NIX’S MATE: AN HISTORICAL ROMANCE OF AMERICA. BY THE AUTHOR OF “ATHENIA OF DAMASCUS,” &c. “Vex not his ghost: O, let him pass! he hates him,

            That would upon the rack of this tough world,

Stretch him out longer.”
King Lear IN TWO VOLUMES. VOL. II. NEW - YORK:PUBLISHED BY SAMUEL COLMAN, NO. VIII ASTOR HOUSE, BROADWAY.1839.Entered according to the Act of Congress, in the year 1839, by RUFUS DAWES, In the Clerk’s Office of the District Court of the United States, for theSouthern District of New-York.New-York: Printed by Scatcherd and Adams, No.38 Gold Street.NIX’S MATE. VOLUME II. -- CHAPTER XI.

 

Nature never did betray          The heart that loved her.


Wordsworth    And she was there, my hope, my joy,

            My own, dear Genevieve!


Coleridge        Ye who encounter’d Scylla’s maddening rage,

Her barking rocks and the Cyclopean roar,   Take courage--all your sufferings assuage,

For memory yet shall gild your sorrows o’er.
Ænead. New Translation       

            We now return to the metropolis of New-England. Horace Seymour had at last entirely regained his strength, and was once more entering upon the hopes, wishes, and daily occupations of the busy world. Nor had the interim of his indisposition disqualified him from pursuing those studies in which he most delighted. Having just graduated at Harvard University, he had entered as a law student in his uncle’s office, where, under the guidance of Mr. Wilmer, he was making as rapid progress as was possible in those days when Blackstone was not by to smooth the rugged road to the Bar. What was wanted, however, in facilities, was amply made up by perseverance and industry; and students who were in the least degree ambitious of eminence, were contented to abide by the lucubrationes viginti annorum of Coke, amidst the musty tomes of black-letter Norman French, and the not most elegant Latin of the text-books. A seven years’ clerkship was then indispensable to a knowledge of the mere outlines of the Common Law of England; and when a young man was so fortunate as to meet with such a guide as Mr. Wilmer, it may be truly said that his education commenced on the day of his entering the Law office.

            It is difficult to conceive of a worse contrivance for bringing out the mind of man than a college: but as temptations, trials, and every unimaginable obstacle are necessary for the development of the christian, so it may be important for the moral and intellectual being to be crushed and trampled on, that the more vitality may be imparted to it by the struggle. If Colleges and Universities are useful in this way, it is the only one in which they are; for we contend that the most accomplished graduates of thoseinstitutions become eminent and useful citizens only in proportion to the success they have in eradicating the errors which have been implanted in them during their four years of scholastic discipline.

            These institutions are always behind the age, and they are always so confirmed in their ignorance, that it is a positive disadvantage to any young man to be moulded according to their worn-out dogmas. If any one doubts this, let him remember that the sensual philosophy is even now taught in our principal colleges, though no man of intelligence refers to its pages but from curiosity. If the Speculum Astronomiœ of Albertus Magnus were the text book for lectures on the stars, there would be more reason for keeping the Essay of Locke on the list of collegiate studies. But enough of this. It is liking reasoning concerning Animal Magnetism to the besotted ignorance of the times, that will not be informed, though one of the greatest of God’s blessings is offered to man on his knees. Perhaps one of these days we will show up a College or University as it was in the third decade of the nineteenth century.

            Horace Seymour had been a year in his uncle’s office, when the early attachment which the young man had cherished for his fair cousin ripened into the most ardent affection. How, indeed, could two such creatures help loving each other, especially when they lived under the same roof, ate habitually at the same table, and heard the same prayers of aSunday? The metaphysics of love would make a most excellent and amusing book, but no one can write it without laying his heart too much open to the world. Rousseau did not understand it; besides, he was too much of a brute, or rather not quite enough of a brute; for brutes are seldom unnatural.

            It may strike some of our readers as being a little remarkable, but we assure them nevertheless it is true, that our lovers, Grace Wilmer and Horace Seymour, though they had been acquainted with each other many years, and loved each other exceedingly, never did so to distraction. What is still more remarkable, and will be found recorded in few faithful histories like this, they never once had such a love scene as passed between a certain Capulet and Montague, and which, notwithstanding, we always regarded as one of the most delicious things in the world.

            Yet they were often alone together when the woodbine and the humming-bird were suggesting a dramatic spectacle, but they did not seem so to comprehend them. The fact is, they read love so legibly written in each other’s eyes, that there was no need of voice to give it utterance. The beautiful flowers were occasionally go-betweens, and whispered sweet and unutterable fancies to the lovers; and when they met, they felt that they understood each other, though they said not a syllable about it. When the science of spheres shall be understood, as it may be, there willbe a new era in love. In the mean time let the uninitiated bewail their ignorance. There are more things, as Hamlet sagely remarked, in heaven and earth, than is dreamed of in your philosophy.

            The storm which we have described in the last chapter, exhausted its violence on the night which followed the disaster at the Sunken Ledge; and on the succeeding morning the sky was blue, with here and there only a light feathery cloud flying over the firmament. The trees were not as yet stripped of their foliage, but they had assumed the most gorgeous and beautiful colors; and the rays of the noon-day sun fell warmly and cheeringly over the face of nature. The tempest had raged with such violence, that many large trees had been torn up by the roots, and the limbs of many more were scattered abroad in the streets; some damage, too, had been done by the swollen tides; but, on the whole, the prospect abroad was cheerful and invigorating.

            So delightful was the weather, that Horace Seymour prevailed on his fair cousin to ride with him in a chaise to Salem, a long day’s journey through the woods, but the more attractive for that reason to the lovers, who enjoyed the wild beauties of nature with all the freshness of life’s morning. Their intention was to visit their kinsman, a venerable gospel minister, whose amiable children were the delight of all who knew them, and to return after the expiration of a few days’ social enjoyment.

           

            And let it not be objected that it was not in accordance with the custom of the day for two young people of the different sexes to be permitted to ride out together through the wilderness, unaccompanied by their parents and guardians; for, be it remembered, that besides the interregnum of strict discipline during the time we speak of, our lovers were as much Catholics in their education, as puritans, a singularity easily got rid of by those who desire it. But, what is of more importance, such was the fact, and therefore we must make the best of it. The same objection might be made to the chaise and some other minor matters; but as there is no end to faultfinding, we shall not make any further suggestion of its material.

            The chaise driving up to the door, Horace Seymour handed the charming Grace to a seat; and taking the reins, moved off, followed by an attendant on horseback. As there was no bridge in those days to Charlestown, another chaise had been provided in the latter place, to which the lovers crossed over in a ferry-boat, sending back their own carriage by the servant.

            They were now riding over a most romantic region, where a carriage-path led through a deep and shady forest, opening only at distant intervals, unveiling the fine water prospect of Boston Harbor, and some of the green islands that are scattered among the glittering waters.

           

            “How beautiful is every thing in Nature,” exclaimed the enamored girl, her fine face beaming with intelligence as she gazed on the lovely objects around her; “and yet how neglectful we are of all their delightful influences!”

            As she spoke, her deep blue eyes turned full upon her lover, and as they met his, their long silken lashes fell upon her cheek, unconsciously.

            “Oh yes, how very beautiful!” responded Horace; “it is because we are so selfish that all the bountiful things of creation attract no more attention, and therefore it is good for us to be occasionally brought down by sickness, that we may at the same time appreciate ourselves justly, and learn all the better to set a proper value on the commonest things of life.”

            “But surely you did not require to be so disciplined, cousin Horace; for you were already sufficiently alive to the glorious things around you, while no one could accuse you of setting too high a value on yourself, surely.”

            “Perhaps I was too much inclined to think as you do, charming Grace,” replied the young man, “but still I was deceived. Indeed, it is impossible for one who is not such an angel as you are, not to be carried away by selfishness and vanity.”

            Grace blushed deeply, but said nothing. Whatcould she say? Her lover continued,

            “Do you know, Grace, that while I lay in my chamber, and thought of the splendid forms abroad,something like a new philosophy flashed upon my mind?”

            “No!” replied the sweet girl, with a smile of interested surprise, “pray tell me what it was!”

            “It occurred to me,” resumed her companion, “that the round of natural appearances is the balance wheel of the mind of man, and for this reason we go mad when we are too long excluded from the face of nature.”

            “That was a singular fancy,” replied Grace, with something like laughter; “how could such an idea have originated in your mind?”

            “I cannot say,” said Horace Seymour, his pale cheek tinging a little as he spoke, “that the idea originated entirely with me. I think some of the opinions of Mr. Temple must have suggested it. He believes, perhaps you know, in one harmonious chain of dependencies, from the Creator, in all created things.”

            “Every body that believes any thing, believes as much as that,” replied Grace. “I cannot discover any reach of philosophy there!”

            “Do not judge too hastily,” returned her lover, “hear him a little further. All created things are from primaries to ultimates. The only life is the creative energy; but all created things are recipients of this life. Earths and minerals are the ultimate forms of creation, and there is in them a constant effort to rise to that degree which is next abovethem, namely, vegetable forms. Hence we discover foliation in mines. The vegetable kingdom, in its turn, struggles for animal being, so successfully at times, that its species seem gifted with feeling and perception. The brute creation, which is as distinct from man as the vegetable is distinct from the animal, struggles for rationality with such a cunning effort, that the short-sighted naturalist classifies it into ranks of lower animals descending from man only in degrees. Man, as a rational creature, endeavors after spirituality; and he does so, not as other created beings struggle for that which is unattainable, but as an order of being which has within itself a germ which may become the receptacle of heavenly light and heat, till it expands to celestial existence.”

            “According to that, he would make us noble creatures!”

            “And so we are intended to be, my dear cousin, if we will but fulfil the conditions of our advancement.”

            “What conditions?” inquired the animated beauty.

            “The conditions of spiritual growth are renunciation of self, disinterestedness, and the faithful performance of our duties. But I was speaking to you of the influence of nature on the mind. Mr. Temple believes that all things in nature are merely effects of spiritual causes, and that the reason why we delight in them, is because they are to us a medium through which we receive communion with angelic beings.”

           

            “The idea is certainly a very beautiful one,” said Grace, with an expression of serene thoughtfulness, “and it accounts for the tranquilizing pleasure we receive in gazing on the firmament of stars, or wandering among fragrant flowers or in green meadows.”

            “You may remember,” continued her lover, “that beautiful passage in one of the psalms, ‘He maketh me to lie down in green pastures, and leadeth me beside the still waters;’ these are delightful, because they correspond to good affections and tranquilizing truths; and thus all beautiful things contribute to our happiness, for their beauty is only the perception of spiritual realities.”

            “Your reasoning is quite suggestive,” said Grace, “for if what you say is true, and I confess it strikes me very agreeably, there is a standard of taste, and it will one of these days be known.”

            “Unquestionably,” replied Seymour; “and to illustrate your idea--who doubts that, as respects Grecian architecture, architectural taste is established?”

            “No one, certainly;” admitted Grace.

            “The reason of that is, and you will find it admitted by the ablest and best writers on the subject, the proportions of Grecian architecture were borrowed from the Temple of Solomon.”

            “And the plan of that was revealed from heaven!” said the beautiful girl.

            “Yet the scepticism of the age would laugh at onewho really believes it, though it is recorded in the Word of God.”

            “And how does Mr. Temple’s philosophy guard us against the dangers of disbelief?” exclaimed the beautiful girl, her face flushing with the interest that the conversation was awaking.

            “Perhaps I am wrong,” replied her lover, “in calling it altogether philosophy; it is religion as well as philosophy. But then it is so unlike what passes for religion in our day, that the world would denominate it philosophy.”

            “It seems to me,” said Grace, deferentially, “that true religion and genuine philosophy must be so nearly allied that they cannot be regarded apart.”

            “You are undoubtedly right, dearest Grace,” returned her admirer, charmed as much by her profound sense as by her unequalled beauty; “and I wish that there were many more in the world who think as you do. They cannot and ought not to be separated; and yet you will find that they are regarded as light and darkness, irreconcileable with each other.”

            “And hence,” replied Grace, “both religion and philosophy, instead of being the handmaidens of happiness, are so unamiable and repulsive. It is difficult for us, when we are so trammelled, to know what is meant by the beauty of holiness.”

            “But, according to Mr. Temple, every thing is plain and intelligible. He believes in constant, uninterrupted progress; and therefore while he doesnot despond at the abuses of society, and grow gloomy amidst the darkness of fanaticism, he looks abroad into the far future, and with the eye of a seer discovers an era when the veil that hangs between the spiritual and natural worlds will be withdrawn, and when man shall read the true relations of things, and cease to doubt; when natural revelations in a constant succession of illustrations appealing to the reason and universal intelligence, will make man known to himself--an era, in short, when the true democratic principle will be understood, and just conceptions of equality entertained.”

            “But you seem to have forgotten your balance-wheel, Horace; what has become of that, all the while?”

            “That was going on, dearest Grace, you may depend on it, or else we would not have arrived at such sage conclusions.”

            “I wish I understood better,” said the beautiful girl, “what you mean by your new gleam of philosophy?”

            “I mean,” replied Horace Seymour, “that there is nothing that gives so healthy a tone to the heart and mind of man, as a knowledge and love of nature, or the works of God manifested to us.”

            “I believe that most fervently,” said Grace.

            “And therefore it is, that when we are young,” continued her lover, “we are more susceptible of their charms; for the world then has not left our heartscallous, and the language by which spiritual realities address themselves to man is almost audible and wholly convincing, would we only attend to the revelations around us.”

            “You are an enthusiast,” exclaimed Grace, laughing.

            “If you call enthusiam, my beloved girl, a passionate devotion to truth for truth’s sake; loving it deeply, fondly, supremely, as I do my pretty cousin, and only from the love of loving,--why, then, I grant you I am an enthusiast; not otherwise. There is a great deal of talk, Grace, about loving the beauties of nature; but I believe that there is but little comprehended of that love.”

            “All love is incomprehensible,” murmured the lovely listener.

            “It is only so,” replied Horace Seymour, “in name.”

            “What is more so?” inquired Grace.

            “Every thing which is more mysterious; but love is the life of man--really and truly the life of man; and if you will reflect on this great truth, not only will love be no longer incomprehensible, but it will be a key to a thousand mysteries.”

            In conversation similar to the foregoing the time glided by, though we have reason to believe that there was an occasional interlude of romantic castle-building to break in upon their more serious discourse: for when they emerged once more from thewoods, and were passing by the charming village of Sangus or Lynn, the following playful colloquy ensued.

            “Grace, do you hear the roaring of the beach?” inquired Horace Seymour.

            “Oh yes! Is it not grand?” she replied.

            “How would it do for us to take a trot over to Nahant; the sun will not set these two hours?”

            “I should like it, of all things in the world,” said Grace, “do, dear cousin, let us go over there. The waves must look gloriously indeed after last night’s storm; I was down there once, and was enchanted with the scenery.”

            “You shall go then, again,” replied her lover, “there never will be a better opportunity of seeing Egg Rock and the Spouting Horn to advantage.”

            “And perhaps we may meet the Swallow,” venred the beautiful girl.

            “True,” replied the young man, “and if we do meet her, dearest Grace, she shall tell us our fortunes.”

            “Would you dare to have your fortune told by an enchantress?” inquired Grace.

            “I would dare any thing with you, dearest; for I know that the stars cannot fail to be propitious to their more beautiful sister.”

            “Well, now, I like that,” said Grace archly, “as if the stars wouldn’t be as jealous as any other pretty creatures to be outshone by another! Come now, you must try again!”

           

            “But seriously, you are not afraid of your horoscope?”

            “But seriously, I am, though,” replied the fair girl; “for they say that the Swallow casts them with fearful precision.”

            “And if the Swallow should predict that we would be married in a year or so, would that be any thing so awful?”

            “I can’t imagine any thing more--”

            “Certain!” interrupted Horace Seymour; and without any further negotiation, the bargain was sealed with a kiss.

            Now, whether the young man’s assurance had gained strength from their emerging into clearer day-light, might afford a good subject for a boarding-school debating society. For our part, we assert the affirmative; and if it were not for unmystifying so pleasant an obscurity, we could give satisfactory reasons therefor.

            As they turned round the corner of the carriage way that comes to the long beach, which we have heretofore spoken of, the cool breeze fell refreshingly on the warm cheek of Grace Wilmer, and her tresses floated freely over her shoulders. She took off her hood, the better to enjoy the prospect, and the top of the chaise was thrown back, that no obstacle might intervene between the ocean and the travellers.

            One must visit Nahant after a north-east storm, or at least during one, to realize the matchless sublimity of the scene which now burst upon our romantic travellers. We will venture to say that there is nothing to be found superior to it for grandeur and beauty in America. The tide was nearly two-thirds toward its height, and the waves came rolling in in long-extended platoons, stretching more than a mile before you, and glistening in the light of the declining sun like a mighty army of cuirassers, flashing and driving on to battle. How beautiful were they in the moment of dissolution--how like the picture of good men dying, and glorying most at the very instant when they are about to roll back to eternity!

            “Was there ever any thing so magnificent and splendid!” exclaimed the enraptured girl. “Do, Horace, look at those waves; are they not grand, transcendent! Did you see that gull? There he is again,--there are several of them. Only see how they hover over that blazing wreath of water, plunging and rising, and shaking the spray from their wings,--what do you think they are about?”

            “They are only amusing themselves,” answered Horace Seymour; “man is not the only creature that sometimes diverts himself; almost all the animals do the same thing. Really this is worth coming to see!”

            The attention of the lovers had been so much absorbed by the sight of the waves, and the tremendous roar with which they banged up against the beach, and ran rushing back in torrents to the sea, and again cameup, reddening and glistening, and breaking, and again rushing back to the sea, that they had till now passed unobserved one of the most striking features of the scene.

            “Look!” exclaimed Grace, pointing towards the left as she spoke, “only look, Horace, at Egg-Rock; did you ever see any thing equal to it in your life?”

            As her lover turned to gaze where she directed, his amazement was irrepressible. The waves rolling in upon that solitary mass of rock rising so high above the sea, made, nevertheless, a complete breach over it, and poured down its south western side like the cataract of Niagara; the sloping rays of the sun fell on the ocean spray and spanned the whole with a most brilliant arch, through which the deep blue of the sky stood back in bold contrast with the white feathery surf, again relieved by the dark waves that swelled apparently at the base of the rock, which was in reality girl like a water-spout with foam. To the right of Egg-Rock, between that place and Nahant, the ocean-prospect was uninterrupted; and as far as the sight could reach, not even the smallest sail interposed between the eye and the horizon, where, in the extreme distance over a wide expanse of some fifteen miles, the waves rose and fell with their white caps dancing against the sky. A few light clouds were lazily hanging about the firmament, and the atmosphere was of dazzling clearness; so that every object discovered its exact outline, and could be discerned afar off with the greatest precision.

            Nor was that portion of the scene of which the black borders of Nahant formed a part, as the vision reached to the south-east, without its due share of sublimity. All along the shore, where visible, the waves seemed to riot like slaves at the Saturnalia. Two milesor more away, they could be seen leaping on the iron-bound coast, throwing the foam up to an incredible distance, and sending back the rays of the sun as from showers of the most brilliant diamonds.

            In the meanwhile the sea was setting in faster and faster, and as the gallant steed trotted over the hard and shining sands, every ninth or tenth wave seemed threatening to submerge them. But as the waves came swelling on like an immense wall of glass, green as emerald, and broke and tumbled on the beach, the horse sheered to the right, and seemed to take a pleasure in coquetting with the billows that came rippling over his fetlocks.

            It was a glad and exhilarating scene, and our young adventurers rode onward careless of every thing, and only occupied by the entrancing bewilderment around them. Their hearts were so full of the influences of nature, that they could not choose but give voice to their excitement; and they sang aloud, and shouted as if they too would be “a sharer in the far and fierce delights” of their all-bountiful mother in the joy of her holiday.

           

            “Can any thing be more glorious than this?” exclaimed Horace Seymour, his countenance glowing with the exhilarating influences that made his very arteries bound with enjoyment.

            “Nothing, surely nothing can equal it!” replied Grace Wilmer. “Oh, how glad I am that we came here:--only I would that my dear mother could enjoy it with us!”

            “I think, dearest Grace,” said her lover, tenderly, “that I am quite happy enough with only you to partake and sympathize with me.”

            Grace blushed, and pointed to some new beauty in the scene, and just then a wave with more than ordinary violence broke upon them, and sprinkled them with its surf.

            “We must not trust these beautiful forms, my love,” exclaimed her adorer, turning the horse more toward the narrow strip of land that bordered the summit of the beach, but which was quite impassable on account of its rugged surface, and in places, its unrolled gravel; “I find we have not improved the time as we might have done in the midst of the glories that surround us, but as the sun will soon be down, we will go as far as the other beach, and then return without stopping at Nahant this time. We would better do so on our return.”

            “Then we shall not see the Swallow this evening?”

           

            “No, dearest Grace, by the looks of the tide I don’t think it would be prudent to go to Nahant.”

            “There is no danger, I hope!” exclaimed the fair girl, turning a little pale.

            “Not the least,” answered her lover, who indeed really apprehended none, “but it has taken more time make this little excursion than I anticipated, so I fear we must have our horoscope postponed. But never mind, Grace; it won’t postpone our wedding on any account.”

            “You need not concern yourself about that,” said Grace Wilmer, rallying from her momentary confusion, “for I can prophecy as well as the Swallow about such a weighty matter as that; and so you may rest contented with the idea of dying a bachelor.”

            “Unless, perchance, I should live to be married-- hey? my sweet enchantress!” returned her lover with another salutation, which gave no offence, as it was benevolently intended; and this brought them to the smaller beach, which was in the more immediate neighborhood of Nahant.

            The sea now ran in frightfully high, and with increasing power, and Seymour began to fear that he had unwittingly brought his fair charge into a position from which it would be difficult to extricate her. The beach on which they were now riding is not much more than a quarter of a mile in extent, but the sea had already broken over it, and it was impossible to reach Nahant, except by crossing that also. Hehad already determined to return, but he could not well disguise his apprehensions, as, approaching the larger beach, his eye discovered to him that far away it was completely submerged, so that it would be impossible for them to retrace their steps.

            His resolution was now instantly fixed to force the passage of the small beach, and with this determination he lashed his horse, and urged him to move on as fast as possible. The sun had already sunk below the main land, and the scene which, but a few minutes before, had been arrayed so gorgeously, and which had so completely absorbed their attention, was now any thing but agreeable. Egg-Rock frowned protentously, and the waves, as they came careering onward amidst the chill atmosphere of sunset, seemed to dash even against the hearts of the adventurers.

            Bitterly now did Horace Seymour lament his want of prudence and foresight, and though the necessity he was under to guard against the dangers that surrounded them, prevented him from indulging in disagreeable reflections, he had it not in his power to disguise from Grace Wilmer the imminent peril to which they were exposed.

            “Oh God!” exclaimed the terrified girl, as a large wave came thundering on and lifted the carriage from the sands--“what will become of us! Oh mother, mother, why did I leave you!--Oh God, have mercy!”

            “Keep calm, Grace, for the love of heaven!” cried the young man, as he threw himself on the dasher,when the chaise once more struck the sands, and the affrighted horse regained his foothold, “keep calm for the love of heaven; we are safe enough, depend upon it.”

            He had scarcely spoken when another wave, more tremendous than the former, came rolling horrioly towards them, and Horace Seymour had hardly time to turn the reins twice around his left wrist, and to clasp the scared girl round the waist with his right arm, when it burst upon them like a mountain-slide, and overwhelmed them with the carriage and horse in the boiling waters.

            The recoiling waves instantly swept them back into the Atlantic, and the horse plunging with maddening desperation, immediately disengaged himself from the harness. Seymour never for an instant lost his presence of mind, but clinging resolutely to the reins, and holding his precious burthen on his right arm, as soon as he could contrive to see, made an almost superhuman effort, and caught the horse by the mane. In another moment he was on the animal’s back, sustaining the drooping body of Grace Wilmer in his arms.

            “Thank God, we are safe!” he exclaimed, his utterance half checked with the violence of his exertions. “Grace, my love, we are safe!”

            “Where am I?” moaned the bewildered sufferer. “Oh Horace! Horace! would I had died for you.”

           

            And as she spoke, she sunk again in his arms, exhausted.

            The horse in the meantime appeared to be conscious of his trust as well as of his own danger; for whenever a wave threatened to ingulf them, he would turn suddenly round, and seemed to wish to indicate to his rider the safest way of bearing himself. He would then, when that danger had passed, toss his head in the air, and shorting aloud, urge onward with all his might, swimming to reach the nearest shore.

            The figure of a man dressed in a sailor’s habit was now seen hurrying about the rocks, holding in his hand a spy-glass. He evidently had been watching the perilous situation of our unfortunate adventurers, and was crying aloud for help in almost despair, for it seemed as if all help must be in vain. The surf broke so high, that no boat would have dared to venture toward the rocks on that part of the peninsula had there been one present; and the mariner, though he had a barge waiting for him on the south-east part (where it was comparatively calm), which he would readily have ventured had it been possible to get it there in time, saw no hope of relief, and was expecting every instant to behold the objects of his interest overwhelmed in the waves.

            The faithful steed still held his way bravely, though he was unable at all times to avoid “the ruffian billows” that several times completely dashed over Horace Seymour and his beautiful but helpless burthen,--yet on he toiled, struggling heroically to gain the nearest ledge of rocks; sometimes plunging head-foremost under the waves like a ship under crowd of canvass in a hurricane, and then shaking the brine from his main, and tossing his head in the air, tugging for life in the desperation of a “strong swimmer in his agony.”

            Fitzvassal, for it was no other than he, who beheld the appalling spectacle from his secure position on the rocks, and who had recognized the beautiful figure of Grace Wilmer in her perilous situation, stood almost horror-stricken at the danger of his friends. The horse was now within a hundred feet of where he stood, and he knew well enough that in a few moments the courageous animal would come within the power of the receding waves, and that nearer approach was impossible.

            The only chance of safety was to strive, if possible, to keep away from the rocks, and make the complete circuit of the peninsula, passing the terrific Sponting-Horn, (that roared and raged like a maddened kraken, and sent the foam a hundred feet into the air,) and doubling East-Point, Pulpit-Rock, and then going outside of the Sunken Ledge, to bring up in the quiet harbor of the cave. But how could this be done? The distance was a mile and a half, and the horse was already nearly exhausted with his own unparalleled exertions, and by the extraordinary weight he carried. One other way of safety seemed possible, and that was the desperate suggestion of his fancy, that if the man would throw himself from the horse, he himself, by plunging in the boiling waters, might assist him in getting his charge to the shore. But he rejected the latter branch of the alternative, and now had only time to shout aloud--

            “Bear away from the rocks! For your life, bear away from the rocks!”

            When a wave came rolling back, burying as it passed, both horse and riders in the abyss.

            As soon as Fitzvassal saw the reality of this disaster, he waited no longer, but leaping as far off from the rocks as he could, plunged headlong into the waves. Nor was he alone in the rescue; for as he rose from the eddying brine that whirled and roared around him, he caught a rapid glance of his own barge rounding East Point with unaccustomed rapidity, and a canoe, propelled by a female, skimming over the waters like a bird, the paddle flashing from side to side like lightning, and sending a stream of foam astern, white as the driving snow.

            Horace Seymour with his precious charge had been completely swept from the horse that, now relieved from his burthen, swam eagerly through the creaming surge toward the shore. But the noble animal was only doomed to struggle the harder for his life, alas! in vain; for the gigantic waves having him now entirely in their power, heaved him up against the sharp rocks, and dyed the white foam inhis blood. His scream of agony mingled with the uproar of the ocean, and after making a few ineffectual attempts to gain a footing on the rocks, and being borne back, and again hurried on like an iron ram battering against an adamantine fortress, the fine spirited animal bowed his head to the destroyer, and his long black mane streamed lifelessly on the surge. He was dead.

            In the meanwhile Horace Seymour rose to the air, bearing gallantly the fainting form of Grace Wilmer, and in a moment Fitzvassal was at his side.

            And “with hearts of controversy” the gallant young men trod the destructive wave, mutually sustaining the beautiful burthen between them.

            “Leave her to me,” cried Fitzvassal, “I am fresh, but you are weary; let me support Miss Wilmer, while you take care of yourself.”

            “I am not yet exhausted,” answered Seymour, unable to breathe freely from fatigue, “and as long as I have my strength I will not desert her.”

            While they were yet speaking, Nameoke was by their side with her bark canoe, and Fitzvassal (Seymour in vain endeavoring to accomplish it,) taking the object of his heart’s adoration in his arms, lifted her lightly into the canoe.

            “It is well!” exclaimed the enchantress--“but the canoe of Nameoke will not hold another; Nameoke will take care of the maiden.”

            And as she spoke, her paddle flashed from side toside, and the canoe leapt lighty over the billows. In a minute she had doubled East Point, and was out of sight just as Fitzvassal’s barge, propelled by eight oars, came up with him and his exhausted companion, and took them both safely aboard.

            The fatigue that Seymour had undergone was too much for one who had so lately left a sick chamber, and as soon as he found himself safe in the barge, his energies for a time sank within him, and he fainted in the arms of his companion.

            “To the Swallow’s Cave!” said Fitzvassal, giving orders to the coxswain as they made a circuit of East-Point, and were now passing Pulpit-Rock and nearing the Sunken Ledge.

            “Ay, ay, Sir!” replied the officer; and the barge, obeying the rudder, turned round to the desired haven.

            Selecting a little cove close by, where “the rude sea grew civil,” the barge ran in close to the rocks, and Fitzvassal giving orders to wait for him, and to take the best care of Seymour, leapt ashore, and made the best way he could to the cavern of the enchantress.

            Leaping from crag to crag, in a few moments he was there. Already had the singular being, who with the sea-gulls alone tenanted this wild peninsula, replenished the fire that smoked upon the hearth, and was now supporting the reviving girl with one arm, parting her dark dripping tresses with her righthand, endeavoring all the while to sooth her by the mysterious agency of her own vital principle, which she knew how to direct for her advantage.

            “You are doing the work of an angel,” said our adventurer, addressing the Indian girl with a tone of thanksgiving; “you have my eternal gratitude for what you have done.”

            “The son of the Vassal knows not what he is saying, and yet Nameoke would save him from destruction,” replied the enchantress.

            Fitzvassal gazed on her with astonishment. How could this solitary tenant of the rock-bound Nahant have known his unhappy parentage?

            “Nameoke!” said he, catching at the appellation which she had herself discovered, and for the time quite forgetting the beloved object whose eyes already beamed with rekindling intelligence, “Nameoke! you seem to know me!”

            “Nameoke reads the stars!” replied the enchantress, “and she has been watching for you ever since the young moon went down in the west, where she will go again to-morrow.

            “Hark!” she continued, “did you hear that scream from Felton?” and as she spoke she snatched her mace from the ground, and raised herself to her full height, while her eyes gleamed with strange unnatural lustre.

            “Felton!” exclaimed Fitzvassal in the greatest surprise; “what of him, Nameoke? Did you speak of his scream? Have you seen him?”

           

            “You will find what the thunder has left of him in the ravine above!” replied the enchantress, recovering from her momentary agitation and resuming her care of Grace Wilmer.

            Fitzvassal sprang from the cavern, and presently stood over the stiffened body of his lieutenant. There was a black mark on his forehead, which he unhesitatingly attributed to the lightning; and his firm belief now was, that he had been struck the night before in the storm.

            “Poor Felton!” sighed his commander; “so then you are at rest before me!--Well! you are spared many a severe buffet that those you have left must endure.--Rest in peace!”

            He then took off his watch-coat, and having thrown it over the body of his officer, returned to the Swallow’s Cave.

            “Pray God,” he exclaimed on re-entering the place, “death make no further havoc! --Nameoke! that lady must go with me on board. I will protect her.”

            “Take her!” replied the enchantress, “for I know thou hast no evil intention; take her and save her from destruction--would that Nameoke could save thee!”

            “What mean you?” inquired the man with an interest which he did not attempt to disguise.

            “You must perish, hopelessly perish” replied Nameoke, “before the buds are green again--unless you read the stars of another hemisphere!”

           

            Fitzvassal only smiled at this, and then turning to the beautiful girl, who was just recovered from her stupor, said,

            “Will Miss Wilmer,” said he, “trust herself to her new friend--her cousin waits for her below?”

            “He is safe then! Oh tell me Horace Seymour is safe,” cried the excited girl, “and I will bless you for ever!”

            “You may rely upon it, charming maiden; I left him perfectly so but a few moments since, although he is much exhausted. My vessel is close by, and if you will accept with him such poor accommodations as a sailor can give to those he values most, go with me on board. The night is fast closing in, and it will be impossible for you to return till tomorrow; then I will see you safely restored to your friends.”

            Grace thanked him with her large blue eyes glistening with tears of gratitude. She had already received so many favors at his hands, that she could not doubt the honesty of his purpose--and now particularly, when such conclusive reasons had been urged for her accompanying Fitzvassal on board, and the Swallow had also yielded to the proposal, she unhesitatingly accepted the invitation, and, leaning on his arm, accompanied him to the barge, which immediately shoving off, in a short time brought them securely to the Dolphin.

CHAPTER XII.

 

            We buried him darkly.

Monody on Sir J. Moore.

            And coming events cast their shadows before.

Campbell.       Where hast thou been, Sister?

Macbeth.

           

            In the meantime night closed rapidly on the scene, and left the peninsula wrapped in its deepest shadows. The roar of the waters had gradually subsided, and was now fast changing to the heavy, monotonous sound of the beating surge, that, rolling back from the rocks, rattled on its pebbly wheels to the ocean. The stars were glittering in the firmament like those celestial words that contain interior truths too transcendent for unaided reason; but though there were few to read them, they were not wholly unread. There was one who was gazing upward till her heart died away within her.

            Alone at her wild observatory stood Nameoke, herhands clasped on her bosom, her knees resting on the flinty rock. Her eyes were fixed on the heavens, and the stars shone down on her tears. Words are the out-breathing of the full spirit that will and must have listeners, though they be only the forest leaves and the stars. In the excess of her agony, the feelings of the wondrous girl found vent in her apparent solitude.

            “The Great Spirit reposes!” exclaimed Nameoke, “but the heart of his child feels no rest. The clouds have passed from the stars, but the thoughts of Nameoke’s bosom are like mist-wreaths on the water. The waves rage and grow still again, but Nameoke’s heart rages for ever!

