Chapter XX: Section VI (2)

On the following day, light parties being sent out on both sides to take possession of the heights above the town, which would seem to be the western slopes of Karadagh, formerly Mount Calcodonium—described by Leake as gentle pasture hills, interspersed with groves of oak, but swelling, a little northward on the way to Larissa, into steep, broken hills, topped with bare limestone crags—they came in sight of one another so unexpectedly, that they were mutually amazed, and neither charged the other, but both sent back for orders to head-quarters, and were ultimately drawn off without fighting. On the second day, both leaders sent out reconnoitering parties of light-armed infantry with some horse, and these encountered on the hill above the suburbs of Pheræ to the northward. It so happened that Flamininus had ordered two squadrons of Ætolian horse on this duty, wishing to avail himself of their familiarity with the country; and these, overboiling with courage and emulous of the Roman renown, so soon as they discovered the enemy, dared the Italians to the test of superior valor, and charged the Macedonians with such metal and prowess that they cut them up very severely; after which, having skirmished for a considerable time with no decisive results, they drew off, as if by mutual consent, to their own encampments.

The ground about Pheræ, being much incumbered with orchards, groves and gardens, and cut up by stone walls and thorn hedges, was very unsuitable for a general action, and both leaders, perceiving this, moved early the next morning by different routes, the great ridge of Karadagh intervening between their lines of march, and intercepting all sound or sight, upon Scotussa, a town some ten miles distant in a westerly direction, lying at the base of the hills, and on the verge of the plain.

The Romans marched to the southward, Philip to the northward of the dividing ridge; and, unaware how nearly they were intrenched, both erected their palisades for the night almost within hearing of their countersigns and trumpets.

The third morning, after they had decamped from Pheræ, was exceedingly thick and foggy; but in spite of this Philip, who had passed the night on the banks of the Onchestus, persevered in marching upon Scotussa, where he hoped to find ripe corn in the plain for his troops. The darkness, however, increased, and ere long one of those tremendous thunder-storms, for which all the limestone countries of upper Greece are so famous, or rather infamous, burst over his head, with hail, and wild whirling wind-gusts, and forked lightnings, and compelled him to halt at once and intrench himself, at the northern base of the bare, craggy hills, forming the summits of the Calcodonium, known as the Cynoscephalæ or dog’s heads, though the resemblance does not go far to justify the appellation.

So soon[17] as it cleared a little, though the mist was still so dense that one could scarce see his own hand, he sent out a detachment to occupy the heights of Cynoscephalæ. At the same moment Flamininus sent out his troops of horse and a thousand voltigeurs from Thetidium, where he lay, to feel for the enemy.

These latter fell suddenly into the ambushed outpost of the Macedonians, neither discovering the others till they were at half spear’s length in the gloom. After a momentary pause of amazement, they fell on fiercely, and among the slippery crags, in the dense mist and drizzling rain, the strife reeled blindly to and fro, all striking at once, none parrying, and friend as often injuring friend, as enemy enemy. On both sides, rumor reached the camps, and the Romans being hard pressed and giving way, Flamininus, who was nearest to the scene of action, reinforced his men with two thousand infantry under two tribunes, and five hundred Ætolian horse of Archedamus and Eupolemus.

On the arrival of these, the skirmish was exchanged for close combat; and the encouragement given to the Romans, by the prompt succor, doubling their courage, nor that only, but their physical strength, they charged home so vehemently, that they broke the enemy, and drove them to the steep crags; the din of battle receding from the lines of Flamininus, until the cries of his own men, and the shouts of the victorious legionaries, aroused and alarmed Philip in his camp.

He, expecting nothing on that day less than an engagement, had sent out his men to forage in the plain; but as he saw how things were going, and as the mist was beginning to melt away before the sunbeams, and the clear blue to show above, he ordered up Heracleides the Gyrtonian, commander of the Thessalian cavalry, find Leon, the Macedonian master of the horse, and Athenagoras with all the mercenaries save the Thracians, and launched them vigorously against the enemy.

Rallying upon themselves the broken and disordered troops who had preceded them, these in turn laid on with so heavy a hand, and so furious an impetus that they bore the Romans back bodily, and drove them over the brink of the heights in consternation and disorder toward their own intrenchments; nor would they have failed to do fearful execution on them, if not utterly to destroy them, but for the devoted gallantry of the handful of Ætolian horse, who charged them time after time; and, when repulsed, rallied and charged again; and so gained that invaluable time, which, as it was in this case, is often victory.

At this moment, seeing that the defeat of his cavalry and light troops was not only serious in itself, but was seriously dispiriting the rest of his army, Flamininus drew out his legions in order of battle, harangued them briefly in words of fire, which kindled every soldier’s heart to like passion, and led them straightway into action.

Almost simultaneously Philip, to whom tidings had been brought that the enemy were utterly disordered and in flight, and who was compelled by the urgency of his officers and the eagerness of his men to give battle, contrary to his own better judgment, which knew the ground to be unfavorable to the phalanx, led the right wing of it up the northern ascent of the heights, directing Nicanor, surnamed the elephant, to bring up the centre and left wing close at his heels. On reaching the summit, which had been left vacant when the Macedonian light troops drove back the Romans, he formed line of battle by the left, and thus gained the ground of vantage.

