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A/C3/1

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ISRAEL POTTED

FIF1T TEARS OFEXILE

BY HERMAN MELVILLE,

AUTHOR CF>TyPEE," "OMOO," &;

ISRAEL POTTER:

HIS

ifto tero jof

BY

HERMAN-MELVILLE,

AUTHOR OF "TYPEE," "OMOO," ETC.

LONDON:

G. ROUTLEDGE & CO. FARRINGDON STREET.

1855.

TO

HIS HIGHNESS

THE

BUNKER-HILL MONUMENT.

BIOGRAPHY, in its purer form, confined to the ended lives of the true and brave, may be held the fairest meed of human virtue — one given and received in entire disinterestedness — since neither can the bio grapher hope for acknowledgment from the subject, nor the subject at all avail himself of the biographical distinction conferred.

Israel Potter well merits the present tribute — a private of Bunker Hill, who for his faithful services was years ago promoted to a still deeper privacy under the ground, with a posthumous pension, in default of any during life, annually paid him by the spring in ever-new mosses and sward.

I am the more encouraged to lay this performance at the feet of your Highness, because, with a change in the grammatical person, it preserves, almost as in a

DEDICATION.

reprint, Israel Potter's autobiographical story. Shortly after his return in infirm old age to his native land, a little narrative of his adventures, forlornly published on sleazy gray paper, appeared among the pedlars, written, probably, not by himself, but taken down from his lips by another. But like the crutch-marks of the cripple by the Beautiful Gate, this blurred record is now out of print. From a tattered copy, rescued by the merest chance from the rag-pickers, the present account has been drawn, which, with the exception of some expansions, and additions of his toric and personal details, and one or two shiftings of scene, may, perhaps, be not unfitly regarded some thing in the light of a dilapidated old tombstone retouched.

Well aware that in your Highness's eyes the merit of the story must be in its general fidelity to the main drift of the original narrative, I forbore anywhere to mitigate the hard fortunes of my hero ; and particu larly towards the end, though sorely tempted, durst not substitute for the allotment of Providence any artistic recompense of poetical justice ; so that no one can complain of the gloom of my closing chapters more profoundly than myself.

Such is the work, and such the man, that I have the honour to present to your Highness. That the

DEDICATION. 7

name here noted should not have appeared in the volumes of Sparks, may or may not be a matter for astonishment j but Israel Potter seems purposely to have waited to make his popular advent under the present exalted patronage, seeing that your Highness, according to the definition above, may, in the loftiest sense, be deemed the Great Biographer : the national commemorator of such of the anonymous privates of June 17, 1775, who may never have received other requital than the solid reward of your granite.

Your Highness will pardon me, if, with the warmest ascriptions on this auspicious occasion, I take the liberty to mingle my hearty congratulations on the recurrence of the anniversary day we celebrate, wishing your Highness (though indeed your Highness be somewhat prematurely gray) many returns of the same, and that each of its summer's suns may shine as brightly on your brow as each winter snow shall lightly rest on the grave of Israel Potter.

Your Highness's

Most devoted and obsequious,

THE EDITOK.

ISRAEL POTTER:

Jfiffg |ws of fail*.

CHAPTER I.

THE BIRTHPLACE OF ISRAEL.

THE traveller who at the present day is content to travel in the good old Asiatic style, neither rushed ^ along by a locomotive, nor dragged by a stage-coach ; who is willing to enjoy hospitalities at far- scattered farmhouses, instead of paying his bill at an inn ; who is not to be frightened by any amount of loneliness, or to be deterred by the roughest roads or the highest hills : such a traveller in the eastern part of Berkshire, Massachusetts, will find ample food ^ for poetic reflection in the singular scenery of a country, which, owing to the ruggedness of the soil and its lying out of the track of all public conveyances, remains almost as unknown to the general tourist as the interior of Bohemia.

Travelling northward from the township of Otis, the road leads for twenty or thirty miles towards Windsor, length wise upon that long broken spur of heights which the Green Mountains of Vermont send into Massachusetts. For nearly the whole of the distance, you have the continual sensation of being upon some terrace in the moon. The feeling of the plain or the valley is never yours ; scarcely the feeling of the earth. Unless by a sudden precipitation of the road you find yourself plunging into some gorge, you pass on, and on, and on, upon the crests or slopes of pastoral moun tains, while far below, mapped out in its beauty, the valley of the Housatonic lies endlessly along at your feet. Often, as your horse gaining some lofty level tract, flat as a table, trots gaily over the almost deserted and sodded road, and yonr admiring eye sweeps the broad landscape beneath, you

10 ISRAEL POTTEE.

seem to be Bootes driving- in heaven. Save a potato-field here and there, at long intervals, the whole country is either in wood or pasture. Horses, cattle, and sheep are the prin cipal inhabitants of these mountains. But all through the year lazy columns of smoke, rising from the depths of the forest, proclaim the presence of that half-outlaw, the char coal-burner ; while in early spring added curls of vapour show that the maple sugar-boiler is also at work. But as for farming as a regular vocation, there is not much of it here. At any rate, no man by that means accumulates a fortune from this thin and rocky soil, all whose arable parts have long since been nearly exhausted.

Yet during the first settlement of the country, the region was not unproductive. Here it was that the original set tlers came, acting upon the principle well known to have regulated their choice of site, namely, the high land in preference to the low, as less subject to the unwholesome miasmas generated by breaking into the rich valleys and alluvial bottoms of primeval regions. By degrees, how ever, they quitted the safety of this sterile elevation, to brave the dangers of richer though lower fields. So that, at the present day, some of those mountain townships present an aspect of singular abandonment. Though they have never known aught but peace and health, they, in one lesser aspect at least, look like countries depopulated by plague and war. Every mile or two a house is passed untenanted. > The strength of the frame-work of these ancient buildings enables them long to resist the encroach ments of decay. Spotted gray and green with the weather- stain, their timbers seem to have lapsed back into their woodland original, forming part now of the general pictu- resqueness of the natural scene. They are of extraordinary size, compared with modern farmhouses. One peculiar feature is the immense chimney, of light gray stone, per forating the middle of the roof like a tower.

On all sides are seen the tokens of ancient industry. As stone abounds throughout these mountains, that material was, for fences, as ready to the hand as wood, besides being much more durable. Consequently the landscape is inter sected in all directions with walls of uncommon neatness and strength.

The number and length of these walls is not more surprising than the size of some of the blocks comprising them. The very Titans seemed to have been at work. That so small an army as the first settlers must needs have been,

BIRTHPLACE. 11

should have taken such wonderful pains to enclose so un grateful a soil: that they should have accomplished such herculean undertakings with so slight prospect of reward ; this is a consideration which gives us a significant hint of the temper of the men of the revolutionary era.

Nor could a fitter country be found for the birthplace of the devoted patriot, Israel Potter.

To this day the best stone-wall builders, as the best wood-choppers, come from those solitary mountain towns ; a tall, athletic, and hardy race, unerring with the axe as the Indian with the tomahawk ; at stone -rolling, patient as Sisyphus, powerful as Samson.

In fine clear June days, the bloom of these mountains is beyond expression delightful. Last visiting these heights ere she vanishes, Spring, like the sunset, flings her sweetest charms upon them. Each tuft of upland grass is masked like a bouquet with perfume. The balmy breeze swings to and fro like a censer. On one side the eye follows for the space of an eagle's flight, the serpentine mountain chains, southwards from the great purple dome of Taconic — the St. Peter's of these hills — northwards to the twin summits of Saddleback, which is the two-steepled natural cathedral of Berkshire ; while low down to the west the Housatonic winds on in her watery labyrinth, through charming meadows basking in the reflected rays from the hill-sides. At this season the beauty of every thing around you populates the loneliness of your way. You would not have the country more settled if you could. Content to drink in such loveli ness at all your senses, the heart desires no company but Nature.

With what rapture you behold, hovering over some vast hollow of the hills, or slowly drifting at an immense height over the far sunken Housatonic valley, some lordly eagle, who in unshared exaltation looks down equally upon plain and mountain. Or you behold a hawk sallying from some crag, like a Rhenish baron of old from his pinnacled castle, and darting down towards the river for his prey. Or perhaps, lazily gliding about in the zenith, this ruffian fowl is suddenly beset by a crow, who with stubborn audacity pecks at him, and, spite of all his bravery, finally persecutes him back to his stronghold. The otherwise dauntless bandit, sparing at his topmost height, must needs succumb to this sable image of death. Nor are there wanting many smaller and less famous fowl, who without contributing to the grandeur, yet greatly add to the beauty

12 ISRAEL POTTER.

of the scene. The yellow-bird flits like a winged jonquil here and there ; like knots of violets the hlue-hirds sport in clusters upon the grass ; while hurrying from the pasture to the grove, the red robin seems an incendiary putting torch to the trees. Meanwhile the air is vocal with their hymns, and your own soul joys in the general joy. Like a stranger in an orchestra, you cannot help singing yourself when all around you raise such hosannas.

But in autumn, those gay northerners, the birds, return to their southern plantations. The mountains are left bleak and sere. Solitude settles down upon them in driz zling mists. The traveller is beset, at perilous turns, by dense masses of fog. He _ emerges for a moment into more penetrable air ; and passing some gray, abandoned house, sees the lofty vapours plainly eddy by its desolate door ; just as from the plain you may see it eddy by the pinnacles of distant and lonely heights. Or, dismounting from his frightened horse, he leads him down some scowling glen, where the road steeply dips among grim rocks, only to rise as abruptly again ; and as he warily picks his way, uneasy at the menacing scene, he sees some ghost-like object loom ing through the mist at the road-side ; and wending towards it, beholds a rude white stone, uncouthly inscribed, marking the spot where, some fifty or sixty years ago, some farmer was upset in his woodsled, and perished beneath the load.

In winter this region is blocked up with snow. Inacces sible and impassable, those wild, unfrequented roads, which in August are overgrown with high grass, in December are drifted to the arm-pit with the white fleece from the sky. As if an ocean rolled between man and man, intercommuni cation is often suspended for weeks and weeks.

Such, at this day, is the country which gave birth to our hero : prophetically styled Israel by the good Puritans, his parents, since, for^ more than forty years, poor Potter wandered in the wild wilderness of the world's extremest hardships and ills.

How little he thought, when as a boy, hunting after his father's stray cattle among these New England hills he himself like a beast should be hunted through half of Old England, as a runaway rebel. Or, how could he ever have dreamed, when involved in the autumnal vapours of these mountains, that worse bewilderments awaited him three thousand miles across the sea, wandering forlorn in the coal-fogs of London. But so it was destined to be. This

YOUTHFUL ADVENTUEES. 13

little boy of the hills, born in sight of the sparkling Housatonic, was to linger out the best part of his life a prisoner or a pauper upon the grimy banks of the Thames,

CHAPTER II.

THE YOUTHFUL ADYENTUEES OF ISEAEL.

IMAGINATION will easily picture the rural day of the youth of Israel. Let us pass on to a less immature period.

It appears that he began his wanderings very early; moreover, that ere, on just principles throwing off the yoke of his king, Israel, on equally excusable grounds, emanci pated himself from his sire. He continued in the enjoyment of parental love till the age of eighteen, when, having formed an attachment for a neighbour's daughter — for some reason, not deemed a suitable match by his father — he was severely reprimanded, warned to discontinue his visits, and threat ened with some disgraceful punishment in case he persisted. As the girl was not only beautiful, but amiable — though, as will be seen, rather weak — and her family as respectable as any, though unfortunately butlpoor, Israel deemed his father's conduct unreasonable and oppressive ; particularly as it turned out that he had taken secret means to thwart his son with the girl's connections, if not with the girl herself, so as to place almost insurmountable obstacles to an even tual marriage. For it had not been the purpose of Israel to marry at once, but at a future day, when prudence should approve the step. So, oppressed by his father, and bitterly disappointed in his lo\e, the desperate boy formed the determination to quit them both, for another home and other friends.

It was on Sunday, while the family were gone to a farm house church near by, that he packed as much of his clothing as might be contained in a handkerchief, which, with a small quantity of provision, he hid in a piece of woods in the rear of the house. He then returned, and continued in the house till about nine in the evening, when, pretending to go to bed, he passed out of a back door, and hastened to the woods for his bundle.

14 ISEAEL POTTER.

It was a sultry night in July ; and that he might travel with the more^ ease on the succeeding day, he lay down at the foot of a pine-tree, reposing himself till an hour before dawn, when, upon awaking, he heard the soft prophetic sighing of the pine, stirred by the first breath of the morning. Like the leaflets of that evergreen, all the fibres of his heart trembled within him; tears fell from his eyes. But he thought of the tyranny of his father, and what seemed to him the faithlessness of his love ; and shouldering his bundle, arose, and marched on.

His intention was to reach the new countries to the northward and westward, lying between the Dutch settle ments on f the Hudson, and the Yankee settlements on the Housatonic. This was mainly to elude all search. For the same reason, for the first ten or twelve miles, shunning the public roads, he travelled through the woods ; for he knew that he would soon be missed and pursued.

He reached his destination in safety ; hired out to a farmer for a month through the harvest; then crossed from the Hudson to the Connecticut. Meeting here with an adven turer to the unknown regions lying about the head waters of the latter river, he ascended with this man in a canoe, paddling and pulling for many miles. Here again he hired himself out for three months ; at the end of that time to receive for his wages, two hundred acres of land lying in New Hampshire. The cheapness of the land was not alone owing to the newness of the country, but to the perils in vesting it. Not only was it a wilderness abounding with wild beasts, but the widely- scattered inhabitants were in continual dread of being, at some unguarded moment, destroyed or made captive by the Canadian savages, who, ever since the French war, had improved every opportunity to make forays across the defenceless frontier. ^

His employer proving false to his contract in the matter of the land, and there being no law in the country to force him to fulfil it, Israel — who, however brave-hearted, and even much of a dare-devil upon a pinch, seems nevertheless to have evinced, throughout many parts of his career, a singular patience and mildness — was obliged to look round for other means of livelihood than clearing out a farm for himself in the wilderness. A party of royal surveyors were at this period surveying the unsettled regions bordering the Connecticut river to its source; At fifteen shillings per month, he engaged himself to this party as assistant chain- bearer, little thinking that the day was to come when he

YOUTHFUL ADVENTURES. 15

should clank the king's chains in a dungeon, even as now he trailed them a free ranger of the woods. It was midwinter ; the land was suryeved upon snow-shoes. At the close of the day, fires were kindled with dry hemlock, a hut thrown up, and the party ate and slept.

Paid off at last, Israel hought a gun and ammunition, and turned hunter. Deer, beaver, &c., were plenty. In two or three months he had many skins to show. ^ I suppose it never entered his mind that he was thus qualifying himself for a marksman of men. But thus were tutored those won derful shots who did such execution at Bunker's Hill ; these, the hunter-soldiers, whom Putnam bade wait till the white of the enemy's eye was seen.

With the result of his hunting he purchased a hundred acres of land, further down the river, toward the more settled parts ; built himself a log hut, and in two summers, with his own hands, cleared thirty acres for sowing. In the winter seasons he hunted and trapped. At the end of the two years, he sold back his land — now much improved — to the original owner, at an advance of fifty pounds. He con veyed his cash and furs to Charlestown, on the Connecticut (sometimes called No. 4), where he trafficked them away for Indian blankets, pigments, and other showy articles adapted to the business of a trader among savages. It was now winter again. Putting his goods on a hand-sled, he started towards Canada, a pedlar in the wilderness, stopping at wigwams instead of cottages. One fancies that, had it been summer, Israel would have travelled with a wheelbarrow, and so trundled his wares through the primeval forests, with the same indifference as porters roll their barrows over the flagging of streets. In this way was bred that fearless self- reliance and independence which conducted our forefathers to national freedom.

This Canadian trip proved highly successful. Selling his glittering goods at a great advance, he received in exchange valuable peltries and furs at a corresponding reduction. Returning to Charlestown, he disposed of his return cargo again at a very fine profit. And now, with a light heart and a heavy purse, he resolved to visit his sweetheart and parents, of whom, for three years, he had had no tidings.

They were not less astonished than delighted at his reap pearance ; he had been numbered with the dead. But his love still seemed strangely coy ; willing, but yet somehow mysteriously withheld. The old intrigues were still on foot. Israel soon discovered, that though rejoiced to welcome the

16 ISRAEL POTTEK.

return of the prodigal son — so some called him — his father still remained inflexibly determined against the match, and still inexplicably countermined his wooing. With a dolorous heart he mildly yielded to what seemed his fatality; and more intrepid in facing peril for himself, than in endanger ing others by maintaining his rights (for he was now one- and-twenty), resolved once more to retreat, and quit his blue hills for the bluer billows.

A hermitage in the forest is the refuge of the narrow- minded misanthrope ; a hammock on the ocean is the asylum for the generous distressed. The ocean brims with natural griefs and tragedies; and into that watery immensity of terror, man's private grief is lost like a drop.

Travelling on foot to Providence, llhode Island, Israel shipped on board a sloop, bound with lime to the West Indies. On the tenth day out, the vessel caught fire, from water communicating with the lime. It was impossible to extinguish the flames. The boat was hoisted out, but owing to long ^ exposure to the sun, it needed continual baling to keep it afloat. They had only time to put in a firkin of butter, and a ten-gallon keg of water. Eight in number, the crew entrusted themselves to the waves, in a leaky tub, many leagues from land. As the boat swept under the burning bowsprit, Israel caught at a fragment of the flying- jib, which sail had fallen down the stay, owing to the charring, nigh the deck, c i/ne rope which hoisted it. Tanned with the smoke, and its edge blackened with the fire, this bit of canvas helped them bravely on their way. Thanks to kind Providence, on the second day they were picked up by a Dutch ship, bound from Eustasia to Holland. The castaways were humanely received, and supplied with every necessary. At the end of a week, while unsophisti cated Israel was sitting in the main-top, thinking what should befall him in Holland, and wondering what sort of unsettled, wild country it was, and whether there was any deer-shooting or beaver-trapping there, lo ! an American, brig, bound from Piscataqua to Antigua, comes in sight. The American took them aboard, and conveyed them safely to her port. There Israel shipped for Porto Rico ; from thence, sailed to Eustatia.

Other rovings ensued ; until at last, entering on board a Xantucket ship, he hunted the leviathan off the Western Islands, and on the coast of Africa, for sixteen months; returning at length to Nantucket with a brimming hold. From that island he sailed again on another whaling

GOES TO THE WARS. 17

voyage — extending-, this time, into the great South Sea. There, promoted to be harpooner, Israel, whose eye and arm had been so improved by practice with his gun in the wilderness, now further intensified his aim, by darting the whale-lance ; still, unwittingly, preparing himself for the Bunker Hill rifle.

In this last voyage, our adventurer experienced to the extreme all the hardships and privations of the whaleman's life on a long voyage to distant and barbarous waters ; hardships and privations unknown at the present day, when science has so greatly contributed, in manifold ways, to lessen the sufferings, and add to the comforts of seafaring men. Heartily sick of the ocean, and longing once more for the bush, Israel, upon receiving his discharge at Nan- tucket at the end of the voyage, hied straight back for his mountain home.

But if hopes of his sweetheart winged his returning flight, such hopes were not destined to be crowned with fruition. The dear, false girl was another's.

CHAP* I III.

ISRAEL GOES TO THE WAES ; AND BEACHING BUNKER HILL IN TIME TO BE OF SERVICE THERE, SOON AFTER IS FORCED TO EXTEND HIS TRAVELS ACROSS THE SEA INTO THE ENEMY'S LAND.

LEFT to idle lamentations, Israel might now have planted deep furrows in his brow. But stifling his pain, he chose rather to plough, than be ploughed. Farming weans man from his sorrows. That tranquil pursuit tolerates nothing but tranquil meditations. There, too, in mother earth, you may plant and reap ; not, as in other things, plant and see the planting torn up by the roots. But if wandering in the wilderness, and wandering upon the waters — if felling trees, and hunting, and shipwreck, and fighting with whales, and all his other strange adventures, had not as yet cured poor Israel of his now hopeless passion, events were at hand for ever to drown it.

IS ISRAEL POTTEft.

It was the year 1774. The difficulties long pending between the colonies and England were arriving at their crisis. Hostilities were certain. The Americans were pre paring^ themselves. Companies were formed in most of the Xew^ England towns, whose members, receiving the name of minute-men, stood ready to march anywhere at a minute's warning. Israel, for the last eight months, sojourning as a labourer on a farm in Windsor, enrolled himself in the regiment of Colonel John Patterson, of Lenox, afterwards General Patterson.

The battle of ^ Lexington was fought on the 18th of April, 1775 ; news of it arrived in the county of Berkshire, on the 20th, about noon. The next morning, at sunrise, Israel swung his knapsack, shouldered his musket, and, with Pat terson's regiment, was on the march, quickstep, towards Boston.

Like Putnam, Israel received the stirring tidings at the plough. But although not less willing than Putnam to fly to battle at an instant's notice, yet — only half an acre of the field remaining to be finished — he whipped up his team and finished it. Before hastening to one duty, he would not leave a prior one undone; and ere helping to whip the British, for a little practice sake, he applied the gad to his oxen. From the field of the farmer, he rushed to that of the soldier, mingling his blood with his sweat. While we revel in broadcloth, let us not forget what we owe to linsey-woolsey.

