Chapter VI: Part 6

“Kill your captains! I’ll begin with mine,” the serjeant was roaring with a volley of oaths, and menacing Captain Curzon with his halbert. The fellow had found drink somewhere, and was raging like a worried bull, his prominent bloodshot eyes sustaining the resemblance.

Curzon parried the thrust and would have cut him down, when the voice of the commandant overtopped the clamor.

“What!” he exclaimed, “do you plot to follow our Portuguese allies! Go, every man of you who chooses; we want none but brave men here, and will bear with no others.”

“That may do for you to prate about, general mine,” answered Señor de Ladron scoffingly, the seditious talents of that young gentleman causing him to be chosen captain of the insurgents, “but it wont deceive men with their eyes open, hark ye! We all know you’re only waiting a chance to escape with your brave officers, and leave us to pull an oar apiece in the Spanish galleys. Ha, ha! M. de Chaste! Begone while you’re allowed, for you see you’re outwitted.”

“Insolent dog, to your quarters!” the knight cried, advancing upon the speaker and striking him with his sheathed sword.

But Hilo, instead of falling back, foaming with rage, seized a halbert with both hands, and was as promptly fastened on by a dozen embracing arms.

“No, by St. Dennis! the general shan’t be harmed!” as many more voices exclaimed. “Only we’ll be ahead of him and go first.”

“Friends,” answered De Chaste, with some indignation in his voice, “you hurt me more by your suspicions than if you ran a sword through my body; and I take Heaven to witness, I will be the last man to quit this island, and will die rather than abandon any of you to the mercy of the marquis, whose countrymen gave such instance of their treatment of the French last year in the Floridas. Let fifty or a hundred of you surround my house yonder, and insure my stay: it will be time enough to dishonor yourselves and nation when I set the example.”

Which the mutineers did for the present, despite the taunts of their leader-elect, who, struggling furiously with his captors, had all the while been calling to the others to fall upon the officers, or loose him and he would give them example. The commandant was a favorite with the troops.

“We will wait until to-morrow,” they agreed among themselves, “and general or no general, he is a dead man if he lifts a finger to betray us.”

Señor Hilo de Ladron, for his part, came to the conclusion, after this failure, that the French camp was no place for him, and communicated his views to his faithful Damon.

“I’d like to have split his head open, he hadn’t so much as a cap on to save it,” he said to Wolfang, “and then we might have done as we pleased with the rest. But, hang it, you’re such a liar, the men only half believed the story from the first, and letting him talk upset their resolution altogether. It’s his turn now, and we must get out of this hornet’s nest before daylight.”

“Where to go?” the captain asked.

“If you are born to be drowned, you can stay behind, you wont be safe otherwise,” Hilo answered indifferently. “I’m for the mountains at first, and who knows but I may find it to my interest in the end to visit the marquis with the count for sponsor.”

“Oh, if you keep such good company,” the captain returned, with a grotesque bow and grin showing his comprehension of Hilo’s plans, “I’m your excellency’s humble servant!” And in an hour’s time these fast friends had slipped through the line of sentries, scaled the breast-work, and sat down to wait for light a mile or two from camp.

The impossibility of hearing ordinary discourse at that distance will cause the finale of this story to be very different from what it might have been under more favorable circumstances. For a herald, or courier, or valet, had just then arrived from the camp of the marquis, at the intrenchments, bringing a letter to the Commandant de Chaste, who presently sent through the village to find Don Hilo, as we all know now, without success.

[_To be continued._

* * * * *

CHARLOTTE CORDAY.

BY MRS. ELIZABETH J. EAMES.

“Among the victims put to death by Marat was a young man of
noble and imposing mien, renowned for virtue and bravery, and
said to be the betrothed of the martyred Charlotte Corday.”

This clearly chiseled face—
So full of tender beauty and meek thought—
This head of classic grace,
These delicate limbs, in sculptured pureness wrought,
These fingers, fairy small, could _these_ belong to thee—
Once merriest girl in France, the proud, the fond, the free?

Methinks thy slender form
Seems with a proud, commanding air to rise;
And wondrous power to charm
Dwells in the midnight of those thoughtful eyes:
While on thy curved lip, and lofty marble brow
Sitteth the high resolve, that suits thy purpose now!

Did not thy woman’s heart
Thrill with emotions never felt before?
Didst thou not shrink, and start
To stain thy fair hand with the purple gore?
Hadst thou no chilling fear, O, self-devoted maid!
Of the dark doom that soon must fall upon thy head?

Yes! for _one_ moment thou
Didst struggle with youth’s natural dread of death!
One moment didst thou bow
Thy woman’s heart—then, with firm step, free breath,
Didst thou approach the bath of the terrific man
With whom the fearful “Reign of Terror” first began!

How deep the avenging steel,
With fatal aim, pierced through his guilty breast!
While ’mid the mortal chill
His starting eye the demon-soul expressed!—
Until it closed forever, and the blood
Made dark the waters where the ruthless monster stood!

So, ’neath this fragile form
Dwelt the _resolve_ that made thy country free—
And this fair, feeble arm
Performed a deed of immortality!
But, oh! _thy_ strength, _true love_! for _him_ ’twas done—
Well didst thou avenge the death of thy heart’s cherished one!

* * * * *

SONNET.

TO ARABELLA, SLEEPING.

BY R. T. CONRAD.

When the world wearieth, then the sun doth set,
And the dew kisseth sweet _good-night_ to earth;
When the soul fainteth, and would fain forget,
Then sleep, the shadow of God’s smile, comes forth,
Gently, with downy darkness, and the dew
Of thoughts from Heaven, and with the quickening rest
That lightly slumbers—star thoughts beaming through
The dreamy dimness on the rippling breast.
Soft be that dew upon thy breast to-night!
Gentle thy dreams as zephyr to the flower!
Pure as the prayer that riseth as I write,
To hover round thee through the midnight hour!
Till Morning wake—as if for thee alone—
And meet a brow as bright—’tis lovelier than his own!