But while he was yet in the act of forming his right, the mercenaries were upon him, crushed in by the advance of the solid cohorts; for Flamininus had rallied his light troops in the intervals of his maniples, and was carrying all before him with great slaughter, himself leading his left wing, the right and centre being a little retired, with the elephants in front.

Philip thus labored at once under a double disadvantage, when, believing himself the assailant of a disordered foe, he found himself assailed—a perilous thing in warfare—and, secondly, when he was compelled to encounter an enemy in full array of battle, while above one half of his own power was in column of march, and as yet unready to deploy.

Up to this moment, the day had been one of accidents and vicissitudes; from this moment it was one of the finest generalship and the finest fighting, and in the end the best fighting carried it.

Mindful of the rule never to receive a charge but on a charge, so soon as he saw Flamininus’ eagles face to face with him, Philip rallied the retreating horse and mercenaries upon his targeteers, with whom he covered his right flank, and ordered the phalanx to double the depth of its files and prepare to charge.

We have all seen, and all know the effect, of two poor lines of modern infantry bringing their muskets from the shoulder to the charge; the thrill which the sudden clash and clatter, and the quick flashing movement sends to the boldest heart—what then must have been the effect on the spectator, when sixteen serried ranks brought down their huge sarissæ, twenty-four feet in length, from the port to the level—the rattle of the massive truncheons sloping simultaneously, like a whole field of bearded grain before a sudden blast, the clang of the steel spear heads against the brazen bucklers, and the glimmering flash of seven points protruded in advance of every shield in the front line.

Such was the spectacle which met the eyes of the legionaries as they crowned the heights of Cynoscephalæ, but no thrill did it send to those stern hearts, but that of ardor and of emulation. Never was such a war-cry heard as burst that day over the rugged hills, for not only did the combatants on both sides, as they rushed to hand and hand encounter, shout with their hearts in their voices, but all who saw it from a distance swelled the tremendous diapason.

The clang might have been heard at a mile’s distance, as the pike-points of the phalanx smote full upon the bosses of the long legionary shields, and bore back the loose lines by sheer force, orderly still and unbroken, while the Spanish broadswords of the Romans hewed desperately, but in vain, into the twilight forest of the impenetrable sarissæ.

Stubbornly the Romans fought and long; and when at length broken, they were not beaten; when borne backward foot by foot they still disdained to fly; but fell where they stood, and died fighting.

But Flamininus, who had the true eye, the true inspiration of a great general, ever the keenest and the clearest in the most direful turmoil of the headiest fight, had marked, like Wellington at Talavera, a gap in the enemy’s array.

Leaving his broken right wing to its fate, he rushed, confident at one glance of victory, to the head of his centre, and charged, with his elephants in front, by a rapid oblique movement, full upon the left wing of the phalanx, as it mounted the heights in marching, rather than in fighting, order. Here, before it could form, almost before it could level its long pikes, it was pierced in a hundred places at once; and, in almost less time than is required to describe it, the fierce Spanish broadswords of the legionaries, fleshed in its vitals, had reduced it to a weltering mass of inextricable confusion and almost unheard of carnage.

The Roman left, cheered by the triumph of their comrades, rallied upon themselves and returned to the charge; and simultaneously an unordered movement of a tribune of the soldiers, which should have rendered him immortal, although his name has not survived, decided the victory, as completely as did a like inspiration, on the part of the unrewarded Kellerman, decide that of Marengo.

This nameless tribune—a shame that he should be nameless—when the enemy’s left and centre fled, wheeled with a mere handful of men round the rear of Philip’s right, and, gaining the very summit from which he had descended, at the moment when the Romans rallied in its face, fell like a thunderbolt on the unguarded rear of its yet unbroken masses.

In any event, a rear or flank attack upon the phalanx, so ponderous a column that it could even when unassailed with difficulty form a new face, was perilous; here it was fatal.

The battle was ended as by a thunder-clap. Of the Macedonians eight thousand fell in the field, five thousand laid down their arms; their camp was taken, but before the victors entered it, it had been sacked by the Ætolians; their king, not tarrying to burn his papers at Larissa, fled without drawing bridle through Tempe into Macedonia.

Of the Romans seven hundred lay dead in their ranks on the field; so true is Sallust’s apophthegm, that audacity is as a rampart to the soldier, and flight more perilous than battle.

It was not a battle only that was won, but a war that was ended.

Yet never was a battle won which was so nearly lost, except Marengo; which it in several points resembles.

In the first place, like Marengo, it was in fact not one, but two battles, in which the victors of the first were the vanquished of the second.

In the second place, like Marengo, its last and crowning success was due to an unordered, self-originating, charge of a subordinate officer, with a mere handful of men on the flank or rear of a victorious column.

But in this, unlike Marengo, it was the eagle eye, the prompt decision, and the lightning-like execution of the general in chief, not the shrewd observation of a second in command, that redeemed the half lost battle, and changed the pæans of an exulting conqueror into groans of anguish and despair.

With Cynoscephalæ, terminates the splendor of Flamininus’ military career, but not the splendor of his life.

Philip at once sued for peace, and the general, aware that a war had broken out between Antiochus, King of Syria, and Rome, and dreading Philip’s co-operation with him, if driven to despair, at once granted him terms.

