Chapter V (2)

“Trembling, scarcely daring to think it all a dream, I drew aside the curtains to look around, and beheld my husband standing before me. He was frightfully pale and haggard, his eyes were dim and bloodshot, and startled at his appearance, and for a moment half forgetting the dreadful secret I had learned, I threw my arms around him, and drew his face down to mine. A deeper shade passed over his brow, and he sighed heavily as he pressed his lips to my cheek. I could not return the kiss. I could not speak. Perhaps he did not notice my silence, for in a few moments he told me that he had received letters requiring his immediate presence in France, and had made preparations to leave in a few hours. Some more words he spoke, but I knew not what they were, and then clasping me convulsively to his heart, he bade me try to sleep again, and left me.

“Sleep—oh mockery! What had I to do with sleep or rest, while I bore within me the blight of a sleepless wo! How may I tell of the weary days that succeeded? At first there were hours of frantic misery—tears of wild and passionate despair. Then came the silent sorrow—the dull heart-aching that so slowly and surely wears out the life. Had I loved Gerald less, I might have called pride to my aid—I should have felt resentment or jealousy, but judging him from the fullness of my forgiving heart, I had none of these emotions, which might have nerved me to forget my wrongs. Once after that fatal night I saw Leonore at the Opera, where I had been carried by the solicitations of my friends. She was fearfully changed. The rich fullness of her form was gone, the bloom had faded from her cheek, and her eyes were dim, as if she too had wept tears of vain sorrow. She sat among her gay and splendid companions, silent, motionless, abstracted.

“That night I returned home to find a new affliction. Lights were flitting to and fro, and the servants avoided me as I entered—for none cared to tell me the sad tidings. Lord Bellamont had returned home violently ill, and when I entered his bed-chamber, I found the physician already there, striving to rouse him from the stupor into which he had fallen. Sorrow and sickness had written deep lines on that dear face, and even amid the weakness of delirium he seemed to battle with the strong heart’s agony. Seven days I sat beside his pillow. I faltered not—I wearied not. Seven nights I saw the twilight steal over the hills, and the moon fade from the sky, and I slept not. Naught but a love like mine could have endured these torturing vigils. My whole being resolved itself into one intense thought of him—one fervent prayer that he might not go down in the noonday of his life and beauty to be a dweller with the dead. For myself—my resolution was taken. I would no longer be the living mildew on his brightest hopes—the fetter that bound him from all he loved best. Ah, woman’s heart is strong, and He who formed it for love and sorrow, alone knows how much it will endure ere it break.

“Religion forbade that I should for his sake give up this mortal life, else I would willingly have died, but I could give up the _life_ of _life_—sacrifice all that made earth joyous or beautiful—break the tie that bound him to misery and to me. I could leave him. Poorly as he had requited my love, he was still the chief pleasure and glory of my existence. Even then to hear his voice, to watch the return of health to his enfeebled frame, to gaze upon his face in silence and unheeded, was the sole happiness left me, and that, even that I gave up for his sake. Ah, Gerald, could I know that when free thy heart turned back once, only once, after the lost one, I would not regret the sacrifice. Alas! it was vain—all in vain. Let me hasten on, lest my brain grow wild again with these fearful memories.

* * * * *

“My preparations were soon made. Fortunately for my purpose, one of the servants had some relatives who were to emigrate to America, and I had at his request, supplied them with the requisite means. I sent for him, and with a calmness at which I even then wondered, I told him I wished to send under his care a young friend, whom I requested him to treat with respect and attention, as grief for the loss of a friend had made him slightly insane. He promised to take the charge, and appointed the place where I should meet him, suspecting nothing of my design. Why should he? Too well had that fatal secret been kept; my nearest friends knew nothing of what had passed.

“The parting hour came too quickly. I was calm, for there was neither hope nor fear in my heart. I only knew that I must leave Gerald, and what else remained to me in life. I stained my face till I was dark as a gipsy, and cut off the long, silken tresses of which I was once so proud. Then clothing myself in the garments of my page, I secreted about my person a small amount of money, and taking a bundle of clothes in order to sustain my assumed character, I was ready to depart. At the threshold of the door I paused, and unable to go without seeing him once more, I stole softly to the room where my husband lay sleeping; I knelt by his couch, over which the moonlight fell brightly, and gazed into his face with that earnest look which a drowning man might give of earth and sky ere the blue waters closed over him forever. As I gazed, the sleeper stirred, a smile passed over his face, and he spoke my name. That one word unnerved me. Tears rose to my eyes, and hope, which I had deemed long since dead, sent her low, thrilling whisper through my heart. For a few moments I was swayed with conflicting emotions, as visions of past days rose before me. It was not long. Again came the thought of the last few months of sorrow, and I could no longer doubt. Rising with a new resolution, I went to the table that stood near and wrote a few lines—the transcript of my heart’s despair.

“‘Farewell, Gerald—_I know all_; I can no longer endure to be the cause of wo to you, whom I love far more than life. Ere you read this I shall be gone from you forever. Be happy, for I shall never return from that last resting-place to cast a shadow over your soul. God knows I blame you not. It was sufficient of blessedness for me that I was worn a little while on your heart, though I be now cast aside like a withered weed to perish.’

