The Morn awoke in Hindostan,And blushing, left the couch of Night,While soon her rosy smiles began,To flood the dewy earth with light.While yet the sultry day was young,Came forth a happy bridal band,With sunny smiles and English tongue,Which spoke them of a distant land;They gathered round an altar-stone,Erected to the one Most High,Standing in solitude alone,Mid signs of dark idolatry.Then two came slowly from the crowd;Hewith a bearing bold and proud,A haughty smile and flashing eye,Darkling with love's intensity;While she, the high-born English bride,Drew closer to that one dear side;Her eyelids drooped, her cheek grew paleAs snow, beneath the bridal veil,As if the weight of her own blissWere all too much of happiness,To thrill her heart and light her eyeBeneath another's scrutiny.On crimson cushions dropped with goldThe youthful pair together bow;Before that priest in surplice-foldThey clasp their trembling fingers now;A prayer is heard—the oath is said—That gentle creature lifts her head—A voice has thrilled into her heart,Like music breathed to it apart,—To lie there an abiding spell,To haunt forever memory's cell—To mingle with her latest breathAnd light the very wing of death.Her vow was uttered timidly—With half a murmur, half a sigh;Yet the low faltering sound confessedThe love that brooded in her breast.The golden ring is on her hand—She is pronounced a wedded bride;Oh say, why does she lingering standSo long that altar-stone beside?And whence the misty tears that dimThe sunny azure of her eye?Why leans her slender form on him?Why does she sob so bitterly?Well may she weep, that fair young bride;For up the Ganges' golden tide,Mid jungles deep, where beasts of preyWith pestilence hold deadly sway,Where the wild waters fiercest sweep,And serpents in their venom sleep,Beneath each dewy leaf and flower,That gentle bride must build her bower.In the cool shadow of the shore,With snowy streamers floating wide,To the light dipping of the oar,The budgerow swept o'er the tide;The soft breeze ling'ring at her prow,Where many a garland graceful hung,In hues of purple, gold and snow,And on the rippling waters flungAn odor sweet and delicate,As that which all imprisoned lies,Unknown to man as his own fate,Within the flowers of Paradise.Beneath an awning's silken shade,Where the light breeze its music made,With woven fringe and silken cord,Sat the young bride with her brave lord.Her hand in his was ling'ring still,And every throb of his full heartMet her young pulses with a thrill,And sent the blood up with a start,To that round cheek but late so paleAnd blanched beneath the bridal veil.A tear still trembled in her eye,Like dews that in the violet lie;But breaking through its lovely sheen,The brightness of her soul was seen,Like light within the amethyst,Which told how truly she was blest;Though as she met his ardent gaze,Like the veined petal of a flowerHer eyelids drooped, as from the blazeOf some loved, high, but dreaded power.As bound by some subduing spell,In beauty at his side she bowed.The bridal robe around her fell,Like fragments of a summer cloud;The loosened veil had backward swept,And deeply in her glossy hair,Like light, the orange blossoms slept,As if they sought new beauty there;And pearls lay softly on her neck,Like hailstones melting over snow,Save when the blood, that dyed her cheek.Diffused abroad its rosy glow,And playing on her bosom-swell,With every heart-pulse rose or fell.Up went the sun; his burning raysBroke o'er the stream like sparkling fire,Till the broad Ganges seemed a-blaze,With gorgeous light, save where the spireOf some lone slender minaret,Threw its clear shadow on the stream,Or grove-like banian firmly set,Broke with its boughs the fiery gleam;Or where a white pagoda shoneLike snow-drift through the shadowy trees;Or ancient mosque stood out alone,Where the wild creeper sought the breeze;Or where some dark and gloomy rockShot o'er the deep its ragged cliffs,Inhabited by many a flockOf vultures, and its yawning riftsAlive with lizards, glowing, bright,As if a prism's changing lightWithin the gloomy depths were flung,Where like rich jewels newly strung,The sleeping serpent stretched its length,And nursed its venom into strength.Where the broad stream in shadow lay,The bridal barque kept on her way,While every breeze that swept them o'er,Brought loads of incense from the shore;Where each luxuriant jungle layA wilderness of tangled flowers,And budding vines in wanton playFell from the trees in leafy showers,Flinging their graceful garlands o'erThe rippling stream and reedy shore;The lily bared its snowy breast,Swayed its full anthers like a crest,And softly from its pearly swell,A shower of golden powder fellAmong the humbler flowers that layAnd blushed their fragrant lives away;There oleanders lightly wreathedTheir blossoms in a coronal,And the rich baubool softly breathedA perfume from its golden bell;There flower and shrub and spicy treeSeemed struggling for sweet mastery;And many a bird with gorgeous plume,Fluttered along the flowery gloom,Or on the spicy branches lay,Uttering a sleepy roundelay;While insects rushing out like gems,Or showery sparks at random flung,Through ripening fruit and slender stemsThere to the breathing blossoms clung,Studded the glowing boughs and threwO'er the broad bank a brilliant hue.On—on they went; a fanning breezeCame sighing through the balmy trees,And undulating o'er the streamRose tiny wavelets, like the gleamOf molten gold, and crested allWith a bright trembling coronal,Like that which Brahmins in their dreamLavish upon the sacred stream.Then all grew still. The sultry airLay stagnant in the jungles there—The sun poured down his fervent heat;The river lay a burnished sheet;The floweret closed its withered bell;From the parched leaf the insect fell;The panting birds all tuneless clungTo the still boughs, where late they sung;The dying blossoms felt the calm,And the still air was thick with balm.All things grew faint in that hot noon,As Nature's self lay in a swoon.And she, that gentle, loving fair,How brooks her form the sultry air?Most patiently—but see her now!What fear convulses her pale brow?And why that half-averted eye,Watching his look so anxiously?The scarlet burning in his cheek—Those lips all parched and motionless?Oh! do they fell disease bespeak?Or only simple weariness?One look! the dreadful certaintyWrings from her heart a stifled cry;And now half phrensied with despair,She rends the blossoms from her hair,And leaping to the vessel's sideShe drenched them in the sluggish tide;Then to the cushions where he lay,Senseless and fevered with disease,Panting his very life away,She rushed, and sinking to her knees,Raised softly up his throbbing head,And pillowed it upon her breast—Then on his burning forehead laidThe dripping flowers, and wildly pressedHer pallid mouth upon his brow,And drew him closer to her heart,As if she thought each trembling throeCould unto his, new life impart.Wildly to his she laid her cheek,And backward threw her loosened hair,That not a glossy curl might breakFrom off his face the sluggish air.The noon swept by, and there was sheCounting his pulses as they rose,Striving with broken melodyTo hush him to a short repose,Bathing his brow and twining stillHer fingers in his burning hand,Her heart's blood stopping with a chillWhene'er he could not understand,Nor answer to her gentle clasp;But dashed that little hand away,Or crushed it with delirious grasp,Entreating tenderly her stay.Father of heaven! and must he die?She breathed in her heart's agony,As up with every painful breath,Came to his lips the foam of death,And o'er his swollen forehead played,Like serpents by the sun betrayed,The corded veins whose purple swell,With his hot pulses rose and fell.Those drops upon his temple there,The rolling eye, the gloomy hair,The livid lip, the drooping chin,And the death-rattle deep within,That speechless one, so late thy pride—There lies thy answer, widowed bride!Half conscious of her misery,Like something chiselled o'er a grave,She placed her small hand anxiouslyUpon the lifeless heart, and gaveOne cry—but one—of such despair,The jackall startled from his lair,And answered back that fearful knell,With a long, sharp and hungry yell.A slow and solemn hour swept by,And there, all still and motionless,With rigid limb and stony eye,The widow knelt in her distress.With pitying looks the swarthy crewAround the tearless mourner drew,And trembling strove to force awayFrom her chill arms the senseless clay.Slowly she raised her awful head;A slight convulsion