clustering honeysuckle which her own hands had trained round the window. She felt a conviction that she was hastening to | stole in brought with it the fragrance of the the tomb, but looked forward to it as a place of rest. The silver cord that had bound her to existence was loosed, and there seemed to be no more pleasure under the sun. If ever her gentle bosom had entertained resentment against her lover, it was extinguished. She was incapable of angry passions; and in a moment of saddened tenderness she penned him a farewell letter. It was couched in the simplest language, but touching from its very simplicity. She told him that she was dying, and did not conceal from him that his conduct was the cause. She even depicted the sufferings which she had experienced; but concluded with saying that she could not die in peace until she had sent him her forgiveness and her blessing. By degrees her strength declined, that she could no longer leave the cottage. She could only totter to the window, where, propped up in her chair, it was her enjoyment to sit all day and look out upon the landscape. Still she uttered no complaint, nor imparted to any one the malady that was preying on her heart. She never even mentioned her lover's name; but would lay her head on her mother's bosom and weep in silence. Her poor parents hung, in mute anxiety, over this fading blossom of their hopes, still flattering themselves that it might again revive to freshness, and that the bright unearthly bloom which sometimes flushed her cheek might be the promise of returning health. In this way she was seated between them one Sunday afternoon; her hands were clasped in theirs, the lattice was thrown open, and the soft air that Her father had just been reading a chapter in the Bible: it spoke of the vanity of worldly things, and of the joys of heaven. It seemed to diffuse comfort and serenity through her bosom. Her eye was fixed on the distant village church; the bell had tolled for the evening service; the last villager was lagging into the porch; and everything had sunk into that hallowed stillness peculiar to the day of rest. Her parents were gazing on her with yearning hearts. Sickness and sorrow, which pass so roughly over some faces, had given to hers the expression of a seraph's. A tear trembled in her soft blue eye. Was she thinking of her faithless lover, or were her thoughts wandering to that distant churchyard, into whose bosom she might soon be gathered ? Suddenly the clang of hoofs was heard. A horseman galloped to the cottage-he dismounted before the window. The poor girl gave a faint exclamation, and sunk back in the chair: it was her repentant lover! He rushed into the house, and flew to clasp her to his bosom ; but her wasted form-her deathlike countenance-so wan, yet so lovely in its desolation, smote him to the soul, and he threw himself in an agony at her feet. She was too faint to rise-she attempted to extend her trembling hand-her lips moved as if she spoke, but no word was articulated; she looked down upon him with a smile of unutterable tenderness, and closed her eyes for ever. THE truth was, that District No. 1, Pigwacket Centre, had had a good deal of trouble of late with its schoolmasters. The committee had done their best, but there were a number of well-grown and pretty rough young fellows who had got the upper hand of the masters, and meant to keep it. Two dynasties had fallen before the uprising of this fierce democracy. This was a thing that used not to be very uncommon; but in so "intelligent" a community as that of Pigwacket Centre, in an era of public libraries and lyceumlectures, it was portentous and alarming. The advent of Master Langdon to Pigwacket Centre created a much more lively sensation than had attended that of either of his predecessors. Looks go a good way all the world over, and though there were several good-looking people in the place, and Major Bush was what the natives of the town called a "hahnsome mahn," that is, big, fat, and red, yet the sight of a really elegant young fellow, with the natural air which grows up with carefully-bred young persons, was a novelty. The Brahmin blood which came from his grandfather as well as from his mother, a direct descendant of the old Flynt family, well known by the famous tutor, Henry Flynt (see Cat. Harv. Anno 1693), had been enlivened and 31-VOL. I. enriched by that of the Wentworths, which has had a good deal of ripe old Madeira and other generous elements mingled with it, so that it ran to gout sometimes in the old folks, and to high spirit, warm complexion, and curly hair in some of the younger ones. The soft curling hair Mr. Bernard had inherited, something, perhaps, of the high spirit; but that we shall have a chance of finding out by-and-by. But the long sermons and the frugal board of his Brahmin ancestry, with his own habits of study, had told upon his colour, which was subdued to something more of delicacy than one would care to see in a young fellow with rough work before him. This, however, made