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 THE 
 
 SUMMER-LAND 
 
 tcrr]r. 
 
 BY 
 
 A CHILD OF THE SUN 
 
 " Know ye the Land where the cypress and myrtle 
 Are emblems of deeds that are done in their clime ; 
 Where the rage of the vulture, the love of the turtle, 
 Now melts into sorrow, now maddens to crime ? " 
 
 BRIDE OF ABYDOS. 
 
 NEW YOKK: 
 D. APPLET N AND COMPANY, 
 
 346 & 348 BKOADWAY. 
 
 M.DCCC.LV.
 
 ENTERED, according to Act of Congress, in the year 1855, by 
 D. APPLETON & COMPANY, 
 
 In tlie Clerk's Office of the District Court of the United States for the Southern 
 District of New York.
 
 PEEFAC E. 
 
 IT was said by Gray, and has been said by a good many 
 others, that "any man, with talent or without, could 
 write a useful and entertaining book, if he would only 
 faithfully, and without affectation, detail what he has 
 seen and heard in a sphere which the rest of the world 
 had never seen, and was curious about." The author 
 thinks that his little volume of Journeyings may claim to 
 fulfil to some extent those conditions of a good book. 
 
 With the exception of a change of names, and the 
 coloring of a story, a faithful endeavor has been made to 
 depict a true and honest picture of life and scenery in the 
 South ; with sketches of character, customs, etc., among 
 the planters.
 
 4 PREFACE. 
 
 The author is a Southerner. He has travelled exten 
 sively over his native land, and these sketches are drawn 
 almost entirely from his note-book, with the exceptions 
 above mentioned. While there are no personal portrait 
 ures, each character is intended as a type of such people 
 as are found in the South.
 
 I I I 
 
 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 MY FIRST JOTJENEY 7 
 
 THE OVEESEEE AND HIS "WlFE 15 
 
 PUCKSHENTJBBIE 23 
 
 CLOTILDE 35 
 
 CEO WOOD 41 
 
 THE BEOOKWOODS 46 
 
 " WHEN THE CLOCK STEIKES Two " 52 
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE 68 
 
 " THEEE BE MUMMEES WITHOUT" 74 
 
 KEPEESENTATIVE CITIES 81 
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE 92 
 
 BATOOSALOA 106 
 
 " KING COTTON" , 123 
 
 COCKAIGNE 138 
 
 BONNICOOSA 149 
 
 EEPEESENTATIVE MEN 163 
 
 THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT 176 
 
 AN EVENING PAETY AT DB. TUGGLE'S 184 
 
 VIVIAN.. , 189
 
 6 CONTENTS. 
 
 PAGE 
 
 A EUOHKE PAETY AT MR. SHEEET COCKTAIL'S 193 
 
 A OHAPTEE OF FEENCH KOMANCE 203 
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOUENEY 214 
 
 CHTJOKATUBBIE 223 
 
 A EAILROAD KEVEEIE 234 
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE 246 
 
 AIDYL 256
 
 JAN JERED. 
 
 MY FIEST JOURNEY. 
 
 " THIS is the lad you are seeking, Monsieur le Cure," said the 
 prefet of the Ecole des Cinqlivres, rue Carree-bonne, No. 1 76, 
 Paris, laying his hand on the head of a little white-haired urchin 
 of nine or ten years old, who was playing at ball with half a 
 score of comrades in the little court-yard in the rear of the school, 
 which formed the gymnasium and playground for the pension- 
 naires of that famous institution. 
 
 " Is this Master Jered? " asked in French a squat-built per 
 sonage, in a priest's habit, who accompanied the prefet. 
 
 " Yes, Monsieur le Cure," said I, bowing, and looking up sur 
 prised and a little startled by the suddenness of the apparition, 
 " I am Jan Jered at your reverence's service." 
 
 " Master Jered," said the prefet, " you will go to your room 
 and make ready your mattes.' 1 ' 1 
 
 " Yes, sir," said I in suspense.
 
 8 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 " You will pack up everything. You are to leave school 
 to return home ; you will accompany this gentleman Father 
 Claude who is sent by your father ; he will be your compagnon 
 de voyage. Take Fally with you, and make haste and get 
 ready." 
 
 I went up to my little attic chamber, and in a few minutes 
 had packed my small personal estate in a wee leathern valise, 
 which constituted what Monsieur le Prefet was pleased to call 
 my mattes. 
 
 " Fally goes with me, I suppose, Monsieur le Prefet ? " I 
 asked, as I reported myself at the foot of the stairs, with my 
 little over-sack of blue cloth buttoned up, and my tassellated 
 casquette, of the same, covering my blonde head of thick silken 
 curls. 
 
 Fally was a little mulatto attendant of mine, about my own 
 age, who came behind me bearing my " malles" and his own 
 luggage, in the shape of a bundle tied up in a blue cotton hand 
 kerchief. 
 
 " Certainly Fally goes with you," said the prefet. " Step 
 into the court-yard and bid your playmates adieu you will find 
 Father Claude at the porte-cochere waiting for you." 
 
 It was a delicious autumn evening, and my head was full of 
 Gil Bias, which I had just been reading. I was in a mood for 
 adventure. Nothing could have suited me better than this 
 summons of Pere Claude to go with him I knew not where. 
 
 Home, had said the prefet, but that word, so dear to many, 
 conveyed no definite idea to me. I had no other home than 
 my little attic in the Pension des Cinqlivres, that I knew of. 
 
 It is true, I sometimes went to spend the Sunday at a hand-
 
 MY FIRST JOURNEY. 9 
 
 some house in the Rue du Grand Trianon, with my father and 
 mother sometimes at fine houses elsewhere, and occasionally 
 at a beautiful chateau in the country, in the direction of Fon- 
 tainebleau : I never was taught, however, to consider any of 
 them as my home though I believe the house in the street du 
 Grand Trianon was the actual residence of my parents. 
 
 So I supposed that M. le Cure was to take me to his own 
 home. 
 
 My parents resided in Paris, but I saw them so seldom, and 
 then always surrounded with company, that few boys ever ar 
 rived at the age of ten knowing less of his birth, circumstances, 
 and family. 
 
 I know my mother loved me love, deepest and most fer 
 vent, was always in her eyes whenever she caressed or noticed 
 me. I know my father did, because he always greeted me with 
 a kindly-cadenced " How do our studies progress, my boy ? " 
 and there was from him always a louis d'or, or something, at 
 parting. 
 
 The Sundays I was with them, the rooms were always full of 
 company, and they had no time to attend to me, and supposing I 
 was happier romping and sporting with the children of their ac 
 quaintances, endimanches like myself, they suffered me to play 
 upon the terraces and rove about the halls and gardens, while 
 they attended to their own company. 
 
 My adieus were soon made, and I found the prefet and the 
 priest at the porte-cochere, talking together, and Fally holding 
 open the door of the fiacre, ready for us to get in. 
 
 " Adieu, mon petit Jano," said the prefet, taking me affec 
 tionately by the hand ; <: I shall perhaps never see you again ;
 
 10 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 be a good boy (sole sage). I commit you to M. le Cure, who 
 will be henceforth your preceptor." 
 
 " Am I not to return to the Pension ? " I asked, blubbering, 
 I fear, half-hypocritically, for I did not care much about it, only 
 I thought I ought to seem a little distressed at parting with the 
 worthy prefet, who had always been really kind to me. 
 
 " I fear not," he replied ; " so good-bye. I wish you le bon 
 voyage, Monsieur le Cure," and he bowed courteously, to which 
 Father Claude responded with equal empressemcnt on his part, 
 and the hackney-coach drove off. 
 
 " Have you also a Pension, Monsieur le Cure ? " I asked. 
 
 " No, tnon petit" he replied, " I am taking you to your 
 home your own home where I will be your private tutor and 
 guardian." 
 
 " And where is that ? " 
 
 " Don't you know ? To Louisiana. To your father's plan 
 tation on the Mississippi." 
 
 " I did not know that my father had a plantation on the 
 Mississippi." 
 
 " He has recently acquired it. It is in my parish in Louis 
 iana, and he has employed me to superintend the general con 
 dition of his negroes, the affairs of his estate, and your educa 
 tion." 
 
 " And father and mother, do they go ? " 
 
 " Your father remains in Paris for a year or two yet. Your 
 mother your mother is dead ! " 
 
 " My mother is not dead," said I, emphatically, looking full 
 in the eyes of Monsieur le Cure, as though my will could make 
 the statement false.
 
 MY FIRST JOUKNEY. 11 
 
 " She died yesterday," said Father Claude, calmly. 
 
 Monsieur Antoine Claude was a little, sallow Frangais, with 
 a turn-up nose and little round eyes, like those of a mouse, with 
 no whites in them. I looked hard at him, to see what he meant 
 by telling me such a story ; but he took snuff with such a solemn 
 air, and looked so intently out of the coach window at the chim 
 ney-pots, that I was compelled to believe him. 
 
 As soon as I saw the sad news must be so, I lay back in my 
 seat, and wept very bitterly all the way to the diligence office. 
 
 I was aroused from the sort of stupor into which my grief 
 and weeping had thrown me, by the halting of the hackney-coach 
 in the court-yard of the diligence-office, when the bustle and up 
 roar, the Babel of tongues, the crowd of strange faces, the novelty 
 of the scene, and the excitement of the occasion, soon dissipated 
 my sorrow, which gave place -to a subdued heart-melancholy, 
 that did not preclude my enjoyment of the animated spectacle 
 around me, and I fell back into my Gil Bias reveries. 
 
 The diligence for Calais would start in an hour, and Father 
 Claude, having taken our seats at the bureau, returned to the 
 spot where he had left me and Fally with our luggage. 
 
 Father Claude gave me a piece of money, and pointing out a 
 rusty old boutique, whose bow-windows displayed a tempting array 
 of confectionery, told me I could go there and invest my funds 
 in some bonbonnerie to eat on the way. 
 
 I set out in a glee, with Fally at my heels, and we soon re 
 turned with a couple of brown paper packages of sugar-plums. 
 
 On our return, I found my father, with the priest. He was 
 dressed in deep mourning, and seemed quite sad. 
 
 He took me by the hand, and said calmly, but kindly,
 
 12 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Janny, Father Claude has informed you that it becomes 
 necessary for you to return to America. He will take good care 
 of you. Be a good boy, and some day, before long, I will join 
 you there." 
 
 He spoke to me in English, which I understood pretty well 
 my father and mother always making use of that language en 
 famille though I was with them enfamille very seldom^it must 
 be confessed. 
 
 My father was habitually an austere man in his intercourse 
 with me. That he loved me, I never for a moment doubted ; 
 but he was not very demonstrative in his affection. There is 
 this difference often to be observed in fathers. I had always 
 been accustomed to the most implicit obedience to his slightest 
 commands I never dared whimper or remonstrate, nor in any 
 way manifest the least repugnance to his behests. There was a 
 deal of awe blended with my filial regard. 
 
 This time the news of my mother's death had made me for 
 get to ask Father Claude about it this time I only asked him, 
 
 " Is it far to America 1 " 
 
 " Very far," replied my father : " across the ocean, you 
 know." 
 
 Yes, I had seen America on my atlas, and knew something 
 about it, but I had a very indefinite idea of its distance. I knew 
 the number of miles nearabouts, but that did not help me out 
 very much. 
 
 " How long will it take to go there ? " 
 
 " You will go in a packet to New Orleans, from Liverpool. 
 It will take you perhaps a month in all." 
 
 " Do we start from Liverpool do we go by London ? "
 
 MY FIRST JOURNEY. 13 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " Please, sir " I stopped, and commenced kicking a pebble 
 on the pave with my boots. 
 
 " Please what? " asked my father. 
 
 " I was going to ask if it would not incommode Father 
 Claude would you please let me stop a day or two in Lon 
 don ? " 
 
 " What for ? " 
 
 " I I want to see Gog and Magog, sir." 
 
 " Qu'est-ce que c'est qu'il veut dire?" demanded Father 
 Claude, intrigued. 
 
 " My father laughed (a subdued laugh, of course) 
 
 "What do you know about Gog and Magog?" he asked. 
 
 " I have read about them in a story-book, if you please, sir." 
 
 My father smiled to himself, and seemed to think it quite an 
 odd conceit. 
 
 " Well, you may stop a day or two in London. Father 
 Claude, go with him through the city, and show him St. Paul's, 
 and the Zoological Gardens, and Gog and Magog " 
 
 " And please, sir Westminster Abbey and the Tower of 
 London mayn't I see the Tower of London? " 
 
 " Yes, any thing you wish Father Claude, any thing he 
 wishes." 
 
 " Oui, monsieur, tout-ce qu'il veut voir." 
 
 A mulatto valet came up with a small, handsome travelling 
 trunk, quite new, and placed it among our luggage. 
 
 " Jan. that is yours ; it contains some clothing and other 
 things necessary for your journey. The conducteur says that 
 your diligence is ready."
 
 14 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 ********* 
 
 It would be out of the limits of these sketches to describe 
 ray impressions of foreign travel, even if the inexperienced 
 observations and vague reveries of a lad of ten years old were 
 worth recording. 
 
 . It may be sure that my diligence-staging to Calais, my sail 
 across the Channel, my rambles in London, were full of the 
 grandest delight to a boy of my age. What wild freaks my 
 fancy played ! What inconceivable air-castleing resulted from 
 my journeying in England ! 
 
 Some of these days, mayn't I tell the reader of my discovery 
 of Gog and Magog of my adventures with an actual countess, 
 as beautiful as Cinderella? Mayn't I say how London seemed 
 and/eft to a little stranger-boy of ten, there with nobody but his 
 tutor, and feeling very much as if he was Marco Paulo, or Lemuel 
 Gulliver, or Gil Bias, or some other great traveller-adventurer ?
 
 THE OVERSEER AND HIS WIFE. 
 
 MARTIN the overseer was a Tartar among the negroes, but a 
 mere cipher in his own household. Mrs. Martin was the Tartar 
 there. 
 
 He was a tall, lantern-jawed man, with a brickdust-colored 
 complexion and scanty red hair. His hands were coarse, hairy, 
 red things, disproportionably large. His shaggy, white eyebrows 
 were shadowed by a weather-beaten panama, which he never 
 took off except to eat and sleep. He did not encumber himself 
 with the superfluity of waistcoat or cravat, and the collar of his 
 cotton shirt, being never buttoned, revealed a broad, bronzed, 
 and hairy breast. 
 
 Mr. Martin was decidedly a hard-featured man: his face 
 reminded me of one of those masks of the South Sea Islanders, 
 made of stone, with a tanned and rugous hide fitted over it. 
 
 Add to this that he had the most nauseous Yankee drawl 
 he was a native of the ancient State of Connecticut that he 
 rarely spoke without a horrid oath, that he chewed tobacco and 
 spit incessantly and promiscuously, that his ablutions were as 
 niggardly as his nature, that his tow-linen sack and trowsers were 
 invariably dirty, and you may form some conception of the only
 
 16 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 white gentleman of my acquaintance in those days, except Father 
 Claude. 
 
 Mrs. Martin was a fat lady, with a red face, very irregular 
 teeth, by no means the whitest, coarse black hair, and terrible 
 greenish-gray eyes. Her peculiar style of ugliness was emi 
 nently heightened by a flat, brownish mole in the centre of her 
 forehead. 
 
 Mrs. Martin's profile was somewhat peculiar. Imagining 
 that her head might have been about the consistency of dough, 
 it was as if some one had placed one hand on the top of it, and 
 the other on her chin, and just staved it in a little, bulging out 
 her forehead and mashing up her chin. 
 
 It is five years since my mother died five years that I have 
 lived here in the swamps with Martin the flverseer and his wife. 
 
 During all this time, I have not had a single letter from my 
 father, and I have only heard from him occasionally three or 
 four times a-year through Father Claude. 
 
 During all this time Mrs. Martin never gave me a kind look, 
 never gave me a kind word, never showed me the slightest act 
 of kindness : never seemed to feel any more interest in me than 
 she did in the fattening-pig in the stye behind the kitchen. She 
 attended to my animal wants in the same way that she threw 
 slops to the pig. 
 
 She never had a child of her own, and her coarse, mascu 
 line breast was incapable of any of the emotions that thrill the 
 bosom of a mother, and make even the sternest of her sex kind 
 to children. 
 
 Her unkindness was no more than the negative unkindness 
 of indifference and neglect. She dared not use me cruelly ; she
 
 THE OVERSEER AND HIS WIFE. 17 
 
 never struck me she rarely even scolded me. If she rebuked 
 me, it was with an air of cold indifference, as though the neces 
 sity of her own comfort made it incumbent upon her to point out 
 to me such faults as would bring with them any inconvenience 
 to herself; but that done, she cared little whether I obeyed her 
 counsel, and profited by her advice, or not. 
 
 Yet she hated me with an intense hatred. 
 
 There were two very good reasons why she did not beat me, or 
 maltreat me as her inclination willingly would have prompted. 
 
 The most potential reason, it may be the only real one, was 
 that if I should complain of her to Father Claude, he would 
 write to a certain M. Bonavoine, in New Orleans, who had the 
 authority to discharge Martin from his overseership at Puck- 
 shenubbie ; M. Bonavoine being my father's general agent, and 
 having instructions to that effect. 
 
 I did not know this. Though I certainly should have told 
 Father Claude had I been misused ; and if I had not, my old 
 negro nurse, " Mammy Aggy," would have done so. Not know 
 ing that there existed this check upon Mrs. Martin, I attributed 
 her forbearance to the other reason that I was too quiet and 
 inoffensive a creature to call forth a harsh word from anybody. 
 In those guileless days, I did not know that the wicked and the 
 selfish take a sort of fiendish delight in tormenting the innocent 
 and the unoffending. 
 
 An old black, gray-haired slave, old " Mammy Aggy," was 
 the only being in the world that really cared for me. Old Aggy 
 loved her " young. master " with the loyalest devotion. 
 
 When I think now upon my childhood at Puckshenubbie, 
 I cannot but believe that Father Claude was remiss in his duty
 
 18 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 as iny guardian and tutor. It is true his parish covered a large 
 extent of country, and his duties as a priest were very onerous, 
 but since he could be with me but seldom himself, I think he 
 should have taken me from the- Martins, either with or without 
 the consent of Mr. Jered, and put me to school, or, at least, 
 placed me under better and more congenial influences. Father 
 Claude was a good man a man of learning, and endowed with 
 kind and generous feelings ; but he was a prosy, pedantic priest. 
 
 He never understood me he never saw that I lacked any 
 thing when I had yams and fowl in abundance at Puckshenubbie. 
 Yams and fowl were sufficient for him : he did not see why I 
 should not vegetate at Puckshenubbie amongst the canebrakes, 
 alligators, magnolias, and negro children of the Quarter, until 
 I had received sufficient drilling in Latin and Greek to enter 
 the school of medicine at Paris, which, he told me, was my des 
 tiny. 
 
 It must be confessed I was not calculated to impress any 
 body, even of greater penetration than Father Claude, with the 
 idea of a future Napoleon or a Beranger. 
 
 I was a little, sallow, sickly lad, with slight, almost attenu 
 ated form. My lips were bloodless, my face pale and thin, and 
 dreadfully tanned and freckled by exposure to the sun. 
 
 Mrs. Martin gave me the comfortable information that I 
 would not live very long. My large, dark blue eyes had a pre 
 ternatural lustre, which, she said, was a sure harbinger of early 
 death. 
 
 In? Louisiana, on a plantation, the sugar-house is frequently 
 the most costly edifice by far on the estate, and more money is 
 lavished on it than on the plantation-house, although the latter
 
 THE OVEKSEEE AND HIS WIFE. 19 
 
 are sometimes quite elegant, as was the one at Puckshenub- 
 bie ; but our sugar-house was also on a grand scale. Mr. Martin 
 had his apartments in it, as is not unfrequently the ease, and 
 I also had a little room there, but I spent most of my time in 
 Mammy Aggy's cabin, which was a tidy cottage orne, near the 
 plantation-house ; for Mammy Aggy, having nursed my father 
 before me, was a pet, and a privileged character on the estate. 
 
 I had been infected for long months with the ague. I was 
 taciturn, moody, and not at all demonstrative, except towards 
 my little mulatto comrade Fally. 
 
 I spent much of my time in the woods, rambling about with 
 Fally at my heels : finding alligator and turtle eggs in the 
 sand.: shooting paroquets with a blow gun or a bow: paroquets, 
 lizzards, rice buntings, and any small deer that came in my way. 
 
 Father Claude spent every Saturday on our plantation : 
 the forenoon he devoted to my instruction he taught me to 
 read in this way and at other odd times. I learned with great 
 facility, and progressed more rapidly than might have been ex 
 pected under such slender advantages. I seemed to have some 
 kind of intuition that learning was to be the Open Sesame that 
 would let me into a treasure-house of inexhaustible riches. My 
 faculties, by disease, and a consequent morbid exaltation of my 
 nervous system, were stimulated to a degree that rendered me 
 precocious. It was the effect of the ague, and the quinine that 
 Mrs. Martin made me take. 
 
 The lessons that Father Claude gave me were few they 
 were far between sometimes not more than one forenoon in a 
 week, but I never forgot any thing. I learned to read almost 
 without the preliminary process of a long siege at the spelling-
 
 20 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 book. After I had learned the power of letters, I began to 
 read as if by instinct. I studied by myself during the week, and, 
 with Father Claude's Saturday lesson for a starting point, al 
 ways made rapid advances by the time next Saturday came 
 around. I took to books intuitively, perhaps, because I had so 
 few sources of amusement. 
 
 Mrs. Martin hated me. I never knew why. It is true I did 
 not take very affectionately to her, and if she was not down 
 right repulsive to me, it was only because habit and association 
 had overcome my repugnance. There was not a point in com 
 mon between us. I was passionately fond of flowers, I never 
 returned from a ramble without a handful of wild flowers. 1 
 
 " What are you gwine to do with them weeds ? " she would ' 
 ask with a sneer. 
 
 Did she find me hid in the dingy garret, poring over an old 
 copy of French tales and poetry, she would take it away from 
 me, saying that I had no business reading such books. 
 
 Did I utter an involuntary exclamation of admiration and 
 delight at a beautiful sunset scene, at a morning mist on the 
 river silvered in the rising sun, at a white cloud in a moonlight 
 sky, or the gemmed galaxy of tropical stars, she would curl her 
 coarse lip, and utter some rude expression of contempt. 
 
 A little green snake one day crawled into the weighing-room 
 of the sugar-house. There are a great many varieties of small 
 snakes in the South; beautiful creatures, red, green, and striped, 
 and perfectly harmless. Knowing from Father Claude that it 
 was such, I took it on a stick to carry it out. 
 
 Mrs. Martin was in there. 
 
 " Give me the stick," she cried. She took it from me, and
 
 THE OVERSEER AND HIS WIFE. 21 
 
 shaking the poor little creature down upon the floor, despatched 
 it at a blow. 
 
 " Master Jan ought to have been a girl, he's too squeamish 
 for a boy," said she. 
 
 " I suppose girls cease to be squeamish when they get to be 
 old women," retorted I. 
 
 " Only he is too ugly," she continued. " It was kind in 
 Providence, after all, to make you a boy; it makes no difference 
 about boys being ugly, but it would be a pity for a girl to be as 
 ugly as you are ; when she grew up to be a young lady it would 
 be very mortifying." 
 
 " Did it mortify you much when you were a girl ? " I asked, 
 calmly" 
 
 Mrs. Martin's snaky eyes darted out a greenish fire. 
 
 " Ef I had been a sailer, freckled thing like you, it would a 
 mortified me, I expect." 
 
 Her complexion was that of a mangy pumpkin. 
 
 " Your features were much more regular than mine, I dare 
 say." Mine were regular ; my face was oval, and my head well 
 formed, and covered with a luxuriant suit of golden-silken 
 hair. 
 
 " My features were as God made 'em, Mister Imperance, so 
 get out of the way there for the foozsse-bearers." 
 
 Such a degree of insult as this, however, she rarely offered, 
 nor did I as often retaliate ; nothing but some bitter sting, some 
 cruel taunt, would draw from me retort. Her multiplied inu- 
 endo and sneering insinuations I suffered in silence. 
 
 Mrs. Martin spoke but little French, and I pretended to 
 know even less English than I did, and often feigned not to
 
 22 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 understand her, and would make no other reply than " Je ne 
 comprends pas," which invariably put her in a rage. 
 
 " You're a precious chap not to understand your own native 
 language, and know nothing but the outlandish gibberish of these 
 Creole niggers. Your mammy was a Virginny lady ; wonder 
 what she'd think ef she knew her darlin' Jan couldn't talk nothin' 
 but gumbo." 
 
 " Je ne parle pas ce patois-la ; point du tout, mamman Aggy 
 parle franc,ais, du bon frangais, entends-tu ? Mamma Aggy 
 n'est pas Creole. C'est toi qui es Creole, vieille coquine ! " 
 
 I took a particular delight in talking to her in French when 
 she was angry, especially in tutoieing* her, it made her so 
 "wrathy." 
 
 * Using the second person singular.
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 
 
 THE Plantation House, or " Great House," as Aunt Aggy, who 
 was an " old Virginia negro," called it, was a low-roofed, two- 
 story edifice, of a style of architecture between Spanish and 
 Italian, having the campanile, hip-roof and round-arched windows 
 of the latter, and the balconies, verandahs, green jalousies, and 
 court of the former. 
 
 Outside the mauresque columns of the verandah, which was 
 broad, and almost entirely surrounding the house, was a light 
 lattice-frame, from the eaves to the ground loaded with jessa 
 mine, clematis, bignonia, and other vines. 
 
 The house, some hundred and fifty yards back .from the Mis 
 sissippi, was situated on what might be called elevated ground in 
 this low country. 
 
 Around it was a grove of the dense, dumpy live-oak, which is 
 so much admired, with long gray Southern moss hanging in fes 
 toons from their branches. 
 
 The lawn in front of the house down to the river was laid off 
 and set out in the most beautiful style. There was a lavish luxury 
 of foliage, which constitutes such a charm in Southern scenery, 
 a charm peculiar to the Land of the Sun.
 
 24 SCENES IN THE SUMMEE-LAND. 
 
 There was a profusion of richest tropical shrubbery ; pome 
 granates, magnolias, yuccas, figs, olives, oleanders, pawpaws, 
 oranges, catalpas, and dozens more in groups, parterres, rows and 
 singly, all in tasteful array. 
 
 Behind the house there were larger trees, forming a sort of 
 scenic background for the picture ; there was the shaft-like Lom 
 bard, the stately Spanish oak, the lofty tulip-tree, and the majes 
 tic elm ; and, above all, in the midst arose a trio of long-leaf 
 pines, magnificent aborigines, towering far above the rest, the 
 lowest boughs of their palm-like tops being above the topmost 
 twigs of all. 
 
 Old Aggy kept the keys of the Great House, a source of 
 secret discontent and animosity on the part of Mrs. Martin, who 
 would have held them herself, but it was in accordance with the 
 express orders of my father that Mammy Aggy was chatelaine ; 
 and she kept the doors locked against every body but Father 
 Claude, who slept there when he was on the plantation. 
 
 Every Sunday she kindled fires in all the rooms to drive out 
 the damp, swept the house from top to bottom, dusted all the 
 furniture that was not sewed up in painted canvas covers, and 
 turned a host of coverlets, linen, bedding, and all the drygoods 
 in a housekeeper's thesaurus out in the sun. And I and Fally 
 used to have grand sport tumbling over them. 
 
 This was early in the morning. When all this airing and 
 overhauling was finished, Mammy Aggy washed and scoured me, 
 put me into clean duck trowsers, a ruffled collar, and cloth 
 roundabout ; encased my slim, shallow shanks in silk stockings 
 and lacquered slippers ; oiled and brushed my hair into a very 
 girlish arrangement of curls, and crowned me with the tassel-
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 25 
 
 lated cap I brought from France, and never since worn upon any 
 other occasion. 
 
 Then if the weather was good, she had the carriage brought 
 out of the carriage-house, the keys of which, also,, much to Mrs. 
 Martin's discomfort, she had in charge. Having seen that the 
 harness was oiled, polished, arid in repair ; minutely inspected 
 through her old horn-rim spectacles the carriage inside and out, 
 she dusted the same very carefully, and questioned Pierrot, the 
 coachman, quite rigidly as to the condition of the horses. 
 
 All things being satisfactory, she joined me in the verandah 
 of the Great House, to which I was, on these occasions alone, ad 
 mitted ; she would wait there dressed in her yellowest and largest 
 bandanna, and white apron, in addition to her ordinary attire, 
 until the carriage would drive up, when Fally would jump down 
 from behind and open the door with a great air ; and Aggy would 
 say ceremoniously, 
 
 " Voila, mon maitre, quo la voiture est prete pour votre prom 
 enade." 
 
 I would get in, and she after me. And we would go prome 
 nading a few miles down the levee to church. And on meeting 
 any of the Creole planters, there were salutations and inquiries 
 about my father, and blushes and sheepishness on my part; 
 and much pride and loquacious service on the part of Mammy 
 Aggy. 
 
 As soon as we returned home, Mammy Aggy would take off 
 my finery, clothe me in my every-day attire ; which consisted 
 generally in dirty duck trowsers, ditto cotton shirt, palmetto 
 hat, and brogan shoes often none ; and glad to get rid of the 
 gene of my regal attire, the cleanliness of which incommoded
 
 26 SCENES IN THE SUMMEil-LAND. 
 
 my notions of liberty, I would caper off to the bayou with Fally, 
 to paddle in the water along with the ducks and geese. 
 
 Those hebdomadal drives in state had a greater effect and 
 significance than one might suppose. They served to keep me in 
 mind that I was a gentleman's son, and counteracted the malign 
 influence of Mrs. Martin, who nearly died of anger and envy 
 about them. 
 
 One day a splendid steamboat landed at the bottom of the 
 garden in front of the Plantation House. I thought it a singular 
 circumstance, as I sat watching the boat approach, from the top 
 of the wood-pile, where I was perched abask in the sun. 
 
 The boats that stopped at Puckshenubbie landed at the wood- 
 yard and cotton-wharf, but never before at the garden-foot. I 
 saw'a plank put out, and a stout negro came ashore, bearing a 
 big canvas-covered trunk ; another followed him with a leather 
 hat-box, a valise and an overcoat, another trunk, and another, 
 more carpet-bags, valises, wicker-baskets, bandboxes, cases, etc., 
 until there was a huge pile of them on the shore. I then saw a 
 gentleman, in a gray cloth cap and brown linen sack over his black 
 frock, come upon the guards, with a veiled lady in gray upon his 
 arm, and after shaking hands and bowing to a great many people 
 on board, he descended the plank, escorting the lady quite gal 
 lantly. 
 
 He was followed by another gentleman elegantly dressed, 
 who wore tremendous whiskers and mustaches, a white hat with 
 black crape on it, and shiny boots. He had a gold-headed ebony 
 cane and a big fob-chain ; and a very imposing air about him, 
 made me think him a man of the first importance. Other ladies 
 and gentlemen followed some four or five ; but whilst I was
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 27 
 
 scrutinizing them, I heard Aggy calling me, in a consequential 
 and flurried tone of voice. 
 
 " Mais ou est done ce petit Jan no sait-il pas que son pere 
 est arrive ? " 
 
 I heard the words, and they frightened me half- to death. 
 My father my father come ! I had never dreamed of the pos 
 sibility of such a thing. 
 
 I ran off, and hid in the carriage-house. Fally found me 
 there, and told me that my father was inquiring every where for 
 me ; that they had brought pineapples, and bananas, and oranges, 
 and sugar-plums, and guava, " and oh! so many goodies," with 
 them ! 
 
 I concluded that the ordeal must be gone through some time. 
 Fally excited my curiosity to see the "goodies" and pretty pres 
 ents he had brought me, so I sneaked around the back of the 
 house, and ventured falteringly into the verandah. The gentle 
 man with the blonde mustache came out of the hall door upon the 
 back verandah with his hands full of little packages accidental 
 ly, just as I was at the steps of the verandah. As soon as I saw 
 him, I started to run : I sought to get behind the kitchen before 
 he saw me ; but I did not make good my retreat ere he espied 
 me. 
 
 " Here, Janny why, is that Janny ? Here, you little imp, 
 come' here and embrace your father." 
 
 But, bless you! I was already crouched under the wood-shed, 
 behind the kitchen. 
 
 " Alfred," I could hear him say to a likely mulatto who had 
 accompanied the party from the boat, " Gro and fetch that boy 
 here. Why, they have let him run perfectly wild. I must give
 
 28 SCENES IN THE SUMMEE-LAND. 
 
 Father Claude a lecture for neglecting him so during my absence. 
 But I might have known it," he added. 
 
 " Come with me, my little master," said, coaxingly, the mu 
 latto, catching me by the arm. " Come, pappa wants to see you. 
 Won't yau go see papa, who's been away so long to Europe five 
 years, nearly ? Don't you remember him hey ? " 
 
 " Va-t-en ! " said I, sulkily, trying to disengage my arm. 
 " Finis j'ne veux pas y aller." 
 
 " Oh ah ! Vous parlez franais done ! A la bonne heure ! 
 Venez done, c'est vot' pere qui vous demande par la ... dans 
 la piazza. Allons done." 
 
 11 Finis .... laisse-moi tranquille." 
 
 My father came up. He caught me in his arms, and smother 
 ed me with kisses. I kicked and struggled. He put me down, 
 and exclaimed with a mortified air, 
 
 " My poor boy ! Is this the welcome you give your father 
 after so long an absence ? 'Tis my fault 'tis my fault ! " 
 
 He spoke in English. The bitterness of his accent touched 
 me. 
 
 " Are you my father ? " I asked naively, looking up at him 
 out of the corners of my eyes, as I dribbled a hole in the ground 
 with my great toe. 
 
 My father's return wrought a great change in affairs at Puck- 
 shenubbie. 
 
 Mrs. Martin sank into the shade of her proper insignificance. 
 I rarely saw her now, for I had a nice little room at the Great 
 House; but when I did chance to encounter her, she was as gra 
 cious as her ugly nature would permit. 
 
 All was gay life and bustle at Puckshenubbie. Mrs. Martin
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 29 
 
 durst not call me ugly now, for I was dressed fine every day, and 
 Alfred dressed my hair in splendid ringlets. 
 
 It was quite a contrast to my old lonely, quiet life, and enough 
 to dazzle my young imagination ; but I rather regretted my old 
 freedom, and dirt, and swamp-rambles. 
 
 The negroes at the Quarter used to call me Indian, because 
 I was always teasing old Aggy and Father Claude to tell me In 
 dian stories, and because I sometimes took a child's whim of 
 playing " Indian," and bound my head with a red bandanna hand 
 kerchief, stuck turkey feathers in it, and girding my cottonade 
 blouse into an imitation hunting-shirt, went with my hatchet and 
 bows and arrows trapseing about the cane-fields, in the sort of 
 Quixotic derangement that boys sometimes indulge in, having 
 Fally similarly metamorphosed for my Sancho Panza. Mrs. Mar 
 tin had called me Injun, because she said "I was as swarthy and 
 ugly as an Injun, and nothin' but a little dirty savage, no how." 
 
 Now she called me Master Jered, as politely as anybody. 
 
 The green jalousies were thrown open at the Great House. 
 The canvas coverings were taken off. Carpets and mattings 
 were spread on the floors, and the parlor presented to my young 
 eyes a scene of Arabian Nights magnificence. 
 
 There were four ladies. Two of them were young, and two 
 were of middle age. And there was, besides, a little pale, red 
 headed girl, who was always in the sulks ; at least, she would 
 have nothing to do with me, though her mamma, the youngest of 
 the two older ladies, made repeated endeavors to bring us ac 
 quainted with each other. She would go off to one end of the 
 verandah with a white rabbit she had, and stay there for hours, 
 playing with it, twining wreaths of flowers around its neck, pet-
 
 30 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 ting it and talking to it, and whenever I would attempt to join 
 her, she would take it up in her arms, and with a sullen look, go 
 with it into the garden. 
 
 I remember the first day they came, as I entered the hall with 
 my father, after he had made his acquaintance acceptable with 
 kind words and sugar-plums, we met one of the two young la 
 dies a tall, brown-haired, brown-eyed lady, beautiful and gen 
 tle, and dressed very elegantly. As soon as she saw me, she ran 
 up and stooped to kiss me ; but I shrank away from her em 
 brace, behind my father. 
 
 " Edouard, est-ce la votre fils ? " 
 
 " Oui, Leonore, je le trouve un tout petit sauvage " but 
 pardon me, I'll give the English. " I find him quite a little sav 
 age. Father Claude is to blame for this. I put him under his 
 charge, and he has left him here on the plantation with the ne 
 groes and overseer, and he has grown into such a pale, ugly crea 
 ture, all freckled, tanned, and dirty, that I am quite ashamed of 
 him. Besides, his manners are shockingly neglected." 
 
 " He isn't pretty as I expected your child would be," replied 
 the young lady, looking tenderly at him. " Does he resemble 
 his mother, do you think ? " 
 
 " I think a little, perhaps. But his mother was certainly the 
 most beautiful woman in the South." 
 
 The young lady pouted, and tapped him playfully on the arm 
 with her fan. 
 
 " My mother was more beautiful than you," said I, speaking 
 French for the first time, and making use of the spiteful accent, 
 veiled beneath a seeming indifference, with which I sometimes re 
 torted upon Mrs. Martin.
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 31 
 
 " Oh ! " cried the young lady, feigning a sort of frightened 
 look, " I did not know that the child spoke French." 
 
 " Yes, madame, I speak French." 
 
 " Tant mieux ! " she muttered drily, and then skipped off into 
 the parlor, where I soon heard her playing a French air on the 
 piano. 
 
 The other young lady was an American, but I have forgotten 
 her name the daughter of some New Orleans grandee, who had 
 a little Creole dandy dancing attendance upon her. 
 
 There was a great deal of gayety at Puckshenubbie : every 
 evening there were ladies came in their carriages, and gentlemen 
 on horseback and in buggies ; and there was music in the draw 
 ing-room, wine in the dining-room, and dancing in the halls, and 
 a grand gala time of it, 
 
 The gentlemen played cards and billiards, and drank and 
 smoked, in the apartments for that purpose, from morning till 
 night ; especially my father, and the man with the big whiskers 
 and white hat. 
 
 He was a Frenchman. They called him Monsieur Lestocq. 
 He dressed very splendidly, played well on the violin, and 
 waltzed sometimes with Madame Leonore, my stepdame ; but 
 he was not as often in the drawing-room as the other gentlemen, 
 and when not playing cards, which he seemed to like best, 
 he was either lounging over a newspaper and cigar on the veran 
 dah, or practising at pistol-shooting under an old live-oak at the 
 foot of the lawn. He taught me to shoot a pistol, as I would 
 be down there looking on at him sometimes, and he promised me 
 a gold piece whenever I could hit the spot on an ace -card at
 
 32 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 twenty paces. It was not long before I did learn to do that 
 and, sure enough, he gave me a gold piece. 
 
 Monsieur declared that I would make an excellent pistol- 
 shot that I had a better eye for it than my father. But I did 
 not much like Monsieur Lestocq, for all his gold piece I hardly 
 knew why, unless that he sometimes had a way of showing his 
 white teeth beneath his heavy mustaches in laughing, when he 
 and father were playing picquet or ecarte. There was some 
 thing sinister about that grin. 
 
 As for gold, I had plenty of it. Madame Leouore gave me 
 a handful of little gold pieces, and my father gave me gold, and 
 the other gentlemen gave me gold, all but the father of the red- 
 haired girl, a tall, dark man, with a black dress and white cra 
 vat, who gave me a couple of very stupid religious story-books 
 and his wife, who gave me cakes and candies. 
 
 They gave me gold and caresses, but none gave me love. 
 
 Madame Leonore made much of me in her way, being my 
 stepmother, as they told me. But her " way" was to flatter me, 
 and beg me to love her; to indulge me in every possible man 
 ner, and make very exaggerated demonstrations of her affection 
 for me. 
 
 Child as I was, I could easily see through that; I could 
 readily see it was all put on, and that really, at heart, she cared 
 nothing for me. She saw that I felt this, and by degrees dimin 
 ished the excess of her adulations, but continued to overload me 
 with marks of her sort of kindness. There was something in 
 the flimsy but polished hypocrisy of those fashionables, hardly 
 veiling the coldest selfishness, that was perhaps more galling than 
 the coarse tyranny of Mrs. Martin.
 
 PUCKSHENUBBIE. 33 
 
 The rod-haired girl's father, whose name was Mr. Brookwood, 
 really meant well by me : but his was one of those stiff, self- 
 absorbed natures that cannot commune with children. He could 
 not come down into my sphere at all, and his attempts at it were 
 only clumsy failures. 
 
 Mrs. Brookwood thought she loved me very much, and 
 thought I ought to love her, because she combed my golden 
 locks, and said I was a " dear, interesting child," and stuffed me 
 with fruits and confectionery, just as she did her daughter's pink- 
 eyed rabbit with artichokes and spinage. 
 
 I grew to like Mr. Brookwood better by degrees ; he would 
 not come down to me, but I struggled to clamber up to him. 
 
 He taught me topographic astronomy, and incidentally I 
 wrested some boy-poetry, in the way of classic mythology, out of 
 his theologico-metaphysical excursions. 
 
 I had wealth of fine clothes, and dressed in velvet, and broad 
 cloth, and laces, every day. I had a room of my own, and Fally 
 instituted as my regular valet- de-chambre, and put under the 
 tutorage of Alfred, whose Parisian training had rendered him 
 acheve in his art. 
 
 I had free access to the dinner-table, where Fally waited 
 behind my chair, and to the drawing-room, where the company 
 petted and complimented me me who had not been much used 
 to compliments. But I could see that they complimented me 
 just as they would have done a monkey or a poodle, with not 
 nigh so much real affection as little Sarah Brookwood bestowed 
 upon her white rabbit. 
 
 I very soon tired of the drawing-room ; and being no longer 
 permitted to'paddle about in the bayou, and ramble through the 
 2*
 
 34 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 swamp playing at " Indian," because it soiled my fine clothes 
 and gave me chills, I spent most of my time in my room reading 
 the French novels I found in the library, a great number of 
 which Madame Leonore had brought with her from Paris. 
 
 I had also a pony and equipment, and being permitted to ride 
 upon the Iev6e every morning and evening, which was a source 
 of more enjoyment to me, perhaps, than anything else.
 
 CLOTILDE. 
 
 ONE evening, a few days after my father's return, I was walk 
 ing in the garden, after dinner. I was dressed in a very rich 
 blue velvet paletot, plaid trowsers, and a new and elegant cap, 
 brought all the way from Paris for me. 
 
 I was thinking over my old schoolboy days at the Pension 
 des Cinqlivres thinking over my travels with Father Claude, of 
 London, and my friend the Countess of Shiftie, and Dintmere 
 Castle, and Gog and Magog. 
 
 What happy times those were the days when I was Gil 
 Bias ! I had dreamed of them often before, but my reveries 
 now wore a brighter and more vivid coloring than usual. I think 
 it was owing to the finery I had on, and the many handsome ar 
 ticles of apparel Madame Leonore had brought me from Paris. 
 I had not had any nice things of the sort since the treasure of 
 them I found in the new trunk my father gave at the diligence 
 office, upon starting for America. 
 
 My plaid trowsers and braided paletot seemed somehow to 
 heighten the associations of my day-dream. 
 
 Strolling down a gravelled avenue of fig-trees and pomegran 
 ates, I suddenly heard a shrill, little scream, in a cross-walk near
 
 36 SCENES'- IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 by. I could not see who it was, for an intervening espalier; but 
 upon repairing thither, there was Sally Brookwood, and another 
 little girl about her own age, crouching in affright before a little 
 green snake, that was crawling on the walk. 
 
 Seeing what was the matter, I came up quite heroically, tell 
 ing them not to be alarmed, that I would protect them. 
 
 " Oh, Master Jan, such a dreadful snake and Clotilde 
 came near treading on it ! " cried Missie Brookwood, addressing 
 me for the first time since she had been at Puckshenubbie. 
 
 " You little cowards ! " said I. " It is quite harmless, this 
 little creature ; it is as much afraid of you as you are of it. See, 
 it is trying to make its escape." 
 
 I ran forward, stooped, and took the small reptile in my hand. 
 Both the girls screamed simultaneously, and I ran, laughing, to 
 wards Sarah, holding the little snake aloft, as though I would put 
 it on her. 
 
 " Oh ! mais, Monsieur Jan, jettez-le, jettez-le ; cela vous 
 mordera bien sur ! " cried Miss Clotilde, clasping her hands, 
 and throwing herself into a little tragic attitude, which was not 
 affected, but so graceful that it attracted my attention; and I 
 threw the snake from me, and approached her. 
 
 She was a little pale, frail creature, with large, dark-brown 
 eyes, very thick, silken, dark hair, oval face, and a wistful ex 
 pression of countenance, half-melancholy, half-playful, .the effect 
 of which was heightened by the pallid hue of ill-health. 
 
 She had a sad, deep-searching glance, and a drooping of her 
 long, heavy, black lashes, that gave quite a touching allure to the 
 grace of her manner. 
 
 She wore a short, white muslin frock, a little black silk apron,
 
 CLOTILDE. 37 
 
 and deep-laced panties ; but with this childish attire, she wore 
 her luxuriant hair tressed up in bandeaux in the Italian style, 
 instead of being clipped around her ears, which gave her a more 
 maidenly air than Sally Brookwood. 
 
 " Qui etes-vous, done ? " I asked, with the aplomb of boy 
 hood. 
 
 She looked at me with the most arch and yet artless smile, as 
 much as to say, mister big boy, you can't intimidate me. 
 
 " Moi ? Don't you know ? But I forget I have been sick 
 ever since I've been here, and have not been out of my room. I 
 am Clotilde Duvaloir, cousin of Madame Jered. I came with 
 her from Paris." She spoke in French. 
 
 I had never seen or heard any thing of her before, and the 
 suddenness of her apparition excited my curiosity and interest. 
 
 " Are you any kin to M. Lestocq ? " was the first thing that 
 occurred to me. 
 
 " No I have no kin except Madame- Jered. I am orphe- 
 line." 
 
 " Since you are no kin to Monsieur Lestocq, and do not like 
 him (I inferred that from the emphasis with which she said MO), 
 I think / shall like you. Mayn't I ? " 
 
 Somehow I could not have talked in this way in English but 
 it is so easy to be gallant, and so natural, in French ! 
 
 " You may if you like," she answered, with a pale smile, 
 and a deep-searching, lash-veiled glance, which subsided imme 
 diately. 
 
 " Then let us walk together down the garden. You will tell 
 me about Paris, since you have been there since I have."
 
 38 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Do you not remember seeing me a long time ago, when you 
 were in France ? " 
 
 < ; I ? you ? No. Did you see me there ? " I cried, sur 
 prised, but quite delighted. 
 
 " Do you not remember the Chdteau Duvaloir ? " 
 
 " Near Paris ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " On the road to Fontainebleau ? " 
 
 " Justement ! " 
 
 " Ah, yes, I remember that. It was where my father and 
 mother were frequently, when Alfred came for me to spend the 
 Sunday with them. I remember the old pear-trees, and the Lorn- 
 bardy poplars near the pond." I supposed that to be the Chateau 
 Duvaloir at once, because it was the only chateau I had ever 
 been at. 
 
 " Do you remember the big d6g, who came with a gentleman 
 on horseback, and who chased me, and frightened me so, when I 
 went to pat his curly head, and you drove him off with a stick ? " 
 
 I did not remember it. 
 
