Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent,So is the grass growing tenderly, slowly;So is the violet fragrant and lowly,Drinking in quietness, peace, and content;So is the bird on the light branches swinging,Idly his carol of gratitude singing,Only on living and loving intent.Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!So is the cloud overhanging the mountainSo is the tremulous wave of a fountain,Uttering softly its eloquent psalm;Nerve and sensation in quiet reposing,Silent as blossoms the night dew is closing,But the full heart beating strongly and calm.Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!If it be idle to gather my pleasureOut of creation's uncoveted treasure,Midnight, and morning; by forest and sea;Wild with the tempest's sublime exultation;Lonely in Autumn's forlorn lamentation;Hopeful and happy with Spring and the bee.Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?Thralls of the earth, and its usages weary;Toiling like gnomes where the darkness is dreary,Toiling and sinning, to heap up your gold.Stifling the heavenward breath of devotion;Crushing the freshness of every emotion;Hearts like the dead, that are pulseless and cold!Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?Thou who art living unloving and lonely,Wrapped in a pall that will cover thee only,Shrouded in selfishness, piteous ghost!Sad eyes behold thee, and angels are weepingO'er thy forsaked and desolate sleeping;Art thou not indolent!—Art thou not lost?A. W. H.
Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent,So is the grass growing tenderly, slowly;So is the violet fragrant and lowly,Drinking in quietness, peace, and content;So is the bird on the light branches swinging,Idly his carol of gratitude singing,Only on living and loving intent.
Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!So is the cloud overhanging the mountainSo is the tremulous wave of a fountain,Uttering softly its eloquent psalm;Nerve and sensation in quiet reposing,Silent as blossoms the night dew is closing,But the full heart beating strongly and calm.
Indolent! indolent! Yes, I am indolent!If it be idle to gather my pleasureOut of creation's uncoveted treasure,Midnight, and morning; by forest and sea;Wild with the tempest's sublime exultation;Lonely in Autumn's forlorn lamentation;Hopeful and happy with Spring and the bee.
Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?Thralls of the earth, and its usages weary;Toiling like gnomes where the darkness is dreary,Toiling and sinning, to heap up your gold.Stifling the heavenward breath of devotion;Crushing the freshness of every emotion;Hearts like the dead, that are pulseless and cold!
Indolent! indolent! are ye not indolent?Thou who art living unloving and lonely,Wrapped in a pall that will cover thee only,Shrouded in selfishness, piteous ghost!Sad eyes behold thee, and angels are weepingO'er thy forsaked and desolate sleeping;Art thou not indolent!—Art thou not lost?
A. W. H.
Alice Careycontinues to write pieces full of grace and feeling. Here is one from theNational Era:
In the bright'ning wake of AprilComes the lovely, lovely May,But the step of Annie ClayvilleFalleth fainter day by day.In despite of sunshine, shadowsLie upon her heart and brow:Last year she was gay and happy—Life is nothing to her now!When she hears the wild bird singing,Or the sweetly humming bee,Only says she, faintly smiling,What have you to do with me?Yet, sing out for pleasant weather,Wild birds in the woodland dells—Fly out, little bees, and gatherHoney for your waxen wells.Softly, silver rain of April,Come down singing from the clouds,Till daffodils and daisiesShall be up in golden crowds;Till the wild pinks hedge the meadows,Blushing out of slender stems,And the dandelions, starry,Cover all the hills with gems.From your cool beds in the rivers,Blow, fresh winds, and gladness bringTo the locks that wait to hide you—What have I to do with spring?May is past—along the hollowsChime the rills in sleepy tune,While the harvest's yellow chapletSwings against the face of June.Very pale lies Annie Clayville—Still her forehead, shadow crowned,And the watchers hear her saying,As they softly tread around:Go out, reapers, for the hill topsTwinkle with the summer's heat—Lay from out your swinging cradlesGolden furrows of ripe wheat!While the little laughing children,Lightly mixing work with play,From between the long green winrowsGlean the sweetly-scented hay.Let your sickles shine like sunbeamsIn the silver-flowing rye,Ears grow heavy in the cornfields—That will claim you by and by.Go out, reapers, with your sickles,Gather home the harvest store!Little gleaners, laughing gleaners,I shall go with you no more.Round the red moon of October,White and cold the eve-stars climb,Birds are gone, and flowers are dying—'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time,Yellow leaves along the woodlandSurge to drifts—the elm bough sways,Creaking at the homestead windowAll the weary nights and days.Dismally the rain is falling—Very dismally and cold;Close, within the village graveyard,By a heap of freshest mould,With a simple, nameless headstone,Lies a low and narrow mound,And the brow of Annie ClayvilleIs no longer shadow-crowned.Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly,Glad to go where pain is o'er—Where they say not, through the night-time,"I am weary," any more.
In the bright'ning wake of AprilComes the lovely, lovely May,But the step of Annie ClayvilleFalleth fainter day by day.In despite of sunshine, shadowsLie upon her heart and brow:Last year she was gay and happy—Life is nothing to her now!
When she hears the wild bird singing,Or the sweetly humming bee,Only says she, faintly smiling,What have you to do with me?Yet, sing out for pleasant weather,Wild birds in the woodland dells—Fly out, little bees, and gatherHoney for your waxen wells.Softly, silver rain of April,Come down singing from the clouds,Till daffodils and daisiesShall be up in golden crowds;Till the wild pinks hedge the meadows,Blushing out of slender stems,And the dandelions, starry,Cover all the hills with gems.From your cool beds in the rivers,Blow, fresh winds, and gladness bringTo the locks that wait to hide you—What have I to do with spring?
May is past—along the hollowsChime the rills in sleepy tune,While the harvest's yellow chapletSwings against the face of June.
Very pale lies Annie Clayville—Still her forehead, shadow crowned,And the watchers hear her saying,As they softly tread around:Go out, reapers, for the hill topsTwinkle with the summer's heat—Lay from out your swinging cradlesGolden furrows of ripe wheat!While the little laughing children,Lightly mixing work with play,From between the long green winrowsGlean the sweetly-scented hay.Let your sickles shine like sunbeamsIn the silver-flowing rye,Ears grow heavy in the cornfields—That will claim you by and by.Go out, reapers, with your sickles,Gather home the harvest store!Little gleaners, laughing gleaners,I shall go with you no more.
Round the red moon of October,White and cold the eve-stars climb,Birds are gone, and flowers are dying—'Tis a lonesome, lonesome time,Yellow leaves along the woodlandSurge to drifts—the elm bough sways,Creaking at the homestead windowAll the weary nights and days.Dismally the rain is falling—Very dismally and cold;Close, within the village graveyard,By a heap of freshest mould,With a simple, nameless headstone,Lies a low and narrow mound,And the brow of Annie ClayvilleIs no longer shadow-crowned.Rest thee, lost one, rest thee calmly,Glad to go where pain is o'er—Where they say not, through the night-time,"I am weary," any more.
Mr. Bokerhas a fine poem entitled "I have a Cottage," in the JulyGraham's Magazine.
FOOTNOTES:[D]Weil'sHistory of the Khalifs. 3 vols. octavo. Besserman, Mannhein, 1851.
[D]Weil'sHistory of the Khalifs. 3 vols. octavo. Besserman, Mannhein, 1851.
[D]Weil'sHistory of the Khalifs. 3 vols. octavo. Besserman, Mannhein, 1851.
