The tones died away; the company was hushed for a moment; and the old chief then said gravely to his petulant follower, "That is what men fight for, boy." But the boy did not need the counsel. Homer's manner, his voice, the music itself, the spirit of the song, as much as the words, had overcome him; and the boasting soldier was covering his tears with his hands.

Homer felt at once (the prince of gentlemen he) that the little outbreak, and the rebuke of it, had jarred the ease of their unexpected meeting. How blessed is the presence of mind with which the musician of real genius passes from song to song, "whate'er the occasion be!" With the ease of genius he changed the tone of his melody again, and sang his own hymn, "To Earth, the Mother of all."

The triumphant strain is one which harmonizes with every sentiment; and he commanded instantly the rapt attention of the circle. So engrossed was he, that he did not seem to observe, as he sang, an addition to their company of some soldiers from above in the valley, just as he entered on the passage:—

A buzz of pleasure and a smile ran round the circle, in which the new-comers joined. They were the soldiers who had been to hear and join the music at the Carmel-men's post. The tones of Homer's harp had tempted them to return; and they had brought with them the Hebrew minstrel, to whom they had been listening. It was the outlaw David, of Bethlehem Ephrata.

David had listened to Homer more intently than any one; and, as the pleased applause subsided, the eyes of the circle gathered upon him, and the manner of all showed that they expected him, in minstrel-fashion, to take up the same strain.

He accepted the implied invitation, played a short prelude, and taking Homer's suggestion of topic, sang in parallel with it:—

The melody was triumphant; and the enthusiastic manner yet more so. The Philistines listened delighted,—too careless of religion, they, indeed not to be catholic in presence of religious enthusiasm; and Homer wore the exalted expression which his face seldom wore. For the first time since his childhood, Homer felt that he was not alone in the world!

Who shall venture to tell what passed between the two minstrels, when Homer, leaving his couch, crossed the circle at once, flung himself on the ground by David's side, gave him his hand; when they looked each other in the face, and sank down into the rapid murmuring of talk, which constant gesture illustrated, but did not fully explain to the rough men around them? They respected the poets' colloquy for a while; but then, eager again to hear one harp or the other, they persuaded one of the Ionian sailors to ask Homer again to sing to them.

It was hard to persuade Homer. He shook his head, and turned back to the soldier-poet.

"What should I sing?" he said.

They did not enter into his notion: hearers will not always. And so, taking his question literally, they replied, "Sing? Sing us of the snow-storm, the storm of stones, of which you sang at noon."

Poor Homer! It was easier to do it than to be pressed to do it; and he struck his harp again:—

The men looked round upon David, whose expression, as he returned the glance, showed that he had enjoyed the fragment as well as they. But when they still looked expectant, he did not decline the unspoken invitation; but, taking Homer's harp, sang, as if the words were familiar to him:—

"Always this 'He,'" said one of the young soldiers to another.

"Yes," he replied; "and it was so in the beginning of the evening, when we were above there."

"There is a strange difference between the two men, though the one plays as well as the other, and the Greek speaks with quite as little foreign accent as the Jew, and their subjects are the same."

"Yes," said the young Philistine harper; "if the Greek should sing one of the Hebrew's songs, you would know he had borrowed it, in a moment."

"And so, if it were the other way."

"Of course," said their old captain, joining in this conversation. "Homer, if you call him so, sings the thing made: David sings the maker. Or, rather, Homer thinks of the thing made: David thinks of the maker, whatever they sing."

"I was going to say that Homer would sing of cities; and David, of the life in them."

"It is not what they say so much, as the way they look at it. The Greek sees the outside,—the beauty of the thing; the Hebrew—"

"Hush!"

For David and his new friend had been talking too. Homer had told him of the storm at sea they met a few days before; and David, I think, had spoken of a mountain-tornado, as he met it years before. In the excitement of his narrative he struck the harp, which was still in his hand, and sung:—

"Mine were but a few verses," said Homer. "I am more than repaid by yours. Imagine Neptune, our sea-god, looking on a battle:—

And the poets sank again into talk.

"You see it," said the old Philistine. "He paints the picture. David sings the life of the picture."

