Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

We laid her in the still, still grave. We mingled our tears together, and returned to the house, now solitary to us both. We said not a word of future plans. We made no arrangements. We dealt with no business. The life and the love that was gone, was a bond between us, which seemed both to him and me, unseverable. At first, I gave way to my grief—sat in the little room that had been hers. Wept by the side of the bed where she had lain in my arms, and in the arms of death, and writhed under the first great disappointment of my earthly hopes. Oh, how sweet, how beautiful, how pleasant was her memory, and how bitter, how terrible the thought that I could never hold her to my heart again.

For two days I was brutally selfish—I thought only of myself, and of my sad, sad loss. In the last week, I had learned to love her more than I ever loved her before. It seemed, indeed, as if we had become one, and that my heart lay dead with hers in the cold earth.

I was roused from this sort of stupor by the old woman-servant coming in as I sat there, and saying in her simple way—

“Ah! sir, it is very sad, indeed, for you, but there is one who has a sadder fate than yours. In heaven’s name, shake off your sorrow, and go and see him. You are young, and he is old. You have long years, and, perhaps, bright days before you. He has nothing but darkness and solitude between him and the grave. You have lost one whom you loved well, but you have time, perhaps, to love again. But he has lost the only one, and can love no more. Go and see him, sir. Go and see him; for her whole heart was in you, and he will think that his child’s spirit comes back to visit him with her husband. He has not broken bread,” she added, “since we laid her on that bed, and there is no sorrow, like an old man’s sorrow for the death of his only one.”

I took the good creature’s hands in mine, and wrung them hard, though I could not speak, and went forth to seek the bereaved father.

I found him in his old room, with half-a-dozen books at his feet—tried, and thrown down upon the floor. All his activity was gone. He was quiet and still enough now; but when he saw me, he started up, and we ran into each other’s arms, as father and son, weeping very bitterly.

We never mentioned her name, and I do not recollect that, during the whole fortnight I remained there, he ever alluded to her except upon one occasion, and that was, when we were on the eve of parting.

First, however, let me say how we came to part at all. Our minds had become a little more calmed. We sat together, and sometimes conversed. He had resigned his professorship, took no interest in any thing which had pleased and amused him before, and saw no one but myself and one or two old friends. One day, however, while we were seated together, not talking, but with our eyes fixed upon vacancy, and our thoughts resting on the past, the Chief of Police came in, and spoke to him in a whisper. The old man’s attention was soon roused, and as he had a great hatred of secret communications, he answered and asked questions in a loud tone, which soon made me aware of the following facts: that France extending her aggressions far and wide, and at this time exercising a sort of Dictatorship over Prussia, under whose Protectorate Hamburgh was supposed to be, had demanded that all emigrants who had found refuge in that city should be expelled or arrested. Resistance was not very easy. Submission was not very pleasant; and the mode which the authorities took to escape from their difficulty was—to inform all emigrants of the demand which had been made, with a hint that it would be better for them to deliver Hamburgh from their presence. The amount of the whole information was, that there was no longer any safety for me there; that at any moment I might be arrested at the mandate of France, and no one in those days could tell what would be the result.

The poor professor was in a terrible slate of distress and agitation; and I was very much grieved to leave the father of my poor Louise. But my resolution was soon taken. The ship in which I had engaged my passage to America, was still in the port, and to sail in three days. All my preparations were rapidly made, and nothing remained but to bid my good father-in-law adieu. On my marriage day he had given me a _rouleau_ of gold Frederics, amounting to the two thousand dollars he had promised; but without this, I was comparatively rich; for my fifty _louis d’ors_ remained untouched, and I had accumulated a good many dollars by teaching. I therefore took him back the _rouleau_, and told him I did not think I had any right to retain it. He would not receive it, however, saying:

“Put it up, put it up. Do you think, Louis, I would rob my dead child? No, no, my dear boy. You and poor Louise were one. I had hoped that you would have remained here to close my eyes; for my time will not be long. But God punishes me by denying that satisfaction. You must write to me as soon as you reach the shores of America, and you shall hear from me very soon after. If I have occasion to communicate with you before, I will address my letter to Boston.”

This was the only occasion on which he mentioned his daughter’s name. His eyes remained tearless, however, and the words were spoken in that dull, cheerless, despairing tone, which made me fear, not without reason, that he would never recover from the shock he had received. He saw me on board the vessel, and took leave of me, as a father might of a son whom he could never behold again. He was very, very sad; and when he had descended the ship’s side, and sat in the little boat, he bent down his eyes, and never lifted them to look at the vessel which was about to carry me away.

