I asked a holy man one day,"Where is the one true church, I pray?"
"Go round the world," said he, "and search:No man hath found the one true church."
I pointed to a spire, cross-crowned."The church is false!" he cried, and frowned.
But, murmuring he had told me wrong,I pointed to the entering throng.
He answered, "If a church be true,It hath not many, but a few."
Around the font the people pressed,And crossed themselves from brow to breast.
"A cross!" he cried, "writ on the browIn water!—is it Christ's?—look thou!
"Each forehead, frowning, sheds it off:Christ's cross abides through scowl and scoff."
Then, looking through the open door,We saw men kneeling on the floor;
Faint candles, by the daylight dimmed,—Like wicks the foolish virgins trimmed;
Fair statues of the saints, as whiteAs now their robes are, in God's light;
Sun-ladders, dropped aslant, all gold,—Like stairs the angels trod of old.
Around, above, from nave to roof,He gazed, and said, in sad reproof,—
"Alas! who is it understandsGod's temple is not made with hands?"
—We walked along a shaded way,Beneath the apple-blooms of May,
And came upon a church whose domeBore still the cross, but not for Rome.
We brushed a cobweb from a pane,And gazed within the sacred fane
"Do prayers," he asked, "the more avail,If murmured nigh an altar-rail?
"Does water sprinkled from a bowlWash any sin from any soul?
"Do tongues that taste the bread and wineSpeak truer after, by that sign?
"The very priest, in gown and bands,Hath lying lips and guilty hands!"
"He speaks no error," answered I;"He says the living all shall die,
"The dead all rise; and both are true;Both wholesome doctrines,—old, not new."
My friend returned, "He aims a blowTo strike the sins of long ago,—
"Yet shields, the while, with studied phrase,The evil present in these days.
"Doth God in heaven impute no crimeTo prophets who belie their time?"
—We turned away among the tombs:The bees were in the clover-blooms;
The crickets leaped to let us pass;And God's sweet breath was on the grass.
We spelled the legends on the stones:The graves were full of martyrs' bones,—
Of bodies which the rack once brakeIn witness for the dear Lord's sake,—
Of ashes gathered from the pyresOf saints whose souls fled up through fires.
I heard him murmur, as we passed,"Thus won they all the crown at last;
"Which now men lose, through looking backTo find it at the stake and rack:
"The rack and stake have gathered grime:God's touchstone is the passing time."
—Just then, amid some olive-sprays,Two orioles perched, and piped their lays,
Until the gold beneath their throatsShook molten in their mellow notes.
Then, pealing from the church, a psalmRolled forth upon the outer calm.
"Both choirs," said I, "are in accord;For both give worship to the Lord."
Said he, "The tree-top song, I fear,Fled first and straightest to God's ear.
"If men bind other men in chains,Then chant, doth God accept the strains?
"Do loud-lipped hymns His ear allure?—God hates the church that harms the poor!"
—Then rose a meeting-house in view,Of bleached and weather-beaten hue,
Where, plain of garb and pure of heart,Men kept the church and world apart,
And sat in waiting for the lightThat dawns upon the inner sight;
Nor did they vex the silent airWith any sound of hymn or prayer;
But on their lips God's hand was pressed,And each man kissed it and was blessed.
I asked, "Is this the true church, then?""Nay," answered he, "a sect of men:
"And sects that lock their doors in prideShut God and half His saints outside.
"The gates of heaven, the Scriptures say,Stand open wide by night and day:
"Whoso shall enter hath no needTo walk by either church or creed:
"The false church leadeth men astray;The true church showeth men the way."
—Whereat I still more eager grewTo shun the false and find the true;
And, naming all the creeds, I soughtWhat truth, or lie, or both, they taught:
Thus,—"Augustine—hadhea fault?"My friend looked up to yon blue vault,
And cried, "Behold! can one man's eyesBound all the vision of the skies?"
I said, "The circle is too wide.""God's truth is wider," he replied;
"And Augustine, on bended knee,Saw just the little he could see;
"So Luther sought with eyes and heart,Yet caught the glory but in part;
"So Calvin opened wide his soul,Yet could not comprehend the whole:
"Not Luther, Calvin, Augustine,Saw half the vision I have seen!"
—Then grew within me a desireThat kindled like a flame of fire.
I looked upon his reverent brow,Entreating, "Tell me, who art thou?"
When, by the light that filled the place,I knew it was the Lord's own face!
Through all my blood a rapture stoleThat filled my body and my soul.
I was a sinner and afraid:I bowed me in the dust and prayed:—
"O Christ the Lord I end Thou my search,And lead me to the one true church!"
Then spake He, not as man may speak:"The one true church thou shalt not seek;
"Behold, it is enough," He said,"To find the one true Christ, its Head!"
Then straight He vanished from my sight,And left me standing in the light.
Two years passed; and Swan Day was to all appearance no nearer his return to the land of his birth than when he first trod the deck that bore him away from it. He was still on the first round of the high ladder to fortune. Thus far he had wrought diligently and successfully. He had been sent hither and thither: from Canton to Hong-Kong; from Macao to Ningpo and Shanghai. He was clerk, supercargo, anything that the interest of the Company demanded. He worked with a will. His thoughts were full of tea, silks, and lacquered ware,—of exquisite carved ivory and wonderful porcelains,—of bamboos, umbrellas, and garden-chairs,—of Hong-Hi, Ching-Ho, and Fi-Fo-Fum.
There were moments, between the despatch of one vessel and the lading of another, when his mind would follow the sun, as it blazed along down out of sight of China, and fast on its way towards the Fox farm,—when an intense longing seized him to look once again on the shady nest of all his hopes and labors. He hated the life he led. He hated the noisy Tartar women that surrounded him,—aquatic and disgusting as crawfish,—brown, stupid, and leering. He hated the feline yawling of their music. He hated the yellow water, swarming with boats, and settled with junks. He hated their pagodas, and their hideous effigies of their ancestors, looking like dumb idols. Their bejewelled Buddhas, their incense-lamps, their night and day, were alike odious to him.
Stretched on a bamboo chair, in an interval of labor, and when the intense heat brought comparative stillness, before his closed eyes came often up his home among the New-Hampshire hills. He thought of his dead mother in the burying-ground, and the slate stones standing in the desolate grass. Then his thoughts ran eagerly back to the Fox farm, and the sweet, lonely figure that stood watching his return under the pear-tree,—the warm kiss of happy meeting, life opening fair, and a long vista through which the sunlight peeped all the more brightly for the shadowing trees.
