There was a tap on the door. Mr. Raleigh rose and opened it, and invited Mr. Laudersdale in. The latter gentleman complied, took the chair resigned by the other, but after a few words became quiet. Mr. Raleigh made one or two attempts at conversation, then, seeing silence to be his visitor's whim, suffered him to indulge it, and himself continued his writing. Indeed, the peculiar relations existing between these men made much conversation difficult. Mr. Laudersdale sat with his eyes upon the floor for several minutes, and his countenance wrapped in thought. Rising, with his hands behind him, he walked up and down the long room, still without speaking.
"Can I be of service to you, Sir?" asked the other, after observing him.
"Yes, Mr. Raleigh, I am led to think you can,"—still pacing up and down, and vouchsafing no further information.
At last, the monotonous movement ended, Mr. Laudersdale stood at the window, intercepting the sunshine, and examined some memoranda.
"Yes, Mr. Raleigh," he resumed, with all his courtly manner, upon close of the examination, "I am in hopes that you may assist me in a singular dilemma."
"I shall be very glad to do so."
"Thank you. This is the affair. About a year ago, being unable to make my usual visit to my daughter and her grandmother, I sent there in my place our head clerk, young Heath, to effect the few transactions, and also to take a month's recreation,—for we were all overworked and exhausted by the crisis. The first thing he proceeded to do was to fall in love with my daughter. Of course he did not mention this occurrence to me, on his return. When my daughter arrived at New York, I was again detained, myself, and sent her to this place under his care. He lingered rather longer than he should have done, knowing the state of things; but I suspected nothing, for the idea of a clerk's marriage with the heiress of the great Martinique estate never entered my mind; moreover, I have regarded her as a child; and I sent him back with various commissions at several times,—once on business with McLean, once to obtain my wife's signature to some sacrifice of property, and so on. I really beg your pardon, Mr. Raleigh; it is painful to another, I am aware, to be thrust upon family confidences"——
"Pray, Sir, proceed," said Mr. Raleigh, wheeling his chair about.
"But since you are in a manner connected with the affair, yourself"——
"You must be aware, Mr. Laudersdale, that my chief desire is the opportunity you afford me."
"I believe so. I am happy to afford it. On the occasion of Mr. Heath's last visit to this place, Marguerite drew attention to a coin whose history you heard, and the other half of which Mrs. Purcell wore. Mr. Heath obtained the fragment he possessed through my wife's aunt, Susanne Le Blanc; Mrs. Purcell obtained hers through her grandmother, Susan White. Of course, these good people were not slow to put the coin and the names together; Mr. Heath, moreover, had heard portions of the history of Susanne Le Blanc, when in Martinique.
"On resuming his duties in the counting-house, after this little incident, one day, at the close of business-hours, he demanded from me the remnants of this history with which he might be unacquainted. When I paused, he took up the story and finished it with ease, and—and poetical justice, I may say, Mr. Raleigh. Susanne was the sister of Mrs. Laudersdale's father, though far younger than he. She met a young American gentleman, and they became interested in each other. Her brother designed her for a different fate,—the governor of the island, indeed, was her suitor,—and forbade their intercourse. There were rumors of a private marriage; her apartments were searched for any record, note, or proof, unsuccessfully. If there were such, they had been left in the gentleman's hands for better concealment. It being supposed that they continued to meet, M. Le Blanc prevailed upon the governor to arrest the lover on some trifling pretence and send him out of the island. Shortly afterward, as he once confessed to his wife, he caused a circumstantial account of the death and funeral obsequies of each to reach the other. Immediately he urged the governor's suit again, and when she continued to resist, he fixed the wedding-day, himself, and ordered thetrousseau. Upon this, one evening, she buried the box of trinkets at the foot of the oleanders, and disappeared the next, and no trace of her was found.
"When I reached this point, young Heath turned to me with that impudently nonchalant drawl of his, saying,—
"'And her property, Sir?'
"'That,' I replied innocently, 'which comprised half the estate, and which she would have received, on attaining the requisite age, was inherited by her brother, upon her suicide.'
"'Apparent suicide, you mean,' said he; and thereupon took up the story, as I have said, matched date to date and person to person, and informed me that exactly a fortnight from the day of Mademoiselle Susanne Le Blanc's disappearance, a young lady took rooms at a hotel in a Southern city, and advertised for a situation as governess, under the name of Susan White. She gave no references, spoke English imperfectly, and had difficulty in obtaining one; finally, however, she was successful, and after a few years married into the family of her employer, and became the mother of Mrs. Heath. The likeness of Mrs. Purcell, the grandchild of Susan White, to Susanne Le Blanc, was so extraordinary, a number of years ago, that, when Ursule, my daughter's nurse, first saw her, she fainted with terror. My wife, you are aware, was born long after these events. This governess never communicated to her husband any more specific circumstance of her youth than that she had lived in the West Indies, and had left her family because they had resolved to marry her,—as she might have done, had she not died shortly after her daughter's birth. Among her few valuables were found this half-coin of Heath's, and a miniature, which his mother recently gave your cousin, but which, on account of its new interest, she has demanded again; for it is probably that of the ancient lover, and bearing, as it does, a very striking resemblance to yourself, you have pronounced it to be undoubtedly that of your uncle, Reuben Raleigh, and wondered how it came into the possession of Mrs. Heath's mother. Now, as you may be aware, Reuben Raleigh was the name of Susanne Le Blanc's lover."
"No,—I was not aware."
Mr. Laudersdale's countenance, which had been animated in narration, suddenly fell.
"I was in hopes," he resumed,—"I thought,—my relation of these occurrences may have been very confused; but it is as plain as daylight to me, that Susanne Le Blanc and Susan White are one, and that the property of the first is due to the heirs of the last."
"Without doubt, Sir."
"The same is plain, to the Heaths. I am sure that Marguerite will accept our decision in the matter,—sure that no daughter of mine would retain a fraudulent penny; for retain it she could, since there is not sufficient proof in any court, if we chose to contest; but it will beggar her."
"How, Sir? Beggar her to divide her property?"
"It is a singular division. The interest due on Susanne's moiety swells it enormously. Add to this, that, after M. Le Blanc's death, Madame Le Blanc, a much younger person, did not so well understand the management of affairs, the property depreciated, and many losses were encountered, and it happens that the sum due Mrs. Heath covers the whole amount that Marguerite possesses."
"Now, then, Sir?" exclaimed Mr. Raleigh, interrogatively.
"Now, then, Mrs. Heath requests my daughter's hand for her son, and offers to set off to him, at once, such sum as would constitute his half of her new property upon her decease, and allow him to enter our house as special partner."
"Ah!"
"This does not look so unreasonable. Last night he proposed formally to Marguerite, who is still ignorant of these affairs, and she refused him. I have urged her differently,—I can do no more than urge,—and she remains obdurate. To accumulate misfortunes, we escaped 1857 by a miracle. We have barely recovered; and now various disasters striking us,—the loss of the Osprey the first and chief of them,—we are to-day on the verge of bankruptcy. Nothing but the entrance of this fortune can save us from ruin."
"Unfortunate!" said Mr. Raleigh,—"most unfortunate! And can I serve you at this point?"