“Folding the letter, I laid it on the pillow. Still he slept, but the smile had faded from his face, and I bent over him and pressed on his lips one last kiss—the seal of my sacrifice. The touch disturbed him, and I paused to catch the words that he spoke, as he turned restlessly on his pillow—the last words I might hear from him. It came—the word was ‘Leonore.’

“Silently, as if that word had been a curse to cling to me through life, I turned and left him. Without a pause I tracked the mazes of the garden and the park—heedless, tearless, miserable. As I came near to the Park Lodge, lights were glancing in the cottage, and a carriage stood at the door. The children were already seated in it, and soon the parents came to the door, and as I leaned exhausted against a tree, I saw the parting, and heard the sound of low sobbings, of blessings, and of prayers. Alas! I had departed, unblest, unwept. I know not what spell was in the sound, but in a moment I was collected and firm, and entering the carriage I wrapped myself in my cloak, and as they asked me no questions, we rode in silence from the spot which contained all that was dear to me on earth. Morning was breaking before we reached the vessel, whose sails were spread, and her deck crowded with passengers. A short time sufficed to place us among them, and in a few moments the anchor was weighed, and the vessel dropped down the river.

“After this there is a long, long period of which I remember nothing. The various incidents of our voyage and our arrival in the new world, passed before me like the vague and changing scenes of a dream. The necessity for action taken away, my whole being sunk into a sort of apathy, and heart and mind seemed palsied. From this state I was roused by finding that preparations were being made to send me back to England, and a vague horror seized me at the thought, though I had no recollection of the past. With the cunning of insanity, I made no objection to the plan, but one day, unnoticed, I rambled away from the village, and for many days wandered on through the woods without aim or motive, save the vague fear of something behind. I remember reaching at last the top of a high hill, amid a violent storm of thunder and lightning, and there night closed around me, dark and mirky, and beneath the pouring rain I lay down on a bare rock and slept. There I was found next morning by the Indian chief whose wigwam has from that time been my home. A long sickness which ensued reduced me to the brink of the grave, and for many weeks I was insensible to the care of my kind nurses, but their simple skill and constant attention at last triumphed over the violence of disease, and I awoke to reason and—wo is me—to a recollection of the long hidden past.

* * * * *

“It was Gerald—it was my husband! Merciful heaven! after so many years of painful separation did we meet again!

“I had been sick and weak for some days, and my Indian father had led me forth one sunny morning into the green old woods, where I reclined, concealed by flowering shrubs, upon the mossy trunk of an old tree. Suddenly we heard the tramp of horses, and winding along the narrow path came a band of armed men, and their leader was Lord Bellamont. His face was stern and pale, and there lay the weight of years which were not his, in the thin, gray locks which floated over his brow; yet at the first glance I knew him, and rising almost unconsciously, I followed after him. Mile after mile I went on unheeding, and my kind protector accompanied me without a question, for he saw that a great purpose nerved my feeble frame. When the noontide heat had passed, we reached the top of a small hill, and in an open level plain below, we saw hostile armies arrayed for battle. One long hour I watched the waving of that snow-white plume, hither and thither among the soldiers, till at last it was struck down. Horribly distinct even now is the agony of that moment, when my straining eye was fixed on that spot with an intensity which through the confused mêlée of the fight never for one instant wavered. When the course of the conflict swept the armies further down the plain, I rose and went to the spot. I knew him—ghastly and bleeding as he was, and God gave me strength to know that he was dying, and yet to endure.

* * * * *

“A few hours after he opened his eyes, and the pain of his wounds seemed relieved. I had laid him on my own bed, and was kneeling beside him. ‘Pray for me,’ he said, faintly, ‘for I must die, and there is guilt on my soul.’ I bowed my head lower, and tears fell from my hot and aching eyes. As I listened to that well-remembered voice, all the wild joy of our first love came rushing back over my soul, and over-powered by the recollection, I fainted.

