Chapter IV: Front Matter (4)

The palace of the Inquisition stands upon what was formerly called the _Plaza de la Inquisicion_, now the Square of Independence (_Plazuela de la Independencia_). Upon this same square were also situated the University and the Hospital of _La Caridad;_ whence it was sometimes styled the Square of the three Cardinal Virtues: the Inquisition typifying Faith; the University, Hope, and the Hospital, Charity. Few traces remain to denote the fearful uses to which the edifice of the Inquisition was devoted. It is now used in part as a storehouse for provisions, and in part as a prison. In the palmy days of Spanish dominion, Lima was the ecclesiastical metropolis of the whole Pacific coast of South America, and the Inquisition exercised its functions with a rigor hardly exceeded by that of Spain. When the Cortes abolished this tribunal in Spain and its dependencies, the building was thrown open to the populace, who speedily ransacked the apartments, and destroyed the implements of the Holy Office. Among those present was Stevenson, author of a standard work on South America, who has given a detailed account of the transaction. The customary array of racks, pillories, scourges, gags, thumbscrews, and other instruments of torture was found. The crucifix in the principal hall having been accidentally thrown down, it was discovered that the head was movable, and so arranged that a man concealed behind the curtains could cause it to move in token of assent or dissent. How many a trembling victim, overawed, confounded, and bewildered at seeing the movement of the lifeless head of the Redeemer, has confessed whatever the officials demanded, almost believing himself guilty of crimes he never committed. One article found was somewhat ludicrous. In one room was a large quantity of printed cotton handkerchiefs upon the centre of which was a pictorial representation of Religion, bearing a cross in one hand and a chalice in the other. The manufacturer had introduced these pious devices in the hope of facilitating the sale of his wares. But the Holy Office discovered gross impiety in the act of blowing the nose or spitting upon the symbol of the true faith; and to guard against temptation to such a profanation, had seized upon the whole consignment.

On the north side of the Plaza Mayor stands an unsightly edifice, now occupied by courts of justice and various government offices. This was formerly the palace of the Viceroys of Peru. The principal apartment bore the name of the Hall of the Viceroys. Here were arranged forty-four panels, each destined to receive the full-length portrait of a viceroy, as he entered upon his government, commencing with Pizarro. The last of these panels had been filled by the portrait of Pezuela, who held the office at the time when the insurrection broke out which severed Peru from the Spanish dominion. There was no room in the hall for the portrait of another viceroy. A similar coincidence is recorded in Venetian history. The effigy of the Doge who was in office at the time when the revolution took place which overthrew the Venetian oligarchy, filled the last of the niches which had been constructed to receive the effigies of the successive magistrates.

This is not the palace erected by Pizarro for himself. That stood on the opposite side of the square, and some remains of it are still shown in an obscure lane called the Mat-sellers' Alley. Here, on Sunday, the 26th of June, 1546, eleven and a half years from the time when the foundation of the City of the Kings was laid, its founder was assassinated. Pizarro had been warned that a plot was formed to assassinate him on his way to mass; but he took no further precaution against it than to absent himself from divine service that day. The conspirators then resolved to murder him in his own house. As they were crossing the Plaza one of them turned a little aside to avoid a pool of water. "What! afraid of wetting your feet, when you are to wade up to your knees in blood!" exclaimed the veteran Juan de Rada, the leader of the band. The dainty conspirator was ordered to return to his quarters as not worthy of a share in the enterprise. Pizarro was sitting with his friends after dinner, when the assassins rushed into the palace, through the open gate. The guests made their escape through the corridors, by climbing down into the gardens. Among them was Velasquez the Judge, who had boasted that Pizarro could receive no harm from traitors, while he "held in his hands the rod of justice." As Velasquez climbed down in making his escape, he needed both hands to aid his descent, and held his official wand in his mouth; thus verifying his boast, to the letter, if not in spirit. For a moment the assailants were held at bay by the attendants, but these were speedily dispatched. Pizarro, who had vainly attempted to assume his defensive armor, wrapping a cloak about his arm, sprang against the assassins, sword in hand, with the cry, "What ho, traitors! have ye come to kill me in mine own house?" Though more than three score years of age, he defended himself with desperate vigor, and had slain two of the assailants, when Rada, seizing one of his own comrades, flung him against Pizarro, who instantly ran him through the body. But while his weapon was thus entangled, Pizarro received a stab in the throat, and fell, and the swords of several of his enemies were at once sheathed in his body. He traced a cross with his finger in the blood upon the floor, and was in the act of bending down his head to kiss the symbol of his faith, when, with the name of "Jesu" upon his lips, he received a stroke which put an end to his life.