            “Hark!” she interiorly ejaculated, turning slowly round and wrapping her mantle closer to her bosom; “hark!--tramp--tramp--tramp,--there is an army, many as the sands--spirit--men coming to battle. See! they make ready their fire-thunder against the red-men of the forest. The red men are strong, and the Great Spirit fights their battles. Oh, blood!--blood!--blood!--rivers of red blood running, running, running, rushing down, down--a mountain-torrent of blood!--Stay, Massasoit!--Philip, Nameoke’s father! Nameoke calls--they are smothering her in blood! The war-whoop! the war-whoop, raise the war-whoop, sons of the forest! The long-knives bring fire-water more terrible than fire-thunder for your ruin! The log-houses are allon fire! the corn-fields are smoking in destruction! The red-men are all drunk--changed--changed-- changed--dreadful to look at! They are reeling away to the west!--whipt, whipt like buffaloes by the sharp, quick lashes of storm-lightning!”

            And the Sibyl shrieking in the delirium of her fore-vision, fell prostrate on the rocks. For a few minutes exhausted nature slept; but when Nameoke revived, it was only to vary her tortures. A creeping chill passed over her as consciousness was restored, and she shuddered as she spake.

            “The foul-eyed women are again abroad--the witch-hags of the far-off mountains. They come to teach and work woe. They plant their hell-seed in the hatred of men’s bosoms, and the harvest is slander and revenge. Nameoke would work good, but in vain!--Nameoke has much to do before the moon shines on her corpse--Son of the Vassal, Nameoke’s heart bleeds for thee!”

            She pressed her hands to her forehead,--again she gazed long and silently on the stars, and then, heaving a deep, shivering sigh, Nameoke descended from PulpitRock, and slowly retraced her footsteps to her cave.

            As soon as his guests had been comfortably provided for, Seymour being confined to his berth, and proper attendance having been arranged for him as well as for his beautiful cousin, the barge was again in readiness to take Fitzvassal to Nahant, who was going there to bury the body of Felton.

           

            Two other barges filled with sailors accompanied their commander; and a number of lanterns gleamed over the water from them, as it was now quite dark already.

            The sailors landed from their barges, leaving only the oars-men and a petly officer in charge of each, and followed their commander up the rocky ascent to the place where lay the remains of the first lieutenant.

            And now, while some were engaged in digging a grave, others were occupied in preparing a sheet which was dipped in melted tar, the mariner’s proper shroud. In this they wrapped the body of their officer, which by the light of the lanterus they lowered down into its long resting place; and having placed a board above it, ranged themselves round the grave to listen to the funeral service.

            Strange as it may appear, those iron-hearted men could not have rested unless this ceremony had been performed, whether it be attributed to superstition or to habit; for it is indisputab’e that most men will cling to something like religion, even when they are steeped in crime, and will kiss the cross with a delirious sort of devotion while they are meditating to plunge a dagger or rob a sanctuary. Yet man, for all this, is noble, and posterity will cause to be forgotten the insanities of his first generations; for he has hardly yet thought of emerging from the savage life, much less is he prepared for a millionth part ofthe glories that await him. The enormities which now track his path are like the crises of a diseased body; they show the better nature struggling for mastery with the worse, and the very conflict proves the soundness of that spiritual principle which will one day both heal and regenerate.

            An officer held in his hand the liturgy, from which he proceeded to read the imposing funeral service of the Church of England; but scarcely had the solemn words with which it--commences passed his lips, when a sudden peal of that same unnatural laughter which had so terrified Felton, burst upon their appalled hearing, and excited within their bosoms the most fearful emotions.

            The commander ordered the officer to proceed, but as the same sound again smote on their ears, the book dropped from his hand, and he could not go on from apprehension.

            Fitzvassal immediately commanded the liturgy to be given to him, and though he was not himself entirely divested of the cold horror that crept over the hearts of all present, he managed so as not to betray his emotions, and succeeded in finishing the funeral service over the body, not without the same interruptions, which grew louder and louder as he advanced, till they finally broke out in diabolical yells, as if on purpose to mock and frustrate the ceremony.

            The sailors were now ordered to fill the grave, and then immediately to take to their boats, and in fifteenminutes after, they were on their way to the Dolphin, half petrified with what they had witnessed, which was a hundred-fold exaggerated in the minds of all.

            Our adventurer remained behind, his barge waiting for him according to orders, at the place where he landed. His curiosity was now raised to the highest pitch. Nameoke, of whom he had only recently heard, evidently knew him, and prophecied darkly concerning him. In what way could she be interested in his destiny? She judged that his intentions were honorable relative to Grace Wilmer. It was true, but how could Nameoke have known it? The death, too, of his lieutenant, and the allusion which had been made to it in the cave.--It now occurred to him that Felton might have been murdered; but then, who could have done it? Might he not have been destroyed by those superhuman powers which had terrified his crew that evening? Were they superhuman? Much was talked abroad about witchcraft, and many of the wisest believed in its existence. Could it indeed be possible? These thoughts, and similar ones, chased each other through the brain of Fitzvassal, and he resolved that night, if possible, to inquire into the wonders that surrounded him.

            “He returned to the Swallow’s Cave, and as he entered, its lonely occupant rose to receive him.

            “You have buried the man of dark thoughts,” said she, addressing him immediately, “and it is well;the ravens would have visited him before the morning.”

            “He met with an untimely death,” said her visiter, “do you know any thing of its circumstances?”

            “Suppose,” said Nameoke, looking earnestly upon him, “suppose yonder maiden had been your sister, and that she dwelt alone where the sea hymned her nightly to her rest, and where the stars alone saw her bathing in the waters.”

            “Well,” replied Fitzvassal, “and what then?”

            “Suppose that some ruffian had heard of her being there, and his imagination had been fired by the flames of hell to break in upon the sanctuary of her solitude, and had meditated violence to her--what would you have had your sister do to save herself from the man of dark thoughts?”

            “I would,” replied her visiter, “have her treat him as a venomous reptile that crossed her path, and kill him.”

            “You are right!” exclaimed the enchantress, “such was Felton to Nameoke, and she slew him!”

            “You?” replied Fitzvassal, “is it possible? Did the man offer violence to your modesty?”

            “Nameoke would have saved him, as she would saveFitzvassal,” resumed the enchantress, “she read his doom in the stars and warned him to fly from the wrath of the fates,--but he turned a deaf ear and perished.”

            “If he was doomed to perish, how could he escape?” inquired her visiter.

           

            “When the blood spouts from an artery, is not the man dying? And may not an active will save him from destruction?”

            “Well!”

            “Even so the will of man may control the stars, and the powers of darkness be defeated by his resolute purpose.”

            “Impossible!”

            “I tell you,” cried the enchantress, and her eyes flashed with supernatural beauty as she spoke, “I tell you that the will of man in relation to all things under the all-highest, is omnipotent for evil or for good. It may be trained to strike a fellow-creature dead by a thought, as he falls before a stroke of the sun, or a chain-bolt of the thunder-cloud; it may bring down angels out of heaven, or raise hell-fiends from the fathomless abyss; it is the will of man and only the will of man that makes paradise and death.”

            “You talk wildly!” said her listener in a half whisper, yet so fascinated by her manner that he could not withdraw his eyes from gazing on her face.

            “Nameoke tells nothing that she does not know,” resumed the Indian girl, “but Nameoke sees realities in what you call the future.--Man! man! why do you not learn yourself, why do you dive into all and every thing but the great thing of all; why do you leaveyourself unknown?”

            She raised herself as she spoke, upright, and seemedto pierce the very rocks with her vision; her eyes grew brighter and brighter, her cheeks swelled as if she were struggling with some internal emotion too big for utterance, and her lips parted and trembled as if all speech were denied them. Suddenly her form and features grew rigid, but still retaining their peculiar, indescribable beauty of expression, while the words poured from her lips in a torrent of impassioned cadences.

            She spoke of man, the greatest of all themes, of man as he was, as he is, and as he is to be. She looked into the great past, and told of his glorious innocence before he could be truly happy in his blessedness, for he knew no evil even by name, and therefore was ignorant of the good which he possessed;--she told of his communion with the heavens, and of his intercourse with the angels; but even the angels were like unto himself, and in the midst of his paradise, man was not satisfied--for he was man only in infancy.

            She spoke of his in-burning desire of something, of every thing which involved relations and opposites, and this she described as the dawning of his youth and reason, and she said that all was right, and that man might have come to the knowledge of good and of evil and have still been true to his nature; but as his reason dawned and he saw what was good and what was evil, he fell from his state of primal peacefulness, because having known evil hehad not achieved the only good he is capable of knowing and enjoying, by attributing every thing to the giver and nothing to himself.

            She spoke of the present, and told how man was almost unconsciously struggling with the weight of ages, and was on the point of developing faculties which he did not dream of possessing; that unheard of sciences would come with a knowledge of self, and add inconceivably to the happiness of the race; that man would continue to progress and grow better, notwithstanding the dark and discouraging appearance of evils which encompassed him, and that though punishment unavoidably followed what was evil, the time would come when man would be restored by the operation of his own will to that primal state of peace from which he had fallen, and be truly happy because he would be taught to be useful.

            When the sibyl had finished, she sunk for a few moments down upon a heap of dry sea-weed, and after heaving a profound sigh, came to herself again. Fitzvassal brought her some fresh water in a gourd, which she tasted, and then fixing her eyes upon him said,

            “Nameoke thanks you for your kindness--and would repay it--will you listen to her counsel?”

            “Most certainly will I listen,” answered Fitzvassal, who began to regard this extraordinary character with the deepest interest; “and if I do not profitby your wisdom, may I suffer the penalty of my fault.”

            “Fly then, fly quickly, from these shores, and let the stars of the other hemisphere shine on you-- there is death in your horoscope--and Nameoke sickens while she thinks of your fate: leave these shores to-morrow,--you will leave them to-morrow, but oh, return not to the three hills again; the crime you have already committed may be removed far away by deeds of charity.”

            Fitzvassal started as she spoke, and looked with amazement on her. How could she know of his crime?

            “If,” she resumed, laying her hand on his shoulder, “you harbor those thoughts that now occupy your mind, you will have a still greater crime to atone for.”

            “What mean you?” asked the man, shuddering inwardly as she spoke.

            “Know you not that your father is abroad on the ocean?” said the sibyl.

            “My father!”

            “He is even now returning with the gold that another man found, and he is sharing the rights of another with the blood of his body.”

            “Nameoke!” exclaimed the conscious-smitten man, “what mean you?”

            “Nameoke means,” replied the enchantress, “that Edmund Vassal is this moment on the ocean in avessel laden heavily with the gold of Port de la Plata!”

            “You amaze me!” exclaimed Fitzvassal, “is it possible that avarice has driven him to the wreck! His blood be upon his own head with vengeance!”

            “Beware of parricide, unhappy man,”--replied Nameoke, “fly, hastily from these shores, and avoid every sail you encounter.”

            “Have you aught else to command me?” inquired Fitzvassal, “for it seems that one who knows me so well, might tell me more.”

            “Banish the memory of the only maiden you ever loved, now and forever from your mind.”

            “You demand impossibilities,” exclaimed Fitzvassal; “but since you read my heart so well--tell me whom it is that I love.”

            “She is a beautiful being,” sighed Nameoke, “the morning-glory of innocence. She was born to make thee mad and another happy.”

            Fitzvassal disguised, as well as he could, the incredulity he felt at this declaration. Had not Grace Wilmer smiled on him; had she not blushed when he spoke to her, and blushed as often as she spoke? Surely it must be love, or at least a sentiment of deep tenderness that she entertained toward him!

            But he had yet to learn that smiles are not the coinage of affection only, and that the philosophy of blushing is more than skin-deep. A person may blush by accident, or from a rude suspicion, or from atransient motion, and ever after from the strong power of association. This is the true cause of that painful manifestation of sensitiveness, which the ironnerved and coarse-fibred never feel, and which is sometimes attributed to vanity! Vanity never blushes. Women, and men too, blush because theyremember that they blushed--and often from no other cause.

            “Nameoke!” said Fitzvassal after a pause, wishing to call her attention to a subject which had principally occupied his thoughts at the time he entered the Swallow’s Cave,--“Nameoke! tell me, if you can, what laughter and disturbance did I hear while the body of Felton was burying?”

            “It was the laughter of those,” replied the maiden, “who love evil and work wo. Would you see the monstrous-visaged women who come to you in spirit, and prompt you to abominable thinkings, the badeyed revellers that whisper in the human ear, deeds it were a sin even to name?”

            “Surely you do not believe in witchcraft!” said Fitzvassal, in a tone of half inquiry.

            “There are those,” exclaimed Nameoke, “who think that witchcraft is a chimera; but evil is mighty, and malicious thoughts will blast even the flowers of the field: much more can they trouble the spirit of man. He who wills evil mightily, never wills in vain, though the blight comes back on his own heart, and kills him with reverberated curses.”

           

            “Do you pretend to say that one can assume the form of another, and thus torture the object of his hatred?”

            “The spirit of one may assume the shape of another’s spirit and manifest itself for evil; but it is the work of the father of lies.”

            “You are dreaming, Nameoke, surely you do not believe in this.”

            “When you learn to know yourself,” replied the sibyl, “stranger things than this will be familiar to you; and it will not be long before such scenes will be exhibited by those who are now sowing for the harvest, that the ears of future generations will tingle as they listen.”

            “Shall I behold them, Nameoke?”

            “You will, and yet you will not. Come with Nameoke, and she will show you a page of the future. But the son of the Vassal must be secret as the grave. In future times when men read the testimony of their fathers, it will seem that credulity was the mother of witchcraft begotten by diseased imagination, when it will have been rather the will of man that hassubdued it. But Nameoke speaks to after ages. Let us away!”

            As she spoke she took from her bosom a talisman of black-veined agate set in gold, which she hung upon his neck.

            “Keep this,” said she, “for Nameoke’s sake; though it will not guard you from danger, it will keep yourheart from fear. It contains the deadliest poison, distilled from the hollow fang of the rattle-snake, the copper-head, and the mad-dogs’ blood. Come with Nameoke.”

            Immediately she seized her mace, and leaving the cave, followed by Fitzvassal, ascended to the plain above. In the direction of the Spouting-Horn was seen a livid light that alternately rose and fell, brightened and faded, as they gazed upon it. The sibyl was the first to break silence.

            “Nameoke will now show you a fearful sight which she would have shown to Felton. But his heart was harder than the flint, and the fire within him burnt toward the regions of woe. The son of the Vassal has already done evil; may the visions of this night turn his heart from the way of destruction!”

            “Whither are you going, Nameoke! and what do you mean to show me?”

            “Nameoke will show you the witches of the far Hartz, that sometimes leave the Brocken as the missionaries of the hells. They hold to-night their revels, and in diabolical mockery of the great mystery, administer the communion of the damned to those who are willing to be initiated. What you will behold would be invisible to common men, as we shall be invisible to the actors. See! we approach. Stand near to Nameoke, and hold her hand, thus!”

           

            As they neared the Spouting-Horn, its briny belchings grew louder and louder, and by the reflected light of the witch-fire its mounting waves gleamed hideously terrific. This was on their right as they approached. As they came nearer, they found that the light flashed up from below nearly down at the bottom of the broad and steep ravine to which at present a rude and craggy footpath leads in the direction of the Horn; far above this wonderful fissure the rocks rise almost perpendicularly a hundred feet, against which the huge jet of the Spouting-Horn, dashes violently and is whirled aloft by the opposing crags, in proportion to the violence of the waves.

            “Nameoke will lead you to a place of safety,” said the sibyl, drawing Fitzvassal after her, and taking another path to the Spouting-Horn on the south-east side of the place. “Behind yonder crag where the shadow deepens like a cavern, we shall be near to them and in no danger of discovery. Be careful lest you speak. Should you be so unguarded as to utter even a monosyllable, that moment the vision will be ended.”

            Slowly and cautiously they wound their way among the rough crags, careful lest their unguarded steps should loosen any fragment of rock, which, tumbling down the precipice, might alarm the weird sisterhood below. Fitzvassal still held the hand of Nameoke, following her step by step till at last theyreached the place of their destination. Not a word was spoken by either of them. They could only see each other’s faces, and feel the pressure of the hand on any suddenly-awakened emotion. The night was clear and beautiful; not a cloud was under the firmament, but the stars shone calmly and tranquilly, as if none but the pure in heart were abroad to gaze upon their splendour, and none but the worshippers of heaven were breathing beneath its arch of glory.

            But the attention of Fitzvassal and his guide was absorbed by other objects, and their pulses throbbed hard and heavily while they gazed.

            Upon a flat rock at the left of the Spouting-Horn, an enormous skull of a rhinoceros was discovered, supported by four human thigh-bones fixed transversely to sustain the weight; these were lashed together by a number of huge snakes, that writhed and twisted about, darting their fangs in every direction, hissing and rattling with fearful fury as the flames beneath them scorched their exposed bodies. The fire did not burn from any common fuel, but the hags which went by turns to the task, poured out at times certain substances like oils, which gave variously colored fires, and threw the most ghastly shades on all surrounding objects. Close to this skull-chauldron was a heap of dead bodies, that seemed to have been lately dragged from the water, two of which were interlocked in each other’s arms.

           

            As Nameoke gazed upon them, an involuntary shudder ran through her frame, for she knew they were the lovers who had been sacrificed to the fiendish malice of the Hartz hags, and she held her breath to subdue, if possible, her expression of abhorrence. Fitzvassal was petrified with horror.

            At a little distance from this infernal hearth, a stageing was erected to resemble a church altar. It was formed of decayed coffins, and they were so arranged as to form steps by which it could be approached. On the top of this altar was placed a large goat, around the neck of which was suspended a cross, contrived of the two forefingers of a dead infant. A black velvet pall was stretched over the altar, underneath the goat, tricked out with rusty coffin-plates, and at the foot of the stairs were a large number of dead bodies in every state of decay.

            The smoke from the oil-fire of the witches curled round the neighboring rocks in thick pitchy wreaths, and the lurid light shone full on their dreadful faces. There were twenty of them, the principal of whom Nameoke recognized as the two deformed monsters she had seen at the Pulpit-Rock. They had been feeding the fire for some time in the manner already described, and mumbling over inaudible charms as the oils burnt blue and green; but they now joined hand in hand and moved round the strange chauldron, which boiling over, foamed up with blood, and ran down the walls of the skull, scalding the snakeswith the hot torrent till they tied themselves into knots, writhing and screaming with harsh hisses.

            While this was doing, they uttered unintelligible incantations, at certain intervals terminating a cadence with peals of unnatural laughter, that reverberating from the neighboring cliffs, found another echo at Egg Rock, that sounded like a response from a company as infernal as their own. They would then stop, and after robbing the corpses of hair and finger-nails, they dropped them into the seething receptacle, while the snakes, disengaging themselves from their bondage, twined round their skinny arms, till suffocated by the stench of the decoction, they fell and mingled with the ingredients.

            There was now on a sudden an appearance like many shooting stars, accompanied by a sound like fast rushing in the air. As soon as this was perceived, the hags put their withered fingers to their lips, and for a moment were silent. The pale woman of Pulpit-Rock then beckoned to the others, and bounding over the intervening gulf, followed by all the rest, immediately landed at the foot of the altar, where, after kissing the goat, they prostrated themselves before it, and continued kneeling in silence, each with her finger on her lips.

            In a few moments after there were six new-comers in the company, when they who were kneeling rose together and welcomed them by clasping their hands. The newly-arrived guests were younger and less revolting in appearance than those whom they found at their orgies, but their faces were either bloated or haggard, and the impress of confirmed iniquity was deeply imprinted on their forms.

            They now sat themselves down in a circle, while several of the older ones, retiring behind the altar, brought each a human scull which had been made into a drinking cup; then going to the chaldron they filled it with the hellish fluid, and returning passed the same to the laughter-shaking hags.

            Fitzvassal and his companion when they beheld this horrible spectacle, could with difficulty restrain their feelings of disgust; particularly when they saw them drink hot blood, in which such revolting ingredients had been mingled. As the hags drank largely, their eyes gleamed in their hollow sockets, when all at once a strange fury possessed them. They suddenly sprang on their feet and clapped their hands in mad and tumultuous mirth, and whirled round with a velocity that made even the gazers giddy.

            At length their frenzy subsiding, they again shook hands and bowed themselves down to the beast; then, at a signal from one of them, they rose to their feet, and turning round, seated themselves in rows on the coffins. The pale hag then took a small black book from under the velvet pall, and passed it round among the hideous company, each one of whom in turn kissed it with seeming devoutness, when the ceremony of drinking was repeated.

           

            This ended, they began to boast of their exploits. One of them gloried in murders, several of them in daring robberies, most of them in seductions, but the two of the Pulpit-Rock bore away the loudest acclamations, by producing the bodies of the drowned lovers, and vaunting of the horrors of the wreck.

            They now joined hand in hand, and danced frantically round the chaldron, seeming not to touch the rocks as they moved, and all the while uttering dismal sounds of mingled mirth and madness.

            This was but the prelude to another scene: for they now, at a signal given, arranged themselves as before, while two of them fed the fire again with oils, from which evolved thick smoke, that for a time enveloped surrounding objects in darkness.

            As the dense vapor curled away, one of them was discovered, less haggard and offensive than the rest, standing upon a tripod, and waving above her head a long white wand.

            “The future! the future!” exclaimed one of the terrific sisterhood, “let us see the future!”

            “Hush!” hissed one half the company, and holding their lank fingers to their skinny lips, they all leaned forward in eager expectation of the result.

            The smoke-wreaths attenuating as they rose, presently assumed the forms of human beings. There were two beautiful girls who appeared to be sisters, and they were interchanging tokens of affection. Near them stood an evil-eyed woman, who for a while seemed to gloat upon them as the boa does onits mediated victims. She then seemed to clothe herself in the form of one of the fair creatures, when the two kissed each other and separated. No sooner had one gone, than the witch, in the shape of the departed, began to assail the other.

            A scream of delight arose as one voice from the witch company when they saw this, and they clattered their husky hands together, as if some new invention of evil had been achieved.

            The girl seemed now to be tormented by her own sister, and was writhing in agony beneath the cruelties she inflicted. Among other forms of torment, she was strangling her, with her two hands clenched round her throat, till her face became black as soot.

            The scene changed. The girl who had been tormented had accused her own sister, who stood before the judgment-seat of the land. Near by was a stake with bundles of faggots, and the unhappy creature was bound to the same and burned. A crowd of spectators were looking on, who seemed to take pleasure in witnessing a just retribution.

            “They believe it! they believe it!” screamed the assembled beldames as they gazed, “that will do! that will do! they believe it!”

            And as they spoke, they screamed triumphantly, and clapped their hands as before.

            The same witch that ministered at the fire, now threw fresh oil on the flames, and as the smoke grew thin in ascending, other forms appeared. As yet they were not so developed in their outlines, as tomake them distinctly seen; but one of them that went before was more clearly seen than the others. In a moment after, Fitzvassal was thunderstruck to recognise in the first, the exact image of his own father! He shuddered, but said nothing; for Nameoke held him hard by the arm, and by her expression, urged him to be silent. The form that followed was now seen to brandish a dagger, which it was about to plunge into the back of the pursued.

            Fitzvassal could contain himself no longer, but with a voice that broke harshly among the rocks, he shouted “Revenge!” The surrounding crags took up the cry, and reverberated “Revenge!” And the diabolical crew, as they vanished in the air, screamed close in Fitzvassal’s ears, “Revenge!”

            He gazed, bewildered, on the fading phantasmagoria around him, and as it passed, Nameoke, pointing to the figure of the murderer, cried emphatically, “See! Fitzvassal, see!”

            He turned, and recognised himself in the figure of his father’s assassin.

            A slight faintness oppressed him, but soon recovering, he wound his way back among the rough crags, under the guidance of Nameoke; but he spoke not a word to her. Nameoke preserved the same unbroken silence, and they parted at the Swallow’s-Cave, without uttering a syllable on the subject of their adventure, or even in exchanging the farewells of the night.

CHAPTER XIII.

 

Order for sea is given;            They have put forth the haven: further on,

            Where their appointment we may best discover,

            And look on their endeavor.

Antony and Cleopatra,

            It is a manacle of love; I’ll place it

            Upon this fairest prisoner.

Cymbeline.

           

            The morning gun boomed over the waters of the inner harbor from Castle Island to the town of Boston, as a signal that the day was fast advancing, and the eastern sky began to put off its dull gray robes for the more splendid saffron; the large sea-birds were rowing through the chill atmosphere, and here and there dipping into the waves for fish, and then mounting again on their wide-expanded wings, and wheeling far away in the blue depths of ether, or losing themselves against the snow-banks of the skies.

            From the deck of the Dolphin, as she rocked gracefully on the billows, could be seen in the distance and yet be scarcely seen, the Cape now called after Ann, and nearly the whole line of shore stretching up through Marblehead and Salem, growing darker and wider as it neared the eye, till it terminated in a mass of forest land, opening in little vistas, through which the abodes of man were discovered. Upon the face of the waters all around, might be seen a dozen or more little specks, which on a nearer view were discovered to be fishing-boats, that went out at the early dawn for cod and haddock, and were sometimes rewarded for their industry by a huge halibut, which might serve a whole ward of inhabitants.

            The clouds now changed their aspect, and wore the rich livery of purple and gold, with which they welcomed the sun now slowly wheeling upward from the ocean, and the waves that had subsided into comparative calmness, sparkled in the bright daybeams and danced as if conscious of the all-pervading life and freshness of nature.

            To those who looked down the harbor outside of the islands, the tall spars of the Dolphin, as she lay a little off the shore, were lightly traced against the bright back-ground of the picture that shone through her masts and rigging, while her black hull looked like a part of the neighboring rocks against which the rising and receding waters lapsed peacefully, and seemed in the distance like a snow-wreath on the shady side of a mountain.

           

            The wind was blowing gently from the west, and Fitzvassal, already on the deck of the Dolphin, was examining, with the critical eye of a sailor, the condition of his spars and rigging, and devising the best means of safely disposing of Grace Wilmer and Seymour, when he observed a vessel coming through Shirley-gut, that immediately arrested his attention.

            At that moment a man aloft cried out, “sail ho!-- the Revenue Cutter!” and if our adventurer had before doubted what it was, those doubts were now removed, as merging from the narrow channel she came down the outer harbor, wing and wing, bearing directly for Nahant.

            “Pipe all hands to heave anchors and make sail!” said the commander to the young man who had succeeded Felton in his office of lieutenant.

            The officer conveyed the order to the boatswain, whose shrill whistle rang through every part of the vessel, and was reverberated from the neighboring rocks: and in half a minute, all hands were on deck heaving away at the windlass, and loosing the canvass from the yards and boombs.

            In a few minutes the ponderous anchors were on board, and every thing cleared for making sail. The mainsail was now raised, and as the wind took it, swinging the heavy boomb over the gunwale, the Dolphin came round to her course and began to move through the water. The jib now went flying full of wind, and the other necessary sails being set, sheput out to sea under the immediate command of the pilot.

            “This is what I have been long expecting,” said Fitzvassal to Jake Morgan, as the latter placed himself at the helm, on resuming again his office. “Sir Edmund has somehow got wind of us, and has sent the Cutter to look into our affairs.”

            “She will have to outfly yonder gull, then,” replied Morgan, “for we have the wind fresher than it is above, and good three miles the start; howsomever, seeing ’s knowing, and the devil can only tell what may happen in the fish-pond of his countryseat.”

            Fitzvassal cast his eyes over the side of the schooner, to see if there were any obstacle in their way, when he perceived the boat of Morgan dragging at the stern. This he ordered to be hoisted aboard without delay, and now there was not even a rope’s end to stay the course by a ripple.

            The Dolphin was standing right out to sea a few points from the east, and the Cutter now bore dead east to head her in, carrying every stitch of canvas she could crowd.

            “I should like to run out at least twenty miles, Morgan,” said Fitzvassal, “before we fall in with that vessel. We could easily have blown her out of water without leaving the harbor, but I have other designs upon her.”

            “We can easily do that, sir,” replied the pilot;“for since we hoisted the flying-jib, she has not gained on us an inch, or my eye deceives me mightily;--we could run her hull-down in three hours, with studdin’-sails all set, I know.”

            “I don’t care about running away from her so far as that comes to,” said the commander, “and yet when I consider that I have a lady on board, it would perhaps be as well to avoid an encounter. How many fathoms have we now?”

            “From six to eight,” replied the pilot; “not short of six, howsomever.”

            “Keep right a-head, Morgan, and show her as much of your stern as you can,” enjoined Fitzvassal,--“and by all means don’t let her gain on you an atom: call me, if she does, or if she varies her course any: we must keep a sharp look out, for we have a deeper game than the mere act of running away.”

            So saying he descended into the cabin, where a little mulatto girl, about twelve years of age, was assisting the steward in preparing the table for breakfast.

            “Have you seen the lady this morning, Celia?” inquired the commander, who had been extremely solicitous for the comfort of his guest, and had directed the girl, who was a slave, to take particular care that her every want should be provided.

            “Yes sir,” replied the girl; “Miss is right well,she is, to-day.”

            “Will she come to breakfast, Celia?”

           

            “Miss says,” answered the girl, “she’ll have her breakfast sent to her, if you please, she will.”

            “Let her be obeyed in every thing--do you hear, Celia?”

            “Yes, sir,” replied Celia; and continued busying herself at the breakfast-table.

            “Massa Seymour,” said the steward, who was a negro and a slave, for in days of yore, slaves were as common in New England as they are in Maryland, and would be now, if self-interest had not changed a system which that section of the country had outgrown--“Massa Seymour very ill to-day-- he take bad cold yesterday in de water.”

            “I am sorry to hear that, Cato,” replied his master; “we shall not see him then to-day, hey?”

            “I’se feared not to-day, sir: he’ll hab de gruel for his breakfast, he tinks.”

            Fitzvassal went to the state-room door, and was about to knock, when he hesitated, and turned to the steward.

            “Cato,” said he, “ask Mr. Seymour if he is well enough to see me for a moment: I should like to speak a word or two with him.”

            The steward bowed and disappeared; but he presently returned with a message that,

            “Massa Seymour say he be happy to see Captain Nix. I guess he no see de old Captain in a hurry; but Cato no say nossing--he know a trick worth two o’dat, he does.”

           

            And his white teeth shone between his black lips like ermine on the sea-otter, and he chuckled with a suppressed familiarity which plainly indicated on what good terms he stood with his master.

            It now for the first time occurred to Fitzvassal, that it was all-important, for the success of his schemes, and even for the furtherance of the colonial liberties, that he should pass on board his own vessel for Captain Nix, so long, at least, as his present guests remained on board. Orders were accordingly given throughout the vessel, for this requirement to be enforced under severe penalties, an order very easily accomplished, as the word “Captain” was that which was generally used to address the commander, and to speak of him: but nevertheless, the precaution above mentioned was deemed by him expedient, in case of any accident which might render it necessary to use his surname. And now it is proper that we should revert to that part of the narrative which is necessary to fill the hiatus we have left, and to explain the reason why Fitzvassal had been compelled to assume a name which did not belong to him.

            We have already informed the reader of the mutinous disposition of the crew, when lying off Port de la Plata; how they refused to load the vessel with the bags of gold, and the wedges of silver which the persevering energy of Captain Phips had rescued from the sea; and how they had been brought to terms by the address of young Fitzvassal, who wasthen second officer under that enterprising leader. We shall now proceed to relate the sequel of that expedition, and the succeeding one for the recovery of the buried treasure.

            Cheered by the encouragement of Fitzvassal, the crew of the Dolphin, then belonging to the Duke of Albemarle, and commanded by William Phips, returned to their duties with alacrity, and as we have mentioned, brought the treasure safely to England; but when the vessel had discharged the precious cargo, and Captain Phips having been knighted, had relinquished the command of the schooner, the noble Duke turned a deaf ear to the demands of the sailors, who modestly urged the promises of their officers, though the chief of them, Mr. Nix, as first-mate, had from the beginning refused to co-operate in assisting them towards any extra remuneration. For he declared, and with reason, that they had all shipped as for any other voyage, without any reference to shares, and that the very act of disobedience of which they had been guilty, was of itself sufficient to exclude them from any gratuity.

            Fitzvassal, as second-officer, was more among the men, and it was by using all the influence he could exert, that he kept them in order while in the London docks, begging them to abide by what he promised as certain to be fulfilled, and giving them such reasons for submission, as were to them perfectly satisfactory.

           

            Notwithstanding the value of the freight brought to the Duke of Albemarle, that nobleman was far from being satisfied. Sir William Phips, on giving up the command of the vessel, and retiring contented with the share that had been allotted to him, assured the Duke that not more than one half of the buried treasure had been recovered; it is not wonderful, therefore, that he determined to dispatch the same vessel again in the confident expectation of recovering what remained.

            Accordingly the Dolphin was fitted for sailing with all expedition; for the Duke could not control his apprehensions that some one would step in between him and his prize, and deprive him of what he now claimed as his own, by the right of prior discovery. As the captain’s place was vacant, Mr. Nix was promoted to that office, and Fitzvassal elevated to the post of first-officer. Felton, who had had great experience, was taken from the forecastle and supplied the place of the second.

            Before leaving London, Captain Nix, who was an independant in his principles, and opposed with uncompromising hostility the reigning monarch, and with equal zeal favored the intentions of the Stadtholder, was made the special agent to bear dispatches from some distinguished persons, among others, Sir William Temple, who, though they made a show of loyalty to James, were in secret correspondence all the time with the Prince of Orange. We have already alluded to some of these papers in a former part of the narrative.

            It was probably owing to the perfect understanding which subsisted between the first-officer, and the crew of the Dolphin, that the latter did not manifest the slightest symptoms of insubordination, either on their way to Porte de la Plata, or while they were there occupied in loading with the precious metals. Nor were they able to exhaust the heaps of gold and silver which they found; but after loading the schooner as deeply as they dared, they were still under the necessity of leaving enough for another expedition, or to serve as the rich gleanings for some other fortunate adventurer.

            They were now on their homeward voyage, only twelve hours sail from the shores of Hispaniola, when, as the morning watch was called, Fitzvassal gave the signal of rising, by discharging a horsepistol. Immediately all hands were on deck, and the captain, with six men who had been recently shipped at London, and could not be expected to enter into the feelings of the rest of the crew, were seized and put in irons. It was useless for so few to make any resistance to fifty men, whose plan had been so well digested and matured.