stirr'd her face;Close to her heart she snatched the dead,And held him in a strong embrace;Then drawing o'er his brow her veil,She turned her face as strangely wild,As if a fiend had mocked her wail,Parted her marble lips and smiled.Twice she essayed to speak, and thenHer face drooped o'er the corpse again,While forth from the disshevelled hairA husky whisper stirred the air.'Nay, bury him not here,' it said,'I would have prayers above my dead;'Then, one by one, the timid crew,From the infected barge withdrew:Helmsmen and servants, all were gone;The wife was with her dead alone.With no propelling arm to guide,The barque turned slowly with the tide,And on the heavy current sweptIts slow, funereal pathway back,Where the expiring sunbeams slept,Like gold along its morning track.The day threw out its dying gleam,Imbuing with its tints the stream,As if the mighty river rolledO'er beds of ruby—sands of gold.As if some seraph just had hungIn the blue west his coronet,The timid moon came out and flungHer pearly smiles about—then set,As if she feared the stars would dimThe silvery brightness of her rim;Then in the blue and deepening skiesThe stars sprang out, like glowing eyes,And on the stream reflected lay,Like ingots down the watery way;And softly streamed the starry lightDown to the wet and gloomy trees,Where fiery flies were flashing bright,Afloat upon the evening breeze,Or like some fairy, tiny lamp,Glow'd out among the stirring leaves,And down among the rushes damp,Where Pestilence her vapor weaves,Till shrub and reed, and slender stems,Seemed drooping with a shower of gems.The Widow raised her head once more,Turned her still look upon the sky,The lighted stream and broken shore;Oh, God! it was a mockery,—The bridegroom—Death—upon her breastFor aye possessing and possessed!With the deep calmness of despair,The mourner raised his marble head,And on the silken cushions there,With icy hands, composed the dead;Then tore her veil off for a shroud,And in her voiceless mourning bowed.That holy sorrow might have awedThe very wind—but mockinglyIt flung his matted hair abroad,As trifling with her agony,And with a low and moaning wailBore on its wings the bridal veil;Then came a cold and starry ray,And on his marble forehead lay.Father of heaven! she could not brookThat floating hair, that rigid look.With one quick gasp she forward sprung,And to the helm in frenzy clung,Until the barque shot on its wayWhere a dense shadow darkest lay;And there, as shrouded with a pall,The barge swept to the very shore;The fell hyena's fiendish callRang wildly to her ear once more,And from the deep dark solitudeShe saw the hungry jackall creep,And whimper for his nightly food,Where many a monster lay asleepJust in the margin of the flood,As resting from a feast of blood.Around the corpse the widow flungHer snowy arms, and madly clungTo that cold bosom, whence a chillShot through her heart, and frantic stillHer eyes in horror turned to seekThat prowling beast, whose hungry jawsWorked fiercely and began to reekWith eager foam, as with his pawsHe tore the turf impatiently,And howling snuffed the passing clay.It was not that she feared to die;In the deep stillness of her heart,Her spirit prayed most ferventlyThere with the dead to hold its part.The only boon she cared to crave,Was for them both a christian grave;But oh! the agonizing thought!That in her madness she had broughtThat loved and lost one, for a feast,To vulture and to prowling beast,Where all things fierce and wild had comeTo howl a horrid requiem.But soon a stronger current boreThe freight of death from off the shore;Again the trembling starlight brokeAbove the still and changing clay,And with its pearly kisses wokeThe widow from her trance, who layConvulsed and shivering with dread,Her white arms clinging to the dead;For yet the stilly night wind boreThe wild beasts' disappointed roar.Within the far o'erhanging wood,A bulbul listening to her heart,Poured forth upon the air a floodOf gushing love;—with lips apartThe widow clasped her trembling hands,And bent her ear to catch the strain,As if a seraph's low commandsWere breathed into her soul;—again,That heavenly sound came gushing out,Like waters in their leaping shout;Over her heart's deep frozen springThe gentle strain went lingering,And touched each icy tear that sleptWith sudden life, until she wept.
The Morn awoke in Hindostan,And blushing, left the couch of Night,While soon her rosy smiles began,To flood the dewy earth with light.While yet the sultry day was young,Came forth a happy bridal band,With sunny smiles and English tongue,Which spoke them of a distant land;They gathered round an altar-stone,Erected to the one Most High,Standing in solitude alone,Mid signs of dark idolatry.Then two came slowly from the crowd;Hewith a bearing bold and proud,A haughty smile and flashing eye,Darkling with love's intensity;While she, the high-born English bride,Drew closer to that one dear side;Her eyelids drooped, her cheek grew paleAs snow, beneath the bridal veil,As if the weight of her own blissWere all too much of happiness,To thrill her heart and light her eyeBeneath another's scrutiny.On crimson cushions dropped with goldThe youthful pair together bow;Before that priest in surplice-foldThey clasp their trembling fingers now;A prayer is heard—the oath is said—That gentle creature lifts her head—A voice has thrilled into her heart,Like music breathed to it apart,—To lie there an abiding spell,To haunt forever memory's cell—To mingle with her latest breathAnd light the very wing of death.Her vow was uttered timidly—With half a murmur, half a sigh;Yet the low faltering sound confessedThe love that brooded in her breast.
The golden ring is on her hand—She is pronounced a wedded bride;Oh say, why does she lingering standSo long that altar-stone beside?And whence the misty tears that dimThe sunny azure of her eye?Why leans her slender form on him?Why does she sob so bitterly?Well may she weep, that fair young bride;For up the Ganges' golden tide,Mid jungles deep, where beasts of preyWith pestilence hold deadly sway,Where the wild waters fiercest sweep,And serpents in their venom sleep,Beneath each dewy leaf and flower,That gentle bride must build her bower.
In the cool shadow of the shore,With snowy streamers floating wide,To the light dipping of the oar,The budgerow swept o'er the tide;The soft breeze ling'ring at her prow,Where many a garland graceful hung,In hues of purple, gold and snow,And on the rippling waters flungAn odor sweet and delicate,As that which all imprisoned lies,Unknown to man as his own fate,Within the flowers of Paradise.
Beneath an awning's silken shade,Where the light breeze its music made,With woven fringe and silken cord,Sat the young bride with her brave lord.Her hand in his was ling'ring still,And every throb of his full heartMet her young pulses with a thrill,And sent the blood up with a start,To that round cheek but late so paleAnd blanched beneath the bridal veil.A tear still trembled in her eye,Like dews that in the violet lie;But breaking through its lovely sheen,The brightness of her soul was seen,Like light within the amethyst,Which told how truly she was blest;Though as she met his ardent gaze,Like the veined petal of a flowerHer eyelids drooped, as from the blazeOf some loved, high, but dreaded power.As bound by some subduing spell,In beauty at his side she bowed.The bridal robe around her fell,Like fragments of a summer cloud;The loosened veil had backward swept,And deeply in her glossy hair,Like light, the orange blossoms slept,As if they sought new beauty there;And pearls lay softly on her neck,Like hailstones melting over snow,Save when the blood, that dyed her cheek.Diffused abroad its rosy glow,And playing on her bosom-swell,With every heart-pulse rose or fell.
Up went the sun; his burning raysBroke o'er the stream like sparkling fire,Till the broad Ganges seemed a-blaze,With gorgeous light, save where the spireOf some lone slender minaret,Threw its clear shadow on the stream,Or grove-like banian firmly set,Broke with its boughs the fiery gleam;Or where a white pagoda shoneLike snow-drift through the shadowy trees;Or ancient mosque stood out alone,Where the wild creeper sought the breeze;Or where some dark and gloomy rockShot o'er the deep its ragged cliffs,Inhabited by many a flockOf vultures, and its yawning riftsAlive with lizards, glowing, bright,As if a prism's changing lightWithin the gloomy depths were flung,Where like rich jewels newly strung,The sleeping serpent stretched its length,And nursed its venom into strength.
