Chapter V (2)

It has been the custom to think that the government was the only source of honor; it is still looked upon as the source of the highest honor. By barbarians the monarch is deified. In many civilized countries of our own time kings are said to rule by special favor of the Deity; no one stands erect, no loud word is spoken in their presence; and, indeed, everywhere they are approached with a reverence so great that more could hardly be shown to God himself. This homage is not given on account of eminent personal attributes. These persons are well understood to be often mean in mind and meaner in morals. The same feeling is shown towards other high officials. To be in the public service is eagerly coveted; such employment attracts the finest minds, and is most munificently rewarded. It is so in this country. We are accustomed to confer upon official characters honors which we would refuse to a Shakspeare or a Newton. Yet it is well known, that, while the comprehension and elucidation of the great laws which govern society are a labor which will task the strength of the strongest, in ordinary times affairs may be, and generally are, quite acceptably administered by men of no marked intellectual superiority. It is not necessary to say that the sentiment must be wrong which leads us to such strange errors, --which obliterates the broadest distinctions, and persuades us to give to feebleness and vice rewards which should be given to genius and virtue alone.

For the wisest purposes, the Creator has planted within us an instinctive disposition to revere the illustrious of our kind. To win that admiration is the most powerful incentive to action,--it is the ardent desire of passionate natures. The sweet incense of popular applause is more delicious than wine to the senses of man. Deservedly obtained, it heals every wound, and soothes all pain; nay, the mere hope of it will steel him against every danger, and sustain him amidst disease, penury, neglect, and oppression. To bestow this reverence is a pleasure hardly less exquisite. While we commune with the intellects and contemplate the virtues of the great, some portion of their exceeding light descends upon us, their aspiring spirits enter our breasts and raise us to higher levels. But to yield our homage to those who do not deserve it is to pervert a pure and noble instinct. We cannot worship the degraded, except by sinking to lower depths of degradation.

When one considers that the admitted functions of government have been almost without limit, this mistaken sentiment is not to be wondered at. Why should not they who are able to provide for every want of the body or soul be revered as Superior beings? Governments have established creeds, and set bounds to science; they have been the censors of literature, and held men in slavery; they have told the citizen how many meals to eat, how many prayers to say, how to wear his beard, and in what manner to educate his children; there is no action so trivial, no concern so important, nor any sentiment so secret, that the governing power has not interfered with and sought to control it. This system has invariably failed; constantly coming in contact with each man's sense of individuality, it has been the prolific source of revolutions, despotisms, the ruin of states, the extirpation of races,--and in its mildest forms, where life has been preserved, everything which makes life desirable has been destroyed. In most countries this system still exists to a great degree, nor is there any country whence it is entirely eradicated.

Seeing the constant and uniform occurrence of these evils, Mr. Jefferson was led to believe that they were not caused by a remediable imperfection in the existing system, but by radical defects. He concluded that they were produced by an attempt on the part of government to do what it could not,--that the power of government was limited by absolute and inherent laws, like those which limit the strength of man,--and that there were certain functions belonging to government, in going beyond which it not only failed of its purpose, but did positive harm. In this view, the definition of these functions becomes a task of great difficulty and involves the whole science of politics. We cannot follow his entire line of argument, and without detail there is danger that our statement will not be sufficiently qualified. His general theory, however, is simple, and is drawn from his first proposition as to the equal rights of man. He held that the object of society is the preservation of these great rights. Since experience teaches us, that, however incompetent we may be to decide upon the interests of others, we are able to regulate our own, this social purpose will be best accomplished by leaving to each one all the liberty consistent with the general safety. Security, being the only common object, should be the sole duty of the common agent. The government being confined to the performance of this negative duty, it must not exercise its power except when necessary. The inquiry, Is it necessary? not, Is it advantageous? is the test to be applied to every measure. The rigid application of this rule excludes the state from any interference with commerce and industry,--from all matters of religion and opinion,--and limits its financial operations to providing in the most direct manner for its own support. But it is to be noticed, that it is consistent with this scheme, and indeed the fruit of it, that, in the sphere which it does occupy, the government should be absolute.

Mr. Jefferson formed the governmental machinery in strict accordance with this principle. As many measures are necessary for one portion of a community and not for another, he insisted that local affairs should be placed in the hands of local authorities. The integrity of his system depends not only upon the limitation of the governing power, in a general sense, but as well upon the division and dispersion of it.

The principal exception which Jefferson made was in respect of education. But, according to his view, this can hardly be regarded as an exception. The general safety depends so directly upon that recognition of mutual rights which is not to be found except among intelligent men, that he advised the establishment, not only of common schools, but likewise of colleges and schools of Art.

To those who objected, that this system would limit the action and decrease the splendor of a nation, Jefferson replied, that its effects were quite the reverse. In proportion as a government assumes the duties which ought to be performed by the citizen, it acts as a check upon individual and national development. Under a despotism, culture must be confined to a few, nor can there be much variety of effort and production. Under a government which is confined to its proper field, the talents of each man may be freely used, and he will not be forced into relations for which he is unsuited. The absurd prejudice, that public employment is the most honorable, will pass away. The man of letters and the man of science, the poet, the artist, and the inventor, the financier, the navigator, the merchant, every one who performs beneficial service and displays great qualities, will be rewarded. Every one who is conscious that he possesses such qualities will be stimulated to strive for that reward. This universal action will give birth to all the things which adorn a state. Social disturbances will excite investigation, and evils which governments have never been able to reach may be removed. Competition will make the accumulation of large estates difficult, property will be equalized, but no motive to effort destroyed. Science will be encouraged. Every day will add to the number of those contrivances which facilitate labor, increase production, lessen distance, and raise man from the degradation of an existence wholly occupied with providing for his physical wants. Under these elastic laws, religion, philanthropy, art, learning, the social amenities, the domestic influences, all humanizing agents, will have opportunity and work harmoniously for the advancement of the race.