"Not at all, Sir," said Mr. Laudersdale, with sudden erectness. "No,—I have but one hope. It has seemed to me barely possible that your uncle may have communicated to you events of his early life,—that you may have heard, that there may have been papers telling of the real fate of Susanne Le Blanc."
"None that I know of," said Mr. Raleigh, after a pause. "My uncle was a very reserved person. I often imagined that his youth had not been without its passages, something to account for his unvarying depression. In one letter, indeed, I asked him for such a narration. He promised to give it to me shortly,—the next mail, perhaps. The next mail I received nothing; and after that he made no allusion to the request."
"Indeed? Indeed? I should say,—pardon me, Mr. Raleigh,—that your portion of the next mail met with some accident. Your servants could not explain it?"
"There is Capua, who was major-domo. We can inquire," said Mr. Raleigh, with a smile, rising and ringing for that functionary.
On Capua's appearance, the question was asked, if he had ever secretly detained letter or paper of any kind.
"Lors, massa! I alwes knew 'twould come to dis!" he replied. "No, massa, neber!" shaking his head with repeated emphasis.
"I thought you might have met with some accident, Capua," said his master.
"Axerden be ——, beg massa's parden; but such s'picions poison any family's peace, and make a feller done forgit hisself."
"Very well," said Mr. Raleigh, who was made to believe by this vehemence in what at first had seemed a mere fantasy. "Only remember, that, if you could assure me that any papers had been destroyed, the assurance would be of value."
"'Deed, Mass Roger? Dat alters de case," said Capua, grinning. "Dere's been a good many papers 'stroyed in dis yer house firs' an' last."
"Which in particular?"
"Don' rekerlek, massa, it's so long ago."
"But make an effort."
"Well, Massa Raleigh,—'pears to me Idoremember suthin',—I do b'lieve—yes, dis's jist how 'twas. Spect I might as well make a crean breast ob it. I's alwes had it hangin' roun' my conscious; do'no' but I's done grad to git rid ob it. Alwes spected massa 'd be 'xcusin' Cap o' turnin' tief."
"That is the last accusation I should make against you, Capua."
"But dar I stan's convicted."
"Out with it, Capua!" said Mr. Laudersdale, laughing.
"Lord! Massa Lausdel! how you do scare a chile! Didn' know mass'r was dar. See, Mass Roger, dis's jist how 'twas. Spec you mind dat time when all dese yer folks lib'd acrost de lake dat summer, an' massa was possessed to 'most lib dar too? Well, one day, massa mind Ol' Cap's runnin' acrost in de rain an' in great state ob excitement to tell him his house done burnt up?"
"Yes. What then?"
"Dat day, massa, de letters had come from Massa Reuben out in Indy, an' massa's pipe kinder 'tracted Cap's 'tention, an' so he jist set down in massa's chair an' took a smoke. Bimeby Cap thought,—'Ef massa come an' ketch him!'—an' put down de pipe an' went to work, and bimeby I smelt mighty queer smell, massa, 'bout de house, made him tink Ol' Nick was come hissef for Ol' Cap, an' I come back into dis yer room an' Massa Reuben's letters from Indy was jist most done burnt up, he cotched 'em in dese yer ol' brack han's, Mass Roger, an' jist whipt 'em up in dat high croset."
And having arrived at this confusion in his personal pronouns, Capua mounted nimbly on pieces of furniture, thrust his pocket-knife through a crack of the wainscot, opened the door of a small unseen closet, and, after groping about and inserting his head as Van Amburgh did in the lion's mouth, scrambled down again with his hand full of charred and blackened papers, talking glibly all the while.
"Ef massa'd jist listen to reason," he said, "'stead o' flyin' into one ob his tantrums, I might sprain de matter. You see, I knew Mass Roger'd feel so oncomforble and remorseful to find his ol' uncle's letters done 'stroyed, an 'twas all by axerden, an' couldn' help it noways, massa, an' been done sorry eber since, an' wished dar warn't no letters dis side de Atlantic nor torrer, ebery day I woke."
After which plea, Capua awaited his sentence.
"That will do,—it's over now, old boy," said Mr. Raleigh, with his usual smile.
"Now, massa, you a'n't gwine"——
"No, Capua, I'm going to do nothing but look at the papers."
"But massa's"——
"You need not be troubled,—I said, I was not."
"But, massa,—s'pose I deserve a thrashing?"
"There's no danger of your getting it, you blameless Ethiop!"
Upon which pacific assurance, Capua departed.
The two gentlemen now proceeded to the examination of these fragments. Of the letters nothing whatever was to be made. From one of them dropped a little yellow folded paper that fell apart in its creases. Put together, it formed a sufficiently legible document, and they read the undoubted marriage-certificate of Susanne Le Blanc and Reuben Raleigh.
"I am sorry," said Mr. Laudersdale, after a moment. "I am sorry, instead of a fortune, to give them a bar-sinister."
"Your daughter is ignorant?—your wife?"
"Entirely. Will you allow me to invite them in here? They should see this paper."
"You do not anticipate any unpleasant effect?"
"Not the slightest Marguerite has no notion of want or of pride.Her first and only thought will be—sa cousine Hélène." And Mr.Laudersdale went out.
Some light feet were to be heard pattering down the stairs, a mingling of voices, then Mr. Laudersdale passed on, and Marguerite tapped, entered, and closed the door.
"My father has told me something I but half understand," said she, with her hand on the door. "Unless I marry Mr. Heath, I lose my wealth? What does that signify? Would all the mines of Peru tempt me?"
Mr. Raleigh remained leaning against the corner of the bookcase. She advanced and stood at the foot of the table, nearly opposite him. Her lips were glowing as if the fire of her excitement were fanned by every breath; her eyes, half hidden by the veiling lids, seemed to throw a light out beneath them and down her cheek. She wore a mantle of swan's down closely wrapped round her, for she had complained ceaselessly of the chilly summer.
"Mr. Raleigh," she said, "I am poorer than you are, now. I am no longer an heiress."
At this moment, the door opened again and Mrs. Laudersdale entered. At a step she stood in the one sunbeam; at another, the shutters blew together, and the room was left in semi-darkness, with her figure gleaming through it, outlined and starred in tremulous evanescent light. For an instant both Marguerite and Mr. Raleigh seemed to be half awe-struck by the radiant creature shining out of the dark; but directly, Marguerite sprang back and stripped away the torrid nasturtium-vine which her mother had perhaps been winding in her hair when her husband spoke with her, and whose other end, long and laden with fragrant flame, still hung in her hand and along her dress. Laughing, Marguerite in turn wound it about herself, and the flowers, so lately plucked from the bath of hot air, where they had lain steeping in sun, flashed through the air a second, and then played all their faint spirit-like luminosity about their new wearer. She seemed sphered in beauty, like the Soul of Morning in some painter's fantasy, with all great stars blossoming out in floral life about her, colorless, yet brilliant in shape and light. It was too much; Mr. Raleigh opened the window and let in the daylight again, and a fresh air that lent the place a gayer life. As he did so, Mr. Laudersdale entered, and with him Mr. Heath and his mother. Mr. Laudersdale briefly recapitulated the facts, and added,—
"Communicating my doubts to Mr. Raleigh, he has kindly furnished me with the marriage-certificate of his uncle and Mademoiselle Le Blanc. And as Mr. Reuben Raleigh was living within thirteen years, you perceive that your claims are invalidated."
