At the time of Mr. Bellows' death Joel was worth about twelve hundred dollars. His benefactor had not only paid him a full salary, but, besides this, perceiving that Joel displayed an aptitude for business, Mr. Bellows allowed him privileges by which he was able to make some money on his own account. The result was, he had accumulated the sum I have mentioned, from which had now been disbursed five hundred dollars for the land purchase.

Through the winter Joel was very busy. He hired four stout, active lumber-men, built a rude log-hut, which was comfortable enough inside, and all set to work first to cut a road to the highway. Then they commenced clearing. The timber was magnificent first-growth pine. It cut up splendidly. The lumber-men now saw what Hiram was driving at. They began to respect the young fellow who looked so much like a boy, yet who showed such pluck, nerve, and sagacity. After a while, in a pleasant position on the ridge could be seen a very neat log-house in progress of erection. It contained four rooms—a spacious edifice for the woods—all of course on the ground floor, for there was no second story. Great attention was paid in a rude way to the interior, and by spring it was finished.

During the winter Joel was twice absent from the 'settlement' for two or three days. He was making a visit to—- Ellen's aunt. That worthy woman had only been half-persuaded when she invited her niece home. Very soon, she began to think she had made a mistake in 'harboring' her, especially as the news spread abroad that Bellows' estate was a very great deal worse than nothing. To be sure Joel's presence reaessured her, he looked so competent, and spoke so confidently yet still so mysteriously. On his second visit, however, the lady pretty flatly intimated she was losing confidence in his assertions. She did not believe her brother had left Ellen a cent in any shape.

'And I tell you what it is, Joel Burns, you need not think we are going to support her. She must earn her living like other folks.'

'I will be responsible for Ellen's board,' said Joel indignantly. 'I would have said that before, but I should feel mortified to have her know I had made the offer, or you had accepted it.'

'You need not mount your high horse with me, Joel,' retorted the other, but in a mollified tone. 'You know I am just as kind to Ellen as any body would be under the circumstances.'

'As kind as Mr. Bellows would have been to Tilly and Eliza, had they been left orphans, I suppose,' interrupted the still indignant Joel.

'Yes, to be sure. You don't imagine I should have expected him to take care of my children!'

'But he would have done it though.'

'Well that may or may not be—he is dead and gone, poor man, and I have done my best to make it pleasant for Ellen, and she will tell you so. We have got along very well; I like her and her cousins like her, and I am satisfied after what you have said.'

By the middle of April, the people of Sudbury had made up their minds that Joel Burns was neither crazy nor exactly a hermit, nor yet a fool, though some candidly admitted they had been fools when they so judged of him. For by the middle of April a saw-mill with a double set of saws had been put in operation, and was turning out the lumber rapidly. Quickly the knowing ones saw into it, (but they did not see into it till Joel had made his demonstration,) and now wondered why they had overlooked the speculation. One very keen fellow determined to make the most out of Joel's beginning. He examined the records at the office of the register of deeds and discovered that Joel had title to but a hundred acres. Thereupon he went to New-York with the object of purchasing the adjacent lands. Imagine his chagrin, when he was told Joel had the refusal of the whole tract. With a low cunning he endeavored to make the old merchant dissatisfied with the sale, by telling him that he had parted with his property for a quarter of its value—in fact, had given it away. He would have offered twice the money himself.

'I am glad to hear you say so,' was the only reply the fellow received, 'for I take a great interest in that young man. So he has got his mill a-going, has he? Good.'

'But if I should offer you ten dollars an acre for the next hundred-acre-lot, don't you think you could manage to let me have it?'

'No.'

What an excitement there was when our smart man returned and gave an account of his trip. Then followed all sorts of rumors. Joel was in partnership with a rich old fellow in 'York,' who was going to let him have all the money he wanted. There was to be a new village right away, situated somewhere—on the ridge—on the stream—across the creek—on the plain—under the hill. What wouldn't the speculators give to know just where! With the erection of the saw-mill, several little huts went up near it for the use of those employed there. These huts were not made of logs—there was plenty of lumber now—but cheaply constructed and clap-boarded with slabs. Some of the Sudbury wits derisively called the place 'Slab City.' The lumber-men seemed to like this name, for they at once adopted it, and it has never been known by any other.

But before this, a remarkable event occurred, affording still greater food for town-talk and gossip generally. The neat log-house on the ridge had been comfortably furnished, and Ellen Bellows—now Ellen Burns—installed as its mistress.

On his third visit the mystery was solved in a manner quite satisfactory to the aunt. To do that lady justice, we must say she was not half so selfish nor so calculating as she might have been. It is true she had not generosity enough to run the risk of offering Ellen a home as long as she might require one, whatever should happen. But she was tolerably kind to her, and when she heard that a wedding was to be speedily improvised, she entered into it heart and soul, and made every thing pass pleasantly, yes, happily. Furthermore, I am bound to record that she refused to take one penny for Ellen's 'board,' although Joel pressed her to do so.

'Do you think I am an old hunks, Joel, because I did not feel able to undertake Ellen's support? Prudent I try to be, it is my duty. Haven't I my own children to look after? but because I am prudent and do my duty, can't I show some kindness to my poor brother's only child? Don't talk to me about 'board,' and, Joel, don't say any thing to Ellen about our previous conversation. You know I have always been perfectly satisfied with every thing you told me.'

Joel felt too happy then to question the fact, if indeed, it could be questioned. He reaessured the good woman on that head, and added he should in due time expect visits from Tilly and Eliza.

'They will be delighted to go, and what is more Mr. Barron (her husband) has been thinking a good deal of leaving here, and I should not be surprised if he paid you a visit one of these days to see what chances offer, for we have all heard how smart you have been.'

It is essential I should explain to the reader why Joel Burns, who was ingenuous and truthful, and by no means fond of mystery or concealment, should make use of both in his intercourse with Ellen's aunt. We have previously stated how desperately he was in love with Ellen, and further how hard he tried to make himself believe his affection could never be reciprocated. When, however, the day of trial came suddenly on her, all the nonsense was scattered from Joel's brain like mist before the wind. But the romance in his heart was not dissipated, because romance is not nonsense. Genuine romance is a real element in our natures, and so long as we preserve it, we are young. When Joel found himself placed in the position of Ellen's sole protector, he took prompt and decisive steps for her protection. But while he hoped to win her for his wife, he could not endure the thought that possibly a part of his success might be due to the change in Ellen's fortunes, or that her choice should not be free and unrestrained. It was for this reason he mystified the aunt and procured for Ellen a cordial invitation to stay with her 'till the business matters were settled,' thus mystifying Ellen also. She, poor girl, continued in happy ignorance of her absolutely destitute condition. She loved Joel dearly, and it was one of her happiest day-dreams to plan how she could aid him in his projects by putting him in possession of all she should have—yes, all.

The evening before the wedding, after Joel had given a full history of the progress of the 'settlement' and what he hoped to do in the future, Ellen, overcoming the timidity which had before prevented her speaking, exclaimed:

'O Joel! how much you have done—all alone, too! When you get what is coming to me, won't that help you? and you shall have the whole of it, dear Joel, every dollar!'

She stopped and blushed, half-frightened at her boldness. Tears came into Joel's eyes, he was so happy. He threw his arms around his beloved and pressed her to his heart.

* * * * *

People could now understand where the village was to be. The new road had been laid out and was in course of construction. It passed along the ridge near the centre. On computing the distances, it was found this point would be a convenient one for a stage-house, where passengers could pass the night. Joel sold to the stage company what lots they required, at a very low price, on condition that they would erect a first-rate public house. The water-power at 'Slab City,' three fourths of a mile distant, attracted attention. The 'fell' was large, and the supply of water abundant. One man started with a turning-machine, which was attached to the mill. Another, with more capital, established a fulling-mill, and so on. Joel avoided the ordinary errors of landholders. He did not attempt to carry on all sorts of business himself, neither did he hold his lots at too high prices. To actual settlers he sold very cheap; to speculators he would not sell at all. The old merchant continued his friend. By his recommendation a man with considerable capital visited the place, and being well pleased, purchased some of the water-power and built a large button-factory, Joel's views proved most judicious. By laying out the village on the ridge, he secured a beautiful site, which was relieved from a close proximity to shops and mills and factories, while it had really the support of all these. Several fine houses were now erected. Two stores were started, and a meeting-house built, for which Joel gave nearly all the lumber. Next a post-office was established, and the place called Burnsville. It was a beautiful spot, and how it grew and flourished! But Burnsville would have amounted to little had it not been for Slab City. Joel took care not to lose an opportunity for strengthening it. Water-power could always be had of him cheap. I forgot to say he erected a 'grist-mill,' which was much needed. Two other saw-mills beside his own were built a little way further up, but on his tract. Mr. Barron and family did move to Burnsville, as Mrs. B. intimated they might. He brought a good deal of money with him, and turned his enterprise to account. The families continued intimate. In ten years Burnsville became one of the most prosperous villages in the State. Joel Burns was a rich man, as well as the man of the place. These ten years had wrought no great changes in Joel's character or habits. To be sure he had become more engrossed in plans for future operations. By degrees he had narrowed his mind into the channel of successful effort. The circumference of his existence was probably more limited than when he brought his little wife into the pretty log-house on the ridge. (He now lived in the handsomest one in the village.) Still, he was more active, more perseveringly energetic, more effective than ever before. But the romance of which I spoke had faded, or was overshadowed, by the forms of active, busy, bustling life. Still Joel Burns was in the main the same ingenuous, honest-hearted fellow as ever. A happy man—happy in his home—happy because prosperous in his business—but by no means as happy as he might have been. Regarding him in this view, it was melancholy to see him so utterly engrossed in his pursuits and plans. He did not take time to look about him and enjoy. The Sabbath to him was a dull, wearisome, restless day. He had too much respect for it to desecrate it by even a private attention to his affairs, and he had very little idea of any spiritual wants. He was active in erecting a church and securing a good preacher, on whose ministrations he attended regularly with his family. Yet it was a great relief to him when Sunday was over, and he welcomed the succeeding morning with a renewed zest.

