APPEALINGS. BY E. JESSUP EAMES. I. Wake from thy sleep! the night of rest is over- And dream no more of silken solitude! With all its radiant shapes of Beauty rare! II. Too long already have thy footprints tarried Too passionate and deep thy adoration Of those bright bards, of Poesie, and Song, Too rich the rosy realms of thy creation, EPISODES IN TWO LIVES. "I must be off now as soon as possible," said I, rising from the breakfast table of a pleasant inn in the borough of W., "I wish you would order my horse instantly." Mine host raised his eyes in amazement: and well he might, for it was no day for riding. "Surely," cried he, "you will not go out such a day as this!" "It is disagreeable enough-but I shall weather it my horse if you please." "But, sir, only look out-it would positively be madness! The roads are impassable now, and in this part of Virginia they are never very good; and there is Randolph's run that grows as rapidly as Jonah's gourd, and in a short time gets to be past fording. The river has been frozen for a week, and even if this rain has washed down the ice, ten to one you won't find the ferryman there to day." Here the clever little orator shuddered. 66 My horse!" said I hastily. "You'd better make yourself comfortable, Where dream bewildering forms of splendor throng! no expense if you like, sir." JII. Leave them behind, with all their peerless beauty- Enter therein and guard thy wanderings well! IV. Stern sentinels on the outposts of Duty. 'My horse!" The landlord finding further persistence useless, rang a bell and ordered my horse. As I have intimated, he was an amiable and by no means uninteresting fellow, and had a pleasant and healthy family. His mind was of a highly speculative cast, especially regarding political interests. His whole attention seemed absorbed in the event of the State Convention, for the election of delegates to which the people were to vote in the ensuing spring. He was a very moderate non-conservative, and seemed rather apprehensive that we were not prepared in Virginia for the adoption of measures which, abstractly, were good. He thought that an elective judiciary would be well enough, but re-election of judges most baleful. He was a stronger adfancies-vocate of the mixed-basis of representation than I would have anticipated from his longitude in the State. Strict watch they keep beside the Ebon gate- V. Then let Oblivion's gray-hued moss grow over The Evil past-all thoughts of self to still- September, 1851. I make no apology for these observations, however irrelevant they may seem. The reader will judge that I would at least have been entertained had I not chosen to brave the tempest;-it would have been a delight which I would have enjoyed, had my engagement been any other than what it was. My horse was quickly announced. I buttoned my great-coat closely up to my chin, secured my throat with a white worsted comfort, encased my hands in buckskin gloves, bade adieu, at the same time, to my nose and my friend of the inn-and in another moment was dashing down the sleety road at the rate of six miles per hour. I had to I "fiery Some strong coffee was soon handed, and as had not stopped an instant on the road, I needed no other inducement to partake heartily of the excellent supper that was set before me. We conversed freely during the time, and had each a story to tell of (to us) particular interest which we agreed to relate after the table service was cleared away. This was soon done with the exception of the coffee-pot, which it was resolved unanimously to retain. spur on terribly till I had over-reached the turn- the ten years that had elapsed had made my ing-back distance, for fear I should falter of my friend's forehead less lofty, or his eye less " purpose, for really I had no previous idea of and serene." the weather. It was one of those keen March days when the snow and rain come together, and an umbrella is of no sort of good, because, as the French æronaut says of the snow-flakes in the clouds, they fall up as much as down, and in every other conceivable direction. And to the one that rode fast there was gotten up a keen counter-draft of wind for his individual benefit. It was ten o'clock that night when I reached C., the place of my destination. I leaped from my foaming horse at the front of the well-known hotel, and, running in, hastily sought the register of arrivals. "He's here!" I cried,-"he's here! No. 47. Show me to No. 47, and have supper brought up there see that my horse is rubbed down tonight." My heart beat as I stood at the room of my best earthly friend. I opened the door hastily. "True as steel, Leman!" cried I. "True as steel, Brent!" he exclaimed, embracing me. There at midnight the bitter wet wind blew lustily through the house and mournfully down the chimney; but the huge blaze only flashed higher like a thing alive. The music within was the seething of the kettle and the crackling of the logs: what more is wanted to the joy of two re-united friends! "This is fine coffee, Brent," said my friend. It would be ashamed to be anything else on so notable a night,” said I. "Well: but we must tell our stories now-and you first." "No, Virginia is my home-you my guest; therefore your's is the preference." "Very well-that preference is to remain si Henry Leman and I had been three years roommates at the Literary Institution in C., where we now met. We had been ever devoted to each other. We had been in the same class, had stu-lent till you have finished." died together with exclusiveness, and with equal success; preferring the instruction which the adaptability of our own minds would yield from association, we had, when at college, sought little other society. Reserve toward strangers was made up in enthusiastic friendship to each other, which was strengthened by our