CHAPTER I.
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About half an hour after the sun had set on a clear, starry evening
in September, 182—, a small boat, pulled by a single oarsman,
shot out from a deep cove, just above the Highlands, and rowed
along the shore in the direction of a gray stone villa, situated on the
river's bank, half a mile above. The oarsman was a young man of
fair complexion and slight in person; but there was an expression
in his clear blue eye of mingled pride and resolution. He was
dressed in a plain dark frock, without pretension to style; and
beside him, for he rowed bareheaded, was laid a sort of foraging
cap, rudely made of the skins of squirrels, trophies of his own skill
at the rifle. The expression of his countenance was cheerful and
animated; and, as he pulled the light skiff over the glassy surface,
he bummed the air of `Bonny Boat' in a low and musical voice,
to the measure of which the regular `clack' and dip of his slender
oars, chimed in not unmusical accompaniment.
As he pulled along, the heavens overhead were yet warm with
the lingering hues of the glowing west; and the broad river, reflecting
its roseate dyes, its stars, and its pearly clouds, looked like another
firmament beneath. The Highlands rose in dark and towering
majesty around him, laying in sharp, bold relief against the sky, and
casting their black, unillumined shadows half across the lake-like
bosom of the Hudson. Far below, the lights of the military post
sparkled like planets resting on the horizon's verge, or fitfully
gleamed in long, rippling lines over the water. Numerous small
vessels, their sails now gray in the thickening gloom of night, glided
along like flitting shades; ever and anon the dull sound of a block
falling upon the hollow deck, the sharp creaking of a tiller, or the
clattering of a rope being borne shoreward and echoed from the
cliffs. From a sloop becalmed, near an overhanging headland, floated
at intervals the deep-toned song of the mariner as he lounged on
the forecastle, mingled with the hoarse cry of a far-off skipper, giving
an order to his crew; while leagues below could be seen, relieved
against the shadows of the mountain's base, the sparkling
train of some steamboat, rounding a distant headland of the winding
river. Lights grouped on a hill-side, on the opposite bank, showed
where stood the pleasant town of Newberg, while a small hamlet,
faintly seen in the twilight, on the shore whence the skiff was unmoored,
marked the site of the picturesque village of Cold Spring.
The cove from which the oarsman emerged, was a deep romantic
inlet, scooped out by nature at the base of a majestic wall of cliff,
that, dark with pine and larch, towered several hundred feet in
height, above it. At its foot, where it met the ripple of the waves,
there wound along the beach of the cove a smooth post-road, leading
between Cold Spring and the town of Peekskill. From this
road, two thirds of a mile above the cove, a gate led into a private
carriage-way, which conducted through well-wooded grounds badly
kept, to an old mansion-house of the last century, sitting on a verdant
spur of the cliff, and commanding a view of the Hudson for
many a league. This seat was known as `Kirkwood,' and its former
proprietor had once the honor of entertaining beneath its roof
Washington and his suite. But it had passed out of its original
possessor's hands, and was now owned by Mr. Beasely Powell, who,
having been of the commissariat during the late war, had amassed a
fortune; and from low birth and associations, had got himself into
a degree of consideration and influence, which he had neither the
talents, nor the education, nor the personal character otherwise to
have obtained. He was now a widower, with one son in his eighteenth
year, Duncan Powell, whom he destined for the army, if the
efforts he was now making to get him into West Point should
turn out successful.
Not far from Kirkwood, stood the less pretending dwelling of the
widow of an American captain of horse, who fell at Plattsburg.
The house was a plain two-story structure, painted straw color,
and was separated from the highway only by a narrow yard, half
vegetable, half-flower garden. Before it slept the cove, from which
we have seen the boat issue, and opposite, obliquely across the river,
towered the majestic head of old Cro'nest, the monarch of the Highlands.
The widow's only support was a small pension, and her life,
though humble and one of poverty, was yet peaceful. She had an
only son, about the age of Duncan Powell, of whom she was proud,
and whom she indulged in all his whims, with a fond and doting
mother's weakness. The two young men, though so opposite in
fortune, had managed to get very intimate; for Duncan found Paul
Tatnall a fearless and willing companion in all the hardy sports of
hill and water, they were both partial to. The heir was a handsome,
high-spirited youth, fearless and imperative in his character,
with the dark eye and raven locks of a Castilian. He was ambitious
of distinction in fashionable life; and, unfortunately, he had
already early manifested the elements of dissipation in his character,
in a love of gambling and of convivial pleasures. His father
was close and avaricious. Kirkwood had fallen into his hands not
by purchase, but by a mortage which he was obliged to foreclose;
and not being able to sell it, he removed into it from an old house
in the opposite suburbs of Newberg. Too parsimonious to repair
the ravages of time and neglect, he suffered its grounds to run to
underbrush, its lawn to be disfigured with weeds and look desolate,
with tumble-down fences, and half of the shutters to hang dilapidated
from the windows; content, so he had the name of owning Kirkwood,
with his son and housekeeper to inhabit one wing of the once noble
mansion-house. The education of Duncan was partly obtained at
the neighboring academies, from one to the other of which, his
saving father changed him till he could find which was the cheapest;
it was therefore miscellaneous, crude, and superficial; while his
morals were by no means improved by his varied opportunities.
He had now been at home several months, spending his time hunting,
fishing, boating, and riding, waiting for admission to West
Point; not that he particularly aspired to military eminence, but he
desired, in addition to the great wealth he would inherit, the eclat
of a military designation; his intention being to resign from the
army when he should have obtained his lieutenancy, and then live
the gay life of pleasure he often loved to picture to himself.
Paul Tatnall was a pale young man, slight in make and undersized
in height, but of great personal activity and muscular power.
His keen blue eye and firm mouth—the lips, delicate to effeminancy—
betrayed the possession of a quick, fiery spirit, that would
do and dare! He was intelligent and better educated than Powell —
for his mother had been his instructor. The retirement in which he
lived with his mother, to whom he was devoted, as well as his scantiness
on account of his extreme poverty, had kept him from making
acquaintances in the neighboring village. He was the companion
of Duncan Powell only, therefore; who, from the accident of his
being his nearest neighbor, rather than from any congeniality of
temper between the two, daily associated with him in fishing, gunning,
and other hardy sports of a country life. They had first met
four years before, a few days after Mr. Powell had removed to Kirkwood,
when Duncan had taken his gun and ascended the cliff in
pursuit of a hawk that had carried off a pet rabbit from the yard,
and which he had seen alight upon its nest, in the crotch of an old
tree, halfway up the mountain. He had gained the foot of the pine,
and was standing at a dizzy height, on a narrow ledge of the cliff,
with his aim covering the bird, and was just drawing the trigger,
when he saw a lad spring from a spur of the rock, forty feet above
his head, boldly into the nest, and seize the hawk by the neck.
The distance so daringly leaped was full ten feet, and the huge tree
trembled to its iron-bound roots with the shock, while the gun,
which he had instantly depressed in his surprise, went off, discharging
its contents into the dimpled river below him.
The stranger lad was scarcely fourteen, and slight and delicate;
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and he soon found that his strength was not equal to his fearless
courage. For a few moments Dunean beheld them engage in a
fierce struggle, when, obeying the natural gallantry of his spirit, he
threw down his gun, and shouting to him to `hold out,' he began to
climb the tree to his assistance. Before, however, he had got half
way up, he heard the hawk descending, rushing and fluttering downward
past his head; and the next moment, dashing from rock to
rock, he saw him plunge into the gulf beneath, while the heroic
victor, shouting aloud, held up the rescued rabbit in triumph. In
another moment, Duncan was by the hold boy's side.
`Is Tom hurt?' he first inquired, in boyish anxiety, for his favorite.
`He has a deep gash in the neck, and another in his flank, but his
eye looks lively,' answered the other, promptly.
`Poor Tom!' said Duncan, caressing the trembling animal. `But
you did for the blasted bird! How did you master him? I thought
one time you would both go tumbling down the cliff!'
`I thrust my knife into his brain,' answered the boy, resolutely,
and exhibiting a small penknife smeared with blood.
Duncan gazed upon the slight form of the boy with admiration,
and instantly took his hand.
`Let us be friends. Who are you?'
`My name is Paul Tatnall,' said he, hesitatingly, and receiving
the grasp rather than giving his hand.
`Did you see the hawk bearing off Tom?'
`I was in the defile there when I discovered him making for his
nest. I knew the way to it by the back of the cliff, and I got here
soon after he alighted.'
`It was a daring leap,' said Duncan, measuring the distance between
them and the rock, and then fathoming with his dizzy eye
the depth below.
`Not for a firm foot and steady eye,' he replied quietly, smiling.
`One moment later, and you would have got the charge of my
gun. Poor Tom! how he whines! Let us go down. You must
go with me to Kirkwood. We are to be friends.'
`Are you the son of the rich Mr. Powell?'
`Yes.'
`Then we can never be friends. I am poor.'
`What has it to do with boys what our parents are? I am going
after plover tomorrow. Do you know where I can find plenty of
game?'
`Yes, I will go with you,' answered Paul, with animation.
This matter being settled, the two lads descended the pine, and
were soon at the foot of the cliff on their way to Kirkwood. From
this day they were much together; but Paul rather endured than
encouraged Duncan's friendship: for he was poor, and, like most
poor boys of education, proud, sensitive, and reserved in associating
with the rich. He was always fearing some occasion would
transpire, when Duncan would make him feel his inferiority of
fortune; and was jealously on the watch for it. Duncan at length
favored him; for, with all his boyish independence, he could not
help assuming a little upon his higher position. So one day, having
killed a brace of pigeons, flying, which fell into the water, he called
rather peremptorily to Paul to wade in and bring them out.
Paul, who was walking before him, with his gun upon his arm,
and his game-bag slung across his shoulders well filled with birds,
instantly turned round and answered fiercely — fiercely for one with
his mild, blue-eyed, and hale countenance,—
`Fetch your own birds, Duncan Powell.'
`What is the matter now, Paul?' asked Duncan, with a flashing
eye.
`That I am not to be your water-dog. You would not have bade
me bring out those birds if I had been a rich man's son.'
`Folly! I asked you because you were nearer to them.'
`It was because I was poor — and you thought you could lord it
over me.'
`Then, to tell the truth, I did, Paul!' said Duncan, speaking
slowly and determinedly. `And now, as you are so quick to comprehend,
you shall obey.'
`I obey, Duncan Powell?' repeated Paul, springing towards him,
with a cheek as colorless as marble.
`Yes. You shall bring out those birds and lay them at my feet,'
answered the other, in the same determined tone.
`We will see who is the best able to enforce his commands,' muttered
Paul, laying down his gun, and unbuckling his game-bag.
`Now, if you can whip me I will bring the birds ashore; but, if I
whip you, you shall go into the water and get them, and give them
to me.'
`Done,' said Duncan, smiling proudly, as he laid his gun and bag
upon a rock beside him.
In a few seconds both were stripped to the encounter. Duncan
was four inches taller than his antagonist, broader and fuller across
the chest, and much heavier in weight, Paul being slight built, but
remarkable for nervous activity. Duncan struck the first blow, and,
confident of victory, incautiously laid himself open. The accuracy
and rapidity of Paul's blows, however, taught him greater caution.
He had been accounted a notable boxer, at school; but he soon found
he was inferior to his antagonist, who, the fifth round, laid him
senseless upon the sward.
`He has got a lesson now — and henceforth I am willing to take
his friendship, and be quits with him,' said Paul, as he hastened to
the river-side to fill his hunting flask with water, for the purpose of
restoring him. Kneeling beside him, he bathed his temples till he
revived, and then assisted him to his feet.
`You have fairly beat, Paul,' said Duncan, smiling as well as he
could for a half-closed eye and a thick upper lip, `and the birds are
yours.'
The tide, by this time, had driven them in within reach of his
ramrod, with which he drew them to land; and taking them up he
gave them to Paul.
`Now, Paul, we understand one another better than before,' he
said, cheerfully. `Here's my hand.'
They grasped each other's hands, so lately dealing, in the shape
of squared fists, terrible blows upon one another's marred visages,
and then resuming their jackets and hunting appurtenances, walked
homeward, better and more confidential friends, than they had ever
yet been, though eighteen months had now elapsed, since their first
meeting at the hawk's nest.
From this time, up to the evening of the opening of our story,
nothing occurred to mar the harmony of their companionship. The
widow occasionally had cautioned her son, against too close intimacy
with one, about whose character rumor had certain stories
circulating; such, for instance, as nocturnal visits to an old deserted
house, at Buttermilk Falls, on the opposite side of the river, to
revel with dissipated cadets. Paul, however, defended his friend
with a blush, for he himself was not innocent of participation in
the nocturnœ, at the old ruin at the Falls. Alas! having weakly
yielded once, to Powell's solicitations to accompany him on one
occasion, he had afterwards engaged in these orgies voluntarily, to
the peril of that simplicity, integrity, and moral rectitude of character,
which his mother had inculcated in all her lessons, both of the
heart and of the book. In a word, Paul's intimacy with Duncan
Powell, had early initiated him into the first steps of dissipation;
and, by bringing him into the social circle of young men, whom his
humble condition would prevent him from afterwards associating
with, inspired him with ideas above himself and his circumstances,
which would prevent him from engaging, with proper feelings, in
the pursuit for which his mother designed him. This was that of
a printer! She had in New York a brother, who was an extensive
job printer, with whom she had long intended to place him, his uncle
having signified, in reply to a letter which she had written to him
three years before upon the subject, his willingness to take him.
But spring followed winter, and autumn summer, and year after
year went by, and yet the lone widow could not make up her mind
to spare her only stay; and so she put off the evil day of separation,
till he had now reached his eighteenth year. The danger he incurred,
from his intimacy with the rich, dissolute heir of Kirkwood,
and the necessity of his acquiring some trade, now rendered it
imperative upon her, to see that, without further delay, he was sent
to his uncle. She had signified her wish to him, the day on which
our tale opens; and, as her wish to him had the authority of a law, he
cheerfully expressed his willingness to obey her; for he had long
been looking forward to the period when this would be his destiny.
Like many weak-minded young men, he had no silly and erroneous
notions about `respectability,' thinking it would be any more genteel
and reputable for him, to enter life behind a counter, than at
the `form,' in a printing office. His mother was a pious, sensible,
and highly intellectual woman, and had carefully educated him to
the condition in which she felt he must live. So there was no sense
of shame felt by him, at the idea of being placed with a printer,
instead of being put in a store. It is true, if he could have had his
wish, he would have been glad to have entered college; for study, to
his inquiring and intellectual mind, was a pleasure which he felt to
be superior to every other earthly gratification.
Next to the sad idea of separation from his beloved mother, was
the thought of another and tenderer parting! On the banks of the
Hudson, a mile above his own dwelling, stood, upon a romantic
headland, a stone cottage, with a lawn sweeping down to the water,
and studded with beach and oak trees; while pinnacles of rocks, in
the background, rose high above the grove, in striking and picturesque
grandeur. The occupant of this water-bound villa, was a
Mr. Miles Ogilvie; but, save that his name indicated Scotland as
his native country, no one knew whence he came, nor any chapter of
his life's history. The gothic cottage had been constructed a year
or two before, by a rich young man of eccentric habits, belonging
to New York, who no sooner completed it than he tired of it, and
parted with it to pursue some other hobby. It was in the shape of
a quadrangle, with a fantastic turret at three of the angles, and a
high circular tower at the fourth, the ruins of which, now existing,
are all that indicate the position of this once massive gothic villa.
It had been sold at auction in New York, about four months before
the commencement of our story, and Mr. Ogilvie became the purchaser,
paying for it in ready money. In a few days he took possession
of it, having furnished it in a rich style, with a good deal of old
fashioned family furniture. He went little abroad and few knew him;
those who did, described him as a tall, grave-visaged man, gentlemanly
in his address, but taciturn.' He had an only daughter, who,
with an elderly aunt, constituted his household. Those who had
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seen the daughter, represented her as a very lovely, Italian-looking
maiden, of sixteen, who could ride well, could fish with great skill,
and delighted to row herself about an embayed segment of the river,
before the house, in a light, green-painted boat, which bore the name
of `Gazelle,' in gilt letters, on each bow. They had been the occupants
of Rock Hall about a month, when Paul Tatnall, returning
from a gunning expedition, on the opposite shore, in a small skiff,
seeing a female rowing a light boat quite out in the mid-river, suspected
it to be the daughter of Mr. Ogilvie, and prompted by curiosity
to get a view of her, he pulled higher up, so as to pass near her.
At intervals she would cease rowing, to gaze upon the grand scene
around her. The sun was just setting behind the curtain of a summer's
thunder-cloud, which it dyed to purple, and the mountains
wore helmets of gold; while the river, reflecting the glory of the
skies, and the green hillsides, looked like an element of fused and
mingled gold, emerald, and amethyst. The shadows of the mountains
were so startingly defined, in the gulf beneath, that the eye
seemed to penetrate the earth's foundations. Barks of every size,
and in every position, were suspended amid the scene, appearing
rather in air, than in water. All was still, and gorgeous, and sublime!
Suddenly the evening gun, from the Post, far below, in the
bosom of the Highlands, awoke the echoes of the mountains, and
came onward, rolling and thundering, and reverberating, as cliff
answered to cliff, till the whole heavens were rattling with artillery.
Paul instinctively ceased rowing, to listen to the sublime echoes of
the hills, till, lessening in the distance, the sounds died away in the
defiles, far to the north.
He saw the young girl clap her hands together in wild admiration,
and heard her voice as she exclaimed,
`How grand and beautiful!'
Scarcely had she-spoken when a loud peal of thunder, from a
dark cloud rising above Cro'nest, shook the skies, and instantly a
shadow passed over the water chasing its golden dyes before an
advancing hue of steel. The young girl caught her oars and pulled
rapidly for the land; and like a gazelle, fleeing from the hunter over
its native fields, the little bark bounded landward over the dancing
waves. In a few moments, with that suddenness with which
storms come down upon the Hudson from the Highlands, a strong
wind swept through the gorges and whitened the water with foam.
The fleet of vessels, which a moment before were laying so idly,
`Like painted ships upon a painted ocean,'
now bent low beneath lessening sails to the blast, and ploughed
madly through the water like a herd of snowy steeds, surprised on
their native plains and flying from danger.
Paul was, as it were, cradled upon the Hudson, a child of the
Highlands, and was familiar with the squalls that characterized its
waters. He had been out in them at their fiercest height, and knew
that his boat would ride in safety over their wildest waves. But
his anxiety was instantly aroused for the safety of the `gazelle' and
its fair oarswoman; for he had seen, though distant from her, that
she was very beautiful, and his ears had drunk in the sweetness of
one of the most mellow voices, he thought, woman had ever modulated.
He cast his eyes through the gathering gloom of night and of
the storm in the direction of her boat, and saw that it was already
tossed like a feather upon the lashing waves, while with a stout
heart she bent her light form to the slender oars and sent it landward
on its fearful course.
The cloud unrolled like a black scroll above their heads, till it
stretched from mountain top to mountain top, hanging like a pall
above the river. As yet no rain had fallen; but the lightning
flashed at intervals across the scene and the deep-mouthed thunder
found a voice louder than the mockery of man's artillery, appalling
the soul with the terrible power and majesty of its sound.
The maiden's bark was yet full a third of a mile from the headland
of Rock Hall, which was the nearest shore.
`She is a noble and fearless girl,' said Paul, `but she can never
reach the shore alone, nor will her frail skiff ontride this storm,
which has not yet given us half its force. I will at least be near
her to offer her my assistance!'
Thus speaking he stooped strongly to his oars and sent his boat
forward over the snow-crested waves, which at every bound dashed
their spray high above his head. He was full three hundred yards
distant, and as she was swiftly receding he found it was a race.
Gradually he gained upon her and at length came so near that he
could see the expression of her face, calm and determined, yet pale
as death! She saw him as he turned in rowing to look, smiled,
waved her hand in challenge, and then bounded onward, her dark
locks streaming in the hurricane.
`The fearless girl! She is not a bit frightened!' said Paul, half
vexed, and he almost wished the storm would increase, that he
might give her his assistance. As it was he could only pull along
about twenty yards astern of her and do his best to keep his distance
good. While he was indulging in a little freak of moodiness at not
being able to offer his services to her, and was pulling along, gaining
nearer, for she now seemed to slacken her exertions, as if not unwilling
in such an hour to have company, he was startled by a
shriek, mingled with the hoarse warning of a seaman's voice, and the
loud cry of `Hard—hard a port!'
Looking quickly round, for his back in rowing had been towards
the course he was going, he saw a large schooner rushing past and
bearing down close upon the boat before him. The young girl had
dropped both of her oars in her terror, and was standing up in the
wildly tossing boat, stretching her arms imploringly towards the
vessel, from the fatal course of which she was too much paralyzed
to escape. When Paul discovered the schooner, her bows were
within ten feet, of the `gazelle,' and she was going with such rapidity
through the water, that the order `to port' could not be obeyed.
`Catch at, the martingale for your life!' shouted the Skipper,
leaning over the head-boards.
She made an effort to catch the rope, touched it with one hand,
and, the next instant, the stern of the schooner struck, and capsized
the boat and plunged it underneath her keel, throwing her into the
foaming water. She had scarcely touched the surface, ere Paul
caught her by the hand and drew her into his boat, while the vessel
coming up to the wind lay to, and the skipper prepared to lower
a boat.
`Hold on to your tackle! my boat is quite safe,' called out Paul,
amid the whistling of the storm, too proud of his privilege of saving
his fair charge, to share it, even at the risk of both of their lives,
with others.
`It was her own fault,' muttered the mariner,' and girls have no
business to be out in a boat among the Highlands. Stand in shore
soon, my lad, for the rain that's coming will swamp you.'
`Never fear,' answered Paul, as the schooner tacked, and stood
towards the opposite shore. `Were you hurt, Miss?'
`No — but terribly frightened,' she said, shaking the water from
her cloud of dark tresses, and smiling, though still with a pale
cheek. `You have saved my life — for I should have drowned before
they could have got a boat down to my rescue.'
Paul expressed his happiness, at being instrumental in saving her
from such imminent peril, and then seating her in the, stern, and
throwing his jacket over her shoulders, he bent heartily to his oars,
and after half an hour's dangerous pull, amid a driving rain, dashing
billows, and darkness illumined only by flashes of lightning, he
reached the shelter of the headland, where lanterns guided him to
the landing-place. During the row, neither spake; the young
girl being still too much under the impression of her recent escape
from death to break the silence, and Paul too solicitous for gaining
the shore to think of conversation.
`My daughter!' cried, in accents of thrilling emotion, a voice from
the land, as the lights fell upon the boat, and her figure, relieved
against the darkness, stood conspicuous in the boat.
She sprang on shore, and was clasped in her father's arms, who
chided while he folded her to his heart.
`This is your last boating, Kate,' he said, severely, yet not unkindly.
`I fear it is, for poor `gazelle' has swamped,' she replied. `But
for this young gentleman, I should have been lost.'
Mr Ogilvie bent his eyes upon Paul, who was engaged in securing
his boat, intending to walk round by road homeward, and after
a moment's scruting said,
`Young man, accept my warmest thanks for the service done me
and mine; but your reward will lie in your own breast! To save a
human life is, in my opinion, the greatest privilege heaven can confer
upon a man!'
This was spoken in such a peculiar depth of voice and earnestness
of tone, that Paul started, while his daughter said, in a voice
which he overheard,
`Nay, dear father — beware, or you will betray what you would
most conceal.'
`You are right, my daughter,' he replied, in a sad voice. `Come,
sir; for this night you must share our hospitality.'
But Paul modestly declined. saying his mother lived nearly a
mile below, and would be anxious for his safety; and bidding them
`good night,' he was leaving them, when the young girl left her
father's side, and laid her hand upon his shoulder.
`You will come and see me tomorrow.'
The words though few, and low-spoken, had a strange effect upon
him. With a blushing brow he answered with embarrassment,
that he should come in the morning for his boat.
`I will then see you — for we must not part thus. Good night!'
And she pressed his hand within her own.
His pulse bounded wildly, at the touch; and that sweet `good
night,' echoed in his heart as he went on his way homeward, like
the lingering cadences of music, heard in dreams, and which on
awaking we would fain recall. The ensuing morning Paul returned
for his boat, and was met in the path to the river side by Catharine
Ogilvie! — But we will not linger, to describe the gradual progress
of their intimacy. Day after day passed swiftly, and the twilight
of each found Paul at Rock Hall, enjoying stolen interviews with
its fascinating young mistress, — stolen, because her father, noticing
his visits, and fearning be was the widow's son, forbade her to see
him again. But such an injunction is only incentive to disobedience
in the minds of some girls, and if certainly did not fail, in its usual
results, in this instance. Kate did not love — but liked his society;
and the novelty of having a lover, was zest to her wild character,
for Paul did not disguise his ardent attachment to her. Hitherto his
mother, nor Duncan, knew of his acquaintance with her; for, with
the shrinking sensitiveness of a first attachment, he had withheld
from them his acquaintance with the lovely dark-eyed daughter of
Rock Hall. But it is now time to turn from these reminiscences of
our heroes and heroine, to follow the little boat, with its single oarsman,
the departure of which from the cove, opened both our story,
and this chapter.
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CHAPTER II.
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The occupant of the boat, we need not say, was Paul Tatnall.
That afternoon he had signified to his mother his willingness to go
to New York and put himself under the charge of his uncle. He
was now on his way to make his farewell visit to the fascinating
Kate Ogilvie, whose charms, lively spirits, and bewitching sauciness,
had quite run away with his head as well as ensnared his
heart. But, like the moth, (to make use of an entirely new similie.)
he fluttered bewildered about the brilliant light of her beauty, heedless
of danger. With a heart sad at the idea of parting from her,
from his beloved parent, from the sublime scenes amid which he
was nartured, he pulled along the shore towards the well known
trysting-place, where he had so often, during the last three months,
stolen after twilight in his light skiff.
About the time he left the cove on his way to Rock Hall, Duncan
Powell, returning from an afternoon's shooting after plover, was
riding at a dashing pace along the low-browed cliff that skirted the
shore, when, in descending a slight declivity of the narrow path-way,
he was surprised at seeing before him a young girl leaning
over the cliff, and looking down the river in an attitude of expectation.
He was close upon her ere he discovered her, and instantly
saw he could not pass her; while, to check his horse, at the headlong
rate he was plunging down the descent, was impossible. She
herself saw her danger, and, terrified at her imminent peril, sunk
paralyzed upon her knees, and with clasped hands awaited the fate
which seemed inevitable. There was no time for thought—scarcely
for action! The flying rider cast a single look at the kneeling
girl, and then glancing into the deep river, which lay like a dark
pool eighteen feet below, he wheeled short round within four feet
of her, buried his spurs deep, and leaped clear of the precipice! A
wild shriek from her, of mingled joy and horror, rose above the terrific
plunge of horse and rider as they descended into the dark wave
below!
