V.

Farewell! Elysian island of the west, Still be thy gardens brighten'd by the rose Of a perennial spring, and winter's snows Ne'er chill the warmth of thy maternal breast! May calms for ever sleep around thy coast, And desolating storms roll far away, While art with nature vies to form thy bay, Fairer than that which Naples makes her boast! Green link between the High-lands and the Low-- Thou gem, half claim'd by earth, and half by sea-- May blessings, like a flood, thy homes o'erflow, And health--though elsewhere lost--be found in thee! May thy bland zephyrs to the pallid cheek Of sickness ever roseate hues restore, And they who shun the rabble and the roar Of the wild world, on thy delightful shore Obtain that soft seclusion which they seek! Be this a stranger's farewell, green Byrone, Who ne'er hath trod thy heathery heights before, And ne'er may see thee more After yon autumn sun hath westering gone; Though oft, in pensive mood, when far away, 'Mid city multitudes, his thoughts will stray To Ascog's lake, blue-sleeping in the morn, And to the happy homesteads that adorn Thy Rothesay's lovely bay.

ASCOG LODGE, EAST BAY, ROTHESAY, September 1843.

FOOTNOTES:

[5] Rothesay Castle is first mentioned in history in connexion with its siege by Husbac the Norwegian, and Olave king of Man, in 1228. Among other means of defence, it is said that the Scots poured down boiling pitch and lead on the heads of their enemies; but it was, however, at length taken, after the Norwegians had lost three hundred men. In 1263, it was retaken by the Scots after the decisive battle of Largs.

[6] This bid was the scene of a conflict between the men of Bute and the troops of Lisle, the English governor, in which that general was slain, and his severed head, presented to the Lord High Steward, was suspended from the battlements of the castle.

[7] In 1398, Robert the Third constituted his eldest son Duke of Rothesay, a title still held by every male heir-apparent to the British crown. It was the first introduction of the ducal dignity--originally a Norman one--into Scotland.

[8] The walls forming the choir of the very ancient church dedicated to the Holy Virgin are still nearly entire, and stand close to the present parish church of Rothesay. Within a traceried niche, on one side, is the recumbent figure of a knight in complete armour, apparently of the kind in use about the time of Robert the Second or Third. His feet are upon a lion couchant, and his head upon a faithful watch-dog, with a collar, in beautiful preservation, encircling its neck. The coat-of-arms denotes the person represented to have been of royal lineage. Popular tradition individualizes him as the "Stout Stewart of Bonkill" of Blind Harry the minstrel, who fell with Sir John the Grahame at the battle of Falkirk--although that hero was buried near the field of action, as his tombstone there in the old churchyard still records.

Sir John Stewart of Bonkill was uncle and tutor to the then Lord High Steward, at that time a minor.

A female figure and child recumbent, also elaborately sculptured in black marble, adorn the opposite niche, and under them, in alto-relievo, are several figures in religious habits. Another effigies of a knight, but much defaced, lies on the ground-floor of the choir--the whole of which was cleaned out and put in order by the present Marquis of Bute in 1827.

[9] On the 4th of April 1406, this unfortunate prince, overwhelmed with grief for the death of his eldest son, David, Duke of Rothesay and Earl of Carrick, who miserably perished of hunger in Falkland Castle; and the capture, during a time of truce, of his younger son, Prince James, by the English--died in the Castle of Rothesay of a broken heart. The closet, fourteen feet by eight, in which he breathed his last, is still pointed out, in the south-east corner of the castle.

[10] In the court of the castle is a remarkable thorn-tree, which for centuries had waved above the chapel now in ruins; and which, at the distance of a yard from the ground, measures six feet three inches in circumference. In 1839, it fell from its own weight, and now lies prostrate, with half its roots uncovered, but still vigorous in growth.

TRAVELS OF KERIM KHAN.

CONCLUSION.

While tracing the progress of our friend the Khan through the various scenes of amusement and festivity at which he assisted rather as a spectator than an actor, we had omitted to notice in its proper place an incident of some interest--his presence at the opening of the Parliamentary session of 1841, on the 26th of January, by the Queen in person. By the kindness of one of his friends, who was a member of the royal household, he had succeeded in obtaining a ticket of admission to the House of Lords, and was placed in a position which afforded him an excellent view of the brilliant multitude assembled to receive their sovereign. "When I had sufficiently recovered from the first impression of all the magnificence around me, I could compare it only to the Garden of Trem[11]--nay, it appeared even more wonderful than that marvellous place. At twelve o'clock, twenty-one peals of artillery announced the approach of the Queen, who shortly after entered with Prince Albert, followed by her train-bearers, &c. All rose as she advanced; and when the Lords were again seated, the _cadhi-ab-codhat_ (Lord Chancellor) put a piece of paper in her hands, and placed himself on the right of the throne, while the grand-vizir stood on the left. Shortly after, the gentlemen of the House of Commons entered, when the Queen read with a loud voice from the paper to the following effect." We need not, however, follow the Khan through the details of the royal speech, or the debate on the address which succeeded, though, in the latter, he appears to have been thunderstruck by the freedom of language indulged in by a certain eccentric ex-chancellor, remarking, "that under the emperors of Delhi such latitude of speech, in reference to the sovereign, would inevitably have cost the offender his head, or at least have ensured his spending the remainder of his life in disgrace and exile at Mekka." On the dignified bearing and self-possession of our youthful sovereign, the Khan enlarges in the strain of eulogy which might be expected from one to whom the sight of the ensigns of sovereignty borne by a female hand was in itself an almost inconceivable novelty, declaring, that "the justice and virtues of her Majesty have obliterated the name of Nushirvan from the face of the earth!" But the remarks of the simple-minded Parsees on the same subject will be found, from their honest sincerity, we suspect, more germane to the matter--"We saw in an instant that she was fitted by nature for, and intended to be, a queen; we saw a native nobility about her, which induced us to believe that she could, though meek and amiable, be firm and decisive; ... that no man or set of men would be permitted by her to dictate a line of conduct; and that, knowing and feeling that she lived in the hearts and affections of her people, she would endeavour to temper justice with mercy; and we thought that if no unforeseen event (which God forbid) arose to dim the lustre of her reign, that the period of her sway in Britain would be quoted as the golden age."

After this introduction, the Khan appears to have become an occasional attendant in the gallery of the House of Commons, and was present at a debate on the admission of foreign corn, in which Lord Stanley, Sir Robert Peel, and Lord John Russell took part--"These three being the most eloquent of the speakers, and the chiefs of their respective

## parties, though several other members spoke at great length either for

or against the motion, according as each was attached to one or other of the great factions which divide the House of Commons, and hold the destinies of the people in their hands." Of the speeches of these three leaders, and the arguments adduced by them, he accordingly attempts to give an abstract; though as his information must have been derived, we imagine, principally through the medium of an interpreter, this first essay at Parliamentary reporting is not particularly successful; and if we are to conclude, from his constant use of the phrase _zemindars_ to denote the landed interest, that he considered the estates of the English proprietors to be held by _zemindarry_ tenures similar to those in Bengal, his notions on the subject of the debate must have been considerably perplexed. "At length, however, as the debate had already been protracted to a late hour, and there was no probability of a speedy termination to this war of words, I left the House with no unfavourable impression of what I had heard. This eternal wrangling between the two factions is inherent, it appears, in the nature of the constitution. With us, two wise men never dispute; yet every individual member of the legislature is supposed to possess a certain share of wisdom--so that here are a thousand wise men constantly disputing. One would think no good could result from such endless differences of opinion; but the fact is the reverse--for from these debates result those measures which mark the character of the English for energy and love of liberty."

But though thus constantly alluding to the two great political parties which divide the state, the Khan nowhere attempts to give his readers a definition of the essential differences which separate them; and, for a statement of the respective tenets of Whigs and Tories, as represented to an oriental, we must once more have recourse to the journal of Najaf Kooli, who has apparently taken great pains to make himself acquainted with this abstruse subject. "The Tories," says the Persian prince, "argue as follows:--'Three hundred years ago we were wild people, and our kingdom ranked lower than any other. But, through our wisdom and learning, we have brought it to its present height of honour, and, as the empire was enlarged under our management, why should we now _reform_ and give up our policy which has done all this good?' To which the Whigs reply--'It is more prudent to go according to the changes of time and circumstances. Moreover, by the old policy, only a few were benefited; and, as government is for the general good, we must observe that which is best for the whole nation, so that all should be profited.'" The Shahzadeh's description of the ceremony of opening Parliament, and his summary of the usual topics touched upon in the royal speech, are marked by the same amusing _naivete_--"When all are met, the king, arrayed in all his majestic splendour and state, with the crown on his head, stands up with his face to the assembly, and makes a speech with perfect eloquence as follows:--'Thank God that my kingdom is in perfect happiness, and all the affairs, both at home and abroad, are in good order. All the foreign badishahs (kings and emperors) have sent to me ambassadors, assuring me of their friendship. The commerce of this empire is enjoying the highest prosperity; and all these benefits are through your wise ordination of affairs last session. This year also I have to request you again to meet in your houses, and to take all affairs into the consideration of your high skill and learning, and settle them as you find best. Should there be any misunderstanding in any part which may require either war or peace to be declared, you will thereupon also take the proper measures for settling it according to the welfare and interests of the kingdom.' Then they receive their instructions, the king leaves them, and they meet every day, Sunday excepted, from one o'clock in the afternoon till four hours after sunset. They take all things into consideration, and decide all questions; and when there is a difference of opinion there will arise loud voices and vehement disputes."

But we must now return to the movements of the Khan, after the Lord Mayor's dinner, described in our last Number, in the world of amusement which surrounded him in London. His next visit, when he recovered from the fit of meditation into which he was thrown by the sight of the marvellous banquet aforesaid, was to the Colosseum; but his account of the wonders of this celebrated place of resort, perhaps from his faculties still being in some measure abstracted, is less full than might have been expected. The ascending-room (which the Persian prince describes as "rising like an eagle with large wings into the atmosphere, till, after an hour's time, it stopped in the sky, and opened its beak, so that we came out") he merely alludes to as "the talismanic process by which I was carried to the upper regions;" and though the panoramic view of London is pronounced to be, "of all the wonders of the metropolis the most wonderful," it is dismissed with the remark that "it is useless to attempt to describe it in detail. After this," continues the Khan, "I passed under ground among some artificial caves, which I at first took for the dens of wild beasts; and that people should pay for seeing such places as these, does seem a strange taste. By going a short distance out of Delhi, a man may enter as many such places as he pleases, bearing in mind, at the same time, that he runs the greatest chance in the world of encountering a grinning hyaena, or some such beast; and it was with some such feeling that I entered these grottoes, not being exactly acquainted with their nature."

The Khan had now nearly exhausted the circle of places of public entertainment; but one yet remained to be visited, and that, perhaps, the most congenial of all to oriental tastes in the style of its decorations, brilliant lights, and multifarious displays--Vauxhall. "A large garden! a paradise!"--such is the rapturous description of the Persian princes--"filled with roses of various hues, with cool waters running in every direction on the beautiful green, and pictures painted on every wall. There were burning about two millions of lamps, each of a different colour; and we saw here such fire-works, as made us forget all others we had already seen. Here and there were young moon-faces selling refreshments; and in every walk there were thousands of Frank _moons_ (ladies) led by the hand, while the roses grew pale with admiring their beautiful cheeks." The Khan, though less ardent and enthusiastic than the grandsons of Futteh Ali Shah, does ample justice to the splendour of the illumination; "thousands of lights distributed over the gardens, suspended on the trees, and arranged in numberless fanciful devices, so as to form flowers, names, &c.; and when it became dark, one blaze of bright light was presented, extending over a vast space." He was fortunate, moreover, in making his visit to the gardens on the evening of a balloon ascent, "and thus I witnessed the most wonderful sight I ever saw--a sight which a hundred millions of people in India consider to be a _Feringhi_ fiction, an incredible fable; for though a Frenchman made an ascent at Lucknow some years ago, nobody believes it who did not see it, and many even who were present, believed that their senses had been beguiled by magic.... A car in the shape of a _howdah_ was swung by ropes beneath the balloon, in which six individuals seated themselves, besides the aeronaut; and when it was filled with the gas and ready to start, the latter tried to prevail on me to take a seat, telling me he had performed nearly three hundred aerial voyages, and that, if any accident should happen, he himself would be the first to suffer. I certainly had a wish to satisfy my curiosity, by ascending to the skies, but was dissuaded by the friends who accompanied me, who said it was safer to remain on _terra firma_, and look on at the voyagers; and accordingly I did so."

Though it would appear that the Khan had already paid more than one visit to the treasures of art and nature collected within the walls of the British Museum, his description of that institution, "one like which I had never before heard of," is reserved almost to the last in the catalogue of the wonders of London; and his remarks on the numberless novel objects which presented themselves at every turn to his gaze, form one of the most curious and interesting passages in his journal. The brilliant plumage of the birds in the gallery of natural history, and

## particularly of the humming birds "from the far isles of the Western

Sea," the splendour of which outshone even the gorgeous feathered tribes of his native East, excited his admiration to the highest degree--"animals likewise from every country of the earth were placed around, and might have been mistaken for living beings, from the gloss of their skins and the brightness of their eyes." The library, "containing, as I was told, 300,000 volumes, among which were 20,000 Arabic, Persian, and Turkish manuscripts," is briefly noticed; and the sight of the mummies in the Egyptian collection sets the Khan moralizing, not in the most novel strain, on these relics of bygone mortality. The sculptures were less to his taste--the Egyptian colossi are alluded to as "the work in former days, I suppose, of some of the mummies up stairs;" and the Grecian statues "would appear, to an unbiassed stranger, a quantity of useless, mutilated _idols_, representing both men and monsters; but in the eyes of the English, it is a most valuable collection, said to have cost seven _lakhs_ of rupees, (L.70,000,) and venerated as containing some of the finest sculptures in the world. I cannot understand how such importance can be attached in Europe to this art, since the use of all images is as distinctly forbidden by the _Tevrat_, (Bible,) as it is by our own law ... But the strangest sight was in one of the upper rooms, which contains specimens of extinct monsters, recently discovered in the bowels of the earth in a fossil state, and supposed to be thousands of years old. Many men of science pass their whole lives in inventing names for these creatures, and studying the shape of a broken tooth supposed to have belonged to them; the science to which this appertains, being a branch of that relating to minerals, of which there is in the next room a vast collection ranged in well-polished cases, with the names written on them.... Among these, the most extraordinary were some stones said to have fallen from the sky, one of which was near 300 lbs. in weight, and with regard to the origin of which their philosophers differ. The most generally received opinion is, that they were thrown from volcanoes in the moon, thus assuming, first, the existence of volcanoes there; secondly, their possessing sufficient force to throw such masses to a distance, according to their own theory, of between 200,000 and 300,000 miles; and this through regions, the nature of which is wholly unknown. This hypothesis cannot be maintained according to the Ptolemaic system; indeed, it is in direct contravention to it."

The perverse abandonment by the Feringhis of the time-honoured system of Ptolemy, in favour of the new-fangled theories of Copernicus, by which the earth is degraded from its recognised and respectable station in the centre of the universe, to a subordinate grade in the solar system, seems to have been a source of great scandal and perplexity to the Khan; "since," as he remarks, "the former doctrine is supported by their own Bible, not less than by our Koran." These sentiments are repeated whenever the subject is referred to; and particularly on the occasion of a visit to the Observatory at Greenwich, where he was shown all the telescopes and astronomical apparatus, "though, owing to the state of the weather, I had not the opportunity of viewing the heavens to satisfy myself of the correctness of the statements made to me. I was told, however, that on looking through these instruments at the moon, mountains, seas, and other signs of a world, are distinctly visible." After satisfying his curiosity on these points, the Khan proceeded to inspect the hospital, where he saw the pensioners at dinner in the great hall; "most of these had lost their limbs, and those who were not maimed were very old, and nearly all of them had been severely wounded; indeed, it was a very interesting spectacle, and reflected great credit on the English nation, which thus provides for the old age of those who have shed their blood in her defence." To the charitable institutions of the country, indeed, we find the Khan at all times fully disposed to do justice; "there is no better feature than this in the national character, for there is scarcely a disease or deformity in nature for which there is not some edifice, in which the afflicted are lodged, fed, and kindly treated. Would that we had such institutions in Hindustan!" In pursuance of this feeling, we now find him visiting the Blind Asylum and the Deaf and Dumb School; and the circumstantial details into which he enters of the comforts provided for the inmates of these establishments, and the proficiency which many of them had attained in trades and accomplishments apparently inconsistent with their privations, sufficiently evidences the interest with which he regarded these benevolent institutions. Another spectacle of the same character, which he had an opportunity of witnessing about this period, was the annual procession of the charity children to St Paul's:--"I obtained a seat near the officiating _imam_ or high priest, and saw near ten thousand children of both sexes, belonging to the different eleemosynary establishments, which are deservedly the pride of this country, all clothed in an uniform dress, while every corner was filled with spectators. After the _khotbah_ (prayer) was read, they began to sing, not in the ordinary manner, but, as I was given to understand, so as to involve a form of prayer and thanksgiving. I was told that they belonged to many schools,[12] and are brought here once a year, that those who contribute to their support may witness the progress they have made, as well as their health and appearance."

The military college at Addiscombe, for the education of the cadets of the East India Company's army, would naturally be to the Khan an object of peculiar interest; and thither he accordingly repaired, in company with several of his friends, apparently members of the Indian direction, on the occasion of the examination of the students by Colonel Pasley.[13] "After partaking of a sumptuous luncheon, we went to the students' room, where they were examined in various branches of the military science, as mathematics, fortification, drawing, &c., besides various languages, one of which was the Oordoo."[14] After the close of the examination, and the distribution of prizes to the successful candidates,[15] the company repaired to the grounds, where the Khan was astonished by the quickness and precision with which the cadets took to pieces and reconstructed the pontoons, and went through other operations of military engineering; and still more by a subaqueous explosion of powder by the means of the voltaic battery--"a method by which Colonel Pasley was engaged near Portsmouth in raising a vessel which had sunk there." It would be hardly fair to surmise the probable tendency of the Khan's secret thoughts on thus witnessing the care bestowed on the training of those destined hereafter to maintain the Feringhi yoke on his native country; but he expressed himself highly gratified by all that he saw; and we find him, shortly after, in attendance at a spectacle more calculated than any thing he had yet witnessed, to impress him with an adequate idea of British power--the launch of a first-rate man-of-war at Woolwich.[16] "The sight was extremely exhilarating, from the fineness of the day, and the immense crowds of people, of all ages and both sexes, generally well dressed, who were congregated on the land and the water, expecting the arrival of the Queen. Her majesty appeared at one o'clock, and proceeded to the front of the great ship, where a place, covered with red cloth, was prepared for her; I had a seat quite close, and saw it all very well.... The ceremony of _christening_ a ship is taken from that of christening a child, which, as practised in the Nazarene churches, consists in throwing water in its face, and saying a prayer; but here a bottle of wine hung before her majesty, and opposite to it a piece of iron, against which she pushed the bottle and broke it, and the wine was sprinkled over the ship, which then received its name.... In a short time the slips were drawn, and she glided nobly into the stream of the Thames amidst the shouts of the spectators, and anchored at a short distance. I went on board this immense floating castle, but observed that she was not ready for sea, and I was told that she would require some time to be rigged, provisioned, &c. Our party then returned to Greenwich; and after my friends had dined, with whom I partook of a delicate little fish now in season, (whitebait,) drove back to town."

The Khan had no leisure, on this occasion, to inspect the wonders of the _top-khana_, or arsenal; but he paid a second visit for the purpose a few days later, duly armed with an order from the Master-General of the Ordnance, which is indispensable for the admission of a foreigner. His sensations, on entering this vast repository of arms, were not unlike those attributed to a personage whose fictitious adventures, though the production of a _Feringhi_ pen, present one of the most faithful pictures extant of the genuine feelings of an oriental on Frank matters:--"When we came to the guns," says the eximious Hajji Baba, "by my beard, existence fled from our heads! We saw cannons of all sizes and denominations, enough to have paved the way, if placed side by side, from Tehran to Tabriz--if placed lengthways, Allah only knows where they would have reached--into the very grave of the father of all the Russians, perhaps!" "The cannon distributed over the whole place," says the graver narrative of the Khan, "are said to amount to 40,000! all ready for use in the army, navy, or fortresses; and, as if these were not sufficient for the destruction of the human race, other pieces are constantly casting by a process the reverse of that in India, where the guns are cast in moulds--whereas here a solid cylinder is cast, and afterwards bored, shaped, and finished by steam power.... There are, moreover, a considerable number taken from enemies in battle, two of which, taken from Tippoo Sultan at Seringapatam, have their muzzles in the form of a lion's mouth, and are very well cast and elaborately ornamented; having their date, with the weight of powder and ball they carry, expressed in Persian characters about the mouth. There are also three from Bhurtpore, and three others from Aden, the inscriptions on which denote that they were cast by order of the Turkish emperor, _Mahmood_[17] Ibn Soliman." After leaving the arsenal, the Khan proceeded to the dockyard, of which he merely enumerates the various departments; but the proving of the anchors and chain-cables by means of the hydraulic press, impressed him, as it must do every one who has witnessed that astonishing process, with the idea of almost illimitable power. "On the ground lay a huge anchor which had been broken a few days before in the presence of Prince Albert, and when I was there four men were trying the strength of a chain by turning a wheel, the force produced by which was more than sufficient to break it; for just as I arrived it began to give way, when they desisted. The force here produced by means of this single wheel must have been equal to that of some 200,000 elephants, which might perhaps have pulled till doomsday without effecting it. Such is the wonderful effect of this agent (steam,) the results of which I meet with in so many different places, and under so many different circumstances!" After visiting the convict-hulk, and seeing the anchor-founderies in operation, the Khan crossed to Blackwall, and returned to town by the railway, his first conveyance when he landed in England. His increased experience in steam-travelling had now, however, enabled him to detect the difference between the mode of propulsion by engines on the other railroads, and the "immense cables made of iron wires" by which the vehicles are drawn on this line; the construction of which, as well as the electro-telegraph, ("a process for which we have no phrase in Oordoo,") by which communication is effected between the two ends of the line, he soon after paid another visit to inspect. "This railway is carried partly over houses and partly under ground; and as the price of the ground was unusually high, I was told that it cost, though only three miles and a half in length, the enormous sum of a crore of rupees, (L.1,000,000!")

With this notice of the Blackwall railway, the personal narrative of the Khan's residence in England is brought to an abrupt conclusion; leaving us in the dark as to the time and circumstances of his return to his native land, which we believe took place soon after this period. The remainder of his work is in the nature of an appendix, consisting chiefly of dissertations on the manners, institutions, &c., of Great Britain, as compared with those of Hindustan. He likewise gives an elaborate retrospect of English history, from the Britons downwards; excepting, however, the four centuries from the death of William the Conqueror to the accession of Henry VIII.--an interval which he perhaps considers to have been sufficiently filled up by his disquisitions on the struggles for power between the crown and the barons, and the consequent origin and final constitution of parliament, related in a previous part of his work. His object in undertaking this compilation was, as he informs us, "for the benefit of those in Hindustan, who are to this day entirely ignorant of English history, and indifferent as to acquiring any knowledge whatever of a people whose sway has been extended over so many millions of human beings, and whose influence is felt in the remotest corners of the globe." The manner in which the Khan has performed his self-imposed task, is highly creditable to his industry and discrimination, and strongly contrasts, in the accuracy of the facts and plain sense of the narration, with the wild extravagances in which Asiatic historiographers are apt to indulge; the Anglo-Saxon part of the history, on which especial pains appears to have been bestowed, is particularly complete and well written--unless (as, indeed, we are almost inclined to suspect) it be a translation _in toto_ from some popular historical treatise. The Khan's acquired knowledge of English history, indeed, is sometimes more accurate than his acquaintance with the annals of his own country; as when, in comparing Queen Elizabeth with the famous Queen of Delhi, Raziah Begum, he speaks of the latter princess as "daughter of Behlol Khan, the Pathan Emperor of Delhi;" whereas a reference to Ferishta, or any other native historian, will inform us that Raziah died A.D. 1239, more than 200 years before the accession of Behlol Lodi. No such errors as this, either in fact or chronology, disfigure the Khan's sketch of English history; but as it would scarcely present so much novelty to English readers as it may possibly do to the Hindustani friends of the author for whom it is intended, we shall give but a few brief notices of it. His favourite hero, in the account of the Saxon period, is of course Alfred, and he devotes to the events of his reign more than half the space occupied by the history of the dynasty;[18] thus summing up his character:--"To describe all the excellent qualities, intellectual and moral, attributed to this prince by English historians, would be to condense in a single individual the highest perfections of which the human species is capable. Qualities contradictory in their natures, and which are possessed only by men of different characters, and scarcely ever by one man, seem to have been united in this monarch; he was humane, prudent, and peaceful, yet brave, just, and impartial; affable, and capable of giving and receiving counsel. In short, he was a man especially endowed by the Deity with virtue and intelligence to benefit the human race!"

The story of Edwy and Elgiva, and the barbarities which the beautiful queen suffered at the hands of Dunstan, are related with fitting abhorrence by the Khan, who seems to entertain, on all occasions, a special aversion to the ascendancy of the Romish priesthood. The loves of Edgar and Elfrida, and the punishment of the faithless courtier who deceived his sovereign by a false report of the attractions of the lady, are also duly commemorated; as well as the fall of the Saxon kingdom before the conquering swords of the Danes, during the reign of Ethelred the Unready, the son of the false and cruel Elfrida. But the intrusive monarch Canute "was looked upon, in those times of ignorance, as a very extraordinary man, and supposed to be the greatest king of the world, the sovereign of the seas and the land." The well-known story of his pretending to command the waves, as related by the Khan, differs considerably from the usually received version, and perhaps may be better adapted to the notions prevalent in the East, where success by stratagem is always considered preferable to a manly avowal of incompetency. "One day he was seated on the sea-shore, when the waves reached his chair. Canute commanded them to retire; and as the tide happened to be actually ebbing at the time, the waters retreated to the ocean. Then turning to his courtiers, he exclaimed, that the king whose mandates were obeyed by the billows of the sea, as well as by the children of men, was truly the monarch of the earth. Ever after this he was regarded by the ignorant multitude with a sort of religious awe, and was called Canute _the Great_, as we should say _Sahib-i-kiran_," (the Lord of the Conjunction, implying a man born under a peculiar conjunction of planetary influences which predestines him to distinguished fortunes.)

But of all the English monarchs whose reigns are noticed by the Khan, the one who appears to stand highest, as a pious and patriotic king, in his estimation--a distinction which he not improbably owes to his zeal as an iconoclast, the use of images in worship being abhorred by the Moslems--is no other than Henry VIII. No hint of the "gospel light that beamed from Boleyn's eyes," or of the doom which overtook more than one of his consorts, is allowed to interfere with the lustre of his achievements; such allusions, indeed, would probably be regarded by the Khan as unwarrantable violations of the privacy of the zenana. But in order to set in a stronger light the difficulties which he had to encounter, we have a circumstantial account of the rise of the Papal power, and the exorbitant prerogatives assumed for some centuries previously, by the Pope. "This personage was the monarch of Christendom, something analogous to our holy khalifs, who were the heads of Islam and the Mohammedan world; and from him the princes of Christendom received investiture, as did our Mohammedan sovereigns from the khalifs of Bagdad. The ecclesiastics every where gave out that the pontiff was the vicegerent of God, and that every one who died without his blessing and forgiveness would suffer endless torments hereafter. Moreover, if the king of any country did aught contravening the Pope's pleasure, his people were excommunicated, and anathemas published against them to the whole of Europe. Thus were the nations led by the nose like a string of camels." He then proceeds to state how Henry, by holding forth to his nobles the prospect of participation in the rich possessions of the church, induced them to join him in the enterprize of destroying the papal ascendency. "He then commanded the name of the Pope to be expunged from the _khotbah_, and his own to be substituted as head of the church; while the _idols_ and pictures were removed from the churches, and not allowed to be again used in worship; and the confiscated property was divided into three parts, one of which he reserved for himself, the second he gave to the nobles who had assisted him, and distributed the third among the clergy of the new or reformed religion.

