Chapter Eleven.

Chapter Eleven.“Life!”I hold it truth with him who sings,On one clear harp, in divers tones,That men may rise, on stepping stonesOf their dead lives, to higher things!However grievous and crushing we may consider the trials and troubles of life to be, while they last, they are never altogether unbearable.The load laid upon us is seldom weighted beyond the capacity of our endurance; and then, when in course of time our ills become alleviated, and the burden we have so long borne slides off our backs, the relief we feel is proportionately all the greater, our sense of light-heartedness and mental freedom, the more intense and complete.Existence, to follow out the argument, is not always painted in shadow, its horizon obscured by dark-tinted nebulosities! On the contrary, there is ever some light infused into it, to bring out the deeper tones—“a silver lining” generally “to every cloud,” as the proverb has it. So, I now experienced, as I am going to tell you.The second year of my residence in America opened much more brightly than the miserable twelvemonth I had just passed through might have led me to hope—if I could have hoped on any longer, that is!Early in the spring, when the warming breath of the power-increasing sun was slowly unloosing the chains of winter—when the rapid-running Hudson was sweeping down huge blocks and fields of ice from Albany, flooding New York Bay with a collection of little bergs, so that it looked somewhat like the Arctic effect I had seen on the Thames on that happy Christmas of the past, only on ever so much larger a scale—I received letters from England that cheered me up wonderfully, changing the whole aspect of my life.“Good news from home, good news for me, had come across the deep blue sea”—in the words of Gilmore’s touching ballad; and “though I wandered far away, my heart was full of joy to-day; for, friends across the ocean’s foam had sent to me good news from home”—to further paraphrase it.Goodnews?—“glorious news,” rather, I should say!Yes, I had not only a glad, welcome letter from Miss Pimpernell, in which the dear little old lady made me laugh and cry again; but, I also heard from the good vicar, who was one of the worst correspondents in the world, never putting pen to paper, save in the compilation of his weekly sermons, except under the most dire necessity, or kindly compulsion.To receive an epistle from him was an event!And, what do you think he wrote to me about? What, can you imagine, made dear little Miss Pimpernell’s lengthy missive—scribed as it was in the most puzzling of calligraphies—of so engrossing an interest, that I read it again and again; valuing it more than all her previous budgets of parish gossip put together, entertaining as I thought them before?Once, twice, three times?No, I do not believe you can guess what it was that gave me such delight in the “good news from home,” sharp and shrewd though you may think yourself.If you will take my advice, you had better treat it as a conundrum and “give it up.”Don’t keep you in suspense, eh?Well then, I will tell you—here goes.It is a long story—too long to describe in detail; but the upshot of it was that my kind friend the vicar, cognisant of the sincere affection that existed between my darling and myself, and knowing the suffering that had been caused to us both by the enforced silence which we had to maintain towards each other, had interceded with Mrs Clyde on our behalf; and, what is more, had done so successfully!There, fancy that! Don’t you think I had sufficient reason to be rejoiced?Min and I were to be allowed to write to each other for a year—as “friends,” a condition of intimacy to which her mother seemed to attach a good deal of point, as she had made it an obligatory proviso to our correspondence. Mrs Clyde had, in addition to this, tacked on a sweeping clause to the agreement, to the effect that, in case my prospects at the end of the year should not warrant my returning to England and claiming Min as my promised wife—prospects of a short engagement and an easy settlement being also satisfactory—the whole negotiation should fall to the ground and be considered null and void; we, reverting to our original and hopeless position of soi-disant strangers or “friends” at a distance, and looking upon the interlude of our letter-writing as if it had never occurred.I did not give much thought, however, to this ultimatum.I was too full of happiness at the idea of being allowed to correspond at once with my darling, and hear from her own dear self after the weary months that had passed since our separation. Why, I would be able to tell her all my plans and hopes and fears, conscious that her sympathy would never fail to congratulate me in success; condole with me, cheer me, encourage me, in failure!And then, her letters! What a feast they would be, coming like grateful dew on the thirsty soil of my heart—sunshine succeeding to the April shower of disappointment that lay on my memory. Her letters! They would be so many little Mins, visiting me to soothe my exile, and bringing me, face to face and soul to soul, in the spirit, with their loving autotype at home!I was nerved to action at once.Before the day on which I received the welcome intelligence was one hour older, I had sat me down and penned a hurried sheet of ecstatic rapture to my darling—the first number of our delightful little serial which was going to be regularly issued every fortnight until further notice in time for posting on mail days! I only just managed to catch the European packet, so I could not write a very long letter on this occasion—as I had also to answer the vicar’s and Miss Pimpernell’s communications; but I said quite enough, I think, to let my darling know, that, although she had not been able to hear from me directly before, she had never been out of my thoughts.You may be sure, too, that I did not forget to send a short note to Mrs Clyde, thanking her for her kindness to us both. Indeed, Iwasgrateful to her; for serious consideration of my past conduct had led me to think that she might have only judged wisely in her opinion as to what was the best course to adopt for her daughter’s future happiness. Now, she had amply atoned for her former harshness, as I esteemed it, by her permission for our correspondence; and, notwithstanding that she never responded to my note, I regarded her thenceforth in the light of a friend.On reading over the vicar’s letter after getting this happy business concluded, I saw—what had escaped my notice at first—that he had not been content with merely exerting his influence with Mrs Clyde for my benefit. His good offices had gone much further. He had again spoken for me to his patron, the bishop—who, you may recollect, was the means of my getting that appointment to the Obstructor General’s department; and my old friend wrote that they had great hopes of being able to procure me a nice little secretaryship under Government, which would probably bring me in enough income to marry upon.—Only think!What do you say to that, eh?It was true, though; or the vicar would never have expressed himself so confidently.He added, that it was best for me to remain where I was in the meanwhile, persevering in my resolution of living a steady life, and that all might turn out well for me. He said, that my interests should not be neglected in my absence; and, that there would be no use of my returning until I got something certain.His words, and this amicable settlement of matters between my darling and myself, awoke a new life in me. I did not despair any longer. I felt that God had at last heard not only my prayers, but also those of her, who, I knew, was praying for me at home; and that, if He had not appeared to grant my former petitions, the answer to them had been withheld for the all-wise purpose of making me look to Him more earnestly than I might have done, if prosperity had rewarded my first effort! Before, I had trusted entirely to myself, never thinking of appealing to His aid.Now, I assure you, I could have struggled on to the death—even had Fortune still gone against me even in America; but, the fickle goddess alike altered her expressionthere, as circumstances improved for mehere, so that, I was not called upon to exercise any further endurance in adversity.My temporal troubles ended as my more serious difficulties disappeared—all being in due accordance with the old adage which tells us that “it never rains but it pours.”One morning, soon after hearing from England, as I was conning over the advertisement columns of theNew York Herald, I chanced on a notice which immediately caught my eye. An “editor” was wanted, without delay, at the office of one of the other leading-journals of the city, where applications were requested from all desirous of taking the “situation vacant.” Who could this have reference to, but me?I thought so, at all events, and “exploited” the supposition.I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet, I can assure you.I hurried off instanter to the address mentioned; and, although newspaper men of the New World, unlike ours, are uncommonly early birds, getting up matutinally betimes so as to catch the typical worm—in which respect they resemble the entire business population of Transatlantica—I found, on my arrival, that I was the first candidate who had appeared on the scene.It was a good omen, for your “live Yankee” likes “smartness;” consequently, I was sanguine of success.You may, peradventure, be “surprised to hear” of my thinking myself fit for such a post, having had such a slight acquaintance with literature at home?That did not dissuade me, however, in the least.I have so great a confidence in myself, that I would really take the command of the Channel fleet to-morrow if it were offered to me—as Earl Russell proposed to do, when he was simple “Lord John;” and, as a civilian First Lord of the Admirality has since done, although he possessed so little nautical knowledge that he might not have been able to tell you the difference between a cathead and a capstan bar, or, how to distinguish a “dinghy” from the “second cutter.” I suppose he thought, like Mr Toots, that, “it didn’t matter!”Conceit, you say?Not at all.—Only self-reliance, one of the most available qualities for getting on in the world; for, if a man does not believe in himself, how on earth can he expect other people to believe in him?“Guess” I posed you there!—to use one of my patent Americanisms.Besides, an American “editor,” if you please, is of a very different stamp to an English one. The “learned lexicographer”—and pedantic old bore, by the way—Doctor Johnson, defined the individual in question to be “one who prepares or revises any literary work for publication;” and, we generally associate the name with the supreme head of a journalistic staff—he who is addressed indignantly as “sir” by those weak-minded persons who write letters to newspapers, and who signs himself familiarly “Ed.” But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears a much wider application, extending to all “connected with the press”—from the “head cook and bottle-washer,” down, nearly, to that bottle imp, the printer’s “devil.”Political writers; correspondents, “special” and “local;” reviewers; reporters; stenographers, or “gallery” men; dramatic and musical critics; “paragraphists”—the new name for fire and murder manifolders, and other “flimsy” compilers; and, penny-a-liners:—each and all, are, severally and collectively, “editors,” beneath the star-spangled banner of equality and freedom.Hence, there was not so much effrontery after all in my applying for the position, eh?The proprietor of the paper whom I now canvassed did not think so, at least; andhewas the party chiefly concerned in the affair besides myself; so, I should like to know whatyou’vegot to do with it?He was a “Down-easter,” a class of American I had already learnt specially to dislike—the ideal and real, “Yankee” of the States; but, he spoke to the point, as most of them do, without any waste of words or travelling round the subject—more than can be said for some “Britishers” I know!He was leaning over the counter of the advertisement office as I entered, settling some calculation of greenbacks with the cashier, and “guessed,” ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had come about that “vacancy up-stairs.”“Been in the newspapering line before?” was his next interrogatory—a very pertinent one; for, Transatlantic journalists, as a rule, manage to try every trade and calling previously to sinking down to “literature”—similarly to some of those bookseller’s “hacks” over here who mortgage themselves to flash publishers when all other means of livelihood have failed them.When I answered “Yes” to this question, he did not wait to hear anything further.“Go up-stairs and try your hand,” said he—“we’ll soon see what you’ll amount to, I reckon. We don’t want any references here. We take a man as we find him. Guess I’ll give you twenty-five dollars a week, anyhow, for one week sartain; and then, if we suit each other, we can raise the pile bimeby. Say, are you on?”I “guessed” Iwas“on;” and, went up-stairs to the paste-and-scissors purlieus with much gusto.It was a very good commencement for me—I who had nothing to bless myself with before, for, the salary would pay my board and lodging twice over. It was a beginning, at any rate; and, as we subsequently did “suit each other,” my down-east friend behaved very fairly, keeping to his promise of “raising my pile”—a synonym for increasing the weekly sum of “greenbacks” he allowed me for my labours. I had never any reason to repent the bargain—nor did I.The work I had to do was by no means arduous, although, in many respects, of a novel character. From the fact that my residence in America had not been yet sufficiently extended to enable me to master the ins and outs of Transatlantic politics, the leading articles—or “editorials” as they are there styled—which I had to write were but few in number, and entirely referring to social subjects of local interest; notwithstanding that I was occasionally allowed to enlighten the Manhattan mind in the matter of European affairs. If my special “editor’s” duties were thus light, I made up, however, for their deficiency, by enlarging upon the skeleton telegrams that came every night across the ocean—“expanding news,” so to speak—and by also writing, on the arrival of every steamer, while seated in the back parlour of the journal’s office in New York, the most graphic special correspondent’s letters from Paris and London!With regard to the telegrams. Half a dozen words only might come over the cable, to say, for instance, that the late Emperor Napoleon, who was the then supposed arbiter of the Old World, had nominated Count somebody or General that to a fresh portfolio; or that, the “scion of the house of Hapsburgh” was suffering from tooth-ache; or that, John Bright was going to Dublin to lecture “on Irish affairs.”My duties were such, that, when these telegrams appeared, in all the glories of print, the next morning, they had grown in such a miraculous way, that they took up half a yard of room, instead of but a few lines of type. Had you read them, you would have found their contents thoroughly explanatory, entering into the most minute details—as to how Napoleon’s change of ministers would affect “the situation;” how poor Francis Joseph’s attack of caries might, could and would raise again the ghost of “the Eastern question;” how the advent of the great Radical leader in Ireland would be the signal for a general Fenian uprising—and, so on.Ionlymention these cases in point, to describe the way in which I clothed my skeletons with solid substrata of flesh and blood. The public, you see, had only so much the more information for their money—which was, probably, just as reliable as if it had been really “wired” under the Atlantic! Nobody was the wiser; nobody, the sufferer by the deception; so, what was “the odds” so long as they were correspondingly “happy”—in their ignorance?My correspondent’s letters were much more mendacious compositions.I am quite ashamed to tell you what long columns of flagrant description I was in the habit of reeling off—touching