And Simon said,–“You are wiser than I, Sally, and braver, and every way better. I will obey you in this, and wait,–the more cheerfully because I shall be always at hand, and, if your heart should fail you, I know you will not refuse my aid, nor prefer another’s to mine.”
And so they passed for mere acquaintances; and there were some who said–Philip Withers among them–that “that plausible Golden Farmer, young Blount, had treated the forlorn thing shabbily.”
About that time hoops came in, and the Splurge girls flourished the first that appeared in Hendrik.
One day, as Miss Wimple sat in a low Yankee rocking-chair, sewing among her books, she was favored with the extraordinary apparition of Miss Madeline Splurge,–her first visitor that day, whether on business or curiosity.
“I wish to procure a small morocco pocket-book, Miss Wimple, if you keep such things.”
Miss Wimple, with a slight bow of assent, took from a glass counter-case a paper box in which was a miscellaneous assortment of such articles; there were five or six of the pocket-books. Madeline selected one,–a small, flexible affair, of some dark-colored morocco lined with pink silk. She paid the trifle the shy, demure little librarian demanded, and was taking her leave in silence, without even a “Good-day,” when, as she was passing the door, Miss Wimple espied on the counter, near where her customer had stood, a visiting-card; her eye fell on the engraved name,–“Mr. Philip Withers”; of course Miss Splurge had dropped it unawares. She hastened with it to the door,–Madeline had just stept into the street,–
“This card is yours, I presume, Miss Splurge?”
Madeline turned upon her with a surprised air, inquiringly,–looked in her own hands, and shook her handkerchief with the quick, nervous, alarmed movement of one who suddenly discovers a very particular loss,–became, in an instant, pale as death, stared for a moment at Miss Wimple with fixed eyes, and slightly shivered. Then, quickly and fiercely, she snatched the card from Miss Wimple’s hand,–
“Where–where did you find this? Did–did I leave–drop–?”
“You left it on my counter,” Miss Wimple quietly replied, with a considerate self-possession that admirably counterfeited unconsciousness of Madeline’s consternation.
“Come hither, into the shop,–a word with you,”–and Madeline entered quickly, and closed the door behind her. For a moment she leaned with her elbow on the counter, and pressed her eyes with her fingers.
“Are you ill, Miss Splurge?” Miss Wimple gently inquired.
“No. Did you read what is on this card?”
“Yes.”
“You–you–you read”—-Madeline’s hands were clenched, her face red and distorted; she gnashed her teeth, and seemed choking.
“Why, Miss Splurge, what is the matter with you? Yes, I read the name,–Mr. Philip Withers. The card lay on the counter,–I could not know it was yours,–I read the name, and immediately brought it to you. What excites you so? Sit down, and calm yourself; surely you are ill.”
Madeline did not accept the stool Miss Wimple offered her, but, availing herself of the pause to assume a forced calmness which left her paler than at first, she fixed her flashing eyes steadily on the deep, still eyes of her companion, and asked,–
“You did not turn this card, then?–you did not look on the other side?”
“On my honor, I did not.”
“On your honor! You are not lying, girl?”–Miss Splurge thrust the card into the newly-purchased pocket-book, and hid that in her bosom.
“Miss Splurge,” said Miss Wimple, very simply, and with no excitement of tone or expression, “when you feel sufficiently recovered to appear on the street, without exposing yourself there as you have done in here, go out!”
And Miss Wimple turned from Madeline and would have resumed her sewing; but Madeline cried,–
“Stay, stay, Miss Wimple, I beseech you! I knew not what I said; forgive me, ah, forgive me!–for you are merciful, as you are pure and true. If you were aware of all, you would know that I could not insult you, if I would. Trouble, distraction, have made me coarse,–false, too, to myself as unjust and injurious to you; for I know your virtues, and believe in them as I believe in little else in this world or the next. If in my hour of agony and shame I could implore the help of any human being, I would come to you–dear, honest, brave girl!–before all others, to fling myself at your feet, and kiss your hands, and beseech you to pity me and save me from myself, to hold my hot head on your gentle bosom, and your soothing hand on my fierce heart. Good-by! Good-by! I need not ask your pardon again,–you have no anger for such as I. But if your blessed loneliness is ever disturbed by vulgar, chattering visitors, you will not name me to them, or confess that you have seen me.” And ere Miss Wimple could utter the gentle words that were already on her lips, Madeline was gone.
For a while Miss Wimple remained standing on the spot, gazing anxiously, but vacantly, toward the door by which the half-mad lady had departed,–her soft, deep eyes full of painful apprehension. Then she resumed her little rocking-chair, and, as she gathered up her work from the floor where she had dropped it, tears trickled down her cheeks; she sighed and shook her head, in utter sorrow.
“They were always strange women,” she thought, “those Splurges,–not a sound heart nor a healthy mind among them. Could their false, barren life have maddened this proud Madeline? Else what did she mean by her ‘hot head’ and her ‘fierce heart’? And what had that Philip Withers to do with her trouble and her distraction? She recollected now that Simon had once said, in his odd, significant way, that Mr. Withers was a charming person to contemplate from a safe distance,–Simon, who never lent himself to idle detraction. She remembered, too, that she had often reproached herself for her irrational prejudice against the man,–that she was forever finding something false and sinister in the face that every one else said was eminently handsome, and ugly dissonance in the voice that all Hendrik praised for its music. Was he on both sides of that card?–Ah, well! it might be just nothing, after all; the poor lady might be ill, or vexed past endurance at home; or some unhappy love affair might have come to fret her proud, impatient, defiant temper. But not Withers,–oh, of course not Withers!–for was it not well known that Adelaide was his choice, that his assiduous and graceful attentions to her silenced even his loudest enemies, who could no longer accuse him of duplicity and disloyalty to women? But she would feel less disturbed, and sleep better, perhaps, if she knew that Madeline was safe at home, and tranquil again.”
Thinking of sleep reminded Miss Wimple that she had a pious task to perform before she could betake her to her sweet little cot. A superannuated and bedridden woman, who had nursed her mother in her last illness, lived on the northern outskirts of the town; and she must cross the long covered bridge that spanned the Hendrik River to take a basket full of comforting trifles to old Hetty that night.
About nine o’clock Miss Wimple had done her charitable errand, and was on her way home again, with a light step and a happy heart, an empty basket and old Hetty’s abundant blessings. She was alone, but feared nothing,–the streets of Hendrik at night were familiar to her and she to them; and although her shy and quiet traits were not sufficiently understood to make her universally beloved, not a loafing ruffian in town but knew her modest face, her odd attire, and her straightforward walk; and the rudest respected her.
As she approached the covered bridge, the moon was shining brightly at the entrance, making the gloom within profounder. It was a long, wooden structure, of a kind common enough on the turnpikes of the Atlantic States, where they cross the broader streams. Stout posts and cross-beams, and an arch that stretched from end to end, divided the bridge into two longitudinal compartments, for travellers going and coming respectively; there were small windows on each side, and at either end, on a conspicuous signboard, were the Company’s “Rules,”–“Walk your Horses over this Bridge, or be subject to a Fine of not less than Five nor exceeding Twenty Dollars”–“Keep to the Right, as the Law directs.”
As Miss Wimple entered the shadow of the bridge on the right hand, she was startled by hearing excited voices, which seemed to come from the other side of the central arch, and about the middle of the bridge, where the darkness was deepest:–
“Speak low, I say, or be silent! Some one will be coming presently;–I heard steps approaching even now”–Miss Wimple instinctively stopped, and stood motionless, almost holding her breath, at the end of the arch where the moonlight did not reach. She was no eavesdropper, mark you,–the meannesses she scorned included that character in a special clause. But she had recognised the voice, and with her own true delicacy would spare the speaker the shame of discovery and the dread of exposure.–“Speak low, or I will leave you. If you are indifferent for yourself, you shall not toss me to the geese of Hendrik.”
“You are right”;–it was a woman’s voice; but, whatever her tone had been before, she spoke so low now, and with a voice so hoarse with suppressed emotion, so altered by a sort of choking whisper, that Miss Wimple, if she had ever heard it before, could not recognize it;–“You are right; the time for that has not come;–I could not stay to enjoy it;–I am going now, but we will meet again.”
“What would you have? I have said I would marry you,–and leave you,–so soon as I can shake myself clear of that other stupid infatuation.”
“Now, Philip Withers, what a weak, pusillanimous wretch you must be, having known me so long, and tried my temper so well, to hope to find me such a fool, after all,–that kind of fool, I mean! My deepest shame, in this unutterably shameful hour, is that I chose such a cowardly ass to besot myself with.–There, the subject sickens me, and I am going. Dare to follow me, and the geese of Hendrik shall have you. I go scot-free, fearing nothing, having nothing to lose; but I hold you, my exquisite Joseph Surface–oh, the wit of my sister! oh, the wisdom of fools!–by your fine sentiments; and when I want you I shall find you. I can take care of me and _mine_; but beware how you dare to claim lot or portion in what I choose to call my own, even though your brand be on it,–Joseph!”
She hissed the name, and, with hurried steps, and a low, scornful laugh, departed. As Miss Wimple, all aghast, leaned forward with quick breath and tumultuous heart, and peered through the gloom toward where the silver moonlight lay across the further end of the bridge, she saw a white dress flash across a bright space and disappear. Then Philip Withers stepped forth into the moonlight, stood there for a minute or two, and gazed in the direction of a branch road which made off from the turnpike close to the bridge, and led, at right angles to it, to the railroad station on the right; then slowly, and without once looking back, he followed the turnpike to the town.
All astonished, bewildered, full of strange, vague fears, Miss Wimple remained in the now awful gloom and stillness of the bridge till he had quite disappeared. Then gathering up her wits with an effort, she resumed her homeward way. As she emerged from the shadows into the same bright place which Withers and his mysterious companion had just passed, she spied something dark lying on the ground. She stooped and picked it up; it was a small morocco pocket-book lined with pink silk.
Good Heaven! She remembered,–the one she had sold to Miss Madeline Splurge that afternoon,–the very same! So, then, that was her voice, her dress; she had, indeed, dimly thought of Madeline more than once, while that woman was speaking so bitterly,–but had not recognized her tones, nor once fancied it might be she. Now she easily recalled her words, and understood some of her allusions. And her wild, distracted, incoherent speech in the shop, too,–ah! it was all too plain; that was surely she; but what might be the nature or degree of her trouble Miss Wimple dared not try to guess. This Philip Withers,–was he a villain, after all? “Had he–this poor lady–Oh, God forbid! No, no, no!”
She opened the pocket-book;-a visiting-card was all it contained. She drew it forth,–“Mr. Philip Withers,”–yes, she knew it by that broken corner, as though it had been marked so for a purpose. She held it up before her eyes where the moon was brightest, and–turned the other side.
“Ah, me!” exclaimed that Chevalier Bayard in shabby, skimped delaine, “what was I going to do?”
Blushing, she returned the card to its place, and hiding the pocket-book in her honorable bosom, hurried homeward. But her soul was troubled as she went; sometimes she sobbed aloud, and more than once she stood still and wrung her hands.
“Ah! if Simon Blount would but come now to advise me what is safest and best to do!”
Should she go to Mrs. Splurge and tell her all? No,–what right had she? That would but precipitate an exposure which might not be necessary. The case was not clear enough to justify so officious a step. Madeline was in no immediate danger. Perhaps she had only taken a different road to avoid the odious companionship of Withers. No doubt she was half-way home already. She would wait till morning, for clearer judgment and information. Till then she would hope for the best.