He withdrew all his garrisons from Greece; delivered all his fleet, with the exception of ten galleys; paid an indemnification of a thousand talents, for the expenses of the war; gave up his son Demetrius as a hostage, for his faithful observance of the conditions; and, to his credit be it spoken, ever continued true in his allegiance to the Romans.

At first, apprehending trouble from Antiochus, the Senate determined to keep Roman garrisons in the three strongholds of Chalcis, Corinth, and Demetrius; but so loud were the complaints of the Greeks in general, of the Æolians in particular, and so consistent did they appear to Flamininus, that he used the great personal weight and influence he had gained with the people and the Senate, not to obtain personal honors, wealth or distinction, but to procure the complete liberation of Greece, and the withdrawal of every foreign soldier from her confines.

The proudest hour of his life, save one, was when he sat in his curule chair at the Isthmian games, a spectator of the show, and heard the Roman trumpet-blast command attention, and the Roman herald make proclamation—“The Senate, and the Imperator, Titus Quinctius, having subdued King Philip and the Macedonians, give to the Corinthians, Locrians, Phocians, Eubæans, Achæans, Pthiotians, Magnetians, Thessalians, and Perrhæbians, liberty, immunity from garrisons, immunity from tribute, and the right of self-government, according to their own constitutions.”

At first men heard not, or hearing, believed not, for very joy, that such happiness could be; and they called upon the herald to repeat his proclamation.

Then such a shout arose as rang from sea to sea across the Isthmus. The like of it was never heard before or afterward in Greece. And what has often been said hyperbolically, to lend grandeur to descriptions of the human voice, was then actually seen to happen;[18] for crows winging their way over the amphitheatre fell into the arena, stunned by the concussion of the air.

As one man, the whole theatre stood up. There was no more talk of the combatants. Every one spoke of Flamininus, every one would touch the hand of the champion, the liberator of Greece.

I said the proudest day of his life, save one. For he had one prouder.

Two years longer he tarried among the Greeks, as commissioner to see the treaties carried out; and for a short time he fell into odium with the people he had liberated, for that, when he was warring against Nabis, the cruel tyrant and usurper of Lacedæmon, and might have dethroned him, he made peace, and suffered him to retain his blood-bought dominion. Some were so base as to attribute this to jealousy of Philipœmen. His own statement, and our knowledge of his character bears out that statement, asserts that he could not destroy Nabis, without destroying Sparta, and that in preference to destroying Sparta, he suffered Nabis to go free.

But when he left the shores of Hellas, after interceding twenty times, and mediating successfully between the Greeks and his successors, the Ætolians much desired to make him some great gift, that should prove their great love and veneration. But the known integrity of the man deterred them; for it was notorious that he would receive naught that savored of a bribe.

At last they bethought them. There were in Greece twelve hundred Roman citizens, who had been captives to Hannibal, and by him sold as slaves. Their sad case had of late been sadly aggravated, as slaves themselves and bondmen, they all saw their countrymen, many their kinsmen, some their brethren or their sons, free, conquerors, and hailed as saviors of the land, to which they were enslaved.

Titus had grieved for them deeply; but he was too poor to ransom them, too just to take them by the strong hand from their lawful owners. So the Ætolians ransomed them at five minæ[19] the head; and, as he was on the point of setting sail, brought them down to the wharf in a body, and presented them to him, the gift of liberated Greece. “A gift worthy,” says Plutarch, “of a great man, and a lover of his country.”

A gift, say I, which none would have offered but to—what is far greater than a great—a good man. A gift which proves alike the character of the givers, and the receiver. An honor, as few gifts are, to both.

I care not that in Flamininus’ triumph those twelve hundred ransomed Romans, of their own free will, walked with shaven heads and white caps, as manumitted slaves, and that the people of Rome had no eyes for the hostage prince, or the barbaric gold, or the strange Macedonian armor—had no eyes for Flamininus himself, but only for the twelve hundred manumitted Romans.

But I do care that the Ætolians knew, from their knowledge of the man, that there was one invaluable gift which it would gladden the heart of the incorruptible of men to receive at their hands, richer than untold gold, inestimable jewels, the priceless liberty of freeborn Romans.

It does not belong to the military career of Flamininus, but it does to the history of his life, that in after days he was sent by the Senate ambassador to Prusias, king of Bithynia, for the purpose of compelling the surrender into their hands of the aged, exiled, down fallen Hannibal; and that, rather than fall into those pitiless hands, which never refrained the scourge and axe from the noblest foeman, the old man had recourse to the

“Cannarum vindex et tanti sanguinis ultor,
Annulus.”[20]

Nor do I choose to pass it over in silence. Since it is to be remembered that the highest pride of a Roman was to do his duty; and his duty was whatever his country ordered. So that, however odious the task imposed, and we know too much of this man’s character not to be sure that the embassy to Prusias was odious, a consular of Rome had no choice but to obey Rome’s bidding.

There was, moreover, much in the pertinacity with which Hannibal journeyed from barbarous court to barbarous court, in the hope of kindling a fire-brand for Rome’s conflagration, even after his own country was prostrate beyond the chance of resurrection, to palliate if not justify the rancor of Romans. The inextinguishable hater has no right to complain if the hatred against himself be inextinguishable.