 " /have thought of it often, though. I had nearly forgotten 
 who the little boy was who so bravely defended me. I was une 
 toute petite fille then toute petite ; but when I saw you so 
 courageously attack the snake just now " 
 
 " I did not attack the snake," said I, smiling. 
 
 " Well, you it's all the same " 
 
 " But come let us walk," said I, for we had been standing. 
 
 " Non-pas Mile. Sallie is waiting for me ; it would not be 
 polite for me to leave her." 
 
 " Ask her to go with us."
 
 CLOTILDE. 39 
 
 " She will not. Besides, she does not understand our lan 
 guage ; and I speak so little English. With you I would not 
 speak it at all." 
 
 " Why not ? " 
 
 " Because I pronounce so badly." 
 
 " Why will not Miss Sarah come ? " 
 
 "Because she don't like you, she says." 
 
 " Why not ? I have always treated her kindly, and have 
 attempted to get acquainted with her, but she repulsed my 
 advances. What has she against me ? " 
 
 " She says " and Mademoiselle Clotilde laughed, and looked 
 archly at me " she says you are ugly ! " 
 
 " She's a little beauty herself," said I, spitefully " such 
 charming red hair ! And you do you think I am ugly, Made 
 moiselle Clotilde ? " 
 
 She smiled again. 
 
 " You are sunburnt and sallow, and your face is a little thin. 
 Your features are good your eyes very good. But no matter 
 for that. I like you. You are intelligent : that pleases me 
 better than looks." 
 
 " Thank you for the compliment. But here comes Miss 
 Sally" 
 
 " Won't you come with me, Clotilde ? or are you going to 
 leave me for that French boy?" 
 
 " I'm no French boy, Miss." 
 
 " You were born in Paris." 
 
 " And what of it ? My father and mother are Virginians." 
 
 " You are Virginian or not, too Mees Sally," asked Clo 
 tilde, in her broken English.
 
 40 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 " Yes, I am. And pa and ma are going to Kentucky before 
 long, and I'm so glad !" 
 
 " Are you glad to leave me so soon ? " asked Clotilde. 
 
 " Oh, you've got a French sweetheart, now you all can talk 
 Fronsay together, and you won't miss me." 
 
 " Mais qu'elle est mechante cette petite la," said I. 
 
 " But Mr. and Mrs. Jered, who spend their summers near us 
 in Kentucky, will soon be starting up I expect we will all go 
 together." 
 
 " Come, then, go with Sally," I added in English ; " I will go 
 and ride my pony. I hope, Miss Clotilde, you will soon be well 
 enough to ride out with me." 
 
 " Thank you for the wish, and for the promise of riding. I 
 like to ride, but I am afraid of the horses." 
 
 -" Oh, you shall ride my pony, and I will ride a big horse." 
 
 Clotilde, with girlish grace, pulled a rose-bud and gave me, 
 the first flower I ever received from the hand of a maiden. I 
 pinned it on my breast, and bade them good evening.
 
 CROWOOD. 
 
 THE gray moonlight was casting grim, ragged shadows across 
 the wood. The hoary, leafless old trees stood out in bold relief, 
 the mysterious half-light reflected from their lichen-chid trunks. 
 Like weird sprites invoking Heaven with some mute incantation, 
 they stretched out their bare, scraggy arms into the dim, moonlit 
 sky, where their tiny twigs were twinkling indistinctly, blending 
 into the air, and seeming to waver in mysterious undulations. 
 The whole forest melted away into an indefinable uncertainty of 
 outline, in the distant gloom of night. 
 
 With no knowledge of locality, and ignorant where we were, 
 or by what surrounded only knowing that we were going to a 
 place, but with no definite idea what sort of place it was, a 
 vague, abstract notion only of somewhere, there was a solemn and 
 intangible mystery about these dim woods, so silent and grim. 
 
 I imagined similitudes and realities were brought nearer 
 each other, sometimes confounded together, in my fever-refined 
 imagination I imagined that these woods were of Spirit-land. 
 
 I was travelling in Spirit-laud. Out there away in the 
 recesses of that deep forest beyond where the moonlight re 
 solved it into some distinctness of form and outline far in the
 
 42 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 mist and gloom, was a spectre kingdom, and a huge towered- 
 and-bastioned air-castle, inhabited by the spirits of Dream-land. 
 
 In my young mind, there was not yet the stern, incorrigible 
 logic of science, to drive me from my refuge in those realms of 
 magic. 
 
 I believed in fairies, elfs, and goblins, in that preternatural 
 period of life, ere sin had altogether corrupted the innocence that 
 gives communication with the higher life : I saw them with the 
 second sight of childhood. 
 
 And I saw these trees, these vista'd shades, these quaint 
 forms and strange colorings not as material, carbon-assimilating 
 vegetables not as combinations of penumbras and reflected light, 
 but as unconnected isolations, self-existent phainomai, looming 
 out in a curious and infinite world, untrammelled by that all- 
 embracing law of serial uniformity that says, must be so, aud 
 carft be otherwise. 
 
 How gloomy and grand those dark forestal shades ! How 
 solemn the stillness of the winter night ! 
 
 It was yet winter here, although it was the balmiest spring 
 weather when we left Louisiana. 
 
 Stands out brightly yonder, a grassy slope, fading down into 
 the dark shadow of the tall wood at its base. 
 
 That slope is a meadow, and a flock of sheep are sleeping on 
 its soft carpet ; their fleece shines bright and silver-tinged amid 
 the surrounding shadows. 
 
 Our road goes down that slope : I can see the dark outline 
 of a bridge down there. Leaning out of the coach-window to 
 gaze on the beauty of this night-scene, I could see airy-spirits 
 flitting in the hazy back-ground ; I could see a ring of fairies
 
 CROWOOD. 43 
 
 dancing on yonder mossy bank, where the moon's rays, struggling 
 through the overbending boughs of a giant beech, formed a halo- 
 circle of light. I saw a troop hieing, gossamer- winged, adown 
 the meadow-slope, and every nook and arched avenue was ten 
 anted by some shadowy semblance of life, hovering in the gray 
 air. 
 
 But this was doubtless the effects of nervous exaltation, su 
 perinduced by a severe typhoid fever, from which I suffered 
 on the boat all the way, being taken the very day we left 
 Puckshenubbie. 
 
 The stilly night ! How calmly soothing how almost holy 
 its influence on an invalid ! Noiseless all around, save the regu 
 lar tramp of our horses' feet, and the slight creak of our car 
 riage-wheels sounds so monotonous and familiar to the ear that 
 they seemed not to break upon the silence of the night. 
 
 Not a wind-sigh, not a hum, not a bug-chirp ... all soundless 
 as the spirit-land where I dreamed I was. Occasionally the 
 baying of some distant watch-dog fell lightly on the ear lightly 
 as an echo, or a mere imaginary sound in the tympanum. 
 
 Here was the moon-'lumined sky, above the dark forests, 
 whose trunks stood out on the dim background some ashen- 
 silver, others black and above, the endless-tangled tracery of 
 boughs and twigs. There was the meadow-slope, and at its base 
 the silver-glancing stream, with those same eternal moonbeams, 
 which pervaded every thing, sheening its shadowy water, where 
 the tall, slender reeds were casting long, dark pencils of shade on 
 the crystal expanse. That is the sort of picture it was. 
 
 My companions had for some time been wrapt in a profound 
 silence ; a low, hard breathing, indicated that Madame Leouore
 
 44 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 was asleep; while Clotilde, if I might judge by the moonlit 
 dreaminess of her deep-brown eyes , was ruminating amid fancies 
 allied to my own. 
 
 My father, whose active habit of body could not brook the 
 confinement of a carriage, had hired a horse when we left the 
 boat, and he had ridden on an hour or more ago out of sight. 
 
 The carriage crossed the bridge, and after traversing a 
 nearly level piece of road with a high picket fence on our right, 
 inclosing what seemed to be a park, for a quarter of a mile, 
 drew up at a great gateway, flanked by massy stone turrets ; 
 and on one side a porter's lodge, from which emerged an old 
 decrepit negro man, to open the gate for us. This gateway re 
 minded me something of Chateau Duvaloir, and, without reflec 
 tion, I asked : 
 
 " Clotilde, we are not in France ? " 
 
 " Surely not ; we are in Kentucky." 
 
 The gate opened ; we entered a long, dark avenue of trees, 
 and a few minutes' drive along a smooth pebbly road towards a 
 distant glimmering candle-light, brought us out from the shade 
 of the park trees into an open glade, where the moonlight fell 
 full and bright, revealing beyond it a white railing, inclosing a 
 profusion of shrubbery, with the high-peaked gables, corners, 
 chimney-stacks, and the various pyramidal-roofed appendages 
 and out-houses belonging to a manse, nestled amid. 
 
 All was perfectly still ; though by the light gleaming from 
 a casement, revealed in an accidental opening in the shrubbery, 
 we could see that the inmates were astir. My father's horse was 
 hitched near a little wicket.
 
 CBOWOOD. 45 
 
 " Is it not a beautiful picture ? " said Clotilde to me, as we 
 drove across the open glade. 
 
 " Beautiful ! " 
 
 " Aunt madame ! wake up here ! We are at home. This 
 is CROWOOD."
 
 THE BEOOKWOODS. 
 
 MR. BROOKWOOD and his wife and daughter had preceded us, 
 and we found them in the drawing-room at Crowood, with every 
 thing " fixed up " for our coming. 
 
 Mrs. Brookwood and Sarah received us with a perfect salu 
 tatory storm ; and after entering, for ten minutes the confusion 
 and noise was so great that my brains were all awhirl. Such 
 kissing and hugging, and laughing, and shaking hands ; such 
 taking off cloaks and shawls and bonnets, and bringing in trunks, 
 bundles, and bandboxes ; and every body bustling about, running 
 hither and thither, and servants always getting in the way of one 
 another, that there was no comprehending things clearly at all ; 
 so I skulked, unobserved, into a corner, to divest myself of my 
 shawl and gloves, and reconnoitre the scene. 
 
 The drawing-room was much more spacious, and more elegant 
 than that at Puckshenubbie. The walls I observed were a faint 
 sea-green, with niches here and there, containing vases, or statu 
 ary ; the ceiling was lofty, with white alabaster cornice, and 
 a rosette in the middle, from which depended a magnificent 
 silver-gilt chandelier. 
 
 And there was a costly centre table, covered with richly
 
 THE BROOKWOODS. 4*7 
 
 bound books, and drawings, and nicknacks and a grand piano, 
 and ever so much splendid furniture, that impressed my young 
 imagination as very palatial indeed. 
 
 Mr. Brookwood was an Episcopal clergyman. He was the 
 rector of the parish of Tussaleega, but preached also once a week 
 at our chapel, at Crowood, which was nearer the rectory than 
 the parish church itself. Being such near neighbors, the fami 
 lies were intimate, and as there was no Catholic priest at Tussa 
 leega, Madame and Clotilde, who were good Catholics, attended 
 the chapel services of Kev. Mr. Brookwood, though they both 
 grumbled a great deal privately ; and I heard Madame trying to 
 persuade my father to employ a Romish priest, and discharge 
 Mr. Brookwood from the chapel. 
 
 Now my father was not a member of any church, and my 
 mother also had been a Catholic ; but my grandfather Jered had 
 been a zealous Episcopalian, had instituted Rev. Mr. Brookwood 
 there, and my father finding him so when he came into the 
 property, and that he was a pious and useful man, had not 
 thought proper to discharge him; and he would not now do so. 
 
 Nay more, the worthy gentleman was employed tutor in our 
 family, and Clotilde and I, and Miss Sarah, who had now be 
 come reconciled, were playmates together, and pupils of his. 
 
 The Rev. Mr. Brookwood was a tall, slender, pale-faced 
 gentleman, of rather a melancholy cast of sentiment, though of 
 excellent heart, clear judgment, and profound erudition. I owe 
 a great deal to him. Oh, ye parents, who deal out a niggardly 
 stipend to a second-rate teacher, for economy, if ye only knew 
 the incalculable profit of a good teacher to a lad, you would not 
 grudge him his poor thousand a-year.
 
 48 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 That Mr. Brookwood was a man of feeling I know, from the 
 degree of devotion he wasted on his wife, who was a good, easy 
 going woman, pious, fat, and matronly, and very good-looking, 
 but did not comprehend either the mind or the heart of her 
 husband, and consequently had nothing to give him in return 
 for his romantic love but tidy housekeeping, comfortable dinners, 
 and her yea-nay sort of affection. 
 
 I've seen my poor foolish tutor, as he was walking in his 
 garden with Mrs. B., pluck a rose-bud, and offer it to her, with 
 the chivalrous gallantry of a Don Quixotte; and for appreciation 
 of it, he had as well offered it to Hannibal, his fat negro coach 
 man. 
 
 There was a good deal of her mother's practical, hard world- 
 liness, and cold selfishness about Sarah ; but she was young yet, 
 and her father's influence and Clotilde's, and perhaps some traits 
 in her of her father's character, served to save her from being a 
 mere animal, like her mother. 
 
 Sarah was an heiress. Some old aunt, or other, had left her 
 a plantation in Louisiana, not far from Puckshenubbie. In 
 ordinary cases this would have militated against her, but Mr. 
 Brookwood was so sensible of the baneful influence of riches on 
 the affections, that he made the most constant, zealous, and saga 
 cious efforts to counteract their influence upon his daughter. 
 He succeeded in making an auxiliary of his wife in the cause ; a 
 miraculous achievement 'I think, for Mrs. Brookwood, left to 
 'herself, would, on that very score, have so spoiled, petted, and 
 indulged the young heiress, as to ruin her for ever. 
 
 Sunny years fled by at Crowood. Not a briny wave from 
 the dark chaotic ocean of life lashed those peaceful shores.
 
 THE BROOKWOODS. 49 
 
 I remember an evening once in New Orleans, standing upon 
 the balcony at Madame Bonavoinc's ; it was one of those old- 
 fashioned Spanish houses, shut out from the street by a high \ 
 blank brick wall. I could see over it from the balcony ; outside 
 was the narrow, dirty, crowded street, with drays, porters, beg 
 gars, dandies, quarteroons, jostling each other in the narrow 
 thoroughfare; two drunken Irishmen and a negro fishwoman were 
 fighting ; inside the wall was a plot of green turf, borders of 
 beautiful tropic flowers, orange trees loaded with yellow fruit, 
 figs, bananas, pomegranates, like a paradise, and two innocent, 
 fair-haired children were at play in the sunshine near the wall, 
 with a young fawn, not three feet from the drunken brawlers 
 outside. 
 
 So were we at Crowood, as innocent and unconscious of 
 the turmoil of the big, bad world. 
 
 Ours were the simple joys of innocent childhood, which, how 
 ever beautiful, cannot be expanded on these pages. How could 
 the worldling appreciate them ? 
 
 The objects that gave us pleasure, the sources from which 
 we derived our happiness, were too simple to be understood by 
 him. 
 
 What charm could he see in an old, dead-topped tree, with a 
 grape vine swing attached to one of its branches, and a grassy 
 knollet at its base : a mossy bank by the stream-side, with a 
 child's rude play-house oi' stones and sticks, and thatch of moss 
 atop of it : a hazel dell, where the violets and harebells grew, 
 haunted by the ground-squirrel and the rabbit : a glide covered 
 with the tall waving prairie-grass, in summer a green sea, in 
 autumn golden yellow, whereout the whistling partridges whirred, 
 3
 
 50 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 and the merry field-larks, and tangled into many a sunny covert 
 for the brown-eyed hares : a copse where the red sumach, the 
 fragrant sassafras, and scarlet-berried haws afforded small .airy 
 perches for peewees and churees, wrens, and wee birdlings of 
 that ilk, what could he know of these things ? What could he 
 see in them to admire ? 
 
 The house at Crowood was a spacious, irregular, and roomy 
 establishment, built of brick, and painted ashen gray, with dark 
 umber-red roof, and sienna-colored window-shutters. It was of 
 no particular style of architecture, though approximating in 
 general towards the high-peaked Flemish-Gothic, with all sorts 
 of dormer windows, oriel windows, bay windows, sharp-up gables, 
 over-jutting eaves, with bracketed cornices, and diamond-latticed 
 casements, high chimney stacks, quaint porticoes, verandahs, and 
 all that kind of thing. 
 
 Here, at this rare old home, did the golden hours of boyhood 
 fly away, in all innocence, contentment, and bliss. 
 
 I never went to a school. I never associated with the bad, 
 coarse boys of a village, whose morals and manners are formed 
 in the streets, among rowdy loafers and blackguards. 
 
 We did not go South with father and his lady in the winter. 
 While they were enjoying the gayeties of New Orleans, Clotilde 
 and I stayed at the Rectory, which was a tall, old-fashioned brick 
 building, in a large yard, shrouded by gloomy-looking locust 
 trees, cedars, and hemlocks, and surrounded by a high fort fence. 
 We lived here under the influence of Mrs. Brookwood's potatoes- 
 and-cabbage sort of affection, and Mr. Brookwood's big-hearted 
 philosophy and romantic-practical tone of life. 
 
 And the artist-genius of Clotilde, who saw every grace and
 
 THE BROOKWOODS. 51 
 
 charm that color, outline, and grouping could give in nature, 
 and admired it with a wild, intense enthusiasm, and the way 
 ward, mysterious poetry in the strange contradictory character 
 of Sarah Brookwood, who saw every thing as mere symbols of 
 an inner world, and who deemed herself the centre around which 
 both inner and outer life revolved, all these influences constituted 
 the school in which I was educated. 
 
 Clotilde and Sarah betrayed the respective traits of French 
 and English character. They were both lovers of the beautiful, 
 but one in an artist sense, the other in a spiritual and selfish 
 sense. 
 
 My physical being was as much improved and refined by the 
 genial influences that surrounded me at Crowood and the Rectory. 
 The typhoid fever I had upon the river seemed to have wrought 
 a catalytic change in my system. My complexion grew fair and 
 rosy, and lost all trace of the sallow swamp hue. My limbs be 
 came rounded and lithe, my spirits buoyant and joyous. 
 
 Missie Brookwood condescended to say that I was getting to 
 be quite a handsome fellow ; and she took so much kindlier to 
 me than she used to, that Clotilde, laughing, declared that she 
 suspected her of designing to inveigle from her her " French 
 sweetheart," and that she was exceedingly jealous about it.
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 
 
 IT was a bleak, wintry evening in November. Leaden-hued 
 clouds had overspread the sky all the afternoon, and about sup 
 per-time it had begun to snow. 
 
 We were lingering longer in Kentucky than usual ; but, 
 until the day before yesterday, the weather had been delightful, 
 Indian-summer weather. 
 
 Clotilde thought it was the death of Madame Leonore that 
 caused my father to procrastinate our departure. 
 
 Yes; my stepdame died about a month ago of typhoid 
 fever. 
 
 Snow was falling over the brown earth, and flecking the 
 sombre twilight with white : was falling in large feathery flakes 
 through the leafless twigs of the trees in the lawn. 
 
 It was bitter cold ; but a roaring wood-fire blazed famously 
 on the andirons, and shed a cheery light through the room, and 
 the mournful whistling of the wind in the keyhole made the 
 enjoyment of shelter and warmth more sensible. 
 
 Clotilde and I were in the library, with Aunt Aggy. Clo 
 tilde was drawing illustrations for a story I had written about
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 53 
 
 a knight of Rhineland. I used to amuse herself and me by 
 composing stories out of the " Niebelungenlied " and "Orlando 
 Furioso," and she made the pictures. 
 
 Aunt Aggy was in the corner knitting, and humming a dole 
 ful Methodist ditty about " When Dan'l was in de lion's den, 
 Jesus was po' Dan'l's fren 1 ." I was standing at the window, 
 watching the snow-flakes clustering on the dark green boughs 
 of the evergreens. The moon shone dimly through the gray 
 clouds as through the ground glass shade of a lamp. 
 
 I stood there drumming idly on the window paiie. 
 
 My father and Lestocq were playing cards in the smoking 
 room. It has always been a matter of surprise to me, the in 
 fluence that bad man exerted over my father. 
 
 He has been here a week now, and they have been constantly 
 together. My father takes no more notice of me than if I were 
 not in existence. 
 
 Ah, it is a bitter thing to feel that your father does not love 
 you. And yet I love him, oh, I love him to a degree that has 
 rendered my affection almost morbid in its intensity. It is 
 morbid, because in it are not fulfilled the natural conditions 
 of such a love, the reciprocation which is essential to it. 
 
 Clotilde sees this, feels it ; dear girl, she sympathizes with 
 me in my suffering, but dares not approach my father on the 
 subject no more than I do. 
 
 He loves Clotilde ; he never meets her but with a word of 
 tenderness : but for me, his child, he has none. 
 
 That Lestocq pretends to pity me, by his manner pity me ; 
 his words of compassion are as soothing as brine in a fresh cut 
 wound.
 
 54 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 I always have the intuitive conviction somehow that but for 
 him my father would love me. 
 
 He would not venture overtly to manifest- that he knew the 
 painful fact that my father does not love me, but he makes me 
 feel it by implication and innuendo. 
 
 I hate that Lestocq I hate him with a holy hatred. He 
 shares my father's time and attention, while I am neglected and 
 forsaken. 
 
 Since my step-mother died, Lestocq has almost domiciled 
 himself among us. He has been spending some time in New 
 York this fall, I understand, and has come by Crowood, on his 
 way South, to see my father. 
 
 We all leave next week for Puckshenubbie. I had been an 
 ticipating a happy time going down the river. My father never 
 plays for money on steamboats he would play euchre with us in 
 the ladies' cabin. I would sometimes be of the party, and in 
 that way we would be thrown more together. But Lestocq is 
 going with us, and that mars all. Sometimes he and Clotilde, 
 Lestocq and I, might form a partic carree at euchre ; but if Les 
 tocq were in it. he would foil all. All my little manoeuvres to 
 win my father's love he would counteract : he is perpetually com 
 promising me'with him, attributing wrong motives to my conduct, 
 and giving a certain coloring, which is false, to my whole charac 
 ter. By such finessing he has estranged my father's affection for 
 me ; and then, when I am not present, I know not what influ 
 ences he brings to bear upon him. 
 
 We Southerners, all, even the most educated and refined, have 
 a kind of superstition in our character, which takes the place of
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 55 
 
 the visionary fanaticism of the North. "We believe in presenti 
 ments. I do. 
 
 I stood there, beating a tattoo with my fingers on the pane of 
 glass. On the pane the moisture had crystallized, and traced a 
 magic mosaic of frost-work. 
 
 There was something about it that called to mind the window 
 of a recess in the Chateau Duvaloir a window with rich ara 
 besques, where my mother once took me, and prayed with me by 
 her side. And when she had finished her prayer, she told me 
 the story of Christ the first time I had ever heard it, and I re 
 member it made a vivid and ineffaceable impression on me. The 
 impression of the story served to preserve in my memory the 
 surrounding objects of trivial importance, which, but for that, 
 would have been forgotten. I remembered the window in con 
 nection with the story of Christ, because on it was traced, in the 
 midst of the arabesques, a Virgin and Child. So that it was 
 now, by an association of ideas, that the frost-work of the win 
 dow, in recalling the tracery in the chapel the Virgin my 
 mother was remembered. 
 
 I remember very distinctly how my mother looked that even 
 ing. It is the distinctest image my mind possesses of her. 
 
 She wore a black dress, which was not usual with her, and she 
 had a small gold cross attached to the brooch that pinned her 
 collaret. 
 
 Her hair was plaited down the sides of her head in thick 
 braids, and brought around back, after the Italian fashion. 
 
 I do not know why such an effusion of tenderness and melan 
 choly love in regard to my mother should have influenced me 
 just at this particular time. But it was so. I was thinking of
 
 56 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 my mother with the deepest love, when a strange voice behind me 
 startled my attention, and looking around, I saw 
 
 For an instant the blood rushed to my head so suddenly that 
 I thought I would have the vertigo. Standing there, tall, pale, 
 motionless, dressed in black, with a gold cross suspended from a 
 velvet ribbon around her neck, I could have sworn it was my 
 mother's ghost. 
 
 But a moment to collect myself reassured me. Her dress 
 was. not only plain, but coarse, and she, the object herself, was 
 very palpably flesh and blood. " Some beggar-woman," muttered 
 I, half audibly. 
 
 " Yes, a poor beggar-woman," she returned, in a cold, calm 
 voice, soft and clear : low and strange, it thrilled me, but there 
 was nothing supernatural about it. 
 
 " Is this the house of Mr. Jered ? " she asked of old Aunt 
 
 " Yes, marm," replies old Aggy, running her knitting-needle 
 in her hair, and rising to make a courtesy. 
 
 It surprised me that Aggy should make a courtesy to a beg 
 gar-woman, for the old African is the most aristocratic personage 
 about the household. I whs glad old Aggy did it, however, for, 
 despite her humble serge dress, there was a certain air in the 
 voice and manner of the old woman that indicated she had seen 
 better days. 
 
 But I was so occupied with a sort of day-dream that I 
 had hatched out of the frost-work on the window-pane, that I 
 turned my back to the old lady, leaving Aggy to attend to her, 
 and renewed my contemplation of the snow-scene out of doors. 
 This was not through any disrespect to the old lady, but it was
 
 THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 57 
 
 because I had been in a fit of absent-minded meditation, which 
 her coming had only momentarily and incidentally interrupted, 
 and I now involuntarily fell back into it again. 
 
 I heard Clotilde ask her if she could do any thing for her. 
 
 " Nothing, I thank you," replied the woman, in her calm, 
 dignified voice, which had a touching tone of subdued sorrow 
 about it. The voice of resignation, of one who has had some ter 
 rible agony to contend with, and by long trial and Christian for 
 titude had overcome it there are some voices that can tell even 
 all that. 
 
 " It is this young gentleman that can be of service to me," 
 she continued, laying her hand on my shoulder. There was a 
 great deal of magnetism in her hand, too. 
 
 " Well, what is it ? " said I, deferentially, and yet a little im 
 patiently. 
 
 " Is this Master Janny Jered ? " 
 
 " Yes'in." 
 
 She gazed at me so, that I felt her gaze, though I was look 
 ing in the fire. I looked up at her face, as though drawn by 
 her look. 
 
 It was a pale, cold, intellectual face, with a line of silver-gray 
 hair on each side, under her lace cap. It was just the face you would 
 expect from such a voice. The lines of her brow and cheek in 
 dicated a long-endured sorrow from some great but subdued ago 
 ny. But there was no grief portrayed in the expression of her 
 eyes a little doubt, I thought, but much more hope, and even 
 a restrained joy. She had evidently once been very fair, was yet 
 fair, and her face was still too young for gray hairs : it was sor 
 row, not years, that had blanched them. 
 3*
 
 58 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 This is some poor widowed mother, thought I, who comes to 
 plead employment for her boy. 
 
 " It seems that Master J^red does not pay much attention to 
 poor folks," said she, still gazing on me with the gaze that I 
 felt. 
 
 " You must pardon my rudeness, old lady: it was not through 
 intentional impoliteness that I turned my back to you ; it was be 
 cause I had fallen into a brown study." 
 
 " A brown study ! and what were you thinking about so in 
 tently ? " 
 
 I thought this rather unduly curious in the old lady, and had 
 half a mind to turn the subject by asking her what she wanted 
 with me. But there was something so kind and gentle in her 
 manner, that my heart seemed to come under the influence of 
 her eyes. 
 
 " I was thinking of France." 
 
 " Of France ? What brought France into your head ? " 
 
 " Because he's lived in France," spoke up Clotilde. 
 
 " Who are you ? " asked the old lady, turning her calm large 
 eyes upon Clotilde with such an expression that she absolutely 
 blanched under it. 
 
 '' I am Clotilde Duvaloir." 
 
 " Clotilde Duvaloir," echoed this strange old beggar woman ; 
 from the name I should think you } too, had been in France." 
 
 " Yes, I have. I was born there so was Janny. But 
 Janny is nevertheless an American, and I am all French." 
 
 " All French, indeed ! " she muttered bitterly. And why 
 were you thinking of France ? " said the old lady, turning again 
 to me.
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 59 
 
 " Do you see the tracery the frost has made on that window ? 
 like the boughs of so many silver trees interlaced ? Well, it 
 reminds me of some tracery in a Gothic window in the chapel of 
 
 Chateau Duvaloir, where once my mother took me one 
 
 sunny evening, and prayed with me and for me; and told me tho 
 story of Christ/' 
 
 " You were thinking then of your mother ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " And where is she now ? " 
 
 " Dead." 
 
 " Did you love your mother ? " 
 
 I looked at the strange woman in amazement. So did Clo- 
 tilde. Old Aggy seemed to have gone stark deranged from the 
 first moment the beggar made her sudden appearance in the 
 room. . She plied her knitting as though her life depended on it, 
 and ever and anon she shook her head in a curious manner, and 
 then would look up at the beggar woman in a strange way, and 
 said never a syllable the whole time. 
 
 " How can you ask me such a question ? " cried I ; "it seems 
 to me you are strangely inquisitive." 
 
 li And do you love her yet ? " she demanded, in a voice that 
 was preternaturally calm, and, though very low, fell with start 
 ling distinctness on the ear. 
 
 " Certainly I love her. I cherish her memory as the most 
 sacred feeling of my heart." 
 
 " And do you think her memor^corfky such devotion ? " 
 
 And her calm eyes seemed to shine through me. 
 
 " Who would dare say to the contrary ? " cried I, the hot 
 blood flushing my cheeks.
 
 60 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Oh God, I thank thcc ! " cried the woman, clasping her 
 hands, and raising her eyes to heaven with an expression of sub 
 lime gratitude. The expression of saint-like piety and beatitude 
 so suddenly assumed by that calm, cold face, went through me 
 like a revelation from heaven. I went to the old lady, I fell on 
 my knees, and embracing her hands, I wept aloud. 
 
 " My mother ! " oh, my mother ! " 
 
 " My child ! " cried she, raising me up, and embracing me in 
 transport. And does my darling boy recognize his mother ? 
 I had not hoped for so much the cup of my happiness is full to 
 overflowing ; but no, one drop more, oh God ! and I will die the 
 happiest of mortals : all the years of wretchedness I've spent, 
 the darkness, the misery, the derangement oh, all those tor 
 ments will be requited with one drop more of human kindness 
 .... of human love, and forgiveness." 
 
 The door opened, and my father entered. 
 
 " Aggy Lestocq has retired ; send the children to bed. 
 Whom have we here ? " 
 
 My mother had turned her back to- him. His clothes were 
 somewhat dishevelled, his face was flushed, as though by vexa 
 tion, and his brow contracted with ill-humor. 
 
 " Whom have we here at this time of night? " 
 
 She turned around she had pulled a hood half over her 
 face. 
 
 " One that you have wronged, Edward, and who comes 
 comes to prove her innocence ! " 
 
 '' Ha ! God ! What do I hear ? Eulalie Eulalie ! do you 
 dare to come to my house with the load of infamy upon you, and 
 present your degraded and infamous presence before my chil-
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 61 
 
 i 
 
 dren ? . . . . Do you dare to invade the sanctity of my house 
 hold, from which I have banished you for ever ? " 
 
 " I come to sue for the remission of your sentence of ban 
 ishment, my husband." 
 
 " Woman ! call me not by that sacred name. The sentence 
 can never be annulled." 
 
 " Not if I prove my innocerice, Edward my innocence 
 beyond a doubt ? " 
 
 " Madame, you surely would not come from France here, with 
 the vain hope of imposing on me. If you have proofs of your 
 innocency that are strong, clear, beyond doubt or cavil oh, 
 show them to me ; and if it is so, Heaven ! Saviour ! for 
 give me the wrong I have done you you and our poor boy . . . ." 
 and he staggered into a chair. 
 
 My father seemed already half convinced. My mother had 
 thrown back Ijhe hood from her brows, and there was a radiance 
 and majesty of truth and innocence haloing her countenance, that 
 was a conviction of itself. I would not have sought for farther 
 proof. She took from her breast a wallet from the wallet a 
 letter. 
 
 " On such a night," said she, naming dates, " that letter was 
 found in the bottom of & fiacre in which Count Casimir Casmery 
 was going from Paris to the Chateau Duvaloir. This wallet, 
 which contained it, was found by the coachman after the affray, 
 which you remember. It contains other letters from your friend 
 to the Count Casmery dated, postmarked, stamped which you 
 will read.' 1 
 
 My father sat reading the letter his face as white as mar 
 ble, his lips compressed and spoke not a word. My mother 
 continued :
 
 62 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 " The coachman had intended to deliver them to the chef -de- 
 police that was his "first impulse : had he done so, my innocence 
 would have been at once brought to light. But he then reflected, 
 that it would have put the officers on the track of the affray at 
 the fiacre, and his part would appear in rather a questionable 
 light, especially as the party concerned had made his escape. 
 You see, he knew nothing about the true state of the case ; so he 
 determined to keep the wallet, and say nothing about it. He 
 afterward changed his condition, and became concierge to the 
 convent. He found me out by a mere accident, years after the. 
 occurrence, and put the wallet and the papers it contains into my 
 hands." 
 
 My father had run his eyes over the other letters. He 
 remained cold, pale, and silent. My mother seemed to under 
 stand him ; she stood with her arms folded on her breast, and 
 hope beamed in her angelic eyes. 
 
 " Aggy," spoke my father with a calmness that had something 
 terrible about it, " show Mademoiselle Duvaloir and Janny to 
 their rooms." 
 
 " Let my child stay, Edward ; let me embrace my long lost 
 darling." 
 
 " Aggy, show the children to their chambers." 
 
 " Edward ! " 
 
 " Eulalie, you know I cannot stand it much longer I will 
 give way to my feelings .... Janny, embrace your mother, my 
 dear boy ; love her as she deserves to be loved as the noblest, 
 
 the purest, and best that ever lived " 
 
 *#**#*###* 
 
 My room was an octagonal chamber in a turret, that flanked
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 63 
 
 the porch opening on the library. This turret was capped by a 
 campanile-rooi'ed, secondary turret a sort of minaret, wherein 
 was the great plantation clock. Often had its slow, solemn tones 
 awakened me at the hour of midnight. 
 
 The window of my little chamber opened on a sort of court 
 yard formed by an angle of the house, the back wall of the con 
 servatory, which was used as an espalier wall, and the hedge 
 which divided the little plat from the garden. 
 
 The moon was shining in there to-night. The ashes of my 
 fireplace were burning low. The plat outside my window was 
 covered with snow, except an area of about ten feet by thirty, 
 which was protected by the wall of the conservatory, being to 
 the windward of it. This was a dry brick pavement. There 
 was no snow upon it, and the moonlight fell sheer against the 
 espalier wall, which was some twenty feet high. The portico of 
 the library communicated with this dry space. 
 
 Of course I had no inclination to sleep. I threw some more 
 wood on the fire ; my room, being heated, besides, by the house 
 furnace which occupied the basement of my turret, was the warm 
 est in the house. 
 
 I drew niy arm-chair to the window, and sat there contem 
 plating the mysterious snow scene without. 
 
 There were evergreens out there ; tall Norway firs ; drooping 
 Deodar cedars ; a palm-like, long-leaf pine, with bouquets of 
 drifted snow in their dark-green foliage. I always admired the 
 effect of evergreens in a snow scene. Long icicles hung from 
 the eves of the library portico, which had no guttering. Tauy 
 glistened in the moonlight. 
 
 I sat there long in meditation. I was supremely happy. A
 
 64 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 sense of calm, deep happiness, in store for me in the future, 
 infused a delightful serenity in my "bosom. My father would 
 love me now : I felt that. "When he said, " Janny, embrace your 
 poor mother, my dear boy" there was a tone of tenderness and 
 love in his voice that I had never known in it before. 
 
 I understood somewhat of the mysterious meeting to-night, 
 from what I had gathered of their talk, and a good deal by 
 instinct. I understood how that somebody had wronged my 
 mother, and he had disgraced her and obtained a divorce : that 
 must have been, for he had since married Leonore Bonavoine. 
 That I had been taught to believe my mother dead, to cloak her 
 disgrace from me. 
 
 Oh, how happy I was ! I do not think that in all my life 
 there was an hour so happy as this. 
 
 The glorious day-dreams that I had in that old arm-chair by 
 the window, in that little turret-chamber at Crowood ! 
 
 I at last grew sleepy and blew out my light, undressed, and 
 retired to my little couch in the corner in the sweetest mood. 
 
 But, though I had grown sleepy in my chair, the act of 
 undressing aroused me, and I lay in ray little bed wakeful, 
 thoughtful, and happy. 
 
 I know not how long I lay there thinking. I had just 
 begun to feel a soft, languid drowse creeping through my veins, 
 when I was startled by the slamming of a door ; every thing was 
 so still that the slightest sound would be heard with great dis 
 tinctness. Then I thought I heard voices in the direction of the 
 parlor, and I sat up in the bed and rubbed my eyes, influenced 
 by some vague terror. I heard the library door that was on the 
 portico opened, and voices there.
 
 "WHEN THE CLOCK STKIKES TWO." 65 
 
 I arose, wrapped a coverlet around me, and went to the win 
 dow. I saw three men in cloaks, standing in the portico, talking 
 in an undertone. I noiselessly raised the sash, that I might 
 hear their conversation. I heard my father : 
 
 " George, I have sent for you at this untimely hour, that you 
 may witness an affair between Monsieur Lestocq and myself. It 
 is an affair so pressing that it brooks no delay." 
 
 I knew that was our neighbor, Dr. George Fritz, a retired 
 army-surgeon, who was a frequent visitor at our house. I recog 
 nized his figure when my father called him George. 
 
 " What instruments are you to use ? " asked the doctor, in a 
 business-like manner. 
 
 " Pistols." 
 
 " Small-swords would be the best on this occasion : pistols 
 make so much noise produce unnecessary alarm in the house." 
 
 "I know. I would have preferred small-swords, but Monsieur 
 being the challenged party, has the preference, and he thinks him 
 self superior with pistols at least, he knows /am with the small 
 sword." 
 
 There was a calmness, a confidence and determination about 
 my father's voice, that reassured me boy as I was. " He will kill 
 Lestocq," said I, "to a certainty." The latter made some reply 
 to this speech of my father, and I thought there was a decided 
 nervous agitation betrayed. In a subsequent conversation with 
 Dr. Fritz, he expressed the same opinion. 
 
 " Under this espalier wall is just the place for you, gentle 
 men : sorry we haven't another second, so that the preliminaries 
 might be arranged regularly. What distance do you propose, 
 Mr. Lestocq ? " asked the doctor.
 
 66 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " The length of the space open from snow will do very well 
 or not ? Mr. Jered " 
 
 " It is rather a long shot but suit yourself. Now, as for 
 time : see the clock on that tower the face is very distinct in 
 the moonlight FIVE MINUTES TO TWO. When the .bell strikes 
 one. Monsieur, that means ready ; when it strikes two, fire ! " 
 
 The gentlemen divested themselves of their cloaks. My fa 
 ther and Monsieur Lestocq each selected a pistol from a case of 
 them ; they tossed up a dollar for places, and assumed them. I 
 thought that the moonlight fell fuller on the spot that lot decided 
 for my father ; Lestocq was rather in the penumbra from the 
 shadow of the roof of the portico. 
 
 This was a scene of thrilling excitement and interest to me. 
 I sat crouched there in the window in the intensest suspense : 
 those five minutes seemed an hour to me. I could not see the 
 clock on the tower ; it was above me. I had full confidence in 
 my father ; there was not a shadow of fear ; and it must be con 
 fessed that, boy-like, my hatred for Lestocq was so great that I 
 was glad to see my father kill him, as I knew he would do. Now 
 that it was apparent that he was the treacherous friend who had 
 betrayed my mother, I revelled in the idea of seeing him shot 
 down. 
 
 There was a tragic romance for a youth of my age and tem 
 perament a duel by moonlight, my father the hero, and with full 
 confidence in his success. 
 
 ONE ! The bell rang, deep and sonorous, through the still, 
 cold air. While its vibration was yet wavering in my ear, a flash 
 in the shadow of the portico, an explosion, and the bell struck 
 two, whilst my father reeled, pitched forward, and fell upon the 
 pavement.
 
 " WHEN THE CLOCK STRIKES TWO." 67 
 
 " Traitor ! " shouted Dr. Fritz, rushing to the pistol-case ; 
 but while he was getting a weapon, Lestocq darted forward, over 
 the body of my father, sprang over the garden hedge, and dis 
 appeared. 
 
 I ran down, in such a mortal agony, with heart beating, not 
 quick, but slow and hard, as though it would burst at every pul 
 sation : I ran down, and threw myself on the body of my dying 
 parent. 
 
 He recognized me : it was a joy in that moment of woe he 
 recognized me, and putting his arms around me, drew me close 
 to his heart. His breath expired on my lips. 
 
 " Love you bless you love your mother rem " his voice 
 sank into a panted whisper, but he whispered a word in my ear 
 which became a sacred vow in my heart ; and he died with his 
 dear arms around me, and with my young heart throbbing against 
 his, which was throbbing out.
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 
 
 MY mother knew something about the crushing, stern, and 
 terrible things of life in the world especially how hard it would 
 come upon a tender and untouched heart like mine. 
 
 True, my lot in life had not always been cast in the sunniest 
 places ; but at least, I had never been put at the mercy of cold, 
 practical men of the world. 
 
 Mrs. Martin had been unkind to me, but I was above Mrs. 
 Martin, and I could throw off the influence of her harshness. 
 Le Pere Claude had neglected me, but he had left me free in the 
 sunshine of our Summer-Land, and that was so genially fructify 
 ing, that my young soul bloomed out grandly without his fos 
 tering. 
 
 So that passing clouds had floated across my sky, but they 
 only made the sunshine brighter as they went. And it was now, 
 when my father's death had spread a gloomy pall over every thing, 
 and left me in a darkness that was bewildering rather than terri 
 fying, I could not understand why my mother was in such an 
 i agony at the idea of my going away to the North to college, to 
 prepare for the university. 
 I had been very much disposed to rebel at the notion of going
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 69 
 
 to college at all. I had other duties in life that seemed to me 
 more than paramount, but Mr. Brookwood had insisted so stren 
 uously, that she herself came to view it as an unavoidable neces 
 sity for me ; and I know that she especially thought it would be 
 useful to wear out the edge of the impression of that awful night. 
 
 In Kentucky, a few summer-like days sometimes stray into 
 the deepest winter regions, and come with genial smiles, like a 
 bevy of bonny maidens, who have stolen with surnoise waggery 
 into a congregation of hoary presbyters. 
 
 It was such a demure day of summer warmth and dreaminess 
 that was determined on for my departure for college. 
 
 I walked with her in the garden, and she talked to me of my 
 future. She told me, with a foresight that was wonderful, the 
 effect the new phase of life I was entering upon would have on 
 my as yet guileless nature ; she told me the changes it would 
 bring about in me. 
 
 " And those changes you cannot avoid, my poor boy ; they 
 will come upon you, so that, except in certain fitful, nervous 
 crises, that will give you great agony for the time, but which 
 will relapse out from their very excess, you will not be conscious 
 of the change that is wrought in you until it is done ; and then 
 some moment the spell will be broken, the scales will fall from 
 your eyes, and you will find yourself bound into the servitude of 
 the prince of the power of the air; the galling manacles of Mam 
 mon will be on your wrists." 
 
 In the moment of her talking I was so free, so totally igno 
 rant of the world and its tyrannies, that I could not realize at all 
 the force of the teachings which her own bitter experience had 
 made her so sensible of.
 
 70 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 I thought it was a world full of wonderful and beautiful 
 things, and if there were phases of life there that were bleak and 
 bitter, they were not for nie. I was not made for sorrows 
 nothing could fail or wither with me. My heart was so full of 
 warm, glowing strength so full of Southern sunshine, that I 
 could not conceive how any wintry blast could blight the bloom 
 ing of it. 
 
 I even fancied my experience had proved the strength of 
 my nature. My experience ! When a young heart receives a 
 blow that does not crush it outright, if it be strong, it rebounds ; 
 and it is not until long after the nivcau of quiescence has been 
 regained, that you can discover the damage it has radically sus 
 tained. It was so in regard to my father's death. It was won 
 derful to me how my feelings had been able to react against that 
 blow. 
 
 Ah ! it is not from the first stunning shock of sorrow that the 
 heart suffers most. 
 
 So, when my mother wept and prayed with me in the garden, 
 I saw, as she wrung her hands in agony, that her heart was so 
 wrung with anguish, but I could not comprehend it at all. 
 
 She said this to me, nearly what I have repeated, but I could 
 only apprehend her meaning, not comprehend it ; and, until the 
 reader's experience has coincided, he may not comprehend it either. 
 
 She said that my nature had the strength and buoyancy of 
 youth, and I, perhaps, could bear up under the blow, but she could 
 not. Her heart had borne too much ; the weight had been too 
 long upon it ; its elasticity and strength were gone ; that this last 
 blow was too hard for her, and that it had broken up the life- 
 springs of her heart.
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 71 
 
 She told me, with the serenest resignation, that I would never 
 see her again, but I would not entertain that foreboding ; I was 
 so strong in life, that I could not realize how she should not 
 be so. 
 
 I seated myself on the coach-box in my comfortable great 
 coat, with my travelling-cap set jauntily, to show off my wealth 
 and pride of golden locks, and ruy exodus from Crowood seemed 
 but a holiday excursion, as I waved them my last adieus. 
 
 I loved the dreamy reveries of sunny-weather travel, and my 
 head was so full of them, that I could not feel the depth of the 
 distress of my poor mother, and of Clotilde and Sarah Brook- 
 wood. For even Sarah Brookwood, with all her selfish pride and 
 coldness, loved me, and actually wept when I was departing 
 wept more than Clotilde. . . . But she did not feel half so deep 
 ly. Poor Clotilde ! It was not, perhaps, that she really cared 
 any more for me, but hers was a generous and sensitive nature, 
 and the same emotions were infinitely deeper and more intense 
 than with Sarah, who had too much of the lymphatic tempera 
 ment of her mother. For all Sarah is crying so dreadfully now, 
 in two days after I am gone her feeling will have given place to 
 a mere abstract sentiment ; whereas Clotilde will mope about 
 for weeks, and although she may regain her joyous spirits, will 
 never cease to feel until I come back. 
 
 And yet Clotilde was all a French girl. 
 
 Was not I myself just like Sarah about it? Why, the coach 
 had not got outside of the big gate nay, the very sight of my 
 mother, and Clotilde, and Sarah on the portico, waving sorrow- 
 fullest farewells, had scarcely disappeared, when I fell into a 
 day-dream, and was soon oblivious of them all.
 
 t 
 
 72 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 And that was the last of Crowood, for many and many a 
 year. 
 
 It is needless to say that my disinclination to go to college 
 was, that I might revenge the death of my father. Nor would 
 I give up to the course that Mr. Brookwood thought best for 
 me, and that my mother thought best, until the former, in con 
 junction with Dr. Fritz, assured me that nothing should be left 
 undone for his recapture. 
 
 And it was but a short time after I reached the North that 
 I received a letter from Dr. Fritz, informing me that Les- 
 tocq's trace had been discovered in New Orleans, and there 
 was no doubt but that he had died some months ago of small 
 pox. 
 
 I was seated one evening in my room alone ; quiet twilight 
 had dimmed the page of the book I was perusing into indistinct 
 ness, and I put it aside to muse away an hour in the gloaming. 
 
 A stray gleam of silvery moonlight strove to blazon a hazy- 
 Lued panel of the wainscoting ; moonlight and twilight blend 
 ing there, formed a fairy-like sheen, whereon lay the flickering 
 shadow dark of a vine that grew against my window. 
 
 It suggested the arabesque tracery of the chapel window of 
 the Chateau Duvaloir, and the frost-work on the window at Cro 
 wood. It suggested the image of my mother. 
 
