1 10 6 https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/75f1aeee5faf8d03ae3831627647a2e8.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=GNpcrnIT09fG23Xg4KxQs7ijOmNKWPn6eKv9TOzsESkRlxJe0mQFU5lC6DfMDj2er5T8inQ0I2A0foHRl3czlsPE9iSscF5qyzsxj7zKgov0yfBDSE4i4LBPmR5PeUc6FGuQzex-YSnp74r2mpbfSzOJnlOsBGH%7EP%7EThLgXczFE4%7ETjSSodNS5hT3IhNSd5405N8-puMHuaGLmvtLmDECMz6rkR6mFuAqKwnRloHPOoXdiG4JY7ZQrlo8ubx3mSYz1wW5hBTZIJP-dNe504iHYr6jikTeL%7EeQ83LcVTrjeTvIh7NEG07m6Qa6IKRFUW0gvoslUU6eBt96TDap4ygtg__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f5fc8c1a0dde7dd3434c62c55e475e4c Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1845 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. “Fanny McDermot.” By Miss C. M. Sedgwick. CHAPTER I. "Then," said she, "I am very dreary, He will not come," she said. She wept. "I am aweary, aweary, Oh, God, that I were dead!" [13] INVENTION need not be taxed for incidents fitted to touch the heart, nor need they to be heightened with the dyes of romance. The daily life of our own cities abounds in events over which, if there be tears in Heaven, surely the angels weep. But it is not to draw tears, which flow too easily from susceptible young readers that the following circumstances are related, but to set forth dangers to which many are exposed, and vices which steep the life God has given as a blessing in dishonour, misery, and remorse. A few years since there lived, on the east side of our city, where cheap and wretched residences abound, one Sara Hyat. Sara was a widow, not young nor pretty, nor delicate, with none of the elements of romantic interest, but old, full seventy, tall, angular, and coarse, with a face roughened by hardship, sharpened by time, and channeled by sorrow. Her voice was harsh, and her manner ungracious. There was one, and but one sign, and that a faint one, that she might once have partaken the weaknesses of her sex. She wore that hideous supplement to the hair which women call "a sprout," and not being very exact in the adjustment of her cap, the juxtaposition of the foxy auburn exotic and the indigenous silver hairs set off this little lingering of vanity rather strikingly. But as all is not gold that glitters, and beauty is but skin deep, and under a rough shell is often found excellent meat, so under Mrs. Hyat's rough exterior, there were strong common sense, a spirit of rectitude, a good conscience, and affections that the rough usage of the world had not abated. These had attached her with devotion and self-sacrifice to one object after another, as the relations of life had changed, first binding her in loving duty to her parents and sisters, then to her husband and children, and finally, when, one after another, they had dropped into the grave, settling on the only one in whose veins a drop of her blood ran, a little orphan grand-niece. "A sweeter thing they could not light upon." Go with us up a crazy staircase at the extremity of Houston street. If you chance to look in at the door of any of the rooms you pass, you will see, it being Sunday, an entire Irish family, father, mother, half a dozen children, more or less, with a due allowance of cousins, all plump, rosy, and thriving (in the teeth of the physical laws,) on plenty of heterogeneous food, and superfluity of dirt. On entering Mrs. Hyat's room, you are in another country; the tenants are obviously Americans, it is so orderly, quiet and cleanly, and rather anti-social. There are only an old woman and a little girl; the bud of spring-time, and the seared leaf of autumn. The table, windows and floor, are all fresh and immaculate from Saturday's scouring. The only dirt in the room (you almost wonder the old woman tolerates it there) is in two flowerpots in the window, whence a white jessamine and a tearose diffused their sweet odours. A table is decently spread for the mongrel meal that our people call supper, which blends the substantial food of dinner, with the aromatic tea, and its sweet accompaniments of pastry, cake, or preserves. The tea-kettle is hissing on the stove, and a pie is warming there. The old woman sits in her rockingchair weaving backwards and forwards, reading a time-discoloured letter, while a little girl (the only thing in harmony with the rose and jessamine in the window) laying aside a tract she is reading, says, "Aunt Sara, don't you know every word in that letter by heart? I do." "Why, do you Fanny? Say it then." "My dear aunt, I am clean discouraged—it seems as if Providence crowded on me. There is black disappointment turn which way I will. I have had an offer to go to Orleans, and part pay beforehand, which same I send you herewith. "Selina's time draws near, and it is the only way I have to provide, so dear aunt Sara, I think it my duty to go. I can't summon courage to bid you good-bye. I can't speak a word to her. I should not be a man again in a month if I tried. You have been a mother to me, Aunt Sara, and if God spares my life, I'll be a dutiful son to you in the place of them that's gone. If any thing happens to my poor wife, you will see to my child, I know. "Your dutiful nephew, "JAMES McDERMOT." "New York, 25th September, 1827." "I declare Fanny, you have said it right, date and [14] all; and what a date it was to me—that 25th of September: that day your father sailed—that very day you were born—and that very day when the tide went out, your mother died—life coming—life going—and the dear life of my last boy launched on the wide sea. My boy, I always called your father—he was like my own sons to me. He lived just one week after he got to Orleans, and the news came, Evacuation Day. We have always been, that is, the Rankin side, a dreadful family for dying young,—all but me; I've lived to follow all my folks to the grave. My three boys I have seen laid in the ground; full grown, six feet men, and here I am, my strength failing, my eyes dim, working—working, shivering, trembling on." Poor little Fanny shivered too, and putting some more wood into the stove, she asked her aunt if it were not time for supper; but Mrs. Hyat, without heeding her, went on, rather talking to herself than the child: "there has always been something notable about times and seasons with our folks. I was born the day the great peace was declared. My oldest was born the day Washington died; my youngest sister, your grandmother, Fanny, died the day of the Total Eclipse; my husband died the day that last pesky little war was declared; your father saw your mother the first time 'lumination night, and as I said, it was 'Evacuation Day,' we got the news of his death; poor Jemmy! what a dutiful boy he was to me! half my life went with his! How that letter is printed on your memory, Fanny! But you have better learning than ever I had, and that makes the difference! learning is not all, though, Fanny; you must have prudence. Did I not hear you talking on the stairs, yesterday, with some of them Irish cattle?" "Yes, aunt, I was thanking Mrs. O'Roorke for bringing up my pail of water for me." "That was not it, 'twas a racket with the children, I heard." Fanny made no reply. "I won't have it, Fanny; you're no company for Irish, and never shall be; the Lord made 'em, to be sure, but that is all; you can scarce call them human creturs." "They are very kind, Aunt Sara." "So are dogs kind, Fanny. I have moved, and moved, and moved to get into a house free of them; but they are varmint, and there is no getting away from them. It's the Lord's will, and must be; but I'll have no right-hand of fellowship with them; there I have set down my foot. Now child, tell me what was all that hurry skurry about?" Mrs. Hyat gave Fanny small encouragement to communicate a scene in which the banned Irish were the principal actors. But after a little struggle her sense of justice to them overcame her dread of the old woman's prejudices, and she told the true story. "The overseer at the new buildings gave me leave to bring my basket again for kindlings. Pat and Ellen O'Roorke were there before me, and they picked out all the best bits, and put them into my basket, and it was pretty heavy, and Pat would bring it home for me; he was so kind, how could I huff him, Aunt Sara? but I was afraid you would see him, that was the truth, and I wanted to take the basket before we got to the house, so I ran across the street after him, and there was a young gentleman driving a beautiful carriage, with a servant beside him, and another behind, and one of the horses just brushed against me and knocked me over. "Pat and Ellen were frightened, and mad too, and Pat swore, and Ellen screamed, and the gentleman stopped, and the man behind jumped off and came to us, and Pat kicked him, and he struck Pat, and the gentleman got out and stopped the fight, and said he was very sorry, and offered Pat money, and Pat would not touch it. The Irish have some high feelings, aunt, for all; and I am sure they are generous ones." "Well, well, go on; did the gentleman say any thing to you?" "Yes, aunt he saw there was a little blood on my cheek, and he took off my bonnet and turned off my hair; it was but a little bruised—and—and—" " And, and, and what, child?" "Nothing aunt, only he wiped off the place with his handkerchief and—kissed it." "It's the last time you shall stir outside the door, Fanny, without me." "Aunt Sara! I am sure he meant no harm; he was a beautiful gentleman." "Beautiful, indeed! Did he say any thing more to you?" "He said something about my hair being—looking—pretty, and he cut off a lock with my scissors that you hung at my side yesterday, and he—he put it in his bosom." As Fanny finished, there was a tap at the door, and on opening it, she recognized the liveried footman of her admirer. In one hand he held a highly ornamented bird-cage containing a canary, and in the other a paper parcel. "The gentleman as had the misfortune to knock you down yesterday, sends you these," he said, smiling at Fanny, and setting them down on the table, he withdrew. Fanny was enchanted. "The very thing I always wanted," she exclaimed; and the little singing bird did the very thing to cheer her solitude, to break with its sweet notes the heavy monotony of her day, to chime in harmony with the happy voice of her childhood. While Fanny, forgetting her supper and the paper parcel, was trying to quiet the frightened fluttering of the timid little stranger, Mrs. Hyat, lost in a reverie of perplexity and anxiety, was revolving Fanny's adventure and its consequences; a world of dangers that must beset the poor girl, when, as in the course of nature it must soon be, her protection was withdrawn, were all at once revealed to her. Fanny was just thirteen, and the extreme beauty that had marked her childhood, instead of passing away with it, was every day developing and ripening. Her features were symmetrical, and of that order which is called aristocratic, and so they were [15] of nature's aristocracy; if that be so which is reserved for her rarest productions. Her complexion was fair and soft as the rose leaf, and the colour, ever varying on her cheek, ever mounting and subsiding with the flow and ebb of feeling; her hair was singularly beautiful, rich and curling, and though quite dark, reflecting to the light a ruddy glow. "If she looked like other children," thought Sara Hyat, as her eye rested on Fanny, she might have been thrown down, and had both her legs broken, and that young spark would never have troubled himself about her. If it had but pleased God to give her her grandfather's bottle nose; or her father's little gray twinkling eye; or if she had favoured any of the Floods, or looked like any of the Rankins—except her poor mother. But what a picture of a face to throw a poor girl with, alone, among the wolves and foxes of this wicked city. Oh! that men were men, and not beasts of prey! Fanny—Fanny, child"—the old woman's voice trembled, but there was an earnestness in it that impressed each word as she uttered it—"mark my words, and one of these days, when I am dead and gone, you will remember them; God gives beauty, Fanny, for a trial to some, and a temptation to others. That's all the use I could ever see in it; to be sure its a pretty thing to look upon, but it’s just like a rose; by the time it is blowed out, it begins to fade. Now do leave that bird-cage one minute and listen to me; This is what I want you to remember," proceeded the old woman, with more earnestness and stronger emphasis, "when men follow you, and flatter you, turn a deaf ear, Fanny; pay no kind of attention to them, and if they persevere, fly away from them as you would from rats." "Aunt Sara! I don't know what you mean?" "The time will come when I can make my meaning plainer; for the present, it is enough for you to know, that you must not listen to fine-dressded men; that you must not take presents from them, that you must go straight to school, and come straight home from it, and say nothing to nobody. If ever I get the money that good for nothing Martin owes me for work done five years ago, I'll buy you a bird, Fanny, but if you can get a chance, you must send this back where it came from." "Oh, Aunt Sara! must I?" "Yes. What is in that paper? Untie it." Fanny untied it. It enveloped a quantity of bird seed, and a dainty basket filled with French bonbons. Fanny involuntarily smiled, and then looked towards her aunt, as if to ask her if she might. The cloud on the old lady's brow lowered more and more heavily, and Fanny said timidly— "Must I send these back too, aunt? or may I give them to Pat and Ellen? I won't eat any myself." "You are a good child, Fanny, and docile. Yes, you may go down and hand them in, and don't stay talking with them; and mind again, if ever an opportunity comes, the bird goes back." Fanny could not, for her life, see the harm of keeping the bird; it seemed to her that the gentleman was very kind, but the possibility of disobedience to her aunt, or of contending with her, did not occur to her. She knew, and that was enough to know, that her aunt indulged her whenever she thought indulgence right, and that she strained every nerve for her. Her wishes were not as easily subdued as her will, and each day as she grew more in love with her Canary, they became stronger and stronger that the opportunity might never come to send him away. But come it did. The following Thursday was Christmas day; a holiday of course to Fanny, but none to Mrs. Hyat, who, having been strictly bred a Presbyterian, held in sectarian disdain even this dearest and noblest of holidays. She was doing the daily task by which she earned her bread, making coarse garments for a neighbouring slop-shop. Fanny had done up the housework, and put the room into that holiday order which is to the poor what fine furniture and fancy decorations are to the rich. She had fed her Canary bird, and talked to it, and read through the last tract left at the door, and she was sitting gazing out of the window, thinking how happy the people must be who rode by in their carriages, and wondering as she saw dolls, baby-houses and hobby-horses, carried by, where all the children could live who got these fine presents. There is nobody to send me one, she thought. As if in answer to her thought, there was a tap at the door, and the well-known liveried footman appeared with a huge paper parcel. Fanny's rose-coloured cheek deepened to crimson. Mrs. Hyat surveyed the lad from head to heel, and nodding to Fanny, asked, "Is it he?" "Yes, aunt." "It's something for you, miss," said the footman, advancing, and about to deposit a parcel on the table before Mrs. Hyat; "it's Christmas day, old lady," he added pertly; "a nice day for young people as has red cheeks and bright eyes." "Hum! you need not take the trouble to set that thing down here." "We'll, ma'am, here will do just as well," he said, placing it on the bureau. "Nor there, either, young man, " but he, without heeding her, had already untied the parcel, and disclosed to Fanny's enraptured eye a rose-wood work-box with brilliant fittings of crimson velvet and fittings of steel and silver utensils. It was but a single glance that Fanny gave them, for she remembered the goods were contraband, and she averted her eye, and cast it down. "Tie the thing up, and take it where it came from," said Mrs. Hyat. "What is your master's name?" "The gentleman as employs me is Mr. Nugent Stafford, Esquire." "Where does he live?" "At the Astor House." "Give him the bird, Fanny." Poor little Fanny obeyed, but with a trembling hand and tearful eye. The little bird had been a bright spirit in her dead, daily life. "Take them all back," continued Mrs. Hyat, "and tell Mr.—[16] What's his name? that such fine things are for fine people; that we are poor and honest, and plain spoken, and if he is a real friend to us, he'll leave us to eat the bread of our own earning without disturbing our minds with things that's no way suited to us." The footman and Fanny stood a little behind Mrs. Hyat, and he, taking advantage of her deafness, shrugged his shoulders, saying, "crusty, crusty," and adding, with a diabolical prescience fitting the school in which his master bred him, "if ever you hear a whistle under your window, three times repeated, come down." "What are you waiting for? you've got your message, man." "I was waiting for your second thoughts, old lady." "I've not given you my first, nor my second thoughts; so you may go to Mr.—What do you call him, as quick as you please." The man departed, bowing and kissing his hand to Fanny, as he shut the door. "What said the fellow to you?" asked her aunt, who had heard as deaf people generally hear, what is meant not to reach their ears. "Oh aunt," replied Fanny, "he said something about your being crusty." Most unfortunately, and for the first time in her life, she dealt unfairly by her aunt. Sincerity is the compass of life; there is no safe sailing without it. The poor child was perplexed; Stafford's gifts had charmed her. She did not see clearly why they were rejected. She was already filled with vague longings for some variation of her dull existence; and she was but thirteen years old! Seldom have thirteen years of human life passed with a more stainless record. To do her duty, to be quiet, industrious and true, from being Fanny's instinct, had become her habit. The fountain of her affections had never yet been unsealed; was that well spring of everlasting life to be poisoned? She had committed her first deceit, poor child! We have gone too much into detail; we must limit ourselves to the most striking particulars of our story. ____________________________________ Christmas came again, and the day wore drearily away. "Mr. Stafford has forgotten me," sighed Fanny in her inmost heart. "That flushy fellow with his yellow cape and cuffs, won't trouble us again, I'm thinking," said Mrs. Hyat. The day deepened into twilight; Fanny heard a whistle—she started; it was repeated, and again repeated. She drew near to her aunt as if for defence, and sat down by her, her heart throbbing. After a few minutes, there were again three whistles—still she sat resolutely still. Mrs. Hyat laid down her slop sewing, wiped her spectacles, and heaving a deep sigh, said, "I grow blinder and blinder, but I won't murmur as long as it pleases God that I may earn honest bread for you and me, Fanny." Fanny looked up, and her aunt saw there were tears in her eyes: "Poor child!" she continued; "it is not a merry Christmas you are having." The whistle was again repeated—"go to the baker's, Fanny, and buy us a mince pie; it won't break us—I can pay for it, if I work till twelve to-night, and it will make it seem more like Christmas to you." Again Fanny heard the whistle, the call went to her heart, the opportunity was too tempting to be resisted, and Fanny threw a shawl over her head, and ran down stairs. A man wrapped in a cloak had just passed the door; he turned back at the sound of her footsteps, threw his arms around her and kissed her cheek. She started back with indignation, and would have sprung up the door step, but he gently detained her, and she, looking up in his face, saw that it was Stafford himself, and not, as she supposed, his servant. "Why do you run away from me?" he said, in a low, sweet voice; "how have I frightened you? Am I not your friend? None can feel a greater interest in you. I will prove it in any way that I can." Fanny's instincts directed aright, and fixing her beautiful eyes on him, she said, "come up then and say to my aunt what you say to me." She did not understand the smile that lurked on Stafford's lips as he replied; "no, your aunt for some reason, I am sure I cannot tell what, has taken a dislike to me; you know she has, for she will not receive the slightest gift from me. Come, you were going out, walk along, and let me walk by you." He slid his arm around her waist, she shrank from him, and he withdrew it. "How old are you, Fanny McDermot? You perceive, I know your name, and much more concerning you, that you would not suspect." "Oh! Mr. Stafford, how should you know? I am fourteen, and a little more." "Only fourteen? Fifteen, sixteen, seventeen, will soon come, and each year—each month, you grow more and more beautiful. Fanny, I dream of you every night of my life, and when I wake, my first thought of you is, 'I cannot see her—I cannot speak to her.'" "Mr. Stafford?" "It is true, Fanny, true as that beautiful moon is shining on us. Why should it not be so? It is unnecessary, it is cruel, that you should be shut up in that forlorn old house, with that old woman"—the old woman grated on Fanny's ear, but she did not interrupt Stafford, and he continued, "do you like riding, or sailing?" "I never rode but once, and that was to Uncle Ben's funeral, and I was never in a boat in my life." "Come on Monday, Fanny, at twelve o'clock, to the corner of Essex and Grand streets. I will be there in a hackney coach, and I will take you a ride just as long, or as short as you please; and when Spring comes, you shall go out with me, in my boat, by moonlight. I often pass an evening, by rowing about the harbour, and I should take such pleasure in pleasing you." "But, Mr. Stafford, Aunt Sara would never give me leave." [17] "Do not ask her; how is she to know?" "Why, I must tell her—I tell her every thing, and I never leave her but to go to school." "And how is she to know that you are not at school?" "Mr. Stafford, do you think I would deceive my Aunt Sara? No, never—never." They had arrived at the baker's shop. Fanny turned to enter it, and faltered out a "good night." "Stop and listen to me one moment," he said, detaining her. That one moment he prolonged till he had repeated again and again, his professions of admiration and interest, and his entreaties that she would meet him. She remained true to herself, and to her aunt. She offered to tell her aunt of his kindness, and to ask her leave to take the ride. This he declined, saying, it would be useless, and finally, he was obliged to leave her, with only a promise, that she would not always disregard the whistle. He kissed her hand, and thrust into it a purse. She would have followed him, and returned it, but at that moment two persons crossed the street, and interposed themselves between her and Stafford, and fearing observation, she reluctantly retained it. On examination, she found in it several gold pieces, and a small locket, with a very beautiful little miniature of Stafford on one side, and a lock of his hair on the other. She had the resolution, after examining the features again and again, to tie it up with the purse of untouched money; certainly not without many a pang, as she slowly and hesitatingly did it, and directing the parcel to "Nugent Stafford, Esq.," she secretly gave it to her devoted thrall, Pat O'Roorke, a clever and honest boy, to convey it to that gentleman at the Astor House. Pat returned with the information, that there was no such gentleman there, and Fanny, without having any suspicion of foul play, concluded he was out of town. She hid the parcel from her aunt's eye, thinking it would uselessly disturb her, and still resolving to return it at the first opportunity. She had thus far obeyed her conscience, and it "sat lightly on its throne." Two years glided away. Fanny's beauty, instead of passing with her childhood, had become so brilliant, that it could not be unobserved. She shunned the street where the vultures that are abroad for prey, seeing she was young, and ascertaining that she was unprotected, had more than once beset her. A mine had long been working under her feet. The dreary companionship of the petulant old woman became every day more wearisome to her; still, she was gentle and patient, and for many a heavy month, endured resolutely a life that grew sadder and sadder, as she contrasted it with the world of beauty, indulgence and love that had been painted to her excited imagination. For the last six months, her aunt had been paralytic, moving from her bed to her chair with difficulty, supported by Fanny, whose slight figure tottered under the superincumbent weight of the massive old woman. Her faculties had decayed one after another; still the paramount affection of her being remained; the last lingering of daylight on the darkening night. She fancied herself still capable of earning their daily sustenance, and hour after hour, she would move the only arm she could move, as if she were sewing, and at evening give the same garment, on which she had thus cheated herself for months, to Fanny, and falter out, "take it to Ray's, dear, and bring the pay." Fanny favoured the illusion, took the garment, and always brought the pay. The O'Roorke's were still tenants of a room below, and since the old woman's illness, Fanny had often accepted the kind offers of their services. Ellen went on her errands, and Pat brought up her wood and water, and whenever she had occasion to go out (and such occasions recently came often, and lasted long,) Mrs. O'Roorke would bring her baby, to tend in the "ould lady's room." Though Fanny, without any visible means of subsistence, was supplied with every comfort she could desire for her aunt or herself, Mrs. O'Roorke, from stupidity or humanity, or a marvellous want of curiosity, asked no questions. On some points, she certainly was not blind. One day Mrs. Hyat, after an ill turn, had fallen asleep, Mrs. O'Roorke was sitting by her, and Fanny appeared deeply engaged in reading. Ellen O'Roorke looked at the volume, and exclaimed— "Why, your book, Fanny, is bottom side up." Fanny burst into tears, and flung it from her. "God help the child, what is it!" said Mrs. O'Roorke; "take the baby down stairs," she added to Ellen, "and stay by it till I come. Now Fanny, darlant, spake out; what vexes you. The mother that bore you is not more tinder to you than Biddy O'Roorke, and have not I seen your eyes this three months always unquiet-like, and red too, and your cheek getting paler and paler." Fanny buried her face in the bed-clothes. "Ah, honey, dear, don't fret so; it's not to vex you, I'm speaking; the words have been burning on my tongue this six weeks, but the ould lady jealoused us; and though I am old enough to be your mother, or grandmother for that, you looked so sweet and innocent-like, I was afeard to spake my thought." "Who dares to say I am not innocent ?" said Fanny, raising her head, and flinging back her curls from her burning cheeks and glowing eyes. "Not I, darlant—not I; it's the desaver, that's the guilty one, and not the poor child that's desaved. Now, open your heart to me; the tongue shall rot out of me before I tell a word you spake." "I have no word to speak," said Fanny, in a changed and faltering voice, and the bed trembled with the ague that shook her. At this moment, Mrs. Hyat threw her arm out of bed, opened her eyes, and for the first time in many days, looked about her intelligently, and spoke distinctly, "Fanny." [18]Fanny sprang to her side, and Mrs. O'Roorke instinctively moved round to the head of the bed, where she could not be seen. "Fanny," continued the old woman, slowly, but with perfect distinctness, "I am going fast, but you will follow soon—you will, dear. Be patient, be good." The blood coloured again her faded and withered cheek as she spoke, and mounting to her brain, gave her a momentary vigour. "Trust in God, Fanny—trust in God, and not in man. I go, but I do not leave you alone, Fanny—not alone—alone— alone." The utterance grew fainter and fainter, a slight convulsion passed over her whole frame, and her features were still and fixed. Fanny gazed in silent fear and horror. Her eye turned from her aunt to Mrs. O'Roorke with that question she could not utter. The honest woman said nothing, but she gently closed the staring, vacant eyes. "Oh then she is dead!" cried Fanny, throwing herself on the bed in a paroxysm of grief. "My last friend; oh! I am alone—alone! God has left me—I have left him. I deceived her. Oh dear—oh dear!" In vain Mrs. O'Roorke tried to calm and comfort her. She wept till she fell asleep from utter exhaustion. Nature did the kind work it does so well to elastic youth, and she awoke in the morning calm, strengthened and refreshed. She seemed, as Mrs. O'Roorke said, changed from a helpless girl to a woman. She sent for her aunt's clergyman, and by his intervention, and the aid of an undertaker, she made provision for burying her beside her husband and children, and followed by the clergyman, she followed her true friend to the grave; and returned to her desolate apartment, with that last word ringing in her ears; " alone—alone—alone." She paid the charges of the funeral; those charges that always come, a sordid and vexing element, with the bereavements of the poor; and late the following evening, Mrs. O'Roorke hearing, as she fancied, a footstep descending the stair, and soon after a carriage rolling away, mounted Fanny’s room to verify or dismiss her suspicions. There was no answer to her knock; the door was not locked—she opened it—a lamp was burning on the table, and a letter, the wafer yet wet, lying by it. "Ellen," she called. Ellen came. "Who is this letter for, Ellen?" "Why for you, mother, and Fanny's writing." "Read it, Ellen; she knows I cannot read, and if there's e'er a secret in it, keep it as if it were your own." Ellen read—"Mrs. O'Roorke,—You have been a kind friend to me, and I thank you, and give you, in token of my gratitude, all that I have in this room. My clothes please give to Ellen, and the purse with the two dollars, in the corner of the drawer, to Pat, with many thanks from me, "Ever your grateful friend, "FANNY MCDERMOT." "The dear darlant! But faith, Ellen, that's not the whole of it; see if there's never a little something of a sacret shoved in betwixt the other words?" "Ne'er a syllable, mother." "Ne'er a what, child? t'was a sacret I asked for." "You've got the whole, mother, every word." "Sure it's not of myself I'm thinking, but the time may come, when she'll wish for as rough a friend as I am. God help her and guide her, poor child!" It was some time before Ellen clearly apprehended that Fanny was gone from them, probably for ever, and it was