* * * * *

NETTLES ON THE GRAVE.

BY R. PENN SMITH.

Strolling through a cemetery, I beheld within one of the enclosures a widow who had buried her only child there, some two years before. I accosted her, and tendered my assistance. “Thank you,” she replied, “my task is done. I have been pulling up the nettles and thistles that have overgrown little Willie’s grave, and have planted mnemonies, heart’s ease, and early spring flowers in their place, as more fitting emblems of my child; and though they may fail to delight him, they will remind me that there is a spring time even in the grave, and that Willie will not be neglected by _Him_ who bids these simple flowers revive. But is it not strange how rank nettles and all offensive weeds grow over the human grave—even a child’s grave?”

“I remember you mourned grievously at losing him, but trust time has assuaged affliction.”

“Its poignancy is blunted, but memory is constantly hovering around my child. Duty and reason have taught me resignation; still I seldom behold a boy of his age, but fancy pictures to me how he would have appeared in the various stages of his progress toward manhood. And then again I see him like his father—and myself a proud and happy mother in old age. True, you may call it an idle, baseless dream; and so it is, but I cannot help indulging in it.”

“Dream on! the best of life is a dream.”

We walked a few steps, and paused before an inclosure where reposed the remains of a worthy man, with nothing more than his unobtrusive name inscribed upon a marble slab to designate his resting-place. He was respected for his integrity and energy; beloved for his utility and benevolence. Here was no lying inscription, making the grave gorgeous, as if monumental mendacity might deceive Divinity. His record was elsewhere, traced by unseen fingers.

“There are no nettles on that good man’s grave,” said the widow. “I knew him well; weeds would wither there; nothing but flowers should cover his ashes.”

A few young men at the time were idly passing. They paused, when one tearing a weed from the pathway, hurled it among the flowers, exclaiming, “Let him rot there with weeds for his covering.” The slumbering dust thus spurned had long sustained the ingrate who now voided his venom upon the benefactor who had fed him until there was no longer faith in hope. The widow sighed; “And this is on the grave of the good and just!”

“Had Willie lived, he might have been such a man, and such would have been his harvest.”

In the next tomb a brave soldier mingled his ashes with the red earth of Adam. In his early career he was placed in a position where daring energies alone could command success. He succeeded, and was rewarded by a nation’s approbation. No subsequent opportunity occurred to acquire peculiar distinction; and when he died, a shaft was erected commemorating the most remarkable action of his life. His tomb attracted the attention of some visiters who read his epitaph. “Characteristic of the age!” exclaimed one, throwing a pebble at the inscription, “to swell a corporal to the dimensions of a Cæsar. It was the only action of a protracted life, worthy of record, and here it is emblazoned for the pride of posterity.” Had the thoughtless scoffer of the unconscious dead occupied his position, which gained renown, history possibly might have perpetuated disgrace, instead of a tombstone record of gallant services—the patriot’s sole reward.

“You knew the soldier?”

“For years, and well. A brave and worthy man. The current of his useful life flowed smoothly on, without being ruffled by the breath of calumny.”

“And yet nettles cover his grave already!”

“Such might have been your child’s destiny—but that matters little; praise or scorn are now alike to the old soldier.”

We passed to a spot where a gay party was leaning on a railing. A young woman had plucked some of the gayest flowers from the enclosure, and was laughing with her merry companions. As we approached, she threw the bouquet already soiled and torn, on the grave; and they went their way with some idle jest upon their lips. The widow paused, and struggled to suppress her emotion.

“Did you know the tenant of this grave?”

“From his childhood. He loved that woman, and struggled to acquire wealth to make her happy. He succeeded, and when she discovered that he was completely within her toils, she deceived and left him hopeless. There are men whose hearts retain the simplicity of childhood through life; and such was his. Without reproaching her, or breathing her name to any one, he suddenly shrunk as a blighted plant, and withered day by day, until he died. Like the fabled statuary, he was enamored of the creature his own mind had fashioned, and in the credulity of his nature, he made her wealthy, trusting that time would infuse truth and vitality into the unreal vision of his youthful imagination. The world of love is a paradise of shadows! The man beside her is now her husband; the wealth they revel in, this grave bequeathed them.”

“The fool! to die heart-broken—for a dream. But great men have at times died broken-hearted. I should not call him fool. It is a common death among good men.”

“Great men! But women, sir, have pined away to death.”

“In poetry, the bill of mortality is a long one; in real life the patients seldom die, unless they chance to be both vain and poor. Did a rich widow ever grieve to death for the loss of the noblest husband? Wealth is a potent antidote to the malady, and teaches resignation; while poverty, with the first blow of his iron sledge, will make his cold anvil smoke with the heart’s blood, for he is buried who for years had withstood the blow.”

“That woman did not cast nettles on his grave.”

“No nettles, but faded roses which she tore from it—blooming when she came there. Better cast stones and nettles than those withered flowers. Your boy has escaped this poor man’s destiny—the worst of deaths! His was the happiest! he died—smiling—on his fond mother’s bosom! But there is a grave around which weeds grow more luxuriantly, than about the sepulchre where mortal dust reposes. Daily watchfulness is required to prevent the bright creations therein buried, from being so over-run until nothing is seen to designate the beautiful tomb, where we had carefully embalmed them, as if in amber.”

“What grave, sir, do you refer to?”

