Chapter X: Conclusion (6)

Laura said she should make me presents only of innumerable stitches: which she had done. Polly, whom it is both impossible and irrelevant to describe, took the opportunity to scrub the house from top to bottom. Her own wedding-present to me, homely though it was, I wrapped in silver paper, and showed it to her lying in state on the library-table, to her infinite amusement.

Like the North American Indian, the race of Pollies is fast going out of American life. You read an advertisement of "an American servant who wants a place in a genteel family," and visions of something common in American households, when you were children, come up to your mind's eye. Without considering the absurdity of an American girl calling herself by such a name, your eyes fill with tears at the thought of the faithful and loving service of years ago, when neither sickness, nor sorrow, nor death itself separated the members of the household, but the nurse-maid was the beloved friend, living and dying under the same roof that witnessed her untiring and faithful devotion.

So, when you look after this "American servant," you find alien blood, lip-service, a surface-warmth that flatters, but does not delude,--a fidelity that fails you in sickness, or increased toil, or the prospect of higher wages; and you say to the "American servant,"--

"How long have you been in Boston?"

"Born in Boston, Ma'm,--in Eliot Street, Ma'm."

So was not Polly. Polly had lived with us always. She had a farm of her own, and needn't have "lived out" five minutes, unless she had chosen. But she did choose it, and chose to keep her place. And that was a true friend,--in a humble position, possibly, yet one of her own choosing. She rejoiced and wept with us, knew all about us,--corresponded regularly with us when away, and wrote poetry. She had a fair mind, great shrewdness, and kept a journal of facts. We loved her dearly,--next to each other, and a hundred times better than we did Aunt Allen or any of them.

Of course, as the day wore on, and afternoon came, and then almost night came, and still the bell had not once rung,--not once!--Polly was not the person to express or to permit the least surprise. Not Caleb Balderstone himself had a sharper eye to the "honor of the family." _Why_ it was left to the doctrine of chances to decide. _That_ it was grew clearer and clearer every hour, as every hour came slowly by, unladen with box or package, even a bouquet.

Betsy Ann had grinned a great many times, and asked Polly over and over, "Where the presents all was?" and, "When I was to Miss Russell's, and Miss Sally was merried, the things come in with a rush,--silver, and gold, and money, ever so much!"

However, here Polly snubbed her, and told her to "shet up her head quick. Most of the presents was come long ago."

"Such a piece of work as I hed to ghet up that critter's mouth!" said Polly, laughing, as she assisted Laura in putting the last graces to my simple toilet before tea.

"There, now, Miss Sampson to be! I declare to man, you never looked better.

"'Roses red, violets blue,
Pinks is pootty, and so be you.'"

"How did you shut it, Polly?" said Laura, who was very much surprised, like myself, at the non-arrivals, and who constantly imagined she heard the bell. Ten arrivals we had both counted on,--ten, certainly,--fifteen, probably.

"Well, I told her the presents was all locked up; and if she was a clever, good child, and went to school regular, and got her learnin' good, I'd certain show 'em to her some time. I told her," added Polly, whisperingly, and holding her hand over her mouth to keep from loud laughter,--"I told her I'd seen a couple on 'em done up in beautiful silver paper!"

The bell rang at last, and we all sprang as with an electric shock. It was old Mr. Price, led in reverently by Mr. Sampson. Tea was ready; so we all sat down to it.

I don't know what other people think of, when they are going to be married,--I mean at the moment. Books are eloquent on the subject. For my part. I must confess, I thought of nothing. And let that encourage the next bride, who will imagine herself a dunce, because she isn't thinking of something fine and solemn. Perhaps I had so many ideas pressing in, in all directions, that the mind itself couldn't act. Be it as it may, I stood as if stupefied,--while old Mr. Price talked and prayed, it seemed, an age. I was roused, however, and glad enough I wasn't in church, when he called out,--

"_Ameriky!_ do you take this woman for your wedded wife?" and still more rejoiced when he added, sternly,--

"_Delphiny!_" (using the long _i_,) "do you take _Ameriky?_"

We both said "Yes." And then he commended us affectionately and reverently to the protection and love of Him who had himself come to a wedding. He then came to a close, to Polly's delight, who said she "had expected nothin' but what the old gentleman would hold on an hour, --missionaries to China, and all."

Old Mr. Price took a piece of cake and a full glass of wine, and wished us joy. He was fast passing away, and with him the old-class ministers, now only traditional, who drank their half-mug of flip at funerals, went to balls to look benignantly on the scene of pleasure, came home at ten o'clock to write "the improvement" to their Sunday's sermon, took the other half-mug, and went to bed peaceably and in charity with the whole parish. They have gone, with the stagecoaches and country-newspapers; and the places that knew them will know them no more.

Betsy Ann, who was mercifully admitted to the wedding, pronounced it without hesitation the "flattest thing she ever see,"--and was straightway dismissed by Polly, with an extra frosted cake, and a charge to "get along home with herself." Then Mr. Sampson walked slowly home with Mr. Price, and Laura and myself were left looking at each other.

"Delphiny!" said Laura.

"Ameriky!" said I.

"Well,--it's over now. If you had happened to be Mrs. Conant's daughter, you know, your name would have been Keren-happuch!"

"On the whole, I am glad it wasn't in church," said I.

Mr. Sampson returned before we had finished talking of that. And then Laura, said, suddenly,--

"But you _must_ decide on Aunt Allen's gift, Del. What shall it be? What will be pretty?"

