Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Vol. 70, No. 434, December, 1851

"Cinnament's better with pork nor with most things," said Bags. "It spoils goose, because it don't agree with the inions, and it makes fowls wishy-washy; but it goes excellent with pig."

"What's left in the larder?" asked one of the party.

"There's a week's good eating yet," said Mrs Bags, "and we might make it do ten days or a fortnight."

"Well!" said the other, "they may say what they like about sieges, but this is the jolliest time ever I had."

"It's very well by day," said Bags, "but the nights is cold, and the company of that ghost ain't agreeable – I seed it again last night."

"Ah!" said his friend, "what was it like, Tongs?"

"Something white," returned Bags in an awful whisper, "with a ghost's eyes. You may allays know a ghost by the eyes. I was just rising up, and thinking about getting a drink, for my coppers was hot, when it comes gliding up from that end of the cave. I spoke to you, and then I couldn't see it no more, because it was varnished."

"Ghosts always varnishes if you speak," said Mrs Bags. "But never mind the spirit now – let's look after the flesh," added the lady, who possessed a fund of native pleasantry: "the pig's done to a turn."

At this interesting juncture, and just as they were about to fall to, the footsteps of the approaching mules struck on their ears. Owen went to meet the party, and hastily selecting six men from it, advanced, and desired them to secure the astounded convivialists.

On recovering from their first astonishment, Bags begged Owen would overlook the offence; they were only, he pleaded, having a little spree – times had been hard lately. Mrs Bags, as usual, displayed great eloquence, though not much to the purpose. She seemed to have some idea that an enumeration of the gentlemen's families she had lived in, and the high estimation in which she had been held in all, would really tell powerfully in favour of the delinquents, and persevered accordingly, till they were marched off in custody of the escort, when she made a final appeal to my grandfather, as the last gentleman whose family she had lived in – with what advantage to the household the reader knows. The Major, who could not forgive the roasting of his ham, called her, in reply, a "horrible woman," but, at the same time, whispered to Owen that he hoped the fellows would not be severely punished. "If we had caught them after dinner," said he, "I shouldn't have pitied them so much."

"Never mind them," said Owen; "let us proceed to business. We must select the driest spot we can find to put the stores in."

[Here, by way of taking leave of Mr Bags, I may remark, that he narrowly escaped being hanged as a plunderer – failing which, he was sentenced by a court-martial to receive a number of lashes, which I refrain from specifying, because it would certainly make the hair of a modern humanitarian turn white with horror.]

"Come along, Major," said Owen; "perhaps we may find more of these scoundrels in the course of our researches."

The Major did not move; he was earnestly regarding the carcase of the pig, that steamed hissing above the embers.

"Queer idea that of the cinnamon fire," said he. "I wonder how the meat tastes."

Owen did not hear him, having walked forward.

"Have you got a knife about you, Frank?" said the Major. "Do you know I have a curious desire to ascertain the flavour. It may be a feature in cookery worth knowing."

Owen had not a knife, nor had any of the men, but one of them suggested that the Major's sword would answer the purpose.

"To be sure," said the Major. "A good idea! I don't see why swords shouldn't be turned into carving-knives as well as into pruning-hooks." So saying, he drew it from the sheath, and, straddling across the fire, detached a crisp brown mouthful from the pig's ribs, and putting a little salt on it, he conveyed it to his mouth.

"Excellent!" cried the Major. "I give you my word of honour, Owen, 'tis excellent! The cinnamon gives it a sort of a – "

Here a second and larger mouthful interrupted the criticism.

"It must be very near lunch-time," said the Major, pausing, sword in hand, when he had swallowed it; then, pretending to look at his watch – "Bless me, it only wants half-an-hour of it. Do you think this business will take you long, Owen?"

"About a couple of hours," said Owen.

"Ah, why, there you see," returned the Major, "we shan't get home till long past lunch-time. I really don't see why we shouldn't take a snack now. Nothing can be better than that pig. I only wish the woman had dressed my dinner half as well. Corporal Hodson, would you oblige me with a piece of that biscuit near you?" And, detaching a large fragment of pork, he placed it on the biscuit, and sprinkling it with pepper and salt, which condiments had not been forgotten in the gastronomic arrangements of Mr Bags, he proceeded to follow Owen into the interior of the cave, taking huge bites as he went.