 I thought of Crowood and of Clotilde, and the azure demons 
 tormented my heart with a home-sickness that none but a ' col 
 lege-boy " can realize. 
 
 Bob St. Priest, my chum, a young gentleman from the vi-
 
 THE SHADOWS OF LIFE. 73 
 
 cinity of Tussaleega, studying law at the University, came in ; 
 and he sat down near the window, and opening a letter, peered 
 close into its pages by the dim light of the young moon that was 
 struggling with the deepening shadows of night. His face sud 
 denly grew ashen pale even by that dim light I saw it pale ; 
 and the sheet fell from his hand. 
 
 ' Jan ! " he said, with an accent that made me tremble, 
 " how good and noble to suffer and be strong ! " 
 
 My heart fluttered and faltered for a moment. 
 
 Bob came to me, put his arms around my neck, and wept. 
 
 The cholera had broken out in Tussaleega, and among the 
 victims were Mr. Brookwood and Sarah, and my mother !
 
 "THEKE BE MUMMEKS WITHOUT." 
 
 OLD PLAY. 
 
 A LUMBERING stage-coach, crowded with passengers, and loaded 
 down with luggage, drives up to the long piazza of the hotel at 
 the White Sulphur Springs an object of momentary curiosity 
 to the listless loungers on the promenade. 
 
 On the stage-box you may perhaps notice a pale young man, 
 with daintily modelled limbs and features, dressed in a sober 
 gray kerseymere travelling suit cap and gaiters to match ; and 
 with a stock of beard, hair, and mustaches, rich brown, and 
 abundant. 
 
 His trunk is a big russet-leathern affair, with a well-worn 
 covering of stout sail-duck, on which are pasted sundry brown 
 and green and white slips of paper, rubbed and torn, and pasted 
 over and across each other ; on which you can make out such 
 significant words as Boulogne, Trieste, Leghorn, Folkestone. 
 A very Returned-European- Tourist affair, indeed. 
 
 A stout, red-faced gentleman, with a brilliant waistcoat and 
 neck-tie, wbo is seated on the piazza, smoking his cigar, with his 
 chair balanced on its hinder legs, and his own resting upon the 
 balustrade, a la, Americaine, bringing his lacquered low-quarter
 
 "THERE BE MUMMEES WITHOUT." 75 
 
 shoes and white silk hose into elegant prominence, seems to be 
 idly reconnoitring the disemboguement of the new comers from 
 the " leathern /rcconvenieucy," when his eye lights upon the pale 
 young gentleman with the travelled trunk, who had been the 
 occupant of the driver's box, and was now entering the piazza 
 with a travelling-bag in one hand, and a linen oversack on his 
 arm. 
 
 Down comes the forelegs of the chair, and up springs its 
 occupant, who advances towards the tourist, with the exclama 
 tion : 
 
 Why Jan Jered ! " 
 
 " Major Sheldon ! " 
 
 I had met Sheldon three years ago, just after my graduation 
 at the University, at the St. Charles, in New Orleans. 
 
 Clotilde and I were spending the winter with her old kins 
 woman, Madame Bonavoine, the widow of my father's old com 
 mission-merchant, and the uncle of my step-dame. 
 
 The occasion of our acquaintance was one that I could never 
 forget. It was one night at a ball at the St. Charles. 
 
 A misunderstanding had arisen between himself and Bob St. 
 Priest, now living in New York, but who was in New Orleans 
 this winter upon business ; a difficulty something about a bou 
 quet belonging to Clotilde ; and the issue was a challenge from 
 him to Bob, in which I was to act as Bob's second. 
 
 Arrived at the field of contest, I was thunderstruck to find 
 Monsieur Georges Lestocq acting as Maj. Sheldon's second ! 
 
 The seconds became the principals, and I, refusing to act 
 with Lestocq, our affair canje off first ; we fought with small 
 swords, as he had the choice of weapons, and I received an ugly
 
 76 SCENES IN THE SUMMEU-LAND. 
 
 hole in my waistcoat, that put me hors de combat. Lestocq 
 made off, and Sheldon and St. Priest being left without seconds, 
 made up it being only a trivial misunderstanding ; and they be 
 came good friends ever after. 
 
 Sheldon paid me a deal of kind attention during my illness, 
 which I have never forgotten. He was a courting bachelor- 
 planter, living somewhere in the interior; a jolly, generous gen 
 tleman, whom I had promised to visit at his home, but circum 
 stances had called me elsewhere ; and this was the first time I 
 had seen him since. 
 
 Of course the rumor of Lestocq's death from small-pox was a 
 fabrication, but whether of his own, or of Dr. Fritz, at the insti 
 gation of Mr. Brookwood, to keep me at college, I do not know, 
 I am sure. 
 
 " So where are you from now ? " asked Major Sheldon. 
 
 " I've been a year wandering over Europe." 
 
 " Happy fellow. You have nothing to do but follow the 
 bent of your fancy." 
 
 " And you what else have you? " 
 
 " Oh, my cotton, and my negroes, and all that " 
 
 " And haven't you jumped a wife yet ? " 
 
 " I've jumped a dozen, but somehow I have never bagged one 
 as yet. And you ? " 
 
 " Oh, you know that I am altogether beyond the pale of 
 matrimony." 
 
 " Bah ! A young gentleman at the Virginia Springs, of 
 wealth and distinguished family, four and twenty years old, and 
 just returned from a European tour to talk about being out of 
 the pale of matrimony."
 
 "THERE BE MUMMERS WITHOUT." 77 
 
 Sheldon did not know of the cankerworm at the root of my 
 affections. 
 
 " Go up to your room, and put on the handsomest suit you 
 have brought with you from Paris, and come down into the 
 parlor. There are several of our Southern ladies here I wish 
 to introduce you to. 
 
 " Mrs. Wardour, a wealthy, wild young widow from South 
 Carolina ; Miss Talula Shortstaple, of Huntsville. Alabama, 
 heiress of a hundred thousand, a superb blonde, who waltzes and 
 pianos elegantly, and has been to Paris, and will consequently 
 be ravie to see you. And there is Miss Clelie Camellia- Her- 
 bertine Macaw, of New Orleans, a heart-ravishing brunette, with 
 a sugar-planter papa an acquaintance, by the way, of our friend 
 Miss Clotilde Duvaloir." 
 
 " She knows Clotilde ! Then I'll go to my room, and put 
 on the handsomest suit I have brought with me from Paris, and 
 have Fally to do up my hair and mustaches in the latest mode 
 dcs merveilleux, and come down to be fascinated to the utmost 
 of her pleasure." 
 
 Sheldon was a queer fellow. He was rich, and comfortably 
 established on his estates at home, and, no doubt, there were a 
 dozen ladies of his neighborhood who would consent to become 
 Mrs. Sheldon for the asking ; women, too, who were every way 
 worthy of him, and would make as good a wife as he could want ; 
 yet he travelled all over creation every summer wife-hunting ; 
 but, as he said, though he had "jumped" a great deal of game, 
 he never bagged any; because, as soon as a woman seemed dis 
 posed to turn a favorable ear -to his attentions, he would begin 
 to grow dissatisfied, and to find fault, and to raise all sorts of
 
 78 SCENES IN THE SUMMEE-LAND. 
 
 obstacles, and doubts, and objections, which would invariably 
 terminate the affair in a rupture. 
 
 Sheldon thought that I was travelling about on a similar 
 errand with himself. He knew nothing of my internal life. He 
 had no conception that a sorrow could outlast the season of a 
 mourning habit. 
 
 Driven from home by a harpy, that, roving the land, evil- 
 questing no doubt, alighted upon the roof-tree of my quiet cottage 
 home, and blasted, with one rude breath, all the joys that I had 
 fondly fancied mine for ever, I fled into the world to escape the 
 dark shadow its weird wing had cast upon my life. 
 
 It was now that I understood my mother's last words to me 
 in the garden. 
 
 I had become, outwardly at least, a worldling ; I was fond 
 enough to fancy that in the gay pageantry of Vanity Fair I could 
 dispel the shadow on my heart. 
 
 And now I find myself in the livery of the Prince of the 
 Power of the Air, and the manacles of Mammon are on my 
 wrists. 
 
 I became a Stranger seen in the great hotels of the town 
 and the rustic inns of the country ; in the crowded marts of 
 commerce and on the solitary highway I am the same solitary 
 wanderer : at one time I am a dandy lounger at your fashionable 
 watering-place ; at another, a dreaming artist, haunting the 
 wildest glens and groves of the great wilderness-world of the 
 West. 
 
 I dance a jig with a country lassie on the puncheon-floor of 
 a log-cabin in the wilds of Georgia, by a pine-knot fire, to the 
 fiddling of " Forkedea ; " or I do the Schottische with a tulle-
 
 "THERE BE MUMMERS WITHOUT." 79 
 
 and-satin city dame, beneath the shiniest siuumbra chandelier, 
 to Dodworth's band, in the palatial apartments of Mrs. Thomp 
 son, the dowager fishmongeress, of 47 Higgins Place, New York. 
 
 A Stranger. The victim of rapacious publicans, the quid 
 nunc of gaping villagers, a being whom every body suspects, 
 and yet who is cheated by every body, a being to be jostled 
 and snubbed, to be stared at and forgotten. 
 
 I've wandered in the wilderness ; I've sojourned in the city ; 
 I've climbed the Midland mountains, and traversed the Midian 
 plains. 
 
 I've floated, in listless languor, on some northern lake in 
 summer ; in the bateau, with my dog and gun ; and I've voy 
 aged upon our majestic rivers in the crowded and magnificent 
 steamer. 
 
 Many a dreamy autumn-day I've dozed, a la Dutchman, upon 
 the lazy canal boat ; many a flitting mile I've flown along the 
 railway's iron arteries, with the reckless rush of the locomotive. 
 
 Often with companions genial and gay ; often an unknown 
 unit in the common crowd of travellers ; often alone with my 
 dreams and my destiny. 
 
 Mine was no " sentimental journeying." I did not peregri 
 nate a misanthropic pilgrim, philosophizing on the emptiness of 
 this world's fleeting show. I was no idle curiosity -hunter no 
 fashionable tourist no blase conventional epicurean, seeking a 
 new toy-pleasure. I was simply unhappy, and sought to alle 
 viate my troubles by a change of scene. 
 
 I went, I knew not where I halted, I knew not why. Flee 
 ing from the harpy that blighted my home and haunted my 
 heart, I sought to forget the past in the excitement of the pres-
 
 80 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 ent. By disconnecting my life from the people and places that 
 were connected with the past, by a succession of new scenes and 
 strange, by the hurry and bustle of travel, and the excitement 
 of ever-changing incident, I would fain efface the dark impression 
 of woe that memory had seared upon my soul. 
 
 But the band is striking up the Lauterberg waltz, and I 
 must put on a pair of white kids and go down to the parlor, to 
 become the victim of Mademoiselle Camellia's bright eyes, and 
 lace, and smiles, and satin slippers.
 
 REPKESENTATIVE CITIES. 
 
 UNEXPECTED circumstances have so changed the venue of my 
 affairs, that this, present spring morning, instead of (as per 
 promise) chatting with Bob St. Priest in his back parlor, over a 
 cosy coal-fire, about the opera, art, Europe, and the oriental war, 
 I find myself away down upon the cypress-shadowed borders of 
 the Etomba-ah-Eckobie.* 
 
 Having subsided into my normal condition after the toss and 
 tousle of stage-coach travel, and my ideas becoming somewhat 
 
 * This beautiful Indian name, which means " wooden-gun maker," and 
 commemorates an old Chickasaw fabricant of bows and blow-guns who 
 lived on its banks, has, by the peculiar Anglo-Saxon fashion of philological 
 whittling, been reduced to Etoneckbie Tombigbee Bigbee ; or, as it is 
 sometimes burlesqued, "Thomas M. Bigbee, Esq." 
 
 Tom is a queer fellow, too, and a genuine Southerner: deep, sullen, 
 sluggard, its dark, quiet current floats sleepily along its channel of rich 
 alluvium, scarcely wider than a noisy New England brook, that any school 
 boy could wade across, and yet it is deep enough to float a seventy-four. 
 
 Steamboats, so large that their paddle-boxes seem almost within jump 
 ing distance of either shore, come up this river for hundreds of miles : and, 
 lazy and iiysignificaut as it seems now, a few days' rain will swell it to a 
 freshet that deluges a perfect sea of water over thousands and thousands 
 of acres of lowland. 
 4*
 
 82 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 reconciled to the novelty of Southern plains, after the higgledy- 
 piggledy hills and dales of Western Virginia, I shall endeavor to 
 
 give you a brief sketch of my journey from T , Alabama, to 
 
 A , a charming little village in the north-western part of 
 
 Mississippi. 
 
 You recollect the story of the Fisherman of Bagdad, in the 
 Arabian Nights, and the city in the lake, which, when disen 
 chanted, was found a year-and-a-day's journey from the poor 
 fisherman's home. 
 
 He could have scarcely felt more bewilderment when the 
 magic sword changed the dead and desert scene into one of 
 thronged life, than did I, when, upon suddenly emerging from 
 the wilderness of swamp, and forest, and cotton-fields, I came to 
 an elegant village with steepled churches and handsome shops, 
 stately mansions, and broad streets thronged with stylish equi 
 pages, and every thing betokening wealth, luxury, and refinement. 
 Steam is the enchanter that has wrought this wonder. 
 
 You will not find A put down on any maps but those of 
 
 recent date ; yet it is a county town of four or five thousand 
 inhabitants. I dare say you never heard of it, nor did I until I 
 unexpectedly stumbled upon it in the heart of this vast region 
 of pine hills, prairies, and canebrakes. 
 
 It is a mushroom, sprung up in a night, in the fertile mud of 
 this valley of the Etoneckbie. Although not quite equal to its 
 classic namesake, being but a fledgeling city, whose oldest in 
 habitant, to the manor born, is a youth of one-and-twenty, who 
 remembers when the Indian's bark canoe floated on the deep 
 Etoneckbie, yet it is worthy to be recorded in our category of 
 representative cities.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE CITIES. 83 
 
 It was the dismallest of days, when. I boarded a diminutive 
 steamer at the muddy wharf of Noxatra, the hilliest, dreariest, 
 and dirtiest of villages, for a voyage Southward, down that 
 romantically beautiful river, the Tennessee. 
 
 " How are you pleased with our city ? " asked a queer little 
 personage, clerk at the inn where I had stopped, who accompa 
 nied my cloak and myself to the steamer, and seemed evidently 
 anxious to satisfy himself that I was duly impressed with the 
 importance of Noxatra to the world. He said that when some 
 three or four thousand additional miles of railway, now hatching 
 in the brains of the Noxatran worthies, were completed, the city 
 would be in the centre of the great route of travel from Hong 
 Kong to Sing Sing, and of course every body would come to 
 Noxatra. So when he asked me how I liked it, I duly consid 
 ered a moment, and not venturing a rash opinion, said hum ! 
 
 Noxatra is a splendid specimen of the sham grandeur we 
 Americans so extensively indulge in the inflated fashion of call 
 ing little things by big names. It is styled a city a rowdy- 
 dowdy village of three or four thousand inhabitants, including 
 free negroes, pigs, and puddles and G-eneral Jenkins, the clerk 
 above mentioned, who is at once the cicerone and cynosure of 
 the city, and the embodiment of all the dirtiness of the whole 
 concern. 
 
 The General seemed to be a clever, kind-hearted sort of person, 
 whose weakness consisted in an inordinate vanity, an inordinate 
 love of the ladies, and a miraculous uncleanliness. He was so 
 exceedingly civil and attentive, his manners so whimsical, and 
 his appearance so unique, and withal so marvellously dirty, that
 
 84 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 I will gratify myself, hiniself, and the world, with a brief sketch 
 that I commend to Mr. Darley. 
 
 He wore a swallow-tailed coat, doubtless at some ancient 
 epoch blue, but now quite a chromatic phenomenon, and so satu 
 rated with dirt and perspiration that its complexion, though 
 endued with a brilliant lustre about the collar and cuffs, is of 
 a most indefinable hue. His hat might have been originally a 
 bell-crowned black beaver, but now a lintless nondescript, soaked 
 through around the baud with grease, and seamed, and sewed, 
 and whitened about the edges a weather-beaten veteran, bent 
 and battered into the most reckless and dissipated of shocking 
 bad hats ; a shapeless and dilapidated waistcoat, and brogan 
 shoes, completed his attire. This beauty was a great ladies' 
 man, and had, I was told, quite a respectable fortune, which he 
 dealt with as eccentrically as his habiliments. 
 
 Noxatra was a city of " two-penny splendor," to use an ex 
 pression of Mr. Thackeray. It was an Esopian frog blowing itself 
 up into a bull. 
 
 All that I know about it personally was a transient observa 
 tion of its filth and dreariness; but I encountered on the little 
 stern-wheeled steamboat a young Yankee schoolmaster with pop- 
 eyes and spectacles quite an intelligent young gentleman, who 
 was flying the country. He had fallen among the Philistines 
 there, having gone out as a teacher among those " Enchanted 
 Apes of the Dead Sea," and, demi-demolished thereof, was making 
 all speed for Down East. 
 
 My interest in Noxatra having been excited by its relation to 
 Hong Kong and Sing Sing, I diligently inquired concerning it of 
 the fugitive Yankee, and was enlightened on this wise : There
 
 REPRESENTATIVE CITIES. 85 
 
 was a sham society, with " broom-straw " aristocracy, whose 
 wealth, refinement, and education the schoolmaster estimated as 
 a mathematically minus quantity. 
 
 A sham university, with a sham faculty and sham trustees 
 students there were none though there was a show of giving a 
 smattering of the Humanities to half a do/en country bumpkins 
 or so. 
 
 There was a spirit of Progress on the humbug principle a 
 progress that never progressed ; a sort of Sunday-go-to-meeting 
 religion, that was all gammon and flam. 
 
 There was a railroad, that had neither cars nor capital ; a 
 glass factory, that made no glass ; a market-house, with no prod 
 uce in it; a town-clock, that kept no time; street lamps, that gave 
 no light the gas evaporating in other illuminati ; a navigable 
 river, that was only navigable three months in the year, for little 
 stern-wheeled nuisances, that were puffed as splendid light- 
 draught steamers in the Noxatrian newspaper the shamefullest 
 sham of all. 
 
 There were "Mansion Halls " and " City Hotels," that were 
 in reality only the miserablest of fourth-rate country taverns 
 aping city ways. 
 
 The Great Swan and Lion Brass Mining Company, and the 
 Great Pewter and Dross Foundery, had their famous establish 
 ments here. 
 
 Such puffy gas-bags of lawyers, such sobby-souled merchants, 
 such ignorant, inflated, would-if-you-could society generally, the 
 schoolmaster thought, could never be found anywhere else. 
 
 Poor youthful Yankee- of genius, he seemed to have been an 
 incomprehensible Columbus to the natives of Noxatra but they
 
 86 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 did not worship him as a god and I should rather say that he 
 was like Gulliver among the Liliputians, galled and gyved by a 
 thousand petty stings and strings. 
 
 So I have given my young friend's account, as a memento of 
 their kind appreciation of his genius and gentle nature, and 
 because it is such a true type of its class a Representative 
 " City." 
 
 The Tennessee River is the Rhine of the South: minus cas 
 tles in ruins, quaint and antique villages, vineyards, chalets, and 
 bridges, but with hills as grand, and beetling headlands, cliffs, 
 and coves wilder by far, vistas and islets as beautiful, and withal 
 the sublime aboriginal forest every where. 
 
 Nothing is more painful than to traverse scenes of beauty 
 with a heart full of wretchedness and discontent. 
 
 Since then, I have made a voyage upon that river on the 
 dreamiest and balmiest of spring days, with gifted and genial 
 companions ; and " Kelly's Ferry " and " Painted Rock " are 
 associated in my mind with the most delicious day-dreams of all 
 my journeyings in Dreamland. 
 
 But now I was glad that the weather was cloudy, and the 
 blue firmament murked with a gloomy mist. Such a lowering 
 dismal sky was less a contrast to the turbulent chaos of my rest 
 less and feverish brain. 
 
 The boat rushed down the narrow, swollen current of the 
 " Suck " the gap in the westward sweeping range of Apalachian 
 Mountains where the river pours out of the valleys of Tennessee 
 into the broad plains of the Low Country and the wild, rugged hills 
 come beetling up to the river brim, and narrowing its margin, as 
 though they would bar our passage altogether. And then the
 
 REPKESENTATIVE CITIES. 87 
 
 rains came pelting and pattering over the boiling surface of the 
 muddied water, and pricking it into a painful murmur ; and I 
 stood upon the forecastle, wrapped in my long cloak, and watched 
 the spray fly from our prow as we shot through the Suck ; and 
 the rocks, trees, water, sky, were all gray, wet and dismal, and 
 the misty rain veiled the prospect before, and shut out the hori 
 zon behind, like a ground glass shade ; and I listened to the harsh, 
 monotonous throbbing of the high-pressure engine, like a pair of 
 great iron lungs panting fiercely, . and every stroke relentlessly 
 driving me farther and farther from the dream of peace which I 
 had been indulging. 
 
 The pent-up river rushed like a mountain torrent iu its rocky 
 bounds ; but my life's stream was rushing as turbulently, and my 
 soul was shrouded in mist as chill and dismal as the sky, and my 
 heart throbbed with a purpose as iron-stern and relentless as the 
 motion of the engine-beam. 
 
 Landing at D , we took the railroad to Tuscumbia. Here 
 
 you begin to find the characteristic features of the Kingdom of 
 Cotton ; here you come upon the vast alluvial lowlands which 
 extend from Tennessee River, at the base of the Apalachies, south 
 ward to the Gulf of Mexico. 
 
 From D to Tuscumbia, we traverse, with the rapid flight 
 
 of the railway train, a broad, level, planting country, and you 
 pass a succession of immense estates ; broad, almost boundless, 
 cotton-fields, a dim skirt of forest in the distance ; groups of 
 white cabins constituting the negro quarters ; here and there, 
 in the recesses of some aboriginal park, a lofty collonaded man 
 sion, or a vine-verandahed cottage, gleaming amid evergreens j 
 these become the characteristic features of the landscape.
 
 88 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 This is the Valley of the Tennessee, once the most flourish 
 ing and promising part of Alabama ; but its palmy days are 
 over : a sad illustration of the folly and sin of the reckless fever- 
 thirst for making haste to get rich, which caused so many planters 
 to overtask their lands, and, by an unintermitting draught upon 
 its generous energies, to impoverish and exhaust it ; and a severe 
 monetary crisis coming upon the very apex of the tide of pros 
 perity, a revulsion ensued, from which it has never recovered ; 
 and Tuscumbia, once the flush and flourishing metropolis of the 
 valley, is now a shabby-genteel village, quite decidedly out at 
 elbows. 
 
 Another representative city. 
 
 But, thanks to the miraculous renovant power of our Southern 
 soil and climate, the rest obtained from the ruin and decadence 
 subsequent to overproduction, has had its effect ; the land is 
 giving signs of rejuvenescence, and there is hope that under a 
 wiser and more careful system of culture, the beautiful Tennessee 
 Valley will regain and surpass its former prosperity. 
 
 As we journeyed on the railway, my friend, the young Yankee 
 of genius, whose name was probably Smith, was characteristi 
 cally struck with the peculiar fact that the greater part of our 
 passengers were ladies, nine tenths of whom were dressed in 
 black. 
 
 " Is it merely a fashion," asked the victim of Noxatrian 
 civilization, " or is it in reality mourning ; and, if so, why such 
 a preponderance among the fair sex?" 
 
 " They say," I replied, smiling somewhat ironically, " that 
 the climate of the South agrees better with females than males ; 
 and, I dare say, their less exposure to the influence of the sun
 
 KEPKESENTATIVE CITIES. 89 
 
 and swamp, and their greater abstinence and uniformity of life, 
 would make the ratio of mortality in their favor ; but I suspect 
 that the prevalence of the pistol-and-whiskey system among the 
 men has a good deal to do with it." 
 
 The Valley -of the Tennessee was the first instalment of the 
 Southern lowlands ; but just below Tuscuinbia there was an 
 interloping chain of spurs from the general Apalachian range, 
 
 called the Bear Creek Hills, and the post-road from T to 
 
 A , running through them, is just the most abominable that 
 
 could possibly be. Hills dreary and desolate, with not even 
 backgrounds to which any possible "distance" within the vanish 
 ing point could " lend enchantment." In East Tennessee I had 
 complained that though there were in that mountain land glorious 
 vistas and magnificent background views, the foregrounds were 
 tame and meagre ; but here, in these Alabama hills, there is 
 nothing, barren pine-hills, rough roads, a sparse and barbarous 
 population, and a desolation of wild, scraggy woods. 
 
 It was from these primeval hills that we emerged into the 
 swampy bottom-land, through which wended the sluggish Eto- 
 neckbie, and across it we obtained a view of a glorious forest a 
 forest of trees of tremendous size, Arcadian trees, and a wild 
 luxuriance of vines, and creepers, and parasites, and splendid 
 interspersement of dark rich evergreens, and the gravel road 
 struck sheer into this wondrous tropic wood with a picturesque 
 and pleasing sweep and vista, and then unexpectedly broke out 
 upon a great green glade, which melted into the lofty woods 
 again, or cut sharp against it, or ran into its bosom in the most 
 enchanting nooks, and coves, and thickets. And then we came 
 suddenly to a cotton-field, and a queer-looking screw and gin-
 
 90 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 house ; and the soil is rich black loam, and every spot that is 
 untouched by the hoe is flush with the rank exuberance of vege 
 tation. And the sky above you is so deep and purely blue, and 
 the sunshine so gloriously bright, so voluptuously warm, and the 
 mocking-birds sing so sweetly, and there is every where such 
 a lavish wealth of life and beauty, that you begin to realize that 
 you are in the Summer Land the clime of the sun. 
 
 It is early in March ; but the holly, the bay, and laurel, 
 which grow to be large trees here, give a luxury of summer 
 green to the landscape that you could not conceive in your stern 
 and sterile climes. The dark pine towers its giant form aloft, 
 and the wand-like, tall and taper canes wave their green graceful 
 leaves over the murky margin of the lazy Etoneckbie. 
 
 There is no such thing as stone or rock in this diluvial land ; 
 but the deep banks of dark brown earth are clad with richest 
 moss, tall ferns, and over-drooping vines innumerable, whose 
 glossy, dark green leaves are beautiful indeed. 
 
 I wish you could see yonder grand old cypress. Its lofty 
 limbs spread their feathery foliage against the sky : a thousand 
 vines and creepers sweep from every branch in a mass of wild- 
 tangled drapery to its stalwart knees. 
 
 The bittern and the king-fisher waft their lank forms, with 
 lazy-lapping wings, down the dark arches of some bough-embow 
 ered bayou, debouching from the canes, rushes, flags, and forests, 
 into the Etoneckbie. 
 
 And there ! we turn to the left, and behold a line of ugly 
 brick warehouses, suffocated with cotton bales, which a herd of 
 ugly Africans are rolling down a slope to the loud-snorting high- 
 pressure steamboat, whose enormous paddle-boxes gleam white
 
 REPRESENTATIVE CITIES. 91 
 
 * 
 
 through the trees, and whose smoke curls among the pine-tops ; 
 and the banks excluding the river from view, it seems quite a-land 
 in the woods. 
 
 Another turn to the left, and you descry the gay village of 
 
 A , the " Queen of the Prairies," on a broad table-land, over 
 
 which it spreads in clusters of foliage, and white cottages whose 
 green jalousies and numberless verandahs produce quite an 
 oriental effect. In the midst rises a square embattled tower, 
 near a thick tufted pine, whose velvety green masses of pictu 
 resque foliage, beglint with a golden glow of sunset, gives a rich 
 relief to the warm umber tint of the tower.
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 
 
 TOURO AVENUE is a sort of boulevard which divides the French 
 and American quarters of New Orleans. Canal street, as it was 
 called before the old Jew bequeathed it a legacy, is a broad and 
 handsome promenade, the sides of which are lined with elegant 
 and lofty shops, whose plate-glass windows display a brilliant 
 array of fancy wares. 
 
 Turn from it down that narrow street which intersects it at 
 right angles, and which has " Hue So-and-so" on the corner- 
 board, and you find yourself at once in a foreign city. 
 
 The houses are many of them only one story high, with 
 hipped roofs, covered with ancient tiles, and projecting eaves. 
 
 The signs and affickcs are all in French ; the passers-by you 
 hear chattering in that language ; and the negroes are jabbering 
 " Gumbo," as their odd patois is called. 
 
 The people have a foreign look, too : swarthy, bearded, and 
 small. 
 
 Here come two gentlemen. One is a stout, sallow-faced 
 individual, with an immense grizzled mustache projecting far 
 ther on his profile than his little snub nose. He is wrapped in
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 93 
 
 a rich and capacious cloak, and smokes his cigar with an air. 
 He is one of the Vieille Roche. His style is grand and imposing; 
 and his little gray eyes indicate an intelligent, aristocratic old 
 French millionnaire. His companion is a tall, slender man, with 
 elegant and graceful carriage. His oval face is a dark brunette, 
 with eyes black and beautiful. His raven hair comes out in a 
 mass of long glossy curls from beneath his glossier beaver. His 
 nose is classic ; his mustaches are curled en cavalier, and, with 
 his romantic imperiale, black as jet. A dark olive frock is 
 buttoned over his muscular breast ; and his little lacquered boot 
 peeps out beneath an exquisitely fitting pant. 
 
 There is something unique and harmonious in the colors of 
 his dandy attire, his brass-buttoned olive coat, tan-colored 
 velvet waistcoat, with gold buttons, rich gold-brown scarf, 
 straw-colored gloves, and light drab pants. Thirty years hence, 
 if my story should live so long, the elegants of those days 
 will laugh at my model Orleannais dandy of to-day. Such is the 
 fate of fashion. 
 
 Next comes a Paddy with blue kilmarnock, red shirt, and 
 plaid trowsers ; pock-marked, turn-up-nosed, grisly whiskered 
 smoking his caubeen. 
 
 The next are two Creole damsels, chattering musically and 
 laughing along. Two priests in black cassocks ; smooth-shaved, 
 sleek, and shrewd-eyed ; a dark, dirty Italian boy, with a tray of 
 alabaster statuettes on his bushy pate ; a gray- headed old Afri 
 can slave, with a basket of bananas and oranges ; a tall, portly 
 quadroon dame, with a red-and-yellow bandanna turban, whose 
 queenly mien, large dark eyes, and classical features present, of 
 all, the most unique and striking figure in the motley group.
 
 94 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The next is a Texan, with hunting-shirt, sombrero, and 
 ponca a bandit-looking personage ; the bold, big-bearded bear- 
 hunter, suggestive of bowie"and pistol fights, miraculous horse 
 manship, and deeds of blood and bravery on the frontier. 
 
 A sharp-nosed, spectacled Yankee. 
 
 Two resplendent quadroon girls. 
 
 Two poor Choctaw squaws ; dirty, degraded sediment of the 
 red men of the woods, settled, how strangely, down at the bottom 
 of the tumultuous turmoil of a great city, gaining a precarious 
 livelihood by selling willow baskets, which they make in the 
 swamps ! 
 
 The next comer is a sunburnt traveller, with rusty gray gar 
 ments, and a profusion of gold-brown curls beneath his gray trav 
 elling-cap. He saunters quietly along, with his carpet-bag in his 
 hand, stopping now a moment to admire the adaptability of cast- 
 iron mouldings to the rich arabesquery of a Mauresco -Gothic 
 church which is building across the way ; now casting an admir 
 ing glance at a dark-eyed Creole girl who gives him a passing look 
 as she trips lightly along ; anon her image is effaced by an old 
 African fruit-woman, whose sooty face, snowy turban, and golden 
 oranges he takes in with the eye of an artist. The old baboon 
 Is obliterated by a beggar-girl ragged and pretty. Crime, want, 
 and ignorance have not yet transformed the impress of beauty on 
 her young face into a hideous mask. He gives her a piece of 
 money not through philanthropy, but because she is pretty. 
 Suppose she is a vicious, lying, idle beggar-girl. Is it her fault ? 
 Could she be any thing else ? It will at least do the poor thing 
 good. He would have perhaps spent it for a cigar or a " cock 
 tail " she may spend it for bread.
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 95 
 
 The traveller comes to a lofty brick wall. It is dirty, coal- 
 stained, and covered with fragments of old play-bills. The only 
 opening is a narrow oaken door, studded with hob-nails. He stops 
 there, and rings a bell. While awaiting the porter, he reads 
 a play-bill a new one for to-night that is pasted on the wall 
 near the door. It announces, in flaring capitals, that "Robert 
 le Diable " is to be performed to-night at the French Opera House. 
 
 A very ugly black slave opens the door. 
 
 Inside there is a scene of tropic beauty. Bananas spread 
 their broad green bannerets in drooping elegance of foliage over 
 the sanded court-yard. The nyami, the pomegranate, the shadoc, 
 the palm, and a horde of tropic vegetation, display their luxuriant 
 splendor beneath a southern sky. What a contrast to that dirty, 
 crowded street, this Arabian Nights garden beyond the blank 
 brick wall ! 
 
 " Madame, est elle a la maison ? " 
 
 " Oui, monsieur. Vous voila, Monsieur Jered dans la 
 ville encore ! On sera bien aise de vous voir par la " and 
 he pointed over his shoulder with his shrivelled, black thumb, to 
 wards a Spanish -looking verandah back of the court-yard, and, 
 relieving me of my travelling-bag, preceded me, with a shuffling 
 sort of gait, into the house. 
 
 We traverse the hall, and, ascending a short flight of steps, 
 the slave opens a door, and ushers me into a cosy little bed-room, 
 with two windows opening on a balcony, that overlooks a spacious 
 Place planted with live-oaks, through which gleam the ornate fa- 
 ^ades of a row of aristocratic mansions. He deposits my lug 
 gage, saying, 
 
 u Monsieur will not want a fire, I suppose the beautiful
 
 96 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 evening that it is ? You will take your bath, make your toi 
 lette, and by that time madame and mademoiselle will be ready 
 to receive you in the drawing-room ; " and the ugly old Hottentot 
 bows himself out with the grace of a dancing-master. 
 
 It is a little chamber that I have occupied before to-day. 
 
 Plain and simple, but comfortable. A luxurious French bed 
 stead, with its gauzy musquito bar. A gigantic chevai glass, 
 which is an article of furniture indispensable to a French bed 
 chamber. There is a grand old arrnoir of dark, solid mahogany, 
 that would hold the wardrobe of a king. There is a bookcase 
 of the same material, made when mahogany was cheap in Lou 
 isiana, filled with a choice and extensive collection of French 
 literature : monsieur was a refugee French litterateur. A spa 
 cious bathing closet, a black marble washing-stand, with capacious 
 and elegant apparatus of ablution ; an ebony prie-Dieu, a luxuriant 
 arm-chair, a writing-table, and a vase or two of japonicas, com 
 pleted the garniture of the room. 
 
 I seat myself at the writing-table, and, taking my note-book 
 and pencil from the breast pocket of my gray frock, make the 
 following memorandum : 
 
 "Dec. \Zth. Reached New Orleans from Havana, per steam 
 er Red Warrior. One of the firemen, a Spanish negro named 
 Gasparez, has a wife, Rue Royale, N. 0., who belongs to the 
 keeper of a gaming-house. His name, Melendez Gamirlo. He 
 was formerly a sous-cuisinier in the Blanche Rose, Rue 13., Paris. 
 
 He must know . Gasparez thinks he has seen a man answer 
 
 ing his description at the house in Royale street. Thinks he is 
 there now. He came over on the last trip of the Red Warrior. 
 Gasparez' wife Marquitta."
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 97 
 
 Which done, I set about my bath and toilette. Oh, the lux 
 ury thereof, after a week's voyage ! 
 
 Madame is the widow of the old New Orleans Bonavoine, 
 the uncle of my stepmother. 
 
 Upon my father's death there was a will of his made in Lou 
 isiana before the death of my stepmother, by which the Puckshe- 
 nubbie estate, a large part of which had been given my father by 
 said Bonavoine, in consideration of his marriage with his adopted 
 niece, went to Madame Leonore, and reverted to her family, in 
 case of her death without issue ; so that, in consequence, Clo- 
 tilde was now proprietress of Puckshenubbie, besides being heir 
 of all Madame Bonavoine's fortune at her death. 
 
 Mademoiselle Clotilde Duvaloir has changed a good deal, 
 both in person and in manner not in character, since her resi 
 dence among her French kin and acquaintance. 
 
 She is tall and slender ; a tiny waist a thing, by the by, / 
 don't admire so much ; a transparent brunette complexion ; 
 dark, almondine eyes ; deep-brown hair, almost black ; a goodish 
 nose ; ditto mouth expressive though, and fine teeth. A charm 
 ing bust, and the nicest ankles ! 
 
 She dresses in black now, mourning for her uncle, I suppose 
 dead ever so long ; but black becomes her. And she wears 
 such a pretty collaret ! 
 
 Clotilde has become a very devout Catholic ; I always sus 
 pected she would, notwithstanding the sermons and prayers, and 
 influence of poor good Mr. Brookwood. 
 
 Clotilde goes to mass regularly, has a beautiful prie-Dieu^ 
 and doats on Le Pore Blackney and the opera. 
 
 I have not seen much of Clotilde of late years. People would
 
 98 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 . say I took advantage of my relation towards her to court her for 
 her money. I am less frequently a visitor at Puckshenubbie, 
 and at Madame Bonavoine's, than I would love to be. Clotilde 
 complains of me bitterly, too ; the dear girl loved me devotedly 
 as a brother, of course ; but she appreciates my motive in 
 keeping away. She gives me constantly to understand, by a 
 thousand delicate little things that she, at least, has no such sus 
 picion, and that she does not wish that such a thing should be a 
 cause of estrangement between us. 
 
 On the other hand, Madame Bonavoine is blindly bent on 
 believing that we are both in love with each other ; that ours 
 would be an excellent match ; and she wonders why in the world 
 we do not get married. Clotide never dreamed of such a thing, 
 I suppose. 
 
 She was standing by the window, looking out, and humming a 
 German air, when I entered the parlor I beg madame's pardon 
 the salon. 
 
 " Ah ! Vous voila, Monsieur le Juif Errant ! " she exclainied, 
 turning around at the sound of my footsteps, and advancing to 
 meet me with a joyous, laughing welcome. " Where are you 
 from now, Kamskatscha or Constantinople ? " 
 
 " Only from Havana, bonny coz," I replied, in English ; sa 
 luting her, however, in French, by a kiss on the cheek, which 
 brought a blush to it, for I had never done so before since we 
 were grown. 
 
 " Talk to me in French From Havana ! Why did 
 
 you not come by, and take madame and your ' bonny coz ' with 
 you, naughty fellow ! You know how anxious we were to spend 
 a month or two there."
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 99 
 
 " That is just why I did not ; because I knew not at what 
 moment I should have to leave Havana." 
 
 " Should have to leave ! As though you had any thing else 
 to do but follow the bent of your eccentric whims." 
 
 " Clotilde ! " 
 
 " Pardon, Jannie. But I think you ought to quit wandering 
 about in this way. I know you have a bitter sorrow to bear ; 
 but break that sorrow, Jannie, or it will break you. Settle 
 down, and get married; and you'll be happy." She blushed to 
 see me smile at this, and added, " There is Thamar Landrieux 
 loves you desperately ; she's young, pretty, good family, and 
 rich." 
 
 " Bah ! " 
 
 " And Paula Cavalani ? " 
 
 " By the by, that's why I ran away from Isla de Cuba; she 
 was falling in love with me, or I with her I do not know 
 which ; so to avoid an affair, I bundled up and bolted." 
 
 " Just like you always off at a tangent. The last time you 
 were here last spring you know, I was just planning a little 
 visit up to the Chalabino Plantation. There was Thamar Lan 
 drieux, who had seen you at the ' Orleans ' the night they 
 pkyed ' Lucia,' and fallen in love with you. And I was equally 
 taken with Hypolite Landrieux. So Thamar having to return 
 home next day, writes me a note, that I must come up and stay 
 till carnival, and bring you with me. And I was planning such 
 a nice little country party. I sent Juba up to your room to say 
 to you, to come down in the salon, I wanted you ; and, lo ! Juba 
 returns with, ' Monsieur Jered, the porter says, left last night 
 for St. Louis ! ' "
 
 100 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Ta, ta ! coz you talk one to death. I'm tired ; I want to 
 doze here in the arm-chair till dinner. Sit down there, and play 
 me the ' Alpen-Horn.' " 
 
 " Ne voila-t-il pas qui est impudent ! I shan't. Tell me 
 about Havana. How did you leave our friends Don Gregorio 
 and our charming little Paula Cavalani, and " 
 
 " I'll tell you nothing, teaseheart. Won't I have to tell it 
 all over again to Madame Bonavoine, when she comes down ? " 
 
 Clotilde falls into a pretty little pouting spell, which would 
 not have lasted more than a minute ; but a rustle of silks is 
 heard, and in comes madame. 
 
 Madame Bonavoine is a little pop-eyed, pug-nosed dame ; a 
 pursy, fussy, funny little old Frenchwoman, whose silvern gray 
 hair is coiffured in the mode of a century ago ; whose gray satin 
 gown is of the same era whose manners are ditto ; who doats 
 on la belle France and la veille noblesse ; who plays interminable 
 games of tric-trac, and is the politest, volublest, kind-hearted old 
 soul in the world. 
 
 Madame has lived a widow in this same house for thirty 
 years. Her household consists of her niece and heir, Clotilde, 
 who bears really the relation of a daughter ; three old family 
 servants, a Caraccas parrot, a poodle dog, and Monsieur Jacques 
 Jacquerot. 
 
 M. Jacquerot is a tall, swart individual, with immense iron- 
 gray eyebrows, and snow-white hair, cut perfectly short. I can 
 not think that M. Jacquerot is a Frenchman, though that cer 
 tainly is the only language he understands. And I am dubious 
 on the subject because he goes clean-shaven, and never says any
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 101 
 
 thing but " Voila " and " Mais." It is true those two words . 
 say a great deal in French. 
 
 M. Jacquerot is a bookkeeper in a French importing-house, 
 and has been a lodger at madame's for just thirty years. 
 
 Madame, and Clotilde, and M. Jacquerot, made a visit to 
 Paris this summer past. Only think of the things madame will 
 have to tell me about it. She is a Parisian born and raised, 
 aud never out of sight of the towers of Notre Dame, until she 
 married M. Bonavoine and came to New Orleans. Think of her 
 impressions after thirty years' absence ! 
 
 That was all we talked about. M. Jacquerot comes in soon 
 after her, and, upon seeing me, exclaims : 
 
 " Mais ! M. Jered voila ! " and shakes hands with me, and 
 then subsides into his usual corner, and twiddles his thumbs, just 
 as he has done every day for the last thirty years. 
 
 And Juba opens the folding-doors that separate the salon 
 from the dining-room, and says, with a grand flourish : 
 
 " On est servi ! " 
 
 And M. Jacquerot offers his arm to madame which he does 
 because I offer mine to Clotilde, who has got over her pouts and 
 is chattering away most gayly and we sit down to dinner. 
 
 We return to the parlor with the ladies. Clotilde takes her 
 seat at the piano ; we have had our coffee at table ; madame be 
 gins an account of le nouveau tombeau du grand Napoleon aux 
 Invalides ; I seated in a deep, cushioned arm-chair, before the 
 seacoal-fire, which in December is pleasant after dinner even in this 
 latitude. I fall into a dozy reverie. M. Jacquerot falls asleep 
 in his corner. Presently, madame falls asleep too. Juba brings
 
 102 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 in the candles, and I tell him to get a carriage, for Clotilde and 
 I will go to the opera and hear " Robert." 
 
 Clotilde goes to her room, to put a camelia or something of 
 the sort in her hair, and I retire to mine, to get a pair of white 
 kid gloves. 
 
 If the reader were seated in the parquette of the Orleans 
 theatre, and should direct his opera-glass to the stall next to the 
 right-hand box of the first circle, he would have said to himself, 
 " What likely young fellow is that with the charming brunette 
 in white ? " He would not recognize his friend Jan Jered in 
 that elegant evening costume ; elegant, at least, compared with 
 his rusty gray garb, for it was nothing more than an ordinary 
 black dress-suit and lilac silk waistcoat. 
 
 I do not go to the opera for the sake of showing off finery, 
 and Clotilde is astonishingly simple in her style of attire, though 
 none the less elegant. 
 
 The opera is, with me, merely a day-dream. Wanderer that 
 I am, and seldom in the city, I do not get an opportunity 
 of visiting the theatre often enough to become blase, in the mat 
 ter. I listen to the overture with delight, and hear the singing 
 enraptured. I find much suggestive entertainment in looking at 
 the romantic scene on the drop-curtain, while the orchestra is 
 delivering some grand movement. 
 
 What do I care for the brilliant attendance ? I am nothing 
 to them. There is not a person in all this lorgnette-iferous 
 assembly, who will carry away with them an impression of the 
 pale, world-weary face of Jan Jered. 
 
 The drop-curtain scene is an old familiar acquaintance. I 
 remember it there, the same when first I landed in New Orleans
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 103 
 
 with Father Antoine Claude. There is the same old Grecian 
 temple; the palm-trees; the hero with his short cloak, long 
 sword, and plumed cap ; the fountain ; the moonlight ; the lake, 
 its barque and islet. It brings back the old day-dream that I 
 brooded out of it, almost as vividly as if it had been haunting 
 that ruined temple and fairy isle ever since then. 
 
 How many idle eyes have gazed on that picture since ! Won 
 der if that old day-dream of mine, haunting that moonlit scene, 
 ever came to any of them as it has come back to me ? 
 
 Clotilde nudged me on the elbow : " Jannie, take my lorg 
 nette ; over there see that beautiful woman she in white 
 she has had her opera-glass levelled upon you for the last ten 
 minutes that you've had your gaze and your ideas wandering so 
 dreamily, in the moonlight of that drop-curtain. 
 
 " Pshaw ! " said I, " I dare say you think I would be absurd 
 enough to fancy I had made an impression upon her." 
 
 I took her opera-glass. It was a pale, star-pale face calm, 
 marble-calm, emotionless. Her eyes were dark wistful eyes, 
 but self-absorbed. She had the simplest white dress ; and her 
 dark, abundant hair, tied up in artistic (not fashionable) gear, 
 gleamed with intertwining strands of pearls, like stars in a 
 midnight sky. 
 
 Oh, she was beautiful ! And calm and motionless as she is, 
 there is nothing of coldness any thing but coldness. The least 
 breath of animation would set those smouldering eye-fires aglow. 
 
 Aye now ! 
 
 There was a proud-contoured, dark-browed man behind her, 
 of whom you saw nothing, except diamond-lit eyes glancing fit 
 fully, and a mass of black beard and hair above his white cravat.
 
 104 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Now be leans forward with a whisper in the ear of that pale 
 beauty, and her deep dreamy eyes are splendorcd with a dazzling 
 smile, and her glorious lips beam with that smile with an effect 
 so magical, you almost call it a transfiguration. 
 
 It was but momentary, and she subsided into her serene still 
 ness. Clotilde was mistaken about her looking at me. She saw 
 nobody in all that thronged circle she thought of nobody but 
 the diamond-eyed man behind her, whoever he was. 
 
 You see how I enjoyed the opera, after months of journeying 
 in the country. 
 
 But I cannot enjoy it as much at least in the same way as 
 much, as in the old Grog and Magog days. 
 