When Miss Wimple reached her humble little nest, she knelt beside her bed and prayed, tearfully, to the God who averts danger and forgives sin; but she did not sleep all night.
In the morning a gossiping neighbor came with the news;–“that little cooped-up Wimple never hears anything,” she thought.
Miss Madeline Splurge had disappeared. Mr. Philip Withers was searching for her high and low. She had not been seen since yesterday afternoon,–had not returned home last night. It was feared she had drowned herself in the river for spite. She, the knowing neighbor, “had always said so,–had always said that Madeline Splurge was a quare girl,–sich high and mighty airs, and _sich_ a temper. Now here it was, and what would people say,–specially them as had always turned up their nose at her opinion?”
Miss Wimple said nothing; but she treated Pity to two poor little lies;–one she told, and the other she looked:–She was not well, she said, which was the reason why she was so pale; and then she looked surprised at the news of Madeline’s flitting.
Later in the day another report:–A letter left by Madeline had been found at home. She had taken offence at some sharp thing that sarcastic Mr. Withers, who always did hate her, had said; and had gone off in a miff, without even good-by or a carpet-bag, and taken the night train to New York, where she had an uncle on the mother’s side.–And a good riddance! Now Miss Addy and Mr. Withers would have some peace of their time. Such a sweet couple, too!
Madeline _had_ left a note:–“I was sick of you all, and I have escaped from you. You will be foolish to take any trouble about it.”
[To be continued.]
THE CUP.
The cup I sing is a cup of gold,
Many and many a century old,
Sculptured fair, and over-filled
With wine of a generous vintage, spilled In crystal currents and foaming tides
All round its luminous, pictured sides.
Old Time enamelled and embossed
This ancient cup at an infinite cost. Its frame he wrought of metal that run. Red from the furnace of the sun.
Ages on ages slowly rolled
Before the glowing mass was cold,
And still he toiled at the antique mould, Turning it fast in his fashioning hand, Tracing circle, layer, and band,
Carving figures quaint and strange, Pursuing, through many a wondrous change, The symmetry of a plan divine.
At last he poured the lustrous wine, Crowned high the radiant wave with light, And held aloft the goblet bright,
Half in shadow, and wreathed in mist Of purple, amber, and amethyst.
This is the goblet from whose brink
All creatures that have life must drink: Foemen and lovers, haughty lord
And sallow beggar with lips abhorred. The new-born infant, ere it gain
The mother’s breast, this wine must drain. The oak with its subtile juice is fed,
The rose drinks till her cheeks are red, And the dimpled, dainty violet sips
The limpid stream with loving lips. It holds the blood of sun and star,
And all pure essences that are:
No fruit so high on the heavenly vine, Whose golden hanging clusters shine
On the far-off shadowy midnight hills, But some sweet influence it distils
That slideth down the silvery rills. Here Wisdom drowned her dangerous thought, The early gods their secrets brought;
Beauty, in quivering lines of light, Ripples before the ravished sight;
And the unseen mystic spheres combine To charm the cup and drug the wine.
All day I drink of the wine and deep In its stainless waves my senses steep; All night my peaceful soul lies drowned In hollows of the cup profound;
Again each morn I clamber up
The emerald crater of the cup,
On massive knobs of jasper stand
And view the azure ring expand:
I watch the foam-wreaths toss and swim In the wine that o’erruns the jewelled rim, Edges of chrysolite emerge,
Dawn-tinted, from the misty surge; My thrilled, uncovered front I lave,
My eager senses kiss the wave,
And drain, with its viewless draught, the lore That warmeth the bosom’s secret core,
And the fire that maddens the poet’s brain With wild sweet ardor and heavenly pain.
THE LANGUAGE OF THE SEA.
Every calling has something of a special dialect. Even where there is, one would think, no necessity for it, as in the conversation of Sophomores, sporting men, and reporters for the press, a dialect is forthwith partly invented, partly suffered to grow, and the sturdy stem of original English exhibits a new crop of parasitic weeds which often partake of the nature of fungi and betoken the decay of the trunk whence they spring.
Is this the case with the language of the sea? Has the sea any language? or has each national tongue grafted into it the technology of the maritime calling?
The sea has its own laws,–the common and unwritten law of the forecastle, of which Admiralty Courts take infrequent cognizance, and the law of the quarter-deck, which is to be read in acts of Parliament and statutes of Congress. The sea has its own customs, superstitions, traditions, architecture, and government; wherefore not its own language? We maintain that it has, and that this tongue, which is not enumerated by Adelung, which possesses no grammar and barely a lexicon of its own, and which is not numbered among the polyglot achievements of Mezzofanti or Burritt, has yet a right to its place among the world’s languages.
Like everything else which is used at sea,–except salt-water,–its materials came from shore. As the ship is originally wrought from the live-oak forests of Florida and the pine mountains of Norway, the iron mines of England, the hemp and flax fields of Russia, so the language current upon her deck is the composite gift of all sea-loving peoples. But as all these physical elements of construction suffer a sea-change on passing into the service of Poseidon, so again the landward phrases are metamorphosed by their contact with the main. But no one set of them is allowed exclusive predominance. For the ocean is the only true, grand, federative commonwealth which has never owned a single master. The cloud-compelling Zeus might do as he pleased on land; but far beyond the range of outlook from the white watch-tower of Olympus rolled the immeasurable waves of the wine-purple deep, acknowledging only the Enosigaios Poseidon. Consequently, while Zeus allotted to this and that hero and demigod Argos and Mycene and the woody Zacynthus, each to each, the ocean remained unbounded and unmeted. Nation after nation, race after race, has tried its temporary lordship, but only at the pleasure of the sea itself. Sometimes the ensign of sovereignty has been an eagle, sometimes a winged lion,–now a black raven, then a broom,–to-day St. Andrew’s Cross, to-morrow St George’s, perhaps the next a starry cluster. There is no permanent architecture of the main by which to certify the triumphs of these past invaders. Their ruined castles are lying “fifty fathom deep,”–Carthaginian galley and Roman trireme, the argosy of Spain, the “White Ship” of Fitz Stephen, the “Ville de Paris,” down to the latest “non-arrival” whispered at Lloyd’s,–all are gone out of sight into the forgotten silences of the green underworld. Upon the land we can trace Roman and Celt, Saxon and Norman, by names and places, by minster, keep, and palace. This one gave the battlement, that the pinnacle, the other the arch. But the fluent surface of the sea takes no such permanent impression. Gone are the quaint stern-galleries, gone the high top-gallant fore-castles, gone the mighty banks of oars of the olden time. It is only in the language that we are able to trace the successive nations in their march along the mountain waves; for to that each has from time to time given its contribution, and of each it has worn the seeming stamp, till some Actium or Lepanto or Cape Trafalgar has compelled its reluctant transfer to another’s hands.
Or rather, we may say, the language of the sea comes and makes a part, as it were, of the speech of many different nations, as the sailor abides for a season in Naples, Smyrna, Valparaiso, Canton, and New York,–and from each it borrows, as the sailor does, from this a silk handkerchief, from that a cap, here a brooch, and there a scrap of tattooing, but still remains inhabitant of all and citizen of none,–the language of the seas.
What do we mean by this? It is that curious nomenclature which from truck to keelson clothes the ship with strange but fitting phrases,–which has its proverbs, idioms, and forms of expression that are of the sea, salt, and never of the land, earthy. Wherever tidewater flows, goes also some portion of this speech. It is “understanded of the people” among all truly nautical races. It dominates over their own languages, so that the Fin and Mowree, (Maori,) the Lascar and the Armorican, meeting on the same deck, find a common tongue whereby to carry on the ship’s work,–the language in which to “hand, reef, and steer.”
Whence did it come? From all nautical peoples. Not from the Hebrew race. To them the possession of the soil was a fixed idea. The sea itself had nothing wherewith to tempt them; they were not adventurers or colonizers; they had none of that accommodating temper as to creed, customs, and diet, which is the necessary characteristic of the sailor. But the nations they expelled from Canaan, the worshippers of the fish-tailed Dagon, who fled westward to build Tartessus (Tarshish) on the Gaditanian peninsula, or who clung with precarious footing to the sea-shore of Philistia and the rocky steeps of Tyre and Sidon,–these were seafarers. From them their Greek off-shoots, the Ionian islanders, inherited something of the maritime faculty. There are traces in the “Odyssey” of a nautical language, of a technology exclusively belonging to the world “off soundings,” and an exceeding delight in the rush and spray-flinging of a vessel’s motion,–
“The purple wave hissed from the bow of the bark in its going.”
Hence the Greek is somewhat of a sailor to this day, and in many a Mediterranean port lie sharp and smartly-rigged brigantines with classic names of old Heathendom gilt in pure Greek type upon their sterns.
But the Greek and Carthaginian elements of the ocean language must now lie buried very deep in it, and it is hard to recognize their original image and superscription in those smooth-worn current coins which form the basis of the sea-speech. It is not within the limits of a cursory paper like this to enter into too deep an investigation, or to trace perhaps a fanciful lineage for such principal words as “mast,” and “sail,” and “rope.” In one word, “anchor,” the Greek plainly survives,–and doubtless many others might be made out by a skilful philologist.
The Roman, to whom the empire of the sea, or, more properly speaking, the petty principality of the Mediterranean, was transferred, had little liking for that sceptre. He was driven to the water by sheer necessity, but he never took to it kindly. He was at best a sea-soldier, a marine, not brought up from the start in the merchant-service and then polished into the complete blue-jacket and able seaman of the navy. Nobody can think of those ponderous old Romans, whose comedies were all borrowed from Attica, whose poems were feeble echoes of the Greek, and whose architecture, art, and domestic culture were at best the work of foreign artists,–nobody can think of them at sea without a quiet chuckle at the inevitable consequences of the first “reef-topsail breeze.” Fancy those solemn, stately Patricians, whose very puns are ponderous enough to set their galleys a streak deeper in the water, fancy them in a brisk sea with a nor’wester brewing to windward, watching off the port of Carthage for Admiral Hasdrubal and his fleet to come out. They were good hand-to-hand fighters,–none better; and so they won their victories, no doubt; but, having won them, they dropped sea-going, and made the conquered nations transport their corn and troops, while they went back to their congenial camps and solemn Senate-debates.
But Italy was not settled by the Roman alone. A black-haired, fire-eyed, daring, flexible race had colonized the Sicilian Islands, and settled thickly around the Tarentine Gulf, and built their cities up the fringes of the Apennines as far as the lovely Bay of Parthenope. Greek they were,–by tradition the descendants of those who took Troy-town,–Greek they are to this day, as any one may see who will linger on the Mole or by the Santa Lucia Stairs at Naples. At Salerno, at Amalfi, were cradled those fishing-hamlets which were to nurse seamen, and not soldiers. Far up the Adriatic, the storm of Northern invasion had forced a fair-haired and violet-eyed folk into the fastnesses of the lagoons, to drive their piles and lay their keels upon the reedy islets of San Giorgio and San Marco; while on the western side an ancient Celtic colony was rising into prominence, and rearing at the foot of the Ligurian Alps the palaces of Genoa the Proud.
Thus upon the Italian stock was begun the language of the seas. Upon the Italian main the words “tack” and “sheet,” “prow” and “poop,” were first heard; and those most important terms by which the law of the marine highway is given,–“starboard” and “larboard.” For if, after the Italian popular method, we contract the words _questo bordo_ (this side) and _quello bordo_ (that side) into _sto bordo_ and _lo bordo_, we have the roots of our modern phrases. And so the term “port,” which in naval usage supersedes “larboard,” is the abbreviated _porta lo timone_, (carry the helm,) which, like the same term in military usage, “port arms,” seems traditionally to suggest the left hand.