No place upon the globe enjoys a climate more equable than that of Lima. Not only are there no sudden and violent alternations of temperature, but the variations of the seasons are hardly known. Extremes of heat and cold are never experienced. The temperature at noon, in the shade in an open room, never rises above 80, and never falls below 60 degrees. The rays of a vertical sun are intercepted by a thin canopy of mist, called _garuas_, which for a considerable portion of the year hang over the city, resembling in appearance the canopy of smoke above a large town. The winds blow almost constantly from points between the southwest and the southeast. When they come from the former quarter they are cooled by passing over the immense expanse of the Pacific; when from the latter they have swept the vast forests toward Brazil and the frozen ranges of the Cordilleras. A northerly wind alone, which is of unfrequent occurrence, produces an oppressive sensation of heat. During the year, there are about 45 days when the sun is entirely unclouded, about 190 in which it is visible during no part of the day, and the remainder are usually cloudy in the morning, and clear in the afternoon. A shower of rain is a thing altogether unknown, but during February and March, a few large straggling drops occasionally fall about five o'clock in the afternoon. The _garuas_ overhang the city almost without intermission from April to October. During June, July, and August there will not probably be a single unclouded day, and not more than three days in each month in which the sun can be seen at all. The gray canopy begins to lift in October, and gradually becomes thinner and thinner till April, when it again begins to gather. But this equable climate, apparently so desirable, is found to be productive of great physical lassitude, and to be unfavorable to health. It has been already noticed that the number of deaths constantly and greatly exceeds that of births. Among adults the most fatal disease is dysentery; then comes fever, usually intermittent; then consumption, inflammation of the lungs, and dropsy, the latter usually the result of intermittent fever.

Another fearful compensation for the mildness of the elements above the surface of the earth, is found in the frequency of subterranean disturbances. On an average, there are 45 shocks of earthquakes in the course of a year. These usually occur in the months from October to January, and again in May and June. But at intervals of from 40 to 60 years, the valley of the Rimac experiences an earthquake of far more desolating force, and by which Lima has several times been reduced to a heap of rubbish. The most destructive of these, since the European conquest were those of 1586, 1630, 1687, 1713, 1746, 1806--two in each completed century; so that the experience of the past gives us every reason to anticipate that many years will not elapse before Lima will once more become a mass of ruins.

The most destructive of this regular series of great earthquakes was that of October 26, 1746. A little more than an hour before midnight, the earth began to tremble, and in three minutes from the time of the first shock, the city lay in ruins. Of more than 3000 houses, only 21 escaped entire. The towers of the Cathedral were overthrown. The bridge across the Rimac was almost the only public work which escaped, and of that one arch, upon which stood an equestrian statue of Philip V., was destroyed. But if Lima was sorely shattered, Callao was annihilated. The sea receded suddenly from the shore, and as suddenly rolled back with irresistible force, overwhelming the devoted city, with all its inhabitants, 5000 in number. Of these, it is popularly related, that only one escaped. A Spanish corvette which lay at anchor, was lifted sheer over the walls of the fortress, and deposited a full mile inshore, at a spot still designated by a cross erected to commemorate the fact. All the other vessels in the harbor were sunk. The modern town of Callao stands at the distance of two miles from the site of the old town, of which not a vestige remains. It is popularly affirmed that in a clear day the ruins of the old town may still be seen beneath the waves; but travelers, whose imagination is not keener than their vision, have vainly strained their sight to discover a trace of the lost city.

No familiarity with earthquakes is sufficient to do away with their terrors. The Limanian who has known them from childhood, no sooner feels the first shock, than he rushes from his apartment, with the cry of "_misericordia_" upon his trembling lips, no less than the foreigner who has never before witnessed these convulsive throes of nature. The moment a shock is felt the Cathedral bell begins to toll, all the belfries in Lima take up the sound, and summon the affrighted population to their devotions. A change has been wrought even in the form of church service, by the ever-present apprehension of these convulsions: the word "famine" being omitted and "earthquake" inserted among the evils from which deliverance is implored. The very architecture of Lima--its houses of a singly story--its plastered upper walls, its cane roofs, its towers and steeples of stuccoed wicker work--is a perpetual prayer against an evil which no human foresight can avoid, and no mortal power avert, and in respect to which the utmost that man can do, is in some degree to mitigate its consequences.

ALLY SOMERS.--A TALE OF THE COAST-GUARD.

When I joined the _Scorpion_ sloop of war, then (1810) on the West India station, there were a father and son among the crew whose names, as borne on the ship's books, were John Somers and John _Alice_ Somers. The oddity in this country of giving a boy a female baptismal name had been no doubt jestingly remarked upon by those who were aware of it, but with the sailors the lad passed as _Ally_ Somers. The father was approaching fifty, the son could not have been more than seventeen years of age. The elder Somers, who had attained to the rating of a boatswain, was a stern, hard, silent man, with a look as cold and clear as polished steel, and a cast-iron mouth, indicative of inflexible, indomitable firmness of will and resolution. The son, on the contrary, though somewhat resembling his father in outline of feature, had a mild, attractive, almost feminine aspect, and a slight graceful frame. I was not long in discovering that, obdurate and self-engrossed as the man appeared, the boy was really the idol-image in which his affections and his hopes were centred. His eye constantly followed the motions of the lad, and it appeared to be his unceasing aim and study to lighten the duties he had to perform, and to shield him from the rough usage to which youngsters in his position were generally subjected by the motley crews of those days. One day a strong instance in proof of this master-feeling occurred. Ally Somers some time previously, when on shore with a party dispatched to obtain a supply of water, had, during the temporary absence of the officer in command, been rather severely rope's-ended by one of the seamen for some trifling misconduct, and a few slight marks were left on the lad's back. The rage of the father, when informed of the circumstance, was extreme, and it was with difficulty that he was restrained from inflicting instant chastisement on the offender. An opportunity for partially wreaking his hoarded vengeance occurred about six weeks afterward, and it was eagerly embraced. The sailor who had ill-used young Somers was sentenced to receive two dozen lashes for drunkenness and insubordination. He was ordered to strip, placed at the gratings, and the punishment began. Somers the boatswain, iron or sour-tempered as he might be, was by no means harsh or cruel in his office, and his assistants, upon whom the revolting office of flogging usually devolved, influenced by him, were about the gentlest-handed boatswain's-mates I ever saw practice. On this occasion he was in another and a very different mood. Two blows only had been struck, when Somers, with an angry rebuke to the mate for not doing his duty, snatched the cat from his hand, and himself lashed the culprit with a ferocity so terribly effective, that Captain Boyle, a merciful and just officer, instantly remitted half the number of lashes, and the man was rescued from the unsparing hands of the vindictive boatswain.

