The Atlantic Monthly, Volume 01, No. 07, May, 1858

A sword through the heart of Clarice would have killed her, but there are pains which do not slay that are worse than the pains of death. Clarice Briton's face was pale with anguish, when she arose and said,—

"Gabriel, come here!"

The child saw something awful in her eyes, and heard in her voice something that made him tremble. He came, and sat down in the place to which Clarice pointed. It was a hard moment for her. Other words bitter as this, which disowned her love and care and defied her authority, the child could not have spoken. She answered him as if he had not been a child; and a truth which no words could have made him comprehend seemed to break upon and overwhelm him, while she spoke.

"It is true," she said, "you are not my son. I have no right to call you mine. Listen, Gabriel, while I tell you how it happens that you live with me, and I take care of you, as if you were my child. I was down at the Point one day,—that place where we go to watch the birds, you know, my—Gabriel. While I sat there alone, I saw a plank that was dashed by the waves up and down, as you see a boat carried when the wind blows hard and sounds so terrible; but there was nobody to take care of that plank except God,—and He, oh, He, is always able to take care! When that plank was washed near to the shore, I stepped out on the rocks and caught it, and then I saw that a little child was tied fast to it; so I knew that some one must have thrown him into the water, hoping that he would be picked up. I do not know what they who threw the little child into the sea called him; but I, who found him, called him Gabriel, and I carried him, all dripping with the salt sea-water, to my father's cabin. I laid him on my bed, and my mother and I never stopped trying to waken him, till he opened his eyes; for he lay just like one who never meant to open his eyes or speak again. At last my mother said, 'Clarice, I feel his heart beat!' and I said in my heart, 'If it please God to spare his life, I will work for him, and take care of him, and be a mother to him.' And I thought, 'He will surely love me always, because God has sent him to me, and I have taken him, and have loved him.' But now he has left me! He is mine no more! And oh, how I have loved him!"

Long before this story was ended, tears were running down Gabriel's face, and he was drawing closer and closer to Clarice. When she ceased speaking, he hid his face in her lap and cried aloud, according to the boisterous privilege of childhood.

"Oh, mother, dear mother, I haven't gone away! I'm here! I do love you!

I am your little boy!"

"Gabriel! Gabriel! it was terrible! terrible!" burst from Clarice, with a groan, and a flood of tears.

"Oh, don't, mother! Call me your boy! Don't say, Gabriel! Don't cry!"

So he found his way through the door of the heart that stood wide open for him. Storm and darkness had swept in, if he had not.

The reconciliation was perfect; but the shadow that had obscured the future deepened that obscurity after this day's experience. If her right to the lad needed no vindication, was she capable of the attempted guidance and care? Could she bear this blessed burden safely to the end?

Sometimes, for a moment, it may have seemed to Clarice that Bondo Emmins could alone help her effectually out of her bewilderment and perplexity. She had not now the missionary with whom to consult, in whose wisdom to confide; and Bondo had a marvellous influence over the child.

He was disposed to take advantage of that influence, as he gave evidence, not long after the exhibition of his control over the boat-load of delinquents, by asking Clarice if she were never going to reward his constancy. He seemed at this time desirous of bringing himself before her as an object of compassion, if nothing better; but she, having heard him patiently to the end of what he had to urge in his own behalf and that of her parents, replied in words that were certainly of the moment's inspiration, and almost beyond her will; for Clarice had been of late so much troubled, no wonder if she should mistake expediency for right.

"I am married already," she said. "You see this ring. Do you not know what it has meant to me, Bondo, since I first put it on? Death, as you call it, cannot part Luke Merlyn and me. 'Heart and hand,' he said. Can I forget it? My hand is free,—but he holds it; and my heart is his.—But I can serve you better than you ask for, Bondo Emmins. You learned the name of the vessel that sailed from Havre and was lost. Take a voyage. Go to France. See if Gabriel has any friends there who have a right to him, and will serve him better than I can; and if he has such friends, I myself will take Gabriel to them. Yes, I will do it.—You will love a sailor's life, Bondo. You were born for that. Diver's Bay is not the place for you. I have long seen it. The sea will serve you better than I ever could. Go, and Clarice will thank you. Oh, Bondo, I beg you!"

At these words the man so appealed to became scarlet. He seemed to reflect on what Clarice had said,—seriously to ponder; but his amazement at her words had almost taken away his power of speech.

"The Gabriel sailed from Havre," said he, slowly, "If I went out as a deckhand in the next ship that sails"—

"Yes!"

"To scour the country—I hope I shan't find what I look for; you couldn't live without him.—Very likely you will think me a fool for my pains. You will not give me yourself. You would have me take away the lad from you."—He looked at Clarice as if his words passed his belief.