It will be seen that Mr. Jefferson's political system was that which, in the language of the modern schools, is called individual theory. It has been said, that it is based upon too favorable an estimate of human character, and that he obtained it from the French philosophers.

It seems to us that the reproach of Utopian opinions may more justly be thrown upon his opponents. The latter do not escape the evil from which they fly. They proceed upon the belief that man is unfit for self-government; but since every government is one of men, if he cannot control himself, how shall he rule over others? Whatever may be said about the superiority of men of genius, it is certain that there never has existed an intellect capable of providing for all the minute and varying necessities of each individual among many millions. The history of legislation shows that the best-disciplined minds find it difficult to devise a single statute affecting a single interest which will be precise in its terms and equal in its operation. These railers at the majority of their kind seem to expect in the minority a greater than human perfection. Mr. Jefferson proceeded upon a mere moderate estimate of the abilities, and a more just appreciation of the weakness of men. It is _because_ we are easily led astray and blinded by passion, that he thought us unfit to govern others, and that we should limit our efforts to self-government. His confidence in man was no greater than that which is the foundation of Christianity. The whole Christian scheme is one of the broadest democracy. The most important truths are there submitted to the general judgment and conscience of mankind, with no other recommendation than their value and the force of the evidence by which they are attested. Can it be said that we are not fit to decide upon a tax, yet are fit to decide our fate for all the mysterious future? If Jefferson was an enthusiast, every clergyman who calls his bearers to repentance must be mad. He did have confidence in his fellows,--he did believe that we are not helpless slaves of sin, that the evils which afflict us are not inevitable,--and that we have power to lead lives of justice and virtue. Who will accuse him because of this confidence?

The charge of French principles originated in a political contest. It was true in the narrow application which it had at first, but false in that which was afterwards given to it. There is a marked distinction between him and the politicians of France. Rousseau, perhaps the ablest, certainly the most popular, of those who preceded the Revolution, is an example. The _Contrat Social_ constantly carries the idea, that the government is the seat of all power and the source of all national action. No suggestion is made, that there are individual functions with which the state cannot interfere to advantage. The same opinions prevailed among the Encyclopedists and Economists, they were announced by the Gironde and the Mountain, and practically carried out by Robespierre and Barras. The Girondists made cautious approaches towards federalism, but one looks in vain through the speeches of Vergniaud for an intimation of individualism. The modern _doctrinaires_ have retained the same principles. Legitimists, Imperialists, Republicans, Socialists, and Communists are all in favor of a centralized and unlimited government. The last two classes wish to exercise the governing power upon the minutest details of life,--to establish public baths, shops, theatres, dwellings, to control the amusements and direct the occupations of the citizen, and to divide his social status by law. Comte himself, whose general system might be expected to lead him to a different conclusion, outdoes them all, and proposes to prescribe creeds, establish fasts, feasts, and forms of worship, and even to name those who shall receive divine honors. There is no trace here of that scrupulous regard for personal independence and that invincible distrust of governmental action which characterized Jefferson. It is true, he and the Gallic writers agreed upon certain fundamental propositions; but they were peculiar neither to him nor them. Some of the same principles were announced by Locke and Beccaria, by Hobbes, who maintained the omnipotence of the state, and by Grotius, who insisted upon the divine right of kings. To agree with another upon certain matters does not make one his disciple. No one mistakes the doctrines of Paul for those of Mohammed, because both taught the immortality of the soul. To confound Jefferson with Rousseau or Condorcet is about as reasonable as to confound Luther with Loyola, or Ricardo with Jeremy Bentham.

Although we deny that Jefferson was indebted to France for his political system, it cannot be claimed that he was the author of it. He himself used to assert, that the scheme of a limited and decentralized government was produced by the events which caused the settlement of the country and the subsequent union of the colonies. The emigration to America was stimulated by the great Protestant and Catholic dispute which occupied Europe nearly two centuries, and during which time the original thirteen colonies were founded. The sentiment of religious freedom was the active principle of all the alliances, wars, intrigues, and adventures of that stormy period. The rights of conscience were maintained, in defiance of the rack and the stake. They were stubbornly asserted in regard to the smallest matters. Lines of separation, so fine as hardly to be perceptible, were defended to the last. The Catholic was not more irreconcilably opposed to the Protestant, than the Lutheran to the Quaker, or the Puritan to the Baptist. Men who differed merely about the meaning of a single passage of Scripture thought each other unfit to sit at the same table. The immigrants were exiles. By the conditions under which they acted, as being from the defeated party, and as being among those whom defeat did not subdue, they must have had the enthusiasm of their time in its most earnest form. Each man came here intent upon his right to worship God in his own way. _That_ he could never forget. It had been impressed upon him by everything which can affect the understanding or touch the heart of man,--by the memory of success and defeat,--by his own sufferings and the martyrdom of his brethren,--by Bunyan's fable and by Milton's song.