"The Pope's wrath was kindled at these proceedings, and he excommunicated the king, who trampled the edict under his feet. The Pope then wrote to the princes of Christendom, exhorting them all to undertake a _holy war_ against Henry, who was not only a heretic, but an infidel; adding, that if they did not, fire would be rained on them from heaven as a punishment for their neglect. Some of the Christian monarchs, as the King of Spain, declared war accordingly against Henry, and sent ships to the coast of England; but all their attempts failed; and the King of Denmark and other potentates, perceiving that the Pope's threats were not accomplished, and that no fire fell from heaven, followed Henry's example in expelling the Pope's clergy from their dominions, and adopted measures of reform similar to his. From this time the Pope's power began to decline in all the countries of Europe, so that at the present day his name is read in the _khotbah_ only in the city of Rome and the small territory which is yet left him in its neighbourhood; and the old practice of excommunication seems to have entirely ceased; while the reformed religion introduced by Henry, and which is so different from the ancient faith, has existed in England ever since, a period of above three hundred years."

We need not pursue further our extracts from the Khan's speculations on English history, of which the passages already given afford a sufficient specimen; but we may notice that he mentions James I. as the first English monarch who sent an ambassador (Sir Thomas Roe) to the court of Delhi, and refers to the history of Ferishta for an account of his reception by the Emperor Jehanghir. He next proceeds to describe the climate, productions, and statistics of the country, its division into _zillahs_ or counties, the law of primogeniture as regards succession to landed property, &c.; and enters into minute details on the laws regulating the succession to the throne, the responsibility of ministers, the election of the members of the House of Commons, and the mutual dependence of the three branches of the legislature; but his remarks on these subjects, though creditable from their general accuracy, possess little originality; and may be left without comment for the edification of his friends in Hindustan, for whose benefit it is to be presumed they were intended. The doctrine of the responsibility of ministers, (which the Khan in a former part of his narrative, as we had occasion to remark, seemed either to have been unacquainted with, or to have lost sight of,) is here stated with a full appreciation of its practical bearings; and is pronounced to be "the best law which the English ever made for the government of the people, by imposing a check on the absolute will of the sovereign; resembling the similar restraint on the power of our monarchs which prevails in Islam, though with us the check is still more powerful and effectual, as the judge is empowered by the Koran to demand satisfaction from the sovereign himself!" The details of the British finances are briefly touched upon, with a special denunciation of "that most extraordinary tax laid on the light of the sun when it comes through a window:"--but the Khan contents himself with stating the amount of the national debt, and the interest annually paid to the public creditors, without offering any scheme for its extinction, like that of his countryman Mirza Abu-Taleb, who with perfect gravity and good faith proposes that the fundholders should be summoned before Parliament, and informed by the minister, that since the pressure of the taxes necessary to meet the interest must inevitably, erelong, produce a revolution, in which the whole debt would be cancelled, it would be far better for them at once to relinquish with a good grace great part of their claim, and accept payment of the balance by instalments. Of the feasibility, as well as equity of this plan, the Mirza does not appear to entertain the smallest doubt:--"and thus," he triumphantly concludes, "in twenty or thirty years, the whole of the debt would be liquidated; some of the most oppressive taxes might be immediately abolished, and others gradually relinquished; provisions would become cheaper, and the people be rendered happy, and grateful to the government."

"When in Hindustan," says the Khan, "I had heard, like millions of others, of something in connexion with the Feringhi rulers, called _Company_; but no one knew whether this was a man, or a medicine, or a weapon, or a horse, or a ship, or any thing else. The most prevalent notion was, that it was an old woman; but as the oldest among us, and their fathers before them, had always heard it spoken of in exactly the same terms, they were further puzzled to account for her preternatural longevity." A well-directed course of enquiry in England, speedily enabled the Khan to unravel the mystery; and he has enlightened his countrymen with full details on the composition of the venerable Begum, with the Court of Directors, the Board of Control, &c.; but in the prosecution of these researches, he was surprised by finding that _Company_ was so far from being one and indivisible, that _Companies_ "exist by thousands for multifarious objects--many even for speculation in human life. The most recent is the Victoria, composed of twelve directors, and other officers. A man puts a value on his life, and on this sum they put a per centage, varying according to his age and state of health, which he pays, and when he dies his heirs receive the money. People of the middle classes generally resort to this method of providing, by small annual contributions, for the support of their families after their decease--and consequently the man's own relations often rejoice when he dies, while strangers (the Insurance Company) grieve."

On the important subject of the domestic usages and manners of the English, the Khan enters less at length than might have been expected. Of country life, indeed, from which alone correct ideas on such subjects can be derived, he saw absolutely nothing, his knowledge of the country being apparently limited to the prospect from the windows of a railway carriage; and his acquaintance with London manners was drawn more from ballrooms and crowded soirees, than from the private circles of family reunions. With these limited opportunities of observation, his remarks on the mass of the people are necessarily confined, in a great measure, to their outdoor habits; in which nothing appears to have surprised him more than the small number of horsemen (as he considers) to be seen in the streets of London; "the generality of these, too, are extremely bad riders, though this, perhaps, may be owing to the uncouth and awkward saddles they use:" a libel on our national character for horsemanship, into which we must charitably hope that the Cockney cavaliers who crowd the Regent's Park on Sundays, are responsible for having misled him. The important point of the comparative deference paid to women, and the amount of liberty and privileges enjoyed by them, in the social systems of Mohammedan and Christian countries respectively, is taken up by the Khan in behalf of the former, with as much warmth as in past years by his compatriot Mirza Abu-Taleb,[19] and in much the same line of argument--to the effect that the dowery which the eastern husband is bound by law to pay over in money to his wife in the event of a separation, is a far more effectual protection to the wife from the fickleness and caprice of her partner, ("whose _interest_ it thus becomes, setting affection wholly out of the question, to remain on good terms with her,") than any remedy afforded by the laws of England; where a wife, though bound by ties less easily dissolved than under the Mohammedan system of divorces, may still be driven, without misconduct on her part, from her husband's house, and left to seek redress by the slow process of litigation. The Khan assures us that several ladies with whom he conversed on these interesting topics, and who had passed many years of their lives in India, were utterly unacquainted with these protective rights of Hindustani wives; and were obliged to confess, that if they were correctly stated, "the ladies in India are far better off than ourselves. For (said they) the dowery we receive from our fathers on our marriage goes to our husbands, who may squander it in one day if they like; and even the dresses we wear are not our own property, but are given us by our husbands." But if we allow the Khan all due credit for the adroitness and success with which he maintained on this occasion the cause of his fair countrywomen, we can scarcely acquit him of something like disingenuousness in a discussion with "another lady," apparently one who had _not_ been in India, and who lamented the hard fate (as she believed) of the Indian widows, who could not marry again after the death of their first husband, and were at the mercy of the priests, who filled their heads with terrors of a future state to prevent their doing so. "With regard to this last idea, it is so utterly groundless, that there is no word in our language corresponding with 'priest;' and of all religions in the world, Islam is the least influenced by spiritual meddlers of any sort. It is, besides, expressly enjoined in the Koran, that widows should marry; they may do so as often as they like, if they survive their husbands; and if they do not, it is their own choice." Now, though this vehement denial of the Khan's is perfectly true as regards _Moslem_ law and _Moslem_ widows, he must have been well aware that the lady's error arose from her considering as common to all the natives of India, Hindustanis as well as Hindus, those customs and restrictions which are peculiar to the Hindus alone. Among the latter, as is well known, both the priestcraft of the Brahmins, and the impediments to the marriage of a widow,[20] exist in full force at this day; and it would have been more candid on the part of the Khan, even at the expense of a little of his Moslem pride, to have set his fair opponent right on these points, than to have triumphed over her ignorance, without showing her wherein lay her error.

But however deeply the Khan may have commiserated the unprotected condition of English wives, as compared with the security of rights enjoyed by the more fortunate dames of Hindustan, we find him at all times disposed to do ample justice to the social qualifications and accomplishments of our countrywomen, and the beneficial influence exercised by them in smoothing the asperities of society. The masculine portion of the community, indeed, find little favour in the eyes of the Khan, who accuses them of being prone to indulge in inveterate enmity and ill-feeling on slight grounds, while instances of real friendship, on the contrary, are extremely rare: and he is wearied and disgusted by the endless disputes which occur at all times and all places, from the collision of individuals of adverse political sentiments. "They dispute in parliament, they dispute in their social circles, they dispute in steam-boats, on railroads, in eating and drinking; and I verily believe that, but for some slight feeling of religion, they would dispute even in their churches. But in the same proportion as the men were hostile to each other, did the women seem united: the more there were of these fair creatures, the pleasanter did they make the party by their smiles and good-humour: with the men, the more there were collected together, the more wrangling always ensued. In qualities of the mind and heart, as well as in the social virtues, the women far surpass the men--they are more susceptible of friendship, more hospitable to strangers, less reserved, and, I must say, generally better informed. Wherever I have been conversing with gentlemen in society, if a difficulty occurred on any topic, the men would invariably turn to their wives or sisters, and ask for an explanation, thus tacitly admitting the superior attainments of the ladies: and I have always found that I obtained from the latter a more satisfactory answer to any of my enquiries on national customs and institutions. Nor must it be supposed that this superiority was only apparent, and arose from the desire the men might have to display the accomplishments of their ladies by referring so constantly to them: it is the real state of the case, as far as I can judge from the manners of the people."

We cannot better close our extracts from the Khan's remarks on English manners and society, than with this spontaneous tribute to the merits and attractions of our countrywomen, the value of which is enhanced by its coming, as it does, from an acute observer of a social system in which every thing was wholly at variance with his preconceived habits and ideas, and from one, moreover, totally unacquainted with that routine of compliment, which serves gentlemen in the regions of Franguestan, to use the words of Die Vernon, "like the toys and beads which navigators carry with them to propitiate the inhabitants of newly-discovered lands." But the impression produced on the Khan by the contemplation of the institutions and resources of England has yet to be viewed in another light--in its relations to the government of India under Feringhi rule, and the comparative benefits conferred on the people at large, by the sway respectively of the English, and of their old Mohammedan rulers. The Khan's opinions on these subjects will doubtless be read with surprise by that numerous and respectable class of the community, who hold as an article of faith, (to use the words of our author,) that in Mohammedan countries "every prince is a tyrant; every court of justice full of corruption; and all the people sunk in depravity, ignorance, and misery:" and who cling to the comfortable delusion that we have succeeded, by the equity of our civil government, in attaching to our rule the population of India. As a view of this important subject _from the other side of the question_, taken by one, however, by no means indisposed to do justice to what he considers as the meritorious features of the English administration, the Khan's comparative summary, though not wholly devoid of prejudice, possesses considerable interest: and it must be admitted, that with respect to the internal improvement of the country, his strictures have hitherto had but too much foundation, though the schemes of the present governor-general, if carried into effect, will go far to remove the stigma from the Anglo-Indian rulers. After contrasting, in a conversation with an English friend, the expedition of legal proceedings under the Moslem rule, with the slow process of the English courts in India, to be finally remedied only by the endless and generally ineffectual course of appeal to the privy-council at home, (in which, according to the Khan's statement, not a single individual of the number who have undertaken the long voyage from India has ever succeeded,) he proceeds--

"Historical facts seem to be wholly lost sight of by those who talk of the conduct of Mohammedan rulers in India, who, as I could prove by many instances, were constantly solicitous of the happiness of their subjects. Shah-Jehan constructed a road from Delhi to Lahore, a distance of 500 miles, with guard-houses at intervals of every three miles, and at every ten or twelve miles a caravanserai, where all travellers were fed and lodged at the Emperor's expense. Besides this, canals were dug, and public edifices built, at the expense of millions, without taxing the people to pay for them as here; and these edifices still stand, and will endure for many years, as monuments of the munificence of the monarchs who erected them. During the seventy years of the English dominion in India, what has been done which would remind the people fifty years hence, if they should retire from the country, that such a nation had ever held sway there? The only memorials they would leave, would be the numerous empty bottles scattered over the whole empire, to indicate what has been done _in_, if not _for_ India! In some cases also, they have squandered millions without benefit either to the people or themselves. The money spent in three years on the insane war in Cabul, if expended on the construction of railroads or canals, or the extension of steam navigation on our great rivers, would have employed thousands of men for twenty years, returned an immense profit to government, and have gained them a good name among the people. But it is the misfortune of India, that notwithstanding the high qualities of energy and enterprise, united with superior education and intelligence, unquestionably possessed by its masters, they display so lamentable and apathetic an indifference to the amelioration of the country. Since I have had such opportunities of observing the proofs of English art and skill which I see every where and in every department, I cannot but the more deeply regret that these wonderful discoveries, and strange and unheard-of inventions, in every branch of science and art, are likely to remain unknown to the people of India. If I were to relate on my return all the wonders I have seen, no one would believe me: and to what could I appeal in evidence of the truth of what I say? Are there any establishments where these things can be shown to the people on any thing like an adequate scale? If such institutions had been established, the people would have some tangible proof of the real intellectual superiority of their English rulers: but in the lapse of seventy years, nothing has been done. Again, if seminaries had been founded on the principle of those built and endowed by the emperors, they might have produced men eminent in various faculties: but though it is true that schools were built by the Company some fifteen years since, in various parts of the empire, in which some thousands of children, both Hindoo and Moslem, have received education, they have never turned out a single man of superior attainments in any department of literature there taught:--and it is remarkable that not an instance exists, as far as I am aware, of a man thus educated in the Company's own schools having been selected for the high judicial offices of _Sadr-ameen_, and principal _Sadr-ameen_ (judges in the local courts;) but that these functionaries have invariably been chosen from those educated in the native method. Is not this strange, that Government should have established schools professing to give superior instruction to the people; and that not one so trained should have been found eligible to fill any of the judicial or fiscal offices of their own government? and how can it be accounted for, except by these institutions having been conducted on an erroneous principle? When I return to India, I must be like the free-masons, silent and reserved, unless when I meet one who has been, like myself, in England, and with whom I can converse on the wonders we have both witnessed in that marvellous country, and which, if I venture to narrate them in public, or even among my own immediate friends and relatives, would draw on me such disbelief, that I would certainly die from grief of heart."--Here leave we Kerim Khan; not without a hope, that in spite of the apprehensions expressed in the passage just quoted, of incurring the reproach to which "travellers' tales" are supposed to be sometimes obnoxious, he has not eventually persisted in withholding from his countrymen a narrative which, both from the opportunities of observation enjoyed by the writer, and the ability and good judgement with which he has availed himself of these advantages, is better calculated to dispel the incredulity which he anticipates, than the Travels of Mirza Abu-Taleb, (the text of which has been printed at Calcutta,) or indeed than any work with which we are acquainted. Trusting, then, that the Khan's patriotic aspirations for the welfare of his country may be realized by the speedy introduction of all those Feringhi appendages to high civilization, the want of which he so feelingly deplores, and that he may live a thousand years in the full fruition of all the advantages therefrom resulting, we now take leave of him.

FOOTNOTES:

[11] The palace constructed, in the early ages of the world, by the giant-king Sheddad, as a rival to the heavenly paradise, and supposed still to exist, though invisible to mortal eyes, in the recesses of the Desert--See LANE'S _Thousand and One Nights_, vol, ii. p. 342.

[12] The Persian princes imagine these children to be collected from all parts of the United Kingdom, for the purpose of this procession!

[13] The Khan never gives dates; but on investigation we find that this must have been on the 11th of June 1841; as among the list of visitors on that day occur the names of _Kurreen_ Khan, Mohabet Khan, and, singularly enough, the Parsee poet, Manackjee Cursetjee, who will be well remembered as a lion of the London drawing-rooms during that season.

[14] The _polite_ dialect of Hindustani, which differs considerably from that in use among the lower orders. The phrase is derived from _Oorda_, the court, or camp, of the sovereign--whence our word _horde_.

[15] "One hundred and fifty-three of the students," he adds, "were fixed upon for commissions, who were to be sent out to India;" but the Khan must have been strangely misinformed here, as the number actually selected was only thirty-one.

[16] This must have been the Trafalgar of 120 guns, which was launched June 21, 1841; but the Khan is mistaken in supposing that the Queen personally performed the ceremony of _christening_ the ship, since that duty devolved on Lady Bridport, the niece of Nelson, who used on the occasion a bottle of wine which had been on board the Victory when Nelson fell.

[17] This must be a slip of the pen for _Selim_, or perhaps for Soliman Ibn Selim, (Soliman the Magnificent.)

[18] "At this epoch," adds the Khan in a note, "reigned the great Harun-al-Rashid, the khalif and supreme head of Islam; and Charles the Great was Emperor of the Franks."

[19] The Mirza even went so far as to write during his stay in England a treatise, entitled "Vindication of the Liberties of the Asiatic Women," which was translated by Captain Richardson, and published first in the _Asiatic Annual Register_ for 1801, and again as an Appendix to the Mirza's Travels. It is a very curious pamphlet, and well worth perusal.

[20] Great efforts have of late been made, among the more enlightened Hindus, to get rid of this prejudice. Baboo Motee Loll Seal, a wealthy native of Calcutta, offered 20,000 rupees, a year or two since, to the first Hindu who would marry a widow, and we believe the prize has been since claimed:--and in the _Asiatic Journal_ (vol. xxxviii. p. 370,) we find the announcement of the establishment, in 1842, of a "Hindu widow re-marrying club" at Calcutta!

NOTES ON A TOUR OF THE DISTURBED DISTRICTS IN WALES.

BY JOSEPH DOWNES.

Author of "The Mountain Decameron."

Llangaddock, Carmarthenshire, September 9.

"And this is the '_disturbed district!_'--this is the seat of war!--the '_Agrarian civil war!_'--the headquarters of the '_Rebecca rebels!_" I soliloquized, about the hour of one A.M. on the night of September 9, 1843--a night of more than summer beauty, sultry and light as day--while thrusting my head from the window of "mine inn" the Castle, in this pretty picturesque little village-town, to coin a term. The shadows of the rustic houses, and interspersed corn-stacks, trees, and orchards, stretched across the irregular street, without a causeway, in unbroken quiet; not a sound was heard but the voice of an owl from a "fold" in the very heart of "the town," and the low murmur of the river chafing against the buttresses of an antique bridge at the end of the said "street;" while an humble bow window of a shop, where at nightfall I had observed some dozens of watches (_silver_, too!) displayed, without a token of "Rebecca" terrorism appearing, was seen jutting into the road, only hidden, not defended, by such a weak apology for a shutter, as would not have resisted a burglar of ten years' old.

It was now Sunday morning, and the clean-swept neatness of the sleeping village, whose inhabitants we had seen busily engaged in this pleasing preparation for the day of rest, as we strolled there at twilight, confirmed the assurance of profound and fearless peace; for only in that happy condition of society could the mind be supposed disengaged enough to regard those minute decencies of rural English life. With a smile of well-pleased wonder at the exaggerations of the press, which were persuading the Londoners that the "dogs of war" were really "let slip" among these our green mountains and pastoral valleys, after enjoying this prospect of a village by moonlight at the foot of the majestic _Mynydd Du_, (black mountain,) whose range is seen by day, towering at a few miles' distance, and hugging myself in the security of life and purse, which warriors (if they would cross-question their own great hearts) do really prize as much as I do, I returned to bed, (the heat of which had first driven me forth to this air-bath of half an hour.) "And _this_ is the seat of insurrection!" I reiterated sarcastically against all English and all Welsh purveyors of "news" for terror-loving readers.

I have a huge deal of patriotism in my composition--also, a great love of rural quiet, joined to some _trifling_ degree of cowardice, as my family pretend; but that I impute to my over-familiarity with them. "No man is great to his valet," has been remarked. The domestics of Alexander wondered what the world found to wonder at, in the little man their master. However this may be, I confess it was very pleasant to me to find peace unbroken in these my old haunts. Here I had many a summer night enacted, as recorded in my "Mountain Decameron," the amateur-gipsy, "a long while ago," _bivouacking_ in their wildest solitudes, between some wood and water, on moonlight greensward, or reading at our tents' mouth by a lamp, while two boys, my sons, slept soundly within; and in the blindness of human nature, thus sneering against the "gentlemen of the press," sneered myself to sleep, "shut up in measureless content."

"Most lame and impotent conclusion!" The peace of nature in that sweet night was weak assurance of any kindred feeling in the bosom of man. It so happened (as I afterwards learned) that felony--_bloody_ felony--was at that very time busy, at no great distance; that murder, that arson in its direst character, were stamping their first damnable characters on a province noted, through ages, for innocence and simple piety; that the first victim to rebellion was, at that moment, bleeding to death under the hands of those wearing the shapes of men; that victim innocent, helpless, and--a woman!!

But of this in the course of my narrative. Sunday, September 10.

As I proceeded from Llangaddock this afternoon, in company with my son, we found no slackness in the attendance on the chapels, which keep rising in all directions in the principality. The groups issuing from them, survey us with surly eyes, as _Sabbath-breakers_, for travelling on the "Lord's day." It is curious to reflect that these very persons who have just been listening to the preachers of a gospel of peace, with white upturning eyes and inward groans, who present countenances deeply marked, as it seems to us, with the spirit of severe sanctity, betrayed by their sour looks at us, and not rarely vested in two or three expressions _at_ us among themselves--I say, how curious a fact in the _pathology_ of minds does it present, that these very men will (some of them) reappear in a few hours, or days, in the characters of _felons_, midnight rebels to law and order, redressing minor wrongs committed by a few against themselves, by a tenfold fouler wrong against all men, against society itself. For a _system_ which consists in defying the laws, is a systematic waging of war against the very element that binds men in society--it is a casting off of civilization, a return to miserable dependence on animal strength alone, on brutish cunning, or midnight hiding in the dark, for all we enjoy. It seems well known that the farmers themselves are the Rebeccaites, aided by their servants, and that _the_ Rebecca is no other than some forward booby, or worse character, who ambitiously claims to _act_ the leader, under the unmanly disguise of a female, yielding his post in turn to other such petticoat heros. The "Rebecca" seems no more than a living figure to give _effect_ to the drama, as boys dress up an effigy and parade it as _the_ Guy Fawkes.

It is curious to witness the chop-fallen aspect of the poor toll-collectors. The "looking for" of a dark hour is depicted on the _female_ faces, at least, and a certain constrained civility mixed with sullenness, marks the manners of the male portion near large towns; for elsewhere, humble civility has _always_ met the traveller in this class of Welsh cottagers. The frequent appearance of dragoons, the clatter of their dangling accoutrements of war, and grotesque ferocity of hairy headgear, and mock-heroic air of superiority to the more quietly grotesque groups of grey-coated men, and muffled up Welsh women gives a new feature to our tour in this hitherto tranquil region, where a soldier used to be a monster that men, women, children, all alike, would run to the cottage door to look at. A very different sort of look than that of childish curiosity now greets these gallant warriors, at least from the farmers. "'Becca" is the beloved of their secret hearts--'Becca has already given them roads without paying for them! 'Becca is longed for by every _honest_ farmer of them all, whenever he pays a toll-gate. And these fellows are come sword in hand, to hunt down poor innocent 'Becca! Well may the Welshman's eyes lower on them, whatever may be the looks of the Welsh women.

We have now rode through several toll-gates, the ruins of the toll-houses only remaining, and rode scatheless! No toll asked--no darting forth of a grim figure from his little castle, at the shake of the road by tramp of horses--like the spider showing himself at his hole, on the trembling of his web to the struggle of a luckless fly. Nothing appeared but a shell of a house, with blackened remains of rafters, or a great heap of stones, not even a wall left--and huge stumps of gate-posts, and not a hand extended, or voice raised to demand payment for our use of a road!--that payment which the laws of the land had formally pronounced due! Had new laws been passed? Had a new mode arisen of discharging the debt we had incurred by the purchase of the use of so much road for two horses? Nothing of the kind! A mob at midnight had thrown down the barrier law had built; and law dared not, or neglected to--erect it again! "Rebecca," like Jack Cade, had pronounced _her_ law--"sic volo, sic jubeo"--and we rode through, by virtue of her most graceless Majesty's absolute edict--cost free. It was really a very singular feeling we experienced on the first of these occasions. I assure thee, my reader; believe me, my pensive public! I never was transported--never held up hand at the Old Bailey, or elsewhere; am not conscious of any sinister sort of projections about my skull that phrenologists might draw ugly conclusions on; yet I confess, that after an eloquent burst of Conservative wrath against this strange triumph of anarchy--after looking down on these works of mob law, unreversed, tamely endured--after fancying I saw the prostrate genius of social order there lying helpless--the dethroned majesty of British law there grovelling among the black ruins, insulted, unrestored--left to be trampled over with insolent laughter, by refractory boors, ignorant as savages of that law's inestimable blessing--I say, after all these hurried thoughts and feelings--let me whisper thee, my reader, that a certain scandalous pleasure _did_ creep up from these finger-ends, instinctively groping the pocket for the pre-doomed "thrippence," yea, quite up to this lofty, reasoning, and right loyal sensorium, on leaving the said sum in good and lawful money, snug and safe in my own pocket, instead of handing it over to a toll collector. Let us not expect too much from poor human nature! I defy any man--Aristides Redivivus himself, to ride _toll free_ through, or rather over, a turnpike defunct in this manner, and not feel a pernicious pleasure at his heart, a sort of slyly triumphing satisfaction, spite of himself, as of a dog that gets his adversary undermost; in short--without becoming for the moment, under the Circean chink of the saved "coppers," a rank Rebeccaite! The Lord and the law forgive me, for I surely loved 'Becca at _heart_ at that moment!

My son being a young man about returning to college, it was highly important to conceal this backsliding within; so I launched out the more upon the monster character of this victory of brawny ignorance and stupid rebellion over the spirit of laws--but it wouldn't do. "But you don't _look_ altogether so angry about it as you speak, father," said he, though what he could see to betray any inward chuckling, I am not aware. If the casual saving of a toll could thus operate upon ME, who should, perhaps, never pass there again, can it be wondered at that farmers, to whom this triumph must prove a great annual gain, are Rebeccaites _to the backbone_, and to a man? I fear they must be more than man, not to cry secretly to this levelling lady "God speed!" And this leads me to more serious reflection on the incomprehensible and fatal conduct of the local authorities _in the first instance_, in not _instantly_ re-erecting the toll-gates, or fixing chains _pro tempore_, protecting at whatever expense some persons to demand compliance with the laws, that not for a week, a day, an hour, the disgraceful and dangerous spectacle should be exhibited, of authority completely down-trodden, law successfully defied. Surely the first step in vindication of the dignity of legal supremacy could not be difficult. By day, at least, surely a constabulary force might have compelled obedience. A few military at _first_, stationed near the gates, would have awed rustic rebels. It is the _impunity_ which this unheard-of palsy of the governing strong hand so long ensured to them, which has fostered riot into rebellion, and rebellion into incendiarism and murder. Is it possible for a thinking man to see these poor and (truth to tell) most money-loving people, saving two or three shillings every time they drive their team to market or lime, by the prostration of a gate, and be at a loss to discover the secret of this midnight work spreading like wildfire? Why, every transit which a farmer makes cost free, is a spur to his avarice, a tribute of submission to his lawless will, a temptation to his ignorant impatience of _all_ payments to try his hand against all. The quiet acquiescence in refusal to pay--the vanishing of toll-house and toll-takers without one magisterial edict--the mere submission to the mob, seems to cry "_peccavi_" too manifestly, and affords fresh colour to indiscriminate condemnation of all. A _bonus_ in the shape of a toll for horse or team remitted, is thus actually presented, many times a-day, to the rioter, the rebel, the midnight incendiary of toll-houses, for this good work, by the supine, besotted, or fear-palsied local authorities. Shall a man look on while a burglar enters his house, ransacks his till, let him depart, and then, in despair, leave the door he broke open, open still all night for his entrance, and then wonder that burglary is vastly on the increase? The wonder, I think, is that one gate remains; and that wonder will not exist long, if government do not do something more than send down _a_ gentleman to ask the Welsh what they please to want? The temptation forced upon the eyes and minds of a poverty-stricken and greedy people, by this shocking spectacle of the mastery of anarchy over order, in the annihilation of an impost by armed mountain peasants, is in itself a great cruelty; for in all Agrarian risings the state has triumphed at last, inasmuch as wealth and its resources are an over-match for poverty, however furious or savage; hence blood will flow under the sword of justice ultimately, which early vigilance on her part might have wholly spared. "Knock down that toll-house--fire its contents--murder its tenant," seems the voice of such sleepy justice to pronounce, "and neither I, nor my myrmidons will even _ask_ you again for toll! Do this, and you shall not pay!!"