 Clotilde is laughing at our neighbors. Our neighbors are a 
 family party of Tennesseeans in the next box. A party of 
 village grandees city fy ing themselves, to go back home and put 
 on an extra addition to their already superlative airs. 
 
 It is a bald, red-faced nabob, middle aged, dressy, and con 
 ceited. He wonders at the magnificence around him. He sneers 
 at the opera-music, and calls it scientific squalling, because he 
 has not the education, nor the taste to comprehend it, but laughs 
 immoderately at the indecorous capers of the danseuse in the 
 entr'acte, which sets his mock-modest, over-dressed daughters a 
 blushing and giggling, and he rubs his hands and vows it is the 
 best thing of all. The Magnus Apollo of this interesting group 
 is the attendant beau, a young village attorney who has made a 
 speech on Temperance, and another on the Fourth of July, before 
 all Noxatra, which have been puffed in the village paper, and 
 perhaps published, in which latter case he imagines all the Union 
 has read them with wonder, envy, and applause. He thinks
 
 CHEZ MADAME BONAVOINE. 105 
 
 everybody in New Orleans is aware of his presence in the city, 
 and that half the ladies in the theatre are dead in love with him 
 already. I know he thought he had destroyed Clotilde's peace 
 of mind for ever. He was, of course, the connoisseur of the party, 
 and amazed the young ladies of his set with a potpourri of 
 histrionic and fashionable chit-chat that I dare say was eminently 
 entertaining. 
 
 5*
 
 BATOOSALOA. 
 
 IN the spring of a year not very remote from the present, I 
 chanced to be journeying through one of the Southern States 
 bordering on the Sea of Mexico. From the place I had left to 
 the point I was aiming for, I had to traverse the State in a line, 
 that, to use a nautical phrase, " close-hauled " the general routes 
 of travel. 
 
 It was a stage-journey, and a long and tiresome one first 
 through a wild, unsettled highland, called the Hucka Chubbee 
 Hills, and afterwards, when we got down into the prairies and 
 swamps, we found the deep black prairie mud and corduroy roads 
 not much improvement on the rough and rugged route through 
 the hill country. 
 
 " What town is this ? " I asked, as we stopped at nightfall, 
 after many miles of travel through a great forest, the height and 
 massiveness of whose trees, draped with a tangled maze of vines, 
 and curtained with the long, gray, Southern moss whose ashen 
 pennons hung lifeless in the mellow moonlight, presented a scene 
 that was wildly sublime. 
 
 It was a village that I judged, as well as I was able to dis-
 
 BATOOSALOA. 107 
 
 cern by moonlight, to be a place of some size and importance. 
 The Inn, or " Hotel " as they term every wayside tavern in this 
 country, was of a better order than you find in most country 
 towns. I heard, as I thought, the puffing of a steamboat some 
 where, and conjectured it must be some cotton-shipping port on 
 the . 
 
 " What town is this ? " I asked of the clerk in the bar-room. 
 
 " Batoosaloa, sir," he said, or some such melodious Indian 
 name. 
 
 " Batoosaloa ? " repeated I to myself, that sounds something 
 like the name of the place where my friend Sheldon lives. I 
 rummaged through my note-book. Yes, here it is, George D. 
 Sheldon, Batoosaloa . 
 
 How I got acquainted with Sheldon the reader will perhaps 
 remember ; the last time I parted with him at the White Sulphur 
 Springs in Virginia, he was besieging Mrs. Markham of Mobile, 
 and had constituted me his aide-de-camp. We grew quite inti 
 mate on the strength of it, and when I parted with him, he made 
 me promise if I ever chanced to find myself in his State and any 
 whtre within reach of Batoosaloa, that I would make him a visit. 
 I was worn out with some days' staging, and having ascertained 
 from the clerk that Mr. Sheldon was at home, I had my luggage 
 taken off the coach, and determined to stay a day or two and see 
 something of Batoosaloa. 
 
 The next morning I found Sheldon in my room when I awoke. 
 
 
 
 After mutual greetings he said, 
 
 " I was just starting out to my plantation for a fox-hunt, this 
 morning. The bar-keeper hailed me as I rode by, and told me 
 that a gentleman inquiring after me had stopped over night. I
 
 108 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 found your name on the register, and have dropped in on you at 
 this untimely hour, to shake hands and take you to'my house. I 
 have a comfortable bachelor-home in the edge of town. 
 
 It was no use remonstrating ; Sheldon would rouse me out, 
 and transport me forthwith to his own house, bag and baggage. 
 And a comfortable bachelor-home it was too. An elegant but 
 plain cottage, roomy, airy, and tidy. A capital cook, and a 
 glorious old Virginian sideboard, stored with the choicest 
 liquors and cigars. 
 
 Sheldon was as kind as a brother, and as hospitable as a 
 prince. 
 
 I found my visit to Batoosaloa unexpectedly agreeable and 
 instead of a day or two, it was protracted into as many weeks. 
 Fox-hunting, birding, ducking, and other rural amusements, com 
 bined with village-visiting, dancing, and dinner parties wine, 
 music and cards, made the time pass gayly and pleasantly enough. 
 
 I like the frank, hearty hospitality of your genuine Southern 
 planter. It is a delightful admixture of refinement and frolick 
 ing, of aristrocratic luxury, and democratic freedom. While 
 your host spares no pains to load you with agreeable attentions, 
 he makes you feel as much at home as in your own house. 
 
 The true type of a Southern planter with all his sans fagon 
 and simple manners is yet high-bred and cultivated. He would 
 receive a grand duke with the same quiet, dignified, and unosten 
 tatious cordiality as he does Jan Jered with scarcely a distinc 
 tion for the title of gentleman is with him the highest in the 
 world. 
 
 The women at Batoosaloa were pretty ; they dressed richly, 
 danced 'gayly, rode gracefully and boldly, and exhibited an art-
 
 BATOOSALOA. 109 
 
 less elegance in their manners, and a frank cordiality in their 
 tall?, that was quite enchanting. 
 
 A cosmopolite like myself, whose tastes are not colored or 
 shaped in the fashion of any particular school or clique, finds an 
 exquisite charm in the originality of character, the genuineness 
 of conduct, the absence of frigid formality and affected usage 
 that characterized the society at Batoosaloa. 
 
 These planter-gentry have the manners of midaeval suzerains 
 on their own dominions, who acknowledge no superiors, who are 
 peers of each other, and who, possessed of the natural aristocracy 
 of a noble nature born to command, act out the native impulses 
 of their respective individualities, unhampered by the gear and 
 gsne of any fixed code. 
 
 One evening I was seated on the verandah whereon my room 
 opened, smoking a cigar and listening to the warbled serenade of 
 a mocking-bird, perched in the dark embowerage of a tall China 
 tree that overshadowed my window. 
 
 There was a landscape in view dimly haloed by the deepening 
 dusk of a tropic sky, that copied by Ostaade would have made a 
 dreamily beautiful picture. 
 
 A low-lying cotton-field, with a gin house, cotton-press, and 
 their dependencies, grouped picturesquely under a lofty aboriginal 
 pine. A cotton-press is as unique and peculiar a feature in 
 Southern scenery as a wind-mill is of Holland. With its sloping 
 roof, long, sweeping arms, arid Pagoda caps, its heavy beams, 
 and great wooden screw, and its adjunct, the gin-house, mansard- 
 roofed, and supported by square pillars, within which you see an 
 African urchin driving the mules that turn the machine, it would 
 make a charming sketch for an artist.
 
 110 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 In the background, a long line of dark, dense forest such a 
 forest of rich outlines, such great gray and brown trunks, such 
 vast intermingling boughs, so deep-shadowed, so vine-tangled and 
 complicate, as your dweller in colder climes could never ima 
 gine. 
 
 Mr. Sheldon and a young Mr. Rosburn, a dandy Knicker 
 bocker from New York City, came in upon me, and interrupted 
 rny revery, by asking me to go with them to make a visit to some 
 young ladies. 
 
 " Young ladies ! " I muttered to myself, almost pettishly, as 
 I threw my cigar away. 
 
 There was a time when I was an innocent souled lad, with 
 silky curls and girlish, blushing face there was a time, at a lit 
 tle gray cottage home in the Midland of Kentucky, when I was 
 a damsel-doting ignoramus of sixteen at Crowood, that I thought 
 of woman as the purest Ideal of a young, fond imagination ; as 
 the genius of grace and goodness of the household ; as the Angel 
 of Home ; for all women were to me as the women of Crowood. 
 But I have been rambling about the world so long, meeting " ele 
 gant and accomplished young ladies" at watering-places and 
 fashionable hotels street-bedazzling, carriage-displaying things 
 of laces, silks, and ribbons that the sex has become con 
 founded in my mind with the contemptible puppet-pageantry 
 of Vanity Fair, and I have lost all particular penchant for 
 them. 
 
 I had got woman inextricably associated with the other glit 
 tering objects that form the prestige of society. I thought of 
 the lustre of her lambent eyes along with the iridescence of her 
 jewelry, the pendants of the chandelier above her pomade-polish-
 
 BATOOSALOA. Ill 
 
 ed and camellia-bedecked hair. The peachy blush on her plump 
 cheek, the pearled pellucence of her tiny neck, produced on me 
 the same impression as the gloss of her rustling silk and the 
 tints of her rich ribbons. 
 
 Her teeth were snowy white so were her kid gloves. Her 
 eyes were sloey black so were her lacquered slippers. 
 
 As my eyes would wander wonderingly around the splendid 
 circle of the Opera House, I hardly knew whether I admired 
 most the exquisitely moulded arm that reposed so ravishingly 
 on the velvet-padded balustrade of her aristocratic Zoge, or the 
 jewelled opera-glass that glittered in her wee gloved hand, or the 
 gemmed bracelet that enclasped her little wrist ; the picturesque 
 pose of her half-averted head, the heave of her voluptuous 
 bosom, or the graceful flow of her rare robe and the flutter of her 
 fairy fan. 
 
 " Young ladies ! " I ejaculated aloud. " Oh yes certain 
 ly but I wish you would excuse me this evening, I am sleepy 
 and stupid ; I could not ' entertain ' a young lady, I am sure." 
 
 " No excuse," said Sheldon : " they are most elegant young 
 ladies ; if you cannot entertain them, they will entertain you. 
 Most intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished young ladies " 
 
 " That is, they waltz, flirt, smile, attitudinize, and victimize 
 in the most superior manner hey ? Who are they ? " 
 
 " Well, first, there is Miss Prunella Poplin black hair, blue 
 eyes, fair complexion only daughter of a cotton plantation and 
 a hundred negroes. Educated at the North; has travelled; can 
 talk to you about Niagara and Newport, the Louvre and the 
 Loire. A splendid woman." 
 
 " Va pour la Prunelle ! Who next ? "
 
 112 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Miss Manilla Bagbale, fat good-natured laughs at every 
 thing and nothing. You need be at no expense of wit or wisdom to 
 her : all she wants you to do is to listen and laugh with her 
 or at her, as you choose." 
 
 " Does she play on the piano ? " 
 
 " Certainly." 
 
 " I'll put her at the piano : had rather hear her rattle the keys 
 than rattle her Who next ? " 
 
 " Miss Aidyl St. Landry. The star of them all. The most 
 elegant woman in America. The greatest woman in the South. 
 A literary woman. A woman of genius a star-woman. It is 
 she that I especially want you to see." 
 
 " And an incorrigible and irresistible coquette," said Ros- 
 brun. 
 
 " A blue-stocking coquette ! I'll keep clear of Miss St. Lan 
 dry, at all events," thought I. 
 
 " Sheldon, you may entertain your Miss Irresistible St. Lan 
 dry ; and, with Mr. Rosbrun's permission, I will be the victim 
 of Miss Rattle-tattle Bagbale, and give him the heiress." 
 
 The young ladies were at Mr. Poplin's. The other two, I 
 understood, resided in the neighboring village of Bonnicoosa, and 
 were on a visit to Miss Poplin. 
 
 The parlor was unexceptionable. 
 
 " There was a rich tapestry carpet, a rosewood piano ; there 
 were divans, ottomans, pier-tables, cheval-glasses, girandoles, and 
 multifarious mahogany, marble, rosewood, and satin-wood things, 
 in buhl, and papier-mache, and ormoulu, and I don't know what 
 all, just exactly like all the best parlors. If an upholsterer had 
 been ordered to make it a counterpart of Mrs. Jones's, or Mrs.
 
 BATOOSALOA. 113 
 
 Thompson's, or Mrs. Smith's, in New York or Philadelphia, it 
 could not have been better. 
 
 The room was lighted by the subdued flame of two lofty wax 
 candles on the mantel, just sufficient to show off the complexion 
 to the best advantage. It was vacant ; and the " African Cap 
 tive " who answered the bell, took our cards, and left us to be 
 seated, and make ourselves comfortable as best we could, while 
 he announced us to the ladies. 
 
 " I shall make the most of it," thought I, as I settled myself 
 down in the corner of a luxurious sofa, " by taking a comfortable 
 intellectual snooze in this cosy corner. I'll invite Miss Manilla 
 to a seat by me. I'll wind her up, and while she is running 
 down, wrapped in the comfortable mantle of my indifference, 
 I can ruminate undisturbed. It's a better place for intellectual 
 somnambulism a strolling off into dream-land this springy 
 velvet cushion this arabesque carpet under your feet this 
 mild, mysterious light, than the hard leathern seat in the corner 
 of a stage-coach, jolting over rough hills, or dragging through 
 muddy swamps." 
 
 It is true that the chatter of three most elegant young ladies 
 is not nigh so charming to my ear as the melancholy concert of 
 swamp frogs, the wailing wind in the wild pines, the hum of 
 insects, and the watch-dog's deep distant bay. 
 
 The wax-light is not as dream-inspiring as the moonbeams on 
 the dark water of a deep-banked Southern stream. But I am 
 less annoyed here than by the dust, and sun-glare, and jolting, 
 or the slop, and cold, and drizzle of journeying. One has better 
 company than the heterogeneous occupants of the dirty coach 
 and I am equally a stranger here as there equally alone "
 
 114 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The ladies entered, and my maundering was interrupted by 
 the formality of presentation. 
 
 Miss Poplin, to whom I made my first low salaam, was a tall, 
 fair creature, with cold, calm face, just rippled by a smile. She 
 struck me as rather a goodish specimen of " young- lady-hood," 
 and I half regretted having been so free to bestow her upon 
 Mr. Rosburn, as I marked the easy grace of her acknowledgment 
 of my presentation. 
 
 Miss Bagbale was as formal and accentuated in her courtesy 
 as though her eyes were not already twinkling with talk. I fan 
 cied she marked me for martyrdom in the moment, and that 
 I saw the lurking intention in her look. 
 
 Miss St. Landry had entered the last, and stood somewhat be 
 hind the others. I imagined, as I obtained a momentary glimpse 
 of her, when in the act of being introduced to Miss Bagbale, 
 that I saw a scarcely perceptible shade of irony in the slight 
 smile on her pale face. 
 
 As Miss Manilla Bagbale made way for her from behind the 
 amplitude of her figure and the circumambient folds of her robe, 
 she presented herself to me an apparition of beauty that almost 
 startled me out of my propriety, and I half forgot to make my 
 bow. 
 
 Her manner was brief, and slightly indifferent in her saluta 
 tion though not pointedly so. Indeed, there was a sort of 
 "of course" grace in her air, which seemed to say "one must 
 condescend to these conventional bores." And, as we were 
 adjusting our respective positions, she glided gracefully to 
 wards where Mr. Sheldon was placing a chair, and said play 
 fully
 
 BATOOSALOA. 115 
 
 " I am going to take a seat by Maj. Sheldon he is one of 
 my pets." 
 
 I was a little piqued at her thus forestalling the arrangement 
 we had made together. I had intended that it should be / who 
 paired off with Miss Bagbale by preference. She spoke in a 
 way that recalled my own feelings and fancies about this sort of 
 company-conversation. 
 
 She could speak in that manner to Sheldon with impunity, 
 for he was a middle-aged bachelor ; a few strands of silver were 
 mingling with his dark curls. He was an acknowledged " ladies' 
 man," and licensed to be petted. This manoeuvre of Miss 
 St. Landry plainly said, " Manilla and Prunella may take the 
 beaux, and I will make myself comfortable with dear old Maj. 
 Sheldon." I hope Sheldon won't call me out for that phrase. 
 
 I had taken but a glance at Miss St. Landry before we seated 
 ourselves. 
 
 Hers was a light, airy figure, of graceful and aristocratic 
 tournure, just a bit frail, though not enough so to betoken deli 
 cacy of constitution : ethereal, perhaps, a more poetic person 
 would say. 
 
 Sketching at ideal perfection fs not my forte ; and I may not 
 be able to do Miss Aidyl St. Landry justice in my portraiture. 
 
 But her complexion was pearly transparent I am sure, with 
 a brilliancy that I may term luminous, in its effect at least, 
 but which I cannot at all properly describe : for it was, indeed, 
 as if the soul of her shone in her eyes a radiant language words 
 cannot reproduce. 
 
 Hair auburn, until now I had always suspected that auburn 
 hair was a mere figment of poets and painters, and in real life
 
 116 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 was no other than red. Hers was a color the resultant of blended 
 russet gold aad amber, If that be auburn. 
 
 It was brushed back, a la Pompadour, in wavy outlines, that 
 indicated its inclination, when unconfined, to curl, waved back 
 from a forehead of most intellectual contour. Eyebrows ! The 
 play and expression of those eyebrows told more than most 
 women can express with eyes and lips. 
 
 If shs could be called a woman of beauty, it was a beauty so 
 different from that of parlor belles, that I hardly give it the 
 name at first : my standard had been brought to the vitiated 
 taste of the drawing-room, I suppose ; at all events, her beauty 
 was not of the stereotyped pattern fashioned by modistes, nov 
 elists, and boarding-schools. 
 
 There was no danger of my confounding her with ribbons, 
 laces, and opera-glasses. 
 
 Miss Manilla Bagbale soon found me a most distracted lis 
 tener ; I answered her at random, and the stupid smile and 
 mechanical nods of assent, by which I wished to make believe 
 I was deeply interested in her account of a flirtation between 
 Miss Cottonella Tuggle and Mr. Augustus Shortstaple, could 
 not have imposed on anybody less preoccupied with the enjoy 
 ment of her own palaver. 
 
 Where I sat I could not see Miss St. Landry, but I could 
 hear nothing else but the music of her voice. 
 
 She and Maj. Sheldon were talking about the characteristics 
 of the French and English, or something of that sort. Miss 
 St. Landry spoke in glowing terms of the' former; and, while 
 she admired the good qualities of the English, she could feel no 
 affinity for them ; the impulsive enthusiasm and unselfish gen-
 
 BATOOSALOA. 117 
 
 erosity of the French was strikingly in unison with our Southern / 
 character; while the cold selfishness and brusque egotism of the] 
 Englishman corresponded with the traits of the Yankee. 
 
 Maj. Sheldon took a practical view of the subject (which, at 
 the same time, it must be confessed, was an utterly unpractical 
 one). While he agreed with Miss St. Landry in her analyses 
 of the character of the two people, he felt that we of the South 
 ought to cultivate intimate relations with England. It was for 
 our mutual interest : England was a manufacturing country ; 
 ours an agricultural ; England a consuming, ours a producing 
 country. We were natural allies : England wanted our cotton, 
 sugars, tobacco, rice, etc., and we her manufactured articles ; we 
 afforded employment for her commerce. The North is a formid 
 able rival to England with her manufactures and commerce ; we 
 are her most valuable customers. 
 
 Aidyl laughed at this notion ; she said that England was so 
 blinded by her bigoted hallucinations on the subject of slavery 
 that she would never see her true interest. That, in case of a 
 dissolution of the Union, we might better hope for an ally and 
 purchaser of our raw materials in France or Holland, who had 
 none of the squeamish eccentricities of that wrong-headed and 
 obstinate animal John Bull. 
 
 An opportunity being afforded by a temporary suspension of 
 hostilities by Miss Bagbale, I joined in the conversation, by 
 telling Maj. Sheldon that Miss Bagbale would prove a valuable 
 ally to him in the question, as she had expressed herself a de 
 voted admirer of the English. 
 
 " Then I must appeal to you, Mr. Jered, to come to my 
 rescue," said Aidyl. " Maj. Sheldon tells me you have been a
 
 118 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 good deal in France ; and 1 know you must admire the French 
 more than the haughty and phlegmatic English." 
 
 "I am afraid, Miss, you had better not call me into this 
 dispute," said I, " for I must side against you " 
 
 " Oh, three against one ! " cried she, holding up her hands, 
 " that is not fair." 
 
 " The French are agreeable travelling companions ; they show 
 well in a drawing-room or a ball-room, better than the English; 
 but " 
 
 " Oh, it's not that but that's a good deal it is the warm, 
 impulsive hearts of the French that I admire." 
 
 " If that impulsive expression of friendship had any thing 
 sterling or substantial about it but, unfortunately, it is too 
 often merely superficial. The Frenchman courts your admira 
 tion ; but he really cares no more about you than the English 
 man, who seeks to excite your envy or your reverence it may be. 
 Vanity is the motive of the one ; Pride that of the other. A 
 Frenchman will form acquaintance with you in five minutes ; he 
 will not stand upon introduction ; he will be your boon com 
 panion in a day, and your best friend in a week ; in another 
 week he will betray you, desert you, forget you as readily ; 
 whereas you might travel a week with John Bull and he would 
 not speak to you ; you might be in the same house a month 
 before he would get. acquainted with you, and it might be a year 
 ere he would become your friend. It is partly pride, conse 
 quence, custom ; and, a good deal, an awkward diffidence that is 
 the cause of this. But let him once know your real merit, and 
 become your friend, and you have a true and loyal one for life." 
 u It is just that cold, suspicious hauteur that I dislike ; I do
 
 BATOOSALOA. v 119 
 
 I 
 
 not see why a man should be regularly ticketed and vouched for 
 as being worthy, of good manners, good family, and all that, 
 before you can be civil to him. Even if the stranger is not all 
 that, in his quality of stranger he has a demand upon your 
 kindness and politeness you owe it to yourself. What harm 
 would it do you ? I like the Southern maxim : ' Consider 
 every man a gentleman until he shows himself otherwise ; ' is it 
 not much nobler and more christianlike than the reverse Yankee 
 rule of considering every stranger a rascal till you know he is 
 not one ? " 
 
 Maj. Sheldon had become the victim of Miss Manilla Bagbale, 
 who was telling him about a very romantic Polander, who im 
 posed himself upon her as a refugee from Catholic persecution, 
 as a man of high family, a great traveller ; that she, like Desde- 
 mona, had fallen half in love with him, from listening to his 
 wonderful stories, and that she had afterwards found him out to 
 be a circus agent, or some such story ; and so Miss St. Landry 
 and myself had the chance of a tete a-tete. 
 
 Sheldon intentionally shifted his position, so as to throw us 
 more together, while he took Miss Bagbale off my hands. He 
 saw that the pettish prejudice I had formed against her before 
 seeing her was fast melting by the charm of her genius, and he 
 wished me to discover that she was no ordinary woman. 
 
 But Rosburn had said she was an accomplished coquette, to 
 which Sheldon had given no open denial, and that put me on my 
 guard, so I was wary in my talk. I did not suffer myself to be 
 carried away by her genial enthusiasm and hearty sincerity of 
 mariner, though it was enticing. There was a half-mocking 
 .sophistry in my strain that left her always uncertain of my real
 
 120 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 opinions. We soon got upon less trite and more interesting topics 
 Occasionally there was a glow in her deep hazel eyes, a tone of 
 her magical voice, that penetrated the conventional skepticism 
 I assumed ; but though I felt the electric influence of soul upon 
 soul, I would not allow her to discover that she had produced it. 
 I only went far enough to let her perceive that I knew and un 
 derstood the feelings, tastes, and impulses that prompted her 
 while, at the same time, I crushed them with the specious and 
 incorrigible logic of a material philosophy. 
 
 The flowers of her fancy I tore petal from petal, and showed 
 her the fragments, a combination of material elements for the 
 purposes of fructification and germination ; its Idealism as a 
 " Flower," was a mere hallucination. 
 
 She seemed almost hurt at the material and worldly philoso 
 phy that I advanced ; she was loth to believe it mine. She 
 attacked my philosophy she showed how cold, and harsh, and 
 selfish it was. She deprecated my advocacy of it, and denied my 
 sincerity. 
 
 But worldliness is a weapon of steel, and selfishness an armor 
 of brass. 
 
 When, after we had bidden them good-night, I sat alone in 
 my chamber, by the open window, where the glorious moon 
 glimmered far above the dark, distant pines, lighting the rich 
 foliage of the magnolias with a dreamy lustre, I thought of Aidyl. 
 
 I said to myself : 
 
 " There is such -a thing as being overwise. My mask was 
 useless with Miss St. Landry. I have been at a great ex]ie;;<c 
 of treachery to my true faith for nothing. She, too, is one of the
 
 BATOOSALOA. 121 
 
 children of Light, and my Jesuitism only arrayed her against me. 
 She would have liked me better in my own colors." 
 
 What, that accomplished coquette, a child of Truth ? I 
 think so. 
 
 That is a soul that is the counterpart and complement of 
 mine, and I loved her as soon as I saw her. 
 
 The next morning I had been riding out ; I only wish you 
 as much happiness as I had in that ride. 
 
 A forest on one side the road, where were nestled a succes 
 sion of lovely Southern homes ; on the other side, a microphyla 
 hedge, separating the highway from the prairie the sublime 
 prairie ! 
 
 That ride and its reveries, their accompaniment of bird- 
 songs ; the fresh air, my proud spirited horse, my fragrant 
 cigar; there's no use trying to write about such things, for 
 the halo, like the dew on the grass, and the foam on the river, 
 exhales in its distillation into ink. 
 
 Dear land of the South ! With all thy faults and blemishes, 
 I love thee, oh, I love thee ! Here alone the spirit of chivalry, 
 of poetry, and romance, remains; here the sun and the moon, 
 and the stars, the earth, the sky, and the water, are as romanti 
 cally beautiful as they are in fairy-land. 
 
 On my return I met Maj. Sheldon at the door. He had just 
 got back from the Spanish Garden a public garden of all the 
 tropical plants that would grow in this latitude, so called because 
 bequeathed to the town by an old Spaniard, the founder and 
 proprietor of it. 
 
 There he had seen Aidyl, walking among the flowers, as was
 
 122 SCENES IN THE SUMMEll-LAND. 
 
 the custom with the young ladies of Batoosaloa. She had 
 spoken of me, so he said. 
 
 He had a little sprig of heliotrope in his hand. I knew it 
 was from her I knew it was for me. He had said nothing 
 looked nothing; but I knew it. I took it from him, and asked 
 him if it was not for me. Ah ! there was magnetism in that 
 bonny envoy. I felt it as soon as my fingers touched it.
 
 "KINO COTTON/' 
 
 THE Cotton-planter ! 
 
 "With all due reverence with deference the profoundest and 
 most devoted we approach this worshipful subject ! 
 
 Bulwark of the American democracy, patrons of Northern 
 commerce and manufactures, supporters of British aristocracy, 
 aristocratic democrats, lords without lineage, princes without 
 title, I salute you as the most disinterested and self-sacrificing 
 patriots in the world. For the wealth and power it takes you a 
 lifetime to establish, you generously suffer to pass into the hands 
 of strangers at your death ; not to pass away only, but to be 
 broken up and destroyed ; your name and your family to sink 
 back to the level above which your life's labor has elevated 
 them entailing the same life of hard, restless, and arduous 
 money-making upon your descendants, that you have had to en 
 dure ; and all from a chivalrous devotion to the great principle 
 of the great Jefferson, that all men are born free and equal. 
 
 The aristocratico-dernocratical cotton-planter presents to the 
 world the edifying spectacle of a man who spends his life in 
 building a splendid mansion on a foundation of sand in con-
 
 124 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 structing air-castles that evaporate in the torrid sun of democ 
 racy. It has often been said, that " we are a great people " 
 with eminent felicity may it be said of the cotton-planter. Such 
 self-sacrificing devotion to the glorious principles of free democ 
 racy was never exhibited by the Spartans of old Greece. Such 
 a merging of individual privilege and prosperity in the welfare 
 of the Federal Grovernment is unprecedented in the history of 
 nations. There is the noble old dominion of Virginia, at the 
 word of her great Jefferson, bowed her proud neck like Sam 
 son, yielded her regal locks to the Delilah of democracy, and 
 now stands blind and helpless, bound and beaten, leaning against 
 the pillars of the Federal Union, to be mocked and flouted by 
 the Philistines of Northern abolition. 
 
 The history of a planter's life is the history of toil and 
 struggle for the accumulation of wealth : for what purpose ? 
 To build up a family and a family name that may go on increas 
 ing and improving from generation to generation, sublimated 
 into a pure and gentle blood by the refining influence of educa 
 tion, of travel, of taste, of ancestry, and, above all, of gold ? 
 No. The planter's toil is not for this. He careth naught for 
 his descendants ; he works only for the love of accumulating 
 money, and for the patriotic dispersion of it at his death. His 
 lifetime toil is, that at his death his wealth may be scattered 
 among administrators, attorneys, overseers, commission-mer 
 chants, and general creditors ; the remainder to be divided 
 among his heirs in equal ratio. 
 
 Let us present an illustration. Mr. Shortstaple commences 
 life an enterprising Scotch-Irish adventurer, with a small capital. 
 He goes into a new country, invests to the extent of his means
 
 "KING COTTON." 125 
 
 in cheap, good lands, and a few slaves, and begins planting in a 
 modest way. The soil is savage, but it is fertile ; in conquering 
 it. he loads himself with spoil. He is a shrewd, intelligent man, 
 strong-handed and stout-hearted, and devotes his life and soul to 
 the accumulation of a fortune. 
 
 With but the meagerest education to start upon, he has no 
 time to spare from the cultivation of his fields for the cultivation 
 of his mind. 
 
 By the time his children are grown, he has become a wealthy 
 man. He builds a fine house, buys a fine carriage, and sends 
 his sons to college and his daughters to a fashionable boarding- 
 school. He has passed through his grub-worm period, and comes 
 out a papilionaceous potentate in the land. 
 
 But while he has been taming the savage soil, his children 
 have grown up half-savage themselves. The character and ex 
 tent of teaching at the Northern schools which he patronizes is 
 of the shallowest and most superficial, at best, and of a tenor 
 unsuited to them ;, so that the advantages obtained by the young 
 folks, who go there unprepared by previous home-training, are 
 utterly and worse than worthless. 
 
 Home-training, Mr. Shortstaple, is the very root and basis of x 
 an accomplished education. Without it, the best teacher and the 
 best system would fail to accomplish much. 
 
 Shortstaple and his wife have had neither time nor ability to 
 bestow this incalculable blessing upon their children. They are 
 suffered to run wild upon the plantation, associating with and 
 acquiring the habits and dialect of their negro playmates ; or are 
 sent to the village school, where the association is really worse 
 than on the plantation where the white children, alike untaught
 
 126 SCENES IN THE SUMMEB-LAND. 
 
 and ungoverned at home, are even more vicious and more vulgar 
 than the unsophisticated little negroes, and their bad example far 
 more influential, since they are the peers, and not the vassals, of 
 your children. 
 
 When Shortstaple dies, after Lawyers & Company have sat 
 isfied their vampire appetites, the inheritance is divided among 
 his eight or ten children there are rarely less in the genial and 
 prolific climate of the South. These children, brought up in the 
 lap of luxury and affluence, with the tastes and inclinations ap 
 pertaining to a fortune co-extensive with that of their father, find 
 that they do not possess the means to gratify those tastes, and to 
 live in the style to which they have become accustomed. Never 
 having been taught providence and business habits, they are unfit 
 to follow in the industrious footsteps of their parents, even if they 
 were so inclined. But they are not so inclined ; they look upon 
 the old grub-worm labor as beneath their character as gentle 
 folks ; and so, indeed, it is. 
 
 The boys do not possess the attainments and habits calculated 
 to advance them in a professional or political career the latter a 
 poor advancement, by-the-way, in this country : the consequence 
 is, that in trying to live in a hundred-thousand-dollar style on a 
 fortune of ten thousand, they soon squander their patrimony, and 
 become drunken, gambling vagabonds a fruitful source of vic 
 tims to the pistol-and-whiskey system, too rife, alas ! in our be 
 loved South. 
 
 Or if, after their ten thousand is gone, they come to their 
 senses, and their strength and bent of character is sufficient as 
 is the case in about one out of five they must commence life de 
 novo, just where their fathers began ; and their history is a repe-
 
 "KING COTTON." 127 
 
 tition of that life of drudgery and avarice, ignorance, greed, and 
 overreaching so faithfully sketched above. 
 
 The daughters, fortunately, are better off : if they are hand 
 some and nature bestows the boon of beauty with a lavish hand 
 in our sunny clime why, they can marry rich husbands. 
 
 But this dividing and subdividing is democratic, and conse 
 quently infallibly right. 
 
 It is the great boast of our democratic institutions. It cir 
 culates currency, it encourages industry, it elevates labor, and 
 produces a vast deal of business in our criminal, chancery, and 
 civil courts. It is a magnificent system for lawyers no wonder 
 they glorify it, in laudatory hyperbole, from the stump, the press, 
 and the forum. 
 
 If the accumulation of money be the chief end of man if 
 Mammon be the true God if avarice be the chief virtue then 
 our American democratic dividing and subdividing system, our 
 eternal accumulating and scattering of gold, is certainly the wisest 
 and best social and political arrangement that human sagacity 
 ever elucidated ; and under its fostering influence, we are unques 
 tionably " a great people." 
 
 Suppose that Shortstaple's estate could have been kept in the 
 hands of one member of the family, and that his prodigal squan 
 dering of it were restricted by its entail Shortstaple junior 
 would be nothing, perhaps, but an upstart a conceited, conse 
 quential parvenu : the result of his father's ignorance and neg 
 lect, and his wishywashy collegiate course. As it is, we have 
 enough of this upstart aristocracy and precious little else. 
 
 But even Shortstaple junior's smattering of intelligence and 
 refinement is better than the stupid ignorance, the ostentation
 
 128 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 and avarice of Shortstaple senior. He has made one step out 
 of the slough. 
 
 Shortstaple junior inheriting his father's whole estate entailed 
 to his eldest son or other worthiest son-, as might be would 
 send said son to the University of Virginia noble alma mater, 
 let me say she does her best to make gentlemen, accomplished 
 and scientific gentlemen, out of the Shortstaple stock, who con 
 gregate in her halls of learning Junior would send Grandson 
 Shortstaple to college better prepared to learn than he had be^n 
 when he went to the North to make himself a college-bred gen 
 tleman. Better qualified, because Shortstaple junior, when dan 
 dling him on his knee, can talk to him about something else than 
 the Cotton-Plant ; because Mrs. Shortstaple, at her fashionable 
 boarding-school, has picked up a little inkling of enlightenment, 
 that her mother never had, along with the frippery and folderol 
 accomplishments that captivated her Augustus. Little Gus has 
 had his private tutor, too a man of enough sense and education, 
 who has wrought wonders in ginning the cotton-seed out of little 
 sonny's brains ; and when Master Augustus comes back from 
 college, with his' mustaches and mathematics, his patent-leather 
 boots, his Latin and French, and cigars and poetry, he takes a 
 year's tour on the Continent of Europe with his tutor ; if not, a 
 course at Oxford or Heidelberg, which would perhaps be better. 
 And from Europe he returns, an elegant and accomplished gen 
 tleman high-bred, polished, and well informed ; and if, with his 
 refined sentiment and cultivated tastes, he does not possess good 
 sense and a noble character, to wield a refining influence in his 
 neighborhood, to shed a lustre on the name of Shortstaple, to 
 elevate the tone of the society in which he moves a distinguished
 
 "KING COTTON." 129 
 
 ornament, it is his own fault. But he would so, and one would 
 scarce believe him the grandson of yonder ignorant, selfish, whis 
 key-drinking, cotton-worshipping Shortstaple the First. 
 
 The English aristocracy could not sneer at such an aristoc 
 racy ; for their own originated, has been built up, and is yet 
 recruited, in precisely the same way. 
 
 But, with all this outcome in the elder-born Shortstaple, 
 what is to become of the poor junior devils ? you ask they may 
 go starve, eh ? 
 
 Daughters shall have dowers : that's an established point in 
 the Utopian system because all of them cannot marry eldest 
 sons and rich old bereaved widowers .... dowers sufficient to sup 
 port them in pro ratd comfort and luxury ; we do not wish our 
 Southern women to be driven to practising medicine and divinity, 
 and lecturing on Bloomerism for a livelihood ; dowers out of 
 the personalty or otherwise a cotton crop or two would do the 
 business : but not enough to excite the cupidity of fortune hunt 
 ers, by whom, under the practical system, so many of our South 
 ern damsels are gobbled up. 
 
 As for the younger sons, they receive excellent educations : 
 they are fitted for the army, the navy, the law, the church, and 
 medicine; besides making merchants, engineers, artists, mechan 
 ics, &c., &c., of them. What a glorious chance for our famous 
 democratic doctrine of " self-made men ! " 
 
 I rather suspect, if we had such a corps of the educated 
 younger brothers of our Southern aristocracy to fill our bench, 
 our bar, and our offices, to feel our pulses and say our prayers, 
 we'd not be much worse off than we are : at least, we could not 
 
 6*
 
 130 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 have a much more worthless set of nincompoops for our legisla 
 tors than under the " sovereign " system. 
 
 Besides, the younger branches being trained from infancy, 
 according to the Utopian theory, to kno\j that they have their 
 own fortunes to make, would they not be more disposed to pre 
 pare themselves thoroughly for the duties of such a life, and to 
 buckle courageously to the work, than now, imagining themselves 
 heirs to fortunes that they never realize ? 
 
 The great beauty of our practical system is, however, that if 
 men make it bring out bad and disastrous results, it ought not to 
 be so it is only a misfortune that it is so. 
 
 But, supposing that the younger branches may be benefited 
 in a small degree in this incidental way, to what use are you 
 going to ptft your pampered elder-born aristocracy ? 
 
 It might be said that they were to preserve the great landed 
 interest of the country, which the democratic system is ruining. 
 Let Maryland, old Virginia, and many parts of younger Southern 
 States, bear testimony thereto. 
 
 Do you suppose I would advocate a system of hereditary aris 
 tocracy for the benefit of a set of idle, fox-hunting, gambling, 
 frolicking eldest sons, who would look down with haughty gran 
 deur upon such an humble individual as Jan Jered ? Far be 
 it from me. If I did affect such a scheme, it would be for the 
 benefit of younger sons ; to take from them the delusive pros 
 pects of a fortune they never would possess ; to baptize them 
 sons of toil from the beginning; to restrict the idle fox-hunters, 
 gamblers, and dandies (if such needs must be), to one in the 
 family in lieu of all, as is now too often the case. 
 
 The author is convinced, that dependence on one's self, and
 
 "KING COTTON." 131 
 
 thorough education of the younger sons by the family wealth, is 
 what has made the glory and greatness of England. 
 
 Do you suppose I would advocate the law of primogeniture 
 merely for the benefit of eldest sons ? merely that their wealth 
 might create magnificent country seats, to be the conservatories 
 of the elegance, taste, romance, sentiment, &c., of the country: 
 to be the protectors of horticultural and architectural excellen 
 cies ; merely that "we 'the people," we poor authors, artists, 
 and poets, might have the benefit of splendid parks, collections 
 of fine paintings and statuary, costly conservatories and gardens, 
 studs of racers and hunters ; that we might enjoy these things, 
 the possession of which we cannot afford ; that we might have 
 wealthy patrons of literature and the fine arts men of refine 
 ment, cultivation, and influence to elevate the standard of so 
 ciety throughout the country ? for, as much as it astonished me, 
 I found, during my visit to England, that all the aristocracy 
 were not the idle, dissolute dandies I had imagined. 
 
 I do not care a pinch of snuff, however, for eldest sons that 
 is a mere arbitrary rule, but I would like to preserve our lands 
 from ruin, our noble old forests, our game, our agricultural and 
 planting interest generally, and especially to mollify and render 
 effective our institution of slavery. 
 
 But, you surely do not think I am really advocating all this 
 nonsensical and treasonable stuff ? No, indeed ! I am only 
 theorizing. Hurra for Honeydoodle ! 
 
 ********** 
 
 "Cotton is king!" So says Charles Dickens; and to the 
 assertion we subscribe our humble endorsement. 
 
 If its " sway is over the lives and fortunes of millions of
 
 132 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Englishmen," how much more absolute and extended its rule in 
 its own kingdom of the South ? It is a despotic king. Cotton 
 in the South is more than king : it is the grand high priest of 
 our god Money ; it is the very incarnation of that divinity. 
 
 I am disposed to do all justice to the Southern planters as a 
 class. Their very employment has a refining influence accord 
 ing to my notion of what true refinement is : and I do not mean 
 to say that they are all of them avaricious and tyrannical mon 
 sters ; nor are they all patterns of natural nobility, as they should 
 be ; but I deem the worst of them less slavish in their devotion to 
 King Cotton, less degraded worshippers of Mammon, than they 
 of the ship, the shop, and the factory. 
 
 The planting community is composed of such heterogeneous 
 elements, that no one who had not a most intimate and exten 
 sive acquaintance with it would be likely to represent its true 
 Southern tone. By me it is easily understandable how they are 
 so much misapprehended and misrepresented by casual tourists, 
 and persons whose mode of characterizing the class from some 
 chance instance under his observation is as erroneous as could 
 be. since there is no people whose peculiar traits are so ' intan 
 gible, and whose individualities are more varied and exceptional. 
 
 The Shortstaples of the first generation, should not be con 
 sidered as representatives of the slave aristocracy ; the second 
 and third (one rarely hears of a fourth under our present prac 
 tical system) are much better, and constitute perhaps the largest 
 proportion of planterdom. 
 
 Your Yankee adventurer, your nouveau richc from 
 
 the lower classes, your promoted overseer, who has swindled the 
 absentee proprietor, or married the widow and plantation of his
 
 "KING COTTON." 133 
 
 quondam employer, they are the reproach and disgrace of the 
 Southern institution, and, I am sure, are held in utter contempt 
 by every true Southerner. 
 
 But the old cavalier gentry of Virginia and South Carolina, 
 and their descendants wherever 'you find them, constituting a 
 large and by far the most influential portion of the planters, 
 approximate quite nearly to one's beau ideal of a refined, high- 
 toned, free, and generous gentry. It is they that give the true 
 tone of Southern society. 
 
 You see, these constitute two distinct classes of planters. It 
 is the promoted overseer and Yankee-adventurer class that have 
 brought the reproach of cruelty and tyranny upon the slave 
 holder. Let me say, however, that among our planters, there are 
 Northern men occasionally to be found as high-minded and hon 
 orable as any. and as genuinely Southern in their character as if 
 they had been born south of Mason and Dixon's line. I only 
 regret that they are by far too rare to represent the class. I 
 encountered an elegant specimen of a Yankee planter at a little 
 twopenny watering place in the mountains, last summer a fair 
 sample of the tribe. 
 
 Mr. Jonathan Drawler came South a dealer in Connecticut 
 clocks. He invented some patent machine for threshing cotton 
 from the bolls, or something of that sort. He bought land, on 
 credit, in a fertile part of Mississippi, when land was cheap. 
 He hired negroes on credit, and was fortunate enough to pay 
 off" all his outlay by two years of remarkably good seasons and 
 extraordinary prices. This gave him a start, and he soon began 
 accumulating a fortune. By dint of hard-driving his hands 
 working his slaves early, late, and hard by close economy and
 
 134 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Yankee shrewdness in making trades, he eventually acquired the 
 enviable title of a large planter. He cast about him for a wife, 
 and succeeded in fascinating the virgin heart of a Southern 
 damsel. A high-bred, aristocratic maiden, who being of the 
 unfortunate fourth generation, a'nd her patrimony long since scat 
 tered by her immediate ancestors, accepted an alliance with the 
 thrifty Yankee clock pedler, with the laudable desire to restore 
 the fallen fortunes of her house ; or coerced to bestow her hand 
 where her heart was not inclined, by the tyranny of some high- 
 backed, money-worshipping parent ; or it may be, alas, to escape 
 the galling bondage of dependency a poor relation at the mercy 
 of some saintly niggard, who begrudged her a paltry pittance, or 
 wished fof her the brilliant destiny of a gold-bought bride, with 
 the splendid penury of a broken heart. 
 
 Drawler loved to talk about " us Southerners " and <: we 
 planters ; " was constantly finding occasion to say something 
 about his negroes, his cotton-crop, or his Mississippi plantation ; 
 and was far more bitter in his invective against Northern Yankee 
 abolitionists than a native-born Southerner. 
 
 Did you discourse upon the weather, Drawler would lament 
 its influence upon his cotton crop ; did you discuss the war in 
 Europe, Drawler would fear its influence upon his cotton crop. 
 You would perhaps express your admiration for the magnificent 
 mountain scenery around the Springs ; Drawler would say that it 
 might do to look at, but it would produce a very poor cotton 
 crop. " To his notion, a good rich Mississippi swamp was worth 
 more than all the mountain scenery in the world." 
 
 " What's the news this morning, Mr. Drawler?" He would 
 be looking over a New York paper.
 
 "KING COTTON." 135 
 
 " By zounds, Jered," (he never misters any body,) l( there's 
 some feeling in cotton." He would make the announcement with 
 more feeling himself than he ever manifested on any other theme. 
 
 Mr. Drawler is, I think, the most devoted Mammonite I ever 
 saw ; and that is a strong superlative, I assure you. He 
 brought every thing to the standard of money. 
 
 Did he see a fine house, a fine horse, a fine picture, he would 
 estimate it by the price. As for scenery, he never saw it but as 
 land good, bad, or indifferent land, worth so much. Forests 
 to him were timber, and the beautiful mountain streams were 
 ' : fine water privileges." 
 
 In discussing the character of a man, the first, the chief, 
 almost the only thing that he considered was his money, or his 
 capacity for making money. 
 
 " Drawler, do you know that tall, sallow man, whose travel 
 ling carriage has just driven up ? " 
 
 " To be sure : it's Greenseed a fine fellow a per-fect gen 
 tleman : he is one of our wealthiest planters. He has a planta 
 tion adjoining mine. That man can't be worth less than three 
 hundred thousand dollars " and away he'd go to salute Green- 
 seed, in abject adoration of his three hundred thousand. 
 
 " I saj 7 , Mr. Drawler, what sort of man is that Ledhead ? ' : 
 -" A very clever fellow, I'll assure you worth at least fifty 
 thousand ; a very pretty property." 
 
 " How do you like Walbrun ? " asks another, sometime. 
 
 " Well, I don't think much of Walbrun ; he is not worth any 
 thing, and isn't making any thing, that I can see." At different 
 times you might hear him expressing his opinion after this 
 fashion.
 
 136 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 One day I accidentally heard his opinion of me .... not in 
 tended, of course, for my ears Drawler is the affablest man 
 
 in the world when he is in your company. His maxim is, that a 
 man loses by frankness. 
 
 " Well, I don't think Jered is of much account. He seems 
 to care too little for money. He never will make a fortune. He- 
 lacks energy. [No man has energy, according to Drawler, un 
 less he devotes life and soul to making money.] He is a man 
 that would be contented if he barely made a support ... if even 
 that much. And then he has romantic notions is fond of flow 
 ers, and scenery, and all that ! " This last is said with ineffable 
 contempt. 
 
 Drawler had a little daughter some ten or eleven years old 
 a bright and beautiful thing, with arch eyes and naive, coquettish 
 ways. She was the admiration of all the company at the 
 Springs .... not the pet, for there was an air of hauteur, even 
 in her childish graces, that forbade the idle and familiar endear 
 ments that people address to children. 
 
