The writer, after these moral reflections, which we have
transcribed for the benefit of our readers, goes on to narrate
how, after the fight upon the river, the two watermen leaped
into the “Nancy,” and without exchanging compliments,
excuses, or regrets, ran off with that craft; even Junks with
a bad wound in his arm, rowing as if the officers of the law
were already on his track:—further, he goes on to tell how
Charles Waters, by his own request, was borne to his father's:—
how Beatrice, stanching her bleeding arm, would not
leave him:—how the old man wept and sobbed as he met
his dying son:—how the Chevalier La Rivière, otherwise
Captain Ralph Waters, uttered furious “morbleus!” and
threats, and tore his moustache:—and how, day by day,
nursed by the tender hand of Beatrice, the young man's
wound in the shoulder-blade grew gradually better, and his
deadly pallor changed more and more to the hue of health:—
all this is related by the worthy writer of the MS., at
considerable length.

It is not necessary to dwell upon these scenes: the reader,
no doubt, will be able to understand all that is necessary

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without the aid of the chronicler. Let us pass over a
month, and on a winter night enter the plain and simple, but
cheerful and comfortable mansion of the old fisherman, and
see what the inmates are engaged in.

The apartment is the one which we have already entered
several times, and a cheerful fire is burning in the wide,
rude fireplace. Two stones serve the purpose of andirons,
and a hook stands out prominently from the great crossbeam.
The light of the fire fills the room, bathing in its
full rich flood of warmth and brightness the nets, the fishing
rods, the brown rafters overhead with their strings of
onions and bacon flitches; and these humble objects take a
glory from the brilliant light, and seem to laugh and move
about as the flame rises and falls, in a sort of ecstasy.

In one corner of the great chimney sits old John Waters
with his venerable gray head bent down, his face bright
with its habitual smile of simple good-nature and kindliness.
The old man occupies the chair of state, which is woven
into a species of basket-work and softly cushioned—the work
of Charles. He wears his ordinary dress of fustian; his
stockings are of woollen, and his huge shoes are decorated
with huge buckles. His gray hair is tied in a queue behind,
and in his hard, bony hand the old man holds a corn-cob
pipe, which he replenishes from time to time by inserting
his fingers into the ample pocket of his long waistcoat, and
then thrusting the bowl into the ashes, from which it reappears
crowned with a burning coal, and sending up clouds
of fragrant smoke.

Opposite, and crouching on his stool, sits Lanky, the cart-boy,
who seems to be eternally protesting against something,
for he shakes his head from north-east to south-west incessantly,
and gazes into the fire with a profundity which would
have delighted Newton. Lanky is clad in a pair of ornamental
woollen stockings, and has enormous feet, which occasionally
are stretched out toward the blaze, then withdrawn,
as the warmth penetrates too feelingly into his shins:—
his short clothes are of leather, and are much soiled—his
waistcoat is tattered and torn, and the pockets are stuffed
with whip-lashes, nails, and iron rings, apparently the debris
of some defunct harness;—his coat has lost a portion of
the skirt. Lanky has been working all day—has been with

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the cart of fish and vegetables to Williamsburg; and now,
like an honest fellow with an excellent conscience, takes his
ease on his stool, and munches when the hunger fit seizes
him, his bread and bacon, and, as we have said, carries on
that silent protest against something or somebody, with his
head, which closely resembles a pine knot.

Immediately in front of the cheerful fire, and seated
close to the rude pine table, Townes, the boatman, and the
Chevalier La Riviére—or, dropping this nom-de-guerre, Captain
Ralph Waters—occupying themselves with a sheet of
paper, lying on the rough board, on which the Captain has
traced a diagram, the lines of which are something less than
an inch in breadth. Townes is clad in his usual dress, half
sailor, half farmer, whole boatman. The Captain is resplendent
in the fine military suit which we have seen Mr.
Effingham dressed in, and his long sword lies by him on a
settee. His moustaches are longer and blacker than ever;
his eye more laughing, his voice louder, his “parbleus!”
more emphatic, as he explains the diagram of the battle of
Rosbach to the boatman.

“Faith! there it is!” says the Captain, twirling his
moustache, and making a dig at the paper with his broadnibbed
goosequill, “there is the river Saal—these dots here
represent Marshal Soubise's forces, opposite the head-quarters
of the great Frederic; and here, at this line, Prince
Hildbourghausen had posted himself.”

“Hill—who?” asks Townes, scratching his head, “talk
it out plainer, Captain.”

“Hildbourghausen!” says the soldier, laughing; “faith!
that is nothing to some of the jaw-breakers I have been
compelled, for my sins, to pronounce, mon ami!”

“Hell—bug—housen,” says the boatman, in a low, meditative
tone, “now I've got it!”

