Chapter II: Part 2

"I wish 'twas in Ireland, for there's the place,"
Said Burke, "that we'd die by right,
In the cradle of our soldier race,
After one good stand-up fight.
My grandfather fell on Vinegar Hill,
And fighting was not his trade;
But his rusty pike's in the cabin still.
With Hessian blood on the blade."
"Aye, aye," said Kelly, "the pikes were great
When the word was 'Clear the way!'
We were thick on the roll in Ninety-eight--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to the pike and the sword and the like!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

And Shea, the scholar, with rising joy.
Said, "We were at Ramillies,
We left our bones at Fontenoy
And up in the Pyrenees.
Before Dunkirk, on Landen's plain,
Cremona, Lille, and Ghent,
We're all over Austria, France, and Spain,
Wherever they pitched a tent.
We've died for England, from Waterloo
To Egypt and Dargai;
And still there's enough for a corps or a crew,
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's to good honest fighting blood!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

"Oh, the fighting races don't die out.
If they seldom die in bed.
For love is first in their hearts, no doubt,"
Said Burke; then Kelly said,
"When Michael, the Irish Archangel, stands,
The angel with the sword,
And the battle-dead from a hundred lands
Are ranged in one big horde,
Our line, that for Gabriel's trumpet waits,
Will stretch three deep that day.
From Jehosaphat to the Golden Gates--
Kelly and Burke and Shea."
"Well, here's thank God for the race and the sod!"
Said Kelly and Burke and Shea.

MARVELS OF PRECOCITY.

The "Most Remarkable Child in the World," Which Belongs to Your Friend,
Has Had Many Distinguished Predecessors--Mozart Played the Piano at
Three, and Grotius Was a Poet at Eight.

There are few men and women in the United States who do not at least once a year suddenly find themselves confronted by what fond fathers and doting mothers describe as the most remarkable child in the world.

But there have been others.

Several years ago the newspapers of Europe were heralding the marvelous achievements of a boy in Berlin, who, though only two years old, was said to read in a most surprising manner.

* * * * *

The "learned child of Luebeck" was another of these precocious infants, but he is credited with having such extraordinary talents that one can almost be forgiven for doubting the veracity of the chronicler.

Tasso was another smart child, for he spoke plainly, it is said, when only six months old. When seven years old he understood Latin and Greek, and even composed verses, and before he was twelve, when studying law, he had completed his course of rhetoric, poetry, logic, and ethics.

Lope de Vega was also fortunate when a boy. At five he could read Latin and Spanish fluently, and at twelve he was master of the Latin tongue and of rhetoric, while at fifteen he had written several pastorals and a comedy. He is stated to have produced about eighteen hundred comedies during his life, so perhaps it was necessary to begin when very young.

Grotius was another good poet at the age of eight; at fifteen, accomplished in philosophy, mathematics, and jurisprudence, and at twenty-four he was appointed advocate-general of Rotterdam.

Barretier, at the age of nine, was master of five languages, while in his eleventh year he made a translation from the Hebrew to the French and added notes such as would be expected from a man of considerable erudition.

Gustavus Vasa was another boy of excellent brain-power, for at the age of twelve he was able to speak and write Latin, French, German, Italian, Dutch, and Swedish, and he also understood Polish and Russian.

Pascal, at twelve, had completely mastered Euclid's Elements without any assistance, and at sixteen he published a work on conic sections, which Descartes was reluctant to believe had been produced by a boy.

The "Great Conde" was a boy with brains, and he made good use of them. At eight he understood Latin, and at eleven he wrote a treatise on rhetoric. Three years later he was thoroughly conversant with all military exercises.

In the world of music, too, both in our own times and in the past, we find many instances of boys giving an early indication of a remarkable career.

Handel and Mozart each showed a liking for music when young in years, and soon made their mark.

Handel began composing a church service for voices and instruments when only nine years old, and before he was fifteen he had composed three operas.

Mozart began to play the piano when he was three years old, and at seven he had taught himself the violin. At nine years of age he visited England, and when departing gave a farewell concert at which all the symphonies were composed by himself.

Several years ago attention was drawn to a little Polish boy who at eight years of age could play from memory some of the most intricate compositions of such composers as Mozart, Bach, Chopin, Rubinstein, and others. This precocious youth, Ignace Jan Paderewski, is now the most famous of all living pianists.

Some remarkable preachers have also started very early.

The Abbe de Rance, founder of the monastic order of the Trappists, was a splendid Greek scholar at twelve, and shortly afterward was appointed to an important benefice.

Bossuet preached before a brilliant Parisian assembly at the age of fifteen; and Fenelon, who afterward became an archbishop, also preached an extraordinary sermon at the same age.

Patrick Henry's Call to Arms.

The Famous Speech Which, Delivered by the American Hampden in the
Virginia Convention, Kindled the Fire of Revolution in
the Thirteen Colonies in 1775.

In the thick of national crises the ability to persuade
others is the strongest power an individual can wield. Such
a power was Patrick Henry's.

From the earlier disagreements with the mother country his
influence was all for the assertion of colonial liberties.
He was born May 9, 1736. In 1765, a young man not yet
thirty, he became a member of the Virginia House of
Burgesses. The Stamp Act had excited the people. Young
Henry, with a presumption which angered many of his maturer
colleagues, offered resolutions setting forth the rights of
the colony. In the debate he suddenly uttered the words:

"Caesar had his Brutus, Charles the First his Cromwell, and
George the Third----"

A clamor arose, and cries of "Treason! Treason!"

