Chapter VII: Part THE SECOND: Noon (3)

In the winter of the year 1792, Paris was agitated to the very core, by the most important public question which had yet arisen during the course of the Revolution. The people had hitherto been completely triumphant in their attack on established things. They had overturned the throne, and sent its supporters by thousands to the scaffold or to exile. They had subverted the ancient constitution; and, though no new form of government had yet been arranged, all power lay for the time in the hands of their leaders, of one or another denomination of republicans. The Jacobins, ultimately the dominant faction, had not yet obtained full sway, but had to contend for supremacy in the convention (or senate) of the nation, with the Girondists, a section numbering in its ranks many of the most able and more moderate republicans of France. Daily and bitterly did these two parties struggle at this time against one another--Robespierre, Danton, and Marat being the virtual chiefs, whether acting in unison or otherwise, of the Jacobins or violent republicans; while Vergniaud, Guadet, Louvet, Salle, Petion, and others, headed the Girondists or moderates. Matters stood thus before the commencement of the trial of Louis XVI., the question already alluded to as exceeding in importance and interest any to which the Revolution had yet given birth. On the results of the process hung the life of the king; and men speculated as to the issue with anxiety, mingled with fear and wonderment. Doubts existed as to what might be that issue--doubts excited chiefly by the condition of parties just described. On the whole, the chances seemed in favor of the king before the commencement of his trial, seeing that the Girondists had then a decided ascendency over their rivals in the convention, and that many of them had strong leanings to the side of mercy. But the unfortunate Louis XVI., whose very mildness made him the scape-goat for the errors of his predecessors, stood in mortal peril in the best view of the case. So felt his friends throughout France, and they were yet numerous, though constrained to look on in silence, and bury their feelings in their own bosoms.

One evening, in the winter mentioned, before the trial of the king had opened, the convention broke up after a stormy sitting, and its members separated for their clubs or their homes, to intrigue or to recreate, as they felt inclined. The Girondist leaders, Vergniaud, Guadet, Fonfrene, and others, might then have been seen, as they left the place of sitting, to surround a young man who was speaking loudly and vehemently. His theme was Robespierre; and bitter were the recriminations which he poured on that too famous individual. Vergniaud and the rest attempted to check the outbursts of wrath, but, at the same time, with peals of laughter at their young colleague's angry violence.

"Come home with me, my good Barbaroux," said Vergniaud; "we shall hear you more comfortably before a good fire. It is piercingly cold, and I promise you, that, if the vines of Medoc have to sustain such a season, we need not expect to drink Bordeaux at a reasonable price for fifteen years to come."

"Fifteen years!" said Guadet, in a melancholy voice; "and do you then count upon living for another fifteen years, Vergniaud?"

"Why not?" was the answer; "am I a king that I should fear the anger of the Republic?"

At this moment, a little Savoyard, with his stool at his back, threw himself almost betwixt the legs of Vergniaud, and, holding out a letter, exclaimed, "Which of you, citizens, is the representative Barbaroux?"

"Here," said Vergniaud, taking the letter from the lad, and handing it to his companion, the irritated young deputy above mentioned, "here is a billet for you, Barbaroux. I should guess that it comes from some ex-marchioness, who wishes to know if the judges of the king are formed like other men, or if you have got horns on your head, and a cloven foot."

Barbaroux, at this time little more than twenty-seven years of age, was one of the most handsome, as well as beautiful men of his time. Madame Roland, in one phrase, has given us a singular idea of his personal attractions. "He had," she says, "the head of Antinous upon the frame of a Hercules." The young representative of Marseilles (for such was his station) took the note of the Savoyard, and, advancing to a lamp, opened it, and read therein the following words:

"Citizen, if you fear not to accede to an invitation which can not be signed, repair this evening, at nine o'clock, to the street St. Honore, where you will find a coach standing in front of the house, No. 56. Enter the vehicle without fear, and it will conduct you among old friends."

Turning to his companions, after reading this mystic note, Barbaroux observed, "You are right, Vergniaud; it is a communication from an ex-marchioness."

"Ah! I thought so," replied the other; "and will you accept the invitation?"

"I know not," was the careless response.

Barbaroux was young, and, without being exactly weary of the agitated public life which he habitually led, felt any circumstance calculated to take him out of it for a time as a piece of good fortune not to be contemned. He deceived Vergniaud, therefore, when he affected to treat the matter of the billet lightly. In fact, it seized upon his thoughts exclusively; and he not only spoke no more of Robespierre to his friends, but quitted them upon some slight pretext soon afterward. He then returned directly to his own home; and, when there, delivered himself up to conjectures respecting the mysterious epistle which he had received. Barbaroux was young, be it again observed, and of a temperament not indisposed to gallantry, though the softer concerns of life had been all but banished from his thoughts more lately. However, the anonymous billet, which came, he felt assured, from a female, directed his reflections into a train once not so unfamiliar to them, and the more so as it spoke of his meeting "old friends." With impatience, therefore, he watched the movements of his time-piece, as it indicated the gradual approach of the hour of appointment. The Marseillaise representative felt no personal alarm respecting the coming adventure. He had never been an advocate of bloodshed in his public character, and knew of none likely to entertain against him sentiments of hostility, or to project snares for his life. No; he confidently assumed the object of the unknown correspondent to be friendly.

