But I am he for whom thou dost take me. Lay thy hand upon thy mouth. By God's stern, yet gracious decree, the secret must remain deeply buried; do not thou, stout armorer, disturb the mine; enough if the ore is delivered up to thee. What matters it from whence? And if thy dear father, the stout collier, Gottfried Wahrmund, in all truth still lives, as thy words almost seem to declare"

He stopped, and by the light of the flame, Wahrmund saw that he gazed with strange, inquiring glances upon the youth.

My father lives!" cried Barthold, and raised his right hand in solemn asseveration toward heaven.

The old man then said in a tone between joy and terror: "If thou hast spoken truth, may God reward thee! Hast thou wished to deceive me here by this flaming hearth, may thy reward come from the-"

But he stopped, and added more mildly: "No, no! nothing shall be said between us two of him. I have, besides, thought too much of him during my wild campaigns. In my heart-God knows it-I have never willingly resigned my. self to the hateful blackamoor. I hope, therefore, that I may find mercy; especially if the collier, Gottfried Wahrmund, really lives. Ah! and if he has my sweet little flower in his garden, who certainly will pray for her father, and will, without doubt, be heard."

"Right! right!" said Gottfried Wahrmund, with a mild, kind voice, as he stepped slowly forth from behind the bushes. "I live, and thy dear flower lives thy daughter lives with me. Come with me to my present abode, that I may show her to thee."

With a scream of mingled joy and terror, the old man fell at his length upon the turf. But, raised again at once by father and son, he said, looking upward to the stars: "Yes, yes, thou eternal love above us, thy countless eyes of gold twinkle mildly down upon me, and say, that all is truth that I have just heard from the lips of this kind man, this man of heavenly compassion. But that he may know that he has no madman to deal with, come forth, my jewel, from the recess of my trembling breast. Behold! if my little flower has the counterpart of this, then all is right. But if she has not, all is but a phantom, a mockery of the-but hush! I will not speak of him-the worst of jugglers!"

With these words, he drew from his tattered garments a brilliant token, which hung around his neck by a cord.

In the darkness of the night and the flickering glare of the fire, Barthold could not well observe it. It seemed to him as if he saw two little golden dragons, with wings, entwined either in strife or in embrace, surmounting an ornament that looked like a high-pointed coronet, or like a hill strangely cut into steps.

But Gottfried Wahrmund said: "I know it. One like it was found in the swaddling-clothes of thy child. Whoever thou may'st be, come. I will lead thee to thy daughter. I will help thee to thine inalienable rights. Come!"

But notwithstanding all the kind earnestness, notwithstanding the air of command with which the collier at last repeated the summons, in words as well as gesture, the old man stood as if spellbound.

"Do not vex me thus," he groaned at last. "I can never follow thee to my little flower until the axe is cleansed from thy blood."

The young armorer had in the mean while raised the now cold axe-head from the grass, and fixed it again upon its stout handle of ash. Holding the bright, silver-sparkling weapon before the old man, and turning it back and forth so that the reflection of the flame played upon either side alternately, he said, in a tone of confidence: "Well, if that is not clean, there is nothing clean here below upon this dark earth."

"Thou art right," said the old man, and with a mild gesture, he took the axe from the youth's hand, weeping tears of joy over it, and bending himself with the weapon lowly before collier Wahrmund, in the dewy grass. But the latter raised and embraced him, and the three walked, arm in arm, through the still night, back toward the collier's cottage.

Something now rushed through the firs of the valley on the right hand. Seized by his mantle, by some unseen power, collier Wahrmund tottered backward, and before Barthold could call out "What is the matter?" the old man's axe sparkled and whirred through the air, and a groaning howl came from something upon the earth. Collier Wahrmund leaped up vigorously. The furious wolf lay convulsed in death upon the ground. "See," said Gottfried Wahr. mund, taking the old man's hand; "thy axe is once more dyed with blood, my

preserver! But what say'st thou ? It need not now be re-forged again?” "The blood shall remain upon it," said the old man with a strong, clear voice. "But axe and wolf shall disappear, for my life is now cleansed of blood."

Having said this, he placed his foot against the dead beast, spurned it over the cliffs, and then hurled the axe after it. Then marching vigorously in front of the two others, he said with a clear and cheerful voice: Let us hasten. My dear daughter is waiting for us."