But they did not lack bigotry. They were as ready to persecute those who differed with them here as they had been at home. The last and greatest social truth, that the surest way of protecting our own liberties is by respecting those of others, was forced upon the colonists. So general had been the stimulants to emigration, that every European sect and party was represented in America. Hither came Calvinists and Lutherans, Cavaliers and Roundheads, Conformists and Non-Conformists, the precise Quaker and the elegant Huguenot, those who fled from the tyranny of Louis and those who fled from the tyranny of Charles, worshippers of the Virgin and men who believed that to kneel before a crucifix was as idolatrous as to kneel before the seven-headed idols of Hindostan. These sects and parties were so equally balanced that toleration became a necessity. Seeing that they could not oppress, men were led to think oppression wrong, and toleration was exalted to a virtue. The theocratic spirit which prevailed at first passed away, and the great principle was established that governments have nothing to do with religion. It does not require much penetration to discover that a government which has unlimited power over the person and property of the citizen will not long respect the scruples of his conscience. Religious liberty gave birth to political freedom. The separation of the settlements from each other, even in the same establishment, made local provisions necessary for defence, and for the transaction of local business, and led to the division of the government.

When united action was necessary, the colonies did not attempt to reconcile their differences; they made a union for those purposes which were common to all. The general principles which were asserted during the Revolution were logical necessities of that event. It was a rebellion against an unjust exercise of power. Why unjust? For no other reason than because the Americans had an equal right with Englishmen to govern themselves. But that right must be one which was common to all men. The rebels knew this. They did not follow Burke through his labored argument to prove that the measures of the British ministry were inexpedient. They could not defend their conduct before the world upon the narrow ground of a violation of the relations between a dependency and its mother country. Those relations were not understood, and such a defence would not have been listened to. They appealed at once to the laws of God, and for their justification addressed those universal human instincts which give us our ideas of national and individual freedom. The declaration that men are created equal excited no surprise _then_. They believed it without a thought that it had entered the mind of a fantastic recluse in the retirement of _l'Hermitage_, and, in obedience to that belief, they severed the ties of tradition and kindred, exposed their homes and the lives of those whose lives were dearer to them than their own to the rage of civil war, and placed all they hoped for and everything they loved upon the perilous hazard of the sword.

At such a time Jefferson was led to the pursuit of politics. He was not in the situation of one who, in disgust at the misery which surrounds him, retires to his study, and, from the impulses of a kind heart, the dreams of poets, and the speculations of philosophers, fashions a society in which there is neither envy, anger, ambition, nor avarice, but where, amid Arcadian joys, all men live in peace and happiness. He was compelled to think because he had need to act, --to make real laws for real societies. To do this, he did not meditate upon human frailty and perfectibility; he did not attempt to frame institutions carefully graduated to suit the dissimilar dispositions, faculties, and desires of men. In the spirit with which he had observed the phenomena of Nature in order to discover the laws which produced them, he inspected the social phenomena of his country to learn the laws by which it might be governed. He studied the processes by which a few hamlets, hastily built upon a savage shore, had grown into powerful communities,--by which the heirs to centuries of bitter recollections had been made to forget the jealousies of race, the enmities of party, the bad hatred of sect, and united into one brotherhood for the accomplishment of a common and noble purpose. He took man as he found him, and believed he could govern himself because he had done so. He endeavored to give symmetry to the system which was already established. It is not strange that in this way he arrived at rules of policy, and assisted to put in operation a government, more perfectly adapted to our wants, more nicely adjusted to our strength and our weakness, giving freer opportunity to individual effort, and more firmly establishing national prosperity, better able to resist sedition or foreign assault, than any which painful toil has created, or the imaginations of the benevolent conceived, from the days of Plato to those of Fourier.

In our next number we shall allude to certain questions, raised by Mr. Randall's book, connected with the early politics of the country; and we shall likewise undertake the more pleasing task of describing the domestic life and the character of Jefferson.

* * * * *

A PRISONER OF WAR.

Rügen is a small island, and its chief town is named Rügen also. They are both part of Prussia, as they were in 1807, when Prussia and France were at war. At that time Herr Grosshet was burgomaster, and a very important burgomaster, it should be understood,--taking in proof thereof Herr Grosshet's own opinion on the subject. According to the same high authority the burgomaster was also wondrously sharp; and the consequence of the burgomaster's sharpness was, that an amount of smuggling went on in the town which was simply audacious. None knew better than the burgomaster that the smuggling was audacious; scarcely a shopkeeper he knew, but laughed to his nose; but his dignity was so great, and he had made the central authority believe so strongly in him, that he could not lay a complaint; and the consequence of _that_ was, that, though the townspeople laughed at their mayor, they would not have parted with him on any account. Not a soul in the town but knew of the smuggling, --not a soul who, publicly, was in the least aware of that illegality.

Bertha, as she was commonly called, did not positively belong to the town, but she had lived in it for sixteen years,--at the beginning of which time a very great commotion was created by her discovery, at the age of three, sitting staring on the sea-beach.