 She must have resembled her mother. Drawler was a 
 widower .... a little dried-up, hatchet-faced widower-beau, seek 
 ing a wife. There was, I thought, no point of resemblance between 
 the child and her father, and my heart yearned towards the beau 
 tiful young thing. 
 
 How I did long that Drawler might " catch " some pure- 
 minded woman, that would save this charming little creature 
 from the heart-deadening influences of Mr. Drawler's teach 
 ings ! 
 
 I felt that I would be willing to sacrifice some good-natured 
 old maid to him, to save his daughter.
 
 "KING COTTON." 137 
 
 I danced with her one evening ; and after the cotillon, took a 
 seat by her side. 
 
 In a very playful, half-mocking way, I was pretending to make 
 lovo to her, and expressed a huge jealousy of Willie Webb, a 
 bright-eyed, graceful, and joyous little lad, about her own age, 
 who had been dancing with her. 
 
 " You have no cause to be jealous of him" said she, looking 
 at me with a wise smile. 
 
 " Why not ? " asked I, smiling, not so wisely, in return. 
 
 " Pshaw ! He's not RICH ! " 
 
 I was thunderstruck. 
 
 The child said it with such a singular contradiction of world- 
 liness and childishness expressed in her countenance ! ' 
 
 ' : But he's handsome, and good, and smart," I stammered 
 out. 
 
 " So he is," returned the little worldling. ' : He does very 
 well tojlirt with ; and I like him for a partner in the Polka and 
 Sckottiscke." 
 
 " Well, tell me who is your sweetheart ? " 
 
 " Jason Greenseed ! " a little ape-headed idiot, pop-eyed, 
 carroty-haired ! I shuddered in amaze. ' Papa says he'll be 
 immensely wealthy.' 1 ' 1 
 
 That evening she and I, from the verandah, chanced to see 
 Willie give Master Jason a famous flogging. She cried over it, 
 but I shouted for joy.
 
 COCKAIGNE. 
 
 WHEN I last called upon Aidyl St. Landry, she said to ine, 
 
 " Mr. Jered, if you come to Bonnicoosa before you leave 
 this part of the South, you must come and see me at our little 
 cottage on ' Bonny street,' as Maj. Sheldon calls it. Bonnihoma 
 is a suburb of Bonnicoosa a street or two of tree-shaded 
 squares and vine-covered cottages, where a few of the (as we 
 deem ourselves) elite have nestled, aloof from the cotton-bag aris 
 tocracy beyond the bayou." 
 
 It is usual in the South, among well-bred women, to extend 
 the courtesy of such an invitation to a newly-formed and properly- 
 avouched-for acquaintance, so that there was nothing especial in 
 the compliment ; but I fancied there was something, some faint 
 nuance, in the tone of her voice, that indicated that she would 
 really be glad to see me again. 
 
 I thought I had made some impression on the heart and 
 fancy of this young and beautiful woman. 
 
 An impression, to wit, that Mr. Jan Jered has a higher and 
 purer standard of life ; aims at a nobler goal ; feels deeper and 
 more acutely the divinity of our human nature ; has a more deli-
 
 COCKAIGNE. 139 
 
 cate sense of the beautiful ; more refinement by nature and by 
 training ; more cultivation in art and literature than most of the 
 young men around her. Something of that sort. 
 
 As for her heart I do believe her heart warmed towards me 
 as one kindred spirit will to another, how superior soever the one 
 may be. 
 
 This is very far from any vain conceit that I had captivated 
 the young lady. * 
 
 Jan Jered is weaned from his mustaches and neck- tie, as well 
 as his peg-top. He has seen too much of the world, has an ac 
 quaintance with the extent of his powers of fascination far too 
 accurate, to permit him to indulge in any such presumptuous 
 delusions. Jan Jered knows full well the extent of his at 
 tractions. 
 
 Being so sensible and modest in this regard, therefore, he 
 may be permitted to express his conviction that Miss St. Landry 
 gave him credit for a certain modicum of brains and heart. 
 
 As for the impression she made, that must be considered in 
 another light altogether. 
 
 Miss St. Landry was certainly very beautiful she was ac 
 complished an accomplished coquette, Rosburn said ; but Ros"- 
 burn was a would-be coquette himself, and had been worsted 
 in a slight skirmish he attempted with Miss St. Landry. 
 She was endowed with rare gifts, and had a most fascinating 
 power over the human heart. If she be a coquette, she certainly 
 has a different system of tactics from her class. 
 
 Maj. Sheldon himself confessed to me that a great many men 
 had courted her the first men in the South, he said. 
 
 That was a bad symptom. The very fact that a man courts
 
 140 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 a woman is prima facie evidence that she has " drawn him on." 
 That a great many have, is strong cumulative testimony to that 
 effect. 
 
 The other night I was mesmerized. A mesmeric fascination 
 is not love.' 
 
 If Jan Jered have a heart which is a problem not yet 
 solved it is shielded by a breastplate of indifference that is 
 quite love-bolt proof. * 
 
 And then his experience his knowledge of the world, permit 
 me to add some mother-wit enough, at least, to protect him 
 from the siren-allures of any she alive is not that enough to 
 guarantee him from all loss and damage from the fire of Miss 
 Aidyl's bright eyes ? 
 
 There is only one dangerous symptom at least, that I re 
 gard as dangerous. After my first interview, and after every 
 subsequent one, except in moody hours, when the demon of sus 
 picion came whispering in my ears, I was convinced that Miss 
 St. Landry had not a particle of coquetry in her nature. That 
 many have loved and courted her, may be true that is the ground 
 of evidence against her : the say-so of Mr. Rosburn goes for 
 nothing with me. Because she has discarded a host of lov 
 ers. But that, certainly, is not proof positive in my eyes that 
 she is a flirt. She might discard all the men in the world with 
 out having flirted one of them, within the bounds of possibility. 
 It is like blaming the candle for the mites that are consumed in 
 its flame. 
 
 Instinct is a more infallible guide than human reason, and 
 instinct taught me that she was no coquette.
 
 COCKAIGNE. 141 
 
 I discarded Mr. Rosburn's theory of a Napoleonic system of 
 tactics in toto. 
 
 Bonnicoosa was just twenty miles from Batoosaloa, and Shel 
 don proposed to drive me down with his buggy and pair, but after 
 wards having been summoned to attend a court in an adjoining 
 county, he said I must take Fally to drive me, and go down by 
 myself. This was about a fortnight after Miss St. Landry had 
 returned home. 
 
 So, after dinner my valise and hat-box were duly stowed away 
 in the vehicle. I charged my cigar-case; ensconced myself com 
 fortably beneath the shade of an umbrageous umbrella, the handle 
 of which was screwed into the vehicle so as to form a sort of 
 temporary covercle : Fally shook his lines and away we glide 
 along the smooth, sandy street of Batoosaloa, a hot but breezy 
 day in May. 
 
 A street scene in Batoosaloa is somewhat unique. 
 
 In the middle of the square, formed by the intersection of 
 two cross-streets, is an Artesian fountain, throwing a handsome 
 jet-d^eau some twenty feet high. It is covered by a kind of 
 kiosque affair, with a roof like a turnip, root up ; which is, I sup 
 pose, the origin of that feature in Saracenic architecture. There 
 was filligree netting of cast-iron, triple pillars, and such like, 
 presenting a handsome appearance. Several negro and mulatto 
 maidens, with a brilliant display of bandanna turbans and red and 
 yellow short frocks, were grouped about it, and chatting and 
 laughing gayly. 
 
 The street was thronged with cotton waggons, great, lumber 
 ing affairs, with five or six bales piled up, and hauled by as many
 
 142 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 ft 
 
 yoke of oxen, or so many pairs of sleek Kentucky mules, and 
 driven by the grotesquest plantation negroes, who flourished 
 brobdignagian whips with which they kept up as much noise as 
 fire-crackers at Christmas. Threading their way through these 
 great wagons would come a tall, swart gentleman, with broad- 
 brimmed panama and oriental beard ; mounted on a blooded ani 
 mal, and riding with that reckless ease and graceful unconcern 
 that is peculiar to the Southern gentleman. Sometimes it would 
 be an elegant carriage, with coachman and footman in livery 
 coats and Berlin gloves ; in the windows of which you would get 
 a glimpse of a pair of bright eyes or so, rosy cheeks, and a flash 
 of ribbons, flowers, satins, and laces. 
 
 As you advanced towards the less crowded part of the street 
 residences took the place of shops. 
 
 Immediately on leaving town we struck the sand-hills and 
 hammocks. Through them we had a long, hot, and very unin 
 teresting drive. Our way ran generally along a bleak, sandy 
 ridge. The forest consisted of a growth of low black jack-oaks, 
 scraggy and stunted ; arid black-gums and plebeian persimmons. 
 
 The scenery was lonely and desolate. Here would be a 
 miserable log shanty, denizened by some sallow li sovereign " in 
 jean trowsers and Osnaburg shirt, suggestive of an exist 
 ence, made up of fried bacon and eggs, whiskey, yams, ague, 
 onions, pigtail tobacco, corn-dodgers and " draw-poker," at five 
 cents ant. 
 
 11 Sovereign " is a cant Yankee word for peasant. " It is sur 
 prising," says some sagacious writer, "how many changes we 
 make in names, while realities remain the same." Your Yankee
 
 COCKAIGNE. 143 
 
 is especially good at the snivelling nicety of the age that seeks 
 to disguise ugly facts by a pretty name. 
 
 They cant bear the word negro, it must be " colored man," 
 the color being elegantly left indefinite ; and I've seen a dainty 
 damsel of Boston almost faint at the word slave. They call 
 their white servants help. A great lazy lout of an Irish gos 
 soon, a clumsy, splay-footed, Dutch gowk, they mincingly term 
 " help ! " 
 
 I understand that a " colored lady " who condescended for a 
 stipendium to perform the culinary duties in a Northern household, 
 refused to remain unless she could have a Brussels carpet on the 
 kitchen floor. 
 
 Wonder, madam, you do not wash the dishes and scour the 
 hearth yourself it's too dirty work, I am sure, for such nice 
 quality as your " Help " and' your " Colored man." 
 
 What strange and degrading hallucinations take possession 
 of the human mind when they once get in the way of error. 
 Let them make myths out of symbols and they will make idols 
 out of myths, and soon they will be worshipping crocodiles and 
 onions instead of the viewless God. And so with this maudlin' 
 Philanthropy : the Abolitionists of the North bow down and 
 worship kinky-headed Quashee, just as Quashee worships his 
 wooden Fetish. 
 
 I am told that they carry their subversive philanthropy to 
 such an extent that they allow their helps to elect their represen 
 tatives and municipal officers, in short, that they have topsy- 
 turvy'd the old order of things, and, as in the modern German 
 game of Euchre, the bauers (valets, peasants, or knaves) are the 
 commanding cards, and trump the king.
 
 144 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 We Southerners are, I think, too practical a people to see 
 the beauty of this sort of stuff; Want, Inequality, Subordination, 
 Slavery, we know to be necessary complements of Wealth, 
 Equality, Power and Freedom. 
 
 We know that as long as human nature exists these t/iings 
 will exist, and all this holy horror about names, when the reali 
 ties remain the same when the operative, for all his title, is but 
 a slave with a harder lot than those that are transferred by buy 
 ing and selling when the " Sovereign," for all his vote for 
 Honeydoodle for the Presidency, is still the same coarse, selfish, 
 vulgar boor : we consider to be merely grasping at ideas in the air, 
 as a crazy man clutches at imaginary straws. 
 
 But where has the sight of the mud palace of this American 
 sovereign led me to ? 
 
 The reader must not set me down as an aristocrat, or any 
 such terrible monster, because I write heretical doctrine some 
 times. I only do it for the fun of the thing just because it is 
 a little dangerous. At bottom I am a good, honest democrat, and 
 go entirely for Mr. Honeydoodle. Between you and me privately, 
 he has promised to make me his minister to Timbuctoo. 
 
 I had fallen into that sort of reverie just to pass away time 
 as I drove along the road, having become tired of the barren 
 sands, the dismal clearings covered with wretched-looking dead 
 trees 
 
 I am a great admirer of old dead trees. I like one or two 
 grouped amid dense and gracefully flowing foliage it brings out 
 the effect. I like an old dead tree with a rugged branch or two 
 a heron perched on it, near a lake or a stream in the foreground 
 of a picture that has soft and flowing outlines, lilac lines of dis-
 
 COCKAIGNE. 145 
 
 tant mountains in the background, a sweeping headland, a green, 
 broad meadow, something of that sort. I love it on your old 
 rocky haw-and-heather moor, very scraggy and rugged, with a 
 shaggy coat of gray lichens. That is my taste in dead trees that 
 Clotilde used to laugh at. But your acres of " deadenings," 
 where there is a tatterdemalion muster of girdled giants of the 
 forest, standing ghostly, weird and desolate an army of shriv 
 elled, weather-blasted skeletons, with crows swooping through 
 them, or dozing in dozens on their scraggy limbs, like ghosts in 
 mourning. No, no, they give me the horrors especially in a 
 wild, poverty-stricken region of pine hills. The long moss which 
 once festooned their graceful boughs, now hangs dead and ragged 
 in tufts and towheads, and the melancholy buzzards soar far 
 above, philosophizing on the dismal scene. 
 
 At last we get glimpses of the glossy, green foliage of the 
 swamp-oak, the bay, and the lofty pine, warm, rich, and softly 
 blended, as if by a painter's pencil. The feathery-tufted cypress 
 towers above the magnolias and gordonias that cluster in a dense, 
 irregular line at the foot of the ridge, where a turn in the road 
 reveals a- hump-backed bridge, a rustic, wooden affair, half 
 hidden by the surrounding shrubbery, and spanning a deep, 
 narrow stream, that separates the hills from the broad plain 
 beyond. 
 
 We rattle across the bridge, through a hundred yards or so 
 of deep forest grand, dusky, and cool; and then emerge 
 upon a great prairie that has never been touched by the plough. 
 
 I strained my eyes over that plain ; I looked back at the 
 sharp outline of the lofty forest behind me, and then pressed my
 
 146 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 head into my open palms, to compose myself, to see if I were 
 awake or dreaming. 
 
 Often at Crowood ; often when a collegian at the University ; 
 even, I recollect, in England once, in an elegant bedroom in 
 Dintmere Castle ; once in Italy, after a ride through the Cam- 
 pagna, I've dreamed of travelling through the South ; I always 
 dreamed of going across a broad savannah, covered with blue 
 and yellow flowers. And again and again I've had the same 
 dream, and, though always varied in the incident, that savannah 
 invariably the same. The plains of my dreams had a certain 
 peculiar physiognomy a certain marked individuality ; and 
 here were the identical plains of my dreams here was the indi 
 viduality, that I had never recognized in other plains ; here were 
 the very blue and yellow flowers I knew them immediately ; it 
 was they that recalled my dream 
 
 The sun was about an hour high. 
 
 The courtier clouds in gaudy livery, laced with gold, were 
 marshalled in the west, to usher his drowsy majesty to his twi 
 light tapestried chamber of repose. 
 
 The lines of sunlight fell soft and dreamy along the level ex 
 panse of flower-enamelled prairie. 
 
 The shadow of the forest-skirt lay in long mantles upon the 
 mead. The mocking-birds were singing in the magnolias 
 singing songs they had learned from the birds of Kentucky, who 
 wintered with them in their sunnier clime songs that called up 
 the dreams of my boy-life at Crowood. 
 
 I took off my travelling-cap, that the incensed air of evening 
 might bathe my locks might baptize me into a holy com-
 
 COCKAIGNE. 147 
 
 munion with nature, with memory, and with dreams the sacred 
 trinity of my heart. 
 
 The hot dusty day was over. The arid sand-hills were past. 
 Before me stretched the dream-flowered prairie ; the opalescent 
 sky on the horizon tinged with the paly gold of sundown, above 
 the dimmest outline of far distant forest. And the holy hush 
 of that hour, the holy joy of that hour, as my fleet steeds sped 
 over the mosaic carpeting of blue and yellow a blending of 
 reverie and reality, a confounding of memory and anticipation, 
 a confusion of past and present into one delicious waking ro 
 mance that was real, was a page from the Book of Paradise. 
 
 I threw the magic mantle of imagination over the cold 
 marble image of Life, and the dead stone became a living Ideal. 
 
 I shut up my Guide-book, and opened my Wonder-book. I 
 was no longer travelling in Yankeedom a land of stage-coaches, 
 railways, and dirty taverns, inhabited by the vampyres that suck 
 travellers' blood. 
 
 I was travelling in Cockaigne. That boundless prairie ! Its 
 flowers and singing-birds, its fairy light and dreamy shadows, 
 had no association with a cotton-growing country, in one of the 
 Southern States ; its locale was in some tropic Dreamland. 
 
 For two hours I sped over that flowery prairie. Two hours 
 of elysium, in which I thought of Aidyl ! Two hours of bliss, 
 that pay me for a thousand hours of miserable commonplace ! 
 Aidyl is before me Fll see her to-night ! Aidyl my destiny ! 
 
 Such sweet fancies haunted my imagination. Wonder 
 
 what Aidyl is doing now ! Is she looking at that timid star, 
 that has just come peeping out ? Is she thinking of me ? Has 
 she a presentiment of my coming ?
 
 148 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The image of Aidyl was associated with the sunset light, 
 with the magic-tinted western clouds, with the sleeping shadow 
 of the forest I was again approaching. The world was dead to 
 me ; my sorrow seemed but as some dim nightmare ; my blighted 
 hopes were weeded from my heart, and new ones bloomed there ; 
 and my only thought was of Aidyl. 
 
 I wondered what sort of home she had, what sort of home- 
 folks. I could not think they were sordid, selfish worldlings ; 
 how could she be so different, if they were ? All this was food 
 for fancy. 
 
 Twilight was softening down its luxuriant outline into a pic 
 ture of mellowest coloring. 
 
 The moon the great, round, full moon, looms up from the 
 prairie-bounded horizon. 
 
 There is a strange blending of light and shadow in the old 
 forest that we enter Aidyl loves these dim, mysterious half- 
 lights the motley of moonlight and shadow. 
 
 The forest grows darker and deeper ; the moon gleams in 
 here and there, the calmest, purest light ! 
 
 Then you are in suspense ; you are rapidly nearing your des 
 tination : a place you have never seen, of which you have no 
 idea, and yet full of interest to you. The sense of this is so 
 strong that it almost oppresses you. 
 
 At length the lights of Bonnicoosa break upon our view as we 
 descend a slope. 
 
 Which of all these star-like beacons betokens the spot that is 
 Aidyl's home ? I wondered, as we drove down a broad, level 
 avenue shaded by rows of China trees.
 
 BONNICOOSA. 
 
 BONNICOOSA is a village of three or four thousand inhabitants, 
 upon the Luxapelila, at its juncture with the Bessa Callo. The 
 village is built .upon a broad level plateau, bounded on the west 
 by a heavy-timbered upland, on the east by a skirt of prairies, 
 on the north by a dense forest, and on the south by a magnifi 
 cent jungle. 
 
 The Bessa Callo, which is a bayou from the Luxapelila to 
 the jungle south of the town, divides the uplands from the 
 prairies. Its deep narrow banks are fringed with canes, azalias, 
 kalmias, hollies, and magnolias, in the richest and rankest con 
 fusion ; whilst, on the borders of the Luxapelila, which is a navi 
 gable though a very narrow stream, tall cottonwood trees, gigantic 
 cypresses, wide-spreading beeches, and elms festooned with in 
 numerable vines the wild grape, bignonia, jacksonia, jessamine, 
 and other luxuriant creepers and pendants, overarch the deep, 
 sluggard stream, and shut it out from the rays of the sun. 
 
 The uplands, which are nothing more than a gently rolling 
 country, are studded with elegant cottages and stately mansions. 
 
 Back of these hills are the prairies vast, irregular glades,
 
 150 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 nearly flat ; varying greatly in area, and generally of surpassing 
 fertility. They are interspersed with " hammocks," also won 
 derfully productive, and " sandy-lands," which are covered with 
 magnificent forests, but not quite so fertile. The forest in the 
 lowlands, among the marshes and jungles, is still more superb. 
 
 This country seems made expressly for the planter. The 
 glades having no timber are consequently ready for cultivation, 
 without the labor of " clearing ; " whilst always in reach are 
 groves that supply lumber, fencing, and fuel, besides affording 
 elegant sites for country houses, and splendid ready-made parks. 
 
 But, though you may ride for miles through the prairies, and 
 behold broad plantations, separated by interminable hedges of 
 the cherokee and microphilla rose ; the most beautiful in tho 
 world ; you will be surprised to find no country seats at least 
 such is the case about Batoosaloa and Bonnicoosa. 
 
 You will see gangs of negroes working in the cotton-fields, 
 with the negro driver lounging sideways on his mule, super 
 intending them ; you may see the overseer, with his broad- 
 brimmed panama and his long whip, galloping about from gang 
 to gang, but nobody else, unless you chance to meet the planter 
 on his stout cob riding over his estate, or the planter's son, with 
 his buggy and pair, driving along the road ; or, if you are very 
 near the town, you may haply meet the planter's daughter, on 
 her blooded Arabian, with her sooty equery, generally some gray- 
 headed family servant, in attendance, or else a younger brother, 
 and sometimes a dashing cavalier, who is so happy by her 
 princely side that you envy him his lot, and cast back a linger 
 ing glance of admiration at her jaunty figure, lithe waist, and 
 sweeping habit, her bonny Highland cap and plume, and her
 
 BONNICOOSA. 151 
 
 bonnier flowing ringlets, waving to the motion of her graceful 
 steed. 
 
 You may see a negro quarter large enough for a small vil 
 lage, a hamlet of white cabins, with the overseer's comfortable 
 cottage in the midst. 
 
 You may see a gin-house and press, with its long wooden 
 arms and conical roof, but in this region you rarely encounter a 
 gentleman's country residence. 
 
 The country, in this respect, resembles some parts of Ger 
 many, where the peasants live in hamlets, like the negro quar 
 ters, near the castle of their lord, and go out to the fields to 
 labor. 
 
 The wealthy planters have their residences in the beautiful 
 homesteads clustered around the environs of Bonnicoosa and 
 Batoosaloa. This absenteeism is perhaps objectionable on some 
 accounts ; all absenteeism is ; but where the proprietor lives so 
 near his estate, and visits it daily, it is not as much so as where 
 he resides in another part of the country, and pays only annual 
 visits to his plantation, which is too often the case with the 
 sugar planters on the " Coast " in Louisiana. 
 
 It is customary, however, and there are good reasons to be 
 urged in its behalf. In the first place, the soil of the prairies is 
 a deep, soft, black loam, which cuts up to the axles of a vehicle 
 in winter, rendering the roads (which, by the way, are mathe 
 matically straight, and intersect each other at right angles, 
 forming section boundaries generally) impassible, even for horse 
 men, except by means of a rough causeway for the cotton-wag 
 gons, which would jolt a carriage in pieces. 
 
 And then the plantations are so large that each family would
 
 152 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 be widely separated from its neighbors and Southerners are a 
 sociable people so that grouping their residences around the 
 villages affords many advantages : it gives them more convenient 
 access to church, to the schools, the shops, the post-office, and 
 each other. 
 
 The family pay frequent visits to the plantation, however, 
 especially in summer, when the road is dry, hard, and smooth, 
 affording a delightful drive. 
 
 Nothing could be more tasteful and elegant than some of 
 these suburban villas. The aristocratic quarter is laid off into 
 squares, an acre, sometimes two or three, in extent, in the 
 middle of which the house is generally built. The gentry have 
 had the good taste to preserve the superb old forest trees to 
 ornament their grounds. 
 
 Here, for instance, you see a low-roofed, one-story cottage, 
 with wide halls and airy verandahs, extending over a quarter- 
 acre of ground, its facade gleaming white amid the jessamines 
 and jacksonias that embower the latticed front of the verandah. 
 
 A lofty long-leaf pine towers its majestic form and pictu 
 resque head above it ; the tree yucca, with its rugged stem and 
 tufted top of bayonet-shaped leaves, the broad-leaved magnolia, 
 the graceful China tree, the wild peach, and the pomegranate, 
 with its wealth of crimson flowers, give a tropical air to the 
 picture. 
 
 That is the residence of Mr. Barnaby Bagbale, whose cotton 
 estates yield him an income of a hundred thousand dollars per 
 annum. 
 
 Across the street, crowning a gentle lawn, which slopes gra 
 dually to the road, where you see that massive gateway, and
 
 BONNICOOSA. 153 
 
 porter's lodge in the cottage-orne style, and the dipartite gravelled 
 carriage-way, you discover a lofty mansion, with an imposing 
 portico, fluted columns, capped Corinthian, half revealed amongst 
 the intervening shrubbery. This princely establishment is the 
 residence of Dr. Joseph Tuggle, whose income is half a million. 
 
 It was not until after supper that I reached my point of 
 destination. I found the inn at Bonnicoosa a quiet, neat little 
 establishment, an inn that would do for Cockaigne. 
 
 I saw no vulgar rowdies lounging about. The landlord was 
 a dapper, rosy-nosed homo, who welcomed me after the old style, 
 with deference and decorum. 
 
 The dining-room was neat, tidy, and spacious. The walls 
 and ceiling were sea-green, with white mouldings and cornice, 
 which produced a tasteful effect ; and then the ceiling was lofty, 
 and the windows large and airy ; and there were handsome litho 
 graphs, by Julien and Lafosse, on the walls. The sketches, too, 
 were Southern in their character, and consequently impressive 
 and suggestive. While the neatly- dressed negro boy was gone 
 for my chop, I amused myself by looking at these prints. One 
 was a merry-faced mulatto-boy playing on the banjo ; another, 
 head of a white-bearded and patriarchal old African bridling a 
 mule ; a third, heads of a Southern maiden and a Choctaw 
 squaw basket-vender ; they were life-size, and well conceived. 
 
 After tea I retired to my room ; and, after my cogitation and 
 cigar, I donned a simple suit of unimpeachable black, and made 
 Fally find me the way to " Bonny Street," and the particular 
 locale of G-eneral St. Landry. It was such a beautiful moon 
 light night that I could not forego the pleasure of a call. 
 
 I could not have slept that night without seeing Aidyl. If
 
 154 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 I had sought my bed, I would have tossed and tumbled with 
 feverish dreams. 
 
 Bonny Street is a broad avenue, deeply shadowed by an unin 
 terrupted row of China trees on each side of it, perfectly straight 
 and level, and paved with pebbles. 
 
 Nothing could be more charming than this esplanade by 
 moonlight. 
 
 It was a lovely night. The silver moon cast the richest and 
 mellowest light down the long vista. Deep shadows of thick- 
 boughed China trees fell in checkered motley of light and shade 
 upon the sidewalk. 
 
 The sweet, clear tones of a cornet-a-piston from a neighboring 
 house drew me out upon my balcony. The moonlight was flood 
 ing the groups of trees and houses, and the broad, pebble-strown 
 streets. If there be such a thing as a romantic village I detest 
 villages and towns in this country Bonnicoosa certainly deserves 
 the name. 
 
 I got a distaste to villages in New England. Nothing dis 
 gusted me more than their model cottages : glaring white boxes, 
 with pea-green window-blinds, angular, prim, and precise to a 
 mathematical rule. Proportions not that of the artist but of 
 the mechanic ; and then every thing so painfully tidy and syste 
 matic. You feel uncomfortable in these white-washed and 
 speckless bandbox-houses. They partake of the cold, methodical 
 Puritanism of the people. 
 
 How different from the blended outlines, aesthetic tone, and 
 simple neatness of a Southern homestead. Instead of a row of 
 formal pots, with half-starved, shivering exotics, and border-box 
 pinched and pruned into the skimp pattern of puritanical for-
 
 BONNICOOSA. 155 
 
 mality, you have a wild luxuriance of vines and foliage, blended, 
 harmonious and beautiful ; a warmth, a richness, and abandon, 
 that makes our simplest cottages so genial and home-like. 
 
 Here, on " Bonny Street," the vine-embowered cottages, re 
 vealing broad gleams of moonlight, and deep shadows nestled in 
 a mass of foliage, presented every one a picture. 
 
 The air was still and balm, transfused with the thinnest, 
 pearliest haze. 
 
 Katydids were humming in every tone of distance. Near 
 me is one on a wide-limbed catalpa, chirping a mysterious 
 response to her mate's plaintive wooing from yonder fringe- 
 flowered crape-myrtle. 
 
 A low, soft murmur is the Katydid's note with a charm to 
 me from its association with the twilight hours of my boyhood 
 with Clotilde at Crowood. 
 
 And the Katydid only sings at the sweetest and most ro 
 mantic hour and season. It haunteth your garden and lawn in 
 the twilight, the moonlight, and starlight. It singeth when the 
 fragrance of the primrose and the jessamine perfumes the air, 
 when the dewdrops begem the flowers. 
 
 I strolled along the sidewalk of " Bonny Street," beneath the 
 China trees, in the blissfullest of reveries. The street was so 
 quiet almost deserted. Occasionally I would meet, perhaps, a 
 dusky Ethiopian bearing a burden, or a lithe mulatress, with white 
 turban and short frock, tripping lightly along, humming a negro 
 song. 
 
 Presently, as I approach a house, I hear the notes of a guitar 
 a voice a woman's sweet tones of melody blending with the 
 deep chords of the guitar, It is from a balcony that the music
 
 156 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 comes floating, clear, clear, wild and sweet, and I stop under a 
 China tree near-by to listen. 
 
 It was a simple little Southern song she was singing one of 
 those artless love-songs, full of heart-music, and a tinge of tender 
 melancholy, of which our people are so fond. 
 
 While standing here, a stout, red-faced gentleman, with a 
 tremendous shirt-frill, and a white waistcoat and gloves, and 
 hair redolent with cologne, made his appearance. A cigar was 
 in his lips, and a gold-headed cane tucked rakishly under his 
 arm. 
 
 He looked at me. I looked back at him, and he entered the 
 gate of the cottage-yard, whence came the music. At the click 
 of the gate-latch the music ceased, and I passed on. 
 
 At length I came to a little cottage more densely embowered, 
 more luxuriantly surrounded with foliage, more silent, more 
 dreamily picturesque than the others. 
 
 The verandah was latticed all around, and profusely covered 
 with vines, through which the moonlight flickered, casting a 
 tremulous arabesquerie of fantastic pattern upon the floor, on 
 which the spacious windows opened, and through the slats of 
 the closed jalousies gleamed a faint light from within. 
 
 It was here that Aidyl lived. I pull the door-bell ; a ban- 
 danna-turbaned negro receives my card, and says that Miss Aidyl 
 is at home, and ushers me into the parlor. 
 
 It was the most charming little room conceivable : more 
 of a boudoir than a parlor ; it would not hold more than a 
 dozen people ; the prettiest little snuggery for a tete-a-tete that 
 could be. 
 
 Mrs. Brown or Mrs; Smith, of Fifth Avenue, would have
 
 BONNICOOSA. 157 
 
 voted it " a horrid little thing, every thing so odd and plain, not 
 a piece of fashionable furniture in it. not even a piano." 
 
 But it was a little jewel a master-piece iti petto, according 
 to my fancy. 
 
 The fact that the furniture was not of the same pattern with 
 that of Mrs. Brown and Mrs. Smith, was an especial recommenda 
 tion to me. 
 
 I know that Aidyl was the author of it. It bore the imprint 
 of her taste. 
 
 There was a delicacy of taste a sort of genius and originali 
 ty about it, that pleased my fancy, and I scrutinized it minutely 
 while Miss Aidyl was making her toilette, or whatever it is that 
 detains a lady ten or fifteen minutes after you are announced : a 
 scrutiny I never trouble myself about in a parlor a la mode. 
 
 The prevailing colors were lilac and white. 
 
 The window-curtains were rich white lace, looped by brack 
 ets, representing the stem, leaf, and flower of a white lily. The 
 valance was lilacs and lilies on a sienna-colored ground ; the 
 cornice-wreath was of the same pattern. The French wall-pa 
 pering a very pale lilac, with an irregular netting of thread-like 
 white vines and tiny spray-flowerets ; a carpet of tan-colored 
 tapestry, with lotuses and lilies intertwined. 
 
 The mantel consisted of a very rich piece of translucent blu 
 ish-lilac porphyry. Instead of pillarets, there were caryatides of 
 white marble ; the slab not supported by them, but by a scroll 
 of flowers and a depending vine in alto-relievo, in which the fe 
 male figures had each an arm resting. 
 
 The furniture was of old, dark rosewood, rich, but simple ; 
 an effective contrast to the lilac and white. There was a large
 
 158 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 old-fashioned settle, lined with dark tan velvet; a pier- table and 
 centre-table, slabbed with white marble ; a small divan or two, 
 with heavily fringed and tasselled cushions ; and half a dozen 
 chairs of the pattern of the settle, an oval gueridon, a cheval- 
 glass, and I believe that is all. 
 
 The furniture, all of that rich old rosewood, was of the 
 purest, though, not of the most elaborate, renaissance style not 
 modern imitation, but the old original article, as General St. 
 Landry afterwards informed me, brought by his grandfather from 
 France. 
 
 There was an Italian painting on each, side of the room : one 
 representing a quiet, hazy, Italian landscape a ruined temple, a 
 piece of water, a glen, a few old trees a chateau on a hill in 
 the distance, and a glimmer of sunset, with flecks of clouding 
 over faint blue hills. 
 
 The other was a Rhine scene : peasants, in picturesque cos 
 tume, dancing on the green ; an old castle close in the fore 
 ground ; a high-born lady on a white Arabian ; and her mus 
 tachioed knight, with plumed cap and cross-hilted sword, on a 
 black charger, under a spreading oak, watching the rustic festi 
 val. In both pictures there was a far-away-fading perspective. 
 
 Pictures not very original in design perhaps the production 
 of some unfamed Tinto ; but they were suggestive, they were 
 associative pictures that you could dream over, some lonely, 
 listless afternoon, smoking your cigar after dinner in your arm 
 chair. 
 
 And, as a matter of course, over the mantel-piece there hung 
 a portrait of a middle-aged gentleman, with a very high fore 
 head and very red cheeks, in the old Continental dress bag-
 
 BONNICOOSA. 159 
 
 wig, steenkirk, ruffles, and pink satin waistcoat doubtless the 
 ancestor who brought the furniture from France. It bore a 
 slight resemblance to Aidyl, the first impression of which was 
 rather disagreeably amusing. 
 
 There were a few books and folios of engravings on the 
 centre-table, which was placed at the side of the room. 
 
 I must not omit to mention the flowers : two vases of white 
 roses, with jessamine and cedar, on the mantel, and a superb 
 bouquet, on the centre-table ; besides, a Chinese jar was filled. 
 
 Is it not a sweet little room ? 
 
 Here is where Miss Aidyl receives her beaux. This white 
 and lilac has a very coquettish allure, thought I, looking around 
 the room. There is no musical instrument, I observe ; for. as 
 Mr. Sheldon says, when Mr. Rosburn asked her to play at 
 Batoosaloa, Miss Aidyl plays on that most difficult instrument 
 the human heart. 
 
 Wonder if there is not a sinister design in all this recherche 
 entourage ? 
 
 "Will you walk into my parlor ? 
 
 Says the Spider to the Fly : 
 'Tis the prettiest little parlor 
 That ever you did spy." 
 
 Suppose, after all, that this bonny boudoir is only a fancy- 
 enticing man-trap ? 
 
 Such things are so common ! I've seen so much of this nice 
 bait displayed to tempt goldfish ! I've seen so many gossamer- 
 beglint spider-holes ; seen so much man-bait in the shape of 
 portfolios of drawings, morocco-bound poetry-books and other
 
 160 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 tinsel table-trinketry such a quantity of lace-nestled bosoms, 
 snowy arms and ruffles, pink ribbons and cheeks, pearly teeth 
 and pearly pendants ; such posturing and pianoing, such fly-hook 
 piety and blue-eyed sentiment that I have become a horrid 
 skeptic in these matters. 
 
 Shame on me ! This comes of worldly wisdom. If Jan 
 Jered should ever chance to travel as far as heaven in " that 
 bourne whence no traveller returns " he'd be suspecting the in 
 tegrity of the a'ngels. 
 
 It is treason, sheer treason, to allow that hideous old Harpy 
 to whisper such wickedness. 
 
 Whilst I was maundering on this wise, a side-door opens, and 
 in came Aidyl, unconscious of the uncomplimentary notions her 
 charming little reception.room had suggested in my blaze imagi 
 nation. 
 
 She was dressed in a simple dark robe of some sort of silk 
 stuff, cut, as I like women's dresses, close up around the throat, 
 with a little plain white collar around her neck, and no jewelry, 
 no ornaments, except a small lapis-lazuli cross, in lieu of a 
 brooch. 
 
 My conscience smote me, as I marked the chaste propriety 
 of her attire, the unostentatious elegance of her manners, and 
 the perfect simplicity with which she welcomed me, with a gra 
 cious smile and high-bred courtesy, to Bonnicoosa. 
 
 That I should have supposed for a moment that yon dandy, 
 little Rosburn, could comprehend such a being as Aidyl St. 
 Landry ! 
 
 Though I had met with Rosburn in New York, I had forgot 
 ten him an instance of unpardonable stupidity in me ; but when
 
 BONNICOOSA. 161 
 
 he recalled himself to my memory, the impression vividly repro 
 duced itself. 
 
 I think it was at the house of my friend Bob St. Priest, in 
 the sandstone quarries of Fifth Avenue, that I first exhumed 
 him ; for he belongs to a rare species, who do not bear wind and 
 sunshine well. Occasionally I had seen him, on a sunny after 
 noon, venture down Broadway as far as Waverley Place ; but 
 then he was in such a state of exhausted exclusiveness, that he 
 hung on behind his cigar with desperate nerve. 
 
 Mr. Rosburn belongs to a class of dandies peculiar to New 
 York society. They are generally distinguished by an air of 
 utter helplessness, and a clinging dependence for support to their 
 cigars, canes, or shirt-collars. They are the most afflicted mor 
 tals in the world, being subject to many dangerous diseases, 
 such as varioloid waistcoats, stub-toed boots, and elongated coat 
 skirts. 
 
 The first time I saw Helpless, as I called him then, he was 
 afflicted with a most alarming shirt frill, and mentally extin 
 guished by the magnitude of his collar. It was at the Metropoli 
 tan opera-house ; and, but that he clung with languid desperation 
 to his huge ivory opera-glass, and sustained his sinking spirits 
 by faintly adoring glimpses of the divine calves of the star of the 
 ballet, I fear he would have fainted from the pungent impression 
 of her pirouettes. 
 
 There was a soiree a danser at Bob St. Priest's, when I was 
 first presented to Mr. Cornelius Julius Rosburn. The young 
 Avenoodle was suffering from an attack of flirtation ; and bending 
 under a weight of aristocracy and mustaches, of refinement and
 
 162 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 sleeve buttons, he held on to the back of his chair in a state of 
 intense elegance and fashionable inanity. 
 
 Poor fellow ! how he ever survived his tour from New York 
 to Batoosaloa, I cannot conceive, though why he came, was to 
 recover in our genial clime from a serious case of tic-douloureux, 
 caught in the mephitic atmosphere of tailor shops.
 
 EEPEESENTATIVE MEN. 
 
 MY room at the inn had a balcony, overlooking a little garden 
 a garden of pomegranates and figs, of bignonias and cape-jessa 
 mines, magnolias, tamarisks, crape-myrtles, and sophoras, and 
 such tropic shrubbery, flourishing here with a luxuriance and 
 beauty that cannot be obtained in the conservatories of more 
 northern latitudes. 
 
 Mocking-birds filled the garden with their varied melody, 
 and the garrulous jays and paroquettes made a gaudy display. 
 
 I walked there before breakfast. The early morning sun 
 shone fresh and silvery, the air was cool and delicious. 
 
 I cannot describe the charm of that hour. At such a mo 
 ment I could forget that I am a friendless traveller, joy-bereft, 
 desolate, and alone in the world ; exiled by destiny from a quiet 
 and happy home, where friends were around me, where true and 
 tender hearts loved and cared for me ; wrecked and ruined in 
 the Eden of my innocence by some demon that sought the blast 
 ing of my life, because it was too happy at that moment. For- 
 jet it, did I say? No, I am thinking sadly on it now. 
 
 Here is a white jessamine : can I see its slender flowers, so
 
 164 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 delicately white and fragrant, without thinking of those on 
 Clotilde's bower at dear old Crowood ? 
 
 Can I see this border of verbenas, without the bonny bloom- 
 lets reminding me that they bloomed as deftly there ? Ah me ! 
 in the stir and bustle of the highway, the crowd and confusion 
 of the city, the parade and pageantry of the drawing room, in the 
 hilarious revelry of the convivial banquet, I can forget that I 
 ever had a home forget that I ever had a heart that I ever 
 was aught else than a stern-nerved, world-hardened wanderer, 
 with none to care where my weary way wended ; caring for no 
 one ; heeding little whether any human heart e'er felt for me an 
 impulse of sympathy or affection ; seeking to put out no tendrils 
 of attachment, but keeping aloof and alone. 
 
 But these little wayside home scenes gardens, children, 
 birds, and flowers I must shun them 3 or shed a tear, or sup 
 press a sigh. 
 
 Walking in this garden, sad, sweet memories of the past bloom 
 up amid the fissures of my blighted heart, like the flowers that 
 blossom . upon the lava-scorched verge of a smouldering volcano. 
 But, I'll in to breakfast. 
 
 Entering the public room, who should I encounter, to my 
 great astonishment, but my old friend Sherry Cocktail. 
 
 " Why, Sherry ! by all that's wonderful ! " 
 
 " Hello ! Jered, old boy is that you ? How in the world ? 
 gad, it's a miracle ! " 
 
 " And what wind blows you here ? " I asked, as Sherry was 
 shaking my hand with an obstreperous demonstration of his joy. 
 
 " Blamenation ! don't you know? " I live about eight miles 
 from Bonnicoosa. You've heard me talk of my plantation on the 
 Bessa Callo."
 
 KEPKESENTATIVB MEN. 165 
 
 " Why, yes but I had quite forgotten." 
 
 " Come, let's take a drink for old times' sake." 
 
 " Excuse me, old fellow. Don't you remember I never drink 
 before breakfast? After dinner, a horn with you, to the memory 
 of college days, with pleasure." 
 
 By-the-by, I had a very slight acquaintance with Sherry at 
 the university. But in after days, any one who has been a col 
 lege mate has a claim upon your regard. You are glad to see a 
 fellow you scarcely knew there by sight. You are good friends 
 at once especially if you are of the same "society." You 
 have a thousand reminiscences to talk about, and many a college 
 prank and spree to laugh over. 
 
 Sherry Cocktail informs me that his father and mother are 
 dead ; he has no brothers and sisters ; and is keeping bachelor's 
 hall on his plantation. 
 
 Sherry is wealthy a college-bred, Southern gentleman ; and 
 as per consequence, one of our aristocracy, I will take the liberty 
 of describing him, representing as he does a large, respectable, 
 and promising class of young men, on whom the future destinies 
 of our country so much depend. 
 
 Sherry must have been a man of great stamina, and one who 
 inspired the profoundest confidence in his assiduity, integrity, 
 and talent, must have had greatly the advantage over the most 
 of us at college in this respect. 
 
 The faculty had unlimited confidence in Sherry, and the most 
 exalted opinion of his scientific and literary attainments. For 
 instance, I have known Sherry when we were at college, before 
 we went to the university, to pass a whole session with but two 
 recitations in Greek, and they performed in his usual careless
 
 I 
 166 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 off-hand manner, and very nearly ditto in Latin, altogether ditto 
 in chemistry, and yet, such confidence in Sherry's honesty and 
 Sherry's scholarship had the faculty, that they did not hesitate 
 to make Sherry an A. B. 
 
 As for mathematics, Sherry talked a great deal at the black 
 board about sines and cosines, triangles, asymptotes, coordinates, 
 etc. But as I never knew any thing about mathematics myself, 
 I could only surmise that he was wonderfully wise in that science, 
 and should have remained under that impression as long as I 
 lived, had I not gone to him one day, thinking him the greatest 
 mathematician in the class, to untangle a very enigmatical some 
 thing with two nappes, over which I had been puzzling my brains 
 all the morning. 
 
 Sherry shook his head scratched it whistled, and lit a pipe. 
 " To tell you the truth, Jered, I know no more about analytical 
 geometry, than a duck does of music. 
 
 " If there is any letter in the alphabet that I heartily despise 
 it is x. That letter will be the death of me. Old Tangent is 
 perpetually saying, Let x represent your unknown quantity, 
 Mr. Cocktail. Find the value of x, Mr. Cocktail. Sine square, 
 plus y prime, minus a lot more of cubes, radicales, and sines, 
 will give you x. Blast the letter ! I never could get it. It 
 always did, and always will represent an unknown quantity to me. 
 Never in my life could I find the value of x, and I never expect 
 to." 
 
 Here was a wondrous revelation to me. Can it be that old 
 Tangent himself is a humbug, and talks through that tangled 
 maze of x-y-z's and their squares, radicals, and primes at random, 
 or is the science of mathematics itself all gammon ?
 
 EEPRESENTATIVE MEN. 167 
 
 Sherry was a <: fast man," always on a spree or a lark drunk 
 half his time -flat the other half; never at prayers or chapel 
 rarely at recitation ; the prince of good fellows, he treated every 
 body, drove a spanking span of dapple grays, flirted with the 
 belle of the village, knocked down the " snobs," cut a figure in 
 the police reports of the city of Philadelphia, and, if his literary 
 attainments were " on tic," he certainly was acquiring an accom 
 plished education in the sciences of fencing, fiddling, waltzing, 
 euchre, and pistol practice, not to mention such minor accom 
 plishments as beer-swilling, brandy-bibbing, boxing, boating, and 
 driving. 
 
 Mr. Cocktail was of altogether prepossessing appearance. 
 
 A round-shouldered, heavy built personage, with a florid com 
 plexion, chuffy cheeks, plump, rosy lips, sleepy blue eyes, thick, 
 curly brown hair, and a foxy tuft and mustache. 
 
 His voice and manner was characterized by that prompt and 
 emphatic expression which the French deniOninate aplomb. 
 
 He was nice in his dress, which was of a style that might be 
 designated as brilliant and effective, rather than elegant and 
 tasteful. 
 
 For example, this morning he wore a blue cutaway with brass 
 buttons, a violet velvet waistcoat with life-sized flowers on it ; 
 his cravat red and blue plaid silk ; sky blue kerseymere tights, 
 lacquered boots, and a white hat. Besides, he had a marvellous 
 shirt-frill, and an extra-magnificent jewelry establishment. 
 
 " By the way, Jered," said he, as we were chatting together 
 at breakfast : " Do you know there is a Kentucky acquaintance 
 of yours in Bonnicoosa ? " 
 
 "No! Who?"
 
 168 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 "Mrs. Brookwood." 
 
 " Mrs. Brookwood ! You are jesting ! " 
 
 " No. She is here on a visit to her sister, Mrs. Goldred. 
 They say she has caught a beau, too." 
 
 " Mrs. Brookwood ! Is it possible ? A marrying widow ! " 
 and I laughed at the idea. 
 
 " Oh yes this long time. But did you ever know a widow, 
 as long as there was a tooth in her head, who was not a marrying 
 widow?" 
 
 " Confounded be widows then. The Hindoo rite is the 
 purest and best, would it were introduced into this country ." 
 
 " Why bless your heart, lad, I am courting a nice young 
 widow myself worth a hundred and thirty thousand." 
 