Enough, however, about the anticipations of Barbaroux. The hour of nine came, and he hastily left his own residence, to proceed to the Rue St. Honore. There, opposite to No. 56, he found a coach in waiting. Without a word, he opened the door, leaped inside, and shut himself up with his own hands. In a moment the coachman lashed his horses, and Barbaroux felt himself whirled along for an hour with such rapidity, as, together with the obscurity of the evening, to prevent him completely from discerning the route taken. At length the vehicle stopped abruptly, in a petty street, and before a house of sufficiently mediocre appearance. The gate opened instantly, and the driver, descending from his seat, silently showed Barbaroux into the house, after which the door was closed behind. The young man now found himself in a passage of some length, as was shown by a distant light. That light speedily increased, and the visitor perceived a young girl approaching him with a lamp in her hand--one of those old iron lamps in which the oil floats openly, and which have the wick at one of the sides. Barbaroux was instantly reminded of the fisher-cots of Marseilles--his own well-known Marseilles--where such articles are used constantly by the fishing community. Casting his eyes attentively on the girl, he saw more to remind him of the same ancient sea-port--her cap, colored kerchief, and dress generally, being such as its young women always wore. Her face, too, was not a strange one. Moreover the odor of tar, or that smell peculiar to well-used cordage and sails, struck forcibly on his senses, and strengthened the same associative recollections. Astonished already, Barbaroux felt still more so, when a once familiar voice addressed him in accents strongly provincial, or Marseillaise.

"Charles," said the girl with the lamp, "you have made us wait. You promised this morning to be earlier here."

"I promised!" cried Barbaroux, with amazement, heightened by a sort of impression that he was speaking to a person who ought at the moment to be at two hundred leagues' distance.

"Yes! promised," continued the girl; "but no doubt, you have been at the office, or have forgotten yourself with the curate of La Major, who makes you study such beautiful plants. Never mind; come with me. Melanie is with her uncle Jean, and I, as I tell you, have been waiting for you more than an hour. Come, then!"

Barbaroux scarcely comprehended what was said to him. He found all his senses deceiving him at once, as it were, sight, hearing, and smell; and his imagination transported from the present to the past, had some difficulty in overcoming the first shock of stupefied surprise. Thereafter, he felt a kind of wish to yield himself up voluntarily to what seemed a sweet illusion. He followed the young girl as desired, but soon found new causes for astonishment. Before him appeared the old screw-stair of a well-known fisher dwelling, with the narrow landing-place, chalky walls, and plastered chimney, with its tint of yellow, to him most familiar of old. He even noted on the plaster an acanthus leaf, where such a thing had been once rudely charcoaled by his own hand. In the chimney grate, he beheld an enormous log, the Christmas log, sparkling above the red embers; and he then called to mind that the day was the 24th of December, and the evening Christmas Eve.

"Ah! you see," said the young girl, rousing him by her voice, "we are going to hold the Christmas feast. Come, Charles, enter, and sit down opposite to uncle Jean, and by the side of Melanie. I will take my place on your other hand."

As the girl spoke, she had opened the door of an inner apartment, and led forward Barbaroux. The latter did indeed see before him uncle Jean; he clasped in his own the hands of Melanie. He beheld all that he had been once wont to see, in short, in the home of uncle Jean, the old seaman of Marseilles. The same veteran weather-glass hung on the wall; the compass was there, too, pointing still, as it pointed of yore. On the table Barbaroux observed the green glasses of Provence; the bottles were the peculiar bottles of uncle Jean; and, amid others, he saw the yellow seals marking the prized Cyprus wine of the ancient mariner of Marseilles. Brown dishes were there of the pottery of Saint Jacquerie--articles to Paris unknown. Edibles lay upon them too, such as Marseilles draws from sunny Afric: almonds and dates, with figs and raisins, alone, or compounded into cakes, after the mode of southern France. All these things confounded the young member of convention. Had he made in a few hours a journey of eight days? Had he retrograded in the way of existence? Had he dreamt of a busy life of three years, since the time when, under the shade of the church of St. Laurent of Marseilles, he had courted the fair niece of uncle Jean, amid scenes and sights such as now surrounded him? The deputy of Marseilles, the popular conventionist, closed his eyes in doubt. Dreamed he at that moment or had he dreamed for years?

