Ah, ah, ah! when Gaeta's taken, what then? | Dead! One of them shot, by the sea in the When the fair wicked queen sits no more east, Look behind you! They're afire; My Italy's there, with my brave civic Who have done it! From the vale Pair, To disfranchise despair! On they come; and will ye quail? Leaden rain and leaden hail Let their welcome be. Forgive me. But the birth-pangs of nations will wring us self-scorn; at length Be consigned so well As where Heaven its dews shall shed Into wail such as this-and we sit on for- And the rocks shall raise their head lorn When the man-child is born. Of his deeds to tell? JOHN PIERPONT. THE AUTOBIOGRAPHY OF GABRIEL BETTEREDGE. AM not superstitious. I have | ing, as you shall presently see. I went into the service of the old lord, their father (he had the longest tongue and the shortest temper of any man, high or low, I ever met with) read a heap of books in my time; I am a scholar in my own way. Though turned seventy, I possess an active memory, and legs to correspond. You are not to take it, if you please, as the saying of an ignorant man when I express my opinion that such a book as Robinson Crusoe never was written, and never will be written again. I have tried that book for years-generally in combination with a pipe of tobacco-and I have found it my friend in need in all the necessities of this mortal life. When my spirits are bad, Robinson Crusoe; when I want advice, Robinson Crusoe; in past times when my wife plagued me, in, present times when I have had a drop too much, Robinson Crusoe. I have worn out six stout Robinson Crusoes with hard work in my service. service. On my lady's last birthday she gave me a seventh. I took a drop too much on the strength of it, and Robinson Crusoe put me right again. Price four shillings and sixpence, bound in blue, with a picture into the bargain. I say I went into the service of the old lord as page-boy-in-waiting on the three honorable young ladies at the age of fifteen years. There I lived till Miss Julia married the late Sir John Verinder-an excellent man who only wanted somebody to manage him. And, between ourselves, he found somebody to do it; and, what is more, he throve on it, and grew fat on it, and lived happy and died easy on it, dating from the day when my lady took him to church to be married to the day when she relieved him of his last breath and closed his eyes for ever. I have omitted to state that I went with the bride to the bride's husband's house and lands down here. "Sir John," she said, "I can't do without Gabriel Betteredge." "My lady," says Sir John, "I can't do without him, either." him, either." That was his way with her, and that was how I went into his service. It was all one to me where I went, so long as my mistress and I were together. Seeing that my lady took an interest in the out-of-door work and the farms, and such like, I took an interest in them too-with all the more reason that I was a small farmer's seventh son myself. My lady got me put under the bailiff and I did my best, and gave satisfaction, and got promotion accord I spoke of my lady a line or two back. If you know anything of the fashionable world, you have heard tell of the three beautiful Miss Herncastles-Miss Adelaide, Miss Caroline and Miss Julia, this last being the youngest, and the best of the three sisters in my opinion; and I had opportunities of judgingly. Some years later on the Monday, as it to give me her services for nothing. That was might be my lady says, the point of view I looked at it from-economy, with a dash of love. I put it to my mistress, as in duty bound, just as I have put it to myself. "Sir John, your bailiff is a stupid old man. Pension him liberally, and let Gabriel Betteredge have his place." On the Tuesday, as it might be, Sir. John says, "My lady, the bailiff is pensioned liberally, and Gabriel Betteredge has got his place." You hear more than enough of married people living together miserably; here is an example to the contrary. Let it be a warning to some of you, and an encouragement to others. In the mean time, I will go on with my story. Well, there I was in clover, you will say. Placed in a position of trust and honor, with a little cottage of my own to live in, with my rounds on the estate to occupy me in the morning, and my accounts in the afternoon, and my pipe and my Robinson Crusoe in the evening, what more could I possibly want to make me happy? Remember what Adam wanted when he was alone in the garden of Eden; and if you don't blame it in Adam, don't blame it in me. The woman I fixed my eye on was the woman who kept house for me at my cottage; her name was Selina Goby. I agree with the late William Cobbett about picking a wife. See that she chews her food well and sets her foot down firmly on the ground when she walks, and you're all right. Selina Goby was all right in both these respects, which was one reason for marrying her. I had another reason, likewise, entirely of my own discovering. Selina, being a single woman, made me pay so much a week for her board and services. Selina, being my wife, couldn't charge for her board, and would have "I have been turning Selina Goby over in my mind," I said, “and I think, my lady, it will be cheaper to marry her than to keep her.” My lady burst out laughing and said she didn't know which to be most shocked at, my language or my principles. Some joke tickled her, I suppose, of the sort that you can't take unless you are a person of quality. Understanding nothing myself but that I was free to put it next to Selina, I went and put it accordingly. And what did Selina say? Lord! how little you must know of women if you ask that! Of course she said "Yes." As my time grew nearer, and there got to be talk of my having a new coat for the ceremony, my mind began to misgive me. I have compared notes with other men as to what they felt while they were in my interesting situation, and they have all acknowledged that about a week before it happened they privately wished themselves out of it. I went a trifle farther than that, myself: I actually rose up, as it were, and tried to get out of it. Not for nothing; I was too just a man to expect she would let me off for nothing. Compensation to the woman when the man gets out of it is one of the laws of England. In obedience to the laws, and after turning it over carefully in mind, I offered Selina Goby a feather-bed and fifty shillings to be off the bargain. You wili hardly believe it, but it is nevertheless true: she was fool enough to refuse. After that it was all over with me, of course. I got the new coat as cheap as I could, and I went through all the rest of it as cheap as I could. We were not a happy couple, and not a miserable couple. We were six of one and half a dozen of the other. How it was I don't understand, but we always seemed to be getting, with the best of motives, in one another's way. When I wanted to go up stairs, there was my wife coming down; or when my wife wanted to wife wanted to go down, there was I coming up. That is married life, according to my experience of it. After five years of misunderstandings on the stairs, it pleased an all-wise Providence to relieve us of each other by taking my wife. I was left with my little girl, Penelope, and with no other child. Shortly afterward Sir John died, and my lady was left with her little girl, Miss Rachel, and no other child. I have written to very poor purpose of my lady if you require to be told that my little Penelope was taken care of under my good mistress's own eye, and was sent to school and taught, and made a sharp girl, and promoted, when old enough, to be Miss Rachel's own maid. As for me, I went on with my business as bailiff year after year up to Christmas, 1847, when there came a change in my life. On that day my lady invited herself to a cup of tea alone with me in my cottage. She remarked that, reckoning from the year when I started as page-boy in the time of the old lord, I had been more than fifty years in her service, and she put into my hands a beautiful waistcoat of wool that she had worked herself, to keep me warm in the bitter winter weather. a loss to find words to thank my mistress with for the honor she had done me. To my great astonishment, it turned out, however, that the waistcoat was not an honor, but a bribe. My lady had discovered that I was getting old before I had discovered it myself, and she had come to my cottage to wheedle me (if I may use such an expression) into giving up my hard, out-of-door work as bailiff and taking my ease for the rest of my days as steward in the house. I made as good a fight of it against the indignity of taking my ease as I could. But my mistress knew the weak side of me; she put it as a favor to herself. The dispute between us ended, after that, in my wiping my eyes, like an old fool, with my new woollen waistcoat, and saying I would think about it. The perturbation in my mind in regard to thinking about it being truly dreadful after my lady had gone away, I applied the remedy which I have never yet found to fail me in cases of doubt and emergency: I smoked a pipe and took a turn at Robinson Crusoe. Before I had occupied myself with that extraordinary book five minutes I came on a comforting bit (page one hundred and fiftyeight), as follows: "To-day we love what to-morrow we hate." I saw my way clear directly. To-day I was all for continuing to be farm-bailiff; to-morrow, on the authority of Robinson Crusoe, I should be all the other way. Take myself to-morrow while in tomorrow's humor, and the thing was done. My mind being relieved in this manner, I. went to sleep that night in the character of Lady Verinder's farm-bailiff, and I woke up the next morning in the character of Lady Verinder's house-steward. All quite com I received this magnificent present quite at fortable, and all through Robinson Crusoe. My daughter, Penelope, has just looked over my shoulder to see what I have done. She remarks that it is beautifully written and every word of it true. But she points out one objection. She says what I have done so far isn't in the least what I was wanted to do. I am asked to tell the story of the Diamond, and, instead of that, I have been telling the story of my own self. Curious, and quite beyond me to account for. I wonder whether the gentlemen who make a business and a living out of writing books ever find their own selves getting in the way of their subjects, like me? If they do, I can feel for them. THEY WILKIE COLLINS. AFTER THE BALL. HEY sat and combed their beautiful hair Their long bright tresses one by one— As they laughed and talked in the chamber there After the revel was done. Idly they talked of waltz and quadrille, Idly they laughed, like other girls Who over the fire, when all is still, Comb out their braids and curls. Robe of satin and Brussels lace, Knots of flowers and ribbons too, Scattered about in every place, For the revel is through. And Maud and Madge, in robes of white, The prettiest nightgowns under the sun, Stockingless, slipperless, sit in the night, For the revel is done Sit and comb their beautiful hair, Those wonderful waves of brown and gold, Till the fire is out in the chamber there And the little bare feet are cold. Then out of the gathering winter chill, All out of the bitter St. Agnes weather, While the fire is out and the house is still, Maud and Madge together Maud and Madge, in robes of white, The prettiest nightgowns under the sun, Curtained away from the chilly night, After the revel is done Float along in a splendid dream To a golden gittern's tinkling tune, While a thousand lustres shimmering stream In a palace's grand saloon. Flashing of jewels and flutter of laces, Tropical odors sweeter than musk, Men and women with beautiful faces, And eyes of tropical dusk, And one face shining out like a star, One face haunting the dreams of each, And one voice, sweeter than others are, Breaking into silvery speech, Telling, through lips of bearded bloom, Two and two, they dreamily walk, While an unseen spirit walks beside, And, all unheard in the lovers' talk, He claimeth one for a bride. |