There was a brief silence while the paper was inspected.
"I am still of opinion that my grandmother's second marriage was legal," replied Mr. Heath; "yet I should be loath to drag up her name and subject ourselves to a possibility of disgrace. So, though the estate is ours, we can do without it!"
Meanwhile, Marguerite had approached her father, and was patching together the important scraps.
"What has this to do with it?" said she. "You admitted before this discovery—did you not?—that the property was no longer mine. These people are Aunt Susanne's heirs still, if not legally, yet justly. I will not retain asousof it! My father shall instruct my lawyer, Mrs. Heath, to make all necessary transfers to yourself. Let us wish you good-morning!" And she opened the door for them to pass.
"Marguerite! are you mad?" asked her father, as the door closed.
"No, father,—but honest,—which is the same thing," she responded, still standing near it.
"True," he said, in a low tone like a groan. "But we are ruined."
"Ruined? Oh, no! You are well and strong. So am I. I can work. I shall get much embroidery to do, for I can do it perfectly; the nuns taught me. I have a thousand resources. And there is something my mother can do; it is her great secret; she has played at it summer after summer. She has moulded leaves and flowers and twined them round beautiful faces in clay, long enough; now she shall carve them in stone, and you will be rich again!"
Mrs. Laudersdale sat in a low chair while Marguerite spoke, the nasturtium-vine dinging round her feet like a gorgeous snake, her hands lying listlessly in her lap, and her attitude that of some queen who has lost her crown, and is totally bewildered by this strange conduct on the part of circumstances. All the strength and energy that had been the deceits of manner were utterly fallen away, and it was plain, that, whatever the endowment was which Marguerite had mentioned, she could only play at it. She was but a woman, sheer woman, with the woman's one capability, and the exercise of that denied her.
Mr. Laudersdale remained with his eyes fixed on her, and lost, it seemed, to the presence of others.
"The disgrace is bitter," he murmured. "I have kept my name so proudly and so long! But that is little. It is for you I fear. I have stood in your sunshine and shadowed your life, dear!—At least," he continued, after a pause, "I can place you beyond the reach of suffering. I must finish my lonely way."
Mrs. Laudersdale looked up slowly and met his earnest glance.
"Must I leave you?" she exclaimed, with a wild terror in her tone. "Do you mean that I shall go away? Oh, you need not care for me,—you need never love me,—you may always be cold,—but I must serve you, live with you, die with you!" And she sprang forward with outstretched arms.
He caught her before her foot became entangled in the long folds of her skirt, drew her to himself, and held her. What he murmured was inaudible to the others; but a tint redder than roses are swam to her cheek, and a smile broke over her face like a reflection in rippling water. She held his arm tightly in her hand, and erect and proud, as it were with a new life, bent toward Roger Raleigh.
"You see!" said she. "My husband loves me. And I,—it seems at this moment that I have never loved any other than him!"
There came a quick step along the matting, the handle of the door turned in Marguerite's resisting grasp, and Mrs. Purcell's light muslins swept through. Mr. Raleigh advanced to meet her,—a singular light upon his face, a strange accent of happiness in his voice.
"Since you seem to be a part of the affair," she said in a low tone, while her lip quivered with anger and scorn, "concerning which I have this moment been informed, pray, take to Mr. Lauderdale my brother's request to enter the house of Day, Knight, and Company, from this day."
"Has he made such a request?" asked Mr. Raleigh.
"He shall make it!" she murmured swiftly, and was gone.
That night a telegram flashed over the wires, and thenceforth, on the great financial tide, the ship Day, Knight, and Company lowered its peak to none.
The day crept through until evening, deepening into genuine heat, and Marguerite sat waiting for Mr. Raleigh to come and bid her farewell. It seemed that his plans were altered, or possibly he was gone, and at sunset she went out alone. The cardinals that here and there showed their red caps above the bank, the wild roses that still lined the way, the grapes that blossomed and reddened and ripened year after year ungathered, did not once lift her eyes. She sat down, at last, on an old fallen trunk cushioned with moss, half of it forever wet in the brook that babbled to the lake, and waited for the day to quench itself in coolness and darkness.
"Ah!" said Mr. Raleigh, leaping from the other side of the brook to the mossy trunk, "is it you? I have been seeking you, and what sprite sends you to me?"
"I thought you were going away," she said, abruptly.
"That is a broken paving-stone," he answered, seating himself beside her, and throwing his hat on the grass.
"You asked me, yesterday, if I confessed to being a myth," she said, after a time. "If I should go back to Martinique, I should become one in your remembrance,—should I not? You would think of me just as you would have thought of the Dryad yesterday, if she had stepped from the tree and stepped back again?"
"Are you going to Martinique?" he asked, with a total change of face and manner.
"I don't know. I am tired of this; and I cannot live on an ice-field. I had such life at the South! It is 'as if a rose should shut and be a bud again.' I need my native weather, heat and sea."
"How can you go to Martinique?"
"Oh, I forgot!"
Mr. Raleigh did not reply, and they both sat listening to the faint night-side noises of the world.
"You are very quiet," he said at last, ceasing to fling waifs upon the stream.
"And you could be very gay, I believe."
"Yes. I am full of exuberant spirits. Do you know what day it is?"
"It is my birthday."
"It ismybirthday!"
"How strange! The Jews would tell you that this sweet first of August was the birthday of the world.
"''Tis like the birthday of the world,When earth was born in bloom,'"—
she sang, but paused before her voice should become hoarse in tears.
"Do you know what you promised me on my birthday? I am going to claim it."
"The present. You shall have a cast which I had made from one of my mother's fancies or bas-reliefs,—she only does the front of anything,—a group of fleurs-de-lis whose outlines make a child's face, my face."
"It is more than any likeness in stone or pencil that I shall ask of you."
"What then?"
"You cannot imagine?"
"Monsieur" she whispered, turning toward him, and blushing in the twilight, "est ce que c'est moi?"
There came out the low west-wind singing to itself through the leaves, the drone of a late-carousing honey-bee, the lapping of the water on the shore, the song of the wood-thrush replete with the sweetness of its half-melody; and ever and anon the pensive cry of the whippoorwill fluted across the deepening silence that summoned all these murmurs into hearing. A rustle like the breeze in the birches passed, and Mrs. Purcell retarded her rapid step to survey the woods-people who rose out of the shade and now went on together with her. It seemed as if the loons and whippoorwills grew wild with sorrow that night, and after a while Mrs. Purcell ceased her lively soliloquy, and as they walked they listened. Suddenly Mr. Raleigh turned. Mrs. Purcell was not beside him. They had been walking on the brook-edge; the path was full of gaps and cuts. With a fierce shudder and misgiving, he hurriedly retraced his steps, and searched and called; then, with the same haste, rejoining Marguerite, gained the house, for lanterns and assistance. Mrs. Purcell sat at the drawing-room window.
"Comment?" cried Marguerite, breathlessly.
"Oh, I had no idea of walking in fog up to my chin," said Mrs. Purcell; "so I took the short cut."
