FOOTNOTES:

When Friedrich von Raumer was in England, in 1835, he, at an English dinner, gave this toast: "The King of Prussia, the greatest and best reformer in Europe." That he was the "best reformer in Europe," we will not insist upon,—but that he was the greatest reformer there, we have no doubt whatever. That he was a reformer at heart, originally, no one would pretend who knows his history. He was made one by stress of circumstances. But having become a reformer, he did a great work, as contemporary history shows. He would have been content to live, and reign, and die, sovereign of just such a Prussia as he found in 1797; but, in spite of himself, he was made to effect a mightier revolution than even a French revolutionist of 1793 would have deemed it possible to accomplish. His career is the liveliest illustration that we know of the doctrine that men are the sport of circumstances.

Frederick William III. died in 1840. His son and successor, Frederick William IV., was a man of considerable ability and a rare scholar; but he was not up to his work, the more so that the age of revolutions appeared again early in his reign. He might have made himself master of all Germany in 1848, but had not the courage to act as a Prussian sovereign should have acted. He was elected Emperor by the revolutionary Diet at Frankfort, but refused the crown. A little later, under the inspiration of General Radowitz, he took up such a position as we have seen his successor fill so effectively. War with Austria seemed close at hand, and the unity of Germany might have been brought about sixteen years since had the Prussian monarch been equal to the crisis. As it was, he "backed down," and Radowitz, who was a too-early Bismark, left his place, and died at the close of 1853. The king lost his mind in 1857; and his brother William became Regent, and succeeded to the throne in 1861, on the death of Frederick William IV.

The reign of William I. will be regarded as one of the most remarkable in Prussian history. Though an old man when he took the crown, William I. has advanced the greatness of Prussia even more than it was advanced by Frederick II. His course with regard to the Danish Duchies has called forth many indignant remarks; but it is no worse than that of most other sovereigns, and stones cannot fairly be cast at him by many ruling hands. Count Bismark has been the chief minister of Prussia under William I., and to him must be attributed that policy which has carried his country,per saltum, to the highest place among the nations. He long since came to the conclusion that nothing could be done for Germany, by Germany and in Germany, till Austria should be thrust out of Germany. He was right; and he has labored to accomplish the dismissal of Austria, with a perseverance and a persistency that it would be difficult to parallel. He alone has done the deed. Had he died last May, there would have been no war in Europe this year; for nothing less than his redoubtable courage and iron will could have overcome the obstacles that existed to the commencement of the conflict.

FOOTNOTES:[45]Exactly what it was Napoleon III. asked of Prussia we never have seen stated by any authority that we can quite trust. The London Times, which is likely to be well informed on the subject, assumes, in its issue of August 11th, that the Emperor asked of Prussia the restoration of the French frontier of 1814,—meaning the French frontier as it was fixed by the Treaty of Paris, on the 30th of May, immediately after the fall of Napoleon I. If this is the correct interpretation of Napoleon's demand, he asked for very little. The Treaty of Paris took from France nearly all the conquests made by the Republic and the Empire, leaving her only a few places on the side of Germany, a little territory near Geneva, portions of Savoy, and the Venaissin. After the second conquest of France, most of these remnants of her conquests were taken from her. Napoleon III. has regained what was then lost of Savoy, and he seems to have sought from Prussia the restoration of that which was lost on the side of Germany, most of which was given to Bavaria and Belgium, and the remainder to Prussia herself. What Prussia holds, he supposed she could cede to France; and as to Bavaria, he may have argued that Prussia was in such position with regard to that kingdom as to make her will law to its government. But how could she get possession of what Belgium holds? Since the failure of his attempt, the French Emperor has been at peculiar pains to assure the King of the Belgians that he has no designs on his territory; and therefore we must suppose he had none when he propounded his demand to Prussia. It may be added, that the cession of the Prussian portion of the spoil of 1815 had been a subject of speculation, and of something like negotiation, long before war between Prussia and Austria was supposed to be possible.[46]There has been as much noise made over the needle-gun as by that famous and fascinating slaughter weapon; yet it is by no means an arm of tender years. It had been known thirty years when the recent war began, and it had been amply tested in action seventeen years before it was first directed against the Austrians, not to mention the free use that had been made of it in the Danish war. Much that has been said of its character and capabilities since last June was said in 1849, and can be found in publications of that year. The world had forgotten it, and also that Prussia could fight. Nicholas von Dreyse, inventor of the needle-gun, is now living, at the age of seventy-eight. The thought of the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806. Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because she had no experienced commanders!—like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, for example.[47]The entire force of the Allies at Leipzig is generally stated to have been 290,000 men; that of the French at 175,000,—making a total of 465,000, or about 45,000 more than were present at Sadowa. So the excess at Leipzig was not so very great. At Leipzig the Allies alone had more guns than both armies had at Sadowa,—but what were the cannon of those days compared to those of these times? The great force assembled in and around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as there were Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the two armies; whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria, Prussia, and Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of Leipzig four days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in the fighting of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at Leipzig, the Allies, 42,640,—total, 110,640. But 30,000 of the French were prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to 80,640,—which was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of these were killed or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely used in the battle. War is a great manufacturer ofpabulum Acheruntis,—grave-meat, that is to say.[48]It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of the population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began, not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had from the Italians,—the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth part of her entire population.[49]Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91, 92.[50]Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if they thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of independence of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those beneath him, not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals. He addressed the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever employs, and he berated his underlings in a style that even President Johnson might despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on both public and private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the French Ambassadors at Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to call on the Baron. "Tell him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as French Ambassador, he shall be well received; but if he comes as a private person, he shall be kicked down stairs." Niebuhr, the historian, once told him that he (Stein) hated a certain personage. "Hate him? No," said Stein; "but I would spit in his face were I to meet him on the street." This readiness to convert the human face into a spittoon shows that he was qualified to represent a Southern district in our Congress; for what Stein said he would do was done by Mr. Plummer of Mississippi, who spat in the face of Mr. Slade of Vermont,—the American democrat, who probably never had heard of his grandfather, getting a little beyond the German aristocrat, who could trace his ancestors back through six or seven centuries. Thus do extremes meet. In talents, in energy, in audacity, in arrogance, in firmness of will, and in unbending devotion to one great and leading purpose, Count von Bismark bears a strong resemblance to Baron von Stein, upon whom he seems to have modelled himself,—while Austrian ascendency in Germany was to him what French ascendency in that country was to his prototype, only not so productive of furious hatred, because the supremacy of Austria was offensive politically, and not personally annoying, like that of France; but Bismark, though sufficiently demonstrative in the expression of his sentiments, has never outraged propriety to the extent that it was outraged by Stein. Stein died in 1831, having lived long enough to see the in French Revolution of 1830 that a portion of his work had been done in vain. His Prussian work will endure forever, and be felt throughout the world.[51]The Prussian loss in the battle of Waterloo was 6,998; theBritishloss, 6,935;—but this does not include the Germans, Dutch, and Belgians who fell on the field or were put down among the missing. Wellington's total loss was about 16,000. The number of Prussians present in the battle was much more than twice the number of Britons. The number of the latter was 23,991, with 78 guns; of the former, 51,944, with 104 guns. Almost 16,000 of the Prussians were engaged some hours before the event of the battle was decided; almost 30,000 two hours before that decision; and the remainder an hour before the Allied victory was secured. It shows how seriously the French were damaged by Prussian intervention, that Napoleon had to detach, from the army that he had intended to employ against Wellington only, 27 battalions of infantry (including 11 battalions of the Guard), 18 squadrons of cavalry, and 66 guns, making a total of about 18,000 men, or about a fourth part of his force and almost a third of his artillery. This subtraction from the army that ought to have been used in fighting Wellington would alone have suffered gravely to compromise the French; and it is well known that Napoleon felt the want of men to send against the English long before the conflict was over; and this want was the consequence of the pressure of the Prussians on his right flank, threatening to establish themselves in his rear. But this was not all the aid derived by Wellington from the Prussian advance. It was the arrival of a portion of Zieten's corps on the field of Waterloo that enabled the British commander to withdraw from his left the comparatively untouched cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, and to station them in or near the centre of his line, where they were of the greatest use at the very "crisis" of the battle,—Vivian, in particular, doing as much as was done by any one of Wellington's officers to secure victory for his commander. The Prussians followed the flying French for hours, and had the satisfaction of giving the final blow to Napoleonism for that time. It has risen again.[52]No one who is not familiar with the correspondence of the Allied commanders in 1815 can form an adequate idea of the ferocity which then characterized the Prussian officers. On the 27th of June General von Gneisenau, writing for Blücher, declared that Napoleon must be delivered over to the Prussians, "with a view to his execution." That, he argued, was what eternal justice demanded, and what the Declaration of March 13th decided,—alluding to the Declaration against Napoleon published by the Congress of Vienna, which, he said, and fairly enough too, put him under outlawry by the Allied powers. Doing the Duke of Wellington the justice to suppose he would be averse to hangman's work, Gneisenau, who stood next to Blücher in the Prussian service as well as in Prussian estimation, expressed his leader's readiness to free him from all responsibility in the matter by taking possession of Napoleon's person himself, and detailing the intended assassins from his own army. Wellington was astonished at such language from gentlemen, and so exerted himself that Blücher changed his mind; whereupon Gneisenau wrote that it had been Blücher's "intention to execute [murder?] Bonaparte on the spot where the Duc d'Enghien was shot; that out of deference, however, to the Duke's wishes, he will abstain from this measure; but that the Duke must take on himself the responsibility of its non-enforcement." In another letter he wrote: "When the Duke of Wellington declares himself against the execution of Bonaparte, he thinks and acts in the matter as a Briton. Great Britain is under weightier obligations to no mortal man than to this very villain; for, by the occurrences whereof he is the author, her greatness, prosperity, and wealth have attained their present elevation. The English are the masters of the seas, and have no longer to fear any rivalry, either in this dominion or the commerce of the world. It is quite otherwise with us Prussians. We have been impoverished by him. Our nobility will never be able to right itself again." There is much of theperfide Albionnonsense in this. In a letter which Gneisenau, in 1817, wrote to Sir Hudson Lowe, then Governor of St. Helena, he said: "Mille et mille fois j'ai porté mes souvenirs dans cette vaste solitude de l'océan, et sur ce rocher interessant sur lequel vous êtes le gardien du repos public de l'Europe. De votre vigilance et de votre force de caractère dépend notre salut; dès que vous vous relâchez de vos mesures de rigueur contrele plus rusé scélérat du monde, dès que vous permettriez à vos subalternes de lui accorder par une pitié mal entendue des faveurs, notre repos serait compromis, et les honnêtes gens en Europe s'abandonneraient à leurs anciennes inquiétudes." An amusing instance of his prejudice occurs in another part of the same letter, where he says: "Le fameux manuscrit de Ste. Hélène a fait une sensation scandaleuse et dangereuse en Europe, surtout en France, où, quóiqu'il ait été supprimé, il a été lu dans toutes les coteries de Paris, et où même les femmes, au lieu nuits à le copier." Gneisenau was in this country in his youth,—one of those Hessians who were bought by George III. to murder Americans who would not submit to his crazy tyranny. That was an excellent school in which to learn the creed of assassins; for there was not a Hessian in the British service who was not as much a bravo as any ruffian in Italy who ever sold his stiletto's service to some cowardly vengeance-seeker. It ought, in justice, to be added, that Sir Walter Scott states that in 1816 "there existed a considerable party in Britain who were of opinion that the British government would best have discharged their duty to France and Europe by delivering up Napoleon to Louis XVIII.'s government, to be treated as he himself had treated the Duc d'Enghien." So that the Continent did not monopolize the assassins of that time.

