Chapter IV: Part I (2)

He would not satisfy me, so I took my gun, and went out to him. I was then informed that kidnappers had been at Allen Williams's; that they had taken Henry Williams, and gone towards Maryland. I called one of our party, who dressed and proceeded to arouse our men. Two of us then started for the Nine Points, in Lancaster County, and left instructions for the other men to meet us in the valley. They did so, and we hurried on to our destination. We had not gone far before we heard some one calling, "Kidnappers! kidnappers!" Going back some distance, we found the cry came from a man who had fallen into a lime quarry. He was in a bad situation, and unable to get out without assistance, and, hearing us pass, concluded we were kidnappers and raised the cry. We were delayed for a time in helping him out, and it provoked me very much, as it was important we should be in haste.

We started again for the Nine Points, but, arriving there, learned to our dismay, that the kidnappers had passed an hour before. The chase was given up, but with saddened feelings. A fellow-being had been dragged into hopeless bondage, and we, his comrades, held our liberty as insecurely as he had done but a few short hours before! We asked ourselves the question, "Whose turn will come next?" I was delegated to find out, if possible, who had betrayed him, which I accordingly did.

Lynch law is a code familiar to the colored people of the Slave States. It is of so diabolical a character as to be without justification, except when enforced by men of pure motives, and then only in extreme cases, as when the unpunished party has it in his power to barter away the lives and liberties of those whose confidence he possesses, and who would, by bringing him before a legal tribunal, expose themselves to the same risks that they are liable to from him. The frequent attacks from slaveholders and their tools, the peculiarity of our position, many being escaped slaves, and the secrecy attending these kidnapping exploits, all combined to make an appeal to the Lynch Code in our case excusable, if not altogether justifiable. Ourselves, our wives, our little ones, were insecure, and all we had was liable to seizure. We felt that something must be done, for some one must be in our midst with whom the slaveholders had communication. I inquired around, quietly, and soon learned that Allen Williams, the very man in whose house the fugitive was, had betrayed him. This information I communicated to our men. They met at my house and talked the matter over, and, after most solemnly weighing all the facts and evidence, we resolved that he should die, and we set about executing our purpose that evening. The difficulty was, how to punish him. Some were for shooting him, but this was not feasible. I proposed another plan, which was agreed to.

Accordingly, we went to his house and asked if a man named Carter, who lived with him, was at home, as rumor said that he had betrayed Henry Williams. He denied it, and said that Carter had fought for Henry with him, but the slaveholders being too strong for them, they had to give him up. He kept beyond reach, and the men apologized for intruding upon him, while I stepped up to the door and asked for a glass of water. He gave it to me, and to the others. When he was giving water to one of the party, I caught him by the throat, to prevent his giving the alarm, and drew him over my head and shoulders. Then the rest beat him until we thought we heard some one coming, which caused us to flee. If we had not been interrupted, death would have been his fate. At that time I was attending a threshing-machine for George Whitson and Joseph Scarlot.

It must have been a month after the Williams affray, that I was sitting at home one evening, talking with Pinckney and Samuel Thompson about how I was getting on with my work, when I thought I heard some one call my name. I went out, but all was quiet. When I went in, Pinckney and Thompson laughed at me, and said that I had become so "scary" that I could not stay in the house. But I was not satisfied. I was sure some one had called me. I said so, and that I would go to Marsh Chamberlain's to see if anything was wrong. They concluded to go also, and we started.

Arriving near the house, I told Pinckney and Thompson to stop outside, and I would go in, and if anything was wrong, would call them. When I reached the house, I saw a chair broken to pieces, and knew that something had happened, I said,--

"Hallo, Marsh!"

"Who is that?" said he.

And his wife said,--

"Parker, is that you?"

"Yes," I said.

"Oh, Parker, come here!" she called.

I called Pinckney and Thompson, and we went in. Marsh met us, and said that kidnappers had been there, had taken John Williams, and gone with him towards Buck Hill. They had then been gone about fifteen minutes. Off we started on a rapid run to save him. We ran to a stable, got out two horses, and Pinckney and I rode on. Thompson soon got the rest of our party together and followed. We were going at a pretty good gait, when Pinckney's horse stumbled and fell, fastening his rider's leg; but I did not halt. Pinckney got his horse up and caught up with me.

"You would not care," said he, "if a man were to get killed! You would not help him!"

"Not in such a case as this," I replied.

We rode on to the Maryland line, but could not overtake them. We were obliged to return, as it was near daybreak. The next day a friend of ours went to Maryland to see what had been done with Williams. He went to Dr. Savington's, and the Doctor told him that the fugitive could not live,--the kidnappers had broken his skull, and otherwise beaten him very badly; his ankle, too, was out of place. In consequence of his maimed condition, his mistress refused to pay the men anything for bringing him home. That was the last we ever heard of poor John Williams; but we learned afterwards why we failed to release him on the night he was taken. The kidnappers heard us coming, and went into the woods out of the way, until we had passed them.