With perfect coolness the orator continued:

----"may profit by their example." Then, firmly: "If this be
treason, make the most of it!"

Thus began the public life of a man whose youth had been
most unpromising in its slovenliness and laziness, who had
failed at farming and at business, and who had succeeded at
law only after a dubious beginning which was turned into
triumph by a quite unlooked-for burst of eloquence. His
services to his country continued until his voluntary
retirement from public life in 1791, at the age of
fifty-five. Subsequently Washington and Adams offered him
high offices, but Henry declined successively to be United
States Senator, Secretary of State, Chief Justice of the
Supreme Court, or minister to France. In 1799, urged by
Washington, he consented to be elected to the Virginia
Legislature, but died June 6, before taking his seat. We
here print his great speech in the Virginia Conventon, 1775,
as recorded by his first biographer.

Mr. President: It is natural for man to indulge in the illusions of hope. We are apt to shut our eyes against a painful truth, and listen to the song of that siren till she transforms us into beasts. Is this the part of wise men, engaged in a great and arduous struggle for liberty?

Are we disposed to be of the number of those who, having eyes, see not, and having ears, hear not, the things which so nearly concern their temporal salvation? For my part, whatever anguish of spirit it may cost, I am willing to know the worst, and to provide for it.

I have but one lamp by which my feet are guided; and that is the lamp of experience. I know of no way of judging of the future but by the past. And, judging by the past, I wish to know what there has been in the conduct of the British ministry for the last ten years to justify those hopes with which gentlemen have been pleased to solace themselves and the House?

Is it that insidious smile with which our petition has been lately received? Trust it not, sir; it will prove a snare to your feet. Suffer not yourselves to be betrayed with a kiss. Ask yourselves how this gracious reception of our petition comports with those warlike preparations which cover our waters and darken our land.

Are fleets and armies necessary to a work of love and reconciliation? Have we shown ourselves so unwilling to be reconciled that force must be called in to win back our love? Let us not deceive ourselves, sir. These are the implements of war and subjugation--the last arguments to which kings resort.

I ask, gentlemen, sir, what means this martial array, if its purpose be not to force us to submission? Can gentlemen assign any other possible motive for it? Has Great Britain any enemy in this quarter of the world, to call for all this accumulation of navies and armies? No, sir, she has none. They are meant for us; they can be meant for no other.

They are sent over to bind and rivet upon us those chains which the British ministry have been so long forging. And what have we to oppose to them? Shall we try argument? Sir, we have been trying that for the last ten years. Have we anything new to offer upon the subject? Nothing. We have held the subject up in every light of which it is capable; but it has been all in vain.

Shall we resort to entreaty and humble supplication? What terms shall we find, which have not been already exhausted? Let us not, I beseech you, sir, deceive ourselves longer. Sir, we have done everything that could be done, to avert the storm which is now coming on. We have petitioned, we have remonstrated, we have supplicated; we have prostrated ourselves before the throne, and have implored its interposition to arrest the tyrannical hands of the ministry and Parliament.

Our petitions have been slighted; our remonstrances have produced additional violence and insult; our supplications have been disregarded; and we have been spurned with contempt from the foot of the throne. In vain, after these things, may we indulge the fond hope of peace and reconciliation. There is no longer any room for hope.

If we wish to be free; if we mean to preserve inviolate those inestimable privileges for which we have been so long contending; if we mean not basely to abandon the noble struggle in which we have been so long engaged, and which we have pledged ourselves never to abandon until the glorious object of our contest shall be obtained--we must fight!--I repeat it, sir, we must fight! An appeal to arms, and to the God of hosts, is all that is left us.

They tell us, sir, that we are weak--unable to cope with so formidable an adversary. But when shall we be stronger? Will it be the next week, or the next year? Will it be when we are totally disarmed, and when a British guard shall be stationed in every house?

Shall we gather strength by irresolution and inaction? Shall we acquire the means of effectual resistance by lying supinely on our backs, and hugging the delusive fantom of hope, until our enemies shall have bound us hand and foot?

Sir, we are not weak, if we make a proper use of those means which the God of nature hath placed in our power. Three millions of people, armed in the holy cause of Liberty, and in such a country as that which we possess, are invincible by any force which our enemy can send against us.

Besides, sir, we shall not fight our battles alone. There is a just God, who presides over the destinies of nations, and who will raise up friends to fight our battles for us. The battle, sir, is not to the strong alone; it is to the vigilant, the active, the brave. Besides, sir, we have no election. If we were base enough to desire it, it is now too late to retire from the contest.

There is no retreat but in submission and slavery! Our chains are forged. Their clanking may be heard on the plains of Boston! The war is inevitable--and let it come! I repeat it, sir, let it come! It is vain, sir, to extenuate the matter. Gentlemen may cry, Peace! peace, but there is no peace. The war has actually begun.