[45]Exactly what it was Napoleon III. asked of Prussia we never have seen stated by any authority that we can quite trust. The London Times, which is likely to be well informed on the subject, assumes, in its issue of August 11th, that the Emperor asked of Prussia the restoration of the French frontier of 1814,—meaning the French frontier as it was fixed by the Treaty of Paris, on the 30th of May, immediately after the fall of Napoleon I. If this is the correct interpretation of Napoleon's demand, he asked for very little. The Treaty of Paris took from France nearly all the conquests made by the Republic and the Empire, leaving her only a few places on the side of Germany, a little territory near Geneva, portions of Savoy, and the Venaissin. After the second conquest of France, most of these remnants of her conquests were taken from her. Napoleon III. has regained what was then lost of Savoy, and he seems to have sought from Prussia the restoration of that which was lost on the side of Germany, most of which was given to Bavaria and Belgium, and the remainder to Prussia herself. What Prussia holds, he supposed she could cede to France; and as to Bavaria, he may have argued that Prussia was in such position with regard to that kingdom as to make her will law to its government. But how could she get possession of what Belgium holds? Since the failure of his attempt, the French Emperor has been at peculiar pains to assure the King of the Belgians that he has no designs on his territory; and therefore we must suppose he had none when he propounded his demand to Prussia. It may be added, that the cession of the Prussian portion of the spoil of 1815 had been a subject of speculation, and of something like negotiation, long before war between Prussia and Austria was supposed to be possible.

[46]There has been as much noise made over the needle-gun as by that famous and fascinating slaughter weapon; yet it is by no means an arm of tender years. It had been known thirty years when the recent war began, and it had been amply tested in action seventeen years before it was first directed against the Austrians, not to mention the free use that had been made of it in the Danish war. Much that has been said of its character and capabilities since last June was said in 1849, and can be found in publications of that year. The world had forgotten it, and also that Prussia could fight. Nicholas von Dreyse, inventor of the needle-gun, is now living, at the age of seventy-eight. The thought of the invention occurred to him the day after the battle of Jena, in 1806. Some six or seven years since, we read, in an English work, an elaborate argument to show that, in a great war, Prussia must be beaten, because she had no experienced commanders!—like Benedek and Clam-Gallas, for example.