Where the broad stream in shadow lay,The bridal barque kept on her way,While every breeze that swept them o'er,Brought loads of incense from the shore;Where each luxuriant jungle layA wilderness of tangled flowers,And budding vines in wanton playFell from the trees in leafy showers,Flinging their graceful garlands o'erThe rippling stream and reedy shore;The lily bared its snowy breast,Swayed its full anthers like a crest,And softly from its pearly swell,A shower of golden powder fellAmong the humbler flowers that layAnd blushed their fragrant lives away;There oleanders lightly wreathedTheir blossoms in a coronal,And the rich baubool softly breathedA perfume from its golden bell;There flower and shrub and spicy treeSeemed struggling for sweet mastery;And many a bird with gorgeous plume,Fluttered along the flowery gloom,Or on the spicy branches lay,Uttering a sleepy roundelay;While insects rushing out like gems,Or showery sparks at random flung,Through ripening fruit and slender stemsThere to the breathing blossoms clung,Studded the glowing boughs and threwO'er the broad bank a brilliant hue.
On—on they went; a fanning breezeCame sighing through the balmy trees,And undulating o'er the streamRose tiny wavelets, like the gleamOf molten gold, and crested allWith a bright trembling coronal,Like that which Brahmins in their dreamLavish upon the sacred stream.Then all grew still. The sultry airLay stagnant in the jungles there—The sun poured down his fervent heat;The river lay a burnished sheet;The floweret closed its withered bell;From the parched leaf the insect fell;The panting birds all tuneless clungTo the still boughs, where late they sung;The dying blossoms felt the calm,And the still air was thick with balm.All things grew faint in that hot noon,As Nature's self lay in a swoon.
And she, that gentle, loving fair,How brooks her form the sultry air?Most patiently—but see her now!What fear convulses her pale brow?And why that half-averted eye,Watching his look so anxiously?The scarlet burning in his cheek—Those lips all parched and motionless?Oh! do they fell disease bespeak?Or only simple weariness?One look! the dreadful certaintyWrings from her heart a stifled cry;And now half phrensied with despair,She rends the blossoms from her hair,And leaping to the vessel's sideShe drenched them in the sluggish tide;Then to the cushions where he lay,Senseless and fevered with disease,Panting his very life away,She rushed, and sinking to her knees,Raised softly up his throbbing head,And pillowed it upon her breast—Then on his burning forehead laidThe dripping flowers, and wildly pressedHer pallid mouth upon his brow,And drew him closer to her heart,As if she thought each trembling throeCould unto his, new life impart.Wildly to his she laid her cheek,And backward threw her loosened hair,That not a glossy curl might breakFrom off his face the sluggish air.The noon swept by, and there was sheCounting his pulses as they rose,Striving with broken melodyTo hush him to a short repose,Bathing his brow and twining stillHer fingers in his burning hand,Her heart's blood stopping with a chillWhene'er he could not understand,Nor answer to her gentle clasp;But dashed that little hand away,Or crushed it with delirious grasp,Entreating tenderly her stay.Father of heaven! and must he die?She breathed in her heart's agony,As up with every painful breath,Came to his lips the foam of death,And o'er his swollen forehead played,Like serpents by the sun betrayed,The corded veins whose purple swell,With his hot pulses rose and fell.
Those drops upon his temple there,The rolling eye, the gloomy hair,The livid lip, the drooping chin,And the death-rattle deep within,That speechless one, so late thy pride—There lies thy answer, widowed bride!
Half conscious of her misery,Like something chiselled o'er a grave,She placed her small hand anxiouslyUpon the lifeless heart, and gaveOne cry—but one—of such despair,The jackall startled from his lair,And answered back that fearful knell,With a long, sharp and hungry yell.
A slow and solemn hour swept by,And there, all still and motionless,With rigid limb and stony eye,The widow knelt in her distress.With pitying looks the swarthy crewAround the tearless mourner drew,And trembling strove to force awayFrom her chill arms the senseless clay.Slowly she raised her awful head;A slight convulsion stirr'd her face;Close to her heart she snatched the dead,And held him in a strong embrace;Then drawing o'er his brow her veil,She turned her face as strangely wild,As if a fiend had mocked her wail,Parted her marble lips and smiled.Twice she essayed to speak, and thenHer face drooped o'er the corpse again,While forth from the disshevelled hairA husky whisper stirred the air.'Nay, bury him not here,' it said,'I would have prayers above my dead;'Then, one by one, the timid crew,From the infected barge withdrew:Helmsmen and servants, all were gone;The wife was with her dead alone.
With no propelling arm to guide,The barque turned slowly with the tide,And on the heavy current sweptIts slow, funereal pathway back,Where the expiring sunbeams slept,Like gold along its morning track.The day threw out its dying gleam,Imbuing with its tints the stream,As if the mighty river rolledO'er beds of ruby—sands of gold.
As if some seraph just had hungIn the blue west his coronet,The timid moon came out and flungHer pearly smiles about—then set,As if she feared the stars would dimThe silvery brightness of her rim;Then in the blue and deepening skiesThe stars sprang out, like glowing eyes,And on the stream reflected lay,Like ingots down the watery way;And softly streamed the starry lightDown to the wet and gloomy trees,Where fiery flies were flashing bright,Afloat upon the evening breeze,Or like some fairy, tiny lamp,Glow'd out among the stirring leaves,And down among the rushes damp,Where Pestilence her vapor weaves,Till shrub and reed, and slender stems,Seemed drooping with a shower of gems.
The Widow raised her head once more,Turned her still look upon the sky,The lighted stream and broken shore;Oh, God! it was a mockery,—The bridegroom—Death—upon her breastFor aye possessing and possessed!With the deep calmness of despair,The mourner raised his marble head,And on the silken cushions there,With icy hands, composed the dead;Then tore her veil off for a shroud,And in her voiceless mourning bowed.
That holy sorrow might have awedThe very wind—but mockinglyIt flung his matted hair abroad,As trifling with her agony,And with a low and moaning wailBore on its wings the bridal veil;Then came a cold and starry ray,And on his marble forehead lay.Father of heaven! she could not brookThat floating hair, that rigid look.With one quick gasp she forward sprung,And to the helm in frenzy clung,Until the barque shot on its wayWhere a dense shadow darkest lay;And there, as shrouded with a pall,The barge swept to the very shore;The fell hyena's fiendish callRang wildly to her ear once more,And from the deep dark solitudeShe saw the hungry jackall creep,And whimper for his nightly food,Where many a monster lay asleepJust in the margin of the flood,As resting from a feast of blood.Around the corpse the widow flungHer snowy arms, and madly clungTo that cold bosom, whence a chillShot through her heart, and frantic stillHer eyes in horror turned to seekThat prowling beast, whose hungry jawsWorked fiercely and began to reekWith eager foam, as with his pawsHe tore the turf impatiently,And howling snuffed the passing clay.It was not that she feared to die;In the deep stillness of her heart,Her spirit prayed most ferventlyThere with the dead to hold its part.The only boon she cared to crave,Was for them both a christian grave;But oh! the agonizing thought!That in her madness she had broughtThat loved and lost one, for a feast,To vulture and to prowling beast,Where all things fierce and wild had comeTo howl a horrid requiem.
