영어소설 The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 by Various

영어소설 The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867 by Various

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December, 1867, by Various

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Title: The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 20, No. 122, December, 1867

Author: Various

Release Date: April 28, 2009 [EBook #28630]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1

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THE

ATLANTIC MONTHLY.

_A Magazine of Literature, Science, Art, and Politics._

VOL. XX.--DECEMBER, 1867.--NO. CXXII.

Entered according to Act of Congress, in the year 1867, by TICKNOR AND
FIELDS, in the Clerk's Office of the District Court of the District of
Massachusetts.

THE GUARDIAN ANGEL.

CHAPTER XXXIV.

MURRAY BRADSHAW PLAYS HIS LAST CARD.

"How can I see that man this evening, Mr. Lindsay?"

"May I not be _Clement_, dearest? I would not see him at all, Myrtle. I
don't believe you will find much pleasure in listening to his fine
speeches."

"I cannot endure it. Kitty, tell him I am engaged, and cannot see him
this evening. No, no! don't say engaged, say very much occupied."

Kitty departed, communing with herself in this wise:--"Ockipied, is it?
An' that's what ye cahl it when ye're kapin' company with one young
gintleman an' don't want another young gintleman to come in an' help the
two of ye? Ye won't get y'r pigs to market to-day, Mr. Bridshaw,--no,
nor to-morrow, nayther, Mr. Bridshaw. It's Mrs. Lindsay that Miss Myrtle
is goin' to be,--an' a big cake there'll be at the weddin', frosted all
over,--won't ye be plased with a slice o' that, Mr. Bridshaw?"

With these reflections in her mind, Mistress Kitty delivered her
message, not without a gleam of malicious intelligence in her look that
stung Mr. Bradshaw sharply. He had noticed a hat in the entry, and a
little stick by it which he remembered well as one he had seen carried
by Clement Lindsay. But he was used to concealing his emotions, and he
greeted the two older ladies, who presently came into the library, so
pleasantly, that no one who had not studied his face long and carefully
would have suspected the bitterness of heart that lay hidden far down
beneath his deceptive smile. He told Miss Silence, with much apparent
interest, the story of his journey. He gave her an account of the
progress of the case in which the estate of which she inherited the
principal portion was interested. He did not tell her that a final
decision which would settle the right to the great claim might be
expected at any moment, and he did not tell her that there was very
little doubt that it would be in favor of the heirs of Malachi Withers.
He was very sorry he could not see Miss Hazard that evening,--hoped he
should be more fortunate to-morrow forenoon, when he intended to call
again,--had a message for her from one of her former school friends,
which he was anxious to give her. He exchanged certain looks and hints
with Miss Cynthia, which led her to withdraw and bring down the papers
he had intrusted to her. At the close of his visit, she followed him
into the entry with a lamp, as was her common custom.

"What's the meaning of all this, Cynthia? Is that fellow making love to
Myrtle?"

"I'm afraid so, Mr. Bradshaw. He's been here several times, and they
seem to be getting intimate. I couldn't do anything to stop it."

"Give me the papers,--quick!"

Cynthia pulled the package from her pocket. Murray Bradshaw looked
sharply at it. A little crumpled,--crowded into her pocket. Seal
unbroken. All safe.

"I shall come again to-morrow forenoon. Another day and it will be all
up. The decision of the court will be known. It won't be my fault if one
visit is not enough.--You don't suppose Myrtle is in love with this
fellow?"

"She acts as if she might be. You know he's broke with Susan Posey, and
there's nothing to hinder. If you ask my opinion, I think it's your last
chance: she isn't a girl to half do things, and if she has taken to this
man it will be hard to make her change her mind. But she's young, and
she has had a liking for you, and if you manage it well there's no
telling."

Two notes passed between Myrtle Hazard and Master Byles Gridley that
evening. Mistress Kitty Fagan, who had kept her ears pretty wide open,
carried them.

Murray Bradshaw went home in a very desperate state of feeling. He had
laid his plans, as he thought, with perfect skill, and the certainty of
their securing their end. These papers were to have been taken from the
envelope, and found in the garret just at the right moment, either by
Cynthia herself or one of the other members of the family, who was to be
led on, as it were accidentally, to the discovery. The right moment must
be close at hand. He was to offer his hand--and heart, of course--to
Myrtle, and it was to be accepted. As soon as the decision of the land
case was made known, or not long afterwards, there was to be a search in
the garret for papers, and these were to be discovered in a certain
dusty recess, where, of course, they would have been placed by Miss
Cynthia.

And now the one condition which gave any value to these arrangements
seemed like to fail. This obscure youth--this poor fool, who had been on
the point of marrying a simpleton to whom he had made a boyish
promise--was coming between him and the object of his long pursuit,--the
woman who had every attraction to draw him to herself. It had been a
matter of pride with Murray Bradshaw that he never lost his temper so as
to interfere with the precise course of action which his cool judgment
approved; but now he was almost beside himself with passion. His labors,
as he believed, had secured the favorable issue of the great case so
long pending. He had followed Myrtle through her whole career, if not as
her avowed lover, at least as one whose friendship promised to flower in
love in due season. The moment had come when the scene and the
characters in this village drama were to undergo a change as sudden and
as brilliant as in those fairy spectacles where the dark background
changes to a golden palace and the sober dresses are replaced by robes
of regal splendor. The change was fast approaching; but he, the
enchanter, as he had thought himself, found his wand broken, and his
power given to another.

He could not sleep during that night. He paced his room, a prey to
jealousy and envy and rage, which his calm temperament had kept him from
feeling in their intensity up to this miserable hour. He thought of all
that a maddened nature can imagine to deaden its own intolerable
anguish. Of revenge. If Myrtle rejected his suit, should he take her
life on the spot, that she might never be another's,--that neither man
nor woman should ever triumph over him,--the proud, ambitious man,
defeated, humbled, scorned? No! that was a meanness of egotism which
only the most vulgar souls could be capable of. Should he challenge her
lover? It was not the way of the people and time, and ended in absurd
complications, if anybody was foolish enough to try it. Shoot him? The
idea floated through his mind, for he thought of everything; but he was
a lawyer, and not a fool, and had no idea of figuring in court as a
criminal. Besides, he was not a murderer,--cunning was his natural
weapon, not violence. He had a certain admiration of desperate crime in
others, as showing nerve and force, but he did not feel it to be his own
style of doing business.

During the night he made every arrangement for leaving the village the
next day, in case he failed to make any impression on Myrtle Hazard and
found that his chance was gone. He wrote a letter to his partner,
telling him that he had left to join one of the regiments forming in the
city. He adjusted all his business matters so that his partner should
find as little trouble as possible. A little before dawn he threw
himself on the bed, but he could not sleep; and he rose at sunrise, and
finished his preparations for his departure to the city.

The morning dragged along slowly. He would not go to the office, not
wishing to meet his partner again. After breakfast he dressed himself
with great care, for he meant to show himself in the best possible
aspect. Just before he left the house to go to The Poplars, he took the
sealed package from his trunk, broke open the envelope, took from it a
single paper,--it had some spots on it which distinguished it from all
the rest,--put it separately in his pocket, and then the envelope
containing the other papers.

The calm smile he wore on his features as he set forth cost him a
greater effort than he had ever made before to put it on. He was
moulding his face to the look with which he meant to present himself;
and the muscles had been sternly fixed so long that it was a task to
bring them to their habitual expression in company,--that of ingenuous
good-nature.

He was shown into the parlor at The Poplars; and Kitty told Myrtle that
he had called and inquired for her, and was waiting down stairs.

"Tell him I will be down presently," she said. "And, Kitty, now mind
just what I tell you. Leave your kitchen door open, so that you can hear
anything fall in the parlor. If you hear a book fall,--it will be a
heavy one, and will make some noise,--run straight up here to my little
chamber, and hang this red scarf out of the window. The _left-hand
side-sash_, mind, so that anybody can see it from the road. If Mr.
Gridley calls, show him into the parlor, no matter who is there."

Kitty Fagan looked amazingly intelligent, and promised that she would do
exactly as she was told. Myrtle followed her down stairs almost
immediately, and went into the parlor, where Mr. Bradshaw was waiting.

Never in his calmest moments had he worn a more insinuating smile on his
features than that with which he now greeted Myrtle. So gentle, so
gracious, so full of trust, such a completely natural expression of a
kind, genial character did it seem, that to any but an expert it would
have appeared impossible that such an effect could be produced by the
skilful balancing of half a dozen pairs of little muscles that manage
the lips and the corners of the mouth. The tones of his voice were
subdued into accord with the look of his features; his whole manner was
fascinating, as far as any conscious effort could make it so. It was
just one of those artificially pleasing effects that so often pass with
such as have little experience of life for the genuine expression of
character and feeling. But Myrtle had learned the look that shapes
itself on the features of one who loves with a love that seeketh not its
own, and she knew the difference between acting and reality. She met his
insinuating approach with a courtesy so carefully ordered that it was of
itself a sentence without appeal. Artful persons often interpret sincere
ones by their own standard. Murray Bradshaw thought little of this
somewhat formal address,--a few minutes would break this thin film to
pieces. He was not only a suitor with a prize to gain, he was a
colloquial artist about to employ all the resources of his specialty.

He introduced the conversation in the most natural and easy way, by
giving her the message from a former schoolmate to which he had
referred, coloring it so delicately, as he delivered it, that it became
an innocent-looking flattery. Myrtle found herself in a rose-colored
atmosphere, not from Murray Bradshaw's admiration, as it seemed, but
only reflected by his mind from another source. That was one of his
arts,--always, if possible, to associate himself incidentally, as it
appeared, and unavoidably, with an agreeable impression.

So Myrtle was betrayed into smiling and being pleased before he had said
a word about himself or his affairs. Then he told her of the adventures
and labors of his late expedition; of certain evidence which at the very
last moment he had unearthed, and which was very probably the
turning-point in the case. He could not help feeling that she must
eventually reap some benefit from the good fortune with which his
efforts had been attended. The thought that it might yet be so had been
a great source of encouragement to him,--it would always be a great
happiness to him to remember that he had done anything to make her
happy.

Myrtle was very glad that he had been so far successful,--she did not
know that it made much difference to her, but she was obliged to him for
the desire of serving her that he had expressed.

"My services are always yours, Miss Hazard. There is no sacrifice I
would not willingly make for your benefit. I have never had but one
feeling toward you. You cannot be ignorant of what that feeling is."

"I know, Mr. Bradshaw, it has been one of kindness. I have to thank you
for many friendly attentions, for which I hope I have never been
ungrateful."

"Kindness is not all that I feel towards you, Miss Hazard. If that were
all, my lips would not tremble as they do now in telling you my
feelings. I love you."

He sprang the great confession on Myrtle a little sooner than he had
meant. It was so hard to go on making phrases! Myrtle changed color a
little, for she was startled.

The seemingly involuntary movement she made brought her arm against a
large dictionary, which lay very near the edge of the table on which it
was resting. The book fell with a loud noise to the floor.

There it lay. The young man awaited her answer; he did not think of
polite forms at such a moment.