`God be thanked!' exclaimed the bold youth as he rose to the
surface seated upon his saddle; `God be thanked! She is safe, and
Deerfoot and I are none the worse!'
Kate Ogilvie, whose fair limbs had so gallantly been rescued
from being trampled into the earth beneath the horse's hoofs, instantly
recovered her self-possession, and thanking him with a full
heart as she leant over the cliff, pointed out to him a spot where he
could land. She was at the point as soon as he was, and caught
his noble horse by the bit as he came ashore, and held him till Duncan,
by springing upon a rock, relieved him of his weight, while he
was still floundering saddle deep.
`It was a lucky escape for you, Miss — Ogilvie — I believe,' he
added, touching his hat.
`I owe you my life, generous sir!' she said, in a voice warm
with feeling. `I cannot too much admire the gallant heroism that
led you to risk your own life to save that of a stranger!'
`Not a stranger now,' he responded, smiling. `You were indeed
in great peril! I knew the path well, for I canter it almost
daily; and as soon as I saw you, in the narrowest part too, I felt
you must be rode down, well knowing there was not three feet
where you stood between the cliff on one side and the precipice
below. You have made a lucky escape.'
`It was a fearful leap,' she said, shuddering at recalling the terrific
plunge.
`I would have taken it on a wager, properly mounted for it,'
he answered, carelessly; `but, as it was, it was full sudden, and I
came off better than I might have done. Shall I see you home!'
`No — that is — pardon me! No one will be more welcome to
Rock Hall; but —
`You are not going that way! I saw you were watching the river.'
`No,' she said, laughing and hesitating; `but I thought you
might need a change of clothes, and it would be a pity for you to
leave your noble horse to stand shivering here, his blood heated, to
escort a foolish girl home, who, if she had been there now, would
have saved you both this unlucky bath.'
`I shall esteem your having rambled so far, and my encounter
with you, the happiest occurrence of my life. Perhaps you are
right about Deerfoot, and a dripping escort would scarcely be endurable.
To-morrow permit me to pay my respects to you. Good
night, then, if you prefer seeking Rock Hall alone!'
`Good night, Mr. Powell,' she said, naively.
`How! do you know me?' he inquired, reining in after he had
mounted and ridden away a short distance.
`Then I am right, hey? I only guessed it. I shall look for you
to-morrow! in the mean while take with you my warmest gratitude
for the service you have done me to-night.'
Duncan lightly touched his finger ends to his lip, and waving her
his adieu, galloped off at the speed he had been riding when he met
her upon the cliff.
Paul, who had been for some time listening to the clatter of
horse's hoofs along the horseman's path, above the low cliff that
lined the inlet, heard the sudden roar and plunge of Duncan Powell's
leap, with a surprise that made his heart bound with fear.
The sound of the heavy plash echoed along the wood-clad hills, and
filled him with amazement. He thought, too, he heard a scream
mingled with the loud noise; and with the idea of danger to Catharine
Powell, he pulled hard in the direction of the sound, his boat
already feeling the motion of the circling waves which is caused
by the submersion of some huge body in the water. It came from
near the spot where Kate usually awaited him, and his solicitude
gave him new vigor, to propel his boat onward toward the place.
To his surprise and delight, Catharine was expecting him at the
foot of the path leading through the wood to the Hall, and met him
with a quiet demeanor singularly in contrast with his perturbed
manner.
`So you are come, loiterer,' said she, in a tone half of reproof, half
of welcome; `why, what is the matter?' she asked, quietly, as he
sprung from his boat at the precise spot where Duncan had come
ashore, marked by a noble elm tree, that spread above and far-reaching
over the water, and by a few yards of curving sandy beach.
`What was that fearful noise, Miss Catharine?' he inquired,
looking around perplexed, and then scanning her face, which, so far
as the twilight would let him see it, was `calm as a summer's
morning.'
`Horses learning to swim!'
`Why, what do you mean?' he asked, laughing at the idea as
well as at the gravity with which she spoke.
`I saw a horse jump from the rocks into the water awhile ago;
I dare say in imitation of the exploits of schoolboys. Was that
what you meant, Paul?'
`It might have been; but it is very odd! What became of him?
Did he drown? But you are jesting.'
`Indeed, I am not. He swam ashore here; you can see how wet
the stones and grass are! and then he galloped off.'
`I did hear a horse clattering along the cliff. He must have
fallen off. It must have been Duncan's. What color was he?'
`He might have been bay; but he looked glossy black as he came
dripping out of the river. How inquisitive you are! I should'nt
wonder if you should ask me next if there was a young man upon
his back!'
Paul remained a moment puzzled how to receive her words, and
wondering in the depths of his heart if there were not a young man
on his back; for jealousy is ever ready to light upon the young
heart; when, as if divining his thoughts, she said, playfully,—
`Come, let us walk, Paul!' and placing her arm within his,
they took their way slowly along the avenue.
`What a lovely night,' said Paul, lingering to gaze upon the
starry river, and the dark mountains, and the deep blue heavens!
`Do you know, Catharine, I feel unusually sad to-night?'
`This is no time to be dull; but yet methinks you have been
wofully melancholy of late! We are too much together, and you
tire of me!' she said, archly.
`No — but —'
`But — but! Well, you are dull, Paul. By the by, do you know,
this young Mr. Powell?'
`Duncan Powell! We have been intimate some years; but of
late we seldom meet.'
`I am told he is handsome, rich, and —'
`Have you seen him?'
`Don't frighten me, by speaking so sharp!'
`I am sorry.'
`Then keep so. Tell me his character.'
`He is my friend,' answered Paul, hesitatingly.
`Then you should know it better. I will catechise you. Is he rich?'
`His father is, and he is an only son.'
`Is he good-natured?'
`Yes; generous and kindly disposed.'
`Something wild, if not dissipated?'
`I fear so. But you know him?'
`No more of him than I do of that horse that jumped off the
cliff; so do not be jealous. Has he any lady-love?'
`None that I am aware of — unless —'
`Well, do not stammer!'
`Unless he has seen you.'
`And do you think he would fall in love with me, Paul?' she
asked, with a manner something between consciousness of power
and a desire to learn his opinion.
`Most certainly; but —'
`What a hesitating youth! But what?'
`He is a dangerous young man.'
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`I should like him the better! Do you know we like to show
our power by breaking them in.'
`You are a riddle, Miss Ogilvie,' said Paul, with a painful smile.
`I have been laying the richest treasures of my heart all at your
feet, and I begin to question whether you value them half so much
as I regard your most transient smile!'
`Poor Paul! Nay, do not leave me! I did not mean to convey
offence! Forgive me, if I have woulded your feelings. I owe too
much to you; and so long as my memory retains the fearful scene
of that night upon the river, my heart will throb with gratitude
towards you!'
`Gratitude! this is cold! I would rather you would say you
despised me than to be ever thus talking of gratitude!'
`Why, what would the boy?'
`Your love!' and the impassioned youth knelt at her feet.
`Love!' she repeated, in a voice of such thrilling agony that he
started to his feet! Her hand trembled like an aspen leaf as he
stood by her in wonder and alarm, and he felt the hot tears of some
intense passion dropping upon his hand. The next moment, with
the suddenness of a sunbeam darting through an April cloud, she
said, in a laughing voice,—
`Do not look so serious, Paul! I have not thought of love!'
`Nay, you have in every look and tone confessed it!' he said,
gently. `Last night you permitted me —'
`Let last night pass,' she said, quickly. `I have let you grow
too intimate, I see. I am sorry that my companionship with you,
which I have cherished out of gratitude, and merely to pass time
in these lonely Highlands, should have led you to think of such a
grave matter as love! If you had not thought of that, we might
have yet had many hours of boating, fishing, and rambling together!
But I fear, Paul, we shall have to dissolve copartnercy, unless
you keep at a respectful distance.'
Paul was about to retort by charging her with trifling with his
feelings; but, reflecting that she had not in reality given him more
encouragement than she had confessed, he replied, with suppressed
indignation and grief,—
`I shall be by to-morrow night, I trust, far enough from you. In
the morning I leave for New York, and now have come to bid you
farewell. I am glad, however, before going, to have had this occasion
of learning your true sentiments in reference to me. Now,
Miss Ogilvie, I bid you good night and good bye!'
`Paul!'
Low and sweet was the tone in which she pronounced his name,
while her hand was gently placed upon his wrist. His heart was
nearly bursting with his emotion, for he was as deeply in love as a
boy of eighteen could be, and it was pitiful to have all his bright,
warm hopes at once crushed, and so unfeelingly too! His pride
would have led him to stride away; but his lingering love for the
cruel maiden caused him to linger. `Are you really going away?'
He was of a mind not to answer her; but he found he could not
resist the low soft voice at his side, and, choking his feelings, answered,
coldly,—
`Yes, Miss Ogilvie.'
`Then I am sorry I have hurt you. But it is perhaps best you
should go, Paul. Do you know if I could love any one it would
be you — I think — but I have not thought of it! I have loved
your society, and I like you.'
`But then —'
`Don't say one word, dear Paul, but listen to me! You saved
me from drowning, and gratitude —'
`Eternal gratitude!'
`Listen now! Gratitude led me to repay you by kindness of
manner! You came once, twice, thrice, and each time I found I
liked you better and better, and you seemed to prefer my society,
and this flattered me. After my father interdicted our acquaintance
I yielded to your urgent solicitations to meet you here by
stealth, till, on your side, great mischief has come of it!'
`And were you not to blame, cruel —'
`Don't call any hard names, Paul. It is true I encouraged your
devotion, but I did not dream it would end in a declaration of love!'
Paul held his head down, and looked both mortified and angry.
He was about to speak, when she continued,—
`Now, suppose I had fallen in love with you in turn, how absurd
it would be on both sides! I am but sixteen, you a boy but
eighteen; and, worse still, we are perfect strangers to one another!'
`Strangers!'
`Certainly. I know your name is Paul Tatnall, because you told
me so; and you call me Catharine, and when you are in good humor,
Kate Ogilvie; but you know nothing further of me or my family; and
I only know from your lips that you are the only son of a poor widow.
Ignorant of each other's position in society, condition, or circumstances,
your own good sense, Paul, to speak seriously, will
show you the absurdity of our exchanging lovers' vows. I esteem
you too much to let you love me! I am wiser than you are!'
`Say colder and hard-hearted!' answered Paul, bitterly. `But
what you say is perhaps true! You know nothing of me, but that
I am the son of a poor widow, and this should in itself be sentence
of condemnation against me!'
`There is your proud sensitiveness uppermost again! I think
nothing of your condition, though seriously I should not willingly
marry beneath myself!'
`It is because you esteem me so that you thus scorn me!'
`No. Do you know certainly that I am not even beneath your own condition?' she said, with sudden earnestness. `You do not
know me, or my father, or my race! Dare you say — think before
you speak! — dare you say that you will go hence to-night, and
earn name and fortune in the world, and come back and wed her to
whom now you would swear your troth? Dare you kneel before
me, as just now you did, and solemnly pledge your love to me in
return for mine, without asking of me more of myself than you this
moment know? Dare you do this? Answer me!'
She waited in silence for his reply. Through an opening in the
woodland the light of the sky fell upon her features, which were
pale and excited. Her strange, mysterious words had made him
shrink with fear; and, as she ceased, he unconsciously withdrew a
step backward from her! Fear, he knew not wherefore, had taken
the place of love, and he trembled as if he had escaped some great
moral peril.
`You are silent, Paul!' she said, in her natural manner, while
she smiled at his hesitation.
`Because I know not how or what to reply,' articulated he, in an
agitated voice.
`The question is simple.'
`No,' he at length faintly answered, after a painful struggle.
`Then do not blame me!' she said, calmly. `There is my hand.
We part friends! We shall yet meet friends, I trust! You are to
seek a path to usefulness and distinction. Perhaps, ere the love
you have idly thrown away upon my obdurate heart, is again awakened
by a fairer and more deserving object, we may meet. Good
night, and God bless you, Paul!'
She turned away from him with emotion. He approached her,
and detaining her, said, in a voice trembling with emotion,—
`Tell me, strange, mysterious creature, does there exist any obstacle
to your returning my attachment if it should survive — as
surely it will — the years of boyhood? Answer me, dearest Catharine,
for my happiness, my hopes for success in life, depend upon
your reply!'
`Paul, I can add nothing to what I have already said,' she answered
with feeling, yet with evident impatience.
`You are unhappy from some secret cause,' he ventured to say,
in a sympathising tone.
`Do not, then, add to my sorrows by seeking to penetrate their
hidden source!'
`May I hope?'
`What?' she asked, sharply.
`That when in manhood I return I may find you less —'
`Of the future, Paul, I know nothing. Forget me if you wish to
be happy.'
`I will, to obey you,' he replied between sorrow and anger.
`Farewell!'
`Good night! If aught has transpired unpleasant to you, it was
your own imprudence in mistaking a frank maiden's and somewhat
free bearing for what should not have been suffered to hold a place
in your thoughts. This is not the first time love hath overshot
the butt, wounding friendship beyond.'
`Miss Ogilvie,' cried Paul with passionate energy, catching her
hand and holding it between both his, `I feel myself bewildered,
amazed! I know not whether to be most grieved or angry. I am
perplexed by your character, puzzled by your language, and, to
speak truly, do not know what to make of you! Shall I worship
or despise you?'
`It is better you should despise than love me,' she answered, in a
low tone of feeling.
`Love you I must while the pulse of life throbs in my bosom. If
we must part, Heaven bless you! For, though your words are dark
and significant of guilt, I shall ever feel that you are worthy of the
heart I have laid at your feet.'
`Generous Paul! you but do me justice! There is guilt — guilt,
that forbids —'
Here she stopped, suddenly embarrassed, as if she had said too
much, hastily grasped his hand, and the next moment was out of
sight in the distant gloom of the avenue.
`And thus we part,' said Paul, when he could see her no longer.
`What fearful mystery hangs over her destiny? I am at least its
victim!' He pressed his hands upon his brow, tears trickled
through his fingers, and his heart struggled with the depth of his
emotion! A secret consciousness that she loved him shed a ray
of hope into his breast, and, recovering his manliness, he gathered
a leaf from the tree beneath which she had stood, and, pressing it
to his lips, placed it in his bosom as a memento of their parting,
and then with a heavy heart slowly returned to his boat.
Catharine Ogilvie stayed her flight on a swell of the lawn, and
listened to the quick dip of his oars dying fainter and fainter in the
distance, till the low sounds which held the last link that united
him to her ceased, severing them — but not forever!
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CHAPTER III.
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The ensuing morning, Duncan Powell took his way on foot by
a path through the wood from Kirkwood to Rock Hall. The
beauty of Kate had made an impression upon his imagination, and
he inwardly resolved to make himself quite intimate at the gothic
cottage. The path which he followed crossed the post road, and,
as he entered it, he saw Paul Tatnall approaching with a large
bundle slung to a stick, and walking at a long tranching pace.
`Whither away now, Paul?' he said, as they met in the road.
`To New York,' he answered, moodily.
`Without saying good-bye? You are coming back again?'
`No — I hope not. But don't detain me. I am hastening to the
Fishkill landing, to take the steamboat when she comes down.'
`You are not in a very pleasant humor. Has any thing happened
at home, that you are making off in this guize?'
`No. I am going to live with my uncle, the printer. It is time
for a penniless boy like me to do something. Good morning.'
`Paul, I am sorry you are going,' said Duncan, with feeling, and
taking his hand, `I wish my old cove up there would launch out
some of his gold, and I would not let you go without a proof of my
friendship.'
`I have some money which my mother gave me with her blessing.
You are very kind, Duncan. I am in hopes I shall do well
in the city.'
`I promise to come and see you when I go down. But I have
news too! I am to be admitted to West Point this fall term.
I ought to have passed examination two weeks ago, but the letter
from the Secretary of War only arrived last night; but there is yet
time for me to be admitted. So I shan't miss you so much.
I wish you were to be one of us. Don't forget Butterwick Falls!'
`No,' said Paul, seconding the wish in his heart. `You are fortunate,
Powell.'
`Yes, and more than in one way! Do you know I discovered a
prize last night? I shall have something to fill up my leisure
hours of cadet duty. You have heard that that stern, black-looking
Miles Ogilvie has a pretty looking daughter!'
Paul, who had been scarcely heeding his words and anxious to
proceed, instantly felt the blood leave his heart for his temples,
while a pang of some indescribably painful sensation made him lean
for support upon his stick. He looked in his friend's face without
replying.
`Why, man, what has come over you?'
`You spoke of Catharine Ogilvie,' said Paul, faintly but quickly.
`Ah, then you have seen her! Isn't she a beauty, though I saw
her only by starlight. I was spuring home along the larch path,
which you know is scarce three feet wide, when I saw her standing
in it looking down the river. It was over her, and ride her down,
or take the water eighteen feet clear! There was no time for
thought—Deerfoot was too free on the bit to be reined up, and turning
him short just in time to save her, I took the leap! It was
beautifully done! Deerfoot seemed winged! Well, she was grateful
enough, showed me where to land, and — the vixen! refusing to
let me see her home in a wet jacket, invited me to come and call
upon her to-day. So I am going. You should have seen her, Paul,
before you left, for she is a queen!'
Paul heard this narration with a cheek of marble, and with difficulty
kept from betraying his emotion. He succeeded, however,
hurriedly bade Duncan `good-bye,' and, without another word, pursued
his way along the road; while the other entered the wood
through which the path led to Rock Hall.
Paul walked a long distance before he was able to collect his
thoughts from the tumult into which Duncan's words had thrown
them. He thought he now had the key to her rejection of his
passion.
`Yes,' he said, sternly, `she has hopes of entangling the rich heir of
Kirkwood, and so scorns me! And her duplicity! That she should
have so artfully deceived me, and kept the secret of having seen
Powell! I have been the dupe of my own blind passion; she has
been laughing at me while I believed her heart mine! I could despise
myself for my folly! I will forget her. Let Duncan Powell
win and wed her, if he will; she is henceforth nothing to me!'
With this determination in his mind, the young man strode
forward at a more rapid pace, as if he would speedily remove himself
far from the scene of his defeat. Yet there lingered in his
heart, with his contempt and anger towards her, the germ of his
youthful love, which had not been destroyed but only trampled
upon. Nevertheless, the young girl he so severely condemned was
not insensible to his attachment, and bitterly wept in the solitude
of her chamber after their parting.
`Alas, alas!' she said, in a voice of deep, suppressed agony, as she
sat by her window which overlooked the Hudson; `bitter is my
lot! I do indeed love him, love him with all the passion of my
woman's soul! But his love were a curse to him should I return
it, and I love him too well to sacrifice his noble heart. He is gone
believing I despise him. It is best it should be so! Oh, did he,
boy as he is, but know my heart's deep feelings! Oh, that it had
been ice, ere I had suffered love to melt it with tenderness! And
must it ever be thus? Am I justified in thus sacrificing myself
to a power I detest, in that it hath brought upon me this misery, to
a destiny I shrink from with horror? My poor breaking heart!
What with my father's woes, and those love hath now brought on
me, I am truly wretched! Oh, that I had never known the fearful
secret, that bids me crush my heart within my bosom and makes
love a curse!'
The morning found her early in her father's presence. He was
seated in an old arm-chair, with his head leaning upon his hand,
a folio volume of the prayers of the Romish church before him.
He looked up on her entrance, and smiled faintly, and extended his
hand. She took it, and kissing his forehead sat by him. He was
a tall, slender man, with exceedingly dark but noble features, and
had that indefinable aristocratic outline which is supposed to be
peculiar to men of high birth. His face was handsome, but wore
a look of settled melancholy. His eyes were black and flashing,
and singularly piercing. His dress was dark and plain; the only
ornament he displayed about his person being a seal ring of great
size and beauty.
`You have not slept, child,' he said, in a voice rich yet low in its
tones, and speaking in a foreign tongue.
`I am not well, nay, I will speak truly, I am unhappy, father,'
she answered in the same language. `Life is wretched with the
price I pay for it!'
`Life is cheap at the soul's price,' he said, in a voice of startling
energy and depth.
`Nay—I think it of little value when a bar so awful lies upon the
outgoings of the heart's affections!'
`Ha, you love this youth!' he said, in a voice of sudden furiness.
Beware!'
`He is worthy! He saved my life!'
`And you would give your soul in exchange for it? Yet one life
is precious, God knows!' Here he groaned, and for a moment
buried his face in his hands.
`Will you never forget that crime, dear father?' she said, soothingly.
`There is forgiveness on repentance; and surely your
penitence has been for years a most bitter one!'
`Tears can never wash out blood, nor sighs bring back the breath
of life; else thy mother had been living!'
`My mother! was it my mother whose murder has thus driven
thee from clime to clime, as if fleeing from thy own conscience?'
she cried, starting up, and gazing upon him with a look of horror.
`I knew a dark crime of murder lay upon thy soul, and that thou
hast thought, if thou couldst save a human life in its extremest
peril, it would atone for that thou hadst taken away. But my
mother! Father, speak! Fell she by thy hand? Were those
lovely features which I saw writhing in the agonies of a death by
poison, torn thus by thy murderous act? Nay, then — I cease to
pity and do scorn thee! I knew she was a Gypsy, for thou hast
told me. I knew she was not thy wedded wife, for my brain yet is
unsteady with the accursed narrative of my mother's wrongs.
I knew all this and I forgave you, forgave you freely, for how could
a child withstand a father, kneeling at her feet for pardon! But
I knew not till now, that, beside the crimes thou wert guilty of
towards my mother and inflicted on me the child of shame, thy
crime of blood had her for its victim! I was accursed in being
a Gypsy's and an unwedded mother's daughter, accursed enough in
being bound by the laws of my race not to wed with a Christian!
accursed in being the child of a murderer, brooding daily over his
crime! But all this is light compared with what I now endure, in
the knowledge that my fair mother, whom I remember so gentle
and beautiful, fell by thy hand! Henceforth thou art no more my
father! The tie that bound us is sundered forever!'
The guilty man listened to her in silence, and with a look of
agony and remorse stamped upon his dark features.
`My child,' he at length cried, taking her hand as she was turning
to leave the chamber,' listen to me, and then judge me! I am of
the noblest blood of Portugal, but my mother being a Jewess, I,
who should have been heir to a vast estate, was repudiated, and
became in boyhood an outcast. I joined the Gypsies of the
mountains, and rose to be their chief.'
`This has nothing to do with my mother's murder!' said the
young girl, haughtily.
`Hear me, Zuriza. Your mother was the most beautiful Gypsy
in all the tribes of the peninsula, and I became enamoured of her.
The attachment was reciprocal. The severe laws against
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intermarriage with a Christian could not be set aside unless I changed
my religion, or rather would acknowledge no religion, for with
them there is no God. I yielded, and solemnly renounced my hopes
of Heaven! You shudder, for I have endeavored to atone in some
degree for my crime by educating you as a Christian! There was
yet another fearful rite to pass through which I refused to do, and
confident in her love for me, prevailed upon your mother, who was
called Zuriza, to fly with me. We reached Lisbon and thence
sailed in a Scotch vessel for the North. We reached an Irish port,
where I purchased for I brought great wealth with me, a secluded
dwelling, and lived with her happily.'
`Unwedded?'
`Yes.'
`Thy dreadful abjuration of Christ's faith, then, availed thee
naught! Alas, my father! Alas, my mother!'
`She urged me to wed her, but I now refused, though I loved her
with devotion. At length you were born. When you had attained
your fourth year, she discovered that I was striving by a rigorous
course of penance to make my soul's peace. Till then she believed
me, like herself, and as I had vowed to be, an unbeliever in a God
or a state beyond this life. On making this discovery all her hatred
to Christianity arose in her breast. One day she discovered me on
my knees, with a crucifix, giving you a lesson in the truths of
Christianity. Her eyes flashed fire, and dashing the crucifix from
my hand to the earth, she trampled upon it, and taking you up bore
you off in her arms.
`From this time my remorse at my abjuration of my faith filled
me with despair, and fearing that you would be brought up in the
wicked paganism of your mother, and dreading your soul's loss
would be upon mine, I at length sought a priest and made full
confession. After his horror at my recital would permit him to
speak, he answered me, that my restoration to the Divine favor and
your soul's safety would depend upon the death, by my own hand,
of the woman whose beauty had bewitched me! Two years I let
pass before I could make up my mind to do this fearful deed, for I
was fondly attached to your mother. But I loved my soul dearer;
and one day, hearing you openly blaspheme and spit upon a cross,
I knew that your mother had been poisoning your mind with her
heathenish infidelity, and that, unless I soon acted, I should have
the loss of your soul as well as my own to answer for.'
`Fearful, horrible!' cried the young girl, burying her face in her
hands. `Oh, would it not have been better to have sought to win
her to Christianity, and thus save three souls!'
`I did. But she scorned and curled her beautiful lip at the name
of Christ, and the words of our holy faith were turned into contempt
by her ridicule. In the mean while I had no hope for myself.
I knew my own reconciliation was not made with Heaven till I had
paid the price for it. I was trembling each hour lest death in some
shape should overtake me, my soul unpardoned. At length I resolved
to fulfil the destiny the church had imposed upon me! It was a
trial that made my heart bleed; for never was man's love for woman
like mine for the infidel Zuriza. I prepared the death for her
in the shape of a subtle poison. You were playing upon the floor,
when I entered her room, and she met me with a smile. My heart
failed me, when you run to me holding up a toy and said, `see, pa,
what a pretty doll mamma has made me, with its musical bells!'
`I glanced it, and, to my horror and indignation, discovered your
doll to be an image of the Saviour, dressed up in a harlequin's fantastic
costume, with cap and bells!'
`I remember it, alas!'
`This sacrilegious sight nerved my wavering purpose, and
I secretly poisoned a needle which I knew she would soon take
to embroider with. I then sat down in the room, for fear you might
take it up. I did not allude to the hariequin. By praising some
part of her embroidery, I led her to take up the needle and resume
it. I watched her with feelings no human being can conceive.
She turned round and smiled upon me from time to time as she
worked, asking my opinion of the color and shading of the
leaves. I spoke not — I could not. I watched her, and by and by
I saw the needle drop from her fingers. It had done its work! Her
head fell upon the frame, and then reviving a little she complained
of pain in the head. She rose, and I assisted her to her couch. In
a few minutes she was in convulsions. I stood over in horror;
guilt and remorse strangely mingled in my feelings with hope and
indescribable relief. Her death was to purchase my soul's life!
In that one idea I soon lost all other reflections, and calmly watched
her agonizing struggles.'
`Oh, I remember them, as vividly as yesterday! My poor
mother!' cried the daughter, as, with her head buried in the
cushions of an ottoman, she listened to the dreadful narrative of
crime and superstition.
`At length she expired in my arms. Her last look upon me one
of love, of forgiveness; for I read in the eloquent language of its
dying expression, that she knew whose hand had thus brought to an
end her young life.—Well,' continued the wretched man, after a painful
pause, `she died, and I had fulfilled the command of the church.