some time longer before these generous creatures could bear to consider themselves in any way gainers by her departure. They turned the key of Fanny's door, and went to their own room—Ellen to brood over what seemed to her an insolvable mystery, and her mother, to guess and fear. Fifteen months had now passed away since Fanny had looked out from her joyless home in Houston street, to an existence bright with promised love and pleasure. She had seen "The distant gates of Eden gleam, And did not dream it was a dream." Our readers must now follow her to an isolated house, in the upper part of the city. There she had two apartments, furnished with more finery than elegance, or even neatness. The rose-coloured curtains were faded, the gilded furniture tarnished, and from the vases of faded artificial flowers, Fanny's sickening thoughts had of late often turned to the white jessamine and rose, that, types of her purity then, once blossomed in her Aunt Sara's window. Fanny was not the first tenant of these apartments, which, with others in the same house, were kept furnished and supplied by a certain Mrs. Tilden, who, herself occupied the basement rooms. Fanny, now by courtesy, bearing the name of Mrs. Stafford, was but little more than seventeen, just on the threshold of life! That fountain of love which has power to make the wilderness blossom, to fill the desert places of life with flowers and fruits, had been poisoned, and there was no more health in it. The eye, which should have been just opening to the loveliest visions of youth, was dull, and heavily bent, while tear after tear dropped from it, on a sleeping infant, some five months on its pilgrimage "between the cradle and the grave." The beautiful form of Fanny's features remained, but the life of beauty was gone, her once brilliant cheek was pale, and her whole figure shrunken. Health, self-respect, cheerfulness, even hope, the angel of life, were driven away for ever; and memory, so bright and blessed to goodness, bore but a bitter chalice to poor Fanny's lips. She sat, statue-like, till she started at a footstep approach[19]ing the door. A slovenly servant-girl entered, in a pert and noisy manner, that expressed the absence of all deference, and took from a handkerchief, in which it was wrapped, a letter, addressed to "Nugent Stafford," and said—, "I've been to the Astor House, and the American, and the City Hotel, and all them boarding-houses down town, and there's no such person there and nowhere else, I expect." "What do you mean, Caroline?" "Oh, nothing, only them as hangs out false colours must expect others to do the same by them. I suppose, then, no more a Mr. Stafford than a Mrs. Stafford." "Hush, my baby," said Fanny to the infant, stirred by her tremor. "I want to have my wages paid to-day," continued Caroline, "as I am expecting to leave." Fanny took out her purse and paid the girl's demand. Caroline eyed it narrowly; there were but a few shillings left in it, and she changed the assault she had meditated, from the purse to a richer spoil. "It's always rulable," she said, "when a girl lives in such a house as this, and serves the like of you, that she shall have extra pay, for risking character and so forth. I see your purse is rather consumptive, and I am willing to take up with that green silk gown, spot with pink, and trimmed with gimp." "Oh hush, my baby!" cried Fanny to the child, who, opening her eyes on the distressed countenance of her mother, was crying as even such young children will, from the instinct of sympathy. "The gown hangs in the closet," she replied, with a steady voice; "take it, and go." Caroline took it, and while she was deliberately folding it, she said, half consolingly, half impertinently—, "It an't worth while grieving for nothing in this world, for it's a kind of confused place. Why, it always comes to this sooner or later. Your fine gentleman likes variety. You'll be as handsome as ever again if you'll leave off sighing and crying." "Leave me, pray leave me," cried Fanny; and when Caroline shut the door, she threw herself on the bed with her baby, saying amidst tears and shiverings, "oh, has it come to this—deserted—lost—am I such a thing that I cannot even answer that cruel bad girl? Oh God, have mercy! No. He will not hear, for I only come to him when I have none other to go to. Oh. hush, my baby. I wish we were both in the grave together. Come, now, hush." She wiped away her tears, and catching up the child, walked, half distracted, up and down the room, attempting to smile and play to it, and the poor little thing cried and smiled alternately. The following are some extracts from the hapless letter which was lying on the table. "Oh, Nugent Stafford, am I never, never to see you again! It is two months since you were here, two months—it seems two years, and yet when you were last here, and spoke those icy, cruel, insulting words, I thought it would be better never to see you again than to see you so. But come once more, and tell me if I deserved them from you. "Remember, I was thirteen years old, an innocent, loving child—loving, but with little to love, when you first stole my heart. Did you then mean—God knows—you know—I don't. did you plot it then, to steal away my innocence, when I should be no longer a child? You say you never promised to marry me, and that I knew what was before me. No, you never said one word of marrying me, but did you not swear to love and cherish me so long as you lived? Did you not say that I did not love you half as well as you loved me, and again and again reproach me with it. Were you not angry—so angry as to frighten me, because I would not desert my dear, good, old, faithful aunt, to go with you?" " And how have I loved you? I have given up my innocence for you, my good name, and the favour of God. I have loved only you—never have had a thought beyond you. Do married wives love better than this? In those days when you seemed to think nothing too good for me, when every day you brought me something new, I cared only for you. I wore only the fine things to please you; and truly now I hate to look on them, for they were, in your eyes, the price of what I never sold, but gave. "But for my poor baby, I would not send to you again; for her I will do any thing but sin. Mrs. Tilden has twice told me I must leave this house. Six months rent is due. I have ten dollars in my purse. Tell me where I am to go? What am I to do? I would not stay here if I could—the house has become hateful to me. I cannot bear the looks of Mrs. Tilden and Caroline—I cannot endure to have them touch my baby, for it seems to me as if their touch to my little innocent child were like a foul thing on an opening rose-bud. The very sound of their voices disgusts and frightens me—oh! it was not human to put me among such creatures. If you have deserted me, I will earn food, if I can, to keep my baby alive—If I cannot earn, I will beg, but I will live no longer among these bad people—I had rather perish with my baby in the street. Oh, Mr. Stafford, how could you have the heart to put me here—and will you not now give me a decent home?" There was much more in the letter than we have cited, but it was all of the same tenor, and all showed plainly, that though betrayed and deserted, poor Fanny was not corrupted. Bold and hardened, indeed, must have been that human creature who could have cast the first stone at her. For some months after Stafford took her under his protection, (the protection the wolf affords the lamb,) he was passionately devoted to her. He made her world, and made it bright with such excess of light, that she was dazzled, and her moral sense overpowered. There was no true colouring or proportion to her perception; she was like one who, having imprudently gazed at the sun, sees every object for a time in false and fan[20]tastic colouring. But these halos faded by degrees to blackness; and so, as Fanny recovered from the bewilderment of passion, the light became shadow—dark, immovable shadow. She lost her gaiety, and no twilight of cheerfulness succeeded to it. The birth of her child recalled her to herself—the innocent creature was God's minister to her soul—her pure love for it made impure love hateful to her. She became serious, and then sad, and very wearisome to Stafford. He was accustomed to calling forth the blandishments of art. Fanny had no art. Her beauty was an accident, independent of herself. The pure, unappreciable treasure of her immeasurable love she gave him, and for this there is no exchange but faithful pure love—so her drafts fell on an empty treasury. Passion consumes, sensuality rusts out the divine quality of love. Fanny's character was simple and true—elemental. She had little versatility, and nothing of the variety that comes from cultivation and observation of the world, whose brief time in it had been passed between her school and Dame Hyat's room, in Houston street! Stafford was extremely well read in certain departments of romantic literature. He had a standing order with a Paris publisher for such books as George Sand, Paul de Kock, and all their tribe produce. But this was a terra incognita to Fanny. Her reading was confined to the Bible, and the tracts left at her aunt's door. He delighted in those muses who have come down from the holy mount of inspiration and sacrificed to impure gods. Poetry, beyond that of her aunt's hymn-book, was unknown to Fanny, and when Stafford brought her Beppa, and Don Juan, she understood but little of them, and what she understood, she loathed. Stafford loved music. It was to him the natural language and fittest excitement of passion, and poor Fanny had no skill in this divine art beyond a song for her baby. He gave her lascivious engravings; she burst into tears at the sight of them, and would not be moved by his diabolical laugh and derision to look a second time at them. The natural dissimilarity and opposition between them came soon to be felt by both. He was ready to cast her—no matter where—as a burden from him, and she had already turned back, to walk through the fires her sin had kindled to the bosom of infinite love and compassion. Stafford's vices were expensive, and, like most idle and dissipated young men of fortune, he soon found his expenditures exceeding his income. He had no thought of sacrificing his vices to his wants, but only the objects of them. He had of late felt his mode of life to be so vexatious and burdensome, that he resolved on reforming it, or rather, on reducing his pleasures, by marrying a young woman whose large fortunes would be a relief to him, whose beauty and elegance would adorn his establishment, and whose character would fill up certain awkward blanks in his own. A person so gifted, and attainable, as he flattered himself, he had discovered in Augusta Emly. Miss Emly's mother was a leading woman of fashion in the city, and she had received his first demonstrations with unequivocal indications of favour. He deliberately determined to leave Fanny, as he had done others, to shift for herself, quieting his conscience—it was easily pacified—with the reflection that he left her rather better off than he found her. As if simplicity, contentment, and a good name, were marketable articles, to be trafficked away for a few jewels, laces and silks. (To be concluded.) CHAPTER II. [75]FANNY MCDERMOT might have lain down and died in the extremity of her despair at finding herself finally deserted, or, in her self-condemnation she might have done violence to her life; but her child was God's argument to reason, patience, calmness, and exertion. She sat herself to consider what could be done. In all this great city, Mrs. O'Roorke was her only acquaintance, and though poor and ignorant, she was, too, her friend, and Fanny was in a strait to know the worth of that word friend. "She can, perhaps, tell me where to find employment," thought Fanny; "and certainly she will be kind to me." And to her she determined to go. She laid aside all her fine clothes, which were now unfit for her, and had become disgusting to her, and put on a gingham dressing-gown, and over it a black and white plaid cloak, which, with a neat straw bonnet, (her aunt's last gifts,) seemed, as she looked at herself in them, in some degree to restore her self-respect, "Dear, honest old friends," she exclaimed, "would that I had never laid you aside!" It was with a different feeling that she took up and laid down, one after another, the pretty frocks she had delicately made and daintily trimmed for her baby. "She looks so pretty in them," she thought; "and I am sure there is no sin in her looking pretty." But after a little shrinking, she dressed the baby in a cotton night-gown, and took off her coral necklace, bracelets and bells, and she then wrapped her warmly in shawls, left the house, and, after walking two squares, she reached a rail-road car. There were several persons in the car when she entered, and, as usual, they turned their eyes on the new-comer, but not, as usual, turned them away again. Those exquisite features arrested the dullest eye, and there was something in the depth of expression on that young face to awaken interest in the dullest soul. One man touched his neighbour, who was absorbed in his newspaper, and directed his eyes to Fanny. Two young women interchanged expressions of wonder and curiosity with their eyes fixed on her. A good little boy, feeling an instinctive sympathy with something, he knew not what, expressed it by offering her some pea-nuts, and when she looked up to thank him, she became, for the first time, conscious of the general gaze; and thankful she was, when, at the intersection of Houston street, the car stopped to let her out. "Have a care," said a Quaker woman at her side, as she rose; "thee art young, child, to be trusted with a baby." Fanny, overcome with emotion and fatigue—for it was long since she walked out—was ready to sink, when, after having walked nearly a mile down Houston street, she came to her former home. The O'Roorke's were not there. "They had moved many months since," her informer said, "down into Broome street, near the North River." "Was it far?" Fanny asked. "A tedious way." "Might she come in and rest herself?" "Indeed was she welcome; and a shame was it for any lady to send such a delicate child out with a baby in her arms." And when Fanny came in and saw the stairs she had so often in her childhood trodden, the tears started from her eyes, and when her baby waked and would not be quieted without food from her breast, she perceived the women exchanging significant looks and nods, and overcome by weakness and a gush of emotion, she burst into hysterical sobbings. "Poor young crater—poor young crater! God help you!" exclaimed the woman, with a true Irish gush of feeling; "and what is't you're wanting? Here's a drink of milk; take it, honey dear; it will strengthen you better than whiskey. We've done with that, thank God and Father Matthew." Fanny made a violent effort, calmed herself, drank the milk, and asked if a cab could not be got for her. There was one passing, and, at the next instant she was in it, and driving to Broome street. She found the house, but the O'Roorkes had moved; and in another and distant quarter of the city she found the second dwelling to which she was directed. Again they had moved, and whither no one could tell; and feeling as if the last plank had gone from under her feet, she returned to her home. Home! —alas, that sacred word had now no meaning to poor Fanny. She had scarcely entered her room and thrown herself on the sofa with her baby, when Mrs. Tilden, her remarkably red-faced landlady, glanced in and said— "Are you back? I did not expect you again." "Not expect me? What do you mean?" "Why, it's customary for some kind of folks you know, when they lose one husband, to take another." Fanny looked up; a sickening feeling came over her; the words she would have answered died away on her lips. "I suppose you are sensible," continued Mrs. Tilden, "that honest folks must be paid just debts, [76]and as there's no finding that Mr. Stafford of yours, I have 'strained upon your wearing apparel, that being answerable for rent as well as furniture; and all the furniture belonging to me already, except the sofa and the Psyche, and the vases and the dressing-case—them things will help out, but the whole quarter's rent and eight days over is due." Fanny said nothing. "I am never ungenerous to nobody, so I have taken out enough baby-linen to serve you, and a change for yourself—the rest is under my lock and key, and I shall keep it, maybe, a month or more before I sell it; and if Mr. Stafford pays me in that time—and I don't misdoubt he will, sooner or later; but them kind of fine gentlemen are slow in paying, you know: but I don't question his honor; he has always been highly honourable to him; he is a real gentleman, there's no mistake—as I was saying, as soon as he pays me you shall have your things—or—or—the worth of them again; you shall have it all, bating some little reward for my trouble—the Psyche, or dressing-case, or so." "Well?" said Fanny, perceiving Mrs. Tilden had paused for an answer. "Well, that's all—only, if you and I can agree, you can stay down stairs as a boarder till ——" "No, not a moment—only let me remain in this room to-night, and to-morrow I will try to find a service-place." "A service-place! My service to you," said Mrs. Tilden, with a sort of ogress-grin. "Oh, don't look so at me. Mrs. Tilden, do you think that, after all, I have any pride?" "Pride, pride! Why, you foolish child, don't you know that, ' after all, ' as you call it, there is but one kind of service left for you? Ladies won't take the like of us into their houses." "The like of us," thought Fanny, and shuddered. "They are dreadful particular about any little false step of one of their own sex. If you but dampen the soles of your feet, it is as bad as if you were up to your neck in the mire; but men may plunge in over their head and ears, and they are just as welcome to their houses and as good husbands for their daughters as your Josephs——" "Is it so? Can it be? I do not know, then, what will become of me. But may I stay here to-night?" "Why, yes; but you must be off pretty early, for there's a lady coming to look at the rooms at ten." Poor Fanny, left alone, sank on her knees, with one arm round her sleeping baby, and sent out from her penitent and humble heart a cry for forgiveness and pity, that we doubt not was heard by Him whose compassions fail not. She then threw herself on the bed and fell asleep. Thank God, no degree of misery can drive sleep away from a wearied, young creature. The next morning she laid her plans, and strengthening her good resolutions by prayer, she went forth feeling a new strength; and having paid the fee with two of the only four shillings left to her* to the master of an intelligence office, who stared curiously at her, she received references to three ladies—"the very first-rate of places, all," as the man assured her. She first went to a lady who wanted a wet-nurse as a supplement to her own scanty supplies. She met a young lady in the hall, whom she heard say to her mother, "Oh, mamma! such a pretty young creature has come for wet-nurse to sis—do take her." Fanny was called in, and having given satisfactory answers as to her supplies, she was asked for references. She immediately did what she had before purposed, and confessing she had no references to give, told truly so much of her sad story as explained her present position. The lady heard her through, possibly not believing a word she said but the fact of her transgression; and when she had finished, she said to her—"Did you really expect that such a person as you could get a place in a respectable family?" She rung the bell, and added coolly, "Thomas, show this person out. This is the last time I go to an intelligence office." Poor Fanny sighed as she left the door, but pressing her baby to her bosom, she said, softly—"We'll not be discouraged with one failure, will we, baby?" The child smiled on her, and she went on with a lighter step. Her next application was to a milliner, whom the master of the intelligence-office had told her was a "very strict, religious lady, who says she is very particular about the reputation of her girls." "It is close by," thought Fanny; "I have but little hope, but I must save my steps, and I will go to her." Again, bravely and simply she told the truth. The milliner heard her with raised brows. "I am sorry for you, if you tell the truth, young woman," she said. "I know this city is a dreadful place for unprincipled girls, and I make it a rule never to take any such into my establishment. I hope you do mean to reform, I advise you to apply to the Magdalen Society." Again Fanny went on. She had now to go from William street to the upper part of the city, and precious as her sixpences had become, she felt that it was utterly impossible for her to walk, and on reaching Broadway, she got into an omnibus, and was soon at the door of Mrs. Emly’s very elegant house in Waverly Place, and was shown into a room where that lady was sitting in her peignior, looking over, with her sister, some dresses that were to be trimmed for a party the following evening. A very elegant young woman, who seemed to have been just designing an unfinished head lying on a table before her, was reading. [77] "A sempstress, ma'am, from the intelligence office," said the servant, announcing her. "A sempstress, with a child!" exclaimed Mrs. Emly. The young lady looked up at Fanny as she entered; she was struck with her beauty, her excessive delicacy, and with the gushing of the blood to her pale cheek at Mrs. Emly’s exclamation. She rose, handed Fanny a chair, and saying most kindly, ‘‘ What a very pretty child, mamma,” she offered to take it. The little creature stretched out its little hands in obedience to the magnetic influence of youth, beauty, and a voice most expressive of cheerful kindness. If, as is sometimes said, a voice may be “full of tears,” this lovely young creature’s was full of smiles. Fanny looked up most gratefully, as the young lady took her infant, saying to her— "You must be very tired. "Is it not very tiresome carrying a baby ?" "The baby does not seem to tire me; but I am not very strong,” replied Fanny, wiping away the tears that were gathering at the gentleness addressed to her. "You do not look strong nor well,’ said the young lady, and she poured out a glass of wine and water, and insisted on Fanny taking that and some more solid refreshment from the waiter, on which a servant had just served lunch. It was well for poor Fanny that she accepted the hospitality, for she needed to be fortified for what followed. Fanny had been so thoroughly drilled in sewing by her aunt, who, it may be remembered, was a tailoress, that she answered very confidently as to her abilities as a sempstress. She should be content, she said, with any wages, or no wages for the present, if Mrs. Emly would put up with the inconvenience of her child. "Oh, the child will not be in my way," said Mrs. Emly; "you will be up in the attic, and I sha’n’t hear it—so, if you will give me a satisfactory reference, I will try you." "I have never lived out," answered Fanny. Discouraged by her former rebuffs, she shrunk from a direct communication of her position. "Well, where does your mother live? If I find you have decent parents, that will be enough. "My parents died—long ago. I lived with my aunt, and she is dead, and I—I am—friendless." "Aha!" said Mrs. Emly, with an emphatic nod of her head to her sister, who screwed up her mouth and nodded back again. The young lady walked up to her mother, and said, in a low voice, and with an imploring look— "Mamma, for Heaven's sake don't say any more to her; I am sure she is good." "Ridiculous, Augusta; you know nothing about it,” replied Mrs. Emly, aloud; and turning to Fanny, she said—“How comes it that you are friendless and alone in the world? Have you not a husband?" "No," answered Fanny, some little spirit mounting with her mounting colour; "I never had a husband, I have been betrayed and forsaken. I am no farther guilty—no more innocent." "Quite enough—quite enough. I can't, of course, take any such person into my house." "Then my baby and I must die, for nobody will take us in," said Fanny, bursting into tears, and gathering her cloak around her. "Oh, mamma," said Augusta Emly, "for pity's sake, let her stay. I will answer for her." "Pshaw! Augusta, how very absurd you are. No respectable lady would take a person of that kind into her house." "Then what is their respectability worth, mamma, if it cannot give help to a weak fellow-creature?" "Miss Augusta," said a servant, opening the door, "Mr. Sydney is below." "Tell Mr. Sydney I am engaged, Daniel." "Augusta," said her mother, "you are not going to send away Russel Sydney in that nonchalant manner. What do you mean? Give the child to its mother and go down; you have such a beautiful glow on your cheek.” It was a beautiful glow—the glow of indignant humanity. "I cannot, mamma. Daniel, say I am engaged." In another instant, Daniel returned with a request from Mr. Sydney that Miss Emly would ride with him the following day—he had purchased a charming lady’s horse and begged she would try it. "Oh, what shall I say, mamma? I cannot go." Mrs. Emly, without replying to Augusta, opened the door, and brushing by Fanny, who had risen to go, she called from the head of the stairs—‘‘ Mr. Sydney, excuse me; I am in my peignior, and cannot come down. Will you come to the staircase? We are so up to our eyes arranging with the dressmaker for Mrs. Davis’s, that you must excuse Augusta this morning. She is a little timid since her accident about riding. Are you sure of your horse?" "Perfectly. Lord bless me, would I ask Miss Emly if I were not?" At the first sound of the responding voice, Fanny sprang forward, and then staggering back again, leaned against the door. "Oh! very well, then; she will be ready for you at twelve. Good morning." Good morning," was answered, and Mrs. Emly turned towards her apartment, elated with having settled the matter according to her own wishes. Fanny grasped her arms. "For God's sake, tell me," she said, in a voice scarcely audible, "where does Mr. Sydney live? He it is that has deserted me. Where can I find him?" Mrs. Emly's spirit quailed before Fanny's earnestness—strong, apparent truth; but after a single moment's hesitation, she discreetly said— "I don't know; he lives somewhere at lodgings. You have probably mistaken the person." [78] "Mistaken—oh Heaven!" exclaimed Fanny, and glided down stairs as if there were wings to her feet, but before she could reach the pavement, Sydney had mounted into his very handsome new phaeton, and was driving proudly up the street, gallantly bowing to some ladies at their balcony-windows, and poor Fanny crept on, she knew not why nor whither. "What did that poor girl say to you, mamma? Did she mention Sydney's name?" asked Augusta Emly. "Sydney's name? Why should she mention it? I did not hear her. She might—she muttered something. She is a little beside herself, I think." "Do you, mamma?" There could not be a stranger contrast than Miss Emly's earnest tone and her mother's flippant one. "Poor—poor girl, how very beautiful she is! She reminded me of Ophelia. She has her senses now, but with that deep dejectedness, I should not wonder if she soon lost them. May God be more merciful to her than we have been." "But, mamma, how could you say to Russel Sydney that I would ride with him to-morrow?" "Why, are you going to stay at home and sigh over this lost damsel? You will ride with Sydney unless you prefer to hurt my feelings and displease me seriously." "That I should be very sorry to do, but I cannot ride with Mr. Sydney." "Cannot! And why?" "How can you ask, mamma? How can you wish me to associate intimately with the sort of man he is?" "What windmills are you fighting now, Augusta? For a sensible girl, you are the silliest I ever met with. What do you mean?" "You surely know what I mean, mamma! You know that Russel Sydney has been one of the most dissipated men in the city." "So have forty other men been who are very good husbands now, or whose wives are too prudent to make a fuss about it if they are not. Really, Augusta, I do not think it very creditable to a young lady to be seeking information of this sort about young men." "I have not sought it. I never dreamed,"—Augusta looked steadfastly in her mother’s face—"that my mother would introduce a man to me who, as we have both heard, on good authority, has kept a mistress since he was eighteen, and changed her as often as suited his caprice;—but having heard this, I surely will not disregard it." "You are unjust, my dear. Sydney has entirely given up all this sort of thing—he assured me he had." "And you relyingly took his assurance, mamma, and would not listen for one moment to that poor penitent girl's assurance." "Oh that's quite a different thing." "I see no difference, excepting that the one is the strong party, the other the weak—the one the betrayer, the other the betrayed. The fact of the girl seeking honest employment is prima facie evidence in favour of her truth." "You talk absurdly, Augusta; and, to speak plainly, I do not think it over-delicate"—continued Mrs. Emly, with a pharisaical curl of her lip—"for an unmarried lady of nineteen to be discussing subjects of this nature—though it may be quite often your Aunt Emily’s fashion to do so." "It is very much my Aunt Emily's fashion to strip off the husk and grasp the kernel—to throw away the world’s current counterfeit and keep the real gold. Probably she would think it far more indelicate to receive a notoriously licentious man into her society than to express her opinion of his vices; and I know she thinks it not only indelicate, but irrational and unchristian, to tolerate certain vices in men for which you proscribe and hunt down women.” "Mercy on us, what an oration for nothing! Truly, you and your Aunt Emily, with your country-evening morals, are very competent judges of town society. It seems to my poor common-sense perceptions, that you are rather a partial distributor of your charities. You are quite willing to receive this equivocal young woman with her confessedly illegitimate child, and you would doubly bar and bolt the door against a very charming young man who has sown his wild oats." "Oh, surely, mamma, this is not the true state of the case. The one party is a man of fashion, received and current, the other a poor young outcast, who seems more sinned against than sinning—probably the victim of some such ‘charming young man’ as Sydney. As women, as professed followers of Christ, my dear mother, ought we not to help her out of the pit into which she has fallen? May we not guard her from future danger and misery?" Mrs. Emly stood for a moment, silent and rebuked, before the gentle earnestness of her daughter; but after a moment she rallied, and said, with a forced laugh—"You had best join the Magdalen Society at once, Augusta; they will give