There have been new discoveries of sculptures in Athens. The foundations of the old Council House were disclosed, and farther investigation led to the discovery of very beautiful remains. They are mostly fragmentary, but of the finest style. Especially an arm, with drapery, is very fine, and as the investigations are not yet completed, it is hoped that other parts of the statue may be obtained. More than sixty inscriptions have been also revealed. They are mostly decrees in praise of and memorials of honor to certain men. Some are of the Macedonian, others of the Roman period. Mr. Pittakis, the long resident and famous Athenian antiquariae, has been properly put at the head of the party of investigation. His topographical knowledge of Athens is probably superior to that of any other living man.
The German painterCorneliushas recently composed a picture for the hospital of the Sisters of Charity in Berlin. The cartoon is at present in Dresden, where it will be cut in wood by the artist's old friend, Director von Schnorr, for the Art-Guild there. It will afterward be engraved upon steel, and sold for the benefit of the hospital. The subject is taken from the life of Elizabeth. The mother of the Landgrave of Thuringen has seen that Elizabeth has laid a beggar on the nuptial bed, for the purpose of nursing her, and he brings her son to see how his wife forgets his dignity as well as her own. But her worldly selfishness is shamed in the most surprising manner. An angel has drawn aside the curtain, and the landgrave, instead of a beggar, beholds the Saviour himself, who, with gentle aspect, stretches his hand toward the mother and son. Under the picture is the motto, "What ye have done to the least of these brethren, that ye have done to me." In its essential character this picture resembles the cartoon for a painting upon glass in the cathedral of Aix. In both pictures the artist has reverted to the sensibility of his youth, and created forms which recall the paintings of the old German and elder Italian masters. In the present drawing the figures of Elizabeth and of the two angels (one of whom is in a reverential posture behind the bed) are radiant with celestial tenderness and loveliness. From the countenance of Christ beams the divinely mild rebuke of the deepest feeling of mistaken virtue. The landgrave, a fine manly figure, is full of the earnest expression of the knowledge fast dawning upon his mind, and his mother shows characteristic worldliness subdued by a higher power. The whole picture is penetrated by the devotional sentiment of the middle ages. These are not modern figures in middle age costume, but men who belong to their time by expression and bearing. In the freedom and simplicity of treatment we recognize the master, who may properly reproduce the life and art of a past time, from his entire sympathy with it. Another cartoon in the great series for the Berlin Campo Santo, upon which Cornelius is now engaged, represents the happiness of those who hunger and thirst after righteousness.
A German critic, speaking of the statues of the Greek Slave by Powers and of the Wounded Indian by Stevenson, says of the latter that the touch of genius is visible in the work, but it is only the copying of nature, and has no ideal character; and of the former that the artist must have developed his talent by long and patient study and contemplation of the finest creations of art. The forms of nature are not only reproduced, with the most poetic truth, but a glow of spiritual beauty breathes all over the work. It is most interesting, concludes the critic, to see the laying of the corner-stone of American art, an edifice whose completion none of us will live to see.
The Festival of the unveiling of the statue of Frederick the Great, at Berlin, on the last day of May, is represented as one of the most splendid spectacles ever witnessed in that city. The memory of "Old Fritz" is cherished with a peculiar enthusiasm by the masses, who turned out in immense numbers. The day was the 110th anniversary of Frederick's ascending the throne. The monument is a real historical work, and, besides its artistic merit, may be consulted as an authentic record of the warriors and statesmen who helped to found a great kingdom. It is an immense advance on the insipid allegorical style, with its eternal Fames with trumpets, and Victories descending with garlands. Except in one or two of the small bas-reliefs, Rauch has adhered to strict reality, only so skilfully modified that it never becomes vulgar or commonplace. His Ziethens and Winterfeldts are warriors as stern and dignified in their "regulation" uniforms as if they were presented on the fields of Torgau and and Rossbach, like Achilles and Hector on the plains of Troy. A letter in the LondonTimessays there were present about eighty aged soldiers who had served under the great King, and one old Hussar, of Ziethen's regiment, was pointed out as having actually fought in the Seven Years' War; the junior of the party could not be less than fourscore; they were all accommodated with seats specially provided for them; they wore the uniform of the period, of the old regulation cut, but newly made for the day, so that the veterans looked quite brilliant. Some of them, perhaps, had not worn a uniform for half a century.
The author ofWanderings of a Pilgrim, during Four-and-Twenty Years in the East, has employed herself, since her return to England, in superintending the painting of a Diorama of Hindostan. Perhaps no one else has so numerous a collection of beautiful sketches taken in the East, and few, indeed, possess her knowledge of Indian manners and customs.
At the close of last month the bronze statues of Gustavus Adolphus, and of Tegner, the Swedish poet who wrote theChildren of the last Supper, were cast in Munich.
Since our last number,Jenny Lindhas closed the series of her farewell concerts in New-York, and a week afterward dissolved her business relations with Mr. Barnum. Her career of nine months in this country has been a triumph unprecedented in the history of artistic success. She has appealed everywhere to the great general sympathy of the multitude, and partly, undoubtedly, owing to the prestige of her European fame, and the wonder at her remarkable vocalism, she has sung always before an audience essentially and characteristically American.
But the great service she has rendered, the fact which history would regard, is her introduction to us of some of the finest music,presented in a manner entirely adequate, and yet entirely different from all to which we were accustomed. She has illustrated the fact, that a noble nature ennobles the position of a public artist, and that the most appreciative artistic sympathy with the highest and most unpopular music, has yet something popularly sympathetic. It is the old story of great genius. It is Burns, again, at once the despair of the most brilliant and cultivated talent, and the delight of the entirely illiterate and vulgar sense. From this career ofJenny Lindmust date a new era for us, both in musical taste and musical criticism. Now that she has shown us what is good music, whether popular or not, and what is perfect performance of it, whether in any favorite school or not, it will no longer do to smear mediocrity with superlatives, or to criticise music upon any grounds other than those of the criticism of all other arts. The manner in whichJenny Lindtook our Penates, ourSweet Home, andAuld Robin Gray, andComin' thro' the Rye, and restored them to us with a more graceful and significant life, was one of the most beautiful signs of the presence and power of genius. To that, every thing has been subservient. The large and gracious charities of the woman, the natural simplicity of her manner, and the personal magnetism which she every where diffused, were but the ornaments of the pure artistic nature, the divine priesthood of genius.Jenny Lindcontinues her progress through the country. It is understood that, after a month, she will retire from the public eye, for the rest which she so much requires, and afterwards, we learn from the best authority, she will, if possible, resume her concerts.
The Opera.—Immediately upon the departure ofJenny Lind, Mr. Maretzek opened the doors of the Astor Place Opera House for a short season, preparatory to his summer campaign in Castle Garden. Under his auspicesBosiohas reappeared, andBettinihas made his bow.Bosiois so beautiful a woman, she has a voice so subtly sweet and sympathetic, a style of singing so simple and sufficient, and an instinctive feminineness of feeling fine enough to make her acting always agreeable, that her impression as a Prima Donna is the most symmetrical we have known in New-York. Her womanliness is her charm and her success. Even in characters of so grandiose proportions in the imagination, asLucrezia, she never drops for a moment the interest of the spectator, although it is new to him to find a tender feeling in his regard for the Borgia. This tenderness, however, is not fatal to the artistic effect. It is that quality of feeling which he would have for a lost but lovely Magdalen.Bosio'sZerlinais another quite perfect representation. Its arch grace and sparkling beauty have never been surpassed by any Zerlina we have seen.Bosio, however, sketches rather than colors. Her acting is a suggestive outline which the imagination naturally fills—and, within the range of singers possible to us, we could select none so singularly fascinating as Bosio for the summer moonlight at Castle Garden.