“When I recovered, they told me that the missionary we had sent for had arrived and was with Gerald. I crept silently into the room, and stood concealed behind a screen, which had been arranged to protect the sufferer from the draught of air. He was speaking in a low, mournful tone, but I heard every word distinctly. ‘It was a wild, and sad, but not a guilty love,’ he said. ‘My own heart would have scorned me, had I brought shame on the young head I have bowed even to the grave with a weight of sorrow too heavy to be borne. I looked upon Ella in her young beauty, and strove to forget the dark, spiritual eyes of Leonore. We were wedded—Ella and I—and when I spoke the bridal vows, it was with a heart as pure as if she whose destiny had been so fatally linked with mine, was what she now is, an angel in heaven, I loved her; but that hopeless and ideal passion was only part of my remembrance of the beautiful scenes of sunny Italy; and while those sad thoughts chastened all present joy, they interfered not with the love I bore for Ella. Perhaps, had I understood better the deep, thoughtful nature of my gentle and joyous bride, I had after a while forgotten Leonore. But, wrapped in painful musings, I heeded not the manifestations of her sensitive nature, and regarded her only as the play-fellow of my thoughtless youth—too airy and brilliant to understand my saddened heart.’ He paused for a few moments, and then continued, in an agitated tone, ‘We met once more—Leonore and myself—oh, that I had died ere that evening. I knew not of her presence until I heard her singing a plaintive melody, and before it ended, she met my impassioned gaze. I saw the thrill of agony that shook her frame, and when she left the room, I followed; for the sight of her suffering maddened me. Then were wild words spoken—words which left lightning traces on more than one heart and brain. There were tears which seared as they fell—there was one long kiss, when our two souls rushed into one, and fell back, crushed and bleeding, from that fearful embrace. There was one wild, despairing farewell, and we were parted forever. The next morning I left England, and for months wandered over the Continent like a spirit of unrest, till at length wearied and sick with that heart-sickness which no art can cure, I returned home to die. Ella was absent when I reached my home. I remember being seized with a sudden fainting as I entered the room, and then all is a vague dream, till I awoke one morning as from sleep, and found myself weak as an infant. Then, as I slowly recovered, I first became aware of the exceeding strength of woman’s love. My wife, who, like an angel of mercy, had watched over my sick bed, whose gentle and patient tenderness had endured all things without a complaining word; oh, my father, spare me the recital of what followed—she knew all—she left me, that I might once more be free; she hoped I might be happy.’

“For a long time he was silent, and when he spoke again, his voice was feeble and broken, and he wiped the large drops from his brow.

“‘There is but one scene more. I sat alone in my deserted house, and prayed to die, for my grief was too heavy to be borne. Suddenly a carriage drove to the door, and a letter was handed me. It contained but few words, but those few I can never forget. ‘The time is come when without guilt thou mayest look upon me. The love which men give the dead, even the living may forgive. Now, when passed away from thee forever—now only may I say—_I love thee!_’’

“‘I descended to the carriage, and they drove me to the door of a large mansion, where I was met by General St. Clair. His face was sad but stern, as he seized my arm, and simply saying it had been the last request of Leonore, he led me to a darkened room, and left me. On a couch near the window lay a form covered with a heavy pall. I raised it, and saw Leonore reclining there in the perfect beauty of repose. I knelt beside her, and pressing her cold hand to my aching heart, spoke her name. But the dark lashes moved not on her cheek—never more might those glorious eyes flash forth their welcome at my coming—never more would those pale lips open with words of greeting. She was dead, and the guilt of a double murder lay upon my soul.’

“Again there was a deep silence, and I heard the slow, labored breathing of the dying man. The priest bent over him, saying ‘Son, there is mercy for the guiltiest—despair not.’

“‘I do not despair,’ replied he, fervently speaking with effort. ‘The time for that passed away with the hour when calmed and humbled I knelt at the altar of my God, whose dealings with me even then I understood not, and consecrated my life to his service.’

“‘Thine hour is come. Son, art thou ready to depart?’

“‘There was one hope,’ he replied, faintly, ‘one last hope that my fatal life might end in peace. But God hath ordered otherwise, and it is well.’

“‘What was that hope?’ asked the priest.

“‘I heard not long since that Ella was not dead. That she escaped to this new world. I hoped to find her, and solace her for years of suffering by my deep devotion. Oh, my God!’ he added, suddenly clasping his hands together, ‘why couldst thou not grant this last prayer of a broken heart. To see her, to hear her say that I am forgiven—to die upon her breast—’

“I could restrain myself no longer, and rushed forward, exclaiming, ‘Gerald, my love, my husband! behold me here, loving thee, forgiving thee, even as when for thy sake, I left thy country and thy home!’ I sunk, half kneeling, on the floor beside the bed. He gazed on me a moment in speechless wonder, and then, with the supernatural strength of life’s last effort, lifted himself from the pillows, and clasping his arms around me, drew me close, close to his heart. Oh, the blissful repose, the unmingled ecstasy of that moment. Forgotten were my wrongs and my sorrow—the agony behind, and the desolation before—the coming and the bygone despair.

“Closer and closer grew his embrace, and his face touched mine. ‘My wife, my bride—receive the last kiss of him who is now wholly thine!’ I raised my head, and his cold lips pressed mine. I felt his form sink slowly beneath me, and the clinging arms relax their hold. I knew that the spirit had fled, and thanked God for that one hour of bliss which left me alone again on earth.”

Here the manuscript ceased suddenly, and though some words had been added, apparently at a later date, the hand of the writer must have been weak indeed, for they were illegible.

* * * * *

A CASE OF GOLD FEVER.

BY JOHN JONES.

[SEE ENGRAVING.]

