The Project Gutenberg eBook of Journeys Through Bookland, vol. 7, by Charles H. Sylvester.

A NEW AND ORIGINAL
PLAN FOR READING APPLIED TO THE
WORLD’S BEST LITERATURE
FOR CHILDREN

ILLUSTRATIONS

THE DAFFODILS

wandered lonely as a cloud
That floats on high o’er vales and hills,
When all at once I saw a crowd,—
A host of golden daffodils
Beside the lake, beneath the trees,
Fluttering and dancing in the breeze.

Continuous as the stars that shine
And twinkle on the Milky Way,
They stretched in never-ending line
Along the margin of a bay:
Ten thousand saw I, at a glance,
Tossing their heads in sprightly dance.

The waves beside them danced, but they
Outdid the sparkling waves in glee;
A poet could not but be gay
In such a jocund company;
I gazed—and gazed—but little thought
What wealth the show to me had brought.

For oft, when on my couch I lie,
In vacant or in pensive mood,
They flash upon that inward eye
Which is the bliss of solitude;
And then my heart with pleasure fills,
And dances with the daffodils.

When we look at this little poem we see at a glance that the stanzas are all the same length, that the rhyme scheme is ababcc (see “To My Infant Son,” Vol. VI), and that the indentation at the beginning of the lines corresponds with the rhymes. This poem, then, is perfectly regular in form.

There are other things, however, which go to make up perfect structure in a poem. First and foremost, the words are so arranged that the accented syllables in any given line come at regular intervals. Take, for instance, the first two lines of this poem. Each line contains eight syllables. If you number these syllables 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, you will see that it is the second one each time that bears the accent, thus:

I wan´dered lone´ly as´ a cloud´
That floats´ on high´ o’er vales´ and hills´.

Now, if you read the four remaining lines of the stanza you will see that in each one of these the second syllable [3]bears the accent, until you come to the last line, where in the word fluttering, which, by the way, you pronounce flutt´ring, the accent is on the first syllable. If the poet did not now and then change the accent a little it would become tedious and monotonous.

It is a very simple matter, you see, to separate every line of poetry into groups of syllables, and in every group to place one accented syllable and one or more syllables that are not accented. Such a group is called a foot. Thus in each of the first two lines in this poem there are four feet. Each foot contains an accented and an unaccented syllable.

If you examine To the Fringed Gentian, To a Mouse, and To a Mountain Daisy, the three poems which follow this, you will see the same structure, except that in To a Mouse and in To A Mountain Daisy there are some short lines and some double rhymes, making the last foot a little different in character from the others.

When a line of poetry is composed of two-syllable feet in which the second syllable bears the accent we call that meter iambic. It is the prevalent foot in English poetry, and if you examine the different poems in these volumes you will be surprised to find out how many of them are written substantially on the plan of The Daffodils.

In naming the meter of a poem two things are considered: First the character of the feet, and second, the number of feet. In this poem the feet are iambic and there are four of them, consequently we name the meter of this poem iambic tetrameter. Whenever you hear those words you think of a poem whose meter is exactly like that of The Daffodils.

These words seem long and hard to remember. It may help you to remember them if you think that the word iam´bic contains an iambic foot.

In naming the meter we use the Greek numerals—mono (one), di (two), tri (three), tetra (four), penta (five), hexa (six), hepta (seven), and octa (eight), and add to them the word meter, thus: Mo-nom´e-ter, a line containing one foot, dim´e-ter, trim´e-ter, te-tram´e-ter, pen-tam´e-ter, hex-am´e-ter, hep-tam´e-ter, and oc-tam´e-ter.

TO THE FRINGED GENTIAN

Thou blossom, bright with autumn dew,
And colored with the heaven’s own blue,
That openest when the quiet light
Succeeds the keen and frosty night;

Thou comest not when violets lean
O’er wandering brooks and springs unseen,
Or columbines, in purple dressed,
Nod o’er the ground-bird’s hidden nest.

Thou waitest late, and com’st alone,
When woods are bare and birds are flown,
And frosts and shortening days portend
The aged Year is near his end.

[5]Then doth thy sweet and quiet eye
Look through its fringes to the sky,
Blue—blue—as if that sky let fall
A flower from its cerulean wall.

I would that thus, when I shall see
The hour of death draw near to me,
Hope, blossoming within my heart,
May look to heaven as I depart.

TO A MOUSE

Wee, sleekit,5-1 cow’rin’, tim’rous beastie,
O, what a panic’s in thy breastie!
Thou need na start awa sae hasty,
Wi’ bickering brattle!5-2
I wad be laith to rin an’ chase thee,
Wi’ murdering pattle!5-3

I’m truly sorry man’s dominion
Has broken Nature’s social union,
An’ justifies that ill opinion
Which makes thee startle
At me, thy poor earth-born companion,
An’ fellow-mortal!

I doubt na, whyles, but thou may thieve;
What then? poor beastie, thou maun live!
[6]A daimen-icker 6-4 in a thrave 6-5
’S a sma’ request:
I’ll get a blessin’ wi’ the lave 6-6
And never miss’t!

Thy wee bit housie, too, in ruin!
Its silly wa’s the win’s are strewin’!
An’ naething, now, to big a new ane,
O’ foggage 7-7 green!
An’ bleak December’s winds ensuin’,
Baith snell 7-8 and keen!

Thou saw the fields laid bare an’ waste,
And weary winter comin’ fast,
And cozie, here, beneath the blast,
Thou thought to dwell,
Till crash! the cruel coulter 7-9 past
Out thro’ thy cell.

That wee bit heap o’ leaves an’ stibble,
Has cost thee mony a weary nibble!
Now thou’s turn’d out, for a’ thy trouble,
But house or hald,7-10
To thole 7-11 the winter’s sleety dribble,
An’ cranreuch 7-12 cauld!

But, Mousie, thou art no thy lane,7-13
In proving foresight may be vain;
The best-laid schemes o’ mice an’ men,
Gang aft a-gley,7-14
An’ lea’e us nought but grief and pain,
For promis’d joy.

[8]Still them are blest, compar’d wi’ me!
The present only toucheth thee:
But, Och! I backward cast my e’e
On prospects drear;
An’ forward, tho’ I canna see,8-15
I guess an’ fear.

5-1 Sleekit means sly.

5-2 Brattle means a short race.

5-3 A pattle is a scraper for cleaning a plow.

6-4 Daimen-icker means an ear of corn occasionally.

6-5 A thrave is twenty-four sheaves.

6-6 Lave is the Scotch word for remainder.

7-7 Foggage is coarse uncut grass.

7-8 Snell means sharp.

7-9 The coulter is the sharp iron which cuts the sod before the plow.

7-10 Hald means a resting place. But here means without.

7-11 Thole is the Scotch word for endure.

7-12 Cranreuch is hoar-frost.

7-13 No thy lane means not alone.

7-14 Gang aft a-gley means often go wrong.

8-15 In this poem and the one To a Mountain Daisy, does the allusion to the poet’s own hard fate add to or detract from the beauty of the composition? Do these allusions give any insight into his character? What was always uppermost in his mind?

TO A MOUNTAIN DAISY

Wee, modest, crimson-tippéd flower,
Thou’s met me in an evil hour,
For I maun 8-1 crush amang the stoure 8-2
Thy slender stem;
To spare thee now is past my power,
Thou bonny gem.

Alas! it’s no thy neibor sweet,
The bonny lark, companion meet,
Bending thee’ mang the dewy weet,
Wi’ spreckled 8-3 breast,
When upward springing, blithe, to greet
The purpling east.

[9]Cauld blew the bitter biting north
Upon thy early, humble birth;
Yet cheerfully thou glinted forth
Amid the storm,
Scarce reared above the parent earth
Thy tender form.

The flaunting flowers our gardens yield,
High sheltering woods and wa’s maun shield.
But thou beneath the random bield 9-4
O’ clod or stane,
Adorns the histie 9-5 stibble-field,
Unseen, alane.

[10]There, in thy scanty mantle clad,
Thy snawie bosom sunward spread,
Thou lifts thy unassuming head
In humble guise;
But now the share uptears thy bed,
And low thou lies!

Such is the fate of artless maid,
Sweet floweret of the rural shade!
By love’s simplicity betrayed,
And guileless trust,
Till she, like thee, all soiled, is laid
Low i’ the dust.

Such is the fate of simple bard,
On life’s rough ocean luckless starred!
Unskilful he to note the card
Of prudent lore,
Till billows rage, and gales blow hard
And whelm him o’er!

Such fate to suffering worth is given,
Who long with wants and woes has striven,
By human pride or cunning driven
To misery’s brink,
Till wrenched of every stay but Heaven,
He, ruined, sink!

Even thou who mourn’st the daisy’s fate,
That fate is thine,—no distant date:
Stern Ruin’s ploughshare drives, elate,
Full on thy bloom,
Till crushed beneath the furrow’s weight,
Shall be thy doom!

8-1 Maun is the Scotch word for must.

8-2 Stoure is the Scotch name for dust.

8-3 Spreckled is the Scotch and provincial English form of speckled.

9-4 Bield means shelter.

9-5 Histie means dry or barren.

THE OLD OAKEN BUCKET 11-1

How dear to my heart are the scenes of my childhood,
When fond 11-2 recollection presents them to view;
The orchard, the meadow, the deep, tangled wild-wood,
And every loved spot that my infancy 11-3 knew.
The wide-spreading pond, and the mill 11-4 that stood by it;
The bridge and the rock where the cataract fell;
The cot of my father, the dairy house 11-5 nigh it,
And e’en the rude bucket which hung in the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hung in the well.

That moss-covered bucket I hail as a treasure;
For often at noon, when returned from the field,
I found it the source of an exquisite pleasure,
The purest and sweetest that nature can yield.
[12]How ardent I seized it, with hands that were glowing,
And quick to the white-pebbled bottom it fell 12-6;
Then soon with the emblem of truth 12-7 overflowing,
And dripping with coolness it rose from the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket arose from the well.

How sweet from the green mossy brim to receive it,
As poised on the curb,12-8 it inclined to my lips!
[13]Not a full blushing goblet 13-9 could tempt me to leave it,
Though filled with the nectar 13-10 that Jupiter sips.
And now, far removed from the loved situation,13-11
The tear of regret will oftentimes swell,
As fancy returns to my father’s plantation,
And sighs for the bucket which hangs in the well—
The old oaken bucket, the iron-bound bucket,
The moss-covered bucket which hangs in the well.

If we compare The Old Oaken Bucket with The Daffodils (page 1), we will see that the lines of the former are longer, and when we read aloud a few lines from the one and compare the other, we see that the movement is very different. In The Old Oaken Bucket the accents are farther apart, and the result is to make the movement long and smooth, like that of a swing with long ropes.

Let us examine more closely the lines of The Old Oaken Bucket in a manner similar to that suggested on page 2, for The Daffodils. If we place the accent on the proper syllables in the first four lines, they will read as follows:

[14]

The vertical lines above are drawn at the ends of the feet. How many feet are there in the first line; how many in the second; how many in the third; how many in the fourth? How many syllables in the first foot in the first line? How many other feet do you find containing the same number of syllables? How many syllables are there in the second foot in the first line? How many other feet are there containing the same number of syllables? Examine the feet that contain three syllables. On which syllable is the accent placed when there are three syllables in the foot? A poetic foot of three syllables which bears the accent on the third syllable is called an anapestic foot. The meter of this poem, then is anapestic tetrameter, varied by an added syllable in most of the odd-numbered lines and by an iambic foot at the beginning of each line.

Can you find any other poem in this volume in which the meter is the same? Can you find such poems in other volumes?

11-1 Samuel Woodworth, the author of this familiar song, was an American, the editor of many publications and the writer of a great many poems; but no one of the latter is now remembered, except The Old Oaken Bucket.

11-2 This means that the author remembers fondly the scenes of his childhood, or remembers the things of which he was fond in his childhood.

11-3 As the term is used in the law-books, a person is an infant until he is twenty-one years of age; though, probably the word infancy here means the same as childhood.

11-4 Let us picture a large mill-pond with a race running out of one side of it past the old-fashioned mill, which has a big wooden water wheel on the outside of it.

11-5 The dairy house was probably a low, broad building through which the water from the stream ran. The milkpans were set on low shelves or in a trough so that the water could run around them and keep the milk cool.

12-6 If he could see the white-pebbled bottom of the well, it must have been a shallow one, or perhaps merely a square box built around a deep spring.

12-7 Water is usually spoken of as an emblem of purity, not of truth; but sometimes truth is spoken of as hiding at the bottom of a well.

12-8 The curb is the square box usually built around the mouth of the well to a height of a few feet, to protect the water from dirt. Sometimes three of the sides are carried up to a height of six or eight feet, and a roof is built over the whole, making a little house of the curb. The fourth side is left open, except for two or three feet at the bottom. In these old wells two buckets were often used. They were attached to a rope which ran over a wheel suspended from the roof of the well house. When a bucket was drawn up it was often rested on the low curb in front, while people drank from it.

13-9 Blushing goblet alludes to wine or some other liquor that has a reddish color.

13-10 Nectar was the drink of the old Greek gods, of whom Jupiter was the chief.

13-11 Situation and plantation do not rhyme well, and situation is scarcely the right word to use. Location would be better, so far as the meaning is concerned.

BANNOCKBURN

Scots, wha hae wi’ Wallace bled;
Scots, wham Bruce has aften led;
Welcome to your gory bed,
Or to glorious victorie!

Now’s the day and now’s the hour—
See the front o’ battle lour;
See approach proud Edward’s power—
Edward! chains and slaverie!

Wha will be a traitor knave?
Wha can fill a coward’s grave?
Wha sae base as be a slave?
Traitor! coward! turn and flee!

Wha for Scotland’s king and law
Freedom’s sword will strongly draw!
Freeman stand or freeman fa’,
Caledonian! on wi’ me!

By oppression’s woes and pains!
By our sons in servile chains!
We will drain our dearest veins,
But they shall be—shall be free!

[16]Lay the proud usurpers low!
Tyrants fall in every foe!
Liberty’s in every blow!
Forward! let us do or die!

On pages 2, and 13, of this volume we talked about the different meters in which poetry is written. In iambic poetry each foot contains two syllables, the second of which is accented. There is another kind of foot composed of two syllables. In this the accent falls on the first syllable. Bannockburn gives examples of this. To illustrate, we will rewrite the first stanza, using the words in their English form, and mark off the feet and the accent:

Each one of these lines ends with an accented syllable, but that may be disregarded in studying the feet. This foot is called the trochee, and it will help you to remember it if you will think that the word tro´chee has two syllables and is accented on the first. This poem, then, is in trochaic trimeter, with added accented syllables at the ends of the lines. Read the other stanzas carefully, throwing the accent prominently on the first syllable of each foot.

When you read to bring out the meter of a poem you are said to be scanning it. When you are in the habit of scanning poetry you will find that you can do it very nicely and without spoiling the sound. At first you will probably accent the syllables too strongly, and then people will say that you are reading in a sing-song way, a thing to be avoided. Of course you will understand that the only way to bring out the meter of a poem is to read it aloud, but after you have become familiar with the various meters and have read aloud a great deal, you will be conscious of the rhythm when you read to yourself. It is this consciousness of rhythm that gives much of the enjoyment to those who love poetry, even when they do not read it aloud.

BOAT SONG

ail to the Chief who in triumph advances!
Honored and blest be the evergreen pine!
Long may the tree, in his banner that glances,
Flourish, the shelter and grace of our line!
Heaven send it happy dew,
Earth lend it sap anew,
Gayly to bourgeon, and broadly to grow,
While every Highland glen
Sends our shout back again,
“Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!”

Ours is no sapling, chance sown by the fountain,
Blooming at Beltane, in winter to fade;
When the whirlwind has stripped every leaf on the mountain
The more shall Clan Alpine exult in her shade.
Moored in the rifted rock,
Proof to the tempest’s shock,
Firmer he roots him the ruder it blow:
Menteith and Breadalbane, then
Echo his praise again,
“Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!”

[18]Proudly our pibroch has thrilled in Glen Fruin,
And Bannochar’s groans to our slogan replied;
Glen Luss and Ross-dhu, they are smoking in ruin,
And the best of Loch-Lomond lie dead on her side.
Widow and Saxon maid
Long shall lament our raid,
Think of Clan Alpine with fear and with woe;
Lennox and Leven-glen
Shake when they hear again,
“Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!”

Row, vassals, row for the pride of the Highlands!
Stretch to your oars for the evergreen pine!
O that the rosebud that graces yon islands
Were wreathed in a garland around him to twine!
O that some seedling gem,
Worthy such noble stem,
Honored and blessed in their shadow might grow!
Loud should Clan Alpine then
Ring from her deepmost glen,
“Roderigh Vich Alpine dhu, ho! ieroe!”

The last of the common feet which we shall have to consider in reading English poetry is called dactyl. This foot consists of three syllables, the first of which is accented. Scott’s Boat Song is a very fine example of dactylic tetrameter, in which the last foot consists either of a trochee (see page 16) or of a single accented syllable. In every stanza there are four short lines of dactylic dimeter. Study the four lines which we have divided for you below:

This is one of the finest meters in which poetry may be written, and one which you will learn to recognize and like whenever you see it.

[19]To assist you in remembering what we have said on this subject in the four poems we have studied, we will give this brief outline:

Poetic feet

1. Consisting of two syllables:
1. Iambic, when the second syllable is accented.
2. Example: I wan´|dered lone|ly as´| a cloud´.
3. Trochaic, when the first syllable is accented.
4. Example: Scots´, who | have´ with | Wal´lace | bled´.
2. Consisting of three syllables:
1. Anapestic, when the third syllable is accented.
2. Example: How dear´ | to my heart´ | are the scenes´ | of my child´|hood.
3. Dactylic, when the first syllable is accented.
4. Example: Hail´ to the | chief´ who in | tri´umph ad|van´ces.

There are two other feet which are found occasionally in English poetry, namely the spondee, which has two accented syllables, and the amphilbrach, which consists of three syllables with the accent on the middle one.

Of course it is not necessary for you to know the names of these different feet in order to enjoy poetry, but it is interesting information. What you must do is to notice whenever you read poetry the kind of feet that compose the lines and how many there are in the line. After a while this becomes second nature to you, and while you may not really pause to think about it at any time, yet you are always conscious of the rhythm and remember that it is produced by a fixed arrangement of the accented syllables. If you would look over the poems in these volumes, beginning even with the nursery rhymes, it would not take you long to become familiar with all the different forms.

While study of this kind may seem tiresome at first, you will soon find that you are making progress and will really enjoy it, and you will never be sorry that you took the time when you were young to learn to understand the structure of poetry.

THE GOVERNOR AND THE NOTARY

n former times there ruled, as governor of the Alhambra 20-1, a doughty old cavalier, who, from having lost one arm in the wars, was commonly known by the name of El Gobernador Manco, or the one-armed governor. He in fact prided himself upon being an old soldier, wore his mustachios curled up to his eyes, a pair of campaigning boots, and a toledo 20-2 as long as a spit, with his pocket handkerchief in the basket-hilt.

He was, moreover, exceedingly proud and punctilious, and tenacious of all his privileges and dignities. Under his sway, the immunities of the Alhambra, as a royal residence and domain, were rigidly exacted. No one was permitted to enter the fortress with firearms, or even with a sword or staff, unless he were of a certain rank, and every horseman was obliged to dismount at the gate and lead his horse by the bridle. Now, as the hill of the Alhambra rises from the very midst of the city of Granada, being, as it were, an excrescence of the[21] capital, it must at all times be somewhat irksome to the captain-general, who commands the province, to have thus an imperium in imperio,21-3 a petty, independent post in the very core of his domains. It was rendered the more galling in the present instance, from the irritable jealousy of the old governor, that took fire on the least question of authority and jurisdiction, and from the loose, vagrant character of the people that had gradually nestled themselves within the fortress as in a sanctuary, and from thence carried on a system of roguery and depredation at the expense of the honest inhabitants of the city. Thus there was a perpetual feud and heart-burning between the captain-general and the governor; the more virulent on the part of the latter, inasmuch as the smallest of two neighboring potentates is always the most captious about his dignity. The stately palace of the captain-general stood in the Plaza Nueva, immediately at the foot of the hill of the Alhambra, and here was always a bustle and parade of guards, and domestics, and city functionaries. A beetling bastion of the fortress overlooked the palace and the public square in front of it; and on this bastion the old governor would occasionally strut backward and forward, with his toledo girded by his side, keeping a wary eye down upon his rival, like a hawk reconnoitering his quarry from his nest in a dry tree.

Whenever he descended into the city it was in grand parade, on horseback, surrounded by his guards, or in his state coach, an ancient and unwieldy Spanish edifice of carved timber and gilt leather,[22] drawn by eight mules, with running footmen, outriders, and lackeys, on which occasions he flattered himself he impressed every beholder with awe and admiration as vicegerent of the king, though the wits of Granada were apt to sneer at his petty parade, and, in allusion to the vagrant character of his subjects, to greet him with the appellation of “the king of the beggars.”

One of the most fruitful sources of dispute between these two doughty rivals was the right claimed by the governor to have all things passed free of duty through the city, that were intended for the use of himself or his garrison. By degrees, this privilege had given rise to extensive smuggling. A nest of contrabandistas 22-4 took up their abode in the hovels of the fortress and the numerous caves in its vicinity, and drove a thriving business under the connivance of the soldiers of the garrison.

The vigilance of the captain-general was aroused. He consulted his legal adviser and factotum, a shrewd, meddlesome Escribano or notary, who rejoiced in an opportunity of perplexing the old potentate of the Alhambra, and involving him in a maze of legal subtilities. He advised the captain-general to insist upon the right of examining every convoy passing through the gates of his city, and he penned a long letter for him, in vindication of the right. Governor Manco was a straightforward, cut-and-thrust old soldier, who hated an Escribano worse than the devil, and this one in particular, worse than all other Escribanoes.

“What!” said he, curling up his mustachios fiercely, “does the captain-general set this man of the[23] pen to practice confusions upon me? I’ll let him see that an old soldier is not to be baffled by schoolcraft.”

He seized his pen, and scrawled a short letter in a crabbed hand, in which he insisted on the right of transit free of search, and denounced vengeance on any custom-house officer who should lay his unhallowed hand on any convoy protected by the flag of the Alhambra.

While this question was agitated between the two pragmatical potentates, it so happened that a mule laden with supplies for the fortress arrived one day at the gate of Xenil, by which it was to traverse a suburb of the city on its way to the Alhambra. The convoy was headed by a testy old corporal, who had long served under the governor, and was a man after his own heart—as trusty and stanch as an old Toledo blade. As they approached the gate of the city, the corporal placed the banner of the Alhambra on the pack saddle of the mule, and drawing himself up to a perfect perpendicular, advanced with his head dressed to the front, but with the wary side glance of a cur passing through hostile grounds, and ready for a snap and a snarl.

The corporal marched straight forward, followed by the convoy, but had not advanced many paces before a posse of custom-house officers rushed out of a small toll-house.

[24]“Halloo there!” cried the leader. “Muleteer, halt and open those packages.”

The corporal wheeled round, and drew himself up in battle array. “Respect the flag of the Alhambra,” said he; “these things are for the governor.”

“Stop the convoy at your peril!” cried the corporal, cocking his musket. “Muleteer, proceed.”

The muleteer gave his beast a hearty thwack, the custom-house officer sprang forward and seized the halter; whereupon the corporal leveled his piece and shot him dead.

The street was immediately in an uproar. The old corporal was seized, and after undergoing sundry kicks and cuffs, and cudgelings, which are generally given impromptu by the mob in Spain, as a foretaste of the after penalties of the law, he was loaded with irons, and conducted to the city prison; while his comrades were permitted to proceed with the convoy, after it had been well rummaged, to the Alhambra.

The old governor was in a towering passion, when he heard of this insult to his flag and capture of his corporal. For a time he stormed about the Moorish halls, and vapored about the bastions, and looked down fire and sword upon the palace of the captain-general. Having vented the first ebullition of his wrath, he dispatched a message demanding the surrender of the corporal, as to him alone belonged the right of sitting in judgment on the offenses of those under his command. The captain-general, aided by the pen of the delighted Escribano, replied at great length, arguing that as the offense had been com[25]mitted within the walls of his city, and against one of his civil officers, it was clearly within his proper jurisdiction. The governor rejoined by a repetition of his demand; the captain-general gave a surrejoinder of still greater length, and legal acumen; the governor became hotter and more peremptory in his demands, and the captain-general cooler and more copious in his replies; until the old lion-hearted soldier absolutely roared with fury at being thus entangled in the meshes of legal controversy.

While the subtle Escribano was thus amusing himself at the expense of the governor, he was conducting the trial of the corporal; who, mewed up in a narrow dungeon of the prison, had merely a small grated window at which to show his iron-bound visage, and receive the consolations of his friends; a mountain of written testimony was diligently heaped up, according to Spanish form, by the indefatigable Escribano; the corporal was completely overwhelmed by it. He was convicted of murder, and sentenced to be hanged.

It was in vain the governor sent down remonstrance and menace from the Alhambra. The fatal day was at hand, and the corporal was put in capilla, that is to say, in the chapel of the prison; as is always done with culprits the day before execution, that they may meditate on their approaching end and repent them of their sins.

Seeing things drawing to an extremity, the old governor determined to attend to the affair in person. He ordered out his carriage of state and, surrounded by his guards, rumbled down the avenue of the Alhambra into the city. Driving to the house of the Escribano, he summoned him to the portal.

[26]The eye of the old governor gleamed like a coal at beholding the smirking man of the law advancing with an air of exultation.

“What is this I hear,” cried he, “that you are about to put to death one of my soldiers?”

“All according to law—all in strict form of justice,” said the self-sufficient Escribano, chuckling[27] and rubbing his hands. “I can show your excellency the written testimony in the case.”

The Escribano bustled into his office, delighted with having another opportunity of displaying his ingenuity at the expense of the hard-headed veteran. He returned with a satchel full of papers, and began to read a long deposition with professional volubility. By this time a crowd had collected, listening with outstretched necks and gaping mouths.

“Prithee man, get into the carriage out of this pestilent throng, that I may the better hear thee,” said the governor. The Escribano entered the carriage, when in a twinkling the door was closed, the coachman smacked his whip, mules, carriage, guards, and all dashed off at a thundering rate, leaving the crowd in gaping wonderment, nor did the governor pause until he had lodged his prey in one of the strongest dungeons of the Alhambra.

He then sent down a flag of truce in military style, proposing a cartel or exchange of prisoners, the corporal for the notary. The pride of the captain-general was piqued, he returned a contemptuous refusal, and forthwith caused a gallows, tall and strong, to be erected in the center of the Plaza Nueva, for the execution of the corporal.

“Oho! is that the game?” said Governor Manco; he gave orders, and immediately a gibbet was reared on the verge of the great beetling bastion that overlooked the Plaza. “Now,” said he, in a message to the captain-general, “hang my soldier when you please; but at the same time that he is swung off in the square, look up to see your Escribano dangling against the sky.”

[28]The captain-general was inflexible; troops were paraded in the square; the drums beat; the bell tolled; an immense multitude of amateurs had collected to behold the execution; on the other hand, the governor paraded his garrison on the bastion, and tolled the funeral dirge of the notary from the Torre de la Campana, or tower of the bell.

The notary’s wife pressed through the crowd with a whole progeny of little embryo Escribanoes at her heels, and throwing herself at the feet of the captain-general implored him not to sacrifice the life of her husband and the welfare of herself and her numerous little ones to a point of pride.

The captain-general was overpowered by her tears and lamentations, and the clamors of her callow brood. The corporal was sent up to the Alhambra under a guard, in his gallows garb, like a hooded friar; but with head erect and a face of iron. The Escribano was demanded in exchange, according to the cartel. The once bustling and self-sufficient man of the law was drawn forth from his dungeon, more dead than alive. All his flippancy and conceit had evaporated; his hair, it is said, had nearly turned gray with fright, and he had a downcast, dogged look, as if he still felt the halter round his neck.

The old governor stuck his one arm akimbo, and for a moment surveyed him with an iron smile. “Henceforth, my friend,” said he, “moderate your zeal in hurrying others to the gallows; be not too certain of your own safety, even though you should have the law on your side; and, above all, take care how you play off your schoolcraft another time upon an old soldier.”

20-1 The Alhambra was the fortified palace, or citadel, of the Moorish kings when they reigned over Granada, in Spain. It was built in the thirteenth and fourteenth centuries, and is one of the most beautiful examples of Moorish architecture.

20-2 A toledo is a sword having a blade made at Toledo, in Spain, a place famous for blades of remarkably fine temper and great elasticity.

21-3 Imperium in imperio is a Latin phrase meaning a government within a government.

22-4 Contrabandista is a Spanish name for a smuggler.

THE RIME OF THE ANCIENT MARINER 29-*

PART I

It is an ancient Mariner,
And he stoppeth one of three.
“By thy long gray beard and glittering eye,
Now wherefore stopp’st thou me?

“The Bridegroom’s doors are opened wide,
And I am next of kin;
The guests are met, the feast is set:
May’st hear the merry din.”

[30]He holds him with a skinny hand.
“There was a ship,” quoth he.
“Hold off! unhand me, gray-beard loon!”
Eftsoons 30-1 his hand dropt he.

He holds him with his glittering eye—
The Wedding-guest stood still,
And listens like a three years’ child:
The Mariner hath his will.

The Wedding-guest sat on a stone:
He cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner:30-2—

“The ship was cheered, the harbour cleared,
Merrily did we drop
Below the kirk, below the hill,
Below the lighthouse top.

“The sun came up upon the left,30-3
Out of the sea came he!
And he shone bright, and on the right
Went down into the sea.

“Higher and higher every day,
Till over the mast at noon—”30-4
[31]The Wedding-guest here beat his breast,
For he heard the loud bassoon.

The bride hath paced into the hall,
Red as a rose is she;
Nodding their heads before her goes
The merry minstrelsy.

The Wedding-guest he beat his breast,
Yet he cannot choose but hear;
And thus spake on that ancient man,
The bright-eyed Mariner:—

“And now the storm-blast came, and he
Was tyrannous and strong;
He struck with his o’ertaking wings,
And chased us south along.

“With sloping masts and dipping prow,
As who 31-5 pursued with yell and blow
Still treads the shadow of his foe 31-6,
And forward bends his head,
The ship drove fast, loud roared the blast,
And southward aye we fled.

“And now there came both mist and snow,
And it grew wondrous cold:
[32]And ice, mast-high, came floating by,
As green as emerald.32-7

“And through the drifts, the snowy clifts 32-8
Did send a dismal sheen:
Nor shapes of men nor beasts we ken—
The ice was all between.

“The ice was here, the ice was there,
The ice was all around:
It cracked and growled, and roared and howled,
Like noises in a swound!32-9

“At length did cross an Albatross,
Thorough 32-10 the fog it came;
As if it had been a Christian soul,
We hailed it in God’s name.32-11

“It ate the food it ne’er had eat,
And round and round it flew.
The ice did split with a thunder-fit;
The helmsman steered us through.

“And a good south wind sprung up behind;34-12
The Albatross did follow,
And every day, for food or play,
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

“In mist or cloud, on mast or shroud,
It perched for vespers nine;
Whiles all the night, through fog-smoke white,
Glimmered the white moonshine.”

“God save thee, ancient Mariner,
From the fiends that plague thee thus!—
Why look’st thou so?”—“With my cross-bow
I shot the Albatross.”

PART II

“The Sun now rose upon the right:34-13
Out of the sea came he,
Still hid in mist, and on the left
Went down into the sea.

“And the good south wind still blew behind,
But no sweet bird did follow,
Nor any day for food or play
Came to the mariner’s hollo!

“And I had done a hellish thing,
And it would work ’em woe:
For all averred I had killed the bird
That made the breeze to blow,—
Ah wretch! said they, the bird to slay,
That made the breeze to blow.

[35]“Nor dim, nor red, like God’s own head,
The glorious Sun uprist:35-14
Then all averred I had killed the bird
That brought the fog and mist.
’Twas right, said they, such birds to slay,
That bring the fog and mist.35-15

“The fair breeze blew, the white foam flew,
The furrow followed free;35-16
We were the first that ever burst
Into that silent sea.

“Down dropt the breeze, the sails dropt down,
’Twas sad as sad could be;
And we did speak only to break
The silence of the sea!

“All in a hot and copper sky,
The bloody Sun, at noon,
Right up above the mast did stand,35-17
No bigger than the Moon.35-18

“Day after day, day after day,
We stuck, nor breath nor motion;
[36]As idle as a painted ship
Upon a painted ocean.

“Water, water, everywhere,
And all the boards did shrink;
Water, water, everywhere,
Nor any drop to drink.

“The very deep did rot: O Christ!
That ever this should be!
Yea, slimy things did crawl with legs
Upon the slimy sea.

“About, about, in reel and rout 36-19
The death-fires 36-20 danced at night;
The water, like a witch’s oils,
Burnt green, and blue, and white.

“And some in dreams assurèd were
Of the Spirit that plagued us so;
Nine fathom deep he had followed us
From the land of mist and snow.

“And every tongue, through utter drought,
Was withered at the root;
We could not speak, no more than if
We had been choked with soot.

“Ah! well a day! what evil looks
Had I from old and young!
Instead of the cross, the Albatross
About my neck was hung.36-21

PART III

“There passed a weary time. Each throat
Was parched, and glazed each eye.
A weary time! a weary time!
How glazed each weary eye!
When looking westward, I beheld
A something in the sky.

“At first it seemed a little speck,
And then it seemed a mist:
It moved and moved, and took at last
A certain shape, I wist.37-22

“A speck, a mist, a shape, I wist!
And still it neared and neared:
As if it dodged a water-sprite,
It plunged, and tacked, and veered.

“With throats unslaked, with black lips baked
We could not laugh nor wail;
Through utter drought all dumb we stood!
I bit my arm, I sucked the blood,
And cried, A sail! a sail!

“With throats unslaked, with black lips baked,
Agape they heard me call:
Gramercy!37-23 they for joy did grin,37-24
And all at once their breath drew in,
As they were drinking all.

“See! see! (I cried) she tacks no more!
Hither to work us weal;
Without a breeze, without a tide,
She steadies with upright keel!

“The western wave was all a-flame,
The day was well-nigh done!
[39]Almost upon the western wave
Rested the broad, bright Sun;
When that strange shape drove suddenly
Betwixt us and the Sun.

“And straight the Sun was flecked with bars,
(Heaven’s Mother send us grace!)
As if through a dungeon grate he peered
With broad and burning face.

“Alas! (thought I, and my heart beat loud)
How fast she nears and nears!
Are those her sails that glance in the Sun,
Like restless gossameres?39-25

“Are those her ribs through which the Sun
Did peer, as through a grate?
And is that Woman all her crew?
Is that a Death? and are there two?
Is Death that Woman’s mate?

“Her lips were red, her looks were free,
Her locks were yellow as gold:
Her skin was as white as leprosy,
The Night-mare Life-in-Death was she,
Who thicks man’s blood with cold.

“The naked hulk alongside came,
And the twain were casting dice;
‘The game is done! I’ve won, I’ve won!’39-26
Quoth she, and whistles thrice.

[40]“The Sun’s rim dips: the stars rush out:
At one stride comes the dark;40-27
With far-heard whisper, o’er the sea,
Off shot the spectre-bark.

“We listened and looked sideways up!
Fear at my heart, as at a cup,
My life-blood seemed to sip!
The stars were dim, and thick the night,
The steersman’s face by his lamp gleamed white;
From the sails the dew did drip—
Till clomb 40-28 above the eastern bar
The hornèd Moon,40-29 with one bright star
Within the nether tip.

“One after one, by the star-dogged Moon,
Too quick for groan or sigh,
Each turned his face with a ghastly pang,
And cursed me with his eye.

“Four times fifty living men,
(And I heard nor sigh nor groan)
With heavy thump, a lifeless lump,
They dropped down one by one.

“The souls did from their bodies fly,—
They fled to bliss or woe!
And every soul, it passed me by,
Like the whiz of my cross-bow!”

PART IV

“I fear thee, ancient Mariner!
I fear thy skinny hand!
And thou art long, and lank and brown.
As is the ribbed sea-sand.41-30

“I fear thee and thy glittering eye,
And thy skinny hand so brown.”
“Fear not, fear not, thou Wedding-guest!
This body dropt not down.

“Alone, alone, all, all alone,
Alone on a wide, wide sea!
And never a saint took pity on
My soul in agony.

“The many men, so beautiful!
And they all dead did lie:
And a thousand, thousand slimy things
Lived on; and so did I.

“I looked upon the rotting sea,
And drew my eyes away;
I looked upon the rotting deck,
And there the dead men lay.

“I looked to heaven, and tried to pray
But or ever a prayer had gusht,
A wicked whisper came, and made
My heart as dry as dust.

“I closed my lids, and kept them close,
And the balls like pulses beat;
[42]For the sky and the sea, and the sea and the sky,42-31
Lay like a load on my weary eye,
And the dead were at my feet.

“The cold sweat melted from their limbs,
Nor rot nor reek did they:
The look with which they looked on me
Had never passed away.

“An orphan’s curse would drag to hell
A spirit from on high;
But oh! more horrible than that
Is the curse in a dead man’s eye!
Seven days, seven nights, I saw that curse,
And yet I could not die.

“The moving Moon went up the sky,
And nowhere did abide:
Softly she was going up,
And a star or two beside—

[43]“Her beams bemock’d the sultry main,
Like April hoar-frost spread;
But where the ship’s huge shadow lay,
The charmèd water burnt alway
A still and awful red.

“Beyond the shadow of the ship,
I watched the water-snakes:
They moved in tracks of shining white,
And when they reared, the elfish light
Fell off in hoary flakes.

