449 ...597 PAGE PAGE 256 · Four Moons A gone,': .863 'She's Gone.' By a New Contri- butor, .873 •The Winter Rain,'. .879 • Early Manhood,' .894 Despair,'. Fashion, .475 Mary's Ring.' By JENNY MARSHI PARKER, .875 • To One of the Chosen Few,'. ..238 .483, 581 T ..1, 146, 244 11 ku-nah,.. 20 22 pert, 129, 221, 887 Man,'. 161 The 'Love-Knot': from the National Era,'191 229 The Winter's Dream,.. .257 51 The Lost Soul. By R. H. STODDARD. 168 The Summer by the Sea. By EDWARD WIL- LETT,.. .881 The Lia Fail: or the Brian Boru Dynasty,..380 441, 588 450 The Factory-Girl of Fairmount. By MARY .477 .236 Tom Bolt's 'Nevvy. By Kit KELVIN,.....479 .485 Two Pilgrimages tu the Same Shrine,. .564 .573 .582 1.596 623 The Parting,.. 082 W WINE-SONG. Froin Lanjou.. 87 30 Wanderings by the Sea. By “Tudor,'. 42 50 z ....881 ..506 .......248 .167 ZELDA: A Tale of the Massachusetts Colony, 862, 460, 565 ...122 a And now the 'Shenandoah' was again at sea, bound to Cadiz, and poor Midshipman Jenkins lay upon a locker, thinking of the faithless Harmonia ! 'I say, Gray,' cried the unfeeling Hart, I wish you would administer a dose of oil or magnesia to 'hot poker John,' to carry off that love attack of his, for he eats nothing, looks like a ghost, and is as melancholy as a sea-sick monkey.'. 'I would rather prescribe salt-horse and slap-jacks, taken in alternate doses of a pound each,' replied the assistant surgeon addressed. • But do n't be uneasy, our love-lorn swain will soon be on his feet again, you may rely upon it. I was in a far worse way than he is when I joined this vessel, and now I have the digestion of an ostrich, and the corporation of an alderman, as you know.' Pray give in your experience for the benefit of the mess, Doctor, said Maddox. "Ciertamente,' assented the medico ; ' and to make it the more effective, I will endeavor to do so in the true novelist style. On the left bank of a classic stream, known as the river Onion, which, taking its rise in the Green Mountains of Vermont, flows in a north-westerly di. rection, until its waters commingle with the blue waves of Lake Champlain, lies the romantic village of Punkinania ; a place no less celebrated for the extraordinary size and rare flavor of the fruit which it produces, and from which it takes its name, than for the surpassing beauty of its 'gals. Fairest among these was Hopeful Tripp, a bouncing lassie of sweet sixteen, who created as sad havoc among the youths of frigid Punkinania, as did Marcela with those of sunny Spain. Many of her rejected lovers (as was natural) took to weeping and whaling; not a few sought relief from their sorrows in the assiduous cultivation of the punkin; and one poor fellow, Simeon Dodge by name, whose brain was supposed to have been slightly crazed by the frowns of his Dulcinea, 1 VOL. LI. 1 a 6 6 up, if took to the flute with such inveterate ardor, that in less than a month he had blown himself into a galloping consumption, which galloped him off in a trice to the land of spirits. Such was the state of affairs when one afternoon in April last, as I sate on the porch of my father's mansion, which is situate in the heart of that same Punkinania, the fair Hopeful came sailing by. As she had the wind right in her teeth’ at the time, she displayed a swelling bow that threw me into a perfect state of ecstasy for I was never an admirer of your clipper-built women and when after passing the house, she wore short round on her heel and re-passed it on the other tack, running large, I struck my colors at once, since I felt that it was useless to offer resistance to a counter that a Dutch galliot might have envied. * To cut a long story short, being blinded with love, I immediately recalled to mind the pathetic, poetical story of the wise man who jumped into a bramble bush ;' and plunged into a courtship of the . damsel with all my might and main ;' and I flattered myself that I was prospering in my suit, when, to my great annoyance, I received orders to this vessel. James,' said my father to me, as I handed them to him for his perusal, 'I am sorry to part with you, but still I am glad you are going to leave this village; for that Hopeful Tripp you have been waiting upon for the past month, is a proud puss, who thinks herself too good for mortal man; and depend upon it, she would trip you you staid. And, even if she were to take a fancy to you, that mean old mother of hers, the widow Tripp, who is as rid as Cræsus, would n't let her marry you, for she fancies that every man who looks at Hopeful is after her money-bags.' * This speech, however, far from cooling my ardor, only inflamed it the more ; and as my orders compelled me to leave home on the following day, I resolved to dive at once into medias res; for which purpose, covered with blushes and buttons (I had donned my best uniform for the occasion) I entered Mrs. Tripp's keeping-room just as the village clock struck twelve. Here I found Hopeful busily engaged in the dissection of a mince pie. • Take a piece, Doctor,' said she with a winning smile ; 'it's so nice. so’Tan't half so nice as you are, Hopeful,' said I; and then down I went on my marrow-bones. But, before I had time to utter a syllable, in rushed the widow, with her gown tucked up above her knees, and a long-handled scrubbing-brush in her hand. Drat you, Jim Gray!' said she. What on airth are you a wearin' the knees of them are span new trowsers out for, before my gal! Jest. you get right up neow, and go straight hum. You do n't get none of my money, you pesky, lazy feller you, now I can tell you!' And with that she up with the brush and sprinkled me all over with dirty water. Well of course a saint would n't have put up with such treatment as this, and I was mad, and no mistake ; so, springing to my feet, I yelled out : “You darned old pelican, you ! who the devil do you suppose wants your money? I only thought of courting your daughter, because every body in the village says it would be a mercy to take her away from such a cross-grained, miserly old cormorant as you are ! 