Chapter M: E. Braddon (11)

"It is necessary. You have I trusted most of all. You alone know my secret agents in the city. On your fidelity depend not only their fortunes, but their lives. I believe you are one of the very few who have acted faithfully to our cause, and, while you have passed as a spy of the enemy, have never given intelligence that you were not permitted to divulge. It is impossible to do you justice now, but I fearlessly entrust you with this certificate. Remember, in me you will always have a secret friend, though openly I cannot know you. It is now my duty to pay you your postponed reward."

"Does your excellency think I have exposed my life and blasted my character for money? No, not a dollar of your gold will I touch! Poor America has need of it all!"

"But remember, the veil that conceals your true character cannot be raised. The prime of your days is already past. What have you to subsist on?"

"These," exclaimed Harvey Birch, stretching forth his hands.

"The characters of men much esteemed depend on your secrecy. What pledge can I give them of your fidelity?"

"Tell them," said Birch, "that I would not take the gold."

The officer grasped the hand of the pedlar as he exclaimed, "Now, indeed, I know you!"

* * * * *

It was thirty-three years after the interview just related that an American army was once more arrayed against the troops of England; but the scene was transferred from the banks of the Hudson to those of the Niagara.

The body of Washington had long lain mouldering in the tomb, but his name was hourly receiving new lustre as his worth and integrity became more visible.

The sound of cannon and musketry was heard above the roar of the cataract. On both sides repeated and bloody charges had been made. While the action was raging an old man wandering near was seen to throw down suddenly a bundle he was carrying and to seize a musket from a fallen soldier. He plunged headlong into the thick of the fight, and bore himself as valiantly as the best of the American soldiers. When, in the evening, the order was given to the shattered troops to return to camp, Captain Wharton Dunwoodie found that his lieutenant was missing, and taking a lighted fusee, he went himself in quest of the body. The lieutenant was found on the side of the hill seated with great composure, but unable to walk from a fractured leg.

"Ah, dear Tom," exclaimed Dunwoodie, "I knew I should find you the nearest man to the enemy!"

"No," said the lieutenant. "There is a brave fellow nearer than myself. He rushed out of our smoke to make a prisoner, and he never came back. He lies just over the hillock."

Dunwoodie went to the spot and found an aged stranger. He lay on his back, his eyes closed as if in slumber, and his hands pressed on his breast contained something that glittered like silver.

The subject of his care was a tin box, through which the bullet had pierced to find a way to his heart, and the dying moments of the old man must have been passed in drawing it from his bosom.

Dunwoodie opened it, and found a paper on which he read:

"Circumstances of political importance, which involve the lives and fortunes of many, have hitherto kept secret what this paper reveals. Harvey Birch has for years been a faithful and unrequited servant of his country. Though man does not, may God reward him for his conduct! GEO. WASHINGTON."

It was the spy of the neutral ground, who died as he had lived, devoted to his country.

* * * * *

MRS. CRAIK

John Halifax, Gentleman

Dinah Maria Mulock, whose fame as a novelist rests entirely
on "John Halifax, Gentleman," was born at Stoke-upon-Trent,
England, on April 20, 1826. She was thirty-one when "John
Halifax" came out, and immediately found herself one of the
most popular novelists, her story having a great vogue
throughout the English-speaking world, and being translated
into half a dozen languages, including Greek and Russian. In
1864 Miss Mulock married George Lillie Craik, and until her
death, on October 12, 1887, she actively engaged herself in
literary work. In all, forty-six works stand to her credit,
but none show unusual literary power. Even "John Halifax"
leaves much to be desired, and its great popularity arises,
perhaps, from its sentimental interest. The character of the
hero, conceived on the most conventional lines, has at least
the charm that comes from the contemplation of a strong and
upright man, and although many better stories have not enjoyed
one tithe of its popularity, "John Halifax, Gentleman" still
deserves to be read as a wholesome and profitable story.

_I.--The Tanner's Apprentice_

"Get out o' Mr. Fletcher's road, you idle, lounging, little----"

"Vagabond" was no doubt what Sally Watkins, the old nurse of Phineas Fletcher, was going to say, but she had changed her mind in looking again at the lad, who, ragged and miserable as he was, was anything but a "vagabond."

On their way home a downpour of rain had drawn Mr. Fletcher and his son Phineas to shelter in the covered alley that led to Sally's house. Mr. Fletcher pushed the little hand-carriage in which his weak and ailing son was seated into the alley. The ragged boy, who had also been sheltering there, lent a hand in bringing Phineas out of the rain, Mr. Fletcher saying to him kindly, after Sally's outburst, "Thee need not go into the wet. Keep close to the wall, and there will be shelter enough both for us and thee."

Mr. Fletcher was a wealthy tanner in Norton Bury. Years ago his wife had died, leaving him with their only child, Phineas, now a sickly boy of sixteen.

The ragged lad, who had seemed very grateful for the Quaker's kind words to him, stood leaning idly against the wall, looking at the rain that splashed on the pavement of the High Street. He was a boy perhaps of fourteen years; but, despite his serious and haggard face, he was tall and strongly built, with muscular limbs and square, broad shoulders, so that he looked seventeen or more. The puny boy in the hand-carriage was filled with admiration for the manly bearing of the poor lad.