Other instances of the intensity of affection glowing within the stern man's breast for his comparatively weak and delicate boy manifested themselves. Once in action, when the lad, during a tumultuous and murderous struggle in beating off a determined attempt to carry the sloop by boarding, chanced to stumble on the slippery deck, he was overtaken before he could recover himself, and involved in the fierce assault which at the forecastle was momently successful. I was myself hotly engaged in another part of the fight; but attention being suddenly called to the forepart of the ship by the enemy's triumphant shouts, I glanced round just in time to see the boatswain leap, with the yell and bound of a tiger, into the _mêlée_, and strike right and left with such tremendous ferocity and power as instantly to check the advancing rush. Our men promptly rallied, and the deck was in a few minutes cleared of every living foe that had recently profaned it. Ally Somers, who had received a rather severe flesh wound, and fainted from loss of blood, was instantly caught up by his father, and carried with headlong impatience below. When the surgeon, after a brief look at the hurt, said, "There is no harm done, Somers," the high-strung nerves of the boatswain gave way, and he fell back upon a locker, temporarily prostrate and insensible from sudden revulsion of feeling. Several times I was an unintentional auditor of scraps of conversation between the two while the lad was on the sick-list, from which I gathered that Ally was the sole issue of a marriage which had left bitter memories in the mind of the father; but whether arising from the early death of his wife, or other causes, I did not ascertain. Somers was, it appeared a native of the west of England, and it was quite evident had received a much better education than usually falls to individuals of his class.

At the close of the war Somers and his son were, with thousands of others, turned adrift from the royal service. Some months after my appointment to the command of the revenue-cutter, I chanced to meet the father in the village of Talton, about four miles out of Southampton, on the New Forest Road. He had, I found re-entered the navy, but chancing to receive a hurt by the falling of a heavy block on his right knee, had been invalided with a small pension, upon which he was now living at about a hundred yards from the spot where we had accidentally met. Ally, he informed me, was the skipper of a small craft, trading between Guernsey and Southampton. There was little change in the appearance of the man except that the crippled condition of his leg appeared to have had an effect the reverse of softening upon his stem and rugged aspect and temper. When paid off he was, I knew, entitled to a considerable sum in prize-money, the greater part of which he told me he had recently received.

About two months after this meeting with the father I fell in with the son. I was strolling at about eleven in the forenoon along the front of the Southampton custom-house, when my eye fell upon a young man in a seaman's dress, busily engaged with three others in loading a cart with bundles of laths which had been landed shortly before from a small vessel alongside the quay. It was Ally Somers sure enough; and so much improved in looks since I last saw him, that but for a certain air of fragility--inherited probably from his mother--he might have been pronounced a handsome fine young fellow. The laths, upward of two hundred bundles, which he was so busily assisting to cart, he had brought from Guernsey, and were a very common importation from that island: Guernsey possessing the right of sending its own produce customs free to England, a slight duty, only tantamount to what the foreign timber of which the laths were made would have been liable to, was levied upon them, and this was ascertained by the proper officer simply measuring the length and girth of the bundles. This had been done, and the laths marked as "passed." It struck me that the manner of Ally Somers was greatly flurried and excited, and when he saw me approaching, evidently with an intention to accost him, this agitation perceptibly increased. He turned deadly pale, and absolutely trembled with ill-concealed apprehension. He was somewhat re-assured by my frank salutation; and after a few common-place inquiries I walked away, evidently to his great relief, and he with his sailors continued their eager work of loading the cart. I could not help suspecting that something was wrong, though I could not make up my mind to verify the surmise his perturbed and hurried manner excited. Once in a skirmish on shore his father, the boatswain, had saved my life by sending a timely bullet through the head of a huge negro who held me for the moment at his mercy. Besides I might be wrong after all, and I had no right to presume that the officer who had passed the laths had not made a sufficient examination of them. The flurry of the young man might arise from physical weakness and the severe labor he was performing in such hot weather. These reasons, or more truly these excuses for doing nothing, were passing through my brain, when I observed the hasty approach of the collector of customs himself toward the cart, followed by several of his subordinates. Young Somers saw him as quickly as I did, and the young man's first impulse, it was quite plain, was flight. A thought, no doubt, of the hopelessness of such an attempt arrested his steps, and he stood quaking with terror by the side of the cart, his right hand grasping for support at one of the wheel-spokes.