It was growing dusk when I embarked, and the ship was to sail about the time of high water, which was at ten o’clock. I went down therefore at once to my little, uncomfortable berth, with no great hope of sleeping, but rather to be out of sight, for there were feelings in my heart at that moment, which I did not wish exposed to the eyes of others. I was weary, however, and exhausted; for I had slept but very little during the last three days, and after lying in sad stillness, shut up in the close, evil-smelling cabin for about an hour, I fell into the most profound slumber that I ever recollect to have obtained. I heard nothing, I knew nothing; and when I woke, the broad day was looking at me through a round, thick glass window, like an eye, in the side of the cabin; and I could hear a strange sort of rushing, gurgling noise close at my head, giving me the first intimation that there was nothing but that frail plank between me and the wide, deep sea. A negro, in a white jacket, with his sleeves turned up from his large-boned, sinewy, black arms, was laying a table in the middle of the cabin, as if for the morning meal, and putting out my head, I asked him where we were.

He grinned at me with his white teeth, saying—

“Can’t tell, massa. No post-house in middle of sea. You glad of your dinner, I reckon, habin’ had no breakfas’. You come and eat good dinner. Keep him down if you can. He, he, he.”

I did not feel myself the least disposed to be sick, however, and the ship seemed to be going with so smooth and easy a motion, that I felt very sure for that day at least, I should escape the infliction which most young voyagers have to endure. I rose and dressed myself, but had hardly completed my toilet, when my friend, the negro, made his appearance with an enormous piece of roast beef. He then brought in a great tureen of pea-soup, and a dish of potatoes; and such was our fare almost every day during the voyage, with the slight, and not very pleasant variation of strongly salted beef, instead of fresh, which took place when we had been about six days at sea. Such was the provision of an American packet-ship in those days. Hunger, however, they say is good sauce, and I must confess that I was ravenous. When the dinner was served, the captain of the vessel came down, with his only other passenger, one of the most extraordinary looking beings I ever saw. She was a Madame Du Four; an emigrant like myself; dressed in the fashion of the court of Louis the Fifteenth, with a robe of stiff brocade silk, not very clean, and a petticoat, shown in front, of green satin. She had strong-marked aquiline features, very keen dark eyes, and shaggy brows, was enormously tall, and had also added to her height by a sort of tower upon her head of most extraordinary construction, consisting, I fancy, of a cushion, over which her hair, well powdered, was carried on all sides, with a lace cap, and coquelicot ribbons surmounting the whole. She was highly rouged, and painted white also; but those female vanities did not prevent her from having a somewhat fierce and masculine look, which was not at all softened by a sort of finikin _minauderie_ of manner with which it contrasted strongly. On the first day, too, I could not help thinking when she moved across the cabin, or walked about the deck, that I detected a pair of Hessian boots under her enormous petticoats. On the following day, however, she had shoes, buckles, and silk stockings. Our dinner passed pleasantly enough, though the bluff American Captain could hardly get on with his meal for laughter whenever Madame Du Four opened her mouth. The fun he had out of her during the passage was quite as good as double passage money, although I must acknowledge she spoke English very well, and therefore it was not at her language that he laughed. She was exceedingly agreeable, too, notwithstanding her oddities, had an immense fund of information, and seemed to have traveled a great deal. Like all Frenchwomen she had great curiosity, and never rested till she had wormed out of me, my whole history, with the exception of that part which referred to my poor Louise—a subject too sacred to be touched upon by me. To my surprise, and not altogether to my satisfaction—for it made me accuse myself of indiscretion—she took down the name of Father Bonneville and Madame de Salins, and I endeavored to get in return, some information respecting herself. But there she was proof against all enquiries; and I could only discover that she had friends or relations in Louisiana.

After dinner I went upon the deck, and there the principal part of my time was spent during the voyage, whether the weather was fine or foul; for the cabin was close and miserable.

I have heard men, and read books, expressing the highest enthusiasm and admiration of the sea, but I suppose I am very unimaginative; for I never could discover any thing in it to excite my admiration, except perhaps a certain degree of sublimity, which always attaches to vastness. As we passed along over the bosom of the waters, with one unvarying expanse around us, that ocean about which men rave so much, seemed to me nothing but one great, dull, brown heaving mass, very unpleasant to the eye, and exceedingly monotonous. As the sun went down, however, the prospect was a little varied on that first day, by the long, bright line of ruby light which he cast from the horizon to the ship; but except twice, we never had the honor of seeing his face in the evening; though once or twice he broke out about mid-day. Generally the sky was covered with clouds, and very often a thick mist enveloped us, exciting greatly the indignation of the captain, who seemed to think he had a right to clear weather. I was not even treated to a storm, though, occasionally, it blew what the captain called half a gale, and then the great, greenish brown, drugget-looking thing that surrounded us was tossed up into some very uncomely and disagreeable billows. Happily for myself I was not in the slightest degree sea-sick, which raised me greatly in the opinion of the captain, who used to wink knowingly at meal times toward the cabin of good Madame Du Four, who never appeared in rough weather, and say, with a laugh, “The old woman is laid up on the locker, I guess.”

