Kitabı oku: «Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. 3, No. 15, August, 1851», sayfa 20

"I have no more inclination, my poor boy," I answered, "to injure you than I had to harm your father. Why, indeed, should I have borne him any ill-will?"

"Why should you? Oh, I know very well!"

"You know more than I do then; but enough of this folly. I wish, I hardly know why, to save you. It was not you, I am quite aware, that fired the fatal shot, but that makes no difference as to your legal guilt. But I think if you could put us on the track of your associates, you might yourself escape."

The lad's fine eyes perfectly lightened with scorn and indignation: "Turn informer!" he exclaimed. "Betray them that loved and trusted me! Never – if they could hang me a thousand times over!"

I made no answer, and nothing more was said till we had reached and were passing the Abbey ruins. The boy then abruptly stopped, and with quivering voice, while his eyes filled with tears, said: "I should like to see my mother."

"See your mother! There can be no particular objection to that; but she lives further on at Weston, does she not?"

"No, we have sold off, and moved to Aunt Diaper's, at Netley, up yonder. In a day or two we should have started for Hull, where mother's father's brother lives, and I was to have been 'prenticed to the captain of a Greenlander; but now," he continued with an irrepressible outburst of grief and terror, "Jack Ketch will, you say, be my master, and I shall be only 'prenticed to the gallows."

"Why, if this be so, did your mother permit you to join the lawless desperadoes to whom you owe your present unhappy and degraded position?"

"Mother did not know of it; she thinks I am gone to Southampton to inquire about the day the vessel sails for Hull. Mother will die if I am hanged!" exclaimed the lad with a renewed burst of passionate grief; "and surely you would not kill her?"

"It is not very likely I should wish to do so, considering that I have never seen her."

"Oh yes – yes, you have!" he sharply rejoined. "Then perhaps you do not know! Untie or cut these cords," he added, approaching close to me and speaking in a low, quick whisper; "give me a chance: mother's girl's name was Ellen Dible!"

Had the lad's fettered arm been free, and he had suddenly dealt me a blow with a knife or dagger, the stroke could not have been more sharp or terrible than these words conveyed.

"God of mercy!" I exclaimed, as the momently-arrested blood again shot through my heart with reactive violence, "can this be true?"

"Yes, yes – true, quite true!" continued the boy, with the same earnest look and low, hurried speech. "I saw, when your waistcoat flew open in the struggle just now, what was at the end of the black ribbon. You will give me a chance for mother's sake, won't you?"

A storm of grief, regret, remorse, was sweeping through my brain, and I could not for a while make any answer, though the lad's burning eyes continued fixed with fevered anxiety upon my face.

At last I said – gasped rather: "I can not release you – it is impossible; but all that can be done – all that can – can legally be done, shall be – " The boy's countenance fell, and he was again deadly pale. "You shall see your mother," I added. "Tell Johnson where to seek her; he is acquainted with Netley." This was done, and the man walked briskly off upon his errand.

"Come this way," I said, after a few minutes' reflection, and directing my steps toward the old ruined fort by the shore, built, I suppose, as a defense to the abbey against pirates. There was but one flight of steps to the summit, and no mode of egress save by the entrance from whence they led. "I will relieve you of these cords while your mother is with you. Go up to the top of the fort. You will be unobserved, and we can watch here against any foolish attempt at escape."

Ten minutes had not elapsed when the mother, accompanied by Johnson, and sobbing convulsively, appeared. Roberts hailed her, and after a brief explanation, she ascended the steps with tottering but hasty feet, to embrace her son. A quarter of an hour, she had been told, would be allowed for the interview.

The allotted time had passed, and I was getting impatient, when a cry from the summit of the fort or tower, as if for help to some one at a distance, roused and startled us. As we stepped out of the gateway, and looked upward to ascertain the meaning of the sudden cry, the lad darted out and sped off with surprising speed. One of the men instantly snatched a pistol from his waist-belt, but at a gesture from me put it back. "He can not escape," I said. "Follow me, but use no unnecessary violence." Finding that we gained rapidly upon him, the lad darted through a low, narrow gateway, into the interior of the abbey ruins, trusting, I imagined, to baffle us in the darkness and intricacy of the place. I just caught sight of him as he disappeared up a long flight of crumbling, winding steps, from which he issued through a narrow aperture upon a lofty wall, some five or six feet wide, and overgrown with grass and weeds. I followed in terrible anxiety, for I feared that in his desperation he would spring off and destroy himself. I shouted loudly to him for God's sake to stop. He did so within a few feet of the end of the wall. I ran quickly toward him, and as I neared him he fell on his knees, threw away his hat, and revealed the face of – Ellen Dible!