Barbaroux was no weak-minded man, and yet it is not too much to say, that he felt positive difficulty in determining what he saw to be unreal, or, at most but an illusory revival of a former reality; and this difficulty he felt, even though he had in his pocket, and touched with his fingers, a note from Madame Roland, received in the convention on that very afternoon. On the other hand, the two Provençal girls were assuredly by his side; and, at the sight of Melanie, upsprung anew that fresh young love which politics had stifled in his heart in its very bud. Was not uncle Jean there, moreover, with his robust form and open features, his kindly smile, and his strong Marseillaise accents? If all was a delusion, as the reason of Barbaroux ever and anon told him, and if a purposed delusion, as seemed more than likely, what could that purpose be? Had uncle Jean and Melanie thus mysteriously encompassed him with souvenirs of former and happy hours, to rekindle the love from which politics had detached him, and to lead him yet into that union once all but arranged? Such might possibly be the case, and the thought tended to check the questions which rose naturally to the young man's lip. He could not, would not, bring a blush to the cheek of Melanie, by asking her explanations so delicate. These would be voluntarily given, doubtless, in due time. Besides, to speak the truth, he felt so happy to be again by her side, as to shrink from the idea of breaking the spell, and was contented to yield himself up to the soft intoxication of the moment. He spoke of Marseilles, as if he was actually there, and as if he had no thought save of its passing interests and affairs. On these matters, uncle Jean and the two girls conversed with him freely, never leaving it to be supposed for an instant, however, that they were at all conscious of being elsewhere, or that Barbaroux had ever been absent from their sides. Only now and then did Barbaroux catch the glance of Melanie, fixed on him with an unusual expression, made up of mingled tenderness and thoughtful anxiety. His observation, however, made her instantly recur to the same manner displayed by her sister and uncle, who treated him as if they had seen him but a few hours previously. The deputy, after being enlivened by the little supper and the good wine, even smiled internally to see the extent to which they carried this caution, though it mystified him the more. The window of the chamber in which they sat at their singular Christmas feast, opened suddenly of its own accord.

"Shut that window, Melanie," said uncle Jean; "the air of the sea is unwholesome by night." The window was closed accordingly; but Barbaroux fancied that he had actually heard through it the roll of the waves, and felt on his cheek the freshness of the ocean breeze.

At length the hour of midnight sounded--the hour at which, once only in the year, the priest ascends the high altar to say mass--the hour of the Saviour's birth.

"It is midnight," cried the two girls; "let us proceed to mass."

As they spoke, the girls rose from table, and, in doing so, overturned, by accident or intention, the two candles by which the room was lighted. Barbaroux found himself a second time in the dark; but speedily his arms were seized by the girls, one on each side, and he was noiselessly led down into the dark passage by which he had entered. Barbaroux had often stolen an embrace from Melanie in such circumstances as the present, and he here found himself repaid by a voluntary one from herself. For a moment her arm lingered around him, and was then withdrawn in silence. The door was then opened for him, and, in another second of time, he stood alone in the street, with the coach in waiting which had brought him thither. Confusedly and mechanically he entered the vehicle, and was ere long set down in the Rue St. Honore, at liberty to regain his own home.

Deeply as he was impressed by this remarkable incident, Barbaroux did not think it necessary to disclose the particulars to Vergniaud and his other political companions; but he made a confidant of Madame Roland.

"It is plain," said he, concludingly to that lady, "that the whole was a purposed plan of deception or illusion. It is the story of Aline put in action for my especial benefit, but surely without end, without sufficing grounds. Wherefore employ such chicanery with a man like me? It would have been better to have addressed me frankly, and so have reminded me of the past, than to have resorted to a scheme which, though impressive at the time, can only move me now to a smile. Yes, madame, I would say--that the issue might possibly have been more agreeable to their wishes, had they dealt with me less mysteriously. But what inducement can have made uncle Jean go in with such a step, really puzzles me. He is a man who dies of ennui when out of sight of the sea for a day. Besides, though he did love me once, I believe that he at heart hates the convention, with all belonging to it, and favors the Bourbons."

"Even if the intention," replied Madame Roland, "was only to recall your old love to your recollection, Barbaroux, there is something pretty in the idea. It is as if your Melanie, in putting her home, her friends, and herself, before you in their perfect reality, had said--'This is all I can offer--all save my love.' But there is something more under it than all this, Barbaroux,' pursued the lady, after reflecting gravely for some time. 'They gave you no verbal explanation, you say; but did they leave you no clew otherwise? Did you wear your present dress yesterday?"

"I did, madame."

"Have you examined its pockets?"

"No," said Barbaroux, "but I shall do so immediately."

The young member of convention accordingly put his hands into his pockets, and was not slow to discover there, as Madame Roland had acutely conjectured, a complete solution of his whole enigma. He found a paper bearing his address, in which an offer was made to him of the hand of the woman he (once, at least, had) loved, with a dowry of five hundred thousand francs, and the prospect of enjoying anew all the pleasures of his happy youth, provided that he supported the Appeal to the People on behalf of Louis XVI.--provided, in short, that he lent his influence to save the life, at all events, of the king. That such an appeal would have saved Louis from the scaffold, all men at the time believed. The Jacobins obviously thought so, since they obstinately denied him any such chance of escape.