The next gale that sweeps from the north will bring to our ears the clash of resounding arms! Our brethren are already in the field! Why stand we here idle? What is it that the gentlemen wish? What would they have? Is life so dear, or peace so sweet, as to be purchased at the price of chains and slavery? Forbid it, Almighty God. I know not what course others may take, but, as for me, give me liberty, or give me death!

FROM THE LIPS OF ANANIAS.

Confidential Chats Which Show That if Nature Would Permit Things to
Happen in the Way Some Narrators Have Described Them, the World Would
Be a Much More Interesting Place in Which to Live.

CHANGED BY ARGUMENT.

Two commercial travelers, one from London and one from New York, were discussing the weather in their respective countries.

The Englishman said that English weather had one great fault--its sudden changes.

"A person may take a walk one day," he said, "attired in a light summer suit, and still feel quite warm. Next day he needs an overcoat."

"That's nothing," said the American. "My two friends, Johnston and Jones, were once having an argument. There were eight or nine inches of snow on the ground.

"The argument got heated, and Johnston picked up a snowball and threw it at Jones from a distance of not more than five yards. During the transit of that snowball, believe me or not, as you like, the weather suddenly changed and became hot and summerlike, and Jones, instead of being hit with a snowball, was scalded with hot water!"--_Tit-Bits._

PERSUASION BETTER THAN FORCE.

"Talk of opening oysters," said old Hurricane, "why, nothing's easier, if you only know how."

"And how's how?" inquired Starlight.

"Scotch snuff," answered old Hurricane very sententiously. "Scotch snuff. Bring a little of it ever so near their noses and they'll sneeze their lids off."

"I know a genius," observed Meister Karl, "who has a better plan. He spreads the bivalves in a circle, seats himself in the center, and begins spinning a yarn. Sometimes it's an adventure in Mexico--sometimes a legend of his loves--sometimes a marvelous stock operation in Wall Street.

"As he proceeds, the 'natives' get interested--one by one they gape with astonishment at the tremendous and direful whoppers which are poured forth, and as they gape my friend whips them out, peppers 'em, and swallows them."

"That'll do," said Starlight, with a long sigh. "I wish we had a bushel of the bivalves here now, they'd open easy."--_Philadelphia Post._

EDUCATED RATS.

By Neal Dow.

In the _Congregationalist_ is a curious story about rats, which seems to indicate that they will not remain where their company is not desired, if politely invited to change their quarters, though everybody knows that they are driven out with difficulty. Here is a perfectly true story which corroborates that one.

My house is supposed to be rat-proof, and was so when quite new, but at one time, more than twenty years ago, we had a large colony of the rodents, greatly to our annoyance, and it was with us a matter of daily wonder where they found a weak spot in our defenses among them. One evening a young lady from a friend's family, living in a large, fine house nearly a mile away, was with us, and the talk turned on rats, as we heard ours scampering up and down the walls.

The young lady said that none had ever been in their house, and she did not think there was any point at which they could enter. My eldest daughter, a great wit, said: "I've heard that, if politely invited to do so in writing, rats will leave any house and go to any other to which they may be directed, and I will tell ours that at your house they will find spacious quarters and an excellent commissariat."

At the moment, before us all, she wrote the most grandiloquent letter to the large family of rats that had so favored us with their presence, pointing out to them that at No. 65 Pearl Street was a large, fine house which had never been favored with the residence of any of their family, where they would find ample quarters and a fat larder. When finished, she read the missive to the company, and we had a great laugh over it. As an old superstition, she then put lard upon it, and carried it into the attic, where it would probably be found by those to whom it was directed.

A few days later the young lady was at our house again, and burst into a laugh, exclaiming: "Our house is overrun with rats!" That recalled to us the fact that we had heard none in our walls. My daughter went to the attic, and the letter was gone. While they were talking and laughing over the curious affair, a friend came in, and, hearing the talk, said that two evenings before, in the bright moonlight, he saw several rats running down Congress Street, which was the straight road to Pearl Street. We have never been troubled with them since, but I have not heard how it has been with the house to which our beneficiaries were directed.

SAGACIOUS DOGS.

The following story is told by the Chinese minister at Washington:

"There was a Chinaman who had three dogs. When he came home one evening he found them asleep on his couch of teakwood and marble. He whipped them and drove them forth.

"The next night, when he came home, the dogs were lying on the floor. But he placed his hand on the couch and found it warm from their bodies. Therefore, he gave them another whipping.

"The third night, returning earlier than usual, he found the dogs sitting before the couch, blowing on it to cool it."--_Philadelphia North American._

RESIGNED TO THEIR FATE.

A man out West says he moved so often during one year that whenever covered wagons stopped at the gate his chickens would fall on their backs and hold up their feet in order to be tied and thrown in.--_Boston Journal._

SCIENCE WAS FROST-BITTEN.

The cold weather of yesterday morning found its way into Alonzo Murphy's kitchen, at Mount Freedom, New Jersey, and killed a specimen of the vegetable kingdom that for months had been the pride of Mr. Murphy's heart, and with which he expected to revolutionize dairying and strawberry culture.

It has long been a cherished idea of Mr. Murphy's that by a judicious crossing of the milkweed and strawberry it would be possible to produce strawberries and cream from the same plant.

Last fall he grafted several strawberry plants on plants of the milkweed. One grew sturdily, close by Mr. Murphy's kitchen range, and was in full fruitage when it succumbed to the cold that entered the room when the fire in the range by accident went out.