"It cannot be, Mr. Bradshaw,--it must not be. I have known you long, and
I am not ignorant of all your brilliant qualities, but you must not
speak to me of love. Your regard,--your friendly interest,--tell me that
I shall always have these, but do not distress me with offering more
than these."

"I do not ask you to give me your love in return; I only ask you not to
bid me despair. Let me believe that the time may come when you will
listen to me,--no matter how distant. You are young,--you have a tender
heart,--you would not doom one who only lives for you to wretchedness.
So long that we have known each other! It cannot be that any other has
come between us--"

Myrtle blushed so deeply that there was no need of his finishing his
question.

"Do you mean, Myrtle Hazard, that you have cast me aside for
another?--for this stranger--this artist--who was with you yesterday
when I came, bringing with me the story of all I had done for you,--yes,
for you,--and was ignominiously refused the privilege of seeing you?"
Rage and jealousy had got the better of him this time. He rose as he
spoke, and looked upon her with such passion kindling in his eyes that
he seemed ready for any desperate act.

"I have thanked you for any services you may have rendered me, Mr.
Bradshaw." Myrtle answered, very calmly, "and I hope you will add one
more to them by sparing me this rude questioning. I wished to treat you
as a friend; I hope you will not render that impossible."

He had recovered himself for one more last effort. "I was impatient:
overlook it, I beg you. I was thinking of all the happiness I have
labored to secure for you, and of the ruin to us both it would be if you
scornfully rejected the love I offer you,--if you refuse to leave me any
hope for the future,--if you insist on throwing yourself away on this
man, so lately pledged to another. I hold the key of all your earthly
fortunes in my hand. My love for you inspired me in all that I have
done, and, now that I come to lay the result of my labors at your feet,
you turn from me, and offer my reward to a stranger. I do not ask you to
say this day that you will be mine,--I would not force your
inclinations,--but I do ask you that you will hold yourself free of all
others, and listen to me as one who may yet be more than a friend. Say
so much as this, Myrtle, and you shall have such a future as you never
dreamed of. Fortune, position, all that this world can give, shall be
yours!"

"Never! never! If you could offer me the whole world, or take away from
me all that the world can give, it would make no difference to me. I
cannot tell what power you hold over me, whether of life and death, or
of wealth and poverty; but after talking to me of love, I should not
have thought you would have wronged me by suggesting any meaner motive.
It is only because we have been on friendly terms so long that I have
listened to you as I have done. You have said more than enough, and I
beg you will allow me to put an end to this interview."

She rose to leave the room. But Murray Bradshaw had gone too far to
control himself,--he listened only to the rage which blinded him.

"Not yet!" he said. "Stay one moment, and you shall know what your pride
and self-will have cost you!"

Myrtle stood, arrested, whether by fear, or curiosity, or the passive
subjection of her muscles to his imperious will, it would be hard to
say.

Murray Bradshaw took out the spotted paper from his breast pocket, and
held it up before her. "Look here!" he exclaimed. "This would have made
you rich,--it would have crowned you a queen in society,--it would have
given you all, and more than all, that you ever dreamed of luxury, of
splendor, of enjoyment; and I, who won it for you, would have taught you
how to make life yield every bliss it had in store to your wishes. You
reject my offer unconditionally?"

Myrtle expressed her negative only by a slight contemptuous movement.

Murray Bradshaw walked deliberately to the fireplace, and laid the
spotted paper upon the burning coals. It writhed and curled, blackened,
flamed, and in a moment was a cinder dropping into ashes. He folded his
arms, and stood looking at the wreck of Myrtle's future, the work of his
cruel hand. Strangely enough, Myrtle herself was fascinated, as it were,
by the apparent solemnity of this mysterious sacrifice. She had kept her
eyes steadily on him all the time, and was still gazing at the altar on
which her happiness had been in some way offered up, when the door was
opened by Kitty Fagan, and Master Byles Gridley was ushered into the
parlor.

"Too late, old man!" Murray Bradshaw exclaimed in a hoarse and savage
voice, as he passed out of the room, and strode through the entry and
down the avenue. It was the last time the old gate of The Poplars was to
open or close for him. That same day he left the village; and the next
time his name was mentioned it was as an officer in one of the regiments
just raised and about marching to the seat of war.

CHAPTER XXXV.

THE SPOTTED PAPER.

What Master Gridley may have said to Myrtle Hazard that served to calm
her after this exciting scene cannot now be recalled. That Murray
Bradshaw thought he was inflicting a deadly injury on her was plain
enough. That Master Gridley did succeed in convincing her that no great
harm had probably been done her is equally certain.

Like all bachelors who have lived a lonely life, Master Gridley had his
habits, which nothing short of some terrestrial convulsion--or perhaps,
in his case, some instinct that drove him forth to help somebody in
trouble--could possibly derange. After his breakfast, he always sat and
read awhile,--the paper, if a new one came to hand, or some pleasant old
author,--if a little neglected by the world of readers, he felt more at
ease with him, and loved him all the better.

But on the morning after his interview with Myrtle Hazard, he had
received a letter which made him forget newspapers, old authors, almost
everything, for the moment. It was from the publisher with whom he had
had a conversation, it may be remembered, when he visited the city, and
was to this effect:--That Our Firm propose to print and stereotype the
work originally published under the title of "Thoughts on the Universe";
said work to be remodelled according to the plan suggested by the
Author, with the corrections, alterations, omissions, and additions
proposed by him; said work to be published under the following title, to
wit: ---- ----; said work to be printed in 12mo, on paper of good
quality, from new types, etc., etc., and for every copy thereof printed
the author to receive, etc., etc.

Master Gridley sat as in a trance, reading this letter over and over, to
know if it could be really so. So it really was. His book had
disappeared from the market long ago, as the elm seeds that carpet the
ground and never germinate disappear. At last it had got a certain value
as a curiosity for book-hunters. Some one of them, keener-eyed than the
rest, had seen that there was a meaning and virtue in this unsuccessful
book, for which there was a new audience educated since it had tried to
breathe before its time. Out of this had grown at last the publisher's
proposal. It was too much: his heart swelled with joy, and his eyes
filled with tears.

How could he resist the temptation? He took down his own particular copy
of the book, which was yet to do him honor as its parent, and began
reading. As his eye fell on one paragraph after another, he nodded
approval of this sentiment or opinion, he shook his head as if
questioning whether this other were not to be modified or left out, he
condemned a third as being no longer true for him as when it was
written, and he sanctioned a fourth with his hearty approval. The reader
may like a few specimens from this early edition, now a rarity. He shall
have them, with Master Gridley's verbal comments. The book, as its name
implied, contained "Thoughts" rather than consecutive trains of
reasoning or continuous disquisitions. What he read and remarked upon
were a few of the more pointed statements which stood out in the
chapters he was turning over. The worth of the book must not be judged
by these almost random specimens.

"_The best thought, like the most perfect digestion, is done
unconsciously._--Develop that--Ideas at compound interest in the
mind.--Be aye sticking in _an idea_,--while you're sleeping it'll be
growing. Seed of a thought to-day,--flower to-morrow--next week--ten
years from now, etc.--Article by and by for the....

"_Can the Infinite be supposed to shift the responsibility of the
ultimate destiny of any created thing to the finite? Our theologians
pretend that it can. I doubt._--Heretical. _Stet._

"_Protestantism means None of your business. But it is afraid of its own
logic._--_Stet._ No logical resting-place short of None of your
business.

"_The supreme self-indulgence is to surrender the will to a spiritual
director._--Protestantism gave up a great luxury.--Did it, though?

"_Asiatic modes of thought and speech do not express the relations in
which the American feels himself to stand to his Superiors in this or
any other sphere of being. Republicanism must have its own religious
phraseology, which is not that borrowed from Oriental despotisms._

"_Idols and dogmas in place of character; pills and theories in place of
wholesome living. See the histories of theology and medicine_
passim.--Hits 'em.

"'_Of such is the kingdom of heaven.' Do you mean to say, Jean Chauvin,
that_

     _'Heaven_ LIES _about us in our infancy'?_

"_Why do you complain of your organization? Your soul was in a hurry,
and made a rush for a body. There are patient spirits that have waited
from eternity, and never found parents fit to be born of._--How do you
know anything about all that? _Dele._

"_What sweet, smooth voices the negroes have! A hundred generations fed
on bananas.--Compare them with our apple-eating-white folks!_--It won't
do. Bananas came from the West Indies.

"_To tell a man's temperament by his handwriting. See if the dots of his
i's run ahead or not, and if they do, how far._--I've tried that--on
myself.

"_Marrying into some families is the next thing to being
canonized._--Not so true now as twenty or thirty years ago. As many
bladders, but more pins.

"_Fish and dandies only keep on ice._--Who will take? Explain in note
how all warmth approaching blood-heat spoils fops and flounders.

"_Flying is a lost art among men and reptiles. Bats fly, and men ought
to. Try a light turbine. Rise a mile straight, fall half a mile
slanting,--rise half a mile straight, fall half a mile slanting, and so
on. Or slant up and slant down._--Poh! You ain't such a fool as to think
that is new,--are you?

"Put in my telegraph project. Central station. Cables with insulated
wires running to it from different quarters of the city. These form the
centripetal system. From central station, wires to all the livery
stables, messenger stands, provision shops, etc., etc. These form the
centrifugal system. Any house may have a wire in the nearest cable at
small cost.

"_Do you want to be remembered after the continents have gone under, and
come up again, and dried, and bred new races? Have your name stamped on
all your plates and cups and saucers. Nothing of you or yours will last
like those. I never sit down at my table without looking at the china
service, and saying, 'Here are my monuments. That butter-dish is my urn.
This soup-plate is my memorial tablet.'--No need of a skeleton at my
banquets! I feed from my tombstone and read my epitaph at the bottom, of
every teacup._--Good."

       *       *       *       *       *

He fell into a revery as he finished reading this last sentence. He
thought of the dim and dread future,--all the changes that it would
bring to him, to all the living, to the face of the globe, to the order
of earthly things. He saw men of a new race, alien to all that had ever
lived, excavating with strange, vast engines the old ocean-bed, now
become habitable land. And as the great scoops turned out the earth they
had fetched up from the unexplored depths, a relic of a former simple
civilization revealed the fact that here a tribe of human beings had
lived and perished.--Only the coffee-cup he had in his hand half an hour
ago.--Where would he be then? and Mrs. Hopkins, and Gifted, and Susan,
and everybody? and President Buchanan? and the Boston State-House? and
Broadway?--O Lord, Lord, Lord! And the sun perceptibly smaller,
according to the astronomers, and the earth cooled down a number of
degrees, and inconceivable arts practised by men of a type yet undreamed
of, and all the fighting creeds merged in one great universal--

A knock at his door interrupted his revery. Miss Susan Posey informed
him that a gentleman was waiting below who wished to see him.

"Show him up to my study, Susan Posey, if you please," said Master
Gridley.

Mr. Penhallow presented himself at Mr. Gridley's door, with a
countenance expressive of a very high state of excitement.

"You have heard the news, Mr. Gridley, I suppose?"

"What news, Mr. Penhallow?"

"First, that my partner has left very unexpectedly to enlist in a
regiment just forming. Second, that the great land-case is decided in
favor of the heirs of the late Malachi Withers."