"Yes: Homer sees what he sings; David feels his song."

"Homer's is perfect in its description."

"Yes; but for life, for the soul of the description, you need the Hebrew."

"Homer might be blind; and, with that fancy and word-painting power of his, and his study of everything new, he would paint pictures as he sang, though unseen."

"Yes," said another; "but David—" And he paused.

"But David?" asked the chief.

"I was going to say that he might be blind, deaf, imprisoned, exiled, sick, or all alone, and that yet he would never know he was alone; feeling as he does, as he must to sing so, of the presence of this Lord of his!"

"He does not think of a snow-flake, but as sent from him."

"While the snow-flake is reminding Homer of that hard, worrying, slinging work of battle. He must have seen fight himself."

They were hushed again. For, though they no longer dared ask the poets to sing to them,—so engrossed were they in each other's society,—the soldiers were hardly losers from this modest courtesy. For the poets were constantly arousing each other to strike a chord, or to sing some snatch of remembered song. And so it was that Homer, àpropos of I do not know what, sang in a sad tone:—

David waited for a change in the strain; but Homer stopped. The young Hebrew asked him to go on; but Homer said that the passage which followed was mere narrative, from a long narrative poem. David looked surprised that his new friend had not pointed a moral as he sang; and said simply, "We sing that thus:—

Homer's face flashed delighted. "I, like you, 'keep his covenant,'" he cried; and then without a lyre, for his was still in David's hands, he sang, in clear tone:—

"That is more in David's key," said the young Philistine harper, seeing that the poets had fallen to talk together again. "But how would it sound in one of the hymns on one of our feast-days?"

"How, indeed?" cried one of his young companions. "There would be more sense in what the priests say and sing, if each were not quarrelling for his own,—Dagon against Astarte, and Astarte against Dagon."

The old captain bent over, that the poets might not hear him, and whispered: "There it is that the Hebrews have so much more heart than we in such things. Miserable fellows though they are, so many of them, yet, when I have gone through their whole land with the caravans, the chances have been that any serious-minded man spoke of no God but this 'He' of David's."

"What is his name?"

"They do not know themselves, I believe."

"Well, as I said an hour ago, God's man or Dagon's man,—for those are good names enough for me,—I care little; but I should like to sing as that young fellow does."

"My boy," said the old man, "have not you heard him enough to see that it is not he that sings, near as much as this love of his for a Spirit he does not name? It is that spirited heart of his that sings."

"You sing like him? Find his life, boy; and perhaps it may sing for you."

"We should be more manly men, if he sang to us every night."

"Or if the other did," said an Ionian sailor.

"Yes," said the chief. "And yet, I think, if your countryman sang every night to me, he would make me want the other. Whether David's singing would send me to his, I do not feel sure. But how silly to compare them! As well compare the temple in Accho with the roar of a whirlwind—"

"Or the point of my lance with the flight of an eagle. The men are in two worlds."

"O, no! that is saying too much. You said that one could paint pictures—"

"—Into which the other puts life. Yes, I did say so. We are fortunate that we have them together."

"For this man sings of men quite as well as the other does; and to have the other sing of God—"

"—Why, it completes the song. Between them they bring the two worlds together."

"He bows the heavens, and comes down," said the boy of the olive-harp, trying to hum David's air.

"Let us ask them—"

And just then there rang along the valley the sound of a distant conch-shell. The soldiers groaned, roused up, and each looked for his own side-arms and his own skin.

But the poets talked on unheeding.

The old chief knocked down a stack of lances; but the crash did not rouse them. He was obliged himself to interrupt their eager converse.

"I am sorry to break in; but the night-horn has sounded to rest, and the guard will be round to inspect the posts. I am sorry to hurry you away, sir," he said to David.

David thanked him courteously.

"Welcome the coming, speed the parting guest," said Homer, with a smile.

"We will all meet to-morrow. And may to-night's dreams be good omens!"

"If we dream at all," said Homer again:—

They were all standing together, as he made this careless reply to the captain; and one of the young men drew him aside, and whispered that David was in arms against his country.