At the end of three weeks one of the sea phenomena which I had often heard described, occurred as we were passing some fishing banks. It was night, and the sky was very cloudy, but the whole sea was in a blaze of light, as if the Milky-Way had been transferred to its bosom. Every wave that passed was loaded with stars, and not only the wake of the ship, but long lines in different directions where the sea was agitated, seemed all on fire. This continued for many hours, and I have seldom seen any thing more marvelously beautiful.

Here, too, we saw a great number of small fishing vessels—the first ships of any kind that we had met with. A whale or two also came in sight, and long troops of white porpoises; but nothing else occurred to enliven us during the whole passage; and I must confess, that I cannot conceive any thing more dull, heavy and uninteresting, taken as a whole, than a voyage across the wide Atlantic.

Certainly my spirits did not rise during the passage. I had made up my mind to write and read a great deal, and to occupy my thoughts as far as possible with indifferent subjects; but I did nothing of the kind, and I have remarked since that a ship is the idlest place in the whole universe. Nobody seems to do any thing but the sailors, and they nothing more than they are obliged to do.

At length, oh blessed sight! just as day was beginning to break we perceived a light-boat, and the captain announced that we were on the coast of America. I never was so rejoiced at any thing in my life, especially when, a few minutes after, I heard him order a gun to be fired for a pilot. But whether in punishment at my repining, or in order that I might have a full and competent knowledge of the sea, before I had done with it, the cannon had hardly roared out its first call for a pilot, when the wind chopped round suddenly from the west with a little south in it, and in a quarter of an hour was blowing a heavy gale off the coast. For four long, tedious days we continued struggling against this merciless enemy, in no little danger, as I understood afterward, and during the whole of that time I was enlivened by hearing the plaintive voice of Madame Du Four exclaiming to herself, “_Oh, mon Dieu! je vais mourir_,” together with other sounds, not nearly so euphonious.

At length, however, we got into the beautiful port of Boston; and as we sailed peacefully amongst the blue islands, up came Madame Du Four, painted, patched and brocaded, and as brisk as a bee.

A NEW WORLD AND NEW OLD ACQUAINTANCE.

The captain of the vessel kindly took me to a small inn, not very far from the port; where I got tolerable accommodation. My first task was to seek for a warm bath; for my long voyage of more than five weeks duration, made me feel as if I had been pickled. It was with considerable difficulty that I procured what I wanted; for Boston was not famous for baths in those days. I succeeded at length, indeed, and then dined very well, though with less appetite than had savored the coarser provisions at sea. No one can tell with what satisfaction I looked forward to resting in the good, steady bed which my room contained; but the sea had not done with me yet, and for two whole nights, as soon as I lay down, every thing began to move with me and swim about just as if I was still upon the ocean. I could hardly persuade myself that the house was not afloat. The next morning, while at breakfast, one of the black waiters came in and told me that a gentleman had called to see me, and on ordering him to be admitted, a tall, good-looking man, of about thirty-five was ushered in. His face was familiar to me, though I could not recollect where I had seen it before, and he was dressed with great neatness and precision, partly in black, partly in drab, with a thick cravat round his neck, and a pair of Hessian boots drawn up to his knees.

“Monsieur De Lacy,” he said, taking my hand, “I am glad to see you in America. Allow me to congratulate you on your safe arrival.”

I thanked him, told him that he had the advantage of me in knowing my name, and begged to be told whom I had the honor of addressing.

The waiter had, by this time, quitted the room; but my visitor still took the precaution of putting his lips close to my ear, while he said, “Madame Du Four—at present Monsieur Du Four, if you please.”

“Good Heaven!” I exclaimed, “what could have induced you to adopt so strange a travestie?”

“The very simple motive of concealing myself as best I might,” he replied. “In regard to yourself, and many of the other emigrants, the good people of Hamburgh had the choice given them by their tyrannical masters, either to arrest or to expel. In my case the order was simply to arrest, and send me off to France as a prisoner. They were ready to wink at any evasion, however, and to the eyes of French spies my great-grandmother’s petticoats, like charity, covered a multitude of sins. Now, Monsieur De Lacy, I think I can be of assistance to you; for I have had a great deal to do with emigrants, am in continual communication with them in various parts of the world, and probably can obtain for you information regarding the friends you are so anxious to hear of. Some of them, I think, are now in Russia, where I have passed a good deal of my time, under the favor and protection of that mild and excellent potentate, the Emperor Paul. As it is well known, however, that he is not long for this life, I thought it might be as well to be absent at the accession of a new sovereign, and therefore betook myself to Hamburgh. However, I have still friends and connections in Russia, as well as in many other parts of the world, and I think if you will let me know where you are to be found, I can obtain for you information which may be satisfactory.”