            As soon as this was done, and the prisoners were made safe under hatches, the men assembled on the quarter-deck, and unanimously elected Fitzvassal to be their captain, and Felton to be their lieutenant;and they each and all took a good round oath, which is not to be found in any statute-book, that they would yield implicit obedience to their officers, and obey them to the very sacrificing of their lives, in the performance of duty.

            Our adventurer, of course, accepted with many thanks, a station which he had taken so much pains to secure for himself, and the first movement which he made to retain the favor in which he was held, was to measure out to each man his equal share of the whole cargo, having first set apart a tenth for himself, and a twentieth for Felton: his own share being worth more than a hundred and fifty thousand dollars of our present currency.

            Early the next morning, the yawl was got in readiness, and being well provided with every thing necessary for their support, the deposed Captain Nix was placed on board with the six sailors, their shackles having been first knocked off, and the boat cast off and abandoned to the mercy of the wide sea and the winds.

            After committing this act of piracy, our adventurer held the same course till the yawl was out of sight, and then he tacked for a direction nearly opposite. His intention now was, to run into Massachusetts Bay, and offer to every man the privilege of taking his money and departing. After a pleasant voyage, he hauled up at Barnstable, where seven of his crew availed themselves of the privilege of quitting theDolphin, and after having buried the principal part of their gold in the sands, bent their way into the interior and distributed themselves in different parts of the country.

            The Dolphin now ran up the Bay, entered Boston harbor, and running round to Mount Wallaston anchored there off-shore, as we have already had occasion to mention.

            It must therefore be admitted, as the reader will have already believed, that the schooner which now extended its hospitality to the beautiful but unfortunate Grace Wilmer, and her still more unfortunate lover, was a pirate and a buccaneer. It is true they were ignorant of these facts, and it must be also remembered, that no blood had as yet polluted her scuppers; but crime is under the guardianship of fiends, and when once an act of dishonesty and shame has been deliberately committed, the will having been turned to evil, is difficult to be reclaimed, and the first step is but too soon remembered as only a degree in the progression of iniquity. A false step can never be blotted out forever. It is not in the power of heaven to obliterate an evil action.

            Such had been the career of Fitzvassal, previous to the time we are now chronicling, and the remembrance of the one crime which he could not wash away, stung him sometimes almost to madness. Particularly was the recollection of it annoying to him now, when he no longer felt the pangs of remorseless poverty, but was on the eve of bringing himself before the eye of the world as a patriot, and a leader among the martyrs to liberty. How gladly would he have retraced the steps that had led him to the temple of mammon, how cheerfully would he have renounced all his wealth, for the privilege of earning his daily bread by incessant toil; toil, that greatest of all human blessings, that heaven-descended provision of a bountiful God! How triumphantly would he have labored early and late, for the privilege of feeling himself a man, untarnished by crime, and standing with conscious rectitude, in the presence of assembled angels!

            But such is the retribution of evil, that then only on its commission, is the beauty of goodness most perceived. When it is too late to go back to the green pastures and the still waters, and the sands of the desert envelop him, the pilgrim in vain regrets that he wandered from the way, while the recollection of that which is lost, only serves to add bitterness to his sorrows, and array his forms of agony in darker, more impenetrable gloom.

            To return from this digression. As soon as Seymour’s willingness to have an interview with Fitzvassal had been signified to him, he entered the stateroom, where the young man lay in his berth. The first question the latter asked, after the usual salutations, was relative to the well-being of his cousin; and after he had received assurances of her being comfortably provided for, and attended by a young girlwho could administer to all her wants, Seymour expressed his satisfaction in terms of the warmest gratitude.

            Fitzvassal assured him, that nothing would be left undone to contribute to the mutual comfort of himself and cousin, while they remained on board his vessel, and promised him that they should be safely landed in Boston or Salem, as soon as circumstances would warrant.

            “I perceive, Captain Nix,” said Seymour, “that we are under weigh; are you steering for Boston, now?”

            “No,” replied the commander, “the wind is dead ahead, and I am running down the Bay. To tell you the truth at once, Mr. Seymour,” he continued, looking at his guest archly, with a smile and a shake of the head--“my vessel is in the employment of the friends of liberty in Boston, and being suspected by Sir Edmund Andros, I have cause for believing that he has sent the Revenue-cutter after me, the Frigate being wanted at home. So I am running a race with his majesty’s revenue boat, though I have no contraband goods to be taken care of.”

            “You surprise me!” exclaimed Seymour--“I am one of the friends of liberty myself; give me your hand for a bold heart and a true.”

            And they shook hands with all the cordiality of enthusiastic partisans, who had sworn to live and die in the defence of the rights of man.

            “It is a little singular,” resumed Seymour, “that Ishould have thus been thrown in your way. Do you expect to have a fight with the Cutter?”

            “Not if I can well avoid it, Mr. Seymour, till we have run outside some twenty or thirty miles, for I do not wish to excite the suspicion of the forts; it might thwart my measures materially, to do so.”

            “Since my sickness,” said Seymour; “I have lost the run of events in Boston, pray give me all the information you can about the patriot movements.”

            The interviews which Fitzvassal had enjoyed with Mr. Temple, and subsequently with others of the committee, enabled him to communicate to the invalid much valuable intelligence; but that which came from England interested him the most.

            “There are strong indications, Captain Nix, of a political revolution at home and abroad--I am a disciple of Mr. Temple’s school, perhaps you are not acquainted with his principles.”

            “I think I understand them tolerably well,” replied the commander, “but as I have never had but one conversation with him expressly on the subject of politics, of course I cannot be a proficient in his doctrines. He is what I call a great man.”

            “Undoubtedly he is so, Captain Nix, for he is a good man. But the time has not yet come when men will understand that heretofore there has been a wrong classification of intellectual and moral things. At present, nearly all the great men of the country are bad men. The time will come, and Mr. Templediscerns it afar off, with the vision of a seer, when men will acknowledge that the moral takes precedence of the intellectual, and that virtue is the highest characteristic of man.”

            Fitzvassal bowed assent to this doctrine, but he felt the more keenly how miserable was his own condition. Yet in the midst of his sufferings, he was happier in his unconscious humility, than--but who can measure the comparative happiness, or misery of man? It is indeed better for man to be humble than arrogant; though humility is not known to him any more than is the pre-eminence of goodness; still less does the world comprehend the beauty of serving--the privilege of ministering to the well-being of others.

            Fitzvassal now left his guest and went on deck. The beautiful islands were all a-stern, and the broad bay opened uninterruptedly to the ocean. The Revenue-Cutter was still behind, carrying every rag of canvas she could rake and scrape from below. Proudly did she bear down upon them, bending to the pressure of her wide sheets, as if she were careening in the dock, and throwing the white foam to her figure-head, and streaming it off from her rudder in a bright, effervescing wake.

            But the Dolphin kept away from her with only her ordinary sails set, and while the government-vessel seemed to be straining all her rigging, and making the most prodigious efforts to overtake the schooner,the latter flew away before her like an antelope before a hunter; and as she dashed the spray a-stern, seemed to exult in superior youth and vigor.

            “We will have some sport, Morgan, when we get outside,” said the Captain, laughing.

            “I’m your boy for that sort of work, any day,” replied the pilot, turning every minute, to observe whether his vessel held the true course with reference to the chase.

            “I am not so certain that its best to have a brush with her, Morgan, but I should like to sail round her by daylight.”

            “Clap on your studding-sails, and you can do it, if you like--but you had better give her a shot or two for amusement. Did I ever tell you the story of my smuggling some liquor over shore here?”

            “Very likely,” replied the commander, who did not feel just then in the temper to listen to one of Jake Morgan’s long yarns. “Very likely I have, Morgan--but see there, there is something coming along harder to swallow than one of your tough stories.”

            As he spoke, a volume of light blue smoke poured rapidly from the bow of the Revenue Cutter, and forming itself into an exact ring, came floating on the current of air that flowed from the west, and presented one of the most beautiful objects that the eye ever beheld, while at the same time, a shot came skipping over the water, and after dashing it up in half a dozen places, fell about a quarter of a mile a-stern.

            “If I were to return that compliment, from the long twenty-four,” said Fitzvassal, “it would’nt fall short after that manner.”

            At that instant, the first-officer stepped up to the Captain, and touched his hat as if he expected some order suited to the occasion.

            “Answer her with the big gun, Mr. Wilson!”

            “The officer touched his hat again, and retired to execute the command.

            In less than a minute, the match was applied to the gun, which went off like a peal of thunder, jarring the schooner to her kelson, and enveloping her in one thick cloud of smoke.

            “The devil take the smoke!” exclaimed Morgan, “a fellow can’t see how the thing travels.”

            But in a short time, the wind cleared away the obstacle, and a large rent was discovered in the foresail of the Revenue-Cutter.

            As soon as this was perceived, the crew of the Dolphin sent up a loud shout of exulation, which ended in three hearty cheers; and it being in the neighborhood of grog-time, the commander, in order to encourage the men, gave orders to “pipe all hands to splice the main brace.”

            Three more cheers, louder and more hearty than the others, acknowledged the favor which the Captain intended for the rough sons of Neptune, whopresently were seen surrounding the tub of “half-and-half,” and quaffing, each man his half-pint, with true sailor jollity.

            If a revelation had been made in those days, that in times not far distant, ships would be made to go to sea with steam, and sailors without it, the declaration would have been equally incredible; for grog was then considered as essential to a ship as her rudder, and sailors regarded it as their very life’s blood. It is so for the most part now, but an improvement has been made in this respect, which demonstrates most decisively, that water, and only water, is the sailor’s element.

            Fitzvassal, satisfied with the return favor that had been given to the Revenue-Cutter, went again below, for fear that his beautiful guest might have been alarmed at the exchange of salutes; and as he descended, he found her sitting on a sofa in the cabin, amusing herself with a book.

            “It gives me pleasure,” said the Captain, bowing and taking off his hat to the lovely object of his adoration, “to see Miss Wilmer look so well after the fatigues of yesterday.”

            Grace curtesied by bowing her head gently, and dropping her fair, blue eyes with unaffected respect, replied:

            “I owe all that I enjoy to the generosity of Captain Nix. I hope that he will accept my gratitude.”

           

            “You owe nothing to me, Miss Wilmer; but it is I who owe you every thing!”

            Grace lifted her eyes upon him, not with surprise, for since she attributed what he said to nothing but politeness, she had heard too many fine speeches to regard them as extraordinary; but she had too deep a sense of the obligations she was under to the supposed Captain Nix, to regard him as a common bandier of compliments, and as she reflected on his possible meaning, her fair face was gently suffused with emotion.

            “Yes,” continued the mariner, warming as he proceeded, and not displeased that the charming girl seemed sensible of his influence: “indeed, I owe to you every thing that gives me pleasure in life; for why should I hesitate to declare, that it was Miss Wilmer that first taught me that I had a better nature within me, and that self was not a worthy idol of worship.”

            Though it was impossible for Grace Wilmer to misunderstand this declaration, yet it was couched in such delicate expressions, and was withal so respectful, and unpretending in the manner of its utterance, that she could not be offended; for when is a gentle being ever annoyed at the implication of a sentiment which, though it shrink like the violet from the day-beams, is revealed by its subtler qualities? But her fine sense of propriety did not allow her torecognise the avowal of affection; and her exquisite tact came promptly, and immediately to her aid.

            “It is certainly a great privilege,” said Grace, “in being any way instrumental in making other people happy, and one of the most enduring sources of enjoyment, is the conferring of benefits. Our family have afforded you repeated opportunities of making yourself happier in that way, and we shall never cease to be mindful of the obligation.”

            And then desirous of giving a different turn to the conversation, she added:

            “But will Captain Nix be so obliging as to inform me what destination his vessel has at present?”

            He then repeated to her in substance, what he had previously communicated to Seymour, and quieted every apprehension, by assuring her of a safe and speedy return home.

            “I hope, however, that Miss Wilmer can be contented on ship-board for a little while,” said Fitzvassal, desirous of recurring to the original subject of their discourse, “though there is nothing in the accommodation of a vessel of war to be particularly agreeable to a lady.”

            “I trust that you will not find us troublesome guests,” replied Grace: “for my part, I could put up with any accommodations, after the terrible dangers I have so recently encountered--but my poor cousin--”

            “Have no anxiety on his account, Miss Wilmer,he will be well enough to attend you,” said the mariner.

            “Heaven grant it so;” sighed Grace.

            There was a pause of a few seconds, which the young lady felt to be awkward, and which this very thought tended to protract. She was about to rise with a view of retiring to her state-room, but Fitzvassal detained her.

            “Stay a moment, Miss Wilmer! I have that to communicate which another opportunity may never allow.”

            Grace started involuntarily, but presently recovering herself, she resumed her seat on the sofa.

            “It is a source of consolation to me,” said Grace, without raising her eyes toward the person she addressed, “that I am under the protection of a gentleman who is too chivalrous to offend by a thought. Say on, Captain Nix; I am all attention.”

            There was something like a mixture of real dignity, and forced constraint, in this speech, that would have confounded Fitzvassal, if he had not had a real apology for detaining her; as it was, he did not seem disturbed, but taking something from his pocket, he extended it towards her, exclaiming:

            “Does Miss Wilmer remember ever to have seen this?”

            Grace looked at it inquiringly for an instant;

            Can it be possible?” she cried, “My ring?”

            It was indeed the rich jewel that the infatuatedyoung man had abstracted from her finger, when she had fainted at the cruel sufferings of her cousin. True, she had at first suspected who took it from her, but as the generous and self-devoted man had subsequently become identified with the heroic mariner who was instrumental in saving Seymour, she had driven the idea from her mind as a rude and uncharitable imagining, as unworthy of herself as it was undeserved by that officer.

            “May I ask,” inquired Grace Wilmer, “how Captain Nix became possessed of this--I hope he will excuse me for asking so rude a question, but it is well intended; I would save him from the suspicion--

            “Of theft,” said Fitzassal, supplying the word which he knew was uppermost in her mind.

            “Oh no, by no means,” exclaimed Grace; “such a thought could not dwell with me, I assure you;-- but at first, the circumstance--the--”

            “Miss Wilmer,” said the mariner, interrupting her, “if I have been so fortunate as to win any kind feelings from your family by my actions, may they be permitted to atone for a deed which was prompted by the delirium of a passion, which--”

            “For pity’s sake, Captain Nix, forbear!” cried Grace Wilmer, with extreme agitation, “you know not what you say; surely, you cannot mean--”

            “That I love you!” exclaimed Fitzvassal, passionately, “and may the heavens witness my devotion.”

           

            “Captain Nix!” replied Grace, turning deadly pale, “I am faint; give me air! Oh my mother! my mother!”

            And as the tones died away on her lips, she swooned in his presence.

            The buccaneer called hurriedly for her attendant, and the faithful Celia stood at her side. By using the ordinary appliances in such cases, Grace revived, and shortly after withdrew with her maid to her state-room, and as she laid herself exhausted in her berth, she found that the ruby ring whose loss had given her so much uneasiness, was once more glittering on her finger.

CHAPTER XIV.

 

            Cassio’s kisses on her lips.


Othello            The next broadside we poured,

            Brought the mainmast by the board.


Yankee Song   Tug him away; being whipp’d,

            Bring him again.


Antony and Cleopatra           

            It were a large chapter, in the history of human affection, which should contain a recital of all the woes that spring from self-delusion. How common a thing it is for men to fancy themselves preferred by the women they adore, when there is no other ground for such assurance than the flattery of their own hearts! It is a small reason that women should love us, merely because we happen to love them,-- the belief of many wise ones to the contrary notwithstanding; for it is so far from being true that love begets love, that the very contrary might fall into a proverb. That which passes current in the worldas love, is, generally speaking, nothing more than a temporary delirium, arising from gratified vanity, which, as soon as the incense heaped by the imagination on its altar is consumed, grows cold again, and languid, and if it pines with any melancholy of passion, it is only that of Narcissus, when the image of his own attractions is no longer reflected from the fountain.

            Love, so far as it is merely natural, is as changeful as a dream,--so far only as it is spiritual, is it enduring. It is not only beauty of form and feature, that engages our higher affections, nor is it because the lover is “of imagination all compact,” that he sees “Helen’s beauty in the brow of Egypt.” Genuine love is that of the spirit, which, if it be true, must make the object beautiful though the outward form and corporeal vestment are as rugged as the gnarled oak. It is therefore honorable to women, that the more exalted of the sex prefer a Socrates to a mere Antinous, and leave a contrary choice to those whose highest ambition it is to be admired, even though the admiration is no purer than the emotion of an animal.

            Had Fitzvassal been more deeply read in the annals of affection, he would not so readily have presumed on a reciprocation of feeling from one whose heart he must have known was already occupied. It was his misfortune to love, “not wisely, but too well;” and in the infatuation of his fancy, to mistakethe ordinary expressions of female courtesy, for manifestations of a deeper sentiment. There is many a man who rails at the inconstancy of the sex, who never could have excited in their hearts the most transitory interest, and many a one who would have the world suppose he is going to die a bachelor fromchoice, who sighs among his undarned hose, at his dire and sad necessity.

            Fitzvassal had the madness to believe, that Grace Wilmer loved him. He had never before seen such beauty and gentleness in woman, and as he loved her with enthusiastic devotion, he vainly imagined that her heart beat responsive to his own. He now brooded over his declaration of love, and dwelt with fondness on her every look, and word, and action, which he as surely misinterpreted, as he ascribed it to an interest for himself.

            Grace Wilmer regarded him as her family benefactor, and so far, as a man deserving her gratitude and regard; but her heart was already pre-occupied by one who was in all respects worthy of her love; and she could no more divide her affections, and keep a part from Seymour, than portion out her animal being to her worshippers. The declaration of Fitzvassal was therefore equally unpleasant, and startling. The first intimation she had received of his love, was its frank avowal. In vain did she examine her heart, and explore the recesses of her bosom, to discover if haply she had given occasion for,or encouragement to, his feelings; and though the conduct of her new lover had been as deferential and delicate as the most susceptible mind could have wished, she could not control her apprehensions when she reflected on being in his power, and the possible dangers that might await her from one whom she supposed to be chagrined and disappointed. Had she rather known that fuel had been unconsciously heaped on the fire she had kindled, her heart would have been still less at ease, than it was when she moistened her pillow with tears, weeping in solitary anguish.

            In the meantime, the commander of the Dolphin paced his quarter-deck with feelings of mingled pleasure and anxiety. On the one hand, golden visions of requited love and worldly honor, flitted in lovely forms before his imagination; on the other, the fear of the detection of his one crime, rose up like a hideous spectre to scare away his reason. He was in the possession of wealth almost unbounded, and he was little disturbed in conscience by the lawless means through which it had been gained. It was the dread of being found out, that alone disturbed him; for he had learned to look upon the world with delight, and to long for a share in its allurements. In the banquet of life there seemed to him but one obstacle to his perfect happiness--and that was the skeleton at the table.

            The development of Fitzvassal’s character, was astrong illustration of the truth, that a perfect harmony of the will and of the understanding, is necessary to a healthy state of mind, and to the practice of virtue. The rational principle of man, which belongs to the understanding, may, by the influx of heavenly light, be elevated to the perception of causes, and even to that of ends, which is the broadest reach of created intelligence; but unless the affections which belong to the will, become at the same time the recipients of heavenly love, and are thus elevated in a like degree, the intellectual principle is drawn down to the plain of the voluntary, and partakes of its quality, however sensual and debased it may be. There must be heat as well as light, before the earth will yield nourishment for her children.

            We may here find an answer to the question, why men of transcendent intellect so often prostitute their powers, and throw a charm over the very rottenness of sensuality. So long as they voluntarily cling to vices which are contrary to the divine law, and therefore inconsistent with the advancement of their being, they do not love to elevate their affections above the fascinations of the world; and since the understanding cannot operate without the will, it brings down the light it has borrowed from above, to be changed to the phosphorescence of corruption.

            While Fitzvassal was engaged as we have represented him, in “chewing the cud of sweet and bitter fancy,” it suddenly occurred to him, that he had solemnly promised to send Grace and her cousin to Boston that very morning, and as he had no motive for detaining them on board, and as it was indispensable to her comfort to return, the expedient immediately suggested itself of transferring them to the Revenue-Cutter.

            Seymour having been first consulted as to the propriety of the measure, the plan proposed was to place them in Morgan’s boat, and leave them there to be taken up by the government vessel; but Seymour, when he found that there was a sail-boat at his disposal, eagerly embraced the opportunity of using it as an immediate conveyance to the metropolis.

            Every thing being made ready, by the vessel hauling away from the wind, and the lowering of the boat, and its preparation for sailing, after cordial adieus on the part of Seymour and Fitzvassal, and the most marked declarations of interest on that of the latter to Grace Wilmer, whose down-cast eyes and pervading expression of melancholy were of course misconstrued by her inamorato, they descended into the skiff, and in a minute after were rapidly on their way to Boston.

            The Dolphin now immediately wore round to the wind, when her ropes strained like the sinews of a racer, as she bounded forward in the course. Her commander stood on the quarter-deck, his glass following the boat with its precious merchandise. It was now half way between the flying vessels. Whyis Fitzvassal disturbed as he gazes? Why does he suddenly dash the glass on the deck, and descend in agitation to his cabin? Leave the brandy untouched, poor fool! It cannot obliterate the remembrance of that reciprocal kiss. Its image shall haunt thee to thy grave!

            The boat having first been boarded by the Cutter, was now seen shooting ahead toward Shirley-Point, and was lost to the eye among the islands. Another shot from the government-vessel indicated that the ardor of pursuit had been stimulated, rather than allayed, by the short interval that had happened. The booming of the Cutter’s gun immediately roused Fitzvassal, who was now once more standing with another spy-glass on his quarter-deck.

            His first-officer was by his side in an instant.

            “When we return that fire, Sir,” said the commander, bitting his lip, that quivered with hardly-suppressed emotion, while his eyes flamed with anger, “it shall be to some purpose. When we have run down out of hearing-distance from Boston, I mean to show that fellow the hardest fight he ever dreamed of. It is now eleven o’clock. By two hours after noon, be ready to beat to quarters!”

            The officer bowed and retired, and soon after, the men were seen taking down their boarding-pikes from the masts and booms, with which they were circled, and their basket-handled swords, which were stuck round the capstan and long-boat, and their short,broad daggers, resembling the bowie-knife; and these they proceeded to grind and polish, preparations dismal enough for their end, but engaged in with the more alacrity by the men, for the grog they had just drunk.

            Fitzvassal, while this was going on, passed frequently before the sailors, with a view to observe their faces, and discover the state of their dispositions. The cheerfulness with which they went to work assured him that he had nothing to fear from any dis-affection among them. Shot of every description, from chain to canister, was now brought on deck, and piled up in pyramids by the guns which were unlashed, carefully sponged and cleared, for immediate use. New match was also got ready, and all the various implements of naval warfare adjusted as they should be, preparatory to an engagement.

            In the mean time, the Revenue-Cutter, crowding all her canvas, bore down hard upon the Dolphin, with the determination of coming up with her, if practicable. Sir Edmund Andros was sufficiently aware of the posture of public affairs, to keep himself ever vigilant for the interest of the Crown, and he had received implicit orders, in dispatches by the Rose frigate, to carefully examine every vessel that came into Boston or New-York harbors, about which the slightest suspicion could be surmised. Fitzvassal was therefore wrong in his conjecture, that Classon had betrayed him; for, however bound that minion of power might have been to spy out the movements of the people and report to his master, he was too fond of money, and was too much dazzled by the bright anticipations his step-son had awakened, to throw away an opportunity of amassing wealth, that only required his silence to secure it.

            The truth was, the Dolphin first fell under the suspicion of Sir Edmund after she had removed to Nahant. While there, she had been reported by a fisherman well affected to the Crown; and the mere circumstance of her lying idly in a place that could furnish no commercial advantage, might have been regarded as sufficient warrant for an unfavorable judgment respecting her. Besides, the Buccaneers were then ravaging the seas in all directions, and as some of the most reputable moneyed men of the day were suspected of co-operating in a source of profit, which at that time was, to say the least, considered as respectable as a monopoly of the necessaries of life is now, Sir Edmund Andros was apprehensive that some of these adventurers might be enlisted in a cause, which however improbable in its result, it could not be disguised was likely to disturb his quiet. Impelled by these views, the Revenue-Cutter was dispatched in pursuit of the Dolphin, though the Governor was wholly unconscious of the real enemy he had to deal with. She was directed to board the suspected schooner, and if, on an examination of her papers, or from other appearances, sufficient groundshould be afforded for the act, to bring her into Boston to be dealt with according to law.

            Under these circumstances, when the schooner was seen to weigh anchor and run away, no doubt was left in the mind of the Cutter’s officers, that there had been just and probable cause to distrust her friendship; and in accordance with this opinion, she had been fired upon, as soon as she was supposed to be within reach of the shot. On boarding the boat which contained Horace Seymour and Grace, no satisfaction whatever confirmatory of this belief could be obtained, for as neither of them imagined that the Dolphin was any other than a vessel employed by the patriots, so the obligations they were under to its commander, prevented them from giving any satisfactory information to the government Cutter.

            Both vessels had now run down about twenty miles below Boston Light-House, and still kept the same relative distance from each other; for whenever Fitzvassal, who had relieved the pilot, found that he was gaining too much on his adversary, he brought his vessel nearer to the wind, and backed his topsails, to give the Cutter an opportunity of coming up.

            The superiority of the Buccaneer over the Revenue-Cutter, determined the former to avail himself of the advantage, and instead of coming immediately to close quarters, to keep up a running fire on her at long shot, and thus disable her, without affording an opportunity for retaliation. With this end in view,all hands were piped to quarters. Orders were given to fire only the long gun, which, as the government-vessel came within hitting distance, kept up an incessant fire upon her.

            The position of the Cutter was such, that only her bow-chasers could be used without wearing round, and to do this, materially diminished her headway; in fact, she had already lost ground by firing her bow-guns, but as these invariably fell short of the schooner, she soon relinquished their use altogether.

            Still, however, the chase continued with the greatest assiduity on the part of the Cutter, which not only crowded her studding-sails, and thrust out her sweeps, but as long as she continued in moderate soundings, sent her kedge ahead in the boats, whenever the breeze died away enough to require it, and was thus run on by the crew to some advantage. But with every auxiliary which maritime ingenuity could suggest, the Dolphin continued to keep out of hitting distance from the Cutter, while her own longgun was constantly annoying her pursuer’s rigging.

            This sort of warfare was exceedingly amusing to the crew of the Buccaneer, which sent up three cheers whenever one of their shot told on the other; yet they frequently begged for permission to come to yard-arm and yard-arm, a mode of fighting better suited to their temper.

            Their commander, nevertheless, kept their ferociousdisposition under, by assuring them that he had carved out work enough for them to do at close quarters in the future, but that his intention for the present was only to riddle the Revenue-Cutter, and do her business for her, without himself losing a spar or a man.

            Several shots had already passed through the fore-topsail of the Cutter, that vainly exerted itself to get within reach of the Dolphin, and one, as she had turned to bring her other guns to bear, had struck her on her weather-beam, doing considerable mischief.

            They had now run full thirty-five miles from Boston, when the Revenue-Cutter, having had her sails materially damaged, without conveying a single shot to her opponent, became satisfied that it was vain to think of overtaking her and bringing her into action; and accordingly she tacked about with the intention of relinquishing the chase entirely.

            As soon as Fitzvassal understood the intention of his enemy, he put the schooner about, and amidst the vociferous shouts of the crew, in his turn commenced the chase. He was careful, however, not to follow long in her wake; but bearing several points away from her course, he continued to keep constantly in such a relative position as to bring several guns to bear on her at once, though his long gun was the only one that did essential service.

            Under the galling fire of her adversary, whose superiority in every respect was too lately discovered, the Revenue-Cutter found herself in the most painful situation. On determining to abandon the chase, she had not entertained the idea that the pursued would become the pursuer; for she regarded the schooner as little better than a pirate that stood in apprehension of justice, and would be glad of a chance of getting away from her; but when she perceived the Dolphin put about, the officers could not help feeling anxious for the result. Most willingly would they have come within carronading distance, or to close quarters, but they soon found that their annoyer was resolved to do neither. All they could do was to run away as fast as possible, or to bear down on their adversary, for the chance of a close fight.

            The last part of the alternative was finally adopted, and the sails were trimmed accordingly; but the moment Fitzvassal discovered the design, he shaped his course so as to thwart its accomplishment, and the Dolphin flew away from her like a bird.

            At this moment, a shot from the long twenty-four told on the foremast of the Revenue-Cutter, and it came with a crash to the deck. The crew of the Buccaneer immediately gave nine cheers, and the schooner wore round again on her adversary. The government-vessel being half dismantled, was of course perfectly unmanageable, and remained at the mercy of her enemy. The Buccaneer pursued hisadvantage, and running up under her stern, poured a heavy broadside, raking her fore-and-aft with canister, grape, and round-shot, that at the first discharge brought down the mainmast, and deluged her deck with blood.

            This destructive task was the work of a minute, and the Dolphin then filled away, and stood off to observe the desolation she had accomplished. The screams and groans of the dying were audible on the deck of the Buccaneer, and though there remained no flag for the vanquished to strike, it was evident enough that there was a disposition on board to surrender. Accordingly, a quarter-boat was lowered, and Wilson was ordered, with twelve men, to go aboard and take possession of the prize.

            On coming along-side and ascending the gangway ladder, it was found that not an officer or man, of the small number on board the Revenue-Cutter, had been left unharmed. Out of eighteen persons, ten had been killed, two others mortally wounded, and the remaining six hurt, either by splinters, by the falling spars, or by shot: on making which discovery, Wilson sent four men, with a petty-officer, to report the result to his commander.

            As soon as Fitzvassal understood the disastrous condition of the Revenue-Cutter, he gave immediate orders to bring the wounded men aboard his own vessel, though it was with great difficulty he could provide them with accommodations. The Cutter was thenstripped of every thing valuable and useful, her guns brought aboard the Dolphin, with all the ammunition she had in her magazine. She was then scuttled, and left to go down at her leisure.

            The humanity that the Buccaneer had shown to the wounded men, met with little sympathy from his crew. They almost to a man cursed what they called his folly, in lumbering the vessel with the half-dead carcases of an enemy, and would gladly have heaved every one of them overboard, if they had had their own way. They felt that they were pirates, and though they were differently regarded in those days than pirates are now, they were conscious of having lost caste; and they were already prepared to increase their crimes to any extent which any emergency might demand. Some of them, indeed, had been old offenders, whose hands were dyed in blood, and the contamination of their reckless minds and communications had spread widely among the crew of the Dolphin. But the austere discipline of Fitzvassal kept them constantly in check, and there was only one of them who had the audacity to show his resentment on this occasion.

            This fellow was a large mulatto, a practical instance of that unnatural amalgamation which has so many advocates among the deluded of our day. Of all bad men, this race is the worst, and the annals of crime would show that they are the most heartless, stubborn, and depraved characters that are to be metwith on the purlieus of human society. The man referred to passed among the sailors under the name of Bloody Dick, for the atrocities of which he used to boast, and for his known cruelty whenever he had an opportunity of exercising it.

            As this scoundrel passed by the wounded men who were lying on the deck, he gave one of them, who was even then almost dead, a violent kick on the head, accompanied by the most disgusting blasphemies, swearing that he had better go to hell at once, and be damned.

            The miserable sufferer gave one groan, and expired.

            This fiendish conduct, however, did not escape the eye of the commander.

            “Lash that fellow to the foremast!” exclaimed he; and the order was immediately executed.

            “Now give him thirty-nine lashes on his bare back with the cat, and report to me when it is over!”

            The fellow’s screams and curses might have been heard for miles, as the knotted, nine-thonged whip scourged his tawny shoulders, without producing any other effect upon him but pain, malice, and the thirst of revenge.

            This part of his punishment being executed, and a report thereof made to the commander, he gave orders that he should be keel-hauled.

            “All hands a-hoy!” exclaimed the boatswain, taking up the order that had been passed to him, “all hands a-hoy, to keel-haul Bloody Dick!”

            “Hurrah! Hurrah! Hurrah!” vociferated the sailors in reply, who were rejoiced at the opportunity of paying back to the man they detested, a part of the debt of gratitude they owed him for his repeated annoyance.

            Bloody Dick was then brought a midships, stripped to his skin, and his hands and feet bound closely together. A long rope was next fastened under his arms, and one end of it passed from larboard to starboard, under the bottom of the schooner. A dozen men were then ordered to take hold of each end of the rope, while others were commanded to heave the fellow overboard.

            The relentless monster in vain struggled against the further punishment that was about to be inflicted on him;--in vain he begged, cursed, implored, blasphemed, and entreated by turns;--he was instantly hurled into the deep on the larboard side of the vessel, when immediately those on the starboard commenced the operation of keel-hauling. Hand-over-hand, they drew the rope over the gunwale, till they brought Bloody Dick to the surface of the water. As soon as they perceived that he had taken a mouthful of air, they all at once let go, when those on the larboard side, in their turn, began to haul in. But the moment the fellow had a breath of air, down he went again, and was hauled up on the opposite side; thisoperation was repeated, till he was ordered to be taken aboard by the boatswain.

            Exhausted, spiritless, and for the time subdued, Bloody Dick lay for a short space panting on the deck, disgorging the large draughts of salt water which he had reluctantly swallowed in his journeyings under the keel, till at length gaining strength, he sprang upon his feet, and seizing a knife from the belt of a sailor near him, rushed upon Fitzvassal like a tiger leaping from a jungle. The suddenness of the attack might have been fatal to the commander, had it not been for the faithful Cato, who, as he saw the movement, interposed by tripping up the sturdy mulatto, who thundered down, Ajax like in his fall, prostrate on the deck.

            “To the yard-arm with that murderous scoundrel! to the yard-arm with him, instantly!” exclaimed the commander. “He has sent one innocent man to eternity within an hour, and he would murder every man aboard if he could;--away with him! hang him up instantly to the yard-arm!”

            The order was no sooner given than measures were taken to put it in immediate execution. The fellow was again seized, and securely pinioned. A rope from the end of the fore-yard was then passed down, and a noose made with a hangman’s knot thrown over the fellow’s neck, and drawn so as not to slip off. He was then ordered to stand on a loaded cannon, while the funeral service was read to him.

            While this ceremony was going on, all his evil passions seemed to be working simultaneously, and instead of listening to the lecture that was intended for his comfort, he burst out with repeated maledictions on all that bore the human form, bitterly lamenting that he could not live to wreak his vengeance on Fitzvassal.