The rain at length gave promise of ceasing, and Mr. Fletcher, pulling out his great silver watch, never known to be wrong, said, "Twenty-three minutes lost by this shower. Phineas, my son, how am I to get thee home? Unless thee wilt go with me to the tanyard--"

Phineas shook his head, and his father then called to Sally Watkins if she knew of anyone who would wheel him home. But at the moment Sally did not hear, and the ragged boy mustered courage to speak for the first time?"

"Sir, I want work; may I earn a penny?" he said, taking off his tattered old cap and looking straight into Mr. Fletcher's face. The old man scanned the honest face of the lad very closely.

"What is thy name, lad?"

"John Halifax."

"Where dost thee come from?"

"Cornwall."

"Hast thee any parents living?"

The lad answered that he had not, and to many other questions with which the tanner plied him he returned straightforward answers. He was promised a groat if he would see Phineas safely home when the rain had ceased, and was asked if he would care to take the piece of silver now.

"Not till I've earned it, sir," said the Cornish lad. So Mr. Fletcher slipped the money into his boy's hand and left them. Only a few words were spoken between the two lads for a little while after he had gone, and John Halifax stood idly looking across the narrow street at the mayor's house, with its steps and porticoes, and its fourteen windows, one of which was open, showing a cluster of little heads within. The mayor's children seemed to be amused, watching the shivering shelterers in the alley; but presently a somewhat older child appeared among them, and then went away from the window quickly. Soon afterwards a front door was partly opened by someone whom another was endeavoring to restrain, for the boys on the other side of the street could hear loud words from behind the door.

"I will! I say I will----"

"You sha'n't, Miss Ursula!"

"But I will!" And there stood the young girl, with a loaf in one hand and a carving-knife in the other. She hastily cut off a slice of bread.

"Take it, poor boy! You look so hungry," she said. "Do take it!" But the door was shut again upon a sharp cry of pain; the headstrong little girl had cut her wrist with the knife.

In a little, John Halifax went across and picked up the slice of bread which had fallen on the doorstep. At the best of times, wheaten bread was then a dainty to the poor, and perhaps the Cornish lad had not tasted a morsel of it for months.

Phineas, from the moment he had set eyes on John, liked the lad, and living a very lonely life, with no playfellows and no friends of his own age, he longed to be friends with this strong-looking, honest youth who had come so suddenly into his life, while John had been so tender in helping Phineas home that the Quaker boy felt sure he would make a worthy friend.

It later appeared that John had heard of his own father as a sad, solemn sort of man, much given to reading. He had been described to him as "a scholar and a gentleman," and John had determined that he, too, would be a scholar and a gentleman. He was only an infant when his father died, and his mother, left very poor, had a sore struggle until her own death, when the boy was only eleven years old. Since then the lonely lad had been wandering about the country getting odd jobs at farms; at other times almost starving.

Thus had he wandered to Norton Bury; and now, thanks to Phineas, Mr. Fletcher gave him a job at the tannery, although at first the worthy Quaker was not altogether sure of John's character.

Soon, however, the two lads were fast friends, and spent much of their time together. John Halifax could read, but he had not yet learnt to write; so Phineas became his friendly tutor, and repaid his devotion by teaching him all he knew.

The years wore away, John Halifax labouring faithfully, if not always contentedly, in the tannery; and in time, old Mr. Fletcher finding him worthy of the highest trust, John came to be manager of the business, and to live in the house of his master. In knowledge, too, he had grown, for Phineas had proved a good tutor, and John so apt a pupil that before long Phineas confessed that John knew more than himself.

_II.--Ursula March_

It happened that John and Phineas were spending the summer days at the rural village of Enderley, where they lived at Rose Cottage. Enderley was not far from Norton Bury, and every day John rode there to look after the tannery and the flour-mill which had recently been added to Mr. Fletcher's now flourishing business.

This Rose Cottage was really two houses, in one of which the young men lived while an invalid gentleman and his daughter occupied the other. John Halifax had noted this young lady in his walks across the breezy downs, and thought her the sweetest creature he had seen. Later, when he got to know that her name was Ursula, he was thrilled with happy memories of the little girl who had thrown him the slice of bread, for he had heard her called by that same name. He wondered if this might be she grown into a young woman.

Ere long he came to know his pretty neighbour, to companion her in rural walks. No artist ever painted a more attractive picture than these two made stepping briskly across the wind-swept uplands; she with her sparkling dark eyes, her great mass of brown curls escaping from her hood, and John with his frank, ruddy face, and his fine, swinging, manly figure.

Ursula's father, who had come here ailing, died at the cottage, and was buried in Enderley churchyard. He had been the same Henry March whose life John had saved years before when the Avon was in flood. He was cousin to Squire Brithwood, who also owed his life to John on the same occasion. Unhappily, Ursula's fortune was left in the keeping of that highly undesirable person.

John was very sad at the thought of Ursula leaving the cottage for the squire's home at Mythe House, for he knew that she had been happier there in the sweet country retreat than she would ever be in the ill-conducted household of her guardian. She, too, had regrets at the thought of going, as John and she had become fast friends. He told her that Mr. Brithwood would probably deny his right to be considered a friend of hers, and would not allow his claim to be thought a gentleman, though a poor one.