 " And Mrs. Brookwood in Bonnicoosa ! Who is the beau 
 she has caught, pray ? " 
 
 " An old widower General St. Landry reputed to be 
 wealthy, but not so in reality, I think." 
 
 " General St. Landry ! " 
 
 " A great old aristocrat ; claims descent from the old French 
 nobility. He is not worth more than thirty thousand, in my 
 opinion. I know his sugar-plantation in Louisiana is an old 
 dilapidated concern, no mill on it, and overrun with coco grass ; 
 not worth a cent. By the way, have you met with his daughter, 
 Miss Aidyl St. Landry ? If you haven't I must take you around 
 
 to see her. She's the belle here Great woman, they say. 
 
 Don't know her much, myself. .... Too literary for me don't 
 suit my turn of mind. Gad, I believe she's read as many books 
 as our old professor at the university. She is mightily courted 
 though hereabouts. Fred. Vivian has been nearly crazy about
 
 REPEESENTATIVE MEN. 169 
 
 her, they say. She's a devilish coquette. Blamenation ! I don't 
 see why she didn't marry Fred. Wonder if she expects to 
 marry the President of the United States ? " 
 
 " And who is Fred. Vivian, pray ? " 
 
 " Why, don't you know Willifred Vivian? How long have 
 you be'en in Bonnicoosa? " 
 
 "Since last night." 
 
 " Where did you meet with Miss St. Landry, then ? " 
 
 " I did not say that I had ever met with her." 
 
 " I inferred it from the expression of your countenance when 
 I mentioned her name." 
 
 " I met with her once or twice at Batoosaloa." 
 
 " Yes, yes I remember now ; she has been spending a fort 
 night there with her friend Miss Prunella Poplin." 
 
 " But you have not told me about Mr. Vivian ? " 
 
 " Fred Vivian ! Why, he's just the cleverest fellow in the 
 whole country. Rich, handsome, talented, and twenty-eight. 
 Any woman in Bonnicoosa would give her ears for him except 
 Miss St. Landry." 
 
 "And would not she?" 
 
 " No. They were engaged (what's the matter ?) it is said ; 
 but something or other turned up to break it off some whim of 
 the young lady." 
 
 " What was it, do you know ? " 
 
 A gentleman who sat near us seeming to have become inter 
 ested in our conversation. Cocktail leaned over and whispered a 
 few words in my ear. 
 
 " I don't wonder that she discarded him then," said I drily. 
 
 " I do. It's all blamenation prudery and nonsense, in my
 
 170 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 opinion. That's what they say. I durstn't ask Fred anything 
 about it. He 'd as lief stuck his bowie into me as not, if I had. 
 Some say it was because he was dissipated. Well you know 
 that's nothing. I'm a little dissipated myself if taking a small 
 
 spree occasionally deserves so harsh a name, but what 
 
 woman would discard Sherry Cocktail on that account, I'd like 
 to know? 
 
 " Some say the affair was gotten up by General St. Landry, 
 who is Vivian's guardian ; that the engagement was a forced one, 
 and that Miss St. Landry finally prevailed on her father to allow 
 her to break it off, because she couldn't love the gentleman ! " 
 and Sherry made a grimace, as much as to say, did you ever 
 hear of anything so preposterous ? 
 
 I must acknowledge it did not seem altogether preposterous 
 to me I accepted this last " on-dit " as the most plausible and 
 probable, and I own I breathed much freer after hearing it. 
 
 Although, of course, i made no difference to me whether 
 Miss St. Landry had loved Mr. Vivian, or any body else she 
 chose. What did / care ? 
 
 " And now tell me who is that red-faced gentleman with the 
 impertinent eyes, who seemed so interested in our conversation 
 just now ? He has finished his breakfast and gone out." 
 
 " That is the Honorable Jeremy Ginswig our Representative 
 in Congress. 
 
 " In the first place, he is a gentleman, and a clever fellow ." 
 
 In the South the latter title designates a man who has a 
 chivalrous sense of honor, a generous, courageous temper, and a 
 good capacity for liquor. 
 
 " Colonel Grinswig," continued Cocktail, " is a great ladies
 
 EEPKESENTATIVE MEN. 171 
 
 man. Sotto voc, a great fortune-hunter. He has been travel 
 ling from New Orleans to the White Sulphur Springs, Harrods- 
 burg, Huntsville, Nashville, Natchez, Cooper's "Well, Bladen 
 all over the South, courting rich women. He has never been 
 successful heretofore because he had no recommendation but his 
 inordinate amount of ' brass.' By no means handsome, with but 
 moderate talent, especially of that sort that wins a woman 
 without fortune he has based his hopes of success upon his 
 knowledge of human nature, and his ineffable effrontery. 
 
 " Though a fortune-hunter, and in some sense an adventurer, 
 he is by no means a spendthrift ; on the contrary, I think he is 
 rather stingier than is compatible with the character of a Southern 
 gentleman. 
 
 " He is now about forty-eight ; and age, so far from diminish 
 ing the ardor of his pursuit after a rich wife, has rather increased 
 it. He has by dint of industry and economy accumulated some 
 ten or fifteen thousand, and that, with his being a Congressman, 
 he thinks sufficient inducement for any woman to marry him. 
 
 " By the way, he is a rival of my friend Vivian." 
 
 " Ah ! Miss St. Landry ? But she is not rich, you say ? " 
 
 " True ; and Colonel Ginswig knows it. But repeated dis 
 appointments have somewhat modified his notions ; Miss St. 
 Landry is a very distinguisfted woman, and he thinks that equal 
 to money." 
 
 As we were smoking our cigars on the piazza after breakfast, 
 we found him out there, pacing to and fro. He came up, and 
 accosted Cocktail in a familiar way, and was by him introduced 
 to me. 
 
 He was a pursy, red-faced gentleman, with heavy, voluptuous
 
 172 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 features, and a tremendous frown ; his under lip had acquired a 
 prominence from its constant protrusion in the assertion, by the 
 compression of his mandibles, of his immense individuality and 
 firmness of character, that gave the Honorable a very " Who-the- 
 d 1-are-you ? " sort of look. 
 
 By the magnitude of his shirt-frill, and an intolerable odor 
 of cologne, I thought I recognized him as the individual I had 
 encountered on Bonny Street last night. 
 
 " You are from Batoosaloa, Mr. Jered, are you not ? " in 
 quired the Honorable, lighting his cigar by mine. I suppose he 
 had seen my name on the register. 
 
 I had been spending a fortnight, or such a matter there, I 
 informed him. 
 
 " Pleasant place, Batoosaloa ! " 
 
 " Very." 
 
 " Blamenation fast place ! " was Sherry's opinion. 
 
 " Great women at Batoosaloa," asserted Col. Ginswig. 
 
 " Very," I assented. 
 
 " Blamenation fast women ! " Sherry emphatically declared. 
 
 " You met with one of our Bonnicoosa women there ? " quoth 
 the Honorable, with a frown. 
 
 " Miss St. Landry ? " 
 
 " Yes. I've heard her speak of you since she returned. 
 She seems to have formed a very high opinion of Mr. Jered," 
 continued the colonel, frowning enormously, though speaking in 
 the most affable tone. 
 
 " Very much gratified to learn the same," responded I, fond 
 ling my mustache. 
 
 l( Jan is an old college-mate of mine, Ginswig," put in Sherry.
 
 REPRESENTATIVE MEN. 173 
 
 " You must know him. He is a bang-up boy one of the right 
 sort. Jan, you'll like Ginswig when you get acquainted." 
 
 Ensuant upon this mutual recommendation. Col. Ginswig's 
 frown became much more benignant, and he very courteously 
 intimated to me that I must become acquainted with the ladies 
 of Bonnicoosa, whom I would find " the most charming in the 
 world." He would be happy to introduce me. He had been last 
 night to see a splendid girl (the young lady I had heard sing 
 ing, I suppose) Miss Calla Blackfield ; one of the greatest fam 
 ilies in the South the Blackfields. Miss Calla was prospective 
 heiress to seventy-five thousand. 
 
 Though there was no woman in Bonnicoosa that could com 
 pete with Miss Aidyl St. Landry, he informed me. He indorsed 
 the opinion of Messrs. Rosburn and Cocktail, that, though so in 
 tellectual, so gifted, such a great belle, and all that, she was no 
 more than a heartless coquette, and he would bid me beware of 
 her ; and Sherry joined in this advice. 
 
 I called that forenoon at Mr. Goldred's, and found Mrs. 
 Brookwood there, sure enough. 
 
 
 We had much chat about Crowood ; and she told me of all 
 
 the marriages and deaths in Tussaleega since I had left. 
 
 I found Mrs. Brookwood quite a spruce widow ; and it 
 seemed so funny to me to see her in such a character, that I 
 could not keep from laughing in my sleeve. She had taken off 
 all her weeds, and was in full bloom a ' last-rose of-summer ' 
 sort of blooming; though she looked ten years younger than 
 when I last saw her. 
 
 Clotilde, so she told me, was living now at Puckshenubbie
 
 174 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 which belonged to her, as the next of kin to my stepmother, 
 Madame Leonore. She had an old Englishwoman as com 
 panion, but spent her winters with her aunt, Madame Bonavoine, 
 in New Orleans. 
 
 Clotilde is going to be immensely wealthy when she adds the 
 Bonavoine property to Puckshenubbie. I suppose she will be a 
 great belle this winter in New Orleans. 
 
 Mrs. Brookwood thought so too. 
 
 Do you think Sarah Brookwood is dead ! and Mrs. Brook- 
 wood was telling me about it as unconcernedly as though it was 
 the death of the Cham of Tartary. Her elegiac discourse was 
 cut short by the announcement of a visitor General St. Landry ! 
 
 I saw from a little flush and flurry manifested by the widow 
 that there might be some truth in the piece of gossip furnished 
 me by Cocktail. 
 
 Mrs. Brookwood was one of those plump, bouncing ladies, 
 who look so matronly as wives, and can rejuvenate with so much 
 facility as widows. She had been quite a handsome girl, doubt 
 less, in her young days. 
 
 Poor Brookwood ! he idolized that cosy, rosy-faced, fat wife 
 of his. She had been the beau-ideal of his boy-love. Of more 
 ardor of affection than delicacy of imagination, he had remained 
 his life-long under the illusion that she was perfection, and that 
 she loved him according to his notion of what loving was. 
 
 Contrary to every thing I had expected, Gen. St. Landry 
 was a thin, dark-visaged man, with keen garnet-colored eyes ; 
 and a hard, cold, selfish expression. Notwithstanding I saw him 
 under the most favorable circumstances, all smiles and affability 
 for the rich, plump widow ; notwithstanding there was some-
 
 REPBESENTATIVE MEN. 175 
 
 thing commanding, high-bred, and aristocratic in his appear 
 ance, I formed an instantaneous and invincible repugnance for 
 him. 
 
 Supposing I should have sought the hand of his daughter, he 
 never would consent in the world when he learned I had only a 
 slender competence ; that the bulk of my father's estate had 
 gone to my stepmother and her heirs since my father's being 
 prevented, by the suddenness of his death, from renewing his 
 will. 
 
 Ah ! that Lestocq ! there was a heavy score between him 
 and me. 
 
 The general exchanged a few words of courtesy with me, and 
 I made my bow, leaving him to court his widow, while I wan 
 dered down the vine-curtained margin of the Bessa Callo, to 
 dream of Crowood of Clotilde of Aidyl, of .
 
 THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT. 
 
 CLOTILDE DUVALOIR had the highest sense of material beauty. 
 Nor was she devoid of a true appreciation of the Ideal. But 
 that Ideal must be no more than an apotheosis of sensual ele 
 ments. She could dream, but her dreams were only etherealized 
 reproductions of material beauty just as the ancient Hebrews 
 imagined the immortal soul an etherealized reproduction of the 
 physical image of man. 
 
 There is a side of our inner life, and a very holy one, which 
 was never revealed to Clotilde ; she seemed to me wholly uncon 
 scious of its existence ; and when I spoke to her of it, she could 
 not comprehend me. It was the side of the sacred affections. 
 I Clotilde's affections, though very beautiful, and exceedingly re- 
 | fined, were mere animal instincts. 
 
 And that is why I never loved her. 
 
 Aidyl St. Landry was not an accomplished woman, in the 
 common acceptation. She understood and felt the beauty of Art 
 perhaps in a higher sense than Clotilde, yet she was not an 
 artist like Clotilde. But the divine side of nature and of life 
 was not only revealed to her, and in her, it was a part of her ;
 
 THE KINGDOM Ol? LIGHT. 177 
 
 in it she lived and moved, and had her being. Clotilde was the 
 highest and purest of earth, but Aidyl's was a spirit from on 
 high. 
 
 In the world she passed for an accomplished and elegant 
 woman ; that was the title by which Major Sheldon designated 
 her. By it they meant that her genius, her reading, and her 
 conversational powers had won for her a commanding position 
 and reputation in society. 
 
 With me, at least, Aidyl never talked for effect. 
 
 She was animated, because she was earnest ; she was enthu 
 siastic, because she was a Southerner ; and, although she per 
 fectly understood the nil admirari, which I had seen her mani 
 fest to admiration among the Bagbales, Poplins, and Tuggleses 
 of Bonnicoosa and Batoosaloa, yet to me she made no conceal 
 ment of her enthusiasm. 
 
 Throwing aside the mask of conventionality, she showed that 
 her heart glowed with a love of the beautiful in nature, in art, 
 and in morals, as genuine as it was pure. By the tone and 
 tenor of her talk, she paid me the compliment of considering 
 that a frank expression of true feeling would be understood and 
 appreciated. 
 
 In the world I had professed the doctrine of worldliness. I 
 now came out of my old sneering skepticism ; I laid aside the 
 actor-mask, behind which I had played on the stage of society a 
 part that was not my own ; I threw off the feigned indifference 
 which had concealed the true impulses of my nature. 
 
 At Batoosaloa I had seen that Miss St. Landry suspected 
 my assumed character to be a disguise ; that my " stoic eye and 
 
 8*
 
 178 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 aspect stern" was to conceal weaknesses from the world's scru 
 tiny ; that my cynicism was a mockery. 
 
 She more than once attempted to surprise me into a betrayal 
 of my true faith. 
 
 With a woman's tact she would tacitly assume that I pos 
 sessed the character she wished me to disclose, and touch some 
 chord that would thrill my heart's tenderest tones to the deep 
 est ; would utter sentiments so genuine, so generous and 
 pure, with an eloquence of eye and accent sentiments that I 
 cherished, feelings that were dearest, darling dreams of mine 
 she would conjure up so winningly to allure me from my 
 stubborn redoubt, that I could scarce restrain my emotion. 
 How could I subdue the kindling of my eye when her words 
 were a-glow with poetic fire ? How could I sneer away 
 the glorious religion of her genius-heart with the cold and 
 selfish aphorisms of worldliness aphorisms as false as they were 
 mean. 
 
 And when I pooh-poohed such words as poetry romance 
 nature it gave my heart a pang to mark the expression of sor 
 row half-veiled beneath some brilliant repartee, or a slight lip- 
 quiver of disappointment, as she deprecated with playful irony 
 my relentless refusal to reflect a single ray of the Kingdom of 
 Light from my world-darkened intellect. 
 
 When she sometimes pushed me to the verge of despair, I 
 would make a feigned capitulation, and, for a moment, falling 
 into the current of her fancy's wild flow, would suffer myself, 
 when the mesmeric influence of her soul upon mine would be 
 too great for me to resist, to be carried away by the inspirations 
 of her genius.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT. 179 
 
 But when, as some radiant srnile of happiness would beam 
 upon her brow, she would exclaim 
 
 v. " There is a romance in all our souls. This life is poetry : 
 God is the poet, who sings some idyl or epic of his goodness his 
 grace his power, in every heart ! " 
 
 I would reply, 
 
 " Life is the saddest prose ; and God is the master, who 
 says : ' Earn by the sweat of thy brow. Behold, thine Eden is 
 no more ! Thou art in the stubborn, sterile fields ; thou shouldst 
 be holding the ploughshare, not culling flowers, idler.' " And so 
 I would fall back upon the degrading doctrine of dollars and 
 cents upon the avaricious philosophy of Mammon. 
 
 I now avowed a truer and healthier faith. I now had satis- 
 lied myself that longer to consider Aidyl St. Landry one of those 
 strong, bad spirits, whose power was a siren's, to wile the inno 
 cent and unwary to their destruction, was sinning against my 
 own instincts, not only, but against my understanding and judg 
 ment. 
 
 From the first, Aidyl had shown herself nobler and greater 
 than I ; more generous than I. She had never doubted me, 
 suspicious as I made myself. Her keener and truer instincts 
 had revealed her my real character at once. She had penetrated 
 my disguise immediately. 
 
 Whilst I had, as I thought, with consummate skill imposed 
 myself upon her as a practical and accomplished man-of-the- 
 world, above the weakness of feeling, she denounced me as an 
 apostate from the true faith. 
 
 " My heart is a Sahara," said I ; " and the simooms of sin 
 and sorrow have blown over it so long that every flower of inno-
 
 180 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 cence and beauty has been scorched and blighted, and there 
 remains nothing now but the bleak and barren sands. 11 
 
 / " Far in the desert there may be an oasis, where are yet 
 flowers and a fountain to be found,y-rejoined she. 
 
 But my will was strong enough to cope at odds with the 
 adversary ; my iron armor of indifference would ward the rudest 
 shafts that fate could wing. "What had such as that to do with 
 flowers and romance ? 
 
 She said : " The sternest Knights of Chivalry wore the love- 
 knot of their mistress on their lance ; and swam, sometimes 
 armor-clad, to lay a forget-me-not at her feet." 
 
 I laughed. 
 
 Poor me ! My pride and sensitiveness was as threadbare as 
 the black coat of a decayed gentleman. 
 
 Aidyl knew that my heart had bled ; she knew not what had 
 caused the bitter pang that rankled there ; but she knew that 
 I had suffered. 
 
 She saw, at Bonnicoosa, that I was, as it were, a prisoner 
 upon parole. That, instead of a proof-mailed combatant in the 
 battle of life, I was but a poor, siege- worn soldier. 
 
 I now acknowledged frankly that I had been fighting under 
 false colors. A treacherous Christian, when taken by the Al- 
 gerines, I had kissed the Koran, to mitigate the horrors of my 
 slavery. 
 
 Philosopher ! That / should prate of philosophy, who had 
 sold myself to a lie, to avoid the penalty of the world's jy;vz- 
 munire. 
 
 Yes ; Aidyl was nobler and braver than I, wiser far than I. 
 For, whilst I, afraid of the scoff of the worldling, the jeer of the
 
 THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT. 181 
 
 Mammonite, had belied the religion of my heart, had bowed the 
 knee to Baal, had put on the livery of the Prince of the Power 
 of Darkness, she had defended the faith in other and better 
 armor than the chafing gyves of cynicism and the vulnerable 
 vestments of indifference. 
 
 " She had moved in the world, " among them but not of them ; " 
 there was a halo of purity, a sublime radiance surrounding her, 
 that kept the imps of darkness, the harpies, the jeering mummers 
 in Life's Vanity Fair, in awe and subjugation. ) 
 
 I've seen her quell the flouting farrago of the Honorable 
 Jeremy Ginswig with a look. I've seen his impudent, bullying 
 swagger quail and falter at a word from her. I've seen his 
 bloated, brandy-blooming face pale and fear-struck at a glance 
 of her gentle eyes. 
 
 Sherry Cocktail had but two tastes in the world lust and 
 liquor. Lust of the eye and appetite. Sherry's idea of glory 
 was a brawling " bender ; " his conception of style, to trot his 
 "two-forty" in a tearing " tarantula ;" his ambition, to demon 
 strate that his stupid noddle could bear a quart of bad brandy, 
 with no worse effect than showing him tenfold the ass he was 
 when sober. 
 
 Sherry's notion of elegance was wearing tights of a steeple 
 chase pattern, a " brass-barrelled " cutaway, a rowdy waistcoat, 
 miraculous neckcloth, and " wide-awake " hat. 
 
 I've seen Sherry at an evening party at Bonnicoosa, with his 
 stubby, plebeian paws stuck into white kid gloves, with his rum- 
 rouged phiz looming above an oleander-tinted tie, attempting tc 
 play the agreeable to Miss St. Landry! Not that he enjoyed 
 himself in her company ; not that he could appreciate the deli-
 
 182 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 cacy of her wit, the elegance of her satire, the play of her bril 
 liant imagination ; she was to him a sealed book, though it is 
 possible he may have comprehended her so far as sometimes to 
 have a confused notion of how very stupid he must seem. I say 
 possible, for Sherry had such a high opinion, not of his talent 
 but of his personal merit, and the overwhelming prestige of his 
 wealth, that it is improbable that he could have been entirely 
 sensible of the magnitude of his deficit in the article of brains. 
 
 But Sherry understood that Miss St. Landry was the most 
 gifted and charming woman in the South ; that she was the 
 friend and protegee of the distinguished Mrs. Markham of Mo 
 bile ; that she was the feted guest of the celebrated millionnaire 
 Mr. Becasse, of New Orleans, at his princely palace of Jessa 
 mine Hall, on the " Coast ; " where she had been invited to meet 
 Lord Shatterdown, when his lordship condescended to visit the 
 Southern plantations ; that said Shatterdown had said, in the 
 drawing-room of the St. Charles, that she was the best bred 
 woman in America; that Mr. Becasse had said Miss St. Landry 
 was superb : Mr. Becasse, whose sugar and cotton estates yielded 
 him three hundred thousand a-year ; Mr. Becasse, whose slaves 
 were counted almost by thousands ; whose horses were the 
 winners at the Metairie ; whose equipage was incredibly 
 splendid. 
 
 This was more than sufficient to have rendered Miss 
 St. Landry a paragon in the eyes of Mr. Cocktail. 
 
 Still he could not understand it. She was not rich every 
 body knew that ; " and, as for beauty," he would say, " she 
 can't hold a candle to Miss Cottonella Tuggle, Miss Manilla 
 Bagbale, or Miss Calla Blackfield. They say she's intellectual.
 
 THE KINGDOM OF LIGHT. 183 
 
 Blamenation !\ What business has a woman to be intellectual ? 
 no sense in it ; only makes a man uncomfortable in their society.; 
 Hers is an intellectual style of beauty, too. I suppose, a pale, 
 frail thing, and dresses as plain as a Yankee governess ; with red 
 hair, and eyes the color of half-ripe blackberries." And, having 
 delivered himself of this soliloquy, off he'd go to flirt with Miss 
 Manilla Bagbale. The richest idea. ! I wish the reader could 
 only have seen them flirting. 
 
 But Sherry felt that Miss St. Landry was somehow " the 
 go.' 1 That it was the thing to admire her, and be in love with 
 her. So he would pay his devoirs. It was the funniest thing 
 in the world to see him pretending to be in love with her. I've 
 seen him leaning over her chair, trying to coax something like 
 sentiment out of his Boeotian brains. I've seen him essaying to 
 discuss " Shakespeare, and Byron, and them sort of fellows," 
 and simulating to be passionately fond of " poetry, and novels, 
 and all that ; " and simpering and trying to look wise and inter 
 esting the great clumsy booby ; and Miss St. Landry, whilst 
 laughing good-humoredly at his presumption in imagining that 
 his cotton-bags entitled him to bore her with his vapid nonsense, 
 would simplify the tenor of her talk to the trite capacity of his 
 dull comprehension, and suffer herself to be martyrized out of 
 sheer good nature ; because, libertine and idiot as he was, he 
 felt, to the extent that he was capable, the influence of her magic 
 power, and labored to seem in her presence as much like a gen 
 tleman as he could.
 
 AN EVENING PAKTY AT DE. TOGGLE'S. 
 
 IT was at an evening party at Dr. Joseph Tuggle's that I first 
 met with Willifred Vivian. 
 
 As my eye ran around the room, shortly after entering the 
 parlor, I saw a gentleman, elegantly but very simply dressed, 
 standing near the abutment of the wide-arched folding-door be 
 tween the parlors. 
 
 There was a set of brilliant ladies dancing : a pageantry of 
 tulle and white satin, tiny slippers, and white kid gloves, adorn 
 ing naked-armed, bare-shouldered, glorious-haired women, whose 
 camellias, and smiles, and eaux de millefleurs, and bright eyes, 
 and twinkling feet, fascinated their whiskered, white-waistcoated, 
 dress-coated partners, and all presenting a very gayly brilliant 
 picture to a looker-on. 
 
 The gentleman near the folding-door had a superb bouquet 
 in his hand, which he handled as indifferently as though it were 
 a riding-switch. 
 
 He seemed utterly unconscious of himself so much so, that 
 if any one could have suddenly brought his image in yonder 
 huge cheval-glass before him, standing there with folded arms,
 
 AN EVENING PARTY AT DE. TUGGLE'S. 185 
 
 compressed lips, and earnest eyes, gazing on one of the dancers, 
 it would have startled him. 
 
 He was a dark-hued man, of lofty stature, muscular develop 
 ment, and princely bearing. His hair was jetty black, which he 
 wore in long, thick curls, after the Southern fashion ; the cast of 
 his features accentuated, yet handsome, an aquiline nose, and a 
 jetty mustache of unusual size. 
 
 A man of powerful passions, strong will, capacious intellect. 
 There was a peculiar light in his eye. He seemed not to feel 
 the presence of the company, not to be aware of his connection 
 with the scene ; his whole thoughts were wrapped up in a lady 
 in the quadrille before him. 
 
 It was Aidyl Aidyl in white, dancing with the Honorable 
 Jeremy Grinswig, who stepped about a-tip-toe through the figures, 
 bowing, and looking grand and consequential, and frowning and 
 pouting in a highly entertaining manner. If you could imagine, 
 a turkey-cock strutting about before a nymph ! 
 
 Aidyl was all elegance and grace. 
 
 She moved through the quadrille with a queenly and riant 
 air, reminding one of some high-born court damsel in the Queen 
 Anne times. 
 
 She saw me when I entered. I observed her eyes upon me 
 for a moment, and imagined there was an expression of tri 
 umph, as of one who condescended to triumph, pour passer le 
 temps. I turned my glance quickly from her, determined that 
 no manifestation of being her captive should be exhibited by me, 
 at least. 
 
 Sherry Cocktail, whose spirituous barometer was already 
 rising, came joyously up to me as soon as the music-master rap-
 
 186 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 ped his violin for the set to end, and, seizing me by the hands, 
 wanted to escort me across the room to bespeak the next set 
 with Miss St. Landry. 
 
 I declined his offer, and engaged Miss Cottonella Tuggle in 
 a different set. Before we stood up to dance, Sherry said 
 to me, 
 
 . " Here is Fred. Vivian just behind you ; he is to be your 
 vis-d-vis, and I am going to introduce him to you. " 
 
 " By all means," said I, rejoiced at the opportunity ; and he 
 did so. 
 
 " Mr. Jan Jered ! " exclaimed Vivian, with a glow of pleas 
 urable surprise in his dark eyes, " I hope we may consider our 
 selves acquaintances at once. Your old college chum, Bob St. 
 Priest, now of New York, was my chum in the university be 
 fore you. He has often mentioned your name in his letters 
 to me." 
 
 Whereupon, delighted at the advantage that this circum 
 stance unexpectedly afforded me, I commenced a familiar chat 
 with Vivian, and suggested some old college reminiscences that 
 set us both a-laughing. 
 
 Aidyl noticed this, and surprise at seeing the haughty and 
 dignified Mr. Vivian and the quiet and seclusive Mr. Jered 
 laughing together like boon companions, immediately ensuant 
 upon our introduction, too, changed her air of mocking triumph 
 to one of uneasy surprise. This was what I wished. 
 
 After dancing this set, I chanced to see Aidyl standing near 
 the place where I had first seen Vivian. The angle of the pro 
 jecting doorway formed a cosy corner for a tete-a-tete, which was 
 vacant. Again I caught her eye upon me, and fancied there was
 
 AN EVENING PARTY AT DR. TUGGLE'S. 187 
 
 | 
 
 something in her expression that indicated an invitation to me to 
 occupy it. 
 
 I advanced in that direction, and she changed her position to 
 make room for me. But Miss Calla Blackfield was nearer to me 
 than she, standing by a large vase of flowers on a centre-table. 
 She held out a flower to me as I approached. I bowed over it ; 
 she smiled, gave utterance to some gay bagatelle, to which I re 
 plied in the same strain, and we commenced an animated ex 
 change of small-talk, such as people generally entertain them 
 selves with at evening parties. 
 
 I saw a slight look of pique and disappointment for a mo 
 ment on Aidyl's face, as she observed this manoeuvre, and she bit 
 her lip behind her fan but I saw it. 
 
 Mr. Vivian approached her with his bouquet. Now she will 
 revenge herself, thought I, by carrying on a flirtation with Mr. 
 Vivian, to make me jealous. And it would, too such things 
 men have no sense about, and experience does them no good. 
 But, to my surprise, she did not avail herself of the opportu 
 nity thus offered. Either she had too much regard for Vivian, 
 or she did not think it necessary, or she did not care. 
 
 She was rather disposed to snub Mr. Vivian ; she ridiculed 
 his bouquet, and wondered that so practical a character as Mr. 
 Vivian would condescend to such a sentimental triviality as a 
 bouquet, or something to that effect, and more of the same sort. 
 Nobody could banter like Aidyl. There was a certain inimita 
 ble gentillesse that neutralized the pungency of her satire. So 
 she teased poor Vivian, and laughed at him, and yet he could 
 not get the vantage, nor get angry, nor feel hurt, nor yet 
 retreat.
 
 188 SCENES' IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 
 
 After a while I came to his rescue. Not that I was any 
 better able to cope with our charming adversary than he ; but 
 Vivian labored under this disadvantage his love for Aidyl had 
 been avowed. That he loved her, it was easy for me to see ; 
 Vivian's feelings had the mastery of him. I was uncommitted ; 
 mine had not. My indifference was a proof-armor ; and after a 
 short skirm.ish, I was able to bring Vivian off with flying colors, 
 and leave Aidyl worsted. 
 
 At this juncture, Colonel Ginswig came up. The Colonel is 
 a sort of conversational blunderbuss, making a tremendous noise, 
 and throwing his shot in every direction. My organization is too 
 nervous to endure such great guns ; so I was upon the point of 
 beating a hasty retreat, when Miss Calla Blackfield came to my 
 rescue, by attacking the honorable broadside : she fired a destruc 
 tive bouquet upon him, accompanied by a round of small com 
 pliments, and drew his fire. At the same time, Sherry Cocktail 
 charged Vivian in the rear, supported by Miss Manilla Bagbale 
 on his right wing. And then the music struck up for action. 
 Mr. Vivian dashed across the room upon Miss Cottonella Tug- 
 gle, whom he had engaged for this set ; Colonel Ginswig de 
 ployed with Miss Blackfield to the left ; Sherry and his fair ally 
 had already taken up their position ; leaving myself, with Miss 
 St. Landry, nearly in position for the fourth in-set. 
 
 I had no other alternative (and she saw it was so) than 
 to say, 
 
 " May I have the pleasure " 
 
 When, 
 
 " Forward four ! " cried the band-leader, and we danced up 
 to Vivian and lady, and off we go, to the tune of an aria in La 
 Dame Blanche.
 
 VIVIAN. 
 
 IT was a sombre, sunless morning. The sky was overcast with 
 a field of gray, misty clouds. 
 
 It was not depressing weather such as makes one gloomy 
 and weary of all things ; there was no indication of rain ; the 
 clouds were high, and the. air cool and bracing ; yet there was 
 a degree of moisture in the atmosphere, for my hair curled closer, 
 and felt soft and silky. 
 
 Vivian called by for me to accompany him, in his buggy, on 
 a visit which we had promised to the plantation of our friend, 
 Sherry Cocktail, Esq. 
 
 " It is rather a gloomy day for a visit," he said, as we 
 started ; " but I do not think it will rain." 
 
 " I do not find it gloomy," said I. " Autumn is coming on. 
 I like this dim, misty weather. Such a day as this is a page out 
 of Ossian." 
 
 Vivian looked at me. He took his cigar out of his mouth to 
 do it. " Do you like Ossian? " 
 
 " Not much. It is vague, moonshiny sort of stun ." 
 
 Vivian replaced his cigar. 
 
 " I thought you had too much sense to like such crazy trash.
 
 190 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Do you remember, in Laniartine's ' Confidences,' that maudlin, 
 moon-struck ode to ' Lucy,' after Ossian?" 
 
 " What a lucky escape," I thought. 
 
 That was characteristic of the man. 
 
 Vivian had conceived quite a liking to me. Strange enough, 
 it was, as he said, because our natures were congenial ; because 
 I had strong, common-sense notions about things ; that I was 
 untainted with this namby-pamby sentimentality and romantic 
 nonsense that he despised so cordially. Vivian was right, and 
 yet he was wrong ; had he known what my notions really were, 
 he would have placed the brand of nonsense upon them false 
 as it would have been. 
 
 It was about six miles to the plantation, and our route lay 
 through the forest and prairie. Vivian made himself very agree 
 able. I found him a man of thought and of feeling. He had 
 seen much of the world ; had travelled on both continents. We 
 compared notes of our journeying ; but I left him to give the 
 direction and tone of our conversation. He had been an obser 
 vant traveller : had studied the institutions and people of the 
 old country, and manifested much sagacity and penetration in 
 his analyses of men and things. His views of our own country, 
 especially the South and its peculiarities, were thorough and 
 sound. Though his is a character of mind very common in 
 America, didactic, dogmatic, and utilitarian, yet there was not 
 the extent of self-opinionated intolerance usually belonging to such. 
 
 He possessed a lively, indeed a brilliant fancy ; but there was 
 little imagination in him. He studied men, and abstractions, 
 motives, actions, and issues. The heroism of a daring and gen 
 erous mind called forth his warmest enthusiasm. His own was a
 
 VIVIAN. 191 
 
 * 
 
 bold and generous nature after the order of our ideal type of 
 an Indian hero. 
 
 The eloquence of his language was the brilliant artificial 
 simile, rhetorical but cold ; never the genial, burning inspirations 
 of a soul that is in love with nature. 
 
 He especially appreciated intellectual force, moral grandeur, 
 physical heroism. He admired great statesmen, great orators, 
 warriors, preachers, and political reformers ; the great names in 
 science and philosophy he esteemed to a degree ; but the masters 
 in art, in poetry, and literature he cared little for, and seemed 
 to have cultivated but slight acquaintance with them. Though 
 he styled so flippantly as " crazy trash " the sublime poetry of 
 Ossian, he confessed he had never read a dozen lines of it. 
 
 He admired Shakespeare, not for the genius with which he 
 mirrored nature in his grand scene-painting, but for his profound 
 knowledge of human nature, and his skill in delineating character. 
 
 Nature was a sealed book to him. In speaking of a statue, 
 he would not find his admiration in its life-impersonification, but 
 in the skill and ingenuity it displayed in the sculptor. 
 
 As illustrative of the man, I recollect his criticism on Cole's 
 paintings. He preferred the " Progress of Empire " to the 
 " Voyage of Life ; " and passed severe strictures on his " Archi 
 tect's Dream." 
 
 Vivian found delight in a great deed ; none in a simple 
 daisy. He saw grandeur in a dying gladiator ; none in a dying 
 sunset. He was moved by the eloquence of a great speech, but 
 none by the wind, when that 
 
 " grand old Harper smote 
 
 His thvmder harp of pines."
 
 192 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 He would have drawn me out, with the courteous intent of turn 
 ing the conversation in such channels as might interest me most. 
 Although I refused to reveal the proclivities of my own imagina 
 tion, I soon found that I must credit him with more liberality 
 than I had at first supposed. He did not ignore idealisms and 
 deride daisies and day-dreams. " There might be an inner 
 sense, that gave its own peculiar hue of poetry and romance to 
 life, but it was his lot to be denied that sense, and so he could 
 not comprehend the word aesthetics."
 
 EUCHRE PAETY AT MB. SHERRY COCKTAIL'S. 
 
 MR. COCKTAIL'S plantation-house was a low-roofed, one story i 
 dwelling, with the usual verandah around it. It was plain, 
 weather-beaten, and unadorned. The verandah was vineless, 
 and glaring. 
 
 There were a few noble forest trees in the yard, that strove 
 in shame, but in vain, to shroud the neglect and nakedness of 
 the place. 
 
 Such a garden ! 
 
 The bleakest, baldest patch of weeds, cabbage, and holly 
 hocks, surrounded by a paintless, dilapidated railing. 
 
 Had Sherry more brains in his skull, there would have been 
 more beauty in his garden. 
 
 The place possessed all the capabilities of being rendered a 
 lovely one ; and I was vexed to see such material for a charming 
 home just idly thrown away. 
 
 There was a ragged skirt of forest adjacent, overrun with 
 
 weeds, and trodden down by pigs, that might be moulded into a 
 
 lovely lawn. A creek, with deep banks of white chalk, bronzed 
 
 in places by moss, and fringed with a mantle of glorious vines, 
 
 9
 
 194 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 ran through magnificent cedars, vine-clad bays, and other shrub 
 bery, along the margin : whilst tall cypresses towered above, 
 their feathery foliage tinted with richest russet, their boughs 
 bannered with the long gray moss, and crowned with mystic 
 mistletoe. 
 
 The beauty of that brook, spanned by a rustic bridge, no 
 neglect could mar. But how much its charms might have been 
 heightened by the magic touch of a landscape- artist. But of 
 landscape-gardening, or sketching in nature, as I may term it, 
 for want of a better name, Sherry had no conception. 
 
 " A primrose by the river brim, 
 A yellow primrose was to him, 
 
 .a. ytsiiow primrose v 
 \V vfcfvM And nothing more." 
 
 V N 
 
 The business part of the plantation was in excellent order : 
 the cotton-press and gin-house, with the tidy, whitewashed 
 negro-cabins, formed a pleasing and effective group. 
 
 The plantation fences and hedges, the barns, stables, and out 
 houses, were all unexceptionable, were models of economy and 
 system that paid. 
 
 The stout negro in cotton shirt and duck trowsers, who took 
 our horses, said that his master was at home ; and, before we 
 had entered the yard, Sherry made his appearance on the veran 
 dah, dandily dressed as usual, but in his shirt-sleeves, with a 
 pipe in one hand, and a " hand-at-cards " in the other, and 
 shouted out joyously, 
 
 " Come in boys ! Blamenation ! Come in. Glad to see you. 
 You're just in time. Here's Grinswig and a lot more with me, 
 and we are just getting in a good way. Simon ! curry, and 
 water, and feed those horses to death, do you hear ? "
 
 A EUCHRE PARTY AT MR. SHERRY COCKTAIL'S. 195 
 
 " Sherry is a good boy, a whole-souled, free-hearted fellow," 
 said Vivian to me, as we approached the house ; " but he is 
 as nearly worthless to himself and his country as well could be. 
 And he represents too numerous a class of our young Southern 
 gentlemen." 
 
 Sherry met us at the door, shook us cordially by both hands, 
 and cut a caper in glee on the floor. 
 
 " Come in the dressing-room first, and have Tony brush your 
 coats, and take a whet of brandy, I've some eight year old 
 stuff, that Ginswig pronounces perfectly ambrosial." 
 
 " Who else is here besides Ginswig ? " asks Vivian. 
 
 " Rosburn of New York. Do you know Ros., either of 
 you ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I do ; I met him at Batoosaloa," said I. 
 
 " A " I was about to add something, when, 
 
 " One of the real old Knickerbocker families, vouched to 
 me by our friend St. Priest," interrupted Sherry. 
 
 " Who else ? " 
 
 " Kenny " 
 
 " Now, Sherry ! " cried Vivian, in a tone of indignant re 
 proach, " how often have I told you to let that boy alone. Con 
 found you ! " 
 
 " Ta ta ! " rejoined Sherry, laughing heartily at this out 
 burst, and patting him on the shoulder. " No harm done." 
 
 " Is Ginswig drunk? " asked Vivian. 
 
 " Not yet" laughed Sherry. (" Then I may escape," mut 
 tered the other.) " But of course he will be before night," and 
 Sherry rubbed his hands in gleeful anticipation. " I'll be drunk
 
 196 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 too ; we'll all be drunk, except that chap from New Orleans, 
 Maj. Vincent, he has such a hard head that we can't make him 
 drunk. Gin. and I both tried last night. A deuced clever 
 hand at 'poker,' too, is Vincent." 
 
 We were welcomed con brio by the convivial Colonel, who 
 seemed to be in a fair way to attain the beatific condition 
 prophesied by Sherry, long before night. 
 
 Mr. Rosburn was a dandy-acal little Knickerbocker. A very 
 strawberry-lipped, russet-haired, and plump little beauty, who 
 was offering his charms in the Southern market in exchange for 
 a rich wife. 
 
 There was also a mild-eyed, girlish-faced slip of a lad, about 
 seventeen, who was introduced to us as Mr. Kenneth Buford. 
 I was struck with the gentle and amiable appearance of the lad, 
 and felt shocked to see him at the card table when money and 
 brandy were on the board. 
 
 I never play for money myself. Thank God, I have always 
 had the firmness to refuse every temptation and inducement to 
 do so. 
 
 Master Kenneth was at an age when lads think it very manly 
 to swagger and swear, and talk freely and familiarly about vices, 
 the meanness and awful consequences of which the poor fellows 
 never dream of. 
 
 How often my heart has bled for these poor deluded youths ! 
 Their older associates whose natures, perhaps coarse and vulgar 
 in the beginning, have by association and habit become hardened 
 and blunted, until not a principle of honor, scarcely of honesty, 
 not a sense of shame or virtue, not a noble or generous impulse 
 . is left entice and encourage these simple-hearted boys to pros-
 
 A ETTCHKE PARTY AT MB. SHERRY COCKTAIL'S. 197 
 
 titute and pollute every principle of probity that their poor 
 mothers have taught them have prayed and wept in the earnest 
 endeavor to instil such seeds of virtue as might germinate into 
 something noble and worthy for these wretched vampyres to blast 
 and ruin. 
 
 These lads think they excite the admiration of their seducers 
 when they drink, and swear, and gamble, and suffer themselves 
 to be swindled out of their money by them, and they only laugh 
 ing at them, and considering them, very justly perhaps, as silly 
 spooneys and greenhorns. 
 
 Ah, lads ! the only way never to be a spooney or greenhorn is 
 to hold aloof from all such characters. Depend upon it, if they 
 see you leading a moral and innocent life, acting upon the prin 
 ciples your mother taught you, and nothing is easier if you will 
 only try it, these sin-bloated " swells " may pretend to sneer at 
 you, but, really, they envy you, admire you, and respect you ; 
 and if one should hate you, it is because the sense of his own 
 degradation shames him at heart in view of your virtuous con 
 duct. I do not mean to say that Master Buford was in any such 
 company here. By no means. The moral example of such a 
 man as Sherry Cocktail would not be exactly the pattern I'd 
 point out to a son : but Sherry was not altogether depraved, and 
 I think would not premeditatedly seduce such a lad as Kenneth 
 into habits of dissipation. But Sherry was no very profound 
 casuist ; and when poor, Kenny, with the desire of seeming manly, 
 assumed what blackguards consider a knowing air, and talked 
 flippantly of vices that should have made his ears tingle with 
 blushes of shame, why Sherry laughed at him, and encouraged 
 him in his vanity by seeming to think the silly boy an accom-
 
 198 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 plished man of the world ; and when Kenny was for gambling 
 and drinking with him, he had no right to reprove him, and could 
 not refuse him what he shared with others. 
 
 Kenneth and Mr. Rosburn had been playing together, and, 
 as I soon discovered, the New Yorker had been poisoning his 
 mind with exaggerated stories, and doubtless often unmitigated 
 lies, about the gay Lotharios of the metropolis, and their wonder 
 ful and interesting gas-light adventures. 
 
 Grinswig, with his usual sneering skepticism and cynical sen 
 suality, was bearing his part by inducting the lad into the phi 
 losophical tenets of the children of Mammon : by teaching that 
 all men who pretended to virtue were hypocrites ; and that to be 
 a drinking, gambling rake, was the fair and open way of honest 
 fellows like Cocktail and himself. 
 
 Buford, perhaps, had a feeling of devotion and reverence for 
 the fair sex ; held them sacred for the sake of his mother and sis 
 ters ; and some fair maiden was perhaps enshrined as an angel in 
 his heart. 
 
 But Ginswig, who was an uttter infidel, and abjured all 
 creeds but that of selfishness, when in the company of men, 
 always lowered the character of womankind to the paltriest pat 
 tern, and according to him their virtue was but prudery. 
 
 When with the ladies, he was their most abject slave. When 
 he dared, he pushed his attentions with consummate effrontery ; 
 and where he dared not, he " bent the suppliant hinges of the 
 knee." The ladies instinctively hated and feared him ; for even 
 where he fawned, beneath his snaky cajoling, he often vented the 
 acrid venom of his viperous heart. 
 
 Embittered against the sex, because again and again he had
 
 A EUCHKE PAKTY AT MB. SHEEKY COCKTAIL'S. 199 
 
 failed in his aspirations to obtain the hand of some gifted, beauti 
 ful, or wealthy maiden, he sought this petty revenge, in essaying 
 to depreciate them to those who were more likely to win their 
 affection than he had been. 
 
 Ginswig, Buford, Rosburn, and Cocktail, formed the partie 
 carrce when, we entered the smoking-room where the card-table 
 was set out. 
 
 " You here, Buford ? " asked Vivian, in a manner, under the 
 seeming levity of which was couched a reproof that the lad felt. 
 " You are a ' spunky ' young man to try your luck against such 
 old blacklegs as Ginswig and Cocktail." 
 
 " I've been defending him from the Philistines," spoke up 
 laughingly Rosburn, who seemed to be his partner. 
 
 " Ah ! that's clever of you," returned Vivian, looking at 
 him as though he thought he might very well be one of the 
 Philistines himself. 
 
 " Kenny has only been playing a few minutes," interposed 
 Cocktail, rather apologetically, "to keep up the hand of Mr. 
 Vincent, who has gone up stairs to write a letter that must go 
 off by this evening's mail." 
 
 " If that's the case," said Vivian, " I'll hold Mr. Vincent's 
 hand myself until he returns ; for I know Kenneth never likes to 
 play for money." 
 
 " Vivian, did I introduce Mr. Rosburn ? Mr. Cornelius 
 Julius Rosburn, of New York, or Camellia Japonica Rosebud, 
 as our Bonnicoosa ladies call him a scion of the firm of Rosburn 
 & Smith, the great silk importers." 
 
 Mr. Vivian bowed with lofty dignity, and, taking the cards 
 from the hand of Kenneth, took his seat at the table with an air
 
 200 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 of easy nonchalance. He seemed to wield a great influence over 
 Kenneth as noble minds always do over a young and generous 
 nature ; and the latter, submitting very quietly to this arrange 
 ment, came to me and proposed we should amuse ourselves with 
 a game of backgammon. 
 
 " Are you an old acquaintance of Fred Vivian ? " he asked 
 of me, as we sat by the window arranging our men. 
 
 " My acquaintance with him is very slight indeed," I replied ; 
 " I only met with him the other day at Bonnicoosa, for the first 
 time. He has impressed me very favorably, however." 
 
 " By Jove, he's the noblest fellow that ever lived. He keeps 
 me out of more badness : he never sees me doing any thing he 
 thinks wrong without putting a stop to it. And I can't help 
 minding him, to save me. He's just like a brother to me." 
 
 " His influence is such as any young man would do well to 
 be governed by," I replied. 
 