            “Never mind!” he cried, casting a terrific look at his commander; “Never mind! your turn comes next, and I will torture you to my heart’s content, when we meet on common ground among the damned!”

            As he spoke, the match was applied to the cannon, which bellowing out its thunder, enveloped that part of the schooner in smoke, which, as the wind drove it away, discovered to the spectators of the scene the last agonizing contortions of the dying malefactor.

CHAPTER XV.

 

            A little, round, fat, oily man of God.

Castle of Indolence.

            And who do you think they were?

            The butcher, the baker,

            The candle-stick-maker,

            And all are gone to the Fair.

Mother Goose’s Melodies.

--Then ’t were well,    It were done quickly.

Macbeth.

           

            Let us turn for a while to consider the progress of events in the metropolis of New-England. Unawed by the demonstrations of popular feeling which had been so violently awakened, Sir Edmund Andros continued to exercise the same despotic sway over the people of Massachusetts, who had heretofore submitted so meekly to the arbitrary exactions of government, that the latter began to imagine it had a right to stretch its prerogative without limits. Such has ever been the history of the growth of power. That which is yielded to from necessity, or submitted to with patience, is afterwards claimed as a right, and enforced by authority; so that, in the course of moral transference, the oppressor and the oppressed change their relative position of obligor and obligee, and are driven, on the one hand, to despotic assumption, and on the other, to that last resort for the recovery of natural and civil rights, which terminates in a violent and sudden revolution.

            The well-established principle, that whenever the balance of power is lost between the executive and the legislative branches of government, there is a tendency to a complete absorption of power in the scale where it already preponderates, is as true, when predicated of the people, under representative forms, as when affirmed of the legislature: so that the experience of the past, (other things being equal,) is a sure guide for the future. But in our day, the difficulties that present themselves to the political philosopher, arise from the failure of the ceteris paribus, a condition which is too often overlooked in their predictions. So true is this, that the most superficial observer might remark the almost utter want of parallel tendencies, between apparently similar acts of executive or popular outrage in our times and in those of antiquity; and it fully accounts for the failure of the Burkes and Pitts, to say nothing as to other eminent men of still later times, in those reaches of political understanding, which, based on the maxims of the past, proposed as their object the happiness of the human family. The great evil of our day is well-intending ignorance, and till there be a scheme of public instruction, studied out, developed, and matured, by which a true and comprehensive cyclopedia of morals and politics may be taught, let not the most sanguine expectant of human progress anticipate any thing better, or more solid, than the adoption of crude theories and monstrous principles.

            When it is thought to be Machiavelian to deny that a mere moral principle, apart from all other circumstances or considerations, should be and is a sound political one;--when we see the most puerile dogmas asserted and maintained, by authoritative persons whose productions spread far and wide, and are taken up by millions as indisputable truth; it is time for others, who stand on the watch-towers of Liberty, to be awake and to sound the alarm through the nation. It is ignorance, and nothing but ignorance, that ruins nations; and the worst of it is, that this same ignorance, which is so pestilential and subversive of human happiness, is found among those very men who are regarded as the lights and examples of the land. It is not so much the ignorance of the people, as that of their leaders, which is to be deprecated. The people are generally well-informed, but they cannot be expected, all of them, to be philosophers. They have other work to do than to analyze knotty questions, and untangle abstruse speculations;--but it is a crying shame that they shouldhave no better teachers, than those who are but the mere exudations of bloated universities, and who believe that a mass of unavailable Greek, Latin, and Hebrew learning, is enough to qualify a man to judge of the greatest questions of government. There is a better knowledge, a wider and more grasping attainment than these, and that is a thorough and well-digested understanding of Human Relations.

            The leading men of Boston had for a long time comprehended the exact relation which the people bore to the Sovereign and his deputy in Massachusetts; they were fully conscious of having yielded too readily in the outset, and of having continued to yield too tamely to the unjust demands of power, and to the insolence of office, and their brows burnt with shame and indignation when they contrasted their present condition with that it had been a few years before, when they enjoyed untarnished, from their fathers, the highest liberty of which a people could boast. But they were men of moderation and prudence, and though they knew well enough that a revolution was inevitable, should the Sovereign see fit to withhold that protection which his colonial subjects demanded, they cherished the fond anticipation that he would yet be brought to terms, and thus end all difficulties which existed between them.

            The last act of tyranny on the part of the government, in attempting to impress the free citizens ofBoston, put a final stop to all forbearance among the people. When the spirit of licentiousness is once let loose, there is no prescribing limits to its progress. The mob that wreaked its vengeance on Classon, it is true, seemed satisfied for the time, but its indignation on that memorable occasion, was but the smoke of the volcano, preparatory to a dreadful eruption. Frequent meetings were held, and public demonstrations made, that indicated a determination, on the part of the people, to put down, once and forever, the high-handed usurpations of the government.

            Resolutions were passed denouncing Sir Edmund Andros and his coadjutors, as enemies to the country, and as conspirators against the public peace; and the effigy of the Governor was burnt on the Common amidst the hisses and execrations of the multitude. The effigy of the Pope was also fixed on a staging, in company with a figure of the devil, horned and tailed according to book, and after being dragged round the town, was with his companion consigned to the devouring element. Placards were pasted up against the walls, threatening all persons with popular resentment who gave any assistance to the Governor in the execution of his illegal acts, and warning certain individuals who were obnoxious to the charge of being informers, to look out for their personal safety.

            Notwithstanding these portentous appearances, Sir Edmund Andros, secure in the possession of a well-armed troop, issued his edicts the same as ever, and within a week after the affair of the Press-gang, ordered a freeman to be publicly whipt for not paying, as he declared, sufficient respect to his authority. But the man was rescued from the ignominious punishment, and that night the Governor had his windows broken by the mob.

            Nor were matters in a more tranquil condition in the neighboring country-towns. The same spirit was abroad in Braintree, Dedham, Roxbury, Dorchester, Watertown, and generally throughout the colony; but more particularly in those villages more immediately bordering on Boston. Watertown was one of the foremost places of patriotic opposition, and was noted in those days for the semi-annual Fair which was held in its precincts. On such occasions, the country people from the surrounding towns, and large numbers from Boston, and even Salem, assembled, as well as many friendly Indians, where produce of all sorts was exposed for sale or barter, cattle offered for market, and such manufactured articles as brooms, buckets, and farming utensils, were exhibited for purchase. Nor was the better part of creation behind-hand in contributing their quota of hose, quilts, and baby-linen, to make up a complete assortment of goods for the Fair.

            Though the Committee of Safety, of which Mr. Temple was the chairman, were contented to await the natural course of events which they observed inthe way of development; trusting, in some degree, to the awakened justice of the Sovereign, but by all means confiding in the overruling hand of Providence, which they knew would not leave them utterly, but in its own good time bring them out of their Egyptian bondage,--there were some more turbulent and restless spirits, among whom were Randal and Bagnal, who being cramped by the jealous watchfulness of the Governor and his minions, and restricted in the full swing of their resentment at the nefarious measures of his administration, looked forward to the Fair at Watertown, as a fitting opportunity for raising the standard of rebellion, or at least for concerting measures toward its accomplishment: for revels of all sorts were indulged in at the Fair, which, within the last eight years, had even become somewhat licentious; and amidst the diversions and entertainments of one kind and another, they expected to find a convenient subterfuge for their schemes, and to rally around the pine-tree banner a sufficient number of good men and true, to wrest the sceptre from the hands of tyranny, and trample its ensign in the dust.

            The people in the country towns were quite as restless under the galling sway of Sir Edmund Andros, as those of Boston, though they did not feel all its effects so immediately; but their sufferings were positive and intolerable, and the exaggerated accounts of what the metropolitans endured, excited their warmest sympathy, and prepared them to co-operatein any measure which they could set on foot, to bring about a more desirable state of affairs. Hardly any thing else was talked of but the latest news from Boston, and public expectation was on tiptoe, whenever a new-comer appeared from the metropolis, to learn whether any fresh intelligence had been brought from the mother country, or what new views were entertained by the people of Boston.

            The ferry to Lechmere Point was crowded with passengers, who from the early dawn, were thronging to go to Watertown, and join in the hilarities of the Fair. A motley crowd had collected in one of the boats which had just pushed off from the wharf, at the west end of Boston, and were now crossing Charles River on their way to Cambridge. Among the passengers were Randal the anchor-smith, and Bagnal the caulk-and-graver, besides four Catholic priests, who never failed to be present where there was a prospect of a gathering together, as their especial commission was to spy out the disposition of the people, and insinuate the principles of the monarch, with all the zeal of Papal missionaries.

            One of this same brotherhood, “a little, round, fat, oily man,” as Thompson has it, “who had a roguish twinkle in his eye,” particularly engaged the attention of the anchor-smith, who, with his companion, generally preserved a profound silence during the passage, except to make some common-place remark about the agreeable weather which they were so fortunate to have for the Fair, or touching the pleasant scenery which opened on all sides, as the boat receding from the shores of the metropolis, made her rapid course toward the opposite ones of Cambridge.

            Father John, for this appeared to be the name of the personage alluded to, was a man evidently about forty years of age. He was rather short in stature, but did not seem to be suffering at all under mortifications of the flesh. His countenance was fresh and ruddy, indications of health which would have been unaccountable on any known principles of total abstinence. The other priests were good-looking, intelligent men, like himself; having every stamp about them of well-informed citizens of the world. They were all dressed alike, having on a close, black scull-cap, a long, black frock of broad-cloth, and a rosary, terminating with a cross suspended over the neck.

            “That’s a goodly looking college enough, Father John,” remarked one of the priests to the more conspicuous man he addressed, “but its a pity that holy mother church has n’t the managing of it.”

            “A thousand pities, truly;” replied Father John, “but thanks to the blessed Virgin,” he continued, crossing himself, “there is a fair prospect of its being purged from its iniquities, before long.”

            As they spoke, their eyes were turned in the direction of Old Harvard, which even then made a most respectable appearance at a distance.

           

            “I pity the poor boys,” resumed Father John, “who are obliged to submit to the fooleries of that puritanical toy-shop. When the teachers are asses, what can you expect of the taught?”

            And the reverend gentleman chuckled till his dewlap quivered with the convulsion.

            “Did you ever attend one of their exhibitions?” he further inquired, addressing himself to each of his pious brethren, by turns.

            But they all declared that they never had enjoyed that extraordinary pleasure; whereupon their interrogater proceeded.

            “It would be worth your while to attend one of them, then; for you never heard such a whining set of puppies in your life. Why, their cant oratory is proverbial throughout the land. You can point out a graduate of that College as far as you can hear his voice, to say the least of it. Jesu! what eloquence! And then the Professor that presides over that department--you ought to him read!--ha! ha! ha!”

            And the jolly confessor commenced discoursing in imitation of the man he ridiculed, till his companions burst out into immoderate laughter at the exhibition.

            Randal, though he had never had the disadvantage of a college education, with the vain imagination too often resulting therefrom, that he was all the better for it, felt nevertheless extremely nettled, as most Bostonians do, when any sarcasm is hurledagainst the venerable University of their neighbor Cambridge; and he accordingly buckled on his armor in her defence.

            “It may be very amusing to you,” said he, addressing himself to the reverend brotherhood, “to be running a tilt against Harvard College; but I fancy that a little of her learning, after all, would n’t do either of you any harm.”

            At this rebuke, Father John drew down the corners of his mouth, suppressing the relaxation of his muscles as well as he could, and replied:

            “No doubt, friend, your Alma Mater, (for I suppose you are a fair specimen of her nurslings,) has learning enough cased up in the brick and mortar yonder; but I must be permitted to say, that she has a very strange way of showing it.”

            As an endorsement of this sally, the brethren were contented to laugh only with their eyes, while Randal’s wrath began to wax hot in the encounter. Bagnal, however, who saw the storm brewing, took his friend aside, and entreated him to have a care how he precipitated a quarrel with those men on the very day when it was most expedient to lull their suspicions to sleep, and he succeeded at last in accomplishing his object; Randal declaring, that by all that was true and holy, he would punish the rascal yet for his impertinence.

            The boat at length arrived at the landing place in Cambridge, and the passengers disembarking, proceeded on their way to Watertown. Hundreds of others on foot and in carts, were on the road travelling to the same place of destination. After passing Harvard College, the road to Watertown was found to be thickly speckled with itinerants of both sexes, and of all ages; among whom were a number of students in their square caps, who having a holiday on the occasion, were according to custom, preparing to make the most of it in the promised revels of Watertown.

            “A fine day this, for the Fair!” exclaimed Randal, addressing himself to a student who was walking alone, with an air of deep abstraction, apparently unconscious of the bustling scene around him.

            “Very!” was the laconic reply of the young man, who paid no further attention to the salutation than to lift his eyes for a moment on the speaker.

            “You are going to the Fair, I suppose!” persevered Randal, who was not wholly destitute of the characteristic curiosity of his countrymen, and who was particularly desirous of making some interest among the students of Cambridge, for reasons best known to himself.

            “Yes!” returned the youth, with a sigh, as if he were reluctantly forced into a colloquy, which he would willingly have avoided; “Yes! I am going to the Fair, as you rightly conjecture;--one might as well follow the multitude--though not to do evil.”

            “There is more danger of evil,” replied Randal,whose political feelings were ever uppermost, “from the few, than the many, in these troublesome times.”

            The student looked at him earnestly for a few seconds, and then casting his eyes on the earth, continued to walk on in silence.

            The anchor-smith, unwilling to obtrude himself too much on the young man, made a few passing remarks to his friend Bagnal, who was walking beside him, and at the same time narrowly observed the stranger who had engaged his attention.

            He was a young man about twenty years old, judging from appearance, remarkably tall and handsome, like the finest specimen of the South Carolina gentlemen. His eyes and hair were very black, his nose was straight and beautifully moulded, his mouth finely cut and filled with strong, regular, and brilliantly white teeth. There was an expression of deep thoughtfulness in his countenance, and there were, young as he seemed to be, lines of marked character clearly imprinted there.

            After walking a minute or two in silence, only interrupted by an occasional observation on the individuals of the living panorama, Randal ventured to resume the conversation.

            “You will pardon me, I hope,” said he, “but like every son of New England, I feel a deep interest in the welfare of old Harvard College; have you heard any tidings lately of the President?”

            “You mean of the Rector,” replied the student.

           

            “True; I had forgotten, the apellation President did not sound agreeably in the ears of the Jesuits; so they substituted Rector. Have you received any intelligence from your Rector lately?”

            The student gave a glance, at once penetrating and inquiring, towards the anchor-smith, and then replied:

            “From a remark you made, Sir, a few moments since, I should take you for a patriot; and to do you justice, your face and tone of voice confirm my judgment; but there are so many false men abroad, that it becomes us to be careful how we place too much confidence in strangers. Will you do me the favor to tell me your name?--and you yours, Sir, if you please!” said he, turning his eyes on Bagnal; “my name is Harding, and I am a tutor in the college.”

            “My name is Randal, the anchor-smith of Boston.”

            “And mine is Bagnal, the caulk-and-graver, of the same place.”

            “I know you both,” resumed Harding, “you are alike dear to the people and odious to the government. Your servant, gentlemen, I am glad to meet you!” and so saying, he gave them both a cordial shake of the hand.

            “And now,” said he, turning to Randal; “I can answer your question freely and fully, without fear of being entrapped by spies. We had a letter from the Rector yesterday, by the way of New-York.”

           

            “What news did it communicate from England?”

            “The most melancholy, and yet the most cheering.”

            “I can’t conjecture,” said Bagnal, “how that can be.”

            “But I can,” joined Randal, who had a deeper insight into the state of public affairs than his patriotic friend. “The upshot of it is,--I’ll lay my life on its correctness,--the King has refused to restore the charter to Massachusetts, and the people of England are in rebellion.”

            “You are right,” replied Harding, “you are almost perfectly right in what you imagine to be the condition of things. Dr. Mather writes, that the King has peremptorily and finally refused to restore the charter, which was so wrongfully taken from the people. He says that there is not the shadow of a hope that the petition, with which he was commissioned, will ever be listened to while James the second is sitting on the throne of England; but--”

            “There is a hope,” interrupted Randal, whose eagerness to hear the report of the Massachusetts agent, made him anticipate its recital; “there is a hope that William of Orange will dispossess the bigotted Jesuit of his throne.”

            “Ay;” resumed Harding, “not only a hope, but a moral certainty of it. Dr. Mather tells us that nearly all the nobility are for William of Orange, andthat the prince will, before long, most inevitably make a descent on England, and liberate the people from the degrading bondage that now enslaves them.”

            “God grant it may be consummated, and that quickly!” replied Randal.

            “Amen!” ejaculated the caulk-and-graver, “amen, with all my heart!”

            “In the meantime, Mr. Harding,” said Randal, “there is work to be done in old Massachusetts.”

            “The people have all suffered extremely,” added Harding, “and you in Boston, more than others. Do you apprehend any violent measures from them?”

            “All I fear,” replied Randal, “is that we shall be too late. There must be a revolution, and that immediately.”

            “I know,” said Harding, “that the present state of things cannot possibly last long; but when William of Orange comes to the throne, if such a merciful event ever happens, your charter will be surely restored, and all your rights re-established on a more permanent basis then they were before their invasion.”

            “I have,” returned Randal, “as much confidence in the Stadtholder, as most men--but I know as well as others that he is only a man after all, and that the temptations of power are not to be trusted. The people of Massachusetts must anticipate his coronation, and take the adjusting of their affairs into theirown hands. You may rely on it, this is the only course that can be adopted, which can afford any substantial hope of regaining our liberties. Let us revolutionize the government ourselves, and then, when William of Orange comes to the throne, he will have nothing to do but to confirm what we have done. He will not dare, while he has so many conflicting interests to reconcile, as he must have for a long time, I say he will not dare to undo what the people of Massachusetts shall have achieved. At all events, this is my view of the case, and, God willing, I will do all in my power to see the thing accomplished.”

            “I agree with you fully,” added Bagnal, “we have temporized long enough,--it is now time to be up and doing.”

            “But how can you bring it about?” inquired Harding, who, though he in reality favored the design of his new friends, exercised extraordinary circumspection more from habit than premeditation.

            “That was the very object of our visit to Watertown this day,” replied Bagnal, “and it would seem as if Providence had thrown you in our way, on purpose to assist us by your counsel; for I cannot be mistaken in believing that you are not only an uncompromising friend of liberty, but that you would readily and heartily lend your assistance in accomplishing one of the noblest achievements that everpresented themselves to the enthusiatic martyrs of freedom.”

            “I should be too happy,” rejoined Harding, “to see a peaceful change in the aspect of public affairs.”

            “And you would lend a helping hand, would you not, in a quiet sort of revolution?”

            “Undoubtedly.”

            “Enough!” said Randal, “there is a cavern in the neigborhood of the lake--”.

            “I know it very well.”

            “Meet us there at one o’clock, and if you can bring with you two or three others on whom you can depend--so much the better. We are now approaching the encampment, and as we cannot converse with freedom any longer, perhaps we would better separate.”

            “Very well,” replied the tutor, and making a passing salutation, he turned to leave his travelling companion, to jog on by themselves.

            “Remember, at one precisely;” said Randal.

            “Never doubt me,” returned the tutor--“farewell!”

            So saying, the man of letters left his new acquaintances, and was soon lost to their sight in the crowd.

            “That’s a noble-hearted fellow,” said Randal to his friend, as Harding vanished from their observation; “or else I am no judge of character.”

            “He certainly seems to be all that,” replied Bagnal, “and I for one don’t like him any the less for his cautiousness. I think we shall find in the college tutor a firm friend and a true patriot. I incline to believe that all the professors, as well as students, are favorable to the great cause. Men of letters are generally on the popular side, when things go wrong among governments.”

            “Ay;” added the other, “universities and colleges are the nurseries of republicans; or rather the students of those institutions are naturally freemen. I rather think that college-governments have a tendency to despotism.”

            “And that is the very reason,” replied Bagnal, “that those under their care manifest the republican character. Hence, we so often see rebellion among the students. Tyranny is odious in any form--and extremes have a perpetual tendency to meet. Wherever you find a thorough despotism, you may be sure to discover the finest spirit of democracy; even though it may be buried under the guise of submission.”

            “There is no doubt of the truth of all that,” said Randal; “I should like to see,” he continued, “a university conducted on a plan honorable both to the teachers and the taught; one where there might be full confidence between the government and the students; for when there is so little of it as at the present day, it is impossible to breed men in these institutions. What can be more degrading, for instance, than for a college-government to have a trained company of spies, who take advantage of the frankness of the students to betray them to their masters? I was assured by a gentleman, who had been a tutor in Harvard College, that if I only knew the number of spies employed, and the ways they set about entrapping the scholars, I should be absolutely astonished. Even the poor beneficiary students are forced into this mean service, and earn their pitiful education at the expense of their honor and manhood. Now this is all wrong, very wrong, and as much as I venerate the old walls of Harvard, I cannot think of it without loathing. I would not have a child of mine so contaminated for all the Greek and Latin in the world. It is bad enough for a young man to encounter the temptations of profligacy and licentiousness;--yet there issome hope for the most abandoned sensualist. But once break down a young man’s honor and self-respect, and it’s all over with him. The elastic principle is then crushed out of him, and there is no rebound to virtue.

            “There is another lamentable abuse in college-governments,” added Bagnal, “and I have seen the bad effects of it in several instances. Boys of sixteen or seventeen are too apt to be regarded by the college as men whose moral and intellectual characters are already formed, and who are therefore answerable, to the full extent of the term, for every delinquency and mal-practice of which they are guilty. Now few men have any fixed principles before they are five-and-twenty, and those characters which are intended to expand the most largely, and endure the longest, are the very ones which are the most backward in their development. Professors in colleges never think of discriminating among the varieties of character beneath their charge. A good memory and a due share of the spirit of dissimulation, will carry off the honors any day against all the genius and sincerity that can be arrayed in opposition to them. I pity the young man, who for some early indiscretion has been subjected to the tender mercies of these tyrants. There is little hope for him. Perhaps he has been grossly and maliciously slandered by some evil-minded person, who has a grudge against him, and then he is ground to the very dust, perhaps turned out of college, or recommended ‘to take up his connexion with it,’ which amounts to an expulsion;--and then by an agreement among all the colleges, he is shut out forever from the privilege of learning at any of these institutions. Is not this tyranny of the worst kind?”

            “It is, indeed,” replied Randal, “and I am very sorry to add that it is, or was a very few years ago, the truth told of old Harvard. I know an instance of persecution within those walls, which is precisely analogous to the one you suppose to be true. A young man became hateful to one of the Professors,for telling him the truth with too much boldness, when positively required to do so. Without intending any disrespect, the student had an air of impudence, and he gained the deadly hatred of the Professor, who told him, that if his class repeated the indignities they had offered to him as Professor, (for the man was odious to the class, and had met with repeated indignity from them when assembled,) he, the student, should suffer for it. The class repeated their insults, but though that student was known to be innocent, he was made the scape-goat of the whole, and sent away.”

            “That Professor,” exclaimed Bagnal, “must have had the heart of a rattle-snake. He committed a crime against the human soul, and cannot be forgiven. Let the galled jade wince! His retribution has not come yet; but it will come.”

            The two friends had become so absorbed in the topic that occupied their attention, that before they were aware of it, they found themselves in the midst of the preparations for the Fair. The spot selected for the occasion was the rising ground on the border of the beautiful lake, which is the brightest ornament of Watertown, where, in more modern times, Cambridge students were seduced away from their books to enjoy the glories of nature, and the abominations of milk-punch, amidst the water-lilies and the fruit trees, and the thousand beautiful et-ceteras of that romantic region.

           

            The majestic trees that shaded the grounds on that part of the borders of the lake, had been thinned away to allow a prospect of the tranquil water through a dozen little vistas, beyond which were seen, on the other side of the broad, silvery sheet, “rich heaps of foliage,” liveried in all the gorgeous robes of autumn, that threw their deep, broad shadows over the intervening waves.

            A few rods from the lake, a large, commodious inn had been many years erected, very nearly on the site where the one now stands. It had several gables, and on the side fronting the water, the roof, from a high pitch, swept down in an angle of thirty degrees, and was sustained by rough timbers of cedar, around which the honey-suckle twined, and wooed the humming-bird to hover in its golden plumage, and suck delicious nectar from its flowers.

            Beneath the rude piazza of the inn, and under the shade of several large oaks and elms which sheltered it, were settles and benches, on which a number of persons of various character were sitting, and enjoying the fine air of the season. The Indian-summer had set in with all its gentle influences,--that sweet brief season, when autumn borrows the worn out garniture of his predecessor, with its tempered sun, dim atmosphere, and gentle breezes, that he may enjoy a few short hours of repose, before he yields the sceptre to his hoary expectant.

            Several of the tavern visiters were indulgingthemselves with Dutch pipes and flip, talking politics, scandal, and the infinite deal of nothingness that affords the ordinary motive power to the tongue. For half a mile around were erected tents and booths, in some of which different articles of traffic were exposed for sale, and in many others, liquor of all sorts and colors tempted the thirsty customers to warm their stomachs and scorch their brains.

            These places were crowded with people who were talking loudly, laughing, or singing as their fancy moved them; and though it was not yet noon by two hours, many gave unequivocal tokens of having taken more frequent potations than became sober men even at a festival.

            On the open plain between the tavern and the lake, which in the abominable nomenclature of modern times is desecrated by the name of Fresh Pond,--a name that, instead of suggesting and being appropriate to the glorious beauty of the little inland sea, can be associated with nothing but mud-turtles and bull-frogs,--were erected fandangos, as they termed them, and swings, of different kinds, for both sexes to amuse themselves with, by tossing through the air at the imminent peril of their necks. Besides these, there were two nine-pin alleys, and several smooth planks for dancing.

            This latter diversion was effected in the following manner. An ordinary broad plank was placed on the green, around which were collected a motleycrowd of all who took pleasure in dancing, or in seeing others join in the amusement. The fiddler struck up a jig, when some one of the inexpressible gender invited a favorite piece of muslin to dance with him. If she accepted the offer, he led her to one end of the plank, and immediately took his own station at the opposite one. They now began to shuffle at each other, and stamp their feet with all their might, nearing and retreating alternately; and by the shouts of applause on one side or the other, it was decided which excelled in the poetry of motion. The one who stamped the louder was generally admitted to be the conqueror.

            Randal, with his companion, was wandering through the crowd, taking note of every thing he saw, and conversing on the subject which so completely had the ascendency in his thoughts, when his attention was directed to a tent, where all the appointments of intoxication were regularly prepared, and several sorts of coarse viands arranged on temporary shelves to tempt the passer-by to patronise mine host within.

            The persons inside seemed to be much excited by drinking, and were, as indicated by the tones of their voices, on the brink of a quarrel. As the newcomers entered, Randal was surprised to recognise Classon, who was engaged in a drunken debate with Grummet, the man-o’-war’s-man. They were both highly excited, and it would have been difficult todetermine which was the more drunk of the two: yet there was this difference between them. The excitement of Grummet seemed to have more rationality in it than the other’s, for there were about Classon evident signs of insanity. His eyes were glazed, and they constantly looking askance as if he suspected every body about him. His limbs twitched, as did the muscles of his face, and he constantly rubbed his hands, and sometimes gazed on them in a sort of momentary abstraction. His legs seemed feeble, and from a partial paralysis he appeared to be unable to direct the movements of his body. These symptoms are not the concomitants of common drunkenness. There was a crisis approaching that had been accelerated by the terrible sufferings to which he had been subjected by the populace.

            “Shiver my timbers!” exclaimed Grummet, “if I had’nt rather be a hog in a long-boat than the cabin-boy of such a d--d lubberly rascal as Sir Edmund what’s-you-call him? I know all about both o’ you --you no need to be clapping your dirty rags on my cables to keep ’em from chafing;--it’s no go. I should’nt like to have such a swim in the tar-kettle as you had the other day--nor toss about either to the tune you danced to in the feather-bed.”

            Classon’s face glowed with rage, and from appearances he would have struck the sailor had not Randal and the caulk-and-graver entered as they did.

            “How now, Classon,” said the anchor-smith, addressing him, “what’s all the fuss about now--hey, man?”

            Classon turned his fierce eyes upon him, and muttering something unintelligible to those standing by, stamped on the ground, and then threw himself on a seat with his back turned to the one who had addressed him.

            The remains of the tar-and-feathering were still visible about the man, who since that event had wholly abandoned himself to drinking. Formerly, he knew some sober moments, and was seldom drunk before eleven o’clock. Now he made a business of drinking. He kept the liquor at his bed-side, and drank every half hour in the night. We said that the remains of the tar-and-feathering were still visible about him. His hair was in many places knotted by the viscous substance, though it had been, much of it, cut off; for wherever the tar touched the hair, there it remained, in spite of all the detergents that experience could suggest for its removal.

            “Brandy!--bring me some brandy!” exclaimed he, turning to the boy that dealt out the hot, manufactured drink that passed under the name, “brandy, I say; do you hear?”

            The lad carried him a stiff glass of his favorite drink, and handed it to him. Classon took it, with a hand trembling like a withered bough in winter, and turned away his head in silence and with loathing. That which he believed to be necessary to his veryexistence, was hateful to him as a scorpion. He no longer drank for the pleasure it gave him: there was no more intoxication for him than that of numbness or insensibility, and this he would have, though it was like swallowing the most disgusting medicine every time the stimulant even approached his lips.

            “A lemon!” exclaimed the half-paralytic, “give me a lemon, for God’s sake!”

            A lemon was brought to him as he desired.

            Classon took the fruit and biting a piece from the same, looked at his brandy for a moment,and then swallowed it, as if it required a desperate purpose to do so. He then partially sunk himself down, resting his hands on his knees, gazing on the ground, and as it were waiting for the feeling of nausea to pass away from him. This same process he was obliged to go through every day, till his stomach by repeated stimulants, about noon became able to bear its poison without revolting.

            “There! that’s over!” exclaimed he, exultingly, as if he had achieved a triumph; and as the alcohol began again to stimulate, for a few brief minutes, his prostrated system, he brightened up as a lamp will do when the wick is nearly burnt out, and you shake a little oil upon it.

            “You’r are a putty fellow, aint you?” said Grummet, looking upon him with unabated contempt, “there’s another nail in your coffin, I guess, no how. If you had given the money to your wife--”

           

            “Damn my wife!” vociferated Classon, “ye are always talking about her;--can’t ye let the old woman rest in her grave, but ye must be everlastingly gabbling about her, pray?” and then walking up to the liquor-stand, he helped himself to another draught of brandy, which he tossed off with more ease to himself than attended his previous potation.

            “Well! if you aint the greatest sand-bank I ever saw, there are no whales at sea or sharks ashore-- why, you suck the monkey like all the West-Indies!” exclaimed the big-whiskered sailor.

            “And it’s none of your business if I do,” replied Classon, “can’t a fellow drink a dram now and then, without having a quaker preacher at his elbow, hey? you are the first sailor parson I ever heard preach up temperance.”

            “Blast temperance!” exclaimed the man-o’-war’s-man, “who preaches temperance here? I don’t care how much a man drinks, if he don’t follow it as we do the seas, for a living. I don’t like to see a hand always heaving at the windlass, nor always blowing like a grampus or a puffing-pig. Who in the devil said any thing about temperance, I want to know?”

            “What did ye call me a sand-bank for, then?” inquired Classon.

            “Because you are one--that’s the reason. No you aint, neither; you are a rum-hogshead, a tap-room sponge that sucks up all the liquor that falls in itsway; sand-banks hold water, and that’s more than you could do, if you tried.”

            “No more o’ your slack!” replied Classon, “I’m tired of it.” And the flare-up of something like pleasurable feeling, generated by the alcohol, had already passed away, and left him moody and irritable.

            “Blazes!” exclaimed Grummet, winking to Randal, whom he recognized as one who had been conspicuous at the serving-up of Classon at the rope-walk; “blazes! you are getting mighty nice for a mud-scow. P’rhaps you are tireder o’ tar-and-feathers, than o’ my slack--hey?”

            “I’d slap your chops for a sixpence!” growled the broken-down wretch with a hiccough.

            “You’d try any thing for money, every body knows; but if you were to bang your flipper against my lumber-hole, you’d get served worse than corned-fish-and-dip, I tell’e! P’rhaps you don’t remember the way I run into the wharf-rat of a truckman at your old rum-hop below Tin-Pot. ’Cause, if you don’t, maybe I can put you in mind of it.”

            And with this, the sailor threw himself into the ungainly attitude of “a natural fighter,” swinging his body about, and leaving his guard open for a skilful antagonist to hit him where he liked.

            Classon, who had some skill in pugilism, saw his advantage immediately, and without seeming to prepare himself for combat, helped himself to an enormous slug of brandy; and then, in a swaggering way, as if he were careless of what the other said, took hold of the lapels of his own coat, on each side, between his thumb and fore-finger, and thus without appearing to do so, put himself in an excellent posture of defence.

            Unmindful of what the other intended, the sailor continued to taunt Classon with the tar-and-feather adventure, and finally concluded by saying:

            “A putty fellow you! damn you, you ought to have gone down head first, instead of letting your tender founder for want of caulking. Your wife--”

            The last word was hardly out of the man-o’-war’s-man’s mouth, before Classon hit him right above the nose, a most powerful blow which he had rallied all his force to inflict. The sailor went down like a log, but he was on his legs again in an instant: yet before he could reach his enemy, Classon hit away left and right, and knocked him into the same predicament as before.

            Had the publican been a man unexhausted by the excesses to which he was addicted, he could, with the skill he possessed, have easily vanquished opponent; but he had completely debilitated himself by the effort already made, and he began to puff and blow like a high-pressure steam-engine.

            It was Grummet’s turn now. The sailor was no more short-sighted than the publican to discover anyadvantadge that might be offered by the chances of war, and while his antagonist hit short and with difficulty, he levelled a tremendous blow at him with his left hand, which Classon, instead of stopping with his right arm, purposely stopped with his left, a manœuvre that turned the sailor’s body round so as to expose his left side wholly unprotected to a deadly right handed hit, which, had it come from a muscular man, would have carried away the sailor’s ribs like pipe-stems. As it was, it did but little harm to the man, who promptly closed with his adversary, and after a slight struggle, threw him to the ground.

            The two master mechanics had looked on during the brief time the contest was going on, and felt rather disposed than otherwise, to see the odious tool of the Governor get a hammering from the enraged tar; but now that the fellow was down and out of wind, they promptly interposed to save him from the drubbing that he would inevitably have received but for their aid.

