Chapter VI (1)

Sunday was a great day in Innisfield; for there, as in all Puritan communities, religion was the central and engrossing idea. As the bell rang for service, every ear in town heard it, and all who were not sick or kept at home by the care of young children turned their steps towards the house of God. The idea that there could be any choice between going to hear preaching and remaining at home was so preposterous, that it never entered into the minds of any but the openly wicked. Whatever might be their inclinations, few had the hardihood to absent themselves from meeting, still less to ride out for pleasure, or to stroll through the woods or upon the bank of the river. A steady succession of vehicles-- "thorough-braced" wagons, a few more stylish carriages with elliptic springs, and here and there an ancient chaise--tended from all quarters to the meeting-house. The horses, from the veteran of twenty years' service down to the untrimmed and half-trained colt, knew what the proprieties of the day required. They trotted soberly, with faces as sedate as their drivers', and never stopped to look in the fence-corners as they passed along, to see what they could find to be frightened at. Nor would they often disturb worship by neighing, unless they became impatient at the length of the sermon.

Mr. Hardwick and his family, as we have before mentioned, went regularly to meeting; Lizzy and Mark sat with him in the singers' seats, the others in a pew below. The only guardian of the house on Sundays was a large ungainly cur, named Caesar. The habits of this dog deserve a brief mention. On all ordinary occasions he followed his master or others of the family, seeming to take a human delight in their company. Whenever it was desirable to have him remain at home, nothing short of tying him would answer the purpose. After a time he came to know the signs of preparation, and would skulk. Upon setting out, Mr. Hardwick would tell one of the boys to catch Caesar so that he should not follow, but he was not to be found; and in the course of ten minutes he would be trotting after his master as composedly as if nothing had ever happened to interrupt their friendly relations. It was impossible to resist such persevering affection, and at length Mr. Hardwick gave up the contest, and allowed Caesar to travel when and where he chose. But on Sunday he sat on the front-door step, erect upon his haunches, with one ear dropping forward, and the other upright like the point of a starched shirt-collar; and though on week-days he was fond of paying the usual courtesies to his canine acquaintances, and (if the truth must be told) of barking at strange horses occasionally, yet nothing could induce him either to follow any of the family, or accost a dog, or chase after foreign vehicles, on the day of rest. Once only he forgot what was due to his character, and gave a few yelps in holy time. But James, with a glance at his father, who was stoutly orthodox, averred that Caesar's conduct was justifiable, inasmuch as the man he barked at was one of a band of new-light fanatics who worshipped in the school- house, and the horse, moreover, was not shod at a respectable place, but at a tinker's shop in the verge of the township. A dog with such powers of discrimination certainly merits a place in this true history.

The services of Sunday were finished. Those who, with dill and caraway, had vainly struggled against drowsiness, had waked up with a jerk at the benediction, and moved with their neighbors along the aisles, a slow and sluggish stream. The nearest friends passed out side by side with meekly composed faces, and without greeting each other until they reached the vestibule. So slow and solemn was the progress out of church, that merry James Hardwick averred that he saw Deacon Stone, a short fat man, actually dozing, his eyes softly shutting and opening like a hen's, as he was borne along by the crowd. The Deacon had been known to sleep while he stood up in his pew during prayer, but perhaps James's story was rather apocryphal.

Mark Davenport, of course, had been the object of considerable attention during the day, and at the meeting-house-door numbers of his old acquaintances gathered round him. No one was more cordial in manner than Squire Clamp. His face was wrinkled into what were meant for smiles, and his voice was even smoother and more insinuating than usual. It was only by a strong effort that Mark gulped down his rising indignation, and replied civilly.

Sunday in Innisfield ended at sunset, though labor was not resumed until the next day; but neighbors called upon each other in the twilight, and talked over the sermons of the day, and the affairs of the church and parish. That evening, while Mr. Hardwick's family were sitting around the table reading, a long growl was heard from Caesar at the door, followed by an emphatic "Get out!" The growls grew fiercer, and James went to the door to see what was the matter. Squire Clamp was the luckless man. The dog had seized his coat-tail, and had pulled it forward, so that he stood face to face with the Squire, who was vainly trying to free himself by poking at his adversary with a great baggy umbrella. James sent away the dog with a reprimand, but laughed as he followed the angry man into the house. He always cited this afterwards as a new proof of the sagacity of the grim and uncompromising Caesar.

"S-sorry you've had such a t-time with the dog," said Mr. Hardwick; "he don't g-ginerally bark at pup-people."

"Oh, no matter," said the Squire, contemplating the measure of damage in the skirt of his coat. "A good, sound sermon Mr. Rook gave us to-day. The doctrines of the decrees and sovereignty, and the eternal destruction of the impenitent, were strongly set forth."

"Y-yes, I sp-spose so. I d-don't profit so m-much by that inst-struction, however. I th-think more of the e-every-day religion he u-usually preaches."--Mr. Hardwick trotted one foot with a leg crossed and with an air which showed to his children and to Mark plainly enough how impatient he was of the Squire's beginning so far away from what he came to say.

"Why, you don't doubt these fundamental points?" asked Mr. Clamp.

"No, I don't d-doubt, n-nor I don't th-think much about 'em; they're t-too deep for me, and I ler-let 'em alone. We shall all un-know about these things in God's goo-good time. I th-think more about keepin' peace among n-neighbors, bein' kuh-kindly to the poor, h-helpin' on the cause of eddication, and d-doin' ginerally as I would be done by."--Mr. Hardwick's emphasis could not be mistaken, and Squire Clamp was a little uneasy.