Joel Burns became a very popular man; he was universally beloved; he was generous and public-spirited. He was unselfish in his ordinary dealings, and always ready to lend a helping hand to those about him. His success was not owing to a close, hard, grasping nature, but was the result of fine business abilities, coupled with extraordinary energy and perseverance.

Joel Burns was unjust to no one but himself. He neglected to cultivate his moral nature, and left it in danger of being choked by the cares he voluntarily assumed. He had one safeguard, however. I have observed that he was happy in his family. This consisted of his wife, and one child—a daughter named Sarah, after Joel's mother. When with them, Joel did forget his business life. His love for his wife and child was like a gushing fountain of pure water. It preserved his heart from becoming arid, and his nature from ossification.

Twelve years passed, and found Burnsville more nourishing than ever, and Joel Burns yet without any interruption to his fortunes or his happiness.

Late in summer, typhus fever—a dreadful visitor in this part of New-England—made its appearance, and became more prevalent than usual, and assumed a severer type. Mrs. Burns was among the first attacked, and with great severity.

Joel felt the foundations of his soul giving way when the possibility presented itself that his wife might die. He called to mind with a shudder the scene at the village tavern in Sudbury, when, a child, he stood by his mother's bedside and heard, awe-struck, her incoherent ravings while the delirium of fever was on her. 'O my God! she will die, she will die!' he exclaimed, as he rushed out of the room, unable to control his feelings.

The country was scoured for doctors. An eminent medical man from New-Haven was sent for. He was unable to come; but the house was filled with consulting physicians. Alas I they knew little in those days how to treat this terrible malady, or rather how to skillfully let it alone. Day after day, Joel paced up and down, now in this room, now in that, all over the house. At night he watched by his wife. He insisted on doing so; no argument or entreaty could prevail on him to leave her a moment. She was delirious nearly all the time. Then her voice would be strong, her eyes glassy bright, her cheeks flushed and burning. She recognized neither husband nor child.

* * * * *

It was in the middle of the night. The 'watcher' who sat up in company with Joel, slumbered in his chair. He did not slumber, but sat with eyes fixed on his wife, who for some time seemed to be resting easier than before. Presently her lips moved. Her husband bent over her.

'Joel.'

'I am here, my darling.'

'Joel.'

'Yes, dearest.'

'We have not lived right'

'No, dear.'

'You do not think we have lived right, do you?'

'No, oh! no.'

'I am going to die, Joel.'

'Do not speak in that way!' and the poor fellow groaned, in spite of every effort to control himself.

'I must, Joel, I must. We have not lived right You will live right when I am gone. You will teach Sarah to live right, won't you?'

'I don't want to live at all if you do not live!' was the passionate answer.

'For our child's sake, Joel.'

No reply.

'What a kind, loving husband you have been to me—been to me always! I loved you—loved you before you knew it, Joel.' Here she opened her eyes languidly, and essayed to turn them on him. 'But we have not lived right.'

There was still no response, save by audible sobs.

'I think I have made my peace with God. Are you glad, Joel?'

'Now I don't care what happens, if you only feel happy!' he cried. 'But to have you die in distress of mind! It would drive me crazy.'

'Give God the praise, Joel. I am happy. It is so sweet to trust in Him! You won't neglect—neglect—you won't——' She fell into a stupor, from which she never fully awoke. Although she lived another day, she exhibited no signs of consciousness. Joel fancied that she was aware of his presence; but she never spoke again.

The funeral was attended by a large concourse of people—very different from that of Joel's mother, whom three selectmen followed to the grave. When it was over, Joel and his daughter went back to their desolate house, while the village set to work to speculate as to whom the widower would marry. 'Such a match! So rich, and only one child! Emily Parks would make him a good wife; only Emily was rather old—at least twenty-seven or eight—and Mr. Burns would marry a young girl, of course. Why shouldn't he, with the amount of money he had? He might take a fancy to Julia Davis—she had just left school.' 'Why shouldn't he marry Lizzie?' said Mrs. Barron to herself. And Lizzie was sent over that very day to 'see to things' for Mr. Burns.

His trials were not ended. Sarah, who was now in her twelfth year, was taken ill the following week. The fever was no doubt going through the family, said the doctors. Joel's faith in medical men was a good deal shaken, but he had to call them in, and Sarah grew worse. Three weeks she lay, submitting to the old treatment, waiting for the 'crisis.' Joel could endure it no longer. He started for New-Haven, changing horses every ten miles. He found the doctor he went in quest of at home; but he said it was impossible for him to go.

'I have lost my wife, and shall lose my child,' said Joel Burns hoarsely.

'My friend,' said the doctor in a mild tone, 'people are dying every where. I have my own patients, whom I ought not to neglect.'

'Go with me, I, implore you,' urged the despairing man; 'I have relays of horses, and I will drive ten miles an hour.' Joel's importunity prevailed. The distance was accomplished in a marvelously brief time.

It was a hot, sultry day, the second week of September, about noon, when Joel, accompanied by the doctor, entered the sick-room.

'How is Sarah?'

'No better,' whispered Miss Barron, who had remained in the house. 'The doctor left half an hour ago. He says he thinks she will go as her mother went.'

'I am awake, father!' (He had approached the bed very carefully, so as not to disturb her.) 'It seems a great while since you went away.'

'I have brought a doctor to cure you, my child,' said Joel. He knew the value of hope and confidence.

Meanwhile the physician was glancing around the room. As I have said, it was a close, sultry day; but the windows were all closed, so that not a breath of air could circulate through the apartment. The doctor quietly threw up every one of them. Perceiving a cot standing near, he ordered it made up with fresh sheets. Going to the bedside of his little patient: 'How do you feel, my child?' he asked.

'I don't know.'

'Bring me a bowl of water and a soft napkin.'

'Warm water, I suppose?' said the nurse.

'Cold.' He threw off the heavy blanket from the bed, and unbuttoning the night-dress, which came close around her, he bathed the child's face and neck with the grateful fluid.

'You feel better now?'

'Yes,' she whispered.

'Don't you want any thing, my dear?'

'I want some water.'

'Give her water, nurse,' said the doctor.

The woman stared in utter amazement. If she had been ordered to cut the child's throat, she could not have been more astounded.

'I say, bring a tumbler of water.'

This was done, and the nurse offered the patient a few drops in a tea-spoon.

'Give me the glass,' and he took it out of her hand. Tenderly he raised the sick child to a comfortable position, and placed it to her lips. 'Take as much as you like, my dear. Water was made to drink.'

He now directed a complete and speedy change of garments, and then he himself took Sarah in his arms and laid her on the other bed. In fifteen minutes, she was sleeping, while a gentle perspiration showed the crisis had passed. Joel Burns stood still, regarding the doctor as he would a being from another world. When he saw him doing just what was invariably prohibited, doing it with such an air of decision and self-confidence yet with no peculiar ostentation, he felt it would all be right. The nurse, at first, was in very bad humor; but nobody noticed her, so she concluded it was best to be good-natured and obey orders. The next day, the doctor pronounced little Sarah out of danger, provided she was properly nursed, and after leaving special directions, which he charged Joel to see to personally till he could hear from him, he returned home as rapidly as he came. When the man who accompanied him came back, he brought the doctor's favorite student, who had directions to devote himself to the 'case,' in which the doctor took so strong an interest. The good man had another motive. He believed the fever was about to attack Joel, and he determined to exert his skill to save him, if possible. To have advised him of his fears, would have been injudicious. He therefore dispatched a young man in whom he had great confidence, after giving him minute instructions. Little Sarah, watched and tended with great care, grew rapidly better. But when the excitement produced by the scenes through which Joel had passed was at an end, a great reaction took place, which left him in a very weak state. In that condition, he was seized by the terrible malady, which found a fit subject in his weakened frame and broken spirits. For weeks Joel Burns lay balancing between life and death. It seemed as if a feather's weight on either side would turn the scale. Morning after morning, the question was put by the whole village: 'Is Mr. Burns alive?' Twice, on occasions which seemed specially urgent, did our worthy doctor come from New-Haven, spend a few hours, and return. The medical student kept his post manfully. It was something to go counter to the opinions and judgments of all the physicians about, far and near. Especially when, if the patient should die, the voice of authority would proclaim that a murder had been committed. [Now, it would be considered murder to follow the old method.] But the doctor was firm, his pupil an enthusiastic believer in his master's genius, and the course was persisted in. At length, the daily reports were modified. First, Mr. Burns was 'no worse.' After that, he was 'a little more comfortable.' Then came the announcement that he was 'better.' The medical men round about were excessively chagrined; but every body else rejoiced at the good news.

All this time, what of Joel Burns? How did he do? Not what was the history of his physical malady. But what was his state morally, mentally, religiously before God! Recollect, the man had never had a check in his whole career before. The circumstances of his childhood served rather to give strength and firmness to his nature. The sudden failure and death of his benefactor only threw him the more on his own resources, with which he was amply provided. His plans had been successful. His friends were many. His hopes for the future were large, yet not unreasonable; while on all sides, as we have said, he was regarded as the man of the community in which he lived.

Joel had scarcely time for reflection, after the death of his wife, before his child was taken ill, and ere she was really out of danger, he himself was stricken down. All that long, weary time, during days and nights of fever and delirium, of exhaustion and weakness, of convalescence and recovery, the whisper of his dying wife was constantly heard:

'Joel, we have not lived right! Do you think we have lived right, Joel?'