With other detachments from various quarters, Israel's regiment remained encamped for several days in the vicinity of Charlestown. On the 17th of June, one thousand Ame ricans, including the regiment of Patterson, were set about fortifying Bunker's Hill. Working all through the night, by dawn of the following day, the redoubt was thrown up. But every one knows all about the battle. Suffice it, that Israel was one of those marksmen wnom Putnam harangued as touching the enemy's e3res. Forbearing as he was with his oppressive father and unfaithful love, and mild as he was on the farm, Israel was not the same at Bunker Hill. Putnam had enjoined the men to aim at the officers ; so Israel aimed between the golden epaulettes, as, in the wilderness, he had aimed between the branching antlers. With dogged disdain of their foes, the English grenadiers marched up the hill with sullen slowness ; thus furnishing still surer aims to the muskets which bristled on the redoubt. Modest Israel was used to aver, that considering his prac-

GOES TO THE WARS. 19

tice in the woods, he could hardly be regarded as an inex perienced marksman ; hinting-, that every shot which the epauletted grenadiers received from his rifle, would, upon a different occasion, have procured him a deerskin. And like stricken deers the English, rashly brave as they were, fled from the opening tire. But the marksman's ammunition was expended ; a hand-to-hand encounter ensued. Not one American musket in twenty had a bayonet to it. So, wielding the stock right and left, the terrible farmers, with hats and coats off, fought their way among the furred grenadiers, knocking them right and left, as seal-hunters on the beach knock down with their clubs the Shetland seal. In the dense crowd and confusion, while Israel's musket got interlocked, he saw a blade horizontally menac ing his feet from the ground. Thinking some fallen enemy sought to strike him at the last gasp, dropping his hold on his musket, he wrenched at the steel, but found that though a brave hand held it, that hand was powerless for ever. It was some British officer's laced sword-arm, cut from the trunk in the act of fighting, refusing to yield up its blade to the last. At that moment another sword was aimed at Israel's head by a living officer. In an instant the blow was parried by kindred steel, and the assailant fell by a brother's weapon, wielded by alien hands. But Israel did not come off unscathed. A cut on the right arm, near the elbow, received in parrying the officer's blow, a long slit across the chest, a musket-ball buried in his hip, and another mangling him near the ankle of the same leg, were the tokens of intrepidity which our Sicinius Dentatus carried from this memorable field. Nevertheless, with his comrades he succeeded in reaching Prospect Hill, and from thence was conveyed to the hospital at Cambridge. The bullet was extracted, his lesser wounds were dressed, and after much suffering from the fracture of the bone near the ankle, several pieces of which ^were extracted by the surgeon, ere long, thanks to the high health and pure blood of the farmer, Israel rejoined his regiment when they were throw ing up intrenchnients on Prospect Hill. Bunker Hill was now in possession of the foe, who in turn had fortified it.

On the 3rd of July, Washington arrived from the South to take the command. Israel witnessed his joyful reception by the huzzaing companies.

The British now quartered in Boston suffered greatly from the scarcity of provisions. Washington took every precaution to prevent their receiving a supply. Inland, all

2

20 ISRAEL POTTEtt.

aid could easily be cut off. To guard against their receiving any by water, from Tories and other disaffected persons, the general equipped three armed vessels to intercept all traitor ous cruisers. Among them was the brigantine, Washington, of ten guns, commanded by Captain Martindale. Seamen were hard to be had. The soldiers were called upon to volunteer for these vessels. Israel was one who so did ; thinking1 that as an experienced sailor he should not be backward in a juncture like this, little as he fancied the new service assigned.

Three days out of Boston harbour, the brigantine was captured by the enemy's ship Foy, of twenty guns. Taken prisoner with the rest of the crew, Israel was afterwards put on board the frigate Tartar •, with immediate sailing orders for England. Seventy-two were captives in this vessel. Headed by Israel, these men — half-way across the sea — formed a scheme to take the ship, but were betrayed by a renegade Englishman. As ringleader, Israel was put in irons, and so remained till the frigate anchored at Ports mouth. There he was brought on deck ; and would have met perhaps some terrible fate, had it not come out, during the examination, that the Englishman had been a deserter from the army of his native country, ere proving a traitor to his adopted one. llelieved of his irons, Israel was placed in the marine hospital on shore, where half of the prisoners took the small-pox, which swept off a third of their number. Why talk of Jaffa r

From the hospital the survivors were conveyed to Spit- head, and thrust on board a hulk. And here in the black bowels of the ship, sunk low in the sunless sea, our poor Israel lay for a month, like Jonah in the belly of the whale.

But one bright morning, Israel is hailed from the deck. A bargeman of the commander's boat is sick. Known for a sailor, Israel for the nonce is appointed to pull the absent man's oar.

The officers being landed, some of the crew propose, like merry Englishmen as they are, to hie to a neighbouring alehouse, and have a cosy pot or two together. Agreed. They start, and Israel with them. As they enter the ale house door, our prisoner is suddenly reminded of still more imperative calls. Unsuspected of any design, he is allowed to leave the party for a moment. No sooner does Israel see his companions housed, than, putting speed into his feet, and letting grow all his .wings, he starts like a deer. He runs four miles (so he afterwards affirmed) without halting.

GOES TO THE WARS. 21

He sped towards London ; wisely deeming that once in that crowd detection would be impossible.

Ten miles, as he computed, from where he had left the bargemen, leisurely passing a public house of a little village on the roadside, thinking himself now pretty safe — hark, what is this he hears ? —

"Ahoy!"

" No ship," says Israel, hurrying on.

" Stop."

" If you will attend to your business, I will endeavour to attend to mine," replies Israel coolly. And next minute he lets grow his wings again ; flying, one dare say, at the rate of something less than thirty miles an hour.

" Stop thief ! " is now the cry. Numbers rushed from the roadside houses. After a mile's chase, the poor panting deer is caught.

Finding it was no use now to prevaricate, Israel boldly confesses himself a prisoner of war. The officer, a good fel low as it turned out, had him escorted back to the inn ; where, observing to the landlord that this must needs be a true-blooded Yankee, he calls for liquors to refresh Israel after his run. Two soldiers are then appointed to guard him for the present. This was towards evening ; and up to a late hour at night, the inn was tilled with strangers crowd ing to see the Yankee rebel, as they politely termed him. These honest rustics seemed to think that Yankees were a sort of wild creatures, a species of 'possum or kangaroo. But Israel is very affable with them. That liquor he drank from the hand of his foe, has perhaps warmed his heart towards all the rest of his enemies. Yet this may not be wholly so. "We shall see. At any rate, still he keeps his eye on the main chance — escape. Neither the jokes nor the insults of the mob does he suffer to molest him. He is cogitating a little plot to himself.

It seems that the good officer — not more true to the king his master than indulgent towards the prisoner which that same loyalty made — had left orders that Israel should be supplied with whatever liquor he wanted that night. So, calling for the can again and again, Israel invites the two soldiers to drink and be merry. At length a wag of the company proposes that Israel should entertain the public with a jig, he (the wag) having heard that the Yankees were extraordinary dancers. A tiddle is brought in, and poor Israel takes the floor. Not a little cut to think that these people should so unfeelingly seek to be diverted at the

22 IS1UEL POTTER.

expense of an unfortunate prisoner, Israel, while jigging it up and down, still conspires away at his private plot, re solving ere long to give the enemy a touch of certain Yan kee steps, as yet undreamed of in^their simple philosophy. They would not permit any cessation of his dancing till he had danced himself into a perfect sweat, so that the drops fell from his lank and flaxen hair. But Israel with much of the gentleness of a dove, is not wholly without the wis dom of the serpent. Pleased to see the flowing bowl, he congratulates himself that his own state of perspiration prevents it from producing any intoxicating effect upon him.

Late at night the company break up. Furnished with a pair of handcuffs, the prisoner is laid on a blanket spread upon the floor at the side of the bed in which his two keepers are to repose. Expressing much gratitude for the blanket, with apparent unconcern, Israel stretches his legs. An hour or two passes. All is quiet without.

The important moment had now arrived. Certain it was, that if this chance were suffered to pass unimproved, a second would hardly present itself. For early, doubtless, on the following morning, if not some way prevented, the two soldiers would convey Israel back to his floating prison, where he would thenceforth remain confined until the close of the war ; years and years, perhaps. "When he thought of that horrible old hulk, his nerves were restrung for flight. But intrepid as he must be to compass it, wariness too was needed. His keepers had gone to bed pretty well under the influence of the liquor. This was favourable. But still, they were full-grown, strong men ; and Israel was hand cuffed. So Israel resolved upon strategy first ; and, if that failed, force afterwards. He eagerly listened. One of the drunken soldiers muttered in his sleep, at first lowly, then louder and louder, — " Catch 'em ! Grapple 'em ! Have at 'em ! Ha — long cutlasses ! Take that, runaway ! "

"What's the matter with ye, Phil?" hiccoughed the other, who was not yet asleep. " Keep quiet, will ye ? Ye ain't at Fontenoy now."

" He's a runaway prisoner, I say. Catch him, catch him ! "

" Oh, stush with your drUnken dreaming," again hic coughed his comrade, violently nudging him. *' This comes o' carousing."

Shortly after the dreamer, with loud snores, fell back into dead sleep. But by something in the sound of the breath ing of the other soldier, Israel knew that this man remained

EXTENDS HIS TKAVELS. 23

uneasily awake. He deliberated a moment what was best to do. At length he determined upon trying his old plea. Calling upon the two soldiers, he informed them that urgent necessity required his immediate presence somewhere in the rear of the house.

*' Come, wake up here, Phil," roared the soldier who was awake ; " the fellow here says he must step out ; cuss these Yankees ; no better edication than to be getting up on na- teral necessities at this time o' night. It ain't nateral ; its unilateral. D — n ye, Yankee, don't ye know no better ! "

With many more denunciations the two now staggered to their feet, and clutching hold of Israel, escorted him down stairs, and through a long, narrow, dark entry, rearward, till they came to a door. No sooner was this unbolted by the fore most guard, than, quick as a Hash, manacled Israel, shaking off the grasp of the one behind him, butts him sprawling back into the entry ; when, dashing in the opposite direc tion, he bounces the other head over heels into the garden, never using a hand ; and then, leaping over the latter's head, darts blindly out into the midnight. Next moment he was at the garden wall. No outlet was discoverable in the gloom. But a fruit-tree grew close to the wall. Spring ing into it desperately, handcuffed as he was, Israel leaps atop of the barrier, and, without pausing to see where he is, drops himself to the ground on the other side, and once more lets grow all his wings. Meantime, with loud outcries, the two baffled drunkards grope deliriously about in the garden.

After running two or three miles, and hearing no sound of pursuit, Israel reins up to rid himself of the handcuff's, which impede him. After much painful labour he succeeds in the attempt. Pressing on again with all speed, day broke, revealing a trim-looking, hedged, and beautiful country, soft, neat, and serene, all coloured with the fresh early tints of the spring of 1776.

Bless me, thought Israel, all of a tremble, I shall cer tainly be caught now ; I have broken into some nobleman's park.

But, hurrying forward again, he came to a turnpike road, and then he knew that, all comely and shaven as it was, this was simply the open country of England ; one bright, broad park, paled in with white foam of the sea. A copse skirt ing the road was just bursting out into bud. Each un rolling leaf was in very act of escaping from its prison. Israel looked at the budding leaves, and round on the bud-

24 ISRAEL POTTER.

ding sod, and up at the budding dawn of the day. He was so sad, and these sights were so gay, that Israel sobbed like a child, while thoughts of his mountain home rushed like a wind on his heart. But, conquering this fit, he marched on, and presently passed nigh a field, where two figures were working. They had rosy cheeks, short, sturdy legs, showing the blue stocking nearly to the knee, and were clad in long, coarse, white frocks, and had on : coarse, broad-brimmed straw hats. Their faces were partly averted.

" Please, ladies," half roguishly says Israel, taking off his hat, " does this road go to London ?"

At this salutation, the two figures turned in a sort of stupid amazement, causing an almost corresponding expres sion in Israel, who now perceived that they were men, and not women. He had mistaken them, owing to their frocks, and their wearing no pantaloons, only breeches hidden by their frocks.

" Beg pardon, ladies, but I thought ye were something else," said Israel again.

Once more the two figures stared at the stranger, and with added boorishness of surprise.

" Does this road go to London, gentlemen?'*

" Gentlemen — egad ! " cried one of the two.

" Egad ! " echoed the second.

Putting their hoes before them, the two frocked boors now took a good long look at Israel, meantime scratching their heads under their plaited straw hats.

" Does it, gentlemen? Does it go to London? Be kind enough to tell a poor fellow, do."

" Yees goin' to Lunnun, are yees? Well— all right— go along."

And without another word, having now satisfied their rustic curiosity, the two human steers, with wonderful phlegm, applied themselves to their hoes; supposing, no doubt, that they had given all requisite information.

Shortly after, Israel passed an old, dark, mossy-looking chapel, its roof all plastered with the damp yellow dead leaves of the previous autumn, showered there from a close cluster of venerable trees, with great trunks, and over stretching branches. Next moment he found himself enter ing a village. The silence of earty morning rested upon it. But few figures were seen. Glancing through the window of a now noiseless public-house, Israel saw a table all in disorder, covered with empty flagons, and tobacco-ashes, and long pipes ; some of the latter broken.

EXTENDS HIS TKAVELS. 25

After pausing here a moment, he moved on, and observed a man over the way standing still and watching him. In stantly Israel was reminded that he had on the dress of an English sailor, and that it was this probably which had arrested the stranger's attention. Well knowing that his peculiar dress exposed him to peril, he hurried on faster to escape the village ; resolving at the first opportunity to change his garments. Ere long, in a secluded place about a mile from the village, he saw an old ditcher tottering beneath the weight of a pick-axe, hoe, and shovel, going to his work ; the very picture of poverty, toil, and distress. His clothes were tatters.

Making up to this old man, Israel, after a word or two of salutation, offered to change clothes with him. As his own clothes were prince-like compared to the ditcher's, Israel thought that however much his proposition might excite the suspicion of the ditcher, yet self-interest would prevent his communicating the suspicions. To be brief, the two went behind a hedge, and presently Israel emerged, pre senting the most forlorn appearance conceivable ; while the old ditcher hobbled off in an opposite direction, correspond ingly improved in his aspect ; though it was rather ludicrous than otherwise, owing to the immense bagginess of the sailor-trousers flapping about his lean shanks, to say no thing of the spare voluminousness of the pea-jacket. But Israel — how deplorable, how dismal his plight ! Little did he ween that these wretched rags he now wore, were but suitable to that long career of destitution before him : one brief career of adventurous wanderings; and then, forty torpid years of pauperism. The coat was all patches. And no two patches were alike, and no one patch was the colour of the original cloth. The stringless breeches gaped wide open at the knee ; the long woollen stockings looked as if they had been set up at some time for a target. Israel looked suddenly metamorphosed from youth to old age; just like an old man of eighty he looked. But, indeed, dull, dreary adversity was now in store for him ; and adversity, come it at eighteen or eighty, is the true* old age of man. The dress befitted the fate.

From the friendly old ditcher, Israel learned the exact course he must steer for London; distant now between seventy and eighty miles. He was also apprised by his venerable friend, that the country was filled with soldiers on the constant look-out for deserters whether from the navy or army, for the capture of whom a stipulated reward

26 JS1L1EL rOTTElt.

was given, just as in Massachusetts at that time for prowl ing- bears.

Having solemnly enjoined his old friend not to give any information, should any one he meet inquire for such a person as Israel, our adventurer walked briskly on, less heavy; of heart, now that he felt comparatively safe in disguise.

Thirty miles were travelled that day. At night Israel stole into a barn, in hopes of finding straw or hay for a bed. But it was spring ; all the hay and straw were gone. So after groping about in the dark, he was fain to content himself with an undressed sheep-skin. Cold, hungry, foot sore, weary, and impatient for the morning dawn, Israel drearily dozed out the night.

By the first peep of day coming through the chinks of the barn, he was up and abroad. Ere long finding himself in the suburbs of a considerable village, the better to guard against detection he supplied himself with a rude crutch, and feigning himself a cripple, hobbled straight through the town, followed by a perverse-minded cur, which kept up a continual, spiteful, suspicious bark. Israel longed to have one good rap at him with his crutch, but thought it would hardly look in character for a poor old cripple to be vindictive.

A few miles farther, and he came to a second village. While hobbling through its main street, as through the former one, he was suddenly stopped by a genuine cripple, all in tatters, too, who, with a sympathetic air, inquired, after the cause of his lameness.

" White swelling," says Israel.

" That's just my ailing," wheezed the other ; " but you're lamer than me," he added with a forlorn sort of self- satisfaction, critically eyeing Israel's limp as once more he stumped on his way, not liking to tarry too long. ^ " But halloo, what's your hurry, friend ?" seeing Israel fairly departing — " where 're you going?"

" To London," answered Israel, turning round, heartily wishing the old fellow anywhere else than present.

" Going to limp to Lunmm, eh ? Well, success to ye."

" As much to you, sir," answers Israel politely.

Nigh the opposite suburbs of this village, as good fortune would have it, an empty baggage-wagon bound for the metropolis turned into the main road from a side one. Im mediately Israel limps most deplorably, and begs the driver to give a poor cripple a lift. So up he climbs ; but after a

FURTHER WANDERINGS. 2t

time, finding the gait of the elephantine draught-horses in tolerably slow, Israel craves permission to dismount, when, throwing away his crutch, he takes nimhly to his legs, much to the surprise of his honest friend the driver.

The only advantage, if any, derived from his trip in the wagon, was, when passing through a third village — but a little distant from the previous one — Israel, by lying down in the wagon, had wholly avoided being seen.

The villages surprised him by their number and prox imity. Nothing like this was to be seen at home. Well knowing that in these villages he ran much more risk of detection than in the open country, he henceforth did his best to avoid them, by taking a roundabout course when ever they came in sight from a distance. This mode of travelling not only lengthened his journey, but put unlooked- for obstacles in his path — walls, ditches, and streams.

Not half an hour after throwing away his crutch, he leaped a great ditch ten feet wide, and of undiscoverable muddy depth. " I wonder if the old cripple would think mo the lamer one now," thought Israel to himself, arriving oil the hither side.

CHAPTER IV.

FURTHER WANDERINGS OF THE REFUGEE, WITH SOME ACCOUNT OF A GOOD ANIGHT OF BRENTFORD WHO BEFRIENDED HIM.

AT nightfall, on the third day, Israel had arrived within sixteen miles of the capital. Once more he sought refuge in a barn. This time he found some hay, and flinging him self down procured a tolerable night's rest.

Bright and early he arose refreshed, with the pleasing prospect of reaching his destination ere noon. Encouraged to find himself now so far from his original pursuers, Israel relaxed in his vigilance, and about ten o'clock, while passing through the town of Staines, suddenly encountered three soldiers. Unfortunately in exchanging clothes with the ditcher, he could not bring himself to include his shirt in the traffic, which shirt was a British navy shirt, a bargeman's

28 ISRAEL POTTER.

shirt, and though hitherto he had crumpled the hlue collar out of sight, yet, as it appeared in the present instance, it was not thoroughly concealed. At any rate, keenly on the look-out for deserters, and made acute by hopes of reward for their apprehension, the soldiers spied the fatal collar, and in an instant laid violent hands on the refugee.

"Hey, lad !" said the foremost soldier, a corporal, "you are one* of his majesty's seamen ! come along with ye."

So, unable to give any satisfactory account of himself, he was made prisoner on the spot, and soon after found himself handcuffed and locked up in the Round House of the place, a prison so called, appropriated to runaways, and those con victed of minor offences. Day passed dinnerless and supper- less in this dismal durance, and night came on.

Israel had now been three days without food, except one twopenny loaf. The cravings of hunger now became sharper ; his spirits, hitherto arming him with fortitude, began to forsake him. Taken captive once again upon the very brink of reaching his goal, poor Israel was on the eye of falling into helpless despair. But he rallied, and considering that grief would only add to his calamity, sought with stubborn patience to habituate himself to misery, but still hold aloof from despondency. He roused himself, and began to bethink him how to be extricated from this labyrinth.

Two hours sawing across the grating of the window, ridded him of his handcuffs. Next came the door, secured luckily with only a hasp and padlock. Thrusting the bolt of his handcuffs through a small window in the door, he succeeded in forcing the hasp and regaining his liberty about three o'clock in the morning.

Not long after sunrise, he passed nigh Brentford, some six or seven miles from the capital. So great was his hunger that downright starvation seemed before him. He chewed grass, and swallowed it. Upon first escaping from the hulk, six English pennies was all the money he had. With two of these he had bought a small loaf the day after fleeing the inn. The other four still remained in his pocket, not having met with a good opportunity to dispose of them for food.

Having torn off the collar of his shirt, and flung it into a hedge, he ventured to accost a respectable carpenter at a pale fence, about a mile this side of Brentford, to whom his deplorable situation now induced him to apply for work. The man did not wish himself to hire, but said that if he (Israel) understood farming or gardening, he might perhaps

FUUTHER WANDERINGS . 29

procure work from Sir John Millet, whose seat, he said, was not remote. He added that the knight was in the habit of employing- many men at that season of the year, so he stood a fair chance.