The last office held by Flamininus, was the censorship—the highest, noblest, purest dignity in the gift of the state; and never—at least in those days—bestowed on any but the noble and the pure. It was the Corinthian capital to the career of the honored and honorable Roman magistrate, and such was Titus Quinctius Flamininus.

After this he passes from our sight, and is heard of no more in history.

He was a great general, a great statesman; perhaps of the greatest.

But he was something more than a general, more than a statesman—he was every inch a man.

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[2] We have been favored by Mr. Charles Scribner of New York, with the advanced sheets of Mr. Herbert’s new work, “The Captains of the Roman Republic,” from which we select the following spirited sketch of Titus Quinctius Flamininus. We give it as our decided opinion that this work will prove superior to its predecessor, “The Captains of the Old World.”

[3] “To spare the conquered and subdue the proud”—the former of which she never did.

[4] Livy, xxxi. 34, 35.

[5] Col. Leake, Travels in Northern Greece, i. 385.

[6] Plutarch, Vit. Flamini.

[7] Ibid.

[8] Livy, xxxiii. 8.

[9] Ibid.

[10] Leake. Travels in Northern Greece, vol, 1, p. 385.

[11] Plutarch. Flamininus 3.

[12] Plutarch, vit. Flaminini. IV. V. Livy, xxxii. 12.

[13] Livy, xxxii. 12.

[14] Leake. Travels in Northern Greece, i. 296.

[15] Livy, xxxii. 13.

[16] Livy, xxxii. 32.

[17] All the details of this action are from Polybius. Reliquiæ Lib. xviii.; who is here singularly clear and vivid in his description.

[18] Plutarch, vita Flaminini, x.

[19] About twenty pounds sterling.

[20] The Ring, avenger of Cannæ and of so much blood.—_Juvenal. Satire X._

An allusion to the poison, by which he died, and which he was said to keep concealed in a ring.

* * * * *

OUR MINNIE’S DREAM.

BY A REVERIST.

Her dream is like this book-mark red,
Which has long lain buried
Within a hallowéd tome;
If to unfold the page, soul-bid,
Mark the contrast, all unsaid,
Of the fresh deep ruby—wed
To the fastness dear of home—
And the faded outside hue
Of a token all too true
From its claspéd cell to roam.

All that the idle world hath kenned
Is like the faded, visible end
Of that lore-lettered mark;
Dim, sadly paled its pristine hues,
In streaming through earth’s chilling dews,
Obedient to imperious muse.
The folded end, still perfect, bright,
In keeping here of household faith,
Awaits Heaven’s kindly angel, Death,
To open it to truer light.

* * * * *

SONNET.—PLEASURE.

BY WM. ALEXANDER.

Hues how fantastic dost thou still assume,
Deluding man, amid life’s sweetest scene,
Spreading o’er all his way gay, gorgeous green,
With fairest flowers, which but a moment bloom—
Like evening cloud which golden Sol hath decked,
All evanescent, fading soon away;
So, Pleasure! grasped, thou hastest to decay,
Bidding each rising hope in bud be checked—
In Eden, erst, truth-like didst thou appear.
Thy right hand holding sweets surpassing fair,
Till, with her sombre train sin entered there,
To drag man thence, an exile full of fear—
Farewell, false Pleasure! and again, farewell—
Thy guests, the Wise hath told us, “are in depths of hell.”

* * * * *

NELLY NOWLAN’S EXPERIENCE.

BY MRS. S. C. HALL.

“I broke off in my last without an ending, which I could not help; I am not a bit more mistress of my own time than if I was a born lady, and oh, aunt dear, but I _do_ pity them ladies—you’d never believe how hard they work—not with their heads or their hands, but in a way twice as bad. You think it hard enough to put on your things of a Sunday. Oh! if you knew the dressing and undressing, the shopping, the driving round and round and round in a place they call a park—where there’s no sign of a mountain or any thing to raise the spirits—the visiting! not having a bit of friendly talk with those they like, but wearing the life and liveries off their servants, posting from house to house, and just leaving little squares of _pasteboard_ at the doors.”

“‘Has Lady Jane Vivian never inquired how I am?’ asked my poor mistress.

“‘Never, Ma’am,’ I said.

“Well, she had a puzzled look on her face, and there it ended for awhile.

“‘Ellen,’ she said again, a few days after, ‘Mrs. Brett tells me, Lady Jane Vivian called every day, and left cards.’

“Well, I was fairly bothered about the cards.