            “Let the poor devil off, this time,” pleaded Randal, “there’s no use of beating him; he is n’t worth the time nor the trouble.”

            “Just as you like,” replied Grummet, “but if there was a stick o’ sound timber about him, damn me if I would’nt have bored a hole in it, that’s all. Come, let’s splice the main-brace--will you suck the monkey and tread up? it’s grog time o’ day, and I have n’t taken a horn since breakfast.”

           

            “I don’t generally do those kind of things,” answered Randal, laughing, “but when I do it is just about this time. Come, Bagnal, what say you to a rummer? I don’t think that Jack here has suggested a bad thing, after all.”

            “Well;” said Bagnal, appearing to take the matter under consideration, while he clapped his hands, and smacked his lips, “well,--if you will take a pipe all round afterwards--and a walk in the woods, I don’t care if I do join you in a jorum of something or other. Let’s see, what shall it be?”

            “I can’t go your long walks,” exclaimed Grummet, “but I will take a short trip with you for the sake of the mess.”

            “What shall it be,” interrupted Bagnal, who seemed to be getting out of patience, now the idea of wetting his whistle had been forced upon him, “what shall it be?”

            “Any thing for me,” replied Grummet, “I don’t care a splinter what it is, so long as it makes the drunk come.”

            The two mechanics could n’t help laughing at the accommodating humor of the sailor, and they all agreed at last that a mug of punch would be the most legitimate thing they could take, and so they gave directions to have it got ready, and in the interim sat down in the tent.

            Classon had already skulked away, after silentlyhelping himself at his old fountain, and growling out a few curses at the sailor.

            The punch was made ready, and the trio began to pay their respects to it, without any ceremony. Before many minutes had passed, they finished a couple of quarts, and lighting each a pipe, they sallied forth from the tent to take a walk, as Bagnal had, for certain reasons, a while before proposed.

            “It’s not a bad idea, friend Bagnal,” suggested the anchor smith, as passing from the crowd they left, they skirted the neighboring lake through the woods; “I say, it’s not a bad iden, to get out of old Boston now and then, to unbend a little, not a bad idea; is it?”

            “It’s a confounded good one, I think,” replied the caulk-and-graver; “for I must say, that we Boston folks tie ourselves down rather too hard for our own comfort. But the merchants who go to New-York to unbend, as you call it; they unbend to some purpose. They can do as they like in New-York. Every man there attends to his own business, and is too much occupied with what concerns himself, to meddle with other people’s concerns; but in old Boston, I don’t know how it is, we are always thrusting our thumbs between other men’s grinders. I should like to be with you in New-York for a while; I think we could rub the dust off a little--hey?”

            “I am just that way of thinking,” rejoined the anchor-smith; “you were speaking o the merchant’s going to New York. I see you understand a thing or two on that subject. Is’nt it amusing to see the long, pale faces on ’Chauge, who would no more think of discounting a note for a fellow who takes a horn now and then, than they would of taking a torch into a powder-magazine;--to see those persons who sit by the hour in Insurance Offices, tearing young men’s characters to pieces--who shave the very notes they have refused to discount,--to see those grave personages transferred for a while to New-York--hammers and and tongs! it would amuse you to see how they blow it out!”

            “Ha! ha! ha!” exclaimed Bagnal, laughing, “if their wives and ministers could only see them! Oh the saints--what a precious set they are, to be sure!”

            Chatting in this manner, they walked along together, Grummet all the while taking long whiffs of smoke from his pipe and capering to the music of the fiddles that sent their tones from the distance. They had arrived at a shady arbor on the borders of the lake, and here it was proposed by Randal, to rest themselves. So they threw their bodies on the short grass in the abandonment of luxurious indolence, while the latter personage, addressing the sailor, recommenced the colloquy, as follows:

            “You jack-tars are the most independent set of fellows in the world. You roam about from one place to another, and fix your affections nowhere. You have a sweet-heart in every port, and a homewherever you happen to lie at anchor. The devil a bit do you care who’s governor, and if one country’s turned upside down, why, you have nothing to do but to clap on your tarpaulin and bear away for another.”

            “You’re about right there,” replied Grummet, “we don’t care a cat-head what port we come to; for that ere matter, it’s all one to us, so long’s the grog’s good and plenty on it, and the gals are kind and handsome.”

            “And wherefrom did you square away last?” inquired the caulk-and-graver.

            “We cleared out of Portsmouth, last,” answered the sailor, blowing a cloud between himself and his companions like the smoke of a swivel on ship-board.

            “If that’s the case,” said Randal, “you have jumped out of the frying-pan into the fire, so far as escaping from any difficulties ashore, goes.”

            “Who cares for difficulties ashore!” exclaimed Grummet, “all I care about is what goes on aboard ship; and yet, shiver my timbers, if I would’nt like to see a little more tar-and-feathering going on in Boston, that’s all.”

            The two patriots had discovered enough in the sturdy sailor to encourage their hopes that he might be made instrumental in their projected enterprise, and it was with a view of sounding the very depths of his disposition, that they had proposed the walk, which had led to the present conversation. He hadnow uttered a wish which gave them still greater encouragement, for as he was inimical to Classon the presumption seemed to be that he was inclined towards the popular side of the two opposing political parties, if parties they could be called which rallied on one side the great mass of the community, and was circumscribed on the other to the narrow limits of executive patronage. The two friends were therefore prompt to follow up the chain of association, the first link of which had been suggested by referring to the tar-and-feathering of Classon.

            “Do tell us,” exclaimed Bagnal, “if you were present at the Rope-walk, when the feathers flew about so merrily, and when your friend Classon got his winter clothes, without the help of the tailor?”

            “Ay, ay; to be sure I was,” replied the sailor, laughing, “and the fit wan’t no purser’s shirt on a hand-spike neither. But I tell you what it is; though old nosey got his clothes without the tailor, the goose had a hand in it, if she didn’t, damme!”

            This witticism of the sailor’s brought down all the applause that could be expected from so small an assembly, making a proper allowance for punch and tobacco. Perhaps a worse joke would have been well received from men who were predisposed for the time to be entertained at all events.

            “Do you think the fellow deserved all he got on that occasion?” inquired Randal.

            “Deserved all he got?” echoed the sailor. “blastmy eyes! yes, and as much more as was left out. Thirty-nine lashes of the cat-o’-nine-tails would have been an improvement, though.”

            “But you said, just now, you wished there had been more of that same dressing done. Now, whom would you like to see fixed out from the tar-kettle, hey?”

            “Why, if you must know, that blackguard land-lubber of a Governor. I don’t know how it is, but damme, if I don’t hate him as I do the small-pox. And yet some how I never saw him even hull-down in my life.”

            “What makes you hate him then?” asked Randal.

            “Why, d’y see, every where I go, I hear some dirty thing about him, and that’s enough, is n’t it?”

            “You are one of the hands of the Rose frigate!” said Randal, appearing hardly to heed the sailor’s inquiry, and as if a thought had suddenly flashed on his mind which he wished to be satisfied.

            “Ay, ay, Sir,” replied the sailor, “I’m jest that are, and I’m sorry to say as much. I’d like to get a chance to slip the running bow-line they hove over my figure-head one day at Wapping: but I’m almost affeared to desert.”

            “Are you willing,” pursued Randal, “to bear a hand in something that requires stout hands and brave hearts, and which may and will better your fortune?”

           

            “That I am!” exclaimed the sailor. “I should like to see the man that could say Bill Grummet ever lurched when it was his duty to go straight ahead, or was ever affeared to go aloft in a gale. Show us your chart, and blow me if I don’t work your ship for you like a nautilus.”

            “We’ll list you, then, my hearty,” said Randal, and your bounty shall come out of the Rose frigate, if you like.”

            “And I do like,” replied Grummet; “ever since I got the last flogging aboard her, I swore by the salt water goddesses, that I would have my revenge if I could: and I came within the turn of a marline-spike of shipping with as fine a fellow as ever you set eyes on for a sailor, and then the Rose might have drifted to the devil for all I would have cared about it.”

            “Who was the sailor you speak of?” inquired Bagnal.

            “Oh, I can’t tell you who he was, but I met him one day down at Classon’s boarding-house, when a parcel of us got into a row, and the way he copper-fastened one chap of a truckman, would have done your sight more good than eye-water. I met him some time after, but he was busy about some other matter and did n’t say much to me, though I know he wanted me to ship.”

            “Did he say any thing about the government?” eagerly demanded Randal.

            “Why, I can’t say exactly,” replied the sailor, “butI recollect his saying over and over again that he hated all tyranny both on sea and on land. I guess he’s no love for Sir Edmund Andros, from what he said.”

            “I’ll bet a hundred pieces of eight, then,” exclaimed Randal “that I know the very man you have been talking about. He’s a fine-looking, handsome fellow, hardly thirty years old, with light, curling hair, and blue eyes.”

            “Ay, ay, that’s the man,” replied Grummet.

            “Very officer-like in his manner?”

            “Exactly; but there’s no cold tar about him-- there’s nothing stiff in his manner. Why, bless ye, I almost loved him, as soon as I set my eyes on him. I’d give more to sail under such a man for nothing, than to go to sea again in the Rose frigate at full wages.”

            “Well!” said Randal, rising, “come along with me; it’s most time to be at the place of our appointment. Come along with us, and we will let you into a scheme, that will make your fortune and at the same time gratify your revenge.”

            So saying they moved onward to the place of rendezvous which had been appointed, and arrived there just at the minute named to Harding for their meeting.

            It was situated near the borders of the lake, and was accessible only by a narrow path through the woods, which winding about, opened into several smallavenues, and thus formed a sort of natural labyrinth. There are no traces of the cave, we believe, at the present day, but it was then known to many; yet from its difficulty of access, and uninviting gloom, it was seldom visited. It was not more than twenty feet long and ten broad, and was lighted by a fissure that extended to the top, opening by a small orifice through the earth.

            As the three entered the cave, they discovered one who had already arrived, but whom they could not at first readily distinguish, on account of the comparative darkness of the place. As soon, however, as they became accustomed to the gloom that reigned there, Randal and his companion recognised the features of Harding, with whom they exchanged the heartiest salutations.

            “I was in hope,” said the former, addressing the man of letters, “to have found some other trust-worthy persons in your company, for we have need of strong hands and willing hearts, to accomplish the work that remains for us to do.”

            “I am sorry,” replied Harding, “that I was unsuccessful in my search for such characters--are there to be no more of us at the meeting?”

            “We are enough,” exclaimed Randal, “if we are resolute in what we determine. We have brought with us this man who is attached to the Rose frigate, and I believe we may depend on him for signal services.”

           

            “Ay;” replied Grummet, hitching up his clothes, “I’m your boy for lending a lift if you have any thing for me to do in the way of unloading a ship of tyranny.”

            “The very thing we are after,” said Bagnal.-- “Now let us proceed to business.”

            “Done!” exclaimed all at once.

            “I move then,” exclaimed Randal, laughing, and pointing to a large stone near the mouth of the cave, “I move that Mr. Harding take the chair, since the object of this meeting is well understood.”

            It being forthwith agreed upon that the nominee should preside over the meeting, Harding seated himself upon the designated place of honor, and immediately proceeded to recapitulate the substance of their previous conversation. He then enlarged on the present state of affairs, the public distress, and the necessity of a change in the administration of the government, and called on his friends to state with perfect freedom their views in the emergency.

            “I am of opinion,” said the anchor-smith, with much warmth and animation, “that a revolution ought to be effected at once. It should be done without any delay.”

            “And I agree with you entirely,” added Bagnal, “the people are ripe for revolt, and it only requires three or four of us to set them a-going, and the great achievement is accomplished.”

            “That’s your sort, my hearties; I like the cut ofyour jib, every one of you, if I don’t blow me!” exclaimed the sailor; “only name what you would have me do, and I’m your boy to the death.”

            “We’ll assign you an honorable post by and by,” said Harding, “at present let us decide what course to take in setting the wheel a-going.”

            “I would advise,” ventured Randal, “that the office assigned to Grummet be on ship-board. Let him speak to those of the crew on whom he can depend, in order to gain them over to our object. We shall want such aid, beyond doubt. For unless we are disappointed in Captain Nix, there will not be wanting an antagonist to the frigate, in case of an outbreak among the people.”

            “And who, pray, is Captain Nix?” inquired Harding.

            “All that I can tell you of him,” answered Randal, “is, that the Committee have secured the services of such a man, who brought dispatches to them in his armed schooner, from England. I have not seen him, but he is regarded as a great acquisition to the patriot ranks.”

            “I’ll bet a double-joe,” exclaimed Grummet, “that the Captain you speak of is the same fine fellow we saw at the tar-and-feathering--and the one I drank flip with at the Sea-Gull.”

            “Like enough--like enough,”--replied Randal, musing,--“I should n’t be at all surprised if it shouldturn out to be the same. I hope it is he, for he is just the kind of man we want.”

            “Ay, that he is,” added the sailor, “and if he brings his craft along side the Rose in the revolution, I’ll haul down the flag myself if I can. I’ll train the reefers for the fight. Leave me alone for that.”

            “Mind now,” resumed Randal, “don’t forget to get things in readiness--if you could contrive to spike a few guns in a quiet way, there would be no harm done,--do you take?”

            “Take! Yes, I take with a vengeance--let Bill Grummet alone for any job of the kind,--he’s no marine in the business, I tell ’e.”

            “But what’s to be done in the metropolis?” inquired Harding.

            “I am of opinion,” answered Randal, “that it would be well for Bagnal to superintend the south end of the town, while I take care of the north. Do you, Mr. Harding, have charge of Beacon Hill, and get ready a tar-barrel, which being fired on an appointed time, the north and south ends of the town will rise at once and take possession of the fort, Governor and all. What think you of this?”

            All hands agreed that the plan was an excellent one, and they were about to put a resolution to that effect, when a shade passed over the orifice above the cave, and a rustling was heard among the trees and bushes that intertwined their leaves and branches around it.

           

            “Hark! what noise was that?” whispered Bagnal, looking cautiously at his companions.

            “It was overhead,” replied Harding, turning in the direction whence the sound proceeded.

            “A rat in the locker!” exclaimed the man-o’-war’s-man, “let’s have a lick at him--what say you?”

            “Trap him if you can, by all means,” replied Randal, “it’s a spy on us, depend on it!”

            “All hands on deck! heave a-hoy!” yodled the sailor, jumping an octave on concluding his exclamation. As he half cried and half sang the words, he sprang from the cave as if he had been suddenly called from the forecastle in a squall, and, followed by the others, he was soon at the orifice where the disturbance had been made.

            “There he goes, the piratical scoundrel--there he goes!” cried the mariner at the top of his voice, at the same time pointing at an object he had discovered gliding away through the trees,--“I see the rascal’s sky-scrapers, though he’s hull-down;--heave to, you lubberly rascal, heave to, or I’ll give you a broadside of cold iron, and the devil’s blessing to boot!--heave to, you black-flag’d, bloody-bones of a pirate!”

            And Grummet, suiting the action to the word, made a speaking trumpet of his two hands, and bellowing lustily after the trespasser, ran towards himwith all his might, varying the above exclamations, and seasoning them plentifully with oaths.

            As the sailor had been the first to discover the object of the search, so he had got so far ahead of his companions in the pursuit, dodging as he did among the trees, that, for a time, they completely lost sight of him, and could judge only of his whereabout by the continued cry which he kept up during the chase. Presently, from the following hurried dialogue, they had reason to congratulate themselves on the success of the pursuit, for Grummet, changing his tone, cried out loudly enough to be distinctly heard by them:

            “Douse your flag, you rascal! out boat, and bring your papers abord;--ah, you ’re a putty fellow, aint you?--ho! ho! its one of your craft, is it?”

            “Do for the love of all that is holy and righteous,” answered another voice from out the thick-entangled wood in a tone of humble supplication, “do for the love of all that is holy and righteous, let me go!--if you are a christian and have a soul to be saved, let me go!”

            “And who in the devil’s name are you?--tell me that,” screamed Grummet in his ears, “show us your papers, or we’ll hang you up at the yard-arm for a good-for-nothing pirate as you are--what sort of a lugger are you, hey? can’t you speak? take that, then.”

            “Mercy! mercy!” shouted the affrighted man,“let me alone, and I will pay you well, and give you the Holy Virgin’s blessing into the bargain. For mercy’s sake, let me go!”

            “You must be towed into port first, any how, and stand trial for a prize, before we can let you slip your cable and run out to sea in that manner.”

            “Here are twenty pieces of eight,” said the man, imploringly, “and a valuable gold watch,--take them and save me from those ruffians.”

            “Ruffians, pirate?” exclaimed Grummet, indignant at the imputation cast upon his friends.

            “Gentlemen, I mean,” replied the other, endeavoring to amend what he found to be an unfortunate expression--“save me from those gentlemen.”

            “What gentlemen do you mean, you rascal?” demanded the sailor.

            “Those who were with you in the cave;” returned the man, so completely thrown off his guard by the danger of his position as to be entrapped by his own confessions.

            “Ha! ha! that’s it, is it?--so you was peeping down the sky-light was you?--Guilty, by the blazes! and before the clerk asked you whether you was or no. Come along, master pirate, with your black hull and canvass! give us a grip at your hawser--this way! helm hard a-port--ship a-hoy--a-hoy; there, hip!”

            And with this, Grummet emerged from the wood, dragging after him a man who was soon presumed to be a catholic priest by his habit. He was accompanying the sailor very reluctantly, and was screening his half-averted face with his left hand as they drew nigh to the three individuals, who in the meanwhile stood still for them to come up.

            They looked at each other, exchanging a smile of half-surprise, mingled with satisfaction, that Grummet had succeeded in capturing a man, who, if he really were guilty of eaves-dropping, would be a formidable witness against them. It was enough that he was a catholic, had he overheard one half their discourse in the cave, and it appeared to them probable that he had been dogging them since the morning, and had become informed of all their intentions and schemes.

            “Let us take a peep, if your reverence pleases,” said Randal, with an air of mock deference, “under your five-fingered domino;--we would like to see to which of the holy brotherhood we are indebted for playing the blood-hound so dexterously--take away your holy fingers, if you please!”

            And accompanying this request, Randal endeavored to remove the priest’s hand from his face, which he nevertheless pertinaciously continued to hold there from evident shame at being detected.

            “Douse your flipper, I say--do ye hear?” vociferated Grummet; and while he spoke, he seized the arm of the holy man at the elbow, and turned it down, with a “heave-ho!” as if he were working at the windlass. “By mother-Carey and all her chickens!” continued he, “you’re no weakling, any how; I’d like to have you aboard ship to help weigh anchor. You’re a tough one for a chaplain; almost a match, I guess, for our’n in the Rose!”

            “Oh! ho! my saintly father John!” drawled Randal as, taking a step backward, he gazed on the bewildered priest, “it’s you, is it? I did’nt expect to have the honor of your reverence’s company so soon after parting with you this morning,--I’m glad I’ve found you, though. What news have you to communicate since we separated at the ferry, hey?”

            As Randal said this, he smiled sarcastically on the priest, who with downcast eyes was telling his beads mechanically, utterly at a loss what excuse to make for the predicament in which he had thrust himself.

            “Come,” exclaimed Harding in a tone of stern authority, “can’t you find your tongue?--What were you prowling about yonder wood for?--speak, as you value a whole skin; speak, Sir!”

            “If you don’t open that clam-shell of your’n and warp,--d--n me,” cried Grummet, “if I won’t bring out your log-book any how.”

            And he was about to inflict some terrible chastisement on the priest, when the latter, breaking the silence produced by his confusion, at length spoke as follows.

            “I am as innocent of what you think me guilty, gentlemen, as a babe unborn is of the worst heresy inthe church. I could n’t hear a word you said in the cave, and had n’t the slightest suspicion that you could even imagine any treason--and may the holy church refuse to shrieve me in my dying hour, if this is not true.”

            “Who said a word to you about the cave?” inquired Harding, looking at the guilty priest full in the eyes, that quailed before his scrutinizing gaze and the confounding question that had been put to him.

            “This mariner,” replied the priest, looking timidly towards the man, as if he hoped that he would not deny his assertion, false as he knew it to be.

            “You lying rascal!” exclaimed Grummet, shaking his double-jointed fist in the ecclesiastic’s face, “how dare you have the impudence to spin such a villainous yarn as that, in the presence of honest men?--I’ll fix your rattling, for you, one of these days, for this.”

            And then turning to his coadjutors, he continued:

            “I’ll tell you the plain truth and uncoil the whole cable in this ere matter. That rascal lies!--it was he who first spoke of the cave to me--I never said a word about it, till he did: and then I told him he had pled guilty before the clerk of the admiralty asked him. That’s the whole truth, as sure as my name’s Bill Grummet.”

            “We know that, Grummet,” exclaimed his companions, “we heard all that passed between you, from the first.”

            “Bring the rogue down to the cave; let us see how an Inquisition dungeon will agree with his saintship,” cried Bagnal.

            “Ay, ay,” added the sailor, “let’s have him under hatches in no time.--Come along, Mister Chaplain! do you understand squeezing lemons, and making punch and flip for a dry mess, hey?--Come along, my hearty, this way, there!”

            With this they forced the reverend spy into the cavern, where they obliged him to confess that he had been employed by the government, to keep a watch on the movements of the people, and especially on those of Randal, and that he had, as the latter suspected, been dogging them ever since the morning, and overhearing all their intended manœuvres; but he promised them, by the truth which they must recognise in this confession, that he would hold their designs as secret as the grave, and not even allow himself to think of them, provided they would suffer him to go unpunished for his imprudence.

            “Surely, you cannot blame me,” pleaded the cunning Jesuit, self-possession being restored to him by the leniency of his judges, “surely, you cannot blame me so much, when you consider that I am a member of holy mother church, and am bound, in virtue of my priestly office, to serve her cause in all ways tothe best of my ability. We probably differ from each other in our religious tenets, but as far as we act our several parts with honesty and fidelity, we stand acquitted before heaven and earth of hypocrisy. I thought myself called on by my king, and by his holiness, the head of the Church, to exert myself to prevent the further spread of heresy, and to promulgate the Catholic faith in the colonies: with this view, I confess that I have heretofore opposed any rebellious spirit among the people, but, from an accident which I deeply deplore, I now find myself forced into a new position, and on the good faith of a man and gentleman, I swear to you that I will not betray your secrets in the smallest iota. Will you trust me?”

            “No! I’ll be d--d if I do, for one;” exclaimed Grummet, “for the longer I look at you, the more I believe you are a piratical rascal sailing under false colours. I say, messmates!” continued the sailor, taking a formidable quid of pig-tail, so as to give himself time to let out the whole of his suspicions deliberately, and to dwell on his imagined discovery with satisfaction, “I say messmates! let’s have a peep at this cruiser’s papers; p’rhaps we may find out by his clearance, a little more about him than he cares to blow to the winds; shall we make a search?”

            “A good idea, Grummet!” said Harding, and worthy of the King’s attorney-general;--let us lookat your pocket-book, friend, if you have no objection --come!”

            “Out with it!” added the two mechanics.

            At this requisition, the man turned pale as death, and from his extreme agitation, made it evident to the little band of patriots that they had taken possession of a more formidable enemy than they had at first imagined.

            As this suspicion became confirmed, Bagnal and Randal each seized an arm of the culprit, while Grummet proceeded, without more ado, to search the pockets of the seeming ecclesiastic. In doing this, a leather wallet was drawn out, which on being opened, exposed to the astonished gaze of his examiners, among other papers, a number of letters, all of which were directed to the arch enemy of Massachusetts, a man who was, if possible, even more hateful to the colonists than Sir Edmund Andros himself.

            “Is it possible?” exclaimed Randal, pointing to the superscription of the letters, and looking the man full in the face with an expression of intense surprise; “is it possible that you are that man?”

            The pretended priest bit his lip with vexation, but soon rallying from his perturbation, looked around on the company calmly and collectedly, and then drawing himself up, replied:

            “Yes! you see before you the best friend ofthe King; and the worst enemy, if you will have it so, of the colonists. I amEdward Randolph!”

CHAPTER XVI.

 

            Death of my soul! those linen cheeks of thine Are counsellers to fear.

Macbeth.

            Take thy face hence.

Id.        Full many mischiefs follow cruel wrath.

Spenser.         

            Since the year 1676, Massachusetts had not known a more bitter and uncompromising enemy to her interest and happiness than Edward Randolph; but to enumerate all his acts of tyranny and aggression would be endless. From an avaricious and needy adventurer, he finally became, through gross misrepresentations of the resources of the colony, an agent in the hands of the crown, to strip Massachusetts of all her privileges, that thereby the luxurious wants of a corrupt government might be the more amply supplied. It was through the immediate instrumentality of that bad man, that the charter wastaken from Massachusetts, and all the lands of her yeomanry confiscated to the use of the crown; regranted only on payment of half its value in money, and burthened with the most arbitrary and ruinous exactions.

            That such a character should have been detestable in the sight of the people, may be readily imagined. He received their just execrations, and was hooted at wherever he went as an insidious foe to the rights of man, who was ready to commit any act of infamy for gain. There was hardly an instance of robbery or oppression disconnected with the name of Edward Randolph: he was a party to all actions for ejecting the rightful tenant from his soil, and was constantly associated with the very name of tyranny.

            During the struggles of the people to bring about a better state of things, Randolph was mean enough to add the characters of hypocrite and spy to his other odious offices, and on the occasion of the Fair, he had disguised himself as a Catholic priest, the better to watch the movements of the people, especially of those individuals, who, from a more daring spirit, had placed themselves in the front rank of the assertors of the natural and chartered rights of man.

            He now stood confounded and abashed, however hard he struggled to disguise his confusion, in the presence of those whom he had been vile enough todog to their privacy, and take advantage of in their seclusion. Had he fallen in with less conscientious enemies, he would have been at once sacrificed to their resentment, an expedient that might have been justified by the necessity of the cause. As it was, his foes had no desire to take his life, believing that he might be made an example to others without the shedding of his blood.

            The little band of patriots looked at each other with amazement when they became assured that the pseudo priest was no other than the hateful agent of British tyranny, the loathed and detestable Randolph. The man himself seemed to be fully conscious of his odious position, and was the first to break the silence that reigned for a time after the announcement of his name on his discovery.

            “Well!” said he, looking round on his captors, “and what do you intend to do now? You have detected me in doing what I thought to be my duty, and I suppose I must remain at your disposal.”

            “Your duty!” exclaimed Randal, with bitter and indignant sarcasm; “your duty! Yes, you have done your duty as the vampyre does his; you have lived on the life-blood of others, and are now bloated with the butchery of human happiness. And to finish all, you would see us hanged as traitors, and exult in our destruction!”

            “On my life, I would not!” replied Randolph, unable to disguise his apprehension of what might bethe termination of his adventure, which looked so inauspicious in the frowns of his captors; “on my life and honor, I would not betray you!”

            “Hear him!” cried Grummet, with a sort of angry laughter, “he promises by his honor!--I wonder how much his bond would bring on such a rotten bottomry as that!”

            Randolph cast an angry look at the sailor, which he could not restrain, but he deigned no reply. His only hope seemed in the forebearance of the others, for the man-o’-war’s-man looked any thing but mercy.

            “And what treatment do you expect from us?” inquired Harding; “you have, on your own confession, followed us like a puppy all this day, and, by your contemptible hyprocrisy, become possessed of our most important secrets. Do you imagine that we can trust you?”

            “Never!” simultaneously exclaimed the two mechanics.

            “You cannot believe that we can confide in you for a moment,” added Harding.

            “I’d trust a cable of sea-weed sooner,” said the sailor, scornfully. “I tell you what it is, my hearties; you jest hang on to his figure-head, while I go down to the booths yonder. Hold on a bit, will you?”

            So saying, Grummet bolted from the cave, and was out of hearing before his companions had time to inquire as to his purpose in going, though they suspected that he was meditating some plan of punishment for the would-be Catholic priest.

            As the sailor left the cave, Randolph looked imploringly on those who remained behind; for he entertained too well-founded fears that the man had gone away so suddenly, with none of the kindest intentions toward himself.

            “For pity’s sake,” said he, addressing them in a subdued and humble tone of voice, “for pity sake, have mercy on me, and save me from the violent hands of that rough sailor and the mob. Let me go, I beseech you, for if he returns with the posse, I shall stand a small chance to save my life. It is terrible to think of the indignation of an incensed crowd.”

            “Especially when one feels as you must,” rejoined Randal, “that he deserves the severest retribution at their hands.”

            “Whatever I may deserve for mistaken opinions or past misconduct,” replied the self-abasing hypocrite, “you may depend on me for the future. We are only poor, weak mortals, the best of us, and are exceedingly liable to error. If I have heretofore done wrong to the colony, I have it in my power to make ample reparation, and I will do so. Forgive me this once, and you shall never have cause to regret your clemency.”

            The three friends looked at each other hesitatingly, and then withdrew a little to confer with each other on the expediency of suffering him to depart.Harding and Bagnal seemed, on the whole, willing to trust the prisoner; but Randal declared that the fellow would certainly deceive them. They finally determined to allow him to escape, judging rightly enough, that if he were detained in close custody his absence might create suspicion and alarm on the part of the government; and that if he were made a public spectacle, it would be impossible to prescribe bounds to the popular fury, which might result disadvantageously to their cause.

            “You are at liberty to depart, Mr. Randolph,” said Harding, addressing the prisoner, “and as you were lately in our power, so now we remain in yours. You have promised on your honor not to betray us, and the majority of us are willing to take your word. Go, Sir, leave us!”

            Randolph bowed to them, and without uttering one word of acknowledgment, departed: but as he left the cave he muttered to himself, “Fools! I will not betray you, but your intentions shall be made known to the government, immediately.” With this jesuitical determination, he took a circuitous route that he might avoid the encampment and the enemies he most dreaded; then stepping on board the ferry-boat, he was conveyed to Boston, where, without any delay, he repaired to the house of Sir Edmund Andros, and made known to him the intentions of the insurgents.

            Randolph had not been gone many minutes, before the three patriots, who had suffered him to depart, recognised the voice of their coadjutor, returning with a crowd of others from the Fair. Randal and his companions had left the cave, and were about half way between that place and the encampment. The sound of the approaching voices through the crowded oaks, indicated that the people were in a high state of excitement. And so indeed they were; for Grummet had run to the tavern, and through the booths, shouting out for the enemies of tyranny to follow him, for that Randolph, the British agent, had been taken by some patriots on the borders of the lake, who were about to hang him “at the yard-arm of a tree.”

            At such a summons, and on such an occasion, it may be supposed that a large crowd would eagerly rush onward, when the greater part of people had nothing to do but smoke their pipes and get intoxicated, especially when there was any mischief a-foot, and one so hateful as Randolph was promised for their bloody entertainment. They did not stop to inquire what was meant by the “capture of Randolph;” it was enough, and they were grateful for it, that an excuse had been afforded them for raising a disturbance. Any thing is acceptable to man by which he can forget himself for a season. Man will and must be diverted from brooding over his own individuality. Hence drunkenness, rioting, and all sorts of disorder, where stimulants of a milderkind are denied for popular divertisement: hence a proportionate absence of the grosser pleasures, where a love of the fine arts has been cherished and cultivated. When will they be cherished and cultivated in glorious America? A voice from afar replies-- “When the love of money shall not be her all-engrossing evil!”

            And here, while the vox populi is bellowing at the heels of the sailor, and all hands are in the eager pursuit of a coarse and transitory self-forgetfulness, let us pause for a moment to reflect on what was hiuted, at the close of the last paragraph, relative to the progress of taste among Americans; for it is to the development of taste that we must ultimately look, as the only means of ridding ourselves of our most odious characteristic, the exclusive love of money-getting.

            In too many cases, amidst our overgrown commercial cities, may be seen an exemplification of the truth that good taste is not the growth of a single generation. Go to the palaces of some among the merchant-princes, and bewail that it is not so; and bewail too, the “blessed ignorance” that shuts out from the eyes of the vulgar-elegant, the consciousness that amidst all their luxury and wealth, they show not a particle of refinement. Sit down on the costly ottomans amidst the Madams Malaprop, and go away thankful for a decent education, though you dine at a shilling ordinary. Gaze at the costly furniture, but don’t laugh atthe daubs on the walls--’till you depart; and then thank heaven that you have at least escaped that form of the ridiculous, among the follies of the times.

            If instead of lavishing tens of thousands on the works of the cabinet-maker and upholsterer, men would send to our Greenough, Powers, Cole, Doughty, and their like, for a better kind of furniture; the higher class of society, the virtuous and refined, when they condescend to visit the merely rich and voluptuous, would find something else to admire besides the viands and the wines, or the gaudy, tinsel trappings of luxurious mammon. It is a little remarkable, that English travellers have generally overlooked the very faults in which our society most abounds; while they have principally enlarged on manners which do not so properly belong to society, as to individuals thrown together from all parts of the world by accident, each scrambling for himself. How absurd it would be to decide on American manners at our public tables, which are every day crowded with foreigners and strangers, and where hardly two individuals have been formed by the same rules! and yet to such places we are indebted for the severest strictures on our habits and manners, when perhaps the most glaring instances of impropriety might have been traced to the satirist’s own countrymen.

            No; gentlemen travellers from abroad! or lady travellers! should haply any such one of these days befound, if you tell the whole truth about us, you will leave all your predecessors in the back-ground; while the probability is, that it would have been told long ago if there had not been too great a congeniality of coarseness between the observers and the observed. Travellers of any respectability should find their way among those who do not pretend to elegance, because it is natural to them, and they ought to know that it is as unreasonable to expect to find the same manners and customs in America, which they had been accustomed to see in England, as it would be to look for the same climate or institutions. It ought to be the glory of Americans that they are themselve alone, and that they have not been moulded according to bad influences abroad. The class of purse-proud individuals which are the peculiar bane of society, are those who, having nothing more than wealth to give them consideration, look down from their bad elevation on all whom they fancy to be beneath them, while they overlook the truth that nothing but modesty and gentle cultivation can confer true respectability, and save them from the hydra-headed monster, selfishness.

            But to return to Watertown. The shouts of the people grew louder and more loud, till, as they approached the three patriots, the latter bagan to doubt whether it would be prudent for them to encounter the crowd, which, on finding themselves baulked in their expectation, might, for aught they could judgeto the contrary, wreak on them the vengeance that they were determined to bestow on Randolph. They had hardly time, however, to resolve the matter in their minds, before Grummet broke from the wood, followed by more than a hundred people, some of whom were armed with clubs, and others bearing a rope, the application of which, as intended, could be no matter of question.