"You shall decide," said I, amiably, turning to my husband.

"Oh, I have no notion of what is pretty,--at least of but one thing,--and that is not in Aunt Allen's gift."

He laughed, and I blushed, of course, as he pointed the compliment straight at me.

"But you _must_ think. I cannot decide, I have thought of five hundred things already."

"Well, Laura,--what do you say?" said he.

"I think a silver salver would be pretty, and useful, too."

"Pretty and useful. Then let it be a silver salver, and be done with it," said he.

This notion of being "done with it" is so mannish! Here was my Gordian knot cut at once! However, there was no help for it,--though now, more than ever, since there was no danger of a duplicate, did I long for the fifty thousand different beautiful things the fifty dollars would buy.

Circumstances aided us, too, in coming to a conclusion. I was rather tired of rocking on these billows of uncertainty, even with the chance of plucking gems from the depths. And Mrs. Harris was coming the next day to tea, and to go away early to see Piccolomini sing and sparkle.

When we sat down that next day at the table, I poured the tea into a cup, and placed it on the prettiest little silver tray, and Polly handed it to Mrs. Harris as if she had done that particular thing all her life.

"Beautiful!" said Mrs. Harris, as it sparkled along back; "one of your wedding-gifts?"

"Yes," I answered, carelessly,--"Aunt Allen's."

So much was well got over. My hope was that Mrs. Harris, who talked well, and was never weary of that sort of well-doing, would keep on her own subjects of interest, to the exclusion of mine. Therefore, when she said pleasantly, _en passant_,--

"By the way, Delphine, I see you have taken my advice about wedding-presents. You know I always abominated that parading of gifts."

Laura hastened to the rescue, saying,--

"Yes, we quite agree with you, and remember your decided opinions on that subject. Did you say you had been to the Aquarial Gardens?"

How I wished I had been self-possessed enough to tell the whole story, with its ridiculous side out, and make a good laugh over it, as it deserved!--for Mrs. Harris wouldn't stay in the Aquarial Gardens, which she pronounced a disgusting exhibition of "Creep and Crawl," and that it was all a set of little horrors; but swung back to wedding-gifts and wedding-times.

"'When I was young,--ah! woful _when!_--
That I should say _when_ I was young!'

"it wasn't fashionable, or, I should say, necessary, to buy something for a bride," said Mrs. Harris, meditatively, and looking back--as we could see by her eyes--a long way.

For my part, I thought she had much better choose some other subject, considering everything. Certainly she had been one of the ten I had counted on. But she suddenly collected herself!

"I never look at a great needle-book, ('housewife,' we used to call it,) full of all possible and impossible contrivances and conveniences, without recalling my Aunt Hovey's patient smile when she gave it to me. She was rheumatic, and confined for twenty years to her chair; and these 'housewives' she made exquisitely, and each of her young friends on her wedding-day might count on one. Then Sebiah Collins,--she brought me a bag of holders,--poor old soul! And Aunt Patty Hobbs gave me a bundle of rags! She said, 'Young housekeepers was allers a-wantin' rags, and, in course, there wa'n't nothin' but what was bran'-new out of the store.' Can I ever forget the Hill children, with their mysterious movements, their hidings, and their unaccountable absences? and then the work-basket on my toilet-table, on my wedding-morning! the little pin-cushions and emery-sacks, the fantastic thimble-cases, and the fish-shaped needle-books! all as nice as their handy little fingers could make, and every stitch telling of their earnest love and bright faces!--Every one of those children is dead. But I keep the work-basket sacred. I don't know whether it is more pleasure or pain."

She looked up again, as if before her passed a long procession. I had often seen that expression in the eyes of old, and even of middle-aged persons, who had had much mental vicissitude, but I had not interpreted it till now. It was only for a moment; and she added, cheerfully,--

"The future is always pleasant; so we will look that way."

Just then a gentleman wished to see Mr. Sampson on business, and they two went into the library.

Mrs. Harris talked on, and I led the way to the parlor. She said she should be called for presently; and then Laura lighted the argand, and dropped the muslin curtains.

"Oh, isn't this sweet?" exclaimed Mrs. Harris, rapturously, approaching the table. "How the best work of Art pales before Nature!"

It was only a tall small vase of ground glass, holding a pond-lily, fully opened. But it was perfect in its way, and I knew by the smile on Laura's lips that it was her gift.

"Mine is in that corner, Delphine," said Mrs. Harris. "I wouldn't have it brought here till to-night, when I could see Laura, for fear you should have a duplicate. So here is my Mercury, that I have looked at till I love it. I wouldn't give you one that had only the odor of the shop about it; but you will never look at this, Del, without thoughts of our little cozy room and your old friend."

"Beautiful! No, indeed! Always!" murmured I.

She drew a little box from her pocket, and took out of it a taper-stand of chased silver.

"Mrs. Gore asked me to bring it to you, with her love. She wouldn't send it yesterday, she said, because it would look so like nothing by the side of costly gifts. Pretty, graceful little thing! isn't it? It is an evening-primrose, I think,--'love's own light,'--hey, Delphine?"

We had scarcely half admired the taper-stand and the Mercury when the carriage came for Mrs. Harris, who insisted on taking away Laura with her to the opera.

