Chapter III (2)

“Two or three hours after the darkness had set in, I could hear the animals coming to the water to drink. Some of them passed at a little distance from me, but I did not get a sight of any. The lion saw them plainly, but he only moved his head a little as they trotted by. There was no chance of his leaving me and going after them, as I had hoped. All at once, he lifted his head, looked toward me, and began to growl. ‘Now,’ I thought, ‘the time is come!’ He rose on his feet and growled louder, all the while looking hard at me, as I thought. I braced myself up for a struggle, with my gun in my left hand and my handkerchief in my right. I had a notion of endeavoring to thrust the gun crosswise into his mouth, and then getting my right hand down his throat. It was a very poor chance, but the only one left, and I meant to die game. In fact, I had given up all hope. But in a few minutes the lion, to my surprise, became quiet again, and sat down: he did not lie down, as before, but kept his head stretched forward toward me, like a cat intently examining some objects. At last he lay down again, as though he was satisfied about the matter that had disturbed him. But, in another ten minutes or so, he rose up once more to his feet, and growled more ferociously than ever. It struck me then that another lion might be cautiously approaching me behind, and that my particular friend was objecting to any division of the spoil. If this were the case, my fate would soon be settled. Then I thought it just possible that my men might be making some attempt to save me, under cover of the darkness; but there was little likelihood of their mustering courage enough to do any thing effectual. I was now fully awake, as you may suppose. The lion was standing up, growling continually, and moving from side to side, as if he felt uncertain what to do. At last he crouched, and I saw clearly that he was getting ready for a spring. At that moment I heard a loud yell behind me, and saw every thing around lighted up by a blaze of fire. The yell was kept up constantly for a minute or two, and all at once somebody, looking as though his head and shoulders were all in a blaze, came running in between me and the lion. The brute gave a tremendous roar, more in fright than in anger, and went bounding off into the darkness. I then saw that the person with the fire was Apollo himself. The blaze had gone out, but the little fellow had two or three lighted brands in each hand, and was flourishing them about his head, and dancing and whirling round, in a frantic way, like a little demon--though to me, just then, he seemed more like an angel of light. The poor little creature was in such a state of terror that he could hardly speak, and did not hear a word that I said. ‘Load the gun! load the gun!’ he kept screaming. ‘The great beast will come back! Load the gun!’

“This was good advice, and I followed it as quickly as I could. At first, on rising, I found myself so stiff that I could hardly move my limbs. But the blood soon began to circulate again, and when I had loaded up, we moved off toward the wagons. Apollo ran before me all the way, still in a terrible fright, with a frying pan on his head, and a firebrand in his right hand, jumping and screaming like a madman, to scare the wild beasts. We got safely to the outspan place, and when I had something to stay my hunger, I made Apollo tell me how he had managed the affair, which was still a mystery to me. I found that the poor fellow had tried hard all day to induce the other men to join him in going to my relief. They made one attempt in the morning, as I mentioned, but their hearts failed them. At night Apollo made up his mind to undertake the business by himself, and he set about it in a really ingenious manner. He took one of my large frying-pans, and covered the inside with a thin coating of gun-powder, just enough moistened to make it burn slowly; over this he placed some straw which I used for packing, and sprinkled dry powder upon it; and on the top of all he raised a little heap of brushwood and dry sticks. With this on his head, he started from the wagons just after dark. When he had come about half way, he lay down and crawled toward me so slowly and cautiously that the lion did not observe him until he was within a hundred yards of us. Then it was that the brute first rose up and began growling. Apollo said that when he heard it his heart became as cold as ice, and he almost went into a fit. He lay perfectly still, until the lion became quiet, and he then began again to creep forward, dragging himself along on the ground, inch by inch, and resting for a minute or two at every yard he made. At last, when he thought he was near enough, he took out a lucifer-match from a box which he had brought from the wagon, and lighted it. He touched the straw, which blazed up immediately. It was while he was doing this that the lion became so much excited; but Apollo left him no time to act, for he dashed in upon us, as I have told you, with the frying-pan on his head, and a burning stick in his hand, and routed the enemy at once. So now you know the reason why I feel such a particular regard for the little Namaqua. I really believe he showed more ingenuity and courage in saving my life than he could have mustered to preserve his own.”

Apollo had certainly behaved in a most creditable manner, and I was ready to admit that he deserved all the good that his master could do for him. As for the lion, I supposed nothing more was seen or heard of him.

“You are mistaken there,” said Hutton. “I have the best part of him now at my house. I had an account to settle with the rascal for the horrid torture I had suffered through him. Besides, as he was evidently a ‘man-eater,’ it would not have done to leave him at large, if I could help it. I was sure he would not quit the pool so long as the oxen remained near it; and as I knew that two other traders, Johnson and Le Roux, were only a day or two behind me, I waited till they came up, and we all went out together, with our people and dogs. We hunted for two days before we could manage to turn the old cannibal out of his den, among some rocks and bushes. Johnson happened to be nearest to him, and bowled him over at a long shot. A capital shot it was, too; the ball went in behind the right shoulder and came out under the left flank. I gave Johnson five pounds for the skin, which I mean to have stuffed and set up at home, in memory of the day I passed with the living owner, and the day after. The first I consider to have been the most miserable day, and the other the happiest, that I have ever spent in all my life.”