For a few moments this exhilarating thought was uppermost, and
left me no grief at her loss or sense of crime. But soon came
other feelings, dark and terrible, and I felt that I stood before God
a murderer. I fled from the house with a cry of horror. I took my
way, unconsciously, in the direction of the church. The priest, my
confessor, met me in the door. I was rushing in to east myself at
the altar (for my murder had purchased me that privilege I had
been denied for years!); but the priest held aloft his arm and cried,
`Stop, accursed of God!'
`Father,' I said, kneeling, `I have at length obeyed. Zuriza no
longer lives. She has within the hour perished by my hand!' I
still kneeled, and he sprinkled upon me holy water, signed my forehead
and breast with the sign of the cross, and led me to the high
altar. Taking a consecrated robe he cast it over me and bade me
kneel. High mass was said, and for an hour I lifted not my fore-head
from the marble pavement. I was restored to the bosom of
the church. I rose from my knees and was solemnly assoilzied
from the murder with which I had purchased reconciliation.
`But I will not linger over this fearful yet joyful occasion. Reconciled
to the church I had now no longer fears for my soul's safety,
but the murder of your mother weighed upon my heart and gave
me no peace. I remembered her beauty, her love for me, my
almost adoration of her, and my bosom had no peace. Her image
seemed to be present with me as I saw her in her horrible moments
of expiring agony. In all my dreams, in all my waking fancies,
I beheld only her whom I had wroaged and murdered. Life became
burdensome. The church could give me no relief; for it was not
fear of punishment! I was weighed down with, but it was the presence
of the murdered, haunting me like my shadow. I parted
with my house, and left Ireland for England. I was here still
wretched with remorse, that gave me no peace. I became a wanderer,
and in you I centred all the love I had once had for your
mother. I strove, by devoting my time to your education, to forget
my remorse and alone to her. But then I was giving you a
Christian education, and this I felt could not atone to her restless
shade. I became a wanderer. Each year increased my wretchedness.
You had discovered by accident that I was mourning a
crime, and had learned something from me of your own history;
and your sympathy and affection alone supported me. At length,
I fled to the shores of America, and here sought in these mountain
wilds that seclusion my heart yearns for; for the gayety of the busy
world only makes it feel deeper the sting of its vain remorse.
Now, my child, you know my history. Despise, scorn, spurn me, if
you will; for I feel I only need my child's contempt to fill up the
measure of my miserable existence!'
When he had ended this extraordinary communication, he sat
before his daughter with folded hands and drooping head, like a
criminal awaiting judgment. She had listened to the tale of her
mother's wrongs with varied feelings, stronger than all which were
pity and horror. She now stood in thought, her beautiful face pale
as marble, her bosom heaving with emotion, and her small hands
clenched with the energy of her emotions. At length she approached
her father and laid one hand upon his, while the tears fell fast
from her eyes, and kissing him tenderly upon his cold forehead,
glided from the room without a word. This act of filial duty and
forgiveness produced an extraordinary effect upon the wretched
parent. For a moment he appeared striving to realize the truth,
and at length when he did so, he fell from his seat over upon his face,
and embracing the foot of a bronzed crucifix, said, in tones of
thrilling pathos:
`This is too much happiness! My child forgives me! Now,
that she hath been told all, half the load I have borne for years
in the secret of my soul is dispelled! She forgives! Now
am I blessed, indeed. But, alas! Zeruza, never shall my wrong to
thee be forgotten! Thy child has blessed me; yet so long as I remember
the look of forgiveness thou gavest me in thy dying hour
shall I mourn thy death by my hand!'
The superstitious Portuguese rose to his feet with a calmer
aspect than he had worn for years, and instead of returning to his
missal, left his gloomy chamber to enjoy the freshness of the
morning.
His daughter, who, under the name of Kate Ogilvie, but whose
real name was Zeruza de Torno, after remaining alone nearly an
hour, reflecting upon her father's extraordinary story, and exculpating
him as far as she could, went forth to relieve her mind by
a ramble upon the wild shores of the river. Though she had been
educated by her father in the rigidest Roman Catholic faith, yet the
seeds of infidelity early sown by her pagan mother had not been
eradicated, and her religion, though outwardly unobjectionable, was
a singular mixture of paganism and Christianity, the former as
coming from her mother the most firmly seated in her heart. She
had, therefore, no fixed principles, and was a creature of impulse
and feeling. Her attachment to her father was a species of idolatry,
which, though shocked by her discovery, had not been over-turned,
and which his history re-confirmed. She spoke English
perfectly and without any foreign accent, and also fluently her
father's tongue. She was in character fearless, something masculine
in her amusements, full of the fire of passion and feeling, characteristic
of her race, and generous and unsuspecting to a fault.
Her heart was buoyant as a child's, and soon rose above the weight
of sorrows that would have broken down others. The scene that
she had gone through with her father had a powerful effect upon
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her at the first; but her spirits rebounded with elasticity peculiar
to her temperament, and in an hour she was tranquil, nay, gay, as
before. The tears had been poured to her mother's memory. Her
resentment had passed by against her father, and he was forgiven;
and, forgetting the past, she lived only in the present and in the
future.
These happier feelings were, however, shaded by her thoughts
of Paul. An indefinable fear of incurring the curse and doom that
menaced all of her race, that wedded with a Christian, though herself
one, had interposed, deeply as she had suffered herself to
become attached to him, an impassable barrier to his love. Her
heart was his; but a strange, wild, superstitious dread, imbibed
from her pagan mother's teachings and growing with her growth,
locked up all its avenues to the encroaches of the love of one who
as a Christian, brought, concealed in the offerings of his affection,
the deadly asp that should pierce both their hearts. She well knew
she could not tempt Paul to deny his faith—for even this wild idea
came into her mind—and to be his otherwise was to incur some fearful
penalty, worse than that which befell her mother, who was but
the wedless wife of a forsworn Christian! Whether she would have
suggested to Paul this temptation, is not clear; but so extraordinary
was her character, and so vacillating and unsettled her faith, it is
probable, if she had held out to her the least hope of success, she
would not yet hesitate to put his love for her to the test by tossing
it into the scale against his religion. But Paul was now beyond
the reach of this danger—if such a singular temptation could be
supposed to convey even the idea of danger to an American youth—
and striving to banish him from her thoughts she joined her
father whom she saw standing upon a point of rock looking upon
the river. Not a word was spoken by either in allusion to the past,
as if by mutual consent, and the noble scenery was made the subject
of conversation. She had not seen her father so cheerful for
many months, and this change in him, the result of being relieved
from the weight of a fearful secret, was most gratifying to her and
gave her additional vivacity.
`What a majestic head old Cro'nest lifts to the morning sky,' she
said, gazing upon the stupendous, cliff-like mountain; `and behind,
Bull Hill seems to stretch out and upward like a huge behemoth,
kneeling! and how delicate and fair the white lines on the plains
appear drawn upon the green background, with the scarlet-striped
banner waving above!'
`The whole scene, Zuriza, that is, Catharine,' he said, and quickly
correcting his mode of addressing her, with a look of pain, as if the
idea had called up what he would have forgotten, `it all reminds
me of the Highlands of the Upper Rhine! Yonder pine-crowned
summit wants a fortress; the jutting cliff below us a castle half in
ruins, and `Cro'nest' to be battlemented with wall and bastion, to
be scenery of the Rhine!'
`Yet this is grander and wilder! The dark blue forests of pine,
and the solemn, unpeopled repose of these inland mountains give
to the American scene a character commanding awe and wonder
in a degree I never felt elsewhere! Besides, the river here expands
lake-like and vast, as if to affix the seal of its mighty power to the
scene, stamping all with the impress of majesty!'
`You have spoken with eloquence and feeling, Miss Ogilvie,' said
Duncan Powell, at this moment making his appearance; `and I
am gratified to find you so fully appreciate the sublime beauty of
our Highlands.'
Kate started, and was surprised to find Duncan Powell by day-light
a much handsomer, young man than by starlight she conceived
him to be. She frankly extended her hand to receive him,
and presented him to her father, who had surveyed his approach
with looks of suspicion and inquiry. She recounted, in a few brief
sentences, the adventure of the preceding evening, and after Mr.
Ogilvie had chided her for being so far from the cottage at such an
hour, he warmly complimented Duncan upon his conduct, and all
three walked to see whence the leap had been taken. This visit—
for Duncan remained half the forenoon, and was much alone with
her—laid the foundation for an intimacy, in which Paul promised
fairly to be rivalled. But Kate's heart was already so far Paul's as
she dared surrender it, and, except so far as for mere innocent pastime,
she felt she should care little for the heir of Kirkwood. She
liked him, for he strove to please her; and he became enamoured
of her, for no one much less susceptible could have helped being
so. But Duncan never thought of love seriously in his life, and now
his feelings, with reference to her, were only those of pride and satisfaction,
at having fallen into acquaintance with so fine a girl.
Duncan was not the person to be a sentimentalist in love. No two
characters would be more opposite than his and Paul's. Catharine
also thought so. Yet she was glad to have Duncan take the place
of the latter, at least in companionship; though she knew he had
no hope of place in her regard. But then she felt she was forbidden
by her cruel destiny to have regards for any one, else Paul
would have shared them, and that one person must be to her even
as another. So she reasoned; but her heart never coincided in her
conclusions. Nevertheless, she and Duncan became friends, and
Paul in a few days seemed forgotten.
Leaving Duncan Powell to enter upon his career as a cadet; and
Kate, while she suffered herself to be gratified by his weekly visits
from the Post, to mourn over the destiny which compelled her to
crush her love for Paul in her heart—a passion which grew with
each day of his absence—we shall follow the discarded lover. On
his arrival at the landing at Fishkill the boat was in sight, gallantly
bearing down the river, with streamers flying, a train of murky smoke
rolling along the air, and with her spacious decks crowded with passengers.
She stopped just long enough for him with half a dozen others
to get on board, when again she pursued her swift and majestic
course through the Highlands. On one side lay the terraced city of
Newberg, on the opposite the pleasant shores of Dutchess county,
while below them as they advanced, towered `Break Neck,' `Bull,' and
`Old Cro'nest,' their summits dyed scarlet, gold, and orange, under
the gorgeous pencil of an October frost. As the boat entered the
amphitheatre amid these mountain shores, the passengers stood in
silent admiring groups, gazing in awe upon the sublime scene through
which they were borne. Paul retired to the side of the deck which
looked towards his home and Rock Hall. As the boat swept past
he could distinctly discern Duncan walking upon the lawn with
Kate and her father, and occasionally stopping to look at the boat.
He thought, but he could not distinctly see for tears, that she raised
her handkerchief, while Duncan waved his hat, he thought as much
in triumph as in adieu! He did not acknowledge the greeting, and
was turning bitterly away, when his eye was attracted by a figure
on the shore and a waving handkerchief. He was passing his native
cottage, and his mother was sending her whole heart towards him
in that silent and touching signal. He instantly condemned himself
for thinking more of one whom he believed had cruelly trifled with
him, than of his devoted parent; and placing himself upon a con
spicuous part of the boat he took off his hat and waved it with a
full heart, till her figure and the fluttering signal of her parting
blessing was lost in the dimness of distance: and from that moment
he resolved, for her sake, to acquit himself in the busy world of
action upon which he was about to enter, like a man—like a son
of whom she would one day be proud! Would that such good resolutions
had been adhered to, when, amid the trials, temptations,
and evils of a metropolitan life, they were at length brought to that
severe test, that must one day try all good resolves, and virtuous
plans of conduct.
At West Point they stopped to receive and land passengers, and
then, amid the crash of martial music heard from the plains above,
moved onward. The beauty of this port, situated amid the most
sublime river scenery, drew forth from the travellers and foreign
voyagers on the deck expressions of admiration, in which Paul,
whose attention was now diverted from himself and his own griefs,
returned to the scenes and persons around. Fort Putnam, the finest
old ruin in America, frowned down upon them from its embattled
cliff, and the garden of Kosciusco peered in romantic beauty from
the wild and picturesque shore, upon which it slept—a sweet
seclusion, to which many a loving pair, retiring from the gayety and
warlike splendor of the Plains, have made pilgrimage. Further
down, they passed the white cascades, called `Buttermilk Falls,'
which came tumbling like a river of snow adown an irregular cliff,
affording to the voyager a singularly beautiful object, contrasting
the dark forests of the scene around. Still the steamer kept on her
way through this deep and sublime river-gorge, with cliff-browed
mountains overhanging on either side, and, both behind and before,
locking the Hudson like a lake. The fortresses of Montgomery and
Clinton, and opposite the quarters of the traitor Arnold, with the
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low point whence he embarked in his boat to flee to the British
sloop of war, were all objects of interest; and as this was Paul's
first voyage down the river, he listened with deep attention to the
passengers as they pointed out these important historical features
of the scene. Singsing, with its hill-side village and vast prison-buildings,
with Tarry Town, where Andre was taken, and Tappan,
on the opposite shore, where he suffered death, were objects that
drew his attention; and with others he strained his eyes as a passenger
on board pointed to a tree, two miles distant, which waved
over his grave. Lower down, the handsome and tasteful seat of
Washington Irving drew many an eye; and silent, gazing homage
was paid by every intelligent passenger, as each crowded to the side
where lay `Sleepy Hollow,' to the genius of the author of the
`Sketch Book.' At length the Palisadoes appeared, rising from the
river side in a majestic line of cliff, and stretching for leagues like
some vast wall reared by Titans. At length, passing the verdant
site of Fort Lee, the city began to open to the eye, heralded by crowds
of vessels from the ship to the sloop that thronged the water; by
numerous villas that thickly lined the beautiful shores; and the
frequent travellers in carriages, on horseback and afoot, that passed
along the dusty road that run parallel with the river. The suburbs
were soon abreast; and masses of buildings, half hidden by the
masts of tiers of shipping that lined the wharves, with towers,
domes, and spires rising in the air, with a loud roaring sound like the
rumble of thunder in the distance, told Paul that he was at New
York! Before he quite recovered from his bewildered emotions, at
the novelty of all he saw, in the new scene upon which he had
entered, the boat had come to the wharf and the passengers began
to crowd on shore. For a moment he stood under a painful sense
of loneliness, seeing all leaving as if to a waiting and welcoming
home. He soon recovered his firmness and also left the boat with
his bundle beneath his arm. His mother had given him a letter to
his uncle, which he now took from his pocket to examine the address.
It was as follows: `Job Haskell, Printer, No. 19, Ann street.
New York City.' Paul inquired of a man, with a whip in his hand,
for Ann street, who readily replied,
`Get in my carriage, yer honor, and it's there I'll be with ye in a
jiffy. What number, honey?'
`Nineteen.'
`It's there ye 'll be in a whist! Get in, darlint!'
Paul thanked him, thinking the New York people very civil, and
complied; and was soon whirled up Courtland street amid a noise
of wheels, a shouting of voices, and a miscellaneous congregation
of sights and sounds such as he had never before any conception of.
In a few minutes the carriage stopped, the steps rattled down, and,
as the door was thrown open, he saw before him a sign on which
was the name of `J. Haskell, Job Printer.'
`Yes, this is the place,' he said, taking his bundle and getting out.
`I am very much obliged to you, sir. Will you take this?'
`Divil a bit. It's four sixpences, divil a less.'
`Do you charge me, then?' inquired Paul, the truth flashing upon
him; though he knew in the country that it was common for the
people to give persons a lift in their wagons for nothing, if they
were seeking any place.
`Charge is it? A quarther, divil less.'
`Here it is,' said Paul, reluctantly paying from his limited store
the amount, and resolving the next time politely to decline all such
civil invitations to ride in a city.
Mr. Job Haskell was seated near an open window of his printing
office, correcting a proof, when the carriage stopped below. He
glanced out, and, seeing a young man alight with a bundle beneath
his arm, resumed his occupation. He was a stout-framed, hard-featured
man, with a forbidding countenance, yet having an expression
of intellect and talent. He was seated at an old bespattered
pine-table, dressed in a coarse, well-inked linen jacket, with a blotted
proof-sheet of some school-book before him. Several journey,
men were at work at their cases around, and a short, be-inked little
urchin, was grinding printer's ink on a large slab. At intervals Mr.
Haskell would look up and glance around his printing office with
the austere aspect of a man in authority, and then go on with his
work. Mr. Haskell was a member of a Christian denomination,
and not low in eminence therein. He was one of those erring men,
who believe baptism to be regeneration, and that there is no need of
a change after this rite. In his opinion, the drops of baptismal
water, that sprinkled his infant brow, were seeds of holiness, that,
having once fallen into the soil, would grow up and bring forth the
fruits of a sanctified life. So he took no pains to sanctify himself,
and the weeds of evil flourished in his heart without trimming or
cutting down. Religious affections he placed in rapturous devotion,
in heat and ecstatic energy in prayer, in which he was much gifted;
and all he aimed at was, to pray with passion and think of heaven
with pleasure; while he cultivated neither charity towards men nor
true humility. He was one of those professing Christians, who
would consecrate their vices, hallow their corrupt affections, and
sanctify their bad passions; whose morose tempers and sullen pride
must pass for Christian severity; whose fierce wrath and bitter rage
against their enemies must be called holy zeal; whose hatred of
other denominations, and whose wrath and bitterness in denouncing
them, must have the name of Christian courage and firmness. Ig
norant that true religion is a real participation of the divine nature—
the image of God drawn upon the soul, he thus rendered his
basest nature subservient to the most holy profession, and walked
among men a painted hypocrite!
Such was the individual who, three years before, wrote to Mrs.
Tatnall that he would take her son, his nephew, as an apprentice.
Lest Mr. Haskell should be suspected of a charitable intention we
would state, that he was very much in want of a house and market
boy, and believed he could not do better than secure such a
useful person in his household as his sister's son; for, thought he,
being a relation, I can do with him just as I please; his frequent
experience having told him, that boys who were not related did not
make very obedient kitchen apprentices. The delay on the part of
the widow in sending her son had at length displeased him, inasmuch
as his kind intentions towards his nephew, in behalf of his
domestic education, were likely to be defeated. At length he had
given up all hopes of the desired acquisition, when the door of his
printing office opened, and a slender, light-complexioned, but handsome,
intelligent looking youth, about eighteen entered, and looked
about him with an hesitating survey of the busy scene. Mr. Haskell
glanced up from his proofs, and fixing upon him his hard gray eyes,
seemed to ask what his business was. Paul's dress was a plain
suit of blue, and from something in its style and in his air it was
evident to the journeymen, that the young man was country bred
and fresh in town. Paul was abashed by the attention drawn upon
him; and his eyes falling upon Mr. Haskell, who was now looking
him full in the face, he advanced to the table, and asked if that gentleman
was in.
`That is my name,' replied the job printer, in a gruff tone.
`Then I have a letter for you,' said Paul, who instantly conceived
in his heart a dislike to his uncle, from whose looks he augured
nothing very pleasant in his career of apprentice under him. But
Paul had a firm heart and was not faint in spirit; and he awaited
with a quiet demeanor the perusal of the letter.
`Humph! hum! So you are my sister's son,' he said, holding up
the brief epistle and gazing upon his nephew with a flushed and
angry brow while he awaited his answer.
`Yes, sir,' replied Paul.
`You should have been here three years ago, sir! What have you
been doing?'
`Attending school and living with my mother.'
`Idling and bird-shooting, I'll be bound! Spending your time in
wickedness and sin when you should have been learning an honest
trade! How old are you?'
`Eighteen.'
`A pretty time of life to come to be apprenticed! Well, sir, what
do you expect?'
`At least to be treated civilly,' replied Paul, with a heightened
color in his cheek; for all this conversation had passed within
hearing of every one in the office, while many a side smile betrayed
the interest of the listeners.
`Civilly,' repeated Mr. Haskell, dropping his pen and pushing his
chair back. `This is the way my sister has brought you up, eh?
Yes, I'll treat you civilly! You shan't complain! Three years to
twenty-one! Yes, you shall find me civil, lad, I assure you!' and
Mr. Haskell grinned like a lynx `I will have your indentures made
out and sent to your mother to sign.'
Paul was about to reply, that he would not occasion him that
trouble, for that he would seek employment with some one else,
when he recollected his mother, his own destitution of friends, in a
large and strange city, and was silent. He had confidence in himself,
that, however tyrannical his uncle might be, he could bear with
him for his mother's sake.
`How long have you been in the city?' asked Mr. Haskell, not
unimpressed with the quiet firmness of his nephew.
`I have just arrived.'
`In that carriage, that came to the door?'
`Yes, sir.'
An indescribable sneer graced the lips of the uncle as he said,
`Very good! I see how you have been brought up by your foolish
mother. I'll cure you of riding in carriages before you have been
with me long. Now go to work!'
`What shall I do, sir?' inquired Paul, feeling as if he would like
to have his uncle at the top of `Break Neck Hill,' with fair field and
no favor.
`First take off your coat!'
Paul obeyed, without a word or look of dissent.
`Now pick up that pi!'
`What pie?' asked our hero, looking around for it.
`That heap of type! Assort it, each letter by itself; and, by the
time you have got through, it will be time for you to go to my house
with me; once you know the printing office and the house you have
taken two steps towards making yourself useful.'
Paul quietly applied himself to his task, though sadly puzzled
with his unpracticed eyes, to distinguish one letter from another.
His firmness and bearing had enlisted in his behalf the good wishes
and sympathies of those in the office, which to a new apprentice is
a great point gained. At length Mr. Haskell informed him, that he
must go with him. Paul followed him through several streets to
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his residence in an obscure part of the city, and was there shown a
small section of the garret boarded off, which he was told he was to
occupy as his chamber. The meal was prefaced by a grace five
minutes in length, and closed by thanks as long, Mr. Haskell never
losing an opportunity of displaying his gifts in prayer. Before bed-time
he was compelled to read a long chapter in the old Testament,
while his pious uncle and aunt — who was a `help,' meet for him—
sung a psalm of thirteen six-line verses. Then followed a prayer,
in which the godly printer wandered all over creation, and was three-quarters
of an hour getting back to his own household concerns.
Paul was particularly edified by his holy petitions in his own behalf.
When the prayer was ended, Mr. Haskell resumed his seat, and,
placing his hands across his eyes, groaned several times aloud.
He was disturbed by a knock at his door. He opened it, and beheld
a poor woman standing without, holding an infant in her arms!
`Sir,' she said, in a pitiful tone, that Paul long remembered; `for
the love of God let me have a little milk for my child! It is perishing,
and I have so long been without food that I have no longer
any sustenance for it!'
`Begone from my door, woman,' said Mr. Haskell, slamming the
door to in her face. `The House of Correction should look after
such people,' he added, as he reëntered.
`Perhaps her child was really perishing,' said Paul, rising up.
`What, sir? Do you mean to dictate to me?' retorted his uncle,
angrily.
`I shall at least see if she does not want assistance! I thought,
sir, you were a member of a church?'
`So I am, sir!' answered Mr. Haskell, with suppressed rage; `but
is that any reason I should beggar myself to help vagrants! Go to
bed, sir! I see I have got to keep a tight rein over you!'
Paul had no alternative but to obey. The next morning Mr.
Haskell found a coroner's inquest sitting before his door upon the
body of a dead infant, while the mother was relating to the indignant
passers-by how she had been turned from the door. Mr. Haskell
felt nothing for the mother, nor remorse for what he had been guilty
of; but he was troubled lest the matter should get to the church.
But when a man's standing for piety is once established by an artful
system of hypocrisy, the church is slow to bring any thing to his
charge; though for a professed Christian to turn a deaf ear to the
petitions of want and penury, deserves the severest reproof of the
Christian denomination to which he belongs. Mr. Haskell was not
troubled by his church, and hardened himself in his wickedness.
It is not our intention to follow Paul step by step through his
apprenticeship. Hardship, privation, and insult, endured with a
patience truly heroic, characterized the first two years of his career.
Notwithstanding all the drawbacks to his obtaining a knowledge
of his trade, he speedily acquired it. He had rebelled at house service
and conquered; and in many points acted with a fearless
independence of his uncle, which made him his most hostile enemy.
But what was less to be borne, he had so repeatedly detected and exposed
his hypocrisy, that Mr. Haskell stood in continual fear of him;
and was induced, oftener than he otherwise would have done, to act
up to his profession.
The two years had not passed without effecting a change in
Paul's character. This change was not for the better. The little
happiness and repose he found in the dwelling of his uncle, led him
to keep as much from home as possible. He resorted to engine clubs,
where he spent the evenings in card-playing, smoking and drinking;
and being of a bold, resolute character, he became a leading
member. He sang well, was witty and convivial, and at length got
to be called a `first rate fellow!' He gradually departed from the
rules of conduct his mother had inculcated, and seldom resorted to
church on the Sabbath, which he spent in excursions to the Islands
or Hoboken. He now seldom wrote to his mother; and at length
his uncle, finding him beyond his control, gave him up his indentures,
one day, after a sharp quarrel had occurred between them.
We are sorry to have to record this rebellious and reckless spirit of
our hero; but he had at length become so dissipated as to spend
every night abroad, and to be the chief in every revel among the
wild and riotous of his companions. For a young man, who chooses
to throw himself away, New York affords every facility for the
accomplishment of his object. In addition to the causes we have
given, which led to his dissipation, had been the example and society
of Duncan Powell, who, after Paul had been a year with his uncle,
visited the city and stopped at the City Hotel. He sought Paul out,
for old friendship's sake, and invited him to dine with him. Here
Paul was introduced to a set of young men above his ordinary associates,
and being tempted by the fascinations of their society, joined
them in a night of revelling and debauchery. The visit of Duncan
was prolonged for three weeks, during which period he initiated
Paul into all the extravagant and expensive pleasures of the town.
Some of the most dangerous of Duncan's friends became Paul's
companions after he left, and their society soon unfitted him for his
occupation, which he now began to view as low and degrading. He
felt keenly the mortification of being without the means of indulging
in all the gay amusements of his new associates; while they,
ignorant of his pursuit, for he was well dressed, and a pleasant
companion, and had, besides, been introduced by the rich Duncan
Powell, became quite fond of his company, and thus assisted in his
ruin. He was, however, compelled, for the want of money, to withdraw
himself from their circle, which he did do; but with a decided
and unconquerable distaste to his trade. He became attached to a
courtezan, whose extravagances he supplied by gambling and even
by forging his uncle's name. He got into debt, and, having other
associates, became intimate with fashionable and dissolute clerks.
At length he neglected his duties, and acquired such habits of
promenading Broadway, and Sunday driving, as to lead to the rupture
between him and his uncle. It is possible, if Mr. Haskell had
been a different man, Paul might have manifested an opposite character;
but the conduct of others can never be advanced as a plea
for evil conduct in ourselves: besides, it will be remembered, Paul
had yielded to temptation before he left his Highland home. Perhaps,
too, his unrequired love might have made him indifferent to character
and led him to reckless indulgence, for he had heard of Durcan's
intimacy with Catharine Ogilvie, whom he ceased not to love.