[47]The entire force of the Allies at Leipzig is generally stated to have been 290,000 men; that of the French at 175,000,—making a total of 465,000, or about 45,000 more than were present at Sadowa. So the excess at Leipzig was not so very great. At Leipzig the Allies alone had more guns than both armies had at Sadowa,—but what were the cannon of those days compared to those of these times? The great force assembled in and around Leipzig was taken from almost all Europe, as there were Frenchmen, Germans, Russians, Hungarians, Bohemians, Italians, Poles, Swedes, Dutchmen, and even Englishmen, present in the two armies; whereas at Sadowa the armies were drawn only from Austria, Prussia, and Saxony. The battle of Sadowa lasted only one day; that of Leipzig four days, a large part of the Allied armies taking part only in the fighting of the third and fourth days. The French lost 68,000 men at Leipzig, the Allies, 42,640,—total, 110,640. But 30,000 of the French were prisoners, reducing the number of killed and wounded to 80,640,—which was even a good four days' work. Probably a third of these were killed or mortally wounded, as artillery was freely used in the battle. War is a great manufacturer ofpabulum Acheruntis,—grave-meat, that is to say.

[48]It is impossible to speak with precision of the number of the population of Prussia. The highest number mentioned by a respectable authority is 19,000,000; but that is given in "round numbers," and is not meant to be taken literally. But if it be 19,000,000, but little more than half as large as that of Austria as it was when the war began, not much above a fourth as large as that of Russia, many millions below that of the British Islands, a few million less than that of Italy as it stood before the cession of Venetia by Austria, and a few millions more than that of Spain. The populations of Prussia and Italy when the war began were a little above 40,000,000. The populations of Austria and the German states that sided with her may have been about 50,000,000; and Austria had as much assistance from her German allies as Prussia had from the Italians,—the Saxons helping her much, showing the highest military qualities in the brief but bloody war. Had all the lesser German states preserved a strict neutrality, so that the entire Prussian force could have been directed against Austria, the Prussians would have been before Vienna, and probably in that city, in ten days from the date of Sadowa. Prussia brought out 730,000 men, or about one twenty-sixth part of her entire population.

[49]Memoirs of the House of Brandenburg, and History of Prussia during the Seventeenth and Eighteenth Centuries, Vol. I. pp. 91, 92.

[50]Stein was one of those eminent men who have acted as if they thought coarseness bordering upon brutality an evidence of independence of spirit and greatness of soul. He was uncivil to those beneath him, not civil to those above him, and insulting to his equals. He addressed the King of Prussia in language that no gentleman ever employs, and he berated his underlings in a style that even President Johnson might despair of equalling. He hated the Duke of Dalberg, on both public and private accounts; and when the Duke was one of the French Ambassadors at Vienna, in time of the Congress, he offered to call on the Baron. "Tell him," said Stein, "that, if he visits me as French Ambassador, he shall be well received; but if he comes as a private person, he shall be kicked down stairs." Niebuhr, the historian, once told him that he (Stein) hated a certain personage. "Hate him? No," said Stein; "but I would spit in his face were I to meet him on the street." This readiness to convert the human face into a spittoon shows that he was qualified to represent a Southern district in our Congress; for what Stein said he would do was done by Mr. Plummer of Mississippi, who spat in the face of Mr. Slade of Vermont,—the American democrat, who probably never had heard of his grandfather, getting a little beyond the German aristocrat, who could trace his ancestors back through six or seven centuries. Thus do extremes meet. In talents, in energy, in audacity, in arrogance, in firmness of will, and in unbending devotion to one great and leading purpose, Count von Bismark bears a strong resemblance to Baron von Stein, upon whom he seems to have modelled himself,—while Austrian ascendency in Germany was to him what French ascendency in that country was to his prototype, only not so productive of furious hatred, because the supremacy of Austria was offensive politically, and not personally annoying, like that of France; but Bismark, though sufficiently demonstrative in the expression of his sentiments, has never outraged propriety to the extent that it was outraged by Stein. Stein died in 1831, having lived long enough to see the in French Revolution of 1830 that a portion of his work had been done in vain. His Prussian work will endure forever, and be felt throughout the world.

[51]The Prussian loss in the battle of Waterloo was 6,998; theBritishloss, 6,935;—but this does not include the Germans, Dutch, and Belgians who fell on the field or were put down among the missing. Wellington's total loss was about 16,000. The number of Prussians present in the battle was much more than twice the number of Britons. The number of the latter was 23,991, with 78 guns; of the former, 51,944, with 104 guns. Almost 16,000 of the Prussians were engaged some hours before the event of the battle was decided; almost 30,000 two hours before that decision; and the remainder an hour before the Allied victory was secured. It shows how seriously the French were damaged by Prussian intervention, that Napoleon had to detach, from the army that he had intended to employ against Wellington only, 27 battalions of infantry (including 11 battalions of the Guard), 18 squadrons of cavalry, and 66 guns, making a total of about 18,000 men, or about a fourth part of his force and almost a third of his artillery. This subtraction from the army that ought to have been used in fighting Wellington would alone have suffered gravely to compromise the French; and it is well known that Napoleon felt the want of men to send against the English long before the conflict was over; and this want was the consequence of the pressure of the Prussians on his right flank, threatening to establish themselves in his rear. But this was not all the aid derived by Wellington from the Prussian advance. It was the arrival of a portion of Zieten's corps on the field of Waterloo that enabled the British commander to withdraw from his left the comparatively untouched cavalry brigades of Vivian and Vandeleur, and to station them in or near the centre of his line, where they were of the greatest use at the very "crisis" of the battle,—Vivian, in particular, doing as much as was done by any one of Wellington's officers to secure victory for his commander. The Prussians followed the flying French for hours, and had the satisfaction of giving the final blow to Napoleonism for that time. It has risen again.

[52]No one who is not familiar with the correspondence of the Allied commanders in 1815 can form an adequate idea of the ferocity which then characterized the Prussian officers. On the 27th of June General von Gneisenau, writing for Blücher, declared that Napoleon must be delivered over to the Prussians, "with a view to his execution." That, he argued, was what eternal justice demanded, and what the Declaration of March 13th decided,—alluding to the Declaration against Napoleon published by the Congress of Vienna, which, he said, and fairly enough too, put him under outlawry by the Allied powers. Doing the Duke of Wellington the justice to suppose he would be averse to hangman's work, Gneisenau, who stood next to Blücher in the Prussian service as well as in Prussian estimation, expressed his leader's readiness to free him from all responsibility in the matter by taking possession of Napoleon's person himself, and detailing the intended assassins from his own army. Wellington was astonished at such language from gentlemen, and so exerted himself that Blücher changed his mind; whereupon Gneisenau wrote that it had been Blücher's "intention to execute [murder?] Bonaparte on the spot where the Duc d'Enghien was shot; that out of deference, however, to the Duke's wishes, he will abstain from this measure; but that the Duke must take on himself the responsibility of its non-enforcement." In another letter he wrote: "When the Duke of Wellington declares himself against the execution of Bonaparte, he thinks and acts in the matter as a Briton. Great Britain is under weightier obligations to no mortal man than to this very villain; for, by the occurrences whereof he is the author, her greatness, prosperity, and wealth have attained their present elevation. The English are the masters of the seas, and have no longer to fear any rivalry, either in this dominion or the commerce of the world. It is quite otherwise with us Prussians. We have been impoverished by him. Our nobility will never be able to right itself again." There is much of theperfide Albionnonsense in this. In a letter which Gneisenau, in 1817, wrote to Sir Hudson Lowe, then Governor of St. Helena, he said: "Mille et mille fois j'ai porté mes souvenirs dans cette vaste solitude de l'océan, et sur ce rocher interessant sur lequel vous êtes le gardien du repos public de l'Europe. De votre vigilance et de votre force de caractère dépend notre salut; dès que vous vous relâchez de vos mesures de rigueur contrele plus rusé scélérat du monde, dès que vous permettriez à vos subalternes de lui accorder par une pitié mal entendue des faveurs, notre repos serait compromis, et les honnêtes gens en Europe s'abandonneraient à leurs anciennes inquiétudes." An amusing instance of his prejudice occurs in another part of the same letter, where he says: "Le fameux manuscrit de Ste. Hélène a fait une sensation scandaleuse et dangereuse en Europe, surtout en France, où, quóiqu'il ait été supprimé, il a été lu dans toutes les coteries de Paris, et où même les femmes, au lieu nuits à le copier." Gneisenau was in this country in his youth,—one of those Hessians who were bought by George III. to murder Americans who would not submit to his crazy tyranny. That was an excellent school in which to learn the creed of assassins; for there was not a Hessian in the British service who was not as much a bravo as any ruffian in Italy who ever sold his stiletto's service to some cowardly vengeance-seeker. It ought, in justice, to be added, that Sir Walter Scott states that in 1816 "there existed a considerable party in Britain who were of opinion that the British government would best have discharged their duty to France and Europe by delivering up Napoleon to Louis XVIII.'s government, to be treated as he himself had treated the Duc d'Enghien." So that the Continent did not monopolize the assassins of that time.

