The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction. Volume 20, No. 580, Supplemental Number

That night, as latterly had been his custom, he sallied forth about eight o'clock, leaving his home and family without food or money. The children crowded round their mother's knee to repeat their simple prayers, and retired, cold and hungry, to bed. It was near midnight ere her task was finished; and then she stole softly into her chamber, having first looked upon and blessed her treasures. Her sleep was of that restless heavy kind which yields no refreshment. Once she was awakened by hearing her husband shut the cottage-door; again she slept, but started from a horrid dream—or was it indeed reality! and had her husband and her son Abel quitted the dwelling together? She sprang from her bed, and felt on the pallet—Gerald was there; again she felt—she called—she passed into the next room—"Abel, Abel, my child! as you value your mother's blessing speak!" There was no reply. A dizzy sickness almost overpowered her senses. Was her husband's horrid threat indeed fulfilled? and had he so soon taken their child as his participator in unequivocal sin? She opened the door, and looked out upon the night; it was cold and misty, and her sight could not penetrate the gloom. The chill fog rested upon her face like the damps of the grave. She attempted to call again upon her son, but her powers of utterance were palsied—her tongue quivered—her lips separated yet there came forth no voice, no sound to break the silence of oppressed nature. Her eyes moved mechanically towards the heavens—they were dark as the earth; had God deserted her?—would he deny one ray, one little ray of light, to lead her to her child? Why did the moon cease to shine, and the stars withhold their brightness? Should she never again behold her boy, her first-born? Her heart swelled, and beat within her bosom. She shivered with intense agony, and leaned her throbbing brow against the door-post, to which she had clung for support. Her husband's words rang in her ears—"One by one shall your children be taken from you to serve my purposes!" Through the dense fog she fancied that he glared upon her in bitter hatred—his deep-set eyes flashing with demoniac fire, and his smile, now extending, now contracting, into all the varied expressions of triumphant malignity! She pressed her hand on her eyes to shut out the horrid vision, and, a prayer, a simple prayer, rose to her lips. Like oil upon the troubled waters, it soothed and composed her spirit. She could not arrange, or even remember, a form of words; but she repeated, again and again, the emphatic appeal, "Lord, save me, I perish!" until she felt sufficient strength to enable her to look again into the night. As if hope had set its beacon in the sky, calmly and brightly the moon was now shining upon her cottage. With the sudden change, at once the curse and blessing of our climate, a sharp east wind had set in, and was rolling the mist from the canopy of heaven. Numerous stars were visible, where, but five minutes before, all had been darkness and gloom. The shadow passed from her soul; she gazed steadily upwards; her mind regained its firmness; her resolve was taken. She returned to her bed-room, dressed, and, wrapping her cloak closely to her bosom, was quickly on her way to the Smiths' dwelling, on Craythorpe Common.

The solitary hut was more than two miles from the village; the path leading to it broken and interrupted by fragments of rocks, roots of furze, and stubbed underwood, and, at one particular point, intersected by a deep and brawling brook. Soon after Grace had crossed this stream, she came in view of the cottage, looking like a misshapen mound of earth; and, upon peering in at the window, which was only partially lined by a broken shutter, Covey, the lurcher, uttered, from the inside, a sharp muttering bark, something between reproof and recognition. There had certainly been a good fire, not long before, on the capacious hearth, for the burning ashes cast a lurid light upon an old table, and two or three dilapidated chairs. There was also a fowling-piece lying across the table; but it was evident none of the inmates were at home; and Grace walked slowly, yet disappointedly, round the dwelling, till she came to the other side, that rested against a huge mass of mingled rock and clay, overgrown with long tangled fern and heather. She climbed to the top, and had not been many minutes on the look-out ere she perceived three men rapidly approaching from the opposite path. As they drew nearer, she saw that one of them was her husband; but where was her son? Silently she lay among the heather, fearing she knew not what—yet knowing she had much to fear. The chimney that rose from the sheeling had, she thought, effectually concealed her from their view, but in this she was mistaken; for, while Huntley and one of the Smiths entered the abode, the other climbed up the mound. She saw his hat within a foot of where she rested, and fancied she could feel his breath upon her cheek as she crouched, like a frightened hare, more closely in her form. However, he surveyed the spot without ascending further, and then retreated muttering something about corbies and ravens, and, almost instantly, she heard the door of the hut close. Cautiously she crept down from her hiding-place; and, crawling along the ground with stealth and silence, knelt before the little window, so as to observe, through the broken shutter, the occupation of the inmates. The dog alone was conscious of her approach; but the men were too seriously engaged to heed his intimations of danger.

