his power,–but why? Because I adored him as something divine, incapable of dishonor, incapable of selfishness, incapable of even a thought that was not perfectly noble and heroic. If he had been all that, I should have been proud to be even a poor little flower that should exhale away to give him an hour’s pleasure; I would have offered my whole life to God as a sacrifice for such a glorious soul;–and all this time, what was he thinking of me?
“He was _using_ my feelings to carry his plans; he was admiring me like a picture; he was considering what he should do with me; and but for his interests with my husband, he would have tried his power to make me sacrifice this world and the next to his pleasure. But he does not know me. My mother was a Montmorenci, and I have the blood of her house in my veins; we are princesses;–we can give all; but he must be a god that we give it for.”
Mary’s enchanted eye followed the beautiful narrator, as she enacted before her this poetry and tragedy of real life, so much beyond what dramatic art can ever furnish. Her eyes grew splendid in their depth and brilliancy; sometimes they were full of tears, and sometimes they flashed out like lightnings; her whole form seemed to be a plastic vehicle which translated every emotion of her soul; and Mary sat and looked at her with the intense absorption that one gives to the highest and deepest in Art or Nature.
“_Enfin,–que faire_?” she said at last, suddenly stopping, and drooping in every limb. “Mary, I have lived on this dream so long!–never thought of anything else!–now all is gone, and what shall I do? I think, Mary,” she added, pointing to the nest in the tree, “I see my life in many things. My heart was once still and quiet, like the round little eggs that were in your nest;–now it has broken out of its shell, and cries with cold and hunger. I want my dream again,–I wish it all back,–or that my heart could go back into its shell. If I only could drop this year out of my life, and care for nothing, as I used to! I have tried to do that; I can’t; I cannot get back where I was before.”
“_Would_ you do it, dear Virginie?” said Mary; “would you, if you could?”
“It was very noble and sweet, all that,” said Virginie; “it gave me higher thoughts than ever I had before; I think my feelings were beautiful;–but now they are like little birds that have no mother; they kill me with their crying.”
“Dear Virginie, there is a real Friend in heaven, who is all you can ask or think,–nobler, better, purer,–who cannot change, and cannot die, and who loved you and gave Himself for you.”
“You mean Jesus,” said Virginie. “Ah, I know it; and I say the offices to him daily, but my heart is very wild and starts away from my words. I say, ‘My God, I give myself to you!’–and after all, I don’t give myself, and I don’t feel comforted. Dear Mary, you must have suffered, too,–for you loved really,–I saw it;–when we feel a thing ourselves, we can see very quick the same in others;–and it was a dreadful blow to come so all at once.”
“Yes, it was,” said Mary; “I thought I must die; but Christ has given me peace.”
These words were spoken with that long-breathed sigh with which we always speak of peace,–a sigh that told of storms and sorrows past,–the sighing of the wave that falls spent and broken on the shores of eternal rest.
There was a little pause in the conversation, and then Virginie raised her head and spoke in a sprightlier lone.
“Well, my little fairy cat, my white doe, I have come to you. Poor Virginie wants something to hold to her heart; let me have you,” she said, throwing her arms round Mary.
“Dear, dear Virginie, indeed you shall!” said Mary. “I will love you dearly, and pray for you. I always have prayed for you, ever since the first day I knew you.”
“I knew it,–I felt your prayers in my heart. Mary, I have many thoughts that I dare not tell to any one, lately,–but I cannot help feeling that some are real Christians who are not in the True Church. You are as true a saint as Saint Catharine; indeed, I always think of you when I think of our dear Lady; and yet they say there is no salvation out of the Church.”
This was a new view of the subject to Mary, who had grown up with the familiar idea that the Romish Church was Babylon and Antichrist, and who, during the conversation, had been revolving the same surmises with regard to her friend. She turned her grave, blue eyes on Madame de Frontignac with a somewhat surprised look, which melted into a half-smile. But the latter still went on with a puzzled air, as if trying to talk herself out of some mental perplexity.
“Now, Burr is a heretic,–and more than that, he is an infidel; he has no religion in his heart,–I saw that often,–it made me tremble for him,–it ought to have put me on my guard. But you, dear Mary, you love Jesus as your life. I think you love him just as much as Sister Agatha, who was a saint. The Abbe says that there is nothing so dangerous as to begin to use our reason in religion,–that, if we once begin, we never know where it may carry us; but I can’t help using mine a very little. I must think there are some saints that are not in the True Church.”
“All are one who love Christ,” said Mary; “we are one in Him.”
“I should not dare to tell the Abbe,” said Madame de Frontignac; and Mary queried in her heart, whether Dr. H. would feel satisfied that she could bring this wanderer to the fold of Christ without undertaking to batter down the walls of her creed; and yet, there they were, the Catholic and the Puritan, each strong in her respective faith, yet melting together in that embrace of love and sorrow, joined in the great communion of suffering. Mary took up her Testament, and read the fourteenth chapter of John:–
“Let not your heart be troubled; ye believe in God, believe also in me. In my Father’s house are many mansions; if it were not so, I would have told you. I go to prepare a place for you; and if I go and prepare a place for you, I will come again and receive you unto myself, that where I am, there ye may be also.”
Mary read on through the chapter,–through the next wonderful prayer; her face grew solemnly transparent, as of an angel; for her soul was lifted from earth by the words, and walked with Christ far above all things, over that starry pavement where each footstep is on a world.
The greatest moral effects are like those of music,–not wrought out by sharp-sided intellectual propositions, but melted in by a divine fusion, by words that have mysterious, indefinite fulness of meaning, made living by sweet voices, which seem to be the out-throbbings of angelic hearts. So one verse in the Bible read by a mother in some hour of tender prayer has a significance deeper and higher than the most elaborate of sermons, the most acute of arguments.
Virginie Frontignac sat as one divinely enchanted, while that sweet voice read on; and when the silence fell between them, she gave a long sigh, as we do when sweet music stops. They heard between them the soft stir of summer leaves, the distant songs of birds, the breezy hum when the afternoon wind shivered through many branches, and the silver sea chimed in. Virginie rose at last, and kissed Mary on the forehead.
“That is a beautiful book,” she said, “and to read it all by one’s self must be lovely. I cannot understand why it should be dangerous; it has not injured you.
“Sweet saint,” she added, “let me stay with you; you shall read to me every day. Do you know I came here to get you to take me? I want you to show me how to find peace where you do; will you let me be your sister?”
“Yes, indeed,” said Mary, with a cheek brighter than it had been for many a day; her heart feeling a throb of more real human pleasure than for long months.
“Will you get your mamma to let me stay?” said Virginie, with the bashfulness of a child; “haven’t you a little place like yours, with white curtains and sanded floor, to give to poor little Virginie to learn to be good in?”
“Why, do you really want to stay here with us,” said Mary, “in this little house?”
“Do I really?” said Virginie, mimicking her voice with a start of her old playfulness;–“_don’t_ I really? Come now, _mimi_, coax the good mamma for me,–tell her I shall try to be very good. I shall help you with the spinning,–you know I spin beautifully,–and I shall make butter, and milk the cow, and set the table. Oh, I will be so useful, you can’t spare me!”
“I should love to have you dearly,” said Mary, warmly; “but you would soon be dull for want of society here.”
“_Quelle idee! ma petite drole!_” said the lady,–who, with the mobility of her nation, had already recovered some of the saucy mocking grace that was habitual to her, as she began teasing Mary with a thousand little childish motions. “Indeed, _mimi_, you must keep me hid up here, or may-be the wolf will find me and eat me up; who knows?”
Mary looked at her with inquiring eyes.
“What do you mean?”
“I mean, Mary,–I mean, that, when _he_ comes back to Philadelphia, he thinks he shall find me there; he thought I should stay while my husband was gone; and when he finds I am gone, he may come to Newport; and I never want to see him again without you;–you must let me stay with you.”
“Have you told him,” said Mary, “what you think?”
“I wrote to him, Mary,–but, oh, I can’t trust my heart! I want so much to believe him, it kills me so to think evil of him, that it will never do for me to see him. If he looks at me with those eyes of his, I am all gone; I shall believe anything he tells me; he will draw me to him as a great magnet draws a poor little grain of steel.”
“But now you know his unworthiness, his baseness,” said Mary, “I should think it would break all his power.”
“_Should_ you think so? Ah, Mary, we cannot unlove in a minute; love is a great while dying. I do not worship him now as I did. I know what he is. I know he is bad, and I am sorry for it. I should like to cover it from all the world,–even from you, Mary, since I see it makes you dislike him; it hurts me to hear any one else blame him. But sometimes I do so long to think I am mistaken, that I know, if I should see him, I should catch at anything he might tell me, as a drowning man at straws; I should shut my eyes, and think, after all, that it was all my fault, and ask a thousand pardons for all the evil he has done. No,–Mary, you must keep your blue eyes upon me, or I shall be gone.”
At this moment Mrs. Scudder’s voice was heard, calling Mary below.
“Go down now, darling, and tell mamma; make a good little talk to her, _ma reine_! Ah, you are queen here! all do as you say,–even the good priest there; you have a little hand, but it leads all; so go, _petite_.”
Mrs. Scudder was somewhat flurried and discomposed at the proposition;–there were the _pros_ and the _cons_ in her nature, such as we all have. In the first place, Madame de Frontignac belonged to high society,–and that was _pro_; for Mrs. Scudder prayed daily against worldly vanities, because she felt a little traitor in her heart that was ready to open its door to them, if not constantly talked down. In the second place, Madame de Frontignac was French,–there was a _con_; for Mrs. Scudder had enough of her father John Bull in her heart to have a very wary look-out on anything French. But then, in the third place, she was out of health and unhappy,–and there was a _pro_ again; for Mrs. Scudder was as kind and motherly a soul as ever breathed. But then she was a Catholic,–_con_. But the Doctor and Mary might convert her,–_pro_. And then Mary wanted her,–_pro_. And she was a pretty, bewitching, lovable creature,–_pro_.–The _pros_ had it; and it was agreed that Madame de Frontignac should be installed as proprietress of the spare chamber, and she sat down to the tea-table that evening in the great kitchen.
CHAPTER XXVI.
THE DECLARATION.
The domesticating of Madame de Frontignac as an inmate of the cottage added a new element of vivacity to that still and unvaried life. One of the most beautiful traits of French nature is that fine gift of appreciation, which seizes at once the picturesque side of every condition of life, and finds in its own varied storehouse something to assort with it. As compared with the Anglo-Saxon, the French appear to be gifted with a _naive_ childhood of nature, and to have the power that children have of gilding every scene of life with some of their own poetic fancies.
Madame de Frontignac was in raptures with the sanded floor of her little room, which commanded, through the apple-boughs, a little morsel of a seaview. She could fancy it was a nymph’s cave, she said.
“Yes, _ma Marie_, I will play Calypso, and you shall play Telemachus, and Dr. H. shall be Mentor. Mentor was so very, very good!–only a little bit–_dull_,” she said, pronouncing the last word with a wicked accent, and lifting her hands with a whimsical gesture like a naughty child who expects a correction.