* * * * *

=NELLY NOWLAN’S EXPERIENCE.=

=BY MRS. S. C. HALL.=

Dear Aunt--My good mistress has had an invitation to a place--they call it by the name of Cranley Hurst: that is, the invitation did not come from her cousin, but from her cousin’s brother’s wife, who was gone to keep house for her cousin during what she called “her LITTLE ELECTION.” My mistress said she had never been at “Cranley Hurst” since she was a girl, and she had heard that her cousin, the Hon. Francis Cranley (who, for some cause or another, had shut himself up, when a fine young gentleman, all as one as a hermit) had been routed like a hare out of its form, by his little sister-in-law, who pounced down upon him, now and again, like a hawk, scaring and tearing and domineering wherever she went. My poor mistress was a long time what they call temporizing whether she would go or not, when--I am sure it was to her surprise--she got a letter from the Honorable Francis himself. “He says,” says she, “that it’s the first invitation he has given to any living creature to pass the threshold of Cranley Hurst for five-and-twenty years, and he hopes I will give his sister-in-law, Mrs. James Cranley, the pleasure to receive me, and that he himself would be happy to see me in the old place once more.”

“Poor fellow!” sighed my mistress.

Aunt dear, could you tell me why my mistress sighed “poor fellow,” folded up the letter, and laid a rose I had just brought her from Covent-Garden upon it?--where, darling aunt (only think how it raised my spirits) I saw as good as thirty Irishwomen sitting on what we would call pratee baskets, shelling peas for the quality, and working away at the real Munster Irish, as if they had never left the quays of Cork. She put the rose on the letter, as if, in her thoughts, one had something to do with the other, and, resting her elbow on the table, shaded her face with her hand: after a time, a very long time, I came back into the room, and she was sitting the same way.

“Wouldn’t you like a turn in the park, ma’am,” I said; “for a wonder it’s neither an east wind nor a pour of rain?” So she gazed up in my face, with that kind of mazed look which people have when you talk to them, and their thoughts are in deep sea or land graves--or, may-be, in the Eternity, to which they go before the spirit’s time. And what do you think she said?--why “poor fellow!” again. To be sure, thoughts are thoughts, and we had as good, may-be, forget the thought of many a thought we do think. That same evening she stood opposite the glass--

“Ellen,” she says, “I look very old.”

“There’s a power of amiability in your face, ma’am,” I answers, “and you’ve a fine head-piece.” It’s true for me, and I thought I had got over the age beautifully; but I had not; she turned to look at it again:

“I look very old, Ellen.”

“God bless you! ma’am, age is a beauty to many.”

“Not to me.”

“There’s twenty opinions about the one thing.”

“But I _am_ old.”

“More of that to you, ma’am, dear.”

“Do you wish me to be old?”

“I wish you, with all my heart and soul, to _grow_ old,” I says, and from my heart I spoke, and she felt it; but, seeing she was melancholy, I thought to rouse her a bit. “Indeed, ma’am, I never saw you better in my life (that was true;) you’re as heavy again as you were when I first had the blessing of looking in yer sweet face, and sure your eyes are as bright as diamonds (that was a bit of a stretch,) and there’s thousands of dimples in your cheeks this minute (that was another).”

“There, there,” she says, smiling her calm smile, “you will not have me old.”

“Oh, the Holies forbid!” I said again, “it’s I that _will_ have you old--_but not yet_.”

She took up wonderful after that. Sure we all like a taste of the flattery: some wish it addressed to their head--some to their _heart_--some to their great families, taking their pride out of blood, so thick, you could cut it with a knife--some (_musheroons_ I call them) to their wealth--more to their beauty, which, though dead and buried to the world, is alive to them. Aunt dear, _all_ like it: somehow, the thing to _know is, when and how to give it_. Well, my mistress bought a new bonnet, and such elegant caps, and altogether took a turn for the best. She was amused, too, at the notion of a _little election_, which I wondered at, seeing she was so timid in general.

“I’ll engage Cranley Hurst is a fine, strong house, ma’am,” I made bold to say.

“Oh, no, it’s a long, rambling, wandering sort of place, Ellen; all odd windows and odd gables--all odd and old.” So I said that I’d go bail his honor her cousin’s faction (his people, I meant) would keep off the other party at election times, when they break in, and knock every thing to bits; and I told her how my father remembered when the Kilconnel boys broke into Kilmurray-house, and the master canvassing--destroying, right and left--burning and murdering every one that was not of their way of thinking, and shouting over their ashes for liberty and freedom of election. That was the time, when knowing that more of the Kilconnel boys were forced to come over the Crag-road--where no road was ever made, only all bog--the Kilmurray men laid wait for them, and snared them into a gamekeeper’s lodge, making believe it was a whiskey-still--just a place where they had plenty of the mountain-dew--which (bad luck to it) is a wonderful strengthener of sin, and kept them there drinking and dancing until the election was over; and then, leaving the Kilconnel boys sleeping, the Kilmurray men disappeared in the night. When the poor fellows staggered out in the rising sun and found how it was, they grew very savage, and just fair and easy burnt the lodge. And may-be murderings and destructions did not grow out of that, and lawsuits--and persecutions--that made men of two attorneys, who never had cross or coin to bless themselves with before the burning of Crag-road lodge!