Revived a little hy this prospect of relief, Israel starts in quest of the gentleman's seat, agreeably to the direction received. But he mistook his way, and proceeding up a gravelled and beautifully decorated walk, was terrified at catching a glimpse of a number of soldiers thronging a garden. He made an instant retreat before being espied in turn. ]SFo wild creature of the American wilderness could have been more panic-struck by a iirebrand, than at this period hunted Israel was by a red coat. It afterwards appeared that this garden was the Princess Amelia's.

Taking another path, ere long he came to some labourers shovelling gravel. These proved to be men employed by Sir John. By them he was directed towards the house, when the knight was pointed out to him, walking bare headed in the inclosure with several guests. Having heard the rich men of England charged with all sorts of domineer ing qualities, Israel felt no little misgiving in approaching to an audience with so imposing a stranger. But, screwing up his courage, he advanced ; while seeing him coming all rags and tatters, the group of gentlemen stood in some wonder awaiting what so singular a phantom might want.

" Mr. Millet," said Israel, bowing towards the bare-headed gentleman.

" Ha ! — who are you, pray ?"

" A poor fellow, sir, in want of work."

" A wardrobe, too, I should say," smiled one of the guests, of a very youthful, prosperous, and dandified air.

" Where's your hoe?" said Sir John.

11 1 have none, sir."

" Any money to buy one ?"

" Only four English pennies, sir."

" English pennies. What other sort would you have ? "

" Why, China pennies to be sure," laughed the youthful gentleman^ "See his long, yellow hair behind; he looks like a Chinaman. Some broken-down mandarin. Pity he's no crown to his old hat ; if he had, he might pass it round, and make eight pennies of his four."

" Will you hire me, Mr. Millet ? " said Israel.

" Ha ! that's queer again," cried the knight.

" Hark ye, fellow," said a brisk servant, approaching from the porch, " this is Sir John Millet."

30 ISRAEL POTTER.

Seeming- to take pity on his apparent ignorance, as well as on his undisputable poverty, the good knight now told Israel that if he would come the next morning he would see him supplied with a hoe, and moreover would hire him.

It would he hard to express the satisfaction of the wan derer at receiving this encouraging reply. Emboldened by it, he now returns towards a baker's he had spied, and bravely marching in, flings down all four pennies, and demands bread. Thinking he would not have any more food till next morning, Israel resolved to eat only one of the pair of twopenny loaves. But having demolished one, it so sharpened his longing, that yielding to the irresistible temptation, he bolted down the second loaf to keep the other company.

After resting under a hedge, he saw the sun far descended, and so prepared himself for another hard night. Waiting till dark, he crawled into an old carriage-house, finding nothing there but a dismantled old phaeton. Into this he climbed, and curling himself up like a carriage-dog, endea voured to sleep ; but, unable to endure the constraint of such a bed, got out, and stretched himself on the bare boards of the floor.

No sooner was light in the east than he hastened to await the commands of one who, his instinct told him, was destined to prove his benefactor. On his father's farm accustomed to rise with the lark, Israel was surprised to discover, as he approached the house that no soul was astir. It was four o'clock. Eor a considerable time he walked back and forth before the portal ere any one appeared. The first riser was a man-servant of the household, who informed Israel that seven o'clock was the hour the people went to their work. Soon after he met an ostler of the place, who gave him permission to lie on some straw in an outhouse. There he enjoyed a sweet sleep till awakened at seven o'clock by the sounds of activity around him.

Supplied by the overseer of the men with a large iron fork and a hoe, he followed the hands into the field. He was so weak he could hardly support his tools. Unwilling to expose his debility, he yet could not succeed in concealing it. At last, to avoid worse imputations, he confessed the cause. His^ companions regarded him wit'h compassion, and exempted him from the severer toil. ^

About noon the knight visited his workmen. Noticing that Israel made little progress, he said to him, that though

FURTHER WANDERINGS, ol

he had long1 arms and broad shoulders, yet he was feigning himself to be a very weak man, or otherwise must in reality be so.

Hereupon one of the labourers standing by informed the gentleman how it was with Israel, when immediately the knight put a shilling into his hands, and bade him go to a little roadside inn, which was nearer than the house, and buy him bread and a pot of beer. Thus refreshed he re turned to the band, and toiled with them till four o'clock, when the day's work was over.

Arrived at the house he there again saw his employer, who, after attentively eyeing him with without speaking, bade a meal be prepared for him, when the maid presenting a smaller supply than her kind master deemed necessary, she was ordered to return and bring out the entire dish. But aware of the danger of sudden repletion of heavy food to one in his condition, Israel, previously recruited by the frugal meal at the inn, partook but sparingly. The repast was spread on the grass, and being over, the good knight again looking inquisitively at Israel, ordered a comfortable bed to be laid in the barn, and here Israel spent a capital night.

After breakfast next morning, he was proceeding to go with the labourers to their work, when his employer approaching him with a^ benevolent air, bade him return to his couch, and there remain till he had slept his fill, and was in a better state to resume his labours.

Upon coming forth again a little after noon, he found Sir John walking alone in the grounds. Upon discovering him Israel would have retreated, fearing that he might intrude ; but, beckoning him to advance, the knight, as Israel drew nigh, fixed on him such a penetrating glance, that our poor hero quaked to the core. Neither was his dread of detection relieved by the knight's now calling in a loud voice for one from the house, Israel was just on the point of fleeing, when overhearing the words of the master to the servant who now appeared, all dread departed.

" Bring hither some wine !"

It presently came ; by order of the knight the salver was set down on a green bank near by, and the servant retired.

" My poor fellow ! " said Sir John, now pouring out a glass of wine, and handing it to Israel, "I perceive that you are an American ; and, if I am not mistaken, you are an escaped prisoner of war. But no fear— drink the wine."

32 ISEAEL POTTEB.

"Mr. Millet," exclaimed Israel aghast, the untastedwine trembling in his hand, — " Mr. Millet "

" Mr. Millet — there it is again. Why don't you say Sir John, like the rest ?"

" Why, sir— pardon me^but somehow, I can't. I've tried ; but I can't. You won't betray me for that ?"

" Betray — poor fellow ! Hark ye ; your history is doubt less a secret which you would not wish to divulge to a stranger ; but whatever happens to you, I pledge you my honour I will never betray you."

" God bless you for that, Mr. Millet ! "

" Come, come, call me by my right name. I am not Mr. Millet. You have said Sir to me ; and no doubt you have a thousand times said John to other people. Now can't you couple the two ? Try once. Come. Only Sir and then John — Sir John — that's all.

" John — I can't— Sir, sir ! — your pardon. I didn't mean that."

" My good fellow," said the knight, looking sharply upon Israel, "tell me, are all your countrymen like you ? If so, it's no use fighting them. To that effect I must write to his majesty myself. "Well, I excuse you from Sir Johnning me. But tell me the truth, are you not a seafaring man, and lately a prisoner of war ? "

Israel frankly confessed it, and told his whole story. The knight listened with much interest, and at its conclusion warned Israel to beware of the soldiers ; for, owing to the seats of some of the royal family being in the neighbourhood, the red-coats abounded hereabout.

" I do not wish unnecessarily to speak against my own countrymen," he added, " I but plainly speak for your good. The soldiers you meet prowling on the roads are not fair specimens of the army. They are a set of mean, dastardly banditti, who to obtain their fee would betray their best friends. Once more I warn you against them. But enough ; follow me now to the house ; and as you tell me you have exchanged clothes before now, you can do it again .^ What say you ? I will give you coat and breeches for your rags."

Thus generously supplied with clothes and other comforts by the good knight, and implicitly relying upon the honour of so kind-hearted a man, Israel cheered up, and in the course of two or three weeks had so fattened his Hanks, that he was able completely to fill Sir John's old buckskin breeches, which at first had hung but loosely about him.

FtTKTHEll WANDERINGS. o3

He was assigned to an occupation which removed him from the other workmen. The strawberry-bed was put under his sole charge. And often, of mild, sunny after noons, the knight, genial and gentle with dinner, would stroll bareheaded to the pleasant strawberry-bed, and have nice little confidential chats with Israel ; while Israel, charmed by the patriarchal ^demeanour^ of this true Abra- hamic gentleman, with a smile on his lip, and tears of gra titude in his eyes, offered him from time to time the plumpest berries of the bed.

When the strawberry season was over, other parts of the grounds were assigned him. And so six months elapsed, when, at the recommendation of Sir John, Israel procured a good berth in the garden of the Princess Amelia.

So completely now had recent events metamorphosed him in all outward things, that few suspected him of being any other than an Englishman,— not even the knight's domestics. But in the princess's garden, being obliged to work in com pany with many other labourers, the war was often a topic of discussion among them ; and " the d — d Yankee rebels " were not seldom the object of scurrilous remark. Illy could the exile brook in silence such insults upon the country for which he had bled, and for whose honoured sake he was that very instant a sufferer. More than once his indignation came very nigh getting the better of his prudence. He longed for the war to end, that he might but speak a little bit of his mind.

Now, the superintendent of the garden was a harsh, over bearing man. The workmen, with tame servility, endured his worst affronts. But Israel, bred among mountains, found it impossible to restrain himself when made the unde served object of pitiless epithets. Ere two months went by he quitted the service of the princess, and engaged himself to a farmer in a small village not far from Brentford. But hardly had he been here three weeks, when a rumour again got afloat that he was a Yankee prisoner of war. "Whence this report arose he could never discover. No sooner did it reach the ears of the soldiers than they were on the alert. Luckily, Israel was apprised of their intentions in time. But he was hard pushed. He was hunted after with a per severance worthy a less ignoble cause. He had many hair breadth escapes. Most assuredly he would have been cap tured, had it not been for the secret good offices of a few individuals, who perhaps were not unfriendly to the Ame rican side of the question, though they durst not avow it.

34 ISKAEL rOTTEK.

Tracked one night by the soldiers to the house of one of these friends, in whose garret he was concealed, he was obliged to force the skuttle, and running along the roof, passed to those of adjoining houses to the number of ten or twelve, finally succeeding in making his escape.

CHAPTER V.

ISEAEL IN THE LION'S DEN.

HARASSED day and night, — hunted from food and sleep, — driven from hole to hole like a fox in the woods, witn no chance to earn an hour's wages, he was at last advised, by one whose sincerity he could not doubt, to apply, on the good word of Sir John Millet, for a berth as labourer in the king's gardens at Kew. There it was said he would be entirely safe", as no soldier durst approach those premises ^to molest any soul therein employed. It struck the poor exile as curious, that the very den of the British lion, the private grounds of the British king, should be commended to a refugee as his securest asylum.

His nativity carefully concealed, and being personally introduced to the chief gardener by one who well knew him ; armed, too, with a line from Sir John, and recom mended by his introducer as uncommonly expert at horti culture, Israel was soon installed as keeper of certain less private plants and walks of the park.

It was here, near to one of his country retreats, that, coming from perplexities of state, leaving far behind him the dingy old bricks of St. James's, George the Third was wont to walk up and down beneath the long arbours formed by the interlockings of lofty trees.

More than once, raking the gravel, Israel through inter vening foliage would catch peeps in some private but parallel walk of that lonely figure, not more shadowy with over hanging leaves than with the shade of royal meditations.

Unauthorized and abhorrent thoughts will sometimes in vade the best human heart. Seeing the monarch unguarded before him ; remembering that the war was imputed more

IN THE LION'S DEN. 35

to the self-will of the king- than to the willingness of parlia ment or the nation ; and calling to mind all his own suffer ings growing out of that war, with all the calamities of his country ; dim impulses, such as those to which the regicide Ilavaillac yielded, would shoot balefully across the soul of the exile. But thrusting Satan behind him, Israel van quished all such temptations. Nor did these ever more disturb him, after his one chance conversation with the monarch.

As he was one day gravelling a little by- walk, wrapped in thought, the king turning a clump of bushes, suddenly brushed Israel's person.

Immediately Israel touched his hat — but did not remove it — bowed, and was retiring ; when something in his air arrested the king's attention.

" You ain't an Englishman, — no Englishman — no, no."

Pale as death, Israel tried to answer something; but, knowing not what to say, stood frozen to the ground.

" You are a Yankee— a Yankee," said the king again in his raj)id and half-stammering way.

Again Israel essayed to reply, but could not. "What could he say ? Could he lie to a king ?

" Yes, yes,— you are one of that stubborn race,— that very stubborn race. What brought you here ?"

" The fate of war, sir."

" May it please your majesty," said a low cringing voice, approaching, " this man is in the walk against orders. There is some mistake, may it please your majesty. Quit the walk, blockhead," he hissed at Israel.

It was one of the junior gardeners who thus spoke. It seems that Israel had mistaken his directions that morning.

"Slink, you dog, '^hissed the gardener again to Israel ; then aloud to the king, " A mistake of the man, I assure your majesty."

" Go you away — away with ye, and leave him with me," said the king.

^ Waiting a moment, till the man was out of hearing, the king again turned upon Israel.

" Were you at Bunker Hill ?— that bloody Bunker Hill— eh, eh?"

" Yes, sir."

" Fought like a devil—like a very devil, I suppose ? "

" Yes, sir."

" Helped flog— helped flog my soldiers ?"

" Yes, sir ; but very sorry to do it." D 2

36 ISRAEL POTTER.

" Eh ?— eh ?— how's that ? "

" I took it to be my sad duty, sir."

" Very much mistaken — very much mistaken, indeed. Why do ye sir me ? — eh ? I'm your king — your king."

" Sir," said Israel firmly, but with deep respect, *' I have no king-."

The king darted his eye incensedly for a moment ; but without quailing, Israel, now that all was out, still stood with mute respect before him. The king, turning suddenly, walked rapidly away from Israel a moment, but presently returning with a less hasty pace, said, " You are rumoured to be a spy — a spy, or something of that sort — ain't you ! But I know you are not — no, no. You are a runaway- prisoner of > war, eh ? You have sought this place to be safe from pursuit, eh ? eh ? Is it not so ?— eh ? eh ? eh ?"

" Sir, it is."

" Well, ye're an honest rebel — rebel, yes, rebel. Hark ye, hark. Say nothing of this talk to any one. And hark again. So long as you remain here at Kew, I shall see that you are safe — safe."

" Grod bless your majesty ! "

"Eh?"

" Grod bless your noble majesty r"

" Come — come — come," smiled the king in delight, " I thought I could conquer ye— conquer ye."

14 Not the king, but the king's kindness, your majesty."

" Join my army — army."

Sadly looidng down, Israel silently shook his head.

" You won't ? Well, gravel the walk then — gravel away. Yery stubborn race — very stubborn race, indeed — very — very — very."

And still growling, the magnanimous lion departed.

How the monarch came by his knowledge of so humble an exile, whether through that swift insight into individual character said to form one of the miraculous qualities trans mitted with a crown, or whether some of the rumours pre vailing outside of the garden had come to his ear, Israel could never determine. Yery probably, though, the latter was the case, inasmuch as some vague shadowy report of Israel not being an Englishman, had, a little previous to his inter view with the king, been communicated to several of the inferior gardeners. Without any impeachment of Israel's fealty to his country, it must still be narrated, that from this Ids familiar audience with George the Third, he went away with very favourable views of that monarch. Israel

IN THE LION'S DEN. 37

now thought that it could not be the ^ warm heart of the king1, but the cold heads of his lords in council, that per suaded him so tyrannically to persecute America. Yet hitherto the precise contrary of this had been Israel's opinion, agreeably to the popular prejudice throughout New England.

Thus we see what strange and powerful magic resides in a crown, and how subtly that cheap and easy magnanimity, which in private belongs to most kings, may operate on good-natured and unfortunate souls. Indeed, had it not been for the peculiar disinterested fidelity of our adven turer's patriotism, he would soon have sported the red coat ; and perhaps under the immediate patronage of his royal friend, been advanced in time to no mean rank in the army of Britain. Nor in that case would we have had to follow him, as at last we shall, through long, long years of obscure and penurious wandering.

Continuing in the service of the king's gardeners at Kew, until a season came when the work of the garden required a less number of labourers, Israel, with several others, was discharged ; and, the day after, engaged himself for a few months to a farmer in the neighbourhood where he had been last employed. But hardly a week had gone by, when the old story of his being a rebel, or a runaway prisoner, or a Yankee ! or a spy, began to be revived with added malig nity. Like bloodhounds, the soldiers were once more on the track. The houses where he harboured were many times searched ; but, thanks to the fidelity of a few earnest well- wishers, and to his own unsleeping vigilance and activity, the hunted fox still continued to elude apprehension. To such extremities of harassment, however, did this incessant pursuit subject him, that in a fit of despair he was about to surrender himself, and submit to his fate, when Providence seasonably interposed in his favour.

38 ISKAEL POTTER.

CHAPTEll VI.

ISRAEL MAKES THE ACQUAINTANCE OP CERTAIN SECRET FRIENDS OF AMERICA, ONE OF THEM BEING THE FAMOUS AUTHOR OF THE " DIVERSIONS OF PURLEY." THESE DESPATCH HIM ON A SLY ERRAND ACROSS THE CHANNEL.

AT this period, though made the victims indeed of British oppression, yet the colonies were not totally without friends in Britain. It was but natural that when parliament itself held patriotic and gifted men, who not only recommended 'conciliatory measures, hut likewise denounced the war as monstrous ; it was but natural that throughout the nation at large there should be many private individuals cherishing similar sentiments, and some who made no scruple clandes tinely to act upon them.

Late one night while hiding in a farmer's granary, Israel saw a man with a lantern approaching. He was about to flee, when the man hailed him in a well-known voice, bidding him have no fear. It was the farmer himself. He carried a message to Israel from a gentleman of Brent ford, to the effect, that the refugee was earnestly requested to repair on the following evening to that gentleman's mansion.

At first, Israel was disposed to surmise that either the farmer was playing him false, or else his honest credulity had been imposed upon by evil-minded persons. At any rate, he regarded the message as a decoy, and for half an hour refused to credit its sincerity. But at length he was induced to think a little better of it. The gentleman giving the invitation was one Squire "Woodcock, of Brentford, whose loyalty to the king had been under suspicion ; so at least the farmer averred. This latter information was not with out its effect. _ -

At nightfall on the following day, being disguised in strange clothes by the farmer, Israel stole from his retreat, and after a few hours' walk arrived before the ancient brick house of the squire ; who opening the door in person, and learning who it was that stood there, at once assured Israel in the most solemn manner, that no foul play was intended.

CERTAIN SECEET FRIENDS. 39

So the wanderer suffered himself to enter, and be conducted to a private chamber in the rear of the mansion, where were seated two other gentlemen, attired, in the manner of that age, in long laced coats, with smallclothes, and .shoes with silver buckles.

" I am John Woodcock," said the host, " and these gen tlemen are Home Tooke and James Bridges. All three of us are friends to America. We have heard of you for some weeks past, and inferring from your conduct that you must be a Yankee of the true blue stamp, we have resolved to employ you in a way which you cannot but gladly approve ; for surely, though an exile, vou are still willing to serve your country; if not as a sailor or soldier, yet as a tra veller?"

" Tell me how I may do it?" demanded Israel, not com pletely at ease.

" At that in good time," smiled the squire. " The point is now — do you repose confidence in my statements r"

Israel glanced inquiringly upon the squire ; then upon his companions ; and meeting the expressive, enthusiastic, candid countenance of Home Tooke — then in the first honest ardour of his political career — turned to the squire, and said, " Sir, I believe what you have said. Tell me now what I am to do."

" Oh, there is just nothing to be done to-night," said the squire ; " nor for some days to come perhaps, but we wanted to have you prepared."

And hereupon he hinted to his guest rather vaguely of his general intention ; and that over, begged him to entertain them with some account of his adventures since he first took up arms for his country. To this Israel had no objections in the world, since all men love to tell the tale of hardships endured in a righteous cause. But ere beginning his story, the squire refreshed him with some cold beef, laid in a snowy napkin, and a glass of perry, and thrice during the narration of the adventures, pressed him with additional draughts.

But after his second glass, Israel declined to drink more, mild as the beverage was. For he noticed, that not only did the three gentlemen listen with the utmost interest to his story, but likewise interrupted him with questions and cross- questions in the most pertinacious manner. So this led him to be on his guard, not being absolutely certain yet, as to who they might really be, or what was their real design. But as it turned out, Squire Woodcock and his friends only

40 ISRAEL POTTEE.

sought to satisfy themselves thoroughly, before making their final disclosures, that the exile was one in whom implicit confidence might be placed.

And to this desirable conclusion they eventually came, for upon the ending of Israel's story, after expressing their sympathies ^for his hardships, and applauding his generous patriotism in so patiently enduring adversity, as well as singing the praises of his gallant fellow- soldiers of Bunker Hill, they openly revealed their scheme. They wished to know whether Israel would undertake a trip to Paris, to carry an ^ important message — shortly to be received for transmission through them — to Dr. Franklin, then in that capital.

" All your expenses shall be paid, not to speak of a com pensation besides," said the squire ; " will you go ?"

" I must think of it," said Israel, not yet wholly confirmed in his mind. ^ But once more he cast his glance on Home Tooke, and his irresolution was gone.

