Graham's Magazine Vol XXXIII No. 4 October 1848

I had yet to learn the lesson, bitter and agonizing, that no woman is proof against the captivating temptations of ambition, and the glare of wealth. I know but little of the sex; they are called angels, and I had thought Helen was an angel – alas! I found my mistake. I read my doom in the averted coldness of her glance; I felt it in the unwilling pressure of her hand whenever we met, and I knew it when I gazed upon the countenance of my brother, on which was a quiet glow of happiness his expressive features could not conceal, even when he knew my searching glance was upon him. O! the agony of feeling which oppressed me in those bitter days; I felt all the savage passions of my nature rising within me; there were moments when I felt as if I could gladly see my brother and Helen stretched dead at my feet. Day by day these vindictive thoughts increased within me. It wanted but the finishing stroke to make me completely mad – it came. Though I had long dreaded to make the trial, on which all my happiness for this world rested, I at length determined to put it off no longer.

The shadows of twilight were settling over the earth as I slowly and sadly approached the parsonage. My head was bowed upon my breast as I walked with a noiseless step upon the little path that led to the unpretending dwelling. I was not aware how near I had come, till a ray of light from the window fell across the path, and recalled me to myself. As I stopped, I heard the tones of my brother's voice in low and earnest conversation. I drew nearer, and beheld a sight which rooted me to the spot, even though I was not wholly unprepared for such a scene.

My brother and Helen were seated in the little arbor before the parsonage, as she and myself had often before sat when I fancied our love was lasting as life. In the dim light I could see that my brother's arm was round her waist, and that her head rested upon his shoulder. I could hear their conversation.

"And you do love me, then, Helen?"

I heard no answer, but the long curls moved slightly upon my brother's shoulder, and as he bent his head and kissed her, I felt that he was answered – I was answered – that he was loved.

My brain burned as if on fire – and I sunk to the earth with a low groan. How long I remained unconscious I do not know; when I recovered, Helen and Sir John stood beside me. I sprung to my feet, and gazed upon them with the glare of a maniac. It was so – my brain was crazed.

"William," said Helen.

Her soft voice fell upon my ears with a singular cadence. With a fierce laugh I struck my brother to the earth, and rushed forth into the forest. All that night I must have wandered through its depths. I found myself at the break of day miles from our mansion, lying beneath an aged oak. I did not seem to know myself. I cannot now describe the feelings and thoughts which raged within me. The wild storm which is now lashing the ocean without my cabin is not more wild and fierce – the black sky above me is not more dark and gloomy. They seemed at length to settle into one stern, unchanging emotion, and that was hatred toward my brother, and a stern determination to revenge upon him the cruel wrong which had driven me mad.

My path led along the course of a mountain torrent, whose sudden descent as it hurried toward the river, formed successive water-falls not unmusical in their cadence. A few purple beech and drooping willows with here and there a mountain ash, skirted the ravine that formed its bed; their leaves had fallen before the blasts of autumn, they seemed emblematic of myself; like me their glory had departed – they were shorn of their loveliness by the rough storm, left bare and verdureless in the chilling breath of autumn; the seasons in their round would restore to them their beauty and their bloom, clothing their branches again in all the freshness of youth; but what should give back to me the freshness and youth of the heart? what restore the desolation of of the soul?

Weak and exhausted, I flung myself down in a rude grotto, which commanded a view of the foaming stream as it washed the rocks below; it was a scene fitted to my mood, for I turned in disgust from the beautiful landscape an opening in the forest revealed – the beauty of earth had forever passed away from me. That same opening, however, unfolded to the sight the gray towers of my family mansion, and at once I started to my feet and bent my course toward them.

At length I reached my home – how hateful every thing about the venerable building seemed. I stole to my chamber, and falling upon my couch, slept from pure exhaustion.

It was night when I awoke. I arose, but did not leave my room; seated by the window with the cold wind of November blowing upon my burning brow, I nursed my thoughts of vengeance. I forgot that he against whom I harbored such thoughts was my only brother; I forgot my self-offered trial of our powers with Helen; I forgot every thing – every thing but the fiery feeling of revenge. Yes, I was mad.