"Your partner must have known about it yesterday?"

"He did, even before I knew it. He thought himself possessed of a very
important document, as you know, of which he has made, or means to make,
some use. You are aware of the artifice I employed to prevent any
possible evil consequences from any action of his. I have the genuine
document, of course. I wish you to go over with me to The Poplars, and I
should be glad to have good old Father Pemberton go with us; for it is a
serious matter, and will be a great surprise to more than one of the
family."

They walked together to the old house, where the old clergyman had lived
for more than half a century. He was used to being neglected by the
people who ran after his younger colleague; and the attention paid him
in asking him to be present on an important occasion, as he understood
this to be, pleased him greatly. He smoothed his long white locks, and
called a grand-daughter to help make him look fitly for such an
occasion, and, being at last got into his grandest Sunday aspect, took
his faithful staff, and set out with the two gentlemen for The Poplars.
On the way, Mr. Penhallow explained to him the occasion of their visit,
and the general character of the facts he had to announce. He wished the
venerable minister to prepare Miss Silence Withers for a revelation
which would materially change her future prospects. He thought it might
be well, also, if he would say a few words to Myrtle Hazard, for whom a
new life, with new and untried temptations, was about to open. His
business was, as a lawyer, to make known to these parties the facts just
come to his own knowledge affecting their interests. He had asked Mr.
Gridley to go with him, as having intimate relations with one of the
parties referred to, and as having been the principal agent in securing
to that party the advantages which were to accrue to her from the new
turn of events. "You are a second parent to her, Mr. Gridley," he said.
"Your vigilance, your shrewdness, and your--spectacles have saved her. I
hope she knows the full extent of her obligations to you, and that she
will always look to you for counsel in all her needs. She will want a
wise friend, for she is to begin the world anew."

What had happened, when she saw the three grave gentlemen at the door
early in the forenoon, Mistress Kitty Fagan could not guess. Something
relating to Miss Myrtle, no doubt: she wasn't goin' to be married right
off to Mr. Clement,--was she,--and no church, nor cake, nor anything?
The gentlemen were shown into the parlor. "Ask Miss Withers to go into
the library, Kitty," said Master Gridley. "Dr. Pemberton wishes to speak
with her." The good old man was prepared for a scene with Miss Silence.
He announced to her, in a kind and delicate way, that she must make up
her mind to the disappointment of certain expectations which she had
long entertained, and which, as her lawyer, Mr. Penhallow, had come to
inform her and others, were to be finally relinquished from this hour.

To his great surprise, Miss Silence received this communication almost
cheerfully. It seemed more like a relief to her than anything else. Her
one dread in this world was her "responsibility"; and the thought that
she might have to account for ten talents hereafter, instead of one, had
often of late been a positive distress to her. There was also in her
mind a secret disgust at the thought of the hungry creatures who would
swarm round her if she should ever be in a position to bestow patronage.
This had grown upon her as the habits of lonely life gave her more and
more of that fastidious dislike to males in general, as such, which is
not rare in maidens who have seen the roses of more summers than
politeness cares to mention.

Father Pemberton then asked if he could see Miss Myrtle Hazard a few
moments in the library before they went into the parlor, where they were
to meet Mr. Penhallow and Mr. Gridley, for the purpose of receiving the
lawyer's communication.

What change was this which Myrtle had undergone since love had touched
her heart, and her visions of worldly enjoyment had faded before the
thought of sharing and ennobling the life of one who was worthy of her
best affections,--of living for another, and of finding her own noblest
self in that divine office of woman? She had laid aside the bracelet
which she had so long worn as a kind of charm as well as an ornament.
One would have said her features had lost something of that look of
imperious beauty which had added to her resemblance to the dead woman
whose glowing portrait hung upon her wall. And if it could be that,
after so many generations, the blood of her who had died for her faith
could show in her descendant's veins, and the soul of that elect lady of
her race look out from her far-removed offspring's dark eyes, such a
transfusion of the martyr's life and spiritual being might well seem to
manifest itself in Myrtle Hazard.

The large-hearted old man forgot his scholastic theory of human nature
as he looked upon her face. He thought he saw in her the dawning of that
grace which some are born with; which some, like Myrtle, only reach
through many trials and dangers; which some seem to show for a while and
then lose; which too many never reach while they wear the robes of
earth, but which speaks of the kingdom of heaven already begun in the
heart of a child of earth. He told her simply the story of the
occurrences which had brought them together in the old house, with the
message the lawyer was to deliver to its inmates. He wished to prepare
her for what might have been too sudden a surprise.

But Myrtle was not wholly unprepared for some such revelation. There was
little danger that any such announcement would throw her mind from its
balance after the inward conflict through which she had been passing.
For her lover had left her almost as soon as he had told her the story
of his passion, and the relation in which he stood to her. He, too, had
gone to answer his country's call to her children, not driven away by
crime and shame and despair, but quitting all--his new-born happiness,
the art in which he was an enthusiast, his prospects of success and
honor--to obey the higher command of duty. War was to him, as to so many
of the noble youth who went forth, only organized barbarism, hateful
but for the sacred cause which alone redeemed it from the curse that
blasted the first murderer. God only knew the sacrifice such young men
as he made.

How brief Myrtle's dream had been! She almost doubted, at some moments,
whether she would not awake from it, as from her other visions, and find
it all unreal. There was no need of fearing any undue excitement of her
mind after the alternations of feeling she had just experienced. Nothing
seemed of much moment to her which could come from without,--her real
world was within, and the light of its day and the breath of its life
came from her love, made holy by the self-forgetfulness on both sides
which was born with it.

Only one member of the household was in danger of finding the excitement
more than she could bear. Miss Cynthia knew that all Murray Bradshaw's
plans, in which he had taken care that she should have a personal
interest, had utterly failed. What he had done with the means of revenge
in his power,--if, indeed, they were still in his power,--she did not
know. She only knew that there had been a terrible scene, and that he
had gone, leaving it uncertain whether he would ever return. It was with
fear and trembling that she heard the summons which went forth, that the
whole family should meet in the parlor to listen to a statement from Mr.
Penhallow. They all gathered as requested, and sat round the room, with
the exception of Mistress Kitty Fagan, who knew her place too well to be
sittin' down with the likes o' them, and stood with attentive ears in
the doorway.

Mr. Penhallow then read from a printed paper the decision of the Supreme
Court in the land-case so long pending, where the estate of the late
Malachi Withers was the claimant, against certain parties pretending to
hold under an ancient grant. The decision was in favor of the estate.

"This gives a great property to the heirs," Mr. Penhallow remarked,
"and the question as to who these heirs are has to be opened. For the
will under which Silence Withers, sister of the deceased, has inherited,
is dated some years previously to the decease, and it was not very
strange that a will of later date should be discovered. Such a will has
been discovered. It is the instrument I have here."

Myrtle Hazard opened her eyes very widely, for the paper Mr. Penhallow
held looked exactly like that which Murray Bradshaw had burned, and,
what was curious, had some spots on it just like some she had noticed on
that.

"This will," Mr. Penhallow said, "signed by witnesses dead or absent
from this place, makes a disposition of the testator's property in some
respects similar to that of the previous one, but with a single change,
which proves to be of very great importance."

Mr. Penhallow proceeded to read the will. The important change in the
disposition of the property was this. In case the land-claim was decided
in favor of the estate, then, in addition to the small provision made
for Myrtle Hazard, the property so coming to the estate should all go to
her. There was no question about the genuineness and the legal
sufficiency of this instrument. Its date was not very long after the
preceding one, at a period when, as was well known, he had almost given
up the hope of gaining his case, and when the property was of little
value compared to that which it had at present.

A long silence followed this reading. Then, to the surprise of all, Miss
Silence Withers rose, and went to Myrtle Hazard, and wished her joy with
every appearance of sincerity. She was relieved of a great
responsibility. Myrtle was young and could bear it better. She hoped
that her young relative would live long to enjoy the blessings
Providence had bestowed upon her, and to use them for the good of the
community, and especially the promotion of the education of deserving
youth. If some fitting person could be found to advise Myrtle, whose
affairs would require much care, it would be a great relief to her.

They all went up to Myrtle and congratulated her on her change of
fortune. Even Cynthia Badlam got out a phrase or two which passed muster
in the midst of the general excitement. As for Kitty Fagan, she could
not say a word, but caught Myrtle's hand and kissed it as if it belonged
to her own saint, and then, suddenly applying her apron to her eyes,
retreated from a scene which was too much for her, in a state of
complete mental beatitude and total bodily discomfiture.

Then Silence asked the old minister to make a prayer, and he stretched
his hands up to Heaven, and called down all the blessings of Providence
upon all the household, and especially upon this young handmaiden, who
was to be tried with prosperity, and would need all aid from above to
keep her from its dangers.

Then Mr. Penhallow asked Myrtle if she had any choice as to the friend
who should have charge of her affairs.

Myrtle turned to Master Byles Gridley, and said, "You have been my
friend and protector so far,--will you continue to be so hereafter?"

Master Gridley tried very hard to begin a few words of thanks to her for
her preference, but, finding his voice a little uncertain, contented
himself with pressing her hand and saying, "Most willingly, my dear
daughter!"

CHAPTER XXXVI.

CONCLUSION.

The same day the great news of Myrtle Hazard's accession to fortune came
out, the secret was told that she had promised herself in marriage to
Mr. Clement Lindsay. But her friends hardly knew how to congratulate her
on this last event. Her lover was gone, to risk his life, not improbably
to lose it, or to come home a wreck, crippled by wounds, or worn out
with disease.

Some of them wondered to see her so cheerful in such a moment of trial.
They could not know how the manly strength of Clement's determination
had nerved her for womanly endurance. They had not learned that a great
cause makes great souls, or reveals them to themselves,--a lesson taught
by so many noble examples in the times that followed. Myrtle's only
desire seemed to be to labor in some way to help the soldiers and their
families. She appeared to have forgotten everything for these duties;
she had no time for regrets, if she were disposed to indulge them, and
she hardly asked a question as to the extent of the fortune which had
fallen to her.

The next number of the "Banner and Oracle" contained two announcements
which she read with some interest when her attention was called to them.
They were as follows:--

     "A fair and accomplished daughter of this village comes, by the
     late decision of the Supreme Court, into possession of a
     property estimated at a million of dollars or more. It consists
     of a large tract of land purchased many years ago by the late
     Malachi Withers, now become of immense value by the growth of a
     city in its neighborhood, the opening of mines, etc., etc. It
     is rumored that the lovely and highly educated heiress has
     formed a connection looking towards matrimony with a certain
     distinguished artist."

     "Our distinguished young townsman, William Murray Bradshaw,
     Esq., has been among the first to respond to the call of the
     country for champions to defend her from traitors. We
     understand that he has obtained a captaincy in the --th
     Regiment, about to march to the threatened seat of war. May
     victory perch on his banners!"