My mistress says they manage things more quietly here. I can’t say whether or not I’m glad of it, for I like a bit of a spree, now and then, to keep the life in me--for the English are wonderful quiet; you might as well travel with a lot of dummies, as with them: and the suspicious looks they cast on you, if you only speak civil to them, or look twice their way; the ladies rowling themselves up in shawls, in the corners of the railway carriage, and keeping their eyes fixed, as if it was a sin to be civil. I travel with my mistress, FIRST CLASS--aunt dear, let all the people know _that_, coming from mass, Sunday morning--so I see their ways; and the gentlemen bury their noses in a mighty perplexing sort of paper-covered book, called “Bradshaw,” or in a newspaper, which they read to themselves and keep to themselves, never offering to lend the “news” to any one, only shifting it into their pockets, as if they could get more out of it there. They scramble in and out of the carriages, without ever moving their hats, or offering to help the ladies out or in. The truth is they’re a good people; but uncommon surly, or uncommon shy. And as to that book, “Bradshaw,” I thought it must be diverting; people bought it so fast at the railway stations; and you see it sticking out of the pockets of the little scutty coats that are all the fashion, and out of the bags the ladies nurse like babies on their laps, and which they spend months of their time on, to make them look as if made of odds and ends of carpet--which, indeed, they do. I asked my mistress if she would not like to have “Bradshaw,” it must be such pleasant reading. So, with the same quiet smile with which she does every thing, she bought it, and gave it to me, saying:

“There it is, Ellen; I hope you may understand it.”

I was a little hurt, and made answer--

“Thank you kindly, ma’am: nothing puzzles me upon the print but foreign languages or, may-be, Latin.” And as we were going down to Cranley Hurst, I fixed my mistress in the first class, and myself opposite her, with a _rale_ carpet-bag on my lap, and my “Bradshaw” in my hand.

“You may read if you like, Ellen,” said my mistress, the smile twinkling in her eyes (I’m sure her eyes were mighty soft and sly when she was young.)

“Thank you, ma’am,” I answered; “one of my mother’s second cousins married a ‘Bradshaw,’ and may-be I’d find something about his family here.” A gentleman stared at me over his “Bradshaw,” and a mighty pert little old lady, who was reading her “Bradshaw,” let down her glass and asked me when I left Ireland. [Aunt dear, how did she know I was Irish?] I looked and looked at one page--and then at another--leaf after leaf--it was about trains, and going and coming--and figures in, and figures out--all marked, and crossed, and starred--up trains, down trains, and Sunday trains--without a bit of sense.

“When will our train arrive at Cranley station?” asked my lady, after I had been going across, and along, and about, and over “Bradshaw” for an hour or two--I was so bothered, I could not tell which.

“It was written as a penance for poor traveling sinners,” I answered in a whisper, for I did not want to _let on_ I couldn’t understand it: she did not hear me, and asked the question again.

“I can read both running-hand and print, ma’am,” I said; “but none of my family had a turn for figures, and this looks mighty like what my brother got a prize for--they called it by the name of all-gib-raa.”

My mistress sometimes looks very provoking--and that’s the truth--I can hardly think her the same at one time that she is at another.

The little pert lady thrust her “Bradshaw” into her bag, and snapt the clasp--then turning round to the gentleman, she snapt him--“Do _you_ understand Bradshaw, sir?”

“Noa,” he drawled out, “not exactly--I heard of a gentleman once who did, but im-me-diate-ly after he became insane!”

I shut the book--oh aunt, I would not be _that_, you know, for all the books that ever were shut and opened. What should I do without my senses?

Of all the ancient places you ever heard tell of, Cranley Hurst is the _quarest_ I ever saw. When you think you are at the far end of the building, it begins again--rooms upon rooms--shut up for ages--and passages leading to nothing, and nothing leading to passages--and a broad terrace looking over such a beautiful bog, and a pathway under the terrace to Cranley-marsh (that’s English for bog.) I often go that path, thinking of the waste lands of my own poor country. Oh, aunt, to see the great innocent frogs, the very _moral_[7] of the Irish ones, and lizards, turning and wriggling among the bullrushes; and between the floating islands of green, plashy weeds, that veil the deep pools, you see fish floating round the great gray stones, which, my mistress says, the Romans flung into Cranley-marsh to make a bridge. You should hear my mistress talk of it--she has such fine English.

“Although it’s a flat,” she says, “I like it better than any mountain I ever saw. Such a combination of rich color--such orchis--such shades and masses of iris--such floats of rush-cotton--such banks of forget-me-nots--such ferns--and, in the spring, such piles of golden blossoming furze: the peat, so dark and intense, forms a rich contrast to the vegetation; and the ‘Roman stones,’ piled here and there into low pyramids, have a gray, solemn effect, and afford shelter to numerous migratory birds, who feed abundantly upon the insects that hover, like metallic vapors, over the deepest pools.” Them were her very words.