"It is right," he pursued, on her expression of surprise, "that you should know who and what I am to whom you are giving the honour of your kindness. Perhaps you ought to have known before; but here at Enderley we seem to be equals--friends."

"I have indeed felt it so."

"Then you will the sooner pardon my not telling you--what you never asked, and I was only too ready to forget--that we are _not_ equals-- that is, society would not regard us as such, and I doubt if even you yourself would wish us to be friends."

"Why not?"

"Because you are a gentlewoman, and I am a tradesman."

She sat--the eyelashes drooping over her flushed cheeks--perfectly silent. John's voice grew firmer, prouder; there was no hesitation now.

"My calling is, as you will hear at Norton Bury, that of a tanner. I am apprentice to Abel Fletcher, Phineas's father."

"Mr. Fletcher!" She looked up at him, with a mingled look of kindliness and pain.

"Ay, Phineas is a little less beneath your notice than I am. He is rich, and has been well educated; I have had to educate myself. I came to Norton Bury six years ago--a beggar-boy. No, not quite so bad as that, for I never begged. I either worked or starved."

The earnestness, the passion of his tone made Miss March lift her eyes, but they fell again.

"Yes, Phineas found me starving in an alley. We stood in the rain opposite the mayor's house. A little girl--you know her, Miss March-- came to the door and threw out to me a bit of bread."

Now indeed she started. "You! Was that you?"

John paused, and his whole manner changed into softness as he resumed.

"I never forgot that little girl. Many a time when I was inclined to do wrong, she kept me right--the remembrance of her sweet face and her kindness."

That face was pressed against the sofa where she sat. Miss March was all but weeping.

"I am glad to have met her again," he went on, "and glad to have been able to do her some small good in return for the infinite good she once did me. I shall bid her farewell now, at once, and altogether."

A quick, involuntary turn of the hidden face seemed to ask him "Why?"

"Because," John said, "the world says we are not equals; and it would be neither for Miss March's honour nor mine did I try to force upon it the truth--which I may prove openly one day--that we _are_ equals."

Miss March looked up at him--it were hard to say with what expression, of pleasure, of pride, or simple astonishment; perhaps a mingling of all; then her eyelids fell. Her left arm was hanging over the sofa, the scar being visible enough. John took the hand, and pressed his lips to the place where the wound had been.

"Poor little hand--blessed little hand!" he murmured. "May God bless it evermore!"

_III.--The Rise of John Halifax_

After John Halifax had returned to Norton Bury he was seized with fever, and for a time his recovery seemed doubtful. In his delirium he called aloud for Ursula, and dreamed that she had come to sit with him, asking him to live for her sake. Phineas, in his anxiety for his friend, brought Ursula to him, and the dream came true, for she did ask him to live for her sake.

Not long after his recovery John Halifax became Mr. Fletcher's partner. Going to London on behalf of the business, he met there the great statesman, Mr. Pitt, who was impressed with the natural abilities of the young man. John's reputation for honesty and sound commonsense had now grown so great at Norton Bury that when he returned there he found himself one of the most respected men in the town.

Although still far from being rich, he was no longer a poor worker, and as Ursula was willing to share his life, they boldly determined to be married, in spite of her guardian, who asserted that John would never touch a penny of Ursula's fortune. They contrived, however, to be happy without it, for he refused to go to law to recover his wife's money, and was determined he would work honestly to support her.

With the death of old Mr. Fletcher, however, came misfortune, for it was found that the tannery was no longer a paying property, and there were only the mills to go on with. At this time Ursula's relative, Lord Luxmore, who was anxious to see the Catholic Emancipation Bill passed, thought he could use John Halifax for his purpose by offering to get him returned to parliament for the "rotten borough" of Kingswell, the member for which was then elected by only fifteen voters. Twelve of these were tenants of Lord Luxmore, and the other three of Phineas. But although John would have supported the Bill, he was too honest to let himself be elected for a "rotten borough." So he declined, and Luxmore next tried to win him over by offering the lease of some important cloth-mills he owned; but these he would not take on credit, and he had no money to pay for them.

At this juncture, Ursula told Luxmore about the behaviour of his kinsman Brithwood, with the result that his lordship went to Brithwood and made him turn over the money to her. When John now purchased the lease of the mills, his lordship thought that he had secured him firmly, and that Halifax would use his great and growing influence with the people of the district to further Luxmore's political schemes.

While all this was going on, young Lord Ravenel, the son and heir of Luxmore, had been a constant visitor at the Halifax home, and delighted in the company of John's daughter. Halifax had now three children: two boys, named Guy and Edmund, and Muriel, who, alas! had been born blind. Perhaps on account of her infirmity she had been the pet of her parents; but she was of a gentle nature, and was beautiful to look upon, even with her sightless eyes.

The time for the election of the member for Kingswell had come round, and as Luxmore had failed to induce John Halifax to stand, he put up a pliable nominee. But he was greatly mistaken in supposing that John would use his influence to make the handful of voters, most of whom were employed in his mills, vote for Luxmore's man. Instead of that, Halifax advised them to be honest, and vote as they thought right; with the result that Luxmore promptly evicted them from their homes. But John found new homes for them.

