, he did not linger, as was usual with him, but turned and went forward to meet them, with a bright smile, brighter than the sunset glow behind him, on his face. He leaned rather heavily on their supporting arms, as they went in. At the door, the little ones came running about him, as they loved to do. Perhaps the very lustre of his face awed them, or the sight of their mother's tears; for a sort of hush came over them, even to the youngest, as he kissed and blessed them all.

And then, when they had left the room, he laid his head upon his daughter's breast, and uttered a few low words. He had been so happy, he said, and he thanked God for all,—even to this, the end. It had been so good to live!—it was so happy to die! Then he paused awhile, and closed his eyes.

"In the silence, I can hear your mother's voice," he murmured, and he clasped his hands. "O thou most merciful Father, who givest this last, great blessing, of the new Home, where she waits for me!—and God's love is over all His worlds!"

He looked up once again, with the same bright, assured smile. That smile never faded from the dead face; it was the last look which they who loved him bore forever in their memory.

And so passed our Visionary from that which we call Life.



THE TRUCE OF PISCATAQUA.

1675.

Raze these long blocks of brick and stone, These huge mill-monsters overgrown; Blot out the humbler piles as well, Where, moved like living shuttles, dwell The weaving genii of the bell; Tear from the wild Cocheco's track The dams that hold its torrents back; And let the loud-rejoicing fall Plunge, roaring, down its rocky wall; And let the Indian's paddle play On the unbridged Piscataqua! Wide over hill and valley spread Once more the forest, dusk and dread, With here and there a clearing cut From the walled shadows round it shut; Each with its farm-house builded rude, By English yeoman squared and hewed, And the grim, flankered blockhouse, bound With bristling palisades around.

So, haply, shall before thine eyes The dusty veil of centuries rise, The old, strange scenery overlay The tamer pictures of to-day, While, like the actors in a play, Pass in their ancient guise along The figures of my border song: What time beside Cocheco's flood The white man and the red man stood, With words of peace and brotherhood; When passed the sacred calumet From lip to lip with fire-draught wet, And, puffed in scorn, the peace-pipe's smoke Through the gray beard of Waldron broke, And Squando's voice, in suppliant plea For mercy, struck the haughty key Of one who held in any fate His native pride inviolate!

* * * * *

"Let your ears be opened wide! He who speaks has never lied. Waldron of Piscataqua, Hear what Squando has to say!

"Squando shuts his eyes and sees, Far off, Saco's hemlock-trees. In his wigwam, still as stone, Sits a woman all alone,

"Wampum beads and birchen strands Dropping from her careless hands, Listening ever for the fleet Patter of a dead child's feet!

"When the moon a year ago Told the flowers the time to blow, In that lonely wigwam smiled Menewee, our little child.

"Ere that moon grew thin and old, He was lying still and cold; Sent before us, weak and small, When the Master did not call!

"On his little grave I lay; Three times went and came the day; Thrice above me blazed the noon, Thrice upon me wept the moon.

"In the third night-watch I heard, Far and low, a spirit-bird; Very mournful, very wild, Sang the totem of my child.

"'Menewee, poor Menewee, Walks a path he cannot see: Let the white man's wigwam light With its blaze his steps aright.

"'All-uncalled, he dares not show Empty hands to Manito: Better gifts he cannot bear Than the scalps his slayers wear.'

"All the while the totem sang, Lightning blazed and thunder rang; And a black cloud, reaching high, Pulled the white moon from the sky.

"I, the medicine-man, whose ear All that spirits hear can hear,— I, whose eyes are wide to see All the things that are to be,—

"Well I knew the dreadful signs In the whispers of the pines, In the river roaring loud, In the mutter of the cloud.

"At the breaking of the day, From the grave I passed away; Flowers bloomed round me, birds sang glad, But my heart was hot and mad.

"There is rust on Squando's knife From the warm red springs of life; On the funeral hemlock-trees Many a scalp the totem sees.

"Blood for blood! But evermore Squando's heart is sad and sore; And his poor squaw waits at home For the feet that never come!

"Waldron of Cocheco, hear! Squando speaks, who laughs at fear: Take the captives he has ta'en; Let the land have peace again!"

As the words died on his tongue, Wide apart his warriors swung; Parted, at the sign he gave, Right and left, like Egypt's wave.

And, like Israel passing free Through the prophet-charmed sea, Captive mother, wife, and child Through the dusky terror filed.

One alone, a little maid, Middleway her steps delayed, Glancing, with quick, troubled sight, Round about from red to white.

Then his hand the Indian laid On the little maiden's head, Lightly from her forehead fair Smoothing back her yellow hair.

"Gift or favor ask I none; What I have is all my own: Never yet the birds have sung, 'Squando hath a beggar's tongue.'

"Yet, for her who waits at home For the dead who cannot come, Let the little Gold-hair be In the place of Menewee!

"Mishanock, my little star! Come to Saco's pines afar! Where the sad one waits at home, Wequashim, my moonlight, come!"

"What!" quoth Waldron, "leave a child Christian-born to heathens wild? As God lives, from Satan's hand I will pluck her as a brand!"

"Hear me, white man!" Squando cried, "Let the little one decide. Wequashim, my moonlight, say, Wilt thou go with me, or stay?"

Slowly, sadly, half-afraid, Half-regretfully, the maid Owned the ties of blood and race, Turned from Squando's pleading face.

Not a word the Indian spoke, But his wampum chain he broke, And the beaded wonder hung On that neck so fair and young.

Silence-shod, as phantoms seem In the marches of a dream, Single-filed, the grim array Through the pine-trees wound away.

Doubting, trembling, sore amazed, Through her tears the young child gazed. "God preserve her!" Waldron said; "Satan hath bewitched the maid!"

* * * * *

Years went and came. At close of day Singing came a child from play, Tossing from her loose-locked head Gold in sunshine, brown in shade.

Pride was in the mother's look, But her head she gravely shook, And with lips that fondly smiled Feigned to chide her truant child.

Unabashed the maid began: "Up and down the brook I ran, Where, beneath the bank so steep, Lie the spotted trout asleep.