She was adopted by the town generally; for there were kind hearts in it,--as most towns have, for that matter; but she was specially adopted by Frau Klass, who took her home and straightway reared her, under the name of Bertha,--for the reason that she had once had a daughter with that name. The new Bertha in time met with a proposal from a flaxen-haired young sailor named Daniel, who left Rügen the next day with a considerably lightened heart. When the foundling had reached nineteen, three things had happened:--Dan had been away three years, and the town had given him up forever; Bertha's mother was no more; and Bertha rather found it her duty to submit to be married to the most odious of his sex, Jodoque by name,--a man who was detested by no one more heartily than by Bertha herself.

I say Bertha found it her duty to be married, and thus:--Frau Klass called Jodoque her nephew, and tried to justify a testament in Bertha's favor by suggesting to her the compensation to her nephew of marrying him. Thus Frau Klass tried to follow both her inclination and her duty, and died serenely at a great age,--assuring Bertha with her last breath that Daniel must be dead, and that Jodoque was an admirable youth, when known, and not at all poor.

So Bertha came into possession of a little farm and a little house. _She_ tried to reconcile duty with inclination by suggesting to Jodoque the propriety of waiting; and he _had_ waited, till he began to question the probability of his ever entering upon the tenancy of his late aunt's farm.

But Bertha at last yielded a consent; and the entire town, ever bearing in mind its universal parentage of Bertha, determined to go to great lengths of rejoicing on the wedding-day; and the burgomaster, a fool and a good man, was certainly not indifferent.

I have said France and Prussia were at war at this time; and, indeed, there were a score of young French prisoners at the fort,--or rather, nineteen, for one got away the very day before that mentioned as Bertha's wedding-day. Two hours after his escape he was kissing the hand of Bertha herself, who had promised him her protection, and hidden him in Frau Klass's own dark room.

Bertha had served the young Frenchman--who shall be called Max--with his breakfast, and was sitting in her porch, wondering about a good many things, when Herr Jodoque arrived. She was thinking how she should get the prisoner away,--what would be said of her, if found out,--how decidedly odious Jodoque was,--how handsome the Frenchman was,--and how she thought he was better-looking even than Daniel, the sailor who had been away three years.

So Herr Jodoque came up to the door of the little cottage, bringing with him a basket. Jodoque believed in the burgomaster as a grand man, and though nobody knew better than Jodoque that he was not very clever, he rather tried in manner to imitate the important mayor.

It is, and was, the custom in Rügen for the bridegroom to make a present, in a fancy basket, to the bride; and that the town might not talk, Jodoque brought _his_ bride a basket, though it was not particularly large, nor was it particularly heavy.

Here is an inventory of its contents, which, with itself, Jodoque laid down with considerable effect:--_Imprimis_,--one piece of cloth, on the use of which Jodoque gave an essay. _Item_,--three cards of knitting-wool, for mittens. _Item_ and _finis_,--one white rabbit, the skin of which, Jodoque suggested, would make him a cap.

"Good!" said Bertha;--"Jodoque," she added.

"My angel!"

"You know Madame Kurrig's?"

"At the very other end of the town?"

"Go there!"

"Go there, angel?--why?"

"The silver teapot"--

"_My_ sil--my aunt's silver teapot?"

"Just so,--Madame Kurrig"--

"Has got it?--I go!--My aunt's silver teapot!"

He ran down the little road towards the silver teapot,--for, indeed, Madame Kurrig did not bear a superior character,--but he had not proceeded far when he came upon the burgomaster, who was in great tribulation. Only nineteen prisoners were at the fort, and the governor had sent down a rather imperative message to the mayor, who, replying that his loyal town could not conceal a fugitive, met with such an answer as he had never received before in all his life. It is a deplorable fact that he and the town were recommended to go to a place, a visit to which the burgomaster at least hoped he should not be compelled to make.

The burgomaster was in the habit of asking people's opinions and never listening to their answers, and he now asked Jodoque what he was to do. Jodoque suggesting that the mayor could not want advice, the mayor admitted there was something in that,--but still a word was a word. Things, in fact, were in a pretty state, for the burgomaster, now he had to do with the escape of a French prisoner. And this was the case. The French were off the town, and at that time the French had the luck to be generally sure in the matter of victory. Now if the French took the town, and learned that the burgomaster had taken a Frenchman, (for the burgomaster felt sure he could recover the runaway, if he chose,) the burgomaster would perform that _pas seul_ upon the ambient air which is far from a pleasant feat; while if the French did _not_ take the town, and it was brought home to him that he had neglected the duties of his office, he would lose the position of burgomaster and be a degraded man.

Jodoque sadly wanted to reach Madame Kurrig's, but the burgomaster sadly wanted help,--though he would not confess it openly;--so he hooked himself on to Jodoque and uttered this sentence,--"And this detested smuggler, too!"--The effect of which was, that Jodoque became utterly pale and trembled violently. This behavior the burgomaster attributed to his own proper presence, and asked himself, --Could he survive degradation? No, better the tight-rope performance! So he made up his mind to recapture the missing Frenchman.

He, meantime, being a blithe, courageous young midshipman, was gayly chattering with his protectress. There he was laughing at her good-naturedly as she trembled for his sake, and chattering broken German as best he could. Wealth is a good thing, and health a better; but surely high spirited hope is worth more than the philosopher's stone.

"No, Mademoiselle,--I could bear the dark room no longer. Better an hour in the light of your blue eyes than an age in that dark room!"

"Still--nevertheless--it is dangerous to leave the room. The burgomaster"--

"Cannot see all the way here from the town; besides, if he could, your presence would dazzle him, and I should be safe."

