Kitabı oku: «The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 10, No. 279, October 20, 1827», sayfa 3

"Let me pass!" said I, hastily opening the gate.

"Your bonnet, ma'am! shall I fetch your bonnet?" said my maid.

At that moment some one rushed past me. It was the young lady—running, or attempting to run, but with faltering and unequal steps. I followed her. At the first of the flight of steps before the inn, she stumbled and fell. She was trembling and sobbing violently; whether from breathlessness or agony, I could not tell. I raised her, and assisted her to mount the steps. "My brother! my brother!" she exclaimed incessantly. I could get no words but these from her. No time was to be lost. I sat down beside her, and took both her hands; and speaking as calmly as I could, said, "Compose yourself, and tell us what we must do. Have you missed your brother, or has any accident befallen him before your eyes?"

"He is on the mountain there! He left me, and did not come back. He said he should not be gone twenty minutes."

"Now I know all," replied I. "I will take some people from the inn with lights, and we will find him. You must stay and compose yourself, and be patient; he has only missed his way."

She insisted upon going too; and declared that this was necessary, in order to point out the track which her brother had taken. I explained to her how I had watched their progress, and was therefore able to direct their search. But she was resolute in her determination to go; and finding her to be so, I gave up my intention of accompanying the party, believing that I should only retard their progress.

I arranged with the landlady, that in case of any fatal accident having happened, the young lady should be brought to my house, where she would be in greater quiet and retirement than amid the bustle of an inn.

Hour after hour did we wait, listening to every sound, trembling at every breath; and so shaken and weakened by intolerable suspense, that we were ill-fitted to think and to act as occasion might require. It was a dark, cloudy, and windy night. We often looked out, but could see nothing, scarcely even the outline of the mountain. We listened, and our hearts beat thick, when there was no sound but the rising gust! I dwell on these circumstances too long, because I recoil from relating the catastrophe, as if it were but recent—as if my thoughts had not been familiarized with it for years.

It was as we feared; he was found lying at the bottom of a rock, no more than ten feet high—but lifeless. His neck had been dislocated by the fall. There were no external bruises—no signs of any struggle—nothing painful in his appearance. I cannot relate every circumstance of that dreadful night. I thought she was gone too; she was brought in, insensible, and remained so for hours. She was taken immediately to my house, and put to bed. The body of her brother was also carried there, for I knew she would not be separated from it. I sat beside her, watching her faint breathing, anxious for some sign of returning consciousness, but dreading the agony which must attend it. If she had died, I could hardly have grieved for her; but there might be parents, brothers, and sisters! Oh, that I knew, that I could bring them to her! Alone, among strangers! how was she to bear her solitary grief?—how was she to sustain the struggle which awaited her in the first hour of her awakening? I could not banish the remembrance of them as I had seen them in the afternoon; happy in each other, and thinking not of separation; then, as he was when I last saw him, full of life and acuity, and apparently unboundedly happy, in the contemplation of scenes which a soul like his was fitted to enjoy.

Day dawned, and no change was perceivable; but in two hours afterwards she opened her eyes. I crossed the room, to see whether she observed my motion. She did; and I therefore opened the curtain, and spoke to her. She gazed, but did not reply. Presently she seized my arm, muttering some words, of which "my mother!" was all I could understand. I took the opportunity of saying, that I was going to write to her family, and asked how I should address them.

"My family!" said she, "I have none. They are all gone now!"

I thought her mind was wandering. "Your father and mother," said I, "where are they?" My heart smote me as I uttered the words, but the question was necessary.

"I have no father and mother!"

"Nor brothers and sisters? Pardon me, but I must ask."

"You need not ask, because I will tell you. There were many of us once, but I am the last!"

I could not go on, yet it must be done.

"But you have friends, who will come to you?"

"Yes; I have a grandfather. He lives in Hampshire. He is very old, but he will come to me, if he still lives. If not!"–

"He will come," said I, "I will write to him directly."

"I will write myself!" exclaimed she, starting up. "He will not believe the story unless I write myself. Who would believe it?"

I assured her she should write the next day; but I positively forbad such an exertion at present. She yielded; she was indeed in no condition for writing. Her mind seemed in an unnatural state; and I was by no means sure that she had given a correct account of herself. I wrote to her grandfather, on the supposition that she had; and was quite satisfied when, in the evening, she gave me, in few words, her family history. She had been relieved, though exhausted, by tears; and her mind was calm and rational. She was indeed the last of her family. Her mother had died a few weeks before, after a lingering illness; and the sole surviving brother and sister had been prevailed on to take this tour, to recruit their strength and spirits, after their long watching and anxiety. They were always, as I discovered, bound together by the strongest affection; and now that they had been made by circumstances all in all to each other, they were thus separated! Will not my readers excuse my attempting to describe such grief as her's must have been?

Her grandfather arrived on the earliest possible day. He was old, and had some infirmities; but his health was not, as he assured us, at all injured by his hurried and painful journey. Nothing could be more tender than his kindness to his charge; though he was, perhaps, too far advanced in this life, and too near another, to feel the pressure of this kind of sorrow, as a younger or weaker mind would have done.

I could not help indulging in much painful conjecture as to the fate of this young creature, when she should lose her last remaining stay: a period which could not be far distant. But on this point I obtained some satisfaction before her departure.