"Oh, yes, Mr. Hardwick," he replied, "all the town knows of your practical religion." Then turning to Mark, he said, blandly, "So you came home yesterday. How long do you propose to stay?"

The young man never had the best control of his temper, and it was now rapidly coming up to the boiling-point. "Mr. Clamp," said he, "if you had asked a pickerel the same question, he would probably tell you that you knew best how and when he came on shore, and that for himself he expected to get back into water as soon as he got the hook out of his jaws."

"I am sorry to see this warmth," said Mr. Clamp; "I trust you have not been put to any trouble."

"Really," said Mark, bitterly, "you have done your best to ruin me in the place where I earn my living, but 'trust I have not been put to any trouble'! Your sympathy is as deep as your sincerity."

"Mark," said Mr. Hardwick, "you're sa-sayin' more than is necess-ssary."

"Indeed, he is quite unjust," rejoined the lawyer. "I saw an alteration in his manner to-day, and for that reason I came here. I prefer to keep the friendship of all men, especially of those of my townsmen and brethren in the church whose piety and talents I so highly respect."

"S-sartinly, th-that's right. I don't like to look around, wh-when I take the ker-cup at the Sacrament, and see any man that I've wronged; an' I don't f-feel comf'table nuther to see anybody der-drinkin' from the same cup that I think has tried to w-wrong me or mine."

"You can save yourself that anxiety about Mr. Clamp, Uncle," said Mark. "He is not so much concerned about our Christian fellowship as he is about his fees. He couldn't live here, if he didn't manage to keep on both sides of every little quarrel in town. Having done me what mischief he could, he wants now to salve the wound over."

"My young friend, what is the reason of this heat?" asked Mr. Clamp, mildly.

"I don't care to talk further," Mark retorted. "I might as well explain the pathology of flesh bruises to a donkey who had maliciously kicked me."

Mr. Clamp wiped his bald head, on which the perspiration was beginning to gather. His stock of pious commonplaces was exhausted, and he saw no prospect of calming Mark's rage, or of making any deep impression on the blacksmith. He therefore rose to depart. "Good evening," said he. "I pray you may become more reasonable, and less disposed to judge harshly of your friend and brother."

Mark turned his back on him. Mr. Hardwick civilly bade him good-night. Lizzy and Anna, who had retreated during the war of words, came back, and the circle round the table was renewed.

"Yer-you'll see one thing," said Mr. Hardwick. "He'll b-bring you, and p'r'aps me, too, afore the church for this talk."

"The sooner, the better," said Mark.

"I d'no," said Mr. Hardwick. "Ef we must live in f-fellowship, a der- diffi-culty in church isn't per-pleasant. But 'tis uncomf'table for straight wood to be ker-corded up with such ker-crooked sticks as him."

[To be continued.]

A PERILOUS BIVOUAC.

It is a pleasant June morning out on the Beauport slopes; the breeze comes laden with perfume from shady Mount Lilac; and it is good to bask here in the meadows and look out upon the grand panorama of Quebec, with its beautiful bay sweeping in bold segments of shoreline to the mouth of the River St Charles. The king-bird, too lazy to give chase to his proper quarry, the wavering butterfly, sways to and fro upon a tall weed; and there, at the bend of the brook, sits an old kingfisher on a dead branch, gorged with his morning meal, and regardless of his reflected image in the still pool beneath. The _goguelu_[1] rises suddenly up from his tuft of grass, and, having sung a few staves of his gurgling song, drops down again like a cricket-ball and is no more seen. Smooth-plumaged wax-wings are pruning their feathers in the tamarac-trees; and high up over the waters of the bay sails a long-winged fish-hawk, taking an extended and generally liberal view of sundry important matters connected with the fishery question.

[Footnote 1: This name is given by the French Canadians to the bobolink or rice bunting. It is an old, I believe an obsolete, French word, and means "braggart."]

Many a year has gone by since I last looked upon this picture, and then it was a winter scene; for it was near the end of March, which is winter enough in this region, and the blue water of the bay there was flagged over with a rough white pavement of crisp snow. I think I see it now, faintly ruled with two lines of _sapins_, or young fir saplings,--one marking out the winter road to the Island of Orleans, and the other that from Quebec to Montmorency; and this memory recalls to me how it fell upon a certain day, the incidents of which are expanding upon my mind like those dissolving views that come up out of the dark, I set up a camp-fire just where that wood-barge nods drowsily at anchor, about a mile this side of the town. It was a sort of bivouac a man is not likely to forget in a hurry; not that it makes much of a story, after all,--but a trifling scratch will sometimes leave its mark on a man for life. I was quartered in Quebec then; didn't go much into society, though, because I devoted much of my young energies to shooting and fishing, which were worth any expenditure of energy in those days. And so I restricted my evening rounds of duty to one or two houses which were conducted on the always-at-home principle, walking in and hanging up my wide-awake when it suited me, and staying away when it didn't,--which was about the oftener.

