Chapter XI: Part THE SECOND: Noon (7)

My brother-in-law, Mr. Thomas Erminstoun, was paler and thinner than when I had seen him last, and I was shocked and alarmed at his appearance. His love for Gabrielle amounted to idolatry; and for her sake he loved and cherished me. She was colder and haughtier in manner than ever, receiving passively all the devoted tenderness lavished by her husband: this pained me sadly; for though he was assuredly simple, there was an earnest truthfulness and kindliness about him, which won on the affections amazingly. He would speak to me of Gabrielle by the hour together, with ever-increasing delight; we both marveled at her surpassing beauty, which each week became more angelic and pure in character.

On me alone all my sister's caresses were bestowed; all the pent-up love of a passionate nature found vent in my arms, which were twined around her with strange enthusiastic love; therefore it was, her faults occasioned me such agony--for I could not but see them--and I alone, of all the world, knew her noble nature--knew what she "might have been." I told her that I expected to have found her cheerful, now she had a happy home of her own.

"Happy! cheerful!" she cried, sadly. "A childhood such as mine was, flings dark shadows over all futurity, Ruth."

"Oh, speak not so, beloved," I replied; "have you not a good husband, your error mercifully forgiven? are you not surrounded by blessings?"

"And dependent," she answered, bitterly

"But dependent on your husband, as the Bible says every woman should be."

"And my husband is utterly dependent on his father, Ruth; he has neither ability nor health to help himself, and on his father he depends for our bread. I have but exchanged one bondage for another; and all my hope is now centred in you, dearest, to educate you--to render you independent of this cold, hard world."

"Why, Gabrielle," I said, "you are not seventeen yet--it is not too late, is it, for you also to be educated?"

"Too late, too late," answered Gabrielle, mournfully. "Listen, wise Ruth, I shall be a mother soon; and to my child, if it is spared, and to you, I devote myself. You have seen the Misses Erminstoun--you have seen vulgarity, insolence, and absurd pretension; they have taunted me with my ignorance, and I will not change it now. The blood of the De Courcys and O'Briens has made me a lady; and all the wealth of the Indies can not make them so. No, Ruth, I will remain in ignorance, and yet tower above them, high as the clouds above the dull earth, in innate superiority and power of mind!"

"Oh, my sister," I urged timidly, "it is not well to think highly of one's self--the Bible teaches not so."

"Ruth! Ruth!" she exclaimed, impatiently, "it is not that I think highly of myself, as you well know; you well know with what anguish I have deplored our wants; it is pretension I despise, and rise above; talent, and learning, and virtue, and nobleness, that I revere, and could worship!"

"But, beloved," I urged, "people may be very kind and good, without being so mighty clever."

"The Erminstouns female are not kind, are not good," she haughtily replied: "the Erminstouns male are fools! Ruth, I have changed one bondage for another, and the sins of the father fall on the innocent child. I have changed starvation, and cold, and degradation, for hateful dependence on the vulgar and despised. Woe is me, woe is me! If I can but save you, my sister, and make you independent, I can bear my lot."

My education commenced, and they called me a "wise child:" every one was kind to the poor cripple, even the "proud Miss Erminstouns," who cast envious and disdainful glances on my beautiful sister, which she repaid with unutterable scorn--silent, but sure. Oh, how I prayed Gabrielle to _try_ and win their love; to read her Bible, and therein find that "a kind word turneth away wrath;" but Gabrielle was proud as Lucifer, and liked not to read of humility and forbearance. I found a zealous friend and instructor in Mr. Dacre, the "poor, pious curate;" he was a college friend of my brother-in-law, and a few years his senior. I felt assured that Mr. Dacre thought Mr. Thomas's life a very precarious one, from the way in which he spoke to him on religious subjects, and the anxiety he evinced as to his spiritual welfare. Mr. Dacre used also to call me his "wise little friend;" and we were wont to speak of passages in the book I loved best. What thought I of him? Why, sometimes in my own mind I would compare him to an apostle--St. Paul, for instance, sincere, learned, and inspired; but then St. Paul haunted my day-dreams as a reverend gentleman with a beard and flowing robes, while Mr. Dacre was young, handsome, and excessively neat in his ecclesiastical costume and appointments generally. Mr. Dacre had serious dark eyes--solemn eyes they were, in my estimation, but the very sweetest smile in the world; and one of the Misses Erminstoun seemed to think so too: but people said that the pious young minister was vowed to celibacy.

There was also another frequent visitor at Erminstoun Hall, who not seldom found his way to Wood End Cottage; and this was no less a personage than Lord Treherne, who resided at Treherne Abbey in princely magnificence, and had lately become a widower. This nobleman was upward of sixty, stately, cold, and reserved in manner, and rarely warmed into a smile, except in contemplation of woman's beauty; of which, indeed, he was an enthusiastic admirer. The late Lady Treherne had presented her lord with no family; and the disappointment was bitterly felt by Lord Treherne, who most ardently desired an heir to succeed to his ancient title and immense possessions. It was rumored abroad that the eldest Miss Erminstoun was likely to become the favored lady on whom his lordship's second choice might fall: she was still a handsome woman, and as cold and haughty as Lord Treherne himself; but, notwithstanding her smiles and encouragement, the ancient cavalier in search of a bride did not propose. Nay, on the contrary, he evinced considerable interest in Mr. Thomas Erminstoun's failing health; he was the poor young gentleman's godfather, and it seemed not improbable that, in the event of his lordship dying childless, his godson might inherit a desirable fortune. Rare fruits and flowers arrived in profusion from the Abbey; and my lord showed great interest in my progress, while Gabrielle treated him with far more freedom than she did any one else, and seemed pleased and gratified by his fatherly attentions.