him look more interesting, or, as the young ladies at Major Bush's said, "interéstin"." Monday came, and the new schoolmaster was in his chair at the upper end of the schoolhouse, on the raised platform. The rustics looked at his handsome face, thoughtful, peaceful, pleasant, cheerful, but sharply cut round the lips and proudly lighted about the eyes. The ringleader of the mischief-makers, the young butcher, looked at him stealthily, whenever he got a chance to study him unobserved; for the truth was, he felt uncomfortable whenever he found the large dark eyes fixed on his own little, sharp, deep-set grey ones. But he managed to study him pretty well, -first his face, then his neck and shoulders, the set of his arms, the narrowing at the loins, the make of his legs, and the way he moved. In short, he examined him as he would have examined a steer, to see what he could do and how he would cut up. If he could only have gone to him and felt his muscles, he would have been entirely satisfied. He was not a very wise youth, but he did know well enough, that, though big arms and legs are very good things, there is something besides size that goes to make a man; and he had heard stories of a fighting-man, called "The Spider," from his attenuated proportions, who was yet a terrible hitter in the ring, and had whipped many a big-limbed fellow in and out of the roped arena. Presently the draughtsman of the school set a caricature in circulation, labelled, to prevent mistakes, with the schoolmaster's name. An immense bell-crowned hat, and a long, pointed, swallow-tailed coat showed that the artist had in his mind the conventional dandy, as shown in prints of thirty or forty years ago, rather than any actual human aspect of the time. One morning, on going to the schoolroom, Master Langdon found an enlarged copy of this sketch, with its label, pinned on the door. He took it down, smiled a little, put it into his pocket, and entered the schoolroom. An insidious silence prevailed, which looked as if some plot were brewing. The boys were ripe for mischief, but afraid. They had really no fault to find with the master, except that he was dressed like a gentleman, which a certain class of fellows always consider a personal insult to themselves. But the older ones were evidently plotting, and more than once the warning a'h'm! was heard, and a dirty little scrap of paper rolled into a wad shot from one seat to another. One of these happened to strike the stovefunnel, and lodged on the master's desk. He was cool enough not to seem to notice it. He secured it, however, and found an opportunity to look at it, without being observed by the boys. It required no immediate notice. shaped over the back and shoulders like a monk's cowl-or the deltoid, which caps the shoulder like an epaulette-or the triceps, which furnishes the calf of the upper arm-or the hard-knotted biceps-any of the great sculptural landmarks, in fact-you would have said there was a pretty show of them, beneath the white satiny skin of Mr. Bernard Langdon. And if you had seen him, when he had laid down the Indian clubs, catch hold of a leather strap that hung from the beam of the old-fashioned ceiling, and lift and lower himself over and over again by his left hand alone, you might have thought it a very simple and easy thing to do, until you tried to do it yourself.- Mr. Bernard looked at himself with the eye of an expert. "Pretty well!" he said; "not so much fallen off as I expected." Then he set up his bolster in a very knowing sort of way, and delivered two or three blows straight as rulers and swift as winks. "That will do," he said. Then, as if determined to make a certainty of his condition, he took a dynamometer from one of the drawers in his old veneered bureau. First, he squeezed it with his two hands. Then he placed it on the floor and lifted, steadily, strongly. The springs creaked and cracked; the index swept with a great stride far up into the high figures of the scale; it was a good lift. He was satisfied. He sat down on the edge of his bed, and looked at his cleanly-shaped arms. "If I strike one of those boobies, I am afraid I shall spoil him," he said. Yet this young man, when weighed with his class at the college, could barely turn one hundred and forty-two pounds in the scale,-not a heavy weight, surely; but some of the middle weights seem to be of a far finer quality of muscle than the bulkier fellows. Master Langdon took his seat, and began the exercises of his school. The smaller boys recited their lessons well enough, but some of the larger ones were negligent and surly. He noticed one or two of them looking toward the door, as if expecting somebody or something in that direc tion. At half-past nine o'clock, Abner Briggs, junior, who had not yet shown himself, made his appearance. He was followed by his "yallah dog," without his muzzle, who squatted down very grimly near the door, and gave a wolfish look round the room, as if he were considering which was the plumpest boy to begin with. The young