But while the Italian races were beginning their brief but brilliant career, there was in training a nobler and hardier race of seamen, from whose hands the helm would not so soon be wrested. The pirates of the Baltic were wrestling with the storms of the wild Cattegat and braving the sleety squalls of the Skager Rack, stretching far out from the land to colonize Iceland and the Faroes, to plant a mysteriously lost nation in Eastern Greenland, and to leave strange traces of themselves by the vine-clad shores of Narraganset Bay. For, first of all nations and races to steer boldly into the deep, to abandon the timid fashion of the Past, which groped from headland to headland, as boys paddle skiffs from wharf to wharf, the Viking met the blast and the wave, and was no more the slave, but the lord of the sea. He it was, who, abandoning the traditionary rule which loosened canvas only to a wind dead aft or well on the quarter, learned to brace up sharp on a wind and to baffle the adverse airs. Yet he, too, was overmuch a fighter to make a true seaman, and his children no sooner set foot on the shore than they drew their swords and went to carving the conquered land into Norman lordships. But where they piloted the way others followed, and city after city along the German Ocean and upon the British coasts became also maritime. For King Alfred had come, and the English oaks were felled, and their gnarled boughs found exceedingly convenient for the curved knees of ships. Upon the Italian stock became engrafted the Norman, and French, and Danish, the North German and Saxon elements. And so, after a century of crusading had thoroughly broken up the stay-at-home notions of Europe, the maritime spirit blazed up. Spain and Portugal now took the lead and were running races against each other, the one in the Western, the other in the Eastern seas, and flaunting their crowned flags in monopoly of the Indian archipelagos and the American tropics. Just across the North Sea, over the low sand-dykes of Holland, scarce higher than a ship’s bulwarks, looked a race whom the spleeny wits of other nations declared to be born web-footed. Yet their sails were found in every sea, and, like resolute merchants, as they were, they left to others the glory while they did the world’s carrying. Their impress upon the sea-language was neither faint nor slight. They were true marines, and from Manhattan Island to utmost Japan, the brown, bright sides, full bows, and bulwarks tumbling home of the Dutchman were familiar as the sea-gulls. Underneath their clumsy-looking upper-works, the lines were true and sharp; and but the other day, when the world’s clippers were stooping their lithe racehorse-like forms to the seas in the great ocean sweepstakes, the fleetest of all was–a Dutchman.
But to combine and fuse all these elements was the work of England. To that nation, with its noble inheritance of a composite language, incomparably rich in all the nomenclature of natural objects and sounds, was given especially the coast department, so to speak, of language. Every variety of shore, from shingly beaches to craggy headlands, was theirs. While the grand outlines and larger features are Italian, such as Cape, Island, Gulf, the minuter belong to the Northern races, who are closer observers of Nature’s nice differences, and who take more delight in a frank, fearless acquaintance and fellowship with out-door objects. Beach, sand, headland, foreland, shelf, reef, breaker, bar, bank, ledge, shoal, spit, sound, race, reach, are words of Northern origin. So, too, the host of local names by which every peculiar feature of shore-scenery is individualized,–as, for instance, the Needles, the Eddystone, the Three Chimneys, the Hen and Chickens, the Bishop and Clerks. The strange atmospheric phenomena, especially of the tropics, have been christened by the Spaniard and Portuguese, the Corposant, the Pampero, the Tornado, the Hurricane. Then follows a host of words of which the derivation is doubtful,–such as sea, mist, foam, scud, rack. Their monosyllabic character may only be the result of that clipping and trimming which words get on shipboard. Your seaman’s tongue is a true bed of Procrustes for the unhappy words that roll over it. They are docked without mercy, or, now and then, when not properly mouth-filling, they are “spliced” with a couple of vowels. It is impossible to tell the whys and wherefores of sea-prejudices.
We have now indicated the main sources of the ocean-language. As new nations are received into the nautical brotherhood, and as new improvements are made, new terms come in. The whole whaling diction is the contribution of America, or rather of Nantucket, New Bedford, and New London, aided by the islands of the Pacific and the mongrel Spanish ports of the South Seas. Here and there an adventurous genius coins a phrase for the benefit of posterity,–as we once heard a mate order a couple of men to “go forrard and trim the ship’s whiskers,” to the utter bewilderment of his captain, who, in thirty years’ following of the sea, had never heard the martingale chains and stays so designated. But the source of the great body of the sea-language might be marked out on the map by a current flowing out of the Straits of Gibraltar and meeting a similar tide from the Baltic, the two encountering and blending in the North Sea and circling Great Britain, while not forgetting to wash the dykes of Holland as they go. How to distinguish the work of each, in founding the common tongue, is not here our province.
It would be difficult to classify the words in nautical use,–impossible here to do more than hint at such a possibility. A specimen or two will show the situation of the present tongue, and the blending process already gone through with. We need not dip for this so far into the tar-bucket as to bother (_nautice_, “galley”) the landsman. We will take terms familiar to all. The three masts of a ship are known as “fore,” “main,” and “mizzen.” Of these, the first is English, the second Norman-French, the third Italian (_mezzano_). To go from masts to sails, we have “duck” from the Swedish _duk_, and “canvas” from the Mediterranean languages,–from the root _canna_, a cane or reed,–thence a cloth of reeds or rushes, a mat-sail,–hence any sail. Of the ends of a ship, “stern” is from the Saxon _stearn_, steering-place; “stem,” from the German _stamm_. The whole family of ropes–of which, by the way, it is a common saying, that there are but three to a ship, namely, _bolt_-rope, _bucket_-rope, and _man_-rope, all the rest of the cordage being called by its special name, as _tack_, _sheet_, _clew-line_, _bow-line_, _brace_, _shroud_, or _stay_–the whole family of ropes are akin only by marriage. “Cable” is from the Semitic root _kebel_, to cord, and is the same in all nautical uses. “Hawser”–once written _halser_–is from the Baltic stock,–the rope used for halsing or hauling along; while “painter,” the small rope by which a boat is temporarily fastened, is Irish,–from _painter_, a snare. “Sheet” is Italian,–from _scotta_; “brace” French, and “stay” English. “Clew” is Saxon; “garnet” (from _granato_, a fruit) is Italian,–that is, the garnet- or pomegranate-shaped block fastened to the clew or corner of the courses, and hence the rope running through the block. Then we find in the materials used in stopping leaks the same diversity. “Pitch” one easily gets from _pix_ (Latin); “tar” as easily from the Saxon _tare_, _tyr_. “Junk,” old rope, is from the Latin _juncus_, a bulrush,–the material used along the Mediterranean shore for calking; “oakum,” from the Saxon _oecumbe_, or hemp. The verb “calk” may come from the Danish _kalk_, chalk,–to rub over,–or from the Italian _calafatare_. The now disused verb “to pay” is from the Italian _pagare_;–it survives only in the nautical aphorism, “Here’s the Devil to _pay_,”–that is, to pitch the ship,–“and no pitch hot.” In handing the sails, “to loose” is good English,–“to furl” is Armorican, and belongs to the Mediterranean class of words. “To rake,” which is applied to spars, is from the Saxon _racian_, to incline;–“to steeve,” which is applied to the bowsprit, and often pronounced “stave,” is from the Italian _stivare_. When we get below-decks, we find “cargo” to be Spanish,–while “ballast” (from _bat_, a boat, and _last_, a load) is Saxon. A ship in ballast comes from the Baltic,–a vessel and cargo from the Bay of Biscay. Sailors must eat; but there is a significant distinction between merchant-seamen and man-o’-war’s-men. The former is provided for at the “caboose,” or “camboose,” (Dutch, _kombuis_); the latter goes to the “galley,” (Italian, _galera_, in helmet, primitively). This distinction is fast dying out,–the naval term superseding the mercantile,–just as in America the title “captain” has usurped the place of the more precise and orthodox term, “master,” which is now used only in law-papers. The “bowsprit” is a compound of English and Dutch. The word “yard” is English; the word “boom,” Dutch. The word “reef” is Welsh, from _rhevu_, to thicken or fold; “tack” and “sheet” are both Italian; “deck” is German. Other words are the result of contractions. Few would trace in “dipsey,” a sounding-lead, the words “deep sea”; or in “futtocks” the combination “foot-hooks,”–the name of the connecting-pieces of the floor-timbers of a ship. “Breast-hook” has escaped contraction. Sailors have, indeed, a passion for metamorphosing words,–especially proper names. Those lie a little out of our track; but two instances are too good to be omitted:–The “Bellerophon,” of the British navy, was always known as the “Bully-ruffian,” and the “Ville de Milan,” a French prize, as the “Wheel-’em-along.” Here you have a random bestowal of names which seems to defy all analysis of the rule of their bestowal.
If the reader inclines to follow up the scent here indicated, we can add a hint or two which may be of service. We have shown the sources, which should, for purposes of classification, be designated, not as English, Italian, Danish, etc., but nautically, as Mediterranean, Baltic, or Atlantic. These three heads will serve for general classification, to which must be added a fourth or “off-soundings” department, into which should go all words suggested by whim or accidental resemblances,–such terms as “monkey-rail,” “Turk’s head,” “dead-eye,” etc.,–or which get the name of an inventor, as a “Matthew-Walker knot.” More than that cannot well be given without going into the whole detail of naval history, tactics, and science,–a thing, of course, impossible here.
This brings us to another view of the subject, which may serve for conclusion. A great many people take upon themselves to act for and about the sailor, to preach to him, make laws for him, act as his counsel, write tracts for him, and generally to look after his moral and physical well-being. Now eleven out of every dozen of these are continually making themselves ridiculous by an utter ignorance of all nautical matters. They pick up a few worn-out phrases of sea-life, which have long since left the forecastle, and which have been bandied about from one set of landsmen to another, have been dropped by sham-sailors begging on fictitious wooden-legs, then by small sea-novelists, handed to smaller dramatists for the Wapping class of theatres, to be by them abandoned to the smallest writers of pirate and privateer tales for the Sunday press. And stringing these together, with a hazy apprehension of their meaning, they think they are “talking sailor” in great perfection. Now the sailor will talk with pleasure to any straightforward and perfectly “green” landsman, and the two will converse in an entirely intelligible manner. But confusion worse confounded is the result of this ambitious ignorance,–confusion of brain to the sailor, and confusion of face to the landsman.
For the sea has a language, beyond a peradventure,–an exceedingly arbitrary, technical, and perplexing one, unless it be studied with the illustrated grammar of the full-rigged ship before one, with the added commentaries of the sea and the sky and the coast chart. To learn to speak it requires about as long as to learn to converse passably in French, Italian, or Spanish; and unless it be spoken well, it is exceedingly absurd to any appreciative listener.
If you desire to study it philologically, after the living manner of Dean Trench, it will well repay you. If you desire to use it as a familiar vehicle of discourse, wherewith to impress the understanding and heart of the sailor, you undertake a very difficult thing. For though men are moved best by apt illustrations from the things familiar to them, _un_apt illustrations most surely disgust them.
But if you earnestly desire it, we know of but one certain course, which is best explained in a brief anecdote. An English gentleman, who was in all the agonies of a rough and tedious passage from Folkestone to Boulogne, was especially irritated by the aggravating nonchalance of a fellow-passenger, who perpetrated all manner of bilious feats, in eating, drinking, and smoking, unharmed. English reserve and the agony of sea-sickness long contended in Sir John’s breast. At last the latter conquered, and, leaning from the window of his travelling-carriage, which was securely lashed to the forward deck of the steamer, he exclaimed,–“I say, d’ye know, I’d give a guinea to know your secret for keeping well in this infernal Channel.” The traveller solemnly extended one hand for the money, and, as it dropped into his palm, with the other shaded his mouth, that no portion of the oracle might fall on unpaid-for ears, and whispered,–“Hark ye, brother, GO TO SEA TWENTY YEARS, AS I HAVE.”