Among other attachments and associations of this now reckless
young man, was a boat club, of which he was a member. It was
originally composed of nine young men of steady character, who
formed the club for the purpose of exercise and recreation. But by
degrees unprincipled young men became attached to it, or some of
those in it, at first moral, had become dissipated; and having been
guilty of certain lawless acts, at length the remainder withdrew,
leaving Paul, and four other companions, about as dissolute as he
himself had become. This was but the week before his uncle threw
him up his indentures, and banished him from his house. It was a
little more than two years after Paul's coming to the city, when he
left his uncle's abode. It was the twilight of an August evening,
and the lamps were just being lighted. Sending his baggage before
him he took his way towards a third rate hotel in Greenwich street.
He had not above three dollars in the world, but, as he had now
launched upon the current of adventure, he did not trouble himself
about the present low state of his finances. Arriving at the place
he took a room; and then, with the free sensation of being his own
master, he sallied forth into the streets, and, mingling with the hurrying
crowds, sought the rendezvous of his boat-club companions.
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CHAPTER V.
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Paul had now thrown off his allegiance to society. The fear of
the detection of his forgeries, the necessity of getting money to sunply
the extravagant habits he had fallen into, as well as those of his
mistress, led him to a determination for obtaining resources, as bold
as it was now in keeping with his reckless character. After threading
his way along the crowded thoroughfares, he reached, by a narrow
alley, an old brick tenement situated upon the river. The lower
part was used as a drinking-room, and was thronged with men
in the garb of seamen, laborers, and mechanics, drinking, smoking,
and in high talk. A stout Englishman, his face horribly disfigured
with the smallpox, was the keeper.
Just glancing into this apartment, as he passed by, Paul entered
a side door of the `Bowl and Pitcher,' as the respectable place
was called, and, guided by a dimly burning japanned lamp, nailed
against the partition in the entry above, he ascended a winding
and broken stairway. Upon the landing was a door which
he threw open, and at once entered a long low-ceiled apartment
in which were several tables strewn with cards—a board for farodealing
against the wall, and a roulette table. Benches were
arrayed about the sides of the room and chairs were standing around
in disorder. The whole was lighted by two lamps swinging from
a hook affixed in a beam overhead at each end of the chamber.
At the further extremity beneath the lamp sat two young men
gambling at cards. They were the only occupants of the room. On
seeing Paul enter, they both rose up and welcomed him. One of them
was about Paul's age, handsome in person, and with an air of gentility.
A black handkerchief was knotted in sailor-fashion about
his neck, and he wore a seamen's pea jacket. There was a look of
careless good-nature united with resolution in his face, and his person
was tall and well shaped. His companion was short and stout,
with a twinkling eye and a devil-me-care look, that marked recklessness
of character in no ordinary degree.
`Ah, Paul, so you are here at last,' said the latter, coming forward.
`We thought you would disappoint us.'
`All our number is now complete, and good fellows all,' said the
other. `We have been waiting for you to choose our coxswain.'
`I have had a difficulty with my uncle and he has thrown up my
indentures. Here they are!'
This intelligence was received with hearty congratulations,
which were hardly over, before several other young men, attired in
various degrees of shabby gentility, relies of a better past, entered
the room, from an inner chamber. They all warmly welcomed
Paul, who had no sooner repeated what he had communicated to
the others, than the old gambling-hall rang with hurras! It was
very soon apparent that of the party he was not only superior in intelligence
and influence, but that his superiority was tacitly acknowledged
by them. They were nine in number, and constituted
an association which they had denominated the `River Rover's
Club.' Since the secession of the more principled of their club, the
week before, they had completed the number by each bringing in a
friend. After some preliminary proceedings, Paul was now unanimously
voted coxswain, and wine was ordered, while all gathered
around one of the tables. Paul, however, but barely touched the
glass to his lips; for, with all his bad habits, he had not that of intemperance.
He was therefore at all times cool, calm, and collected,
and always prepared to avail himself of the firmness and resolution
of his daring character. As he gazed around him upon his companions,
all of whom were more or less needy adventures, his eye
flashed with pride; and, as they drank his health in a bumper, he
rose and addressed them:
`My club-mates, we are assembled here to-night to reorganize
our club, after the withdrawal of those cowardly members who feared,
from a wild proposition one of us made, in short, to take possession
of a north river sloop, that our love of adventure would lead
them into danger. We who are now here, are, I trust, of one heart
and one mind! `Ay, ay,' resounded along the table. `Are you
ready to second any scheme or any adventure your coxswain may
propose?' `Ay, ay! if to board a vessel in earnest,' cried some,
with an oath. `Not too loud, my lads! What our future course is,
as a club, will depend on you each as individuals. We want here
only men who hold no allegiance—no master—no calling! You,
Fleming,' he said, addressing the tall young man in the pea jacket.
`are, like me, without employment. If I mistake not, your merchant
failed and left you penniless. Be frank in confession, for I am resolved,
that our meeting here to-night shall tend to the improvement
of each of our fortunes.'
`Yes—it is true, Tatnall! I am out of employ, out of favor with
my landlady, out of credit with my tailor, and most confoundedly
out of pocket.' `You will do, Fleming. And you Dawley,' he continued,
addressing the shorter one, `have had some little difficulties,
such as using your employer's money, and such like touches of absence
of mind.'
`Yes; and I fear every day being arrested, for the old man more
than suspects.'
`Then return no more to him, but cast your fortunes in with this
club. It is no longer to be merely an amateur recreation upon the
water, but one of real service, if I can make it so.'
This hint of the new coxswain's was received with acclamations;
and after Paul had questioned each, and secured the improvident, and
induced others still in employ `to leave work to slaves' and commit
their fortunes to the good genius of their club, he entered more fully
into the detail of his bold and daring scheme. He soon found, that
those with him were congenial spirits; that each of them, like himself,
had imbibed notions of extravagant living, above his means, and
had been ruined in name and fame, by unlawful resorts to obtain
money to expend in luxurious indulgences.
The determination of Paul to cast off at once all allegiance to
society, though sudden in act, had been mature in contemplation
Proud and poor, with all he had had to render his soul bitter,
this course was consistent with himself—with the independent,
fearless, and impetuous character, he had exhibited, from the time
he leaped from the cliff into the nest of the hawk, and fought his
pitched battle with Duncan Powell, up to the day of his parting with
his uncle. Minor points of his character, not here drawn and commented
upon, also had their bearing upon this final determination.
He had now shown no ordinary talent in forming the association of
which he was the head, and in leading and controlling the minds of
young men, many of them originally of a superior standing in socieety
to himself. His tact, coolness, and foresight, were also, during
the evening, singularly exemplified in the course of the progress of
the planning of their operations.
But, without following the incipient career of this River Rover's
Club, through a series of adventures, of foray and spoil, both on the
water and land, whose bold deeds puzzled the police, and filled the
public mind with constant excitement, we will briefly pursue Duncan
Powell's career.
We have alluded to his visit to New York, and its baneful influence
upon the happiness and character of Paul Tatnall. His
course at West Point had not been up to this visit without censure.
And some occurrences of his sojourn in town, not very honorable
to his character as a cadet of a national institution, having reached
the Superintendent, he found, on his return, that he was about to
be tried; when, resenting their interference in his conduct beyond
Post, he resigned and returned to Kirkwood. Here he passed his
time mostly in the society of Catharine Ogilvie, and giving midnight
entertainments to his former companions at the Post, in an untenanted
building, which stood on the confines of the estate near the
water. At length his revels were discovered by his father, who
threatened to cut him off with a shilling unless he mended his
ways; while he perplexed his avaricious brain to divine how his
son got the money he expended in his revellings. This, however,
presented no difficulty to a certain old New York Jew, named Jacob
Goldschnapp, whom Duncan had found out on his first visit to
the city, and who, after satisfying himself of the value of Kirkwood,
and other estates of his father, and that he had twelve thousand dollars
coming to him at his majority in right of his mother, advanced
him at fifty per cent. what money he wanted, to be repaid thirty
days after his coming of age, taking his bond for it. To such a
wild spendthrift as the heir of Kirkwood, limited as he was in means
by the miserly spirit of his father, the discovery of old Goldschnapp's
den' in Chatham Street, was like finding a mine of gold,
and he was not backward in availing himself of his good fortune.
At length, finding that his libertine plans with regard to Catharine
Ogilvie would not be successful, he left home for New York,
resolved to live a life congenial with his tastes and means. This
was about the time Paul Tatnall banded with other young men,
who like himself had gradually fallen from virtue and principle to
a disregard of the laws of society, so that they could obtain the
means for those vicious indulgences, that had been their ruin. Duncan
Powell, in the mean while, followed a course of fashionable dissipation.
He spent his days and nights as became a man of fortune,
who looks upon money only as the means of indulgence.
His rooms were elegantly furnished; his servant wore a stylish livery,
his dinners were superb, and his turnouts in Broadway, and on
the Avenue, were unrivalled. But to keep up this wild extravagance
he had to make frequent visits to his obliging friend Mr. Goldschnapp.
In addition to his other follies, was that of gambling at faro and high
betting on the turf. He was seldom a winner; for his knowing
friends, who basked in his gold and were hangers-on at his dinners—
those `toadies' of rich young men, always managed to make him
lay his bets as they would have him, and also to cheat him at play.
By these means Duncan's drafts upon his banker in Chatham street
became heavy and frequent; but as he kept no account of the
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amount he received, and as his drafts had been always promptly met,
he pursued his extravagant course without fear or reflection.
At length, one night, after he had given a dinner to several of his
select associates, at the sumptuous rooms of his mistress, he resorted
with them to a fashionable gambling-room, whither his friends always
enticed him when he was in wine. Here he played heavily,
and, betting recklessly, lost large sums of money! His losses sobered
him, and made him at the same time anxious to win back
what he had lost. He therefore staked the whole amount of his
losses, two thousand dollars—on a single bet. There was the most
eager and intense anxiety on the faces of all gathered around the table
as the dice were being thrown. Duncan won!
`I will now double the whole bet against whoever will take it
up,' he said, triumphantly, and striking his hand emphatically upon
the green cloth.
There was no reply, and each looked to the other, to see who
would accept the challenge. His success disconcerted his friends,
who had been diligently playing into each other's pockets, as they
believed, at his expense. No one took the bet, for the good reason
that no one of his friends ever had money to bet with unless they
won or borrowed it from him. Elated with his good fortune, he was
resolved to attempt to break the bank by betting at roulette. He
bet one hundred dollars upon a color, at each time, and, in twenty
minutes, found himself indebted to the bank five hundred dollars.
Maddened by his ill-fortune, and the loud regrets of his friends, who
were pained to see money lost to this bank which they felt they were
legitimately entitled to finger, he offered to double his losses, at a
single stake.
`Plank the amount,' said the bank-keeper, coolly snapping the
ball into the wheel, `all set—double 00 black!'
Duncan turned his pocket-book inside out in vain!
`I am run out, Coburn,' he said, laughing.
`Fill and sign that,' said the man, handing him a small elegantly
printed slip of paper—which proved to be a form of a note at one
day's date. The banker knew his man, and had no fear of the payment.
`Give me two,' said Duncan, eagerly; and taking a pen he filled
each out for five hundred dollars. `There,' he cried, dashing down
the pen! `now I am in funds once more! Five hundred on the single
O red!'
He placed the note upon the spot—the wheel flew round—the
ball spun from the fingers of the bank dealer, and every eye watched
anxiously as it bounded and danced from number to number till
it settled to rest.
`Sev-en red!' drawled out the dealer, quietly drawing with his little
rake the note towards the pile, that lay mixed with gold and silver
at his right hand.
`Give me another blank,' said Duncan, without changing countenance,
though murmurs of disappointment fell thickly from the
lips of his friends.
The blank was placed within his reach and filled for one thousand
dollars and signed by him.
`Single O red!' he said, in a low voice, with a pale cheek and
compressed mouth.
`All set,' cried the banker, launching the ball from his thumb into
the revolving wheel.
How anxiously were the motions of the little ivory ball watched
till its wild circles ceased!
`Double 00 black,' drawled the unmoved banker, raking the note
towards him.
Every eye was turned upon Duncan! His cheek was flushed,
and for a moment he seemed deliberating. At length he said, calmly
addressing the banker,
`My losses are fifteen hundred in notes, and a debt to the bank of
three hundred. Will you take my note for two thousand, and give
me a chance to win back what I have lost?'
The banker whispered aside a few moments with the faro-dealer,
who had left his own bank to watch the progress of the heavy betting
at roulette, and then replied in the affirmative.
`For Heaven's sake, Duncan, quit playing! you are sure to lose,'
said his solicitous friends, crowding about him.
`If I lose, it is my loss, not yours,' he said, sharply.
They thought to the contrary, however. The blank was given
him and filled out and signed for two thousand dollars, at one day's
date; muttering, as he laid down the pen, `if old Jacob will have to
shell this out at last, I am afraid I shall have small balance behind.'
`All set,' cried the man, sending the wheel revolving.
`Single O red!' calmly repeated Duncan, placing the note upon the
red cypher in the green squares.
`Seven black!' sung the man, in his drawling, professional tone,
which no amount of winning or of losses could alter.
`Seven devils,' fiercely cried Powell, flinging the note towards
the dealer, and striking the table with his clenched fist.
`Nearly four thousand dollars due the bank,' groaned his friends,
as they turned away.
`Never fear, boys,' said Duncan, laughing! `I shall have to fork
over, but I swear I will yet break their confounded bank for them!
Come, let us go to my rooms and have a supper of champagne and
oysters! This infernal betting at roulette is dry work. I have been
cursedly unlucky.'
Duncan seemed to feel his losses much less than his interested
friends; for, like cormorants, they had been always near him, to gorge
his freely scattered gold. It was like losing so much themselves;
and when they quit the room they fastened savage looks upon the
bank dealer as if he had been picking their own pockets. The
night was ended with champagne and oysters, and Duncan retired
in happy oblivion of his losses.
It was about half past twelve the next day'when he awoke; but,
so thickly curtained was his luxurious chamber, that the only indications
of day was the roar of wheels along the pavements of the
streets. Rising, and throwing on his rich dressing-gown, he passed
into a small parlor, where his black servant was preparing a table
for his breakfast.
`How is the day out, Peter?'
`Rain, master!'
`Then my drive with Feneton, on the Avenue, is knocked in the
head! I should have won a cool hundred. What are these?' he
said, taking up several letters.
`Sent up from de bar dis forenoon, master.'
`Well, have my breakfast, while I look at them. My father's
hand! I wonder what the old miser has to say. Ordering me
home, I suppose,' he added, indolently breaking the seal.
Kirkwood, August 3, 183—.
My Son Duncan.
I herewith order you to return forthwith to Kirkwood. I have
learned, that you have been pursuing a course of extravagance in
the city, that can only be kept up by debt—as I have been careful
never to allow you the means of dissipation. When I forgave you,
for resigning without my leave from West Point, it was on the condition
that you remained quietly at home, to look after the place.
Till you are twenty-one, which is yet six months off, I at least have
the control over you, and mean to exercise it; and if you expect
any thing of me, after you are of age, you will now comply with my
wishes. My health is poorly, and your ungrateful conduct by no
means improves it.
Your Father.
BEASELY POWELL.
P. S. Deerfoot has lamed, and I fear will prove henceforth of no
value.
`Poor Deerfoot!' said this filial youth, closing his letter. `I am
sorry for your mishap, at least. I would not for five hundred dollars
lose you, my faithful horse!'
Here is another letter. What a scrawly hand!
Thursday Morning, August 6.—
Sir,
Your note for the pair of bays sold you, comes due tomorrow.
Respectfully,
TURNER & HANNA.
`These gentlemen are very ceremonious, to take the trouble to
inform me of this fact! Peter, how much was I to pay for the bay
mare?' he asked, as the black came in with the tray.
`Six hundred, master,' answered Peter, stopping short and resting
his tray on his knee, while he reflected a moment.
`You are right. To-morrow, ah! Well, old Goldschnapp will
have to release his notes freely. What says this?'
City Hotel, August 6.—
Sir,
Your account, up to the first of the month, has been due some
days. You will oblige by adjusting this morning,
Yours, very truly,
—
P. S. The account rendered on the first is $298,50.
`And here is another. A dun, I dare say. My tailors!'
Sir,
Thankful for your past custom we have the honor of enclosing
your account for the last quarter, which it would be quite a convenience
to us to have adjusted today.
Your very ob't servants,
St. John's & Co.
`Hum! Three hundred and forty dollars! I shall want full five
thousand from Goldschnapp. Confound it, here is another! What
does this mean? I should think all these fellows had heard of my
losses last night, and were sending in their accounts for fear of my
running out. But they need not fear! I have not certainly drawn
more than four thousand from Goldschnapp, and so they need not
be alarmed. Mine was a confoundedly heavy loss, though, last
night! What is this?'
Dear Sir,
The note for the Stanhope and harness, bought of me in June, is
due today. You will confer a favor by calling and settling it.
Yours, &c.
G. Buggy & Co.
`There is two hundred and fifty more. I can do with no less than
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six thousand, for I shall want odd money over, as I am without a
dollar. Hurry with my breakfast, Peter, I have got to go out.'
`It rains, master.'
`So much the better—I shall be less observed—for I am going into
a neighborhood I don't care being seen in.'
As he sat down to his coffee, a rap was heard at the door, and a
waiter delivered Peter a note.
`Ah, perfumed, and with a fancy seal! No money wanted here!
From some of my hundred female friends. `Dear Powell!' It is
from Anna, by the rood! Wants me to come, or send Peter, with
a hundred dollar note! What can she want of it! I gave her fifty
the day before yesterday. Confound money, I say!'
In no very good-humor Duncan finished his late breakfast, and
was preparing to go out, when a young gentleman was announced by
the name of Feneton.
`Ah, Ralph! I was just saying how sorry I was we should lose
our trotting match!'
`The rain is over, and the clouds are breaking away, and the afternoon
will be fine! Come and dine with me, and we will start at
four.'
`I should be glad to, but I have just breakfasted and don't care
about dining before six; —besides, I have a little engagement just
now.'
`Let that wait! A man of fortune should never pledge his
time to any body.'
`But—'
Here other friends were announced, and Duncan's demuarrer
was cut short. In their company he soon forgot his intention of
calling on the Jew, and joined them in a promenade up Broadway.
He dined with Feneton, lost his race on the Avenue, and came home
in ill-humor. It was already twilight when he reached his chambers.
A note was waiting for him on his toilet. He tore it open,
and read, with a vexed look;
Bank of New York, August 6.
Dear Sir,
Your three notes, of $500, 1000, and 2000 are due 5-9 Inst.
Yours, respectfully,
T. Money, Cashier.
`I must go to Goldschnapp, at once,' he said, with an oath of annoyance.
Peter, my cap and cloak.'
`Nother rain, master. Shall I call a coach?'
`No, I walk.'
Thus speaking he left his apartment, and, enveloping himself in
his cloak, and hiding his features, sallied forth into the rainy streets
and took his way towards the Park.
In a small apartment in the rear of a pawnbroker's shop, with
which it communicated by a low door, sat a small, thin man, about
fifty years of age, poring over an old book of charges. His head
was large — too large for his little person — and covered with thick,
black hair, slightly mixed with gray. His forehead was high and
retreating, and his eyebrows arched. His dark eyes were narrowlidded
and almost-shaped, and were restless and sharp. His nose
was long, high set, and curving over the upper lip like the beak of
an eagle. He had a heavy beard, which was shaved only about the
mouth, which feature was thin-lipped, and expressive of avarice.
A black, oily, silk cap was stuck on the top of his head, the tassel of
which dangled over his left ear. He was seated in an ancient
leather arm-chair, with a high, straight back. Before him was a
round walnut stand, on which lay his account-book, bundles of
dirty looking papers, writing materials, and a huge snuff-box, into
whied every minute or two, he would thrust his fingers and replenish
his capacious nose. A tallow candle, in an old brass candlestick
afforded the only light in the room, which was low and small, meagerly
furnished, and on all sides piled to the ceiling with `pledged'
goods. The door to the front shop was open, but the shop itself
was dark and closed, in conformity with the law, limiting pawn-brokers'
hours to sundown.
`The three thousand four hundred dollars,' he went on, muttering
over his accounts, `advanced six months ago to Col. Bevens, on his
bond and mortgage, are due to-morrow! Good investment, at twenty-seven
per cent. per annum. Here is his note, in which he desires
two months, at six per cent. increase of the rate of interest,
half per annum — ten per cent. per annum! I think I must oblige
him! Then foreclose! for he lives too high ever to pay! Good
property, and worth twelve thousand under the hammer! Here is
the one thousand dollars loaned Mr. Driscoll, on a mortgage of his
stock in — bank. That will pass into my hands, without question,
as Driscoll came to me last night for a new loan, and this is due on
the eleventh! Here is that young spendthrift's account — Duncan
Powell. Last advance July 25th, seven hundred and fifty dollars!
This is a good business for me! He will be of age in February.
At fifty per cent. payable thirty days after! Where does all the
money melt to, I advance him? Five months ago I made the first
payment on his bond, and I have now in his favor—'
A light footstep interrupted the money-lender, and looking up,
he waited, listening its approach, when a beautiful young Jewess,
with eyes like load-stars, entered the apartment, and tapping him
playfully on his large veined forehead, said, in a rich-keyed tone,
`Father, we have been waiting supper for you, and mother bade
me call you.'
`True — true! I had forgot, Ruth: you did quite right to remind
me! These accounts, you see, are so absorbing. I hope, child,' he
added, smiling kindly over his black beard, `that you will always be
a good girl, and repay me for my toil for your happiness.'
`Indeed, father, I trust I shall never do any thing to make you
unhappy.'
`I trust not — I believe not, Ruth dear,' he said, as he followed
her from the low room up a flight of stairs, dimly lighted. She
preceded him into a handsome apartment, brilliantly lighted, and
most sumptuously furnished with a rich tea service of silver, neatly
arranged upon a table in the centre. Never was a greater contrast
between the room just quitted below and this show of wealth and
luxury above stairs. Mr. Goldschnapp threw aside his oily silk cap
at the door, and, exchanging his old shop-coat for a gorgeously flowered
Indian dressing-robe, also, as he entered, presented as striking
an opposite to himself, below stairs, as could well be conceived. At
the table, before the tea-tray, sat a handsome, dark-eyed middle-aged
Jewess, in a rich head-dress of crimson and orange, and a very gay
silk dress.
`We waited, Jacob, till the muffins were cold, but I have ordered
fresh,' she said, in the good-natured tone of an even-tempered light-hearted
person. `I rung the bell no less than four times.'
`I heard it, Rebecca, but I as instantly let it pass from my mind.
So Ruth is to have a few young friends this evening, that is the reason
of her hurrying Pa! I see you are lighted up early, child!'
`It is afte eight some time, and they are to be here at half-past,
father. There is the bell, now! Who can it be, so soon?'
`It may be some one on business with me; I have certain customers
whom I have told to come to the house-door when the shop
is shut.'
`A gentleman wants to see you,' said the servant-woman, coming
to the door.
`Let him wait,' said Mrs. Goldschnapp; `and you finish your tea.
Send for his name, and if he is one you care to ask up, invite him.'
`He says he will wait your leisure, sir,' reported the girl, again
appearing at the door.
`Some poor man in distress, I dare say, and wants money,' said
the lady. `Is he in the hall?'
`No, marm, but outside.'
Mr. Goldschnapp was hurrying through his tea, when the bell
rung again, and the servant brought up a slip of paper.
`It is the same young gentleman, sir, and he says give you this
bit of paper.'
`It is my young friend, Mr. Powell. Go down and ask him to
come up, girl. Ruth, eh! How are you looking? Well, I see!
He is a nice young person, this Mr. Powell! He would make a
good match when he comes of age, if he did n't run through with
his fortune before the honey-moon!'
`Why, he is a Christian, father!'
`In courtesy, Ruth,' said Jacob, smiling. `Besides, if your mother
tells me truly, you are more Christian than Jewess.'
The young dark-browed girl blushed, and was at a loss how to reply,
though Jacob was not a very strict Israelite, when the person
alluded to appeared in the door, cloaked and capped. He was gazing
upon the brilliant domestic scene, which the suddenly thrown-open
door had so unexpectedly displayed, with looks that plainly
indicated, that he was quite unprepared for anything of the kind.
Jacob enjoyed his surprise a moment, and then rising from the table,
shook him heartily by the hand, made him throw aside his cloak,
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presented him to his wife and daughter, and placed him on the
fourth side of the tea-table. Duncan was not a little astonished at
this reception, in such a place, for his two previous interviews had
been in the room below, when his visits found the money-lender
there. He had been but twice in person before, his drafts upon
him having at other times been presented through Peter, or some
other person.
`I hope you have been quite well, Mr. Powell,' said Jacob, with
that courtesy with which he always made inquiries after the health
of his forty and fifty per cent interests!
Duncan satisfied him on that point, and then devoted himself
with a great flow of light small talk to Ruth, with whose beauty he
had instantly been profoundly impressed. Jacob did not show any
signs of disliking this, for though Duncan was not a Jew, he was
rich, which was the next thing to it.
`I was not aware you had a family, and so interesting a one, Mr.
Goldschnapp,' said Duncan, glancing first at the handsome Mrs.
Goldschnapp, and then letting his ardent gaze dwell upon the oriental
beauty of the bewitching Ruth.
`I am proud to have the opportunity of making you acquainted
with the ladies, Mr. Powell.'
`I assure you I feel honored; and I shall avail myself of your
permission to visit you often,' he added, addressing and bowing to
mother and daughter.
The tea over, Duncan led Ruth to a harp which stood in a corner
of the room, and was soon so lost in listening to her ravishing song,
and with some spirited flirting in the intervals, that he quite forgot
that he came on business, till Jacob, with characteristic caution,
seeing that they had become quite well enough acquainted for a
first interview, approached him and said, aside.
`Did you wish to see me on business, Mr. Powell? If so, I am
at your service!'
Duncan started with recollection, and bidding the lovely Jewess
and her mother good night, followed Mr. Goldschnapp down stairs
into the little room where he transacted his business. In the hall
above Jacob had resumed his greasy cap and coat, in which Duncan
was to learn he was now no longer the polite host, but the usurious
money-lender.
`Take that chair, Mr. Powell,' he said, as he bolted the oaken
door and habitually arranged the key, to prevent the inspection of
the eye of curiosity from without.
`Your daughter is very beautiful,' said Duncan — his thoughts
still lingering in the room he had quitted, `how old is she?'
`Eighteen in October! a dutiful daughter.'
`An only child?'
`Yes — but there is the chair I set for you, Mr. Powell. Now if
you have business with me I am ready to attend to you.' And the
money-lender took his book from a little cupboard behind him and
laid it upon the table, while he gazed through his spectacled eyes
upon him, took a huge pinch of snuff, and waited for him to make
known the object of his visit.