In the winter of eighteen hundred and no matter what, I got three months' leave of absence, with the intention of devoting a great portion of it to a long-planned expedition, an invasion of the wild mountain-region lying north of Quebec, towards the head-waters of the Saguenay,--a district seldom disturbed by the presence of civilized man, but abandoned to the semi-barbarous hunter and trapper, and frequented much by that prince of roving bucks, the shy but stately caribou. I need not go into the details of my two-months' hunt. It was like any other expedition of the sort, about which so much information has already been given to the world in the pleasant narratives of the wandering family of MacNimrod. I succeeded in procuring many hairy and horned trophies of trap and rifle, as well as in converting myself from some semblance of respectability into the veriest looking cannibal that ever breakfasted on an underdone enemy. The return from the chase furnished the little adventure I have alluded to,--a very small adventure, but deeply impressed upon a memory now a good deal cut up with tracks and traces of strange beasts of accidents, quaint "vestiges of creation," ineffaceably stamped upon what poor Andrew Romer used to call the "old red sandstone," in playful allusion to what his friends well knew was a heart of hearts.

The snow lay heavy in the woods, wet and heavy with the breath of coming spring, as I tramped out of them one March morning, and found myself on the queen's highway, within short rifle-shot of the rushing Montmorency, whose roar had reached us through the forest an hour or two before. In the early days of our hunt I had been so lucky as to run down and kill a large moose, whose antlered head was a valuable trophy; and so I confided it to the especial charge of my faithful follower, Zachary Hiver, a _brulé_ or half-breed of the Chippewa nation, who had hunted buffaloes with me on the plains of the Saskatchewan and gaffed my salmon in the swift waters of the Mingan and Escoumains. I had promised him powder and lead enough to maintain his rifle for the probable remainder of his earthly hunting- career, if he succeeded in safely conveying to Quebec the hide and horns of the mammoth stag of the forest. These he had concealed, accordingly, in a safe hiding-place, or _cache_, to be touched at on our return; and now as he emerged from the dark pine copse, with his ropy locks tasselling his flat skull, and a tattered blanket-coat fluttering in ribbons from his brown and brawny chest, his interest in the venture appeared in the careful manner in which he drew after him a long, slender _tobaugan_, heavily packed with the hard-won proceeds of trap and gun. Foremost among these were displayed the broad antlers of the moose of my affections, whose skin served as a tarpaulin for the remainder of the baggage, round which it was snugly tucked in with thongs of kindred material.

We halted on a broad ledge of rock by the western verge of the bay of the Falls, glad of an opportunity of enjoying my independence to the last, unfettered by the conventionalities for which I was beginning to be imbued with a savage contempt. Here we set up a primitive kitchen-range, and, having feasted upon cutlets of the caribou, scientifically treated by a skewer process with which Zach was familiar, we lounged like "lazy shepherds" in the sun, and the eye of the Indian flashed as I produced from the folds of my sash a leather-covered flask which did not look as if it was meant to contain water. During the weeks of the chase I had been very careful to conceal this treasure from Zach, knowing how helpless an Indian becomes under the influence of the "fire-water"; and as I had had a pull at it myself only two or three times, under circumstances of unusual adversity and hardship, there still remained in it a very respectable allowance for two, from which I subtracted a liberal measure, handing over the balance to Zach, who gulped down the _skiltiwauboh_ with a fiendish grin and a subsequent inhuman grunt. As I lit my pipe after this satisfactory arrangement, the roar of the mighty Montmorency, whirling down its turbulent perpendicular flood behind a half-drawn curtain of green and azure ice, sounded like exquisite music to my ears, and I looked towards Quebec and blinked at its fire-flashing tin spires and house-tops burning through the coppery morning fog, until my mind's eye became telescopic, and my thoughts, unsentimental though I be, reverted to civilized society and its _agréments_, and particularly to a certain steep-roofed cottage situated on a suburban road, in the boudoirs of which I liked to imagine one pined for my return. If memory has its pleasures, has it not also its glimpses of regret?--and who can say that the former compensate for the latter? Even now I see her as she used to step out on the veranda,--the lithe Indian girl, rivalling the choicest "desert- flower" of Arabia in the rich darkness of her eyes and hair, and in the warm mantling of her golden-ripe complexion,--unutterably graceful in the thorough-bred ease of her elastic movements,--Zosime MacGillivray, perfect type and model of the style and beauty of the _brulée_. She was the only child of a retired trader of the old North-West Fur Company and his Indian wife; had been partly educated in England; possessed rather more than the then average Colonial allowance of accomplishments; and was, altogether, so much in harmony with my roving forest-inclinations, that I sometimes thought, half seriously, how pleasant and respectable it would be to have one such at the head of one's camp-equipage, and how much nicer a companion she would be on a hunt than that disreputable old scoundrel, Zach Hiver.

"Pack the _tobaugan_, Zach! The sun will come out strong by and by, and the longer we tarry here, the heavier the snow will be for our stretch to the Citadel. Up, there! _lève-toi, cochon!_" shouted I, in the elegant terms of address which experience had taught me were the only ones that had any effect upon the stolid sensibilities of the half-breed,--at the same time administering to him a kick that produced a _thud_ and a grunt, as if actually bestowed on the unclean quadruped to which I had just likened him. The ragamuffin was very slow this time in getting the traps together on the _tobaugan_, and, if I had not attended to the matter myself, the moose trophy, at least, would in all probability have been left to perish, and would never have pointed a moral and adorned a tale, as it now does, in its exalted position among the reminiscences of things past. At length we got under way, and, as a walk over the open plain offered a pleasing variety to a man who had been feeling his way so long through the dim old woods, I determined to descend from the ridge of Beauport, and proceed over the snow-covered surface of the bay, in a bird's-eye line, to our point of destination. Winding down the almost perpendicular declivity, sometimes sliding down on our snow-shoes, with the _tobaugan_ running before us, "on its own hook," at a fearful pace, and sometimes obliged to descend, hand under hand, by the tangled roots and shrubs, we soon found ourselves on the great white winter-prairie of the grand St. Lawrence, upon which I strode forward with renewed energy, steering my course, like the primitive steeple-chasers of my boyhood's home, upon the highest church-tower looming up from the heterogeneous huddle of motley houses that just showed their gable-tops over the low ring of mist which mingled with the smoke of the Lower Town.