Such was the tacit invitation kindly presented by the _first_ torn down toll-gate that remained in ruins, to every Welsh farmer. The farmer has accepted it, and "justice"--justice keeps her promise religiously, for no toll is demanded. If the law had been violated by trustees, we have a body called parliament strong enough to reform, ay, and punish them, as they, some of them perhaps, richly deserve; but was that a reason for the laws to be annulled, and lawlessness made the order of the day, in so important a matter as public roads, by the very men who are to profit by it, self-erected into judges in their own cause?

* * * * *

Llandilo Vaur. Evening, Sept. 10. Sunday.

A scene to turn even a "commercial traveller" (_vulgo_ a bagman) into a "sentimental" one, if any thing could! Clouds that had overcast our ride of the last few miles, kindly "flew diverse" as we reached the bridge over the Towey, that flows at the foot of the declivity on which this romantic town stands. The sun broke forth, and all at once showed, and burnished while it showed, one of the noblest landscapes in South Wales--not the less attractive for being that which kindled the muse of Dyer--on which the saintly eye of a far greater poet had often reposed--the immortal _prose-poet_ bishop, Jeremy Taylor, a refugee here during the storm of the Civil Wars. Golden Grove, his beautiful retreat, with its venerable trees, was in our sight, the green mountain meadows between literally verifying its name by the brilliance of their sunshiny rich grass, where "God had showered the landscape;" to a fantastic fancy, giving the idea of the quivering of the richest leaf gold on a ground of emerald. The humbler Welsh Parnassus of the painter poet, Grongar Hill, towered also in distance. We traced the pastoral yet noble river, winding away in long meanders, up-flashing silver, through a broad mountain valley, dotted with white farms, rich in various foliage, marked as a map by lines, with well-marked hedge-rows; harvest fields full of sheaves, yellowing all the lofty slopes that presented these beautiful farms and folds full to the descending sun; those slopes, surmounted by grand masses of darkness, solemnly contrasted with the gay luxuriance all below; that darkness only the shade of woods, nodding like the black plume over the golden armour of some giant hero of fable, "magna componere parvis."

Nearer, rose directly from the river a noble park, with all the charm of the wild picturesque, from its antique look, its romantic undulations and steepness, its woody mount and ivied ruin of a castle, "bosomed high in tufted trees," half-hidden, yet visible and reflected in the now-placid mirror of a reach of the river.

Being Sunday, a moral charm was added to those of this exquisite natural panorama, from which the curtain of storm-cloud seemed just then drawn up, as if to strike us the more with its flashing glory of sunshine, water, and a whole sky become cerulean in a few minutes. No Sabbath bells chimed, indeed; but the hushed town, and vacant groups come abroad to enjoy the return of that Italian weather we had long luxuriated in, impressed, equally with any music, the idea of Sabbath on the mind. It was hard to believe, revolting to be forced to believe, that this fine scene of perfect beauty and deep repose, as presented to the eye, directed to nature only--to the mind's eye rolling up to nature's God--was also the (newly transfigured) theatre of man's worst and darkest passions; that the _army_--that odious, hideous, necessary curse of civilization, the severe and hateful guardian of liberty and peace, (though uncongenial to both)--was at that moment evoked by all the lovers of both for their salvation; was even then violating the ideal harmony of the hour, by its foul yet saving presence; was parading those green suburbs, and the sweet fields under those mountain walls, with those clangours so discordant to the holy influences of the hour and scene--emerging in their gay, shocking costume, (the colour of blood, and devised for its concealment,) from angles of rocks, and mouths of bowered avenues, where the mild fugitive from civil war, and faithful devotee of his throneless king, had often wandered, meditating on "Holy Dying"--of "Holy Living" himself a beautiful example--where even still, nothing gave outward and visible sign of incendiarism and murder lurking among those hermitages of rustic life; yet were both in active, secret operation!

In that very park of _Dynevor_, whose beauty we were admiring from the bridge, a little walk would have led us to--a _grave!_--no consecrated one, but one dug ready to receive a corpse; _dug, in savage threatening of slaughter, for the reception of one yet living_--the son of the noble owner of that ancient domain--dug in sight of his father's house, in his own park, by wretches who have warned him to prepare to fill that grave in October! The gentleman so threatened, being void of all offence save that of being a magistrate--a sworn preserver of the public peace!

Equally abhorrent to rational piety, if less shocking, is that air of sourest sanctity which the groups now passing us bring with them out from the meeting-houses.

Ask a question, and a nasal noise between groan and snort seems to signify that they ask to be asked again, a sort of _ha--a--h?_ "long drawn out." The human face and the face of nature, at that hour, were as an east of thunder fronting a west of golden blue summer serenity. The Mawworms of Calvinistic Methodism have made a sort of monkery of all Wales, as regards externals at least. To think a twilight or noonday walk for pleasure a sin, involves the absurdest principle of ascetic folly, as truly as self-flagellation, or wearing horsehair shirts. Not that these ministers set their flocks any example of self-mortification. The greater number of preachers show excellent "condition," the poorest farmers' wives vying with each other in purveying "creature comforts" for these spiritual comforters. Preparing hot dinners, it seems, is not working on the Lord's Day when it is for the preacher; though to save a field of corn, which is in danger of being spoiled if left out, as in some seasons, would be a shocking desecration of that day. Yet, to observe the abstracted unearthly carriage of these men, who seem "conversing with the skies" while walking the streets, one wonders at the contrast of such burly bodies and refined spirits.

To return to the flock from these burly shepherds of souls--this outbreak of a devilish spirit--this crusade against law and order, tolls and tithes, life and property, is a damning evidence against these spiritual pastors and masters, for such they are to the great body of the Welsh common people, in the fullest sense. The _Times_ newspaper has ruffled the whole "Volscian" camp of Dissent, it appears, by thundering forth against them a charge of inciting their congregations to midnight crime. "John Joneses, and David Reeses, and Ap Shenkinses, have sprung up like the men from the dragon's teeth, to repel this charge. It is probable that it was not well founded, for the simple reason, that such daring subornation of crime would have brought _themselves_ into trouble. But what sort of defence is this, even if substantiated? You did not _excite_ your followers to rebellion and arson! _You_, with your unlimited command of their minds, and almost bodies, why did you not allay, resist, put down the excitement, by whomever raised? That is the gravamen of the charge against you! You who make then weep, make then tremble, puff them with spiritual conceit, or depress them with terrors of damnation just as you please, how comes it that you are powerless all at once in deterring them from wild and bad actions--you, who are all-powerful in inciting them to any thing, since to refrain from violence is easier than to commit it?

The increase of these outrages proves, that not the power, but will, is wanting on your part, to put down this spirit of revenge and revolt. You perceive the current of their ignorant minds setting strongly in toward rapine and rebellion, (the _feeler_ put forth being the toll grievance,) and you basely, wickedly, pander to their passions, by a discreet silence in your rostra, an unchristian apathy; while deeds are being done under your very eyes--in your daily path--which no good man can view without horror; no bold good man in the position which you hold, of public instructors in human duties, could see, without denouncing! And as your boldness, at least, is pretty apparent, whatever your goodness may be, other motives than fear must be sought for this unaccountable suspension of your influence--and I find it in _self-interest_--love of "filthy lucre." You are "supported by voluntary contribution," and to thwart the passions of your followers, and stem the tide of lawless violence, though your most sacred spiritual duty, is not the way to conciliate--is not compatible with that "voluntary principle" on which your bread depends, and which too often places your duty and your interest in direct opposition."

* * * * *

Llanon, Carmarthenshire.

The good woman of our inn in this village has just been apologizing for the almost empty state of her house, the furniture being chiefly sent away to Pembree, whither she and her family hoped to follow in a few days. The cause of her removal was _fear of the house being set fire to_, it being the property of Mr Chambers, a magistrate of Llanelly, and the "Rebecca's company" had warned all his tenants to be prepared for their fiery vengeance. His heinous offence was heading the police in discharge of his duty, in a conflict that has just occurred at Pontardulais gate, near this place, in which some of the 'Beccaites were wounded. [Since this, farm-houses and other property of this gentleman have been consumed, his life has been threatened, and his family have prevailed on him to abandon his home and native place.] The wounded men, now prisoners, were of this village, the _focus_ of this rebellion that dares not face the day. It is here that the murderous midnight attack was made on the house of a Mr Edwards, when the wretches fired volleys at the windows, where his wife and daughter appeared _at their command_. They escaped, miraculously it might be said, notwithstanding. The poor old hostess complained, as well she might, of the hardship of being thus put in peril, purely in hostility to her landlord. We slept, however, soundly, and found ourselves alive in the morning; whether through evangelical Rebecca's scruples about burning us out (or _in_) on a "Lord's Day" night, or her being engaged elsewhere, we knew not.

And here also we rode through a crowd, murmuring hymns, pouring from the chapel, where, no doubt, they had heard some edifying discourse about the "sweet Jesus," and "sweet experiences," and "new birth," the omnipotence of faith to salvation, and all and every topic but a _man's_ just indignation, and a religious man's most solemn denunciation against the bloody and felonious outrages just committed by those very villagers--against the night-masked assassins, who had just before wantonly pointed deadly weapons against unoffending women--against the chamber of a sick man, a husband, and a father!

* * * * *

Llanelly, Sept. 11, Monday.

The headquarters of vindictive rebellion, arson, and spiritual oratory! An ugly populous town near the sea, now in a ferment of mixed fear and fury, from recent savage acts of the Rebeccaites against a most respectable magistrate, resident in the town, Mr W. Chambers, jun., the denounced landlord of our old Welsh hostess at Llanon. Two of his farm-houses have been burned to the ground, and his life has been threatened. His grievous offence I stated before. Soldiers are seen every where; and verily, the mixture of brute-ignorance and brute-ferocity, depicted in the faces of the great mass of "operatives" that we meet, seem to hint that their presence is not prematurely invoked. Their begrimed features and figures, caused by their various employments, give greater effect to the wild character of the coatless groups, who, in their blue check shirt-sleeves, congregate at every corner to _cabal_, rather than to _dispute_, it seems; for, fond as they are of dissent, (though not one in fifty could tell you _from_ what they dissent, or _to_ what they cleave in doctrine,) there seems no leaning to dissent from the glorious new Rebecca law of might (or midnight surprisals) against right.

In this neighbourhood, our Welsh annals will have to record--_the first dwelling-house_, not being a toll-house, _was laid in ashes; the first blood was shed_ by "Rebecca's company," as they call the rioters here. And _here_ resides, rants, prays, and preaches, and scribbles sedition, an illiterate fanatic, who is recognised as an organ of one sect of Methodists, Whitfieldites publishing a monthly inflammatory Magazine, called Y Diwygiwr, (the "_Reformer!_")--God bless the mark!

This little pope, within his little circle of the "great unwashed," is very oracular, and his infallibility a dogma with his followers and readers. How much he himself and his vulgar trash of prose run mad, stand in need of that wholesome reform which some of his English brother-firebrands have been taught in Coldbathfields and Newgate, let my reader judge from the following extract. The _Times_ newspaper did good service in _gibbeting_ this precious morceau, supplied by its indefatigable reporter, in its broad sheet. How great was the neglect of _Welsh_ society, and every thing Welsh, when this sort of war-cry of treason could be raised, this trump of rebellion sounded, and, as it were, from the pulpit "Evangelical," with perfect impunity to the demagogue, thus prostituting religion itself to the cause of anarchical crime!--

"We cannot regard these tumults, with their like in other parts, but as the effects of Tory oppression. Our wish is to see _Rebecca and her children arrayed by thousands, for the suppression of Toryism_. These are the only means to remove the burden from the back of the country.... Resolve to see the sword of reason plunged in oppression's heart." He goes on to say, "_there must be a hard-blowing storm_ before the high places in State and Church can be levelled," &c. &c. There is the usual twaddle about "_moral_ force," forsooth, under which saving periphrasis, now-a-days, every rebel ranter in field, or tub, or conventicle, insinuates lawless violence without naming it. Jack Cade would have made it the rallying cry of his raggamuffins, so would Wat Tyler, had it been hit upon in his day. The _array_ of _thousands_ is intelligible "to the meanest capacity." The dullest Welsh "copper-man," or collier, or wild farm cultivator, could not miss the meaning. But as to this magical weapon, "moral force," which they are to handle when so arrayed--the brightest capacity must be at a loss to know what it means. How absurd (if he pretends such a thing) to expect that enlightened statesmen will stand reformed, restrained, stricken through, with a new light in politics by the exhibition of these smutty patriots' _minds_ alone!--by the force of conviction, wrought by ascertaining _their_ convictions, (the _illuminati_ of Llanelly coal-works, of Swansea copper-works, of Carmarthen farm-yards,) will instantly _tack_--put the vessel of State right about, and bring her triumphant into the placid haven of Radicalism! And why _physical_ "array" to wield such shadowy arms as "_moral_" force? This favourite stalking-horse of incendiary politics is but the secret hiding-place of retreat from the "force of government." The peace, the forbearance it breathes, is like the brief silence maintained--the holding of the breath--by those snugly ensconced within that other horse of famous memory, the _Trojan_, which served admirably to lay vigilance asleep, and evade the defensive _force_ of the garrison, till the hour came to leap from its protection, and fire the citadel. This "moral force" covert of revolt, is every whit as hollow, as treacherous, as fatal, if trusted to. Inflame, enrage, and then gather together "thousands" of the most ignorant of mankind, pointing to a body, or a class, or a government, as the sole cause of whatever they suffer or dislike, and then--_tell_ them to be moral! peaceable! not to use those tens of thousands of brawny arms, inured to the sledge-hammer; oh, no! tell them that _force_ means to stand still--or disperse--or gabble--any thing but to--_fight!_ And such vile "juggling with us in a double sense" as this, is evangelical morality!

In justice to the Liberal party, I shall add that it does not sanction the ravings of this hypocrite, but laughs at his illiterate pretensions to the character of a public writer. As evidence of this, the editor of the _Welshman_, a Liberal journal, published at Carmarthen, has ably castigated this sedition-monger, who has exposed his own ignorance in venting his wrath at the infliction.

* * * * *

Pontardulais. Monday Evening.

It was pleasant to emerge from that dingy seat of fanaticism and fury, pseudo religion and moral violation of religion's broad principles. Its aspect almost recalled the description of one of Rome's imperial monsters, equally in physionomy and nature--"a mixture of dirt and blood." The day was superb, and the adjacent country, though rather tame _for Wales_, improved in rural beauty as we approached a crossway very near to this village, Pontardulais. Two cottages appeared in a green, quiet, dingle we were descending to, watered by a small river, and surrounded by sloping meadows, now yellowed by the evening sun, and well inhabited by their proper population, sheep and cows, now beginning their homeward course at the call of the milkmaid; the only other motion in this simply beautiful landscape, being a scattered gleaner or two, with her load, and the rather thick volume of blue smoke curling up from one of those cots, which, standing so close, without any other near, prompted the idea of some rustic old couple in conjugal quietude, smiling out life's evening, by themselves, apart from all the world. Such was the perfect calm of scene, and the day in which summer heat was joined to the golden serenity of autumn.

We were beginning to dismiss ugly Rebeccaism from our thoughts, meditating where we should find one of those Isaac Waltonian hostelries, with a sign swinging from an old tree, which we delight to make our evening quarters; for Pontardulais, we knew, was too lately a little battle-field to afford hope of this tranquil bliss, for here had occurred the first conflict, in which men had been wounded and prisoners made. The advance of evening, with its halcyon attributes of all kinds, had the effect of a lullaby on the mind, disturbed at every stage by some hurrying dragoon, some eager gossiping group, or fresh "news" of some farm "burned last night," or rumours of "martial law" being actually impending over us poor rebels of South Wales.

Reaching the little houses in their lonely crossway, we were startled by the appearance of a gutted house; the walls alone having remained to present to us, on the higher ground, the semblance of a white cottage. The old thatch, fallen in, and timber, were still smouldering visibly, though the house was fired about one A.M. yesterday morning.

Before the near adjoining cottage a quiet crowd of some twenty persons appeared, and a few rustic articles of furniture on the roadside. Where was their owner? Dismounting, we entered this cottage, that had looked all peaceful security so lately to our eyes. It had not been injured, but was all dismantled and in confusion; and stretched on some low sort of bench or seat, lay the murdered owner of that smoking ruin--the Hendy toll-house. Her coffin had been already made, (the coffin-plate giving her age, 75,) and stood leaning against the wall, but the body was preserved just as it fell, for the inspection of the jury. (The jury! a British jury! Is there a British _man_, incapable of perjury, of parricide, of bloody and blackest felony, _himself_, who will ever forget, who will ever cease to spurn, spit upon in thought, execrate in words, that degraded, wretched, most wicked knot of murder-screeners--_the Hendy Gate jury?_)

There was nothing in this dismal spectacle for a poet to find there food for fancy. All was naked, ugly horror. An old rug just veiled the corpse, which, being turned down, revealed the orifice, just by the nipple, of a shot or slug wound, and her linen was stiff and saturated with the blood which had flowed. Another wound on the temple had caused a torrent of blood, which remained glued over the whole cheek. The retracted lips of this poor suffering creature, gave a dreadful grin to the aged countenance, expressing the strong agony she must have endured, no doubt from the filling up of the breast with those three pints of blood found there by the surgeons. The details of this savage murder have been too fully given in all the papers to need repetition here. Suffice it to say, that to any one _viewing_ the body as we thus happened to do, the atrocity of this heartless treason against society and the injured dead becomes yet more striking; it seeming wonderful that the piteousness of the sight--the mute pleading of that mouth full of cloated blood--the arousing ocular evidence of the unprovoked assassin's cruelty--the helplessness of the aged woman--her innocence--all should not have kindled humanity in their hearts, (if all principle was dead in their dark minds,) just enough to dare to call a foul murder "murder"--to turn those twelve Rebecca-ridden, crouching slaves into _men_! Some of them, probably, had old helpless mothers at home; did no flying vision of her white hairs all blooded, and the breast, where they had lain and fed, full of blood also, cross the conscience of one of them, when, by their conspiracy, protection for life was to be denied to her, to all, by their unheard-of abuse of the only known British protective power--trial by jury? It is almost an apology for them to imagine, that one or more of them were actually part of the gang. Self-preservation, under _instant_ danger, (involved in a just verdict,) is less revolting than the less urgent degree of the same natural impulse, implied in the hypothesis of pure selfish and most dastardly dread of some remoter evil to self from the ill-will of those impugned by a righteous verdict.

The verdict, it will be remembered, was, that Sarah Williams died from effusion of blood, _but from what cause is to this jury unknown!!!_ The designed _trick_--the sly juggle concocted by these men, sworn before Almighty God to tell truth respecting the cry of blood then rising to his throne, evidently was to leave a loop-hole for a doubt whereby justice might be defeated--a possibility, so they flattered themselves, that, just in the nick of time, a bloodvessel burst, or fright destroyed her, or any thing but the bloody hand of "Rebecca." Though, as the slugs were actually found _in_ the lungs, the hope they "dressed themselves in" was as "drunk," as swinishly stupid, as their design was unmanly, inhuman, and devilish--to wink at this horror! to huddle up this murder, and hurry into the earth a murdered woman, as if she had lived out her term!

Whatever was the prompting feeling of this monster-jury, let us hope that the arm of the law will reach them yet, for this double crime against bleeding innocence and against their country. It would be a fitting punishment to them, to pronounce every individual an outlaw--to deny him all benefit of those laws he has done his best to defeat, and leave the craven traitor to his kind--to adopt his beloved "'Becca's" disguise for ever, skulk about the land that disowns him in petticoats, and blush out his life (if shame be left him;) and let his name be fixed up, as a scarecrow to deter such evil doers, on the wall of every court of justice:--"To the infamous memory of A. B., one of the perjured protectors of murder--The Hendy Gate Jury!"

Most revolting was the _betrayed_ bias of almost all we spoke with, toward palliation of this dark act. "_Didn't she die in a fit; or of fright; or something?_" was a frequent question, even from those near the scene of this tragedy. "_What did ail the old creture to go near 'em? Name of goodness! didn't they order her not?_" Even from her own sex, a disgusting lack of warm-hearted pity and indignation was most palpable. Truly, morality and the meeting-house have a deep gulf between them, if these are the morals of the people. The regular church is really so little prized here, that we can only turn to the _dissenting_ ministers of religious instruction, for the lower orders. And seeing these doings and sentiments in the flocks, one turns with astonishment to those professing _teachers_ of the Welsh, and is ready to exclaim--"What is it that you _do_ teach?" Only the _mechanical_ part of religion, only the necessary outer _mummery_, I shall venture to say, which, perhaps, all revealed religions require, to maintain a hold on the reverence of the common people. It seems impossible that the voice of _true_ religion can have reached hearts that a slight pecuniary interest, the abatement of a turnpike toll, or the like, can sear against the death-shriek of murdered woman; the cry of blood out of the earth; the fear of God's judgement against perjury, and connivance at murder!

* * * * *

Kidwelly, Carmarthenshire, Sept. 12.

Riding from Llanelly to this place, by a road skirting the coast, we, for the first time, heard the horn of Rebecca sounded, and replied to from among the darkling hills, the night being one of dusky moonlight. We at first believed it the signal of some persons in the collieries, but learned that "'Becca's company" had been out round Kidwelly that night, and an incendiary fire was the "good work" accomplished. It being near ten o'clock at night, and our road wild and solitary, we felt rather pleased to gain the covert of this usually most quiet little town, with its air of antiquity and dead repose, as agreeable to a sentimental traveller, as unwelcome to its few traders and dwellers.

The innkeepers and shopkeepers, _being much injured in their trades by_ the terrifying effect of Rebeccaism on strangers, who have kept aloof all the summer, lift up the voice (but cautiously) against this terrible lady. Hardly an expression of regret for the poor victim at Hendy Gate reaches our ears; but rather, they seem to visit on her the anticipated severity of future dealing with the rioters, which they foresee.

We see already posted placards, offering L.500 for the discovery of the actual perpetrator of the murder of the poor toll-collector. It is headed "Murder," in the teeth of the audacious, solemn declaration by the jury, of their ignorance of the cause of death. _Query_, Was a coroner warranted in receiving such a verdict? Was he not empowered--required--to send the jury back to learn common sense?

* * * * *

Inn between Carmarthen and Llandilo.

Just as we were sauntering in the rural road, admiring the placidity of the night, about ten o'clock, and the twilight landscape of the banks of the Towey, a sudden light opened up to us the whole night prospect, where the farther side of this broad vale rises finely covered with woods, round Middleton Hall, and soon learned the nature of this sudden illumination and pyramidal fire, being the conflagration of extensive property belonging to its owner, Mr Adams, close to the mansion.

The terror of the female inhabitants may be imagined, there being, I believe, not any male inmates but servants at home, and the incendiaries doing their work at that early hour in the most daring manner, firing guns, blowing horns, &c. Mr Adams drove in just as the fire was at its height, (having, indeed, believed the house to be in flames while he approached,) and found the goods and moveables all brought out in fear of its catching fire; but it escaped--so did the Rebeccaites, of course.

Not to extend too far these hasty Notes, I shall throw together the heads of a few made on the spot. Our "sentimental journey" occupied about three weeks, and brought us to almost every part infested by the disturbers. Having put up at an inn in the outskirts of a town in Cardiganshire for the night, leaving the horses, we walked to the town. As we returned, the night being rather dark, I was not conscious of any one being on the same road behind, and was talking to my son, rather earnestly, of the iniquitous verdict of the Hendy Gate assassin jury, when a voice behind asked in English, saucily, if _I_ was going to attend the future trial of the "Hugheses, and them of the Llanon village, then in Swansea jail?" The tone clearly indicated how alien to the Welshman's feelings were those I was expressing, though but those of common humanity. Giving the voice in the dark such short answer, refusing to satisfy him, as the question deserved, and with responsive bluffness, we left the man behind, who, it proved, was bound to our inn. We found our parlour filled with farmers, who instantly became _mum_ as we entered, but their eyes suspiciously surveyed us. It was near eleven o'clock, so we retired to our double-bedded chamber, which happened to be situated over the parlour. The inn (whose owners were _ultra_ "Welshly," speaking English very badly,) was well situated for holding a midnight council of (Rebecca) war, being lonely, at the confluence of two roads, and this proved to be the nature of this late assemblage. We were just in bed, (having _secured the door as well as we could_,) when we heard through the imperfect flooring a very animated _melee_ of Welsh tongues all astir at once, and I fancied I recognized the voice of the pious Christian in the dark, who had been moved by the spirit (of religion of course) to hint or betray his dissent from the Saxon "stranger's" rebuke of perjury and murder-screening. A few minutes after, several hurried out, and three or four discharges of guns followed in front of the house, but nothing more. I was pleased to think that the said house and windows were "mine host's," and not mine, otherwise a little hail of shot might have followed the "short thunder;" but as it was, nothing more than this warning bravado (as I imagine it to have been) occurred.

A great deal of _solo_ spouting, by orators in orderly succession, went on till near two in the morning--_Sunday_. At least, falling asleep, I left this little patriot parliament sitting, and found it in full tongue on awaking at that hour. I suppose this sitting in judgment on toll-houses (and possibly _other_ houses) of these anti-landlord committees, are _not_ breaches of the observance of the Sabbath.

On the whole, we may remark, that neither Poor-Law, nor Tory, nor Whig, nor right rule, nor misrule, nor politics, nor party, had the slightest influence in this astounding moral revolution among an agricultural people. Utterly false is almost all that the London Press broached and broaches, implicating ministers in the provocation of this outbreak. Twenty years of residence, and leisure for observation among them, allows me to positively deny that any feeling of discontent, any sense of oppression, any knowledge of "Grievances," now so pompously heading columns of twaddle--ever existed before the _one_ daily, weekly spur in their side, goaded this simple people to a foolish mode of resistance to it.

Why, not one in ten of the farmers has yet heard of Sir Robert Peel's accession to office! and I doubt if one in twenty knows whether they live under a Whig or Tory administration. Nor does one in a hundred _care_ which, or form one guess about their comparative merits.

The only idea they have of Chartists, is a vague identification of them with "_rebels_," as they _used_ to call _all_ sorts of rioters, not dreaming of their forming any party with definite views, unless that of seizing the good things of the earth, and postponing, _sine die_, the day of payment.