But soon a stronger current boreThe freight of death from off the shore;Again the trembling starlight brokeAbove the still and changing clay,And with its pearly kisses wokeThe widow from her trance, who layConvulsed and shivering with dread,Her white arms clinging to the dead;For yet the stilly night wind boreThe wild beasts' disappointed roar.Within the far o'erhanging wood,A bulbul listening to her heart,Poured forth upon the air a floodOf gushing love;—with lips apartThe widow clasped her trembling hands,And bent her ear to catch the strain,As if a seraph's low commandsWere breathed into her soul;—again,That heavenly sound came gushing out,Like waters in their leaping shout;Over her heart's deep frozen springThe gentle strain went lingering,And touched each icy tear that sleptWith sudden life, until she wept.
Again the lovely morn awokeUpon that temple still and lone;Its rosy bloom in gladness broke,And to the holy altar-stoneCame down subduedly and dim,Through painted glass, o'er sculptured limb:Outstretched within that gorgeous gloom,Shaded by pall and sable plume,As chisseled from the very stone,The Bridegroom lay. A broken moanRose up from where the Widow bowed,Her forehead buried in the pall,Her fingers grasping still the shroud,And every limb betraying allThe agony that wrung her heart.It was a sad and fearful sight,That lifted head, those lips apart,When through the dim and purplish lightThose who obeyed the bridal callNow gathered for the funeral;A soft and solemn strain awokeThe silence of that lofty dome,And through the fretted arches brokeThe music surging to its home;Then with a firm and heavy treadThe bearers slowly raised the dead;She followed close, her trembling handStill clenched upon the gloomy pall,In snowy robes and pearly band,As at her wedding festival;And in her bright disshevelled hairA broken orange-blossom lay,Withered and all entangled there;Fit relic of her bridal day;Thus onward to the tomb she passed,Her white robe swaying to the blast,And mingling at each stirring breathThere with the drapery of death.
Again the lovely morn awokeUpon that temple still and lone;Its rosy bloom in gladness broke,And to the holy altar-stoneCame down subduedly and dim,Through painted glass, o'er sculptured limb:Outstretched within that gorgeous gloom,Shaded by pall and sable plume,As chisseled from the very stone,The Bridegroom lay. A broken moanRose up from where the Widow bowed,Her forehead buried in the pall,Her fingers grasping still the shroud,And every limb betraying allThe agony that wrung her heart.It was a sad and fearful sight,That lifted head, those lips apart,When through the dim and purplish lightThose who obeyed the bridal callNow gathered for the funeral;A soft and solemn strain awokeThe silence of that lofty dome,And through the fretted arches brokeThe music surging to its home;Then with a firm and heavy treadThe bearers slowly raised the dead;She followed close, her trembling handStill clenched upon the gloomy pall,In snowy robes and pearly band,As at her wedding festival;And in her bright disshevelled hairA broken orange-blossom lay,Withered and all entangled there;Fit relic of her bridal day;Thus onward to the tomb she passed,Her white robe swaying to the blast,And mingling at each stirring breathThere with the drapery of death.
In the fall of the year 1829 I took it into my head I'd go to Portland. I had heard a good deal about Portland, what a fine place it was, and how the folks got rich there proper fast; and that fall there was a couple of new papers come up to Downingville from there, called the Portland Courier and Family Reader; and they told a good many queer kind of things about Portland and one thing another; and all at once it popped into my head, and I up and told father, and says I, I'm going to Portland whether or no; and I'll see what this world is made of yet. Father stared a little at first, and said he was afraid I should get lost; but when he see I was bent upon it, he give it up; and he stepped to his chist and opened the till, and took out a dollar and gave to me, and says he, Jack, this is all I can do for you; but go, and lead an honest life, and I believe I shall hear good of you yet. He turned and walked across the room, but I could see the tears start into his eyes, and mother sot down and had a hearty crying spell. This made me feel rather bad for a minute or two, and I almost had a mind to give it up; and then again father's dream came into my mind, and I mustered up courage, and declared I'd go. So I tackled up the old horse and packed in a load of ax handles and a few notions, and mother fried me some dough-nuts and put 'em into a box along with some cheese and sassages, and ropped me up another shirt, for I told her I did n'tknow how long I should be gone; and after I got all rigged out, I went round and bid all the neighbors good bye, and jumped in and drove off for Portland.
Ant Sally had been married two or three years before and moved to Portland, and I inquired round till I found out where she lived, and went there and put the old horse up and eat some supper and went to bed. And the next morning I got up and straightened right off to see the Editor of the Portland Courier, for I knew by what I had seen in his paper that he was just the man to tell me which way to steer. And when I come to see him I knew I was right; for soon as I told him my name and what I wanted, he took me by the hand as kind as if he had been a brother; and says he, Mr. Downing, I'll do any thing I can to assist you. You have come to a good town; Portland is a healthy thriving place, and any man with a proper degree of enterprise may do well here. But says he, Mr. Downing, and he looked mighty kind of knowing, says he, if you want to make out to your mind, you must do as the steamboats do. Well, says I, how do they do? for I did n't know what a steam boat was, any more than the man in the moon. Why, says he, theygo ahead. And you must drive about among the folks here jest as though you were at home on the farm among the cattle. Dont be afraid of any of 'em, but figure away, and I dare say you will get into good business in a very little while. But, says he, there's one thing you must be careful of, and that is not to get into the hands of them are folks that trades up round Huckler's Row: for there's some sharpers up there, if they get hold of you, would twist your eye teeth out in five minutes. Well after he had gin me all the good advice he couldI went back to Ant Sally's again and got some breakfast, and then I walked all over the town to see what chance I could find to sell my ax handles and things, and to get into business.
After I had walked about three or four hours I come along towards the upper end of the town where I found there were stores and shops of all sorts and sizes. And I met a feller, and says I, what place is this? Why this says he, is Huckler's Row. What, says I, are these the stores where the traders in Huckler's Row keep? And says he, yes. Well then, thinks I to myself, I have a pesky good mind to go in and have a try with one of these chaps, and see if they can twist my eye teeth out. If they can get the best end of a bargain out of me, they can do what there aint a man in Downingville can do, and I should jest like to know what sort of stuff these ere Portland chaps are made of. So in I goes into the best looking store among 'em. And I see some biscuit lying on the shelf, and says I, Mister, how much do you ax apiece for them are biscuit? A cent apiece, says he. Well, says I, I shant give you that, but if you 've a mind to, I'll give you two cents for three of 'em, for I begin to feel a little as though I should like to take a bite. Well, says he, I would n't sell 'em to any body else so, but seeing it 's you I dont care if you take 'em. I knew he lied, for he never see me before in his life. Well he handed down the biscuits and I took 'em, and walked round the store awhile to see what else he had to sell. At last, says I, Mister, have you got any good new cider? Says he, yes, as good as ever you see. Well, says I, what do you ax a glass for it? Two cents, says he. Well, says I, seems to me I feel more dry than I dohungry now. Aint you a mind to take these ere biscuit again and give me a glass of cider? And says he, I dont care if I do; so he took and laid 'em on the shelf again, and poured out a glass of cider. I took the cider and drinkt it down, and to tell the truth it was capital good cider. Then, says I, I guess it 's time for me to be a going, and I stept along towards the door. But, says he, stop Mister. I believe you have 'nt paid me for the cider. Not paid you for the cider, says I, what do you mean by that? Did n't the biscuit that I give you jest come to the cider? Oh, ah, right, says he. So I started to go again; and says he, but stop, Mister, you did n't pay me for the biscuit. What, says I, do you mean to impose upon me? do you think I am going to pay you for the biscuit and let you keep 'em tu? Aint they there now on your shelf, what more do you want? I guess sir, you dont whittle me in that way. So I turned about and marched off, and left the feller staring and thinking and scratching his head, as though he was struck with a dunderment. Howsomever, I did n't want to cheat him, only jest to show 'em it want so easy a matter to pull my eye teeth out, so I called in next day and paid him his two cents. Well I staid at Ant Sally's a week or two, and I went about town every day to see what chance I could find to trade off my ax handles, or hire out, or find some way or other to begin to seek my fortune.