“Within the shadow of the ship
I watched their rich attire:
Blue, glossy green, and velvet black,
They coiled and swam; and every track
Was a flash of golden fire.

“O happy living things! no tongue
Their beauty might declare:
A spring of love gushed from my heart,
And I blessed them unaware:
Sure my kind saint took pity on me,
And I blessed them unaware.43-32

“The selfsame moment I could pray;
And from my neck so free
The Albatross fell off, and sank
Like lead into the sea.”

PART V

“O sleep! it is a gentle thing,
Beloved from pole to pole!
To Mary Queen the praise be given!
She sent the gentle sleep from heaven,
That slid into my soul.

“The silly 44-33 buckets on the deck,
That had so long remained,
I dreamt that they were filled with dew;
And when I awoke, it rained.

“My lips were wet, my throat was cold,
My garments all were dank;
Sure I had drunken in my dreams,
And still my body drank.

“I moved, and could not feel my limbs:
I was so light—almost
I thought that I had died in sleep,
And was a blessèd ghost.

“And soon I heard a roaring wind:
It did not come anear;
But with its sound it shook the sails,
That were so thin and sere.

“The upper air burst into life!
And a hundred fire-flags sheen,44-34
To and fro they were hurried about!
And to and fro, and in and out,
The wan stars danced between.

[45]“And the coming wind did roar more loud,
And the sails did sigh like sedge:45-35
And the rain poured down from one black cloud:
The Moon was at its edge.

“The thick black cloud was cleft, and still
The Moon was at its side:
Like waters shot from some high crag,
[46]The lightning fell with never a jag,
A river steep and wide.

“The loud wind never reached the ship,
Yet now the ship moved on!
Beneath the lightning and the Moon
The dead men gave a groan.

“They groaned, they stirred, they all uprose,
Nor spake, nor moved their eyes;
It had been strange, even in a dream,
To have seen those dead men rise.

“The helmsman steered; the ship moved on;
Yet never a breeze up blew;
The mariners all ’gan work the ropes,
Where they were wont to do;
They raised their limbs like lifeless tools—
We were a ghastly crew.

“The body of my brother’s son
Stood by me, knee to knee:
The body and I pulled at one rope,
But he said naught to me.”

“I fear thee, ancient Mariner!”
“Be calm, thou Wedding-guest!
’Twas not those souls that fled in pain,
Which to their corses came again,
But a troop of spirits blest:

“For when it dawned—they dropped their arms,
And clustered round the mast;
Sweet sounds rose slowly through their mouths,
And from their bodies passed.

[47]“Around, around, flew each sweet sound,
Then darted to the Sun;
Slowly the sounds came back again,
Now mixed, now one by one.

“Sometimes a-drooping from the sky
I heard the sky-lark sing;
Sometimes all little birds that are,
How they seemed to fill the sea and air
With their sweet jargoning!

“And now ’twas like all instruments,
Now like a lonely flute;
And now it is an angel’s song,
That makes the heavens be mute.

“It ceased; yet still the sails made on
A pleasant noise till noon,
A noise like of a hidden brook
In the leafy month of June,
That to the sleeping woods all night
Singeth a quiet tune.

“Till noon we quietly sailed on,
Yet never a breeze did breathe:
Slowly and smoothly went the ship,
Moved onward from beneath.

“Under the keel nine fathom deep,
From the land of mist and snow,
The spirit slid: and it was he
That made the ship to go.
The sails at noon left off their tune,
And the ship stood still also.

[48]“The Sun, right up above the mast,
Had fixed her to the ocean:
But in a minute she ’gan stir,
With a short, uneasy motion—
Backwards and forwards half her length
With a short, uneasy motion.

“Then like a pawing horse let go,
She made a sudden bound:
It flung the blood into my head,
And I fell down in a swound.

“How long in that same fit I lay,
I have not to declare;
But ere my living life returned,
I heard, and in my soul discerned,
Two voices in the air.

“‘Is it he?’ quoth one, ‘Is this the man?
By him who died on cross,
With his cruel bow he laid full low
The harmless Albatross.

“‘The spirit who bideth by himself
In the land of mist and snow,
He loved the bird that loved the man
Who shot him with his bow.’

“The other was a softer voice,
As soft as honey-dew:
Quoth he, ‘The man hath penance done,
And penance more will do.’”

PART VI

“‘But tell me, tell me! speak again,
Thy soft response renewing—
What makes that ship drive on so fast?
What is the ocean doing?’

“‘Still as a slave before his lord,
The ocean hath no blast;
His great bright eye most silently
Up to the Moon is cast—

“‘If he may know which way to go;
For she guides him smooth or grim.
See, brother, see! how graciously
She looketh down on him.’

“‘Fly, brother, fly! more high, more high!
Or we shall be belated:
For slow and slow that ship will go,
When the mariner’s trance is abated.’

[50]“I woke, and we were sailing on
As in a gentle weather:
’Twas night, calm night, the Moon was high;
The dead men stood together.

“All stood together on the deck,
For a charnel-dungeon 50-37 fitter:
All fixed on me their stony eyes,
That in the Moon did glitter.

“The pang, the curse, with which they died,
Had never passed away:
I could not draw my eyes from theirs,
Nor turn them up to pray.

“And now this spell was snapt:50-38 once more
I viewed the ocean green,
And looked far forth, yet little saw
Of what had else been seen—

“Like one, that on a lonesome road
Doth walk in fear and dread,
And having once turned round walks on,
And turns no more his head;
Because he knows a frightful fiend
Doth close behind him tread.

“But soon there breathed a wind on me,
Nor sound nor motion made:
Its path was not upon the sea,
In ripple or in shade.

[51]“It raised my hair, it fanned my cheek
Like a meadow-gale of spring—
It mingled strangely with my fears,
Yet it felt like a welcoming.

“Swiftly, swiftly flew the ship,
Yet she sailed softly too:
Sweetly, sweetly blew the breeze—
On me alone it blew.

“Oh! dream of joy! is this indeed
The lighthouse top I see?
Is this the hill? is this the kirk?
Is this mine own countree?

“We drifted o’er the harbour-bar,
And I with sobs did pray—
O let me be awake, my God!
Or let me sleep alway.

“The harbour-bay was clear as glass,
So smoothly it was strewn!
And on the bay the moonlight lay,
And the shadow of the Moon.

“The rock shone bright, the kirk no less,
That stands above the rock:
The moonlight steeped in silentness
The steady weathercock.

“And the bay was white with silent light,
Till, rising from the same,
Full many shapes, that shadows were,
In crimson colours came.

[52]“A little distance from the prow
Those crimson shadows were:
I turned my eyes upon the deck—
O Christ! what saw I there!

“Each corse lay flat, lifeless and flat,
And, by the holy rood!52-39
A man all light, a seraph-man,
On every corse there stood.

“This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
It was a heavenly sight!
They stood as signals to the land.
Each one a lovely light;

“This seraph-band, each waved his hand:
No voice did they impart—
No voice; but oh! the silence sank
Like music on my heart.52-40

“But soon I heard the dash of oars,
I heard the Pilot’s cheer;
My head was turned perforce away,
And I saw a boat appear.

“The Pilot and the Pilot’s boy,
I heard them coming fast:
Dear Lord in Heaven! it was a joy
The dead men could not blast.

“I saw a third—I heard his voice:
It is the Hermit good!
He singeth loud his godly hymns
[53]That he makes in the wood.
He’ll shrieve my soul, he’ll wash away
The Albatross’s blood.”

PART VII

“This Hermit good lives in that wood
Which slopes down to the sea.
How loudly his sweet voice he rears!
He loves to talk with marineres
That come from a far countree.

“He kneels at morn, and noon, and eve—
He hath a cushion plump:
It is the moss that wholly hides
The rotted old oak-stump.

“The skiff-boat neared: I heard them talk,
‘Why, this is strange, I trow!
Where are those lights so many and fair,
That signal made but now?’

“‘Strange, by my faith!’ the Hermit said—
‘And they answered not our cheer.
The planks look warped! and see those sails,
How thin they are and sere!
I never saw aught like to them,
Unless perchance it were

“‘Brown skeletons of leaves that lag
My forest-brook along;
When the ivy-tod 53-41 is heavy with snow,
And the owlet whoops to the wolf below,
That eats the she-wolf’s young.’

[54]“‘Dear Lord! it hath a fiendish look!’
(The Pilot made reply)
‘I am a-feared’—‘Push on, push on!’
Said the Hermit cheerily.

“The boat came closer to the ship,
But I nor spake nor stirred;
The boat came close beneath the ship,
And straight a sound was heard.

“Under the water it rumbled on,
Still louder and more dread:
It reached the ship, it split the bay;
The ship went down like lead.

“Stunned by that loud and dreadful sound,
Which sky and ocean smote,
Like one that hath been seven days drowned
My body lay afloat;
But swift as dreams, myself I found
Within the Pilot’s boat.

“Upon the whirl where sank the ship,
The boat spun round and round;
And all was still, save that the hill
Was telling of the sound.

“I moved my lips—the Pilot shrieked
And fell down in a fit;
The holy Hermit raised his eyes,
And prayed where he did sit.

“I took the oars: the Pilot’s boy,
Who now doth crazy go,
Laughed loud and long, and all the while
His eyes went to and fro.
[55]‘Ha! ha!’ quoth he, ‘full plain I see,
The Devil knows how to row.’

“And now, all in my own countree,
I stood on the firm land!
The Hermit stepped forth from the boat,
And scarcely he could stand.

“‘O shrieve me, shrieve me, holy man!’
The Hermit crossed his brow.
[56]‘Say quick,’ quoth he, ‘I bid thee say—
What manner of man art thou?’

“Forthwith this frame of mine was wrenched
With a woeful agony,
Which forced me to begin my tale;
And then it left me free.

“Since then, at an uncertain hour,
That agony returns:
And till my ghastly tale is told,
This heart within me burns.

“I pass, like night, from land to land;
I have strange power of speech;
The moment that his face I see,
I know the man that must hear me:
To him my tale I teach.

“What loud uproar bursts from that door!
The wedding-guests are there:
But in the garden-bower the bride
And bridesmaids singing are:
And hark the little vesper bell,
Which biddeth me to prayer!

“O Wedding-guest! This soul hath been
Alone on a wide, wide sea:
So lonely ’twas, that God himself
Scarce seemed there to be.

“O sweeter than the marriage feast,
’Tis sweeter far to me,
To walk together to the kirk
With a goodly company!

[57]“To walk together to the kirk,
And all together pray,
While each to his great Father bends,
Old men, and babes, and loving friends,
And youths and maidens gay!

“Farewell, farewell! but this I tell
To thee, thou Wedding-guest!
He prayeth well, who loveth well
Both man and bird and beast.

“He prayeth best, who loveth best
All things both great and small;
For the dear God who loveth us,
He made and loveth all.”57-42

The Mariner, whose eye is bright,
Whose beard with age is hoar,
Is gone: and now the Wedding-guest
Turned from the bridegroom’s door.

He went like one that hath been stunned,
And is of sense forlorn:
A sadder and a wiser man,
He rose the morrow morn.

29-* Note.—In 1798 there was published in England a little volume of poems known as Lyrical Ballads. This collection brought to its two young authors, Wordsworth and Coleridge, little immediate fame, but not long afterward people began to realize that much that was contained in the little book was real poetry, and great poetry. The chief contribution of Coleridge to this venture was The Ancient Mariner.

The poem as originally printed had a series of quaintly explanatory notes in the margin, and an introductory argument which read as follows:

“How a ship having passed the Line, was driven by storms to the cold Country towards the South Pole; and how from thence she made her course to the tropical latitudes of the great Pacific Ocean, and of the strange things that befell; and in what manner the Ancient Mariner came back to his own country.”

30-1 Eftsoons means quickly. The poem is written in ballad form, and many quaint old words are introduced.

30-2 Such rhymes as this—Mariner with hear,—were common in the old ballads which Coleridge so perfectly imitates.

30-3 Does this line tell you anything about the direction in which they were sailing?

30-4 Where was the ship when the sun stood “over the mast at noon”?

31-5 Two words are to be understood in this line—“As one who is pursued.”

31-6 Is not this an effective line? Can you think of any way in which the closeness of the foe could be more effectively suggested?

32-7 Coleridge’s wonderful power of painting word-pictures is shown in this and the succeeding stanzas. With the simplest language he makes us realize the absolute lonesomeness and desolateness of the scene: he produces in us something of the same feeling of awe and horror that we should have were we actually in the situation he describes.

32-8 Clifts means cleft rocks.

32-9 “Like noises one hears in a swound.”

32-10 Thorough is used here instead of through, as it often is in poetry, for the sake of the meter.

32-11 Besides the joy the sailors felt at seeing a living creature after the days in which they had seen “nor shapes of men nor beasts,” they had a special pleasure in welcoming the albatross because it was regarded as a bird of good omen.

34-12 Coleridge does not state that it was the albatross that brought the “good south wind:” he lets us infer it.

34-13 In what direction were they sailing now?

35-14 Uprist is an old form for uprose.

35-15 It was this attitude of the sailors toward the mariner’s brutal act of killing the bird that brought punishment upon them; they cared nothing for the death of the harmless bird, but only for its effect upon them.

35-16 Note the striking alliteration in these two lines. Read this stanza and the succeeding one aloud, and see how much easier it is to read these alliterative lines rapidly than it is any of the other six lines. Such relation of movement to meaning is one of the artistic things about the poem.

35-17 How far northward had the ship returned?

35-18 When such a definite picture is presented, close your eyes and try to see it. Did you ever see the sun when it seemed to have no radiance—when it was just a red circle?

36-19 A rout is a confused and whirling dance.

36-20 The death-fires are a sort of phosphorescent light, or will-o’-the-wisp, supposed to portend death.

36-21 The shipmates try in this manner to fasten all the guilt on the ancient mariner and mark him alone for punishment.

37-22 Wist means knew.

37-23 Gramercy is an exclamation derived from the French grand merci, which means great thanks.

37-24 In a comment on The Ancient Mariner Coleridge says: “I took the thought of ‘grinning for joy’ from my companion’s remark to me, when we had climbed to the top of Plinlimmon, and were nearly dead with thirst. We could not speak from the constriction, till we found a little puddle under a stone. He said to me: ‘You grinned like an idiot.’ He had done the same.”

39-25 Gossameres are the cobweb-like films seen floating in the air in summer.

39-26 Death and Life-in-Death have been casting dice for the crew, as to whether they shall die, or live and suffer. Life-in-Death has won the ancient mariner.

40-27 This is Coleridge’s beautiful way of telling us that in the tropics there is little or no twilight.

40-28 Clomb is an old form of climbed.

40-29 That is, the waning moon. Did you ever see the moon “with one bright star within the nether tip”?

41-30 In his notes on the poem, Coleridge stated that the last two lines of this stanza were composed by Wordsworth.

42-31 Can you see any reason for the repetition in this line, and for the unusual length? Does it suggest the load and the weariness in the next line?

43-32 This is the turning point of the poem. As soon as the mariner felt in his heart love for the “happy living things,” the spell which had been laid on him for the wanton slaying of the albatross began to break. In the third stanza from the end of the poem, this point is clearly brought out.

44-33 Silly here means helpless, useless.

44-34 Sheen means bright, glittering.

45-35 Note this fine alliterative line.

49-36 The mariner has been thrown into a trance, for the ship is being driven northward faster than a human being could endure.

50-37 A charnel-dungeon is a vault or chamber underneath or near a church, where the bones of the dead are laid.

50-38 The sin is finally expiated.

52-39 The holy rood is the holy cross.

52-40 “The silence sank like music on my heart,” is among the beautiful lines that you will often hear quoted.

53-41 An ivy-tod is a thick clump of ivy.

57-42 A friend of Coleridge’s once told him that she admired The Ancient Mariner, but had a serious fault to find with it—it had no moral. Do you think, as you read this stanza, that her objection was a valid one?

THE BLACK HAWK TRAGEDY 58-1

do not pose as an Indian lover. In fact the instincts and impressions of my early life bent me in the opposite direction. My father’s log house, in which I was born, stood within a few rods of Rock River, about forty-five miles west of this city. The stream was the boundary line, in a half-recognized way, between two tribes of Indians, and a common highway for both. I well remember their frequent and unheralded entries into our house, and their ready assumption of its privileges. I can see them yet—yes, and smell them, too. In some unventilated chamber of my rather capacious nostrils an abiding breath of that intense, all-conquering odor of fish, smoke and muskrat, which they brought with them, still survives. I well remember their impudent and sometimes bullying demeanor; and the horror of one occasion I shall never forget, when a stalwart Winnebago, armed with a knife, tomahawk and gun, seized my mother by the shoulder as she stood by her ironing table, and shook her because she said she had no bread for him. I wrapped myself in her skirts and howled in terror. Having been transplanted from the city to the wilderness, she had a mortal fear of Indians, but never revealed it to them. She had nerve, and [59]resolution as well; and this particular fellow she threatened with her hot flat-iron and drove him out of the house. So you see I have no occasion for morbid or unnatural sympathy with any of the Indian kind.

Black Hawk was born in 1767 at Saukenuk. His father was the war chief of the nation and a very successful leader. Young Black Hawk inherited his martial spirit and conducted himself so valorously in battle that he was recognized as a brave when only fifteen years old. He was enthusiastic and venturesome, and before the close of his twentieth year had led several expeditions against the Osages and Sioux. It was his boast that he had been in a hundred Indian battles and had never suffered defeat.

Life passed pleasantly with Black Hawk and his tribe at Saukenuk for many years. The location combined all the advantages possible for their mode of existence. When Black Hawk was taken to Washington after his capture in 1832, he made an eloquent and most pathetic speech at one of the many interviews which he held with the high officials of the government. He said: “Our home was very beautiful. My house always had plenty. I never had to turn friend or stranger away for lack of food. The island was our garden. There the young people gathered plums, apples, grapes, berries and nuts. The rapids furnished us fish. On the bottom lands our women raised corn, beans and squashes. The young men hunted game on the prairie and in the woods. It was good for us. When I see the great fields and big villages of the white people, I wonder why they wish to take our little territory from us.”

[60]We are apt to regard the agriculture of the Indians as of small moment, but the Sauks and Foxes cultivated three thousand acres on the peninsula between the Rock and the Mississippi. Black Hawk said it was eight hundred acres, but the measurement of the cornfields shows that the area was nearly four times that. Of this the Foxes, who were much the smaller and weaker tribe, farmed five hundred acres; they also occupied considerable land on the opposite side of the Mississippi, where the city of Davenport now stands. These lands were all fenced with posts and rails, the latter being held in place by bark withes. The barrier was sufficient to keep the ponies out of the corn, but their lately acquired razor-back hogs gave them more trouble. The work of preparing a field for their planting involved much labor. The women heaped the ground into hills nearly three feet high, and the corn was planted in the top for many successive years without renewing the hills. Accordingly a field was much more easily prepared on the mellow bottom lands than on the tough prairie sod. They raised three kinds of corn: a sweet corn for roasting ears, a hard variety for hominy and a softer for meal. They also cultivated beans, squashes, pumpkins, artichokes and some tobacco. The Sauks at one time sold three thousand bushels of corn to the government officials at Fort Crawford for their horses. The Winnebagoes at Lake Koshkonong sold four thousand bushels of corn to General Atkinson when he was pursuing Black Hawk in 1832. The hundreds of acres of corn hills still visible about the latter lake show how extensively that region was inhabited and farmed by the Indians.

[61]Aside from the devastating wars which the tribe carried on with their new enemies west of the great river, whereby their numbers were steadily reduced, no serious shadow fell upon their life at and about Rock Island till the year 1804. A French trader had established himself a few miles below on the Mississippi. The young braves and squaws delighted in visiting his place and were always sure of a dance in the evening. One night in that year an Indian killed one of the habitues of the place, the provocation being unbearable. A few weeks after demand was made that he be given up, and he was at once surrendered and taken to Saint Louis.

Soon after, his relative, Quashquamme, one of the sub-chiefs of the tribe, and four or five other Sauks went to Saint Louis to work for his release. A bargain was made to the effect that a tract of land including parts of Iowa, Missouri, Wisconsin and Illinois, comprising fifty million acres, be ceded to the government, the consideration being the cancellation of a debt of $2,400, which the Indians owed trader Choteau, of Saint Louis, and a perpetual annuity of $1,000 thereafter. It was also tacitly agreed that the imprisoned Indian should be released. This part of the program was carried out, but the poor fellow had not gone three hundred feet before he was shot dead. We are sorry to say that General William Henry Harrison was the chief representative of the government in this one-sided treaty, though, of course, he knew nothing of the predetermined killing of the Indian prisoner. This treaty, made without due authority on the part of Quashquamme, was not accepted by the Sauks till 1816, when its ratification was made a side issue in[62] an agreement which the government negotiated between the Sauks and the Osages or Sioux.

Black Hawk always claimed that he had never consented to the sale of Saukenuk; and it is but fair to Quashquamme to say that he always insisted that his cession of land went only to the Rock—and therefore did not include Saukenuk—and not to the Wisconsin, as the whites asserted. I have been thus explicit, as the disagreement about this treaty led to the final conflict between the Sauks and the whites.

One proposition of the original paper was that the Indians should be allowed to occupy all the territory as aforetime until it was surveyed and sold to settlers. Along in the ’20’s the frontier line rapidly approached the great river; and about 1823, when still fifty miles distant, squatters began to settle on the Indian lands at Saukenuk. Protest was made against this to the commander of Fort Armstrong (which was built on Rock Island in 1816) and to the government, but without avail.

The squatters, relying for protection on the troops near by, perpetrated outrages of the most exasperating character. They turned their horses into the Indian cornfields, threw down fences, whipped one young woman who had pulled a few corn suckers from one of their fields to eat, while on her way to work, and finally two ruffians met Black Hawk himself one day as he was hunting on the river bottom and accused him of shooting their hogs. He indignantly denied it, but they snatched his rifle from his hand, wrenched the flint out, and then beat the old man with a hickory stick till the blood ran down his back, and he could not leave his house for[63] days. Doubtless this indignity surpassed all other outrages in the proud old chief’s estimation, and we can imagine him sitting in his cabin on the highest ground in the village, looking over the magnificent landscape, brooding upon the blight which had fallen upon the beautiful home of his tribe, and harboring thoughts of revenge. Still he refrained from open resistance till the spring of 1831.

[64]It was the custom of the tribe to spend the winter months hunting and trapping in northeastern Missouri, returning in the spring to Saukenuk. This time they found the whites more aggressive than ever. They had fenced in the most of the cultivated land, plowed over the burying ground, and destroyed a number of houses. They received the Indians with hostile looks, but Black Hawk at last did what he ought to have done at first, ordered the squatters all off the peninsula. He then went to an island where a squatter sold liquor and had paid no heed to his entreaties not to sell to the Indians, and with a party of his braves knocked in the heads of the whisky barrels and poured their contents on the ground. The liquor vendor immediately hurried to Governor Reynolds, of Illinois, with his tale of woe and represented that Black Hawk was devastating the country with torch and tomahawk.

Governor Reynolds at once issued a flamboyant proclamation calling for volunteers, and asked the United States authorities at Saint Louis for aid. A considerable body of regulars was dispatched up the river and reached Saukenuk before the volunteers. Black Hawk told his people to remain in their houses, and not to obey any orders to leave Saukenuk, for they had not sold their home and had done no wrong. But when he saw the undisciplined, lawless and wildly excited volunteers, who came a few days later, he told the people that their lives were in danger and they must go. Accordingly the next morning at an early hour all embarked in their canoes and crossed the Mississippi. They were visited there by the officials, and Black Hawk entered into an agreement to remain west of the river.

[65]Black Hawk’s band spent the fall and winter, after their expulsion from Saukenuk, in great unhappiness and want. It was too late to plant corn, and they suffered from hunger. Their winter’s hunt was unsuccessful, as they lacked ammunition, and many of their guns and traps had gone to pay for the whisky they had drunk before Black Hawk broke up the traffic. In the meantime Black Hawk was planning to recover Saukenuk by force. He visited Canada, but received little encouragement there, except sympathy and the assurance that his cause was just.

Black Hawk’s worst adviser was Neapope, his second in command, and a terrible liar. He also visited Canada and claimed that the British whom he had seen stood ready to help Black Hawk with men, arms and ammunition, and that a steamboat would bring them to Milwaukee in the spring. This was good news to the credulous old chief; and quite as acceptable as this was Neapope’s story that the Winnebagoes and Pottawatomi would join in the campaign to secure his rights. Added to these encouragements were the entreaties of the homesick hungry women, who longed for their houses and cornfields at Saukenuk.

Keokuk did his utmost to dissuade Black Hawk but in vain, and then he gave warning to the whites of Black Hawk’s purpose. He feared that the whole nation might be drawn into the war if it was once started. Black Hawk’s first move with his band in the spring of 1832 was to visit Keokuk’s village, set up his war post and call for recruits. He wore a British uniform and displayed a British flag. This foolishness and gratification of vanity cost him[66] dearly in the end. He made an impassioned speech and wrought the Indians up to such enthusiasm that they demanded that Keokuk join with Black Hawk. It was a critical moment for the young chief—even his life was in danger; but he was a more skillful master of oratory than even the eloquent Black Hawk, and, seeming at first to fall in with his plan, he gradually showed up its danger and its impracticable character, until at last he saved all his own party and even won a considerable number away from Black Hawk.

On the 26th of April the Black Hawk band crossed the Mississippi several miles below Rock River. They numbered twelve hundred in all, less than four hundred being warriors, and these only partly armed. Their destination was Prophetstown, as Black Hawk’s plan was to raise a crop there and go on the war path in the fall. The braves struck across the country, while the women, weak with famine, slowly paddled the canoes up against the swift current of the river. They reached Prophetstown late in April, the heavy rains which had swollen the rivers greatly impeding their progress. A marvelous feature of this journey across the territory which the whites claimed had been ceded to them, is the fact that not the slightest depredation was committed at any farm or house on the march. The inhabitants fled, but the hungry Indians touched none of the abundant food which they left behind. Not a gun was fired. Black Hawk had ordered that no offense be given, and he was strictly obeyed.

Black Hawk was disappointed to find that the Winnebagoes were lukewarm as to his enterprise, and also reluctant to let him plant a crop, fearing[67] to get into trouble with the government. He then pushed on to confer with the Pottawatomi, who had a village at Sycamore Creek about forty miles farther on. Here he found similar conditions; also he learned the falsity of the story that he could get aid from the British.

He says that he then determined to return to Iowa and make the best of it there. But he was too late—Governor Reynolds had issued another proclamation, and two thousand volunteers besides a considerable body of regulars were on his trail. He had made a farewell dog feast for his Pottawatomi friends, when a scout brought news that about three hundred whites were going into camp five miles distant. This was a sort of independent command under Major Stillman, who had pushed ahead of the main body. It was composed of lawless, undisciplined material, and at that moment was suffering under the effects of drinking two barrels of whisky which the troops had poured down their throats rather than leave it on a wagon that was hopelessly stuck in the mud.

Black Hawk directed three young braves to take a white flag, go to the camp, ask what the purpose of the command was, and to say that he desired a conference with them. He then sent five others on horseback to report the reception which the flag bearers met with. Three of them an hour later came at full speed into camp, reporting that the whites had surrounded the flag bearers and killed them and then chased the five who had followed, killing two of them, and were coming on in full force. All the devil in the old warrior’s heart was roused by this brutal treachery, and calling on the forty warriors[68] who were with him at the conference, the rest being in camp some miles away, he hastened to meet the enemy. Forming an ambush in the brush, the Indians fired their guns as the whites approached, just at nightfall, and rose up and charged with a wild yell. The drunken volunteers at once turned and fled, the panic gathering force as they went. The fugitives rushed through the camp pell-mell, and all who were left there joined in the stampede. In their desperate fear, every soldier thought every other an Indian and fired hither and yon. Eleven were killed, probably only one by the redskins. The survivors for the most part continued their flight, spreading the most exaggerated stories of the numbers and ferocity of the Indians, until they reached their several homes. As it proved, the three Indian flag bearers were not harmed till the stampede began, when one of them was shot by a soldier just mounting his horse to run. One of the surviving Indians immediately killed him with his tomahawk.

This easy triumph changed Black Hawk’s purpose. He regarded it as an omen of victory and determined to go on. But his strenuous efforts to enlist the Pottawatomi in the cause were unavailing. Old Chief Shaubenee had absolute control over them and steadily said “no.” Even Chief Big Foot at the head of Lake Geneva refused. He was a drunken, sullen, brutal savage, but had given his word to keep the peace and did so, though he bitterly hated the whites and would have been glad to see the war go on. About one hundred reckless, lawless individuals of the Winnebago and Pottawatomi tribes joined Black Hawk, but gradually deserted him as his fortunes waned.

[69]Black Hawk was now anxious to take his women, children and old men to a place of safety, and, following the guidance of two Winnebagoes, they made their way up the Rock to Hustisford Rapids and there went into camp. Fish, game, clams, roots and the bark of trees constituted their food while there, but Black Hawk in his biography says they found it difficult to keep from starving. And, adding to their present misery, the thrifty, provident squaws saw another harvestless summer passing and a winter of famine before them. With his warriors he then returned to continue the contest. A few skirmishes and collisions took place along the line that now separates Wisconsin and Illinois, and predatory parties of Winnebagoes and Pottawatomi worked out their grudges and revenges on whites who had incurred their enmity. These outrages were numerous and were attributed to the Sauks, as their perpetrators expected would be the case. It is now believed that not a single case of the murder of an unarmed man or of a woman or child was justly chargeable to the Sauks.

Governor Reynolds had called for a second levy of two thousand volunteers, and General Atkinson, with a considerable force of regulars, was in the field. All were under his command, and he followed Black Hawk, as the latter retired northward, with an army of four thousand, all mounted, fully twelve times as great in number as the starving band which he was pursuing. They camped near Beloit, camped at Milton, near the south end of Storr’s Lake, and followed on cautiously to Lake Koshkonong, for Atkinson had a most wholesome regard for Black Hawk’s prowess. At the lake they found an old[70] blind Sauk who had been left behind. They gave him food, but a straggler coming along later shot him as he was crawling to a spring for water. His bones lay on the ground unburied for years after the country was settled, the skull having been hung on a bush. At the junction of the Bark and Rock rivers Atkinson went into utter bewilderment and uncertainty as to Black Hawk’s whereabouts, and he finally built the stockade at the point which bears his name. He dispatched a considerable force under Colonels Alexander, Dodge and Henry to Portage for supplies. There they learned where Black Hawk’s camp was; Henry and Dodge set out to attack it, while Alexander returned to Atkinson. The latter had heard that Black Hawk was in full force at Burnt Village on the Whitewater River, about four miles north of the location now occupied by the city bearing that name. He sent off messengers for the remainder of the army to join him for an attack.

But in going and coming, the trail of Black Hawk and his entire band was discovered leading to the west. Henry and Dodge started in rapid pursuit, sending word to Atkinson that the game had been flushed. That doughty warrior had in the meantime learned that the Burnt Village story was a myth; and those of his men whose time had expired, broke ranks and returned to their homes, all believing that Black Hawk had finally escaped. The fugitive’s trail crossed the site of the present city of Madison and also the University grounds, bearing thence northwest to the Wisconsin River. Singularly enough, Black Hawk struck this stream directly opposite the site of his people’s ancient village of[71] Prairie du Sac. Soon after leaving Fourth Lake the Indians discovered their pursuers and hastened their painful flight. All along the trail had been marked by evidences of their extremity: in the skeletons of ponies robbed of their flesh, in the trees stripped of bark for food, and the ground dug over for roots. To these proofs were now added kettles and[72] blankets which the enfeebled women could no longer carry, and the dead bodies of famished papooses and old people.

About four o’clock in the afternoon, the rear guard of the Sauks was overtaken a few miles from the river. This was on the 21st day of July, and the troops had made a forced march of eighty miles in three days from the Rock to the Wisconsin, much of the way through swamps and dense forests. Until dark a series of skirmishes was maintained, the Indians skilfully forming new lines and holding the enemy back while the women and children were crossing the river. Black Hawk directed the fight while sitting on his pony, his stentorian voice reaching every part of the field. He always counted this battle as most creditable to his military genius, and there is reason for the claim, for he delayed the whites till the passage of the river was secured. Jefferson Davis, who was present, says that the squaws tore the bark off the trees and made little canoes in which to float their papooses and utensils across the river; and that half the braves swam the river holding their rifles in the air, while the rest kept the whites back, and then, having landed, fired on the whites from the other side, while the remaining braves crossed. Davis pronounced it the most brilliant defensive battle he ever witnessed.

The next morning the Indians had disappeared, but during the night they had constructed a raft upon which a large number of the women and children and old men were placed and set adrift, hoping that they would be allowed to go down the river unmolested, and reach their late village in Iowa. But Colonel Dodge sent word ahead, and the soldiers[73] at Fort Crawford lay in wait for them; and when the raft approached they fired upon the helpless creatures, killing a large number. A few were taken prisoners, but the rest were drowned or swam ashore and afterwards perished of hunger in the woods.

Late in the night after the fight at Wisconsin Heights, a loud, shrill voice was heard from the eminence which Black Hawk had occupied during the conflict. It caused consternation at first among the whites, as it was thought to signify a night attack. But the voice continued in strong, impassioned harangue for more than an hour, eliciting, however, only jeers and an occasional rifle shot. It was afterwards learned that the orator was Neapope, speaking in the Winnebago tongue. He had seen a few Winnebagoes with the whites in the afternoon but did not know that they had gone away at nightfall. He told how they saw their great mistake in leaving Iowa, that they had their wives and children with them, that all were dying for want of food, and that they only asked to be allowed to go in peace; and they pledged themselves to return to Iowa, and never again come east of the river. Neapope was an orator of great power, and he presented his plea with all the eloquence of which he was master. But it fell on ears that understood not its purport. I know of no more pathetic incident in all the long chapter of human woe and despair than this pitiful prayer of a perishing people for mercy and forgiveness, spoken in a tongue that carried no meaning to those who heard. Let us hope that if the petition had been understood it would have been granted.

The loss in the battle on the 21st had not been large on either side, and the Black Hawk band pursued[74] their journey to the Mississippi without guides, through a rugged, trackless wilderness, sorrowing, suffering and despairing. The whites continued down the Wisconsin to Helena, where General Atkinson took command. Helena was a deserted village which had been built to carry on shot-making. The soldiers tore down the log houses and made rafts of the logs to cross the river. Five days in all were consumed before the Black Hawk trail was discovered, and then the pursuers were guided to it by crows and buzzards gathering in the air over the bodies of dead refugees left by the wayside.

On the first of August the Indians reached the Mississippi and began crossing in two canoes. In the afternoon the steamer Warrior, which had been sent up from Fort Crawford to notify the Sioux Chief, Wabasha, one hundred and twenty miles above to look out for his enemy, Black Hawk, who was headed that way, stopped opposite the spot where the Indians had gathered. Black Hawk raised a white flag and tried to parley; but the captain assumed that it was an attempt to trap him and, without warning, fired into the Indians at short range with a cannon loaded with cannister. Thus a second time was the usage of all nations violated in this war by refusing to recognize the flag of truce. Twenty-three were killed by this discharge. There were twenty riflemen on the boat who then began firing, and the Sauks responded. The Warrior soon after steamed away to Fort Crawford, twenty miles below, and the Indians continued their efforts to cross the river, here three hundred rods wide and running a strong current. Some were drowned and others were carried down the stream on improvised[75] rafts. A few of these were rescued at Prairie du Chien.

The next day Atkinson appeared on the ground. Black Hawk seems to have been utterly demoralized and had told those who had not crossed that he was going to the Chippewa country, and that they had better follow. Only a few did so, and after going a few miles he turned back on August 2nd, just in time to see the closing scene of the massacre called the battle of Bad Axe.

As Atkinson approached he was skilfully decoyed beyond the Indian camp some distance, but its location was finally discovered and a fierce onslaught was made. The poor wretches at first begged for quarter, but as the soldiers shot them down without discrimination, they fought for a time with desperation, and then men, women and children plunged into the river, the most of them to drown before reaching the other side. The steamer Warrior reappeared, and the sharpshooters fired at the swimmers, some of them women with babies on their backs. The incidents of the merciless slaughter are too harrowing for recital, and would be incredible if not thoroughly authenticated. It is difficult to understand the ferocity with which Black Hawk’s band was pursued and destroyed. Probably the belief that he was still in the British service had much to do with it; also his first success at Stillman’s Run, and the murder of the whites in Northern Illinois by marauders from other tribes, which were unjustly charged to him, may account for it in large part. About three hundred Indians succeeded in crossing the river, but their ill fate still pursued them. Their fierce enemy, Wabasha, was on their track, and[76] before reaching the Iowa river half of the three hundred had been relentlessly slain. Of the twelve hundred who crossed the Mississippi in April, only one hundred and fifty, and they barely living skeletons, returned in August.

Black Hawk gave himself up soon after the Bad Axe massacre to the Winnebagoes, and was surrendered to our officers at Prairie du Chien. Thence he was taken to Saint Louis, Washington, through the east, and back to Fort Armstrong, where he was delivered over to Keokuk, who became surety for his good behavior. Although always kindly treated by the latter, the old chief never ceased to be mindful of his subordination. For five years he brooded over his misfortunes and humiliation, and then died in his seventy-second year. Even his body was not allowed to rest in peace; it was stolen, and when the Indians discovered the theft and demanded the return of the bones, the building in which the skeleton was stored burned before it was delivered up, and only indistinguishable ashes remained.