My plans were all unsettled, and I knew not where I might go, or what I might do. I was at this time richer than I had ever been in my life before, but I knew that my little store was not inexhaustible, and I resolved to seek speedily for some employment. Without telling my new friend, then, the exact state of my finances, I consulted him where I should go, and what I should do.

“You can stay here in Boston,” he replied, “as long as the weather is warm, and probably may find some employment; for you have a rich, active and intelligent population; but don’t remain in the winter; for it is the coldest city in the universe. In point of temperature, St. Petersburg is comparatively a terrestrial paradise. However you can receive letters wherever you may be by having them directed here, if you will take the precaution of always sending your address to the post-office. I do not mean to say that they will come to you rapidly; because of course every thing goes on with less regularity and certainty, under a republican than under a monarchical government. In republics, where place and power depends upon mere popular favor, the greater part of the business of the State is carried on by inexperienced men, for, generally speaking, each public officer is kicked out before he can gain the experience necessary for his office—just as a tradesman, without capital, does all his work by apprentices. There are exceptions of course—men who get such hold of public confidence, that even faction cannot shake them—but these are rare, and to have work half done and ill done is part of the compensation to be paid for great rapidity of progress and general diffusion of comfort. But I am digressing. You have nothing to do, Monsieur De Lacy, but to leave your address at the post-office, and you shall hear from me as soon as I obtain intelligence.”

He added a good many of very judicious instructions as to my conduct in Boston, where he certainly must have been before, although he did not say so; and he left me, I confess, with a much more pleasant impression of his male than his female character.

I did not anticipate much, it is true, from his promises, and perhaps did not feel quite so sure of his sincerity as I ought to have done. I suppose there are some professions and some occasions in which charlatanism is absolutely necessary; but I think we rarely respect the people who practice it; and the impression produced by his appearance in the character of Madame Du Four, was never, and never will be effaced from my memory. I could not get rid of the ludicrous recollections, and we rarely expect much service from people who make us laugh.

Letters of introduction to persons in Boston, I had none; and I suffered for several days all the inconveniences which a stranger, without personal friends in a city, feels at his first residence. The solitariness, as it were, pressed upon me, and the more people I met in the crooked and narrow streets, made me only feel the more solitary. Of Monsieur Du Four I saw no more at that time, and I began to think of removing to some other town, where the people were not so cold and repulsive, when I suddenly made an acquaintance which greatly changed the current of affairs.

One day as I was walking along the streets, I thought I might as well purchase some French books, of which I had only one with me, in order that I might not quite forget my own language. I entered therefore a great bookseller’s shop—dingy and dull enough it was, in all conscience—and asked for one or two works which I named.

Although it may seem to have no connection with this part of my history, yet I must say something of my personal appearance at this time, as I am convinced it had some effect upon the events that followed. I was now within quarter of an inch of six feet high, robust in frame, from much exercise, tanned almost a mahogany color by exposure to the sea air, and with a moustache long and thick for my age. My hair had been suffered to grow very long, and floated wildly in its unshorn curls, and I was dressed in deep and new mourning of a foreign cut. Thus in the streets of Boston, I had something at least to distinguish me from the citizens of the place, where no one wore moustaches at all, and most of them had their hair still thickly powdered, and tied in queue, while those who had not, wore it as closely cut as the ears of a terrier dog.

In asking for the books, I spoke in a grave, and perhaps somewhat abrupt manner; for the death of my poor Louise, had left upon me a sort of carelessness of men’s opinions, and a lack of the desire to please, which is rare in youth.

The shopman answered at once in a somewhat flippant manner that he guessed they had none of them; and I replied in the same cold and imperative tone in which I had first spoken, that I would trouble him to do something more than guess—to make sure; whether the books were there or not, and if not, whether they could be procured for me.

“I reckon you are from the old country,” said the man, with the most good humored impertinence.

“That is nothing to you, my friend,” I replied. “We will reckon when I have got the books.”

“Then I calculate you had better speak to our boss,” said the shopman.

“A very good calculation,” I replied, “if you mean your master.”

“I h’aint got a master,” rejoined the man, with a look of considerable indignation.