Can you hear the sparrow in the laneSinging above the graves? she said.He knows my gladness, he knows my pain,Though spring be over and summer be dead.His note hath a chime all cannot hear,And none can love him better than I;For he sings to me when the land is drear,And makes it cheerful even to die.'T is beautiful on this odorous morn,When grasses are waving in every wind,To know my bird is not forlorn,That summer to him is also kind;—But sweeter, when grasses no longer stir,And every lilac-leaf is shed,To know that my voiceful worshipperIs singing above my voiceless dead.

Can you hear the sparrow in the laneSinging above the graves? she said.He knows my gladness, he knows my pain,Though spring be over and summer be dead.

His note hath a chime all cannot hear,And none can love him better than I;For he sings to me when the land is drear,And makes it cheerful even to die.

'T is beautiful on this odorous morn,When grasses are waving in every wind,To know my bird is not forlorn,That summer to him is also kind;—

But sweeter, when grasses no longer stir,And every lilac-leaf is shed,To know that my voiceful worshipperIs singing above my voiceless dead.

One of the first tendencies of sickness is to centralization. Every invalid at least begins by being pivotal in the household. But with the earliest hint that the case is chronic, things recoil to their own centres again; people begin to come and go in the gayest way; they laugh and eat immensely, and fly through the halls asking if one couldn't take a bit of stuffed veal. And while one still sinks lower, failing down to the verge of the grave, it is only to hear of the most cherished friends in another town leading the whirl with tableaux and private theatricals. Finally is realized the diredenouément, that, though one lay with breath flickering away, the daily grocer would come driving up without any velvet on his wheels or any softness in his voice, and that the whole routine of affairs is to proceed, whoever goes or stays. This cold-heartedness it seems will kill one at any rate. Rather the universe should sigh and be darkened. To pass unheeded is worse than to die. Just now it is impossible to compass even the satirical mood of Pope, who declared himself not at all uneasy that many men for whom he never had any esteem were likely to enjoy the world after him. But before one has time to die, the absent friends write such a kind, sorry letter, in which they do not say anything about private theatricals, and, as Thad Stevens said of that speech, one knows of course that it was all a hoax! Then the people who eat stuffed veal repent themselves, and send in a delicate broth or a bit of tenderloin, hovering softly in a sudden regard, and at length a healthier thought is born. It is to arise with desperate will, put a fresh rose in the bonnet and a delusive veil over the face, creeping down to the street withwhat steadiness can be summoned. There one meets friends, and is pretty well, with thanks, and is congratulated. Affairs grow brilliant, but the veil never comes up; underneath there is some one forty years old and an invalid. Having thus moved against the enemy's works, it is best to retire upon what spirit there is left. It is after this sally that, when the landlady hears a hammering of a Sunday, she comes directly to the room of this robust person, who is obliged to confess that, even if so inclined, she has not strength enough to break the Sabbath.

But the anxiety of every one to show some friendliness to a sufferer is only equalled by the usual inability. We all read of that Union soldier in the hospital visited by an elderly woman bound to do something when there was nothing to be done, and who finally succeeded in bathing the patient's face, while he, poor fellow, still struggling in the folds of the towel, was heard to exclaim, "That's the fourteenth time I've had my face washed to-day!"

Far more unobtrusive is the benevolence which goes into one's kitchen, sending thence to the sick-room those dainties which, after all, are so much too good to be eaten. It seems to be taken for granted that sick persons eat a great deal, and that most of them might share the experiment of Matthews, who began the diary of an invalid and ended with that of a gourmand. I fear that these kindly geniuses would sometimes feel a twinge of chagrin at seeing their elaborate delicacies in process of being devoured by the most rubicund people in the house. But it matters not; it is the sending and getting that are the dainties. Amid all these niceties, however, the office of nurse might certainly be made a sinecure; and just at this point her labors are really quite arduous; for any invalid blessed with many favoring friends soon would sink under the care of crockery and baskets to be properly delivered, while to attend to the accompanying napkins is little less than to preside over a small laundry. And then, as every one tastefully sends her choicest wares to enhance their contents, the invalid also finds that she is the keeper of all the best dishes of the best families.

There is nothing like a well-fought resistance in the early stages of invalidism. Keep up the will, and if need be the temper. There are times when to grow heavenly is fatal,—when one is to let the soul run loose, and to gather up the gritty determination of Sarah, Duchess of Marlborough, who, when told that she must be blistered or die, exclaimed, "I won't be blistered, and I won't die!" Indeed, it is often necessary to reverse the decision of the doctor who gives one up, and simply end by giving him up. The numbers are untold who have died solely from being given up,—I do not mean of the doctors. Poor, timid mortals! they only heard the words, and meekly folded their hands and went. On the other side, there is no end to the people who have been given up all through their lives, and who have utterly refused to depart. They have a kind of useless toughness which prevents them from dying, without endowing them to live. These animated relics often show no special fitness for either world, and they are not even ornamental.

I have somewhere seen the invalid enjoined to talk as if well, but treat himself as if ill. And to certain temperaments a little of this diplomacy, or secretiveness, is often very important. Once an admitted invalid, and the dikes are down. Then begin to pour in all sorts of worthy, but alarming and indiscreet persons,—they who accost one in the street declaring one is so changed, and doesn't look fit to be out,—they who invidiously inquire if you take any solid food, as if one walked the world on water-gruel,—they who come to try to make you comfortable while youdolive. All these are very kind, but to a sanguine person they are crushing.