THE WHIRLIGIG OF TIME.
“And thus the whirligig of time brings in his revenges.”–TWELFTH NIGHT.
My friend Jameson, the lawyer, has frequently whiled away an evening in relating incidents which occurred in his practice during his residence in a Western State. On one occasion he gave a sketch of a criminal trial in which he was employed as counsel; the story, as developed in court and completed by one of the parties subsequently, made so indelible an impression on my mind that I am constrained to write down its leading features. At the same time, I must say, that, if I had heard it without a voucher for its authenticity, I should have regarded it as the most improbable of fictions. But the observing reader will remember that remarkable coincidences, and the signal triumph of the right, called poetical justice, are sometimes seen in actual life as well as in novels.
The tale must begin in Saxony. Carl Proch was an honest farmer, who tilled a small tract of crown land and thereby supported his aged mother. Faithful to his duties, he had never a thought of discontent, but was willing to plod on in the way his father had gone before him. Filial affection, however, did not so far engross him as to prevent his casting admiring glances on the lovely Katrine, daughter of old Rauchen, the miller; and no wonder, for she was as fascinating a damsel as ever dazzled and perplexed a bashful lover. She had admiration enough, for to see her was to love her; many of the village youngsters had looked unutterable things as they met her at May-feasts and holidays, but up to this time she had received no poetical epistles nor direct proposals, and was as cheerful and heart-free as the birds that sang around her windows. Her father was the traditional guardian of beauty, surly as the mastiff that watched his sacks of flour and his hoard of thalers; and though he doted on his darling Katrine, his heart to all the world beside seemed to be only a chip from one of his old mill-stones. When Carl thought of the severe gray eyes that shot such glances at all lingering youths, the difficulty of winning the pretty heiress seemed to be quite enough, even with a field clear of rivals. But two other suitors now made advances, more or less openly, and poor Carl thought himself entirety overshadowed. One was Schoenfeld, the most considerable farmer in the neighborhood, a widower, with hair beginning to show threads of silver, and a fierce man withal, who was supposed to have once slain a rival, wearing thereafter a seam in his check as a souvenir of the encounter. The other was Hans Stolzen, a carpenter, past thirty, a shrewd, well-to-do fellow, with nearly a thousand thalers saved from his earnings. Carl had never fought a duel,–and he had not saved so much as a thousand groschen, to say nothing of thalers; he had only a manly figure, a cheery, open face, the freshness of one-and-twenty, and a heart incapable of guile. Katrine was not long in discovering these excellences, and, if his boldness had equalled his passion, she would have shown him how little she esteemed the pretensions of the proud landholder or the miserly carpenter. But he took it for granted that he was a fool to contend against such odds, and, buttoning his jacket tightly over his throbbing heart, toiled away in his little fields, thinking that the whole world had never contained so miserable a man.
Hans Stolzen was the first to propose. He began by paying court to the jealous Rauchen himself, set forth his property and prospects, and asked to become his son-in-law. The miller heard him, puffed long whiffs, and answered civilly, but without committing himself. He was in no hurry to part with the only joy he had, and, as Katrine was barely eighteen, he naturally thought there would be time enough to consider of her marriage hereafter. Hans hardly expected anything more decisive, and, as he had not been flatly refused, came frequently to the house and chatted with her father, while his eyes followed the vivacious Katrine as she tripped about her household duties. But Hans was perpetually kept at a distance; the humming-bird would never alight upon the outstretched hand. He had not the wit to see that their natures had nothing in common, although he did know that Katrine was utterly indifferent towards him, and after some months of hopeless pursuit he began to grow sullenly angry. He was not long without an object on which to vent his rage.
One evening, as Katrine was returning homeward, she chanced to pass Carl’s cottage. Carl was loitering under a tree hard by, listening to the quick footsteps to which his heart kept time. It was the coming of Fate to him, for he had made up his mind to tell her of the love that was consuming him. Two days before, with tears on his bashful face, he had confided all to his mother; and, at her suggestion, he had now provided a little present by way of introduction. Katrine smiled sweetly as she approached, for, with a woman’s quick eye, she had read his glances long before. His lips at first rebelled, but he struggled out a salutation, and, the ice once broken, he found himself strangely unembarrassed. He breathed freely. It seemed to him that their relations must have been fixed in some previous state of existence, so natural was it to be in familiar and almost affectionate communication with the woman whom before he had loved afar off, as a page might sigh for a queen.
“Stay, Katrine,” he said,–“I had nearly forgotten.” He ran hastily into the cottage, and soon returned with a covered basket. “See, Katrine, these white rabbits!–are they not pretty?”
“Oh, the little pets!” exclaimed Katrine. “Are they yours?”
“No, Katrinchen,–that is, they were mine; now they are yours.”
“Thank you, Carl. I shall love them dearly.”
“For my sake?”
“For their own, Carl, certainly; for yours also,–a little.”
“Good-bye, Bunny,” said he, patting the head of one of the rabbits. “Love your mistress; and, mind, little whitey, don’t keep those long ears of yours for nothing; tell me if you ever hear anything about me.”
“Perhaps Carl had better come and hear for himself,–don’t you think so, Bunny?” said Katrine, taking the basket.
The tone and manner said more than the words. Carl’s pulses bounded; he seized her unresisting hand and covered it with kisses. “So! this is the bashful young man!” thought Katrine. “I shall not need to encourage him any more, surely.”
The night was coming on; Katrine remembered her father, and started towards the mill, whose broad arms could scarcely be seen through the twilight. Carl accompanied her to the gate, and, after a furtive glance upward to the house-windows, bade her farewell, with a kiss, and turned homeward, feeling himself a man for the first time in his life.
Frau Proch had seen the pantomime through the flowers that stood on the window-sill, not ill-pleased, and was waiting her son’s return. An hour passed, and he did not come. Another hour, and she began to grow anxious. When it was near midnight, she roused her nearest neighbor and asked him to go towards the mill and look for Carl. An hour of terrible suspense ensued. It was worse than she had even feared. Carl lay by the roadside, not far from the mill, insensible, covered with blood, moaning feebly at first, and afterwards silent, if not breathless. Ghastly wounds covered his head, and his arms and shoulders were livid with bruises. The neighboring peasants surrounded the apparently lifeless body, and listened with awe to the frenzied imprecations of Frau Proch upon the murderer of her son. “May he die in a foreign land,” said she, lifting her withered hands to Heaven, “without wife to nurse him or priest to speak peace to his soul! May his body lie unburied, a prey for wolves and vultures! May his inheritance pass into the hands of strangers, and his name perish from the earth!” They muttered their prayers, as they encountered her bloodshot, but tearless eyes, and left her with her son.
For a whole day and night he did not speak; then a violent brain-fever set in, and he raved continually. He fancied himself pursued by Hans Stolzen, and recoiled as from the blows of his staff. When this was reported, suspicion was directed at once to Stolzen as the criminal; but before an arrest could be made, it was found that he had fled. His disappearance confirmed the belief of his guilt. In truth, it was the rejected suitor, who, in a fit of jealous rage, had waylaid his rival in the dark, beat him, and left him for dead.
Katrine, who had always disliked Stolzen, especially after he had pursued her with his coarse and awkward gallantry, now naturally felt a warmer affection for the victim of his brutality. She threw off all disguise, and went frequently to Frau Proch’s cottage, to aid in nursing the invalid during his slow and painful recovery. She had, one day, the unspeakable pleasure of catching the first gleam of returning sanity in her hapless lover, as she bent over him and with gentle fingers smoothed his knotted forehead and temples. An indissoluble tie now bound them together; their mutual love was consecrated by suffering and sacrifice; and they vowed to be faithful in life and in death.
When Carl at length became strong and commenced labor, he hoped speedily to claim his betrothed, and was waiting a favorable opportunity to obtain her father’s consent to their marriage. The scars were the only evidence of the suffering he had endured. No bones had been broken, and he was as erect and as vigorous as before the assault. But Carl, most unfortunate of men, was not destined so soon to enjoy the happiness for which he hoped,–the love that had called him back to life. As the robber eagle sits on his cliff, waiting till the hawk has seized the ring-dove, then darts down and beats off the captor, that he may secure for himself the prize,–so Schoenfeld, not uninformed of what was going on, stood ready to pounce upon the suitor who should gain Katrine’s favor, and sweep the last rival out of the way. An officer in the king’s service appeared in the village to draw the conscripts for the army, and the young men trembled like penned-up sheep at the entrance of the blood-stained butcher, not knowing who would be seized for the shambles. The officer had apparently been a friend and companion of Schoenfeld’s in former days, and passed some time at his house. It was perhaps only a coincidence, but it struck the neighbors as very odd at least, that Carl Proch was the first man drawn for the army. He had no money to hire a substitute, and there was no alternative; he must serve his three years. This last blow was too much for his poor mother. Worn down by her constant assiduity in nursing him, and overcome by the sense of utter desolation, she sunk into her grave, and was buried on the very day that Carl, with the other recruits, was marched off.
What new torture the betrothed Katrine felt is not to be told. Three years were to her an eternity; and her imagination called up such visions of danger from wounds, privations, and disease, that she parted from her lover as though it were forever. The miller found that the light and the melody of his house were gone. Katrine was silent and sorrowful; her frame wasted and her step grew feeble. To all his offers of condolence she made no reply, except to remind him how with tears she had besought his interference in Carl’s behalf. She would not be comforted. The father little knew the feeling she possessed; he had thought that her attachment to her rustic lover was only a girlish fancy, and that she would speedily forget him; but now her despairing look frightened him. To the neighbors, who looked inquisitively as he sat by the mill-door, smoking, he complained of the quality of his tobacco, vowing that it made his eyes so tender that they watered upon the slightest whiff.
For six months Schoenfeld wisely kept away; that period, he thought, would be long enough to efface any recollection of the absent soldier. Then he presented himself, and, in his usual imperious way, offered his hand to Katrine. The miller was inclined to favor his suit. In wealth and position Schoenfeld was first in the village; he would be a powerful ally, and a very disagreeable enemy. In fact, Rauchen really feared to refuse the demand; and he plied his daughter with such argument as he could command, hoping to move her to accept the offer. Katrine, however, was convinced of the truth of her former suspicion, that Carl was a victim of Schoenfeld’s craft; and her rejection of his proposal was pointed with an indignation which she took no pains to conceal. The old scar showed strangely white in his purple face, as he left the mill, vowing vengeance for the affront.
Rauchen and his daughter were now more solitary than ever. The father had forgotten the roaring stories he used to tell to the neighboring peasants, over foaming flagons of ale, at the little inn; he sat at his mill-door and smoked incessantly. Katrine shunned the festivities in which she was once queen, and her manner, though kindly, was silent and reserved; she went to church, it is true, but she wore a look of settled sorrow that awed curiosity and even repelled sympathy. But scandal is a plant that needs no root in the earth; like the houseleek, it can thrive upon air; and those who separate themselves the most entirely from the world are apt, for that very reason, to receive the larger share of its attention. The village girls looked first with pity, then with wonder, and at length with aversion, upon the gentle and unfortunate Katrine. Careless as she was with regard to public opinion, she saw not without pain the altered looks of her old associates, and before long she came to know the cause. A cruel suspicion had been whispered about, touching her in a most tender point. It was not without reason, so the gossip ran, that she had refused so eligible an offer of marriage Schoenfeld’s. The story reached the ears of Rauchen, at last. With a fierce energy, such as he had never exhibited before, he tracked it from cottage to cottage, until he came to Schoenfeld’s housekeeper, who refused to give her authority. The next market-day Rauchen encountered the former suitor and publicly charged him with the slander, in such terms as his baseness deserved. Schoenfeld, thrown off his guard by the sudden attack, struck his adversary a heavy blow; but the miller rushed upon him, and left him to be carried home, a bundle of aches and bruises. After this the tongues of the gossips were quiet; no one was willing to answer for guesses or rumors at the end of Rauchen’s staff; and the father and daughter resumed their monotonous mode of life.