I stopped, bewildered, dizzy, paralyzed. Doubtless the mellowing radiance of the night softened or concealed the ravages which time must have imprinted on her features; for as I gazed upon the spirit-beauty of her upturned, beseeching countenance, the old time came back upon me with a power and intensity which an hour before I could not have believed possible. The men hailed repeatedly from below, but I was too bewildered, too excited, to answer: their shouts, and the young mother's supplicating sobs – she seemed scarcely older than when I parted from her – sounded in my ears like the far-off cries and murmurs of a bewildering, chaotic dream. She must have gathered hope and confidence from the emotion I doubtless exhibited, for as soon as the confusion and ringing in my brain had partially subsided, I could hear her say: "You will save my boy – my only son: for my sake, you will save him?"

Another shout from the men below demanded if I had got the prisoner. "Ay, ay," I mechanically replied, and they immediately hastened to join us.

"Which way – which way is he gone?" I asked as the seamen approached.

She instinctively caught my meaning: "By the shore to Weston," she hurriedly answered; "he will find a boat there."

The men now came up: "The chase has led us astray," I said: "look there."

"His mother, by jingo!" cried Johnson. "They must have changed clothes!"

"Yes: the boy is off – to – to Hamble, I have no doubt. You both follow in that direction: I'll pursue by the Weston and Itchen road."

The men started off to obey this order, and as they did so, I heard her broken murmur of "Bless you, Robert – bless you!" I turned away, faint, reeling with excitement, muttered a hasty farewell, and with disordered steps and flaming pulse hurried homeward. The mother I never saw again: the son at whose escape from justice I thus weakly, it may be criminally, connived, I met a few years ago in London. He is the captain of a first-class ship in the Australian trade, and a smarter sailor I think I never beheld. His mother is still alive, and lives with her daughter-in-law at Chelsea.

AMERICAN NOTABILITIES. ¹¹

PROFESSOR AGASSIZ

This very distinguished man – one of the great contributors to the world's stores of science and knowledge – is an extremely agreeable member of society, and a very popular one. His manners are particularly frank, pleasing, cordial, and simple; and though deeply absorbed, and intensely interested in his laborious scientific researches, and a most thorough enthusiast in his study of natural philosophy, yet he rattled merrily away on many of the various light topics of the day with the utmost gayety, good-humor, and spirit.

He has succeeded, after great trouble and persevering indefatigable care, in preserving alive some coral insects, the first that have ever been so preserved, and he kindly promised me an introduction to these distinguished architects. We accordingly went, accompanied by Mr. Everett, the following day. M. Agassiz was up-stairs very much occupied by some scientific investigation of importance, and he could not come down, but he allowed us to enter the all but hallowed precincts devoted to the much-cherished coral insects.

M. Agassiz had been away a little while previously, and left these treasures of his heart under the charge and superintendence of his assistant. This poor care-worn attendant, we were told, almost lost his own life in preserving the valuable existence of these little moving threads, so much did he feel the weighty responsibility that devolved upon him, and with such intense anxiety did he watch the complexions, the contortions, all the twistings and twirlings, and twitchings, and flingings and writhings of the wondrous little creatures, most assiduously marking any indications of petite santé among them. They were kept in water carefully and frequently changed, and various precautions were indispensably necessary to be taken in order to guard their exquisitely delicate demi-semi existences.

Glad enough was the temporary gentleman-in-waiting, and squire-of-the-body to these interesting zoophytes to see M. Agassiz return, and to resign his charge into his hands. With him this exceeding care and watchfulness was indeed nothing but a labor of love, and probably no nurse or mother ever fondled a weakly infant with more devoted tenderness and anxious attention than M. Agassiz displayed toward his dearly-beloved coral insects.

As to me, I hardly dared breathe while looking at them for fear I should blow their precious lives away, or some catastrophe should happen while we were there, and we should be suspected of coralicide! However, the sight was most interesting. We watched them as they flung about what seemed their fire-like white arms, like microscopic opera dancers or windmills; but these apparent arms are, I believe, all they possess of bodies. How wonderful to think of the mighty works that have been performed by the fellow-insects of these little restless laborers. What are the builders of the Pyramids to them? What did the writers of the "Arabian Nights" imagine equal to their more magical achievements?