[She sees all that the three are about, is convinced that her son will be lost, and forms her resolution:]

"Then there is hope for my poor child!" she thought, "and I can—I will save him!" With this resolve, she stole away as softly and as quickly as her trembling limbs would permit. The depredators revelled in their fancied security. The old creaking table groaned under the weight of pheasant, hare, and ardent spirits; and the chorus of a wild drinking-song broke upon her ear as returning strength enabled her to hasten along the rude path leading to Craythorpe.

The first grey uncertain light of morning was visible through the old churchyard trees as she came within sight of her cottage. She entered quietly, and saw that Abel had not only returned, but was sleeping soundly by his brother's side.

Grace set her house in order—took the work she had finished to her employer—came back, and prepared breakfast, of which her husband, having by this time also returned, partook. Now he was neither the tyrant whose threat still rung in her ears, nor the reckless bravo of the common; he appeared that morning, at least so his wife fancied, more like the being she had loved so fondly, and so long.

"I will sleep, Grace," he said, when their meal was finished—"I will sleep for an hour; and to-morrow we shall have a better breakfast." He called his son into the bed-room, where a few words passed between them. Immediately after this Grace went into the little chamber to fetch her bonnet. She would not trust herself to look upon the sleeper, but her lips moved as if in prayer; and even her children still remember, that, as she passed out of the cottage-door, she had a flushed and agitated appearance.

"Good morning, Mrs. Huntley," said her old neighbour, Mrs. Craddock; "Have you heard the news? Ah! these are sad times—bad people going—"

"True, true!" replied poor Grace as she hurried onwards; "I know—I heard it all."

Mrs. Craddock looked after her, much surprised at her abruptness.

"I was coming down to you, Grace," said her father, standing so as to arrest her progress; "I wished to see if there was any chance of the child Abel's returning to his exercises. As this is a holiday, I thought—"

"Come with me," interrupted Grace, "come with me, father, and we will make a rare holiday."

She hurried the feeble old man along the road leading to the rectory, but returned no answer to his inquiries. The servant told her, when she arrived at her destination, that his master was engaged—particularly engaged—could not be disturbed—Sir Thomas Purcel was with him; and, as the man spoke, the study-door opened, and Sir Thomas crossed the hall.

"Come back with me, sir," exclaimed Grace Huntley, eagerly: "I can tell you all you want to know."

The Baronet shook off the hand she had laid upon his arm as if she were a maniac.

Grace appeared to read the expression of his countenance. "I am not mad, Sir Thomas Purcel," she continued, in a suppressed tremulous voice; "not mad, though I may be so soon. Keep back these people, and return with me. Mr. Glasscott knows I am not mad."

She passed into the study with a resolute step, and held the door for Sir Thomas to enter. Her father followed also, as a child traces its mother's footsteps, and looked around him, and at his daughter, with weak astonishment. One or two of the servants, who were loitering in the hall, moved as if they would have followed.

"Back, back, I say!" she repeated; "I need no witnesses—there will be enough of them soon. Mr. Glasscott," she continued, closing the door, "hear me, while I am able to bear testimony, lest weakness—woman's weakness—overcome me, and I falter in the truth. In the broom-sellers' cottage, across the common, on the left side of the chimney, concealed by a large flat stone, is a hole—a den; there much of the property taken from Sir Thomas Purcel's last night is concealed."

"I have long suspected these men—Smith, I think, they call themselves. Yet they are but two. Now, we have abundant proof, that three men absolutely entered the house."

"There was a third," murmured Grace, almost inaudibly.

"Who?"

"My—my—my husband!" and, as she uttered the word, she leaned against the chimney-piece for support, and buried her face in her hands.

The clergyman groaned audibly;—he had known Grace from her childhood, and felt what the declaration must have cost her. Sir Thomas Purcel was cast in a sterner mould.

"We are put clearly on the track, Mr. Glasscott," he said, "and must follow it forthwith; yet there is something most repugnant to my feelings in finding a woman thus herald her husband to destruction."