"One of you lend me a knife," said the collector, addressing the officers of customs.

A knife was quickly opened and handed to him: he severed the strong cords which bound one of the bundles of laths together, and they flew asunder, disclosing a long tin tube of considerable diameter, closely rammed with tobacco! All the other bundles contained a similar deposit; and so large was the quantity of the heavily-taxed weed thus unexpectedly made lawful prize of, that a profit, I was assured, of not less than £500 or £600 would have been made by the audacious smuggler had he succeeded in his bold and ingenious attempt. The ends of the bundles had been filled up with short pieces of lath, so that, except by the process now adopted, it was impossible to detect that the cargo was not _bonâ fide_ what it had been declared to be. The penalties to which Somers had rendered himself liable were immense, the vessel also was forfeited, and the unfortunate young man's liberty at the mercy of the crown. He looked the very picture of despair, and I felt assured that ruin, utter and complete, had fallen upon him.

He was led off in custody, and had gone some dozen paces when he stopped shortly, appeared to make some request to the officers by whom he was escorted, and then turning round, intimated by a supplicatory gesture that he wished to speak to me. I drew near, and at my request the officers fell back out of hearing. He was so utterly prostrated by the calamity by which he had been so suddenly overtaken, that he could not for several moments speak intelligibly. I felt a good deal concerned for so mere a boy, and one too so entirely unfitted by temperament and nerve to carry through such desperate enterprises, or bear up against their failure.

"This is a bad business," I said; "but the venture has not, I trust, been made with your own or your father's money?

"Every penny of it," he replied, in a dry, fainting voice, "was our own. Father lent me all his prize-money, and we are both miserable beggars."

"What in the name of madness could induce you to venture your all upon a single throw in so hazardous a game?"

"I will tell you," he went on hurriedly to say in the same feeble and trembling tone; "I am not fitted for a sea-life--not strong, not hardy enough. I longed for a quiet, peaceful home ashore. A hope of one offered itself. I made the acquaintance of Richard Sylvester, a miller near Ealing. He is a good man, but griping as far as money is concerned. I formed an attachment for his eldest daughter Maria; and he consented to our union, and to taking me as a partner in his business, if I could pay down five hundred pounds. I was too eager to wait long; besides I thought that perhaps--but it boots not to speak of that now; I set more than life upon this cast; I have lost, and am now bankrupt of resource or hope! Will you break this news to my father, and see--" His remaining firmness gave way as the thought he would have uttered struggled to his lips, and the meek hearted young man burst into tears, and wept piteously like a girl. A number of persons were collecting round us, and I gently urged him to walk on to the custom-house. A few minutes afterward I left him there, with a promise to comply with his request without delay.

I found John Somers at home, and had scarcely uttered twenty words when he jumped at once at the true conclusion.

"Out with it, sir!" exclaimed the steel-nerved man. "But you need not; I see it all. Ally has failed--the tobacco has been seized--and he is in prison."

Spite of himself his breath came thick and short, and he presently added with a fierce burst, while a glance of fire leaped from his eyes; "He has been betrayed, and I think I know by whom."

"Your suspicion that he has been informed against is very likely correct, but you will, I think, have some difficulty in ascertaining by whom. The custom-house authorities are careful not to allow the names of their informants to leak through their office-doors."

"I would find him were he hidden in the centre of the earth!" rejoined the ex-boatswain with another vengeful outcry which startled one like an explosion. "But," added the strong and fierce-willed man after a few moments' silence, "it's useless prating of the matter like a wench. We must part company at once. I thank you, sir, and will tell Ally you have called." I mentioned the other request made by his son. "That is a rotten plank to hold by," he said. "Ally's chance is over there, and it would be mere waste of time to call on the old man; his resolution is hard and unyielding as his own millstones. Maria Sylvester is gone with the five hundred pounds her father bargained for; and the girl's tears, if she shed any, will soon be dry. I warned Ally of the peril of steering his course in life by the deceptive light of woman's capricious smiles and vanities; but he, poor, flexile, gentle-minded boy, heeded me not. I may not longer delay: he will be anxious to see me. Good-day, sir."

The consequence which I chiefly feared came to pass, even more speedily than I had apprehended. It being impossible to liquidate the penalties incurred, Ally Somers was imprisoned as a crown debtor; and at that period, whatever may be the case now, revenue penalties could not be got rid of by insolvent-court schedules. The prospect of an indefinite term of imprisonment, with other causes of grief and depression, broke down the always fragile health of the prisoner, and he died, ere yet his youth was well begun, after about six months' confinement only.

The tidings were brought me by the old man himself. I was seated in the cabin of the _Rose_ cutter when it was announced that John Somers was alongside in a boat, and wished to see me. I directed that he should be allowed to come aboard, and presently the old man, with despair visible in every line of his countenance, in every glance of his restless, flaming eyes, entered the cabin.

"I am come to tell you, sir, that Ally is dead."