Mary could not but laugh; and as she laughed, more color rose in her waxen cheeks than for many days before.
Madame de Frontignac looked as triumphant as a child who has made its mother laugh, and went on laying things out of her trunk into her drawers with a zeal that was quite amusing to see.
“You see, _ma blanche_, I have left all Madame’s clothes at Philadelphia, and brought only those that belong to Virginie,–no _tromperie_, no feathers, no gauzes, no diamonds,–only white dresses, and my straw hat _en bergere_, I brought one string of pearls that was my mother’s; but pearls, you know, belong to the sea-nymphs. I will trim my hat with seaweed and buttercups together, and we will go out on the beach to-night and get some gold and silver shells to dress _mon miroir_.”
“Oh, I have ever so many now!” said Mary, running into her room, and coming back with a little bag.
They both sat on the bed together, and began pouring them out,–Madame de Frontignac showering childish exclamations of delight.
Suddenly Mary put her hand to her heart as if she had been struck with something; and Madame de Frontignac heard her say, in a low voice of sudden pain, “Oh, dear!”
“What is it, _mimi?_” she said, looking up quickly.
“Nothing,” said Mary, turning her head.
Madame de Frontignac looked down, and saw among the sea-treasures a necklace of Venetian shells, that she knew never grew on the shores of Newport. She held it up.
“Ah, I see,” she said. “He gave you this. Ah, _ma pauvrette_” she said, clasping Mary in her arms, “thy sorrow meets thee everywhere! May I be a comfort to thee!–just a little one!”
“Dear, dear friend!” said Mary, weeping. “I know not how it is. Sometimes I think this sorrow is all gone; but then, for a moment, it comes back again. But I am at peace; it is all right, all right; I would not have it otherwise. But, oh, if he could have spoken one word to me before! He gave me this,” she added, “when he came home from his first voyage to the Mediterranean. I did not know it was in this bag. I had looked for it everywhere.”
“Sister Agatha would have told you to make a rosary of it,” said Madame de Frontignac; “but you pray without a rosary. It is all one,” she added; “there will be a prayer for every shell, though you do not count them. But come, _ma chere_, get your bonnet, and let us go out on the beach.”
That evening, before going to bed, Mrs. Scudder came into Mary’s room. Her manner was grave and tender; her eyes had tears in them; and although her usual habits were not caressing, she came to Mary and put her arms around her and kissed her. It was an unusual manner, and Mary’s gentle eyes seemed to ask the reason of it.
“My daughter,” said her mother, “I have just had a long and very interesting talk with our dear good friend, the Doctor; ah, Mary, very few people know how good he is!”
“True, mother,” said Mary, warmly; “he is the best, the noblest, and yet the humblest man in the world.”
“You love him very much, do you not?” said her mother.
“Very dearly,” said Mary.
“Mary, he has asked me, this evening, if you would be willing to be his wife.”
“His _wife_, mother?” said Mary, in the tone of one confused with a new and strange thought.
“Yes, daughter; I have long seen that he was preparing to make you this proposal.”
“You have, mother?”
“Yes, daughter; have you never thought of it?”
“Never, mother.”
There was a long pause,–Mary standing, just as she had been interrupted, in her night toilette, with her long, light hair streaming down over her white dress, and the comb held mechanically in her hand. She sat down after a moment, and, clasping her hands over her knees, fixed her eyes intently on the floor; and there fell between the two a silence so profound, that the tickings of the clock in the next room seemed to knock upon the door. Mrs. Scudder sat with anxious eyes watching that silent face, pale as sculptured marble.
“Well, Mary,” she said at last.
A deep sigh was the only answer. The violent throbbings of her heart could be seen undulating the long hair as the moaning sea tosses the rockweed.
“My daughter,” again said Mrs. Scudder.
Mary gave a great sigh, like that of a sleeper awakening from a dream, and, looking at her mother, said,–
“Do you suppose he really _loves_ me, mother?”
“Indeed he does, Mary, as much as man ever loved woman!”
“Does he indeed?” said Mary, relapsing into thoughtfulness.
“And you love him, do you not?” said her mother.
“Oh, yes, I love him.”
“You love him better than any man in the world, don’t you?”
“Oh, mother, mother! yes!” said Mary, throwing herself passionately forward, and bursting into sobs; “yes, there is no one else now that I love better,–no one!–no one!”
“My darling! my daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder, coming and taking her in her arms.
“Oh, mother, mother!” she said, sobbing distressfully, “let me cry, just for a little,–oh, mother, mother, mother!”
What was there hidden under that despairing wail?–It was the parting of the last strand of the cord of youthful hope.
Mrs. Scudder soothed and caressed her daughter, but maintained still in her breast a tender pertinacity of purpose, such as mothers will, who think they are conducting a child through some natural sorrow into a happier state.
Mary was not one, either, to yield long to emotion of any kind. Her rigid education had taught her to look upon all such outbursts as a species of weakness, and she struggled for composure, and soon seemed entirety calm.
“If he really loves me, mother, it would give him great pain, if I refused,” said Mary, thoughtfully.
“Certainly it would; and, Mary, you have allowed him to act as a very near friend for a long time; and it is quite natural that he should have hopes that you loved him.”
“I do love him, mother,–better than anybody in the world except you. Do you think that will do?”
“Will do?” said her mother; “I don’t understand you.”
“Why, is that loving enough to marry? I shall love him more, perhaps, after,–shall I, mother?”
“Certainly you will; every one does.”
“I wish he did not want to marry me, mother,” said Mary, after a pause. “I liked it a great deal better as we were before.”
“All girls feel so, Mary, at first; it is very natural.”
“Is that the way you felt about father, mother?”
Mrs. Scudder’s heart smote her when she thought of her own early love,–that great love that asked no questions,–that had no doubts, no fears, no hesitations,–nothing but one great, outsweeping impulse, which swallowed her life in that of another. She was silent; and after a moment, she said,–
“I was of a different disposition from you, Mary. I was of a strong, wilful, positive nature. I either liked or disliked with all my might. And besides, Mary, there never was a man like your father.”
The matron uttered this first article in the great confession of woman’s faith with the most unconscious simplicity.
“Well, mother, I will do whatever is my duty. I want to be guided. If I can make that good man happy, and help him to do some good in the world–After all, life is short, and the great thing is to do for others.”
“I am sure, Mary, if you could have heard how he spoke, you would be sure you could make him happy. He had not spoken before, because he felt so unworthy of such a blessing; he said I was to tell you that he should love and honor you all the same, whether you could be his wife or not,–but that nothing this side of heaven would be so blessed a gift,–that it would make up for every trial that could possibly come upon him. And you know, Mary, he has a great many discouragements and trials;–people don’t appreciate him; his efforts to do good are misunderstood and misconstrued; they look down on him, and despise him, and tell all sorts of evil things about him; and sometimes he gets quite discouraged.”
“Yes, mother, I will marry him,” said Mary;–“yes, I will.”
“My darling daughter!” said Mrs. Scudder,–“this has been the hope of my life!”
“Has it, mother?” said Mary, with a faint smile; “I shall make you happier, then?”
“Yes, dear, you will. And think what a prospect of usefulness opens before you! You can take a position, as his wife, which will enable you to do even more good than you do now; and you will have the happiness of seeing, everyday, how much you comfort the hearts and encourage the hands of God’s dear people.”
“Mother, I ought to be very glad I can do it,” said Mary; “and I trust I am. God orders all things for the best.”
“Well, my child, sleep to-night, and to-morrow we will talk more about it.”
CHAPTER XXVII.
SURPRISES.
Mrs. Scudder kissed her daughter, and left her. After a moment’s thought, Mary gathered the long silky folds of hair around her head, and knotted them for the night. Then leaning forward on her toilet-table, she folded her hands together, and stood regarding the reflection of herself in the mirror.
Nothing is capable of more ghostly effect than such a silent, lonely contemplation of that mysterious image of ourselves which seems to look out of an infinite depth in the mirror, as if it were our own soul beckoning to us visibly from unknown regions. Those eyes look into our own with an expression sometimes vaguely sad and inquiring. The face wears weird and tremulous lights and shadows; it asks us mysterious questions, and troubles us with the suggestions of our relations to some dim unknown. The sad, blue eyes that gazed into Mary’s had that look of calm initiation, of melancholy comprehension, peculiar to eyes made clairvoyant by “great and critical” sorrow. They seemed to say to her, “Fulfil thy mission; life is made for sacrifice; the flower must fall before fruit can perfect itself.” A vague shuddering of mystery gave intensity to her reverie. It seemed as if those mirror-depths were another world; she heard the far-off dashing of sea-green waves; she felt a yearning impulse towards that dear soul gone out into the infinite unknown.
Her word just passed had in her eyes all the sacred force of the most solemnly attested vow; and she felt as if that vow had shut some till then open door between her and him; she had a kind of shadowy sense of a throbbing and yearning nature that seemed to call on her,–that seemed surging towards her with an imperative, protesting force that shook her heart to its depths.
Perhaps it is so, that souls, once intimately related, have ever after this a strange power of affecting each other,–a power that neither absence nor death can annul. How else can we interpret those mysterious hours in which the power of departed love seems to overshadow us, making our souls vital with such longings, with such wild throbbings, with such unutterable sighings, that a little more might burst the mortal bond? Is it not deep calling unto deep? the free soul singing outside the cage to her mate beating against the bars within?
Mary even, for a moment, fancied that a voice called her name, and started, shivering. Then the habits of her positive and sensible education returned at once, and she came out of her reverie as one breaks from a dream, and lifted all these sad thoughts with one heavy sigh from her breast; and opening her Bible, she read: “They that trust in the Lord shall be as Mount Zion, which cannot be removed, but abideth forever. As the mountains are round about Jerusalem, so the Lord is round about his people from henceforth, even forever.”
Then she kneeled by her bedside, and offered her whole life a sacrifice to the loving God who had offered his life a sacrifice for her. She prayed for grace to be true to her promise,–to be faithful to the new relation she had accepted. She prayed that all vain regrets for the past might be taken away, and that her soul might vibrate without discord in unison with the will of Eternal Love. So praying, she rose calm, and with that clearness of spirit which follows an act of uttermost self-sacrifice; and so calmly she laid down and slept, with her two hands crossed upon her breast, her head slightly turned on the pillow, her cheek pale as marble, and her long dark lashes lying drooping, with a sweet expression, as if under that mystic veil of sleep the soul were seeing things forbidden to the waking eye. Only the gentlest heaving of the quiet breast told that the heavenly spirit within had not gone whither it was hourly aspiring to go.
Meanwhile Mrs. Scudder had left Mary’s room, and entered the Doctor’s study, holding a candle in her hand. The good man was sitting alone in the dark, with his head bowed upon his Bible. When Mrs. Scudder entered, he rose, and regarded her wistfully, but did not speak. He had something just then in his heart for which he had no words; so he only looked as a man does who hopes and fears for the answer of a decisive question.
Mrs. Scudder felt some of the natural reserve which becomes a matron coming charged with a gift in which lies the whole sacredness of her own existence, and which she puts from her hands with a jealous reverence. She therefore measured the man with her woman’s and mother’s eye, and said, with a little stateliness,–
“My dear Sir, I come to tell you the result of my conversation with Mary.”