'Lived right!' What did that mean? Was Joel Burns a dishonest man? Was he not kind-hearted, generous, loving toward his wife, affectionate to his child, charitable and public-spirited?

'Lived right.' Joel had answered his wife instantly, not daring then and there to soothe her by equivocation, but replying truthfully out of his soul: 'No, oh! no.' What did he mean by that? Of what did he stand convicted, and wherefore? These were the thoughts which occupied his mind, especially after the fever had left him, during the long weeks of his recovery. Joel was a man of extraordinary perceptive faculties. The situation in which he had been placed, the remarkable health which he had enjoyed, (for he had never been ill in his life,) and the success which had attended every plan and effort, served to still more develop all his practical talents, and were at the same time unfavorable to reflection or serious thought. Now he could do nothing else but reflect and think. He looked about him. His wife was gone, and his happiness wrecked. What was he to do? Should he make haste to push on the schemes which his sickness had brought to a stand? The idea was loathsome to him. He had seen how completely they were liable to interruption and blight. The thought of his daughter was the only comfort left, but she might be taken—then what?

Ah! Joel Burns! how long and wide you searched to answer that question when the answer was so near at hand and so easy to discover. He did discover it at last. His wife, with her latest breath, had given him the clue. He examined himself more carefully. What are the relations between me and my Maker? Do I recognize any?... When Joel Burns rose from his sick-bed and could walk abroad, all things wore to him a new and pleased aspect. The current of his hopes were changed. He no longer revolved around himself as a centre. He was conscious of his error before God, and sought and found 'peace in believing.' He now regarded all things in the light of His providence and felt submissive to His will.

Joel was no longer indifferent to his affairs. There was so much he could do to benefit every body. What a happy feeling to try to be working out good for some body all the time! When, however, he was able actively to engage in business, there was very little difference between his course of action and in what he did and his old course and what he used to do. The fact is, Joel did about what was right before. We have already related that he was kind, charitable, generous, and public-spirited. The difference, however, was, that Joel himself was changed. The springs of life and conduct were new: this is why he seemed to himself to be living so differently. And he was living differently. There was no similitude between the Joel Burns who, impelled by an active brain and an energetic purpose, was successfully prosecuting certain plans with reference solely to those plans, and the Joel Burns who had learned to feel that the chief object of existence lay above and beyond, and was centred in the Omnipotent.

* * * * *

Sarah recovered rapidly from the fever, and before her father was himself convalescent the bloom of health had returned to her cheeks. Joel's love for his child was increased ten-fold. She became, as she grew up, an inseparable companion. It was evident he had no thoughts of marrying. The people of the village decided that at the end of a year. The widower gave none of the ordinary tokens that he was seeking a new wife, that is, he did not 'brush up' any, and took no special pains with his personal appearance, but went about much as usual. It was a great pity, every body said, for a man as young as he—hardly three-and-thirty—to live without a wife. Sarah required a motherly care over her, her father was spoiling her. Yes, it was a great pity Mr. Burns did not marry. The fact was, strange as it will seem, Joel could not forget his wife, though she was dead. A sweet and solemn link bound him to her since the night he stood over her to catch her last words, and it would appear his affections were not to be diverted from her memory. He did not send Sarah away to school. He could not reconcile himself to her absence, but he supplied her abundantly with teachers, and personally took great pains with her education.

Two years after the death of Mrs. Burns, Joel and his daughter stood up together before the assembled church and congregation, and made a public profession of religion. It was a touching sight. And when after the services father and child took their way homeward, every eye followed them with looks of deepest interest and with feelings of almost universal kindness and regard. Joel had delayed presenting himself from a desire to test his feelings, having great fear of bringing reproach on the church by entering it unworthily. And now he had an increased joy that he could bring his darling into the fold with him.

It was very natural, as she was situated, that Sarah should acquire an accurate knowledge of her father's affairs. She enjoyed listening to the story of his early life, the rise and progress of Burnsville, with explanations of his many undertakings. As she grew older, this interest took a more practical turn. She would copy letters and arrange confidential papers, and perform various services of a like nature.

Two or three years more passed. Things went on as usual, at Burnsville. It is true that Joel Burns did not display that sharp faculty of acquisition which he formerly did, though he was never more active or energetic; but it was noticeable that those in his employ got on better than before, while the general prosperity of the village exceeded that of any former period.

Sarah was almost a young lady. She was growing up a beautiful girl. She had her father's brilliant complexion and her mother's fine form and regular features. Of course, with so much youth and beauty, and such 'brilliant prospects,' (by which, I suppose, was meant her father's death and a large fortune to the child,) Sarah already became an object of much attention. I will not say that her peculiar position did not produce something of an independent manner which some called hauteur, and others exclusiveness. Part of this was owing to her education, part to the necessity of repelling sometimes the advances of conceited coxcombs. But she was really a most interesting girl, with much of her father's spirit, resolution, and ability. Her affection for him was only exceeded by his for her. True, their lives were centred in each other too much. But it was very beautiful to behold.

Such was the condition of Burnsville, and such the situation of Joel Burns, when Hiram Meeker sought to remove to that place and enter his service.



A MERCHANT'S STORY.

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

CHAPTER I.

It is a dingy old sign. It has hung there in sun and rain till its letters are faint and its face is furrowed. It has looked down on a generation that has passed away, and seen those who placed it there go out of that doorway never to return; still it clings to that dingy old warehouse, and still Russell, Rollins & Co. is signed in that dingy old counting-room at the head of the stairway. It is known the world over. It is heard of on the cotton-fields of Texas, in the cane-brakes of Cuba, and amid the rice-swamps of Carolina. The Chinaman speaks of it as he sips his tea and handles his chop-sticks in the streets of Canton, and the half-naked negro rattles its gold as he gathers palm-oil and the copal-gum on the western coast of Africa. Its plain initials, painted in black on a white ground, float from tall masts over many seas, and its simple 'promise to pay,' scrawled in a bad hand on a narrow strip of paper, unlocks the vaults of the best bankers in Europe. And yet, it is a dingy old sign! Men look up to it as they pass by, and wonder that a cracked, weather-beaten board that would not sell for a dollar, should be counted 'good for a million.'

It is a dingy old warehouse, with narrow, dark, cobwebbed windows, and wide, rusty iron shutters, which, as the bleak November wind sweeps up old Long Wharf, swing slowly on their hinges with a sharp, grating creak. I heard them in my boyhood. Perched on a tall stool at that old desk, I used to listen, in the long winter-nights, to those strange, wild cries, till I fancied they were voices of the uneasy dead, come back to take the vacant seats beside me, and to pace again, with ghostly tread, the floor of that dark old counting-room. They were ever a mystery and a terror to me; but they never creaked so harshly, or cried so wildly, as on a bleak November night, not many years ago, when I turned my steps, for the last time, up the trembling old stairway.

It was just after nightfall. A single gas-burner threw a dim, uncertain light over the old desk, and lit up the figure of a tall, gray-headed man, who was bending over it. He had round, stooping shoulders, and long, spindling limbs. One of his large feet, encased in a thick, square-toed shoe, rested on the round of the desk, the other, which was planted squarely on the floor, upheld his spare, gaunt frame. His face was thin and long, and two deep, black lines under his eyes contrasted strangely with the pallid whiteness of his features. His clothes were of the fashion of some years ago, and had, no doubt, served long as his 'Sunday best,' before being degraded to daily duty. They were of plain black, and though not shabby, were worn and threadbare, and of decidedly economical appearance. Every thing about him, indeed, wore an economical look. His scant coat-tails, narrow pants, and short waistcoat, showed that the cost of each inch of material had been counted, while his thin hair, brushed carefully over his bald head, had not a lock to spare; and even his large, sharp bones were covered with only just enough flesh to hold them comfortably together. He had stood there till his eye was dim and his step feeble, and though he had, for twenty years—when handing in his semi-annual trial-balances to the head of the house—declared that each one was his last, every body said he would continue to stand there till his own trial-balance was struck, and his earthly accounts were closed forever.

As I entered, he turned his mild blue eye upon me, and taking my hand warmly in his, exclaimed:

'My dear boy'—I was nearly forty—'I am glad to see you.'

'I am glad to see you, David.'

'Why, bless me, Mr. Kirke, is that you?' exclaimed a much younger man, springing from his seat near the other, and grasping me by both hands. 'What has brought you to Boston?'

'Business, Frank. I've just arrived, and go back to-morrow. Come! my wife is in the carriage at the door, and wants you to spend the evening with us.'

'I can't—I'm very sorry,' and he added, in a lower tone, 'she has just heard of her father's death, and goes home to-morrow. I have engaged to pass the evening with her.'

'Her father dead! how was it?'

'He was thrown from his horse, and died the same day. She knew nothing of it till yesterday. I can not neglect her now. I will spend to-morrow with mother.'

He always called her mother, though he was not her son. He had done it when a child, and now that he was a man, hers was the dearest name he knew. He loved her as his mother, and she loved him as her son. But any woman might have loved him. His straight, closely-knit, sinewy frame, dark, deep-set eyes, and broad, open forehead, overhung with thick, brown hair, were only the outshadowing of a beautiful mind, of an open, upright, manly nature, whose firm and steady integrity nothing could shake.

'I'm sorry to hear it,' I replied; 'but go down and see her, while I speak to Mr. Hallet.'

Rapping at the door of an inner office, separated from the outer one by a ground-glass partition, I was admitted by a tall, dark man, who, with a stiff and slightly embarrassed manner, said to me:

'I am glad to see you, Mr. Kirke. Pray, be seated.'

As he pointed to a chair, a shorter and younger gentleman, who was writing at another desk, rose, and slapping me familiarly on the back, exclaimed:

'My dear fellow, how are you?'

'Very well, Cragin, how are you?'

'Good as new—never better in my life—how goes the world with you?'