The squire now informed Israel that, to avoid suspicions, it would be necessary for him to remove to another place until the hour at which he should start for Paris. They enjoined upon him the profoundest secrecy, gave him a guinea, with a letter for a gentleman in White Waltham, a town some miles from Brentford, which point they begged him to reach as soon as possible, there to tarry for further instructions.

Having informed him of thus much, Squire "Woodcock asked him to hold out his right foot.

"What for?" said Israel.

" Why, would you not like to have a pair of new boots against your return ?" smiled Home Tooke.

" Oh, yes ; no objection at all," said Israel.

"Well, then, let the bootmaker measure you," smiled Home Tooke.

"Do you do it, Mr. Tooke," said the squire; "you measure men's parts better than I."

" Hold out your foot, my good friend," said Home Tooke — " there — now let's measure your heart,"

" For that, measure me round the chest," said Israel.

"Just the man we want," said Mr. Bridges, trium phantly.

" Give him another glass of wine, squire," said Home Tooke.

Exchanging the farmer's clothes for still another disguise, Israel now set out immediately, on foot, for bis destina-

CEKTAIN SECEET PKIENDS. 41

tion, having received minute directions as to his road, and arriving in White Waltham on the following morning, was very cordially received by the gentleman to whom he carried the letter. This person, another of the active English friends of America, possessed a particular know ledge of late events in that^ land. To him Israel was indebted for much entertaining information. After re maining some ten days at this place, word came from Squire Woodcock, requiring Israel's immediate return, stating the hour at which he must arrive at the house, namely, two o'clock on the following morning. So, after another night's solitary trudge across the country, the wanderer was welcomed by the same three gentlemen as before, seated in the same room.

" The time has now come," said Squire Woodcock. " You must start this morning for Paris. Take off your shoes."

" Am I to steal from here to Paris on my stocking- feet?" said Israel, whose late easy good living at White Waltham had not failed to bring out the good-natured and mirthful part of him, even as his prior experiences had produced, for the most part, something like a contrary result.

" Oh, no," smiled Home Tooke, who always lived well ; " we have seven-league-boots for you. Don't you remember my measuring you ?"

Hereupon, going to the closet, the squire brought out a pair of new boots. They were fitted with false heels. Un screwing these, the squire showed Israel the papers con cealed beneath. They were of a tine tissuey fibre, and contained much writing in a very small compass. The boots, it • need hardly be said, had been particularly made for the occasion.

" Walk across the room with them," said the squire, when Israel had pulled them on.

" He'll surely be discovered," smiled Home Tooke. " Hark how he creaks."

" Come, come, it's too serious a matter for joking," said the squire. " Now, my fine fellow, be cautious, be sober, be vigilant, and above all things be speedy."

Being furnished now with all requisite directions, and a supply of money, Israel, taking leave of Mr. Tooke and Mr. Bridges, was secretly conducted down stairs by the squire, and in five minutes' time was on his way to Charing Cross in London, where, taking the post-coach for Dover, he thence went in a packet to Calais, and in fifteen minutes after landing, was being wheeled over French soil towards

42 ISRAEL POTTER.

Paris. He arrived there in safety, and freely declaring himself an ^ American, the peculiarly friendly relations of the two nations at that period, procured him kindly atten tions even from strangers.

CHAPTER VII.

AFTER A CURIOUS ADVENTURE UPON" THE PONT NEUF, ISRAEL ENTERS THE PRESENCE OF THE RENOWNED SAGE, DOCTOR FRANKLIN, WHOM HE FINDS RIGHT LEARNEDLY AND MULTIFARIOUSLY EMPLOYED.

FOLLOWING the directions given him at the place where the diligence stopped, Israel was crossing the Pont Netif to lind Doctor Franklin, when he was suddenly called to by a man standing on one side of the bridge, just under the equestrian statue of Henry IV.

The man had a small, shabby-looking box before him on the ground, with a box of blacking on one side of it, and several shoe-brushes upon the other. Holding another brush in his hand, he politely seconded his verbal invitation by gracefully nourishing the brush in the air.

" What do you want of me, neighbour?" said Israel, pausing in somewhat uneasy astonishment.

" Ah, monsieur," exclaimed the man, and with voluble politeness he ran on with a long string of French, which of course was all Greek to poor Israel. But what his language failed to convey, his gestures now made very plain. Point ing to the wet muddy state of the bridge, splashed by a recent rain, and then to the feet of the wayfarer, and lastly to the brush in his hand, he appeared to be deeply regretting that a gentleman of Israel's otherwise imposing appearance should be seen abroad with unpolished boots, offering at the same time to remove their blemishes.

" Ah, monsieur, monsieur," cried the man, at last running up to Israel ; and with tender violence he forced him to wards the box, and lifting this unwilling customer's right foot thereon, was proceeding vigorously to work, when sud denly illuminated by a dreadful suspicion, Israel, fetching

DOCTOE FRANKLIN. 43

the box a terrible kick, took to his false heels and ran like mad over the bridge.

^ Incensed that his politeness should receive such an ungra cious return, the man pursued, which but confirming Israel in his suspicions he ran all the faster, and thanks to his fieetness, soon succeeded in escaping his pursuer.

Arrived at last at the street and the house to which he had been directed, in reply to his summons, the gate very strangely of itself swung open, and much astonished at this unlooked-for sort of enchantment, Israel entered a wide vaulted passage leading to an open court within. While he was wondering that no soul appeared, suddenly he was hailed from a dark little window, where sat an old man cobbling shoes, while an old woman, standing by his side, was thrusting her head into the passage, intently eyeing the stranger. They proved to be the porter and portress, the latter of whom, upon hearing his summons, had invisibly thrust open the gate to Israel, by means of a spring com municating with the little apartment.

Upon hearing the name of Doctor Franklin mentioned, the old woman, all alacrity, hurried out of her den, and with much courtesy showed Israel across the court, up three nights of stairs to a door in the rear of the spacious building. There she left him while Israel knocked.

" Come in," said a voice.

And immediately Israel stood in the presence of the vene rable Doctor Franklin.

Wrapped in a rich dressing-gown, a fanciful present from an admiring Marchesa, curiously embroidered with algebraic figures like a conjuror's robe, and with a skull cap of black satin on his hive of a head, the man of gravity was seated. at a huge claw-footed old table, round as the zodiac. It was covered with printed papers, tiles of documents, rolls of manuscripts, stray bits of strange models in wood and metal, odd -looking pamphlet in various languages, and all sorts oi' books, including many presentation-copies, embracing history, mechanics, diplomacy, agriculture, political eco nomy, metaphysics, meteorology, and geometry. The walls had a necromantic look, hung round with barometers of different kinds, drawings of surprising inventions, wide maps of far countries in the New World, containing vast empty spaces in the middle, with the word DESERT diffusely printed there, so as to span five-and-twenty degrees of longitude with only two syllables — which printed word, however, bore a vigorous pen-mark, in the

44 ISRAEL POTTER.

doctor's hand, drawn straight through it, as if in summary repeal of it; crowded topographical and trigonometrical charts of various parts of Europe ; with geometrical diagrams, and endless other surprising hangings and unholstery of science.

The chamber itself bore evident marks of antiquity. One part of the rough-finished wall was sadly cracked, and covered with dust, looked dim and dark. But the aged inmate, though wrinkled as well, looked neat and hale. Both wall and sage were compounded of like mate rials, — lime and dust ; both, too, were old ; but while the rude earth of the wall had no painted lustre to shed off all fadings and tarnish, and still keep fresh without, though with long held its core decayed ; the living lime and dust of the sage was frescoed with defensive bloom of his soul.

The weather was warm ; like some old West India hogs head on the wharf, the whole chamber buzzed with flies. But the sapient inmate sat still and ^cool in the midst. Absorbed in some other world of his occupations and thoughts, these insects, like daily cark and care, did not seem one whit to annoy him. It was a goodly sight to see this serene, cool, and ripe old philosopher, who by sharp inquisition of man in the street, and then long meditating upon him, surrounded by all those queer old implements, charts, and books, had grown at last so wondrous wise. There he sat, quite motionless among those restless flies ; and, with a sound like the low noon murmur of foliage in the woods, turning over the leaves of some ancient and tattered folio, with a binding dark and shaggy as the bark of any old oak. It seemed as if supernatural lore must needs pertain to this gravely, ruddy personage ; at least far foresight, pleasant wit, and working wisdom. Old age seemed in no wise to have dulled him, but to have sharpened ; just as old dinner-knives — so they be of good stfeel — wax keen, spear- pointed, and elastic as whale-bone with long usage. Yet though he was thus lively and vigorous to behold, spite of his seventy-two years (his exact date at that time) somehow, the incredible seniority of an antediluvian seemed his. Not the years of the calendar wholly, but also the years of sapience. His white hairs and mild brow, spoke of the future as well as the past. He seemed to be seven score years old ; that is, three score and ten of prescience added to three score and ten of remembrance, makes just seven score years in. all,

DOCTOR FEANKLIN. 45

But when Israel stepped within the chamber, he lost the complete effect of all this ; for the sage's back, not his face, was turned to him.

So, intent on his errand, hurried and heated with his recent run, our courier entered the room, inadequately impressed, for the time, by either^it or its occupant.

" Bon jour, bon jour, monsieur," said the man of wisdom, in a cheerful voice, but too busy to turn round just then.

" How do you do, Doctor Franklin ?" said Israel.

" Ah ! I smell Indian corn," Said .the doctor, turning round quickly on his chair. " A countryman ; sit down, my good sir. Well, what news ! Special ?"

" Wait a minute, sir," said Israel, stepping across the room towards a chair.

Now there was no carpet on the floor, which was of dark- coloured wood, set in lozenges, and slippery with wax, after the usual French style. As Israel walked this slippery floor, his unaccustomed feet slid about very strangely as if walking on ice, so that he came very near falling.

" Tears to me you have rather high heels to your boots," said the grave man of utility, looking sharply down through his spectacles ; " don't you know that it's both wasting leather and endangering your limbs, to wear such high heels ? I have thought, at my first leisure, to write a little pamphlet against that very abuse. But pray, what are you doing now ? Do your boots pinch you, my friend, that you lift one foot from the floor that way ? "

At this moment, Israel having seated himself, was just putting his right foot across his left knee.

" How foolish," continued the wise man, " for a rational creature to wear tight boots. Had nature intended rational creatures should do so, she would have made the foot of solid bone, or perhaps of solid iron, instead of bone, muscle, and flesh.— But,— I see. Hold ! "

And springing to "his own slippered feet, the venerable sage hurried to the door and shot-to the bolt. _Then drawing the curtain carefully across the window looking out across the court to various windows on the opposite side, bade Israel proceed with his operations.

" I was mistaken this time," added the doctor, smiling, as Israel produced his documents from their curious recesses — • "your high heels, instead of being idle vanities, seem to be full of meaning."

" Pretty full, doctor," said Israel, now handing over the papers. " I had a narrow escape with them just now."

46 ISEAEL POTTEE.

" How ? How's that ? " said the sage, fumbling the papers eagerly.

" Why, crossing the stone bridge there over the Seen" —

" Seine" ^ — interrupted the doctor, giving the French pronunciation. — "Always get a new word right in the first place, my friend, and you will never get it wrong afterwards."

" Well, I was crossing the bridge there, and who should hail me, but a suspicious-looking man, who, under pretence of seeking to polish my boots, wanted slyly to unscrew their heels, and to steal all these precious papers I've brought you/'

" My good friend," said the man of gravity, glancing scrutinizingly upon his guest, "have you not in your time undergone what they call hard times ? Been set upon, and persecuted, and very illy entreated by some of your fellow- creatures."

" That I have, doctor ; yes, indeed."

"I thought so. Sad usage has made you sadly suspi cious, my honest friend. An indiscriminate distrust of human nature is the worst consequence of a miserable con dition, whether brought about by innocence or guilt. And though want of suspicion more than want of sense, some times leads a man into harm, yet too much suspicion is as bad as too little sense. The man you met, my friend, most probably had no artful intention ; he knew just nothing about you or your heels ; he simply wanted to earn two sous by brushing your boots. Those blacking-men regularly station themselves on the bridge."

" How sorry I am then that I knocked over his box, and then ran away. But he didn't catch me." 1 " How ? surely, my honest friend, you — appointed to the conveyance of important secret despatches — did not act so imprudently as to kick over an innocent man's box in the public streets of the capital, to which you had been espe cially sent?"

" Yes, I did, doctor."

" Never act so unwisely again. If the police had got hold of you, think of what might have ensued. '

" Well, it was not very wise of me, that's a fact, doctor. But, you see, I thought he meant mischief."

" And because you only thought he meant mischief you must straightway proceed to do mischief. That's poor logic. But think over what I have told you now, while I look over these papers."

DOCTOR FKATOLItf. 47

In half an hour's time, the doctor, laying down the docu ments, again turned towards Israel, and removing his spectacles very placidly, proceeded in the kindest and most familiar manner to read him a paternal detailed lesson upon the ill-advised act he had been ^ guilty of, upon the Pont Neuf ; concluding by taking out his purse, and putting three small silver coins into Israel's hands, charging him to seek out the man that very day, and make both apology and restitution for his unlucky mistake.

"All of us, my honest friend," continued the doctor, " are subject to making mistakes ; so that the chief art of life, is to learn how best to remedy mistakes. Now one remedy for mistakes is honesty. So pay the man for the damage done to his box. And now, who are you, my frend ? My correspondents here mention your name — Israel Potter and say you are an American, an escaped prisoner of war, but nothing further. I want to hear your story from your own lips."

Israel immediately began, and related to the doctor all his adventures up to the present time.

" I suppose," said the doctor, upon Israel's concluding, " that you desire to return to your friends across the sea? "

" That I do, doctor," said Israel.

" "Well, I think I shall be able to procure you a passage."

Israel's eyes sparkled with delight. The mild sage noticed it, and added: "But events in these times are uncertain. At the prospect of pleasure never be elated ; but, without depression, respect the omens of ill. So much my life has taught me, my honest friend."

Israel felt as though a plum-pudding had been thrust under his nostrils, and then as rapidly withdrawn.

" I think it is probable that, in two or three days, I shall want you to return with some papers to the persons who sent you to me. In that case, you will have to come here once more, and then, my good friend, we will see what can be done towards getting you safely home again."

Israel was pouring out torrents of thanks, when the doctor interrupted him.

'* Gratitude, my friend, cannot be too much towards God, but towards man, it should be limited. No man can possibly so serve his fellow, as to merit unbounded gratitude. Over gratitude in the helped person, is apt to breed vanity or arrogance in the helping one. Now, in assisting you to get home — if, indeed, I shall prove able to do so — I shall he simply doing part of my official duty as agent of our com-

4S ISRAEL TOTTER.

mon country. So you owe me just nothing at all, but the sum of these coins I put in your hand just now. But that, instead of repaying to me hereafter, you can, when you get home, give to the first soldier's widow you meet. Don't forget it, for it is a debt, a pecuniary liability, owing to me. It will be about a quarter of a dollar, in the Yankee cur rency . A quarter of a dollar, mind. My honest friend, in pecuniary matters always be exact as a second-hand ; never mind with whom it is, father or stranger, peasant or king, be exact to a tick of your honour/'

" Well, doctor," said Israel, " since exactness in these matters is so necessary, let me pay back my debt in the very coins in which it was loaned. There will be no chance of mistake then. Thanks to my Brentford friends, I have enough to spare of my own, to settle damages with the boot-black of the bridge. I only took the money from you, because I thought it would not look well to push it back after being so kindly offered."

"My honest friend," said the doctor, "I like your straightforward dealing. I will receive back the money."

" No interest, doctor, I hope," said Israel.

The sage looked mildly over his spectacles upon Israel and replied, " My good friend, never permit yourself to be jocose upon pecuniary matters. Never joke at funerals, or during business transactions. The affair between us two, you perhaps deem very trivial, but trifles may involve momentous principles. But no more at present. You had better go immediately and find the boot-black. Having settled with him, return hither, and you will find a room ready for you near this, where you will stay during your sojourn in Paris."

" But I thought I would like to have a little look round the town, before I go back to England," said Israel.

" Business before pleasure, my friend. You must abso lutely remain in your room, just as if you were my prisoner, until you quit Paris for Calais. Not knowing now at what instant I shall want you to start, your keeping to your room is indispensable. But when you come back from Brentford again, then, if nothing happens, you will have a chance to survey this celebrated capital ere taking ship for America. Now, go directly, and pay the boot-black. Stop, have you the exact change ready r Don't be taking out all your money in the open street."

1 Doctor," said Israel, " I am not so simple."

" But you knocked over the box."

DOCTOR FRANKLIN. 49

" That, doctor, was bravery."

" Bravery in a poor cause, is the height of simplicity, my friend ; count out your change. It must be French coin, not English, that you are to pay the man with. Ah, that will do; those three coins will be enough. Put them in a pocket separate from your other cash. Now go, and hasten to the bridge. "

" Shall I stop to take a meal anywhere, doctor, as I return ? I saw several cookshops as I came hither."

" Cafes and restaurants, they are called here, my honest friend. Tell me, are you the possessor of a liberal for tune ? "

" Not very liberal," said Israel.

" I thought as much. Where little wine is drunk, it is good to dine out occasionally at a friend's ; but where a poor man dines out at his own charge, it is bad policy. Never dine out that way, when you can dine in. Do not stop on the way at all, my honest friend, but come directly back hither, and you shall dine at home, free of cost, with me."

" Thank you very kindly, doctor."

And Israel departed for the Pont Neuf. Succeeding in his errand thither, he returned to Dr. Franklin, and found that worthy envoy waiting his attendance at a meal, which, according to the doctor's custom, had been sent from a neighbouring restaurant. There were two covers ; • and without attendance the host and guest sat down. There was only one principal dish, lamb boiled with green peas. Bread and potatoes made up the rest. A decanter-like bottle of uncoloured glass, filled with some uncoloured beverage, stood at the venerable envoy's elbow.

' Let me fill your glass," said the sage. ' It's white wine, ain't it ? " said Israel. * White wine of the very oldest brand ; I drink your health in it, my honest friend.."

4 Why, it's plain water," said Israel, now tasting it. ' Plain water is a very good drink for plain men," re plied the wise man.

"Yes," said Israel, "but Squire Woodcock gave mo perry, and the other gentleman at White Waltham gave me port, and some other friends have given me brandy."

" Very good, my honest friend ; if you like perry, and port, and brandy, wait till you get back to Squire Wood cock, and the gentleman at White Waltham, and the other friends, and you shall drink perry, and port, and

50 ISIiAEL PQTTEK.

brandy. But while you are with me, you will drink plain water."

' So it seems, doctor."

* What do you suppose a glass of port costs ? " ' About three pence English, doctor."

1 That must be poor port. But how much good bread will three pence English purchase ? "

* Three penny rolls, doctor."

' How many glasses of port do you suppose a man may drink at a meal?"

44 The gentleman at "White "Waltham drank a bottle at a dinner."

" A bottle contains just thirteen glasses — that's thirty- nine pence, supposing it poor wine. If something of the best, which is the only sort any sane man should drink, as being the least poisonous, it would be quadruple that sum, which is one hundred and fifty- six pence, which is seventy- eight twopenny loaves. Now, do you not think that for one man to swallow down seventy-two twopenny rolls at one meal is rather extravagant business ? "

" But he drank a bottle of wine ; he did not eat seventy- two twopenny rolls, doctor."

" He drank the money worth of seventy- two loaves, which is drinking the loaves themselves ; for money is bread."

*' But he has plenty of money to spare, doctor."

" To have to spare, is to have to give away. Does the gentleman give much away ? "

" Not that I know of, doctor."

44 Then he thinks he has nothing to spare ; and thinking he has nothing to spare, and yet prodigally drinking down his money as he does every day, it seems to me that that gentleman stands self-contradicted, and therefore is no good example for plain, sensible folks like you and me to follow. My honest friend, if you are poor, avoid wine as a costly luxury ; if you are rich, shun it as a fatal indulgence. Stick to plain water. And now, my good friend, if you are through with your meal, we will rise. There is no pastry coming. Pastry is poisoned bread. Never eat pastry. Be a plain man, and stick to plain things. Now, my friend, I shall have to be private until nine o'clock in the evening, when 1 shall be again at your service. Meantime, you may go to your room. I have ordered the one next to this to be prepared for you. But you must not be idle. Here is Poor Kichard's Almanac, which, in yiew of our late conversation,

THE LATIN QTJAETEE. 51

I commend to your earnest perusal. And here, too, is a Guide to Paris, an English one, which you can read. Study it well, so that when you come back from England, if you should then have an opportunity to travel about Paris, to see its wonders, jyou will have all the chief places made historically familiar to .you. In this world, men must pro vide knowledge before it is wanted, just as our countrymen in New England get in their winter's fuel one season, to serve them the next."

So saying, this homely sage and household Plato, showed his humble guest to the door, and standing in the hall, pointed out to him the one which opened into his allotted apartment.

CHAPTER YIII. WHICH: HAS SOMETHING TO SAY ABOUT DOCTOE FEANKLIN

AND THE LATIN QTJAETEE.