Day after day I wandered around the old castle, shunning every one. My brother strove to converse with me, but glaring upon him like a maniac as I was, I rushed past him. I felt the poison of hatred working within me, and I knew the time was coming when my revengeful spirit would find its vent.

I often wandered toward the parsonage, but never sought an interview with Helen. At times I caught a glimpse of her light form as it passed by a window or before the open door that led into the hall. One evening I saw my brother enter, and drawing near the window, I saw through the slightly-parted curtain, such evidence of their mutual affection, that, if possible, I became more than ever crazy in my anguish and despair. I waited for him to come out long hours, hours to me of bitterest sorrow, to him of most intense delight. It was an exceedingly cold night. A slight snow had fallen during the day, and the landscape around me glistening in the moonlight, seemed wrapped in a robe of the purest white. Yet as I gazed all seemed to turn into the deep hue of blood – wherever I gazed, every thing presented the same fearful coloring. It was but the shadowy reflection of a coming deed that should forever stain my soul with a deeper red, that the years of eternity could never efface.

At length my brother opened the door of the parsonage and came forth. Leaning against the trunk of an old tree but a little distance from them, I saw and heard the parting acts of endearment. At that terrible moment the determination of my soul was made, and I heard the dark devil within me whisper one of you must die. I shuddered at the thought, but when scarcely out of sight of the parsonage, almost as soon as the door had closed upon the form of Helen, I confronted my brother. Sir John started back, surprised.

"What, William, is it you?"

I laughed scornfully.

"My poor brother!"

"Do you dare to pity me – ha! ha! ha! Sir John! one of us must die this night – here, upon this spot; here are two pistols, take one of them, and it will be soon seen which is the fated one."

Sir John mechanically took the pistol; cocking my own, I retired a few paces, and turning, exclaimed,

"Are you ready?"

My words recalled him to himself; flinging his pistol far into the wood, he exclaimed,

"I will not fire at my brother."

"Coward!"

"The name belongs not to our race; fire at me if you will, I will not at you."

Enraged beyond expression, yet even in my madness ashamed to fire at an unarmed man, I hesitated.

My brother spoke.

"Come, William, let us go home."

"Home! – ha! ha! ha! my home is the wood and the cave! Here, take my good-night."

Thus speaking I flung my pistol full at his face with all my strength; it struck him lengthwise, and being cocked, went off in consequence of the concussion.

Sir John fell upon the cold snow. I rushed up to him, and beheld the blood flowing in torrents from a ghastly wound; the ball had taken a downward direction, and penetrated the abdomen.

"William," he said, faintly, "you have murdered me. God forgive you!"

It seemed as if my reason came back to me at that terrible moment as suddenly as it had left me. At the report of my pistol, I had heard a loud scream in the parsonage, and almost at the same time with myself Helen rushed up to the side of my brother.

"Oh!" she cried, in accents of agony, "who has done this?"

"Who!" said I, bitterly, "do you ask? You have done it; but no, Helen, I do not mean it – let us carry him into the parsonage."

With difficulty we lifted the body of my brother, and bearing him into the house, laid him upon a bed. Helen, who had up to this time been sustained by the necessity of exertion, fainted beside the body. I stood gazing upon them in stupid despair. The worthy pastor opened the door of the room; he had heard an unusual noise, and left his books to learn the cause.

I stopped not to converse with him, I could not trust myself to speak, but stooping to the lifeless form of Helen, I imprinted a last kiss upon her pale lips, and burst from the chamber. I do not know the result of that fatal night. It may be that my brother and Helen were both restored to life and happiness. God grant that it was so. It may be that the spirits of both had already passed to another world when I broke from the room, leaving the pale and astonished pastor gazing upon the lifeless bodies of his only daughter and the young lord of the manor. Years have passed since then, and not a happy hour have their long ages borne to me; yet methinks if I could but know that my brother and Helen are living in happiness in the mansion of my fathers, much that is dark and despairing in the remnant of life would be taken from the future.