“Well then,” I said, “let me speak with any one who supplies the place of a master, and who is master at all events of the shop, if he is not of the shopman.”

“I think you might have called it store, stranger,” said my friend; but as by this time I had taken up a book from the counter and begun to read, he went away to call his “boss,” as he termed him.

A moment after, from a little dingy den behind, came out a neat, dapper little man, with a very straight-cut, snuff colored coat, fastened with a hook and eye high up upon the chest, in order to permit the liberal extension of a very smart flowered waistcoat, and a stomach, somewhat too large in its proportions, shaped like the back of a mandolin. Energy, activity, and acuteness, were in all his movements and sparkled in his bright black eye; and, roused by his step, I could perceive that as he approached, he scanned me from head to foot with a rapidity truly marvelous. Before I knew what I was about he was shaking hands with me, and before I could ask for my books, he was asking me innumerable questions—who I was—where I came from—what my name was—what was my profession—how old I was—whether I intended to stay long in Boston, and—what I thought of America.

I was strongly inclined to laugh, but I was out of the habit of laughing now, and I answered gravely:

“Order in all things, if you please, sir. Are you what this person calls the ‘boss,’ or what I should call the master of this shop—or store?”

“Oh, never mind him,” replied the new comer. “He is from another state, and doesn’t half understand English. It’s only in Bost’n I guess that there’s any thing like English to be found in all the universal world. I’m the master of this store, sir, and a very pretty little considerable quantity of literature you will find therein, I guess.”

“Well then, to reply to your questions,” I said, “I am a stranger in this city. I come from a distant part of the world. My name is my own, for any thing I know to the contrary. I am of any profession that suits me at the moment. I am somewhere between twenty and thirty, I have no notion how long I shall stay in Boston, and having only seen two square miles of America, I do not think the taster is decisive of the cheese.—Now, sir, will you have the goodness to tell me about the books I want.”

“Capital, capital, capital!” cried my new friend. “I guess such answers would pose half the men in Congress. We Yankees are terrible question askers it must be acknowledged. It’s a way we have, and not a bad way either; for if we get an answer, we are all the better for it, and if we get none, we can do very well without it. Now, sir, you’re just the man we want: I can see that in a minute. We haven’t had any thing new in Bost’n for six months—that is, since the giantess, and the horse with three tails. They did very well, but we want something literary now, and if you chose to come out with a lecture, or a book, or a pamphlet, or a sermon against the Trinity, or something very racy upon democracy and federalism—take which side you will; it’s all the same to me—or even in defense of the old country, showing that we are all rebels and traitors and ought to have been hanged long ago, it’s sure to answer—it will sell, sir,—it will pay—it will bring in the dollars.”

There was something so perfectly good-humored in my new friend, that I could not be at all cross, even though I might not quite enter into his notions. I was obliged to inform him, however, that I had never given lectures, written books, pamphlets, or sermons. That I was not an Englishman. That I was not well acquainted with American history, and had no idea whether his friends and himself deserved to be hanged or not—though I confessed I rather thought not.

He was very pertinacious, however, and suggested a dozen different courses of acting for me, being in truth at that moment in desperate need himself of a stranger to supply the place of a literary man who had absconded, and knowing the dire need in which the city of Boston stood of some “new thing,” to fill the yawning void left by the giantess and the horse with three tails. I began to fancy, as he went on, that amongst all the pearls he was throwing before me, I might find one which suited my own purpose, and at length it was determined that I should write a little book for him, which he would immediately bring out in what he guessed was the very best possible style. Our arrangements were soon made, though, as I found afterward, he agreed to pay me about one-third of the sum which I ought to have received. That book, however, not only served to put a small sum into my pocket, but also to spread my fame, and to occupy my thoughts. I was very glad of the latter; for the moment I sat down by myself in my inn, I fell into sad reveries, and I wished very much to let time do his work of consoling by those slow and almost insensible steps through which he best effects his objects. The subject, the treatment, was all discussed in less than half an hour; for my friend, the bookseller, had very definite ideas, and knew to a nicety what would sell, and what would not. While we were still talking over these things, several gentlemen entered the shop, to whom the bookseller—now in possession of my name—introduced me as the celebrated Monsieur De Lacy. Thus I obtained occupation for the next six weeks, and acquaintance with some of the pleasantest persons I ever met with in my life; and the next morning I saw announcement in the public prints that Monsieur De Lacy, the well known Vendeean chief had arrived in Boston, followed by an apocripha twice as long as the book of Tobit, regarding the bloody battles I had fought, and the victories I had obtained in a district within which I had never set my foot. All this was based upon a deep scar on my cheek, which I had received from the heel of an Austrian soldier, as I lay upon the ground in the streets of Zurich.