 " Yes, but I do think he's most too plaguy strict with me ; 
 he plays cards himself, and drinks : I don't see why I shouldn't 
 be as able to shun excess as he though he, poor fellow, now-a- 
 days, doesn't always avoid excess himself. He gets roaring 
 drunk sometimes with Cocktail and Ginswig ; and when he does 
 
 so, he is a perfect demon Look yonder," said he in a lower 
 
 tone, nudging me on the elbow, and glancing toward the card-table. 
 
 I looked up, and saw Vivian with a tumbler, half full of brandy, 
 raised to his lips. The rest were in the act of drinking, but 
 Vivian's glass contained as much as all the rest put together. 
 
 II Does he often get on a spree ? " I asked. 
 
 " Here lately, I think, it is growing on him ever since 
 
 six, trey you have the throw, sir."
 
 A EUCHRE PARTY AT MR. SHERRY COCKTAIL'S. 201 
 
 " Ever since what ? " I asked again. 
 
 " Nothing 'twas only a conjecture of mine. Besides, I've 
 no right to speak of his private affairs to a stranger." 
 
 " If I might guess, the since you allude to is no private af 
 fair. Since his rupture with Miss St. Landry, is it not ? I 
 heard as much intimated in Bonnicoosa." I spoke in as confi 
 dence-inviting tone as possible. 
 
 " Well, yes that's it, /think. I know when she discarded 
 
 him, and he has never been the same man since : doublets 
 
 that's good for me : I spot you out here." 
 
 They were talking rather boisterously around the card-table, 
 and Kenneth stopped talking to me to listen to Mr. Rosburn's 
 account of how Torn Hyer " mauled " half a dozen watchmen 
 on a " bender " one night at the theatre in Philadelphia. 
 
 I could see that Vivian was supremely disgusted with his 
 partner, who, presuming upon his quiet affability of manner, had 
 assumed a familiar, bantering tone towards him. 
 
 " Do you think they were ever engaged ? " I asked Ken 
 neth, as soon as I could get his attention away from the card- 
 players. 
 
 " I think, perhaps, no positive engagement ; but What's 
 
 the matter, sir ? You have knocked our game all into pie." 
 
 Mr. Vincent, of New Orleans, at that moment made his en 
 trance into the room. 
 
 " Sherry, shut the door ! " cried I, in a quick, imperative 
 tone, at the same time rising to my feet. " Lock the door, Sher 
 ry, and let no one leave the room." 
 
 The whole company rose to their feet. 
 
 " Ah ! I've caught you at last ! " said I, in a deep voice, ad- 
 9*
 
 202 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 vancing towards Vincent, who, as soon as he saw me, started 
 back, and turned deadly pale. " I've caught you at last, 
 MONSIEUR LESTOCQ ! " 
 
 " Pas encore, Monsieur Jered pas encore" hissed he 
 through his teeth, and, drawing a pistol, he fired full upon me. 
 The ball grazed my hair, and went shivering through the window- 
 pane. 
 
 He had, upon first recognizing me, attempted to make his es 
 cape ; but quick as thought, Sherry, divining some scene of the 
 sort, had, in obedience to my exclamation, stepped behind him 
 and bolted the door when he fired upon me. 
 
 In the same instant I had drawn my own pistol, and taking 
 deliberate but instantaneous aim for I never felt cooler and more 
 self-possessed I shot him through the forehead ; my fire being 
 almost simultaneous with his own. 
 
 " I have not forgotten your lessons, M. Lestocq in pistol- 
 shooting." 
 
 He was a corpse almost as soon as his body touched the 
 floor. 
 
 There was a dead calm. Every man in the room stood si 
 lent, sobered, awaiting words from me all except Mr. Rosburn, 
 who, as soon as he got sight of the pistols, " made his absence " 
 out of the window, on the verandah. 
 
 " What does this mean, Jered ? " asked Vivian, in a subdued, 
 but not emotionless tone. 
 
 " Gentlemen," said I, " the man lying there, whom you have 
 called Vincent, is Georges Darlay Lestocq the murderer of my 
 father."
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 
 
 FOR three years I have tracked this man : from New York to 
 Paris, to London, back to Paris, to Rome, to Egypt (where he 
 had gone with an English tourist-party), and where I only missed 
 him by being captured myself by a band of Bedouins, from whom 
 I made an almost miraculous escape to Jerusalem, after two 
 months' detention. At Rome, again, on my return, I accident 
 ally met with an old Southern friend who knew Lestocq, and in 
 formed me that he had just sailed two days before for America, 
 having returned from Alexandria without his English friends. I 
 set sail the first vessel for New York, tracked him to Washing 
 ton, to Charleston, Havana, New Orleans, St. Louis, Louisville, 
 and so on, back and forth, sometimes losing all trace of him, 
 then suddenly and unexpectedly hearing of him again, or getting 
 some clue to his course. But my sagacity and perception in 
 this pursuit had been sharpened to a degree that amounted to 
 instinct. 
 
 During all this time I had never actually seen him but twice 
 since our first rencontre in New Orleans. 
 
 The first time, I met him in a theatre in Paris. I was in the
 
 204 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 private box of the American Minister, with my friend Lord 
 Shatterdown. I saw him enter the next box in company with an 
 elegant and distinguished-looking young Italian, whom I knew 
 he was " pigeoning; " for Lestocq was all this while following his 
 profession of gambler and swindler, which is partly why he led 
 me such a wild-goose chase. 
 
 I plucked Lord Shatterdown by the arm. 
 
 " Do you see the flashy gentleman who has just entered the 
 next loge with the young Italian there ? " 
 
 " Yes." 
 
 " That man is my deadliest enemy. I am going to insult 
 him, that he may challenge me. Will your lordship do me the 
 favor to act as my second ? " 
 
 " With the greatest pleasure." 
 
 During the entr 1 acte } we met them in the lobby. I jammed 
 against Lestocq in such a way as to knock off his hat. 
 
 He did not know me. But men of his kidney are quarrelsome 
 about trifles. He picked up his hat, and made some coarse re 
 mark to me. It is the way bullies think they show themselves 
 men of spirit. I replied to his insolence by pulling his nose. 
 Whereupon a challenge ensued, and a meeting was appointed in 
 the Bois de Boulogne. We fought with small-swords upon 
 some technical point in the French code of honor and the issue 
 was, that I received a thrust in the lungs, that caused me to 
 faint upon the ground, and my adversary made his escape. 
 
 The next time I met him was at a gambling hole in Havana, 
 whither I had tracked him. He was playing at monte with some 
 Spaniards. 
 
 This time, as soon as he saw me he knew me. I was alone,
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 205 
 
 and he cried out that there was an accursed Yankee who had rob 
 bed him of a thousand dollars on -board ship, and commenced an 
 attack upon me. I had two policemen stationed outside, whom 
 I called in, and a desperate fight ensued ; some of the Spaniards 
 taking his part, and two Yankee sailors mine. In the melee, I 
 wounded Lestocq ; but at nearly the same instant one of the 
 Spaniards was shot, causing a confusion, during which I was 
 knocked on the head, and Lestocq again made his escape. 
 
 My father was a Virginian by birth, and had met with my 
 mother at Paris, who, though also a Virginian, was only daughter 
 of a wealthy gentleman who had a plantation in Louisiana. My 
 mother was then in Paris, at school, and Mr. Jered was an attache 
 de legation of the American Minister. 
 
 My maternal grandmother was a French lady, whose kins 
 folk, of the name of Duvaloir, lived in a chateau of that name 
 not far from Paris, m%ntioned in this book before. 
 
 Mr. and Mrs. Jered resided for many years after their mar 
 riage in Paris, where I was born. My father, being a man of 
 fortune, and a bon-vivant, in the theatres, saloons, and cafes of 
 that dissolute metropolis, formed the acquaintance of many of the 
 gay and extravagant young men about town, among whom this 
 Lestocq, who, notwithstanding he was a swindler and rogue, was 
 also a man of education, of plausible and engaging address, and 
 had contrived to insinuate himself deepest of any in my father's 
 good graces. 
 
 There was another friend and associate of Mr. Jered, and a 
 frequent visitor at his house le Comte Casimir Casmery who 
 there formed the acquaintance of Demoiselle Leonore Bonavoine,
 
 206 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 the daughter of an old broken-down Baron Bonavoine, one of the 
 ruined remnants of the nobility de la vieille roche, and upon her 
 father's death, had been adopted by a rich old Bonavoine uncle, 
 my father's commission merchant and agent in New Orleans, the 
 husband of our " Madame." She was then about sixteen, and 
 living in our family, partly as a companion for my mother, and 
 also with a view of learning English, preparatory to going with 
 them to New Orleans, according to her uncle's wish that she 
 should reside with him. 
 
 Mile. Leonore was handsome and fascinating, and M. de 
 Casmery fell violently in love with her. Unfortunately most 
 unfortunately Mile. Leonore did not return his passion, but 
 treated all his wooing with coldest unconcern. 
 
 These were the facts upon which Lestocq based his infernal 
 machinations. 
 
 Madame Jered was an obstacle in the way of his designs 
 upon my father. She was virtuous and pious to a degree that 
 operated as a check upon her husband's excesses ; she was a 
 counter-influence to Lestocq's nefarious seductions. She had, 
 upon occasion, treated the latter with a contemptuous coldness 
 and scorn that had excited his deepest hatred, and he resolved 
 at once to get rid of her, and wreak his vengeance on his inno 
 cent victim. 
 
 He suggested to M. de Casmery that the seeming indifference 
 of Mile. Leonore was simulated the tyranny of a coquette and 
 that she really loved him as much as he could desire. He influ 
 enced him to believe, if he would abate the ardor of his atten 
 tions, and by degrees turn them towards Madame Jered, so 
 as to arouse her fear of losing him, that the young lady would
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 207 
 
 strike her colors and come to terms with him. Though M. 
 Casimir had too profound a respect for M. and Madame Jered to 
 press his attentions any farther than was strictly convenable, even 
 according to our American notions of propriety, yet the change 
 itself, from his devotion to Mile. Leonore, was sufficient, in the 
 hands of such a wily scoundrel as Lestocq, to enable him to 
 work upon my father's mind, and arouse the green-eyed monster 
 there. 
 
 I do not think that Leonore Bonavoine had any love at all 
 for Count Casimir Casmery; from what I knew of her, she was 
 incapable of loving any body but herself : but her womanly pride 
 was piqued by this beau's stratagem, and she made some demon 
 strations towards bringing her truant admirer back to his legiti 
 mate allegiance, which overjoyed Casmery and strengthened him 
 in the views Lestocq had advanced. 
 
 By a process of consummate double-dealing, and a demoniac 
 sagacity in moulding and coloring circumstances, Lestocq brought 
 about a complete misunderstanding and erroneous conception of 
 things among all the parties. 
 
 Madame Jered and Mile. Bonavoine were staying for the 
 time at the Chateau Duvaloir, and my father in Paris. Lestocq 
 contrived to send the Count de Casmery out one night, in a 
 fiacre, to the Chateau Duvaloir, to elope with Mile. Leonore to 
 England ; there being obstacles in the way of his wedding her in 
 France. Lestocq had been pretending to be a go-between in the 
 affair, and had forged sundry notes purporting to come from 
 Mile. Leonore. Upon this occasion, the count was to send in a 
 note from Lestocq assuring her that all was right, and she would 
 come out and take her place in the fiacre ; but her conditions
 
 208 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 were, that the count was to act as courier and ride outside with 
 the driver all night, and not speak a word or have any communi 
 cation with her whatever. 
 
 Casmery was an artless and romantic lad of nineteen, and 
 saw nothing in this suspicious plan but the modesty and timidity 
 of his intended. The thing smacked too much of a plot in a 
 modern French romance, to have imposed so easily upon one 
 more experienced than Count Casimir ; but the very romance of 
 it had an effect of infatuating the young imagination of Casmery. 
 Lestocq knew his man. 
 
 Having drawn up his carriage, according to the indication of 
 Lestocq, near a wing of the chateau where was Madame Jered^s 
 sleeping apartment, and not that of Mile. Bonavoine ; at about 
 nine o'clock the count rang the bell, which was answered by 
 Madame Jered's chambermaid, a bribed minion of Lestocq. 
 
 The note purporting to be one from Lestocq to Mile. Leonore 
 was really one under a cover, which the maid took off, directed 
 to Madame Jered, forged by Lestocq, and of the following 
 tenor : 
 
 PARIS, (such a date.) 
 MADAME : 
 
 Monsieur your husband has commissioned me to beg your 
 immediate return to Paris by the carriage, the coachman of 
 which will hand you this. 
 
 Madame need be in no alarm at the suddenness of this sum 
 mons. It is M. Jered's request that she come without disturbing 
 the family or Mile. Bonavoine. Monsieur is ill disabled from 
 writing but not dangerous. 
 
 Kespectfully, in haste, 
 
 CASMERY.
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 209 
 
 As was intended, the impression of my mother, on reading 
 this artful communication, was that M. Jered had been badly 
 wounded in a duel which he wished kept secret, and having the 
 most implicit confidence in Casmery, she at once put on her bon 
 net and shawlj and with her maid set out in the hackney coach, 
 as she supposed, for Paris. 
 
 Meantime, Monsieur Lestocq had gone to my father and 
 assured him that his wife was upon the point of eloping with 
 Casmery to England. He tells him that the count has gone out 
 to the chateau in a fiacre for that purpose, naming an hour later 
 than the actual time of starting. 
 
 He repairs with my father to a spot on the road chosen for 
 the purpose, where they waylay the carriage which presently 
 comes along, M. le Comte seated with the driver outside. 
 
 M. Jered stops the fiacre. A hot and hasty altercation en 
 sues ; my mother fainted ; and my father ran the Comte de Cas 
 mery through with a small sword, so that he died upon the spot. 
 
 As soon as my father saw the count OB the driver's seat, he 
 had become so infuriated that he did not stop to have explana 
 tions. The count, on the other hand, still supposing it was 
 Mile. Bonavoine in the coach, and that M. Jered was attempting 
 a rescue, gets down from his seat and commences fighting, with 
 out demanding explanations on his part. For Lestocq, with his 
 usual sagacity, had insinuated that one of the greatest obstacles 
 in his way was the fact that my father was really in love with 
 Mile. Bonavoiue himself, and so opposed to her marrying Count 
 Casmery. 
 
 The result of all this villany was just that which Lestocq
 
 210 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 had designed. My mother, unable to prove her innocence, fled 
 broken-hearted to a convent. 
 
 She appealed to Mile. Leonore Bonavoine, who might have 
 done something perhaps to remove the weight of suspicion from 
 her, and thus pave the way for her ultimate vindication. I do 
 not know that mademoiselle was either a tacit or actual accom 
 plice of Lestocq, but there is no doubt that she was in love with 
 my father my mother had suspected that, before this disastrous 
 occurrence and she not only refused to vindicate my mother's 
 innocence, but on the contrary seemed, by indirect means, by a 
 sort of chary-hinted malversation of circumstances, to cast an 
 odor of suspicion upon her, which she did not openly declare. 
 
 A divorce both in France and the United States was obtained 
 by my father, to which latter country he returned some five or 
 six years after these events. 
 
 Mile. Leonore Bonavoine returned with him, and they were 
 married in New Orleans shortly before they came up to his 
 Puckshenubbie plantation, as recorded in the beginning of this 
 book. 
 
 So Lestocq succeeded in blasting the reputation of my poor 
 mother, in breaking her heart, and making her life a miserable 
 desolation. 
 
 My mother had sought for the note she had received on that 
 fatal night, purporting to be from Casimir Casmery, but it was 
 not to be found. It had fallen in the bottom of the hackney- 
 coach, and, together with a pocket-book, belonging to the Count 
 de Casmery, containing various letters between him and Lestocq, 
 and others, forged by the latter as coming from Leonore, came 
 into the possession of the coachman, who afterwards became con-
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 211 
 
 cierge of the convent which my mother had entered ; and it was 
 not until years afterwards that the whole villany of this demon 
 was brought to light, who, in the mean time, had so ingratiated 
 himself with my father, that he had become his bosom-friend ; 
 and, like the viper, which the peasant warmed in his breast, he 
 stung him to death. 
 
 All these things were utterly unknown to me until my 
 mother's return, and my father's death. 
 
 In that moment, I swore to my dying father that I would 
 pursue his murderer to the death of one of us. 
 
 The spirit of revenge is by no means a noble one ; by no 
 means one that I would advocate or uphold. 
 
 Wandering the world over in quest of that man, to kill him, 
 or be killed by him, I was the most miserably unhappy man 
 imaginable. 
 
 Do not think that I cherished and fostered the rancor of my 
 hatred for him, deeply as he had wronged me ; on the contrary, 
 the remorse and pain that racked my soul, in the very anticipa 
 tion, so embittered my life, that I more than once endeavored to 
 absolve myself from my oath. And since my acquaintance with 
 Aidyl St. Landry, I had almost thrown off the incubus of that 
 death-oath. 
 
 But the accumulated wrongs, deep, heart-corroding wrongs, 
 that stood charged against him in my account, were more than I 
 could bear formed a destiny for me that I could not shun. 
 
 Most devout were my thanks to heaven that the dreadful 
 issue, when it did come, was in such wise, as absolved me from 
 the direct responsibility of his blood.
 
 212 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 I talked these things over with Vivian. In some measure I 
 made him my confidant, and lightened my heart of its burden by 
 the communion and sympathy of his noble soul. 
 
 He himself, in return, talked to me of Aidyl ; told me of 
 his love for her told me that she had never returned it. 
 Her heart could not accord in unison with his, he said, be 
 cause he was not pure enough to rise to the elevated sphere 
 of her spirit, whose affections could never come within the com 
 pass of a nature as limited, as gross, and common as his. Poor 
 fellow ! 
 
 He could sympathize with me, he said he understood and 
 appreciated my feelings ; he himself felt the gall and bitterness 
 of an impulse that cuts into the heart, and that is too mighty to 
 be expelled from its dominion over you. 
 
 " There are natures, such as yours and mine, Jered, that are 
 
 never strangers to each other ; we can always judge, and 
 
 even prejudge each other's conduct, because we know the mo 
 tives by which we are governed ." 
 
 Poor Vivian was not a Christian he approved of my con 
 duct. He thought it noble and heroic ; he considered such a 
 revenge not only legitimate, but glorious, and I rose to the high 
 est in his estimation on account of it. 
 
 ********** 
 
 It was deemed expedient, after the form of an investigation 
 before a magistrate was gone through, that I should postpone my 
 intended departure for Kentucky ; and that I should remain a 
 week or so with Sherry Cocktail, until the excitement, if any 
 should arise out of the affair, had subsided.
 
 A CHAPTER OF FRENCH ROMANCE. 213 
 
 My objects in life were now all changed. My wanderings 
 were over, and I was impatient to get back to Tussaleega, and 
 arrange and wind up my affairs in such a manner as would enable 
 me to accomplish the new plans and purposes that now dawned 
 upon me, and opened new ways and ends in the future.
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY. 
 
 II AM by no means disposed to approve of the custom of travelling 
 on Sunday. / Though abhorring every thing like Puritanism, I 
 heartily coincide with the evangelical folks in their indignation 
 at the violation of the Lord's day by the travelling public and 
 by the public conveyances. 
 
 Yet I have frequently been so circumstanced as to be almost 
 compelled to break my rule in this regard. 
 
 One Saturday evening I find myself in a dirty and disagree 
 able little inn in a wretched hamlet in the hills of Alabama. I 
 am told that there is no church within ten miles except a 
 Methodist meeting-house, the circuit-rider of which is absent. 
 The landlord " is very sorry that there ain't preachin' somewhar 
 about, to 'muse me ; but ef I'm gwine to lay over till the next 
 stage, there is to be a chicken-fight at his house to-morrow, and 
 lots o' the boys '11 be here ; and we'll have a good time," he 
 " reckons." 
 
 Sunday was nominally rest-day with the stage-line I was tra 
 velling on, but they took advantage of it to " lie by " Saturday 
 and Monday nights, and travel Sunday thereby avoiding the 
 night-staging.
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOUKNEY. 215 
 
 " Thar'll be preachin' at P , about eighteen miles from 
 
 here, on the route," said the driver; " we'll git thar jus 'bout 
 church-time ; you kin lay over thar, or, if you choose to go on to 
 
 H (a large town), we'll git thar time for supper, an' you kin 
 
 go to night meetin'. Rev. Mr. preaches thar ; great 
 
 preacher, they say. Thar's lots o' churches at H , an' you 
 
 kin suit yourself. Besides, by goin' on, you don't lose your 
 connection with the boat." 
 
 All this was sufficient inducement for me to go on to H . 
 
 I had often heard of the Rev. Mr. , a clergyman of eminent 
 
 piety and reputation ; and I gladly availed myself of an opportu 
 nity to hear him. 
 
 It was a bright and beautiful Sunday morning ; the glorious 
 sun shone over the broad prairies with a dreamy radiance. 
 There was a balmy freshness in the still, sweet air, peculiarly 
 delightful in our hot climate. A thousand thousand flowers of 
 blue and rose and white enamelled the vast meadow-like prairies, 
 whose boundaries were groves of lofty trees ; the sweet-gum, the 
 cotton-wood, the dark pine, and the magnificent swamp-oak, and 
 others, too many to tell, gave a varied outline of every hue of 
 green, with blendings, with depths of shadow, with flecks of 
 silvern mornlight, with gray tree-trunks, striping the dark 
 shadows ; and the long, drooping moss, giving to the scene a 
 weird-cast, as though it were a dim, distant forest, hung with 
 Brobdignagian cobwebs. 
 
 This was the lisitre the list or skirt of forest that bounded 
 the background beyond the broad cottonfields : dead trees in one 
 place and another, with spire-like limbs, would peer out amid, 
 giving relief and contrast to the flowing and blended outlines of
 
 216 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 
 
 foliage, or here and there, standing solitary in the fields, limb 
 less, weather-blasted, and scorched, one with a comical old crow 
 dozing a-perch its apex, or another draped with a regal mantle 
 of autumn-crimsoned vines. 
 
 Autumn is not so brilliant-tinted and gorgeous, in this 
 Summer-Land, as it is in regions farther North. The frost comes 
 so slowly, and so slightly, the verdure lingers so long, and fades 
 so gradually, and the evergreens are so ma'ny, that you do not 
 get a scene of foliage all crimson, and yellow, and brown. 
 There are shades of these hues, but they are softer and more 
 subdued, and merge every where into green except here and 
 there a crimson Virginia-creeper,* or a scarlet sumach. 
 
 But there is a luxury of autumn-berries of every hue of red, 
 that form with the dark evergreens an effect that is finer by far. 
 
 Fresh, snow-white cloudlets were drifting lightly across the 
 sky, giving it by contrast a deeper tint of blue. 
 
 Mocking-birds were warbling their wildly sweet improvisa 
 tions in every thicket ; larks and buntings were singing in choral 
 thousands in the prairies. 
 
 I was the only passenger, and as usual had my seat on the 
 box, that I might smoke my cigar in peace and comfort, with 
 philosophy and content. 
 
 Enthusiastic emotion may be pardoned in us wild children of 
 the sun ; we cannot confine our feelings in the staid and sober 
 vesture of a cramped and clipped propriety. We must break 
 away into indecorous delight, and indulge in extravagant hyper 
 bole and superlative. 
 
 * Ampelopsis quinquefolia.
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY. 217 
 
 Beautiful land of the South ! I never behold thy forests 
 dark, thy flowery plains and sunny homes, without emotions of 
 proud and joyful love. 
 
 A land whose children are beautiful and brave, whose sons 
 are noble and generous, whose daughters are gifted and fair, 
 how deep, how great, should be the loyalty of that land, the 
 devotion of the children of the Sun, to the beautiful in art, 
 the divine in nature, and the sublime in love. 
 
 Would to God that I could enlist every generous child of the 
 South to put down the apathy, sensuality, infatuation, and dissi 
 pation, that are the spots on our sun ; would that I could influ 
 ence them in behalf of the great crusade that is to make the 
 coming ages ring with the glory of the later chivalry, who are to 
 battle down Ignorance, Fanaticism, Mobbery, and Tyranny, who 
 are to battle for royal Truth and Beauty. 
 
 Oh, I love the sunny South ! I love the warm and generous 
 impulses that are generated 'neath our genial sun. I love our 
 clime of light, 
 
 "Where the hues of the earth, and the tints of the sky, 
 In color though varied, in beauty may vie." 
 
 P was a mere hamlet ; a cluster of canty cottages and 
 
 aristocratic mansions. Like most Southern villages it was em 
 bowered in China trees, and water-oaks. Every cottage yard 
 was adorned with pomegranates, laurels, and bays ; the long 
 blades of the tree Yucca, tufting the top of its palm-like stem, 
 peered up amid, giving an oriental air to the group its lofty 
 raceme of white flowers gleaming in the green leaves like a chime 
 of fairy bells. 
 
 10
 
 218 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The stage-coach lumbered through the pebbly streets of this 
 garden-like village, and the boughs of the China trees brushed 
 my cap. We passed close by the village church. Carriages, 
 elegant and glistening, were drawn up around, the fat and 
 lazy negro coachmen were lolling on their hammercloths, and 
 cracking merry, stupid j okes. 
 
 Footgoers in Sunday attire were assembling. 
 
 The notes of the organ, and the voices of the singers, fell for 
 a moment upon my ear as the coach rattled by, calling up memo 
 ries of the old times at Crowood, when I used to go to church 
 at our chapel with Clotilde and the Brookwood family. 
 
 Such a contrast to my Ishmaelitish life now ! It is in 
 moments like these that I feel, in all its crushing sadness, the 
 loneliness of being a homeless wanderer. But the coach rolls 
 away, the hamlet, the church, and the home-people are left 
 behind, and the sandy lane leads us through boundless blooming 
 cotton fields. 
 
 A few miles, and we come to a neat little white farm-house 
 near the road. The broad and lofty verandah is covered with 
 gentle jessamines ; ever-blooming roses fill the little lawn with 
 fragrance and beauty. 
 
 A new and handsome chaise is drawn up at the little white 
 gate the family are going to church. 
 
 I see two pretty girls, of eighteen and twenty, on the gravelled 
 walk near the gate, gathering flowers. They are dressed for 
 church : their hair is all agloss, and their cheeks all aglow, and 
 their dainty bonnets, of blonde, and lace, and artificials, contrast 
 with their dark shining braids. Such ripe ruby lips, such deep 
 beaming eyes, whose large orbs, when turned upon me, send a
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY. 219 
 
 thrill through my bachelor heart ! Such fresh, glowing complex 
 ions, such sweet figures the full and rounded busts sloping away 
 to their slight, round waists and then the swell, and flow, and 
 fold of their silken gowns. 
 
 A pretty woman has a peculiar charm to a stranger : she 
 seems prettier, and her beauty has a more enticing and piquant 
 allure, than when you know her. Perhaps it is because, in the 
 latter case, you can feast your eyes au loisir ; but in travelling, 
 it is only a hasty, half-stolen glance you can enjoy, and you 
 make the most of it ; and then distance lends enchantment, you 
 know. 
 
 They turn their large dark eyes upon me with curiosity, and 
 with half-coquettish smiles. It is easy to see that they are coun 
 try maidens ; and the sight of a man of the world, an old traveller 
 like me, is a novelty. 
 
 " That is a pretty fellow," says the younger of the two, un 
 consciously loud enough for me to hear it. 
 
 The other takes in my outre travelling dress at a glance : 
 my short velveteen frock, gray kerseymere pants and cap, and 
 drab gaiters. My sunburnt complexion, my great brown mus 
 taches, my tuft and imperial, are odd to her, and she says, 
 
 " He is a foreigner." 
 
 My eyes paid them a gallant compliment in return. 
 
 Crack goes the whip, and away goes the coach, and we part, 
 as Alexander Smith says, like two ships that- meet at sea, and 
 hail, and sail away. I'm not sure that Smith ever said that ; if 
 not. it was something like it, or else it was my Smith who fell 
 among the Noxatrian Apes, for he too was a bit of a poet. 
 
 The next picture is a negro quarter by the bonny banks of
 
 220 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Chuckalala. There is a nice little log hut thatched with mossy 
 boards, and clad with vines : in the foreground a gray-headed 
 patriarch with skin as black as a sloe, his white hair and black 
 " physiog." being a singular inversion of colors clad in clean 
 white raiment, he sits at the door reading .his Bible ; a natty mu 
 latto maiden sits demurely by his side, apparently much intent 
 upon his lesson, but in my opinion slyly coquetting with a smart 
 youth of her own color, who is leaning upon the side of the 
 door, a little behind the old, white-capped, ebony grandam, and 
 ogling his dusky Phyllis with love-lit eyes. A tall yucca grew 
 beside the door, neath which half a dozen dumpling-cheeked ne 
 gro children were playing. One little inky impling, I noticed, 
 had a yucca leaf, with the sharp point of which he was tickling 
 another, who bawled lustily as we passed. 
 
 The next scene is the wild-woods again : giant pines and cy 
 press giants too. 
 
 I think I feel less of that heart-sinking yearning for Home 
 when I am travelling in the woods, than elsewhere. There are 
 no associations to call up with painful acuteness the home-sur- 
 roundjngs which r how trivial soever they may seem, entwine 
 themselves with such tender rootlets into your heart's very 
 quick. What business has the heart of a great time-roughed, 
 world-hardened wanderer like me, to be pulsing with such pain 
 ful tenderness at the sight of little dirty-faced children playing 
 by the brook-side ; at sight of a mother patting her curly-haired 
 darling just returned from school ; at sight of a bonny maiden 
 of sixteen galloping down the gravelly road, with an old gray- 
 headed African servitor trotting behind her prancing pony ? 
 
 The coachman finding me a very uncommunicative compan-
 
 A SABBATH-DAY'S JOURNEY. 221 
 
 ion, comforts himself by sounding his bugle. It rings clear, in 
 tones wild and wailing across the broad fields to our left, and 
 echoes against the distant forest-side that skirts it. 
 
 It recalls a dreamy Sabbath afternoon that I was listlessly 
 strolling with my mother in the drear regions, reveche and mel 
 ancholy, of Montmartre. The distant din of great Paris fell in 
 a mysterious murmur on my infant ears. The smoke therefrom 
 hazed the dim horizon, and there seemed to be the same dreamy 
 haze upon my imagination, softening its impressions and mellow 
 ing its emotions, as it did the outlines of the landscape. I re 
 member hearing the post-horn of a diligence on some distant hill 
 at that quiet, murmur-haunted hour. 
 
 Towards nightfall it began clouding up in the south. A 
 broad, black mass of clouds arose above the distant pines. Now 
 and anon a red gleam of lightning would change its blackness 
 into a lurid, purple glare. A sickle-moon hung pale and sharp, 
 upon its very verge. 
 
 The wind freshened, damp and cool, from that quarter. I 
 saw its avant-guard as it came bounding through the bending 
 boughs. The moon was gone. The cloud had swallowed her 
 up, and was advancing and spreading towards the zenith. 
 . What a contrast to the west ! The sun was setting in ma 
 jestic splendor. The sky was there a dream-land sea, besprent 
 with golden isles. 
 
 "We were descending a long hill when the sudden storm came 
 on us. I saw the thick clouds sweeping like a serried phalanx 
 of misty phantoms along a barren ridge. The lightning drove in 
 frantic streams down through the weltering rain. The thunder 
 crashed in tearing peals through the air.
 
 222 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 - 
 
 Dark, and stormy, and terrible as it was, the golden rays 
 from the clear and tranquil west gleamed through and struggled 
 amid the tempest a strange, mysterious light. A scene more 
 beautiful than my pen can picture. It was blowing a perfect 
 tornado, and our horses becoming frightened at the din and up 
 roar, the stunning thunder and the crashing trees dashed madly 
 down the hill. 
 
 As we neared the foot of the hill, which stretched away into 
 a level swamp, the road made a sudden curve. 
 
 " In the name of God ! " I exclaimed in horror, " there is a 
 carriage in the road, just ahead of us there may be women 
 in it." 
 
 We came rushing like an avalanche down upon them. 
 
 " There are women," groaned the driver. 
 
 " Turn your horses ! " cried I. , 
 
 At that moment a gigantic oak by the roadside came toppling 
 down upon MS from overhead. I could hear its branches whistle 
 through the air as it fell. 
 
 " God have mercy ! " 
 
 The trunk of the tree struck the coach amidships, and liter 
 ally smashed it to the ground. Something struck me. I don't 
 know what, but I felt a stunning blow upon my shoulders ; I 
 pitched forward ; a thousand stars spangled my darkened vision : 
 I thought I saw the carriage and several trees fly up into the 
 air. A warm rush of blood, and I was insensible.
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 
 
 RETURNING consciousness found me somewhere in bed, after a 
 very refreshing and comfortable slumber. Where I was, is more 
 than I could possibly divine. I thought I was in New York ; 
 then it occurred to me that I must be at Crowood. Crowood ! 
 Oh, I remember now I am in New Orleans ; no, it's six months 
 since I was in New Orleans ; wonder if it is not Dintmere Cas 
 tle, by the braes of Avon ? Oh aye ! I have it now Batoosa- 
 loa ; or, stay, Bonnicoosa : I thought of Aidyl of Vivian Cock 
 tail of . I turned over, and a sense of soreness about the 
 
 ribs and shoulders, brought to my recollection the events of last 
 night's stage-coach catastrophe, and I came to the conclusion that 
 I didn't know where I was. A very wise conclusion : at all 
 events, this is a most luxurious bed. So I turned over again, 
 and subsided into a glorious snooze. 
 
 A pleasant jingling, as of glasses and cups on a waiter, was 
 what re-awoke me ; and opening my eyes, I found myself in a 
 luxurious bedchamber, with the golden mornlight shining in. 
 
 A servant was entering the room with a smoking tea-urn, 
 and its accompaniments, on a waiter.
 
 224 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 " Pray where am I, my man ? " I asked, rubbing my eyes. 
 
 <: At Cbuckatubbie, may't please you, sir," the servant re 
 plied, setting the waiter down on a tea-poise. 
 
 " And where is Chuckatubbie ? " 
 
 " Mississippi, master." 
 
 " Indeed ! And what is Chuckatubbie ? " 
 
 " Hi ? " said the negro, evidently surprised at my ignor 
 ance ; ' Chuckatubbie is the plantation of Massa George Vivian." 
 
 " Vivian ? Any kin to Mr. Fred. Vivian, who lives near 
 Bonnicoosa." 
 
 " Marse Fred. Vivian ? His uncle, sir." 
 
 " Is your master the person who was in the carriage yes 
 terday evening, when the stage-coach was upset, during the 
 storm ? " 
 
 " Yes, sir, massa's carriage. He and Miss Maggy in it when 
 
 it happened ; they were comin' home from H . They pick 
 
 you up for dead, master and Sam coachman, and bring you and 
 your baggage home with them." 
 
 " What became of the driver ? " 
 
 " Driver killed, sir ! " 
 
 " Poor fellow ! " 
 
 " Yes, sir." 
 
 " Well, my man, look in my coat pocket there, and hand me 
 my note-boot so that is it. Take this card down to your 
 master, and say that I am an acquaintance and friend of his 
 nephew, Mr. Wilifred Vivian, of Bonnicoosa. Stay ; how many 
 white persons compose the family at Chuckatubbie ? " 
 
 " How many ? There's master and Marse George, and Marse 
 Louis and Marse Thie, and Miss Jane that's old mistiss ; and
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 225 
 
 Marse Henry him and Marse Louis are at the University of 
 Virginia. And there's Miss Mag and Miss Alice, and Miss 
 Loolie, an' the Colonel. 
 
 k< Bless me ! And who is the Colonel ? " 
 
 " Colonel Allanford ? Don't you know him ? he is master's 
 friend. He's a old bachelor ; his sugar plantation way down in 
 the swamp of Louisiana ; he don't like to live way down there 
 by hi' self, so he live here wi' master. Old mistiss's brother, 
 too, you see. .The Colonel mighty fine old man ; he take Miss 
 Neppy and Marse George, and all of 'um, down to New Or 
 leans, and they spend all his sugar-crop down there fo' they get 
 back. Have heap o' fun the Colonel and the young folks ; / 
 go wi' them sometimes heap of fun. Stop at the St. Charles ; 
 go to theatre and balls, and Carrolton races oh, mighty fine ! 
 Miss Neppy was as wild as a deer in them times, and as beauti 
 ful ; as beautiful as Miss Maggy is now .... not quite, I think, 
 though, neither." 
 
 " And who is Miss Neppy ? you did not mention her 
 before." 
 
 " Miss Neppy? Sho' nuff. Miss Neppy don't live at home. 
 Last year she married Dr. Winston. Miss Harriet she married, 
 too, many years now." 
 
 " Gad ! A troop cometh," thought I. 
 
 " Is that all ? " 
 
 " That's all, sir. Massa only got nine children. But thar's 
 only three at home Marse George, Miss Maggy, and Miss 
 Loolie ; tothers are all at school, or married. Marse George, he 
 sorter bachelor-like, like the Colonel. Miss Maggy, she quit 
 gwine to school, and Miss Loolie not old enough yet." 
 10*
 
 226 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The boy carried down my card. I arose, made my toilette, 
 and throwing a comfortable chamber-gown around me, sat down 
 to my breakfast. 
 
 In a few minutes I received a visitor, whom the servant an 
 nounced as Col. Allanford. 
 
 He was a jolly, red-faced, old Virginia sort of gentleman, 
 with a bald forehead, and bushy beard and mustaches of a violent 
 red. The portly old gentleman shook me warmly by the hand, 
 congratulated me on my escape, and said that he would thank 
 me as the preserver of his brother and niece, only they would 
 begrudge him the privilege.. 
 
 I said I should only be too happy to have been instrumental, 
 but that I thought they had Providence to thank more than me. 
 
 " You as the instrument of Providence, my dear sir ; Maggy 
 says she saw you seize the lines, and draw up the coach to one 
 side, just in time to prevent the horses from dashing upon 
 them." 
 
 I knew this was sheer imagination on Miss Maggy's part, 
 but, as she gave me the role of a hero, it certainly would be un- 
 gallant for me to disclaim it. 
 
 I was received in the parlor more like an old acquaintance 
 than a stranger, and in an hour was upon as intimate a footing 
 as though I had known them all my life. 
 
 I found Mr. Vivian's house and family so agreeable, that 
 more than a fortnight glided away before I could tear myself 
 loose from that happy and hospitable home. 
 
 Mr. Vivian was quite my beau ideal of a Southern planter. 
 In personal appearance he was a tall, slender, but muscular 
 man : his countenance, though swarthy and weather-beaten,
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 227 
 
 was noble and manly ; his deep blue eye indicated both firmness 
 and gentleness. In his bearing he was dignified and command 
 ing ; yet there was something so gentle and amiable about him, 
 that you rather loved and reverenced than feared one so princely, 
 born to command, and tbe arbiter of disobedience. 
 
 He had travelled much ; he had read much ; he was learned 
 and experienced; he had held high -offices in the gift of the 
 President of the Republic ; had moved in the highest circles of 
 Europe and America, and yet he was as simple and unaffected 
 as a child. The foulness of this world had not tarnished that 
 innocent heart. His soul was too lofty and too pure to come 
 within the influence of the bad world. 
 
 His administration was that of a patriarch over the numerous 
 vassals of his broad estates. His negro quarters were hamlets 
 of neat frame cottages, with every comfort ; each one with its 
 garden and kitchen attached. Near the principal one, where 
 was the head overseer's house, there was a handsome chapel, 
 where service was performed by an Episcopal clergyman twice 
 every Sabbath, besides prayers once a week, at which all the 
 slaves on the plantation attended. 
 
 There was one peculiarity about his management, which, 
 though it seemed visionary at first to me, he assured me had 
 been attended with eminent advantages. 
 
 All his slaves wore a peculiar costume, which they were 
 never permitted to change or discard. For the field hands this 
 consisted of a red flannel shirt, blue jean peajacket, white cot- 
 tonade trowsers, and a blue worsted cap. On Sundays they 
 were required to be clean, but no white man's attire was allowed 
 them.
 
 228 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 In Eastern Virginia, Kentucky, Tennessee, and Maryland, 
 this, he thought, would subserve an admirable purpose ; for the 
 ^subordination, and consequent inutility of slaves, comparatively 
 speaking, in those States, arises out of the folly and vanity of 
 the slaves from the license allowed them in dress, besides other 
 nefarious liberties, wholly incompatible with the estate of 
 slavery. 
 
 The plantation-house at Chuckatubbie was a stately and 
 elegant mansion, with airy halls, spacious verandahs, terraces, 
 conservatories, and gardens, in the midst of a magnificent park. 
 There was no undue ostentation and display in furniture, gildings 
 and such costly affairs, both useless and in bad taste, such as 
 you find in the establishments of parvenues and money-doodles ; 
 every thing was plain, simple, and in admirable taste ; and yet 
 there was no stint or parsimony ; there were no superfluities, 
 and there was nothing wanting. 
 
 One of his gins was driven by an artesian well, supplying 
 enough water to turn the gin and a corn-mill, besides furnishing 
 the house establishment, the stables, and one of the negro 
 quarters. For drinking purposes and the laundry he had ex 
 cellent and capacious cisterns (which, by the way, every Southern 
 plantation should use for drinking, as nothing is so conducive 
 to health in our climate as good cistern water). 
 
 Mr. Vivian, like most of our intelligent Southern men, was 
 eminently practical and sagacious in his views, as well as wise 
 and benevolent. He was more so, however, than a great many. 
 Though of an old and aristocratic stock, 'he did not consider it 
 beneath his name and dignity to pay the strictest attention to 
 the preservation and protection of his lands, his negroes, cattle,
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 229 
 
 horses, out-houses, fences, forests, etc. In these things the 
 English aristocracy are far in advance of our Southern gentry. 
 An English nobleman is a more thoroughly practical farmer 
 than many of our best Jerseymen or Pennsylvania Dutchmen. 
 And yet, some of our Virginian aristocracy especially, are too 
 proud to attend to such affairs, leave their estates wholly to 
 the management of their overseers, and the consequence is that 
 they often become the merest rack-and-ruin affairs. 
 
 Mr. Vivian understood agricultural chemistry, and practical 
 and scientific farming thoroughly well. His vast estates were 
 cultivated after the manner of a model Isle of Wight farm. He 
 kept a regular farm-book, and. was familiar with the minutest 
 details of his affairs. 
 
 His negro quarters, barns, stables, gin-houses, presses, ware 
 houses, fences, sleugh-drains, and all things appertaining to a 
 great plantation, were models of convenience, economy, neatness, 
 and system. It did me good to ride over his plantation, and 
 see how he managed things. There was a steam saw-mill for 
 utilizing the timber that he cut from his clearings ; there was a 
 forge for his blacksmiths, where the innumerable materials in 
 iron used about a plantation were made and repaired. But this 
 is enough about farming economy, unless I could hope to awaken 
 a proper spirit among our planters ; for that purpose I could 
 write a book on the subject. 
 
 Let us return to the house, and let me tell you something 
 about Miss Maggy Vivian, shall it be ? 
 
 Miss Maggy was just seventeen, and lately returned from 
 Paris, where she had spent a year to finish her music and sketch 
 ing, and see something of the world.
 
 230 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 She had travelled over Europe, with her brother George and 
 the Colonel. She had clambered up the Righi ; had floated 
 down the Rhine ; had been on the heights of Arthur's Seat, and 
 the bird-haunted cliffs of Holyhead ; she had been presented to 
 the Queen ; had been a guest at Dintmere Castle, and knew my 
 old travelling companion in my Swiss tour, Lord Shatterdown. 
 She had been among the pictures and statuary of Italy ; among 
 the gondolas and carnivals of Venice ; the lords and ladies of 
 Vienna ; the operas, balls, and dandies of Paris. All that, and 
 a vast deal more beside ; and yet, although she was young, beau 
 tiful, and accomplished, and had been feted and courted enough 
 to turn the heads of a dozen paragons, would you believe it ? 
 she was as simple, as artless, and unaffected. as a child. Just 
 like her father. 
 
 Oh, the blue eyes, and wonderful brows, and all the rare beau 
 ty and grace of bonny Maggy Vivian ! 
 
 And in my dreams, now far away, my fancy wanders back to 
 that fair domain in the clime of the Sun to sunny Chucka- 
 tubbie ! 
 
 Who's wooing your hand, bonny Maggy ? Has some happy 
 mortal won the noble and loving heart of the Jessamine Flower 
 of Mississippi. 
 
 I Wonder if that lovely girl will ever find a spirit pure, and 
 good, and noble enough to mate with hers ? Wonder if she will 
 have the courage, when the test-time conies, to feel that she can 
 be heroine enough to endure all the horrors of old-maidendom, 
 rather than prostitute the sanctity of her soul by becoming bone 
 of the bone and flesh of the flesh of one she loved not ?^ Would 
 she have the heroism to devote herself a maiden Sister of Charity,
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 231 
 
 trusting to find her spirit-mate in a higher sphere, rather than 
 desecrate herself to the lust of a brute, who had bought the 
 treasure of her life with gold ? 
 
 Never ! Maggy, at least, is safe : because the Master and 
 Lady of Chuckatubbie are not of the breed of Mr. Jonathan 
 Drawler. They have not instilled avarice and the idolatry of 
 money into their child's heart from her infancy. God's blessing 
 will reward them, that they have fostered every pure and holy 
 impulse instead, and carefully eradicated every germ of selfish 
 ness. 
 
 And that is why the character of Maggy Vivian presents such 
 a charming picture. 
 
 It is not mine to linger in these sunny scenes. I might write 
 a book of pastoral poetry about Chuckatubbie, and if it would 
 fill all the hearts that glow in the land of the Sun, I would be 
 happy indeed ; but my own heart, alas ! is not yet pastoral 
 enough. 
 
 " Jeden Nachklang fuhlt mein Herz 
 
 Froh und triiber Zeit ; 
 Wandle zwischen Freud'und Schmerz 
 In der Einsamkeit." 
 
 ******* 
 
 One morning I received a letter from my agent in New Or 
 leans, informing me that Clotilde Duvaloir was dead. 
 
 To quote the language of his letter, " Mile. Duvaloir, inheritrix 
 of the Bonavoine estate, had died intestate, and I, as next in suc 
 cession, came into the Crowood and Puckshenubbie property," 
 and it would be necessary for me to repair immediately to Tus- 
 saleega.
 
 232 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Maggy wished George had not been so officious bringing 
 
 him letters from H . He might have let them lie there a 
 
 week longer he might have known it would be something to 
 take him away from Chuckatubbie, or at least that he would make 
 it the excuse to get away. 
 
 " He'd rather be making excuses to stay, Miss Maggy." 
 
 " Oh, no you wouldn't ! " cried she, pouting. " Now you're 
 going away, I'll be left here alone, with no amusement but George, 
 and he prefers the company of his dogs ; and papa, who must 
 always be seeing about his negroes, and mules, and sleugh-drains, 
 and gin-houses ; and mamma, who is always on household cares 
 intent a mere hose-darning housewife, and doesn't understand 
 French and music our kind of music, at least, and who can't 
 sketch so much as a toasting-fork who cannot sing German 
 duetts with me, and does not play on the violin has forgotten 
 how to dance and, indeed, does nothing in the way of entertain 
 ment but play an interminable game of whist, at which poor me 
 dursn't open my lips for hours together." 
 
 " You have at least forgotten the Colonel," said I, a who 
 has every accomplishment you have enumerated, and a deal more 
 besides." 
 
 " Oh yes ! a deal more : such as 'disposing of a bottle of 
 Sherry at dinner, and going to sleep after in his arm-chair in the 
 parlor ; such as shooting on t* wing, and riding on the wing. 
 To be sure, I'd die, but for the Colonel. But then, one likes a 
 little variety, you know, and the Colonel is toujours perdrix. 
 And besides, uncle is my uncle, and too old and ugly to flirt 
 with, if he were not " and she laughed archly, with a mis 
 chievous side glance of her bonny blue eyes, at me.
 
