The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 12, No. 69, July, 1863. VariousЧитать онлайн книгу.
and headed the other way, paying no more attention to my reins or my terrific "whoas" than if I were a sleeping babe. A horse is none of your woman's-rights men. He is Pauline. He suffers not the woman to usurp authority over him. He never says anything nor votes anything, but declares himself unequivocally by taking things into his own hands, whenever he knows there is nobody but a woman behind him,—and somehow he always does know. After Halicarnassus had turned him back and set him going the right way, I took on a gruff, manny voice, to deceive. Nonsense! I could almost see him snap his fingers at me. He minded my whip no more than he did a fly,—not so much as he did some flies. Grande said she supposed his back was all callous. I acted upon the suggestion, knelt down in the bottom of the wagon, and leaned over the dasher to whip him on his belly, then climbed out on the shafts and snapped about his ears; but he stood it much better than I. Finally I found that by taking the small end of the wooden whip-handle, and sticking it into him, I could elicit a faint flash of light; so I did it with assiduity, but the moderate trot which even that produced was not enough to accomplish my design, which was to outstrip the two men and make them run or beg. The opposing forces arrived at the pump about the same time.
Halicarnassus took the handle, and gave about five jerks. Then the Anakim took it and gave five more. Then they both stopped and wiped their faces.
"What do you suppose this pump was put here for?" asked Halicarnassus.
"A mile-stone, probably," replied the Anakim.
Then they resumed their Herculean efforts till the water came, and then they got into the wagon, and we drove into the blackberries once more, where we arrived just in season to escape a thunder—shower, and pile merrily into one of several coaches waiting to convey passengers in various directions as soon as the train should come.
It is very selfish, but fine fun, to have secured your own chosen seat and bestowed your own luggage, and have nothing to do but witness the anxieties and efforts of other people. This exquisite pleasure we enjoyed for fifteen minutes, edified at the last by hearing one of our coachmen call out, "Here, Rosey, this way!"—whereupon a manly voice, in the darkness, near us, soliloquized, "Respectful way of addressing a judge of the Supreme Court!" and, being interrogated, the voice informed us that "Rosey" was the vulgate for Judge Rosecranz; whereupon Halicarnassus glossed over the rampant democracy by remarking that the diminutive was probably a term of endearment rather than familiarity; whereupon the manly voice—if I might say it—snickered audibly in the darkness, and we all relapsed into silence. But could anything be more characteristic of a certain phase of the manners of our great and glorious country? Where are the Trollopes? Where is Dickens? Where is Basil Hall?
It is but a dreary ride to Lake George on a dark and rainy evening, unless people like riding for its own sake, as I do. If there are suns and stars and skies, very well. If there are not, very well too: I like to ride all the same. I like everything in this world but Saratoga. Once or twice our monotony was broken up by short halts before country-inns. At one an excitement was going on. "Had a casualty here this afternoon," remarked a fresh passenger, as soon as he was fairly seated. A casualty is a windfall to a country-village. It is really worth while to have a head broken occasionally, for the wholesome stirring-up it gives to the heads that are not broken. On the whole, I question whether collisions and collusions do not cause as much good as harm. Certainly, people seem to take the most lively satisfaction in receiving and imparting all the details concerning them. Our passenger-friend opened his budget with as much complacence as ever did Mr. Gladstone or Disraeli, and with a confident air of knowing that he was going not only to enjoy a piece of good-fortune himself, but to administer a great gratification to us. Our "casualty" turned out to be the affair of a Catholic priest, of which our informer spoke only in dark hints and with significant shoulder-shrugs and eyebrow-elevations, because it was "not exactly the thing to get out, you know"; but if it wasn't to get out, why did he let it out? and so from my dark corner I watched him as a cat does a mouse, and the lamp-light shone full upon him, and I understood every word and shrug, and I am going to tell it all to the world. I translated that the holy father had been "skylarking" in a boat, and in gay society had forgotten his vows of frugality and abstinence and general mortification of the flesh, and had become, not very drunk, but drunk enough to be dangerous, when he came ashore and took a horse in his hands, and so upset his carriage, and gashed his temporal artery, and came to grief, which is such a casualty as does not happen every day, and I don't blame people for making the most of it. Then the moral was pointed, and the tale adorned, and the impression deepened, solemnized, and struck home by the fact that the very horse concerned in the "casualty" was to be fastened behind our coach, and the whole population came out with lanterns and umbrellas to tie him on,—all but one man, who was deaf, and stood on the piazza, anxious and eager to know everything that had been and was still occurring, and yet sorry to give trouble, and so compromising the matter and making it worse, as compromises generally do, by questioning everybody with a deprecating, fawning air.