Then over the farm, broad and bountiful, scanning every detail of the large red house, the great barns and sheds, the flocks of turkeys, and the geese, kept for feathers, and not dreamed of for eating. (Our Puritan fathers held neither to Christmas nor Christmas goose.) Through the path up by the well-sweep, where the moss-covered bucket hangs dripping with the purest of water. Beyond the corn-barn to the butternut-trees,—by this time, they have dropped their rich, oily fruit; and the chestnut-burrs, split open, and lying on the sunny ground. Then round to the house again, where the slant October sun shines in at the hospitable open door, where the little wheel burrs contentedly, and the loom goesflap-flap, as the strong arm of Cely Temple presses the cloth together, and throws the shuttle past, like lightning: stout cloth for choppers and ploughmen comes out of that loom!
In all his peepings at the interior of the house, one figure has accompanied him, beautified and glorified the place; so that, whether he looks into the buttery, where fair, round cheeses fill the shelves, or wanders up the broad stairs with wide landings to the "peacock chamber," he seems to himself always to be going over a temple of sweet and sacred recollections. Into the peacock chamber, therefore, his soul may wander, where the walls are sparsely decked with black-and-white sketches, ill displaying the glorious plumage of the bird, and, like all old pictures, very brown,—even to the four-posted bed, whitely dressed, and heaped to a height that would defy "the true princess" to feel a pea through it, and the white toilet-table, neatly ornamented with a holder and a pair of scissors, both sacred from common usage. Asparagus in the chimney, with scarlet berries. General Washington, very dingy and respectable, over the fireplace; and two small circular frames, inclosing the Colonel and his wife in profile. The likenesses are nearly exact, and the two noses face each other as if in an argument. Dutch tiles are set round the fireplace, of odd Scripture scenes, common in design and coarse in execution. Into the "square room" below, where the originals of the black profiles sit and smoke their pipes, Swan does not care to venture. But some day, he will show the Colonel!
Many days, these thoughts came to Swan. Months, alas, years, they came,—but few and far between. The five thousand dollars that was to have been the summit was soon only the footstool of his ambition. He became partner, and then head of a house having commercial relations with half the world. His habits assimilated themselves to the country about him, and the cool, green pictures of his mountain-home ceased to float before his sleeping eyes or soothe his waking fancies.
His busy life left him little opportunity for reading. But he took in much knowledge at first-hand by observation, which was perhaps better; and as he hit against all sorts of minds, he became in time somewhat reflective and philosophical. Through daily view of the yellow water, and perhaps the glare of the bright sun on it, or the sight of so much nankeen cloth, or the yellow faces about him, perhaps,—or whatever the cause or causes,—Swan certainly altered in his personal appearance, as the years went by. The handsome, erect youth, lithe and active, with keen features and brilliant eyes, ruddy lips and clear oval face, was gradually fading and transforming into something quite different. The brilliant eyes became sleepy, and, from a habit of narrowing the lids over them, possibly to shut out the bright sun, receded more and more beyond the full and flaccid cheeks, and even contracted a Mongolian curve at the outer corners.
One May morning Swan sat alone in his Chinese-furnished room, luxuriously appointed, as became him, on his silk, shaded ottoman, and dreamily fanned himself. His dreams were of nothing more than what occupied him waking. If he glanced upward, he would see the delicate silk curtains at the windows, and the mirrors of polished steel between the carved ivory lattices. Great porcelain vases, such as are never seen here, were disposed about the room, and jars of flowers of strange hues stood on mats of yellow wool. Furniture inlaid with ivory, mother-of-pearl, and coral, decked the apartment, and a small, rich table held an exquisite tea-set. Swan had just been drinking from it, and the room was full of the fragrance. He toyed with the tea-cup, and half dozed. Then, rousing himself, he put fresh tea from the canister into the cup, and poured boiling water over it from the mouth of the fantastic dragon. Covering the cup, he dallied languidly with the delicious beverage, and with the half-thoughts, half-musings, that came with the dreamy indolence of the weather. Was it, indeed, ten years,—ten,—nay, fifteen years, that he had lived this China-life?
The door swung softly open, and a servant brought a note, and stood waiting for him to read it.
Swan glanced disdainfully at the object, which he could never quite consider human,—at his white and blue petticoats, and his effeminate face, so sleepy and so mindless, as if he expected him to turn into a plate or sugar-bowl, or begin flying in the air across some porcelain river, and alighting on the pinnacle of a pagoda.
"Hong man, he outside," said the servant.
"Show him in, you stupid fool!" said the master, "and get out of the room with yourself!"
The Hong merchant's intelligence proved at once to Swan Day the absolute necessity of his return to America to protect the interests of the Company in Boston. With the promptitude which had thus far been one of the chief elements of his success, he lost not a moment in (so to speak) changing his skin, for the new purpose of his existence.
It seemed as if with the resumption of the dress of his native country, (albeit of torrid texture still, since a chocolate silk coat, embroidered waistcoat, and trousers of dark satin speak to a modern ear of fashions as remote as China,) Swan resumed many of the habits and feelings therewith connected. With the flowing flowered robe he cast off forever the world to which it belonged, and his pulse beat rapidly and joyfully as the sails filled with the breeze that bore him away. He gazed with a disdainful pleasure at the receding shore, and closed his eyes,—to turn his back fairly and forever on the Chew-Sins and the Wu-Wangs,—to let the Hang dynasty go hang,—to shut out from all but future fireside-tales the thought of varnish-trees, soap-trees, tallow-trees, wax-trees, and litchi,—never more to look on the land of the rhinoceros, the camel, the elephant, and the ape,—on the girls with thick, protuberant lips, copper skins, and lanky, black hair,—on the corpulent gentry with their long talons, and madams tottering on their hoofs, reminding him constantly of the animal kingdom, as figured to imagination in childhood, of the rat that wanted his long tail again, or of the horse that will never win a race,—on the land of lanterns and lying, of silver pheasants and—of scamps.
The faster the good ship sailed, the stronger the east-wind blew, the swifter ran the life-current in the veins of the returning exile,—friend, countryman, lover.
As the vessel neared the coast of Massachusetts, and the land-breeze brought to his eager nostrils the odors of his native orchards, or the aromatic fragrance of the pine, and the indescribable impression, on all his senses, of home, the fresh love of country rushed purely through his veins, bubbled warmly about the place where his heart used to beat, and rose to his brain in soft, sweet imaginations. Vivid pictures of past and future; identical in all their essential features, swam before his closed eyes, languid now from excess of pleasure. Again and again he drew in the breath of home, and felt it sweeter than the gales from the Spice Islands or odors from Araby the Blest. Hovering before his fancy, came sweet eyes, full of bewildering light, half-reproachful, half-sad, and all-bewitching; a form of such exquisite grace that he wondered not it swam and undulated before him; over all, the rose-hue of youth, and the smooth, sweet charm of lip and hand that memory brought him, in that last timid caress under the pear-tree after sunset.