That the experiment was entirely successful is shown by the fact that each strawberry when examined was found to contain a quantity of ice-cream varying from a few drops to a teaspoonful, depending on the size of the berry.

Mr. Murphy is not discouraged by his ill luck, and promises to repeat the experiment next summer.--_New York Tribune._

ROASTING FLYING GEESE.

During the great famine in Rome and southern Italy in Nero's time, when the country was filled with the victorious Roman legions who had returned from foreign parts, the people observed countless numbers of wild geese flying about at very high elevations, but they could not be caught until one of the Roman generals, suspecting that the geese, like the people, must be hungry, experimented by shooting arrows baited with worms up among them.

The geese swallowed the bait, arrows and all, with great avidity, thus showing that they would swallow anything; but how to catch them was the question, until one of the wise men of the emperor's household, remembering the stories told by Tacitus of geese being cooked by heat from Mount Vesuvius, consulted Nero's head cook, the great _chef_ Claudius Flavius, and he devised a practical means of having them drawn before cooking by scattering a large quantity of teazels and chestnut burrs on the sides of Vesuvius.

The geese in countless numbers at once gulped these down, and in the course of twenty-four hours their whole internal economy, including crop and gizzard, being absolutely clean, he then had an enormous quantity of Roman chestnuts (same as the Italian nuts of the present time) scattered around the crater of the volcano; and the birds feeding on them and then flying about in the hot air were beautifully roasted while well stuffed with the finest chestnut dressing, so that they could be fed to the famine-stricken people.

And what is still more remarkable, it was found that the livers of the geese were encysted in a sack of fat, producing substantially _pate de foie gras_, and when the Gauls who captured Rome in the sixth century returned home they took some of this toothsome food along, and from that day till this it has been prepared in Strassburg and vicinity in large quantities.--_Rome Correspondence of New York Sun._

Doomed to Live.

BY HONORE DE BALZAC.

The great fame of Honore de Balzac (1799-1850) will of
course always rest upon the wonderful series of novels which
he linked together in the scores of volumes which make up
his "Human Comedy." In this, with a genius which rivals that
of Shakespeare, he attempted to give a complete picture of
human society on all its sides--"to do for human nature what
has been done for zoology"--to demonstrate that society is a
unity in its composition diversified by evolution in
different directions. He called himself "the secretary of
society," and sought to write a history of manners, in which
he should shrink from nothing, and should range from virtue
and religion to the most frightful forms of vice and
passion.

Balzac's "Human Comedy," which Zola compared to a palace
reared by giants, is so often praised as to make one
sometimes lose sight of Balzac's supreme art in the
composition of short stories. Some of these, however, are
classics in themselves, and show the power of a master
exercised in his idle moments. The example here republished
is an excellent illustration of his ability to produce
within a small compass those effects of breathless interest,
suspense, and horror which he exhibits on a gigantic scale
in his novels.

The story entitled "Doomed to Live" shows admirably the
interplay of love and hatred, of military ferocity, of
filial affection, and of that haughty Spanish pride which
sacrifices the individual to the claims of high descent. The
story is said to have been founded upon fact--on one of the
extraordinary episodes which occurred during the time when
Napoleon's troops overran and dominated, but failed to
conquer, Spain.

The clock of the little town of Menda had just struck midnight. At this moment a young French officer was leaning on the parapet of a long terrace which bounded the gardens of the castle. He seemed plunged in the deepest thought--a circumstance unusual amid the thoughtlessness of military life; but it must be owned that never were the hour, the night, and the place more propitious for meditation.

The beautiful Spanish sky stretched out its azure dome above his head. The glittering stars and the soft moonlight lit up a charming valley that unfolded all its beauties at his feet. Leaning against a blossoming orange-tree he could see, a hundred feet below him, the town of Menda, which seemed to have been placed for shelter from the north winds at the foot of the rock on which the castle was built.

As he turned his head he could see the sea, framing the landscape with a broad silver sheet of glistening water. The castle was a blaze of light. The mirth and movement of a ball, the music of the orchestra, the laughter of the officers and their partners in the dance, were borne to him mingled with the distant murmur of the waves. The freshness of the night imparted a sort of energy to his limbs, weary with the heat of the day.

Above all, the gardens were planted with trees so aromatic, and flowers so fragrant, that the young man stood plunged, as it were, in a bath of perfumes.

The castle of Menda belonged to a Spanish grandee, then living there with his family. During the whole of the evening his eldest daughter had looked at the officer with an interest so tinged with sadness that the sentiment of compassion thus expressed by the Spaniard might well call up a reverie in the Frenchman's mind.

Clara was beautiful, and although she had three brothers and a sister, the wealth of the Marquis de Leganes seemed great enough for Victor Marchand to believe that the young lady would have a rich dowry. But how dare he hope that the most bigoted old hidalgo in all Spain would ever give his daughter to the son of a Parisian grocer?

Besides, the French were hated. The Marquis was suspected by General Gautier, who governed the province, of planning a revolt in favor of Ferdinand VII. For this reason the battalion commanded by Victor Marchand had been cantonned in the little town of Menda, to hold the neighboring hamlets, which were dependent on the Marquis, in check.