Item. We shall all, if we live long enough, be deaf, but we need not be meek about it. I for one am determined to walk up to people and demand what they are saying at the point of the bayonet. Deafness, if it must be so, but independence at any rate.
And when the fulness of time is come, we alight at Fort-William-Henry Hotel, and all night long through the sentient woods I hear the booming of Johnson's cannon, the rattle of Dieskau's guns, and that wild war-whoop, more terrible than all. Again old Monro watches from his fortress-walls the steadily approaching foe, and looks in vain for help, save to his own brave heart. I see the light of conquest shining in his foeman's eye, darkened by no shadow of the fate that waits his coming on a bleak Northern hill; but, generous in the hour of victory, he shall not be less noble in defeat,—for to generous hearts all generous hearts are friendly, whether they stand face to face or side by side.
Over the woods and the waves, when the morning breaks, like a bridegroom coming forth from his chamber, rejoicing as a strong man to run a race, comes up the sun in his might and crowns himself king. All the summer day, from morn to dewy eve, we sail over the lakes of Paradise. Blue waters and blue sky, soft clouds, and green islands, and fair, fruitful shores, sharp-pointed hills, long, gentle slopes and swells, and the lights and shadows of far-stretching woods; and over all the potence of the unseen past, the grand, historic past,—soft over all the invisible mantle which our fathers flung at their departing,—the mystic effluence of the spirits that trod these wilds and sailed these waters,—the courage and the fortitude, the hope that battled against hope, the comprehensive outlook, the sagacious purpose, the resolute will, the unhesitating self-sacrifice, the undaunted devotion which has made this heroic ground: cast these into your own glowing crucible, O gracious friend, and crystallize for yourself such a gem of days as shall worthily be set forever in your crown of the beatitudes.
THE FLEUR-DE-LIS AT PORT ROYAL
In the year 1562 a cloud of black and deadly portent was thickening over France. Surely and swiftly she glided towards the abyss of the religious wars. None could pierce the future; perhaps none dared to contemplate it: the wild rage of fanaticism and hate, friend grappling with friend, brother with brother, father with son; altars profaned, hearthstones made desolate; the robes of Justice herself bedrenched with murder. In the gloom without lay Spain, imminent and terrible. As on the hill by the field of Dreux, her veteran bands of pikemen, dark masses of organized ferocity, stood biding their time while the battle surged below, then swept downward to the slaughter,—so did Spain watch and wait to trample and crush the hope of humanity.
In these days of fear, a Huguenot colony sailed for the New World. The calm, stern man who represented and led the Protestantism of France felt to his inmost heart the peril of the time. He would fain build up a city of refuge for the persecuted sect. Yet Gaspar de Coligny, too high in power and rank to be openly assailed, was forced to act with caution. He must act, too, in the name of the Crown, and in virtue of his office of Admiral of France. A nobleman and a soldier,—for the Admiral of France was no seaman,—he shared the ideas and habits of his class; nor is there reason to believe him to have been in advance of others of his time in a knowledge of the principles of successful colonization. His scheme promised a military colony, not a free commonwealth. The Huguenot party was already a political, as well as a religious party. At its foundation lay the religious element, represented by Geneva, the martyrs, and the devoted fugitives who sang the psalms of Marot among