After a progress of about five miles, I found I had very materially widened the distance between myself and Zach, who, encumbered by the baggage, and by the spring snow which each moment accumulated in wet heavy cakes upon his snow-shoes, was now a good mile in my rear. This I was surprised at, as he generally outwalked me, even when carrying on his back a heavy load, with perhaps a canoe on his head, cocked-hat fashion, as he was often obliged to do in our fishing-excursions to the northern lakes. It now occurred to me, however, that I had incautiously left the brandy- flask in his charge, and when he came up with me I gathered from his fishy eye, and the thick dribblings of his macaronic gibberish,--which was compounded of sundry Indian dialects and French-Canadian _patois_, coarsely ground up with bits of broken English,--that the modern Circe, who changes men into beasts, had wrought her spells upon him; a circumstance at which I was terribly annoyed, as foreboding an ignominious entry into the city by back-lane and sally-port, instead of my long- anticipated triumphal progress up St. Louis Street, bearded in splendor, bristling with knife and rifle, and followed by my wild Indian _coureur- des-bois_, drawing my antlered trophies after him upon the _tobaugan_ as upon a festival car.

"Kaween nishishin! kaw-ween!" howled the big monster, in his mixed-pickle macaronio,--"je me sens saisi du mal-aux-raquettes, je ne pouvons plus. Why you go so dam fast, when hot sun he make snow for tire, eh? Sacr-r-ré raquettes! il me semble qu'ils se grossissent de plus en plus à chaque démarche. Stop for smoke, eh?--v'là! good place for camp away there, kitchee hogeemaus endaut, big chief's house may-be!" grinned he, as he indicated with Indian instinct and a wavering finger a structure of some kind that peered through the fog at a short distance on our left.

We were now within about a mile of Quebec. The Indian's intoxication had increased to a ludicrous extent, so that to have ventured into the town with him must have resulted in a reckless exposure of myself to the just obloquy and derision of the public; while, on the other hand, if I left him alone upon the wide world of ice, and dragged the _tobaugan_ to town myself, the unfortunate _brulé_ must inevitably have stepped into some treacherous snow-drift or air-hole, and thus miserably perished. So I made up my mind for a camp on the ice; and, diverging from our course in the direction pointed out by the Indian, we soon arrived at the object indicated by him, which proved to be a stout framework about twelve feet square, constructed of good heavy timber solidly covered with deal boarding, and conveying indubitable evidence, to my thinking, of the remains of one of the _cabanes_ or shanties commonly erected on the ice by those engaged in the "tommy-cod" fishery,--portable structures, so fitted together as to admit of being put up and removed piecemeal, to suit the convenience of their proprietors. I blessed mentally the careless individual who had thus unconsciously provided for our especial shelter; and as the wind had now suddenly arisen sharp from the west, driving the fog before it with clouds of fine drifting snow, I was glad to get under the lee of the providential wall, in the hospitable shelter of which, before two minutes had elapsed, "Stephano, my drunken butler," was snoring away like a phalanx of bullfrogs, with his head bolstered up somehow between the great moose-horns, and his brawny limbs rolled carelessly in the warm but somewhat unsavory skin of the dead monarch of the forest. I gloried in his calm repose; for the day was yet young, and I flattered myself that a three-hours' snooze would restore his muddled intellects to their normal mediocrity of useful instinct, and that I might still achieve my triumphal entry into the city,--a procession I had been so much in the habit of picturing to myself over the nocturnal camp-fire, that it had become a sort of nightmare with me. Indeed, I had idealized it roughly in my pocket-book, intending to transfer the sketches, for elaboration on canvas, to Tankerville, the regimental Landseer, whose menagerie of living models, consisting of two bears, one calf-moose, one _loup-cervier_, three bloated raccoons, and a bald eagle, formed at once the terror and delight of the rising generation of the barracks.