The two lovers, parted by their own self-sacrificing choice in the very
hour that promised to bring them so much happiness, labored for the
common cause during all the terrible years of warfare, one in the camp
and the field, the other in the not less needful work which the good
women carried on at home, or wherever their services were needed.
Clement--now Captain Lindsay--returned at the end of his first campaign
charged with a special office. Some months later, after one of the great
battles, he was sent home wounded. He wore the leaf on his shoulder
which entitled him to be called Major Lindsay. He recovered from his
wound only too rapidly, for Myrtle had visited him daily in the military
hospital where he had resided for treatment; and it was bitter parting.
The telegraph wires were thrilling almost hourly with messages of death,
and the long pine boxes came by almost every train,--no need of asking
what they held!

Once more he came, detailed on special duty, and this time with the
eagle on his shoulder,--he was Colonel Lindsay. The lovers could not
part again of their own free will. Some adventurous women had followed
their husbands to the camp, and Myrtle looked as if she could play the
part of the Maid of Saragossa on occasion. So Clement asked her if she
would return with him as his wife; and Myrtle answered, with as much
willingness to submit as a maiden might fairly show under such
circumstances, that she would do his bidding. Thereupon, with the
shortest possible legal notice, Father Pemberton was sent for, and the
ceremony was performed in the presence of a few witnesses in the large
parlor at The Poplars, which was adorned with flowers, and hung round
with all the portraits of the dead members of the family, summoned as
witnesses to the celebration. One witness looked on with unmoved
features, yet Myrtle thought there was a more heavenly smile on her
faded lips than she had ever seen before beaming from the canvas,--it
was Ann Holyoake, the martyr to her faith, the guardian spirit of
Myrtle's visions, who seemed to breathe a holier benediction than any
words--even those of the good old Father Pemberton himself--could
convey.

They went back together to the camp. From that period until the end of
the war, Myrtle passed her time between the life of the tent and that of
the hospital. In the offices of mercy which she performed for the sick
and the wounded and the dying, the dross of her nature seemed to be
burned away. The conflict of mingled lives in her blood had ceased. No
lawless impulses usurped the place of that serene resolve which had
grown strong by every exercise of its high prerogative. If she had been
called now to die for any worthy cause, her race would have been
ennobled by a second martyr, true to the blood of her who died under the
cruel Queen.

Many sad sights she saw in the great hospital where she passed some
months at intervals,--one never to be forgotten. An officer was brought
into the ward where she was in attendance. "Shot through the
lungs,--pretty nearly gone."

She went softly to his bedside. He was breathing with great difficulty;
his face was almost convulsed with the effort, but she recognized him in
a moment: it was Murray Bradshaw,--Captain Bradshaw,--as she knew by the
bars on his coat flung upon the bed where he had just been laid.

She addressed him by name, tenderly as if he had been a dear brother;
she saw on his face that hers were to be the last kind words he would
ever hear.

He turned his glazing eyes upon her. "Who are you?" he said in a feeble
voice.

"An old friend," she answered; "you knew me as Myrtle Hazard."

He started. "You by my bedside! You caring for me!--for me, that burned
the title to your fortune to ashes before your eyes! You can't forgive
that,--I won't believe it! Don't you hate me, dying as I am?"

Myrtle was used to maintaining a perfect calmness of voice and
countenance, and she held her feelings firmly down. "I have nothing to
forgive you, Mr. Bradshaw. You may have meant to do me wrong, but
Providence raised up a protector for me. The paper you burned was not
the original,--it was a copy substituted for it--"

"And did the old man outwit me after all?" he cried out, rising suddenly
in bed, and clasping his hands behind his head to give him a few more
gasps of breath. "I knew he was cunning, but I thought I was his match.
It must have been Byles Gridley,--nobody else. And so the old man beat
me after all, and saved you from ruin! Thank God that it came out so!
Thank God! I can die now. Give me your hand, Myrtle."

She took his hand, and held it until it gently loosed its hold, and he
ceased to breathe. Myrtle's creed was a simple one, with more of trust
and love in it than of systematized articles of belief. She cherished
the fond hope that these last words of one who had erred so miserably
were a token of some blessed change which the influences of the better
world might carry onward until he should have outgrown the sins and the
weaknesses of his earthly career.

Soon after this she rejoined her husband in the camp. From time to time
they received stray copies of the "Banner and Oracle," which, to Myrtle
especially, were full of interest, even to the last advertisement. A few
paragraphs may be reproduced here which relate to persons who have
figured in this narrative.

                    "TEMPLE OF HYMEN.

     "Married, on the 6th instant, Fordyce Hurlbut, M. D., to Olive,
     only daughter of the Rev. Ambrose Eveleth. The editor of this
     paper returns his acknowledgments for a bountiful slice of the
     wedding-cake. May their shadows never be less!"

Not many weeks after this appeared the following:--

     "Died in this place, on the 28th instant, the venerable Lemuel
     Hurlbut, M. D., at the great age of XCVI years.

     "'With the ancient is wisdom, and in length of days
     understanding.'"

Myrtle recalled his kind care of her in her illness, and paid the
tribute of a sigh to his memory,--there was nothing in a death like his
to call for any aching regret.

The usual routine of small occurrences was duly recorded in the village
paper for some weeks longer, when she was startled and shocked by
receiving a number containing the following paragraph:--

                    "CALAMITOUS ACCIDENT!

     "It is known to our readers that the steeple of the old
     meeting-house was struck by lightning about a month ago. The
     frame of the building was a good deal jarred by the shock, but
     no danger was apprehended from the injury it had received. On
     Sunday last the congregation came together as usual. The Rev.
     Mr. Stoker was alone in the pulpit, the Rev. Doctor Pemberton
     having been detained by slight indisposition. The sermon was
     from the text, '_The wolf also shall dwell with the lamb, and
     the leopard shall lie down with the kid_. (Isaiah xi. 6.) The
     pastor described the millennium as the reign of love and peace,
     in eloquent and impressive language. He was in the midst of the
     prayer which follows the sermon, and had just put up a petition
     that the spirit of affection and faith and trust might grow up
     and prevail among the flock of which he was the shepherd, more
     especially those dear lambs whom he gathered with his arm, and
     carried in his bosom, when the old sounding-board, which had
     hung safely for nearly a century,--loosened, no doubt, by the
     bolt which had fallen on the church,--broke from its
     fastenings, and fell with a loud crash upon the pulpit,
     crushing the Rev. Mr. Stoker under its ruins. The scene that
     followed beggars description. Cries and shrieks resounded
     through the house. Two or three young women fainted entirely
     away. Mr. Penhallow, Deacon Rumrill, Gifted Hopkins, Esq., and
     others, came forward immediately, and after much effort
     succeeded in removing the wreck of the sounding-board, and
     extricating their unfortunate pastor. He was not fatally
     injured, it is hoped; but, sad to relate, he received such a
     violent blow upon the spine of the back, that palsy of the
     lower extremities is like to ensue. He is at present lying
     entirely helpless. Every attention is paid to him by his
     affectionately devoted family."

Myrtle had hardly got over the pain which the reading of this
unfortunate occurrence gave her, when her eyes were gladdened by the
following pleasing piece of intelligence, contained in a subsequent
number of the village paper:--

                    "IMPOSING CEREMONY.

     "The Reverend Doctor Pemberton performed the impressive rite of
     baptism upon the first-born child of our distinguished
     townsman, Gifted Hopkins, Esq., the Bard of Oxbow Village, and
     Mrs. Susan P. Hopkins, his amiable and respected lady. The babe
     conducted himself with singular propriety on this occasion. He
     received the Christian name of Byron Tennyson Browning. May he
     prove worthy of his name and his parentage!"

The end of the war came at last, and found Colonel Lindsay among its
unharmed survivors. He returned with Myrtle to her native village, and
they established themselves, at the request of Miss Silence Withers, in
the old family mansion. Miss Cynthia, to whom Myrtle made a generous
allowance, had gone to live in a town not many miles distant, where she
had a kind of home on sufferance, as well as at The Poplars. This was a
convenience just then, because Nurse Byloe was invited to stay with them
for a month or two; and one nurse and two single women under the same
roof keep each other in a stew all the time, as the old dame somewhat
sharply remarked.

Master Byles Gridley had been appointed Myrtle's legal protector, and,
with the assistance of Mr. Penhallow, had brought the property she
inherited into a more manageable and productive form; so that, when
Clement began his fine studio behind the old mansion, he felt that at
least he could pursue his art, or arts, if he chose to give himself to
sculpture, without that dreadful hag, Necessity, standing by him to
pinch the features of all his ideals, and give them something of her own
likeness.

Silence Withers was more cheerful now that she had got rid of her
responsibility. She embellished her spare person a little more than in
former years. These young people looked so happy! Love was not so
unendurable, perhaps, after all.--No woman need despair,--especially if
she has a house over her, and a snug little property. A worthy man, a
former missionary, of the best principles, but of a slightly jocose and
good-humored habit, thought that he could piece his widowed years with
the not insignificant fraction of life left to Miss Silence, to their
mutual advantage. He came to the village, therefore, where Father
Pemberton was very glad to have him supply the pulpit in the place of
his unfortunate disabled colleague. The courtship soon began, and was
brisk enough; for the good man knew there was no time to lose at his
period of life,--or hers either, for that matter. It was a rather odd
specimen of love-making; for he was constantly trying to subdue his
features to a gravity which they were not used to, and she was as
constantly endeavoring to be as lively as possible, with the innocent
desire of pleasing her light-hearted suitor.

"_Vieille fille fait jeune mari?._" Silence was ten years younger as a
bride than she had seemed as a lone woman. One would have said she had
got out of the coach next to the hearse, and got into one some half a
dozen behind it,--where there is often good and reasonably cheerful
conversation going on about the virtues of the deceased, the probable
amount of his property, or the little slips he may have committed, and
where occasionally a subdued pleasantry at his expense sets the four
waistcoats shaking that were lifting with sighs a half-hour ago in the
house of mourning. But Miss Silence, that was, thought that two
families, with all the possible complications which time might bring,
would be better in separate establishments. She therefore proposed
selling The Poplars to Myrtle and her husband, and removing to a house
in the village, which would be large enough for them, at least for the
present. So the young folks bought the old house, and paid a mighty good
price for it, and enlarged it, and beautified and glorified it, and one
fine morning went together down to the Widow Hopkins's, whose residence
seemed in danger of being a little crowded,--for Gifted lived there with
his Susan,--and what had happened might happen again,--and gave Master
Byles Gridley a formal and most persuasively worded invitation to come
up and make his home with them at The Poplars.

Now Master Gridley has been betrayed into palpable and undisguised
weakness at least once in the presence of this assembly, who are looking
upon him almost for the last time before they part from him, and see his
face no more. Let us not inquire too curiously, then, how he received
this kind proposition. It is enough, that, when he found that a new
study had been built on purpose for him, and a sleeping-room attached to
it so that he could live there without disturbing anybody if he chose,
he consented to remove there for a while, and that he was there
established amidst great rejoicing.

Cynthia Badlam had fallen of late into poor health. She found at last
that she was going; and as she had a little property of her own,--as
almost all poor relations have, only there is not enough of it,--she was
much exercised in her mind as to the final arrangements to be made
respecting its disposition. The Rev. Dr. Pemberton was one day surprised
by a message, that she wished to have an interview with him. He rode
over to the town in which she was residing, and there had a long
conversation with her upon this matter. When this was settled, her mind
seemed to be more at ease. She died with a comfortable assurance that
she was going to a better world, and with a bitter conviction that it
would be hard to find one that would offer her a worse lot than being a
poor relation in this.