“‘Sure, Ma’am,’ I said, ‘what would make her leave the cards here, we’re no gamblers;’ this was when first I was own maid to my mistress—so she smiled again, and said how it was I did not understand that ladies left their names printed on pasteboard squares; and that was the same thing as a visit. Well! I had my own thought of what a cold, unnatural thing it was to send a square of pasteboard up to a poor sick lady, instead of comforting her, with a bright smile and kind words, and all sorts of cheerful discourse. But I supposed it was manners, and every people have their own; and then she asked for the _cards_. Now, the mistress of the house we lodged in, scrambled up every bit of them pasteboards with a title, and stuck them round the looking-glass, in her little, dingy back-parlor, for a nobility show. So I had to go and ask her to pick out all the Lady Jane Vivians, which she did, and gave them with a toss of her head, saying, ‘She did not want such a scrap of an ould maid’s title for the matter of that, she had lords and dukes! calling on her, before now.’ It was on the tip of my tongue to say, ‘Calling on your lodgers, you mean, ma’am,’ but I held my peace. Well! would you believe it? My own mistress was as proud of them five bits of pasteboard, as I’d be of five shillings! And she bade me bring her a fine chaney dish with a small tea-party painted on it, up in the air and down on the earth, beside a little railway, and little tufty houses one atop of the other, and bells at the corners—a fine ancient dish it is, like nothing on the earth or in the sea, which she says shows its imagination; well, she takes every one of the cards up in her poor, thin, trembling fingers, and then she rubs them clean and puts them right; the Misters and Mistresses, and the young Misses all down below, and the Sirs and Lords and Ladies on the top; mighty neat entirely to look at; and all the time, the darling! she was railing at the vanity of the lodging-house woman who wanted to show off the fine names, and never seemed to think that she was doing the same thing; to be sure, she had a right to them, and right is right; but the vanity, to my thinking, was all one. I had a deal more to tell you about _that_ church—but _one who knows_ said, it was fitter for me to hold my tongue; the reason is this, that it’s better for us, you understand, to keep on never heeding them, and not to put them in mind of what they are doing, and they will all walk, as easy as any thing, back to the fine, true, ould, ancient church of Rome: they call it _High Church_ now, but if they’re let alone, _one who knows_ says, they’ll soon be higher, on the highest pinnacle of St. Peter’s! so all we have to say, aunt dear, is just good luck to every poor traveler on the _right road_.

“Do you mind Mary Considine, who you used to call the blue-bell of the Shannon? She was the beauty of the place, I have heard, when she married her own first cousin, Ned Considine? don’t you also mind telling me how cruel hard she was to be pleased; and how, after she had married him, she said she intended taking a house, but changed her mind, and took Ned, and was greatly disappointed in taking him, for he was very deaf?

“Well, who should I chance to find out but this very Mr. and Mrs. Considine; and indeed it’s little remains of beauty she has now; the country, or rather the town life, does not agree any how with beauty, living as they do, at the back of ‘God speed,’ in a small court; though, as you will see by’n bye, they have lashings[21] of money: they’ve one son and a daughter. I met the young girl (she was born to them, I may say, in their old age, a last rose of their summer) at mass, and I think we knew each other by nature: my mistress gave me leave to run over and see her, and when she came to me took great delight in her smiling, innocent face, and the sweet voice I told her she had; and she sang some of the Irish melodies like an angel, if you can think of an angel singing any thing but holy psalms. And this young Mary is well brought up, quite above the common; reading and writing is nothing to her; and as to other accomplishments she’s wonderful; and can tell every fortune out of a book, except her own! Now, among the many prides her mother has gathered, the one that bothers Mary the most, is that she does not like any body to think she is Irish; she thinks she _turns her tongue_ so purty on the English, and as my poor mistress says (for she heard her at it) with a brogue, a rale Cork brogue; not the same as our pretty, delicate Leinster accent; but (as the mistress says) ‘a brogue strong enough to carry St. Paul’s to St. Peter’s,’ and so I thought, _particularly now, when it’s on the road_. My mistress says it’s quite absurd to look at her courtesey; and when you talk to her of her country, to hear her cry out—‘Why then, how did you know I was Irish?’ The Irish divert my poor mistress a great deal. She encourages me to tell all about my country, and she has been more like a mother than a lady to Mary Considine.

“But about poor Mary. She was overjoyed that her father and mother took so to me, and, indeed, so was I, for the music of home is in Mary’s sweet voice; and it is the next best thing to being in my own land, to hear her sing ‘The Exile of Erin;’ and then, while the tears are wet on my cheek, she tunes up ‘Shielan-a-guira,’ with a heart and a half; her eyes are so beaming with light, that you wonder where the dark place is in them, and yet it’s all the time a light in darkness. I can’t discourse you now her features one by one, but altogether: the poor Irish never pass her in the street without a blessing, or the English without a stare—still I saw that Mary was far from happy. I have not much time to watch or inquire, but I could not sleep for thinking of her—Mrs. Considine’s mouth was full of the titles of the great quality she’d see in the Park, and she traveled about with a book she called a peerage, in her pocket, while poor Mary would show me the bits of flowers she’d pick out of the grass, or bring my mistress a bunch of violets from Covent Garden Market. As to her father, he hardly ever stirs out, except to watch that his son, who has a situation at Blackwall, does not spend his pence on an omnibus—he makes a fair god of his money; how the priest gets over it I don’t know, for he’s the greatest miser I ever heard of—a fair neager[22]—not like his countrymen.

“Well, aunt; at last poor little Mary let me into the very heart of her trouble. She was in love—in love with maybe you think some delicate dandy chap of an Englishman; for Mary is very little—a fairy of a thing, (God bless us!) that might pass for a real ‘fairy’ in her own country—as thin as a willow-wand, as straight as a bullrush, but small, you understand. I wanted her to tell me who it was, and she used to hide her face and cry, and then look up, blushing like a rose among the dew-drops. At last, she said she’d _show_ him to me next evening; she was going to confession, and he would do the same, and meet her at the door. So away they went. There were three or four young men at the door, one with a sky-blue tie and a fine waistcoat. I was so sure _that was him_, that I never looked at any one else; but she passed on, tossing her head disdainfully at the blue tie.