A word further is due the stalwart old chief, whose good qualities certainly surpassed his evil ones. He was honorable, brave, generous and magnanimous. He never permitted a captive to be tortured, and early gave up the practice of scalping the enemies he had slain. As a leader in Indian warfare he ranks high, and his final campaign had in its purpose the same comprehensive idea which actuated Tecumseh and Pontiac, that of a union of all Indian tribes; and he had the further intent of drawing in the British to enforce the treaty of 1815, which he claimed had been violated in his own case—the guarantee of immunity to all Indian allies of the British having been[77] disregarded. Absolute honesty and truthfulness in business matters were among his characteristics. These he shared with his people generally. Colonel Davenport, who had a trading establishment on the island for many, many years, used often to go to dinner leaving his store full of Indians, and he said they never took so much as a clay pipe in his absence.

Black Hawk was impulsive, hopeful and credulous, and so was easily imposed upon; he had an ardent love for the beauties of nature; he was deeply religious, and said that he never took a drink of water from a brook without sincere gratitude to the Great Spirit who cared for him. He was a tender husband and father, and, contrary to the usage of his tribe, married only one wife. When his father was killed he mourned and fasted five years. He did the same for two years, when a son and daughter died, eating only a little corn each evening, “hoping that the Great Spirit would take pity on him.” We wish for the honor of our race that this poor savage whose only offense was that of loving his home too well to give it up without a struggle, had not gone out of life leaving such a red, indelible page on the book of history against us.

58-1 The following account is taken from a paper read before the Loyal Legion at Milwaukee, May 6, 1896, by Mr. Coe.

THE PETRIFIED FERN

In a valley, centuries ago,
Grew a little fern-leaf, green and slender,
Veining delicate and fibres tender;
Waving when the wind crept down so low.
Rushes tall, and moss, and grass grew round it,
[78]Playful sunbeams darted in and found it,
Drops of dew stole in by night, and crowned it,
But no foot of man e’er trod that way;
Earth was young, and keeping holiday.

Monster fishes swam the silent main,
Stately forests waved their giant branches,
Mountains hurled their snowy avalanches,
Mammoth creatures stalked across the plain;
Nature revelled in grand mysteries,
But the little fern was not of these,
Did not number with the hills and trees;
Only grew and waved its wild sweet way,
None ever came to note it day by day.

Earth one time put on a frolic mood,
Heaved the rocks and changed the mighty motion
Of the deep, strong currents of the ocean;
Moved the plain and shook the haughty wood,
Crushed the little fern in soft moist clay,—
Covered it, and hid it safe away.
O the long, long centuries since that day!
O the agony! O life’s bitter cost,
Since that useless little fern was lost!

Useless? Lost? There came a thoughtful man
Searching Nature’s secrets, far and deep;
From a fissure in a rocky steep
He withdrew a stone, o’er which there ran
Fairy pencilings, a quaint design,
Veinings, leafage, fibres clear and fine,
And the fern’s life lay in every line!
So, I think, God hides some souls away,
Sweetly to surprise us, the last day.

AN EXCITING CANOE RACE

he heavens were still studded with stars when Hawkeye 79-1 came to arouse the sleepers. Casting aside their cloaks, Munro 79-2 and Heyward 79-3 were on their feet while the woodsman was still making his low calls at the entrance of the rude shelter where they had passed the night. When they issued from beneath its concealment, they found the scout awaiting their appearance nigh by, and the only salutation between them was the significant gesture for silence made by their sagacious leader.

“Think over your prayers,” he whispered, as they approached him; “for He to whom you make them knows all tongues; that of the heart, as well as those of the mouth. But speak not a syllable; it is rare[80] for a white voice to pitch itself properly in the woods. Come,” he continued, turning toward a curtain of the works; “let us get into the ditch on this side, and be regardful to step on the stones and fragments of wood as you go.”

His companions complied, though to two of them the reasons of this extraordinary precaution were yet a mystery. When they were in the low cavity[81] that surrounded the earthen fort on three of its sides, they found the passage nearly choked by the ruins. With care and patience, however, they succeeded in clambering after the scout until they reached the sandy shore of the Horicon.

“That’s a trail that nothing but a nose can follow,” said the satisfied scout, looking back along their difficult way; “grass is a treacherous carpet for a flying party to tread on, but wood and stone take no print from a moccasin. Had you worn your armed boots, there might indeed have been something to fear; but with the deerskin suitably prepared, a man may trust himself, generally, on rocks with safety. Shove in the canoe nigher to the land, Uncas;81-4 this sand will take a stamp as easily as the butter of the Jarmans on the Mohawk. Softly, lad, softly; it must not touch the beach, or the knaves will know by what road we have left the place.”

The young man observed the precaution; and the scout laying a board from the ruins to the canoe, made a sign for the two officers to enter. When this was done, everything was studiously restored to its former disorder; and then Hawkeye succeeded in reaching his little birchen vessel without leaving behind him any of those marks which he appeared so much to dread.

“Now,” continued the scout, looking back at the dim shore of William Henry, which was now fast receding, and laughing in his own silent but heartfelt manner; “I have put a trail of water atween us; and unless the imps can make friends with the fishes,[82] and hear who has paddled across their basin this fine morning, we shall throw the length of the Horicon behind us before they have made up their minds which path to take.”

“With foes in front and foes in our rear, our journey is like to be one of danger.”

“Danger,” repeated Hawkeye, calmly; “no, not absolutely of danger, for, with vigilant ears and quick eyes, we can manage to keep a few hours ahead of the knaves; or, if we must try the rifle, there are three of us who understand its gifts as well as any you can name on the borders. No, not of danger; but that we shall have what you may call a brisk push of it is probable; and it may happen a brush, a scrimmage, or some such divarsion, but always where covers are good and ammunition abundant.”

It is possible that Heyward’s estimate of danger differed in some degree from that of the scout, for, instead of replying, he now sat in silence, while the canoe glided over several miles of water. Just as the day dawned, they entered the narrows of the lake 82-5, and stole swiftly and cautiously among their numberless little islands. It was by this road that Montcalm had retired with his army, and the adventurers knew not but he had left some of his Indians in ambush, to protect the rear of his forces and[83] collect the stragglers. They therefore approached the passage with the customary silence of their guarded habits. Chingachgook 83-6 laid aside his paddle, while Uncas and the scout urged the light vessel through crooked and intricate channels, where every foot that they advanced exposed them to the danger of some sudden rising on their progress. The eyes of the sagamore moved warily from islet to islet and copse to copse as the canoe proceeded; and when a clearer sheet of water permitted, his keen vision was bent along the bald rocks and impending forests that frowned upon the narrow strait.

Heyward, who was a doubly interested spectator as well from the beauties of the place as from the apprehension natural to his situation, was just believing that he had permitted the latter to be excited without sufficient reason, when the paddle ceased moving, in obedience to a signal from Chingachgook.

“Ugh!” exclaimed Uncas, nearly at the moment that the light tap his father had made on the side of the canoe notified them of the vicinity of danger.

“What now?” asked the scout; “the lake is as smooth as if the winds had never blown, and I can see along its sheets for miles; there is not so much as the black head of a loon dotting the water.”

The Indian gravely raised his paddle, and pointed in the direction in which his own steady look was riveted. Duncan’s eyes followed the motion. A few rods in their front lay another of the low-wooded islets, but it appeared as calm and peaceful as if its solitude had never been disturbed by the foot of man.

[84]“I see nothing,” he said, “but land and water; and a lovely scene it is.”

“Hist!” interrupted the scout. “Ay, sagamore, there is always a reason for what you do. ’Tis but a shade, and yet it is not natural. You see the mist, major, that is rising above the island; you can’t call it a fog, for it is more like a streak of thin cloud——”

“That a child could tell. But what is the edging of blacker smoke that hangs along its lower side, and which you may trace down into the thicket of hazel? ’Tis from a fire; but one that, in my judgment, has been suffered to burn low.”

“Let us then push for the place, and relieve our doubts,” said the impatient Duncan; “the party must be small that can lie on such a bit of land.”

“If you judge of Indian cunning by the rules you find in books or by white sagacity, they will lead you astray, if not to your death,” returned Hawkeye, examining the signs of the place with that acuteness which distinguished him. “If I may be permitted to speak in this matter, it will be to say that we have but two things to choose between: the one is, to return and give up all thought of following the Hurons——”

“Well, well,” continued Hawkeye, making a hasty sign to repress his impatience, “I am much of your mind myself; though I thought it becoming my experience to tell the whole. We must then make a push, and, if the Indians or Frenchers are in the narrows, run the gantlet through these toppling mountains. Is there reason in my words, sagamore?”

The Indian made no further answer than by dropping his paddle into the water and urging forward the canoe. As he held the office of directing its course, his resolution was sufficiently indicated by the movement. The whole party now plied their paddles vigorously, and in a very few moments they had reached a point whence they might command an entire view of the northern shore of the island.

[86]“There they are, by all the truth of signs,” whispered the scout; “two canoes and a smoke. The knaves haven’t yet got their eyes out of the mist, or we should hear the accursed whoop. Together, friends—we are leaving them, and are already nearly out of whistle of a bullet.”

The well-known crack of a rifle, whose ball came skipping along the placid surface of the strait, and a shrill yell from the island interrupted his speech and announced that their passage was discovered. In another instant several savages were seen rushing into the canoes, which were soon dancing over the water in pursuit. These fearful precursors of a coming struggle produced no change in the countenances and movements of his three guides, so far as Duncan could discover, except that the strokes of their paddles were longer and more in unison, and caused the little bark to spring forward like a creature possessing life and volition.

“Hold them there, sagamore,” said Hawkeye, looking coolly backward over his left shoulder, while he still plied his paddle; “keep them just there. Them Hurons have never a piece in their nation that will execute at this distance; but ‘Kill Deer’86-7 has a barrel on which a man may calculate.”

[87]The scout, having ascertained that the Mohicans were sufficient of themselves to maintain the requisite distance, deliberately laid aside his paddle and raised the fatal rifle. Then several times he brought the piece to his shoulder, and when his companions were expecting its report he as often lowered it to request the Indians would permit their enemies to approach a little nigher. At length his accurate and fastidious eye seemed satisfied, and throwing out his left arm on the barrel, he was slowly elevating the muzzle, when an exclamation from Uncas, who sat in the bow, once more caused him to suspend the shot.

“How now, lad?” demanded Hawkeye; “you saved a Huron 87-8 from the death-shriek by that word; have you reason for what you do?”

Uncas pointed toward the rocky shore a little in their front, whence another war canoe was darting directly across their course. It was too obvious now that their situation was imminently perilous to need the aid of language to confirm it. The scout laid aside his rifle, and resumed the paddle, while Chingachgook[88] inclined the bows of the canoe a little toward the western shore, in order to increase the distance between them and this new enemy. In the meantime they were reminded of the presence of those who pressed on their rear, by wild and exulting shouts. The stirring scene awakened even Munro from his apathy.

“Let us make for the rocks on the main,” he said, with the mien of a tried soldier, “and give battle to the savages. God forbid that I or those attached to me or mine should ever trust again to the faith of any servant of the Louises.”

“He who wishes to prosper in Indian warfare,” returned the scout, “must not be too proud to learn from the wit of a native. Lay her more along the land, sagamore; we are doubling on the varlets, and perhaps they may try to strike our trail on the long calculation.”

Hawkeye was not mistaken; for, when the Hurons found that their course was likely to throw them behind their chase, they rendered it less direct, until, by gradually bearing more and more obliquely, the two canoes were, ere long, gliding on parallel lines, within two hundred yards of each other. It now became entirely a trial of speed. So rapid was the progress of the light vessels that the lake curled in their front in miniature waves, and their motion became undulating by its own velocity. It was, perhaps, owing to this circumstance, in addition to the necessity of keeping every hand employed at the paddles, that the Hurons had not immediate recourse to their firearms. The exertions of the fugitives were too severe to continue long, and the pursuers had the advantage of numbers. Duncan observed, with[89] uneasiness, that the scout began to look anxiously about him, as if searching for some further means of assisting their flight.

“Edge her a little more from the sun, Sagamore,” said the stubborn woodsman; “I see the knaves are sparing a man to the rifle. A single broken bone might lose us our scalps. Edge more from the sun, and we will put the island between us.”

The expedient was not without its use. A long, low island lay a little distance before them, and, as they closed with it, the chasing canoe was compelled to take a side opposite to that on which the pursued passed. The scout and his companions did not neglect this advantage, but, the instant they were hid from observation by the bushes, they redoubled efforts that before had seemed prodigious. The two canoes came round the last low point, like two coursers at the top of their speed, the fugitives taking the lead. This change had brought them nigher to each other, however, while it altered their relative positions.

“You showed knowledge in the shaping of birchen bark, Uncas, when you chose this from among the Huron canoes,” said the scout, smiling, apparently more in satisfaction at their superiority in the race, than from that prospect of final escape which now began to open a little upon them. “The imps have put all their strength again at the paddles, and we are to struggle for our scalps with bits of flattened wood, instead of clouded barrels and true eyes. A long stroke, and together, friends!”

“They are preparing for a shot,” said Heyward; “and as we are in a line with them, it can scarcely fail.”

[90]“Get you then into the bottom of the canoe,” returned the scout; “you and the colonel; it will be so much taken from the size of the mark.”

“It would be but an ill example for the highest in rank to dodge, while the warriors were under fire!”

“Lord! Lord! that is now a white man’s courage!” exclaimed the scout, “and, like too many of his notions, not to be maintained by reason. Do you think the sagamore, or Uncas, or even I, who am a man without a cross, would deliberate about finding a cover in a scrimmage when an open body would do no good? For what have the Frenchers reared up their Quebec, if fighting is always to be done in the clearings?”

“All that you say is very true, my friend,” replied Heyward; “still, our custom must prevent us from doing as you wish.”

A volley from the Hurons interrupted the discourse; and, as the bullets whistled about them, Duncan saw the head of Uncas turned, looking back at himself and Munro. Notwithstanding the nearness of the enemy, and his own great personal danger, the countenance of the young warrior expressed no other emotion, as the former was compelled to think, than amazement at finding men willing to encounter so useless an exposure. Chingachgook was probably better acquainted with the notions of white men, for he did not even cast a glance aside from the riveted look his eye maintained on the object by which he governed their course. A ball soon struck the light and polished paddle from the hands of the chief, and drove it through the air far in advance. A shout rose from the Hurons, who seized the opportunity[91] to fire another volley. Uncas described an arc in the water with his own blade, and, as the canoe passed swiftly on, Chingachgook recovered his paddle, and, flourishing it on high, he gave the war-whoop of the Mohicans, and then lent his strength and skill again to the important task.

The clamorous sounds of “Le Gros Serpent!”91-9 “La Longue Carabine!”91-10 “Le Cerf Agile!”91-11 burst at once from the canoes behind, and seemed to give new zeal to the pursuers. The scout seized “Kill Deer” in his left hand, and, elevating it above his head, he shook it in triumph at his enemies. The savages answered the insult with a yell, and immediately another volley succeeded. The bullets pattered along the lake, and one even pierced the bark of their little vessel. No perceptible emotion could be discovered in the Mohicans during this critical moment, their rigid features expressing neither hope nor alarm; but the scout again turned his head, and, laughing in his own silent manner, he said to Heyward:

“The knaves love to hear the sounds of their pieces, but the eye is not to be found among the Mingoes that can calculate a true range in a dancing canoe! You see the dumb devils have taken off a man to charge, and by the smallest measurement that can be allowed we move three feet to their two.”

Duncan, who was not altogether as easy under this nice estimate of distances as his companions, was[92] glad to find, however, that, owing to their superior dexterity, and the diversion among their enemies they were very sensibly obtaining the advantage. The Hurons soon fired again, and a bullet struck the blade of Hawkeye’s paddle without injury.

“That will do,” said the scout, examining the slight indentation with a curious eye; “it would not have cut the skin of an infant, much less of men who, like us, have been blown upon by the heavens in their anger. Now, major, if you will try to use this piece of flattened wood, I’ll let ‘Kill Deer’ take a part in the conversation.”

Heyward seized the paddle and applied himself to the work with an eagerness that supplied the place of skill, while Hawkeye was engaged in inspecting the priming of his rifle. The latter then took a swift aim and fired. The Huron in the bows of the leading canoe had risen with a similar object, and he now fell backward, suffering the gun to escape from his hands into the water. In an instant, however, he recovered his feet, though his gestures were wild and bewildered. At the same moment his companions suspended their efforts, and the chasing canoes clustered together and became stationary. Chingachgook and Uncas profited by the interval to regain their wind, though Duncan continued to work with the most persevering industry. The father and son now cast calm but inquiring glances at each other, to learn if either had sustained any injury by the fire; for both well knew that no cry or exclamation would, in such a moment of necessity, have been permitted to betray the accident. A few large drops of blood were trickling down the shoulders of the sagamore, who, when he perceived that[93] the eyes of Uncas dwelt too long on the sight, raised some water in the hollow of his hand, and, washing off the stain, was content to manifest, in this simple manner, the slightness of the injury.

The lake now began to expand, and their route lay along a reacher, that was lined, as before, by high and rugged mountains. But the islands were few and easily avoided. The strokes of the paddles grew more measured and regular; while they who plied them continued their labor, after the close and deadly chase from which they had just relieved themselves, with as much coolness as though their speed had been tried in sport, rather than under such pressing, nay, almost desperate circumstances.

Instead of following the western shore, whither their errand led them, the wary Mohican inclined his course more toward those hills behind which Montcalm was known to have led his army into the formidable fortress of Ticonderoga. As the Hurons, to every appearance, had abandoned the pursuit, there was no apparent reason for this excess of caution. It was, however, maintained for hours until they had reached a bay nigh the northern termination of the lake. Here the canoe was driven upon the beach, and the whole party landed. Hawkeye and Heyward ascended an adjacent bluff, where the former, after considering the expanse of water beneath him, pointed out to the latter a small black object, hovering under a headland, at a distance of several miles.

“Do you see it?” demanded the scout. “Now, what would you account that spot, were you left alone to white experience to find your way through this wilderness?”

[94]“But for its distance and its magnitude, I should suppose it a bird. Can it be a living object?”

“’Tis a canoe of good birchen bark, and paddled by fierce and crafty Mingoes. Though Providence has lent to those who inhabit the woods eyes that would be needless to men in the settlements where there are inventions to assist the sight, yet no human organs can see all the dangers which at this moment circumvent us. These varlets pretend to be bent chiefly on their sundown meal, but the moment it is dark they will be on our trail as true as hounds on the scent. We must throw them off. These lakes are useful at times, especially when the game takes the water,” continued the scout, gazing about him with a countenance of concern; “but they give no cover, except it be to fishes. God knows what the country would be, if the settlement should ever spread far from the two rivers. Both hunting and war would lose their beauty.”

“I little like that smoke which you may see worming up along the rock above the canoe,” interrupted the abstracted scout. “My life on it, other eyes than ours see it, and know its meaning. Well, words will not mend the matter, and it is time we were doing.”

Hawkeye moved away from the lookout, and descended, musing profoundly, to the shore. He communicated the result of his observations to his companions, in Delaware, and a short and earnest consultation succeeded. When it terminated, the three instantly set about executing their new resolutions.

[95]The canoe was lifted from the water, and borne on the shoulders of the party. They proceeded into the wood, making as broad and obvious a trail as possible. They soon reached a water course, which they crossed, and continued onward until they came to an extensive and naked rock. At this point, where their footsteps might be expected to be no longer visible, they retraced their route to the brook, walking backward with the utmost care. They now followed the bed of the little stream to the lake, into which they immediately launched their canoe again. A low point concealed them from the headland, and the margin of the lake was fringed for some distance with dense and overhanging bushes. Under the cover of these natural advantages, they toiled their way, with patient industry, until the scout pronounced that he believed it would be safe once more to land.

The halt continued until evening rendered objects indistinct and uncertain to the eye. Then they resumed their route, and, favored by the darkness, pushed silently and vigorously toward the western shore. Although the rugged outline of mountain, to which they were steering, presented no distinctive marks to the eyes of Duncan, the Mohican entered the little haven he had selected with the confidence and accuracy of an experienced pilot.

The boat was again lifted and borne into the woods, where it was carefully concealed under a pile of brush. The adventurers assumed their arms and packs, and the scout announced to Munro and Heyward that he and the Indians were at last in readiness to proceed.

79-1 Hawkeye is an American scout working with the English army. He is one of the most important characters in this book, and under different names figures in the other volumes of The Leather-Stocking Tales. In one he is known as the Deerslayer, in others as Leather-Stocking and the Pathfinder. His real name is Natty Bumppo. The five stories which Cooper includes among The Leather-Stocking Tales are in their natural order: Deerslayer, The Last of the Mohicans, The Pathfinder, The Pioneers and The Prairie. This selection is taken from The Last of the Mohicans.

79-2 Munro is the father of two young ladies who have been captured and carried away by the Indians. With his companions he is now following the trail of the captors, and this canoe race is but one of many adventures through which they pass before they finally rescue the women.

79-3 Duncan Heyward is a British officer who was with the young ladies when they were captured.

81-4 Uncas is the son of the last chief of the Mohicans, a fine Indian who sides with the Americans, and is, as his tribe has always been, a bitter enemy of the Huron Indians.

82-5 The beauties of Lake George are well known to every American tourist. In the height of the mountains which surround it, and in artificial accessories, it is inferior to the finest of the Swiss and Italian lakes, while in outline and purity of water it is fully their equal, and in the number and disposition of its isles and islets much superior to them altogether. There are said to be some hundreds of islands in a sheet of water less than thirty miles long. The narrows, which connect what may be called, in truth two lakes, are crowded with islands, to such a degree as to leave passages between them frequently of only a few feet in width. The lake itself varies in breadth from one to three miles.

83-6 Chingachgook, the father of Uncas, is the chief of the Delaware or Mohican Indians.

86-7 Kill Deer, his favorite rifle, has a particularly long barrel, much longer than the rifle used by the soldiers. Hawkeye’s appearance is described in another place as follows: “The frame of the white man, judging by such parts as were not concealed by his clothes, was like that of one who had known hardships and exertion from his earliest youth. His person, though muscular, was rather attenuated than full; but every nerve and muscle appeared strung and indurated by unremitted exposure and toil. He wore a hunting-shirt of forest green, fringed with faded yellow, and a summer cap of skins which had been shorn of their fur. He also bore a knife in a girdle of wampum, like that which confined the scanty garments of the Indian, but no tomahawk. His moccasins were ornamented after the gay fashion of the natives, while the only part of his under-dress which appeared below the hunting-frock, was a pair of buckskin leggings that laced at the sides, and which were gartered above the knees with the sinews of a deer. A pouch and horn completed his personal accoutrements, though a rifle of great length, which the theory of the more ingenious whites had taught them was the most dangerous of all fire-arms, leaned against a neighboring sapling. The eye of the hunter, or scout, whichever he might be, was small, quick, keen, and restless, roving while he spoke, on every side of him, as if in quest of game, or distrusting the sudden approach of some lurking enemy. Notwithstanding these symptoms of habitual suspicion, his countenance was not only without guile, but, at the moment at which he is introduced, it was charged with an expression of sturdy honesty.”

87-8 The Huron tribe sided with the French, and as they were powerful Indians, wise in woodcraft and fierce in battle, they were among the most deadly foes whom the English colonists had to meet.

91-9 Le Gros Serpent is a French phrase meaning The Great Serpent, or The Big Snake, a name which the Hurons gave to Chingachgook.

91-10 La Longue Carabine means The Long Rifle, and is the French name which the Hurons gave to Hawkeye.

91-11 Le Cerf Agile is a French phrase which means The Nimble Deer. It is the name given to Uncas by the Hurons.

THE BUFFALO

Note.—The following selections are taken from The Oregon Trail, a narrative written by Francis Parkman describing the journey which he undertook in order to study the manners, customs and character of the Indians in their native state. Parkman planned this investigation to prepare himself more fully for writing his splendid Histories of the French and Indians in America, a series of books which are not only the best accounts we have of the period, but are also written in most charming style. His Conspiracy of Pontiac and La Salle are among the most readable of these works. The selections which we have made are peculiarly interesting. His journey was begun in the spring of 1846, and in the brief time that has elapsed the wilderness he describes has given way to populous states and thriving cities. The red man is seen there no longer, and the vast herds of buffalo whose numbers seem to us incredible have become wholly extinct. In the United States there remain almost no wild bison, and to study the animal at all a person must now examine those half domesticated groups that are confined in public parks.

The extravagant slaughter which he chronicles bears little comparison to the hunts in which others engaged. The cruel and wanton destruction of the bison takes its place in history with the more fierce and relentless persecution which the Indians have suffered. When we read of the innumerable herds of bison which Parkman saw, we are inclined, however, not to wonder that he expressed the belief that the extinction of the animal was impossible. His description of his hunts are fascinating, and will rouse the wild blood in any boy’s nature.

our days on the Platte, and yet no buffalo! Last year’s signs of them were provokingly abundant; and wood being extremely scarce, we found an admirable substitute in the bois de vache, which burns exactly like peat, producing no unpleasant effects. The wagons one morning had left the camp; Shaw and I were already on horseback, but Henry Chatillon still sat cross-legged by the dead embers of the fire, playing pensively with the lock of his rifle, while his sturdy Wyandotte pony stood quietly behind him, looking over his head. At last he got up, patted the neck of the pony (whom, from an exaggerated appreciation of his merits, he had christened “Five Hundred Dollar”), and then mounted with a melancholy air.

“Ah, I feel lonesome; I never been here before; but I see away yonder over the buttes, and down there on the prairie, black—all black with buffalo!”

In the afternoon he and I left the party in search of an antelope; until at the distance of a mile or two on the right, the tall white wagons and the little black specks of horsemen were just visible, so slowly advancing that they seemed motionless; and far on the left rose the broken line of scorched, desolate sand-hills. The vast plain waved with tall rank grass that swept our horses’ bellies; it swayed to and fro in billows with the light breeze, and far and near antelope and wolves were moving through it, the hairy backs of the latter alternately appearing and disappearing as they bounded awkwardly along: while the antelope, with the simple curiosity[98] peculiar to them, would often approach us closely, their little horns and white throats just visible above the grass tops, as they gazed eagerly at us with their round black eyes.

I dismounted, and amused myself with firing at the wolves. Henry attentively scrutinized the surrounding landscape; at length he gave a shout, and called on me to mount again, pointing in the direction of the sand-hills. A mile and a half from us, two minute black specks slowly traversed the face of one of the bare glaring declivities, and disappeared behind the summit. “Let us go!” cried Henry, belaboring the sides of Five Hundred Dollar; and I following in his wake, we galloped rapidly through the rank grass toward the base of the hills.

From one of their openings descended a deep ravine, widening as it issued on the prairie. We entered it, and galloping up, in a moment were surrounded by the bleak sand-hills. Half of their steep sides were bare; the rest were scantily clothed with clumps of grass, and various uncouth plants, conspicuous among which appeared the reptile-like prickly pear. They were gashed with numberless ravines; and as the sky had suddenly darkened, and a cold gusty wind arisen, the strange shrubs and the dreary hills looked doubly wild and desolate. But Henry’s face was all eagerness. He tore off a little hair from the piece of buffalo robe under his saddle, and threw it up to show the course of the wind. It blew directly before us. The game were therefore to windward, and it was necessary to make our best speed to get around them.

We scrambled from this ravine, and galloping away through the hollows, soon found another, winding[99] like a snake among the hills, and so deep that it completely concealed us. We rode up the bottom of it, glancing through the shrubbery at its edge, till Henry abruptly jerked his rein, and slid out of his saddle. Full a quarter of a mile distant, on the outline of the farthest hill, a long procession of buffalo were walking in Indian file, with the utmost gravity and deliberation; then more appeared, clambering from a hollow not far off, and ascending, one behind the other, the grassy slope of another hill; then a shaggy head and a pair of short broken horns appeared issuing out of a ravine close at hand, and with a slow, stately step, one by one, the enormous brutes came into view, taking their way across the valley, wholly unconscious of an enemy. In a moment Henry was worming his way, lying flat on the ground, through grass and prickly pears, toward his unsuspecting victims. He had with him both my rifle and his own. He was soon out of sight, and still the buffalo kept issuing into the valley. For a long time all was silent; I sat holding his horse, and wondering what he was about, when suddenly, in rapid succession, came the sharp reports of the two rifles, and the whole line of buffalo, quickening their pace into a clumsy trot, gradually disappeared over the ridge of the hill. Henry rose to his feet, and stood looking after them.

“Yes,” said Henry; “let us go.” He descended into the ravine, loaded the rifles, and mounted his horse. We rode up the hill after the buffalo. The herd was out of sight when we reached the top, but lying on the grass not far off was one quite lifeless, and another violently struggling in the death agony.

[100]“You see I miss him!” remarked Henry. He had fired from a distance of more than a hundred and fifty yards, and both balls had passed through the lungs—the true mark in shooting buffalo.

The darkness increased, and a driving storm came on. Tying our horses to the horns of the victims, Henry began the bloody work of dissection, slashing away with the science of a connoisseur, while I vainly endeavored to imitate him. Old Hendrick recoiled with horror and indignation when I endeavored to tie the meat to the strings of rawhide, always carried for this purpose, dangling at the back of the saddle. After some difficulty we overcame his scruples; and heavily burdened with the more eligible portions of the buffalo, we set out on our return. Scarcely had we emerged from the labyrinth of gorges and ravines, and issued upon the open prairie, when the pricking sleet came driving, gust upon gust, directly in our faces. It was strangely dark, though wanting still an hour of sunset. The freezing storm soon penetrated to the skin, but the uneasy trot of our heavy-gaited horses kept us warm enough, as we forced them unwillingly in the teeth of the sleet and rain, by the powerful suasion of our Indian whips.

The prairie in this place was hard and level. A flourishing colony of prairie dogs had burrowed into it in every direction, and the little mounds of fresh earth around their holes were about as numerous as the hills in a cornfield; but not a yelp was to be heard; not a nose of a single citizen was visible; all had retired to the depths of their burrows, and we envied them their dry and comfortable habitations.

An hour’s hard riding showed us our tent dimly looming through the storm, one side puffed out by[101] the force of the wind, and the other collapsed in proportion, while the disconsolate horses stood shivering close around, and the wind kept up a dismal whistling in the boughs of three old half-dead trees above. Shaw, like a patriarch, sat on his saddle in the entrance, with a pipe in his mouth, and his arms folded, contemplating, with cool satisfaction, the piles of meat that we flung on the ground before him. A dark and dreary night succeeded; but the sun rose with a heat so sultry and languid that the captain excused himself on that account from waylaying an old buffalo bull, who with stupid gravity was walking over the prairie to drink at the river. So much for the climate of the Platte!

We encamped that night upon the bank of the river. Among the emigrants there was an overgrown boy, some eighteen years old, with a head as round and about as large as a pumpkin, and fever-and-ague fits had dyed his face of a corresponding color. He wore an old white hat, tied under his chin with a handkerchief; his body was short and stout, but his legs of disproportioned and appalling length. I observed him at sunset, breasting the hill with gigantic strides, and standing against the sky on the summit, like a colossal pair of tongs. In a moment after we heard him screaming frantically behind the ridge, and nothing doubting that he was in the clutches of Indians or grizzly bears, some of the party caught up their rifles and ran to the rescue. His outcries, however, proved but an ebullition of joyous excitement; he had chased two little wolf pups to their burrow, and he was on his knees, grubbing away like a dog at the mouth of the hole, to get at them.

[102]Before morning he caused more serious disquiet in the camp. It was his turn to hold the middle guard; but no sooner was he called up, than he coolly arranged a pair of saddle-bags under a wagon, laid his head upon them, closed his eyes, opened his mouth, and fell asleep. The guard on our side of the camp, thinking it no part of his duty to look after the cattle of the emigrants, contented himself with watching our own horses and mules; the wolves, he said, were unusually noisy; but still no mischief was anticipated until the sun rose, and not a hoof or horn was in sight! The cattle were gone! While Tom was quietly slumbering, the wolves had driven them away.

Then we reaped the fruits of R.’s precious plan of traveling in company with emigrants. To leave them in their distress was not to be thought of, and we felt bound to wait until the cattle could be searched for, and, if possible, recovered. But the reader may be curious to know what punishment awaited the faithless Tom. By the wholesome law of the prairie, he who falls asleep on guard is condemned to walk all day, leading his horse by the bridle, and we found much fault with our companions for not enforcing such a sentence on the offender. Nevertheless, had he been of our own party, I have no doubt he would in like manner have escaped scot-free. But the emigrants went farther than mere forbearance: they decreed that since Tom couldn’t stand guard without falling asleep, he shouldn’t stand guard at all, and henceforward his slumbers were unbroken.

“Buffalo! buffalo!” It was but a grim old bull, roaming the prairie by himself in misanthropic[103] seclusion; but there might be more behind the hills. Dreading the monotony and languor of the camp, Shaw and I saddled our horses, buckled our holsters in their places, and set out with Henry Chatillon in search of the game. Henry, not intending to take part in the chase, but merely conducting us, carried his rifle with him, while we left ours behind as incumbrances. We rode for some five or six miles, and saw no living thing but wolves, snakes, and prairie dogs.

“There’s no wood about here to make a litter for the wounded man; I have an idea that one of us will need something of the sort before the day is over.”

There was some foundation for such an apprehension, for the ground was none of the best for a race, and grew worse continually as we proceeded; indeed it soon became desperately bad, consisting of abrupt hills and deep hollows, cut by frequent ravines not easy to pass. At length, a mile in advance, we saw a band of bulls. Some were scattered grazing over a green declivity, while the rest were crowded more densely together in the wide hollow below. Making a circuit to keep out of sight, we rode toward them until we ascended a hill within a furlong of them, beyond which nothing intervened that could possibly screen us from their view. We dismounted behind the ridge just out of sight, drew our saddle-girths, examined our pistols, and mounting again rode over the hill, and descended at a canter toward them, bending close to our horses’ necks. Instantly they took the alarm; those on the[104] hill descended; those below gathered into a mass, and the whole got in motion, shouldering each other along at a clumsy gallop. We followed, spurring our horses to full speed; and as the herd rushed, crowding and trampling in terror through an opening in the hills, we were close at their heels, half suffocated by the clouds of dust.

But as we drew near, their alarm and speed increased; our horses showed signs of the utmost fear, bounding violently aside as we approached, and refusing to enter among the herd.

The buffalo now broke into several small bodies, scampering over the hills in different directions, and I lost sight of Shaw; neither of us knew where the other had gone. Old Pontiac ran like a frantic elephant up hill and down hill, his ponderous hoofs striking the prairie like sledge-hammers. He showed a curious mixture of eagerness and terror, straining to overtake the panic-stricken herd, but constantly recoiling in dismay as we drew near. The fugitives offered no very attractive spectacle, with their enormous size and weight, their shaggy manes and the tattered remnants of their last winter’s hair covering their backs in irregular shreds and patches, and flying off in the wind as they ran.

At length I urged my horse close behind a bull, and after trying in vain, by blows and spurring, to bring him alongside, I shot a bullet into the buffalo from this disadvantageous position. At the report, Pontiac swerved so much that I was again thrown a little behind the game. The bullet, entering too much in the rear, failed to disable the bull, for a buffalo requires to be shot at particular points, or he will certainly escape. The herd ran up a hill, and[105] I followed in pursuit. As Pontiac rushed headlong down on the other side, I saw Shaw and Henry descending the hollow on the right, at a leisurely gallop; and in front, the buffalo were just disappearing behind the crest of the next hill, their short tails erect, and their hoofs twinkling through a cloud of dust.

At that moment, I heard Shaw and Henry shouting to me; but the muscles of a stronger arm than mine could not have checked at once the furious course of Pontiac, whose mouth was as insensible as leather. Added to this, I rode him that morning with a common snaffle, having the day before, for the benefit of my other horse, unbuckled from my bridle the curb which I ordinarily used. A stronger and hardier brute never trod the prairie; but the novel sight of the buffalo filled him with terror, and when at full speed he was almost uncontrollable. Gaining the top of the ridge, I saw nothing of the buffalo; they had all vanished amid the intricacies of the hills and hollows. Reloading my pistols, in the best way I could, I galloped on until I saw them again scuttling along at the base of the hill, their panic somewhat abated. Down went old Pontiac among them, scattering them to the right and left, and then we had another long chase.

About a dozen bulls were before us, scouring over the hills, rushing down the declivities with tremendous weight and impetuosity, and then laboring with a weary gallop upward. Still Pontiac, in spite of spurring and beating, would not close with them. One bull at length fell a little behind the rest, and by dint of much effort I urged my horse within six or eight yards of his side. His back was[106] darkened with sweat; he was panting heavily, while his tongue lolled out a foot from his jaws. Gradually I came up abreast of him, urging Pontiac with leg and rein nearer to his side, when suddenly he did what buffalo in such circumstances will always do; he slackened his gallop, and turning toward us, with an aspect of mingled rage and distress, lowered[107] his huge shaggy head for a charge. Pontiac, with a snort, leaped aside in terror, nearly throwing me to the ground, as I was wholly unprepared for such an evolution. I raised my pistol in a passion to strike him on the head, but thinking better of it, fired the bullet after the bull, who had resumed his flight; then drew rein, and determined to rejoin my companions. It was high time. The breath blew hard from Pontiac’s nostrils, and the sweat rolled in big drops down his sides; I myself felt as if drenched in warm water.