Mr. Edwards Perley was not a man of wealth, although, at different periods of his life, he had been the owner of property valued at from one hundred thousand dollars to half a million. But this property being either in Texas land scrip, South Carolina gold mines, Western town lots, Mulberry trees, Maine wild lands, or other people’s promises to pay, Mr. Perley had never been able to realize what was so nearly a splendid fortune within his grasp. The revolution in Texas destroyed the value of Mexican grants, in which he had become largely interested, and the sale of square leagues of the “best cotton land in the world,” not only ceased suddenly, but the bills received for previous sales came back upon him dishonored. This was a sad damper on the golden hopes of the enthusiastic Mr. Edwards Perley. For a couple of years he had been selling land scrip from Bangor to New Orleans; and had been out on the Red River twice, during the time, with a surveying company, whose business it was to locate the little league-square lots. On these expeditions, he had become rather intimately acquainted with alligators and ague, and, on his return, deemed it no more than prudent to keep himself quiet until he regained his complexion, and the healthy roundness of his limbs and features. Mr. Perley worked hard in this matter; but it suited his temperament. He was no plodding genius, content to count sixpences first, then shillings, and so on until dollars began to appear. Not he. In that slow way to wealth he could not walk.

Just as Mr. Perley, who valued his property at hundreds of thousands of dollars in the present, and looked upon it as possessing an annually duplicating quality—just as Mr. Perley had selected a beautiful site for building a palace in New York, and had decided upon the plans submitted by a distinguished architect, the troubles in Texas destroyed the value of his scrip, and down he went to ruin like a collapsed balloon; and dozens of his confiding friends went with him.

But Mr. Edwards Perley had too much native buoyancy of character, too much hope in life, to be put down by ill-natured fortune after this summary manner. In the wreck and ruin in which he was involved, he managed to get hold of a plank on which to float ashore. With a few hundred dollars, which he had contrived to save, under a self-enacted “homestead exemption” law, he opened an exchange office in Wall street, on a very small scale. Though his business operations scarcely reached, for a time, the aggregate of hundreds per day, there were not a few of his acquaintances who believed his transactions to be limited only by thousands; and they were indebted to him for their ideas on the subject. Give a man the reputation of doing a large business, and business will be sure to come. So it was in the case of Edwards Perley. Talking and boasting were of great use to him. In a few years he was getting along, as the saying is, “swimmingly.” But, like the man who, after creeping along for a week in a stage-coach, grows impatient if the cars do not make thirty miles an hour instead of twenty, Mr. Perley, as soon as affairs became prosperous with him again, grew dissatisfied with what appeared a slow accumulation, and began to look around him for some good speculation. He was not long in finding what he sought.

But it is not our purpose to follow Mr. Perley through the various stages of his Carolina gold and Morus Multicaulis fevers; nor to minutely detail his operations in Western lands and town lots. As it had been in Texas land scrip, so it proved in all these. The visionary speculator, who sought wealth for its own sake, and was too eager for its possession to be willing to give back to society an equivalent of useful acts, after running a wild course for a few years, again tripped and fell. This time he found it much more difficult to recover himself. But with an elasticity of feeling that few possess, he went hopefully to work, and by dint of magnifying his own peculiar abilities, and his knowledge of business, induced a shrewd, calculating Yankee, who had a few thousand dollars, to join him in business.

For a year or two, Perley was content to move on slowly. After that, he grew ambitious and restless again. The fire had not burned out; it was only covered for a while. Of Jenkins, his partner, he had no very high opinion. He considered him a mere plodding genius, whose mind was in no way suggestive. He would do for a well beaten track, but for enterprise he was nobody. So he thought. But Jenkins had rather more shrewdness than his partner gave him credit for. He belonged to the class of men who think a great deal before they act, and who, therefore, rarely make mistakes in business matters. He understood Perley “like a book,” and was, therefore, prepared to counteract, judiciously, all his efforts that were not wisely directed. Reactions of this kind becoming, as business grew into importance, more and more frequent, Mr. Perley felt restless under them, and often lamented that affairs were not entirely under his own control.

This was the aspect of things when the golden news from California startled the most sober-minded with its tale of wonder. Perley believed every word of the first account, while Jenkins coolly took the liberty of doubting the whole story.

“It’s preposterous,” said he.

“But look at the official nature of the intelligence,” urged Perley.

“Officials can lie as well as other people. It’s all a speculation to get settlers out there. Don’t tell me of gold scattered about as thick as jack-stones.”

Perley maintained the other side of the question, and soon had the satisfaction of pushing most abundant confirmations into the face of his partner.

“Well,” said Jenkins, “what of it? Suppose there is gold there? It doesn’t make me any better off.”

“But it will make you better off, if you seize the advantage now offered to every energetic and truly enterprising man.”

Mr. Jenkins opened his eyes rather wider than usual; then shrugging his shoulders, he answered:

“My business creed is—‘Let well enough alone.’”

“And mine,” replied Perley, “is to seize upon every advantage that offers.”

At this point the conversation was interrupted, and as neither party, for good reasons, thought it advisable to renew it, the subject did not come up between them for several days. During this time Perley could think of little else but California, and the golden harvest it presented; and the more he thought of it, the more fully satisfied was he that an immense fortune might speedily be realized by trading in that region. What was in the way, when blankets sold for ten dollars each, a pair of boots for double that sum, flour for sixty dollars a barrel, and every thing else in proportion?