As his riches increased, he bought a stately country mansion, named Beechwood, not far from Rose Cottage, ever dear in memory to him. Another son, Walter, was born there, and everything seemed to smile on him in his beautiful country home. Luxmore now sought to injure him by diverting the water from his cloth-mills, and leaving his great wheels idle. Halifax could have taken him to law; but, instead of that, he set up a strange, new-fangled thing, called a steam-engine; and his mills did better than ever.

Finding it useless to fight against the resourceful Halifax, Luxmore went abroad, and left his son, Lord Ravenel, alone at Luxmore Hall. The young man, despite his father's unfriendly conduct, was still a frequent visitor at Beechwood, and when poor Muriel died, his grief at her loss was only less than that of her parents.

The years passed by, and happiness still reigned at Beechwood; but Ravenel had deserted them, until one day John Halifax met him, greatly changed from the gentle youth of the past, at Norton Bury. John invited him to ride over with him to Enderley.

"Enderly? How strange the word sounds! Yet I should like to see the place again," said Ravenel, who decided to accompany John Halifax and Phineas Fletcher in their drive back to Beechwood. He inquired kindly for all the family, and was told that Guy and Walter were as tall as himself, while the daughter----

"Your daughter?" said his lordship, with a start. "Oh, yes; I recollect--Baby Maud! Is she at all like--like----"

"No," said John Halifax. Neither said more than this; but it seemed as if their hearts warmed to one another, knitted by the same tender remembrance.

_IV.--The Journey's End_

Lord Ravenel had returned to reside again at Luxmore Hall, and his visits to Beechwood became as regular as they had been in the old days at the Halifax home, when Muriel was alive. It was the society of Maud in which his lordship now delighted, though he never forgot the serene and happy days he had spent with her blind sister.

Before long, Lord Ravenel sought to be regarded as suitor for the hand of Maud, who would thus have become the future Countess of Luxmore. He said that he would wait two years for her, if her father wished it; but John Halifax would make him no promise, and urged him rather to endeavour first to become a more worthy man, so that he might redeem the evil reputation which the conduct of his own father had brought upon the name of Luxmore.

"Do you recognise what you were born to be?" said Halifax to him. "Not only a nobleman, but a gentleman; not only a gentleman, but a man--man made in the image of God. Would to heaven that any poor word of mine could make you feel all that you are--and all that you might be!"

"You mean, Mr. Halifax, what I might have been--now it is too late."

"There is no such word as 'too late' in the wide world--nay, not in the universe."

Lord Ravenel for a time sat silent; then he rose to go, and thanked Mrs. Halifax for all her kindness in a voice choked with emotion.

"For your husband, I owe him more than kindness, as perhaps I may prove some day; if not, try to believe the best of me you can. Good-bye!"

It was not many weeks after this that the old Earl of Luxmore died in France, and it then became known that his son, who now succeeded to the title, had voluntarily given up his claims on the estate in order to pay the heavy debts of his worthless father.

The home at Beechwood had lost another inmate--for Edmund was now married--when Guy, first going to Paris, had later sailed for America. Years passed by, and he became a successful merchant in Boston, and then one day he wrote home to say he was coming back to the Old Country, and was bringing with him his partner.

The ship in which Guy and his friend sailed from America was wrecked, and Ursula, in her grief at the supposed loss of her eldest son, seemed to be wearing away, when one day a strange gentleman stood in the doorway--tall, brown, and bearded--and asked to see Miss Halifax. Maud just glanced at him, then rose, and said somewhat coldly, "Will you be seated?"

"Maud, don't you know me? Where is my mother?"

The return of the son whom she had given up for dead brought joy again to the heart of Ursula, and her health seemed to revive, but it was clear that her days were now uncertain. Scarcely less than the delight in Guy's return was the discovery that his partner was none other than the new Earl of Luxmore, who, as plain Mr. William Ravenel, had by his life in America proved John Halifax was right when he said it was not too late for him to model his life on lines of true manliness. He had, indeed, become all that John had desired of him--a man and a gentleman--so that Maud was, after all, to be the Countess of Luxmore.

But the days of John Halifax himself were now drawing to a close, and he was not without premonitions of his end; for in his talks with Phineas Fletcher, who had remained his faithful companion all these years, he spoke as one would speak of a new abode, an impending journey. Death came to him very gently one day at sunset, just after he had smiled to Phineas, when his old friend, looking towards Lord Luxmore and his future bride, who were with a group of the young people, had said, "I think sometimes, John, that William and Maud will be the happiest of all the children."

He smiled at this, and a little later seemed to be asleep; but when Maud came up and spoke to him, he was dead. While he was sleeping thus, the Master had called him. His sudden end was so great a shock to the frail life of Ursula, that when they buried John Halifax in the pretty Enderley churchyard they laid to rest with him his wife of three-and- thirty years, who had been a widow but for a few hours.

* * * * *

GEORGE CROLY

Salathiel, or Tarry Thou Till I Come!