The three years at length passed, and Carl Proch returned home,–a trifle more sedate, perhaps, but the same noble, manly fellow. How warmly he was received by the constant Katrine it is not necessary to relate. Rauchen was not disposed to thwart his long-suffering daughter any further; and with his consent the young couple were speedily married, and lived in his house. The gayety of former years came back; cheerful songs and merry laughter were heard in the lately silent rooms. Rauchen himself grew younger, especially after the birth of a grandson, and often resumed his old place at the inn, telling the old stories with the old _gusto_ over the ever-welcome ale. But one morning, not long after, he was found dead in his bed; a smile was on his face, and his limbs were stretched out as in peaceful repose.
There was no longer any tie to bind Carl to his native village. All his kin, as well as Katrine’s, were in the grave. He was not bred a miller, and did not feel competent to manage the mill. Besides, his mind had received new ideas while he was in the army. He had heard of countries where men were equal before the laws, where the peasant owed no allegiance but to society. The germ of liberty had been planted in his breast, and he could no longer live contented with the rank in which he had been born. At least he wished that his children might grow up free from the chilling influences that had fallen upon him. At his earnest persuasion, Katrine consented that the mill should be sold, and soon after, with his wife and child, he went to Bremen and embarked for America.
* * * * *
We must now follow the absconding Stolzen, who, with his bag of thalers, had made good his escape into England. He lived in London, where he found society among his countrymen. His habitual shrewdness never deserted him, and from small beginnings he gradually amassed a moderate fortune. His first experiment in proposing for a wife satisfied him, but in a great city his sensual nature was fully developed. His brutal passions were unchecked; conscience seemed to have left him utterly. At length he began to think about quitting London. He was afraid to return to Germany, for, as he had left Carl to all appearance dead, he thought the officers of the law would seize him. He determined to go to Australia, and secured a berth in a clipper ship bound for Melbourne, but some accident prevented his reaching the pier in season; the vessel sailed without him, and was never heard of afterwards. Then he proposed to buy an estate in Canada; but the owner failed to make his appearance at the time appointed for the negotiation, and the bargain was not completed. At last he took passage for New York, whither a Hebrew acquaintance of his had gone, a year or two before, and was established as a broker. Upon arriving in that city, Stolzen purchased of an agent a tract of land in a Western State, situated on the shore of Lake Michigan; and after reserving a sum of money for immediate purposes, he deposited his funds with his friend, the broker, and started westward. He travelled the usual route by rail, then a short distance in a mail-coach, which carried him within six miles of his farm. Leaving his luggage to be sent for, he started to walk the remaining distance. It was a sultry day, and the prairie road was anything but pleasant to a pedestrian unaccustomed to heat and dust. After walking less than an hour, he determined to stop at a small house near the road, for rest, and some water to quench his thirst; but as he approached, the baying hounds, no less than the squalid children about the door, repelled him, and he went on to the next house. He now turned down a green lane, between rows of thrifty trees, to a neat log-cabin, whose nicely-plastered walls and the regular fence inclosing it testified to the thrift and good taste of the owner. He knocked; all was still. Again, and thirsty as he was, he was on the point of leaving, when he heard a step within. He waited; the door opened, and before him stood—-Katrine!
She did not know him; but he had not forgotten that voluptuous figure nor those melting blue eyes. He preferred his requests, looking through the doorway at the same time to make sure that she had no protector. Katrine brought the stranger a gourd of water, and offered him a chair. She did not see the baleful eyes he threw after her as she went about her household duties. Stolzen had dropped from her firmament like a fallen and forgotten star. Secure in her unsuspecting innocence, she chirruped to her baby and resumed her sewing.
That evening, when Carl Proch returned from his field, after his usual hard day’s labor, he found his wife on the floor, sobbing, speechless, and the child, unnoticed, crying in his cradle. His dog sat by the hearth with a look of almost intelligent sympathy, and whined as his master entered the room. He raised Katrine and held her in his arms like a child, covered her face with kisses, and implored her to speak. She seemed to be in a fearful dream, and shrunk from some imagined danger in the extremest terror. Gradually her sobs became less frequent, her tremors ceased, and she smiled upon the manly face that met hers, as though she had only suffered from an imaginary fright. But when she felt her hair floating upon her shoulders, saw the almost speaking face of the dog, Bruno, and became conscious of the cries of the neglected child, the wave of agony swept over her again, and she could utter only broken ejaculations. As word after word came from her lips, the unhappy husband’s flesh tingled; his hair stiffened with horror; every nerve seemed to be strung with a new and maddening tension. There was for him no such thing as fatigue, no distance, no danger,–no law, no hereafter, no God. All thought and feeling were drowned in one wild desire for vengeance,–vengeance swift, terrible, and final.
He first caressed the dog as though he had been a brother; he put his arms about the shaggy neck, and shook each faithful paw; he made his wife caress him also. “God be praised, dear Katrine, for your protector, the dog!” said he. “Come, now, Bruno!”
Katrine saw him depart with his dog and gun; but if she guessed his errand, she did not dare remonstrate. He walked off rapidly,–the dog in advance, now and then baying as though he were on a trail.
In the night he returned, and he smiled grimly as he set down the rifle in its accustomed corner. His wife was waiting for him with intense anxiety. It was marvellous to her that he was so cheerful. He trotted her upon his knee, pressed her a hundred times to his bosom, kissed her forehead, lips, and cheeks, called her his pretty Kate, his dear wife, and every endearing name he knew. So they sat, like lovers in their teens, till the purpling east told of a new day.
The luggage of one Stolzen, a stagecoach passenger, remained at the tavern uncalled-for, for nearly a year. No one knew the man, and his disappearance, though a profound mystery, was not an uncommon thing in a new country. The Hebrew broker in New York received no answers to his letters, though he had carefully preserved the post-office address which Stolzen had given him. He began to fear lest he should be obliged to fulfil the duty of heirship to the property deposited with him. To quiet his natural apprehensions in view of this event, he determined to follow Stolzen’s track, as much of it as lay in _this_ world, at least, and find out what had become of him. Upon arriving in the neighborhood, the Jew had a thorough search made. The country was scoured, and on the third day there was a discovery. A man walking on the sandy margin of a river, about two or three miles from Carl’s house, saw a skull before him. As the steep bluff nearly overhung the spot where he stood, he conjectured that the body to which the skull belonged was to be found above on its verge. He climbed up, and there saw a headless skeleton. It was the body of Stolzen, as his memorandum-book and other articles showed. His pistol was in his pocket, and still loaded; that fact precluded the idea of suicide. Moreover, upon examining more closely, a bullet-hole was found in his breast-bone, around which the parts were broken _outwardly_, showing that the ball must have entered from behind. It was clear that Stolzen had been murdered.
The curse of Frau Proch had been most terribly fulfilled.
Circumstances soon pointed to Carl Proch as the perpetrator. A stranger, corresponding to the deceased in size and dress, had been seen, about the time of his disappearance, by the neighboring family, walking towards Proch’s house; and on the evening of the same day an Irishman met Carl going at a rapid rate, with a gun on his shoulder, as though in furious pursuit of some one. A warrant for his arrest was issued, and he was lodged in jail to await his trial. If now the Hebrew had followed the _lex talionis_, after the manner of his race in ancient times, it might have fared badly with poor Carl. But as soon as the broker was satisfied beyond a peradventure that the depositor was actually dead, he hastened back to New York, joyful as a crow over a newly-found carcass, to administer upon the estate, leaving the law to take its own course with regard to the murderer.
Beyond the two facts just mentioned as implicating Carl, nothing was proved at the trial. Jameson, the lawyer, whom I mentioned at the beginning of this story, was engaged for the defence. He found Carl singularly uncommunicative; and though the government failed to make out a shadow of a case against his client, he was yet puzzled in his own mind by Carl’s silence, and his real or assumed indifference. Katrine was in court with her child in her arms, watching the proceedings with the closest attention; though she, as well as Carl, was unable to understand any but the most familiar and colloquial English. The case was speedily decided; the few facts presented to the jury appeared to have no necessary connection, and there was no known motive for the deed. The jury unanimously acquitted Carl, and with his wife and boy he left the court-room. The verdict was approved by the spectators, for no man in the neighborhood was more universally loved and respected than Carl Proch.
Having paid Jameson his fee for his services, Carl was about to depart, when the lawyer’s curiosity could be restrained no longer, and he called his client back to the private room of his office.
“Carl,” said he, “you look like a good fellow, above anything mean or wicked; but yet I don’t know what to make of you. Now you are entirely through with this scrape; you are acquitted; and I want to know what is the meaning of it all. I will keep it secret from all your neighbors. Did you kill Stolzen, or not?”
“Well, if I did,” he answered, “can they do anything with me?”
“No,” said Jameson.
“Not, if I acknowledge?”
“No, you have been acquitted by a jury; and by our law a man can never be tried twice for the same offence. You are safe, even if you should go into court and confess the deed.”
“Well, then, I did kill him,–and I would again!”
For the moment, a fierce light gleamed upon the calm and kindly face. Then, feeling that his answer would give a false view of the case, without the previous history of the parties, Carl sat down and in his broken English told to his lawyer the story I have here attempted to record. It was impossible to doubt a word of it; for the simplicity and pathos of the narrative were above all art. Here was a simple case, which the boldest inventor of schemes to punish villany would have been afraid to use. Its truth is the thing that most startles the mind accustomed to deal with fictions.
We leave Carl to return to his farm with his wife, for whom he had suffered so much, and with the hope that no further temptation may come to him in such a guise as almost to make murder a virtue.
THE TELEGRAPH.
Thou lonely Bay of Trinity,
Ye bosky shores untrod,
Lean, breathless, to the white-lipped sea And hear the voice of God!
From world to world His couriers fly, Thought-winged and shod with fire;
The angel of His stormy sky
Rides down the sunken wire.
What saith the herald of the Lord?– “The world’s long strife is done!
Close wedded by that mystic cord,
Her continents are one.
“And one in heart, as one in blood,
Shall all her peoples be;
The hands of human brotherhood
Shall clasp beneath the sea.
“Through Orient seas, o’er Afric’s plain, And Asian mountains borne,
The vigor of the Northern brain
Shall nerve the world outworn.
“From clime to clime, from shore to shore, Shall thrill the magic thread;
The new Prometheus steals once more The fire that wakes the dead!
“Earth gray with age shall hear the strain Which o’er her childhood rolled;
For her the morning stars again
Shall sing their song of old.
“For, lo! the fall of Ocean’s wall,
Space mocked, and Time outrun!–
And round the world, the thought of all Is as the thought of one!”
Oh, reverently and thankfully
The mighty wonder own!
The deaf can hear, the blind may see, The work is God’s alone.
Throb on, strong pulse of thunder! beat From answering beach to beach!
Fuse nations in thy kindly heat,
And melt the chains of each!
Wild terror of the sky above,
Glide tamed and dumb below!