The path slopes at first steeply downward from the mouth to the interior of the cavern, where it becomes more level. Light being admitted only at the entrance, the gloom of the interior is almost impenetrable to the eye. The men had brought torches to assist them in their work, and, a suitable spot having been selected, these were stuck on different points and abutments of the rocky wall, when the party proceeded to unload the mules at the entrance, conveying their burdens into the cave.

In the midst of the bustle and noise attending the operation, the little dog given by Esther to Carlota, which had that morning followed the Major, to whom it had speedily attached itself, began barking and howling dismally in a dark recess behind one of the great natural pillars before spoken of. As the noise continued, intermixed with piteous whinings, one of the men took a torch from the wall, and stepped forward into the darkness, to see what ailed the animal. Presently he cried out that "there was a man there."

My grandfather, who was next him, immediately followed, and five paces brought him to the spot. The soldier who held the torch was stooping, and holding it over a figure that lay on the ground on its back. In the unshaven, blood-stained countenance, my grandfather, at first, had some difficulty in recognising Lazaro the Jew. Some fiery splashes of pitch from the torch dropping at the moment on his bare throat, produced no movement, though, had he been living, they must have scorched him to the quick.

On the body was nothing but the shirt he wore the night of his flight from the hospital, but his legs were wrapt in a woman's dress. Across his breast, on her face, lay Esther, in her white under-garments – for the gown that wrapt the Jew's legs was hers. The glare of the torch was bright and red on the two prostrate figures, and on the staring appalled countenance of the man who held it – the group forming a glowing spot in the vast, sombre, vaulted space, where dim gleams of light were caught and repeated on projecting masses of rock, more and more faintly, till all was bounded by darkness.

Years afterwards my grandfather would sometimes complain of having been revisited, in dreams of the night, by that ghastly piece of Rembrandt painting.

The rest quickly flocked to the spot, and Esther was lifted and found to breathe, though the Jew was stiff and cold. Some diluted spirit, from the cellar of Bags, being poured down her throat she revived a little, when my grandfather caused two of the men to bear her carefully to his house; and the body of the Jew being wrapt in a piece of canvass, was placed on a mule and conveyed to the hospital for interment.

Medical aid restored Esther to consciousness, and she told how they came to be found in the cave.

Her father, on leaving the hospital, had fled by chance, as she thought, to this cave, for he did not reach it by the usual path, but climbed, in his delirious fear, up the face of the rock, and she had followed him as well as she could, keeping his white figure in sight. They had both lain exhausted in the cave till morning, when, finding that her father slept, she was on the point of leaving him to seek assistance. But, unhappily, before she could quit the place, Bags and his associates entered from their plundering expedition into the town, and, frightened at their drunken language, and recognising in Bags the man who had robbed her, she had crept back to her concealment. The party of marauders never quitted the cavern from the moment of establishing themselves in it. They spent the day in eating, drinking, singing songs, and sometimes quarrelling. Twice, at night, she ventured forth; but she always found one of them asleep across the entrance, so that she could not pass without waking him, and once one of them started up, and seemed about to pursue her – doubtless Bags, on the occasion when he thought he saw a ghost. Nevertheless, she had mustered courage twice to take some fragments of food that were lying near the fire, leaving each time a piece of money in payment; and she had also taken a lighted candle, the better to ascertain her father's situation. He had never spoken to her since the first night of their coming, and, during all those dark and weary hours, (for they were three nights and two days in the cavern,) she had remained by him listening to his incoherent mutterings and moans. The candle had showed her that he had lost much blood, from the wound in his forehead breaking out afresh, as well as from the other received in the hospital, though the latter was but a flesh wound. These she had bandaged with shreds of her dress, and had tried to give him some of the nourishment she had procured, but could force nothing on him except some water. Some hours, however – how long she did not know, but it was during the night – before Owen's party found her, the Jew had become sensible. He told her he was dying; and, unconscious of where he was, desired her to fetch a light. This she had procured in the same way as before, lighting the candle at the embers of the fire round which Bags and his friends reposed. Then the Jew, who seemed to imagine himself still in the hospital, bid her say whom, among those she knew in Gibraltar, she would wish to have charge of her when he was no more; and, on her mentioning Carlota, had desired her to take pen and paper and write his will as he should dictate it. Pen she had none, but she had a pencil and a scrap of paper in her pocket, and with these she wrote, leaning over to catch the whispered syllables that he with difficulty articulated.