“The human mind. A mighty grave wherein we daily bury crushed hopes and brilliant ephemerons, too fragile to survive the chill atmosphere of a solitary day. Keep the weeds from growing there and smothering their memories. They are the progeny of the soul, and should not be allowed to perish. Shall the joyous and beautiful creations of childhood be forgotten in age; must the noble aspirations of the vigor of manhood pass away without even an epitaph, because crushed in their vigor! Rather contemplate them hourly; plant flowers beside them, though they bloom but briefly and fade, they will send forth perfume even in decay, and inevitably revive in due season, bearing refreshing fruit; and old age, with palsied hand, will readily gather up the long account of his stewardship, and as he glances over the lengthened scroll that must become a record in the archives of eternity, may rejoice that he hath not been an ingrate and idler in the heat of the harvest-field, but hath diligently labored to make the entrusted talent yield the expected usage. Tear up the weeds that are incessantly growing there, ere he who was placed little lower than the angels, becomes an empty cenotaph—a stranger’s grave—mouldering and mingling with his mother earth unheeded and unknown.”

* * * * *

FAMILIAR QUOTATIONS FROM UNFAMILIAR SOURCES.

BY A STUDENT.

Many of our readers have undoubtedly been asked during the past month for information touching the whereabouts of some trite quotation, the locality of which the whole neighborhood has not been able accurately to decide. We have often thought it would be a commendable service if some industrious student would make a complete collection of the every day sayings, and print them side by side with the author’s names. As no one, however, has seen fit to pioneer in the attempt, we here make a beginning, confident that the plan is worthy to be carried out more fully. At some future period, if no one else seems willing to continue the undertaking, we hope to find leisure and opportunity for other specimens in “Graham.” Meantime, here are a few of the more common _lines_ in “everybody’s _mouth_.”

No line which dying he could wish to blot.

It stands thus in the original:

Not one immoral, one corrupted thought,
One line which dying he could wish to blot.
LORD LYTTLETON. _Prologue to Thomson’s Coriolanus._

To err is human, to forgive divine.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._

The perilous edge of battle.
MILTON. _Paradise Lost, Book First._

God made the country and man made the town.
COWPER. _The Task._

No pent up Utica contracts your powers,
But the whole boundless continent is yours.
J. M. SEWALL. _Epilogue to Cato, 1778._

And thereby hangs a tale.
SHAKSPEARE. _As You Like It._

And man the hermit sighed till woman smiled.
CAMPBELL. _Pleasures of Hope._

And snatch a grace beyond the reach of art.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._

He whistled as he went for want of thought.
DRYDEN. _Cymon and Iphigenia._

The feast of reason and the flow of soul.
POPE. _Satires. To Mr. Fortescue._

Woman, last at the cross and earliest at the grave.
E. S. BARRETT. _Woman: A Poem._

When Greek meets Greek then comes the tug of war.
NAT LEE. _Play of Alexander the Great._

Music has charms to soothe a savage breast.
CONGREVE. _The Mourning Bride._

The old man eloquent.
MILTON. _Tenth Sonnet._

One touch of nature makes the whole world kin.
SHAKSPEARE. _Troilus and Cressida._

Great wits to madness surely are allied,
DRYDEN. _Absalom and Achitophel._

Even in our ashes live their wonted fires.
GRAY. _The Elegy._

God tempers the wind to the shorn lamb.
STERNE. _Sentimental Journey._

The devil may cite scripture for his purpose.
SHAKSPEARE. _The Merchant of Venice._

She walks the waters like a thing of life.
BYRON. _The Island._

Thoughts that breathe and words that burn.
GRAY. _The Progress of Poesy._

On the light fantastic toe.
MILTON. _l’Allegro._

Give ample room and verge enough.
GRAY. _The Bard._

A little learning is a dangerous thing.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._

And even his failings leaned to virtue’s side.
GOLDSMITH. _The Deserted Village._

O wad some power the giftie gie us
To see oursel’ as others see us.
BURNS. _Address to a Louse._

Brevity is the soul of wit.
SHAKSPEARE. _Hamlet._

Westward the course of empire takes its way.
BISHOP BERKLEY.

Hills peep o’er hills and Alps on Alps arise.
POPE. _Essay on Criticism._

The observed of all observers.
SHAKSPEARE. _Hamlet._

And made a sunshine in a shady place.
SPENSER. _Fairy Queen._

A breath can make them as a breath has made.
GOLDSMITH. _The Deserted Village._

Heaven lies about us in our infancy.
WORDSWORTH. _Ode on Immortality._

Man wants but little here below,
Nor wants that little long.
GOLDSMITH. _Edwin and Angelina._

Just as the twig is bent the tree’s inclined.
POPE. _Moral Essays._

Throw physic to the dogs.
SHAKSPEARE. _Macbeth._

Canst thou not minister to a mind diseased.
_Ditto._

My way of life is fallen into the sere, the yellow leaf.
_Ditto._

I’ll make assurance doubly sure.
_Ditto._

Shouldered his crutch and showed how fields were won.
GOLDSMITH. _Deserted Village._

Domestic happiness, the only bliss
Of Paradise that has survived the fall.
COWPER. _The Task._

Let who may make the laws of a people, allow me to
write their ballads, and I’ll guide them at my will.
SIR PHILIP SIDNEY.