The reception, I must tell you, we got at Cranley Hurst, seemed to me mighty cool--I felt my mistress tremble as she leaned on me; but there was neither master nor mistress at the door to welcome _her_. The servants were there, to be sure, to carry the things to her room; but she paused in the long, low hall, that was furnished like a parlor, to look at one picture, then at another; and while she stood before one of a very dark, sorrowful lady--a little pale, wizen’d woman stole out of a room in the distance, and shading her eyes with one hand, while she leaned with the other on a cross-headed stick, she crept, rather than walked, toward my mistress. Her arms were only little bones, wrapt in shriveled skin, and deep ruffles fell from her elbows. She was more of a shadow than a substance--so very small--so over and above little--that if I had seen her at the Well of Sweet Waters on Midsummer-eve, I would have crossed myself, knowing she was one of the _good people_. She would have been a fair go-by-the-ground, but for her high-heeled shoes; and, daylight as it was, I did not like the looks of her. The nearer she came, the more wild and bright her eyes glistened; and the lace borders of her cap flew back from her small sallow features. Though I could not help watching the withered woman, I tried to go close to my mistress; but when I made the least motion, she waved her stick, and her eyes flashed so, that I was rooted to the floor at once. She stole over the floor, and the silence was increased by her presence. Aunt, dear, you know I hate silence; and this hung like a weight on my heart, and gathered over us like clouds--suffocating. At last she came close to me; the border of her cap flapped against my hand, but, to save my life, I could not move. Her eyes were on me; they were everywhere at once. She crept round to my mistress, rested her hands on the cross of her stick, and stared at her; her eyes flashing, not like soft summer lightning, but like what we once watched darting into the very heart of the fine ould tower of Castle Connel.

When my lady looked down from the picture, she saw the withered woman.

“Old Maud!” she cried. And, oh! what sorrow there was in them two words!

“The soul outlives the body,” said the woman, in a crackling voice--not loud--but sharp and dry, “and the voice outlives the beauty. They said the fair Cicely Cranley was coming, and I laughed at them. No; they said Mrs. Bingham was coming--that was it--and I said it must be Miss Cicely; for Mistress Bingham had never entered the door of Cranley Hurst since she broke faith with her cousin.”

“Hush, Maud!” said my poor mistress, turning from the witch, who faced round, and would look at her; “there--keep back. Ellen, keep her back--her mind is gone.”

“But not her memory,” screamed the hag, striking her stick upon the floor. “I mind the open window--and the ropy ladder--and my young master’s misery when the hawk ’ticed away the dove that was to be his bride--his own first cousin.”

“It was too near, Maud.”

“No; the Cranleys married in and out--in and out--and what brings you now? withered and shriveled like myself, with only the voice!--nothing but the voice! More worn--and old--and gray--than himself--a lean old man! You called me ‘Ugly Maud’ once; what are you now? Augh!”

She threw down her stick, and began waving her bony arms, and sailing round my poor mistress, in a sort of mock dance. I stepped in between them, to keep her eyes off my lady; but she dodged between us, mocking, and saying cruel words, and looking, just as a curse would look, if it had a body. All of a sudden, a hard, firm step came up the hall: I knew it was the master of Cranley Hurst. The little hag paused, pointed to me to pick up her stick, which, like a fool, I did. Stepping back, she curtsied reverently to my lady, her little pinched face changing into something human; then, going to meet the master, “I came to give the fair Miss Cicely welcome,” she said, “but I could not find her: that old lady stole her voice! _She_ Miss Cicely!”

The master struck something which hung in the hall; they call it a gong: the air and house shook again at the deep, loud noise, and from half a dozen doors servants rushed in.

“Can none of you take care of Maud?” he said. “She is insane, now--quite. Keep her away from this end of the house.”

“I only came to look for Miss Cicely: I found a voice--SHE stole a voice!” said the old creature; and she continued talking and screaming until the doors were shut, the echo of the alarum being like the whisperings of spirits around the walls. I wished myself anywhere away, and I did not know where to go; the house was all strange to me; the cousins seemed afraid to look at each other. My mistress _drew down her veil_, and extended her hand; hard as it is--thin and worn--the master kissed it as fondly as if it had been the hand of a fresh fair girl of eighteen. Aunt dear, it was as strange a meeting as ever was put in a book--those two aged people--one who had loved, the other who had taken her own will; and small blame to her, aunt. Sure it was better for her to run off at the last moment, than take a false oath at God’s altar.

I shall never forget the look of downright, upright love that shone in the master’s face, as they stood like two monuments _forenint_[8] each other. I don’t know when they’d have left off or moved, if the sister-in-law, Mrs. James Cranley, had not flung into the hall, followed by her maid, with a clothes-basket, full of printed papers and sealed letters, and a footman running on with a big tea-tray, covered with the same sort of combustables. She came in speaking; and one word was so _hot foot_ after the other, that it was out of the question to know what she meant.

She was a tight-made little lady--nor young, nor old--without a cap (_though it would be only manners to ask after it_) mighty tight, and terrible active--spinning round like a top, and darting off like a swallow; her head looked like a pretty tiger’s--fierce and keen: she seemed ready to pounce on any thing--living or dead; no creature could be easy, or quiet, or comfortable, or contented in the same room with her. I saw that in a minute, and thought she’d be the death of my poor lady.

As soon as she saw her and the master standing the way I told you of, sure enough she sprung on her: you would have thought they had lain in the same cradle, to see the delight of her: she pulled up her veil, and kissed her on both cheeks.