Having got up a small fire with the assistance of the chips and scraps of wood that were plentifully scattered around, I placed my snow-shoes one on top of the other, and sat down on them,--a sort of preparatory step in my transition to civilization, for they had somewhat the effect of a cane- bottomed chair minus the legs and without a back. Then I filled my short black pipe from the seal-skin tobacco-pouch, the contents of which had so often assuaged my troubled spirit when I brooded over griefs which _then_ were immature, if not imaginary. It was a very pleasant smoke, I recollect,--so pleasant, that I rather congratulated myself upon my position; the only drawback to it being that I was shut out from a view of the town, as the wind and drift rendered it indispensable for comfort in smoking that I should keep strictly to leeward of my bulwark. Tobacco is notoriously a promoter of reflection; there must be something essentially retrospective in the nature of the weed. I retired upon the days of my boyhood, my legs and feet becoming clairvoyant of the corduroys and highlows of that happy period of my existence, as the revolving curls of pale smoke exhibited to me, with marvellous fidelity, many quaint successive _tableaux_ of the old familiar scenes of home,--sentimental, some of them,--comic, others,--like the domestic incidents revealed with exaggerations on the hazy field of a magic-lantern. I thought of my poor mother, and of the excellent parting advice she gave me,--but more particularly of the night-caps with strings, which she extracted such a solemn promise from me to wear carefully every night in all climates, and which, on the second evening of my sojourn in barracks, were so unceremoniously reduced to ashes in a noisy _auto-da-fé_. These retrospective pictures were succeeded by others of more modern date, coming round in a progressive series, until I had painted myself up to within a few weeks of my present position, the foreground of my existence. Then I remembered promises made by me of contributions to a certain album,--further contributions,--for I had already furnished several pages of it with food for mind and eye in the form of melancholy verses and "funny" sketches, with brief dramatic dialogues beneath the latter, to elucidate the "story." I particularly recollected having volunteered a translation or imitation of a pretty song in Ruy Blas; and as the fit was upon me, I produced my pocketbook, to commit to paper a version of it which I had mentally devised. The leaves of my book were all filled, however; some with memoranda,--a sort of savage diary it was,--some with sketches of scenes in the wilderness: there was not a corner vacant. Turning towards the planking of my bulwark, I perceived that it was smoothly planed and clean, and to work on it I went, pencil in hand. First I wrote "Zosime MacGillivray," in several different styles of chirography, flourished and plain, and even in old text. Then I sketched out a rough design for an ornamental heading, with a wreath of flowers encircling the words "To Zozzy," and beneath this work of Art I inscribed the effort of my muse, which ran thus:--

Fields and forests rejoice
In their silver-toned throng;
_I_ hear but the voice
Of the bird in thy song!

In April's glad shower
Flash petals and leaves,
Less bright than the flower
Round thy heart that weaves!

Stars waken, stars slumber,
Stars wink in the sky,
Bright numberless number;
But none like thine eye!

For bird-song and flower
And star from above
Combine in thy bower;
Their union is love!

My mind being considerably relieved by this gush of sentiment, I felt myself entitled to unbend a little, and, turning my attention to artistic pursuits, principally of a humorous character, I developed successively many long-pent-up imaginings in the way of severe studies of sundry garrison notables. There was "Bendigo" Phillips, with boxing-gloves fearfully brandished, appearing in the attitude in which he polished off young Thurlow of the R.A., under the pretence of giving him a lesson in the noble art of self-defence, but in reality to revenge himself upon him for an ill-timed interference in a certain _affaire du coeur_. The agony of young Thurlow, pretending to look pleased, was depicted by a very successful stroke of Art. To the extreme right you might have beheld Vegetable Warren, the staff-surgeon, slightly exaggerated in the semblance of a South-Down wether nibbling at a gigantic Swedish turnip. Written lampoons of the fiercest character accompanied the illustrations. But my boldest effort was an atrocious and libellous cartoon of the commandant of the garrison, popularly known as "Old Wabbles,"--I believe from the preternatural manner in which his wide Esquimaux boots vacillated about his long, lean shanks. This _chef d'oeuvre_ was executed upon a rather large scale, and I imparted considerable force and breadth to the design by "coaling in" the shadows with a charred stick. Then calling color to my aid, as far as my limited means admitted, I scraped from the edges of the moose-hide a portion of the red-streaked fat, and, having impasted therewith the bacchanalian nose of my subject, I stepped back a few paces to contemplate the effect. So ludicrous was the resemblance, that I laughed outright in the pride of my success,--a transient hilarity, nipped suddenly in the bud by the loud boom of a cannon, accompanied rather than followed by a rushing sound a few feet above my head, and a thundering bump and splutter upon the ice some thirty or forty yards beyond me, as the heavy shot skipped and ricochetted away with receding bounds to its vanishing-point somewhere in the neighborhood of the Island of Orleans. Two strides to the front, and a glance at the broad, black ring emblazoned on the hitherto disregarded face of my bulwark, and the truth flashed upon my staggering senses.

I was encamped in the lee of the bran-new artillery target, and they were just commencing practice, on this fine bright afternoon, by pitching thirty-two-pound shot into and about it, at intervals--as I pretty well knew--of distressingly uncertain duration. With frantic strength I grasped the Indian by the neck, and, plunging madly through the snow, dragged him after me a few paces in the direction of our former track; but, hampered as he was by the moose-trappings, the weight was too much for me, and I dropped him, instinctively continuing to run with breathless speed, until, having gained a considerable distance away from any probable line of fire, I flung myself down upon the snow, and was somewhat startled at finding Zach very close upon my tracks, tearing along on all fours with a vague sense of danger of some kind, and looking, in his strange envelope, like an infuriated bull-moose in the act of charging a hunter. A shot struck the corner of the target just as we got away from it, slightly splintering it, so as to give the bewildered Indian a pleasant practical lesson in the science of gunnery and fortification.

Two minutes elapsed,--three minutes,--five minutes,--not another shot; but it might commence again at any moment, and I stood at a respectful distance from the danger, uncertain what course to pursue for the recovery of my traps, all of which, rifle, snow-shoes, and _tobaugan_ loaded with spoils, lay in pledge with the two-faced friend whose treacherous shelter had no longer any charm for me, when I beheld several sleighs approaching us from the town at a fearful pace, in the foremost of which, when within range of rifle, I recognized Old Wabbles, the commandant.

"Who the Devil are you?" shouted he, as he drove right at us. "Two Indians, ha!--somebody said it was _one_ Indian with a moose after him, a man and a moose. Where's Thurlow?--_he_ had the telescope, and asserted there was a man running round the target and a moose after him. I don't see the moose." Zach had dropped the hide and horns from his "recreant limbs," and was seated solemnly upon the snow, in all the majesty of his native dirt.