Pledging myself (and I redeemed the pledge) to take my revenge at a future opportunity, I looked round for some indications to show me where I was, and what course I ought to pursue; I might as well have looked for landmarks in the midst of the ocean. How many miles I had run or in what direction, I had no idea; and around me the prairie was rolling in steep swells and pitches, without a single distinctive feature to guide me. I had a little compass hung at my neck; and ignorant that the Platte at this point diverged considerably from its easterly course, I thought that by keeping to the northward I should certainly reach it. So I turned and rode about two hours in that direction. The prairie changed as I advanced, softening away into easier undulations, but nothing like the Platte appeared, nor any sign of a human being; the same wild endless expanse lay around me still; and to all appearance I was as far from my object as ever. I began now to consider myself in danger of being lost; and therefore, reining in my horse, summoned the scanty share of woodcraft that I possessed (if that term be applicable upon the prairie) to extricate[108] me. Looking round, it occurred to me that the buffalo might prove my best guides. I soon found one of the paths made by them in their passage to the river; it ran nearly at right angles to my course; but turning my horse’s head in the direction it indicated, his freer gait and erected ears assured me that I was right.

But in the meantime my ride had been by no means a solitary one. The whole face of the country was dotted far and wide with countless hundreds of buffalo. They trooped along in files and columns, bulls, cows, and calves, on the green faces of the declivities in front. They scrambled away over the hills to the right and left; and far off, the pale blue swells in the extreme distance were dotted with innumerable specks. Sometimes I surprised shaggy old bulls grazing alone, or sleeping behind the ridges I ascended. They would leap up at my approach, stare stupidly at me through their tangled manes, and then gallop heavily away. The antelope were very numerous; and as they are always bold when in the neighborhood of buffalo, they would approach quite near to look at me, gazing intently with their great round eyes, then suddenly leap aside, and stretch lightly away over the prairie, as swiftly as a racehorse. Squalid, ruffianlike wolves sneaked through the hollows and sandy ravines. Several times I passed through villages of prairie dogs, who sat, each at the mouth of his burrow, holding his paws before him in a supplicating attitude, and yelping away most vehemently, energetically whisking his little tail with every squeaking cry he uttered. Prairie dogs are not fastidious in their choice of companions; various long, checkered snakes were[109] sunning themselves in the midst of the village, and demure little gray owls, with a large white ring around each eye, were perched side by side with the rightful inhabitants. The prairie teemed with life. Again and again I looked toward the crowded hillsides, and was sure I saw horsemen; and riding near, with a mixture of hope and dread, for Indians were abroad, I found them transformed into a group of buffalo. There was nothing in human shape amid all this vast congregation of brute forms.

When I turned down the buffalo path, the prairie seemed changed; only a wolf or two glided past at intervals, like conscious felons, never looking to the right or left. Being now free from anxiety, I was at leisure to observe minutely the objects around me; and here, for the first time, I noticed insects wholly different from any of the varieties found farther to the eastward. Gaudy butterflies fluttered about my horse’s head; strangely formed beetles, glittering with metallic luster, were crawling upon plants that I had never seen before; multitudes of lizards, too, were darting like lightning over the sand.

I had run to a great distance from the river. It cost me a long ride on the buffalo path before I saw from the ridge of a sand-hill the pale surface of the Platte glistening in the midst of its desert valleys and the faint outline of the hills beyond waving along the sky. From where I stood, not a tree nor a bush nor a living thing was visible throughout the whole extent of the sun-scorched landscape. In half an hour I came upon the trail, not far from the river; and seeing that the party had not yet passed, I turned eastward to meet them, old Pontiac’s long[110] swinging trot again assuring me that I was right in doing so. Having been slightly ill on leaving camp in the morning, six or seven hours of rough riding had fatigued me extremely. I soon stopped, therefore; flung my saddle on the ground, and with my head resting on it, and my horse’s trail-rope tied loosely to my arm, lay waiting the arrival of the party, speculating meanwhile on the extent of the injuries Pontiac had received. At length the white wagon coverings rose from the verge of the plain. By a singular coincidence, almost at the same moment two horsemen appeared coming down from the hills. They were Shaw and Henry, who had searched for me awhile in the morning, but well knowing the futility of the attempt in such a broken country, had placed themselves on the top of the highest hill they could find, and picketing their horses near them, as a signal to me, had lain down and fallen asleep. The stray cattle had been recovered, as the emigrants told us, about noon. Before sunset, we pushed forward eight miles farther.

TÊTE ROUGE

he next morning, having directed Delorier to repair with his cart to the place of meeting, we came again to the fort to make some arrangements for the journey. After completing these we sat down under a sort of perch, to smoke with some Cheyenne Indians whom we found there. In a few minutes we saw an extraordinary little figure approach us in a military dress. He had a small, round countenance, garnished about the eyes with the kind of wrinkles[111] commonly known as crow’s feet and surrounded by an abundant crop of red curls, with a little cap resting on the top of them. Altogether, he had the look of a man more conversant with mint juleps and oyster suppers than with the hardships of prairie service. He came up to us and entreated that we would take him home to the settlements, saying that unless he went with us he should have to stay all winter at the fort. We liked our petitioner’s appearance so little that we excused ourselves from complying with his request. At this he begged us so hard to take pity on him, that at last we consented, though not without many misgivings.

The rugged Anglo-Saxon of our new recruit’s real name proved utterly unmanageable on the lips of our French attendants, and Henry Chatillon, after various abortive attempts to pronounce it, one day coolly christened him Tête Rouge, in honor of his red curls. He had at different times been clerk of a Mississippi steamboat, and agent in a trading establishment at Nauvoo, besides filling various other capacities, in all of which he had seen much more of “life” than was good for him. In the spring, thinking that a summer’s campaign would be an agreeable recreation, he had joined a company of Saint Louis volunteers.

“There were three of us,” said Tête Rouge, “me and Bill Stevens and John Hopkins. We thought we would just go out with the army, and when we had conquered the country, we would get discharged and take our pay, you know, and go down to Mexico. They say there is plenty of fun going on there. Then we could go back to New Orleans by way of Vera Cruz.”

[112]But Tête Rouge, like many a stouter volunteer, had reckoned without his host. Fighting Mexicans was a less amusing occupation than he had supposed, and his pleasure trip was disagreeably interrupted by brain fever, which attacked him when about halfway to Bent’s Fort. He jolted along through the rest of the journey in a baggage wagon. When they came to the fort he was taken out and left there, together with the rest of the sick. Bent’s Fort does not supply the best accommodations for an invalid. Tête Rouge’s sick chamber was a little mud room, where he and a companion attacked by the same disease were laid together, with nothing but a buffalo robe between them and the ground. The assistant surgeon’s deputy visited them once a day and brought them each a huge dose of calomel, the only medicine, according to his surviving victim, which he was acquainted with.

Tête Rouge woke one morning, and turning to his companion, saw his eyes fixed upon the beams above with the glassy stare of a dead man. At this the unfortunate volunteer lost his senses outright. In spite of the doctor, however, he eventually recovered; though between the brain fever and the calomel, his mind, originally none of the strongest, was so much shaken that it had not quite recovered its balance when we came to the fort. In spite of the poor fellow’s tragic story, there was something so ludicrous in his appearance, and the whimsical contrast between his military dress and his most unmilitary demeanor, that we could not help smiling at them.

We asked him if he had a gun. He said they had taken it from him during his illness, and he had[113] not seen it since; “but perhaps,” he observed, looking at me with a beseeching air, “you will lend me one of your big pistols if we should meet with any Indians.” I next inquired if he had a horse; he declared he had a magnificent one, and at Shaw’s request a Mexican led him in for inspection. He exhibited the outline of a good horse, but his eyes were sunk in the sockets, and every one of his ribs could be counted. There were certain marks too about his shoulders, which could be accounted for by the circumstance, that during Tête Rouge’s illness, his companions had seized upon the insulted charger, and harnessed him to a cannon along with the draft horses. To Tête Rouge’s astonishment we recommended him by all means to exchange the horse, if he could, for a mule. Fortunately the people at the fort were so anxious to get rid of him that they were willing to make some sacrifice to effect the object, and he succeeded in getting a tolerable mule in exchange for the broken-down steed.

A man soon appeared at the gate, leading in the mule by a cord which he placed in the hands of Tête Rouge, who, being somewhat afraid of his new acquisition, tried various flatteries and blandishments to induce her to come forward. The mule, knowing that she was expected to advance, stopped short in consequence, and stood fast as a rock, looking straight forward with immovable composure. Being stimulated by a blow from behind she consented to move, and walked nearly to the other side of the fort before she stopped again. Hearing the bystanders laugh, Tête Rouge plucked up spirit and tugged hard at the rope. The mule jerked backward, spun herself round, and made a dash for the[114] gate. Tête Rouge, who clung manfully to the rope, went whisking through the air for a few rods, when he let go and stood with his mouth open, staring after the mule, who galloped away over the prairie. She was soon caught and brought back by a Mexican, who mounted a horse and went in pursuit of her with his lasso.

Having thus displayed his capacities for prairie traveling, Tête proceeded to supply himself with provisions for the journey, and with this view he applied to a quartermaster’s assistant who was in the fort. This official had a face as sour as vinegar, being in a state of chronic indignation because he had been left behind the army. He was as anxious as the rest to get rid of Tête Rouge. So, producing a rusty key, he opened a low door which led to a half-subterranean apartment, into which the two disappeared together. After some time they came out again, Tête Rouge greatly embarrassed by a multiplicity of paper parcels containing the different articles of his forty days’ rations. They were consigned to the care of Delorier, who about that time passed by with the cart on his way to the appointed place of meeting with Munroe and his companions.

We next urged Tête Rouge to provide himself, if he could, with a gun. He accordingly made earnest appeals to the charity of various persons in the fort, but totally without success, a circumstance which did not greatly disturb us, since in the event of a skirmish he would be much more apt to do mischief to himself or his friends than to the enemy. When all these arrangements were completed we saddled our horses and were preparing to leave the fort, when looking round we discovered that our[115] new associate was in fresh trouble. A man was holding the mule for him in the middle of the fort, while he tried to put the saddle on her back, but she kept stepping sideways and moving round and round in a circle until he was almost in despair. It required some assistance before all his difficulties could be overcome. At length he clambered into the black war saddle on which he was to have carried terror into the ranks of the Mexicans.

The mule walked deliberately forward out of the gate. Her recent conduct had inspired him with so much awe that he never dared to touch her with his whip. We trotted forward toward the place of meeting, but before he had gone far we saw that Tête Rouge’s mule, who perfectly understood her rider, had stopped and was quietly grazing, in spite of his protestations, at some distance behind. So getting behind him, we drove him and the contumacious mule before us, until we could see through the twilight the gleaming of a distant fire.

We began our journey for the frontier settlements on the 27th of August, and certainly a more ragamuffin cavalcade never was seen on the upper Arkansas. Of the large and fine horses with which we had left the frontier in the spring, not one remained; we had supplied their place with the rough breed of the prairie, as hardy as mules and almost as ugly; we had also with us a number of the latter detestable animals. In spite of their strength and hardihood, several of the band were already worn down by hard service and hard fare, and as none of them were shod, they were fast becoming foot-sore.[116] Every horse and mule had a cord of twisted bull-hide coiled around his neck, which by no means added to the beauty of his appearance. Our saddles and all our equipments were by this time lamentably worn and battered, and our weapons had become dull and rusty. The dress of the riders fully corresponded with the dilapidated furniture of our horses, and of the whole party none made a more disreputable appearance than my friend and I. Shaw had for an upper garment an old red flannel shirt, flying open in front and belted around him like a frock; while I, in absence of other clothing, was attired in a time-worn suit of leather.

Thus happy and careless as so many beggars, we crept slowly from day to day along the monotonous banks of the Arkansas. Tête Rouge gave constant trouble, for he could never catch his mule, saddle her, or indeed do anything else without assistance. Every day he had some new ailment, real or imaginary, to complain of. At one moment he would be woebegone and disconsolate, and the next he would be visited with a violent flow of spirits, to which he could only give vent by incessant laughing, whistling, and telling stories. When other resources failed, we used to amuse ourselves by tormenting him; a fair compensation for the trouble he cost us. Tête Rouge rather enjoyed being laughed at, for he was an odd compound of weakness, eccentricity, and good-nature. He made a figure worthy of a painter as he paced along before us, perched on the back of his mule, and enveloped in a huge buffalo-robe coat, which some charitable person had given him at the fort. This extraordinary garment, which would have contained two men of his size, he chose,[117] for some reason best known to himself, to wear inside out, and he never took it off, even in the hottest weather. It was fluttering all over with seams and tatters, and the hide was so old and rotten that it broke out every day in a new place. Just at the top of it a large pile of red curls was visible, with his little cap set jauntily upon one side, to give him a military air. His seat in the saddle was no less remarkable than his person and equipment. He pressed one leg close against his mule’s side, and thrust the other out at an angle of 45°. His pantaloons were decorated with a military red stripe, of which he was extremely vain; but being much too short, the whole length of his boots was usually visible below them. His blanket, loosely rolled up into a large bundle, dangled at the back of his saddle, where he carried it tied with a string. Four or five times a day it would fall to the ground. Every few minutes he would drop his pipe, his knife, his flint and steel, or a piece of tobacco, and have to scramble down to pick them up. In doing this he would contrive to get in everybody’s way; and as the most of the party were by no means remarkable for a fastidious choice of language, a storm of anathemas would be showered upon him, half in earnest and half in jest, until Tête Rouge would declare that there was no comfort in life, and that he never saw such fellows before.

On the next afternoon, as we moved along the bank of the river, we saw the white tops of wagons on the horizon. It was some hours before we met them, when they proved to be a train of clumsy ox-wagons, quite different from the rakish vehicles of the Santa Fé traders, and loaded with government[118] stores for the troops. They all stopped, and the drivers gathered around us in a crowd. I thought that the whole frontier might have been ransacked in vain to furnish men worse fitted to meet the dangers of the prairie. Many of them were mere boys, fresh from the plow, and devoid of knowledge and experience.

Just after leaving the government wagons, as Shaw and I were riding along a narrow passage between the river bank and a rough hill that passed close upon it, we heard Tête Rouge’s voice behind us. “Hallo!” he called out; “I say, stop the cart just for a minute, will you?”

“What’s the matter, Tête?” asked Shaw, as he came riding up to us with a grin of exultation. He had a bottle of molasses in one hand, and a large bundle of hides on the saddle before him, containing, as he triumphantly informed us, sugar, biscuits, coffee, and rice. These supplies he had obtained by a stratagem on which he greatly plumed himself, and he was extremely vexed and astonished that we did not fall in with his views of the matter. He had told Coates, the master-wagoner, that the commissary at the fort had given him an order for sick-rations, directed to the master of any government train which he might meet upon the road. This order he had unfortunately lost, but he hoped that the rations would not be refused on that account, as he was suffering from coarse fare and needed them very much. As soon as he came to camp that night Tête Rouge repaired to the box at the back of the cart, where Delorier used to keep his culinary apparatus, took possession of a saucepan, and after building a little fire of his own, set to work preparing[119] a meal out of his ill-gotten booty. This done, he seized on a tin plate and spoon, and sat down under the cart to regale himself. His preliminary repast did not at all prejudice his subsequent exertions at supper; where, in spite of his miniature dimensions, he made a better figure than any of us. Indeed, about this time his appetite grew quite voracious. He began to thrive wonderfully. His small body visibly expanded, and his cheeks, which when we first took him were rather yellow and cadaverous, now dilated in a wonderful manner, and became ruddy in proportion. Tête Rouge, in short, began to appear like another man.

THE CHASE

he country before us was now thronged with buffalo, and a sketch of the manner of hunting them will not be out of place. There are two methods commonly practiced, “running” and “approaching.” The chase on horseback, which goes by the name of “running,” is the more violent and dashing mode of the two. Indeed, of all American wild sports, this is the wildest. Once among the buffalo, the hunter, unless long use has made him familiar with the situation, dashes forward in utter recklessness and self-abandonment. He thinks of nothing, cares for nothing, but the game; his mind is stimulated to the highest pitch, yet intensely concentrated on one object. In the midst of the flying herd, where the uproar and the dust are thickest, it never wavers for a moment; he drops the rein and abandons his horse to his furious career; he levels his gun, the[120] report sounds faint amid the thunder of the buffalo; and when his wounded enemy leaps in vain fury upon him, his heart thrills with a feeling like the fierce delight of the battlefield. A practiced and skilful hunter, well mounted, will sometimes kill five or six cows in a single chase, loading his gun again and again as his horse rushes through the tumult. An exploit like this is quite beyond the capacities of a novice.

In attacking a small band of buffalo, or in separating a single animal from the herd and assailing it apart from the rest, there is less excitement and less danger. With a bold and well-trained horse the hunter may ride so close to the buffalo that as they gallop side by side he may reach over and touch him with his hand; nor is there much danger in this as long as the buffalo’s strength and breath continue unabated; but when he becomes tired and can no longer run at ease, when his tongue lolls out and foam flies from his jaws, then the hunter had better keep at a respectful distance; the distressed brute may turn upon him at any instant; and especially at the moment when he fires his gun. The wounded buffalo springs at his enemy; the horse leaps violently aside; and then the hunter has need of a tenacious seat in the saddle, for if he is thrown to the ground there is no hope for him. When he sees his attack defeated the buffalo resumes his flight, but if the shot be well directed he soon stops; for a few minutes he stands still, then totters and falls heavily upon the prairie.

The chief difficulty in running buffalo, as it seems to me, is that of loading the gun or pistol at full gallop. Many hunters for convenience’ sake[121] carry three or four bullets in the mouth; the powder is poured down the muzzle of the piece, the bullet dropped in after it, the stock struck hard upon the pommel of the saddle, and the work is done. The danger of this method is obvious. Should the blow on the pommel fail to send the bullet home, or should the latter, in the act of aiming, start from its place and roll toward the muzzle, the gun would probably burst in discharging. Many a shattered hand and worse casualties besides have been the result of such an accident. To obviate it, some hunters make use of a ramrod, usually hung by a string from the neck, but this materially increases the difficulty of loading. The bows and arrows which the Indians use in running buffalo have many advantages over firearms, and even white men occasionally employ them.

The danger of the chase arises not so much from the onset of the wounded animal as from the nature of the ground which the hunter must ride over. The prairie does not always present a smooth, level, and uniform surface; very often it is broken with hills and hollows, intersected by ravines, and in the remoter parts studded by the stiff wild-sage bushes. The most formidable obstructions, however, are the burrows of wild animals, wolves, badgers, and particularly prairie dogs, with whose holes the ground for a very great extent is frequently honeycombed. In the blindness of the chase the hunter rushes over it unconscious of danger; his horse, at full career, thrusts his leg deep into one of the burrows; the bone snaps, the rider is hurled forward to the ground and probably killed. Yet accidents in buffalo running happen less frequently than one would suppose;[122] in the recklessness of the chase, the hunter enjoys all the impunity of a drunken man, and may ride in safety over the gullies and declivities where, should he attempt to pass in his sober senses, he would infallibly break his neck.

The method of “approaching,” being practiced on foot, has many advantages over that of “running”; in the former, one neither breaks down his horse nor endangers his own life; instead of yielding to excitement he must be cool, collected, and watchful; he must understand the buffalo, observe the features of the country and the course of the wind, and be well skilled, moreover, in using the rifle. The buffalo are strange animals; sometimes they are so stupid and infatuated that a man may walk up to them in full sight on the open prairie and even shoot several of their number before the rest will think it necessary to retreat. Again at another moment they will be so shy and wary, that in order to approach them the utmost skill, experience, and judgment are necessary. Kit Carson, I believe, stands pre-eminent in running buffalo; in approaching, no man living can bear away the palm from Henry Chatillon.

The next day was one of activity and excitement, for about ten o’clock the men in advance shouted the gladdening cry of “Buffalo, buffalo!” and in the hollow of the prairie just below us, a band of bulls were grazing. The temptation was irresistible, and Shaw and I rode down upon them. We were badly mounted on our traveling horses, but by hard lashing we overtook them, and Shaw, running alongside of a bull, shot into him both balls of his double-barreled gun. Looking around as I galloped past,[123] I saw the bull in his mortal fury rushing again and again upon his antagonist, whose horse constantly leaped aside, and avoided the onset. My chase was more protracted, but at length I ran close to the bull and killed him with my pistols. Cutting off the tails of our victims by way of trophy, we rejoined the party in about a quarter of an hour after we left it.

Again and again that morning rang out the same welcome cry of “Buffalo, buffalo!” Every few minutes in the broad meadows along the river, we would see bands of bulls, who, raising their shaggy heads, would gaze in stupid amazement at the approaching horsemen, and then breaking into a clumsy gallop, would file off in a long line across the trail in front, toward the rising prairie on the left. At noon, the whole plain before us was alive with thousands of buffalo—bulls, cows, and calves—all moving rapidly as we drew near; and far off beyond the river the swelling prairie was darkened with them to the very horizon. The party was in gayer spirits than ever. We stopped for a nooning near a grove of trees by the river-side.

“Tongues and hump ribs to-morrow,” said Shaw, looking with contempt at the venison steaks which Delorier placed before us. Our meal finished, we lay down under a temporary awning to sleep. A shout from Henry Chatillon aroused us, and we saw him standing on the cart-wheel, stretching his tall figure to its full height while he looked toward the prairie beyond the river. Following the direction of his eyes we could clearly distinguish a large dark object, like the black shadow of a cloud, passing rapidly over swell after swell of the distant plain;[124] behind it followed another of similar appearance though smaller. Its motion was more rapid, and it drew closer and closer to the first. It was Arapahoe hunters pursuing a band of buffalo. Shaw and I hastily sought and saddled our best horses, and went plunging through sand and water to the farther bank. We were too late. The hunters had already mingled with the herd, and the work of slaughter was nearly over. When we reached the ground we found it strewn far and near with numberless black carcasses, while the remnants of the herd, scattered in all directions, were flying away in terror, and the Indians still rushing in pursuit. Many of the hunters, however, remained upon the spot, and among the rest was our yesterday’s acquaintance, the chief of the village. He had alighted by the side of a cow, into which he had shot five or six arrows, and his squaw, who had followed him on horseback to the hunt, was giving him a draught of water out of a canteen, purchased or plundered from some volunteer soldier. Recrossing the river we overtook the party, who were already on their way.

We had scarcely gone a mile when an imposing spectacle presented itself. From the river bank on the right, away over the swelling prairie on the left, and in front as far as we could see, extended one vast host of buffalo. The outskirts of the herd were within a quarter of a mile. In many parts they were crowded so densely together that in the distance their rounded backs presented a surface of uniform blackness; but elsewhere they were more scattered, and from amid the multitude rose little columns of dust where the buffalo were rolling on the ground. Here and there a great confusion was[125] perceptible, where a battle was going forward among the bulls. We could distinctly see them rushing against each other, and hear the clattering of their horns and their hoarse bellowing. Shaw was riding at some distance in advance, with Henry Chatillon; I saw him stop and draw the leather covering from his gun. Indeed, with such a sight before us, but one thing could be thought of. That morning I had used pistols in the chase. I had now[126] a mind to try the virtue of a gun. Delorier had one, and I rode up to the side of the cart; there he sat under the white covering, biting his pipe between his teeth and grinning with excitement.

“Oui, monsieur, oui,”126-1 said Delorier, tugging with might and main to stop the mule, which seemed obstinately bent on going forward. Then everything but his moccasins disappeared as he crawled into the cart and pulled at the gun to extricate it.

“Oui, bien chargé;126-2 you’ll kill, mon bourgeois;126-3 yes, you’ll kill—c’est un bon fusil.”126-4

“Keep down that hollow,” said Henry, “and then they won’t see you till you get close to them.”

The hollow was a kind of ravine very wide and shallow; it ran obliquely toward the buffalo, and we rode at a canter along the bottom until it became too shallow, when we bent close to our horses’ necks, and then finding that it could no longer conceal us, came out of it and rode directly toward the herd. It was within gunshot; before its outskirts, numerous grizzly old bulls were scattered, holding guard over their females. They glared at us in anger and astonishment, walked toward us a few yards, and then turning slowly round retreated at a trot which afterward broke into a clumsy gallop. In an instant the main body caught the alarm. The buffalo began[127] to crowd away from the point toward which we were approaching, and a gap was opened in the side of the herd. We entered it, still restraining our excited horses. Every instant the tumult was thickening. The buffalo, pressing together in large bodies, crowded away from us on every hand. In front and on either side we could see dark columns and masses, half hidden by clouds of dust, rushing along in terror and confusion, and hear the tramp and clattering of ten thousand hoofs. That countless multitude of powerful brutes, ignorant of their own strength, were flying in a panic from the approach of two feeble horsemen. To remain quiet longer was impossible.

He sprang off, and I saw no more of him. A heavy Indian whip was fastened by a band to my wrist; I swung it into the air and lashed my horse’s flank with all the strength of my arm. Away she darted, stretching close to the ground. I could see nothing but a cloud of dust before me, but I knew that it concealed a band of many hundreds of buffalo. In a moment I was in the midst of the cloud, half suffocated by the dust and stunned by the trampling of the flying herd; but I was drunk with the chase and cared for nothing but the buffalo. Very soon a long dark mass became visible, looming through the dust; then I could distinguish each bulky carcass, the hoofs flying out beneath, the short tails held rigidly erect. In a moment I was so close that I could have touched them with my gun.

Suddenly, to my utter amazement, the hoofs were jerked upward, the tails flourished in the air, and[128] amid a cloud of dust the buffalo seemed to sink into the earth before me. One vivid impression of that instant upon my mind. I remember looking down upon the backs of several buffalo dimly visible through the dust. We had run unawares upon a ravine. At that moment I was not the most accurate judge of depth and width, but when I passed it on my return, I found it about twelve feet deep and not quite twice as wide at the bottom. It was impossible to stop; I would have done so gladly if I could; so, half sliding, half plunging, down went the little mare. I believe she came down on her knees in the loose sand at the bottom; I was pitched forward violently against her neck and nearly thrown over her head among the buffalo, who amid dust and confusion came tumbling in all around. The mare was on her feet in an instant and scrambling like a cat up the opposite side. I thought for a moment that she would have fallen back and crushed me, but with a violent effort she clambered out and gained the hard prairie above. Glancing back I saw the huge head of a bull clinging as it were by the forefeet at the edge of the dusty gulf. At length I was fairly among the buffalo. They were less densely crowded than before, and I could see nothing but bulls, who always run at the rear of the herd. As I passed amid them they would lower their heads, and turning as they ran, attempt to gore my horse; but as they were already at full speed there was no force in their onset, and as Pauline ran faster than they, they were always thrown behind her in the effort.

I soon began to distinguish cows amid the throng. One just in front of me seemed to my liking, and[129] I pushed close to her side. Dropping the reins I fired, holding the muzzle of the gun within a foot of her shoulder. Quick as lightning she sprang at Pauline; the little mare dodged the attack, and I lost sight of the wounded animal amid the tumultuous crowd. Immediately after I selected another, and urging forward Pauline, shot into her both pistols in succession. For a while I kept her in view, but in attempting to load my gun, lost sight of her also in the confusion. Believing her to be mortally wounded and unable to keep up with the herd, I checked my horse. The crowd rushed onward. The dust and tumult passed away, and on the prairie, far behind the rest, I saw a solitary buffalo galloping heavily. In a moment I and my victim were running side by side. My firearms were all empty, and I had in my pouch nothing but rifle bullets, too large for the pistols and too small for the gun. I loaded the latter, however, but as often as I leveled it to fire, the little bullets would roll out of the muzzle and the gun returned only a faint report like a squib, as the powder harmlessly exploded. I galloped in front of the buffalo, and attempted to turn her back; but her eyes glared, her mane bristled, and lowering her head, she rushed at me with astonishing fierceness and activity. Again and again I rode before her, and again and again she repeated her furious charge. But little Pauline was in her element. She dodged her enemy at every rush, until at length the buffalo stood still, exhausted with her own efforts; she panted, and her tongue hung lolling from her jaws.

Riding to a little distance I alighted, thinking to gather a handful of dry grass to serve the purpose[130] of wadding, and load the gun at my leisure. No sooner were my feet on the ground than the buffalo came bounding in such a rage toward me that I jumped back again into the saddle with all possible dispatch. After waiting a few minutes more, I made an attempt to ride up and stab her with my knife; but the experiment proved such as no wise man would repeat. At length, bethinking me of the fringes at the seams of my buckskin pantaloons, I jerked off a few of them, and reloading the gun, forced them down the barrel to keep the bullet in its place; then approaching, I shot the wounded buffalo through the heart. Sinking to her knees, she rolled over lifeless on the prairie. To my astonishment, I found that instead of a fat cow I had been slaughtering a stout yearling bull. No longer wondering at the fierceness he had shown, I opened his throat, and cutting out his tongue, tied it at the back of my saddle. My mistake was one which a more experienced eye than mine might easily make in the dust and confusion of such a chase.

Then for the first time I had leisure to look at the scene around me. The prairie in front was darkened with the retreating multitude, and on the other hand the buffalo came filing up in endless unbroken columns from the low plains upon the river. The Arkansas was three or four miles distant. I turned and moved slowly toward it. A long time passed, before, far down in the distance, I distinguished the white covering of the cart and the little black specks of horsemen before and behind it. Drawing near, I recognized Shaw’s elegant tunic, the red flannel shirt, conspicuous far off. I overtook the party, and asked him what success[131] he had met with. He had assailed a fat cow, shot her with two bullets, and mortally wounded her. But neither of us were prepared for the chase that afternoon, and Shaw, like myself, had no spare bullets in his pouch; so he abandoned the disabled animal to Henry Chatillon, who followed, dispatched her with his rifle, and loaded his horse with her meat.

We encamped close to the river. The night was dark, and as we lay down we could hear mingled with the howling of the wolves the hoarse bellowing of the buffalo, like the ocean beating upon a distant coast.

THE BUFFALO CAMP

he morning was a bright and gay one, and the air so clear that on the farthest horizon the outline of the pale blue prairie was sharply drawn against the sky. Shaw felt in the mood for hunting; he rode in advance of the party, and before long we saw a file of bulls galloping at full speed upon a vast green swell of the prairie at some distance in front. Shaw came scouring along behind them, arrayed in his red shirt, which looked very well in the distance; he gained fast on the fugitives, and as the foremost bull was disappearing behind the summit of the swell, we saw him in the act of assailing the hindmost; a smoke sprang from the muzzle of his gun, and floated away like a little white cloud; the bull turned upon him, and just then the rising ground concealed them both from view.

We were moving forward until about noon, when we stopped by the side of the Arkansas. At that[132] moment Shaw appeared riding slowly down the side of a distant hill; his horse was tired and jaded; and when he threw his saddle upon the ground, I observed that the tails of two bulls were dangling behind it. No sooner were the horses turned loose to feed than Henry, asking Munroe to go with him, took his rifle and walked quietly away. Shaw, Tête Rouge and I sat down by the side of the cart to discuss the dinner which Delorier placed before us; we had scarcely finished when we saw Munroe walking toward us along the river bank. Henry, he said, had killed four fat cows, and had sent him back for horses to bring in the meat. Shaw took a horse for himself and another for Henry, and he and Munroe left the camp together.

After a short absence all three of them came back, their horses loaded with the choicest parts of the meat; we kept two of the cows for ourselves and gave the others to Munroe and his companions. Delorier seated himself on the grass before the pile of meat, and worked industriously for some time to cut it into thin broad sheets for drying. This is no easy matter, but Delorier had all the skill of an Indian squaw. Long before night cords of rawhide were stretched around the camp, and the meat was hung upon them to dry in the sunshine and pure air of the prairie. Our California companions were less successful at the work; but they accomplished it after their own fashion, and their side of the camp was soon garnished in the same manner as our own.

We meant to remain at this place long enough to prepare provisions for our journey to the frontier, which as we supposed might occupy about a month. Had the distance been twice as great and the party[133] ten times as large, the unerring rifle of Henry Chatillon would have supplied meat enough for the whole within two days; we were obliged to remain, however, until it should be dry enough for transportation; so we erected our tent and made the other arrangements for a permanent camp.

In the meantime we had nothing to do but amuse ourselves. Our tent was within a rod of the river, if the broad sand-beds, with a scanty stream of water coursing here and there along their surface, deserve to be dignified with the name of river. The vast plains on either side were almost level with the sand-beds, and they were bounded in the distance by low, monotonous hills, parallel to the course of the Arkansas. All was one expanse of grass; there was no wood in view, except some trees and stunted bushes upon two islands which rose from amid the wet sands of the river. Yet far from being dull and tame, this boundless scene was often a wild and animated one; for twice a day, at sunrise and at noon, the buffalo came issuing from the hills, slowly advancing in their grave processions to drink at the river. All our amusements were at their expense. Except an elephant, I have seen no animal that can surpass a buffalo bull in size and strength, and the world may be searched in vain to find anything of a more ugly and ferocious aspect. At first sight of him every feeling of sympathy vanishes; no man who has not experienced it can understand with what keen relish one inflicts his death wound, with what profound contentment of mind he beholds him fall.

The cows are much smaller and of a gentler appearance, as becomes their sex. While in this[134] camp we forebore to attack them, leaving to Henry Chatillon, who could better judge their fatness and good quality, the task of killing such as we wanted for use; but against the bulls we waged an unrelenting war. Thousands of them might be slaughtered without causing any detriment to the species, for their numbers greatly exceed those of the cows; it is the hides of the latter alone which are used for the purpose of commerce and for making the lodges of the Indians; and the destruction among them is therefore altogether disproportioned.

Our horses were tired, and we now usually hunted on foot. The wide, flat sand-beds of the Arkansas, as the reader will remember, lay close by the side of our camp. While we were lying on the grass after dinner, smoking, conversing, or laughing at Tête Rouge, one of us would look up and observe, far out on the plains beyond the river, certain black objects slowly approaching. He would inhale a parting whiff from the pipe, then rising lazily, take his rifle, which leaned against the cart, throw over his shoulder the strap of his pouch and powder-horn, and with his moccasins in his hand walk quietly across the sand toward the opposite side of the river.

This was very easy; for though the sands were about a quarter of a mile wide, the water was nowhere more than two feet deep. The farther bank was about four or five feet high, and quite perpendicular, being cut away by the water in spring. Tall grass grew along its edge. Putting it aside with his hand, and cautiously looking through it, the hunter can discern the huge shaggy back of the buffalo slowly swaying to and fro, as with his clumsy swinging gait he advances toward the water. The buffalo[135] have regular paths by which they come down to drink. Seeing at a glance along which of these his intended victim is moving, the hunter crouches under the bank within fifteen or twenty yards, it may be, of the point where the path enters the river. Here he sits down quietly on the sand. Listening intently, he hears the heavy, monotonous tread of the approaching bull. The moment after he sees a motion among the long weeds and grass just at the spot where the path is channeled through the bank. An enormous black head is thrust out, the horns just visible amid the mass of tangled mane. Half sliding, half plunging, down comes the buffalo upon the river-bed below. He steps out in full sight upon the sands. Just before him a runnel of water is gliding, and he bends his head to drink. You may hear the water as it gurgles down his capacious throat. He raises his head, and the drops trickle from his wet beard. He stands with an air of stupid abstraction, unconscious of the lurking danger. Noiselessly the hunter cocks his rifle. As he sits upon the sand, his knee is raised, and his elbow rests upon it, that he may level his heavy weapon with a steadier aim. The stock is at his shoulder; his eye ranges along the barrel. Still he is in no haste to fire. The bull, with slow deliberation, begins his march over the sands to the other side. He advances his fore-leg, and exposes to view a small spot denuded of hair, just behind the point of his shoulder; upon this the hunter brings the sight of his rifle to bear; lightly and delicately his finger presses upon the hair-trigger. Quick as thought the spiteful crack of the rifle responds to his slight touch, and instantly in the middle of the bare spot appears a small red dot. The buffalo[136] shivers; death has overtaken him, he cannot tell from whence; still he does not fall, but walks heavily forward, as if nothing had happened. Yet before he has advanced far out upon the sand, you see him stop; he totters; his knees bend under him, and his head sinks forward to the ground. Then his whole vast bulk sways to one side; he rolls over on the sand, and dies with a scarcely perceptible struggle.

Waylaying the buffalo in this manner, and shooting them as they come to water, is the easiest and laziest method of hunting them. They may also be approached by crawling up ravines or behind hills, or even over the open prairie. This is often surprisingly easy; but at other times it requires the utmost skill of the most experienced hunter. Henry Chatillon was a man of extraordinary strength and hardihood; but I have seen him return to camp quite exhausted with his efforts, his limbs scratched and wounded, and his buckskin dress stuck full of thorns of the prickly pear among which he had been crawling. Sometimes he would lie flat upon his face, and drag himself along in this position for many rods together.

On the second day of our stay at this place, Henry went out for an afternoon hunt. Shaw and I remained in camp until, observing some bulls approaching the water from the other side of the river, we crossed over to attack them. They were so near, however, that before we could get under cover of the bank our appearance as we walked over the sands alarmed them. Turning round before coming within gunshot, they began to move off to the right in a direction parallel to the river. I climbed up the bank and ran after them. They were[137] walking swiftly, and before I could come within gunshot distance they slowly wheeled about and faced toward me. Before they had turned far enough to see me I had fallen flat on my face. For a moment they stood and stared at the strange object upon the grass; then turning away, again they walked on as before; and I, rising immediately ran once more in pursuit. Again they wheeled about, and again I fell prostrate. Repeating this three or four times, I came at length within a hundred yards of the fugitives, and as I saw them turning again I sat down and leveled my rifle. The one in the center was the largest I had ever seen. I shot him behind the shoulder. His two companions ran off. He attempted to follow, but soon came to a stand, and at length lay down as quietly as an ox chewing the cud. Cautiously approaching him, I saw by his dull and jellylike eye that he was dead.

When I began the chase, the prairie was almost tenantless; but a great multitude of buffalo had suddenly thronged upon it, and looking up, I saw within fifty rods a heavy, dark column stretching to the right and left as far as I could see. I walked toward them. My approach did not alarm them in the least. The column itself consisted entirely of cows and calves, but a great many old bulls were ranging about the prairie on its flank, and as I drew near they faced toward me with such a shaggy and ferocious look that I thought it best to proceed no farther. Indeed, I was already within close rifle-shot of the column, and I sat down on the ground to watch their movements. Sometimes the whole would stand still, their heads all facing one way; then they would trot forward, as if by common[138] impulse, their hoofs and horns clattering together as they moved.