you plenty of this fancy-missionary work to do. I confess it is not quite to my taste." Augusta made no reply; she was too much pained by her mother's levity, and she took refuge in writing the incidents of the morning to that "Aunt Emily," in whose pure atmosphere she had been reared. Sickening with fatigue and disappointment, Fanny, helped on her way by an omnibus, returned to the intelligence-office, where she had left her bundle. The official gentleman there, on hearing her failure, said—"Well, it’s no fault of mine—you can’t expect a good place without a good reference." "Oh, I expect nothing," replied Fanny; "I hope for nothing but that my baby and I may die soon, if it please God!" "I am sorry for you, I declare I am," said the man, who, though his sensibility was pretty much [79] worn away by daily attention, could not look without pity upon this pale, beautiful young creature, humble and gentle, and trembling in every fibre with exhaustion and despair. "You are tired out," he said, "and your baby wants taking care of. There’s a decent lodging-house in the next street, number 55, where you may get a night’s lodging for a shilling. To-morrow morning you’ll feel better—the world will look brighter after a night’s sleep. Come back to me in the morning, and I will give you some more chances. I won’t go according to rule with you." Fanny thanked him, kissed her baby, and again, with trembling, wavering steps, went forth. She had but just turned the corner, when, overcome by faintness, she sat down on a door-step. As she did so, a woman, coming from the pump, turned to go down into the area of a basement-room. She rested her pail on the step, and cast her eye inquisitively at Fanny. "God save us!" she cried. "Fanny McDermot, darlant, I’ve found you at last—just as I expected. God punish them that’s wronged you! Can’t you spake to me, darlant? Don’t you know Biddy O’Roorke?" "Oh yes," replied Fanny, faintly; "my only friend in this world. Indeed, I do know you." "And, indeed—and, indeed, you’re welcome as if you were my own to every thing I have in the world. Rise up, my darlant; give me the babby. God’s pity on it, poor bird!” and taking the infant in one arm, and supporting and nearly carrying the mother with the other, she conducted Fanny down the steps and laid her on her bed. With discreet and delicate kindness she abstained, for the present, from further inquiries, and contented herself with nursing the baby, and now and then an irrepressible overflow of her heart in expression of pity and love to Fanny, and indignation and wrath against "bad craters, that had neither soul nor heart nor feelings, nor any such thing in them!" In the course of the day, Fanny so far recovered as to tell her friend her short, sad story, and to learn that affairs had mended with the O’Roorke’s; that the drunken husband was dead, Pat and Ellen were out at service, and that the good mother, with a little help from them, and by selling apples and now and then a windfall, got bread for herself and three little, noisy, thriving children. The scantiness of her larder was only betrayed by her repeated assurances to Fanny that she had "plenty—plenty, and to spare—oceans, oceans;? and when Fanny, the next morning, manifested her intention of going out again to seek a place, she said—"Na—na, my darlant; it’s not that ye shall be after. Is not the bit-place big enough for us all? It’s but little ye’re wanting to ate. Wait, any way, till yee’s stronger and the babby is big enough to wane, and lave it here to play with Anny and Peggy." Fanny looked round upon the "bit-place," and it must be confessed that she sickened at the thought of living in it, even with the sunny kindness of its inmates, or leaving her little snow-drop of a baby there. The windows were dim with dirt; the floor was unwashen; a heap of kindlings were in one corner, potatoes in another, and coals under a bed none of the tidiest. Broken earthen and broken victuals stood on the table, and all contrasted too strongly with the glossy neatness of her aunt's apartment. Surely, Fanny was not fastidious. "Oh, no, Mrs. O’Roorke," she said, "I can never—never leave my baby. I am better; and you are so kind to me, I’Il wait till to-morrow." And she did wait another day, but no persuasion of Mrs. O’Roorke could induce her to leave the infant. She insisted that she did not feel its weight, and that "looking on it was all that gave her courage to go among strangers," and "that now she felt easier, knowing she had such a kind friend to come to at night." Finding Fanny resolved, Mrs. O’Roorke said—"Now, don’t be after telling them your misfortunes; just send them to me for your charackter. It’s ten to one they’ll not take the trouble to come; and if they do, I’ll satisfy them complately." "And how?" asked Fanny, with a faint smile. "Why, won't I be after telling ’em just the truth—how the good ould lady brought you up like a nun, out of sunshine and harm’s way; how you were always working with your needle, and quiet-like and dove-like; and how the ould lady doated on you, and that you were the best and beautifullest that ever crossed a door-sill." "But, oh, dear Mrs. O'Roorke, with all this, how will you ever come to the dreadful truth?" "And I'll not be after jist that. If they bother with questions, can’t I answer them civilly, Fanny McDermot? How will it harm a body in all the world just to be tould that yees married your cousin what died with consumption, or the like of that?" Fanny shook her head. "Now what's the use, Fanny McDermot," continued Mrs. O'Roorke, "of a tongue, if we can't serve a frind with it? Lave it all to me, darlant. You know I would not tell a lie to wrong one of God's craters. Would I be after giving you a charackter if you did not deserve it?" "I know how kind and good you are to me, Mrs. O’Roorke," said Fanny, "but I pray you to say nothing for me but the truth. I have asked God’s forgiveness and blessing on me and my baby, and we must try to earn it. Promise me, will you?" "Oh, be aisy, darlant, be aisy, and I’ll be after doing what you wish." She wrapped the baby in its blanket, carried it up the steps and put it in the mother’s arms. "There, God guide you, Fanny McDermot. The truth!" continued Mrs. O’Roorke, as her streaming eyes followed Fanny; "and what's truth good for but to serve the like of her that’s been wronged by a false-hearted villain, bad luck to him?" It would take a very nice casuist to analyze the national moral sense of good Mrs. O'Roorke. The unscrupulous flexibility of the Irish tongue is in [80] curious contrast with the truth of the Irish heart—a heart overflowing with enthusiasm, generosity, gratitude, and all the emotions belonging to the best truth of life. "I am thinking," said the master of the intelligence-office, as he was doling out two or three references to Fanny, to families residing in different and distant parts of the city, "I am thinking you don't know much of the world, young woman?" "I do not," replied Fanny, mournfully. "Well, then, I do; and I’ll give you a hint or two. It’s a world, child, that’s looking out pretty sharp for number one—where each shows their fairest side and looks all round their fellow creturs; where them that have the upper hand—you understand, them what employs others—thinks they have a right to require that they shall be honest and true and faithful, and so on to the end of the chapter, of what they call ‘good character;’ and not only that they be so, but that they have been so all their lives. The man that holds the purse, mind you, my dear, may snap his fingers, and be and do what he likes. Now, there can’t be friendship in this trade, so what are the weak party to do but to make fight the best way they can. But I see you don’t altogether take my ideas," he continued, perceiving Fanny was but half attentive, and replacing his spectacles, which he had taken off in beginning his lecture on the social system; “but you’ll see my meaning in the application. Now, ‘I’ve asked no questions and you’ve told no lies,’ as the saying is, but I know pretty much what’s come and gone by your beauty, by your cast down eye, with the tears standing on the eaves; by the lips that, though they are too pretty for any thing but smiles, look as if they would never smile again; by the—" "Oh, please, sir, give me the papers and let me go." "Wait—I have not come to it. I feel like a father to you, child—I do. Now, my advice is, hold up your head; you’ve as much right, and more, I can tell you, than many a mistress of a fine house. Look straight forward; speak cheery, and say you’re a widow." Fanny looked up, with a glance that came from a conscience yet void of offence; and he added, with a slight stammer— "Why should not you say so? You are left—and that is the main part of being a widow—left to provide for yourself and your young one; and that’s the sorrowfullest part of being one—and every body pities the widow and orphan. And I should like to have any body tell me which is most a widow, a woman whose husband is dead or you?—which the completest orphan, a child whose father lies under ground or yours?" Fanny stretched out her hand for the references and took them in silence, but when she reached the door, she turned and said, with a voice so sweet and penetrating that it was oil to the wounded vanity of the man—"I thank you, sir, for wishing to help us; but, baby," she added, mentally, straining her littie burden to her bosom, "we will be true—we will keep our vow to God, won’t we? He is merciful; Jesus was merciful, even to that poor woman that was brought before him by cruel men; and if nobody will take us in on earth, God may take us to Himself—and I think he will, soon." She walked on slowly and perseveringly, turning many streets, till she reached the first address to which she had been referred. There she was received and dismissed as she had been on the previous day, and she went to look for the next; but she soon began to feel sensations she had never felt before—a pain and giddiness in the head and general trembling. She dragged on a little way, and then sat down. Gradually, her mind became confused, and she determined to turn back at once and make the best of her way to Mrs. O’Roorke, but to her dismay, she could not remember the name of the street where she lived, nor that of the intelligence-office. "Oh, I am going mad," she thought, "and they will take my baby from me!" and making an effort to compose herself, she sat down on a door step, and to test her mind, she counted the panes in the windows opposite. "All is right yet," she thought, as she went steadily on and finished her task; "but why cannot I remember that name? Do you know," she asked, timidly, of a man who was passing, and who looked like one of those people who know every thing of the sort—"do you know any street beginning with Van?" "Bless me, yes—fifty. There's Vandam, and Vandewater; and——" "Oh, stop there—it's one of those. Are they near together?" "As near as east and west—one is one side of the city, and one the other." And he passed briskly on. Poor Fanny sat down, and repeated to herself the names till she was more at a loss than ever. The passers-by looked curiously at her, and two or three addressing insolent words to her, she could endure it no longer, and she resolved to go to Vandam street, hoping it might be the right one. Her head throbbed violently, and she felt that her lips were parched, and her pulse beating quick and hard. Her baby began to cry for food, and seeing some boards resting against a house, she crept under them to be sheltered from observation while she supplied her child's wants. There were two little girls there before her, eating merrily and voraciously from an alms-basket. "Oh, my baby," said Fanny, aloud, "I am afraid this is the last time you will ever find any milk in your mother’s breast." The little beggar-girls looked at her pitifully, and offered her bread and meat. "Oh, thank you," she said, "but I cannot eat. If you would only get me a drink of cold water." "Oh, that we can, as easy as not," said one of them; and fishing up a broken teacup from the bottom of her basket, she ran to a pump and filled [81]it—and again and again filled it, as Fanny drank it or emptied it on her burning, throbbing head. "It’s beginning to rain," said one of the girls, "and I guess we had all better go home. You look sick; we'll carry your baby for you if your home is our way." "My home! No, thank you; my home is not your way." The children went away, talking in a low voice, and feeling as they had never quite felt before. It was early in February, and the days, of course, yet very short. The weather had been soft and bright, but as the evening approached, the sky became clouded and a chilling rain began. Fanny crept out of her place of shelter, after most anxiously wrapping up her baby, and, at first, stimulated by the fever, she walked rapidly on. Now and then she sat down, where an arched doorway offered a shelter, and remained half oblivious till urged on again by her baby’s cries. It was eleven o'clock, when she was passing before a brilliantly-lighted house. There was music within, and a line of carriages without. A gentleman was at this moment alighting from his carriage. Fanny shrunk back and leaned against the area-railing till he should pass. He sprung quickly up the step to avoid the dropping eaves, and when in the doorway, turned to say, "Be punctual at twelve" Fanny looked up; the light from the bright gas lamps beside the door steamed in the speaker's face. "Oh, mercy, it is he!" she exclaimed, and darted forward and mounted the step. It was he, Sydney. He left the door ajar as he entered, and Fanny followed in; and as she entered, she saw Sydney turn the landing of the staircase. Above was the mingled din of voices and music. Fanny instinctively shrunk from proceeding. Through an open door she saw the ruddy glow of the fire in the ladies' cloak-room. It was vacant. "I might warm my poor baby there," she thought; "and it's possible,—it is possible I may speak with him when he comes down,"—and she obeyed the impulse to enter. Her reason was now too weak to aid her, or she would not have placed herself in a position so exposed to observation and suspicion. When she had entered she saw, to her great relief, a screen that divided a small portion of the room from the rest. She crept behind it, and seated herself on a cushion that had been placed there for the convenience of the ladies changing their shoes. "How very fast you are sleeping, my baby," she said; "and yet," she added, shivering herself, "how very cold you are!" and twining around it a velvet mantle that had fallen over the screen, she leaned her head against the wall, and, partly stupefied by the change to the chilling street to the warm apartment, and partly from exhaustion, she fell asleep. What a contrast was she in her silent, lonely desolation, with fever in her veins, and enveloped in her cold, drenched, dripping garments, to the gay young creatures above—thoughtless of any evil in life more serious than not having a partner for the next waltz! She a homeless, friendless wanderer; they passing from room to room amidst the rustling of satins and soft pressure of velvets, and floating of gossamer draperies, with the luxury of delicious music and an atmosphere of the costliest exotics, and tables preparing for them where Epicurus might have banqueted. And such contrasts, and more frightful, are there nightly in our city, separated, perhaps, by a wall, a street or a square; and knowing this, we sleep quietly in our beds, and spend our days in securing more comforts and planning more pleasures for ourselves— and, perhaps, complaining of our lot! More than an hour had passed away, when Fanny was awaked to imperfect consciousness by the murmuring of two female voices outside the screen. Two ladies stood there, in their cloaks, waiting. "How in the world," asked one, "did you contrive to make her waltz with him?" "By getting her into a dilemma. She could not refuse without rudeness to her hostess." "And so you made her ride with him yesterday. And so you hope to decoy her into an engagement with him?" "No—no. I merely mean to decoy her—if you choose that word—into an intimacy, and then I will leave them to make out the rest between them. He is very irresistible. Stamford Smith’s wife was over head and ears in love with him; and you know poor Ellen Craven made no secret of her attachment to him." "Why did she not marry him?" "Lord knows," replied the lady, shrugging her shoulders. "She did not play her cards well; and, I believe, the truth is, he has been a sad fellow." "Do you believe there was any truth in that girl's story yesterday?" "Very likely; pretty girls in her station are apt to go astray, you know. But here is Augusta. Come in, Mr. Sydney; there is no one here but us. Are you going so early?" "Yes. After seeing you to your carriage, I have no desire to stay." There was a slight movement behind the screen, but apparently not noticed by the parties outside. "Oh, Miss Emly, allow me," he said, dropping on his knee before Augusta, who, the dressing-maid not being at her post, was attempting to button her overshoe—"allow me?" "No, thank you; I always do these things for myself." "But I insist." "And I protest!" and Augusta Emly sprang behind the screen. Sydney, with a sort of playful gallantry, followed her. Between them both, the screen fell, and they all stood silent and aghast, as if the earth had opened before them. There still sat Fanny, beautiful as the most beautiful of Murillo's peasant mothers. The fever had left her cheek—it was as colourless as marble; her lips were red, her eyes [82]beaming with a supernatural light, and her dark hair hung in matted masses of ringlets to her waist. She cast one bewildered glance around her, and then fixing her eyes on Sydney, she sprang to him, and laid her hand on his arm, exclaiming, "Stafford! Stafford !" in a voice that vibrated on the ears of all those who heard her, long after it was silent forever. Mrs. Emly locked the door! Truly, the children of this world are wise in their generation. Sydney disengaged his arm, and said, in a scarcely audible voice—for his false words choked him as he uttered them—"Who do you take me for? The woman is mad!" "No—I am not mad yet; but—oh, my head, it aches so—it is so giddy. Feel how it beats, Stafford. Oh, don’t pull away your hand from me. How many times you have kissed these temples and the curls that hung over them, and talked about their beauty. What are they now? What will they soon be? You feel it throb, don’t you? Stafford, I am not going to blame you now; I have forgiven you—I have prayed to God to forgive you. Oh, how deadly pale you are now, Stafford. Now you feel for us. Now, look at our poor little child!" She uncovered the infant, and raised it more from stupor than sleep. The half-famished little thing uttered a feeble, sickly moan. "Oh, God—oh, God, she is dying! Is not she dying?" She grasped Emly’s arm. "Can’t something be done for her? I have killed her—I have killed my baby. It was you that were kind to us yesterday—yes, it was you. I don’t know where it was. Oh, my head—my head!" "For God's sake, mamma, let us take her home with us," cried Augusta, and she rushed to the door to look for her servant. As she opened it; voices and footsteps were heard descending the stairs. She heeded them not—her mother did. "Go now—go instantly, Sydney," she said. "Oh, no—no, do not go!" cried Fanny, attempting to grasp him—but he eluded her, and, unnoticed by them, passed through the throng of servants at the door, threw himself into the first hackney coach he saw, and was driven away. Fanny uttered one piercing shriek, looked wildly round her, and darting through the cluster of ladies pressing into the cloak-room, she passed, unobserved by her, behind Miss Emly, who stood, regardless of the pouring rain, on the door-step, ordering her coachman to drive nearer to the door. When she returned to the cloak-room, it was filled with ladies; and in the confusion of the shawling, there was much talk among them of the strange apparition that had glided out of the room as they entered. Mrs. Emly threw a cloak around her daughter. "Say nothing, Augusta," she whispered, imperatively; "they are both gone." "Gone together?" Mrs. Emly did not, or affected not to hear her. The next morning Miss Emly was twice summoned to breakfast before she appeared. She had passed a sleepless and wretched night, thinking of that helpless young sufferer, ruined by the sin, and, in her extreme misery, driven forth to the stormy elements by the pride of her fellow-creatures. There is not a sadder moment in life than that in which a young, hopeful, generous creature, discovers unsoundness, worldliness and heartlessness in those to whom nature has most closely bound her—than that, when, in the freedom of her own purity and love of goodness and faith in truth, she discovers the compromising selfishnesses, the vain shows, the sordid calculations, the conventional falsehood of the world. Happy for her, if, in misanthropic disgust, she does not turn away from it; happy if use does not bring her to stoop from her high position—most happy, if, like Him who came to the sick, she fulfil her mission and remain in the world, though not of it! Augusta went through the form of breakfast; and taking up the morning paper and passing her eye listlessly over it, her attention was fixed by the following paragraph:— "Committals at the Tombs.—Fanny McDermot, a young woman so calling herself, was taken up by a watchman during the violence of the storm, with a dead infant in her arms. A rich velvet mantle, lined with fur, was wrapped round the child. Nothing but moans could be extracted from the woman. She was committed for stealing the mantle. A jury of inquest is called to sit upon the child, which they have not yet been able to force from the mother’s arms." "Good Heavens, Augusta, what is the matter? Are you faint?" asked the mother. Augusta shook her head, and rang the bell, while she gave Mrs. Emly the paragraph to read. "Daniel," she said, to the servant who answered the bell, "go to Dr. Edmunds and ask him to come to me immediately. Stop, Daniel—ask Gray as you go along to send me a carriage directly." "What now, Miss Emly. Are you going to the tombs?" "Yes." "Not with my permission." "Without it then, ma’am, unless you bolt the doors upon me. I have sent to my cousin, and he will go with me. There is no impropriety and no Quixotism in my going, and I shall never be happy again if I do not go. Oh, my dear mother," she continued, bursting into tears, "I have suffered agonies this night, thinking of that poor young woman; but they are nothing—nothing to the misery of hearing you, last night, defend that bad man, and bring me reason upon reason why 'it was to be expected,' and 'what often happened,' and 'what no one thought of condemning a man for;' that he, loaded with God's good gifts, should make a prey and victim of a trusting, loving, defenceless woman, and she, therefore, should be cast out of the pale of humanity—turned from our [83] doors—driven forth to perish in the storm. Oh, it is monstrous!—monstrous!" Augusta was too strong for her mother. She did not oppose, but merely murmured, in a voice that did not reach her ear—"There does seem to be an inconsistency, but it appears different when one knows the world." The door of Fanny McDermot's cell was opened by the turnkey, and Miss Emly and her cousin, the physician, admitted. It was a room twice the size of those allotted to single occupants, and there were already two women of the most hardened character in it, besides a young girl, not sixteen, committed for infanticide. She, her eyes filled with tears, was bathing Fanny's head with cold water, while the women, looking like two furies, were accusing one another of having stolen from Fanny, the one a handkerchief, the other a ring. Fanny's dead infant was on her arm, while she, half raised on her elbow, bent over it. She had wrapped her cloak and the only blanket on the bed around it. "It is so cold," she said; "I have tried all night to warm it. It grows colder and colder." "Cannot this young woman be moved to a more decent apartment?" asked Miss Emly of the turnkey. Fanny looked up at the sound of her voice. "Oh, you have come—I thought you would," she said. "You will warm my baby, won't you?" "Yes—indeed I will. Let me take it." "Take it—away? No—I can’t. I shall never see her again. They tried to pull her away from me, but they could not—we grew together. Bring me a little warm milk for her. She has not sucked since yesterday morning, and then my milk was so hot, I think it scalded her. I am sure it did not agree with her." "Oh, pray," said Augusta, to the turnkey, who had replied to her inquiry, "that the next room was just vacated and could be made quite comfortable,"—"pray, procure a bed and blankets, and whatever will be of any use to her. I will pay you for all your expense and trouble." "Nothing can be of use," said the physician, whose fingers were on Fanny's pulse; "her heart is fluttering with its last beats." "Thank God!" murmured Augusta. "Put your hand on her head. Did you ever feel such heat?" "Oh, dear—dear; it was that dreadful heat she felt in all her mental misery last night." A quick step was heard along the passage; a sobbing voice addressed the turnkey, and in rushed Mrs. O’Roorke. She did not, as her people commonly do at the sight of a dying creature, set up a howl, but she sunk on her knees and pressed her hand to her lips as if to hold in the words that were leaping from her heart. Fanny looked at her for a moment in silence, then, with a faint smile on her quivering lips, she stretched her hand to her. "You have found me. I could not find you—I walked—and walked." She closed her eyes and sunk back on her pillow; her face became calmer, and when she again opened her eye it was more quiet. "Mrs. O'Roorke," she said, quite distinctly, directing her eyes to Augusta, "this lady believed me; tell her about me." "Oh, I will—I will—I will!" "Hush—not now. Come here—my baby is—dead. I——God is good—I forgive——, God— Heaven is love. My baby—yes God—is good.” In that unfailing goodness the mother and the child reposed forever. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Fanny McDermot Subject The topic of the resource Orphans, gender roles, virtue, hypocrisy, urban life Description An account of the resource A poor, innocent young woman is seduced and abandoned by an older, wealthy man in New York City. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Miss C. M. Sedgwick Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Godey’s Lady’s Book, edited by Sarah Josepha Hale (January and February 1845): 12-20 and 75-83. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Louis A. Godey Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1845 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Lucinda Damon-Bach and Fanshu Sun Relation A related resource Collected in A New England Tale and Miscellanies, 355-88. NY: George P. Putnam & Co., 1852. Also collected in Rediscoveries: American Short Stories by Women, 1832-1916, edited by Barbara H. Solomon, 113-54. NY: Mentor, 1994. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document abandonment class gender roles girls Irish morals orphans poverty religion seduction The Tombs https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/2c50d23f143863ba3d87671ae5cf3120.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=gWo4JUMcaYbkK0BESwN%7EF9yf3d3NjaNl7R6CmYICww7UzlwI2wQdZpq%7EPt7uE3tKGyaQ-b52RfDQUUee2CnhDnpRDKZJmTOFyhMHPf9mLc73GBlxaTLor0lsl81-9alR3AIIMQUjvLh4XzbQDJJ0xfEDw7461OS9pFMx18WypTVSuajx3V1H0DBAC8VCeScs9NQu7Ps4frEZZ657JmzIot0IYyZQRMEt07cG5Q6c4yV3IxAtdQxbVYy4I9P%7EKuel3aZf2xQW245CHllExgVDecj9yCRkHix7WkamDsuyX6EWui8BSrCfPoNTecZ2gl1yqH175Qem1-FMZgPH4RvbUA__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM f1621681b11166910481ad613cb34138 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1828 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. CHRISTIAN CHARITY. __________ “Speak not evil one of another, brethren. He that speaketh evil of his brother, and judgeth his brother, speaketh evil of the law and judgeth the law: but if thou judge the law thou art not a doer of the law but a judge.” Dr. FRANKLIN said, with his characteristic wisdom and good feeling, that he was inclined to believe “there never was a good war nor a bad peace.” If this may be true of the civil affairs of men, how much more applicable is it to their religious concerns! All true christians, of all parties and sects, lament that difference of opinion should give rise to discord, strifes, uncharitableness, and evil speaking. If then they feel that religion is wronged—that its bond of love is severed—that their master is wounded in the house of his friends—that their wars and fightings must proceed from bad passions, how careful should they be to guard against the extension of the evil! And particularly how scrupulous should those be who have the guidance of young maids and affect- [PAGE 4] tions not to impart to them their own unfavorable judgment of others. All will admit that they are fallible—they may err in judging a brother—and if they do err how fearful the responsibility of communicating this false judgment—this prejudice to a young mind, which ought to be nurtured in the spirit of the Gospel! in love and charitableness. The principle we wish to instil is illustrated in the following short story. SARAH ANSON was sitting with her aunt one day, when she heard a good deal of conversation between her aunt and a lady, who was on a visit to her, about “the orthodox.” When the visitor was gone, “Aunt Caroline,” said Sarah, “you are always talking about ‘orthodoxy,’ and ‘the orthodox.’ I wish you would tell me what you mean by ‘the orthodox?’” “Why Sarah, I mean those who think they shall certainly be saved, and all the rest of the world will be condemned—that sort of people, that are for ever canting.” “Canting—what is canting, aunt” “Canting is talking about religion on all occasions, seasonable, and unseasonable, as the orthodox do.” Sarah was silent for a few moments, but not being enlightened by her aunt’s replies, she was not satisfied, and she ventured to add—“Still, aunt, I do not know what you mean by the orthodox.” “How stupid you are, Sarah!—Have you ever lived in this city all your life, and don’t know that Mr –’s and Mr –’s congregations are orthodox?” [PAGE 5] “No, aunt, I did not—I don’t remember,” she added with a sigh, “ever to have heard mamma speak the word orthodox—but now I hear you say so much about them, I should really like to know how they differ from other Christians.” “Oh, they differ in every thing—they think all kinds of rational amusements a crying sin. They would have every body spend their whole lives in going to lectures and prayer-meetings, and always look solemn and dismal, and give every thing to missions.” “Missions!” exclaimed Caroline—“there must be some missionaries that are not orthodox—that Mr. Stewart I was reading about to Lucy, could not be what you call orthodox, aunt Caroline.” “Stewart—the missionary to the Sandwich Islands?