The last speaker was not more than thirty-three, but a bald spot on the top of his head, and a slight falling-in of his mouth, caused by premature decay of the teeth, made him seem several years older. He had marked but not regular features, and a restless, dark eye, which opened and shut with a peculiar wink that kept time with the motion of his lips in speaking. His clothes were cut in a loose, jaunty style, and his manner, though brusque and abrupt, betokened, like his face, a free, frank, manly character. He was ten or twelve years the junior of the other, and as unlike him as one man can be unlike another.

The older gentleman, as I have said, was tall and dark. He had a high, bold forehead, and wore heavy gray whiskers, trimmed with the utmost nicety, and meeting under a sharp, narrow chin. His face was large and full, and his nose pointed and prominent, but his mouth was small, and gathered in at the corners like a rat's; and, as if to add to the rat-resemblance, its small, white teeth seemed borrowed from the jaws of that animal. There was a stately precision in his manner, and a stealthy softness in his tread, that would have impressed a stranger unfavorably; but I knew him. We had been boys together, and he loved me as he loved his own son. How well he loved him, the reader will learn, if he follows the course of my story.

These two gentlemen—Mr. Hallet and Mr. Cragin—were the senior partners in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.

Replying satisfactorily to the inquiry of Mr. Cragin, I turned to the older partner, and said:

'Well, Mr. Hallet, how does Frank get on?'

'Oh! very well—knows a little too much, like most young men of his age, but he does very well.'

''Very well,' Mr. Ballet! d—d if he don't—he's the smartest boy living—made a clean forty thousand for us not two months ago—forced it on Hallet against his better judgment!' And Mr. Cragin laughed till he showed all that was left of two rows of tobacco-stained teeth.

'How was it Cragin?' I asked, greatly pleased.

A short rap came at the office-door, and Frank entered, his hat in his hand.

'Mother insists on my taking supper with her—will you go now, sir?' he said, addressing me.

Before I could reply, Mr. Hallet, rather sharply, asked:

'Have you finished your letters for the steamer?'

'Yes, sir.'

'What have you said to Maclean, Maris & Co., about the gum-copal?'

'I will show you, sir.'

And going into the other room, Frank returned in a moment with an open letter, still wet from the copying-press. Mr. Hallet took it and read it over slowly and carefully, then handing it back, he said, in the slightly pompous tone which was natural to him:

'That will do—you can go.'

I was rising to bid them 'good-evening,' when the senior said to me:

'Mr. Kirke, I dislike to trespass on your time, but I would like to confer with you for a moment, on a private matter.'

'Certainly, sir.' And I added: 'Frank, tell your mother I will meet you at the hotel in half an hour.'

'But I must be in Cambridge by eight o'clock,' replied the young man, looking a little chop-fallen.

'Well, don't wait for me—I will see you to-morrow.'

Bidding me 'good-night,' he left; and Mr. Cragin, seeing that his partner would be alone with me, left shortly afterward. As soon as Cragin was gone, Mr. Hallet, opening the door, called:

'David!'

The book-keeper entered, and took a seat beside me.

'Mr. Kirke,' said Mr. Hallet, when the other was seated, 'I want to talk with you and David about Frank. He has entangled himself with that Southern girl, and, I hear, means to marry her. I strongly object to it. I've not a particle of influence with him, and you must prevent it.'

'Why should we prevent it?' I asked, rather sharply. 'What is there against the young woman?'

'Nothing against her character, but she'd not be a fit wife for Frank. These Southern women are educated with wrong ideas—they make poor wives for poor men. He must marry a rich girl, or one brought up with New-England habits. This one would bring him nothing, and spend all he made.'

'But she is an only child, and her father is rich.'

'Pshaw! that is bosh! Preston always lived high, and I'll guarantee his estate is bankrupt. I'm sorry for it, for he owes us.'

'Is that so! Largely?' 'No, not largely; how much is he overdrawn, David?'

'Eighty-two hundred and odd.'

'I'm surprised at that,' I said. 'The old house did not allow such things.'

'Neither do we; 'twas Cragin's work. He thought 'twould annoy Frank if the drafts went back, and'—he hesitated a moment—'he insisted upon it.'

'I am opposed to interfering in such matters. I always taught Frank to think for himself,' I remarked.

'You taught him to think too much for himself. He is self-willed and headstrong to a fault.'

'Perhaps his father might have trained him better, if—he had tried,' I replied, with a slight sneer.

'Pardon me, Mr. Kirke, I meant no reflection on your management of him. I only feel that this is a most important step, and he ought to be advised. He should marry rich, for he has nothing, and can not rely upon me.'

'He does not rely upon you; but he is a partner now, and his income ought to enable him to support a wife.'

'His income is uncertain; he may not remain long in the concern,' replied Mr. Hallet coolly.

David started; his face reddened to the roots of his hair, and he asked in a sententious way, showing even in his expenditure of breath the close economy that was the rule of his life: 'Who told you that, Mr. Hallet?'

'No one,' replied that gentleman, seemingly surprised at the abrupt question; 'I am deliberating on it myself. He is sowing dissension between Cragin and me. The lowest boy in the office; even you, David, pay more heed to him than to me.'

'That may be your own fault,' I said, a little sarcastically; 'if you should treat him as Cragin and David do, you might have nothing to complain of.'

'I treat him well, sir; but I make him know his place.' The last words were emphasized in a hard, wicked tone.

Certain old recollections had been rushing across my memory during the latter part of this conversation, and this last remark brought me to my feet, as I said: 'You treat him like a dog, sir! I have seen it. If he were not your son, he should not stay with you another day! But I warn you, John Hallet—do not go too far. Cast that boy off—harm him to the extent of a hair—and, so help me God, I will strip you of the lying cloak in which you hide your false, hypocritical soul, and show men what you are!'

In my excitement, I had crossed the room, and stood then directly before him. His face flushed and his eye quailed before my steady gaze, but he said nothing.

David remarked, in a mild tone: 'Edmund, that an't the right spirit; it an't.'

'You don't know the whole, David; if you did, even you would say he is the basest man living.'

Hallet pressed his teeth together; his eyes flashed fire, and he seemed about to spring upon me; but mastering his passion, he rose after a moment and extended his hand, saying: 'Come, Mr. Kirke, this is not the talk of old friends! Let us shake hands and forget it.'

'Never, sir! I took your hand for the last time when I left this counting-room, twenty years ago. I never touch it again! I shall tell that boy to-night that you are his father.'

'You will not do so imprudent a thing. I will do any thing for him—any thing you require. I promise you—on my honor,' and the stately head of the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co., sank into a chair and bent down his face like a criminal in the dock.

'I can not trust you,' I said, as I paced the room,

'You can, Edmund; he means it. He is sorry for the wrong he's done,' said the old book-keeper, in that mild, winning tone which had made me so love him in my boyhood.

'Well, let him prove that he means it; let him tell you all; let him tell you how much he has had to repent of!'

'I have told him all. I told him years ago.'

'Did you tell him how you cast off that poor girl? how for years on her knees she vainly plead for a paltry pittance to keep her child from starving and herself from sin? Did you tell him how you forced her on the street? how you drove her from you with curses, when she prayed you to save her from the pit of infamy into which you had plunged her? Did you tell him,' and I hissed the words in his ear, while he writhed on his seat in such agony as only the guilty can feel; 'how, at last, after all those wretched years, she died of starvation and disease, with all that mountain of sin on her soul, and all of it heaped on her by YOU!'

'Oh! no! I did not—could not tell him that! I did not know I had done that!' groaned the stately gentleman.

'You lie, John Hallet! You know you lie! and may God deal with you as you dealt with her,' and I took up my hat and laid my hand on the door.

'Stop, stop, Edmund; don't go with those words. You would not have God do to you as you have done to others!' said David, in the same mild tone as before.

'True, David. I ought not to wish him harm; but I loathe and detest the hypocritical villain. Frank shall leave him to-night, and forever!' and again I laid my hand on the door.

Mr. Hallet looked up; his face was pale as marble, and his hands clenched tightly the arms of his chair, 'Don't go, Mr. Kirke,' he cried; 'stay one moment. Can't this be arranged?'

'Yes, sir. Sign a dissolution article at once—here—NOW, and give Frank your check for twenty thousand dollars.'

'No, no! You don't mean that! It is too much—you can not ask that!' gasped the great merchant.

'Too much for the son of a man worth a million? Too much to pay for starving his mother, and turning him adrift at six years old? It is not enough! He must have thirty thousand!'

'You are mad, Mr. Kirke!' And he rose, and looked at me with a pleading face. 'I can not pay that amount down. It is impossible.'

'David, how much has he in bank on private account?'

Mr. Hallet cast a beseeching glance at his book-keeper; but without moving a muscle, the old man quietly replied: 'Fifty-three thousand.'

'I knew you lied, Hallet. It is natural to you.'

'But I can't let Frank go without Mr. Cragin's consent.'

'I will arrange with Cragin. Sign the check and draw the paper at once, or I go.'

'But give me time to think—see me to-morrow.'

'I shall never exchange a word with you after to-night. You can have ten minutes—not a second more,' and I took out my watch to count the time.

He seated himself at his desk, and rested his head on his hand for a moment; then turning to me, he said: 'You promise that this interview, and all that has passed, shall never be mentioned by you?'

'I do—never to your injury.'

'David, please write the check,' said the senior partner, as he proceeded himself to draw up the agreement. In a few minutes he handed it to me. It was short, and merely recited that the co-partnership which had theretofore existed between John Hallet, Augustus Cragin, and Henry F. Mandell, under the name and style of Russell, Rollins & Co., was on that day dissolved by mutual consent; said Mandell withdrawing, and assigning the control of all the assets of said firm to said Hallet and Cragin, and releasing to said Hallet any portion of its capital and profits to which he might be entitled.