"You give me credit for the tragic element," she continued, under her breath, as Mr. Raleigh quietly passed her. "That is old style. To be sure, I might as well die there as in the swamps of Florida. Purcell is ordered to Florida. Of course, I am ordered too!" And she whirled him the letter which she held.
Other letters had been received with the evening-mail, and one that made Mr. Raleigh's return in September imperative occasioned some discussion in the House of Laudersdale. The result that that gentleman secured one more than he had intended in the spring; and if you ever watch the shipping-list, the arrival of the Spray-Plough at Calcutta, with Mr. and Mrs. Raleigh among the passengers, will be seen by you as soon as me.
Later in the evening of this same eventful day, as Mr. Raleigh and Marguerite sat together in the moonlight that flooded the great window, Mrs. Laudersdale passed them and went down the garden to the lake. She wore some white garment, as in her youth, and there was a dreamy sweetness in her eye and an unspoken joy about her lips. Mr. Raleigh could not help thinking it was a singular happiness, this that opened before her; it seemed to be like a fruit plucked from the stem and left to mature in the sunshine by itself, late and lingering, never sound at heart. She floated on, with the light in her dusky eyes and the seldom rose on her cheek,—floated on from moonbeam to moonbeam,—and the lovers brought back their glances and gave them to each other. For one, life opened a labyrinth of warmth and light and joy; for the other, youth was passed, destiny not to be appeased: if his affection enriched her, the best he could do was to bestow it; in his love there would yet be silent reservations.
"Mr. Raleigh," said Marguerite, "did you ever love my mother?"
"Once I thought I did."
"And now?"
"Whereas I was blind, now I see."
"Listen! Mrs. Purcell is singing in the drawing-room."
"Through lonely summers, where the roses blowUnsought, and shed their tangled sweets,I sit and hark, or in the starry dark,Or when the night-rain on the hill-side beats.
"Alone! But when the eternal summers flowAnd refluent drown in song all moan,Thy soul shall waste for its delight, and hasteThrough heaven. And I shall be no more alone!"
"What a voice she sings with to-night!" said Marguerite. "It is stripped of all its ornamental disguises,—so slender, yet piercing!"
"A needle can pain like a sword-blade. There goes the moon in clouds.Hark! What was that? A cry?" And he started to his feet.
"No," she said,—"it is only the wild music of the lake, the voices of shadows calling to shadows."
"There it is again, but fainter; the wind carries it the other way."
"It is a desolating wind."
"And the light on the land is like that of eclipse!"
He stooped and raised her and folded her in his arms.
"I have a strange, terrible sense of calamity,Mignonné!" he said."Let it strike, so it spare you!"
"Nothing can harm us," she replied, clinging to him. "Even death cannot come between us!"
"Marguerite!" said Mr. Laudersdale, entering, "where is your mother?"
"She went down to the lake, Sir."
"She cannot possibly have gone out upon it!"
"Oh, she frequently does; and so do we all."
"But this high wind has risen since. The flaws"——And he went out hastily.
There flashed on Mr. Raleigh's mental sight a vision of the moonlit lake, one instant. A boat, upon its side, bending its white sail down the depths; a lifted arm wound in the fatal rope; a woman's form, hanging by that arm, sustained in the dark transparent tide of death; the wild wind blowing over, the moonlight glazing all. For that instant he remained still as stone; the next, he strode away, and dashed down to the lake-shore. It seemed as if his vision yet continued. They had already put out in boats; he was too late. He waited in ghastly suspense till they rowed home with their slow freight. And then his arm supported the head with its long, uncoiling, heavy hair, and lifted the limbs, round which the drapery flowed like a pall on sculpture, till another man took the burden from him and went up to the house with his dead.
* * * * *
When Mr. Raleigh entered the house again, it was at break of dawn. Some one opened the library-door and beckoned him in. Marguerite sprang into his arms.
"What if she had died?" said Mrs. Purcell, with her swift satiric breath, and folding a web of muslin over her arm. "See! I had got out the shroud. As it is, we drinkskåland say grace at breakfast. The funeral baked-meats shall coldly furnish forth the marriage-feast. You men are all alike.Le Roi est mort? Vive la Reine!"
* * * * *
Listen, my children, and you shall hearOf the midnight ride of Paul Revere,On the eighteenth of April, in Seventy-Five:Hardly a man is now aliveWho remembers that famous day and year.
He said to his friend,—"If the British marchBy land or sea from the town to-night,Hang a lantern aloft in the belfry-archOf the North-Church-tower, as a signal-light,—One if by land, and two if by sea;And I on the opposite shore will be,Ready to ride and spread the alarmThrough every Middlesex village and farm,For the country-folk to be up and to arm."
Then he said good-night, and with muffled oarSilently rowed to the Charlestown shore,Just as the moon rose over the bay,Where swinging wide at her moorings layThe Somersett, British man-of-war:A phantom ship, with each mast and sparAcross the moon, like a prison-bar,And a huge, black hulk, that was magnifiedBy its own reflection in the tide.
Meanwhile, his friend, through alley and streetWanders and watches with eager ears,Till in the silence around him he hearsThe muster of men at the barrack-door,The sound of arms, and the tramp of feet,And the measured tread of the grenadiersMarching down to their boats on the shore.
Then he climbed to the tower of the church,Up the wooden stairs, with stealthy tread,To the belfry-chamber overhead,And startled the pigeons from their perchOn the sombre rafters, that round him madeMasses and moving shapes of shade,—Up the light ladder, slender and tall,To the highest window in the wall,Where he paused to listen and look downA moment on the roofs of the town,And the moonlight flowing over all.
Beneath, in the churchyard, lay the deadIn their night-encampment on the hill,Wrapped in silence so deep and still,That he could hear, like a sentinel's tread,The watchful night-wind, as it wentCreeping along from tent to tent,And seeming to whisper, "All is well!"A moment only he feels the spellOf the place and the hour, the secret dreadOf the lonely belfry and the dead;For suddenly all his thoughts are bentOn a shadowy something far away,Where the river widens to meet the bay,—A line of black, that bends and floatsOn the rising tide, like a bridge of boats.
Meanwhile, impatient to mount and ride,Booted and spurred, with a heavy stride,On the opposite shore walked Paul RevereNow he patted his horse's side,Now gazed on the landscape far and near,Then impetuous stamped the earth,And turned and tightened his saddle-girth;But mostly he watched with eager searchThe belfry-tower of the old North Church,As it rose above the graves on the hill,Lonely, and spectral, and sombre, and still.
And lo! as he looks, on the belfry's height,A glimmer, and then a gleam of light!He springs to the saddle, the bridle he turns,But lingers and gazes, till full on his sightA second lamp in the belfry burns!
A hurry of hoofs in a village-street,A shape in the moonlight, a bulk in the dark,And beneath from the pebbles, in passing, a sparkStruck out by a steed that flies fearless and fleet:That was all! And yet, through the gloom and the light,The fate of a nation was riding that night;And the spark struck out by that steed, in his flight,Kindled the land into flame with its heat.
It was twelve by the village-clock,When he crossed the bridge into Medford town.He heard the crowing of the cock,And the barking of the farmer's dog,And felt the damp of the river-fog,That rises when the sun goes down.