certain races in the Bois de Boulogne, soirees at the Tuileries, and working-men’s “demonstrations” in Hyde Park—of which I was only an imaginative spectator!I used to rake up all my old reminiscences of the boulevards and cafés and prados, giving details concerning the “petit-crèvés” and “cocottes,” the “flaneurs” and “grandes dames” of the once “gay” capital—gay no longer; and, interspersing them with veracious reports respecting the latest hidden thoughts of “Badinguet,” and vivid descriptions of the respective toilets of the Empress Eugenie, Baroness de B—, Madame la Comtesse C—, la belle Marquise d’E—, and all the other fashionable letters of the alphabet—chronicling the very latest achievements in “Robes en train” and “Costumes à ravir” of the great artist Worth. Even the men folk of America—“shoddy” of course—dote on those accounts of European toilets, which we never see given in any of our papers, excepting where the appearance of the Queen’s Drawing-Room may be passingly noted; or, when theMorning Postexhausts itself over a “marriage in high life.”When my spurious intelligence was dated from London, I had to draw on a fertile memory for popular rumours concerning revolutionary doctrine, and express a conviction that things were not going very well with John Bull, politically or socially, hinting, also, at the prospect of an early Irish rebellion—and, generally, manufacture similar “news” of a kind that is peculiarly grateful to the jaundiced palates of our English-hating, jealousy-mad cousins over the way.When Min came to know of this practice of mine, she did not like it. She wrote to me to say that it was acting untruthfully to pretend to correspond from a place when I was not actually there.The habit was certainly reprehensible, I admit, as I admitted to her; but, then, what can a writer do if blessed with a vivid imagination?Besides, I had a precedent in Goldsmith’sCitizen of the World, you know; and, as Byron says—”—After all, what is a lie? ’Tis butThe truth in masquerade; and I defyHistorians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to putA fact without some leaven of a lie.The very shadow of true truth would shutUp annals, revelations, poesy,And prophecy—except it should be datedSome years before the incidents related.”Even on this side of the water, too, authors have frequently to use their pens as if they did not chance to possess a conscience—one of the worst possessions for any aspirant in the journalistic profession to be encumbered with, I may remark by the way!You seem to be astonished at my observation? I will explain what I mean more lucidly.Supposing a journalist belongs to a Conservative organ, he must back up the party, don’t you see, at all hazards; and, although in his inmost heart he may have a faint suspicion that Mr Disraeli’s popularity is on the wane, it will not do for him to write his leading articles to that effect exactly, eh? Oh, dear no! He has to assert, on the contrary, that “the masses” are loudly calling onPunch’sfriend “Dizzy” to save England from the utter extinguishment predicted by our dear Bismarck the other day at Versailles! While, should your potent pressman, on the other hand, wield the goose-quill of any ponderous or lively daily paper that may advocate “Liberalism,” and support the elect of Greenwich through thick and thin, do you think he gives you his candid opinion anent “the people’s William” then in power, or respecting that bamboozling Alabama business?Not he!Why, he knows, as well as you do, of the tergiversation that has distinguished the entire political career of the Risque-tout Prime Minister; and yet, he has to speak of him as if he were the greatest statesman England has ever seen—hanging on his words as silver, when knowing them all the while to be but clap-trap Dutch metal! Convinced, as he must be, that the Washington Treaty is one of the trashiest pieces of diplomacy that has ever disgraced a government, and that the whole community has been dissatisfied at having to make the Americans a nice little present of three millions of money—in settlement of a claim for which neither the law of nations nor moral opinion held us responsible—he is obliged to argue that it is “a splendid triumph for the ministry,” and that the “public is overjoyed” to grease Uncle Sam’s outstretched palm!You know, the deeds of “our William”must bebolstered up; lest “waverers” should waver off to the ranks of the “Constitutionalists,” and the “great Liberal party” come to grief at the next general election!So, how can a journalist have a conscience? You see I’m right, and that I had some excuse for my foreign correspondence of American origin.I lay the whole blame of the transaction, however, on the narrow shoulders of my lanky “down-east” proprietor:—heis the man to blame in the matter, not I!After a time, I got tired of this work. I then left the journal on which I had been first engaged—with no hard feelings on either side, let it be mentioned—to join the literary staff of theAurora Borealis, an organ of quite a different complexion, and of considerable notoriety in the empire city, as it was famed for its bizarre sensations and teeming news.Here my labours became much more extended—my experiences and knowledge of all shades of American life and character the more varied and complete in consequence.Years before, when at school in England, I had made some acquaintance with shorthand, in order to save me trouble in noting down lectures—for the purpose of afterwards writing themes thereon, as we had to do at Queen’s College, under “old Jack’s” rule; and, having kept up the acquisition, I found it now of considerable use, for, it caused me to be sent about much more than might otherwise have been the case—to report the speeches of prominent public men, whether they were “stumping the provinces” throughout the Union, or basking in the blazing “bunkum” of the capital at Washington.What an enormous amount of empty talk have I not had to attend to, noting it down carefully, as if it were of the most vital importance that not a syllable should be lost!I have listened, with amused ears often, and busy pencil, to the diabolical denunciations of our poor ill-used country, which have long since made famous Senator Sumner—the greatest Anglophobist in the States; hearkened to Horace Greeley’s eager utterances, delivered in thin falsetto voice, wherein he urged, as he urged to the last, universal brotherhood and reconciliation between the North and South; heard Andrew Johnson, the whilom president and one of the ablest who ever occupied that position for ages, defend himself against impeachment—that had been promoted through the bitter animosity of a hostile faction—with the eloquence and legal ability of a Cicero and the fearlessness of a Catiline:—Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans, where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never desert him—“The Beast,” as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him—pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York “rowdies,” who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and eggs that had seen their better days:—reported Frederick Douglas, the tinted expounder of “advanced Ethiopianism,” who regularly tells his audiences—of sympathising abolitioners—that he had been “bought for three thousand dollars when a slave”—a precious deal more than he was worth, to judge by his appearance—although, he somehow always forgets to speak of the present price he asks, for his “vote and interest!”Reported Miss Anna Dickenson, the female champion, of whom report says that she loveth the forementioned negro advocate even more as “a man” than as “a brother,” and who blinks her eyes and rolls out her sentences at such a rate that the one dazzle while the other appal the poor stenographer who may have to “follow” her:—reported Mesdames Susan B Anthony—please notice the “B”—and Cady Stanton, besides a host of other strenuous assertors of “woman’s rights” and male wrongs—in respect of petticoat government, “free love,” and various similar amiable, progressional theories that mark the advancement of our Transatlantic sisterhood!—Yes, I have reported each and all of these as they declaimed to their glory and satisfaction—and my disgust and impatience, when their loquacity has extended to such a length that I have had to sit up all night in order to write out my shorthand notes in time for the waiting press—confound them!Beyond this, I have “interviewed” politicians of every school and temper—from Fernando Wood, the chief “wire puller” of swindling Tammany Hall, up to doughty, tongue-tied General Grant, the “useless slaughtering” commander of the northern forces during the civil war—having had the pleasure of learning from the former how “logs” are “rolled” in the furtherance of party ends; and, from the latter, although the information only came out in dribbled monosyllables in answer to gently disguised questions, for the reticent warrior can hardly put two words of a sentence together, that he had been “bred up a farmer,” and, considered himself “more fit” for “that state of life” than any other—in which opinion, as he has never been publicly tried in the calling, I cordially agree with him.I have, likewise, “interviewed” prize-fighters, before they proceeded to take action in some “merry little mill;” Mormon prophets’ wives, who had come east to purchase Parisian finery for the after delectation of Utah eyes, and the envy of other polygamous families not so favoured as they; Chinese missions, under the escort of a Burlinghame; condemned criminals, awaiting the fatal noose, and who wished to give their “last speech and confession” to the world; Japanese jugglers, who expressed their opinion of the States—the main object of every reporter’s cross-examination generally—in a sort of phonographic language, too, in which the signs were feats of legerdemain and the “arbitrary characters,” the butterfly and basket tricks!In fact, I “interviewed” everybody that was worth “interviewing,” and who could be got at to be “interviewed.”Seen life?I should just think I had. I would not dream of fancying myself in a position to give any trustworthy opinion on the subject of America and its people, unless I had thus mixed amongst all classes of the community during a lengthened stay in the country—although, mind you, your “working-man’s friend,” and “trades’ union delegate,” and “Alliance” teetotaller, and “liberal” peer, and disestablishing Nonconformist—tourists all of only three weeks’ experience—think they can take in, in one glance, the whole extent of a continent embracing some hundred million square miles, understanding the entire working of the “institutions,” of the “great republic” through travelling on a railroad from New York to Chicago!As you will have noticed, reporters over there are set to very varied work instead of being fixed in any one especial groove as in England.On the paper, for instance, to which I was attached, all the staff used, regularly in turn, to do the dramatic criticism at the various theatres. We, also, had to report the sermons at all the many churches of various religious denominations on Sunday—whether they were Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Universalist, or other which would tire you to even hear named; not omitting the “Spiritualists,” “Agapemonites,” and the “Peculiar People”—so, as was pointed out in an opposition paper at the time, we “took the devil and the deity on week days and Sundays alternately!”On the whole, putting the higher class of Americans on one side—I refer to those who mostly belong to the older families, in some instances tracing back their descent to the days of the Puritan Fathers, and who, having learnt culture and refinement abroad, rarely mix in public life in the States—the general faith and morality of our Yankee “cousins” have never been so tersely described as in the “Pious Editor’s Creed” of theBiglow Papers, which were written, as you are doubtless aware, by an American, too:—“I du believe in special waysO’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;The bread comes back in many days,An’ buttered, tu, for sartin;I mean in preyin’ till one bustsOn wut the party chooses,An’ in convartin’ public trustsTo very privit uses!”In one speciality, the New York journals, otherwise so inferior, set an example which might be imitated to advantage by their London contemporaries;—and, that is, in their news, the back-bone of an ostensible “news”-paper.I say nothing for their tone, which is essentially low—exhibiting, as it does, a tendency of rather pandering to the vitiated appetites of the mob than seeking to raise the standard of public taste and public manners; nor, for their literary power and status, as their leading articles are mostly a collection of loose sentences, strung loosely together without method or reasoning, and they frequently display such crass ignorance in the way of blunders in history and geography, as would shock an English school-boy.But then, their variety of intelligence from all parts of the world, telegraphic and specially written, in one morning’s issue, is greater than you would gather in any one of our dailies in the consecutive numbers of a week!Take away the leading articles, foreign correspondence, and parliamentary intelligence of our Jupiters of the press; and what have you got left? Only some police reports and an attenuated column of telegrams—solely from France and Germany, or some other part of Europe.We have an Atlantic cable; what news of America do our newspapers publish through its means? Simply the rise or fall in the value of gold, and the price of Erie and other shares! We have a telegraph line to India:—of course, we get general intelligence, of interest to all people, respecting our great eastern, empire? No, we only hear what “shirtings” and cotton goods generally realise at Calcutta; and, the current rupee exchange of Bombay!It is the same case with regard to Australia and elsewhere.Although we have ample means of communication, the reading public know no more now about what is going on in “Greater Britain” than it did before the days of steam and telegraphs—comparatively-speaking. The Americans, on the contrary, learn every morning the least incident that has occurred in their remotest territory; besides, having European news in abundance—the Atlantic cable being used to an extent which would, judging by their slight patronage of it, send an English newspaper proprietor into a fit!We in London hardly keep pace with the the doings of our provincials within easy railway distance of the metropolis, much less take notice of our dependencies:—the existence of places without the London radius is seldom brought home to the readers of our daily metropolitan papers, except some “Frightful Murder,” or “Painful Accident,” or “Dreadful Calamity” occurs, to fasten ephemeral attention on them for awhile!Why, cannot we have such general news as the Americans have every day, in our papers, from all parts of the British empire, as well as that “foreign” intelligence, which is limited mostly to the adjacent continent?The expense, you say?Rubbish, my dear sir! Why, in the case of a war, no pains are spared to send out good correspondents of position and ability; no money grudged to bring home information, even if special modes of conveyance have to be organised. Surely, in times of peace, a tithe of this expenditure would not be wasted in making our colonies and the “mother” country better acquainted with each other—to the future benefit of both?I may be wrong, certainly, for we are all of us liable to error. You know—“Different peoples has different opinions—Some likes apples and some likes inions!”Still, I think that English readers are probably just as anxious to know what is going on in India, in Australia, the West Indies, and others of our outlying settlements—where their relatives and friends, and our country-men, are spreading our nation, our language, and our civilisation—as to hear that Monsieur Thiers has gone to Switzerland, or that Prince Esselkopf is taking “the waters” at Dullberg on the Rhine! Such, is my opinion—at all events.But, Min’s letters, eh?I’m just coming to them.