I soon began to hear at a distance on the left the sharp reports of a rifle, again and again repeated; and not long after, dull and heavy sounds succeeded, which I recognized as the familiar voice of Shaw’s double-barreled gun. When Henry’s rifle was at work there was always meat to be brought in. I went back across the river for a horse, and returning, reached the spot where the hunters were standing. The buffalo were visible on the distant prairie. The living had retreated from the ground, but ten or twelve carcasses were scattered in various directions. Henry, knife in hand, was stooping over a dead cow, cutting away the best and fattest of the meat.

When Shaw left me he had walked down for some distance under the river bank to find another bull. At length he saw the plains covered with the host of buffalo, and soon after heard the crack of Henry’s rifle. Ascending the bank, he crawled through the grass, which for a rod or two from the river was very high and rank. He had not crawled far before to his astonishment he saw Henry standing erect upon the prairie, almost surrounded by the buffalo.

Henry was in his appropriate element. Nelson, on the deck of the Victory, hardly felt a prouder sense of mastery than he. Quite unconscious that any one was looking at him, he stood at the full height of his tall, strong figure, one hand resting upon his side, and the other arm leaning carelessly on the muzzle of his rifle. His eyes were ranging over the singular assemblage around him. Now and then he would select such a cow as suited him, level his rifle, and shoot her dead; then quietly reloading,[139] he would resume his former position. The buffalo seemed no more to regard his presence than if he were one of themselves; the bulls were bellowing and butting at each other, or else rolling about in the dust. A group of buffalo would gather about the carcass of a dead cow, snuffing at her wounds; and sometimes they would come behind those that had not yet fallen, and endeavor to push them from the spot. Now and then some old bull would face toward Henry with an air of stupid amazement, but none seemed inclined to attack or fly from him.

For some time Shaw lay among the grass, looking in surprise at this extraordinary sight; at length he crawled cautiously forward, and spoke in a low voice to Henry, who told him to rise and come on. Still the buffalo showed no sign of fear; they remained gathered about their dead companions. Henry had already killed as many cows as we wanted for use, and Shaw, kneeling behind one of the carcasses, shot five bulls before the rest thought it necessary to disperse.

The frequent stupidity and infatuation of the buffalo seems the more remarkable from the contrast it offers to their wildness and wariness at other times. Henry knew all their peculiarities; he had studied them as a scholar studies his books, and he derived quite as much pleasure from the occupation. The buffalo were a kind of companions to him, and as he said, he never felt alone when they were about him. He took great pride in his skill in hunting. Henry was one of the most modest of men; yet in the simplicity and frankness of his character, it was quite clear that he looked upon his pre-eminence in this respect as a thing too palpable and well established[140] ever to be disputed. But whatever may have been his estimate of his own skill, it was rather below than above that which others placed upon it. The only time that I ever saw a shade of scorn darken his face was when two volunteer soldiers, who had just killed a buffalo for the first time, undertook to instruct him as to the best method of “approaching.” Henry always seemed to think that he had a sort of prescriptive right to the buffalo, and to look upon them as something belonging peculiarly to himself. Nothing excited his indignation so much as any wanton destruction among the cows, and in his view shooting a calf was a cardinal sin.

Henry Chatillon and Tête Rouge were of the same age; that is, about thirty. Henry was twice as large, and fully six times as strong as Tête Rouge. Henry’s face was roughened by winds and storms; Tête Rouge’s was bloated by sherry cobblers and brandy toddy. Henry talked of Indians and buffalo; Tête Rouge of theaters and oyster cellars. Henry had led a life of hardship and privation; Tête Rouge never had a whim which he would not gratify at the first moment he was able. Henry moreover was the most disinterested man I ever saw; while Tête Rouge, though equally good-natured in his way, cared for nobody but himself. Yet we would not have lost him on any account; he admirably served the purpose of a jester in a feudal castle; our camp would have been lifeless without him. For the past week he had fattened in a most amazing manner; and indeed this was not at all surprising, since his appetite was most inordinate. He was eating from morning till night; half the time he would be at work cooking some private repast[141] for himself, and he paid a visit to the coffee-pot eight or ten times a day. His rueful and disconsolate face became jovial and rubicund, his eyes stood out like a lobster’s, and his spirits, which before were sunk to the depths of despondency, were now elated in proportion; all day he was singing, whistling, laughing, and telling stories. As he had a considerable fund of humor, his anecdotes were extremely amusing, especially since he never hesitated to place himself in a ludicrous point of view, provided he could raise a laugh by doing so.

Tête Rouge, however, was sometimes rather troublesome; he had an inveterate habit of pilfering provisions at all times of the day. He set ridicule at utter defiance; and being without a particle of self-respect, he would never have given over his tricks, even if they had drawn upon him the scorn of the whole party. Now and then, indeed, something worse than laughter fell to his share; on these occasions he would exhibit much contrition, but half an hour after we would generally observe him stealing round to the box at the back of the cart and slyly making off with the provisions which Delorier had laid by for supper. He was very fond of smoking; but having no tobacco of his own, we used to provide him with as much as he wanted, a small piece at a time. At first we gave him half a pound together, but this experiment proved an entire failure, for he invariably lost not only the tobacco, but the knife intrusted to him for cutting it, and a few minutes after he would come to us with many apologies and beg for more.

We had been two days at this camp, and some of the meat was nearly fit for transportation, when a[142] storm came suddenly upon us. About sunset the whole sky grew as black as ink, and the long grass at the river’s edge bent and rose mournfully with the first gusts of the approaching hurricane. Delorier ensconced himself under the cover of the cart. Shaw and I, together with Henry and Tête Rouge, crowded into the little tent; but first of all the dried meat was piled together, and well protected by buffalo robes pinned firmly to the ground.

About nine o’clock the storm broke, amid absolute darkness; it blew a gale, and torrents of rain roared over the boundless expanse of open prairie. Our tent was filled with mist and spray beating through the canvas, and saturating everything within. We could only distinguish each other at short intervals by the dazzling flash of lightning, which displayed the whole waste around us with its momentary glare. We had our fears for the tent; but for an hour or two it stood fast, until at length the cap gave way before a furious blast; the pole tore through the top, and in an instant we were half suffocated by the cold and dripping folds of the canvas, which fell down upon us. Seizing upon our guns, we placed them erect, in order to lift the saturated cloth above our heads. In this agreeable situation, involved among wet blankets and buffalo robes, we spent several hours of the night during which the storm would not abate for a moment, but pelted down above our heads with merciless fury.

Before long the ground beneath us became soaked with moisture, and the water gathered there in a pool two or three inches deep; so that for a considerable part of the night we were partially immersed in a cold bath. In spite of all this, Tête Rouge’s[143] flow of spirits did not desert him for an instant; he laughed, whistled, and sung in defiance of the storm, and that night he paid off the long arrears of ridicule which he owed us. While we lay in silence, enduring the infliction with what philosophy we could muster, Tête Rouge, who was intoxicated with animal spirits, was cracking jokes at our expense by the hour together.

At about three o’clock in the morning, “preferring the tyranny of the open night” to such a wretched shelter, we crawled out from beneath the fallen canvas. The wind had abated, but the rain fell steadily. The fire of the California men still blazed amid the darkness, and we joined them as they sat around it. We made ready some hot coffee by way of refreshment; but when some of the party sought to replenish their cups, it was found that Tête Rouge, having disposed of his own share, had privately abstracted the coffee-pot and drunk up the rest of the contents out of the spout.

In the morning, to our great joy, an unclouded sun rose upon the prairie. We presented rather a laughable appearance, for the cold and clammy buckskin, saturated with water, clung fast to our limbs; the light wind and warm sunshine soon dried them again, and then we were all incased in armor of intolerable rigidity. Roaming all day over the prairie and shooting two or three bulls, were scarcely enough to restore the stiffened leather to its usual pliancy.

A great flock of buzzards were usually soaring about a few trees that stood on the island just below our camp. Throughout the whole of yesterday we had noticed an eagle among them; to-day[144] he was still there; and Tête Rouge, declaring that he would kill the bird of America, borrowed Delorier’s gun and set out on his unpatriotic mission. As might have been expected, the eagle suffered no great harm at his hands. He soon returned, saying that he could not find him, but had shot a buzzard instead. Being required to produce the bird in proof of his assertion, he said he believed that he was not quite dead, but he must be hurt, from the swiftness with which he flew off.

“If you want,” said Tête Rouge, “I’ll go and get one of his feathers; I knocked off plenty of them when I shot him.”

Just opposite our camp was another island covered with bushes, and behind it was a deep pool of water, while two or three considerable streams coursed over the sand not far off. I was bathing at this place in the afternoon when a white wolf, larger than the largest Newfoundland dog, ran out from behind the point of the island, and galloped leisurely over the sand not half a stone’s throw distant. I could plainly see his red eyes and the bristles about his snout; he was an ugly scoundrel, with a bushy tail, large head, and a most repulsive countenance. Having neither rifle to shoot nor stone to pelt him with, I was looking eagerly after some missile for his benefit, when the report of a gun came from the camp, and the ball threw up the sand just beyond him; at this he gave a slight jump, and stretched away so swiftly that he soon dwindled into a mere speck on the distant sand-beds.

The number of carcasses that by this time were lying about the prairie all around us summoned the wolves from every quarter; the spot where Shaw and[145] Henry had hunted together soon became their favorite resort, for here about a dozen dead buffalo were fermenting under the hot sun. I used often to go over the river and watch them at their meal; by lying under the bank it was easy to get a full view of them. Three different kinds were present; there were the white wolves and the gray wolves, both extremely large, and besides these the small prairie wolves, not much bigger than spaniels. They would howl and fight in a crowd around a single carcass, yet they were so watchful, and their senses so acute, that I was never able to crawl within a fair shooting distance; whenever I attempted it, they would all scatter at once and glide silently away through the tall grass.

The air above this spot was always full of buzzards or black vultures; whenever the wolves left a carcass they would descend upon it, and cover it so densely that a rifle-shot at random among the gormandizing crowd would generally strike down two or three of them. These birds would now be sailing by scores just above our camp, their broad black wings seeming half transparent as they expanded them against the bright sky. The wolves and the buzzards thickened about us with every hour, and two or three eagles also came into the feast. I killed a bull within rifle-shot of the camp; that night the wolves made a fearful howling close at hand, and in the morning the carcass was completely hollowed out by these voracious feeders.

After we had remained four days at this camp we prepared to leave it. We had for our own part about five hundred pounds of dried meat, and the California men had prepared some three hundred[146] more; this consisted of the fattest and choicest parts of eight or nine cows, a very small quantity only being taken from each, and the rest abandoned to the wolves. The pack animals were laden, the horses were saddled, and the mules harnessed to the cart. Even Tête Rouge was ready at last, and slowly moving from the ground, we resumed our journey eastward.

When we had advanced about a mile, Shaw missed a valuable hunting knife and turned back in search of it, thinking he had left it at the camp. He approached the place cautiously, fearful that Indians might be lurking about, for a deserted camp is dangerous to return to. He saw no enemy, but the scene was a wild and dreary one; the prairie was overshadowed by dull, leaden clouds, for the day was dark and gloomy. The ashes of the fires were still smoking by the river-side; the grass around them was trampled down by men and horses, and strewn with all the litter of a camp. Our departure had been a gathering signal to the birds and beasts of prey; Shaw assured me that literally dozens of wolves were prowling about the smoldering fires, while multitudes were roaming over the prairie around; they all fled as he approached, some running over the sand-beds and some over the grassy plains. As he searched about the fires he saw the wolves seated on the distant hills waiting for his departure. Having looked in vain for his knife, he mounted again and left the wolves and the vultures to banquet freely upon the carrion of the camp.

126-1 “Yes, sir, yes.”

126-2 “Yes, well loaded.”

126-3 “My master” or “gentleman.”

126-4 “It is a good gun.”

THE CHARGE OF THE LIGHT BRIGADE

Half a league, half a league,
Half a league onward,
All in the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.
“Forward, the Light Brigade!
Charge for the guns!” he said;
Into the valley of death
Rode the six hundred.

“Forward, the Light Brigade!”
Was there a man dismay’d?
Not tho’ the soldier knew
Some one had blunder’d:
Theirs not to make reply,
Theirs not to reason why,
Theirs but to do and die:
Into the valley of Death
Rode the six hundred.

[148]Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon in front of them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
Boldly they rode and well,
Into the jaws of Death,
Into the mouth of Hell
Rode the six hundred.

Flash’d all their sabres bare,
Flash’d as they turn’d in air
Sabring the gunners there,
Charging an army, while
All the world wonder’d;
Plunged in the battery-smoke
Right thro’ the line they broke;
Cossack and Russian
Reel’d from the sabre-stroke
Shatter’d and sunder’d.
Then they rode back, but not,
Not the six hundred.

Cannon to right of them,
Cannon to left of them,
Cannon behind them
Volley’d and thunder’d;
Storm’d at with shot and shell,
While horse and hero fell,
They that had fought so well
Came thro’ the jaws of Death,
Back from the mouth of Hell,
All that was left of them,
Left of six hundred.

[149]When can their glory fade?
O the wild charge they made!
All the world wonder’d.
Honor the charge they made!
Honor the Light Brigade,
Noble six hundred.

FOR A’ THAT AND A’ THAT

Is there, for honest poverty,
Wha 149-1 hangs his head, and a’ that?
The coward slave, we pass him by,
We dare be poor for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Our toils obscure, and a’ that;
The rank is but the guinea’s stamp,
The man’s the gowd 149-2 for a’ that!

What though on hamely 149-3 fare we dine,
Wear hodden-gray,149-4 and a’ that;
Gie 149-5 fools their silks, and knaves their wine,
A man’s a man for a’ that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their tinsel show and a’ that;
The honest man though e’er sae poor,
Is king o’ men for a’ that!

[150]Ye see yon birkie,150-6 ca’d 150-7 a lord,
Wha struts, and stares, and a’ that;
Though hundreds worship at his word
He’s but a coof 150-8 for a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
His ribbon, star, and a’ that;
The man of independent mind,
He looks and laughs at a’ that.

A prince can mak’ a belted knight,
A marquis, duke, and a’ that;
But an honest man’s aboon 150-9 his might,
Guid faith, he mauna 150-10 fa’150-11 that!
For a’ that, and a’ that,
Their dignities, and a’ that;
The pith o’ sense, and pride o’ worth,
Are higher rank than a’ that.

Then let us pray that come it may—
As come it will for a’ that—
That sense and worth, o’er a’ the earth,
May bear the gree,150-12 and a’ that.
For a’ that, and a’ that,
It’s coming yet, for a’ that,
When man to man, the warld o’er,
Shall brithers be for a’ that!

149-1 Wha is the Scotch form of who. It modifies a man, understood, after is there.

149-2 Gowd means gold.

149-3 Hamely means homely, in the sense of simple, or common.

149-4 Hodden-gray is coarse woolen cloth.

149-5 Gie is the Scotch contraction for give.

150-6 A birkie is a conceited, forward fellow.

150-7 Ca’d is a contracted form of called.

150-8 A coof is a stupid person, a blockhead.

150-9 Aboon means above.

150-10 Mauna is must not.

150-11 Fa’ means try.

150-12 Bear the gree means carry off the victory.

BREATHES THERE THE MAN

Breathes there the man with soul so dead
Who never to himself hath said,
This is my own, my native land!
Whose heart hath ne’er within him burned,
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
If such there breathe, go, mark him well;
For him no minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name,
Boundless his wealth as wish can claim,
Despite those titles, power, and pelf,
The wretch, concentred all in self,
Living, shall forfeit fair renown,
And, doubly dying, shall go down
To the vile dust from whence he sprung,
Unwept, unhonored, and unsung.

HOW SLEEP THE BRAVE

How sleep the brave, who sink to rest
By all their country’s wishes blessed!
When Spring, with dewy fingers cold,
Returns to deck their hallowed mould,
She there shall dress a sweeter sod
Than Fancy’s feet have ever trod.

By fairy hands their knell is rung;
By forms unseen their dirge is sung;
There Honor comes, a pilgrim gray,
To bless the turf that wraps their clay;
And Freedom shall awhile repair,
To dwell a weeping hermit there!

QUEEN VICTORIA

eorge III, King of England, was by no means fortunate in his sons, for there was in the most of them little of which a father could be proud. Edward, Duke of Kent, the fourth son, was by far the best; he was honorable, generous and charitable, so much so in fact that he lived far beyond the small income which his royal father was willing to allow him. This son married, and to him was born on the twenty-fourth of May, 1819, in the Palace of Kensington at London, a daughter.

One month after her birth the child was baptized with great ceremony, a gold font being brought from the Tower for the purpose, and the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Bishop of London officiating. The Prince of Wales, at that time acting as Prince Regent in the place of his father, who was insane, was the chief sponsor for the child, and he gave her the name of Alexandrina in honor of Alexander, Emperor of Russia. The Duke of Kent wished her to bear her mother’s name also, and George IV added the name Victoria. “Little Drina,” the child was usually called when she was small, but when she grew older she decided that her mother’s name should stand second to no other, and desired that she be called simply Victoria. There were uncles and cousins and her own father between the little princess[153] and the throne, and it did not look as if her chances of becoming queen were very great, so that people used to laugh indulgently when the Duke of Kent would produce his baby and say proudly, “Look at her well; she will yet be Queen of England.”

Victoria’s father died when she was but eight months old, but the child knew no lack, for her mother superintended her training and her teaching in a very wise manner, for she thought that it was possible, if not probable, that her child would one day have the chief place in the kingdom, and she wanted to fit her for it. Very simply was the little princess brought up; her clothing as well as her food was of the plainest, and habits of economy and regularity were impressed upon her and stayed with her all her life. Her governess, Baroness Lehzen, was German, as were all of her teachers until the time she was twelve years old, and it is said that she spoke English with a German accent.

Of course Victoria’s life was different from the lives of other children, and this she must early have perceived. There are, however, little stories of her childhood which show that she was really not so different from ordinary children as some of her serious biographers would have one think. She was very fond of dolls, and had, it is said, one hundred and thirty-two of them who lived in a house of their own. Even with these, however, she was not allowed to play just as other children did, for her governess made use of them to teach her little charge court etiquette. And indeed, some means of teaching the child court etiquette was necessary, as her mother refused to allow her to appear at the royal court and[154] receive her lessons there at first hand. The court of George IV was most disreputable, and the Duchess of Kent wisely judged that it was no place for her little daughter. When William IV came to the throne in 1830, Victoria’s mother still refused to allow the child to be much at court, for though the new king was in some ways better than his predecessor had been, he was far from being a moral man.

When Victoria was twelve years old her mother felt that it was time she should know of the high destiny to which she might be called, for there now stood no one between her and the throne, William IV’s children having died in infancy. Accordingly, the governess placed in a book which the princess was reading, a genealogical table, so that the princess might come upon it as if by accident. Victoria examined it gravely and then exclaimed, “Why I never saw this before!”

“I am nearer the throne than I supposed,” said the child, and then, with a seriousness beyond her years, she added, “It is a great responsibility, but I will be good.”

Kept as she was from the court world, Victoria was the subject of intense interest and curiosity to the English people. England had always been fortunate in her queens if not always in her kings, and it was felt that if Victoria should come to the throne, England would be the better morally. Certain it is that the young girl was adored by the British people generally; her simplicity, her prettiness, her fresh girlishness appealed to them, and the thought of[155] what she would probably be called upon to do lent more than a touch of romance to all that concerned her. Nathaniel P. Willis, the American writer, who had seen Victoria during a visit to England, wrote: “The princess is much better looking than any picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting.”

Her “Uncle King,” as she called William IV, was very wrathful because his young niece was not allowed to appear at all court affairs, and at one time when the Duchess of Kent and Victoria were present, with about a hundred other guests, at his birthday celebration, he made a most remarkable speech.

“I only hope,” he said, “that I may live for nine months longer, until the Princess Victoria is of age, so that I may leave the power in her hands and not be forced to entrust it to a regent in the person of a lady who sits near me.”

At this insult to her mother, Victoria burst into tears, but the Duchess herself made no reply.

In 1837 Victoria became of age, and her birthday was celebrated with rejoicing throughout the country. Schools were closed, feasts were held, and the city of London was brightly illuminated. But at the great ball which was given that night, the king could not be present; for he was that very day taken ill, and in less than a month he died.

Early in the morning of June twentieth, the Archbishop of Canterbury and the Lord Chamberlain hastened to Kensington Palace to acquaint Victoria with the fact that she was queen of England. They reached there in the gray dawn and found no one stirring. After much waiting and knocking, they[156] were shown into the palace, and finally succeeded in having the princess’s special attendant sent to them. They asked her to inform her mistress that they desired to see her immediately on very important business; whereupon the attendant told them that she preferred not to waken her mistress, who was sleeping soundly. With great dignity then the Archbishop said, “We are come on business of State to The Queen”; and thus, startled out of her sleep, Victoria was told by her attendant that she was now the first person in Great Britain.

Hastily taking off her nightcap and throwing a shawl over her nightgown, Victoria descended to receive the official announcement of her succession to the throne of England, and to receive on her hand the kiss of allegiance from these two great lords of the realm.

Her first reported words after she was made queen were to the Archbishop of Canterbury—“I beg your Grace to pray for me;” and one of her very first acts after the august messengers had left her was to write to the widowed queen of William IV, Adelaide, offering her condolences and begging that she would remain as long as she chose in the royal palace. She addressed the letter to “Her Majesty the Queen,” and when some one standing by said to her, “you are now the queen, and your aunt deserves the title no longer,” she replied, “I know that, but I shall not be the first to remind her of that fact.”

Later in the same day, the eighteen-year-old queen was called upon to meet the council of the high officers of Church and State. Dressed in her simple mourning she looked dignified and calm, and[157] her behavior corresponded well with her looks. Of course all the great statesmen who were thus called on to meet her, felt much curiosity as to how she would carry off her new honors, and one of the greatest. Sir Robert Peel, said afterward that he was “amazed at her manner and behavior; at her apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty and at the same time her firmness. She appeared to be awed but not daunted.”

On the following day she was publicly proclaimed at Saint James’s Palace, and all of those who had gathered to watch the ceremony, which was performed at a window looking out on the courtyard, were as deeply impressed as the peers and princes had been on the preceding day. It must have been difficult for the simple, unassuming young girl to preserve her calm dignity when she heard the singing of that grand national anthem, God Save the Queen, and knew that it was for her.

In midsummer the queen moved to Buckingham Palace, and on July seventeenth she took part in her first elaborate public ceremony—that is, she drove in state to dissolve Parliament. All were impressed with the manner in which she read her speech, and one distinguished observer said to another, “How beautifully she performs!”

A pleasant story is told of the young queen shortly after her accession. The Duke of Wellington, whom Victoria greatly admired, brought to her for signature a court-martial death sentence. The queen, horrified, and feeling that she could not sign her name to such a document, begged the Duke to tell her whether there was not some excuse for the offender.

“Oh, think, your Grace,” Victoria replied, “whether there be not something in his favor.”

“Well,” said the Duke, “I am certain that he is a very bad soldier, but he may, for aught I know, be a very good man. In fact, I remember hearing some one speak for him.”

“Oh, thank you!” exclaimed the queen, as she joyously wrote the word “Pardoned” across the document.

It soon became evident that the tender-hearted queen would never be able to deal with questions of this sort—that there was danger of all offenders being pardoned; and a commission was finally appointed to attend to such matters.

On June twenty-eighth, 1838, after she had been queen for over a year, Victoria was formally crowned at Westminster Abbey. The crown worn by her predecessors was far too large for her, so a new crown was made at a cost of over five hundred thousand dollars. The spectacle was a most impressive and inspiring one, and the queen went through her part in it, as she had gone through her part at all ceremonies in which she had participated, in a manner which roused anew the enthusiasm of her subjects. When the prime minister finally placed the crown on Victoria’s head, all the peers and peeresses placed their coronets on their heads and shouted God Save the Queen. Carlyle said of her at that time, “Poor little Queen! She is at an age at which a girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for herself, yet a task is laid upon her from which an archangel might shrink.”

[159]Another writer, however, said, “I consider that it would be impossible to exaggerate the enthusiasm of the English people on the accession of Victoria to the throne.” And it was this enthusiasm on the part of her subjects, joined with her own extraordinary common sense, which enabled her to bear up under circumstances which might well have daunted an older and a wiser sovereign.

Of course one of the chief questions with regard to the new queen was that of her marriage. Usually the marriage of a sovereign was practically settled as a question of statecraft, but Victoria showed no inclination to allow her domestic life to be regulated by her ministers. In 1836 there had visited her at Kensington Palace her cousin Albert of Saxe-Coburg, and Victoria had looked upon him very favorably. Her uncle Leopold of Belgium, who had always been one of her chief advisers, desired her to marry Albert, and urged the matter after her accession to the throne, but Victoria’s answer was, “I am too young and he is too young. I shall not think of marrying for four years yet.” However, when in 1839 Albert and his brother came to England, it was unnecessary for uncle or ministers to urge upon Victoria the wisdom of a speedy marriage; her own heart was her counselor, and Albert had not been long in the palace, before the queen, to whom it was impossible that he should propose marriage, proposed marriage to him. She persisted in looking upon it as a sacrifice on Albert’s part, but we may readily believe that he looked upon it in no such manner. They were married on February 10, 1840, and then began a life of domestic happiness which was unbroken until the death of Albert.

[160]Immediately after the wedding the young couple drove to Windsor, passing through over twenty miles of frantically cheering, loyal subjects. On their return, after a brief season of seclusion, to Buckingham Palace, Victoria turned her attention at once to her royal duties, and Albert showed himself from the outset a man peculiarly fitted to aid and advise her. His one desire was to sink his own individuality in that of the queen, but this was by no means her desire. She could not bear that her husband should be regarded as in any way subordinate to herself—that he should be forced to take a lower seat, or to walk behind her; and it was a real grief to her that she was not able to bestow upon him the title of “King Consort” rather than that of “Prince Consort.” In one of her first letters after her marriage, Victoria said of her husband, “There cannot exist a purer, dearer, nobler being in the world than the prince,” and this same attitude toward her husband she kept throughout her life.

Victoria and Albert had nine children, the first the Princess Victoria, being born in November, 1840, and the second, the Prince of Wales, afterward Edward VII of England, being born in November, 1841. The pictures that we have of the home life of this royal family; of the discipline, loving but firm, to which the children were subjected, and of the way in which the parents really lived with their children, are most charming. A little story tells how the Princess Victoria, when but a child, was told that if she persisted in speaking to the family physician simply as “Brown” without prefixing either “Mr.” or “Dr.,” she should certainly be sent to bed. When the doctor came the next morning, the little girl said,[161] “Good-morning, Brown,” and then hastily added, “and good-night, Brown, for I am going to bed.”

Of course the life of this queen of the greatest of all European countries, and that of her husband, were not all made up of pleasant domestic duties, and journeyings from Buckingham Palace to Osborne, the summer home on the Isle of Wight, and to Balmoral in Scotland; infinite in number were the demands made by the State on Victoria’s time and on her clear intelligence. Prince Albert, too, was unweariedly busied on public matters. No great enterprise was considered fairly launched, no public building was thought properly opened without a speech from the Prince Consort. Victoria could not well have been made prouder of him than she was on her marriage day, but she was happy beyond words to find that the English people were coming to recognize his worth. They had been suspicious of him at first, and had found fault with almost every act of his. And indeed, they did not come to do him full justice until after his death.

That men should have been found ready and willing to make attempts on the life of this queen, who showed herself no less wise in ruling than she was loving and womanly in her domestic life, seems well-nigh incredible; but as one writer has said, Victoria was “the greatest royal target in Europe.” Repeated attempts were made to assassinate her, but they were always made by fanatics or insane men, and were in no wise the result of any general movement against her. Indeed, at each attempt she endeared herself the more to her people by her firmness and fearlessness, and by her willingness to show herself bravely in public.

[162]The exquisitely happy home life of the queen was brought to a close, and new public burdens were laid upon her, by the death of Prince Albert on December fourteenth, 1861. Throughout his illness of but two weeks, the queen was constantly with him, and not until the end was almost at hand did she admit even to herself that there was no hope. She had so earnestly desired that they might grow old together and that she might never be left after his death, that she could not persuade herself that he was really to die. Her account in her diary of his illness and death is most beautiful. His tenderness for her never failed, and when, shortly before his death, when he knew no one else, she bent over him and whispered, “It is your own little wife,” he knew her and kissed her.

After her husband’s death the queen withdrew largely from public affairs, and her place was most admirably taken on all social occasions by her daughter-in-law, Alexandra of Denmark, whom the Prince of Wales married in 1863. When, however, the queen felt that her presence was necessary on any public occasion, she was always ready and willing to set aside her personal feelings, and let herself be seen by her subjects. To the last, too, she maintained her hold on affairs, directing business, political and domestic matters, with the same excellent judgment that she had shown all her life.

A most notable event in the queen’s life occurred in 1897. This was the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of her reign, and it was commemorated throughout her dominions with an enthusiasm which was without parallel. Processions, illuminations, and speech-making took place in every town in Great[163] Britain, and city vied with city in erecting memorials of the occasion. The queen’s strength was greatly taxed during the Jubilee period, but she speedily regained her customary vigor.

Somewhat less than four years later, however, in January of 1901, the entire nation was made anxious by the news that the queen was ill. She grew steadily worse, and late in the afternoon of January 22nd, she died, to the intense grief, not only of her own subjects, but of all peoples in the world.

In this brief sketch of the life of England’s great queen, practically no reference has been made to political affairs; her life has been treated merely from the personal, or domestic, side. However, it is not to be for a moment supposed that the queen was so absorbed in her family and her friends, dear as these always were to her, that she neglected matters of state. Every important project that was attempted during her reign had her consideration, and all of her ministers united in regarding her opinion as valuable beyond words. The influence of this wonderful woman on the history of her times was incalculable, and further study of her life and character will only deepen and intensify the respect and love which all must hold for her memory.

THE RECESSIONAL

God of our fathers, known of old—
Lord of our far-flung battle line,
Beneath whose awful Hand we hold
Dominion over palm and pine—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

The tumult and the shouting dies—
The Captains and the Kings depart.
Still stands Thine ancient Sacrifice,
An humble and a contrite heart.164-1
[165]Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

Far-called our navies melt away—
On dune and headland sinks the fire;
Lo, all our pomp of yesterday
Is one with Nineveh and Tyre!
Judge of all Nations, spare us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

If, drunk with sight of power, we loose
Wild tongues that have not Thee in awe—
Such boasting as the Gentiles use
Or lesser breeds without the law—
Lord God of Hosts, be with us yet,
Lest we forget—lest we forget!

[166]For heathen heart that puts her trust
In reeking tube and iron shard—
All valiant dust that builds on dust,
And guarding calls not Thee to guard—
For frantic boast and foolish word,
Thy mercy on thy People, Lord!
Amen!

A recessional is a hymn sung while the clergy and the choir are retiring at the end of a church service. We must remember that this hymn was written for the celebration of the sixtieth anniversary of the coronation of Queen Victoria, and that its sentiment is English. The central idea appearing in the refrain at the end of each stanza is that the nation must recognize the presence of God, and remember its duties to Him. While the phrases in the poem call us constantly back to England and English dominions, yet the sentiment is so universal and so applicable to all nations, that the hymn is admired everywhere.

The first stanza refers to the conquests of England, whose battle lines have been flung far over all parts of the world, and to the fact that under the awful hand of God the British hold dominion over India and the tropical lands where the palm tree grows, as well as over the pine-clad hills of Canada and other Northern regions. It is an appeal to the Almighty to be with the nation, and to remind the people of their duty to the God of Hosts. The succeeding stanzas may be paraphrased as follows:

After the tumult and the shouting of the celebration die away, when the captains and the kings, who have met from all parts of the world to pay homage to the queen and to the nation, depart, there still remains as the most acceptable gift to God, the ancient sacrifice—an humble and a contrite heart.

The British navies, called to far distant climes, separate and melt away. Sinking below the horizon they see behind them on the dunes and headlands the smouldering bonfires lit in celebration of the Diamond Jubilee of Queen Victoria. The once magnificent cities of Nineveh and Tyre are now [167]in ruins, perhaps covered by shifting desert sands. Their pomp and their glory have departed, but no more completely than the glory and the pomp of yesterday have gone from the nation. Judge of all Nations, spare the English from destruction, and keep them in mind of their obligations to Thee.

If, glorying in our power, we talk wildly of what we have done in words that give no praise to God, and boast as the barbaric races do, we pray Thee, Lord God of Hosts, to remind us that everything we possess has come from thy guiding hand.

Show mercy to thy people, Lord, for frantic boasts and foolish words, for heathen hearts that put their trust in reeking cannon and the fragments of bursting shells, and to those who, bravely guarding the wide borders of our land, forget that they are but valiant dust, and call not upon Thee to guard them.

164-1 This is a reference to Psalms LI, 17: “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.”

THE STAR-SPANGLED BANNER 167-*

O say, can you see, by the dawn’s early light,
What so proudly we hailed at the twilight’s last gleaming?
Whose broad stripes and bright stars, through the perilous fight,
O’er the ramparts we watched, were so gallantly streaming!
And the rocket’s red glare, the bombs bursting in air,
Gave proof through the night that our flag was still there;
O say, does that star-spangled banner yet wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave?

[168]On that shore dimly seen through the mists of the deep,
Where the foe’s haughty host in dread silence reposes,
What is that which the breeze, o’er the towering steep,
As it fitfully blows, now conceals, now discloses?
Now it catches the gleam of the morning’s first beam,
In full glory reflected now shines on the stream;
’Tis the star-spangled banner! O long may it wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave!

And where is that band who so vauntingly swore
That the havoc of war and the battle’s confusion
A home and a country should leave us no more?
Their blood has washed out their foul footsteps’ pollution.
No refuge could save the hireling and slave
From the terror of flight, or the gloom of the grave;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph doth wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

O thus be it ever, when freemen shall stand
Between their loved homes and the war’s desolation!
Blest with vic’try and peace, may the heaven-rescued land
Praise the Power that hath made and preserved us a nation!
Then conquer we must, when our cause it is just,
And this be our motto, “In God is our trust”;
And the star-spangled banner in triumph shall wave
O’er the land of the free, and the home of the brave.

167-* On the night of Sept. 12, 1814, Fort Henry in Chesapeake Bay not far from Baltimore was unsuccessfully attacked by a British fleet. The author, detained a prisoner on the fleet, witnessed the bombardment and began the song there.

HOW’S MY BOY?

“Ho, sailor of the sea!
How’s my boy—my boy?”
“What’s your boy’s name, good wife,
And in what ship sailed he?”

“My boy John—
He that went to sea—
What care I for the ship, sailor?
My boy’s my boy to me.

“You come back from the sea,
And not know my John?
I might as well have asked some landsman
Yonder down in the town.
There’s not an ass in all the parish
But he knows my John.

“How’s my boy—my boy?
And unless you let me know
I’ll swear you are no sailor,
Blue jacket or no,
Brass buttons or no, sailor,
Anchor and crown, or no!
Sure his ship was the ‘Jolly Briton—’”
“Speak low, woman, speak low!”

“And why should I speak low, sailor,
About my own boy John?
[170]If I was loud as I am proud
I’d sing him over the town!
Why should I speak low, sailor?”
“That good ship went down.”

“How’s my boy—my boy?
What care I for the ship, sailor,
I was never aboard her.
Be she afloat or be she aground,
Sinking or swimming, I’ll be bound
Her owners can afford her!
I say, how’s my John?”
“Every man on board went down,
Every man aboard her.”

“How’s my boy—my boy?
What care I for the men, sailor?
I’m not their mother—
How’s my boy—my boy?
Tell me of him and no other!
How’s my boy—my boy?”

THE SOLDIER’S DREAM

Our bugles sang truce, for the night-cloud had lower’d,
And the sentinel stars set their watch in the sky;
And thousands had sunk on the ground overpower’d,
The weary to sleep, and the wounded to die.

When reposing that night on my pallet of straw
By the wolf-scaring fagot that guarded the slain,
[171]At the dead of the night a sweet Vision I saw;
And thrice ere the morning I dreamt it again.

Methought from the battlefield’s dreadful array
Far, far, I had roam’d on a desolate track:
’Twas Autumn—and sunshine arose on the way
To the home of my fathers, that welcomed me back.

I flew to the pleasant fields traversed so oft
In life’s morning march, when my bosom was young;
I heard my own mountain-goats bleating aloft,
And knew the sweet strain that the corn-reapers sung.

Then pledged we the wine-cup, and fondly I swore
From my home and my weeping friends never to part;
My little ones kiss’d me a thousand times o’er,
And my wife sobb’d aloud in her fulness of heart.

“Stay—stay with us!—rest!—thou art weary and worn!”—
And fain was their war-broken soldier to stay;—
But sorrow return’d with the dawning of morn,
And the voice in my dreaming ear melted away.

MAKE WAY FOR LIBERTY!

In arms the Austrian phalanx stood.
A living wall, a human wood!
A wall, where every conscious stone
Seemed to its kindred thousands grown;
A rampart all assaults to bear,
Till time to dust their frames should wear;
A wood, like that enchanted grove
In which with fiends Rinaldo strove,
Where every silent tree possessed
A spirit prisoned in its breast,
Which the first stroke of coming strife
Would startle into hideous life;
So dense, so still, the Austrians stood,
A living wall, a human wood!
[173]Impregnable their front appears,
All horrent with projected spears,
Whose polished points before them shine,
From flank to flank, one brilliant line,
Bright as the breakers’ splendors run
Along the billows to the sun.