For winter lingering chills the lap of May.
GOLDSMITH. _The Traveler._

Rolled darkling down the torrent of his fate.
DR. JOHNSON. _Vanity of Human Wishes._

The man forget not, though in rags he lies,
And know the mortal through a crown’s disguise.
AKENSIDE. _Epistle to Curio._

Whatever is, is right.
POPE. _Essay on Man._

The proper study of mankind is man.
_Ditto._

Man never is but always to be blest.
_Ditto._

Pleased with a rattle, tickled with a straw.
_Ditto._

And to party gave up what was meant for mankind.
GOLDSMITH. _Retaliation._

Superfluous lags the veteran on the stage.
JOHNSON. _Vanity of Human Wishes._

Rides in the whirlwind and directs the storm.
ADDISON. _Lines to the Duke of Marlboro._
Also POPE. _The Dunciad._

To teach the young idea how to shoot.
THOMSON. _The Seasons. Spring._

’Tis distance lends enchantment to the view.
CAMPBELL. _Pleasures of Hope._

Or like the snow-fall in the river,
A moment white, then melts forever.
BURNS. _Tam O’Shanter._

Nothing extenuate, nor set down ought in malice.
SHAKSPEARE. _Othello._

Exhausted worlds and then imagined new.
DR. JOHNSON. _Prologue at the opening of the_
_Drury-Lane Theatre, 1747._

Assume a virtue though you have it not.
SHAKSPEARE. _Hamlet._

Nursing her wrath to keep it warm.
BURNS. _Tam O’Shanter._

Curses not loud but deep.
SHAKSPEARE. _Macbeth._

Who shall decide when doctors disagree.
POPE. _Epistle to Bathurst._

By strangers honored and by strangers mourned.
POPE. _Elegy on an Unfortunate Lady._

Where ignorance is bliss
’Tis folly to be wise.
GRAY. _Ode on Eton College._

And swift expires a driveller and show.
DR. JOHNSON. _Vanity of Human Wishes._

Order is Heaven’s first law.
POPE. _Essay on Man._

Honor and shame from no condition rise.
_Ditto._

An honest man’s the noblest work of God.
_Ditto._

Plays round the head but comes not to the heart.
_Ditto._

But looks through nature up to nature’s God.
_Ditto._

With all my imperfections on my head.
SHAKSPEARE. _Hamlet._

The undiscovered country, from whose bourn
No traveler returns.
_Ditto._

Lay not that flattering unction to your soul.
_Ditto._

The time is out of joint.
_Ditto._

A saint in crape is twice a saint in lawn.
POPE. _Moral Essays._

Who never mentions hell to ears polite.
POPE. _The Epistles._

From seeming evil still educing good.
THOMSON. _Hymn._

There’s a divinity that shapes our ends,
Rough hew them how we will.
SHAKSPEARE. _Hamlet._

On her white breast a cross of gold she wore,
Which Jews might kiss and infidels adore.
POPE. _Rape of the Lock._

At every word a reputation dies.
_Ditto._

And wretches hang that jurymen may dine.
_Ditto._

In wit a man; simplicity a child.
POPE. _Epitaph on Gay._

The mob of gentlemen who write with ease.
POPE. _Imitations of Horace._

Even Palinurus nodded at the helm.
POPE. _The Dunciad._

I lisped in numbers, for the numbers came.
POPE. _Prologue to the Satires._

Wit that can creep and pride that licks the dust.
_Ditto._

Bear, like the Turk, no brother near the throne.
_Ditto._

Damns with faint praise.
_Ditto._

To point a moral or adorn a tale.
DR. JOHNSON. _Vanity of Human Wishes._

Good wine needs no bush.
SHAKSPEARE. _As You Like It._

A little round fat oily man of God.
THOMSON. _The Castle of Indolence._

None but the brave deserve the fair.
DRYDEN. _Alexander’s Feast._

Doubtless the pleasure is as great
Of being cheated, as to cheat.
BUTLER. _Hudibras, canto 3, part 2, lines 1 and 2._

And bid the devil take the hindmost.
DO. _Canto 2, part 1, line 633._

And count the chickens ere they’re hatched.
DO. _Canto 3, part 2, line 924._

He that complies against his will
Is of his own opinion still.
DO. _Canto 3, part 3, lines 547-8._

And look before you, ere you leap.
DO. _Canto 2, part 2, line 503._

* * * * *

TWO CRAYON SKETCHES.

FROM LIFE STUDIES.

BY ENNA DUVAL.

1.—“CHILD’S PLAY.”

Napoleon!—years ago, and that great word,
Compact of human breath in hate and dread
And exultation, skied us overhead—
An atmosphere whose lightning was the sword
Scathing the cedars of the world.
—
That name consumed the silence of the snows
In Alpine keeping, holy and cloud-hid!
The mimic eagles dared what Nature’s did
And over-rushed her mountainous repose
In search of eyries; and the Egyptian river
Mingled the same word with its grand—“For Ever.”
ELIZABETH BARRETT.

’Tis but a child’s play, friend, pass on, nor wait—
Take heed, that childish play foretells the future fate.
ANON.

It was a beautiful summer afternoon. The high trees cast long shadows on the grass, and the glorious golden sunlight beamed richly over the landscape. In a thickly wooded park, whose long, winding walks were bordered by the rhododendron, and overshadowed by forest-trees, were several young girls. They were simply dressed, and quite young, at the season of early girlhood—thirteen, fourteen, and fifteen might have been their ages—certainly not older. They were all graceful, delicate little creatures—American girls and women almost always are, as foreigners have remarked. Two or three only, however, were decidedly pretty.

“I am tired of walking,” said one; “let’s stop here a little while, and play something.”

The girl had well chosen the spot, for it was beautiful enough to have tempted the faërys—if any there be—to make of it, a play-ground. The wood skirted a stream, rising from its shores in little undulating hills, and the owner had availed himself of this, in arranging the walks in his wood, so that by slightly assisting Nature, these walks seemed terraced. The place selected, was where one of the walks widened a little—the hilly terrace rose gently behind it, forming a turfy bank that served for seats, and forest-trees crested the little summit of this hill. Beneath the walk, the ground-swell shaded by trees, sloped down to the stream-side, and between the foliage could be seen the glittering wavelets, dancing along in the golden atmosphere shed around them by the glorious setting sun.