I hold it truth with him who sings,On one clear harp, in divers tones,That men may rise, on stepping stonesOf their dead lives, to higher things!

I hold it truth with him who sings,On one clear harp, in divers tones,That men may rise, on stepping stonesOf their dead lives, to higher things!

However grievous and crushing we may consider the trials and troubles of life to be, while they last, they are never altogether unbearable.

The load laid upon us is seldom weighted beyond the capacity of our endurance; and then, when in course of time our ills become alleviated, and the burden we have so long borne slides off our backs, the relief we feel is proportionately all the greater, our sense of light-heartedness and mental freedom, the more intense and complete.

Existence, to follow out the argument, is not always painted in shadow, its horizon obscured by dark-tinted nebulosities! On the contrary, there is ever some light infused into it, to bring out the deeper tones—“a silver lining” generally “to every cloud,” as the proverb has it. So, I now experienced, as I am going to tell you.

The second year of my residence in America opened much more brightly than the miserable twelvemonth I had just passed through might have led me to hope—if I could have hoped on any longer, that is!

Early in the spring, when the warming breath of the power-increasing sun was slowly unloosing the chains of winter—when the rapid-running Hudson was sweeping down huge blocks and fields of ice from Albany, flooding New York Bay with a collection of little bergs, so that it looked somewhat like the Arctic effect I had seen on the Thames on that happy Christmas of the past, only on ever so much larger a scale—I received letters from England that cheered me up wonderfully, changing the whole aspect of my life.

“Good news from home, good news for me, had come across the deep blue sea”—in the words of Gilmore’s touching ballad; and “though I wandered far away, my heart was full of joy to-day; for, friends across the ocean’s foam had sent to me good news from home”—to further paraphrase it.

Goodnews?—“glorious news,” rather, I should say!

Yes, I had not only a glad, welcome letter from Miss Pimpernell, in which the dear little old lady made me laugh and cry again; but, I also heard from the good vicar, who was one of the worst correspondents in the world, never putting pen to paper, save in the compilation of his weekly sermons, except under the most dire necessity, or kindly compulsion.

To receive an epistle from him was an event!

And, what do you think he wrote to me about? What, can you imagine, made dear little Miss Pimpernell’s lengthy missive—scribed as it was in the most puzzling of calligraphies—of so engrossing an interest, that I read it again and again; valuing it more than all her previous budgets of parish gossip put together, entertaining as I thought them before?

Once, twice, three times?

No, I do not believe you can guess what it was that gave me such delight in the “good news from home,” sharp and shrewd though you may think yourself.

If you will take my advice, you had better treat it as a conundrum and “give it up.”

Don’t keep you in suspense, eh?

Well then, I will tell you—here goes.

It is a long story—too long to describe in detail; but the upshot of it was that my kind friend the vicar, cognisant of the sincere affection that existed between my darling and myself, and knowing the suffering that had been caused to us both by the enforced silence which we had to maintain towards each other, had interceded with Mrs Clyde on our behalf; and, what is more, had done so successfully!

There, fancy that! Don’t you think I had sufficient reason to be rejoiced?

Min and I were to be allowed to write to each other for a year—as “friends,” a condition of intimacy to which her mother seemed to attach a good deal of point, as she had made it an obligatory proviso to our correspondence. Mrs Clyde had, in addition to this, tacked on a sweeping clause to the agreement, to the effect that, in case my prospects at the end of the year should not warrant my returning to England and claiming Min as my promised wife—prospects of a short engagement and an easy settlement being also satisfactory—the whole negotiation should fall to the ground and be considered null and void; we, reverting to our original and hopeless position of soi-disant strangers or “friends” at a distance, and looking upon the interlude of our letter-writing as if it had never occurred.

I did not give much thought, however, to this ultimatum.

I was too full of happiness at the idea of being allowed to correspond at once with my darling, and hear from her own dear self after the weary months that had passed since our separation. Why, I would be able to tell her all my plans and hopes and fears, conscious that her sympathy would never fail to congratulate me in success; condole with me, cheer me, encourage me, in failure!

And then, her letters! What a feast they would be, coming like grateful dew on the thirsty soil of my heart—sunshine succeeding to the April shower of disappointment that lay on my memory. Her letters! They would be so many little Mins, visiting me to soothe my exile, and bringing me, face to face and soul to soul, in the spirit, with their loving autotype at home!

I was nerved to action at once.

Before the day on which I received the welcome intelligence was one hour older, I had sat me down and penned a hurried sheet of ecstatic rapture to my darling—the first number of our delightful little serial which was going to be regularly issued every fortnight until further notice in time for posting on mail days! I only just managed to catch the European packet, so I could not write a very long letter on this occasion—as I had also to answer the vicar’s and Miss Pimpernell’s communications; but I said quite enough, I think, to let my darling know, that, although she had not been able to hear from me directly before, she had never been out of my thoughts.

You may be sure, too, that I did not forget to send a short note to Mrs Clyde, thanking her for her kindness to us both. Indeed, Iwasgrateful to her; for serious consideration of my past conduct had led me to think that she might have only judged wisely in her opinion as to what was the best course to adopt for her daughter’s future happiness. Now, she had amply atoned for her former harshness, as I esteemed it, by her permission for our correspondence; and, notwithstanding that she never responded to my note, I regarded her thenceforth in the light of a friend.

On reading over the vicar’s letter after getting this happy business concluded, I saw—what had escaped my notice at first—that he had not been content with merely exerting his influence with Mrs Clyde for my benefit. His good offices had gone much further. He had again spoken for me to his patron, the bishop—who, you may recollect, was the means of my getting that appointment to the Obstructor General’s department; and my old friend wrote that they had great hopes of being able to procure me a nice little secretaryship under Government, which would probably bring me in enough income to marry upon.—Only think!