Homer was troubled that he had spoken as he did. But the young Jew looked little as if he needed sympathy. He saw the doubt and regret which hung over their kindly faces; told them not to fear for him; singing, as he bade them good night, and with one of the Carmel-men walked home to his own outpost:—

And he smiled to think how his Carmelite companion would start, if he knew when first he used those words.

So they parted, as men who should meet on the morrow.

But God disposes.

David had left to-morrow's dangers for to-morrow to care for. It seemed to promise him that he must be in arms against Saul. But, unlike us in our eagerness to anticipate our conflicts of duty, David waited.

And the Lord delivered him. While they were singing by the brookside, the proud noblemen of the Philistine army had forced an interview with their king; and, in true native Philistine arrogance, insisted that "this Hebrew" and his men should be sent away.

With the light of morning the king sent for the minstrel, and courteously dismissed him, because "the princes of the Philistines have said, 'He shall not go up with us to the battle.'"

So David marched his men to Ziklag.

And David and Homer never met on earth again.

Note.—This will be a proper place to print the following note, which I was obliged to write to a second cousin of Miss Dryasdust after she had read the MS. of the article above:—

"Dear Madam:—I thank you for your kind suggestion, in returning my paper, that it involves a piece of impossible history. You inform me, that, 'according to the nomenclatured formulas and homophonic analogies of Professor Gouraud, of never-to-be-forgotten memory, "A Needle is less useful for curing a Deaf Head, than for putting ear-rings into a Miss's lily-ears"; and that this shows that the second king of Judah, named David (or Deaf-head) began to reign in 1055 B.C., and died 1040 B.C.'; and further, that, according to the same authority, 'Homer flourished when the Greeks were fond of his Poetry'; which, being interpreted, signifies that he flourished in 914 B.C., and, consequently, could have had no more to do with David than to plant ivy over his grave, in some of his voyages to Phœnicia.

"I thank you for the suggestion. I knew the unforgetting professor; and I do not doubt that he remembered David and Homer as his near friends. But, of course, to such a memory, a century or two might easily slip aside.

"Now, did you look up Clement? And did you not forget the Arundelian Marbles? For, if you will take the long estimates, you will find that some folks think Homer lived as long ago as the year 1150, and some that it was as 'short ago' as 850. And some set David as long ago as 1170, and some bring him down to a hundred and fifty years later. These are the long measures and the short measures. So the long and short of it is, that you can keep the two poets 320 years apart, while I have rather more than a century which I can select any night of, for a bivouac scene, in which to bring them together. Believe me, my dear Miss D., always yours, &c.

"Confess that you forgot the Arundelian Marbles!"

THE SOUTH AMERICAN EDITOR

[I am tempted to include this little burlesque in this collection simply in memory of the Boston Miscellany, the magazine in which it was published, which won for itself a brilliant reputation in its short career. There was not a large staff of writers for the Miscellany, but many of the names then unknown have since won distinction. To quote them in the accidental order in which I find them in the table of contents, where they are arranged by the alphabetical order of the several papers, the Miscellany contributors were Edward Everett, George Lunt, Nathan Hale, Jr., Nathaniel Hawthorne, N. P. Willis, W. W. Story, J. R. Lowell, C. N. Emerson, Alexander H. Everett, Sarah P. Hale, W. A. Jones, Cornelius Matthews, Mrs. Kirkland, J. W. Ingraham, H. T. Tuckerman, Evart A. Duyckinck, Francis A. Durivage, Mrs. J. Webb, Charles F. Powell, Charles W. Storey, Lucretia P. Hale, Charles F. Briggs, William E. Channing, Charles Lanman, G. H. Hastings, and Elizabeth B. Barrett, now Mrs. Browning, some of whose earliest poems were published in this magazine. These are all the contributors whose names appear, excepting the writers of a few verses. They furnished nine tenths of the contents of the magazine. The two Everetts, Lowell, William Story, and my brother, who was the editor, were the principal contributors. And I am tempted to say that I think they all put some of their best work upon this magazine.