66

As they approached the building, they heard the sound of song and cithern. "It is Gertrude!" said Barthold, softly, and the old man restrained the two others with a gesture of entreaty. They stopped and heard the following words: "In a near garden blooms a flower rare, Unlike the flowers that bloom around it there ;

It is a shoot from out a princely garden. There many a seed fell scattered on the earth,

The wild birds picked them up and bore them forth;

Sportive they bore them from the princely garden.

One seed they dropped out in the forest

wild,

It grew and blossomed 'neath the heavens so mild,

Transplanted now into a quiet garden. There blooms the flower, far from its native skies,

Beloved and watched by friendly hearts and eyes;

Let none transplant it from the quiet garden."

The voice was silent. The delicate fingers still wandered dreamily over the well-tuned strings, almost as if bees were humming over them.

The old man then whispered-"Oh, who has breathed this song into her soul? It stills the storm within my bosom. Every jarring sound is silent before it, and a sweet sadness falls upon me. But she sings indeed of herself."

"And she herself has breathed the song into her soul," replied Gottfried Wahrmund. "Since her earliest days, while yet a lisping child, she often spoke of a dream, in which it appeared as if a wondrous rose bloomed in our little garden, which had been plucked from some lofty, princely spot-and thence this mysterious song has by degrees arisen."

With this the three entered the hall. So great was the joy of the good dame at the return of her husband and son, that it could only be expressed in a silent prayer of thanksgiving; and the sensation of fear, which she felt at the presence of the gray-headed stranger, vanished as collier Wahrmund said, This old man, I hope, will be our guest for life.” When she had fully heard how her good husband had been saved by his hand from the furious wolf, she said with unmingled delight, "Welcome forever, our most dear guest!"

Gertrude now entered the hall. A slight blush stole over her face at the sight of the dear companion of her youth, but she became pale again as her eye glanced at the gray-haired stranger. She approached the latter first, and lifting her folded hands toward heaven, she whispered, "The peace of God rest upon this

venerable head!"

The old man then began to weep, and sank upon his knees. Striving to raise him, but in vain, Gertrude also knelt. And now the old man rose again, laid his hands in an attitude of blessing upon the maiden's locks, and said, "The peace of God rest upon this blooming head!"

Gertrude arose, trembling with joy, and said, with an enthusiastic, almost extatic smile, "Oh, father Wahrmund, what mysterious joy hast thou brought into our dwelling on this strange night!"

The collier was about to speak, and Barthold also; but the old man signed to them with a commanding gesture, and they were silent. He then placed his meagre forefinger, upon which there sparkled a brilliant seal-ring, upon his own lips, and it seemed as if he had closed them with magic power.

Not a word thenceforth escaped his lips, but a happy smile hovered perpetually about his mouth.

Preserving the same silence, he blessed the tie which after some weeks joined Gertrude and Barthold in wedlock. When the first boy bloomed from this union, the old man laid himself calmly down, and died.

Who and what he had formerly been in the world, no one could discover. This, however, is certain after several

years, a richly dressed soldier, followed by a noble train, came into the Hartz forest, and desired to be led to the old man's grave. He there kneeled down, and Barthold, who had travelled in many lands, knew that his fervent prayer was uttered in some southern tongue. All he could plainly understand were the words, "Oh, my great leader!" uttered aloud to Heaven.

Whether these words referred to the silent old man is not known. But that the last blessing which his lips pronounced over Gertrude's head was heard in heaven, may be judged from the welfare and great abundance which rested upon Barthold and Gertrude, and their children and children's children.

WHEN One of the countless shots thrown in a siege and defence, which might have spent itself in the air or on the ground, takes suddenly out of life a mature and accomplished man, we are made to feel how serious are the chances of war, and how heavily its issues of death may come upon the country and the public service, as well as on the distant circle of private life. Nor are we willing that the loss of such a man should receive only the official or temporary notices of the event and manner of his death.

A graduate of West Point, a Master of Arts in a leading New England college, a scholar in the Greek, Latin and Hebrew languages, carefully and extensively read in theology (for many years his favorite study), well versed in metaphysics, ethics, constitutional and international law, and in an unusual degree acquainted with the rules of municipal and technical jurisprudence, a master of mathematics and of the scientific part of his own profession, which he had practiced from a boy, well instructed and deeply interested in astronomy, chemistry and most of the physical sciences, so skillful and so tasteful with his pencil as to have given his pictures a rank among the works of professed artists, and made them intrinsically valuable gifts to his friends, with intellectual powers unusually good by nature, and scrupulously

cultivated and held under absolute discipline, with a grave and serious cast of mind from childhood, resulting in a deepseated and mastering principle of religion, a father, a son, and a brother, with a heart set on the kindly affections, bound to life by every tie-such a man, so constituted by nature, and so elaborately fitted and adorned for future action, the cruel chances of war, an accidental shot (I speak as a fool), a senseless iron ball, has in a moment taken from life and the living, from the public service, the domestic circle, the Church, from children, friends and country!