`My purpose in calling on you is, to obtain six thousand dollars!'
said Duncan, hesitating, before he could name this large sum.
Mr. Goldschnapp made no reply, but thrusting his fist into his
snuff-box, took up a whole handful, and applying his nose to it, began
to snuff away for a few moments with unusual energy.
`I must have the money, Mr. Goldschnapp,' said Duncan, resolutely,
seeing the money-lender still did not speak.
After the Jew had continued to snuff a little while longer he fixed
a steady look upon his borrower, and with a deep grunt, that might
be construed either as assent or dissent, slowly turned over the
leaves of his cash-book, and stopping, when at length he came to
Duncan's account. Over this he glanced rapidly, and then, throwing
his spectacles over his forehead, looked him full in the face, and
slowly repeated,
`Six thousand dollars?'
`Yes.'
The money-lender smiled, peculiarly, opened a filed paper, and refitting
his glasses, began to read:
`In consideration of the sum of —'
`I do not want to listen to my agreement, I want the money advanced
according to it. Is not my bond as good for the amount I
ask, as for what I have already drawn?'
`Listen,' said the Jew, in a quiet tone. `You have in this paper
bound yourself to pay over to me, thirty days after coming of age,
the amount of a legacy left you by an aunt, named Sarah Duncan,
in consideration of receiving from me certain moneys in anticipation,
to an amount not exceeding one half of the amount of said legacy,
which is in all twelve thousand dollars.'
`One half!' exclaimed Duncan, quickly; `the agreement certainly
can have nothing to say about limiting the sum to less than
the twelve thousand dollars that I was to receive.'
`Am I to advance you twelve thousand for twelve thousand,
young man, think you?' asked the money-lender, with a sarcastic
leer. `The sum that comes to you is six thousand dollars only, according
to the letter of the bond.'
`True — too true!' cried Duncan, rising up and pacing to and
fro the little room. `With the idea only of the amount of my legacy
in my mind, and without reflecting that your fifty per cent.
was to come out of it, I have been deluding myself with the impression
I was to obtain the whole. What a fool I have been.'
`You should have noticed the wording of the bond “half the
amount of the legacy,” and you would not have been led into this
error!'
`I merely glanced at it after you drew it up, and hastily signed it,
too anxious to get the money to heed this! How much is there in
my favor? I have not received more than four thousand dollars, I
think!'
`Let us see,' said Jacob, bending over the book and reading
aloud —
| `May 6th — (the date of the agreement,) delivered self, |
$1000 00 |
| May 30th — five hundred dollars, pr. draft, accepted, |
1500 00 |
| June 12th — nine hundred dollars, pr. draft accepted, |
500 00 |
| July 1st — one thousand dollars, delivered self, |
600 00 |
| July 12th — eight hundred dollars, paid man Peter, |
800 00 |
| July 25th — seven hundred and fifty, paid check, |
750 00 |
`The whole amount is —'
`Tell me, quickly,' cried Duncan, who had listened with the
greatest impatience to this recapitulation.
`Five thousand one hundred and fifty dollars.'
`Impossible.'
`Run the figures up yourself, Mr. Powell?'
`No — I am satisfied, it must be so. And I am to receive but a
pitiful eight hundred and fifty dollars, when I expected six thousand.
This is bad!'
`But this was your own strange error,' remarked the Jew, coolly.
`It was, indeed. But this will not help me now. Yet I must
have the money,' he added, with bitter vehemence.
He continued silent a few moments, with a face almost haggard
with the feelings of his painful position, and seemed to be reflecting
upon some course. At length he said, in a tone partly imperative,
partly in entreaty,
`You must loan me the sum I want, Mr. Goldschnapp!'
`The eight hundred and fifty dollars, certainly.'
`The six thousand!'
`I never lend money without security,' replied Jacob, dryly.
`Look ye, sir Jew,' said Duncan, angry, and nearly insane with
his disappointment, as his heavy responsibilities stared him in the
face; `you have drawn my fortune from me by usury, and unless you
loan me five thousand dollars to-morrow, I swear, solemnly, I will
not only repudiate my bond, which, given by a minor, is illegal,
but will make an appeal to the law.'
`You cannot prove the usury,' said Jacob, unmoved, and speaking
blandly; `our agreement reads, that I am to advance you half the
amount of the legacy before you are twenty-one, on condition of receiving,
within thirty days after your majority, the whole amount
of it. It does not say that I am not to pay you more after you are
twenty-one on receiving it, nor is one word said about interest. It
is carefully worded, you perceive, and makes me its trustee de facto.
I am well acquainted with the existing disposition of the legacy,
and shall take such steps as, in case you should forfeit your honor
in the matter, to throw obstacles in the way of your receiving it
until you redeem your bond.'
`What shall I do? I cannot do without money,' said Duncan,
impatiently, quite forgetting, in his perplexity, his proposition to
defraud him.
`Be calm, Mr. Powell, and I can, perhaps, propose a plan that
will relieve you,' said the money-lender, too used to such scenes to
suffer his borrower's anger to move him; and ever having an eye
closely on his own interests.
`Speak — for I am in despair!'
`By our agreement you are entitled to receive yet from me eight
hundred and fifty dollars whensoever you shall demand it.'
`Well —'
`You want five thousand dollars beside!'
`Yes — failing in getting which I shall blow out my brains!'
`No man ever blowed his brains out but what, if he could, he
would have repented it the next day. The twelve thousand dollars
of your property is spent, and —'
`Yes, yes — can I realize any thing from what I expect from my
father?'
`That is what I am about to suggest. I have no fears about the
legacy, as I made myself quite sure of obtaining it before I loaned
you a dollar in anticipation of it. Therefore your proposition to
repudiate it, goes only for a little angry discharge of choler, and has
not disturbed me. So, letting that pass, I am willing to serve you
further in your wishes. Do you know the amount of your father's
real estate?'
`It has been recently valued at ninety thousand dollars.'
`So I have learnt. He has bank stock to the amount of forty
thousand more. You may or may not be his heir, and he may live
long. His age is fifty-six. Yet I am told his health is failing.'
`Yes,' said Duncan, eagerly, `he wrote me today of his illhealth;
' his desire to obtain in any way the sum he wanted, withering
in him all filial feeling or sympathy for his father's illness,
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[figure description] Page 019.[end figure description]
which he was now rather disposed to make use of as an instrument
for the furtherance of his object.
`You need this money greatly?'
`It is indispensable to my honor,' answered Duncan, warmly,
while his eye lighted up with hope as he saw that the Jew appeared
to be considering. Jacob slightly curled his lip when he heard the
word `honor,' and then proceeded, in a tone low and approaching
the confidential.
`Has your father made a will?'
`Not to my knowledge.'
`He gives you no money, ever?'
`No.'
`And you are an only child?'
`Yes. To what do these inquiries lead?'
`He is in poor health,' continued Jacob, without heeding or seeming
to heed his words.
`You know all that I know,' he answered, with a look of annoyance.
`I can get you the money, I think, on a draft on your father.'
`A draft!' exclaimed Harry, with astonishment.
`Yes. I will cash your draft on him for six thousand dollars.'
`He will never pay it.'
`Leave that to me,' said the money-lender, with a smile. `Make
the draft, and I will discount it for you to-morrow — that is, give
you five thousand dollars for the draft for six thousand. There is
risk, you know, and I must be paid for it.'
`Risk,' repeated Duncan, laughing. `He would throw the draft
into the fire-place and pitch the bearer out of the window. Yet,
upon my soul. I should be glad to get the money in any way.'
`Make the draft. There is pen and paper,' said Jacob, quietly.
`Your father's name is Beasely Powell, I believe?'
`You seem to know much about me and my family,' said Duncan,
as he took up the pen.
`I knew your father, and had transactions with him in money
matters during the war, when he was of the commissarait! You
resemble him!'
`There is the order on him — “Dear Father: By paying Jacob
Goldschnapp, or order, six thousand dollars, thirty days from date,
you will oblige your dutiful son,
Duncan Powell.,” '
`That will do,' said Jacob, after twice very carefully reading it
over through his spectacles. `Call on me to-morrow, at noon, and
you shall have the money.'
`You are a noble fellow, Goldschnapp,' cried Duncan, grasping his
hand. `How you are to come over the old man I have no idea.
But as you are willing to advance me the money I suppose you feel
you are quite safe, though I wouldn't, to tell you the truth, discount
my own order on him for less than one hundred per cent. He
would not send me fifty dollars to save me from a prison. You
have made me perfectly happy, old boy! I felt ten minutes ago
like hanging myself.'
`When you get this money, I advise you to keep away from the
gambling table, Mr. Powell.'
`You give me good advice, and I will try and follow it, Good night!
Remember me kindly to your lovely daughter, and respects to
madam. By the by,' added he, with some hesitation, as he was
leaving the room, `I have objections — you know — trifling, to be
sure, — but then certain objections to coming here to-morrow —
pawnbroker's, you know! Beg pardon, Goldschnapp; but I should
esteem it a great favor if you would be so clever as to drop in upon
me at my lodgings, with the cool five thousand.'
`This would be quite as objectionable, for it would be the pawnbroker
coming himself to his borrower! I will meet you at the
New Bank at half-past twelve.'
`Done. Good night,' said Duncan, shaking him heartily by the
hand, and taking his departure.
`Humph,' grunted Jacob, as he closed the street door behind him,
`I see I shall have in my hands half his fortune at fifty per cent,
before his father dies, and then, as to the other half, if I can persuade
Ruth —' here his voice fell, and he committed only to his
thoughts his further meditations.
The following day Duncan was at the place of meeting, and the
Jew promptly paid into his hands five thousand eight hundred and
fifty dollars. The delight as well as surprise of the young man,
was as boundless as his despair had been. He met his gambling
notes, and, paying off all his debts, internally resolved to be less
extravagant. The balance remaining in his hands, was about five
hundred dollars. To celebrate his good fortune, he gave a magnificent
dinner to a party of his friends, and, by the end of the feast,
became drunk with wine. Under its influence he resolved to go to
the gambling chambers, where he had lost so much, and, in revenge,
`break the bank.' His disinterested friends would have withheld
him from this piece of folly; but, headstrong and self-confident, and
rendered careless from the facility with which he found he could
obtain money from the Jew, he persuaded them to accompany him.
The fortune of the night was against him, and at twelve o'clock he
quit the rooms, leaving notes due the bank to the amount of nine
thousand dollars. This troubled him little, and finishing the night
with champagne and oysters, he sought his chambers.
The ensuing morning about nine o'clock, he was called by Peter,
who asserted that an old gentleman was outside the parlor door,
determined to see him, and would take no denial.
`I tells the gemman as how you was in bed, and 'lowed no body
to disturb you till you wakes yourse'f, and as how he could n't
come in no how.'
`Did he give his name?' asked Duncan, with a misgiving at his
conscience; for he believed it to be none else but his father!
`He says he will give he name when he come in, and so as I
could do noting wid him, and he keep pounding de door, I wakes
you. Dare! Hear dat debble knocking, master Duncan?'
`Yes;' said Duncan, rising. `Go let him into the parlor, and
tell him I will soon be out. Confound the old fellow! If, as I
suspect, it is my loving father, I am in for it!' he added, as he
hastily arranged his toilet, threw on his embroidered robe de chambre,
and thrust his foot into richly gilt Turkish slippers. In the
mean while he could hear the visiter stumbling about the room by
the aid of a stout stick, and grumbling after a fashion that could
not be mistaken by the young roué: it was his father's voice and step.
`One thing, at least, old Goldschnapp will now have a fair trial
of my draft! He certainly, indeed, can't have sent it for his acceptance,
which has brought him down in person. No, it is too short
a time! I am in, too, for nine thousand more! I protest I will
never go near another gambling-hell! Hear the old man!'
`I say, you confounded black rascal, tell your master I am waiting!
Silk sofas, mirrors the size of a barn door, satin curtains, silver,
gilding, and mahogany, as profuse as in a King's palace! Tell him
I cannot wait!'
`Ah, my dear father!' cried Duncan, opening his chamber door,
and approaching the old gentleman to embrace him, with the
looks of a son who had been winning laurels of honorable distinction
during his sojourn in town.
`What popin-jay is this?' cried Mr. Beasely Powell, with a
glance of contempt mingled with displeasure. `So, sir, you see I
have come!'
`Yes, sir, and I assure you, next to seeing you at Kirkwood, is
the profound pleasure I experience at having you visit me here. I
have been expecting you.'
`You have, hey? I guess I came upon you rather suddenly, for
all that,' he said, with a sneer. `Pretty doings this, I hear of you!'
`Indeed, sir, I regret I have done anything that displeases you!'
`You look as innocent as a babe! But that demure countenance
is not to deceive me! I have evidence enough here in this room,
of your way of life; and God knows how you support such extravagance
without a penny.'
`I am merely living like other young gentlemen in my position,
sir.'
`Your position! What would be your position if I should beggar
you, as I have a mind to do? Yes, young man; I have come down
to the city, resolved to make my will here, and leave every acre
and every dollar I am worth to charitable institutions. I will disinherit
you!'
`But, sir, what have you heard, what have I done? I came to
New York with your permission, on a visit.'
`To stay a week, and you have been absent five months! I have
heard of your dashing life on all hands. The papers every week,
of late, have had your name—such as `Mr. Duncan Powell's mare
trotted on the Avenue yesterday afternoon, harnessed in a drosky,
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against Dibble's famous brown Sal, and won the purse of $500;' or
see that the `rich Mr. Duncan Powell gave a splended entertainment
at his magnificent rooms, last evening, at which Lord Catesby Field
was an invited guest;' or some such paragraph as this meets my
eye, under the head of Racing Intelligence. `The heaviest bets on
the turf were made by Duncan Powell, Esq., and Jakes Ashby,
two of the richest young men in town.' Now you ask me what I
have heard? Explain all this to me! You are a mystery! How
do you live? By gambling, eh?'
During the newspaper review of his incensed and puzzled father,
Duncan stood silent, convinced that he had no need of using further
disguise, while he could not help smiling at the accurate knowledge
of his affairs he evinced. He therefore threw off all attempt at
concealment, and said, in a tone of well-feigned sorrow,
`I admit, sir, that I have been a little wild, and most sincerely
ask your forgiveness.'
`You do admit, eh! You do acknowledge it, then?' said the old
gentleman, with a look of triumph. `Well, sir, that is one half;
that is a great step towards reformation. But as you have not
brought me into debt, for you are still a minor, and none of your
debts (for I dare say you have got in debt) would hold against me,
I will forgive you. But you must promise—'
`I will promise any thing, sir.'
`Promise, then, to return with me to Kirkwood, and live there
till I am dead.'
`I do, sir,' answered the son, readily.
`In that case you shall become heir to all my property. But if
you offend me again—'
`I never will, sir.'
`Hear me! If you offend me again or leave home, I will found
a charitable institution with my money and cut you off with a
shilling.'
`You shall never have reason to complain of me after this, sir, be
assured.'
`I don't mean to. I am going to a lawyer to have a will properly
drawn up, conveying my estate to a charitable purpose, and take it
home with me ready to be signed whenever you disobey me! So
with this, in terrorem—'
`I shall surely be as dutiful and obedient a son as a father could
wish for.'
`Now I will shake hands with you, Duncan, and let the past be
by-gone. But I don't like this late rising and this expensive show
of things about you and your rooms!'
`This brocade gown was a present, father, and the rooms,' hesitated
Duncan, `are furnished by—by the—the upholsterer. He
found every thing, I assure you!'
`Oh, well, that is better than I thought; for I feared you had
gone in debt, and then you would, in honor, though not in law, have
been bound to pay by and by, and it would have come out of my
money at last. What do you do with this black fellow in regimentals?
'
`He is my body servant,' answered Duncan, gravely.
`Your lackey, eh? This must be an expensive luxury.'
`Not in the least, sir. He lives with me for my cast off clothes
and his meals, and very grateful at that. It is an act of charity to
keep him, sir.'
`I never knew you wore regimentals, Duncan,' said Mr. Powell,
dryly, and looking hard at Peter's red-faced livery.
`Have you breakfasted, father?' asked Duncan, quickly, desiring
to turn his ideas into a less annoying channel.
`No, I have just come from the boat.'
`How did you find me out, sir?'
`Every jackanapes in the city seems to know you. I asked a
fellow in a ragged jacket, who was rubbing down a horse at a stabledoor
near the river, if he could tell where you lived, and he answered
readily, `yes, he could do that,' and sent a little boy to show
me your hotel. I might have lived here twenty years and that
stable-boy would never have heard of me, rich as I am.'
`Peter, order breakfast. Excuse me a moment, father, while I
dress. Here are the morning papers,' said Duncan, leaving him, and
re-entering his chamber.
He closed the door, and immediately took from a rose-wood desk
a sheet of perfumed billet paper and rapidly penned the following
note:
`My dear Jacor,—I am confoundedly surprised this morning
by the `old gentleman' dropping in upon me before I was up. He
has come down to the city to look after me, so he says. We have
made matters up and I am to go home with him or lose Kirkwood.
If you can possibly do anything for me with him, come and dine
with me, at 2 o'clock. I choose this early hour on account of his
habits. I have some curiosity, I confess, to see how you are to do
about that draft. If you are successful, I shall have to call on you
again for a larger amount, for I am in a scrape again! Don't disappoint
me—at 2—remember! My respects to pretty Ruth.
Yours, faithfully,
DUNCAN POWELL.'
Sealing and addressing this note, he called Peter into the chamber,
and privately dispatched him to deliver it into Mr. Goldschnapp's
hands.
The breakfast passed off well, and Mr. Powell felt in better
humor after it. Having some business, he said, to transact, he
proposed going out immediately after, promising Duncan to be
back and dine with him. `I am going to make that will of bequest,
boy,' said he, smiling, as he went out, `so you will have to mind
your P's and Q's.'
`I see I shall,' muttered the young spendthrift, as he closed the
door on his father. `Faith, I am lucky to get off as well as I have.
I see I must keep steady, and lead a new life, if I expect anything
from his coffers. He will surely make that will, for I saw the
determination to do so beneath his smile, as he went out, and then
a dash of the pen beggars me.'
The hour of two came and with it old Mr. Powell, who entered
with a parchment in his hand, which he held towards his son with
a look of quiet triumph in his countenance.
`It is done, Duncan,' he said, displaying the instrument. `All it
wants is the signature! Now I think I have you! You will keep
at home awhile I think now, eh?'
`What kind of a charity have you contemplated founding, in
contingency of my being disinherited?' asked Duncan, gravely.
`I call it the `Beasely Powell Foundling Hospital,' sir. I shall
give one hundred and fifty thousand dollars to establish it; that is,
if you do not behave yourself, sir.'
`Yes, sir! Peter announces dinner! Take that seat, sir! Where
can the old Jew be?' he muttered impatiently to himself.
`You live high, boy! How in the deuce do you manage to get
along without money, eh? You must explain. I fear you gamble.
We must leave for home in the next boat.'
A servant entered at this moment and handed Duncan a card.
`Ask him up! Peter, place a chair! Ah, my dear sir, how do
you do! he said, as Mr. Goldschnapp entered, dressed in a plain suit
of black. `My father, Mr. Beasely Powell—Mr.—'
`Jacobs,' whispered the money-lender.
`Mr. Jacobs, father. I hope you will find each others' society
agreeable.'
They commenced dining; but all the while, from the Jew's first
entrance, Duncan had observed his father watching and studying
the money-lender's countenance, with at intervals a look of partial
recognition, which the next moment seemed to fade from his memory.
Mr. Goldschnapp, in the mean while, conversed with both
father and son on various topics of the day, and proved himself so
agreeable, that Beasely Powell not only invited him to take wine
with him, but listened to his humorous stories with much laughter.
It was plainly the Jew's aim to make him pleased with himself.
`Ah, you are a rare hand at a story, Mr. Jacobs,' said the old
miser, after Jacob had repeated an anecdote of great raciness and
point. `How odd it is; it seems to me I have seen you before, but,
for the life of me I can't remember, and yet your name is not
familiar! It is very odd.'
`Father, will you try a little of this fricasee.'
`No, boy! no Duncan! I have dined! My son is an extravagant
liver, Mr Jacobs; four dishes of meats at one meal!'
`Young men are not so wise as older heads,' said Jacob. `By the
by, sir, I think friend Duncan here has told me you were in the
army during the late war!'
`Yes! and now, by my conscience! that is where I saw your
face!' exclaimed Mr. Powell. `But I was only in the commissariat.
Were you in the army?'
`No,' answered Jacob, dryly, `I had not that honor, but I saw
something of fighting there, however! I had some business with
the officers, which drew me to the camp occasionally.'
`You look ill, father,' said Duncan, seeing Mr. Beasely Powell
become suddenly pale.
`No, no! I am quite well. This glass of wine will help me!
There, I am better!' and he fixed his glazed look upon the quiet
features of the Jew, whose words and features had brought with
them to his mind troublesome thoughts. He did not, however,
appear to recognize him! His emotion proceeded rather from some
association of resemblance, which linked him with unpleasant
reminiscences.
`I think I now recollect hearing of you with the northern army.'
said Jacob, concealing a malicious smile beneath a quiet look, that
might have become a quaker.
`Then you never saw me,' said the troubled commissary, looking
greatly relieved. `I really for the moment began to suspect—that
is—'
Duncan watched both parties with eager and wondering interest.
His curiosity was aroused to learn what had produced so extraordinary
an effect upon his father, now believing that the Jew, by some
fortune, held a moral influence over him, that might even lead him
to pay the draft.
—`That I was a Jew whom you once had dealings with,' said
Jacob.
`Then you knew Mr. Goldschnapp.'
`If it was he you allude to; I, I have known him some years. I
was in copartnership with him till he died two years ago!'
`Dead! Thank God! Is he dead?'
`Yes.'
`Then am I—but I beg pardon. I forgot myself. Thank God, I
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mean, that we are not dead. Are you a Jew? But you must be!
Jacobs is a Jewish name! Well—you alarmed me—that is—you
Jews all look so much alike.'
`Yes, we have a strong national likeness to one another.'
`You have, indeed,' murmured Mr. Powell, breathing freely.
`To tell you the truth, I would have sworn you were Mr. Goldschnapp!
'
Duncan smiled; and the money-lender, glancing at him out of
the corner of his eye, said, as if carelessly turning the conversation,
`You have a son here to be proud of, Mr. Powell. I have known
him some time, and have the pleasure of calling him one of my
friends.'
`Indeed. I am very happy to hear so respectable a person speak
in his behalf. He has little merit of it. He has been dissipating;
the graceless fellow!-and I have to-day made a will which I am
going to hold in terrorem over him. Look at it, Mr. Jacobs! Is
it not a rod well pickled, eh?'
`This should be a restraint on any young man's excesses, with
hopes such as are before my young friend Duncan,' said the Jew,
glancing over the parchment. `But you will never be compelled
to carry it into effect, I trust. By the by, I remember hearing my
partner Goldschnapp relate a clever anecdote of the war, and in
which he was concerned.'
Mr. Powell became suddenly red and then pale, and seemed to
wish to avoid hearing the anecdote. But the Jew did not heed him,
while Duncan became intensely interested.
`It seems there was a commissary of the army, who had a large
amount of ammunition, stores, &c., intrusted to him, of great value,
and was on his way with them to the camp at, I forget where,
now, when he was met by Goldschnapp, then a rich Jew of Montreal,
who privately proposed to him, holding out a great bribe, to
send away the escort on some pretence, and let a party of British
troops, not far off, fall upon them, in a place called the `Panther's
Gap,' and cary them off. This offer was made by the British with
a full knowledge that the commissariat in charge was an avaricious
man, and would snap at the proposal. Goldschnapp was sent
with a party to negotiate. The commissary betrayed his trust,
received forty thousand dollars, and the stores and ammunition
were taken. The commanding officer, in charge of the stores with
the commissary, was tried, but acquitted for want of evidence,
while the real rogue escaped. It was a most extraordinary affair,
sir,' added the wily Jew, `and doubtless even now if he should be
betrayed, he would swing for it.'
The eyes of the money-lender during this recital were furtively
watching the countenance of the commissary; as well also was the
surprised Duncan. The expression of his father's face throughout
was one of painful suspense, of fear hovering between hope and
suspicion. His cheek was colorless and his eye restless and averted,
while the hand that held a fruit-knife trembled till the knife vibrated
audibly upon the mahogany board. He seemed, at length,
conscious of betraying feelings it were best to suppress, and making
an effort to speak, said, with a ghastly smile,
`Yes, I dare say he would—would swing, ha, ha! Did you hear
his name?' he asked, in a hoarse voice.
Before replying, the Jew made a signal to the astonished Duncan
to quit the room, who, rising instantly up from the table, made
some excuse to his father.
`No, Duncan, stay! I don't want to be left alone,' said the commissary,
in a painfully pleading tone.
`Mr. Jacobs will remain, sir, with you;' and the next moment
the two old men were left alone together. Mr. Powell looked at
the door as if meditating escape from, he knew not precisely what
dreaded evil, while Jacob, after fixing his eyes steadily upon him
for a moment, apparently enjoying his embarrassment, said,
`I am glad your son has left, before I replied to your question,
Mr. Powell,' said the Jew, in the quiet tone peculiar to him.
`You are? Why, what, what is there that he shouldn't hear as
well as I?' he asked, almost choking.
`That his father was the commissary!'
`Who said this?'
`Jacob Goldschnapp.'
`It is false, sir!' exclaimed Mr. Powell, in a high, angry tone.
`False as the accursed Jew's heart! Jacob Goldschnapp dare not
himself tell me so!'
`He accepts the challenge, Mr. Powell, and here repeats it. You
are the commissary, and I am Jacob Goldschnapp!'
Mr. Powell sprung from his chair, three feet back from the table,
and gazed upon the Jew with a look of despair and terror. In his
imagination the halter was already about his neck, and he was led
forth to suffer at last for the guilt which he had believed time had
forever buried in oblivion.
`I knew it—I suspected him from the first! I—I thought I
recognized the infernal Jew, but I could not believe it was him!'
he said, with a trembling voice, as if soliloquizing.
`Come, Mr. Powell, sit down quietly and let us converse a little,'
said Jacob, coolly.
`Will you betray me?' he asked, with great agitation.
`Sit down. I have a word or two to say to you about your son.
If you listen to reason you need not fear me.'
`I will listen to anything, only do not betray me to the government,
' he said, in a voice of fear, and he resumed his seat opposite
the Jew, eyeing him askance, as if he had been vis-a-vis with a tiger.
`Your son, you are aware, has been here a few months enjoying
himself. If he has been wild it is because you have been a niggard
parent, and young men of large expectations, so brought up,
are sure in the end to prove most troublesome. They can always
obtain money in anticipation of their fortune, and when they get it
will spend it more freely as they have been previously more
restrained.'