The misfortune of the Miscellany, I suppose, was that its publishers had no capital. They had to resort to the claptraps of fashion-plates and other engravings, in the hope of forcing an immediate sale upon persons who, caring for fashion-plates, did not care for the literary character of the enterprise. It gave a very happy escape-pipe, however, for the high spirits of some of us who had just left college, and, through my brother's kindness, I was sometimes permitted to contribute to the journal. In memory of those early days of authorship, I select "The South American Editor" to publish here. For the benefit of the New York Observer, I will state that the story is not true. And lest any should complain that it advocates elopements, I beg to observe, in the seriousness of mature life, that the proposed elopement did not succeed, and that the parties who proposed it are represented as having no guardians or keepers but themselves. The article was first published in 1842.]

It is now more than six years since I received the following letter from an old classmate of mine, Harry Barry, who had been studying divinity, and was then a settled minister. It was an answer to a communication I had sent him the week before.

"Topsham, R. I., January 22, 1836.

"To say the truth, my dear George, your letter startled me a little. To think that I, scarcely six months settled in the profession, should be admitted so far into the romance of it as to unite forever two young runaways like yourself and Miss Julia What's-her-name is at least curious. But, to give you your due, you have made a strong case of it, and as Miss —— (what is her name, I have not yours at hand) is not under any real guardianship, I do not see but I am perfectly justified in complying with your rather odd request. You see I make a conscientious matter of it.

"Write me word when it shall be, and I will be sure to be ready. Jane is of course in my counsels, and she will make your little wife feel as much at home as in her father's parlor. Trust us for secrecy.

"I met her last week—"

But the rest of the letter has nothing to do with the story.

The elopement alluded to in it (if the little transaction deserves so high-sounding a name) was, in every sense of the words, strictly necessary. Julia Wentworth had resided for years with her grandfather, a pragmatic old gentleman, to whom from pure affection she had long yielded an obedience which he would have had no right to extort, and which he was sometimes disposed to abuse. He had declared in the most ingenuous manner that she should never marry with his consent any man of less fortune than her own would be; and on his consent rested the prospect of her inheriting his property.

Julia and I, however, care little for money now, we cared still less then; and her own little property and my own little salary made us esteem ourselves entirely independent of the old gentleman and his will.

His intention respecting the poor girl's marriage was thundered in her ears at least once a week, so that we both knew that I had no need to make court to him; indeed, I had never seen him, always having met her in walking, or in the evening at party, spectacle, concert, or lecture. He had lately been more domineering than usual, and I had but little difficulty in persuading the dear girl to let me write to Harry Barry, to make the arrangement to which he assented in the letter which I have copied above. The reasoning which I pressed upon her is obvious. We loved each other,—the old gentleman could not help that; and as he managed to make us very uncomfortable in Boston, in the existing state of affairs, we naturally came to the conclusion that the sooner we changed that state the better. Our excursion to Topsham would, we supposed, prove a very disagreeable business to him; but we knew it would result very agreeably for us, and so, though with a good deal of maidenly compunction and granddaughterly compassion on Julia's part, we outvoted him.

I have said that I had no fortune to enable me to come near the old gentleman's beau ideal of a grand-son-in-law. I was then living on my salary as a South American editor. Does the reader know what that is? The South American editor of a newspaper has the uncontrolled charge of its South American news. Read any important commercial paper for a month, and at the end of it tell me if you have any clear conception of the condition of the various republics (!) of South America. If you have, it is because that journal employs an individual for the sole purpose of setting them in the clearest order before you, and that individual is its South American editor. The general-news editor of the paper will keep the run of all the details of all the histories of all the rest of the world, but he hardly attempts this in addition. If he does, he fails. It is therefore necessary, from the most cogent reasons, that any American news office which has a strong regard for the consistency or truth of its South American intelligence shall employ some person competent to take the charge which I held in the establishment of the Boston Daily Argus at the time of which I am speaking. Before that enterprising paper was sold, I was its "South American man"; this being my only employment, excepting that by a special agreement, in consideration of an addition to my salary, I was engaged to attend to the news from St. Domingo, Guatemala, and Mexico.[6]

Monday afternoon, just a fortnight after I received Harry Barry's letter, in taking my afternoon walk round the Common, I happened to meet Julia. I always walked in the same direction when I was alone. Julia always preferred to go the other way; it was the only thing in which we differed. When we were together I always went her way of course, and liked it best.