The qualities of Major Vinton as a soldier are a part of the history of the times. His nomination by the President, put expressly on the ground of his heroic conduct, the confirming vote of the Senate, the dispatches of Generals Taylor, Worth and Scott, and the tenor of the private letters from the seat of war, the history of the march of our army into the interior of Mexico-all speak in the clearest manner of his skill and energy in the general campaign and his valor in the field. These qualities may indeed be little regarded by those men who, in the selfindulgence, and, may it not sometimes be said, self-complacency, of literary pursuits, affect to undervalue military virtues. They are, indeed, not the chief qualities

burst, fortunately, for it was found to be charged with a pound of powder and 320 musket balls. Upon his body were found letters from his children, stained with his life-blood, which flowed from a wound in his breast. He was buried in the military coat in which he fell. The funeral was attended by the general-in-chief and all the officers who could be spared from duty, and the service of the Church was read over him by a brother officer-a friend of many years-amid the roar of cannon, the falling of the enemy's shot, and the whirling of sand in the fierce Norther-snatched from the victory of the morrow, that his spirit might gain a greater victory over death and the grave. Having had the melancholy privilege of reading portions of the journals and letters of the deceased, and having learned many particulars of his life from the best sources, I have desired to perform one of the duties a citizen owes to such a man, by presenting his character and services to the sympathy and admiration they so justly deserve. But I find it will be impossible, within the limits of these columns, to give even a rapid sketch of his life, with such anecdotes and extracts from his journals and letters as will exhibit him in the light in which he has always appeared to those who knew him. I abandon this course with the less reluctance, from the belief that his life and writings will be given to the public by those to whom the task will be a pious and grateful occupation. Indeed, it is almost impossible to make selections where there are so abundant materials, each portion of which exhibits some trait we are unwilling to omit. The evidence presented by these letters and journals, and the letters addressed to him at various periods, is of a kind not to be doubted. Opinions expressed after a melancholy or a glorious death are apt to be over favorable to the former life and character; but there is no severer trial and no more triumphant issue than when a man is weighed by contemporaneous evidence, furnished without favor or reference to future effect. Tried in this balance, all will agree, nay will ardently proclaim that, in Major Vinton the country has lost a man of extraordinary qualities of mind and heart, who, had he lived, would have adorned the highest stations in his profession in a manner not to be always expected of merely military men.

The son of a lady of uncommon powers of mind, joined with great worth and

influence of character, the elder of four brothers, now distinguished in the church and the army, he was a boy of unusual promise at school, and was celebrated at West Point, where his instructors, in letters written at the time, pronounced him " unrivalled" in genius, acquirements, and high tone of moral character. He received a commission when scarcely seventeen, was employed for several years on topographical duty on the Atlantic coast and the Canada line, and yet was so good a tactician, that at an early age he was appointed by Gen. Eustis adjutant at the school of practice, and gave entire satisfaction, in that arduous office, to a fastidious commander. While residing at Washington, as aid to Gen. Brown, he was employed by the government in several duties of a special nature, and certain papers which he prepared were so generally admired in Congress, that in a leading speech in favor of the Military Academy, Lieut. Vinton was referred to as an instance of the kind of men the system of that institution could produce.

Indeed, success might be predicted in everything he undertook; for he had too much self-knowledge to undertake what he was not fitted for, and an energy, method, and high spirit, which yielded to nothing short of necessity. Until the breaking out of the Florida war, nearly all his life was passed in garrison duty on the seaboard, where he had great advantages for the pursuit of his studies. His furloughs were spent in travelling, or in the refined society found in the large cities, and among libraries and works of art, in which he delighted. His chief recreation was with his pencil, in copying from nature or the great masters, chiefly in landscapes or scriptural subjects, and his passion for this art seemed to grow with every year of his life. But he constantly bent the powers of his mind to hard and systematic study. The secret of his success is to be found in a few lines of a confidential letter to a young friend, written about this time: "I have been thought over rigid, and even heartless, in my requirements for the formation of excellent character; but it is because I have seen how idle, how senseless and pernicious, are the ordinary habits and views of young men, that I became so exigunt in my beau-ideal. I could repudiate all pleasures that do not please on reflection, and abandon every pursuit that does not lead to substantial