"I was somewhat prepared for this bad news, Mr. Somers," I answered. "It's hard upon you, but it should be bravely borne with."

He laughed strangely. "To be sure, to be sure," he said, "that is wise counsel--very wise; but that which I want now more than wise counsel is ten pounds--ten pounds, which I shall never be able to repay."

"Ten pounds!"

"Yes: you may remember that I once saved your life. If that piece of service was worth the sum I have mentioned, you can now discharge the obligation. I have parted with every thing, and Ally's last prayer was to be buried beside his----Beside a grave, an early and untimely one, like his own, many miles away."

"I understand; it is a natural and pious wish, and you shall have the money."

"Thank you. The funeral over, I have but one more thing to do in life, and that is to assist you in securing Cocquerel while running one of his most valuable cargoes."

"Cocquerel, the Guernseyman you mean?"

"Ay, so he calls himself; but I fancy he at one time hailed from another port. He is the man who sold Ally's secret to the revenue-officers!"

"Are you sure?"

"As death! He was Ally's only confidant, and Ally's father is now in Cocquerel's confidence. It is but natural," added Somers, and a bitter, deadly sneer curled his ashy lips--"it is but natural, you know, that I should be eager to assist in pillaging a government which caged my son, and held him under its iron bars till life had fled. Cocquerel understands this, and trusts me fully; but that which he does _not_ understand, know, or suspect," continued the fierce old man, sinking his voice to a whisper, and leaning forward with his face close to mine, "is that John Somers has found out _who_ it was that sold his boy's life! Did he know that, and know _me_ too, there would be sounder sleepers than he in these dark nights."

"What do you mean?"

"Nothing more, of course," he replied in a more checked and guarded tone, "than to retort the trick he played Ally something after his own fashion."

"That is a fair revenge enough, and I'll not balk you. Now, then, for your plan."

Various details were discussed, and it was settled that on that day-week Somers was again to communicate with me. He then took leave.

At the appointed time Somers returned, and appeared to be in high but flighty spirits. Every thing was, he said, arranged, and success all but certain. His scheme was then canvassed and finally agreed upon, and he again left the vessel.

The arrangement for the surprise and capture of Cocquerel was this:--That notorious smuggler intended running a large cargo on the coast of Dorsetshire, on the north of Portland, at a place where the cliffs are high, precipitous, and abrupt, and at that time very inefficiently watched by the shore-force. Near the spot selected is or was a kind of cavern worn by the action of the sea in the chalky stratum, which at neap-tides was partially dry, and at the time of our enterprise would effectually conceal a boat from the observation of any one who did not actually peer in directly at its mouth. Cocquerel was to leave Guernsey the next day in a large boat, with two lug-sails, but chiefly depending for speed upon its sweeps. It was calculated that he would reach his destination about midnight. Somers had undertaken the duty of shore-signalman, and if danger were apprehended, was to warn the smugglers that hawks were abroad by burning a blue-light. The manner of running the cargo was to be this:--Somers was provided with a windlass and sufficient length of rope, with a kind of rope-cradle at the end of it, in which a man could sit, or a couple of kegs be slung, to reach the boat. The windlass he was to secure firmly at the edge of the cliff, and two or three of the men having been drawn up, other windlasses were to be fixed, by means of which it was calculated that in about half an hour the entire cargo would be safely carried off by the carts which Somers had undertaken to have ready on the spot. The signal for our appearance on the scene of action, the positive old man persisted, should be that agreed upon for the warning of the smugglers--the sudden ignition of a blue-light. This did not seem the cleverest possible mode of procedure; but as the cavern in which we were to conceal ourselves was but a few yards northward of the spot marked out for the landing, and Somers promised he would only give the signal when the smugglers were in full work, I had little fear that, if other accidents did not capsize our scheme, they would be able to escape us.

The next afternoon the largest boat belonging to the _Rose_ was fully manned; and leaving the cutter quietly at anchor in the Southampton river just above Calshot, we pulled with the tide--for there was but a light air, and that favorable for the smugglers, not for us--to our hiding-place, which we reached about eight o'clock in the evening.

The hours crept very slowly and dismally away, amid the darkness and hoarse echoes and moanings of the cavern, into which the sea and wind, which were gradually rising, dashed and howled with much and increasing violence. Occasional peeps at my watch, by the light of a lantern carefully shaded seaward, warned us that ten, eleven, twelve, one o'clock had passed, without bringing the friends we so anxiously expected, and fears of ultimate disappointment were chilling us far more than the cold night-breeze, when a man in the bow of the boat said in a whisper that he could hear the dash of oars.

We all instantly listened with eager attention; but it was not till we had brought the boat to the entrance of the opening that the man's assertion was verified. There it was clear enough: and the near approach of a large boat, with the regular jerk of the oars or sweeps, was distinctly audible. The loud, clear hail of their shore-signalman, answered by the "All right" of the smugglers, left no doubt that the expected prey was within our grasp; and I had a mind to pounce upon them at once, but was withheld by a promise which I had been obliged several times to repeat, that I would not under any circumstances do so till the signal-flame sent its light over the waters.