Judge what chance the brawling apostles of Chartism would have here among them, especially under the difficulty of haranguing them through interpreters!

The Poor-Law they certainly hate, but from no pity for paupers. The dislike arises from a wide spread belief, that the host of "officers" attached to it swallows up great part of what they pay for the poor. They grudged the poor-rate before, even when their own overseer paid it away to poor old lame Davy or blind Gwinny; but now that it reaches them by a more circuitous route, and in the altered form of loaves or workhouse support, they seem to lose sight of it, and fancy that it stops _by the way_, in the pockets of these "strange" new middlemen, as we may call them, thrust in between the farmers and their poor and worn-out labourers.

The prevalence of the Welsh language perpetuates the ignorance which is at the root of the mischief. Of their _native_ writers, I have given a specimen from the monthly magazine published at Llanelly, and the evil of these is uncorrected by English information.

The work of mounting heavenward was, we are told, defeated by a confusion of tongues--the advance of civilization (which we may designate a progress toward a divine goal, that of soul-exalting and soul-saving wisdom) is as utterly prevented by this non-intercourse system between the civilized and the _half_ civilized; which, with all deference to the ancient Britons, I must venture to consider them. Camden, the antiquary, has preserved a tradition, that "certain Brittaines" (Britons) going over into Armorica, and taking wives from among the people of Normandy, "_did cut out their tongues_," through fear that, when they should become mothers, they might corrupt the Welsh tongue of the children, by teaching them that foreign language! The love of their own tongue thus appears to be of very old standing, if we are to believe this agreeable proof of it. I believe the extirpation of Welsh, as a spoken language, would pioneer the way to knowledge, civilization, and _religion_ here, of which last blessing there is a grievous lack, judging from the morals of the people.

ADVENTURES IN TEXAS.

NO. II.

A TRIAL BY JURY.

When I recovered from my state of insensibility, and once more opened my eyes, I was lying on the bank of a small but deep river. My horse was grazing quietly a few yards off, and beside me stood a man with folded arms, holding a wicker-covered flask in his hand. This was all I was able to observe; for my state of weakness prevented me from getting up and looking around me.

"Where am I?" I gasped.

"Where are you, stranger? By the Jacinto; and that you are _by_ it, and not _in_ it, is no fault of your'n, I reckon."

There was something harsh and repulsive in the tone and manner in which these words were spoken, and in the grating scornful laugh that accompanied them, that jarred upon my nerves, and inspired me with a feeling of aversion towards the speaker. I knew that he was my deliverer; that he had saved my life, when my mustang, raging with thirst, had sprung head-foremost into the water; that, without him, I must inevitably have been drowned, even had the river been less deep than it was; and that it was by his care, and the whisky he had made me swallow, and of which I still felt the flavour on my tongue, that I had been recovered from the death-like swoon into which I had fallen. But had he done ten times as much for me, I could not have repressed the feeling of repugnance, the inexplicable dislike, with which the mere tones of his voice filled me. I turned my head away in order not to see him. There was a silence of some moments' duration.

"Don't seem as if my company was over and above agreeable," said the man at last.

"Your company not agreeable? This is the fourth day since I saw the face of a human being. During that time not a bit nor a drop has passed my tongue."

"Hallo! That's a lie," shouted the man with another strange wild laugh. "You've taken a mouthful out of my flask; not _taken_ it, certainly, but it went over your tongue all the same. Where do you come from? The beast ain't your'n."

"Mr Neal's," answered I.

"See it is by the brand. But what brings you here from Mr Neal's? It's a good seventy mile to his plantation, right across the prairie. Ain't stole the horse, have you?"

"Lost my way--four days--eaten nothing."

These words were all I could articulate. I was too weak to talk.

"Four days without eatin'," cried the man, with a laugh like the sharpening of a saw, "and that in a Texas prairie, and with islands on all sides of you! Ha! I see how it is. You're a gentleman--that's plain enough. I was a sort of one myself once. You thought our Texas prairies was like the prairies in the States. Ha, ha! And so you didn't know how to help yourself. Did you see no bees in the air, no strawberries on the earth?"

"Bees? Strawberries?" repeated I.

"Yes, bees, which live in the hollow trees. Out of twenty trees there's sure to be one full of honey. So you saw no bees, eh? Perhaps you don't know the creturs when you see 'em. Ain't altogether so big as wild-geese or turkeys. But you must know what strawberries are, and that _they_ don't grow upon the trees."

All this was spoken in the same sneering savage manner as before, with the speaker's head half turned over his shoulder, while his features were distorted into a contemptuous grin.

"And if I had seen the bees, how was I to get at the honey without an axe?"

"How did you lose yourself?"

"My mustang--ran away"--

"I see. And you after him. You'd have done better to let him run. But what d'ye mean to do now?"

"I am weak--sick to death. I wish to get to the nearest house--an inn--anywhere where men are."

"Where men are," repeated the stranger, with his scornful smile. "Where men are," he muttered again, taking a few steps on one side.

I was hardly able to turn my head, but there was something strange in the man's movement that alarmed me; and, making a violent effort, I changed my position sufficiently to get him in sight again. He had drawn a long knife from his girdle, which he clutched in one hand, while he ran the fore finger of the other along its edge. I now for the first time got a full view of his face, and the impression it made upon me was any thing but favourable. His countenance was the wildest I had ever seen; his bloodshot eyes rolled like balls of fire in their sockets; while his movements and manner were indicative of a violent inward struggle. He did not stand still for three seconds together, but paced backwards and forwards with hurried irregular steps, casting wild glances over his shoulder, his fingers playing all the while with the knife, with the rapid and objectless movements of a maniac.

I felt convinced that I was the cause of the struggle visibly going on within him, that my life or death was what he was deciding upon. But in the state I then was, death had no terror for me. The image of my mother, sisters, and father, passed before my eyes. I gave one thought to my peaceful happy home, and then looked upwards and prayed.

The man had walked off to some distance. I turned myself a little more round, and, as I did so, I caught sight of the sane magnificent phenomenon which I had met with on the second day of my wanderings. The colossal live oak rose in all its silvery splendour, at the distance of a couple of miles. Whilst I was gazing at it, and reflecting on the strange ill luck that had made me pass within so short a distance of the river without finding it, I saw my new acquaintance approach a neighbouring cluster of trees, amongst which he disappeared.

After a short time I again perceived him coming towards me with a slow and staggering step. As he drew near, I had an opportunity of examining his whole appearance. He was very tall and lean, but large-boned, and apparently of great strength. His face, which had not been shaved for several weeks, was so tanned by sun and weather, that he might have been taken for an Indian, had not the beard proved his claim to white blood. But his eyes were what most struck me. There was something so frightfully wild in their expression, a look of terror and desperation, like that of a man whom all the furies of hell were hunting and persecuting. His hair hung in long ragged locks over his forehead, cheeks, and neck, and round his head was bound a handkerchief, on which were several stains of a brownish black colour. Spots of the same kind were visible upon his leathern jacket, breeches, and mocassins; they were evidently blood stains. His hunting knife, which was nearly two feet long, with a rude wooden handle, was now replaced in his girdle, but in its stead he held a Kentucky rifle in his hand.

Although I did my utmost to assume an indifferent countenance, my features doubtless expressed something of the repugnance and horror with which the man inspired me. He looked loweringly at me for a moment from under his shaggy eyebrows.

"You don't seem to like the company you've got into," said he. "Do I look so very desperate, then? Is it written so plainly on my face?"

"What should there be written upon your face?"

"What? What? Fools and children ask them questions."

"I will ask you none; but as a Christian, as my countryman, I beseech you"----

"Christian!" interrupted he, with a hollow laugh. "Countryman!" He struck the but of his rifle hard upon the ground. "That is my countryman--my only friend!" he continued, as he examined the flint and lock of his weapon. "That releases from all troubles; that's a true friend. Pooh! perhaps it'll release you too--put you to rest."

These last words were uttered aside, and musingly.

"Put him to rest, as well as---- Pooh! One more or less--Perhaps it would drive away that cursed spectre."

All this seemed to be spoken to his rifle.

"Will you swear not to betray me?" cried he to me. "Else, one touch"----

As he spoke, he brought the gun to his shoulder, the muzzle pointed full at my breast.

I felt no fear. I am sure my pulse did not give a throb the more for this menace. So deadly weak and helpless as I lay, it was unnecessary to shoot me. The slightest blow from the but of the rifle would have driven the last faint spark of life out of my exhausted body. I looked calmly, indifferently even, into the muzzle of the piece.

"If you can answer it to your God, to your and my judge and creator, do your will."

My words, which from faintness I could scarcely render audible, had, nevertheless, a sudden and startling effect upon the man. He trembled from head to foot, let the but of his gun fall heavily to the ground, and gazed at me with open mouth and staring eyes.

"This one, too, comes with his God!" muttered he. "God! and your and my creator--and--judge."

He seemed hardly able to articulate these words, which were uttered by gasps and efforts, as though something had been choking him.

"His and my--judge"--groaned he again. "Can there be a God, a creator and judge?"

As he stood thus muttering to himself, his eyes suddenly became fixed, and his features horribly distorted.

"Do it not!" cried he, in a shrill tone of horror, that rang through my head. "It will bring no blessin' with it. I am a dead man! God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!"

The rifle fell from his hands, and he smote his breast and forehead in a paroxysm of the wildest fury. It was frightful to behold the conscience-stricken wretch, stamping madly about, and casting glances of terror behind him, as though demons had been hunting him down. The foam flew from his mouth, and I expected each moment to see him fall to the ground in a fit of epilepsy. Gradually, however, he became more tranquil.

"D'ye see nothin' in my face?" said he in a hoarse whisper, suddenly pausing close to where I lay.

"What should I see?"

He came yet nearer.

"Look well at me--_through_ me, if you can. D'ye see nothin' now?"

"I see nothing," replied I.

"Ah! I understand, you can see nothin'. Ain't in a spyin' humour, I calkilate. No, no, that you ain't. After four days and nights fastin', one loses the fancy for many things. I've tried it for two days myself. So, you are weak and faint, eh? But I needn't ask that, I reckon. You look bad enough. Take another drop of whisky; it'll strengthen you. But wait till I mix it."

As he spoke, he stepped down to the edge of the river, and scooping up the water in the hollow of his hand, filled his flask with it. Then returning to me, he poured a little into my mouth.

Even the bloodthirsty Indian appears less of a savage when engaged in a compassionate act, and the wild desperado I had fallen in with, seemed softened and humanized by the service he was rendering me. His voice sounded less harsh; his manner was calmer and milder.

"You wish to go to an inn?"

"For Heaven's sake, yes. These four days I have tasted nothing but a bit of tobacco."

"Can you spare a bit of that?"

"All I have."

I handed him my cigar case, and the roll of _dulcissimus_. He snatched the latter from me, and bit into it with the furious eagerness of a wolf.

"Ah, the right sort this!" muttered he to himself. "Ah, young man, or old man--you're an old man, ain't you? How old are you?"

"Two-and-twenty."

He shook his head doubtingly.

"Can hardly believe that. But four days in the prairie, and nothin' to eat. Well, it may be so. But, stranger, if I had had this bit of tobacco only ten days ago--A bit of tobacco is worth a deal sometimes. It might have saved a man's life!"

Again he groaned, and his accents became wild and unnatural.

"I say, stranger!" cried he in a threatening tone. "I say! D'ye see yonder live oak? D'ye see it? It's the Patriarch, and a finer and mightier one you won't find in the prairies, I reckon. D'ye see it?"

"I do see it."

"Ah! you see it," cried he fiercely. "And what is it to you? What have you to do with the Patriarch, or with what lies under it? I reckon you had best not be too curious that way. If you dare take a step under that tree."--He swore an oath too horrible to be repeated.

"There's a spectre there," cried he; "a spectre that would fright you to death. Better keep away."

"I will keep away," replied I. "I never thought of going near it. All I want is to get to the nearest plantation or inn."

"Ah! true, man--the next inn. I'll show you the way to it. I will."

"You will save my life by so doing," said I, "and I shall be ever grateful to you as my deliverer."

"Deliverer!" repeated he, with a wild laugh. "Pooh! If you knew what sort of a deliverer--Pooh! What's the use of savin' a life, when--yet I will--I will save yours, perhaps the cursed spectre will leave me then. Will you not? Will you not?" cried he, suddenly changing his scornful mocking tones to those of entreaty and supplication, and turning his face in the direction of the live oak. Again his wildness of manner returned, and his eyes became fixed, as he gazed for some moments at the gigantic tree. Then darting away, he disappeared among the trees, whence he had fetched his rifle, and presently emerged again, leading a ready saddled horse with him. He called to me to mount mine, but seeing that I was unable even to rise from the ground, he stepped up to me, and with the greatest ease lifted me into the saddle with one hand, so light had I become during my long fast. Then taking the end of my lasso, he got upon his own horse and set off, leading my mustang after him.

We rode on for some time without exchanging a word. My guide kept up a sort of muttered soliloquy; but as I was full ten paces in his rear, I could distinguish nothing of what he said. At times he would raise his rifle to his shoulder then lower it again, and speak to it, sometimes caressingly, sometimes in anger. More than once he turned his head, and cast keen searching glances at me, as though to see whether I were watching him or not.

We had ridden more than an hour, and the strength which the whisky had given me was fast failing, so that I expected each moment to fall from my horse, when suddenly I caught sight of a kind of rude hedge, and almost immediately afterwards the wall of a small blockhouse became visible. A faint cry of joy escaped me, and I endeavoured, but in vain, to give my horse the spur. My guide turned round, fixed his wild eyes upon me, and spoke in a threatening tone.

"You are impatient, man! impatient, I see. You think now, perhaps"----

"I am dying," was all I could utter. In fact, my senses were leaving me from exhaustion, and I really thought my last hour was come.

"Pooh! dyin'! One don't die so easy. And yet--d----n!--it might be true."

He sprang off his horse, and was just in time to catch me in his arms as I fell from the saddle. A few drops of whisky, however, restored me to consciousness. My guide replaced me upon my mustang, and after passing through a potato ground, a field of Indian corn, and a small grove of peach-trees, we found ourselves at the door of the blockhouse.

I was so utterly helpless, that my strange companion was obliged to lift me off my horse, and carry me into the dwelling. He sat me down upon a bench, passive and powerless as an infant. Strange to say, however, I was never better able to observe all that passed around me, than during the few hours of bodily debility that succeeded my immersion in the Jacinto. A blow with a reed would have knocked me off my seat, but my mental faculties, instead of participating in this weakness, seemed sharpened to an unusual degree of acuteness.

The blockhouse in which we now were, was of the poorest possible description; a mere log hut, consisting of one room, that served as kitchen, sitting-room, and bedchamber. The door of rough planks swung heavily upon two hooks that fitted into iron rings, and formed a clumsy substitute for hinges; a wooden latch and heavy bar served to secure it; windows, properly speaking, there were none, but in their stead a few holes covered with dirty oiled paper; the floor was of clay, stamped hard and dry in the middle of the hut, but out of which, at the sides of the room, a crop of rank grass was growing, a foot or more high. In one corner stood a clumsy bedstead, in another a sort of table or counter, on which were half a dozen drinking glasses of various sizes and patterns. The table consisted of four thick posts, firmly planted in the ground, and on which were nailed three boards that had apparently belonged to some chest or case, for they were partly painted, and there was a date, and the three first letters of a word upon one of them. A shelf fixed against the side of the hut supported an earthen pot or two, and three or four bottles, uncorked, and apparently empty; and from some wooden pegs wedged in between the logs, hung suspended a few articles of wearing apparel of no very cleanly aspect.

Pacing up and down the hut with a kind of stealthy cat-like pace, was an individual, whose unprepossessing exterior was in good keeping with the wretched appearance of this Texian shebeen house. He was an undersized, stooping figure, red-haired, large mouthed, and possessed of small, reddish, pig's eyes, which he seemed totally unable to raise from the ground, and the lowering, hang-dog expression of which, corresponded fully with the treacherous, panther-like stealthiness of his step and movements. Without greeting us either by word or look, this personage dived into a dark corner of his tenement, brought out a full bottle, and placing it on the table beside the glasses, resumed the monotonous sort of exercise in which he had been indulging on our entrance.

My guide and deliverer said nothing while the tavern-keeper was getting out the bottle, although he seemed to watch all his movements with a keen and suspicious eye. He now filled a large glass of spirits, and tossed it off at a single draught. When he had done this, he spoke for the first time.

"Johnny!"

Johnny made no answer.

"This gentleman has eaten nothing for four days."

"Indeed," replied Johnny, without looking up, or intermitting his sneaking, restless walk from one corner of the room to the other.

"I said four days, d'ye hear? Four days. Bring him tea immediately, strong tea, and then make some good beef soup. The tea must be ready directly, the soup in an hour at farthest, d'ye understand? And then I want some whisky for myself, and a beefsteak and potatoes. Now, tell all that to your Sambo."

Johnny did not seem to hear, but continued his walk, creeping along with noiseless step, and each time that he turned, giving a sort of spring like a cat or a panther.

"I've money, Johnny," said my guide. "Money, man, d'ye hear?" And so saying, he produced a tolerably full purse.

For the first time Johnny raised his head, gave an indefinable sort of glance at the purse, and then springing forward, fixed his small, cunning eyes upon those of my guide, while a smile of strange meaning spread over his repulsive features.

The two men stood for the space of a minute, staring at each other, without uttering a word. An infernal grin distended Johnny's coarse mouth from ear to ear. My guide seemed to gasp for breath.

"I've money," cried he at last, striking the but of his rifle violently on the ground. "D'ye understand, Johnny? Money; and a rifle too, if needs be."

He stepped to the table and filled another glass of raw spirits, which disappeared like the preceding one. While he drank, Johnny stole out of the room so softly that my companion was only made aware of his departure by the noise of the wooden latch. He then came up to me, took me in his arms without saying a word, and, carrying me to the bed, laid me gently down upon it.

"You make yourself at home," snarled Johnny, who just then came in again.

"Always do that, I reckon, when I'm in a tavern," answered my guide, quietly pouring out and swallowing another glassful. "The gentleman shall have your bed to-day. You and Sambo may sleep in the pigsty. You have none though, I believe?"

"Bob!" screamed Johnny furiously.

"That's my name--Bob Rock."

"For the present," hissed Johnny, with a sneer.

"The same as yours is Johnny Down," replied Bob in the same tone. "Pooh! Johnny, guess we know one another?"

"Rayther calkilate we do," replied Johnny through his teeth.

"And have done many a day," laughed Bob. "You're the famous Bob from Sodoma in Georgia?"

"Sodoma in Alabama, Johnny. Sodoma lies in Alabama," said Bob, filling another glass. "Don't you know that yet, you who were above a year in Columbus, doin' all sorts of dirty work?"

"Better hold your tongue, Bob," said Johnny, with a dangerous look at me.

"Pooh! Don't mind him, he won't talk, I'll answer for it. He's lost the taste for chatterin' in the Jacinto prairie. But Sodoma," continued Bob, "is in Alabama, man! Columbus in Georgia! They are parted by the Chatahoochie. Ah! that was a jolly life we led on the Chatahoochie. But nothin' lasts in this world, as my old schoolmaster used to say. Pooh! They've druv the Injuns a step further over the Mississippi now. But it was a glorious life--warn't it?"

Again he filled his glass and drank.

The information I gathered from this conversation as to the previous life and habits of these two men, had nothing in it very satisfactory or reassuring for me. In the whole of the south-western states there was no place that could boast of being the resort of so many outlaws and bad characters as the town of Sodoma. It is situated, or was situated, at least, a few years previously to the time I speak of, in Alabama, on Indian ground, and was the harbour of refuge for all the murderers and outcasts from the western and south-western parts of the Union. Here, under Indian government, they found shelter and security; and frightful were the crimes and cruelties perpetrated at this place. Scarcely a day passed without an assassination, not secretly committed but in broad sunlight. Bands of these wretches, armed with knives and rifles, used to cross the Chatahoochie, and make inroads into Columbus; break into houses, rob, murder, ill-treat women, and then return in triumph to their dens, laden with booty, and laughing at the laws. It was useless to think of pursuing them, or of obtaining justice, for they were on Indian territory; and many of the chiefs were in league with them. At length General Jackson and the government took it up. The Indians were driven over the Mississippi, the outlaws and murderers fled, Sodoma itself disappeared; and, released from its troublesome neighbours, Columbus is now as flourishing a state as any in the west.

The recollections of their former life and exploits seemed highly interesting to the two comrades; and their communications became more and more confidential. Johnny filled himself a glass, and the conversation soon increased in animation. I could understand little of what they said, for they spoke a sort of thieves' jargon. After a time, their voices sounded as a confused hum in my ears, the objects in the room became gradually less distinct, and I fell asleep.

I was roused, not very gently, by a mulatto woman, who poured a spoonful of tea into my mouth before I had well opened my eyes. She at first did not appear to be attending to me with any great degree of good-will; but by the time she had given me half a dozen spoonsful her womanly sympathies began to be awakened, and her manner became kinder. The tea did me an infinite deal of good, and seemed to infuse new life into my veins. I finished the cup, and the mulatto laid me down again on my pillow with far more gentleness than she had lifted me up.

"Gor! Gor!" cried she, "what poor young man! Berry weak. Him soon better. One hour, massa, good soup."

"Soup! What do you want with soup?" grumbled Johnny.

"Him take soup. I cook it," screamed the woman.

"Worse for you if she don't, Johnny," said Bob.

Johnny muttered something in reply, but I did not distinguish what it was, for my eyes closed, and I again fell asleep.

It seemed to me as if I had not been five minutes slumbering when the mulatto returned with the soup. The tea had revived me, but this gave me strength; and when I had taken it I was able to sit up in my bed.

While the woman was feeding me, Bob was eating his beefsteak. It was a piece of meat that might have sufficed for six persons, but the man seemed as hungry as if he had eaten nothing for three days. He cut off wedges half as big as his fist, swallowed them with ravenous eagerness, and, instead of bread, bit into some unpeeled potatoes. All this was washed down with glass after glass of raw spirits, which had the effect of wakening him up, and infusing a certain degree of cheerfulness into his strange humour. He still spoke more to himself than to Johnny, but his recollections seemed agreeable; he nodded self-approvingly, and sometimes laughed aloud. At last he began to abuse Johnny for being, as he said, such a sneaking, cowardly fellow--such a treacherous, false-hearted gallows-bird.

"It's true," said he, "I am gallows-bird enough myself, but then I'm open, and no man can say I'm a-fear'd; but Johnny, Johnny, who"----

I do not know what he was about to say, for Johnny sprang towards him, and placed both hands over his mouth, receiving in return a blow that knocked him as far as the door, through which he retreated, cursing and grumbling.

I soon fell asleep again, and whilst in that state I had a confused sort of consciousness of various noises in the room, loud words, blows, and shouting. Wearied as I was, however, I believe no noise would have fully roused me, although hunger at last did.

When I opened my eyes I saw the mulatto woman sitting by my bed, and keeping off the mosquitoes. She brought me the remainder of the soup, and promised, if I would sleep a couple of hours more, to bring me a beefsteak. Before the two hours had elapsed I awoke, hungrier than ever. After I had eaten all the beefsteak the woman would allow me, which was a very moderate quantity, she brought me a beer-glass full of the most delicious punch I ever tasted. I asked her where she had got the rum and lemons, and she told me that it was she who had bought them, as well as a stock of coffee and tea; that Johnny was her partner, but that he had done nothing but build the house, and badly built it was. She then began to abuse Johnny, and said he was a gambler; and, worse still, that he had had plenty of money once, but had lost it all; that she had first known him in Lower Natchez, but he had been obliged to run away from there in the night to save his neck. Bob was no better, she said; on the contrary--and here she made the gesture of cutting a man's throat--he was a very bad fellow, she added. He had got drunk after his dinner, knocked Johnny down, and broken every thing. He was now lying asleep outside the door; and Johnny had hidden himself somewhere.

How long she continued speaking I know not, for I again fell into a deep sleep, which this time lasted six or seven hours.

I was awakened by a strong grasp laid upon my arm, which made me cry out, more, however, from surprise than pain. Bob stood by my bedside; the traces of the preceding night's debauch plainly written on his haggard countenance. His bloodshot eyes were inflamed and swollen, and rolled with even more than their usual wildness; his mouth was open, and the jaws stiff and fixed; he looked as if he had just come from committing some frightful deed. I could fancy the first murderer to have worn such an aspect when gazing on the body of his slaughtered brother. I shrank back, horror-struck at his appearance.

"In God's name, man, what do you want?"

He made no answer.

"You are in a fever. You've the ague!"

"Ay, a fever," groaned he, shivering as he spoke; "a fever, but not the one you mean; a fever, young man, such as God keep you from ever having."

His whole frame shuddered while he uttered these words. There was a short pause.

"Curious that," continued he; "I've served more than one in the same way, but never thought of it afterwards--was forgotten in less than no time. Got to pay the whole score at once, I suppose. Can't rest a minute. In the open prairie it's the worst; there stands the old man, so plain, with his silver beard, and the spectre just behind him."

His eyes rolled, he clenched his fists, and, striking his forehead furiously, rushed out of the hut.

In a few minutes he returned, apparently more composed, and walked straight up to my bed.

"Stranger, you must do me a service," said he abruptly.

"Ten rather than one," replied I; "any thing that is in my power. Do I not owe you my life?"

"You're a gentleman, I see, and a Christian. You must come with me to the squire--the Alcalde."

"To the Alcalde, man! What must I go there for?"

"You'll see and hear when you get there; I've something to tell him--something for his own ear."

He drew a deep breath, and remained silent for a short time, gazing anxiously on all sides of him.

"Something," whispered he, "that nobody else must hear."

"But there's Johnny there. Why not take him?"

"Johnny!" cried he, with a scornful laugh; "Johnny! who's ten times worse than I am, bad as I be; and bad I am to be sure, but yet open and above board, always, till this time; but Johnny! he'd sell his own mother. He's a cowardly, sneakin', treacherous hound, is Johnny."

It was unnecessary to tell me this, for Johnny's character was written plainly enough upon his countenance.

"But why do you want me to go to the Alcalde?"

"Why does one want people before the judge? He's a judge, man; a Mexican one certainly, but chosen by us Americans; and an American himself, as you and I are."

"And how soon must I go?"

"Directly. I can't bear it any longer. It leaves me no peace. Not an hour's rest have I had for the last eight days. When I go out into the prairie, the spectre stands before me and beckons me on, and if I try to go another way, he comes behind me and drives me before him under the Patriarch. I see him just as plainly as when he was alive, only paler and sadder. It seems as if I could touch him with my hand. Even the bottle is no use now; neither rum, nor whisky, nor brandy, rid me of him; it don't, by the 'tarnel.--Curious that! I got drunk yesterday--thought to get rid of him; but he came in the night and drove me out. I was obliged to go. Wouldn't let me sleep; was forced to go under the Patriarch."

"Under the Patriarch? the live oak?" cried I, in astonishment.--"Were you there in the night?"

"Ay, that was I," replied he, in the same horribly confidential tone; "and the spirit threatened me, and said I will leave you no peace, Bob, till you go to the Alcalde and tell him"----

"Then I will go with you to the Alcalde, and that immediately," said I, raising myself up in bed. I could not help pitying the poor fellow from my very soul.

"Where are you going?" croaked Johnny, who at this moment glided into the room. "Not a step shall you stir till you've paid."

"Johnny," said Bob, seizing his less powerful companion by the shoulders, lifting him up like a child, and then setting him down again with such force, that his knees cracked and bent under him;--"Johnny, this gentlemen is my guest, d'ye understand? And here is the reckonin', and mind yourself, Johnny--mind yourself, that's all."