I read the document, and quietly handed it back. 'That will not do, Mr. Hallet. Thirty thousand dollars settles with you, his father. I have not, and shall not make any settlement with the firm. David must pay Frank what is his due—no more, no less.'

'But,' began Mr. Hallet.

'I have nothing more to say on the subject, sir.'

He drew a deep sigh. The parting with an only son, and with thirty thousand dollars, at one and the same time, affected him deeply. He might have borne the loss of the son; but the loss of so much money rent his small, black soul into fragments. However, he rewrote the paper, and passed it to me. It was all right; and when he had signed and David had witnessed it, I placed it in my pocket-book. Then, with a trembling hand, he handed me the check. It was drawn to my order; and I remarked, as I took it: 'This is not what I require, sir. I want your check, indorsed by David.'

'This is most unaccountable, Mr. Kirke. Do you question my check for thirty thousand dollars?' he asked, his face flushing with anger.

'Oh! no, sir, not at all; but you might stop its payment. With David's indorsement, you would not dare to do it.'

'I will indorse it,' said David; and he quietly proceeded to write another.

That cold, hard, soulless man had a wife and children; but that old book-keeper was the only being in all this wide world that he loved!

Placing the check with the other paper, I shook David by the hand, and bidding him 'good-night', passed down the old stairway.

As Frank is the hero of my history, I will, in another chapter, go back some seventeen years, and tell the reader how he came to be under my control, and how he rose to be a partner in the great house of Russell, Rollins & Co.



CORN IS KING.

Up among the Granite mountains, By the Bay State strand, Hark! the paean cry is sounding Through all Yankee land. 'Wave the stars and stripes high o'er us, Let every freeman sing, In a loud and joyful chorus: Brave young Corn is King! Join, join, for God and freedom! Sing, Northmen, sing: Old King Cotton's dead and buried: brave young Corn is King.'

Southward rolls the cry of gladness, On past Washington; Where the bond-slave stoops no longer, But stands up, a Man! O'er battle-fields of 'Ole Virginny,' Floats the black man's song: 'Brudders, God is takin' vengeance For de darky's wrong! Shout, shout, for God and Freedom! Sing, darkies, sing! Ole Massa Cotton's dead foreber: Young Massa Corn am King!'

Through the Mississippi valley, Down the river's tide, Hosts of patriots rush to rally On their Country's side; And across the green savannahs Of the Southern clime, Armies, under Union banners, To this song keep time: 'March, march, for God and Freedom! Sing, soldiers, sing! Pallid Cotton's dead and buried: Yellow Corn is King!'

Let the tidings swell o'er ocean To another shore, Till proud England pales and trembles Where she scoffed before! Ne'er again shall serpent-friendship Rise to hiss and sting! Cotton leagues no more with Traitors: Honest Corn is King! Jubilate! God and Freedom! Sing, Americans, sing Tyrant Cotton's dead forever! Honest Corn is King!



LITERARY NOTICES.

AMONG THE PINES. BY EDMUND KIRKE. New-York: J. R. Gilmore, 532 Broadway. 1862.

Perhaps it is not altogether in rule to say much of a work which has appeared in our pages. But we may at least call attention to what others have said. And good authority—plenty of it, such authority as should make a reputation for any book—has declared The Pines to be in truth a work of the highest merit and of a new order. It is a perfectly truthful record of scenes and characters drawn from personal experience in the South; combining the accuracy of Olmstead's works with the thrilling interest of Uncle Tom. It should be fairly stated—as the author desires it should be—that every thing did not occur precisely in the order in which it is here narrated. But all is true—every page speaks for itself in this particular. No stronger piece of local coloring ever issued from the American press. We seem, in reading it, to live in the South—to know the people who come before us. All of them are, indeed, life-portraits. In one or two instances, the very names of the originals remain unchanged.

In it the author deals fairly and honorably with the South. The renegade Yankee, and not the native planter, is made to bear the heaviest blow. The principal character, Colonel J——, is one of nature's noblemen, struggling through aristocratic education and circumstance with an evil whose evil he cannot comprehend. Very valuable indeed are the sketches of life among the 'mean whites.' No descriptions of them to be compared with these in The Pines have ever yet appeared. They rise clear as cameo-reliefs on a dark ground, and we feel that they too are like the slave-holder, victims like the slave, of a system, and not with him, deliberate wretches. Their squalor, ignorance, pride, and dependence—their whole social status, inferior to that of the blacks whom they despise, appear as set forth, we do not say by a master-hand, but by themselves.

This work, tolerant and just, yet striking, has appeared at the right time. While interesting as a novel, it is full of solid, simple facts—it is based on them and built up with them. Without attempting to set forth a principle, it shows beyond dispute that slavery does not pay in the South as well as free labor would, and that the blacks would produce more as free laborers than as slaves. It shows that Emancipation for the sake of the White Man is a great truth, and that the white man would be benefited by raising the sense of independence in the black, and by elevating him in every way in which he is capable of improvement.

It may be said with great truth of The Pines, that it would be difficult to find a book in which such striking facts and vivid pictures are set forth with such perfect simplicity of language. There is no effort at fine writing in it, and no consciousness of its absence. The author never seems to have realized that a story could be told for effect, and the natural result has been the most unintentional yet the strongest effect. The practical eye of one familiar with planks and turpentine, building and farming, business and furniture, economy and comfort, betrays itself continually. He sees how things could be bettered not as a mere philanthropist would try to see them, but as one who knows how capital ought to be employed, and he appreciates the fact that the sufferings of the people of every class in the South are really based on the wastefulness of the present system. That this spirit should be combined with a keen observation of local humor, and in several instances with narratives imbued with deep pathos, is not, however, remarkable. The man who can most vividly set forth facts and transfer nature to paper, seldom misses variety.

We rejoice that this work has met with such favorable reception from the public, and are happy to state that the author will continue his contributions to these columns. He has already, by a single effort, established a wide-spread reputation, and we know that he has that in him which will induce efforts of equal merit and a future which will be honorably recorded in histories of the literature of the present day.

THOMAS HOOD'S WORKS. Volume IV. Aldine Edition. Edited by EPES SARGENT. New-York: G. P. Putnam. Boston: A. K. Loring. 1862.

No better paper, no better type, can be desired than what is lavished upon these beautiful editions of Putnam's works. It is a pleasure to touch their silky, Baskerville-feeling leaves, and think that one possesses in the series one more work de luxe, which 'any one' might be glad to own. The present consists of The Whims and Oddities, with the—originally—two volumes of National Tales: the former piquant and variously eccentric; the latter written in a quaint, old-fashioned style, which the editor compares justly to that of BOCCACCIO, yet which was really, till within some fifty years, so very common a form of narration, having so much in common with Spanish and French nouvelettes, that it is hardly worth while to suppose that HOOD followed the great. Italian at all. The whole work is one mass of entertainment, none the worse for having acquired somewhat of a game-y flavor of age, and for gradually falling a little behind the latest styles of humor. 'Mass! 'tis a merry book, and will make them merry who read it!'

THE WORKS OF THOMAS HOOD. Edited by EPES SARGENT. Vol. V. New-York: G. P. Putnam. 1862.

The present volume of Hood's writings is composed of dramatic sketches, odes, political satires, and miscellaneous pieces not generally contained in former collections of his works. Among these is the long and beautiful 'Lamia' in dramatic form; the 'Epping Hunt;' the poems of sentiment; the inimitable Odes and Addresses to Great People, and some scores of minor poems, mostly humorous, including, however, all of those on which his reputation as a true poet of the highest rank is based. Among these is the 'Lay of the Laborer,' a standing and bitter reproach to England—the England of millions of pounds of capital—the England of piety—the England of morality—the England of 'all the rights of man,' where there are more paupers and more miseries than in any other land on earth, and where there is accordingly the most social tyranny of any country.

'Ay, only give me work, And then you need not fear That I shall snare his worship's hare, Or kill his grace's deer.'

'Where savage laws begrudge The pauper babe its breath, And doom a wife to a widow's life Before her partner's death.'

When England shall have turned aside the reproach of this poem, it will be time for her to abuse America as 'uncivilized.'

AGNES OF SORRENTO, By Mrs. HARRIET BEECHER STOWE. Boston: Ticknor and Fields. 1862.

If there be, at the present day, an ungrateful task for an intelligent reader or a conscientious reviewer, it is to be obliged to deal with a work whose whole compass is merely that of a second-rate romance inspired by rococo sentimentalism. We regret to speak thus of a book by so eminent a writer as Mrs. Stowe; but when any one at this time undertakes to build up a novel out of such material as cloisters, monks, and nuns, Beato Angelico and frankincense, cavaliers and Savonarola, with the occasional 'purple patch' of a rhyming Latin hymn—in short, when we see the long-exhausted melo-dramatic style, which was years ago thoroughly quizzed in 'Firmilian,' revived in the year 1862 in a work of fiction, we can not refrain from expressing sorrow that a public can still be found to welcome such a bouquet of faded and tattered artificial flowers. There is something, indeed, almost painfully amusing in the liberal use of perfectly exhausted and thoroughly hackneyed elements of popular romance which appear in every page of Agnes of Sorrento. A writer has said of the heroine, that 'she is one of those ethereal females, only encountered in romance, who dwell on the brink of exaltation, and never eat bread and butter without seeming to fly in the face of Divine Providence.' But this feebly expresses the worn-out ornamental piety of the work. It would require but very little alteration to become one of the most intensely amusing books of the age.

SEVENTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE INSURANCE COMMISSIONERS OF THE COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS.

An interesting collection of documents, which will be read or examined with great pleasure by all who devote their attention to the rapidly maturing science of insurance, a science which perhaps combines in its range of material as much of the curious and useful as any other known; the whole tending to one great lesson: that every thing should be insured and that no insurance should be taxed by Government.