As soon as he could possibly so arrange his affairs in Boston as to admit of his taking a journey to Walton, Swan determined to do so. But affairs will not always consent to an arrangement; and although he exerted himself to gain a week's leisure, it was not till the Indian summer was past that he took his place in the stage-coach which plied between Boston and Walton.
How very short seemed the time since he was last on this road! Yet how much had things changed! Fifteen years! Was it possible he had been gone so long? How rapidly they had gone over himself! He felt scarcely a day older. The stage-coach was aptly termed "Accommodation," and Swan had great amusement, as he sat with the driver on the box, in noting the differences in the aspect of houses and people, since his own last ride over the same road. New villages had sprung up here and there, while already more than one manufacturing establishment showed the Northern tendencies; and the elements of progress peeped from every settlement, in the shape of meeting- and school-houses.
When the driver whipped up his modest team to an animated trot before the Eagle Hotel in Walton, Swan felt as if he must have been in a dream only, and had just now awakened. Walton was one of those New-Hampshire towns, of which there came afterwards to be many, which were said "to be good to gofrom"; accordingly, everybody had gone everywhere, except the old inhabitants and the children. All the youths had gone towards "the pleasant Ohio, to settle on its banks"; and such maidens as had courage to face a pioneer settlement followed their chosen lords, while the less enterprising were fain to stay at home and bewail their singlehood. All business was necessarily stagnant, and all the improvements, architectural or otherwise, which had marked the route on which Swan had come, now seemed suddenly to have ceased. He might have thought Walton the Enchanted Palace, and himself the Fairy-Prince that was to waken to life and love the Sleeping Beauty.
How unchanged was everything! The store where he used to sell crockery and pins,—the great elm-tree in front of it,—the old red tavern on the hill, where they had the Thanksgiving ball,—the houses, from one end of the street to the other, all just as when he left: he might have found his way in the dark to every one of them.
At the Eagle Tavern, the same men sat on the stoop, with chairs tilted back, smoking. A man in the bar-room was mixing flip or gin-sling for two others, who were playing checkers. Taft himself stood at the door, somewhat changed indeed, though he was always fat, but with the same ready smile as ever; and Swan could see through the windows, by the bright candle-light, the women flitting to and fro, in brisk preparations for supper.
Swan's first touch of surprise was that Taft did not recognize him,—him whom he used to see every day of his life! That was strange. It looked as if time told on Taft's faculties a little. He had himself recognized Taft in a moment. So he had recognized everything, as they drove along, and now how familiar everything looked in the evening light!
Wrapping his travelling-cloak about him, Swan asked to be shown directly to his room, and, in his anxiety to avoid being recognized, ordered a light supper to be sent up to him. First of all, he wanted to see Dorcas, to settle affairs with Colonel Fox, and to feel established. Until then, he cared not to see or talk with his old acquaintances. It would be time enough afterwards to take them by the hand,—to employ them, perhaps. And as it takes almost no time to think, before he was half-way up the stairs, Swan Day had got as far as the erection of a superb country-seat on the hill where the old Cobb house stood, and of employing a dozen smart young carpenters and masons of his acquaintance in the village. The garden should have a pagoda in it; and one room in the house should be called the "China room," and should be furnished exclusively with Chinese tables and chairs; and he would have a brilliant lantern-fête, and——Here he reached the top-stair, and the little maid pointed to his room, curtsied, and ran away.
Swan dropped his cloak, snuffed the candle, and, sitting down before the pleasant wood-fire that had been hastily lighted, proceeded to make his own tea, by a new Invention for Travellers.
As people are not changed so quickly as they expect and intend to be by circumstances, it came to pass that Swan Day's plans for elegant expenditure in his native town soon relapsed, perhaps under the influence of the Chinese herb, into old channels and plans for acquisition. The habit of years was a little too strong for him to turn short round and pour out what he had been for so many years garnering in. Rather, perhaps, keep in the tread-mill of business awhile longer, and then be the nabob in earnest. At present, who knew what these mutterings in the political atmosphere portended? A war with England seemed inevitable, and that at no distant period. It might be better to retire on a limited certainty; but then there was also the manful struggle for a splendid possibility.
A neat-handed maid brought in a tray, with the light Supper he had ordered.
The sight of four kinds of pies, with cold turkey and apple-sauce, brought the Fox farm and its inhabitants more vividly to his mind than anything else he had seen. Pumpkin of the yellowest, custard of the richest, apple of the spiciest, and mince that was one mass of appetizing dainty, filled the room with the flavor of by-gone memories. Every sense responded to them. The fifteen years that had hung like a curtain of mist before him suddenly lifted, and he saw the view beyond, broad, bountiful, and cheery, under the sunshine of love, hope, and plenty. He closed his eyes, and the flavor filled his soul, as sweet music makes the lover faint with happiness.
He took out his writing-materials, and wrote,—
"My DEAREST, SWEETEST DORCAS,—Never for one instant has the thought of you left my heart, since"——
"That's a lie, to begin with!" said he, coolly, and throwing the paper into the fire,—"try again!"
"DEAREST DORCAS,—I feel and I know what you may possibly think of me by this time,—that you may possibly imagine me false to the vows which "——
It will be perceived that Swan had improved in rhetoric, since the day he parted from his lady-love. Still he could not satisfy himself in a letter. In short, he felt that expression outran the reality, however modestly and moderately chosen. Some vividness, some fervency, he must have, of course. But how in the world to get up the requisite definition even to the words he could conscientiously use? The second attempt followed the first.
Swan Day is not the first man who has found himself mistaken in matters of importance. In his return to his native country, and the scenes of his early life, he had taken for granted the evergreen condition of his sentiments. Like the reviving patient in epilepsy, who declares he has never for an instant lost his consciousness, while the bystanders have witnessed the dead fall, and taken note of the long interval,—so this sojourner of fifteen years in strange lands felt the returning pulse of youth, without thought of the lapsing time that bridges over all gulfs of emotion, however deep.
In fact, that part of his nature which had been in most violent action fifteen years before had been lying as torpid under Indian suns as if it had been dead indeed; and his sense of returning vitality was mixed with curious speculations about his own sensations.
He dropped the pen, and placed his feet on the top of the high stuffed easy-chair which adorned the room. This inverted personal condition relieved his mystification somewhat, or perhaps brought his whole nature more into harmony.
"Dorcas!—hm! hm!—fifteen years! so it is!—ah! she must be sadly changed indeed! At thirty, a woman is no longer a wood-nymph. Even more than thirty she must be."
He removed his feet from their elevation, and carefully arranged a different scaffolding out of the materials before him, by placing a cricket on the table, and his feet on the cricket. To do this effectually and properly required the removal of the four pies, and the displacement of the cold turkey.