Johnny crept into a corner like a flogged hound; the mulatto woman, however, did not seem disposed to be so easily intimidated. Sticking her arms in her sides, she waddled boldly forward.

"You not take him 'way, Massa Bob?", screamed she. "Him stop here. Him berry weak--not able for ride--not able for stand on him foot."

This was true enough. Strong as I had felt in bed, I could hardly stand upright when I got out of it.

For a moment Bob seemed undecided, but only for one moment; then, stepping up to the mulatto, he lifted her, fat and heavy as she was, in the same manner as he had done her partner, at least a foot from the ground, and carried her screaming and struggling to the door, which he kicked open. Then setting her down outside, "Silence!" roared he, "and some good strong tea instead of your cursed chatter, and a fresh beefsteak instead of your stinking carcass. That will strengthen the gentleman; so be quick about it, you old brown-skinned beast, you!"

I had slept in my clothes, and my toilet was consequently soon made, by the help of a bowl of water and towel, which Bob made Johnny bring, and then ordered him to go and get our horses ready.

A hearty breakfast of tea, butter, Indian corn bread, and steaks, increased my strength so much, that I was able to mount my mustang. I had still pains in all my limbs, but we rode slowly; the morning was bright, the air fresh and elastic, and I felt myself getting gradually better. Our path led through the prairie; the river fringed with wood, on the one hand; the vast ocean of grass, sprinkled with innumerable islands of trees, on the other. We saw abundance of game, which sprang up under the very feet of our horses; but although Bob had his rifle, he made no use of it. He muttered continually to himself, and seemed to be arranging what he should say to the judge; for I heard him talking of things which I would just as soon not have listened to, if I could have helped it. I was heartily glad when we at length reached the plantation of the Alcalde.

It seemed a very considerable one, and the size and appearance of the framework house bespoke comfort and every luxury. The building was surrounded by a group of China trees, which I should have thought about ten years of age, but which I afterwards learned had not been planted half that time, although they were already large enough to afford a very agreeable shade. Right in front of the house rose a live oak, inferior in size to the one in the prairie, but still of immense age and great beauty. To the left was some two hundred acres of cotton fields, extending to the bank of the Jacinto, which at this spot made a sharp turn, and winding round the plantation, enclosed it on three sides. Before the house lay the prairie, with its archipelago of islands, and herds of grazing cattle and mustangs; to the right, more cotton fields; and in rear of the dwelling, the negro cottages and out-buildings. There was a Sabbath-like stillness pervading the whole scene, which seemed to strike even Bob. He paused as though in deep thought, and allowed his hand to rest for a moment on the handle of the lattice door. Then with a sudden and resolute jerk, bespeaking an equally sudden resolution, he pushed open the gate, and we entered a garden planted with orange, banana, and citron trees, the path through which was enclosed between palisades, and led to a sort of front court, with another lattice-work door, beside which hung a bell. Upon ringing this, a negro appeared.

The black seemed to know Bob very well, for he nodded to him as to an old acquaintance, and said the squire wanted him, and had asked after him several times. He then led the way to a large parlour, very handsomely furnished for Texas, and in which we found the squire, or more properly speaking, the Alcalde, sitting smoking his cigar. He had just breakfasted, and the plates and dishes were still upon the table. He did not appear to be much given to compliments or ceremony, or to partake at all of the Yankee failing of curiosity, for he answered our salutation with a laconic "good-morning," and scarcely even looked at us. At the very first glance, it was easy to see that he came from Tennessee or Virginia, the only provinces in which one finds men of his gigantic mould. Even sitting, his head rose above those of the negro servants in waiting. Nor was his height alone remarkable; he had the true West-Virginian build; the enormous chest and shoulders, and herculean limbs, the massive features and sharp grey eyes; altogether an exterior well calculated to impose on the rough backwoodsmen with whom he had to deal.

I was tired with my ride, and took a chair. The squire apparently did not deem me worthy of notice, or else he reserved me for a later scrutiny; but he fixed a long, searching look upon Bob, who remained standing, with his head sunk on his breast.

The judge at last broke silence.

"So here you are again, Bob. It's long since we've seen you, and I thought you had clean forgotten us. Well, Bob, we shouldn't have broke our hearts, I reckon; for I hate gamblers--ay, that I do--worse than skunks. It's a vile thing is play, and has ruined many a man in this world, and the next. It's ruined you too, Bob."

Bob said nothing.

"You'd have been mighty useful here last week; there was plenty for you to do. My step-daughter arrived; but as you weren't to be found, we had to send to Joel to shoot us a buck and a couple of dozen snipes. Ah, Bob! one might still make a good citizen of you, if you'd only leave off that cursed play!"

Bob still remained silent.

"Now go into the kitchen and get some breakfast."

Bob neither answered nor moved.

"D'ye hear? Go into the kitchen and get something to eat. And, Ptoly"--added he to the negro--"tell Veny to give him a pint of rum."

"Don't want yer rum--ain't thirsty"--growled Bob.

"Very like, very like," said the judge sharply. "Reckon you've taken too much already. Look as if you could swallow a wild cat, claws and all. And you," added he, turning to me--"What the devil are you at, Ptoly? Don't you see the man wants his breakfast? Where's the coffee? Or would you rather have tea?"

"Thank you, Alcalde, I have breakfasted already."

"Don't look as if. Ain't sick, are you? Where do you come from? What's happened to you? What are you doing with Bob?"

He looked keenly and searchingly at me, and then again at Bob. My appearance was certainly not very prepossessing, unshaven as I was, and with my clothes and linen soiled and torn. He was evidently considering what could be the motive of our visit, and what had brought me into Bob's society. The result of his physiognomical observations did not appear very favourable either to me or my companion. I hastened to explain.

"You shall hear how it was, judge. I am indebted to Bob for my life."

"Your life! Indebted to Bob for your life!" repeated the judge, shaking his head incredulously.

I related how I had lost my way in the prairie; been carried into the Jacinto by my horse; and how I should inevitably have been drowned but for Bob's aid.

"Indeed!" said the judge, when I had done speaking. "So, Bob saved your life! Well, I am glad of it, Bob, very glad of it. Ah! if you could only keep away from that Johnny. I tell you, Bob, Johnny will be the ruin of you. Better keep out of his way."

"It's too late," answered Bob.

"Don't know why it should be. Never too late to leave a debauched, sinful life; never, man!"

"Calkilate it is, though," replied Bob sullenly.

"You calculate it is?" said the judge, fixing his eyes on him. "And why do you calculate that? Take a glass--Ptoly, a glass--and tell me, man, why should it be too late?"

"I ain't thirsty, squire," said Bob.

"Don't talk to me of your thirst; rum's not for thirst, but to strengthen the heart and nerves, to drive away the blue devils. And a good thing it is, taken in moderation."

As he spoke he filled himself a glass, and drank half of it off. Bob shook his head.

"No rum for me, squire. I take no pleasure in it. I've something on my mind too heavy for rum to wash away."

"And what is that, Bob? Come, let's hear what you've got to say. Or perhaps, you'd rather speak to me alone. It's Sunday to-day, and no business ought to be done; but for once, and for you, we'll make an exception."

"I brought the gentleman with me on purpose to witness what I had to say," answered Bob, taking a cigar out of a box that stood on the table, and lighting it. He smoked a whiff or two, looked thoughtfully at the judge, and then threw the cigar through the open window.

"It don't relish, squire; nothin' does now."

"Ah, Bob! if you'd leave off play and drink! They're your ruin; worse than ague or fever."

"It's no use," continued Bob, as if he did not hear the judge's remark; "it must out. I fo't agin it, and thought to drive it away, but it can't be done. I've put a bit of lead into several before now, but this one"----

"What's that?" cried the judge, chucking his cigar away, and looking sternly at Bob. "What's up now? What are you saying about a bit of lead? None of your Sodoma and Lower Natchez tricks, I hope? They won't do here. Don't understand such jokes."

"Pooh! they don't understand them a bit more in Natchez. If they did, I shouldn't be in Texas."

"The less said of that the better, Bob. You promised to lead a new life here; so we won't rake up old stories."

"I did, I did!" groaned Bob; "but it's all no use. I shall never be better till I'm hung."

I stared at the man in astonishment. The judge, however, took another cigar, lighted it, and, after puffing out a cloud of smoke, said, very unconcernedly"--

"Not better till you're hung! What do you want to be hung for? To be sure, you should have been long ago, if the Georgia and Alabama papers don't lie. But we are not in the States here, but in Texas, under Mexican laws. It's nothing to us what you've done yonder. Where there is no accuser there can be no judge."

"Send away the nigger, squire," said Bob. "What a free white man has to say, shouldn't be heard by black ears."

"Go away, Ptoly," said the judge. "Now, then," added he, turning to Bob, "say what you have to say; but mind, nobody forces you to do it, and it's only out of good will that I listen to you, for to-day's Sunday."

"I know that," muttered Bob; "I know that, squire; but it leaves me no peace, and it must out. I've been to San Felipe de Austin, to Anahuac, every where, but it's all no use. Wherever I go, the spectre follows me, and drives me back under the cursed Patriarch."

"Under the Patriarch!" exclaimed the judge.

"Ay, under the Patriarch!" groaned Bob. "Don't you know the Patriarch; the old live oak near the ford, on the Jacinto?"

"I know, I know!" answered the Judge. "And what drives you under the Patriarch?"

"What drives me? What drives a man who--who"----

"A man who"---- repeated the judge, gently.

"A man," continued Bob, in the same low tone, "who has sent a rifle bullet into another's heart. He lies there, under the Patriarch, whom I"----

"Whom you?" asked the judge.

"_Whom I killed!_" said Bob, in a hollow whisper.

"Killed!" exclaimed the judge. "You killed him? Whom?"

"Ah! whom? Why don't you let me speak? You always interrupt me with your palaver," growled Bob.

"You are getting saucy, Bob," said the judge impatiently. "Go on, however. I reckon it's only one of your usual tantrums."

Bob shook his head. The judge looked keenly at him for a moment, and then resumed in a sort of confidential, encouraging tone.

"Under the Patriarch; and how did he come under the Patriarch?"

"I dragged him there, and buried him there," replied Bob.

"Dragged him there! Why did you drag him there?"

"Because he couldn't go himself, with more than half an ounce of lead in his body."

"And _you_ put the half ounce of lead into him, Bob? Well, if it was Johnny, you've done the country a service, and saved it a rope."

Bob shook his head negatively.

"It wasn't Johnny, although---- But you shall hear all about it. It's just ten days since you paid me twenty dollars fifty."

"I did so, Bob; twenty dollars fifty cents, and I advised you at the same time to let the money lie till you had a couple of hundred dollars, or enough to buy a quarter or an eighth of Sitio land; but advice is thrown away upon you."

"When I got the money, I thought I'd go down to San Felipe, to the Mexicans, and try my luck; and, at the same time, see the doctor about my fever. As I was goin' there, I passed near Johnny's house, and fancied a glass, but determined not to get off my horse. I rode up to the window, and looked in. There was a man sittin' at the table, havin' a hearty good dinner of steaks and potatoes, and washin' it down with a stiff glass of grog. I began to feel hungry myself, and while I was considerin' whether I should 'light or not, Johnny came sneakin' out, and whispered to me to come in, that there was a man inside with whom somethin' might be done if we went the right way to work; a man who had a leather belt round his waist cram-full of hard Jackson; and that, if we got out the cards and pretended to play a little together, he would soon take the bait and join us.

"I wasn't much inclined to do it," continued Bob; "but Johnny bothered me so to go in, that I got off my horse. As I did so the dollars chinked in my pocket, and the sound gave me a wish to play.

"I went in; and Johnny fetched the whisky bottle. One glass followed another. There were beefsteaks and potatoes too, but I only eat a couple of mouthfuls. When I had drank two, three, ay, four glasses, Johnny brought the cards and dice. 'Hallo, Johnny!' says I; 'cards and dice, Johnny! I've twenty dollars fifty in my pocket. Let's have a game! But no more drink for me; for I know you, Johnny, I know you'----

"Johnny larfed slyly, and rattled the dice, and we sat down to play. I hadn't meant to drink any more, but play makes one thirsty; and with every glass I got more eager, and my dollars got fewer. I reckoned, however, that the stranger would join us, and that I should be able to win back from him; but not a bit of it: he sat quite quiet, and eat and drank as if he didn't see we were there. I went on playin' madder than ever, and before half an hour was over, I was cleaned out; my twenty dollars fifty gone to the devil, or what's the same thing, into Johnny's pocket.

"When I found myself without a cent, I _was_ mad, I reckon. It warn't the first time, nor the hundredth, that I had lost money. Many bigger sums than that--ay, hundreds and thousands of dollars had I played away--but they had none of them cost me the hundredth or thousandth part of the trouble to get that these twenty dollars fifty had; two full months had I been slavin' away in the woods and prairies to airn them, and I caught the fever there. The fever I had still, but no money to cure it with. Johnny only larfed in my face, and rattled my dollars. I made a hit at him, which, if he hadn't jumped on one side, would have cured him of larfin' for a week or two.

"Presently, however, he came sneakin' up to me, and winkin' and whisperin'; and, 'Bob!' says he, 'is it come to that with you? are you grown so chicken-hearted that you don't see the beltful of money round his body?' said he, lookin' at it. 'No end of hard coin, I guess; and all to be had for little more than half an ounce of lead.'"

"Did he say that?" asked the judge.

"Ay, that did he, but I wouldn't listen to him. I was mad with him for winning my twenty dollars; and I told him that, if he wanted the stranger's purse, he might take it himself, and be d----d; that I wasn't goin' to pull the hot chestnuts out of the fire for him. And I got on my horse, and rode away like mad.

"My head spun round like a mill. I couldn't get over my loss. I took the twenty dollars fifty more to heart than any money I had ever gambled. I didn't know where to go. I didn't dare go back to you, for I knew you'd scold me."

"I shouldn't have scolded you, Bob; or, if I had, it would only have been for your good. I should have summoned Johnny before me, called together a jury of twelve of the neighbours, got you back your twenty dollars fifty, and sent Johnny out of the country; or, better still, out of the world."

These words were spoken with much phlegm, but yet with a degree of feeling and sympathy, which greatly improved my opinion of the worthy judge. Bob also seemed touched. He drew a deep sigh, and gazed at the Alcalde with a melancholy look.

"It's too late," muttered he; "too late, squire."

"Perhaps not," replied the judge, "but let's hear the rest."

"Well," continued Bob, "I kept riding on at random, and when evenin' came I found myself near the palmetta field on the bank of the Jacinto. As I was ridin' past it, I heard all at once the tramp of a horse. At that moment the queerest feelin' I ever had came over me; a sort of cold shiverin' feel. I forgot where I was; sight and hearin' left me; I could only see two things, my twenty dollars fifty, and the well-filled belt of the stranger I had left at Johnny's. Just then a voice called to me.

"'Whence come, countryman, and whither going?' it said.

"'Whence and whether,' answered I, as surly as could be; 'to the devil at a gallop, and you'd better ride on and tell him I'm comin'.'

"'You can do the errand yourself,' answered the stranger larfin'; 'my road don't lie that way.'

"As he spoke, I looked round, and saw, what I was pretty sure of before, that it was the man with the belt full of money.

"'Ain't you the stranger I see'd in the inn yonder?' asked he.

"'And if I am,' says I; 'what's that to you?'

"'Nothin',' said he; 'nothin', certainly.'

"'Better ride on,' says I; 'and leave me quiet.'

"'Will so, stranger; but you needn't take it so mighty onkind. A word ain't a tomahawk, I reckon,' said he. 'But I rayther expect your losin's at play ain't put you in a very church-goin' humour; and, if I was you, I'd keep my dollars in my pocket, and not set them on cards and dice.'

"This put me in a rile to hear him cast my losin's in my teeth that way.

"'You're a nice feller,' said I, 'to throw a man's losses in his face. A pitiful chap _you_ are,' says I.

"I thought to provoke him, and that he'd tackle me. But he seemed to have no fancy for a fight, for he said quite humble like--

"'I throw nothin' in your face; God forbid that I should reproach you with your losses! I'm sorry for you, on the contrary. Don't look like a man who can afford to lose his dollars. Seem to me one who airns his money by hard work.'

"We were just then halted at the further end of the cane brake, close to the trees that border the Jacinto. I had turned my horse, and was frontin' the stranger. And all the time the devil was busy whisperin' to me, and pointin' to the belt round the man's waist. I could see where it was, plain enough, though he had buttoned his coat over it.

"'Hard work, indeed,' says I; 'and now I've lost every thing; not a cent left for a quid of baccy.'

"'If that's all,' says he; 'there's help for that. I don't chew myself, and I ain't a rich man; I've wife and children, and want every cent I've got, but it's one's duty to help a countryman. You shall have money for tobacco and a dram.'

"And so sayin', he took a purse out of his pocket, in which he carried his change. It was plenty full; there may have been some twenty dollars in it; and as he drew the string, it was as if the devil laughed and nodded to me out of the openin' of the purse.

"'Halves!' cried I.

"'No, not that,' says he; 'I've wife and child, and what I have belongs to them; but half a dollar'----

"'Halves!' cried I again; 'or else'----

"'Or else?' repeated he: and, as he spoke, he put the purse back into his pocket, and laid hold of the rifle which was slung on his shoulder.

"'Don't force one to do you a mischief,' said he. 'Don't' says he; 'we might both be sorry for it. What you're thinkin' of brings no blessin'.'

"I was past seein' or hearin'. A thousand devils from hell were possessin' me.

"'Halves!' I yelled out; and, as I said the word, he sprang out of the saddle, and fell back over his horse's crupper to the ground.

"'I'm a dead man!' cried he; as well as the rattle in his throat would let him. 'God be merciful to me! My poor wife, my poor children!'"

Bob paused; he gasped for breath, and the sweat stood in large drops upon his forehead. He gazed wildly round the room. The judge himself looked very pale. I tried to rise, but sank back in my chair. Without the table I believe I should have fallen to the ground.

There was a gloomy pause of some moments' duration. At last the judge broke silence.

"A hard, hard case!" said he. "Father, mother, children, all at one blow. Bob, you are a bad fellow; a very bad fellow; a great villain!"

"A great villain," groaned Bob. "The ball was gone right through his breast."

"Perhaps your gun went off by accident," said the judge anxiously. "Perhaps it was his own ball."

Bob shook his head.

"I see him now, judge, as plain as can be, when he said, 'Don't force me to do you a mischief. We might both be sorry for it.' But I pulled the trigger. His bullet is still in his rifle.

"When I saw him lie dead before me, I can't tell you what I felt. It warn't the first I had sent to his account; but yet I would have given all the purses and money in the world to have had him alive agin. I must have dragged him under the Patriarch, and dug a grave with my huntin' knife; for I found him there afterwards."

"You found him there?" repeated the judge.

"Yes. I don't know how he came there. I must have brought him, but I recollect nothin' about it."

The judge had risen from his chair, and was walking up and down the room, apparently in deep thought. Suddenly he stopped short.

"What have you done with his money?"

"I took his purse, but buried his belt with him, as well as a flask of rum, and some bread and beef he had brought away from Johnny's. I set out for San Felipe, and rode the whole day. In the evenin', when I looked about me, expectin' to see the town, where do you think I was?"

The judge and I stared at him.

"Under the Patriarch. The ghost of the murdered man had driven me there. I had no peace till I'd dug him up and buried him again. Next day I set off in another direction. I was out of tobacco, and I started across the prairie to Anahuac. Lord, what a day I passed! Wherever I went, _he_ stood before me. If I turned, _he_ turned too. Sometimes he came behind me, and looked over my shoulder. I spurred my mustang till the blood came, hopin' to get away from him, but it was all no use. I thought when I got to Anahuac I should be quit of him, and I galloped on as if for life or death. But in the evenin', instead of bein' close to the salt-works as I expected, there I was agin, under the Patriarch. I dug him up a second time, and sat and stared at him, and then buried him agin."

"Queer that," observed the judge.

"Ay, very queer!" said Bob mournfully. "But it's all no use. Nothin' does me any good. I sha'n't be better--I shall never have peace till I'm hung."

Bob evidently felt relieved now, he had in a manner passed sentence on himself. Strange as it may appear, I had a similar feeling, and could not help nodding my head approvingly. The judge alone preserved an unmoved countenance.

"Indeed!" said he, "indeed! You think you'll be no better till you're hung."

"Yes," answered Bob, with eager haste. "Hung on the same tree under which _he_ lies buried."

"Well, if you will have it so, we'll see what can be done for you. We'll call a jury of the neighbours together to-morrow."

"Thank ye, squire," murmured Bob, visibly comforted by this promise.

"We'll summon a jury," repeated the Alcalde, "and see what can be done for you. You'll perhaps have changed your mind by that time."

I stared at him like one fallen from the clouds, but he did not seem to notice my surprise.

"There is, perhaps, another way to get rid of your life, if you are tired of it," he continued. "We might, perhaps, hit upon one that would satisfy your conscience."

Bob shook his head. I involuntarily made the same movement.

"At any rate, we'll hear what the neighbours say," added the judge.

Bob stepped up to the judge, and held out his hand to bid him farewell. The other did not take it, and turning to me, said--"_You_ had better stop here, I think."

Bob turned round impetuously.

"The gentleman must come with me."

"Why must he?" said the judge.

"Ask himself."

I again explained the obligations I was under to Bob; how we had fallen in with one another, and what care and attention he had shown me at Johnny's.

The judge nodded approvingly. "Nevertheless," said he, "you will remain here, and Bob will go alone. You are in a state of mind, Bob, in which a man is better alone, d'ye see; and so leave the young man here. Another misfortune might happen; and, at any rate, he's better here than at Johnny's. Come back to-morrow, and we'll see what can be done for you."

These words were spoken in a decided manner, which seemed to have its effect upon Bob. He nodded assentingly, and left the room. I remained staring at the judge, and lost in wonder at these strange proceedings.

When Bob was gone, the Alcalde gave a blast on a shell, which supplied the place of a bell. Then seizing the cigar box, he tried one cigar after another, broke them peevishly up, and threw the pieces out of the window. The negro whom the shell had summoned, stood for some time waiting, while his master broke up the cigars, and threw them away. At last the judge's patience seemed quite to leave him.

"Hark ye, Ptoly!" growled he to the frightened black, "the next time you bring me cigars that neither draw nor smoke, I'll make your back smoke for it. Mind that, now;--there's not a single one of them worth a rotten maize stalk. Tell that old coffee-coloured hag of Johnny's, that I'll have no more of her cigars. Ride over to Mr Ducie's and fetch a box. And, d'ye hear? Tell him I want to speak a word with him and the neighbours. Ask him to bring the neighbours with him to-morrow morning. And mind you're home again by two o'clock. Take the mustang we caught last week. I want to see how he goes."

The negro listened to these various commands with open mouth and staring eyes, then giving a perplexed look at his master, shot out of the room.

"Where away, Ptoly?" shouted the Alcalde after him.

"To Massa Ducie."

"Without a pass, Ptoly? And what are you going to say to Mr Ducie?"

"Him nebber send bad cigar again, him coffee-cullud hag. Massa speak to Johnny and neighbours. Johnny bring neighbours here."

"I thought as much," said the judge with perfect equanimity. "Wait a minute, I'll write the pass, and a couple of lines for Mr Ducie."

This was soon done, and the negro dispatched on his errand. The judge waited till he heard the sound of his horse's feet galloping away, and then, laying hold of the box of despised cigars, lit the first which came to hand. It smoked capitally, as did also one that I took. They were Principes, and as good as I ever tasted.

I passed the whole of that day _tete a tete_ with the judge, who, I soon found, knew various friends of mine in the States. I told him the circumstances under which I had come to Texas, and the intention I had of settling there, should I find the country to my liking. During our long conversation, I was able to form a very different, and much more favourable estimate of his character, than I had done from his interview with Bob. He was the very man to be useful to a new country; of great energy, sound judgment, enlarged and liberal views. He gave me some curious information as to the state of things in Texas; and did not think it necessary to conceal from me, as an American, and one who intended settling in the country, that there was a plan in agitation for throwing off the Mexican yoke, and declaring Texas an independent republic. The high-spirited, and, for the most part, intelligent emigrants from the United States, who formed a very large majority of the population of Texas, saw themselves, with no very patient feeling, under the rule of a people both morally and physically inferior to themselves. They looked with contempt, and justly so, on the bigoted, idle, and ignorant Mexicans, while the difference of religion, and interference of the priests, served to increase the dislike between the Spanish and Anglo-American races.

Although the project was as yet not quite ripe for execution, it was discussed freely and openly by the American settlers. "It is the interest of every man to keep it secret," said the judge; "and there can be nothing to induce even the worst amongst us to betray a cause, by the success of which he is sure to profit. We have many bad characters in Texas, the offscourings of the United States, men like Bob, or far worse than him; but debauched, gambling, drunken villains though they be, they are the men we want when it comes to a struggle; and when that time arrives, they will all be found ready to put their shoulders to the wheel, use knife and rifle, and shed the last drop of their blood in defence of their fellow citizens, and of the new and independent republic of Texas. At this moment, we must wink at many things which would be severely punished in an older and more settled country; each man's arm is of immense value to the State; for, on the day of battle, we shall have, not two to one, but twenty to one opposed to us."

I was awakened the following morning by the sound of a horse's feet; and, looking out of the window, saw Bob dismounting from his mustang. The last twenty-four hours had told fearfully upon him. His limbs seemed powerless, and he reeled and staggered in such a manner, that I at first thought him intoxicated. But such was not the case. His was the deadly weariness caused by mental anguish. He looked like one just taken off the rack.

Hastily pulling on my clothes, I hurried down stairs, and opened the house door. Bob stood with his head resting on his horse's neck, and his hands crossed, shivering, and groaning. When I spoke to him, he looked up, but did not seem to know me. I tied his horse to a post, and taking his hand, led him into the house. He followed like a child, apparently without the will or the power to resist; and when I placed him in a chair, he fell into it with a weight that made it crack under him, and shook the house. I could not get him to speak, and was about to return to my room to complete my toilet, when I again heard the tramp of mustangs. This was a party of half a dozen horsemen, all dressed in hunting shirts over buckskin breeches and jackets, and armed with rifles and bowie-knives; stout, daring looking fellows, evidently from the south-western states, with the true Kentucky half horse half alligator profile, and the usual allowance of thunder, lightning, and earthquake. It struck me when I saw them, that two or three thousand such men would have small difficulty in dealing with a whole army of Mexicans, if the latter were all of the pigmy, spindle-shanked breed I had seen on first landing. These giants could easily have walked away with a Mexican in each hand.

They jumped off their horses, and threw the bridles to the negroes in the usual Kentuckian devil-may-care style, and then walked into the house with the air of people who make themselves at home every where, and who knew themselves to be more masters in Texas than the Mexicans themselves. On entering the parlour, they nodded a "good-morning" to me, rather coldly to be sure, for they had seen me talking with Bob, which probably did not much recommend me. Presently, four more horsemen rode up, and then a third party, so that there were now fourteen of them assembled, all decided-looking men, in the prime of life and strength. The judge, who slept in an adjoining room, had been awakened by the noise. I heard him jump out of bed, and not three minutes elapsed before he entered the parlour.

After he had shaken hands with all his visitors, he presented me to them, and I found that I was in the presence of no less important persons than the Ayuntamiento of San Felipe de Austin; and that two of my worthy countrymen were corregidors, one a procurador, and the others _buenos hombres_, or freeholders. They did not seem, however, to prize their titles much, for they addressed one another by their surnames only.

The negro brought a light, opened the cigar box, and arranged the chairs; the judge pointed to the sideboard, and to the cigars, and then sat down. Some took a dram, others lit a cigar.