What do you say to that, eh?

It was true, though; or the vicar would never have expressed himself so confidently.

He added, that it was best for me to remain where I was in the meanwhile, persevering in my resolution of living a steady life, and that all might turn out well for me. He said, that my interests should not be neglected in my absence; and, that there would be no use of my returning until I got something certain.

His words, and this amicable settlement of matters between my darling and myself, awoke a new life in me. I did not despair any longer. I felt that God had at last heard not only my prayers, but also those of her, who, I knew, was praying for me at home; and that, if He had not appeared to grant my former petitions, the answer to them had been withheld for the all-wise purpose of making me look to Him more earnestly than I might have done, if prosperity had rewarded my first effort! Before, I had trusted entirely to myself, never thinking of appealing to His aid.

Now, I assure you, I could have struggled on to the death—even had Fortune still gone against me even in America; but, the fickle goddess alike altered her expressionthere, as circumstances improved for mehere, so that, I was not called upon to exercise any further endurance in adversity.

My temporal troubles ended as my more serious difficulties disappeared—all being in due accordance with the old adage which tells us that “it never rains but it pours.”

One morning, soon after hearing from England, as I was conning over the advertisement columns of theNew York Herald, I chanced on a notice which immediately caught my eye. An “editor” was wanted, without delay, at the office of one of the other leading-journals of the city, where applications were requested from all desirous of taking the “situation vacant.” Who could this have reference to, but me?

I thought so, at all events, and “exploited” the supposition.

I did not allow the grass to grow under my feet, I can assure you.

I hurried off instanter to the address mentioned; and, although newspaper men of the New World, unlike ours, are uncommonly early birds, getting up matutinally betimes so as to catch the typical worm—in which respect they resemble the entire business population of Transatlantica—I found, on my arrival, that I was the first candidate who had appeared on the scene.

It was a good omen, for your “live Yankee” likes “smartness;” consequently, I was sanguine of success.

You may, peradventure, be “surprised to hear” of my thinking myself fit for such a post, having had such a slight acquaintance with literature at home?

That did not dissuade me, however, in the least.

I have so great a confidence in myself, that I would really take the command of the Channel fleet to-morrow if it were offered to me—as Earl Russell proposed to do, when he was simple “Lord John;” and, as a civilian First Lord of the Admirality has since done, although he possessed so little nautical knowledge that he might not have been able to tell you the difference between a cathead and a capstan bar, or, how to distinguish a “dinghy” from the “second cutter.” I suppose he thought, like Mr Toots, that, “it didn’t matter!”

Conceit, you say?

Not at all.—Only self-reliance, one of the most available qualities for getting on in the world; for, if a man does not believe in himself, how on earth can he expect other people to believe in him?

“Guess” I posed you there!—to use one of my patent Americanisms.

Besides, an American “editor,” if you please, is of a very different stamp to an English one. The “learned lexicographer”—and pedantic old bore, by the way—Doctor Johnson, defined the individual in question to be “one who prepares or revises any literary work for publication;” and, we generally associate the name with the supreme head of a journalistic staff—he who is addressed indignantly as “sir” by those weak-minded persons who write letters to newspapers, and who signs himself familiarly “Ed.” But, at the other side of the Atlantic, the term bears a much wider application, extending to all “connected with the press”—from the “head cook and bottle-washer,” down, nearly, to that bottle imp, the printer’s “devil.”

Political writers; correspondents, “special” and “local;” reviewers; reporters; stenographers, or “gallery” men; dramatic and musical critics; “paragraphists”—the new name for fire and murder manifolders, and other “flimsy” compilers; and, penny-a-liners:—each and all, are, severally and collectively, “editors,” beneath the star-spangled banner of equality and freedom.

Hence, there was not so much effrontery after all in my applying for the position, eh?

The proprietor of the paper whom I now canvassed did not think so, at least; andhewas the party chiefly concerned in the affair besides myself; so, I should like to know whatyou’vegot to do with it?

He was a “Down-easter,” a class of American I had already learnt specially to dislike—the ideal and real, “Yankee” of the States; but, he spoke to the point, as most of them do, without any waste of words or travelling round the subject—more than can be said for some “Britishers” I know!

He was leaning over the counter of the advertisement office as I entered, settling some calculation of greenbacks with the cashier, and “guessed,” ere I had opened my mouth to explain my presence, that I had come about that “vacancy up-stairs.”

“Been in the newspapering line before?” was his next interrogatory—a very pertinent one; for, Transatlantic journalists, as a rule, manage to try every trade and calling previously to sinking down to “literature”—similarly to some of those bookseller’s “hacks” over here who mortgage themselves to flash publishers when all other means of livelihood have failed them.

When I answered “Yes” to this question, he did not wait to hear anything further.

“Go up-stairs and try your hand,” said he—“we’ll soon see what you’ll amount to, I reckon. We don’t want any references here. We take a man as we find him. Guess I’ll give you twenty-five dollars a week, anyhow, for one week sartain; and then, if we suit each other, we can raise the pile bimeby. Say, are you on?”

I “guessed” Iwas“on;” and, went up-stairs to the paste-and-scissors purlieus with much gusto.

It was a very good commencement for me—I who had nothing to bless myself with before, for, the salary would pay my board and lodging twice over. It was a beginning, at any rate; and, as we subsequently did “suit each other,” my down-east friend behaved very fairly, keeping to his promise of “raising my pile”—a synonym for increasing the weekly sum of “greenbacks” he allowed me for my labours. I had never any reason to repent the bargain—nor did I.

The work I had to do was by no means arduous, although, in many respects, of a novel character. From the fact that my residence in America had not been yet sufficiently extended to enable me to master the ins and outs of Transatlantic politics, the leading articles—or “editorials” as they are there styled—which I had to write were but few in number, and entirely referring to social subjects of local interest; notwithstanding that I was occasionally allowed to enlighten the Manhattan mind in the matter of European affairs. If my special “editor’s” duties were thus light, I made up, however, for their deficiency, by enlarging upon the skeleton telegrams that came every night across the ocean—“expanding news,” so to speak—and by also writing, on the arrival of every steamer, while seated in the back parlour of the journal’s office in New York, the most graphic special correspondent’s letters from Paris and London!

With regard to the telegrams. Half a dozen words only might come over the cable, to say, for instance, that the late Emperor Napoleon, who was the then supposed arbiter of the Old World, had nominated Count somebody or General that to a fresh portfolio; or that, the “scion of the house of Hapsburgh” was suffering from tooth-ache; or that, John Bright was going to Dublin to lecture “on Irish affairs.”

My duties were such, that, when these telegrams appeared, in all the glories of print, the next morning, they had grown in such a miraculous way, that they took up half a yard of room, instead of but a few lines of type. Had you read them, you would have found their contents thoroughly explanatory, entering into the most minute details—as to how Napoleon’s change of ministers would affect “the situation;” how poor Francis Joseph’s attack of caries might, could and would raise again the ghost of “the Eastern question;” how the advent of the great Radical leader in Ireland would be the signal for a general Fenian uprising—and, so on.

Ionlymention these cases in point, to describe the way in which I clothed my skeletons with solid substrata of flesh and blood. The public, you see, had only so much the more information for their money—which was, probably, just as reliable as if it had been really “wired” under the Atlantic! Nobody was the wiser; nobody, the sufferer by the deception; so, what was “the odds” so long as they were correspondingly “happy”—in their ignorance?

My correspondent’s letters were much more mendacious compositions.

I am quite ashamed to tell you what long columns of flagrant description I was in the habit of reeling off—touching certain races in the Bois de Boulogne, soirees at the Tuileries, and working-men’s “demonstrations” in Hyde Park—of which I was only an imaginative spectator!

I used to rake up all my old reminiscences of the boulevards and cafés and prados, giving details concerning the “petit-crèvés” and “cocottes,” the “flaneurs” and “grandes dames” of the once “gay” capital—gay no longer; and, interspersing them with veracious reports respecting the latest hidden thoughts of “Badinguet,” and vivid descriptions of the respective toilets of the Empress Eugenie, Baroness de B—, Madame la Comtesse C—, la belle Marquise d’E—, and all the other fashionable letters of the alphabet—chronicling the very latest achievements in “Robes en train” and “Costumes à ravir” of the great artist Worth. Even the men folk of America—“shoddy” of course—dote on those accounts of European toilets, which we never see given in any of our papers, excepting where the appearance of the Queen’s Drawing-Room may be passingly noted; or, when theMorning Postexhausts itself over a “marriage in high life.”

When my spurious intelligence was dated from London, I had to draw on a fertile memory for popular rumours concerning revolutionary doctrine, and express a conviction that things were not going very well with John Bull, politically or socially, hinting, also, at the prospect of an early Irish rebellion—and, generally, manufacture similar “news” of a kind that is peculiarly grateful to the jaundiced palates of our English-hating, jealousy-mad cousins over the way.

When Min came to know of this practice of mine, she did not like it. She wrote to me to say that it was acting untruthfully to pretend to correspond from a place when I was not actually there.

The habit was certainly reprehensible, I admit, as I admitted to her; but, then, what can a writer do if blessed with a vivid imagination?

Besides, I had a precedent in Goldsmith’sCitizen of the World, you know; and, as Byron says—

”—After all, what is a lie? ’Tis butThe truth in masquerade; and I defyHistorians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to putA fact without some leaven of a lie.The very shadow of true truth would shutUp annals, revelations, poesy,And prophecy—except it should be datedSome years before the incidents related.”

”—After all, what is a lie? ’Tis butThe truth in masquerade; and I defyHistorians, heroes, lawyers, priests, to putA fact without some leaven of a lie.The very shadow of true truth would shutUp annals, revelations, poesy,And prophecy—except it should be datedSome years before the incidents related.”

Even on this side of the water, too, authors have frequently to use their pens as if they did not chance to possess a conscience—one of the worst possessions for any aspirant in the journalistic profession to be encumbered with, I may remark by the way!

You seem to be astonished at my observation? I will explain what I mean more lucidly.