At length the time arrived when Gabrielle became the mother of as lovely a babe as ever entered this world of woe; and it was a fair and touching sight to behold the young mother caressing her infant daughter. I have often wondered that I felt no pangs of jealousy, for the beauteous stranger more than divided my sister's love for me--she engaged it nearly all: and there was something fearful and sublime in the exceeding idolatry of Gabrielle for her sweet baby. Self was immolated altogether; and when she hung over the baby's couch each night, watching its happy, peaceful slumbers, it was difficult to say which of the twain was the more beautiful. Repose marked the countenance of each--Gabrielle's was imbued with the heavenly repose of parental love.

In less than twelve months after its birth, that poor baby was fatherless. I had anticipated and foreseen this calamity; and Gabrielle conducted herself, as I believed she would, without hypocrisy, but with serious propriety. Sad scenes followed this solemn event; the Misses Erminstoun wished to take her child from Gabrielle, to bring it up at the Hall. Mr. Erminstoun urged her compliance, and recommended my sister to seek "a situation" for me, as "he had already so expensive an establishment to keep up; and now poor Thomas was gone, there was really no occasion for Wood End Cottage to be on his hands. Gabrielle must find a home in some farm-house."

All this came about in a few months, from one thing to another; and the young widow, who had been ever hated as a wife, was grudged her daily support by her deceased husband's family. "Give up her child?" Gabrielle only laughed when they spoke of that; but her laugh rings in my ears yet! though it was as soft and musical as the old church bells.

We left Wood End Cottage, and found refuge in a retired farm-house, as Mr. Erminstoun proposed; but we were together: and there were many who cried "shame" on the rich banker, for thus casting off his daughter-in-law and his grandchild. Small was the pittance he allowed for our subsistence; and the Misses Erminstoun never noticed Gabrielle on her refusal to part with the child. "She was not fit," they bruited about, "to bring up their poor brother's daughter. She was ignorant, uneducated, and unamiable, besides being basely ungrateful for kindness lavished; she had a cold heart and repellant manner, which had steeled their sympathies toward her." They thought themselves ill-used at Erminstoun Hall; and the five Misses Erminstoun regarded Gabrielle and her poor little daughter as mere interlopers, who were robbing them of their father's money.

Well might Gabrielle say--"I have changed one bondage for another!" but I never heard her repeat that now. She was silent, even to me. No murmur escaped her lips; and what she felt or suffered I knew not. Little Ella was a pale flower, like her mother; but as similar to the parent rose as an opening rosebud.

"What could I do?" were the words I was continually repeating to myself. "I must not be an added burden to Mr. Erminstoun. I have already profited by my sister's union with his son, by having gratefully received instruction in various branches of learning, and can I not do something for myself?" What this _something_ was to be, I could not define. My lameness precluded active employment, and I was too young to become a "companion." I confided my thoughts and wishes to Mr. Dacre, who often visited us, speaking words of balm and consolation to the afflicted. Gabrielle listened to his words, as she never had done to mine; and he could reprove, admonish, exhort, or cheer, when all human hope seemed deserting us. For where were we to look for a shelter, should it please Mr. Erminstoun to withdraw his allowance, to force Gabrielle to abandon her child to have it from want? I verily believe, had it not been for that precious babe, she would have begged her bread, and suffered me to do so, rather than be dependent on the scantily-doled-out bounty of Mr. Erminstoun.

During the twelve months that elapsed after her husband's death there was a "great calm" over Gabrielle--a tranquillity, like that exhibited by an individual walking in sleep. I had expected despair and passion when her lofty spirit was thus trampled to the dust; but no, as I have said, she was strangely tranquil--strangely silent. There was no resignation--that is quite another thing; and, except when my sister listened to Mr. Dacre, she never read her Bible, or suffered me to read it to her: but his deep, full, rich voice, inexpressibly touching and sweet in all its modulations, ever won her rapt, undivided attention. She attended the church where he officiated; and though the Erminstouns had a sumptuously-decorated pew there, it was not to that the young widow resorted; she sat amid the poor in the aisle, beneath a magnificent monument of the Treherne family, where the glorious sunset rays, streaming through the illuminated window, fell full upon her clustering golden hair and downcast eyes.

There was pride in this, not humility; and Gabrielle deceived herself, as, with a quiet grace peculiarly her own, she glided to her lowly seat, rejecting Lord Treherne's proffered accommodation, as he courteously stood with his pew door open, bowing to the fair creature as if she had been a queen. The five Misses Erminstoun knelt on their velvet cushions, arrayed in feathers and finery, and strong in riches and worldly advantages; but my pale sister, in her coarsely-fashioned mourning-garb, seated on a bench, and kneeling on the stone, might have been taken for the regal lady, and they her plebeian attendants.