Her little property was left to Rev. Eliphalet Pemberton and Jacob
Penhallow, Esq., to be by them employed for such charitable purposes as
they should elect, educational or other. Father Pemberton preached an
admirable funeral sermon, in which he praised her virtues, known to this
people among whom she had long lived, and especially that crowning act
by which she devoted all she had to purposes of charity and benevolence.

The old clergyman seemed to have renewed his youth since the misfortune
of his colleague had incapacitated him from labor. He generally preached
in the _forenoon_ now, and to the great acceptance of the people,--for
the truth was that the honest minister who had married Miss Silence was
not young enough or good-looking enough to be an object of personal
attentions like the Rev. Joseph Bellamy Stoker,--and the old minister
appeared to great advantage contrasted with him in the pulpit. Poor Mr.
Stoker was now helpless, faithfully and tenderly waited upon by his own
wife, who had regained her health and strength,--in no small measure,
perhaps, from the great need of sympathy and active aid which her
unfortunate husband now experienced. It was an astonishment to herself
when she found that she who had so long been served was able to serve
another. Some who knew his errors thought his accident was a judgment;
but others believed that it was only a mercy in disguise,--it snatched
him roughly from his sin, but it opened his heart to gratitude towards
her whom his neglect could not alienate, and through gratitude to
repentance and better thoughts. Bathsheba had long ago promised herself
to Cyprian Eveleth; and, as he was about to become the rector of a
parish in the next town, the marriage was soon to take place.

How beautifully serene Master Byles Gridley's face was growing! Clement
loved to study its grand lines, which had so much strength and fine
humanity blended in them. He was so fascinated by their noble expression
that he sometimes seemed to forget himself, and looked at him more like
an artist taking his portrait than like an admiring friend. He
maintained that Master Gridley had a bigger bump of benevolence and as
large a one of cautiousness as the two people most famous for the size
of these organs on the phrenological chart he showed him, and proved it,
or nearly proved it, by careful measurements of his head. Master Gridley
laughed, and read him a passage on the pseudo-sciences out of his book.

The disposal of Miss Cynthia's bequest was much discussed in the
village. Some wished the trustees would use it to lay the foundations of
a public library. Others thought it should be applied for the relief of
the families of soldiers who had fallen in the war. Still another set
would take it to build a monument to the memory of those heroes. The
trustees listened with the greatest candor to all these gratuitous
hints. It was, however, suggested, in a well-written anonymous article
which appeared in the village paper, that it was desirable to follow the
general lead of the testator's apparent preference. The trustees were at
liberty to do as they saw fit; but, other things being equal, some
educational object should be selected. If there were any orphan
children in the place, it would seem to be very proper to devote the
moderate sum bequeathed to educating them. The trustees recognized the
justice of this suggestion. Why not apply it to the instruction and
maintenance of those two pretty and promising children, virtually
orphans, whom the charitable Mrs. Hopkins had cared for so long without
any recompense, and at a cost which would soon become beyond her means?
The good people of the neighborhood accepted this as the best solution
of the difficulty. It was agreed upon at length by the trustees, that
the Cynthia Badlam Fund for Educational Purposes should be applied for
the benefit of the two foundlings known as Isosceles and Helminthia
Hopkins.

Master Byles Gridley was greatly exercised about the two "preposterous
names," as he called them, which in a moment of eccentric impulse he had
given to these children of nature. He ventured to hint as much to Mrs.
Hopkins. The good dame was vastly surprised. She thought they was about
as pooty names as anybody had had given 'em in the village. And they was
so handy, spoke short,--Sossy and Minthy,--she never should know how to
call 'em anything else.

"But, my dear Mrs. Hopkins," Master Gridley urged, "if you knew the
meaning they have to the ears of scholars, you would see that I did very
wrong to apply such absurd names to my little fellow-creatures, and that
I am bound to rectify my error. More than that, my dear madam, I mean to
consult you as to the new names; and if we can fix upon proper and
pleasing ones, it is my intention to leave a pretty legacy in my will to
these interesting children."

"Mr. Gridley," said Mrs. Hopkins, "you're the best man I ever see, or
ever shall see,... except my poor dear Ammi.... I'll do jest as you say
about that, or about anything else in all this livin' world."

"Well, then, Mrs. Hopkins, what shall be the boy's name?"

"Byles Gridley Hopkins!" she answered instantly.

"Good Lord!" said Mr. Gridley, "think a minute, my dear madam. I will
not say one word,--only think a minute, and mention some name that will
not suggest quite so many winks and whispers."

She did think something less than a minute, and then said aloud,
"Abraham Lincoln Hopkins."

"Fifteen thousand children have been so christened the past year, on a
moderate computation."

"Do think of some name yourself, Mr. Gridley; I shall like anything that
you like. To think of those dear babes having a fund--if that's the
right name--on purpose for 'em, and a promise of a legacy,--I hope they
won't get _that_ till they're a hundred year old!"

"What if we change Isosceles to Theodore, Mrs. Hopkins? That means _the
gift of God_, and the child has been a gift from Heaven, rather than a
burden."

Mrs. Hopkins seized her apron, and held it to her eyes. She was weeping.
"Theodore!" she said,--"Theodore! My little brother's name, that I
buried when I was only eleven year old. Drownded. The dearest little
child that ever you see. I have got his little mug with Theodore on it
now. Kep' o' purpose. Our little Sossy shall have it. Theodore P.
Hopkins,--sha'n't it be, Mr. Gridley?"

"Well, if you say so; but why that P., Mrs. Hopkins? Theodore Parker, is
it?"

"Doesn't P. stand for Pemberton, and isn't Father Pemberton the best man
in the world--next to you, Mr. Gridley?"

"Well, well, Mrs. Hopkins, let it be so, if you like; if you are suited,
I am. Now about Helminthia; there can't be any doubt about what we ought
to call her,--surely the friend of orphans should be remembered in
naming one of the objects of her charity."

"Cynthia Badlam Fund Hopkins," said the good woman triumphantly,--"is
that what you mean?"

"Suppose we leave out one of the names,--four are too many. I think the
general opinion will be that Helminthia should unite the names of her
two benefactresses,--Cynthia Badlam Hopkins."

"Why, law! Mr. Gridley, isn't that nice?--Minthy and Cynthy,--there
ain't but one letter of difference! Poor Cynthy would be pleased if she
could know that one of our babes was to be called after her. She was
dreadful fond of children."

       *       *       *       *       *

On one of the sweetest Sundays that ever made Oxbow Village lovely, the
Rev. Dr. Eliphalet Pemberton was summoned to officiate at three most
interesting; ceremonies,--a wedding and two christenings, one of the
latter a double one.

The first was celebrated at the house of the Rev. Mr. Stoker, between
the Rev. Cyprian Eveleth and Bathsheba, daughter of the first-named
clergyman. He could not be present on account of his great infirmity,
but the door of his chamber was left open that he might hear the
marriage service performed. The old, white-haired minister, assisted, as
the papers said, by the bridegroom's father, conducted the ceremony
according to the Episcopal form. When he came to those solemn words in
which the husband promises fidelity to the wife so long as they both
shall live, the nurse, who was watching near the poor father, saw him
bury his face in his pillow, and heard him murmur the words, "God be
merciful to me a sinner!"

The christenings were both to take place at the same service, in the old
meeting-house. Colonel Clement Lindsay and Myrtle his wife came in, and
stout Nurse Byloe bore their sturdy infant in her arms. A slip of paper
was handed to the Reverend Doctor on which these words were
written:--"The name is Charles Hazard."

The solemn and touching rite was then performed; and Nurse Byloe
disappeared with the child, its forehead glistening with the dew of its
consecration.

Then, hand in hand, like the babes in the wood, marched up the broad
aisle--marshalled by Mrs. Hopkins in front, and Mrs. Gifted Hopkins
bringing up the rear--the two children hitherto known as Isosceles and
Helminthia. They had been well schooled, and, as the mysterious and to
them incomprehensible ceremony was enacted, maintained the most stoical
aspect of tranquillity. In Mrs. Hopkins's words, "They looked like
picters, and behaved like angels."

       *       *       *       *       *

That evening, Sunday evening as it was, there was a quiet meeting of
some few friends at The Poplars. It was such a great occasion that the
Sabbatical rules, never strict about Sunday evening,--which was,
strictly speaking, secular time,--were relaxed. Father Pemberton was
there, and Master Byles Gridley, of course, and the Rev. Ambrose
Eveleth, with his son and his daughter-in-law, Bathsheba, and her
mother, now in comfortable health, Aunt Silence and her husband, Doctor
Hurlbut and his wife (Olive Eveleth that was), Jacob Penhallow, Esq.,
Mrs. Hopkins, her son and his wife (Susan Posey that was), the senior
deacon of the old church (the admirer of the great Scott), the
Editor-in-chief of the "Banner and Oracle," and, in the background,
Nurse Byloe and the privileged servant, Mistress Kitty Fagan, with a few
others whose names we need not mention.

The evening was made pleasant with sacred music, and the fatigues of two
long services repaired by such simple refections as would not turn the
holy day into a day of labor. A large-paper copy of the new edition of
Byles Gridley's remarkable work was lying on the table. He never looked
so happy,--could anything fill his cup fuller? In the course of the
evening Clement spoke of the many trials through which they had passed
in common with vast numbers of their countrymen, and some of those
peculiar dangers which Myrtle had had to encounter in the course of a
life more eventful, and attended with more risks, perhaps, than most of
them imagined. But Myrtle, he said, had always been specially cared for.
He wished them to look upon the semblance of that protecting spirit who
had been faithful to her in her gravest hours of trial and danger. If
they would follow him into one of the lesser apartments up stairs they
would have an opportunity to do so.

Myrtle wondered a little, but followed with the rest. They all ascended
to the little projecting chamber, through the window of which her
scarlet jacket caught the eyes of the boys paddling about on the river
in those early days when Cyprian Eveleth gave it the name of the
Fire-hang-bird's Nest.

The light fell softly but clearly on the dim and faded canvas from which
looked the saintly features of the martyred woman, whose continued
presence with her descendants was the old family legend. But underneath
it Myrtle was surprised to see a small table with some closely covered
object upon it. It was a mysterious arrangement, made without any
knowledge on her part.

"Now, then, Kitty!" Mr. Lindsay said.

Kitty Fagan, who had evidently been taught her part, stepped forward,
and removed the cloth which concealed the unknown object. It was a
lifelike marble bust of Master Byles Gridley.

"And this is what you have been working at so long,--is it, Clement?"
Myrtle said.

"Which is the image of your protector, Myrtle?" he answered, smiling.

Myrtle Hazard Lindsay walked up to the bust, and kissed its marble
forehead, saying, "This is the face of my Guardian Angel!"

A MYSTERIOUS PERSONAGE.