butcher, meanwhile, went to his seat, looking somewhat flushed, except round the lips, which were hardly as red as common, and set pretty sharply. He who should have enjoyed the privilege of looking upon Mr. Bernard Langdon the next morning, when his toilet was about half finished, would have had a very pleasant gratuitous exhibition. First, he buckled the strap of his trousers pretty tightly. Then he took up a pair of heavy dumb-bells, and swung them for a few minutes; then two great "Indian clubs," with which he enacted all sorts of impossible-looking feats. His limbs were not very large, nor his shoulders remarkably broad; but if you knew as much of the muscles as all persons who look at statues and pictures with a critical eye ought to have learned -if you knew the trapezius, lying diamond-right under his lee. "Put out that dog, Abner Briggs!" The master spoke as the captain speaks to the helmsman, when there are rocks foaming at the lips, VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. Abner Briggs answered as the helmsman answers, when he knows he has a mutinous crew round him that mean to run the ship on the reef, and is one of the mutineers himself. "Put him aout y'rself, 'f ye a'n't afeard on him!" The master stepped into the aisle. The great cur showed his teeth, and the devilish instincts of his old wolf-ancestry looked out of his eyes, and flashed from his sharp tusks, and yawned in his wide mouth and deep red gullet. The movements of animals are so much quicker than those of human beings commonly are, that they avoid blows as easily as one of us steps out of the way of an ox-cart. It must be a very stupid dog that lets himself be run over by a fast driver in his gig; he can jump out of the wheel's way after the tire has already touched him. So, while one is lifting a stick to strike or drawing back his foot to kick, the beast makes his spring, and the blow or the kick comes too late. It was not so this time. The master was a fencer, and something of a boxer; he had played at single-stick, and was used to watching an adversary's eye and coming down on him without any of those premonitory symptoms by which unpractised persons show long beforehand what mischief they meditate. 243 The stout butcher-youth looked round, but the rebels were all cowed, and sat still. "I'll go when I'm ready," he said,-"'n' I guess I won't go afore I'm ready." "You're ready now," said Master Langdon, turning up his cuffs so that the little boys noticed the yellow gleam of a pair of gold sleeve-buttons, once worn by Colonel Percy Wentworth, famous in the Old French War. Abner Briggs, junior, did not apparently think he was ready, at any rate; for he rose up in his place, and stood with clenched fists, defiant, as the master strode towards him. The master knew the fellow was really frightened, for all his looks, and that he must have no time to rally. So he caught him suddenly by the collar, and, with one great pull, had him out over his desk and on the open floor. He gave him a sharp fling backwards, and stood looking at him. The rough-and-tumble fighters all clinch, as everybody knows; and Abner Briggs, junior, was one of that kind. He remembered how he had floored Master Weeks, and he had just pluck enough left in him to try to repeat his former successful experiment on the new master. He sprang at him, open-handed, to clutch him. So the master had to strike-once, but very hard, and just in the place to tell. No doubt, the authority that doth hedge a schoolmaster added to the effect of the blow; but the blow was itself a neat one, and did not require to be repeated. "Now go home," said the master, "and don't let me see you or your dog here again." And he turned his cuffs down over the gold sleevebuttons. "Out with you!" he said, fiercely, and explained what he meant by a sudden flash of his foot that clashed the yellow dog's white teeth together like the springing of a bear-trap. The cur knew he had found his master at the first word and glance, as low animals on four legs, or a smaller number, always do; and the blow took him so by surprise, that it curled him up in an instant, and he went bundling out of the open schoolhouse-door with a most pitiable yelp, and This finished the great Pigwacket Centre School his stump of a tail shut down as close as his owner rebellion. What could be done with a master who ever shut the short, stubbed blade of his jack-knife. was so pleasant as long as the boys behaved It was time for the other cur to find who his decently, and such a terrible fellow when he got master was. "riled,' as they called it? In a week's time “Follow your dog, Abner Briggs!" said Master everything was reduced to order, and the schoolLangdon. committee were delighted. ON THE VANITY OF HUMAN WISHES. MENIPPUS the philosopher was a second time | and "long life," repeated in several different tones taken up into heaven by Jupiter, when, for his entertainment, he lifted up a trap-door that was placed by his footstool. At its rising, there issued through it such a din of