“The fact is, Jenkins,” said he, renewing the subject not many days after the first conversation, “we must make some of this hay while the sun is shining.”

“The golden hay, you mean.”

“I do.”

“How are we to make it?”

“By going sickle in hand to the field, and reaping with the rest.”

“Suppose the field should be reaped before we get there?”

“That cannot be. The gold region is a thousand miles in length and several hundreds in breadth. There is enough for all who will go for the next ten years.”

“I must beg leave to doubt that,” coolly replied Jenkins. “It’s all a feverish imagination. Gold dazzles the eyes and keeps men from seeing in a clear light.”

“But, my dear man,” said Perley, “look at the facts and judge for yourself. Take Governor Mason’s statement.”

“Very well. Suppose we believe all the governor says, what then? Why, the man who finds an ounce of gold a day has to pay about sixteen prices for the necessaries of life, and, so is no better off than the man here who earns a dollar in the same time. The only way in which he can accumulate gold is to live like a savage.”

“But, I wouldn’t go to _dig_ gold!”

“Go! Surely you do not think seriously of going?”

“I certainly do.”

“I’m sorry to hear you say that, Mr. Perley. We are doing exceedingly well and our business is growing. Last year it doubled, and is in a fair way of doubling itself again this year.”

“But what is such a rate of increase to the golden gains that are now offered? Nothing—nothing.”

Mr. Jenkins could not talk as fluently as his partner, and was in this instance, as he had been once or twice before, silenced but not convinced.

Daily there came some fresh intelligence touching the gold deposits in our new possessions, and the note of preparation for a speedy flight was sounded in all directions. The newspapers teemed with exciting statements, and every man you met in the street, on ’change, or in the social circle, had something to say about California. Daily the fever increased, and particularly with Mr. Edwards Perley, until he began to be slightly delirious. But, though the epidemic raged all around him, Mr. Jenkins remained calm and cool. If any one talked to him about California, he shook his head with an emphasis that left no doubt as to the state of his mind.

“My California is here,” he sometimes replied. “Wait for ten years, and see then who is best off. If gold is so abundant as they say it is, and obtained so easily, I shall benefit as well as those who dig for it. ‘Come easy, go easy,’ you know. The man who picks up a pound of gold wont value it as much as he who earns it by the sweat of his brow, and will part with it far more easily. So, after all, the gold will flow from the hands of those who gather it freely, through all the channels of trade, and we who continue in the pursuit of useful employments, will be likely to reap the most abundant harvest.”

“All this,” Perley said, “was little better than nonsense. ‘Give me a bird in the hand, and you may have two in the bush.’”

“Just my own sentiment,” returned Jenkins. “I have the bird in the hand here, I can’t let it go for two in the bush away out on the Pacific.”

Still the fever went on increasing.

“Mr. Jenkins,” said Perley, as he was about leaving the store one afternoon, “I wish you would drop down to my house this evening, I want to have some talk with you.”

“Very well,” replied the partner. So about eight o’clock he called down.

“I want to see you in order to have a more serious talk about California,” said Perley. “I am satisfied that the subject has not had in your mind the consideration it demands, and that if you saw it as I do, you would not be so insensible to the extraordinary advantages that are now offered.”

Jenkins felt in no mood for argument or controversy, though his mind was as clear as a bell, and his purpose as immovable as ever. So he bent his head in a listening attitude, and looked up from under his drooping eyelashes, willing to listen, but firmly resolved not to be started from the rock upon which he had fixed himself.

The first proposition made by Perley, after eloquently setting forth the advantage of turning all their capital and energy into this new field, was to charter a vessel, put their whole stock of goods on board, and take a flight to San Francisco. But the wonderful profit to be made did not in the least tempt his phlegmatic, long-headed partner, who was beginning to calculate the amount of advantage he might gain in the approaching dissolution of co-partnership—for to that he saw it would come.

“You will not go,” said Perley, on receiving a positive negative to this proposal.

“No, not for twice the inducement. I am not going to risk my life, nor abridge my comfort, in a wild enterprise like this, when I am doing well at home.”

Perley leaned back, looked to the ceiling, and mused for some moments.

“Very well,” said he, “if you are unwilling to assume so great a risk, let me go out with an adventure, and you remain at home.”

But Jenkins was growing wider awake every moment. Having once entertained the idea of getting rid of his partner, and coming into the undivided advantage of his business, he had no notion of agreeing to any thing short of that. So he affirmed, in his quiet way, that he would have nothing to do with the gold bubble in any form.

“Then we must dissolve,” said Perley, half fretfully. He was restive under the check-rein of his cool-tempered partner.

“As you like about that,” was imperturbably answered. It would have taken an eye well skilled in the signs of human emotions to have detected, in the immovable face of the calculating Yankee, the smallest indication of pleasure. Yet his pleasure was great.