Mr. Powell groaned aloud; for he now saw how Duncan had got
the possession of means. The Jew continued:
`My business is money-lending on good securities. I have supplied
your son, for old friendship's sake,' he added, bowing to the
unhappy commissary, `with such means as from time to time he
wanted; for I thought it a pity the son should not enjoy something
of that fortune, the foundation of which the father so easily acquired
through my assistance. I now hold the security he gave me.'
`And what is that? He is a minor. It is of no value, whatever
it be.'
`True; but I look more to you in this case than to him!'
`To me! I have nothing to do with my son's loans and securities.
If you have loaned him money you must lose it. What is the
sum?'
`Six thousand dollars!'
`Impossible! Duncan borrow six thousand dollars! You loan
him that sum!'
`Yes.'
`Then I do not know which to be most astonished at, his extravagance
and audacity, in borrowing and spending such a large sum,
or your folly in advancing it!' thundered Mr. Powell, forgetting
his sins as commissary, in his virtuous horror of the proceedings of
Duncan and the Jew.
`Here is the security your son gave me,' said the money-lender,
quietly taking from a long leather pocket-book Duncan's draft on
his father, and reading it aloud in his astonished ears.
`The scoundrel! Has he the impudence to—'
`You see this is at thirty days' sight,' said the Jew, in his quiet
manner. `You will please accept it now or discount it at one-half
per cent. and give me your check.'
Thus speaking, Jacob Goldschnapp rose from the table and
brought a pen and ink, and placing it within Mr. Powell's reach,
with the draft before him, composedly re-seated himself.
Mr. Powell looked, like one in a dream, first at the pen, then at
the draft, and then at the firm but quiet face of the Jew. At length
he found words.
`What means this, sir? Do you intend to insult me? Do you
expect me to accept that infamous draft of my reprobate son's? I
will disinherit him! Take up your slip of paper, Jew, and deposit
it in your safe,' he added, scornfully; `it may serve in lieu of your
six thousand dollars, to look at!'
Jacob Goldschnapp listened very patiently, and then, reaching
his arm across the table, laid the end of his fore-finger upon the
draft, and said, in a tone of deep significancy, while he fixed upon
the commissary his piercing dark eyes,
`Beasely Powell, this is no time for trifling, nor am I a person
to be trifled with! Write your name across the face of that paper.
Don't let me have to enforce the request.'
`Enforce! How mean you?' articulated faintly the guilty commissary.
`The gallows!' whispered the Jew between his closed lips,
speaking in a low tone, scarcely above his breath. But it reached
the ears of Beasely Powell.
With a face pallid with fear he stretched forth his trembling
hand to the pen and drew the paper towards him. He stopped and
laid down the pen.
`Does my son know this matter?'
`No,'
`Swear never to reveal it to him and I will write you a check at
one-half per cent. Once had he possession of this secret and I
should have no rest. I will accept this for you, Mr. Goldschnapp.
But I trust you will spare me after this! We are both old men,
and it ill becomes us to push one another out of life's path as we
go down hill together,'
`There is the pen!' said Jacob, and, directing his attention to the
draft without heeding his words, waited for him to write.
Mr. Powell again took up the pen, and, with a trembling hand,
wrote his name across the face of the draft and then sank back in
his chair overcome with his feelings. Duncan entered at this
moment, and glancing at the parties, and seeing with astonishment
the draft in Jacob's hands, accepted, with the ink still wet upon it,
he whispered, hurriedly,
`You, I see, alone can save me! I must have fifteen thousand
dollars now he is in the vein! I owe nine thousand already! Do
this for me and I will give you,' added he, smiling, `a check on the
old man for eighteen.'
Thus speaking in a low voice, while his father lay back with his
face in his hands, Duncan crossed to the inner room to await the
issue. Jacob, always alive to his own interests, was not reluctant
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to make the effort. He roused the commissary from his depression
and again attacked him, urging upon him to let Duncan have twenty
thousand dollars at once. At length, after great difficulty, and solemnly
pledging himself never again to allude to the subject of the
commissarait, he gave the Jew his check for the sum as reluctantly
as if each dollar had been a drop of his blood, and then, without
bidding Duncan good-bye, and scowling upon the Jew, he left the
room, and that evening took boat for the Highlands.
Jacob paid over seventeen thousand dollars the next day to Duncan,
retaining three thousand as his per centage.
The young man strove to draw from the Jew the secret of his
power over him, yet half-suspecting the truth. But Jacob replied,
as they left the bank together,
`Take the money, Mr. Powell, and be content. What passed
between your father and me, can never pass my lips. I have
solemnly sworn to keep his secret. Now let me advise you to follow
him to Kirkwood. He will not live long, and you will then be
in possession of a handsome estate. Leave the city at once, and
remain at home till his confidence is restored in you.'
This was good advice from one so interested as the Jew in his
remaining in the city and pursoing his former course. But probably
Jacob had come to the conclusion, that no more money could be
got by any farther advances, and having an eye to inveigling Duncan
into a marriage with Ruth, he naturally wished to counsel him
to what was best for the interest of all parties. Duncan promised
he would consider about following his advice, and then left him to
pay up his gambling debts, after which there remained a balance
of eight thousand dollars in his possession.
The good fortune which had extricated Duncan Powell from his
difficulties, instead of making him more provident, only made him,
if possible, more reckless. Impressed with the wild idea that he
could replenish his resources whenever they run low, he was heedless
of expense, and launched out upon a course of extravagance
that quite left all other fashionable spendthrifts in the background.
For a few weeks he pursued his course without a check. At length
his finances begun sensibly to diminish, and he was surprised one
day to find his check returned from the bank, where he had deposited
his eight thousand dollars, with the appalling words written
upon it, `No deposits—overdrawn $100.'
After yielding a few moments to the surprise this announcement
occasioned him, his thoughts instantly reverted to his friend the
Jew; and taking his hat, he sallied out to call upon him. Threading
his way along Broadway, he crossed through the Park into
Chatham street, and having ascertained that he was not particularly
observed, darted into the pawnbroker's.
`Mr. Goldschnapp ish in Wall street,' replied a short, roundshouldered
Jewish lad, who was making out a ticket for a poor woman,
who had just pledged a pair of flat-irons for means to get bread
for her children. He was about leaving, when a familiar voice
from the third stall arrested his ear.
`It is worth fifty dollars; my father gave that for it! I must
have thirty on it. The seal is worth ten.'
`I can let you have only twenty,' said another Jew, who kept in
the shop, taking the watch and examining it. While Duncan was
trying to recollect the voice, for the speaker was hid, his eye fell
upon the seal, which he instantly recognized as one he had three
years before given Paul Tatnall, and instantly he recognized the
voice to be Paul's.
Fearing to be seen by him in such a place, he hurriedly withdrew,
resolving to return after dark, and then see both the Jew and
his pretty daughter Ruth. This was the first time he had encountered
Paul since his sojourn in the city; and the circumstances
under which he met him convinced him, that he must be in a reduced
condition, to part with a watch which he knew to have been
a gift from his mother. Paul, we will here observe, had now been
for some weeks leading a wild and vicious life in companionship
with his club-mates, the `River Rovers,' at times overrunning with
money, and at others reduced, as he was now, to resort to the pawnbroker's.
Paul had heard of Duncan's extravagant career, and had
seen him passing in the streets and on the race-course, but never
cared to be recognized by him, either from morbid pride or from
dislike. He could never forgive him for having become acquainted
with Catharine Ogilvie, whose treatment to him was the secret
of his reckless course! But to return for the present to Duncan.
The same evening he sought the Jew's again. Jacob was in his
little back-room, poring, as usual, over his cash-book. His horn
spectacles were on his nose, his snuff-box before him, and the little
lamp burned beside him, and he was deeply intent upon some
account, which seemed to perplex him, when the door-bell announced
a visiter.
`Humph! that must be master Duncan,' he said, grimly. `It is
his hour, and as I inquired today out of curiosity at the bank what
funds lay to his order, and found he had overdrawn a hundred, I have
expected him!'
He listened while the servant girl scuffed through the dark passage,
and heard Duncan's voice inquiring for him. The next moment
the spendthrift was in his presence, capped and cloaked!
`Ah, I am glad to find you in, Jacob,' he said, in a careless way,
as he threw aside his disguise; `I feared you might possibly be out,
for I want to see you most particularly.'
`You are quite a stranger. Have you been at Kirkwood the last
few weeks?' asked the Jew, dryly.
`No; I have been in town, and I am run ashore!' You must do
something for me, Goldschnapp!'
The Jew looked across the little desk at him with shrewd, half-closed
eyes, and smiled in a manner peculiar to him, when men
wanted money. At length he said,—
`You should have followed my advice. You will lose your inheritance!
'
`O no! The old man never would cut me off; besides, you have
the key to his coffers; eh, my old Israelite!' and Duncan slapped
him on the shoulder, with familiar jocoseness.
Jacob did not encourage the manner, however, and his looks quite
froze Duncan, who said,—
`Well, I don't mean to offend you! You are too good a friend,
and have too pretty a daughter, for me to get out with you, eh, Jacob!
But this money! I want some thousands!'
`What security can you offer?' asked Jacob, looking into his face
with his large, piercing gaze.
`Security! Why — the old man!' he answered, hesitating and
coloring.
`There is nothing more to be obtained from that source!' said
the money-lender, gravely.
`No?' inquired Duncan, with a start.
`Not a penny!'
`Your charm is broken, then. That is bad. I had looked to this!'
`You can look to it no longer! I have made a solemn oath not
to apply to him again for money!'
`A Jew's oath!' repeated Duncan, contemptuously.
`Is sacred!' said Jacob, in a firm voice.
`But you must do something. I am quite out of money. I have
not five dollars!'
`Give me security, and you shall have what you require, Mr.
Powell,' answered the money-lender, in an unmoved tone, adjusting
his spectacles, and then taking a huge pinch from his snuff-box.
`I have none! You know as well, nay, better than I do, my affairs
and expectations! Yes, my expectations. I will give you
security on these!'
`They are uncertain! Your father has ere this affixed his signature
to the will he had drawn up. You should have followed him
home! You have been imprudent, sir.'
`If he has done so, I will tear it from him! It shall be destroyed,
' he said, rising, and speaking with angry vehemence.
`This would be futile; for he will have recorded it in the proper
court, and this will stand good! You have probably lost your fortune!
'
`Not if I can prevent it,' he answered, with fierce energy, striking
the closed fist of one hand into the palm of the other.
`This is folly! But possibly it may not be as I say! I advise
you to go to Kirkwood at once, and learn your true position!'
`I cannot meet the old man.'
`Then you have no alternative but to be a beggar,' said the Jew,
coolly; and, bending over his cash-book, he began to examine the
account he was engaged upon, when his ring at the door interrupted
him.
Duncan stood for some time eyeing the Jew with looks of bitter
hostility, as if his refusal to aid him merited his resentment. But
the quiet and indifferent manner of the money-lender led him to
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see that he could do nothing by threats or violence, and he resolved
to appeal to his feelings. The money-lender listened to his
arguments and entreaties calmly; but the expression of his countenance
underwent no change.
`It is impossible, Mr. Powell,' he said, firmly, when Duncan had
said all he could say. `I never loan money without security.'
`If I will proceed to Kirkwood, and on my return bring you evidence
that my father has not disinherited me, will you advance me
money?' asked Duncan, in deep distress.
`No. For I should have no pledge that he would not yet do it.'
Duncan was overwhelmed with despair! His situation rushed
upon his mind in all its terrors! To be in an instant reduced from
affluence and the full tide of fashionable living almost to destitution!
It was true he had two horses and a phaeton, and rich furniture;
but the idea of making a public sale of them, and thereby
exposing his poverty, was mortifying to his vanity and pride. He
thought of the taunts, the scorn, and the contempt of those he had
outshone and rivalled, and the sneers of his associates! The reflection
was madness to him! He walked the little room with a hurried
step and fevered cheek.
`Mr. Goldschnapp, my good sir, you must do something for me!'
he said, suddenly stopping short and laying his hands upon his and
earnestly pressing it.
`Mr. Powell,' said the Jew, sternly, `it is quite out of the question!
I have no money to give away!'
`I do not want — you to give; but, yes, 't is true I am begging it—
for I can offer you no security! You are right, and I am degraded
and lost!'
He threw himself into a chair, buried his face in his hands upon
the table, and for a few moments the hard eye of the Jew softened
at the fearful exhibition of his hopeless despair. At length he
closed his book, and, after surveying the heaving agitated form of
the spendthrift, he said, in a mild tone,—
`Mr. Powell.'
`Sir,' answered Duncan, lifting his tearful face with a flush of
hope at the sound of his name uttered in a tone of sympathy.
`Perhaps I can make one more effort to save your estate, if—'
`Name the condition, if it be body and soul!' he exclaimed, with
passionate energy, grasping the money-lender's hand, and looking
in his face as if life depended upon his words.
Jacob Goldschnapp leaned with his face nearer to the young man,
and in a lower voice said, in a friendly tone,—
`I have been examining of late the record of your father's deed,
and find he has a very fine landed estate — very! It were a pity it
should pass away from the natural heir — a great pity! Now I am
willing to make an effort to secure to you this fine patrimony —
even granted the will be on record, provided —' Here Jacob dropped
his voice to a whisper, smiled a little, and then added, `that
you take a wife of my choosing!'
`A wife!'
`Yes.'
`Who is she?'
`My daughter Ruth,' answered Jacob, serenely.
`A Jewess!' exclaimed the astonished young man.
`She is half a Christian! She will scarce corrupt you, were she
a strict Jew,' said the money-lender, with irony.
Duncan reflected for a moment, and then, turning to Jacob, said,
emphatically,—
`Done! But will she marry me?'
`You must win her. She is already half won.'
`Indeed! It will be pleasant wooing. Then if I pledge myself
to wed your daughter you—'
`I pledge myself to secure your patrimony to you.'
`If you fail?'
`Your pledge is given back.'
`And I am beggared! This will never do. I want money now,
to-night. I can't wait to woo the Jewess, and run the risk at
last!'
`There is no alternative! Sell to-morrow one of your horses,
and get a little ready money, and wait the issue of my visit to Kirkwood.
I do not require you to surrender your liberty to Ruth till
I have in my hands the power to place your property to your disposal.
There is yet another little condition — that Kirkwood, and
twenty thousand dollars beside, be settled on Ruth as her dower.'
`Be it so,' sighed Duncan. `When shall you return?'
`I go to-morrow! In the mean while make yourself as agreeable
to Ruth as you can.'
The money-lender smiled, and Duncan, convinced he had no
other alternative, resolved to accept the conditions, and took his
leave of his prospective father-in-law.
The ensuing day, at five in the afternoon, Jacob Goldschnapp took
passage on the North River steamer for the Highlands. During the
passage up this magnificent river he paced to and fro in a little
clear space near the wheel-house with his hands crossed behind
him, and his face inclined towards his breast, too deeply wrapped
in his own ambitious plans for settling money and wedding his
daughter, to heed the grandeur and beauty of the varied scenes
through which he was borne. Twilight still lingered over the
west as the boat entered the Highlands, and at half past eight
o'clock he was landed by starlight, with a leathern bag he always
journeyed with, at the Fishkill Pier. Inquiring the way to Kirkwood,
he started on foot upon a walk of a mile and a quarter. As
he followed the carriage road by the water-side, the dark hills ascended
skyward around him in solemn majesty, and the broad river
went glittering by like a rolling firmament. But his meditations
were not with nature, but in the secret chambers of his own scheming
and money-begetting breast.
Firmly made, vigorous and muscular, Jacob Goldschnapp strode
on until he came to the gate that led through the grounds to Kirkwood.
He entered them, and soon the mansion rose, dark and stately,
amid the old trees upon the tangled lawn. A light glimmered
through the trees from one of the wings, and thither he directed
his steps. All was silent around! Not a sound was heard;
not an object stirred! But for the lamp he would have thought the
place uninhabited. The window from which the light shone was
near the ground, and its rays streamed through the space left by a
broken shutter. With characteristic caution and curiosity Jacob
stole to the window before applying to the door. He approached
undiscovered, and stood where he could survey the interior of the
apartment. It was a small room, and contained a low bed, and beside
it on a small table burned the lamp that had shone out across
the lawn. An inkstand and small brass bell was also upon it.
Seated at the table, with the light shining full upon his thin and
shrunken visage, sat Beasely Powell, the sunken eyes and cheeks
in shadow, and giving his countenance a cadaverous and sepulchral
aspect, that made the Jew shrink for a moment, and ask himself
whether it were the living or dead he gazed upon! How changed
had he become in a few brief weeks of mental suffering and remorse!
Suffering on account of his son's ruinous career; remorse
on account of his own crimes! for, from the hour he had met the
Jew, he had been tortured with both the fear of being yet exposed
to the government, and of his again resorting to the same means,
notwithstanding his oath, to extract money from him. These
sources of annoyance had preyed upon him till he was now reduced
almost to a skeleton, yet clung to life with the tenacity that
only a miserly old man can exhibit.
The Jew watched him as he sat there as if trying to peruse a
parchment which, with shaking hands, he was holding down upon
the table before him. A glance showed Jacob that it was the will
he had seen in New York. He eagerly raised himself up on the
foot of the window to see if it was signed, and to his gratification
he saw that it was not. At this moment his old housekeeper entered,
followed by an old serving man.
`So you have come at last,' he said, pettishly, `after I have been
ringing till I am deaf! Mistress Hetty, I want you and James to
witness my signature to this instrument. It is conveying my estate,
real and personal, to a charitable purpose.'
`And what is to become of young master Duncan?' asked the
housekeeper, abruptly.
`Have I not forbid your mentioning his name?' cried the father,
angrily. He is no longer my son! I have in a codicil here provided
for you both, but I have cut him off with a shilling! Never
speak to me again of him!' Here Mr. Powell fell into a severe fit
of coughing, brought on by his excitement, and it was some moments
before he was able to articulate. `Now I want you to see
me sign this, and then witness it with your hands. I expected my
attorney here in the boat; but he has not come, I dare say, and I
can't wait!'
Here Mr. Powell took up the pen, and was about to write his
name, when the Jew, in a deep voice, growled from the outside of
the window.
`Beware of the “Panther's Gap!” '
Instantly the housekeeper and the man-servant fell to the floor
in terror, while the commissary sat with the pen in his hand, paralyzed
by fear! His eyes rolled fearfully round the room, and for a
moment the Jew thought he would expire with the shock. This
interruption had been unpremeditated on Jacob's part; but, as he
did not intend to have the will signed, he resorted to the second
thought that occurred to him, the first being to jump through the
window and snatch the will from before him! He now resolved
to enter the house by applying to the door, and, following up his
advantage, endeavor to prevail by argument upon him to give his
son the estate. He left the window for this purpose, when he heard
a horseman galloping up the avenue, and he immediately retreated
in the shadow of the wing, secing, as he repassed the window, that
those within were recovering from their terror. The rider rode up
to the door, and, dismounting, fastened his horse to a tree and
knocked loudly. The door flew open of itself at the third stroke,
and he entered the dark hall. The Jew had recognized him, as he
rode across the glare of the lamp from the window, as a person
who had travelled upon the boat with him, and whom he knew to
be a celebrated city lawyer, who had the business of Mr. Powell's
property. This recognition drew a deep curse from the bosom of
the Jew, who, in his coming, believed he foresaw the defeat of his
object. Creeping to the window, and deferring for the present his
intention of entering, he stood where he could, unseen, command
the interior. The housekeeper and man James were upon their
feet, but trembling with the additional fear which the loud
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knocking of the attorney had produced. Mr. Powell was still in the same
attitude in which his fear and guilt had paralyzed him. The door
was thrown open at this juncture, and the attorney entered.
`Why, Mr. Powell, you keep your halls so dark and lumbered up,
I nearly broke my neck. How do you do? Writing I see! Why,
what is this?' he cried, as the terrified servants crowded into one
corner, and Mr. Powell's countenance was pale and haggard with fear.
`It is no ghost, then?' stuttered Jemmy; `but only your honor's
honor.'
`We have been nearly terrified to death by some dreadful voice,
Mr. Stone,' said the housekeeper, relieved on recognizing him, as
he came nearer the light.
`I should think so! Why, Mr. Powell, what ails you, my dear
sir?' he asked, laying his hand upon his shoulder. `Stir up, man!'
`Was it only you, then?' asked the commissary, with an effort
to laugh painfully struggling on his deadly cheek.
`Yes. You all seemed frightened to death.'
`It was you, then?'
`Why yes; do you not see me?'
Mr. Powell smiled with restored confidence, and was about to
shake him by the hand, when his countenance changed, and in a
hoarse whisper, that made the lawyer start, said,—
`But how knew you that? Who told you that secret? The
false Jew?'
`What secret? What Jew? Your fright has disturbed you, my
dear sir.'
`You do not know it, then?' he asked, eagerly.
`What?' inquired the amazed attorney.
`Then you did not speak? It was not you?'
`No! Some one else has alarmed you!'
The commissary gazed fearfully round the room, shuddered, and
seemed relieved, even at the startling reflection, that the mysterious
voice might have been supernatural rather than human! for human
exposure and human laws he alone feared! With some relief of
mind, yet still impressed with fear, he then prepared to enter upon
business with the attorney.
From without, the disappointed and vexed Jew beheld the signature
finally affixed, and saw the attorney and the servants attest it.
He ground his teeth with rage; for he saw there was now no prospect
of securing the spendthrift's fortune to his daughter, nor no
further opportunities of making fifty per cent. out of his proposed
son-in-law. He remained watching, and saw the will delivered by
the old man to the attorney, to be taken to New York and recorded,
and then heard the lawyer decline a bed on the plea of having to
transact some business at Fishkill the same night. And at the
same time bidding Mr. Powell `good night,' he left the room, escorted
by Jemmy with the lamp.
At this moment an idea suddenly entered the Jew's brain, and,
hastening from his post behind the shutter, he ran rapidly and actively
along the hedge bounding the lawn, and reached the gate by
the high road just as the lawyer came galloping down the avenue.
Here, concealing himself in the impenetrable shade of overhanging
trees, he drew a short pistol from his breast, a companion he never
left home without, and awaited his approach. The attorney came
down the avenue at a hand gallop, and dismounting by the large
heavy gate, dismounted, to open and lead his horse through.
`Stand!' cried the Jew, in a deep, stern voice, cocking his pistol
and presenting it to his breast.
`Money you want, eh?' said the lawyer, coolly. `There is my
purse;' and Jacob heard it fall at his feet. Surprised at the man's
composure he was thrown off his guard; when the attorney, who
was a stout, full-sized man, grappled with him, and wrested the
weapon from his grasp. The Jew with a deep oath instantly sprang
backwards into the obscurity of the gateway; the darkness was
illumined by a flash, and the ball of his own pistol whizzed past
within an inch of his head. Execrating his want of success in
getting possession of the will, he remained concealed under cover
of the darkness until the city attorney remounted, muttering to
himself something about the shameful deficiency of police and
watchmen in every country place in which he had ever been!
The Jew remained in the shadow of the trees over-arching the
gateway until the sound of the hoofs of the fearless attorney's horse
died away in the distance, when he took his way with a rapid, unhesitating
step back towards the mansion. He soon came in sight
of the window in the wing, from which still streamed the penciled
rays of the miser's lamp. He stole softly to the spot from which he
had before looked in upon him. The housekeeper was just leaving
the room, and he was left alone. He was seated at table, and his
face wore a look of exhilaration strikingly in contrast with that
expression which was upon it when Jacob had first seen him sitting
there, poring over the will. He was talking aloud.
`It is fixed now, and Duncan shall die in a ditch! The infamous
boy! to compel me to pay twenty-six thousand dollars for him by
the means of that accursed Jew! But thank God the will is made,
and gone to be recorded! I would not have signed it now but
somehow I feared sickness was coming upon me, and,' he added,
shuddering, `it is a fearful thing to die rich! I have not had much
charity in this life, and now that death is at hand, I tremble to meet
him with so much wealth in my hands, that should have made so
many poor people happy! I have hopes my will will make my
peace with God! I have made it and signed it now, lest I should
be prevented! What could have been that voice I heard! It must
have been my own conscience. Yet James and the housekeeper
heard it! Could it have been the hated Israelite himself, who is
haunting me?'
Here he glanced furtively about him, and his appalled gaze was
arrested by the dark, glittering eyes of the Jew, peering through the
window. They fixed him like basilisks! Slowly the window
ascended—up, up—to a man's height, and Jacob Goldschnapp stood
before him.
`I am no spirit, Beasely Powell,' said Jacob, with malicious irony.
`Then why art thou here?' cried the commissary, recovering from
his alarm so far as to question him, and gazing upon him with looks
expressive both of fear and hatred.
`Sit down again, and we will converse together,' answered Jacob,
taking a chair, and laying his brown leathern bag across his knees.
`I have nought to say to thee, Israelite,' said the commissary.
`You can have nought with me, unless to pay me back that money
you robbed me of!'
`You have made a will, which I have seen this night signed and
attested, devising all your estate on your death to found a Charity
Hospital. Is it not thus?'
`Yes,' answered the commissary, firmly.
`Here,' said Jacob, opening his leather satchel and taking out
and unfolding a parchment, `is a will in another form. It devises to
your son Duncan Powell'—
`I will not hear—'
`Listen! to Duncan Powell, the heir at law of your real and personal
property, the estate of Kirkwood, and your three farms in
Dutchess, and your farm in Orange, with all appurtenances, &c. &c.
reserving to yourself a residence at this place (Kirkwood) and a
suitable maintenance during your natural life. This will is properly
and legally drawn up, and only requires your signature, which
your man James or I will attest. This will revokes, as you will read,
all other wills and codicils previously made, and so no harm will
come of that executed to-night.'
`Do you think me mad, Jew?' exclaimed the commissary, confounded
and infuriated.
`No—This will presupposes you to be `in a sane and sound mind.'
`And so I am. I do not fear you. You dare not mention that
affair of the Panther's Gap again! I defy you!'
`My oath is binding only so far as it relates to advances of money!
I swore I would never ask you again for money!' said the wily Jew.
`It is false! This is a distinction without a difference!'
`No! I knew the oath I was taking, the wording of it, and the
mental reservation!'
`An oath with a mental reservation! Jew, thou art accurst! I
defy thee!'
`You are in my power!'
`I will never sign that!' cried Mr. Powell, rising, and crossing the
room to and fro with an agitated step, and highly excited.
`I will denounce you as a traitor!'
`You dare not! I swear I will not revoke my will! I will never
put my hand to that parchment, so help me God!'
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`Be the issue on your own head,' said Jacob, menacingly. `Within
twelve hours you shall exchange this room for a felon's cell, and
ere long your withered carcase shall swing between earth and sky!'
The commissary became fearfully excited,—his face, from the
ghastliest pallor, became suddenly a dark purple hue, and his lips
moved with an extraordinary effort to express his rage and disgust,
but his speech failed him, and, glaring upon the Jew with hate and
revenge, he staggered forward and fell dead at his feet! The excitement
had been too great for him, and he had ruptured a blood-vessel!