"No matter whether you thought of going or not; and, happily, there's no danger of Delphine being lonely. 'Two are company,' you know Emerson says, 'but three are a congregation.' So they will be glad to spare you. There, now! that is all you want,--and this shawl."

After they went, I sat listening for nearly half an hour to the low murmurs in the next room, and wishing the stranger would only go, so that I might exhibit my new treasures. At last the strange gentleman opened the door softly, talking all the way, across the room, through the entry, and finally whispering himself fairly out-of-doors. When my husband came in, I was eager to show him the Mercury, and the lily, and the taper-stand.

"And do you know, after all, I hadn't the real nobleness and truthfulness and right-mindedness to tell Mrs. Harris that these and Aunt Allen's gift were all I had received! I am ashamed of myself, to have such a mean mortification about what is really of no importance. Certainly, if my friends don't care enough for me to send me something, I ought to be above caring for it."

"I don't know that, Del. Your mortification is very natural. How can we help caring? Do you like your Aunt Allen very much?" added he, abruptly.

"Because she gave me fifty dollars? Yes, I begin to think I do," said I, laughing.

He looked at me quickly.

"Your Aunt Allen is very rich, is she not?"

"I believe so. Why? You look very serious. I neither respect nor love her for her riches; and I haven't seen her these ten years."

He looked sober and abstracted; but when I spoke, he smiled a little.

"Do you remember Ella's chapter on Old China?" said he, sitting down on the sofa, and--I don't mind saying--putting one arm round my waist.

"Yes,--why?"

"Do you remember Bridget's plaintive regret that they had no longer the good old times when they were poor? and about the delights of the shilling gallery?"

"Yes,--what made you think of it?"

"What a beautiful chapter that is!--their gentle sorrow that they could no longer make nice bargains for books! and his wearing new, neat, black clothes, alas! instead of the overworn suit that was made to hang on a few weeks longer, that he might buy the old folio of Beaumont and Fletcher! Do you remember it, Delphine?"

"Yes, I do. And I think there is a deal of pleasure in considering and contriving,--though it's prettier in a book"--

"For my part," interrupted my husband, as though he had not heard me speak,--"for my part, I am sorry one cannot have such an exquisite appreciation of pleasure but through pain; for--I am tired of labor--and privation--and, in short, poverty. To work so hard, and so constantly!--with such a long, weary vista before one!--and these petty gains! Don't you think poverty is the one thing hateful, Delphine?"

He sprang up suddenly, and began walking up and down the room,--up and down,--up and down; and without speaking any more, or seeming to wish me to answer.

"Why, what is it? What do you mean?" said I, faintly; for my heart felt like lead in my bosom.

He did not answer at first, but walked towards me; then, turning suddenly away, sprang out of the window at the side of the room, saying, with a constrained laugh,--

"I shall be in again, presently. In the mean time I leave you to meditations on the shilling gallery!"

What a strange taunting sound his voice had! There was no insane blood among the Sampsons, or I might have thought he had suddenly gone crazy. Or if I had believed in demoniacal presences, I might have thought the murmuring, whispering old man was some tempter. Some evil influence certainly had been exerted over him. Scarcely less than deranged could I consider him now, to be willing thus to address me. It was true, he was poor,--that he had struggled with poverty. But had it not been my pride, as I thought it was his, that his battle was bravely borne, and would be bravely won? I could not, even to myself, express the cruel cowardice of such words as he had used to his helpless wife. That he felt deeply and gallingly his poverty was plain. Even in that there was a weakness which induced more of contempt than pity for him; but was it not base to tell me of it now? Now, when his load was doubled, he complained of the burden! Why, I would have lain down and died far sooner than he should have guessed it of me. And he had thought it--and--said it!

There are emotions that seem to crowd and supersede each other, so that the order of time is inverted. I came to the point of disdainful composure, even before the struggle and distress began. I sat quietly where my husband left me,--such a long, long time! It seemed hours. I remembered how thoughtful I had determined to be of all our expenses,--the little account-book in which I had already entered some items; how I had thought of various ways in which I could assist him; yes, even little I was to be the most efficient and helpful of wives. Had I not taken writing-lessons secretly, and formed a thorough business-hand, and would I not earn many half-eagles with my eagle's quill? I remembered how I had thought, though I had not said it, (and how glad now I was I had not!) that we would help each other in sickness and health,--that we would toil up that weary hill where wealth stands so lusciously and goldenly shining. But then, hand in hand we were to have toiled,--hopefully, smilingly, lovingly,--not with this cold recrimination, nor, hardest of all, with--reproach!

Suddenly, a strange suspicion fell over me. It fell down on me like a pall. I shuddered with the cold of it.

I knew it wasn't so. I knew he loved me,--that Le meant nothing,--that it was a passing discontent, a hateful feeling engendered by the sight of the costly trifles before us. Yes,--I knew that. But, good heavens! to tell his wife of it!

I sat, with my head throbbing, and holding my hands, utterly tearless; for tears were no expression of the distressful pain, and blank disappointment of a life, that I felt. I said I felt this damp, dark suspicion. It was there like a presence, but it was as indefinite as dark; and I had a sort of control, in the midst of the tumult in my brain and heart, as to what thoughts I would let come to me. Not that! Faults there might be,--great ones,--but not that, the greatest! At least, if I could not respect, I could forgive,--for he loved me. Surely, surely, that must be true!