The proposition thus made and agreed to, was forthwith carried out. As Perley was determined upon a dissolution at all hazards, and, as his partner affected entire indifference, the odds were altogether against him, and he was compelled to accept of any arrangement that suited the other. So excited was he about California, and so eager to get off, that he accepted, as his half of the business, a portion of old, and, to a great extent, unsaleable stock, and shipped it by the first vessel that sailed for Monterey and San Francisco. Its real value in the New York market was about five thousand dollars; its estimated value in the settlement ten thousand, and its prospective value as an adventure at the gold diggings fifty thousand. Above this, three thousand dollars in cash were paid to Mr. Perley. Two thousand were left for the support of his family, and one thousand he took with him.

Three weeks after the vessel in which he had shipped his goods sailed, the impatient Mr. Perley, who neither thought nor dreamed of any thing else but gold, and who already saw himself surrounded with heaps of the precious lumps and scales from Feather River, left New York in a steamer for Chagres. As to what Chagres was really like, and as to the real nature of the journey across the Isthmus, Mr. Perley had no correct notion. He had thought of a town with comfortable accommodations, and when those around him talked of canoes and mules as the means of transportation to Panama, something elegant, like a Venetian gondola, or a richly caparisoned animal, was present to his imagination. A few mud huts, with their naked inhabitants, was all he found, upon being disgorged, with some two hundred others, in the rain, to join a congregation of nearly a hundred others, who had arrived on the day before, and who were awaiting the return of canoes from Cruces.

Mr. Perley, like most men of his class, never gave as much attention to little things as prudence required. The man who couldn’t waste time and precious thought on so insignificant an article as a linchpin, was about as wise as Mr. Perley in many of the affairs of life. His friends had nearly all asked him in regard to his outfit.

“Oh, that is all right!” or, “I’ve taken good care of that,” he would unhesitatingly answer. Yet, on reaching Chagres, he had neither tea, coffee, sugar, bread nor meat in his possession. He had money, and this he knew to be all powerful in procuring supplies of any kind; at least, such had been his experience in life. But he was about coming into some new experiences. Neither food nor lodgings were to be had from the natives at Chagres, for “love or money.” Such a sudden influx of Yankee gold diggers was a thing altogether unanticipated and unprovided for, and those who came had, therefore, to provide for themselves.

A week was spent at Chagres before Mr. Perley was lucky enough to procure passage up the river in a canoe, with one of the five trunks of merchandise he had brought with him in the steamer—the remaining four were left behind, with instructions to have them sent over to Panama as quickly as possible. He never saw or heard of them afterward! During this week the poor man nearly starved, for all he could get to eat was an occasional hard biscuit from some fellow passenger. It rained nearly the whole time, and night and day he was in the open air. Wet to the skin, when affirmed of Mr. Perley, was about as literally true as ever the saying was or will be. In this plight, with a fever of rather a more serious character than the gold fever, our adventurer embarked in a canoe, for the privilege of sitting in one end of which, or lying flat on the bottom, for three or four days, he paid the moderate price of fifty dollars, and then thought himself lucky. For a hundred dollars more he was to share the scanty food of his traveling companion, who, wiser than he, had more accurately counted the cost, and prepared himself for the contingencies of the journey.

On the day after leaving Chagres, the sun came out from beneath a veil of clouds, and poured its hot rays upon the head of Mr. Perley. Under this he wilted down like a leaf before the fire. On the second day he was so ill that he could not hold up his head; and by the time he reached Cruces, instead of being in a condition to take his place on a mule’s back, he was utterly prostrate in body, and delirious with fever. Seeing this, and considering him as good as dead, his companion, after possessing himself of his money and trunk, gave the natives who had brought them up twenty dollars to take him back to Chagres in their canoe.

When distinctly conscious once more, Mr. Perley found himself on shipboard, with the rush of waters around him. He was as weak as an infant in body, and almost as weak as an infant in mind. Ideas came confusedly, and faded ere he was able to separate the tangled mass. In a few days he was enough recovered to connect his thoughts, and to call up events to the period of his embarking from Chagres. Beyond that, his memory did not serve him. He soon after became apprized of the fact that he was on his way to New York, and might expect to be there in less than a week.

On arriving at home, Mr. Perley was as one who had risen from the grave. News of his illness, with a prophecy of his certain death, had reached New York by a previous arrival. Slowly recovered the disappointed man, and as health came flowing once more along his veins, his thoughts were again turned toward El Dorado, whither he had sent an adventure, and from which, he yet hoped to realize a splendid fortune. Of his five trunks and the money he had taken with him no traces remained. Even he had some pretty well grounded doubts of ever seeing them again; and in this matter his doubts only foreshadowed the truth.

A month after Mr. Perley’s return to New York, he was preparing to start again, although thousands and thousands had gone before, and were choking up all the avenues of communication to the Pacific and along the coast. His friends urged him not to risk his life again; but his goods were on the way to San Francisco, and here was his only chance to realize a fortune. So he got himself ready for another flight. But just as he was on the point of starting, the vessel in which he had shipped his goods returned to port, so much damaged by a storm as to be unfit to weather the Cape. When she put to sea she was scarcely equal to the voyage, and insurance could only be effected at very high rates. A heavy leak had damaged, more or less, a great portion of the cargo, among which were the goods of Mr. Perley. This damage, so far as Mr. Perley was concerned, was assessed at one thousand dollars, and paid. The balance of his goods were sold off at auction, in a spirit of recklessness engendered by a temporary despondency, for two thousand dollars more. And thus ended Mr. Perley’s California expedition!