Bettiniis a young man, with a fresh, sweet, sympathetic tenor voice, which happily harmonizes withBosio's. He has rather too magniloquent a style both of acting and singing, but is a very agreeable artist. We could lay in the shadows of his portrait delicately, yet deeply enough, by saying that he isyoung. He has made a decided hit upon the town, and the first evening at Castle Garden attracted an audience of not less than three thousand.
Donizetti's opera ofMarino Falierohas been produced at Castle Garden, for the first time in America. It is only second rate music, but was admirably sung by the company.Marinilooks the Doge and wears the ducal robe with great dignity and success.
The fifteenth century proved an eventful and important period of Swiss history. The age which preceded it gave birth to the people, and brought them an independent existence and a name; but it left them at its close the mere skeleton of a political body, and it was not until a later day that their national constitution received fulness and development—it was not until the fifteenth century that the people acquired a clearly distinct character and position among the countries of Europe.
Several of the most celebrated battles in Swiss history, those which gave the confederates military fame with other nations, belong to this period. The battle of St. Jacques is altogether one of the most extraordinary on record. Thirty thousand French troops, chiefly from the free company of Armagnac, commanded by the Dauphin, afterwards Louis XI., marched to the defence of Zurich, which had revolted against the confederacy. They arrived at Basle in August, 1444. Fifteen hundred Swiss, from the cantons of Berne, Lucerne, Soleure and Basle, were dispatched to meet them. They found several thousand of the enemy in advance. These they attacked, repulsed, and pursued to the river Birs, and then, dashing into the stream after the flying enemy, and in face of a heavy cannonade, they actually assaulted the whole army of France in their camp on the opposite shore. The daring corps were soon divided, but they fought like lions. Five hundred were in an open meadow, exposed on all sides to the enemy; the remaining nine hundred threw themselves behind a garden wall. These last repulsed the enemy there several times, and made two attacks in their turn. Hundreds and thousands of the Armagnacs fell—man by man the brave Swiss were struck down. The battle lasted ten hours before the whole corpsof Swiss had fallen, for then only could the enemy pause. Fourteen hundred and ninety of the confederates were numbered with the dead, ten men only escaping by flight. Thousands upon thousands of the French army lay piled about the dead Swiss. This defeat, if such a name be fitted to the battle of St. Jacques, produced all the results of a victory: the siege of Basle was abandoned, a peace was speedily concluded, and it was in consequence of this brilliant action that Louis XI., when he ascended his father's throne, concluded with the Swiss that close alliance which has lasted nearly to the present times.
It was in the fifteenth century also that Charles of Burgundy attacked the confederates with all the forces of one of the richest and most powerful princes of the age. On the third of March, 1476, twenty thousand Swiss marched from Neufchatel to meet the army of Burgundy near Granson, a force which, with its followers, numbered one hundred thousand strong. The battle began in the morning, and at night Charles the Bold was flying through the passes of the Jura, with five companions, his brilliant army dispersed to the four winds of heaven, his choicest treasures in the hands of the frugal Swiss. In the month of June of the same year Charles again appeared in Switzerland, at the head of an army still larger than that he had commanded at Granson. On the twenty-second of June he lay before the little town of Morat, which he had assaulted in vain. The Swiss, with thirty-four thousand men, advanced to meet him, and with their usual ardor rushed upon the whole Burgundian force. In a few hours they had again routed an invading army nearly four times their own numbers. Charles fled from the field, with a small escort, leaving fifteen thousand of his army dead on the battle ground, while thousands more were drowned in the adjoining lake.
Having been thus successful when opposed to northern troops, the Swiss shortly after tried their strength against a southern foe, the Duke of Milan. On this occasion the confederates were the aggressors, although under the plea of retaliation. A party of Italians had cut timber in one of their forests. Immediately a descent upon the Italian valleys was planned, and a considerable force crossed the southern Alps. A Milanese army of fifteen thousand men marched up the Ticino to meet the mountaineers. At the village of Giornico lay the Swiss vanguard of six hundred men, from Uri, Schweyz, Lucerne, and Zurich, the main body of their troops not having yet advanced so far. It was mid-winter of the year 1478. The Swiss caused the Ticino to overflow the meadows before the village, which soon became a field of ice; and as the Milanese army advanced upon Giornico, the confederates sallied out uponskates, and with this advantage over their enemies, six hundred Swiss put to flight a Milanese army of fifteen thousand men.
At that period the principal weapons were crossbows, arquebuses, lances, and halberds. Battle-axes and swords were also common, as well as knives and daggers. The body was still protected by armor, generally among the Swiss of plain workmanship; the head was covered by a helmet, or among the common soldiery with a thick felt hat, ornamented with feathers of the ostrich or the cock, according to the means of the owner. A white cross was stitched on the clothing in conspicuous places, and served as a common uniform badge with the confederates.
Victories so brilliant as those of Granson, Morat, and Giornico, with a defeat so advantageous as that of St. Jacques, spread the fame of the mountaineers through Europe—princes eagerly sought their aid as mercenaries; they were frequently opposed to each other in rival armies, and as their fidelity became as well known as their courage, they were solicited to form the body-guards of royalty.
The Swiss guards of the kings of France have a place in history. Their honorable fidelity to Louis XVI. is known the world over. Even within the present century the Swiss have watched at the gates of the Tuileries, Louis XVIII. having revived the custom on his return to France. After the Hundred Days, however, the body was finally disbanded. To the present hour it is understood that the King of Naples and the Pope are still (or were very shortly since) surrounded by body-guards from the confederacy.
But much as these different wars added to Swiss glory, they were followed by serious evils to the nation. A warlike, rapacious spirit, and with it the love of a roving, restless life, spread with wonderful rapidity among the people. Their mountain homes were deserted, their lands lay fallow, their flocks were sold to procure the means of arming themselves, employment among foreign powers was eagerly sought, and when it could not be obtained, parties of disbanded soldiers and idle camp-followers spread disorder through the country to such an extent that the severest measures were resorted to, and in the space of a few months as many as fifteen hundred vagabonds of this description were publicly executed.
The rich spoils of the Burgundian army produced a very unhappy effect. The gold, and silver, and jewels found in the deserted camp gave the conquerors a taste for riches to which they had hitherto been strangers. Formerly they had been a frugal and contented people, but a few short years produced a very striking change in this respect; a thirst for gold became general, bribes were openly offered and received, and foreign coin had an all-powerful influence in directing the course of their politics. Not only were the military openly in the pay of their neighbors, but the public men of the different cantons were only too well acquainted with German florins, Italianducats, and French crowns. It is true, this fact was not considered so disgraceful in those times as it would be to-day. For, two hundred years since, half the court of England, with the king at their head, were in the pay of Louis XIV. But it would appear that bribery became more frequent and more impudent in Swiss politics than in those of other countries at the same period. On one occasion the French minister had his money-bags publicly opened at Berne, and the royal pensions or bribes distributed in the town with the sound of the trumpet. At Friburg heaps of crowns were openly displayed, piled up with shovels, and the bystanders were asked if the silver did not sound better than the empty promises of the Emperor Maximilian, nicknamedPochidanari, or the Pennyless. At another time the French ambassador went to the baths of Baden, in Arau, where people from all parts of the country were assembled, kept open house, paid the score for large troops of the company, and actually threw gold into the bathing rooms, for the women to scramble for. The result of a course like this was very injurious to Swiss character. Highly honorable for courage and fidelity, it has yet been considered as too generally colored by the love of money, verifying the proverb, "point d'argent, point de Suisse."