dissimilarity of temperament. This latter had led us into totally distinct paths of life when it was necessary that we should leave the fascinating career of a student for a worldly one. Leman's father had died in early life; and his mother had gone to live in Italy with an only brother, carrying with her an only daughter. He had been left at home with a brother of his father's, and with the design of going to Europe so soon as his time at the Institution was spent; where he expected to finish his education as a painter, which had already been commenced in this country. Nature had made him a painter, aud Heury cared not to oppose her. "I see you've acquired some French wilfulness," I said, sipping of my cup, "but still I will proceed. I intend telling things as they happened, but by no means seeking to enforce my own conclusions with you. After hearing me you may say I have enlarged upon my former quantum of superstitious feeling. So be it—yet I but testify that I have seen.' The circumstances of my life, however, have certainly made a deep impression on me in every respect. When he had left me for Europe, we had appointed this night, ten years distant, to meet again in the town which knew our friendship! He had promised earnestly to return from Europe at that time if he were living, and in full faith I had rode sixty miles in storm and tempest to fulfil my engagement. "You well know that I always said I would never leave my native State. I was never adventurous or roving physically. My indolent delight has been rather to recline on my lounge and burn with the fever of Shelley-search out the mystic problems of Goethe or Swendenborg,— or rise up in abstracted converse with Plato, in whose philosophy there is nothing undreampt of, in heaven or earth. This you know has forever been my love. "I was left, you are aware, an orphan, and therefore when I left my Alma Mater had nothing to engage my care. Said I: I will seek some loue place to live in quiet, and there I will commune with the spiritual world. I will do this, or if I am rubbed and irritated by the world, I will curse Providence that I am here without We were once more together! a kind parent's hand to ward off suffering. I He was changed—and I was changed, he said; can be only holy and happy by seclusion and but Time had not altered our hearts. Not even loneliness from the unsympathizing.' it. 66 Good heaven! Brent, what is the matter? pray leave the cherubim at home for the present: you were speaking of your house,-your whim interests me." "I implore your pardon-but I'm apt to forget myself when I talk about my children, as you will be when you have them. Well then, about my house,-I had it built in Oriental style, significant of the Persian legends and the Cingalese dreams-so highly poetical: on the walls I hung paintings of Aladdin, of the Diamond Valley of Sinbad, and of the Pagan Metamorphoseon. "I went forth to discover a place, and I found | can read a whole chapter in the Bible, his mother On the top of one of the greenest (to my telling him the proper names, of course, almost eye) of the North Mountains, I had been told of alone, and then there's little Susan who is, posia spot where in 1754, when the great massacre tively Leman, the prettiest-" of the settlers in the Valley took place, some pious maideus had assembled, so the story ran, to pray for the safety of their fathers; and the Indians had broken in on their devotions, but seeing their defencelessness and the beauty of the locality, they allowed them to depart to their homes (now burut) and gave them tokens, such as beads, &c., by which they should be saved from violence. By this association I was led to visit the spot; it was in the latter part of spring that I went. I had no kind of conception of its loveliness. On the mountain-top there sat in beauty a clear and crystalline tairn: it was imbedded in the loveliest circle of cedar and yew, "During the time my house was beneath the and fringed with running mosses and numberless architect, I became well acquainted with the pansies. It seemed as if Nature on second only family who seemed destined to be my neighthought had resolved that the emerald case-bors. Their name was Maldean-the man's work were truly too lovely to have only one ex-name Richard; I never knew the wife's; they istence, and so had dropped the clear lake there had a young girl in the house whom they called to give it a second life in its quiet bosom. I Annie, whose face was not only interesting but know not what to call it: it was as an earthly remarkably intellectual. I went to see them freglimpse of Eden,-that cerulean eye fixed in the quently: the three seemed all of the family. I mountain's brow. observed some phases of expression and manner in the man and wife which were at first singular and then displeasing. They did not seem frank— would throw sour looks at each other, and yet seemed to dread being apart. Their eyes wandered every where, settled no where; they talked of every thing in the same breath and in the most abrupt way, stopping you in your conversation and changing the topic for you. I could not help being circumspect in company with these people, who were obviously of good class by nature and cultivation. The girl that lived with them was apparently unhappy, although she evinced the natural vivacity of her temper in occasional times of abandonment. She plaiuly had singular mental qualities. "This! this! I cried, reverently, shall be my life-long haunt. Here will I vow eternal devotion to Nature: I thank thee Father!' I rode about more in the vicinage, and was the more delighted. It was truly a solitary place; I could see but one house any where near. It was so recluse, that when I employed workmen to build me a cottage out on the mountain, they were amazed, and had to build