It is probable that the monetary clause in this proposal would alone have prevented its entertainment by the young deputy for Marseilles. Be this as it may, the romantic scheme which the friendship of uncle Jean, and the love of Melanie, had led them to enter upon, at the instance, doubtless of the other friends of Louis, for inducing Barbaroux to befriend the king, and for wiling himself from the dangerous vortex of political turmoil, ended in nothing. Within a few weeks--nay, a few days afterward--began that life-and-death struggle between the Girondists and Jacobins, which only terminated with the total fall of the former party, and the condemnation to the scaffold of all its leaders. To the honor of Barbaroux, be it told that, without a bribe, he supported the Appeal to the People, and had he had the power would have saved the ill-fated king from the extreme and bloody penalty of the guillotine. But the infuriate councils of Robespierre and Marat prevailed; and Barbaroux, with five companions, fled for safety to the Gironde, that southern portion of France, of which Bordeaux is the capital, and whence they had derived their party name. They found there, however, no safety; they were hunted down like wild beasts by the dominant faction, and every man of them was taken and beheaded, or otherwise perished miserably, with the exception of Louvet, who subsequently recorded their perils and their sufferings. Barbaroux, the young, gay, handsome and brave Barbaroux, died on the scaffold, while Petion met the death of a wild beast in the fields--starved while in life, and mangled by wolves when no more. Well had it been for Barbaroux, had he yielded timeously to the loving call of Melanie, made so romantically and mysteriously. It was not so destined to be.[2]

[Footnote 2: This little story is drawn from the French. The Revolutionary era was so fertile in romantic incidents, springing at once from the theatrical character of the people, and the extraordinary excitement of the period, that the adventure of Barbaroux is quite within the range of probability. One vote did at last condemn Louis XVI.]

"JUDGE NOT!"

Many years since, two pupils of the University at Warsaw were passing through the street in which stands the column of King Sigismund, round whose pedestal may generally be seen seated a number of women selling fruit, cakes, and a variety of eatables, to the passers-by. The young men paused to look at a figure whose oddity attracted their attention. This was a man apparently between fifty and sixty years of age; his coat, once black, was worn threadbare; his broad hat overshadowed a thin wrinkled face; his form was greatly emaciated, yet he walked with a firm and rapid step. He stopped at one of the stalls beneath the column, purchased a halfpenny worth of bread, ate part of it, put the remainder into his pocket, and pursued his way toward the palace of General Zaionczek, lieutenant of the kingdom, who, in the absence of the czar, Alexander, exercised royal authority in Poland.

"Do you know that man?" asked one student of the other.

"I do not; but judging by his lugubrious costume, and no less mournful countenance, I should guess him to be an undertaker."

"Wrong, my friend; he is Stanislas Staszic."

"Staszic!" exclaimed the student, looking after the man, who was then entering the palace. "How can a mean, wretched-looking man, who stops in the middle of the street to buy a morsel of bread, be rich and powerful?"

"Yet, so it is," replied his companion. "Under this unpromising exterior is hidden one of our most influential ministers, and one of the most illustrious _savans_ of Europe."

The man whose appearance contrasted so strongly with his social position, who was as powerful as he seemed insignificant, as rich as he appeared poor, owed all his fortune to himself--to his labors, and to his genius.

Of low extraction--he left Poland, while young, in order to acquire learning. He passed some years in the Universities of Leipsic and Göttingen, continued his studies in the College of France, under Brisson and D'Aubanton; gained the friendship of Buffon; visited the Alps and the Apennines; and, finally, returned to his native land, stored with rich and varied learning.

He was speedily invited by a nobleman to take charge of the education of his son. Afterward, the government wished to profit by his talents; and Staszic, from grade to grade, was raised to the highest posts and the greatest dignities. His economical habits made him rich. Five hundred serfs cultivated his lands, and he possessed large sums of money placed at interest. When did any man ever rise very far above the rank in which he was born, without presenting a mark for envy and detraction to aim their arrows against? Mediocrity always avenges itself by calumny; and so Staszic found it, for the good folks of Warsaw were quite ready to attribute all his actions to sinister motives.

A group of idlers had paused close to where the students were standing. All looked at the minister, and every one had something to say against him.

"Who would ever think," cried a noble, whose gray mustaches and old-fashioned costume recalled the era of King Sigismund, "that _he_ could be a minister of state? Formerly, when a Palatin traversed the capital, a troop of horsemen both preceded and followed him. Soldiers dispersed the crowds that pressed to look at him. But what respect can be felt for an old miser, who has not the heart to afford himself a coach, and who eats a piece of bread in the streets, just as a beggar would do?"

"His heart," said a priest, "is as hard as the iron chest in which he keeps his gold; a poor man might die of hunger at his door, before he would give him alms."

"He has worn the same coat for the last ten years," remarked another.

"He sits on the ground for fear of wearing out his chairs," chimed in a saucy-looking lad, and every one joined in a mocking laugh.

A young pupil of one of the public schools had listened in indignant silence to these speeches, which cut him to the heart; and at length, unable to restrain himself, he turned toward the priest and said:

"A man distinguished for his generosity ought to be spoken of with more respect. What does it signify to us how he dresses, or what he eats, if he makes a noble use of his fortune?"

"And pray what use _does_ he make of it?"

"The Academy of Sciences wanted a place for a library, and had not funds to hire one. Who bestowed on them a magnificent palace? Was it not Staszic!"

"Oh! yes, because he is as greedy of praise as of gold."

"Poland esteems, as her chief glory, the man who discovered the laws of the sidereal movement. Who was it that raised to him a monument worthy of his renown--calling the chisel of Canova to honor the memory of Copernicus?"