"So you can trust your secret with me,--a woman?"

"I would trust it with two women,--three,--for with every disclosure there would be a fear the less that I should be found. You cannot comprehend that,--now consider."

"La! I cannot."

"How good you are! How would they punish you, if they learned the truth?"

"Oh, a good heart--I do think I have a good heart--don't weigh this way and that when there is a good action to be done."

"And done for the sake of a poor stranger."

"Stranger? Nonsense! I meet you,--you are in misfortune; therefore we are old friends. And an old friend may surely lend a room to her old friend."

"And your name?"

"They call me Bertha."

"And you are single?"

"If you ask me that question an hour hence, I shall say, 'No.'"

"No!--the only harsh word you have used."

"Why harsh?"

"Well, shut up in a dark room, you have your thoughts to yourself; and you think, and think, and think again; and you always think of the same thing; and then--then you wake up, and there's an end to your dream."

"And how do you know I have not dreamt?--The clothes I got for you fit you well; you look a German. Ah, you make a grimace!"

"So, you are going to be married."

"In one hour--less five minutes."

"Ah! which way am I to go?"

"Straight back into the house."

"Nonsense!--I should compromise you."

"The house is mine; surely I may do as I like with it."

"And when may I reach the coast?"

"When the night reaches us."

"Good!--and--and good-bye!"

"Well,--yes,--good-bye, I suppose,--and--and promise me one thing?"

"I do promise."

"Don't look at him."

"Him! Whom?"

"My husband--who is coming."

"He is so handsome?"

"Oh, magnificent! Good-bye! good-bye!"

Here he ran back into the dark room, while Bertha, who was a spoilt child, if the truth may be told, pulled moodily at one of the two long, black plaits of hair she wore. And it must be set down, sad as it is, that, seeing Jodoque coming up the road to claim her, accompanied by a sailorly-looking personage, she went in and shut the door with a deal of vigor.

The sailorly-looking personage was young, broad-chested, handsome, and had not been in that part of Prussia for some six years. Jodoque, prompted to sudden hospitality, had offered the sailorly personage a seat at his marriage dinner-table, and he, with a great laugh, accepted the invitation. He strolled leisurely on by the side of the bridegroom, until he heard the bride's name, when behold the effect produced! For he started back, and at first showed signs of choking his informant. However, after an awkward stare, he moved on again.

They soon came up to the door, and Jodoque was wondering why his bride did not open it wide to him, when a bright, stout little woman, dressed out in her best, came tripping through the garden-gate, through which the two had just passed. This little woman's name was Doome;--nobody knew why she was called Doome, but everybody called her Doome, all over the little town.

"Good morning, gentlemen! God preserve you, Jodoque! Good morning, Bertha!"--for here the door opened.

As she opened and appeared at the door, the sailor looked hard at her; but she did not start as she returned his look. _He_ thought all women were alike and forgot; but if this broad-chested sailor could have seen his own blue jacket of six years before, perhaps it would have been a good argument to induce him to pardon Bertha's forgetfulness.

"Good day, Miss!" said he, and brushed his cap from his head.

The same explanation touching the sailor's presence was then given to Bertha that I have given to you,--given as the whole party were welcomed into the plain little house by its very far from plain mistress.

"Do you remember faces, Mistress?" said the sailor to Doome.

"Yes, friend sailor."

"Do you remember them for six years?"

"La! no woman can remember for six years," said Doome.

"I think _you_ could, Mistress," said the sailor.

And thereupon the stout little Doome blushed and curtsied.

Meanwhile the bride was thinking of the young Frenchman, and how she could keep her secret, with half the town at the house and about it, as there would be in another half-hour. She thought more of the young stranger every moment, and especially when she gazed upon her future,--which seemed to grow more disagreeable each time she looked at it.

The young sailor, keeping his eyes away from Bertha,--who set to work drawing a huge mug of beer, in which piece of hospitality Jodoque hoveringly helped her,--and addressing himself to Doome, said,-- "Do you know, I was nearly snapped up by a shark some months ago?"

With a sympathetic shudder the little woman replied, "The shark was doubly cruel--who could--who could take out of the world so--so fine a young man!"

"Ah! I wish he had!"

"Wish he had?"

"Yes,--his teeth wouldn't have been half so sharp as the teeth biting away at my heart now!"

"Dear!"

"Have you ever had a lover?"

Here the little woman laughed outright. A lover! She could have honestly answered, "Yes," if the handsome sailor had asked her if she had had several score. _A_ lover, indeed!

"Ah! well, suppose you only had one, when you were a poor girl, and he left you, what then?"

"Oh, I'd kill him first, and cry myself dead afterwards."

"Well, _my_ sweetheart has gone from me."

"What! what!--given _you_ up for _any one_?"

"Yes, and--and--I don't think he's my master,--unless it's in dollars."

"Ah!--And who saved you from the shark?"

"A young French officer,--bless him! He harpooned my sealy friend, and found a friend for life,--though it a'n't much a poor sailor-fellow can do for an officer. And, though we're at war with the French, I'd be hanged sooner than fire at his ship."

Here Bertha, assisted by Jodoque, set the big jug down upon the table with a bang. And here, too, something fell down in a neighboring room,--precisely as though a person, journeying in a dark chamber, had upset a heavy wooden chair. The noise sent Doome right into the sailor's arms, and also sent Jodoque right behind Bertha, who turned pale.