Awhile before this occurrence, there lived in a town not far away from Christiana a colored man who was in the habit of decoying fugitives fresh from bondage to his house on various pretexts, and, by assuming to be their friend, got from them the name of their master, his residence, and other needed particulars. He would then communicate with the master about his slave, tell him at what time the man would be at his house, and when he came at the appointed hour, the poor refugee would fall into the merciless clutches of his owner. Many persons, mostly young people, had disappeared mysteriously from the country, from whom nothing could be heard. At last the betrayer's connection with these transactions was clearly traced; and it was decided to force him to quit the nefarious business.

He was too wary to allow himself to be easily taken, and a resort was had to stratagem. I, with others, thought he deserved to be shot openly in his daughter's house, and was willing to take the consequences.

At last this man's outrages became so notorious that six of our most reliable men resolved to shoot him, if they had to burn him out to do it. After I had sworn the men in the usual form, we went to his barn, took two bundles of wheat-straw, and, fastening them under the eaves with wisps, applied a lighted match to each. We then took our stations a few rods off, with rifles ready and in good condition,--mine was a smooth-bore, with a heavy charge.

The house burned beautifully; and half an hour after it ignited the walls fell in, but no betrayer showed himself. Instead of leaving the house by the rear door, as we had expected, just before the roof fell in, he broke out the front way, rushed to his next neighbor's, and left his place without an effort to save it. We had built the fire in the rear, and looked for him there; but he ran in the opposite direction, not only as if his life was in danger, but as if the spirit of his evil deeds was after him.

FOOTNOTES:

[Footnote F: This sentence was written before the beginning of our civil war. Viewed in the light of subsequent events, it is somewhat remarkable.--E. K.]

THE ORIGIN OF THE GYPSIES.

For more than four hundred years the Gypsies have been one of the riddles of European history. Much deep study and learned research have found plentiful employment in the endeavor to point out the land of their origin; and the views taken have consequently been many and various. It appears to the writer that all the well-known views on this subject are far from the truth; and he desires to assert for the Gypsies an origin quite different, as he believes, from any ever yet suggested: at least, what he believes to be the real origin of this singular race is not even hinted at in the more celebrated treatises. Conscious of the diffidence with which any one should approach a matter which so many learned men have labored over, he advances the plea of the proverb, that they who study the stars will stumble at stones,--a plea, that much learning and genius may fail, where less would not be at fault.

It has been maintained that the Gypsies are Egyptians, and even that they are the followers of Pharaoh, perhaps not yet gotten home from that Red Sea journey. Otherwise that they are the descendants of the vagabond votaries of Isis, who were in Rome just what the Gypsies are in modern Europe. It has been argued that they were Grecian heretics; that they were persecuted Jews; that they were Tartars; that they were Moors; and that they were Hindoos, Grellman accepted (as it suited his theory) the assertion that they entered Germany from Turkey, though he rejected, without examination, the assertion, made on equally good authority, that they entered it from Spain, from Italy, from Denmark, and from Sweden. We find, by comparison of accounts, that they appeared within the space of a few years at every point of a circle of which Germany was the centre, and everywhere they were regarded as foreigners,--even in Egypt.

Later times have concluded that the Gypsies are Hindoos, and it is generally acknowledged that Grellman and Borrow have proved this. The evidences adduced are, that the Gypsy tongue is strikingly like some Hindoo dialects and the parent Sanscrit,--that the races are similar in complexion, shape, disposition, and habits,--distinguished by the same vagrant nature, the same love of idleness, music, dancing, and thievery. In this course of argument, that founded, upon the language is of course the really strong one.

Without denying any of these evidences,--assenting, indeed, to every one of them,--I yet assert that the Gypsies are not of Asiatic origin, and not, as the sturdy Dutchmen call them, the "heathens,"--unless we refer to the original use of that word, and call all heathens that dwell on the heath. I assert that they are Europeans, and one of the results of the religious wars of the fifteenth century. Bohemia is the land of their origin; and when we consider that one of the most enlightened nations of Europe has called them Bohemians for four hundred years, it is remarkable that that name has been so little considered in attempts to penetrate this mystery. John Ziska or Tschischka, the greatest of the Hussite leaders, in the brave struggle of that sect against the Roman Church, is the man who may be looked upon as the father of the race. Though a clumsy attempt to pronounce Tschischka by a foreign tongue might well result in something farther from it than Gypsy, there is, perhaps, nothing in that resemblance. The word _gypsy_, which is only the English name for this remarkable people, is, no doubt, a consequence of the ancient error that called them Egyptians; but it is odd to see English writers using the resemblance between those words as an argument in favor of that origin, and thus endeavoring to perpetuate error by the results of error.

Ziska became prominent as a leader in the year 1418, and in that year was authorized to raise forces. Probably he had been busy in that way even earlier; and so, from the first, secrecy and deception would have been necessary in the organization of his innumerable small bodies, so suddenly made one great body when he extorted the royal authority. He carried on hostilities with great success until his death in 1424. By this event, the Hussites were divided into three bodies, one of which was called the Orphans, or orphan children of Ziska. These dwelt in their camps in the open country, and were under a vow never again to sleep beneath a roof. They also refused obedience to any sovereign. Driven out of Bohemia in the disasters to which the death of Ziska led the way, and still more effectually driven out in the expatriation of all non-Catholics, the whole sect became fugitives and wanderers; and it is easy to see what kind of wanderers the "Orphans" particularly would be, with their wagon-camps and their oath against houses.