Had these little rambling girls been a shadow older, or breathing a more poetic imaginative atmosphere than their sunny American home, they might have sat and dreamed romances, out of “old Poesy’s Myths,” and fancied that,

“That spring head of crystal waters,
Babbled to them stories of her lovely daughters,
The beauteous blue-bells and the lilies fair.”

But no! the influences of their associations in their home-lives, rendered their imaginations—for imaginations they had—less dreamy, less poetical.

This work-day atmosphere in which we striving, success-seeking Americans live and breathe, deprives even our childhood’s day-dreams of romance and poësy, and who can say whether it be well or not? The mysterious voice of the Past says, “All that is permitted is needed,” therefore, let this American Judaic spirit roll on, the Nineteenth Century needs it, to perform her part of the world’s development.

If we return to our little wood-ramblers and listen to their gossip, we shall see how tangible and real were the subjects of their day-dreams, though quite as improbable, apparently, as the old imaginings of Enchantment and Faëry Land.

“Oh,” lisped a little coquettish thing, the pet evidently of the group, whose light, floating ringlets threw faint shadows over her round, white shoulders, “let’s play that I’m a duchess, and you are all come to visit me at my ducal palace. These are my grounds, and some of you shall be my ladies.” Thereupon the little witch threw her faëry form on the turfy bank, in a languishing position, and prepared to take upon her little self, all the state and dignity of a duchess.

“Not I for one,” said the tallest of the group, although the rest seemed half disposed to enter into the proposed play. “If there’s to be any duchess playing, I’ll be the titled lady. Yes, I will be your princess, and hold here my regal court.”

If princesses have a divine right to beauty, the girl might have been one of the most royal. She had, for so young a girl, a presence and bearing remarkable for dignity, and her form gave promise of fine development. Her head was well placed on a beautiful neck and drooping shoulders. Her rich, dark hair was cut short and brushed back from a low Medicean brow, and it clustered in thick, close curls around the back of her well-shaped head and white neck. Although her brow was low, and her chin almost voluptuously full, her keen, black eyes, arched eye-brows, that in some moods almost met over a nose that was delicate and handsome in shape, and whose nostrils trembled and dilated with every shadow of feeling, and a mouth well shaped, but firm in expression, all told that the girl had a haughty, imperious spirit, one such as a princess might have; and she carried herself as though she would have said, as Marie Antoinette did, when some one remarked her erect bearing,

“Were I not a queen, I suppose, people would call me insolent.”

“Duchess and princess indeed!” exclaimed one of the girls, contemptuously. “How absurd to talk such nonsense. Who ever heard of such duchesses and princesses as you’d make?”

“And why not, mademoiselle?” asked the would-be princess.

“Now Caro is grand,” laughed one of the girls; “don’t you take notice, girls, she always calls us mademoiselles, when she wants to take state?”

But the girl repeated her question, haughtily, without heeding the saucy interruption. Her manner seemed to intimidate the other, and pleased with her apparent victory, she continued, drawing herself up to her full height, and looking even more stately.

“Yes, I will be a princess. Why should I not be? My grandmother was a queen, and my great uncle an emperor. I will give you all grand titles, too. You, Lina, I will make a countess, for you are too little and delicate, pet-bird, to be a duchess—that sounds too matronly for you; but as for you, Mademoiselle Helen, you shall only be a simple maid of honor, and may be, lady of the bed-chamber after awhile, if you stop sneering at my rank.”

“Oh Caro and Lina,” said Helen, impatiently, “don’t be so silly; it is ridiculous. You are always spoiling our walks with these foolish make-believes.”

“What do you mean, Mademoiselle Helen?” asked Caro, with flashing eyes, and nostrils dilating with unrepressed indignation.

“I mean just what I say, Caro; that you always make yourself absurd and disagreeable by wanting us to play such vain, silly plays; and you do Lina no good either, for her little head is filled now with nothing else but nonsensical notions that will give her a great deal of trouble. I am a year or two older than you, Miss, and can see the folly of all this; but even if I were not, I hope I should not be such a silly little fool as to try to imagine I was something grander than I was not, and what is more, never will be.”

Caro’s face grew crimson, and she bit her full, red lip until the rich blood nearly started from it while she listened to this irritating speech. When it was concluded, she threw up her head and exclaimed in a voice choked with passion,

“This comes of associating with plebians.”

“Plebians, indeed!” said Helen, indignantly.

“Yes, plebians, mademoiselle,” answered Caro, looking steadily and haughtily at her. “You are a plebian when compared with me, for my grandmother was a crowned queen, and my uncle the great Emperor Napoleon; am I not, then, a princess of most regal descent? And you, Lina, darling,” she continued, putting her arm patronizingly around the little creature, “I only hope I may be as my grandmother was, a throned queen, then I would do more than put grand notions in your head. I would put great titles to your name, and brave retinues to back them.”

“Madame, your mother, most royal princess,” said the annoying Helen, with provoking coolness, “has the misfortune, however, at present, to be the instructress of the daughter of a plebian country lawyer.”

“It is a misfortune, mademoiselle,” answered Caro.

The girls drew together a little frightened; they knew a crisis was coming, for many times before had they witnessed similar “passages at arms,” between the two girls, but never such a threatening one.

“Never mind Caro,” said little Lina, “let’s leave Helen; she’s always so cross, and says such ill-bred things. We’ll go and play by ourselves. You _shall_ be our queen, and I will be your little countess, or any thing you want me to be. The girls will go with us, too; wont you, girls?”

“Ha! ha!” laughed the now irritated Helen, for she saw that most of the girls were disposed to take Caro’s part. “This is amusing, truly, to see the daughter of a plain American country store-keeper playing countess, and the granddaughter of a French inn-keeper taking state and royal airs over simple republicans.”