She made a little pause,–and the Doctor stood before her as humbly as if he had not weighed and measured the universe; because he knew, that, though he might weigh the mountains in scales and the hills in a balance, yet it was a far subtiler power which must possess him of one small woman’s heart. In fact, he felt to himself like a great, awkward, clumsy, mountainous earthite asking of a white-robed angel to help him up a ladder of cloud. He was perfectly sure for the moment, that he was going to be refused; and he looked humbly firm,–he would take it like a man. His large blue eyes, generally so misty in their calm, had a resolute clearness, rather mournful than otherwise. Of course, no such celestial experience was going to happen to him.
He cleared his throat, and said,–
“Well, Madam?”
Mrs. Scudder’s womanly dignity was appeased; she reached out her hand, cheerfully, and said,–
“_She has accepted_.”
The Doctor drew his hand suddenly away, turned quickly round, and walked to the window,–although, as it was ten o’clock at night and quite dark, there was evidently nothing to be seen there. He stood there, quietly, swallowing very hard, and raising his handkerchief several times to his eyes. There was enough went on under the black coat just then to make quite a little figure in a romance, if it had been uttered; but he belonged to a class who _lived_ romance, but never spoke it. In a few moments he returned to Mrs. Scudder, and said,–
“I trust, dear Madam, that this very dear friend may never have reason to think me ungrateful for her wonderful goodness; and whatever sins my evil heart may lead me into, I _hope_ I may never fall so low as to forget the undeserved mercy of this hour. If ever I shrink from duty or murmur at trials, while so sweet a friend is mine, I shall be vile indeed.”
The Doctor, in general, viewed himself on the discouraging side, and had berated and snubbed himself all his life as a most flagitious and evil-disposed individual,–a person to be narrowly watched, and capable of breaking at any moment into the most flagrant iniquity; and therefore it was that he received his good fortune in so different a spirit from many of the lords of creation, in similar circumstances.
“I am sensible,” he added, “that a poor minister, without much power of eloquence, and commissioned of the Lord to speak unpopular truths, and whose worldly condition, in consequence, is never likely to be very prosperous,–that such an one could scarcely be deemed a suitable partner for so very beautiful a young woman, who might expect proposals, in a temporal point of view, of a much more advantageous nature; and I am therefore the more struck and overpowered with this blessed result.”
These last words caught in the Doctor’s throat, as if he were overpowered in very deed.
“In regard to _her_ happiness,” said the Doctor, with a touch of awe in his voice, “I would not have presumed to become the guardian of it, were it not that I am persuaded it is assured by a Higher Power; for ‘when he giveth quietness, who then can make trouble?’ (Job, xxxiv. 29.) But I trust I may say no effort on my part shall be wanting to secure it.”
Mrs. Scudder was a mother, and had come to that stage in life where mothers always feel tears rising behind their smiles. She pressed the Doctor’s hand silently, and they parted for the night.
We know not how we can acquit ourselves to our friends of the great world for the details of such an unfashionable courtship, so well as by giving them, before they retire for the night, a dip into a more modish view of things.
The Doctor was evidently green,–green in his faith, green in his simplicity, green in his general belief of the divine in woman, green in his particular humble faith in one small Puritan maiden, whom a knowing fellow might at least have maneuvered so skilfully as to break up her saintly superiority, discompose her, rout her ideas, and lead her up and down a swamp of hopes and fears and conjectures, till she was wholly bewildered and ready to take him at last–if he made up his mind to have her at all–as a great bargain, for which she was to be sensibly grateful.
Yes, the Doctor was green,–_immortally_ green, as a cedar of Lebanon, which, waving its broad archangel wings over some fast-rooted eternal old solitude, and seeing from its sublime height the vastness of the universe, veils its kingly head with humility before God’s infinite majesty.
He has gone to bed now,–simple old soul!–first apologizing to Mrs. Scudder for having kept her up to so dissipated and unparalleled an hour as ten o’clock on his personal matters.
Meanwhile our Asmodeus shall transport us to a handsomely furnished apartment in one of the most fashionable hotels of Philadelphia, where Colonel Aaron Burr, just returned from his trip to the then aboriginal wilds of Ohio, is seated before a table covered with maps, letters, books, and papers. His keen eye runs over the addresses of the letters, and he eagerly seizes one from Madame de Frontignac, and reads it; and as no one but ourselves is looking at him now, his face has no need to wear its habitual mask. First comes an expression of profound astonishment; then of chagrin and mortification; then of deepening concern; there were stops where the dark eyelashes flashed together, as if to brush a tear out of the view of the keen-sighted eyes; and then a red flush rose even to his forehead, and his delicate lips wore a sarcastic smile. He laid down the letter, and made one or two turns through the room.
The man had felt the dashing against his own of a strong, generous, indignant woman’s heart fully awakened, and speaking with that impassioned vigor with which a French regiment charges in battle. There were those picturesque, winged words, those condensed expressions, those subtile piercings of meaning, and, above all, that simple pathos, for which the French tongue has no superior; and for the moment the woman had the victory; she shook his heart. But Burr resembled the marvel with which chemists amuse themselves. His heart was a vase filled with boiling passions,–while his _will_, a still, cold, unmelted lump of ice, lay at the bottom.
Self-denial is not peculiar to Christians. He who goes downward often puts forth as much force to kill a noble nature as another does to annihilate a sinful one. There was something in this letter so keen, so searching, so self-revealing, that it brought on one of those interior crises in which a man is convulsed with the struggle of two natures, the godlike and the demoniac, and from which he must pass out more wholly to the dominion of the one or the other.
Nobody knew the true better than Burr. He _knew_ the godlike and the pure; he had _felt_ its beauty and its force to the very depths of his being, as the demoniac knew at once the fair Man of Nazareth; and even now he felt the voice within that said, “What have I to do with thee?” and the rending of a struggle of heavenly life with fast-coming eternal death.
That letter had told him what he might be, and what he was. It was as if his dead mother’s hand had held up before him a glass in which he saw himself white-robed and crowned, and so dazzling in purity that he loathed his present self.
As he walked up and down the room perturbed, he sometimes wiped tears from his eyes, and then set his teeth and compressed his lips. At last his face grew calm and settled in its expression, his mouth wore a sardonic smile; he came and took the letter, and, folding it leisurely, laid it on the table, and put a heavy paperweight over it, as if to hold it down and bury it. Then drawing to himself some maps of new territories, he set himself vigorously to some columns of arithmetical calculations on the margin; and thus he worked for an hour or two, till his mind was as dry and his pulse as calm as a machine; then he drew the inkstand towards him, and scribbled hastily the following letter to his most confidential associate,–a letter which told no more of the conflict that preceded it than do the dry sands and the civil gossip of the sea-waves to-day of the storm and wreck of last week.
“Dear ——. _Nous voici_–once more in Philadelphia. Our schemes in Ohio prosper. Frontignac remains there to superintend. He answers our purpose _passablement_. On the whole, I don’t see that we could do better than retain him; he is, besides, a gentlemanly, agreeable person, and wholly devoted to me,–a point certainly not to be overlooked.
“As to your railleries about the fair Madame, I must say, in justice both to her and myself, that any grace with which she has been pleased to honor me is not to be misconstrued. You are not to imagine any but the most Platonic of _liaisons_. She is as high-strung as an Arabian steed,–proud, heroic, romantic, and _French!_ and such must be permitted to take their own time and way, which we in our _gaucherie_ can only humbly wonder at I have ever professed myself her abject slave, ready to follow any whim, and obeying the slightest signal of the jewelled hand. As that is her sacred pleasure, I have been inhabiting the most abstract realms of heroic sentiment, living on the most diluted moonshine, and spinning out elaborately all those charming and seraphic distinctions between tweedle-dum and tweedle-dee with which these ecstatic creatures delight themselves in certain stages of _affaires du coeur_.
“The last development, on the part of my goddess, is a fit of celestial anger, of the cause of which I am in the most innocent ignorance. She writes me three pages of French sublimities, writing as only a French woman can,–bids me an eternal adieu, and informs me she is going to Newport.
“Of course the affair becomes stimulating. I am not to presume to dispute her sentence, or doubt a lady’s perfect sincerity in wishing never to see me again; but yet I think I shall try to pacify the ‘tantas in animis coelestibus iras.’
“If a woman hates you, it is only her love turned wrong side out, and you may turn it back with due care. The pretty creatures know how becoming a _grande passion_ is, and take care to keep themselves in mind; a quarrel serves their turn, when all else fails.
“To another point. I wish you to advertise S——, that his insinuations in regard to me in the ‘Aurora’ have been observed, and that I require that they be promptly retracted. He knows me well enough to attend to this hint. I am in earnest when I speak; if the word does nothing, the blow will come,–and if I strike once, no second blow will be needed. Yet I do not wish to get him on my hands needlessly; a duel and a love affair and hot weather, coming on together, might prove too much even for me.–N.B. Thermometer stands at 85. I am resolved on Newport next week.
“Yours ever,
“BURR.
“P.S. I forgot to say, that, oddly enough, my goddess has gone and placed herself under the wing of the pretty Puritan I saw in Newport. Fancy the _melange_! Could anything be more piquant?–that cart-load of goodness, the old Doctor, that sweet little saint, and Madame Faubourg St. Germain shaken up together! Fancy her listening with well-bred astonishment to a _critique_ on the doings of the unregenerate, or flirting that little jewelled fan of hers in Mrs. Scudder’s square pew of a Sunday! Probably they will carry her to the weekly prayer-meeting, which of course she will contrive some fine French subtilty for admiring, and find _revissant_. I fancy I see it.”
When Burr had finished this letter, he had actually written himself into a sort of persuasion of its truth. When a finely constituted nature wishes to go into baseness, it has first to bribe itself. Evil is never embraced undisguised, as evil, but under some fiction which the mind accepts and with which it has the singular power of blinding itself in the face of daylight. The power of imposing on one’s self is an essential preliminary to imposing on others. The man first argues himself down, and then he is ready to put the whole weight of his nature to deceiving others. This letter ran so smoothly, so plausibly, that it produced on the writer of it the effect of a work of fiction, which we _know_ to be unreal, but _feel_ to be true. Long habits of this kind of self-delusion in time produce a paralysis in the vital nerves of truth, so that one becomes habitually unable to see things in their verity, and realizes the awful words of Scripture,–“He feedeth on ashes; a deceived heart hath turned him aside, that he cannot deliver his soul, nor say, Is there not a lie in my right hand?”
CHAPTER XXVIII.
THE BETROTHED.
Between three and four the next morning, the robin in the nest above Mary’s window stretched out his left wing, opened one eye, and gave a short and rather drowsy chirp, which broke up his night’s rest and restored him to the full consciousness that he was a bird with wings and feathers, with a large apple-tree to live in, and all heaven for an estate,–and so, on these fortunate premises, he broke into a gush of singing, clear and loud, which Mary, without waking, heard in her slumbers.