Opposed to these, a hovering band
Contended for their native land:
Peasants, whose new-found strength had broke
From manly necks the ignoble yoke,
And forged their fetters into swords,
On equal terms to fight their lords,
And what insurgent rage had gained
In many a mortal fray maintained;
Marshaled once more at Freedom’s call,
They came to conquer or to fall,
Where he who conquered, he who fell,
Was deemed a dead or living Tell!
Such virtue had that patriot breathed,
So to the soil his soul bequeathed,
That wheresoe’er his arrows flew
Heroes in his own likeness grew,
And warriors sprang from every sod
Which his awakening footstep trod.

And now the work of life and death
Hung on the passing of a breath;
The fire of conflict burnt within,
The battle trembled to begin;
Yet, while the Austrians held their ground,
Point for attack was nowhere found,
Where’er the impatient Switzers gazed,
The unbroken line of lances blazed;
[174]That line ’t were suicide to meet,
And perish at their tyrants’ feet,—
How could they rest within their graves,
And leave their homes the homes of slaves?
Would they not feel their children tread
With clanging chains above their head?

It must not be: this day, this hour,
Annihilates the oppressor’s power;
All Switzerland is in the field,
She will not fly, she cannot yield,—
She must not fall; her better fate
Here gives her an immortal date.
Few were the number she could boast;
But every freeman was a host,
And felt as though himself were he
On whose sole arm hung victory.

It did depend on one indeed;
Behold him,—Arnold Winkelried!
There sounds not to the trump of fame
The echo of a nobler name.
Unmarked he stood amid the throng,
In rumination deep and long,
Till you might see, with sudden grace,
The very thought come o’er his face,
And by the motion of his form
Anticipate the bursting storm,
And by the uplifting of his brow
Tell where the bolt would strike, and how.

[175]“Make way for Liberty!” he cried,
Then ran, with arms extended wide,
As if his dearest friend to clasp;
Ten spears he swept within his grasp.

“Make way for Liberty!” he cried;
Their keen points met from side to side;
He bowed amongst them like a tree,
And thus made way for Liberty.

Swift to the breach his comrades fly;
“Make way for Liberty!” they cry,
And through the Austrian phalanx dart,
As rushed the spears through Arnold’s heart;
While, instantaneous as his fall,
Rout, ruin, panic, scattered all;
An earthquake could not overthrow
A city with a surer blow.

THE OLD CONTINENTALS

In their ragged regimentals
Stood the old continentals,
Yielding not,
When the grenadiers were lunging,
And like hail fell the plunging
Cannon-shot;
When the files
Of the isles,
[176]From the smoky night encampment, bore the banner of the rampant
Unicorn,
And grummer, grummer, grummer rolled the roll of the drummer,
Through the morn!

Then with eyes to the front all,
And with guns horizontal,
Stood our sires;
And the balls whistled deadly,
And in streams flashing redly
Blazed the fires;
As the roar
On the shore,
Swept the strong battle-breakers o’er the green-sodded acres
Of the plain;
And louder, louder, louder, cracked the black gun-powder,
Cracking amain!

Now like smiths at their forges
Worked the red Saint George’s
Cannoneers;
And the “villainous saltpetre”
Rung a fierce, discordant metre
Round their ears;
As the swift
Storm-drift,
With hot sweeping anger, came the horseguards’ clangor
On our flanks.
[177]Then higher, higher, higher, burned the old-fashioned fire
Through the ranks!

Then the old-fashioned colonel
Galloped through the white infernal
Powder-cloud;
And his broad sword was swinging
And his brazen throat was ringing
Trumpet loud.
Then the blue
Bullets flew,
And the trooper jackets redden at the touch of the leaden
Rifle-breath;
And rounder, rounder, rounder, roared the iron six-pounder,
Hurling death!

THE PICKET-GUARD

“All quiet along the Potomac,” they say,
“Except now and then a stray picket
Is shot, as he walks on his beat, to and fro,
By a rifleman hid in the thicket.
’T is nothing: a private or two, now and then,
Will not count in the news of the battle;
Not an officer lost—only one of the men,
Moaning out, all alone, the death rattle.”

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,
Where the soldiers lie peacefully dreaming;
Their tents in the rays of the clear autumn moon,
Or the light of the watch-fires, are gleaming.
[178]A tremulous sigh, as the gentle night wind
Through the forest leaves softly is creeping;
While stars up above, with their glittering eyes,
Keep guard—for the army is sleeping.

There’s only the sound of the lone sentry’s tread
As he tramps from the rock to the fountain,
And he thinks of the two in the low trundle-bed,
Far away in the cot on the mountain.
His musket falls slack; his face, dark and grim,
Grows gentle with memories tender,
As he mutters a prayer for the children asleep,
For their mother,—may Heaven defend her!

The moon seems to shine just as brightly as then,
That night when the love yet unspoken
Leaped up to his lips—when low, murmured vows
Were pledged to be ever unbroken;
Then drawing his sleeve roughly over his eyes,
He dashes off tears that are welling,
And gathers his gun closer up to its place,
As if to keep down the heart-swelling.

He passes the fountain, the blasted pine tree,—
The footstep is lagging and weary;
Yet onward he goes, through the broad belt of light,
Toward the shade of the forest so dreary.
Hark! was it the night wind that rustled the leaves?
Was it moonlight so wondrously flashing?
It looked like a rifle: “Ha! Mary, good-by!”
And the life-blood is ebbing and plashing.

All quiet along the Potomac to-night,—
No sound save the rush of the river;
While soft falls the dew on the face of the dead,—
The picket’s off duty forever.

MY OLD KENTUCKY HOME

The sun shines bright in our old Kentucky home;
’Tis summer, the darkeys are gay;
The corn top’s ripe and the meadow’s in the bloom,
While the birds make music all the day;
The young folks roll on the little cabin floor,
All merry, all happy, all bright;
By’m by hard times comes knockin’ at the door,—
Then my old Kentucky home, good night!

Weep no more, my lady; O weep no more to-day!
We’ll sing one song for my old Kentucky home,
For my old Kentucky home far away.

They hunt no more for the possum and the coon,
On the meadow, the hill, and the shore;
They sing no more by the glimmer of the moon,
On the bench by the old cabin door;
The day goes by, like a shadow o’er the heart,
With sorrow where all was delight;
The time has come, when the darkeys have to part,
Then, my old Kentucky home, good night!

The head must bow, and the back will have to bend,
Wherever the darkey may go;
A few more days, and the troubles all will end,
In the field where the sugar-cane grow;
A few more days to tote the weary load,
No matter, it will never be light;
A few more days till we totter on the road,
Then, my old Kentucky home, good night!

THE FORSAKEN MERMAN

ome, dear children, let us away;
Down and away below!
Now my brothers call from the bay,
Now the great winds shoreward blow,
Now the salt tides seaward flow;
Now the wild white horses play,
Champ and chafe and toss in the spray.
Children dear, let us away!
This way, this way!

Call her once before you go—
Call once yet!
In a voice that she will know
“Margaret! Margaret!”
Children’s voices should be dear
(Call once more) to a mother’s ear;
Children’s voices, wild with pain—
Surely she will come again!
Call her once and come away;
This way, this way!
“Mother dear, we cannot stay!
The wild white horses foam and fret.”
Margaret! Margaret!

Come, dear children, come away down;
Call no more!
One last look at the white-wall’d town,
And the little gray church on the windy shore;
Then come down!
[181]She will not come though you call all day;
Come away, come away!

Children dear, was it yesterday
We heard the sweet bells over the bay?
In the caverns where we lay,
Through the surf and through the swell,
The far-off sound of a silver bell?
[182]Sand-strewn caverns, cool and deep,
Where the winds are all asleep;
Where the spent lights quiver and gleam,
Where the salt weed sways in the stream,
Where the sea beasts, ranged all around,
Feed in the ooze of their pasture ground;
Where the sea snakes coil and twine,
Dry their mail and bask in the brine;
Where great whales come sailing by,
Sail and sail, with unshut eye,
Round the world for ever and aye?
When did music come this way?
Children dear, was it yesterday?

Children dear, was it yesterday
(Call yet once) that she went away?
Once she sate with you and me,
On a red gold throne in the heart of the sea,
And the youngest sate on her knee.
She comb’d its bright hair, and she tended it well,
When down swung the sound of a far-off bell.
She sigh’d, she look’d up through the clear green sea;
She said: “I must go, for my kinsfolk pray
In the little gray church on the shore to-day.
’Twill be Easter-time in the world—ah me!
And I lose my poor soul, Merman! here with thee.”
I said: “Go up, dear heart, through the waves;
Say thy prayer, and come back to the kind sea caves!”
She smil’d, she went up through the surf in the bay.
Children dear, was it yesterday?
Children dear, were we long alone?
“The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan;
[183]Long prayers,” I said, “in the world they say;
Come!” I said; and we rose through the surf in the bay.
We went up the beach, by the sandy down
Where the sea stocks bloom, to the white-wall’d town;
Through the narrow, pav’d streets, where all was still,
To the little gray church on the windy hill.
From the church came a murmur of folk at their prayers,
But we stood without in the cold blowing airs.
We climb’d on the graves, on the stones worn with rains,
And we gaz’d up the aisle through the small leaded panes.
She sate by the pillar; we saw her clear;
“Margaret, hist! come quick, we are here!
Dear heart,” I said, “we are long alone;
The sea grows stormy, the little ones moan.”
But, ah, she gave me never a look,
For her eyes were seal’d to the holy book!
Loud prays the priest: shut stands the door.
Come away, children, call no more!
Come away, come down, call no more!
Down, down, down!
Down to the depths of the sea!
She sits at her wheel in the humming town,
Singing most joyfully.
Hark what she sings: “O joy, O joy.
For the humming street, and the child with its toy!
For the priest, and the bell, and the holy well;
For the wheel where I spun,
And the blessed light of the sun!”
[184]And so she sings her fill.
Singing most joyfully,
Till the spindle drops from her hand,
And the whizzing wheel stands still.
She steals to the window, and looks at the sand,
And over the sand at the sea;
And her eyes are set in a stare;
And anon there breaks a sigh,
And anon there drops a tear,
From a sorrow-clouded eye,
And a heart sorrow-laden,
A long, long sigh,
For the cold, strange eyes of a little Mermaiden
And the gleam of her golden hair.

Come away, away, children;
Come, children, come down!
The hoarse wind blows colder;
Lights shine in the town.
She will start from her slumber
When gusts shake the door;
She will hear the winds howling,
Will hear the waves roar.

We shall see, while above us
The waves roar and whirl,
A ceiling of amber,
A pavement of pearl.
Singing: “Here came a mortal,
But faithless was she!
And alone dwell for ever
The kings of the sea.”

But, children, at midnight,
When soft the winds blow,
[185]When clear falls the moonlight,
When spring-tides are low;
When sweet airs come seaward
From heaths starr’d with broom,
And high rocks throw mildly
On the blanch’d sands a gloom;
Up the still, glistening beaches,
Up the creeks we will hie,
Over banks of bright seaweed
The ebb-tide leaves dry.
We will gaze, from the sand hills,
At the white, sleeping town;
At the church on the hillside—
And then come back down.
Singing: “There dwells a lov’d one,
But cruel is she!
She left lonely forever
The kings of the sea.”

TOM AND MAGGIE TULLIVER

t was a heavy disappointment to Maggie that she was not allowed to go with her father in the gig when he went to fetch Tom home from the academy; but the morning was too wet, Mrs. Tulliver said, for a little girl to go out in her best bonnet. Maggie took the opposite view very strongly, and it was a direct consequence of this difference of opinion that when her mother was in the act of brushing out the reluctant black crop Maggie suddenly rushed from under her hands and dipped her head in a basin of water standing near, in the vindictive determination that there should be no more chance of curls that day.

“Maggie, Maggie!” exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, sitting stout and helpless with the brushes on her lap, “what is to become of you if you’re so naughty? I’ll tell your aunt Glegg and your aunt Pullet when they come next week, and they’ll never love[187] you any more. Oh dear, oh dear! look at your clean pinafore, wet from top to bottom. Folks ’ull think it’s a judgment on me as I’ve got such a child,—they’ll think I’ve done summat wicked.”

Before this remonstrance was finished, Maggie was already out of hearing, making her way toward the great attic that run under the old high-pitched roof, shaking the water from her black locks as she ran, like a Skye terrier escaped from his bath. This attic was Maggie’s favorite retreat on a wet day, when the weather was not too cold; here she fretted out all her ill humors, and talked aloud to the worm-eaten floors and the worm-eaten shelves, and the dark rafters festooned with cobwebs; and here she kept a Fetish which she punished for all her misfortunes. This was the trunk of a large wooden doll, which once stared with the roundest of eyes above the reddest of cheeks; but was now entirely defaced by a long career of vicarious suffering. Three nails driven into the head commemorated as many crises in Maggie’s nine years of earthly struggle; that luxury of vengeance having been suggested to her by the picture of Jael destroying Sisera in the old Bible. The last nail had been driven in with a fiercer stroke than usual, for the Fetish on that occasion represented aunt Glegg. But immediately afterward Maggie had reflected that if she drove many nails in she would not be so well able to fancy that the head was hurt when she knocked it against the wall, nor to comfort it, and make believe to poultice it, when her fury was abated; for even aunt Glegg would be pitiable when she had been hurt very much, and thoroughly humiliated, so as to beg her niece’s pardon. Since[188] then she had driven no more nails in, but had soothed herself by alternately grinding and beating the wooden head against the rough brick of the great chimneys that made two square pillars supporting the roof. That was what she did this morning on reaching the attic, sobbing all the while with a passion that expelled every other form of [189]consciousness,—even the memory of the grievance that had caused it.

As at last the sobs were getting quieter, and the grinding less fierce, a sudden beam of sunshine, falling through the wire lattice across the worm-eaten shelves, made her throw away the Fetish and run to the window. The sun was really breaking out; the sound of the mill seemed cheerful again; the granary doors were open; and there was Yap, the queer white-and-brown terrier, with one ear turned back, trotting about and sniffing vaguely, as if he were in search of a companion. It was irresistible.

Maggie tossed her hair back and ran downstairs, seized her bonnet without putting it on, peeped, and then dashed along the passage lest she should encounter her mother, and was quickly out in the yard, whirling around like a Pythoness, and singing as she whirled, “Yap, Yap, Tom’s coming home!” while Yap danced and barked round her, as much as to say, if there was any noise wanted he was the dog for it.

“Hegh, hegh, Miss! you’ll make yourself giddy, an’ tumble down i’ the dirt,” said Luke, the head miller, a tall, broad-shouldered man of forty, black-haired, subdued by a general mealiness, like an auricula.

Maggie paused in her whirling and said, staggering a little, “Oh no, it doesn’t make me giddy, Luke; may I go into the mill with you?”

Maggie loved to linger in the great spaces of the mill, and often came out with her black hair powdered to a soft whiteness that made her dark eyes flash out with new fire. The resolute din, the[190] unresting motion of the great stones, giving her a dim, delicious awe as at the presence of an uncontrollable force; the meal forever pouring, pouring; the fine white powder softening all surfaces, and making the very spider-nets look like a fairy lace-work; the sweet, pure scent of the meal,—all helped to make Maggie feel that the mill was a little world apart from her outside everyday life. She was in the habit of taking this recreation as she conversed with Luke, to whom she was very communicative, wishing him to think well of her understanding, as her father did.

Perhaps she felt it necessary to recover her position with him on the present occasion, for, as she sat sliding on the heap of grain near which he was busying himself, she said, at that shrill pitch which was requisite in mill-society,—

“Nay, Miss, an’ not much o’ that,” said Luke, with great frankness. “I’m no reader, I aren’t.”

“But if I lent you one of my books, Luke? I’ve got many very pretty books that would be easy for you to read; but there’s ‘Pug’s Tour of Europe,’—that would tell you all about the different sorts of people in the world, and if you didn’t understand the reading, the pictures would help you; they show the looks and ways of the people and what they do. There are the Dutchmen, very fat, and smoking, you know, and one sitting on a barrel.”

“Nay, Miss, I’n no opinion o’ Dutchmen. There ben’t much good i’ knowin’ about them.”

“But they’re our fellow-creatures, Luke; we ought to know about our fellow-creatures.”

[191]“Not much o’ fellow-creatures, I think, Miss; all I know—my old master, as war a knowin’ man, used to say, says he, ‘If e’er I sow my wheat wi’out brinin’, I’m a Dutchman,’ says he; an’ that war as much as to say a Dutchman war a fool, or next door.

“Nay, nay, I aren’t goin’ to bother mysen about Dutchmen. There’s fools enoo, an’ rogues enoo, wi’out lookin’ i’ books for ’em.”

“Oh, well,” said Maggie, rather foiled by Luke’s unexpectedly decided views about Dutchmen, “perhaps you would like ‘Animated Nature’ better; that’s not Dutchmen, you know, but elephants and kangaroos, and the civet cat, and the sunfish, and a bird sitting on its tail,—I forgot its name. There are countries full of those creatures, instead of horses and cows, you know. Shouldn’t you like to know about them, Luke?”

“Nay, Miss, I’n got to keep count o’ the flour an’ corn; I can’t do wi’ knowin’ so many things beside my work. That’s what brings folks to the gallows,—knowin’ everything but what they’n got to get their bread by. An’ they’re mostly lies, I think, what’s printed i’ the books: them printed sheets are, anyhow, as the men cry i’ the streets.”

“Why, you’re like my brother Tom, Luke,” said Maggie, wishing to turn the conversation agreeably; “Tom’s not fond of reading. I love Tom so dearly, Luke,—better than anybody else in the world. When he grows up I shall keep his house, and we shall always live together. I can tell him everything he doesn’t know. But I think Tom’s clever, for all he doesn’t like books; he makes beautiful whipcord and rabbit pens.”

[192]“Ah,” said Luke, “but he’ll be fine an’ vexed, as the rabbits are all dead.”

“Dead!” screamed Maggie, jumping up from her sliding seat on the corn. “Oh dear, Luke! What! the lop-eared one, and the spotted doe that Tom spent all his money to buy?”

“As dead as moles,” said Luke, fetching his comparison from the unmistakable corpses nailed to the stable wall.

“Oh, Luke,” said Maggie in a piteous tone, “Tom told me to be sure and remember the rabbits every day; but how could I, when they didn’t come into my head, you know? Oh, he will be so angry with me, I know he will, and so sorry about his rabbits, and so am I sorry. Oh, what shall I do?”

“Don’t you fret, Miss,” said Luke, soothingly; “they’re nash things, them lop-eared rabbits; they’d happen ha’ died, if they’d been fed. Things out o’ natur niver thrive: God A’mighty doesn’t like ’em. He made the rabbits’ ears to lie back, an’ it’s nothin’ but contrairiness to make ’em hing down like a mastiff dog’s. Master Tom ’ull know better nor buy such things another time. Don’t you fret, Miss. Will you come along home wi’ me, and see my wife? I’m a-goin’ this minute.”

The invitation offered an agreeable distraction to Maggie’s grief, and her tears gradually subsided as she trotted along by Luke’s side to his pleasant cottage, which stood with its apple and pear trees, and with the added dignity of a lean-to pigsty, at the other end of the Mill fields.

om was to arrive early in the afternoon, and there was another fluttering heart besides Maggie’s when it was late enough for the sound of the gig wheels to be expected; for if Mrs. Tulliver had a strong feeling, it was fondness for her boy. At last the sound came,—that quick light bowling of the gig wheels,—and in spite of the wind, which was blowing the clouds about, and was not likely to respect Mrs. Tulliver’s curls and cap-strings, she came outside the door and even held her hand on Maggie’s offending head, forgetting all the griefs of the morning.

“There he is, my sweet lad! But, Lord ha’ mercy! he’s got never a collar on; it’s been lost on the road, I’ll be bound, and spoilt the set.”

Mrs. Tulliver stood with her arms open; Maggie jumped first on one leg and then on the other; while Tom descended from the gig, and said, with masculine reticence as to the tender emotions. “Hallo! Yap—what! are you there?”

Nevertheless he submitted to be kissed willingly enough, though Maggie hung on his neck in rather a strangling fashion, while his blue-gray eyes wandered toward the croft and the lambs and the river, where he promised himself that he would begin to fish the first thing tomorrow morning. He was one of those lads that grow everywhere in England, and at twelve or thirteen years of age look as much alike as goslings,—a lad with light-brown hair, cheeks of cream and roses, full lips, indeter[194]minate nose and eyebrows,—face in which it seems impossible to see anything but boyhood; as different as possible from poor Maggie’s phiz, which Nature seemed to have moulded and colored with the most decided intention. But that same Nature has the deep cunning which hides itself under the appearance of openness, so that simple people think they can see through her quite well, and all the while she is secretly preparing a refutation of their confident prophecies. Under these average boyish physiognomies that she seems to turn off by the gross, she conceals some of her most unmodified characters; and the dark-eyed, demonstrative, rebellious girl may after all turn out to be a passive being compared with this pink-and-white bit of masculinity with the indeterminate features.

“Maggie,” said Tom, confidentially, taking her into a corner, as soon as his mother was gone out to examine his box, and the warm parlor had taken off the chill he had felt from the long drive, “you don’t know what I’ve got in my pockets,” nodding his head up and down as a means of rousing her sense of mystery.

“No,” said Maggie. “How stodgy they look, Tom! Is it marls (marbles) or cobnuts?” Maggie’s heart sank a little, because Tom always said it was “no good” playing with her at those games, she played so badly.

“Marls! no; I’ve swopped all my marls with the little fellows, and cobnuts are no fun, you silly, only when the nuts are green. But see here!” He drew something half out of his righthand pocket.

“What is it?” said Maggie, in a whisper. “I can see nothing but a bit of yellow.”

“Don’t be a spitfire, else I won’t tell you,” said Tom, thrusting his hand back into his pocket and looking determined.

“No, Tom,” said Maggie, imploringly, laying hold of the arm that was held stiffly in the pocket. “I’m not cross, Tom; it was only because I can’t bear guessing. Please be good to me.”

Tom’s arm slowly relaxed, and he said, “Well, then, it’s a new fish line—two new uns,—one for you, Maggie, all to yourself. And here’s hooks; see here—I say, won’t we go and fish to-morrow down by the Round Pool? And you shall catch your own fish, Maggie, and put the worms on, and everything; won’t it be fun?”

Maggie’s answer was to throw her arms round Tom’s neck and hug him, and hold her cheek against his without speaking, while he slowly unwound some of the line, saying, after a pause,—

“Wasn’t I a good brother, now, to buy you a line all to yourself? You know, I needn’t have bought it, if I hadn’t liked.”

“Yes, very, very good—I do love you, Tom.” Tom had put the line back in his pocket, and was looking at the hooks one by one, before he spoke again.

“Oh, dear! I wish they wouldn’t fight at your school, Tom. Didn’t it hurt you?”

“Hurt me? no,” said Tom, putting up the hooks again, taking out a large pocketknife, and slowly[196] opening the largest blade, which he looked at meditatively as he rubbed his finger along it. Then he added,—

“I gave Spouncer a black eye, I know; that’s what he got by wanting to leather me; I wasn’t going to go halves because anybody leathered me.”

“Oh, how brave you are, Tom! I think you’re like Samson. If there came a lion roaring at me, I think you’d fight him, wouldn’t you, Tom?”

“How can a lion come roaring at you, you silly thing? There’s no lions, only in the shows.”

“No, but if we were in the lion countries—I mean Africa, where it’s very hot; the lions eat people there. I can show it you in the book where I read it.”

“But if you hadn’t got a gun,—we might have gone out, you know, not thinking, just as we go fishing; and then a great lion might run toward us roaring, and we couldn’t get away from him. What should you do, Tom?”

Tom paused, and at last turned away contemptuously, saying, “But the lion isn’t coming. What’s the use of talking?”

“But I like to fancy how it would be,” said Maggie, following him, “Just think what you would do, Tom.”

“Oh, don’t bother, Maggie! you’re such a silly. I shall go and see my rabbits.”

Maggie’s heart began to flutter with fear. She dared not tell the sad truth at once, but she walked after Tom in trembling silence as he went out, thinking how she could tell him the news so as to soften at once his sorrow and his anger; for Maggie[197] dreaded Tom’s anger of all things; it was quite different anger from her own.

“Tom,” she said, timidly, when they were out of doors, “how much money did you give for your rabbits?”

“I think I’ve got a great deal more than that in my steel purse upstairs. I’ll ask mother to give it you.”

“What for?” said Tom. “I don’t want your money, you silly thing. I’ve got a great deal more money than you, because I’m a boy. I always have half-sovereigns and sovereigns for my Christmas boxes because I shall be a man, and you have only five-shilling pieces, because you’re only a girl.”

“Well, but, Tom—if mother would let me give you two half-crowns and a sixpence out of my purse to put into your pocket and spend, you know, and buy some more rabbits with it?”

Tom stopped in his walk and turned round toward Maggie. “You forgot to feed ’em, then?” he said, his color heightening for a moment, but soon subsiding. “I don’t love you, Maggie. You shan’t go fishing with me tomorrow. I told you to go and see the rabbits every day.” He walked on again.

“Yes, but I forgot—and I couldn’t help it, indeed, Tom. I’m so very sorry,” said Maggie, while the tears rushed fast.

“You’re a naughty girl,” said Tom, severely, “and I’m sorry I bought you the fish line. I don’t love you.”

[198]“Oh, Tom, it’s very cruel,” sobbed Maggie. “I’d forgive you, if you forgot anything—I wouldn’t mind what you did—I’d forgive you and love you.”

“Oh, please forgive me, Tom; my heart will break,” said Maggie, shaking with sobs, clinging to Tom’s arm, and laying her wet cheek on his shoulder.

Tom shook her off, and stopped again, saying in a peremptory tone, “Now, Maggie, you just listen. Aren’t I a good brother to you?”

“Didn’t I think about your fish line all this quarter, and mean to buy it, and saved my money o’ purpose, and wouldn’t go halves in the toffee, and Spouncer fought me because I wouldn’t?”

“But you’re a naughty girl. Last holidays you licked the paint off my lozenge box, and the holidays before that you let the boat drag my fish line down when I’d set you to watch it, and you pushed your head through my kite, all for nothing.”

“Yes, you could,” said Tom, “if you’d minded what you were doing. And you’re a naughty girl, and you sha’n’t go fishing with me to-morrow.”

With this terrible conclusion, Tom ran away from Maggie toward the mill. Maggie stood motionless, except from her sobs, for a minute or two; then she turned round and ran into the house, and up to her attic, where she sat on the floor and laid[199] her head against the worm-eaten shelf, with a crushing sense of misery. Tom was come home, and she had thought how happy she should be; and now he was cruel to her. What use was anything if Tom didn’t love her? Oh, he was very cruel! Hadn’t she wanted to give him the money, and said how very sorry she was? She knew she was naughty to her mother, but she had never been naughty to Tom—had never meant to be naughty to him.

“Oh, he is cruel!” Maggie sobbed aloud, finding a wretched pleasure in the hollow resonance that came through the long empty space of the attic. She never thought of beating or grinding her Fetish; she was too miserable to be angry.

These bitter sorrows of childhood! when sorrow is all new and strange, when hope has not yet got[200] wings to fly beyond the days and weeks, and the space from summer to summer seems measureless.

Maggie soon thought she had been hours in the attic, and it must be tea time, and they were all having their tea, and not thinking of her. Well, then, she would stay up there and starve herself,—hide herself behind the tub, and stay there all night,—and then they would all be frightened, and Tom would be sorry. Thus Maggie thought in the pride of her heart, as she crept behind the tub; but presently she began to cry again at the idea that they didn’t mind her being there. If she went down again to Tom now—would he forgive her? Perhaps her father would be there, and he would take her part. But then she wanted Tom to forgive her because he loved her, not because his father told him. No, she would never go down if Tom didn’t come to fetch her. This resolution lasted in great intensity for five dark minutes behind the tub; but then the need of being loved—the strongest need in poor Maggie’s nature—began to wrestle with her pride, and soon threw it. She crept from behind the tub into the twilight of the long attic, but just then she heard a quick footstep on the stairs.

Tom had been too much interested in his talk with Luke, in going the round of the premises, walking in and out where he pleased, and whittling sticks without any particular reason,—except that he didn’t whittle sticks at school,—to think of Maggie and the effect his anger had produced on her. He meant to punish her, and that business having been performed, he occupied himself with other matters, like a practical person. But when he had been called in to tea, his father said, “Why, where’s[201] the little wench?” and Mrs. Tulliver, almost at the same moment, said, “Where’s your little sister?”—both of them having supposed that Maggie and Tom had been together all the afternoon.

“I don’t know,” said Tom. He didn’t want to “tell” of Maggie, though he was angry with her; for Tom Tulliver was a lad of honor.

“What! hasn’t she been playing with you all this while?” said the father. “She’d been thinking o’ nothing but your coming home.”

“I haven’t seen her this two hours,” says Tom, commencing on the plumcake.

“Goodness heart! she’s got drownded!” exclaimed Mrs. Tulliver, rising from her seat and running to the window. “How could you let her do so?” she added, as became a fearful woman, accusing she didn’t know whom of she didn’t know what.

“Nay, nay, she’s none drownded,” said Mr. Tulliver. “You’ve been naughty to her, I doubt, Tom?”

“I’m sure I haven’t, father,” said Tom indignantly. “I think she’s in the house.”

“Perhaps up in that attic,” said Mrs. Tulliver, “a-singing and talking to herself, and forgetting all about meal times.”

“You go and fetch her down, Tom,” said Mr. Tulliver, rather sharply,—his perspicacity or his fatherly fondness for Maggie making him suspect that the lad had been hard upon “the little un,” else she would never have left his side. “And be good to her, do you hear? Else I’ll let you know better.”

Tom never disobeyed his father, for Mr. Tulliver was a peremptory man, and, as he said, would never let anybody get hold of his whip hand; but[202] he went out rather sullenly, carrying his piece of plumcake, and not intending to reprieve Maggie’s punishment, which was no more than she deserved. Tom was only thirteen, and had no decided views in grammar and arithmetic, regarding them for the most part as open questions, but he was particularly clear and positive on one point,—namely, that he would punish everybody who deserved it. Why, he wouldn’t have minded being punished himself if he deserved it; but, then, he never did deserve it.

It was Tom’s step, then, that Maggie heard on the stairs, when her need of love had triumphed over her pride, and she was going down with her swollen eyes and dishevelled hair to beg for pity. At least her father would stroke her head and say, “Never mind, my wench.” It is a wonderful subduer, this need of love,—this hunger of the heart,—as peremptory as that other hunger by which Nature forces us to submit to the yoke, and change the face of the world.

But she knew Tom’s step, and her heart began to beat violently with the sudden shock of hope. He only stood still at the top of the stairs and said, “Maggie, you’re to come down.” But she rushed to him and clung around his neck, sobbing, “Oh, Tom, please forgive me—I can’t bear it—I will always be good—always remember things—do love me—please, dear Tom!”

We learn to restrain ourselves as we get older. We keep apart when we have quarreled, express ourselves in well-bred phrases, and in this way preserve a dignified alienation, showing much firmness on one side, and swallowing much grief on the[203] other. We no longer approximate in our behavior to the mere impulsiveness of the lower animals, but conduct ourselves in every respect like members of a highly civilized society. Maggie and Tom were still very much like young animals, and so she could rub her cheek against his, and kiss his ear in a random sobbing way; and there were tender fibres in the lad that had been used to answer to Maggie’s fondling, so that he behaved with a weakness quite inconsistent with his resolution to punish her as much as she deserved. He actually began to kiss her in return, and say,—

Maggie’s sobs began to subside, and she put out her mouth for the cake and bit a piece; and then Tom bit a piece, just for company, and they ate together and rubbed each other’s cheeks and brows and noses together, while they ate, with a humiliating resemblance to two friendly ponies.

“Come along, Magsie, and have tea,” said Tom at last, when there was no more cake except what was downstairs.

So ended the sorrows of this day, and the next morning Maggie was trotting with her own fishing rod in one hand and a handle of the basket in the other, stepping always, by a peculiar gift, in the muddiest places, and looking darkly radiant from under her beaver-bonnet because Tom was good to her. She had told Tom, however, that she should like him to put the worms on the hook for her, although she accepted his word when he assured her that worms couldn’t feel (it was Tom’s private opinion that it didn’t much matter if they did). He knew all about worms, and fish, and those things;[204] and what birds were mischievous, and how padlocks opened, and which way the handles of the gates were to be lifted. Maggie thought this sort of knowledge was very wonderful,—much more difficult than remembering what was in the books; and she was rather in awe of Tom’s superiority, for he was the only person who called her knowledge “stuff,” and did not feel surprised at her cleverness. Tom, indeed, was of opinion that Maggie was a silly little thing; all girls were silly,—they couldn’t throw a stone so as to hit anything, couldn’t do anything with a pocketknife, and were frightened at frogs. Still, he was very fond of his sister, and meant always to take care of her, make her his housekeeper, and punish her when she did wrong.

They were on their way to the Round Pool,—that wonderful pool, which the floods had made a long while ago. No one knew how deep it was; and it was mysterious, too, that it should be almost a perfect round, framed in with willows and tall reeds, so that the water was only to be seen when you got close to the brink. The sight of the old favorite spot always heightened Tom’s good humor, and he spoke to Maggie in the most amicable whispers, as he opened the precious basket and prepared their tackle. He threw her line for her, and put the rod into her hand. Maggie thought it probable that the small fish would come to her hook, and the large ones to Tom’s. But she had forgotten all about the fish, and was looking dreamily at the glassy water, when Tom said, in a loud whisper, “Look, look, Maggie!” and came running to prevent her from snatching her line away.

[205]Maggie was frightened lest she had been doing something wrong, as usual, but presently Tom drew out her line and brought a large tench bouncing on the grass.

Maggie was not conscious of unusual merit, but it was enough that Tom called her Magsie, and was pleased with her. There was nothing to mar her delight in the whispers and the dreamy silences, when she listened to the light dipping sounds of the rising fish, and the gentle rustling, as if the willows and the reeds and the water had their happy whispering also. Maggie thought it would make a very nice heaven to sit by the pool in that way, and never be scolded. She never knew she had a bite till Tom told her; but she liked fishing very much.

III

n Wednesday, the day before the aunts and uncles were coming, there were such various and suggestive scents, as of plumcakes in the oven and jellies in the hot state, mingled with the aroma of gravy, that it was impossible to feel altogether gloomy; there was hope in the air. Tom and Maggie made several inroads into the kitchen, and, like other marauders, were induced to keep aloof for a time only by being allowed to carry away a sufficient load of booty.

“Tom,” said Maggie, as they sat on the boughs of the elder-tree, eating their jam-puffs, “shall you run away to-morrow?”

[206]“No,” said Tom, slowly, when he had finished his puff, and was eyeing the third, which was to be divided between them,—“no, I sha’n’t.”

“No,” said Tom, opening his pocketknife and holding it over the puff, with his head on one side in a dubitative manner. (It was a difficult problem to divide that very irregular polygon into two equal parts.) “What do I care about Lucy? She’s only a girl,—she can’t play at bandy.”

“Is it the tipsy-cake, then?” said Maggie, exerting her hypothetic powers, while she leaned forward toward Tom with her eyes fixed on the hovering knife. “No, you silly, that’ll be good the day after. It’s the pudden. I know what’s the pudden’s to be,—apricot roll-up—O my buttons!”

[207]With this interjection, the knife descended on the puff, and it was in two, but the result was not satisfactory to Tom, for he still eyed the halves doubtfully. At last he said,—

“I’ll have that with the jam run out,” said Maggie, keeping her eyes shut to please Tom.

“Why, you don’t like that, you silly. You may have it if it comes to you fair, but I sha’n’t give it you without. Right or left,—you choose, now. Ha-a-a!” said Tom, in a tone of exasperation, as Maggie peeped. “You keep your eyes shut, now, else you sha’n’t have any.”

Maggie’s power of sacrifice did not extend so far; indeed, I fear she cared less that Tom should enjoy the utmost possible amount of puff, than that he should be pleased with her for giving him the best bit. So she shut her eyes close, till Tom told her to “say which,” and then she said, “Left hand.”

“No; here, take it,” said Tom, firmly, handing decidedly the best piece to Maggie.

“Oh, please, Tom, have it; I don’t mind—I like the other; please take this.”

“No, I sha’n’t,” said Tom, almost crossly, beginning on his own inferior piece.

[208]Maggie, thinking it was no use to contend further, began too, and ate up her half puff with considerable relish as well as rapidity. But Tom had finished first, and had to look on while Maggie ate her last morsel or two, feeling in himself a capacity for more. Maggie didn’t know Tom was looking at her; she was see-sawing on the elder bough, lost to almost everything but a vague sense of jam and idleness.

“Oh, you greedy thing!” said Tom, when she had swallowed the last morsel. He was conscious of having acted very fairly, and thought she ought to have considered this, and made up to him for it. He would have refused a bit of hers beforehand, but one is naturally at a different point of view before and after one’s own share of puff is swallowed.

“I wasn’t going to ask you for a bit, you greedy. You might have thought of it without, when you knew I gave you the best bit.”

“But I wanted you to have it; you know I did,” said Maggie, in an injured tone.

“Yes, but I wasn’t going to do what wasn’t fair. If I go halves, I’ll go ’em fair; only I wouldn’t be a greedy.”

With this cutting innuendo, Tom jumped down from his bough, and threw a stone with a “hoigh!” as a friendly attention to Yap, who had also been looking on while the eatables vanished, with an agitation of his ears and feelings which could hardly have been without bitterness. Yet the excellent dog accepted Tom’s attention with as much alacrity as if he had been treated quite generously.