Helen’s tantalizing expressions might have caused one thing royal—a “battle royal”—for, although they were little young ladies, they were sometimes apt to forget the rules of good breeding daily enjoined upon them—but fortunately they were interrupted. Some ladies joined them—mothers and elder sisters of the girls; for this park-like wood was a favorite afternoon resort for the inhabitants of the little village of B——. The angry retort trembled on Caro’s tongue, and frowning glances were exchanged between them; for awhile their quarrel was suspended—but only for awhile; the next day would be sure to renew the scene. After a little talk with the ladies, Caro and Lina withdrew to another part of the grounds, followed by their adherents, which we must confess, comprised the greater number of the school; and the sturdy little republican, Helen, was in the minority, for only two or three of the older girls espoused her cause. As they left, one of the remaining girls whispered to Helen, with a merry laugh,

“See, Caro and Lina are going off to hold their Court. Had we not better set up a rival one? We will elect you lady president, or cabinet officer’s lady, or senator’s wife. You would not, I suppose, take any less republican title from us, and, of course, it would be hardly safe or proper to send you ministress plenipotentiary to adjust difficulties between the two governments.”

Helen laughed contemptuously, as if she thought the whole affair too childish to be noticed. But her little heart was not much, if any, better than Caro’s and Lina’s. Like theirs it swelled with anger and pride, and although she was a good, sensible girl, she many times permitted her temper and a spirit of envious rivalry that had unconsciously sprung up between her and Caro, to master her, and make her forget the gentle courtesy and good-breeding which should characterize every woman, whether republican or aristocrat—because she is a woman.

2.—“FORTUNE’S PRANKS.”

Napoleon! he hath come again—borne home
Upon the popular ebbing heart—a sea
Which gathers its own wrecks perpetually,
Majestically moaning. Give him room!
Room for the dead in Paris! welcome solemn!
And grave deep, ’neath the cannon moulded column!
——Napoleon! the recovered name
Shakes the old casements of the world! and we
Look out upon the passing pageantry,
Attesting that the Dead makes good his claim
To a Gaul grave—another kingdom won—
The last—of few spans—by Napoleon!
I think this nation’s tears poured thus together,
Nobler than shouts!
This funeral grander than crownings—
This grave stronger than thrones.
ELIZABETH BARRETT.

There’s a lady—a prince’s daughter; she is proud and she is noble; And she treads the crimsoned carpet, and she breathes the perfumed air; And a kingly blood sends glances up her princely eye to trouble, And the shadow of a monarch’s crown is sweeping in her hair. ELIZABETH BARRETT.

Carriages rolled through the crowded streets of Paris, and a gay crowd thronged to the residence of the republican prince—the new French president. A stately levee was to be held, and Josephine’s grandson inherited Napoleon’s popularity! Time had avenged _her_ wrongs, and Fortune, which had played such curious, elfish pranks with this great family, had set them once more aloft, but at their head she placed with strange justice the representative of the dethroned, divorced empress.

It was a brilliant sight. Ladies were there in gorgeous costume, glittering with diamonds, and gentlemen in full court-dress decked with orders. Near the President stood a group of beautiful women—the women of his family—his cousins, once, twice, and thrice removed. Among them was a lady who attracted the admiring gaze of more than one passer-by. She had a majestic presence, though still quite young—in the first flush of early womanhood. Her face was as beautiful as her form, which was faultless in its proportions. She had a clear, rich skin—eyes by turns flashing and serene, under “_level fronting eye-lids_”—a beautiful mouth, with the full lips gently and sweetly parted, and a Napoleonesque chin, that told her Buonaparte descent, with a lovely dimple denting its centre. Her thick, glossy hair was dressed with classical severity, for they told her, her head was like the Princess Pauline’s, and made her bind it with a broad coronet, woven of her own rich hair. She was beautiful enough to have inspired another Canova to sculpture her also as a Venus.

A buzz was heard, while the Russian Ambassador presented a gentleman and lady with much consideration to the president. The young cousin of the president started, and a brilliant flush crimsoned her cheek—whose only fault, if fault it could be, was its delicate pallor—as she looked at the lady newly presented, and heard her title—the Countess O——.

The countess was a fair young creature with a delicate sylph-like figure, and her hair fell in soft, brown ringlets, as if wishing to burst from the confinement of the jeweled comb and costly bandeau, in order to shade her timid beauty. Many remarked the purity and simplicity of her style, and low murmurs told the inquiring stranger, that though bearing a foreign name and title, she was said to be an American.

The crowd increased, and the circle around the president gradually separated, making room for the throng of _nobodys_ who wished to be presented. The hum of conversation grew louder, and though the new president exacted much ceremony, it was plain to be seen that etiquette did not forbid the merry laugh, nor the sparkling _repartée_.

A little group of ladies and gentlemen stood near a window, laughing and chatting with all that sprightliness with which the French people of society know so well how to enliven conversation. Some of the company passed by, promenading. A lady of the group at the window, lifted her arm—it must have been unconsciously, certainly it was done gracefully, and in so doing, entangled her magnificent diamond bracelet in the costly lace _berthé_ of a lady passing by.

The owner of the offending bracelet was the cousin of the President, the lady of the _berthé_ the fair Russian countess. The first bent over as if to disentangle the sparkling clasp from the delicate meshes of the lace, and her manner, repulsed all offers of assistance from those standing by. It seemed a difficult task, however, and she had quite time enough to say more than the mere apologies required, and surely she did say more than those standing near them heard, for the mere “Pardonnez moi Madame je vous prie,” could not have caused the slight start which the pretty little countess gave, nor the delicate flush that tinged her fair temples, when the French lady’s glowing cheek rested near hers, in bending down to disentangle her ornament.

“Lina,” said the president’s cousin, in a low, laughing tone, that gurgled up like the melody of foam-bells in a stream, “who would have thought when Helen Morris used to laugh at us in America, that our childish imaginings would come true? Why, darling, you are not only a countess, but you are wedded to the first and oldest blood of Europe; and I, dear one—yes, I—if not an acknowledged princess, will yet be a queen.”