            “This way, my hearties, bear a hand here to the starboard! the old pirate is stowed away in the hole yonder. Hurrah! for the yard-arm and a running bow-line.”

            “Hurrah!” burst forth from a hundred discordant throats, with an accompaniment of oaths, curses, and imprecations, all levelled at Randolph, whom they even now imagined to be within their power, a sacrifice to their just indignation.

            The moment Grummet encountered his friends, he cried out:

            “Hullo, my hearties! are you here? where have you lodged the chaplain?--He’s in the hole, aint he?”

            And he was on the point of rushing by them in his eagerness to reach his victim, when the voice of Randal stopped him.

            “Randolph has escaped!” cried the anchor-smith, in a tone of voice that was intended to deceive the crowd by its significance of regret.

           

            “Escaped!” exclaimed Grummet in astonishment.

            “Escaped!” echoed a score of others in similar surprise and disappointment.

            “Which way did the rascal go?” demanded several, impetuously.

            “That’s more than we can tell you,” replied Randal, “for as soon as we followed him from the cave he had disappeared among the trees, and that was the last we have heard of him.--Pray didn’t you meet him on the way?”

            “Do you think he would be fool enough to throw himself in our course?” inquired the sailor, whose chagrin at the loss he had encountered was already evinced in his manner; “never mind, my hearties! let’s give chase to the old pirate, and damme, we’ll overhaul him yet. Clap on your studding-sails, my boys, and scatter to all points: we’ll have him yet. Three cheers for the chase, hurrah!”

            To this appeal, the infuriated multitude replied with enthusiasm, and away they went in every direction, in hope of overtaking their object; but he was already safely seated in the ferry-boat, having in the interim made the best use of his loco-motive with ten springs, that a frightened man could command.

            After vainly pursuing Randolph, the scattered multitude returned to his encampment under the guidance of the sailor, and vented their unexhausted anger on every object that came within their reach. By this time Classon had joined them, and amidst the fellowship of intoxication, they forgot all their animosity towards him in the admiration they had for his excesses. The man was stark mad with brandy, and was foremost among the mob in demolishing tents, breaking furniture, and spreading devastation at random. The whole ground occupied for the Fair, presented one aspect of ruin.

            The mechanics, with their new friend witnessed the scene of violence with mortification and sadness.

            “Alas!” exclaimed Harding, “how little mankind are to be trusted. Who could have calculated on such a termination of things as this?”

            “It is human nature,” replied Randal, “men will have an outlet for their feelings, and so we see the innocent suffering for the guilty.”

            “Such an exhibition of lawless violence,” said Harding, mournfully, “is enough to make us pause awhile before we set the wheel of Revolution a-going. Who can tell how things will end, and who can say how far they may go, or what excesses may follow a serious popular movement?”

            “Never fear the consequences;” said Randal, and his friends joined him in the sentiment, “the madness you have seen to-day could not well occur in Boston; on her we principally depend for the tone which will be given to the revolution.”

            As they bent their steps in the direction of the metropolis, they recapitulated the substance of the conversation which had engaged them during the day, so far as it related to the great object of their hopes and wishes, and they interchanged many conjectures as to the sincerity of Randolph’s promises, and the probability of his treachery.

            “I have not a particle of confidence in him,” insisted Randal, “the man is so thoroughly unprincipled, that with all his assurances of being faithful to us, you may rely on it he will lay the whole plan before the governor. We ought to have kept him confined, and not suffered him to escape.”

            “But only think,” urged Harding, “only think what the consequences would have been, had we given the wretch over to the fury of the multitude!”

            “It would have saved the property of many an unoffending man, which has now been sacrificed to their disappointment.”

            “And have ruined our cause completely,” added Bagnal, who siding with the tutor, did all he could to reconcile his friend to the course they had adopted.

            But Randal was immoveable in his opinion, and he parted with Harding in the vicinity of the College, with sad forebodings that their enterprise would be defeated.

            The two friends proceeding on their way to Boston, took the ferry-boat at the Point, and reached the metropolis as the last rays of the sun were receding from the summits of the three hills.

CHAPTER XVII.

 

            Once more upon the Ocean!


Childe Harold             One fatal remembrance, one sorrow that throws

            Its bleak shade alike o’er our joys and our woes.

            To which life nothing darker nor brighter can bring,

            For which joy hath no balm, and affliction no sting.


Moore I’ve done the deed.

Macbeth.

           

            After the destruction of the Revenue-Cutter, Fitzvassal, whose mind began to turn upon itself, and brood over its self-inflicted misery, gave orders to put to sea. He now, for the first time, had ample leisure for reflection; for since his return to the scenes of his youth his thoughts had been in such a whirl of excitement; such new and untried emotions had possessed him; such hopes, aspirations, doubts, fears, and misgivings, had swayed him by turns, in the many new relations which he held to society, that till now he had been unable to realise his true position. He was pacing his quarter-deck wrapped in the gloomiest melancholy.

           

            “Fool!” ejaculated the buccaneer, in the wretchedness of self-examination, “fool, pitiable, despicable fool!--in what am I better or happier now, than when in the miserable abode of my mother?--alas, poor mother!--I fed upon my own heart and bemoaned our mutual misfortunes! Better, far better would it have been for me to have lived contented with my lot, and earned the daily crust that might have kept thee from famishing!”

            The picture of his mother’s sufferings then rose up before the mind of Fitzvassal in all its horrors, and the memory of her awful death and her dying words checked the heartfelt curses as they trembled on his lips for utterance.

            His thoughts were next occupied with the object of his adoration, and he felt his cheek grow pale, as he saw her in his mind’s eye reciprocate a kiss of affection, and smile upon Seymour in the abandonment of love.

            Up to the fatal moment when the too faithful glass let the secret into his heart that Grace was the lover as well as the beloved of another, Fitzvassal had indulged the belief that his own passion was returned,--and on this one pervading, all-absorbing thought, he had lived and been sustained amidst every trial he encountered. Had that love been indeed successful, who shall say how different would have been the whole course of his after-existence! But as soon as the hideous reality burst upon him,that he had deceived himself, and that instead of the golden dreams he was indulging, nothing but despair awaited him, deepened and darkened a thousand fold by the revolting imagination that another-- but we cannot pursue a thought so brain-touching --let it pass!

            From that moment Fitzvassal resolved to fulfil his destiny. “They prophecy concerning me,” said he to himself, gloomily and wretchedly enough; “and yet they tell me that my will can control my fate. What fate! what destiny! what will have I! God knows I will to will otherwise--and yet I do wish to be revenged! I would not injure Grace Wilmer--and yet if I knew that she were unhappy on my account, even unto death, I might be glad! As for her lover,--God! God! had I known that, would I not have throttled him amidst the waves! Twice have I saved the life of a viper that even now coils coldly and venomously about my heart, and will by and bye sting me to madness! Where am I? whither am I going? That strange being at Nahant told me but yesterday, that I would go to sea this day! And here I am at sea! She told me to avoid every sail. Had I avoided the Cutter, there would have been less blood spilt:--was there any necessity for blood-letting? was it a part of my destiny to murder? Bah! nonsense! superstition! away with it, Fitzvassal! it is worse than woman’s weakness; away with it!”

           

            And the infatuated man, with the aid of the bottle flattered himself that he had overcome a weakness, when, in fact, he had done nothing but paralyze the organs of thinking by over-stimulating them. His mind was oppressed the same as ever, and was waiting to manifest itself with renewed keenness when the paralysis should pass away.

            A temporary cheerfulness or rather recklessness spread suddenly over his mind. The gloom that weighed upon him was departed. The blue skies, and the white, feathery clouds assumed a new aspect, and awoke pleasant associations; the waves danced and sparkled around him, and every thing grew bright and glorious. The demons of intoxication had entrapped him, and it was necessary to make the victim glad till his power of breaking the toils were destroyed; like the deluded neophyte that has been led among gardens and roses, and made delirious with all that enchains the young imagination, till the black veil descends forever on her innocence!

            While in this state of sensual excitement--the cry of “Sail ho!” sounded from aloft.

            “Where a-way!” was the prompt inquiry from below.

            “Dead East!” returned the look-out.

            “Bear down upon her and let’s see who she is!” said Fitzvassal to his officer; God grant, we have more work to do!”

           

            “I hope,” said Morgan, “you will either take no more prizes, or no more wounded passengers; howsomever, you know your own business; but the deck of a buccaneer is no place for a hospital, I’m thinking.”

            “It’s not likely, Morgan,” replied the commander, “that we shall have any fighting to do,--there’s no such luck for us, I’m afraid.”

            “I did n’t know you had a notion of going out to sea in earnest,” said Morgan.

            “Nor I neither; as to that--but we’ll return before long. I almost with I had let the Cutter alone--it never could have done the Dolphin any harm.”

            “Not’s you know on!” replied the pilot, shaking his head wisely, and screwing up his eyes with an expression of deep sagacity--“not’s you know on! That Cutter, if she’d got along-side, or near enough, might have put a red-hot-shot into your powder-magazine in no time--howsomever, it’s no matter o’ mine.”

            “True;” added the buccaneer, “or, in the chances of war, she might have captured us.”

            “Ay,” resumed Morgan, encouraged, because his notions were adopted by his superior; “I’ve away of thinking, that if an eighteen-pounder or two had told against the Dolphin’s masts, in the way our twenty-four spoke to the Cutter’s, we might have had a raking in our turn.”

           

            “And been carried into Boston chained as pirates.”

            “Certainly!” said Morgan, “and been hanged up on the Neck and by the neck, too. Good again! not so bad, that!”

            “Very agreeable, truly,” ejaculated Fitzvassal, musing.

            “Very,” echoed Morgan; “mighty agreeable to be dangling within sight of one’s own house, after old Mather had talked you as dry as a corn-cob on the way to the gallows.”

            “It was right,” said Fitzvassal, “to do as we did with the Dolphin, but I am a little doubtful about these prisoners.”

            “Dead men tell no tales!” whispered Morgan, looking at the buccaneer with an expression that seemed to indicate some uncertainty as to Fitzvassal’s disposition.

            “Shame! shame! Morgan,” returned the latter, indignantly, “how can you be so barbarous?”

            And the commander of the Dolphin walked away from the man, as if he dreaded contamination, flattering himself that he was opposed to an act, which all the while he wished most heartily were accomplished.

            If the best man that walks the earth could see himself as he really is, he would be scared to distraction. The heart is stuffed with fragments of the ten commandments; but while self-delusion has the custody of that heart, she turns it about to please the imagination; like a kaleidescope, that by ever moving makes seeming order and variety out of shapeless and unpleasing forms, and even perverts the light of heaven to the irradiation and adornment of lies.

            In the meantime, the Dolphin had gained so much upon the other vessel that her flag could easily be seen from below, with the assistance of the glass, and she was reported from the look-out as evidently an English merchantman of about three hundred tons.

            “Crowd all sail!” was the order immediately given, on ascertaining the character of the vessel; “at least we’ll get the latest news from England, possibly a rich booty. The colonists will want money, and they shall have it.”

            At this last idea, as it gained utterance, Fitzvassal felt relieved, for it seemed to him a palliation of the crime which he was meditating; so easy is it for conscience to find a subterfuge in its distress.

            The strange sail gradually ascended to the horizon, and the two vessels were not more than three miles distant, when the stranger was seen suddenly to change her course, and press all her canvas for flight. This only showed that she began to suspect the Dolphin; while it gave assurance to the crew of the latter, that the ship was indeed a merchantman, and it encouraged them to hope for a prize.

            Notwithstanding the efforts which the merchantman made to escape, the buccaneer gained so rapidly upon them that in two hours they were nearly along-side.

            “Ship a-hoy!” cried the first officer of the Dolphin, through a speaking-trumpet, as they came within hailing distance.

            “Ship a-hoy!” reiterated the officer, “where are you bound?”

            But the merchantman returned no answer.

            The hailing was again repeated, yet with no other effect; and but for an occasional movement in the trimming of her sails, no one could have believed that there was a person on her deck.

            This conduct on the part of the vessel began to excite the circumspection of Fitzvassal, who gave orders to beat to quarters; but in the meanwhile the schooner had run full abreast of the ship, and within pistol-shot. The call to quarters was the signal to the stranger to show some signs of animation, for hardly had the drum sounded, before the plain sides of the merchantman opened in half a dozen places, and as many guns running out from her port-holes, poured forth a broadside on the Dolphin, which made the splinters fly about her fearfully. At the same moment at least twenty heads were popp’d above her bulwarks.

            As soon as this was done, the vessel which, merchantman or not, seemed almost a match for the Dolphin, endeavored to wear round, and run underher stern with a view to rake her, while the crew of the latter came to quarters, and returned the broadside with interest.

            “Run close along-side of her, at all hazards,” shouted Fitzvassal, “give her another broadside, and run into her under cover of the smoke; then throw your grappling-irons and board! Call the boarders to be ready--I will lead them myself--fire away now!--Cato, you rascal, here!”

            The steward was at his side.

            “Mix powder in some rum and hand it round to the men!--instantly--away!”

            The black was off in a moment, seizing a cannon charge as he passed, from one of the “powder monkeys;” and he soon returned with a bucket containing the infuriating mixture. The men had just time to take a half-pint all around, the cannon in the meantime roaring like thunder from both sides, when the bowsprit of the Dolphin ran over the taffrail of the other, indicating, amidst the dense smoke enveloping both vessels, that the desired contact had taken place.

            Fitzvassal had already stationed himself at the head of twelve men by the bow of his own vessel, awaiting the moment when the contact should take place. He was armed, as were the other boarders, in iron caps, made for this especial object, and each had a pair of pistols, a broad-sword, and a cutlass, the latter to serve as a guard for the left arm, as wellas for such mischief as it could find opportunity to do. A short, broad dagger was sticking in the leather belt that contained the pistols.

            Thus prepared, as soon as the buccaneer found his bowsprit aboard the other, he cried out:

            “Now then! boarders follow me!”

            At the same time he ran up the bowsprit of his own vessel, followed by his intrepid band, and before his victim had time to perceive his intention, he was with them on the quarter-deck, giving rapid orders, and calling on his opponents to surrender.

            But the boarded vessel was not so peacefully disposed. She found herself engaged with one she did not doubt to be a pirate, and though she had been taken by surprise, she was resolved not to surrender without disputing every inch of her deck.

            The battle now raged, loud and terrible. The vessels had run in so close to each other, that the grappling-irons were thrown from amidships of the Dolphin, and the two drawn close along-side. In this position, the large guns could not be used at all; the only available one would have been the long twenty-four of the buccaneer, but as her commander and so many of her best men were aboard of the stranger, it would have been madness to have made the use of it, which otherwise would have been so decisive.

            The useless state of the cannon soon left the scene of action unobscured by the heavier clouds of smokethat had before encompassed it, so that the movements on board the merchantman could be distinguished with some precision. The combat was for the quarter-deck of the vessel. In this contest, Fitzvassal alternately drove his opponents, and was by them beaten back again; at one moment the assailants seemed to have victory on their side, when immediately fresh vigor appeared to actuate the desperate efforts of the half-vanquished, and the fortune of the day, for the time, changed sides. Blood poured from the scuppers in torrents, and it seemed as if the vessels were floating on a crimson tide, so ensanguined were the waters around them. The only use made of the cannon was to enable the men on both sides to meet each other the more conveniently arm to arm, as sitting bestride them, they cut and thrust at each other furiously. The gunwales of the two vessels were also lined with men in desperate conflict, each side endeavoring to make a passage into its antagonist’s vessel, but in vain.

            While this was going on, Morgan, who had been actively engaged repelling those who endeavored to board the Dolphin, discovered that Fitzvassal was with his little band in imminent danger. He had met with a severe repulse, and was on the point of being surrounded, when, communicating his design to the first-officer, the word was given, and all those men who were standing on the Dolphin’s gunwaleamidships, suddenly fell back, and at that moment the long twenty-four was discharged.

            The shock was so great that it made a clear passage on the gunwale of the stranger, when Morgan, who had formed the plan, instantly calling on all to follow him who liked, sprang, under cover of the smoke, on board the enemy, and backed by a dozen men was along side his commander at the moment of his utmost need.

            “Gallantly done, my friend!” exclaimed Fitzvassal, “nobly, gallantly done! now then for victory in earnest!”

            On this encouragement, the crew of the Dolphin, which had been excited almost to madness by the fiery potion they had taken, resumed the battle with the more fierce and unrelenting fury. The assailed began to give way, their number being sensibly diminished. Hardly men enough remained on board the buccaneer to load and fire a single cannon, for the deck of the larger vessel had become the exclusive scene of action. The decks were strewed with bodies, some dying and screaming amidst the din and uproar of battle; others shockingly mangled by the large shot which had been thrown at the beginning of the engagement.

            Wounded in several places, Fitzvassal conducted himself worthy of a better cause. On several occasions he was in imminent peril of his life. Once while engaged with an athletic man, broad-sword andbroad-sword, he was pressed so hard from behind, that turning to divide his guard, his foot slipped in the thick gore, and he fell prostrate on the deck. The sword of his adversary was already descending upon his neck, which must have severed his head from his body, when Morgan, rushing in between, struck by the deadly aim, and buried his short-sword in the heart of the gigantic sailor. The man fell down with a groan right over the prostrate body of Fitzvassal, whom he almost strangled with the torrent of his blood.

            While in this dreadful situation, Morgan, who fought by his side manfully, parrying many deadly thrusts which were aimed at his commander, at last fell disabled by a pistol-shot, which broke his leg just below the knee. The man who shot him was in the act of discharging another pistol at the fallen pilot, when Fitzvassal, disengaging himself with a powerful effort, from the bodies which had fallen upon him, sprang to the assistance of Morgan, and plunged his short, broad steel to the hilt in his opponent’s back. As he drew out the sword again, the wounded man turned round, and gazing fora moment on the buccaneer shrieked out as the blood spouted from his mouth and nostrils:

            “Edward Fitzvassal!--you have murdered your own father!”

            Then raising his hands toward heaven, he fell backward dead among the slain.

           

            Fitzvassal stood motionless with horror at this announcement, and had it not been for his friends he must have been sacrificed in the crowd. He stood for a while like one suddenly smitten with catalepsy. Fortunately for him the fight was nearly over. The officers and the owner of the vessel being slain, despair seized on the hearts of the sailors and they nearly to a man ran below, crying and begging for “quarter.” The flag of the merchantman was hauled down, and possession at once taken of the vessel.

            As Morgan lay helpless among a pile of the dying and the dead, and had not heard the exclamation of his foe at the moment he fell before the blade of his commander, he gazed on the latter with surprise on seeing him so distempered at the very time he had reason to rejoice, and reaching forward as well as he was able, he took hold of Fitzvassal’s hand, saying:

            “How now, Captain, are you wounded?”

            The address of the disabled pilot seemed to restore animation to the buccaneer, and he inquired:

            “Is it you, Morgan?”

            “Ay, ay;” replied Morgan, groaning with pain; “it’s me sure enough; but I’ve got my winter’s wood, howsomever.”

            “Morgan!” inquired the commander, pointing to the lifeless body of Edmund Vassal, “tell me for heaven’s sake! did I kill that man?”

            “As sure as I’m Jake Morgan with a broken leg,you killed him. Why, you ought to know; for you stuck that skewer of your’s between his shoulders, just as he was about to give me a night-cap for eternity?”

            Fitzvassal said nothing more--but he staggered to the side of the vessel, and leaned on the slippery gunwale. What thoughts were those that crowded on him then! As if at the touch of a magician’s wand, the terrible past and the still more terrible present rose up simultaneously to his mind. He remembered the curses he had heaped on his parent at his mother’s death-bed--he remembered his oath of vengeance, he remembered the spectre-scene at the Spouting-Horn, and last of all he remembered the warning of Nameoke, and his own stubborn wilfulness of purpose that would not be guarded nor instructed; and as he thought of all these, his heart grew harder than the flint, for he accused heaven of mocking him, and making him the plaything of destiny.

            “Thank God!” he at length exclaimed, starting from the retrospection in which he had been wrapped, “thank God, I have done the deed! I swore to be revenged, and I am revenged. I had the will to do it, and though I did not know my victim at the time, he was given to me that I might not tell a lie!”

            “Heave that body overboard, instantly!” said Fitzvassal, pointing to his slaughtered father--andthe order was immediately obeyed. As it fell into the water heavily and with a loud plash, the buccaneer cast his eyes over the gunwale. It had risen from the short depth to which it had been plunged, and now lay nearly buried in the waters, the head turned back, and the unclosed eyes glaring upward as in the last agony of death.

            Fitzvassal shivered with disgust, and sprang aboard the Dolphin.

            “There is one more victim to be sacrificed to thy shade, unhappy mother!” groaned Fitzvassal, “one did I say?”

            The buccaneer had been thinking of Classon--but it occurred to him that there might be another sacrifice required. He called his officer to him, and committing all things to his charge, under the pretence of his requiring immediate repose, he consigned himself to the oblivion he desired.

            Alas! there remained no more repose nor oblivion for the mind of Fitzvassal. “Tired nature’s sweet restorer,” had flown from him forever. It is true he could force himself to a state when the consciousness of his relation to the external world was withdrawn, but so far from its being a state of repose it was one of exaggerated suffering. His sense of the sublimely terrible was inconceivably heightened and his conscientiousness strangely awakened. He constantly dreamed of hideous black fiends in distorted human forms, that laughed and hissed at him byturns--men who could not hurt him, but only scare him with their threats. He dreamed of his mother, and she was sitting solitary and in tears, her head bowed down between her hands, crying, “Edward, my son! my son!” And when he spoke to her, she raised her face to look at him, and it was a fleshy skeleton’s, that screamed in his ear “Revenge!” and then vanished.

            The scene would then suddenly change, and he found himself leaning over the side of his vessel, looking down into the clear, unfathomable abyss below him. There were ingots of gold and silver, and precious stones without number, shining in wonderful profusion, and as he gazed and longed for it all, a red mist overspread the dazzling vision, and the body of his slaughtered father, emerging from the cloud, rose to the surface of the water, his stony eyes fixed on his guilty son; and as they gazed upon him, a voice, unearthly and appalling, shrieked in his ears “Revenge!” at which he would scream beneath the oppression of the night-hag, and wake overwhelmed with dismay.

            From such visions, the miserable man was sometimes a wakened by those who listened to his groans and heart-rending sighs--and he would come to himself bathed in the night-dews of agony, and for a long time refuse again to trust himself to the penalties of half-oblivion.

            Most generally he was haunted in his sleep by theforms of Seymour and Grace Wilmer--and the vision of their endearments was more than the bitterness of death to him. Such was already the abundant fruit of one crime.

            On examining the vessel, it was discovered, to the great joy of the buccaneers, that she was deeply laden with gold and silver, which, it was ascertained, had been taken from the same wreck that supplied the Dolphin. The vessel was named the Duke of York, and it was first proposed to take her freight from her and scuttle her; but when Fitzvassal came to himself, he decided otherwise, and gave orders to divide the survivors of the Duke of York and his own crew, which had been considerably thinned by the contest, between the two vessels; the command of the prize being unhesitatingly bestowed on Morgan, for his daring achievements during the action.

            “The time I shirked the stone-jug in a coffin,” said Morgan on the occasion, “I never dreampt of commanding a snug buccaneer with three masts and a cargo of gold. Howsomever, seeing’s knowing; and there’s no telling but I may be rear-admiral yet, since the wind of my luck has shifted.”

            But though Morgan was raised to this responsible office, he was not able to attend to the duties of his situation for some time, except to transmit orders from below, where he was confined by his wound; but it was a source of great comfort to him that it was now in his power to command the presence ofany one on board his ship, to whom he could spin his yarns without the danger of their declining the narrative, or going to sleep during the recital.

            After every thing on board the two vessels had been put in order, the decks washed and holy-stoned, every trace of the late action carefully removed, and all necessary repairs completed, Fitzvassal, after carefully examining every part of both vessels, looked at Morgan narrowly, as he lay in his berth, and said:

            “I find no wounded men on board--where are they?”

            “Dead men tell no tales!” replied the newly-made Captain.

            “Morgan!” said Fitzvassal, “you are a worse man than I thought you.”

            “And you,” replied the other, “are no better. Captain, confess to me that you are glad the job is done! howsomever, we’ll say nothing more about it.”

            The two vessels were once more on their way to Boston.

CHAPTER XVIII.

 

            And thus in days of yore they lived,

            Whiling the merry Christmas hours.

Old Ballad.

                  &oacgr;   &oacgr;  &eeacgr;    &eeacgr;    ,

                  &oacgr;   &eacgr;   &iacgr;    &eeacgr;    

                  &ohacgr;       &eacgr;  &aacgr;     

            ’        &aacgr;         &uacgr;    

      .  Not to love is fortune’s sting--

            To love is full of sorrowing;--

            But sharper is his racking pain,

            Who loves, and is not loved again!

Trans.

           

            The suspicion that Randal entertained relative to the conduct of Randolph was fully warranted by the event. He made known to Sir Edmund Andros the danger that threatened his government, and advised him to make such a disposition of his forces, as would effectually prevent an insurrection.

            To this end, on the morning after the Fair, the inhabitants of Boston were amazed to find that preparation had been made for a movement which they had not dreamed of immediately attempting, while the patriotic leaders of the intended revolution were downcast and mortified, that their labors should have been frustrated for a time by their own misplaced confidence. But they did not despair. They now waited only for a moment when their odious tyrant should be lulled again into false security, and they improved the interim by unremitted exertions among the people, to prepare them for the auspicious morn, when the sun of liberty should return again to illumine their darkened hemisphere.

            In the meanwhile, winter set in with all the rigour of those early days, when the snows banked up to the chamber windows, and subnivian avenues were made from house to house as the only way of communication. The Dolphin, with her prize painted so as effectually to disguise her, lay near mount Wallaston, completely imbedded in the ice, their decks roofed over with planks, and these covered with a thick surtout of snow. The Rose frigate lay in the stream as usual; but though she floated free of ice, it was impossible for her to leave the harbour or the narrow channel where she rested at anchor. She too was roofed over in winter quarters, and presented the same appearance as the others. Her topmasts and top-gallant-masts were taken on deck, and she was otherwise half dismantled, the better to contend with the severity of the season.

           

            There is never so much dissipation as when wars and rumors of wars abound, if we except times of greater danger, when plagues are decimating a community or earthquakes shaking cities to the dust. Men have so little real belief in the religious obligations they profess, and so much real love of sensual enjoyment, that the greater the opportunity, the more uncontrolled and excessive will be their self-indulgence. A standing-army quartered in or about a city, will, it is known, corrupt the most virtuous people; nor is its effect the more destructive by the vices which are introduced and disseminated by it, than by the very sphere, or as it were, atmosphere of its body.

            The mere moral philosopher knows but little of evil influences, when from a circumscribed view of the great relations of psychology, he overlooks those phenomena that link the natural with the spiritual: of these, this is no time to speak; but that there are really and truly such phenomena cognizable by a cultivated perception, is known by a few as rationally and certainly as are the ordinary facts in every branch of natural science. Some of these phenomena have been shown to the world, but they have been universally hooted at, through prejudices falsely imbibed from the Baconian philosophy.

            It is difficult to make men discriminate between what is only different, and what is absolutely contradictory. If new phenomena are presented to them,they straightway refer them to classes which are old, and when they find that they cannot predicate of the one, what they have been accustomed to predicate of the other, they indignantly reject the new appearances as contradictory of their experience, andtherefore, as necessarily absurd and visionary: when a little reflection might inform them, that all unknown or new phenomena are removed from the grasp of ordinary reasoning, because none of its terms or instruments contain individuals but of known classes.

            When Dugald Stewart attacked the Aristotilean logic for those scholastic pretensions which never entered into the thoughts of its illustrious author, and gravely attempted to prove that the syllogism could not be an instrument for extending the boundaries of science, he must have had a vague and shadowy notion of the common tendency of the human mind to narrow down its observation to the small compass of what is already established. If the idea had been developed in his mind, he might have found a key to that higher logic which he seems to have had an indistinct dream of, and which as an auxiliary of truth, far transcends the dialectics of the Stagirite. It is the only logic that can tear up the fundamental principles of atheism and show the absurdity of an à priori religion; that monster, which Paley, Newton, Lord Brougham, the Bridgewater-Treatise gentlemen, and the whole body of the clergy have laboured with such care to establish; little dreaming that they are labouring on a foundation of sand, which the searching flood of truth will sweep away from their superstructure.

            Here it is, that the atheist has always had the vantage-ground in polemic divinity. The christian has based his argument on a fallacy which the atheist has felt to be such, without having the means of showing it; but he has fairly enough contended that if the foundation of an argument is untenable, the argument itself is good for nothing: while the christian has, on the other hand, obstinately insisted on the importance, the all-importance of natural theology as the basis of revelation. The very reverse of this is the truth; for natural theology iscognizable only through revelation. After a revelation, we recognize God in his works;--before a revelation, it were impossible; because an argument that contains heterogeneous ideas used as homogeneous ones, must allow of no inference; and every idea we have is a logical inference. All of which may be demonstrated with mathematical precision.

            We have been led somewhat wide of our intention, which was only to state that the quartering of Sir Edmund Andros’s army in Boston during the events of 1688-9, served to relax more than ever the severity of the popular manners. The outrage of the Rose frigate was not forgotten, but there was so many enormities constantly committed by the government, that it was impossible for the public indignation to dwell for a long time exclusively on one act of aggression.

            During the interregnum of severe discipline, which since the accession of James II. to the throne, had been indulged to more or less extent in New England, the extravagance and luxuries of the court had found many imitators in Boston. The large number of Episcopalians and Catholics who resided in that town at the time, formed a strong contrast to the Puritans, who still exercised much self-denial, in spite of the many allurements with which they were surrounded. But they were no longer the same people who were contemporary with the heavenly-minded Winthrops. A very few of the original stock remained, and as they passed to the world of spirits, their example was gradually forgotten: just as the disinterested patriotism of seventy-six is becoming only a theme for the historian, as the heroes of that epoch are fading from our memory.

            It was on Christmas night, that the long-expected festival was to be celebrated at the mansion-house of the Wilmer’s--the anniversary of the charming Grace’s nativity. Great preparations had been made to give to the occasion all the elegance and luxury which the fashion of the day afforded. A hundred invitations had been given and accepted, while many a young heart beat restlessly for the hour when her beauty should blaze in the eyes of some fond admirer,and be the object of general delight in the gay assembly at the Wilmers.

            Though the night was dark, the street on the side of the house, near the Mall, was in a blaze of light, for a large number of cressets, the street-lamps of the time, were hung out at shortintervals near the house, and imparted a pleasing cheerfulness and excitement to the company as they arrived. These were a sort of iron cage hung from a pole on pivots, in a contrivance resembling a fork, and looked like inverted caps of iron. In these were placed the lights, made of twisted wicks saturated with pitch, tallow, linseed oil, hard rosin, and turpentine, melted together; the lamp-lighter ascended the pole by means of transverse pieces of wood projecting from each side. The cressets were sometimes carried from place to place on the pole, and were attended by a man with a bag to feed it, and a torch to light it with.

            The snow at the time lay thin on the ground, and carriages, (for several had been imported from England by opulent people of Boston,) were enabled to approach near to the door of the house. These carriages were of different degrees of elegance, according to the wealth and taste of the owners. They were shaped somewhat like the sedan-chairs seen in the pictures of Hogarth, placed on four wheels. The perch nearly touched the ground, and the upper panels were filled with large glass. The side nextto the driver was vertical to the floor, and that behind sloped in an angle of about sixty-five degrees. The driver’s box and the dasher were not materially different from those of our day. These carriages could not accommodate more than four persons, and they were drawn by two or four horses, as the circumstances of the owner allowed.

            The hall of the mansion-house was illumined by a number of globular vessels of glass, in which wax candles were burning, and throwing a profusion of light on a line of uniform, engraved portraits in black frames, that made a broad border along the whole length of the wall. These were of distinguished persons of the times of Elizabeth and her successors, decked out in the various costume of the day. In the centre of this row of portraits, hung a painting five feet square, by one of the forgotten artists of the day, representing Mr. Wilmer while a child eleven years old, with his feathered hat under one arm, and holding a large orange in his delicate fingers, around which the lace ruffles bristled like the ruff on Queen Elizabeth’s neck. On each side of this stiff piece of drawing were portraits of his mother and aunt, the simplicity of whose costume strongly contrasted with the splendid dresses that were now floating by in crowds.

            The parlors were on each side of the hall as in all old-fashioned houses: the one looking towards the Common was the more elegant of the two, and wasnot generally opened, but was reserved for extraordinary occasions. The windows toward the Mall were within deep alcoves, from the arches of which fell rich, heavy drapery of crimson damask silk, looped up at the sides, and secured by large gilded hooks. This room was hung round with gorgeous tapestry, where in elaborate workmanship, was represented the story of Actæon and his hounds, which seemed to be preaching a practical homily on the danger of domestic extravagance. The fire-place in this room was ornamented with light green tiles, each one of which was a beautiful picture of some interesting sort. One series of them told the story of a charming country maiden, from her first falling in love to her disappointment; another, of a happy marriage; and still another, of a maiden lady’s lonely state, when the astrologer cast her horoscope of “Never to be married.” Over the mantle-piece in this room were, on each side, gilded figures of angels, each holding branches worked like olive-boughs, wherefrom seven wax candles shone with a blaze of light; and between these was a large panel of one piece of wood, elegantly worked around like a picture-frame with elaborate carving, the centre containing a well-wrought group of figures representing the Ascension of the Lord, which stood out in altorelievo, and would have been creditable to the modern artists of Italy.

            In this room was a rich Turkey carpet of a magnificent pattern. The chairs were of solid mahogany, with straight backs, curling over at the tops like the capitals of Ionic columns, with stuffed leather seats varnished to the highest polish, and studded round with large-headed, bright brass tacks. The windows facing the garden were not in alcoves like those on the street, but they were sunken in the wall enough to admit spacious seats, cushioned to correspond with the curtain that fell in heavy masses over them. Between these windows was a spacious looking-glass of an oblong form, the gilded frame of which was a foot deep, representing a grapevine, from which hung bunches of golden fruit. Beneath this was a heavy mahogany table, on which were placed six tall silver candle-sticks, representing Corinthian columns, each one containing a lighted wax candle. In different parts of the room were fire-screens, which were tall rods of iron-wood, fixed on a sort of pedestal with three claw-feet, on which a shield of damask silk moved up and down, as also did a little shelf for the accommodation of a book, if one were disposed to read by the fire. This last was blazing away from large logs of oak resting on ponderous andirons which shone like silver, and were surmounted with balls of shining brass six inches in diameter. By the side of the jambs were the shovel and tongs, the latter large enough to lift a log with, and were as bright as molten metal.