I had told her, long before, all about Harry's letter, and the dear girl in this walk, after a little blushing and sighing, and half faltering and half hesitating and feeling uncertain, yielded to my last and warmest persuasions, and agreed to go to Mrs. Pollexfen's ball that evening, ready to leave it with me in my buggy sleigh, for a three hours' ride to Topsham, where we both knew Harry would be waiting for us. I do not know how she managed to get through tea that evening with her lion of a grandfather, for she could not then cover her tearful eyes with a veil as she did through the last half of our walk together. I know that I got through my tea and such like ordinary affairs by skipping them. I made all my arrangements, bade Gage and Streeter be ready with the sleigh at my lodgings (fortunately only two doors from Mrs. Pollexfen's) at half-past nine o'clock, and was the highest spirited of men when, on returning to those lodgings myself at eight o'clock, I found the following missives from the Argus office, which had been accumulating through the afternoon.

No. 1.

"4 o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:—The southern mail, just in, brings Buenos Ayres papers six days later, by the Medora, at Baltimore.

"In haste,

J. C."

(Mr. C. was the gentleman who opened the newspapers, and arranged the deaths and marriages; he always kindly sent for me when I was out of the way.)

No. 2.

"5 o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:— The U. S. ship Preble is in at Portsmouth; latest from Valparaiso. The mail is not sorted.

"Yours,

J. D."

(Mr. D. arranged the ship news for the Argus.)

No. 3.

"6 o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:—I boarded, this morning, off Cape Cod, the Blunderhead, from Carthagena, and have a week's later papers.

"Truly yours,

J. E."

(Mr. E. was the enterprising commodore of our news-boats.)

No. 4.

"6¼ o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:—I have just opened accidentally the enclosed letter, from our correspondent at Panama. You will see that it bears a New Orleans post-mark. I hope it may prove exclusive.

"Yours,

J. F."

(Mr. F. was general editor of the Argus.)

No. 5.

"6½ o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:—A seaman, who appears to be an intelligent man, has arrived this morning at New Bedford, and says he has later news of the rebellion in Ecuador than any published. The Rosina (his vessel) brought no papers. I bade him call at your room at eight o'clock, which he promised to do.

"Truly yours,"

J. G."

(Mr. G. was clerk in the Argus counting-room.)

No. 6.

"7½ o'clock, P. M.

"Dear Sir:—The papers by the Ville de Lyon, from Havre, which I have just received, mention the reported escape of M. Bonpland from Paraguay, the presumed death of Dr. Francia, the probable overthrow of the government, the possible establishment of a republic, and a great deal more than I understand in the least.

"These papers had not come to hand when I wrote you this afternoon. I have left them on your desk at the office.

"In haste,

J. F."

I was taken all aback by this mass of odd-looking little notes. I had spent the afternoon in drilling Singleton, the kindest of friends, as to what he should do in any probable contingency of news of the next forty-eight hours, for I did not intend to be absent on a wedding tour even longer than that time; but I felt that Singleton was entirely unequal to such a storm of intelligence as this; and, as I hurried down to the office, my chief sensation was that of gratitude that the cloud had broken before I was out of the way; for I knew I could do a great deal in an hour, and I had faith that I might slur over my digest as quickly as possible, and be at Mrs. Pollexfen's within the time arranged.

I rushed into the office in that state of zeal in which a man may do anything in almost no time. But first, I had to go into the conversation-room, and get the oral news from my sailor; then Mr. H., from one of the little news-boats, came to me in high glee, with some Venezuela Gazettes, which he had just extorted from a skipper, who, with great plausibility, told him that he knew his vessel had brought no news, for she never had before. (N.B. In this instance she was the only vessel to sail, after a three months' blockade.) And then I had handed to me by Mr. J., one of the commercial gentlemen, a private letter from Rio Janeiro, which had been lent him. After these delays, with full materials, I sprang to work—read, read, read; wonder, wonder, wonder; guess, guess, guess; scratch, scratch, scratch; and scribble, scribble, scribble, make the only transcript I can give of the operations which followed. At first, several of the other gentlemen in the room sat around me; but soon Mr. C., having settled the deaths and marriages, and the police and municipal reporters immediately after him, screwed out their lamps and went home; then the editor himself, then the legislative reporters, then the commercial editors, then the ship-news conductor, and left me alone.