“You dear creature!” she exclaimed. “Now, I know I shall have your sympathy--your help--your experience. Now, don’t interrupt me, Cousin Francis (the poor gentleman was looking dull and stupid) don’t interrupt me--don’t tell me of difficulty,” she said. “I should think no one in the county has forgotten how triumphantly I carried the question of the _green pinafores_ in the very _teeth_ of the rector and the churchwardens: the children wear them to this very day. I’ll organize an opposition such as no power can withstand. I’ll neither give nor take rest;” (I believed that,) “and if Lady Lockington’s candidate should be returned, in violation of every constitutional right, I’ll petition the house.” She waved her hand round like the sails of a wind-mill. I never saw a prettier little hand, nor one that had a more resolute way with it.

“Gently, my good sister, gently,” said the master; but Mrs. James did not hear him. She pressed my lady into a chair, commanded her maid, with a fine French name, to lay down the basket, and said that she longed for sympathy quite as much as for assistance. “Active as I have been, and am,” she said, “it would delight me to turn over a few of my duties to your care. In town, it is worse--absolutely worse! Remember my committees--_seven of a morning_! Remember the public meetings--the bazaars, which could not go on without me--the Shanghai Commission--the petitions of the women of England--the concerts--the Attic Improvement Society!--duties of such public importance, that I have not spent an hour in my own house for weeks together; never seen your master’s face except beneath the shadow of a night-cap.” [Aunt, dear! I thought she was a widdy woman until that blessed minute, never hearing tell of her husband.] “Then the college committees for the education of young females, prevent my having time to inquire how my own daughter’s education progresses; and the ”Pap and Cradle Institute“ occupied so much of my attention, that my charming Edward will never get over the effects of that horrid small-pox, all through the carelessness of his nurse--dreadful creature! No, no; there is no repose for me, sweet cousin.” All this time she was tossing over the letters, like one mad, and my mistress shrinking away farther and farther from her. “Is it possible,” she exclaimed at last, “you take no interest in these things?”

The master said that his cousin was fatigued.

“Well, well! it is just possible,” said the lady; “but positively, before she goes to her room, I must interest her in my LITTLE ELECTION.”

At night, when I went up to attend upon my mistress, I told her I did not see any sign of what I should call an election, either in the house, or out of the house, though every living creature was tearing and working away for the dear life, at they could hardly tell what, and not a bit of dinner until half-past eight at night, when Christians ought to be half-way in their beds. Now, my poor lady always had her dinner at two, and yet what did you think she said to me? why--“_eight is the fashionable hour_!” But she was not herself, for she never troubled about what she’d put on next morning, only sat there like a statue; and when at last I coaxed her to go to bed, she laid awake, keeping down the sobs that rose from her very heart. Sure the quality has quare ways, and quare thoughts! And just as she fell into that sweet sleep which is as soft as swan’s-down, and as refreshing as the flowers in May, before the young birds call for food, or the sun looks upon the earth--that little whirligig of a lady came spinning into the room, as alive and as brisk as if no mortal ever needed sleep. “Whisht!” I says, stopping her frisking. “Whisht! if you plaze, whisht!” The start she took! and asked me what language “whisht” was; and, seeing it diverted her, I drew back to the door, and out on the landing, saying all the “Avourneens” and “Grama-chrees” and real Irish words I could think of, to take her off my mistress. So she called me a “dear creature,” and declared I would be quite attractive at her little election, if she might dress me up as a wild Irishwoman, and if I really would make myself useful. I was glad to get her out of my lady’s room, so that she might rest, but I had no notion of making a fool of myself for all the elections upon the face of the earth--I know my place better than that--I leave that to my superiors. Well, if the house was in a state of disturbance that day, what was it the next? Nothing but making cockades of blue glazed calico and of ribband, and turning her blue silk dresses into flags; and open house--all trying to waste and destroy the most they could; and such sending off dispatches, here, there, and every where; and such baskets-full of letters. Oh, then, surely the post-office should pray for an election as hard as ever it prayed for Valentine’s-day. I lost sight of my poor dear mistress that day, for as good as five hours, for the Honorable Mrs. James Cranley locked me and three others into a loft, making them cockades; and to be sure I did work. And I told one of the girls, when we were fairly come to the end, that I would not have worked as I did, and out of the sight of my poor lady, only for the honor of working for a member of parliament; and to hear the laugh was raised against me. “Why,” said Mrs. James’s English maid, “it’s not a parliament election at all, but an election for the master and mistress of a sort of a charity, called Cranley Hurst College, where children of some particular class are fed, and all that; and I believe some of the country gentry say they ought to nominate the master and mistress; but the Honorable Mrs. James has persuaded the Honorable Mr. Francis that the Cranleys should do it; and the people in the little town said it was neither the gentry, nor the Cranley family, but that every householder had a vote! and that one man’s vote was as good as another’s! and had _that_ printed in the country paper.” And then the lawyers smelt it out, and gathered like crows in a corn-field, trying to strike war between neighbours--which is their custom--and, indeed, poor things, their bread, which must be very uncomfortable food for them, if they have any consciences--which I never heard tell they had; and there seemed but little doubt, if the Cranleys stood to their rights, there would be a lawsuit, and no election till that was over. This drove the Honorable Mrs. James mad: she said if once it got into law, none of them could ever expect to live to see an election at all; and, as I understood, settled it so that each named a candidate, and canvassed for votes. The Honorable Mrs. James wanted to get in one _Mr._ and _Mrs. Bradshaw_ (I wonder had they any call to _the book_); and they were decent people--bred, born, and reared in the Cranley family--and to be sure, Mrs. James beat Bannagher at canvassing! She was hand and glove with every one that had the least call in life to a vote; she kissed every child in the village; she promised every thing that everybody wanted; she promised Mr. Skeggs his eyesight, and an ould Mrs. Bland the use of her limbs; she danced in a hay-field, and sang Italian songs to those who never heard a word of the language before. Dear! Oh, dear! I could not help thinking how she was wasting her vitals--doing no real good for man or beast! Oh, if my poor mistress had but half her strength, what a woman she would be! And it was sore to see the downright black lies and falsities they all told of each other. There was some grand point of dispute about the weight of a loaf: at one time, one party had held with a mistress of the Cranley charity, that so much bread was enough for each child; and the other set said; “No; so much.” This was a grand quarrel. But those who would have voted for the small bread gave in, and owed they were wrong, and agreed to the large weight; but this made no differ, the others cried against them all the same, and paraded the country with a lump of bread pinched in, to make it look less, and decked it out on the top of its pole with black ribbands, and called it “The Cranley Hurst Starvation Loaf for Poor Children.” Well, I was fairly bothered amongst them; and every time the Honorable Mrs. James came across me--full or fasting, in public or in private--she would make me go over my Irish, and smile, and say--turning to ladies or gentlemen, no matter which, until I was shamed out of my very life--“Now, is not she delicious? Will she not make a sensation? She will carry all before her!”