Bear gently, Ocean’s carrier-dove, Thy errands to and fro!
Weave on, swift shuttle of the Lord, Beneath the deep so far,
The bridal robe of Earth’s accord, The funeral shroud of war!
The poles unite, the zones agree,
The tongues of striving cease;
As on the Sea of Galilee,
The Christ is whispering, “Peace!”
THE BIRDS OF THE GARDEN AND ORCHARD.
The singing-birds whose notes are familiar to us, in towns and villages and the suburbs of the city, are found in the breeding-season only in these places, and are strangers to the deep woods and solitary pastures. Most of our singing-birds follow in the wake of the pioneer of the wilderness, and increase in numbers with the clearing and settlement of the country,–not, probably, from any dependence on the protection of mankind, but on account of the increased abundance of the insect food upon which they subsist, consequent upon the tilling of the ground. It is well known that the labors of the husbandman cause an excessive multiplication of all those species of insects whose larvae are cherished in the soil, and of all that infest the orchard and garden. The farm is capable of supporting insects just in proportion to its capacity for producing corn and fruit. Insects will multiply with their means of subsistence in and upon the earth; and birds, if not destroyed by artificial methods, will increase in proportion to the multiplication of those insects which constitute their principal food.
These considerations will sufficiently account for the fact, which often excites a little astonishment, that more singing-birds are found in the suburbs of the city, and among the parks and gardens of the city, than in the deep forest, where, even in the singing-season, the silence is sometimes melancholy. It is still to be remarked, that the species which are thus familiar in their habits do not include all the singing-birds, but they include all that are well known to the majority of our people. These are the birds of the garden and orchard. There are many other species, wild and solitary in their habits, which are delightful songsters in uncultivated regions remote from the town. But even these are rare in the depths of the forest. They live on the edge of the wood and in the half-wooded pasture.
The birds of the garden and orchard have been frequently described, and their habits are very generally known; but in the usual descriptions little has been said of their powers and peculiarities of song. In the present sketches, I have given particular attention to the vocal powers of the different birds, and have endeavored to designate the parts which each one performs in the grand hymn of Nature. I shall first introduce the Song-Sparrow, (_Fringilla melodia_,) a little bird that is universally known and admired. The Song-Sparrow is the earliest visitant and the latest resident of the vocal tenants of the field. He is plain in his vesture, undistinguished from the female by any superiority of plumage, and comes forth in the spring and takes his departure in the autumn in the same suit of russet and gray by which he is always recognized.
In March, before the violet has ventured to peep out from the southern knoll of the pasture or the sunny brow of the hill, while the northern skies are liable to pour down at any hour a storm of sleet and snow, the Song-Sparrow, beguiled by southern winds, has already made his appearance, and, on still mornings, may be heard warbling his few merry notes, as if to make the earliest announcement of his arrival. He is, therefore, the true harbinger of spring, and, though not the sweetest songster of the woods, has the merit of bearing to man the earliest tidings of the opening year, and of declaring the first vernal promises of Nature. As the notes of those birds that sing only in the night come with a double charm to our ears, because they are harmonized by silence and hallowed by the hour that is sacred to repose–in like manner does the Song-Sparrow delight us in tenfold measure, because he sings the sweet prelude to the universal hymn of Nature.
His haunts are the pastures which have been half reduced to tillage, and are still partially filled with wild shrubbery; for he is not so familiar in his habits as the Hair-bird, that comes close up to our door-step, to find the crumbs that are swept from our tables. Though his voice is constantly heard in the garden and orchard, he selects a more retired spot for his nest, preferring not to trust his progeny to the doubtful mercy of the lords of creation. In some secure retreat, under a tussock of herbage or a tuft of shrubbery, the female sits upon her nest of soft dry grass, containing four or five eggs, of a greenish white ground, almost entirely covered with brownish specks. Commencing in April, she rears three broods of young during the season, and her mate prolongs his notes until the last brood has flown from the nest.
The notes of the Song-Sparrow would not entitle him to be ranked among our principal singing-birds, were it not for the remarkable variations of his song, in which respect he is equalled, I think, by no other bird. Of these variations there are seven or eight which may be distinctly recognized, and differing enough to be considered separate tunes. The bird does not warble these in regular succession; he is in the habit of repeating one several times, and then leaves it, and repeats another in a similar manner. Mr. Paine[1] took note, on one occasion, of the number of times a Song-Sparrow sang each of the tunes, and the order of singing them. Of the tunes, as he had numbered them, the bird “sang No. 1, 27 times; No. 2, 36 times; No. 3, 23 times; No. 4, 19 times; No. 5, 21 times; No. 6, 32 times; No. 7, 18 times. Perhaps next he would sing No. 2, then perhaps No. 4, or 5, and so on.” Mr. Paine adds, “Some males will sing each tune about fifty times, though seldom; some will only sing them from five to ten times. But as far as I have observed, each male has his seven songs. I have applied the rule to as many as a dozen different birds, and the result has been the same.”
An individual will sometimes, for half a day, confine himself almost entirely to a few of these variations; but he will commonly sing each one more or less in the course of the day. I have observed also, that, when one principal singer takes up a particular tune, other birds in the vicinity will unite in the same. The several variations are mostly in triple time, a few in common time, and there is an occasional blending of both in the same tune, which consists usually of four bars or strains, sometimes five, though the song is frequently broken off at the end of the third strain. This habit of varying his notes through so many permutations, and the singularly fine intonations of many of them, entitle the Song-Sparrow to a very high rank as a singing-bird.
There is a manifest difference in the expression of these several tunes. The one which I have marked as No. 3 is particularly plaintive, and is usually in common time. No. 2 is the one which I think is most frequently sung. No. 5 is querulous and entirely unmusical. There is a remarkable precision in the song of this bird, and the finest singers are those which, in the language of musicians, have the least execution. There are some individuals that blend their notes together so promiscuously, and use so many flourishes, that it is difficult to identify their song, or to perceive its expression. Whether these tunes of the Song-Sparrow express to his mate, or to others of his species, different sentiments, and convey different messages, or whether the bird adopts them for his own amusement, I have not been able to determine. Neither have I learned whether a certain hour of the day or a certain state of the weather predisposes him to sing a particular tune. This point may, perhaps, be determined by some future observer; and it may be ascertained that the birds of this species have their matins and their vespers, their songs of rejoicing and of complaining, of courtship when in presence of their mate, and of encouragement and solace when she is sitting upon her nest. As Nature has a benevolent and a definite object in every instinct which she has established among her creatures, it is not probable that this habit of the Song-Sparrow is the mere result of accident. All the variations of his song are given, with the specimens, at the end of this article, and, though individuals differ in their singing, the notes will afford the reader a good general idea of the several tunes.
Soon after the arrival of the Song-Sparrow, when the spring-flowers have begun to be conspicuous in the meadow, we are greeted by the more fervent and lengthened notes of the Vesper-bird, (_Fringilla graminea_,) poured out with a peculiarly pensive modulation. This species closely resembles the former, but may be distinguished from it, when on the wing, by two white lateral feathers in the tail. The chirp of the Song-Sparrow is also louder, and pitched on a lower key, than that of the present species. By careless observers, these two Finches, on account of the similarity in their general appearance and habits, are considered identical. The Vesper-bird, however, is the least familiar of the two, and, when both are singing at the same time, will be found to occupy a position more remote from the house than the other. In several localities, these two species are distinguished by the names of Bush-Sparrow and Ground-Sparrow, from their supposed different habits of placing their nests, one in a bush and the other on the ground. But they do not in fact differ in this respect, as each species occasionally builds in both ways.
The Vesper-bird attracts more general attention to his notes than the Sparrow, because he sings a longer, though a more monotonous song, and warbles with more fervency. His notes bear considerable resemblance to those of the Canary-bird, but they are more subdued and plaintive, and have a peculiar reedy sound, which is never perceived in the notes of the Canary. This bird is periodical in his habits of song, confining his lays to particular hours of the day and conditions of the weather. The Song-Sparrow, on the contrary, sings about equally from morning to night, and but little more at one hour than another; and the different performers of this species do not seem to join in concert. This habit renders the latter more companionable, at the same time it causes his notes to be less regarded than those of the Vesper-bird, who pours them forth more sparingly, and at regular periods.
The Vesper-bird begins with all his kindred in a general concert at early dawn, after which they are comparatively silent until sunset, when they repeat their concert, with still greater zeal than they chanted in the morning. It is from this circumstance that it has obtained the name it bears–from its evening hymn, or vespers. I have heard this name applied to it only in one locality; but it is so precisely applicable to its habits, that I have thought it worthy of being retained as its distinguishing cognomen. There are particular states of the weather that frequently call out the birds of this species into a general concert at other periods of the day–as when rain is suddenly followed by sunshine, or when a clear sky is suddenly darkened by clouds, presenting to them a sort of occasional morn and occasional even. It may be remarked, that you seldom hear one of these birds singing alone; but when one begins, all others in the vicinity immediately join him.
The usual resorts of the Vesper-bird are the pastures and the hay-fields; hence the name of Grass-Finch, by which he is usually distinguished. His voice is heard frequently by the rustic roadsides, where he picks up a considerable portion of his subsistence. This is the little bird that so generally serenades us during our evening walks, at a little distance from the town, and not so far into the woods as the haunts of the Thrushes. When we go out into the country, on pleasant days in June or July, at nightfall, we hear multitudes of them singing sweetly from a hundred different points in the fields and farms.
Among the birds which are endowed by Nature with the gift of song in connection with gaudy plumage is the American Goldfinch, or Hemp-bird, (_Fringilla tristis_,) one of the most interesting and delicate of the feathered tribe. Of all our birds this bears the closest resemblance to the Canary, both in his plumage and in the notes of his song. He cannot be ranked with the finest of our songsters, being deficient in compass and variety. But he has great sweetness of tone, and is equalled by few birds in the rapidity of his execution. His note of complaint is exactly like that of the Canary, and is heard at almost all times of the year. He utters also, when flying, a very animated series of notes, during the repeated undulations of his night, and they seem to be uttered with each effort he makes to rise.
It is remarkable that this bird, though he often rears two broods in a season, does not begin to build his nest until July, after the first broods of the Robin and the Song-Sparrow have flown from their nests. Mr. Augustus Fowler[2] is of opinion, from his observation of their habits of feeding their young, that the cause of this procrastination is, “that they would be unable to find, in the spring and early summer, those new and milky seeds which are the necessary food of their young,” and takes occasion to allude to that beneficent law of Nature which provides that these birds “should not bring forth their young until the very time when those seeds used by them for food have passed into the milk, in which state they are easily dissolved by the stomach, and when an abundant supply may always be found.”
The Hemp-birds are remarkable for associating at a certain season, and singing, as it were, in choirs. “During spring and summer,” says Mr. Fowler, “they rove about in small flocks, and in July will assemble together in considerable numbers on a particular tree, seemingly for no other purpose than to sing. These concerts are held by them on the forenoon of each day, for a week or ten days, after which they soon commence building their nests. I am inclined to believe that this is their time of courtship, and that they have a purpose in these meetings beside that of singing. If perchance one is heard in the air, the males utter their call-note with great emphasis, particularly if the new-comer be a female; and while in her undulating flight she describes a circle, preparatory to alighting, they will stand almost erect, move their heads to the right and left, and burst simultaneously into song.”