—Oh yes, he was orthodox enough.” Some one at this time called away her aunt, and Sarah was left revolving in her mind what she had said. If Sarah had been like most children of eight years, she probably would have been quite satisfied with her aunt’s replies, and the seeds of prejudice, thus carelessly sown in her mind, might have taken root there; but Sarah’s mother had guarded her mind from prejudice, as a gardener would preserve his garden from the intrusion of poisonous weeds. She had not spoken to her of orthodoxy, but she had of prejudice. She had told her that very good people might be sadly prejudiced, as was Nathaniel the Israelite, in “whom there was no guile,” for he had said of Jesus “can any good come out of Naza- [PAGE 6] reth?” She had shown her how beautifully our Saviour had reproved the prejudice of the wicked Jews, by selecting, to illustrate the principle of true charity, not one of their own Pharisees who claimed preeminence in righteousness—not even one of their own nation, to whom they fancied the favour of the Father of all limited, but a Samaritan—a good Samaritan—one of a people most despised and hated by the Jews—a people who were the subjects of their national, and, as they believed, their just and authorized enmity. Sarah’s mind, thus carefully guarded against the intrusion of uncharitable feeling, might be compared to that paradise which the flaming sword of the Cherubim defends from all bad spirits—and besides, happily, in the particular case of the orthodox, she had just taken an antidote against prejudice; she had been reading Stewart’s Journal to Lucy, an excellent young woman, who had been, till within a few weeks back, her attendant and nurse, and who was now rapidly declining with a consumption, the consequence, as was believed, of a too constant devotion to Sarah’s mother, who had recently died of the same fatal disease. Mr. Stewart’s beautiful description of his voyage, his apostolic devotion to the noblest enterprise of man,—the regeneration and reformation of his degraded fellow-beings,—had delighted Sarah, kindled her piety, and touched her heart to the very quick; and she was hurt and offended when her aunt spoke of him, and of the large class to which he belonged, with cold contempt. [PAGE 7] Little Sarah was one of the gentlest of human beings, and it seemed that to introduce any harsh feeling into her kind heart, was to break one of the strings of that fine instrument. She determined now to appeal to Lucy for the information she had failed to obtain from her aunt. Accordingly, she went to her apartment, but when she found her friend looking much sicker than usual, she sat down on her bedside, mentally resolving not to trouble her with any questions, and after kissing her pale forehead, she took up a fan, and began fanning her, but she stopped often, figetted, and looked perplexed; and Lucy, who had been accustomed to watch her thoughts as they were expressed in her sweet open face, and who could read them there almost as plainly as if they were reflected in a mirror, said to her, “Something troubles you, Sarah—what are you thinking of, my child?” Thus prompted, Sarah did not hesitate to say, “do you tell me, Lucy, what is the real meaning of orthodoxy.” “Orthodoxy,” replied Lucy, with a faint smile; “certainly, I will as well as I know how; orthodoxy”—but here she paused, as she heard an approaching footstep, and then added, “wait a little while, Sarah—there is Mrs. Lumley; don’t say any thing abut it now, for she is orthodox.” “Is she orthodox?’, exclaimed Sarah, her face brightening, for she knew Mrs. Lumley did not come within her aunt’s description of the orthodox. She was a poor widow, whose life had been marked by [PAGE 8] severe and multiplied sorrows, and she had borne them all with a meek and resigned spirit, cheerfully submitting to the privations of her Father in heaven inflicted, as a good child will bear to be deprived by a beloved parent of some dear possession. When Mrs. Lumley entered, Lucy expressed great pleasure at seeing her, but said she was afraid she had stayed away from lecture to come to her. “And what if I have, Lucy? I should make a poor use of the privelege of going to lecture, if I did not learn my duty there: It is God’s word, you know, ‘be ye doers of the word and not hearers only,’ and one of the first duties as well as a pleasure is it to do what I can for a sick friend. No, Lucy, I should not dare to enter my Father’s house, if I neglected a sick brother or sister by the way. But I am afraid you are not so well to-night, your breathing is difficult. “Yes—I feel it to be so, and I must expect it to be even worse.” “And yet, Lucy, you do not look frightened or troubled.” “I thank God I am not, Mrs. Lumley. There has been a time when I shrunk from the prospect of death, when I lay for hours awake in the silent watches of the night, my heart throbbing at the thought that I must be laid in the grave; but now I feel there is no death to those who believe in the resurrection and the life—and I realize that what we call death, is but a passage to a better life. I am in the valley of the shadow of death, and I fear no evil, and it is be- [PAGE 9] cause the rod and the staff of my God support and comfort me.” Lucy spoke in her usual tone of voice; there was something in its calmness that expressed the assurance of her faith, while the glow that lit up her face with a celestial brightness, made her look as if she had already entered into the joy of her Lord. Mrs. Lumley brushed the tears from her eyes. “It is truly wonderful to me, Lucy,” she said, “to see one so young, and so happy as you have been, so willing to go; but in all our trials, of every kind, we find the grace of God sufficient for us. I can say that I never felt so rich toward him, as when I have been bereft of earthly comfort.” Sarah listened intently—her eye moved quickly from her friend to the widow, and tear after tear dropped on Lucy’s feverish hand, which she held pressed in hers. The patient sufferers, in sick chambers and in the dark paths of affliction, are the most affecting witnesses to the goodness of God, for they prove that he never forsakes his children. Lucy listened to their testimony, and laid it up in her heart. A little bustle was now heard in the outer room, and two persons entered, one an old colored woman, who meekly remained standing at the door, and the other a tall Irish woman, who pressed forward with characteristic eagerness, and pouring half a dozen beautiful oranges from a bandanna handkerchief—“There, Lucy, dear,” said she, “they are Havanas—every one of them—I had them from Patrick Moon- [PAGE 10] ey, and sure they are fresh, for Pat has just stepped a shore.” “Oh Peggy, many, many thanks; but you are too generous—you could not afford to buy so many for me.” “Sure honey, don’t be after saying that—would not I have given the apple of my eye for them, if I could not have had them chaper? That would I do for you, dear, that’s been saint-like to me and mine, as poor Rose, that’s gone such a little bit before you, has often said—God above make the eating of them as pleasant to you, as the getting of them has been to me.” Then stooping down and kissing Lucy’s hand, and murmuring a prayer, and crossing herself, she left the room. Lucy was affected with the honest creature’s gratitude, and she covered her eyes with her hand, and did not look up till Sarah whispered, “there is old Amy at the door.” “Amy, is that you?” she then said—“come and sit by me, Amy, and tell me how you are nowadays.” “I am but poorly,” said she, humbly curtsying, “but how is Miss Lucy?” “Thank you, Amy, I trust I may say in the language of that good book you so well understand, ‘it is well with me.’” “Ah, Miss Lucy, you put me in mind of what Elder Eton said to day, ‘them that walk with the Lord through life; the Lord will not leave them to go alone through the valley of the shadow of death.’” “No, Amy—he does not; and it is no longer a [PAGE 11] dark valley when it is enlightened by his presence. But how do you get on in your worldly matters, my good friend?” “O Miss Lucy, I don’t want to complain, but I miss your goodness, and that dear child’s mother’s, every day.” “Does not Tom provide for you?” “Tom—poor boy, he has been gone to sea six weeks.” “And Sally?” “Sally is a lost creature, Miss Lucy; she does nothing for me; and I can do nothing for her but pray for her.” “Do you suffer for necessaries, Amy?” “Sometimes, Miss Lucy.” “Do you ever go hungry?” “I can’t say but I do; but it will be but a little while, and I don’t mean to murmur.” “Truly.” said Lucy, raising her eyes devoutly, “tribulation worketh patience ;” and then turning to Sarah, she added in a low voice, “when I am gone, remember poor old Amy—you are young for such a charge, but your mother’s disposition is in you. Now my good friends,” she added, “I believe you had best leave me: I am a little tired, but I shall sleep the better for your kind visits; good night—remember me in your prayers.” They both bade her good night, and Sarah, after lighting them down stairs, returned to Lucy, and again took her station at her bedside. “Now, my dear child,” said Lucy, “I will answer your question about orthodoxy.” [PAGE 12] “I remember when I was about your age, I was perplexed in the same way. I had lived two years with your mother, when I went to pay a visit to one of my aunts. She questioned me very closely about my place, and when she had found I had every reason to be satisfied and happy, she said, ‘But after all, Lucy, Mrs. Anson is a Unitarian, and your mother does very wrong to let you live with a Unitarian.’ I told her I did not know what she meant by a Unitarian, but if she meant anything that was not good, I was sure Mrs. Anson was not a Unitarian. ‘She is a Unitarian,’ she replied, ‘and it is a shame you are not put in an Orthodox family.’ When I returned home, I asked your mother what was the meaning of Unitarian and what of Orthodox. ‘You are not old enough yet, Lucy,’ she said to me, ‘to comprehend, if I were to endeavor to explain to you the differences of opinion from which different classes of Christians take their names, and I would not wish to have your attention turned to those matters wherein they disagree, but rather that you should fix it on those points where all who are named by the name of Christ agree; for among all sects, there are those who deal justly, love mercy, and walk humbly with their God. Consider all those Christians, who manifest a love to their Heavenly Father, and obedience to his well beloved Son, our Saviour; and of such do not ask if they be a Presbyterian, Unitarian, Methodist or Catholic; but regard them as Christians, fellow-christians, servants, and friends of one Master, who has said—“by this ye shall know that ye are [PAGE 13] my disciples, that ye love one another.”’ This was your dear mother’s instruction to me, Sarah, and I did not neglect it. You see by those good Christians, who have visited me this evening, that I have friends who bear very different names. Mrs. Lumley is Orthodox, a member of the Park street Church; Peggy is a good Catholic; Amy is a Baptist, and I, you know, am a Unitarian; but we are all, I humbly trust, heirs of that blessed country toward which I am hastening.” “Now Sarah, give me my opiate, and then sing me one of the Hymns you and your mother used to sing together. The opiate will, I hope, give some rest to my poor sick body—and your voice, raised in a praise to God, is always a sweet cordial to my mind. Sarah prepared the medicine and then reseating herself, and taking Lucy’s hand, she sang the following hymn of Beddome: “Let party names no more The Christian world o’erspread; Gentile, and Jew, and bond, and free, Are one in Christ their head. Among the Saints on Earth Let mutual love be found Heirs of the same inheritance, With mutual blessings crowned. Envy and strife be gone, And only kindness known, Where all one common Father have, One common Master own. Thus will the church below Resemble that above; Where springs of purest pleasure rise, And every heart is love.” [PAGE 14] “May this spirit ever govern your heart,” said Lucy, as she folded her arms around Sarah and bade her goodnight. Sarah’s selection of this particular hymn had gratified her, for it proved that though she had not attempted to give her any explanation of the different names by which Christians are called, she made her feel that charity and love will bound over the barriers, that the wicked passions or the false zeal of man has erected between different sects of Christians; that love is the essence of religion—love to God, and love to man. ---------- Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource Christian Charity Subject The topic of the resource Calvinism vs. Unitarianism, orthodoxy. Description An account of the resource A young girl learns the difference between Calvinism and Unitarianism, but is nevertheless encouraged to be charitable to all Christians, regardless of particular affiliation. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [By the author of Redwood.] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived A Short Essay To Do Good, 4-14. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Stockbridge [Mass.] : Printed by Webster and Stanley. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1828 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Michael Monescalchi; D. Gussman Relation A related resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. A short essay to do good. Stockbridge [Mass.] : Printed by Webster and Stanley, 1828; Repository Collection Development Department, Widener Library. HCL, Harvard University. http://nrs.harvard.edu/urn-3:FHCL:7572801. Accessed 09 July 2019 Format The file format, physical medium, or dimensions of the resource Document Language A language of the resource English 1828 A Short Essay to Do Good African American Baptist Benjamin Beddome Benjamin Franklin Boston Calvinism Catholic charity Charles Samuel Stewart Christianity colored Death girls Irish James 4:11 Jesus Jews Juvenile fiction missionaries orthodoxy Park Street Church Pharisees prejudice Psalm 23 religion Samaritans Sandwich Islands Unitarian https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/06a455997ef968390e36ba23677c4846.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=mYNYFpDbpGs%7E-bkfHT7MT-4ZNgS7rHvlEB220NVazOeHgtiCr5nUyrGJNaT2cXozv%7Er3jw-OgiwOR70nR9U7Kf35d6o1NGBTc8cxGmQKbEkcJ66PDSv9%7EvoFnxdntxlb2lwlSL-eWdhkm%7EuSupGcZsepzf-POjvnVPXQyniSJk3vR9Z39vvkZgoKMSEROZRdMJiBMoPPgVPJ2gTt8h6Dlu4r8qvc-rgUsmb4KCrUlIPpTAFCgscaXNKriRQ01BRCAaoyhSZ4qQFhdqBPkbxCEQeli4ZuqGbDmbFa-arUy-iBdHbsSqLhfrcj2J%7ETKcFPGQEZTcs7Tz5SaW5bQc-Ymw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 46e447dddc8e140409ce9c5a0726acee Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1847 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. AN EXCURSION TO MANCHESTER. ----- By Miss Catharine M. Sedgwick. ----- [p. 111] IT is not a very disagreeable or sterile life, that a citizen of New-York or Boston need lead, whose business confines him to the city, provided he can now and then take a day's excursion into the country. A New-Yorker may pass a happy day on the shores of the Hudson, any where between the city and Newburgh, and return in time to take tea in his own house—to bathe in his bath of blessed Croton—and sleep, in his own accustomed place—with all the appliances and means of home about him. He may exchange the dusty street for the sea-shore, and bathe in sea-breezes and surf; and, instead of blistering his eyes with red bricks, look at the sublimest of God's works—the upheaving ocean. He may go to a friend's house on any of the lovely bays or necks of Long Island, out of sight and hearing of the tiresome town; or, if imbued with true rural tastes, he may plunge into the sporting solitudes of Long Island, and pursue his prey by wood or water. We know merchants in the most active and oppressive business of the city, who do this. Let a man but cherish the tastes (and they are salvation to body and mind) which Heaven has implanted—the love of nature and simple pleasures—and he will have ample means for its gratification. Let him not lose his original nature, in the eager competitions and artificial pleasures of the city, but prefer the opportunity of cheerful, innocent, and elegant leisure, to excessive gains; put up with a simple lunch in the place of a luxurious dinner; and honestly love better the shadow of a tree on a cool hill-side, with birds for his musicians, than even the opera with his favorite singer; and he can have, at moderate price, these refreshments, any day in the week, and be sure of a happier to- morrow. “If it were not for to-morrow,” said Byron, in estimating the joys of a revel. The highest wisdom is always to measure the enjoyment of to-day by the shadow it casts on ‘to- morrow.' I had a day's pleasure yesterday, that neither cast a shadow before or behind. A friend, who works like a good Providence, and without any bustle of preparation, by a process as quiet as that which brings the sunshine upon us, surrounds us with pleasant circumstances, so that all the wheels of life run easily—this friend had invited me to take an excursion to Manchester. I am rather ashamed now to confess it, but I had never heard of Manchester, a town that has arrived at the mature age in manufacturing life of eight years, with a population of fifteen thousand souls; busy souls they are; and if one may judge by outward signs, full of cheerful self-complacency and honest ambition. After a delicious breakfast in my friend's house, where may be seen a union of noble simplicity (such as is oftener fabled than realized,) with the luxury of wealth and the beauty of art, we took our places in the Lowell train. Here the number of our party was augmented to that of the muses and graces combined; and if the gentle dames of our citizens were neither muses nor graces, they had qualities quite as much to our purpose. I do not know whether it was the atmosphere that the born gentleman always carries with him, or that my friend did silently and unperceived exercise the beneficient arts of a host, but each of our company occupied the place he would have chosen; and unexpectedly (for who ever expected social enjoyment in a rail-car) found his surroundings so agreeable, that there was a buz of cheerful conversation through our whole progress of fifty-five miles. To be sure, the day was as fine as if my friend had himself bespoken it; and June, having just escaped from the clutches of this benumbing spring, was every where genially smiling in full fresh boughs, brimming streams, sweet clover-fields, and myriads of roses; roses laughing in the gardens, trailing over the little court-yards, and clambering to the very tops of the houses. June is indeed the crown of the year, and the roses the jewels of her crown. We shot past the crowded suburbs of Boston, and through the rural districts that surround them, past gardens and woodlands, and darted into the far-famed city of Lowell, where we only stopped to exchange some thirty fellow creatures for some thirty others, who, to our careless eyes, seemed as like as prices of printed calico of the same color and figure; but each of these had his distinctive marks, his own boundless world of memories, and hopes, and projects. It is our insect vision that limits the world to our own horizon. There is no second class of cars on this route, consequently we had the democratic principle of modern modes of transportation, without mitigation. There were brawny boatmen, of New [p. 112] Hampshire, in their red flannel shirt-sleeves, re- turning from ‘rafting’ down the Merrimack, tall stalwart fellows, whose bodies had attained nature's generous dimensions. Their faces were intelligent, and their speech civil, without any indication of social subordination. How different from the demi-savages who come in swarms among us! men who have been undergoing the process of degradation from generation to generation; whose low foreheads, contracted eyes, and wide and open mouths show that approximation to the brutish nature which has been going on for the long years that they have been as the strong ass, couching down between two burdens—the burdens of civil and sacerdotal oppression. Still the generous instincts of their hearts have survived oppression and barbarism. Let them be kindly welcomed to our wide New World home, and strike root in our soil, and grow up to the full stature of free and enlightened men! Their children's children will be like these New Hampshire boys; men capable of self-direction, of far-seeing projects, and extended responsibilities. The spirit that would reject from our unsown fields these poor creatures, who, in their barbarizing process, have narrowed down their wants to potatoes, and are blighted with the potato blight, is surely not the Christian spirit. They who are of this spirit seem to have forgotten that their title deeds to this New World were forced upon their fathers by the Old World despotism. They remind us of two friends, who, being permitted to walk in some beautiful private grounds, one, in the genuine spirit of elegant exclusiveness, said to the other, “This would be very charming if we had it quite to ourselves.” “It seems not to occur to you,” replied his companion, “that we are here upon sufferance! " In God's name, let our people remember this, and welcome their suffering brothers to their wide home; and give them ‘right of way’ to the untrodden wilderness which Providence has reserved for them. I beg pardon of my readers; these thoughts are naturally suggested by comparing our own and foreign laborers. While we feel pride in the one, let us be touched with pity for the other. It is a gratifying exhibition of our Massachusetts population that we see in the cars, diverging from Boston in every direction. I have not the arrogance to claim for the gentlemen and ladies of Massachusetts general superiority to their class elsewhere, but placed as I was on this pleasant day, with people of fortune and education and habits of refinement, I could not but notice the simplicity of their manners, their freedom from pretension, and the quality of sympathy and general courtesy and kindness, that is well called ‘human beingism,' which was exercised on the comfort of an aged person in our company, and in good natured civilities to poor women cumbered with many children, who got in and out at the several stations. One lady entertained a little fellow on her lap, while its martyr-mother hushed his baby-sister in her arms. One gentleman bribed, with an apple, a young marauder, whose particular fancy it was to stride up and down, first stumbling on one side, and then falling on the other. And my friend—as courteously as if he were attending a fine lady— helped a poor little body with her brood out of the cars, whose husband stood awaiting her with a horse and wagon, in a very ‘do n’t-care-and-rather- enjoying’ manner. I was reminded of the poor wife, who said, in similar circumstances, “Ah, madam, the men has it a dale pleasanter than the women." Our course lay along the Merrimack, brimfull from the late copious rains. It glided on its way, with the full-leafed trees waving like banners over it, with coronals of flowers hanging about it, and fields flushed with the purple lupin on its margin, as if it were made for the adornment of these lovely rural scenes, and not as it does, every drop of it, to distil showers of gold over our Midas manufactures. Prosperity be with them! their showers go up in beneficent dews, refreshing all the land. Their spindles endow our colleges, open ſountains and baths for our “young barbarians,' and run freely as the water that feeds their mills, in every channel of liberality and charity.* Arrived at Manchester, we made the most of our time, first, by going about to see the various processes of manufacturing by machinery, which has been brought to a degree of perfection only short of self-directing intelligence. Indeed, to my perception, to which the complicated operations are inexplicable mysteries, these machines seemed like the living operatives, reasoning, ‘calculating,’ and ‘concluding’ beings. One, of its own head, stopped its hundred spindles to rejoin a broken thread, another advanced slowly, and returned rapidly as befitted its purpose, and yet another received to its dark chamber the delicate white mousseline that glided down from an upper room, and by successive and, as it appeared to me, voluntary movements, delicately painted it, and then suffered it with quiet dignity to withdraw. The vestals who presided over these mysteries, were more prosaic than the machines themselves; and, with their nicely-plaited hair, gold beads, and comfortable dresses, cut according to the universal fashion of the season, looked like duplicates of the ministers of our households. There was no sign of discontent or debility among them, but health quite up to the average, and a look of satisfaction, [p. 113] which is an unfailing indication of prosperity in our acquisitive race. The din of the machinery was insupportable to me, even for the brief time we were looking at it, and especially in one well-filled room, four hundred and fifty feet in length, but the ‘young ladies’ assured me, that after being accustomed to it, I could talk and listen there as well as elsewhere. Such is use! and such the supremacy of the social nature of man and woman! From the manufactories, a few of us drove, with our kind host, to the cemetery, where a lovely piece of woodland slopes on two sides to a little thread of a stream, of the yellow hue of topaz, and as bright and transparent. Shaded and flowery paths wind along the slopes; and there is here deep retirement and the solemn beauty of nature to inspire religious meditation, and pensive contemplation. The beautiful cemeteries that are springing up in our country indicate the rapid progress of civilization. The generous capitalists of Manchester, in their provision of this burial-place, and in the ample public squares, have shown a most laudable regard to the moral natures of their operatives. Whatever raises a man above the animal instincts and physical gratifications, advances him in the scale of being; and many an impress on immortal natures will be made, in moonlight walks, through the public squares and cemeteries of Manchester. Nature is most apt at this sublime ministry; and the falls and rapids of the Merrimack will develop the sense of beauty in their young people. They have, thank God, leisure and education, and freedom enough for its nurture; their immortal natures are not crushed by the mortal necessity of each day straining every nerve to earn precarious daily bread. That they have a choice of destiny seems to be forgotten by those who would limit by legislation their hours of labor. They can almost make their own terms in household service, they can have the independence of rural labor, or they can make haste to be rich, and tend the spindles. Thank God again fervently, that there are no dreary depths and cold shadows in our humble life to embitter prosperity to the most sensitive. So, after a morning of varied pleasure and observation, we sat down to a dinner (delicious, for it included the luxuries of the season—salmon, peas, and strawberries), sure that not one of the hundred operatives we had seen but had a dinner as abundant and wholesome, if not as luxurious as ours. * That this is no flight of fancy is known to every one who knows anything of the history of the wealthy manufacturers of Massachusetts. Mr. Abbot Lawrence's late munificent gift of $50,000 to Harvard, and his brother, Amos Lawrence's repeated beneficiences to Williams' College, are cases in point. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource An Excursion to Manchester Subject The topic of the resource Train travel, nature, Manchester, manufacturing. Description An account of the resource A sketch of the narrator's trip by rail to visit the planned manufacturing town of Manchester, New Hampshire. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Sartain's Union Magazine [edited by Caroline M. Kirkland], September 1847, pp. 111-13. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1847 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource D. Gussman Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 1847 Abbot Lawrence Amos Lawrence capitalism Caroline M. Kirkland democracy factory Harvard Immigrants Irish June laborers Lowell train Manchester manufacuturing Massachusetts Merrimack Midas mills Nature New Hampshire Old World philanthropy railcar railroad Sartain's Union Magazine Williams College women and work working class https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/a3125485e138a05437e04da57d4a636b.