It is a remarkable coincidence, (if it shall prove to be no more,) that the Gypsies, a race of wanderers, peculiar by reason of the very characteristic that would have resulted from the Hussite oath, made their first appearance in Europe at this very period,--between 1418 and 1427,--and in those very countries in which the Orphans ought first to have been seen. But the earliest circumstantial notice of a company of Gypsies relates to the one that visited Paris in 1427. Pasquier gave a particular account of them, and remarks, that, though they had a very bad name, and though he was with them a great deal, he "never lost a coin."

These were called Bohemians, and the French have adhered to that name ever since. Doubtless the French of that day, who conversed with these people, and looked at them with very wide-open eyes, had as good reason for calling them Bohemians as they had for calling other men Spaniards, Italians, or Russians. Bohemia then formed too important a part of Europe for Frenchmen to confound men of that country with Hindoos just from Asia. The Bohemians were not strangers in France. Nearly a hundred years before, a king of Bohemia, with a large retinue, was present on the French side at the battle of Crécy, and Ziska himself fought at Agincourt. But writers on the Gypsies treat very slightingly the fact, that the French called the first party that visited Paris, as mentioned above, Bohemians, and merely say that they use that name for the Gypsies, "because they first heard of them from Bohemia."

Various circumstances point to the probability that the Gypsies were, at their first appearance in different countries, fugitives from religious intolerance. They always called themselves pilgrims, which Egyptians or Hindoos would scarcely have done, but which would be quite natural in that age to Europeans desirous of concealing their real character and of commending themselves to strangers in whom their difference of faith made them expect to find enemies. They called themselves Christians also, and declared ostentatiously their conformity to the Roman Catholic rites; but they carefully kept away from the churches. This assumption of a character which they knew would protect them is in keeping with the whole craft of their lives.

Another notable fact is, that they showed everywhere passes of safe-conducts from the Emperor Sigismund. Ziska's followers could not have got authentic passes, but they could forge them easily; and Hindoo stragglers, on their first appearance in Europe, would hardly have known the value of such pieces of paper. In all the original Gypsy parties there were dukes and counts, and these men called themselves Lords of Little Egypt; and from this fact seems originally to have arisen the notion that they were Egyptians. But this seems less like an assertion of their origin than like a piece of Scriptural phraseology. The Hussites used in that way a Biblical imagery, like the Puritans of a later age. Like the Puritans, they called their opponents Moabites, Amalekites, and so on. With the Puritans, Egypt was always "the house of bondage," and that name was the common designation of any place of persecution.

Grellman refers to the name Polgar as Indian, and as common with the Gypsies; but he does not notice that the men in all the original Gypsy parties bore such sufficiently Christian appellations as Michael, Andrew, John, and Peter. _Rommany_ is the Gypsy name for a Gypsy, and this is referred to the Sanscrit _Rama_, man, by one author, and by others to the Coptic _Rom_. Either is possible, but sufficiently remote. By the kind of deception referred to above, which made the Gypsies call themselves Catholics when in Catholic countries, it is probable that they may sometimes have gone so far as to say that they were Romans,--that is, adherents of Rome,--and habit may have fastened the name. This derivation is as good as either of the others.

But the language of the Gypsies has been most relied upon to prove their derivation from Hindostan, both by Grellman and Borrow. Remarkable similarities have been shown to exist between the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue. But the argument of language is better for Bohemian than for Hindoo origin. The Bohemians were Cechs, a branch of the great Slavic race of undoubted Asiatic origin; and the Cech language descended from the Sanscrit almost as directly as the Hindoo dialects did. Here is a good reason why the Hindoo dialects and the Gypsy tongue--if the Gypsies were Bohemians--should closely resemble one another. They were from the same parent stem. The learned Büsching said, "The Gypsy language is a mixture of corrupt words from the Wallachian, Slavonian, Hungarian, and other nations." These are the cognate languages of the Slavic race, all descended from the same source, and that also the source of the Cech. The first list of Gypsy words ever made was cited to prove an Egyptian origin, and they were Slavic. That was, perhaps, the best list ever made, as later ones show the results of the use of the languages of the various lands in which the Gypsies wander.

The complexion, habits, and character of the Gypsies resemble those of the Cechs as nearly as they do those of the Hindoos. The Cechs are an eminently gay and musical race. As regards complexion, it is found that the Gypsies in the Austrian army, who have been compelled to relinquish their wild life and dwell in houses, are as white as Europeans generally.

Assuming that Grellman has disproved all the other suggested origins in favor of the Hindoo theory, and considering the question as simply between India and Bohemia, it appears to me that the argument is altogether in favor of the derivation of the Gypsies from the latter country.

PASSAGES FROM HAWTHORNE'S NOTE-BOOKS.

II.