Scarcely conscious, she lay in that dim clairvoyant state, when the half-sleep of the outward senses permits a delicious dewy clearness of the soul, that perfect ethereal rest and freshness of faculties, comparable only to what we imagine of the spiritual state,–season of celestial enchantment, in which the heavy weight “of all this unintelligible world” drops off, and the soul, divinely charmed, nestles like a wind-tossed bird in the protecting bosom of the One All-Perfect, All-Beautiful. What visions then come to the inner eye have often no words corresponding in mortal vocabularies. The poet, the artist, and the prophet in such hours become possessed of divine certainties which all their lives they struggle with pencil or song or burning words to make evident to their fellows. The world around wonders; but they are unsatisfied, because they have seen the glory and know how inadequate the copy.
And not merely to selectest spirits come these hours, but to those humbler poets, ungifted with utterance, who are among men as fountains sealed, whose song can be wrought out only by the harmony of deeds, the patient, pathetic melodies of tender endurance, or the heroic chant of undiscouraged labor. The poor slave-woman, last night parted from her only boy, and weary with the cotton-picking,–the captive pining in his cell,–the patient wife of the drunkard, saddened by a consciousness of the growing vileness of one so dear to her once,–the delicate spirit doomed to harsh and uncongenial surroundings,–all in such hours feel the soothings of a celestial harmony, the tenderness of more than a mother’s love.
It is by such seasons as these, more often than by reasonings or disputings, that doubts are resolved in the region of religious faith. The All-Father treats us as the mother does her “infant crying in the dark”; He does not reason with our fears, or demonstrate their fallacy, but draws us silently to His bosom, and we are at peace. Nay, there have been those, undoubtedly, who have known God falsely with the intellect, yet felt Him truly with the heart,–and there be many, principally among the unlettered little ones of Christ’s flock, who positively know that much that is dogmatically propounded to them of their Redeemer is cold, barren, unsatisfying, and utterly false, who yet can give no account of their certainties better than that of the inspired fisherman, “We know Him, and have seen Him.” It was in such hours as these that Mary’s deadly fears for the soul of her beloved had passed all away,–passed out of her,–as if some warm, healing nature of tenderest vitality had drawn out of her heart all pain and coldness, and warmed it with the breath of an eternal summer.
So, while the purple shadows spread their gauzy veils inwoven with fire along the sky, and the gloom of the sea broke out here and there into lines of light, and thousands of birds were answering to each other from apple-tree and meadow-grass and top of jagged rock, or trooping in bands hither and thither, like angels on loving messages, Mary lay there with the flickering light through the leaves fluttering over her face, and the glow of dawn warming the snow-white draperies of the bed and giving a tender rose-hue to the calm cheek. She lay half-conscious, smiling the while, as one who sleeps while the heart waketh, and who hears in dreams the voice of the One Eternally Beautiful and Beloved.
Mrs. Scudder entered her room, and, thinking that she still slept, stood and looked down on her. She felt as one does who has parted with some precious possession, a sudden sense of its value coming over her; she queried in herself whether any living mortal were worthy of so perfect a gift; and nothing but a remembrance of the Doctor’s prostrate humility at all reconciled her to the sacrifice she was making.
“Mary, dear!” she said, bending over her, with an unusual infusion of emotion in her voice,–“darling child!”
The arms moved instinctively, even before the eyes unclosed, and drew her mother down to her with a warm, clinging embrace. Love in Puritan families was often like latent caloric,–an all-pervading force, that affected no visible thermometer, shown chiefly by a noble silent confidence, a ready helpfulness, but seldom outbreathed in caresses; yet natures like Mary’s always craved these outward demonstrations, and leaned towards them as a trailing vine sways to the nearest support. It was delightful for once fully to feel how much her mother loved her, as well as to know it.
“Dear, precious mother! do you love me so very much?”
“I live and breathe in you, Mary!” said Mrs. Scudder,–giving vent to herself in one of those trenchant shorthand expressions wherein positive natures incline to sum up everything, if they must speak at all.
Mary held her mother silently to her breast, her heart shining through her face with a quiet radiance.
“Do you feel happy this morning?” said Mrs. Scudder.
“Very, very, very happy, mother!”
“I am so glad to hear you say so!” said Mrs. Scudder,–who, to say the truth, had entertained many doubts on her pillow the night before.
Mary began dressing herself in a state of calm exaltation. Every trembling leaf on the tree, every sunbeam, was like a living smile of God,–every fluttering breeze like His voice, full of encouragement and hope.
“Mother, did you tell the Doctor what I said last night?”
“I did, my darling.”
“Then, mother, I would like to see him a few moments alone.”
“Well, Mary, he is in his study, at his morning devotions.”
“That is just the time. I will go to him.”
The Doctor was sitting by the window; and the honest-hearted, motherly lilacs, abloom for the third time since our story began, were filling the air with their sweetness.
Suddenly the door opened, and Mary entered, in her simple white short-gown and skirt, her eyes calmly radiant, and her whole manner having something serious and celestial. She came directly towards him and put out both her little hands, with a smile half-childlike, half-angelic; and the Doctor bowed his head and covered his face with his hands.
“Dear friend,” said Mary, kneeling and taking his hands, “if you want me, I am come. Life is but a moment,–there is an eternal blessedness just beyond us,–and for the little time between I will be all I can to you, if you will only show me how.”
And the Doctor—-
No, young man,–the study-door closed just then, and no one heard those words from a quaint old Oriental book which told that all the poetry of that grand old soul had burst into flower, as the aloe blossoms once in a hundred years. The feelings of that great heart might have fallen unconsciously into phrases from that one love-poem of the Bible which such men as he read so purely and devoutly, and which warm the icy clearness of their intellection with the myrrh and spices of ardent lands, where earthly and heavenly love meet and blend in one indistinguishable horizon-line, like sea and sky.
“Who is she that looketh forth as the morning, fair as the moon, clear as the sun? My dove, my undefiled, is but one; she is the only one of her mother. Thou art all fair, my love! there is no spot in thee!”
The Doctor might have said all this; we will not say he did, nor will we say he did not; all we know is, that, when the breakfast-table was ready, they came out cheerfully together. Madame de Frontignac stood in a fresh white wrapper, with a few buttercups in her hair, waiting for the breakfast. She was startled to see the Doctor entering all-radiant, leading in Mary by the hand, and looking as if he thought she were some dream-miracle which might dissolve under his eyes, unless he kept fast hold of her.
The keen eyes shot their arrowy glance, which went at once to the heart of the matter. Madame de Frontignac knew they were affianced, and regarded Mary with attention.
The calm, sweet, elevated expression of her face struck her; it struck her also that _that_ was not the light of any earthly love,–that it had no thrill, no blush, no tremor, but only the calmness of a soul that knows itself no more; and she sighed involuntarily.
She looked at the Doctor, and seemed to study attentively a face which happiness made this morning as genial and attractive as it was generally strong and fine.
There was little said at the breakfast-table; and yet the loud singing of the birds, the brightness of the sunshine, the life and vigor of all things, seemed to make up for the silence of those who were too well pleased to speak.
“_Eh bien, ma chere_” said Madame, after breakfast, drawing Mary into her little room,-“_c’est donc fini?_”
“Yes,” said Mary, cheerfully.
“Thou art content?” said Madame, passing her arm around her. “Well, then, I should be. But, Mary, it is like a marriage with the altar, like taking the veil, is it not?”
“No,” said Mary; “it is not taking the veil; it is beginning a cheerful, reasonable life with a kind, noble friend, who will always love me truly, and whom I hope to make as happy as he deserves.”
“I think well of him, my little cat,” said Madame, reflectively; but she stopped something she was going to say, and kissed Mary’s forehead. After a moment’s pause, she added, “One must have love or refuge, Mary;–this is thy refuge, child; thou wilt have peace in it.” She sighed again. “_Enfin_,” she said, resuming her gay tone, “what shall be _la toilette de noces?_ Thou shalt have Virginia’s pearls, my fair one, and look like a sea-born Venus. _Tiens_, let me try them in thy hair.”
And in a few moments she had Mary’s long hair down, and was chattering like a blackbird, wreathing the pearls in and out, and saying a thousand pretty little nothings,–weaving grace and poetry upon the straight thread of Puritan life.
CHAPTER XXIX.
BUSTLE IN THE PARISH.
The announcement of the definite engagement of two such bright particular stars in the hemisphere of the Doctor’s small parish excited the interest that such events usually create among the faithful of the flock.
There was a general rustle and flutter, as when a covey of wild pigeons has been started; and all the little elves who rejoice in the name of “says he” and “says I” and “do tell” and “have you heard” were speedily flying through the consecrated air of the parish.
The fact was discussed by matrons and maidens, at the spinning-wheel, in the green clothes-yard, and at the foamy wash-tub, out of which rose weekly a new birth of freshness and beauty. Many a rustic Venus of the foam, as she splashed her dimpled elbows in the rainbow-tinted froth, talked of what should be done for the forthcoming solemnities, and wondered what Mary would have on when she was married, and whether she (the Venus) should get an invitation to the wedding, and whether Ethan would go,–not, of course, that she cared in the least whether he did or not.
Grave, elderly matrons talked about the prosperity of Zion, which they imagined intimately connected with the event of their minister’s marriage; and descending from Zion, speculated on bed-quilts and table-cloths, and rummaged their own clean, sweet-smelling stores, fragrant with balm and rose-leaves, to lay out a bureau-cover, or a pair of sheets, or a dozen napkins for the wedding outfit.
The solemnest of solemn quillings was resolved upon. Miss Prissy declared that she fairly couldn’t sleep nights with the responsibility of the wedding-dresses on her mind, but yet she must give one day to getting on that quilt.
The _grand monde_ also was in motion. Mrs. General Wilcox called in her own particular carriage, bearing present of a Cashmere shawl for the bride, with the General’s best compliments,–also an oak-leaf pattern for quilting, which had been sent her from England, and which was authentically established to be that used on a petticoat belonging to the Princess Royal. And Mrs. Major Seaforth came also, bearing a scarf of wrought India muslin; and Mrs. Vernon sent a splendid China punch-bowl. Indeed, to say the truth, the notables high and mighty of Newport, whom the Doctor had so unceremoniously accused of building their houses with blood and establishing their city with iniquity, considering that nobody seemed to take his words to heart, and that they were making money as fast as old Tyre, rather assumed the magnanimous, and patted themselves on the shoulder for this opportunity to show the Doctor that after all they were good fellows, though they did make money at the expense of thirty _per cent_. on human life.
Simeon Brown was the only exception. He stood aloof, grim and sarcastic, and informed some good middle-aged ladies who came to see if he would, as they phrased it, “esteem it a privilege to add his mite” to the Doctor’s outfit, that he would give him a likely negro boy, if he wanted him, and, if he was too conscientious to keep him, he might sell him at a fair profit,–a happy stroke of humor which he was fond of relating many years after.
The quilting was in those days considered the most solemn and important recognition of a betrothal. And for the benefit of those not to the manner born, a little preliminary instruction may be necessary.