I’d have given the world for a clear head, just to think about my mistress, and the Honorable Mr. Francis, and that horrid old Maud, who ought to be burnt for a witch, as she is. My mistress was obliged to get her own bonnet and shawl; and indeed, when she went out, she had not strength to come in, only that the Honorable Mr. Francis helped her. At last the day came: I had been up stairs to my lady, and found she had gone down stairs to breakfast!--there was a wonder!--and returning through the back hall, I saw two such pretty looking children, all in rags, not real natural rags, such as we see (I am sure I ought to know what rags are,) but nice, pretty, clean, pink gingham frocks, with pieces cut out of them on purpose--torn down here, and looped up there--and their clean, pretty white legs and feet quite bare, and their dear little, sweet, fat, fubsy hands filled with _artificial_ flowers, poppies, and ears of corn. Well, aunt, you know how I doat on children; so as I just stooped down to kiss them, as I used poor Tom’s, and it seemed so natural to say to the youngest, who was hardly bigger than a Clonmel turf--“O! lanna machree was you, every bit of you”--when I heard a scream of delight from the Honorable Mrs. James: it was like the _skirle_ of a paycock.

“You dear creature!” she shouted, “to get up such a delicious rehearsal; the very thing I wanted. Your dress is quite ready; Clotilde shall dress you. You must talk Irish unceasingly, it will prove the extensive charity we propose--that we mean to take in _even the Irish_. It is a bold stroke, but this is the period for bold strokes.” And so she talked and hustled me into a room, and the children with me; and before I could turn round (I had not had a bit of breakfast that day, and was starving alive with the hunger) she had my cap off, and my hair down about my shoulders, and my gown off, and a bran new bright scarlet petticoat, that (saving your presence) was half a mile too short, cut into a scollop here, and a scollop there, and a bright blue patch tacked on it here, and a green one there; and the body of a gown that did not half fit, in the same style, with folds of _white muslin_ for shift-sleeves; and a bran new blue cloak, with such a beautiful pink bow in the back of the hood, and--the wickedness of her--to tare two or three slits in _that_. I was so bothered entirely, that I could not speak; and then the maid tossicated my hair, and stuck a bunch of shamroques over my ear, and placed one of the children in my arms (the _grawleen_ of a thing got hers about my neck in a minute;) and every now and then the Honorable Mrs. James would stop and clap her hands, and talk that outlandish gibberish to her maid.

“And what is it all for, my lady?” I asked, when the breath returned to my body, and the courage to my heart. “Now that you are done with me, I’d like to go back to myself, if you plaze, for I never did join the mummers in my own country, and I don’t like it, my lady.”

“But you must like it!” she exclaimed, “you _must_ like it--you are to be an Irish beggar-woman.”

“None of my breed was ever that ma’am.” I said, feeling as if a bolt of ice had run through my heart; but she never heeded me.

“And those are to be your children!”