Will men ever keep coral insects by them to lay the foundations of a few islands and continents when the population grows too large for the earthy portion of earth? People keep silkworms to spin that beautiful fabric for them; and M. Agassiz has shown there is no impracticability. I looked at the large bowl containing the weird workers with unflagging interest, till I could almost fancy minute reefs of rocks were rising up in the basin.

What a world of marvels we live in, and alas that the splendid wonders of science should be shut out from so many myriads of mankind; for that the marvelous is inalienably dear to human nature, witness all the fairy tales, ghost stories, and superstitions of all kinds that have abounded and been popular from age to age. Penny Magazines and such works have done much, but much there remains to be done to bring the subjects not only within reach, but to make them more universally popular and attractive, and less technical.

At last we took leave of those marine curiosities, and wended our way back, sorry not to have seen M. Agassiz (who was still absorbed in dissecting or pickling for immortality some extraordinary fish that he had discovered), but delighted to have had the opportunity of seeing his protégés.

"M. Agassiz ought indeed to have an extensive museum," said – , "for I believe every body in the States makes a point of sending off to him, post haste, every imaginable reptile, and monster, and nondescript that they happen to find." I should assuredly not like to have the opening of his letters and parcels if that is the case.

MR. AND MRS. PRESCOTT AT NAHANT

To-day we went and dined early with Mr. and Mrs. Prescott at Nahant, where they are staying for the summer. They have a charming country villa on the beautiful peninsula of Nahant. The town of Nahant is a very pleasant watering-place, about twelve miles from Boston by water, and sixteen by land. Near Mr. Prescott's house is a magnificent-looking hotel with numerous piazzas; the sea-coast view from his villa is boundless, and the perpetually high and dashing waves fling their fantastic foam, without ceasing, against the wild jagged rocks, which abound in every direction.

We started by railroad to go there, and very near us in the car was a respectable looking negro. Mr. C. S – , who was in the same car with us (also going to dine at Mr. Prescott's), pointed this man out to me, at the same time saying, that this could not by possibility have happened two years ago in this State, so strong then were the prejudices against any approach to, or appearance of amalgamation with the black race. No one could certainly appear more humble and quiet, less presuming or forward in his new position, than did this colored individual.

On our way to Mr. Prescott's, we stopped to pay a visit to Mrs. Page, the sister of Mrs. F. Webster. She has a very pretty little country house at Nahant: she made many inquiries, with much kind feeling, after those friends whom she remembers at Belvoir Castle, where she was staying with Mr. and Mrs. Webster.

I have already mentioned that Mr. Prescott is one of the most agreeable people I ever met with – as delightful as his own most delightful books: he talks of going to Europe next year. He tells me he has never visited either Mexico or Peru. I am surprised that the interest he must have felt in his own matchless works did not impel him to go to both. Mrs. Prescott is very delicate, with most gentle and pleasing manners. One of the guests was a niece of Lord Lyndhurst, her mother being Lord Lyndhurst's sister.

After a most interesting and agreeable visit, we returned by water to Boston. The sea was blue as a plain of sparkling sapphire – quite Mediterraneanic! Nahant is certainly a delightful place of summer residence, though it wants shade; trees in general most positively refuse to grow there, and there are but a few, which are taken as much care of as if they were the most precious exotics; but Nahant and they do not agree. They have quite a pouting sulky look; and it is almost as sad to look at them as it is to see the girdled trees, which look like skeletons of malefactors bleaching in the wind. At dessert, at Mr. Prescott's, there was a huge magnificent water-melon, that almost might have taken the place of the Cochituate Pond, and supplied Boston with the crystal element for a day.

In returning through the harbor of Boston from Nahant, we were full of admiration of its scenery: the many lovely islands with which it is beautifully studded, and the superb view of Boston itself, so nobly surmounted by its crown-like State House, enchanted us.

MR. AND MRS. J. GRINNELL. – NEW BEDFORD AND NAUSHON

Since I wrote this, we have had a very agreeable little tour. We have received, through Mrs. W – , a kind invitation from Mr. and Mrs. J. Grinnell to visit them at New Bedford. That town is called "the City of Palaces," from the beautiful buildings it contains: it is also the great whaling metropolis of the North. It is about fifty-six miles from hence.

The Americans give their cities most poetical and significant designations, and sometimes one town will have a variety of these. For instance, this, I believe, is not only called the Granite City, but the Trimountain City. Philadelphia is the city of Brotherly Love, or the Iron City. Buffalo, the Queen City of the Lakes; New Haven, the City of Elms, &c. I think the American imagination is more florid than ours. I am afraid matter-of-fact John Bull, if he attempted such a fanciful classification, would make sad work of it. Perhaps we should have Birmingham, the City of Buttons or Warming-pans; Nottingham, the City of Stockings; Sheffield, the City of Knives and Forks, and so forth.