“‘He’s not here,’ she whispered; and the little creature trembled on my arm. She soon made a clean breast, and I waited, as I had leave to do; the sky-blue tie waited also, but Mary was too quick for him, she darted round the corner, while he was admiring his own shadow, thrown by the full moon on the wall, and I after her.

“‘Come on,’ she said, almost breathlessly; ‘come on; that’s the man my father wants me to marry, but _I’ll die first_!’ We walked fast, but she took, as I thought, the wrong turning—I told her so, but she looked up in my face, and smiled. It was a narrow court, and at the far end, a smith’s forge. I heard the bang of the hammer, and saw the light, all in a glow, and a thousand sparkles like falling stars! Mary got under the shadow of the houses—she crept on, the hammer going, the fire glowing, the sparkles falling all the time, and the shadow as of a giant, forging the red bar, as if the hammer was a wand. Well, she avoided the door, but drew me on to a slit in the window, still keeping in the shadow—‘that’s him,’ she whispered. Aunt, dear, the sweetheart that mite of a little beauty had set her love on, was—just there and then—a rale giant! He looked strong enough to fling a thunderbolt, and active enough to make a play-fellow of the lightning. When he stopped, and threw back his hair, I thought I had never seen so noble a head, but his face looked pale in the flashing light. Mary never spoke but the one word, she never sighed, nor signed to him in any way, yet he wiped his brow, pulled down his sleeves, and came to the window.

“‘Mary, Mary,’ he whispered, and his voice was as soft as the coo of a wood-quest.[23] ‘Speak, Mary, I know you are there, it’s no use hiding from me, I know it as well as if my eyes were looking into yours, and as if you had told me so.’

“‘I am here, Philip,’ she said. ‘My friend was with me, and as you were not at the Priest’s, I thought you had something to do particular.’

“‘Yes, Mary,’ he answered; ‘but _that_ did not keep me. Your father came here to-night; he gave me clearly to understand, and without civility, he did not wish me to continue to keep your company; he said, your mind, as well as his own, turned another way.’

“‘And you believed him?’

“Her voice was like the murmur of a young bird in its nest.

“‘I believed my own eyes,’ he answered, folding his great arms over his chest, his eyes glaring in his dusky face like coals of fire. ‘I went to the Priest’s door, and saw that clean, done-up youth, with his blue tie round his throat, and his boyish hands, only fit to finger a yard measure, scenting the place with his white pocket-handkerchief. O, Mary, fancy my hands dangling a scented handkerchief!’ and he dashed them passionately forward. ‘When you did change,’ he added, ‘you might have chosen a man—not a monkey.’

“‘And you misdoubted me,’ she said, standing firm and straight in her pride. ‘Well, then, Philip, I’ll just say good-bye at once;’ and then she struggled and struggled to untwist something from her neck, and flung it right in through the window. The fire, which had been flickering and flickering, flamed up, and there, lying on the black floor, shone a little golden locket, and a broken velvet.

“To my dying day, I shall never forget the look that strong man cast from the locket to Mary, but I know he could not see _her_ face, it was in the darkness _to him_, though I saw, plain enough, her quivering lips and glowing cheeks—he stamped on the locket, and I heard it scrunch beneath his foot. She flew like a rapid over a rock of the Shannon, and was away in a minute—I turned to follow her, but the strong grasp of the smith was on my shoulder.

“‘Why did she come here at all?’ he said, and his voice was deep and husky. ‘What brought her? why should she come to torture me? it’s all along of the old man’s love of money, and her mother’s mad love of fine names. She told me my name, Philip Roche, was vulgar. O, to think of the love I bore her, slaving by day and night to make her a home, keeping to my pledge, and working—and well able to do it—on water.’

“Mary, I told him, knew nothing of it, she had no hand in it: I wanted to tell him how she took me to the door to see _him_, and not finding him there, drew me to the forge—her innocent heart full of love for him, and for him alone; the thoughts came fast enough into my head, but I could not speak them—I was bewildered, the despair written in his face haunted me—the look he gave, and the iron hand on my shoulder, stupefied me altogether, and though we walked on fast—fast after her—I trembled in every limb, and lost all power of speech.

“Words he certainly spoke betimes, and they hissed off his lips, as water hisses off a smoothing-iron. We tramped faster and faster, past the houses, and under the light of the lamps, and through the people, until we came to the court where they lived—_there_ he stopped in sight of the door, and such a sight it was to him!—for there, on the very step, waiting to have it opened, stood Mary Considine, and the blue neck-tie. I cannot tell you, aunt dear, how it was that I felt so interested for that strange, strong smith, Philip Roche, whom I had never, to say rightly, seen. No wonder the people stopped and stared after him, for he was without a hat, and his long hair _tossicated_ about his head: I looked up to him, and maybe it was best that I could not see his features, I only heard him mutter—‘Do you see, do you see? Has she _no hand in it now_?’ He staggered forward, but I caught him.