Recent despatches from Marshal Ney had given ground for fear that the English would shortly land on the coast, and had indicated the Marquis as a man who carried on communication with the cabinet of London.

In spite, therefore, of the welcome which the Spaniard had given him and his soldiers, the young officer, Victor Marchand, remained constantly on his guard. As he was directing his steps toward the terrace, whither he had come to examine the state of the town and the country districts entrusted to his care, he debated how he ought to interpret the friendliness which the Marquis had unceasingly shown him, and how the tranquillity of the country could be reconciled with his general's uneasiness. But in one moment these thoughts were driven from his mind by a feeling of caution and well-grounded curiosity.

He had just perceived a considerable number of lights in the town. In spite of the day being the Feast of St. James, he had given orders, that very morning, that all lights should be extinguished at the hour prescribed by his regulations; the castle alone being excepted from this order.

He could plainly see, here and there, the gleam of his soldiers' bayonets at their accustomed posts; but there was a solemnity in the silence, and nothing to suggest that the Spaniards were a prey to the excitement of a festival.

After having sought to explain the offense of which the inhabitants were guilty, the mystery appeared all the more unaccountable to him, because he had left officers in charge of the night police and the rounds. With all the impetuosity of youth, he was just about to leap through a breach and descend the rocks in haste, and thus arrive more quickly than by the ordinary road at a small outpost placed at the entrance of the town nearest to the castle, when a faint sound stopped him.

He thought he heard the light footfall of a woman upon the gravel walk. He turned his head and saw nothing; but his gaze was arrested by the extraordinary brightness of the sea. All of a sudden he beheld a sight so portentous that he stood dumfounded; he thought that his senses deceived him. In the far distance he could distinguish sails gleaming white in the moonlight.

He trembled and tried to convince himself that this vision was an optical illusion, merely the fantastic effect of the moon on the waves.

At this moment a hoarse voice pronounced his name.

He looked toward the breach, and saw slowly rising above it the head of the soldier whom he had ordered to accompany him to the castle.

"Is that you, commandant?"

"Yes; what do you want?" replied the young man in a low voice. A sort of presentiment warned him to be cautious.

"Those rascals down there are stirring like worms. I have hurried, with your leave, to tell you of my own little observations."

"Go on," said Victor Marchand.

"I have just followed a man from the castle who came in this direction with a lantern in his hand. A lantern's a frightfully suspicious thing. I don't fancy it was tapers my fine Catholic was going to light at this time of night. 'They want to eat us body and bones!' says I to myself; so I went on his track to reconnoiter. There, on a ledge of rock, not three paces from here, I discovered a great heap of fagots."

Suddenly a terrible shriek rang through the town and cut the soldier short. At the same instant a gleam of light flashed before the commandant. The poor grenadier received a ball in the head and fell. A fire of straw and dry wood burst into flame like a house on fire, not ten paces from the young man.

The sound of the instruments and the laughter ceased in the ballroom. The silence of death, broken only by groans, had suddenly succeeded to the noises and music of the feast. The fire of a cannon roared over the surface of the sea.

Cold sweat trickled down the young officer's forehead; he had no sword. He understood that his men had been slaughtered, and the English were about to disembark.

If he lived he saw himself dishonored, summoned before a council of war. Then he measured with his eyes the depth of the valley. He sprang forward, when just at that moment his hand was seized by the hand of Clara.

"Fly!" said she; "my brothers are following to kill you. Down yonder at the foot of the rock you will find Juanito's horse. Quick!"

The young man looked at her for a moment, stupefied. She pushed him on; then, obeying the instinct of self-preservation, which never forsakes even the bravest man, he rushed down the park in the direction she had indicated. He leapt from rock to rock, where only the goats had ever trod before; he heard Clara crying out to her brothers to pursue him; he heard the footsteps of the assassins; he heard the balls of several discharges whistle about his ears; but he reached the valley, he found the horse, mounted, and disappeared swift as lightning.

In a few hours he arrived at the quarters occupied by General Gautier. He found him at dinner with his staff.

"I bring you my life in my hand!" cried the commandant, his face pale and haggard.

He sat down and related the horrible disaster. A dreadful silence greeted his story.

"You appear to me to be more unfortunate than criminal," said the terrible general at last. "You are not accountable for the crime of the Spaniards, and unless the marshal decides otherwise, I acquit you."

These words could give the unfortunate officer but slight consolation.

"But when the Emperor hears of it!" he exclaimed.

"He will want to have you shot," said the general. "However----But we will talk no more about it," he added severely, "except how we are to take such a revenge as will strike wholesome fear upon this country, where they carry on war like savages."

One hour afterward, a whole regiment, a detachment of cavalry, and a convoy of artillery were on the road. The general and Victor marched at the head of the column. The soldiers, informed of the massacre of their comrades, were filled with extraordinary fury.

The distance which separated the town of Menda from the general quarters was passed with marvelous rapidity. On the road the general found whole villages under arms. Each of these wretched townships was surrounded and their inhabitants decimated.

By some inexplicable fatality, the English ships stood off instead of advancing. It was known afterward that these vessels had outstripped the rest of the transports and only carried artillery. Thus the town of Menda, deprived of the defenders she was expecting, and which the sight of the English vessels had seemed to assure, was surrounded by the French troops almost without striking a blow. The inhabitants, seized with terror, offered to surrender at discretion.