While engaged in these concerts, it would seem as if they were governed by some rule, that enabled them to time their voices, and to swell or diminish the volume of sound. Some of this effect is undoubtedly produced by the gradual manner in which the different voices join in harmony, beginning with one or two, and increasing in numbers in a sort of geometrical progression, until all are singing at once, and then in the same gradual manner becoming silent. This produces the effect of a perfect _crescendo_ and _diminuendo_. Beginning, as it seems, at a distance, one voice leads on another, and the numbers multiply until they make a loud shout, which dies away gradually until one single voice winds up the chorus. These concerts are repeated at intervals, sometimes for an hour in duration.
Another peculiar habit of the Hemp-bird is that of building a nest, and then tearing it to pieces before any eggs have been deposited in it, and using the materials to make a new nest in another locality. In former years I have repeatedly watched this singular operation, in the Lombardy poplars that stood before my study-windows. I have thought that the male bird only was addicted to this practice, and that this might be his method of amusement while unprovided with a partner. The nest of the Hemp-bird is made of cotton, the down of the fern, and other soft materials, woven together with threads and the fibres of bark, and lined with thistle-down, if it be late enough to obtain it, and sometimes with cow’s hair. It is commonly placed in the fork of the slender branches of a maple, linden, or poplar, and is fastened to them with singular ingenuity.
Among the earliest songsters of spring, occasionally tuning his voice before the arrival of the multitudinous choir, is the Crimson Finch or American Linnet (_Fringilla purpurea_). I have frequently heard his notes on warm days in March, and once, in a very mild season, I heard one warbling cheerily on the 18th of February. But the Linnet does not persevere like the Song-Sparrow, after he has once commenced. His voice is only occasionally heard, until the middle of April, after which he is a very constant singer.
The notes of this bird are very simple and melodious, and some individuals greatly excel others in their powers of song. It is generally believed that the young males are the best singers, and that age diminishes their vocal capacity. The greater number utter only a few strains, resembling the notes of the Warbling Fly-catcher, (_Vireo gilvus_,) and these are constantly repeated during the greater part of the day. His song consists of four or five bars or strains; but there are individuals that extend them _ad libitum_, varying their notes after the manner of the Canary. The latter, however, sings with more precision, and is louder and shriller in his tones. I have not observed that this bird is more prone to sing in the morning and evening than at noonday and at all hours.
I have alluded to the fact that the finest singing-birds build their nests and seek their food either on the ground or among the shrubbery and the lower branches of trees, and that, when singing, they are commonly perched rather low. The Linnet is an exception to this general habit of the singing-birds, and, in company with the Warbling Fly-catchers, he is commonly high up in an elm or some other tall tree, and almost entirely out of sight, when exercising himself in song. It is this preference for the higher branches of trees that enables these birds, as well as the Golden Robin, to be denizens of the city. Hence they may be heard singing as freely and melodiously from the trees on Boston Common as in the wild-wood or orchard in the country.
I have seen the Linnet frequently in confinement; but he does not sing so well in a cage as in a state of freedom. His finest and most prolonged strains are delivered while on the wing. On such occasions only does he sing with fervor. While perched on a tree, his song is short and not greatly varied. If you closely watch his movements when he is singing, he may be seen on a sudden to take flight, and, while poising himself in the air, though still advancing, he pours out a continued strain of melody, not surpassed by the notes of any other bird. On account of the infrequency of these occasions, it is seldom we have an opportunity to witness a full exhibition of the musical powers of the Linnet.
The male American Linnet is crimson on the head, neck, and throat, dusky on the upper part of its body, and beneath somewhat straw-colored. It is remarkable that a great many individuals are destitute of this color, being plainly clad, like the female. These are supposed to be old birds, and the loss of color is attributed to age. The same change takes place when the bird is confined.
The little bird whose notes serve more than those of any other species to enliven the summer noondays in our villages is the House-Wren (_Troglodytes fulvus_). It is said to reside and rear its young chiefly in the Middle States; but it is far from being uncommon in Massachusetts, and, as it extends its summer migrations to Labrador, it is probable that it breeds there also. It is evident, however, that its breeding-places are not confined to northern latitudes. It is a migratory bird, is never seen here in winter, but commonly arrives in May and returns south early in October. It builds in a hollow tree, like the Blue-bird, or in a box or other vessel provided for it, and by furnishing such accommodations we may easily entice one to make its home in our inclosures.
The Wren is a very active bird, and one of the most restless of the feathered tribe. He is continually in motion, and even when singing he is always flitting about and changing his position. We see him in almost all places, as it were, at the same moment of time,–now warbling in ecstasy from the roof of a shed, then, with his wings spread and feathers ruffled, scolding furiously at a Blue-bird or a Swallow that has alighted on his box, or driving a Robin from a cherry-tree that stands near his habitation. The next instant we observe him running along on a stone wall, and diving down and in and out, from one side to the other, through the openings between the stories, with all the nimbleness of a squirrel. He is on the ridge of the barn-roof, he is peeping into the dove-cote, he is in the garden under the currant-bushes, or chasing a spider or a moth under a cabbage-leaf; again he is on the roof of the shed, warbling vociferously; and all these manoeuvres and peregrinations have occupied hardly a minute, so rapid and incessant is he in his motions.
The notes of the Wren are very lively and garrulous, and, if not uttered more frequently during the heat of the day, are certainly more noticeable at this hour. There is a concert at noonday, as well as in the morning and evening, among the birds, and in the former the Wren is one of the principal musicians. After the full rays of the sun have silenced the early performers, the Song-Sparrow and the Red Thrush continue to sing, at intervals, the greater part of the day. The Wren is likewise heard at all hours; but when the languishing heat of noon has arrived, and most of the birds are silent, the few that continue to sing become more than usually vocal, and seem to form a select company. They appear, indeed, to prefer the noonday, because the general silence that prevails at this hour renders their voices more distinguishable than at other times. The birds which are thus, as it were, associated with the Wren, in this noonday concert, are the Bobolink, the Cat-bird, and the two Warbling Fly-catchers, occasionally joined by the few and simple notes of the Summer Yellow-bird. If we are in the vicinity of the deep woods, we may also hear, at this hour, the loud and shrill voice of the Golden-Crowned Thrush, a bird that is partial to the heat of noon.
Of all these, however, the Wren is the most remarkable, having a note that is singularly varied and animated. He exhibits great compass and power of execution, but wants variety in his tones. He begins very sharp and shrill, like a grasshopper, then suddenly falls to a series of low guttural notes, and ascends, like the rolling of a drum, to another series of high notes, rapidly trilled. Almost without a pause, he recommences with his querulous insect-chirp, and proceeds through the same trilling and demi-semiquavering as before. He is not particular about the part of the song which he makes his closing note, but will leave off right in the middle of a strain, when he appears to be in the height of ecstasy, to pick up a spider or a fly.
As the Wren raises two broods of young in a season, his notes are prolonged to a late period of the summer, being frequently heard in the second or third week in August. He leaves for a southern clime about the first of October. In his migratory habits he differs from the European Wren, which is a constant resident in his native regions.
Our American birds, like the American flowers, have not been celebrated in classic song. They are scarcely known, except to our own people, and they have not in general been exalted by praise above their real merits. We read, both in prose and verse, the praises of the European Lark, Linnet, and Nightingale, and the English Robin Redbreast has been immortalized in song. But the American Robin, (_Turdus migratorius_,) though surnamed Redbreast, is a bird of different species and different habits. Little has been written about him, and he enjoys but little celebrity; he has never been puffed and overpraised, and, though universally admired, the many who admire him are diffident all the while, lest they are mistaken in their judgment and are wasting their admiration upon an object that is unworthy of it, and whose true merits fall short of their own estimate.
I shall not ask pardon of those critics who are always canting about genius–and who would probably deny this gift to the Robin, because he cannot cry like a chicken or squall like a cat, and because with his charming strains he does not mingle all sorts of discords and incongruous sounds–for assigning to the Robin the highest rank as a singing-bird. Let them say of him, in the cant of modern criticism, that his performances cannot be great, because they are faultless; it is enough for me, that his mellow notes, heard at the earliest flush of morning, in the more busy hour of noon, or the quiet lull of evening, come upon the ear in a stream of unqualified melody, as if he had learned to sing under the direct instruction of that beautiful Dryad who taught the Lark and the Nightingale. The Robin is surpassed by certain birds in some particular qualities. The Mocking-bird has more power, the Red Thrush more variety, the Vesper-bird more execution, and the Bobolink more animation; but each of these birds has more faults than the Robin, and would be less esteemed as a constant companion, a vocalist for all hours, whose strains never tire and never offend.
There are thousands who admire the Mocking-bird, because, after pouring forth a continued stream of ridiculous and disagreeable sounds, or a series of two or three notes repeated more than a hundred times in uninterrupted and monotonous succession, he condescends to utter a single delightfully modulated strain. He often brings his tiresome _extravaganzas_ to a magnificent climax of melody, and just as often concludes an inimitable chant with a most contemptible bathos. But the notes of the Robin are all melodious, all delightful,–loud without vociferation, mellow without monotony, fervent without ecstasy, and combining more of mellowness of tone, plaintiveness, cheerfulness, and propriety of execution, than those of any other bird.
The Robin is the Philomel of our spring and summer mornings in New England, and in all the country north and west of these States. Without his sweet notes, the mornings would be like a vernal landscape without flowers, or a summer-evening sky without tints. He is the chief performer in the delightful anthem that welcomes the rising day. Of the others, the best are but accompaniments of more or less importance. Remove the Robin from this woodland orchestra, and it would be left without a _soprano_. Over all the northern parts of this continent, wherever there are any human settlements, these birds are numerous and familiar. There is probably not an orchard in all New England that is not supplied with several of these musicians. When we consider the millions thus distributed over this broad country, we can imagine the sublimity of that chorus which, from the middle of April until the last of July, must daily ascend to heaven from the voices of these birds, not one male of which is silent, on any pleasant morning, from the earliest flush of dawn until sunrise.
In my boyhood, an early morning-walk was one of my favorite recreations, and never can I forget those delightful matins that awaited me at every turn. Even then I wondered that so little admiration was expressed for the song of the Robin, who seemed to me to be worthy of the highest regard. The Robin, when reared in confinement, is one of the most affectionate and interesting of birds. His powers of song are likewise susceptible of great improvement. Though not prone to imitation, he may be taught to sing tunes, and to imitate the notes of other birds. I have heard one whistle “Over the water to Charlie” as well as it could be played with a fife. Indeed, this bird is so tractable, that I believe any well-directed efforts would never fail of teaching him to sing any simple melody.
But what do we care about his power of learning artificial music? Even if he could be taught to perform like a _maestro_, this would not enhance his value as a minstrel of the woods. We are concerned with the birds only as they are in a state of nature. It is the simplicity of the songs of birds, as I have before remarked, that constitutes their principal charm; and were the Robins so changed in their nature as to relinquish their native notes, and sing only tunes hereafter, we should listen to them with as much indifference as to the whistling of boys in the streets.
In the elms on Boston Common, and in all the lofty trees in the suburbs as well as in the country villages, are two little birds whose songs are heard daily and hourly, from the middle of May until the latter part of summer. These are the Warbling Fly-catchers (_Vireo gilvus and V. olivaceus_). The first is commonly designated as the Warbling Vireo, the second as the Red-eyed Vireo. The former arrives about a week or ten days earlier than the other, and becomes silent likewise at a somewhat earlier period. Both species are very similar in their habits, frequenting the villages in preference to the woods, singing at all hours of the day, particularly at noon, taking all their insect prey from the leaves and branches of trees, or seizing it as it flits by their perch, and amusing themselves, while thus employed, with oft-repeated fragments of song. Each builds a pensile nest, or places it in the fork of the slender branches of a tree. I have seen a nest of the Warbling Vireo placed less than fifteen feet from the ground, on a pear-tree, directly opposite the window of a chamber that was constantly occupied; but the nests of both species are usually suspended at a considerable height from the ground.