"There's some one in the room," said Jodoque.

"No, no!" said Bertha--"'tis poor aunt's room; no one goes there. It's only the rats,--that's all,--only the rats."

For a stranger, the sailor showed a great deal of curiosity; for he turned very red, and said, "Suppose you look and see."

"Oh, no, no! Never mind. 'Tis only rats. No one ever goes into that room. My dear, dear guardian died in that room."

"Yes, Mistress," said the sailor, "but rats don't throw down chairs and tables."

"No, surely no!" said Jodoque.

"And if the house were mine," said the sailor, suiting the action to the word, "why, I'd go up to the door like this,--and I'd put my hand on the latch, and click it should go,--and--"

Bertha ran up to the door too, laid her hand upon the sailor's arm, and drew him away, as he quite willingly let her. Indeed, he trembled and looked pleadingly at her, as she touched him; and he murmured to himself, "Six years make a good deal of change."

"You, a guest, have no right to touch that door."

"If I were your husband, I should have."

"Surely,--but you are not."

"Yes, but this honest man here is as good as your husband."

"No!"

"No?" said the other three; and Jodoque, but for presence of mind, might have overthrown the big jug of beer.

"No,--for, truly, I'm not going to marry Jodoque."

"Not going to marry me?"

"Not going to marry him?--Why, as sure as you call me Doome, there are the townsfolk, and the musicians, and the good father, and the burgomaster, all with their faces already turned this way, I would wager these new ribbons of mine!"

"Let them all come!"

"To send them back again?"

"No, to witness my marriage."

"And who's the bridegroom?"

"Somebody all of you have forgotten."

"No," said Doome, "I never forget a soul."

"Do you remember the poor sailor-boy Daniel?"

"I never saw him," said Doome. "No, friend sailor, you need not squeeze my hand,--I never did see him."

"Well, he has grown a man, and has come home."

"Then," said Jodoque, "I suppose _I_ may go home."

"Come home?--where _is_ he?--Still, my sailor friend, I can't tell why you should tremble."

"Yes, he has come home; and if he will have me, I will marry him."

"And he'll have a good wife, Bertha," said the sailor, and he made a movement as though about to run to the girl; but little Doome, too impulsive to think about the Fräulein Grundei, enthusiastically clasped the arms of her friend's eulogizer.

"Yes,--marry him!--and at this moment he is in that room! And now any one of you may open the door."

"Open the door?--I'll smash the door!" said the sailor, roughly pushing the girl away from him. "So, Daniel is there, is he? Well, let him come!"

He ran up to the door, threw it open, and there, standing just within, was the young French prisoner of war.

"Good morning, all!" he said.

"You are Daniel, are you?" said the sailor, drawing the other forward to the light. "You are Daniel, are you?"

He dragged him near the window and looked quickly at him. Then he turned pale himself, and wrung his hand.

"Yes!" said he, "yes!--it _is_ Daniel himself,--the very Daniel!"

"Ah! so much the better!" said Doome.

"Daniel? the _very_ Daniel?" said Bertha, faintly, and turned paler yet.

"I know you, comrade," said the sailor, aside,--"I know you. You are the French officer who has escaped, but I'm down in your log for a lump of gratitude; and so, you are Daniel. When a fellow saves you from a shark, perhaps you'll be as willing to give him your name."

"And why am I to take your name?"

"To give it to Bertha, there!"

"Give it to Bertha?"

"Yes! Sign the contract, which the burgomaster has in his pocket; sign it as Daniel;--'tis your only chance. And when you are gone, I have paid my debt. And don't let us cross each other again. You gave me my life, but that is no reason you should rob me of my wife!"

"Rob you of your wife?"

"Yes, of Bertha, who loved me six years ago!"

"Why, she has barely known me six hours!"

"True, but she loves you six times as much as she does the memory of Daniel!"

"But I do not care for her, beyond gratitude for sheltering me from pursuit."

"Oh, she has enough love for two of you!"

"Well, to me, one wife or another,--and she is a nice girl,--and, friend Daniel, where shall we go?"

"We?--who?"

"My wife and I," said the other, laughing

"You, comrade? I will manage for you; but your wife will stop here."

"Stop here?"

"Why, you don't suppose I can give up the good girl I have loved for the six years I've been rolling over the seas! 'Tis true, she doesn't remember me, and thinks me dead; but when she learns the truth, all the old love will come back; and she will like me none the less for aiding you. The burgomaster, who shall be in the plot, shall marry you to _my wife_,--and when you are gone, God speed you! The burgomaster will set all that right, as he can; and Bertha and I will often talk, in our seaside cot, of the French officer that we saved."

Here Doome interrupted the dialogue; for she could not conquer her curiosity farther. So she came up, and complimented the French officer (who was to be called Daniel) on his marriage. "To be sure, he had almost forgotten German; for, as Bertha said, he had left home almost before he could speak like a man, and had been in the French service,--and so there it was! No doubt, now he had come back to Germany, he would soon learn German again, and speak it like a native;--eh, friend sailor?" "What, little one? I didn't hear you."