“My _children_!” I repeated, “my children--oh, holy Father!--to even the like of that to _me_, and I came all over like a flash of fire. So with that she called me a fool, and repeated, it was all for the good of the country--to show the boundless nature of the ”Cranley Hurst Charity“--that it took in _even the Irish_. Oh, how my blood boiled; and I up and told her, that it was true the English now and again did a great deal for Ireland, and very good it was of them, for no doubt the Irish were a mighty troublesome people; and indeed, it was hard to think how any people could sit down quiet and cheerful that had only potatoes to eat, and rags to cover them. But if the English were good to them, they were always telling them of it, and they never gave their gratitude _time to grow_; and as for me, I had seen too much real misery in rags ever to make a play of it;” and then the tears would come and choke me almost, and I hid my face in the child’s lap; I was so ashamed of them tears. Now, would you believe, that instead of being angry, she got out her pencil, and wrote it every word down--and clapt her hands in delight, and said it was as fine as Mrs. Keeley’s humor and pathos--and begged of me to say it again, that I might be sure to say it right--_in public_--and when she found I would not make a mummer of myself, in what she called a _tablou_, she said she would pay me to do it. And I made answer, that what I could not do for _love_, I would never do for money, which surprised her. The English think they can get every thing done through their money. And, aunt, she got into such a state, poor lady, she cried, she wrung her hands, she declared she was ruined, she upbraided me, she said I had promised to do it--and all this time the blue flags were flying, and the band playing on the lawn, and a great flat, open carriage of a thing, waiting to take me and the children _for a show_--for a show through the place! think of that! and while she was debating with me, some one came in, and told her she was guilty of bribery--and while the band played, “See the Conquering Hero comes,” she went off into little hysterics--upbraiding me all the time. And in the thick of it my mistress entered, leaning on Mr. Francis’ arm. “Oh, cousin, cousin!” she screamed, “that horrid Irish woman will lose me my little election!”

The Hon. Mr. Francis seemed not much to mind her, but I heard him whisper my lady--

“_But I have gained mine!_”

-----

[7] “Picture”--“model.”

[8] Opposite.

* * * * *

=NOVEMBER.=

=BY MRS. JULIA C. R. DORR.=

Fie upon thee, November! thou dost ape
The airs of thy young sisters;--thou hast stolen
The witching smile of May to grace thy lip,
And April’s rare, capricious loveliness
Thou ’rt trying to put on! Dost thou not know
Such freaks do not become thee? Thou shouldst be
A staid and sober matron, quietly
Laying aside the follies of thy youth,
And robing thee in that calm dignity
Meet for the handmaid of the dying year.
But ah! thou art a sad coquette, although
The frost of age is on thee! Thou dost sport
With every idle breeze that wooeth thee;
And toy and frolick with the aged leaves
That flutter round thee; and unto the low,
Soft murmur of the brooklet, thou dost lend
A willing ear; and crowning thy pale brow
With a bright coronet, that thou hast woven
Of the stray sunbeams summer left behind.
Thou dost bend o’er it lovingly, and strive
To answer in a cadence clear and sweet
As springs first whispers! In the valleys now
The flowers have faded, and the singing-birds
Greet thee no longer when thou wanderest forth
Through the dim forest; and yet thou dost smile,
And skip as lightly o’er the withered grass,
As if thou hadst not decked thee in the robes
That thy dead sister’s wore in festal hours!

* * * * *

=SONNET.--MUTABILITY.=

=BY WM. ALEXANDER.=

Things changing show no permanency here;
Writ on Earth’s face is Mutability;
The surface of old hills wears fast away,
And the mutations of this globe appear
Inscribed upon her rocks, which still record
That present must into the future pass;
That Man and his frail works shall like the grass
So perish and decay. Moves he vain lord
And monarch of a mighty throng, to-day;
Flit by a few short summers, hies he back
Unto his primal clod, leaving no track
Behind. His storms--tell, where now are they?
Search for them in the herbage fresh and green,
Or find them in the flowers in humble valley seen.

* * * * *

=AMBITION’S BURIAL-GROUND.=

=BY FRANCIS DE HAES JANVIER.=

“A late letter from California states that the writer counted
six hundred new graves, in the course of his journey across the
Plains.”

Far away, beyond the western mountains, lies a lovely land,
Where bright streamlets, gently gliding, murmur over golden sand,
Where in valleys fresh and verdant, open grottoes old and hoar,
In whose deep recesses treasured, glitter heaps of golden ore--
Lies a lovely land where Fortune long hath hidden priceless store.

But the path which leadeth thither, windeth o’er a dreary plain,
And the pilgrim must encounter weary hours of toil and pain,
Ere he reach those verdant vallies--ere he grasp the gold beneath;
Ay, the path is long and dreary, and disease, with poisonous breath,
Lurks around, and many a pilgrim finds it but the way to death.

Ay, the path is long and dreary--but thou canst not miss the way,
For, defiant of its dangers, thousands throng it night and day,
Pouring westward, as a river rolleth on in countless waves--
Old and young, alike impatient--all alike Ambition’s slaves--
Pressing, panting, pining, dying--strewing all the way with graves!

Thus, alas! Ambition ever leadeth men through burial plains--
Trooping on, in sad procession, melancholy funeral trains!
Hope stands smiling on the margin, but beyond are gloomy fears--
One by one, dark Disappointment wastes the castles Fancy rears--
All the air is filled with sighing--all the way with graves and
tears!

Wouldst thou seek a wreath of glory on the ensanguined battle-field?
Know that to a single victor, thousands in subjection yield;
Thousands who with pulses beating high as his, the strife essayed--
Thousands who with arms as valiant, wielded each his shining blade--
Thousands who in heaps around him, vanquished, in the dust are laid!