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=vBuxAy06v40eGJrqhRGGDPaGhAfRsu7dA%7E6mVqkWSNs3iqCZqZAboU9SuGcPryMd6HsOmhX%7EOhh7LFmUDLYlSgY9-5HK-dQtKZEAnqKYBG3s-vsSJAH5acesBcgShf8-rSlZ6dD86Yb9TGTBL-Y4cVxEF%7EDWNX6oahpoxePvT1NJqE9pNgVA8HiNNZoTJ-5lWhE3uhWFk0%7EF9uTMSuYX0Wz%7EVZfds4Ncc0OhUGs2ceCbRWJ6-uSHeNXFWCytoPE8u6Yh5A98HxJH23K5Q%7Emffp1nyR7AXf6Rnjos8WVA-s%7EmSt1luMXw9Q%7EublCtMiOafRteBl6H9o2BaS4Yi-wDQw__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM b994c2435d4abe172fcb67bb2b97d2e8 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1856 Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. THE WHITE HILLS IN OCTOBER [p. 44] OUR town friends who fly from the heat, and dust, and menacing diseases, and insupportable ennui of their city residence, during the moths of July and August, may have an escape, but they have little enjoyment. We admire the heroism with which they endure, year after year, the discomforts of a country hotel, or the packing in the narrow, half-furnished bedrooms and rather warm attics of rural lodging-houses, and the general abatement and contraction of creature-comforts, in such startling contrast to the abounding luxuries of their own city palaces. But they are right; the country, at any discount, is better, in the fearful heats of July and August, than the town with its hot, unquiet nights and polluted air. Any hillside or valley in the country, and a shelter under any roof in or upon them, with the broad cope of heaven above, (not cut into patches and fragments by intervening walls and chimney-tops,) and broad fields, and grass, and corn, and woodlands, and their flowers, and freshening dews and breezes, and all Nature’s infinite variety, is better than every appliance and contrivance for battling with the din, the suffocation, and unrest of city life. Yes, our city friends are right in their summer flights from “The street, Filled with its ever-shifting train.” But they must not flatter themselves that their mere glimpse of country life, their mere snatch at its mid-summer beauty, the one free-drawn breath of their wearied spirit, is acquaintance with it. As well might one who had seen Rosalind, the most versatile of Shakspeare’s heroines, only in her court-dress at her uncle, the duke’s ball, guess at her infinite variety of charm in the Forest of Ardennes. Nature holds her drawing-room in July and August. She wears her fullest and richest dresses then; if we may speak flippantly without offense to the simplicity of her majesty, she is then en pleine toilette. But any other of the twelve is more picturesque than the summer months. Blustering March, with its gushing streams tossing off their icy fetters—changeful April, with its greening fields and glancing birds—sweet, budding, blossoming May—flowery June—fruitful September—golden, glorious October—dreary, thoughtful November; and all of winter, with its potent majesty and heroic adversity. But let our citizens come to our rural districts—the more, the better for them! Only let them not imagine they get that enough which is “as good as a feast.” This preamble was naturally suggested by our autumnal life in the country, and by a recurrence to a late delightful passage through the White Hills of New-Hampshire. “That resort of people that do pass In travel to and fro,” during the intense months of July and August, we found in October so free from visitors, that we might have fancied ourselves the discoverers of that upland region of beauty, unparalleled, so far as we know, in all the traveled parts of our country. And for the benefit of those who shall come after us, for all who have their highest enjoyment, perhaps their best instruction, in Nature’s Free School, we intended to give some brief notices of our tour, in the hope of extending the traveling season into October by imparting some faint idea of the startling beauty of this brilliant month in the mountains; but what we might have said was happily superseded. At a little inn, in a small town, after we came down from the “high place,” we met a party of friends who had preceded us along the whole route by a day. A rain came on, and we were detained together for twenty-four hours. We agreed to pass the evening in a reciprocal reading of the brief notes of our journey. It came last to the turn of my friend, a very charming young person, whom I shall take the liberty to call Mary Langdon. She blushed and stammered, and protested against being a party to the contribution. “My only record of the journey,” she said, “is a long letter to my cousin, which I began before we left home.” “So much the better,” we rejoined. “But,” she said, “ it has been written capriciously, in every mood of feeling.” “Therefore,” we urged, “the more variety.” At last, driven to the wall, she threw a nice morocco letter-case into my lap, saying: “Take it and read it to yourself, and you will see why I positively can not read it aloud.” So we gave up our entreaties. I read the letter-journal after I went to my room. The reading cheated me of an hour’s sleep—perhaps because I had just intensely enjoyed the country my friend described; and in the morning I begged Miss Langdon’s permission to publish it. She at first vehemently objected, saying it would be in the highest degree indelicate to publish so much of her own story as was inextricably interwoven with the journey. “But, dear child,” I urged, “who that reads our magazines knows you? You will be on the other side of the Atlantic in another month, and before you return this record will be forgotten, for alas! we contributors to monthlies do not write for immortality!” “But for the briefest mortality I am not fitted [p. 45] to write,” she pleaded. I rather smiled at the novelty of one hesitating to write for the public because not fitted for the task, and (thinking of “the fools that rushed in”—there is small aptness in the remainder of the familiar quotation) I continued to urge, till my young friend yielded, on my promising to omit passages which related to the private history of her heart—Mary Langdon not partaking that incomprehensible frankness or child-like hallucination which enables some of our very best writers, Mrs. Browning, for instance, to impart, by sonnets and in various vehicles of prose and verse, to the curious and all-devouring public those secrets from the heart’s holy of holies that common mortals would hardly confess to a lover—or a priest. It is to our purpose, writing, as we profess to do pour l’utile, that our young friend indulged little in sentiment, and that, being a country-bred New-England girl, she conscientiously set down the coarser realities essential to the well-being of a traveler—breakfasts, dinners, etc. But before proceeding to her journal, I must introduce my débutante, if she who will probably make but a single appearance before the public may be so styled. Mary Langdon is still on the threshold of life—at least those who have reached threescore would deem her so, as she is not more than three-and-twenty. The freshness of her youth has been preserved by a simple and rather retired country-life. A total abstinence from French novels and other like reading has left the purity and candor of her youth unscathed by their blight and weather-stain. Would that this tree of the knowledge of evil—not good and evil--were never transplanted into our New World! Beware, ye that eat of it; your love of what is natural and simple will surely die. Mary Langdon’s simplicity is that of truth, not of ignorance. Her father has given her what he calls “a good education”—that means, he says, that “she thoroughly knows how to read, write, and cipher, which,” he rather tartly adds, “few girls brought up at French boarding-schools do.” As might be suspected from the practical ideas in her narrative, our young friend has had that complete development of her faculties which arises out of the necessities of country-life in its best aspects. Mary Langdon is called only pretty, but her prettiness is beauty in the eyes of her friends and lovers; and then she is so buoyant, so free of step and frank of speech, that while others are slowly winding their way to your affection, she springs into your heart. With due respect to seniority, we should have presented Mr. Langdon before his daughter. On being called on for his journal, he said he “ was not such a confounded fool as to keep one for any portion of his life.” He “should as soon think of crystallizing soap-bubbles. He had dotted down a few memoranda as warnings to future travelers, and we were welcome to them; though he thought we were too mountain mad to profit by them, if indeed any body ever profited by any body’s else experience!” The fact was, the dear old gentleman had left home in a very unquiet state of mind. He hated at all times leaving his home, abounding in comforts—he detested travel even under what he termed “alleviating circumstances.” He was rather addicted to growling. This English instinct came over with his progenitor in the May Flower, and half a dozen generations had not sufficed to subdue it. But Mr. Langdon’s “bark is worse than his bite.” In truth his ‘bite’ is like that of a teething child’s, resulting from a derangement of sweet and loving elements. We found our old friend’s memoranda so strongly resembling the grumbling of our traveling cousins from over the water, that we concluded to print it so portions of it, in order to illustrating the effects of the lights or shadows that emanate from our own minds. Providence provides the banquet; its relish or disrelish depends on the appetite of the guest. But to Mary Langdon’s letter, which, as it was begun before she left home, bears its first date there: “LAKE-SIDE, 28th Sept., 1854. “MY DEAR SUE,--I have not much more to tell you than my last contained. Carl Hermann left our neighborhood last week, determined to return by the next steamer to Dusseldorf. We were both very wretched at this final parting. But as I have often seen people making great sacrifices to others, and then losing themselves, and letting others lose all the benefit of the sacrifice, by the ungracious manner of it, I summoned up courage, and appeared before my father calm and acquiescing, and (you will think me passionless, perhaps hard-hearted) I soon became so. I read over and over again your arguments, and I confess I was willing to be persuaded by them. But, after all, my point of sight is not yours, and you can not see objects in the proportions and relations that I do. You say I have exaggerated notions of filial duty—that I have come to mature age and ripe judgment, and that I should decide and act for myself—that in the nature of things the conjugal must supersede the filial relation, and that I have no right to sacrifice my life-long happiness to the remnant of my father’s days; and above all, I am foolish to give in to his prejudices, and—selfishness,’ you added, dear, and did not quite efface the word. Though I see there is much reason in what you say, I have only to reply that I can not marry with my father’s disapprobation. I can not and I will not. Our hearts have grown together. God forms the bond that ties the child to the parent, and we make the other; and it shows human work—being often fragile, sometimes rotten. Susy, you lost your parents when you were so young, that you can not tell what I feel for my surviving one. Since my mother’s death and the marriage of Alice, he has lived in such dependence on me, that I can’t tell what his life would be if I were to leave him: and I will not. You tell me this is unnatural, and a satisfactory proof to you that I do not love Carl. Oh, Sue!— ” [pg. 46] Here must be our first hiatus. We can only say that the outpouring of our young friend’s heart satisfied us that beneath her serene surface there was an unfathomable well of feeling, and that her friend must have been convinced that “Love’s reason is not always without reason.” The letter proceeds: “I very well know that my father is prejudiced, Sue, but old men’s prejudices become a part and parcel of themselves, and they can not be cured of them. My father’s do not spring from any drop of bitterness, for he has not one; nor from egotism, for he has none of it; but, as you know, his early life was in Boston, and his only society is there, and he he naturally partakes the opinions of his contemporaries, who, the few surviving among them, deem all foreigners interlopers, outside barbarians, strangers intermeddling with that liberty, equality, and pursuit of happiness which is their exclusive birth-right; or rather, I suspect, that in their secret souls they regard the theories of their revolutionary fathers as a Utopian dream. A foreign artist above all is, in my father’s eye, a mere vagrant, who neither deserves nor can attain a local habitation or a name; and thus my poor Carl, with divine gifts, and habits of industry that would make the fortune of a mere mechanic, is thrust aside.” Here Mary Langdon begins the narration of her journey, and here we give notes, a few specimens from her father’s memoranda, that our readers may have the advantage of seeing the same objects from different points of sight, premising that our old friend’s memoranda were scanty, and repeating that we give but specimens. We smile at his petulance more in love than ridicule. We are not fond of showing it off, and only do so in these brief extracts to substantiate our opinion that his traveling temper showed him near of kin to English tourists, who seem to make it a point to turn their plates bottom side upward. The father and daughter both record the same facts. The one shows the rights and beautiful side of the tapestry, the other the wrong one. Strange that any eye should make the fatal mistake of dwelling on the last rather than the first! “On Monday, 2d of October,” proceeds Mary Langdon in her letter to her cousin, “we came into Boston, to take the two o’clock train for Portland. We had three hours upon our hands, which we pleasantly filled up by visits to a studio and picture-shop; and finally, our mortal part, having given out while we were feasting the immortal, we repaired to a restaurateur’s. We groped our way into a little back room in School Street, where, if we did not find luxury or elegance, we did what met our reasonable wants-- wholesome fare and civility.*….. ___________________________________ * EXTRACT FROM MR. LANGDON’S JOURNAL 2nd October, Anno Domino, 1854. Left my comfortable lowland home for unknown parts, and known regions of snow and ice. The Lord willing, I am sure of one pleasure—coming home again! “We had three mortal house on our hands this morning in Boston. I called on my dear old friends, the survivors of the _____ family. Not one of them, they told me, has yet risked life in a rail-car. Wisdom is not extinct! “Called on respected Widow A-----. Could not see much of Sally -----, my old sweetheart, about her; but we got upon old times, and the color came to her pale, furrowed cheek. Women never forget—loving souls! She gave me a nice lunch—pickled oysters, etc. and a glass of old Madeira. Meanwhile the girls were ranging round studios (?), good lack! and picture-shops. This rage for ‘Art” has come in with the foreign tongues since my time. Picked them up at a restaurant. What a misnomer! A dainty place of refreshment to be sure; a little parlor behind a shop, with herds rushing in and herds rushing out! ________________________________________ “The passage to Portland was dusty but brief, and we arrived there in time to see its beautiful harbor, while the water reflected the rose-tints on the twilight clouds. We, as advised, eschewed the hotel, and were kindly received at a Miss Jones’s, a single woman, who so blends dignity with graciousness, that she made us feel like invited guests. One might well mistake the reception of the hostess for the welcome of a friend. Her table has an American variety and abundance with the nicety of English appointments. Her house is a model. Its quiet and completeness reminds one of that classic type of comfort, an English inn. The house, with its high repute, was the inheritance of two sisters from their mother, of whom we were told an anecdote which may be apocryphal, but which would harmonize with the bonhomie of Sir Roger de Coverley. The old lady closed her patriarchal length of days serenely; and when she was dying, she requested that the order of her household should be in no wise disturbed by the event of her decease, but that ‘the gentlemen should play their evening game of whist as usual!’*….. ____________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR. LANGDON’S JOURNAL “Came by rail to Portland, in peril of life and limb. Stirred up with fifty plebieans treading on your toes and jostling your elbows. This modern improvement of cattle-pens over a gentleman’s carriage with select and elect friends, and time to enjoy a beautiful country, is the ‘advance of civilization!’ Travelers now are prisoners under sentence of death- their keeper being called a conductor. Oh! I cry with my old friend Touchstone, ‘when I was at home, I was in a better place!’ Heaven grant me his philosophy to add, “Travelers must be content.’ “Portland. Rather a nice house is this Miss Jones’s. Old-fashioned neatness and quiet. But what would our English traveler say to the lady bestowing her own company, unasked, and that of her guest, upon us! Bad butter spoiled my tea and breakfast. The girls did not notice it. Young folks have no senses.” _________________________________________ “Tuesday. Miss Jones’s morning face was as benign as her evening countenance. No lady could have administered hospitality with more refinement. Just as the door of the carriage that was to convey us to the station was closing, it was reopened, and a rough-hewn, but decent country body was shoved in by the driver, who muttered something about there being no other conveyance for her. My father looked a little awry, not with any thought of remonstrating -- no native American would do that -- but he was just lighting his after-breakfast cigar, and he shrunk from the impropriety of smoking in such close quarters with a stranger who bore a sem- [pg. 47] blance of the sex to which he always pays deference. “‘I hope, Madam,’ he said, ‘a cigar does not offend you?’ “ ‘La! no, sir,’ replied our rustic friend good-naturedly, ‘ I like it.’ “My father’s geniality is always called forth by the touch of a cigar. “ ‘Perhaps, Madame,’ he said, with a smile at the corners of his mouth, ‘you would try one yourself?’ “ ‘I would,’ she answered, eagerly, and grasped the cigar my father selected, saying, ‘thank ye kindly. I s’pose I can light it at the end of yours? “ My dear, fastidious father heroically breasted this juxtaposition, and the old lady, unconscious of any thing but her keen enjoyment of the unlooked-for been, smoked away vigorously. Dear Alice, who never loses sight of her duty to wrest a possible mischance from any human being, rather verdantly suggested, ‘that the cigar might make her sick.’ “‘Mercy, child! I am used to pipes.’ “That I had already inferred from her manner of holding the cigar. She was soon pressed by the usual necessity engendered by smoking, and half rising from her seat, it was too evident that she mistook the pure plate-glass for empty space. My father let down the glass as if he had been shot; but she, nowise discomposed, even by our laughing, merely said, cooly “ ‘Why, I did not calculate right, did I?” “There are idiosyncrasies in Yankeedom—there is no doubt of it! Arrived at the cars, our close companionship, and our acquaintance too, ended, except that the woman’s husband, for she had a husband, some Touchstone whose ‘humor’ it was to ‘take that no other man would,’ asked me to put my window down, for his ‘wife was sick!’ But as I had just observed the good woman munching a bit of mince pie, I thought that coming so close upon the cigar might possibly offend her stomach more than the fresh untainted air, so I declined, as courteously as possible, with the answer I have always ready for similar requests, ‘that I keep my window open to preserve the lives of the people in the car.’ ‘That’s peculiar!’ I heard her murmur; but her serenity was nowise discomposed, either by my refusal or her ‘sickness.’ Surely the imperturbable good nature of our people is national and ‘peculiar!’*….. ___________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR.LANGDON’S JOURNAL “Happy illustration, from a smoking old woman this morning, of the refinements of railroad travel!” ________________________________________ “By the way, there were notices posted up in these cars, which reminded us that we were near the English Provinces, and under their influence. The notices ran thus: ‘Gentlemen are requested not to put their feet on the cushions, and not to spit on the floor, and to maintain a respectable cleanliness, the conductors are required to enforce these requests.’ Must we wait for the millennium to see a like request and like enforcement pervade our tobacco-chewing country? We found ourselves surrounded by intelligent people of the country habitués, who gave us all the local information we asked, told us when we came to Bryant’s Pond, and that the poor little shrunken stream, that still brawled and fretted in its narrowed channel, was the Androscoggin. “At Gorham, but seven miles from the ‘Glen-House,’ we left the cars and found a wagon awaiting passengers. ‘The houses are all closed,’ was the pleasant technical announcement of our driver; and he added, cheerfully, “’The weather has been so tedious that it was burst the bubble on Mount Washington.’ “‘The “bubble!” what the deuce does the man mean?’ exclaimed my father. I perceived that it was a bit of slang wit upon ‘out-of-season’ people, to terrify them with the ‘bulb’ having burst, and so I told my father. He solemnly replied that he did not in the least doubt the fact! And as we went on slowly making the ascent, he looked ‘sagely sad;’ dear Alice, as her happy temper is, was ‘bright without the sun.’*….. “My father made a few and faint responses to our exclamations of delight at the light wreath of mist that floated far down the mountains, and the massive clouds that dropped over their summits, so that our imaginations were not kept in abeyance by definite outlines. The air was soft, and our steeds, as if considerate of our enjoyment, prolonged it by crawling up the long ascent. We came into the ‘Glen House’ with keen appetites—a needful blessing we thought—when Mr. Thompson, the host, with solemn mien informed us he ‘was not prepared for company in October—we must expect port and beans.’ł ….. ________________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR. LANGDON’S JOURNAL “We were pitched into an open wagon at Gorham—Scottish mist—rain impending—chilled to my very vitals. The driver tells us the bulb’s already burst on Mount Washington. Continuous ascent. Not a meadow, an orehard, or a garden, but dreary mountains shrouded in fog. ł “Found the Glen House ‘closed,’ which means that all the comfortable rooms are dismantled and shut up, that you must take such fare as mine host pleases (‘pork and beans’ he promises), thank him for ‘accommodating’ you, and pay summer prices. Oh, ‘what fools we mortals are!” __________________________________________ “Oh, my poor father’s blank face! Yet blanker when we were ushered into a parlor where, instead of the cracking wood fire we had fancied indigenous in these mountains, we found one of those black ‘demons’ that have taken out of our life all the poetry of the ‘hearthstone.’ But courage! We can open the stove door and get a sparkle of light and life! “10 p.m. Before finishing my day’s journal I must tell you, ‘pour encourager les autres’ who may risk the ‘closed houses’ of October, that our host did better than he promised. Our dinner was served in a cozy little room, as neatly as a home dinner; it was hot, which a hotel dinner, in the season, never is; and that the threatened ‘pork and beans’ turned into tender fowls, fresh eggs, and plentiful accessories of vegetables and pies. William, our wagon-driv- [pg. 48] er, was metamorphosed into a waiter, and performed his part as if he were ‘native to the manner.’*….. __________________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR. LANGDON’S JOURNAL “Dinner turned out better than I expected; but where but in a Yankee tavern would one suffer the infliction of a mince pie in October?” __________________________________________ “The cloudy evening has closed in upon us early. We have eluded its tediousness by reading aloud ‘The Heir of Redcliffe,’ a charming book, which teaches more irresistibly than the ordained preacher the virtues of forgiveness and self-sacrifice. These Christian graces are vitalized in the lives of Guy and Amy. Amy does right with so much simplicity and so little effort, that one feels as if it were easy to do it; and as my task is much easier than hers as the lover is less dear than the husband, I will try. You think me cool; I do not feel so. I start and tremble at this howling wind—it reminds me that Carl is on the ocean. “I was here startled by seeing that my father was observing me. “ ‘My child,’ he said, ‘you are shaking with cold,’ (not ‘with cold,’ I could have answered). ‘These confounded stoves,’ he added, ‘keep one in an alternate ague and fever. Come, waltz round the room with your sister, and get into a glow.’ “So, singing our own music, we waltzed till we were out of breath, and Alice has seated herself at picquet with my father, who has a run of luck, ‘point! seizième! and capote!’ which puts him into high good humor—and I may write unmarked. Carl was to write me once more before his embarkation, but I can not get the letter till my return, and I have not the poor consolation of looking over the list of the steamer’s passengers and seeing the strange names of those who would seem to me happy enough to be in the same ship with him; and yet, what care they for that! Poor fellow! he will be but sorry company. I find support in the faith that I am doing my duty. He could not see it in that light, and had neither comfort for himself nor sympathy for me. I almost wish now, when I think of him in his desolation, that I could receive the worldly philosophy my old nurse offered me when, as Carl drove away, she came into my room and found me crying bitterly. She hushed me tenderly as she was used to do when I was a child; and when I said, ‘‘Hannah, it is for him, not for myself, I feel!’ ‘‘Oh! that’s nothing but a nonsense, child,’ she said. ‘Men ain’t that way; they go about among folks and get rid of feelings; it’s women that stay at home and keep ‘em alive, brooding on ‘em!’ “Why should I thus shrink from a consequence I ought to desire? But perhaps it will be easier as I go on, if it be true that ‘Each goodly thing is hardest to begin; But entered in a spacious court they see Both plain, and pleasant to be walked in.’ “Wednesday Morning. My father happened to cast his eyes across the table as I finished my last page, and he saw a tear fall on it. Throwing down his cards he said, “ ‘Come, come, children! it’s time to go to bed;’ and stooping over me, he kissed me fondly and murmured: ‘Dear, good child! I can not stand it if I see you unhappy.’ “He shall not see me so. I have risen to-day with this resolution. The rain has been pouring down all night, but at this glorious point of sight, directly under Mount Washington, we are equal to either fate—going on or staying. Mr. Thompson has again surprised us with a delicious breakfast of tender chicken, light biscuit, excellent bread, fresh eggs, and that rarest of comforts at a hotel—delicious coffee, with a brimming pitcher of cream. We wondered at all these things, usually the result of a feminine genius, for we have not heard the flutter of a petticoat in the house till we saw our respectable landlady gliding through the room. We learned from her that she was the only womankind on the diggings. Every thing is neatly done, so we bless our October star for exempting us from the careless and hurried service of the Celtic race. While it rains, we walk on the piazza, enjoying the beautiful and ever-varying effects of the clouds as they roll down the mountains, and roll off; like the shadows on our human life, dear Susan, that God’s love does both send and withdraw. “The Glen House is on the lowest ridge of the hill that rises opposite to Mount Washington, which, as its name indicates, stands head and shoulders above the other summits—having no peer. Madison and Monroe come next, on the left, and then Jefferson, who appears (characteristically?) higher than he is. In a line with Mount Washington, on the other side, are Adams, Clay, etc. These names (excepting always Washington) do not, with their recent political associations, seem quite to suit these subline, eternal mounts, but as time rolls on, the names will grow to signs of greatness, and harmonize with physical stability and grandeur. Jefferson’s head seems modeled after a European pattern. It runs up to a sharp point, and wants but accumulated masses of ice to be broken into Alpine angles. My father says there are other passes in the mountains more beautiful than this; none can be grander….. “My father has been most sweet and tender to me to-day. Whenever he lays his hand upon my head, it seems like a benediction. And Alice is so kind, projecting future pleasures and sweet solaces for me. You know how I love her little girl. To-day, while we were walking, she heard me sigh, and putting her arm around me, she said: ‘Will you let Sarah come and pass the winter with you and father?’ I trust my look fully answered her. I can not yet talk even with her as I do on paper to you—a confidential implement is a pen….. “We have all been walking, in the lowering [p. 49] twilight on the turnpike, which is making by a joint stock company, up Mount Washington. The road, by contract, is to be finished in three years; the cost is estimated at $63,000. The workmen, of course, are nearly all Irishmen, with Anglo-Saxon heads to direct them. The road is, as far as possible, to be secured by frequent culverts, and by Macadamizing it, from the force of winter torrents. But that nothing is impossible to modern science, it would seem impossible to vanquish the obstacles to the enterprise—the inevitable steepness of the ascent, the rocky precipices, etc. We amused ourselves with graduating the intellectual development of the Celtic workmen by their answers to our questions. “ ‘When is the road to be finished?’ “ ‘And, faith, Sir, it must be done before winter comes down below.’ “ ‘The next replied, ‘When the year comes round.’ And another: ‘Some time between now and never.’ “ ‘Friend,’ said I to one of them, ‘have you such high mountains in Ireland?’ “ ‘That we have, and higher—five miles high!’ Paddy is never over-crowed. “ ‘Straight up?’ I asked. “ ‘By my faith and troth, straight up, it is.’ “ ‘In what part of Ireland is that mountain?’ “ ‘In county Cork.’ “ ‘Of course, in county Cork!’ said my father, and we passed on through the debris of blasted rocks, stumps of uprooted trees, and heaps of stone, till we got far enough into the mountain to feel the sublimity of its stern, silent solitude, with the night gathering its shroud of clouds about it, and we were glad to pick our way back to our cheerful tea-table at Mr. Thompson’s. We had a long evening before us, but we diversified it (my father hates monotony, and was glad of ‘something different,’ as he called it) by bowling—my father pitting Alice against me. She beat me, according to her general better luck in life.”*….. __________________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR.LANGDON’S JOURNAL “Walked out this afternoon amidst precipices and uprooted trees, where Paddies, the plague of our Egypt, are making a road to the summit of Mount Washington, that men, women, and much cattle may be dragged up there, and there befogged.” __________________________________________ “ Thursday Morning, 6th October. – The weather still uncertain, but more beautiful in its effects on these grand mountains in their October glory, than I can describe to you. They are grand—Mount Washington being higher than Rhigi and Rhigi and Pilatus are majestic, even in the presence of Mont Blanc and the Jungfrau. The rich coloring of our autumnal foliage is unknown in Europe, and how it lights up with brilliant smiles the stern face of the mountains! Even when the sun is clouded, the beeches that skirt the evergreens look like a golden fringe, and wherever they are they ‘make sunshine in a shady place.’ The maples are flame-colored, and, when in masses, so bright that you can scarcely look steadily on them; and where they are small, and stand singly, they resemble (to compare the greater to the less) flamingos lighted on the mountain side. There is an infinite diversity of coloring—soft brown, shading off into the pale yellow, and delicate May-green. None but a White of Selborne, with his delicately defining pen, could describe them. While we stood on the piazza admiring and exclaiming, the obliging Mr. Thompson brought out a very good telescope, and adjusted it so that our eyes could explore the mountains. He pointed out the bridle-path to the summit of Mount Washington. Various obstacles have prevented our attempting the ascent. If my father would have trusted us to guides, there are none in October, nor trained horses, for as the feed is brought from below, they are sent down to the lowlands as soon as the season is over. Besides, the summits are now powdered with snow, and the paths near the summits slippery with ice; and though I like the scramble and the achievement of attaining a difficult eminence, I much prefer the nearer, better defined, and less savage views below it.