Spiteful glances they cast toward Gabrielle, many a time and oft, when my Lord Treherne so pointedly paid his respectful devoirs; and there was as much pride and haughtiness in Gabrielle's heart as in theirs. Poor thing! she said truly, that "early shadows had darkened her soul," and what had she left but _pride_? Not an iota of woman's besetting littleness had my sister--noble, generous, self-denying, devoted where she loved; her sweetness had been poisoned, nor had she sought that fountain of living water which alone can purify such bitterness. Gentle in manner, pure in heart, affectionate in disposition, Gabrielle's pride wrought her misery. Lord Treherne never came in person to our humble home--he had but once paid his respects to Gabrielle since her widowhood; but the rarest exotics continued to decorate our poor room, constantly replenished from Treherne Abbey, and sent, with his lordship's card, by a confidential domestic. He was always at church now, and people remarked "how pious my lord had latterly become." I was far too young and inexperienced then to understand or appreciate this delicacy and propriety on Lord Treherne's part. But Mr. Dacre understood it; nor would _he_ have intruded on our privacy, save in his ministerial capacity, and for the purpose of aiding and assisting me in the studies I endeavored to pursue. There was a "halo of sanctity" around Mr. Dacre, which effectually precluded any approach to freedom or frivolous conversation, in any society wherein he might be placed. He gave the tone to that society, and the gay and dashing Misses Erminstoun became subdued in his presence; while Lord Treherne, with excellent taste, not only showed the outward respect due to Mr. Dacre's sacred and high office, but the regard which his personal qualities deserved.

I have often looked back on that time immediately after my brother-in-law's decease, with wonder at our serenity--nay, almost contentment and happiness; despite the anguish and humiliation I knew Gabrielle must endure, her smile was ever beautiful and sweet, and illumined our poor home with the sunshine of heaven.

Our baby was, I think I may say, almost equally dear to us both--it had two mothers, Gabrielle said; and what with nursing the darling little thing, and learning my lessons, and Mr. Dacre's visits, time flew rapidly.

On the appearance of each fresh token of Lord Treherne's remembrance, I observed an expression flit across my sister's face which I could not define; it was of triumph and agony combined, and she always flew to her baby, clasping it convulsively to her bosom, and whispering words of strange import. On Mr. Dacre's expressive, serious countenance, also, I noticed passing clouds, as Gabrielle bestowed enthusiastic admiration on the superb exotics. Why this was I could by no means satisfactorily decide, as Mr. Dacre, so kind and generous, must approve the disinterested delicacy exhibited by Lord Treherne, in his offerings to the fatherless and widow. But the disinterestedness of my lord's attentions was a myth which I soon discarded: for in twelve months subsequent to Mr. Thomas Erminstoun's decease, a letter from Treherne Abbey was brought to Gabrielle, sealed with the armorial bearings of the Trehernes, and signed by the present representative of that noble race. We were seated at our fireside, busy with domestic needlework, and I saw Gabrielle's hands tremble as she opened it, while that strange, wild expression of triumph and pain, flitted more than once over her face as she perused the missive. She silently gave it to me, and with amazement I read its contents--such an idea had never once entered my simple brain. Lord Treherne made Gabrielle an offer of his hand and heart, signifying that if she would graciously incline her ear to his suit, a brilliant destiny awaited her infant daughter--on whom, and on its lovely mother, the most munificent settlements should be made. I laughed heartily as I read his lordship's rhapsodies, becoming a young lover; and I said, returning the epistle to Gabrielle, "What a pity, dearest, that we can not have such a noble father for our little Ella!" the possibility of Gabrielle's marrying a man of nearly seventy never entered into my calculations for a moment. Therefore my astonishment was overwhelming when she seriously answered,

"Why can not Lord Treherne be a father to my child, Ruth?"

"Because, dearest, you could not marry him--he is so old."

"But I mean to marry him, Ruth: could you doubt it? Could I have lived on as I have done without prophetic hope to support me? Think you, if Lord Treherne were double the age, I would refuse rank, wealth and power? Oh, Ruth, were I alone, it might be different." She spoke in a tone of suppressed anguish and passionate regret. "But look on her," pointing to the sleeping cherub, "for her sake I would _immolate myself on any altar of sacrifice_. Her fate shall be a brighter one than her mother's--if that mother has power to save and to bless! _She_ must not be doomed to poverty or dependence. No, no! I give her a father who can restore in her the ancient glories of our race; for my Ella is a descendant of the chivalrous O'Briens and the noble De Courcys."

"And of the Erminstouns of Erminstoun Hall," I gently suggested, for Gabrielle was greatly excited.

"Name them not, Ruth; name them not, if you love me. To change their hated name, what would I not do?"

Alas! thought I, you are deceiving yourself, my poor sister, in this supposed immolation on an altar of sacrifice; it is not for your child's sake alone, though you fancy so. But Blanche Erminstoun will be disappointed, revenge obtained, and pride amply gratified, and truly "the heart is deceitful above all things."

Mr. Dacre entered the apartment as Gabrielle ceased speaking, for we had not heard his modest signal, and he was unannounced. My sister colored to the very temples on seeing the young pastor, and her hands trembled in the vain endeavor to fold Lord Treherne's letter, which at length she impatiently crushed together. I heard a half-smothered hysterical sob, as, with a faltering voice, she bade our guest "Good-evening." Ah! when the heart is aching and throbbing with agony, concealed and suppressed, it requires heroic self-command to descend to the commonplaces of this workaday world; but women early learn to conceal and subdue their feelings, when premature sorrows have divided them from real or pretended sympathies.

I read my sister's heart, I knew her secret, and I inwardly murmured, "Alas for woman's love, it is cast aside!"

* * * * *

My sister's marriage with Lord Treherne was a strictly private one (Gabrielle had stipulated for this), his lordship's chaplain performing the ceremony. My thoughts reverted to Gabrielle's first marriage, when the clerk gave her away, and she was clad in muslin; now she was arrayed in satin and glittering gems, and a peer of the realm, an old friend of the bridegroom, gave her lily hand at the altar to her noble lover. Twice she was forsworn; but the desecration to her soul was not so great on the first as on the present occasion, for then her heart was still her own; while now, alas for woman's love, it was cast aside!

In a few weeks after the marriage we all departed for the Continent, where we remained for the six following years, Gabrielle and myself receiving instructions in every accomplishment suitable to our position. It was charming to witness with what celerity my beautiful sister acquired every thing she undertook, for she was as anxious as her lord to adorn the high station to which she now belonged. Wherever we went the fame of Lady Treherne's beauty went with us, while her fascination of manner and high-bred elegance perfectly satisfied her fastidious husband that he had made a wise and prudent choice. There was one drawback to his lordship's perfect contentment, and this was the absence of the much-wished-for heir, for Gabrielle presented no children to her husband; and our little Ella, a fairy child, of brilliant gifts and almost superhuman loveliness, became as necessary to Lord Treherne's happiness as she was to her doting mother's. It was settled ere we returned to England, that Ella was to drop the name of Erminstoun, and as Lord Treherne's acknowledged heiress, legal forms were to be immediately adopted in order to ratify the change of name to that of the family appellation of the Trehernes.

With a murmur of grateful feeling I saw Gabrielle kneel beside her aged husband, and thank him fondly for this proof of regard; triumph sparkled in her eyes, and Lord Treherne laid his hand on her fair head, blessing her as he did so. She had made him a good wife, in every sense of the term: he had never forgot that her blood equaled his own. But Gabrielle did, for that very reason; her gratitude made her humble toward him, because he was humble toward her: nor did Lord Treherne ever cease to think that Gabrielle had conferred a favor in marrying him.

A succession of _fetes_ and entertainments were given at Treherne Abbey after our return, and Gabrielle was the star on whom all gazed with delighted admiration. All the country families flocked to pay their homage, but the Erminstouns came not until Lady Treherne extended a hand of welcome to her first husband's family; she was too exalted, both in station and mind, to cherish the pitiful remembrances of their former unkindness. There were but two Misses Erminstoun now, the others were well married (according to the world's notion, that is); and the youngest, who had not given up hopes of yet becoming Mrs. Dacre, had transformed herself into a nun-like damsel, something between a Sister of Charity and a Quakeress in exterior: perhaps Mr. Dacre read the interior too well; and, notwithstanding the lady's assiduous visits to the poor, and attendance on the charity-schools, and regular loud devotions at church, Mr. Dacre remained obdurate and wedded to celibacy. It might be that he disapproved of the marriage of the clergy, but I think he was at one time vulnerable on that point.

How delighted I was to see him once more, to hear him call me his "wise little friend," with his former sweet smile and affectionate manner; six years had changed him--he looked rather careworn, and well he might, for he was a true worker in the Lord's vineyard: nor was his mission confined to the poor; the rich and noble also felt his influence. Lord and Lady Treherne greeted him as an old and valued friend; nor could I detect the slightest agitation in Gabrielle's manner, and my former suspicions almost faded away. She brought our fair Ella to welcome "papa and mamma's friend" to Treherne; and Ella, with her winning, gentle ways, soon made Mr. Dacre understand that she loved him very much indeed: she was a holy child, and the principal joy of her innocent life was to hear me tell her those stories in which I used to take delight in my early days--how contrasted to hers! She would sing her pretty hymns, seated on a low footstool at Lord Treherne's feet; and the stately nobleman, with tears in his eyes, used to exclaim with pathos,

"Sister Ruth, sister Ruth, my heart misgives me; the angels surely will take this child to themselves, and leave us desolate."

Mr. Dacre came not frequently to Treherne, but he was a quick observer, and he saw we had set up an idol for ourselves in this child, he cautioned us, but Gabrielle shivered--yes, _shivered_ with dismay, at the bare suggestion he hinted at--that God was a "jealous God," and permitted no idolatrous worship to pass unreproved.

Poor young mother, how can I relate the scenes I lived to witness!

Ella died, aged ten years. The mother sat by her coffin four days and nights, speechless and still; we dared not attempt to remove her, there way an alarming expression in her eyes if we did, that made the medical men uncertain how to act. She had tasted no food since the child died; she was hopeful to the last: it was impossible, she said, that her child could die; her faculties could not comprehend the immensity of the anguish in store for her. So there she sat like stone--cold, and silent, and wan, as the effigy she watched. Who dared to awaken the mother?

Mr. Dacre undertook the awful task, but it was almost too much for his tender, sympathizing heart; nerved by strength from above he came to us--for I never left my sister--and we three were alone with the dead.

It harrows my soul to dwell on this subject, and it seemed cruel to awaken the benumbed mother to reality and life again, but it was done; and then words were spoken far too solemn and sacred to repeat here, and hearts were opened that otherwise might have remained sealed till the judgment day. Gabrielle, for the first time in her life, knew herself as she was; and, prostrate beside her dead child, cried, "I have deserved thy chastening rod, for thou art the Lord, and I thy creature; deal with me as thou seest best." Pride abased, hope crushed, heart contrite and broken, never, never had Gabrielle been so dear to me; and during many weeks that I watched beside her couch, as she fluctuated between life and death, I knew that, she was an altered being, and that this bitter, affliction had not been sent in vain. She came gently home to God, and humbly knelt a suppliant at the mercy-throne, forever crying,

"Thou art wisest! Thou art best! Thou, alone knowest what is good for us! Thy will be done!"

The blow had fallen heavily on Lord Treherne, but for two years my sister lived to bless and comfort him; then it became evident to all that the mother was about to rejoin her child in the mansions of the blessed. She expressed a wish that Mr. Dacre should read the funeral service over her, and he administered the last blessed consolations to her departing spirit; no remnants of mortal weakness lurked in his heart as he stood beside the dying, for he knew that in this world they were as pilgrims and strangers, but in that to which Gabrielle was hastening they would be reunited in glory--no more partings, no more tears. She died calmly, with her hands clasped in Lord Treherne's and mine; while Mr. Dacre knelt absorbed in prayer she passed away, and we looked on each other in speechless sorrow, and then on what had been my young and beautiful sister.

Of my own deep grief and lacerated heart I will not speak; Lord Treherne required all my care and attention, nor would he hear of my quitting him--indeed, he could scarcely bear me to be out of his sight; the heavy infirmities of advanced years had suddenly increased since his double bereavement, and I felt very grateful that to my humble efforts he owed any glimpse of sunshine.

He was a severe bodily sufferer for many years, but affliction was not sent in vain, for Lord Treherne became perfectly prepared for the awful change awaiting him, trusting in His merits alone. Those were blessed hours when Mr. Dacre spoke to him of the dear departed, who had only journeyed on before--of God's ways in bringing us to Himself, chastening pride and self-reliance, and tolerating no idol worship. Lord Treherne, with lavish generosity, made an ample provision for his "wise little Ruth," as he ever smilingly called me to the last. He died peacefully, and the Abbey came into the possession of a distant branch of the Treherne family.

Wood End Cottage was vacant, and I purchased it; and assisted by Mr. Dacre in the labor of love for our blessed Master, life has not passed idly, and, I humbly trust, not entirely without being of use in my generation. Previous to his decease, Lord Treherne caused a splendid monument to be erected in Wood End church to the memory of Gabrielle, and Ella his adopted daughter: the spotless marble is exquisitely wrought, the mother and child reposing side-by-side as if asleep, with their hands meekly folded on their breasts, and their eyes closed, as if weary--weary.

The last fading hues of sunset, which so often rested on Gabrielle's form as she knelt in her widowhood beneath the monumental glories of the Trehernes, now illumines the sculptured stone, which mysteriously hints of hidden things--corruption and the worm.

I love to kneel in the house of prayer where Gabrielle knelt: dim voices haunt me from the past: my place is prepared among the green grass mounds, for no tablet or record shall mark the spot where "Ruth the cripple" reposes, sweetly slumbering with the sod on her bosom, "dust to dust."

THE WASTE OF WAR.

Give me the gold that war has cost,
Before this peace-expanding day;
The wasted skill, the labor lost--
The mental treasure thrown away;
And I will buy each rood of soil
In every yet discovered land;
Where hunters roam, where peasants toil,
Where many-peopled cities stand.

I'll clothe each shivering wretch on earth.
In needful; nay, in brave attire;
Vesture befitting banquet mirth,
Which kings might envy and admire.
In every vale, on every plain,
A school shall glad the gazer's sight;
Where every poor man's child may gain
Pure knowledge, free as air and light.

I'll build asylums for the poor,
By age or ailment made forlorn:
And none shall thrust them from the door,
Or sting with looks and words of scorn.
I'll link each alien hemisphere;
Help honest men to conquer wrong;
Art, Science, Labor, nerve and cheer;
Reward the Poet for his song.

In every crowded town shall rise
Halls Academic, amply graced;
Where Ignorance may soon be wise,
And Coarseness learn both art and taste
To every province shall belong
Collegiate structures, and not few--
Fill'd with a truth-exploring throng,
And teachers of the good and true.

In every free and peopled clime
A vast Walhalla hall shall stand;
A marble edifice sublime,
For the illustrious of the land;
A Pantheon for the _truly_ great,
The wise, beneficent, and just;
A place of wide and lofty state
To honor or to hold their dust.

A temple to attract and teach
Shall lift its spire on every hill,
Where pious men shall feel and preach
Peace, mercy, tolerance, good-will;
Music of bells on Sabbath days,
Round the whole earth shall gladly rise;
And one great Christian song of praise
Stream sweetly upward to the skies!

A NIGHT WITH AN EARTHQUAKE.[6]

The sound had not quite died away, when the feet I stood on seemed suddenly seized with the cramp. Cup and coffee-pot dropped as dead from Don Marzio's hand as the ball from St. Francis's palm. There was a rush as if of many waters, and for about ten seconds my head was overwhelmed by awful dizziness, which numbed and paralyzed all sensation. Don Marzio, in form an athlete, in heart a lion, but a man of sudden, sanguine temperament, bustled up and darted out of the room with the ease of a man never burdened with a wife, with kith or kin. Donna Betta, a portly matron, also rose instinctively; but I--I never could account for the odd freak--laid hold of her arm, bidding her stay. The roar of eight hundred houses--or how many more can there be in Aquila?--all reeling and quaking, the yells of ten thousand voices in sudden agony, had wholly subsided ere I allowed the poor woman calmly and majestically to waddle up to her good man in the garden. That, I suppose, was my notion of an orderly retreat. Rosalbina had flown from a window into the lawn, like a bird. Thank God, we found ourselves all in the open air under the broad canopy of heaven. We began to count heads. Yes, there we all stood--cook, laundry-maid, dairy-maids, stable-boys, all as obedient to the awful summons as the best disciplined troops at the first roll of the drum.

It was February, as I have twice observed; and we were in the heart of the highest Apennines. The day was rather fine, but pinching cold; and when the fever of the first terror abated, the lady and young lady began to shiver in every limb. No one dared to break silence; but Don Marzio's eye wandered significantly enough from one to another countenance in that awe-stricken group. There was no mistaking his appeal. Yet, one after another, his menials and laborers returned his gaze with well-acted perplexity. No one so dull of apprehension as those who will not understand. My good friends, I was three-and-twenty. I had had my trials, and could boast of pretty narrow escapes. I may have been reckless, perhaps, in my day. I smiled dimly, nodded to the old gentleman, clapped my hands cheerily, and the next moment was once more where no man in Aquila would at that moment have liked to be for the world--under a roof. I made a huge armful of cloaks and blankets, snapped up every rag with all the haste of a marauding party, and moved toward the door, tottering under the encumbrance. But now the dreadful crisis was at hand.

Earthquakes, it is well known, proceed by action and re-action. The second shock, I was aware, must be imminent. I had just touched the threshold, and stood under the porch, when that curious spasmodic sensation once more stiffened every muscle in my limbs. Presently I felt myself lifted up from the ground. I was now under the portico, and was hurled against the pillar on my right; the rebound again drove me to the post on the opposite side; and after being thus repeatedly tossed and buffeted from right to left like a shuttlecock, I was thrust down, outward, on the ground on my head, with all that bundle of rags, having tumbled head-long the whole range of the four marble steps of entrance. The harm, however, was not so great as the fright; and, thanks to my gallant devotion, the whole party were wrapped and blanketed, till they looked like a party of wild Indians; we stood now on comparatively firm ground, and had leisure to look about us. Don Marzio's garden was open and spacious, being bounded on three sides by the half-crumbling wall of the town. On the fourth side was the house--a good, substantial fabric, but now miserably shaky and rickety. Close by the house was the chapel of the Ursuline convent, and above that its slender spire rose chaste and stainless, "pointing the way to heaven." Any rational being might have deemed himself sufficiently removed from brick and mortar, and, in so far, out of harm's way. Not so Don Marzio. He pointed to the shadow of that spire, which, in the pale wintry sunset, stretched all the way across his garden, and by a strange perversion of judgment, he contended that so far as the shadow extended, there might also the body that cast it reach in its fall, for fall it obviously must; and as the danger was pressing, he deemed it unwise to discuss which of the four cardinal points the tower might feel a leaning toward, whenever, under the impulse of the subterranean scourge, it would "look around and choose its ground." Don Marzio was gifted with animal courage, and even nerve, proportionate to the might of his stalwart frame. But then his was merely a combative spirit. Thews and sinews were of no avail in the case. The garden was no breathing ground for him, and he resolved upon prompt emigration.

The people of Aquila, as indeed you may well know, of most towns in Southern Italy, have the habit of--consequently a peculiar talent for--earthquakes. They know how to deal with them, and are seldom caught unprepared. Two hundred yards outside the town gate, there is half a square mile of table-land on the summit of a hill--a market-place in days of ease, a harbor of refuge in the urgency of peril. From the first dropping of the earth-ball from the hand of their guardian saint, the most far-sighted among the inhabitants had been busy pitching their tents. The whole population--those, that is, who had escaped unscathed by flying tiles and chimney-pots--were now swarming there, pulling, pushing, hauling, and hammering away for very life: with women fainting, children screeching, Capuchins preaching. It was like a little rehearsal of doomsday. Don Marzio, a prudent housekeeper, had the latch-key of a private door at the back of the garden. He threw it open--not without a misgiving at the moss-grown wall overhead. That night the very stars did not seem to him sufficiently firm-nailed to the firmament! His family and dependents trooped after him, eager to follow. Rosalbina looked back--at one who was left behind. Don Marzio felt he owed me at least one word of leave-taking. He hemmed twice, came back two steps, and gave me a feverish shake of the hand.

"I am heartily sorry for you, my boy," he cried. "A _fuoruscito_, as I may say, a bird-in-the-bush--you dare not show your nose outside the door. You would not compromise yourself alone, you know, but all of us and our friends; we must leave you--safe enough here, I dare say," with a stolen glance at the Ursuline spire, "but--you see--imperative duties--head of a family--take care of the females--and so, God bless you!"

With this he left me there, under the deadly shade of the steeple--deadlier to him than the upas-tree; ordered his little household band out, and away they filed, one by one, the head of the family manfully closing the rear....

I was alone--alone with the earthquake.... There was a wood-cellar in one of the out-houses, access to which was easy and safe. One of my host's domestics had slipped flint and steel into my hands. In less than half-an-hour's time, a cheerful fire was crackling before me. I drew forth an old lumbering arm-chair from the wood-cellar, together with my provision of fuel. I shrouded myself in the ample folds of one of Don Marzio's riding-cloaks; I sat with folded arms, my eyes riveted on the rising blaze, summoning all my spirits round my heart, and bidding it to bear up. The sun had long set, and the last gleam of a sickly twilight rapidly faded. A keen, damp, north-east wind swept over the earth; thin, black, ragged clouds flitted before it, like uneasy ghosts. A stray star twinkled here and there in the firmament, and the sickle-shaped moon hung in the west. But the light of those pale luminaries was wan and fitful. They seemed to be aware of the hopelessness of their struggle, and to mourn in anticipation of the moment when they should faint in fight, and unrelieved darkness should lord it over the fields of the heavens.

The town of Aquila, or the Eagle, as the natives name it, is perched, eagle-like, on the brow of an abrupt cliff in the bosom of the loftiest Apennines. Monte Reale, Monte Velino, and the giant of the whole chain, the "Gran Sasso d'Italia," look down upon it from their exalted thrones. Within the shelter of that massive armor, the town might well seem invulnerable to time and man. But now, as I gazed despondingly round, the very hills everlasting seemed rocking from their foundation, and their crests nodding to destruction. Which of those mighty peaks was to open the fire of hell's artillery upon us? Was not Etna once as still and dark as yonder great rock? and yet it now glares by night with its ominous beacon, and cities and kingdoms have been swept away at its base.

Two hours passed away in gloomy meditation. The whole town was a desert. The camp meeting of the unhoused Aquilani was held somewhere in the distance: its confused murmur reached me not. Only my neighbors, the Ursuline nuns, were up and awake. With shrinking delicacy, dreading the look and touch of the profane even more than the walls of their prison-house, they had stood their ground with the heroism of true faith, and reared their temporary asylum under their vine-canopied bowers, within the shade of the cloisters. A high garden-wall alone separated me from the holy virgins. They were watching and kneeling. Every note from their silver voices sank deep in my heart, and impressed me with something of that pious confidence, of that imploring fervor, with which they addressed their guardian angels and saints. Two hours had passed. The awfulness of prevailing tranquillity, the genial warmth of my fire, and the sweet monotony of that low, mournful chanting, were by degrees gliding into my troubled senses, and lulling them into a treacherous security. "Just so," I reasoned, "shock and countershock. The terrible scourge has by this time exhausted its strength. It was only a farce, after all. Much ado about nothing. The people of this town have become so familiar with the earthquake that they make a carnival of it. By this time they are perhaps feasting and rioting under their booths. Ho! am I the only craven here? And had I not my desire? Am I not now on speaking terms with an earthquake?"

Again my words conjured up the waking enemy. A low, hollow, rumbling noise, as if from many hundred miles' distance, was heard coming rapidly onward along the whole line of the Apennines. It reached us, it seemed to stop underneath our feet, and suddenly changing its horizontal for a vertical direction, it burst upward. The whole earth heaved with a sudden pang; it then gave a backward bound, even as a vessel shipping a sea. The motion then became undulatory, and spread far and wide as the report of a cannon, awakening every echo in the mountain. There was a rattle and clatter in the town, as if of a thousand wagons shooting down paving stones. The Ursuline steeple waved in the air like a reed vexed by the blast. The chair I stood on was all but capsized, and the fire at my feet was overthrown. The very vault of heaven swung to and fro, ebbing and heaving with the general convulsion. The doleful psalmody in the neighboring ground broke abruptly. The chorus of many feminine voices sent forth but one rending shriek. The clamor of thousands of the town-folk from their encampment gave its wakeful response. Then the dead silence of consternation ensued. I picked up every stick and brand that had been scattered about, steadied myself in my chair, and hung down my head. "These black hounds," I mused, "hunt in couples. Now for the repercussion."

I had not many minutes to wait. Again the iron-hoofed steeds and heavy wheels of the state chariot of the prince of darkness were heard tramping and rattling in their course. Once more the subterranean avalanche gathered and burst. Once more the ground beneath throbbed and heaved as if with rending travail. Once more heaven and earth seemed to yearn to each other; and the embers of my watch-fire were cast upward and strewn asunder. It was an awful long winter night. The same sable clouds rioting in the sky, the same cruel wind moaning angrily through the chinks and crevices of many a shattered edifice. Solitude, the chillness of night, and the vagueness, even more than the inevitableness, of the danger, wrought fearfully on my exhausted frame. Stupor and lethargy soon followed these brief moments of speechless excitement. Bewildered imagination peopled the air with vague, unutterable terrors. Legions of phantoms sported on those misshapen clouds. The clash of a thousand swords was borne on the wind. Tongues of living flame danced and quivered in every direction. The firmament seemed all burning with them. I saw myself alone, helpless, hopeless, the miserable butt of all the rage of warring elements. It was an uncomfortable night. Ten and twelve times was the dreadful visitation reproduced between sunset and sunrise, and every shock found me more utterly unnerved; and the sullen, silent resignation with which I recomposed and trimmed my fire had something in it consummately abject, by the side of the doleful accents with which the poor half-hoarse nuns, my neighbors, called on their blessed Virgin for protection.

The breaking morn found me utterly prostrated; and when Don Marzio's servants had so far recovered from their panic as to intrude upon my solitude, and offer their services for the erection of my tent in the garden, I had hardly breath enough left to welcome them. Under that tent I passed days and nights during all the remainder of February. The shocks, though diminished in strength, almost nightly roused us from our rest. But the people of Aquila soon learned to despise them. By one, by two, by three they sought the threshold of their dismantled homes. Last of all, Don Marzio folded his tent. His fears having, finally, so far given way, as to allow him to think of something beside himself, he exerted himself to free me from confinement. He furnished me with faithful guides, by whose aid I reached the sea-coast. Here a Maltese vessel was waiting to waft me to a land of freedom and security. I can tell you, my friends, that from that time I was cured forever of all curiosity about earthquakes.

FOOTNOTES:

[6] From a work entitled "Scenes of Italian Life," by L. Mariotti, just published in London.

A PLEA FOR BRITISH REPTILES.

What the flourishing tradesman writes with pride over his shop, we might in most cases write over our storehouse of antipathies--established in 1720, or 1751. For what good reason we, in 1851, should shudder at the contact of a spider, or loathe toads, it would be hard to say. Our forefathers in their ignorance did certainly traduce the characters of many innocent and interesting animals, and many of us now believe some portions of their scandal. To be a reptile, for example, is perhaps the greatest disgrace that can attach to any animal in our eyes. Reptile passes for about the worst name you can call a man. This is unjust--at any rate, in England. We have no thought of patting crocodiles under the chin, or of embracing boa constrictors; but for our English reptiles we claim good words and good-will. We beg to introduce here, formally, our unappreciated friends to any of our human friends who may not yet have cultivated their acquaintance.

The Common Lizard--surely you know the Common Lizard, if not by his name of state--_Zootoca vivipara_. He wears a brilliant jacket, and you have made friends with him, as a nimble, graceful fellow; as a bit of midsummer. His very name reminds you of a warm bank in the country, and a sunny day. Is he a reptile? Certainly; suppose we stop two minutes to remember what a reptile is.

The heart of a reptile has three cavities; that is to say, it is not completely double, like our own. It sends only a small part of the blood which comes into it for renovation into the air-chambers--the lungs; while the remainder circulates again unpurified. That change made in the blood by contact with the oxygen of air, is chiefly the cause of heat in animals. Aeration, therefore, being in reptiles very partial, the amount of heat evolved is small; reptiles are therefore called cold-blooded. They are unable to raise their heat above the temperature of the surrounding air. Fishes are cold-blooded, through deficient aeration in another way; in them, all the blood passes from the heart into the place where air shall come in contact with it; but, then there is a limitation to the store of air supplied, which can be no more than the quantity extracted from the water. The temperature of water is maintained below the surface, and we know how that of the air varies, since a certain quantity of heat is necessary to the vital processes; reptiles, depending upon air for heat, hybernate or become torpid when the temperature falls below a certain point. The rapidity of all their vital actions will depend upon the state of the thermometer; they digest faster in the heat of summer than in the milder warmth of spring. Their secretions (as the poison of the adder) are in hot weather more copious, and in winter are not formed at all. The reptiles breathe, in all cases, by lungs; but we must except here those called _Batrachians_, as frogs or newts, which breathe, in the first stage, by gills, and afterward by gills and lungs, or by lungs only. The _Batrachians_, again, are the only exception to another great characteristic of the reptile class, the hard, dry covering of plates or scales. The reptiles all produce their young from eggs, or are "oviparous"--some hatch their eggs within the body, and produce their young alive, or are "ovo-viviparous." These are the characters belonging to all members of the reptile-class. The class is subdivided into orders somewhat thus: 1. The _Testudinate_ (tortoises and turtles). 2. _Enaliosaurian_ (all fossil, the _Ichthyosaurus_ and his like). 3. _Loricate_ (crocodiles and alligators). 4. _Saurian_ (lizards). 5. _Ophidian_ (serpents); and the last order, _Batrachian_ (frogs, toads, &c.); which is, by some, parted from the reptiles, and established as another class.

Now we have in England no tortoises or turtles, and no crocodiles: and the fossil order is, in all places, extinct; so our reptiles can belong only to the three last-named orders, Lizards, Serpents, and Batrachians.

Thus we come back, then, to our Lizards, of which we have among us but two genera, a single species of each. These are the Common Lizard, well known to us all, and the Sand Lizard, known only to some of us who happen to live upon the southern coast. The species of lizard so extremely common in this country, has not been found in countries farther south, and is, in fact, peculiar to our latitude. We, therefore, may love him as a sympathetic friend. The sand lizard (_Lacerta agilis_) is found as far north as the country of Linnaeus, and as far south as the northern part of France; in England, however, it seems to be rare, and has been detected only in Dorsetshire--chiefly near Poole, or in some other southern counties. It frequents sandy heaths, and is of a brown sandy color, marked and dotted; but there is a green variety said to be found among the verdure of marshy places. It is larger than our common lizard, averaging seven inches long, is very timid, and when made a prisoner pines and dies. Its female lays eggs, like a turtle, in the sand, covers them over, and leaves them to be hatched by the summer sun. This kind of lizard, therefore, is oviparous. The eggs of our common lizard are hatched also by the sun; for, reptiles having no heat of their own, can not provide that which is necessary to the development of an embryo; but in this case the sun hatches them within the parent's body. The female of this lizard stretches herself out upon a sunny bank, and lets the bright rays fall upon her body while she lies inactive. At this period, she will not move for any thing less than a real cause of alarm. She is not sunning herself lazily, however, but fulfilling an ordinance of God. The eggs break as the young lizards--three to six--are born. This lizard is, therefore, ovo-viviparous. The little ones begin at once to run about, and soon dart after insects, their proper food; but they accompany the mother with some instinct of affection for a little time. These lizards are very various in size and color; difference in these respects does not denote difference in kind. The little scales which cover them are arranged in a peculiar manner on the head, under the neck, &c.; and some differences of arrangement, in such respects, are characteristic. The best distinction between the only two species of lizard known in this country has been pointed out by Mr. Bell. In the hind legs, under each thigh, there is a row of openings, each opening upon a single scale. In sand lizards, the opening is obviously smaller than the scale; in our common lizards, the opening is so comparatively large that the scale seems to be the mere edge of a tube around it.

These are our lizards, then, our Saurian reptiles; and they do not merit any hate. Suffer an introduction now to English Snakes.