Although I smiled, while reading this account, the idea of being or having been, one of the actors in the great and extraordinary struggle in La Vendee was very pleasant to me. I thought of it a good deal, and although I had fancied some weeks before that America was the country, of all others, to afford me a peaceful and happy refuge, I now began to long for a return to Europe, to take part in the active scenes which were going on in my native land.

A LOSS AND A RECOVERY.

I need not dwell upon my course of life during the next few months. Most men have experienced what it is to make one’s way in a strange town, and I do not think it would be very interesting to any one, if I were to give a detailed account of the process of being made a factitious lion of. My good friend the bookseller would have it so in my case: he wanted a lion at that moment: there was no other material at hand, and he made me into a lion. Not a newspaper did I open, without seeing my name in it. If I went to look at Faneuil Hall, or strolled from Court Street to the Common, it was sure to be recorded for the public, and by the mere act of iteration the public were driven by seeing my name every day, to think I must be somebody. But the worst of this lion system is, that it is not always very easy to shake off your lion skin when you are tired of it. I confess I began to be weary of seeing my name in the columns of the journals, and at first I was inclined to correct all the various lies that were told about me, and to assure the people of Boston, in print, that I had never done fifty things I was reported to have done, and never intended to do fifty other things that were sketched out for me by the fertile imagination of various editors. A kind and judicious friend, however, advised me to refrain; and as this little sort of false celebrity obtained for me a great number of most delightful acquaintances, I was obliged to take the good with the bad, and receive much hospitality and kindly and instructive communion, as some compensation for being made to dance grotesquely in the public prints. I lost no opportunity, however, of denying, in private, all that was said about me in public, of telling all my friends in the city that I was not the great man, or the celebrated character I was represented—that I had never been in La Vendee in my life, and had never even seen a battle but that of Zurich. I must do them the justice to say also, that these confessions did not diminish their kindness in the least; and that when they found me to be a very plain, humble person, they were, perhaps, more hospitable and friendly than before. The writing of my book was favorable to me in all respects. It was but a poor affair, it is true; but it saved my little fortune, filled the pockets of the bookseller—for its success was ridiculous, in consequence of all the Charlitanism which was used before it appeared—and it did still more for me, by weaning my thoughts from the one deep, sorrowful subject of contemplation, which otherwise would have engrossed my mind continually. The autumn was coming on rapidly when it appeared; the woods around were glowing with colors such as I never in my life beheld in Nature’s robe before; and partly to get away from the crowds of a great city, partly to enjoy the loveliness of the scenery at a little distance from Boston, I used to wander forth early in the morning, and often not return till nightfall. I used sometimes, too, to call at the post-office and inquire for letters, with very little expectation of receiving any. Who would write to me, unless it were good Professor Haas or Monsieur Du Four? but from the former I thought there had been but little time to hear, and upon the promises of the latter I placed but little reliance.

One day, however, a thick letter was handed to me, with my address written on coarse German paper, with a black seal, and bearing the post-mark of Hamburgh. The handwriting, however, was not that of the good old professor; and I opened it with considerable apprehension, thinking that he must be ill, and must have employed some other hand to write for him. It was worse than I expected. Professor Haas was dead; and the letter was from his old friend the notary, who had drawn up the marriage contract between Louise and myself. He informed me of the fact of my friend’s death, in brief, formal terms, and then went on to state that Professor Haas had left the whole bulk of his property to me, naming as executors, one of his fellow professors and the notary himself, with directions to sell his house, and all that he possessed, and remit the money to a great banking-house in London for my benefit. I thought this a somewhat strange proceeding till I read further. I then found that the professor, who had always entertained the most profound horror for Revolutionists, had, during his latter days, and especially his sickness, become impressed with a notion that the French Republicans would sooner or later get possession of Hamburgh, and plunder the whole city. Ample directions were added to enable me to dispose of the money in any way I pleased, and more than one half of the paper was occupied with a long statement of accounts, which I did not even try to understand. The sum already remitted to England, however, was large, and enough to put me at my ease for life.