            The other parlor was not so elegantly furnished.The windows were constructed in the same way, but the curtains were of a more sombre hue, and less expensive fabric, and the walls, instead of being tapestried, were only panelled; but these were beautifully wrought, and conveyed an air of great comfort to the apartment. A very few pictures hung about the room, but they were from the pencils of distinguished artists, and never failed to excite admiration from visitors of good taste. This room was carpeted like the other; the arrangements of the fire-place were much the same; a similar looking-glass in a corresponding place appeared, beneath which was a table conformable to the other, with another like set of candlesticks and their accompaniments. At one corner of this apartment was a spacious beaufet built in a circular form, with crescent shelves, on the highest one of which appeared a large china bowl, which would have held three gallons at least. On the other shelves a part of the family plate was arrayed, with burners, porringers, tankards, vases, bowls, and wine-cups, few specimens of which remain in our times, when a vandal love of foolery prompts the silly heiress to melt them down to more fashionable forms.

            In both apartments among other furniture, was a chair called a round-about, with a bottom of a triangular shape, a fashion that in some respects has been revived in our times for study chairs. In the back room, stood an old clock, which indicated the day ofthe month, and the phases of the moon; and by the side of this was a spinnet, the first form of the modern piano-forte, the jacks of which would sometimes jump of their own accord, and scare little children who were playing together in the room.

            The guests were now rapidly pouring in, and as they entered, were courteously received by Mr. Wilmer, who conducted them first to his lady and daughter, who stood according to the custom of our times, to exchange with them the salutations of the evening.

            Only half a century previous to that day, the costume of ladies who were not restricted by the exclusive rules of the puritans, was more elegant than splendid, and citizens’ wives dressed with exemplary plainness; but now, among the fashiouables, two thousand pounds for a daughter’s marriage-portion were considered as hardly equivalent to a quarter part of that amount half a century before. This march of extravagance was owing to a re-action that took place after the Restoration, and which had increased prodigiously up to the year 1688, when there were, among other luxuries, fifty carriages to one previous to the interregnum.

            Mrs. Wilmer, whose appearance we have not yet described, was, making due allowance for the difference of twenty years in their ages, an exact counterpart of her daughter. Of course her figure was more fully developed, and the expression of her facemore saddened and subdued by time, whose hand, however, had not been laid too rudely on her beauty, which by many might have been preferred even to her child’s.

            She was dressed rather more in the fashion of ladies in the time of Charles I. than in the strict costume of her day. She had on a rich scarlet silk gown, close-bodied, with tight sleeves; a falling ruff of very rich lace hanging over the shoulders, her hair gracefully curled and adorned with a bunch of white artificial flowers, and a string of pearls tastefully bound about her head. She wore also earrings with a single brilliant in each, and a pair of pearl bracelets on her arms. The cuffs of her gown were ornamented with rich point lace. Beneath her gown appeared black silk clocks, and her beautifully formed foot was encased in scarlet shoes with white roses. Around her waist, tied behind, she wore a broad, plaid sash, in memorial of her ancestors.

            Grace appeared that evening in all her glory, and her dress was calculated to show off her surprising beauty to the best advantage. Her hair, parting in front, fell in luxuriant curls over her shoulders, and her forehead was encircled with a band of pearls, with a large diamond in the centre. The skirt of her gown was of pale blue silk, over which she wore a white satin jacket, with short, castellated lappels, edged with blue, and bound round the waist by a blue ribbon, tied in front in a small bow. She hadon also white silk stockings, and satin shoes with moderately high heels. Her bosom was modestly veiled by a falling ruff of very rich lace, and her hand had no other ornament than the ruby that sparkled on her finger.

            Mr. Wilmer was dressed in a plain suit of black velvet, the doublet having a single row of jet buttons, over which a cloak hung to the knees; this was adorned by three capes. He wore breeches tied below the knee, black silk stockings, and shoes ornamented with ties of ribbon. Over the wrists were broad cuffs of point lace. His head was dressed in a black peruke, that fell in curls behind, and his neck was adorned by a falling ruff of rich lace, fastened by a cord and tassel.

            Among the ladies was seen a great variety of dresses, varying from the costume of Grace, more particularly in the mode of wearing the hair, which was arranged as their individual taste dictated, in a profusion of curls stiffened with wires, in very fantastic as well as elegant forms. Some wore lace on their bosoms, and others only neeklaces of pearls.

            But the most remarkable dresses were to be found among the young gallants who figured on that occasion, some of whose hearts were ill at ease on the score of Grace’s engagement to Seymour; who, to tell the truth, was not far behind the others in the foppery of his attire. Their heads were decked out in perukes of every fashion and variety, with longcurls likethe coxcombs of our day, who excite the sympathies of the sex for fear lest they may have unfortunately been deprived of their ears. The colour of these perukes was varied to suit the complexion, by powders of every teint, and while some were seen combing them at their ease, others were twisting the curls about their fingers, as they ducked and bowed to the ladies, and simpered out the compliments of the season. Some of them wore double laces for ruffs, tagged with silver; vests and cloaks of damask silk and velvet; short trousered breeches terminating in stuffed rolls and fringes; elegant boots with large projecting lace tops under the calf of the leg, the points dangling below the knee. Each had a broad brimmed castor with feathers, which he carried in his hand; this was gloved with scented leather; the other hand bore an ivory or tortoise shell comb highly ornamented, which was used as constantly as they now use the eye-glass. Two or three of the beaux wore the new-fashioned shoe-buckle resembling the horse-bean; and with the addition of flimsy Spanish-leather boots, worn loose and jauntily, and the superaddition of spurs, did more execution that evening among unguarded hearts, than the best-contrived mustach or epaulette could do now. The small rapier was universally worn.

            Seymour, who officiated as a sort of master of ceremonies, was here and there and everywhere distributing a portion of small-talk to every one of the company.

            “Well Grace,” said he to her in an under-tone, having just left a group of beautiful girls, “you have a brilliant party this evening. But where is your friend, Miss Phips--I don’t find her as yet among the amiables.”

            At that moment there was a bustle about the door, which diverted the attention of Grace Wilmer, and all eyes were turned in that direction, as the name of Miss Phips was announced.

            Caroline Phips was a lovely girl of seventeen, and a particular friend of Grace’s, and this evening had been chosen for her “coming out.” Expectation had been on tiptoe about her for some time, for it was understood that she was to appear in the latest fashion, dresses having been sent out to her from England as a present from the Duchess of Albemarle.

            As she entered the room, a great “sensation” was produced of course, and well it might have been, for the heels of her silver-tissue shoes were so high, that she could not walk without the assistance of another person; this was a gentleman who was distinguished by the peculiarity of his boots, and the beauty of his spurs. Her gown was of lilac-colored damask silk, with a train six feet long; this was supported by two little girls, dressed with wreaths of flowers on their heads. Her hair was strained over a toupee of silk and cotton wool, and was carried up higher thanthe length of her face, the whole ornamented with furbelows, and long lappets of point lace hanging from it. The waist of her gown was very long, and she wore a stomacher of purple velvet covered with jewels.

            No sooner had she gone through the preliminaries of the evening, than she was surrounded by a dozen beaux, all of whom were informed that her father had been knighted (no great honor, by the way, at that time when knighthood was so cheap) and was worth a million of pounds sterling; Sir William Phip’s fortune having been increased by Madame Rumor to the said enormous amount.

            “Are you sure the old man is worth so much?” said a weakling of one-and-twenty in a pink peruke, addressing a sapling of seventeen in “a short bob” of yellow; the meanwhile curling his ringlets round his fingers, and staring at the heiress with all his eyes.

            “No doubt about it whatever,” replied the short bob; “and they say too that the Duke of Albemarle has presented her with a costly set of diamonds.”

            “Is it possible!” exclaimed the pink peruke, “well, she is a splendid girl to be sure. Did youever see such a dress as that, though?”

            “Magnificent! is’nt it?” responded the short bob.

            At that moment a young lady called the attention of the latter by tapping him gently on the arm, and inquiring how he liked Miss Phips’s dress; but theshort bob read her own opinion in her arching eye-brows and pouting under lip, and replied:

            “It is in execrably bad taste, on my honor!--there is nothing like low-heeled shoes for a pretty foot, and just such a dress as you have on to show a splendid figure to advantage.”

            The young lady swallowed the intended flattery whole, without biting it, and giving him a farewell tap, by way of “thank’e sir!” moved off to fish for another compliment: while the short bob took the arm of his friend and strutted over the room to flirt with the lady whose dress he had satirized, and to make all the pretty speeches to her he could.

            Another movement was now perceptible in the hall, and presently Mr. Temple was ushered in, leaning on the arm of Fitzvassal. The old patriarch was dressed with great simplicity, a plain coat of black velvet fitting his body closely, with a single row of small black silk buttons from the upper part of the neck downward. His lower dress was cut with like plainness, and he wore black silk stockings, and ties on his shoes. A plain collar of white linen was turned over his coat, extending but a few inches downward, and his white locks fell on his shoulders in easy, natural curls. There were four or five gentlemen present who were dressed with the same simplicity, but they were all a good deal advanced in years, who could not be influenced by the changes of fashion.

           

            Fitzvassal was dressed in a superb suit of crimson velvet, his doublet richly in wrought with gold, while his breeches were of corresponding workmanship; he wore the loose boot of Spanish leather without spurs, and over his shoulders swung a sword-belt of crimson velvet worked with silver. His ruff was a standing one of Brussels lace. He carried an elegant Spanish castor in his hand, from which waved two black ostrich feathers. A single diamond, of great size and purity, blazed from the band of the hat where the feathers united. He wore his own hair, which required no artificial arrangement.

            As they moved along under the guidance of Mr. Wilmer, the crowd opened to the right and left, and all eyes were fixed upon them.

            “Who is that young man?” was the eager inquiry of several blooming beauties, at once.

            “Why, don’t you know?” was a common reply, “that is Captain Nix, one of the first gentlemen of the age.”

            And indeed, as Fitzvassal paced the room with the venerable patriot on his arm, there was much about him to interest every one who saw him.

            Amidst the foppery of the times, he was arrayed superbly, yet in accordance with consummate taste, while there was an expression of thoughtful melancholy in his fine countenance, that could not fail to excite the curiosity of the sex.

            As the unknown buccaneer, in his turn, bowed toGrace Wilmer, without lifting his eyes to her own, such a death-like paleness spread upon her lips and cheeks, that it could not fail to be observed by many. No one, however, suspected the cause, and it was attributed to the closeness of the room.

            Ever since that morning when Fitzvassal declared his love to Grace Wilmer, her heart had been sorely oppressed with the remembrance of it. She had often met him in company, and his conduct had been so unaccountable that she could not understand it. He was all smiles and sunshine at the time when she left his vessel with Seymour, and nothing had transpired, that she knew of, to occasion so marked a change in his manner. She could not doubt that he loved her, and though she had done nothing to encourage his affection, and most heartily deplored its existence, she could not help acknowledging to her own thoughts, that she entertained no ordinary regard for him, and she was willing to ascribe it to gratitude. However that might be, she was grieved at his coldness, for she was afraid that he had some cause, unknown to her, for being offended with her.

            After the party were assembled, supper was announced, and the gentlemen led off the ladies to a large room, contiguous to the one which we described at first, where tables were laid for all the guests. A complete service of silver shone upon the board and side-boards, but the viands, for the most part, wouldnot have been so tempting to ladies of our day, ascoquilles garnies de blanc de volaille aux truffes,or Charlotte russe, au citron.

            The principal dishes were two chines of beef roasted; to these were added, two legs of mutton; a dish of fowls, four pullets, two dozen larks, all side by side or in piles; two large tarts, six neats’ tongues, several dishes of prawns, anchovies, marrow-bones, with a cheese. Besides, they had the king’s favorite sauce, which consisted of parsley and dry toast pounded in a mortar, with vinegar, salt, and pepper. Ale and wine, with sack-posset, were the principle articles of drink. The malt-liquor was drank from large silver tankards, which were hooped at intervals within; and it was the bounded duty of every one to drink exactly to a hoop; if he drank either above or below one, he was compelled to go another.

            The windows and walls of the banqueting-room were adorned with branches of spruce, and the mistletoe had its place over the door.

            In the course of the evening, the health of the governor was proposed by Mr. Wilmer, as a matter of ceremonious necessity. In offering it, he regretted that Sir Edmund was unavoidably absent, and the applause that followed may have been ascribed to the latter circumstance, rather than to any sympathy which the proposal of his health had awakened.

            Amidst the hilarity of the evening, Fitzvassal alone was sad; for even Mr. Temple and the stricter puritans who had honored the company with their presence, threw off a portion of their reserve and entered into the innocent gayety of the occasion. Among the ladies, Grace might have been selected as the most unexcited beauty, but her sadness was tempered by an ever watchful courtesy, which made her forget herself in the interest she felt for those around her.

            Once only Fitzvassal’s eyes met hers, when a blush mounted to her cheeks, which drove his memory back to the scene which haunted him like a demon, while the table for a moment swam before his vision.

            The all-important task of eating and drinking being ended, a game of blind-man’s-buff was proposed. To this end the tables were cleared away, while old and young commenced the Christmas diversion.

            As the guests were most of them occupied in this amusement, Fitzvassal again caught the eye of Grace, who was standing close beside him, as if she did not wish to avoid a friendly encounter with her benefactor. As their eyes met, Grace, to guard herself from further embarrassment, addressed him,--

            “Don’t you intend to join in the game, Captain Nix?”

            “No, madam!” replied the buccaneer, with a forced, melancholy smile, which he believed expressed his indifference.

            “Nor I;” resumed the fair girl, looking down ather feet, as if she would have no objection to his continuing the conversation.

            “Let us walk below, then;” said Fitzvassal, offering her his arm, which she willingly accepted, “I think it would be quite as pleasant there, and less distracting.”

            So saying they descended the broad staircase together, and turned into the principal room beneath. It was blazing with light, but there was not a solitary guest present. Their minds were all absorbed with blind-man’s-buff above.

            The curtain had fallen down on one side of an alcove, and softened the light within.

            “Let us shun this glare, Miss Wilmer,” said the buccaneer, as he led her to that inviting retreat.

            Grace was willing, yet reluctant,--but she had heard the worst that she dreaded from the handsome officer, and she was desirous of regaining his good opinion, which she feared had been temporarily disturbed.

            “Have I done any thing to offend you, Captain Nix?” said Grace, blushing in spite of herself.

            “Why do you ask that question?” replied the buccaneer, whose heart beat tumultuously as he gazed on her, and whose love revived at the sight of her extreme beauty and innocent expression.

            “Because,” replied Grace, venturing to look upon his countenance, “I would have the good opinion of Captain Nix, though--”

           

            “You cannot love him!”--added Fitzvassal with a sigh.

            “My affections were engaged before I saw you,” replied Grace, with simplicity.

            Fitzvassal grasped her wrist convulsively as she spoke, and rivetted his eyes upon her.

            “Miss Wilmer!” said he, his deep voice faltering with emotion, “you surprise me--were you betrothed to Mr. Seymour before you visited my vessel?”

            “Yes! certainly--why? oh, yes, long, long before!” exclaimed Grace, as if she had an inward perception that on that depended the mysterious conduct of the supposed Captain Nix, and she now rejoiced, in clearing it up; “yes, indeed, long before!”

            “Then I thank God!” replied Fitzvassal, “for you are innocent, though I am irretrievably ruined!”

            “How ruined!” exclaimed Grace, with the same simplicity as before, and little suspecting the true meaning of his words; “how am I innocent, Captain Nix?”

            “A lover cannot be blamed,” replied Fitzvassal, “for touching his lips to his betrothed’s--and she is innocent of any blame who reciprocates that token of affection.”

            Grace looked at him for a moment surprised, when the truth flashed suddenly upon her; she then knew that she had been seen by the mariner undercircumstances which have been mentioned, and her eyes fell upon her bosom.

            “But oh, Miss Wilmer!” he added passionately, “you cannot think what a hell of agony he encounters, who loving to excess, madly, violently loving, is compelled to be the unwilling witness of that seal of love, which should have been his own. Seymour never loved you as I love--”

            “Captain Nix!” said Grace, rising,--her sweet voice trembling as she spoke.

            “Stay!” exclaimed Fitzvassal--“do not leave me in anger! man never loved woman as I love you--nay! you must, you shall listen to me, Miss Wilmer! From the moment I first beheld you, I loved you, adored you, worshipped you; I had no thoughts in which your image was not blended, no hopes, no wishes, separate and unmingled with your happiness.--True, I never told you that I loved you, but you knew it too well, alas!”

            “Indeed, I never knew it!” replied Grace, deeply moved at what he had uttered, “oh! if I had but known it sooner!”

            “And if you had!” said Fitzvassal eagerly, as if a ray of hope gleamed from her angel utterance to illumine the midnight of his despair--“if you had have known it--what then, Miss Wilmer; tell me, I beseech you tell me!”

            “I would--” sighed Grace, and sighing paused, without completing the sentence.

           

            The downcast, perturbed look of the transcendent beauty faltering in the presence of the man who religiously adored her, flattered his fondest hopes, and prompted him to say:

            “Had you sooner known that I loved you--say, Miss Wilmer, could you not, would you not have listened to my supplications?”

            “Never!” ejaculated Grace, choking as she uttered the words,--“Never, Sir, I could not--I ought not to have loved you!”

            “You must have loved me, charming creature!” exclaimed Fitzvassal, carried away by the height of his feelings, “you could not have helped loving one who idolized you so much, so entirely!”

            And as he spoke, he fell upon his knee and smothered her hand with kisses.

            For an instant, Grace seemed to waver--but it was only for pity of her lover,--a dangerous and fearful herald of an approaching guest, which had it come would have betrayed the hospitality of her bosom;-- for an instant she seemed to waver, but immediately rallying with heroic energy, she turned from him with these words:

            “Captain Nix, I never loved you, and never can; what I might have done, heaven only knows! you are aware that I am the betrothed of another. In future, then, never speak to me of love. I would fain respect you, and be grateful to you, but I cannot think of a warmer sentiment.”

           

            As she spoke, in tones of mingled sweetness and dignity, Fitzvassal dropped her imprisoned hand forever. As she left the room, his eyes followed her, and when he observed a large tear coursing down her cheek, a gush of tenderness leaped from the fountain of his sympathy, and the lover and the loved wept together, though there was a barrier like the Alleghany between them.

            Fitzvassal left the house, buried in the gloomiest reflections.

CHAPTER XIX.

 

Leon.   --you are tedious.

Dogb.  It pleases your worship to say so--but truly, for my own part, if I were as tedious as a king, I could find in my heart to bestow it all of your worship.


Much ado about nothing         The breast may mourn o’er a close link torn,

And the scalding drops may roll;       But ’tis better to mourn o’er a pulseless form,

Than the wreck of a living soul.
The Tree of Death Nym.        They say he cried out for sack.

Quick. Ay, that ’a did.

Henry V.        

            It was on the morning after the festivities of Christmas, as Fitzvassal was conversing with Mr. Temple, at whose house he resided when in town, that a servant announced a woman in the hall who desired to speak with him; at the same time the person entered, being prompted by her characteristic impatience, in whose dumpy figure and peculiar face, he recognised no less an individual than Mistress Debora Saultz. As she came forward, Mr. Temple retired to another apartment.

            “Lord ’a massy on us!” exclaimed the woman, as she discovered in Fitzvassal the gentleman she had been in search of; “do tell us if I have found you at last!”

            Fitzvassal received her courteously, and requested her to be seated.

            “Thank your kind heart!” replied the woman; “well, I don’t care if I do set down a bit, for it’s pesky cold this morning; the water friz in the pitcher last night, and I e’en-a-most turned to an isuckle myself. The rheumatiz troubles me a good deal too:-- did you ever have the rheumatiz?”

            “It must be a very bitter morning!” said Fitzvassal, turning his face toward the window, as if the latter part of her speech had not been noticed, and he were apprehensive that the garrulous old creature would bore him to death.

            “Pesky cold, as you ever saw;” replied Dame Saultz, rubbing her leathery hands and holding them to the blazing fire; “it’s as much as Christian folks can do to keep from freezing. And there I’ve been tending a sick man, more’s the pity! instead of making mince-pies and squash-puddings; though I don’t care a farthing about Christmas; Thanksgiving’s the day for me. Now, last Thanksgiving, wehad the Rev. Mr. Morphine to dine with us; Goodman Saultz, and me, and ever so many of us set down to roast turkey and plumb-pudding.--Massy on us! you can’t think what a time we had a-making pies and things--and the quantity of suet, and plums, and citron, and butter--and--”

            “Never mind,” said the buccaneer, who was already tired out with her loquacity, “never mind, Mistress Saultz;--you were just now speaking of what you came about.”

            “Lord’a massy! if I had’nt e’en-a-most forgotten all about it. This comes of eating and drinking, and a-taking of it so much. Well, if it is n’t strange that I should e’en-a-most have forgotten the very thing I came about on purpose. So it is, strange enough! strange enough, but we folks grow old before we think of it, and then--”

            “Your business, if you please, madam!” interrupted the impatient mariner.

            “Oh my business!” replied the dame, “Lauks! you know it as well as I do. My goodman’s Simon Saultz, the apothecary who lives in Cornhill at the corner of--”

            “I remember very well,” groaned Fitzvassal.

            “And I turn an honest penny by going out to nurse, and laying out folks for the cooling-board. Then I take in washing and ironing, and do a plaguy many old chores about the house.”

            “I’m afraid I take up too much of your time,Mistress Saultz,” said the buccaneer, hoping that the garrulous dame would take the hint and be off; “I pray that you don’t let me detain you a moment.”

            “Lord’a massy on us! how these men-folks talk!” exclaimed the woman--“they are full of implements and flatteries;--bless your kind heart; I’ve got all the live-long day before me, and you are welcome to the whole of it--”

            “God forbid!” ejaculated Fitzvassal, with earnest solemnity.

            “And that puts me in mind of what I came about --for if you will only believe me, I’ve walked e’en-a-most three long miles, and only on purpose to see you.”

            The mariner poked the fire in despair.

            “Well you see,” resumed Mistress Saultz, “that four days ago;--let’s see,--yesterday was Christmas; that’s one; the thirty-mile man came the day before with his eggs and poultry--and the day before that--”

            “For heaven’s sake, Mistress Saultz!” exclaimed Fitzvassal, starting up and walking the room, “do tell me right out what you want me to do for you this morning. I am not well, and have no leisure to be idling any longer.”

            “Lord’a massy on us! what’s got into the man! well if I must, I must, and there’s an eend of it I suppose: well, as I was going on to say, when you interrupted me, it’s now four days ago, since a mancalled at the shop for medicine and nursery for a sick man down at the Sea-Gull--”

            “Ah!” replied Fitzvassal, becoming interested in her business.

            “As true as a sarmon,” continued Mistress Saultz, “down at the Sea-Gull--you know the Sea-Gull?”

            “Perfectly!”

            “The man that keeps it is going to his reckoning, or there’s no truth in a death-watch--”

            “Classon?” exclaimed the buccaneer, in a tone of eager inquiry.

            “Besides the death-watch, there was a windingsheet last night on the candle: Lord’a massy how scared I was, to be sure!”

            “Is Classon dying, did you say?”

            “If you’d seen all the sights that I saw, you’d have thought so--and a dog howled at midnight--and the cows,--bless me what’s that!” suddenly exclaimed the nervous old nurse, starting at her own shadow.

            “Did Classon send for me?” inquired Fitzvassal.

            “No; I can’t say that he did, exactly--but he raved a good deal about his wife who died in a cellar--and it seemed to me that it might have been--”

            “I understand you, my good woman--many thanks--many thanks!--you thought I might be interested in the sick man--I understand you; no more at present; no more now, I beseech you; goback to him, I will be there in half an hour;--I pray you leave me now.”

            And he bowed her out of the room, which she left rather unwillingly, saying:

            “Mind now, you don’t fail to come--for he is awful sick, and if you--”

            “Never fear,” replied Fitzvassal, closing the door upon her gently; “the tedious old fool!”

            “Can it be,” mused the buccaneer, “that Classon is really dying? Well, I will go and see the poor wretch;--perhaps I may be able to help him; for I begin to sympathize with the sufferings of others, even the most abandoned.”

            For a few moments he paced the room absorbed in such reflections.

            “It is remarkable,” thought he, “that we should not begin to feel for others, till we are ourselves heart-steeped in misery! It seems to me now as if I had within me a fountain that wells up for all mankind,--it seems as if I could devote my life to the alleviation of human distress! What was it Nameoke said? ‘The crime you have already committed may be removed far away by deeds of Charity.’ But I have added crime to crime, since then--and it is now too late to go back!”

            He then threw himself in a chair by the fire, while his thoughts dwelt on the enchantress.

            “Nameoke!” exclaimed he, thinking aloud, “whoare you? what link has bound our fortunes together?why should you have cared for Fitzvassal? why should you have interested yourself in his misfortunes?--Have you also, like him, been heart-broken, and crushed in your affections; and have you only pitied him for that?”

            Just then, Mr. Temple entered, and Fitzvassal, excusing himself for not remaining, informed his venerable friend that he had been called away to see a sick mariner at the lower end of the town. He then bowed and departed.

            In about half an hour, the heart-sick step-son of Classon arrived at the Sea-Gull. He passed the bar-room, where sailors were as usual carousing, being served by a carrot-headed boy with liquor. Mrs. Saultz had already arrived.

            “Lord’a massy on us,” said she, on discovering him as she was descending the stairs, “how glad I am that you are come; the man is as mad as a March hare, e’en-a-most. I’m jest going to fetch a drop of water, and will be with you in a minute.”

            Mrs. Saultz presently returned with a can of water, and commenced ascending the stairs.

            “This way if you please, Captain Mix--this way!”

            “Nix!” said Fitzvassal, correcting her, “my name is Nix, and not Mix.”

            “Well now, if I did’nt think it was Mix all the time. There was several Mixes of my acquaintance that used to live down town--”

           

            The narrative of Mrs. Saultz respecting the Mixes was now cut short by their entering the chamber of the sick man.

            “That’s him!” said the nurse, pointing to a person who was standing up half-dressed, with his back towards them, and in fancy pitching coppers into a hat.

            Fitzvassal stood still to observe the movements of the publican. He had expected to find him in bed, and was surprised to see him standing up in the chamber.

            The apartment was hardly high enough for a tall man to stand erect in. It was none of the broadest, besides having but one low window that looked out upon the street. A small fire was blazing in the room, and the sun was shining in upon the floor, which was coarsely carpeted. Several bottles were on the mantle-piece, and one was rolling under the bed. A small bedstead was near where the patient was standing, that seemed to have been tossed and tumbled by one in a fever. As we have already stated, Classon was fancying that he was pitching coppers in a hat.

            “Devil take the things,” said he, talking to himself, “they won’t go in! Let’s try again--there! missed again!--Now for it! They won’t go in! they won’t go in!”

            Fitzvassal drew near to him and arrested his attention--but Classon did not know him.

           

            His step-son gazed on him with wonder, pity, and disgust. His long hair was matted over his low forehead, and his eyes were glazed and sunken. His cheeks had fallen in, so that his jaw-bones projected fearfully, and his legs were emaciated almost to a skeleton’s. His whole frame shook as with a palsy, and his voice sounded hollow and husky.

            “How do you feel, Classon?” inquired the unknown step-son.

            “Ah! you are the doctor, aint you?--Come here to me, and don’t let that old beldame see us,--she has been trying all day to cut my throat,--don’t let her come any nearer!”

            Fitzvassal drew nearer towards him, when he seized him by the collar, and drawing down his ear to his ownlips, he whispered in a death like, sepulchral tone:

            “Did the old woman cut up well?”

            And on this, he screamed out into an hysterical peal of laughter, that made the blood fly to his head perceptibly.

            “Would’nt it be better for you to turn in awhile?” said Fitzvassal, fixing his eyes upon him.

            “Yes! yes! I will turn in--but I won’t sleep--I won’t sleep--unless you sit down there--for they are trying to murder me. Look there, doctor!” and he lowered his voice again to a husky whisper, “there’s one of’em creeping under the carpet, close by that monstrous spider!”

           

            And Classon, lying down, wrapped himself hastily in the clothes, which in a few seconds after he threw violently from him, and sat up in the bed.

            “Oh these spiders!” moaned the delirious man, making motions with his fingers, as if he were picking the revolting insects from his body, and throwing them over the side of the bed, “Oh these spiders, how they plague me!--They are winding their webs about me all the time;--I must get out of the bed while I can, for they tie me up, and I shan’t be able to move, presently.”

            His step-son endeavored to soothe him, by assuring him that there were not any spiders near him.

            “Don’t tell me that! don’t tell me that!” said Classon, looking angrily about him--“don’t I see them, and feel them too? Is’nt that one?--ha! ha! I’ve caught one of you, have I? No, no, no, he’s gone again!--but there are a thousand of them; only see how they crawl about me!”

            The wretched man then sunk back for a moment exhausted, but not to sleep.

            “He’ll rest a pesky little while, Captain Mix,” said the nurse, “and then he’ll be up again with his tantrums.”

            “Don’t he sleep any?”

            “Lord ’a massy! he has’nt slept none these three days.”

            “The man must die if he does’nt get some sleep soon. Has he seen a physician?”

           

            “Doctor Sikes has been to see him twice; but lauks! would you believe it, he kicked him down stairs yesterday for saying that he should’nt have any more brandy!”

            “At the sound of that word, Classon sat up again in his bed, and held out his hand imploringly.

            “Give me some brandy!” said he in tones that went to the heart of his step-son, who, much as he detested the man, now felt for him some small degree of commiseration.

            “The doctor has said that you must not have any!” remonstrated Fitzvassal,--“it would only make you worse.”

            “Death and damnation!” shouted the inebriate, frantic and strong with rage; “and who in the devil is the doctor that says that Abner Classon shan’t drink in his own house?”

            Then softening his tone as well as he could, with all the artfulness of insanity, he said in a persuasive voice.

            “Be so good as to give me only one drop!”

            “Not a particle!” answered Fitzvassal.

            “And who are you, pray, that dares to say so?” exclaimed the madman, rising towards his step-son, with fearful threatening.

            The buccaneer never moved or quailed, but fixed his eyes steadfastly upon him, till Classon shrunk from their gaze, and once more fell exhausted on his pillow.

           

            The cold sweat stood in big drops on Classon’s forehead, while his frame shook like an aspen; his eyes rolled back in his head, and his dry tongue, white and feverish, hung from his gasping mouth.

            Fitzvassal ordered the nurse to bring a little brandy; it was the only hope that remained--and it was an act of mercy, even if there had been no hope, to smooth his passage to the grave.

            A spoonful of brandy diluted with water, was poured into his mouth, and he revived like a collapsed cholera-patient whose veins have been filled with the injected stimulant--or like a coal over which the ashes of death have already gathered, when the breath of heaven fans it for a moment.

            But he was too far gone, to exhibit any signs of reason; on the contrary, his thoughts were haunted with horrible imaginings--and he would sometimes scream aloud, in his fright at the phantoms around him.

            “Oh!” exclaimed Classon, with a groan that seemed to come from the very abyss of despair; “Oh save me! save me from them! They are trying to force me into this coffin and it is too small--away there! I will not have it! I will not have it! That winding-sheet has been used before!--it smells of the grave!--take it away--God! God! I will not go-- I will not go with you! They are now digging the ground, the hard frozen ground. The pickaxe strikes fire from the ice! You shan’t put medown there!--Help! help! oh, God! they are cramming me down into a grave!--Air! breath! breath! mercy!”

            As this fit of delirium passed off, Classon, suddenly reviving, attempted to spring from the bed; but Fitzvassal held him down with the strength of three common men.

            The miserable wreck of drunkenness struggled in the grasp of the buccaneer like a ship that trembles on a coral-reef the moment before it breaks to pieces in the surge. His eyes stared wildly, and his hands were stretched before him, as if he were scared to death by some appalling spectre. In his agony of dread, he bit his tongue, that fell clotted and dangling from his lips;--on this, he gave one scream, that rattled blood smothered in his clogged throat, then drooped his head and expired!

            Fitzvassal laid the body of Classon on the bed, and covered it over with a sheet; he then turned Mrs. Saultz from the room, and burst into a flood of tears.

            Alas! poor wretch! those were the only tears that were ever shed over thee;--and yet thou wast once a man in all the exteriors of his being, and with all the means of angelic excellence! Who shall condemn thee utterly!--who are they who pray that the like of thee may be swept from the face of the earth, that only sober men may remain? Alas! they know not what they pray for, while their own pharisaical hearts are whirling with as bad an intoxication as the drunkenness of wine. Is it better to cast away, or to redeem?

            Would you reform the drunkard? Treat him kindly; for his is a human soul wandering on the brink of a precipice, and the frowns of his fellowmen are more horrible to him than the death that gapes below. He is a half-insane sufferer, saturated with conscious evil;--and if you scan him no deeper than his rags, you overlook a man-angel in misery. Take him by the hand, and the heart that seemed dead to all ennobling impulses, leaps at the God-sent sympathy. There! that one emotion of gratitude is an immortal bud shooting from the half-withered trunk of humanity. Nurture it--cherish it--do not quench the spirit at your peril! Would to God, that men could love their neighbor as themselves!

CHAPTER XX.

 

            Strike--for your altars and your fires;

            Strike--for the green graves of your sires;

God--and your native land! Halleck. By oppression’s woes and pains,

            By our sons in servile chains,

            We will drain our dearest veins--

But they shall be free! Burns.

            We now pass over a little more than three months, till the fourth of April, 1689. In the meantime, the grasp of tyranny had not been relaxed, but measures still more odious to the people had been relentlessly pursued. Nor were the patriots inactive. Their meetings had been more frequent than ever, and even the ministers of religion were zealous for a revolution. In a word, the people were ripe for a revolt, when it was rumored abroad in Boston that a messenger had arrived from England, bringing intelligence of the Stadtholder’s descent on that country, his rapturous reception by all parties--the flight of the king; in short, news of the glorious Revolution which, as was believed, had expelled tyranny forever from the throne. It was rumored, too, that the messenger had brought a copy of the Prince’s Declaration,--at which intelligence, every heart throbbed and danced with expectation.