It was one by the village-clock,When he rode into Lexington.He saw the gilded weathercockSwim in the moonlight as he passed,And the meeting-house windows, blank and bare,Gaze at him with a spectral glare,As if they already stood aghastAt the bloody work they would look upon.
It was two by the village-clock,When he came to the bridge in Concord town.He heard the bleating of the flock,And the twitter of birds among the trees,And felt the breath of the morning-breezeBlowing over the meadows brown.And one was safe and asleep in his bedWho at the bridge would be first to fall,Who that day would be lying dead,Pierced by a British musket-ball.
You know the rest. In the books you have readHow the British regulars fired and fled,—How the farmers gave them ball for ball,From behind each fence and farmyard-wall,Chasing the red-coats down the lane,Then crossing the fields to emerge againUnder the trees at the turn of the road,And only pausing to fire and load.
So through the night rode Paul Revere;And so through the night went his cry of alarmTo every Middlesex village and farm,—A cry of defiance, and not of fear,—A voice in the darkness, a knock at the door,And a word that shall echo forevermore!For, borne on the night-wind of the Past,Through all our history, to the last,In the hour of darkness and peril and need,The people will waken and listen to hearThe hurrying hoof-beat of that steed,And the midnight-message of Paul Revere.
My dear Laura Matilda, have you ever worked your way under ground, like the ghost Hamlet, Senior? On the contrary, you confess, but a dim idea of that peculiar mode of progression abides in the well-ordered mansion of your mind?
Well, I do not wonder at it; you are civilized beyond the common herd; your mamma, careful of her own comfort and the beauty of her child, guards both. Your sunny summer-times go by in the shade of sylvan groves, or amid the whirl of Saratoga or Newport ball-rooms. I accept your ignorance; it is a pretty blossom in your maiden chaplet. For myself, I blush for my own familiarity with rough scenes chanced upon in wayward wanderings.
Let me tell you of a path among the "untrodden ways." Transport yourself with me.
Fancy a low, level, drowsy point of land, stretching out into the unbroken emerald green of Lake Superior, at the point where a narrow, yellowish river offers its tribute. The King of Lakes is exclusive; he disdains to blend his brilliant waters with those of the muddy river; a wavy line, distinctly and clearly defined, but seeming as if drawn by a trembling hand, undulates at their junction,—no democratic, union-seeking boundary, but the arbitrary line of division that separates the Sultan from the slave, the peer from the peasant.
Along this shore are scattered various buildings that seem to nod in the indolent sunshine of the bright, clear, quiet air of midsummer. One of these, differing from the rest in its more modern construction, is a spacious hotel that holds itself proudly erect, and from its summit the gay flag of my country floats flauntingly.
We must pass this by, and go down a plank-covered walk to reach the sandy-golden beach where the green waves dash with silent dignity, in these long calms of July. Before the hotel the river flows also sleepily; but both shores are vocal with ladies' laughter and the singing of young girls, the lively chatter of a party of pleasure-tourists.
The fine steamer that brought us to this point has gone,
"Sailing out into the west,Out into the west, as the sun went down";
but no "weeping and wringing of hands" was there; we knew it must "come back to the town,"—that we are merely transient waifs cast upon this quiet beach, flitting birds of passage who have alighted in the porticos of the "Bigelow House," Ontonagon, Michigan.
A long, low flat-boat, without visible sails, steam-pipes, or oars,—a narrow river-craft, with a box-like cabin at one end, the whole rude in itsensemble, and uncivilized in its details,—is the object that meets the gaze of those who would curiously inspect the means by which the adventurous novelty-seeking portion of our party are to be conveyed up this Ontonagon river to the great copper-mines that form the inestimable wealth of that region. For the metallic attraction has proved magnetic to the fancies of a few. A mine is a mystery; and mysteries, to the female mind, are delights.
What is the boat to us but a means? If it seem prosaic, what care we? Have we escaped the French fashions ofà-la-modewatering-places, to be fastidious amid wigwams and unpeopled shores?
We all know what it is to embark for a day's travel, but we do not all understand the charm of being stowed away like freight in a boat such as the one here faintly sketched; how seats are improvised; how umbrellas are converted into stationary screens, and awnings grow out of inspiration; how baskets are hidden carefully among carpet-bags, and camp-stools, and water-jugs, and stowed-in-shavings ice; how the long-suffering, patient ladies shelter themselves in the tiny, stifling cabin, while those of the merry, complexion-careless sort lounge in the daylight's glare, and one couple, fond of seclusion and sentiment, discover a good place for both, at the rudder-end.
There is an oar or two on board, it appears, as we push off in the early dawn; and these are employed for a mile or so at the mouth of the river; then the current begins to quicken in a narrower bed, and a group of sinewy men betake themselves to their poles, lazily at first, until——
But you do not know exactly what these implements are?
They are heavy, wooden, sharp-pointed poles, ten or twelve feet long. On either side of the boat runs a "walk," arranged as if a ladder were laid horizontally; but in reality the bars or rungs are firmly fastened to the walk, to be used as rests for the feet. Here the men, five on a side, march like a chain-gang, backward and forward; placing one end of the pole in the bed of the stream, resting the other in the hollow of the shoulder near the arm-pit, and bracing themselves by their feet against these bars, they pry the boat along.
Progression by such means is unavoidably slow; but no steamboat-race on our Western rivers, blind and reckless, boiler-defying and life-despising, ever produced more excitement than this same poling.
Wait till the current runs rapidly, fretting and seething in its angry haste, when for a moment's delay the boat must lose ground; when the poles are plunged into the rocky bed like harpoons into the back of an escaping whale; when the athletic forms of the men are bent forward until each prostrates himself in the exertion of his full powers; when not a false step—each step a run—can be hazarded; when that monotonous unanimity of labor is at its height, in which each boatman becomes possessed as if by a devil of strife; when their faces lose every gentle semblance of humanity, and become distorted to a simple expression of stubborn brute force; when the muscles of their arms are knitted, rope-like, and every nerve stretched to its utmost;—wait till you have seen all this, and you will confess that a woman's lazy life can know no harder toil than that of the mind's sympathetic coexertion,—that is, if she be excitable or impressible.
The stream is tortuous, erratic, shallow, and narrow. Sometimes, as we glide, always noiselessly, beneath the overhanging foliage and tangled vines along shore, what myriads of gayly winged insects—brilliant dragon-flies, mammoth gnats, preposterous mosquitoes—swarm about our heads, disturbed from their gambols by the laughter and songs aboard our moving craft!
Only one halt in our journey, and that to dine. Just above this point we pass the swiftest rapids on the route, where the river widens, and each side of the bank is beautiful in its wooded picturesqueness, while the waters rush, in foaming, surging, tumbling confusion, over the rugged rocks, or dart between them like a merry band of water-sprites chasing each other in gleesome frolic.
It seems a desecration of these rapids thus to subdue and triumph over them. They are as if placed there by Nature as a sportive check to man's further intrusion; and as the waters come hurrying down, led, as it were, by some Undine jealous for her realm, their murmurings seem to say, in playful, yet earnest remonstrance,—"Let our gambols divert you; we will hasten to you; but approach no nearer! Permit us to guard the sanctuary of our hidden sources, our beloved and holy solitudes!"