The good wives of New England, impressed with that thrifty orthodoxy of economy which forbids to waste the merest trifle, had a habit of saving every scrap clipped out in the fashioning of household garments, and these they cut into fanciful patterns and constructed of them rainbow shapes and quaint traceries, the arrangement of which became one of their few fine arts. Many a maiden, as she sorted and arranged fluttering bits of green, yellow, red, and blue, felt rising in her breast a passion for somewhat vague and unknown, which came out at length in a new pattern of patchwork. Collections of these tiny fragments were always ready to fill an hour when there was nothing else to do; and as the maiden chatted with her beau, her busy flying needle stitched together those pretty bits, which, little in themselves, were destined, by gradual unions and accretions, to bring about at last substantial beauty, warmth, and comfort,–emblems thus of that household life which is to be brought to stability and beauty by reverent economy in husbanding and tact in arranging the little useful and agreeable morsels of daily existence.
When a wedding was forthcoming, there was a solemn review of the stores of beauty and utility thus provided, and the patchwork-spread best worthy of such distinction was chosen for the quilting. Thereto, duly summoned, trooped all intimate female friends of the bride, old and young; and the quilt being spread on a frame, and wadded with cotton, each vied with the others in the delicacy of the quilting she could put upon it. For the quilting also was a fine art, and had its delicacies and nice points,–which grave elderly matrons discussed with judicious care. The quilting generally began at an early hour in the afternoon, and ended at dark with a great supper and general jubilee, at which that ignorant and incapable sex which could not quilt was allowed to appear and put in claims for consideration of another nature. It may, perhaps, be surmised that this expected reinforcement was often alluded to by the younger maidens, whose wickedly coquettish toilettes exhibited suspicious marks of that willingness to get a chance to say “No” which has been slanderously attributed to mischievous maidens.
In consideration of the tremendous responsibilities involved in this quilting, the reader will not be surprised to learn, that, the evening before, Miss Prissy made her appearance at the brown cottage, armed with thimble, scissors, and pin-cushion, in order to relieve her mind by a little preliminary confabulation.
“You see me, Miss Scudder, run ‘most to death,” she said; “but I thought I would just run up to Miss Major Seaforth’s, and see her best bed-room quilt, ’cause I wanted to have all the ideas we possibly could, before I decided on the pattern. Hers is in shells,–just common shells,–nothing to be compared with Miss Wilcox’s oak-leaves; and I suppose there isn’t the least doubt that Miss Wilcox’s sister, in London, did get that from a lady who had a cousin who was governess in the royal family; and I just quilted a little bit to-day on an old piece of silk, and it comes out beautiful; and so I thought I would just come and ask you if you did not think it was best for us to have the oak-leaves.”
“Well, certainly, Miss Prissy, if you think so,” said Mrs. Scudder, who was as pliant to the opinions of this wise woman of the parish as New England matrons generally are to a reigning dress-maker and _factotum_.
Miss Prissy had the happy consciousness, always, that her early advent under any roof was considered a matter of especial grace; and therefore it was with rather a patronizing tone that she announced that she would stay and spend the night with them.
“I knew,” she added, “that your spare chamber was full, with that Madame de ——, what do you call her?–if I was to die, I could not remember the woman’s name. Well, I thought I could curl in with you, Mary, ‘most anywhere.”
“That’s right, Miss Prissy,” said Mary; “you shall be welcome to half my bed any time.”
“Well, I knew you would say so, Mary; I never saw the thing you would not give away one half of, since you was that high,” said Miss Prissy,–illustrating her words by placing her hand about two feet from the floor.
Just at this moment, Madame de Frontignac entered and asked Mary to come into her room and give her advice as to a piece of embroidery. When she was gone out, Miss Prissy looked after her and sunk her voice once more to the confidential whisper which we before described.
“I have heard strange stories about that Frenchwoman,” she said; “but as she is here with you and Mary, I suppose there cannot be any truth in them. Dear me! the world is so censorious about women! But then, you know, we don’t expect much from French women. I suppose she is a Roman Catholic, and worships pictures and stone images; but then, after all, she has got an immortal soul, and I can’t help hoping Mary’s influence may be blest to her. They say, when she speaks French, she swears every few minutes; and if that is the way she was brought up, may-be she isn’t accountable. I think we can’t be too charitable for people that a’n’t privileged as we are. Miss Vernon’s Polly told me she had seen her sew Sundays,–sew Sabbath-day! She came into her room sudden, and she was working on her embroidery there; and she never winked nor blushed, nor offered to put it away, but sat there just as easy! Polly said she never was so beat in all her life; she felt kind o’ scared, every time she thought of it. But now she has come here, who knows but she may be converted?”
“Mary has not said much about her state of mind,” said Mrs. Scudder; “but something of deep interest has passed between them. Mary is such an uncommon child, that I trust everything to her.”
We will not dwell further on the particulars of this evening,–nor describe how Madame de Frontignac reconnoitred Miss Prissy with keen, amused eyes,–nor how Miss Prissy assured Mary, in the confidential solitude of her chamber, that her fingers just itched to get hold of that trimming on Madame de Frog–something’s dress, because she was pretty nigh sure she could make some just like it, for she never saw any trimming she could not make.
The robin that lived in the apple-tree was fairly outgeneralled the next morning; for Miss Prissy was up before him, tripping about the chamber on the points of her toes, knocking down all the movable things in the room, in her efforts to be still, so as not to wake Mary; and it was not until she had finally upset the stand by the bed, with the candlestick, snuffers, and Bible on it, that Mary opened her eyes.
“Miss Prissy! dear me! what is it you are doing?”
“Why, I am trying to be still, Mary, so as not to wake you up; and it seems to me as if everything was possessed, to tumble down so. But it is only half past three,–so you turn over and go to sleep.”
“But, Miss Prissy,” said Mary, sitting up in bed, “you are all dressed; where are you going?”
“Well, to tell the truth, Mary, I am just one of those people that can’t sleep when they have got responsibility on their minds; and I have been lying awake more than an hour here, thinking about that quilt. There is a new way of getting it on to the frame that I want to try; ’cause, you know, when we quilted Cerinthy Stebbins’s, it _would_ trouble us in the rolling; and I have got a new way that I want to try, and I mean just to get it on to the frame before breakfast. I was in hopes I should get out without waking any of you. I am in hopes I shall get by your mother’s door without waking her,–’cause I know she works hard and needs her rest,–but that bed-room door squeaks like a cat, enough to raise the dead!
“Mary,” she added, with sudden energy, “if I had the least drop of oil in a teacup, and a bit of quill, I’d stop that door making such a noise.” And Miss Prissy’s eyes glowed with resolution.
“I don’t know where you could find any at this time,” said Mary.
“Well, never mind; I’ll just go and open the door as slow and careful as I can,” said Miss Prissy, as she trotted out of the apartment.
The result of her carefulness was very soon announced to Mary by a protracted sound resembling the mewing of a hoarse cat, accompanied by sundry audible grunts from Miss Prissy, terminating in a grand finale of clatter, occasioned by her knocking down all the pieces of the quilting-frame that stood in the corner of the room, with a concussion that roused everybody in the house.
“What is that?” called out Mrs. Scudder, from her bed-room.
She was answered by two streams of laughter,–one from Mary, sitting up in bed, and the other from Miss Prissy, holding her sides, as she sat dissolved in merriment on the sanded floor,
[To be continued.]
OLD PAPERS.
As who, in idly searching o’er
Some seldom-entered garret-shed,
Might, with strange pity, touch the poor Moth-eaten garments of the dead,–
Thus (to their wearer once allied)
I lift these weeds of buried woe,– These relics of a self that died
So sadly and so long ago!
‘Tis said that seven short years can change, Through nerve and bone, this knitted frame, Cellule by cellule waxing strange,
Till not an atom is the same.
By what more subtile, slow degrees
Thus may the mind transmute its all, That calmly it should dwell on these,
As on another’s fate and fall!
So far remote from joy or bale,
Wherewith each dusky page is rife, I seem to read some piteous tale
Of strange romance, but true to life.
Too daring thoughts! too idle deeds! A soul that questioned, loved, and sinned! And hopes, that stand like last year’s weeds, And shudder in the dead March wind!
Grave of gone dreams!–could such convulse Youth’s fevered trance?–The plot grows thick;– Was it this cold and even pulse
That thrilled with life so fierce and quick?
Well, I can smile at all this now,– But cannot smile when I recall
The heart of faith, the open brow, The trust that once was all in all;–
Nor when–Ah, faded, spectral sheet, Wraith of long-perished wrong and time, Forbear! the spirit starts to meet
The resurrection of its crime!
Starts,–from its human world shut out,– As some detected changeling elf,
Doomed, with strange agony and doubt, To enter on his former self.
Ill-omened leaves, still rust apart! No further!–’tis a page turned o’er,
And the long dead and coffined heart Throbs into wretched life once more.
RIFLED GUNS.[1]
When, nearly fifty years ago, England was taught one of the bloodiest lessons her history has to record, before the cotton-bale breastworks of New Orleans, a lesson, too, which was only the demonstration of a proposition laid down more than a hundred years ago by one of her own philosophers,[2] who would have believed that she, aiming to be the first military power in the world, would have left the first advantage of that lesson to be gained by her rival, France?
When the troops that had defeated Napoleon stopped, baffled, before a breast-work defended by raw militiamen; when, finding that the heads of their columns melted away like wax in fire as they approached the blaze of those hunters’ rifles, they finally recoiled, terribly defeated,–saved from total destruction, perhaps, only by the fact that their enemy had not enough of a military organization to enable them to pursue effectively; when, in brief, a battle with men who never before had seen a skirmish of regular troops was turned into a slaughter almost unparalleled for disproportioned losses in the history of civilized warfare, the English loss being about twelve hundred, the American some fifteen all told; one would have thought that such a demonstration of the power of the rifle would have brought Robins’s words to the memory of England,–“will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors of fire-arms.” What more astonishing disparity of military power does the history of fire-arms record? twelve hundred to fifteen! But this lesson, so terrible and so utterly ignored by English pride, was simply that of the value of the rifle intelligently used.
They tell a story which makes a capital foot-note to the history of the battle:–that General Jackson, having invited some of the English officers to dine with him, had on the table a robin-pie which he informed the guests contained twelve robins whose heads had all been shot off by one of his marksmen, who, in shooting the twelve, used but thirteen balls. The result of the battle must be mainly attributed to the deadly marksmanship of the hunters who composed the American forces; but the same men armed with muskets would not only not have shown the same accuracy in firing, but they would not have felt the moral force which a complete reliance on their weapons gave,–a certainty that they held the life of any antagonist in their hands, as soon as enough of him appeared to “draw a bead on.” Put the same men in the open field where a charge of bayonets was to be met, and they would doubtless have broken and fled without crossing steel. Nor, on the other hand, could any musketry have kept the English columns out of the cotton-bale breast-work;–they had often in the Peninsula stormed stronger works than that,–without faltering for artillery, musketry, or bayonet. But here they were literally unable to reach the works; the fatal rifle-bullet drew a line at which bravery and cowardice, nonchalant veterans and trembling boys, were equalized in the dust.