But Swan was mentally removing far greater and more serious difficulties. By the time he had asked himself one or two questions, and had answered them, such as, "Whether, all the conditions being changed, I am to be held to my promise?" and the like, he had placed one foot carefully up. Then, before conscience had time to trip him up, the other foot followed, and he found himself firmly posted.
"I will write a note to-morrow,—put it into the post-office——No, that won't do; in these places, nobody goes to the post-office once a week;—I'll send a note to the house."
Here he warmed up.
"A note, asking her to meet me under the great pear-tree, as we met——It is, by Jove! just fifteen years to-morrow night since I left Walton! That's good! it will help on some"——
The little maid here interrupted his meditations by coming for the relics of the supper; and Swan, weary with unwonted thought, dropped the paper curtains, and plunged, body and soul, into fifty pounds of live-geese feathers.
The great clock in the dining-room whirred out twelve strokes before Swan opened his eyes. As soon as the eyes took in the principal features of the apartment, which process his mental preoccupation had hindered the night before, he was as much at home as if he had never left Walton.
The great beam across the low room,—the little window-panes,—the rag-carpet, made of odds and ends patriotically arranged to represent the American eagle holding stars and stripes in his firm and bounteous claws, with an open beak that seemed saying,—"Here they be!—'cordin' as you behave yourselves!—starsorstripes!"—all within was more familiar to his eye than household words, for it was the old room he had occupied the year before he left America. He stepped quickly across the chamber to a certain beam, where he had, fifteen years before, written four initial letters, and intertwined them so curiously that the Gordian knot was easy weaving in comparison. The Gordian one was cut;—and this had been painted and effaced forever.
Swan returned to his trunk with a half-sigh. He selected a suit of clothes which he had purchased in Boston, put aside his travelling-dress, and looked out of the window occasionally as he dressed. It was a warm, sunny day. The Indian summer had relented and come back to take one more peep, before winter should shut the door on all the glowing beauty of the year. A dozen persons were crossing the street. He knew every one of them at sight. Of course there was no forgetting old Dan Sears, with whom he had forty times gone a-fishing; nor Phil Sanborn, who had stood behind the counter with him two years at the old store. Though Phil had grown stout, there was the same look. There was the old store, too, looking exactly as it did when he went away, the sign a little more worn in the gilding. He seemed to smell the mingled odors of rum, salt-fish, and liquorice, with which every beam and rafter was permeated. And there was old Walsh going home drunk this minute! with a salt mackerel, as usual, for his family-dinner.
He wrote a short note as he dressed and shaved leisurely. The note was to Dorcas, and only said,—"Meet me under the old pear-tree before sunset tonight,"—and was signed with his initials. This note he at first placed on the little mantel-shelf in plain sight, so that he should not forget to take it down-stairs when he went to breakfast. Afterwards he put it into his pocket-book.
His dress——But the dress of 1811 has not arrived at the picturesque, and could never be classical under any circumstances. He finished his toilet, and went into the dining-room just as everybody else had dined, and asked the landlord what he could have for breakfast. Even then, the landlord hardly looked curious. Taft was certainly failing. In five minutes he found himself at a well-known little table, with the tavern-staple for odd meals, ham and eggs, flanked with sweetmeats and cake, just as he remembered of old. He nibbled at the sharp barberries lying black in the boiled molasses, and listened eagerly to the talk about British aggressions which was going on in the bar-room. Suddenly a face looked in at the low window.
Swan sprang forward, kicked over his chair, and knocked the earthen pepper-box off the table. Before he reached the window, however, the shadow had passed round the corner of the house, out of sight.
It was only a youthful figure, surmounted by a broad-brimmed straw hat, that half hid two sweet, sparkling eyes. Ah! but they were Dorcas's eyes!
He picked up the pepper-box, and mechanically sifted its contents into the barberry-dish.
Dorcas's eyes,—lips,—cheeks,—and waving grace! A rocking movement, a sort of beating, bounding, choking emotion, made the room suddenly dark, and he fell heavily into a chair.
The landlord opened the door, and said,—
"The hoss and shay ready, any time."
Swan roused himself, and drove away, without speaking to any of the smoking loungers on the stoop, to whom he was as if he had never been born. But this, from his preoccupied state, did not strike him as singular. One little voice, a bird's voice, as he drove along through the pine woods, sang over and over the same tune,—"Dorcas! Dorcas!"
The silence of the road, when all animated Nature slept in the warm noon of the late autumn day, when even the wheels scarcely sounded on the dead pine-spears, made this solitary voice, like Swan's newly awakened memory, all but angelic.
The sadness, which, through all the beauty of a New-England November, whispers in the fallen leaves, and through the rustle of the firs, overspread Swan's soul, not yet strengthened as well as freshened by his native air. He was melancholy and half stunned. He had been frightened, as he sat in the chair, by the capacity for enjoyment and suffering that was left in him. And he peered curiously into his own soul, as if the sensibilities locked up there belonged to somebody else. Impulsively he turned his horse towards the graveyard,—forgetting that he had all along intended to go there,—and fastening him at the broken gate, went on till he reached his mother's grave. Before his departure he had set up a slate stone to her memory and that of Robert Day, a soldier in the English army.
"She shall have a marble monument now, poor mother!" thought the son, picking his way through the long, tangled grass of the dreary place. Not a tree, not a shrub in sight. Not even the sward kept carefully. The slate had fallen flat, or, more likely, had been thrown down, and no hand had cared to raise again a stone to the memory of a despised enemy, who had never been even seen in Walton.
When Swan tried to move the stone, a thousand ugly things swarmed from beneath it. He dropped it, shuddering, and passed on. A white marble tablet of some pretension stood near, and recorded the names of
They died the, same day and their bones rest here, till the final resurrection.
He glanced at the date,—
JUNE 14th, 1805.
And he had never heard of it!—never guessed it! But then, he had not heard at all from Dorcas. Poor Dorcas! how had she borne this sudden and terrible bereavement? All that he might have been to her in her sorrow, for one moment all that he hadnotbeen, floated by him. The yellow melted away that had so long incrusted his soul, and he felt on his bared breast, as it were, the fresh air of truth and constancy,—of all that makes life worth the having.
He drove away,—away over the broad fields and the well-remembered meadows, out upon the Dummerston road, and over the Ridge Hill. Well, life was not all behind him!
He took out his watch. It was time to keep his appointment. He left the horse at the tavern-door, and walked up the road towards the trysting-place, the old pear-tree. He looked wistfully at it, and sprang over the wall, with considerable effort, as he could not but admit to himself. That old pear-tree! They had called it old fifteen years ago,—and here it stood, as proud and strong as then! The two great branches that stretched towards the south, and which he had often thought had something benignant in their aspect, as if they would bless the wayfarer or the sojourner under their shade, still reached forth and spread abroad their strong arms. But to-night, whether from his own excited imagination, or because the early frosts had stripped it of its leaves and so bereaved it of all that gave grace to its aspect, or perhaps from the deepening twilight,—however it was, the old tree had a different expression, and stretched forth two skeleton arms with a sort of half-warning, half-mocking gesture, that sent a shudder over his frame, already disturbed by the successive presence, in the last two or three hours, of more emotions than he could comfortably sustain.