"It was to save my children from sin!" exclaimed Grace, starting forward with an energy that appalled them all: "God in heaven, whom I call to witness, knows, that though I would sooner starve than taste of the fruits of his wickedness, yet I could not betray the husband of my bosom to—to—I dare not think what!—I tried, I laboured to give my offspring honest bread. I neither asked nor received charity; with my hands I laboured, and blessed the Power that enabled me to do so. If we are poor, we will be honest, was my maxim, and my boast. But he—my husband—returned; he taught my boy to lie—to steal! and when I remonstrated—when I prayed, with many tears, that he would cease to train our—ay, our child for destruction, he mocked—scorned—told me, that, one by one, I should be bereaved of my children if I thwarted his purposes; and that I might seek in vain for them through the world, until I saw their names recorded in the book of shame!—Gentlemen, this was no idle threat. Last night, Abel was taken from me—"

"I knew there must have been a fourth," interrupted Sir Thomas, coldly; "we must have the boy also secured."

The wretched mother, who had not imagined that any harm could result to her son, stood as if a thunderbolt had transfixed her; her hands clenched and extended—her features rigid and blanched—her frame perfectly erect, and motionless as a statue. The schoolmaster, during the whole of this scene, had been completely bewildered, until the idea of his grandchild's danger or disappearance, he knew not which, took possession of his mind; and, filled with the single thought his faculties had the power of grasping at a time, he came forward to the table at which Mr. Glasscott was seated, and respectfully uncovering his grey hairs, his simple countenance presenting a strong contrast to the agonized iron-bound features of his daughter, he addressed himself to the worthy magistrate: "I trust you will cause instant search to be made for the child Abel, whom your reverence used kindly to regard with especial favour."

He repeated this sentence at least half a dozen times, while the gentlemen were issuing orders to the persons assembled for the apprehension of the burglars, and some of the females of the family were endeavouring to restore Grace to animation. At last Sir Thomas Purcel turned suddenly round upon Abel Darley, and, in his stentorian tone, bawled out, "And who are you?"

"The schoolmaster of Craythorpe, so please you, sir—that young woman's father—and one whose heart is broken!"

So saying, he burst into tears; and his wail was very sad, like that of an afflicted child. Presently there was a stir among the little crowd, a murmur—and then two officers ushered in Joseph Huntley and his son.

He walked boldly up to the magistrate's table, and placed his hand upon it, before he perceived his wife, to whom consciousness had not yet returned. The moment he beheld her he started back, saying, "Whatever charge you may have against me, gentlemen, you can have none against that woman."

"Nor have we," replied Sir Thomas; "she is your accuser!"

The fine features of Joseph Huntley relaxed into an expression of scorn and unbelief. "She appear against me! Not—not if I were to attempt to murder her!" he answered firmly.

"Grace!" exclaimed her father joyfully, "here is the child Abel—he is found!" and seizing the trembling boy, with evident exultation, led him to her. The effect of this act of the poor simple-minded man was electrical. The mother instantly revived, but turned her face from her husband; and, entwining her son in her arms, pressed him closely to her side. The clergyman proceeded to interrogate the prisoner, but he answered nothing, keeping his eyes intently fixed upon his wife and child. In the mean time, the officers of justice had been prompt in the execution of their duty; the Smiths were apprehended in the village, and the greater portion of the property stolen from Sir Thomas Purcel was found in the hut where Grace had beheld it concealed.

When the preparations were sufficiently forward to conduct the unfortunate men to prison, Joseph Huntley advanced to his wife. The scornful as well as undaunted expression of his countenance had changed to one of painful intensity; he took her hand within his, and pressed it to his lips, without articulating a single syllable. Slowly she moved her face, so that their eyes encountered in one long mournful look. Ten years of continued suffering could not have exacted a heavier tribute from Grace Huntley's beauty. No language can express the withering effects of the few hours' agony. Her husband saw it.

"'Twas to save my children!" was the only sentence she uttered, or rather murmured; and it was the last coherent one she spoke for many weeks. Her fine reason seemed overwhelmed. It was a sight few could witness without tears. The old father, tending the couch of his afflicted daughter, would sit for hours by her bedside, clasping the child Abel's hand within his, and every now and then shaking his head when her ravings were loud or violent.

[We add the conclusion.]

It might be some fifteen years after these distressing events had agitated the little village of Craythorpe, that an elderly woman, of mild and cheerful aspect, sat calmly reading a large volume she supported against the railing of a noble vessel, that was steering its course from the shores of "merrie England" to some land far over the sea. Two gentlemen, who were lounging on the quarter-deck arm-in-arm, frequently passed her. The elder one, in a peculiarly kind tone of voice, said, "You bear the voyage well, dame."—"Thank God! yes, sir."—"Ah! you will wish yourself back in Old England before you are landed six weeks."—"I did not wish to leave it, sir; but my duty obliged me to do so."