I envied them that they got through so much earlier than usual, but scratched on, only interrupted by the compositors coming in for the pages of my copy as I finished them; and finally, having made my last translation from the last Boletin Extraordinario, sprang up, shouting, "Now for Mrs. P.'s," and looked at my watch. It was half past one![7] I thought of course it had stopped,—no; and my last manuscript page was numbered twenty-eight! Had I been writing there five hours? Yes!

Reader, when you are an editor, with a continent's explosions to describe, you will understand how one may be unconscious of the passage of time.

I walked home, sad at heart. There was no light in all Mr. Wentworth's house; there was none in any of Mrs. Pollexfen's windows;[8] and the last carriage of her last relation had left her door. I stumbled up stairs in the dark, and threw myself on my bed. What should I say, what could I say, to Julia? Thus pondering, I fell asleep.

If I were writing a novel, I should say that, at a late hour the next day, I listlessly drew aside the azure curtains of my couch, and languidly rang a silver bell which stood on my dressing-table, and received from a page dressed in an Oriental costume the notes and letters which had been left for me since morning, and the newspapers of the day.

I am not writing a novel.

The next morning, about ten o'clock, I arose and went down to breakfast. As I sat at the littered table which every one else had left, dreading to attack my cold coffee and toast, I caught sight of the morning papers, and received some little consolation from them. There was the Argus with its three columns and a half of "Important from South America," while none of the other papers had a square of any intelligibility excepting what they had copied from the Argus the day before. I felt a grim smile creeping over my face as I observed this signal triumph of our paper, and ventured to take a sip of the black broth as I glanced down my own article to see if there were any glaring misprints in it. Before I took the second sip, however, a loud peal at the door-bell announced a stranger, and, immediately after, a note was brought in for me which I knew was in Julia's handwriting.

"Dear George:—Don't be angry; it was not my fault, really it was not. Grandfather came home just as I was leaving last night, and was so angry, and said I should not go to the party, and I had to sit with him all the evening. Do write to me or let me see you; do something—"

What a load that note took off my mind! And yet, what must the poor girl have suffered! Could the old man suspect? Singleton was true to me as steel, I knew. He could not have whispered,—nor Barry; but that Jane, Barry's wife. O woman! woman! what newsmongers they are! Here were Julia and I, made miserable for life, perhaps, merely that Jane Barry might have a good story to tell. What right had Barry to a wife? Not four years out of college, and hardly settled in his parish. To think that I had been fool enough to trust even him with the particulars of my all-important secret! But here I was again interrupted, coffee-cup still full, toast still untasted, by another missive.

"Tuesday morning.

"Sir:—I wish to see you this morning. Will you call upon me, or appoint a time and place where I may meet you?

"Yours,

Jedediah Wentworth."

"Send word by the bearer."

"Tell Mr. Wentworth I will call at his house at eleven o'clock."

The cat was certainly out; Mrs. Barry had told, or some one else had, who I did not know and hardly cared. The scene was to come now, and I was almost glad of it. Poor Julia! what a time she must have had with the old bear!

At eleven o'clock I was ushered into Mr. Wentworth's sitting-room. Julia was there, but before I had even spoken to her the old gentleman came bustling across the room, with his "Mr. Hackmatack, I suppose"; and then followed a formal introduction between me and her, which both of us bore with the most praiseworthy fortitude and composure, neither evincing, even by a glance, that we had ever seen or heard of each other before. Here was another weight off my mind and Julia's. I had wronged poor Mrs. Barry. The secret was not out—what could he want? It very soon appeared.

After a minute's discussion of the weather, the snow, and the thermometer, the old gentleman drew up his chair to mine, with "I think, sir, you are connected with the Argus office?"

"Yes, sir; I am its South American editor."

"Yes!" roared the old man, in a sudden rage. "Sir, I wish South America was sunk in the depths of the sea!"

"I am sure I do, sir," replied I, glancing at Julia, who did not, however, understand me. I had not fully passed out of my last night's distress.