Swan was not an imaginative person. Yet the tree looked to him like a living, sentient thing, dooming him and warning him. As in the compression of the brain in drowning, it is said forgotten memories are hustled uppermost, and the events of early life vividly written on the consciousness,—so in this unwonted stir of past and present associations, Swan found himself remembering, with a thrill of pleasure that was chased by a spasm of pain, the last evening on which he had parted from Dorcas. He remembered, as if it were but now, how he had turned towards the pear-tree, when Dorcas had gone out of sight and he dared not follow her, and that the pear-tree had seemed to hear, to see, to sympathize with him,—that it had spread out great blessing arms on the southern air, and had seemed to encourage and strengthen his hopes of a happy return.
Was the fearful expression it now wore a shadow, a forerunner of what he might expect? He shook off, with an effort that was less painful than the sufferance of the thought, both fears and prognostics. He turned his back and walked rapidly and uneasily up and down the path between the tree and the old well.
He had left Dorcas blooming, lovely, and twenty-two. As blooming, as lovely, as lithe, and as sparkling, she was now. His own eyes had seen the vision.
But would she remember and love him still? For the first time it occurred to him that he must himself be somewhat changed,—changed certainly, since old Taft did not recognize him, after all the hogsheads of rum he had sold him! For the first time he felt a little thrill of fear, lest Dorcas should have been inconstant,—or lest, seeing him now, she might not love him as she once did. A faint blush passed over his face.
He raised his eyes, and Dorcas stood before him at the distance of a few feet: the bloom on her delicate cheek the same,—the dimpled chin, the serene forehead, the arch and laughing eyes!
Somehow, she seemed like a ghost, too; for, when he stepped towards her, she retreated, keeping the same distance between them.
"Dorcas!" said Swan, imploringly.
"What do you want of me?" answered a sweet voice, trembling and low.
"Are you really Dorcas? really, reallymyDorcas?" said Swan, in an agony of uncertain emotion.
"To be sure I am Dorcas!" answered the girl, in a half-terrified, half-petulant tone.
In a moment she darted up the path out of sight, just as Dorcas had done on the last night he had seen her!
Had he kept the kiss on his lips with which he had parted from her,—that kiss which, to him at least, had been one of betrothal?
The short day was nearly dead. In the gloom of the darkening twilight, Swan stood leaning against the old tree and looking up the path where the figure had disappeared, doubting whether a vision had deluded his senses or not.
Was Dorcas indeed separated from him? Was there no bringing back the sweet, olden time of love to her? She had seemed to shrink from him and fade out of sight. Could she never indeed love him again?
It was getting dark. But for the great, broad moon, that just then shone out from behind the Ridge Hill, he would not have seen another figure coming down the path from the house. Swan felt as if he had lived a long time in the last half-hour.
A woman walked cautiously towards him, apparently proceeding to the well. She stooped a little, and a wooden hoop round her person supported a pail on each side, which she had evidently come to fill. It was no angel that came to trouble the fountain to-night. She pulled down the chained bucket with a strong, heavy sweep, and the beam rose high in the air, with the stone securely fastened to the end. While she drew up and poured the water into the pails, she looked several times covertly at the stranger. The stranger, on his part, scanned her as closely. She belonged to the house, he thought. Probably she had come to live on the Fox farm at the death of the old people,—to take care of Dorcas, possibly. Again he scanned her curiously.
The face was an ordinary one. A farmer's wife, even of the well-to-do, fore-handed sort, had many cares, and often heavy labors. Fifty years ago, inventive science had given no assistance to domestic labor, and all household work was done in the hardest manner. This woman might have had her day of being good-looking, possibly. But the face, even by moonlight, was now swarthy with exposure; the once round arm was dark and sinewy; and the plainly parted hair was confined and concealed by a blue-and-white handkerchief knotted under her chin. The forehead was freely lined; and the lips opened, when they did open, on dark, unfrequent teeth. These observations Swan made as he moved forward to speak to her; for there was no special expressiveness or animation to relieve the literal stamp of her features.
"Can you tell me, Madam,—hem!—who lives now on this place? It used to belong to Colonel Fox, I think."
He called her "Madam" at a venture, though she might, for all he could see, be a "help" on the farm. But it wasn't Cely, nor yet Dinah.
At the sound of his voice the woman's whole expression changed. Her quick eyes fell back into a look of dreamy inquiry and softness. She dropped her pails to the ground, and stood, fenced in by the hoop, like a statue of bewilderment,—if such a statue could be carved.
Was his face transfigured in the moonlight, as she slowly gathered up old memories, and compared the form before her with the painted shadows of the past? She answered not a word, but clasped her hands tightly together, and bent her head to listen again to the voice.
"I say! goodwoman!"—this time with a raised tone, for he thought she might be deaf,—"is not this the old Fox farm? Please tell me who lives here now. The family are dead, I think."
The woman opened her clenched hands and spread the palms outward and upward. Then, in a low tone of astonishment, she said,—
"Good Lord o' mercy! if it a'n't him!"
He moved nearer, and put his hand on her shoulder to reassure her.
"To be sure it is, my good soul. Don't be frightened. I give you my word, I am myself, and nobody else. And pray, now, who may you be? Do you live here?" he added, with a short laugh.
He addressed her jocosely; for he saw the poor frightened thing would never give him the information he wanted, unless he could contrive to compose her. It was odd, too, that he should frighten everybody so. Dorcas had hurried off like a lapwing.
"Swan Day!" said the woman, softly.
"That is my name, Goody! But I am ashamed to say, I don't remember you.Pray, did you live here when I went away?"
"Yes," said she, softly again, and this time looking into his eyes.
"Tell me, then, if you can tell me, whose hands this farm fell into? Who owns the place? Has it gone out of the family? Where is Dorcas Fox?"
He spoke hastily, and held her by the arm, as if he feared she would slide away in the moonlight.
"Dorcas Fox is here, Swan. I am Dorcas."
"You? you Dorcas Fox?" said he, roughly. "Was it a ghost I saw?" he murmured,—"or is this a ghost?"
He had seen a bud, fresh, dewy, and blooming; and now he brushed away from his thought the wilted and brown substitute. Not a line of the face, not a tone of the voice, did he remember.
"Don't you see anything about me, Swan,—anything that reminds you ofDorcas Fox?" said the woman, eagerly, and clasping her hands again.