A few days before she left me, a gentleman arrived at the inn, and came immediately to my cottage. She introduced him to me as "a friend." No one said what kind of a friend he was; but I could entertain no doubt that he was one who would supply the place of her brother to her.

"Her mind will not be left without a keeper," thought I, as I saw them direct their steps to the brother's grave. "Thank God, her grandfather is not her only remaining stay!"

They quitted the place together; and many a sympathizing heart did they leave behind them—by many an anxious wish and prayer were they followed. The last promise required from me was, that I would see that the grave of her brother was respected. What a pang did it cost her to leave that grave?

I heard tidings of her three times afterwards. Her letters pleased me; they testified a deep, but not a selfish or corroding grief—a power of exertion, and a disposition to hope and be cheerful. The last letter I received from her, arrived more than five years ago. She had taken the name which I conjectured would in time be her's. She had lost her grandfather; but the time was past when his departure could occasion much grief. She was then going abroad with her husband, for an indefinite period of time. If they were spared to return to their native country, they proposed visiting my little dwelling once more, to gaze with softened emotions on scenes sadly endeared to them, and to mingle their tears once more over a brother's grave.

Perhaps that day may yet arrive.

Literary Magnet.

ARCANA OF SCIENCE

Polar Expedition

It is known by the experience of all former voyages to the arctic circle, that towards the end of the season, in consequence of the heat radiating from the lard, the ice is detached from the shores of these seas, and floats southward. Ice, therefore, does not detach from other ice, but from the coast. Taking this principle with us, when we find that our expedition traversed a surface of some hundred miles, we conclude, whatever was the extent of that mass drifting south, it must have left an equal extent of open water in its original place in the north. We also infer, that there must be land at the north pole, from which this body was separated; and that if it could have been entirely crossed, Captain Parry and his companions would have found a clear sea for the boats, and had little difficulty in reaching Polar Land.—Literary Gazette.

Pemecan

This substance (mentioned in our recent abstract of the Polar Expedition as part of the provision for the crew) consists of meat prepared in the same way that the Indians prepare their provision of buffalo or deer. The flesh, beef in this case, is cut into stripes, and dried by the smoke of wood. It is then beaten into a powder, and an equal proportion of fat being melted, the whole is mixed up together into a solid mass. It is evident that more of real sustenance from animal matter cannot be combined in any less bulky or burdensome compound. It makes an excellent and very nutritious soup.

Egyptian Architecture

It is somewhat surprising, that among the crowd of novelties, and very especially of attempts to depart from the received models of architecture, the Egyptian has not taken its share. It is true that some very partial attempts have been made; in the metropolis, we believe, not exceeding two; and if we add to these a school recently erected at Devonport, a mausoleum at Trentham for the Stafford family, and an iron-manufactory now erecting in Wales, we have probably enumerated the whole. Such as the examples have been, they have not spread; and, indeed, we may say, that they have scarcely attracted any notice, whether for good or evil; though the publicity and singularity of aspect of the most accessible specimen in Piccadilly might have at least been expected to distinguish it, in the general eye, from the buildings by which it is surrounded. As to the public, we find no difficulty in accounting for this. This style has not been pointed out to them, and they have not been desired either to admire or dislike it. Why the architects have neglected it, they must themselves explain, since we believe there have been but two in that profession who have been concerned with the buildings to which we have alluded, the last named of these being an attempt of a dillettante in the art. As to the specimens where it has been thought fit to introduce the Egyptian window or doorway in churches of a Greek design, we consider the attempt faulty and censurable. This is a false and misplaced ambition after novelty, which marks far too much of what has recently been effected in our new churches.—Westminster Review.

Coinage

Coins are generally completed by one blow of the coining-press. These presses are worked in the Royal Mint by machinery, so contrived that they shall strike, upon an average, 60 blows in a minute; the blank piece, previously properly prepared and annealed, being placed between the dies by part of the same mechanism. The number of pieces which may be struck by a single die of good steel, properly hardened and duly tempered, not unfrequently amounts at the Mint to between 3 and 400,000. There are eight presses at the Mint, frequently at work ten hours a day, each press producing 3,600 pieces per hour; but making allowance for occasional stoppages, the daily progress of each press may be reckoned at 30,000 pieces; the eight presses, therefore, will furnish a diurnal average of 240,000 pieces.—Quarterly Journal.

The Ornithorynous

This remarkable animal, which forms the link between the bird and beast, has a bill like a duck, and paws webbed similar to that bird, but legs and body like those of a quadruped, covered with thick, coarse hair, with a broad tail to steer by. It abounds in the rivers of New Holland, and may be seen bobbing to the top every now and then, to breathe, like a seal, then diving again in quest of its prey. It is believed to lay eggs, as a nest with eggs in it of a peculiar appearance was some time ago found. It bears a claw on the inside of its foot, having a tube therein, through which it emits a poisonous fluid into the wounds which the claw inflicts; as, when assailed, it strikes its paws together, and fastens upon its enemy like a crab.—Cunningham's New South Wales.

Sheep

Are bred to an immense extent in New South Wales. In 1813, the number of sheep in the colony amounted to 6,514; in 1821, to 119,777. The exportation of wool to England during the last year exceeded a million of pounds, and at the same rate of increase, in 1840, will reach to between 30 and 40 millions of pounds. Bullocks are recommended for draught in preference to horses, and the speed of a well-taught, lively, strong bullock is little short of that of a horse.—Ibid.