We are all aware that there is no surer way to produce a given state of mind or body, than to constantly addressthe victim as if he were in that state. It is a familiar fact that a stout yeoman once went home pale and discomfited from a little conspiracy of several wags remarking how very ill he looked; and that another, who was blindfolded, having water poured over his arm as if being bled, finally died from loss of blood without losing a drop; and Sir Humphrey Davy mentions one wishing to take nitrous oxide gas, to whom common atmospheric air was given, with the result of syncope. And if the well can be thus wrought on, what can be expected of the weak? This habit of depressing remark comes possibly from the feeling that invalids like to magnify their woes, ailments being regarded as their "sensation," or stock in trade. True, there is now and then one made happier by hearing that he seems exceedingly miserable; but it is more natural to brighten with pleasant words, and a morning compliment of good looks will often set one up for the day. Indeed, we fancy that most persons, knowing their disease, in their own minds, prefer that it should chiefly rest there. To discuss seems only to define it more sharply, and to be greatly condoled is only debilitating. Montaigne, to avoid death-bed sympathies, desired to die on horseback; while against the eternal repeating of these ills for pity, he says that "the man who makes himself dead when living is likely to be held as though alive when he is dying."

Likewise the friendliness which keeps reminding one of the fatal end serves none. It is both impolitic and impolite; as if there were an unsightly mole upon the face, and every visitor remarked, as he entered, "Ah, I see you still have that ugly mole!" With all these comforters it is finally better to do without their devotions than to be subjected to their discouragements. How much Pope resented this rude style of criticism may be seen from his tart exclamation, "They all say 't is pity I am so sickly, and I think 't is pity they are so healthy."

Yet that incurable sufferer, Harriet Martineau, testifies that when a friend said to her, with the face of an angel, "Why should we be bent upon your being better, and make up a bright prospect for you? I see no brightness in it; and the time seems past for expecting you ever to be well,"—her spirits rose at once with the sturdy recognition of the truth. And Dr. Henry, with the same directness, wrote to his friend, "Come out to me next week; I have got something important to do,—I have got to die."

This must surely be called the heroic treatment; but for those who are not equal to such, it is good to have a physician of tact, who shall not doom them regularly every day. Plato said that physicians were the only men who might lie at pleasure, since our health depends upon the vanity and falsity of their promises. And yet one is not usually deceived by this flattery; but it is vastly more comfortable to hear pleasant things instead of gloomy, and the sick would rather prefer a dance to a dirge. Of this amiable sort must have been the attendant who caused Pope to say, "Ah, my dear friend, I am dying every day of a hundred good symptoms"; and still more charming the adviser chosen by Molière, who, when asked by Louis XIV., himself a slave to medicine, what he did about a doctor, said, "O sire, when I am ill, I send for him. He comes; we have a chat and enjoy ourselves. He prescribes; I don't take it,—I am cured."

Perhaps few are aware of the various heroisms of the chronic patient. It must have been prophetic that the Mexicans of olden time thus saluted their new-born babes: "Child, thou art come into the world to endure, suffer, and say nothing." It is grand to be upborne by a spirit unperturbed, although flesh and nerve may strike through the best soul for a moment; even as the great and equable Longinus, on his way to execution, is said to have turned pale and halted for an instant; while we all know, that, after the Stuart rebellion, the rough old DukeBalmoral, a lesser man, never faltered, but, with boisterous courage, cried out for the fatal axe to be carried by his side.

We had been used to think Andrew Jackson an iron-built conqueror, who never knew a pain, until Parton told of the violent cramp which would seize him while marching at the head of his army, when he simply threw himself over a bent sapling in the forest till the spasm subsided, and marched on. The same endurance nerved him to the end. For many of his last years not free for one hour from pain, he still sat at the White House, never intermitting any duty, although the mere signing of his name drew its witness of suffering from every pore. It is with sorrow, too, that we have lately read that the beloved Florence Nightingale has been held by disease, not only to her room, but to a single position in it, for a whole year. And one of our own poets, even dearer to his friends for the sainthood of suffering, still ever is pressing on with tuneful courage. Hear him singing,

"Who hath not learned in hours of faithThe truth, to flesh and sense unknown,That Life is ever lord of Death,And Love can never lose its own?"

Named among the valiant, yet more sad than heroic, was poor Heine on his "mattress-grave." Most pathetically did he lay himself down, this "soldier in the war for the liberation of humanity." Of the last time that Heine left the house before yielding to disease, he says: "With difficulty I dragged myself to the Louvre, and almost sank down as I entered the magnificent hall where the ever-blessed goddess of beauty, our beloved Lady of Milo, stands on her pedestal. At her feet I lay long, and wept so bitterly that a stone must have pitied me. The goddess looked compassionately on me, but at the same time disconsolately, as if she would say, 'Dost thou not see that I have no arms, and thus cannot help thee?'"

Not less touching was the pathos of Tom Hood, in his long years of consumption; but the tone was gayer than the gayest. See him write to a friend: "My dear Johnny, aren't you glad to hear now that I've only been ill and spitting blood three times since I left you, instead of being very dead indeed?" To this he adds: "But wasn't I in luck, after spitting blood and being bled, to catch the rheumatism in going down stairs!"

One long struggle was his against prostration and over-work; but always the same buoyant wit,—writing the cheeriest things with an ebbing life; the hero fighting against fatal odds, but always under a light mask,—and ridiculing himself most of all;—

"I'm sick of gruel and the dietetics;I'm sick of pills and sicker of emetics;I'm sick of pulse's tardiness or quickness;I'm sick of blood, its thinness or its thickness;In short, within a word, I'm sick of sickness."

And others there be, not heroes, who yet have simulated heroism in their blithe indifference to fate;—Lord Buckhurst, who is said to have "stuttered more wit in dying than most people have in their best health"; Wycherley, who took a young bride just before death, and was "neither afraid of dying nor ashamed of marrying"; Chesterfield, who in his last days, when going out for a London drive, used smilingly to say, "I must go and rehearse my funeral"; Pope, who was the victim of incessant disease, which yet never subdued his rhetoric; Scarron, a paralytic and a monstrosity, the merriest man in France, for whom the nation never gave any tears but those of laughter;—all these, down to the easy-minded old Dr. Garth, who died simply because he was tired of life,—"tired of having his shoes pulled on and off."

Strong persons go swinging securely up and down; they are the people of affairs, their nerves are not shaken by anything less than cholera reports; saving these, they should belong to the Great Unterrified of the earth. To them it is hardly given to understand those minute annoyances that beset nerves which are in an abnormal state, especially when one is the prisoner ofa single room. Then one is eternally busy with the dust and small disorders around,—the film on the mirror, the lint-drifts under the stove, the huge cobwebs flying from the corners, the knickknacks awry on the mantel-piece; then one finds the wall-paper is not hung true, and gazes at flaws in the ceiling till they grow into dancing-jacks, and hears the doors that slam, like the shock of a cannon. These are torments so minute that there seems no virtue even in bearing them. Ah! to mount to execution for an idea,—that were glorious and sustaining; but to endure the daily burden of these petty tortures,—one never hears the music play then.

Among the articles to be desired of science is a false hand, or a spectral arm, that shall reach miraculously about,—not a fruit-picker or a carpet-sweeper, but something working with the fineness of an elephant's trunk,—thus to end the discomfort of those orange-seeds spilled on the far side of the room, while, lying inactive, one reaches, reaches, with a patient power which, if transformed into the practical, would push an army through Austria.