The money-lender stood appalled; and gazed upon the victim of
his persecution with a shudder, while his heart lowered black with
rage at his disappointment.
`Here is an end to my hopes of possessing these lands,' he muttered,
in a tone of intense disappointment, as he released his fingers
from the unanswering pulse. `Here, also, have perished Duncan
Powell's hopes, and he himself is yet likely to fulfil his father's
words and perish in a ditch! Jacob Goldschnapp! thou art for once
completely defeated! Farewell, old man! Thou hast well escaped
the gallows! By the rod of Moses! if he had lived, I believe he
would have defied me to the last, and I should either have had to
arrest him or be beaten! Better to be wasted by death! Farewell,
old man, thou wilt to-night rest sounder than thy conscience hath
let thee for many a year!'
Thus speaking, the sarcastic Jew, forgetful how nearly parallel the
lines of his own life and character were drawn to those of the dead
man before him, turned away from him, and gathered up his parchments
and bag, and hastily withdrew from the window, which he
closed after him.
He now took his way at a rapid pace along the path, looking behind
and around every moment, as if he feared he should see the
ghost of the man he felt in his heart he had murdered! Arrived at
the gate where he had attacked the horseman, he began to entertain
apprehensions that it would not be perfectly safe for him to walk
openly in case alarm had been given by the attorney. He therefore
skulked along within the fence, over walls and through patches of
fern and tangled woodlands, to his no little discomfiture, and startled
at every sound of the whispering leaves and swaying branches.
At length he came near a dwelling, which stood a little back from
the road. He was making a detour to avoid it when he heard female
voices; and a light from an open door shone broadly into the
field. Curiosity — some idea that his attack upon the lawyer was
the subject — led him to advance, till, aided by an intervening tree,
which grew close by the door, he was enabled to command a view
of the interior.
It was a plain apartment in a humble country dwelling. Upon
a bed lay a female, with a calm and interesting, though pale and
emaciated countenance, conversing in a low yet sweetly distinct
voice with a young girl, who was bending over her pillow, listening
with deep attention to what fell from her lips. Her face was not
visible to the Jew, but her flowing tresses of raven hair, that fell
over the pillow, and the exquisite symmetry of her figure, told him
that she must be beautiful, and his daughter Ruth came into his
mind.
`Your happiness, Catharine, is dear to me!' said the invalid.
`Your strange story has greatly interested me in you, with your love,
confessed for my poor lost boy! May God turn his heart, and yet
bring him to see me ere I die! But shall a poor mortal herein
question the wisdom of the Most High? Your story — your birth
and parentage' continued the widow, `your confession of your
doubts of the reality of God's being, your nearness to my heart
through your regard for Paul, have filled my soul with a strong
yearning to do you good, ere I am called away! Oh, if I could be
instrumental in making you a Christian I should die in peace! I wish
also to show you the sinfulness of yielding to the superstition you
have spoken of, which will render you miserable through life! A
Christian, Catharine, never is superstitious! In God's goodness
and wisdom is his sublime and peaceful trust!'
`Do you really believe in the existence of a God?' asked the rich,
low voice of Catharine Ogiivie. `It is a fearful thought!' And
the Gipsy raised her face, and, as she bent her earnest gaze upon
the countenance of the invalid, the Jew caught sight of her features,
and he thought he had never seen any human face so darkly beautiful.
It wore an expression of earnest inquiry, that was touchingly
interesting.
`Look through that window, child,' said the widow, raising herself
to her elbow and looking devotionally upward, `and behold the
countless worlds of light that blaze in space! Call to mind the glory
of the morning and evening of each day, and the regularity of
their return! Gaze upon the mountains, and the rivers, and the fairspread
landscapes of earth, which you tell me fills your heart with
strange delight to gaze upon! Think of the adaptation of all things
for what they are designed! consider the harmony of nature! — the
glory and excellence of the whole visible universe! and oh, will
your heart deny, that there is a Being who set the stars in the firmament
and launched the planets from his hand? Who makes the
sun to rise? — creates the day, and bids serene night descend upon
earth? Who laid the foundation of the hills, poured the rivers from
the hollow of his hand, and spread out the valley with beauty and
verdure?'
The maiden bowed her head and hid her face, but spake not, and
the widow continued.
`From the external world, dear child, turn and look within your
own heart! That is a world of beauty, and of power, and of love, and
of happiness! Who gave you the sublime attribute of thought?
and who filled your soul with desires of happiness and susceptibility
of the beautiful? Who made your heart alive to friendship, and
sensible to the thousand enjoyments that life affords? Who created
in you the appreciation of the grand and beautiful in nature,
and gave you a soul to understand and feel and enjoy? Who filled
your bosom with sweet sensibilities, and fashioned your countenance
a mirror, so fair, with eye and lip to clothe, in the angelic drapery
of expression, every emotion flitting across your soul? In a
word, who made you the sentient, reflecting, loving, and understanding
creature you are, glorious and beautiful in the youth and innocence
of your nature, save a Being who is Himself the source of
mind, the fountain of love, the centre of the affections, and the great
Intelligence of the Universe! who, but God! Adore Him! child,
for his power, displayed in the arching firmament, and in the majesty
of the earth's scenery; worship him for the greatness of His dominion;
love him for his goodness and his perfections, and serve
him with an humble and obedient spirit, for he is thy God!'
The widow ceased, and lay with her hands clasped upon her white-robed
bosom, and her eyes elevated to heaven with devotion. The
infidel maiden lay with her head buried within the pillow, and spake
not; but the heaving of her form showed that she was deeply agitated.
At length she lifted her face, and embracing the clasped hands
of the invalid, said, with earnestness, while her whole form trembled,
and her voice was strangely deep with feeling—
`I believe! You have convinced my understanding! There is a
God! oh, how fearful is the idea! That there is a Being, who is
our maker; in whose power we are, as worms; who, with his lightnings,
can blast us, and in his malevolence make us the victims of
his terrible pleasure! It is fearful to think that even death will not
release us from his stern dominion, nor hide us from his searching
eye! It is terrible!' she repeated, shuddering. `It were better I had
never believed, than, convinced of his existence and eternal Being,
I should now shrink into the depths of my soul with fear, from the
contemplation of his awful majesty, and crouch in spirit like a slave
in the realization of his presence! You have no conception how
the reflection, that there is an invisible Being, in whose presence I
am continually, and who reads my heart, and knows every emotion
of my bosom, appals me!'
`Such a feeling, dear Catharine, should lead us to purify our
hearts, as he himself is pure!' said the widow, with her transparent
hand putting aside the dark hair from her fair young disciple's
face. `It is natural that the heart should shrink from God, when
his existence and omnipresence are first admitted by the mind,—
for he is holy, and from the light of his holiness guilt flies as darkness
before the sun! It is natural that you should, at first, conceive
God to be a Being fearful to contemplate, and in whose presence
the soul shrinks with fear! But this proceeds from the sad condition
of our fallen nature! God, himself, dearest Miss Ogilvie, is
indeed all-powerful and infinitely holy, but his power is exercised
in benevolence, and love, and goodness, all of which are manifest in
all his works; and his holiness goes out from him as streams from
a fountain, to enliven and beautify; changing the hearts that receive
it from barrenness to verdure, cleansing the impure, and converting all
things it penetrates into its own divine character! There is no malevolence
in God, as you fear! There is nothing in his awful and adorable
attributes that should make you tremble! God is love! His
regard for his creatures is parental! His care over us is tender and
provident, and our happiness and welfare, here and hereafter, are the
dearest objects of the exercise of that vast power, which you tremble
to contemplate, as being exercised by any one independent Being.
Let us rather rejoice and adore, that He who sits on the
throne of the Universe; who, `in his strength, setteth fast the mountains,
and is girded with power,' and in whose hands we live,
move, and have our being, has promised to be our Father, to hide
us under the shadow of his wings, to bless us with his love and
favor in this life, and, at length, to bring us to dwell in his presence
forever!'
`Yet all mankind are not blessed! There is much misery on earth,'
said Catharine, thoughtfully. `How can God be good?'
`God is good! He has no pleasure in the ruin of his creatures!
If they abuse his goodness and turn his grace into wantonness, and
thereby plunge themselves into greater depths of guilt and misery,
this is the effect of their obstinate wickedness, and not the design
of those benefits which he bestows. As I have said, all things proclaim
his goodness. He gave us our being, and by preserving us in
it, renews the donation every moment. He has placed us in a rich
and well-furnished world, and liberally provided for all our necessities;
he blesses us hourly; he sends rain from heaven, and sunshine,
and causeth the earth to bring forth our provision; he giveth us
food and raiment, and, while we are spending the productions of
one year, he is preparing for us against another! He sweetens our
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lives with innumerable comforts, and gratifies every faculty with
suitable objects; the eye of his providence is always upon us, and
he watches for our safety when night envelopes the earth, and we
are asleep, neither heeding him or ourselves! And, lest we should
think these testimonials of his kindness less considerable, because
they are the easy issues of his omnipotent power, and do not put
him to any trouble or pain, he hath taken a more wonderful method
to endear himself to us!'
`It would seem he could do no more,' said the maiden, with grateful
enthusiasm. `My bosom is already filled with love and adoration!
Can he do more?'
`Yes, not satisfied with all this, he has testified his affection to
us by suffering as well as by doing! and, because he could not suffer
in his own nature, he assumed ours! For, fallen from the divine
life, it was needful that we should be restored; for God's love and
mercy would not suffer us to remain in our fallen state! He, therefore,
by assuming our nature, paid the debt due by it to divine justice!
When all his other gifts could not prevail, he at last made a
gift of himself, to testify his affection and engage ours!'
`This is mysterious and wonderful,' said the Gipsy, in a tone of
awe, and deep feeling, yet I think I understand it! `This incarnate
Divinity was, then, the Christ! There is gratitude due somewhere!
Is it to God or Christ? For, convinced of my need of a mediator
with an offended God, love melts my soul, and lays me humble at
the footstool of this majesty of Love! Who must I adore? to whom
must I offer the excellency of my heart's grateful adoration?'
`To God, who, as the Father, loved and pitied, and resolved to redeem
us!—to Him, who, as the Son, in the form of man, willingly
laid down his life, that we, whose eternal being was pledged unto
eternal death, might live!—to Him, as the Holy Ghost, whose
divine energy awakens the guilty heart—elevates its affections,
purifies and directs it to the cross, where hung the Sacrifice for
man's salvation!'
`This is wonderful and overwhelming!' said the maiden, solemnly!
`Yet I believe! I have heard these strange things before, but
with scornful incredulity! Your words have opened a new world
to me! I feel now, that there is an intellectual sublimity and a moral
beauty in the faith of the Christian, which undivine humanity
cannot furnish or conceive of! The humility of a child, united with
the elevated hope of a life to come, has something in the idea majestic
and touching! To believe in a God, and feel that that terrible
Power is exercised only for his good; that it has stooped to mortality,
to testify its energy to be entirely enlisted in behalf of his happiness;
to know that He is a benevolent and not, as I trembled to
think when you convinced me that he existed, a malevolent being,
and to feel, that to love him and obey him are the highest privileges
of his nature, as it is the highest service it can offer, must make the
present life of the Christian a peaceful and enviable one, and fitly
prepare him for the unknown felicity and glory which his God-Saviour,
in his infinite love, incarnated himself to purchase and secure
for him. I am a Christian!'
The young disciple, as she spake, sunk by the humble bedside
of the dying invalid, and, keeling, bent her head upon the bosom of
her grateful teacher and murmured low for her blessing.
The widow rose half up in bed, her face animated with divine
love and gratitude, and laying her hands upon the forehead of the
prostrate maiden, raised her ardent gaze full of faith to heaven, and
said, while her pale cheek flushed, and her large, floating eyes
sparkled with unearthly brilliancy, her voice thrilling through the
guilty soul of the Jew with its holy energy,
`Bless thee, Father and fountain of mercy and goodness, who
hast revealed to this thy child the knowledge of true happiness and
the way that leadeth unto it! Excite in her ardent desires after the
attainment of that life, which is everlasting. Open her heart to receive
thy divine truths, assist her to become holy as thou art holy!
Fill her soul with such a deep sense and full persuasion of these
great truths which thou hast revealed in the Gospel, as may influence
and regulate her whole conversation; so that the life which
she henceforth lives in the flesh, she may live through faith in the
Son of God. May the infinite perfections of thy blessed nature, and
the astonishing expressions of thy goodness and love, conquer
and overpower her heart, that she may perfect holiness in thy
fear, without which she can never hope to behold thy face, and
enjoy thy presence. Lead her in thy truth, and teach her, for thou
art the God of her salvation; guide her with thy counsel, and, after
this life is ended, receive her to thyself, through the merits and intercession
of thy beloved Son, our Saviour! Father, hear me, for my
erring child,' she said, gasping; `bless him—lead him to repentance
and`—here her voice failed her, and her eyes, after steadfastly
regarding heaven, slowly closed, while a smile came like sunlight
to her features, and then a shadow passed slowly across her falling
countenance—a sigh! and the pure spirit of the broken-hearted and
pious widow took its flight to heaven!
The maiden cast herself upon the body, in a paroxysm of tears;
while Jacob, who had listened spell-bound to the spot, stole away in
the darkness; his soul, guilty and avaricious and unbelieving as it
was, deeply impressed and troubled with what he had heard and
witnessed.
Early on the evening following the events detailed in the last
chapter, Duncan Powell impatient to learn the result of his visit
to Kirkwood, was at the Jew's. Jacob had not yet arrived; and, resolving
to wait for him, he asked for Ruth, and was ushered up
stairs into the sumptuously furnished family apartments. The
young Jewess was alone, and received him with a smile and evident
pleasure. An hour flew rapidly by, by which time Duncan
had come to the conclusion, that to take such a lovely maiden to
wife was not so great a sacrifice, after all, even without the motive
which he had in view; and he felt quite happy, both with the prospect
of receiving his fortune, and with the anticipation of sporting
the lovely Jewess as his bride. There was a novelty in the idea,
that was not ungratifying to his notions of things, as a fashionable
rouf, and he began to be impatient for the realization of Jacob's
wishes. Suddenly the drawing-room door was opened, and the Jew
appeared in the door, unannounced. Duncan, at the moment, was
bending low over Ruth, who was seated by her harp, with the silent
chords of which her fingers were idly playing, with a blush enriching
the olive brown of her cheek.
The eyes of the money-lender were fixed sternly upon them both;
and Duncan, with a fainting heart, saw that his face was dark and
gloomy. He augured no good from its expression, and the warm
welcome with which he was about to advance towards him was
chilled, and he stood gazing upon him with a blanched cheek and
an eager, inquiring look.
`Ruth, go to your chamber!' said the Jew, in a harsh voice.
His eye followed her retreating form as she retired, trembling,
without daring to reply, or even to take a parting glance at Duncan,
who began to experience sensations creeping through his bosom of
no enviable kind.
`Mr. Powell,' now said the Jew, with a sardonic smile, `if you
are quite at leisure I should be happy to see you in my room below.
'
Duncan, under any other circumstances, would have resented the
insulting manner of the money-lender; but a painfully wretched
misgiving that all was wrong, and that his only hope was in the
Jew, led him to follow him silently to the mean apartment below
stairs, where he transacted business.
`Now, Mr. Powell,' said Jacob, after he had closed the door and
each was seated, `I will report to you my mission.'
He then briefly detailed to the surprised and miserable young
man what is already known to the reader. Duncan rose from his
chair when he had concluded, and walked the narrow floor with
wild agitation! The intelligence of the death of his father scarcely
affected him, coupled as it was with the conviction, that he was
beggared! He cursed his dead parent, himself, the Jew, and the
charitable institution, which had stepped between him and his patrimony!
Jacob in the mean while sat quietly taking huge pinches
of snuff, and waiting for the storm of passion to subside. At length
Duncan reseated himself, and looking at Jacob with a countenance
distorted with suffering, eloquently begged him to tell him what
he should do!
`Betake yourself to some honest livelihood,' said the money-lender,
quietly, and thrusting his nose into a handful of snuff, to
conceal a malicious smile.
`Madness! Is there nothing left for me? No money—no property?
' he asked, with a voice of despair, faintly struggling with
hope.
`No. You are a beggar!' said Jacob, composedly.
`I see I am ruined! Cannot this will be recovered and destroyed?'
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he suddenly asked in a low tone, coming close to the money-lender,
and speaking in his ear.
`This is possible!' answered Jacob, his dark eyes lighting up at
the thought. `If it could be before it is recorded, you are safe!
The lawyer who brought it came down on the same boat! I knew
him, and watched him closely, if by any chance it might not fall
from his pocket! But he was too wary.'
`Did he have it in his pocket, loose?'
`No; it was put in his pocket-book, where he kept his briefs.'
`Can it be yet on record?'
`No. It cannot be done before tomorrow.'
`Then I will have it this night. Who is he?'
`Edward Stone, Esq. But it is impossible to obtain it.'
`Nothing is difficult to the desperate. Can you tell me where
he lives? It will be likely to be with him at his house.'
The Jew opened a directory that hung behind him, and running
over the names, answered, `He lives at No. 62 Greenwich street;
his office No. 41 Nassau street. But this is a bold step! Let me
caution you, for I can guess your intentions! He is a bold and
fearless man, and failure would place you worse off than you now
are.'
Duncan made no reply. His mind was full of a dark and desperate
purpose. He rose up and placed his cap upon his head, and
gathered his cloak about his features.
`This is my last hope,' he said, in a deep, determined tone of
voice.
`If you fail, Mr. Powell,' said the Jew, `I beg you will recollect
that I am not implicated in the matter.'
`True, most righteous Jew; and if I succeed, I shall recollect,
he added, sarcastically, `that I am not implicated with your daughter.
'
Jacob colored, and bit his lip with vexation, as the door closed
upon the disinherited young man. He stood reflecting for a moment,
and his impulse was, in revenge for his bitter taunt, to forewarn
the attorney by an anonymous note that an attempt would be made
that night to prevent the will being placed on record. But he reflected
a moment, that if Duncan did succeed, that he would be
likely to want his assistance in converting his acres into money,
and the risk of losing such a profitable business made him resolve
to let the affair take its course.
Duncan walked along the street toward his lodgings, for some time
undecided what first step to take, to effect his object! He had no
one that he could consult with; no one of his associates that he
could place confidence in. Anger, grief, resentment, and a dark purpose
of murder, brooded in his heart. He shrunk from the contemplation
of blood-shedding; but he firmly resolved, in his soul, that
even the attorney's life should not stand between him and the possession
of the will! He hastened to his room, and, shutting himself
in, deliberated awhile by what expedient he should get it into
his hands before the morrow. The clock struck nine, and his face
instantly assumed an expression of decision. Approaching his
escritorie, he rapidly penned the following note:
`Nine, P. M.
Sir,—
`You are desired to call, without delay, to see a gentleman at the
City Hotel, who wishes to make his will. Every moment is important.
The servant will conduct you.'
This morsel of falsehood was addressed to Edward Stone, Esq.
and sealed. Duncan then entered his room, and, taking off his coat,
threw over himself Peter's livery great-coat, with a dozen capes to
it, mounted his hat with a broad white band around, and then placed
a dagger in his bosom, and armed himself with a heavily loaded
stick.
`I think I shall do this errand better than another,' he said, almost
with fierceness.
Locking his door, and taking the key in his pocket, he availed
himself of an opportunity when the hall was clear to reach the
street unobserved. He took his way along the darkest side of the
ways, and at length stood opposite the door he sought. Crimson
curtains before the tall windows glowed richly with the warm
light reflected from the parlor within, and, listening, he heard voices
in conversation, and then the notes of a piano rising above all. He
hesitated but an instant, and then with unwavering purpose ascended
the steps and rung the bell. It was answered by a servant,
who replied in the affirmative to Duncan's question, if Mr. Stone
were within.
`Hand him that note.'
The parlor door opened very soon after the servant had taken it
in, and a stout, well-formed man came with a quick step to the
door with the note open in his hand.
`A moment, and I will follow you, my man,' he said, returning
to give some directions. `Who is ill?'
`A stranger, sir!' said Duncan, shading his face.
The next moment they were in the street. Duncan led the way
in silence until he came to Thames street, up which dark and dangerous
alley he turned, saying,—
`We will take this way, if you please sir, as it is nighest.'
The attorney admitted this,—and Duncan falling back, as if from
respect, permitted him to precede him. It was the desperate young
man's intention, in writing the note, to get him to follow him, as he
had now successfully done, and in this alley knock him down and
rob him of the paper he sought to get possession of. For this purpose
he now dropped behind. They came to the spot he had selected
in his mind as the most likely to cover the deed, and had
raised his bludgeon for the purpose, when the door of an adjoining
groggery was opened, and a glaring light thrown across the lane
upon both their persons. The next moment the attorney was beyond
the dark precincts, and, with curses upon his ill fortune, Duncan
followed till they reached Broadway undecided how to act. At
length his desperate mind resolved upon a course as daring as it
was characteristic of his reckless position. With a lighter step,
therefore, he went on before him, and boldly led the way to his
chambers. He unlocked them, and, ushering the attorney, privately
drew the key, and placing it within, secured the door.
`Be seated, sir, if you please,' he said, as the lawyer glanced his
quick eye over the handsomely furnished apartment, and the articles
of luxury strewn around.
Duncan immediately withdrew into his own apartment, and,
throwing aside the livery he had worn, resumed his ordinary appearance.
He however retained the dagger, and, examining the
caps of a pair of pistols, placed one of them in the pocket of his
coat. In his eye glowed resolution, and on his closed mouth dwelt
a calmness of purpose, that gave singular sternness to his pale
countenance. He paced the chamber once or twice with a hurried
step—paused, as if to nerve himself to his purpose, and throwing
open the door, stood in the lawyer's presence!
The attorney rose and bowed, for the face of Duncan was wholly
unknown to him—then stared at the wild eye and colorless face
of the young man, and for a moment the idea flashed across his
mind that a meditated suicidest had sent for him to make his will!
`I am unknown to you,' said the disinherited young man, speaking
in a low, sharp key through his shut lips.
`Quite so, I assure you, sir; this is the first time I have had the
honor of being in your company!' answered the attorney, wondering
who his strange client might happen to be. `I was sent for to—
to make a gentleman's will, I believe! But there must be some
error certainly—unless some other gentleman—'
`I addressed you that note, sir,' said Duncan, in a tone of steady
fierceness, that made the lawyer start and survey him with surprise,
and with not a little alarmed suspicion.
`Who are you, sir?'
`The disinherited son of Beasely Powell,' replied Duncan, in a
hoarse whisper, bending forward till his hot breath touched the
cheek of the attorney.
`What would you with me?' demanded the lawyer, in a firm voice.
`My father's late will, which I have reason to know you have
about your person!' he said, levelling his pistol at his heart.
`Ha! I am betrayed by a conspiracy! Now I know who my
assailant was at the gate at Kirkwood! This will not answer, Mr.
Powell!' said the attorney; and he sprung forward to wrest the
pistol from him. But Duncan, more active than the Jew had been,
avoided him, and, retreating, cocked it. Mr. Stone, with surprise,
now recognized him to be the footman!
`By the God who rules the universe, I will take your life unless
you quietly deliver it into my possession! I know it is with you.'
`It is,' answered the lawyer, quietly.
Give it to me, if you value life! My patrimony shall not be
torn from my grasp without an effort to recover possession of it!
I am a desperate man, Mr. Stone!'
The attorney seemed to reflect, and to feel the critical position
in which he was placed. At length he spoke, and said,—
`I pity you, Mr. Powell, and your lot is a hard one. But doubtless
you are much to blame. If I surrender this will to you, it will
scarcely benefit you, as another similar one will assuredly replace it!'
`This matters not. The will, or your life!' sternly repeated the
young man, and he displayed in his left hand the dagger he had hid
in his bosom. `You see, sir, I am fully prepared to take it by force.
The lawyer surveyed him a moment, as he stood within seven
feet of him, with a cocked pistol in one hand, the dagger clutched
in the other, his eyes flashing, his teeth set, and his whole attitude
like that of a tiger on the spring! The attorney was a man of
firm nerves and cool courage; but he was unarmed, and felt no disposition
to put his life in jeopardy to save an instrument which he
resolved, within twenty-four hours, to have renewed! He therefore
drew forth the parchment, and said, quietly,—
`There is the instrument, sir, for which you have descended to
play the bully and assassin. I trust now, sir, you will suffer me to
retire unmolested!' As he spoke he placed the will upon a table
that stood between them.
`Open it, sir, that I may see the signature!' said the desperate
young man, still covering his heart with his cocked pistol.
The attorney did so; and Duncan, seeing his father's well known
signature affixed to the paper, seized it, and, thrusting his dagger
through it, cried, in a tone of triumph, as he prepared to destroy it,—
`Now is Kirkwood mine, sir attorney; know that my father died
lest night, and no other will can replace this, as you foolishly hoped.'
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[figure description] Page 028.[end figure description]
Ere the words were scarcely uttered to the astonished ears of
the lawyer, and before Duncan could tear the stout parchment, the
pistol he carelessly held was knocked from his grasp, the hand
holding the dagger was seized by the strong arm of the attorney,
and a deadly struggle took place for the possession of the will.
Duncan was thrown to the floor, and fell beneath the lawyer, who
had twice been slightly wounded by the point of the weapon; but
the grasp of the young man upon the parchment was like that of a
vice,—while, at every opportunity he could get in the fierce contest,
he would tear off a portion with his teeth, with the fell determination
for its destruction uppermost in his mind. Thrice the
young man lay beneath the attorney, and thrice he had the attorney
under him. Duncan's dagger hand was still held firmly by him,
though his efforts to stab him were as determined as his endeavors
to destroy the will; while the lawyer had the two objects in view,
both of saving the will and his own life. At length both rose to
their feet again, and stood for a moment facing each other, one of
the hands of Duncan with the will in it upon the lawyer's throat;
the other, containing the dagger, held by the attorney aloft in the
air, who with his other hand firmly grasped the throat of Powell.
They stood eyeing one another a few seconds, when Duncan, releasing
his throat, flung the will behind him. Instantly the attorney
sprung for it, inadvertently leaving his dagger hand free! With
a cry of vindictive joy the young man bounded towards him with
the flashing steel. A low mirror, beneath a pier-table directly before
the attorney, revealed to him his imprudence and imminent
peril; and, throwing himself over upon his side, the dagger descended
and buried itself through the carpet deep into the floor
where he had been stooping. The force of the blow threw the assassin
down, and broke the dagger short to the hilt. Duncan, with
a deep oath, recovered his feet to see the attorney with the parchment
in one hand and his pistol in the other, confronting him. The
scales were now reversed, and he felt himself to be in the other's
power. He stood silent and gloomy, with his eyes fixed upon the
ground. The attorney surveyed him a few seconds, and then said,
sternly,—
`I trust, Mr. Powell, you will now be content to let me retain
possession of this will. Your life is in my hands; but I have no
disposition to avail myself of my privilege, either at this moment
or at any other period. You are free to go where you please! I
shall take the liberty of protecting myself to my house with your
pistol, when it is at your service. You have been guilty of a bold
proceeding to-night; but I can sympathise with your disappointment
in being deprived of your patrimony, but I have no power to
assist you. In defending and rescuing this will I have but done my
duty as its trustee. In consideration of your great disappointment,
I freely forgive your assault upon me, and the two or three scratches
you have given me in our rencontre. Trusting you will yet find
some pursuit in life congenial with your happiness, I shall now
take my leave of you.'