Supposing a journalist belongs to a Conservative organ, he must back up the party, don’t you see, at all hazards; and, although in his inmost heart he may have a faint suspicion that Mr Disraeli’s popularity is on the wane, it will not do for him to write his leading articles to that effect exactly, eh? Oh, dear no! He has to assert, on the contrary, that “the masses” are loudly calling onPunch’sfriend “Dizzy” to save England from the utter extinguishment predicted by our dear Bismarck the other day at Versailles! While, should your potent pressman, on the other hand, wield the goose-quill of any ponderous or lively daily paper that may advocate “Liberalism,” and support the elect of Greenwich through thick and thin, do you think he gives you his candid opinion anent “the people’s William” then in power, or respecting that bamboozling Alabama business?

Not he!

Why, he knows, as well as you do, of the tergiversation that has distinguished the entire political career of the Risque-tout Prime Minister; and yet, he has to speak of him as if he were the greatest statesman England has ever seen—hanging on his words as silver, when knowing them all the while to be but clap-trap Dutch metal! Convinced, as he must be, that the Washington Treaty is one of the trashiest pieces of diplomacy that has ever disgraced a government, and that the whole community has been dissatisfied at having to make the Americans a nice little present of three millions of money—in settlement of a claim for which neither the law of nations nor moral opinion held us responsible—he is obliged to argue that it is “a splendid triumph for the ministry,” and that the “public is overjoyed” to grease Uncle Sam’s outstretched palm!

You know, the deeds of “our William”must bebolstered up; lest “waverers” should waver off to the ranks of the “Constitutionalists,” and the “great Liberal party” come to grief at the next general election!

So, how can a journalist have a conscience? You see I’m right, and that I had some excuse for my foreign correspondence of American origin.

I lay the whole blame of the transaction, however, on the narrow shoulders of my lanky “down-east” proprietor:—heis the man to blame in the matter, not I!

After a time, I got tired of this work. I then left the journal on which I had been first engaged—with no hard feelings on either side, let it be mentioned—to join the literary staff of theAurora Borealis, an organ of quite a different complexion, and of considerable notoriety in the empire city, as it was famed for its bizarre sensations and teeming news.

Here my labours became much more extended—my experiences and knowledge of all shades of American life and character the more varied and complete in consequence.

Years before, when at school in England, I had made some acquaintance with shorthand, in order to save me trouble in noting down lectures—for the purpose of afterwards writing themes thereon, as we had to do at Queen’s College, under “old Jack’s” rule; and, having kept up the acquisition, I found it now of considerable use, for, it caused me to be sent about much more than might otherwise have been the case—to report the speeches of prominent public men, whether they were “stumping the provinces” throughout the Union, or basking in the blazing “bunkum” of the capital at Washington.

What an enormous amount of empty talk have I not had to attend to, noting it down carefully, as if it were of the most vital importance that not a syllable should be lost!

I have listened, with amused ears often, and busy pencil, to the diabolical denunciations of our poor ill-used country, which have long since made famous Senator Sumner—the greatest Anglophobist in the States; hearkened to Horace Greeley’s eager utterances, delivered in thin falsetto voice, wherein he urged, as he urged to the last, universal brotherhood and reconciliation between the North and South; heard Andrew Johnson, the whilom president and one of the ablest who ever occupied that position for ages, defend himself against impeachment—that had been promoted through the bitter animosity of a hostile faction—with the eloquence and legal ability of a Cicero and the fearlessness of a Catiline:—

Reported Ben Butler, the ex-general, and now lawyer, of New Orleans, where he attached to himself an infamous notoriety, that will never desert him—“The Beast,” as Brick Pomeroy, the western wit, calls him—pelting his prosy platitudes and muddy language at the New York “rowdies,” who responded with a more practical shower, of dead cats, and eggs that had seen their better days:—reported Frederick Douglas, the tinted expounder of “advanced Ethiopianism,” who regularly tells his audiences—of sympathising abolitioners—that he had been “bought for three thousand dollars when a slave”—a precious deal more than he was worth, to judge by his appearance—although, he somehow always forgets to speak of the present price he asks, for his “vote and interest!”

Reported Miss Anna Dickenson, the female champion, of whom report says that she loveth the forementioned negro advocate even more as “a man” than as “a brother,” and who blinks her eyes and rolls out her sentences at such a rate that the one dazzle while the other appal the poor stenographer who may have to “follow” her:—reported Mesdames Susan B Anthony—please notice the “B”—and Cady Stanton, besides a host of other strenuous assertors of “woman’s rights” and male wrongs—in respect of petticoat government, “free love,” and various similar amiable, progressional theories that mark the advancement of our Transatlantic sisterhood!—Yes, I have reported each and all of these as they declaimed to their glory and satisfaction—and my disgust and impatience, when their loquacity has extended to such a length that I have had to sit up all night in order to write out my shorthand notes in time for the waiting press—confound them!

Beyond this, I have “interviewed” politicians of every school and temper—from Fernando Wood, the chief “wire puller” of swindling Tammany Hall, up to doughty, tongue-tied General Grant, the “useless slaughtering” commander of the northern forces during the civil war—having had the pleasure of learning from the former how “logs” are “rolled” in the furtherance of party ends; and, from the latter, although the information only came out in dribbled monosyllables in answer to gently disguised questions, for the reticent warrior can hardly put two words of a sentence together, that he had been “bred up a farmer,” and, considered himself “more fit” for “that state of life” than any other—in which opinion, as he has never been publicly tried in the calling, I cordially agree with him.

I have, likewise, “interviewed” prize-fighters, before they proceeded to take action in some “merry little mill;” Mormon prophets’ wives, who had come east to purchase Parisian finery for the after delectation of Utah eyes, and the envy of other polygamous families not so favoured as they; Chinese missions, under the escort of a Burlinghame; condemned criminals, awaiting the fatal noose, and who wished to give their “last speech and confession” to the world; Japanese jugglers, who expressed their opinion of the States—the main object of every reporter’s cross-examination generally—in a sort of phonographic language, too, in which the signs were feats of legerdemain and the “arbitrary characters,” the butterfly and basket tricks!

In fact, I “interviewed” everybody that was worth “interviewing,” and who could be got at to be “interviewed.”

Seen life?

I should just think I had. I would not dream of fancying myself in a position to give any trustworthy opinion on the subject of America and its people, unless I had thus mixed amongst all classes of the community during a lengthened stay in the country—although, mind you, your “working-man’s friend,” and “trades’ union delegate,” and “Alliance” teetotaller, and “liberal” peer, and disestablishing Nonconformist—tourists all of only three weeks’ experience—think they can take in, in one glance, the whole extent of a continent embracing some hundred million square miles, understanding the entire working of the “institutions,” of the “great republic” through travelling on a railroad from New York to Chicago!

As you will have noticed, reporters over there are set to very varied work instead of being fixed in any one especial groove as in England.

On the paper, for instance, to which I was attached, all the staff used, regularly in turn, to do the dramatic criticism at the various theatres. We, also, had to report the sermons at all the many churches of various religious denominations on Sunday—whether they were Methodist, Episcopalian, Baptist, Lutheran, Roman Catholic, Unitarian, Universalist, or other which would tire you to even hear named; not omitting the “Spiritualists,” “Agapemonites,” and the “Peculiar People”—so, as was pointed out in an opposition paper at the time, we “took the devil and the deity on week days and Sundays alternately!”

On the whole, putting the higher class of Americans on one side—I refer to those who mostly belong to the older families, in some instances tracing back their descent to the days of the Puritan Fathers, and who, having learnt culture and refinement abroad, rarely mix in public life in the States—the general faith and morality of our Yankee “cousins” have never been so tersely described as in the “Pious Editor’s Creed” of theBiglow Papers, which were written, as you are doubtless aware, by an American, too:—

“I du believe in special waysO’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;The bread comes back in many days,An’ buttered, tu, for sartin;I mean in preyin’ till one bustsOn wut the party chooses,An’ in convartin’ public trustsTo very privit uses!”

“I du believe in special waysO’ prayin’ an’ convartin’;The bread comes back in many days,An’ buttered, tu, for sartin;I mean in preyin’ till one bustsOn wut the party chooses,An’ in convartin’ public trustsTo very privit uses!”

In one speciality, the New York journals, otherwise so inferior, set an example which might be imitated to advantage by their London contemporaries;—and, that is, in their news, the back-bone of an ostensible “news”-paper.

I say nothing for their tone, which is essentially low—exhibiting, as it does, a tendency of rather pandering to the vitiated appetites of the mob than seeking to raise the standard of public taste and public manners; nor, for their literary power and status, as their leading articles are mostly a collection of loose sentences, strung loosely together without method or reasoning, and they frequently display such crass ignorance in the way of blunders in history and geography, as would shock an English school-boy.

But then, their variety of intelligence from all parts of the world, telegraphic and specially written, in one morning’s issue, is greater than you would gather in any one of our dailies in the consecutive numbers of a week!

Take away the leading articles, foreign correspondence, and parliamentary intelligence of our Jupiters of the press; and what have you got left? Only some police reports and an attenuated column of telegrams—solely from France and Germany, or some other part of Europe.

We have an Atlantic cable; what news of America do our newspapers publish through its means? Simply the rise or fall in the value of gold, and the price of Erie and other shares! We have a telegraph line to India:—of course, we get general intelligence, of interest to all people, respecting our great eastern, empire? No, we only hear what “shirtings” and cotton goods generally realise at Calcutta; and, the current rupee exchange of Bombay!

It is the same case with regard to Australia and elsewhere.

Although we have ample means of communication, the reading public know no more now about what is going on in “Greater Britain” than it did before the days of steam and telegraphs—comparatively-speaking. The Americans, on the contrary, learn every morning the least incident that has occurred in their remotest territory; besides, having European news in abundance—the Atlantic cable being used to an extent which would, judging by their slight patronage of it, send an English newspaper proprietor into a fit!

We in London hardly keep pace with the the doings of our provincials within easy railway distance of the metropolis, much less take notice of our dependencies:—the existence of places without the London radius is seldom brought home to the readers of our daily metropolitan papers, except some “Frightful Murder,” or “Painful Accident,” or “Dreadful Calamity” occurs, to fasten ephemeral attention on them for awhile!

Why, cannot we have such general news as the Americans have every day, in our papers, from all parts of the British empire, as well as that “foreign” intelligence, which is limited mostly to the adjacent continent?

The expense, you say?

Rubbish, my dear sir! Why, in the case of a war, no pains are spared to send out good correspondents of position and ability; no money grudged to bring home information, even if special modes of conveyance have to be organised. Surely, in times of peace, a tithe of this expenditure would not be wasted in making our colonies and the “mother” country better acquainted with each other—to the future benefit of both?

I may be wrong, certainly, for we are all of us liable to error. You know—

“Different peoples has different opinions—Some likes apples and some likes inions!”