It would come, that flash, like lightning, or the unwilling memories of the drowning. I remembered the rich Miss Kate Stuart, who, they said, liked him, and that her father would have been glad to have him for a son-in-law. And I had asked him once about it, in the careless gayety of happy love. He had said, he supposed it might have happened--perhaps--who knows?--if he had not seen me. But he had seen me! Could it be that he was thinking of?

My calmness was giving way. As soon as I spoke, though it was only in a word of ejaculation, my pity for myself broke all the flood-gates down, and I fell on my face in a paroxysm of sobs.

A very calm, loving voice, and a strong arm raising me, brought me back at once from the wild ocean of passion on which I was tossing. I had not heard him come in. I was too proud and grieved to speak or to weep. So I dried my tears and sat stiffly silent.

"You are tired, dear!" said my husband, tenderly.

"No,--it's no matter."

"Everything is matter to me that concerns you. You know that,--you believe that, Delphine?"

"Why, what a strange sound! just as it used to sound!" I said to myself, whisperingly.

I know not what possessed me; but I was determined to have the truth, and the whole truth. I turned towards him and looked straight into his eyes.

"Tell me, truly, as you hope God will save you at your utmost need, _do_ you love me? Did you marry me from any motive but that of pure, true love?"

"From no other," answered he, with a face of unutterable surprise; and then added, solemnly, "And may God take me, Delphine, when you cease to love me!"

It was enough. There was truth in every breath, in every glance of his deep eyes. A delicious languor took the place of the horrible tension that had been every faculty,--a repose so sweet and perfect, that, if reason had placed the clearest possible proofs of my husband's perfidy before me, I should simply have smiled and fallen asleep on his true heart, as I did.

When I opened my eyes, I met his anxious look.

"Why, what has come over you, Del? I did not know you were nervous."

And then remembering, that, although I might be weakest among the weak, yet that it was his wisdom that was to sustain and comfort me, I said,--

"By-and-by I will tell you all about it,--certainly I will. I must tell you some time, but not to-night."

"And--I had thought to keep a secret from you, to-night, Del; but, on the whole, I shall feel better to tell you."

"Yes,--perhaps,--perhaps."

"Oh, yes! Secrets are safest, told. First, then, Del, I will tell you this secret. I am very foolish. Don't tell of it, will you? See here!"

He held up his closed hand before my face, laughingly.

That man's name, Del, is Drake"----

"And not the Devil!" said I to myself.

"Solitude Drake."

"Really? Is that it, truly? What's in your hand?"

"Truly,--really. He lives in Albany. He is the son of a queer man, and is something of a humorist himself. I have seen one of his sons. He has two. One's name is Paraclete, and the other Preserved. His daughter is pretty, very, and her name is Deliverance. They call her Del, for short. They do, on my word! Worse than Delphine, is it not?"

"Why, don't you like my name?" stammered I, with astonishment.

"Yes, very well. I don't care much about names. But I can tell you, Uncle Zabdiel and Aunt Jerusha, 'from whom I have expectations,' Del, think it is 'just about the poorest kind of a name that ever a girl had.' And our Cousin Abijah thought you were named Delilah, and that it was a good match for Sampson! I rectified him there; but he still insists on your being called 'Finy,' in the family, to distinguish you from the Midianitish woman."

"And so Uncle _Zabdiel_ thinks I have a poor name?" said I, laughing heartily. "The shield looks neither gold nor silver, from which side soever we gaze. But I think _he_ might put up with _my_ name!"

My husband never knew exactly what I was laughing at. And why should he? I was fast overcoming my weakness about names, and thinking they were nothing, compared to things, after all.

When our laugh (for his was sympathetic) had subsided into a quiet cheerfulness, he said, again holding up his hand,--

"Not at all curious, Del? You don't ask what Mr. Solitude Drake wanted?"

"I don't think I care what he wanted: company, I suppose."

And I went on making bad puns about solitude sweetened, and ducks and drakes, as happy people do, whose hearts are quite at ease.

"And you don't want to know at all, Del?" said he, laughing a little nervously, and dropping from his hand an open paper into mine. "It shall be my wedding-present to you. It is Mr. Drake's retainer. Pretty stout one, is it not? This is what made me jump out of the window,--this and one other thing."

"Why, this is a draft for five hundred dollars!" said I, reading and staring stupidly at the paper.

"Yes, and I am retained in that great Albany land-case. It involves millions of property. That is all, Del. But I was so glad, so happy, that I was likely to do well at last, and that I could gratify all the wishes, reasonable and unreasonable, of my darling!"

"Is it a good deal?" said I, simply; for, after all, five hundred dollars did not seem such an Arabian fortune.

"Yes, Del, a good deal. Whichever way it is decided, it will make my fortune. And now--the other thing. You are sure you are very calm, and all this won't make you sleepless?"

"Oh, no! I am calm as a clock."

"Well, then,--your Aunt Allen is dead."

"Dead! Is she? Did she leave us all her money?"

"Why, no, you little cormorant. She has left it all about: Legacies, and Antioch College, and Destitute Societies. But I believe you have some clothes left to you and Laura. Any way, the will is in there, in the library: Mr. Drake had a copy of it. And the best of all is, I am to be the executor, which is enough better than residuary legatee."

"It is very strange!" said I, thinking of the multitude of old gowns I should have to alter over.

"Yes, it is, indeed, very strange. One of the strangest things about the matter is, that my good friend Solitude was so taken with 'my queer name,' as he calls it, that he 'took a fancy to me out of hand.' To be sure, he listened through my argument in the Shore case, and that may have helped his opinion of me as a lawyer.--Here comes Laura. Who would have thought it was one o'clock?"