"It was Staszic," replied the priest, "and so all Europe honors for it the generous senator. But, my young friend, it is not the light of the noon-day sun that ought to illume Christian charity. If you want really to know a man, watch the daily course of his private life. This ostentatious miser, in the books which he publishes groans over the lot of the peasantry, and in his vast domains he employs five hundred miserable serfs. Go some morning to his house--there you will find a poor woman beseeching with tears a cold proud man who repulses her. That man is Staszic--that woman his sister. Ought not the haughty giver of palaces, the builder of pompous statues, rather to employ himself in protecting his oppressed serfs, and relieving his destitute relative?"

The young man began to reply, but no one would listen to him. Sad and dejected at hearing one who had been to him a true and generous friend, so spoken of, he went to his humble lodging.

Next morning he repaired at an early hour to the dwelling of his benefactor. There he met a woman weeping, and lamenting the inhumanity of her brother.

This confirmation of what the priest had said, inspired the young man with a fixed determination. It was Staszic who had placed him at college, and supplied him with the means of continuing there. Now, he would reject his gifts--he would not accept benefits from a man who could look unmoved at his own sister's tears.

The learned minister, seeing his favorite pupil enter, did not desist from his occupation, but, continuing to write, said to him:

"Well, Adolphe, what can I do for you to-day? If you want books, take them out of my library; or instruments--order them, and send me the bill. Speak to me freely, and tell me if you want any thing."

"On the contrary, sir, I come to thank you for your past kindness, and to say that I must in future decline receiving your gifts."

"You are, then, become rich?"

"I am as poor as ever."

"And your college?"

"I must leave it."

"Impossible!" cried Staszic, standing up, and fixing his penetrating eyes on his visitor. "You are the most promising of all our pupils--it must not be!"

In vain the young student tried to conceal the motive of his conduct; Staszic insisted on knowing it.

"You wish," said Adolphe, "to heap favors on me, at the expense of your suffering family."

The powerful minister could not conceal his emotion. His eyes filled with tears, and he pressed the young man's hand warmly, as he said:

"Dear boy, always take heed to this counsel--'JUDGE NOTHING BEFORE THE TIME.' Ere the end of life arrives, the purest virtue may be soiled by vice, and the bitterest calumny proved to be unfounded. My conduct is, in truth, an enigma, which I can not now solve--it is the secret of my life."

Seeing the young man still hesitate, he added:

"Keep an account of the money I give you, consider it as a loan; and when some day, through labor and study, you find yourself rich, pay the debt by educating a poor, deserving student. As to me, wait for my death, before you judge my life."

During fifty years Stanislas Staszic allowed malice to blacken his actions. He knew the time would come when all Poland would do him justice.

On the 20th of January, 1826, thirty thousand mourning Poles flocked around his bier, and sought to touch the pall, as though it were some holy, precious relic.

The Russian army could not comprehend the reason of the homage thus paid by the people of Warsaw to this illustrious man. His last testament fully explained the reason of his apparent avarice. His vast estates were divided into five hundred portions, each to become the property of a free peasant--his former serf. A school, on an admirable plan and very extended scale, was to be established for the instruction of the peasants' children in different trades. A reserved fund was provided for the succor of the sick and aged. A small yearly tax, to be paid by the liberated serfs, was destined for purchasing, by degrees, the freedom of their neighbors, condemned, as they had been, to hard and thankless toil.

After having thus provided for his peasants, Staszic bequeathed six hundred thousand florins for founding a model hospital; and he left a considerable sum toward educating poor and studious youths. As for his sister, she inherited only the same allowance which he had given her, yearly, during his life; for she was a person of careless, extravagant habits, who dissipated foolishly all the money she received.

A strange fate was that of Stanislas Staszic. A martyr to calumny during his life, after death his memory was blessed and revered by the multitudes whom he had made happy.

A MATHEMATICAL HERMIT.

During the earlier half of the last century, there lived in one of the villages on the outskirts of the moor on which a singular pile of rocks on the Cornish moors called the Cheese-Wring stands, a stone-cutter named Daniel Gumb. This man was noted among his companions for his taciturn, eccentric character, and for his attachment to mathematical studies. Such leisure time as he had at his command he regularly devoted to pondering over some of the problems of Euclid; he was always drawing mysterious complications of angles, triangles, and parallelograms, on pieces of slate, and on the blank leaves of such few books as he possessed. But he made very slow progress in his studies. Poverty and hard work increased with the increase of his family. At last he was obliged to give up his mathematics altogether. He labored early and labored late; he hacked and hewed at the hard material out of which he was doomed to cut a livelihood with unremitting diligence; but want still kept up with him, toil as he might to outstrip it, in the career of life. In short, times went on so ill with Daniel, that in despair of ever finding them better he took a sudden resolution of altering his manner of living, and retreating from the difficulties that he could not overcome. He went to the hill on which the Cheese-Wring stands, and looked about among the rocks until he found some that had accidentally formed themselves into a sort of rude cavern. He widened this recess; he propped up a great wide slab, that made its roof, at one end where it seemed likely to sink without some additional support; he cut out in a rock that rose above this, what he called his bed-room--a mere longitudinal slit in the stone, the length and breadth of his body, into which he could roll himself sideways when he wanted to enter it. After he had completed this last piece of work, he scratched the date of the year of his extraordinary labors (1735) on the rock; and then, he went and fetched his wife and family away from their cottage, and lodged them in the cavity he had made--never to return during his life-time, to the dwellings of men!