THE first, both in point of time and merit, of American envoys was famous not less for the pastoral simplicity of his manners than for the politic grace of his mind. Viewed from a certain point, there was a touch of primeval oriental- ness in Benjamin Franklin. Neither is there wanting some thing like his Scriptural parallel. The history of the patriarch Jacob is interesting not less from the unselfish devotion which we are bound to ascribe to him, than from the deep worldly wisdom and polished Italian tact, gleaming under an air of Arcadian unafiectedness. The diplomatist and the shepherd are blended — a union not without war rant ; the apostolic serpent and dove ; a tanned Machiavelli in tents.

Doubtless, too, notwithstanding his eminence as lord of the moving manor, Jacob's raiment was of homespun ; the economic envoy's plain coat and hose, who has not heard of?

Franklin all over is of a piece. He dressed his person as his periods ; neat, trim, nothing superfluous, nothing defi cient. In some of his works his style is only surpassed by the unimprovable sentences of Hobbes of Malmsbury, the paragon of perspicuity. The mental habits of Hobbes and E 2

52 ISRAEL POTTER.

Franklin in several points, especially in one of some moment, assimilated. Indeed, making due allowance for soil and era, history presents few trios more akin, upon the whole, than Jacob, Hobbes, and Franklin ; three labyrinth-minded, but plain-spoken Broadbrims, at once politicians and philo sophers ; keen ^ observers of the main chance ; prudent courtiers ; practical magians in linsey-woolsey.

In keeping with his general habitudes, Doctor Franklin while at the French Court did not reside in the aristocra- tical faubourgs. He deemed his worsted hose and scientific tastes more adapted in a domestic way to the other side of the Seine, where the Latin Quarter, at once the haunt of erudition and economy, seemed peculiarly to invite the phi losophical Poor Richard to its venerable retreats. Here, of gray, chilly, drizzly November mornings, in the dark-stoned quadrangle of the time-honoured Sorbonne, walked the lean and slippered metaphysician, — oblivious for the moment that his sublime thoughts and tattered wardrobe were famous throughout Europe, — meditating on the theme of his next lecture ; at the same time, in the well-worn chambers over head, some clayey-visaged chemist in ragged robe-de- chambre, and with a soiled green flap over his left eye, was hard at work stopping over retorts and crucibles, discovering new antipathies in acids, again risking strange explosions similar to that whereby he had already lost the use of one optic ; while in the lofty lodging-houses of the neighbouring streets, indigent young students from all parts of France were ironing their shabby cocked hats, or inking the whity seams of their small-clothes, prior to a promenade with their pink-ribboned little grisettes in the garden of the Luxembourg.

Long ago the haunt of rank, the Latin Quarter still retains many old buildings whose imposing architecture singularly contrasts with the unassuming habits of their present occupants. In some parts its general air is dreary and dim ; monastic and theurgic. In those lonely narrow ways — long-drawn prospectives of desertion — lined with huge piles of silent, vaulted, old iron-grated buildings of dark gray stone, one almost expects to encounter Paracelsus or Friar Bacon turning the next corner, with some awful vial of Black- Art elixir in his hand.

But all the lodging-houses are not so grim. Not to speak of many of comparatively modern erection, the others of the better class, however stern in exterior, evince a feminine gaiety of taste, more or less, in their furnishings within,

THE LATIN QtTAKTEE. 53

The embellishing1, or softening, or screening hand of woman is to be seen all over the interiors of this metropolis. Like Augustus Ca3sar with respect to Rome, the Frenchwoman leaves her obvious mark on Paris. Like the hand in nature, you know it can be none else but hers. Yet sometimes she overdoes it, as nature in the peony; or underdoes it, as nature in the bramble ; or— what is still more frequent— is a little slatternly about it, as nature in the pig-weed.

In this congenial vicinity of the Latin Quarter, and in an ancient building something like those alluded to, at a point midway between the Palais des Beaux Arts and the College of the Sorbonne, the venerable American envoy pitched his tent when not passing his time at his country retreat ^at Passy. The frugality of his manner of life did not lose him the good opinion even of the voluptuaries of the showiest of capitals, whose very iron railings are not free from gilt. Franklin was not less a lady's man, than a man's man, a wise man, and an old man. Not only did he enjoy the homage of the choicest Parisian literati, but at the age of seventy-two he was the caressed favourite of the highest born beauties of the court ; who through blind fashion having been originally attracted to him as a famous savan, were permanently retained as his admirers by his Plato -like graciousness of good humour. Having carefully weighed the world, Franklin could act any part in it. By nature turned to knowledge, his mind was often grave, but never serious. At times he had seriousness — extreme seriousness — for others, but never for himself. Tranquillity was to him instead of it. This philosophical levity of tranquillity, so to speak, is shown in his easy variety of pursuits. Printer, postmaster, almanac maker, essayist, chemist, orator, tinker, statesman, humourist, philosopher, parlour man, political economist, professor of housewifery, ambassador, projector, maxim-monger, herb-doctor, wit : — Jack of all trades, master of each and mastered by none, — the type and genius of his land. Franklin was everything but a poet. But since a soul with many qualities, forming of itself a sort of handy index and pocket congress of all humanity, needs the contact of just as many different men, or subjects, in order to the exhibition of its totality ; hence very little indeed of the sage's multifariousness will be portrayed in a simple narra tive like the present. This casual private intercourse with Israel, but served to manifest him in his far lesser lights ; thrifty, domestic, dietarian, and, it may be, didactically waggish. There was much benevolent irony, innocent mis-

54 ISRAEL POTTEE.

chieyousness, in the wise man. Seeking here to depict him in his less exalted habitudes, the narrator feels more as if he were playing- with^ one of the sage's worsted hose, than reverentially handling the honoured hat which once oracu larly sat upon his brow.

So, then, in the Latin Quarter lived Doctor Franklin. And accordingly in the Latin Quarter tarried Israel for the time. And it was into a room of a house in this same Latin Quarter that Israel had been directed when the sage had requested privacy for a while.

CHAPTER IX.

ISRAEL IS INITIATED INTO THE MYSTERIES OF LODGING- HOUSES IN THE LATIN QUARTER.

CLOSING the door upon himself, Israel advanced > to the middle of the chamber, and looked curiously round him.

A dark tesselated floor, but without a rug ; two maho gany chairs, with embroidered seats, rather the worse-for wear ; one mahogany bed, with a gay but tarnished coun terpane ; a marble wash-stand, cracked, with a china vessel of water, minus the handle. The apartment was very large ; this part of the house, which was a very extensive one, embracing the four sides of a quadrangle, having, in a former age, been the hotel of a nobleman. The magnitude of the chamber made its stinted furniture look meagre enough.

But in Israel's eyes, the marble mantel (a comparatively recent addition) and its appurtenances, not only redeemed the rest, but looked quite magnificent and hospitable in the extreme. Because, in the first place, the mantel was graced with an enormous old-fashioned square mirror, of heavy plate glass, set fast, like a tablet, into the wall. And in this mirror was genially reflected the following delicate articles; — first, two bouquets of flowers inserted in pretty vases of porcelain ; second, one cake of white soap ; third, one cake of rose-coloured soap (both cakes very fragrant) ; fourth, one wax candle ; fifth, one china tinder-box ; sixth,

MYSTEEIES OF LPDGING -HOUSES. 55

one bottle of Eau de Cologne ; seventh, one paper of loaf sugar, nicely broken into sugar bowl size; eighth, one silver teaspoon ; ninth, one glass tumbler ; tenth, one glass decanter of cool pure water; eleventh, one sealed ^bottle containing a richly hued liquid, and marked " Otard."

" I wonder now what 0-t-a-r-d is ? " soliloquised Israel, slowly spelling the word. "I have a good mind to step in and ask Dr. Franklin. He knows everything. Let me smell it. No, it's sealed; smell is locked in. ^ Those are pretty flowers. Let's smell them : no smell again. Ah, I see — sort of flowers in women's bonnets — sort of calico flowers. Beautiful soap. This smells anyhow — regular soap-roses — a white rose and a red one, That long-necked bottle there looks like a crane. I wonder what's in that ? Hallo ! E-a-u — d-e — C-o-l-o-g-n-e. I wonder if Dr. Frank lin understands that ? It looks like his white wine. This is nice sugar. Let's taste. Yes, this is very nice sugar, sweet as— yes, it's sweet as sugar ; better than maple sugar, such as they make at home. But I'm crunching it too loud, the doctor will hear me. But here's a teaspoon. What's this for ? There's no tea, nor tea-cup ; but here's a tumbler, and here's drinking water. Let me see. Seems^to me, put ting this and that and the other thing together, it's a sort of alphabet that spells something. Spoon, tumbler, water,

sugar, brandy— that's it. 0-t-a-r-d is brandy. "Who

put these things here ? What does it all mean ? Don't put sugar here for show, don't put a spoon here for orna ment, nor a jug of water. There is only one meaning to it, and that is a very polite invitation from some invisible person to help myself, if I like, to a glass of brandy and sugar, and if I don't like, let it alone. That's my reading. I have a good mind to ask Doctor Franklin about it, though, for there's just a chance that I may be mistaken, and these things here be some other person's private property, not at all meant for me to help myself from. Co-logne, what's that ? Never mind. Soap : soap's to wash with. I want to use soap, anyway. Let me see — no, there's no soap on the wash-stand. I see, soap is not given gratis here in Paris, to boarders. But if you want it, take it from the marble, and it will be charged in the bill. If you don't want it let it alone, and no charge. Well, that's fair, anyway. But then to a man who could not afford to use soap, such beau tiful cakes as these lying before his eyes all the time, would be a strong temptation. And now that I ithink of it, the 0-t-a-r-d looks rather tempting too. But if I don't like it

56 ISEAEL POTTEE.

now, I can let it alone. I've a good mind to try it. But it's sealed. I wonder now if I am right in my understand ing of this alphabet ? Who knows ? I'll venture one little sip, anyhow. Come, cork. Hark ! "

There was a rapid knock at the door.

Clapping down the bottle, Israel said, " Come in."

It was the man of wisdom.

" My honest friend," said the doctor, stepping with venerable briskness into the room, " I was so busy during your visit to the Pont Neuf, that I did not have time to see that your room was all right. I merely gave the order, and heard that it had been fulfilled. But it just occurred to me, that as the landladies of Paris have some curious customs which might puzzle an entire stranger, my presence here for a moment might explain any little obscurity. Yet, it is as I thought," glancing towards the mantel.

" Oh, doctor, that reminds me ; what is 0-t-a-r-d, pray?"

" Otard is poison."

" Shocking."

" Yes, and I think I had best remove it from the room forthwith," replied the sage, in a business-like manner, putting the bottle under his arm; "I hope you never use Cologne, do you ? "

" What — what is that, doctor ? "

" I see. You never heard of the senseless luxury — a wise ignorance. You smell flowers upon your mountains. You won't want this, either;" and the Cologne bottle was put under the other arm. " Candle — you'll want that. Soap — • you want soap. Use the white cake."

" Is that cheaper, doctor ? "

" Yes, but just as good as the other. You don't ever munch sugar, do you ? It's bad for the teeth. I'll take the sugar. So the paper of sugar was likewise dropped into one of the capacious coat pockets."

" Oh, you better take the whole furniture, Dr. Franklin. Here, I'll help you drag out the bedstead."

" My honest friend," said the wise man, pausing solemnly, with the two bottles, like swimmer's bladders, under his arm-pits ; " my honest friend, the bedstead you will want ; what I propose to remove you will not want."

" Oh, I was only joking, doctor."

" I knew that. It's a bad habit, except at the proper time, and with the proper person. The things left on the mantel were there placed by the landlady to be used if wanted ; if not, to be left untouched. To-morrow morning,

MYSTEKIES OF LODGING-HOUSES. 57

upon the chambermaid's coming in to make your bed, all such articles as remained obviously untouched would have been removed, the rest would have been charged in the bill, whether you used them up completely or not."

" Just as I thought. Then why not let the bottles stay, doctor, and save yourself all this trouble ? "

" Ah ! why indeed. My honest friend, are you not my guest ? It were unhandsome in me to permit a third person superfluously to entertain you under what, for the time being, is my own roof."

These words came from the wise man in the most graciously bland and flowing tones. As he ended, he made a sort of conciliatory half bow towards Israel.

Charmed with his condescending affability, Israel, without another word, suffered him to march from the room, bottles and all. Not till the first impression of the venerable envoy's suavity had left him, did Israel begin to surmise the mild superiority of successful strategy which lurked beneath this highly ingratiating air.

" Ah," pondered Israel, sitting gloomily before the rifled mantel, with the empty tumbler and teaspoon in his hand. " It's sad business to have a Doctor Franklin lodging in the next room. I wonder if he sees to all the boarders this way. How the 0-t-a-r-d merchants must hate him, and the pastry-cooks too. I wish I had a good pie to pass the time. I wonder if they ever make pumpkin pies in Paris ? So I've got to stay in this room all the time. Some how I'm bound to be a prisoner, one way or other. Never mind, I'm an ambassador ; that's satisfaction. Hark ! The doctor again. — Come in."

No venerable doctor, but in tripped a young French lass, bloom on her cheek, pink ribbons in her cap, liveliness in all her air, grace in the very tips of her elbows. The most bewitching little chambermaid in Paris. All art, but the picture of artlessness.

" Monsieur ! pardon ! "

" Oh, I pardong ye freely," said Israel. " Come to call on the ambassador ? "

" Monsieur, is de — de — "but, breaking down at the very threshold in her English, she poured put a long ribbon of sparkling French, the purpose of which was to convey a profusion of fine compliments to the stranger, with many tender inquiries as to whether he was comfortably roomed, and whether there might not be something, however trifling, wanting to his complete accommodation. But Israel under-

58 ISEAEL POTTER.

stood nothing1, at the time, but the exceeding- grace, and trim, bewitching figure of the girl.

She stood eyeing him for a few moments more, with a look of pretty theatrical despair, and, after vaguely lingering a while, with another shower of incomprehensible compli ments and apologies, tripped like a fairy from the chamber. Directly she was gone Israel pondered upon a singular glance of the girl. It seemed to him that he had, by his reception, in some way, unaacountably disappointed his beautiful visitor. It struck him very strangely that she had entered all sweetness and friendliness, but had retired as if slighted, with a sort of disdainful and sarcastic levity, all the more stinging from its apparent politeness.

Not long had she^ disappeared, when a noise in the passage apprised him that, in her hurried retreat, the girl must have stumbled against something. The next moment he heard a chair scraping in the adjacent apartment, and there was another knock at the door.

It was the man of wisdom this time.

" My honest friend, did you not have a visitor, just now?"

" Yes, Doctor, a very pretty girl called upon me."

" "Well^I just stepped in to tell you of another strange custom of Paris. That girl is the chambermaid, but she does not confine herself altogether to one vocation. You must beware of the chambermaids of Paris, my honest friend. Shall I tell the girl, from you, that, unwilling to give her the fatigue of going up and down so many flights of stairs, you will for the future waive her visits of cere mony ?"

" Why, Doctor Franklin, she is a very sweet little girl."

" I know it, my honest friend ; the sweeter the more dangerous. Arsenic is sweeter than sugar. I know you are a very sensible young man, not to be taken in by an artful Ammonite, and so I think I had better convey your message to the girl forthwith."

So saying, the sage withdrew, leaving Israel once more gloomily seated before the rifled mantel, whose mirror was not again to reflect the form of the charming chambermaid.

" Every time he comes in he robs me," soliloquised Israel, dolefully ; *' with an air all the time, too, as if he were making me presents. If he thinks me such a very sensible young man, why not let me take care of myself?"

It was growing dusk, and^Israel, lighting the wax candle, proceeded to read in his Guide-book.

MYSTERIES OF LODGING-HOUSES. 30

" This is poor sight-seeing-," muttered he at last, " sitting here all by myself, with no company but an empty tumbler, reading about the fine things in Paris, and I myself a prisoner in Paris. I wish something extraordinary would turn up now ; for instance, a man come in and give me ten thousand pounds. But here's * Poor Richard ; ' I am a poor fellow myself ; so let's see what comfort he has for a comrade."

Opening the little pamphlet, at random, Israel's eyes fell on the following passages : he read them aloud — •

" * So what signifies waiting and hoping for better times ? We may maJte these times better, if we bestir ourselves. Industry need not wish, and he that lives upon hope will die fasting, as Poor Richard says. There are no gains, with out pains. Then help hands, for I have no lands, as Poor Richard says' Oh, confound all this wisdom ! It's a sort of insulting to talk wisdom to a man like me. It's wisdom that's cheap, and it's fortune that's dear. That ain't in Poor Richard ; but it ought to be," concluded Israel, sud denly slamming down the pamphlet.

He walked across the room, looked at the artificial flowers, and the rose-coloured soap, and again went to the table and took up the two books.

" So here is the ' Way to Wealth,' and here is the * Gruido to Paris/ Wonder now whether Paris lies on the Way to Wealth ? if so, I am on the road. More likely though, it's a parting-of-the-ways. I shouldn't be surprised if the Doctor meant something sly by putting these two books in my hand. Somehow, the old gentleman has an amazing sly look — a sort of wild slyness — about him, seems to me. His wisdom seems a sort of sly, too. But all in honour, though. I rather think he's one of those old gentlemen who say a vast deal of sense, but hint a world more. Depend upon it, he's sly, sly, sly. Ah, what's this Poor Richard says : * God helps them that help themselves.' Let's consider that. Poor Richard ain't a Dunker, that's certain, though he has lived in Pennsylvania. * God helps them that help themselves.' I'll just mark that saw, and leave the pamphlet open to refer to it again — Ah!"

At this point, the Doctor knocked, summoning Israel to his own apartment. Here, after a cup of weak tea, and a little toast, the two had a long, familiar talk together; during which, Israel was delighted with the unpretending talkativeness, serene insight, and benign amiability of the

60 ISRAEL POTTER.

sage. But, for all this, he could hardly forgive him for the Cologne and Otard depredations.

Discovering that, in early life, Israel had been employed on a farm, the man of wisdom at length turned the conver sation in that direction; among other things, mentioning to his guest a plan of his (the Doctor's) for yoking oxen, with a yoke to go hy a spring instead of a bolt ; thus greatly facilitating the operation of hitching on the team to the cart. Israel was very much struck with the improvement ; and thought that, if he were home, upon his mountains, he would immediately introduce it among the farmers.

CHAPTER X.

ANOTHER ADVENTURER APPEARS UPON THE SCENE.

ABOUT half past ten o'clock, as they were thus conversing, Israel's acquaintance, the pretty chambermaid, rapped at the door, saying, with a titter, that a very rude gentleman in the passage of the court, desired to see Doctor franklin.

" A very rude gentleman?" repeated the wise man in French, narrowly looking at the girl ; " that means a very fine gentleman who has just paid you some energetic com pliment. But let him come up, my girl," he added patri- archially.

In a few moments, a swift coquettish step was heard, followed, as if in chase, by a sharp and manly one. The door opened. Israel was sitting so that, accidentally, his eye pierced the crevice made by the opening of the door, which, like a theatrical screen, stood for a moment between Doctor Franklin and the just entering visitor. And behind that screen, through the crack, Israel caught one momentary glimpse of a little bit of by-play between the pretty cham bermaid and the stranger. The vivacious nymph appeared to have affectedly run from him on the stairs — doubtless in freakish return for some liberal advances — but had suffered herself to be overtaken at last ere too late ; and on the instant Israel caught sight of her, was with an insincere air

ANOTHER AD VENTURES. 61

of rosy resentment, receiving a roguish pinch on the arm, and a still more roguish salute on the cheek.

The next instant both disappeared from the range of the crevice ; the girl departing whence she had come ; the stranger — transiently invisible as he advanced behind the door — entering the room. "When Israel now perceived him again, he seemed, while momentarily hidden, to have under gone a complete transformation. ^

He was a rather small, elastic, swarthy man, with an aspect as of a disinherited Indian Chief in European clothes. An unvanquishable enthusiasm, intensified to perfect so briety, couched in his savage, self-possessed eye. He was elegantly and somewhat extravagantly dressed as a civilian ; he carried himself with a rustic, barbaric jauntiness, strangely dashed with a superinduced touch of the Parisian salon. His tawny cheek, like a date, spoke of the tropic. A wonderful atmosphere of proud friendlessness and scornful isolation invested him. Yet there was a bit of the poet as well as the outlaw in him, too. A cool solemnity of intre pidity sat on his lip. He looked like one who of purpose sought out harm's way. He looked like one who never had been, and never would be, a subordinate.

Israel thought to himself that seldom before had he seen such a being. Though dressed a-la-mode, he did not seem to be altogether civilized.

So absorbed was our adventurer by the person of the stranger, that a few moments passed ere he began to be aware of the circumstance, that Dr. Franklin and this new visitor having saluted as old acquaintances, were now sitting in earnest conversation together.

" Do as you please ; but I will not bide a suitor much longer," said the stranger in bitterness. " Congress gave me to understand that, upon my arrival here, I should be given immediate command of the Indien ; and now, for no earthly reason that I can see, you Commissioners have pre sented her, fresh from the stocks at Amsterdam, to the King of France, and not to me. "What does the King of France with such a frigate ? And what can I not do with ber r Give me back the Indien, and in less than one month, you shall hear glorious or fatal news of Paul Jones."