And who would have thought that my little ugly chrysalis of troubles would have turned out such beautiful butterflies of blessings?

* * * * *

MARION DALE.

Marion Dale, I remember you once,
In the days when you blushed like a rose half-blown,
Long ere that wealthy respectable dunce
Sponged up your beautiful name in his own.

I remember you, Marion Dale,
Artless and cordial and modest and sweet:
You never walked in that glittering mail
That covers you now from your head to your feet.

Well I remember your welcoming smile,
When Alice and Annie and Edward and I
Came over to see you;--you lived but a mile
From my uncle's old house, and the grove that stood nigh.

I was no lover of yours, (pray, excuse me!)--
Our minds were different in texture and hue:
I never gave you a chance to refuse me;
Already I loved one less changeful than you.

Still it was ever a pride and a pleasure
Just to be near you,--the Rose of our vale.
Often I thought, "Who will own such a treasure?
Who win the rich love of our Marion Dale?"

I wonder now if you ever remember,
Ever sigh over fifteen years ago,--
Whether your June is all turned to December,--
Whether your life now is happy or no.

Gone are those winters of chats and of dances!
Gone are those summers of picnics and rides!
Gone the aroma of life's young romances!
Gone the swift flow of our passionate tides!

Marion Dale,--no longer our Marion,--
You have gone your way, and I have gone mine:
Lowly I've labored, while fashion's gay clarion
Trumpets your name through the waltz and the wine.

And when I meet you, your smile it is colder;
Statelier, prouder your features have grown;
Rounder each white and magnificent shoulder;
(Rather too low-necked your waist, I must own.)

Jewelled and muslined, your rich hair gold-netted,
Queenly 'mid flattering voices you move,--
Half to your own native graces indebted,
Half to the station and fortune you love.

"Marion" we called you; my wife you called "Alice";
I was plain "Phil";--we were intimate all:
Strange, as we leave now our cards at your palace,
On Mrs. Prime Goldbanks of Bubblemere Hall!

Six golden lackeys illumine the doorway:
Sure, one would think, by the glances they throw,
That we were fresh from the mountains of Norway,
And had forgotten to shake off the snow!

They will permit us to enter, however;
Usher us into her splendid saloon:
There we sit waiting and waiting forever,
As one would watch for the rise of the moon.

Or it may be to-day's not her "reception":
Still she's at home, and a little unbends,--
Framing, while dressing, some harmless deception,
How she shall meet her "American" friends.

Smiling you meet us,--but not quite sincerely;
Low-voiced you greet us,--but this is the _ton_:
This, we must feel it, is courtesy merely,--
Not the glad welcome of days that are gone.

You are in England,--the land where they freeze one,
When they've a mind to, with fashion and form:
Yet, if you choose, you can thoroughly please one:
Currents run through you still youthful and warm.

So one would think, at least, seeing you moving,
Radiant and gay, at the Countess's _fête_.
Say, was that babble so sweeter than loving?
Where was the charm, that you lingered so late?

Ah, well enough, as you dance on in joyance!
Still well enough, at your dinners and calls!
Fashion and riches will mask much annoyance.
Float on, fair lady, whatever befalls!

Yet, Lady Marion, for hours and for hours
You are alone with your husband and lord.
There is a skeleton hid in yon flowers;
There is a spectre at bed and at board.

Needs no confession to tell there is acting
Somewhere about you a tragedy grim.
All your bright rays have a sullen refracting;
Everywhere looms up the image of _him_:

Him,--whom you love not, there is no concealing.
How _could_ you love him, apart from his gold?
Nothing now left but your fire-fly wheeling,--
Flashing one moment, then pallid and cold!

Yet you've accepted the life that he offers,--
Sunk to his level,--not raised him to yours.
All your fair flowers have their roots in his coffers:
Empty the gold-dust, and then what endures?

So, then, we leave you! Your world is not ours.
Alice and I will not trouble you more.
Almost too heavy the scent of these flowers
Down the broad stairway. Quick, open the door!

Here, in the free air, we'll pray for you, lady!
You who are changed to us,--gone from us,--lost!
Soon the Atlantic shall part us, already
Parted by gulfs that can never be crossed!

CHARLESTON UNDER ARMS.

On Saturday morning, January 19, 1861, the steamer Columbia, from New York, lay off the harbor of Charleston in full sight of Fort Sumter. It is a circumstance which perhaps would never have reached the knowledge of the magazine-reading world, nor have been of any importance to it, but for the attendant fact that I, the writer of this article, was on board the steamer. It takes two events to make a consequence, as well as two parties to make a bargain.

The sea was smooth; the air was warmish and slightly misty; the low coast showed bare sand and forests of pines. The dangerous bar of the port, now partially deprived of its buoys, and with its main channel rendered perilous by the hulks of sunken schooners, revealed itself plainly, half a mile ahead of us, in a great crescent of yellow water, plainly distinguishable from the steel-gray of the outer ocean. Two or three square-rigged vessels were anchored to the southward of us, waiting for the tide or the tugs, while four or five pilot-boats tacked up and down in the lazy breeze, watching for the cotton-freighters which ought at this season to crowd the palmetto wharves.

"I wish we could get the duties on those ships to pay some of our military bills," said a genteel, clean-spoken Charlestonian, to a long, green, kindly-faced youth, from I know not what Southern military academy.