a temporary shanty for themselves there in order to remain, as it was so distant from any abode! I had the builders there straightway: I had a garden laid off beside the house-lot, which was to be on a pretty slope about two hundred yards from the tairn, and in sight of all the piedmont country on both sides, hemmed in by the Blue Ridge on one hand, but co-extensive with the eyesight on the other. "Well, to make a long story short, to which you will gladly consent, my house was finished, "As you may readily imagine, I had my cot- and I entered it just as winter was resting from tage made according to my humor. I had two storm and wind through sheer exhaustion. I rooms for my personal use,-a bed-room and a was delightfully fixed in my study, having prostudy: a large back-room was affixed as a sort cured a large and, I flatter me, recherché library of kitchen. I had, however, two rooms in a with appurtenances. And then I longed for the second story for emergency, and it was most pleasant sunshine to come, when the mountain fortunate considering my speedy change from air is balmy and the shade enticing. I eagerly single blessedness-" wished the flowers, I pined with Max in Wal the finishing of my cottage, the most supernal before it was the wife of Richard Maldean!chateaux en Espagne in which my fancy had in- "Come, Mr. Brent, what has been the matdulged had approached to a more vivid and real ter-I thought you had a fit? You were groanvision to speak the least. My flute and my ing so loud that I heard you as I was going home books were my soul's communion, and my only by the path yonder! What have you been dreamcompanions. The lovely shades that waved being of? It was Annie Maldean, the fair sweet neath the sunlight around the tairu were my pal- girl, that had wakened me. I found my fingers aces, the thoughts that my mind created, unruly clenched in the ground and one hand bleeding though they were, were my subjects. Some- with a bruise on the rocks. times gentle sleep would weigh down my eyelids as I reclined beneath the trees, with my spirit borne through the mystic portals of Dream-land. Here, when thinking over my own nature and aspirations, I would start with those sudden retroglimpses of a former conscious existence, according to Plato's theory. For a time I lived a high and happy life. “Come,' said I, as I rose up, 'since my afterdinner ride on a night-mare has detained you 'till dusk, I will accompany you in sight of your house.' "No matter for that, sir, I am used to walking about here at this time and later.' "But I insisted, for, to tell the truth, I had a desire of conversing with her on any subject connected with her history. As I gave her my arm I cast a hurried glance across the tairn. I fancied I saw some dim form dart forward on the side forming the hypothenuse of the lake and in the same direction in which we were going. I shuddered, and half attributed it to the current of my thought. "I had resolved, as I said before, to speak to Annie of her recollections. As soon as I mentioned the subject she became pale and agitated. It was not very much that I learned of her. She had but a faint reminiscence of a sweet face that she delighted to think was her mother's, bending over her day and night many years ago: she was certain that it was not that of the present Mrs. Maldean. She was treated far from well at her home; there was little good treatment of any one there: sometimes when Mr. Maldean and his wife would get angry, he would say, "One evening I had walked out to the shade of a fine fruit tree with a volume of Emerson's Essays in my hand. It was an evening such as Naples would boast of: and my heart also said with what I read in the book :-give me health aud a day and I will make the pomp of emperors ridiculous! I had not been there long when I fell asleep and dreamed a dream. I dreamedyou laugh that I should think it worthy the telling, but it was a noteworthy dream and all that I may have further to say depends on it :-I dreamed that from my seat I saw two women at the head of the tairn emerge from the wood arm in arm and with baskets of wild flowers. The day was warm and they sat down to rest on the mossy bank. They were about two hundred yards from me. At length one rose up and made a motion toward the water; the other also arose and bathed her hand in it; both then looked around, and, not perceiving me, commenced un-Come here Annie, I have a secret, and at such dressing, evidently with the intention of bathing. times Mrs. Maldean would jump up frantically They both waded together carefully in the wa- and thrust her out of the room. ter, one preceding the other and then pointing how far she might come. At length when they both had reached a depth to their shoulders, the one that had preceded the other got behind her artfully and pushed her violently under the water. O, God, what a sight it was, I could not move? She came up-I saw her plainly-and was instantly thrust down again by the fiend beside her once again she came up and a stifled cry of My child, my child' was borne over the peaceful lake; she sank again and all was still! The other woman came out and hastily dressed "You have doubtless concluded, what was herself, then rolling up the clothes of the one she true, that my imagination had woven from my had murdered, with a large stone in them, she dream and what I had been able to derive from threw them in the tairn and hastened by a differ- Annie a complete and consistent tragedy: that ent way from that by which she came; just be- Maldean's present wife had murdered a former fore she left she looked quickly around, and I one, and mother of Annie, for the sake of her saw her face distinctly for the first time. That husband and probably at his instigation, and unsettled look! that pale genius of unrest that that the crime had been committed in the way sat on her brow!