cries as astonished the philosopher. Upon his asking what they meant, Jupiter told him that they were the prayers that were sent up to him from the earth. Menippus, amidst the confusion of voices, which was so great that nothing less than the ear of Jove could distinguish them, heard the words "riches, honour," and languages. When the first hubbub of sounds was over, the trap-door being left open, the voices came up more separate and distinct. The first prayer was an odd one; it came from Atkens, and desired Jupiter to increase the wisdom and the beard of his humble supplicant. Menippus knew it by the voice to be the prayer of his friend Licander the philosopher. This was succeeded by the petition of one who had just laden a ship, and promised Jupiter, if he took care of it, and returned it home again full of riches, he would make him an offering of a silver cup. Jupiter thanked him for nothing; and, bending down his ear more attentively than ordinary, heard a voice complaining to him of the cruelty of an Ephesian widow, and begged him to breed compassion in her heart. "This," says Jupiter, "is a very honest fellow. I have received a great deal of incense from him: I will not be so cruel to him as to hear his prayers." He was then interrupted with a whole volley of vows which were made for the health of a tyrannical prince by his subjects who prayed for him in his presence. Menippus was surprised, after having listened to prayers offered up with so much ardour and devotion, to hear low whispers from the same assembly, expostulating with Jove for suffering such a tyrant to live, and asking him how his thunder could lie idle? Jupiter was so offended with these prevaricating rascals, that he took down the first vows, and puffed away the last. The philosopher seeing a great crowd mounting up. wards, and making its way directly to the trap-door, inquired of Jupiter what it meant. "This," says Jupiter," is the smoke of a whole hecatomb that is offered me by the general of an army, who is very importunate with me to let him cut off a hundred thousand men that are drawn up in array against him. What does the impudent wretch think I see in him, to believe that I will make a sacrifice of so many mortals as good as himself, and all this to his glory, forsooth? But hark!" says Jupiter, "there is a voice I never heard but in time of danger: 'tis a rogue that is shipwrecked in the Ionian sea. I saved him on a plank but three days ago, upon his promise to mend his manners; the scoundrel is not worth a groat, and yet has the impudence to offer me a temple, if I will keep him from sinking. But yonder," says he, "is a special youth for you; he desires me to take his father, who keeps a great estate from him, out of the miseries of human life. The old fellow shall live till he makes his heart ache, I can tell him that for his pains." This was followed by the soft voice of a pious lady, desiring Jupiter that she might appear amiable and charming in the sight of her emperor. As the philosopher was reflecting on this extraordinary petition, there blew a gentle wind through the trap-door, which he at first mistook for a gale of zephyrs, but afterwards found it to be a breeze of sighs. They smelt strongly of flowers and incense, and were succeeded by most passionate complaints of wounds and torments, fires and arrows, cruelty, despair, and death. Menippus fancied that such lamentable cries arose from some general execution, or from wretches lying under the torture; but Jupiter told him that they came up to him from the isle of Paphos, and that he every day received complaints of the same nature from that whimsical tribe of mortals who are called lovers. "I am so trifled with," says he, "by this generation of both sexes, and find it so impossible to please them, whether I grant or refuse their petitions, that I shall order a western wind for the future to intercept them in their passage, and blow them t random upon the earth." The last petition he heard was from a very aged man, of near a hundred years old, begging but for one year more life, and then promised to die contented. This is the rarest old fellow!" says Jupiter; "he has made this prayer to me for above twenty years together. When he was but fifty years old, he desired only that he might live to see his son settled in the world. I granted it. He then begged the same favour for his daughter, and afterward that he might see the education of a grandson. When all this was brought about, he puts up a petition, that he might live to finish a house he was building. In short, he is an unreasonable old cur, and never wants an excuse; I will no more of him." Upon which he flung down the trap-door in a passion, and was resolved to give no more audiences that day. DICK O' THE DIAMOND.* [WALTER THORNBURY. See Page 54.] THE lad with the bonny blue feather, As he leaped like a prince on his roan. But silent they grew when Sir Tracey There were diamonds on hat and on feather, All blazoned with legend and crest: By kind permission of the Author. |