The "little one," not dissatisfied at that term, flounced round, and then gave a little scream,--for all the neighbors, with the burgomaster at their head, were approaching the little house. When they arrived, and the change of husbands was announced, not a neighbor but framed a little mental history,--and, indeed, Jodoque cut rather a ridiculous figure. As for the burgomaster,--who knew the real Daniel, having discoursed with him about the French fleet riding off the island, that very morning,--his dignity prevented him from suddenly spoiling matters. Before he could sufficiently recover himself from the blow which his dignity had received, Daniel came up to him and said these two words,--"Your neck!"

"What do you mean, young man?"

"Suppose the French took Rügen?"

"Well, suppose they did?"

"And suppose you had caused the recapture of a French officer?"

"I haven't the least idea that I have caused a recapture; but suppose so?"

"Well, and if he was hung, and if the French took the place, you'd be hung too."

"What do you mean, young man?"

"That man over there is the French officer who has escaped."

"Good gracious me!"

"Yes, and you must suppose him to be me. Marry him to Bertha, and help him to escape to the French fleet."

"No!--on the faith of a burgomaster, no!--on the word of a German, no!"

"But your neck?"

"I don't care. The French may not take the place."

"And the French may. Who'll be the wiser, burgomaster?"

"My conscience, young sailor."

"And you'll save a man."

"Oh, dear! dear! dear!"

"Here! the best table for the burgomaster! The handsomest chair for the burgomaster! Make a good pen for the burgomaster!"

"Oh, dear! dear! dear!"

The burgomaster then, in the homely German fashion, asked the usual questions, filled up the marriage-contract, and then handed the pen to the bride. She trembled rather as she put her name to the paper, but not so much as the young sailor.

As for the Frenchman, he hesitated before he put his name down,--and when he had done so, he flung the pen away, as though he had done wrong. One hour after that, these two young people were married in the village church.

The little village festivities which followed need not be dwelt upon; but imagine the summer-evening come, and Daniel and the French officer stealing down to the rocky beach. The young sailor showed a deal of doubtful feeling as he saw the tearful energy with which little Bertha parted with her make-believe husband; and when little Doome, who had been let into all the secrets, except the one that Daniel kept to himself--namely, that he was Daniel,--when little Doome crept up to condole with him on the hard case of the newly-married pair, it must be said that he pushed her away quite roughly.

Soon the two men reached the shore. Daniel instinctively went to a little cove where he knew of old a boat would be,--and as darkness came on, the plashing of a couple of oars sounded near the little cove where the boat had been.

"Mind, comrade, I have paid my debt! You may be taken, and you run your chance; though if you get to your ship, you know, one gun, _as you promised your wife_, fired eastward."

"All right, Daniel. You will like me as well as ever, Daniel, in a few days."

"No, comrade, there's a woman between us."

So the French officer went on his venturesome pull of a couple of miles to the French fleet, and the sailor returned to the little cottage, where were sitting Bertha and Doome. The latter, for his cleverness and perhaps good looks, had begun to consider the sailor as worth far more than those sixty youths who had caused her to laugh when he referred to only one of them. But it is a deplorable fact, that, while Doome welcomed Daniel back with a great deal of heartiness, Fräulein Bertha rather looked upon him as cruel; for what need was there that her husband should have gone? He could have hidden till the French took the place, and then he would have been free. For love conflicts with patriotism woefully, and, though nobody could be more grateful than Bertha for the good service Daniel had done her, yet somehow she could not be over-pleased with him. She thanked him, however, very warmly; but it was Doome who set the chair for him, and Doome who got the beer for him, and Doome who proposed the sailor's solace of a pipe. As the pipe was lit by that young woman, Bertha got up to leave the room.

"Where are you going, Bertha?"

"Into the garden. My head aches."

And she went out.

"I think, Doome,--they call you Doome, don't they? and a tidy name, too,--I think, Doome, Bertha doesn't like pipes."

"_I_ think the smell of a pipe delicious."

"And what do you think of this pipe?"

"Oh! _I_ think it a beautiful pipe!"

"Hum,--so you've lots of lovers?"

"Well,--I have a few."

"Ah!--do _they_ smoke?"

"Yes,--some of them."

"You queer little Doome!--Are any of them rich?"

"Oh, I don't care a bit for money!"

"And what are they?--farmers?"

"I shouldn't like to marry a farmer."

"I suppose Bertha has sat down. I don't hear her step."

"No,--I shouldn't like to marry a farmer,--farmers are such quiet people."

"Don't you marry a sailor!"

"Law, sailor-friend, (_I_ don't know your name,) why?"

"Why? Because, if he went away for six years, you would forget him; and that's what Fritz says."

"No, Mr. Fritz, I should _not_ forget him,--but I should not let him go away for six years."

"But suppose the king ordered him?"

"Then the king don't deserve to have a wife."

"And yet he has."

"So much the worse!"

"Bertha must have sat down."

"You know I don't think I care for one of my lovers. I think I could give them all up,--yes, every one,--if I met with anybody that I could love."

"Yes, and then suppose he didn't care for you?"

As Doome had never considered the probability of any such situation, its suggestion rather startled her. She held her tongue, while Daniel puffed gravely.

Soon Bertha came slowly into the room. "I think he ought to have got there by this time; don't you, Sir?"

"He's named Fritz, Bertha,--call him Fritz."

"Don't you think he ought to be there by this time, Mr. Fritz?"

"Surely, Mistress! You will soon hear the cannon;--'tis not more than two miles, and he left the shore a good hour ago."

So she went up to the window.