* __________________________________________ *EXTRACT FROM MR. LANGDON’S JOURNAL “Thursday. Sitting by a window where I see nothing but these useless mountains. Slept little, and when I slept, haunted by slides, torrents, and all dire mischances. Waked by a gong! Rain and sunshine alternately, so that no mortal can tell whether to go or stay,” etc. __________________________________________ “ Guided by our good landlord, my eye had followed the path past two huge out-standing rocks, which look like Druidical monuments, to the summit of Mount Washington, where I had the pleasure of descrying and announcing the figure of a man. My father and Alice both looked, but could not make it out. I referred to Mr. Thompson, and his accustomed eye confirmed the accuracy of mine. Mr. Thompson was much exercised with conjectures as to where the traveler came from. He had seen none for the last few days in the mountains except our party, and he naturally concluded the man had made his ascent from the Crawford House. My eye seemed spell-bound to the glass. I mentally speculated upon the character and destiny of the pilgrim who, at this season, and alone, had climbed these steeps. My imagination invested him with a strange interest. He had wandered far away from the world, and above it. There was something in his mind—perhaps in his destiny—akin to the severity of this barren solitude. The spell was broken by a call from my father: ‘Come, Mary! are you glued to that glass?’ he exclaimed. ‘The rain is over, and we are off in half an hour.’ And so we were, with Thompson, Junior, for our driver—one of our young countrymen who always makes me proud, dear Susan, performing well the task of your inferior, with the capacity and self-respect of your equal. Long live the true republicanism of New-England! “My father had been rather nettled in the morning by what he thought an attempt, on the part of Mr. Thompson to take advantage of our dependence, and charge us exorbitantly for con- [p. 50] veying us thirty-three miles, to the Mountain-Notch;’ but, on talking the matter over with our host, he found that his outlay, with tolls, and other expenses, was such that he only made what every Yankee considers his birthright—‘ a good business’—out of us. So my father, being relieved from the dread of imposition, was in happy condition all day, and permitted us, without a murmur of impatience, to detain him, while we went off the road to see one of the two celebrated cascades of the neighborhood. It was the ‘Glen-Ellis Fall.’ We compromised, and gave up seeing the ‘Crystal Fall,’ a half a mile off the road on the other side; and enjoyed the usual consolation of travelers on like occasions of being told that the one we did not see was far best worth seeing. However, I hold all these wild leaps of mountain streams to be worth seeing, each having an individual beauty; and advise all who may follow in our traces, to go to the top and bottom of ‘Glen Ellis.’ “I have often tried to analyze the ever-fresh delight of seeing a water-fall, and have come to the conclusion that it partly springs from the scramble to get at the best and all the points of view, setting the blood in the most sluggish veins to dancing; for as you know, ‘Tout depend de la maniѐre que le sang circule.’ I can not describe to you the enjoyment of this day’s ride. As heart to heart, my father’s serenity answered to my cheerfulness and rewarded it. Our cup was brimming and sparkling. There was a glowing vitality in the western breeze that blew all the clouds from our spirits, and shaped those on the mountain sides into ever-changing beauty, or drove them off the radiant summits. We laughed, as the vapor condensing into the smallest of hail-stones, came pelting in our faces as if the elements had turned boys, and threw them in sport! What may not Nature be to us – play-fellow, consoler, teacher, religious minister! Strange that any one wretch should be found to live without God in the world, when the world is permeated with its Creator! “Our level road wound through the Pinkham woods in the defiles of the mountains, and at every turn gave them to us in a new aspect. It seemed to me that the sun had never shone so brightly as it now glanced into the forest upon the stems of the white birches—Wordsworth’s ‘Ladies of the Wood’—and shone on the Mosaic carpet made by the brilliant fallen leaves. We missed the summer-birds, but the young partridges abounded, and, hardly startled by our wheels, often crossed our path. We saw a fox, who turned and very quietly surveyed us, as if to ask who the barbarians were that so out of season invaded his homestead. One of us—I will not tell you which, lest you discredit the story—fancying, while the wagon was slowly ascending, to make a cross-cut on foot through some woodland, saw a bear—yes, a bear! face to face! and made, you may be sure, a forced march to the highway. The mountaineers were not at all surprised when we recounted what we fancied a hair-breadth ‘scape; but quietly told us that ‘three bears had been seen in that neighborhood lately, but bears did no harm unless provoked, or desperately hungry.’ It was not a very pleasant thought that our lives depended on the chances of Bruin’s appetite. “This meeting with the fox—the Mercury of the woods—and with the bear—the hero of many a dramatic fable – would, in the forests of the Old World, and in prolific Old World fancies, have been wrought into pretty traditions for after-ages. I might have figured as the ‘Forsaken, woeful, solitary maid, In wilderness and wasteful deserts strayed,’ set on by the ramping beast! And for the knight, why, it would be easy to convert the wanderer I descried on the summit of Mount Washington, into a lover and a deliverer, whose ‘allegiance and fast fealty’ had bound him to our trail. But, alas! there is no leisure in this material age for fancy-weaving; and all our way was as bare of tradition or fable as if no human footstep had impressed it, till we came to a brawling stream near ‘Davis’s Crossing,’ which we were told was called ‘Nancy’s Brook.’ We heard various renderings of the origin of the name, but all ended in one source—man’s perjury and woman’s trust. A poor girl, some said, had come with a woodsman, a collier, or tree-feller, and lived with him in the mountains, toiling for him, and singing to him, no doubt, ‘When she his evening food did dress,’ till he grew tired, and one day went forth and did not come back—and day after day she waited, but her Theseus did not return, and she was starved to death on the brink of the little brook that henceforward was to murmur her tragic tale. The sun was set behind the ridge of Mount Willard, when we reached the ‘Willey Slide,’ and Alice and I walked the last two miles to the Mountain Notch. Just after we alighted from the wagon, and while we were yet close to it, at a turn in the road I perceived a pedestrian traveler before us, who, seeming startled by the sound of our wheels, sprang lightly over the fence. I involuntarily withdrew my arm from Alice’s, and stood still, gazing after him for the half-instant that passed before he disappeared in the forest. “‘Are you frightened?’ said Alice; ‘this is a lonely road. Shall I hail the wagon?’ “ ‘Oh! no,’ I replied. “ ‘But,’ she urged, ‘this may be some fugitive from justice.’ “ ‘Nonsense, Alice; don’t you see by his air that he is a gentleman?’ “ ‘No,’ she saw nothing but that ‘he was light of foot, and anxious to escape observation.’ “I had seen more; I had seen his form who henceforward is to me as if he had passed the bourne whence no traveler returns; or, what is more probable, my imagination had lent to the figure the image that possesses it. Alice—she is a cautious little woman—was continually looking back, from fear, I from hope; but we saw [p. 51] nothing more of the traveler. The apparition had spoiled our walk. The brief twilight of October was shortened by the mountain-walls on either side of the road. We had no time to look for the cascades, and fantastic resemblances animals and human profiles that we had been forewarned to observe on the hillsides. The stars were coming out, and the full moon—indicated by the floods of light behind Mount Webster when we passed the ‘Notch’ and came upon the level area where the ‘Crawford House’ stands. Here we found my father, already seated in a rocking-chair, by a broad hearth-stone and a roaring, crackling fire. And beside these cheering types of home-contentments, he had found a gentleman from the low country, with whom he was already in animated discourse. The stranger was a fine, intelligent, genial-looking person, who proved to be a clergyman whom Alice had once before met at the Flume House. He is a true lover of Nature, and explorer of Nature’s secrets—a geologist, botanist, etc.; and he most wisely comes up to the high places, at all seasons, whenever he feels the need of refreshment to his bodily and mind’s eye. Perhaps he finds here an arcana for his theology, and I am sure that, after a study here, he may go home better able, by his high communing, to inform and elevate the minds of others. No teachers better understood the sources and means of mental power and preparation than Moses and Mohammed; and their studies were not in theological libraries, but in the deepest of nature’s solitudes. “Perhaps our friend has no direct purpose beyond his own edification in his rambles in the mountains. He is familiar with every known resort among them, and most kindly disposed to give us thoroughfare travelers information. He made for us from memory a pencil-sketch of the peaks to be seen from Mount Willard, with their names. We verified them to-day, and found the outline as true as if it had been daguerreotyped. An observation so keen, and a memory so accurate are to be envied. “This house, at the Mountain Notch is called the Crawford House. The Old Crawford House, familiar to the pioneer travelers in this region, stands a few rods from it, or rather did, till the past winter, when it was burned, and its site is now marked by charred timbers. Old Crawford’s memory will live, as one of these eternal hills bears his name. He actually lived to a good old age, and for many years in rather awful solitude here, and at the last with some of the best blessings that wait on old age—‘respect, and troops of friends.’ His son, whose stature, broad shoulders, and stolid aspect bring to mind the Saxon peasant of the Middle Ages, is driver in the season and sportsman out of it. He stood at the door this morning as we were driving off to the Falls of the Ammonoosuck, with his fowling-piece in hand, and asked leave to occupy a vacant seat in the wagon. My father was a sportsman in his youth—some forty years ago; his heart warms at the sight of a gun, and besides, I fancy he had some slight hope of mending our cheer by a brace of partridges, so he very cheerfully acquiesced in Crawford’s request. Alice and I plied him with questions, hoping to get something out of an old denizen of the woods. But he knew nothing, or would tell nothing. The ‘tongues in trees’ were far more fluent than his. But even so stony a medium had power afterward to make my heart beat. I was standing near him at the end of the Falls, and away from the rest, and I asked him (Sue, I confess I have been either thinking or dreaming of that ‘fugitive’ all night!) if he had seen a foot-traveler pass along the road the last evening or this morning? ‘No; there was few travelers any way in October.’ He vouchsafed a few more words, adding: ‘It’s a pity folks don’t know the mountains are never so pretty as in October, and sport never so smart.’ Was there ever a sportsman the dullest, most impassive, but he had some perception of woodland beauty? While we were talking, and I was seemingly measuring, with my eye, the depth of the water, as transparent as the air, my father and sister had changed their position, and come close to me. ‘Oh!’ said the man, ‘I recollect—I did see a stranger on Mount Willard this morning, when I went out with my gun; he was drawing the mountains: a great many of the young folks try to do it, but they don’t make much likeness.’ Perhaps this timely generalization of friend Crawford, prevented my father and Alice’s thoughts following the direction of mine. I know this myth is not Carl Hermann—it is not even possible it should be—and yet, the resemblance that, in my one glance, I had fancied to perceive to him and the coincidence of the sketching, had invested friend Crawford with a power to make my cheeks burn and my hands cold as ice. I stole off and looked at the deep, smooth cavities the water had welled in the rocks; but I did not escape my sister’s woman’s eye. ‘Mary dear,’ she whispered, when she joined me, ‘you are not so strong as you think yourself.’ Dear Susan, if I am not strong, I will be patient. Patience, you will say, implies a waiting for something to come. Well, let it be so. Can a spark of hope live under the ashes I have heaped upon it?..... “The rocks are very beautiful at these Falls of the Ammonoosuck. The stream, which never here can be a river, is now, by the unusual droughts of the summer, shrunk to mere rill; but even now, and at all seasons, it must be worth the drive to see it. Worth the drive! A drive anywhere in these hills ‘pays’—to borrow the slang of this bank-note world—for itself. It is a pure enjoyment. On our return we repeatedly saw young partridges in our path, nearly as tame as the chickens of the basse-cour. The whir-r-ing of their wings struck a spark from our sportsman’s eye, and—a far easier achievement—startled the blood in my father’s veins. The instinct to kill game is, I [p. 52] believe, universal with man, else how should it still live in my father, who, though he blusters like Monkbarns, is very much of an Uncle Toby in disposition? He sprang from the wagon, borrowed Crawford’s gun, and reminding Alice and me so much of Mr. Pickwick that we laughed in spite of our terror lest he should kill—not the partridge, but himself; but luckily, he escaped unharmed—and so did the bird! Crawford secured two or three brace of them in the course of the morning’s drive. I fear we shall relish them at breakfast to-morrow, in spite of our lamentations over their untimely loss of their pleasant mountain-life. I asked our driver how they survived the winter (if haply they escaped the fowler) in these high latitudes? ‘Oh!’ he said, ‘they had the neatest was of folding their legs under their wings and lying down in the snow.’ They subsist on berries and birchen-buds—dainty fare, is it not? “We found a very comfortable dinner awaiting us, which rather surprised us, as our landlord, Mr. Lindsay—a very civil, obliging person, and a new proprietor here, I believe, had promised us but Lenten entertainment; but ‘deeds, not words,’ seems the motto of these mountaineers. In the afternoon we drove up Mount Willard – ‘Straight up Ben-Lomond did we press’— but our horses seemed to find no difficulty for themselves, and we no danger in the ascent. I shall not attempt to describe the view. I have never seen any mountain prospect resembling that of the deep ravine (abyss), with its convex mountainsides; the turnpike-road looking like a ribbon carelessly unwound, the only bit of level to be seen, and prolonged for miles. The distant mountains that bound the prospect you may see elsewhere, but this ravine, with the traces of the ‘Willey Slide’ on one side of it, has no parallel. Don’t laugh at me for the homeliness of the simile—it suggested a gigantic cradle. Here, as elsewhere, we were dazzled by the brilliancy of the October foliage, and having found a seat quite as convenient as a sofa—though, being of rock, not quite as easy—we loitered till the last golden hue faded from the highest summit; and we should have staid to see the effect of the rising moon on the summits contrasting with the black shadows of night in the abyss, but my father had observed that our driver had neglected the precaution of blanketing his horses, and as a mother is not more watchful of a sucking child than he is of the well-being of animals, it matters not whether they are his own or another’s, he begged us to sacrifice our romance to their safety. Alice and I walked down the mountain; it was but a half-hour’s easy walk…… “I have forborne talking with Alice on the subject that haunts me. I know I have her sympathy; and that should satisfy me. But this evening, as we were returning, she said: ‘Did you feel any electric influence as we sat looking at the view Crawford’s ‘stranger’ sketched this morning?’ ‘I thought of Carl,’ I honestly answered, and turned the subject. Alas! Sue, when do I not think of him! ….. “Profile House: Saturday Evening. We have again, to-day, experienced the advantage of these open mountain vehicles, so preferable to the traveling-jails called stage-coaches, which always remind me of Jonah’s traveling accommodations. Again, to-day, we have been enchanted with the brilliancy of the foliage. It is just at the culminating point of beauty, and I think it does not remain at this point more than three or four days when you perceive it is a thought less bright. Why is it that no painting of our autumnal foliage has succeeded? It has been as faithfully imitated as the colors on the pallet can copy these living, glowing colors; but those who have best succeeded—even Cole, with his accurate eye and beautiful art—has but failed. The pictures, if toned down, are dull; if up to Nature, are garish to repulsiveness. Is it not that Nature’s toning is inimitable, and that the broad o’erhanging firmament, with its cold, serene blue, and the soft green of the herbage, and brown of the reaped harvest-field, temper, to the eye the intervening brilliancy, and that, within the limits of a picture, there is not sufficient expanse to reproduce these harmonies?”….. “Saturday Evening. We have driven some 23 miles—from the Mountain Notch to the Franconian hotel to-day. The weather has been delicious. The drive has been more prosaic, or approaching to it, than we have before traveled in this hill-country. This October coloring would make far tamer scenery beautiful; but I can fancy it very bleak and dismal when ‘Blow, blow November’s winds:’ whereas here, at the ‘Franconian Notch,’ you feel, as it were, housed and secured by Nature’s vast fortresses and defenses. The ‘Eagle’s Cliff’ is on one side of you, and Mount Cannon (called so from a resemblance of a rock on the summit to a cannon) on the other; and they so closely fold and wall you in that you need but a poetic stretch of the arms to touch them with either hand; and when the sun glides over the arch in the zenith above—but a four hours’ visible course in mid-winter—you might fancy yourself sheltered from the sin and sorrow that great eye witnesseth. You will accuse me, I know, dear, rational friend, of being ‘exalte,’ (vernacular, cracked,) but remember, we are alone in these inspiring solitudes, free from the disenchantment of the eternal buzzing of the summer swarms that the North gives up, and the South keeps not back. “We were received at the Profile House with a most smiling welcome by Mr. Weeks, the pro tem. host, who promises to make us ‘as comfortable as is in his power,’ and is substantiating his promise by transferring his dinner-table from the long, uncarpeted dinner-saloon, with its fearful rows of bare chairs and tables, to a well-furnished home-looking apartment, where a fire-place worthy of the Middle Ages, is already brightened with a hospitable fire. The [p. 53] great rambling hotel is vacant, and its silence unbroken, save by the hastening to and fro of our willing host, who unites all offices of service in his own person, and the pattering of his pretty little boy’s feet—the little fellow following him like his shadow, and, perchance, running away from other shadows in this great empty house. The little fellow makes music to my ear. There is no pleasanter sound than the footsteps of a child …… “I left Alice dressing for dinner. I think Alice would perform the ceremonial of a lady if she were shipwrecked in a desert island, and my father awaiting dinner. Dear father is never the pleasantest company at these seasons, when ‘time stands still withal,’ or rather, to him keeps a snail’s fretting pace. Well, I left them both and went down to the Lake—a short walk—to greet the ‘Old Man of the Mountain,’ as they prosaically call the wonderful head at the very summit of the headland cliff, upreared on high over the beautiful bit of water named ‘The Old Man’s Punch-bowl.’ The nomenclature of our country certainly does not indicate one particle of poetry or taste in its people. There are, to be sure, namesakes of the Old World, which intimate the exile’s loving memories, and there are scattered, here and there, euphonious and significant Indian names, not yet superseded by ‘Brownvilles’ or ‘Smithdales,’ but for the most part, one would infer that pedagogues, sophomores, and boors had presided at the baptismal font of the land. To call that severe Dantescan head, which it would seem impossible that accident should have formed, so defined and expressive is its outline, like the Sphinx, a mystery in the desert—to call it the ‘Old Man of the Mountain,’ is irreverence, desecration; and this exquisite little lake, lapped amidst the foldings and windings of the mountains, whose million unseen spirits may do the bidding of the heroic old Prospero who presides over it; to call this gem of the forest a ‘punch-bowl’ is a sorry travesty! I paid my homage to him while his profile cut the glowing twilight, and then sat down at the brim of the lake. Dear Susan, ‘The leaning of the close trees o’er the brim, had a sound beneath their leaves;’ and I will borrow two lines more to help out my meaning; ‘Driftings of my dream do light All the skies by day and night.’ But truly, it is mere drift-wood, not fit even to build a ‘castle in the air.’ I was startled from my musing by a rustling of the branches behind me, and I turned, expecting – not to see a bear or a fox, but my fancies incorporate. The leaves were still quivering, but I saw no apparent cause for so much disturbance—I probably had startled a brace of partridges from their roost. They brought me back to the actual world, and I came home to an excellent dinner, which I found my father practically commending. “Sunday. My father has brought us up to so scrupulous an observance of the Puritan Sabbath, that I was rather surprised, this morning, by his proposition to drive over to the Flume. His equanimity had been disturbed by finding one of the horses that had brought us here, seemingly in a dying condition. He was one of the ‘team’ that had taken us on to Mount Willard, and my father had then prophesied that he would suffer from the driver’s neglect to blanket him. He was in nowise comforted by the verification of his ‘I told you so!’ but walked to and fro from the stable, watching the remedies administered, and vituperating all youth as negligent, reckless, and hard-hearted! I think it was half to get rid of this present annoyance that he proposed the drive to the Flume, saying, as he did so: “These mountains are a great temple, my children; it matters not much where we stand to worship.’ We stopped for a half-hour at a little fall just by the roadside, called by the mountain-folk ‘The Basin,’ and by fine people, ‘The Emerald Bowl’—a name suggested by the exquisite hue of the water, which truly is of as soft and bright a green as an emerald. The stream has curiously cut its way through a rock white and smooth, and almost polished by its friction, which overhangs the deep, circular bowl like a canopy, or rather, like a half-uplifted lid, its inner side being mottled and colored like a beautiful shell. The stream glides over the brim of its sylvan bowl and goes on its way rejoicing. We loitered here for a half-hour watching the golden and crimson leaves that had dropped in, and laid in rich mosaics in the eddies of the stream. “The morning was misty, and the clouds were driven low athwart the mountains, forming, as Alice well said, pedestals on which their lofty heads were upreared. No wonder that people in mountains and misty regions become imaginative, even superstitious. These forms, falling, rising, floating over the eternal hills, susceptible of dazzling brightness, and deepening into the gloomiest of earth’s shadows, are most suggestive to a superstitious dreamer. “I shall not attempt, my friend, to describe this loveliest of all five-mile drives, from the ‘Profile House’ to the Flume under the Eagle’s Cliff, and old Prospero, and beside his lake, and the ‘Emerald Bowl,’ and then finished by the most curious, perhaps the most beautiful passage we have yet seen in the mountains,‘The Flume’—thus called probably from a homely association with the race-way of a mill. “The ravine is scarcely more than a fissure, probably made by the gradual wearing of the stream. I am told the place resembles the Bath of Pfeffers, in Switzerland; that world’s wonder can scarcely be more romantically beautiful than our Flume. The small stream, which is now reduced to a mere rill by the prolonged droughts, forces it way between walls of rock, upheaved in huge blocks like regular mason-work. Where you enter the passage, it may be some hundred yards wide, but it gradually contracts till you may almost touch either side with [p. 54] your outstretched arms. I only measured the height of the rock walls with my eye, and a woman’s measure is not very accurate—it may be one hundred or one hundred and fifty feet. Tall trees, at the summits, interlace, and where they have fallen, bridge the passage from one side to the other. Rich velvety mosses cover the rocks like a royal garment, and vines, glittering in their autumnal brightness, laid on them like rich embroidery, so that we might say, as truly as was said of the magnificence of Oriental nature, that ‘Solomon in all his glory was not arrayed like one of these.’ But how, dear Susan, am I to show the picture to you? The sun glancing on the brilliant forest above us, and the indescribable beauty of the shrubs, golden and crimson, and fine purple, that shot out of the crevices of the rocks! It is idle to write or talk about it; but only let me impress on you that this enchanting coloring is limited to the first days of October. I am afraid it may be said of scenery as has been said of lover’s tête-a-tête talks, that it resembles those delicate fruits which are exquisite where they are plucked, but incapable of transmission. As my father can never enjoy any thing selfishly, he was particularly pleased with the nice little foot-path won from the mountain-side, and the frequent foot-bridges, that indicate the numbers that have taken this wild walk before us. My father fancies he enjoys our security from the summer swarms, but his social nature masters his theories. “Alice and I were amused this morning, just at the highest access of our enthusiasm, while we stood under a huge rock wedged in between the two walls, on looking back to see my father sitting on a bench, arranged as a point of sight, not gazing, but listening profoundly—his graceful person and beautiful old head inclined in an attitude of the deepest attention—to a loafer who had unceremoniously joined us, and who, as my father afterwards rather reluctantly confessed, was recounting to him the particulars of his recent wooing of a third Mrs. Smith or Mrs. Brown. And when we returned to our quarters at the Profile House and came down to dinner, we met our landlord at the door, his face even more than usually effulgent with smiles. “‘There has a lady and gentleman come in,’ he said, ‘and your father has no objection to their dining at table with you.’ “His voice was slightly deprecatory. I think he did not quite give us credit for our father’s affability, Of course, we acquiesced, and were afterwards edified by our brief acquaintance with the strangers—a mother and son, who had come up from the petty cares of city life for a quiet ramble among the hills—to find here ‘A peace no other season knows.’ “The mother wears widow’s weeds, and has evidently arrived at the ‘melancholy days.’ As we just now sat enjoying our evening fire, ‘My hearthstone,’ she said, ‘was never cold for seventeen years; but there is no light there now. My children are dispersed, and he who was dearest and best lies under the clods! My youngest and I hold together—I can not let him go.’ The loving companionship of a mother and a son who returns to her tenderness the support of his manly arm, never shrinking from the shadows that fall from her darkened and stricken heart, or melting those shadows in his own sunny youth—is one of the consoling pictures of life. This poor lady seems to have the love of nature, which never dies out. It is pleasant to see with what patience her son cared for the rural wealth she is amassing in her progress through the hills, the late flowers, and bright leaves, and mosses, though I have detected a boyish, mischievous smile as he stowed them away….. “We had something approaching to an adventure this evening on Echo Lake, the loveliest of all these mountain lakes, and not more than half a mile from our present inn, the Profile House. Our dear father consented to go out with us, and let Alice and me, who have been well trained at that exercise in our home lake, take our turns with him in rowing. This lake is embosomed in the forest, and lies close nestled under the mountains, which here have varied shape and beautiful outline. It takes its name from its clear echoes. We called, we sang, and my father whistled, and from the deep recesses of the hills our voices came back as if spirit called to spirit, musical and distinct. You know the fascination there is in such a scene. The day had continued misty to the last; the twilights at this season are at best short, and while my father was whistling, one after another, the favorite songs of his youth, we were surprised by nightfall. My father startled us with “ ‘Bless me, girls, what are you about?’ “It was he who was most entranced. “ ‘I can not see our landing-place!’” “Neither, with all possible straining, could our younger eyes descry it. We approached as near the shore as we dared, but could go no nearer without the danger of swamping our boat, when suddenly we perceived a blessed apparition—a white signal—made quite obvious in the dim light by a background of evergreens. We rowed toward it with all our might, wondering what kind friend was waving it so eagerly. As we approached near the shore it suddenly dropped and hung motionless, and when we landed we saw no person and heard no footstep. I untied the signal, and finding it a man’s large, fine linen handkerchief, I eagerly explored the corner for the name, but the name had evidently just been torn off. Strange! We puzzled ourselves with conjectures. My father cut us short with: “ ‘’Tis that young man at the hotel. Young folks like this sort of thing.’ “But it was not he; we found him reading to his mother, who said she was just about sending him to look after us.” Thus abruptly ended Mary Langdon’s journal- [p. 55] letter. The reason of its sudden discontinuance will be found in our own brief relation of the experience of the following morning, (Monday,) which we had from all the parties that partook in it. Our friends were to leave the Profile House on Monday, on their return to the lowlands, to go from there to the Flume House, visit “the Pool,” and then down to the pretty village of Plymouth, in New Hampshire. Mary and her sister were early, and having a spare half-hour before breakfast, went down to take a last look at Prospero and his “bowl.’ There they found a crazy, old, leaky boat, with a broken oar, and Mary, spying some dry bits of board on the shore, deftly threw them in and arranged them so that she and her sister could get in dry-shod. Alice looked doubtfully at the crazy little craft and hung back—the thought of husband and children at home is always a sedative—but her eager sister overcame her scruples, and they were soon fairly out from shore in deep water. They went on, half-floating, half-rowing, unconscious of the flying minutes. Not so their father, who after waiting breakfast “an eternity,” (as he said, possibly some five minutes!) came to the lake to recall them. Just as he came within fair sight of them, for they were not two hundred yards from him, the boat suddenly began whirling round—a veering wind rushed upon them. The poor father saw their dilemma, and could not help them. He could not swim. He screamed for help, but what likelihood that any one should hear or could aid him! Alice prudently, sat perfectly still. The oar was in Mary’s hand—she involuntarily sprang to her feet—her head became giddy, not so much, she afterward averred, with the whirling of the boat, as with the sight of her poor old father, and the sense that she had involved Alice in this peril. She plunged the oar into the water in the vain hope by firmly holding it of steadying the boat; but she dropped it from her trembling hand, and in reaching after it, she too dropped over into the water, and in her struggle she pushed the boat from her, and thus became herself beyond the possibility of her sister’s reach. Her danger was imminent—she was sinking. Her father and sister shrieked for help, and help came! A plash in the water, and a strong man, with wonderful preternatural strength and speed, was making his way toward Mary. In one moment more he had grasped her with one hand. She had still enough presence of mind not to embarrass him by any struggles, and shouting a word of comfort to Alice, he swam to the shore and laid Mary in her father’s arms. He then returned to the boat, and soon brought it to shore. There are moments of this strange life of ours not to be described—feelings for which language in no organ. While such a moment sped with father and daughters, their deliverer stood apart. The father gazed upon his darling child, satisfying himself that “not a hair had perished,” but she was only “fresher than before;” and, as he afterward said, “fully recovering his wits,” he turned to thank the preserver of his children. He was standing half concealed behind a cluster of evergreens. “Come forward, my dear fellow,” he said; “for God’s sake, let me grasp your hand!” He did not move. “Oh! come,” urged Mr. Langdon. “Never mind your shirt-sleeves; it’s no time to be particular about trifles.” Still he did not move. “Oh, come! dear—Carl,” said Mary, and her lover sprang to her feet. What immediately followed was not told me, but there was no after coldness or reluctance on the part of the good father. His heart was melted and fused in gratitude and affection for his daughter’s lover. His prejudices were vanquished, and he was just as well satisfied as if they had been overcome by the slower processes of reason and conviction. The truth was, the old gentleman was not to be outdone in magnanimity. Mary’s filial devotion had prepared him to yield his opposition, and he confessed that he had, in his own secret counsel with himself, determined to recall Hermann at the end of another year, if he proved constant and half as deserving as his foolish girl thought him. “But Prospero,” he said, “had seen fit to take the business into his own hands, and setting his magic to work, had stirred up a tempest in his punch-bowl to bring these young romancers together.” But by what spell had he conjured up the lover at the critical moment? Hermann confessed that not being able to get off in the steamer of the 29th, he had delayed his embarkation for ten days, and the magic of love—the only magic left to our disenchanted world—had drawn him to the White Mountains, where he might have the consolation—a lover only could appreciate it—of breathing the same atmosphere with Mary, and possibly of seeing her, unseen. Thus he had stood on the summit of Mount Washington, when, by some mysterious magnetism, Mr. Thompson’s telescope had been pointed to it. He was the “fugitive from justice” at Willy’s Slide, the ambitious artist on Fort Willard, and the friend whose signal had brought them safely to port on Echo Lake! Hermann’s arrangements for pursuing his studies in Europe were not disturbed. The good father was in the most complying temper. He consented to have the wedding within this blessed month of October, and graciously granted the prayer of the young people that he would accompany them in their year’s visit to Europe. “Mary and I are already wedded,” said he to me, with a smile of complete satisfaction; ‘we only take this young fellow into the partnership.” It was a bright day in the outer and inner world when we parted. And thus ended our October visit to the White Hills of New Hampshire, but not our gratitude to Him who held us “In his large love and boundless thought.” [p. 56] If our friend Mary has imperfectly sketched the beauty of the Mountains, she has exaggerated nothing. We hope our readers, though perchance o’er-wearied now, may make the complete tour of these lovely places, including, as it should, the enchanting sail over Lake Winepescago, the beautiful drive by North Conway, and the ascents of Kiersarge, Chiconea, Mount Moriah, and the Red Mountain. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The White Hills in October Subject The topic of the resource Star-crossed lovers, filial piety, the White Mountains of New Hampshire, off-season tourism. Description An account of the resource The narrator presents the journal of a trip to the White Mountains by Mary Langdon, a young American woman, who has just ended a relationship with her German lover due to her father's disapproval. A mysterious stranger appears at a significant moment and changes the young woman's fortunes. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine Maria. [published anonymously] Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Harper's New Monthly Magazine [edited by Alfred A. Guernsey] (December 1856): 44-56. Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1856 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource Margaret Erickson, D. Gussman Relation A related resource The Continental Monthly [by C. M. Sedgwick] (October 1862): 423-44. Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 1856 Ammonoosuck Boston cigars daughters Elizabeth Barrett Browning fathers filial piety German Glen Ellis Fall Harper's New Monthly Magazine hiking hotels hunting immigration inns Irish journal Love marriage Mayflower Mohammed Moses Mount Rhigi Mount Washington Mount Webster Nancy's Brook Nature New England New Hampshire Pickwick Portland Prospero railroad restaurants Rosalind rowing Shakespeare sisters The Heir of Redcliffe Theseus tourism Travel waterfalls White Mountains Wordsworth https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/5a30f17c7459dd1585be0f67a06a1fe3.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=l6FhUUuZTE7qm4jVpw08rX0Q%7E1gMA48Gjt14yvlIV2RDQZ5VH0HTw29b9snDQEiNoRT7WG-hn7847zzoVvvr9dr0cgLfrVTkEI2Ogg1qBKtzWHuGGQxeqPvqqYmboNwYSiRVwwuSzpR1k0KhWRw4CVufEX7HA8OkQQ90supxegJRIYJnFo0BS1e150E4RzrWtzhXF6E4lGMVDrBiov7fu8SDwklcRxFwTH3iP1s-A1g-XUgoK1Tf4xDUS-Cq9sqZl6NWOwuMBHHInJOOaD7H4qR6PpEtBPttdJJUQ1HKgNv7PZEEapQmRZFKM7IPBH-cUI3n-aiKj3Cy1xfp98RUVQ__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 5683eeec3f26f961abff8968281db8c6 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1846 Subject The topic of the resource Stories published in 1846. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. The Little Mendicants We have all our pet charities. Our next door neighbor, Mrs. Devon, is one of the board of managers of three charitable societies, and she fulfills her duty critically to all. They are, I believe, the only societies in the city that do not include within the circuit of their charities one of that great pauper class—the Irish. One of them is for the relief of respectable indigent females. “Not one of these, is ever, by any chance,” Mrs. Devon says, “an Irish woman.” Another is for the orphan colored children. Of course there is no danger of any drop of Mrs. Devon’s rains of charity falling here on these unjust ones; the other I do not now remember, but I am sure it includes none of these aliens from Mrs. Devon’s household of faith. I dropped in last week to pay our neighbor a morning visit. I saw she was rather excited, and after some general observations, she asked me, rather abruptly, if I “approved of giving to street-beggars?” “Oh no, certainly not,” I said, very boldly, hoping, in my secret heart, she would not go into particulars. “Oh, oh!” she said; “I thought perhaps you did.” “Oh no, Mrs. Devon,” and I repeated, very glibly, all the stock sayings of political economists which I had gathered from books and lectures against alms-giving. Mrs. Devon heard me through, and then rather let down my vanity by saying, “I don’t get my principles from books or men. I don’t think they know anything about such matters. I have my own principles, and I have seen enough of the bad effects of giving out at the door, never to do it. There is a drove of Irish go up this street, and we shall never get rid of them till all the neighborhood agree uniformly to refuse them—they are a wretched set of people.” “Very wretched,” I said modestly. “Yes, and very undeserving,” resumed Mrs. Devon, “and so dirty, and so stout, and healthy.” “There is one poor woman,” I ventured to say, “who has been in the habit all winter of going up our street, who is any thing but stout and healthy.” “Oh yes, I know,” replied Mrs. Devon in the tone of a retort; “I have observed her; she always has a boy and girl with her that ought to be in the house of refuge; yes, she skulks behind our steps while your cook fills her boy’s basket.” Thus caught in the fact by my sharp-sighted neighbor, I had to confess that this woman’s little girl was a pet of our children, and that being younger than the youngest among them, when she dropped down into the area of a biting Winter’s morning, they felt the contrast so strongly between her condition and their’s, sitting, as they were, warmly clad and well served round their smoking breakfast, that it was difficult to restrain their compassion by any general laws, and that they even went so far sometimes as to smuggle a well-buttered hot cake from their plates into her basket. “But do you know,” asked Mrs. Devon, apparently quite shocked, “what a liar she is? She had the hardihood to tell me—and she is fatter than any of my children ever were—that she never had eaten but twice in her life!” I fear Mrs. Devon perceived the smile lurking at the corners of my mouth as I confessed the children had told me that that was little Mag Mahoney’s standing statement. A joke is perennial with children; no use wears it out, and the truth is that this daily repetition of this little romance of Mag is infinitely diverting to our young people; and when their elders have sometimes had the grace to rebuke them for encouraging her to repeat it, they say, “Oh she is so young and so pretty, and fat and droll,” and they tell her to say it—it is not her fault! “Well!” said Mrs. Devon, her manner and tone conveying much more than her words. “I did not imagine you knew she told this lie; she never had the opportunity to tell it more than once at my door! It’s no wonder the Irish are such finished liars when they begin so early; they lie, and they steal, and they are horrid wretches.” Truth is one of the cardinal virtues that seems particularly adverse to the imaginative constitution of the Irish. On that head I could not gainsay my neighbor, but I ventured modestly to suggest that I had found them particularly honest! “Honest!” echoed Mrs. Devon; “Why it was but yesterday morning that these same Mahoneys came up the street, and you know the mother always keeps ahead of the children. That is one of their contrivances, so that people may think that [pg 181] _____ these little brutes are driven forth by want alone. They don’t take me in! My waiter had a chamber candlestick in his hand, not silver, but the best of Sheffield-plate. I have had the pair ever since I kept house. The door-bell rung and he set it down on the table in the lower entry. Our area-door happened to be open. David saw the little Mahoneys at your window, but he did not see the mother anywhere, and when he went down stairs the candlestick was gone, and I make no doubt that, while your children were giving out their hot cakes to her’s, the mother slipped in and took my candlestick.” Mrs. Devon’s manner made me feel for the moment as if our poor children were confederates of the Mahoneys, and impressing my sympathy almost in a tone of contrition, I begged to see the mate of the stolen candlestick, and offered to go myself to the Mahoney’s little cabin and attempt to recover the stolen goods. This softened Mrs. Devon. She evidently looked upon it as a concession on my part to the truth. The candlestick was produced, a little the worse for use, as thirty years’ wear, even on Sheffield-plate, and with the best of housewifery, will show. However, the value of the article had nothing to do with the sin of the theft, and such was my faith in the Mahoneys, and such, I must confess, the friendly relations of our family with them, that I felt confident of being able to recover the candlestick if they had stolen it; and in truth I thought the evidence was rather against them. In the course of the morning I went to the Mahoneys—I had been there before. They live in a little isolated cabin on a vacant lot far up the Sixth Avenue. It was a soft morning in February. The door stood ajar and around it ducks and hens were picking up crumbs that argued an abundant income from the alms-basket. Adjoining the house there was a pen of broken boards, where another pensioner on the little mendicants’ foragings was thriving and grunting. I said the door was ajar; I lingered there for a moment to observe and listen. Alas, we involuntarily cast the poor beyond the pale of our good-breeding! There were two rooms within the house, one just large enough to contain a bed, the other some twelve feet square where all the family offices and observances were performed: and, surely, the household gods never looked down on a scene of greater confusion and filth, good-humor blended with affection, and flowers growing out of this dunghill and nourished by the light and dews and favor of Heaven. The floor apparently had never known water, except it had been spilled there; coals collected from the siftings in the street were deposited in a scattering heap by a battered smoking stove; and some kindlings in dangerous proximity, were on the other side of it. The mother sat by the table, on the only available chair in the room. A board was put across two others, and thus furnished a seat for our friends Ned and Mag who, with a little half-clothed urchin between them, occupied it much in the classic position of the ancients; another child, half-way in its life-journey, between Mag and the ‘the baby’ was under the table playing with a full litter of pups! Animal life throve at the Mahoneys’ out-door and in. No wonder the little mendicants were early and late at rich men’s doors to supply all the hungry mouths at home—children, pigs, fowls, dogs and all! Among the consumers I have not included a canary that hung over the table, and stimulated by the clatter of the children, sang as sweetly as if he had been in the loveliest bower of his own sunny land. While I still occupied my post of observation, Ned shook up and shook out, for the feathers floated in every direction, a caseless pillow and put it behind his mother’s back. “There mammy,” he said, “rest your bones agen it, it will cure the ache of them.” “God bless ye, Neddy, it does help a bit.” “Och, mammy, dear, and so it will, and yees will be well again quite entirely if yees will be after eating like Maggy and me. Hold the dish here a bit, Mag. Mag brought a deep earthen dish with a piece notched out of the edge here and there, and Ned, with the half of a broken plate, scooped from a stewing caldron an indescribable mess far transcending in variety Meg Merrilies’s De’ils broth. It was made of motley contents of the alms baskets. Fish, flesh and fowl, puddings tarts and pies, all mixed together, and all together making not an unsavory salmagundi, judging from the steam that reached my olfactory nerves. “There, mammy, there,” said Ned, fishing up a whole egg, eat that first just. William Hall’s cook in the Fifth avenue gave it to me for you; the Almighty bless her white hairs; she said it was good for you, and Pat McGruff says if you eat plenty of them they’ll make your lungs grow again!” “Och!” he exclaimed, giving the mess another stir,” here’s a bit o’ plum pudding that Miss—(naming our youngest) gave me; the blessed virgin watch over her, the little darlant! Just be after eating it, mammy; it will make your stomach feel so good, and full, (another stir) and faith! Here’s the turkey’s wing the little lady with the big black eyes gave Maggy from her own plate—the Saints love her! The one that’s always after making Mag say she’s ate but twice in her life, (our mischievous Nell.) Eat it mammy, dear, it will put strength into your legs again!” “Na, Neddy—na; they get waker and waker every day. I’m after thinking they’ll never take me out with you agin.” “Now, mammy, dear, there’s nobody would dare say that to me but just yees-self; we’ll have many a fair run together yet. Eat, mammy, eat, Pat Mc- [pg 182] _____ Gruff says plenty of good food will cure every thing in life, and its plenty ye’ll have, and the pig and the pups too, while there’s Mag and I to collect for yees all!” I made my entrée at this point, and I believe a smile was lurking on my lips, for Mrs. Mahoney looked as if she thought I had the feeling of having detected her, and Ned snatched up the dish from impulse to hide it, and over it went, on the puppies and child under the table, who with their snatching and lickings soon disposed of more than their fair share of the fodder. “Sure” said poor Mrs. Mahony, apologetically, “and it is not ivry day we’ve such plinty.” “And it’s the doctor’s orders from the infirmary,” interposed Ned. He paused. “That your mother should have plenty to eat Ned?” “That’s just it, indeed,” said the ready fellow, re-assured by my manner, and when I went on to say that I was only sorry poor Mrs. Mahony’s appetite was not as good as her food, she said, “indeed, ma’am, it is not often were having such a dinner as this; it matters not for me, but the children and the pups, (I keep them for the poor fatherless childer, just for a little diversion like,) and the geese and the hens, (it’s the eggs brings us a few shillings, ) and the pigs, (was not it the pigs was all my poor husband left to his fatherless children?) all would starve together but for yees and the like of ye, madam; but indeed and indeed theres days when we look starvation in the face.” I saw that Mrs. Mahony felt it necessary to convince me that the sumptuous repast I had witnessed was accidental; and I was mortified, as I have often been, to perceive that the poor regard the rich as looking on their accidental plenty, their genial hours, their few social festivities, with a jealous and condemning eye. Though I am well aware that it was very inexcusable in Mrs. Mahony to permit her children to beg for the subsistence of her family and the support of her live stock, and although I know it is a vice to indulge in charities whereby children are tempted to an idle and corrupting mode of life, yet I must confess that this dirty little Ned, with his strong filial devotion triumphing over all the deteriorations of his condition—the anxious, loving mother—laughing little Mag, feeding the baby and fondling it, and the boy playing with the pups—he enjoying existence much as they did in its freedom from thought and pain—altogether made me for the moment forget my stern principles in my sympathy with the scene; and when I heard these little mendicants throwing back blessings on all who had blessed them, I felt that there is no unmitigated evil—that on the darkest channels of human life, light falls from Heaven. That is a truth but not a truth to make us idle or inactive for if through all the natural evils of life and the accumulated wrongs of our social condition, a providential care is visible, surely man should become an earthly providence to the outcast children. But I have forgotten my errand to Mrs. Mahoney, which, though I aimed at as much delicacy as the nature of the case permitted, was rather discordant with my previous manifestations. Mrs. Mahoney stoutly denied knowing any thing of my neighbor’s candlestick, and so fervently thanked the Almighty that in her lowest poverty, even when her husband laid starving with cold and dying at home, she had never touched what was not her own, and so solemnly appealed to Him who was soon to judge her, that I was convinced of her innocence and made her quite easy by the appearance that I was so. From that time she rapidly declined, and though she was supplied with what my little friend Ned called genteel food, gruel, broth, &c., her appetite never returned. When she died, the expenses of the funeral were provided for by a few friends of the children, and I went with one of them to witness the ceremonies of the occasion. The house was filled and surrounded by Mrs. Mahoney’s Catholic friends. They made way for us to enter the door. The fowls were picking up the crumbs around the step just as on the first day I as there; the dogs were thrust outside, and were amusing some idle boys; the little canary, as if in sympathy with the subdued tone within, was mute on his perch. The coffin containing the body was in the inner-room, and the door-way being filled up, I did not at first see it. The three younger children, including Maggy, were sitting on the laps of different friends—Maggy recognizing each new comer with a cordial nod, and the little ones sufficiently entertained with looking round and devouring huge bits of cake. My eye sought in vain my little friend Ned; the wave receded from the door-way, and I saw the end of the coffin and a crucifix standing on it; that most thrilling symbol, around which the thoughts of desertion and sympathy—of sin and pardon—of death and eternal life cluster—the symbol that brings down the monarch to the level of the poor, that raises the poor above all earthly thrones. Beside the crucifix was a lighted candle, the token I believe to the pious Catholic of the undying spirit. I heard loud sobs, and felt sure they must proceed from poor little Ned. I pressed toward the door, and there I recognized him, or rather a pair of unwashed legs and ragged shoes that I knew belonged to him. His head was plunged into the coffin where he was laying his cheek to his mother’s, kissing her and with the passion of his race vehemently lamenting her. Poor Ned’s legs were too much for my friend’s or mine; we exchanged smiles that soon however gave place to the [pg 183] _____ more seeming tribute of tears, for the boy’s wailings were heart-breaking. “It’s not I that will be after living in the world without you, mammy!” he said. “Who now will be always the same to me whether I’m bad or good? Ah, mammy, you never spoke the cross word to me, and ye’ll niver spake again, mammy, niver, niver!” I lifted the child out of the coffin and tried to comfort him; after awhile I succeeded, for poor Ned’s grief was like the grief of other children, proverbially transient as April clouds. The hearse did not come at the promised time, and my friend and I, after waiting a full half hour, came away. I looked about for Ned to say a parting word to him, but he was no where to be seen. As we left the door we perceived, some fifty yards in advance of us, a gathering of men and boys. As we advanced the circle broke to allow us to pass on the pavement, and we beheld in the air the identical legs that were protruded from the coffin, and Ned’s body, pinning to the pavement a boy half as large again as himself, whom he was belaboring with lusty blows and crying between them. “I’ll teach you to call my mammy a thief! She, a thief, my mammy that never stole from an inemy, let alone a friend! My mammy a thief! She’s gone to the good God, and if you spake the word again, its I will send ye howling tother place!” “Ned!” said I, and put my hand gently on him. The boy jumped as if he were electrified and sprang to my side. “Sure ma’am, and I could not help it,” he said, in answer to my remonstrance upon his ill-timed resentment. “The devil a bit would I be after fighting when my mammy was a burying; it was just to convince ‘em my mammy never touched that dirty candlestick.” A suspicion flashed across my mind. “What candlestick, Ned?” I asked. “Sure, ma’am,” answered Ned drawing close to me and lowering his voice, “ye be’s such a friend to us, I’ll tell ye the truth. It was that woman that lives next to you, with the black flashing eyes—it was she called my mother a thief, and Tim Potts that goes of dirty errands for her waiter got the story there. She might have had her candlestick to this day, but she was after shutting the door in my mammy’s face when she was that wake-like her legs trimbled under her, and just for a bad compliment I took her dirty candlestick and threw it to the pigs, and ye may see for yourself, ma’am, they champed it out of shape, and it was all unbeknownst to my mammy; and would you wish me to hear her, lying dead there, called a thief for the dirty thing?” Before I could reply the hearse appearing in sight brought a fresh shower from Ned’s eyes, and I deferred examining the candlestick and enlightening Ned’s conscience to a future opportunity, and returned to my home meditating on the singular characteristics commingled in the Irish race. Since every wind that blows brings to our shores a fresh swarm of these people, who are to form so potent an element in our future national character, it behoves us to study them well, and make the best we can of them. And a rich study they are, with their gusty passions and unwavering faith, their susceptibility to kindness and their inveterate prejudices, their utter incapacity for verbal truth and the overruling truth of their affections, their quick and savage resentments and their fervid gratitude, their barbarous ignorance and their brilliant imaginativeness, their bee-like diligence and their brutish filth, their eager acquisitiveness and their impulsive generosity. These opposing qualities, with the richness and confusion of their ideas and their anomalous expression, make them an exquisite compound of poetry, inconsequence, wit and blunder. [pg 184] Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource The Little Mendicants Subject The topic of the resource Charity, Irish, Death, Prejudice Description An account of the resource The narrator recounts a time in which her neighbor, Mrs. Devon, describes her charitable attention to local Irish Immigrants. While Mrs. Devon's charity is lauded, suspicion arises over the honesty of those she is serving. Questions form over the health of a particular Irish woman and her children. Mrs. Devon later discovers that some of her belongings are missing. Mrs. Devon and the narrator investigate the situation, and discover the truth and some underlying prejudices. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catherine M., Miss C. M. Sedgwick Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine [edited by John Inman and Robert A. West] (April 1846): 181-84. Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource 1846 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource LDB, S. Riggins Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document charity children Columbian Lady's and Gentleman's Magazine Death Honesty Immigrants Irish Mrs. Devon prejudice https://d1y502jg6fpugt.cloudfront.net/4347/archive/files/5cb7ee30556c0d0997d5f94d11646ef5.pdf?Expires=1777507200&Signature=XDy3bL8OI1MuntJpmfuGHpVL5d2ypnIU12HDO7eOl52vKYtexb-ehK6mtP3CK-9m6BrR7Pjwb5mH2TVxsa2MRxEx3db95e0CLccx2hlEW60REe2Yvj7vpXN86FK6Oxj6ikfngwAdH0fy1jSHsnRkpeH3v65Ryb%7ENZPzVipW0QMBlbhBV%7ELGsOUOyUXI3zuZdVM-BbLAss-Z9fawKVRAnVWjXL7nEWbsRrWbXXqcacMmOdw9o1q11TmtxYaprxfg2I3zdpPvOFAFtlmBs-Xu9jImYCD2B7v%7EcnHmdWSC0CHCtEv-X5P-OYkRFZ-eKtPNaPQXbktRdYp6m87j3NZ0q2g__&Key-Pair-Id=K6UGZS9ZTDSZM 3bd02176d8e31744eaa0d53a63344f10 Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource 1842 Subject The topic of the resource Stories published in 1842. Document A resource containing textual data. Note that facsimiles or images of texts are still of the genre text. Text Any textual data included in the document. The Irish Girl. By the author of “Hope Leslie,” &c. “My peace is gone, My heart is heavy; I shall find it never And never more.” “Now sit down, Margaret, child, and rest you—here by my bedside. How comfortable my bed feels! It always has the right lay when you fix it, Margaret. Come, sit down; the work is all done up, and done as well as I could do it myself—even the outside of the teakettle is as clean as a china cup. It’s a mystery to me, Margaret, how you learned such tidy ways in a shanty.” “It’s not always that I have lived in a shanty, Mrs. Ray.” “Don’t turn your back to me, Margaret; draw your chair closer to my bed. I want to have a little talk with you, Margaret. I feel myself going down hill, and I don’t know how long I may be spared.” “God forbid you should be taken, Mrs. Ray, dear—you, that are so good to them that’s near and them that’s far off.” “You must not flatter me, Margaret,” said the old woman, in a tone of voice that indicated anything but displeasure. “And do you think I’d be after flattering you, Mrs. Ray—you, that are mother-like to me? God knows you are kind, and it’s James says the same; and you know yourself James—God forgive him!