[209]But Maggie, gifted with that superior power of misery which distinguishes the human being, and places him at a proud distance from the most melancholy chimpanzee, sat still on her bough, and gave herself up to the keen sense of unmerited reproach. She would have given the world not to have eaten all her puff, and to have saved some of it for Tom. Not but that the puff was very nice, for Maggie’s palate was not at all obtuse, but she would have gone without it many times over, sooner than Tom should call her greedy and be cross with her. And he had said he wouldn’t have it, and she ate it without thinking; how could she help it? The tears flowed so plentifully that Maggie saw nothing around her for the next ten minutes; but by that time resentment began to give way to the desire of reconciliation, and she jumped from her bough to look for Tom. He was no longer in the paddock behind the rickyard; where was he likely to be gone, and Yap with him? Maggie ran to the high bank against the great holly tree, where she could see far away toward the Floss.

There was Tom; but her heart sank again as she saw how far he was on his way to the great river, and that he had another companion besides Yap,—naughty Bob Jakin, whose official, if not natural, function of frightening the birds was just now at a standstill.

Well! there was no hope for it; he was gone now, and Maggie could think of no comfort but to sit down by the hollow, or wander by the hedgerow, and fancy it was all different, refashioning her little world into just what she should like it to be.

aggie had thrown her bonnet off very carelessly, and coming in with her hair rough as well as out of curl, rushed at once to Lucy, who was standing by her mother’s knee. Certainly the contrast between the cousins was conspicuous. It was like the contrast between a rough, dark, overgrown puppy and a white kitten. Lucy put up the neatest little rosebud mouth to be kissed; everything about her was neat—her little round neck, with the row of coral beads; her little straight nose, not at all snubby; her little clear eyebrows, rather darker than her curls, to match her hazel eyes, which looked up with shy pleasure at Maggie, taller by the head, though scarcely a year older. Maggie always looked at Lucy with delight. She was fond of fancying a world where the people never got any larger than children of their own age, and she made the queen of it just like Lucy, with a little crown on her head, and a little sceptre in her hand—only the queen was Maggie herself in Lucy’s form.

“Oh, Lucy,” she burst out, after kissing her, “you’ll stay with Tom and me, won’t you? Oh, kiss her, Tom.”

Tom, too, had come up to Lucy, but he was not going to kiss her—no; he came up to her with Maggie, because it seemed easier, on the whole, than saying, “How do you do?” to all those aunts and uncles. He stood looking at nothing in particular, with the blushing, awkward air and semi-smile which are common to shy boys when in company,[211]—very much as if they had come into the world by mistake, and found it in a degree of undress that was quite embarrassing.

“Maggie,” said Mrs. Tulliver, beckoning Maggie to her, and whispering in her ear, as soon as this point of Lucy’s staying was settled, “go and get your hair brushed. I told you not to come in without going to Martha first; you know I did.”

“Tom, come out with me,” whispered Maggie, pulling his sleeve as she passed him; and Tom followed willingly enough.

“Come upstairs with me, Tom,” she whispered, when they were outside the door. “There’s something I want to do before dinner.”

“There’s no time to play at anything before dinner,” said Tom, whose imagination was impatient of any intermediate prospect.

Tom followed Maggie upstairs into her mother’s room, and saw her go at once to a drawer, from which she took out a large pair of scissors.

Maggie answered by seizing her front locks and cutting them straight across the middle of her forehead.

“Oh, my buttons! Maggie, you’ll catch it!” exclaimed Tom; “you’d better not cut any more off.”

Snip! went the great scissors again while Tom was speaking, and he couldn’t help feeling it was rather good fun; Maggie would look so queer.

“Here, Tom, cut it behind for me,” said Maggie, excited by her own daring, and anxious to finish the deed.

[212]“You’ll catch it, you know,” said Tom, nodding his head in an admonitory manner, and hesitating a little as he took the scissors.

“Never mind, make haste!” said Maggie, giving a little stamp with her foot. Her cheeks were quite flushed.

The black locks were so thick, nothing could be more tempting to a lad who had already tasted the forbidden pleasure of cutting the pony’s mane. I speak to those who know the satisfaction of making a pair of shears meet through a duly resisting mass of hair. One delicious grinding snip, and then another and another, and the hinder locks fell heavily on the floor, and Maggie stood cropped in a jagged, uneven manner, but with a sense of clearness and freedom, as if she had emerged from a wood into the open plain.

“Oh, Maggie,” said Tom, jumping round her, and slapping his knees as he laughed, “Oh, my buttons! what a queer thing you look! Look at yourself in the glass; you look like the idiot we throw out nutshells to at school.”

Maggie felt an unexpected pang. She had thought beforehand chiefly of her own deliverance from her teasing hair and teasing remarks about it, and something also of the triumph she should have over her mother and her aunts by this very decided course of action; she didn’t want her hair to look pretty,—that was out of the question,—she only wanted people to think her a clever little girl, and not to find fault with her. But now, when Tom began to laugh at her, and say she was like the idiot, the affair had quite a new aspect. She looked in the glass, and still Tom laughed and clapped his[213] hands, and Maggie’s flushed cheeks began to pale, and her lips to tremble a little.

“Oh, Maggie, you’ll have to go down to dinner directly,” said Tom. “Oh, my!”

“Don’t laugh at me, Tom,” said Maggie, in a passionate tone, with an outburst of angry tears, stamping, and giving him a push.

“Now, then, spitfire!” said Tom. “What did you cut it off for, then? I shall go down: I can smell the dinner going in.”

He hurried downstairs and left poor Maggie to that bitter sense of the irrevocable which was almost an everyday experience of her small soul. She could see clearly enough, now the thing was done, that it was very foolish, and that she should have to hear and think more about her hair than ever; for Maggie rushed to her deeds with passionate impulse, and then saw not only their consequences, but what would have happened if they had not been done, with all the detail and exaggerated circumstances of an active imagination.

“Miss Maggie, you’re to come down this minute,” said Kezia, entering the room hurriedly. “Lawks! what have you been a-doing? I niver see such a fright!”

“But I tell you you’re to come down, Miss, this minute; your mother says so,” said Kezia, going up to Maggie and taking her by the hand to raise her from the floor.

“Get away, Kezia; I don’t want any dinner,” said Maggie, resisting Kezia’s arm. “I sha’n’t come.”

[214]“Oh, well, I can’t stay. I’ve got to wait at dinner,” said Kezia, going out again.

“Maggie, you little silly,” said Tom, peeping into the room ten minutes after, “why don’t you come and have your dinner? There’s lots o’ goodies, and mother says you’re to come. What are you crying for, you little spooney?”

Oh, it was dreadful! Tom was so hard and unconcerned; if he had been crying on the floor, Maggie would have cried, too. And there was the dinner, so nice; and she was so hungry. It was very bitter.

But Tom was not altogether hard. He was not inclined to cry, and did not feel that Maggie’s grief spoiled his prospect of the sweets; but he went and put his head near her, and said in a lower, comforting tone,—

“Won’t you come, then, Magsie? Shall I bring you a bit o’ pudding when I’ve had mine, and a custard and things?”

“Very well,” said Tom, going away. But he turned again at the door and said, “But you’d better come, you know. There’s the dessert,—nuts, you know, and cowslip wine.”

Maggie’s tears had ceased, and she looked reflective as Tom left her. His good nature had taken off the keenest edge of her sufferings, and nuts with cowslip wine began to assert their legitimate influence.

Slowly she rose from amongst her scattered locks, and slowly she made her way downstairs. Then she stood leaning with one shoulder against[215] the frame of the dining-parlor door, peeping in when it was ajar. She saw Tom and Lucy with an empty chair between them, and there were the custards on a side table; it was too much. She slipped in and went toward the empty chair. But she had no sooner sat down than she repented and wished herself back again.

Mrs. Tulliver gave a little scream as she saw her, and felt such a “turn” that she dropped the large gravy-spoon into the dish, with the most serious results to the tablecloth. For Kezia had not betrayed the reason of Maggie’s refusal to come down, not liking to give her mistress a shock in the moment of carving, and Mrs. Tulliver thought there was nothing worse in question than a fit of perverseness, which was inflicting its own punishment by depriving Maggie of half her dinner.

Mrs. Tulliver’s scream made all eyes turn toward the same point as her own, and Maggie’s cheeks and ears began to burn, while uncle Glegg, a kind-looking, white-haired old gentleman, said,—

“Heyday! what little gell’s this? Why, I don’t know her. Is it some little gell you’ve picked up in the road, Kezia?”

“Why, she’s gone and cut her hair herself,” said Mr. Tulliver in an undertone to Mr. Deane, laughing with much enjoyment. “Did you ever know such a little hussy as it is?”

“Why, little miss, you’ve made yourself look very funny,” said uncle Pullet, and perhaps he never in his life made an observation which was felt to be so lacerating.

“Fie, for shame!” said aunt Glegg, in her loudest, severest tone of reproof. “Little gells as cut their[216] own hair should be whipped and fed on bread and water,—not come and sit down with their aunts and uncles.”

“Ay, ay,” said uncle Glegg, meaning to give a playful turn to this denunciation, “she must be sent to jail, I think, and they’ll cut the rest of her hair off there, and make it all even.”

“She’s more like a gypsy nor ever,” said aunt Pullet, in a pitying tone; “it’s very bad luck, sister, as the gell should be so brown; the boy’s fair enough. I doubt it’ll stand in her way i’ life to be so brown.”

“She’s a naughty child, as’ll break her mother’s heart,” said Mrs. Tulliver, with the tears in her eyes.

Maggie seemed to be listening to a chorus of reproach and derision. Her first flush came from anger, which gave her a transient power of defiance, and Tom thought she was braving it out, supported by the recent appearance of the pudding and custard. Under this impression, he whispered, “Oh, my! Maggie, I told you you’d catch it.” He meant to be friendly, but Maggie felt convinced that Tom was rejoicing in her ignominy. Her feeble power of defiance left her in an instant, her heart swelled, and getting up from her chair, she ran to her father, hid her face on his shoulder, and burst out into loud sobbing.

“Come, come, my wench,” said her father, soothingly, putting his arm round her, “never mind; you was i’ the right to cut it off if it plagued you; give over crying; father’ll take your part.”

Delicious words of tenderness! Maggie never forgot any of these moments when her father “took[217] her part”; she kept them in her heart, and thought of them long years after, when every one else said that her father had done very ill by his children.

With the dessert there came entire deliverance for Maggie, for the children were told they might have their nuts and wine in the summerhouse, since the day was so mild; and they scampered out among the building bushes of the garden with the alacrity of small animals getting from under a burning glass.

hile the possible troubles of Maggie’s future were occupying her father’s mind, she herself was tasting only bitterness of the present. Childhood has not forebodings; but then, it is soothed by no memories of out-lived sorrow.

The fact was, the day had begun ill with Maggie. The pleasure of having Lucy to look at, and the prospect of the afternoon visit to Garum Firs, where she would hear uncle Pullet’s musical box, had been marred as early as eleven o’clock by the advent of the hairdresser from Saint Ogg’s, who had spoken in the severest terms of the condition in which he had found her hair, holding up one jagged lock after another and saying, “see here! tut, tut, tut!” in a tone of mingled disgust and pity, which to Maggie’s imagination was equivalent to the strongest expression of public opinion. Mr. Rappit, the hairdresser, with his well-anointed coronal locks tending wavily upward, like the simulated pyramid of flame on a monumental urn, seemed to[218] her at that moment the most formidable of her contemporaries, into whose street at Saint Ogg’s she would carefully refrain from entering through the rest of her life.

Already, at twelve o’clock, Mrs. Tulliver had on her visiting costume, with a protective apparatus of brown holland, as if she had been a piece of satin furniture in danger of flies; Maggie was frowning and twisting her shoulders, that she might if possible shrink away from the prickliest of tuckers, while her mother was remonstrating, “Don’t, Maggie, my dear; don’t make yourself so ugly!” and Tom’s cheeks were looking particularly brilliant as a relief to his best blue suit, which he wore with becoming calmness, having, after a little wrangling, effected what was always the one point of interest to him in his toilet: he had transferred all the contents of his everyday pockets to those actually in wear.

As for Lucy, she was just as pretty and neat as she had been yesterday; no accidents ever happened to her clothes, and she was never uncomfortable in them, so that she looked with wondering pity at Maggie, pouting and writhing under the exasperating tucker. Maggie would certainly have torn it off, if she had not been checked by the remembrance of her recent humiliation about her hair; as it was, she confined herself to fretting and twisting, and behaving peevishly about the card houses which they were allowed to build till dinner, as a suitable amusement for boys and girls in their best clothes. Tom could build perfect pyramids of houses; but Maggie’s would never bear the laying on the roof. It was always so with the things that Maggie made;[219] and Tom had deduced the conclusion that no girls could ever make anything. But it happened that Lucy proved wonderfully clever at building; she handled the cards so lightly, and moved so gently, that Tom condescended to admire her houses as well as his own, the more readily because she had asked him to teach her. Maggie, too, would have admired Lucy’s houses, and would have given up her own unsuccessful building to contemplate them, without ill temper, if her tucker had not made her peevish, and if Tom had not inconsiderately laughed when her houses fell, and told her she was “a stupid.”

“Don’t laugh at me, Tom!” she burst out angrily; “I’m not a stupid. I know a great many things you don’t.”

“Oh, I dare say, Miss Spitfire! I’d never be such a cross thing as you, making faces like that. Lucy doesn’t do so. I like Lucy better than you; I wish Lucy was my sister.”

“Then it’s very wicked and cruel of you to wish so,” said Maggie, starting up hurriedly from her place on the floor, and upsetting Tom’s wonderful pagoda.

She really did not mean it, but the circumstantial evidence was against her, and Tom turned white with anger, but said nothing; he would have struck her, only he knew it was cowardly to strike a girl, and Tom Tulliver was quite determined he would never do anything cowardly.

Maggie stood in dismay and terror, while Tom got up from the floor and walked away, pale, from the scattered ruins of his pagoda, and Lucy looked on mutely, like a kitten pausing from its lapping.

[220]“Oh, Tom,” said Maggie, at last, going halfway toward him, “I didn’t mean to knock it down,—indeed, indeed I didn’t.”

Tom took no notice of her, but took, instead, two or three hard peas out of his pocket, and shot them with his thumb-nail against the window, vaguely at first, but presently with the distinct aim of hitting a superannuated blue bottle which was exposing its imbecility in the spring sunshine, clearly against the views of Nature, who had provided Tom and the peas for the speedy destruction of this weak individual.

Thus the morning had been made heavy to Maggie, and Tom’s persistent coldness to her all through their walk spoiled the fresh air and sunshine for her. He called Lucy to look at the half-built bird’s nest without caring to show it to Maggie, and peeled a willow switch for Lucy and himself, without offering one to Maggie. Lucy had said, “Maggie, shouldn’t you like one?” but Tom was deaf.

Still, the sight of the peacock opportunely spreading his tail on the stackyard wall, just as they reached Garum Firs, was enough to divert the mind temporarily from personal grievances. And this was only the beginning of beautiful sights at Garum Firs. All the farmyard life was wonderful there,—bantams, speckled and topknotted; Friesland hens, with their feathers all turned the wrong way; Guinea fowls that flew and screamed and dropped their pretty spotted feathers; pouter pigeons and a tame magpie; nay, a goat, and a wonderful brindled dog, half mastiff, half bulldog, as large as a lion. Then there were white railings and white gates all about, and glittering weathercocks[221] of various design, and garden walks paved with pebbles in beautiful patterns,—nothing was quite common at Garum Firs; and Tom thought that the unusual size of the toads there was simply due to the general unusualness which characterized uncle Pullet’s possessions as a gentleman farmer. Toads who paid rent were naturally leaner. As for the house, it was not less remarkable; it had a receding centre, and two wings with battlemented turrets, and was covered with glittering white stucco.

The small demons who had taken possession of Maggie’s soul at an earlier period of the day had returned in all the greater force after a temporary absence. All the disagreeable recollections of the morning were thick upon her, when Tom said, “Here, Lucy, you come along with me,” and walked off to the area where the toads were, as if there were no Maggie in existence. Seeing this, Maggie lingered at a distance, looking like a small Medusa with her snakes cropped. Lucy was naturally pleased that cousin Tom was so good to her, and it was very amusing to see him tickling a fat toad with a piece of string when the toad was safe down the area, with an iron grating over him. Still Lucy wished Maggie to enjoy the spectacle also, especially as she would doubtless find a name for the toad, and say what had been his past history; for Lucy had a delighted semi-belief in Maggie’s stories about the live things they came upon by accident,—how Mrs. Earwig had a wash at home, and one of her children had fallen into the hot copper, for which reason she was running so fast to fetch the doctor. Tom had a profound contempt for this[222] nonsense of Maggie’s, smashing the earwig at once as a superfluous yet easy means of proving the entire unreality of such a story; but Lucy, for the life of her, could not help fancying there was something in it, and at all events thought it was very pretty make-believe. So now the desire to know the history of a very portly toad, added to her habitual affectionateness, made her run to Maggie and say, “Oh, there is such a big, funny toad, Maggie! Do come and see!”

Maggie said nothing, but turned away from her with a deeper frown. As long as Tom seemed to prefer Lucy to her, Lucy made part of his unkindness. Maggie would have thought a little while ago that she could never be cross with pretty little Lucy, any more than she could be cruel to a little white mouse; but then, Tom had always been quite indifferent to Lucy before, and it had been left to Maggie to pet and make much of her. As it was, she was actually beginning to think that she should like to make Lucy cry by slapping or pinching her, especially as it might vex Tom, whom it was of no use to slap, even if she dared, because he didn’t mind it. And if Lucy hadn’t been there, Maggie was sure he would have got friends with her sooner.

Tickling a fat toad who is not highly sensitive is an amusement that it is possible to exhaust, and Tom by and by began to look round for some other mode of passing the time. But in so prim a garden, where they were not to go off the paved walks, there was not a great choice of sport. The only great pleasure such a restriction suggested was the pleasure of breaking it, and Tom began to meditate an[223] insurrectionary visit to the pond, about a field’s length beyond the garden.

“I say, Lucy,” he began, nodding his head up and down with great significance, as he coiled up his string again, “what do you think I mean to do?”

“I mean to go to the pond and look at the pike. You may go with me if you like,” said the young sultan.

“Oh, Tom, dare you?” said Lucy. “Aunt said we mustn’t go out of the garden.”

“Oh, I shall go out at the other end of the garden,” said Tom. “Nobody ’ull see us. Besides, I don’t care if they do,—I’ll run off home.”

“But I couldn’t run,” said Lucy, who had never before been exposed to such severe temptation.

“Oh, never mind; they won’t be cross with you,” said Tom. “You say I took you.”

Tom walked along, and Lucy trotted by his side, timidly enjoying the rare treat of doing something naughty,—excited also by the mention of that celebrity, the pike, about which she was quite uncertain whether it was a fish or a fowl. Maggie saw them leaving the garden, and could not resist the impulse to follow. Anger and jealousy can no more bear to lose sight of their objects than love, and that Tom and Lucy should do or see anything of which she was ignorant would have been an intolerable idea to Maggie. So she kept a few yards behind them, unobserved by Tom, who was presently absorbed in watching for the pike,—a highly interesting monster; he was said to be so very old, so very large, and to have such a remarkable appetite. The pike, like other celebrities, did[224] not show when he was watched for, but Tom caught sight of something in rapid movement in the water, which attracted him to another spot on the brink of the pond.

“Here, Lucy!” he said in a loud whisper, “come here! take care! keep on the grass!—don’t step where the cows have been!” he added, pointing to a peninsula of dry grass, with trodden mud on each[225] side of it; for Tom’s contemptuous conception of a girl included the attribute of being unfit to walk in dirty places.

Lucy came carefully as she was bidden, and bent down to look at what seemed a golden arrowhead darting through the water. It was a water snake, Tom told her; and Lucy at last could see the serpentine wave of its body, very much wondering that a snake could swim. Maggie had drawn nearer and nearer; she must see it too, though it was bitter to her, like everything else, since Tom did not care about her seeing it. At last she was close by Lucy; and Tom, who had been aware of her approach, but would not notice it till he was obliged, turned round and said,—

“Now, get away, Maggie; there’s no room for you on the grass here. Nobody asked you to come.”

There were passions at war in Maggie at that moment to have made a tragedy, if tragedies were made by passion only; the utmost Maggie could do, with a fierce thrust of her small brown arm, was to push poor little pink-and-white Lucy into the cow-trodden mud.

Then Tom could not restrain himself, and gave Maggie two smart slaps on the arm as he ran to pick up Lucy, who lay crying helplessly. Maggie retreated to the roots of a tree a few yards off, and looked on impenitently. Usually her repentance came quickly after one rash deed, but now Tom and Lucy had made her so miserable, she was glad to spoil their happiness,—glad to make everybody uncomfortable. Why should she be sorry? Tom was very slow to forgive her, however sorry she might have been.

[226]“I shall tell mother, you know, Miss Mag,” said Tom, loudly and emphatically, as soon as Lucy was up and ready to walk away. Lucy was too entirely absorbed by the evil that had befallen her,—the spoiling of her pretty best clothes, and the discomfort of being wet and dirty,—to think much of the cause, which was entirely mysterious to her. She could never have guessed what she had done to make Maggie angry with her; but she felt that Maggie was very unkind and disagreeable, and made no magnanimous entreaties to Tom that he would not “tell,” only running along by his side and crying piteously, while Maggie sat on the roots of the tree and looked after them with her small Medusa face.

“Sally,” said Tom, when they reached the kitchen door, and Sally looked at them in speechless amaze, with a piece of bread-and-butter in her mouth and a toasting-fork in her hand,—“Sally, tell mother it was Maggie pushed Lucy into the mud.”

“But Lors ha’ massy, how did you get near such mud as that?” said Sally, making a wry face, as she stooped down and examined the corpus delicti.

Tom’s imagination had not been rapid and capacious enough to include this question among the foreseen consequences, but it was no sooner put than he foresaw whither it tended, and that Maggie would not be considered the only culprit in the case. He walked quietly away from the kitchen door, leaving Sally to that pleasure of guessing which active minds notoriously prefer to ready-made knowledge.

Sally lost no time in presenting Lucy at the parlor door, for to have so dirty an object introduced[227] into the house at Garum Firs was too great a weight to be sustained by a single mind.

“Goodness gracious!” aunt Pullet exclaimed, after preluding by an inarticulate scream; “keep her at the door, Sally! Don’t bring her off the oilcloth, whatever you do.”

“Why, she’s tumbled into some nasty mud,” said Mrs. Tulliver, going up to Lucy to examine into the amount of damage to clothes for which she felt herself responsible to her sister Deane.

“If you please, ’um, it was Miss Maggie as pushed her in,” said Sally; “Master Tom’s been and said so, and they must ha’ been to the pond, for it’s only there they could ha’ got into such dirt.”

“There it is, Bessy; it’s what I’ve been telling you,” said Mrs. Pullet, in a tone of prophetic sadness; “it’s your children,—there’s no knowing what they’ll come to.”

Mrs. Tulliver was mute, feeling herself a truly wretched mother. As usual, the thought pressed upon her that people would think she had done something wicked to deserve her maternal troubles, while Mrs. Pullet began to give elaborate directions to Sally how to guard the premises from serious injury in the course of removing the dirt. Meantime tea was to be brought in by the cook, and the two naughty children were to have theirs in an ignominious manner in the kitchen. Mrs. Tulliver went out to speak to these naughty children, supposing them to be close at hand; but it was not until after some search that she found Tom leaning with a careless air against the white paling of the poultry yard, and lowering his piece of string on the other side as a means of exasperating the turkey cock.

[228]“Tom, you naughty boy, where’s your sister?” said Mrs. Tulliver, in a distressed voice.

“I don’t know,” said Tom; his eagerness for justice on Maggie had diminished since he had seen clearly that it could hardly be brought about without the injustice of some blame on his own conduct.

“Sitting under the tree, against the pond,” said Tom, apparently indifferent to everything but the string and the turkey cock.

“Then go and fetch her in this minute, you naughty boy. And how could you think o’ going to the pond, and taking your sister where there was dirt? You know she’ll do mischief if there’s mischief to be done.”

It was Mrs. Tulliver’s way, if she blamed Tom, to refer his misdemeanor, somehow or other, to Maggie.

The idea of Maggie sitting alone by the pond roused an habitual fear in Mrs. Tulliver’s mind, and she mounted the horse block to satisfy herself by a sight of that fatal child, while Tom walked—not very quickly—on his way toward her.

“They’re such children for the water, mine are,” she said aloud, without reflecting that there was no one to hear her; “they’ll be brought in dead and drownded some day. I wish that river was far enough.”

But when she not only failed to discern Maggie, but presently saw Tom returning from the pool alone, this hovering fear entered and took complete possession of her, and she hurried to meet him.

[229]“Maggie’s nowhere about the pond, mother,” said Tom; “she’s gone away.”

You may conceive the terrified search for Maggie, and the difficulty of convincing her mother that she was not in the pond. Mrs. Pullet observed that the child might come to a worse end if she lived, there was no knowing; and Mr. Pullet reached down a key to the goose-pen as a likely place for Maggie to lie concealed in.

Tom, after a while, started the idea that Maggie was gone home, and the suggestion was seized as a comfort by his mother.

“Sister, for goodness’ sake let ’em put the horse in the carriage and take me home; we shall perhaps find her on the road. Lucy can’t walk in her dirty clothes,” she said, looking at that innocent victim, who was wrapped up in a shawl, and sitting with naked feet on the sofa.

Aunt Pullet was quite willing to take the shortest means of restoring her premises to order and quiet, and it was not long before Mrs. Tulliver was in the chaise, looking anxiously at the most distant point before her. What the father would say if Maggie was lost, was a question that predominated over every other.

aggie’s intentions, as usual, were on a larger scale than Tom had imagined. The resolution that gathered in her mind, after Tom and Lucy had walked away, was not so simple as that of going home. No! she would run away and go to the gypsies, and Tom should never see her any more. That was by no means[230] a new idea to Maggie; she had been so often told she was like a gypsy, and “half wild,” that when she was miserable it seemed to her the only way of escaping opprobrium, and being entirely in harmony with circumstances, would be to live in a little brown tent on the commons; the gypsies, she considered, would gladly receive her and pay her much respect on account of her superior knowledge. She had once mentioned her views on this point to Tom, and suggested that he should stain his face brown, and they should run away together; but Tom rejected the scheme with contempt, observing that gypsies were thieves, and hardly got anything to eat, and had nothing to drive but a donkey. To-day, however, Maggie thought her misery had reached a pitch at which gypsydom was her only refuge, and she rose from her seat on the roots of the tree with the sense that this was a great crisis in her life; she would run straight away till she came to Dunlow Common, where there would certainly be gypsies; and cruel Tom, and the rest of her relations who found fault with her, should never see her any more. She thought of her father as she ran along, but she reconciled herself to the idea of parting with him, by determining that she would secretly send him a letter by a small gypsy, who would run away without telling where she was, and just let him know that she was well and happy, and always loved him very much.

Maggie soon got out of breath with running, but by the time Tom got to the pond again she was at the distance of three long fields, and was on the edge of the lane leading to the highroad. She stopped to pant a little, reflecting that running[231] away was not a pleasant thing until one had got quite to the common where the gypsies were, but her resolution had not abated; she presently passed through the gate into the lane, not knowing where it would lead her; for it was not this way that they came from Dorlcote Mill to Garum Firs, and she felt all the safer for that, because there was no chance of her being overtaken. But she was soon aware, not without trembling, that there were two men coming along the lane in front of her; she had not thought of meeting strangers, she had been too much occupied with the idea of her friends coming after her. The formidable strangers were two shabby-looking men with flushed faces, one of them carrying a bundle on a stick over his shoulder; but to her surprise, while she was dreading their disapprobation as a runaway, the man with the bundle stopped, and in a half-whining, half-coaxing tone asked her if she had a copper to give a poor man. Maggie had a sixpence in her pocket, which she immediately drew out and gave this poor man with a polite smile, hoping that he would feel very kindly toward her as a generous person. “That’s the only money I’ve got,” she said apologetically. “Thank you, little miss,” said the man, in a less respectful and grateful tone than Maggie anticipated, and she even observed that he smiled and winked at his companion. She walked on hurriedly, but was aware that the two men were standing still, probably to look after her, and she presently heard them laughing loudly. Suddenly it occurred to her that they might think she was an idiot; Tom had said that her cropped hair made her look like an idiot, and it was too painful an idea to be readily forgotten.[232] Besides, she had no sleeves on—only a cape and a bonnet. It was clear that she was not likely to make a favorable impression on passengers, and she thought she would turn into the fields again.

She turned through the first gate that was not locked, and felt a delightful sense of privacy in creeping along by the hedgerows, after her recent humiliating encounter. She was used to wandering about the fields by herself, and was less timid there than on the highroad. Sometimes she had to climb over high gates, but that was a small evil; she was getting out of reach very fast, and she would probably soon come within sight of Dunlow Common, or at least of some other common, for she had heard her father say that she couldn’t go very far without coming to a common. She hoped so, for she was getting rather tired and hungry, and until she reached the gypsies there was no definite prospect of bread and butter. It was still broad daylight; so though it was nearly an hour since Maggie started, there was no gathering gloom on the fields to remind her that the night would come. Still, it seemed to her that she had been walking a very great distance indeed, and it was really surprising that the common did not come within sight.

At last, however, the green fields came to an end, and Maggie found herself looking through the bars of a gate into a lane with a wide margin of grass on each side of it. She had never seen such a wide lane before, and, without her knowing why, it gave her the impression that the common could not be far off; perhaps it was because she saw a donkey with a log to his foot feeding on the grassy margin, for she had seen a donkey with that pitiable encumbrance[233] on Dunlow Common when she had been across it in her father’s gig. She crept through the bars of the gate and walked on with new spirit, though not without haunting images of Apollyon, and a highwayman with a pistol, and a blinking dwarf in yellow with a mouth from ear to ear, and other miscellaneous dangers. For poor little Maggie had at once the timidity of an active imagination, and the daring that comes from over-mastering impulse. She had rushed into the adventure of seeking her unknown kindred, the gypsies; and now she was in this strange lane, she hardly dared look on one side of her, lest she should see the diabolical blacksmith in his leathern apron grinning at her with arms akimbo. It was not without a leaping of the heart that she caught sight of a small pair of bare legs sticking up, feet uppermost, by the side of a hillock; they seemed something hideously preternatural,—a diabolical kind of fungus; for she was too much agitated at the first glance to see the ragged clothes and the dark shaggy head attached to them. It was a boy asleep, and Maggie trotted along faster and more lightly, lest she should wake him; it did not occur to her that he was one of her friends the gypsies, who in all probability would have very genial manners. But the fact was so, for at the next bend in the lane Maggie actually saw the little semi-circular black tent with the blue smoke rising before it, which was to be her refuge from all the blighting obloquy that had pursued her in civilized life. She even saw a tall female figure by the column of smoke, doubtless the gypsy-mother, who provided the tea and other groceries; it was astonishing to herself that she did not feel[234] more delight. But it was startling to find the gypsies in a lane, after all, and not on a common; indeed, it was rather disappointing; for a mysterious illimitable common, where there were sand pits to hide in, and one was out of everybody’s reach, had always made part of Maggie’s picture of gypsy life. She went on, however, and thought with some comfort that gypsies most likely knew nothing about idiots, so there was no danger of their falling into the mistake of setting her down at the first glance as an idiot.

It was plain she had attracted attention; for the tall figure, who proved to be a young woman with a baby on her arm, walked slowly to meet her. Maggie looked up in the new face rather tremblingly as it approached, and was reassured by the thought that her aunt Pullet and the rest were right when they called her a gypsy; for this face, with the bright dark eyes and the long hair, was really something like what she used to see in the glass before she cut her hair off.

“My little lady, where are you going to?” the gypsy said, in a tone of coaxing deference.

It was delightful, and just what Maggie expected; the gypsies saw at once that she was a little lady, and were prepared to treat her accordingly.

“Not any farther,” said Maggie, feeling as if she were saying what she had rehearsed in a dream. “I’m come to stay with you, please.”

“That’s pretty; come, then. Why, what a nice little lady you are, to be sure!” said the gypsy, taking her by the hand. Maggie thought her very agreeable, but wished she had not been so dirty.

[235]There was quite a group round the fire when they reached it. An old gypsy woman was seated on the ground nursing her knees, and occasionally poking a skewer into the round kettle that sent forth an odorous steam; two small shock-headed children were lying prone and resting on their elbows something like small sphinxes; and a placid donkey was bending his head over a tall girl, who, lying on her back, was scratching his nose and indulging him with a bite of excellent stolen hay. The slanting sunlight fell kindly upon them, and the scene was really very pretty and comfortable, Maggie thought, only she hoped they would soon set out the teacups. Everything would be quite charming when she had taught the gypsies to use a washing basin, and to feel an interest in books. It was a little confusing, though, that the young woman began to speak to the old one in a language which Maggie did not understand, while the tall girl, who was feeding the donkey, sat up and stared at her without offering any salutation. At last the old woman said,—

“What! my pretty lady, are you come to stay with us? Sit ye down and tell us where you come from.”

It was just like a story; Maggie liked to be called pretty lady and treated in this way. She sat down and said,—

“I’m come from home because I’m unhappy, and I mean to be a gypsy. I’ll live with you if you like, and I can teach you a great many things.”

“Such a clever little lady,” said the woman with the baby, sitting down by Maggie, and allowing baby to crawl; “and such a pretty bonnet and[236] frock,” she added, taking off Maggie’s bonnet and looking at it while she made an observation to the old woman, in the unknown language. The tall girl snatched the bonnet and put it on her own head hind-foremost with a grin; but Maggie was determined not to show any weakness on this subject, as if she were susceptible about her bonnet.

“I don’t want to wear a bonnet,” she said; “I’d rather wear a red handkerchief, like yours” (looking at her friend by her side). “My hair was quite long till yesterday, when I cut it off; but I dare say it will grow again very soon,” she added apologetically, thinking it probable the gypsies had a strong prejudice in favor of long hair. And Maggie had forgotten even her hunger at that moment in the desire to conciliate gypsy opinion.

“Oh, what a nice little lady!—and rich, I’m sure,” said the old woman. “Didn’t you live in a beautiful house at home?”

“Yes, my home is pretty, and I’m very fond of the river, where we go fishing, but I’m often very unhappy. I should have liked to bring my books with me, but I came away in a hurry, you know. But I can tell you almost everything there is in my books, I’ve read them so many times, and that will amuse you. And I can tell you something about Geography too—that’s about the world we live in—very useful and interesting. Did you ever hear about Columbus?”

Maggie’s eyes had begun to sparkle and her cheeks to flush—she was really beginning to instruct the gypsies, and gaining great influence over them. The gypsies themselves were not without amazement at this talk, though their attention was divided[237] by the contents of Maggie’s pocket, which the friend at her right hand had by this time emptied without attracting her notice.

“Is that where you live, my little lady?” said the old woman, at the mention of Columbus.

“Oh, no!” said Maggie, with some pity; “Columbus was a very wonderful man, who found out half the world, and they put chains on him and treated him very badly, you know; it’s in my Catechism of Geography, but perhaps it’s rather too long to tell before tea—I want my tea so.”

The last words burst from Maggie, in spite of herself, with a sudden drop from patronizing instruction to simple peevishness.

“Why she’s hungry, poor little lady,” said the younger woman. “Give her some o’ the cold victual. You’re been walking a good way, I’ll be bound, my dear. Where’s your home?”

“It’s Dorlcote Mill, a good way off,” said Maggie. “My father is Mr. Tulliver, but we mustn’t let him know where I am, else he’ll fetch me home again. Where does the queen of the gypsies live?”

“What! do you want to go to her, my little lady?” said the younger woman. The tall girl meanwhile was constantly staring at Maggie and grinning. Her manners were certainly not agreeable.

“No,” said Maggie, “I’m only thinking that if she isn’t a very good queen you might be glad when she died, and you could choose another. If I was a queen, I’d be a very good queen, and kind to everybody.”

“Here’s a bit o’ nice victual, then,” said the old woman, handing to Maggie a lump of dry bread, and a piece of cold bacon.

[238]“Thank you,” said Maggie, looking at the food without taking it; “but will you give me some bread-and-butter and tea instead? I don’t like bacon.”

“We’ve got no tea nor butter,” said the old woman, with something like a scowl, as if she were getting tired of coaxing.

“We han’t got no treacle,” said the old woman, crossly, whereupon there followed a sharp dialogue between the two women in their unknown tongue, and one of the small sphinxes snatched at the bread and bacon, and began to eat it. At this moment the tall girl, who had gone a few yards off, came back, and said something which produced a strong effect. The old woman, seeming to forget Maggie’s hunger, poked the skewer into the pot with new vigor, and the younger crept under the tent, and reached out some platters and spoons. Maggie trembled a little, and was afraid the tears would come into her eyes. Meanwhile the tall girl gave a shrill cry, and presently came running up the boy whom Maggie had passed as he was sleeping,—a rough urchin about the age of Tom. He stared at Maggie, and there ensued much incomprehensible chattering. She felt very lonely, and was quite sure she should begin to cry before long; the gypsies didn’t seem to mind her at all, and she felt quite weak among them. But the springing tears were checked by new terror, when two men came up, whose approach had been the cause of the sudden excitement. The elder of the two carried a bag, which he flung down, addressing the women in a loud and scolding tone, which they answered by a[239] shower of treble sauciness; while a black cur ran barking up to Maggie, and threw her into a tremor that only found a new cause in the curses with which the younger man called the dog off, and gave him a rap with a great stick he held in his hand.

Maggie felt that it was impossible she should ever be queen of these people, or ever communicate to them amusing and useful knowledge.