The gentlemen walked on.

"Who is she?" inquired the younger.

"A very singular woman. Her information transported for life a husband whom she loved, notwithstanding his coldness and his crimes. She had at that time three children, and the eldest had already become contaminated by his father's example. She saw nothing but destruction for them in prospective, her warnings and intreaties being alike unregarded. So she made her election—sacrificed the husband and saved the children!"

"But what does she here?"

"Her eldest son is now established in a small business, and respected by all who know him. Her second boy, and a father, whom her misfortunes reduced to a deplorable state of wretchedness, are dead. Her daughter, a village belle and beauty, is married to my father's handsome new parish-clerk; and Mrs. Huntley having seen her children provided for, and by her virtues and industry made respectable in the Old World, is now on her voyage to the New, to see, if I may be permitted to use her own simple language, 'whether she can contribute to render the last days of her husband as happy as the first they passed together.' It is only justice to the criminal to say, that I believe him truly and perfectly reformed."

"And on this chance she leaves her children and her country?"

"She does. She argues, that as the will of Providence prevented her from discharging her duties together, she must endeavour to perform them separately. He was sentenced to die; but, by my father's exertions, his sentence was commuted to one of transportation for life; and I know she has quitted England without the hope of again beholding its white cliffs."

[Miss Landon has contributed a few poetical pieces of great merit; and the Editor, the "simple story" of an Emigrant in verse, full of truth and nature. The Author of the Corn Law Rhymes has two pieces.

The Illustrations are nearly unexceptionable. Seven of them are from pictures by Lawrence; Newton's Gentle Student has supplied the Frontispiece; and Wilkie's Theft of the Cap, one of the most pleasing of the well arranged selection.]

THE FRIENDSHIP'S OFFERING

[Edited by a poet of no mean merit, has a golden flood of minor pieces in verse, many of them of great beauty and touching sweetness, and nearly all above the usual calibre of such contributions to Annual literature. The prose tales are by Miss Mitford, Mr. J.B. Fraser, Derwent Conway, and by Leitch Ritchie: that by the latter is perhaps the best in the volume; it has a serio-ludicrous interest which is very amusing.

The pieces number upwards of sixty; and as the prose are too lengthy for our columns, we take a slight sprinkling of the poetical flowers:—]