George Croly, the author of "Salathiel," was born at Dublin
on August 17, 1780, and became a clergyman of the Church of
England. After a short time as curate in the north of Ireland
he came to London and devoted himself chiefly to literary
pursuits. In 1835 he was presented to the valuable living of
St. Stephen's, Walbrook, London, by Lord Brougham, where his
eloquent preaching attracted large congregations. It was a
saying among Americans of the period, "Be sure and hear
Croly!" Croly was a scholar, an orator, and a man of
incredible energy. Poems, biographies, dramas, sermons,
novels, satires, magazine articles, newspaper leaders, and
theological works were dashed off by his facile pen; and,
according to Hogg, the Ettrick shepherd, he was great in
conversation. Croly's _chef d'oeuvre_ is "Salathiel," which,
published in 1829, created a prodigious sensation, Salathiel
being the character better known as the Wandering Jew. The
description of the fall of Jerusalem is a wonderful piece of
sustained eloquence, hardly to be squalled in romantic
writings. Croly died on November 24, 1860.

_I.--Immortality on Earth_

"_Tarry thou till I come_!" The words shot through me. I felt them like an arrow in my heart. The troops, the priests, the populace, the world, passed from before my senses like phantoms.

Every fibre of my frame quivers as I still hear the echo of the anathema that sprang first from my furious lips, the self-pronounced ruin, the words of desolation, "His blood be upon us, and our children!"

But in the moment of my exultation I was stricken. He who had refused an hour of life to the victim was, in terrible retribution, condemned to know the misery of life interminable. I heard through all the voices of Jerusalem--I should have heard through all the thunders of heaven, the calm, low voice, "Tarry thou till I come!"

I felt at once my fate. I sprang away through the shouting hosts as if the avenging angel waved his sword above my head. I was never to know the shelter of the grave! Immortality on earth! The perpetual compulsion of existence in a world made for change! I was to survive my country. Wife, child, friend, even to the last being with whom my heart could imagine a human bond, were to perish in my sight. I was to know no limit to the weight already crushing me. The guilt of life upon life, the surges of an unfathomable ocean of crime were to roll in eternal progress over my head. Immortality on earth!

Overwhelmed with despair, I rushed through Jerusalem, crowded with millions come to the Passover, and made my way through the Gate of Zion to the open country and the mountains that were before me, like a barrier shutting out the living world. There, as I lay in an agony of fear, my soul seemed to be whirled on the wind into the bosom of a thundercloud. I felt the weight of the rolling vapours. I saw a blaze. I was stunned by a roar that shook the firmament.

When I recovered it was to hear the trumpet which proclaims that the first daily sacrifice is to be offered. I was a priest; this day's service fell to me; I dared not shrink from the duty which appalled me! Humanity drove me first to my home, where to my unspeakable relief I found my wife and child happy and unharmed; then I went to the Temple, and began my solemn duties. I was at the altar, the Levite at my side holding the lamb, when suddenly in rushed the high priest, his face buried in the folds of his cloak, and, grasping the head of the lamb, he snatched the knife from the Levite, plunged it into the animal's throat, and ran with bloody hands and echoing groans to the porch of the Holy House. I hastened up the steps after him, and entered the sanctuary. But--what I saw there I have no power to tell. Words were not made to utter it. Before me moved things mightier than of mortal vision, thronging shapes of terror, mysterious grandeur, essential power, embodied prophecy. On the pavement lay the high priest, his lips strained wide, his whole frame rigid and cold as a corpse. And the Veil was rent in twain!

Fleeing from the Temple, I came into a world of black men. The sun, which I had seen like a fiery buckler hanging over the city, was utterly gone. As I looked into this unnatural night, the thought smote me that I had brought this judgment on the Holy City, and I formed the determination to fly from my priesthood, my kindred, and my country, and to bear my doom in some barren wilderness.

I ran from the Temple, where priests clung together in pale terror, found my wife and child, and bore them away through the panic-stricken city. As we journeyed a yell of universal terror made me turn my eyes to Jerusalem. A large sphere of fire shot through the heavens, casting a pallid illumination on the myriads below. It stopped above the city, and exploded in thunder, flashing over the whole horizon, but covering the Temple with a blaze which gave it the aspect of metal glowing in a furnace. Every pillar and pinnacle was seen with a lurid and terrible distinctness. The light vanished. I heard the roar of earthquake; the ground rose and heaved under my feet. I heard the crash of buildings, the fall of fragments of the hills and, louder than both, the groans of the multitude. The next moment the earth gave way, and I was caught up in a whirlwind of dust and ashes.

_II.--The Son of Misfortune_

It was in Samaria I woke. Miriam, my wife, was at my side. A troop of our kinsmen, returning from the city, where terror suffered few to remain, had discovered us, and brought us with them on their journey.

On this pilgrimage to Naphtali, my native home, my absence from prayer and my sadness struck all our kinsmen; and Eleazer, brother of Miriam, questioned me thereon. In my bitterness I said to him that I had renounced my career among the rulers of Israel. Instead of anger or surprise, his face expressed joy. He pointed out to me the tomb of Isaiah, to which we were approaching. "There lies," said he, "the heart which neither the desert nor the dungeon, nor the teeth of the lion, nor the saw of Manasseh could tame--the denouncer of our crimes, the scourge of our apostasy, the prophet of that desolation which was to bow the grandeur of Judah to the grave."