We had arrived off the harbor about midnight, but had not entered, for lack of a beacon whereby to shape our course. Now we must wait until noon for the tide, standing off and on the while merely to keep up our fires. A pilot came under our quarter in his little schooner, and told us that the steamer Nashville had got out the day before with only a hard bumping. No other news had he: Fort Sumter had not been taken, nor assaulted; the independence of South Carolina had not been recognized; various desirable events had not happened. In short, the political world had remained during our voyage in that chaotic _status quo_ so loved by President Buchanan. At twelve we stood for the bar, sounding our way with extreme caution. Without accident we passed over the treacherous bottom, although in places it could not have been more than eighteen inches below our keel. The shores closed in on both sides as we passed onward. To the south was the long, low, gray Morris Island, with its extinguished lighthouse, its tuft or two of pines, its few dwellings, and its invisible batteries. To the north was the long, low, gray Sullivan's Island, a repetition of the other, with the distinctions of higher sand-rolls, a village, a regular fort, and palmettos. We passed the huge brown Moultrie House, in summer a gay resort, at present a barrack; passed the hundred scattered cottages of the island, mostly untenanted now, and looking among the sand-drifts as if they had been washed ashore at random; passed the low walls of Fort Moultrie, once visibly yellow, but now almost hidden by the new _glacis_, and surmounted by piles of barrels and bags of sand, with here and there palmetto stockades as a casing for the improvised embrasures; passed its black guns, its solidly built, but rusty barracks, and its weather-worn palmetto flag waving from a temporary flag-staff. On the opposite side of the harbor was Fort Johnstone, a low point, exhibiting a barrack, a few houses, and a sand redoubt, with three forty-two pounders. And here, in the midst of all things, apparent master of all things, at the entrance of the harbor proper, and nearly equidistant from either shore, though nearest the southern, frowned Fort Sumter, a huge and lofty and solid mass of brickwork with stone embrasures, all rising from a foundation of ragged granite boulders washed by the tides. The port-holes were closed; a dozen or so of monstrous cannon peeped from the summit; two or three sentinels paced slowly along the parapet; the stars and stripes blew out from the lofty flag-staff. The plan of Fort Sumter may be briefly described as five-sided, with each angle just so much truncated as to give room for one embrasure in every story. Its whole air is massive, commanding, and formidable.

Eighty or a hundred citizens, volunteers, cadets from the military academy, policemen, and negroes, greeted the arrival of the Columbia at her wharf. It was a larger crowd than usual, partly because a report had circulated that we should be forced to bring to off Fort Sumter and give an account of ourselves, and partly because many persons in Charleston have lately been perplexed with an abundant leisure. As I drove to my hotel, I noticed that the streets showed less movement of business and population than when I knew them four years ago. The place seemed dirtier, too,--worse paved, shabbier as to its brick-work and stucco, and worse painted,--but whether through real deterioration, or by comparison with the neatly finished city which I had lately left, I cannot decide. There was surely not a third of the usual shipping, nor a quarter of the accustomed cotton. Here and there were wharves perfectly bare, not only of masting and of freight, but even of dust, as if they had not been used for days, or possibly for weeks.

My old hotel was as well kept, and its table as plentiful and excellent as ever. I believe we are all aware by this time that Charleston has not suffered from hunger; that beef has not sold at thirty-five cents a pound, but rather at ten or fifteen; that its Minute Men have not been accustomed to come down upon its citizens for forced dinners and dollars; that the State loan was taken willingly by the banks, instead of unwillingly by private persons; that the rich, so far from being obliged to give a great deal for the cause of Secession, have generally given very little; that the streets are well-policed, untrodden by mobs, and as orderly as those of most cities; that, in short, the revolution so far has been political, and not social. At the same time exports and imports have nearly ceased; business, even in the retail form, is stagnant; the banks have suspended; debts are not paid.

After dinner I walked up to the Citadel square and saw a drill of the Home Guard. About thirty troopers, all elderly men, and several with white hair and whiskers, uniformed in long overcoats of homespun gray, went through some of the simpler cavalry evolutions in spite of their horses' teeth. The Home Guard is a volunteer police force, raised because of the absence of so many of the young men of the city at the islands, and because of the supposed necessity of keeping a strong hand over the negroes. A malicious citizen assured me that it was in training to take Fort Sumter by charging upon it at low water. On the opposite side of the square from where I stood rose the Citadel, or military academy, a long and lofty reddish-yellow building, stuccoed and castellated, which, by the way, I have seen represented in one of our illustrated papers as the United States Arsenal. Under its walls were half a dozen iron cannon which I judged at that distance to be twenty-four pounders. A few negroes, certainly the most leisurely part of the population at this period, and still fewer white people, leaned over the shabby fence and stared listlessly at the horsemen, with the air of people whom habit had made indifferent to such spectacles. Near me three men of the middle class of Charleston talked of those two eternal subjects, Secession and Fort Sumter. One of them, a rosy-faced, kindly-eyed, sincere, seedy, pursy gentleman of fifty, congratulated the others and thanked God because of the present high moral stand of South Carolina, so much loftier than if she had seized the key to her main harbor, when she had the opportunity. Her honor was now unspotted; her good faith and her love of the right were visible to the whole world; while the position of the Federal Government was disgraced and sapped by falsity. Better Sumter treacherously in the hands of the United States than in the hands of South Carolina; better suffer for a time under physical difficulties than forever under moral dishonor.