“Well, here was the river—we crossed on the 5th of
November, all colors flying—a glorious day, and a glorious
set of devils to fight it out—though I say it. I can't go
over the battle—but fifty thousand mounseers bit the dust,
or were taken:—see, here was my share.”

And opening his coat, the soldier showed a deep scar on
his breast.

“A bayonet did it—but I ran the fellow through for it,

[figure description] Page 327.[end figure description]

and the great Frederic made me a captain. What a beast
he was!—And morbleu! what a leader!”

“Well, now, seems to me,” says Townes, “them things
don't pay. Is scars all you get in the wars, Captain
Ralph?”

“No, I'm indifferent rich.”

“Really, now.”

“Yes.”

“How did you get the pistoles together?”

“They were not pistoles, mon ami—they were florins and
guilders,” says the Captain, with a strange, wistful smile,
which is a pleasant sight to look upon.

“Guilders?—I have seen some of that coin,” says old
John Waters, cheerfully, “come tell us, my son, something
more of your doin's than you have done.”

The Captain pauses for a moment, and passes his hand
over his eyes dreamily: then he raises his fine head, and
says, manfully:

“Very well, bon père: ten words, more or less, will do
that. You know that when I was eighteen, and had an indifferent
smooth face, I ran away—half with your knowledge,
half without—”

“You were not a bad son,” says the old man, pleasantly.

“No, I believe not. Well, I got to Europe, found that
I must starve or enlist, and having a natural turn for eating
heartily, and an intense aversion to starving, at once accepted
his gracious and serene majesty's shilling. We were shipped
at once to the Continent, and under the Great Frederic, the
Protestant champion, as we called him, fought like a parcel
of honest English dogs, every time we could meet with the
mounseers, who were equally the enemies of Prussia and
England.

“Very well, I knocked about—got a wound at Rosbach,
also my Captaincy—had a public compliment paid me after
Lissa—a devil of a fight, comrade!—and at Glatz had the
misfortune to be taken prisoner, as I was about to run my
hanger through a fellow all bedizened with lace—a Colonel,
at the very least. I mention the great pitched battles—the
skirmishes, countermarches, night-encounters, here, there,
every where, are understood. Well, I was taken after Glatz—
Glatz was in '59, mark you—to a little town in the

[figure description] Page 328.[end figure description]

interior, where a fort was held by the troops of his Gracious
Majesty, the King of France—in the Rhine-land. There I
became no longer a bachelor.”

With which words, the wistful expression again passed
over the soldier's face.

“She was a soft, bright-eyed girl—I don't know how I
ever came to love her,” he murmured; “she was a good wife
to me, and having sold my commission at her earnest request,
I lived in that little town for two whole years—or thereabouts.
She was a tender heart—my poor Katrina.”

And the Captain frowns, to conceal his emotion.

“Married, my son—you ain't a-tellin' me you were married?”
says the old man.

“Yes, yes,” says the soldier, raising his martial face
with a sigh. “I married and lost my wife—all within two
short years.”

There is a silence.

“Poor thing: she loved me devotedly, and left her whole
fortune to me. What did I want with it, when she was
gone?—well, well, the money amounted to some fifteen or
twenty thousand pounds English coin, and that is what I
have.”

“Twenty thousand pounds!” ejaculates Townes, with
astonishment.

“Yes, yes,” adds the soldier, “but in spite of the fine
fortune—a great fortune for a poor soldier, her death nearly
unmanned me! She was a good girl!”

And with dreamy eyes the Captain twirls his moustache,
and sighs. His auditors are silent.

“After that,” he continues, “I found myself no longer
fit for peace—the void in my heart, friends, called for war.
How could I live there, looking on all those objects she had
looked at with me? No, no! I could not, and I buckled on
my sword again. Ah, mon ami! ah, bon père! vous ne
savez—bah! English is the best! Well, well! I went back
again to the camp, did my duty, they said—got some more
wounds—and slowly my good spirits came back to me!—She
was a good wife!—she is in heaven!—”

“And you came away when the war ended, Captain?”
says Townes, “for I hearn tell somethin' 'bout the peace o'
Fontybull!”

[figure description] Page 329.[end figure description]

“Fontainbleau, mon ami—yes, I threw up my commission
then—turned my back on camps, and as my heart
began to grow strong again, it turned toward old Virginia
here. I got into the first ship, leaving my gold in London
there—and came over. The sea voyage set me up again—
that, with the fighting, and here I am as fresh and hearty as
a lion.”

With which words the Captain looks with great affection
at old Waters, and seeing that Lanky is nodding, stirs that
gentleman up with his foot. Lanky starts and looks around
in utter and profound astonishment—at which comical expression
the boatman laughs, and Captain Ralph goes on
with his adventures.