But this mercenary spirit was not the only evil brought upon the confederacy by the victories of the fifteenth century. Internal differences of the gravest nature soon followed. The division of the spoil was very unsatisfactory to the rural cantons. They made loud complaints of injustice, and became extremely jealous of the greater intelligence, power, and influence of the towns; while the burghers, in their turn, became suspicious of the pastoral cantons, accusing them of wishing to promote disturbances between themselves and their subjects—subjects, we say, for the towns having acquired by conquest or purchase parcels of territory here and there, governed them as the feudal lords governed their vassals. In short, from the whole history of that period it is evident that a spirit of suspicion and jealousy was rife throughout the confederacy, threatening disunion and revolution. In the hope of restoring confidence and unity, a council or Diet was convened at Stantz, one of the principal towns of the canton of Unterwalden.
One by one, the deputations from the different cantons made their appearance at the little town of Stantz. They came by the lake of Lucerne, or lake of the forest cantons, as it is more frequently called by the people themselves, a beautiful sheet of limpid water, lying in the bosom of noble Alpine mountains, with sweet pastoral valleys opening here and there among the solemn cliffs. There were soldiers, merchants, lawyers, and peasants in the assembly; there were burghers from Berne, Zurich, and Lucerne, with shepherds from Schwyz and Uri; in addition to the regular deputies, there were also agents from St. Gall, Appenzell, Soleure, and Friburg, applying for admission to the confederacy, to which they had been hitherto only allies. It was in the winter season that the Diet assembled. The session was scarcely opened when it became evident that they had met in an evil temper; every subject introduced was received with bitterness, mistrust, and suspicion. The angry passions of the rural cantons were thoroughly aroused; they were extremely jealous of the towns, and no reasoning could induce them to accede to the application for admission from Friburg and Soleure. These districts were headed by important cities, and every city was accused of tyranny. The burghers knew too much, they were too rich, they were too prosperous. The deputies of the larger cantons, on the other hand, were indignant at this petty jealousy, and at the refusal to receive Soleure and Friburg, whose citizens had fought side by side with them in so many of their struggles. The subject of the division of the spoils from the war with Burgundy was again advanced by the rural cantons with renewed bitterness. In short, every matter broached seemed to offer only another field for mistrust and fierce contention.
While the Diet was thus holding its stormy session at Stantz, a conspiracy against Lucerne was discovered. The peasants of a rural district subject to the town were implicated in it; they had resolved to seize the occasion of an approaching festival for attacking the burghers, murdering the governor and council, and razing the city to the ground, so that in future nothing but a village, like their own, should exist on the spot. Tidings of the discovery of this conspiracy only aggravated the evil temper of the Diet. From invective and accusation both parties proceeded to the gravest threats. The deputies of Friburg and Soleure, in the hopes of restoring a better understanding, voluntarily withdrew their application, but in vain. Both parties were too highly exasperated. Reconciliation was held to be impossible. Disunion and civil war, that most wretched, most shameful warfare, were declared inevitable.
The canton of Unterwalden was divided into two districts, each including one of the two great gorges of that region. Each of these valleys had its own towering mountains, with rocky summits, wooded heights, and green alpine pastures. Through each flowed a stream, or rather wild torrent, and the more level lands on their banks were thickly sprinkled with rustic dwellings, in near neighborhood. Stantz, the seat of the Diet, and a mere village, was the principal town of Lower Unterwalden. The sister valley of Upper Unterwalden was the most fertile and beautiful. Its chief village was Sarnen. A stream called the Melch ran through a branch of the valley, to which it gave its name of Melchthal. This dale was already noted ground in Swiss history, as the native spot of two of their heroes.Arnold von Melchthal, the companion of Tell, was a peasant of this valley, as his name denotes; and Arnold von Winkelried, to whose heroic self-sacrifice they owed the victory of Sempach, was also born and lived on the banks of the Melch. During the time of the critical Diet of Stantz, there lived in this valley a family by the name of Loewenbrugger. They were among the most important peasants of the dale. Ten children, five sons and five daughters, had been born in the paternal cottage. Some were living there at the time, with their mother, others had married and gone to different homes. The father was absent. Nicholas Loewenbrugger had for many years held a conspicuous position in his native district. He had served his country faithfully on many occasions by his wisdom and his courage. During their wars he had distinguished himself highly, not only for bravery, but also for humanity. When still in middle life, however, he had retired from the little world about him, leaving his paternal estate to the care of his wife, and choosing a cliff on one of the neighboring mountains, he there built himself a hermitage, in which he gave up his whole time to devotion and religious services. So great was the simplicity of his ascetic life, that it is said his only bed was the floor of his cell, and his pillow a stone. It was even believed that for years he had taken no other nourishment than the blessed elements of the holy sacrament. Whatever exaggerations may have been credited in that superstitious age, it is at least certain that his unfeigned piety and saintly life had acquired for him a high place in the respect of his countrymen, while the name of Nicholas von der Fluë, or Nicholas of the Rock, from the spot where he dwelt, was honored far and wide through the cantons.
News of the fierce dissensions of the Diet of Stantz spread rapidly through the different valleys about the lake of the forest cantons; every hour it was expected that the assembly would break up in violence, and the deputies hurry home to prepare the different cantons for a terrible internal struggle. Every appearance warranted this opinion. The priest of Stantz, Heinrich Imgrund, was one of those who most sincerely mourned this state of things. One day, when matters were at the worst, and the danger appeared most imminent, the worthy man took his walking-staff, and proceeded to the Melchthal. It was in winter, the last week of December, and the old priest made his way over the snow and ice to the hermitage of the pious Nicholas of the Fluë. There he hastened to lay before the good man the state of things in Stantz, and the dangers that threatened their common country. The hermit, unlike many of his recluse brethren, had not lost all interest in the higher events of the world to which he belonged, and he determined that every means in his power should be employed to avert the impending evil. Early on the morning of December 22d, 1481, the venerable man, now far advanced in life, left his little cell on the rock, and bent his way towards Stantz, and we may well believe that, as he went on his patriotic errand, earnest prayers were offered by him in behalf of his misguided countrymen.