Several minutes elapsed, during which the men sat in perfect silence, as if they were collecting their thoughts, or, as though it were undignified to show any haste or impatience to speak. This grave sort of deliberation which is met with among certain classes, and in certain provinces of the Union, has often struck me as a curious feature of our national character. It partakes of the stoical dignity of the Indian at his council fire, and of the stern, religious gravity of the early puritan settlers in America.

During this pause Bob was writhing on his chair like a worm, his face concealed by his hands, his elbows on his knees. At last, when all had drank and smoked, the judge laid down his cigar.

"Men!" said he.

"Squire!" answered they.

"We've a business before us, which I calculate will be best explained by him whom it concerns."

The men looked at the squire, then at Bob, then at me.

"Bob Rock! or whatever your name may be, if you have aught to say, say it!" continued the judge.

"Said it all yesterday," muttered Bob, his face still covered by his hands.

"Yes, but you must say it again to-day. Yesterday was Sunday, and Sunday is a day of rest, and not of business. I will neither judge you, nor allow you to be judged, by what you said yesterday. Besides, it was all between ourselves, for I don't reckon Mr Rivers as any thing; I count him still as a stranger."

"What's the use of so much palaver, when the thing's plain enough?" said Bob peevishly, raising his head as he spoke.

The men stared at him in grave astonishment. He was really frightful to behold, his face of a sort of blue tint; his cheeks hollow, his beard wild and ragged; his blood-shot eyes rolling, and deep sunk in their sockets. His appearance was scarcely human.

"I tell you, again," said the judge, "I will condemn no man upon his own word alone; much less you, who have been in my service, and eaten of my bread. You accused yourself yesterday, but you were delirious at the time--you had the fever upon you."

"It's no use, squire," said Bob, apparently touched by the kindness of the judge, "You mean well, I see; butt though you might deliver me out of men's hands, you couldn't rescue me from myself. It's no use--I must be hung--hung on the same tree under which the man I killed lies buried."

The men, or the jurors, as I may call them, looked at one another, but said nothing.

"It's no use," again cried Bob, in a shrill, agonized tone. "If he had attacked me, or only threatened me; but no, he didn't do it. I hear his words still, when he said, 'Do it not, man! I've wife and child. What you intend, brings no blessin' on the doer.' But I heard nothin' then except the voice of the devil; I brought the rifle down--levelled--fired."

The man's agony was so intense, that even the iron featured jury seemed moved by it. They cast sharp, but stolen glances at Bob. There was a short silence.

"So you have killed a man?" said a deep bass voice at last.

"Ay, that have I!" gasped Bob.

"And how came that?" continued his questioner.

"How it came? You must ask the devil, or Johnny. No, not Johnny, he can tell you nothing; he was not there. No one can tell you but me; and I hardly know how it was. The man was at Johnny's, and Johnny showed me his belt full of money."

"Johnny!" exclaimed several of the jury.

"Ay, Johnny! He reckoned on winning it from him, but the man was too cautious for that; and when Johnny had plucked all my feathers, won my twenty dollars fifty"----

"Twenty dollars fifty cents," interposed the judge, "which I paid him for catching mustangs and shooting game."

The men nodded.

"And then because he wouldn't play, you shot him?" asked the same deep-toned voice as before.

"No--some hours after--by the Jacinto, near the Patriarch--met him down there and killed him."

"Thought there was something out o' the common thereaway," said one of the jury; "for as we rode by the tree a whole nation of kites and turkey buzzards flew out. Didn't they, Mr Heart?"

Mr Heart nodded.

"Met him by the river, and cried, halves of his money," continued Bob mechanically. "He said he'd give me something to buy a quid, and more than enough for that, but not halves 'I've wife and child,' said he"----

"And you?" asked the juror with the deep voice, which this time, however, had a hollow sound in it.

"Shot him down," said Bob, with a wild hoarse laugh.

For some time no word was spoken.

"And who was the man?" said a juror at last.

"Didn't ask him; and it warn't written on his face. He was from the States; but whether a hosier, or a buckeye, or a mudhead, is more than I can say."

"The thing must be investigated, Alcalde," said another of the jury after a second pause.

"It must so," answered the Alcalde.

"What's the good of so much investigation?" grumbled Bob.

"What good?" repeated the Alcalde. "Because we owe it to ourselves, to the dead man, and to you, not to sentence you without having held an inquest on the body. There's another thing which I must call your attention to," continued he, turning to the jury; "the man is half out of his mind--not _compos mentis_, as they say. He's got the fever, and had it when he did the deed; he was urged on by Johnny, and maddened by his losses at play. In spite of his wild excitement, however, he saved that gentleman's life yonder, Mr Edward Nathanael Rivers."

"Did he so?" said one of the jury. "That did he," replied I, "not only by saving me from drowning when my horse dragged me, half dead and helpless, into the river, but also by the care and attention he forced Johnny and his mulatto to bestow upon me. Without him I should not be alive at this moment."

Bob gave me a look which went to my heart. The tears were standing in his eyes. The jury heard me in deep silence.

"It seems that Johnny led you on and excited you to this?" said one of the jurors.

"I didn't say that. I only said that he pointed to the man's money bag, and said---- But what is it to you what Johnny said? I'm the man who did it. I speak for myself, and I'll be hanged for myself."

"All very good, Bob," interposed the Alcalde; "but we can't hang you without being sure you deserve it. What do you say to it, Mr Whyte? You're the procurador--and you, Mr Heart and Mr Stone? Help yourselves to rum or brandy; and, Mr Bright and Irwin, take another cigar. They're considerable tolerable the cigars--ain't they? That's brandy, Mr Whyte, in the diamond bottle."

Mr Whyte had got up to give his opinion, as I thought, but I was mistaken. He stepped to the sideboard, took up a bottle in one hand and a glass in the other, every movement being performed with the greatest deliberation.

"Well, squire," said he, "or rather _Alcalde_"----

After the word _Alcalde_, he filled the glass half full of rum.

"If it's as we've heard," added he, pouring about a spoonful of water on the rum, "and Bob has killed the man"--he continued, throwing in some lumps of sugar--"murdered him"--he went on, crushing the sugar with a wooden stamp--"I rather calkilate"--here he raised the glass--"Bob ought to be hung," he concluded, putting the tumbler to his mouth and emptying it.

The jurors nodded in silence. Bob drew a deep breath, as if a load were taken off his breast.

"Well," said the judge, who did not look over well pleased; "if you all think so, and Bob is agreed, I calculate we must do as he wishes. I tell you, though, I don't do it willingly. At any rate we must find the dead man first, and examine Johnny. We owe that to ourselves and to Bob."

"Certainly," said the jury with one voice.

"You are a dreadful murderer, Bob a very considerable one," continued the judge; "but I tell you to your face, and not to flatter you, there is more good in your little finger than in Johnny's whole hide. And I'm sorry for you, because, at the bottom, you are not a bad man, though you've been led away by bad company and example. I calculate you might still be reformed, and made very useful--more so, perhaps, than you think. Your rifle's a capital good one."

At these last words the men all looked up, and threw a keen enquiring glance at Bob.

"You might be of great service," continued the judge encouragingly, "to the country and to your fellow-citizens. You're worth a dozen Mexicans any day."

While the judge was speaking, Bob let his head fall on his breast, and seemed reflecting. He now looked up.

"I understand, squire; I see what you're drivin' at. But I can't do it--I can't wait so long. My life's a burthen and a sufferin' to me. Wherever I go, by day or by night, he's always there, standin' before me, and drivin' me under the Patriarch."

There was a pause of some duration. The Judge resumed.

"So be it, then," said he with a sort of suppressed sigh. "We'll see the body to-day, Bob, and you may come to-morrow at ten o'clock."

"Couldn't it be sooner?" asked Bob impatiently.

"Why sooner? Are you in such a hurry?" asked Mr Heart.

"What's the use of palaverin'?" said Bob sulkily. "I told you already I'm sick of my life. If you don't come till ten o'clock, by the time you've had your talk out and ridden to the Patriarch, the fever'll be upon me."

"But we can't be flying about like a parcel of wild geese, because of your fever," said the procurador.

"Certainly not," said Bob humbly.

"It's an ugly customer the fever, though, Mr Whyte," observed Mr Trace; "and I calculate we ought to do him that pleasure. What do you think, squire?"

"I reckon he's rather indiscreet in his askin's," said the judge, in a tone of vexation. "However, as he wishes it, and if it is agreeable to you," added he, turning to the Ayuntamiento; "and as it's you, Bob, I calculate we must do what you ask."

"Thankee," said Bob.

"Nothing to thank for," growled the judge. "And now go into the kitchen and get a good meal of roast beef, d'ye hear?" He knocked upon the table. "Some good roast beef for Bob," said he to a negress who entered; "and see that he eats it. And get your self dressed more decently, Bob--like a white man and a Christian, not like a wild redskin."

The negress and Bob left the room. The conversation now turned upon Johnny, who appeared, from all accounts, to be a very bad and dangerous fellow; and after a short discussion, they agreed to lynch him, in backwoodsman's phrase, just as cooly as if they had been talking of catching a mustang. When the men had come to this satisfactory conclusion, they got up, drank the judge's health and mine, shook us by the hand, and left the house.

The day passed more heavily than the preceding one. I was too much engrossed with the strange scene I had witnessed to talk much. The judge, too, was in a very bad humour. He was vexed that a man should be hung who might render the country much and good service if he remained alive. That Johnny, the miserable, cowardly, treacherous Johnny, should be sent out of the world as quickly as possible, was perfectly correct, but with Bob it was very different. In vain did I remind him of the crime of which Bob had been guilty--of the outraged laws of God and man--and of the atonement due. It was of no use. If Bob had sinned against society, he could repair his fault much better by remaining alive than by being hung; and, for anything else, God would avenge it in his own good time. We parted for the night, neither of us convinced by the other's arguments.

We were sitting at breakfast the next morning, when a man, dressed in black, rode up to the door. It was Bob, but so metamorphosed that I scarcely knew him. Instead of the torn and bloodstained handkerchief round his head, he wore a hat; instead of the leathern jacket, a decent cloth coat. He had shaved off his beard too, and looked quite another man. His manner had altered with his dress; he seemed tranquil and resigned. With a mild and submissive look, he held out his hand to the judge, who took it and shook it heartily.

"Ah, Bob!" said he, "if you had only listened to what I so often told you! I had those clothes brought on purpose from New Orleans, in order that, on Sundays at least, you might look like a decent and respectable man. How often have I asked you to put them on, and come with us to meeting, to hear Mr Bliss preach? There is same truth in the saying, the coat makes the man. With his Sunday coat, a man often puts on other and better thoughts. If that had been your case only fifty-two times in the year, you'd have learned to avoid Johnny before now."

Bob said nothing.

"Well, well! I've done all I could to make a better men of you. All that was in my power."

"That you have," answered Bob, much moved. "God reward you for it!"

I could not help holding out my hand to the worthy judge; and as I did so I thought I saw a moistness in his eye, which he suppressed, however, and, turning to his breakfast table, bade us sit down. Bob thanked him humbly, but declined, saying that he wished to appear fasting before his offended Creator. The judge insisted, and reasoned with him, and at last he took a chair.

Before we had done breakfast our friends of the preceding day began to drop in, and some of them joined at the meal. When they had all taken what they chose, the judge ordered the negroes to clear away, and leave the room. This done, he seated himself at the upper end of the table, with the Ayuntamiento on either side, and Bob facing him.

"Mr Whyte," said the Alcade, "have you, as procurador, any thing to state?"

"Yes, Alcalde," replied the procurador. "In virtue of my office, I made a search in the place mentioned by Bob Rock, and there found the body of a man who had met his death by a gunshot wound. I also found a belt full of money, and several letters of recommendation to different planters, from which it appears that the man was on his way from Illinois to San Felipe, in order to buy land of Colonel Austin, and to settle in Texas."

The procurador then produced a pair of saddle-bags, out of which he took a leathern belt stuffed with money, which he laid on the table, together with the letters. The judge opened the belt, and counted the money. It amounted to upwards of five hundred dollars, in gold and silver. The procurador then read the letters.

One of the corregidors now announced that Johnny and his mulatto had left their house and fled. He, the corregidor, had sent people in pursuit of them; but as yet there were no tidings of their capture. This piece of intelligence seemed to vex the judge greatly, but he made no remark on it at the time.

"Bob Rock!" cried he.

Bob stepped forward.

"Bob Rock, or by whatever other name you may be known, are you guilty or not guilty of this man's death?"

"Guilty!" replied Bob, in a low tone.

"Gentlemen of the jury, will you be pleased to give your verdict?"

The jury left the room. In ten minutes they returned.

"Guilty!" said the foreman.

"Bob Rock," said the judge solemnly, "your fellow-citizens have found you guilty; and I pronounce the sentence--that you be hung by the neck until you are dead. The Lord be merciful to your soul!"

"Amen!" said all present.

"Thank ye," murmured Bob.

"We will seal up the property of the deceased," said the judge, "and then proceed to our painful duty."

He called for a light, and he and the procurador and corregidors sealed up the papers and money.

"Has any one aught to allege why the sentence should not be put in execution?" said the Alcalde, with a glance at me.

"He saved my life, judge and fellow-citizens," cried I, deeply moved.

Bob shook his head mournfully.

"Let us go, then, in God's name," said the judge.

Without another word being spoken, we left the house and mounted our horses. The judge had brought a Bible with him; and he rode on, a little in front, with Bob, doing his best to prepare him for the eternity to which he was hastening. Bob listened attentively for some time; but at last he seemed to get impatient and pushed his mustang into so fast a trot, that for a moment we suspected him of wishing to escape the doom he had so eagerly sought. But it was only that he feared the fever might return before the expiration of the short time he yet had to live.

After an hour's ride, we came to the enormous live oak distinguished as _the Patriarch_. Two or three of the men dismounted, and held aside the heavy moss-covered branches which swept the ground, and formed a complete curtain round the tree. The party rode through the opening thus made, and drew up in a circle beneath the huge leafy dome. In the centre of this ring stood Bob, trembling like an aspen-leaf, and with his eyes fixed on a small mound of fresh earth, partly concealed by the branches, and which had escaped my notice on my former visit to the tree. It was the grave of the murdered man.

A magnificent burial-place was that: no poet could have dreamt or desired a better. Above, the huge vault, with its natural frettings and arches; below, the greenest, freshest grass; around, an eternal half light, streaked and varied, and radiant as a rainbow. It was imposingly beautiful.

Bob, the judge, and the corregidors, remained sitting on their horses, but several of the other men dismounted. One of the latter cut the lasso from Bob's saddle, and threw an end of it over one of the lowermost branches; then uniting the two ends, formed them into a strong noose, which he left dangling from the bough. This simple preparation completed, the Alcalde took off his hat and folded his hands. The others followed his example.

"Bob!" said the judge to the unfortunate criminal, whose head was bowed on his horse's mane; "Bob! we will pray for your poor soul, which is about to part from your sinful body."

Bob raised his head. "I had something to say," exclaimed he, in a wondering and husky tone. "Something I wanted to say."

"What have you to say?"

Bob stared around him; his lips moved, but no word escaped him. His spirit was evidently no longer with things of this earth.

"Bob!" said the judge again, "we will pray for your soul."

"Pray! pray!" groaned he. "I shall need it."

In slow and solemn accents, and with great feeling, the judge uttered the Lord's Prayer. Bob repeated every word after him. When it was ended--

"God be merciful to your soul!" exclaimed the judge.

"Amen!" said all present.

One of the corregidors now passed the noose of the lasso round Bob's neck, another bound his eyes, a third person drew his feet out of the stirrups, while a fourth stepped behind his horse with a heavy riding-whip. All was done in the deepest silence; not a word was breathed; not a footfall heard on the soft yielding turf. There was something awful and oppressive in the profound stillness that reigned in the vast enclosure.

The whip fell. The horse gave a spring forwards. At the same moment Bob made a desperate clutch at the bridle, and a loud "Hold!" burst in thrilling tones from the lips of the judge.

It was too late, Bob was already hanging. The judge pushed forward, nearly riding down the man who held the whip, and seizing Bob in his arms, raised him on his own horse, supporting him with one hand, while with the other he strove to unfasten the noose. His whole gigantic frame trembled with eagerness and exertion. The procurador, corregidors, all, in short, stood in open-mouthed wonder at this strange proceeding.

"Whisky! whisky! has nobody any whisky?" shouted the judge.

One of the men sprang forward with a whisky-flask, another supported the body, and a third the feet, of the half-hanged man, while the judge poured a few drops of spirits into his mouth. The cravat, which had not been taken off, had hindered the breaking of the neck. Bob at last opened his eyes, and gazed vacantly around him.

"Bob," said the judge, "you had something to say, hadn't you, about Johnny?"

"Johnny," gasped Bob; "Johnny."

"What's become of him?"

"He's gone to San Antonio, Johnny."

"To San Antonio!" repeated the judge, with an expression of great alarm overspreading his features.

"To San Antonio--to Padre Jose," continued Bob; "a Catholic. Beware!"

"A traitor, then!" muttered several.

"Catholic!" exclaimed the judge. The words he had heard seemed to deprive him of all strength. His arms fell slowly and gradually by his side, and Bob was again hanging from the lasso.

"A Catholic! a traitor!" repeated several of the men; "a citizen and a traitor!"

"So it is, men!" exclaimed the judge. "We've no time to lose," continued he, in a harsh, hurried voice; "no time to lose; we must catch him."

"That must we," said several voices, "or our plans are betrayed to the Mexicans."

"After him immediately to San Antonio!" cried the judge with the same desperately hurried manner.

"To San Antonio!" repeated the men, pushing their way through the curtain of moss and branches. As soon as they were outside, those who were dismounted sprang into the saddle, and, without another word, the whole party galloped away in the direction of San Antonio.

The judge alone remained, seemingly lost in thought; his countenance pale and anxious, and his eyes following the riders. His reverie, however, had lasted but a very few seconds, when he seized my arm.

"Hasten to my house," cried he; "lose no time, don't spare horse-flesh. Take Ptoly and a fresh beast; hurry over to San Felipe, and tell Stephen Austin what has happened, and what you have seen and heard."

"But, judge"----

"Off with you at once, if you would do Texas a service. Bring my wife and daughter back."

And so saying, he literally drove me from under the tree, pushing me out with hands and feet. I was so startled at the expression of violent impatience and anxiety which his features assumed, that, without venturing to make further objection, I struck the spurs into my mustang and galloped off. Before I had got fifty yards from the tree, I looked round. The judge had disappeared.

I rode full speed to the judge's house, and thence on a fresh horse to San Felipe, where I found Colonel Austin, who seemed much alarmed by the news I brought him, had horses saddled, and sent round to all the neighbours. Before the wife and step-daughter of the judge had made their preparations to accompany me home, he started with fifty armed men in the direction of San Antonio.

I escorted the ladies to their house, but scarcely had we arrived there, when I was seized with a fever, the result of my recent fatigues and sufferings. For some days my life was in danger, but at last a good constitution, and the kindest and most watchful nursing, triumphed over the disease. As soon as I was able to mount a horse, I set out for Mr Neal's plantation, in company with his huntsman Anthony, who, after spending many days, and riding over hundreds of miles of ground in quest of me, had at last found me out.

Our way led up past the Patriarch, and, as we approached it, we saw innumerable birds of prey, and carrion crows circling round it, croaking and screaming. I turned my eyes in another direction; but, nevertheless, I felt a strange sort of longing to revisit the tree. Anthony had ridden on, and was already hidden from view behind its branches. Presently I heard him give a loud shout of exultation. I jumped off my horse, and led it through a small opening in the leafage.

Some forty paces from me the body of a man was hanging by a lasso from the very same branch on which Bob had been hung. It was not Bob, however, for the corpse was much too short and small for him.

I drew nearer. "Johnny!" I exclaimed "That's Johnny!"

"It _was_," answered Anthony. "Thank Heaven, there's an end of him!"

I shuddered. "But where is Bob?"

"Bob?" cried Anthony. "Bob!"

He glanced towards the grave. The mound of earth seemed to me larger and higher than when I had last seen it. Doubtless the murderer lay beside his victim.

"Shall we not render the last service to this wretch, Anthony?" asked I.

"The scoundrel!" answered the huntsman. "I won't dirty my hands with him. Let him poison the kites and the crows!"

We rode on.

DEATH FROM THE STING OF A SERPENT.

As when a monstrous snake, with flaming crest, Some wretch within its glittering folds has press'd-- He vainly struggles to escape its fangs, The reptile triumphs, and the victim hangs His head in agony, and bending low, Feels the cursed venom through his life-blood flow. On through his veins the burning poison speeds, Drinks up his spirit--on his vitals feeds, Till, tortured life extinct, the senseless clay In hideous dissolution melts away.

M. J.

GIFTS OF TEREK.

TRANSLATED FROM THE RUSSIAN OF LERMONTOFF. BY T. B. SHAW.

Terek[21] bellows, wildly sweeping Past the cliffs, so swift and strong; Like a tempest is his weeping, Flies his spray like tears along. O'er the steppe now slowly veering-- Calm but faithless looketh he-- With a voice of love endearing Murmurs to the Caspian sea:

"Give me way, old sea! I greet thee; Give me refuge in thy breast; Far and fast I've rush'd to meet thee-- It is tine for me to rest. Cradled in Kazbek, and cherish'd From the bosom of the cloud, Strong am I, and all have perish'd Who would stop my current proud. For thy sons' delight, O Ocean! I've crush'd the crags of Darial, Onward my resistless motion, Like a flock, hath swept them all."

Still on his smooth shore reclining, Lay the Caspian as in sleep; While the Terek, softly shining, To the old sea murmur'd deep:--

"Lo! a gift upon my water-- Lo! no common offering-- Floating from the field of slaughter, A Kabardinetz[22] I bring. All in shining mail he's shrouded-- Plates of steel his arms enfold; Blood the Koran verse hath clouded, That thereon is writ in gold: His pale brow is sternly bended-- Gory stains his wreathed lip dye-- Valiant blood, and far-descended-- 'Tis the hue of victory! Wild his eyes, yet nought he noteth; With an ancient hate they glare: Backward on the billow floateth, All disorderly, his hair."

Still the Caspian, calm reclining, Seems to slumber on his shore; And impetuous Terek, shining, Murmurs in his ear once more:--

"Father, hark! a priceless treasure-- Other gifts are poor to this-- I have hid, to do thee pleasure-- I have hid in my abyss! Lo! a corse my wave doth pillow-- A Kazaichka[23] young and fair. Darkly pale upon the billow Gleams her breast and golden hair; Very sad her pale brow gleameth, And her eyes are closed in sleep; From her bosom ever seemeth A thin purple stream to creep. By my water, calm and lonely, For the maid that comes not back, Of the whole Stanilza,[24] only Mourns a Grebenskoi Kazak.

"Swift on his black steed he hieth; To the mountains he is sped. 'Neath Tchetchen's kinjal[25] now lieth, Low in dust, that youthful head."

Silent then was that wild river; And afar, as white as snow, A fair head was seen to quiver In the ripple, to and fro.

In his might the ancient ocean, Like a tempest, 'gan arise; And the light of soft emotion Glimmer'd in his dark-blue eyes;

And he play'd, with rapture flushing, And in his embraces bright, Clasp'd the stream, to meet him rushing With a murmur of delight.

FOOTNOTES:

[21] A river which, rising on the eastern side of the ridge of the Caucasus, falls, after a rapid and impetuous course, into the Caspian, near Anapa.

[22] A mountaineer of the tribe of Kabarda.

[23] A Kazak girl.

[24] Village of Kazaks.

[25] Kinjal, a large dagger, the favourite weapon of the mountain tribes of the Caucasus, among which the Tchetchenetzes are distinguished for bravery.

MARSTON; OR, THE MEMOIRS OF A STATESMAN.

## PART VI.

"Have I not in my time heard lions roar? Have I not heard the sea, puft up with wind, Rage like an angry boar chafed with sweat? Have I not heard great ordnance in the field, And heaven's artillery thunder in the skies? Have I not in the pitched battle heard Loud 'larums, neighing steeds, and trumpets clang?"

SHAKSPEARE.

My first questions to Lafontaine, when I had his wound looked to, were of course for those whom he had left in England.

"Ah, ha!" said he with a laugh, which showed the inextinguishable Frenchman, "are you constant still? Well, then, Madame la Comtesse is constant too; but it is to her boudoir, or the gaieties of Devonshire House, or perhaps to her abhorrence of Monsieur le Mari."

"Le Mari!" I repeated the words with an involuntary start.

"Bah! 'tis all the same. She is affianced, and among us that tie is quite as legitimate as marriage, and, our libellers say, a little stronger. But they certainly are _not_ married yet, for Mademoiselle Clotilde either is, or affects, the invalid; and considering the probability that she abhors the man and the match, I think, on the whole, that she acts diplomatically in informing the vainest colonel, in or out of France, that she is sick of any thing rather than of him."

"But your Mariamne--how go on your interests there?" The question brought a smile and a sigh together, before he could find an answer.

"How she is, what she is doing, or intends to do, or even what she is, are matters that I can no more answer than I can why the wind blows. She torments me, and takes a delight in tormenting me. I have been on the point of throwing up my commission a hundred times since I saw you, and flying to America, or the world's end. She controls me in every thing, insists on knowing all my movements from hour to hour, finds them out when I attempt to conceal them as matter of duty, tortures me for the concealment, and then laughs at me for the confession. She is intolerable."

"And yet you have obtained a lengthening of your chain, or how come here? How long have you been in Paris?"

"Just two days; and busy ones, or I should have found you out before. Yes, I had Mariamne's full permission to come; though to this moment I cannot account for the change. I had received a sudden order from Montrecour, who is deep in the emigrant affairs, to set out with letters which could not be sent by the courier. But I dared not leave London without asking _her_ permission; and I acknowledge asking her at the same time to run away with me, and give herself a lawful title to be my tyrant for life. Applying to Mordecai was out of the question. Her answer was immediate; contemptuous in the extreme as to my proposal, yet almost urgent on me to accept the mission, and lose no time between London and Paris. Her postscript was the oddest part of all. It was a grave recommendation to discover _you_, in whatever height or depth of the capital you might exist; whether you figured in the court or the cloister; were the idol of the maids of honour, or the model of the monks of La Trappe; to remind you that you had forgotten every body on the other side of the Channel who was worth remembering, including herself; and commending _me_, as a truant and a trifler, to your especial, grave, and experienced protection. Apropos! She sent me a letter, to be delivered to you with my own hands. But for yourself it had nearly failed in the delivery."

He gave me the letter. It was, like the writer, a pretty _melange_; trifles gracefully expressed; strong sense expressed like trifles; feeling carried off with a laugh; and palpable and fond anxiety for Lafontaine couched in the most merciless badinage. While I gave this missive a second, and even a third perusal--for it finished with some gentle mention of the being whose name was a charm to my wearied spirit--my eyes accidentally fell on Lafontaine. His were fixed on me with an expression of inconceivable distress. At length his generous nature broke forth.

"Marston, if I were capable of jealousy, I should be jealous of _you_ and of Mariamne. What _can_ be the caprice which dictated that letter? what _can_ be the interest which you evidently take in it? I wish that the bullet which laid me at your door this evening had finished its work, and put an end to an existence which has been a perpetual fever. I shall not ask _what_ Mariamne has said to you--but _I_ am miserable."

"Yes, but you _shall_ ask, and shall have all you ask," said I, giving him the letter. "It is the language of the heart, and of a heart strongly attached to _you_. I can see affection in every line of it. Of course she mingles a little coquetry with her sentiment; but was there ever a pretty woman, who was not more or less a coquette? She is a gem: never think it the less pure because it sparkles. Rely upon your little Mariamne."