That night I bade farewell to the haunts of boyhood, and the next day I was out upon the broad ocean. I had jumped aboard of a little vessel which was just weighing anchor, without asking its destination or caring where it bore me. I made brief reply to all interrogatories, merely showing a purse of gold, which was sufficient answer, inasmuch as it showed I was not to be an unprofitable part of the cargo.

Seated upon the companion-way, that evening I watched the receding shores of my native isle, and as the sunlight went out on its white cliffs, leaving them in sombre shade, I felt that so had the light of my life gone out, leaving the darkness of despair forever. Reckless as I was of the future, and dark as was the past, I was not yet dead to all emotion, and I could not witness my native land fading from my view without experiencing those melancholy feelings which the endearing recollections of former years excite, embittered as they were with me by the thought that even if I ever should return to the home of my fathers, I should find no kindred to welcome me back. No wonder, then, that I felt a chilling sickness of the heart as I caught a last glimpse of the Wicklow Mountains gleaming in the warm colorings of the evening sun, as they mingled their hoary summits with the "dewy skies" of my native isle.

The vessel on which I had chanced to take passage was bound for the West Indies. It was a small merchantman, and fell an easy prey to the first pirate that gave chase. We were boarded and all consigned to death. When the command was given to the pirates to shoot us all through the head, I stepped forward with a smile, and a heart partaking more of gladness than it had felt for long months, a pistol was at my temple, when the stern voice of the pirate captain commanded his man to stay his hand. He stepped forward and gazed into my face.

"My fine fellow, are you not afraid to die?"

"I have nothing to live for – blow away, and I will thank you."

"By heaven, you are just the man for us! Now take your choice, I have no objection to shoot you, indeed it would be rather pleasant than otherwise, but one of my lieutenants was killed yesterday, and you can fill his place if you will. I give you five minutes to decide while we are dispatching these dogs." I gazed upon the cruel work – it did not shock me; I even smiled at their agony, and had determined to share their fate, when a momentary thought of the unknown, mysterious hereafter restrained my advancing step. Am I ready, thought I, to plunge into its mysteries. I shuddered at the thought. It was not the beautiful blue sky unrolled above me, nor the broad, playful sea around that wooed me to life. No, it was that fear of the "something after death."

"Are you ready to answer?"

"I am thine."

"It is well, throw these carcasses into the sea, and set all sail for the Bermudas. Well, lieutenant," continued he, as the ship fell off before the wind, "give us your name, or it will be awkward work hailing you."

"William – " I stopped, the pride of my race arose within me.

"Well?"

"I will not give my name – call me William, I'll answer to that."

"Very well – lieutenant William, my lads, your second lieutenant."

The men seemed to like me from the first, and as I gazed upon them with a proud, fearless eye, a hearty cheer arose that endorsed my command.

Since then my home has been the pirate's deck; my heart has grown harder and harder with the lapse of time. I love the sight of blood better than I love the flowing wine – the agonizing shriek of death better than the sweetest music – like an emissary of evil I gloat over the tortures of man. I have learned to hate the land of my birth, and all who first drew breath upon her detested soil. I have been foremost in every conflict, yet have I not met death – the only foe whom I cannot conquer by my fierce will and dark heart.

I could not long remain a subordinate in command. I had become the idol of our lawless crew, and a single blow from my sword laid our captain low in death upon his own deck; and I filled his place, smiling with a fiendish pleasure, as I saw his body thrown into the waves, and the hungry sharks severing the limbs yet throbbing with life. I have no feeling for my kind – yet I was not meant for this. Under happier auspices, I might have been a leader in the ranks of God as I am now in those of Satan; my sword might have been drawn for my native land with the purest and loftiest feelings of patriotism, instead of being turned against her and her children. Even now, in the midst of my crimes and desolation, my heart throbs when I think of the great and good of earth, and I feel that, like them, I might have left a name of boast and pride to mankind; now, I shall perish, unknown and unwept; the annals of my house shall never record that one of its scions led a pirate crew to deeds of bloody cruelty and death. Long since I have buried my name in oblivion – I am dead to my kindred, dead to the world; the caves of ocean are yawning for the body of the pirate-chief, and there will he sleep with the howling ocean and the shrieking storm to sing his requiem and his dirge.