[Footnote 1: _Instructions to Young Marksmen_ in all that relates to the General Construction, Practical Manipulation, etc., etc., as exhibited in the Improved American Rifle. By John Ratcliffe Chapman, C. E. New York: D. Appleton &. Co. 1848.
_Rifle-Practice_. By Lieut.-Col. John Jacob, C. B., of the Bombay Artillery. London: Smith, Elder, & Co. 1857.
_The Rifle; and how to use it_. Comprising a Description of that Admirable Weapon, etc., etc. By Hans Busk, M.A. First Lieut. Victoria Rifles. London: J. Routledge & Co. 1858.
_Report of the U. S. Commission on Rifles_. 1856.]
[Footnote 2: Robins {on Projectiles) said in 1748, “Whatever state shall thoroughly comprehend the nature and advantages of rifle-pieces, and, having facilitated and completed their construction, shall introduce into their armies their general use, with a dexterity in the management of them, will by this means acquire a superiority which will almost equal anything that has been done at any time by the particular excellence of any one kind of arms, and will perhaps fall but little short of the wonderful effects which histories relate to have been formerly produced by the first inventors of fire-arms.” Words, we now see, how prophetic!]
We remember once to have met an old hunter who was one of the volunteers at Hattsburg, (another rifle battle, fought by militiamen mainly,) a man who never spoiled his furs by shooting his game in the body, and who carried into the battle his hunting-rifle. Being much questioned as to his share in the day’s deeds, he told us that he, with a body of men, all volunteers, and mainly hunters like himself, was stationed at a ford on the Saranac, where a British column attempted to cross. Their captain ordered no one to fire until the enemy were half-way across; “and then,” said he, “none of ’em ever got across, and not many of them that got into the water got out again. They found out it wa’n’t of any kind of use to try to get across there, and after a while they give it up and went farther down the river; and by-and-by an officer come and told us to go to the other ford, and we went there, and so they didn’t get across there either.” We were desirous of getting the estimate of an expert as to the effect of such firing, and asked him directly how many men he had killed. “I don’t know,” said he, modestly; “I rather guess I killed one fellow, _certain_; but how many more I can’t say. I was going down to the river with another volunteer to get some water, and I heerd a shot right across the river, and I peeked out of the bushes, and see a red-coat sticking his head out of the bushes on the other side, and looking down the river, as if he’d been firing at somebody on our side, and pretty soon he stuck his head out agin, and took aim at something in that way; and I thought, of course, it must be some of our folks. I couldn’t stand that, so I just drawed up and fired at him. He dropped his gun, and pitched head-first into the water. I guess I hit him amongst the waistcoat-buttons; but then, you know, if I hadn’t shot him, he might have killed somebody on our side.” We put the question in another form, asking how many shots he fired that day. “About sixteen, I guess, or maybe twenty.” “And how far off were the enemy?” “Well, I should think about twenty rod.” We suggested that he did not waste many of his bullets; to which he replied, that “he didn’t often miss a deer at that distance.”
But these were the exploits of fifty years ago; the weapon, the old heavy-metalled, long-barrelled “Kentucky” rifle; and the missile, the old round bullet, sent home with a linen patch. It is a form of the rifled gun not got up by any board of ordnance or theoretic engineers, but which, as is generally the case with excellent tools, was the result of the trials and experience of a race of practical men, something which had grown up to supply the needs of hunters; and with the improvements which greater mechanical perfection in gun-making has effected, it stands at this day the king of weapons, unapproached for accuracy by the work of any nation beside our own, very little surpassed in its range by any of the newly invented modifications of the rifle. The Kentucky[1] [Footnote 1: The technical name for the long, heavy, small-calibred rifle, in which the thickness of the metal outside the bore is about equal to the diameter of the bore.] rifle is to American mechanism what the chronometer is to English, a speciality in which rivalry by any other nation is at this moment out of the question. An English board of ordnance may make a series of experiments, and in a year or two contrive an Enfield rifle, which, to men who know of nothing better, is wonderful; but here we have the result of experiments of nearly a hundred years, by generations whose daily subsistence depended on the accuracy and excellence of their rifles, and who all experimented on the value of an inch in the length of the barrel, an ounce in its weight, or a grain in the weight of the ball. They tried all methods of creasing, all variations of the spiral of the groove; every town had its gunsmith, who experimented in almost every gun he made, and who was generally one of the best shots and hunters in the neighborhood; and often the hunter, despairing of getting a gun to suit him in any other way, went to work himself, and wrought out a clumsy, but unerring gun, in which, perhaps, was the germ of some of the latest improvements in scientific gunnery. The different gun-makers had shooting-matches, at which the excellence of the work of each was put to the severest tests, and by which their reputations were established. The result is a rifle, compared with which, as manufactured by a dozen rifle-makers in the United States, the Minie, the Enfield, the Lancaster, or even the Sharpe’s, and more recent breech-loaders, are bungling muskets. The last adopted form of missile, the sugar-loaf-shaped, of which the Minie, Enfieid, Colonel Jacob’s, and all the conical forms are partial adaptations, has been, to our personal knowledge, in use among our riflemen more than twenty years. In one of our earliest visits to that most fascinating of _ateliers_ to most American youth, a gunsmith’s shop, a collection of “slugs” was shown to us, in which the varieties of forms, ovate, conical, elliptical, and all nameless forms in which the length is greater than the diameter, had been exhausted in the effort to find that shape which would range farthest; and the shape (very nearly) which Colonel (late General) Jacob alludes to, writing in 1854, in these terms, “This shape, after hundreds of thousands of experiments, proves to be quite perfect,” had been adopted by this unorganized ordnance-board, composed of hundreds of gun-makers, stimulated by the most powerful incentives to exertion. The experiments by which they arrived at their conclusion not only anticipated by years the trials of the European experimenters, but far surpass, in laboriousness and nicety, all the experiments of Hythe, Vincennes, and Jacobabad. The resulting curve, which the longitudinal section of the perfect “slug” shows, is as subtile and incapable of modification, without loss, as that of the boomerang; no hair’s thickness could be taken away or added without injury to its range. Such a weapon and such a missile, in their perfection, could never have come into existence except in answer to the demand of a nation of hunters to whom a shade of greater accuracy is the means of subsistence. No man who is not a first-rate shot can judge justly of the value of a rifle; and one of our backwoodsmen would never use any rifle but the Kentucky _of American manufacture_, if it were given him. An Adirondack hunter would not thank the best English rifle-maker for one of his guns any more warmly than a sea-captain in want of a chronometer would thank his owners for a Swiss lepine watch.
The gun which we thus eulogize we shall describe, and compare the results which its use shows with those shown by the other known varieties of rifle, and this without any consideration of the powers of American marksmen as compared with European. The world is full of fables of shooting-exploits as absurd as those told of Robin Hood. Cooper tells of Leatherstocking’s driving the nail with unfailing aim at a hundred paces,–a degree of skill no man out of romance has ever been _reported_ to possess amongst riflemen. We have seen the best marksmen the continent holds attempt to drive the nail at fifty yards, and take fifty balls to drive one nail. A story is current of a French rifleman shooting an Arab chief a mile distant, which, if true, was only a chance shot; for no human vision will serve the truest rifle ever made and the steadiest nerves ever strung to perform such a feat with any certainty. Lieutenant Busk informs us that Captain Minie “will undertake to hit a man at a distance of 1420 yards three times out of five shots,”–a feat Captain Minie or any other man will “undertake” many times before accomplishing, for the simple reason, that, supposing the rifle _perfect_, at _that_ distance a man is too small a mark to be found in the sights of a rifle, except by the aid of the telescope.[1] [Footnote 1: A man, five feet ten inches high, at 1450 yards, will, in the buck-sight of the Minie rifle, at fourteen inches from the eye, appear 1/53 of an inch in height and 1/185 in breadth of shoulders. If the reader will look at these measures on a finely divided scale, he will appreciate the absurdity of such a boast. A man at that distance could hardly be found in the sights.] We could fill a page with marvellous shots _quos nidi et quorum pars_, etc. We have seen a bird no larger than a half-grown chicken killed off-hand at eighty rods (nearly fourteen hundred feet); have known a deer to be killed at a good half mile; have shot off the skull-cap of a duck at thirty rods; at twenty rods have shot a loon through the head, putting the ball in at one eye and out at the other, without breaking the skin;–but such shooting, ordinarily, is a physical impossibility, as any experienced rifleman knows. These were chance shots, or so nearly so that they could not be repeated in a hundred shots. The impossibility lies in the marksman and in human vision.
In comparing the effects of rifles, then, we shall suppose them, as in government trials and long-range shooting-matches, to be fired from a “dead rest,”–the only way in which the absolute power of a rifle can be shown. First, for the gun itself. There are two laws of gunnery which must be kept in sight in comparing the results of such trials:–1st, that the shape and material of two missiles being the same, the heavier will range the farther, because in proportion to its momentum it meets less resistance from the atmosphere; 2d, that the less the recoil of the gun, the greater will be the initial velocity of the ball, since the motion lost in recoil is taken from the velocity of the ball. Of course, then, the larger the bore of the rifle, the greater will be its range, supposing always the best form of missile and a proportionate weight of gun. As the result of these two laws, we see that of two guns throwing the same weight and description of missile, the heavier will throw its missile the farther; while of two guns of the same weight, that one which throws the smaller missile will give it the greater initial velocity,–supposing the gun free to recoil, as it must, fired from the shoulder. But the smaller ball will yield the sooner to the resistance of the atmosphere, owing to its greater proportional surface presented. Suppose, then, two balls of different weights to be fired from guns of the same weight;–the smaller ball will start with the higher rate of speed, but will finally be overtaken and passed by the larger ball; and the great problem of rifle-gauge is to ascertain that relation of weight of gun to weight of projectile which will give the greatest velocity at the longest range at which the object fired at can be seen distinctly enough to give a reasonable chance of hitting it. This problem the maker of the Kentucky rifle solves, by accepting, as a starting-point, the greatest weight of gun which a man may reasonably be expected to carry,–say, ten to twelve pounds,–and giving to that weight the heaviest ball it will throw, without serious recoil,–for no matter what the proportion, there will be _some_ recoil. This proportion of the weight of gun to that of projectile, as found by experience, is about five hundred to one; so that if a gun weigh ten pounds, the ball should weigh about 19/500 of a pound. Of course, none of these gun-makers have ever made a mathematical formula expressing this relation; but hundreds of thousands of shots have pretty well determined it to be the most effective for all hunting needs (and the best hunting-rifles are the best for a rifle-corps, acting as sharp-shooters). By putting this weight of ball into a conical form of good proportions, the calibre of the gun may be made about ninety gauge. which, for a range of four hundred yards, cannot be excelled in accuracy with that weight of gun.
But in a rifle the grooving is of the utmost importance; for velocity without accuracy is useless. To determine the best kind of groove has been, accordingly, the object of the most laborious investigations. The ball requires an initial rotary motion sufficient to keep it “spinning” up to its required range, and is found to gain in accuracy by increasing this rotatory speed; but if the pitch of the grooves be too great, the ball will refuse to follow them; but, being driven across them, “strips,”–that is, the lead in the grooves is torn off, and the ball goes out without rotation. The English gunsmiths have avoided the dilemma by giving the requisite pitch and making the grooves very deep, and even by having wings cast on the ball to keep it in the grooves, expedients which increase the friction in the barrel and the resistance of the air enormously.