“Different peoples has different opinions—Some likes apples and some likes inions!”

Still, I think that English readers are probably just as anxious to know what is going on in India, in Australia, the West Indies, and others of our outlying settlements—where their relatives and friends, and our country-men, are spreading our nation, our language, and our civilisation—as to hear that Monsieur Thiers has gone to Switzerland, or that Prince Esselkopf is taking “the waters” at Dullberg on the Rhine! Such, is my opinion—at all events.

But, Min’s letters, eh?

I’m just coming to them.

Chapter Twelve.“Homeward Bound.”There’s Jack has made a wondrous marriage;There’s laughing Tom is laughing yet;There’s brave Augustus drives his carriage;There’s poor old Fred in the “Gazette;”On James’s head the grass is growing;Good Lord! the world has wagged apaceSince here we set the claret flowing,And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.Min’s letters! Ah, how I expected them, awaited them, devoured them!—from the first tender response that came in answer to mine, to the last little darling oblong-enveloped, dainty hand-written missive I received—ere I shook off the dust of the “Empire City” from my New-World-wearied feet, and left Sandy Hook behind me!It would be a vain task, should I attempt to describe to you the agony of suspense in which I watched every week for the arrival of the European mail; for, I’m sure, that Sir Samuel Cunard himself could not have evinced so deep an interest in the safety of his steamers as I did; no, not even if they had been uninsured, and the underwriters declined all offers of “risk” premiums, be they never so high and tempting!Long before the regularScotia, theJava, or theRussiacould, in their several turns, possibly have achieved the ocean passage, I was on the look out for them; prophesying all manner of disasters in the event of their being delayed; and overjoyed, with a frenzied rapture, should they be signalled in advance of their anticipated time! And then, when they had glided up New York Bay and anchored in the Hudson, how rapidly would my eager impatience bear me to the dingy old Post office “down town,” where I would sometimes have to wait for hours before the letters were sorted and delivered!Should there be none for me, I was in despair—imagining all the various calamities, probable and improbable, that might have happened—although I might have heard from England only a few days previously; while, should I obtain a dearly-prized note from my darling, I was in ecstasy—only to be on the look out for the next mail a moment afterwards!I was never satisfied.I remember an official in the Ann Street Bureau asking me one day, what made me “so almight lonesome” about the “old country;” and “guessing,” when I took no notice of his question, that I had “a young woman over the water.”Young woman, indeed! If looks could kill, that inquisitive and ill-mannered person was a dead man on the spot!I never heard anything so impertinent in my life!Her letters!I could almost see, as I read them, the dear, earnest, soul-lit grey eyes, gazing once more into mine; the loving little hand that penned each darling sentence. In fancy, I could mark the changing expressions that swept across the sweet Madonna face, whose every line I knew so well, as, down-bent on the rustling paper, some sad or happy recollection filled her mind for awhile, in detailing those little events of her daily life which she related to please me. She wrote to me easily and naturally, just as if she were talking to me—the greatest charm a letter can have. The written words appeared to speak out to me in silvery intonations and musical rhythm:—the very violet ink seemed scented with her breath!Dear little Miss Pimpernell had endeavoured to satisfy, as far as she was able, the longing cravings of my heart for any intelligence about Min—how she was looking, if she saw her often, did she think of me, if she was happy or miserable at my absence; but, how little could her budgets compare with the letters I now got regularly, once a fortnight at least, from Min herself—the fountain-head of all my desires!She told me everything—where she went, what she did, even what she thought—in simple, artless language that made me know her better, in the thorough workings of her nature, than during those long months of our intimacy at home.I had plenty of news, too; besides information, on sundry little points, which was only of interest to us two.Nothing passed in Saint Canon’s with which I was not made acquainted; and, I now learnt much that Miss Pimpernell had not told, or which I had been unable to make out and understand, through the difficulties I met with in the dear old lady’s penmanship.Her writing resembled more the intricate movements of a particularly sharp-legged and frisky spider, previously dipped in very pale ink, over the pages she laboured at so painstakingly for my benefit, than any ordinary calligraphy!She, however, believed it especially neat and intelligible; and, I would not have undeceived the dear old soul for the world!In one instance, she had mentioned—so I deciphered the intelligence—something about Horner marrying, as I thought, Lizzie Dangler; but, I now found out from Min, that my Downing Street friend wasengagedonly, not married; and, that the object of his choice was Seraphine Dasher, instead of the former young lady—the error being easily explainable in the fact, that all of Miss Pimpernell’s capital letters, with the exception of her “B’s” and “H’s,” bore a close family resemblance to each other; while, the remaining components of her words were composed of a single dash, and besides that, nothing. Hence, arose the mistake of my confounding the two names, both of which commenced with a “D”—which it was a wonder that I saw at all, it being Miss Pimpernell’s weakest capital!But, I knew now who had really got the handkerchief thrown by the Sultan of Downing Street; while Lizzie Dangler was yet free to bless some more sagacious swain. So, also, was lisping, little, flaxen-haired Baby Blake, whom I had believed much more likely to capture Horner than the Seraph, as she was always chaffing him and making light of his attentions.However, girls are so deceptive, that, unless you are let into the secret, you can never find out the happy individuals whom they really favour. We men folk, on the contrary, soon contrive to exhibit the state of our feelings to unsympathising outsiders, who laugh at us and deride us thereanent! We are “creatures of impulse:”—they, the most barefaced little dissimulators possible!Fancy, Horner being married, though!“Bai-ey Je-ove!” It would be, to me, well-nigh incredible!Fancy his “popping the question” to Seraphine—who, I’m positive, must have giggled in his face when that interesting operation was gone through; and, then, his subsequent interview with Lady Dasher, who probably detailed for his instruction, how her “poor dear papa” had acted on a similar memorable occasion!I should only like to learn how many times his eye-glass was really appealed to, to help him out of a sentence; and, how frequently he said “Ba-iey Je-ove!” before the whole thing was arranged and his mind set at ease!The marriage was to take place very soon—really, all of our acquaintances were getting married, and having their courses of true love to run smoothly for them, unlike Min and I!After the ceremony was over between these twain, I was told that Lady Dasher—who, now that her two daughters would be “off her hands,” no longer had any necessity to keep up a separate establishment—was to move from The Terrace, with her fuchsias and other belongings, and take up her residence for the future with her first son-in-law, Mr Mawley; the curate being now ensconced in that villa, whose furnishing by old Shuffler, lang syne, had caused me so much jealousy and grief!Ah! Thiswasnews.I chuckled immensely over the idea of the relict of the gin distiller settling down like a wet blanket on the connubial couch of the curate!Whenever the ghost of “poor dear papa,” in a reminiscential form, was made to walk the earth again, I would be avenged for all the quips and jibes which Mawley had formerly selected me to receive! He would meet with an antagonist now, worthy of his carping, critical metal! I wished him joy of the situation!Mawley and Lady Dasher together in one house, permanently!I say no more.Is it not strange how you may live on and live on in some quiet country spot, or retired suburb, without anything ever occurring to vary the dull monotony of its even existence; and yet, the moment you go away from this whilom, stagnant neighbourhood—which you had got to believe was everlastingly unchangeable—change then succeeds change with startling rapidity:—as you at a distance hear from those friends whom you had left behind—to simmer on there, as you had simmered on, until the end of the chapter?Of course, from having become more interested with the deeds and designs of those actors that might be connected with the new scenes amidst which you may now be situated, you will not attach such importance to these events as you would probably have done had you been yet living on in the time-honoured routine of your old abiding-place. They are to you, at present, only so many little fly-blows on the scroll of time, so to speak. But, there was a period when you would have regarded them as of the utmost moment; and when, the deaths of people whom you thought would never die, the marriages of those that seemed the most unlikely subjects for matrimony, the flittings of persons of the “oldest inhabitant” class—that you calculated would stick-on there for ever, and their replacement by the advent of new families, whom you would have supposed to be the last in the world to settle down in the locality in question—would have been matters of nine days’ wonderment.It was so now with myself in, regard to Saint Canon’s.Horner’s engagement, Lady Dasher’s contemplated removal, the idea of the curate’s incubus—all of which would have once filled me with surprise, astonishment, delight—I only looked upon with half-amused interest.Even the intelligence that Miss Spight had joined the sisterhood organised by Brother Ignatius, hardly affected me as it would formerly have done.I belonged to another world now, as it were; and, the announcements of births—Mrs Mawley had already presented her lord and master with a little pledge of her affection—and bridals, and burials, at the two last of which I might once have assisted, hardly awoke a passing interest in me!I was too far removed from the orbit in which these phenomena were displayed.I felt that there were not many now in whom I felt concern at Saint Canon’s.No exceptions, you ask?Certainly, there were exceptions.I am astonished at your making the observation.How could I otherwise “prove the rule,” eh?Min told me that Monsieur Parole d’Honneur was as gay and as full of anecdote as of yore. She also told me, too, that the kind-hearted Frenchman having chanced to meet her out one day, long before she had been able to hear from me directly, had, in the most delicately-diplomatic way, led the conversation round to America, so that he might tell her that I was not only well, but doing well!This was at the time I had written a rapturous note to him, after my first interview with my friend, “Brown of Philadelphia,”—before, you may be tolerably certain, that philanthropical polisher had “sloped to Texas” with the capital Parole d’Honneur endowed me with.He did not mention that latter fact of his generosity to Min, however; but, she knew of it, for I told her of it when we parted, and she then said that she thanked him in her heart for his kindness to me, and would always “love” him for it—so she said!The vicar and Miss Pimpernell—also “exceptions,”—I heard, were just as usual; the former as much liked as ever by rich and poor alike, in the parish; the latter, trotting about still, with her big basket and creature comforts for those whom she spiritually visited.Old Shuffler, too, wobbled on, as he had wobbled on as far back as I could recollect, Min told me; and rolled his sound eye, and stared with his glass one, as glassily as then.I heard also that “Dicky Chips” was as frolicsome and light-hearted a bullfinch as when Min first had him, and had learnt several new tricks.But, poor old Catch—my dog—whom I had so loved, had died in my absence; not from old age, for he was but young, having only seen his fifth birthday; but, “full of honours,” as every one liked him and respected him who knew of his sagacity and faithfulness, and saw his honest brown eyes and handsome high cast head.Dear old doggy!I had had him from the time he was a month old; and he and I had hardly ever been, parted from that time until I went to America.He used to accompany me wherever I went, by day; and sleep across my room door at night.He never had had a harsh word from me but once, that I remember; and, that was respecting a certain little matter connected with a stray sheep, about which we happened to differ on the occasion.Poor Catch! I can fancy I hear his eager bark now. It was a welcome to which I looked forward on my return to England, as only secondary to the pleasure I would have in meeting Min; and, I confess, when I heard of his loss, I mourned him more than I had ever mourned one whom the world calls “friend,” before. He was faithful always; changing never. How many reputed “friends” will you find to act thus?I think that Lord Byron’s recollection of his trusty dog must have absolved him from a hundred character blots. Do you remember those lines he wrote to the memory of “Boatswain,” on the monument he erected in his honour at Newstead Abbey? I would like them on Catch’s tomb, if I only knew where the dear old fellow lies; for, what “Boatswain” was to Byron, so was he to me:—“In life the foremost friend,The first to welcome, foremost to defend,Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth,Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth!”Min’s news did not come all at once.It was spread over an expanse of many months, during which I was rambling over the States;—reporting this speaker and that;—studying “life and character” in every way—from the inspection of negro camp-meetings, where coloured saints expounded doctrinal views that would have made Wilberforce shudder, to participating in a presidential election, wherein I had the opportunity of seeing the inherent rottenness of the Transatlantic “institution” thoroughly exposed.When I was thus bustling about, amidst so many varied phases of life, I could not very well sympathise with the quiet doings of Saint Canon’s.But, on my return to my Brooklyn lodgings, when once more appointed to regular newspaper work at the office of the journal with which I was connected in New York, the old home longings returned also as strong as ever—stronger, as time went on!I got in the habit of again marking my almanack, as Robinson Crusoe notched his post, every day; saying to myself the while, that I was brought one day nearer to my darling as the sun went down; one day nearer as it rose on the morrow:—one day nearer to the date of my exile being ended!I remained in America much longer than I intended.However, as Mrs Clyde did not carry out her threat of closing our correspondence at the end of the first year of our quasi-engagement, I had still Min’s dear letters to encourage me and cheer me on.I do not know what I should have done without them.There was no benefit to be derived from my going back until the Government appointment, which the vicar had the promise of for me, should be vacant. But, this, the wretched old gentleman who continued to hold it, would not give up until he reached the age of superannuation, when he would be forced to retire—in which respect he was not unlike many old field officers in the army, and “flag” ditto in the navy, whowillpersist in remaining on the “active list” of both services long past the age of usefulness, to the prevention of younger men from getting on!O “seniority!”Thou art the curse of all classes of officialdom in England—“civil” and “military” alike!By-and-by, however, when my patience had become exhausted, and I was seriously thinking of starting home with the few hundred dollars I had made on the American press, the vicar wrote for me to come.The old gentleman—might his “shadow never be less,” I devoutly wished—had betaken himself to his plough after an arduous official service of forty years. He only retired, however, because he received a pension amounting to his full salary, for which he had striven and kept me out of his shoes so long. Putting the thought of this on one side, the secretaryship was now mine, as soon as I arrived to claim it—the sooner that was, the better, the vicar added, as if I needed any stimulus to return to home and my darling!What a delightful, darling letter Min sent to me, too!She told me that I was to start off immediately—“at once, sir,”—on receipt of her tender little missive. She was expecting me, looking for me, awaiting me!She had learnt all the songs I liked; had prepared the dresses in which I had said she looked best; would greet me, oh, so gladly!I was to keep my promise and arrive on Christmas-eve, when her mother would be happy to see me; and she—well, she didn’t know yet whethershewould speak to me or not:—it, really, depended whether I was “good!”I took my passage in a steamer leaving the next day; but, instead of getting home on Christmas-eve, I only arrived at Liverpool a day before the close of the year—six days late! However, I was in England at last, in the same dear land that held my darling; and she would forgive me, I knew, when she saw how glad I was to get back to her dear little self. “Naughty Frank!” she would say—“I won’t speak to you at all, sir!”And, wouldn’t she?Oh, dear no!All the way up to town from the fair city on the Mersey, the railway nymphs, whom I had previously noticed on my journey to Southampton, were as busy as then, with their musical strains.The burden of their present song, echoing through my heart, was,—“Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Going to see Min, without delay!Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Soon! Soon!! Soon!!”The last bars chiming in when the buffers joined the chorus with a “jolt, jolt, jolt.”As the train glided, at length—after some six hours of reeling and bumping and puffing along, the railway nymphs never slackening their song for an instant, into the Euston-square station—I saw the kind vicar and dear little Miss Pimpernell awaiting me on the platform.It was just like their usual kindness to come and meet me thus!I had telegraphed to them from Liverpool, telling them the time when I might hope to be in London; and, there they were to the minute, although I had never expected them, having only informed them of my coming, in order that they might let my darling know that I was on my way to her.I jumped out of the carriage before it stopped, in defiance of all the company’s bye-laws; and, advanced to clasp their outstretched hands. But—What was it, that I could read in the grave kind face of the one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side? What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never vibrated since?Min was dead!