_Maine, July 5, 1837_.--Here I am, settled since night before last with B----, and living very singularly. He leads a bachelor's life in his paternal mansion, only a small part of which is occupied by a family who serve him. He provides his own breakfast and supper, and occasionally his dinner; though this is oftener, I believe, taken at the hotel or an eating-house, or with some of his relatives. I am his guest, and my presence makes no alteration in his way of life. Our fare, thus far, has consisted of bread, butter, and cheese, crackers, herrings, boiled eggs, coffee, milk, and claret wine. He has another inmate, in the person of a queer little Frenchman, who has his breakfast, tea, and lodging here, and finds his dinner elsewhere. Monsieur S---- does not appear to be more than twenty-one years old,--a diminutive figure, with eyes askew, and otherwise of an ungainly physiognomy; he is ill-dressed also, in a coarse blue coat, thin cotton pantaloons, and unbrushed boots; altogether with as little of French coxcombry as can well be imagined, though with something of the monkey-aspect inseparable from a little Frenchman. He is, nevertheless, an intelligent and well-informed man, apparently of extensive reading in his own language;--a philosopher, B---- tells me, and an infidel. His insignificant personal appearance stands in the way of his success, and prevents him from receiving the respect which is really due to his talents and acquirements; wherefore he is bitterly dissatisfied with the country and its inhabitants, and often expresses his feelings to B---- (who has gained his confidence to a certain degree) in very strong terms.

Thus here are three characters, each with something out of the common way, living together somewhat like monks. B----, our host, combines more high and admirable qualities, of that sort which make up a gentleman, than any other that I have met with. Polished, yet natural, frank, open, and straightforward, yet with a delicate feeling for the sensitiveness of his companions; of excellent temper and warm heart; well acquainted with the world, with a keen faculty of observation, which he has had many opportunities of exercising, and never varying from a code of honor and principle which is really nice and rigid in its way. There is a sort or philosophy developing itself in him which will not impossibly cause him to settle down in this or some other equally singular course of life. He seems almost to have made up his mind never to be married, which I wonder at; for he has strong affections, and is fond both of women and children.

The little Frenchman impresses me very strongly, too,--so lonely as he is here, struggling against the world, with bitter feelings in his breast, and yet talking with the vivacity and gayety of his nation; making this his home from darkness to daylight, and enjoying here what little domestic comfort and confidence there is for him; and then going about all the livelong day, teaching French to blockheads who sneer at him, and returning at about ten o'clock in the evening (for I was wrong in saying he supped here,--he eats no supper) to his solitary room and bed. Before retiring, he goes to B----'s bedside, and, if he finds him awake, stands talking French, expressing his dislike of the Americans,--_"Je hais, je hais les Yankees!"_--thus giving vent to the stifled bitterness of the whole day. In the morning I hear him getting up early, at sunrise or before, humming to himself, scuffling about his chamber with his thick boots, and at last taking his departure for a solitary ramble till breakfast. Then he comes in, cheerful and vivacious enough, eats pretty heartily, and is off again, singing French _chansons_ as he goes down the gravel-walk. The poor fellow has nobody to sympathize with him but B----, and thus a singular connection is established between two utterly different characters.

Then here is myself, who am likewise a queer character in my way, and have come to spend a week or two with my friend of half a lifetime,--the longest space, probably, that we are ever destined to spend together; for Fate seems preparing changes for both of us. My circumstances, at least, cannot long continue as they are and have been; and B----, too, stands between high prosperity and utter ruin.

I think I should soon become strongly attached to our way of life, so independent and untroubled by the forms and restrictions of society. The house is very pleasantly situated,--half a mile distant from where the town begins to be thickly settled, and on a swell of land, with the road running at a distance of fifty yards, and a grassy tract and a gravel-walk between. Beyond the road rolls the Kennebec, here two or three hundred yards wide. Putting my head out of the window, I can see it flowing steadily along straightway between wooded banks; but arriving nearly opposite the house, there is a large and level sand island in the middle of the stream; and just below the island the current is further interrupted by the works of the mill-dam, which is perhaps half-finished, yet still in so rude a state that it looks as much like the ruins of a dam destroyed by the spring freshets as like the foundations of a dam yet to be. Irishmen and Canadians toil at work on it, and the echoes of their hammering and of the voices come across the river and up to this window. Then there is a sound of the wind among the trees round the house; and when that is silent, the calm, full, distant voice of the river becomes audible. Looking downward thither, I see the rush of the current, and mark the different eddies, with here and there white specks or streaks of foam; and often a log comes floating on, glistening in the sun, as it rolls over among the eddies, having voyaged, for aught I know, hundreds of miles from the wild, upper sources of the river, passing down, down, between lines of forest, and sometimes a rough clearing, till here it floats along by cultivated banks, and will soon pass by the village. Sometimes a long raft of boards comes along, requiring the nicest skill in navigating it through the narrow passage left by the mill-dam. Chaises and wagons occasionally go along the road, the riders all giving a passing glance at the dam, or perhaps alighting to examine it more fully, and at last departing with ominous shakes of the head as to the result of the enterprise. My position is so far retired from the river and mill-dam, that, though the latter is really rather a scene, yet a sort of quiet seems to be diffused over the whole. Two or three times a day this quiet is broken by the sudden thunder from a quarry, where the workmen are blasting rocks for the dam; and a peal of thunder sounds strange in such a green, sunny, and quiet landscape, with the blue sky brightening the river.