            The Declaration of the Prince of Orange, which had been first published in Holland, contributed in no small degree to his success in England. This document set forth the chief grievances of the British people, and concluded by promising a complete redress of them. As soon therefore as Sir Edmund Andros heard that a copy of it had been brought over to America, he ordered the messenger to be arrested and thrown into prison. The people, however, soon got wind of it, and rejoiced in the prospect which it held out of their speedy emancipation.

            But Sir Edmund Andros was determined to crush them utterly if he could, and be in all respects the faithful minion of his master James. He immediately issued a proclamation calling on all persons to use their endeavors to oppose the landing of any emissary of the Prince’s, and he ordered out extraordinary troops to prevent an insurrection among the populace. At the same time the Rose frigate came near to the town, and reports spread abroad that she was ready to fire on the metropolis in case of any outbreak which was threatened.

           

            In the meanwhile, the people had determined to submit no longer. On the morning of the 18th of April, the signal for the insurrection was given, and George, the commander of the Rose frigate, was seized by several individuals. At the same time the beacon from Beacon-Hill flamed proudly up to heaven. The people of the surrounding towns were waiting for the signal, and as the red blaze ascended from Boston, a thousand other beacons threw forth their eager light, and in less than an hour old Massachusetts rang from her extremest borders--“Liberty! liberty! ‘God and our native land!’ ”

            Boston was in the meanwhile one scene of uproar and excitement. Organized bands from the North and South ends of the town arose simultaneously, and under Randal and Bagnal hurried to King’s Street, the centre of action. The throng increased, and the crown sheriff attempted to disperse the people. The people made him their prisoner. The militia rapidly organized under their old officers, who had been displaced by Sir Edmund, and demanded of the royalist major his colors and drums. Being refused, they were taken. The Governor, full of fear, withdrew to the Fort, where, with his friends and advisers, he endeavored to concert measures to meet the emergency.

            While these things were enacting, Charles river and the inner harbor of Boston were alive with boats crowded with brave hearts and stout hands. Athousand armed heroes came from Charlestown alone, and every village within twenty miles, sent its companies of brave yeomen, who were eager for the onset. The Dolphin and the Duke of York, which had been waiting for this event, were nearing the Rose frigate, their guns ready loaded, and their boarders pike in hand.

            Ten thousand freemen of Massachusetts had invested the Governor’s Fortress, with their pine-tree banners waving gallantly to the breeze, and the anthem of liberty sounding from their exalted bosoms. Presently a herald announced from the Fort that the Governor desired a conference.

            “No conference! no conference!” resounded from the patriotic crowd,--“Liberty forever! Liberty forever! Down with the tyrants!--Down with them forever!”

            The roar of artillery now sounded from the north, and the people knew that the Dolphin and her consort were contending with the royalist frigate.

            “Liberty and independence! old Massachusetts forever!” shouted the multitude; “yield, tyrants, yield!--down with Sir Edmund Andros! down with Randolph and all tyranny!”

            And at this signal, one brave fellow, who was soon discovered to be Randal, leaped into the trench, followed by a host of others, who began to scale the ramparts.

            Instantly a peal of thunder burst from the Fort,which was intended to intimidate the assailants: but they rushed on, careless, and not inquiring whether the guns had been shotted or no, (as they had not been,) and threw themselves by hundreds into the Fort.

            The garrison, as soon as they found that the people had taken possession of the Fort, threw down their arms and surrendered. They were glad, too, of the opportunity of so doing. The red-cross of England came down from the flag-staff, and was rehoisted, surmounted by the triumphant Pine-Tree. Sir Edmund Andros and his friends were made prisoners, and were confined in the Fortress.

            A cry now went forth for the people to meet at the Town-House, and the living torrent began forthwith to set in that direction. The roar of artillery continued from the harbor. While the people are thronging to the Town-House, let us visit the scene of naval action.

            Gallantly came on the two patriot vessels to meet the frigate, which, on their near approach, they hailed from the Dolphin’s quarter-deck, and ordered to surrender. The only response made to this modest demand, was from an eighteen pounder, whose shot passed between the fore and main-masts of the Dolphin, without effecting any damage. The gage being thus unceremoniously thrown, the Dolphin ran alongside her starboard quarter and poured a heavy broadside into her, which, as soon as it wasanswered from the frigate, was followed up by another from the Duke of York, commanded by Morgan, which afterwards ran into her, and threw the grappling-irons. The fire continued for about ten minutes, without doing so much damage, except to spars and rigging, as might have been expected. The men in the frigate had heard of the Revolution in England, and did as little mischief as they could to the patriots, who, in their turn, avoided blood-shed as much as possible, from assurances that had been given them, that, in case of an outbreak, the frigate should be an easy conquest.

            While, therefore, they were keeping up what rather amounted to a sham-fight than anything more serious, Grummet was seen running up toward the mast-head of the frigate. As he ascended, a shout went up from the decks of the patriot vessels, and in an instant after, the flag of the proud vessel was seen sailing away on the breeze. Fitzvassal was master of the frigate, and the independence of the colony was sealed.

            A crowd of people had now gathered about the Town-House, such as never before had been assembled in old Massachusetts. They had dethroned their tyrant and his minions, and were once again free. The artillery now thundered from every part of the town for joy, and the firing on board the armed vessels was continued on the same account. Allthe bells were pealing from the churches,--all was excitement and gladness.

            But in the midst of this general burst of joy, the people began to ask each other what was next to be done;--when all at once a shout went up from the vast assembly, louder, heartier, and more protracted than ever. A great movement was observed in the crowd, when presently the Nestor of the time, one of the last survivors of the fathers of Boston, the late governor, who had been turned from his office by the tyranny of the monarch,--the venerable Simon Bradstreet, appeared leaning on the arm of the patriotic Temple. That excellent old man was now in his eighty-eighth year, and as he came forward in the midst of the people whom he loved, he appeared to them like the embodied form of all they honored and revered--the herald of their happiness, their long-lost happiness, the assertor and proclaimer of their liberty!

            As he moved along, bowed with the weight of years, his silvery hair flowing over his plain, black dress of velvet, and his countenance beaming with gratitude, love, and benevolence, the acclamations of the people were without bounds. He was followed by the members of the Secret Committee, and other distinguished inhabitants of the metropolis, and with them he ascended to the balcony of the Town-house.

            There arrived, he was once more greeted with the heart-felt, rapturous enthusiasm of the crowd.He came there the apostle of liberty; like an evangelist he stretched forth his hands over the people, and while his eyes filled with tears of thankfulness, he called down a blessing upon them. He then reminded them of their fathers, and of the confidence in the Divine Providence which had brought them over the wide waters that they might worship God according to the dictates of their consciences; he spoke of the dangers they had passed, and of the trials they had endured; and he reminded their posterity, who were now in his presence, of that sublime spirit of Renunciation which had been the ruling characteristic of those great, good men, who had never been selfish or self-willed, but who constantly referred all they achieved, and all they enjoyed, to the great giver of all good things. He told them that on account of their forgetfulness of these obligations, they had lately been subjected to grievous trials and calamities,--but that God had now seen fit to stay his hand, and restore to them those temporal blessings of which they had been for a time deprived, that they might learn through the sufferings of adversity to refer all their happiness to the giver. He finally besought them to be grateful for the achievements of the day, and by all means to use their triumph with moderation. After once more imploring a blessing upon them, he retired.

            The death-like silence that held the multitude during this address, continued for a time after it wasended. Tears stood in the eyes of many--and the hearts of all were too much subdued for a while, to give breath to their overwhelming joyousness. But soon after, as Mr. Temple stepped forth, holding out a scroll to the people, they once more burst forth into loud and spirit-stirring acclamations.

            As soon as silence had been restored, Mr. Temple again held out the paper, and with a loud voice exclaimed:

            “THE DECLARATION OF LIBERTY!”

            The words flashed upon the people like lightning, and their emotions found vent in one long-continued peal of exultation, that was echoed from hill to hill, and from mountain to mountain, till from the centre to the circumference, time-honored, glorious old Massachusetts sent up to the applauding heavens the triumphant shouts of freedom.

            Mr. Temple then read the Declaration of Liberty,--that paper which was the father of the great Declaration of Independence, as the Revolution of 1689, begun and finished in Massachusetts, was the parent of the memorable one that nearly a century after succeeded, and made way for the emancipation of the world.

            It contained an enumeration of grievances, and of the unavailing petitions for their redress which had been made, set forth in twelve articles, and concluded thus:--“We, the people of Massachusetts do therefore seize upon the persons of those few ill menwhich have been (next to our sins) the grand authors of our miseries, resolving to secure them for what justice, orders from his Highness with the English Parliament, shall direct; lest, ere we are aware, we find (what we may fear, being on all sides in danger) ourselves to be by them given away to a foreign power, before such orders can reach unto us; for which orders we now humbly wait: in the meantime, firmly believing that we have endeavored nothing but what mere duty to God and our country calls for at our hands. We commit our enterprise unto the blessing of Him, who hears the cry of the oppressed, and advise all our neighbors, for whom we have thus ventured ourselves, to join with us in prayer and all just actions for the defence of the land.”

            The Declaration of Liberty dissolved the odious government of Andros, and the last clank of its chain was heard amidst the enthusiastic uproar when the people of Massachusetts trampled them to the dust.

            It was now agreed, in a purely democratic assembly, to constitute the Committee which, under Mr. Temple, had been the guardian of those measures that had resulted so gloriously to the cause of natural and chartered rights, a Committee of Safety, for the time being. Simon Bradstreet was recognised as Governor of Massachusetts, and all the subordinate offices were filled by their old incumbents. Representatives were again chosen, and “once more Massachusetts assembled in general court.”

CHAPTER XXI.

 

            “We celebrate not the sanguinary exploits of the tyrant to subjugate and enslave millions of his fellow creatures,--we celebrate neither the birth nor the coronation of that phantom styled a king; but the resurrection of liberty, the emancipation of mankind.”

J. Maxcy.        Golden opinions from all sorts of people,

            Which would be worn now in their newest gloss,

            Not cast aside so soon.

Macbeth.

            Thy famed pirate laurel seems to fade.


Lucan

            The first of June, 1689, was set apart by the people of Massachusetts for a grand jubilee of Freedom; for the example of her revolution, conceived and perfected by her hardy children, without the concert or co-operation of the other colonies, spread with wondrous rapidity, and extended “to the Chesapeake and to the wilderness.”

            It is difficult to overrate the importance of this firstgreat democratic movement in America; for it is not saying too much, to ascribe to that, the paralysis with which kingly assumption was first smitten in the new world. True, it partially recovered from the shock, and the third George of England beleived that its vigour was fully restored, and he overtasked its strength accordingly; but the sublime will of a virtuous people smote down the palsied monster a second time, and it has been lingering on the shadowy borders of eternal death ever since. Nor is it wrong to give the people of Massachusetts the highest praise for the glorious stand they took in this bold stroke for Liberty. Honored forever be her children, and may the memory of their fathers save them from narrow-minded prejudice and illiberal policy. Wo unto them, when Bunker-Hill shall be levelled into house-lots; when the muck-rake disinters their bones who fell at her Marathon! The golden calf will then have been erected within view of the lightnings of her own Sinai. Should that day ever come, which God forbid, what thenceforth could be expected from Massachusetts?--“They who never look back to their ancestors,” says Burke, “will rarely look forward to posterity.”

            The first of June was ushered in by the roar of artillery, the ringing of bells, and all those demonstrations of popular joy, which the elder Adams foretold would be the heralds in after years of the anniversary of the memorable fourth of July, ’76. The town ofBoston was not polluted on that day by the presence of one of her enemies; Andros and his coadjutors having been all sent home to England.

            Preparation had been made for a grand procession of citizens, who with music and banners were to march through the town and dine together under a spacious tent in the Common. We well remember sitting down with four thousand people under one tent on Bunker-Hill, when the surviving heroes of that great battle dined with Lafayette. Such a tent as that was spread on Boston Common for the first jubilee of Freedom.

            The procession was formed at 12 o’clock, by the marshals of the day, and first of all went the Boston regiment, with martial music, under the command of its reinstated officers. Next followed the venerable governor, Simon Bradstreet, with other subordinate civil officers; the reverend clergy succeeded, followed by the magistrates. Next came a thousand children dressed in white and blue, their heads girt with chaplets of roses, and round their necks a miniature copy of the Declaration of Liberty, bound in red morocco, hanging by a blue ribbon: next to these followed a long line of ladies, four abreast, dressed in white, their heads also adorned with white roses. Succeeding these came all the different mechanics, who were marshalled according to their trades, and in the midst of each company came a large staging drawn by eight horses, on whichthe peculiar business of the trade was exhibited. Similar processions have taken place on extraordinary occasions since. There were seen carpenters and masons, and blacksmiths, wheel-wrights, et cetera, busily employed, and their carriages all bore the mottos, “Life without liberty is intolerable,” “Liberty now and forever!” The companies of the mechanics was followed by a long procession on foot, and this was terminated by a cavalcade as extensive.

            Among the young ladies whose charms were exhibited on the occasion, Grace Wilmer shone with transcendent beauty. She was one of the few who rodein carriages which were adorned with flowers and flags, intertwined and gracefully arranged. Seymour sat opposite to her, entranced no less by her fascinations, than by the patriotic excitement of the day. Her father had been forgiven for being one of Sir Edmund Andros’s council, for it was soon made manifest, that it had been through his influence alone that still harsher measures were not pursued by the tyrant. He was not only forgiven, but rewarded and elected to a magistracy.

            The procession marched round the Common and enterng at one of its upper gates formed an extended circle within the wide inclosure. In the centre of this a chair was placed, to which the venerable Bradstreet was conducted by Mr. Temple. As the excellent patriarch took his seat, the acclamations ofthe people were unbounded. The ladies waved their handkerchiefs, and scattered garlands before him. The music poured forth its most animating sounds, and the roar of the artillery was echoed far and wide, from the walls of the vast natural amphitheatre of which Boston Common is the arena. The majestic trees, that with double rows of dark green foliage then girdled that delicious spot, served as a background from every point of view, to the most enlivening and spirit-stirring picture that was ever exhibited in America.

            In the centre of the Common was erected a triumphal arch, adorned with flags and oak-leaves, from which swung banners bearing patriotic inscriptions, while on one side of the arch the words “Renunciation not Assumption!” and on the other “Massachusetts and Liberty!” were emblazoned in golden characters.

            On both sides of the venerable governor were seated a number of the most distinguished persons, principally Boston mechanics, through whose instrumentality the revolution had been chiefly effected. On a signal given by six trumpeters who came forward from behind the governor’s chair on horseback, and woke the echoes through their brazen instruments, a number of ladies, corresponding to the number of the chief patriots, came forward, each one accompanied by a little girl fancifully adorned, who held in her hand agarland made of the leaves of the American Elm, the emblem of patriotism.

            The trumpets now sounded again, when the little band of patriots knelt before the ladies, who, taking the garlands from the hands of their young attendants, placed them on the heads of the heroes, among whom Randal and his friend Bagnal were conspicuous.

            But this part of the ceremony was not yet completed. The band of patriots, having been honored by so great a distinction, bowed to the ladies and resumed their seats, still wearing their garlands of living green, the acclamations of their fellow-citizens resounding far and wide: when the Governor rising, remarked that there was still another person, who, though a stranger and an Englishman, had been of indispensable importance in the glorious achievement of the Revolution, and he requested to know what distinguished honor should be shown to him.

            A murmur of interest ran through the vast assemblage as the subject of the patriarch’s address became known, and it was suggested by some of the most influential persons present, that it should be proposed as the most suitable honor that could be conferred upon him, to select the most beautiful and accomplished maiden present, to crown him as the others had been crowned, with the elm garland, and that he should lead the procession through the triumphal arch.

           

            As soon as this proposal was made known to the people, their approbation was manifested by the loudest cheering, and every eye was at once directed towards the imperial beauty, whose excellence was known and admitted by all. Grace blushed deeply, for she could not misunderstand the compliment, and she was presently led forth by Mr. Temple, amidst the deafening plaudits of the multitude, accompanied by a young girl, who like the other attendants, held the crown of patriotism in her hand.

            In the meantime, the dignified and venerable chief-magistrate gave his hand to Fitzvassal, who, amidst the reiterated shouts of the people, came forward modestly to receive his garland. Without raising his eyes from the ground, he knelt, while the majestic beauty advanced.

            “Receive,” said she, her voice trembling with emotion, “receive the reward of virtuous endeavor!-- The people of Massachusetts, in awarding to you the garland of patriotism--adopt you as their son and brother!”

            The garland was then placed upon Fitzvassal’s brow, and as it fell there, he raised his eyes to the donor. A tear was trembling on their lids, and as the gentle being who stood before him observed it, a thousand mingled emotions crowded to her bosom, in spite of the distracting causes around her.

            “This,” thought Fitzvassal, “is worse than the bitterness of death!” it seemed to him as if the skeleton of Hope were mocking him with grave-garlands. As her hand passed down again without the wreath she had held, a solitary tear fell upon her hand, and rivalled for a moment the jewel that adorned it.

            Grace courtsied and withdrew, and as the supposed Captain Nix was conducted back to his chair, once more arose the rapturous acclamations of the multitude, who little imagined what lacerated feelings were torturing the objects of their applause.

            The procession was now once more formed, and Fitzvassal taking the lead, his head encircled with the elm-garland, marched to the sound of heart-thrilling music through the triumphal arch, while the ladies, counter-marching on both sides, strewed the way with roses.

            The banquet was in the meantime made ready, and the company who had been provided with cards of admission were seated. On a platform in the centre, elevated several feet above the other tables, that they might be seen by all the guests, sat the little company of garlanded patriots, among whom Fitzvassal was conspicuous on account of his youth and manly elegance. He was, indeed, “the observed of all observers,” and as the toasts went round, the health of the brave Captain Nix was received with marked distinction.

            As the hours rolled by, amidst the excitement of the music and the wine, and the flow of feeling and patriotic enthusiasm which made the very atmosphere exhilarating to those who inhabited it, Fitzvassal forgot his cares, and gave full swing to his present emotions. Never had he appeared to such advantage. His face beamed with pleasure as he drank deeply of those allurements for which he had in his more aspiring moments panted.

            The reputed Captain Nix had just been called on by the toast-master, and was in the act of offering a sentiment, when two sturdy officers of justice entered the tent, and going immediately up to him, asked unceremoniously if his name were Edward Fitzvassal!

            Thunderstruck with the question, the buccaneer turned pale as death. The company, waiting for his toast, were so silent that a whisper might have been heard from any part of the table. They all heard the question of the officers, and were filled with amazement. It was repeated.

            “Is your name Edward Fitzvassal?”

            Fitzvassal gazed upon them an instant--and their object at once flashed upon his mind. But he read in their looks determination, and after a moments’ hesitation, replied:

            “Yes! it is Edward Fitzvassal!--and what then?”

            “You are arrested on the charge of piracy!” exclaimed one of the officers, exhibiting a magistrate’s warrant--“and you must go with us to answer to the accusation!”

           

            A cry of astonishment and dismay ran through the crowded company, and exclamations of “impossible!” “shame! shame!” “turn the scroundels out!” were reiterated from every part of the table; but when they saw the accused with his head bowed down to his bosom, and his hands clasped together with the resignation of despair, following the officers with apparent willingness,--a change came over their feelings, and they looked at each other, as if they were waiting, after the shock of an earthquake, for something more appalling to follow.

            Such was the effect of this extraordinary incident, that the festivities of the day were suddenly broken up, and the guests retired from the tables wondering and conjecturing among themselves, what could be the meaning of so singular an affair. If their patriarchal governor had himself been accused of felony, they could hardly have been more incredulous and astounded. Here was a man who had been recommended to the favor of Massachusetts by one of the first baronets of England, and who had taken a conspicuous and important part in her glorious revolution, now under arrest, and in the hands of justice, on a charge of piracy!

            The news of the arrest spread on the wings of the wind, and before night, it was the absorbing topic of conversation.

            “I thought,” said Saultz, rolling his goggle eyes, and cramming his nose with snuff; “I thought itwould turn out so; for you remember, Debby, what I told you when such heaps of gold came into the shop all at once!”

            “Lord’a massy on us!” replied Mistress Debora, “Ido remember now you mention it, that he smelt very strong of tar! Dear me, what are we all a-coming to!”

CHAPTER XXII.

 

Foul deeds will rise,   Though all the earth o’erwhelm them, to men’s eyes.

Hamlet.

So shall you hear        Of carnal, bloody and unnatural acts;

            Of accidental judgments, casual slaughters;

            Of deaths put on by cunning, and forc’d cause;

            And, in this upshot, purposes mistook

            Fall’n on the inventor’s heads.

Id.       

            On the morning of the first of June, 1689, while the guns were booming over the waters of Boston harbor, and welcoming the dawn of the jubilee, an open boat was slowly working its way up to the metropolis, containing four men, who were nearly worn to skeletons by fatigue and starvation. They were the survivors of the small number of sailors, who, with the unfortunate Captain Nix, were abandoned by Fitzvassal and the other mutineers of the Dolphin so many months before, to the mercy of the winds and the waves. Since that time, they hadgone through incredible hardships by land and by sea, having been taken and tormented by savages while ashore in an unknown region, from which they providentially escaped on the appearance of the summer. Their coming into Boston harbor appeared to be merely accidental, but the event showed that it happened in accordance with that wondrous fitness of things, that so often appeals to the rationality of man to lead him from a belief in accident and blind chance.

            Three of those miserable beings perished before the winter set in, and the survivors were sustained by the exercise of great fortitude and perseverance.

            On their coming up to the metropolis, having neither compass or chart, which had been taken from them by the Indians for baubles, they landed on Green Island, then a beautiful spot about midway between the town and the light-house. Here they found fresh water, and clams, by which they were revived, so that they could enjoy the marvellous beauty of the place, which was covered with fruit trees all in blossom; where the red-breast was hopping from spray to spray, and singing blithsomely in the mild air of June.

            That morning was to those weary men a sabbath of sweet rest, and they poured out heart-felt thanks givings for all the dangers they had escaped; yet they knew not where they were. They wandered a long while along the borders of the small island, whichthey could compass in an hour’s loitering walk, charmed with the deliciousness of all around them; for the waters were clear and unruffled, and the shadows of the fruit-trees were painted in the broad mirror of the Atlantic. Other islands were around them, green and beautiful to behold, and several miles toward the north-west, with intervening fortresses, appeared a large city, as if built on a single hill, sloping from an elevation of a hundred feet to the champaign on both sides, and sending up its many glittering spires to heaven. On the left were hills blue as the vault above them, and on all sides landscape features which are perhaps unequalled by any similar spot on earth.

            While they were sauntering in this way, hoping for some boat to pass which might convey them to the habitation of man, a small canoe, containing a beautiful Indian woman, glided near to the Island, and seemed to be drifting toward the city. They hailed her again and again, but no answer was returned. She was weeping and sobbing piteously, and seemed to be too much absorbed in her own grief to lend an ear to their address.

            Towards noon, a fishing-boat passed near them, and on being hailed, it landed for their relief. Then, for the first time, they learned that they were in the harbor of Boston, the birth-place, as Captain Nix well knew, of his faithless mate. But it was the last place he would have imagined Fitzvassal to be in, after the cruelties he had inflicted on himself and fellow-sufferers; but when, after a long conversation with the fisherman, he learned that a vessel described as his own, called the Dolphin, was in the harbor, and that its commander, whose description answered so perfectly to the peculiarities of Fitzvassal, was known as Captain Nix, he could not doubt for an instant of their identity.

            The fisherman, who became interested in the unfortunate mariners, promptly received them on board his boat, and proceeded with them to Boston. On the way thither, Captain Nix recognized his vessel, and in an hour after, he made his affidavit before a Justice, on which a warrant was issued, and the buccaneer arrested as we have said. On his appearance, the evidence against him was overwhelming, and his identity with Captain Nix’s mate was placed beyond question, by the figure of an anchor which had been pricked into his arm with India ink, the letters E. F. beneath it. On the evidence, he was fully committed for trial.

            On the day after, Edward Fitzvassal was arraigned before the Court to listen to the indictment which was found against him for piracy on the high seas. An immense crowd had collected, and filled the court-room. When it was finished the clerk said:

            “Edward Fitzvassal! you have listened to the indictment which the Grand Jurors, &c. have foundagainst you, charging you with piracy on the high seas. Are you guilty or not guilty?”

            Fitzvassal stood in the prisoners dock, and the eyes of all were fixed upon him. He had recovered his wonted firmness, and now betrayed no outward sign of the deep emotion he was feeling. He looked around composedly on the multitude, and then folding his arms on his bosom, turned to the clerk, and replied, in a clear, but melancholy tone:

            “Guilty!”

            A murmur of regret and disappointment ran through the crowd of spectators, whose sympathies had been deeply awaked in behalf of one to whom they acknowledged their obligations. A dead silence followed, when the Judge, after a brief address, in which he expressed the sorrow and reluctance he felt in being the minister of justice to him almost at the very moment when the honors of redeemed Massachusetts were green on his brows, said:--

            “Edward Fitzvassal, you have heard the indictment which has been preferred against you for the awful crime of piracy,--to which indictment you have pleaded guilty! Have you any thing to say why sentence of death should not now be pronounced against you?”

            Fitzvassal remained silent.

            “The sentence of the Court, then, is,” said the Judge, “that you be conveyed back to the prison from which you were taken, and from thence to the placeof execution, and that you be there hanged by the neck until you are dead. And may the Lord have mercy on your soul!”

            The Court then made a sign to the officer, and Fitzvassal was re-conducted to his solitary dungeon, and there loaded with chains.

            The day assigned for the execution of the sentence was the fifth of June,--the place Green Island, where Captain Nix and the three mariners first landed in the harbor of Boston. In the interim, great exertions were made for a pardon, or a commutation of the sentence to one of banishment, but not even the hope of a reprieve was afforded the prisoner.

            The night previous to the day of execution, Fitzvassal passed in solitude; he refused admittance to all persons. He would not have a minister of religion, for he declared that he knew well enough that repentance without reformation would do him no good.

            That night was to him a time of bitter agony. It was not so much that he cared for the pains of death, --but to die a felon’s death, and almost in the presence of her he still adored, yea, hopelessly, jealously worshipped, was more than he could endure without his heartstrings tugging with the effort. “Oh God!” thought Fitzvassal, “how terrible, yet how just are thy retributions! Had I confided in thy providence; my poor mother would not have been left to starve to death in a cellar;--and I should not have been doomed to this awful and disgraceful end. But I will not die a felon’s death--the name of Fitzvassal shall not be disgraced by the record of such a fate--his body shall not be dishonored by the scaffold!”

            He sunk into a profound slumber before morning, from which he was awakened by the jailor, who came to bring him his breakfast, and attire him at once for the gallows and the grave.

            Fitzvassal begged to be excused from putting on the dress till the last minute--and only an hour was wanting, when he must be conveyed to the place of execution. He requested to be left alone, and the jailor withdrew.

            “My hour is now come!” said he to himself--taking from his bosom the agate which Nameoke had given him, containing the deadly poison--“My hour is now come!--Thanks, Nameoke, for this cordial!-- Grace, I drink to thee!”

            As he spoke, he drained the deadly fluid from the hollow stone--and that instant the death-bell told one!

            “It is finished!” sighed Fitzvassal, “in a few minutes, I shall be removed from the trials and the calamities of life!--Life! God of mercy, may I not live forever!”

            The bell now struck again, and as the jailor was approaching to indicate to the prisoner the necessity of making the most of the few moments that remained to him--Nameoke, breaking through the guardwithout, by the energy and decision of her manner, cried out--

            “Let Nameoke pass! white-man stand back! she comes on an errand of mercy!”

            As she spoke these words, she forced her way into the dungeon--and stood before Fitzvassal in all the majesty of beauty.

            The condemned buccaneer for the moment forgot his misery, as his attention was arrested by this extraordinary apparition.

            “Nameoke!” he exclaimed.

            “Son of the Vassal!” cried the sibyl, “be not surprised at the coming of Nameoke--you are free! Nameoke has brought you a pardon! It would have been read to you at the scaffold--but Nameoke chose to bring it herself.--Son of the Vassal, you are free!”

            “Impossible!” replied Fitzvassal, “Nameoke you are mad!”

            “Well! well!” she exclaimed, “Nameoke may be mad--her brain is sick--sick, and it whirls even now fearfully; but mad or not mad, Edward Fitzvassal, you are free!”

            And as she uttered these words, she looked the sibyl in her excitement, while she confirmed her declaration by exhibiting the sign manual of the governor, who, in consideration of the signal services of the buccaneer, and the intervention of Mr. Temple, Horace Seymour, and even the tears of GraceWilmer herself, with the superadded request of Captain Nix, had published a full pardon of the offender.

            As Fitzvassal realized the truth of her words, his heart sunk within him, while a deadly faintness spread over his frame.

            Nameoke saw his condition, and asked--

            “What ails the son of the Vassal? is he not well? does he not believe Nameoke?”

            “Nameoke!” murmured the unhappy man, pointing to the talisman she had given him, “may the great God reward you! but the pardon comes too late --that poison!”

            “No! no! the Great Spirit forbid!” exclaimed Nameoke, as the reality burst upon her--“the son of the Vassal has not taken the poison!”

            “Yes!” groaned Fitzvassal, “and my remaining moments are few--Oh Nameoke, for the love of God, give up thy enchantments--they are opposed to the will of heaven, and only mock us to our eternal ruin. Nameoke! your hand--I am dying!”

            As he spoke he sunk upon the floor of the dungeon, and Nameoke bent over his prostrate body.

            “Alas!” she cried, “Nameoke would have saved thee, Edward Fitzvassal!--but Nameoke is the death of all she loves! farewell, oh unhappy! may the Great Spirit receive his child!”

            Fitzvassal opened his eyes upon her, and groaning, closed them again in death.

CONCLUSION.

 

           

            We must now, according to custom, give a glance at some of our dramatis personæ, who were necessarily behind the scenes at the fall of the curtain.

            On hearing of the arrest of Fitzvassal, Morgan immediately got the Duke of York under weigh, in company with the Dolphin, and as there were no armed vessels in port, they escaped, and were never afterward heard of in America.

            Grace Wilmer was soon after united to Seymour, when she merged the romance of youth in the realities of maturer years. If she sometimes looked back with sadness, it was only to look forward again with brighter anticipations. She had passed through few trials, too few for the formation of a very perfect character; but she had ever a high sense of duty, and for her obedience to its dictates she was rewarded with the blessings of tranquillity.

            Mr. and Mistress Saultz continued at their old stand, the former co-operating in sending folks outof the world, and the latter in bringing them in, while she always reiterated, to the day of her death, that there was nothing wanting to make Boston a perfect paradise, but a lying-in hospital. The boy Willy finally became a Justice of the Peace. Harding died at sea, over which he was passing for his health, and Bill Grummet, who received his last breath, became his legatee for a hundred pounds. Mr. Temple died two years after the Revolution, while Randal and Bagnal survived for a long time to narrate the achievements of ’89.

            Sir Edmund Andros, with Randolph, conciliated the good opinion of William and Mary, and the former was afterward appointed Governor of Virginia. As for the people of Massachusetts, William and Mary approved of their conduct, and granted them a new charter, containing many privileges, but reserving to the crown the power of nominating their governor.

            The body of the buccaneer was buried on Green Island, which from that time changed its name, and Nameoke, while she wept over the grave, prophesied that the place would soon wash away. She never was seen again at Nahant, but as vessels passed and repassed the burial-place of Edward Fitzvassal on summer moonlight nights, the sailors often declared that they could hear sweet music from the island, and see a female form weeping over the grave of the pirate. Time passed away, and the island, according to tradition, perceptibly crumbled into the sea, till in a few years there was nothing to mark the spot but a rough sunken ledge of rocks, where a monument now stands to warn the mariner of the dangers of Nix’s Mate.

END OF VOL. II.      

           

S. COLMAN’S LIST OF PUBLICATIONS.

 

            PHANTASMION, PRINCE OF PALMLAND. From the London Edition, making vols. I and II of Colman’s Library of Romance. EDITED BY GRENVILLE MELLEN.

            “This work is one of the most delightful and captivating in the English language, and is said to have been written by Mrs. H. N. Coleridge, daughter of the late S. T. Cole ridge.”

            A L’ABRI, OR THE TENT PITCH’D, BY N. P. WILLIS.

COLMAN’S DRAMATIC LIBRARY.

 

            I.ATHENIA OF DAMASCUS. BY RUFUS DAWES.

            II.BIANCA VISCONTI, Or the Heart Overtasked. BY N. P. WILLIS.

            III.TORTESA, Or the Usurer Match’d. A PLAY BY N. P. WILLIS.

            [Several others for the series in preparation.]

            WEEKLY REPORTS.

            For the use of Schools--comprising an Introduction, shewing the value of the work, and how to use the Tables.

BOOKS FOR THE YOUNG.

 

            A MOTHER’S LIBRARY FOR LITTLE FOLKS. Each volume complete in itself.

            VOL. I.--WILLEY’S RAMBLES to see the house building

            VOL. II.--THE BIRTH-DAY GIFT, comprising a variety of beautiful and useful little stories.

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            VOL. IV.--NURSERY SONGS, by Mrs. Follen.

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            THE WRITINGS OF SWEDENBORG,

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            NEW JERUSALEM MAGAZINE, published in Boston, at $2,50 a year.

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            Also just published,

            CLISSOLD’S Letter to the Archbishop of Dublin, 75 cents.

            Notices received ofCOLMAN’S DRAMATIC LIBRARY.

            “This work is intended to embrace only productions of merit from American authors.”

-- Weekly Messenger.

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-- Phil. Sat. Courier.

            “We cannot doubt this series will be highly successful.”

-- Prov. Journal.

            BIANCA VISCONTI, Or the Heart Overtask’d, BY N. P. WILLIS.

            Among the notices which have come to the publisher’s knowledge are the following.

            “This play is published in the same beautiful style as “Athenia of Damascus,” and will add to the reputation of Mr. Willis.

-- Providence Journal.

            “The merit of this touching and beautiful tragedy is too widely known to require from us more than a passing notice of its publication.”

-- Louisville News Letter.

            “It forms the second of the series of the Dramatic Library, and is in a beautiful form.”

-- Boston Paper.

            New Notices ofATHENIA OF DAMASCUS, A TRAGEDY BY RUFUS DAWES.

            “A superior poem, and one of the handsome books ever issued.”

-- Phil. Sat. Courier.

            “A Drama of much interest.”

-- Weekly Messenger.

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