He drew a copy of the Scriptures from his bosom, and read the famous Haphtorah. "Who hath believed our report? and to whom is the arm of the Lord revealed? For he shall grow up before him as a tender plant, and as a root out of a dry ground; he hath no form nor comeliness; and when we shall see him, there is no beauty, that we should desire him. He is despised and rejected of men; a man of sorrows!" He stopped, laid his hand upon my arm, and asked, "Of whom hath the prophet spoken? Him that _is to come_, still _to come?_" Then he left me.

Some years passed away; the burden remained upon my soul. One day, as I dwelt among my kinsmen in Naphtali, I was watching a great storm, when suddenly there stood before me a spirit, accursed and evil, Epiphanes, one of those spirits of the evil dead who are allowed from time to time to reappear on earth.

"Power you shall have, and hate it," he announced; "wealth and life, and hate them. You shall be the worm among a nation of worms--you shall be steeped in poverty to the lips--you shall undergo the bitterness of death, until----Come," he cried suddenly, "son of misfortune, emblem of the nation, that living shall die, and dying shall live; that, trampled by all, shall trample on all; that, bleeding from a thousand wounds, shall be unhurt; that, beggared, shall wield the wealth of nations; that, without a name, shall sway the council of kings; that, without a city, shall inhabit in all the kingdoms; that, scattered like the dust, shall be bound together like the rock; that, perishing by the sword, chain, famine, and fire, shall be imperishable, unnumbered, glorious as the stars of heaven."

I was caught up and swept towards Jerusalem. It was the twilight of a summer evening. Town and wall lay bathed in a sea of purple; the Temple rose from its centre like an island of light; the host of Heaven came riding up the blue fields alone; all was the sweetness, calm, and splendour of a painted vision. As the night deepened, a murmur from the city caught my ear; it grew loud, various, wild; it was soon mixed with the clash of arms; trumpets rang, torches blazed along battlements and turrets; the roar of battle rose, deepened into cries of agony, swelled into furious exultation. "Behold," said the possessed, "these are but the beginnings of evil!" I looked up; the spirit was gone. In another minute I was plunging into the valley, and rushing forward to the battle.

From that moment I became a chieftain of Israel, and as Prince of Naphtali led my people against the legions of Rome. I came to be a priest, I became a captain. I was ever in the midst of battle; I was cast into dungeons; brought to the cross; cast among lions; shipwrecked, driven out to sea on a blazing trireme; accused before Nero and Titus; exposed a thousand times to death; and yet ever at the extreme moment some mysterious hand interfered between my life and its destruction. I could not die.

_III.--The Abomination of Desolation_

And through all these awful years of incessant warfare I was now lifted up on a wave of victory to heights of dazzling glory, and now plunged down into the abysm of defeat. I saw my wife and children torn from me; restored, only to be dragged away again. I saw Rome driven from the Holy City, only to see her return in triumph. And all through these maddening vicissitudes, suspected by my own people, and knowing my own infamy, I heard the voice, "Tarry thou till I come!"

The fall of our illustrious and unhappy city was supernatural. During the latter days of the siege, a hostility, to which that of man was as the grain of sand to the tempest that drives it on, overpowered our strength and senses. Fearful shapes and voices in the air; visions startling us from our short and troubled sleep; lunacy in its most hideous forms; sudden death in the midst of vigour; the fury of the elements let loose upon our unsheltered heads; we had every evil and terror that could beset human nature, but pestilence, the most probable of all in a city crowded with the famishing, the diseased, the wounded, and the dead. Yet, though the streets were covered with the unburied; though every wall and trench was teeming; though six hundred thousand corpses lay flung over the ramparts, and naked to the sun--pestilence came not. But the abomination of desolation, the pagan standard, was fixed; where it was to remain until the plough passed over the ruins of Jerusalem.

On this fatal night no man laid his head upon his pillow. Heaven and earth were in conflict. Meteors burned above us; the ground shook under our feet; the volcano blazed; the wind burst forth in irresistible blasts, and swept the living and the dead in whirlwinds far off into the desert. Thunder pealed from every quarter of the heavens. Lightning, in immense sheets, withering eye and soul, burned from the zenith to the ground, and marked its track by forests on flame, and the shattered summits of hills.

Defence was unthought of; for the mortal enemy had passed from the mind. Our hearts quaked from fear, but it was to see the powers of heaven shaken. All cast away the shield and the spear, and crouched before the descending judgment. Our cries of remorse, anguish, and horror were heard through the uproar of the storm. We howled to the caverns to hide us; we plunged into the sepulchres, to escape the wrath that consumed the living.

I knew the cause, the unspeakable cause; knew that the last hour of crime was at hand. A few fugitives, astonished to see one man not sunk into the lowest feebleness of fear, besought me to lead them into safety. I said they were to die, and pointed them to the hallowed ground of the Temple. More, I led them towards it myself. But advance was checked. Piles of cloud, whose darkness was palpable even in the midnight, covered the holy hill. I attempted to pass through it, and was swept downward by a gust that tore the rocks in a flinty shower around me.