I have not seen much of the people. There have been, however, several incidents which amused me, though scarcely worth telling. A passionate tavern-keeper, quick as a flash of gunpowder, a nervous man, and showing in his demeanor, it seems, a consciousness of his infirmity of temper. I was a witness of a scuffle of his with a drunken guest. The tavern-keeper, after they were separated, raved like a madman, and in a tone of voice having a drolly pathetic or lamentable sound mingled with its rage, as if he were lifting up his voice to weep. Then he jumped into a chaise which was standing by, whipped up the horse, and drove off rapidly, as if to give his fury vent in that way.

On the morning of the Fourth of July, two printer's apprentice-lads, nearly grown, dressed in jackets and very tight pantaloons of check, tight as their skins, so that they looked like harlequins or circus-clowns, yet appeared to think themselves in perfect propriety, with a very calm and quiet assurance of the admiration of the town. A common fellow, a carpenter, who, on the strength of political partisanship, asked B----'s assistance in cutting out great letters from play-bills in order to print "Martin Van Buren Forever" on a flag; but B---- refused. B---- seems to be considerably of a favorite with the lower orders, especially with the Irishman and French Canadians,--the latter accosting him in the street, and asking his assistance as an interpreter in making their bargains for work.

I meant to have dined at the hotel with B---- to-day; but having returned to the house, leaving him to do some business in the village, I found myself unwilling to move when the dinner-hour approached, and therefore dined very well on bread, cheese, and eggs. Nothing of much interest takes place. We live very comfortably in our bachelor establishment on a cold shoulder of mutton, with ham and smoked beef and boiled eggs; and as to drinkables, we had both claret and brown sherry on the dinner-table to-day. Last evening we had a long literary and philosophical conversation with Monsieur S----. He is rather remarkably well-informed for a man of his age, and seems to have very just notions on ethics, etc., though damnably perverted as to religion. It is strange to hear philosophy of any sort from such a boyish figure. "We philosophers," he is fond of saying, to distinguish himself and his brethren from the Christians. One of his oddities is, that, while steadfastly maintaining an opinion that he is a very small and slow eater, and the we, in common with other Yankees, eat immensely and fast, he actually eats both faster and longer than we do, and devours, as B---- avers, more victuals than both of us together.

* * * * *

_Saturday, July 8th._--Yesterday afternoon, a stroll with B---- up a large brook, he fishing for trout, and I looking on. The brook runs through a valley, on one side bordered by a high and precipitous bank; on the other there is an interval, and then the bank rises upward and upward into a high hill with gorges and ravines separating one summit from another, and here and there are bare places, where the rain-streams have washed away the grass. The brook is bestrewn with stones, some bare, some partially moss-grown, and sometimes so huge as--once at least--to occupy almost the whole breadth of the current. Amongst these the stream brawls, only that this word does not express its good-natured voice, and "murmur" is too quite. It sings along, sometimes smooth, with the pebbles visible beneath, sometimes rushing dark and swift, eddying and whitening past some rock, or underneath the hither or the farther bank; and at these places B----cast his line, and sometimes drew out a trout, small, not more than five or six inches long. The farther we went up the brook, the wilder it grew. The opposite bank was covered with pines and hemlocks, ascending high upwards, black and solemn. One knew that there must be almost a precipice behind, yet we could not see it. At the foot you could spy, a little way within the darksome shade, the roots and branches of the trees; but soon all sight was obstructed amidst the trunks. On the hither side, at first the bank was bare, then fringed with alder-bushes, bending and dipping into the stream, which, farther on brawled through the midst of a forest of maple, beech, and other trees, its course growing wilder and wilder as we proceeded. For a considerable distance there was a causeway, built long ago of logs, to drag lumber upon; it was now decayed and rotten, a red decay, sometimes sunken down in the midst, here and there a knotty trunk stretching across, apparently sound. The sun being now low towards the west, a pleasant gloom and brightness were diffused through the forest, spots of brightness scattered upon the branches, or thrown down in gold upon the last year's leaves among the trees. At last we came to where a dam had been built across the brook many years ago, and was now gone to ruin, so as to make the spot look more solitary and wilder than if man had never left vestiges of his toil there. It was a framework of logs with a covering of plank sufficient to obstruct the onward flow of the brook; but it found its way past the side, and came foaming and struggling along among scattered rocks. Above the dam there was a broad and deep pool, one side of which was bordered by a precipitous wall of rocks, as smooth as if hewn out and squared, and piled one upon another, above which rose the forest. On the other side there was still a gently shelving bank, and the shore was covered with tall trees, among which I particularly remarked a stately pine, wholly devoid of bark, rising white in aged and majestic ruin, thrusting out its barkless arms. It must have stood there in death many years, its own ghost. Above the dam the brook flowed through the forest, a glistening and babbling water-path, illuminated by the sun, which sent its rays almost straight along its course. It was as lovely and wild and peaceful as it could possibly have been a hundred years ago; and the traces of labors of men long departed added a deeper peace to it. I bathed in the pool, and then pursued my way down beside the brook, growing dark with a pleasant gloom, as the sun sank and the water became more shadowy. B---- says that there was formerly a tradition, that the Indians used to go up this brook, and return, after a brief absence, with large masses of lead, which they sold at the trading stations in Augusta; whence there has always been an idea that there is a lead mine hereabouts. Great toadstools were under the trees, and some small ones as yellow and almost the size of a half-broiled yolk of an egg. Strawberries were scattered along the brookside.