But vain appeal! Our men pole frantically onward, and so the day passes. By mid-afternoon their labors cease, and we come to anchor at the bank, having achieved seventeen miles in nine hours! Let those of us to whom lightning-express-trains have been slow grumble hereafter at their fifty miles an hour!
A country-wagon receives most of the ladies; the majority of their attendant cavaliers walk; of two horses, the side-saddled one has about one hundred pounds avoirdupois for his share, and, in spite of the lack of habit and equestrian "pomp and circumstance" generally, I cannot term it the most unpleasant three miles I ever travelled. The road is a wild, rugged ascent up a well-wooded hill-side. There is a tonic vigor in the atmosphere, which communicates itself irresistibly to one's mental state; the gladdened lungs inhale it eagerly, as a luxury. When one walks in this air, one seems to gain wings; to ride is to float at will.
Presently, at the top, a low village comes in sight; yelping curs start from wayside cabins; coarse, dull-featured women gape at half-opened doors or sit idly on rude steps; and the men we chance to meet wear that cadaverous pallor inseparable from the mere idea of a miner. We do not regret that the pert dogs have imparted speed to our horses' heels;—a swift, exhilarating gallop brings us in sight of a large, comfortable house, perched like a bird-box in the hills; then others are discerned; and in a few more bounds, we are at the gate. Here, where all visitors to the Minnesota Mines are received and entertained, we proveavant-couriersof the slowly advancing wagon-load,—"the largest party of ladies ever met there," they tell us, as we forewarn our hosts of the band so boldly invading their copper-bound country.
Very soon we are rambling over the hills,—those of Nature's rearing, and others formed by the accumulation of refuse brought up from the mine. We discover and secure some fine specimens of the metal; sundry of the knowing ones, after mysterious interviews with rascally-looking miners, appear with curious bits of pure silver ore mingled with crystals of quartz and tinted with tiny specks of copper. These, being the most valuable curiosities of the region, are usually secreted by the miners for the purpose of private speculation.
We feel a reverence for this ground, so teeming with metallic wealth,—and yet a certain timorousness, as we remember that we walk on a crust, that beneath us are great caves and subterranean galleries.
This outer shell, this surface-knowledge of what lies below, does not content me. I have also a brave friend who shares my feeling. We agree, that, despite the interest of this crust, to know of the fruit beneath and not taste it is worse than aggravating; we grow reckless in our thirst for the forbidden knowledge.
We have entertained a little plot in our headstrong minds all the way, which we have hardly dared to name before. It is surely not feminine to look longingly on those ladders made for the descent of hardy miners only; visitors beneath the surface are rare; only gentlemen interested in seeing for themselves the richness of these vaunted mines have essayed the tour; even many of these failing to penetrate farther than the first level, and bravely owning their faint-heartedness. In spite of this, we feel our way cautiously. A descent is to be made this night, when the Captain of the Mine goes his nightly round of inspection; a gentleman, the head and front of our expedition, whom we shall call the "Colonel," proposes to accompany him.
Why may we not form an harmonious quartette? We have nerve; has it not been tested throughout the somewhat arduous journey of the preceding weeks? We have presence of mind; we are passablegymnastes.
In fact, viewingMon Amieand me from our own point of view, than ourselves never did there exist two mortals more manifestly fashioned straight from the hand of Nature, and educated by previous physical culture and mental discipline for the performance of a feat at once perilous and daring, one unknown to the members of "our set," and which might have been thought impracticable by all who had known us only in the gas-light glare of Society, and the circumspection of crinoline's confining circle.
Does it matter by what cunning wiles of pretty pleading and downright demonstrations of the project's reasonableness we succeeded (for we did succeed) in being allowed to take our fates in our own hands or trust them to our own sure-footedness? I think not.
"For when a woman will, she will, you may depend on't."
But you should have seen the robing! We are to start at ten, P.M. Previously we betake ourselves to our chambers, and, entertaining a vague notion that Fashion's expanse may prove inconvenient, we are looping up our trailing robes in fantastic folds, when a tap at the door.
Voila!a servant with two full suits of new, but coarse, miners' clothes,—with a modest intimation from our companions of their advisability,—in fact, their absolute necessity. We pause aghast! Ah! the renewed shouts of laughter from those merry, but more timorous damsels, who, from their secure surroundings,—those becoming barriers adopted at the dictate of Parisian caprice and retained with feminine pertinacity,—had poked fun at our forlorn limpness!
This climax of costume is startling, but the laughter rouses our courage. We stand on the brink of our Rubicon. Shall trousers deter us from the passage? Shall a coat be synonymous with cowardice? No,—we rise superior to the occasion; we pant to be free; we in-breathe the spirit of liberty, as we don our blouses. We loop our long tresses under such head-coverings as would drive any artist hatter to despair; to us they prove a weighty argument against hats in general, as we feel their heavy rims press on our tender brain-roofs. However, when the saucy eyes ofMon Amielook out sparkling from under her begrimed helmet, the effect is not bad; on the contrary, the masquerade is piquant. No need to mention the ribbons that we knot under our wide, square collars for becomingness, our coquetry "under difficulties," nor the gauntleted gloves wherewith we protect our hands, nor the daintiness of the little boots that peep from the loose trousers, which have something Turkish in their cut.Mon Amie, with her rosy blushes, reminds me of a jocund miller's boy;—as for myself, well, I do not think the Bloomer dress so very bad, after all!
A torch-bearing band have stationed themselves at the doors to bid us god-speed,—to make merry at our droll masquerade,—to quiz our odd head-gear,—to criticize us from head to foot, in short,—but between all, to offer words of caution. Then we go out into the starlit, but not over-bright night,—such a one as is friendly to lovers and to thieves, friendly to religion and to thought, the beloved of sentimentalists, and the adored of this particular group of adventurous miners. In Indian file, lantern-led, we traverse the narrow, beaten path that leads to one of the openings of the mine. These are covered by a rough-plank house,—too much like a shed to merit that pretentious term, which implies something fit to live in; in the centre of this shelter is an open space, perhaps a yard square, and similar in appearance to a trap-door in a roof. Here we wait a few moments, while the Captain of the Mine and the Agent of the Mining Company,—who has joined our party at the last moment, to afford us the undivided services of the Captain as guide,—are engaged in some mysterious process of moulding; an odor, not attar of rose, nor yet Frangipanni, salutes our nostrils; then our companions approach. Both the Colonel and the Agent are "lit up,"—in fact, all-luminous with the radiance of tallow "dips"; one of these, stuck in a lump of soft clay, adheres to the front of each hat, and in their hands they have others.
We also are to wear a starry flame on our brows; and, not content with this, are invested with several short unlighted candles, which are to dangle gracefully by their wicks from a buttonhole of our becoming blouses. Thus our costume is complete; and I doubt if Buckingham sported the diamond tags of Anne of Austria with more satisfaction than do we our novel and odorous decoration: we dub ourselves the Light Guard on the instant.
In the delay before starting, we observe several miners descend through the black and most suggestive trap-door, each bearing a tin can in his mouth, as a good dog carries a basket at the bidding of his master.
The flame of the candle, bright in the density of the pit's darkness, as its bearer descends step by step with the rapidity which custom has made easy, becomes in a few seconds like the tiniest glow-worm: one can follow the spark only; the man disappears within the moment.