His eyes glared at her in the moonlight, as he exclaimed,—
"No, my God! not a feature!"
"Well, I expect I be changed, Swan," said Dorcas, sadly.
She said nothing about his change; and, besides, she had recognized him.
"They say my Dorcas favors me, and looks as I used to. Come, come up to the house; Mr. Mowers'll be glad to see you. You don't know how many times we've talked you over, and wondered if ever you'd come back! But, dear sakes! you can't think what a kind of a shock you give me, Swan! Why, I expected nothin' but what you was dead, years ago!"
Here was a pretty expression of sentiment! Swan only answered, faintly,—
"Did you?" and rubbed his eyes to wake himself up.
They walked slowly towards the house. The great red walls stood staring and peaceful, as of old, and the milkers were coming in from the farmyard with their pails foaming and smoking, as they used to do fifteen years before. In the door-way, with his pipe in his mouth, stood Henry Mowers, the monarch of all he surveyed. He had come, by marriage, to own the Fox farm of twelve hundred acres. He had woodland and pasture-land, cattle and horses, like Job,—and in his house, health, peace, and children: dark-eyed Dorcas and Jemima, white-headed Obed and Zephaniah, and the twins that now clambered over his shoulder and stood on his broad, strong palms,—two others, Philip and Henry, had died in the cradle.
Dorcas the younger stood in the doorway, and leaned gracefully towards her father. She whispered to him, as the stranger approached,—
"There's the man coming now with mother! I thought't was a crazy man!"
The mother came eagerly forward, anxious to prevent the unrecognizing glance, which she knew must be painful.
"What do you think, Henry? Swan Day has come back, just in time to spendThanksgiving with us!"
"Swan Day? I want to know!" answered Henry, mechanically holding out his hand, and then shaking it longer and longer in the vain attempt to recall the youthful features.
"Well! if ever!" he continued, turning to his wife, with increased astonishment at the perspicacity she had shown, while Swan's eyes were fixed on the slender figure of the young Dorcas, seeming to see the river of life flowing by and far beyond him.
Keeping up a despairing shaking, Henry walked the stranger into the old square room, where the once sanded floor was now covered with a carpet, and a piano strutted in the corner where the bed used to stand. But still in the other corner stood the old "buffet," and the desk where Colonel Fox kept his yellow papers. How stern, strong, and mighty Henry looked, with his six feet height, his sinewy limbs and broad chest, and his clear, steady eyes, full of manliness! How cheery the old parlor looked, too, as the evening advanced, and Dorcas lighted the pine-knots that sparkled up the chimney and set all the eyes and cheeks in the room ablaze! That was a pleasant evening, when the three elders chatted freely of all that had come and gone in Swan's absence,—of those who had died, and those who were living, and of settlers even far beyond Western New York!
"It will be like old times to have you here to-morrow at Thanksgiving, won't it?" said Henry.
"Won't it?" echoed Dorcas.
Swan said it would, and good-night.
When he was gone, little Dorcas exclaimed,—
"What a queer little old man, mother! isn't he?"
"How, queer, Dorcas?" said her mother, curious to compare the effects on the minds of the different members of the family of their visitor's appearance.
"Oh, so odd-looking! such queer little eyes! and no hair on the top of his head! and such funny whiskers!" said Dorcas, smoothing her own abundant locks, and looking at her father and brothers, whose curls were brushed back and straight up into the air, a distance of three inches, after the fashion then called "Boston." The smallest child gave an instinctive push over his forehead at the remark, and Zephaniah added,—
"He's as round and yellow as a punkin!"
"He looked stiddy to Dorcas all the time," said 'Mima, roguishly.
"Now you shet up, you silly child!" said Dorcas, with the dignity of a twelve-month's seniority.
"Wal, he dropped this 'ere in my hand, anyhow, as he went out," saidObed, opening his hand cautiously, and showing a Spanish doubloon.
"Oh! then you must give it right back to him to-morrow, Obe!" said the honest sisters; "it's gold! and he couldn't 'a' meant you should hev it!"
"I do' know 'bout that! I'll keep it t'll he asks me for 't, I guess!" said Obed, sturdily.
"What did you think about him, Henry?" said the wife; "you wouldn't 'a' known him?"
"Never! there a'n't an inch o' Swan Day in him! They say people change once in seven years. I should be loath to feel I'd lost all my looks as he has!"
"We grow old, though," answered she, with a touch of pathos in her voice, as she remembered the words of Swan.
"Old? of course, wife!" was the hearty answer; "but then we've got somethin' to show for 't!"
He glanced at her and the children proudly, and then bidding the young ones, "Scatter, quick time!" he stretched his comfortable six-feet-two before the fire, and smiled out of an easy, happy heart.
"What's looks?" said he, philosophically. "You look jest the same to me, wife, as ever you did!"
"Do I?" said the pleased wife. "Well, I'm glad I do. I couldn't bear to seem different to you, Henry!"
Henry took his pipe from his mouth, and then looked at his wife with a steady and somewhat critical gaze.
"I don't think anything about it, wife; but if I want to think on 't,—why, I can, by jes' shettin' my eyes,—and there you are! as handsome as a picter! Little Dorcas is the very image of you, at her age; and you look exactly like her,—only older, of course.—Everything ready for Thanksgiving? We'll give Day a good dinner, anyhow!"
"Yes, all's ready," answered Dorcas, with her eyes fixed on the fire.
"I knew it! There's no fail to you, wife!—never has been!—never will be!"
Dorcas rose and went behind her husband, took his head in her two faithful hands, kissed his forehead, and went upstairs.
"Little Dorcas" was fastening her hair in countlesspapillotes. She smiled bashfully, as her mother entered the room, and showed her white, even teeth, between her rosy lips.
"I wonder if I ever did look so pretty as that child does!" said the mother to herself.
But she said to Dorcas only this:—
"Here's your great-aunt's pin and ring. They used to be mine, when I was young and foolish. Take care of 'em, and don't you be foolish, child!"
"I wonder what mother meant!" soliloquized the daughter, when her mother had kissed her and said good-night; "she certainly had tears in her eyes!"
In the gray dawn of the next morning, Swan Day rode out of Walton in the same stage-coach and with the same "spike-team" of gray horses which had brought him thither thirty-six hours before. When the coach reached Troy, and the bright sun broke over the picturesque scenery of the erratic Ashuelot, he drew his breath deeply, as if relieved of a burden. Presently the coach stopped, the door opened, and the coachman held out his hand in silence.
"Fare, is it?"
"Fare."
Opening his pocket-book, he saw the note which he had written to Dorcas, appointing an interview, and which he had forgotten to send to her.
As he rode on, he tore the letter into a thousand minute fragments, scattering them for a mile in the coach's path, and watching the wheels grind them down in the dust.