My sympathizing zeal soothed the old gentleman a little, and he said more coolly, in an undertone: "Well, sir, you are well informed, no doubt; tell me, in strict secrecy, sir, between you and me, do you—do you place full credit—entire confidence in the intelligence in this morning's paper?"

"Excuse me, sir; what paper do you allude to? Ah! the Argus, I see. Certainly, sir; I have not the least doubt that it is perfectly correct."

"No doubt, sir! Do you mean to insult me?—Julia, I told you so; he says there is no doubt it is true. Tell me again there is some mistake, will you?" The poor girl had been trying to soothe him with the constant remark of uninformed people, that the newspapers are always in the wrong. He turned from her, and rose from his chair in a positive rage. She was half crying. I never saw her more distressed. What did all this mean? Were one, two, or all of us crazy?

It soon appeared. After pacing the length of the room once or twice, Wentworth came up to me again, and, attempting to appear cool, said between his closed lips: "Do you say you have no doubt that Rio Janeiro is strictly blockaded?"

"Not the slightest in the world," said I, trying to seem unconcerned.

"Not the slightest, sir? What are you so impudent and cool about it for? Do you think you are talking of the opening of a rose-bud or the death of a mosquito? Have you no sympathy with the sufferings of a fellow-creature? Why, sir!" and the old man's teeth chattered as he spoke, "I have five cargoes of flour on their way to Rio, and their captains will—Damn it, sir, I shall lose the whole venture."

The secret was out. The old fool had been sending flour to Rio, knowing as little of the state of affairs there as a child.

"And do you really mean, sir," continued the old man, "that there is an embargo in force in Monte Video?"

"Certainly, sir; but I'm very sorry for it."

"Sorry for it! of course you are;—and that all foreigners are sent out of Buenos Ayres?"

"Undoubtedly, sir. I wish—"

"Who does not wish so? Why, sir, my corresponding friends there are half across the sea by this time. I wish Rosas was in —— and that the Indians have risen near Maranham?"

"Undoubtedly, sir."

"Undoubtedly! I tell you, sir, I have two vessels waiting for cargoes of India-rubbers there, under a blunder-headed captain, who will do nothing he has not been bidden to,—obey his orders if he breaks his owners. You smile, sir? Why, I should have made thirty thousand dollars this winter, sir, by my India-rubbers, if we had not had this devilish mild, open weather, you and Miss Julia there have been praising so. But next winter must be a severe one, and with those India-rubbers I should have made—But now those Indians,—pshaw! And a revolution in Chili?"

"Yes, sir."

"No trade there! And in Venezuela?"

"Yes, sir."

"Yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir; yes, sir! Sir, I am ruined. Say 'Yes, sir,' to that. I have thirteen vessels at this moment in the South American trade, sir; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. Half of them will be taken by the piratical scoundrels; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. Their insurance will not cover them; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. The other half will forfeit their cargoes, or sell them for next to nothing; say 'Yes, sir,' to that. I tell you I am a ruined man, and I wish the South America, and your daily Argus, and you—"

Here the old gentleman's old-school breeding got the better of his rage, and he sank down in his arm-chair, and, bursting into tears, said: "Excuse me, sir,—excuse me, sir,—I am too warm."

We all sat for a few moments in silence, but then I took my share of the conversation. I wish you could have seen the old man's face light up little by little, as I showed him that to a person who understood the politics and condition of the mercurial country with which he had ignorantly attempted to trade, his condition was not near so bad as he thought it; that though one port was blockaded, another was opened; that though one revolution thwarted him, a few weeks would show another which would favor him; that the goods which, as he saw, would be worthless at the port to which he had sent them, would be valuable elsewhere; that the vessels which would fail in securing the cargoes he had ordered could secure others; that the very revolutions and wars which troubled him would require in some instances large government purchases, perhaps large contracts for freight, possibly even for passage,—his vessels might be used for transports; that the very excitement of some districts might be made to turn to our advantage; that, in short, there were a thousand chances open to him which skilful agents could readily improve. I reminded him that a quick run in a clipper schooner could carry directions to half these skippers of his, to whom, with an infatuation which I could not and cannot conceive, he had left no discretion, and who indeed were to be pardoned if they could use none, seeing the tumult as they did with only half an eye. I talked to him for half an hour, and went into details to show that my plans were not impracticable. The old gentleman grew brighter and brighter, and Julia, as I saw, whenever I stole a glance across the room, felt happier and happier. The poor girl had had a hard time since he had first heard this news whispered the evening before.