The bracelet was disengaged—the _berthé_ released. The French lady made a low courtesy to the countess, with her eyes bent upon the ground—and they parted.

Fortune is a capricious goddess, and surely the wildest, most improbable romances ever imagined, could not surpass, scarcely equal, the strange reverses the blind goddess of the wheel has brought to the family of the great “World-Actor of the Nineteenth Century,” NAPOLEON.

* * * * *

QUAIL AND QUAIL SHOOTING.

BY HENRY WILLIAM HERBERT, AUTHOR OF FRANK FORESTER’S “FIELD SPORTS,” “FISH
AND FISHING,” ETC.

November is upon us—hearty, brown, healthful November, harbinger of his best joys to the ardent sportsman, and best beloved to him of all the months of the great annual cycle; November, with its clear, bracing, western breezes; its sun, less burning, but how far more beautiful than that of fierce July, as tempered now and softened by the rich, golden haze of Indian summer, quenching his torrent rays in its mellow, liquid lustre, and robing the distant hills with wreaths of purple light, half mist, half shrouded sunshine; November, with its wheat and buckwheat stubbles, golden or bloody red; with its sere maize leaves rustling in the breeze, whence the quail pipes incessant; with its gay woodlands flaunting in their many-colored garb of glory; with its waters more clearly calm, more brilliantly transparent than those of any other season; November, when the farmer’s toils have rendered their reward, and his reaped harvests glut his teeming garners, so that he too, like the pent denizen of swarming cities, may take his leisure with his gun “in the wide vale, or by the deep wood-side,” and enjoy the rapture of those sylvan sports which he may not participate in sweltering July, in which they are, alas! permitted by ill-considered legislation, in every other state, save thine, honest and honorable Massachusetts.[2]

In truth there is no period of the whole year so well adapted, both by the seasonable climate, and the state of the country, shorn of its crops, and not now to be injured by the sportsman’s steady stride, or the gallop of his high-bred setters, both by the abundance of game in the cleared stubbles and the sere woodlands, and by the aptitude of the brisk, bracing weather for the endurance of fatigue, and the enjoyment of manful exercise, as this our favorite November.

In this month, the beautiful Ruffed Grouse, that mountain-loving, and man-shunning hermit, steals down from his wild haunts among the giant rhododendrons, and evergreen rock-calmias, to nearer woodskirts, and cedar-brakes margining the red buckwheat stubbles, to be found there by the staunch dogs, and brought to bag by the quick death-shot, “at morn and dewy eve,” without the toil and torture, often most vain and vapid, of scaling miles on miles of mountain-ledges, struggling through thickets of impenetrable verdure among the close-set stems of hemlock, pine, or juniper, only to hear the startled rush of an unseen pinion, and to pause, breathless, panting, and outdone, to curse, while you gather breath for a renewed effort, the bird which haunts such covert, and the covert which gives shelter to such birds.

In this month, if no untimely frost, or envious snow flurry come, premature, to chase him to the sunny swamps of Carolina and the rice-fields of Georgia, the plump, white-fronted, pink-legged autumn Woodcock, flaps up from the alder-brake with his shrill whistle, and soars away, away, on a swift and powerful wing above the russet tree-tops, to be arrested only by the instinctive eye and rapid finger of the genuine sportsman; and no longer as in faint July to be bullied and bungled to death by every German city pot-hunter, or every pottering rustic school-boy, equipped and primed for murder, on his Saturday’s half holyday.

In this month, the brown-jacketed American hare, which our folk _will_ persist in calling _Rabbit_—though it neither lives in warrens, nor burrows habitually under ground, and though it breeds not every month in the year, which are the true distinctive characteristics of the Rabbit—is in his prime of conditions, the leverets of the season, plump and well grown; and the old bucks and does, recruited after the breeding season, in high health and strength, and now legitimate food for gunpowder, legitimate quarry for the chase of the merry beagles.

In this month especially, the Quail, the best-loved and choicest object of the true sportsman’s ambition; the bird which alone affords more brilliant and exciting sport than all the rest beside; the bravest on the wing, and the best on the board; the swiftest and strongest flyer of any feathered game; the most baffling to find, the most troublesome to follow up, and when followed up and found, the most difficult to kill in style; the beautiful American Quail is in his highest force and feather; and in this month, according to the laws of all the States, even the most rigorous and stringent in preservation, killable legitimately under statute.

In New York, generally, the close-time for the Quail ends with October, and he may not be slain until the first day of November; in New Jersey, _ortygicide_ commences on the 25th of October, in Massachusetts and Connecticut on some day between the 15th of the past and the first of the present month; in Pennsylvania, Delaware and Maryland, where they are something more forward, as breeding earlier in the season than in the Eastern States, on the first of October; and in Canada West, where they are exceedingly abundant, on the first of September; which is, for many reasons, entirely too early, as hereafter I shall endeavor to demonstrate.

In my own opinion, the first of November, and even the middle of October, are too late for the termination of the Quail’s close-time, inasmuch as five-sevenths of the broods in ordinarily forward seasons are full-grown and strong on the wing, as well as all the crops off the ground, by the first of October; and although the late, second, or third broods may be undersized, they are still well able to take care of themselves in case the parent birds are killed; whereas, on account of their immature size, they are safe from the legitimate shot; and, on account of their unsaleability in market to the restaurant, from the poaching pot-shot also.