Arrived at Stantz, he proceeded immediately to the hall where the Diet was in session. While yet without the walls, the stormy uproar and fierce discord of the assembly reached his ears. Hurrying his steps, the old man entered the hall. He had scarcely crossed the threshold, when his venerable figure, aged face, and hoary locks, attracted general attention; in another instant he was known to be Nicholas of the Rock. As if by instinctive impulse, the whole assembly rose to their feet. Seizing the moment of their respectful attention, the venerable man addressed them in earnest, fervent tones. There were those in the Diet to whom his voice was not strange; men, who in former years had known him as the soldier and the patriot, while to all within the walls his character for wisdom and sanctity was well known. Every eye was fixed upon his venerable countenance, every ear listened eagerly to the words which fell from his honored lips. It was a remarkable scene; a spectator could never have credited that this was an authoritative assembly into which the hermit had presented himself unbidden; it seemed rather as if that hall were the presence chamber of the wise and saintly man, and deputies from far and near—knight, merchant, and peasant—had gathered about him, and pressed forward to receive his judgment. With all the eloquence of wisdom, and a heartfelt interest, the venerable man addressed the assembly. He implored, he warned, he admonished; he reminded them the interests of a whole nation were committed to their hands, and that for the powers with which they were intrusted they were not responsible to man alone, but also to their Almighty Maker. Had they met together like traitors, like madmen, to tear asunder the body politic over which they were the appointed guardians? Where was the calmness of deliberation with which a dignified assembly should meet to utter, and to listen? Was it to revile each other, to menace, that they, grave and mature men, had come from the farthest limits of their common country? Such language as he had heard, such disorder as he had witnessed when he first crossed that threshold, was it manly, was it honorable, was it rational? He bade them pause, and tell him to what, under Providence, they owed their present position as a free and independent nation, respected by their neighbours. Every man there present knew beyond all contradiction, that it was to their union they owed this great debt of glory and prosperity. Without union they never could have attained to independence; without union they never could have preserved their freedom against one of the most powerful princes of Europe. And now, the very bond to which they and theirfathers owed every national blessing and individual safety, they stood ready, in a moment of passion, to sever violently. He asked them if a national bond were absolutely nothing, that they held it now so cheap? There were men, he knew, in every land who held cheap each tie which bound them to their fellows—men who had no feeling for father, or brother, or son; but, thanks be to God, such was not the case with all. Most human hearts could value every social bond, whether of family, kindred, or country. And what course would they take, should the evil work be accomplished? Did they expect to thrive better singly—each canton to face the world and all its manifold interests alone, or did they mean to cling together, a few here, a few there, one nation broken up into half a dozen nations? Did they expect that any future union could be closer and dearer than that which had already held together for generations men of the same blood and language; men who had suffered and triumphed together? He warned them that if the evil spirit of disunion and strife were now let loose and encouraged by themselves, they must not expect it to end its work to-day, to stop short at the very hour they required it to sleep again; like all other evil influences, it must either be checked and controlled, or the fatal poison must spread farther and farther, until it ended in utter anarchy and confusion. It is not for man, made of the dust of the earth, to rouse evil and accursed passions, and bid them go thus far and no farther. He implored them to let no narrow, selfish, momentary interest blind them to interests immeasurably higher, and more lasting. It remained for the men of that generation to say whether the crisis should be a fatal one or not; it lay within their power to steer the ark of their country's hopes safely over a stormy sea, or purposely, deliberately, wilfully, to rush on the breakers, until that noble, honored fabric foundered for ever. Evil passions, suspicion, envy, jealousy, wrath, had too often, in the history of the world, worked out general, public misery: but he trusted there was yet within the bosom of their own people wisdom, patience, and moderation sufficient to carry them safely through the storm. He called upon every good man, every honest man, who could rise superior to the selfishness of the race, to move and act in the blessed cause of peace and concord. He advised them to look each at his own post and duty, and to meddle less with those of his neighbors; he implored them, for conscience' sake, not to be so ready with mutual suspicion and recrimination. He warned them that whatever evils were to be remedied, the task must be undertaken calmly and dispassionately to be well done.
Then proceeding to the subjects immediately under discussion, he continued: "Let not the towns insist on claims which are injurious to the old confederates. Let the rural cantons bear in mind how Soleure and Friburg fought by their side, and received them freely into the confederacy. Beware of intrigues, confederates! Beware of discord! Far be it for any to sacrifice his father-land for selfish interests of his own."
The old man paused. The better intentioned of the deputies, who had been silenced by the violence of their companions, pressed about him. He repeated his counsels; he entered more particularly into the subjects of dispute; more and more gathered to the ranks of peace; and, in short, it is a matter of history that the earnest address of the good man worked an entire change in the temper of the Diet. In one hour's time the country was saved. It may be doubted whether there is on record, in the whole course of history, so striking an instance of the influence of disinterested wisdom upon a public assembly at a moment so critical. Probably, such an incident could only occur in a simple state of society, where legislative pride and legislative weakness had not made such rapid strides as in later times. Happily for Switzerland, the question was decided on the spot; during that same day's session every subject under debate was peaceably settled. The confederacy was saved. Friburg and Soleure were received into the union. The venerable Nicholas had proposed that territorial conquests should be shared according to cantons, and the other spoil according to the population; both questions were immediately decided in accordance with this plan. Other points were amicably settled; and, instead of a fatal rupture, a covenant was entered into, since called the "Covenant of Stantz," by which the bonds of union were drawn closer. The deputies separated in a friendly temper, and the happy news of reconciliation spread rapidly through the quiet valleys and busy towns, while from the Alps to the Jura, the bells of town-house, church, and convent, poured forth over hill and dale their grateful peal of national joy.
To the present day the Swiss thankfully recur to the 22d of December, 1481, and the appeal of Nicholas von der Fluë to the Diet of Stantz, as a memorable epoch in their history. Certainly the incident is very remarkable, and almost without a parallel in history. To us of the present day, when revolution and violence are rife, when invective and accusation form the common speech of public writers and public speakers, to us of these days of controversy the fact that the personal character and wisdom of one man should have pacified and influenced to such a degree a stormy assembly, appears all but incredible.
The traveller who visits the canton of Unterwalden to-day finds its mountains sublime, its valleys beautiful, its waters limpid and living, as of old. It is a wholly pastoral region, and the smooth green meadows are thickly sprinkled with peasant homes, neat, cheerful, and peculiar, like those of all Switzerland. The valley of the Melch is particularly populous, its green pasture grounds protected by noble mountains, rising on either side six or eightthousand feet towards the heavens, are closely dotted with pretty cottages. Among these rustic dwellings, that once inhabited by Nicholas Loewenbrugger is still shown. It is in good preservation, and much like those which surround it. Probably the architecture, like the dress of the Swiss peasantry, has varied but little for generations. Several personal relics of the venerable man are also preserved, and shown to the pilgrim traveller—these are two swords, a silver goblet, and a couple of wooden spoons. It is very probable that they were in fact what they claim to have been, the property of the good man, for we, in this country of change, have little idea of the great care taken with family relics of this description in the households of the old world. A chapel has been built near the cell occupied by the hermit; his tomb is at Sachslen, about a league from the village of Sarnen, in the principal church of the canton. Descendants of the patriot are still living in Unterwalden, where his family long held a very honorable position, and is well represented at the present day. But those who boast of his own blood and name can scarcely claim a deeper and more heartfelt veneration for his memory than that which is felt throughout the whole confederacy. There is no name in Switzerland, not even that of Tell, revered more highly than the name of Nicolas von der Fluë. "Blessed are the peace-makers, for they shall be called the children of God."
Probably, if earnest efforts in behalf of concord, like those of the old hermit, were more frequently made, history would, on many occasions, show less gloomy pictures than those which she now unfolds to the world. But it is a singular fact that, generally, good men are more easily disheartened, and, consequently, far less active in times of internal disturbance than the selfish and intriguing. Surely this ought not to be.
Mrs. Hazleton was very consoling. She was with Mrs. Hastings two or three times in the week, and poor Mrs. Hastings required a considerable degree of consolation; for the arrest of her husband, coming so close upon the bitter mortification of loss, and abatement of dignity, and at the end of a long period of weak health, had made her seriously ill. She now kept her bed the whole day long, and lay, making herself worse by that sort of fretful anxiety which was constitutional with her as well as with many other people. Mrs. Hazleton's visits were a great comfort to her, and yet, strange to say, Emily almost always found her more irritable after that lady had left her.