As soon as the noise and bustle of laying in the sweeps, lowering the sails, and unstepping the masts, had subsided, we heard Somers hail the boat, and insist that the captain should come up before any of the others, as there was a difficulty about the carts which he alone could settle. The reply was a growl of assent, and we could hear by the click of the check to the cog-wheel of the windlass that Somers was paying out the rope. Presently Cocquerel was heard to get into the cradle I have spoken of, to which a line was fastened in order to steady his ascent from below. The order was given to turn away, and the renewed click, click, announced that he was ascending the face of the cliff. I could hardly comprehend this man[oe]uvre, which seemed to indicate the escape of the man we were the most anxious to secure, and the order to shove off was just on my lips when a powerful blue-light flamed suddenly forth, accompanied by a fierce but indistinct shout, or roar rather, from Somers. The men replied by a loud cheer, and we shot smartly out; but having, to avoid a line of reef, to row in a straight direction for about a cable's length, the smugglers, panic-stricken and bewildered as they were, had time to get way upon their lugger, and were plying their sweeps with desperate energy before the revenue-boat was fairly turned in direct pursuit. The frantic effort to escape was vain, and so was the still more frantic effort at resistance offered when we ran alongside. We did not hurt them much; one or two were knocked down by the sailors' brass-butted pistols; and after being secured, they had leisure to vent their rage in polyglot curses, part French, part English, and part Guernsey _patois_, and I to look round and see what had become of Cocquerel.

The blue-light still shed a livid radiance all around, and to my inexpressible horror and dismay, I saw that the unfortunate man was suspended in the rope cradle, within about a fathom's length of the brow of the cliff, upon which Somers was standing and gazing at his victim with looks of demoniac rage and triumph. The deadly trap contrived by the inexorable old man was instantly apparent, and to Cocquerel's frenzied screams for help I replied by shouting to him to cut himself loose at once, as his only chance, for the barrel of a pistol gleamed distinctly in the hands of Somers.

"Lieutenant Warneford," cried the exulting maniac--he was nothing less--"I have caught this Cocquerel nicely for you--got him swinging here in the prettiest cradle he was ever rocked in in his life--Ha! ha! ha!

"Cut loose at once!" I again shouted; and the men, as terribly impressed as myself, with the horror of the wretched smuggler's position, swept the boat rapidly toward the spot. "Somers, if you shoot that man you shall die on the gallows."

"Cut himself loose, do you say, lieutenant?" screamed Somers, heedless of my last observation. "He can't! He has no knife--ha! ha! ha! And if he had, this pistol would be swifter than that; but I'll cut him loose presently, never fear. Look here, Jacques Cocquerel," he continued laying himself flat down on the cliff, and stretching his right arm over it till the mouth of his pistol was within a yard of Cocquerel's head, "this contains payment in full for your kindness to Ally Somers--a debt which I could in no other manner completely repay."

At this moment the blue-light suddenly expired, and we were involved in what by contrast was total darkness. We could still, however, hear the frantic laughter and exulting gibes of the merciless old man in answer to Cocquerel's shrieking appeals for mercy; and after a while, when the figures of the two men had become partially visible, we could distinguish the words, "One, two, three," followed by the report of a pistol, and a half minute afterward a dark body shot down the white face of the cliff, and disappeared beneath the waters!

The body of Cocquerel never reappeared, and the only tidings I ever heard of Somers were contained in the following paragraph which I read some years afterward in the "Hampshire Telegraph," a journal at that time published at Portsmouth:

"The body of an aged, wretched man was found frozen to death in the church-yard on Wednesday morning last, near two adjoining graves, one of which, that of Alice Maynard, recalls the painful circumstances connected with the sad story of the death of that ill-fated, and, as we believe, entirely innocent person. At the inquest holden on Friday, it was ascertained beyond a doubt that the deceased is John Maynard, who, after his wife's untimely death, assumed the name of Somers, and was, we believe, the person who shot a French smuggler, with whom he had quareled, at the back of the Isle of Wight, under somewhat peculiar circumstances, about seven years ago. He was buried in the grave that contains the body of his son, John Alice Maynard, which was interred there shortly before the commission of the homicide just alluded to. There has never been to our knowledge any regular investigation of that affair, but we believe that then, as before, Maynard's pistol was pointed by a frantic and causeless jealousy." [_Plymouth Paper._]

There are several mistakes sufficiently obvious to the reader in this paragraph, but of the main fact that John Somers, _alias_ Maynard, perished as described in the Devonshire journal, there can be no reasonable doubt.

MISERS.

BY F. SOMNER MERRYWEATHER.

Some years ago there lived in Marseilles an old man of the name of Guyot; he was known to every inhabitant, and every urchin in the streets could point him out as a niggard in his dealings, and a wretch of the utmost penury in his habits of life. From his boyhood, this old man had lived in the city of Marseilles; and, although the people treated him with scorn and disgust, nothing could induce him to leave it. When he walked the streets he was followed by a crowd of boys, who, hating him as a grasping miser, hooted him vociferously, insulted him with the coarsest epithets, and sometimes annoyed him by casting stones and filth at his person. There was no one to speak a kind word in his favor, no one to bestow an act of friendship, or a nod of recognition upon Guyot. He was regarded by all as an avaricious, griping old miser, whose whole life was devoted to the hoarding up of gold. At last this object of universal scorn died, and it was found that, by his parsimony, he had amassed an ample fortune. What was the surprise of his executors, on opening his will, to find these remarkable words: "Having observed, from my infancy, that the poor of Marseilles are ill-supplied with water, which can only be procured at a great price, I have cheerfully labored the whole of my life to procure for them this great blessing, and I direct that the whole of my property shall be expended in building an aqueduct for their use!"