Simple-hearted man, a fair type of his fellow-citizens, he saw but his own side of the question, and might fairly claim in this matter to be justified by his faith. His bald crown, sandy side-locks, reddish whiskers, sanguineous cheeks, and blue eyes were all luminous with confidence in the integrity of his State, and with scorn for the meanness and wickedness of her enemies. No doubt had he that the fort ought to be surrendered to South Carolina; no suspicion that the Government could show a reason for holding it, aside from low self-interest and malice. He was the honest mouthpiece of a most peculiar people, local in its opinions and sentiments beyond anything known at the North, even in self-poised Boston. Changing his subject, he spoke with hostile, yet chivalrous, respect of the pluck of the Black Republicans in Congress. They had never faltered; they had vouchsafed no hint of concession; while, on the other hand, Southerners had shamed him by their craven spirit. It grieved, it mortified him, to see such a man as Crittenden on his knees to the North, begging, actually with tears, for what he ought to demand as a right, with head erect and hands clenched. He departed with a mysterious allusion to some secret of his for taking Fort Sumter,--some disagreeably odorous chemical preparation, I guessed, by the scientific terms in which he beclouded himself,--something which he expected would soon be called for by the Governor. May he never smell anything worse, even in the other world, than his own compounds! Unionist, and perhaps Consolidationist, as I am, I could not look upon his honest, persuaded face, and judge him a traitor, at least not to any sentiment of right that was in his own soul.

Our hotel was full of legislators and volunteer officers, mostly planters or sons of planters, and almost without exception men of standing and property. South Carolina is an oligarchy in spirit, and allows no plebeians in high places. Two centuries of plenteous feeding and favorable climate showed their natural results in the _physique_ of these people. I do not think that I exaggerate, when I say that they averaged six feet or nearly in height, and one hundred and seventy pounds or thereabouts in weight. One or two would have brought in money, if enterprisingly heralded as Swiss or Belgian giants. The general physiognomy was good, mostly high-featured, often commanding, sometimes remarkable for massive beauty of the Jovian type, and almost invariably distinguished by a fearless, open-eyed frankness, in some instances running into arrogance and pugnacity. I remember one or two elderly men, in particular, whose faces would help an artist to idealize a Lacedaemonian general, or a baron of the Middle Ages. In dress somewhat careless, and wearing usually the last fashion but one, they struck me as less tidy than the same class when I saw it four years ago; and I made a similar remark concerning the citizens of Charleston,--not only men, but women,--from whom dandified suits and superb silks seem to have departed during the present martial time. Indeed, I heard that economy was the order of the day; that the fashionables of Charleston bought nothing new, partly because of the money pressure, and partly because the guns of Major Anderson might any day send the whole city into mourning; that patrician families had discharged their foreign cooks and put their daughters into the kitchen; that there were no concerts, no balls, and no marriages. Even the volunteers exhibited little of the pomp and vanity of war. The small French military cap was often the only sign of their present profession. The uniform, when it appeared, was frequently a coarse homespun gray, charily trimmed with red worsted, and stained with the rains and earth of the islands. One young dragoon in this sober dress walked into our hotel, trailing the clinking steel scabbard of his sabre across the marble floor of the vestibule with a warlike rattle which reminded me of the Austrian officers whom I used to see, yes, and hear, stalking about the _cafe's_ of Florence. Half a dozen surrounded him to look at and talk about the weapon. A portly, middle-aged legislator must draw it and cut and thrust, with a smile of boyish satisfaction between his grizzled whiskers, bringing the point so near my nose, in his careless eagerness, that I had to fall back upon a stronger, that is, a more distant position. Then half a dozen others must do likewise, their eyes sparkling like those of children examining a new toy.

"It's not very sharp," said one, running his thumb carefully along the edge of the narrow and rather light blade.

"Sharp enough to cut a man's head open," averred the dragoon.

"Well, it's a dam' shame that sixty-five men tharr in Sumter should make such an expense to the State," declared a stout, blonde young rifleman, speaking with a burr which proclaimed him from the up-country. "We haven't even troyed to get 'em out. We ought at least to make a troyal."

All strangers at Charleston walk to the Battery. It is the extreme point of the city peninsula, its right facing on the Ashley, its left on the Cooper, and its outlook commanding the entire harbor, with Fort Sumter, Port Pinckney, Fort Moultrie, and Fort Johnstone in the distance. Plots of thin clover, a perfect wonder in this grassless land; promenades, neatly fenced, and covered with broken shells instead of gravel; a handsome bronze lantern-stand, twenty-five feet high, meant for a beacon; a long and solid stone quay, the finest sea-walk in the United States; a background of the best houses in Charleston, three-storied and faced with verandas: such are the features of the Battery. Lately four large iron guns, mounted like field-pieces, form an additional attraction to boys and soldierly-minded men. Nobody knew their calibre; the policemen who watched them could not say; the idlers who gathered about them disputed upon it: they were eighteen pounders; they were twenty-fours; they were thirty-sixes. Nobody could tell what they were there for. They were aimed at Fort Sumter, but would not carry half way to it. They could hit Fort Pinckney, but that was not desirable. The policeman could not explain; neither could the idlers; neither can I. At last it got reported about the city that they were to sink any boats which might come down the river to reinforce Anderson; though how the boats were to get into the river, whether by railroad from Washington, or by balloon from the Free States, nobody even pretended to guess. Standing on this side of the Ashley, and looking across it, you naturally see the other side. The long line of nearly dead level, with its stretches of thin pine-forest and its occasional glares of open sand, gives you an idea of nearly the whole country about Charleston, except that in general you ought to add to the picture a number of noble evergreen oaks bearded with pendent, weird Spanish moss, and occasional green spikes of the tropical-looking Spanish bayonet. Of palmettos there are none that I know of in this immediate region, save the hundred or more on Sullivan's Island and the one or two exotics in the streets of Charleston. In the middle of the Ashley, which is here more than a quarter of a mile wide, lies anchored a topsail schooner, the nursery of the South Carolina navy. I never saw it sail anywhere; but then my opportunities of observation were limited. Quite a number of boys are on board of it, studying maritime matters; and I can bear witness that they are sufficiently advanced to row themselves ashore. Possibly they are moored thus far up the stream to guard them from sea-sickness, which might be discouraging to young sailors. However, I ought not to talk on this subject, for I am the merest civilian and land-lubber.