TWENTY-FOURTH ANNUAL REPORT OF THE BOARD OF EDUCATION. Boston: William White. 1862.

Apart from the vastly important testimony which these works bear to the efforts annually made in our good State in the cause of education—the great source, let us trust, of the politics to be—we seldom fail to find in them many useful hints as to the practical business of teaching, of which any writer on the subject would be glad to avail himself. Many such, at least, we detect in the volume before us, and sincerely trust that all will in due time bear their good fruit.

CONCORD FIGHT. By S. R. BARTLETT. Second edition. Concord: Albert Tracy. Boston: Crosby, Nichols & Co. 1862.

A poem of thirty-two pages, devoted to setting forth the incidents of Concord and Lexington fights, in the Revolutionary days, and therefore very appropriate to our own time. The 'plan' is excellent; the incidents well devised, while many little lyrical touches here and there are truly admirable. For instance, 'The White Cockade.'

'Firm hearts and true, strong bands to do, For liberty; The fierce old strain rings once again: 'Come death or victory!'

'The lips that woke the dawning note Are passed away; But the echoes of the 'White Cockade' Ring round our hills to-day.'

Long may they ring, and long may the descendants of the men of '76 prove that they still hear in spirit 'the dawning notes.'



EDITOR'S TABLE

The English journals and statesmen, in their excessive anxiety to regulate every thing for the world in general and for America in particular, quite lose sight of the fact, that before interfering in a neighbor's affairs, it is best to know what the state of affairs may really be. Of late, we have seen these makers of public opinion making mischief through gross ignorance, to a degree well-nigh unparalleled in history. On the strength of flying rumors, unfinished events imperfectly reported, and through Secession slanders, their great leaders, both representative and editorial, have ventured to spread before the masses statements which must unavoidably tend to greatly exasperate and alienate the people of our respective nations. They are blindly running up scores of hatred, which at some day may call for fearful settlement. Their influence is very great on the rank-loving multitude in their own country—a multitude which, after all, is, in the majority, more miserable and nearly as ignorant as that of any realm in Europe, or even the East, for there are fewer paupers in Turkey or Syria than in wealthy England. Yet, quite unheeding this, they continue to express sympathy for the South, declare with Brougham that the bubble of Democracy has at length burst, and chuckle over every Northern defeat. All of which shall be duly remembered.

The grossest error into which these men have fallen, is that of continually regarding our war not as a struggle between two great principles, or as an unavoidable necessity, but simply as a strife between two factions. Nearly every London editorial which we have seen for weeks proves this. 'What will the North gain if it conquers the South? What will the South make? What are WE to benefit by a victory of either?' It is perfectly natural, however, for a monarchy, virtually without 'politics,' devoid of great progressive ideas, and smothered by 'loyalty' and faith in an aristocracy, to see, as men did in the middle ages, nothing but a dispute of rival forces in every battle. It is 'Brown vs. Brown' to them, and nothing more. With the exception of Bright and his friends, no one in England seems to comprehend that our North has in itself the vital, progressive energy which must give it victory—the same spirit which enables English civilization to gain on the Hindoo or the New-Zealander—the spirit of science and intelligence, which conquers ignorance.

The fact that English statesmen can talk so calmly of the possibilities of Southern victory, and weigh with such equanimity the claims of the combatants, simply proves their ignorance of the real condition of the United States. And they are indeed very ignorant of us. Perhaps ignorance and thoughtlessness were never more decidedly manifested than in Brougham's late rhodomontade on the failure of Democracy in this country. For, in fact, there is not difference enough between the representative power of England and that of America to make a question. Between Commons and our House of Representatives—the most influential legislative bodies—there is no such great difference. English writers have asserted that our government is actually the strongest monarchy of the two, because our President possesses far greater power of patronage and personal influence than the Queen. The real difference is not between the forms of government, but between the innate flunkeyism of the Briton and the independence of the American. If we had the British government in every detail, and if John Bull were to adopt our system, the countries would stand where they were, and each gradually 'reform' itself, according to its ideas of reform, back into the old routine. The Englishman, needing 'my Lord' and 'Her Gracious Majesty,' and as unable to live without his golden calves of 'superiors' as bees are to exist without a queen, would soon create them; while the American blood, sprung from the republican Puritan, and developed into strength on a continent, would very soon, after a nine days' fete to his new fetish, kick it over, and instituting caucuses and primary ward-meetings, or 'town-meetings,' (a ceremony which no European in existence, save the Russian, is capable of properly managing,) would soon have all back again in the old road.

Democracy among the 'Yankees' as well as all North-Americans who are free from a servile respect for simple rank and money, is something very different from that mere form which Brougham, and with him nearly all Europe, believe it to be. We are not Frenchmen, or Englishmen, or Orientals, to quietly sit down under any kind of government which chance may impose, and exclaim: 'It is fate.' Democracy with us is not the mere form which they imagine. It is, like the English government, like the German, like the Pachalik of the Oriental, something as much a part of us as our national physiognomy. A very great proportion of the Englishmen who come here, remain flunkeys to the end—an American, other than a soul-diseased disciple of Richmond sociology, or some weak brother or sister dazed by court ball-tickets—quite as generally remain a despiser of men who acknowledge other men as their betters by mere birth. A love of freedom is in our blood, in our life, in our habits. We are fond, it is true, of temporarily lionizing great people, but we soon reduce them to our own level. America has shaken down more eminencies into notorieties than any other country in the world—it is a severe and terrible ordeal for great foreigners. Our eagerness to behold them is simply a keen curiosity and a natural love of amusement which is soon appeased. An American would crowd foremost to see Queen Victoria for the first time in his life—the second opportunity would be neglected. But the London shop-keeper who has seen that lady perhaps hundreds of times, still rushes out in wild haste, with eyes wide open, to behold her when she drives past. 'They can never get enough of it.' As one of their own writers has observed, a London tradesman may have been swindled a hundred times by real or sham noblemen, and yet no sooner does some flaunting cheat with the air noble enter his shop, than the cockney bows low and implores patronage with a cringing zeal only equaled by his 'uppishness' to humbler customers.

The truth simply is, that English thinkers wrongly judge our people to be like their own, and as capable of promptly submitting to acknowledged superiors. In the same blindness and ignorance, they see only two parties, equal in all respects in this war, and realize nothing of the innate vitality and irresistibly accretive power of free-labor, science, and progress, when brought into opposition with a conservatism which scorns every thing pertaining to the rights of the majority. Misled by their associations, they believe that the 'Aristocratic' party must triumph in the end, forgetting that even in their own country capital is gradually destroying the old land-marks which divided the privileged classes from the masses. We who virtually occupy a higher stand-point in history, though, perhaps, we are newer dwellers in our domain and not as yet as comfortable in it as they in theirs, can, however, afford to laugh at their opinions and threats. A nation, whose utmost effort could not raise above thirty thousand men for a war in which the point of honor between themselves and the French was at stake, is not the one to lay down laws to the American North, which could—probably without drafting—bring its million into the field. It is worth remembering that, had they sent us their Warrior, as they threatened after the Mason and Slidell difficulty, she would have met with the Monitor!

* * * * *

Three hundred thousand men are wanted—and that right early!

Let there be meetings, speeches, subscriptions—let every thing that is vigorous and impulsive and patriotic thrill the people forthwith: Let there be no lagging in the good cause. Never since the war begun was there a time when a fierce rally was more needed. We have it in our power to crush this rebellion to atoms, if the people will but once arouse in their might. Even this draft for three hundred thousand, when we come to portion it off among those remaining in our counties, becomes quite trifling.

'More than shooting goes to making war.' All who are in the North can fight to good purpose, if they will, every man and woman of them, do their best to raise soldiers, equip them and take care of their families.

Men! rise up and go forth. You will acquire a patent of nobility by serving in this war, which will be worth more to you and yours in coming days than any title on earth. You go to great risks—but not to any thing which can outweigh the good you can do for this truly holy cause. Have you lived lives 'of no great account'—now is the time to rise to a position—to be some body, and make your mark. Have you been a mere cipher in the great sum of life—a neglected trifle—now is the time to raise yourself to a real value. It can never be said of a man who served in this war that he was of no great account.

Has your life been stained—by misfortune or your own faults? Now is the time to wipe out the old score and begin afresh. What cautious, timid Peace rejects as bad, bold, hearty War grasps at with eagerness and makes good and great.

Are you poor, and dragging out a dull, base life, more sluggishly than your abilities deserve? Go to the war—in God's name, go to the war! Who knows what changes in life you may live through—what new opportunities may open before you! In that wide Southland lie a million homes, and there will be those left behind who—if you fight bravely—will give the matter no rest till you are richly rewarded. There is not a soldier in this war at this instant who is not acquiring what may be a fortune. Somebody must occupy the lands left vacant in the South!

Are you a lover? Make her proud of you.

Do not fear the risks. That is a poor, wretched life which has never run the chances of death.

'Fast in battle the bullets fly, But many a soldier the bullets pass by.'

Arise all! Up, Guards, and at 'em! Let there be a general up-stirring and a hearty good-will in this matter. The enemy have brought every white man among them into the field—they are kept alive solely by the blacks. One tremendous effort, such as we are capable of making, would sweep them from the face of the earth. Another struggle and we reach the shore.

* * * * *

Many years ago, the South began to alienate itself from the Union, by blindly abusing every thing pertaining to the North as 'Abolition.' They wanted a grievance; they would have one, and so yelled 'Wolf! wolf!' till the wolf came in roaring earnest. In like manner, the Democratic dabblers in mischief are now yelling 'Radical,' abusing emancipation, and doing all in their power to hoist themselves into notoriety. They are determined to force separate parties into existence, and they will end by accomplishing their purpose, by being in a losing reactionary minority, which will bear the brand in later days of having been the most unprincipled, narrow-minded, and desperately selfish faction which this country has ever known.