First impressions are, I suppose, always the most generous ones; and however great might have been the relief at any other moment to know that the means of subsistence were no longer to depend upon the caprice of Fortune, the intelligence afforded me but little consolation, when coupled with the death of my poor friend. I was very, very sad. The last earthly tie between myself and my poor Louise seemed gone; and all the painful memories connected with the last days of her life, revived as darkly and gloomily as ever. I took no steps in regard to the property. I did not even answer the notary’s letter; but day after day I walked out over the curious broken ground, and cedar-covered hills to the south and west of Boston, meditating sadly upon the past. At the face of nature I used to look from time to time, finding I know not what, of similarity between the fading aspect of the autumn-woods and the withering away of my own hopes and happiness. But I looked little at man when he fell in my way, and many a time felt half angry when a fellow walker on the same road gave me good day, or stopped to ask me the hour. There were very few human habitations in that direction at the time; and one solitary public house, about four miles from the city, I used to pass with my eyes always bent upon the ground. I know not what induced me to raise my eyes toward it one day, as I was walking along, somewhat more slowly than usual—for the weather had become suddenly sultry, in what they call the Indian Summer. Perhaps it was that my eye caught an indistinct sight of some one sitting under the veranda—an old man, very shabbily dressed in brown. I could not see his features, for I was at the distance of more than a hundred yards, and I only took a casual glance. But as I returned by the same road, the old man was still sitting there; and a young girl of twelve or thirteen years of age was standing by, talking to him, and offering him something in a cup. In my morose selfishness, I was going on without any further notice, when suddenly he took the girl’s arm, and rose up feebly, looking straight toward me. A strange feeling of recognition instantly seized upon me, and I turned sharply toward the house, with doubt in my mind, but certainty in my heart—a contrast that takes place more often than people imagine.

As I got near, doubt vanished. It was Father Bonneville; but as doubt disappeared with me, it seemed to increase with him, for it would seem that, although he had been very ill, I was far more changed than he was. Something in my gait and figure had struck him; but when he saw a broad and powerful young man, instead of the stripling who had been separated from him at Zurich, he could hardly believe in my identity, and did not feel quite sure till his hand was grasped in mine. I never saw the poor man so much agitated in all the many scenes we had passed through together. His usual calm placidity abandoned him entirely; and for a moment or two he wept with feelings which I am sure were not all unpleasant. I sat down beside him, while the girl ran into the house to tell her father, who was the landlord thereof, that the French gentleman had found a friend; and during her absence he told me that he had been living there for the last six weeks, almost on charity. He had sought me he said, far and near, and at length, partly from some preconception of the course I was likely to take, partly from some false information he had received in Holland, had concluded I had sailed for America, within four months after the battle of Zurich. He had in consequence embarked for New York, and had at that time made many efforts to make me acquainted with his arrival. For six months after reaching the shores of America, he had continued to receive supplies of money; but suddenly they had ceased, he said, and then for some time he had supported himself by teaching. His scholars fell off, however, and he was advised to try Boston; but his means were too small for the hotels or boarding-houses of that city, and feeling himself ill, he had come out to that remote place, both for purer air and greater economy. His money lasted but a fortnight, and he had explained to the landlord his situation. The good man—for he really was a good man—told him not to make himself uneasy, and proposed that he should teach his two daughters for his board until he was well enough to return to Boston again. But poor Father Bonneville soon became too ill, either to teach or to rise from his bed, and then all the native kindness of the people came forth. His two little pupils nursed him, he told me, as if he had been a parent. Their father supplied him with every thing that he required, and brought a physician, at his own expense, to see him.

“This is the third time I have left my room,” he said, “and they are still as kind as ever, though I have been a great burden to them.”

“No burden at all, my good man,” said the landlord, who was by this time standing by our side. “It’s but little good one can do in this world, and God forbid we shouldn’t do it when we can. I am very happy, however, he has found one of his friends at last.”

“He has found one,” I said, shaking the landlord by the hand, “to whom he has been more than a father, and who will never forget your kindness to him. I thank God that I am now in a situation to say, he shall never at least know what want is again.”

“Well, well,” said the landlord, “that is all very well. But you had better come into the house and talk it out there. We are just going to dinner, and there’s as good a chowder as ever was made. He told my girl he couldn’t eat just now, but he’s got his appetite back now, I guess.”

We went in; and I sat down with them to their plain meal with more satisfaction than if I had been invited to a prince’s table.

Although my good old friend was exceedingly anxious to hear all my own adventures since we parted, I contrived to make him tell all that had occurred to him, which amounted to little more than what I have already stated. He had been detained by the Austrians, he said, for nearly two months, had been sent to Milan, and put in prison there, but in other respects had been well treated, and at length liberated, on its being made clear that he was a French emigrant with no political character. He hurried through the details, in order to get at my history, and then said, with a look of parental affection, “But now tell me, my dear Louis, what has happened to you since we met last? How comes that scar upon your cheek? Where have you been staying? And why are you in such deep mourning?”

The last words sent all the color from my cheek. I could feel the blood rush away as if to fill my heart too full, and I shook my head sadly, saying, “Do not ask me about that just now.”