“‘Have patience,’ I said; ‘have patience, it will all come right, she has no hand in it.’ He threw me off as if I had been a child, and the last I saw of him was his head above the people that had gathered round the court. I walked quietly on, and when I entered the house there stood Mary, white as a sheet, while Mr. and Mrs. Considine were doing all manner of civilities to the young man, who was acting the gentleman, smiling and bowing and twisting a seal—set the likes of him up with a seal—at the end of his watch-chain—a seal which was big enough for the rapper of a hall-door—and dangling a ring he had on his starved, crooked, little finger, right in the foolish old man’s eyes. ‘And wont you sit down, Mr. Henry Highley,’ said one, ‘and wont you stop for _tay_,’ says the other. And seeing me staring at him, Mrs. Considine adds—

“‘A young lady-friend of my daughter’s, who stops mostly with a friend of her own at the West-end.’

“Now, aunt, I didn’t care about her calling me a lady, but I couldn’t bear being put on a level with my mistress, a rale lady born.

“And I said, ‘my mistress lives at the West-end, sure enough.’ Mrs. Considine frowned at me, and Mary left the little room.

“‘Come back, Mary,’ called her father; ‘bring her back,’ whispered her mother.

“It was well I followed her—she had fainted: I laid her on the bed, and did all I could for her. When she was coming to herself, she put up her hand—I thought, maybe, to feel for the locket, but that might be my fancy. It was long before I could make her deaf father understand that she was too ill to return, but her mother saw it at once, and after we put her to bed, and she drank a cup of tea, and said she thought to go to sleep, we left her—I staid a few minutes below, though I saw the old man wished me gone. And now, aunt, don’t be angry, but I think I could have found it in my heart to give that _Cub-een_ of a fellow, a glass of poison: his face was not only vicious, sharp, and thin, and active, like a rat’s—but he had his eyes every where. I saw him weigh the tea-spoon on his fore-finger in a balancing sort of fashion, and then look at the mark to be sure it was silver: he drew the old people on in such a way, getting more out of Mr. Considine than ever was got out of him before, as to his property and means—getting him to talk of interest and bankers, and the like: and the old man cursed the savings banks, and said money was never so safe as in one’s own house, and that the best of all banks for him was his leather bag—the more I looked at Mr. Henry Highley, the more I hated him, and sorry enough was I to know that young Considine had gone a journey for his employer, and was not to the fore, when most wanted.

“I stole up for another look at Mary. She was, or _pur_tended to be, asleep; but it was put into my heart to kneel down and pray for her. The words were not many, but the Lord knew their meaning. I dipped my finger in the holy-water cup, that hung at the head of her bed, and signed the blessed sign over her forehead, without touching her. She looked so helpless, and so lonely there—her young innocent face, still wet with tears, turned up to the heavens—the moonlight was hindered from shining on her by the fog that hangs about the London streets by day and night; and maybe so best, for moonlight lays heavy on a throbbing brow, and is not over lucky, particularly—as you know—when it’s full moon. So I did not go into the little room again, but hurried home, for I had overstaid my time by more than an hour. I was near my own street, when who came to my side but Mr. Henry Highley: and he said, it was dull walking my lone,[24] and he’d see me home, and I told him I had the sight of my eyes, and could see myself and him too. And he said I was very witty, and I said, I was sorry I could not return the compliment. Then he thought to fish out about my mistress—she must be a rich lady to keep the likes of me. And I answered riches had nothing to do with that: I did not want to sell myself, or buy any one, and that I should be happier to serve for love than for money; but he stuck to the question—Had she plate and jewels? So, turning sharp on him, I said that any one would think he was a house-breaker, and I laughed: this was at the door; and there was a policeman passing, who stopped. Well, aunt, Mr. Henry Highley, without another word—with your leave or by your leave—whisked off.

“‘What do you know of that young man?’ inquired the blue-coat.

“‘Nothing pleasant,’ I said.

“‘Where did you meet him?’

“‘You are neither judge or jury, to be questioning me,’ I answered; for it isn’t the nature of an Irish girl to put up with a policeman.

“‘I mark you,’ he said very stiff—but they are all that—‘and when the time comes, young woman, I’ll find a way to make you tell,’ and he walked off.

“Now, aunt dear, sure I had enough of walking on and off that night! My mistress was angry; but I did as you told me often enough—instead of making excuses, and inventions, which come mighty pleasant and natural, I just told the plain truth—quiet and easy—all except the last, for I did not wish to make her uneasy, as I was myself, having a cruel bad opinion of Mr. Henry Highley.