While I lay helpless, I heard the whirlwind roar through the cloudy hill; and the vapours began to revolve. A pale light, like that of the rising moon, quivered on their edges; and the clouds rose, and rapidly shaped themselves into the forms of battlements and towers. Voices were heard within, low and distant, yet strangely sweet. Still the lustre brightened, and the airy building rose, tower on tower, and battlement on battlement. In awe we knelt and gazed upon this more than mortal architecture. It stood full to earth and heaven, the colossal image of the first Temple. All Jerusalem saw the image; and the shout that, in the midst of their despair, ascended from its thousands and tens of thousands told what proud remembrances were there. But a hymn was heard, that might have hushed the world. Never fell on mortal ear sound so majestic and subduing, so full of melancholy and grandeur and command. The vast portal opened, and from it marched a host such as man had never seen before, such as man shall never see but once again; the guardian angels of the city of David! They came forth glorious, but with woe in their steps, tears flowing down their celestial beauty. "Let us go hence," was their song of sorrow. "Let us go hence," was announced by the echoes of the mountains.

The procession lingered on the summit. The thunder pealed, and they rose at the command, diffusing waves of light over the expanse of heaven. Then the thunder roared again; the cloudy temple was scattered on the winds; and darkness, the omen of her grave, settled upon Jerusalem.

_IV.--The Hour of Doom_

I was roused by the voice of a man. "What!" said he, "poring over the faces of dead men, when you should be foremost among the living? All Jerusalem in arms, and yet you scorn your time to gain laurels?" I sprang up, and drew my scimitar, for the man was--Roman.

"You should know me," he said calmly; "it is some years since we met, but we have not been often asunder."

"Are you not a Roman?" I exclaimed. He denied that nationality, and offered me his Roman trappings, cuirass and falchion, saying they would help me to money, riot, violence, and vice in the doomed city; "and," said he, "what else do nine-tenths of mankind ask for in their souls?"

He tore his helmet from his forehead, and, with a start of inward pain, flung it to a measureless distance in the air. I beheld--Epiphanes! "I told you," he said, "that this day would come. One grand hope was given to your countrymen; they cast it from them! Ages on ages shall pass before they learn the loftiness of that hope, or fulfill the punishment of that rejection. Yet, in the fullness of time, light shall break upon their darkness. They shall ask: Why are barbarians and civilised alike our oppressors? Why do contending faiths join in crushing us alone? Why do realms, distant as the ends of the earth, unite in scorn of us?"

"Man of terrible knowledge," I demanded, "tell me for what crime this judgment comes?"

"There is no name for it," he said, with solemn fear.

"Is there no hope?" said I, trembling.

"Look to that mountain," was the answer, as he pointed to Moriah. "It is now covered with war and slaughter. But upon that mountain shall yet be enthroned a Sovereign, before whom the sun shall hide his head. From that mountain shall light flow to the ends of the universe, and the government shall be of the everlasting."

In a few minutes he had carried me to the city, placed me on a battlement, and had disappeared.

Below me war raged in its boundless fury. The Romans had forced their way; the Jews were fighting like wild beasts. When the lance was broke, the knife was the weapon; when the knife failed, they tore with their hands and teeth. But the Romans advanced against all. They advanced till they were near the inner temple. A scream of wrath and agony at the possible profanation of the Holy of Holies rose from the multitude. I leaped from the battlement, called upon Israel to follow me, and drove the Romans back.

But Jerusalem was marked for ruin. A madman, prophesying the succour of heaven, prevented Israel from surrendering, and thus saving the Temple. Infuriated by his words, the populace kept up the strife, and the Temple burst into flames. The fire sprang through the roof, and the whole of its defenders, to the number of thousands, sank into the conflagration. In another minute the inner temple was on fire. I rushed forward, and took my post before the veil of the portico, to guard the entrance with my blood.

But the legions rushed onward, crying that "they were led by the Fates," and that "the God of the Jews had given his people and city into their hands." The torrent was irresistible. Titus rushed in at its head, exclaiming that "the Divinity alone could have given the stronghold into his power, for it was beyond the hope and strength of man." My companions were torn down. I was forced back to the veil of the Holy of Holies. I longed to die! I fought, I taunted, covered from head to foot in gore. I remained without a wound.

Then came a new enemy--fire. I heard its roar round the sanctuary. The Romans fled to the portal. A wall of fire stood before them. They rushed back, tore down the veil, and the Holy of Holies stood open.

The blaze melted the plates of the roof in a golden shower above me. It calcined the marble floor; it dissipated in vapour the inestimable gems that studded the walls. All who entered lay turned to ashes. But on the sacred Ark the flame had no power. It whirled and swept in a red orb round the untouched symbol of the throne of thrones. Still I lived; but I felt my strength giving way--the heat withered my sinews, the flame extinguished my sight. I sank upon the threshold, rejoicing that death was inevitable. Then, once again, I heard the words of terror. "Tarry thou till I come!" The world disappeared before me.

_V.--The Pilgrim of Time_

Here I pause. I had undergone that portion of my career which was to be passed among my people. My life as father, husband, citizen, was at an end. Thenceforth I was to be a solitary man. I was to make my couch with the savage, the outcast, and the slave. I was to see the ruin of the mighty and the overthrow of empires. Yet, in the tumult that changed the face of the world, I was still to live and be unchanged.