From this paper it would appear that the Jew had some fatherly feelings for Esther concealed beneath his harsh deportment towards her. I can describe the will, for I have often seen it. It is written on a piece of crumpled writing-paper, about the size of a bank-note, very stained and dirty. It is written in Spanish; and in it the Jew entreats "the Señora, the wife of Sr. Don Flinder, English officer, to take charge of his orphan child, in requital whereof he leaves her the half of whatsoever property he dies possessed of, the other half to be disposed of for the benefit of his daughter." Then follows a second paragraph, inserted at Esther's own desire, to the effect that, should she not survive, the whole was to be inherited by the aforesaid Señora. It is dated "Abril 1781," and signed in a faint, straggling hand, quite different from the clear writing of the rest – "José Lazaro."

Esther would now have gone, at all hazards, to obtain assistance, but the Jew clutched her arm, and would not permit her to quit him. He breathed his last shortly after, and Esther remembered nothing more till she came to herself in the Major's house. The paper was found in her bosom.

Some days after this event my grandfather went with Owen into the town, during a temporary lull in the enemy's firing, to visit the house of Lazaro, in order to ascertain whether anything valuable was left that might be converted to Esther's benefit. They had some difficulty in finding the exact locality, owing to the utter destruction of all the landmarks. The place was a mass of ruins. Some provisions and goods had been left by the plunderers, but so mixed with rubbish, and overflowed with the contents of the casks of liquor and molasses, as to be of no value even in these times of dearth.

Owen, poking about among the wreck, observed an open space in the middle of one of the shattered walls, as if something had been built into it. With the assistance of my grandfather's cane, he succeeded in dislodging the surrounding masonry, already loosened by shot, and they discovered it to be a recess made in the thickness of the wall, and closed by a small iron door. At the bottom was lying a small box, also of iron, which they raised, not without difficulty, for its weight was extraordinary in proportion to its dimensions. This being conveyed to my grandfather's, and opened, was found to contain more than six hundred doubloons, (a sum in value about two thousand pounds,) and many bills of exchange and promissory notes, mostly those of officers. The latest was that of Von Dessel. These the Major, by Esther's desire, returned to the persons whose signatures they bore.

Esther never completely recovered from the effects of her sojourn in the cave, but remained always pale and of weak health. My grandfather took good care of her inheritance for her, and on leaving Gibraltar, at the conclusion of the siege, invested the whole of it safely for her benefit, placing her, at the same time, in the family of some respectable persons of her own religion. She afterwards married a wealthy Hebrew; and, in whatever part of the world the Major chanced to be serving, so long as she lived, valuable presents would constantly arrive from Gibraltar – mantillas and ornaments of jewellery for Carlota, and butts of delicious sherry for my grandfather. These, however, ceased with her death, about twenty years afterwards.

This is, I believe, the most connected and interesting episode to be found in the Major's note-book; and it is, I think, the last specimen I shall offer of these new "Tales of my Grandfather."

As a child I used to listen, with interest ever new, to the tale of the young Jewess, which the narrator had often heard from the lips of Carlota and her husband. St Michael's Cave took rank in my mind with those other subterranean abodes where Cassim, the brother of Ali Baba, who forgot the word "Open Sesame," was murdered by the Forty Thieves; where Aladdin was shut by the magician in the enchanted garden; and where Robinson Crusoe discovered the dying he-goat. And when, at the conclusion of the tale, the scrap of paper containing the Jew's will was produced from a certain desk, and carefully unfolded, I seemed to be connected by some awful and mysterious link with these departed actors in the scenes I had so breathlessly listened to.

LIFE AMONGST THE LOGGERS

Forest Life and Forest Trees. By John S. Springer. New York: Harper. London: Sampson Low. 1851.