I cannot describe, nor, indeed, convey the least idea of this peculiar effect. We feel our hearts tremble at the thought that whither that light has gone we must follow. For the first time I realize that we are about to gointothe earth,—that we shall presently crawl like insects, burrow like underground vermin, beneath the surface, man's proper place. But such thoughts are not for long indulgence.
"Now let us descend!" says the Colonel.
Grasping the round of the ladder where it rose slightly above the floor, the Captain, our guide, with that air of assurance which practice bestows, swings himself from sight. To him succeeds the Colonel. Next comes my own turn. This is not the first time my feet have tried ladder-bars; in the country-spent vacations of my school-days, how many times have I alertly scaled the highest leading to granaries, to barn-lofts, to bird-houses, to all quasi-inaccessible places, whither my daring ignorance—reckless, because unconscious of danger—had tempted me! But mounting a clean, strong, wide ladder, in the full flood of day, light below, above, around, promising you security by its very fulness of effulgence, is a far different thing from groping your way, step by step, down a slimy, muddy frame which hangs in a straight line from the very start. I shake off a first tremor, draw a full breath, and with fortitude follow my leader carefully. As I look above, after fairly getting committed, I can beholdMon Amie'sfeet, whose arched in-steps cling round each bar with a pretty dependence that is in the highest degree appealing. Above her I hear the deep voice of the Agent.
And so the quintette, in grim harmony of enterprise, go down, down, down, like so many human buckets, into a bottomless well.
Alas, and alas! our own arms, with their as yet untried muscles, must be our only windlass to bring us to the surface again! Down, down, down, deeper, deeper, deeper! Will this first ladder never end?
Ah, at last! At the foot, on either side, stand the Captain and the Colonel, like sentries. We have reached a shelf of rock, and we may rest. Here we perch ourselves, like sea-birds on a precipice that overlooks the sea.
By the light of our flickering candles we behold each other's faces, and we can talk together. We are but two hundred feet under ground. A desolate stillness reigns here; no sound reaches us, either of labor or the steps of passing workmen. A cold stream of water trickles from a cleft rock behind us; we bathe our foreheads in it, and betake ourselves to the ladder again.
From our next resting-place we proceed through a gallery, an exhausted vein, kept open as a passage from one shaft to another. As we turn a corner, we seem to plunge into a rocky cavern; our feet tread on roughly imbedded rocks; the sides of the cave jut out in refuse boulders,—harsh, dark-colored, ashen; overhead are beams of hard wood, bracing and strengthening the excavation. We traverse this gallery hastily.
Now that we are here, we are conscious of excitement.Mon Amiemanifests hers by her steady, deliberate tones, a sort of exaltation foreign to her usually vibrating voice, her tremulous cadences; she seems borne along, despite and above herself. For my own part, as my lungs inflate themselves with this pure, dry, bracing air, exquisitely redolent of health, and testifying at once to a total exemption from noxious exhalations or mephitic vapors, I growtête-montée, rattle-brained; my laugh echoes through these stony chambers, wild snatches of song hover on my lips, odd conceits flit through my brain, I joke, I dash forward with haste; my excitement endows me with a superfeminine self-possession.
But now we hear an ominous rattle, a clanking of chains, a rumbling as of distant thunder; we are approaching a shaft. The shafts in this mine are not sunk perpendicularly, but are slightly inclined: the huge buckets, lowered and raised by means of powerful machinery, are but ancient caldrons, counterparts of those in which the weird witches in "Macbeth" might have brewed their unholy decoctions, or such as the dreadful giants that formed the nightmare of my childhood might have used in preparing those Brobdignagian repasts among the ingredients of which a plump child held the same rank as a crab in ours.
The sounds grow nearer; presently our guide disappears; then I behold the Colonel, in whose steps I follow, faithful as his shadow, crouch sidewise: we must pass behind this inclined plane, which rests on roughly hewn rocks, that protrude till it appears impossible that any living thing, except a lizard, can find a passage. I am sure we must shrink from the original rotundity with which Nature blessed us. I feel as the frog in the fable might have felt, if, after successfully inflating himself to the much-envied dimensions of the ox, he had suddenly found himself reduced to his proper proportions. Edging sidewise, accommodating the inequalities of the damp surfaces to the undulations of our forms, deafened, crazed by the roar of the caldrons that dash madly from side to side, we fairlyoozethrough.
More ladders! This time they are not hung quite perpendicularly, are shorter, and some lean, a little, which affords rest; others have one side higher than the other: to these my already aching palms cling with desperation. So have I seen insects adhere, through sheer force of fear, to a shaken stem, or a perilous branch beaten by a storm-wind.
The voices of my companions come to me from above, though I cannot see the soles ofMon Amie'sfriendly feet, which at first preserved an amiable companionship with my own hands; but, looking far upward, I behold a tiny, star-like spark. When I was a child, I used to think that fire-flies were the crowns of the fairies, which shone despite their wearers' invisibility: this idea was recalled to me.
Hark! booming from unthought-of depths, a roar rolls up in majestic waves of echoing thunder. At this resonant burst, I tremble,—I think a prayer.
"They are blasting below us," cries the Colonel,de profundis.
Then up rushes a volume of thick, white smoke, and we are enveloped as in shrouds. I have no more fear,—but the odor, ah! that sulphureous, sickening, deathly odor! Faintness seizes me,—the ladder swims before my eyes,—I am paralyzed,—Death has me, I think!
But the very excess of the danger has in it something of reviving power. I remember, that, just as I left my room,—whose quiet safety never before appeared so heavenly,—prompted by some instinctive impulse, I had placed a small vial of ammonia in the breast-pocket of my coat.
I have wellnigh swooned with ecstasy, as I have inhaled the overcoming odors of some rare bouquet, love-bestowed and prized beyond gems; my senses have reeled in the intoxication of those wondrous extracts whose Oriental, tangible richness of fragrance holds me in a spell almost mystical in its enthralment; but I dare aver that no blossom's breath, no pungent perfume distilled by the erudite inspiration of Science, ever possessed a tithe of the delicious agony of that whiff of unromantic ammonia, which, powerful as the touch of magic, and thrilling as the kiss of love, snatched me back to life, arrested my tottering senses, as they blindly staggered on the very brink of certain death.
When we reach the next level, and our faces are revealed to each other, with one voice they exclaim, "How frightfully pale you are!" But I say nothing. In fact, their familiar features, wearing no longer their daylight semblance, present an aspect at once grim and grotesque, and more like the spirits of my friends than their incorporated substances.
Traversing the wild, rude corridors, we find that the path grows more perilous, the way more intricate; we have words of warning from our protectors, who often look back anxiously. They have begun to realize what they have done in yielding to a woman's odd caprice.