"'Chip!' went squirrel on the wall, After me I heard him call, And the cat-bird on the tree Tried his best to mimic me.

"Where the hemlocks grew so dark, That I stopped to look and hark, On a log, with feather-hat, By the path, an Indian sat.

"Then I cried, and ran away; But he called and bade me stay; And his voice was good and mild As my mother's to her child.

"And he took my wampum chain, Looked and looked it o'er again; Gave me berries, and, beside, On my neck a plaything tied."

Straight the mother stooped to see What the Indian's gift might be. On the braid of wampum hung, Lo! a cross of silver swung.

Well she knew its graven sign, Squando's bird and totem pine; And, a mirage of the brain, Flowed her childhood back again.

Flashed the roof the sunshine through, Into space the walls outgrew, On the Indian's wigwam mat Blossom-crowned again she sat.

Cool she felt the west wind blow, In her ear the pines sang low, And, like links from out a chain, Dropped the years of care and pain.

From the outward toil and din, From the griefs that gnaw within, To the freedom of the woods Called the birds and winds and floods.

Well, O painful minister, Watch thy flock, but blame not her, If her ear grew sharp to hear All their voices whispering near.

Blame her not, as to her soul All the desert's glamour stole, That a tear for childhood's loss Dropped upon the Indian's cross.

When, that night, the Book was read, And she bowed her widowed head, And a prayer for each loved name Rose like incense from a flame,

To the listening ear of Heaven, Lo! another name was given: "Father! give the Indian rest! Bless him! for his love has blest!"



THE MAROONS OF JAMAICA.

The Maroons! it was a word of peril once; and terror spread along the skirts of the blue mountains of Jamaica, when some fresh foray of those unconquered guerrillas swept down upon the outlying plantations, startled the Assembly from its order, General Williamson from his billiards, and Lord Balcarres from his diplomatic ease,—endangering, according to the official statement, "public credit," "civil rights," and "the prosperity, if not the very existence of the country," until they were "persuaded to make peace" at last. They were the Circassians of the New World; but they were black, instead of white; and as the Circassians refused to be transferred from the Sultan to the Czar, so the Maroons refused to be transferred from Spanish dominion to English, and thus their revolt began. The difference is, that, while the white mountaineers numbered four hundred thousand, and only defied Nicholas, the black mountaineers numbered less than two thousand, and defied Cromwell; and while the Circassians, after thirty years of revolt, seem now at last subdued, the Maroons, on the other hand, who rebelled in 1655, were never conquered, but only made a compromise of allegiance, and exist as a separate race to-day.

When Admirals Penn and Venables landed in Jamaica, in 1655, there was not a remnant left of the sixty thousand natives whom the Spaniards had found there a century and a half before. Their pitiful tale is told only by those caves, still known among the mountains, where thousands of human skeletons strew the ground. In their place dwelt two foreign races,—an effeminate, ignorant, indolent white community of fifteen hundred, with a black slave population quite as large and infinitely more hardy and energetic. The Spaniards were readily subdued by the English,—the negroes remained unsubdued; the slaveholders were banished from the island,—the slaves only banished themselves to the mountains: thence the English could not dislodge them, nor the buccaneers, whom the English employed. And when Jamaica subsided into a British colony, and peace was made with Spain, and the children of Cromwell's Puritan soldiers were beginning to grow rich by importing slaves for Roman Catholic Spaniards, the Maroons still held their own wild empire in the mountains, and, being sturdy heathens every one, practised Obeah rites in approved pagan fashion.

The word Maroon is derived, according to one etymology, from the Spanish word Marrano, a wild-boar,—these fugitives being all boar-hunters,—according to another, from Marony, a river separating French and Dutch Guiana, where a colony of them dwelt and still dwells; and by another still, from Cimarron, a word meaning untamable, and used alike for apes and runaway slaves. But whether these rebel-marauders were regarded as monkeys or men, they made themselves equally formidable. As early as 1663, the Governor and Council of Jamaica offered to each Maroon, who should surrender, his freedom and twenty acres of land; but not one accepted the terms. During forty years, forty-four acts of Assembly were passed in respect to them, and at least a quarter of a million pounds sterling were expended in the warfare against them. In 1733, the force employed against them consisted of two regiments of regular troops and the whole militia of the island, and the Assembly said that "the Maroons had within a few years greatly increased, notwithstanding all the measures that had been concerted for their suppression," "to the great terror of his Majesty's subjects," and "to the manifest weakening and preventing the further increase of the strength and inhabitants of the island."

The special affair in progress, at the time of these statements, was called Cudjoe's War. Cudjoe was a gentleman of extreme brevity and blackness, whose full-length portrait can hardly be said to adorn Dallas's History; but he was as formidable a guerrilla as Marion. Under his leadership, the various bodies of fugitives were consolidated into one force and thoroughly organized. Cudjoe, like Schamyl, was religious as well as military head of his people; by Obeah influence he established a thorough freemasonry among both slaves and insurgents; no party could be sent forth by the government but he knew it in time to lay an ambush, or descend with fire and sword on the region left unprotected. He was thus always supplied with arms and ammunition; and as his men were perfect marksmen, never wasted a shot and never risked a battle, his forces naturally increased while those of his opponents were decimated. His men were never captured, and never took a prisoner; it was impossible to tell when they were defeated; in dealing with them, as Pelissier said of the Arabs, "peace was not purchased by victory"; and the only men who could obtain the slightest advantage against them were the imported Mosquito Indians, or the "Black Shot," a company of government negroes. For nine full years this particular war continued unchecked, General Williamson ruling Jamaica by day and Cudjoe by night.