I should, therefore, myself, be strongly inclined to advocate the adoption of one common day, and that day the first of October, for the close-time of all our upland game; the English Snipe alone excepted. Touching the reasons for postponing the day of Woodcock-shooting, a notice will be found in our July number, and an extended discussion in my Field Sports, vol. I. pp. 169 to 200. Of the Quail, in regard to this point, I have said enough here, unless this; that, in my opinion, there is far more need to protect them from the trap during the wintry snows, than from the gun in the early autumn; the latter cannot possibly at any time exterminate the race; the former not only easily _may_, but actually _does_ all but annihilate the breed, whenever the snow falls and lies deep during any weeks of December, during the whole of which month the pursuit and sale of this charming little bird is legal.

Could I have my way, the close-time for Quail should end on the last day of September; and the shooting season end on the twenty-fourth day of December; before which date snow now rarely lies continuously in New Jersey, Southern New York, or Pennsylvania. Why I would anticipate the termination of the close-time, in reference to the Ruffed Grouse, I shall state at length, when I come to treat of that noble bird, in our December issue; to which month I have attributed it, because it is then that it _is_, though in my opinion, _it ought not to be_, most frequently seen on our tables. While on the topic of preservation, I will mention a fact, which certainly is not widely, much less generally known, among farmers; namely, that this merry and domestic little bird is one of his best friends and assistants in the cultivation of his lands. During nine or ten months of the year he subsists entirely on the seeds of many of the most troublesome and noxious weeds and grasses, which infest the fields, more especially those of the ragwort, the dock, and the briar. It is believed, I might almost say ascertained, that he never plucks any kind of grain, even his own loved buckwheat when ripe, from the stalk, but only gleans the fallen seeds from the stubbles after harvest, so that while he in nothing deteriorates the harvest to be ingathered, he tends in the highest degree to the preservation of clean and unweeded fields and farms; indeed, when it is taken into consideration that each individual Quail consumes daily nearly two gills of weed-seed, it will be at once evident that a few bevies of these little birds, carefully and assiduously preserved on a farm, will do more toward keeping it free of weeds, than the daily annual labor of a dozen farm-servants. This preservation will not be counteracted or injured by a moderate and judicious use of the gun in the autumnal months; for the bevies need thinning, especially of the cock-birds, which invariably outnumber the hens, and which, if unable to pair, from a want of mates, form into little squads or companies of males, which remain barren, and become the deadly enemies of the young cocks of the following year, beating them off and dispersing them; though, strange to say, they will themselves never mate again, nor do aught, after remaining unpaired during one season, to propagate their species. The use of the trap, on the contrary, destroying whole bevies at a swoop, where the gun, even in the most skillful hands, rarely much more than decimates them, may, in a single winter’s day, if many traps be set, destroy the whole stocking of a large farm for years, if not forever. I have myself invariably remarked, since my attention was first called to the fact, that those farms which are best stocked with Quail, are invariably the cleanest of weeds; and a right good sportsman, and good friend of mine, working on the same base _per contra_, says that, in driving his shooting-cart and dogs through a country, he has never found it worth his while to stop and beat a district full of weedy and dirty farms, as such never contain Quail.

If this may lead our farmers to consider that every live Quail does far more good on the farm, than the shilling earned by his capture in the _omnivorous_ trap; and therefore to prohibit their sons and farm-boys from exterminating them at their utmost need, when food is scarce, and shelter hard to find, my words will not have been altogether wasted, nor my object unattained.

Were I a farmer, I would hang it over my kitchen fireplace, inscribed in goodly capitals—“Spare the Quail! If you would have clean fields and goodly crops, spare the Quail! So shall you spare your labor.”

And now, in a few words, we will on to their nomenclature, their distinctive marks, their regions of inhabitation, seasons, haunts, and habits; and last, not least, how, when, and where lawfully, honorably, sportsmanly, and gnostically, you may and shall, kill them.

I will not, however, here pause long to discuss the point, whether they ought to be termed Quail or Partridge. Scientifically and practically they are neither, but a connecting link between the two _subgenera_. True Partridge, nor true Quail, very _perdix_, nor very _coturnix_, exists at all anywhere in America. Our bird, an intermediate bird between the two, named by the naturalists _Ortyx_, which is the Greek term for true Quail, is peculiar to America, of which but one species, that before us, is found in the United States, except on the Pacific coast and in California, where there are many other beautiful varieties. Our bird is known everywhere East, and everywhere North-west of Pennsylvania, and in Canada, as the Quail—everywhere South as the Partridge. In size, plumage, flight, habits, and cry, it more closely resembles the European Quail; in some structural points, especially the shape and solidity of the bill, the European Partridge. On the whole, I deem it properly termed AMERICAN QUAIL; but whether of the two it shall be called, matters little, as no other bird on this continent can clash with it, so long as we avoid the ridicule of calling one bird by two different terms, on the opposite sides of one river—the Delaware. The stupid blunder of calling the Ruffed Grouse, Pheasant, and Partridge, in the South and East, is a totally different kind of misnomer; as that bird bears no resemblance, however distant, to either of the two species, and has a very good English name of his own, _videlicet_, “Ruffed or Tippeted Grouse,” by which alone he is known to men of brains or of sportsmanship. With regard to our Quail, it is different, as he has no distinctive English name of his own; but is, even by naturalists, indiscriminately known as Quail and Partridge. The former is certainly the truer appellation, as he approximates more closely to that sub-genus. We wish much that this question could be settled; which we fear, now, that it never can be, from the want of any sporting _authority_, in the country, to pass judgment. The “Spirit of the Times,” though still as well supported and as racy as ever, has, I regret to say, ceased to be an authority, and has become a mere arena wherein for every scribbler to discuss and support his own undigested and crude notions without consideration or examination; and wherein those who know the least, invariably fancying themselves to know the most, vituperate with all the spite of partisan personality, every person who having learned more by reading, examination of authorities, and experience than they, ventures to express an opinion differing from their old-time prejudices, and the established misnomers of provincial or sectional vulgarism.