The notes of the Warbling Vireo have been described by the words, “Brigadier, Brigadier, Bridget.” They are few, simple, and melodious, and being often repeated, they form a very important part of the sylvan music of cultivated and thickly-settled places. It is difficult to obtain sight of this little warbler while he is singing, on account of his small size, the olive color of his plumage, and his habit of perching among the dense foliage of the trees.
The Red-eyed Vireo is more generally known by his note, because he is particularly vocal during the heat of the long summer-days, when other birds are comparatively silent The modulation of his notes is similar to that of the common Robin, but his tones are sharper, and he sings in a very desultory manner, leaving off very frequently in the middle of a strain to seize a moth or a beetle. Singing, while he is engaged in song, never seems to be his sole employment. This is the little bird that warbles for us late in the summer, after almost all other birds have become silent, uttering his moderate notes, as if for his own amusement, during all the heat of the day, from the trees by the roadsides and in our inclosures. We might then suppose him to be repeating very moderately the words, “Do you hear me? Do you see me?” with the rising inflection of the voice, and with a pause after each sentence, as if he waited for an answer.
As soon as the cherry-tree is in blossom, and when the oak and the maple are beginning to unfold their plaited leaves, the loud and mellow notes of the Golden Robin (_Icterus Baltimore_) are heard for the first time in the year. I have never known the birds of this species to arrive before this date, and they seem to be governed by the supply of their insect food, which probably becomes abundant simultaneously with the flowering of the orchards. These birds may from that time be observed diligently hunting among the branches and foliage of the trees, and they appear to make a particular examination of the blossoms, from which they obtain a great variety of flies and beetles that are lodged in them. While thus employed, the bird frequently utters his brief, but loud and melodious notes; but he sings, like the Vireo, only while attending to the wants of life. Almost all remarkable singing-birds, when warbling, give themselves up entirely to song, and pay no regard to other demands upon their time until they have concluded. But the Golden Robin never relaxes from his industry, nor remains stationed upon the branch of a tree for the sole purpose of singing. He sings, like an industrious maid-of-all-work, only while employed in the ordinary concerns of life.
The Golden Robin is said to inhabit North America from Canada to Mexico; but there is reason to believe that the species is most abundant in the north-eastern parts of the continent, and that a greater number breed in the New England States than either south or west of this section. They are also more numerous in the suburbs of cities and towns than in the ruder and more primitive parts of the country. Their peculiar manner of protecting their pensile nests, by hanging them from the extremities of the lofty branches of an elm or other tall tree, enables the bird to rear its young with great security, even in the heart of the city. The only animals that are able to reach their nests are the smaller squirrels, which sometimes descend the long, slender branches upon which they are suspended, and devour the eggs.
This depredation I have never witnessed; but I have seen the Red Squirrel descend in this manner to devour the crysalis of a certain insect, which was rolled up in a leaf.
The ways and manners of the Golden Robin are very interesting. He is remarkable for his vivacity, and his bright plumage renders all his movements conspicuous. His plumage needs no description, since every one is familiar with its colors, as they are seen like flashes of fire among the trees. The bird derives its specific name (Baltimore) from the resemblance of its colors to the livery of Lord Baltimore of Maryland. The name of a bird ought to have either a sylvan or a poetic origin. This has neither. I prefer, therefore, the common and expressive name of Golden Robin.
This bird is supposed to possess considerable power of musical imitation. Still it may be observed that in all cases he gives the notes of those birds only whose voice resembles his own. Thus, he often repeats the song of the Red-bird, but in doing this he varies his own notes no more than he might do without meaning any imitation. Though he repeats but few notes, he utters them with great variety of modulation. Sometimes for several days he confines himself to a single strain, and afterwards for about an equal space of time he will adopt another strain. Sometimes he lengthens his brief notes into an extended melody, and sings in a sort of ecstasy, like the birds of the Finch tribe. Such musical paroxysms are exceedingly rare in his case, and seem to be occasioned by some momentary exultation.
The Golden Robin rears but one brood of young in this part of the country, and his cheerful notes are discontinued soon after the young have left their nest. The song of the old bird seems after this period hardly necessary to the offspring, who keep up an incessant chirping from the moment of leaving their nest until they are able to accompany the old ones to the woods, whither they retire in the latter part of the season. It is remarkable, that, after a perfect silence of two or three weeks after this time, the Golden Robins suddenly make their appearance again for a few days, uttering the same merry notes with which they hailed the arrival of summer. They soon disappear again, and before autumn arrives they make their annual journey to the South, where they pass the winter.
There is no singing-bird in New England that enjoys the notoriety of the Bobolink (_Icterus agripennis_). He is like a rare wit in our social or political circles. Everybody is talking about him and quoting his remarks, and all are delighted with his company. He is not without great merits as a songster; but he is well known and admired, because he is showy, noisy, and flippant, and sings only in the open field, and frequently while poised on the wing, so that everybody who hears him can see him, and know who is the author of the strains that afford him so much delight. He sings also at broad noonday, when everybody is out, and is seldom heard before sunrise, while other birds are pouring forth their souls in a united concert of praise. He waits until the sun is up, and when most of the early performers have become silent, as if determined to secure a good audience before exhibiting his powers.
The Bobolink, or Conquedle, has unquestionably great talents as a musician. In the grand concert of Nature it is he who performs the _recitative_ parts, which he delivers with the utmost fluency and rapidity; and one must be a careful listener, not to lose many of his words. He is plainly the merriest of all the feathered creation, almost continually in motion, and singing upon the wing, apparently in the greatest ecstasy of joy.
There is not a plaintive strain in his whole performance. Every sound is as merry as the laugh of a young child; and one cannot listen to him without fancying that he is indulging in some jocose raillery of his companions. If we suppose him to be making love, we cannot look upon him as very deeply enamored, but rather as highly delighted with his spouse, and overflowing with rapturous admiration. The object of his love is a neatly formed bird, with a mild expression of countenance, a modest and amiable deportment, and arrayed in the plainest apparel. It is evident that she does not pride herself upon the splendor of her costume, but rather on its neatness, and on her own feminine graces. She must be entirely without vanity, unless we suppose that it is gratified by observing the pomp and display which are made by her partner, and by listening to his delightful eloquence of song: for if we regard him as an orator, it must be allowed that he is unsurpassed in fluency and rapidity of utterance; and if we regard him only as a musician, he is unrivalled in brilliancy of execution.
Vain are all attempts, on the part of other birds, to imitate his truly original style. The Mocking-bird gives up the attempt in despair, and refuses to sing at all when confined near one in a cage. I cannot look upon him as ever in a very serious humor. He seems to be a lively, jocular little fellow, who is always jesting and bantering, and when half a dozen different individuals are sporting about in the same orchard, I often imagine that they might represent the persons dramatized in some comic opera. These birds never remain stationary upon the bough of a tree, singing apparently for their own solitary amusement; but they are ever in company, and passing to and fro, often commencing their song upon the extreme end of the bough of an apple-tree, then suddenly taking flight, and singing the principal part while balancing themselves on the wing. The merriest part of the day with these birds is the later afternoon, during the hour preceding dewfall, and before the Robins and Thrushes commence their evening hymn. Then, assembled in company, it would seem as if they were practising a cotillon upon the wing, each one singing to his own movements, as he sallies forth and returns,–and nothing can exceed their apparent merriment.
The Bobolink usually commences his warbling just after sunrise, when the Robin, having sung from the earliest dawn, brings his performance to a close. Nature seems to have provided that the serious parts of her musical entertainment in the morning shall first be heard, and that the lively and comic strains shall follow them. In the evening this order is reversed; and after the comedy is concluded, Nature lulls us to meditation and repose by the mellow notes of the little Vesper-bird, and the pensive and still more melodious strains of the solitary Thrushes.
In pleasant, sunshiny weather, the Bobolink seldom flies without singing, often hovering on the wing over the place where his mate is sitting upon her ground-built nest, and pouring forth his notes with great loudness and fluency. The Bobolink is one of our social birds, one of those species that follow in the footsteps of man, and multiply with the progress of agriculture. He is not a frequenter of the woods; he seems to have no taste for solitude. He loves the orchard and the mowing-field, and many are the nests which are exposed by the scythe of the haymaker, if the mowing be done early in the season. Previously to the settlement of America, these birds must have been comparatively rare in the New England States, and were probably confined to the open prairies and savannas in the northwestern territory.
THE O’LINCON FAMILY.
A flock of merry singing-birds were sporting in the grove; Some were warbling cheerily, and some were making love: There were Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, Conquedle,– A livelier set was never led by tabor, pipe, or fiddle,– Crying, “Phew, shew, Wadolincon, see, see, Bobolincon, Down among the tickletops, hiding in the buttercups! I know the saucy chap, I see his shining cap Bobbing in the clover there,–see, see, see!”
Up flies Bobolincon, perching on an apple-tree, Startled by his rival’s song, quickened by his raillery. Soon he spies the rogue afloat, curvetting in the air, And merrily he turns about, and warns him to beware! “‘Tis you that would a-wooing go, down among the rushes O! But wait a week, till flowers are cheery,–wait a week, and, ere you marry,
Be sure of a house wherein to tarry! Wadolink, Whiskodink, Tom Denny, wait, wait, wait!”
Every one’s a funny fellow; every one’s a little mellow; Follow, follow, follow, follow, o’er the hill and in the hollow! Merrily, merrily, there they hie; now they rise and now they fly; They cross and turn, and in and out, and down in the middle, and wheel about,–
With a “Phew, shew, Wadolincon! listen to me Bobolincon!– Happy’s the wooing that’s speedily doing, that’s speedily doing, That’s merry and over with the bloom of the clover! Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, follow, follow me!”
Oh, what a happy life they lead, over the hill and in the mead! How they sing, and how they play! See, they fly away, away! Now they gambol o’er the clearing,–off again, and then appearing; Poised aloft on quivering wing, now they soar, and now they sing:– “We must all be merry and moving; we must all be happy and loving; For when the midsummer has come, and the grain has ripened its ear, The haymakers scatter our young, and we mourn for the rest of the year.
Then Bobolincon, Wadolincon, Winterseeble, haste, haste, away!”
[Illustration: SONG OF THE SONG-SPARROW, AND ITS VARIATIONS. Three lines of music. Line one is labelled THEME. Line 2 is labelled Var. 1 and line 3 is Var. 2.]
[Illustration: (musical notation) NOTE.–The notes marked _guttural_ seem to me to be performed by a rapid trilling of these notes with their octave. It should be added, that no bird sings constantly in so regular time as is represented above, and the intervals between the high and low notes are very irregular. Both the time and the tune are in great measure _ad libitum_]
[Illustration: SONG OF THE LINNET. (_Fringilla purpurea_.) (musical notation)]
[Illustration: SONG OF THE WREN. (_Trogledytes fulvus_.) (musical notation)]
[Illustration: SONG OF THE ROBIN. (_Turdus migratorius_.) (musical notation)]
Another–Flexibly modulated, as if pronouncing the words below.
[Illustration: Musical staff] Tu lu lu, tu lu lu, tu lu lu, too loo.
NOTE.–The Robin is continually varying his notes; so that the two specimens, as given above, may be considered but the theme upon which he constructs his melody.
SONG OF THE WARBLING VIREO. (_V. Gilvus._)
[Illustration: Musical staff] Brigadier Brigadier Brigadier Briget.
SONG OF THE RED-EYED VIREO. (_V. olivaceus._)
[Illustration: Musical staff] pauses to Take a fly.