And I must confess the editor of the Courier was about right in calling Portland a pretty good thriving sort of a place; every body seemed to be as busy as so many bees; and the masts of the vessels stuck up round the wharves as thick as pine trees in uncle Joshua's pasture; and the stores and the shops were sothick, it seemed as if there was no end to 'em. In short, although I have been round the world considerable, from that time to this, all the way from Madawaska to Washington, I 've never seen any place yet that I think has any business to grin at Portland.
The advantages which in early days our new country held out for employment, encouraged immigration, and the population was almost wholly made up by accessions from the more thickly peopled parts of Massachusetts. To the county of Essex particularly, in the early as well as more recent period of our history, the town is indebted for large portions of its population. Middlesex, Suffolk and the Old Colony, were not without their contributions. But the people did not come from such widely different sources as to produce any difficulty of amalgamation, or any striking diversity of manners. They formed one people and brought with them the steady habits and good principles of those from whom they had separated. There were some accessions before the revolution made to our population from the other side of the Atlantic; the emigrants readily incorporated themselves with our people and form a substantial part of the population. Within twenty years, the numbers by immigration have increased more rapidly, especially from Ireland, but notsufficiently to destroy the uniformity which characterises our population, nor to disturb the harmony of our community.
It cannot have escaped observation that one of the principal sources of our wealth has been the lumber trade. We have seen on the revival of the town in the early part of the last century, how intimately the progress of the town was connected with operations in timber. Before the revolution our commerce was sustained almost wholly by the large ships from England which loaded here with masts, spars, and boards for the mother country, and by ship building. The West India business was then comparatively small, employing but few vessels of inferior size. After the revolution our trade had to form new channels, and the employment of our own navigation was to give new activity to all the springs of industry and wealth. We find therefore that the enterprise of the people arose to the emergency, and in a few years our ships were floating on every ocean, becoming the carriers of southern as well as northern produce, and bringing back the money and commodities of other countries. The trade to the West Indies, supported by our lumber, increased vastly, and direct voyages were made in larger vessels than had before been employed, which received in exchange for the growth of our forests and our seas, sugar, molasses and rum, the triple products of the cane. This trade has contributed mainly to the advancement and prosperity of the town, has nourished a hardy race of seamen, and formed a people among the most active and enterprising of any in the United States.
The great changes which have taken place in thecustoms and manners of society since the revolution, must deeply impress the mind of a reflecting observer. These have extended not only to the outward forms of things, but to the habits of thought and to the very principles of character. The moral revolution has been as signal and striking as the political one; it upturned the old land marks of antiquated and hereditary customs and the obedience to mere authority, and established in their stead a more simple and just rule of action; it set up reason and common sense, and a true equality in the place of a factitious and conventional state of society which unrelentingly required a submission to its stern dictates; which made an unnatural distinction in moral power, and elevated the rich knave or fool to the station that humble and despised merit would have better graced.
These peculiarities have been destroyed by the silent and gradual operation of public opinion; the spirit which arose in the new world is spreading with the same effect over the old. Freedom of opinion is asserting a just sway, and it is only now to be feared that the principle will be carried too far, that authority will lose all its influence and that reason and a just estimate of human rights will not be sufficient restraints upon the passions of men. The experiment is going on, and unless education, an early and sound moral education go on with it, which will enlighten and strengthen the public mind, it will fail of success. The feelings and passions must be placed under the charge of moral principle, or we may expect an age of licentiousness to succeed one of authority and rigid discipline. We may be said now to be in the transition state of society.
Distinctions of rank among different classes of thecommunity, a part of the old system, prevailed very much before the revolution and were preserved in the dress as well as in the forms of society. But the deference attached to robes of office and the formality of official station have all fled before the genius of our republican institutions; we look now upon the man and not upon his garments nor upon the post to which chance may have elevated him. In the circle of our little town, the lines were drawn with much strictness. The higher classes were called thequality, and were composed of persons not engaged in mechanic employments. We now occasionally find some old persons whose memory recurs with longing delight to the days in which these formal distinctions held uncontrolled sway.
The fashionable color of clothes among this class was drab; the coats were made with large cuffs reaching to the elbows, and low collars. All classes wore breeches which had not the advantage of being kept up as in modern times by suspenders; the dandies of that day wore embroidered silk vests with long pocket flaps and ruffles over their hands. Most of those above mentioned were engaged in trade, and the means of none were sufficiently ample to enable them to live without engaging in some employment. Still the pride of their cast was maintained, and although the cloak and perhaps the wig may have been laid aside in the dust and hurry of business, they were scrupulously retained when abroad.
There were many other expensive customs in that day to which the spirit of the age required implicit obedience; these demanded costly presents to be made and large expenses to be incurred at the three most important events in the history of man, his birth, marriageand death. In the latter it became particularly onerous and extended the influence of its example to the poorest classes of people, who in their show of grief, imitated, though at an immeasurable distance, the customs of the rich.
The leaders of the people in the early part of the revolution, with a view to check importations from Britain, aimed a blow at these expensive customs, from which they never recovered. The example commenced in the highest places, of an entire abandonment of all the outward trappings of grief which had been wont to be displayed, and of all luxury in dress, which extended over the whole community. In the later stages of the revolution however, an extravagant and luxurious style of living and dress was revived, encouraged by the large amount both of specie and paper money in circulation, and the great quantity of foreign articles of luxury brought into the country by numerous captures.
The evils here noticed did not exist in this part of the country in any considerable degree, especially after the revolution; the people were too poor to indulge in an expensive style of living. They were literally a working people, property had not descended upon them from a rich ancestry, but whatever they had accumulated had been the result of their own industry and economy. Our ladies too at that period had not forgotten the use of the distaff, and occasionally employed that antiquated instrument of domestic labor for the benefit of others as well as of themselves. The following notice of aspinning beeat Mrs. Deane's on the first of May 1788, is a flattering memorial of the industry and skill of the females of our town at that period.
"On the first instant, assembled at the house of the Rev. Samuel Deane of this town, more than one hundred of the fair sex, married and single ladies, most of whom were skilled in the important art of spinning. An emulous industry was never more apparent than in this beautiful assembly. The majority of fair hands gave motion to not less than sixty wheels. Many were occupied in preparing the materials, besides those who attended to the entertainment of the rest, provision for which was mostly presented by the guests themselves, or sent in by other generous promoters of the exhibition, as were also the materials for the work. Near the close of the day, Mrs. Deane was presented by the company withtwo hundred and thirty-sixseven knotted skeins of excellent cotton and linen yarn, the work of the day, excepting about a dozen skeins which some of the company brought in ready spun. Some had spun six, and many not less than five skeins apiece. To conclude and crown the day, a numerous band of the best singers attended in the evening, and performed an agreeable variety of excellent pieces in psalmody."
Some of the ante-revolutionary customs "more honored in the breach than in the observance"—have been continued quite to our day, although not precisely in the same manner, nor in equal degree. One was the practise of helping forward every undertaking by a deluge of ardent spirit in some of its multifarious mistifications. Nothing could be done from the burial of a friend or the quiet sessions of a town committee; to the raising of the frame of a barn or a meeting-house, but the men must be goaded on by the stimulus of rum. Flip and punch were then the indispensable accompaniments of every social meeting and of every enterprise.
It is not a great while since similar customs have extensively prevailed not perhaps in precisely the instances or degree above mentioned, but in junkettings, and other meetings which have substituted whiskey punch, toddy, &c. for the soothing but pernicious compounds of our fathers. Thanks however to the genius of temperance, a redeeming spirit is abroad, which it is hoped will save the country from the destruction that seemed to threaten it from this source.