"By Jove, it's Kennedy!" cried Tankerville, whose artistical eye detected me through my hirsute and fluttering disguise. "What a picturesque object!--I congratulate you, old fellow!--easiest and pleasantest way in the world of making a living!--lose no time about it, but send in your papers at once!--continue assiduously to neglect your person, and you're worth a guinea an hour for the rest of your prime, as a living model on the full pay of the Academies!"

I was soon bewildered by a torrent of inquiries from all sides: as to how I came behind the target,--what success I had had in the woods,--how many miles I had come to-day,--whether I had got the martin-skin I had promised to this one, and the silver fox I undertook to trap for that,--when, suddenly, a diversion was created by a roar from Phillips, who had proceeded to inspect my spoils behind the target, and now stood looking at my portrait-gallery of living celebrities, his great chest heaving with laughter; and before I could satisfy my inquiring friends, the whole crowd had rushed pell-mell to the exhibition.

"Caught, by all that's lovely!" shouted Phillips, repeating my verses at the top of his voice,--

"The bird-song and flower
And star from above
Combine in thy bower;
Their union is love!"

"Ritoorala loorala loorala loo, ritoorala loorala loorala loo!" chorused everybody, as he sang the last verse to the vulgar melody of 'Tatter Jack Welch,' knocking the poetry out of my constitution at once and forever, like the ashes out of a pipe. "Hooray for Miss Mac! Who should have thought it, Darby?"--That was _my_ pet name in the regiment.

"How like!--how very like!--That's Warren there, nibbling the turnip. And there's Thurlow,--ha! ha! ha! how good! And that--that--that's me, by Jingo!--he he! he! he!--not so good that, somehow,--neck too long by half a foot. But the Colonel!--only look at his boots!--He must'n't see this, though, by Jove!--Choke the Colonel off, boys!--take him round to the front!--do something!" whispered good-natured Symonds, anxious to keep me clear of the scrape.

But it was too late. The last objects that met my view were the ghastly legs of the Commandant, as he strode through the circle in front of my Art-exhibition. I saw no more. A soldier is but a mortal man. Rushing to the nearest cariole,--it was the Commandant's,--I leaped into it, and, lashing the horse furiously towards the town, never pulled rein until I got up to my long-deserted quarters in the Citadel. There I barricaded myself into my own room, directing my servant to proceed to the target for my scattered property. I had still a month's leave of absence before me, availing myself of which, I started next morning for New York, subsequently obtained an extension of leave, sailed for England, and there negotiating an exchange from a regiment whose facings no longer suited my taste for colors, I soon found myself gazetted into a less objectionable one lying at Corfu.

I have never seen Tankerville's famous picture of my triumphal entry into Quebec.

I.--NOVEMBER.

The dead leaves their rich mosaics,
Of olive and gold and brown,
Had laid on the rain-wet pavements,
Through all the embowered town.

They were washed by the Autumn tempest,
They were trod by hurrying feet,
And the maids came out with their besoms
And swept them into the street,

To be crushed and lost forever
'Neath the wheels, in the black mire lost,--
The Summer's precious darlings,
She nurtured at such cost!

O words that have fallen from me!
O golden thoughts and true!
Must I see in the leaves a symbol
Of the fate which awaiteth you?

II.--APRIL.

Again has come the Spring-time,
With the crocus's golden bloom,
With the smell of the fresh-turned earth-mould,
And the violet's perfume.

O gardener! tell me the secret
Of thy flowers so rare and sweet!--
--"I have only enriched my garden
With the black mire from the street."

THE GAUCHO.

What _is_ a Gaucho?

That is precisely what I am going to tell you.

Take my hand, if you please. Shod with the shoes of swiftness, we have annihilated space and time. We are standing in the centre of a boundless plain. Look north and south and east and west: for five hundred miles beyond the limit of your vision, the scarcely undulating level stretches on either hand. Miles, leagues, away from us, the green of the torrid grass is melting into a misty dun; still further miles, and the misty dun has faded to a shadowy blue; more miles, it rounds at last away into the sky. A hundred miles behind us lies the nearest village; two hundred in another direction will bring you to the nearest town. The swiftest horse may gallop for a day and night unswervingly, and still not reach a dwelling-place of man. We are placed in the midst of a vast, unpeopled circle, whose radii measure a thousand miles.

But see! a cloud arises in the South. Swiftly it rolls towards us; behind it there is tumult and alarm. The ground trembles at its approach; the air is shaken by the bellowing that it covers. Quick! let us stand aside! for, as the haze is lifted, we can see the hurrying forms of a thousand cattle, speeding with lowered horns and fiery eyes across the plain. Fortunately, they do not observe our presence; were it otherwise, we should be trampled or gored to death in the twinkling of an eye. Onward they rush; at last the hindmost animals have passed; and see, behind them all there scours a man!

He glances at us, as he rushes by, and determines to give us a specimen of his only art. Shaking his long, wild locks, as he rises in the stirrup and presses his horse to its maddest gallop, he snatches from his saddle-bow the loop of a coil of rope, whirls it in his right hand for an instant, then hurls it, singing through the air, a distance of fifty paces. A jerk and a strain,--a bellow and a convulsive leap,--his lasso is fast around the horns of a bull in the galloping herd. The horseman flashes a murderous knife from his belt, winds himself up to the plunging beast, severs at one swoop the tendon of its hind leg, and buries the point of his weapon in the victim's spinal marrow. It falls dead. The man, my friend, is a Gaucho; and we are standing on the Pampas of the Argentine Republic.