"I suppose, Mistress, if he did not come back for six years, you would forget him,--wouldn't you?"

She was so lost in thought, that she didn't answer; so Doome took the answer upon herself. "You are very hard upon us women, Fritz,--Mr. Fritz. No, of course she would not forget him; no wife ever forgets her husband. Why, do you think I should forget you, Fritz,--Mr. Fritz,--if you were my husband, and if you went away for six years?"

"There are women and women, Doome, Fräulein Doome,"--

"Ah!--hark!"

At this moment the sound of a cannon-shot swept over the little cottage, and Daniel, running to the window, and putting his hand out to feel the breeze, declared that it was fired east-ward.

Now Bertha was at the window, and, as the sailor spoke, he looked into her face. She quickly put her arm round his neck in the German fashion, kissed him gratefully, and said, "You good, good man!"

He kissed her in turn, and looked eagerly at her,--but she didn't recognize him, though he kissed her in precisely the manner of six years ago.

He sat down again, and again smoked,--and as, in the most heroic poem, people eat and drink, and as Anne Boleyn would have thought it hard to starve while her trial was going on, surely, as this is only the chronicle of people such as you may meet any day, and not at all heroic, it may not be wrong to state, that plain-spoken, every-day, love-making little Doome got supper ready.

Bertha had saved a prisoner, Daniel had assisted, and little Doome rather liked Daniel, yet nobody ate much; and when Daniel (at the suggestion of Doome) was furnished with a mattress and blanket on the floor, he did not make use of it, but sat smoking,--smoking for hours after the two women had gone off to Bertha's room.

But when the tobacco-pouch was empty, and the pipe was cold, the sailor fell asleep in his chair; and though he had done a good act the preceding day, he did not sleep well, but sighed heavily as he slumbered on.

And now it was that Jodoque, the Discomfited, again came upon the stage. Having been laughed at by every soul in the village, that poor bachelor went to his lonely house, took a small mug of consolatory weak beer, felt convinced that all women were deceivers, vowed that from that time forth he would think no more of matrimony, and went to bed in the dark,--prompted thereto by the power of economy in candles. He had fallen asleep, and slept soundly, when thrift prompted him to remember that one piece of cloth, several balls of wool, and one white rabbit,--his property,--were at that moment at the deceiver Bertha's. Why should he, the deceived, make the married pair happy, with one piece of cloth, several balls of wool, and a white rabbit? And Jodoque woke up to the terrible truth in a cold sweat. The articles in question were at the deceiver Bertha's. At the first break of day he would go and demand his property. Being unable to sleep through the remainder of the dark hours, he presented but a disreputable appearance when he clapped to the little door of his house.

It was barely light, and it was not an overpowering distance for Jodoque to walk from his house to Bertha's. He knew the household would not be up, but he determined to sit down before it,--besiege it, in fact,--and carry off the cloth, the wool, and the white rabbit, when the enemy should first be moving.

And this is what he saw, as he came up to the cottage:--A young officer in the French uniform was getting in at Bertha's kitchen-window. Jodoque seized the idea, as though it were the white rabbit,--this was the French officer who had escaped yesterday, endeavoring to hide himself in Bertha's house.

Jodoque did not instantly rush forward to re-arrest this prisoner; but it struck him there must be a reward for the recapture; so, determining upon taking the prisoner and the basket at one fell swoop, he tore away to the burgomaster's to inform him of the discovery. He reached the official residence, and drew the pompous little burgomaster to his bedroom-window in a moment. The burgomaster was rather scandalized that such a respectable man as Jodoque should be out at such an hour; but when he heard the information, he grew considerably cold, and rather wished the French fleet would successfully challenge the place at once, and relieve him of his admirable chance of the halter.

Was ever burgomaster in such a fix? He wished his ardent longing for that position had been strangled at his birth. No,--he had saved his neck from the French, he thought to himself, by conniving at the escape of a French officer the day previous, and now his neck was in danger for having very properly tried to save it on that previous day.

But action, action! Whatever came of it, he must appear a patriotic burgomaster; so he took his night-cap off, and, in spite of the energetic remonstrances of the burgomaster's lady, was soon down in the street, surrounded by half a dozen men, and making for Bertha's eventful little mansion--

Within which was passing a terrible scene.

The fact is, that, when the false Daniel arrived at the fleet and reported himself, he found that he had escaped with only part of himself, and rather wanted the rest; and as at that time the French navy was allowed a liberty which it has not now, the young officer laid a statement of the whole case before his commander. That daring personage thus recommended:--A French boat to start away for shore with this young officer, and several more in her; that it should touch near Bertha's house; that Bertha should receive the merest hint, and then take passage for the French fleet herself.

The French officer, attended by half-a-dozen more youths, came back to the shore, and, just as day was peeping, came up to the little right-hand window; and as no one answered his tap, he raised the sash and jumped lightly in.

This Jodoque saw and reported to the burgomaster; but he could not tell the remainder.

For Daniel, waked by the tapping on the window-pane, saw who it was, and believing that he had come to steal his wife from him, he clenched his fists, and, as the slim young man jumped down into the room, crushed him almost dead in his strong arms.

"Not a word, or I'll stifle you!"

"Daniel! Daniel!"

"Not a word,--and don't Daniel me, you thief!"

"Thief?"

"Don't speak loud."

"How thief?"

"You would steal my wife from me."

"How your wife?"