Here he lived and here he worked, when he could get work. He paid no rent now: he wanted no furniture; he struggled no longer to appear to the world as his equals appeared; he required no more money than would procure for his family and himself the barest necessaries of life; he suffered no interruptions from his fellow-workmen, who thought him a madman, and kept out of his way; and--most precious privilege of his new position--he could at last shorten his hours of labor, and lengthen his hours of study, with impunity. Having no temptations to spend money, no hard demands of an inexorable landlord to answer, whether he was able or not, he could now work with his brains as well as his hands, he could toil at his problems upon the tops of rocks, under the open sky, amid the silence of the great moor; he could scratch his lines and angles on thousands of stone tablets freely offered around him. The great ambition of his life was greatly achieved.

Henceforth, nothing moved him, nothing depressed him. The storms of winter rushed over his unsheltered dwelling, but failed to dislodge him. He taught his family to brave solitude and cold in the cavern among the rocks, as he braved them. In the cell that he had scooped out for his wife (the roof of which has now fallen in) some of his children died, and others were born. They point out the rock where he used to sit on calm summer evenings, absorbed over his tattered copy of Euclid. A geometrical "puzzle," traced by his hand, still appears on the stone. When he died, what became of his family, no one can tell. Nothing more is known of him than that he never quitted the wild place of his exile; that he continued to the day of his death to live contentedly with his wife and children, amid a civilized nation, and during a civilized age, under such a shelter as would hardly serve the first savage tribes of the most savage country--to live, starving out poverty and want on a barren wild; defying both to follow him among the desert rocks--to live, forsaking all things, enduring all things for the love of Knowledge, which he could still nobly follow through trials and extremities, without encouragement of fame or profit, without vantage ground of station or wealth, for its own dear sake. Beyond this, nothing but conjecture is left. The cell, the bed-place, the lines traced on the rocks, the inscription of the year in which he hewed his habitation out of them, are all the memorials that remain of a man, whose strange and striking story might worthily adorn the pages of a tragic yet glorious history which is still unwritten--the history of the martyrs of knowledge in humble life!

A PRISON ANECDOTE.

In the year 1834, a widow lady of good fortune (whom we shall call Mrs. Newton), resided with her daughter in one of the suburbs nearest to the metropolis. They lived in fashionable style, and kept an ample establishment of servants.

A very pretty young girl, nineteen years of age, resided in this family in the capacity of lady's-maid. She was tolerably educated, spoke with grammatical correctness, and was distinguished by a remarkably gentle and fascinating address.

At that time Miss Newton was engaged to be married to one Captain Jennings, R.N.; and Miss Newton (as many young ladies in the like circumstances have done before), employed her leisure in embroidering cambric, making it up into handkerchiefs, and sending them and other little presents of that description, to Captain Jennings. Unhappily, but very naturally, she made Charlotte Mortlock, her maid, the bearer of these tender communications. The captain occupied lodgings suited to a gentleman of station, and thither Charlotte Mortlock frequently repaired at the bidding of her young mistress, and generally waited (as lovers are generally impatient) to take back the captain's answers.

A strange sort of regard, or attachment (it is confidently believed to have been guiltless) sprung up between the captain and the maid; and the captain, who would seem to have deserved Miss Newton's confidence as little as her maid did, gave as presents to Charlotte, some of the embroidered offerings of Miss Newton.

It happened that a sudden appointment to the command of a ship of war, took Captain Jennings on a transatlantic voyage. He had not been very long gone, when the following discovery threw the family of the Newtons into a state of intense agitation.

In search of some missing article in the absence of her maid, Miss Newton betook herself to that young woman's room, and, quite unsuspiciously, opened a trunk which was left unlocked. There she found, to her horror, a number of the handkerchiefs she had embroidered for her lover. The possibility of the real truth never flashed across her mind; the dishonesty of Charlotte seemed to be the only solution of the incident. "Doubtless," she reasoned, "the parcels had been opened on their way to Captain Jennings, and their contents stolen."

On the return of Charlotte Mortlock, she was charged with the robbery. What availed the assertion that she had received the handkerchiefs from the captain himself? It was no defense, and certainly was not calculated to soften the anger of her mistress. A policeman was summoned, the unhappy girl was charged with felony, underwent examination, was committed for trial, and, destitute of witnesses, or of any probable defense, was ultimately _convicted_. The judge (now deceased) who tried the case, was unsparingly denounced by many philanthropic ladies, for the admiration he had expressed for the weeping girl, and especially for his announcement to the jury, in passing sentence of one year's imprisonment with hard labor, "that he would not transport her, since the country could not afford to loose such beauty." It was doubtless, not a very judicial remark; but an innocent girl was, at all events, saved from a sentence that might have killed her.

Consigned to the County House of Correction, Charlotte Mortlock observed the best possible conduct--was modest, humble, submissive, and industrious--and soon gained the good-will of all her supervisors. To the governor she always asserted her innocence, and told, with great simplicity, the tale of her fatal possession of those dangerous gifts.