The rebels had every topographical advantage, for they held possession of the "Cockpits." Those highlands are furrowed through and through, as by an earthquake, with a series of gaps or ravines, resembling the California canons, or those similar fissures in various parts of the Atlantic States, known to local fame either poetically as ice-glens, or symbolically as purgatories. These chasms vary from two hundred yards to a mile in length; the rocky walls are fifty or a hundred feet high, and often absolutely inaccessible, while the passes at each end admit but one man at a time. They are thickly wooded, wherever trees can grow; water flows within them; and they often communicate with one another, forming a series of traps for an invading force. Tired and thirsty with climbing, the weary soldiers toil on, in single file, without seeing or hearing an enemy; up the steep and winding path they traverse one "cockpit," then enter another. Suddenly a shot is fired from the dense and sloping forest on the right, then another and another, each dropping its man; the startled troops face hastily in that direction, when a more murderous volley is poured from the other side; the heights above flash with musketry, while the precipitous path by which they came seems to close in fire behind them. By the time the troops have formed in some attempt at military order, the woods around them are empty, and their agile and noiseless foes have settled themselves into ambush again, farther up the defile, ready for a second attack, if needed. But one is usually sufficient;—disordered, exhausted, bearing their wounded with them, the soldiers retreat in panic, if permitted to escape at all, and carry fresh dismay to the barracks, the plantations, and the Government House.

It is not strange, then, that high military authorities, at that period, should have pronounced the subjugation of the Maroons a thing more difficult than to obtain a victory over any army in Europe. Moreover, these people were fighting for their liberty, with which aim no form of warfare could be unjustifiable; and the description given by Lafayette of the American Revolution was true of this one,—"the grandest of causes, won by contests of sentinels and outposts." The utmost hope of a British officer, ordered against the Maroons, was to lay waste a provision-ground or cut them off from water. But there was little satisfaction in this; the wild pine-leaves and the grapevine-withes supplied the rebels with water, and their plantation-grounds were the wild pine-apple and the plantain groves, and the forests, where the wild-boars harbored and the ringdoves were as easily shot as if they were militia-men. Nothing but sheer weariness of fighting seems to have brought about a truce at last, and then a treaty, between those high contracting parties, Cudjoe and General Williamson.

But how to execute a treaty between these wild Children of the Mist and respectable diplomatic Englishmen? To establish any official relations without the medium of a preliminary bullet required some ingenuity of manoeuvring. Cudjoe was willing, but inconveniently cautious; he would not come half-way to meet any one; nothing would content him but an interview in his own chosen cockpit. So he selected one of the most difficult passes, posting in the forests a series of outlying parties, to signal with their horns, one by one, the approach of the plenipotentiaries, and then to retire on the main body. Through this line of perilous signals, therefore, Colonel Guthrie and his handful of men bravely advanced; horn after horn they heard sounded, but there was no other human noise in the woods, and they had advanced till they saw the smoke of the Maroon huts before they caught a glimpse of a human form.

A conversation was at last opened with the invisible rebels. On their promise of safety, Dr. Russell advanced alone to treat with them, then several Maroons appeared, and finally Cudjoe himself. The formidable chief was not highly military in appearance, being short, fat, humpbacked, dressed in a tattered blue coat without skirts or sleeves, and an old felt hat without a rim. But if he had blazed with regimental scarlet, he could not have been treated with more distinguished consideration; indeed, in that case, "the exchange of hats" with which Dr. Russell finally volunteered, in Maroon fashion, to ratify negotiations, would have been a less severe test of good fellowship. This fine stroke of diplomacy had its effect, therefore; the rebel captains agreed to a formal interview with Colonel Guthrie and Captain Sadler, and a treaty was at last executed with all due solemnity, under a large cotton-tree at the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. This treaty recognized the military rank of Captain Cudjoe, Captain Accompong, and the rest; gave assurance that the Maroons should be "forever hereafter in a perfect state of freedom and liberty"; ceded to them fifteen hundred acres of land; and stipulated only that they should keep the peace, should harbor no fugitive from justice or from slavery, and should allow two white commissioners to remain among them, simply to represent the British government.

During the following year a separate treaty was made with another large body of insurgents, called the Windward Maroons. This was not effected, however, until after an unsuccessful military attempt, in which the mountaineers gained a signal triumph. By artful devices,—a few fires left burning, with old women to watch them,—a few provision-grounds exposed by clearing away the bushes,—they lured the troops far up among the mountains, and then surprised them by an ambush. The militia all fled, and the regulars took refuge under a large cliff in a stream, where they remained four hours up to their waists in water, until finally they forded the river, under full fire, with terrible loss. Three months after this, however, the Maroons consented to an amicable interview, exchanging hostages first. The position of the white hostage, at least, was not the most agreeable; he complained that he was beset by the women and children, with indignant cries of "Buckra, Buckra," while the little boys pointed their fingers at him as if stabbing him, and that with evident relish. However, Captain Quao, like Captain Cudjoe, made a treaty at last, and hats were interchanged instead of hostages.

Independence being thus won and acknowledged, there was a suspension of hostilities for some years. Among the wild mountains of Jamaica, the Maroons dwelt in a savage freedom. So healthful and beautiful was the situation of their chief town, that the English government has erected barracks there of late years, as being the most salubrious situation on the island. They breathed an air ten degrees cooler than that inhaled by the white population below, and they lived on a daintier diet, so that the English epicures used to go up among them for good living. The mountaineers caught the strange land-crabs, plodding in companies of millions their sidelong path from mountain to ocean, and from ocean to mountain again. They hunted the wild-boars, and prepared the flesh by salting and smoking it in layers of aromatic leaves, the delicious "jerked hog" of Buccaneer annals. They reared cattle and poultry, cultivated corn and yams, plantains and cocoas, guavas and papaws and mameys and avocados and all luxurious West Indian fruits; the very weeds of their orchards had tropical luxuriance in their fragrance and in their names; and from the doors of their little thatched huts they looked across these gardens of delight to the magnificent lowland forests, and over those again to the faint line of far-off beach, the fainter ocean-horizon, and the illimitable sky.