Vanquished! while above the tumult, Victory’s trump, with swelling
surge,
Sounds for him a song of triumph--sounds for them a funeral dirge!
E’en the laurel wreath he bindeth on his brow, their life-blood
stains--
Sighs, and tears, and blood commingling, make the glory that he
gains--
And unknown, sleeps many a hero, on Ambition’s burial plains!

Or, the purple field despising--deeming war’s red glory shame--
Wouldst thou, in seclusion, gather greener laurels, purer fame?
Stately halls Ambition reareth, all along her highway side--
Halls of learning, halls of science, temples where the arts abide--
Wilt thou here secure a garland woven by scholastic pride?

Ah! within those cloisters gloomy, dimly wastes the midnight oil--
Days of penury and sorrow alternate with nights of toil!
Countless crowds those portals enter, breathing aspirations high--
Youthful, ardent, self-reliant--each believing triumph nigh;
Countless crowds grow wan and weary, and within those portals die!

Ay, of all who enter thither, few obtain the proffered prize,
While unblest, unwept, unhonored, undeveloped genius dies!
Genius which had else its glory on remotest ages shown--
Beamed through History’s deathless pages, glowed on canvas, lived in
stone--
Yet along Ambition’s way-side, fills it many a grave unknown!

But, perchance thou pinest only for those grottoes old and hoar,
In whose deep recesses hidden, Fortune heaps her glittering store:
Enter, then, the dreary pathway--but, above each lonely mound
Lightly tread, and pause to ponder--for, like those who slumber
round,
Thou mayst also lie forgotten on Ambition’s burial ground!

* * * * *

=REVIEW OF NEW BOOKS.=

_The Upper Ten Thousand. By Charles Astor Bristed. Stringer &
Townsend, Broadway._

A very clever book, by a rather clever man. We learn it is the most popular _brochure_ of the season, nor do we wonder at it, for it has all the elements to procure it a fleeting popularity--pungency, personality, impudence, insolence, ill-nature, satire and slang, malignity and mendacity--every thing, in short, likely to tickle the palates of all classes, to pander to the worst tastes, please the worst passions, and gratify the self-adulation of all readers.

It is not to be denied that the descriptions are racy and pointed; that some caste-affectations are skillfully satirized; some local absurdities happily shown up; and that there are some points of humor, and even some sound criticisms, mixed up with much grossness, much ill taste, most disgusting egotism, and personality the most broad, brutal, and malign.

As to Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s denial of the applicability of Harry Benson, alias Harry Masters, in this edition, to himself, and of all personality or individual satire throughout the pages of the work--he may say what he will, but no one will believe him. An author who, in depicting a fictitious hero, chooses to identify that hero with himself, to the extent of accurately describing the houses of his own grandfather and father-in-law, with their respective bearings, distances and situations in the city, as those of the same kinsmen of his hero--of attributing to him well-known incidents of his own life, such as lending money to a dissipated and debauched young ex-lieutenant of the English army, and then dunning his half heartbroken father for the paltry amount, with rowdy letters, which he subsequently published in the newspapers--buying a negro slave, in order to liberate him and gain Buncombe, as it is called, by making capital of his philanthropy in the public journals--and, lastly, ascribing to his fictitious personage his own domestic grievances, and his own quarrels at a watering-place--all matters of actual notoriety--has no earthly right to complain if the public say he has made himself his own hero.

Nor when he describes invidiously, and most ill-naturedly depicts well-known persons of “our set,” as he chooses to denominate it--though we greatly doubt his belonging even to it, trifling, ridiculous and contemptible as it is--so accurately that neither the persons caricatured, nor any who know them, can avoid at a glance recognizing their identity, has he any reason to wonder if his wit be rewarded with the cowhide. When we compare Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s positive denial of any personality, with his broad and brutal delineation of the _Hon. Pompey Whitey_, editor of a New York Socialist, Anti-Rent, Abolition, and Ghost-believing journal, ex-member of Congress--we say _brutal_, because in it he lifts the veil of domestic life, and touches upon matters which, whether true or false, the public has no right to hear of--we know not which most to wonder at, the audacity, or the shortsightedness, of the falsehood.

The attempt at disguise is so feeble that we doubt not the prototype, either of Pompey Whitey or of the Catholic Archbishop Feegrave, could readily obtain exemplary damages from any jury, if he should think it worth the while to break a butterfly upon the wheel.

To show the perfect identity of the persons Henry Masters and Charles Astor Bristed, we shall proceed to quote two or three passages, which are, by the way, singularly good specimens both of the style of the book, with its flippancy and smartness, its insolence and egotism, its blended capability of amusing and disgusting--the revolting effect it must have on every high judgment and right thinking mind, and the power of entertaining the fashionable mob, who delight in scandalizing and abusing their dearest friends, and the vulgar mob, who are always dying to hear something about the fashionables, be it right or wrong.

* * * * *

_Mr. Charles Astor Bristed’s money concerns with ex-Lieutenant Law of the British army!_

“At that moment Clara appeared, in a dressing-gown also; but hers was a tricolor pattern, lined with blue silk.

“‘A very handsome young couple, certainly,’ thought the Englishman, ‘but how theatrically got up? I wonder if they always go about in the country dressed this way!’ And he thought of the sensation, the _mouvemens divers_ that such a costume would excite among the guests of the paternal mansion at Alderstave.