The northern and elder States of the great American Union have ceased to be associated in our minds with those ideas of wild and romantic adventure which are inseparably connected with some of their younger brethren far west and south. There is nothing suggestive of romance in such names as New York, Maine, and Pennsylvania: cotton bales, keen traders and repudiated debts, drab coats, wooden clocks, and counterfeit nutmegs, compose the equivocal and unpoetical visions they conjure up to European imaginations. But drop we our eyes down the map to lawless Arkansas, feverish Louisiana, and debateable Texas, or westwards to the still newer State of California, and a host of stirring and picturesque associations throng upon our memory. Strange scenes and a motley array pass before us. Bands of hunters and trappers, scarce more civilised than the Indians with whom they war, or gentler than the buffalo which yields them sport and food; predatory armies, for Mexico bound, keen for spoil and regardless of right; caravans of adventurous gold-seekers braving the perilous passage of the Rocky Mountains; hardy squatters, axe in hand, hewing themselves a home in the heart of the wilderness; innumerable traits of courage and endurance – incredible sufferings and countless crimes – make up a picture-gallery unrivalled of its kind. In those districts, not a league of prairie, not a mountain or stream, not a bayou or barranca, but has derived recent and vivid interest from the animated sketches of Sealsfield, Ruxton, Wise, and a host of other graphic and vigorous delineators.

As if to vindicate the claims to interest of the northern American provinces, a Down-easter, Springer by name, who hails from the State of Maine, has exhibited, in a curious little volume, the adventurous side of life in his part of the Union. At a first glance, there would appear to be few created things whose history was likely to be less interesting than that of a Yankee pine-log. Get astride it with Springer, and paddle up the Penobscot, clearing rapids and other impediments as best you may on so unpromising a float – and, before reaching the place where it grew, you shall marvel at the skill and daring expended, and at the risks run to procure it. Springer, who was reared amongst the pine forests, which his axe afterwards helped to thin, is an enthusiastic woodsman, and feels "kinder jealous" that whilst the habits and adventures of many classes of his countrymen have occupied skilful writers and public attention, no chronicler should have been found for the deeds and perils of that numerous class to which he for some years belonged. To supply this deficiency, he himself, although more used to handle axe than goose-quill, has written a plain and unpretending account of scenes and incidents which he shared in and witnessed. The freshness of the subject, and the honest earnestness of the man, would atone for clumsier treatment than it has met with at his hands.

The second title of Mr Springer's book gives a clearer idea of its contents than the primary one. The volume comprises, says the title-page, "Winter camp-life, among the Loggers, and wild-wood adventure, with descriptions of lumbering operations on the various rivers of Maine and New Brunswick." It is divided into three parts; the first and shortest being a dissertation on forest trees, with particular reference to those of America; the second, entitled "The Pine Tree, or Forest Life," giving an account of wood-cutting operations; the third, "River Life," detailing the progress of the timber from the forest to the "boom," or depôt. The chief interest of the book begins with the second chapter of the second part, wherein is described the commencement of the labours of a gang of "loggers," or woodcutters. In the hunt after timber, as after certain animals, the first thing to be done is to mark the whereabout of your game preparatory to starting in its pursuit. On the eve of the chase the keeper reconnoitres the retreat of the wild-boar. Before a party of loggers proceed to establish a camp and pass the winter woodcutting, they send out scouts to ascertain where timber is plenty. Thirty years since, this was scarcely necessary – the pine, that forest king of the northern States, abounded on every side. Fifty years hence – so it is estimated by those best qualified to judge – the vast pine forests, through which the Penobscot flows, will be on the eve of extinction. Now is the intermediate stage. A man cannot, as he formerly could, step from his house to his day's work; but research and labour still command a rich timber harvest. Exploring expeditions may be made at any period of the year, but autumn is the favourite season. They consist generally of only two or three men, accustomed to the business, who, provided with the necessary provisions, with a coffee-pot and a blanket, axe, rifle, and ammunition, embark on skiff or bateau, and pole and paddle their way two hundred miles or more up the Penobscot or the St Croix, and their numerous tributaries. On reaching the district it is proposed to explore, the boat is hauled ashore and turned bottom upwards, the load of stores is divided amongst the party, and they strike into the forest, rousing, on their passage, the stately moose, the timid deer, the roaming black bear, and many an inferior denizen of the lonesome wilderness. They now begin "prospecting." Often the thickness of the forest and the uneven surface of the country prevent their obtaining a sufficiently extensive view, and compel them to climb trees in order to look around them.