They had senses like those of our Indians, tracked each other by the smell of the smoke of fires in the air, and called to each other by horns, using a special note to designate each of their comrades, and distinguishing it beyond the range of ordinary hearing. They spoke English diluted with Spanish and African words, and practised Obeah rites quite undiluted with Christianity. Of course they associated largely with the slaves, without any very precise regard to treaty stipulations; sometimes brought in fugitives, and sometimes concealed them; left their towns and settled on the planters' lands, when they preferred them, but were quite orderly and luxuriously happy. During the formidable insurrection of the Koromantyn slaves, in 1760, they played a dubious part: when left to go on their own way, they did something towards suppressing it,—but when placed under the guns of the troops and ordered to fire on those of their own color, they threw themselves on the ground without discharging a shot. Nevertheless, they gradually came up into rather reputable standing; they grew more and more industrious and steady; and after they had joined very heartily in resisting D'Estaing's threatened invasion of the island in 1779, it became the fashion to speak of "our faithful and affectionate Maroons."

In 1795, their position was as follows:—Their numbers had not materially increased, for many had strayed off and settled on the outskirts of plantations,—nor materially diminished, for many runaway slaves had joined them,—while there were also separate settlements of fugitives, who had maintained their freedom for twenty years. The white superintendents had lived with the Maroons in perfect harmony, without the slightest official authority, but with a great deal of actual influence. But there was an "irrepressible conflict" behind all this apparent peace, and the slightest occasion might at any moment revive all the Old terror. That occasion was close at hand.

Captain Cudjoe and Captain Accompong and the other founders of Maroon independence had passed away, and "Old Montagu" reigned in their stead, in Trelawney Town. Old Montagu had all the pomp and circumstance of Maroon majesty; he wore a laced red coat, and a hat superb with gold-lace and plumes; none but captains could sit in his presence; he was helped first at meals, and no woman could eat beside him; he presided at councils as magnificently as at table, though with less appetite;—and possessed, meanwhile, not an atom of the love or reverence of any human being. The real power lay entirely with Major James, the white superintendent, who had been brought up among the Maroons by his father (and predecessor), and who was the idol of this wild race. In an evil hour, the government removed him, and put a certain unpopular Captain Craskell in his place; and as there happened to be, about the same time, a great excitement concerning a hopeful pair of young Maroons who had been seized and publicly whipped, on a charge of hog-stealing, their kindred refused to allow the new superintendent to remain in the town. A few attempts at negotiation only brought them to a higher pitch of wrath, which ended in their despatching the following remarkable diplomatic note to the Earl of Balcarres:—"The Maroons wishes nothing else from the country but battle, and they desires not to see Mr. Craskell up here at all. So they are waiting every moment for the above on Monday. Mr. David Schaw will see you on Sunday morning for an answer. They will wait till Monday, nine o'clock, and if they don't come up, they will come down themselves." Signed, "Colonel Montagu and all the rest."

It turned out, at last, that only two or three of the Maroons were concerned in this remarkable defiance; but meanwhile it had its effect. Several ambassadors were sent among the insurgents, and were so favorably impressed by their reception as to make up a subscription of money for their hosts, on departing; only the "gallant Colonel Gallimore," a Jamaica Camillus, gave iron instead of gold, by throwing some bullets into the contribution-box. And it was probably in accordance with his view of the subject, that, when the Maroons sent ambassadors in return, they were at once imprisoned, most injudiciously and unjustly; and when Old Montagu himself and thirty-seven others, following, were seized and imprisoned also, it is not strange that the Maroons, joined by many slaves, were soon in open insurrection.

Martial law was instantly proclaimed throughout the island. The fighting-men among the insurgents were not, perhaps, more than five hundred; against whom the government could bring nearly fifteen hundred regular troops and several thousand militia-men. Lord Balcarres himself took the command, and, eager to crush the affair, promptly marched a large force up to Trelawney Town, and was glad to march back again as expeditiously as possible. In his very first attack, he was miserably defeated, and had to fly for his life, amid a perfect panic of the troops, in which some forty or fifty were killed,—including Colonel Sandford, commanding the regulars, and the bullet-loving Colonel Gallimore, in command of the militia,—while not a single Maroon was even wounded, so far as could be ascertained.

After this a good deal of bush-fighting took place. The troops gradually got possession of several Maroon villages, but not till every hut had been burnt by its owner. It was in the height of the rainy season, and, between fire and water, the discomfort of the soldiers was enormous. Meanwhile the Maroons hovered close around them in the woods, heard all their orders, picked off their sentinels, and, penetrating through their lines at night, burned houses and destroyed plantations, far below. The only man who could cope with their peculiar tactics was Major James, the superintendent just removed by government,—and his services were not employed, as he was not trusted. On one occasion, however, he led a volunteer party farther into the mountains than any of the assailants had yet penetrated, guided by tracks known to himself only, and by the smell of the smoke of Maroon fires. After a very exhausting march, including a climb of a hundred and fifty feet up the face of a precipice, he brought them just within the entrance of Guthrie's Defile. "So far," said he, pointing to the entrance, "you may pursue, but no farther; no force can enter here; no white man except myself, or some soldier of the Maroon establishment, has ever gone beyond this. With the greatest difficulty I have penetrated four miles farther, and not ten Maroons have gone so far as that. There are two other ways of getting into the defile, practicable for the Maroons, but not for any one of you. In neither of them can I ascend or descend with my arms, which must be handed to me, step by step, as practised by the Maroons themselves. One of the ways lies to the eastward, and the other to the westward; and they will take care to have both guarded, if they suspect that I am with you; which, from the route you have come to-day, they will. They now see you, and if you advance fifty paces more, they will convince you of it." At this moment a Maroon horn sounded the notes indicating his name, and, as he made no answer, a voice was heard, inquiring if he were among them. "If he is," said the voice, "let him go back, we do not wish to hurt him; but as for the rest of you, come on and try battle, if you choose." But the gentlemen did not choose.