Gentle reader, accept the following from a friend in the quaint spirit in which it is written, and understand not by bad company aught that is evil—for if we read the word of the enigma, the 'bad' among her 'friends of the future' is indeed goodness-that saving salt which is often found among many who are too hastily banned as lost in the world. So, we pray you, judge it kindly:

FRIENDS OF THE FUTURE.

'There is no real amusement except in bad company.'—Italian Proverb.

Reprehensible but real sentiment of your humble servant, O dearly beloved reader! Your lips reprove me, but your heart forgives and sympathizes! And that heart rebels with mine against that adverse Past which has given to us so little of 'real amusement' from 'bad company,' and demands, like mine, reparation from the Future for the sufferings we have endured from unexceptionable and perfectly good company!

The representative men and women of that small and select bad company, (who have made the desert of our lives to blossom with roses, violets, strawberries and cream,) how distinctly they stand out on the horizon of memory! I see them—I count them, as easily as those few stately pines on yonder hill-top—one, two, three, four, five, six, seven. No more? What! not a delightful eight? Who has translated the murmur of the summer wind among the pines as 'No more?' 'No more?' Alas! to-day they give that answer to me, as I seek for one other in that bad and beloved company! 'But he cometh'—adveniat—he cometh in the future. O eighth! your morning will yet dawn.

Welcome, O Friend of the Future I whatever thy sex. Welcome! whether in cashmere and graceful crinolineaments, or in gray-suit and grecio!—only be 'more of the same sort.' Heaven is not so cruel! to give us five hundred dear twin-friends, on whom one has to tie five hundred different colored bows (I assure you, Monsieur, the ribbon-florists have this season produced five hundred colors) in order to distinguish one from another! Heaven would not do this cruel wrong without offering some apology—some mitigation.

Ah! you sigh. Your heart, then, does forgive me—I knew it would. Give me your hand, (such a soft, white hand!) I confess the proverb did sound a little naughty, but it's not really so. At all events, it is the truth—and, you know, we

'Can not tell a lie!' G. W.

Ah! this hand, though soft and white, is no longer plump and unconscious; it has suffered! You, too, have been bored—ah! I must kiss it.

'I, too, am human.'

I also have been bored! Come, now, you mistrust me no longer-and I—I love you! I love you, and, therefore, I want to amuse you; perhaps, by Heaven's blessing, I may prove 'bad company' myself!

For I can not but believe that somewhere in the purple Future, or latent amid the green leaves of the possible Fairy-dom, (in which some rich enchanter of an uncle is to lea-re us all an heritage,) there bide, waitingly, certain dear friends—delightful, daring, witty, and wicked creatures—like yourself, O reader I—with whom I am destined to be, spiritually, 'very much married indeed;' or if the expression sound too polygamatical, let me simply say lie. [For Heaven's sake, accept that as French, warm with an accent, and not as English, cold without one.] Lie means 'bound'—anchored, so to speak, to an intimate in an amicable manner. And it is in their friendship—in their kind and tender words and courteous deeds, and winsome ways, that I most truly live.

Where these dearmost ones may bide, I know not. Seven—yes—seven I have met, whom I cherish like diamonds of delight in the cotton of memory. It is worth noting, my dear, in this connection, that sev-en is one of the conjugations in Turkish of the root sev, or 'loving,' and 'them old Turks,' you know—but I am digressing. Are there not still to come seven—yea, seventy times seven, (I have mislaid my Koran, in which the number is more accurately stated,) of my Friends of the Future!

But I know what they are like. Oh! the charming, delightful wretches, how I enjoy looking at them—in fact, 'I admire to see' them—as they sweep along through the golden halls of my Schloss Dream-berg. Such nice clothes as they wear—the ducks! Such good things as they say—such—such—

It is too warm to-day to attempt superlatives. It were better to drink—say, iced lemonade, in which—for you, dear reader—by some mistake a little sherry has been cobblered. Sherrare est humanum. The Rabbis, we are told, forbade the children of Israel to puff the fire on the Sabbath with bellows, though they might keep it going by blowing through a straw. Wherefore, to this day, certain of the devout 'keep it a-going' by means of a straw—only by some strange mistake in interpretation, or by some vowel-points getting mislaid, they, instead of blowing from them in the straw, suck toward them. And their 'society' is a large one.

But we were talking of 'good company,' as they say in 'good society'—not of 'good society,' as they say in 'good company.' And, therefore, although not 'a retired clergyman,' and devoutly hoping that my 'sands of life' are not by a very long while 'run out,' (for I want to see my future friends,) I would yet (without these advantages) offer you 'some slight relief,' and would seek to assuage your sufferings resulting from too much good company; and since we have so few friends in the past who have amused us, turn we our 'regards' to the possible

FRIENDS OF THE FUTURE.

First among whom is

BAGNOLE

Face such as would-be Byron youths all crave, Impenetrable, gloomy as the grave; Voice, a 'French-gray,' the promise of the face, You'd swear he thought to laugh, a deep disgrace. Behold the mask of a bacchantine soul, Drinking deep draughts from life's enchanting bowl. Whether the bowl be from Cellini's hand. If rude, still crowning it with Fancy's flowers, Laughing at Time, and flirting with her Hours. He is not pious, and to church won't go; He says he can't—'tis so extremely slow.' Bagnole! with the 'goats' you're set apart' And yet, how can we wish a 'change of heart' In one like thee—great-minded, brave, and true! Ah! what a world, if all were such as you! But I forget—he's tender to the weak: To the sad Magdalene he'll kindly speak Words of pure gold—not that base metal thing Which falls like lead and gives no friendly ring; Opening the wound, to see if it is deep, Arousing thought, to see if' tis asleep! 'Tendir and treue,' us Douglas was of old, How far they see, who call thee 'tame and cold'! Tame! as a tiger: cold! as hot as flame! Where does he board, and what, oh! what's his name?



L'INCONNUE.

Dark Passion-flower, with keen mimosa-leaves, Into my life your fate her shuttle weaves. How long those wistful eyes have haunted mine— Brown eyes of earth—they have no light divine. Brown eyes! ye fill my soul with burning love— No Pantheon soul—lighted from above! O sister mine! you'll come to me at last— That shall atone for all our weary past. So pure thou art, with soul so joyous, free. The world could not forgive—and hated thee! To be 'unlike the world,' is thy dark sin. You or 'the world'? the 'you' my heart shall win. Within that shrine, so delicately fair, Burns a bright spirit which 'a world' can dare; She mocks 'the world,' but she would die for me. Her heart is fathomed by eternity; And yet she's always 'in the fashion' dressed, And 'wants a cashmere,' (she to me confessed.) Oh! you can see her, almost any day, Hat of pale violet, dress of silver-gray. She goes to parties and the 'Music-Hall;' She eats her dinner, and she gives a ball. You nod and smile: 'We know her now—we see!' Perhaps! Alas! she's quite unknown to me!

MARIE.

How can I tell you if her face be fair, While the gay sunshine of her smile is there? How can I tell you of a brilliant mind, When every word she speaks is angel-kind? Need I describe her voice, so melting sweet? Or the small mouth, which is its passage meet! I only know, while for her voice I wait, I see fair pearls behind that rosy gate. But when she speaks, her diamond-wit's so bright, All other beauties vanish from our sight. No need for her to fear 'the world's rebuff! Too much of Marie's always just enough I She is 'bad company,' yet e'en 'the good' Can find no flaw in her fair maidenhood. The saints don't doubt that she is in their fold— It makes me laugh to think how they are 'sold.' Nice, naughty folks are sure, she's of their creed, Yet she's no hypocrite, in word or deed. What is she, then—this gem without a flaw? She is—she is—a maid-en made of 'straw'!

* * * * *

Reader, have you in your house a vivarium or aquarium, or any other variety of animal curiosity-shop, under care of the younger members? If so, the subjoined sketch may awaken in your mind more than one vivid souvenir, We know, at all events, that some of its 'features' were founded on facts; that is, if a 'feature' can be 'founded.' However, we take the phrase from—but no, we are sufficiently abused by the Democratic editors, as it is.

EDITOR OF THE CONTINENTAL: Among the lesser joys of maternity, that of having your children interested in a vivarium is one of the least—in fact, it is an elephantine sorrow.

James, my eldest son, is a genius; before he was twelve years old, he invented a rat-trap, which not only caught rats, but cut off their tails and—let them go. At thirteen, he spoke Italian so fluently that he caused a hand-organ grinder to throw a brick at him. At fourteen, he came home one day with six large panes of glass, some tin and putty, and made a vivarium, a thing full of mud, water, leeches, dirty weeds, and other improvements.

When James had finished his glass case, he placed it in the front drawing-room window, so that the public might behold that exquisite process of nature, tadpoles turning into spring water-chickens, as they call frogs on hotel bill of fares. Unfortunately, the gold fish he put in with them killed the tadpoles while they still wiggled, and a pickerel that he had bought of a fellow-school-boy for half-price, its tail being ragged, ate up the gold-fish.

If at any time vegetables bought for the table were missing, we all knew where they went to; in fact, that vivarium, from the time green peas came until cabbages were ripe, resembled a soupe a la Jardiniere, and in summer-time a second course of boiled fish might easily have been found there.

One evening, when I had a little company, and while Fanny Schell was singing an aria, he caused her to conclude with an unusually high scream, by announcing at the top of his voice, while he pointed to the vivarium:

'Ma, the leeches have all crawled out!'

Imagine the feelings my little company had the rest of the evening.