" Come, come, captain," said Doctor Franklin, soothingly " tell me now, what would you do with her if you had her ? "

" I would teach the British that Paul Jones, though born in Britain, is no subject to the British King, but an un trammelled citizen and sailor of the universe ; and I would

02 IS1U.EL POTTEli.

teach them, too, that if they ruthlessly ravage the Ameri can coasts, their own coasts are vulnerable as New Hol land's. Give me the Indien, and I will rain down on wicked England like fire on Sodom."

These words of bravado were not spoken in the tone of a bravo, but a prophet. Erect upon his chair, like an Iroquois, the speaker's look was like that of an unilickering torch.

His air seemed slightly to disturb the old sage's philoso phic repose, who, while not seeking to disguise his admira tion of the^ unmistakable spirit of the man, seemed but illy to relish his apparent measureless boasting.

^As if, both to change the subject a little, as well as put his visitor in better mood — though, indeed, it might have been but covertly to play with his enthusiasm — the man of wisdom now drew his chair confidentially nearer to the stranger's, and putting one hand in a very friendly, conci liatory way upon his visitor's knee, and rubbing it gently to and fro there, much as a lion-tamer might soothingly mani pulate the aggravated king of beasts, said in a winning manner : — " Never mind at present, captain, about the Indien affair. Let that sleep a moment. See, now, the Jersey privateers do us a great deal of mischief by inter cepting our supplies. It has been mentioned to me, that if you had a small vessel — say even your present ship, the Amphitrite — then, by your singular bravery, you might render great service, by following those privateers where larger ships durst not venture their bottoms ; or, if but sup ported by some frigates from Brest at a proper distance, might draw them out, so that the larger vessels could cap ture them."

" Decoy-duck to French frigates ! — Yery dignified office, truly!" hissed Paul in a fiery rage. "Doctor Franklin, whatever Paul Jones does for the cause of America, it must be done through unlimited orders : a separate supreme command ; no leader and no counsellor but himself. Have I not already, by my services on the American coast, shown that I am well worthy all this? Why then do you seek to degrade me below my previous level ? I will mount, not sink. I live but for honour and glory. Give me, then, something honourable and glorious to do, and something famous to do it with. Give me the Indien ! "

The man of wisdom slowly shook his head. " Everything is lost through this shillyshallying timidity, called pru dence," cried Paul Jones, starting to his feet; "to be effectual, war should be carried on like a monsoon, one

ANOTHEK ADVENTUKEK. 63

changeless determination of every particle towards the one unalterable aim. But in vacillating councils, statesmen idle about like the cats' -paws in calms. My God, why was I not born a Czar ! "

" A nor' wester, rather. Came, come, captain," added the sage, "sit down, we have a third person present, you see," pointing towards Israel, who sat wrapt at the volcanic spirit of the stranger.

Paul slightly started, and turned inquiringly upon Israel, who, equally owing to Paul's own earnestness of discourse and Israel's motionless bearing, had thus far remained undis covered.

" Never fear, captain," said the sage, "this man is true blue, a secret courier, and an American born. He is an escaped prisoner of war."

" Ah, captured in a ship ? " asked Paul eagerly ; " what ship ? None of mine ! Paul Jones never was captured."

" No, sir, in the brigaiLtme ^Washington, out of Boston," replied Israel ; " we were cruising to cut off supplies to the English."

" Did your shipmates talk much of me ? " demanded Paul, with a look as of a parading Sioux demanding homage to his gewgaws ; " what did they say of Paul Jones ? "

" I never heard the name before this evening," said Israel.

" What ? Ah — brigantine Washington — let me see ; that was before I had outwitted the Soleby frigate, fought the Milfordj and captured the Mellish and the rest off Louis- bergh. You were long before the news, my lad," he added with a sort of compassionate air.

" Our friend here gave you a rather blunt answer," said the wise man, sagely mischievous, and addressing Paul.

" Yes. And I like him for it. My man, will you go a cruise with Paul Jones ? You fellows so blunt with the tongue, are apt to be sharp with the steel. Come, my lad, return with me to Brest. I go in a few days."

Fired by the contagious spirit of Paul, Israel, forgetting all about his previous desire to reach home, sparkled with response to the summons. But Doctor Franklin interrupted him.

" Our friend here," said he to the captain, " is at present engaged for very different duty."

Much other conversation followed, during which Paul Jones again and again expressed his impatience at being unemployed, and his resolution to accept of no employ unless it gave him supreme authority ; while, in answer to all this,

64: ISEAEL POTTER.

Dr. Franklin, not uninfluenced by the uncompromising spirit of his guest, and well knowing that however unplea sant a trait in conversation, or in the transaction of civil affairs, yet in war this very quality was invaluable, as pro jectiles and combustibles, finally assurred Paul, after many complimentary remarks, that he would immediately exert himself to the utmost to procure for him some enterprise which should come up to his merits.

" Thank you for your frankness," said Paul ; " frank myself, I love to deal with a frank man. You, Doctor Franklin, are true and deep, and so you are frank."

The sage sedately smiled, a queer incredulity just lurking in the corner of his mouth.

" But how about our little scheme for new modelling ships of war ?" said the doctor, shifting the subject : "it will be a great thing for our infant navy, if we ^ succeed. Since our last conversation on that subject, captain, at odds and ends of time, I have thought over the matter, and have begun a little skeleton of the thing here, which I will show you. Whenever one has a new idea of anything mechanical, it is best to clothe it with a body as soon as possible. 'For you can't improve so well on ideas as you can on bodies."

With that, going to a little drawer, he produced a small basket, filled with a curious-looking unfinished frame-work of wood, and several bits of wood unattached. It looked like a nursery basket, containing broken odds and ends of playthings.

" Now, look here, captain, though the thing is but begun at present, yet there is enough to show that one idea, at least, of yours is not feasible."

Paul was all attention, as if having unbounded confidence in whatever the sage might suggest, while Israel looked on quite as interested as either, his heart swelling with the thought of being privy to the consultations of two such men ; consultations, too, having ultimate reference to such momentous affairs as the freeing of nations.

" If," continued the doctor, taking up some of the loose bits, and piling them along on one side of the top of the frame, " if the better to shelter your crew in an engage ment, you construct your rail in the manner proposed — as thus — then, by the excessive weight of the timber, you will top much interfere with the ship's centre of gravity. You will have that too high."

" Ballast in the hold in proportion," said Paul.

'* Then you will sink the whole hull too low. But here,

ANOTHER ADVENTURER. 65

to have less smoke in time of battle, especially on the lower decks, you proposed a new sort of hatchway. But that won't do. See here, now, I have invented certain ventilat ing- pipes, they are to traverse the vessel thus" — laying- toilette pins along — " the current of air to enter here and be discharged there. What do you think of that ? But now about the main things — fast sailing, driving little to lee ward, and drawing little water. Look, now, at this keel. I whittled it only the night before last, just before going to bed. Do you see, now, how" —

At this crisis, a knock was heard at the door, and the chambermaid reappeared, announcing that two gentlemen were that moment crossing the court below to see Doctor Franklin.

11 The Duke de Chartres, and Count D'Estang," said the Doctor ; " they appointed for last night, but did not come. Captain, this lias something indirectly to do with your affair. Through the duke, Count D'Estang has spoken to the king about the secret expedition, the design of which you first threw out. Call early to-morrow, and I will inform you of the result."

With his tawny hand'Paul pulled out his watch, a small richly -jewelled lady's watch.

" It is so late, I will stay here to-night," he said ; " is there a convenient room ?"

" Quick ! " said the doctor, " it might be ill-advised of you to be seen with me just now ; our friend here will let you share his chamber. Quick, Israel ! and show the captain thither."

As the door closed upon them in Israel's apartment, Doctor Franklin's door closed upon tbe duke and the count. Leaving the latter to their discussion of profound plans for the timely befriending of the American cause, and the crippling of ;the power of England on the seas, let us pass the night with Paul Jones and Israel in the neighbouring room.

ISKAEL POTTER.

CHAPTER XI.

PAUL JONES IN A EEVEHIE.

" * GOD helps them that helps themselves/ That's a clincher. That's heen my experience. But I never saw it in words before. What pamphlet is this ? Poor Richard,

eUpon entering Israel's room, Captain Paul, stepping towards the table, and spying the open pamphlet there, had taken it up, his eye being immediately attracted, to tne passage previously marked by our adventurer.

"A rare old gentleman is ' Poor Richard, said Israel, in response to Paul's observations.

"So he seems, so he seems," answered Paul, his eye still running over the pamphlet again ; " why, \ Poor Richard reads very much as Doctor Franklin speaks.

" He wrote it," said Israel.

" Aye ? Good. So it is, so it is ; it s the wise man all over I must get me a copy of this, and wear it around my neck for a charm. And now about our quarters for the night. I am not going to deprive you of your bed, my man. Do you go to bed, and I will doze in the chair here. It s good dozing in the crosstrees. .

" Why not sleep together ? " said Israel ; see, it is a big bed. Or perhaps you don't fancy your bedleliow,

^When before the mast I first sailed out of Whitehaven to Norway," said Paul, coolly, " I had for • hammock-mate a full-blooded Congo. We had a white blanket spread in our hammock. Every time I turned in I found the Congo s black wool worked in with the white worsted. By the end of the voyage the blanket was of a pepper-and-salt look, like an old man's turning head. So it's not because I am notional at all, but because I don't care to, my lad. Turn in and go to sleep. Let the lamp burn ; 1 11 see to it. There, go to sleep.

Complving with what seemed as much a command as a request, Israel, though in bed, could not fall into slumber for thinking of the little circumstance that this strange

PAUL JONES. 67

swarthy man, flaming with wild enterprises, sat in full suit in the chair. He felt an uneasy misgiving sensation, as if he had retired not only without covering up the fire, but leaving it fiercely burning with spitting faggots of hemlock.

But his natural complaisance induced him at least to feign himself asleep ; whereupon Paul, laying down "Poor Richard," rose from his chair, and withdrawing his boots, began walking rapidly but noiselessly to and fro in his stockings in the spacious room, wrapped in Indian medita tions. Israel furtively eyed him from beneath the coverlid, and was anew struck by his aspect, now -that Paul thought himself unwatched. Stern, relentless purposes, to be pur sued to the points of adverse bayonets and the muzzles of hostile cannon, were expressed in the now rigid lines of his^brow. His ruffled right hand was clutched by his side, as if grasping a cutlass. He paced the room as if advancing upon a fortification. Meantime a confused buzz of discus sion came from the neighbouring chamber. All else was profound midnight tranquillity. Presently, passing the large mirror over the mantel, Paul caught a glimpse of his person. He paused, grimly regarding it, while a dash of pleased coxcombry seemed to mingle with the otherwise savage satisfaction expressed in his face : but the latter predominated. Soon rolling up his sleeve with a queer wild smile, Paul lifted his right arm, and stood thus for an interval eyeing its image in the glass. From where he lay Israel could not see that side of the arm presented to the mirror, but he saw its reflection, and started at perceiving there, framed jm. the carved and gilded wood, certain large intertwisted ciphers covering the whole inside of the arm, so far as exposed, with mysterious tattooings. The design was wholly unlike the fanciful figures of anchors, hearts, and cables sometimes decorating small portions of seamen's bodies ; it was a sort of tattooing such as is seen only on tho roughbred savages — deep blue, elaborate, labyrinthine, caba listic. Israel remembered having beheld, on one of his early Voyages, something similar on the arm of a New Zealand warrior, once met, fresh from battle, in his native village. He concluded that on some similar early voyage Paul must have undergone the manipulations of some Pagan artist.

Covering his arm again with his laced coat- sleeve, Paul glanced ironically at the hand of the same arm, now again naif muflled in ruffles, and ornamented with several Parisian

53 ISRAEL POTTEE.

rings. He then resumed his walking with a prowling air, like one haunting an amhuscade, while a gleam ot the con sciousness of possessing a character as yet unfathomed, and hidden power to back unsuspected projects, irradiated bis cold white brow, which, owing to the shade ot his Hat in equatorial climates, had been left, surmounting his swarthy face like the snow topping the Andes.

So at midnight, the heart of the metropolis ot modern civilization was secretly trod by this jaunty barbarian in broadcloth,— a sort of prophetical ghost, glimmering in anti cipation upon the advent of those tragic scenes of the 1 rench Revolution which levelled the exquisite refinement of Paris with the bloodthirsty ferocity of Borneo,— showing that brooches and finger-rings, not less than nose-rings and tattooing, are tokens of the primeval savageness which ever slumbers in human kind, civilized or uncivilized. m

Israel slept not a wink that night. The troubled spirit of Paul paced the chamber till morning, when, copiously bathine himself at the washstand, Paul looked care-free and fresh as a daybreak hawk. After a closeted consultation with Doctor Franklin, he left the place with a light and dan dified air, switching his gold-headed cane, and throwing a passing arm round all the pretty chambermaids he encoun tered, kissing them resoundingly, as if saluting a frigate. All barbarians are rakes.

CHAPTER XII.

KECBOSSING- THE CHANNEL, ISRAEL RETURNS TO THE

SQUIRE'S ABODE— HIS ADVENTURES THERE.

ON the third day, as Israel was walking to and fro in his room having removed his courier's boots for fear ot disturb ing the doctor, a quick sharp rap at the door announced the American envoy. The man ol wisdom entered with two small wads of paper in one hand, and several crackers and a bit of cheese in the other. There was such an eloquent air of instantaneous despatch about him, that Israel involunta rily sprang to his boots, and with two vigorous jerks hauled

RETURNS TO THE SQUIRE'S ABODE. 69

them on, and then seizing: his hat, like any bird stood poised for his flight across the channel.

"Well done, my honest friend!" said the doctor ; "you have the papers in your heel, I suppose ?"

" Ah !" exclaimed Israel, perceiving the mild irony ; and in an instant his boots were off again ; when, without another word, the doctor took one boot, and Israel the other, and forthwith both parties proceeded to secrete the documents.

" I think I could improve the design," said the sage, as, notwithstanding his haste, he critically eyed the screwing apparatus of the boot. " The vacancy should have been in the standing part of the heel, not in the lid. It should go with a spring, too, for better despatch. I'll draw up a paper on false heels one of these days, and send it to a pri vate reading at the Institute. But no time for it now. My honest friend, it is now half-past ten o'clock. At half-past eleven the diligence starts from the Place-du-Carrousel for Calais. Make all haste till you arrive at Brentford. I have a little provender here for you to eat in the dili gence, as you will not have time for a regular meal. A day-and-night courier should never be without a cracker in his pocket. You will probably leave Brentford in a day or two after your arrival there. Be wary, now, my good friend : heed well, that, if you are caught with these papers on British ground, you will involve both yourself, and our Brentford friends in fatal calamities. Kick no man's box, never mind whose, in the way. Mind your own box. You can't be too cautious, but don't be too suspicious. God bless you, my honest friend. Go ! "

And, flinging the door open for his exit, the doctor saw Israel dart into the entry, vigorously springing down the stairs, and disappear with all celerity across the court into the vaulted way.

The man of wisdom stood mildly motionless a moment, with a look of sagacious, humane meditation on his face, as if pondering upon the chances of the important enterprise : one which, perhaps, might in the sequel affect the weal or woe of nations yet to come. Then suddenly clapping his hand to his capacious coat-pocket, dragged out a bit of cork with some hen's-feathers, and hurrying to his room, took out his knife, and proceeded to whittle away at a shuttle cock of an original scientific construction, which at some prior time he had promised to send to the young Duchess D'Abrantes that very afternoon.

Safely reaching Calais, at night, Israel stepped almost

70 ISRA.EL POTTER.

from the diligence into the packet, and, in a few moments, •was cutting: the water. As on the diligence he took an out side and plebeian seat, so, with the same secret motive of preserving unsuspected the character he assumed, he took a deck passage in the packet. It coming on to rain violently, he stole down into the forecastle, dimly lit by a solitary swinging lamp, where were two men industriously smoking, and filling the narrow hole with soporific vapours. These induced strange drowsiness in Israel, and he pondered how best jhe might indulge it, for a time, without imperilling the precious documents in his custody.

But this pondering in such soporific vapours had the effect of those mathematical devices whereby restless people cipher themselves to sleep. His languid head fell to his breast. In another moment, he drooped half lengthwise upon a chest, his legs outstretched before him.

Presently he was awakened by some intermeddlement with his feet. Starting to his elbow, he saw one of the two men in the act of slyly slipping off his right boot, while the left one, already removed, lay on the floor, all ready against the rascal's retreat. Had it not been for the lesson learned on the Pont Neuf, Israel would instantly have inferred that his secret mission was known, and the operator some designing diplomatic knave or other, hired by the Bri tish cabinet, thus to lie in wait for him, fume him into slumber with tobacco, and then rifle him of his momentous despatches. But as it was, he recalled Doctor Franklin's prudent admonitions against the indulgence of premature suspicions.

" Sir," said Israel, very civilly ; " I will thank you for that boot which lies on the floor, and, if you please, you can let the other stay where it is."

" Excuse me," said the rascal, an accomplished, self- possessed practitioner in his thievish art ; " I thought your boots might be pinching you, and only wished to ease you a little."

" Much obliged to ye for your kindness, sir," said Israel ; " but they don't pinch me at all. ^ I suppose, though, you think they wouldn't pinch you either; your foot looks rather small. Were you going to try 'em on, just to see how they fitted?"

" No," said the fellow;, with sanctimonious seriousness ; " but with your permission I should like to try them on, when we get to Dover. I couldn't try them well walking on this tipsy craft's deck, you know."

RETURNS TO THE SQUIRE* S ABODE. 71

" No," answered Israel, " and the beach at Dover ain't very smooth either. I guess, upon second thought, you had better not try 'em on at all. Besides, I am a simple sort of a soul— eccentric they call me— and don't like my boots to go out of my sight. Ha ! ha ! "

" What are you laughing at ?" said the fellow, testily.

" Odd idea ! I was just looking at those sad old patched boots there on your feet, and thinking to myself what leaky fire-buckets they would be to pass up a ladder on a burning building. It would hardly be fair now to swop my new boots for those old fire-buckets, would it r "

"By plunko ! " cried the fellow, willing now by a bold stroke to change the subject, which was growing slightly annoying ; "by plunko, I believe we are getting nigh Dover. Let's see."

And so saying, he sprang up the ladder to the deck. Upon Israel following, he found the little craft half- becalmed, rolling on short swells almost in the exact middle of the channel. It was just before the break of the morn ing ; the air clear and fine ; the heavens spangled with moistly twinkling stars. The French and English coasts lay distinctly visible in the strange starlight, the white cliffs of Dover resembling a long gabled block of marble houses. Both shores showed a long straight row of lamps. Israel seemed standing in the middle of the crossing of some wide stately street in London. Presently a breeze sprang up, and ere long our adventurer disem barked at his destined port, and directly posted on for Brentford.

The following afternoon, having gained unobserved ad mittance into the house, according to preconcerted signals, he was sitting in Squire "Woodcock's closet, pulling off his boots and delivering his despatches.

Having looked over the compressed tissuey sheets, and read a line particularly addressed to himself, the squire, turning round upon Israel, congratulated him upon his suc cessful mission, placed some refreshment before him, and apprised him, that, owing to certain suspicious symptoms in the neighbourhood, he (Israel) must now remain concealed in the house for a day or two, till an answer should be ready for Paris.

It was a venerable mansion, as was somewhere previously stated, of a wide and rambling disorderly spaciousness, built, for the most part, of weather-stained old bricks, in the goodly style called Elizabethan. As without it was all

72 ISEAEL TOTTER.

dark russet bricks, so within, it was nothing but tawny oak panels.

" Now, my good fellow," said the squire, " my wife has a number of guests, who wander from room to room, having the freedom of the house. So I shall have to put you very snugly away, to guard against any chance of discovery."

So saying, first locking the door, he touched a spring nigh the open fire-place, whereupon one of the black sooty stone jambs of the chimney started ajar, just like the marble gate of a tomb. Inserting one leg of the heavy tongs in the crack, the squire pried this cavernous gate wide open.

' Why, Squire Woodcock, what is the matter with your chimney?" said Israel. ' Uuick, go in."

'Am I to sweep the chimney?" demanded Israel; "I didn't engage for that."

' Pooh, pooh, this is your hiding-place. Come, move in." ' But where does it go to, Squire Woodcock ? I don't like the looks of it."

" Follow me. I'll show you."

Pushing his florid corpulence into the mysterious aper ture, the elderly squire led the way up steep stairs of stone, hardly two feet in width, till they reached a little closet, or rather cell, built into the massive main wall of the mansion, and ventilated and dimly lit by two little sloping slits, inge niously concealed without, by their forming the sculptured mouths of two griffins cut in a great stone tablet decorating that external part of the dwelling. A mattress lay rolled up in one corner, with a jug of water, a flask of wine, and a wooden trencher containing cold roast beef and bread.

" And I am to be buried alive here?" said Israel, rue fully looking round.

" But your resurrection Vill soon be at hand," smiled the squire ; " two days at the furthest."

" Though to be sure I was a sort of prisoner in Paris, just as I seem about to be made here," said Israel, " yet Doctor Franklin put me in a better jug than this, Squire Wood cock. It was set out with bouquets and a mirror, and other fine things. Besides, I could step out into the entry when ever I wanted."