In September the House of Assembly met. Things were looking worse and worse. For five months a handful of negroes and mulattoes had defied the whole force of the island; and they were defending their liberty by precisely the same tactics through which their ancestors had won it. Half a million pounds sterling had been spent within this time, besides the enormous loss incurred by the withdrawal of so many able-bodied men from their regular employments. "Cultivation was suspended," says an eye-witness; "the courts of law had long been shut up; and the island at large seemed more like a garrison under the power of law-martial, than a country of agriculture and commerce, of civil judicature, industry, and prosperity." Hundreds of the militia had died of fatigue, large numbers had been shot down, the most daring of the British officers had fallen, while the insurgents had been invariably successful, and not one of them was known to have been killed. Captain Craskell, the banished superintendent, gave it to the Assembly as his opinion, that the whole slave population of the island was in sympathy with the Maroons, and would soon be beyond control. More alarming still, there were rumors of French emissaries behind the scenes; and though these were explained away, the vague terror remained. Indeed, the Lieutenant-Governor announced in his message that he had satisfactory evidence that the French Convention was concerned in the revolt. A French prisoner named Murenson had testified that the French agent at Philadelphia (Fauchet) had secretly sent a hundred and fifty emissaries to the island, and threatened to land fifteen hundred negroes. And though Murenson took it all back at last, yet the Assembly was moved to make a new offer of three hundred dollars for killing or taking a Trelawney Maroon, and a hundred and fifty dollars for killing or taking any fugitive slave who had joined them. They also voted five hundred pounds as a gratuity to the Accompong tribe of Maroons, who had thus far kept out of the insurrection; and various prizes and gratuities were also offered by the different parishes, with the same object of self-protection.

The commander-in-chief being among the killed, Colonel Walpole was promoted in his stead, and brevetted as General, by way of incentive. He found a people in despair, a soldiery thoroughly intimidated, and a treasury, not empty, but useless. But the new general had not served against the Maroons for nothing, and was not ashamed to go to school to his opponents. First, he waited for the dry season; then he directed all his efforts towards cutting off his opponents from water; and, most effectual move of all, he attacked each successive cockpit by dragging up a howitzer, with immense labor, and throwing in shells. Shells were a visitation not dreamed of in Maroon philosophy, and their quaint compliments to their new opponent remain on record. "Damn dat little buckra!" they said; "he cunning more dan dem toder. Dis here da new fashion for fight: him fire big ball arter you, and when big ball 'top, de damn sunting (something) fire arter you again." With which Parthian arrows of rhetoric the mountaineers retreated.

But this did not last long. The Maroons soon learned to keep out of the way of the shells, and the island relapsed into terror again. It was deliberately resolved at last, by a special council convoked for the purpose, "to persuade the rebels to make peace." But as they had not as yet shown themselves very accessible to softer influences, it was thought best to combine as many arguments as possible, and a certain Colonel Quarrell had hit upon a wholly new one. His plan simply was, since men, however well disciplined, had proved powerless against Maroons, to try a Spanish fashion against them, and use dogs. The proposition was met, in some quarters, with the strongest hostility. England, it was said, had always denounced the Spaniards as brutal and dastardly for hunting down the natives of that very soil with hounds,—and should England now follow the humiliating example? On the other side, there were plenty who eagerly quoted all known instances of zooelogical warfare: all Oriental nations, for instance, used elephants in war, and no doubt would gladly use lions and tigers, also, but for their extreme carnivorousness, and their painful indifference to the distinction between friend and foe;—why not, then, use these dogs, comparatively innocent and gentle creatures? At any rate, "something must be done"; the final argument always used, when a bad or desperate project is to be made palatable. So it was voted at last to send to Havana for an invoice of Spanish dogs, with their accompanying chasseurs, and the efforts at persuading the Maroons were postponed till the arrival of these additional persuasives. And when Colonel Quarrell finally set sail as commissioner to obtain the new allies, all scruples of conscience vanished in the renewal of public courage and the chorus of popular gratitude; a thing so desirable must be right; thrice were they armed who knew their Quarrell just.

But after the parting notes of gratitude died away in the distance, the commissioner began to discover that he was to have a hard time of it. He sailed for Havana in a schooner manned with Spanish renegadoes, who insisted on fighting everything that came in their way,—first a Spanish schooner, then a French one. He landed at Batabano, struck across the mountains towards Havana, stopped at Besucal to call on the wealthy Marquesa de San Felipe y San Jorge, grand patroness of dogs and chasseurs, and finally was welcomed to Havana by Don Luis de las Casas, who overlooked, for this occasion only, an injunction of his court against admitting foreigners within his government,—"the only accustomed exception being," as Don Luis courteously assured him, "in favor of foreign traders who came with new negroes." To be sure, the commissioner had not brought any of these commodities, but then he had come to obtain the means of capturing some, and so might pass for an irregular practitioner of the privileged profession.

Accordingly, Don Guillermo Dawes Quarrell (so ran his passport) found no difficulty in obtaining permission from the governor to buy as many dogs as he desired. When, however, he carelessly hinted at the necessity of taking, also, a few men who should have care of the dogs,—this being, after all, the essential part of his expedition,—Don Luis de las Casas put on instantly a double force of courtesy, and assured him of the entire impossibility of recruiting a single Spaniard for English service. Finally, however, he gave permission and passports for six chasseurs. Under cover of this, the commissioner lost no time in enlisting forty; he got them safe to Batabano, but at the last moment, learning the state of affairs, they refused to embark on such very irregular authority. When he had persuaded them, at length, the officer of the fort interposed objections. This was not to be borne, so Don Guillermo bribed him and silenced him; a dragoon was, however, sent to report to the governor; Don Guillermo sent a messenger after him and bribed him, too; and thus, at length, after myriad rebuffs, and after being obliged to spend the last evening at a puppet-show, in which the principal figure was a burlesque on his own personal peculiarities, the weary Don Guillermo, with his crew of renegadoes, and his forty chasseurs and their one hundred and four muzzled dogs, set sail for Jamaica.

These new allies were certainly something formidable, if we may trust the pictures and descriptions in Dallas's History. The chasseur was a tall, meagre, swarthy Spaniard or mulatto, lightly clad in cotton shirt and drawers, with broad straw-hat and moccasins of raw hide; his belt sustaining his long, straight, flat sword or machete, like an iron bar sharpened at one end; and he wore by the same belt three cotton leashes for his three dogs, sometimes held also by chains. The dogs were a fierce breed, crossed between hound and mastiff, never unmuzzled but for attack, and accompanied by smaller dogs called finders. It is no wonder, when these wild and powerful creatures were landed at Montego Bay, that terror ran through the town, doors were everywhere closed and windows crowded, not a negro dared to stir, and the muzzled dogs, infuriated by confinement on shipboard, filled the silent streets with their noisy barking and the rattling of their chains.