 CHUCKATUBBIE. 233 
 
 " So, you only wished me to stay that you might amuse your 
 self flirting with me ! " said I, pouting in my turn. 
 
 " Un petit peu" laughed she. 
 
 Yes the fable of the boys and the frogs," said I. " It 
 might be sport to you, but it would be death to me." 
 
 " The idea. I " she exclaimed, laughing again, " that little 
 me could be the death of such a great mustachioed sinner ! " 
 
 I said nothing about the death of Clotilde though I felt 
 it deeply enough, I am sure. 
 
 And they wished very much for me to stay a month longer 
 with them, but I must needs say good-bye. So I started off the 
 next morning in the coach the old stage-coach again. 
 
 " Philosophy, my dear boy," said I to myself, as I took my 
 seat on the box and lighted my cigar, " philosophy must sustain 
 you." 
 
 The driver cracks his long whip, and away we go. 
 
 Maggy is on the balcony she waves her white handkerchief, 
 and I take off my cap. A last, lingering, farewell look. A 
 sprig of jessamine she has given me I touch to my lips, and with 
 it waft a kiss. 
 
 Do you remember that jessamine sprig, Maggy do you re 
 member the bonny white jessamine spray ?
 
 A EAILEOAD EEVEEIE. 
 
 ONE morning in misty October, I was awaked from a delicious 
 slumber, by a voice at my door : 
 
 " The cars, sir ! Get ready ; cars start at six o'clock." 
 
 I was too old a traveller to neglect the summons, knowing 
 that to be left would be the penalty of " a little more folding of 
 the hands to sleep." 
 
 When I reached the station it was just breaking day. The 
 stars were all gone, except one or two of the brighter and larger 
 ones, shepherds of the twinkling herds, who lingered to see that 
 no truant Pleiad strayed from the retreating troops. 
 
 At this early hour there was no bustle and uproar of crowd 
 ing drays, carriages, and baggage-waggons ; no confusion of 
 bewildered passengers and insolent officials. 
 
 The omnibuses from the " Charleston Hotel " and the 
 " Mills House " had not yet made their appearance. 
 
 The platform was quiet and untenanted, save by a few bales 
 of cotton. 
 
 A mist hung over the city of palmettoes : the station-house
 
 A RAILKOAD EEVERIE. 235 
 
 was enveloped in mist : a thick bank of white fog lay in a long 
 line along the rice-bottoms. 
 
 Only a few belated gas-jets, a few lingering stars, in spaces 
 here and there of blue sky, gleamed in the mist. 
 
 The old fogy romancers of this generation talk contemptu 
 ously of the railway. It is an unromantic innovation. They 
 lament, in pathetic panegyric, the by-gone poetry of stage-coach 
 travel. 
 
 The olden inns, innkeepers, hostlers, highwaymen, and all 
 the rare adventures thereunto appertaining, have vanished at the 
 sound of the shrill neigh of the iron horse into the dim regions 
 of legend. 
 
 The jolly Boniface, who chatted with you as you leisurely 
 discussed your coffee and mutton-chop, drank your health in a 
 foaming tankard, and wished you a " pleasant journey and a soon 
 return," as he doffed his cap, whilst the fat coachman gathered 
 in his ribbons and cracked his long whip, has given place to a 
 meagre eating-house keeper, who bawls imperiously in your ear, 
 " Fifteen minutes to eat, sir," and watches you with a lynx-eye 
 as you come out from your hurried repast, to see that you do 
 not steal off without paying him fifty cents for the abominable 
 hog-feed that you've been bolting. 
 
 The fat coachman, in his top-boots and many-caped surtout, 
 gives way for the curt conductor, with his labelled cap and mono 
 syllabic manners, who .cries "ticket!" much in the same tone 
 that the highwaymen of old did " Stand and deliver." No ; 
 I beg pardon. Shades of Dick Turpin and Claude Duval forgive 
 me the aspersion on the character of your gallant and courteous
 
 236 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 profession ; you never accosted a traveller with the brusque 
 insolence of a modern conductor.* 
 
 The innumerable so-styled hotels and railway eating-houses, 
 with their Brobdignagian charges and Liliputian accommodations, 
 do not compa,re with the comfortable, old-fashioned inns. The 
 Scruggs House, the Whitleather House, the Cripple-crutch 
 House, and the Gristlegreasy Hotel, are a meagre and miserable 
 substitute for the old Boar's Head, Red Lion, Bowl-and-Pipes, 
 Spread Eagle, and other jolly signs of the olden time. 
 
 Such laments may do for England. " Merrie England in the 
 olden time " was, doubtless, the traveller's elysium. But there 
 has never been any such olden time in America. There is a 
 plenty of stage-coach travel in America yet; but there's precious 
 little poetry in it. 
 
 I have enjoyed a stage-coach journey in old Kentucky, where 
 they have good macadam roads, strong and tidy coaches, and 
 spanking teams, besides tolerably good inns, and accommodating 
 drivers ; but for ever spare me from the hard-backed, over 
 loaded, heavy-running, easily-upsetting American stage-coach. 
 To talk of them in the same breath with a roomy, commodious 
 railcar, with its springy plush sofas, easy and rapid motion, and 
 comfortable seclusiveness, is transcendentally ridiculous. 
 
 There is only one ideal inn in America that I know of. 
 That is " Bell's Tavern," seven miles from the Mammoth Cave, 
 on the road from Louisville, Kentucky, *o Nashville. 
 
 * I cannot omit to do justice to the conductors and agents on the South 
 Carolina roads ; they do treat passengers with some politeness ; and, on 
 the Southern roads generally, you meet with more civility than on the 
 Northern, where there is none at all.
 
 A KAILEOAD REVEKIE. 237 
 
 That was an approximation towards the " inn " we read of 
 in the old English romances. 
 
 Old Jimmy Bell was a regular ideal Boniface, with an ideal 
 rosy-cozy phiz, and a real rotund waist (if such an immense 
 superfluity could be called a waist). He had the regular jolly 
 fat laugh that a Boniface should have. ; he was always in a good 
 humor, and always taking something to drink with somebody. 
 
 And then the cleanliness of every thing about his establish 
 ment was perfectly ideal. Only think of such a thing as a 
 country inn, where the bedrooms are airy and dry ; where the 
 tablecloth is immaculate ; where the floors are as clean as those 
 of Holland ; where the muffins are hot, the steak tender, the 
 butter and eggs fresh, and the coffee divine ; 
 
 And, in a paragraph by itself, the very purest and best 
 old peach brandy, with blanched, crystalline honey, to take 
 with it. 
 
 Poor old fellow, he's dead now ! Peace to his memory. 
 They say that he left it in his will for peach brandy and honey 
 to be served out to stage-coach passengers free of charge as long 
 as his " stand " continued a public house. 
 
 In grateful acknowledgment of this legatory treat, I propose 
 that every tourist to the Cave contribute fifty cents to build him 
 a monument. I'll draft the design free of charge. 
 
 But Here comes the locomotive, with fiery eyes, loom 
 ing through the mist. 
 
 My luggage was all piled up, ready to go aboard ; and, leav 
 ing Fally to check it for Nashville, I seated myself next a win 
 dow, on the cosy-cushioned sofa, raised the Venetian, and settled 
 myself down to a " London Punch."
 
 238 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 Who could regret the dirty, jolting stage-coach, when enjoy 
 ing the luxurious space and speed of a railway car ! 
 
 Ah, " Samivel "Veller," immortal stage-coachman ! if you 
 had ever driven a team over one of our Western routes, you 
 would never lament the innovations of the age of steam. 
 
 The whistle is not so musical as the post-horn (why don't 
 they make it more so ?), winding its melancholy, sweet refrain, 
 heard at night on yon distant hill, when you are snugly ensconced 
 in a four-post bed at home. 
 
 But it is another thing when you are inside of the coach, 
 some long weary night in the mountains, at midnight, as 
 I have been inside the coach, and it recalling that country 
 cottage home of mine, hundreds of miles away, then the post- 
 horn sounded more melancholy far than sweet. 
 
 It's all in association, after all. A steam-whistle could be 
 made musical, and will be, some day. The railway is a fact of 
 the age. It is mere prejudice and want of adaptability that 
 denies it a romance. There is no great truth especially noth 
 ing involving such a grand idea as the motive power of steam, 
 but has poetry in it. 
 
 There is a sublime poetry in the railway. 
 
 Here I am on the sea-board , here in the low, swampy lati 
 tude of oranges, palmettoes, rice, and cotton ; by night I will 
 have flown three or four hundred miles Northward to the moun 
 tain land the land of lichen-clad rocks, and alpine firs. The 
 land of rushing streams and deep, dreamy valleys. No poetry 
 in that ? 
 
 Here is a broad river, I soar over it a hundred feet above its
 
 A RAILROAD REVERIE. 239 
 
 surface. Here is a mountain barrier, I shoot through its centre 
 in a twinkling, no poetry in -that ? 
 
 I remember once on the road from Chattanooga to Nashville, 
 I took a seat in front of the locomotive, on the " cow-catcher," in 
 company with a young engineer. 
 
 We went through a tunnel several hundred yards long, that 
 cut through the Cumberland Mountains. 
 
 It reminded me of " Christian's " journey through the' Valley 
 of the Shadow of Death. The bore was perfectly straight, and 
 as we entered we could see the aperture at the other end shin 
 ing like a star in the dark cavern. The polished surface of the 
 rails, reflecting the light, streamed before us in two silvery rays 
 converging to a perspective point in the dark distance. 
 
 As we entered deeper in, the clanging engine rang and re 
 verberated in the vaulted chamber, like the roar of pandemonian 
 thunder. 
 
 The sound of the rushing wheels came on like the noise of 
 an approaching tempest. The furnace fires lit up a space around 
 us with a lurid and unearthly glare, but before us the darkness 
 was dense and dire. 
 
 On viewless wings we seemed flying through the dark em 
 pyrean towards a distant planet. 
 
 The steam-angel that sped us thus through the bowels of old 
 earth, was it not sublime ? 
 
 The distant star grew brighter and nearer, until streaks of 
 gray light gleamed on the rocky ribs of the tunnel. The day 
 light comes flashing in. Our thundergong's harsh clanging sub 
 sides into a sullen roar, we are out the dark forest, the deep 
 glen, the high embankment, the dim perspective of mountain
 
 240 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 peaks, seen through the gaps of grand old hills a wild alpine 
 scene bursts upon our view, and the warm, fresh air fans our 
 cheek. 
 
 Was there no poetry in such a transit ? If you are a strong- 
 nerved, excitable man, get on the cow-catcher on a railway in a 
 mountain region and travel thus, at the rate of forty miles an 
 hour, and you '11 confess that the railroad is not without romance. 
 
 The road from Chattanooga to Nashville passes through much 
 magnificent scenery. 
 
 When I reached Chattanooga I laid aside my Punch ; that 
 acrid punster had no attraction when there were mountains, and 
 valleys, and rivers, unfolded like a pastoral story-poem by the 
 locomotive's swift flight. 
 
 It was like turning over the leaves of an artist's sketch 
 book, the pictures were so varied, so numerous, and so beautiful. 
 
 An infinite variety of outline. The scenery is constantly 
 assuming a different character. 
 
 Here is a river view. A sheet of blue water fading away 
 obliquely towards the background a line of blue hills beyond. 
 A group of dead trees, and a moored barge below you a fisher 
 man's canoe floats idly on the still bosom of the opaline stream. 
 
 Next comes broad spreading fields of green, groves and 
 groups of noble trees interspersed, flocks of sheep, and herds of 
 cattle grazing quietly, .... a white cottage farm-house nestled 
 in its boscage of shrubbery. 
 
 Then a deep cut. Rugged rocks, riven and blasted, water 
 trickling down, and vines clinging in the crevices. 
 
 An embankment. The forest is away beneath you. A hundred
 
 A EAILBOAD EEVERIE. 241 
 
 feet below, you look down upon a shady gravel road winding 
 along the margin of a mountain brook. A lady and her cava 
 lier are galloping along under the trees. 
 
 Then rude, rugged hills tower up in bold, bleak outlines 
 around you. It is the solitude of a wilderness. The perspec 
 tive yields nothing but hill after hill, all wild and wooded as far 
 as the eye can reach. 
 
 No, here is the lonely ca.bin of a woodcutter. The ragged 
 urchins with bare sallow shanks, and cotton elf-locks, stand star 
 ing in idle wonder at the steam-sped caravan. 
 
 We enter a wild forest. The giant trees whirl in a wild 
 waltz past our windows, vine-draped bacchantes celebrating some 
 drunken rite. Such a grand old wood in the olden land would 
 be haunted with ghouls, goblins, and gnomes would be stored 
 with many a wild legend. Here it has not even a name. 
 
 Through the woods, through the woods onward we hie. We 
 rush through the rocky " cuts," we skim across the deep glens 
 on a high embankment. 
 
 As we approach Middle Tennessee the country assumes a 
 more civilized character. There is more field, and less forest. 
 It is a grass country too. How refreshing the green velvety 
 sward, after the white sands of Georgia, and the rugged hills of 
 East Tennessee. 
 
 Green, gracefully-sweeping vales, round, wooded knolls, 
 rich, level " bottoms," burdened with luxuriant crops of grain. 
 
 The evening sun a mellow autumn sun, is lighting up this 
 Sylvan champagne with a golden pellucid light, a dreamland 
 light. 
 
 Leaning out of the car window these agrestial landscapes, 
 11
 
 242 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 these shadowy brooks, these many shades of green, varied yet 
 again by a thousand combinations of sunlight and shadow, from 
 the duskiest green pine to the sunniest field, pass in a dreamy 
 diorama across my imagination. 
 
 Yonder across that rich, dark-tinted clover field is a group 
 of picture-like trees, with a tall, high-roofed, brick farmhouse, 
 painted gray, and gleaming through the foliage. The barn, 
 stables, and whitewashed negro cabins form part of the picture. 
 Three tall, Lombardy poplars near the railing, at the foot of the 
 gently sloping yard. The brook ripples over its rocky bed in 
 tiny cascades overshadowed by feathery-boughed swamp-willows. 
 
 The mildest and softest light lies on this picture. 
 
 It reminds me of my home. I, the wanderer, Jan Jered. 
 an isolation, without a kinsman, without a heart-friend in the 
 world. I had a home like that once. The light of my life was 
 as soft as that was as warm 
 
 The train stops. A handsome carriage and a baggage van 
 are drawn up on the edge of an old field. A stout, middle-aged 
 gentleman, two young ladies, and a smart lad, slender and hand 
 some with a mass of black curls clustering beneath the rim of 
 his jaunty blue cloth cap are standing waiting for us. Their 
 luggage is checked for Nashville. 
 
 They enter the car I am in, and the two young ladies chance 
 to take the seat just behind mine, while there being none other 
 vacant near the lad begs a seat with me. 
 
 They are pretty young ladies, both of them, for I steal a 
 glance at them beneath the corner of my cap. 
 
 They live at the homestead I have just been describing. 
 From the window I see the returning carriage enter the gateway,
 
 A RAILROAD REVERIE. 243 
 
 opening on the avenue, that leads to the house. And I hear 
 them admiring " our home," as they, too, look out upon its van 
 ishing outlines. 
 
 " Whose estate is that? " I take the liberty of asking the lad 
 sitting by me; and I indicate the place with a look. 
 
 " My father's Judge Fleetwood's, I mean." 
 
 I relapse into silence. The shadow of a forest flits across the 
 page of my " Punch " no more than the shadow of a butterfly. 
 
 The boy is an intelligent-looking fellow, with well-bred ad 
 dress, and seems disposed to enter into conversation with me : I 
 am not one of those sulky grandees, who refuse to make them 
 selves agreeable to their neighbor, because they imagine it is 
 aristocratic ; but I do not feel like talking, so I hand him my 
 " Punch " for his entertainment. He gets to laughing over the 
 woodcuts, and soon finds something so funny that he must show 
 it to his sisters,' who join merrily in his amusement. 
 
 I pulled my cap over my brows, folded my arms, and leaned 
 my head against the window-frame. But these girls would bring 
 themselves into my thoughts. 
 
 One of them was named Rowena .... I heard her brother 
 call her so .... she was the elder. A tall, dark-eyed lady, with 
 oval face, fine features, a thoughtful intellectual expression, very 
 dark hair, and handsome eyebrows a web of dark, silky lines, 
 pencilled in a gracious arch over long, thick, black lashes. 
 
 The younger was a plump little maiden a peachy-skinned, 
 strawberry-lipped lassie, with a laughing blue eye, and a turn-up 
 nose a pretty one, though ; and her rounded chin and cheeks 
 were dimpled as she smiled, and her rosy, disparted lips, revealed 
 a set of pearly teeth.
 
 244 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 " Jan Jered ! " she exclaimed, in a startled half-whisper, as 
 if the name were familiar to her. 
 
 It aroused my attention and curiosity, and, looking around, 
 saw her gazing on my name, written in pencil, on the copy of 
 1 Punch ; " and I caught a half-stolen glance of surprise at me. 
 
 Her emphasis on the word was sufficiently marked to induce 
 me to say 
 
 " Pardon me, miss, but are you acquainted with Jan Jered ? " 
 
 " No, sir,' 1 she replied, somewhat hesitatingly, but politely ; 
 " I've heard some friends of ours that did know him, speak of 
 him so frequently that the name sounds to us almost as familiar 
 as that of an acquaintance." 
 
 " I wish we did know him," joined in the elder. 
 
 " Yes," added the younger, " he's such a great traveller ; I 
 think he might stray as far as Nemorosa in his rovings." 
 
 " In what land-is Nemorosa?" I asked, with a slight smile. 
 
 " In Dreamland," said the younger, laughingly. 
 
 " Mr. Jered has never journeyed that far from home," I re 
 plied, in the same tone. 
 
 " Do you know him ? " cried the laughing-eyed damsel. 
 " Do tell me something about him. I've such a great curiosity 
 to know him." 
 
 " Your curiosity is easily gratified then ; " and I handed her 
 a card, adding, in a slightly sarcastic tone, and with a very defe 
 rential bow 
 
 " Permit me to introduce to you Mr. Jan Jered, of Crowood, 
 Kentucky." 
 
 The pretty young lady blushed laughingly, and said
 
 A KAILKOAD REVERIE. 245 
 
 " I had not thought myself in the presence of Mr. Jered, or 
 I should not have expressed my wish so freely ! " 
 
 " Fie ! Jenny, you did I " cried the elder. " I knew you as 
 soon as I saw the name; I recognized the description." 
 
 " Whose description, pray ? " 
 
 "That of your cousin, Mademoiselle Clotilde Duvaloir." 
 
 " Did you know Clotilde ? " 
 
 " She was our school-mate at Nazareth ; she and Jenny were 
 inseparables." 
 
 " Jenny Fleetwood indeed ! Surely I remember, and 
 ' Lady Rowena ' her letters were full of you. Miss Rowena, 
 there, she gave me for a sweetheart, as much as three years ago." 
 
 " Ah, Mr. Jered, Clotilde told us what a confirmed old 
 bachelor you are. I fear I'd set my cap for you in vain." 
 
 " I fear you'd repent your temerity, if you did." 
 
 " Why, Mr. Jered ! I'm surprised at you so gallant ! " 
 cried Miss Jenny, mischievously. " So affable ! I expected to 
 find you as crusty and bitter ! I thought you'd hardly look at a 
 woman ; and here you are introducing yourself, and playing the 
 agreeable actually opening a flirtation with Rowena." 
 
 " What could have given you such a horrible notion of me ? " 
 
 " Clotilde used to show us your letters to her from Europe, 
 you see."
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 
 
 " Jam distinguit autumrras racemos, 
 Varius purpureo colore." 
 
 HOB. 
 
 IT is autumn. I love autumn better than all tlie seasons : better 
 than spring, with its winds, showers, and catarrhs ; better than 
 summer, with its sweat, and dust, and sultry sky ; better than 
 winter, with its sloppy thaws and pinching frosts. 
 
 Give me autumn, and its mild skies ; its gorgeous sunsets, 
 and varied-tinted forests. 
 
 Season of mists and mellow fruitage. Its praises have been 
 rung on every lip that loveth beauty. Hackneyed it never can 
 be, for it is ever changing, ever fresh and lovely. 
 
 I am always happy when autumn comes always sorry when 
 the wrinkled fingers of old winter rub out the gorgeous pictures 
 the genius of autumn has been sketching in the valleys, and sub 
 stitutes his own sombre tints of gnow and rain, brown and sil 
 vern, ashen-gray and leaden. 
 
 In autumn the day-dreams of my wanderings have a deeper 
 charm. The notes of the post-horn sound mellower and further, 
 and re-echo with a voluptuous, faltering-away vibration on the
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 247 
 
 vale. Even the whistle of the steamboat sounds not harshly in 
 the distance amoug the dim trees and mist in yonder bend of the 
 river. 
 
 Fairy-weft tissues of gold add a richer margin to your fan 
 cies. 
 
 The whole being is full of a serene joy a calm and exalted 
 happiness, unalloyed with the base things of life. To me nothing 
 is more delicious than these dreamy autumn reveries these 
 strange, indefinable sensations ; partaking of the hue of the hazy, 
 autumnal horizon, its dim infinitudes, produced by that season, 
 along with the gaudy tints of the forest, the rustling of the 
 crispy leaves of yellow and brown, crimson and gold, falling 
 through the branches, shooting fitfully hither and thither in the 
 feverish wind " wind that to and fro drives the thistle in au 
 tumn's dusky vale." 
 
 So calm is the autumn landscape. Old mother earth has 
 drunk a chalice of ruby wine from her vineyards ; the tears and 
 cares, the storms and sorrows, that mark her queenly counte 
 nance, have passed away ; a voluptuous languor transfuses her 
 limbs ; her eyes swim dreamily beneath their heavy lids j\ she 
 sleeps in the sunshine ; her harvest labors over, she is indulging 
 in some sweet bacchanalian dream, while the amorous sun ca 
 resses her in a warm embrace} 
 
 The winding road is carpeted with the unsoiled fallen leaves. 
 The stage-coach crosses the reedy brook, whose banks are green 
 beyond their time : we enter the motley-tinted forest where the 
 ring of the sportsman's rifle is heard bursting on the still air. 
 
 We skirt a frost-bronzed meadow, and there is an old barn 
 and rotund hayricks, and sheep nipping the scant remnant of
 
 248 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 green grass. Beyond is a coppice, from which curls the blue 
 smoke from a cottage chimney. 
 
 Kentucky is a more pastorally-beautiful country than the 
 States that border on the Gulf. They are tropically beautiful. 
 
 You hear the cowbell's quiet tinkle. You list to yon lonely 
 blue-bird perched on the moss-mantled bough of an ancient apple- 
 tree, singing its low, sweet melody, as it sits with a sunbeam 
 gleaming on its fairy boddice of purple and blue. 
 
 You hear the plaintive song of some distant slave coming 
 home from his labor. You hark to the hum of the night-hawk, 
 skimming over the deep still water of the brook, now shadowed 
 and sheened by evening's hues, with the fresh-fallen leaves 
 dancing lifelike on its stilly bosom, where are reflected the sleu- 
 der wand-like reeds, the overhanging vine, the wide-branched 
 beach, the hill side, and the blue sky and the sun-lit cloud ! 
 
 You gaze on the far-away, dim-defined horizon, and wonder 
 about the vast world beyond it; forest, and field, and river, 
 mountain and plain, quiet cottages, romantic villages, smoky 
 cities, whose busy hum, softened by distance, is murmuring in 
 your imagination. Then you look west, towards the dark wood, 
 denizened by owls and wolves, eagles and deer; the watery 
 marsh, with its golden rushes, croaking frogs, and stalking herons ; 
 the wide grassy prairie, with its buffalo herds, where the lone 
 savage hunter, with his long spear and waving plume, gallops 
 across it. 
 
 Such fancies as these come up like the vague imaginings 
 that haunt you at the theatre before the play begins, when the 
 overture is playing, and you are listlessly contemplating the pic 
 ture on the drop-curtain.
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 249 
 
 Yes, there is music here, too not just that of the opera 
 orchestra, but there is music : the distant cock-crow, the bay 
 of the watch dog, the .quaint cry of Guinea fowls, the drumming 
 of pheasants, and the whistle of partridges. 
 
 Yonder is the dark-shadowed Tussaleega. There is the old 
 stone bridge : the ivy vine I planted five years ago has quite 
 covered one abutment, and is clustering over the parapet. 
 
 Beyond is the picket fence of Crowood park. Once more I 
 see the firs and hollies. There are the grand old oaks, they are 
 there, before my eyes. 
 
 So long have I been absent, that it seemed to me as if Crowood 
 was a sort of myth, and I had no right to expect to find it real 
 ized again as it existed in the day-dreams of my boyhood. But 
 there it was. The road approaches Growood from the east. As we 
 drew near, the sun was sinking behind the farmstead, and the 
 glorious sunset, with its brilliantly-hued background of gorgeous 
 clouds, environed the dear old home with a halo of beauty. 
 
 The dark, high-peaked roof, the stacks of chimneys, the quaint 
 old latticed dormer windows, the tall Lombardy poplars, stood 
 out in soft scenic relief against that sunset sky. 
 
 There were long lines of clouds in the west, varying in tint 
 from palest rose to deep umber, from hazy lilac to purple ; and 
 the transparent, rosy-gold sky was dotted with dimpled flecks, 
 like tide -washed strands of golden sand upon some ocean shore. 
 
 The blue sky above was shot with gold : the sun rays beamed 
 up in a pencilled aureola, as is oftener seen in sunset pictures 
 than in reality. \ 
 
 And a big bright star shone in that blue ether, and cast a 
 sparkling sheen on the dark brook. And the shadow under the 
 11*
 
 250 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 old bridge; the turret of the little stone chapel peeping up 
 through the evergreens that surrounded it, and the diamond 
 panes of the chancel window a-glare with the sunset gold, all 
 reminded me of one of those quaint, warm-colored pictures on 
 the odd old-fashioned china I used to see, standing in grim array, 
 on the buffet in the back parlor. 
 
 Providence is very good to me, that nature wears such a 
 beautiful aspect on my return. I could almost fancy it a 
 welcome home. 
 
 When we had crossed the bridge, I made the coachman stop, 
 and got down from the box, telling him to leave my luggage at 
 the big gate. 
 
 I knew a pathway, from the chapel to the western extremity 
 of the grounds, that ran through the best scenery in the park, 
 and passed the purlieus of many a spot haunted by dearest 
 associations in my heart. 
 
 It seemed very strange for a great rough man, five years 
 a citizen of the world for five years with no such thing in his 
 heart as home, love, poetry, ties of association, or any thing of 
 the kind to take up these toy-dreams, these doll-baby fancies, 
 into his big stern heart, and re-dandle them there, re-caress them 
 and sigh over them with a sort of dotage, and almost feel himself 
 a boy again ! 
 
 There was more of the old-time look about Crowood than 
 I had hoped for. It was chiefly changed in the shrubbery and 
 trees, which had grown and developed themselves, and made of 
 the park a more matured and richer-blended wood scene. 
 
 The grounds had a somewhat neglected aspect, perhaps. 
 Young shoots had sprung up, vines had overgrown the pathway,
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 251 
 
 and the pruning-knife might be applied here and there with ad 
 vantage; yet I do not know that I objected to it as it was. 
 Such a scene is in keeping with autumn. 
 
 Upon reaching the chapel, I turned aside into a boscage near 
 it, which was shut off from the rest of the grounds by a high 
 iron railing. 
 
 Within its precincts the ground was covered with moss and 
 myrtle. I had great difficulty in getting in, for the gate was 
 locked and the bolt rusted. I clambered over the railings at 
 length, and found myself in a tangled maze of junipers, holly, 
 yew, and hemlock ; the wild sweetbrier and the myrtle had over 
 grown every thing. 
 
 I worked my way through the wilderness of vines, briers, and 
 bushes, until I came at length to a lofty Deodar cedar, around 
 whose base there was a small open space covered with a thick 
 mossy turf. 
 
 It was on a sort of bank, and at its base ran a small brook in a 
 deep channel, whose rocky margin was thickly covered with gray 
 lichens and green moss, and spanned by a rustic bridge. 
 
 At the foot of the Deodar cedar was a mound, with a very 
 simple marble head-piece, on which was engraved in black letters 
 the words : " Edward and Eulalie." 
 
 I threw my arms over that myrtle-clad mound, and wept 
 there, as I knelt, tears that were sweet and bitter : 
 
 " Oh, God of mercy, in this hour of memories sad and dark, 
 wipe the stain of blood from this desolate heart . . . . " 
 
 ###**#*### 
 
 I slew him in self-defence ; his blood is not on my hands
 
 252 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 but it is on my heart, for I vowed to my dying father that I 
 would hunt him to the death . 
 
 The pathway regained by crossing the bridge, I strolled 
 leisurely down its moss-spread margin, among the fine old beeches 
 and larches that grew along, in a mood that the angels them 
 selves might have envied. 
 
 I came to an old familiar spot on the brook-side ; a place 
 where the stream sprawled over a broad flat rock in foamy shal 
 lows, and settled in a clear deep pool below : a pool that Clo- 
 tilde, Sarah and I had, in our childhood, christened " Elfin-Sea ; " 
 where we had launched many a violet-freighted vessel of leaf or 
 bark, or goose's feather, sailing them away into Dreamland. 
 
 Who is that ? 
 
 There was a lady seated on the bank beneath a beech-tree, 
 reading a book, who, startled by my approach arose looked at 
 me hesitatingly for a moment, and uttered a cry of recognition. 
 
 " Aidyl ! " I exclaimed. For at the first blush I had for 
 gotten that she had come to Tussaleega, probably with her father, 
 since his espousing Mrs. Brookwood. " Miss St. Landry ! is it 
 possible ? " 
 
 " You hardly dreamed of seeing me at Crowood, Mr. Jered, 
 I dare say. We have been looking for you for some time." 
 
 " An accident delayed me an upset in a stage coach." 
 
 " This has been a favorite walk of mine ever since I have 
 been in Tussaleega. I have become quite familiar with your 
 cousin Clotilde's park and grounds. I am charmed with Cro- 
 W0 od suc h a romantic place ! I almost envy her its posses 
 sion."
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 253 
 
 " It is not hers it is mine," said I. 
 
 " Yours ! They told me at Tussaleega that your father had 
 left all his estate to your stepdame." 
 
 " Only the property in Louisiana." 
 
 " I suppose I need not vindicate myself from any suspicion 
 of curiosity about your affairs ; they tell me every thing in a lit 
 tle village, like Tussaleega, whether you will or no." 
 
 " If they would only always tell the truth," said I. 
 
 Aidyl looked so radiant, so happy, and so beautiful. She 
 had subdued her gayety to a quieter tone upon observing my 
 mourning dress, to which she gave a glance of surprise. 
 
 There was a charm and a novelty about meeting here ; we 
 who had met as strangers in the far South 3 at this old Kentucky 
 home ; among these scenes familiar to my boyhood. Aidyl 
 seemed to be under the influence of that spell as well as myself. 
 
 " You never mentioned your cousin, Mademoiselle Duvaloir. 
 I am surprised at you such a charming person, as I am told at 
 Tussaleega she was ! " 
 
 " Have they not told you also at Tussaleega that Clotilde 
 Duvaloir was dead ? ' 
 
 " Oh ! pardon surely not. I had heard nothing of it." 
 
 There was a momentary pause, during which we directed our 
 course towards the house. Miss St. Landry's path to her step 
 mother's was the same as mine. She had to pass near my house. 
 
 " Crowood," said I, as we strolled leisurely along the path 
 way that wound through the park now across an open glade, 
 now through a cluster or a thicket, " Crowood was sold after my 
 father's death ; I was absent at the time .... Indeed, I have 
 never been here since I never could brook the idea. I ordered
 
 254 SCENES IN THE SUMMEK-LAND. 
 
 its sale because Lestocq had swindled my father to such an 
 amount that I could not afford to keep it. All my fortune since 
 that time has been the interest on the fifty thousand dollars I 
 got for Crowood. 
 
 " It was bought by Clotilde's guardian, Mr. Brookwood, at 
 her request, though I had always supposed that he purchased 
 it for himself. And now that she is dead, it comes back again 
 to me." 
 
 " I would not have made so free with it if I had known that. 
 I have rambled all over it I like it so much. It comes up 
 more completely to my idea of a home than any thing I ever saw." 
 
 " I am glad you are going to be my neighbor," said I ; "I 
 foresee we shall be very great friends, and I want to consult your 
 taste in adorning and improving it." 
 
 Aidyl blushed slightly, and murmured something about her 
 defective culture in such matters ; and added, with a slight tinge 
 of persiflage, which she sometimes threw over her conversation, 
 
 " And are you really going to stay at home now ? Won't 
 you be packing up to start for Japan, or New Zealand, to 
 morrow ? " 
 
 " No. My roving life is done with. My journeys will be 
 confined henceforth to a yearly voyage to and from Puckshe- 
 nubbie. Puckshenubbie is mine, too," I added, in answer to a 
 look of surprise from her. " Hereafter I settle down into the 
 quiet patriarchal life of a Southern planter." 
 
 I fell into a reverie a blissful day-dream ; a day-dream 
 that seemed at last practically realizable. We walked some dis 
 tance in silence, for Aidyl did not interrupt me. She also seemed 
 to have fallen into a brown study.
 
 SUNLIGHT OF LIFE. 255 
 
 " Have you not been enjoying this delightful Indian summer 
 weather ? " I asked, at length. 
 
 " Very much, indeed ! There is a sort of intellectual exalta 
 tion, induced by the warm, calm, hazy atmosphere." 
 
 " Surely there must be autumns in heaven," I exclaimed. 
 
 " In heaven ? J^o. There are no autumns there. The pe 
 rennial spring-flowers of Beulah are never decayed by the de 
 stroying touch of time. And Fall, with all its beauty, has with 
 it constitutes, perhaps, half its charm the idea of evanescence, 
 of decay : at best, the hectic glow of consumption."
 
 AIDYL. 
 
 THE old Rectory, now the residence of General St. Landry, was 
 in the edge of the village. The high picket of cedar-posts 
 which inclosed the grounds, ran the length of the last street, 
 forming the outer boundary of that side of the village. 
 
 This picket was close enough, and high enough, to exclude 
 every vulgar eye ; but, as if that were not enough, a hedge of 
 Cherokee roses, planted on the inside, overran the top of the 
 picket with a fringe of its densely tangled green vines. 
 
 A tall, stoutly built oaken gate was the only means of gain 
 ing entrance to the grounds. Once inside, you saw a broad, 
 closely turfed lawn, some five or six acres in extent; but of a 
 character so simple, that you might have wondered why it was 
 so jealously guarded. There were a few black locusts and wal 
 nuts, some wild cherry trees, and one or two grand old oaks ; 
 these were scattered thinly over the grounds. 
 
 But simple as this was, there was nothing harsh, raw, or 
 meagre in the landscape it presented. Quite the contrary. The 
 surface of the lawn was just sufficiently undulating not to be flat.
 
 AIDYL. 257, 
 
 There was no evidence of culture here, or adornment ; nothing 
 could be simpler, yet the effect was decidedly good. 
 
 To the right there was a white railing, separating the lawn 
 from the garden and orchard ; to the left, was a meadow with a 
 brook. 
 
 There was an air of retirement and seclusiveness about the 
 place that one liked. 
 
 Immediately around the house there was some shrubbery, 
 though not much ; and there were lofty cedars old cedars, with 
 rugged bark and massy boughs ; there were tall Lombardy pop 
 lars and gloomy black locusts. 
 
 The house itself was quite as simple in conception and de 
 tail ; and yet there was a prestige, a harmony of proportion, a 
 harmony with the surrounding scenery, that rendered it impres 
 sive. 
 
 It was a tall, old-fashioned edifice of brick, painted a pearl- 
 gray; the windows were round-arched, opening on richly ballus- 
 traded balconies : there was a round- arched brick portico, with a 
 a campanile roof and an oeil-de-beuf : the cornice was deep, and 
 richly moulded; and the roofs were high-pitched, and painted a 
 dark russet-brown. It was one of those buildings- with a gable 
 front, flanked by two lower wings, after an old English model ; 
 and the campanile-roofed portico was at the side of the gable- 
 front. 
 
 There was an unpretending antique air pervading every thing 
 about the Rectory, that you seldom find in our country, where all 
 is new style, gaudy, and flaring. It was such a contrast to the 
 gimcrackery of our modern model-cottages. 
 
 The grass in the yard was as deep and thick as though it had
 
 258 SCENES IN THE. SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 been growing there for ages. There were no fresh-set, raw-look 
 ing trees, with mould and clay about their roots. A vine of 
 Irish ivy had clambered over a bay-window of the parlor wing, 
 and half enveiled it in its dark green drapery. 
 
 The garniture and adornment of the Rectory was in a style 
 that artists somewhat inappropriately, I think call severe : a 
 style, the tone of which was to the utmost simple and chaste ; 
 but with that there was a warm glow of feeling pervading the 
 subdued coloring and quiet ornament, which precluded the idea 
 of severity. 
 
 From the entry in the turret to the drawing-room, there was 
 a wainscoting of rich time-darkened walnut ; and the doors, win 
 dow-casings, and the like, of the same : the walls and ceilings of 
 those exquisite neutral-tinted frescoes, that harmonize so well 
 with old oaks and walnuts. 
 
 In the drawing-rooms the frescoes were worthy a palace iu 
 Europe. 
 
 In these apartments the soft, luxurious Turkey carpets, the 
 old China vases in the fire-places, the rosewood piano, the 
 furniture, the china-monkeys on the mantel-piece, the old 
 portraits on the walls, the silver candelabras and bronze giran 
 doles, all were elegant and costly ; but all of the old fashion. 
 
 When I called here the next evening after my arrival, I re 
 cognized every thing as almost unchanged since the days of my 
 boyhood, when I spent here such happy hours with Clotilde and 
 Sarah Brookwood. When Clotilde and I rambled through the 
 little lawn, and read the " Children of the Abbey " under the 
 old oak, by the big, mossy rock. When we read the " Myste 
 ries of Udolpho " in the garret, where there was a terrible skele-
 
 AIDYL. 259 
 
 ton, and a stuffed pelican ; a place that Clotilde would never 
 visit without Sarah and me. When we built our hermitage by 
 the brook in Crowood park, and Clotilde's bower at the foot of 
 the garden : when I used to steal green gages for the girls from 
 the Rectory orchard, and nectarines and peaches. 
 
 Every thing here is just as it was then. It all seemed very 
 familiar to me, and yet strange that it should be so. There was 
 old Turk, a Newfoundland dog that I knew before I left Cro 
 wood : old Turk was dozing in his old way on the grass ; he 
 looked up at the sound of my footsteps, and I half believed he 
 remembered me, for he came running towards me, wagging his 
 tail and snuffling, as he used to do. 
 
 The door-bell is answered by a young mulattress in a yellow 
 turban and blue frock. She does not know me, but I ask if Miss 
 St. Landry is in, as though it were perfectly natural for a Miss 
 St. Landry to be at Clotilde's old Rectory, at Mr. Brookwood's 
 old Rectory, at my old Rectory ; and yet it feels very strange to 
 me. Notwithstanding, she says Miss St. Landry is in, and shows 
 me into the drawing-room, and I give her a card, just as though 
 I were a perfect stranger, and she goes away with it, leaving me 
 
 alone, and I sink down into an arm-chair, and think How can 
 
 I impale those memorypathic impulses, which we call thoughts, 
 upon paper ? 
 
 I, Jan Jered a great, bearded man, hardened and strength 
 ened in the training-school of the great World at the Rectory 
 once more, with the light of other days brought back, and shining 
 upon my heart ! 
 
 Here I have come back into my boyhood, somehow. 
 
 It is the same furniture, the same pictures, and the same
 
 260 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 piano the same china-monkeys and mandarins. Just the same 
 old drawing-room. I half fancied that Aidyl must have pre 
 served it so, intentionally. 
 
 Here is my old friend, a stuffed flamingo, in one niche ; in 
 another alcove, curtained by a feather-work shawl from Peru, is 
 a grotesque Aztec idol ; in a third, a Chinese pagoda, made of 
 varnished bamboo ; in the fourth, a plaster statue of Rowena. 
 
 There was a subdued, mellow light the casements were up, 
 and the jalousies closed. Those in the western bay-window could 
 not be shut, for the Irish ivy had pinned them to the walls, and 
 formed a jalousie with its foliage, instead. The soft evening 
 sunlight stole through the leaves, and cast a mottled mosaic of 
 sheen and shadow upon the rich Turkey carpet. 
 
 There was a portfolio of drawings, of dark maroon morocco, 
 with the word " Clotilde " printed on it in gold, lying on the 
 centre-table. I knew it of old. In looking over its contents, I 
 found many old familiar drawings of Clo tilde's chiefly crayon 
 sketches of landscapes ; but also flowers in aquarella, and some 
 heads and caricatures, with "Jan Deft" scribbled on the corner. 
 
 There was one sketch which had been taken out of the port 
 folio, and was lying on a book. It was a winter sketch of Cro- 
 wood, with snow on the ground, snow on the roof, snow on the 
 old cedars, the bright hollies, and the dark pines. 
 
 It was taken from a summer-house in the garden, and repre 
 sented that side next the conservatory, where was my little turret 
 bed-chamber. It might have been a mere coincidence, but the 
 
 hands of the clock-face on the turret pointed to two 
 
 * * * * * * * 
 
 There were many books scattered rather negligently about,
 
 AIDYL. 261 
 
 and a pile of unbound music on an ottoman, against which leaned 
 a satin-wood guitar ; and a large crimson velvet cushion, seamed 
 with gold lace, and with heavy bullion tassels at the corners, was 
 cast upon the floor, as though it had been occupied as a lazy 
 lounge in looking over the music. A pencil of light from the 
 bay-window fell on this cushion, and gleamed on the gold 
 tassels. 
 
 I took a peep at the music. It consisted of choice pieces by 
 Schubert, Hunten, Mozart, Schuman, Chopin favorites of Clo- 
 tilde. 
 
 I looked over the books. They were our old friends the 
 Gamaliels at whose feet Clotilde, and Sally, and I had sate 
 Ossian, Goethe, Shakspeare, Shelley, Heine, and a few brown- 
 backed numbers of that genial and glorious old friend and lit 
 erary Mentor, Blackwood's Magazine. 
 
 Do other people, I wonder, feel conscious of a sort of tinge 
 that pervades certain scenes and incidents in our lives a certain 
 bouquet du souvenir, which gives the tone and tint to our remem 
 brance of them long after they are past brought back, most 
 often, by some piece of music which you heard then, and which 
 is a clue to the old charm ? 
 
 Very sweet was the charm that association lent to this old 
 parlor, of the days that Clotilde and I dreamed away here ; and 
 dearer still were the associations that Aidyl's spirit had cast 
 upon my recollections of Batoosaloa. 
 
 And now they were so strangely blended here ! 
 
 The place seemed new-hallowed by the spirit of Aidyl's ge 
 nius. 
 
 I could see and/ee/ it in every thing.
 
 262 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 The piano was open, and upon the stand a cahicr of music 
 the beautiful songs without words. 
 
 A book was open " Heine's Letters " and there were pen 
 cil-marks through it Whilst I was looking over one of 
 
 the marked passages, I heard the rustle of a dress behind me. 
 
 I turned. She was approaching. I felt the magnetic influ 
 ence of her presence before I saw her. 
 
 In the dim sunset light that pervaded the old, lofty cham 
 ber, she looked like a being come down from the higher 
 spheres. 
 
 A ray from the ivied window in the west gleamed upon her 
 auburn hair, gilding it with a lustrous halo. It was thrown back 
 from her forehead in wavy grace and gleam : her pale, intellec 
 tual forehead, shone like a twilight star. 
 
 " You find my parlor turned into a boudoir," said she, as she 
 took a seat on the divan near which I was standing. " I have 
 so little company that I use it for a reading-room. I enjoy the 
 autumn evenings here so much, especially the half-veiled sunset 
 light in that window." 
 
 " You use it, then, for a better purpose than a boudoir." 
 
 " How do you mean ? " 
 
 "Boudoir is, I suppose, from bouder, to pout." 
 
 " A boudoir, then, is a pouteryV 
 
 "A place, where, of old, the < fayre ladye ' was wont to re 
 tire when she had a quarrel with her liege lord." 
 
 " But I never have any thing to pout about, and so no use 
 for a poutery." 
 
 " What ! Not when the Honorable Jeremy Ginswig would 
 be playing the devoted to your rival, Miss Calla Blackfield ? "
 
 AIDYL. 263 
 
 " My rival ! " she cried, holding up her hands in mock indig 
 nation, and then changing her tone, " Oh, my wildest ambition 
 never dreamed of aspiring to the conquest of Col. Ginswig, nor 
 of competing with the incomparable Miss Blackfield." 
 
 " How magnanimous you ladies are ! " 
 
 " It is not so much magnanimity in us as the vast penetration 
 of the gentlemen, that forces it upon us." 
 
 It was a palpable hit. I laughed, and turned the conver 
 sation. 
 
 I spoke of the old times at Crowood and the Kectory. She 
 spoke of Clotilde, her accomplishments ; regretted her own 
 inability in art . 
 
 " This charming autumn evening, if I could give you those 
 ' Songs without Words,' it would inspire you with a poetry of 
 feeling that might induce you to improvise the words." 
 
 " Those beautiful songs need no words. Theirs is the lan 
 guage of heaven itself ; they tell their tales of beauty almost by 
 the direct influence of soul upon soul. It were sacrilege to 
 attempt to embody them in poor human speech." 
 
 " How I would love to hear them ! " 
 
 " Have you not ? " 
 
 "No." 
 
 " I feel almost tempted to play some of them for you." 
 
 " And do you play?" she cried, with an expression of delight 
 and surprise. " If I had only known that, I should have had 
 the pleasure of listening to your performance ere this " 
 
 I smiled. " Perhaps not." 
 
 "Why?" 
 
 " I have not played for some years now, except in moments
 
 264 SCENES IN THE SUMMER-LAND. 
 
 of the utmost solitude. The piano was my mother's favorite 
 instrument ; and I used to play duets with her. 
 
 " Recently I have spent some time at Chuckatubbie, the resi 
 dence of Mr. Wilifred Vivian's uncle " 
 
 " Indeed ! Then you know my friend Maggie Vivian ? " 
 
 " Oh, yes. And isn't Miss Maggie a charming creature? It 
 was with her that I resumed my piano practice." 
 
 " I am so glad you know Maggie Vivian. The opportunity 
 of playing duets with her would be quite irresistible, I should 
 think. You fell in love with her, of course." 
 
 " Somehow I did not. 'Twas very bad taste in me I own." 
 
 " I think so, I am sure. What an incorrigible old bachelor 
 you must be ! " 
 
 "Perhaps some other was already paramount in my heart." 
 
 Aidyl might have indulged in something of her playful 
 raillery here, but she did not. Perhaps there might have been 
 that in the tone of my saying so that precluded raillery. 
 
 Instead of that, she cast down her eyes ; a shade of pallor 
 came over her cheek, and her voice was low and sweet, faltered 
 almost into a murmur, as she replied, 
 
 " It were an indiscretion, perhaps, to express a curiosity to 
 know who you hold paramount to Maggie Vivian ? " 
 
 " No indiscretion ; but I dare not trust myself with words. 
 I'll tell you in the language of Mendelssohn." 
 
 I sat down to the piano, and played 
 
 " Du list wie eine Blume." 
 
 THE END.
 
 I1WH