Both the men now seemed to be inquiring about Maggie, for they looked at her, and the tone of the conversation became of that pacific kind which implies curiosity on one side and the power of satisfying it on the other. At last the younger woman said in her previous deferential, coaxing tone,—

“Ay, very glad,” said the younger man, who was looking at Maggie’s silver thimble and other small matters that had been taken from her pocket. He returned them all except the thimble to the younger woman, with some observation, and she immediately restored them to Maggie’s pocket, while the men seated themselves, and began to attack the contents of the kettle,—a stew of meat and potatoes,—which had been taken off the fire and turned out into a yellow platter.

Maggie began to think that Tom must be right about the gypsies; they must certainly be thieves, unless the man meant to return her thimble by and by. She would willingly have given it to him, for she was not at all attached to her thimble; but the idea that she was among thieves prevented her from feeling any comfort in the revival of deference and attention toward her; all thieves, except Robin[240] Hood, were wicked people. The women saw she was frightened.

“We’ve got nothing nice for a lady to eat,” said the old woman, in her coaxing tone. “And she’s so hungry, sweet little lady.”

“Here, my dear, try if you can eat a bit o’ this,” said the younger woman, handing some of the stew on a brown dish with an iron spoon to Maggie, who, remembering that the old woman had seemed angry with her for not liking the bread and bacon, dared not refuse the stew, though fear had chased away her appetite. If her father would but come by in the gig and take her up! Or even if Jack the Giantkiller, or Mr. Greatheart, or Saint George who slew the dragon on the half-pennies, would happen to pass that way! But Maggie thought with a sinking heart that these heroes were never seen in the neighborhood of Saint Ogg’s; nothing very wonderful ever came there.

Maggie Tulliver, you perceive, was by no means that well-trained, well-informed young person that a small female of eight or nine necessarily is in these days; she had only been to school a year at Saint Ogg’s, and had so few books that she sometimes read the dictionary; so that in traveling over her small mind you would have found the most unexpected ignorance as well as unexpected knowledge. She could have informed you that there was such a word as “polygamy,” and being also acquainted with “polysyllable,” she had deduced the conclusion that “poly” meant “many”; but she had had no idea that gypsies were not well supplied with groceries, and her thoughts were the oddest mixture of clear-eyed acumen and blind dreams.

[241]Her ideas about the gypsies had undergone a rapid modification in the last five minutes. From having considered them very respectful companions, amenable to instruction, she had begun to think that they meant perhaps to kill her as soon as it was dark, and cut up her body for gradual cooking; the suspicion crossed her that the fierce-eyed old man was in fact the Devil, who might drop that transparent disguise at any moment, and turn either into a grinning blacksmith, or else a fiery-eyed monster with dragon’s wings. It was no use trying to eat the stew, and yet the thing she most dreaded was to offend the gypsies, by betraying her extremely unfavorable opinion of them; and she wondered, with a keenness of interest that no theologian could have exceeded, whether, if the Devil were really present, he would know her thoughts.

“What! you don’t like the smell of it, my dear,” said the young woman, observing that Maggie did not even take a spoonful of the stew. “Try a bit, come.”

“No, thank you,” said Maggie, summoning all her force for a desperate effort, and trying to smile in a friendly way. “I haven’t time, I think; it seems getting darker. I think I must go home now, and come again another day, and then I can bring you a basket with some jam-tarts and things.”

Maggie rose from her seat as she threw out this illusory prospect, devoutly hoping that Apollyon was gullible; but her hope sank when the old gypsy woman said, “Stop a bit, stop a bit, little lady; we’ll take you home, all safe, when we’ve done supper; you shall ride home, like a lady.”

[242]Maggie sat down again, with little faith in this promise, though she presently saw the tall girl putting a bridle on the donkey, and throwing a couple of bags on his back.

“Now, then, little missis,” said the younger man, rising, and leading the donkey forward, “tell us where you live; what’s the name of the place?”

“Dorlcote Mill is my home,” said Maggie, eagerly. “My father is Mr. Tulliver; he lives there.”

“Yes,” said Maggie. “Is it far off? I think I should like to walk there, if you please.”

“No, no, it’ll be getting dark, we must make haste. And the donkey’ll carry you as nice as can be; you’ll see.”

He lifted Maggie as he spoke, and set her on the donkey. She felt relieved that it was not the old man who seemed to be going with her, but she had only a trembling hope that she was really going home.

“Here’s your pretty bonnet,” said the younger woman, putting that recently despised but now welcome article of costume on Maggie’s head; “and you’ll say we’ve been very good to you, won’t you? and what a nice little lady we said you was.”

“Oh yes, thank you,” said Maggie, “I’m very much obliged to you. But I wish you’d go with me too.” She thought anything was better than going with one of the dreadful men alone; it would be more cheerful to be murdered by a larger party.

“Ah, you’re fondest o’ me, aren’t you?” said the woman. “But I can’t go; you’ll go too fast for me.”

It now appeared that the man also was to be seated on the donkey, holding Maggie before him, and she was as incapable of remonstrating against this arrangement as the donkey himself, though no nightmare had ever seemed to her more horrible. When the woman had patted her on the back and said “Good-bye,” the donkey, at a strong hint from the man’s stick, set off at a rapid walk along the[244] lane toward the point Maggie had come from an hour ago, while the tall girl and the rough urchin, also furnished with sticks, obligingly escorted them for the first hundred yards, with much screaming and thwacking.

Not Leonore, in that preternatural midnight excursion with her phantom lover, was more terrified than poor Maggie in this entirely natural ride on a short-paced donkey, with a gypsy behind her, who considered that he was earning half-a-crown. The red light of the setting sun seemed to have a portentous meaning, with which the alarming bray of the second donkey with the log on its foot must surely have some connection. Two low thatched cottages—the only houses they passed in this lane—seemed to add to its dreariness; they had no windows to speak of, and the doors were closed; it was probable that they were inhabited by witches, and it was a relief to find that the donkey did not stop there.

At last—oh, sight of joy!—this lane, the longest in the world, was coming to an end, was opening on a broad highroad, where there was actually a coach passing! And there was a finger-post at the corner,—she had surely seen that finger-post before,—“To Saint Ogg’s, 2 miles.” The gypsy really meant to take her home, then; he was probably a good man, after all, and might have been rather hurt at the thought that she didn’t like coming with him alone. This idea became stronger as she felt more and more certain that she knew the road quite well, and she was considering how she might open a conversation with the injured gypsy, and[245] not only gratify his feelings, but efface the impression of her cowardice, when, as they reached a crossroad, Maggie caught sight of some one coming on a white-faced horse.

“Oh, stop, stop!” she cried out. “There’s my father! Oh, father, father!”

The sudden joy was almost painful, and before her father reached her, she was sobbing. Great was Mr. Tulliver’s wonder, for he had made a round from Basset, and had not yet been home.

“Why, what’s the meaning o’ this?” he said, checking his horse, while Maggie slipped from the donkey and ran to her father’s stirrup.

“The little miss lost herself, I reckon,” said the gypsy. “She’d come to our tent at the far end o’ Dunlow Lane, and I was bringing her where she said her home was. It’s a good way to come after being on the tramp all day.”

“Oh yes, father, he’s been very good to bring me home,” said Maggie,—“a very kind, good man!”

“Here, then, my man,” said Mr. Tulliver, taking out five shillings. “It’s the best day’s work you ever did. I couldn’t afford to lose the little wench; here, lift her up before me.”

“Why, Maggie, how’s this, how’s this?” he said, as they rode along, while she laid her head against her father and sobbed. “How came you to be rambling about and lose yourself?”

“Oh, father,” sobbed Maggie, “I ran away because I was so unhappy; Tom was so angry with me. I couldn’t bear it.”

“Pooh, pooh,” said Mr. Tulliver, soothingly, “you mustn’t think o’ running away from father.[246] What ’ud father do without his little wench?”

Mr. Tulliver spoke his mind very strongly when he reached home that evening; and the effect was seen in the remarkable fact that Maggie never heard one reproach from her mother, or one taunt from Tom, about this foolish business of her running away to the gypsies. Maggie was rather awe-stricken by this unusual treatment, and sometimes thought that her conduct had been too wicked to be alluded to.

A GORILLA HUNT

had not been at the village long before news came that gorillas had been recently seen in the neighborhood of a plantation only half a mile distant. Early in the morning of the twenty-fifth of June, I wended my way thither, accompanied by one of my boys, named Odanga. The plantation was a large one, and situated on very broken ground, surrounded by the virgin forest. It was a lovely morning; the sky was almost cloudless, and all around was still as death, except the slight rustling of the tree tops moved by the gentle land breeze. When I reached the place, I had first to pick my way through the maze of tree stumps and half-burnt logs by the side of a field of cassada. I was going quietly along the borders of this, when I heard, in the grove of plantain trees towards which I was walking, a great crashing noise, like the breaking of trees. I immediately hid myself behind a bush, and was soon gratified with the sight of a female gorilla; but before I had time to notice its movements, a second and third emerged from the masses of colossal foliage; at length no less than four came into view.

They were all busily engaged in tearing down the larger trees. One of the females had a young[248] one following her. I had an excellent opportunity of watching the movements of the impish-looking band. The shaggy hides, the protuberant abdomens, the hideous features of these strange creatures, whose forms so nearly resemble man, made up a picture like a vision in some morbid dream. In destroying a tree, they first grasped the base of the stem with one of their feet, and then with their powerful arms pulled it down, a matter of not much difficulty with so loosely formed a stem as that of the plantain. They then set upon the juicy heart of the trees at the bases of the leaves, and devoured it with great voracity. While eating they made a kind of clucking noise, expressive of contentment. Many trees they destroyed apparently out of pure mischief. Now and then they stood still and looked around. Once or twice they seemed on the point of starting off in alarm, but recovered themselves and continued their work. Gradually they got nearer to the edge of the dark forest, and finally disappeared. I was so intent on watching them, that I let go the last chance of shooting one almost before I became aware of it.

The next day I went again with Odanga to the same spot. I had no expectation of seeing gorillas in the same plantation, and was carrying a light shot gun, having given my heavy double-barreled rifle to the boy to carry. The plantation extended over two hills, with a deep hollow between, planted with sugar cane. Before I had crossed the hollow I saw on the opposite slope a monstrous gorilla, standing erect and looking directly towards me. Without turning my face I beckoned to the boy[249] to bring me my rifle, but no rifle came,—the little coward had bolted, and I lost my chance. The huge beast stared at me for about two minutes, and then, without uttering any cry, moved off to the shade of the forest, running nimbly on his hands and feet.

As my readers may easily imagine, I had excellent opportunity of observing, during these two days, the manner in which the gorillas walked when in open ground. They move along with great rapidity and on all fours, that is, with the knuckles of their hands touching the ground. Artists, in representing the gorilla walking, generally make the arms too much bowed outwards, and the elbows too much bent; this gives the figures an appearance of heaviness and awkwardness. When the gorillas that I watched left their plantain trees, they moved off at a great pace over the ground, with their arms extended straight forward towards the ground, and moving rapidly. I may mention also that having now opened the stomachs of several freshly killed gorillas, I have never found anything but vegetable matter in them.

When I returned to Nkongon Mboumba I found there my old friend Akondogo, chief of one of the Commi villages, who had just returned from the Ngobi country, a little further south. To my great surprise and pleasure, he had brought for me a living gorilla, a young one, but the largest I had ever seen captured alive. Like Joe, the young male whose habits in confinement I described in ‘Equatorial Africa,’ this one showed the most violent and ungovernable disposition. He tried to[250] bite every one who came near him, and was obliged to be secured by a forked stick closely applied to the back of his neck. This mode of imprisoning these animals is a very improper one if the object be to keep them alive and to tame them, but, unfortunately, in this barbarous country, we had not the materials requisite to build a strong cage. The injury caused to this one by the forked stick eventually caused his death. As I had some more hunting to do, I left the animal in charge of Akondogo until he should have an opportunity of sending it to me on the Fernand Vaz.

The natives of all the neighboring country were now so well aware that I wanted live gorillas, and was willing to give a high price for them, that many were stimulated to search with great perseverance; the good effects of this were soon made evident.

One day as I was quietly dining with Captain Holder, of the Cambria (a vessel just arrived from England), one of my men came in with the startling news that three live gorillas had been brought, one of them full grown. I had not long to wait; in they came. First, a very large adult female, bound hand and foot; then her female child, screaming terribly; and lastly, a vigorous young male, also tightly bound. The female had been ingeniously secured by the negroes to a strong stick, the wrists bound to the upper part and the ankles to the lower, so that she could not reach to tear the cords with her teeth. It was dark, and the scene was one so wild and strange that I shall never forget it. The fiendish countenances of the Calibanish[251] trio, one of them distorted by pain, for the mother gorilla was severely wounded, were lit up by the ruddy glare of native torches. The thought struck me, what would I not give to have the group in London for a few days!

The young male I secured by a chain which I had in readiness, and gave him henceforth the name of Tom. We untied his hands and feet; to show[252] his gratitude for this act of kindness he immediately made a rush at me, screaming with all his might; happily the chain was made fast, and I took care afterwards to keep out of his way. The old mother gorilla was in an unfortunate plight. She had an arm broken and a wound in the chest, besides being dreadfully beaten on the head. She groaned and roared many times during the night, probably from pain.

I noticed next day, and on many occasions, that the vigorous young male whenever he made a rush at any one and missed his aim, immediately ran back. This corresponds with what is known of the habits of the large males in their native woods; when attacked they make a furious rush at their enemy, break an arm or tear his bowels open, and then beat a retreat, leaving their victim to shift for himself.

The wounded female died in the course of the next day; her moanings were more frequent in the morning, and they gradually became weaker as her life ebbed out. Her death was like that of a human being, and afflicted me more than I could have thought possible. Her child clung to her to the last, and tried to obtain milk from her breast after she was dead. I photographed them both when the young one was resting in its dead mother’s lap. I kept the young one alive for three days after its mother’s death. It moaned at night most piteously. I fed it on goat’s milk, for it was too young to eat berries. It died the fourth day, having taken an unconquerable dislike to the milk. It had, I think, begun to know me a little. As to the male,[253] I made at least a dozen attempts to photograph the irascible little demon, but all in vain. The pointing of the camera towards him threw him into a perfect rage, and I was almost provoked to give him a sound thrashing. The day after, however, I succeeded with him, taking two views, not very perfect, but sufficient for my object.

I must now relate how these three animals were caught, premising that the capture of the female was the first instance of an adult gorilla being taken alive. The place where they were found was on the left bank of the Fernand Vaz, about thirty miles above my village. At this part a narrow promontory projects into the river. It was the place where I had intended to take the distinguished traveler, Captain Burton, to show him a live gorilla, if he had paid me a visit, as I had expected, for I had written to invite him whilst he was on a tour from his consulate at Fernando Po to several points on the West African coast.

A woman, belonging to a neighboring village, had told her people that she had seen two squads of female gorillas, some of them accompanied by their young ones, in her plantain field. The men resolved to go in chase of them, so they armed themselves with guns, axes, and spears, and sallied forth.

The situation was very favorable for the hunters; they formed a line across the narrow strip of land and pressed forward, driving the animals to the edge of the water. When they came in sight of them, they made all the noise in their power, and thus bewildered the gorillas, who were shot or beaten down in their endeavors to escape. There[254] were eight adult females altogether, but not a single male. The negroes thought the males were in concealment in the adjoining woods, having probably been frightened away by the noise.

This incident led me to modify somewhat the opinions I had expressed, in ‘Adventures in Equatorial Africa,’ regarding some of the habits of the gorilla. I there said I believed it impossible to capture an adult female alive, but I ought to have added, unless wounded. I have also satisfied myself that the gorilla is more gregarious than I formerly considered it to be; at least it is now clear that, at certain times of the year, it goes in bands more numerous than those I saw in my former journey. Then I never saw more than five together. I have myself seen, on my present expedition, two of these bands of gorillas, numbering eight or ten, and have had authentic accounts from the natives of other similar bands. It is true that, when gorillas become aged, they seem to be more solitary, and to live in pairs, or, as in the case of old males, quite alone. I have been assured by the negroes that solitary and aged gorillas are sometimes seen almost white; the hair becomes grizzled with age, and I have no doubt that the statement of their becoming occasionally white with extreme old age is quite correct.

The gorilla is of migratory habits at some seasons of the year. He is then not found in the districts usually resorted to by him when the berries, fruits, and nuts are in season.

Besides my other collections I embarked a live gorilla, our little friend Tom, and had full hopes that he would arrive safely and gratify the world[255] of London with a sight of this rare and wonderful ape in the living state; unfortunately, he died on the passage. He did very well for a few weeks, I am told, as long as the supply of bananas lasted which I placed on board for his sustenance. The repugnance of the gorilla to cooked food, or any sort of food except the fruits and juicy plants he obtains in his own wilds, will always be a difficulty in the way of bringing him to Europe alive. I had sent him consigned to Messrs. Baring, who, I am sure, never had any such consignment before. I promised the Captain that he should receive one hundred pounds if he succeeded in taking the animal alive to London.

During the few days Tom was in my possession he remained, like all the others of his species that I had seen, utterly untractable. The food that was offered to him he would come and snatch from the hand, and then bolt with it to the length of his tether. If I looked at him he would make a feint of darting at me, and in giving him water I had to push the bowl towards him with a stick, for fear of his biting me. When he was angry I saw him often beat the ground and his legs with his fists, thus showing a similar habit to that of the adult gorillas, which I described as beating their breasts with their fists when confronting an enemy. Before lying down to rest he used to pack his straw very carefully as a bed to lie on. Tom used to wake me in the night by screaming suddenly, and in the morning I more than once detected him in the attempt to strangle himself with his chain, no doubt through rage at being kept prisoner. He used to twist the[256] chain round and round the post, to which it was attached until it became quite short and then pressed with his feet the lower part of the post until he had nearly done the business.

As I have before related, I took photographs of Tom, and succeeded very well. These photographs I was unwilling to send home, and kept them until I should have completed my whole series of photographs of African subjects. They are now, unfortunately, lost forever; for they were left behind in the bush during my hurried retreat from Ashango-land, as will be related in the sequel.

When the last boat which took on board the Captain and the live animals left the shore for the vessel, I trembled for the safety of the cargo, for the surf was very rough. The negroes, however, could have managed to get her safely through if they had not been too careful. They were nervous at having a white man on board, and did not seize the proper moment to pass the breakers; their hesitation was very near proving fatal, for a huge billow broke over them and filled the boat. It did not, happily, upset, but they had to return. Captain Berridge thus escaped with a wetting, and the Potamochoerus and eagles were half drowned. As to poor Tom, the bath, instead of cooling his courage, made him more violent than ever. He shouted furiously, and as soon as I opened the door of his cage he pounced on the bystanders, clinging to them and screaming. A present of a banana, which he ate voraciously, quieted him down, and the passage was again tried in the afternoon with a better result.

THE CLOUD

I bring fresh showers for the thirsting flowers,
From the seas and the streams;
I bear light shade for the leaves when laid
In their noonday dreams.
From my wings are shaken the dews that waken
The sweet buds every one,
When rocked to rest on their mother’s breast,
As she dances about the sun.
I wield the flail of the lashing hail,
And whiten the green plains under;
And then again I dissolve it in rain,
And laugh as I pass in thunder.

I sift the snow on the mountains below,
And their great pines groan aghast;
And all the night ’tis my pillow white,
While I sleep in the arms of the blast.
Sublime on the towers of my skyey bowers
Lightning, my pilot, sits,
In a cavern under is fettered the thunder;
It struggles and howls by fits.
Over earth and ocean, with gentle motion,
This pilot is guiding me,
Lured by the love of the genii that move
In the depths of the purple sea;
Over the rills and the crags and the hills,
Over the lakes and the plains,
[258]Wherever he dream, under mountain or stream,
The spirit he loves remains;
And I all the while bask in heaven’s blue smile,
Whilst he is dissolving in rains.

The sanguine sunrise, with his meteor eyes,
And his burning plumes outspread,
Leaps on the back of my sailing rack,
When the morning star shines dead.
As, on the jag of a mountain crag
Which an earthquake rocks and swings,
An eagle, alit, one moment may sit
In the light of its golden wings;
And when sunset may breathe, from the lit sea beneath,
Its ardors of rest and of love,
And the crimson pall of eve may fall
From the depth of heaven above,
With wings folded I rest on mine airy nest,
As still as a brooding dove.

That orbed maiden with white fire laden,
Whom mortals call the moon,
Glides glimmering o’er my fleece-like floor
By the midnight breezes strewn;
And wherever the beat of her unseen feet,
Which only the angels hear,
May have broken the woof of my tent’s thin roof,
The stars peep behind her and peer;
And I laugh to see them whirl and flee,
Like a swarm of golden bees,
When I widen the rent in my wind-built tent,
Till the calm rivers, lakes, and seas,
Like strips of the sky fallen through me on high,
Are each paved with the moon and these.

[259]I bind the sun’s throne with a burning zone,
And the moon’s with a girdle of pearl;
The volcanoes are dim, and the stars reel and swim,
When the whirlwinds my banner unfurl.
From cape to cape, with a bridge-like shape,
Over a torrent sea,
Sunbeam-proof, I hang like a roof,
The mountains its columns be.
The triumphal arch, through which I march,
With hurricane, fire, and snow,
When the powers of the air are chained to my chair,
Is the million-colored bow;
The sphere-fire above its soft colors wove,
While the moist earth was laughing below.

I am the daughter of earth and water,
And the nursling of the sky;
I pass through the pores of the ocean and shores;
I change, but I cannot die.
For after the rain, when, with never a stain,
The pavilion of heaven is bare,
And the winds and sunbeams, with their convex gleams,
Build up the blue dome of air,—
I silently laugh at my own cenotaph,
And out of the caverns of rain,
Like a child from the womb, like a ghost from the tomb,
I rise and upbuild it again.

BRUTE NEIGHBORS

Note.—The author of this sketch, Henry David Thoreau, who lived from 1817 to 1862, was one of the oddest of American men of genius. He was educated at Harvard University, but he did not care, in the common phrase, to “turn his learning to practical account;” that is, save for a short time when he taught school, he did not make it earn his living for him. His theory was that life and energy were being wasted when a man spent in working more time than he absolutely needed to in order to provide himself with necessities; and this theory he carried out in his own life. While he lived in Concord, he did odd jobs at carpentering, surveying, and gardening, and worked for a time at his father’s trade of pencil making. However, he contended that a man was doing himself an injustice if he kept on at that work after he had reached the point where he could make no further improvement in his pencils.

From 1845 to 1847 Thoreau lived as a hermit in a hut which he had built on the shore of Walden Pond, and the simple life he led there gave him plenty of leisure for the things he liked best—the study of nature, the grappling with philosophical problems, and the society of friends. The result of the two years at Walden Pond was his best book, Walden, or Life in the Woods, a work which is distinguished for its peculiarly truthful and sympathetic studies of nature.

Thoreau refused to perform any of the ordinary duties of a citizen; he never voted, he never paid taxes. Once he was arrested because he refused to pay his taxes, and was thrown into jail; his friends remonstrated with him, but still he refused to pay. However, when his friends paid the sum he made no objections to accepting his release, nor [261]did he in the future make any objections when his friends quietly paid his taxes.

The Pond in Winter and Winter Animals, which are contained in this volume, are also from Thoreau.

hy do precisely these objects which we behold make a world? Why has man just these species of animals for his neighbors; as if nothing but a mouse could have filled this crevice? I suspect that Pilpay & Co. have put animals to their best use, for they are all beasts of burden, in a sense, made to carry some portion of our thoughts.

The mice which haunted my house were not the common ones, which are said to have been introduced into the country, but a wild native kind not found in the village. I sent one to a distinguished naturalist, and it interested him much. When I was building, one of these had its nest underneath the house, and before I had laid the second floor, and swept out the shavings, would come out regularly at lunch time and pick up the crumbs at my feet. It probably had never seen a man before; and it soon became quite familiar, and would run over my shoes and up my clothes. It could readily ascend the sides of the room by short impulses, like a squirrel, which it resembled in its motions. At length, as I leaned with my elbow on the bench one day, it ran up my clothes, and along my sleeve, and round and round the paper which held my dinner, while I kept the latter close, and dodged and played at bo-peep with it; and when at last I held still a piece of cheese between my thumb and[262] finger, it came and nibbled it, sitting in my hand, and afterward cleaned its face and paws, like a fly, and walked away.

A phoebe soon built in my shed, and a robin for protection in a pine which grew against the house. In June the partridge (Tetrao umbellus), which is so shy a bird, led her brood past my windows, from the woods in the rear to the front of my house, clucking and calling to them like a hen, and in all her behavior proving herself the hen of the woods. The young suddenly disperse on your approach, at a signal from the mother, as if a whirlwind had swept them away, and they so exactly resemble the dried leaves and twigs that many a traveler has placed his foot in the midst of a brood, and heard the whir of the old bird as she flew off, and her anxious calls and mewing, or seen her trail her wings to attract his attention, without suspecting their neighborhood. The parent will sometimes roll and spin round before you in such a dishabille, that you cannot, for a few moments, detect what kind of creature it is. The young squat still and flat, often running their heads under a leaf, and mind only their mother’s directions given from a distance, nor will your approach make them run again and betray themselves. You may even tread on them, or have your eyes on them for a minute, without discovering them. I have held them in my open hand at such a time, and still their only care, obedient to their mother and their instinct, was to squat there without fear or trembling. So perfect is this instinct, that once, when I had laid them on the leaves again, and one accidentally fell on its side, it was found with the rest in exactly the[263] same position ten minutes afterward. They are not callow like the young of most birds, but more perfectly developed and precocious even than chickens. The remarkably adult yet innocent expression of their open and serene eyes is very memorable. All intelligence seems reflected in them. They suggest not merely the purity of infancy, but a wisdom clarified by experience. Such an eye was not born when the bird was, but is coeval with the sky it reflects. The woods do not yield another such gem. The traveler does not often look into such a limpid well. The ignorant or reckless sportsman often shoots the parent at such a time, and leaves these innocents to fall a prey to some prowling beast or bird, or gradually mingle with the decaying leaves which they so much resemble. It is said that when hatched by a hen they will directly disperse on some alarm, and are so lost, for they never hear the mother’s call which gathers them again. These were my hens and chickens.

It is remarkable how many creatures live wild and free though secret in the woods, and still sustain themselves in the neighborhood of towns, suspected by hunters only. How retired the otter manages to live there! He grows to be four feet long, as big as a small boy, perhaps without any human being getting a glimpse of him. I formerly saw the raccoon in the woods behind where my house is built, and probably still heard their whinnering at night. Commonly I rested an hour or two in the shade at noon, after planting, and ate my lunch, and read a little by a spring which was the source of a swamp and of a brook, oozing from under Brister’s Hill, half a mile from my field. The approach to this[264] was through a succession of descending grassy hollows, full of young pitch pines, into a larger wood about the swamp. There, in a very secluded and shaded spot, under a spreading white pine, there was yet a clean firm sward to sit on. I had dug out the spring and made a well of clear gray water, where I could dip up a pailful without roiling it, and thither I went for this purpose almost every day in midsummer, when the pond was warmest. Thither, too, the woodcock led her brood, to probe the mud for worms, flying but a foot above them down the bank, while they ran in a troop beneath; but at last, spying me, she would leave her young and circle round and round me, nearer and nearer till within four or five feet, pretending broken wings and legs, to attract my attention, and get off her young, who would already have taken up their march, with faint wiry peep, single file through the swamp, as she directed. Or I heard the peep of the young when I could not see the parent bird. There too the turtledoves sat over the spring, or fluttered from bough to bough of the soft white pines over my head; or the red squirrel, coursing down the nearest bough, was particularly familiar and inquisitive. You only need sit still long enough in some attractive spot in the woods that all its inhabitants may exhibit themselves to you by turns.

I was witness to events of a less peaceful character. One day when I went out to my wood pile, or rather my pile of stumps, I observed two large ants, the one red, the other much larger, nearly half an inch long, and black, fiercely contending with one another. Having once got hold they never let go, but struggled and wrestled and rolled on[265] the chips incessantly. Looking further, I was surprised to find that the chips were covered with such combatants, that it was not a duellum, but a bellum, a war between two races of ants, the red always pitted against the black, and frequently two red ones to one black. The legions of these Myrmidons covered all the hills and vales in my wood yard, and the ground was already strewn with the dead and dying, both red and black. It was the only battle which I have ever witnessed, the only battlefield I ever trod while the battle was raging; internecine war; the red republicans on the one hand, and the black imperialists on the other. On every side they were engaged in deadly combat, yet without any noise that I could hear, and human soldiers never fought so resolutely. I watched a couple that were fast locked in each other’s embraces, in a little sunny valley amid the chips, now at noonday prepared to fight till the sun went down, or life went out. The smaller red champion had fastened himself like a vise to his adversary’s front, and through all the[266] tumblings on that field never for an instant ceased to gnaw at one of his feelers near the root, having already caused the other to go by the board; while the stronger black one dashed him from side to side, and, as I saw on looking nearer, had already divested him of several of his members. They fought with more pertinacity than bulldogs. Neither manifested the least disposition to retreat. It was evident that their battle-cry was “Conquer or die.” In the meanwhile there came along a single red ant on the hillside of this valley, evidently full of excitement, who either had despatched his foe, or had not yet taken part in the battle; probably the latter, for he had lost none of his limbs; whose mother had charged him to return with his shield or upon it. Or perchance he was some Achilles, who had nourished his wrath apart, and had now come to avenge or rescue his Patroclus. He saw this unequal combat from afar—for the blacks were nearly twice the size of the red—he drew near with rapid pace till he stood on his guard within half an inch of the combatants; then, watching his opportunity, he sprang upon the black warrior, and commenced his operations near the root of his right fore-leg, leaving the foe to select among his own members; and so there were three united for life, as if a new kind of attraction had been invented which put all other locks and cements to shame. I should not have wondered by this time to find that they had their respective musical bands stationed on some eminent chip, and playing their national airs the while, to excite the slow and cheer the dying combatants. I was myself excited somewhat even as if they had been men. The more you think of it, the[267] less the difference. And certainly there is not the fight recorded in Concord history, at least, if in the history of America, that will bear a moment’s comparison with this, whether for the numbers engaged in it, or for the patriotism and heroism displayed. For numbers and for carnage it was an Austerlitz or Dresden. Concord Fight! Two killed on the patriots’ side, and Luther Blanchard wounded! Why, here every ant was a Butterick—“Fire! for God’s sake, fire!”—and thousands shared the fate of Davis and Hosmer. There was not one hireling there. I have no doubt that it was a principle they fought for, as much as our ancestors, and not to avoid a three-penny tax on their tea; and the results of this battle will be as important and memorable to those whom it concerns as those of the battle of Bunker Hill, at least.

I took up the chip on which the three I have particularly described were struggling, carried it into my house, and placed it under a tumbler on my window sill, in order to see the issue. Holding a microscope to the first-mentioned red ant, I saw that, though he was assiduously gnawing at the near fore-leg of his enemy, having severed his remaining feeler, his own breast was all torn away, exposing what vitals he had there to the jaws of the black warrior, whose breastplate was apparently too thick for him to pierce; and the dark carbuncles of the sufferer’s eyes shone with ferocity such as war only could excite. They struggled half an hour longer under the tumbler, and when I looked again the black soldier had severed the heads of his foes from their bodies, and still living heads were hanging on either side of him like ghastly trophies

		PAGE
The Daffodils	William Wordsworth	1
To the Fringed Gentian	William Cullen Bryant	4
To a Mouse	Robert Burns	5
To a Mountain Daisy	Robert Burns	8
The Old Oaken Bucket	Samuel Wordsworth	11
Bannockburn	Robert Burns	15
Boat Song	Sir Walter Scott	17
The Governor and the Notary	Washington Irving	20
The Rime of the Ancient Mariner	Samuel T. Coleridge	29
The Black Hawk Tragedy	Edwin D. Coe	58
The Petrified Fern	Mary Bolles Branch	77
An Exciting Canoe Race	J. Fenimore Cooper	79
The Buffalo	Francis Parkman	96
The Charge of the Light Brigade	Alfred Tennyson	147
For A’ That and A’ That	Robert Burns	149
Breathes There the Man	Sir Walter Scott	151
How Sleep the Brave	William Collins	151
Queen Victoria	Anna McCaleb	152
The Recessional	Rudyard Kipling	164
The Star-spangled Banner	Francis Scott Key	167
How’s My Boy?	Sydney Dobell	169
The Soldier’s Dream	Thomas Campbell	170
Make Way for Liberty	James Montgomery	172
The Old Continentals	Guy Humphreys McMaster	175
The Picket-Guard	Mrs. Ethel Lynn Beers	177
My Old Kentucky Home	Stephen Collins Foster	179
The Forsaken Merman	Matthew Arnold	180
Tom and Maggie Tulliver	George Eliot	186
A Gorilla Hunt	Paul du Chaillu	247
The Cloud	Percy Bysshe Shelley	257
Brute Neighbors	Henry David Thoreau	260
Ode To a Skylark	Percy Bysshe Shelley	275
The Pond in Winter	Henry David Thoreau	280
Salmon Fishing	Rudyard Kipling	285
Winter Animals	Henry David Thoreau	293
Trees and Ants That Help Each Other	Thomas Belt	306
The Family of Michael Arout	Emile Souvestre	314
On the Receipt of My Mother’s Picture	William Cowper	331
Those Evening Bells	Thomas Moore	340
Annabel Lee	Edgar Allan Poe	341
The Three Fishers	Charles Kingsley	343
[viii]The Reaper’s Dream	Thomas Buchanan Read	345
The Recovery of the Hispaniola	Robert Louis Stevenson	352
John Greenleaf Whittier	Grace E. Sellon	381
William Cullen Bryant		391
To a Waterfowl	William Cullen Bryant	395
Oliver Wendell Holmes	Grace E. Sellon	398
The Cubes of Truth	Oliver Wendell Holmes	406
The Lost Child	James Russell Lowell	409
James Russell Lowell	Grace E. Sellon	411
A Child’s Thought of God	Elizabeth Barrett Browning	418
Elizabeth Barrett Browning		419
Don Quixote	Cervantes	431
Pronunciation of Proper Names		487

		PAGE
The Canoe Race (Color Plate)	R. F. Babcock	Frontispiece
A Host of Golden Daffodils	Albert H. Winkler	2
The Fringed Gentian	G. H. Mitchell	4
Thou Need Na Start Awa	Albert H. Winkler	6
Robert Burns (Halftone)		8
Thou Bonny Gem	Albert H. Winkler	9
Inclined to My Lips	Herbert N. Rudeen	12
The Notary Enters the Carriage	R. F. Babcock	26
He Cannot Choose but Hear (Heading)	Donn P. Crane	29
I Shot the Albatross	Donn P. Crane	33
And Straight the Sun Was Flecked With Bars	Donn P. Crane	38
I Watched the Water-Snakes	Donn P. Crane	42
They Groaned, They Stirred, They All Uprose	Donn P. Crane	45
Slowly and Smoothly Went the Skip (Color Plate)	Donn P. Crane	48
“O Shrieve Me, Shrieve Me, Holy Man”	Donn P. Crane	55
I Pass From Land To Land (Ending)	Donn P. Crane	57
Black Hawk and the Two Ruffians	R. F. Babcock	63
The Women and Children Crossed the River	R. F. Babcock	71
Hawkeye on the Trail	R. F. Babcock	80
James Fenimore Cooper (Halftone)		82
Hawkeye	R. F. Babcock	85
Gradually I Came Abreast of Him	R. F. Babcock	106
One Vast Host of Buffalo	R. F. Babcock	125
On Dune and Headland	G. H. Mitchell	165
The Little Gray Church on the Windy Hill	Walter O. Reese	181
“Tom’s Coming Home!”	Herbert N. Rudeen	188
“Oh, He is Cruel”	Herbert N. Rudeen	199
“Is it the Tipsy Cake, Then?”	Herbert N. Rudeen	206
“Here, Lucy!”	Herbert N. Rudeen	224
“Ah, You’re Fondest O’ Me, Aren’t You?”	Herbert N. Rudeen	243
Gorilla With Her Young	Herbert N. Rudeen	251
The Battle of the Ants	Herbert N. Rudeen	265
Watching for the Loon	R. F. Babcock	272
The Skylark	R. F. Babcock	276
Kneeling To Drink	R. F. Babcock	281
Salmon Fishing (Color Plate)	R. F. Babcock	286
The Red Squirrel Stealing Corn	R. F. Babcock	296
“How Much Do We Owe You?”	Herbert N. Rudeen	320
Michael is Come Back	Herbert N. Rudeen	326
“My Mother!”	Iris Weddell White	336
In Her Sepulchre There by the Sea	Donn P. Crane	342
[x]The Night Rack Came Rolling Up	G. H. Mitchell	344
The Crescent Moon Went by	G. H. Mitchell	347
I Looked Into the Cabin	R. F. Babcock	354
Whittier’s Birthplace (Color Plate)		382
John Greenleaf Whittier (Halftone)		386
William Cullen Bryant (Halftone)		392
Thy Figure Floats Along	Jerome Rozen	396
Oliver Wendell Holmes (Halftone)		398
Down the Sunny Glade	Walter O. Reese	409
James Russell Lowell (Halftone)		412
Elizabeth Barrett Browning (Halftone)		420
Don Quixote (Heading)	Donn P. Crane	431
Don Quixote Tilts with the Windmills	Donn P. Crane	439
“Defend Thyself, Miserable Being!”	Donn P. Crane	444
The Lion Put His Head Out of the Cage	Donn P. Crane	455
Sancho Fell on His Knees	Donn P. Crane	464
The Horse Blew Up, with a Prodigious Noise	Donn P. Crane	475

CONTENTS