She had been in prison a few months, when the governor received a visit from a certain old baronet, who with ill-disguised reluctance, and in the blunt phraseology which was peculiar to him, proceeded to say, that "A girl named Charlotte Mortlock had quite bewitched his friend Captain Jennings, who was beyond the Atlantic; and that a letter he produced would show the singular frame of mind in which the captain was, about that girl."

Assuredly, the letter teemed with expressions of anguish, remorse, and horror at the suffering and apparent ruin of "a dear innocent girl," the victim of his senseless and heartless imprudence. However, the baronet seemed to be any thing but touched by his friend's rhapsodies. He talked much of "human nature," and of "the weakness of a man when a pretty girl was in the case;" but, in order to satisfy his friend's mind, asked to see her, that he might write some account of her appearance and condition. Accordingly, he _did_ see her, in the governor's presence. After a few inappropriate questions, he cut the interview short, and went away, manifestly disposed to account his gallant friend a fool for his excitement.

The incident was not lost upon the governor, who listened with increased faith to the poor girl's protestations. In a few months more he received a stronger confirmation of them. Apparently unsatisfied with the baronet's services, Captain Jennings wrote to another friend of his, a public functionary, formerly a captain in the renowned Light Division; and that officer placed in the governor's hands a letter from the captain, expressing unbounded grief for the dreadful fate of an innocent young woman. "He could not rest night or day; she haunted his imagination, and yet he was distant, and powerless to serve her." His second messenger was touched with pity, and consulted the governor as to the proper steps to pursue. However, under the unhappy circumstances of the case, Captain Jennings being so far away, no formal document being at hand, and the period of the poor girl's release being then almost come, it was deemed unadvisable to take any step. Charlotte Mortlock fulfilled the judgment of the law.

She had been carefully observed, her occupation had been of a womanly character; she had never incurred a reproof, much less a punishment, in the prison; and her health had been well sustained. She, consequently, quitted her sad abode in a condition suitable for active exertion. Such assistance as could be extended to her, on her departure, was afforded, and so she was launched into the wide world of London.

She soon found herself penniless. Happily, she did not linger in want, pawn her clothes (which were good), and gradually descend to the extreme privation which has assailed so many similarly circumstanced. She resolved to _act_, and again went to the prison gates. Well attired, but deeply vailed, so as to defy recognition, she inquired for the governor. The gate porter announced that "a lady" desired to speak to him. The stranger was shown in, the vail was uplifted, and, to the governor's astonishment, there stood Charlotte Mortlock! Her hair was neatly and becomingly arranged about her face; her dress was quiet and pretty; and altogether she looked so young, so lovely, and, at the same time, so modest and innocent, that the governor, perforce, almost excused the inconstancy (albeit attended with such fatal consequences) of Captain Jennings.

With many tears she acknowledged her grateful obligations for the considerate and humane treatment she had received in prison. She disclosed her poverty, and her utter friendlessness; expressed her horror of the temptations to which she was exposed; and implored the governor's counsel and assistance. Without a moment's hesitation, she was advised to go at once to a lady of station, whose extensive charities and zealous services, rendered to the outcasts of society at that time, were most remarkable. She cheerfully acquiesced. She found the good lady at home, related her history, met with sympathy and active aid, and, after remaining for a time, by her benevolent recommendation, in a charitable establishment, was recommended to a wealthy family, to whom every particular of her history was confided. In this service she acquitted herself with perfect trustfulness and fidelity, and won the warmest regard. The incident which had led to her unmerited imprisonment, broke off the engagement between Captain Jennings and Miss Newton; but whether the former had ever an opportunity of indemnifying the poor girl for the suffering she had undergone, the narrator has never been able to learn. This is, in every particular, a true case of prison experience.

THE PILCHARD FISHERY ON THE COAST OF CORNWALL.[3]

[Footnote 3: From "Rambles beyond Railways," an interesting work by W. WILKIE COLLINS, just published in London.]

If it so happened that a stranger in Cornwall went out to take his first walk along the cliffs toward the south of the country, in the month of August, that stranger could not advance far in any direction without witnessing what would strike him as a very singular and alarming phenomenon. He would see a man standing on the extreme edge of a precipice, just over the sea, gesticulating in a very remarkable manner, with a bush in his hand, waving it to the right and the left, brandishing it over his head, sweeping it past his feet; in short, apparently acting the part of a maniac of the most dangerous description. It would add considerably to the startling effect of this sight on the stranger aforesaid, if he were told, while beholding it, that the insane individual before him was paid for flourishing the bush at the rate of a guinea a week. And if he, thereupon, advanced a little to obtain a nearer view of the madman, and then observed on the sea below (as he certainly might) a well-manned boat, turning carefully to right and left exactly as the bush turned right and left, his mystification would probably be complete, and his ideas on the sanity of the inhabitants of the neighborhood would at least be perplexed with grievous doubt.

But a few words of explanation would soon make him alter his opinion. He would then learn that the man with the bush was an important agent in the Pilchard Fishery of Cornwall; that he had just discovered a shoal of pilchards swimming toward the land; and that the men in the boat were guided by his gesticulations alone, in securing the fish on which they and all their countrymen on the coast depend for a livelihood.