" Ah, but, my hero, that was in France, and this is in England. There you were in a friendly country : here you are in the enemy's. If you should be discovered in my house, and your connection with me became known, do

RETURNS 1*0 THE SQTflRE'S ABODE. 73

j'ou know that it would go very hard with me ; very hard indeed?"

" Then, for your sake, I am willing to stay wherever you think hest to put me," replied Israel.

" Well, then, you say you want "bouquets and a mirror. If those articles will at all help to solace your seclusion, I will "bring them to you."

" They really would be company ; the sight of my own face particularly."

" Stay here, then ; i will he hack in ten minutes." "" In less than that time, the good old squire returned, puff ing and panting, with a great bunch of flowers, and a small shaving-glass.

" There," said he, putting them down; "now keep per fectly quiet ; avoid making any undue noise, and on no account descend the stairs, till I come for you again."

" But when will that be ?" asked Israel.

"I will try to come twice each day while you are here. But there is no knowing what may happen. If I should not visit you till I come to liberate you — on the evening of the second day, or the morning of the third — you must not be at all surprised, my good fellow. There is plenty of food and water to last you. But mind, on no account descend the stone stairs till I come for you."

With that, bidding his guest adieu, he left him.

Israel stood glancing pensively around for a time. By and by, moving the rolled mattress under the two air-slits, he mounted, to try if aught were visible beyond ; but no thing was to be seen but a very thin slice of blue sky peeping through the lofty foliage of a great tree planted near the side portal of the mansion, — an ancient tree, coeval with the ancient dwelling it guarded.

Sitting down on the mattress, Israel fell into a reverie.

" Poverty and liberty, or plenty and a prison, seem to be the two horns of the constant dilemma of my life," thought he. " Let's look at the prisoner."

And taking up the shaving-glass, he surveyed his linea ments.

" What a pity I didn't think to ask for razors and soap : I want shaving very badly. I shaved last in France. How it would pass the time here. Had I a comb now and a razor, I might shave and curl my hair, and keep making a continual toilet all through the two days, and look spruce as a robin when I get out. I'll ask the squire for the things this very night when he drops in. Hark ! ain't that a sort

74 ISRAEL POTTER.

of rumbling in the wall ? I hope there ain't any oven next door ; if so, I shall he scorched out. Here I am, just like a rat in the wainscot. I wish there was a low window to look out of. I wonder what Doctor Franklin is doing now, and Paul Jones. Hark ! there's a bird singing in the leaves. Bell for dinner, that."

And for pastime, he applied himself to the beef and bread, and took a draught of the wine and water.

At last night fell. He was left in utter darkness. No squire.

After an anxious,- sleepless night, he saw two long flecks of pale gray light slanting into the cell from the slits, like two long spears. He rose, rolled up his mattress, got upon the roll, and put his mouth to one of the griffin's mouths. He gave a low, just audible whistle, directing it Cowards the foliage of the tree. Presently there was a slight rustling among the leaves, then one solitary chirrup, and in three minutes a whole chorus of melody burst upon his ear.

" I've waked the first bird," said he to himself, with a smile, " and he's waked all the rest. Now then for break fast. That over, I dare say the squire will drop in."

But the breakfast was over, and the two flecks of pale light had changed to golden beams, and the golden beams grew less and less slanting, till thev straightened them selves up out of sight altogether. It was noon, and no squire.

" He's gone a hunting before breakfast, and got belated," thought Israel.

The afternoon shadows lengthened. It was sunset ; no squire.

" He must be very busy trying some sheep-stealer in the hall," mused Israel. " I hope he won't forget all about me till to-morrow."

He waited and listened ; and listened and waited.

Another restless night ; no sleep ; morning came. The second day passed like the first, and the night. On the third morning the flowers lay shrunken by his side. Drops of wet oozing through the air-slits, fell dully on the stone floor. He heard the dreary beatings of the tree's leaves against the mouths of the griffins, bedashing them with the spray of the rain-storm without. At intervals a burst of thunder rolled over his head, and lightning flashing down through the slits, lit UD the cell with a greenish glare, fol lowed by sharp splashings and rattlings of the redoubled rain-storm.

RETURNS TO THE SQUIRE'S ABODE. 75

" This is the morning of the third day," murmured Israel to himself; "he said he would at the furthest come to me on the morning of the third day. This is it. Patience, he will he here yet. Morning lasts till noon."

But, owing to the murkiness of the day, it was very hard to tell when noon came. Israel refused to credit that noon had come and gone, till dusk set plainly in. Dreading he knew not what, he found himself buried in the darkness of still another night. However patient and hopeful hitherto, fortitude now presently left him. Suddenly, as if some contagious fever had seized him, he was afflicted with strange enchantments of misery, undreamed of till now.

He had eaten all the beef, hut there was bread and water sufficient to last, by economy, for two or three days to come. It was not the pang of hunger then, but a nightmare origi nating in his mysterious incarceration, which appalled him. All through the long hours of this particular night, the sense of being masoned up in the wall, grew, and grew, and grew upon him, till again and again he lifted himself convulsively from the floor, as if vast blocks of stone had been laid on him ; as if he had been digging a deep well, and the stone work with all the excavated earth had caved in upon him, where he burrowed ninety feet beneath the clover. In the blind tomb of the midnight he stretched his two arms side ways, and felt as if coffined at not being able to extend them straight out, on opposite sides, for the narrowness of the cell. He seated himself against one side of the wall, cross wise with the cell, and pushed with his feet at the opposite wall. But still mindful of his promise in this extremity, he uttered no cry. He mutely raved in the darkness. The delirious sense of the absence of light was soon added to his other delirium as to the contraction of space. The lids of his ey^es ^urst with impotent distension. Then he thought the air itself was getting unbearable. He stood up at the griffin slits, pressing his lips far into them till he moulded his lips there, to suck the^utmost of the open air possible.

And continually, to heighten his frenzy, there recurred to him again and again what the squire had told him as to the origin of the cell. It seemed that this part of the old house, or rather this wall of it, was extremely ancient, dating far beyond the era of Elizabeth, having once formed portion of a religious retreat belonging to the Templars. The domestic discipline of this order was rigid and merciless in the extreme. In a side wall of their second- story; chapel, horizontal and on a level with the floor, they had an internal

76 ISRAEL POTTEH.

vacancy left, exactly of the shape and average size of a coffin. In this place, from time to time, inmates convicted of contumacy were confined ; but, strange to say, not till they were penitent. A small hole, of the girth of one's wrist, sunk like a telescope three feet through the masonry into the cell, served at once for ventilation, and to push through food to the prisoner. This hole opening into the chapel also enabled the poor solitaire, as intended, to over hear the religious services at the altar ; and, without being present, take part in the same. It was deemed a good sign of the state of the sufferer's soul, if from the gloomy recesses of the wall was heard the agonized groan of his dismal response. This was regarded in the light of a peni tent wail irom the dead, because the customs of the order ordained that when any inmate should be first incarcerated in the wall, he should be committed to it in the presence of all the brethren, the chief reading the burial service as the live body was sepulchred. Sometimes several weeks elapsed ere the disentombment, the penitent being then usually found numb and congealed in all his extremities, like one newly stricken with paralysis.

This coffin- cell of the Templars had been suffered to remain in the demolition of the general edifice, to make way for the erection of the new, in the reign of Queen Elizabeth. It was enlarged somewhat, and altered, and additionally ventilated, to adapt it for a place of concealment in times of civil dissension.

With this history ringing in his solitary brain, it may readily be conceived what Israel's feelings must have been. Here, in this very darkness, centuries ago, hearts, human as his, had mildewed in despair ; limbs, robust as his own, had stiffened in immovable torpor.

At length, after what seemed all the prophetic days and years of Daniel, morning broke. The benevolent light entered the cell, soothing his frenzy, as if it had been some smiling human face — nay, the squire himself, come at last to redeem him from thrall. Soon his dumb ravings entirely left him, and gradually, with a sane, calm mind, he revolved all the circumstances of his condition.

He could: not be mistaken ; something fatal must have befallen his friend. Israel remembered the squire's hinting that in case of the discovery of his clandestine proceedings it would fare extremely hard with him. Israel was forced to conclude that this same unhappy discovery had been made ; that owing to some untoward misadventure his good

RETURNS TO THE SQUIRE'S ABODE. 77

friend had been carried] off a state-prisoner to London ; that prior to his going the squire had not apprised any member of his household that he was about to leave behind him a prisoner in the wall ; this seemed evident from the circumstance that, thus far, no soul had visited that prisoner. It could not be otherwise. Doubtless the squire, having no opportunity to converse in private with his relatives or friends at the moment of his sudden arrest, had been forced to keep his secret, for the present, for fear of involving Israel in still worse calamities. But would he leave him to perish piecemeal in the wall ? All surmise was baffled in the unconjecturable possibilities of the case. But some sort of action must speedily be determined upon. Israel would not additionally endanger the squire, but he could not in such uncertainty consent to perish where he was. He resolved at all hazards to escape, by stealth and noiselessly, if possible ; by violence and outcry, if indispensable.

Gliding out of the cell, he descended the stone stairs, and stood before the interior of the jamb. He felt an immovable iron knob, but no more. He groped about gently for some bolt or spring. When before he had 'passed through the passage with his guide, he had omitted to notice by what precise mechanism the jamb was to be opened from within, or whether, indeed, it could at all be opened except from without.

He was about giving up the search in despair, after sweeping with his two hands every spot of the wall-surface around him, when chancing to turn his whole body a little to one side, he heard a creak, and saw a thin lance of light. His foot had unconsciously pressed some spring laid in the floor. The jamb was ajar. Pushing it open, he stood at liberty in the squire's closet.

78 ISKAEL POTTER.

CHAPTER XIII.

HIS ESCAPE PHOM THE HOUSE, WITH VAKLOUS ADVENTTJllES FOLLOWING.

m HE started at the funereal aspect of the room, into which, since he last stood there, undertakers seemed to have stolen. The curtains of the window were festooned with long weepers of crape. The four corners of the red cloth on the round table were knotted with crape.

Knowing nothing of these mournful customs of the country, nevertheless, Israel's instinct whispered him that Squire Woodcock lived no more on this earth. At once the whole three days' mystery was made clear. But what was now to be done ? His friend must have died very suddenly ; most probably struck down in a fit, from which he never more rose. With him had perished all knowledge of the fact that a stranger was immured in the mansion. If dis covered then, prowling here in the inmost privacies of a gentleman's abode, what would befall the wanderer, already not unsuspected in the neighbourhood of some underhand guilt as a fugitive ? If he adhered to the strict truth, what could he offer in his own defence without convicting himself of acts which, by English tribunals, would be accounted flagitious crimes ? Unless, indeed, by involving the memory of the deceased Squire Woodcock in his own self-acknow ledged proceedings, so ungenerous a charge should result in an abhorrent refusal to credit his extraordinary tale, whether as referring to himself or another, and so throw him open to still more grievous suspicions.

While wrapped in these dispiriting reveries, he heard a step not very far off in the passage. It seemed approaching. Instantly he flew to the jamb, which remained unclosed, and disappearing within, drew the stone after him by the iron knob. Owing to his hurried violence the jamb closed with a dull, dismal, and singular noise. A shriek followed from within the room. In a panic, Israel fled up the dark stairs, and near the top, in his eagerness, stumbled and fell back to the last step with a rolling din, which, reverberated by the arch overhead, smote through and through the wall,

HIS ESCAPE. 79

dying away at last indistinctly, like low muffled thunder among the clefts of deep hills. "When raising himself instantly, not seriously bruised by his fall, Israel instantly listened, the echoing sounds of his descent were mingled with added shrieks from within the room. They seemed some nervous female's, alarmed by what must have appeared to her supernatural, or at least unaccountable noises in the wall. Directly he heard other voices of alarm undistin- guishably commingled, and then they retreated together, and all again was still^

Recovering from his first amazement, Israel revolved these occurrences. "No creature now in the house knows of the cell," thought he. " Some woman, the housekeeper, perhaps, first entered the room alone. Just as she entered the jamb closed. The sudden report made her shriek ; then, afterwards, the noise of my fall prolonging itself, added to her fright, while her repeated shrieks brought every soul in the house to her, who aghast at seeing her lying in a pale faint, it may be, like a corpse, in a room hung with crape for a man just dead, they also shrieked out, and then with blended lamentations they bore the fainting person away. Now this will follow ; no doubt it has followed ere now: — they believe that the woman saw or heard the spirit of Squire Woodcock. Since I seem then to understand how all these strange events have occurred, since I seem to know that they have plain com mon causes, I begin to feel cool and calm a^ain. Let me see. Yes. I have it. By means of the idea of the ghost prevailing among the frightened household, by that means I will this very night make good my escape. If I can but lay hands on some of the late squire's clothing, if but a coat and hat of his, I shall be certain to succeed. It is not too early to begin now. They will hardly come back to the room in a hurry. I will return to it and see what I can find to serve my purpose. It is the squire's private closet, hence it is not unlikely that here some at least of his clothing will be found."

With these thoughts, he cautiously sprung the iron under foot, peeped in, and, seeing all clear, boldly re- entered the apartment. He went straight to a high, narrow door in the opposite wall. The key was in the lock. Opening the door, there hung several coats, small clothes, pairs of silk stockings, and hats of the deceased. With little difficulty Israel selected from these the com plete suit in which he had last seen his once jovial friend.

80 ISRAEL POTTER.

Carefully closing the door, and carrying the suit with him, he was returning towards the chimney, when he saw the squire's silver-headed cane leaning against a corner of the wainscot. Taking this also, he stole back to his cell.

Slipping off his own clothing, he deliberately arrayed himself in the borrowed raiment, silk small-clothes and all, then put^ on the cocked hat, grasped the silver-headed cane in his right had, and moving his small shaving-glass slowly up and down before him, so as by piecemeal to take in his whole figure, felt convinced that he would well pass for Squire Woodcock's genuine phantom. But after the first feeling of self- satisfaction with his anticipated suc cess had left him, it was not without some superstitious embarrassment that Israel felt himself encased in a dead man's broadcloth; nay, in the very coat in which the deceased had no doubt fallen down in his fit. By degrees he began to feel almost as unreal and shadowy as the shade whose part he intended to enact.

Waiting long and anxiously till darkness came, and then till he thought it was ^ fairly midnight, he stole back into the closet, and standing for a moment uneasily in _ the middle of the floor, thinking over all the risks he might run, he lingered till he felt himself resolute and calm. Then groping for the door leading into the hall, put his hand on the knob and turned it. But the dooi refused to budge. Was it locked? The key was not in. Turning the knob once more, and holding it so, he pressed firmly against the door. It did not move. More firmly still, when suddenly it burst open with a loud crackling report. Being cramped, it had stuck in the sill. Less than three seconds passed when, as Israel was groping his way. down the lon» wide hall towards the large staircase at its oppo site end, he heard confused hurrying noises from the neighbouring rooms, and in another instant several persons, mostly in night-dresses, appeared at their chamber-doors thrusting out alarmed faces, lit by a lamp held by one of the number, a rather elderly lady in widow's weeds, who by her appearance seemed to have just risen from a sleepless chair, instead of an oblivious couch. Israel's heart beat like a hammer ; his face turned like a sheet. But bracing himself, pulling his hat lower down over his eyes, settling his head in the collar of his coat, he advanced along the defile of wildly staring faces. He advanced with a slow and stately step, looked neither to the right nor the left, but went solemnly forward on his now faintly ilium}-

HIS ESCAPE. 81

nated way, sounding his cane on the floor as he passed. The faces in the doorways curdled his blood by their rooted looks. Glued to the spot, they seemed incapable of motion. Each one was silent as he advanced towards him or her, but as he left each individual, one after another, behind, each in a frenzy shrieked out, "The Squire, the Squire !" As he passed the lady in the widow's weeds, she fell senseless and crosswise before him. But forced to be immutable in his purpose, Israel, solemnly stepping oyer her prostrate form, marched deliberately on.

In a few minutes more he had reached the main door of the mansion, and withdrawing the chain and bolt, stood in the open air. It was a bright moonlight night. He struck slowly towards the open grounds towards the sunken, fields beyond. When midway across the grounds he turned towards the mansion, and saw three of the front windows filled with white faces, gazing in terror at the wonderful spectre. Soon descending a slope, he disappeared from their view.

Presently he came to hilly land in meadow, whose grass having been lately cut, now lay dotting the slope in cocks ; a sinuous line 01 creamy vapour meandered through the lowlands at the base of the hill ; while beyond was a dense grove of dwarfish trees, with here and there a tall tapering dead trunk, peeled of the bark, and overpeering the rest. The vapour wore the semblance of a deep stream of water, imperfectly descried ; the grove looked like some closely- clustering town on its banks, lorded over by spires of churches.

The whole scene magically reproduced to our adventurer the aspect of Bunker Hill, Charles River, and Boston town, on the well- remembered night of the 16th of June. The. same season ; the same moon ; the same new-mown hay on the shaven sward ; hay which was scraped together during the night to help pack into the redoubt so hurriedly thrown up.

Acted on as if by enchantment, Israel sat down on one of the cocks, and gave himself up to reverie. But, worn out by long loss of sleep, his reveries would have soon merged into slumber's still wilder dreams, had he not rallied him self and departed on his way, fearful of forgetting himself in an emergency like the present. It now occurred to him that, well as his disguise had served him in escaping from the mansion of Squire Woodcock, that disguise might fatally endanger him if he should be discovered in it

82 ISH1EL POTTEE.

abroad. He might pass for a ghost at night, and among the relations and .immediate friends of the gentleman deceased ; but by day, and among indifferent persons, he ran no small risk of being apprehended for an entry-thief. He bitterly lamented his omission in not pulling on the squire's clothes over his own, so that he might now have reappeared in his former guise.

As meditating over this difficulty, he was passing along, suddenly he saw a man in black standing right in his path, about fifty yards distant, in a field of some growing barley or wheat. The gloomy stranger was standing stock- still ; one outstretched arm, with weird intimation pointing towards the deceased squire's abode. To the brooding soul of the now desolate Israel, so strange a sight roused a super natural suspicion. His conscience morbidly reproaching him for the terrors he had bred in making his escape from the house, he seemed to see in the fixed gesture of the stranger something more than humanly significant. But somewhat of his intrepidity returned ; he resolved to test the appari tion. Composing itself to the same deliberate statehness with which it had paced the hall, the phantom of Squire "Woodcock firmly advanced its cane, and marched straight forward towards the mysterious stranger.

As he neared him, Israel shrunk. The dark coat-sleeve flapped on the bony skeleton of the unknown arm. The face was lost in a sort of ghastly blank. It was no living man.

But mechanically continuing his course, Israel drew still nearer and saw a scarecrow.

AN ENCOUNTER OF GHOSTS.

Not a little relieved by the discovery, our adventurer paused, more particularly to survey so deceptive an object, which seemed to have been constructed on the most efficient principles; probably by some broken-down wax-figure costumer. It comprised the complete wardrobe of a scare crow, namely : a cocked hat, bunged ; tattered coat ; old velveteen breeches ; and long worsted stockings, full of holes ; all stuffed very nicely with straw, and skeletoned by a framework of poles. There was a great flapped pocket to the coat— which seemed to have been some labourer's — standing invitingly opened. Putting his hands in, Israel drew out the lid 01 an old tobacco-box, the broken bowl of a pipe, two rusty nails, and a few kernels of wheat. This

VARlOtJS AbTEtfTUllES. 83

reminded him of the squire's pockets. Trying them, he produced a handsome handkerchief, a spectacle-case, with a purse containing some silver and gold, amounting to a little more than five pounds. Such is the difference between the contents of the pockets of scarecrows and the pockets of well-to-do squires. Ere donning his present habiliments, Israel had not omitted to withdraw his own money from his own coat, and put it in the pocket of his own waistcoat, which he had not exchanged.

Looking upon the scarecrow more attentively, it struck him that, miserable as its wardrobe was, nevertheless here was a chance for getting rid of the unsuitable and perilous clothes of the squire. No other available opportunity might present itself for a time. Before he encountered any living creature by daylight, another suit must somehow be had. His exchange with the old ditcher, after his escape from the inn near Portsmouth, had familiarized him with the most deplorable of wardrobes. "Well, too, he knew, and had ex perienced it, that for a man desirous of avoiding notice, the more wretched the clothes, the better. For who does not shun the scurvy wretch, Poverty, advancing in battered hat and lamentable coat ?

"Without more ado, slipping off the squire's raiment, he donned the scarecrow's, after carefully shaking out the hay, which, from many alternate soakings and bakings in rain, and sun, had become quite broken up, and would have been almost dust, were it not for the mildew which damped it. But sufficient of this wretched old hay remained adhesive to the inside of the breeches and coatsleeves, to produce the most irritating torment.

The grand moral question now came up, what to do with the purse. "Would it be dishonest under the circumstances to appropriate that purse ? Considering the whole matter, and not forgetting that he had not received from the gentle man deceased the promised reward for his services as courier, Israel concluded that he might justly use the money for his own. To which opinion surely no charitable judge will demur. Besides, what should he do with the purse, if not use it for his own ? It would have been insane to have returned it to the relations. Such mysterious honesty would have but resulted in his arrest as a rebel, or rascal. As for the squire's clothes, handkerchief, and spectacle-case, they must be put out of sight with all despatch. So, going to a morass not remote, Israel sunk them deep down, and heaped tufts of the rank sod upon them. Then returning to the G2

84 ISRAEL POTTER.

field of corn, sat down under the lee of a rock, about a hun dred yards from where the scarecrow had stood, thinking which way he 'now had best direct his steps. But his late ramble coming after so long a deprivation of rest, soon pro duced effects not so easy to be shaken off, as when reposing upon the haycock. He felt less anxious too, since chang ing his apparel. So before he was aware, he fell into deep sleep.