"'T isn't the only thing I haven't done that I meant to!" said he, with a sad smile over his sallow face.
He buttoned his coat closely to his chin, raised the collar to his ears, and shut his eyes.
The coachman peeped back at his only passenger, touched the nigh leader with the most delicate hint of a whipcord, and said confidentially to the off wheel,—
"What a sleepy old porpus that is in there!"
* * * * *
An actor in the scenes of that wild night when the Monitor went down craves permission to relate the story of her last cruise.
Her work is now over. She lies a hundred fathoms deep under the stormy waters off Cape Hatteras. But "the little cheese-box on a raft" has made herself a name which will not soon be forgotten by the American people.
Every child knows her early story,—it is one of the thousand romances of the war,—how, as our ships lay at anchor in Hampton Roads, and the army of the Potomac covered the Peninsula, one shining March day,—
"Far away to the South uproseA little feather of snow-white smoke;And we knew that the iron ship of our foesWas steadily steering its courseTo try the forceOf our ribs of oak."
Iron conquered oak; the balls from the Congress and Cumberland rattled from the sides of the Rebel ship like hail; she passed on resistless, and
"Down went the Cumberland, all a wrack."
The Congress struck her flag, and the band of men on the Peninsula waited their turn,—for the iron monster belched out fire and shell to both sea and land. Evening cut short her work, and she returned to Norfolk, leaving terror and confusion behind her.
The morning saw her return; but now between her expected prey, the Minnesota, and herself, lay a low, black raft, to the lookers-on from the Merrimack no more formidable than the masts of the sunken Cumberland, or the useless guns of the Congress, near whose shattered hulks the Monitor kept guard, the avenger of their loss.
As the haughty monster approached the scene of her triumph, the shock of an unexampled cannonade checked her career. That little black turret poured out a fire so tremendous, so continuous, that the jubilant crew of the Merrimack faltered, surprised, terrified. The revolving tower was a marvel to them. One on board of her at the time has since told me, that, though at first entirely confident of victory, consternation finally took hold of all.
"D—n it!" said one, "the thing is full of guns."
An hour the contest raged, and then the iron scales of the invincible began to crumble under repeated blows thundered from that strange revolving terror. A slaughtering, destroying shot smashing through the port, a great seam battered in the side, crippled and defeated, the Merrimack turned prow and steamed away.
This was the end of her career, as really as when, a few weeks later, early morning saw her wrapped in sudden flame and smoke, and the people of Norfolk heard in their beds the report which was her death-knell.
So fear ended for a time, and the Monitor saw little service, until at Fort Darling she dismounted every gun, save one, when all her comrades failed to reach the mark. Then, a little worn by hard fighting, she went to Washington for some slight repairs, but specially to have better arrangements made for ventilation, as those on board suffered from the confined air during action.
The first of September a fresh alarm came, when she went down to Hampton Roads to meet the new Merrimack, said to be coming out, and stationed herself at the mouth of the James River, between the buried Congress and Cumberland, whose masts still rose above water, a monument of Rebel outrage and Union heroism. Here she remained expectant for more than two months, all on board desiring action, but thinking the new year must come in before anything could be done.
The last week in December found her lying under the guns of Fortress Monroe, and busily fitting for sea. Her own guns had been put in perfect working order, and shone like silver, one bearing the name of Worden, the other that of Ericsson. Her engineer, Mr. Campbell, was in the act of giving some final touches to the machinery, when his leg was caught between the piston-rod and frame of one of the oscillating engines, with such force as to bend the rod, which was an inch and a quarter in diameter and about eight inches long, and break its cast-iron frame, five-eighths of an inch in thickness. The most remarkable fact in this case is, that the limb, though jammed and bruised, remained unbroken,—our men in this iron craft seeming themselves to be iron.
The surgeon who examined the limb, astonished at the narrow escape, thought at first that it might, by energetic treatment, be cured in a few days; and as the engineer, who had been with the vessel from her launching, was extremely anxious to remain on board, he was disposed at first to yield to his wishes, but afterwards, reflecting that confined air and sea-sickness would have a bad effect, concluded to transfer him to the hospital, the engineer remarking, as he was carried off,—"Well, this may be Providential."
It was Providential indeed!
His place was filled, and the preparations went on briskly. The turret and sight-holes were calked, and every possible, entrance for water made secure, only the smallest openings being left in the turret-top, and the blower-stacks, through which the ship was ventilated. On the afternoon of December 29, 1862, she put on steam, and, in tow of the Rhode Island, passed the fort, and out to sea under sealed orders.
General joy was expressed at this relief from long inaction. The sick came upon deck, and in the clear sky, fresh air, and sense of motion, seemed to gain new life.
The Rhode Island, like all side-wheel steamers, left in her wake a rolling, foaming track of waves, which the Monitor, as she passed over it, seemed to smooth out like an immense flat-iron. In the course of the afternoon, we saw the Passaic in tow of the State of Georgia, like a white speck, far in advance of us.
As we gradually passed out to sea, the wind freshened somewhat; but the sun went down in glorious clouds of purple and crimson, and the night was fair and calm above us, though in the interior of our little vessel the air had already begun to lose its freshness. We suffered more or less from its closeness through the night, and woke in the morning to find it heavy with impurity from the breaths of some sixty persons, composing the officers and crew. Sunrise found us on deck, enjoying pure air, and watching the East.
"Where yonder dancing billows dip,Far off to Ocean's misty verge,Ploughs Morning, like a full-sailed ship,The Orient's cloudy surge.With spray of scarlet fire, beforeThe ruffled gold that round her dies,She sails above the sleeping shore,Across the waking skies."
During the night we had passed Cape Henry, and now, at dawn, found ourselves on the ocean,—the land only a blue line in the distance. A few more hours, and that had vanished. No sails were visible, and the Passaic, which we had noticed the evening before, was now out of sight. The morning and afternoon passed quietly; we spent most of our time on deck, on account of the confined air below, and, being on a level with the sea, with the spray dashing over us occasionally, amused ourselves with noting its shifting hues and forms, from the deep green of the first long roll to the foam-crest and prismatic tints of the falling wave.
As the afternoon advanced, the freshening wind, the thickening clouds, and the increasing roll of the sea gave those most accustomed to ordinary ship-life some new experiences. The little vessel plunged through the rising waves, instead of riding them, and, as they increased in violence, lay, as it were, under their crests, which washed over her continually, so that, even when we considered ourselves safe, the appearance was that of a vessel sinking.
"I'd rather go to sea in a diving-bell!" said one, as the waves dashed over the pilot-house, and the little craft seemed buried in water.
"Give me an oyster-scow!" cried another,—"anything!—only let it be wood, and something that will float over, instead of under the water!"