To begin, however, with the pilchards themselves, as forming one of the staple commercial commodities of Cornwall. They may be, perhaps, best described as bearing a very close resemblance to the herring, but as being rather smaller in size and having larger scales. Where they come from before they visit the Cornish coast--where those that escape the fishermen go to when they quit it, is unknown; or, at best, only vaguely conjectured. All that is certain about them is, that they are met with, swimming past the Scilly Isles, as early as July (when they are caught with a drift-net). They then advance inland in August, during which month the principal, or "in-shore," fishing begins, visit different parts of the coast until October or November, and after that disappear until the next year. They may be sometimes caught off the southwest part of Devonshire, and are occasionally to be met with near the southernmost coast of Ireland; but beyond these two points they are never seen on any other portion of the shores of Great Britain, either before they approach Cornwall, or after they have left it.

The first sight from the cliffs of a shoal of pilchards advancing toward the land, is not a little interesting. They produce on the sea the appearance of the shadow of a dark cloud. This shadow comes on, and on, until you can see the fish leaping and playing on the surface by hundreds at a time, all huddled close together, and all approaching so near to the shore that they can be always caught in some fifty or sixty feet of water. Indeed, on certain occasions, when the shoals are of considerable magnitude, the fish behind have been known to force the fish before, literally up to the beach, so that they could be taken in buckets, or even in the hand with the greatest ease. It is said that they are thus impelled to approach the land by precisely the same necessity which impels the fishermen to catch them as they appear--the necessity of getting food.

With the discovery of the first shoal, the active duties of the "look-out" on the cliffs begin. Each fishing-village places one or more of these men on the watch all round the coast. They are called "huers," a word said to be derived from the old French verb _huer_, to call out, to give an alarm. On the vigilance and skill of the "huer" much depends. He is, therefore, not only paid his guinea a week while he is on the watch, but receives, besides, a perquisite in the shape of a percentage on the produce of all the fish taken under his auspices. He is placed at his post, where he can command an uninterrupted view of the sea, some days before the pilchards are expected to appear; and, at the same time, boats, nets, and men are all ready for action at a moment's notice.

The principal boat used is at least fifteen tons in burden, and carries a large net called the "seine," which measures a hundred and ninety fathoms in length, and costs a hundred and seventy pounds--sometimes more. It is simply one long strip, from eleven to thirteen fathoms in breadth, composed of very small meshes, and furnished, all along its length, with lead at one side and corks at the other. The men who cast this net are called the "shooters," and receive eleven shillings and sixpence a week, and a perquisite of one basket of fish each out of every haul.

As soon as the "huer" discerns the first appearance of a shoal, he waves his bush. The signal is conveyed to the beach immediately by men and boys watching near him. The "seine" boat (accompanied by another small boat, to assist in casting the net) is rowed out where he can see it. Then there is a pause, a hush of great expectation on all sides. Meanwhile, the devoted pilchards press on--a compact mass of thousands on thousands of fish, swimming to meet their doom. All eyes are fixed on the "huer;" he stands watchful and still, until the shoal is thoroughly embayed, in water which he knows to be within the depth of the "seine" net. Then, as the fish begin to pause in their progress, and gradually crowd closer and closer together, he gives the signal; the boats come up, and the "seine" net is cast, or, in the technical phrase, "shot" overboard.

The grand object is now to inclose the entire shoal. The leads sink one end of the net perpendicularly to the ground--the corks buoy up the other to the surface of the water. When it has been taken all round the fish, the two extremities are made fast, and the shoal is then imprisoned within an oblong barrier of network surrounding it on all sides. The great art is to let as few of the pilchards escape as possible, while this process is being completed. Whenever the "huer" observes from above that they are startled, and are separating at any particular point, to that point he waves his bush, thither the boat is steered, and there the net is "shot" at once. In whatever direction the fish attempt to get out to sea again, they are thus immediately met and thwarted with extraordinary readiness and skill. This labor completed, the silence of intense expectation that has hitherto prevailed among the spectators on the cliff, is broken. There is a great shout of joy on all sides--the shoal is secured!

The "seine" is now regarded as a great reservoir of fish. It may remain in the water a week or more. To secure it against being moved from its position in case a gale should come on, it is warped by two or three ropes to points of land in the cliff, and is, at the same time, contracted in circuit, by its opposite ends being brought together, and fastened tight over a length of several feet. While these operations are in course of performance, another boat, another set of men, and another net (different in form from the "seine") are approaching the scene of action.

This new net is called the "tuck;" it is smaller than the "seine," inside which it is now to be let down for the purpose of bringing the fish closely collected to the surface. The men who manage this net are termed "regular seiners." They receive ten shillings a week, and the same perquisite as the "shooters." Their boat is first of all rowed inside the seine-net, and laid close to the seine-boat, which remains stationary outside, and to the bows of which one rope at one end of the "tuck-net" is fastened. The "tuck" boat then slowly makes the inner circuit of the "seine," the smaller net being dropped overboard as she goes, and attached at intervals to the larger. To prevent the fish from getting between the two nets during this operation, they are frightened into the middle of the inclosure by beating the water, at proper places, with oars, and heavy stones fastened to ropes. When the "tuck" net has at length traveled round the whole circle of the "seine," and is securely fastened to the "seine" boat, at the end as it was at the beginning, every thing is ready for the great event of the day--the hauling of the fish to the surface.