From the first, our country has been a refuge, not only for kings and
princes and statesmen and warriors, but for all sorts of adventurers and
impostors. Following hard after Kosciuszko, General Charles Lee, Baron
Steuben, Baron de Kalb, Lord Stirling, and Lafayette, we had Talleyrand,
Louis Philippe, and Jerome Bonaparte, and Joseph, king of Spain; and,
but for a sudden change of wind, might have had Napoleon the Great
himself--after the affair of Waterloo. We have always been, and must
continue to be, overrun with pretenders, mountebanks, blood relations of
Charles Fox, Lord Byron, and the Guelphs, who are always in the market.

Never, at any time, however, have we had a more puzzling or mysterious
visitant than Major-General Bratish--Baron Fratelin--Count Eliovich. I
knew him well,--better, I believe, than others who had known him longer,
but under less trying circumstances. I stood by him through thick and
thin. I fought his battles for a long while, and almost always
single-handed, against a cloud of enemies, at a time when he appeared to
be hunted for his life by a band of conspirators, and was undoubtedly
beset by eavesdroppers and spies at every turn.

All at once, after a dazzling career in the political and literary world
beyond seas, continuing for many years, and followed by a course here
which kept him always before the public, and for something more than two
years made it almost a distinction for anybody to be acquainted with
him, this General Bratish--Count Eliovich--found himself an outcast,
helpless and hopeless, obliged to live from hand to mouth.

That he was greatly belied, I had reason to know. That he was cruelly
misunderstood, and wickedly misrepresented by the whole newspaper press
of our country, I had reason to believe, upon evidence not to be
questioned; but we are anticipating.

One day, in the summer or fall of 1839, Colonel Bouchette of Quebec, son
of the late Surveyor-General of Canada, brought a stranger to see me,
whom he introduced as Major-General Bratish, late in the service of her
Catholic Majesty, the Queen of Spain, and associate of General De Lacy
Evans, of the Auxiliary Legion. They were both (Bouchette and Bratish)
living in Portland at the time, and occupied chambers in the same
building; and I inferred from what passed in this or in a subsequent
interview that the Colonel had known the General in Quebec or Montreal,
about the time of the outbreak there in which they were implicated.

The object they had in view, on their first visit, was to open a way for
General Bratish to lecture in Portland, upon some one--or more--of many
subjects,--on Greece, Hungary, Poland, the war in Spain, South America,
our own Revolutionary War, modern languages, or matters and things in
general.

The appearance and deportment of the gentleman were much in his favor.
He seemed both frank and fearless, with a mixture of modesty and
self-reliance quite captivating. He looked to be about five-and-thirty,
according to my present recollection, stood five feet nine or ten, with
a broad chest and good figure. He had not much of military
bearing,--certainly not more than we see in General Grant,--and on the
whole bore the appearance of a young, handsome, healthy, well-bred
Englishman, accustomed to good society. He was neither talkative nor
reserved, but natural and free; speaking our language with uncommon
propriety, French and German still better, and Italian like a native,
and often expressing himself with singular strength and
picturesqueness,--reminding me of the Italian poet and critic, Ugo
Foscolo,--whom I saw at the time he was furnishing the papers translated
by Mrs. Sarah Austin for the Edinburgh Review.

Arrangements were soon made for a first appearance; and the result was
all that could have been hoped for, and much more than could reasonably
have been expected. His manner was dignified, unpretending, and earnest;
and he had a sort of unstudied natural eloquence, quite wonderful in a
foreigner, unacquainted with our idioms and unaccustomed to platform
speaking. Whatever might be the subject, he always talked with an air of
modest truthfulness, and gave the most dramatic and startling
narratives, like an eyewitness on the stand, testifying under oath.
Never shall I forget Warsaw, nor the battle of Navarino, as rapidly
sketched by him in a sort of parenthesis, while he was lecturing upon a
very different subject; he wanted an illustration, and both of these
pictures flashed suddenly out upon us. The other lectures that followed
his first seemed, up to the very last, to grow better and better, until
we had faith, not only in his representations, but in the man himself.

Instead of shunning, he rather invited inquiry; and at an interview with
the late Mr. Edward Preble, son of the Commodore, when that gentleman
was questioning him about Tripoli, and was preparing to show him the
very charts used by the Commodore, the General refused to look at them,
and instantly drew a sketch of the harbor, with the castles, batteries,
and fortifications, and gave the soundings and approaches; and all
these, upon a careful examination, proved to be correct in every
particular, according to the testimony of Mr. Preble himself.

About this time, in consequence of the favorable notices that appeared
in our Portland papers, the Philadelphia Ledger, the Saturday Courier,
and some other journals of that city, opened upon him in full cry,
followed by the American press generally; the Courier declaring that he
had taken _leg bail_ and escaped from Canada,--that he had run away from
Rochester, after obtaining five hundred dollars from Henry McIlvaine,
Esq., of the Philadelphia bar, in the shape of fees for constituting
that gentleman "Consul-General of Greece"! By others he was charged with
being a tin-pedler, a horse-thief, and a leech-doctor, who had assumed
the title of Count long after his arrival in this country. Among many
anonymous letters--letters addressed to strangers in Portland--came one
from Henry McIlvaine himself, saying: "I see by the Portland papers,
that a man calling himself _sometimes_ General Bratish, at others
General Eliovich, Count Eliovich, Baron Fratelin and Walbeck, and
claiming to have been a general in the Polish, Spanish, Mexican, and
other armies, is now in your town; and I should suppose, from the papers
_who_ have noticed him, imposing upon respectable people. Having seen
something of this person, and been _myself a victim_, I have felt it due
to my friends in Portland to put them on their guard. He is the son of a
merchant in Trieste, driven from his home and his friends in consequence
of his crimes. His pretension to any of the titles he claims is
altogether without foundation. After _exhausting Europe_, he has within
a few years turned his talents to good account in our country. He made
his appearance here about two years ago as Consul-General and Envoy from
Greece, in which capacity he was very free with his commissions of
vice-consulships in New York and Philadelphia. He was indicted here for
forgery,--_convicted_,--obtained a new trial by the false oaths of his
associates, some of whom are now in the state prison (one for
horse-stealing), and gave bail for his appearance at the next term. The
pretence for a new trial was the absence of a witness _who never
existed_, but who was expected to prove his innocence. Before the next
term, the Consul-General took wing, leaving his bail, a simple
Frenchman, to pay the forfeit. It would be impossible for me to give
anything like a history of his crimes in a letter. Suffice it to say
that he is a notorious swindler, the most unblushing and inexhaustible
liar and the most finished rascal I ever saw."

If this were true, how happened it that the notorious swindler, the
horse-thief, the convicted forger, and the escaped convict was still at
large,--and not only at large, but always before the public, and _always
without a change of name_? Why was he not surrendered by his bail? Why
not followed by a bench warrant, or a requisition from the Governor of
Pennsylvania? Of course, the story could not be true, as told by Mr.
McIlvaine. It was too absurd on the face of it.

But was any part of the story true? and, if so, how much? Having been
frequently imposed upon, both at home and abroad, by adventurers and
pretenders, I determined to go to the bottom of this case before I
committed myself, and I must say that, for a while, the stories told by
General Bratish, and the explanations he gave, seemed to me still more
absurd and preposterous.

According to his story--to give one example out of a score--he had been
obliged to apply for the benefit of the Insolvent Act, in Philadelphia,
owing to losses he had sustained by lending money to distressed
compatriots, and eleemosynary outcasts, and had been opposed in the
Court of Insolvency by Colonel John Stille, Jr. and Mr. Henry McIlvaine,
who threatened him with a prosecution for the forgery of consular
papers, if he dared to appear. He declared that he did appear,
nevertheless, and was honorably discharged; that his claims and
evidences of debt, handed over to Mr. McIlvaine, the assignee, amounted
to $7,620 for cash lent, while his debts altogether amounted to less
than $1,000; that he was arrested while in court, on a warrant for
forgery, and there subjected to a long and rigorous examination by
Messrs. McIlvaine and Stille, who had got possession of all the claims
against him; that the offence charged consisted in issuing a commission
as Vice-Consul of Greece, _with General Bratish's own signature_! that
McIlvaine went before Mr. Alderman Binns to get the warrant for forgery,
and employed Colonel John Stille, Jr., his coadjutor, to appear as
public prosecutor in the Mayor's Court of Philadelphia; that he, General
Bratish, was put upon trial before a bench of aldermen, not a man of the
whole except the Recorder being acquainted with the rudiments of law;
that, on being arraigned, he refused to plead, and called no witnesses
himself, though some were called by his counsel,--when the Recorder
directed the plea of "Not guilty" to be entered, and the trial to
proceed; that he claimed to be a foreign consul provisionally appointed,
entered a formal protest, which appeared in the papers of the day, and
never deigned to open his mouth, until, to the consternation and
amazement of all who understood the case, the jury found him _guilty_,
under the direction of the Recorder,--a direction which amounted to
this, namely, that, while General Bratish could not be legally convicted
of the offence charged, he might be convicted of another offence _not
charged!_ that a motion for a new trial was entered at the suggestion of
the Recorder himself, and was finally argued in a burst of indignation
by General Bratish, who thrust aside his counsel, and refused to be
delivered on technical grounds; that the motion was opposed by Messrs.
McIlvaine and Stille, but prevailed; that the verdict was set aside, a
new trial granted, and General Bratish was allowed to go at large, on
greatly reduced bail, every member of the court concurring, except Mr.
Alderman McKean; that no sooner was the trial over, and the proceedings
published, than a public meeting was called through the National
Gazette, the Public Ledger, the United States Gazette, and the
Pennsylvanian, and all persons were invited to appear, and bring
forward their charges--if any they had--against him; that such a
meeting, both large and respectable, was held at the College of
Pharmacy, and resolutions were adopted, declaring the character of
General Bratish to be "_unimpeached and unimpeachable_" his authority
from Greece to be fully proved, and his identity to have been
established by the testimony of "several highly respectable gentlemen
present"; that, before he could have another trial, the court was
abolished; and that, after waiting two months for the prosecutor to
move, for want of something better to do, General Bratish betook himself
to Canada; that he was followed there, watched, arrested for a
horse-thief, immediately and honorably discharged, re-arrested upon a
suspicion of high treason, put beyond the reach of a _habeas corpus_
writ, and confined for seven months, in the citadel of Quebec and
elsewhere, _as a prisoner of state_, &c., &c.

Such was a part of his story; and astonishing as it may
appear--incredible, I might say--I found it, after a most careful
investigation, to be not only substantially true, but scrupulously
exact. The evidence came to me through unwilling or prejudiced
witnesses,--my friend, Henry C. Carey of Philadelphia, among the
number,--and was corroborated throughout by official documents and
published proceedings. And here I may as well add, that Mr. Arnold
Buffum was chairman, and J. Griffith, M. D. secretary, of the meeting
above referred to, of March 6th, 1838.