In revenge for the fall of Jerusalem, I traversed the globe to seek out an enemy of Rome. I found in the northern snows a man of blood; I stirred up the soul of Alaric, and led him to the sack of Rome. In revenge for the insults heaped upon the Jew by the dotards and dastards of the city of Constantine, I sought out an instrument of compendious ruin. I found him in the Arabian sands, and poured ambition into the soul of Mecca. In revenge for the pollution of the ruins of the Temple, I roused the iron tribes of the West, and at the head of the Crusaders expelled the Saracens. I fed full on revenge, and fed the misery of revenge.

A passion for human fame seized me. I drew my sword for Italy; triumphed, was a king, and learned to curse the hour when I first dreamed of fame. A passion for gold seized me. Wealth came to my wish, and to my torment. Days and nights of misery were the gift of avarice. In my passion I longed for regions where the hand of man had never rifled the mine. I found a bold Genoese, and led him to the discovering of a new world. With its metals I inundated the old; and to my misery added the misery of two hemispheres.

Yet the circle of passion was not to surround my fated steps for ever. Noble aspirations rose in my melancholy heart. I had seen the birth of true science, true liberty, and true wisdom. I had lived with Petrarch, stood enraptured beside the easel of Angelo and Raphael. I had stood at Maintz, beside the wonder-working machine that makes knowledge imperishable, and sends it with winged speed through the earth. At the pulpit of the mighty man of Wittenberg I had knelt; Israelite as I was, and am, I did involuntary homage to the mind of Luther.

At this hour I see the dawn of things to whose glory the glory of the past is but a dream. But I must close these thoughts, wandering as the steps of my pilgrimage. I have more to tell--strange, magnificent, and sad. But I must await the impulse of my heart.

* * * * *

RICHARD HENRY DANA

Two Years Before the Mast

Richard Henry Dana was born at Cambridge, Massachusetts, on
August 1, 1815. He was the son of the American poet who, with
W.C. Bryant, founded "The North American Review," and grandson
of Francis Dana, for some time United States Minister to
Russia, and afterwards Chief Justice of Massachusetts. Young
Dana entered Harvard in 1832, but being troubled with an
affection of the eyes, shipped as a common sailor on board an
American merchant vessel, and made a voyage round Cape Horn to
California and back. His experiences are embodied in his "Two
Years Before the Mast," which was published in 1840, about
three years after his return, when he had graduated at
Harvard, and in the year in which he was admitted to the
Massachusetts Bar. His best known work gives a vivid account
of life at sea in the days of the old sailing ships, touches
sympathetically on the hardships of the seafaring life, which
its publication helped to ameliorate, and affords also an
intimate glimpse of California when it was still a province of
Mexico. "If," he writes, "California ever becomes a prosperous
country, this--San Francisco--bay will be the centre of its
prosperity." He died at Rome on January 7, 1882.

_I.--Life on a Merchantman_

On August 14 the brig Pilgrim left Boston for a voyage round Cape Horn to the western coast of America. I made my appearance on board at twelve o'clock with an outfit for a two or three years' voyage, which I had undertaken from a determination to cure, if possible, by an entire change of life, and by a long absence from books and study, a weakness of the eyes.

The vessel got under way early in the afternoon. I joined the crew, and we hauled out into the stream, and came to anchor for the night. The next day we were employed in preparations for sea. On the following night I stood my first watch. During the first few days we had bad weather, and I began to feel the discomforts of a sailor's life. But I knew that if I showed any sign of want of spirit or of backwardness, I should be ruined at once. So I performed my duties to the best of my ability, and after a time I felt somewhat of a man. I cannot describe the change which half a pound of cold salt beef and a biscuit or two produced in me after having taken no sustenance for three days. I was a new being.

As we had now a long "spell" of fine weather, without any incident to break the monotony of our lives, there can be no better place to describe the duties, regulations, and customs of an American merchantman, of which ours was a fair specimen.

The captain is lord paramount. He stands no watch, comes and goes when he pleases, is accountable to no one, and must be obeyed in everything.

The prime minister, the official organ, and the active and superintending officer is the chief mate. The mate also keeps the log-book, and has charge of the stowage, safe keeping, and delivery of the cargo.

The second mate's is a dog's berth. The men do not respect him as an officer, and he is obliged to go aloft to put his hands into the tar and slush with the rest. The crew call him the "sailors' waiter," and he has to furnish them with all the stuffs they need in their work. His wages are usually double those of a common sailor, and he eats and sleeps in the cabin; but he is obliged to be on deck nearly all his time, and eats at the second table--that is, makes a meal out of what the captain and the chief mate leave.

The steward is the captain's servant, and has charge of the pantry, from which everyone, including the mate, is excluded. The cook is the patron of the crew, and those who are in his favour can get their wet mittens and stockings dried, or light their pipes at the galley in the night watch. These two worthies, together with the carpenter and the sailmaker, if there be one, stand no watch, but, being employed all day, are allowed to "sleep in" at night, unless "all hands" are called.

The crew are divided into two watches. Of these the chief mate commands the larboard, and the second mate the starboard, being on and off duty, or on deck and below, every other four hours. The watch from 4 p.m. to 8 p.m. is divided into two half, or dog, watches. By this means they divide the twenty-four hours into seven instead of six, and thus shift the hours every night.