Mr. and Mrs. Willis, and Mr. Willis's musical brother, were at Mr. and Mrs. J. Grinnell's beautiful mansion. We paid a visit to an immense whale-ship that is in the course of busy preparation for her voyage – to the South Seas, I believe. The whale-fishery is very extensively carried on at New Bedford. The population is about fifteen thousand, almost all engaged directly or indirectly in this trade. There are about two hundred and twenty-nine vessels engaged in the fishery, which is said to be continually increasing.

The system on which they conduct their whaling operations, seems to be a very judicious one. Every one of the crew has a share in the profits or losses of the expedition; it becomes, therefore, his interest to do all he possibly can to render the voyage a prosperous one. All are eager, all on the look-out, all are quite sure to exert their energies to the utmost, and perhaps this is one secret of the success that attends the American whaling-ships.

Mrs. Grinnell had a little conversazione the other evening, and among the visitors was a beautiful young Quaker lady, a descendant of William Penn. She was an extremely pleasing person, and her conversation was very animated and interesting. Imagining that perhaps I had never been in the society of Quakers before, she cleverly contrived to converse in the most pleasant and delightful manner, without once bringing in either "thee," or "thou," or "you," though she was talking to me almost all the evening.

I remarked this omission, and was afterward certain of it when Mrs. Willis told me the lady informed her of the fact before going away, and gave her that reason for her delicate, scrupulous abstinence. She would not say "you," in short; and "thee" and "thou" she thought would appear strange to me. I was told her family are in possession of a splendid silver tea-service which belonged to their celebrated ancestor, William Penn.

We went from New Bedford to Martha's Vineyard, an island in the Atlantic not far from New Bedford. There we staid a few days at an unpretending, neat hotel, of small dimensions – not the chief hotel, where the mistress, we found, was unaccommodating and disobliging —a very rare thing in America. On taking refuge at the other hotel, we found we had reason to congratulate ourselves, for a more kind-hearted, attentive person I never found than our new hostess. She, poor soul, was in affliction at the time; for her son was about to go off to California – indeed his departure took place for that distant region the morning after our arrival.

What misery has this Californian emigration brought on thousands of families – unknown, incalculable wretchedness! There was, as may be supposed, a melancholy chorus of wailing and sobs when the dreaded moment actually arrived; but her domestic sorrows did not make the excellent mother of the family neglect her guests. Nothing was omitted that could conduce to our comfort; and her daughter's attention and her own were unremitting.

Her daughter was a smart intelligent lassie. One day, when she was in the room, her mother hurried in to ask some question relative to dinner, or something of the kind. She had previously been baking, and her hands, and arms too, I believe, were white with flour. This very much annoyed her neat, particular, and precise daughter, who kept dusting her daintily, and trying to wipe it off, and drawing her mother's attention to it with great pertinacity. At last the mother said she hadn't had time to get rid of it – hoped the lady would excuse it, with other apologies, and the daughter was a little pacified. One should hardly have expected so much susceptibility in such matters in a little out-of-the-way town on an island like Martha's Vineyard.

When we came away I felt it was quite a friend I was taking leave of, though we had been there so short a time, so good and kind did we find her. On the table in her little parlor, instead of the horrid novels so commonly to be seen in America, were the "Penny Magazine," and other works of that species.

From Martha's Vineyard we went to Woodsville, a quiet little village by the sea. I had promised to pay a visit to Mrs. J. Grinnell, at the residence of a friend of hers, situated on an island very near this place (to which Mr. and Mrs. J. Grinnell had lately gone from New Bedford). We were at a very nice little hotel, indeed, at Woodsville, the master of which was a Mr. Webster, who had called one of his sons Daniel, after the famous statesman, the pride of old Massachusetts.

At this hotel there was an admirable specimen of an American female waiter and housemaid: in short, a domestic factotum. She was excessively civil, obliging, active, and attentive, not in the slightest degree forward or intrusive, always willing to do whatever one required of her. Altogether a very prepossessing personage is Mademoiselle Caroline – not the famous female equestrian of Paris, but the excellent and accomplished waitress and chambermaid at Woodsville, whom I beg to introduce to the reader, and to immortality. The mistress of the hotel cooked for us herself, and she was quite a cordon-bleu, I assure you. Her chicken pies and her puddings were of the sublimest description.