Another thing that the invalid has to endure is from the thoughtlessness of visitors. How often, when summoned from the sick-room for any purpose, do they briskly remark, in Tom Thumb style, "I'll be back in a very few minutes!" Hence one lies awake by force, keeping several errands to be despatched on the return, changing variously all the little plans for the next hour or two, and waits. My experience generally is that they have not come back yet.

But the commonest experience is when life itself seems to hang on the arrival of the doctor. Indeed, it is safe to say that never have lovers been so waited for as the doctor. Wasn't that his carriage at the door? Medicine is out! new symptoms appear! it is only an hour to bedtime! and, oh! will the doctor come, do you think? One listens more intently; but now there are no carriages. There are express-wagons, late ice-carts, out-of-town stages, or here and there a light rolling buggy, that seems running on to the end of the world. There are but few foot-passengers either, and they all go by without halting, and there is no indication in the steps of any man of them that he would be the doctor if he could. Thus one wears through the night uncomforted, yet one does not usually die. I have also seen the doctors sitting in their offices expectant, and probably quite as much distressed that everyone went by without stopping. So the balances are kept.

The foregoing grievances are often put among the foolish humors of invalids, but they are quite reasonable compared with many of the droll fancies on record. Take the instance of the elderly man who had been dying suddenly for twenty years; whose last moments would probably amount to a calendar month, and his farewell words to an octavo volume. His physician he pronounced a clever man, but added, pitifully, "I only wish he would agree to my going suddenly; I should not die a bit sooner for his giving me over." It is evident the physician had not the shrewdest insight, or he would have granted this heady maniac his way. "Ah!" would exclaim the constantly departing patient, "all one's nourishment goes for nothing if once sudden death has got insidiously into the system!" More famous were Johnson with his inevitable dried orange-peel, and Byron with his salts. Goethe, too, after renouncing his Lotte, coquetted with the idea of death, every night placing a very handsome dagger by his bed and making sundry attempts to push the point a couple of inches into his breast. Not being able to do this comfortably, he concluded to live. Years after, when he sat assured on his grand poet throne, he must have smiled at it, as with Karl August he "talked of lovely things that conquer death." And still more refined and genuine was the vapor of the imaginative young girl who died of love for the Apollo Belvedere.

Yet it is but fair to mention that the laugh is not all on this side. It is an historical fact that the public has its medical freaks, without being called an invalid, and that whole nations "go daft" on the shallowest impositions. At one time the English were made to believe that all diseases were caused by the contraction of one small muscle of the body; at another, Parliament itself helped make up the five thousand pounds given by the aristocracy to one Joanna Stephens for an omnipotent powder, decoction, and pills, composed chiefly of egg-shells and snail-shells; at another time every one drank snail-water for everything, or to prevent it, and then tar-water became the rage. In Paris the Royal Academy once procured the prohibition of the sale of antimony, on penalty of death, and in a year or two prescribed it as the great panacea. Pliny reports that the Arcadians cured all manner of ills with the milk of a cow (one would like to see them manage the bilious colic).

Mesmer, who was luminous for a while, did not fail to dupe the people. When asked why he ordered bathing in river instead of spring water, he said, "Because it is warmed by the sun."

"True, yet not so much but it has to be warmed still more."

Not posed in the least, Mesmer replied, "The reason why the water which is exposed to the rays of the sun is superior to all other water is because it is magnetized. I myself magnetized the sun some twenty years ago!"

Yet the name of Mesmer has founded a system, while that of Dumoulin, who, with simple wisdom, observed, on dying, that he left behind him two great physicians, Regimen and River-water, has gained but a scanty fame.

Says Boswell, "At least be well if you are not ill"; but the dear public is always ill. In our own country, with an apparently healthy pulse, it has drank the worth of a marble palace in sarsaparilla, and has built a hotel out of Brandreth's pills. It has fairly reeled on Schiedam Schnapps; and even the infant has his little popularities, having passed from catnip and caraway to Mrs. Winslow's Soothing Syrup. There is never a time when the public will not declare upon any well-advertised remedy its belief in the motto of the German doctors, "We do cure everything but death."

It is often interesting to note the various phases which invalidism takes on. Sometimes one seems folded in a dense dream,—has gone away almost beyond one's own pity, and has not been heard from for months. It is to be hoped that friends who hunt "the greyhound and turtle-dove" will meet the missing, and duly report. Meantime one resides in a mummified state,—a dim thinkingness that may be discovered when another coming in says with vigor the thing one had long thought without quite knowing it; in this demi-semi-consciousness it had never pecked through the shell. This looks very imbecile, and is charitably treated to be only called invalid.

Is it mere helplessness that one lies so remote from all but surface sensation, day after day gazing at the address of letters that come, with a passive wonder of how soon she is to vacate her name? Also a friend calls to say that to-morrow he travels afar. It seems then that he will be too much missed, and the parting has its share of unutterable longing. But by the morrow it is not the one left who is sorry. The new sun shines on an earth miles off from yesterday. The night has given many windings more in the folds of this resigned mummy, that now lies securely as an insect in a leaf. Given the beloved hand, and all things may go as they will.

"Our hands in one, we will not shrinkFrom life's severest due;Our hands in one, we will not blinkThe terrible and true."

And sometimes one bounds to the other side of sensation,—has a terrible rubbed-the-wrong-wayedness, and is as much alive as Mimosa herself. This is often on those easterly days which all well-regulated invalidsshudder at, when the very marrow congeals and the nerves are sharp-whetted. Then, Prometheus-like, one "gnaws the heart with meditation"; then, too, always fall out various domestic disasters, and it is not easy to see why the curtain-string should be tied in a hard knot that must be cut at night, or why the servants can't be thorough, deft-handed, and immaculate. One has indigestion, scowls fiercely, tries to swallow large lumps of inamiability, and fears she is not sublime.

It is a saying of Jean Paul, that "the most painful part of corporeal pain is the uncorporeal, namely, our impatience and disappointment that it continues." Whether this be true or not, what with the worry and constant pressure, these physical disabilities often appear to sink into the deepest centre of the being. Hence, if one have had a cough for a very long time, it would seem that the soul must keep on coughing in the next world. If so, this gives a subtile sense to the despatches of departed spiritualists, who telegraph back in a few weeks that their pain isnearlygone,—as if the soul were not immediately rid of the bad habits of the body.

But most demoralized in æsthetic sense must be that invalid who does not constantly look to the splendid robustness of health. Sickness has been termed an early old age; far worse, it is often a tossing nightmare in which the noble ideal of fairer days is only recalled with reproachful pain. Towards this vision of vigor the victim seems to move and move, but never draw near. Well might Heine weep, even before the stricken Lady of Milo. An old proverb says, that "the gods have health in essence, sickness only in intelligence." Blessed are the gods! One can quite understand the reckless exulting of some wild character, who, baffled with this miserable mendicancy everywhere, at length discovered the idea that God was not an invalid. He was probably too much excited to perfect his rhyme, and so tore out these ragged lines:—

"Iterate, iterate,Snatch it from the hells,Circulate and meditateThat God is well."Get the singers to sing it,Put it in the mouths of bells,Pay the ringers to ring it,That God is well."

"Iterate, iterate,Snatch it from the hells,Circulate and meditateThat God is well.