Dined at the hotel or Mansion-House to-day. Men were playing checkers in the parlor. The Marshal of Maine, a corpulent, jolly fellow, famed for humor. A passenger left by the stage hiring an express onward. A bottle of champagne was quaffed at the bar.

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_July 9th._--Went with B---- to pay a visit to the shanties of the Irish and Canadians. He says that they sell and exchange these small houses among themselves continually. They may be built in three or four days, and are valued at four or five dollars. When the turf that is piled against the walls of some of them becomes covered with grass, it makes quite a picturesque object. It was almost dusk--just candle-lighting time--when we visited them. A young Frenchwoman, with a baby in her arms, came to the door of one of them, smiling, and looking pretty and happy. Her husband, a dark, black-haired, lively little fellow, caressed the child, laughing and singing to it; and there was a red-bearded Irishman, who likewise fondled the little brat. Then we could hear them within the hut, gabbling merrily, and could see them moving about briskly in the candlelight, through the window and open door. An old Irishwoman sat in the door of another hut, under the influence of an extra dose of rum,--she being an old lady of somewhat dissipated habits. She called to B----, and began to talk to him about her resolution not to give up her house: for it is his design to get her out of it. She is a true virago, and though somewhat restrained by respect for him, she evinced a sturdy design to remain here through the winter, or at least for a considerable time longer. He persisting, she took her stand in the doorway of the hut, and stretched out her fist in a very Amazonian attitude, "Nobody," quoth she, "shall drive me out of this house, till my praties are out of the ground." Then would she wheedle and laugh and blarney, beginning in a rage, and ending as if she had been in jest. Meanwhile her husband stood by very quiet, occasionally trying to still her; but it is to be presumed, that, after our departure, they came to blows, it being a custom with the Irish husbands and wives to settle their disputes with blows; and it is said the woman often proves the better man. The different families also have battles, and occasionally the Irish fight with the Canadians. The latter, however, are much the more peaceable, never quarrelling among themselves, and seldom with their neighbors. They are frugal, and often go back to Canada with considerable sums of money. B---- has gained much influence both with the Irish and the French,--with the latter, by dint of speaking to them in their own language. He is the umpire in their disputes, and their adviser, and they look up to him as a protector and patron-friend. I have been struck to see with what careful integrity and wisdom he manages matters among them, hitherto having known him only as a free and gay young man. He appears perfectly to understand their general character, of which he gives no very flattering description. In these huts, less than twenty feet square, he tells me that upwards of twenty people have sometimes been lodged.

A description of a young lady who had formerly been insane, and now felt the approach of a new fit of madness. She had been out to ride, had exerted herself much, and had been very vivacious. On her return, she sat down in a thoughtful and despondent attitude, looking very sad, but one of the loveliest objects that ever were seen. The family spoke to her, but she made no answer, nor took the least notice; but still sat like a statue in her chair,--a statue of melancholy and beauty. At last they led her away to her chamber.

We went to meeting this forenoon. I saw nothing remarkable, unless a little girl in the next pew to us, three or four years old, who fell asleep, with her head in the lap of her maid, and looked very pretty: a picture of sleeping innocence.

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_July 11th, Tuesday._--A drive with B---- to Hallowell, yesterday, where we dined, and afterwards to Gardiner. The most curious object in this latter place was the elegant new mansion of ----. It stands on the site of his former dwelling, which was destroyed by fire. The new building was estimated to cost about thirty thousand dollars; but twice as much has already been expended, and a great deal more will be required to complete it. It is certainly a splendid structure; the material, granite from the vicinity. At the angles it has small, circular towers; the portal is lofty and imposing. Relatively to the general style of domestic architecture in our country, it well deserves the name of castle or palace. Its situation, too, is fine, far retired from the public road, and attainable by a winding carriage-drive; standing amid fertile fields, and with large trees in the vicinity. There is also a beautiful view from the mansion adown the Kennebec.

Beneath some of the large trees we saw the remains of circular seats, whereupon the family used to sit before the former house was burned down. There was no one now in the vicinity of the place, save a man and a yoke of oxen; and what he was about, I did not ascertain. Mr. ---- at present resides in a small dwelling, little more than a cottage, beside the main road, not far from the gateway which gives access to his palace.