How much would have come of all this in actual conflict does not appear. The Maroons had already been persuaded to make peace upon certain conditions and guaranties,—a decision probably accelerated by the terrible rumors of the bloodhounds, though they never saw them. It was the declared opinion of the Assembly, confirmed by that of General Walpole, that "nothing could be clearer than that, if they had been off the island, the rebels could not have been induced to surrender." Nevertheless a treaty was at last made, without the direct intervention of the quadrupeds. Again commissioners went up among the mountains to treat with negotiators at first invisible; again were hats and jackets interchanged, not without coy reluctance on the part of the well-dressed Englishmen; and a solemn agreement was effected. The most essential part of the bargain was a guaranty of continued independence, demanded by the suspicious Maroons. General Walpole, however, promptly pledged himself that no such unfair advantage should be taken of them as had occurred with the hostages previously surrendered, who were placed in irons, nor should any attempt be made to remove them from the island. It is painful to add, that this promise was outrageously violated by the Colonial government, to the lasting grief of General Walpole, on the ground that the Maroons had violated the treaty by a slight want of punctuality in complying with its terms, and by remissness in restoring the fugitive slaves who had taken refuge among them. As many of the tribe as surrendered, therefore, were at once placed in confinement, and ultimately shipped from Port Royal to Halifax, to the number of six hundred, on the 6th of June, 1796. For the credit of English honor, we rejoice to know that General Walpole not merely protested against this utter breach of faith, but indignantly declined the sword of honor which the Assembly voted him in its gratitude, and retired from military service forever.

The remaining career of this portion of the Maroons is easily told. They were first dreaded by the inhabitants of Halifax; then welcomed, when seen; and promptly set to work on the citadel, then in process of reconstruction, where the "Maroon Bastion" still remains,—their only visible memorial. Two commissioners had charge of them, one being the redoubtable Colonel Quarrell, and twenty-five thousand pounds were appropriated for their temporary support. Of course they did not prosper; pensioned colonists never do, for they are not compelled into habits of industry. After their delicious life in the mountains of Jamaica, it seemed rather monotonous to dwell upon that barren soil,—for theirs was such that two previous colonies had deserted it,—and in a climate where winter lasts seven months in the year. They had a schoolmaster, and he was also a preacher; but they did not seem to appreciate that luxury of civilization,—utterly refusing, on grounds of conscience, to forsake polygamy, and, on grounds of personal comfort, to listen to the doctrinal discourses of their pastor, who was an ardent Sandemanian. They smoked their pipes during service-time, and left Old Montagu, who still survived, to lend a vicarious attention to the sermon. One discourse he briefly reported as follows, very much to the point:—"Massa parson say no mus tief, no mus meddle wid somebody wife, no mus quarrel, mus set down softly." So they sat down very softly, and showed an extreme unwillingness to get up again. But, not being naturally an idle race, (at least, in Jamaica the objection lay rather on the other side,) they soon grew tired of this inaction. Distrustful of those about them, suspicious of all attempts to scatter them among the community at large, frozen by the climate, and constantly petitioning for removal to a milder one, they finally wearied out all patience. A long dispute ensued between the authorities of Nova Scotia and Jamaica, as to which was properly responsible for their support; and thus the heroic race, that for a century and a half had sustained themselves in freedom in Jamaica, were reduced to the position of troublesome and impracticable paupers, shuttlecocks between two selfish parishes. So passed their unfortunate lives, until, in 1800, their reduced population was transported to Sierra Leone, at a cost of six thousand pounds, since which they disappear from history.

It was judged best not to interfere with those bodies of Maroons which had kept aloof from the late outbreak, as the Accompong settlement, and others. They continued to preserve a qualified independence, and retain it even now. In 1835, two years after the abolition of slavery in Jamaica, there were reported sixty families of Maroons as residing at Accompong Town, eighty families at Moore Town, one hundred and ten families at Charles Town, and twenty families at Scott Hall, making two hundred and seventy families in all,—each station being, as of old, under the charge of a superintendent. But there can be little doubt, that, under the influences of freedom, they are rapidly intermingling with the mass of colored population in Jamaica.

The story of the exiled Maroons attracted attention in high quarters, in its time; the wrongs done to them were denounced in Parliament by Sheridan and mourned by Wilberforce; while the employment of bloodhounds against them was vindicated by Dundas, and the whole conduct of the Colonial government defended, through thick and thin, by Bryan Edwards. This thorough partisan even had the assurance to tell Mr. Wilberforce, in Parliament, that he knew the Maroons, from personal knowledge, to be cannibals, and that, if a missionary were sent among them in Nova Scotia, they would immediately eat him; a charge so absurd that he did not venture to repeat it in his History of the West Indies, though his injustice to the Maroons is even there so glaring as to provoke the indignation of the more moderate Dallas. But, in spite of Mr. Edwards, the public indignation ran quite high, in England, against the bloodhounds and their employers, so that the home ministry found it necessary to send a severe reproof to the Colonial government. For a few years the tales of the Maroons thus emerged from mere colonial annals, and found their way into Annual Registers and Parliamentary Debates,—but they have vanished from popular memory now. Their record still retains its interest, however, as that of one of the heroic races of the world; and all the more, because it is with their kindred that this nation has to deal, in solving the tremendous problem of incorporating their liberties with our own. We must remember the story of the Maroons, because we cannot afford to ignore a single historic fact which bears upon a question so momentous.



THE PROFESSOR'S STORY.

CHAPTER III.

MR. BERNARD TRIES HIS HAND.