Disappointed, disheartened and almost beside himself, the unfortunate man wandered about the city in a state of irresolution for a month or two; while his old partner, the cool, shrewd Yankee, was rejoicing over the fine business which had come exclusively into his hands, and saying to himself—“It’s an ill wind that blows nobody any good.” At last Mr. Perley’s organ of Hope became again active; and, as intelligence from the gold region came with so many drawbacks, he concluded to try his fortune once more at home, and so, with the three thousand dollars that remained, started his old exchange business in Wall street, where he may now be seen counting his uncurrent money, and sighing over the smallness of his gains.

* * * * *

THE OLD WOODEN CHURCH ON THE GREEN.

BY HENRY MORFORD.

They are all laying hands on the things I loved best,
They are all closing up my dim past,
They are all heaping sods upon Memory’s breast,
Till but little is left me at last;
But I sometimes look back to the things of old time,
And I think of the things that have been,
And the memory comes, like a nursery rhyme,
Of the Old Wooden Church on the Green.

It is little and old in this plentiful age,
It has neither a steeple nor bell,
It is bowing its roof to the pitiless rage
Of the storms it has battled so well;
It is guiltless of glass, and the paint’s washed away
In the storm and the sunshine, I ween,
For no kind hand attends, for this many a day,
To the Old Wooden Church on the Green.

Beneath the mossed roof the small swallow-nests hang,
And the bees hive and swarm in the eaves,
And the loosed shutters swing with a sorrowful clang
When the wind through the old church-yard grieves;
Neglect and decay are around the old walls,
Dark ruin looks over the scene,
Oh, sad is the sound of the lone foot that falls,
Round the Old Wooden Church on the Green.

Yet I’d rather to-day they should crumble away,
Earth’s proudest and loftiest pile,
Built up as a mock for neglect and decay,
To stand while the broad heavens smile—
Than tear off one shred from its moss-eaten roof,
Or call it the shabby and mean,
For we’re all, when grown old and neglected enough
Like the Old Wooden Church on the Green.

And I hear the sweet voices that chanted within,
Oh! many a summer ago,
Still chanting the hymn when the eve closes in,
Though they echo from heaven, I know;
And I sit in the pew where they sat by my side,
And as back in the shadows I lean,
I hear the low prayers that echoed and died
In the Old Wooden Church on the Green.

I will weep when it falls, I will smile while it stands,
As winter on winter goes by,
Protected by naught but invisible hands,
Till I sleep in its shade when I die;
Let them bury me there in a mound poor and low,
When the blast of the winter is keen,
That the winds that wail over me pass as they go
The Old Wooden Church on the Green.

* * * * *

Engraved expressly for Graham’s Magazine.]

* * * * *

MY FIRST LOVE;

OR THE NIGHT-KEY.[1]

BY MRS. E. F. ELLET.

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[1] Herlotzsohn, in his Experiences, relates a story similar to the following.

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Although a stricken bachelor, I cannot speak without emotion of my first love. An eastern philosopher says—it is with first love as with a first cigar; one precipitates himself upon it, luxuriates to the utmost in the draught, and when it is over, is sensible of a melancholy unlike that induced by any other loss. I suppose I may consider myself particularly fortunate, having felt no reaction after my first cigar, and finding equally harmless consequences from my first love. I do not mean to say that I was so happy as to find the passion returned; ah, no! for then—I should have been a Benedict. I mean that I imbibed all of bliss which belongs to the feeling, without hazarding the loss of my peace; I enjoyed it while it was permitted to last, with but a few trifling drawbacks, and that without stirring a fountain of remorse or regret to sprinkle with bitterness my future years.

In the winter of 18— I chanced to lodge in —— Place, in the establishment then kept by Mrs. ——. My apartment was on the third floor, and overlooked the street; the room immediately back of it, which I used for my books and papers, looked into a small court, and commanded a view through the windows opposite, of the parlor on the second floor in the rear, which was occupied by the young lady to whom my attention was devoted. She and her mother had been inmates of the house but a short time, when the sight of her, seated at her embroidery-frame near the window, took my heart captive at once. She had long, fair ringlets, that seemed touched with gold when the light fell on them; her complexion was beautifully fair, with a rose-like tint in her cheeks; the bright line of her lips disclosed pearly teeth, and she had the finest turned neck and shoulders nature ever fashioned to put art to shame. But her hand—that small, white, dimpled hand, which she often held up in my view, while selecting a shade of worsted, threading her needle, counting the stitches, or practicing any of the little coquetries of her work! No sculptor could have rivaled the perfection of that hand. Those taper fingers drew the string which sped Cupid’s arrow to my heart. I often tried to draw that hand, and as often gave up the task in despair, for it never was still long enough. Sometimes I saw it wandering over the strings of her guitar; for almost always, of an evening, she played and sang, and then, after having watched her tuning it, how I hated the envious curtains that were so closely drawn to shut out paradise from my longing eyes. For hours I would stand at my window, having no other occupation than feeding the pigeons that gathered about the frame, observing her by stealth as she worked or watered the flowers that lived under her care, or petted a delicate canary-bird, whose cage hung on the wall outside. I had no pleasure so great as that of gazing upon her; yet I could plainly see that my devotion was unmarked, for she was near-sighted, and could not, at even a short distance, perceive that she was so earnestly regarded. To that circumstance, in all probability, I owed the liberty I enjoyed.