When it was proposed to build Bethlehem Hospital, many benevolent individuals volunteered to solicit contributions by calling upon the inhabitants of London. Two of these gentlemen went to a small house in an impoverished neighborhood; for the pence of the poor were solicited as well as the pounds of the rich. The door was open, and, as they drew nigh, they overheard an old man scolding his female servant for having thrown away a match, only one end of which had been used. Although so trivial a matter, the master appeared to be much enraged, and the collectors remained some time outside the door, before the old man had finished his angry lecture. When the tones of his voice were somewhat subdued, they entered, and, presenting themselves to this strict observer of frugality and saving, explained the object of their application; but they did not anticipate much success. The miser, however, for such he was reputed in the neighborhood, no sooner understood their object, than he opened a closet, and bringing forth a well-filled bag, counted therefrom four hundred guineas, which he presented to the astonished applicants. They expressed their surprise and thankfulness, and could not refrain from telling the old gentleman that they had overheard his quarrel with his domestic, and how little they expected, in consequence, to have met with such munificence from him. "Gentlemen," replied the old man, "your surprise is occasioned by my care of a thing of such little consequence: but I keep my house, and save my money in my own way; my parsimony enables me to bestow more liberally on charity. With regard to benevolent donations, you may always expect most from prudent people who keep their own accounts, and who pay attention to trifles."

Audley was a celebrated miser of the time of the Stuarts; he amassed his wealth during the reign of the first Charles, and flourished amazingly under the protectorate of Cromwell. Audley was originally a clerk, with only six shillings a week salary, and yet out of this scanty sum he managed to save more than half. His dinner seldom cost him any thing, for he generally made some excuse to dine with his master's clients; and, as to his other meals, a crust of bread or a dry biscuit was regarded as fare sufficient after an ample dinner. In one circumstance he was somewhat different from other misers: he was clean, if not neat, in his outward appearance. But he was thus scrupulous in his apparel from principle; for Audley often asserted, that, to be thrifty, it was necessary to pay some respect to such matters. He was remarkably industrious, even when a young man. At an age when others were seeking pleasure, he was busy in lending out, and increasing his early savings. He was always ready to work when the usual hours of business were over, and would willingly sit up the whole night to obtain some trifling remuneration. He was never above soliciting trifles, and touching his hat to his master's clients. So rigid was he in his economy, and so usurious in his dealings, that in four years, during which time, however, he had never received more than a salary of six or eight shillings a week, he managed to save and amass five hundred pounds. The salary of the remaining years of his apprenticeship he sold for sixty pounds, and after a while, having made up six hundred pounds in all, he lent the whole to a nobleman for an annuity of ninety-six pounds for nineteen years, which annuity was secured upon property producing eight hundred a year. The nobleman soon died, and his heir neglected to pay the annuity. Audley had execution upon the property, and by legal trickery, in which he was well versed, he managed to obtain, in the way of fines and forfeitures, about four thousand pounds' profit upon his original six hundred. His master being one of the clerks of the Compter, Audley had many opportunities of practicing his disreputable cunning, and of obtaining vast sums by deluding insolvent debtors, and in deceiving their creditors. He would buy bad debts for a mere trifle, and afterward compound with the poor insolvent. One instance of his avarice and villainy is so curious, that we can not refrain from giving the anecdote to our readers. A tradesman, named Miller, unfortunately got into arrears with his merchant, whose name was White. Many fruitless applications were made for the debt, and at last Miller was sued by the merchant for the sum of two hundred pounds. He was unable to meet the demand, and was declared insolvent. Audley goes to White, and offers him forty pounds for the debt, which the merchant gladly accepts. He then goes to Miller, and undertakes to obtain his quittance of the debt for fifty pounds, upon condition that he entered into a bond to pay for the accommodation. The drowning man catches at a straw, and the insolvent, with many protestations of thanks, eagerly signs a contract which, without consideration, he regarded as one so light, and so easy in its terms, as to satisfy him that the promptings of benevolence and friendship could only actuate his voluntary benefactor. The contract was, that he should pay to Audley some time within twenty years from that time, one penny progressively doubled, on the first day of twenty consecutive months; and, in case he failed to fulfill these easy terms, he was to pay a fine of five hundred pounds. Thus acquitted of his debt of two hundred pounds, Miller arranged with the rest of his creditors, and again commenced business. Fortune turned, and he participated liberally in her smiles. Every month added largely to his trade, and at last he became firmly established. Two or three years after signing the almost forgotten contract, Miller was accosted one fine morning in October by old Audley, who politely demanded the first installment of the agreement. With a smile, and many renewed expressions of thankfulness, the hopeful tradesman paid his penny. On the first of the succeeding month, Audley again called, and demanded twopence, and was as politely satisfied as before. On the first of December, he received a groat; the first of February, one shilling and fourpence. Still Miller did not see through the artifice, but paid him with a gracious smile; perhaps, however, there was something cynical in the look of Audley as he left the shop this time, for the poor tradesman's suspicions were aroused, and he put his pen to paper, as he ought to have done years before, to ascertain the amount of his subsequent payments. Reader, what think you would have been the amount of the payment due on the first of the twentieth month? What sum, think ye, the little penny had become? No less than two thousand one hundred and eighty pounds! And what was the aggregate sum of all these twenty monthly payments? Why, the enormous sum of four thousand three hundred and sixty-six pounds, eleven shillings, and threepence? It sounds incredible; but, if you think it a fable, do as Miller did, and reckon for yourselves. Of course Miller refused the payment of his bond, and forfeited five hundred pounds by the benevolence and charity of the miser.