My first conversation in Charleston on Secession was with an estimable friend, Northern-born, but drawing breath of Southern air ever since he attained the age of manhood. After the first salutation, he sat down, his hands on his knees, gazing on the floor, and shaking his head soberly, if not sadly.

"You have found us in a pretty fix,--in a pretty fix!"

"But what are you going to do? Are you really going out? You are not a politician, and will tell me the honest facts."

"Yes, we are going out,'--there is no doubt of it, I have not been a seceder,--I have even been called one of the disaffected; but I am obliged to admit that secession is the will of the community. Perhaps you at the North don't believe that we are honest in our professions and actions. We are so. The Carolinians really mean to go out of the Union, and don't mean to come back. They say that they _are_ out, and they believe it. And now, what are you going to do with us? What is the feeling at the North?"

"The Union must and shall be preserved, at all hazards. That famous declaration expresses the present Northern popular sentiment. When I left, people were growing martial; they were joining military companies; they wanted to fight; they were angry."

"So I supposed. That agrees with what I hear by letter. Well, I am very sorry for it. Our people here will not retreat; they will accept a war, first. If you preserve the Union, it must be by conquest. I suppose you can do it, if you try hard enough. The North is a great deal stronger than the South; it can desolate it,--crush it. But I hope it won't be done. I wish you would speak a good word for us, when you go back. You can destroy us, I suppose. But don't you think it would be inhuman? Don't you think it would be impolitic? Do you think it would result in sufficient good to counterbalance the evident and certain evil?"

"Why, people reason in this way. They say, that, even if we allow the final independence of the seceding States, we must make it clear that there is no such thing as the right of secession, but only that of revolution or rebellion. We must fix a price for going out of the Union, which shall be so high that henceforward no State will ever be willing to pay it. We must kill, once for all, the doctrine of peaceable secession, which is nothing else than national disintegration and ruin. Lieutenant-Governor Morton of Indiana declares in substance that England never spent blood and money to wiser purpose than when she laid down fifty thousand lives and one hundred millions of pounds to prevent her thirteen disaffected colonies from having their own way. No English colony since has been willing to face the tremendous issue thus offered it. Just so it is the interest, it is the sole safety of the Federal Government, to try to hold in the Cotton States by force, and, if they go out, to oblige them to pay an enormous price for the privilege. Revolution is a troublesome luxury, and ought to be made expensive. That is the way people talk at the North and at Washington. They reason thus, you see, because they believe that this is not a league, but a nation."

"And our people believe that the States are independent and have a right to recede from the Confederation without asking its leave. With few exceptions, all agree on that; it is honest, common public opinion. The South Carolinians sincerely think that they are exercising a right, and you may depend that they will not be reasoned nor frightened out of it; and if the North tries coercion, there will be war. I don't say this defiantly, but sadly, and merely because I want you to know the truth. War is abhorrent to my feelings,--especially a war with our own brethren: and then _we_ are so poorly prepared for it!"

Such was the substance of several conversations. The reader may rely, I think, on the justness of my friend's opinions, founded as they are on his honesty of intellect, his moderation, and his opportunities for studying his fellow-citizens. All told me the same story, but generally with more passion, sometimes with defiance; defiance toward the Government, I mean, and not toward me personally; for the better classes of Charleston are eminently courteous. South Carolina had seceded forever, defying all the hazards; she would accept nothing but independence or destruction; she did not desire any supposable compromise; she had altogether done with the Union. Yet her desire was not for war; it was simply and solely for escape. She would forget all her wrongs and insults, she would seek no revenge for the injurious past, provided she were allowed to depart without a conflict. Nearly every man with whom I talked began the conversation by asking if the North meant coercion, and closed it by deprecating hostilities and affirming the universal wish for _peaceable_ secession. In case of compulsion, however, the State would accept the gage of battle; her sister communities of the South would side with her, the moment they saw her blood flow; Northern commerce would be devoured by privateers of all nations under the Southern flag; Northern manufactures would perish for lack of Southern raw material and Southern consumers; Northern banks would suspend, and Northern finances go into universal insolvency; the Southern ports would be opened forcibly by England and France, who must have cotton; the South would flourish in the struggle, and the North decay.

"But why do you venture on this doubtful future?" I asked of one gentleman. "What is South Carolina's grievance? The Personal-Liberty Bills?"