[To be continued.

DREAMS

Yes, there were pleasant voices yesternight,Humming within mine ear a tale of truth,Reminding me of days ere the sad blightOf care had dimmed the brightness of my youth:Yes, they were pleasant voices; but, forsooth,They threw a kind of melancholy charmAround my heart; as if in vengeful ruth,Our very dreams have knowledge of the harmOurselves do to ourselves, without the least alarm!I love such dreams, for at my couch there stoodOne who, in other lands, with magic spell,Had taught my untaught heart to love the good,The pure, the holy, which in her did dwell.It was a lovely image, and too wellI do remember me the fatal hour,When that bright image – but I may not tellHow deep the thraldom, absolute the power —My very dreams decide it was her only dower.

Sandwich Islands.

What are our dreams? A sort of fancy sketches,Limned on the mind's retina, with a graceMore subtle than the wakeful artist catches,And tinted with a more ethereal trace.Our dreams annihilate both time and space,And waft us, with magnetic swiftness, backO'er an oblivious decade to the placeWhere youth's fond visions clustered o'er our track;Of youth's fond hopes decayed, alas! there is no lack!I love such dreams, for they are more than real;They have a passion in them in whose birthThe heart receives again its beau ideal —Its Platonized embodiment of worth.Call ye them dreams! then what a mortal dearthThrows its gaunt shadow o'er our little life!Our very joy is mockery of mirth,And our quiescence agony of strife:If dreams are naught but dreams, what is our real life?E. O. H.

A LEAF IN THE LIFE OF LEDYARD LINCOLN

A SKETCHBY MARY SPENCER PEASE

It was in the joyous leaf-giving, life-giving month of June, of 18 – , after an absence of six years, that I found myself once more among my own dearly loved native hills.

An intense worshiper of Nature, I had gratified to the utmost my passion and curiosity by exploring all the accessible regions of the old world. I had studied every scene that was in any way famous, or infamous I might say with regard to some, if the necessity of clambering down or up unclimbable precipices, or wading through interminable swamps, could render them so.

With all the fatigue and hardships I had undergone my reward was great, and had more than repaid me for the perilous dangers I had courted and conquered. I had gazed, and dreamed, and raved by turns. I had been melted into tears of tenderness by the perfect harmony and loveliness of some scenes, and had been frozen into awe by the magnificent grandeur and terrible sublimity of others. And, after those six years of travel in foreign lands, I had returned, my brain one endless panorama of hills, valleys and cloud-capped mountains, earth, skies, wood and water. Not one of those gorgeous scenes, however, had moved me as I was moved when once again I beheld my boyhood's home – the stately mansion of my fathers. Half hidden, it rose majestically amid the noble elms that surrounded it; there lay the velvet-green sloping lawn in front – down which, as a boy, I had rolled in the summer and sledded in the winter – there the wild, night-dark ravine in the rear – fit haunt for elves and gnomes – that terminated amid jagged rocks and tangled trees, in a rushing, roaring brook of no mean dimensions, almost as large as many of the so-called rivers of the mother country. Just at this point, at the turn of the old time-worn stage-road, where the venerable, picturesque old homestead of my sires burst thus suddenly into view, an opening in the trees, whether by accident or design, revealed one of the very merriest, maddest of musical water-falls, that went foaming and tumbling its snow-white, sparkling waters over a bed of huge rocks, and then, by a sudden wilful bend, that same loud-uttering brook was lost to view.

As the rattling stage neared my home, my heart leaped within me, and every fibre of it trembled with emotion. I could have hugged and kissed each familiar sturdy old tree, looking so grand and natural. My soul warmed and yearned toward the well remembered scene; and as I thought upon my fond, doting mother and my loving, lovely sisters, and my ever-indulgent father, I could have wept in the intensity of my joy at finding myself so near them, and breathing the same free, pure, health-giving air that had nurtured my childhood. But was there not sitting directly opposite to me one of the most exquisitely beautiful of God's lovely women; and did not her saucy, demure eyes seem to read my very soul? I therefore restrained a display of my feelings, for it would not have appeared in the least dignified or proper in a fine-looking young man (such as I imagined myself to be) of four-and-twenty, to be seen with eyes streaming like a young girl.