Poor Emily seemed to shine under the cloud of misfortune. Her character came out and acted nobly in the midst of disasters. She was her mother's nurse and constant attendant; she kept her father informed of every thing that passed—not an opportunity was missed of sending him a letter; and although she would have made any sacrifice to be with him in prison, to comfort and support him in the peril and sorrow of his situation, she was well satisfied that he had not taken her, when she found the state into which her mother had fallen.
Often, after Mrs. Hazleton had sat for an hour or two with her sick friend, she would come down and walk upon the terrace for a while with Emily, and comfort her much in the same way that she did Mrs. Hastings. She would tell her not to despond about her mother: that though she was certainly very ill, and in a dangerous state, yet people had recovered who had been quite as ill as she was. Then she would talk about lungs, and nerves, and humors, and all kinds of painful and mortal diseases, as if she had studied medicine all her life; and she did it, too, with a quiet, dignified gravity which made it more impressive and alarming. Then again, she would turn to the situation of Mr. Hastings, and wonder what they would do with him. She would also bring every bit of news that she could collect, regarding the case of Sir John Fenwick, especially when the intelligence was painful and disastrous; but she hinted that, perhaps, after all, they might not be able to prove any thing against Mr. Hastings, and that even if they did—although the Government were inclined to be severe—they might, perhaps, commute his sentence to transportation for the colonies, or imprisonment in the Tower for five or six years.
It is thus our friends often console us; some of them, from a dark and gloomy turn of mind, and some of them from the satisfaction many people feel in meddling with the miseries of others. But it was neither natural despondency of character, nor any general love of sorrowful scenes or thoughts, that moved Mrs. Hazleton in the present instance. She had a peculiar and especial pleasure in the wretchedness of the Hastings family, and particularly in that of Emily. The charming lady fancied that if Marlow were free from his engagement with Emily the next day, and a suitor for her own hand, she would never think of marrying him. I am not quite sure of that fact, but that is no business of ours, dear reader, and one thing is certain, that she would have very willingly sacrificed one half of her whole fortune, nay more, to have placed an everlasting barrier between Emily and Marlow.
She was thus walking with her dear Emily, as she called her, one day on that terrace at the back of the house where the memorable conversation had taken place between Mr. Hastings and Sir John Fenwick, and was treating Emily to a minute and particular account ofthe death of the latter, when Marlow suddenly arrived from London, and entered the house by the large glass door in front. He found a servant in the hall who informed him that Mrs. Hastings was still in bed, and that Emily was walking on the terrace with Mrs. Hazleton. Marlow paused, and considered for a moment. "Any thing not dishonorable," he said to himself, "is justifiable to clear up such a mystery;" and passing quietly through the house into the dining-room, which had one window opening as a door upon the terrace, he saw his fair Emily and her companion pass along towards the other end of the walk without being himself perceived. He then approached the window, and calculating the distances nicely, so as to be sure that Mrs. Hazleton was fully as far distant from himself as she could have been from Sir John Fenwick and Mr. Hastings on the evening when they walked there together, he pronounced her name in an ordinary tone, somewhat lower than that which Mr. Hastings usually employed.
Mrs. Hazleton instantly started, and looked round towards the spot where Marlow was now emerging from the room.
The lady could not miss an occasion, and the moment she saw him she exclaimed, "Dear me! there is Mr. Marlow; I am afraid he brings bad tidings, Emily."
Emily paused not to consider, but with her own wild grace ran forward and cast herself into his arms.
Fortunately Mrs. Hazleton had no dagger with her. Her face was benevolent and smiling when she joined them; for the joy there was upon Emily's countenance forbade any affectation of apprehension. It said as plainly as possible, "All is well;" but she added the words too, stretching forth her hand to her supposed friend, and saying, "Dear Mrs. Hazleton, Charles brings me word that my father is safe—that the Government have declared they will not prosecute."
"I congratulate you with my whole heart, Emily," replied the lady; "and I do sincerely hope that ministers may keep their word better in this instance than they have done in some others."
"There is not the slightest doubt of it, my dear madam," said Marlow; "for I have the official announcement under the hand of the Secretary of State."
"I must fly and tell my mother," said Emily, and without waiting for a reply she darted away.
Mrs. Hazleton took a turn or two up and down the terrace with Marlow, considering whether it was at all possible for her to be of any further comfort to her friends at the Court. As she could not stay all night, however, so as to prevent Emily and Marlow from having any happy private conversation together and as she judged that, in their present joy, they would a good deal forget conventional restraints, and give way to their lover-like feelings even in her presence, which would be exceedingly disagreeable to her, she soon re-entered the house, and ordered her carriage.
It must be acknowledged that both Emily and Marlow were well satisfied to see her depart, and it is not to be wondered at if they gave themselves up for half an hour to the pleasure of meeting again.
At the end of that time, however, Marlow drew forth a letter from his pocket, carefully folded, so that a line or two only was apparent, and placing it before Emily, inquired if she knew the hand.
"It is mine," said Emily, at first; but the moment after she exclaimed "No!—it is not; it is Mrs. Hazleton's. I know it by the peculiar way she forms thegand they.—Stay, let me see, Marlow. She has not done so always; but thatg, and thaty, I am quite certain of. Why do you ask, Marlow?"
"For reasons of the utmost importance, dear Emily," he answered, "have you any letters or notes of Mrs. Hazleton's?"
"Yes, there is one which came yesterday," replied Emily; "it is lying on my table up-stairs."
"Bring it—bring it, dearest girl," he said; "I wish very much to see it."
When he had got, he examined it with a well-pleased smile, and then said, with a laugh, "I must impound this, my love. I am now on the right track, and will not leave it till I have arrived at perfect certainty."
"You are very strange and mysterious to-day, Marlow," said the beautiful girl, "what does all this mean?"
"It means, my love," replied Marlow, "that I have very dark doubts and suspicions of Mrs. Hazleton,—and all I have seen and heard to-day confirms me. Now sit down here by me, dear Emily, and tell me if, to your knowledge, you have ever given to Mrs. Hazleton cause of offence."
"Never!" answered Emily, firmly and at once. "Never in my life."
Marlow mused, and then, with his arms round her waist, he continued, "Bethink yourself, my love. Within the course of the last two or three years, have you ever seen reason to believe that Mrs. Hazleton's affection for you is not so great as it appears?—Has it ever wavered?—Has it ever become doubtful to you from any stray word or accidental circumstance?"
Emily was silent for a moment, and then replied, thoughtfully, "Perhaps I did think so, once or twice, when I was staying at her house, last year."
"Well, then, now, dear Emily," said Marlow, "tell me every thing down to the most minute circumstance that occurred there."
Emily hesitated. "Perhaps I ought not," she said; "Mrs. Hazleton showed me, very strongly, that I ought not, except under an absolute necessity."
"That necessity is now, my love," replied Marlow; "love cannot exist without confidence, Emily; and I tell you, upon my honorand my faith, that your happiness, my happiness, and even your father's safety, depends in a great degree upon your telling me all. Do you believe me, Emily?"
"Fully," she answered; "and I will tell you all."
Thus seated together, she poured forth the whole tale to her lover's ears, even to the circumstances which had occurred in her own room, when Mrs. Hazleton had entered it, walking in her sleep. The whole conduct of John Ayliffe, now calling himself Sir John Hastings, was also displayed; and the dark and treacherous schemes which had been going on, began gradually to evolve themselves to Marlow's mind. Obscure and indistinct they still were; but the gloomy shadow was apparent, and he could trace the outline though he could not fill up the details.