Then followed one of those instances of devotion not rare in the Peninsula. The assassins of the French, foreseeing, from the cruelty of the general, that Menda would probably be given over to the flames and the whole population put to the sword, offered to denounce themselves. The general accepted this offer, inserting as a condition that the inhabitants of the castle, from the lowest valet to the Marquis himself, should be placed in his hands.

This capitulation agreed upon, the general promised to pardon the rest of the population and to prevent his soldiers from pillaging or setting fire to the town. An enormous contribution was exacted, and the richest inhabitants gave themselves up as hostages to guarantee the payment, which was to be accomplished within twenty-four hours.

The general took all precautions necessary for the safety of his troops, provided for the defense of the country, and refused to lodge his men in the houses. After having formed a camp, he went up and took military possession of the castle. The members of the family of Leganes and the servants were gagged, and shut up in the great hall where the ball had taken place, and closely watched.

The windows of the apartment afforded a full view of the terrace which commanded the town. The staff was established in a neighboring gallery, and the general proceeded at once to hold a council of war on the measures to be taken for opposing the debarkation.

After having despatched an aide-de-camp to Marshal Ney, with orders to plant batteries along the coast, the general and his staff turned their attention to the prisoners. Two hundred Spaniards, whom the inhabitants had surrendered, were shot down upon the terrace.

After this military execution, the general ordered as many gallows to be erected on the terrace as there were prisoners in the hall of the castle, and the town executioner to be brought. Victor Marchand made use of the time from then until dinner to go and visit the prisoners. He soon returned to the general.

"I have come," said he, in a voice broken with emotion, "to ask you a favor."

"You?" said the general, in a tone of bitter irony.

"Alas!" replied Victor, "it is but a melancholy errand that I am come on. The Marquis has seen the gallows being erected, and expresses a hope that you will change the mode of execution for his family; he entreats you to have the nobles beheaded."

"So be it!" said the general.

"They further ask you to allow them the last consolations of religion, and to take off their bonds; they promise not to attempt to escape."

"I consent," said the general; "but you must be answerable for them."

"The old man also offers you the whole of his fortune if you will pardon his young son."

"Really!" said the general. "His goods already belong to King Joseph; he is under arrest." His brow contracted scornfully, then he added: "I will go beyond what they ask. I understand now the importance of the last request. Well, let him buy the eternity of his name, but Spain shall remember forever his treachery and its punishment. I give up the fortune and his life to whichever of his sons will fulfil the office of executioner. Go, and do not speak to me of it again."

Dinner was ready, and the officers sat down to table to satisfy appetites sharpened by fatigue.

One of them only, Victor Marchand, was not present at the banquet. He hesitated for a long time before he entered the room. The haughty family of Leganes were in their agony.

He glanced sadly at the scene before him; in this very room, only the night before, he had watched the fair heads of those two young girls and those three youths as they circled in the excitement of the dance. He shuddered when he thought how soon they must fall, struck off by the sword of the headsman. Fastened to their gilded chairs, the father and mother, their three sons and their two young daughters, sat absolutely motionless.

Eight serving-men stood upright before them, their hands bound behind their backs. These fifteen persons looked at one another gravely, their eyes scarcely betraying the thoughts that surged within them. Only profound resignation and regret for the failure of their enterprise left any mark upon the features of some of them.

The soldiers stood likewise motionless, looking at them, and respecting the affliction of their cruel enemies. An expression of curiosity lit up their faces when Victor appeared. He gave the order to unbind the condemned, and went himself to loose the cords which fastened Clara to her chair. She smiled sadly. He could not refrain from touching her arm, and looking with admiring eyes at her black locks and graceful figure. She was a true Spaniard; she had the Spanish complexion and the Spanish eyes, with their long curled lashes and pupils blacker than the raven's wing.

"Have you been successful?" she said, smiling upon him mournfully.

Victor could not suppress a groan. He looked, one after the other, at Clara and her three brothers. One, the eldest, was aged thirty; he was small, even somewhat ill made, with a proud, disdainful look, but there was a certain nobleness in his bearing; he seemed no stranger to that delicacy of feeling which elsewhere has rendered the chivalry of Spain so famous. His name was Juanito. The second, Felipe, aged about twenty; he was like Clara. The youngest was eight, Manuel; a painter would have found in his features a trace of that Roman steadfastness which David has given to children's faces in his episodes of the republic. The old Marquis, his head still covered with white locks, seemed to have come forth from a picture of Murillo.

The young officer shook his head. When he looked at them, he was hopeless that he would ever see the bargain proposed by the general accepted by any of the four; nevertheless, he ventured to impart it to Clara.

At first she shuddered, Spaniard though she was; then, immediately recovering her calm demeanor, she went and knelt down before her father.

"Father," she said, "make Juanito swear to obey faithfully any orders that you give him, and we shall be content."

The Marquise trembled with hope; but when she leant toward her husband, and heard--she who was a mother--the horrible confidence whispered by Clara, she swooned away. Juanito understood all; he leapt up like a lion in its cage. After obtaining an assurance of perfect submission from the Marquis, Victor took upon himself to send away the soldiers. The servants were led out, handed over to the executioner, and hanged. When the family had no guard but Victor to watch them, the old father rose, and said, "Juanito."