More than once, during our short stage-coach ride had our eyes met; and hers had revealed to me a living well of spiritual beauty; and although they were withdrawn as soon as they encountered mine – not coquettishly, but with true feminine modesty – still they were not turned away until our mutual eyes had flashed one electrical spark of mutual understanding and mutual sympathy, that whole volumes of dull words could never express either as vividly or as truly. What a heaven-born mystery is contained in the glance of an eye: it can kill and can make alive; it can fill the heart with a sudden and delicious ecstasy, and it can plunge it into the deepest, darkest despair.

I gave her one last look as the stage stopped before my father's door, and if it expressed one tithe of what I felt, it told her of my warm admiration of her glorious beauty, and of my sorrow at leaving her, perhaps forever, without knowing more of her.

For the time the matchless image of my stage-coach companion was lost in the loving embraces and tender greetings of my family. I felt it truly refreshing, after six years of exile from my own kith and kin, to be caressed and made much of; to be told by three deliciously beautiful, exquisitely graceful sisters, hanging around one, and kissing one every other word, to be told how much the few last years had improved one, how handsome, &c. one was grown; was it not enough to somewhat turn one's brain, and make one a little vain and considerably happy.

In the still hush of the night, after finding myself once more in my own room —my room, with its cabinets of shells and mosses, that I had collected when a boy in my various trips to the seashore, all religiously left arranged as I had left them, its guns, fishing-rods, stuffed rabbits and birds, its preserved rattle-snakes and cases of insects, all of which had stood for so long a time in their respective places that they had become a part of the room – in the still hush of the night the divine image of my most beautiful stage-coach companion arose before me. The evening was warm and soft, and gleaming in the gorgeous moonlight lay that wild, weird ravine, and the ever downward, foaming water-fall. Its musical utterings, the delicious moonlight, and my own newly awakened and hitherto invulnerable heart, all conspired to make me poetical and inspired, or at least to imagine myself to be so; and pardon me if I gave utterance in verse to some of my feelings. But do not in the least imagine that you are going by any means to be presented with a fatiguing copy of my passionate numbers; in the first place I am very diffident, and in the next – but never mind the next, I will tell you in plain prose that I felt convinced in my heart, I felt a rapturous presentiment that the unutterably lovely being I had that day beheld would ere long be my own dear little wife, forever and forever. An indistinct dream of having somewhere, at some time before, known her haunted me and tormented me, but I racked my brains in vain to recollect the spot or time, and finally came to the conclusion that it had been in another state of existence we had met.

I had been home but a few days when business letters came, demanding the presence of my father or myself in Philadelphia. My father expressed a desire that I should go, and a certain internal prompting urged me to comply with his request. The next morning bright and early found me seated in the same stage-coach in which I had met her. The due progress of steamboat and cars deposited me safely the day after in the goodly city of Squareruledom.

The first leisure moment at my command, I paid my respects to the family of my father's brother. I found my good uncle and aunt at home; but my little pet Emily – their only child – whom I had last seen a rosy romping little imp of twelve – was unfortunately out. My uncle urged me very hard to make his house my home during my stay in Philadelphia; but I had taken up my abode in the family of an old college chum of mine, who had lately commenced the practice of the art of healing, and who I knew would be none the worse from a little of my help in a pecuniary way. I therefore declined my kind uncle's request, with a promise to come and see them often.

Judge of my inexpressible joy when, turning a corner of a street, after leaving my uncle's, who should I chance upon but the very being of whom my brain and heart were full! Yes, there was the identical she, and bless her dear little heart! she gave me a bright half smile of recognition, which I returned with as profound a bow as ever courtier bowed to queen, or devotee to Pope's sublime imperial toe.

An omnibus came rolling by, which she, with a motion of her neat little gloved hand, bid stop. She stepped lightly into it, while I, with my usual impetuosity, without knowing exactly what I was doing, sprang after her. I consoled myself for my apparent rudeness by throwing the entire blame upon the elective affinities.