Whether the Student advertised for a school, or whether he fell in with the advertisement of a school-committee, is not certain. At any rate, it was not long before he found himself the head of a large district, or, as it was called by the inhabitants, "deestric" school, in the flourishing inland village of Pequawkett, or, as it is commonly spelt, Pigwacket Centre. The natives of this place would be surprised, if they should hear that any of the readers of a periodical published in Boston were unacquainted with so remarkable a locality. As, however, some copies of this periodical may be read at a distance from this distinguished metropolis, it may be well to give a few particulars respecting the place, taken from the Universal Gazetteer.

"PIGWACKET, sometimes spelt Pequawkett. A post-village and township in —— Co., State of ——, situated in a fine agricultural region, 2 thriving villages, Pigwacket Centre and Smithville, 3 churches, several schoolhouses, and many handsome private residences. Mink River runs through the town, navigable for small boats after heavy rains. Muddy Pond at N. E. section, well stocked with horned pouts, eels, and shiners. Products, beef, pork, butter, cheese. Manufactures, shoe-pegs, clothes-pins, and tin-ware. Pop. 1373."

The reader may think there is nothing very remarkable implied in this description. If, however, he had read the town-history, by the Rev. Jabez Grubb, he would have learned, that, like the celebrated Little Pedlington, it was distinguished by many very remarkable advantages. Thus:—

"The situation of Pigwacket is eminently beautiful, looking down the lovely valley of Mink River, a tributary of the Musquash. The air is salubrious, and many of the inhabitants have attained great age, several having passed the allotted period of 'three-score years and ten' before succumbing to any of the various 'ills that flesh is heir to.' Widow Comfort Leevins died in 1836, AEt. LXXXVII. years. Venus, an African, died in 1841, supposed to be C. years old. The people are distinguished for intelligence, as has been frequently remarked by eminent lyceum-lecturers, who have invariably spoken in the highest terms of a Pigwacket audience. There is a public library, containing nearly a hundred volumes, free to all subscribers. The preached word is well attended, there is a flourishing temperance society, and the schools are excellent. It is a residence admirably adapted to refined families who relish the beauties of Nature and the charms of society. The Honorable John Smith, formerly a member of the State Senate, was a native of this town."

That is the way they all talk. After all, it is probably pretty much like other inland New England towns in point of "salubrity,"—that is, gives people their choice of dysentery or fever every autumn, with a season-ticket for consumption, good all the year round. And so of the other pretences. "Pigwacket audience," forsooth! Was there ever an audience anywhere, though there wasn't a pair of eyes in it brighter than pickled oysters, that didn't think it was "distinguished for intelligence"?—"The preached word"! That means the Rev. Jabez Grubb's sermons. "Temperance society"! "Excellent schools"! Ah, that is just what we were talking about.

The truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty rough young fellows who had got the upperhand of the masters, and meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used to be not very uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceum-lectures, it was portentous and alarming.

The rebellion began under the ferule of Master Weeks, a slender youth from a country college, under-fed, thin-blooded, sloping-shouldered, knock-kneed, straight-haired, weak-bearded, pale-eyed, wide-pupilled, half-colored; a common type enough in in-door races, not rich enough to pick and choose in their alliances. Nature kills off a good many of this sort in the first teething-time, a few in later childhood, a good many again in early adolescence; but every now and then one runs the gauntlet of her various diseases, or rather forms of one disease, and grows up, as Master Weeks had done.

It was a very foolish thing for him to try to inflict personal punishment on such a lusty young fellow as Abner Briggs, Junior, one of the "hardest customers" in the way of a rough-and-tumble fight that there were anywhere round. No doubt he had been insolent, but it would have been better to overlook it. It pains me to report the events which took place when the master made his rash attempt to maintain his authority. Abner Briggs, Junior, was a great, hulking fellow, who had been bred to butchering, but urged by his parents to attend school, in order to learn the elegant accomplishments of reading and writing, in which he was sadly deficient. He was in the habit of talking and laughing pretty loud in school-hours, of throwing wads of paper reduced to a pulp by a natural and easy process, of occasional insolence and general negligence. One of the soft, but unpleasant missiles just alluded to, flew by the master's head one morning, and flattened itself against the wall, where it adhered in the form of a convex mass in alto rilievo. The master looked round and saw the young butcher's arm in an attitude which pointed to it unequivocally as the source from which the projectile had taken its flight.

Master Weeks turned pale. He must "lick" Abner Briggs, Junior, or abdicate. So he determined to lick Abner Briggs, Junior.

"Come here, Sir!" he said; "you have insulted me and outraged the decency of the schoolroom often enough! Hold out your hand!"

The young fellow grinned and held it out. The master struck at it with his black ruler, with a will in the blow and a snapping of the eyes, as much as to say that he meant to make him smart this time. The young fellow pulled his hand back as the ruler came down, and the master hit himself a vicious blow with it on the right knee. There are things no man can stand. The master caught the refractory youth by the collar and began shaking him, or rather shaking himself against him.

"Le' go o' that are coat, naow," said the fellow, "or I'll make ye! 'T 'll take tew on ye t' handle me, I tell ye, 'n' then ye caaent dew it!"—and the young pupil returned the master's attention by catching hold of his collar.

When it comes to that, the best man, not exactly in the moral sense, but rather in the material, and more especially the muscular point of view, is very apt to have the best of it, irrespectively of the merits of the case. So it happened now. The unfortunate schoolmaster found himself taking the measure of the sanded floor, amid the general uproar of the school. From that moment his ferule was broken, and the school-committee very soon had a vacancy to fill.

Master Pigeon, the successor of Master Weeks, was of better stature, but loosely put together, and slender-limbed. A dreadfully nervous kind of man he was, walked on tiptoe, started at sudden noises, was distressed when he heard a whisper, had a quick, suspicious look, and was always saying, "Hush!" and putting his hands to his ears. The boys were not long in finding out this nervous weakness, of course. In less than a week a regular system of torments was inaugurated, full of the most diabolical malice and ingenuity. The exercises of the conspirators varied from day to day, but consisted mainly of foot-scraping, solos on the slate-pencil, (making it screech on the slate,) falling of heavy books, attacks of coughing, banging of desk-lids, boot-creaking, with sounds as of drawing a cork from time to time, followed by suppressed chuckles.