Juanito made no answer except by a movement of the head, equivalent to a refusal; then he fell back in his seat, and stared at his parents with eyes dry and terrible to look upon. Clara went and sat on his knee, put her arm round his neck, and kissed his eyelids.

"My dear Juanito," she said gaily, "if thou didst only know how sweet death would be to me if it were given by thee, I should not have to endure the odious touch of the headsman's hands. Thou wilt cure me of the woes that were in store for me--and, dear Juanito, thou couldst not bear to see me belong to another, well----" Her soft eyes cast one look of fire at Victor, as if to awaken in Juanito's heart his horror of the French.

"Have courage," said his brother Felipe, "or our race, that has almost given kings to Spain, will be extinct."

Suddenly Clara rose, the group which had formed round Juanito separated, and this son, dutiful in his disobedience, saw his aged father standing before him, and heard him cry, in a solemn voice, "Juanito, I command thee."

The young count remained motionless. His father fell on his knees before him; Clara, Manuel, and Felipe did the same instinctively. They all stretched out their hands to him as to one who was to save their family from oblivion; they seemed to repeat their father's words--"My son, hast thou lost the energy, the true chivalry of Spain? How long wilt thou leave thy father on his knees? What right hast thou to think of thine own life and its suffering? Madame, is this a son of mine?" continued the old man, turning to his wife.

"He consents," cried she in despair. She saw a movement in Juanito's eyelids, and she alone understood its meaning.

Mariquita, the second daughter, still knelt on her knees, and clasped her mother in her fragile arms; her little brother Manuel, seeing her weeping hot tears, began to chide her. At this moment the almoner of the castle came in; he was immediately surrounded by the rest of the family and brought to Juanito.

Victor could bear this scene no longer; he made a sign to Clara, and hastened away to make one last effort with the general. He found him in high good humor in the middle of the banquet drinking with his officers; they were beginning to make merry.

An hour later a hundred of the principal inhabitants of Menda came up to the terrace, in obedience to the general's orders, to witness the execution of the family of Leganes. A detachment of soldiers was drawn up to keep back these Spanish burghers who were ranged under the gallows on which the servants of the Marquis still hung. The feet of these martyrs almost touched their heads. Thirty yards from them a block had been set up, and by it gleamed a scimitar. The headsman also was present, in case of Juanito's refusal.

Presently, in the midst of the profoundest silence, the Spaniards heard the footsteps of several persons approaching, the measured tread of a company of soldiers, and the faint clinking of their muskets. These diverse sounds were mingled with the merriment of the officers' banquet; just as before it was the music of the dance which had concealed preparations for a treacherous massacre.

All eyes were turned toward the castle; the noble family was seen advancing with incredible dignity. Every face was calm and serene; one man only leant, pale and haggard, on the arm of the priest. Upon this man he lavished all the consolations of religion--upon the only one of them doomed to live. The executioner understood, as did all the rest, that for that day Juanito had undertaken the office himself.

The aged Marquis and his wife, Clara, Mariquita, and their two brothers, came and knelt down a few steps from the fatal spot. Juanito was led thither by the priest. As he approached the block the executioner touched him by the sleeve and drew him aside, probably to give him certain instructions.

The confessor placed the victims in such a position that they could not see the executioner; but like true Spaniards, they knelt erect with no sign of emotion.

Clara was the first to spring forward to her brother. "Juanito," she said, "have pity on my faint-heartedness; begin with me."

At that moment they heard the footsteps of a man running at full speed, and Victor arrived on the tragic scene. Clara was already on her knees, already her white neck seemed to invite the edge of the scimitar. A deadly pallor fell upon the officer, but he still found strength to run on.

"The general grants thee thy life if thou wilt marry me," he said to her in a low voice.

The Spaniard cast a look of proud disdain on the officer.

"Strike, Juanito," she said, in a voice of profound meaning.

Her head rolled at Victor's feet. When the Marquise heard the sound, a convulsive start escaped her; this was the only sign of her affliction.

"Ah, thou weepest, Mariquita!" said Juanito to his sister.

"Yes," answered the girl; "I was thinking of thee, my poor Juanito; thou wilt be so unhappy without us."

At length the noble figure of the Marquis appeared. He looked at the blood of his children; then he turned to the spectators, who stood mute and motionless before him. He stretched out his hands to Juanito and said, in a firm voice:

"Spaniards, I give my son a father's blessing. Now, Marquis, strike without fear, as thou art without fault."

But when Juanito saw his mother approach, supported by the confessor, he groaned aloud, "She fed me at her own breast." His cry seemed to tear a shout of horror from the lips of the crowd. At this terrible sound the noise of the banquet and the laughter and the merrymaking of the officers died away.

The Marquise comprehended that Juanito's courage was exhausted. With one leap she had thrown herself over the balustrade, and her head was dashed to pieces against the rocks below. A shout of admiration burst forth. Juanito fell to the ground in a swoon.

"Marchand has been telling me about this execution," said a half-drunken officer. "I'll warrant, gentlemen, it wasn't by our orders that----"

"Have you forgotten, Messieurs," cried General Gautier, "that during the next month there will be five hundred French families in tears--that we are in Spain? Do you wish to leave your bones here?"