Duncan was humbled, yet vexed by this speech. His ill success
rankled deep in his bosom, and his soul was dark with despair.
The moderation of the attorney gave him a ray of hope.
`Mr. Stone,' he said, in a subdued tone, `I am glad that you can
appreciate my position,—educated with the anticipation of the
possession of a large fortune, and accustomed to a life of luxury, to
find myself all at once a beggar! Sir, I throw myself upon that
generous disposition which you have just now evinced, and beg
you will —'
`Mr. Powell, I have no power to do any thing less than this will
commands.'
`Then let me appeal to your interests! To no one save yourself
and me is the existence of this will known. If you will destroy
it, I will give you half of my fortune! There is the flame!
One motion of your hand will enrich you! The secret shall perish
in its ashes!'
`You cannot tempt me, sir,' said the attorney, yet gazing at the
lamp with a wishful eye; `this will must be recorded!' And, as
if fearing to trust himself to the influence of further temptation, he
thrust the parchment within his vest, and buttoned his coat over
it, and, advancing to the door with the pistol still presented towards
the young man and turning the key, said,—
`Good night, Mr. Powell, and then added, firmly,' If you follow
me, or make any demonstration of attempting to recover this will,
I will shoot you down!'
Thus speaking, the attorney opened the door to go out, and found
himself in the centre of a crowd of servants, and others, whom
the struggle had brought without! Duncan's eye fell on them, and
in a voice of thunder he asked what was wanted, sternly bade them
begone, and closed the door in their faces! The attorney was followed
with numerous inquiries; but, hastily putting up his pistol,
and replying, `Nothing, nothing — merely boxing and fencing,'
found his way out, and feeling greatly relieved, when he found himself
once more safe in Broadway.
The fate of Duncan Powell was now decided! He felt it to be
so; and rage, despair, and grief by turns filled his breast, as hour
after hour he paced his chamber after the departure of the attorney
He could form in his mind no course of action. All before him
was dark and fearful to contemplate. His wounded pride and vanity
goaded him to horror! His career of wild extravagance had
now forever terminated; for not even the guilt of murder he had
attempted could save him! He threw himself upon the bed in a
fever of terrible excitement, and the idea of suicide flashed upon
his mind; for he felt he had not the moral courage to meet his fall!
But he feared to die too; and thus he tossed upon his bed till the
roar of wheels along the streets told him it was morning. He rose
up haggard and wretched! He shut himself up, and sending for
the Jew told him what had transpired; and then, during the day,
made arrangements with him to dispose of his horses and Stanhope,
and other appendages to his style, for ready money. After all his
debts were paid, he found he had three hundred dollars left,—all his
worldly wealth! Up to this time he had formed no plan of conduct.
He arranged his affairs only to save the disgrace of being
compelled to. All this occupied two days, and he was now alone
upon the world,—an adventurer! He sought the Jew to ask his
counsel; but the cautious Jacob refused to see him! The money-lender
had drawn all the blood from that vein, and, like the repleted
leech, dropped his hold upon it! It was evening when Duncan
was thus turned from his door, and with a dark bosom he sauntered
up the streets, with the vacant gaze of hopeless despair! A light
from the hall door leading to the gambling chambers he had frequented,
caught his glazed eye. He turned aside, and ascended to
the rooms! His presence was welcomed by the banker with a
smile, and he found that his poverty had not yet been bruited
abroad. He had three hundred dollars with him, and desperately
resolved to venture it, recklessly feeling that if he could not gain
more, he would lose all!
`Better to be a beggar at once,' he said, inwardly, `than live thus
in uncertainty and in fears!'
The fortune of the time favored him, and he won nearly every
bet; till at length, elated by his success, he adventured all his winnings
upon a single throw of the dice, and lost!
For a moment he stood gazing upon the board with a look of
incredulous horror; and at length, when the fatal truth flashed
upon him, he turned away from the table with a look of fearful
calmness in his colorless face,—the calmness of suppressed despair,—
and slowly walked from the chambers.
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CHAPTER XI.
[figure description] Page 029.[end figure description]
It would be painful to detail the steps by which Duncan Powell
descended into the depths of vice and moral ruin! From being the
inhabitant of a fashionable hotel; from sporting his bays upon the
Avenue and race-course; from giving sumptuous dinners and drinking
costly wines; from being the leader of a `certain set' and
envied for his riches, he became a lodger in a miserable tenement
in an obscure part of the city, made his appearance only in the
night, and then skulking like a guilty thing along the darkest passages;
his daily food scarcely gratifying the cravings of hunger, while
deep and beastly rum-drinking took the place of that fashionable
wine-bibbing, which had initiated him into intemperance. Hating
himself and shunned, as he shunned all his former associates, he
had fallen to the lowest state of degradation. Driven at length to
the verge of perishing, he sought and found associates, like himself,
shaken from the skirts of society; and, to get means to live, was
forced daily to become the companion of the vilest cut-throats that
ever infested a metropolis. At length, taught by them all the science
of burglary, theft, pocket-lifting, and other crimes, he soon became
a total outcast and set examples to his associates in villainy!
So low may man fall when he has suffered vice to obscure the
purity of his soul! when he has lived reckless of the admonitions
of his conscience, and given up to the world and the indulgences of
his passions the heart, which reason tells us should have been
placed on nobler and higher objects than love of pleasure and of
man's admiration.
Duncan Powell's revenge against the Jew had not slept in his
bosom! He felt his selfishness and avarice, in affording him facilities
for dissipation, had been mainly instrumental in leading him
into the ruin into which he was now plunged. At length his daily
brooded vengeance matured, and he resolved to carry into effect,
aided by four of the most desperate of his associates to whom he
communicated his plan, a project for not only revenging himself
upon him for his insults but also getting money.
The apartment in which this plan was canvassed was a low,
wretched room in the rear of a porter-cellar in the lowest alley of
the purlieus then known as the `Five Points.' A tallow candle,
stuck in the circular hole of a broken chair from which a round had
fallen, shed a murky light over the group, leaving the extremities of
the subterranean chamber in darkness. Visages such as three of
the four which surrounded Duncan, while their owners listened to
the detail of his plot, have seldom rejoiced the eyes of `Old
Hays.' One of them, known as `Butcher Bob,' was a thick-set fellow,
with the coarse features of an English man-of-war's-man, but
with nothing of the sailors in his appearance. One eye was covered
by a black handkerchief, a scar had severed his under lip, and the
deep scar of a knife-wound was in his cheek. He looked like a murderer,
every inch of him. He was seated on a beer-barrel, his arms
folded on his knees and his face bent towards the speaker, attentively
listening and at intervals approving. Opposite to him, a little
to the left, was a younger man, with a restless gray eye, thin lips,
and a countenance of reckless and savage resolution. His torm was
slight and sinewy, and his movements were nervous and cat-like.
Of the two he was the man most to be feared, by a victim who hoped
for mercy. He went by the name of Jakes. Next to him was a young
fellow in the remains of fashionable attire; his face bloated and red
by intemperance, and a look of dogged and sullen determination
upon his once fine but now degraded features. He was called Clendemen
by his associates, and his story, it was said by those who
knew him, was one of romance and of crime. The fourth was Paul
Tatnall.
His story, too, was one of vice, misery, and crime; but, as he is
not our principal hero, we shall enter into it only briefly. Having
once plunged into a reckless career, he had, as the coxswain of the
`River Rovers' Club,' led his band of dissolute young men into every
excess of lawless robbery! Every few days the police would
be startled by reports of vessels boarded by night, in the river, and
pilfered, by a party of young men, disguised, who pulled a long red
cutter, and who always escaped with their booty ere pursuit could
be made; of carriages stopped on the river-road, a few miles above
town, by a similar party; and ladies robbed of their watches, and
gentlemen of their pocket-books; of country houses situated near
the water, entered, and plate carried off; but, in all cases, the bold
perpetrators of these outrages escaped with impunity!
Their escape from detection had, in every instance, been owing
to Paul's tact, coolness, and daring, as well in planning the expeditions,
as in carrying them through. Hitherto his enterprises had
been bloodless, for his conscience was not yet seared; and, in his
retired moments, he even indulged the wild dream of being one day
restored to society, with the love of Catharine Ogilvie! He pursued
this reckless course for some months, till at length he became
disgusted with his companions, and sated with the life he led.
Reflections of his home and of his mother came to him, and he resolved
to leave them, and secretly visit his native Highlands, and
once more behold Catharine Ogilvie! He had come to this conclusion
one night after he had incurred the deadly hostility of four of
his companions, by rescuing from their lust, at the peril of his life,
a young girl whom they were bearing through the grounds of a
villa, to the boat. Other crimes which he refused to consent to had
brought upon him their malice; and, in his heart disgusted with,
and regretting his career, he resolved to withdraw from the club the
first opportunity.
This determination was made as they were about a league above
the city, rapidly pulling down the river, with curtains of black-painted
canvass hanging over the sides of their boat, to conceal her red
color; for they had been chased the last half hour by a police boat,
that had been several nights in search of them, and had just distanced
their pursuers! Steering her towards the slip opposite the
`Bowl and Pitcher,' they pulled on till they reached its head, nearly
up with the street, when, at a word from Paul, their oars were trailed,
and all stooping low, the sharp-bowed boat turned to either side
a two-leaved gate, so artfully constructed, as to resemble the solid
plank of the pier, and shot beneath the street through a low passage
that opened from the dock. The impetus of the motion was such
as to send her far under the dark-arched passage into a little square
basin, the size of a room, with a floor above, on which were heard
walkings. Scarcely had they disappeared beneath the pier ere a
boat came down the river and shot swiftly into the dock. It contained
a dozen men, and they were pulling with all their strength!
In the bows stood a police officer, with a night-glass to his eye!
`Give way, up the slip!' he cried, `and, on my life, we have
them! They are not yet landed! Give way, men, hard!'
The long heavy oars bent to their strength, and the barge was
within two lengths of the head of the dock, when the officer looked
about him with vexation and astonishment!
`They cannot have landed and carried their boat with them!
nor scuttled her so quick! This is mysterious!' And be glanced
around in every direction. It was half an hour after midnight, and
all was still around! But one vessel — a small sloop, was in the
slip, and this he saw did not conceal the fugitives. While he was
wondering at their escape, the barge, which had been moving forward
under the impetus that had been given it, threatened to strike
against the pier; but, before he could give orders to `back-water'
the bows touched, but, to their surprise, instead of rebounding, they
saw the pier yield and open to her advance! The surprised officer
was knocked into the bottom of the boat, which, after entering half
her length, stopped.
`Now we have them,' growled the undaunted police officer!
`shove her in with your hands! This is the way! It is as dark as
the infernal regions here! but I see a glimmering — ahead!
shove away!
With a hearty will the boat was drawn farther into the subterranean
water-way, and at length the officer saw the basin, looking
like a huge bath-room, beyond, and the `Rovers' slinging their
boat to hang dry from davits, by the aid of a dark lantern, held by
Paul.
The next moment they were upon them! Taken by surprise, the
party of river rovers, who were nine in number, stood their ground
bravely. The police-men were armed with cutlasses, and the others
with pistols and knives! The police fell upon them with determined
courage, and, inspired by the voice of Paul, they defended
themselves with desperate resolution. At length they were driven—
several fell, severely wounded, and the others fled, notwithstanding
all Paul could do by voice and example to restrain them,
through the door leading by a stair-way up into their rendezvous in
the `Bowl and Pitcher.' Finding all lost, Paul, who had been for
some time engaged single-handed with the police officer, succeeded in
disarming and wounding him; and then dashing out the light, plunged
into the basin. The others were pursued through the door, and all
were taken, to a man! Paul, accustomed to swimming the broad
Hudson, in the Highlands, when a Boy, succeeded, after swimming
through the passage, in gaining the slip. But as the noise of the
under-ground rencontre had drawn a numerous body of persons
about the precincts of the scene, he did not land; but swimming
out of the slip into the stream, he suffered himself to float half a
mile down the river, when he struck for the shore. He succeeded
in climbing the pier-head to the wharf, and was deliberating what
course he should pursue, when three men passed him, one of
whom, by his air and a sudden reflection of the street-lamp, he
knew to be Duncan Powell. He would not, perhaps, have recognized
him in the vile garb he wore, if he had not already heard of
his degradation and tall, since which he had sought to meet with
-- 030 --
[figure description] Page 030.[end figure description]
him; for he felt neither had any thing to reproach the other for.
He therefore now repeated his name.
The disinherited young man started and stopped! Paul came
forward and was instantly recognized, and as Duncan had heard
enough to suspect that Paul's way of life was little better than his
own, he warmly welcomed him, and introduced him to his companions,
`Jakes' and `Butcher Bob!' Desirous of knowing
something of Duncan's life, and anxious for concealment, he gladly
followed them to their den, whither they were returning, after a
burglarious expedition, in which they had been tolerably successful.
Paul, on the evening of the broaching of the latter's plot, had
been with Duncan three days, during which, each had been mutually
communicative concerning the past. Paul, however, could not
help feeling a disgust for his companions, and a contempt for Duncan's
degraded character, which he felt had fallen low, indeed!
He, himself, it is true, had been recklessly vicious, but never intemperate,
brutal, or murderous! Though he had made himself amenable
to justice, he had become so, rather from suffering himself to be
carried away by a carrent of impassioned feeling, from impalience
of restraint, than from a love of vice and plunder. His head, perhaps,
rather than his heart, had been wrong; while Duncan had
fallen low in degradation, both in head and heart; he was maliciously
bad and revengeful from principle! If either could be ever
reclaimed from his course, that one was Paul!
The plot which Duncan communicated was well received!
Paul, who was with him only for a shelter during the search made
for him, look no part in it, save as a listener! Under the pretence
of breaking into the Jew's premises and robbing him, Duncan, who
well knew he kept no coin in his dwelling, contemplated carrying
off the daughter in revenge for the double insult of her father's proposing
her to him as the purchase-price of Kirkwood, and of refusing
him permission afterwards to see her. His motives, in wishing
to get her into his power, were baser than those of mere avarice!
He knew well he could avenge himself on the Jew by the ruin of
his daughter!
`You shall have the gold, boys,' he said, and I will have the
daughter; and if the old man will ransom her, you are to share.
This is fair!'
`Fair enough,' was assented all round; `but what are you going
to do with the girl?' growled Butcher Bob.
`I have got a boarding house for her, at Jinny Carnhy's, answered
Duncan, in a significant tone. `Don't trouble yourselves!'
`But how'll you get a squalling woman along the streets?' said
Jakes. `The Charlies'll nab us, every soul! It'll dash the business
at once! Let the girl alone!'
`Never,' said Duncan, in a deep, emphatic tone. `She shall not
whimper!'
The cellar in which these men were assembled was in the rear
of a porter-shop on Centre street, which led by a back flight of steps
into an alley of old wooden tenements, the innermost of which,
overlooked the back of Jacob Goldschnapp's premises. The alley
was dark, narrow, and little frequented at a late hour. At eleven
o'clock the burglars, headed by Duncan, leaving Paul in the cellar,
stole out of the den, and skulking along the alley, came to the last
low building, which had become unoccupied that day by a ruse of
Duncan's, practised upon the tenants, for the purpose of making
the ground clear; better to secure which he had himself hired it
of the landlord, and now had the key. Entering the door of the
miserable tumble-down building, aided by a dark lantern, which he
sprung within, they ascended the second story, which overlooked
the Jew's yard. They then descended, by means of a rope ladder,
and took their way to a rear window, which Jakes and Butcher
Bob soon released from its frame. They entered, one after another,
the low sink room, and took their way, guided by Duncan, towards
the front. Each intervening door was locked, and the lock had to
be picked. Yet they worked silently, and with the steadiness of practised
burglars. At length they came to the hall, at the foot of the
stairs; and Duncan showing them the door to the Jew's `office,'
swiftly and noiselessly ascended the stairs, accompanied by Clendemen.
He took his way past a sleeping room he knew to be Jacob's
and his wife's, and came to that he believed to be his daughter's.
The door was ajar, and he entered! He was not mistaken!
The beautiful Jewess was lying with her cheek in her hand, in
deep sleep. He gazed upon her, with his lantern open, for a few
moments, with admiration, and then waked her! As she opened
her eyes and stared wildly around, he said in a low, menacing tone,
while he held a knife over her bosom,
`Make no alarm, Ruth, or you die!'
`Mr. Powell,' she screamed, and, overcome with terror, fainted!
He hastily bound a handkerchief round her mouth, and took her
in his arms, while his companion was gathering up the jewelry
from the toilet and bureaus.
`This is fair booty,' said Clendemen, as he placed her watchguard
about his neck, and put the valuable watch into his fob.
`You may have the Jewess, and I will be content with the jewelry!
'
`Do not delay! Let us leave at once! Follow me!' cried Duncan.
`I have all I came for!'
`But I have not! Let us below and help Jakes and Bob!' said
Clendemen, elated.
`Softly, or we shall wake the Jew!' said Duncan, bearing in his
arms the form of the insensible Jewess, down the stairs!
At the bottom, they met the two others, who had broken open
the Jew's chests and strong box, and found nothing but papers.
`This is a poor business,' said Jakes angrily.
`Let us make no dalay,' entreated Duncan, in a deep whisper,
`The girl will rensom high!'
`All in my eye,' growled Butcher Bob, doggedly. `But there is
no use standing here. Isn't there plate—up-stairs?'
`No—come, or we shall be in trouble,' cried Duncan, moving on
through the hall! `The girl has come too, and is struggling!'
`I am not going without seeing the inside of the Jew's parlor,'
said Jakes. `They always show rich on their side-boards!'
And, without listening to Duncan, they left him below, ascended
the stairs, and entered the parlor. The display of plate astonished
them, as they brought a dark lantern to bear upon the side-board.
In their anxiety to get possession of it, Butcher Bob let a tea-urn
fall upon the floor!
`How—ho! hullo!' cried the Jew, from his inner chamber!
`Who is there? Robbers? ho!'
The sound of his voice caused Duncan to lay Ruth upon the
lower stair and fly to the scene, with the resolution, at once to have
the Jew gagged, if he resisted—for, if he was suffered to give
alarm, he well knew, his object, so near its accomplishment, would
be defeated.
As he entered the door, the Jew, in his night cap and drawers,
came in at the farther one, with a cocked blunderbuss in his hands!
The plunderers, in the mean while, had closed their lantern-slide,
and stood silent, in the dark. Duncan's figure was only visible, as
he came in relieved, against the light gleaming up from the hall
below, where he had left his lantern burning by the side of the
maiden. Jacob instantly levelled his piece and fired! With an indescribable
cry of anguish, rage, and defiance, mingled, the miserable
young man leaped forward into the middle of the room, in his
vindictive progress to reach the Jew, and then fell headlong upon
his face, dead! The Jew's wife rushed in, bearing a light, and with
a face pale with horror; and flying up the stairs and bounding across
the dead body—the next moment came Ruth. Her dark hair was
streaming, and her white night robes fluttering, and, with a wild
shriek, she cast herself into her father's arms!
The companions of the fallen young man, appalled by the loss of
their leader and the surprise, without waiting to carry off what
booty they had laid aside, fled precipitately from the room and the
house.
Great was Jacob's surprise on approaching the body, to discover
that the face was that of Duncan Powell. The thoughts that passed
through his mind as he gazed upon him were by no means
agreeable to his feelings, when he reflected how far he himself had
contributed to this wretched end. Watchmen were called and the
body of the slain burglar removed to the dead house, whence it had,
the next day, a felon's burial! Such was the melancholy end of a
young man who, conceiving money to be only the instrument of
pleasure; and who, born to expect a fortune, was brought up in
niggardly avarice, till circumstances pointed out to him a way of
gratifying his wishes by ruinous anticipation of his patrimony. To
inherit a fortune a young man should be educated to it! To a young
man of imperfect education, with false notions of the uses of money,
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there can prove, as illustrated by the career of Duncan Powell, few
curses so great as a patrimony in anticipation! Large fortunes like
that of Beasely Powell are seldom all honorably acquired! and few
such that descend to the heir, for whom the poor has been ground,
the orphan wronged, the friend deceived, and the stranger cheated,
and all kindly charities locked up in the breast, have carried with
them a biessing! Better is an humble competence, honorably
earned by a useful, daily pursuit, than money unjustly hoarded, or
unwisely inherited!
Paul Tatnall was still in the den where he was secreted, when
the hasty entrance of the burglars with the intelligence of the death
of Powell, roused him from reflections in which he was indulging
upon his course of life. He had been going back to the period of
his childhood and recurring to all its scenes of innocence. He had
been, in thought, again listening to the words of piety, breathed into
his heart from the lips of his noble and pious mother. He knew not
that she had been now three months dead! Internally he resolved
to visit her, and, confessing his follies, seek her blessing and sympathy!
It was at this crisis of subdued feeling that the entrance of
the burglars interrupted him! He heard their account with horror;
and from that moment, lest his end should be like his wretched
friend, his determination was taken! He waited a few moments,
till he was unobserved, and then stole out of the hole of infamy.
It was nearly midnight! The sky was cloudless, and stars and
planets burned in the deep of heaven with sparkling brilliancy. He
stole along the streets until he came to the river side. Many a
vessel was anchored, or gently moving under sail, upon its dark
flowing bosom. He cast his eyes northward, and the spirit of home
invited him! Night as it was, he took his way along the river-street
and walked on, his heart with his Highland hearth, and his dear
mother beside it!
The sun rose and found him many miles from the city, where he
had, in three years, passed through such scenes! At noon he saw
a Newberg sloop near the shore weighing anchor. He hailed her
and was taken on board, for he had considerable money with him,
and offered to pay his passage.
It was evening when the sloop came to opposite his mother's
dwelling, and he was put ashore in the yawl. The young moon
was yet two hours high, and cast a pale, cold light upon the house,
as he approached it from the water. His heart throbbed with his
emotions as he came nearer! All was silent! No sound stirred,
but the croaking of a frog, or the sharp cry of a Katy-did, from the
neighboring thicket. He reached the little white gate, and here
paused, for his feelings overcame him! His knees trembled beneath
him, and his heart ceased to beat! The deep, deathlike repose of
the house appalled him! `Could his mother—' he could not
question himself further, but opened the gate, and approached the
door. The little flower-beds were neglected; the narrow gravelled
walk, once kept so clean, had been suffered to grow up with wild
grass; the shutters were closed, and the whole wore a look of desolation!
He paused and trembled!
Something on the door, glistening white in the moonlight, like a
placard, caught his eye. He flew towards it. It was a paper, on
which was simply written, `To BE Let.'
Few as the words were, they were significant of the most painful
meaning to the prodigal. He knew that something had occurred,
and that his mother was no longer there. His heart smote him for
his long neglect. There was a favorite jassmen of hers lying
broken on the door-step. He knelt, and gathering up its tendrils,
propped them by the lintel from which the winds had torn them,
and then, shedding a tear of remorse and grief, turned away.
A farmer was riding by at the moment, and, with a sinking heart,
he asked him what had become of the `widow Tatnall.'
`She has been dead this three months,' said the man, looking
with curiosity upon the inquirer. `You must be a stranger in these
parts.'
Paul made no reply, and as the man rode on, he turned away and
wept. At length he walked rapidly along the road; he run! he
flew! He stopped not till he came to the rude gate, near the
entrance of the Rock Hall grounds, which led into the little rural
cemetry where his father and a younger sister were laid. He
paused at the gate, over which a dark pine grew, casting beneath a
heavy shade. He removed his hat, and slowly walked forward.
The spot he saw was in the further corner, sheltered by a weeping
willow, which his mother had planted besides his soldier father's
grave. As be came near, he felt as if he could not breath. He
shuddered lest his dread fear was about to be realized. The moonlight
fell upon the sacred spot. It gleams white upon a headstone,
by the side of his father's. He rushes forward, with a choking sensation,
casts himself upon his knees, reads his mother's name, and,
with a groan of unutterable anguish, sinks insensible upon her
grave.
When he came to himself, he found he was lying upon a bed in a
handsome chamber; that the morning sun was gilding the summit
of `Old Cro'nest,' and that before his window flowed the majestic
Hudson, bearing upon its bosom a score of white-winged barks.
Leaning from the window was Catharine Ogilvie!
His exclamation of surprise caused her to turn round. Her
father, at the same instant, entered, and Catharine, smiling upon
the surprised young wanderer, in a few words explained to him,
that she and her father, walking out in the evening, and passing
near the cemetry she had entered to see how a `Forget-me-not' she
had planted on his mother's grave flourished, when they beheld
him lying insensible upon it.
`I instantly knew you,' said Catharine, `and from the spot where
I found you, and traces of tears on your cheeks, I knew that you
had, at last, become what I have been weeks praying for you to be,
what your sainted mother, for a year before she died, implored
Heaven earnestly for—a penitent! With this conviction I had
you removed here, and I assure you, my father and I will be happy
to have you our guest as long as your roving inclinations will
prompt you to remain.'
A few words will close our tale. The deep, holy influence of the
Christian maiden, her hours of conversation with him, as they
walked by the banks of the river, or stood bes de his mother's
grave, over which her piety had placed the snowy marble that
graced it, won upon his heart, already open to virtuous impressions.
Gradually, under her sweet teachings, he became a changed being,
and as Catharine had confessed herself a `Christian' under his dying
mother's eloquent and convincing words, so he, at length,
acknowledged himself to be a Christian.
A year passed by, and the Gypsy of Rock Hall became the bride
of the reformed Paul Tatnall, to whom her whole history was long
before made known. After their union, Mr. Ogilvie, having recovered,
in a great degree, from the depression into which his
superstitious murder had thrown him, proposed re-visiting Europe
with his daughter and her husband. The voyage was made; and
after passing a few months in England, the party proceeded to the
south of Italy, where Mr. Ogilvie died, leaving his immense wealth
to his son and daughter, who now both reside in Rome, she admired
and courted for the superb style of her oriental beauty, for her
accomplished wit, and the fascinating grace of her manners. Of
her husband little is known, as he goes little into society; but it
is generally thought, that, though devoted to his wife, who fondly
reciprocates his attachment, he is a prey to some brooding melancholy.
Back matter
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Ingraham, J. H. (Joseph Holt), 1809-1860 [1843], The Gipsy of the Highlands, or, The Jew and the heir. Being the adventures of Duncan Powell and Paul Tatnall (Redding & Co., Boston) [word count] [eaf165].