"Then _you_ have no sincere regard for her--no wish to interfere with my claims?" said my pallid friend, dubiously extending his hand towards me.

"Lafontaine, listen to me, and for the last time on the subject. I have a very sincere regard for her." (My sensitive auditor started.) "But, I have also a perfect respect for your claims. It is impossible not to acknowledge the animated graces of the lady on whom you have fixed your affections. But mine are fixed where I have neither hope to sustain them, nor power to change.--Those matters have nothing to do with choice. They are effects without a cause, judgments without a reason, influences without an impulse--the problems of our nature, without a solution since the beginning of the world."

"But, Marston, you will only laugh at me for all my troubles."

"Lafontaine, I shall do no such thing. Those pains and penalties have been the lot of some of the noblest hearts and most powerful minds that the earth has ever seen; and have been most keenly felt by the noblest and the most powerful. The poet only tells the truth more gracefully when he says--

"'The spell of all spells that enamours the heart, To few is imparted, to millions denied; 'Tis the brain of the victim that poisons the dart, And fools jest at that by which sages have died.'

"But now, my friend, let us talk of other things. We must not sink into a pair of sentimentalists; these are terrible times. And now, tell me what brought you out of quiet England among our madmen here?"

"I may now tell all the world," was the reply, "for the evil is done beyond remedy. I was sent by our friends in London, to carry the last warning to the royal family of all that has happened this day. My papers contained the most exact details, the names of the leaders, their objects, their points of assembling, and even their points of attack. Those were furnished, as you may conceive, by one of the principal conspirators; a fellow whom I afterwards saw on horseback in front of the Tuileries, and whom, I think, I had the satisfaction of dismounting by a shot from my carbine."

I mentioned the fruitlessness of my own efforts to awake the ministry.

"Ah," said he, with a melancholy smile, "my friend, if you had been admitted into the palace, or into the council-chamber itself, you would have had precisely the same tale to tell. All was infatuation. I was ushered into the highest presence last midnight. My despatches were read. I was complimented on my zeal, and then was told that every thing was provided for. I was even closeted for two hours with the two individuals who, of all France, or of all mankind, had the largest stake in the crisis, and was again told that there was no crisis to be feared. I even offered to take a squadron of dragoons, and arrest the conspirators at the moment with my own hand. I saw the eyes of the noblest of women fill with tears of grief and indignation at the hopelessness of my appeal, and the answer, 'that though Frenchmen might hate the ministers, they always loved their king.' I saw that all was over."

"Still," said I, "I cannot comprehend how the mere mob of Paris could have succeeded against the defenders of the palace."

"If you had seen it as I did, the only wonder is, how the Tuileries held out so long. After passing a night on guard at the Pavilon de Flore, I was summoned at daybreak to attend his majesty. What a staff for a reviewing monarch! The queen endeavouring to support the appearance of calmness; Madame Elizabeth, that human angel, following her, dissolved in tears; the two royal children, weeping and frightened, making their way through the crowd of nobles, guardsmen, domestics who had gathered promiscuously in the chambers and corridors, armed with whatever weapons they could find, and all in confusion. From the windows there was another scene; and the only time when I saw the queen shudder, was when she cast her eye across the Place du Carrousel, and saw it covered with the dense masses of the multitude drawn up in battle-array. A more gloomy sight never met the eye. From time to time the distant discharge of cannon was heard, giving us the idea that some treachery was transacting in the remoter parts of the city, every discharge answered by a roar of--'Down with the King'--'Death to Marie Antoinette'--'The lamp-iron to all traitors.' While, as I glanced on those around me, I saw despair in every countenance; the resolution perhaps to die, but the evident belief that their death must be in vain. You now know all."

I still expressed my strong anxiety to know what had been the events within the palace.

"Marston, I cannot think of them. I cannot speak of them. I see nothing but a vision of blood, shame, folly, wretchedness. There never was a cause more fatally abandoned. Every thing that could be done to ruin a monarchy was done. I was standing beside the royal group, when a deputation from the National Assembly made its appearance. At its head was a meagre villain, whom one might have taken for the public executioner. He came up, cringing and bowing, to the unfortunate king; but with a look which visibly said--We have you in our power. I could have plunged my sword in the triumphant villain's heart. I had even instinctively half drawn it, when I felt the gentle pressure of a hand on mine. It was the queen's. 'Remember the king's presence. We must owe nothing to violence,' were her words. And at this instant she looked so heart-broken, yet so noble, that I could have worshipped her. The deputation pressed the necessity of 'taking shelter,' as they phrased it, 'in the bosom of the faithful Assembly.' The words, 'assembly of traitors,' burst from my lips. A shout of approbation arose on all sides. But I was more rewarded by a sorrowing smile from the queen. She was indignant at the proposal. 'No; never shall I leave this spot but by the king's command!' she exclaimed. 'I would rather be chained to the walls.' As the guard pressed round her at the words, she suddenly stopped, took a pistol from one of the Garde du Corps, and forcing it on the king--'Now,' said the heroine--'now is the time to show yourself a king of France!' An universal cry of enthusiasm arose, and hundreds of swords were brandished in the air. The deputation, evidently expecting to be massacred, made an effort to reach the door, and the monarchy was on the point of being saved; when the leader of the party glanced back at the royal circle. There stood unfortunate Louis, hesitating, with the pistol in his hand. On such moments all depends. The villain crept up to the king, and whispered in his ear--'Would you have all your family put to death? In the Assembly all are safe.'--'Well, then, we shall go,' was the simple answer. He might have added--'To the scaffold.' The queen pressed her hands on her eyes, and wept bitterly. All were silent. In a few minutes more our sad procession was crossing the garden to the door of the Assembly, amid a roar, which could not have been fiercer or more triumphant had we been going to execution."

It was already twilight; the fine summer's day, as if it had been dimmed by the desperate scenes of which it was witness, set in sudden clouds; and the distant shoutings of the populace seemed to be answered by the voice of a storm. Lafontaine's wound began to bleed afresh by the agitation of his story, and to find medical assistance, was my first object. Having seen him conveyed to my bed, and leaving him in charge of my valet, I hastened towards the residence of the physician to the embassy. In doing this, I had to cross the Rue St Honore. But there my course was stopped. I shrink from alluding to those horrid scenes and times. The scene which there met my eyes has scarcely left them since.

The populace were returning from the conquest and plunder of the palace to the Palais Royale, the headquarters of all convulsion; and they had arranged their ranks into something like a triumphal procession on the stage. The dead bodies of the brave Swiss were carried on boards or biers, preceded by banners of all kinds; the plundered ornaments of the Tuileries were borne on the heads of men; the horses from the royal stables, caparisoned for the occasion, drew hearses, in which the bodies of the mob who had fallen were deposited. Brief as the time for decoration had been, wreaths of artificial flowers, taken from the shops of the _marchandes de modes_, and theatrical shawls and mantles from the stores of the _fripiers_, covered the biers; and the whole, surrounded and followed by a forest of pikes and bayonets, plumes and flags, had no other light than the lurid and shifting blaze of thousands of torches tossing in the wild and howling wind.

The train seemed endless; shocked and sickened, I had made repeated efforts to cross the column, but was repeatedly driven back. If all the dead criminality of Paris had risen to join all the living, it could scarcely have increased my astonishment at the countless thousands which continued to pour on before me; nor scarcely, if the procession had started from the grave, could it have looked more strange, squalid, haggard, and woebegone. In the rear came the cannon, which had achieved this melancholy victory. And they, again, were sometimes converted into the carriage of the dead, sometimes of the plunder, and, in every instance, were surmounted by women, female furies, drinking, shouting, and uttering cries of unspeakable savageness and blasphemy against priests, nobles, and kings; and, mingled with all this, were choruses of bacchanal songs, accompanied with shouts of laughter. It was now near midnight; and my anxiety for the condition of my unfortunate friend at last urged me to make a desperate attempt to force my way through the mass of pikes and daggers. After being swept far along with the stream, I reached the street in which the physician lived. He set out with me immediately, and, by his superior knowledge of the route, we were enabled to make our way unimpeded through streets, that looked like dens of robbers, to my hotel.

But there a new and still more alarming disappointment awaited me. I found the porter and all the attendants of the establishment gathered on the stairs in terror. Lafontaine was gone! Whether, frenzied by the insults and yells of the populace, who continued to pass in troops from time to time, or anxious for my safety, he had started from his bed, put on his sword, and rushed into the street; without the possibility of being restrained, and without uttering a word of explanation.

Exhausted as I was by fatigue, and still more by the sights and scenes through which I had just passed, this intelligence was a severe blow. The fate of a young enthusiast, and a foreigner, whom I had known but so lately, and of whom I knew so little, might not have justified much personal sacrifice. But the thought of the heart that would be broken by his falling into the hands of the barbarians, who were now masters of every thing, smote keenly upon me. Mariamne would die; and though I was by no means a lover of Mariamne, yet, where I had seen so much that was loveable, I might have a regard next in degree. There may, and does often, exist the tenderness of love without the flame. I could have looked on this pretty and animated creature as the wife of Lafontaine, or of any other object of her choice, without the slightest pang; but I could not have looked upon her pining away in hopelessness, wasting in silent sorrow, or with her gay and gentle existence clouded by a loss which nothing could repair, without thinking every effort of mine to avert evil from her, due on every principle of common feeling.

While I pondered, a note was brought to me, written by Lafontaine before he had sallied from his chamber, and evidently written under the wildest emotion. It told me, in a few scarcely legible words, that he felt life a burden to him, and thanked Heaven for the opportunity now offered of dying for his king and the glory of France. That the monarchy had perished beyond redemption. But that, though the royal family were surrounded by the poniards of assassins, it was his determination to follow and find them, rescue them, or die at their feet. This strange production closed with--"You shall hear of me within twenty four hours, living or dead. If I fall, remember me to my affianced wife; and vindicate my character to the world."

This was so like insanity, that it perplexed me more and more; but, on second thoughts, it appeared to offer some clue to his pursuit.--He had gone to die in presence of the royal family. If they were to be found by him at all, they must be found in the Assembly. I immediately went to the garden of the Tuileries, where they met until their new legislative palace should be erected. The multitude had now partially retired, for it was midnight; and the entrance was comparatively clear. A strong force of the National Guard still kept the drunken rabble at a distance; and the five franc piece, with which I tempted the incorruptibility of a peculiarly ferocious-looking patriot, admitted me without delay.

What a scene there presented itself to my eyes! The "Salle" was large and showy; and when I had attended it in former debates, it exhibited the taste and skill which the French, more than any other people on earth, exhibit in temporary things. Nothing could exceed the elegance with which the Parisian decorators had fitted up this silk and tinsel abode, which was to be superseded, within a few months, by the solid majesty of marble. But, on this memorable and melancholy night, the ornaments bore, to me, the look of those sad frivolities with which France is fond of ornamenting her tombs. The chandeliers burned dim; the busts and statues looked ghostlike; the chief part of the members had thrown themselves drowsily on the benches; and the debate had languished into the murmurs of a speech, to which no one listened. If the loaded table, with its pile of petitions and ordonnances, in the midst of the hall, could have been imagined into a bier; the whole had the aspect of a _chapelle ardente_; there, indeed, lay in state the monarchy of France. My unlucky friend, of course, was not there; but I saw, in a narrow box, on the right of the president, a group, from which, when once seen, I found it impossible to withdraw my gaze--the first and most exalted victims of the Revolution, the king and his family. All but one were apparently overcome with fatigue; for they had sat there fifteen hours. But that one sat with a steady eye and an erect front, as if superior to all suffering. I had seen Marie Antoinette, the most splendid figure, in all the splendours of her court. I had seen her unshaken before vast popular assemblages, in which any rash or ruffian hand might have taken her life at the instant; but she now gave me an impression of a still higher order. Sitting in calm resignation and unstained dignity, her stately form and countenance, pale and pure as marble, looked like some noble statue on a tomb; or rather, sitting in that chamber of death, like some pure spirit, awaiting the summons to ascend from the relics of human guilt, infirmity, and passion before her.

But the slumbers of the Assembly were soon to be broken. A tumult, and the tramping of many feet, was heard at the door. It was followed by the thunder of clubs and hammers breaking it in; the bars gave way; the huissiers and other attendants rushed through the body of the hall, and took refuge behind the chair of the president in affright; the sleepers started from their seats; and, with a roar which spoke the true supremacy of the new power in France, the mob poured in. They announced themselves a deputation from the Municipality, and instantly took possession of the benches. Men, women, and even children, composed this barbarian invasion; like all that I had seen, half intoxicated; but evidently trained by higher hands for more determined evil. A chosen set of orators, in Roman robes, probably plundered from some suburb theatre, moved forward to the table, and took their seats round it in as much solemnity as conscript fathers. The chief speaker then advanced from the door, preceded by the head of one of the murdered Swiss on a pike, a hideous spectacle, and, drawing from his belt a dagger, commenced a furious harangue against every thing that bore the shape of authority in the kingdom. The Assembly did not escape in the general outpouring of its bitterness. They were charged with want of zeal, with want of honesty, and, most formidable of all, want of patriotism. I saw many a member cower at the word; for it was the countersign of Jacobinism; and the man, on whom that charge was personally fastened, was sure to fall by pistol or dagger. But the rage of the harangue was levelled at the royal family. "There sits the tyrant!" he exclaimed, pointing with his poniard to the meekest of monarchs and of men. "The vengeance of the people calls for victims. How long shall it be insulted? If justice is blind, tear the bandage from her eyes. How long shall the sword of the people rust in its sheath! Liberty sitting on her altar demands new sacrifices to feed the flame. The blood of tyrants is the only incense worthy to be offered by a regenerated people!"

At every pause of those fierce interjections, the crowd burst into yells of applause, drew knives and daggers from their bosoms, flourished them in the air, and echoed the words. The Assembly were evidently held in terror of their lives. The president made some faint attempts to restore order. A few of the members made faint attempts at speeches. But the mob were masters; and a night of such horrors passed, as I had never dreamed of before. At daybreak the orator demanded that a decree should be instantly passed, suspending the king, the ministry, and even the Assembly, in the midst of which he stood. Of all the extravagances ever conceived--of all the insolences of power--of all the licenses of popular licentiousness, this was the most daring, unrivalled, and unimagined; and yet this was carried, with scarcely a voice raised against it. The trembling president, with the dagger at his throat, put the motion for extinguishing the throne, the cabinet, and calling a new Assembly! From that hour the monarchy was no more.

During this tremendous discussion, I had not ventured to raise my eyes towards the royal family; but, as all were now about to retire, I dared a single glance. The king was slowly leaving the box, leading the dauphin by the hand; the Princess Elizabeth was carrying the sleeping dauphiness in her arms; the queen stayed behind, alone, for a moment, sitting, as she had done for hours, with her eyes fixed on vacancy, and her countenance calm, but corpselike. At length she seemed to recollect that she was alone, and suddenly started up. Then nature had its way; she tottered, and fainted. From that night forth, that glorious creature never saw the light of day but through the bars of a prison. From the Feuillans, the royal family were consigned to the cells of the Temple, from which Louis and Marie Antoinette never emerged but to the grave!

This night taught me a lesson, which neither time nor circumstance has ever made me forget. It cured me of all my republican fantasies at once, and for ever. I believe myself above the affectation of romantic sensibility. But it would not be less affectation to deny the feelings to which that awful scene of human guilt and human suffering gave birth. If the memory of the popular atrocities made me almost abhor human nature, the memory of that innocent and illustrious woman restored my admiration of the noble qualities that may still be found in human nature. "If I forget thee even in my mirth," the language of the Israelite to his beloved city, was mine, in scarcely a less solemn or sacred spirit, in those hours of early experience. Let the hearts and eyes of others refuse to acknowledge such feelings. I am not ashamed to say, that I have shed many a tear over the fate of the King and Queen of France. In the finest fictions of genius, in the most high-wrought sorrows of the stage, I have never been so deeply touched, I have never felt myself penetrated with such true and irresistible emotion, as in reading, many a year after, the simplest record of the unhappy Bourbons. What must it be, to have witnessed the last agonies of their hearts and throne!

On returning to my chamber, shuddering and wretched, I found a despatch on my table. It was from Downing Street; an order, that within twelve hours after its receipt, I should set out from Paris, and make my way, with the utmost secrecy, to the headquarters of the Austrian and Prussian army; where further orders would be waiting for me.

This command threw me into new perplexity. It had been my purpose to find my unfortunate friend, if he was not already in the bosom of the Seine, or a victim to some of the popular violences. But my orders were peremptory. I, however, did all that was in my power. I spent the day in looking for him through all the hotels and hospitals; and, after a hopeless search, gave my man of mystery, Mendoza, a commission--paid for at a rate that made him open his hollow eyes wide with incredulity on the coin--to discover and protect him, wherever he was to be found.

But I had now another difficulty which threatened to nip my diplomatic honours in the bud. The news had just arrived, that the allied armies had passed the frontier, and were sweeping all before them with fire and sword. A populace is always mad with courage, or mad with cowardice; and the Parisians, who, but yesterday, were ready to have made a march round the globe, now thought the wells and cellars of the city not too deep, or too dark to hold them. They would have formed a camp in the catacombs, if they could. All was sudden terror. The barriers were shut. Guards were posted tenfold at all the gates. Men were ranged on the heights round the city, to make signals of the first approach of the Prussian hussars; and the inhabitants spent half the day on every house top that commanded a view of the country, waiting for the first glimpse of their devourers. To escape from this city of terror now became next to impossible. All my applications were powerless. The government were themselves regarded as under lock and key; the populace, as if determined that all should share a common massacre, were clustered at the barriers, pike in hand, to put all "emigrants" to death; the ambassador was, as ambassadors generally are in cases of real difficulty, a cipher; and yet I _must_ leave Paris within twelve hours, or be cashiered.

It at length occurred to me to avail myself of my Jewish spy, and I found him listening to a midnight harangue in the midst of a Jacobin crowd, in the Palais Royal. He considered the matter for a while; and I walked about, leaving him to his free invention, while I contrasted the brilliant blaze of the gaming and dancing-rooms above me with the assassin-like darkness of the galleries below. At length he turned to me. "There is but one way. Have you any objection to be arrested?"

"The greatest imaginable," was my answer.

"Just as you please," he replied; "but I have here an order for the seizure of one of the emigrant agents, a Chevalier Lafontaine, lately arrived in Paris. He has been seen in the palace, but we have missed him for the last twelve hours. The order is for Vincennes. Will you take his place?"

I naturally looked all surprise, and peremptorily refused.

"Do as you will," said my intractable adviser; "but there is no other way to pass the gates. I shall take you to Vincennes as a state prisoner; I have influence there. In short, if you trust me, you shall be safe, and on your road by daybreak. If you do not, here your life is uncertain; you are known, watched, and the first order that I receive to-morrow, may be one for your apprehension."

All this was likely enough; there was but a moment to deliberate, and I got into the first cabriolet, and drove with him to the barrier. The streets still exhibited scattered bands, who questioned us from time to time, but the words, "By order of the Municipality," which were enough to terrify the stoutest hearts, and the display of his badge, carried us through. We passed the guard at the gate, after a slight examination of the order, and galloped to Vincennes.

At the sight of the frowning fortress my blood chilled, and I refused to go further. "In that case," said my conductor, "_I_ am compromised, and _you_ are ruined; the first patrol will seize you, while I shall be shot. I pledge myself, that here you shall not remain; but I must be acquitted to the head of the police. You shall be M. le Chevalier Lafontaine for the night; and, if such a man exists, you will probably be the means of saving his life. To-morrow I shall bring proofs of my mistake, and then you will be outside the walls of Paris, and free to go where you please."

The name of Lafontaine decided me. Even the risk seemed less serious than before, and we drove over the drawbridge. The interior of the fortress formed a striking contrast to the scenes which I had just left behind me. All was still stern, and noiseless.

"Give me your papers," said Mendoza; "they will be safer in my hands than in yours."

I had but time to give him my despatch, as we passed through the court which led to the governor's apartments. I was searched in the presence of that important functionary, a meagre old captain of invalids, who had been roused from his bed, and was evidently half asleep. I stoutly denied my being "the criminal who had offended the majesty of the people." But as the governor himself, on gazing at me with his purblind eyes, was perfectly satisfied of my identity, there was no use in contesting the point. A couple of sentinels were placed at the door of my cell, and I was left, like himself, to my slumbers. Before the door closed, I grasped my guide by the throat. The thought that I had been entrapped, actually agonized me.

"Am I betrayed?" I asked, in a whisper of fury.

The only answer was, "Mordecai."

I felt security in the word, and, without a further pang, heard his tread echoing along the distant corridor.

Time rolls on, whether we are happy or miserable. Morning came, and found me feverish from a thousand dreams. Noon came, and my impatience grew with the hour. Evening came, and yet no symptom of my liberation. If, "hope deferred maketh the heart sick," confidence duped, and blindly, weakly, rashly duped, turns to torture.

Why trust a known agent of the police? Why put my liberty into his hands? Why, above all, make him master of my papers? I was overwhelmed with shame. I writhed with remorse. As hour after hour dragged into slow length along, I sank from dejection to dejection, or burst from rage to rage. But at last, when the drums of the garrison were making their final flourish for the night, the key turned in the door of my cell, and the Jew entered. I almost sprang upon him, and his life would have been worth little, but for the words--"You may now leave the fortress." He told me, further, that my absence was fortunate, for a domiciliary visit had been paid to my apartments by direction of the municipality; my trunks examined, and my doors sealed. My absence was imputed to flight; and, as jails were then the only safe residences in France, I had escaped actual imprisonment simply by my volunteer detention; to watch the event, had been the source of his delay. All was speedily settled with the old commandant, who was now as perfectly "convinced, on his own knowledge," that I was not the chevalier, as he had been convinced on the night before that I was. Mendoza's proofs were registered in due form; and with unspeakable delight I once again mounted his cabriolet, and heard the chains of the drawbridge rattle behind me.

My Jew had been true to his pledge. I found horses provided for me at a lonely cabaret, a league off. With the minute foresight which men of his trade learn, he had provided for me a couple of disguises--the garb of a peasant, which I was to use when I passed among the soldiery; and the uniform of an aide-de-camp, with which I was to keep down enquiries when I came among the peasantry. But I was weary of disguise. It had never thriven with my temperament. I was determined, at all events, now to trust to chance and my proper person; and if I must fail, have the satisfaction of failing after my own style. The only recompense which my magnanimous police-officer would receive, was a promise that I should mention his conduct to Mordecai; and, gathering up his rejected wardrobe, he departed.

Fortunately I found disguises unnecessary, though at any other time they might have been essential. The country was all in a state of flight, and every man was too much employed in securing himself, to think of laying hold of others. Thus galloped I through hill and dale, through bush and brier, unquestioned and almost unseen; until, on the evening of the fourth day, as I plunged into a forest, which for the last half hour I had been imagining into a scene of fairyland, a bower where a pilgrim might finish his journey for life, or a man, "crazed by care, or crossed in hopeless love," might forget woman and woe together--I was awakened to the realities of things by the whistle of a bullet, which struck off a branch within an inch of my head, followed by a fierce howl for the countersign. By all the laws of war, the howl should have come first; but these were not times for ceremony. A troop of Hulans rushed round me, sabre in hand. I stood like a stoic; and, of course, attempted to tell who I was. But my German was unintelligible to my captors, and my French, a suspicious language on a Prussian outpost, only confirmed their opinion that I was born to be stripped. Accordingly one demanded my watch, another my purse, and I was in a fair way of entering the Prussian lines in a state of pauperism, or of being "left alone in my glory" by shot or sabre, when an officer rode up, whom I had casually known in some Parisian circle. To him I could explain myself, and to him I exhibited the envelope of my letter, inscribed with the words, "Grand Quartier General." My new friend bowed to this awful address like a Turk to the firman of the padisha, poured out a volley of wrath on the troop, ordered the instant and very reluctant restitution of my property, and with a couple of the squadron at our heels, took me under his escort, to deliver my papers in person.

After an hour's gallop through rocks, rivulets, and brambles, which seemed without end, and totally uninhabited, except by an occasional patrol of the irregulars of the Austrian and Prussian forces--barbarians as savage-looking as ever were Goth or Hun, and capital substitutes for the wolves and wild-boars which they had ejected for the time--a sudden opening of the forest brought us within view of the immense camp of the combined armies.

All the externals of war are splendid; it is the interior, the consequences, the operation of that mighty trampler of man that are startling. This was my first sight of that most magnificent of all the atrocious inventions of human evil--an army. The forces of the two most warlike monarchies of Europe were spread before me; nearly a hundred and fifty thousand troops, with all the numberless followers of a host in the field, covering a range of low hills which circled the horizon. While we were still at a considerable distance, a gun was fired from the central hill, answered by others from the flanks. The rolling of drums set the vast line in motion, and just at the moment when the sun was lying on the edge of the west, the brigades, descending each from its height, halted on the slope. The whole vast manoeuvre was executed with the exactness of a single mind. The blaze of the sun on the arms, the standards, and the tents crowning the brow of the hills, was magical. "Are they marching to battle?" was my amazed question to my companion. His only answer was to check his charger, take off his shako, and bend his forehead to his saddle-bow. A burst of universal harmony, richer than I had ever yet conceived, explained the mystery. It was the evening prayer. The fine bands of the regiments joined the voices of the soldiery, and I listened, in unbroken rapture and reverence, until its close. In court or cathedral, in concert or shrine, I had never before so much felt the power of sound. It finished in a solemn chorus, and accumulation of music. I could have almost imagined it ascending, embodied, to heaven.

The fire of cannon announced the conclusion of the service; we put spurs to our horses, and soon entered the lines; and, on the strength of my credentials, I had distinguished quarters assigned to me.

I now, for the first time since I left England, began to feel the advantages of birth. In London every man is so submerged in the multitude, that he who can hold his head high enough out of the living surge to be known, must have something of remarkable buoyancy, or peculiar villany, about him. Even Parliament, except to a few of the leaders, is no distinction. The member for the shire is clipped of all his plumage at the moment of his entering that colossal poultry-yard, and must take his obscure pickings with other unnoticeable fowl. In Paris, once the Mahometan paradise of stars and garters, the central herald's office of the earth, the royal region of the Parliament aristocracy, where the beggar with a _cordon_ on his breast outshone the banker with millions in his pocket-book, the world was changed; and to be the son or brother of a peer might have been only a speedier passport to the lamp-post. But, in Germany, the land of pedigrees, to be an "honourable" was to be one on whom the sun shone with double beams; the sex, young and old, smiled with double softness and the whole host of Serenities were doubly serene. In camp, nothing could be more hospitable or distinguished than my reception; for the soldier is always good-humoured under canvass, and the German is good-humoured every where. Perhaps he has rather too high an opinion of his descent from Goth and Vandal, but he makes allowance for the more modern savagery of Europe; and although the stranger may neither wear spectacles, nor smoke cigars, neither muzzle his visage with mustaches, nor speak the most formidable tongue on earth, the German will good-naturedly admit, that he may be a human being after all.

But the man with whom my mission brought me most immediately into contact, and to whom I was most indebted for courtesy, would have been a remarkable personage in any country of Europe; that man was the Duke of Brunswick.

On my arrival, I found two letters forwarded from London, and in the hands of an aide-de-camp of the generalissimo. The first which I opened was from the Foreign Office, a simple statement of the purpose for which I was sent--namely, to stimulate the activity of the Prussian councils, and to urge on the commander of the army an immediate march on the French capital; with a postscript, directing me, in case of tardiness being exhibited at headquarters, instantly to transmit a despatch home, and return to my post in Paris. The second letter--which I must, however undiplomatically, admit that I opened with much stronger interest--was from Mordecai. I glanced over it for some mention of the "ane braw name," and bitterly laughed at my own folly in expecting to find such communications in the letter of the hard-headed and busy Jew. All was brief and rapid.