"Get the singers to sing it,Put it in the mouths of bells,Pay the ringers to ring it,That God is well."

Therefore make a valiant stand against that ugly thing, disease. By all Nature's remedies, hasten to be out of it. Fight it off as long as possible, defy it when you can, and refuse "to hang up your hat on the everlasting peg." Be reinforced in all honorable ways. If not too ill, read the dailies; know the last measure of Congress, the price of gold, and the news by the foreign steamer. Disabuse the world for once of its traditional invalid, who sits mewed up in blankets, and never goes where other people go, because it might hurt him. Be out among the activities; don't let the world get ahead, but keep along with the life of things. Then, if invalidism is to be accepted, meet it bravely and serenely as may be; and if death, then approach it loftily, for no one dies with his work undone, and no just-minded person can wish to survive his service. None should aspire to say, with the antiquated Chesterfield, "Tyrawley and I have been dead these two years, but we don't choose to have it known."

But happy they on whom the deep blight has not fallen, and who day by day restore themselves to the grand perfection of manly and womanly estate; happy again to "feel one's self alive" and

"Lord of the senses five";

happy again to "excel in animation and relish of existence"; happy to have gathered so much strength and hope, that, when begins the melody of the morning birds, again shall the joy of the new dawn, with all the possible adventure and enterprise of the coming day, thrill through the heart.

"Be seated, mistress, if you please," said Mrs. Gaunt, with icy civility, "and let me know to what I owe this extraordinary visit."

"I thank you, dame," said Mercy, "for indeed I am sore fatigued." She sat quietly down. "Why I have come to you? It was to serve you, and to keep my word with George Neville."

"Will you be kind enough to explain?" said Mrs. Gaunt, in a freezing tone, and with a look of her calm gray eye to match.

Mercy felt chilled, and was too frank to disguise it. "Alas!" said she, softly, "'t is hard to be received so, and me come all the way from Lancashire, with a heart like lead, to do my duty, God willing."

The tears stood in her eyes, and her mellow voice was sweet and patient.

The gentle remonstrance was not quite without effect. Mrs. Gaunt colored a little; she said, stiffly: "Excuse me if I seem discourteous, but you and I ought not to be in one room a moment. You do not see this, apparently. But at least I have a right to insist that such an interview shall be very brief, and to the purpose. Oblige me, then, by telling me in plain terms why you have come hither."

"Madam, to be your witness at the trial."

"Youto bemywitness?"

"Why not? If I can clear you? What, would you rather be condemned for murder, than let me show them you are innocent? Alas! how you hate me!"

"Hate you, child? of course I hate you. We are both of us flesh and blood, and hate one another. And one of us is honest enough, and uncivil enough, to say so."

"Speak for yourself, dame," replied Mercy, quietly, "for I hate you not; and I thank God for it. To hate is to be miserable. I'd liever be hated than to hate."

Mrs. Gaunt looked at her. "Your words are goodly and wise," said she; "your face is honest, and your eyes are like a very dove's. But, for all that, you hate me quietly, with all your heart. Human nature is human nature."

"'T is so. But grace is grace." She was silent a moment, then resumed: "I'll not deny I did hate you for a time, when first I learned the man I had married had a wife, and you were she. We that be women are too unjust to each other, and too indulgent to a man. But I have worn out my hate. I wrestled in prayer, and the God of Love, he did quench my most unreasonable hate. For 'twas the man betrayed me;younever wronged me, nor I you. But you are right, madam; 't is true that nature without grace is black as pitch. The Devil, he was busy at my ear, and whispered me, 'If the fools in Cumberland hang her, what fault o' thine? Thou wilt be his lawful wife, and thy poor, innocent child will be a child of shame no more.' But, by God's grace, I did defy him. And I do defy him." She rose swiftly from her chair, and her dove's eyes gleamed with celestial light. "Get thee behind me, Satan. I tell thee the hangman shall never have her innocent body, nor thou my soul."

The movement was so unexpected, the words and the look so simply noble, that Mrs. Gaunt rose too, and gazed upon her visitor with astonishment and respect; yet still with a dash of doubt.

She thought to herself, "If this creature is not sincere, what a mistress of deceit she must be."

But Mercy Vint soon returned to her quiet self. She sat down, and said, gravely, and for the first time a little coldly, as one who had deserved well, and been received ill: "Mistress Gaunt, you are accused of murdering your husband.'T is false; for two days ago I saw him alive."

"What do you say?" cried Mrs. Gaunt, trembling all over.

"Be brave, madam. You have borne great trouble: do not give way under joy. He who has wronged us both—he who wedded you under his own name of Griffith Gaunt, and me under the false name of Thomas Leicester—is no more dead than we are; I saw him two days ago, and spoke to him, and persuaded him to come to Carlisle town, and do you justice."

Mrs. Gaunt fell on her knees. "He is alive; he is alive. Thank God! O, thank God! He is alive; and God bless the tongue that tells me so. God bless you eternally, Mercy Vint."

The tears of joy streamed down her face, and then Mercy's flowed too. She uttered a little pathetic cry of joy. "Ah," she sobbed, "the bit of comfort I needed so has come to my heavy heart.Shehas blessed me."

But she said this very softly, and Mrs. Gaunt was in a rapture, and did not hear her.

"Is it a dream? My husband alive? and you the one to come and tell me so? How unjust I have been to you. Forgive me. Why does he not come himself?"

Mercy colored at this question, and hesitated.

"Well, dame," said she, "for one thing, he has been on the fuddle for the last two months."

"On the fuddle?"

"Ay; he owns he has never been sober a whole day. And that takes the heart out of a man, as well as the brains. And then he has got it into his head that you will never forgive him, and that he shall be cast in prison if he shows his face in Cumberland."

"Why in Cumberland more than in Lancashire?" asked Mrs. Gaunt, biting her lip.

Mercy blushed faintly. She replied with some delicacy, but did not altogether mince the matter.

"He knows I shall never punish him for what he has done to me."

"Why not? I begin to think he has wronged you almost as much as he has me."

"Worse, madam; worse. He has robbed me of my good name. You are still his lawful wife, and none can point the finger at you. But look at me. I was an honest girl, respected by all the parish. What has he made of me? The man that lay a dying in my house, and I saved his life, and so my heart did warm to him,—he blasphemed God's altar, to deceive and betray me; and here I am, a poor forlorn creature, neither maid, wife, nor widow; with a child on my arms that I do nothing but cry over. Ay, my poor innocent, I left thee down below, because I was ashamed she should see thee; ah me! ah me!" She lifted up her voice, and wept.

Mrs. Gaunt looked at her wistfully, and, like Mercy before her, had a bitter struggle with human nature,—a struggle so sharp that, in the midst of it, she burst out crying with great violence; but, with that burst, her great soul conquered.

She darted out of the room, leaving Mercy astonished at her abrupt departure.

Mercy was patiently drying her eyes, when the door opened, and judge her surprise when she saw Mrs. Gaunt glide into the room with her little boy asleep in her arms, and an expression upon her face more sublime than anything Mercy Vint had ever yet seen on earth. She kissed the babe softly, and, becoming infantine as well as angelic by this contact, sat herself down in a moment on the floor with him, and held out her hand to Mercy. "There," said she, "come, sit beside us, and see how I hate him,—no more than you do; sweet innocent."