Let us now pass through the door directly in the rear of
the astonished Lanky, and look around us. The apartment
is wholly different from the one which we have just left: it
is smaller and neater. The fireplace is surmounted by a
tall mantel-piece, upon which are ranged a number of old
volumes, and in the recess to the right, some neatly-constructed
shelves are covered with more books, and a great
number of papers—chiefly old copies of the “Virginia Gazette.”
Immediately beneath this bookcase, if we may call
it such, stands a small table covered with sheets of paper,
some of which have been written upon, while others contain
geometrical diagrams. A little window, with very small
panes of thick, bluish glass, opens on the river, sleeping in
the chill winter moon. In one corner of the room, a low
narrow bed is seen—in the corner opposite, a partition juts
out, indicating that a narrow staircase leads from without,
to the two small rooms above.

Before the fire, which sings and murmurs cheerfully, are
seated Charles Waters, and on another, but lower chair,
Beatrice. He is very pale, and his cheeks are thinner than
their wont; but his clear eye is as full as ever of frank truth;
his sad smile as sweet.

Beatrice is radiant with that tender and childlike beauty
which characterizes her; and as she sews and talks in a low
tone, when he is not reading to her, she raises her large
melting eyes to his face, with a look exquisitely soft and loving.
Both are clad very simply.

[figure description] Page 330.[end figure description]

There is for a time silence in the small cheerful room,
which, with its homespun carpet, and rude shelves and ruder
rafters, is yet extremely neat and cheerful, and home-like.
The voices of the interlocutors in the next room come to
them indistinctly.

The words, “She was a good wife!” however, are heard
plainly: and Beatrice raises her tender eyes.

He smiles faintly.

“Ralph is telling some of his adventures,” he says,
“but they cannot be more singular than those which we
have passed through.”

And his eye dwells with great tenderness on the gentle,
girlish face.

“Oh! how strange—yes, how very strange!”—she murmurs,
gazing into the fire: “it seems to me almost like a
dream.”

“It is a bright reality, which has restored you to us,”
he replies, taking the little hand.

“Yes—yes.”

And her head droops, quietly. The round rosy neck is
half illuminated, half shadowed, by the fitful firelight; and
the curls seem to nestle closer: the face is plain, and a dewy
glance trembles from the eyes.

“After so many wanderings, so many singular experiences,
such rude contact with the world, and all sorts of
people—ah! to see you here at last, it is strange indeed.”

“Yes—yes—but he was very kind to me:” she murmurs.

“He was a kind-hearted man, and loved you, Beatrice:
I do not know whether he made any exertion or not to find
us and restore you—and I do not attach very great blame
to him. Ah! had I found you, I should have hesitated long
before parting with you.”

And the thin hand plays gently with her own.

“He was very kind to me,” she repeats, in a low
tone, “and that last interview with him in this room was
very trying. You remember, Charles, how bitterly he complained,
at first, that I would not return to Europe with
him—”

“You could not.”

“No, I could not! and yet I felt very deeply the

[figure description] Page 331.[end figure description]

separation: I told him so, you know, and thanked him for all
his fondness and kindness, to poor Beatrice Hallam, his
daughter for so long:—and so you know he relented, and
shed some tears, and took me in his arms, and said he did not
blame me—that I was right—that blood was the strongest,
after all:—and so he blessed me and kissed me, and now
he is far away on the sea, sailing for the old world.”

With which words Beatrice droops lower, her hair covers
her face, she weeps in silence.

He looks at her with inexpressible affection, and caresses
with his pale hand the tender head. She raises her face,
and he sees the tears.

“Weeping, dear!” he says.

“I cannot help crying a little, thinking of him,” she
murmurs.

“But, they are not bitter tears.”

“Oh, no!”

“You do not regret your determination?”

“Oh, no—no!”

And she looks at him with so much love, that his heart
throbs, and his pale cheek is for a moment reddened, as if
the flush of some golden autumn sunset bathed it.

“You do not complain of having to leave all that brilliant
life?” he says.

“I thank God, that I was permitted to abandon it.”

“For our poor house, here—ah, it is very poor.”

“But I have you—and uncle—and—”

The weak voice gives way.

“And we have you—” he murmurs, holding out his
arms with an expression of pride and joy, which illuminates
his countenance like a glory.

In a moment she is in his arms—pressed to his breast,
sobbing and weeping, and nestling close to his bosom. She
will be his dear wife, she says—she has promised that she
will forget all for him in future—never grieve—she is not
grieving now, her tears are tears of joy, she feels that God
has been very good to her, and she is happy.

And the red firelight lingers lovingly upon them, heart
to heart, cheek pressed to cheek: the moonlight struggles
to come in and share their joy:—the room is still and holy.
And from the adjoining room, come cheerful voices soon,

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and merry laughter, and the loud camp-expletives of Captain
Ralph. Then the voices moderate, the soldier's tone
is lower, he has gone back to his happy days: and as they
listen, the gentle head resting confidingly on his bosom, those
low words are heard again, and echo in their hearts:

“Yes, comrade—a good wife!”