There’s Jack has made a wondrous marriage;There’s laughing Tom is laughing yet;There’s brave Augustus drives his carriage;There’s poor old Fred in the “Gazette;”On James’s head the grass is growing;Good Lord! the world has wagged apaceSince here we set the claret flowing,And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

There’s Jack has made a wondrous marriage;There’s laughing Tom is laughing yet;There’s brave Augustus drives his carriage;There’s poor old Fred in the “Gazette;”On James’s head the grass is growing;Good Lord! the world has wagged apaceSince here we set the claret flowing,And drank, and ate the Bouillabaisse.

Min’s letters! Ah, how I expected them, awaited them, devoured them!—from the first tender response that came in answer to mine, to the last little darling oblong-enveloped, dainty hand-written missive I received—ere I shook off the dust of the “Empire City” from my New-World-wearied feet, and left Sandy Hook behind me!

It would be a vain task, should I attempt to describe to you the agony of suspense in which I watched every week for the arrival of the European mail; for, I’m sure, that Sir Samuel Cunard himself could not have evinced so deep an interest in the safety of his steamers as I did; no, not even if they had been uninsured, and the underwriters declined all offers of “risk” premiums, be they never so high and tempting!

Long before the regularScotia, theJava, or theRussiacould, in their several turns, possibly have achieved the ocean passage, I was on the look out for them; prophesying all manner of disasters in the event of their being delayed; and overjoyed, with a frenzied rapture, should they be signalled in advance of their anticipated time! And then, when they had glided up New York Bay and anchored in the Hudson, how rapidly would my eager impatience bear me to the dingy old Post office “down town,” where I would sometimes have to wait for hours before the letters were sorted and delivered!

Should there be none for me, I was in despair—imagining all the various calamities, probable and improbable, that might have happened—although I might have heard from England only a few days previously; while, should I obtain a dearly-prized note from my darling, I was in ecstasy—only to be on the look out for the next mail a moment afterwards!

I was never satisfied.

I remember an official in the Ann Street Bureau asking me one day, what made me “so almight lonesome” about the “old country;” and “guessing,” when I took no notice of his question, that I had “a young woman over the water.”

Young woman, indeed! If looks could kill, that inquisitive and ill-mannered person was a dead man on the spot!

I never heard anything so impertinent in my life!

Her letters!

I could almost see, as I read them, the dear, earnest, soul-lit grey eyes, gazing once more into mine; the loving little hand that penned each darling sentence. In fancy, I could mark the changing expressions that swept across the sweet Madonna face, whose every line I knew so well, as, down-bent on the rustling paper, some sad or happy recollection filled her mind for awhile, in detailing those little events of her daily life which she related to please me. She wrote to me easily and naturally, just as if she were talking to me—the greatest charm a letter can have. The written words appeared to speak out to me in silvery intonations and musical rhythm:—the very violet ink seemed scented with her breath!

Dear little Miss Pimpernell had endeavoured to satisfy, as far as she was able, the longing cravings of my heart for any intelligence about Min—how she was looking, if she saw her often, did she think of me, if she was happy or miserable at my absence; but, how little could her budgets compare with the letters I now got regularly, once a fortnight at least, from Min herself—the fountain-head of all my desires!

She told me everything—where she went, what she did, even what she thought—in simple, artless language that made me know her better, in the thorough workings of her nature, than during those long months of our intimacy at home.

I had plenty of news, too; besides information, on sundry little points, which was only of interest to us two.

Nothing passed in Saint Canon’s with which I was not made acquainted; and, I now learnt much that Miss Pimpernell had not told, or which I had been unable to make out and understand, through the difficulties I met with in the dear old lady’s penmanship.

Her writing resembled more the intricate movements of a particularly sharp-legged and frisky spider, previously dipped in very pale ink, over the pages she laboured at so painstakingly for my benefit, than any ordinary calligraphy!She, however, believed it especially neat and intelligible; and, I would not have undeceived the dear old soul for the world!

In one instance, she had mentioned—so I deciphered the intelligence—something about Horner marrying, as I thought, Lizzie Dangler; but, I now found out from Min, that my Downing Street friend wasengagedonly, not married; and, that the object of his choice was Seraphine Dasher, instead of the former young lady—the error being easily explainable in the fact, that all of Miss Pimpernell’s capital letters, with the exception of her “B’s” and “H’s,” bore a close family resemblance to each other; while, the remaining components of her words were composed of a single dash, and besides that, nothing. Hence, arose the mistake of my confounding the two names, both of which commenced with a “D”—which it was a wonder that I saw at all, it being Miss Pimpernell’s weakest capital!

But, I knew now who had really got the handkerchief thrown by the Sultan of Downing Street; while Lizzie Dangler was yet free to bless some more sagacious swain. So, also, was lisping, little, flaxen-haired Baby Blake, whom I had believed much more likely to capture Horner than the Seraph, as she was always chaffing him and making light of his attentions.

However, girls are so deceptive, that, unless you are let into the secret, you can never find out the happy individuals whom they really favour. We men folk, on the contrary, soon contrive to exhibit the state of our feelings to unsympathising outsiders, who laugh at us and deride us thereanent! We are “creatures of impulse:”—they, the most barefaced little dissimulators possible!

Fancy, Horner being married, though!

“Bai-ey Je-ove!” It would be, to me, well-nigh incredible!

Fancy his “popping the question” to Seraphine—who, I’m positive, must have giggled in his face when that interesting operation was gone through; and, then, his subsequent interview with Lady Dasher, who probably detailed for his instruction, how her “poor dear papa” had acted on a similar memorable occasion!