Master Pigeon grew worse and worse under these inflictions. The rascally boys always had an excuse for any one trick they were caught at. "Couldn' help coughin', Sir." "Slipped out o' m' han', Sir." "Didn' go to, Sir." "Didn' dew 't o' purpose, Sir." And so on,—always the best of reasons for the most outrageous of behavior. The master weighed himself at the grocer's on a platform-balance, some ten days after he began keeping the school. At the end of a week he weighed himself again. He had lost two pounds. At the end of another week he had lost five. He made a little calculation, based on these data, from which he learned that in a certain number of months, going on at this rate, he should come to weigh precisely nothing at all; and as this was a sum in subtraction he did not care to work out in practice, Master Pigeon took to himself wings and left the school-committee in possession of a letter of resignation and a vacant place to fill once more.

This was the school to which Mr. Bernard Langdon found himself appointed as master. He accepted the place conditionally, with the understanding that he should leave it at the end of a month, if he were tired of it.

The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more lively sensation than had attended that of either of his predecessors. Looks go a good ways all the world over, and though there were several good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush was what the natives of the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really elegant young fellow, with the natural air which grows up with carefully-bred young persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from his grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct descendant of the old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt, (see Cat. Harv. Anno 1693,) had been enlivened and enriched by that of the Wentworths, which had had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout sometimes in the old folks, and to high spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. Bernard had inherited,—something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but that we shall have a chance of finding out by-and-by. But the long sermons and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own habits of study, had told upon his color, which was subdued to something more of delicacy than one would care to see in a young fellow with rough work before him. This, however, made him look more interesting, or, as the young ladies at Major Bush's said, "interestin'."

When Mr. Bernard showed himself at meeting, on the first Sunday after his arrival, it may be supposed that a good many eyes were turned upon the young schoolmaster. There was something heroic in his coming forward so readily to take a place which called for a strong hand, and a prompt, steady will to guide it. In fact, his position was that of a military chieftain on the eve of a battle. Everybody knew everything in Pigwacket Centre; and it was an understood thing that the young rebels meant to put down the new master, if they could. It was natural that the two prettiest girls in the village, called in the local dialect, as nearly as our limited alphabet will represent it, Alminy Cutterr, and Arvilly Braowne, should feel and express an interest in the good-looking stranger, and that, when their flattering comments were repeated in the hearing of their indigenous admirers, among whom were some of the older "boys" of the school, it should not add to the amiable dispositions of the turbulent youth.

Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper end of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked at his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but sharply cut round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher who has before figured in this narrative, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable, whenever he found the large, dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set, gray ones. But he found means to study him pretty well,—first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined him as he would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up. If he could only have gone to him and felt of his muscles, he would have been entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow in and out of the roped arena.

Nothing could be smoother than the way in which everything went on for the first day or two. The new master was so kind and courteous, he seemed to take everything in such a natural, easy way, that there was no chance to pick a quarrel with him. He in the mean time thought it best to watch the boys and young men for a day or two with as little show of authority as possible. It was easy enough to see that he would have occasion for it before long.

The schoolhouse was a grim, old, red, one-story building, perched on a bare rock at the top of a hill,—partly because this was a conspicuous site for the temple of learning, and partly because land is cheap where there is no chance even for rye or buckwheat, and the very sheep find nothing to nibble. About the little porch were carved initials and dates, at various heights, from the stature of nine to that of eighteen. Inside were old unpainted desks,—unpainted, but browned with the umber of human contact,—and hacked by innumerable jackknives. It was long since the walls had been whitewashed, as might be conjectured by the various traces left upon them, wherever idle hands or sleepy heads could reach them. A curious appearance was noticeable on various higher parts of the wall, namely, a wart-like eruption, as one would be tempted to call it, being in reality a crop of the soft missiles before mentioned, which, adhering in considerable numbers, and hardening after the usual fashion of papier mache, formed at last permanent ornaments of the edifice.

The young master's quick eye soon noticed that a particular part of the wall was most favored with these ornamental appendages. Their position pointed sufficiently clearly to the part of the room they came from. In fact, there was a nest of young mutineers just there, which must be broken up by a coup d'etat. This was easily effected by redistributing the seats and arranging the scholars according to classes, so that a mischievous fellow, charged full of the rebellious imponderable, should find himself between two non-conductors, in the shape of small boys of studious habits. It was managed quietly enough, in such a plausible sort of way that its motive was not thought of. But its effects were soon felt; and then began a system of correspondence by signs, and the throwing of little scrawls done up in pellets, and announced by preliminary a'h'ms! to call the attention of the distant youth addressed. Some of these were incendiary documents, devoting the schoolmaster to the lower divinities, as "a —— stuck-up dandy," as "a —— purse-proud aristocrat," as "a —— sight too big for his, etc.," and holding him up in a variety of equally forcible phrases to the indignation of the youthful community of School District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre.

Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's name. An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the time. But it was passed round among the boys and made its laugh, helping of course to undermine the master's authority, as "Punch" or the "Charivari" takes the dignity out of an obnoxious minister. One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a personal insult to themselves. But the older ones were evidently plotting, and more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard, and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to another. One of these happened to strike the stove-funnel, and lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to seem to notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate notice.

He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First he buckled the strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two great "Indian clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders remarkably broad; but if you knew as much of the muscles as all persons who look at statues and pictures with a critical eye ought to have learned,—if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-shaped over the back and shoulders like a monk's cowl,—or the deltoid, which caps the shoulders like an epaulette,—or the triceps, which furnishes the calf of the upper arm,—or the hard-knotted biceps,—any of the great sculptural landmarks, in fact,—you would have said there was a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the Indian clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of the old-fashioned ceiling, and lift and lower himself over and over again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself.—Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said;—"not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. The springs creaked and cracked; the index swept with a great stride far up into the high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was satisfied. He sat down on the edge of his bed and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. "If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I shall spoil him," he said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his class at the college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds in the scale,—not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle weights, as the present English champion, for instance, seem to be of a far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows.