Chapter V: Preface (5)

The furniture of the cabins was, like the clothing of the pioneers, homemade. A bedstead was contrived by stretching poles from forked sticks driven into the ground, and laying clapboards across them; the bedclothes were bearskins. Stools, benches, and tables were roughed out with auger and broadax; the puncheon floor was left bare, and if the earth formed the floor, no rug ever replaced the grass which was its first carpet. The cabin had but one room where the whole of life went on by day; the father and mother slept there at night, and the children mounted to their chamber in the loft by means of a ladder.

The food was what has been already named. The meat was venison, bear, raccoon, wild turkey, wild duck, and pheasant; the drink was water, or rye coffee, or whisky which the little stills everywhere supplied only too abundantly. Wheat bread was long unknown, and corn cakes of various makings and bakings supplied its place. The most delicious morsel of all was corn grated while still in the milk and fashioned into round cakes eaten hot from the clapboard before the fire, or from the mysterious depths of the Dutch oven, buried in coals and ashes on the hearth. There was soon a great flow of milk from the kine that multiplied in the woods and pastures, and there was sweetening enough from the maple tree and the bee tree, but salt was very scarce and very dear, and long journeys were made through the perilous woods to and from the licks, or salt springs, which the deer had discovered before the white man or red man knew them.

The bees which hived their honey in the hollow trees were tame bees gone wild, and with the coming of the settlers, some of the wild things increased so much that they became a pest. Such were the crows which literally blackened the fields after the settlers plowed, and which the whole family had to fight from the corn when it was planted. Such were the rabbits, and such, above all, were the squirrels which overran the farms, and devoured every green thing till the people combined in great squirrel hunts and destroyed them by tens of thousands. The larger game had meanwhile disappeared. The buffalo and the elk went first; the deer followed, and the bear, and even the useless wolf. But long after these the poisonous reptiles lingered, the rattlesnake, the moccasin, and the yet deadlier copperhead; and it was only when the whole country was cleared that they ceased to be a very common danger.

--_From "Stories of Ohio," by William Dean Howells._

HOW THEY BESIEGED THE TOWN.

Charles Reade, in his great romance entitled "The Cloister and the Hearth," has not only presented us with a story of absorbing interest, but has given us a vivid and accurate view of manners and customs during one of the most interesting periods of history. The following extract is particularly interesting because of its vivid portrayal of the methods of warfare in vogue at that time. There was a rebellion in Flanders. More than one knight had broken his oath of fealty to the Duke of Burgundy, who was the ruler of that country, and some of the strongest castles were fortified by rebels. To subdue these dissatisfied spirits and to reduce the country again to subjection, Counts Anthony and Baldwyn of Burgundy had entered Flanders at the head of a considerable army and were carrying fire and sword among the enemies of the Duke. One of their exploits at this time is thus narrated by the novelist:--

One afternoon they came in sight of a strongly fortified town; and
a whisper went through the little army that this was a disaffected
place. But upon coming nearer they saw that the great gate stood
open, and the towers that flanked it on each side were manned
with a single sentinel apiece. So the advancing force somewhat
broke their array and marched carelessly.

When they were within a furlong, the drawbridge across the moat
rose slowly and creaking till it stood vertical against the fort;
and the very moment it settled, into this warlike attitude, down
rattled the portcullis at the gate, and the towers and curtains
bristled with lances and crossbows.

A stern hum ran through the front rank and spread to the rear.

"Halt!" cried their leader. The word went down the line, and they
halted. "Herald to the gate!"

A herald spurred out of the ranks, and halting twenty yards from
the gate, raised his bugle with his herald's flag hanging down
round it, and blew a summons. A tall figure in brazen armor
appeared over the gate. A few fiery words passed between him and
the herald, which were not audible; but their import was clear,
for the herald blew a single keen and threatening note at the
walls, and came galloping back with war in his face.

The leader moved out of the line to meet him, and their heads had
not been together two seconds ere he turned in his saddle and
shouted, "Pioneers, to the van!" and in a moment hedges were
leveled, and the force took the field and encamped just out of
shot from the walls; and away went mounted officers flying south,
east, and west, to the friendly towns, for catapults, palisades,
mantelets, raw hides, tar barrels, carpenters, provisions, and all
the materials for a siege.

The besiegers encamped a furlong from the walls, and made roads;
kept their pikemen in camp ready for an assault when practicable;
and sent forward their sappers, pioneers, catapultiers, and
crossbowmen. These opened a siege by filling the moat and mining,
or breaching the wall, etc. And as much of their work had to be
done under close fire of arrows, quarrels, bolts, stones, and
little rocks, the above artists "had need of a hundred eyes," and
acted in concert with a vigilance, and an amount of individual
intelligence, daring, and skill that made a siege very
interesting, and even amusing,--to lookers-on.

The first thing they did was to advance their carpenters behind
rolling mantelets, and to erect a stockade high and strong on the
very edge of the moat. Some lives were lost at this, but not many;
for a strong force of crossbowmen, including Denys, rolled their
mantelets[1] up and shot over the workmen's heads at every
besieged person who showed his nose, and at every loophole, arrow
slit, or other aperture, which commanded the particular spot the
carpenters happened to be upon. Covered by their condensed fire,
these soon raised a high palisade between them and the ordinary
missiles from the walls.

But the besieged expected this, and ran out at night their hoards
or wooden penthouses on the top of the curtains. The curtains were
built with square holes near the top to receive the beams that
supported these structures, the true defense of mediæval forts,
from which the besieged delivered their missiles with far more
freedom and variety of range than they could shoot through the
oblique but immovable loopholes of the curtain. On this the
besiegers brought up mangonels, and set them hurling huge stones
at these wood works and battering them to pieces. At the same time
they built a triangular wooden tower as high as the curtain, and
kept it ready for use, and just out of shot.

This was a terrible sight to the besieged. These wooden towers had
taken many a town. They began to mine underneath that part of the
moat the tower stood frowning at; and made other preparations to
give it a warm reception. The besiegers also mined, but at another
part, their object being to get under the square barbican and
throw it down. All this time Denys was behind his mantelet with
another arbalester, protecting the workmen and making some
excellent shots. These ended by earning him the esteem of an
unseen archer, who every now and then sent a winged compliment
quivering into his mantelet. One came and stuck within an inch of
the narrow slit through which Denys was squinting at the moment.

"Ha! ha!" cried he, "you shoot well, my friend. Come forth and
receive my congratulations! Shall merit, such as thine, hide its
head? Comrade, it is one of those Englishmen, with his half ell
shaft. I'll not die till I've had a shot at London wall."

On the side of the besieged was a figure that soon attracted great
notice by promenading under fire. It was a tall knight, clad in
complete brass, and carrying a light but prodigiously long lance,
with which he directed the movements of the besieged. And when any
disaster befell the besiegers, this tall knight and his long lance
were pretty sure to be concerned in it.

My young reader will say, "Why did not Denys shoot him?"

Denys did shoot him; every day of his life; other arbalesters shot
him; archers shot him. Everybody shot him. He was there to be
shot, apparently. But the abomination was, he did not mind being
shot. Nay, worse, he got at last so demoralized as not to seem to
know when he was shot. At last the besiegers got spiteful, and
would not waste any more good steel on him.

It was a bright day, clear, but not quite frosty. The efforts of
the besieging force were concentrated against a space of about two
hundred and fifty yards, containing two curtains and two towers,
one of which was the square barbican, the other had a pointed roof
that was built to overlap, and by this means a row of dangerous
crenelets between the roof and the masonry grinned down at the
nearer assailants, and looked not very unlike the grinders of a
modern frigate with each port nearly closed. The curtains were
overlapped with penthouses somewhat shattered by the mangonels,
and other slinging engines of the besiegers.

On the besiegers' edge of the moat was what seemed at first sight
a gigantic arsenal, longer than it was broad, peopled by human
ants, and full of busy, honest industry, and displaying all the
various mechanical science of the age in full operation. Here the
lever at work, there the winch and pulley, here the balance, there
the capstan. Everywhere heaps of stones, and piles of fascines,
mantelets, and rows of fire barrels. Mantelets rolling, the hammer
tapping all day, horses and carts in endless succession rattling
up with materials.

At the edge of the moat opposite the wooden tower, a strong
penthouse, which they called "a cat," might be seen stealing
towards the curtain, and gradually filling up the moat with
fascines and rubbish, which the workmen flung out at its mouth. It
was advanced by two sets of ropes passing round pulleys, and each
worked by a windlass at some distance from the cat. The knight
burnt the first cat by flinging blazing tar barrels on it. So the
besiegers made the roof of this one very steep, and covered it
with raw hides, and the tar barrels could not harm it.

And now the engineers proceeded to the unusual step of slinging
fifty-pound stones at an individual.

This catapult was a scientific, simple, and beautiful engine, and
very effective in vertical fire at the short ranges of the period.

Imagine a fir tree cut down, and set to turn round a horizontal
axis on lofty uprights, but not in equilibrium; three fourths of
the tree being on the hither side. At the shorter and thicker end
of the tree was fastened a weight of half a ton. This butt end
just before the discharge pointed towards the enemy. By means of a
powerful winch the long tapering portion of the tree was forced
down to the very ground, and fastened by a bolt; and the stone
placed in a sling attached to the tree's nose. But this process of
course raised the butt end with its huge weight high in the air,
and kept it there struggling in vain to come down. The bolt was
now drawn; then the short end swung furiously down, the long end
went as furiously up, and at its highest elevation flung the huge
stone out of the sling with a tremendous jerk. In this case the
huge mass so flung missed the knight, but came down near him on
the penthouse, and went through it like paper, making an awful gap
in roof and floor.

"Aha! a good shot!" cried Baldwyn of Burgundy.

The tall knight retired. The besiegers hooted him. He reappeared
on the platform of the barbican, his helmet being just visible
above the parapet. He seemed very busy, and soon an enormous
Turkish catapult made its appearance on the platform, and, aided
by the elevation at which it was planted, flung a twenty-pound
stone two hundred and forty yards in the air. The next stone
struck a horse that was bringing up a sheaf of arrows in a cart,
bowled the horse over dead like a rabbit, and split the cart. It
was then turned at the besiegers' wooden tower, supposed to be out
of shot. Sir Turk slung stones cut with sharp edges on purpose,
and struck it repeatedly, and broke it in several places. The
besiegers turned two of their slinging engines on this monster,
and kept constantly slinging smaller stones on to the platform of
the barbican, and killed two of the engineers. But the Turk
disdained to retort. He flung a forty-pound stone on to the
besiegers' great catapult, and hitting it in the neighborhood of
the axis, knocked the whole structure to pieces, and sent the
engineers skipping and yelling.

The next morning an unwelcome sight greeted the besieged. The cat
was covered with mattresses and raw hides, and fast filling up the
moat. The knight stoned it, but in vain; flung burning tar barrels
on it, but in vain. Then with his own hands he let down by a rope
a bag of burning sulphur and pitch, and stunk them out. But
Baldwyn, armed like a lobster, ran, and bounding on the roof, cut
the string, and the work went on. Then the knight sent fresh
engineers into the mine, and undermined the place and underpinned
it with beams, and covered the beams thickly with grease and tar.

At break of day the moat was filled, and the wooden tower began to
move on its wheels towards a part of the curtain on which two
catapults were already playing, to breach the hoards and clear the
way. There was something awful and magical in its approach without
visible agency, for it was driven by internal rollers worked by
leverage.

On the top was a platform, where stood the first assailing party
protected in front by the drawbridge of the turret, which stood
vertical till lowered on to the wall; but better protected by full
suits of armor. The besieged slung at the tower, and struck it
often, but in vain. It was well defended with mattresses and
hides, and presently was at the edge of the moat. The knight bade
fire the mine underneath it.

Then the Turkish engine flung a stone of half a hundredweight
right amongst the knights, and carried two away with it off the
tower on to the plain.

And now the besieging catapults flung blazing tar barrels, and fired
the hoards on both sides, and the assailants ran up the ladders
behind the tower, and lowered the drawbridge on to the battered
curtain, while the catapults in concert flung tar barrels, and fired
the adjoining works to dislodge the defenders. The armed men on the
platform sprang on the bridge, led by Baldwyn. The invulnerable
knight and his men at arms met them, and a fearful combat ensued, in
which many a figure was seen to fall headlong down off the narrow
bridge. But fresh besiegers kept swarming up behind the tower, and
the besieged were driven off the bridge.

Another minute, and the town would have been taken; but so well
had the firing of the mines been timed, that just at this instant
the underpinnings gave way, and the tower suddenly sank away from
the walls, tearing the drawbridge clear and pouring the soldiers
off it against the masonry and on to the dry moat.

The besieged uttered a fierce shout, and in a moment surrounded
Baldwyn and his fellows; but strange to say, offered them quarter.
While a party disarmed and disposed of these, others fired the
turret in fifty places with a sort of hand grenades. At this work
who so busy as the tall knight? He put fire bags on his long
spear, and thrust them into the doomed structure late so terrible.
To do this, he was obliged to stand on a projecting beam, holding
on by the hand of a pikeman to steady himself. This provoked
Denys; he ran out from his mantelet, hoping to escape notice in
the confusion, and leveling his crossbow missed the knight clean,
but sent his bolt into the brain of the pikeman, and the tall
knight fell heavily from the wall, lance and all.

The knight, his armor glittering in the morning sun, fell
headlong, but turning as he neared the water, struck it with a
slap that sounded a mile off.

None ever thought to see him again. But he fell at the edge of the
fascines, and his spear stuck into them under the water, and by a
mighty effort he got to the side, but could not get out. Anthony
sent a dozen knights with a white flag to take him prisoner. He
submitted like a lamb, but said nothing.

[Footnote 1: For explanation of this and similar terms used in this selection, see the notes at the end of this book and especially the word "Castle" in Webster's International Dictionary.]

LOCHINVAR.

LADY HERON'S SONG.

Oh, young Lochinvar is come out of the west!
Through all the wide Border his steed was the best:
And, save his good broadsword, he weapons had none;
He rode all unarmed, and he rode all alone.
So faithful in love, and so dauntless in war,
There never was knight like the young Lochinvar.

He staid not for brake, and he stopped not for stone;
He swam the Esk river, where ford there was none;
But, ere he alighted at Netherby gate,
The bride had consented--the gallant came late;
For a laggard in love, and a dastard in war,
Was to wed the fair Ellen of brave Lochinvar.

So boldly he entered the Netherby hall,
Among bridesmen, and kinsmen, and brothers, and all.
Then spoke the bride's father, his hand on his sword,
(For the poor craven bridegroom said never a word),
"Oh, come ye in peace here, or come ye in war,
Or to dance at our bridal, young lord Lochinvar?"

"I long wooed your daughter--my suit you denied;
Love swells like the Solway, but ebbs like its tide;
And now I am come with this lost love of mine
To lead but one measure, drink one cup of wine.
There are maidens in Scotland more lovely by far,
That would gladly be bride to the young Lochinvar."

The bride kissed the goblet, the knight took it up;
He quaffed off the wine, and he threw down the cup;
She looked down to blush, and she looked up to sigh,
With a smile on her lips, and a tear in her eye.
He took her soft hand, ere her mother could bar--
"Now tread we a measure!" said young Lochinvar.

So stately his form, and so lovely her face,
That never a hall such a galliard did grace;
While her mother did fret, and her father did fume,
And the bridegroom stood dangling his bonnet and plume;
And the bridemaidens whispered, "'Twere better by far
To have matched our fair cousin with young Lochinvar."

One touch to her hand, and one word in her ear,
When they reached the hall door, and the charger stood near;
So light to the croup the fair lady he swung,
So light to the saddle before her he sprung!
"She is won! We are gone, over bank, bush, and scaur!
They'll have fleet steeds that follow!" quoth young Lochinvar.

There was mounting 'mong Græmes of the Netherby clan;
Forsters, Fenwicks, and Musgraves, they rode and they ran;
There was racing and chasing on Cannobie Lee,
But the lost bride of Netherby ne'er did they see.
So daring in love, and so dauntless in war,
Have you e'er heard of gallant like young Lochinvar?

--_From "Marmion," by Sir Walter Scott._

ON A TROPICAL RIVER.

"Westward Ho!" is a novel written by Rev. Charles Kingsley, and first published in 1855. It is a story of the times of Queen Elizabeth, of the threatened invasion of England by the Spanish Armada, and of wild adventure on the sea and in the forests of the New World. Several historical personages are made to appear in the story, such as Sir Walter Raleigh, Sir Francis Drake, Admiral Hawkins, and others. The hero is Amyas Leigh, "a Devonshire youth of great bodily strength, of lively affection and sweet temper, combined with a marked propensity to combat from his earliest years." Amyas and his companions had undertaken an expedition to discover the fabled golden city of Manoa, which was said to exist somewhere in the wilds of South America. They had been searching more than three years for this city when they reached the Meta River in canoes, and the following adventure occurred.

* * * * *

For three hours or more Amyas Leigh and his companions paddled easily up the glassy and windless reaches, between two green flower-bespangled walls of forest, gay with innumerable birds and insects; while down from the branches which overhung the stream, long trailers hung to the water's edge, and seemed admiring in the clear mirror the images of their own gorgeous flowers. River, trees, flowers, birds, insects,--it was all a fairyland; but it was a colossal one; and yet the voyagers took little note of it.

It was now to them an everyday occurrence to see trees full two hundred feet high one mass of yellow or purple blossom to the highest twigs, and every branch and stem one hanging garden of crimson and orange orchids or vanillas. Common to them were all the fantastic and enormous shapes with which Nature bedecks her robes beneath the fierce suns and fattening rains of the tropic forest. Common were forms and colors of bird, and fish, and butterfly, more strange and bright than ever opium eater dreamed.

The long processions of monkeys, who kept pace with them along the tree tops, and proclaimed their wonder in every imaginable whistle and grunt and howl, had ceased to move their laughter, as much as the roar of the jaguar and the rustle of the boa had ceased to move their fear; and when a brilliant green and rose-colored fish, flat-bodied like a bream, flat-finned like a salmon, and sawtoothed like a shark, leaped clean on board of the canoe to escape the rush of a huge alligator (whose loathsome snout, ere he could stop, actually rattled against the canoe), Jack coolly picked up the fish and said:

"He's four pound weight! If you catch fish for us like that, old fellow, just keep in our wake, and we'll give you the cleanings for your wages!"

They paddled onward hour after hour, sheltering themselves as best they could under the shadow of the southern bank, while on their right hand the full sun glare lay upon the enormous wall of mimosas, figs, and laurels, which formed the northern forest, broken by the slender shafts of bamboo tufts, and decked with a thousand gaudy parasites; bank upon bank of gorgeous bloom piled upward to the sky, till where its outline cut the blue, flowers and leaves, too lofty to be distinguished by the eye, formed a broken rainbow of all hues quivering in the ascending streams of azure mist, until they seemed to melt and mingle with the very heavens.

And as the sun rose higher and higher, a great stillness fell upon the forest. The jaguars and the monkeys had hidden themselves in the darkest depths of the woods. The birds' notes died out one by one; the very butterflies ceased their flitting over the tree tops, and slept with outspread wings upon the glossy leaves, undistinguishable from the flowers around them. Now and then a parrot swung and screamed at them from an overhanging bough; or a thirsty monkey slid lazily down a swinging vine to the surface of the stream, dipped up the water in his tiny hand, and started chattering back, as his eyes met those of some foul alligator peering upward through the clear depths below.

In shaded nooks beneath the boughs, rabbits as large as sheep went paddling sleepily round and round, thrusting up their unwieldy heads among the blooms of the blue water lilies; while black and purple water hens ran up and down upon the rafts of floating leaves. The shining snout of a fresh-water dolphin rose slowly to the surface; a jet of spray whirred up; a rainbow hung upon it for a moment; and the black snout sank lazily again.

Here and there, too, upon some shallow pebbly shore, scarlet flamingoes stood dreaming knee-deep on one leg; crested cranes pranced up and down, admiring their own finery; and irises and egrets dipped their bills under water in search of prey; but before noon, even those had slipped away, and there reigned a stillness which might be heard--a stillness in which, as Humboldt says: "If beyond the silence we listen for the faintest undertones, we detect a stifled, continuous hum of insects, which crowd the air close to the earth; a confused swarming murmur which hangs round every bush, in the cracked bark of trees, in the soil undermined by lizards and bees; a voice proclaiming to us that all Nature breathes, that under a thousand different forms life swarms in the gaping and dusty earth, as much as in the bosom of the waters, and in the air which breathes around."

At last a soft and distant murmur, increasing gradually to a heavy roar, announced that they were nearing some cataract; till, turning a point where the alluvial soil rose into a low cliff fringed with delicate ferns, they came in full sight of a scene at which all paused--not with astonishment, but with something very like disgust.

"Rapids again!" grumbled one. "I thought we had had enough of them on the Orinoco!"

"We shall have to get out, and draw the canoes overland, I suppose!"

"There's worse behind; don't you see the spray behind the palms?"

"Stop grumbling, my masters, and don't cry out before you are hurt. Paddle right up to the largest of those islands, and let us look about us."

In front of them was a snow-white bar of foam, some ten feet high, along which were ranged three or four islands of black rock. Each was crested with a knot of lofty palms, whose green tops stood out clear against the bright sky, while the lower half of their stems loomed hazy through a luminous veil of rainbowed mist. The banks right and left of the fall were so densely fringed with a low hedge of shrubs that landing seemed almost impossible; and their Indian guide, suddenly looking round him and whispering, bade them beware of savages, and pointed to a canoe which lay swinging in the eddies under the largest island, moored apparently to the root of some tree.

"Silence, all!" cried Amyas, "and paddle up thither and seize the canoe. If there be an Indian on the island, we will have speech of him. But mind, and treat him friendly; and on your lives, neither strike nor shoot, even if he offers to fight."

So, choosing a line of smooth backwater just in the wake of the island, they drove their canoes up by main force, and fastened them safely by the side of the Indian's, while Amyas, always the foremost, sprang boldly on shore, whispering to the Indian boy to follow him.

Once on the island, Amyas felt sure enough that, if its wild tenant had not seen them approach, he certainly had not heard them, so deafening was the noise which filled his brain, and which seemed to make the very leaves upon the bushes quiver and the solid stone beneath his feet reel and ring. For two hundred yards and more above the fall, nothing met his eye but one white waste of raging foam, with here and there a transverse dike of rock, which hurled columns of spray and surges of beaded water high into the air,--strangely contrasting with the still and silent cliffs of green leaves which walled the river right and left, and more strangely still with the knots of enormous palms upon the islets, which reared their polished shafts a hundred feet into the air, straight and upright as masts, while their broad plumes and golden-clustered fruit slept in the sunshine far aloft, the image of the stateliest repose amid the wildest wrath of Nature.

Ten yards farther, the cataract fell sheer in thunder; but a high fern-fringed rock turned its force away from the beach. Here, if anywhere, was the place to find the owner of the canoe. He leaped down upon the pebbles; and as he did so, a figure rose from behind a neighboring rock, and met him face to face. It was an Indian girl.

He spoke first, in some Indian tongue, gently and smilingly, and made a half-step forward; but quick as light she caught up from the ground a bow, and held it fiercely toward him, fitted with the long arrow, with which, as he could see, she had been striking fish, for a line of twisted grass hung from its barbed head. Amyas stopped, laid down his own bow and sword, and made another step in advance, smiling still, and making all Indian signs of amity. But the arrow was still pointed straight at his breast, and he knew the mettle and strength of the forest nymphs well enough to stand still and call for the Indian boy.

The boy, who had been peering from above, leaped down to them in a moment; and began, as the safest method, groveling on his nose upon the pebbles, while he tried two or three dialects, one of which at last she seemed to understand, and answered in a tone of evident suspicion and anger.

"What does she say?"

"That you are a Spaniard and a robber because you have a beard."

"Tell her that we are no Spaniards, but that we hate them, and are come across the great waters to help the Indians to kill them."

The boy had no sooner spoken, than, nimble as a deer, the nymph had sprung up the rocks, and darted between the palm stems to her own canoe. Suddenly she caught sight of the English boats, and stopped with a cry of fear and rage.

"Let her pass!" shouted Amyas, who had followed her closely. "Push your boats off, and let her pass. Boy, tell her to go on; they will not come near her."

But she hesitated still, and with arrow drawn to the head, faced first on the boat's crew, and then on Amyas, till the Englishmen had shoved off full twenty yards.

Then, leaping into her tiny piragua, she darted into the wildest whirl of the eddies, shooting along with vigorous strokes, while the English trembled as they saw the frail bark spinning and leaping amid the muzzles of the alligators and the huge dog-toothed trout. But, with the swiftness of an arrow, she reached the northern bank, drove her canoe among the bushes, and, leaping from it, darted into the bush, and vanished like a dream.

* * * * *

The chief interest in the foregoing story lies, of course, in its faithful and glowing picture of scenery in the midst of a tropical forest. The learner should read it a second time and try to point out all the passages that are remarkable for their wealth of description. He should try to form in his mind an image of the sights and sounds that he would encounter in a voyage up the Meta River or any other of the tributaries of the Orinoco or the Amazon.

THE FLAG OF OUR COUNTRY.

I.

There is the national flag. He must be cold indeed who can look upon its folds, rippling in the breeze, without pride of country. If he be in a foreign land, the flag is companionship and country itself, with all its endearments.

Who, as he sees it, can think of a state merely? Whose eyes once fastened upon its radiant trophies, can fail to recognize the image of the whole nation? It has been called a "floating piece of poetry," and yet I know not if it have an intrinsic beauty beyond other ensigns. Its highest beauty is in what it symbolizes. It is because it represents all, that all gaze at it with delight and reverence.

It is a piece of bunting lifted in the air; but it speaks sublimely, and every part has a voice. Its stripes of alternate red and white proclaim the original union of thirteen states to maintain the Declaration of Independence. Its stars of white on a field of blue proclaim that union of states constituting our national constellation, which receives a new star with every new state. The two together signify union past and present.

The very colors have a language which was officially recognized by our fathers. White is for purity, red for valor, blue for justice; and altogether, bunting, stripes, stars, and colors, blazing in the sky, make the flag of our country to be cherished by all our hearts, to be upheld by all our hands.

II.

I have said enough and more than enough to manifest the spirit in which this flag is now committed to your charge. It is the national ensign, pure and simple, dearer to all hearts at this moment as we lift it to the gale, and see no other sign of hope upon the storm cloud which rolls and rattles above it, save that which is its own radiant hues--dearer, a thousand fold dearer to us all than ever it was before, while gilded by the sunshine of prosperity and playing with the zephyrs of peace. It will speak for itself far more eloquently than I can speak for it.

Behold it! Listen to it! Every star has a tongue; every stripe is articulate. There is no speech nor language where their voices are not heard. There is magic in the web of it. It has an answer for every question of duty. It has a solution for every doubt and every perplexity. It has a word of good cheer for every hour of gloom or of despondency.

Behold it! Listen to it! It speaks of earlier and of later struggles. It speaks of victories and sometimes of reverses, on the sea and on the land. It speaks of patriots and heroes among the living and among the dead; and of him, the first and greatest of them all, around whose consecrated ashes this unnatural and abhorrent strife has been so long raging. But, before all and above all other associations and memories,--whether of glorious men, or glorious deeds, or glorious places,--its voice is ever of Union and Liberty, of the Constitution and of the Laws.

--_Robert C. Winthrop._

THE HIGH TIDE ON THE COAST OF LINCOLNSHIRE--1571.

The old mayor climbed the belfry tower,
The ringers ran by two, by three:--
"Pull, if ye never pulled before,
Good ringers, pull your best," quoth he.
"Play up, play up, O Boston bells!
Ply all your changes, all your swells;
Play up 'The Brides of Enderby'!"

Men say it was a stolen tide;
The Lord that sent it, he knows all;
But in mine ears doth still abide
The message that the bells let fall:
And there was naught of strange, beside
The flights of mews and peewits pied
By millions crouched on the old sea wall.

I sat and spun within the door,
My thread brake off, I raised mine eyes;
The level sun, like ruddy ore,
Lay sinking in the barren skies,
And dark against day's golden death
She moved where Lindis wandereth,
My son's fair wife, Elizabeth.

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews were falling,
Far away I heard her song.
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along,
Where the reedy Lindis floweth,
Floweth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth
Faintly came her milking song,

"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
"For the dews will soon be falling;
Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come up, Whitefoot, come up, Lightfoot;
Quit the stalks of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come up, Jetty, rise and follow,
From the clovers lift your head;
Come up, Whitefoot, come up, Lightfoot,
Come up, Jetty, rise and follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed."

If it be long, ay, long ago,
When I begin to think how long,
Again I hear the Lindis flow,
Swift as an arrow, sharp and strong;
And all the air, it seemeth me,
Is full of floating bells (saith she),
That ring the tune of Enderby.

All fresh the level pasture lay,
And not a shadow might be seen,
Save where full five good miles away
The steeple towered from out the green.
And lo! the great bell far and wide
Was heard in all the country side
That Saturday at eventide.

The swanherds where their sedges are
Moved on in sunset's golden breath,
The shepherd lads I heard afar,
And my son's wife, Elizabeth;
Till floating o'er the grassy sea
Came down that kindly message free,
The "Brides of Mavis Enderby."

Then some looked up into the sky,
And all along where Lindis flows
To where the goodly vessels lie,
And where the lordly steeple shows.
They said, "And why should this thing be?
What danger lowers by land or sea?
They ring the tune of Enderby!

"For evil news from Mablethorpe,
Of pirate galleys warping down;
For ships ashore beyond the scorpe,
They have not spared to wake the town:
But while the west is red to see,
And storms be none, and pirates flee,
Why ring 'The Brides of Enderby'?"

I looked without, and lo! my son
Came riding down with might and main;
He raised a shout as he drew on,
Till all the welkin rang again,
"Elizabeth! Elizabeth!"
(A sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my son's wife, Elizabeth.)

"The old sea wall," he cried, "is down,
The rising tide comes on apace,
And boats adrift in yonder town
Go sailing up the market place."
He shook as one that looks on death:
"God save you, mother!" straight he saith,
"Where is my wife, Elizabeth?"

"Good son, where Lindis winds away,
With her two bairns I marked her long;
And ere yon bells began to play,
Afar I heard her milking song."
He looked across the grassy lea,
To right, to left, "Ho, Enderby!"
They rang "The Brides of Enderby!"

With that he cried and beat his breast;
For, lo! along the river's bed
A mighty eygre reared his crest,
And up the Lindis raging sped.
It swept with thunderous noises loud;
Shaped like a curling snow-white cloud,
Or like a demon in a shroud.

And rearing Lindis backward pressed
Shook all her trembling banks amain;
Then madly at the eygre's breast
Flung up her weltering walls again.
Then banks came down with ruin and rout--
Then beaten foam flew round about--
Then all the mighty floods were out.

So far, so fast the eygre drave,
The heart had hardly time to beat
Before a shallow seething wave
Sobbed in the grasses at our feet;
The feet had hardly time to flee
Before it brake against the knee,
And all the world was in the sea.

Upon the roof we sat that night,
The noise of bells went sweeping by;
I marked the lofty beacon light
Stream from the church tower, red and high--
A lurid mark and dread to see;
And awesome bells they were to me,
That in the dark rang "Enderby."

They rang the sailor lads to guide
From roof to roof who fearless rowed;
And I--my son was at my side,
And yet the ruddy beacon glowed;
And yet he moaned beneath his breath,
"Oh, come in life, or come in death!
Oh lost! my love Elizabeth."

And didst thou visit him no more?
Thou didst, thou didst, my daughter dear;
The waters laid thee at his door,
Ere yet the early dawn was clear.
Thy pretty bairns in fast embrace,
The lifted sun shone on thy face,
Down drifted to thy dwelling place.

That flow strewed wrecks about the grass,
That ebb swept out the flocks to sea;
A fatal ebb and flow, alas!
To many more than mine and me:
But each will mourn his own (she saith),
And sweeter woman ne'er drew breath
Than my son's wife, Elizabeth.

I shall never hear her more
By the reedy Lindis shore,
"Cusha! Cusha! Cusha!" calling,
Ere the early dews be falling;
I shall never hear her song,
"Cusha! Cusha!" all along
Where the sunny Lindis floweth,
Goeth, floweth;
From the meads where melick groweth,
Where the water winding down,
Onward floweth to the town.

I shall never see her more
Where the reeds and rushes quiver,
Shiver, quiver;
Stand beside the sobbing river,
Sobbing, throbbing, in its falling
To the sandy, lonesome shore;
I shall never hear her calling,
"Leave your meadow grasses mellow,
Mellow, mellow;
Quit your cowslips, cowslips yellow;
Come up, Whitefoot, come up, Lightfoot;
Quit your pipes of parsley hollow,
Hollow, hollow;
Come up, Lightfoot, rise and follow;
Lightfoot, Whitefoot,
From your clovers lift the head;
Come up, Jetty, follow, follow,
Jetty, to the milking shed."

--_Jean Ingelow._

THE STORY OF THOMAS BECKET.