I should only like to learn how many times his eye-glass was really appealed to, to help him out of a sentence; and, how frequently he said “Ba-iey Je-ove!” before the whole thing was arranged and his mind set at ease!

The marriage was to take place very soon—really, all of our acquaintances were getting married, and having their courses of true love to run smoothly for them, unlike Min and I!

After the ceremony was over between these twain, I was told that Lady Dasher—who, now that her two daughters would be “off her hands,” no longer had any necessity to keep up a separate establishment—was to move from The Terrace, with her fuchsias and other belongings, and take up her residence for the future with her first son-in-law, Mr Mawley; the curate being now ensconced in that villa, whose furnishing by old Shuffler, lang syne, had caused me so much jealousy and grief!

Ah! Thiswasnews.

I chuckled immensely over the idea of the relict of the gin distiller settling down like a wet blanket on the connubial couch of the curate!

Whenever the ghost of “poor dear papa,” in a reminiscential form, was made to walk the earth again, I would be avenged for all the quips and jibes which Mawley had formerly selected me to receive! He would meet with an antagonist now, worthy of his carping, critical metal! I wished him joy of the situation!

Mawley and Lady Dasher together in one house, permanently!

I say no more.

Is it not strange how you may live on and live on in some quiet country spot, or retired suburb, without anything ever occurring to vary the dull monotony of its even existence; and yet, the moment you go away from this whilom, stagnant neighbourhood—which you had got to believe was everlastingly unchangeable—change then succeeds change with startling rapidity:—as you at a distance hear from those friends whom you had left behind—to simmer on there, as you had simmered on, until the end of the chapter?

Of course, from having become more interested with the deeds and designs of those actors that might be connected with the new scenes amidst which you may now be situated, you will not attach such importance to these events as you would probably have done had you been yet living on in the time-honoured routine of your old abiding-place. They are to you, at present, only so many little fly-blows on the scroll of time, so to speak. But, there was a period when you would have regarded them as of the utmost moment; and when, the deaths of people whom you thought would never die, the marriages of those that seemed the most unlikely subjects for matrimony, the flittings of persons of the “oldest inhabitant” class—that you calculated would stick-on there for ever, and their replacement by the advent of new families, whom you would have supposed to be the last in the world to settle down in the locality in question—would have been matters of nine days’ wonderment.

It was so now with myself in, regard to Saint Canon’s.

Horner’s engagement, Lady Dasher’s contemplated removal, the idea of the curate’s incubus—all of which would have once filled me with surprise, astonishment, delight—I only looked upon with half-amused interest.

Even the intelligence that Miss Spight had joined the sisterhood organised by Brother Ignatius, hardly affected me as it would formerly have done.

I belonged to another world now, as it were; and, the announcements of births—Mrs Mawley had already presented her lord and master with a little pledge of her affection—and bridals, and burials, at the two last of which I might once have assisted, hardly awoke a passing interest in me!

I was too far removed from the orbit in which these phenomena were displayed.

I felt that there were not many now in whom I felt concern at Saint Canon’s.

No exceptions, you ask?

Certainly, there were exceptions.

I am astonished at your making the observation.

How could I otherwise “prove the rule,” eh?

Min told me that Monsieur Parole d’Honneur was as gay and as full of anecdote as of yore. She also told me, too, that the kind-hearted Frenchman having chanced to meet her out one day, long before she had been able to hear from me directly, had, in the most delicately-diplomatic way, led the conversation round to America, so that he might tell her that I was not only well, but doing well!

This was at the time I had written a rapturous note to him, after my first interview with my friend, “Brown of Philadelphia,”—before, you may be tolerably certain, that philanthropical polisher had “sloped to Texas” with the capital Parole d’Honneur endowed me with.

He did not mention that latter fact of his generosity to Min, however; but, she knew of it, for I told her of it when we parted, and she then said that she thanked him in her heart for his kindness to me, and would always “love” him for it—so she said!

The vicar and Miss Pimpernell—also “exceptions,”—I heard, were just as usual; the former as much liked as ever by rich and poor alike, in the parish; the latter, trotting about still, with her big basket and creature comforts for those whom she spiritually visited.

Old Shuffler, too, wobbled on, as he had wobbled on as far back as I could recollect, Min told me; and rolled his sound eye, and stared with his glass one, as glassily as then.

I heard also that “Dicky Chips” was as frolicsome and light-hearted a bullfinch as when Min first had him, and had learnt several new tricks.

But, poor old Catch—my dog—whom I had so loved, had died in my absence; not from old age, for he was but young, having only seen his fifth birthday; but, “full of honours,” as every one liked him and respected him who knew of his sagacity and faithfulness, and saw his honest brown eyes and handsome high cast head.

Dear old doggy!

I had had him from the time he was a month old; and he and I had hardly ever been, parted from that time until I went to America.

He used to accompany me wherever I went, by day; and sleep across my room door at night.

He never had had a harsh word from me but once, that I remember; and, that was respecting a certain little matter connected with a stray sheep, about which we happened to differ on the occasion.

Poor Catch! I can fancy I hear his eager bark now. It was a welcome to which I looked forward on my return to England, as only secondary to the pleasure I would have in meeting Min; and, I confess, when I heard of his loss, I mourned him more than I had ever mourned one whom the world calls “friend,” before. He was faithful always; changing never. How many reputed “friends” will you find to act thus?

I think that Lord Byron’s recollection of his trusty dog must have absolved him from a hundred character blots. Do you remember those lines he wrote to the memory of “Boatswain,” on the monument he erected in his honour at Newstead Abbey? I would like them on Catch’s tomb, if I only knew where the dear old fellow lies; for, what “Boatswain” was to Byron, so was he to me:—

“In life the foremost friend,The first to welcome, foremost to defend,Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth,Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth!”

“In life the foremost friend,The first to welcome, foremost to defend,Whose honest heart is still his master’s own,Who labours, fights, lives, breathes for him alone,Unhonour’d falls, unnoticed all his worth,Denied in heaven the soul he held on earth!”

Min’s news did not come all at once.

It was spread over an expanse of many months, during which I was rambling over the States;—reporting this speaker and that;—studying “life and character” in every way—from the inspection of negro camp-meetings, where coloured saints expounded doctrinal views that would have made Wilberforce shudder, to participating in a presidential election, wherein I had the opportunity of seeing the inherent rottenness of the Transatlantic “institution” thoroughly exposed.

When I was thus bustling about, amidst so many varied phases of life, I could not very well sympathise with the quiet doings of Saint Canon’s.

But, on my return to my Brooklyn lodgings, when once more appointed to regular newspaper work at the office of the journal with which I was connected in New York, the old home longings returned also as strong as ever—stronger, as time went on!

I got in the habit of again marking my almanack, as Robinson Crusoe notched his post, every day; saying to myself the while, that I was brought one day nearer to my darling as the sun went down; one day nearer as it rose on the morrow:—one day nearer to the date of my exile being ended!

I remained in America much longer than I intended.

However, as Mrs Clyde did not carry out her threat of closing our correspondence at the end of the first year of our quasi-engagement, I had still Min’s dear letters to encourage me and cheer me on.

I do not know what I should have done without them.

There was no benefit to be derived from my going back until the Government appointment, which the vicar had the promise of for me, should be vacant. But, this, the wretched old gentleman who continued to hold it, would not give up until he reached the age of superannuation, when he would be forced to retire—in which respect he was not unlike many old field officers in the army, and “flag” ditto in the navy, whowillpersist in remaining on the “active list” of both services long past the age of usefulness, to the prevention of younger men from getting on!

O “seniority!”

Thou art the curse of all classes of officialdom in England—“civil” and “military” alike!

By-and-by, however, when my patience had become exhausted, and I was seriously thinking of starting home with the few hundred dollars I had made on the American press, the vicar wrote for me to come.

The old gentleman—might his “shadow never be less,” I devoutly wished—had betaken himself to his plough after an arduous official service of forty years. He only retired, however, because he received a pension amounting to his full salary, for which he had striven and kept me out of his shoes so long. Putting the thought of this on one side, the secretaryship was now mine, as soon as I arrived to claim it—the sooner that was, the better, the vicar added, as if I needed any stimulus to return to home and my darling!

What a delightful, darling letter Min sent to me, too!

She told me that I was to start off immediately—“at once, sir,”—on receipt of her tender little missive. She was expecting me, looking for me, awaiting me!

She had learnt all the songs I liked; had prepared the dresses in which I had said she looked best; would greet me, oh, so gladly!

I was to keep my promise and arrive on Christmas-eve, when her mother would be happy to see me; and she—well, she didn’t know yet whethershewould speak to me or not:—it, really, depended whether I was “good!”

I took my passage in a steamer leaving the next day; but, instead of getting home on Christmas-eve, I only arrived at Liverpool a day before the close of the year—six days late! However, I was in England at last, in the same dear land that held my darling; and she would forgive me, I knew, when she saw how glad I was to get back to her dear little self. “Naughty Frank!” she would say—“I won’t speak to you at all, sir!”

And, wouldn’t she?

Oh, dear no!

All the way up to town from the fair city on the Mersey, the railway nymphs, whom I had previously noticed on my journey to Southampton, were as busy as then, with their musical strains.

The burden of their present song, echoing through my heart, was,—

“Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Going to see Min, without delay!Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Soon! Soon!! Soon!!”

“Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Going to see Min, without delay!Going to see Min! Going to see Min!Soon! Soon!! Soon!!”

The last bars chiming in when the buffers joined the chorus with a “jolt, jolt, jolt.”

As the train glided, at length—after some six hours of reeling and bumping and puffing along, the railway nymphs never slackening their song for an instant, into the Euston-square station—I saw the kind vicar and dear little Miss Pimpernell awaiting me on the platform.

It was just like their usual kindness to come and meet me thus!

I had telegraphed to them from Liverpool, telling them the time when I might hope to be in London; and, there they were to the minute, although I had never expected them, having only informed them of my coming, in order that they might let my darling know that I was on my way to her.

I jumped out of the carriage before it stopped, in defiance of all the company’s bye-laws; and, advanced to clasp their outstretched hands. But—

What was it, that I could read in the grave kind face of the one, the glad yet sorrowful eyes of the other, before a word had passed on either side? What was it, that congealed the flood of joyful questionings, with which I went forward to meet them, in an icy lump pressing down upon my brain; and, that snapped a chord in my heart that has never vibrated since?

Min was dead!

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