"Base, treacherous woman!" he murmured to himself, and then, pressing Emily more closely to his heart, he thanked her again and again for her frankness. "I will never misuse it, my Emily," he said; "and no one shall ever know what you have told me except your father: to him it must be absolutely revealed."
"I would have told him myself," said Emily, "if he had ever asked me any questions on the subject; but as he did not, and seemed very gloomy just then, I thought it better to follow Mrs. Hazleton's advice."
"The worst and the basest she could have given you," said Marlow; "I have had doubts of her for a long time, Emily, but I have no doubts now; and, moreover, I firmly believe that the whole case of this John Ayliffe—his claim upon your father's estate and title—is all false and factitious together, supported by fraud, forgery, and crime. Have you preserved this young man's letter, or have you destroyed it, Emily?"
"I kept it," she replied, "thinking that, some time or another, I might have to show it to my father."
"Then one more mark of confidence, my love," said Marlow; "let me have that letter. I do not wish to read it; therefore you had better fold it up and seal it; but it may be necessary as a link in the chain of evidence which I wish to bring forward for your father's satisfaction."
"Read it, if you will, Marlow," she answered; "I have told you the contents, but it may be as well that you should see the words: I will bring it to you in a moment."
They read the letter over together, and when Marlow had concluded, he laid his hand upon it, saying, "This is Mrs. Hazleton's composition."
"I'm almost inclined to fancy so, myself," answered Emily.
"He is incapable of writing this," replied her lover; "I have seen his letters on matters of business, and he cannot write a plain sentence in English to an end without making some gross mistake. This is Mrs. Hazleton's doing, and there is some dark design underneath it. Would to God that visit had never taken place!"
"There has been little happiness in the house since," said Emily, "except what you and I have known together, Marlow; and that has been sadly checkered by many a painful circumstance."
"The clouds are breaking, dear one," replied Marlow, rising; "but I will not pause one moment in my course till all this is made clear—no, not even for the delight of sitting here by you, my love. I will go home at once, Emily; mount my horse, and ride over to Hartwell before it be dark."
"What is your object there?" asked Emily.
"To unravel one part of this mystery," replied her lover. "I will ascertain, by some means, from whom, or in what way, this young man obtained sufficient money to commence and carry on a very expensive suit at law. That he had it not himself, I am certain. That his chances were not sufficiently good, when first he commenced, to induce any lawyer to take the risk, I am equally certain. He must have had it from some one, and my suspicions point to Mrs. Hazleton. Her bankers are mine, and I will find means to know. So, now, farewell, my love; I will see you again early to-morrow."
He lingered yet for a moment or two, and then left her.
Marlow was soon on horseback, and riding on to the country town. But he had lingered longer with Emily than he imagined, and the day declined visibly as he rode along.
"The business hours are over," he thought; "bankers and lawyers will have abandoned the money-getting and mischief-making toils of the day; and I must stay at the inn till to-morrow."
He had been riding fast; but he now drew in his rein, and suffered his horse to walk. The sun was setting gloriously, and the rich, rosy light, diffused through the air, gave every thing an aspect of warmth, and richness, and cheerfulness. But Marlow's heart was any thing but gay. Whether it was that the scenes which he had passed through in London, his visits to a prison, his dealings with hard official men, the toiling, moiling crowds that had surrounded him; the wearisome, eternal, yet ever-changing struggle of life displayed in the streets and houses of a capital, the infinite varieties of selfishness, and folly, and vice, and crime, had depressed his spirits, or that his health had somewhat suffered in consequence of anxious waiting for events in the foul air of the metropolis, I cannot tell. But certain, he was sadder than was usual with him. His was a spirit strong and active, naturally disposed to bright views and happy hopes, too firm to be easily depressed, too elastic to be long kept down. But yet, as he rode along, there was a sort of feeling of apprehension upon his mind that oppressed him mightily. He revolved all that had lately passed. He compared the state of Mr. Hastings' family, as it actually was, with what it had been when he first knew it, andthere seemed to be a strange mystery in the change. It had then been all happiness and prosperity with that household; a calm, grave, thoughtful, but happy father and husband; a bright, amiable, affectionate mother and wife; a daughter, to his mind the image of every thing that was sweet, and gentle, and tender—of every thing that was gay, and sparkling, and cheerful; full of light and life, and fancy, and hope. Now, there was a father in prison, deprived of his greatest share of worldly prosperity, cast down from his station in society, gloomy, desponding, suspicious, and, as it seemed to him, hardly sane: a mother, irritable, capricious, peevish, yielding to calamity, and lying on a bed of sickness, while the bright angel of his love remained to nurse, and tend, and soothe the one parent, with a heart torn and bleeding for the distresses of the other. "What have they done to merit all this?" he asked himself. "What fault, what crime have they committed to draw down such sorrows on their heads? None—none whatever. Their lives had been spent in kindly acts and good deeds; they had followed the precepts of the religion they professed; their lives had been spent in doing service to their fellow-creatures, and making all happy around them."
Then again, on the other hand, he saw the coarse, and the low, and the base, and the licentious prosperous and successful, rising on the ruins of the pure and the true. Wily schemes and villanous intrigues obtaining every advantage, and honesty of purpose and rectitude of action frustrated and cast down.
Marlow was no unbeliever—he was not even inclined to skepticism—but his mind labored, not without humility and reverence, to see how it could reconcile such facts with the goodness and providence of God.
"He makes the sun shine upon the just and the unjust, we are told," said Marlow to himself; "but here the sun seems to shine upon the unjust alone, and clouds and tempests hang about the just. It is very strange, and even discouraging; and yet, all that we see of these strange, unaccountable dispensations may teach us lessons for hereafter—may give us the grandest confirmation of the grandest truth. There must be another world, in which these things will be made equal—a world where the wicked cease from troubling, and the weary are at rest. We only see in part, and the part we do not see must be the part which will reconcile all the seeming contradictions between the justice and goodness of God and the course of this mortal life."
This train pursued him till he reached the town, and put up his horse at the inn. By that time it was quite dark, and he had tasted nothing since early in the morning. He therefore ordered supper, and the landlord, by whom he was now well known—a good, old, honest, country landlord of the olden time—brought in the meal himself, and waited on his guest at table. It was so much the custom of gentlemen, in those days, to order wine whenever they stopped at an inn—it was looked upon so much as a matter of course that this should be done for the good of the house—that the landlord, without any direct commands to that effect, brought in a bottle of his very best old sherry, always a favorite wine with the English people, though now hardly to be got, and placed it by the side of his guest. Marlow was by habit no drinker of much wine. He avoided, as much as in him lay, the deep potations then almost universal in England; but, not without an object, he that night gave in to a custom which was very common in England then, and for many years afterwards, and requested the landlord, after the meal was over, to sit down, and help him with his bottle.
"You'll need another bottle, if I once begin, Master Marlow," said the jolly landlord, who was a wag in his way.
Marlow nodded his head significantly, as if he were prepared for the infliction, replying quietly, "Under the influence of your good chat, Mr. Cherrydew, I can bear it, I think."
"Well, that's hearty," said the landlord, drawing a chair sideways to the table; for his vast rotundity prevented him from approaching it full front. "Here's to your very good health, sir, and may you never drink worse wine, sit in a colder room, or have a sadder companion."
Now I have said that Marlow did not invite the landlord to join him, without an object. That object was to obtain information, and it had struck him even while the trout, which formed the first dish at his supper, was being placed on the table, that he might be able, if willing, to afford it.