While this unhappy controversy was raging, and our people were dividing
upon the questions involved, a little incident occurred which had a very
wholesome effect upon our misgivings. The General happened to be in
conversation with a stranger one day, when the subject of Unitarianism,
as it existed in the North of Europe, came up. Something was then said
about the great Unitarian Convention held at Cork, Ireland, two or three
years before. General Bratish said he was in attendance, and had let
fall some remarks there. A by-stander, who had very little faith in our
hero, caught at the ravelling thus dropped. If what the General said
were true, surely some evidence might be found by diligent search. And,
sure enough! the gentleman found a copy of the Christian Pioneer, in
Boston, giving an account of that very Convention. He acknowledged to me
that he opened the journal with fear and trembling, but soon came upon
what purported to be an abstract of a speech by General Bratish, and
what furnished abundant confirmation of his highest pretensions as a
soldier, as a writer, as a patriot, and as a philanthropist. I saw the
Pioneer myself. It was a monthly journal, published in Glasgow,
Scotland, July, 1835. The speech, as reported, was eminently
characteristic, and the summary that followed was in the following
words:--

"The society was gratified on this occasion by the presence of the Rev.
George Harris of Glasgow, whose visit to Cork the committee gladly
availed themselves of, earnestly requesting his attendance; and of Mr.
Bratish, _a native of Hungary, and a member of the Hungarian Diet, who,
in consequence of his intrepid advocacy of the cause of much-injured
Poland, both in his place in the legislature, and subsequently with his
pen and his sword, has been obliged to fly his country, and take refuge
in this kingdom_."

Among the most damaging allegations was one to this effect, that Mr.
Forsyth, our Secretary of State, had contradicted the story of General
Bratish about his consular authority and proceedings in every
particular. So far was this from being true, that Mr. Forsyth
_confirmed_ the story of General Bratish in substance, acknowledging to
me that he _knew_ nothing to his prejudice, and that General Bratish had
held such communications with him as he had represented.

Yet more, while I was patiently and quietly pursuing these
investigations, Colonel Bouchette handed me a copy of the Bath (Me.)
Telegraph Extra, of July 19, 1839, containing a report of the
proceedings at a public meeting held there, in consequence of the
newspaper charges and anonymous letters which had followed our
adventurer to that city. It was headed "General Bratish Eliovich (Baron
Fratelin)," and was signed by Judge Clapp (Ebenezer), and by Henry
Masters, Secretary. The resolutions were brief but conclusive; and the
committee that drew them up, after a thorough investigation, were chosen
from among the most respectable citizens of the place. "Every specific
charge brought forward by responsible persons," they say, "was most
completely refuted, and the truth was found entirely in accordance with
the statements and accounts of the transactions given beforehand by
General Bratish"; and they declare him "entitled to the confidence and
respect of the community at large," saying that "his conduct in this
State has been that of a gentleman and man of honor."

I found too, that, go where he would, behave as he might, the moment his
name appeared in the papers, anonymous letters and paragraphs followed,
denouncing him as a "pedler," as a "native Yankee," as a thief who had
robbed a fellow-boarder at Bedford Springs and then run away, taking one
of the most unfrequented roads "across the country to Cumberland, upon
which no public conveyance runs"; and yet I found, upon further inquiry,
that he went off by the regular mail coach direct to Philadelphia, drove
straight to the Marshall House, where he had always put up, (one of the
largest and most respectable establishments in the city,) and _entered
his name at length on the travellers' book in the usual way_, and was
received by McIlvaine himself and others he had met with at Bedford
Springs, on a footing of the most friendly intimacy, for over two months
after the alleged robbery and exposure.

I ascertained further, that he came to this country in the summer of
1836 on board the Statesman, Captain Mansfield, from Gothenburg to
Salem, with letters from Christopher Hughes, our _Charg?d'Affaires_ at
Stockholm, to his son at New York, and with a Swedish passport to North
America, duly authenticated, in which he was called "the Honorable John
Bratish de Fratelin"; that he had many other letters, bills of credit,
and drafts, and a large amount of money in gold,--some "thousands of
dollars" according to the testimony of Captain N. B. Mansfield himself,
with whom I communicated by letter; that he was brought on board in the
Governor's barge, and was known to have been treated with great
distinction by the Swedish nobility, and to have been so well received
by Bernadotte himself, the king of Sweden, as to give rise to a report
that he was a son of Murat, the late king of Naples, whose queen he
certainly resembled, as he did others of the Bonaparte family; that on
the passage he put on no airs, claimed no title, but chose to be called
plain Mr. Bratish, until his rank was discovered, and he came to be
known as General John Bratish Eliovich (the son of Elias), Baron
Fratelin; that after a twelve-month's residence at Boston and Salem,
holding intercourse with what is there called the best society, he went
to Washington, where he passed the winter of 1837-38 among the
fashionables and upper-tens; that, while there, he received the
provisional appointment of Consul-General for the United States from the
Regency of Greece, dated February 15, 1837, upon which he threw up an
engagement he had entered into with General Duff Greene, which secured
him a respectable support, and set about seeing the country; that after
travelling from New York to New Orleans, he returned to the North, and
stopped for a month or two at Bedford Springs, _about a day's journey
from Philadelphia_; that being disappointed in remittances and receipts,
and unable to collect moneys he had lent to his compatriots, he could
not pay his bill for six weeks' board, amounting to fifty dollars, and
went to Philadelphia, leaving with Mr. Brown, the landlord, a part of
his baggage and books, after trying in vain to dispose of a valuable
platina medal; that in Philadelphia, Mr. McIlvaine--notwithstanding the
alleged robbery--lent him one hundred and sixty-five dollars, and was
constituted Vice-Consul of Greece _ad interim_, that is, "until the
pleasure of his Majesty, the king of Greece, should be known."

Here then was the foundation of all the attacks made upon the unhappy
General; but was there not something behind,--something _below_ this
foundation? The extraordinary case of Dr. Follen, who was hunted from
pillar to post, year after year, and wellnigh lied into his grave, shows
what may be done by conspirators and spies and slanderers, when a
respectable man grows obnoxious to a foreign power. If he is at all
headstrong or imprudent, nothing can save him. Oddly enough, it happens
that one of the very papers which followed Dr. Follen whithersoever he
went, like a sleuth-hound,--the Philadelphia Gazette,--was among the
bitterest and most unrelenting, of those that assailed General Bratish.

While pursuing these investigations, I learned from what I regarded as
high authority, that General Bratish had presented an address to Lord
Normanby, at the head of the whole consular body, having been chosen for
that special purpose; and I was referred to the Irish Royal Cork Almanac
for 1835, where, under the head of Foreign Consuls, I read, "Colonel
John Bratish (d'Elias) Eliovich, K. C. C., S. S., L. H., Consul-General
of Greece, Mexico, Buenos Ayres, and Switzerland, Consular Agent of
Turkey."

How were these contradictions to be reconciled,--the facts proved with
the stories told? If General Bratish was the swindler and impostor they
pretended, the sooner he was exposed, and the more publicly, the better.
On the contrary, if he was an honest man--a man greatly wronged and
belied, like Dr. Follen--he ought to be defended,--but how? He was poor
and friendless, and the whole newspaper press of the country was either
against him, or wholly indifferent. Had he been on trial in a court of
justice, any lawyer would have defended him,--nay, for that matter, he
might have defended himself. But if he entered the field as a writer,
alone against a host, volumes would have to be written,--and who would
publish them,--who read them?

That I might bring the matter to issue at once, knowing well, and from
long experience, that, when people are accused through the newspaper
press of our country, they are always believed to be guilty until they
have _established their innocence_, I sent a communication to the
Portland Advertiser of October 15, 1839, with my name, charging upon Mr.
Henry McIlvaine and Colonel John Stille, Jr. all that I afterwards
repeated with more distinctness and solemnity in "The New World," for
which I was then writing (and from which I withdrew in consequence of
what I then regarded as unfairness toward General Bratish on the part of
my coadjutors, Messrs. Park Benjamin and Epes Sargent), and arraigning
both McIlvaine and Stille, as conspirators and libellers.

One day, while this controversy was raging, the General called upon me,
and begged me, for my own satisfaction, to inquire of Baron de
Mareschal, the Austrian Minister, respecting certain charges that had
just appeared against him. I consented, and immediately despatched the
following letter to the care of my friend, the Honorable George Evans,
our Representative in Congress, requesting him to see the Baron for me.

     "_To_ HIS EXCELLENCY GENERAL BARON DE MARESCHAL, _Envoy
     Extraordinary and Minister Plenipotentiary from his Majesty the
     Emperor of Austria._

     "The undersigned is led to apply to your Excellency in behalf
     of a gentleman here, who has been assailed by a great variety
     of newspaper slanders, most of which have been triumphantly
     refuted. The gentleman referred to is known here, by his
     passports and other credentials, as John Bratish Eliovich, late
     a general in the service of her most Catholic Majesty, the
     Queen of Spain, and is now an American citizen.

     "He states--and he bids me trust confidently to the character
     of your Excellency for an early reply--that in 1828 he was at
     Rio Janeiro; that instead of 'running away,' as reported, with
     a large amount of funds belonging to his uncle, Christopher
     Bratish, he left Rio Janeiro in consequence of being appointed
     by the Emperor, Dom Pedro, Brazilian Consul to Austria, with
     the approbation and consent of your Excellency, manifested by a
     regular passport, granted by your Excellency's legation.

     "The friends of General Bratish in this region are numerous and
     respectable, and they beg your Excellency's reply to the
     following questions:--

     "Is the statement above made by General Bratish true?

     "And if your Excellency would be so kind as to say whether, in
     your opinion, there can be any foundation for the story
     respecting the 'large amount of money' said to have been
     carried off by General Bratish, when he is reported to have run
     away from Rio Janeiro, your Excellency would gladly oblige, not
     only the undersigned, but a number of other persons deeply
     interested in the character of General Bratish.

     "Meanwhile, I am with respect your Excellency's most obedient
     servant,

                              "---- ----.

     "PORTLAND, ME., April, 1840."

     "That your Excellency may know who has taken this liberty, the
     undersigned begs leave to refer you to the Hon. George Evans,
     Henry Clay, Daniel Webster, General Scott, or to any member of
     Congress from the Northern or Middle States."

Through some oversight in the transcribing, the full date of this letter
does not appear; but I soon received the following from Mr. Evans:--

              HOUSE OF REPRESENTATIVES, WASHINGTON,

                                    April 20, 1840.

     "MY DEAR SIR,--Your favor of ----, enclosing letter for General
     Mareschal was duly received, and I immediately despatched a
     messenger to deliver it to the General, with a note in your
     behalf. Yesterday the General called upon me to say that he
     felt constrained, from various circumstances, to decline a
     reply to it. He wishes you to understand that he does this with
     entire respect for yourself, whom he should be very happy
     personally to oblige. He said, if the information you seek was
     desirable for any personal or private purposes of your
     own,--such as, for instance, if any alliance was in
     contemplation with any of your friends,--he should feel bound
     to give you a reply. But he does not think that he ought to be
     drawn into a newspaper discussion, or to become the subject of
     comment or remark in such a matter. He wished me to explain his
     feelings, and hopes you will not impute his declining to any
     want of regard for you, and that you will appreciate the
     motives which govern him. I am not at liberty to detail a
     conversation I held with him on the general subject of your
     letter. He did not show it to me, though he spoke of its
     contents.

                        "Very faithfully yours,

                            "GEO. EVANS."

Very adroit and very diplomatic, to be sure, on the part of the Baron;
but surely he might have answered yes or no to the first question,
without committing himself. And why not show my letter to Mr. Evans?
Taking the ground he did, however, he forced me to the following
conclusion, namely, that he could not answer _No_, and was afraid, for
reasons of state, perhaps, to answer _Yes_.