The amusements of our people in early days had nothing particular to distinguish them. The winter was generally a merry season, and the snow was always improved for sleighing parties out of town. In summer the badness of the roads prevented all riding for pleasure; in that season the inhabitants indulged themselves in water parties, fishing and visiting the islands, a recreation that has lost none of its relish at this day.
Dancing does not seem to have met with much favor, for we find upon record in 1766, that Theophilus Bradbury and wife, Nathaniel Deering and wife, John Waite and wife, and several other of the most respectable people in town were indicted for dancing at Joshua Freeman's tavern in December 1765. Mr. Bradbury brought himself and friends off by pleading that the room in which the dance took place, having been hired by private individuals for the season, was no longer to be considered as a public place of resort, but a private apartment, and that the persons there assembled had a right to meet in their own room and to dance there. The court sustained the plea. David Wyer was king's attorney at this time.
It was common for clubs and social parties to meetat the tavern in those days, and Mrs. Greele's in Backstreet was a place of most fashionable resort both for old and young wags, before as well as after the revolution. It was theEastcheapof Portland, and was as famous forbaked beansas the "Boar's head" was for sack, although we would by no means compare honest Dame Greele, with the more celebrated, though less deserving hostess of Falstaff and Poins. Many persons are now living on whose heads the frosts of age have extinguished the fires of youth, who love to recur to the amusing scenes and incidents associated with that house.
When we look back a space of just two hundred years and compare our present situation, surrounded by all the beauty of civilization and intelligence, with the cheerless prospect which awaited the European settler, whose voice first startled the stillness of the forest; or if we look back but one hundred years to the humble beginnings of the second race of settlers, who undertook the task of reviving the waste places of this wilderness, and suffered all the privations and hardships which the pioneers in the march of civilization are called upon to endure; or if we take a nearer point for comparison, and view the blackened ruin of our village at the close of the revolutionary war, and estimate the proud pre-eminence over all those periods which we now enjoy, in our civil relations and in the means of social happiness, our hearts should swell with gratitude to the Author of all good that these high privileges are granted to us; and we should resolve that we will individually and as a community sustain the purity and moral tone of our institutions, and leave them unimpaired to posterity.
At the extremity of a green lane in the outer skirt of the fashionable suburb of New-Haven, stood a rambling old Dutch house, built, probably, when the cattle of Mynheer grazed over the present site of the town. It was a wilderness of irregular rooms, of no describable shape in its exterior, and from its southern balcony, to use an expressive gallicism,gaveupon the bay. Long Island Sound, the great highway from the northern Atlantic to New York, weltered in alternate lead and silver (oftener like the brighter metal, for the climate is divine) between the curving lip of the bay, and the interminable and sandy shore of the island some six leagues distant, the procession of ships and steamers stole past with an imperceptible progress, the ceaseless bells of the college chapel came deadened through the trees from behind, and (the day being one of golden Autumn, and myself and St. John waiting while black Agatha answered the door-bell) the sun-steeped precipice of East Rock with its tiara of blood-red maples flushing like a Turk's banner in the light, drew from us both a truant wish for a ramble and a holiday.
In a few minutes from this time were assembled in Mrs. Ilfrington's drawing-room the six or seven young ladies of my more particular acquaintance among her pupils—of whom one was a new-comer, and the object of my mingled curiosity and admiration. It was theone day of the week when morning visiters were admitted, and I was there in compliance with an unexpected request from my friend, to present him to the agreeable circle of Mrs. Ilfrington. As anhabituein her family, this excellent lady had taken occasion to introduce to me a week or two before, the new-comer of whom I have spoken above—a departure from the ordinary rule of the establishment, which I felt to be a compliment, and which gave me, I presumed, a tacit claim to mix myself up in that young lady's destiny as deeply as I should find agreeable. The new-comer was the daughter of an Indian chief, and her name was Nunu.
The transmission of the daughter of a Cherokee chief to New-Haven, to be educated at the expense of the government, and of several young men of the same high birth to different colleges, will be recorded among the evidences in history that we did not plough the bones of their fathers into our fields without some feelings of compunction. Nunu had come to the seaboard under the charge of a female missionary, whose pupil she had been in one of the native schools of the west, and was destined, though a chief's daughter, to return as a teacher to her tribe, when she should have mastered some of the higher accomplishments of her sex. She was an apt scholar, but her settled melancholy when away from her books, had determined Mrs. Ilfrington to try the effect of a little society upon her, and hence my privilege to ask for her appearance in the drawing-room.
As we strolled down in the alternate shade and sunshine of the road, I had been a little piqued at the want of interest and the manner of course with whichSt. John had received my animated descriptions of the personal beauty of the Cherokee.
"I have hunted with the tribe," was his only answer, "and know their features."
"But she is not like them," I replied with a tone of some impatience; "she is thebeau-idealof a red skin, but it is with the softened features of an Arab or an Egyptian. She is more willowy than erect, and has no higher cheek-bones than the plaster Venus in your chambers. If it were not for the lambent fire in her eye, you might take her in the sculptured grace of her attitudes, for an immortal bronze of Cleopatra. I tell you she is divine!"
St. John called to his dog and we turned along the green bank above the beach, with Mrs. Ilfrington's house in view, and so opens a new chapter of my story.
I have seen in many years wandering over the world, lived to gaze upon, and live to remember and adore—a constellation, I almost believe, that has absorbed all the intensest light of the beauty of a hemisphere—yet with your pictures coloured to life in my memory, and the pride of rank and state thrown over them like an elevating charm—I go back to the school of Mrs. Ilfrington, and (smile if you will!) they were as lovely and stately, and as worthy of the worship of the world.
I introduced St. John to the young ladies as they came in. Having never seen him except in the presence of men, I was a little curious to know whether his singularaplombwould serve him as well with the other sex, of which I was aware he had had a very slender experience. My attention was distracted at the moment of mentioning his name to a lovely littleGeorgian, (with eyes full of the liquid sunshine of the south,) by a sudden bark of joy from the dog who had been left in the hall; and as the door opened, and the slight and graceful Indian girl entered the room, the usually unsocial animal sprung bounding in, lavishing caresses on her, and seemingly wild with the delight of recognition.
In the confusion of taking the dog from the room, I had again lost the moment of remarking St. John's manner, and on the entrance of Mrs. Ilfrington, Nunu was sitting calmly by the piano, and my friend was talking in a quiet undertone with the passionate Georgian.
"I must apologise for my dog," said St. John, bowing gracefully to the mistress of the house; "he was bred by Indians, and the sight of a Cherokee reminded him of happier days—as it did his master."
Nunu turned her eyes quickly upon him, but immediately resumed her apparently deep study of the abstruse figures in the Kidderminster carpet.
"You are well arrived, young gentlemen," said Mrs. Ilfrington; "we press you into our service for a botanical ramble, Mr. Slingsby is at leisure, and will be delighted I am sure. Shall I say as much for you, Mr. St. John?" St. John bowed, and the ladies left the room for their bonnets, Mrs. Ilfrington last.
The door was scarcely closed when Nunu re-appeared, and checking herself with a sudden feeling at the first step over the threshold, stood gazing at St. John, evidently under very powerful emotion.
"Nunu!" he said, smiling slowly and unwillingly, and holding out his hands with the air of one who forgives an offence.
She sprang upon his bosom with the bound of a leveret,and, between her fast kisses broke the endearing epithets of her native tongue—in words that I only understood by their passionate and thrilling accent. The language of the heart is universal.