I always retreated from the window when her mother approached, for she had eyes that rivaled those of a lynx. She was tall, moreover, with black eyes and hair; rather robust in person, and with an unmistakable air of hauteur, which proved quite as effectual as she could have wished in keeping people at a distance. Her voice was naturally harsh and imperious, though usually subdued in its tones, except on occasions when sudden irritation caused the speaker to forget her dignity. Even in her gentlest moods it had a latent sharpness that twanged uneasily on my ears, especially when I remembered how necessary it was to secure the favor of this haughty lady, in order to advance a step toward the accomplishment of my hopes with the lovely daughter.

Thus, then, stood the case; I was desperately, irremediably in love with this young girl; ready for any venture to win her, but uncertain how to commence an acquaintance, for I was not even among the privileged number of her visiters. We lodged under the same roof; we sat at the same table, though at different ends of it; but I knew no one of whom I could ask an introduction to her; and I felt, alas! that my position in life did not quite entitle me to enter the list of her suitors without such formalities as might smooth over a surprise. I was a painter; rising in my profession, it is true, and numbering many friends, but as yet, having fortune only in prospect. Mrs. Elwyn, for that was the name of the mother of my charmer, was independent, though not rich; and having in early life moved much in fashionable society, and been much admired, was very proud, and would scarcely have owned among her acquaintances one who depended on the labor of hands or head for a maintenance. Neither she nor her daughter ever entered the common drawing-room; and those of the lodgers who knew her slightly, spoke of her as distant and unsocial, except to the favored few whom she thought worth cultivating, on account of their possession of worldly advantages. She was precisely the sort of woman on whom I would never have wasted an act of courtesy, had she been the mother of any other daughter. But in the fair Gertrude there was such a bewitching unconsciousness of her own superiority, such an appealing eloquence in silence, to the sympathy of those around her—such an air of child-like humility, mingled with just enough of the graceful pride of woman, as completed the fascination her beauty had begun, and inspired one with a wish to please even her repulsive parent. I saw her not only at meals, but occasionally out of the house, at concerts or the Opera. To me she was the soul of the music, and the finest symphony of Beethoven would have been lifeless without her. At church I met her now and then, and sometimes walking; but Mrs. Elwyn never vouchsafed me the most distant bow of recognition. She seemed by intuition to guess my bold wishes and frown upon them. Gertrude was always modestly looking down; but at intervals the fringe of her blue eyes would be suddenly lifted, disclosing a world of witchery beneath, to be quickly veiled again, as if she knew she was transgressing. It was the evidence of this consciousness on her part that fanned my love continually into a brighter flame, and caused me to revolve various expedients to secure to myself the enjoyment of her society.

I thought of painting her picture as she sat embroidering at the window, and sending it as a present to the mother; but I lacked as yet, sufficient confidence in my talent for the art, in which I was but a student, and the terror of her condemnation, both of the artist and the lover, was too formidable to be encountered. A dread of her cold penetration prevented me also from putting in execution a cherished project; that of offering my services to teach the beautiful Gertrude Italian, which I knew she wished to acquire. The very day I had mustered up courage to resolve on the experiment, I heard that Mrs. Elwyn had hired a teacher—a dark-visaged, whiskered fellow, whom, from that moment, I wished in the dungeons of Spielberg.

Was there ever a more hopeless case of love; yet I was not unhappy, for I had the privilege of seeing her, unawed by fear of interruption; and my passion was not yet so encrusted with selfishness that it demanded more. I lived in the present, and hope colored the future with rosy light; even the feeling of disappointment was but momentary. I almost dreaded a change, though I knew this could not satisfy me long, and that a wilder, more impetuous, and less amiable stage was to follow. Already the first sweet, sparkling foam of the cup had been quaffed; beneath was that which bewilders the brain and steals away the senses.

I had been reading one night till past midnight—for strangely enough, I had a taste for novels after the beginning of the romance of my life—when my attention was arrested by hearing a carriage stop in the street before the door. Presently the bell rang, not very gently. A short pause, and it was again rung; while I was conscious of a twinge of sympathy for the late comer; for the night was piercing cold, and the wind came in hoarse blasts, rattling the window-panes, and sending a chill through the bones. The contrast offered by my snug apartment, with its crimson curtains and chintz-covered sofa, and the dying glow of the embers thrown on the Venetian rug, was peculiarly suggestive of ideas of comfort. I thought how hard it must be for the porter to be summoned out of his warm bed in the little chamber at the back of the court, and judged the applicant for admission at such an hour justly punished by delay.