THE ARMADA,

A FRAGMENT,—BY T.B. MACAULAYAttend, all ye who list to hear our noble England's praise,I tell of the thrice famous deeds she wrought in ancient days,When that great fleet invincible against her bore in vainThe richest spoils of Mexico, the stoutest hearts of Spain.It was about the lovely close of a warm summer's day,There came a gallant merchant ship full sail to Plymouth bay;Her crew hath seen Castille's black fleet, beyond Aurigny's isle,At earliest twilight, on the waves lie heaving many a mile.At sunrise she escaped their van, by God's especial grace;And the tall Pinta, till the noon, had held her close in chase.Forthwith a guard at every gun was placed along the wall;The beacon blazed upon the roof of Edgcumbe's lofty hall;Many a light fishing bark put out to pry along the coast;And with loose rein and bloody spur rode inland many a post.With his white hair unbonneted the stout old sheriff comes;Behind him march the halberdiers, before him sound the drums;His yeomen, round the market-cross, make clear an ample space,For there behoves him to set up the standard of her Grace.And haughtily the trumpets peal, and gaily dance the bells,As slow upon the labouring wind the royal blazon swells.Look how the lion of the sea lifts up his ancien crown,And underneath his deadly paw treads the gay lilies down.So stalked he when he turned to flight, on that famed Picard field,Bohemia's plume, and Genoa's bow, and Caesar's eagle shield:So glared he when at Agincourt in wrath he turned to bay,And crushed and torn beneath his claws the princely hunters lay.Ho! strike the flag-staff deep, sir knight: ho! scatter flowers, fair maids:Ho! gunners, fire a loud salute; ho! gallants draw your blades:Thou sun, shine on her joyously: ye breezes waft her wide:Our glorious SEMPER EADEM,—this banner of our pride.The freshening breeze of eve unfurled that banner's massy fold,The parting gleam of sunshine kissed that haughty scroll of gold:Night sank upon the dusky beach, and on the purple sea;—Such night in England ne'er had been, nor e'er again shall be.From Eddystone to Berwick bounds, from Lynn to Milford bay,That time of slumber was as bright and busy as the day:For swift to east and swift to west the warning radiance spread;High on St. Michael's mount it shone, it shone on Beachy Head.Far on the deep the Spaniards saw, along each southern shire,Cape beyond cape, in endless rage, those twinkling points of fire:The fisher left his skiff to rock on Tamar's glittering waves;The rugged miners poured to war from Mendip's sunless caves.O'er Longleat's towers, o'er Cranbourne's oaks, the fiery herald flew;He roused the Shepherds of Stonehenge, the rangers of Beaulieu.Right sharp and quick the bells all night rang out from Bristol town;And ere the day three hundred horse had met on Clifton down.The sentinel on Whitehall gate looked forth into the night,And saw o'erhanging Richmond-hill the streak of blood-red light.Then bugle's note and cannon's roar the death-like silence broke,And with one start, and with one cry, the royal city woke.At once on all her stately gates arose the answering fires:At once the wild alarum clashed from all her reeling spires:From all the batteries of the Tower pealed loud the voice of fear;And all the thousand masts of Thames sent back a louder cheer:And from the furthest wards was heard the rush of hurrying feet,And the broad stream of flags and pikes dashed down each roaring street:And broader still became the blaze, and louder still the din.As fast from every village round the horse came spurring in:And eastward straight, from wild Blackheath, the warlike errand went,And roused in many an ancient hall the gallant squires of Kent.Southward from Surrey's pleasant hills flew those bright couriers forth;High on bleak Hampstead's swarthy moor they started for the north.And on, and on, without a pause, untired they bounded still,All night from tower to tower they sprang;—they sprang from hill to hill,Till the proud peak unfurled the flag o'er Darwin's rocky dales,Till like volcanoes flared to heaven the stormy hills of Wales,Till twelve fair counties saw the blaze on Malvern's lonely height.Till streamed in crimson on the wind the Wrekin's crest of light;Till broad and fierce the star came forth on Ely's stately fane,And tower and hamlet rose in arms o'er all the boundless plain;Till Belvoir's lordly terraces the sign to Lincoln sent,And Lincoln sped the message on o'er the wide vale of Trent;Till Skiddaw saw the fire that burned on Gaunt's embattled pile,And the red glare on Skiddaw roused the burghers of Carlise.

THE TORNADO

AN AFRICAN SKETCH,—BY THOMAS PRINGLEDost thou love to list the rushingOf the tempest in its might?Dost thou joy to see the gushingOf the torrent at its height?Hasten forth ere yet the gloamingWaneth wildly into night,While the troubled sea is foamingWith a strange phosphoric light.Lo, the sea-fowl, loudly screaming,Seeks the shelter of the land;And a signal light is gleamingWhere yon vesel nears the strand:Just at sun-set she was lyingAll-becalmed upon the main;Now, with sails in tatters flying,She to sea-ward beats—in vain!Now the forest trees are shaking,Like bullrushes in the gale;And the folded flocks are quaking'Neath the pelting of the hail.From the jungle-cumbered riverComes a growl along the ground;And the cattle start and shiver,For they know full well the sound.'Tis the lion, gaunt with hunger.Glaring down the darkening glen;But a fiercer Power and strongerDrives him back into his den:For the fiend TORNADO ridethForth with FEAR, his maniac bride.Who by shipwrecked shores abideth,With the she-wolf by her side.Heard ye not the Demon flappingHis exulting wings aloud?And his mate her wild hands clappingFrom yon scowling thunder-cloud?By the fireflaucht's gleamy flashingThe doomed vessel ye may spy,With the billows o'er her dashing—Hark (Oh God!) that fearful cry!Seven hundred human voicesIn that shriek came on the blast!Ha! the Tempest-Fiend rejoices—For all earthly aid is past!White as smoke the surge is showeringO'er the cliffs that sea-ward frown,While the greedy gulph, devouring,Like a dragon sucks them down.

The Plates are excellent: two or three fancy portraits beam with loveliness; Christ entering Jerusalem, engraved by E.J. Roberts, from Martin, is a sublime scene of "the glorious city of God;" and Corfu and the Bridge of Alva, from drawings by Purser, maintain the promising excellence of his pencil.