The fair scholars came in one after another, and we were soon on our way through the green fields to the flowery mountain side of East Rock, Mrs. Ilfrington's arm and conversation having fallen to my share, and St. John rambling at large with the rest of the party, but more particularly beset by Miss Temple, whose Christian name was Isabella, and whose Christian charity had no bowels for broken hearts.
The most sociable individuals of the party for a while were Nunu and Last, the dog's recollections of the past seeming, like those of wiser animals, more agreeable than the present. The Cherokee astonished Mrs. Ilfrington by an abandonment of joy and frolic which she had never displayed before, sometimes fairly outrunning the dog at full speed, and sometimes sitting down breathless upon a green bank, while the rude creature overpowered her with his caresses. The scene gave rise to a grave discussion between that well-instructed lady and myself upon the singular force of childish association—the extraordinary intimacy between the Indian and the trapper's dog being explained satisfactorily, to her at least, on that attractive principle. Had she but seen Nunu spring into the bosom of my friend half an hour before, she might have added a material corollary to her proposition. If the dog and the chief's daughter were not old friends, the chief's daughter and St. John certainlywere!
As well as I could judge by the motions of two people walking before me, St. John was advancing fastin the favor and acquaintance of the graceful Georgian. Her southern indolence was probably an apology in Mrs. Ilfrington's eyes for leaning heavily on her companion's arm, but, in a momentary halt, the capricious beauty disembarrassed herself of the light scarf that had floated over her shoulders, and bound it playfully around his waist. This was rather strange on a first acquaintance, and Mrs. Ilfrington was of that opinion.
"Miss Temple!" said she, advancing to whisper a reproof in the beauty's ear.
Before she had taken a second step, Nunu bounded over the low hedge, followed by the dog with whom she had been chasing a butterfly, and springing upon St. John, with eyes that flashed fire, she tore the scarf into shreds, and stood trembling and pale, with her feet on the silken fragments.
"Madam!" said St. John, advancing to Mrs. Ilfrington, after casting on the Cherokee a look of surprise and displeasure, "I should have told you before, that your pupil and myself are not new acquaintances. Her father is my friend. I have hunted with the tribe, and have hitherto looked upon Nunu as a child. You will believe me, I trust, when I say, her conduct surprises me, and I beg to assure you, that any influence I may have over her, will be in accordance with your own wishes exclusively."
His tone was cold, and Nunu listened with fixed lips and frowning eyes.
"Have you seen her before since her arrival?" asked Mrs. Ilfrington.
"My dog brought me yesterday the first intelligence that she was here. He returned from his morning ramble with a string of wampum about his neck, whichhad the mark of the tribe. He was her gift," he added, patting the head of the dog and looking with a softened expression at Nunu, who drooped her head upon her bosom and walked on in tears.
The chain of the Green Mountains, after a gallop of some five hundred miles from Canada to Connecticut, suddenly pulls up on the shore of Long Island Sound, and stands rearing with a bristling mane of pine-trees, three hundred feet in air, as if checked in midcareer by the sea. Standing on the brink of this bold precipice, you have the bald face of the rock in a sheer perpendicular below you; and, spreading away from the broken masses at its foot, lies an emerald meadow inlaid with a crystal and rambling river, across which, at a distance of a mile or two, rise the spires of the university from what else were a thick serried wilderness of elms. Back from the edge of the precipice extends a wild forest of hemlock and fir, ploughed on its northern side by a mountain torrent, whose bed of marl, dry and overhung with trees in the summer, serves as a path and guide from the plain to the summit. It were a toilsome ascent but for that smooth and hard pavement, and the impervious and green thatch of pine-tassels overhung.
The kind mistress ascended with the assistance of my arm, and St. John drew stoutly between Miss Temple and a fat young lady with an incipient asthma. Nunu had not been seen since the first cluster of hanging flowers had hidden her from our sight as she bounded upward.
The hour or two of slanting sunshine, poured in upon the summit of the precipice from the west, had been sufficient to induce a fine and silken moss to show itsfibres and small blossoms above the carpet of pine-tassels, and, emerging from the brown shadow of the wood, you stood on a verdant platform, the foliage of sighing trees overhead, a fairies' velvet beneath you, and a view below, that you may as well (if you would not die in your ignorance) make a voyage to see.
We found Nunu lying thoughtfully near the brink of the precipice and gazing off over the waters of the sound, as if she watched the coming or going of a friend under the white sails that glanced upon its bosom. We recovered our breath in silence, I alone perhaps of that considerable company gazing with admiration at the lithe and unconscious figure of grace lying in the attitude of the Grecian hermaphrodite on the brow of the rock before us. Her eyes were moist, and motionless with abstraction, her lips just perceptibly curved in an expression of mingled pride and sorrow, her small hand buried and clenched in the moss, and her left foot and ankle, models of spirited symmetry, escaped carelessly from her dress, the high instep strained back, as if recovering from a leap with the tense control of emotion.
The game of the coquettish Georgian was well played. With a true woman's pique, she had redoubled her attentions to my friend from the moment that she found it gave pain to another of her sex; and St. John, like most men, seemed not unwilling to see a new altar kindled to his vanity, though a heart he had already won, was stifling with the incense. Miss Temple was very lovely: her skin of that teint of opaque and patrician white, which is found oftenest in Asian latitudes, was just perceptibly warmed toward the centre of the cheek with a glow like sunshine through the thick whitepetal of a magnolia: her eyes were hazel with those inky lashes which enhance the expression a thousand fold either of passion, or melancholy; her teeth were like strips from the lily's heart; and she was clever, captivating, graceful, and a thorough coquette. St. John was mysterious, romantic-looking, superior, and just now the only victim in the way. He admired, as all men do, those qualities, which to her own sex, rendered the fair Isabella unamiable, and yielded himself, as all men will, a satisfied prey to enchantments of which he knew the springs were the pique and vanity of the enchantress. How singular it is that the highest and best qualities of the female heart are those with which men are the least captivated!
A rib of the mountain formed a natural seat a little back from the pitch of the precipice, and here sat Miss Temple, triumphant in drawing all eyes upon herself and her tamed lion, her lap full of flowers which he had found time to gather on the way, and her fair hands employed in arranging a bouquet, of which the destiny was yet a secret. Next to their own loves, ladies like nothing on earth like mending or marring the loves of others; and, while the violets and already drooping wild flowers were coquettishly chosen or rejected by those slender fingers, the sun might have swung back to the east like a pendulum, and those seven-and-twenty misses would have watched their lovely schoolfellow the same. Nunu turned her head slowly around at last, and silently looked on. St. John lay at the feet of the Georgian, glancing from the flowers to her face, and from her face to the flowers, with an admiration not at all equivocal. Mrs. Ilfrington sat apart, absorbed in finishing a sketch of New-Haven;and I, interested painfully in watching the emotions of the Cherokee, sat with my back to the trunk of a hemlock, the only spectator who comprehended the whole extent of the drama.
A wild rose was set in the heart of the bouquet at last, a spear of riband-grass added to give it grace and point, and nothing was wanting but a string.
Reticules were searched, pockets turned inside out, and never a bit of riband to be found. The beauty was in despair.
"Stay!" said St. John, springing to his feet. "Last! Last!"
The dog came coursing in from the wood, and crouched to his master's hand.
"Will a string of wampum do?" he asked, feeling under the long hair on the dog's neck, and untying a fine and variegated thread of many-colored beads, worked exquisitely.
The dog growled, and Nunu sprang into the middle of the circle with the fling of an adder, and seizing the wampum as he handed it to her rival, called the dog and fastened it once more around his neck.
The ladies rose in alarm; the belle turned pale and clung to St. John's arm; the dog, with his hair bristling on his back, stood close to her feet in an attitude of defiance, and the superb Indian, the peculiar genius of her beauty developed by her indignation, her nostrils expanded and her eyes almost showering fire in their flashes, stood before them, like a young Pythoness, ready to strike them dead with a regard.