Still she plunged on, and about six thirty P.M. we made Cape Hatteras; in half an hour we had rounded the point, and many on board expressed regret that the Monitor should not have been before the Passaic in doing so. Our spy-glasses were in constant use; we saw several vessels in the distance, and about seven P.M. discovered the Passaic four or five milesasternto the north of us, in tow of the steamer State of Georgia.
A general hurrah went up,—"Hurrah for the first iron-clad that ever rounded Cape Hatteras! Hurrah for the little boat that is first in everything!" The distance between ourselves and the Passaic widened, and we gradually lost sight of her.
At half-past seven a heavy shower fell, lasting about twenty minutes. At this time the gale increased; black, heavy clouds covered the sky, through which the moon glimmered fitfully, allowing us to see in the distance a long line of white, plunging foam, rushing towards us,—sure indication, to a sailor's eye, of a stormy time.
A gloom overhung everything; the banks of cloud seemed to settle around us; the moan of the ocean grew louder and more fearful. Still our little boat pushed doggedly on: victorious through all, we thought that here, too, she would conquer, though the beating waves sent shudders through her whole frame. Bearing still the marks of one of the fiercest battles of the war, we had grown to think her invulnerable to any assault of man or element, and as she breasted these huge waves, plunging through one only to meet another more mighty, we thought,—"She is stanch! she will weather it!"
An hour passed; the air below, which had all day been increasing in closeness, was now almost stifling, but our men lost no courage. Some sang as they worked, and the cadence of the voices, mingling with the roar of waters, sounded like a defiance to Ocean.
Some stationed themselves on top of the turret, and a general enthusiasm filled all breasts, as huge waves, twenty feet high, rose up on all sides, hung suspended for a moment like jaws open to devour, and then, breaking, gnashed over in foam from side to side. Those of us new to the sea, and not appreciating our peril, hurrahed for the largest wave; but the captain and one or two others, old sailors, knowing its power, grew momentarily more and more anxious, feeling, with a dread instinctive to the sailor, that, in case of extremity, no wreck yet known to ocean could be so hopeless as this. Solid iron from keelson to turret-top, clinging to anything for safety, if the Monitor should go down, would only insure a share in her fate. No mast, no spar, no floating thing, to meet the outstretched hand in the last moment.
The sea, like the old-world giant, gathered force from each attack. Thick and fast came the blows on the iron mail of the Monitor, and still the brave little vessel held her own, until, at half-past eight, the engineer, Waters, faithful to the end, reported a leak. The pumps were instantly set in motion, and we watched their progress with an intense interest. She had seemed to us like an old-time knight in armor, battling against fearful odds, but still holding his ground. We who watched, when the blow came which made the strong man reel and the life-blood spout, felt our hearts faint within us; then again ground was gained, and the fight went on, the water lowering somewhat under the laboring pumps.
From nine to ten it kept pace with them. From ten to eleven the sea increased in violence, the waves now dashing entirely over the turret, blinding the eyes and causing quick catchings of the breath, as they swept against us. At ten the engineer had reported the leak as gaining on us; at half-past ten, with several pumps in constant motion, one of which threw out three thousand gallons a minute, the water was rising rapidly, and nearing the fires. When these were reached, the vessel's doom was sealed; for with their extinction the pumps must cease, and all hope of keeping the Monitor above water more than an hour or two expire. Our knight had received his death-blow, and lay struggling and helpless under the power of a stronger than he.
A consultation was held, and, not without a conflict of feeling, it was decided that signals of distress should be made. Ocean claimed our little vessel, and her trembling frame and failing fire proved she would soon answer his call; yet a pang went through us, as we thought of the first iron-clad lying alone at the bottom of this stormy sea, her guns silenced, herself a useless mass of metal. Each quiver of her strong frame seemed to plead with us not to abandon her. The work she had done, the work she was to do, rose before us; might there not be a possibility of saving her yet?—her time could not have come so soon. We seemed to hear a voice from her saying,—"Save me, for once I have saved you! My frame is stanch still; my guns may again silence the roar of Rebel batteries. The night will pass, and calm come to us once more. Save me!" The roar of Ocean drowned her voice, and we who descended for a moment to the cabin knew, by the rising water through which we waded, that the end was near.
Small time was there for regrets. Rockets were thrown up, and answered by the Rhode Island, whose brave men prepared at once to lower boats, though, in that wild sea, it was almost madness.
The Monitor had been attached to the Rhode Island by two hawsers, one of which had parted at about seven P.M. The other remained firm, but now it was necessary it should be cut. How was that possible, when every wave washed clean over her deck? what man could reach it alive? "Who'll cut the hawser?" shouted Captain Bankhead. Acting-Master Stodder volunteered, and was followed by another. Holding by one hand to the ropes at her side, they cut through, by many blows of the hatchet, the immense rope which united the vessels. Stodder returned in safety, but his brave companion was washed over and went down.
The men were quiet and controlled, but all felt anxiety. Master's-Mate Peter Williams suggested bailing, in the faint hope that in this way the vessel might be kept longer above water. A bailing party was organized by John Stocking, boatswain, who, brave man, at last went down. Paymaster Keeler led the way, in company with Stocking, Williams, and one or two others; and though the water was now waist-deep, and they knew the vessel was liable to go down at almost any moment, they worked on nobly, throwing out a constant stream of water from the turret.
Meanwhile the boat launched from the Rhode Island had started, manned by a crew of picked men.
A mere heroic impulse could not have accomplished this most noble deed. For hours they had watched the raging sea. Their captain and they knew the danger; every man who entered that boat did it at peril of his life; and yet all were ready. Are not such acts as these convincing proof of the divinity in human nature?
We watched her with straining eyes, for few thought she could live to reach us. She neared; we were sure of her, thank God!
In this interval the cut hawser had become entangled in the paddle-wheel of the Rhode Island, and she drifted down upon us: we, not knowing this fact, supposed her coming to our assistance; but a moment undeceived us. The launch sent for our relief was now between us and her,—too near for safety. The steamer bore swiftly down, stern first, upon our starboard quarter. "Keep off! keep off!" we cried, and then first saw she was helpless. Even as we looked, the devoted boat was caught between the steamer and the iron-clad,—a sharp sound of crushing wood was heard,—thwarts, oars, and splinters flew in air,—the boat's crew leaped to the Monitor's deck. Death stared us in the face; our iron prow must go through the Rhode Island's side, and then an end to all. One awful moment we held our breath,—then the hawser was cleared,—the steamer moved off, as it were, step by step, first one, then another, till a ship's-length lay between us, and then we breathed freely. But the boat!—had she gone to the bottom, carrying brave souls with her? No, there she lay, beating against our iron sides, but still, though bruised and broken, a life-boat to us.