"When an ascent is to be made, the spruce tree is generally selected, principally for the superior facilities which its numerous limbs afford the climber. To gain the first limbs of this tree, which are from twenty to forty feet from the ground, a smaller tree is undercut and lodged against it, clambering up which the top of the spruce is reached. Sometimes, when a very elevated position is desired, the spruce tree is lodged against the trunk of some lofty pine, up which we ascend to a height twice that of the surrounding forest. From such a tree-top, like a mariner at the mast-head upon the look-out for whales, (and indeed the pine is the whale of the forest,) large 'clumps' and 'veins' of pine are discovered, whose towering tops may be seen for miles around. Such views fill the bosom of timber-hunters with an intense interest. They are the object of his search – his treasure, his Eldorado; and they are beheld with peculiar and thrilling emotions. To detail the process more minutely, we should observe, that the man in the tree-top points out the direction in which the pines are seen; or, if hid from the view of those below by the surrounding foliage, he breaks a small limb, and throws it in the direction in which they appear, whilst a man at the base marks the direction indicated by the falling limb by means of a compass which he holds in his hand, the compass being quite as necessary in the wilderness as on the pathless ocean. In fair weather the sun serves as an important guide; and in cloudy weather the close observation of an experienced woodman will enable him to steer a tolerably correct course by the moss which grows on the trunks of most hardwood trees, the north sides of which are covered with a much larger share than the other portions of the trunk. This Indian compass, however, is not very convenient or safe, particularly in passing through swampy lands, which are of frequent occurrence."

Two reflections are suggested by the paragraph we have just copied. The substance of one of them is noted in the Preface. "This volume," says the modest and sensible Springer, "makes no pretensions to literary merit; sooner would it claim kindred with the wild and uncultivated scenes of which it is but a simple relation." The second reflection is, that our wood-cutter is an enthusiast in his craft; for wood-cutting in Maine is a craft, and no common log-chopping. To Springer, a towering grove of timber is as exciting a sight as is to the hunter that of a herd of antlered deer or shaggy buffalo. The pine especially is the object of his love and admiration. He abounds in anecdotes and arguments to prove its good qualities, and labours hard to establish its superiority to the oak. Reared amongst the noble pines of Maine, he says, even as a child, he could never hear, without feelings of jealousy, the oak extolled as monarch of the forest. Admitting it to excel in strength, he vaunts, upon the other hand, the superior grandeur and girth of the pine, its value in building, the breadth of its planks, their clearness, beauty, and freedom from knots, the numerous uses to which it is applicable, its excellence as fuel, its perfect adaptation to all the joiner's purposes. He extols in turn each of its varieties; the red pine, remarkable for its tall trunk, which sometimes rises eighty feet from the ground before putting out a limb; the pitch pine, inferior in size, but preferable to any other wood for generating steam in engines; the white pine, superior to all in value and dimensions. He tells us of pines, of which he has read or heard, of extraordinary grandeur and diameter: of one, two hundred and sixty-four feet long; and of another which, at three feet from the ground, was fifty-seven feet nine inches in circumference. These extraordinary specimens were cut some years ago. Trees of such dimensions are now rare.

"I have worked in the forests among this timber several years," says Springer, "have cut many hundreds of trees, and seen many thousands, but I never found one larger than one I felled on a little stream which empties into Jackson Lake, near the head of Baskahegan stream, in eastern Maine. This was a pumpkin pine, (a variety of the white pine.) Its trunk was as straight and handsomely grown as a moulded candle, and measured six feet in diameter four feet from the ground, without the aid of spur roots. It was about nine rods in length, or one hundred and forty-four feet, about sixty-five feet of which was free of limbs, and retained its diameter remarkably well. I was employed about one hour and a quarter in felling it. The afternoon was beautiful; everything was calm, and to me the circumstances were deeply interesting. After chopping an hour or so, the mighty giant, the growth of centuries, which had withstood the hurricane, and raised itself in peerless majesty above all around, began to tremble under the strokes of a mere insect, as I might appear in comparison with it. My heart palpitated as I occasionally raised my eye to its pinnacle to catch the first indications of its fall. It came down at length with a crash, which seemed to shake a hundred acres, whilst the loud echo rang through the forest, dying away amongst the distant hills. It had a hollow in the butt about the size of a barrel, and the surface of the stump was sufficiently spacious to allow a yoke of oxen to stand upon it. It made five logs, and loaded a six-ox team three times. The butt-log was so large, that the stream did not float it in the spring; and when the drive was taken down, we were obliged to leave it behind, much to our regret and loss. At the boom, that log would have been worth fifty dollars."