When he awoke, the sun was well up in the sky. Look ing around he saw a farm-labourer with a pitchfork coming at a distance into view, whose steps seemed bent in a direc tion not far from the spot where he lay. Immediately it struck our adventurer that this man must be familiar with the scarecrow ; perhaps had himself fashioned it. Should he miss it then, he might make immediate search, and so discover the thief so imprudently loitering upon the very field of his operations.

Waiting until the man momentarily disappeared in a little hollow, Israel ran briskly to the identical spot where the scarecrow had stood, where, standing stiffly erect, pulling the hat well over his face, and thrusting out his arm, pointed steadfastly towards the squire's abode, he awaited the event. Soon the man reappeared in sight, and marching right on^ paused not far from Israel, and gave him one earnest look, as if it were his daily wont to satisfy himself that all was right with the scarecrow. No sooner was the man de parted to a reasonable distance, than, quitting his post, Israel struck across the fields towards London. But he had not yet quite quitted the field when it occurred to him to turn round and see if the man was completely out of sight, when, to his consternation, he saw the man returning to wards him, evidently by his pace and gesture in unmixed amazement. The man must have turned round to look before Israel had done so. Frozen to the ground, Israel knew not what to do ; but next moment it struck him that this very motionlessness was the least hazardous plan in such a strait. Thrusting out his arm again towards the house, once more he stood stock still, and again awaited the event.

It so happened that this time, in pointing towards the house, Israel unavoidably pointed towards tne advancing man. Hoping that the strangeness of this coincidence might, by operating on the man's superstition, incline him to beat an immediate retreat, Israel kept cool as he might. "Cut the man proved to be of a braver mettle than anticipated. In passing the spot where the scarecrow had stood, and per-

VAKIOTTS ADVENTURES. 85

ceiving, ( beyond the possibility of mistake, that by some unaccountable agency it had suddenly removed itself to a distance, instead of being terrified at this verification of his worst apprehensions, the man pushed on for Israel, ap parently resolved to sift this mystery to the bottom.

Seeing him now determinately coming, with pitchfork valiantly presented, Israel, as a last means of practising on the fellow's fears of the supernatural, suddenly doubled up both fists, presenting them savagely towards him at a dis tance of about twenty paces, at the same time time showing his teeth like a skull's, and demoniacally rolling his eyes. The man paused bewildered, looked all round him, looked at the springing grain, then across at some trees, then up at the sky, and satisfied at last by those observations that the world at large had not undergone a miracle in the last fifteen minutes, resolutely resumed his advance; the pitchfork, like a boarding-pike, now aimed full at the breast of the object. Seeing all his stratagems vain, Israel now threw himself ^ into the original attitude of the scarecrow, and once again stood immovable. Abating his pace by degrees almost to a mere creep, the man at last came within three feet of him, and, pausing, gazed amazed into Israel's eyes. With a stern and terrible expression Israel resolutely returned the glance, but otherwise remained like a statue, hoping thus to stare his pursuer out of counte nance. At last the man slowly presented one prong of his fork towards Israel's left eye. Nearer and nearer the sharp point came, till no longer capable of enduring such a test, Israel took to his heels with all speed, his tattered coat-tails streaming behind him. With inveterate purpose the man pursued. Darting blindly on, Israel, leaping a gate, sud- dently found himself in a field where some dozen labourers were at work, who recognizing the scarecrow — an old ac quaintance of theirs, as it would seem — lifted all their hands as the astounding apparition swept by, followed by the man with the pitchfork. Soon all joined in the chase, but Israel proved to have better wind and bottom than any. Out stripping the whole pack, he finally shot out of their sight in an extensive park, heavily timbered in one quarter. He never saw more of these people.

Loitering in the wood till nightfall, he then stole out and made the best of his way towards the house of that good- natured farmer in whose corn-loft he had received his first message from Squire Woodcock. Rousing this man tip a little before midnight, he informed him somewhat of

86 1SEAEL POTTER.

his recent adventures, but carefully concealed his having been employed as a secret courier, together with his escape from Squire Woodcock's. All he craved at present was a meal. The meal being over, Israel offered to buy from the farmer his best suit of clothes, and displayed the money on the spot.

" "Where did you get so much money ? " said his enter tainer in a tone of surprise ; "your clothes here don't look as if you had seen prosperous times since you left me. Why, you look like a scarecrow."

" That may well be," replied Israel, very soberly. " But what do you say ? will you sell me your suit ?— here's the cash."

" I don't know about it," said the farmer, in doubt ; " let me look at the money. Ha ! — a silk purse come out of a beggar's pocket ! — Quit the house, rascal, you've turned thief."

< Thinking that he could not swear to his having come by his money with absolute honesty — since indeed the case was one for the most subtle casuist — Israel knew not what to reply. This honest confusion confirmed the farmer, who with many abusive epithets drove him into the road, telling him that he might thank himself that he did not arrest him on the spot.

In great dolour at this unhappy repulse, Israel trudged on in the moonlight some three miles to the house of another friend, who also had once succoured him in extremity. This man proved a very sound sleeper. Instead of succeed ing in rousing him by his knocking, Israel but succeeded in rousing his wife, a person not of the greatest amiability. Raising the sash, and seeing so shocking a pauper before her, the woman upbraided him with shameless impropriety in asking charity at dead of night, in a dress so improper too. Looking down at his deplorable velveteens, Israel discovered that his extensive travels had produced a great rent in one loin of the rotten old breeches, through which a whitish fragment protruded.

Remedying this oversight as well as he might, he again implored the woman to wake her husband.

" That I sha'n't ! " said the woman morosely. " Quit the premises, or I'll throw something on ye."

With that she brought some earthenware to the window, and would have fulfilled her threat, had not Israel pru dently retreated some paces. Here he entreated the woman to take mercy on his plight, and since she would not waken

VABIOTJS ADVENTUBES. 87

her husband, at least throw to him (Israel) her husband's breeches, and he would leave the price of them, with his own breeches to boot, on the sill of the door.

" You behold how sadly I need them," said he ; " for heaven's sake befriend me."

" Quit the premises! " reiterated the woman.

" The breeches, the breeches ! here is the money," cried Israel, half furious with anxiety.

" Saucy cur ! " cried the woman, somehow misunder standing him; " do you cunningly taunt me with wearing the breeches ? begone ! "

Once more poor Israel decamped, and made for another friend. But here a monstrous bull-dog, indignant that the peace of a quiet family should be disturbed by so outrageous a tatterdemalion, flew at Israel's unfortunate coat, whose rotten skirts the brute tore completely off, leaving the coat razeed to a spencer, which barely came down to the wearer's waist. In attempting to drive the monster away, Israel's hat fell off, upon which the dog pounced with the utmost fierceness, and thrusting both paws into it, rammed out the crown and went snuffling the wreck before him. Recovering the wretched hat, Israel again beat a retreat, his wardrobe sorely the worse for his visits. Not only was his coat a mere rag, but his breeches, clawed by the dog, were slashed into yawning gaps, while his yellow hair waved over the top of _ the crownless beaver, like a lonely tuft of heather on the highlands.

In this plight the morning discovered him dubiously skirmishing on the outskirts of a village.

" Ah ! what a true patriot gets for serving his country ! }> murmured Israel. But soon thinking a little better of his case, and seeing yet another house which had once fur nished him with an asylum, he made bold to advance to the door. Luckily he this time met the man himself, just emerging ^from bed. At first the farmer did not recognize the fugitive, but upon another look, seconded by Israel's plaintive appeal, beckoned him into the barn, where directly our adventurer told him all he thought prudent to disclose of his story, ending by once more offering to negotiate for breeches and coat. Having ere this emptied and thrown away the purse which had played him so scurvy a^trick with the first farmer, he now produced three crown- pieces.

" Three crown-pieces in your pocket, and no crown to your hat ! " said the farmer.

8S ISHAEL POTTER.

" But I assure you, my friend," rejoined Israel, " that a finer hat was never worn, until that confounded bull- dog ruined it."

" True," said the farmer, " I forgot that part of your story. Well, I have a tolerable coat and breeches which I will sell you for your money."

" In ten minutes more Israel was equipped in a gray coat of coarse cloth, not much improved by wear, and breeches to match. For half-a-crown more he procured a highly respectable looking hat.

"Now, my kind friend," said Israel, "can you tell me where Home Tooke and John Bridges live ? "

Our adventurer thought it his best plan to seek out one or other of those gentlemen, both to report proceedings and learn confirmatory tidings concerning Squire Woodcock, touching whose fate he did not like to inquire of others.

" Home Tooke ? What do you want with Home Tooke," said the farmer. " He was Squire Woodcock's friend, wasn't he ? The poor squire ! Who would have thought he'd have gone off so suddenly. But apoplexy comes like a bullet."

" I was right," thought Israel to himself. " But where does Home Tooke live ? " he demanded again.

" He once lived in Brentford, and wore a cassock there. But I hear he's sold out his living, and gone in his surplice to study law in Lunnon."

This was all news to Israel, who, from various amiable remarks he had heard from Home Tooke at the squire's little dreamed he was an ordained clergyman. Yet a good- natured English clergyman translated Lucian; another, equally good-natured, wrote Tristam Shandy ; and a third, an ill-natured appreciator of good-natured Rabelais, died a dean ; not to speak of others. Thus ingenious and ingenuous are some of the English clergy.

* You can't tell me, then, where to find Home Tooke ? " said Israel, in perplexity.

1 You'll find him, I suppose, in Lunnon." ' What street and number ? "

* Don't know. Needle in a haystack." ' Where does Mr. Bridges live ? "

1 Never heard of any Bridges, except Lunnon bridges, and one Molly Bridges in Bridwell."

So Israel departed ; better clothed, but no wiser than before.

What to do next? He reckoned up his money, and

VARIOUS ADVENTURES. 89

concluded he had plenty to carry him back to Doctor Franklin in Paris. Accordingly, taking a turn to avoid the two nearest villages, he directed his steps towards London, where, again taking the post-coach for Dover, he arrived on the channel shore just in time to learn that the very coach in which he rode brought the news to the autho rities there that all intercourse between the two Cations was indefinitely suspended. The characteristic taciturnity and formal stolidity of his fellow-travellers — all English men, mutually unacquainted with each other, and occupying different positions in life — having prevented his sooner hearing the tidings.

Here was another accumulation of misfortunes. All visions but those of eventual imprisonment or starvation vanished from before the present realities of poor Israel Potter. The Brentford gentleman had flattered him with the prospect of receiving something very handsome for his services as courier. That hope was no more. Doctor Franklin had promised him his good offices in procuring him a passage home to America. Quite out of the question now. The sage had likewise intimated that he might possi bly see him some way remunerated for his sufferings in his country's cause. An idea no longer to be harboured. Then Israel recalled the mild man of wisdom's words— " At the prospect of pleasure never be elated ; but without depression respect the omens of ill." But he found it as difficult now to comply, in all respects, with the last section of the maxim, as before he had with the first.

While standing wrapped in afflictive reflections on the chore, gazing towards the unattainable coast of France, a pleasant-looking cousinly stranger, in seamen's dress, ac costed him, and, after some pleasant conversation, very civilly invited him up a lane into a house of rather secret entertainment. Pleased to be befriended in this his strait, Israel yet looked inquisitively upon the man, not completely satisfied with his good intentions. But the other, with good-humoured violence, hurried him up the lane into the inn, when, calling for some spirits, he and Israel very affec tionately drank to each other's better health and prosperity.

" Take another glass," said the stranger, affably.

Israel, to drown his heavy-heartedness, complied. The liquor began to take effect.

" Ever at sea ?" said the stranger, lightly.

" Oh, yes ; been a whaling."

" Ah ! " said the other, " happy to hear that, I assure

90 ISRAEL POTTER.

you. Jim ! Bill ! " And beckoning very quietly to two brawny fellows, in a trice Israel found himself kidnapped into the naval service of the magnanimous old gentleman of Kew Gardens — his Royal Majesty, George III.

"Hands off!" said Israel, fiercely, as the two men pinioned him.

" Regular game-cock," said the cousinly-looking man ; " I must get three guineas for cribbing him. Pleasant voyage to ye, my friend," and, leaving Israel a prisoner, the crimp, buttoning his coat, sauntered leisurely out of the inn.

" I'm no Englishman," roared Israel, in a foam.

" Oh! that's the old story," grinned his jailers. " Come along. There's no Englishman in the English fleet. All foreigners. You may take their own word for it."

To be short, in less than a week Israel found himself at Portsmouth, and, ere long, a foretopman in his Majesty's ship of the line, " Unprincipled," scudding before the wind down channel, in company with the " Undaunted," and the " Unconquerable;" all three haughty Dons bound to the East-Indian waters as reinforcements to the fleet of Sir Edward Hughs.

And now, we might shortly have to record our adven turer's part in the famous engagement off the coast of Coromandel, between Admiral Suffrien's fleet and the English squadron, were it not that fate snatched him on the threshold of events, and, turning him short round whither he had come, sent him back congenially to war against England, instead of on her behalf. Thus repeatedly and rapidly were the fortunes of our wanderer planted, torn up, transplanted, and dropped again, hither and thither, accord ing as the Supreme Disposer of sailors and soldiers saw fit to appoint.

SAILS UNDER TWO FLAGS. 91

CHAPTER XIY.

IN WHICH ISRAEL IS SAILOR UNDER TWO FLAGS, AND IN THREE SHIPS, AND ALL IN ONE NIGHT.

As running down channel at evening, Israel walked the crowded main-deck of the seventy-four, continually brushed by a thousand hurrying wayfarers, as if he were in some great street in London, jammed with artizans, just return ing from their day's labour, novel and painful emotions were his. He found himself dropped into the naval mob without one friend ; nay, among enemies, since his country's enemies were his own, and against the kith and kin of these very beings around him, he himself had once lifted a fatal hand. The martial bustle of a great man-of-war, on her iirst day out of port, was indescribably jarring to his present mood. Those sounds of the human multitude disturbing the solemn natural solitudes of the sea, mysteriously afflicted him. He murmured against that untowardness which, after condemning him to long sorrows on the land, now pursued him with added griefs on the deep. "Why should a patriot, leaping for the chance again to attack the oppressor, as at Bunker Hill, now be kidnapped to fight that oppressor's battles on the endless drifts of the Bunker Hills of the billows ? But like many other repiners, Israel was perhaps a little premature with upraidings like these.

Plying on between Scilly ana Cape Clear, the Unprin cipled — which vessel somewhat outsailed her consorts — fell in, just before dusk, with a large revenue cutter close to, and showing signals of distress. At the moment, no other sail was in sight.

Cursing the necessity of pausing with a strong fair wind at a juncture like this, the officer-of-the-deck shortened sail, and hove to ; hailing the cutter, to know what was the matter. As he hailed the small craft from the lofty poop of the bristling seventy-four, this lieutenant seemed standing on the top of Gibraltar, talking to some lowland peasant in a hut. The reply was, that in a sudden flaw of wind, which came nigh capsizing them, not an hour since, the

92 2SKAEL POTTER.

cutter had lost all four foremast men by the violent jibing of a boom. She wanted help to get back to port.

" You shall have one man/' said the officer-of-the-deck, morosely.

" Let him be a good one then, for heaven's sake," said he in the cutter ; " I ought to have at least two."

During this talk, Israel's curiosity had prompted him to dart up the ladder from the main-deck, and stand right in the gangway above, looking out on the strange craft. Meantime the order had been given to drop a boat. Think ing this a favourable chance, he stationed himself so that he should be the foremost to spring into the boat ; though crowds of English sailors, eager as himself for the same opportunity to escape from foreign service, clung to the chains of the as yet imperfectly disciplined man-of-war. As the two men who had been lowered in the boat hooked her, when afloat, along to the gangway, Israel dropped like a comet into the stern-sheets, stumbled forward, and seized an oar. In a moment more, all the oarsmen were in their places, and with a few strokes the boat lay alongside the cutter.

" Take which of them you please," said the lieutenant in command, addressing the officer in the revenue-cutter, and motioning with his hand to his boat's crew, as if they were a parcel of carcasses of mutton, of which the first pick was ofiered to some customer. " Quick and choose. Sit down, men" — to the sailors. " Oh, you are in a great hurry to get rid of the king's service, ain't you r Brave chaps, in deed ! — Have you chosen your man ?"

All this while the ten faces of the anxious oarsmen looked with mute longings and appealings towards the officer of the cutter ; every face turned at the same angle, as if managed by one machine. And so they were. One motive.

" I take the freckled chap with the yellow hair — him," pointing to Israel.

Nine of the upturned faces fell in sullen despair, and ere Israel could spring to his feet, he felt a violent thrust in his rear from the toes of one of the disappointed behind him.

" Jump, dobbin ! " cried the officer of the boat.

But Israel was already on board. Another moment, and the boat and cutter parted. Ere long, night fell, and the man-of-war and her consorts were out of sight.

The revenue vessel resumed her course towards the nighest port, worked by but four men ; the captain, Israel,

SAILS tJNDER TWO FLAGS. 93

and two officers. The cabin-boy was kept at the helm. As the only foremast man, Israel was put to it pretty hard. Where there is but one man to three masters, woe betide that lonely slave. Besides, it was of itself severe work enough to manage the vessel thus short of hands. But to make matters still worse, the captain and his officers were ugly-tempered fellows. The one kicked, and the others cuffed Israel. Whereupon, not sugared with his recent experiences, and maddened by his present hap, Israel seeing himself alone at sea, with only three men, instead of a thousand, to contend against, plucked up a heart, knocked the captain into the lee scuppers, and in his fury was about tumbling the first-officer, a small wash of a fellow, plump overboard, when the captain, jumping to his feet, seized him by his long yellow hair, vowing he would slaughter him. Meanwhile the cutter flew foaming through the channel, as if in demoniac glee at this uproar on her im perilled deck. While the consternation was at its height, a dark body suddenly loomed at a moderate distance into view, shooting right athwart the stern of the cutter. The next moment a shot struck the water within a boat's length.

** Heave to, and send a boat on board ! " roared a voice almost as loud as a cannon.

" That's a war ship," cried the captain of the revenue vessel, in alarm ; " but she ain't a countryman."

Meantime the officers and Israel stopped the cutter's way.

" Send a boat on board, or I'll sink you," again came roaring from the stranger, followed by another shot, striking the water still nearer the cutter.

" For God's sake, don't cannonade us. I haven't got the crew to man a boat," replied the captain of the cutter. " Who are you?"

" Wait till I send a boat to you for that," replied the stranger.

" She's an enemy of some sort, that's plain," said the Englishman now to his officers. " We ain't at open war with France ; she's some bloodthirsty pirate or other. What d'ye say, men ?" turning to his officers ; " let's outsail her, or be snot to chips. We can beat her at sailing, I know."

With that, nothing doubting that his counsel would be heartily responded to, he ran to the braces to get the cutter before the wind, followed by one officer, while the other, for a useless bravado, hoisted the colours at the stern.

But Israel stood indifferent, or rather all in a fever of

94 ISRAEL POTTEtl.

conflicting emotions. He thought he recognised the voice from the strange vessel.

" Come, what do ye standing there, fool? Spring to the ropes here ! " cried the furious captain.

But Israel did not stir.

Meantime the confusion on board the stranger, owing to the hurried lowering of her boat, with the cloudiness of the sky darkening the misty sea, united to conceal the bold manoeuvre of the cutter. She had almost gained full head way ere an oblique shot, directed by mere chance, struck her stern, tearing the upcurved head of the tiller in the hands of the cabin-boy, and killing him with the splinters. Running to the stump, the captain huzzaed, and steered the reeling ship on. Forced now to hoist back the boat ere giving chase, the stranger was dropping rapidly astern.

All this while storms of maledictions were hurled on Israel. But their exertions at the ropes prevented his ship mates for the time from using personal violence. "While observing their efforts, Israel could not but say to himself, " These fellows are as brave as they are brutal."

Soon the stranger was seen dimly wallowing along astern, crowding all sail in chase, while now and then her bow-gun, showing its red tongue, bellowed after them like a mad bull. Two more shots struck the cutter, but without materially damaging her sails, or „ the ropes immediately upholding them. Several of her less important stays were sundered, however, whose loose ^ tarry ends lashed the air like scor pions. It seemed not improbable that, owing to her superior sailing, the keen cutter would yet get clear.

At this juncture, Israel, running towards the captain, who still held the splintered stump of the tiller, stood full before him, saying, " I am an enemy, a Yankee — look to yourself."

" Help here, lads, help," roared the captain ; "a traitor, a traitor ! "

The words were hardly out of his mouth when his voice was silenced for ever, With one prodigious heave of ^ his whole physical force, Israel smote him over the taffrail into the sea, as if the man had fallen backwards over a teetering chair. By this time the two officers were hurrying aft. Ere meeting them midway, Israel, quick as lightening, cast off the two principal halyards, thus letting the large sails all in