The morning was lovely, the sea sparkling with a myriad lustres, the air of Ausonian clearness and purity, when we went to Naushon, an exquisite little island (one of a cluster of the islands called the Elizabeth Group). We started in a small boat manned by the two sons of our host, and before very long we entered a little creek, and soon landed on the beautiful shore of fairy-like Naushon. (This is of course its old Indian name, and long may it retain it).

We found Mr. Grinnell kindly waiting to receive us and drive us to the island palace of the proprietor of Naushon, for to Mr. S – , the whole beauteous island belongs. – What an enviable possession! Though not given to pilfering propensities, I should like to pick Mr. S – 's pocket of this gem! We started in a somewhat sledge-like vehicle à la flêche (as our old Belgian courier Marcotte used to say), for the house, and soon found ourselves seated in a large cool apartment with Mrs. Grinnell, and the kindly, cordial Lord and Lady of the Isle, whose welcome had much of unworldly heartiness about it. I longed to explore the beautiful island, and when I did so, my anticipations were not disappointed.

Naushon is a little America in itself. There are miniatures of her wild, illimitable, awful old forests – a beautiful little diamond edition of her wonderful lakes, a fairy representation of her variety of scenery, a page torn from her ancient Indian associations and remains. There too are her customs, her manners, her spirit, and character; in short, it is a little pocket America (and enough to make the chief superintendent of any police himself a pick-pocket), a Liliputian Western World, a compressed Columbia. But its trees are not Liliputian, they are magnificent.

We drove under a varied shade for a long time, and saw lovely views through openings in the woods. At last after tearing and crackling along through a thick growth of timber and underwood, we emerged upon a truly magnificent prospect. We were on a height, and on either side were lovely woods, valleys, and gentle eminences; and in front the glorious Atlantic. After enjoying this beauteous view for some time, the Lord of Naushon took us to see a still, secluded part of the forest, where in the midst of a sunny clearing, surrounded by partly overshadowing trees in the heart of a sequestered island, embosomed in the mighty ocean, was a single grave, that of the only and adored son of our amiable hosts; indeed, their only child. Almost close to this simple grave was a semi-circular seat. "There often," said Mr. S – , "we come in the summer time and spend the evening, and frequently bring our friends, too, with us, and it is a melancholy happiness to feel he is near – almost, as it were, with us."

Here we all remained for some time: the birds were singing, the sea so calm you could scarcely just then at that distance hear its everlasting resounding voice. You might look through the opening in the woods, up and up, and the clear cloudless sky would seem almost receding from your gaze (like the horizon when you are advancing toward it), yet bluer and bluer, brighter and brighter. All was beauty and enchantment! and there lay the lonely dead – who could dare to say in unconsecrated ground? where Nature was so wild and beautiful, and Nature's Creator seemed so nigh – and where that grand untrodden ground with nothing to desecrate it, was ever bathed by the tears of hallowed parental affection? How blessed and sacred it appeared! To think, in contrast with this grave, of our dead in crowded city church-yards! But I trust that unutterably detestable system will soon be done away with.

If what I have related seems strange to you, you must recollect that in America it is often the case; at least, I have frequently heard so before I came here. In the quiet garden, or in the wood near the house, often sleep in their last slumber the beloved members of the family, not banished from the every-day associations of the survivors, and almost seeming to have still some participation in their feelings, in their woes, and their pleasures. I could almost fancy, after seeing that Eden for the dead, Mount Auburn, and remembering this affectionate custom, that is one reason why death does not seem a thing to be dreaded or deplored in America, as with us. If I recollect correctly, the only words on the modest head-stone were, "To our beloved Son."

After willingly remaining some time here, beside this simple Christian tomb, we went to see an ancient place of Indian sepulture. The corpses, I believe, had mostly been dug up – poor Indians; hardly allowed to rest in their graves! Mrs. S – told me that the first time Naushon had passed into white men's hands from those of the red chief's, this exquisite island, with all its lovely and splendid woods, its herds of wild deer, and all its fair lands, it had been sold for an old coat. (I think a little fire-water must have entered into the bargain). After hearing this, I began to think feu squire and squaw Naushon of the olden time and their clan hardly deserved to rest in their graves.

Our excellent hosts most kindly pressed us to stay at Naushon, but my plans did not admit of this; so, enchanted with their delectable island, and full of gratitude for all their cordial friendliness and truly American hospitality toward us, we took leave of them and Mrs. Grinnell, in the evening, and returned to the main land. The weather became very unpropitious, and it blew and rained heavily. However, we arrived in damp safety at our hotel.