After this speech there was not a man, not even a sub-lieutenant, who dared to empty his glass.

In spite of the respect with which he is surrounded--in spite of the title of El Verdugo (the executioner), bestowed upon him as a title of nobility by the King of Spain--the Marquis de Leganes is a prey to melancholy. He lives in solitude, and is rarely seen.

Overwhelmed with the load of his glorious crime, he seems only to await the birth of a second son, impatient to seek again the company of those Shades who are about his path continually.

The World's Richest Legacy.

Immured in an Asylum, a True Son of Nature Who Had Won Distinction
at the Bar Wrote a Will, Which Only the Divine Surrogate Can Set
Aside, Bequeathing Priceless Possessions to Mankind.

How few men know their riches! What is ours is ours only in
so far as we are conscious of it, and so that which we
accept without thought, which has no especial meaning to us,
is not a real possession. You may have three or four hundred
leaves of paper, covered with rows of printed characters and
bound together between boards of leather, and yet you may
not own a book.

Do you look upon the mountain and the stream and exclaim:
"These are mine!" If not, then you have ignored Nature's
dower to you. Do you realize that your individual possession
in art is as broad as art itself? If not, you are refusing
man's free gift to man. It is easy for almost any man or
woman to be rich; the only thing that is hard is to learn to
know real gold when you see it.

The most sensible will ever written was made by an insane
man. He was Charles Lounsberry, once a prominent member of
the Chicago bar, who in his later years lost his mind and
was committed to the Cook County Asylum, at Dunning, where
he died penniless. If he had lost his mind, he had kept his
heart, or at least in his last moments he was endowed with a
lucidity that was higher than logic. For this strange man,
penniless though he was, knew that he was yet rich, and he
made a will which, as the Chicago _Record-Herald_ said, was
"framed with such perfection of form and detail that no flaw
could be found in its legal phraseology or matters."

Inasmuch as poor, mad Charles Lounsberry knew gold from
dross, we here reprint his curious and interesting will.

I, =Charles Lounsberry=, being of sound and disposing mind and memory, do hereby make and publish this, my last will and testament, in order, as justly as may be, to distribute my interest in the world among succeeding men.

That part of my interest, which is known in law and recognized in the sheep-bound volumes as my property, being inconsiderable and of none account, I make no disposition of in this, my will. My right to live, being but a life estate, is not at my disposal, but these things excepted, all else in the world I now proceed to devise and bequeath.

=Item=: I give to good fathers and mothers in trust for their children, all good little words of praise and encouragement, and all quaint pet names and endearments, and I charge said parents to use them justly, but generously, as the needs of their children shall require.

=Item=: I leave to children inclusively, but only for the term of their childhood, all and every, the flowers of the fields, and the blossoms of the woods, with the right to play among them freely according to the customs of children, warning them at the same time against thistles and thorns. And I devise to children the banks of the brooks and the golden sands beneath the waters thereof, and the odors of the willows that dip therein and the white clouds that float high over the giant trees. And I leave to children the long, long days to be merry in, in a thousand ways, and the night, and the moon, and the train of the Milky Way to wonder at, but subject, nevertheless, to the rights hereinafter given to lovers.

=Item=: I devise to boys jointly, all the useful, idle fields and commons where ball may be played; all pleasant waters where one may swim; all snow-clad hills where one may coast; and all streams and ponds where one may fish, or where, when grim winter comes, one may skate, to have and to hold these same for the period of their boyhood. And all meadows, with the clover blossoms and butterflies thereof; the woods with their appurtenances, the squirrels and the birds and echoes and strange noises, and all distant places which may be visited, together with the adventures there found. And I give to said boys each his own place at the fireside at night, with all the pictures that may be seen in the burning wood, to enjoy without let or hindrance, and without any encumbrance of care.

=Item=: To lovers, I devise their imaginary world with whatever they may need, as the stars of the sky, the red roses by the wall, the bloom of the hawthorn, the sweet strains of music, and aught else they may desire to figure to each other the lastingness and beauty of their love.

=Item=: To young men, jointly, I devise and bequeath all boisterous, inspiring sports of rivalry, and I give to them the disdain of weakness and undaunted confidence in their own strength. Though they are rude, I leave to them the power to make lasting friendships, and of possessing companions, and to them exclusively, I give all merry songs and brave choruses to sing with lusty voices.

=Item=: And to those who are no longer children, or youths, or lovers, I leave memory, and I bequeath to them the volumes of the poems of Burns and Shakespeare and of other poems, if there be others, to the end that they may live the old days over again, freely and fully without title or diminution.

=Item=: To our loved ones with snowy crowns, I bequeath the happiness of old age, the love and gratitude of their children until they fall asleep.

THE LAUGHTER OF CHILDHOOD.

The laugh of a child will make the holiest day more sacred
still. Strike with hand of fire, O weird musician, thy harp
strung with Apollo's golden hair, fill the vast cathedral
aisles with symphonies sweet and dim, deft toucher of the
organ keys; blow, bugler, blow, until thy silver notes do
touch and kiss the moonlit waves, and charm the lovers
wandering 'mid vine-clad hills. But know your sweetest
strains are discords all, compared with childhood's happy
laugh--the laugh that fills the eyes with light and every
heart with joy.