"If this shall find you in the Prussian camp, you will have no more time for me than I have for you. Let me not clip your diplomatic hopes; but this I forewarn you, you will not obtain a single object of your journey; except, perhaps, showing that you can gallop a hundred miles in the four-and-twenty hours, and can make your way through a country of lunatics without being piked or sabred.

"The campaign is over already--over before it was begun. The battle was fought in the council at Berlin, and the allies were beaten. The duke, within the next fortnight, will be deciding on the merits of the ballet in Brunswick, and the French will be madder than ever with triumphs which they never won, preparing for conquests which are already gained, and knocking down thrones, the owners themselves supplying the pickaxes and hammers. You will see the two best armies of the Continent running away from their own shadows; the old councillors of Frederick and Maria Theresa baffled by cabinets of cobblers and tinkers; grey-beard generals, covered with orders, hunted over the frontier by boys, girls, and old women; and France, like a _poissarde_ in a passion, with her hair flying about her ears, a knife in her hand, and her tongue in full swing, scampering half naked over Europe, to the infinite wonder of the wearers of velvet, Mechlin lace, and diadems,--ha, ha, ha!"

While I was trying to decipher this riddle, which was rather too contemptuous for my new views of things, but which I referred to the habitual feelings of a strong-headed man in humble life, brought just close enough to higher to feel his exclusion, an officer was announced as Count Varnhorst, on the staff of the duke. His countenance struck me at first sight, as one which I had seen before; and I soon discovered, that when I was a boy at Eton, he had been on a visit of a few days at Mortimer castle, in the suite of one of the Prussian princes. We had been thus old friends, and we now became young ones within the first quarter of an hour. His countenance was that of a humourist, and his recollections of the Great Frederick rendered him sarcastic on all things of the later generation.

"The duke has sent me for you," said he, "with his apology for keeping you out of bed; but he has appointed midnight for the delivery of your despatches. The truth is, that hitherto we have all slept so soundly, that we must make up for lost time by turning night into day now, just as we have turned day into night for the last twelvemonth."

"But what can you tell me of the duke?"

"Oh! a great deal; but you know that I am on his staff, and therefore bound to keep his secrets."

"Yet, count, remember that we have sworn an eternal friendship within the last five minutes. What can he or I be the worse for my knowing his great and good qualities?"

"My dear young friend, when you are as old as I am, you will see the improprieties of such questions."

"Well, then, to come to the point; is he a great general?"

"He speaks French better than any other prince in Germany."

"Is he an able politician?"

"You must see him on horseback; he rides like a centaur."

"Well, then, in one sentence, will he fight the French?"

"That wholly depends on whether he turns his horse's head towards Paris or Berlin."

"Count, but one question more, which you may answer without a riddle. Do you think that he will receive my mission cordially?"

"He speaks your language; he wears your broad cloth; he loves your porter; and he has married one of your princesses."

"All my difficulties are answered. I am ready; but what shall I find him doing at this extraordinary hour?"

"If asleep, dreaming of the opera at Brunswick; if awake, dreaming of the opera at Paris."

His diamond repeater, which he had laid on the table between us, struck twelve as he spoke; and, wrapping ourselves in our cloaks, we sallied forth into one of the most starry nights of autumn, and made our way, through long ranges of patrols and videttes, to the quarters of the generalissimo.

The mansion was an old chateau, evidently long abandoned to loneliness and decay one of those huge edifices; whose building had cost one fortune, and whose support had exhausted another. But the struggle had been over for the last fifty years, and two or three shrivelled domestics remained to keep out the invasion of the bats and owls. But at this period the chateau exhibited, of course, another scene; aides-de-camp, generals, orderlies, couriers--all the clang and clamour of the staff of a great army--rang through the wild old halls, and echoed up the long ghostly corridors. Every apartment was a blaze of light, and filled with groups of officers of the Prussian and Austrian guards; all was billiard-playing, talking, singing in chorus, and carousing in all the noisy gaiety of the soldier in good quarters.

"All this is tempting enough," said the old count, as we hastened along a gallery that seemed endless, but on which the open doors of the successive apartments threw broad illumination. "I dare say, Mr Marston, that you would prefer taking your seat among those lively fellows, to the honour of a ducal conference; but my orders are, that you must not be seen until the duke gives you _carte blanche_ to appear among human beings again."

The count now opened the door of an apartment, which appeared to have been more lately tenanted than the rest, yet which exhibited signs of the general desertion; a marble table, covered with a decaying drapery, a Carrara alabaster of Niobe and her children on the mantelpiece, a huge mirror, and a tapestry of one of the hunts of Henri Quatre, showed that Time had been there, and that the Prussians had not; but the indistinct light of the single chandelier left me but little opportunity of indulging my speculations on the furniture. The count had left me, to ascertain when the duke should be at leisure to receive me; and my first process was, like a good soldier, to reconnoitre the neighbouring territory. The first door which I opened led into a conservatory, filled with the remnants of dead foliage, opening on the gardens of the chateau, which, wild as they now were, still sent up a fragrance doubly refreshing, after the atmosphere of meershaums, hot brandy, and Rhine beer, which filled the galleries. The casement distantly overlooked the esplanade in front of the chateau; and the perpetual movements of the couriers and estafettes, arriving and departing every moment, the galloping of cavalry, and the march of patrols, occupied me until a valet of the duke came to acquaint me that supper was served, by his highness's commands, in the apartment which I had lately quitted, and that he would be present in a few minutes.

I returned of course; and found the chamber which I had left so dark and dilapidated, changed, as if by a fairy wand, into pomp and elegance. The duke was renowned for splendid extravagance, and the table was covered with rich plate, the walls glittered with a profusion of gilt lamps, and all round me had the look of regal luxury. But one object suddenly caught my gaze, and left me no power to glance at any other. In a recess, which had hitherto been obscure, but over which now blazed a brilliant girandole, hung a full-length portrait of a nun, which, but for the dress, I should have pronounced to be Clotilde; the same Greek profile, the same deep yet vivid eye, the same matchless sweetness of smile, and the same mixture of melancholy and enthusiasm, which had made me think my idol fit to be the worship of the world. I stood wrapped in astonishment, delight, pain, a thousand undefined feelings, until I could have almost imagined that the canvass before me lived. I saw its eye all but glisten, its lips all but open to speak; the very marble of its cheek begin to glow; when I was awakened by a lively voice, saying, in French--"Ah, Mr Marston, I perceive that you are a connoisseur." I turned, and saw the speaker, a man somewhat above the middle size; a remarkably noble-looking personage; in full dress even at that hour, powdered and perfumed, and altogether a court figure; his hands loaded with jewels, and a diamond star of the order of the garter upon his breast. It required no introducer to tell me that I was in the presence of the Duke of Brunswick.

"Come," said he, "we have no time for etiquette, nor indeed for any thing else to-night--we must sup first, and then talk of your mission."

We sat down; a double file of valets, in liveries, loaded with embroidery, attended at the table; though the party consisted of but four; Varnhorst, and a Colonel Guiseard, chief of the secret diplomacy, a pale Spanish-featured officer--to whom his highness did me the honour of introducing me, as the son of one of his old friends.

"You remember Marston," said he, "at Brunswick, five-and-twenty years ago, in his envoyship--a capital horseman, a brilliant dresser, and a very promising diplomatist. I augured well of his future career, but" ----the infinite elevation of the ducal shoulders, and the infinite drooping of the ducal eyes, completed the remainder of my unfortunate parent's history; but whether in panegyric or censure, I was not sufficiently versed in the science of saying nothing and implying all things, to tell. Guiseard fixed his deep sallow eye on me, without a word: at that moment he reminded me exactly of one of the Inquisitors--the deep, dark-visaged men whom the matchless pencil of Velasquez has immortalized.

Varnhorst burst out into a laugh.

"What, Guiseard," said he, "are you reconnoitring the ground before you make the attack? Your royal highness, I think we ought to vindicate our country to this English gentleman, by assuring him that the colonel is not a cardinal in disguise."

The colonel merely smiled, which seemed an effort for his cloistered physiognomy; the duke laughed, and began a general conversation upon all possible topics--England forming the chief; the royal family--the court--the theatres--parliament--the people--all whirled over with the ease and rapidity of one turning the leaves of an album; here a verse and there a portrait--here a sketch of a temple, and there an outline of a cottage--the whole pretty, and as trifling as pretty, and cast aside at the first moment when any thing better worth thinking of occurred.

In the midst of our gaiety, in which the duke had completely laid down his sceptre, and taken his full share, the great clock of the chateau tolled one. The table was instantly swept of supper--the valets withdrew. I heard the tread of a sentinel at the door of the apartment; and the duke, instantly changing from the man of fashion to the statesman, began to enter into the questions then so deeply disturbing all the cabinets of Europe.

I found the duke a very superior man to what I had conceived of him. He was frank and free, spoke of the intentions of the Allies in the most open manner, and censured the errors which they had already committed, with a plainness which I had not expected to find out of London. He had evidently made himself master of a great variety of knowledge, and with the happy but most unusual power of rendering it all applicable to the point in question. My impressions of him and his order, imbibed among the prejudices of England and the libels of France, was that of frivolity and flutter--an idle life and a stagnant understanding. I never was more surprised at the contrast between this conception and the animated and accomplished prince before me. He seemed to know not merely the persons of all the leading men of Europe--which might have naturally been the case with one who had visited every capital--but to be acquainted with their characters, their abilities, and even their modes of thinking. He seemed to me a man born to rule. It was in later days that the habits of a voluptuary, of which his peculiar love of dress might have been slightly symptomatic, produced their effect, in enfeebling a mind made for eminence. I saw him afterwards, broken with years and misfortune. But on this night I could only see a man on whom the destinies of Europe were rightly reposed. I pay this tribute of honour to his memory.

He spoke a great deal, in our conference, on the necessity of a strong European combination against France, and flatteringly addressed to me a strong panegyric on my country.

"If we can obtain," said he, "the cordial co-operation of the English people, I see no difficulty before us. We already have the Ministry with us; but I know the Englishman's hatred of a foreign war, his horror of public expenditure on continental interests, and his general distrust of the policy of foreign courts. And until we can give the people some evidence, not only that our intentions are sincere, but that our cause is their own, we shall never have the nation on our side."

My remark was, "that the chief difficulty with the nation would be, to convince them that the Allied Powers were not influenced by personal motives; I said that the seizure of territory, while the French remained in their defenceless state, would probably excite strong public displeasure in England; and plainly stated, that the only thing which could engage the public spirit in the war, would be a conviction of its absolute justice and stern necessity."

The conversation was here interrupted by the arrival of a staff-officer with despatches from Berlin. A number of papers were laid on the table, and handed over to Varnhorst and Guiseard to read. They proved chiefly notes and orders relative to the advance of the army. One paper, however, the duke read with evident interest, and marked with his pencil down the margin.

"I am delighted," said he, "that this paper has reached us at last. Mr Marston will now see what my real advice has been from the beginning. The French journals have attacked me furiously for the declaration issued at our entrance on the frontier. The journals of England have

## partly echoed the French, and I am held up to the world as the author of

the _Declaration of Pilnitz_. This paper, which Mr Marston will do me the honour to send at daybreak to his court by a special messenger, will clear my character with his countrymen at once--with the rest of Europe, I am content to wait a little longer."

He then read the paper in his hand; and it was a long and striking protest against the idea of partitioning France, or having any other intention in the movement of the troops than the security of the French throne. This document had been sent to the Council at Berlin, and been returned by them for revision by the duke, and the softening of its rather uncourtly decisiveness of expression. It stated, that even the conquest of France, if it could be effected, must be wholly useless without the conciliation of the people: that it must be insecure, that it never could be complete, and that even the attempt might rouse this powerful people to feel its own force, and turn its vast resources to war. The first measure ought, therefore, to be an address to the nation, pronouncing, in the clearest language, an utter abjuration of all local seizure.

The paper thus returned, and containing the observations of the council, was given to Varnhorst, to be copied. "And now," said the duke, "gentlemen, I think we may retire for the night; for we have but three hours until the march in the morning."

I said some common-place thing, of the obligations which Europe must owe to a sovereign prince, exposing himself to such labours, honourable as they were.

"No," he smilingly replied; "they are part of our office, the routine of the life of princes, the vocation of men born for the public, and living for the public alone. The prince must be a soldier, and the soldier must make the camp his home, and the palace only his sojourn. It is his fortune, perhaps his misfortune, that but one profession in life is left open to him, whether it be the bent of his temperament or not--while other men may follow their tastes in the choice, serve their fellows in a hundred different ways, and raise a bloodless reputation among mankind. And now, good-night. To-morrow at five the _advance_ moves. At six I shall be on horseback, and then--Well! what matter for the _then_? We shall sleep at least to-night; and so, farewell."

INDEX TO VOL. LIV.

Aberdeen, Lord, remarks on his church bill, 545.

Adventures in Louisiana, No. I., The Prairie and the Swamp, 43 --No. II., The Blockhouse, 234.

Adventures in Texas, No. I., A Scamper in the Prairie of Jacinto, 551 --No. II., A Trial by Jury, 777.

Ahmed-Kiuprili, career of, 175.

Anti-corn-law League, proceedings of the, 539.

Ancient Towns, a plea for, against railways, 398.

Aristocracy of England, the, 51.

Armada, the, from Schiller, 143.

Armansperg, Count, administration of, in Greece, 348.

Arne the composer, 26.

Art, British, present state of, 188.

Athens, population, institutions, &c., of, 352.

Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the best means of establishing a communication between the, 658.

Austria, commerce, &c., of, 251.

Ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.

Balzac, M., Two Dreams, a sketch by, 672.

Banking-house, the, a history in three parts. Part I. Chap. I., Prospective, 576 --Chap. II., Retrospective, 578 --Chap. III., The beginning of the end, 582 --Chap. IV., Miching mallecho, it means mischief, 585 --Chap. V., Matters of course, 588 --Chap. VI., A discovery, 592 --Chap. VII., The end of the beginning, 594.

## Part II. Chap. I., A negotiation, 719

--Chap. II., A lull. 723 --Chap. III., A sweet couple, 725 --Chap. IV., A speculation, 730 --Chap. V., A landed proprietor, 733.

Bankruptcy of the Greek kingdom, the, 345 --means of averting it, 361.

Barrett, Elizabeth B., Cry of the Children, by, 260.

Bavarian government of Greece, effects of the, 345.

Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, review of, 622.

Blockhouse, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 234.

Bridge over the Thur, the, from the German of Gustav Schwab, 717.

British institution, exhibition at the, 203.

Brownrigg, Sir Robert, conquest of Kandy, by, 632.

Bulwer, Sir Edward Lytton, Bart., translation of the poems and ballads of Schiller, by. Part the last, 139. --Love and Death, by, 717.

Bute, lines written in, by Delta, 749.

Byrd, the composer, 24.

Cabinet, the Greek, construction and powers of the, 350.

Canadian corn bill, the, 543.

Canal, proposed between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.

Carlyle's Past and Present, review of, with notices of his other works, 121.

Ceylon and its capabilities, by Bennett, review of, 622 --its climate, 626 --sketch of its history, 627.

Chapters of Turkish History; No. X. The Second Siege of Vienna, 173.

Charles Edward at Versailles on the Anniversary of the Battle of Culloden, a poem, 107.

Chronicles of Paris--the Rue St Denis, 524.

Cinghalese, character of the, 627.

Cobden, Mr, refutation of his statements regarding the colonies, 407, 637 --his misrepresentations on the corn question, 539.

College Theatricals, a tale, 737.

Colonies, the, examination of Cobden's statements regarding, 409, 637.

Commencement of the New Century, the, from the German of Schiller, 151.

Commercial Intercourse between the Atlantic and Pacific Oceans, on the best means of establishing, 658.

Commercial Policy, Europe, 243 --ships, colonies, and commerce, 406 --the same continued, 637.

Comparison of the protective and free-trade systems, 243, 406, 637. Conflict, the, on the German of Schiller, 144.

Continental nobility, comparison of with the British, 56.

Corn-law Question, the, 539.

Council of State, the Greek, 350.

Creswick, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.

Cry of the Children, the, 260.

Darien company, the, 661.

Davie, Major, conduct of, in Ceylon, 628.

Death from the Sting of a Serpent, lines on, 798.

Delta, a Vision of the World by, 343 --Lines written in the Isle of Bute by, 749.

Devil's Frills, the, a Dutch illustration of the water cure, --Chap. I. 225 --Chap. II. ib. --Chap. III. 227 --Chap. IV. 228 --Chap. V. 230 --Chap. VI. 232.

Disturbed Districts of Wales, notes on a tour in the, by Joseph Downes, 766.

Downes, Joseph, tour in the disturbed districts of Wales by, 766.

Dutch, landing of the, in Ceylon, 627.

Early English Musicians, notices of, 23.

Early Greek Romances, the Ethiopics of Heliodorus, 109.

Education, institutions for, in Greece, 357.

Education, the government scheme of, 548.

Emma, lines to, from the German of Schiller, 150.

England, the aristocracy of, 51.

English music and musicians, 23.

Epigram on Dr Toe, &c., 263.

Erigena, letter from, to Christopher North, 263.

Ethiopics of Heliodorus, account of the, 109.

Europe, commercial policy of, 243.

Exhibitions, notices of--the Royal Academy's, 188 --the Suffolk Street gallery, 199 --paintings in water-colours, 201 --the British Institution, 203.

Factory bill, the, 548.

Fanariotes, character of the, 351.

Farewell to the Reader, from the German of Schiller, 152.

Fate of Polycrates, the, 483.

France, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.

Frederick Schlegel, review of the works and character of, 311.

Free-trade and protective systems, comparison of the, 248.

French academy, 519.

French and German works of fiction, comparison between, 672.

Fuseli's Lectures at the Royal Academy: his introduction, 691 --Lecture I., 694 --II., 697 --III., 703.

Game up with the repeal agitation, the, 679.

German and French literature, comparison between, 672.

Gibbons the composer, 24.

Gifts of Terek the, translated from the Russian of Lermontoff, by J. B. Shaw, 799.

Gods of Greece, the, from the German of Schiller, 146.

Goethe, remarks by, on the Schlegels, 311.

Great Britain, proceedings of, towards Greece, 359.

Greece, present state and prospects of, 345 --peculiarities of its inhabitants, 350 --its present revenues and expenditure, 361.

Guizot, M., opinion of, on the union of the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 659.

Heliodorus, the Ethiopics of, 109.

Heber, Bishop, the Whippiad, a poem, by. Canto I., 100 --Canto II., 102 --Canto III., 104.

Hendia, the history of, 479.

Hullah's method of teaching, strictures on, 37.

Humboldt, M., on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 659.

Hymn to Joy, from the German of Schiller, 142.

Inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79.

Invincible Armada, the, from the German of Schiller, 143.

Irish arms bill, the, 549.

Jacinto, a scamper in the prairie of, 521.

Jack Stuart's bet on the Derby, and how he paid his losses, 67.

Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255.

Joy, hymn to, from the German of Schiller, 142.

Jury trial in Texas, a, 777.

Kandy, description of the district of, 627 --its conquest by the British, 632.

Kerim Khan, travels of. Part I., 453 --Part II., 564 --Part III., 753.

King Arthur, Purcell's opera of, and its revival, 25.

Last Session of Parliament, review of the, 538 --the corn question, 539 --the Canadian corn bill, 543 --the Scotch church bill, 545 --the factory bill, 548 --the Irish arms bill, 549.

Letter to Christopher North, 263.

Lectures at the Royal Academy--Henry Fuseli, 691.

Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749.

Lloyd, Mr, report by, on uniting the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 663.

Locke, Mathew, the composer, 25.

Logic, Mill's elements of, reviewed, 415.

Louisiana, adventures in; the Prairie and the Swamp, 43 --No. II., the Blockhouse, 234.

Love and Death, by Sir Edward Lytton Bulwer, 717.

M'Dowall, General, proceedings of, in Ceylon, 628.

Maclise, Mr, remarks on the style of, 188.

Mainzer and Hullah, comparison of the methods of, 37.

Marston; or, Memoirs of a Statesman. Part II., 1 --Part III., 207 --Part IV., 325 --Part V., 608 --Part VI., 801.

Maurer, M., administration of, in Greece, 348.

Meeting, the, from the German of Schiller, 149.

Memoir on the best means of establishing a communication between the Atlantic and Pacific oceans, 658.

Mill's elements of logic, review of, 415.

Minstrels of Old, the, from the German of Schiller, 152.

Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to the old masters, review of, 485.

Municipal institutions of Greece, the, 352.

Music, something about, 709.

Music and musicians, English, 23 --present state of, in England, 33.

My country neighbours, a tale, 431.

Napier's (Colonel) reminiscences of Syria, review of, 476.

Nobility of England, characteristics of the, 56.

Non-intrusionism, remarks on, and on the proceedings of the party, 545.

Notes on a tour in the disturbed districts in Wales, by Joseph Downes, 766.

O'Connell, Mr, present position of, 264 --proceedings of the government against, and their consequences, 685.

Otho, King, state of Greece on his accession to the throne, 345 --effects of his government, 348.

Over-production, effects of, 243.

Pacific and Atlantic oceans, proposed communication between the, 658.

Panama, the isthmus of, its advantages for a communication between the two oceans, 658 --description of the town, 665.

Paris, chronicles of--the Rue St Denis, 524.

Parliament, last session of, review of its measures, 538 --the corn-law question, 539 --Canadian corn-bill, 543 --Scotch church bill, 545 --Factory bill, 548 --the Irish arms bill, 549.

Past and Present, by Thomas Carlyle, review of, 121.

Patent law, effects of the, 519.

Peel, Sir Robert, review of his speech on the Irish question, 270.

Persian princes, notices of the narrative of the, 453.

Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41.

Physical science in England, state and prospects of, 514.

Plea for ancient towns against railways, a, 398.

Poems and ballads of Schiller, the. _See_ Schiller.

Poetry--Philhellenic drinking-song, by B. Simmons, 41 --inscription on the foundation stone of the new dining-hall, &c., 79 --the Whippiad, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber, Canto I., 100 --Canto II., 102 --Canto III., 104 --Charles Edward at Versailles on the anniversary of the battle of Culloden, 107 --Poems and Ballads of Schiller; Part the Last, 139 --Jolly Father Joe, a tale from the Golden Legend, 255 --the Cry of the Children, by Elizabeth B. Barrett, 260 --a Vision of the World, by Delta, 343 --the Fate of Polycrates, 483 --Lines written in the Isle of Bute, by Delta, 749 --Death from the sting of a serpent, 798 --the Purple Cloak, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714 --Love and Death, 717 --the Bridge over the Thur, from the German, ib. --Gifts of Terek, the, 799.

Polycrates, the Fate of, a poem, 483.

Poole, Mr, critique on his painting, "Solomon Eagle," &c., 189.

Portugal, the French invasion of, causes of its success, 53.

Prairie and the Swamp, the, an adventure in Louisiana, 43.

Protective and free-trade systems, comparison of the, 243, 406, 637.

Puppet-show of Life, the, from the German of Schiller, 150.

Purcell the composer, revival of his opera King Arthur, and remarks on it, 25.

Purple Cloak, the, or the return of Syloson to Samos, 714 --Part II., 715.

Railroad, proposed, across the isthmus of Panama, 658.

Railways, a plea for ancient towns against, 398.

Reading party during the long vacation, a, 153.

Rebeccaites in Wales, the, 766.

Reminiscences of Syria, 476.

Repeal agitation, the, 264 --game up with, 679.

Resignation, from the German of Schiller, 145.

Reviews.--Scrope's Days and nights of salmon fishing, 80 --Carlyle's Past and Present, 121 --the works of Frederick Schlegel, 311 --Woman's rights and duties, 373 --Mill's elements of logic, 415 --Colonel Napier's reminiscences of Syria, 476 --Modern painters, their superiority in the art of landscape painting to the old masters, 485 --Bennett's Ceylon and its capabilities, 622.

Roads, deficiency of, in Greece, 336.

Royal Academy, exhibition of the, 188 --Fuseli's Lectures at the, 691.

Royal salute, the, a tale, 504.

Royal Society of London, the, 518.

Rue St Denis, chronicles of the, 524.

Russia, conduct of, towards Greece, 359.

Salmon fishing, Scrope's days and nights of, reviewed, 80.

Scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, a, 521.

Schiller, the poems and ballads of, translated, Part the Last, introduction, 139 --remarks on those of the second period, 140 --hymn to joy, 142 --the invincible armada, 143 --the conflict, 144 --resignation, 145 --the gods of Greece, 146 --the meeting, 149 --to Emma, 150 --to a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, ib. --the puppet-show of life, ib. --the commencement of the new century, 151 --the minstrels of old, 152 --farewell to the reader, ib.

Schlegel, Frederick, review of the works of, 311.

Schwab, Gustav, the Bridge over the Thur, by, translated, 717.

Scotch Church, remarks on the bill for the settlement of the, 544.

Scrope on salmon fishing, review of, 80.

Second siege of Vienna, the, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.

Senses, a speculation on the, 650.

Simmons, B., Philhellenic drinking-song, by, 41.

Singers, English, notices of, 31.

Singhalese, character of the, 627.

Sketch in the tropics, a, from a super-cargo's log, 362.

Sobieski, John, deliverance of Vienna, by, 184.

Society of British artists, exhibition of the, 199.

Something about Music, 709.

Spain, effects of the want of an aristocracy in, 52.

Speculation on the senses, a, 650.

Stahrenberg, Count, defence of Vienna by, 181.

Statesman, memoirs of a. Part II., 1 --Part III., 207 --Part IV., 325 --Part V., 608 --Part VI., 801.

Suffolk street gallery, exhibition at the, 199.

Supercargo's log, sketch from a, 362.

Switzerland, commercial policy, &c., of, 248.

Syloson's return to Samos, 714 --Part II., 715.

Syria, Colonel Napier's reminiscences of, 476.

Tallis, the English musician, notices of, 23-24.

Taprobane of the Romans, the, 623.

Taxation, pressure of, in Greece, 358.

Texas, adventures in. No. I., a scamper in the prairie of Jacinto, 551 --No. II., a trial by jury, 777.

Thirteenth, the, a tale of doom, 465.

To a young friend devoting himself to philosophy, from the German of Schiller, 150.

Travels of Kerim Khan. Part I., 453 --Part II., 564 --conclusion, 753.

Trial by jury, a; an adventure in Texas, 777.

Tropics, a sketch in the, from a super-cargo's log, 362.

Turkish history, chapters of. No. X., the second siege of Vienna, 173.

Turner, J. W., strictures on the works of, 497.

Two dreams, from the French of Balzac, 672.

University of Athens, the, 358.

Vienna, the second siege of, a chapter of Turkish history, 173.

Vision of the world, a, by Delta, 343.

Wales, notes on a tour in the disturbed districts of, 766.

Water-colour paintings, exhibitions of, 201.

"We are all low people there," a tale of the assizes. Chapter I., 273 --Chapter II., 288.

Whewell's philosophy of the inductive sciences, remarks on, 422.

Whippiad, the, a satirical poem, by Bishop Heber. Canto I., 100 --Canto II., 102 --Canto III., 104 --Letter relating to, 263.

Woman's rights and duties, review of, 373.

Women, the wrongs of, 597.

Wood-paving for locomotives, advantages of, 398.

World, a vision of the, by Delta, 343.

Wrongs of women, the, 597.

Young, A., on the habits of the Salmon, 82.

END OF VOL. LIV.

_Edinburgh: Printed by Ballantyne and Hughes, Paul's Work._