—loves no Yankee besides you in the world.” “But I mistrust, Margaret,” said the old lady, fixing her faded gray eye on the young creature, “I mistrust James’s sister can’t say the same.” Margaret’s cheek, ordinarily pale, turned to a deep crimson. The old lady cleared her voice and continued: “It’s no crime, nor nothing like it, Margaret, to love what’s good—hem—if what’s good is what’s suitable.” This seemed a mere common-placeism, but Margaret’s cheek turned pale again, and a tear trickled over it. “You say you have not always lived in a shanty, Margaret, and that’s what l have said to our people. Says I to Sister Maxwell, ‘Margaret has had as good opportunities as the most of our mountain girls;’ says I, ‘ she can read handsomely— there’s few can read like her;’ says I, ‘I wish the minister could read so;’ says I, ‘ her reading sinks right down into the heart.’ ” “Who is flattering now, Mrs. Ray, dear?” [p. 130] “Not I, Margaret—-’tis not our way to flatter.” “Nor ours. God knows, Mrs. Ray, it’s what we feel we speak, be it good or bad.” “Well, well, Margaret, I know some does call real kind heart-words flattery, but they are no such thing, I know—we won’t talk about that now. As I was saying, judging from your reading and writing, you have seen better days—haven’t you, Margaret?” “Some ways they were better, and other ways not. I had an aunt was housekeeper at Lady Kavenagh’s—and my lady respected my aunt, and she would have me to come and live with her in the housekeeper’s room; and Miss Grace took a fancy to me, and taught me to read and write, and so forth.” “Then, after all,” said Mrs. Ray, with manifest disappointment, “your parents have always lived in a shanty?” “They lived in what we call a cabin, ma’am —thank God.” “Margaret, you forget: I’ve often told you it’s not right to use the name of God in vain as you do. You should not say ‘thank God’ when you mean nothing by it.” “Indeed, Mrs. Ray, dear, and I do mean something. I never think of my home in that cabin without thanking God in my heart, and God forgive me if I don’t thank him with my lips too. That cabin was my home, Mrs. Ray; there was a kind father and the kindest of mothers always working and caring for us. There it was my little sister—God bless her! —died; there was James, my mate, always glad to see me, and sorry to part from me; there was never a harsh word among us—we laughed and we cried together—what one loved, the other loved, and what one hated, all hated: hadn’t we what’s best in castle and palace, and not always found there? I’ve often thought, wouldn’t my Lady Kavenagh gladly change with-my mother, and rough it with loving hearts and happy faces?” “Oh, I dare say, Margaret, ladies in the old countries have it hard enough, as everyone knows who reads the newspapers; but that is nothing to the purpose. What I want to come at, Margaret, is, would you—could you be content to live in a cabin again? You would hold your head above it, wouldn’t you?” Margaret’s form dilated as she impulsively rose from her seat, and raising and clasping her hands, appealingly exclaimed, “God strike me dead, then, if I would! -- it was in a cabin that my father and mother that’s gone lived -- it was in a cabin that James and l grew up together, with one heart between us. Oh, Mrs. Ray, dear, God forgive you! -- it’s such a long time ago, I think you have forgotten what a happy thing it is to be a child at home, in your own father’s place—be it castle or cabin, it’s all the same.” “Don’t be affronted, child, and don’t cry,” said kind Mrs. Ray, wiping her eyes, and somewhat overpowered by Margaret’s vehe— [p. 131] mence; “your feelings are natural, and quite right, but there is no need of such a hurricane. I am sure my sons and daughters love me and are dutiful to me, but it’s in a quiet, regular way.” “And that’s the way of your people, Mrs. Ray, dear; but our feelings come in a storm, and you may as easy keep the winds that come howling over your Becket hills quiet, as keep them still -- but it’s not always we are feeling, and God forgive me if I have said anything to fret you—you, that are so kind to me.” “It’s a satisfaction to be kind to you, Margaret, and I don’t like to leave my work half done—so sit down again. I'll be candid with you, Margaret, and you must be candid with me, and open your heart to me as if I were your own mother.” “Ah, Mrs. Ray, dear!” Margaret kissed the old lady. “I am going to use freedom, child: who gave you that blue guard-chain that you wear round your neck day and night?” “Sure it was William Maxwell, then,” replied Margaret, in a voice scarce above her breath. Margaret was learning that some of our feelings, and those of the strongest too, are stillest. “And what have you hanging by it, Margaret?” Margaret answered by drawing out a small crucifix appended to the guard-chain, kissing it, and crossing herself. “0 Margaret, Margaret! That’s to be a cross to you indeed, I fear! I must tell you the truth; there is no thing William Maxwell’s parents have such a horror of as a Romanist, and there is nothing his father despises like an Irish person.” “But it’s not William Maxwell that’s after fearing the one or despising the other,” said Margaret. “No, that’s true. William is not a serious young man: he’s thought little about religion yet, one way or the other; but when he comes to consider, Margaret, he will feel, as we all do, that it’s a dreadful thing to be a Romanist, and pray to saints, and worship images, and so forth. And besides, I know William better than you do, Margaret—I’ve known him from his cradle—he’s my own sister’s son, and I love him, and he’s a pretty young man, but William has not resolution to go against his parent’s will, be it right or wrong. Take care, child, you’ve dropped your stitches. Now, Margaret, child, hear me patiently: consider, to-day is not forever, and them that’s young and soft like you, if their feelings are cast in one mould, they can be cast over in another.” “Will ye speak plain what you are after saying to me, “Mrs. Ray, dear?” “Be patient, child—slow and sure, you know. We can’t have everything just right in this world, Margaret: when one door is opened, another is shut—young folks must be conformable.” Margaret sighed with irrepressible impatience, and Mrs. [p. 132] Ray proceeded more directly: “It’s my opinion, Margaret, that William can nowhere find a likelier girl than you are. You have just the disposition to please Sister Maxwell, and Providence somehow seems to have set you down here, making the place for you, and you for the place, as it were; and somehow you have taken an unaccountable hold of my heart, and I can’t blame William; and so I was thinking, Margaret, as the railroad is almost done, the shanties will soon be broke up, and James will have to look for work elsewhere: you’ll have a good chance, as it were, to break up your connexions with all these people, and after a little while you will be no more an Irish girl than Belinda Anne Tracy.” Margaret’s face was turned quite away, or probably Mrs. Ray would not have proceeded: “And then as to your beads, your crucifix, your confessions, &c., the sooner you give them all up, the better, my child, for soul and body too” — “Say no more, Mrs. Ray; God forsake me if I forsake Him, and deny my parents and my people, and cast off James—heart of my heart! Better for my soul, say ye! And what would be left of my soul if all faith towards God and love to man were out of it? Oh, Mrs. Ray, I would not have thought it of you!” The poor girl wept as if her heart were broken. Mrs. Ray tried in vain to soothe her. She no more argued or persuaded; she was ashamed that she had done either. Her strong innate sense of right triumphed over the prejudices of education and society; and having begun with proposing to her young friend to abjure her faith and forsake her people, she ended with respecting the loyalty that kept her true to both. Little need be said in explanation of the relations and history of the parties introduced to our readers. Margaret O’Brien had belonged to one of the encampments of Irish that are found along the lines of our railroads, while those great works are constructing by the people who, driven forth from their own land by misery and multiplied oppressions, come here to do our roughest work, and share our bread and freedom. Their shanties, built for transient use, are constructed with the least possible expense and labour; and though perhaps adequate to their ideas of comfort, are a sad contrast to the humblest homes of our own people. There is little found in them besides strong, healthy bodies and warm hearts —the best elements of happiness in any home. Would it not be well for our people to consider more maturely than they have yet done, the designs of, Providence in sending these swarms of Irish people among us? Is it not possible that their vehement feelings, ardent affections, and illimitable generosity might mingle with our colder, and (we say it regretfully) [p. 133] more selfish natures, to the advantage of both? And at any rate, by losing the opportunity of promoting their happiness, of binding them to us by the blessed links of humanity, are we not doing a wrong to our own souls? Can good be elected to them or to ourselves by condemning their nation and deriding their religion? Margaret’s father lost his life while working on the Western Railroad by the blasting of a rock. Margaret’s mother was ill at the time: the shock of seeing his mangled body brought home without warning, occasioned, as was believed, her death. The report of the melancholy fate of these people spread through the neighbourhood, and Mrs. Ray, impelled by her Christian heart, went to look after the orphan girl. She was struck with the loveliness of her countenance, her sweet manners, and the superior decency of her habitation. “Why,” said she afterward to the Maxwells, who expressed their surprise that she should take a girl from the shanties into her family, “it wasn’t like a shanty! They were not all herded together like cattle, as they commonly are, but the place was parted off into three rooms; there were bedsteads—rough, to be sure—and there were clean sheets and decent spreads; and they had some chairs; and Margaret a little table with a drawer, all made by her brother, and a work-basket, and everything tidy on it, and a picture hanging over it”— “A picture! Some saint I dare say,” interrupted Maxwell, his lip curling. “It might be, for aught I know,” replied Mrs. Ray, meekly, “but I should not think anyone need to be the worse for a saint—the picture of one, I mean, hanging up before them. I assure you, Brother Maxwell, everything had a becoming appearance; there was considerable earthenware and silver teaspoons, and it was evident they had lived like folks; and as to the poor orphan girl, she is as neat as the neatest of our Becket girls—Belinda Anne don’t exceed her—and she is so pretty spoken and pretty looking! and as I wanted help that would be company too, I was glad to get her; and her brother having to go to work on the next section, was glad to leave her in a suitable place for one so young and comely. I hope you don’t think I did wrong, Brother Maxwell,” concluded Mrs. Ray, who, though very apt to do right from her own impulses, was rather weakly nervous as to the judgment of others. “You are an independent woman, and must judge for yourself, Mrs. Ray. Everybody knows ’tis my principle to keep clear of the Paddies. I neither eat nor drink with them, and I go not in nor out among them.” “But you sell to them,” said Mrs. Ray, with a smile that faintly [p. 134] indicated what she did not say, and what she retained, because she was a woman of peace, and rarely struck a discord ant note. The complaints she had heard from these poor strangers and wayfarers in the land, of the exorbitant prices demanded by “Brother Maxwell” for his pork and potatoes, were fermenting in her mind. “Yes, I sell to them—I take care of number one. As the Bible says, he that don’t provide for his own household is worse than an infidel.” “I take that passage in another sense, Brother Maxwell; I provide for my family by buying of them: I buy Margaret’s services, and she throws in her love, and I would not change bargains with you.” “And I should not be afraid to show books with you, Widow Ray,” retorted the sordid man. “I don’t keep any books,” replied Mrs. Ray; “there are books where both accounts are kept, and where the widow’s will probably show fairest.” Maxwell is one of those who bring dishonour on the good name of his people. His industry runs into anxious toil, his enterprise into avarice, his economy into miserliness, his sagacity into cunning, his self-preserving instincts into selfishness. Having one of the largest farms in Becket, his ruling passion is to make it larger. Enjoying and imparting never enter into his calculations; and, as was said of a far loftier person, “he had not so much joy in what he had, as trouble and agony for what he had not.” His only son and heir, William, though resembling his father, had an infusion of his mother’s more generous disposition—a sprinkling of her more attractive qualities. How the proportions were balanced, and which preponderated, will be seen by his conduct. Margaret O’Brien was much less hopeful than most young people. Early changes and sorrows had superinduced a reflectiveness and sadness on the natural vehemence and cheerfulness of her character. Life seemed to her a dark and tangled path, and she shrunk from pursuing it. She had not yet learned that there is an inner light, which always shines on the patient soul. She was silent and abstracted all the day after her conversation with Mrs. Ray. She performed her usual domestic duties negligently. “I saw plainly,” Mrs. Ray afterward said, “that the poor girl’s heart was not in them; but then, Sister Maxwell, I was only thinking how pretty she looked, and what a blessing she would be to the man—be he who he would—that should marry her. Well, we are short-sighted creatures.” As the day declined, Margaret became more restless. She was [p. 135] continually going to the door, and looking up the road. “Who are you expecting?” asked Mrs. Ray. “It’s James I am looking for—he promised he would be down some day this week.” Margaret blushed deeply, conscious that, though telling the truth, it was not the whole truth. No James came. No approaching footstep, hoof, or wheel, broke the dismal silence that surrounded the widow’s dwelling. Margaret became more and more unquiet, and at last said she would go and meet James; “that would shorten the time; and if I am not at home at tea-time, don’t wait for me, Mrs. Ray, dear; it is not very far to the shanties, and if I should be late home, there is a bright moon to-night.” Margaret was already on the threshold. Mrs. Ray called her back. “My child,” she said, “don’t stay out late; you know I am of an anxious make, and easily startled, and you are not looking yourself, Margaret, since our talk this morning; and I’m not superstitious, and don’t really believe in such things, but there has been one of the neighbor’s dogs howling unaccountably lately; and last evening I fully meant to put on my purple shawl, and when I came to take it off, it was my black one, trimmed with crape! I don’t believe in signs, but they make one feel—and if any evil were to happen to you, Margaret, I should feel just as wounded as if it were one of my own daughters.” “God—the God of the fatherless—bless you, Mrs. Ray, dear, and keep all trouble far from your door.” Margaret kissed her old friend, and promised to return as early as possible, and that promise Mrs. Ray afterward said was a great comfort to her, for she was sure “she meant to keep it.” Margaret walked hastily up the road, and took a horse-path that, passing through a wood, led by a cross cut to the railroad. Winter comes on prematurely in Becket, a high, cold mountain town. Though it was yet October, the glow and almost metallic brightness of our autumn foliage had passed away. The leaves, the summer’s wealth, lay in piles on the ground, or hung in sadly-thinned companies rustling on the branches; leaden clouds were driving over the sky, and snow falling in scattered flakes. Margaret’s way lay along a leaping and gushing mountain-stream, which to the ear of the happy called up images of courage and joy, but to Margaret it may have sounded mournful and ominous. May, we say; but there is reason to think that the poor girl was deaf to the sympathies of nature; that her mind was possessed with one idea, and that it mattered not to her whether the voices of nature were cheering or sad. She did not even pause at “Hardy’s Rock,” though that had been her “trysting-tree.” This [p. 136] was a rock easy of access from the road, but precipitous towards the stream, with a broad, flat summit. The stream below it was dammed, partly by a natural accumulation of brush and stones brought from above, and partly by art, and it set back in a deep basin. The stream, swollen to a torrent by late rains, had overflowed the margin of the basin, and covered the little strip of level ground around it to the very edge of a steep cliff, whose pines and firs were darkly reflected in it. But a few weeks before Margaret had sat on this rock with William Maxwell, and while she listened to him, had woven a wreath for her bonnet of the asters and golden-rod that were now withered like her hopes. Below the dam was a saw-mill belonging to William, and he often came down to it towards evening to see what work had been accomplished during the day. It was nearly two weeks since Margaret had seen him, and in that interval she had heard that, in rustic phrase, he was “paying attention” to a young girl, who, by the recent death of her father, had become sole proprietor of a farm adjoining Maxwell’s, and was heiress to herds, pasture-land, and much rural wealth. This young person was the Belinda Anne Tracy, of whom Mrs. Ray had spoken in the morning to Margaret with more meaning than met the ear. Uncertainty was intolerable to Margaret’s impatient Irish nature, and “It will now be ended!” she exclaimed, as, listening intently, she heard the tramp of William Maxwell’s horse long before she saw him. She was hidden by a projecting point of the rock, and he did not perceive her till he was arrested by her voice, not in a loud, but thrilling tone, pronouncing his name. “Margaret! is it you? I did not think of meeting you, but I was going this evening to see you." Margaret raised her eyes to his, and a gleam of pleasure shot through them, but they were quickly cast down again, and her lips trembled as she said, “There’s many a lonesome evening come and gone since I have seen you, William Maxwell.” “That’s true, Margaret—and it is true, too, that a man may be in one place, and his heart in another.” “Where was your heart then, William, when you was after going down to Westfield with Belinda Anne Tracy!” “With you, Margaret, and with none but you, and that’s as true as that I stand here on this solid ground; but one can’t—that is—I mean—” Margaret, with hurried and trembling hands, untied the guard-chain by which her crucifix was suspended, and kissing it, and then holding it up, she said, “I have sworn on this that I would know your true mind, William Maxwell; and if you respect yourself—if ever you respected me—if you respect this sign, of what [p. 137] is best and holiest—if you respect Him that’s above, then tell it to me.” Maxwell felt the solemnity of the adjuration, and dared not evade it; and it may be that he was glad to be forced, by a superior will, to make a communication for which he had been in vain trying to summon resolution for the last two weeks. “Margaret,” he began, in a faltering voice “it is true, as I have told you many times, I do love you as I never did, nor ever shall love another. I never spoke a false word to you: you are my first love, and you will be my last; but—but—there are others to consult; I am not free to follow my own wishes; the truth is, Margaret, my father has feelings about your people, and he never will give them up. He took a solemn oath before me and my mother: ‘I swear,’ he said, ‘I’ll cast you off forever if you marry one of the Paddy folks!’ My mother, you know, is sickly, and I am her only child; and if it went to this, it would break her heart, and so she told me— and, Margaret, if I can’t marry you, I don’t care who I marry; and so, this being the true state of the case, and no help for it that I can see, I have made as—as good as an engagement with Belinda Anne Tracy.” Margaret kept her eye steadily fixed on him till he had finished. She then drew the guard chain from the crucifix, threw it away, and pressing the crucifix to her bosom, turned off without speaking a word. William followed her. “Margaret—Margaret,” he said, “do let us part friends; you cannot be more sorry than I am; only say you forgive me!” But he spoke in vain. Margaret made no reply, except by motioning to him to leave her; and, glad to escape from the piercing rebuke of that sweet countenance—more in sorrow than in anger—he mounted his horse and rode away, bearing with him—to be forever borne —the conviction that the heaviest visitation of his father’s anger would have been light in comparison with the sense of a violated faith to this loving, true-hearted orphan stranger. Maxwell had but just disappeared when Margaret met her brother James. “Is it you, Margaret?” he said: “God’s blessing on you, then! but what are you fretting at!” “I’m not fretting, James, dear.” “Now, Margaret, what’s the use of telling me that, when you don’t so much as lift your eye to me, and your cheek is as white as that bit of muslin round your neck? Is it Mrs. Ray that’s been after chiding you?” “Mrs. Ray! No, no, James; she’s every way like our own mother to me.” “Margaret, my sister, my child—for you’ve neither father nor [p. 138] mother but me—I never yet spake his name to you; if it’s William Maxwell that frets you—if it’s true, as the boys say, that he’s false to you, I’ll break every bone in his body.” “James! you’ll break my heart speaking so. Oh, James, dear, keep God’s peace, I pray you; it’s you only in the world I love now. It’s a black world. Good-night, James. You are far from your place, and you have been hard at work; don’t go farther with me.” “I would not leave you, Margaret, dear, a step short of Mrs. Ray’s, but I have promised Mr. John Richards to meet him above the bridge there. l’ll come down tomorrow and remember, Margaret, we two are alone in the world; and for my sake, and for the sake of them that’s in their graves, keep up a brave heart. Good-night.”—“She did not answer me,” thought James. He stopped and looked after her till she was hidden from him by a turn in the road: “God’s heaviest curse will surely fall on him if he’s broke her heart, and she so young, and innocent, and beautiful to look upon!” Such blistering thoughts were in James’s mind till he joined Mr. Richards. In the meantime Margaret retraced her steps along the margin of the stream till she reached again Hardy’s Rock. The heavy clouds had rolled down over the setting sun, and left the eastern sky, where the full moon was rising, cloudless. The moonbeams glanced athwart the firs, silvering their branches, and fell on the summit of the rock; the water under it was still in deep shadow. It was on this rock that, two months before, the moon shining as it now shone, but then on summer beauty, that Margaret met her lover “With hinnied hopes around her heart, Like simmer blossoms—” there and then she had plighted faith with William Maxwell. Again she felt herself drawn to that spot—probably without any ill design—with only an intolerable sense of disappointment and misery. The scene brought back with intense vividness her past happiness. What it is to remember that under the pressure of present wretchedness, most have felt, and one has described in words never to be forgotten: “Nessun maggior delore Che ricordarsi del tempo felice Nella miseria;” James met Mr. Richards at the appointed place. After a few moments, he said, “James, you are thinking of one thing and talking of another. What is the matter?” James confessed he was anxious; said he had just met his sister, and that he had left her to go home alone, that she [p. 139] seemed very unhappy—and he was sorry he had left her to go home alone. Mr. Richards is a young engineer of most kind and active sympathies. James had worked under him on the railroad, and he particularly liked him. He at once entered into the good brother’s feelings. “Let us walk down the road, James,” he said; “you can easily overtake your sister, and we can as well talk over our business walking as standing here.” Accordingly, they proceeded. When they reached the little bridge we have mentioned, Mr. Richards involuntarily paused and looked down the stream, which here and there seemed playing with the moonbeams. “Why, there is your sister, James,” he said, “sitting on Hardy’s Rock." “The Lord bless ye! and so she is!” said James. The words were scarcely uttered out of his lips when Margaret slid down the steep side of the rock into the pool beneath. James uttered a wild scream, and both young men ran down the road together at their utmost speed. The place was soonest accessible by the road, but that was winding, and the distance was full an eighth of a mile. When they reached the spot, a white muslin scarf Margaret had worn was floating on the water. Both jumped in. James, impelled by the instinct of his affection, forgot he could not swim, and Richards, to his dismay, saw him sinking. He dragged him out, bade him remain quiet, and plunging in again, he very soon brought up Margaret’s body. But the time had been fatally prolonged by poor James, and every effort to restore her was unavailing. A company of Irishmen coming from their work below joined them. They entered into the scene with hand, heart, and tongue. “Ha!” said one of them, “it was Judy yesterday was afther saying, ‘He’ll never marry Margaret’ -- maning William Maxwell. It’s that Thracy girl, with houses and lands, he’s afther. Curse the Yankees, there’s no sowl in them!” “It’s not William Maxwell at all,” said another: “he’s a dacent young man; it’s his father’s rule upon him!” Richards bade them all be silent, saying it was no time now for such a discussion. “Sure that’s rasonable,” said one—“And sure I did not mane you at all, Mr. Richards,” said the man of the sweeping anathema, “for it’s an Irish heart you have, anyway, and that’s what all the boys say.” James seemed to hear nothing. He was rubbing and kissing alternately one of Margaret’s hands that was firmly closed, and he at last succeeded in taking from it the crucifix which it firmly grasped. Just at this moment a man had alighted from a wagon, and was looking on. “The Almighty be praised!” cried James, pressing the disengaged crucifix vehemently to his lips. Mar- [p. 140] garet having died with it in her hand was to him a token of infinite good. The looker on, at this action of James, turned to his companion in the wagon, saying -- “It’s only a Paddy girl,” * got in, and drove on. The Irishmen, who till then had been too much absorbed to notice him, looked up, and perceiving it was the elder Maxwell,, they uttered curses deep and loud, and threatening summary vengeance, they were following, when James interposed. “No, no,” he said, with fearful calmness, “lave him to me, boys—when her wake is over will be time enough.” Richards saw him turn away, murmur something in a low voice, lay the crucifix on Margaret’s hand, and kiss them both together. Margaret was carried to the dwelling of an Irish friend; a priest was brought, and the ceremonies of their religion were strictly observed. Immediately after the funeral, Mr. Richards, who had scarcely lost sight of James, took him aside—poor fellow, he looked as if he had lived twenty years in the three preceding days. “James,” he said, “tell me truly, did you not make a vow to revenge your sister’s death?” “Sure I did that same, sir—on her crucifix, and on the poor, dead cold hand that held it. God forgive me—but could I help it? There she lay-- dead! -- dead! -- the sweetest flower that ever blossomed trampled under their feet—when I heard the very man that had done it say, ‘ it’s only a Paddy girl!’ Oh, Mr. Richards, my heart’s blood boiled, and my father and my mother it was, and all my people, I heard crying me on to vengeance, and I did swear to take their lives—father and son; and I have made confession of the same to Father Brady.” “And that has saved you from this horrid crime, James” “Not that, sir.” “What then!” “It’s just yourself, Mr. Richards—you and Mrs. Ray. --It was just your goodness to me that stilled the howling tempest in my breast -- and for your sake and Mrs. Ray’s, I forgave all your people. It was Margaret said—they were almost her last words—‘Mrs. Ray is every way mother-like to me;’ and didn’t I see the old lad after crying hot tears over her? Sure, Mr. Richards, if there were more like you and the old lady—God bless her!—there would be an end of cruelty and hate, and love would bind all hearts together—even your people’s and mine!” ------------------------------------------------- *This expression was in fact uttered by one of our people, and heard by the brother of the girl at such a moment as we have described. Dublin Core The Dublin Core metadata element set is common to all Omeka records, including items, files, and collections. For more information see, http://dublincore.org/documents/dces/. Title A name given to the resource "The Irish Girl" Subject The topic of the resource Prejudice against Irish immigrants, Catholics, Protestants, love, Christian virtue. Description An account of the resource A young Irish servant is in love with a man whose father will not let him marry her because she is a “Paddy girl.” The young woman drowns, shortly after learning of her beloved's decision to marry a non-Irish woman. Her brother vows revenge, but changes his mind. Creator An entity primarily responsible for making the resource Sedgwick, Catharine M. By the author of "Hope Leslie," &c. Source A related resource from which the described resource is derived United States Magazine and Democratic Review, Vol. X, P. 129-140 Publisher An entity responsible for making the resource available John L. O'Sullivan Date A point or period of time associated with an event in the lifecycle of the resource February 1842 Contributor An entity responsible for making contributions to the resource J. Robinson, D. Gussman Relation A related resource Also collected (with revisions) in: The Dollar Magazine, Vol. II, 1842 Tales and Sketches, Series two, New York. 1842. P. 191-244 Language A language of the resource English Type The nature or genre of the resource Document 1842 Becket Catholics crucifix drowning God Immigrants Irish orphan Pittsfield prejudice Protestants Providence railroad religion servant shanty snow The United States Democratic Review widow