Let us examine this dexterous wielder of the knife and cord. _He, Juan de Dios!_ Come hither, O Centaur of the boundless cattle-plains! We will not ask you to dismount,--for that you never do, we know, except to eat and sleep, or when your horse falls dead, or tumbles into a _bizcachero_; but we want to have a look at your savage self, and the appurtenances thereunto belonging.

And first, you say, the meaning of his name. The title, Gaucho, is applied to the descendants of the early Spanish colonists, whose homes are on the Pampa, instead of in the town,--to the rich _estanciero_, or owner of square leagues of cattle, in common with the savage herdsman whom he employs,--to Generals and Dictators, as well as to the most ragged Pampa- Cossack in their pay. Our language is incapable of expressing the idea conveyed by this term; and the Western qualification "backwoodsman" is perhaps the nearest approach to a synonyme that we can attain.

The head of our swarthy friend is covered with a species of Neapolitan cap, (let me confess, in a parenthesis, that my ideas of such head- coverings are derived from the costume of graceful Signor Brignoli in "Masaniello,") which was once, in all probability, of scarlet hue, but now almost rivals in color the jet-black locks which it confines. His face-- well, we will pass that over, and, on our return to civilized life, will refer the curious inquirer for a fac-simile to the first best painting of Salvator, there to select at pleasure the most ferocious bandit countenance that he can find. And now the remainder of his person. He wears an open jacket of dirt-crusted serge, covered in front with a gorgeous eruption of plated buttons, and a waistcoat of the same material, adorned with equal profuseness, and showing at the neck a substratum of dubious crimson, supposed to be a flannel shirt. So far, you may say, there is nothing suspicious or very outlandish about his rig; but _turpiter desinit formosus superne_,--there is something highly remarkable _á continuacion_. Do you see that blanket which is drawn tightly up, fore and aft, toward his waist, and, there confined by means of a belt which his _querida_ has richly ornamented for him, falls over in uneven folds like an abbreviated kilt? That is the famous _chiripá_, or Gaucho petticoat, which, like the _bracae_ of the Northern barbarians some nineteen hundred years ago, distinguishes him from the inhabitants of civilized communities. Below the _chiripá_, his limbs are cased in _calzoncillos_, stout cotton drawers or pantalets, which terminate in a fringe (you should see the elaborate worsted-work that adorns the hem of his gala-pair) an inch or two above the ankle. His feet are thrust into a pair of _botas de potro_, or colt's-foot boots, manufactured from the hide of a colt's fore-leg, which he strips off whole, chafes in his hand until it becomes pliable and soft, sews up at the lower extremity,--and puts on, the best riding-boot that the habitable world can show. Add a monstrous spur to each heel of this _chaussure_, and you will have fully equipped the worthy Juan de Dios for active service.--But stay! his accoutrements! We must not forget that Birmingham-made butcher-knife, which, for a dozen years, has never been for a moment beyond his reach; nor the coiling lasso, and the _bolas_, or balls of iron, fastened at each end of a thong of hide, which he can hurl a distance of sixty feet, and inextricably entangle around the legs of beast or man; nor the _recado_, or saddle, his only seat by day, and his pillow when he throws himself upon the ground to sleep under the canopy of heaven. Neither must we omit the _mate_ gourd which dangles at his waist, in readiness to receive its infusion of _yerba_, or Paraguay tea, which he sucks through that tin tube, called _bombilla_, and looking for all the world like the broken spout of an oil- can with a couple of pieces of nutmeg-grater soldered on, as strainers, at the lower end; nor the string of sapless _charque_ beef, nor the pouchful of villanous tobacco, nor the paper for manufacturing it into _cigarritos_, nor the cow's-horn filled with tinder, and the flint and steel attached. Thus mounted, clothed, and equipped, he is ready for a gallop of a thousand leagues.

He is a strange individual, this Gaucho Juan. Born in a hut built of mud and maize-stalks somewhere on the superficies of these limitless plains, he differs little, in the first two years of his existence, from peasant babies all the world over; but so soon as he can walk, he becomes an equestrian. By the time he is four years old there is scarcely a colt in all the Argentine that he will not fearlessly mount; at six, he whirls a miniature lasso around the horns of every goat or ram he meets. In those important years when our American youth are shyly beginning to claim the title of young men, and are spending anxious hours before the mirror in contemplation of the slowly-coming down upon their lip, young Juan (who never saw a dozen printed books, and perhaps has only _heard_ of looking- glasses) is galloping, like a portion of the beast he rides, over a thousand miles of prairie, lassoing cattle, ostriches, and guanacos, fighting single-handed with the jaguar, or lying stiff and stark behind the heels of some plunging colt that he has too carelessly bestrid.