6 my back, "Blood and thunder, Maddox, I wish you could have seen the old woman's eyes sparkle as I concluded this speech. I saw there was no time to lose, and in hot haste made tracks for the street-door ; and to this day I have never been able to satisfy myself positively as to which reached it first — myself or that termagant’s brush-handle however, bore evidence of our having come out in company, and as its testimony was corroborated by that of nine Spanish cardinals,* I suppose I ought to place implicit confidence in it. Upon the morrow's morn, a sadder and a wiser man, I took my departure from the paternal roof, and my feelings may be better imagined than described, to use a stereotyped phrase, when, filled with love and bruises, I reached the Shenandoah.' You need n't laugh, Hart, for I was very ill, indeed ; and it took a power of brandy to cure me, as Scouse here can testify. Gentlemen, my yarn is spun. As Byron hath it: a "The little I have said will serve to show' To what abominable lengths a short, thick-set old woman, with her clothes tucked up, and a brush-handle in her hand, will sometimes go : The more especially if she catches a medecin, (not a Frenchman either) in a blue uniform coat and drab-colored pants, down on his knees, Passionately a strivin' her gal' for to please.' Scarce had we got an offing from Cape Henry before it came on to blow a furious gale from the eastward, which lasted four days, during all which time we were carrying sail heavily, to keep off a lee shore; and as the mercury, the while, stood but little above zero, men and officers suffered severely. Many of the mer were badly frost-bitten, and of the latter, Maddox, Fearless, and myself were laid up with inflammatory rheumatism, in the spar-deck cabin, which Captain Blazes, with his usual kindness, had placed at our disposal. Our surgeon, Doctor Salado, was a queer old stick, who had but one mode of treatment for all the ills that flesh is heir to. • What is the state of your liver ? How are your byowels?' were interrogatories put to each sufferer whose name appeared on the sick-list ;' and let the reply be what it might, his invariable prescription was a dose of salts ; and if, after partaking of this panacea, the patient failed to report himself cured, the good doctor would give his coat-tails a quick, nervous twitch to starboard, and protest that the disease was purely an imaginary one, wholly beyond the reach of medicine. Well, Mr. Maddox,' said he as he entered the cabin one morning, 'how did the salts work?' Capitally, Doctor!' And you feel quite relieved, of course?' 'I am sorry to say I do not. I am at this very moment suffering the most excruciating agony ! · All imagination, my young friend, I assure you!' Here Maddox, uncovering his left foot, which was dreadfully inflamed, and swelled to the dimensions of a bushel basket almost, placed it in very close proximity to the surgeon's nose, dolorously exclaiming as he * Our doctor had, evidently, read QUEVEDO: ' Salió de la carcel con tanta honra, que le acompañaron docientos Cardenales, sino que á ninguno llamaran Señoria.' a did so : 'Gracious heavens, Doctor, can imagination swell a man's foot up to this e-nor-mous size!' Whereupon Salado beat a hasty retreat, leaving us thenceforth to the tender mercies of his assistants, Wells and Gray, both of whom were exceedingly clever in their profession. Still our confinement was long and painful, and the ship had almost reached her destined port before any one of us was enabled to leave his cot. Our mess-mates, however, endeavored by every means in their power to beguile the weary hours of sickness, passing most of their time, when off duty, by our bed-sides, and entertaining us with all the news of the day. From them we learned that our mess having become short of 'grub,' a committee of ways and means had been called to devise measures of relief; the which committee, after a long debate, deemed it expedient to appoint one of their number, Hart, a commissioner, with plenary powers, to treat with our mortal enemy, old Screw, the purser, for the loan of a half-barrel of ship-biscuit and a bushel of beans. The mission was an exceedingly delicate one, and Hart felt the full responsibility of it; yet, nothing daunted, he set about the execution of it without delay; and obtaining an interview with Mr. Screw in his stateroom, he unfolded to him the object of his visit, in an eloquent speech of a half-hour's duration, of which I now remember nothing more than that in it he compared the state of the mess to the great desert of Sahara, and the well-known benevolence of the purser to one of its oases.' And so you think,' said the contador, you could get along well enough with some bread and beans.' I think we could.' Would n't you like a little rice?' "If you please. "And some beef and cheese ?' "Oh! thank you, purser, you are really too good. We will be most happy to take any thing you can lend us.' Very well, my dear Sir,' said the amiable Screw, in the blandest possible tone of voice, and patting Hart affectionately on the shoulder as he spoke ; 'be pleased to present my respectful compliments to the members of your mess, and say that I cannot think of lending them any provisions, but it will afford me infinite pleasure to give each and every individual of them - two biscuits and a bean!' To this sketch of our generous benefactor, I deem it unnecessary to add another word, save that he was ever thereafter known throughout the service as 'Old Beans.' As day dawned on the morning of the twenty-sixth of February, the fair city of Cadiz was discovered close under the lee, and by breakfast-time, we had let go both anchors off the castle,' whereat we sick reefers were exceedingly rejoiced, as our kind-hearted captain had promised, some days before, to let us take a run to Seville for the benefit of our health, as soon as the “Shenandoah ' reached port. After dinner we left the ship in one of the quarter-boats, together with Major Pipeclay, (who was suffering from pneumonia, and designed passing several days ashore,) and landing at the Custom-house steps, we proceeded in a body toward the fonda Inglesa.' 6 6 |
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