The American gun-makers have solved the problem by adopting the “gaining twist,” in which the grooves start from the breech nearly parallel to the axis of the barrel, and gradually increase the spiral, until, at the muzzle, it has the pitch of one revolution in three to four; _the pitch being greater as the bore is less_. This gives, as a result, safety from stripping, and a rapid revolution at the exit, with comparatively little friction and shallow groove-marks on the ball,–accomplishing what is demanded of a rifled barrel, to a degree that no other combination of groove and form of missile ever has.
English makers have experimented somewhat on the rifling of barrels, but with no results which compare with those shown by the improved Kentucky. English hunting-rifles, and _all_ military rifles, are made with complete disregard of the law of relation between the weights of ball and barrel. The former seems to be determined by dividing the weight of ammunition a soldier may carry in his cartridge-box by the number of charges he is required to have, and then the gun is made as light as will stand the test of firing,–blunders all the way through; for we never want a rifle-ball to range much farther than it is possible to hit a single man with it; and a missile of the proper shape from a barrel of sixty gauge will kill a man at a mile’s distance, if it strike a vital part. The consequence is, that the rifles are so light in proportion to their load that the recoil seriously diminishes the force of the ball, and entirely prevents accuracy of aim; and at the same time their elastic metal springs so much under the pressure of the gas generated by the explosion of the powder that anything like exactitude becomes impossible.[1][Footnote 1: Experiments have shown, that, with a barrel about the thickness of that of our “regulation rifles,” the spring will throw a ball nearly two feet from the aim in a range of six hundred yards, if the barrel be firmly held in a machine.] This the English gunsmiths do not seem to have learned, since their best authorities recommend a gun of sixty-four gauge to have a barrel of four pounds weight, and that is considered heavy,–while ours, of sixty gauge, would weigh at least twice that. To get the best possible shooting, we find not only weight of barrel requisite, but a thickness of the metal nearly or quite equal to the diameter of the bore.
Mr. Whitworth, of Manchester, revived the old polygonal bore, and, by a far more perfect boring of barrel than was ever before attained in England, has succeeded in doing some very accurate shooting; but the pitch of his grooves requisite to give sufficient rotation to his polygonal missile to enable it to rotate to the end of its flight is so great, that the friction and recoil are enormous, and the liability to burst very great, Mr. Whitworth’s missile is a twisted prism, corresponding to the bore, of two and a half diameters, with a cone at the front of one half the diameter. Such a gun, in a firing-machine, with powder enough to overcome all the friction, and heavy enough to counteract torsion and springing, would give very great accuracy, if perfectly made, or as well made as American rifles generally; but no maker in England, not even Mr. Whitworth, has attained _that_ point yet; and even so made, they would never be available as service–or hunting-guns.
The Lancaster rifle avoids grooves (nominally) altogether, and substitutes an elliptical bore, twisted to Mr. Whitworth’s pitch (twenty inches). General Jacob says, very justly, of this gun: “The mode of rifling is the _very worst possible. It is only the two-grooved rifle in disguise_. Let the shoulders of the grooves of a two-grooved rifle be removed, and you have the Lancaster rifle. But by the removal of these shoulders, the friction, if the twist be considerable, becomes enormous.” To compare this twist with the rifled bore, one has only to take a lead tube, made slightly elliptical in its cross-section, and, fitting a plug to its ellipse, turn the plug round, and he will see that the result is to enlarge the whole bore to the longest diameter of the ellipse, which, if it were a gun-barrel, unelastic, would be equivalent to bursting it. But this is exactly the action which the ball has on the barrel, so that, to use General Jacob’s words, “the heat developed by the friction must be very great, and the tendency of the gun to burst also very great.” Lieutenant Busk–who seems, if we may judge from the internal evidence of his book, to know little or nothing of good rifles or rifle-practice, and to have no greater qualification for writing the book than the reading of what has been written on the subject and an acquaintance of great extent with gunsmiths–remarks, in reply to the veteran of English riflemen: “Having given the matter the very closest attention, I am enabled confidently to state that the whole of this supposition [quoted above] is founded in error…. So far from the friction being enormous, it is less than that generated in any other kind of rifle. It is also utterly impossible for the bullet to act destructively on the barrel in the way suggested.” Such cool assurance, in an unsupported contradiction of experience and the dictates of the simplest mechanical common-sense, would seem to promise little real value in the book, and promises no less than it really has.
The same objection which lies against the Lancaster rifle (?) applies to the Whitworth in a less degree. If the reader, having tried the lead-pipe experiment above, will next hammer the tube hexagonal and try the plug again, he will find the same result; but if he will try it with a round bore grooved, and with a plug fitting the grooves, he will see that the pressure is against the wall of the groove, and acts at right angles to the radius of the bore, having only a tendency to twist the barrel in order to straighten the grooves,–a tendency which the barrel meets in the direction of its greatest stability. We may see, then, that, in theory at least, there is no way of rifling so secure as that in which the walls of the grooves are parts of radii of the bore. They should be numerous, that the hold of the lands (the projection left between the grooves) may divide the friction and resistance as much as possible, and so permit the grooves to be as shallow as may be. The figure
[Illustration: ]
represents, on one side of the dotted line, three grooves, 1, 1, 1, cut in this way, exaggerated to show more clearly their character. In the Kentucky rifle this law is followed, except that, for convenience in cutting, the grooves are made of the same width at the bottom and top, as shown at 2, 2, 2, which is, for grooves of the depth of which they are made, practically the same, as the dotted circle will show. Our gun-makers use from six to ten grooves.
To sum up our conditions,–the model rifle will conform to the following description:–Its weight will be from ten to twelve pounds; the length of barrel not less than thirty inches,[1] and of calibre from ninety to sixty gauge; six to ten freed grooves, about .005 inch deep, angular at bottom and top, with the lands of the same width as the grooves; twist increasing from six feet to three feet; barrel, of cast steel,[2] fitted to the stock with a patent breech, with back action set lock, and open or hunting and globe and peek sights. Mr. Chapman, whose book is the most interesting and intelligent, by far, of all hitherto published, recommends a straighter stock than those generally used by American hunters. Here we differ;–the Swiss stock, crooking, on an average, two inches more than ours, is preferable for quick shooting, though in a _light_ rifle much crook in the stock will throw the muzzle up by the recoil. With such a gun,–the best for hunting that the ingenuity and skill of man have ever yet contrived and made,–one may depend on his shot, if he have skill, as he cannot on the Minie, Enfield, or Lancaster; and whether he be in the field against a foe, or in the forest against the deer, he holds the life of man or deer in his power at the range of rifle-sighting.
[Footnote 1: There is much difference of opinion amongst gun-makers as to the length of barrel most desirable. We believe in a long barrel, for the following reasons: 1st, a longer distance between sights is given, and the back sight can be put farther from the eye, so that finer sighting is possible; 2d, a long barrel is steadier in off-hand shooting; 3d, it permits a slower powder to be used, so that the ball starts more slowly and yet allows the full strength of the powder to be used before it leaves the barrel, getting a high initial velocity with little recoil, and without “upsetting” the ball, as we shall explain farther on. The experiments of the United States government show that the increasing of the length of the barrel from thirty-three to forty inches (we speak from memory as to numbers) increased the initial velocity fifty feet per second; but this will, in long ranges, be no advantage, except with such a shape of missile as will maintain a high speed.]
[Footnote 2: Hunters still dispute as to iron or steel; and we have used iron barrels made by Amsden, of Saratoga Springs, which for accuracy and wear were unexceptionable; though gunsmiths generally take less pains with iron than steel barrels. But give us steel.]
Of all the variations of the rifle, for the sake of obtaining force of penetration, nothing yet compares with the Accelerating Rifle, invented some years since by a New York mechanic. In this the ball was started by an ordinary charge, and at a certain distance down the barrel received a new charge, by a side chamber, which produced an almost incredible effect. An ellipsoidal missile of ninety gauge and several diameters long, made of brass, was driven through thirty-six inches of oak and twenty-four inches of green spruce timber, or fifty inches of the most impenetrable of timbers. The same principle of acceleration has, it is said, been most successfully applied in Boston by the use of a hollow _tige_ or tube fixed at the bottom of the bore with the inside of which the cap-fire communicates,–so that, when the gun is charged, part of the powder falls into the _tige_, and the remainder into the barrel outside of it. The ball being driven down until it rests on the top of the _tige_, receives its first impulse from the small charge contained in it,–after which, the fire, flashing back, communicates to the powder outside the _tige_, producing an enormous accelerating effect. But it is doubtful if the gun can be brought into actual service, from being so difficult to clean.
It is questionable if any greater range in rifles will be found desirable. With a good Kentucky rifle, we are even now obliged to use telescope sights to avail ourselves of its full range and accuracy of fire. The accelerating inventions may be made use of in artillery, for throwing shells, and for siege trains, but promise nothing for small arms.
Then, as the secondary point, comes the form of projectile, that in which the greatest weight (and thence momentum) combines with least resistance from the atmosphere. In the pursuit of this result every experimenter since the fifteenth century has worked. Lautmann, writing in 1729, recommends an elliptical missile, hollow behind, from a notion that the hollow gathered the explosive force, Robins recommends elongated balls; and they were used in many varieties of form. Theory would assign, as the shape of highest rapidity, one like that which would be made by the revolution of the waterline section of a fast ship on its longitudinal axis; and supposing the force _to have been_ applied, this would doubtless be capable of the greatest speed; but the rifle-missile must first be fitted to receive the action of the powder in the most effective way. An ellipsoid cone would leave the air behind it most smoothly, but it would not receive the pressure of the gas in a line with its direction of motion; and so of the hollow butt; the gas, acting and reacting in every way perpendicularly to the surface it acts on, wastes its force in straining outwardly. The perfectly flat butt would take as much forward impetus at the edge of the cone base, where the soft lead would yield slightly. And so we find the best form to be a base which receives the force of the powder in such a way that the resultant of the forces acting on each point in the base would be coincident with the axis of the missile. And this, in practice, was the shape which the American experiments gave to the butt of the ball, the condition in which it left the air being found of minor importance, compared with its capacity of receiving the force of the powder. The point of the cone was found objectionable in practice, and was gradually brought to the curve of the now universally used sugar-loaf missile or flat-ended picket shown in fig. 1.
[Illustration: Figure 1]
This picket has but a single point of bearing, and is driven down with a greased linen patch, filling up the grooves entirely, and preventing “leading” of the barrel, as well as keeping the picket firm in the barrel. This is of vital importance; for no breech-loading or loose-loading and expanding ball can ever fly so truly as a solid ball whose position in the barrel is accurately fixed. A longitudinal missile must rotate with its axis coincident with its line of flight as it leaves the barrel, or else every rotation will throw the point into wider circles, until finally it becomes more eccentric than a round ball. It is a mistaken notion that a conical missile is more accurate in flight than a round; on the contrary, hunters always prefer the ball for _short shots_,–and a “slug,” as the longer missile is called by them, is well known to err more than a ball, if put down untruly.