-surely I had seen that woman indicated by my vision. 66 "I found Annie, although sixteen, very diffident, insomuch that she would not say anything she thought on these matters. By the time that I had acquired this much we reached the gate opening in sight of the house; she thanked me for attending her thus far, and said there was no need of my going farther. At this instant a woman approached whom, I soon perceived, was Mrs. Maldean, who said that she had been out to look for her as Annie staid a little longer than usual. I left the two and returned home. would only make me act with more celerity in the matter. To be brief, I had resolved to take advantage of Annie's helpless condition, if you like to say so, and ask her hand in marriage. "I had read in the Tales of the German Nun [of the furniture, was rented. But I informed of the eleventh century, and in the early legends them of a design I had in my mind ever since of the Eyder, stories similar.to that which I now my eye first lit on Annie; and circumstances tremble to think had occurred in my experience, of dark crimes shown up by a supernatural light. I had of course regarded them, however told in good faith, as simple fictions; albeit I may have asked myself why, iu those days when the means of discovering crime were so limited, it might not be supposed that the Father of Justice would indicate the trace of the deed by his own power? "I will now tell concisely how my own vision was conformed to me, though there is still room for skepticism. I rode over to two gentlemen's houses at some distance, one of whom was a magistrate to these I communicated my dream, and said that I would at least rest easier if it were investigated. We went together, all three. on the subsequent day to the tairn, carrying with us two stout negroes with drags. It was in the afternoon when we went over there: the negroes arranged the drags, and went out in the boat to the spot, which I could indicate from the vividness of my dream. I felt a horrible sensation of certainty, as we all stood there in breathless excitement awaiting the result. "Here it is at last!' exclaimed one of the negroes in a low voice as he slowly lifted to the surface of the water a portion of a bare skeleton! One or two of the bones were lost, but the greater portion of the order was preserved. The bones were brought ashore. "Not long afterward we were married. Ever since my cottage has been a place of new beauties: before it was a beautiful statue; now there's life in it-it's an angel, is my home. And, my dear Leman, of all the beautiful, bright-faced, intelligent cherubs" "Very remarkable indeed," said Leman in a musing way. "The children?" I eagerly suggested. • Why, Brent, you are waudering; I mean the story you've related. It is certainly a most singular one, and were it not that you told it, I would be a skeptic as to the facts. If you believe that your conclusion as to the incidents is true, then there is no evasion of the supernatural nature of the affair: there seems some room for the supposition that your dream was vague as you dreamed it, but sufficient to suggest the drowning, and that after the finding of the body it (the dream) assumed a definite form in your own mind; then, that the remainder was part coincidence. part fancy." "Come let us fill up another bowl. Leman, for I am eager for your tale. Sacrè! how the wind blows-I pity those who haven't good cheer to night!" Leman for some time did not heed my invitation to warm another cup of coffee; and for some minutes seemed much entertained with reverie, if auy thing could be discerned from the variety of expression on his face. "Can it be proved on them?' I said aloud. "At that moment a report was heard close by and I fell a ball had lodged in my left arm. Some of those present ran out to seek and arrest the person whoever it was, and on this point I had no doubt. They saw no one. In the mean- "You know, Brent," he said at length, "all time I was taken care of, and the skeleton, borne about my travels till within the last one or two by a negro, was brought to my house as a wit-years. You know how I wandered over the ness. It was very late when we arrived. loveliest spots of the old world to drink inspira"Early on the next day the two magistrates tion from the Tweed and the Mayne; and to went over to Maldean's in order to arrest him wander in transport amid the sterile grandeur of and his wife. They found no one there but An- Holland, so delicately conceived by the pencil of nie: Maldean and his wife were gone! The Madame D'Arbourville in her Histoire Hollanpoor weeping girl knew nothing of their depart daise.' You know how I at last settled to comure: but an old driver, coming along the main-plete my studies at a short way from Roveredo, road near by, said he had met a couple in a car in the sublime retirement of the green hills of riole like that of Maldean's, answering to the Tyrol.' description, far off, at day break, on the great Concerning the progress of my study there route to the West. It is rather fortunate,' I you have been regularly informed by letter. I said when I heard it, for the Law doesn't con- don't know why, but in a caprice I had resolved vict and punish people on the evidence of dreams; not to visit my mother and sister, whom I thought but here is confession!' still in Italy, until I had gained a fair name as an artist. It was a caprice of mine; but you know I was always ambitious. 64 It was mooted to take up a collection for the support of the deserted Annie, for Maldean and his wife had secured every thing of value in the The stirring fame of the New Revolution house, and the house itself, together with most that just was about to dawn in lurid fire on the resVOL. XVII-81 |