“It’s mighty _quare_ how, in this wonderful city of business and bother, how your little, peaceful sayings, darling aunt! and the songs you sung to the wheel of a winter’s evening, with none but the pusheen-cat, and myself, and a cricket or two to the fore, come into my head, or one of Watts’ hymns, in the very bustle of the town: I often dust the room to ‘Aileen Mavourneen,’ and brush my lady’s hair to ‘Eveleen’s bower,’ played on the chords of my heart. Sometimes, when I draw back the curtain, and shade the light of the pale night-lamp, with my hand, for fear it might wake her—the mistress I mean—for I never lay down until she is asleep: often, when I watch her features, worn with pain, yet so still, and gentle-looking, and see her pale, pink lips, half open, and such a sweet smile on them, I think—the sleeping face differs so from the waking one—that angels must be whispering the joys that will come. When the last dull sleep is ended, aunt, I am sure I should go mad if I thought that dear innocent woman, so tortured in this world, yet so meek in herself, so thoughtful and generous to the poor, so kind in her judgments, so fond to take the sorrows of all who have sorrow into her bosom, and turn them to blessings—I should indeed break my heart, if I believed that, for reading the one book another way, we should never meet in the world that’s to come. I can’t believe it, so there’s enough about it. As I looked at her, the song of ‘The Angels’ Whisper,’ came for a second time into my head that night, and then I _crooned_ over that ‘Savourneen delish’ you are so fond of; and that brought poor Tom and his motherless children before me! Aunt, dear—maybe I didn’t use Tom well! I couldn’t help it: though you often told me I should not cast out dirty water until I could get clean—not a grate compliment to Tom either!—yet to be obliged, after a few words, to be a mother all out to three sharp children; and if _he_ was cold and weary, and didn’t smile and talk every day the same, to have the creeping chill steal over me like the shake,[25] that he was thinking of his first wife, and maybe comparing us in his own mind—that would drive me as wild as the other thing I tould you of a while ago; and yet, I own to you, I have thought more of poor Tom since I left home, than ever I did while I was there.

“The next day, and the next day, and the next passed, and no word from Mary, and my mistress was ill. Once I ran as far as the turn to the lane, and looked down at the forge. The fire was burning low, and there was no sound of the hammer on the anvil. At last, Mrs. Considine herself called; she was very full of prate: she had the dirty red book, as usual, half sticking out of her black bag: she said, that indeed Mary had demeaned herself by taking up with nothing but a smith, a great friend of her brother’s, and one she would not deny who had done him more than one good turn, and would be right well to do in the world if he had a little capital to push him on, which neither her nor her husband would give to a man of the name of Roche. Roche, indeed! Roches were as plentiful as black-berries, and as common, where she came from. Set her Mary before the priest with a Roche? No, no; Mr. Henry Highley was the man for their money, so nice a gentleman; for every sovereign her husband laid down as Mary’s fortune, he would lay down another, or could two! And such _jewelery_ as he had; rings for every finger, and fine watches, one set with precious stones—which had belonged to his grandmother—a Talbot itself! There was all about the family printed in the peerage, and sure it wouldn’t be _there_ if it wasn’t true—but indeed she couldn’t tell what was come over Mary: she had no pride, no spirit in her; her husband would weigh the watches in his hand, and look at the rings all day, and ask what they were worth over and over again, and take them to bed with him, if he was let, he had such delight in them. But they might be so much _pinchback_, for any thing Mary cared; they would have the wedding at once, and when it was over, she’d know better. Mr. Highley was so fond of her, he wouldn’t hear of delay, not even until her brother came home! She let on that Mary, when married, would be too grand company for the likes of me, but that _she_ would not be proud. I might look in sometimes, she’d be glad to see my mistress when they got into a new lodging, which Mr. Highley said they must after the wedding—for _his_ sake, dear, sweet, well-born, well-bred young gentleman!

“Like her impudence, it was: _My mistress itself!_ MY MISTRESS! visit with her: och hone! What would the cards on the fine china dish say to it, if they could but speak? But, aunt dear, what do you think I did, when she, and her bag, and her book were cleared out of the house? I told my mistress every word she had said. Now it was a mercy that she was quite herself that morning, and sure enough she has a head almost as clear for business as our dear QUEEN’S! God bless it for ever, for a right, royal, noble head!—the Queen’s, I mean—She did not ponder long, but laying her spectacles in her Bible, for a mark, she set it besides the china dish.

“‘Ellen,’ she said, ‘have you ever seen the policeman, who spoke to you, since that night?’

“And I said I had: that very morning he was on our beat.

“‘Bring him to me, Ellen.’

“My heart was _leping_—leping up into my mouth.

“‘Bring him into the house?’ I repeated.

“‘Yes,’ she said, ‘into the house.’

“‘Have I done any thing wrong, ma’am?’

“So she smiled.

“‘Nothing, but very right: do as I tell you.’

“That ‘Do as I tell you,’ is the same thing as ‘Hold your tongue.’ So, aunt dear, if you please, you must just fancy me looking for a real, living policeman; and for a wonder, I found him when he was wanted. He soon stood like a _statute_ before my mistress.

“She told him word for word what I have told you: he noted it all down in a bit of a book, and was mighty particular over the number of rings and the Talbot watch; he then looked at me, and my mistress nodded for me to leave the room. Now, wasn’t that too bad?

“I never felt more hard set to put up with any thing in my born days; but I went—and, only my mistress has nerves, wouldn’t I have banged the door? When the bell rung he was gone: she told me I was to go over in the evening, and see Mary. When I got there, Mrs. Considine was watching for the postman, who was coming down the court. She took a letter from him, which I saw was directed to Mary: she read it hastily, and tossed it into the fire. ‘My relations,’ she said, with a toss of a different kind, ‘hearing of the fine match Mary is going to make, write constantly to get them situations.’ A double story—I was so ashamed for her. Aunt dear, God bless you for teaching me that there is no such thing as an ‘innocent lie.’ The old miser of a man was in a little inner room they have, divided by a passage from the one we were in, where they sleep themselves: the windows open into a lane, dark as dungeon by day or night. He was fumbling at his leather bag, and came out talking to himself, muttering such things as these—