They looked him all over, discussed his every feature learnedly, kissed his limbs and extremities after the manner of their sex, and, comprehending at last that to have been both of them wronged by one man was a bond of sympathy, not hate, the two wives of Griffith Gauntlaid his child across their two laps, and wept over him together.

Mercy Vint took herself to task. "I am but a selfish woman," said she, "to talk or think of anything but that I came here for." She then proceeded to show Mrs. Gaunt by what means she proposed to secure her acquittal, without getting Griffith Gaunt into trouble.

Mrs. Gaunt listened with keen and grateful attention, until she came to that part; then she interrupted her eagerly. "Don't spare him for me. In your place I'd trounce the villain finely."

"Ay," said Mercy, "and then forgive him; but I am different. I shall never forgive him; but I am a poor hand at punishing and revenging. I always was. My name is Mercy, you know. To tell the truth, I was to have been called Prudence, after my good aunt; but she said, nay; she had lived to hear Greed, and Selfishness, and a heap of faults, named Prudence. 'Call the child something that means what it does mean, and not after me,' quoth she. So with me hearing 'Mercy, Mercy,' called out after me so many years, I do think the quality hath somehow got under my skin; for I cannot abide to see folk smart, let alone to strike the blow. What, shall I take the place of God, and punish the evil-doers, because 't is me they wrong? Nay, dame, I will never punish him, though he hath wronged me cruelly. All I shall do is to think very ill of him, and shun him, and tear his memory out of my heart. You look at me: do you think I cannot? You don't know me; I am very resolute when I see clear. Of course I loved him,—loved him dearly. He was like a husband to me, and a kind one. But the moment I knew how basely he had deceived us both, my heart began to turn against the man, and now 't is ice to him. Heaven knows what I am made of; for, believe me, I'd liever ten times be beside you than beside him. My heart it lay like a lump of lead till I heard your story, and found I could do you a good turn,—you that he had wronged, as well as me. I read your beautiful eyes; but nay, fear me not; I'm not the woman to pine for the fruit that is my neighbor's. All I ask for on earth is a few kind words and looks from you. You are gentle, and I am simple; but we are both one flesh and blood, and your lovely wet eyes do prove it this moment. Dame Gaunt—Kate—I ne'er was ten miles from home afore, and I am come all this weary way to serve thee. O, give me the one thing that can do me good in this world,—the one thing I pine for,—a little ofyourlove."

The words were scarce out of her lips, when Mrs. Gaunt caught her impetuously round the neck with both hands, and laid her on that erring but noble heart of hers, and kissed her eagerly.

They kissed one another again and again, and wept over one another.

And now Mrs. Gaunt, who did nothing by halves, could not make enough of Mercy Vint. She ordered supper, and ate with her, to make her eat. Mrs. Menteith offered Mercy a bed; but Mrs. Gaunt said she must lie with her, she and her child.

"What," said she, "think you I'll let you out of my sight? Alas! who knows when you and I shall ever be together again?"

"I know," said Mercy, thoughtfully. "In this world, never."

They slept in one bed, and held each other by the hand all night, and talked to one another, and in the morning knew each the other's story, and each the other's mind and character, better than their oldest acquaintances knew either the one or the other.

The trial began again; and the court was crowded to suffocation. All eyes were bent on the prisoner. She rose, calm and quiet, and begged leave to say a few words to the court.

Mr. Whitworth objected to that. She had concluded her address yesterday, and called a witness.

Prisoner.But I have not examined a witness yet.

Judge.You come somewhat out of time, madam; but, if you will be brief, we will hear you.

Prisoner.I thank you, my lord. It was only to withdraw an error. The cry for help that was heard by the side of Hernshaw Mere, I said, yesterday, that cry was uttered by Thomas Leicester. Well, I find I was mistaken: the cry for help was uttered by my husband,—by that Griffith Gaunt I am accused of assassinating.

This extraordinary admission caused a great sensation in court. The judge looked very grave and sad; and Sergeant Wiltshire, who came into court just then, whispered his junior, "She has put the rope round her own neck. The jury would never have believed our witness."

Prisoner.I will only add, that a person came into the town last night, who knows a great deal more about this mysterious business than I do. I purpose, therefore, to alter the plan of my defence; and to save your time, my lord, who have dealt so courteously with me, I shall call but a single witness.

Ere the astonishment caused by this sudden collapse of the defence was in any degree abated, she called "Mercy Vint."

There was the usual stir and struggle; and then the calm, self-possessed face and figure of a comely young woman confronted the court. She was sworn; and examined by the prisoner after this fashion.

"Where do you live?"

"At the 'Packhorse,' near Allerton, in Lancashire."

Prisoner.Do you know Mr. Griffith Gaunt?

Mercy.Madam, I do.

Prisoner.Was he at your place in October last?

Mercy.Yes, madam, on the thirteenth of October. On that day he left for Cumberland.

Prisoner.On foot, or on horseback?

Mercy.On horseback.

Prisoner.With boots on, or shoes?

Mercy.He had a pair of new boots on.

Prisoner.Do you know Thomas Leicester?

Mercy.A pedler called at our house on the eleventh of October, and he said his name was Thomas Leicester.

Prisoner.How was he shod?

Mercy.In hobnailed shoes.

Prisoner.Which way went he on leaving you?

Mercy.Madam, he went northwards; I know no more for certain.

Prisoner.When did you see Mr. Gaunt last?

Mercy.Four days ago.

Judge.What is that? You saw him alive four days ago?

Mercy.Ay, my lord; the last Wednesday that ever was.

At this the people burst out into a loud, agitated murmur, and their heads went to and fro all the time. In vain the crier cried and threatened. The noise rose and surged, and took its course. It went down gradually, as amazement gave way to curiosity; and then there was a remarkable silence; and then the silvery voice of the prisoner, and the mellow tones of the witness, appeared to penetrate the very walls of the building, each syllable of those two beautiful speakers was heard so distinctly.

Prisoner.Be so good as to tell the court what passed on Wednesday last between Griffith Gaunt and you, relative to this charge of murder.

Mercy.I let him know one George Neville had come from Cumberland in search of him, and had told me you lay in Carlisle jail charged with his murder. I did urge him to ride at once to Carlisle, and show himself; but he refused. He made light of the matter. Then I told him not so; the circumstances looked ugly, and your life was in peril. Then he said, nay, 'twas in no peril; for if you were to be found guilty, then he would show himself on the instant. Then I told him he was not worthy the name of a man, and if he would not go, I would. "Go you, by all means," said he, "and I'll giveyou a writing that will clear her. Jack Houseman will be there, that knows my hand; and so does the sheriff, and half the grand jury at the least."

Prisoner.Have you that writing?

Mercy.To be sure I have. Here 't is.

Prisoner.Be pleased to read it.

Judge.Stay a minute. Shall you prove it to be his handwriting?

Prisoner.Ay, my lord, by as many as you please.

Judge.Then let that stand over for the present. Let me see it.

It was handed up to him; and he showed it to the sheriff, who said he thought it was Griffith Gaunt's writing.

The paper was then read out to the jury. It ran as follows:—

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