I then related to him all that had occurred previous to my arrival in Hamburgh; how, after I had shot the man who was going to murder him, I had turned back to assist Lavater; how I had been knocked down and trodden under feet by the Austrian soldiers, and afterward carried to the hospital; I then told him that I had suffered from poverty as well as himself, and that I had begged my way to the north of Germany. “That is all over now,” I added, “and I trust that we shall never know such days again.”

“Well, you two have had a pretty hard life of it,” said the good landlord—for we had been speaking in English all the time, so that he understood us. “You were great people in your own country, I dare say; and that made it all the harder for you.”

“Not very great people,” I replied, “but very comfortable, and very happy, till we were driven forth for no fault of our own.”

I judged from what I saw of good Father Bonneville at this time, that he had not yet sufficiently recovered to return to Boston, and I therefore left him where he was for the night, promising to see him early on the following day. Although engaged to go out to a party in the city, I remained at home that evening pondering upon my course of action. I read over again, and more attentively, the letter from the notary, answered it, and signed the accounts, although to say truth, I knew little of the affairs to which they referred. I then considered long, and somewhat anxiously, two plans which naturally suggested themselves to my mind. The first was, to go to England, receive the sum which there awaited me, and establish myself with Father Bonneville in that country. But strange to say I had a dislike to the idea of visiting England. Father Bonneville, in all our wanderings, had shown no desire to take refuge in a land where so many other emigrants had found safety and met with hospitality. Views prejudicial to England had been widely circulated amongst the inhabitants of all those countries which entertain feelings and jealousies against Great Britain, on account of her calm, steady, and, at the same time, extraordinary progress in arts, sciences, commerce and arms. Even the very Swiss, while they admired and applauded it, did not like England; and the isolation of her geographical position seemed to affect the character of her inhabitants as well as her policy and her interests. Like every one who has never been in England, I conceived the most false and inferior idea of her people, her views, and her very aspect. I imagined that it was a cold, bleak, ungenial country, everlastingly overhung by fogs, with the sun rarely, if ever, apparent, and deriving its great wealth and importance solely from its commerce. I believed the people to be haughty, self-sufficient and repulsive, unsocial in all their habits, and although occasionally generous and benevolent, actuated upon all ordinary occasions by motives of self-interest and commercial selfishness. I had heard a great deal at Hamburgh, in the society of the professors there, of her treatment of scientific and literary men, of the cold neglect they experience, of their exclusion from all that forms the ambition of others, of the honors paid to them when dead, and the misery to which they were subjected while living. The old maxim still rang in my ears, that France was the country for a literary man to live in, and England for him to die in; and I believed that there really could be very little good or generous in a nation which displayed such cold neglect and bitter injustice toward those who labored to elevate the human mind, and whose names form no insignificant part of her glory. I was now, I thought, in a beautiful and youthful country, comprising within itself every climate and every soil, offering opportunity and encouragement to every one, where thought and action were free, where progress was rapid beyond conception, where no invidious distinctions existed, where competence, if not wealth, was the sure reward of exertion—a land of youth, of hope, and energy. I thought of England, in short, as England was at that time conventionally represented on the continents of Europe and of America; not as I knew it to be. It is not wonderful therefore, that in the end I determined to remain in the country where I then was, and to send for the funds which had been invested in London, without visiting Great Britain myself. It must be remembered at the same time, that Napoleon was now in the plenitude of his power, commanding sovereigns and dictating to nations, and that England stood single-handed against a world in arms. There was little hope therefore that I could aid even in the slightest degree in relieving France from the tyranny under which she groaned, and that seemed to me the only object worthy of desire, which could lead me once more to traverse the Atlantic.

When I laid down my head upon my pillow that night, my determination was fully taken to remain in the United States; and with my fondness for visionary prospects, I drew a pleasant picture of a New England farm, with competence and literary ease, and rural occupations, diversified by those sports of the field which I had enjoyed so much in other years. How soon, and how speedily, all such visions melted away; all such resolutions came to an end.

I rose the following morning, carried my letter to the post-office, and carelessly asked if there were any communications for me. The good man with spectacles, answered yes, and from a great bundle, took out a letter for which he demanded a high postage. It came from New Orleans, and contained but a few words to the following effect.

“Faithful to my promise, I have made every inquiry, Monsieur De
Lacy, for the friends in regard to whose fate you were anxious
when I saw you. Of the good Father Bonneville I have been able
to obtain no intelligence; but Madame de Salins and
Mademoiselle, her daughter, are now in London, and perhaps a
letter addressed to them at _numero_ 3 Swallow Street, may
obtain for you information regarding Monsieur De Bonneville.

“Accept the assurances of the constant consideration and regard
of

Your devoted,
Charles Du Four.”