St. John recovered from his astonishment after a moment, and leaving the arm of Miss Temple, advanced a step and called to his dog.
The Cherokee patted the animal on the back, and spoke to him in her own language; and, as St. John still advanced, Nunu drew herself to her fullest height, placed herself before the dog, who slunk growling from his master, and said to him as she folded her arms, "the wampum is mine!"
St. John colored to the temples with shame.
"Last!" he cried, stamping with his foot, and endeavoring to frighten him from his shelter.
The dog howled and crept away, half crouching with fear toward the precipice; and St. John shooting suddenly past Nunu, seized him on the brink, and held him down by the throat.
The next instant a scream of horror from Mrs. Ilfrington, followed by a terrific echo from every female present, started the rude Kentuckian to his feet.
Clear over the abyss, hanging with one hand by an aspen sapling, the point of her tiny foot just poising on a projecting ledge of rock, swung the desperate Cherokee, sustaining herself with perfect ease, but with all the determination of her iron race collected in calm concentration on her lips.
"Restore the wampum to his neck!" she cried, with a voice that thrilled the very marrow with its subdued fierceness, "or my blood rest on your soul!"
St. John flung it toward the dog, and clasped his hands in silent horror.
The Cherokee bore down the sapling till its slender stem cracked with the tension, and rising lightly with the rebound, alit like a feather upon the rock. The subdued Kentuckian sprang to her side; but, with scorn on her lip and the flush of exertion already vanishedfrom her cheek, she called to the dog, and with rapid strides took her way alone down the mountain.
Five years had elapsed. I had put to sea from the sheltered river of boyhood; had encountered the storms of a first entrance into life; had trimmed my boat, shortened sail, and with a sharp eye to windward, was laying fairly on my course. Among others from whom I had parted company, was Paul St. John, who had shaken hands with me at the university-gate, leaving me, after four years' intimacy, as much in doubt as to his real character and history as the first day we met. I had never heard him speak of either father or mother; nor had he, to my knowledge, received a letter from the day of his matriculation. He passed his vacation at the university. He had studied well, yet refused one of the highest college-honors offered him with his degree. He had shown many good qualities, yet some unaccountable faults; and, all in all, was an enigma to myself and the class. I knew him clever, accomplished, and conscious of superiority, and my knowledge went no farther.
It was five years from this time, I say, and in the bitter struggles of first manhood, I had almost forgotten there was such a being in the world. Late in the month of October, in 1829, I was on my way westward, giving myself a vacation from the law. I embarked on a clear and delicious day in the small steamer which plies up and down the Cayuga Lake, looking forward to a calm feast of scenery, and caring little who were to be my fellow passengers. As we got out of the little harbor of Cayuga, I walked astern for the first time,and saw the not very unusual sight of a group of Indians standing motionless by the wheel. They were chiefs returning from a diplomatic visit to Washington.
I sat down by the companion-ladder, and opened soul and eye to the glorious scenery we were gliding through. The first severe frost had come, and the miraculous change had passed upon the leaves, which is known only in America. The blood-red sugar-maple, with a leaf brighter and more delicate than a Circassian's lip, stood here and there in the forest like the sultan's standard in a host, the solitary and far-seen aristocrat of the wilderness; the birch, with its spirit-like and amber leaves, ghosts of the departed summer, turned out along the edges of the woods like a lining of the palest gold; the broad sycamore and the fan-like catalpa, flaunted their saffron foliage in the sun, spotted with gold like the wings of a lady-bird; the kingly oak, with its summit shaken bare, still hid its majestic trunk in a drapery of sumptuous dies like a stricken monarch, gathering his robes of state about him to die royally in his purple; the tall poplar, with its minaret of silver leaves, stood blanched like a coward in the dying forest, burdening every breeze with its complainings; the hickory, paled through its enduring green; the bright berries of the mountain-ash flushed with a sanguine glory in the unobstructed sun; the gaudy tulip-tree, the sybarite of vegetation, stripped of its golden cups, still drank the intoxicating light of noonday in leaves than which the lip of Indian shell was never more delicately teinted; the still deeper-died vines of the lavish wilderness, perishing with the nobler things whose summer they had shared, outshone them in their decline, as woman in her death is heavenlierthan the being on whom in life she leaned; and alone and unsympathizing in this universal decay, outlaws from nature, stood the fir and the hemlock, their frowning and sombre heads, darker and less lovely than ever in contrast with the death-struck glory of their companions.
The dull colors of English autumnal foliage, give you no conception of this marvellous phenomenon. The change here, too, is gradual. In America it is the work of a night—of a single frost! Ah, to have seen the sun set on hills, bright in the still green and lingering summer, and to wake in the morning to a spectacle like this! It is as if a myriad of rainbows were laced through the tree-tops—as if the sunsets of a summer—gold, purple and crimson—had been fused in the alembic of the west, and poured back in a new deluge of light and color over the wilderness. It is as if every leaf in those countless trees had been painted to outflush the tulip—as if, by some electric miracle, the dies of the earth's heart had struck upward, and her crystals and ore, her sapphires, hyacinths and rubies, had let forth their imprisoned dies to mount through the roots of the forest, and like the angels that in olden time entered the bodies of the dying, reanimate the perishing leaves, and revel an hour in their bravery.
I was sitting by the companion-ladder, thinking to what on earth these masses of foliage could be resembled, when a dog sprang upon my knees, and, the moment after, a hand was laid on my shoulder.
"St. John? Impossible!"
"Bodily!" answered my quondam classmate.
I looked at him with astonishment. Thesoigneman of fashion I had once known, was enveloped in a kindof hunter's frock, loose and large, and girded to his waist by a belt; his hat was exchanged for a cap of rich otter-skin; his pantaloons spread with a slovenly carelessness over his feet, and altogether there was that in his air which told me at a glance that he had renounced the world. Last had recovered his leanness, and after wagging out his joy, he couched between my feet, and lay looking into my face as if he was brooding over the more idle days in which we had been acquainted.
"And where areyoubound?" I asked, having answered the same question for myself.
"Westward with the chiefs!"
"For how long?"
"The remainder of my life."
I could not forbear an exclamation of surprise.
"You would wonder less," said he, with an impatient gesture, "if you knew more of me. And by the way," he added, with a smile, "I think I never told you the first half of the story—my life up to the time I met you."
"It was not for the want of a catechist," I answered, setting myself in an attitude of attention.
"No! and I was often tempted to gratify your curiosity; but from the little intercourse I had with the world I had adopted some precocious principles, and one was, that a man's influence over others was vulgarism, and diminished by a knowledge of his history."
I smiled, and as the boat sped on her way over the calm waters of the Cayuga, St. John went on leisurely with a story which is scarce remarkable enough to merit a repetition. He believed himself the natural son of a western hunter, but only knew that he hadpassed his early youth on the borders of civilization, between whites and Indians, and that he had been more particularly indebted for protection to the father of Nunu. Mingled ambition and curiosity had led him eastward while still a lad, and a year or two of the most vagabond life in the different cities, had taught him the caution and bitterness for which he was so remarkable. A fortunate experiment in lotteries supplied him with the means of education, and with singular application in a youth of such wandering habits, he had applied himself to study under a private master, fitted himself for the university in half the usual time, and cultivated in addition the literary taste which I have remarked upon.
"This," he said, smiling at my look of astonishment, "brings me up to the time when we met. I came to college at the age of eighteen, with a few hundred dollars in my pocket, some pregnant experience of the rough side of the world, great confidence in myself and distrust of others, and, I believe, a kind of instinct of good manners, which made me ambitious of shining in society. You were a witness of mydebut. Miss Temple was the first highly educated woman I had ever known, and you saw the effect on me!"