In this level we are shown the spots from which famous masses of copper have been removed, and are granted useful, but fleeting statistics of weight; we are also so fortunate as to discover some chips of the wonderful block, raised in '54, I think, which weighed five hundred tons. Then we chance upon chasms, which, seen so dimly, though dreadful enough in reality, are made a thousand times more so by the terrors of imagination; we creep along the brinks of these, scarcely daring to look down; above, the heavy boulders lie heaped in frightful confusion. When we have crawled past these death-traps and stand in safety once more, we throw down bits of stone, and seconds elapse before we hear the dullthumpwith which each signals its arrival in the depths. Along the edges of some of these gloomy pits we cannot pick our way; therefore a plank is thrown across, and, trusting to so slender a bridge, we pass, one by one. A single false step were enough to dash one to atoms,—so to be transformed to a bruised and mangled mass, to perform one's own sepulture, and lie in a grander grave than will ever be hollowed by mortal hands to hide our useless bodies.
The deeper one penetrates into these mines, the wilder, more dangerous the paths. It is as though the upper regions were kept in "company" order, but lower down we meet with the every-day roughnesses of veritable miners'-life; we follow their hazardous, but familiar steps; we behold all the hardships these toiling, burrowing workers undergo, that the hidden coffers of Earth may yield their tribute of treasure to Man, its self-appointed, arrogant master.
Occasionally we meet a passing miner. Grasping his ponderous tools, he flits by like a phantom; even in the momentary glance, we can perceive how livid his sunless labor has left him; he is blanched as a ghoul, and moves as noiselessly, with feather-light step. Each with a motion salutes the Captain; but they do not heed the little group of strangers who have braved so many dangers to behold the wonders which to them are as commonplace as the forge to a blacksmith, or to a carpenter his work-bench.
Still farther below us we hear the clink and clatter of real work. Down we plunge,—another ladder, "long drawn out." Some of its rounds are wanting; others are loose and worn to a mere splinter. Warned by the voice below me, I proceed with a trembling caution, tenfold more exciting to the strained nerves than the wildest bound on a mettled racer, the fiercest rush that ever tingled through every fibre of the rider's frame.
The water has saturated the banks by which our crazy ladder hangs, and every round is damp and slimy with clayey mud. Alas, for my poor pretty gantlets!Mon Amiehas thrown away hers, as useless.
Finally the ladder ceases abruptly. My feet in vain seek a resting-place. There is none.
A voice says,—that kindly, earnest voice, the symbol of protective care, and our smoother of all difficulties,—"We have swung ourselves down by a chain that hangs from the side of the last round. We are too far below to reach or assist you. Take the chain firmly; it is the only route, and we cannot return!"
Que faire?Behold a pleasant predicament for two city-bred ladies, not "to the manner born," of swinging themselves from the end of a ladder by means of a rusty iron chain, from which they would alight—where? Surely, we know not.
I am very sure I could not reproduce in description, and probably not by practice, the inevitable monkey-contortions, the unimaginable animal agility, by which I transfer my weight to the clumsy links of this almost invisible chain. The size of the staple from which it hangs dissipates all fears in respect to its strength. Hand over hand, my feet sliding on the slippery bank, remembering sailors in the shrouds, and taking time to pity them, at last I reach friendly hands, and stand breathless on another level.
How the soft, white, dimpled palms ofMon Amietestify to the hardship of this episode, as she bathes them in the cooling water! But, because one's hands are tender, cannot one's nerves be strong, one's will indomitable?
Again on the tramp. The cavernous passages are sublime in height, the chasms fearful in their yawning gulfs. We pick our way daintily, at intervals pausing to listen to the distant reverberations of exploding blasts. The atmosphere here, as above, is fairly heavenly in its purity and invigorating freshness; it girds us with singular strength, and clothes us as in a garment of enchanted armor that defies all soul-sinking.
Creeping behind another shaft, we reach still another chasm, above which piles of dark rocks lie heaped in such confusion as might result from a great convulsion. There is a narrow path along its edge, and here the stones are small; but, as we look up, the mighty masses frown down upon us with threatening grandeur. Along this path, treading lightly, as if gifted with wings, the Captain passes; then the Agent (for we had slightly altered our order of march);Mon Amiefollows. She is half-way past the danger, when an ominous pause,—we are ordered to stop.
Down into the chasm rolls a stone, displaced by an unlucky step of our pioneer. One stone is nothing,—but more follow that had been supported by this: small ones at first,—but the larger rocks threaten a slide. If they are not arrested in their course, she is lost!
What a moment that is! I dare not breathe.Mon Amiestands statue-like, awaiting the death which she believes is upon her. Not many words are spoken. I think I feel all that her one glance conveys. But the brave men beyond her, with instant unanimous action bracing themselves against the sliding rocks, oppose their feeble force to the down-sweeping agents of destruction; a moment more, and they would have been too late. With the step of a frightened antelopeMon Amietrembles past them. I see her safe, and hasten on. "Step lightly!" says a voice full of suspense and fear, despite its calmness.
Step, indeed! As if I rest on those treacherous stones! My feet brush them no more than the wing of a butterfly grazes the roses among which it flutters. Step, forsooth! If ever the angels concerned themselves for this atom in Creation's myriads, they hover round me now, they bear me up, they teach me how to fly! Deprived now of their human props, how the angry fragments leap and tumble and chase one another through the echoing abyss below! These reverberations seem freighted with elfin voices that jeer the insensate rocks for their baffled scheme of mischief.
But they chanted a far different chorus, and the darkness saw another sight, when, a few moons later, they dashed themselves down in irresistible array, and bore with them in their desperate plunge the lifeless bodies of two passing miners, in whose hearts, it may be, dwelt at the moment only happy thoughts of the homes 'neath the blue skies to which they were hurrying, the dear familiar sunlit Paradise that would succeed the endless night of theirInfernoof toil.
"But men must work, and women must weep;And the sooner 'tis over, the sooner to sleep!"
Well, we take up our march again presently, and, led by a monotonous hammering, proceed toward the sound. Some of the miners are at work here, clearing a mass of ore from the stubborn rock. Their strokes fall as regularly as those of machinery, and the grim men who wield the ponderous hammers accompany each blow with a peculiar loud indrawing of the breath, like the pant of a blacksmith at his anvil. So strong is this resemblance, that we burst forth all together in the strains of the "Anvil Chorus"; and the accompaniment is beaten with tenfold more regularity and effect than on the stage, in the glare of the footlights, by "Il Trovatore's" gypsy-comrades. I doubt if Verdi's music was ever so rendered before, amid such surroundings. The compliment may be the higher, coming from so low a region.
Beyond this group are a few miners resting from toil. One of these, as he stands leaning his folded arms on a jutting rock, upon which he has placed his candle, elicits our spontaneous admiration. His beauty is Apollo-like,—every chiselled feature perfect in its classic regularity; his eyes sad, slumberous, and yet deep and glowing, are quite enough for any susceptible maiden's heart; about a broad expanse of forehead cluster thick masses of dark brown hair; his shirt, open at the throat, reveals glimpses of ivory; altogether he is statuesque and beautiful. Even his hands, strongly knit as they are, have not been rendered coarse by labor; they bear the same pallid hue as his face, and he looks like some nobly-born prisoner. "What untoward fate cast him there?" I often ask myself. He exists in my memory as a veritable Prince Charming, held captive in those gloomy caves of enchantment that yielded up to me their unreal realities in that nightmarish experience. I never fancy him on upper earth living coarsely, even, it may be, talking ungrammatically, defying Horne Tooke and outraging Murray, among beings of a lower order of humanity; but he rises like a statue, standing silent and apart.