At twenty-one he is in his glory. Then we must look for him in the _pulperías_, the bar-rooms of the Pampas, whither he repairs on Sundays and _fiestas_, to get drunk on _aguardiente_ or on Paraguay rum. There you may see him seated, listening open-mouthed to the _cantor_, or Gaucho troubadour, as he sings the marvellous deeds of some desert hero, persecuted, unfortunately, by the myrmidons of justice for the numerous _misfortunes_ (_Anglicé_, murders) upon his head,--or narrates in impassioned strain, to the accompaniment of his guitar, the circumstances of one in which he has borne a part himself,--or chants the frightful end of the Gaucho Attila, Quiroga, and the punishment that overtook his murderer, the daring Santos Perez. When the song is over, the cards are dealt. Seated upon a dried bull's-hide, each man with his unsheathed knife placed ostentatiously at his side, the jolly Gauchos commence their game. Suddenly Manuel exclaims, that Pedro or Estanislao or Antonio is playing false. Down fly the cards; up flash the blades; a ring is formed. Manuel, to tell the truth, has accused his friend Pedro only for the sake of a little sport; he has never _marked_ a man yet, and thinks it high time that that honor were attained. So the sparks fly from the flashing blades, and Pedro's nose has got another gash in it, and Manuel is bleeding in a dozen places, but he will not give in just yet. Unfortunate Gaucho! Pedro the next moment slips in a sticky pool of his own blood, and Manuel's knife is buried in his heart! "He is killed! Manuel has had a misfortune!" exclaim the ring; "fly, Manuel, fly!" In another minute, and just as the _vigilantes_ are throwing themselves upon their horses to pursue him, he has galloped out of sight.

Twenty miles from the _pulpería_ he draws rein, dismounts, wipes his bloody knife on the grass, and slices off a collop of _charque_, which he munches composedly for his supper. Very likely this _misfortune_ will make him a _Gaucho malo_. The _Gaucho malo_ is an outlaw, at home only in the desert, intangible as the wind, sanguinary, remorseless, swift. His brethren of the _estancia_ pronounce his name occasionally, but in lowered tones, and with a mixture of terror and respect; he is looked up to by them as a sort of higher being. His home is a movable point upon an area of twenty thousand square miles; his horse, the finest steed that he can find upon the Pampas between Buenos Ayres and the Andes, between the Gran Chaco and Cape Horn; his food, the first beef that he captures with his lasso; his dainties, the tongues of cows which he kills, and abandons, when he has stripped them of his favorite titbit, to the birds of prey. Sometimes he dashes into a village, drinks a gourdful of _aguardiente_ with the admiring guests at the _pulpería_, and spurs away again into obscurity, until at length the increasing number of his _desgracias_ tempts the mounted emissaries of justice to pursue him, in the hope of extra reward. If suddenly beset by seven or eight of these desert police, the _Gaucho malo_ slashes right and left with his redoubted knife,--kills one, maims another, wounds them all. Perhaps he reaches his horse and is off and away amid a shower of harmless balls;--or he is taken; in which case, all that remains, the day after, of the _Gaucho malo_, is a lump of soulless clay.

Then there is the guide, or _vaqueano_. This man, as one who knows him well informs us, is a grave and reserved Gaucho, who knows by heart the peculiarities of twenty thousand leagues of mountain, wood, and plain! He is the only _map_ that an Argentinian general takes with him in a campaign; and the _vaqueano_ is never absent from his side. No plan is formed without his concurrence. The army's fate, the success of a battle, the conquest of a province, is entirely dependent upon his integrity and skill; and, strange to say, there is scarcely an instance on record of treachery on the part of a _vaqueano_. He meets a pathway which crosses the road upon which he is travelling, and he can tell you the exact distance of the remote watering-place to which it leads; if he meet with a thousand similar pathways in a journey of five hundred miles, it will still be the same. He can point out the fords of a hundred rivers; he can guide you in safety through a hundred trackless woods. Stand with him at midnight on the Pampa,--let the track be lost,--no moon or stars; the _vaqueano_ quietly dismounts, examines the foliage of the trees, if any are near, and if there are none, plucks from the ground a handful of roots, chews them, smells and tastes the soil, and tells you that so many hours' travel due north or south will bring you to your destination. Do not doubt him; he is infallible.

A mere _vaqueano_ was General Rivera of Uruguay,--but he knew every tree, every hillock, every dell, in a region extending over more than 70,000 square miles! Without his aid, Brazil would have been powerless in the Banda Oriental; without his aid, the Argentinians would never have triumphed over Brazil. As a smuggler in 1804, as a custom-house officer a few years later, as a patriot, a freebooter, a Brazilian general, an Argentinian commander, as President of Uruguay against Lavalleja, as an outlaw against General Oribe, and finally against Rosas, allied with Oribe, as champion of the Banda Oriental del Uruguay, Rivera had certainly ample opportunities for perfecting himself in that study of which he was the ardent devotee.

Cooper has told us how and by what signs, in years that have forever faded, the Huron tracked his flying foe through the forests of the North; we read of Cuban bloodhounds, and of their frightful baying on the scent of the wretched maroon; we know how the Bedouin follows his tribe over pathless sands;--and yet all these are bunglers, in comparison with the _Gaucho rastreador_!

In the interior of the Argentine every Gaucho is a trailer or _rastreador_. On those vast feeding-grounds of a million cattle, whose tracks intersect each other in every direction, the herdsman can distinguish with unerring accuracy the footprints of his own peculiar charge. When an animal is missing from the herd, he throws himself upon his horse, gallops to the spot where he remembers having seen it last, gazes for a moment upon the trampled soil, and then shoots off for miles across the waste. Every now and then he halts, surveys the trail, and again speeds onward in pursuit. At last he reaches the limits of another _estancia_, and the pasturage of a stranger herd. His eagle eye singles out at a glance the estray; rising in his stirrup, he whirls the lasso for a moment above his head, launches it through the air, and coolly drags the recalcitrant beast away on the homeward trail. He is nothing but a common, comparatively unskilled, _rastreador_.