Vandille is one of the most remarkable characters, as a miser, that is to be found among the eccentric biographies of France. His riches were immense, and his avarice and parsimony extreme. He hired a miserable garret in one of the most obscure parts of Paris, and paid a poor woman a sou a day to wait upon him. Excepting once a week, his diet was never varied; bread and milk for breakfast; the same for dinner, and the same for supper, all the week round. On a Sunday he ventured to indulge in a glass of sour wine, and he strove to satisfy the compunctions of conscience by bestowing, in charity, a farthing every Sabbath. This munificence, which incurred an expenditure of one shilling and a penny per annum, he carefully noted down; and just before his death he found, with some degree of regret, that during his life he had disbursed no less than forty-three shillings and fourpence. Forty-three shillings and fourpence! prodigious generosity for the richest man in France! Vandille had been a magistrate at Boulogne, and while in that office he partly maintained himself, free of cost, by constituting himself milk-taster general at the market. He would munch his scrap of bread, and wash it down with these gratuitous draughts. By such parsimonious artifices, and a most penurious course of life, he succeeded in amassing an enormous fortune, and was in a position to lend vast sums of money to the French government. When he had occasion to journey from Boulogne to Paris, he avoided the expence of coach-fare by proceeding on foot; and, lest he should be robbed, he never carried more than threepence in his pocket, although he had a distance of a hundred and thirty miles before him. If he found this sum insufficient, he would profess poverty, and beg from the passengers on the road a trifle to help him on. In the year 1735, Vandille, the miser, was worth nearly eight hundred thousand pounds! He used to boast that this vast accumulation sprang from a single shilling. The winter of the year 1734 had been very cold and bitter, and the miser felt inclined to purchase a little extra fuel in the summer time, to provide, to some extent, against the like severity in the ensuing winter. He heard a man pass the street with wood to sell; he haggled for an unconscionable time about the price, and at last completed his bargain, at the lowest possible rate. Avarice had made the miser dishonest, and he stole from the poor woodman several logs. In his eagerness to carry them away, and hide his ill-gotten store, he overheated his blood, and produced a fever. For the first time in his life, he sent for a surgeon. "I wish to be bled," said he; "what is your charge?" "Half a livre," was the reply. The demand was deemed extortionate, and the surgeon was dismissed. He then sent for an apothecary, but he was also considered too high; and he at last sent for a poor barber, who agreed to open the vein for threepence a time. "But, friend," said the cautious miser, "how often will it be requisite to bleed me?" "Three times," replied the barber. "Three times! and pray, what quantity of blood do you intend to take from me at each operation?" "About eight ounces each time," was the answer. "Let me see," said the possessor of three-quarters of a million, "that will be ninepence; too much; too much! I have determined to go a cheaper way to work; take the whole twenty-four ounces at once, and that will save me sixpence." The barber remonstrated, but the miser was firm; he was certain, he said, that the barber was only desirous to extort an extra sixpence, and he would not submit to such scandalous imposition. His vein was opened, and four-and-twenty ounces of blood were taken from him. In a few days, Vandille the miser was no more. The savings of his life, the wages of his vice and avarice, he left to the King of France.

A similar anecdote is related of Sir William Smyth, of Bedfordshire. He was immensely rich, but most parsimonious and miserly in his habits. At seventy years of age he was entirely deprived of his sight, unable to gloat over his hoarded heaps of gold; this was a terrible affliction. He was persuaded by Taylor, the celebrated oculist, to be couched; who was, by agreement, to have sixty guineas if he restored his patient to any degree of sight. Taylor succeeded in his operation, and Sir William was enabled to read and write, without the aid of spectacles, during the rest of his life. But no sooner was his sight restored, than the baronet began to regret that his agreement had been for so large a sum; he felt no joy as others would have felt, but grieved and sighed over the loss of his sixty guineas! His thoughts were now how to cheat the oculist; he pretended that he had only a glimmering, and could see nothing distinctly; for which reason, the bandage on his eyes was continued a month longer than the usual time. Taylor was deceived by these misrepresentations, and agreed to compound the bargain, and accepted twenty guineas, instead of sixty. Yet Sir William was an old bachelor, and had no one to care or provide for. At the time Taylor attended him, he had a large estate, an immense sum of money in the stocks, and six thousand pounds in the house.