Landlords in England at that time—I mean, of course, in country towns—were very different in many respects, and of a different class from what they are at present. In the first place, they were not fine gentlemen: in the next place, they were not discharged valets de chambre, or butlers, who, having cheated their masters handsomely, and perhaps laid them under contribution in many ways, retire to enjoy the fat things at their ease in their native town. Then, again, they were on terms of familiar intercourse with two or three classes, completely separate and distinct from each other—a sort of connecting link between them. At their door the justice of the peace, the knight of the shire, the great man of the neighborhood, dismounted from his horse, and had his chat with mine host. There came the village lawyer when he had gained a cause, or won a large fee, or had been paid a long bill, to indulge in his pint of sherry, and gossipped, as he drank it, of all the affairs of his clients. There sneaked in the Doctor to get his glass of eau de vie, or plague water, or aqua mirabilis, or strong spirits, in short of any other denomination, and tell little dirty anecdotes of his cases, and his patients. There the alderman, the wealthy shop-keeper, and the small proprietor, or the large farmer, came to take his cheerful cup on Saturdays or on market-day. But,besides these, the inn was the resort, though approached by another door, of a lower and a poorer class, with whom the landlord was still upon as good terms as with the others. The wagoner, the carter, the lawyer's and the banker's clerk, the shopman, the porter even, all came there; and it mattered not to Mr. Cherrydew or his confraternity, whether it was a bowl of punch, a draught of ale, a glass of spirits, or a bottle of old wine that his guests demanded; he was civil, and familiar, and chatty with them all.
Thus under the rosy and radiant face of Mr. Cherrydew, and in that good, round, fat head, was probably accumulated a greater mass of information, regarding the neighborhood in which he lived, and all that went on therein, than in any other head in the whole town, and the only difficulty was to extract that part of the store which was wanted.
Marlow knew that it would not do to approach the principal subject of inquiry rashly; for Mr. Cherrydew, like most of his craft, was somewhat cautious, and would have shut himself up in silent reserve, or enveloped himself in intangible ambiguities, if he had known that his guest had any distinct and important object in his questions—having a notion that a landlord should be perfectly cosmopolitan in all his feelings and his actions, and should never commit himself in such a manner as to offend any one who was, had been, or might be his guest. He was fond of gossipping, it is true, loved a jest, and was not at all blind to the ridiculous in the actions of his neighbors; but habitual caution was in continual struggle with his merry, tattling disposition, and he was generally considered a very safe man.
Marlow, therefore, began at a great distance, saying, "I have just come down from London, Mr. Cherrydew, and rode over, thinking that I should arrive in time to catch my lawyer in his office."
"That is all over now, sir, for the night," replied the landlord. "In this, two-legged foxes differ from others: they go to their holes at sunset, just when other foxes go out to walk. They divide the world between them, Master Marlow; the one preys by day, the other by night.—Well, I should like to see Lunnun. It must be a grand place, sir, though somewhat of a bad one. Why, what a number of executions I have read of there lately, and then, this Sir John Fenwick's business. Why, he changed horses here, going to dine with Sir Philip, as I shall call him to the end of my days. Ah, poor gentleman, he has been in great trouble! But I suppose, from what I hear, he'll get clear now?"
"Beyond all doubt," said Marlow; "the Government have no case against him. But you say very true, Mr. Cherrydew, there has been a sad number of executions in London—seven and twenty people hanged, at different times, while I was there."
"And the town no better," said Mr. Cherrydew.
"By the way," said Marlow, "were you not one of the jury at the trial of that fellow, Tom Cutter?—Fill your glass, Mr. Cherrydew."
"Thank you, sir.—Yes I was, to be sure," answered the landlord; "and I'll tell you the funniest thing in the world that happened the second day. Lord bless you, sir, I was foreman,—and on the first day the judge suffered the case to go on till his dinner was quite cold, and we were all half starved; but he saw that he could not hang him that night, at all events—here's to your health, sir!—so he adjourned the Court, and called for a constable, and ordered all of us, poor devils, to be locked up tight in Jones's public-house till the next day; for the jury-room is so small, that there is not standing-room for more than three such as me. Well, the other men did not much like it, though I did not care,—for I had my boots full of ham, and a brandy-bottle in my breeches-pocket. One of them asked the judge, for all his great black eyebrows, if he could'nt go on that night; but his lordship answered, with a snort like a cart horse, and told us to hold our tongues, and mind our own business, and only to take care and keep ourselves together. Well, sir, we had to walk up the hill, you know, and there was the constable following us with his staff in his hand; so I had compassion on my poor fellow-sufferers, and I whispered, first to one, then to another, that this sort of jog would never do, but I would manage to tell them how to have a good night's rest. You see, says I, here's but one constable to thirteen people, so when you get to the cross-roads, let every man take up his legs and run, each his own way. He can but catch one, and the slowest runner will have the chance. Now, I was the fattest of them all, you see, so that every one of them thought that I should be the man. Well, sir, they followed my advice; but it's a different thing to give advice, and take it. No sooner did we get to the cross-roads, than they scattered like a heap of dust in the wind, some down the roads and lanes, some over the styles and gates, some through the hedges. Little Sninkum, the tailor, stuck in the hedge by the way, and was the man caught, for he was afraid of his broadcloth; but I stood stock still, with a look of marvellous astonishment, crying out, "For God's sake catch them, constable, or what will my lord say to you and me?" Off the poor devil set in a moment, one man to catch twelve, all over the face of the country. He thought he was sure enough of me; but what did I do? why, as soon as he was gone, I waddled home to my own house, and got my wife to put me to bed up-stairs, and pass me for my grandfather. Well, sir, that's not the best of it yet. We were all in Court next day at the right hour, and snug in the jury-box before the judge came in; but I have a notion he had heard something of the matter. He looked mighty hard at Sninkum, whose face was all scratched to pieces, and opening his mouth with a pop, like the drawing of a cork, he said,"Why, man, you look as if you and your brethren had been fighting!" and then he looked as hard at me, and roared, "I hope gentlemen, you have kept yourselves together?" Thereupon, I laid my two hands upon my stomach, sir,—it weighs a hundred and a half, if it were cut off to-morrow, as I know to my cost, who carry it—and I answered quite respectful, "I can't answer for the other gentlemen, my lord, but I'll swear I've kept myself together." You should have heard how the Court rang with the people laughing, while I remained as grave as a judge, and much graver than the one who was there; for I thought he would have burst before he was done, and a fine mess that would have made."
Serious as his thoughts were, Marlow could not refrain from smiling; but he did not forget his object, and remarked, "There were efforts made to save that scoundrel, and the present Sir John Hastings certainly did his best for his friend."
"Call him John Ayliffe, sir, call him John Ayliffe," said the host. "Here's to you, sir,—he's never called any thing else here."
"I wonder," said Marlow, musingly, "if there was any relationship between this Tom Cutter and John Ayliffe's mother?"
"Not a pin's point of it, sir," replied the landlord. "They were just two bad fellows together; that was the connection between them, and nothing else."
"Well, John stood by his friend, at all events," said Marlow; "though where he got the money to pay the lawyers in that case, or in his suit against Sir Philip, is a marvel to me."
Mine host winked his eye knowingly, and gave a short laugh.
That did not entirely suit Marlow's purpose, and he added in a musing tone, "I know that he wanted to borrow ten pounds two or three months before, but was refused, because he had not repaid what he had borrowed of the same party, previously."