[Illustration: Figure 2]
The improved Minie ball (fig. 2) was intended to obviate the danger of the missile’s turning in flight, by hollowing the butt, and so putting the centre of gravity in front of the centre of resistance, so that it flies like a heavy-headed arrow, while at the same time the powder expands the hollow butt and fills the grooves, securing perfect rotation with easy loading. But the hollow in the ball diminishes the gravity and momentum; the liability of the lead to expand unequally, and so throw the point of the missile out of line, makes a long bearing necessary, producing enormous friction. This objection obtains equally with all pickets having expanding butts, and is a sufficient reason for their inferior accuracy to that of solid pickets fitted to the grooves at the muzzle with a patch. General Jacob says,–“I have tried every expedient I could think of as a substitute for the greased patch for rifle-balls, but had always to return to this”; and every experienced rifleman will agree with him. Yet both English and American (governmental) experiments ignore the fact, that the expansible bullets increase friction enormously; and the Enfield bullet (fig. 3) is as badly contrived as possible, being round-pointed, expansible, and with very long bearings, without the bands which in the French and American bullets reduce the friction somewhat. The Harper’s Ferry bullet (fig. 4) is better than either the English or the French, and is as good as a loose-loading bullet can be.
[Illustration: Figure 3]
[Illustration: Fig 4]
Besides all the objections we have urged against the bullet with long bearings, another still remains of a serious nature. No missile that has two points of bearing can be used with the gaining twist, as the change in the direction of the ridges on the shot formed by the grooves will necessarily tend to change the position of the axis of the shot; and the gaining twist is the greatest improvement made since grooving was successfully applied;–to reject it is to reject something indispensable to the _best_ performance of the rifle. The flat-ended picket complies with all the requisites laid down; and we will venture to say, that, if any government will give it a thorough trial, side by side with any loose-loading bullet, it will be found preferable to any other bullet, despite the disadvantage of slow loading from using a patch and a tight-fitting ball.
To make the statement conclusive, we give the results of the United States experiments, and a statement of the European as compared with the United States firing, and then the results of Kentucky rifle-firing. With the new trial-rifle at Harper’s Ferry, (a target 1 X 216 feet being put up at two hundred yards,) with the American ball, (fig. 4,) the best string of twenty-five shots averaged 3.2 inches vertical deviation, 2.4 in. horizontal deviation. At five hundred yards, the best string of twenty-five shots averaged 10.8 inches vertical deviation, 14 in. horizontal deviation. At one thousand yards, 26.4 vertical deviation, 16.8 horizontal deviation. In another trial with the new musket-rifle, the mean deviation at two hundred yards was 4.4 vertical, 3.4 horizontal.
In a comparison of the power of French, English, and American rifles, it was found that at two hundred yards the American gun averaged 4.8 vertical and 4.5 horizontal deviation. The Enfield rifle gave 7 in. vertical, 11.3 horizontal; the French rifle _a tige_, 8 vertical, 7.6 horizontal. A Swiss rifle, at the same distance, gave 5.3 vertical and 4.3 horizontal deviation.
At five hundred yards, the following was the result:–
American gun, 13. in. vert. dev. 11.5 hor. dev. Enfield, ” 20.4 ” 19.2 “
Rifle _a tige_, 18.5 ” 17.1 “
At one thousand yards,–
American gun, 31.5 in. vert. dev. 20.1 hor. dev. Enfield, ” 42 ” 52.8 “
Rifle_a tige_(874 yds.),47.2 ” 37.4 “
The only detailed reports of General Jacob’s practice are at one thousand yards or over, at which his _shell_ averaged 31.2 in. horizontal deviation, 55.2 in. vertical; not far from the range of the Enfield. His bullet is fig. 5.
[Illustration: Fig 5.]
But long ranges test less fairly the _accuracy_ of a rifle than short ones, because in long flights they are more subject to drift, of the wind, etc. We shall compare the government reports of shooting at two hundred yards with that of the Kentucky rifle at two hundred and twenty, the usual trying distance. At that distance, the American gun gave
4.8 in. vert dev. and 4.5 hor. dev. Enfield, 7 ” 11.3 “
French _a tige_, 8 ” 7.6 ” Swiss, 5.3 ” 4.3 “
Kentucky, (according to Mr. Chapman,) 1.06 absolute deviation.
At 500 yards, the comparison stands,–
American, (government,) 13 in. vertical deviation, 11.5 in. horizontal. (About 17 in. absolute.)
Kentucky, (550 yards,) 11 in. absolute deviation
We give cuts of two targets, of which we have duplicates in our possession, made by rifles manufactured by Morgan James, of Utica, New York, that the reader may appreciate the marvellous accuracy of this weapon; the first was made by a rifle of 60 gauge, twenty-five shots being fired, the average deviation being 1.4 in.; the second by a 90 gauge, the average being [Illustration]
[Illustration]
.8 in.; both at two hundred and twenty yards, and better than Mr. Chapman’s report. In the northern part of the State of New York, the practice at shooting-matches is, at turkeys at one hundred rods, (five hundred and fifty yards,) and a good marksman is expected to kill one turkey, on an average, in three shots,–and this with a bullet weighing from two hundred and forty to one hundred and sixty grains, while the army bullet weighs five hundred and fifty-seven. The easily fatal range of the bullet of two hundred and forty grains is a thousand yards; and farther than that, no bullet can be relied on as against single men.
In breech-loading guns, much must be sacrificed, in point of accuracy, to mere facility of loading; and here there seems room for doubt whether a breech-loader offers any advantage compensating for its complication of mechanism and the danger of its being disabled by accident in hurried loading. No breech-loading gun is so trustworthy in its execution as a muzzle-loader; for, in spite of all precautions, the bullets will go out irregularly. We have cut out too many balls of Sharpe’s rifle from the target, which had entered sidewise, not to be certain on this point; and we know of no other breech-loader so little likely to err in this respect, when the ball is crowded down into the grooves, and the powder poured on the ball,–as we always use it. The government reports on breech-loaders are adverse to their adoption, mainly because they are so likely to get out of working order and to get clogged. We have used one of Sharpe’s two years in hunting, and found it, with a round ball at short shots, perfectly reliable; while with the belted picket perhaps one shot in five or six would wander. Used with the cartridge, they are much less reliable. They may be apt to clog, but we have used one through a day’s hunting, and found the oil on the slide at night: and we are inclined to believe, that, when fitted with gas rings, they will not clog, if used with good powder. The Maynard rifle is perfectly unexceptionable in this respect, and an excellent gun, in its way. The powder does not flash out any more than in a muzzle-loader. Of the other kinds of breech-loaders we can say nothing from experience, and should scarcely recommend using one for a hunting-gun. One who has used a rifle of James, of Lewis (of Troy, New York), Amsden of Saratoga, (and doubtless others in the West are equally famous in their sections,) will hardly be willing to use the best breech-loader. There is no time saved, when the important shot is lost; and the gun that is always true is the only one for a rifleman, _if it take twice, the time to load_.
In the rifling of cannon, there seems to be no reason why the same rules should not hold good as in small arms. The gaining twist seems more important, from the greater tendency of the heavy balls to strip; and there being less object in extreme lightness, the gun may be made a large-sized Kentucky rifle on wheels; and there is less difficulty in loading with the precision that the flat-ended picket requires. In the cannon, even more than in the rifle for the line, there is no gain in getting facility of loading at the expense of precision. If, by careful loading, we hit the given mark twice as often as when we load in haste, it is clear how much we gain. The breech-loader seems to be useless as a cannon, because that in which it has the advantage, namely, rapidity of loading, is useless in a field-piece, where, even now, artillery-men can load faster than they can fire safely. Napoleon III. has made his rifled cannon to load at the muzzle, and practical artillerists commend his decision. The Armstrong gun, of which so much is expected, we confidently predict, will prove a failure, when tried in field-practice in the hurry of battle, if it is ever so tried. It is a breech-loader of the clumsiest kind, taking twice as long to load as a common gun, and very complicated. Its wonderful range is owing to its great calibre,–sixty-four pounds; but even at that, it furnishes no results proportionate to those given by the Napoleon cannon, or by our General James’s recent gun.
The great anticipations raised by the general introduction of the rifle, and its greater range, of such a change in warfare as to make the bayonet useless, seem to have met with disappointment in the recent wars. No matter how perfect the gun, men, in the heat and excitement of battle, will hardly be deliberate in aim, or effective enough in firing to stop a charge of determined men; the bayonet, with the most of mankind, will always be the queen of weapons in a pitched battle; only for skirmishing, for sharp-shooting, and artillery, will the rifle equal theoretical expectations. Men, not brought up from boyhood to such constant use of the rifle as to make sure aim an act of instinct with them, will never repel with certainty a charge of the bayonet by rifle-balls. With men whose rifles come to an aim with the instinctive accuracy with which a hawk strikes his prey, firing is equivalent to hitting, and excitement only makes the aim surer and more prompt; but such must have been hunters from youth; and no training of the army can give this second nature. American volunteers are the only material, outside the little districts of Switzerland and the Tyrol, who can ever be trained to this point, because they are the only nation of hunters beside the Swiss and Tyrolese. The English game-laws, which prevent the common people from using fire-arms _ad libitum_, have done and are doing more to injure the efficacy of the individual soldier than all their militia-training can ever mend. In the hands of an English peasant, “Brown Bess” is as good as a rifle; for he would only throw the ball of either at random. Discipline is wonderful and wondrously effective; but, in the first place, it won’t make a man a ready and accurate shot, in time of excitement; and, in the second place, it won’t make his bayonet a shield for a ball from the rifle of a man who has learned, by the practice of years, not to throw away a ball or to fire at random;–it couldn’t carry the bravest men in Wellington’s army over a cotton-bale intrenchment, in the face of a double line of Kentucky rifles. It is very well to sing,
“Riflemen, riflemen, riflemen, form!”
but where are the riflemen? Can Britannia stamp them out of the dust? or has she a store of “dragon’s teeth” to sow? God grant she may never have to defend those English homes against the guns of Vincennes! but if she must, it is on a comparatively undisciplined militia she must depend;–and then she may remember, with bitter self-reproach, the lesson of New Orleans.
A TRIP TO CUBA.
COMPANY AT THE HOTEL.–SERVANTS.–OUR DRIVE.–DON PEPE.
I do not mean to give portraits of the individuals at our hotel. My chance acquaintance with them confers on me no right to appropriate their several characteristics for my own convenience and the diversion of the public. I will give only such general sketches as one may make of a public body at a respectful distance, marking no features that fix or offend.
Our company is almost entirely composed of two classes,–invalids and men of business, with or without their families. The former are easily recognizable by their sad eyes and pallid countenances; even the hectic of disease does not deceive you,–it has no affinity to the rose of health. There is the cough, too,–the cruel cough that would not be left at the North, that breaks out through all the smothering by day, and shakes the weak frame with uneasy rocking by night.