And now, what was to be done? Should I prepare a memoir, setting forth
all these charges, with such refutations and such explanations as had
occurred, and appeal to the public. There seemed to be no other way
left.

While I was preparing this memoir, which made a pamphlet of forty-eight
large octavo pages, with the documentary evidence in small print,
General Bratish was at my elbow; and one evening, after I had read over
to him what I had written, I happened to say that I was exceedingly
sorry for the loss of his orders and decorations in Canada,--they would
have been such a corroboration of his story.

"Lost!" said he, "they are not lost."

"Where are they?"

"In the bank, with some other valuables."

"In the bank! When can you get them for me?"

"To-morrow, when the bank is open."

Shall I confess the truth? So sudden and so startling was this
declaration, after what I had seen in the papers about the loss of these
badges and orders in Canada, that I began, for the first time, to have
uncomfortable suspicions. But, sure enough, the next day he brought them
all to me, together with the original contract entered into between
Colonel De Lacy Evans (afterward General Evans) and General Bratish,
with the approbation of Alva, the Spanish Ambassador at the Court of St.
James, whereby it was provided that "John Bratish Eliovich, Esquire, K.
C. C., V. S. S., V. L. H., &c., &c.," should enjoy the rank, pay, and
emoluments of a Major-General in the Auxiliary Legion then raising for
the Queen of Spain. This document, signed by Colonel De Lacy Evans and
Carbonel, and approved by Alva, styled him "Major-General John Bratish
Eliovich, K. C. C., V. L. H., &c., &c.," and bore the signature of
General Bratish, whereby his identity was established; and the
decorations and orders put into my hands were the following: "Knight
Commander of Christ," the "Tower and Sword" of Portugal, the "Saviour"
of Greece, and the "South Star" of Brazil.

Here, certainly, was pretty strong confirmation; and yet on this very
evening, my wife, who sat where she could see all the changes of his
countenance while I was writing the memoir and occasionally asking a
question without looking up, saw enough to satisfy her that Bratish was
making a fool of her husband, and, the moment his back was turned,
expressed her astonishment that a man of sense--meaning me--could be so
easily imposed upon. So much for the instinct of a woman; but more of
this hereafter.

Not long after this, the General rushed into my office in a paroxysm of
rage,--the only time I ever saw him disturbed. His honor had been
questioned, and by whom, of all the world? Why,--would I believe it?--by
his friend, Colonel Bouchette! Upon further inquiry, I found that he had
received a draft from his sister, which had to pass through a secret
channel to him, lest their estates should be confiscated in Hungary;
that, after two or three disappointments, he had succeeded in getting it
cashed here without endangering a certain friend in New York; that on
mentioning the circumstance to Colonel Bouchette, who had counselled him
not to attempt the negotiation here, that gentleman had laughed in his
face; whereupon the General turned his back on him, and hurried off to
my office. A friend was with me at the time. "Ach, mein Freund!" said
the General, as he finished the story, "he doubted my word, he
questioned my honor, he asked to see the money; but I refused to show
him the money,--I was indignant, outraged; but I have it here,--_here_!"
slapping his breast-pocket, "and I am ready to show it to you." I
declined; he persisted; until at last, afraid of the impression he might
make upon my friend Winslow, who was present, I consented. But he only
talked the louder and the faster, without producing the money; and when
I grew serious, and insisted on seeing it, he acknowledged that he
hadn't it with him!

"Where is it, sir?" said I.

"At my lodgings."

"And how long will it take you to produce it?"

"Ten minutes."

"Very well,"--taking out my watch,--"I will wait fifteen, and my friend
here will stay with me, and be a witness."

Away went the General, and, to my amazement, I must acknowledge, within
the fifteen minutes he returned, bringing with him a cigar-box
containing about five hundred dollars in bills and specie, which I
counted.

Here was a narrow escape,--a matter of life or death to him, certainly,
if not to me. But where had he got the money? He was very poor, judging
by appearances. The lecturing was over for a time, and there was no
field for conjecture. To this hour the whole affair is a mystery.
Unlikely as it was that he should have obtained it from his sister,
there seemed to be no other explanation possible.

Other perplexing and contradictory evidence for and against the General
began to appear. I never saw him on horseback but once, and then I was
frightened for him. As a general, he ought, of course, to know how to
ride. As a native Hungarian, he must have been born _to_ the saddle, if
not _in_ it. Nevertheless, I trembled for him, though the creature he
had mounted was far from being either vicious or spirited; and then,
too, when he tried waltzing, he reminded me, and others I am afraid, of
"the man a-mowing."

On the other hand, he was well-bred and self-possessed, full of accurate
information, and never obtrusive. And here I am reminded of another
singular circumstance, which went far in confirmation of the story he
told. He gave J. S. Buckingham, Esq., M. P., whom I had known in London
as the Oriental traveller, a letter to me, in which he speaks of him as
a member of the British-Polish Committee in London,--thereby endangering
the whole superstructure he had been rearing with so much care. Mr.
Buckingham wrote me from New York, but failed to see me.

Worn out and wellnigh discouraged by these persecutions, the General now
left us, and went to New York, from which place he wrote me, under date
of October 9, 1840, as follows. I give his own orthography, to show
that, although acquainted with our language to such a degree that he was
able to lecture in it, as Kossuth did, and to speak it with uncommon
readiness, he must have learnt it by _ear_, like many others with which
he was familiar enough for ordinary purposes.

"One of my last occupation upon American soil is one of a painful, and
at the same times pleasant nature, to wit, to address you, my noble, my
chivalerouse, my excellent friend. My God revard you and may he for the
benefit of mankind scater many such persons trought the world--it would
prevent misantropy and it would serve as the best antidote against
crimes and deceptions, persecutions and sufferings. O could you know all
what I suffered in my eventful life, you would indead belive that no
romance is equal to reality. But--basta--God is great and merciful, and
I never yit and I hope never will find occassion to doubt the wundaful
ways of his mercy.... Perhaps no times since I cam to America, I had
occassion for more patience than during the first days of my arrival in
N. Y. Harshed by law, cut by some friends, findig once more by European
new a change in Greece, with my funds low, I began indeed to feel
bitterly my sad fate--when by one of this suden fricks which I offen
prouve that man must never despair all changed quit casualy it was
raported to the German Association that I am her--immediately I was
invited to ther mittings, the French Lafayette Club followed suit, and
yesterday evning your humble servant was by acclamation apointed
Vice-President of the General Union of all the forign assotiations of
the city of New York (the German Tepcanoe Club 30 pers. excepted)....

"I am very sorry that I cannot tell you where I go--I sail in the cliper
armed brig Fairfield for the West India unter very avantageouse
circumstances a eccelent pay rang and emoluments you may guess the rest
be assured it is a honorable a very honorable employment. My next for
the South wia Havanna or New York or New Orleans will inform you of the
rest."

Accompanying this letter was a slip from one of the large New York
dailies confirming his story, and reporting the resolutions passed at a
great public meeting, of which A. Sarony was President and Chairman,
John Bratish, Vice-President, and George Sonne, Secretary. "The call of
the meeting was read and adopted," says the report, "when General
Bratish addressed the assemblage in the English, French, and German
languages, in the most patriotic and eloquent manner. His speech was
received with enthusiastic and repeated applause."

And here for a long season we lost sight of the General, though two or
three circumstances occurred, each trivial in itself, but all tending to
give a new aspect to the affair, just before he left us, we had a small
party at our house, where, among other amusements, a game called "The
Four Elements" was introduced. When it was all over, and our visitors
were gone, a costly handkerchief, with a lace border, was not to be
found. It had been last seen in the hands of General Bratish. Having no
idea that, if he had pocketed it by mistake, it would not be returned,
we waited patiently,--very patiently,--supposing he might have thrown
aside his company dress-coat without examining the pockets, and that
when he put it on again the handkerchief would be forthcoming, of
course. But no,--nothing was heard of it, until one evening at a lecture
my wife suddenly caught my arm, and, pointing to a white handkerchief
the General was flourishing within reach, said, "There's Aunt Mary's
handkerchief, now!"--"Nonsense, my dear!"--"It is, I tell you; I can see
where he has ripped off the lace." I thought her beside herself; but
still--why the sudden substitution of a large red Spitalfields for the
white handkerchief? "Perhaps," said I to my wife,--"perhaps the
handkerchief was not marked, and he did not know where to find the
owner."--"But it was marked, and he knows the owner as well as you do,"
was the reply. Of course, I had nothing more to say; and so I laughed
the exhibition off, as a sort of _pas de mouchoir_, like that which
brought Forrest into a controversy with Macready.

And then something else happened. I missed the only copy I had in the
world of "Niagara and Goldau," which he had borrowed of me and returned,
with emphasis; and many months after he had disappeared, I received a
volume of poems from the heart of Germany, entitled, "Der Heimathgruss,
Eine Pfingstgabe von Mathilde von Tabouillot, geborene Giester,"
published at Wesel, 1840, with a letter from the lady herself, thanking
me with great warmth and earnestness for my pamphlet in defence of
General Bratish. Putting that and that together, I began to have a
suspicion that my copy of "Niagara and Goldau" had been presented to the
authoress by my friend, the General,--perhaps in the name of the author.

Yet more. While these little incidents were accumulating and seething
and simmering, I received a letter from Louis Bratish, in beautiful
French, dated Birmingham, 7th October, 1841, in which he thanked me most
heartily for what I had done as the friend of his brother, "John
Bratish,"--withholding the "General,"--and begging me to consider it as
coming from the family; and about the same time, another letter, and the
last I ever received, from the General himself. It was dated "Torrington
House, near London, 12th October, 1841," and contained the following
passages:--

"I cannot account for the very extraordinary silence in speite of all my
request that you would at leas be so kind as to inform me if you realy
don't wish to hear more from me. I know your Hart too well not to be
persuaded that it must be some mistake or some intrigue.

"At last my family begin to understand how much they did wrong me and I
have the pleasure to enclose you a letter of my yungest brother, which
is now at the house of Messrs. Toniola brothers, a volunteer partner, to
learn the english....

"Mr. Josua Dodge, late Special Agent of the U. S. in Germany, is
returning in one or two days to America; this gentleman in consequence
of his mission crossed and recrossed all Germany and Belgium. I met him
in Germany; he was present at Stuttgard in a most critical moment, when,
denunced by the Germanic Federation (in the name of Austria) I was in
iminent peril. He acted as a true American, boldly stepped forward,
asked the way and the werfore and united with my firmness, the American
passports where respected, and Mr. Dodge succeded to get an official
acknowledgment that nothing was known against my moral character, and
they took refuge upon some little irregularity in the passport.... He,
my friends and my family wished very much that I should at lease for
some times rethurn to America (_pour reson bien juste_) but the
recollection is too bitter yet.... Several Americans are now visiting my
sister and her husband in Belgium--among them Mr. Bishop of Cont. and
Mr. Rowly, C. S. of N. Y.--What would I give to see J. N and his amable
family!...

"My address is Monsieur Le General Bratish (Eliovich), raccommand?