At Gardiner, on the wharf, I witnessed the starting of the steamboat New England for Boston. There was quite a collection of people, looking on or taking leave of passengers,--the steam puffing,--stages arriving, full-freighted with ladies and gentlemen. A man was one moment too late; but running along the gunwale of a mud-scow, and jumping into a skiff, he was put on board by a black fellow. The dark cabin, wherein, descending from the sunshiny deck, it was difficult to discern the furniture, looking-glasses, and mahogany wainscoting. I met two old college acquaintances,--O----, who was going to Boston, and B----, with whom we afterwards drank a glass of wine at the hotel.

B----, Mons. S----, and myself continue to live in the same style as heretofore. We appear mutually to be very well pleased with each other. Mons. S---- displays many comical qualities, and manages to insure us several hearty laughs every morning and evening,--those being the seasons when we meet. I am going to take lessons from him in the pronunciation of French. Of female society I see nothing. The only petticoat that comes within our premises appertains to Nancy, the pretty, dark-eyed maid-servant of the man who lives in the other part of the house.

On the road from Hallowell to Augusta we saw little booths, in two places, erected on the roadside, where boys offered beer, apples, etc., for sale. We passed an Irishwoman with a child in her arms, and a heavy bundle, and afterwards an Irishman with a light bundle, sitting by the highway. They were husband and wife; and B---- says that an Irishman and his wife, on their journeys, do not usually walk side by side, but that the man gives the woman the heaviest burden to carry, and walks on lightly ahead!

A thought comes into my mind: Which sort of house excites the most contemptuous feelings in the beholder,--such a house as Mr. ----'s, all circumstances considered, or the board-built and turf-buttressed hovels of these wild Irish, scattered about as if they had sprung up like mushrooms, in the dells and gorges, and along the banks of the river? Mushrooms, by the way, spring up where the roots of an old tree are hidden under the ground.

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_Thursday, July 13th._--Two small Canadian boys came to our house yesterday, with strawberries to sell. It sounds strange to hear children bargaining in French on the borders of Yankee-land. Among other languages spoken hereabouts must be reckoned the wild Irish. Some of the laborers on the mill-dam can speak nothing else. The intermixture of foreigners sometimes gives rise to quarrels between them and the natives. As we were going to the village yesterday afternoon, we witnessed the beginning of a quarrel between a Canadian and a Yankee,--the latter accusing the former of striking his oxen. B---- thrust himself between and parted them; but they afterwards renewed their fray, and the Canadian, I believe, thrashed the Yankee soundly,--for which he had to pay twelve dollars. Yet he was but a little fellow.

Coming to the Mansion-House about supper-time, we found somewhat of a concourse of people, the Governor and Council being in session on the subject of the disputed territory. The British have lately imprisoned a man who was sent to take the census; and the Mainiacs are much excited on the subject. They wish the Governor to order out the militia at once, and take possession of the territory with the strong hand. There was a British army-captain at the Mansion-House; and an idea was thrown out that it would be as well to seize upon him as a hostage. I would, for the joke's sake, that it had been done. Personages at the tavern: the Governor, somewhat stared after as he walked through the bar-room; Councillors seated about, sitting on benches near the bar, or on the stoop along the front of the house; the Adjutant-General of the State; two young Blue-Noses, from Canada or the Provinces; a gentleman "thumbing his hat" for liquor, or perhaps playing off the trick of the "honest landlord" on some stranger. The decanters and wine-bottles on the move, and the beer and soda-founts pouring out continual streams, with a whiz. Stage-drivers, etc., asked to drink with the aristocracy, and mine host treating and being treated. Rubicund faces; breaths odorous of brandy and water. Occasionally the pop of a champagne cork.

Returned home, and took a lesson in French of Mons. S----. I like him very much, and have seldom met with a more honest, simple, and apparently so well-principled a man; which good qualities I impute to his being, by the father's side, of German blood. He looks more like a German--or, as he says, like a Swiss--than a Frenchman, having very light hair and a light complexion, and not a French expression. He is a vivacious little fellow, and wonderfully excitable to mirth; and it is truly a sight to see him laugh;--every feature partakes of his movement, and even his whole body shares in it, as he rises and dances about the room. He has great variety of conversation, commensurate with his experiences in life, and sometimes will talk Spanish, _ore rotundo_,--sometimes imitate the Catholic priests, chanting Latin songs for the dead, in deep, gruff, awful tones, producing really a very strong impression,--then he will break out into a light, French song, perhaps of love, perhaps of war, acting it out, as if on the stage of a theatre: all this intermingled with continual fun, excited by the incidents of the passing moment. He has Frenchified all our names, calling B---- Monsieur Du Pont, myself M. de L'Aubépine, and himself M. le Berger, and all, Knights of the Round-Table. And we live in great harmony and brotherhood, as queer a life as anybody leads, and as queer a set as may be found anywhere. In his more serious intervals, he talks philosophy and deism, and preaches obedience to the law of reason and morality; which law he says (and I believe him) he has so well observed, that, notwithstanding his residence in dissolute countries, he has never yet been sinful. He wishes me, eight or nine weeks hence, to accompany him on foot to Quebec, and then to Niagara and New York. I should like it well, if my circumstances and other considerations would permit. What pleases much in Mons. S---- is the simple and childlike enjoyment he finds in trifles, and the joy with which he speaks of going back to his own country, away from the dull Yankees, who here misunderstand and despise him. Yet I have never heard him speak harshly of them. I rather think that B---- and I will be remembered by him with more pleasure than anybody else in the country; for we have sympathized with him, and treated him kindly, and like a gentleman and an equal; and he comes to us at night as to home and friends.