I shall never forget the fright James gave me one hot night in July; it was Saturday, I remember well, for that was one of my son's holidays, and he returned home toward night unusually covered with mud, from a long walk in the country, evidently having been taking practical lessons in ditching. He was so very quiet after he returned, that I might have known he was in mischief. However, when his bed-time came, he kissed me good-night, and said:

'O ma! I have such a surprise for you in the morning.'

Unfortunately, I had the surprise that night. Business called my husband away from the city that morning, and I was alone. Waking up from a sound sleep about midnight, I distinctly heard somebody working on an anvil, like a blacksmith, 'ching-a-ling! ching-a-ling!' It evidently came from the drawing-room, and my fears at once told me it was a thief trying to break into the house. Next I heard some one whistle, like a man calling a dog, 'wheh! wheh! wheh!' Finally a dog barking, 'woo, woo, wooh!' Thoroughly alarmed, I sprang to the front-window, and called: 'Police! thieves!' until I managed to arouse the neighbors. I had the key of the front-door in my chamber; this I threw down to a police-officer, and in company with two others he boldly entered the house, lit the gas, and found—that vivarium full of bull-frogs!

My son banished the frogs and introduced cat-fish, (or, as they call them in Boston, 'horn-pouts.') One night, my great Angora cat, a cat born in the Rue de Seine, educated in the best French Ecole des chattes, and brought to this country by my husband, fell a victim to la gourmandise, by falling into the vivarium while fishing for cat—horn-pout—fish. James found her there in the morning, drowned, and partially eaten up by those she had hoped to eat. She went into the boudoir to Pout, and 'had done it.'

That finished the vivarium. I sincerely hope these trials to mothers will never again become the rage, and that something dry will next tempt our children's mania for home amusements. CORNELIA.

* * * * *

'The Kansas John Brown Song,' which lately appeared in these columns, and which we credited to the Kansas Herald—following the lead of the newspaper where we found it—was written by the Rev. William W. Patton, of Chicago, for the Tribune of that city.

* * * * *

Though so often trampled down by the heel of patriotism, the old serpent of treason and disunion still keeps lifting his head and hissing venomously. In New-York, Fernando Wood—that incarnation of Northern secession—the man who dared to issue a proclamation recommending the inhabitants of the city of which he was mayor to go off with the South, is plotting and planning (unpunished, of course) with spirits of kindred baseness, to build up the old order and reestablish the rule of corruption. At Washington, all the timid, time-serving, and place-hoping members of Congress have been holding 'Conservative' meetings, at which the most insolent or timid propositions have been put forth; some of the traitors manifesting clear as day their undisguised sympathy for the rebels, others speaking only to preserve their tattered characters as Unionists. The upshot of all was given in a resolution that Congress has no power to deprive a person of his property, unless that person has been duly convicted by a trial by jury.

We are not through the war as yet. Possibly, ere the end come, the country may have something to say as to the propriety of our representatives holding meetings to protect and favor rebels in their 'rights.'

WHAT'S in a name? There was a great puzzle once in one name, as appeareth from the following:

DEAR SIR: In a certain village not unknown to you, dwelleth one Alwright.

It is a good thing to have a good name. His, you observe, is 'petter as goot.'

Not long ago, A. went to an auction and bought things.

'What name, sir?' inquired the man with the hammer.

'Alwright.'

'What NAME, I say?' was the irritated reply.

'ALWRIGHT, I say.'

'All wrong, you mean. 'Spect you'll make it all right in the morning, hey?'

'AL-WRIGHT!' cried the purchaser.

'Yes, all right!' cried the crowd, taking the joke. 'All right-go ahead, old knock 'em down.'

The auctioneer began to be profane.

'A-L, Al,' began Alwright.

'Hold your tongue! Go——' continued the auctioneer.

'A-L Al, W-R-I-G-H-T wright,' continued the buyer.

'O—h, thunder!' exclaimed Hammer, on whom the laughter of the mob began to operate. 'That's it, is it! Beg pardon. James, put this gentleman's name down. All right, sir. Go ahead. Gentlemen, allow me to call your attention to this fine lot of leather. Did I hear twenty-five?—five—five—five—an' an' a ha'f, an' a ha'f, an' a ha'f—gone!'

Yours truly,

CONSTANT READER.

There is often some fun at auctions. One of the queerest ever reported to us was held in a French-Spanish be-Germanized village on the frontier, where business was transacted in something of a polyglott manner, as follows:

'Gentlemen-Messieurs-Senores y meine Herrne, I've got here for sale—a vender—a vendre zum verkaufen eine Schoene Buechse a first-rate rifle un fusil sans pareil, muy hermosa! Do I hear fifty pesos, cinquante Thaler ge-bid pour this here bully gun? Caballeros mira como es aplatado—all silvered up, in tip-top style—c'est de l'argent fin messieurs—s'ist alles von gutem Silber, Gott verdammich wenn's nicht echt is. Cinquante piastres, fuenfzig, fuenfzig, fifty do I hear, and a half an' a half an' a half e un demi piastre un d'mi un d'mi ein halb' und ein halb' und ein halb' un medio y tin medio—wer sagt six shillins, six escalins, six escalins, seis reales, sechs schillin!? For this beautiful gun, good for Injuns, deer, bar, buffalo, or to kill one another with—madre Dios! bueno por matar los Americanos—first-rate to kill a Greaser—womit Sie alles was nicht Deutsch ist zu todten. Fifty-one dollars, thanky sir—cinquante deux—Merci, Monsieur! Wer sagt drei und fuenfzig—ich glaube dass ein Deutscher bekommt's noch am Ende. Go it, Yankee, Dutch is a-gainin' on ye! and a half an' a half e trois quar' r' r' an' three quarters und drei Viertel y tres quartos—quelqu'un a dit fifty-three—fifty-four—going, going, gone, sir—at fifty-four—America ahead and Frenchy second-best.'

It would take some time, we should think, to be able to reel it off in such a quadruple thread.

* * * * *

Two 'after-Norse' poems are ours this month-the first from an esteemed Philadelphia correspondent—the second from another of the same State, but more inland. The following, we may observe, is written in the measure which most prevails in Icelandic poems:

THE VIKINGS.

Through the brown waters Dash the swift prows; At the helm Valor stands, Death at the bows: Vainly the foeman shrinks, Palsied in fright, Vain are his struggles, yet Vainer his flight.

Triple defenses— Fire, water, and steel, Guard the gate of the West From the Northerner's keel. Though defiant at midnight, Ere morning the wrath Of the terrible sea-kings Has leveled a path.

Rampart and heavy gun From o'er the bay, Whose broad waters stretch 'Twixt the ships and their prey: But shattered the rampart lies, Silent the gun, As the circle of living fire Madly rolls on.

Wide yawn the timbers, Wild waters rush in, As the ship settles fast Mid the fierce battle-din: Yet her guns hurl defiance, As, stern to the last, The sea sucks her in With her flag on the mast.

Sons of the Northman, Whose banner of old Spread the shadow of terror From each grisly fold, Of his broad heritage Worthy are ye: Win it and wear it well, Kings of the sea.

The next 'Norse' is longer. We find in it a brave ring of true poetry:

1861.

'Oh! dark and true and tender is the North.'

Loud leaps the strong wind forth, Fierce from the caves of the mighty North, Ages untold, O'er town and wold, That rest 'neath a softer sky, Swept that blast in anger by, And in his wrathful eddies bore The fiery song of Odin and Thor. Then little avail, 'Gainst the Vi-king's arm, The maiden's tear, the warrior's mail, Or the priestman's charm. And o'er the bright South-land A shadow of dread was the North wind's course, Whene'er his surging currents fanned The raven banner of the Norse.

Years pass, and time new rays has brought, Yet still the Northman's heart is warm; But light on his soul a change has wrought, And he loves the calm as he loved the storm.

Another god than the fearful Thor In heaven's blue he saw, And he gave to Peace his might in war— His anger to the law.

And the strong hand holds the sickle now, The anvil rings at morn; And waving sunbeams tinge with gold The hues of the ripening corn.

And the land he loves in peace has grown To be mighty in wealth and name; But o'er its brightness a cloud has flown, And evil men to its councils came.

And all seemed locked in a deadly sleep, While treason walked in her halls of state, And good men grieve, but hopeless weep, And the song of the scoffer is loud at the gate.

'The nation must pass away. For the Northman's blood is cold, And little he recks of honor or name, If his hand may clutch the gold.

'Work treason—work your will— Divide our Fatherland; Hearts are craven, souls are base— 'Tis fit for the traitor's hand.

'Fear no more the Northman's rage, The blood of the Vi-kings is old and worn; No ancient mem'ry can stir him now, To stand by the flag his fathers have borne.'

The words half-sung in silence fall, Hushed in dread by a mightier call,

That stays the hand—that throbs the heart; Cleaving the gloom, that wild war-note— The traitor's foot is on your flag, His bayonet at our throat.

And hark! the North-wind's sullen moan Rises high to a sterner tone, That sinks away, then bursts anew In joy, as 'mid its surges grew The shout, the stroke, the cannon's peal, The tread of countless number. For the flash of a traitor's steel Has broken the nation's slumber; And sighing breeze and southern gale, Seized by the fierce wind's grasp, are torn From gentle haunt by hill or dale, And in the whirling vortex borne. There murm'ring on his hollow breast, And wond'ring at his wild unrest, Their shrieking echoes sounding far, Loud swelled the Northman's shout to war; For with death's dark shadows flitting by, And the day as dark as night, A nation's hands are raised on high To hold their ancient right. And the ages are rolled from the record of time; For the years of peace with its soft'ning beam, That soothed in love the Northman's heart, Are now but the mists of a warrior's dream. And the tinsel of life is burned in the glow That flames in his heart as in years long ago, When Norman sea-kings swept the wave, Who loved the night, the storm, and bloody grave.