His difficulties were not over, however; for when I talked to him of the necessity of sending out one or two skilful agents immediately to take the personal superintendence of his complicated affairs, the old man sighed, and said he had no skilful agents to send.

With his customary suspicion, he had no partners, and had never intrusted his clerks with any general insight into his business. Besides, he considered them all, like his captains, blunder-headed to the last degree. I believe it was an idea of Julia's, communicated to me in an eager, entreating glance, which induced me to propose myself as one of these confidential agents, and to be responsible for the other. I thought, as I spoke, of Singleton, to whom I knew I could explain my plans in full, and whose mercantile experience would make him a valuable coadjutor. The old gentleman accepted my offer eagerly. I told him that twenty-four hours were all I wanted to prepare myself. He immediately took measures for the charter of two little clipper schooners which lay in port then; and before two days were past, Singleton and I were on our voyage to South America. Imagine, if you can, how these two days were spent. Then, as now, I could prepare for any journey in twenty minutes, and of course I had no little time at my disposal for last words with Mr. and—Miss Wentworth. How I won on the old gentleman's heart in those two days! How he praised me to Julia, and then, in as natural affection, how he praised her to me! And how Julia and I smiled through our tears, when, in the last good-bys, he said he was too old to write or read any but business letters, and charged me and her to keep up a close correspondence, which on one side should tell all that I saw and did, and on the other hand remind me of all at home.

I have neither time nor room to give the details of that South American expedition. I have no right to. There were revolutions accomplished in those days without any object in the world's eyes; and, even in mine, only serving to sell certain cargoes of long cloths and flour. The details of those outbreaks now told would make some patriotic presidents tremble in their seats; and I have no right to betray confidence at whatever rate I purchased it. Usually, indeed, my feats and Singleton's were only obtaining the best information and communicating the most speedy instructions to Mr. Wentworth's vessels, which were made to move from port to port with a rapidity and intricacy of movement which none besides us two understood in the least. It was in that expedition that I travelled almost alone across the continent. I was, I think, the first white man who ever passed through the mountain path of Xamaulipas, now so famous in all the Chilian picturesque annuals. I was carrying directions for some vessels which had gone round the Cape; and what a time Burrows and Wheatland and I had a week after, when we rode into the public square of Valparaiso shouting, "Muera la Constitucion,—Viva Libertad!" by our own unassisted lungs actually raising a rebellion, and, which was of more importance, a prohibition on foreign flour, while Bahamarra and his army were within a hundred miles of us. How those vessels came up the harbor, and how we unloaded them, knowing that at best our revolution could only last five days! But as I said, I must be careful, or I shall be telling other people's secrets.

The result of that expedition was that those thirteen vessels all made good outward voyages, and all but one or two eventually made profitable home voyages. When I returned home, the old gentleman received me with open arms. I had rescued, as he said, a large share of that fortune which he valued so highly. To say the truth, I felt and feel that he had planned his voyages so blindly, that, without some wiser head than his, they would never have resulted in anything. They were his last, as they were almost his first, South American ventures. He returned to his old course of more methodical trading for the few remaining years of his life. They were, thank Heaven, the only taste of mercantile business which I ever had. Living as I did, in the very sunshine of Mr. Wentworth's favor, I went through the amusing farce of paying my addresses to Julia in approved form, and in due time received the old gentleman's cordial assent to our union, and his blessing upon it. In six months after my return, we were married; the old man as happy as a king. He would have preferred a little that the ceremony should have been performed by Mr. B——, his friend and pastor, but readily assented to my wishes to call upon a dear and early friend of my own.

Harry Barry came from Topsham and performed the ceremony, "assisted by Rev. Mr. B."

G. H.

Argus Cottage, April 1, 1842.