I went down to the river to-day to see B---- fish for salmon with a fly,--a hopeless business; for he says that only one instance has been known in the United States of salmon being taken otherwise than with a net. A few chubs were all the fruit of his piscatory efforts. But while looking at the rushing and rippling stream, I saw a great fish, some six feet long and thick in proportion, suddenly emerge at whole length, turn a somerset, and then vanish again beneath the water. It was of a glistening, yellowish brown, with its fins all spread, and looking very strange and startling, darting out so lifelike from the black water, throwing itself fully into the bright sunshine, and then lost to sight and to pursuit. I saw also a long, flat-bottomed boat go up the river, with a brisk wind, and against a strong stream. Its sails were of curious construction: a long mast, with two sails below, one on each side of the boat, and a broader one surmounting them. The sails were colored brown, and appeared like leather or skins, but were really cloth. At a distance, the vessel looked like, or at least I compared it to, a monstrous water-insect, skimming along the river. If the sails had been crimson or yellow, the resemblance would have been much closer. There was a pretty spacious raised cabin in the after part of the boat. It moved along lightly, and disappeared between the woody banks. These boats have the two parallel sails attached to the same yard, and some have two sails, one surmounting the other. They trade to Waterville and thereabouts,--names, as "Paul Pry," on their sails.

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_Saturday, July 15th._--Went with B---- yesterday to visit several Irish shanties, endeavoring to find out who had stolen some rails of a fence. At the first door where we knocked, (a shanty with an earthen mound heaped against the wall, two or three feet thick,) the inmates were not up, though it was past eight o'clock. At last a middle-aged woman showed herself, half-dressed, and completing her toilet. Threats were made of tearing down her house; for she is a lady of very indifferent morals, and sells rum. Few of these people are connected with the mill-dam,--or, at least, many are not so, but have intruded themselves into the vacant huts which were occupied by the mill-dam people last year. In two or three places hereabouts there is quite a village of these dwellings, with a clay and board chimney, or oftener an old barrel smoked and charred with the fire. Some of their roofs are covered with sods, and appear almost subterranean. One of the little hamlets stands on both sides of a deep dell, wooded and bush-grown, with a vista, as it were, into the heart of a wood in one direction, and to the broad, sunny river in the other: there was a little rivulet, crossed by a plank, at the bottom of the dell. At two doors we saw very pretty and modest-looking young women,--one with a child in her arms. Indeed, they all have innumerable little children; and they are invariably in good health, though always dirty of face. They come to the door while their mothers are talking with the visitors, standing straight up on their bare legs, with their little plump bodies protruding, in one hand a small tin saucepan and in the other an iron spoon, with unwashed mouths, looking as independent as any child or grown person in the land. They stare unabashed, but make no answer when spoken to. "I've no call to your fence, Misser B----." It seems strange that a man should have the right, unarmed with any legal instrument, of tearing down the dwelling-houses of a score of families, and driving the inmates forth without a shelter. Yet B---- undoubtedly has this right; and it is not a little striking to see how quietly these people contemplate the probability of his exercising it,--resolving, indeed, to burrow in their holes as long as may be, yet caring about as little for an ejectment as those who could find a tenement anywhere, and less. Yet the women, amid all the trials of their situation, appear to have kept up the distinction between virtue and vice: those who can claim the former will not associate with the latter. When the women travel with young children, they carry the baby slung at their backs, and sleeping quietly. The dresses of the new-comers are old-fashioned, making them look aged before their time.

Monsieur S---- shaving himself yesterday morning. He was in excellent spirits, and could not keep his tongue or body still more than long enough to make two or three consecutive strokes at his beard. Then he would turn, flourishing his razor and grimacing joyously, enacting droll antics, breaking out into scraps and verses of drinking-songs, "_A boire! à boire!_"--then laughing heartily, and crying, "_Vive la gaîté!_"--then resuming his task, looking into the glass with grave face, on which, however, a grin would soon break out anew, and all his pranks would be repeated with variations. He turned this foolery to philosophy, by observing that mirth contributed to goodness of heart, and to make us love our fellow-creatures. Conversing with him in the evening, he affirmed, with evident belief in the truth of what he said, that he would have no objection, except that it would be a very foolish thing, to expose his whole heart, his whole inner man, to the view of the world. Not that there would not be much evil discovered there; but, as he was conscious of being in a state of mental and moral improvement, working out his progress onward, he would not shrink from such a scrutiny. This talk was introduced by his mentioning the "Minister's Black Veil," which he said he had seen translated into French, as an exercise, by a Miss Appleton of Bangor.