"Yes, only do as I say,—for I know it must be the best for us all.

There is nothing else to be done,—no other way to live."

"France is a pretty big country to hunt over for a man whose name you don't know," said Emmins, after a little pause.

"You can find what passengers sailed in the Gabriel," answered Clarice, eager to remove every difficulty, and ready to contend with any that could possibly arise. "The vessel was a merchantman. Such vessels don't take out many passengers.—Besides, you will see the world.—It is for everybody's sake! Not for mine only,—no, truly,—no, indeed! May-be if another person around here had found Gabriel, they would never have thought of trying to find out who he belonged to."

"I guess so," replied Bondo, with a queer look. "Only now be honest, Clarice; it's to get rid of me, isn't it? But you needn't take that trouble. If you had only told me right out about Luke Merlyn"—

While Bondo Emmins spoke thus, his face had unconsciously the very expression one sees on the face of the boy whose foot hovers a moment above the worm he means to crush. The boy does not expect to see the worm change to a butterfly just then and there, and mount up before his very eyes toward the empyrean. Neither did Bondo Emmins anticipate her quiet—

"You knew about it all the while."

"Not the whole," said he,—"that you were married to Luke, as you say"; and the fisherman looked hastily around him, as if he had expected to see the veritable Luke.

"It isn't to get rid of you, then, Bondo," Clarice explained; "but I read in the Book you don't think much of, but it's everything to me, If ye have not been faithful in that which is another man's, who shall give you that which is your own? So you see, I am a little selfish in it all; for I want peace of mind, and I never shall have peace till it is settled about Gabriel; if I must give him up, I can."

Bondo Emmins looked at Clarice with a strange look, as she spoke these words,—so faltering in speech, so resolute in soul.

"And if I'm faithful over another man's," said he, "better the chance of getting my own, eh? But I wonder what my own is."

"Everything that you can earn and enjoy honestly," replied Clarice.

Emmins rose up quickly at these words. He walked off a few paces without speaking. His face was gloomy and sullen as a sky full of tornadoes when he turned his back on Clarice,—hardly less so when he again approached her.

"I am no fool," said he, as he drew near.—From his tone one could hardly have guessed that his last impulse was to strike the woman to whom he spoke.—"I know what you mean. You haven't sent me on a fool's errand. Good bye. You won't see me again, Clarice—till I come back from France. Time enough to talk about it then."

He did not offer to take her hand when he had so spoken, but was off before Clarice could make any reply.

Clarice thought that she should see him again; but he went away without speaking to any other person of his purpose; and when wonder on account of his absence began to find expression in her father's house, and elsewhere, it was she who must account for it. People thereat praised him for his good heart, and made much of his generosity, and wondered if this voyage were not to be rewarded by the prize for which he had sought openly so long. Old Briton and his dame inclined to that opinion.

But in the week following that of his departure there was a great stir and excitement among the people of the Bay. Little Gabriel was missing. A search, that began in surprise when Clarice returned home from some errand, was continued with increasing alarm all day, and night descended amid the general conviction that the child was drowned. He had been seen at play on the shore. No one could possibly furnish a more reasonable explanation. Every one had something to say, of course, and Clarice listened to all, turning to one speaker after another with increasing despair. Not one of them could restore the child to life, if he was dead.

There was a suspicion in her heart which she shared with none. It flashed upon her, and there was no rest after, until she had satisfied herself of its injustice. She went alone by night to town, and made her way fearlessly down to the harbor to learn if any vessel had sailed that day, and when the last ship sailed for Havre. The answers to the inquiries she made convinced her that Bondo Emmins must have sailed for France the day after his last conversation with her.

By daylight Clarice was again on the shore of Diver's Bay, there to renew a search which for weeks was not abandoned. Gabriel had a place in many a rough man's heart, and the women of the Bay knew well enough that he was unlike all other children; and though it did not please them well that Clarice should keep him so much to herself, they still admired the result of such seclusion, and praised his beauty and wonderful cleanliness, as though these tokens of her care were really beyond the common range of things,—attainable, in spite of all she could say, by no one but Clarice Briton, and for no one but Gabriel. These fishermen and their wives did not speedily forget the wonderful boy; the boats never went out but those who rowed them thought about the child; the gatherers of sea-weed never went to their work but they looked for some token of him; and for Clarice,—let us say nothing of her just here. What woman needs to be told how that woman watched and waited and mourned?

IX

Few events ever occurred to disturb the tranquillity of the people of Diver's Bay. People wore out and dropped away, as the old fishing boats did,—and new ones took their place.

Old Briton crumbled and fell to pieces, while he watched for the return of Bondo Emmins. And Clarice buried her old mother. She was then left alone in the cabin, with the reminiscences of a hard lot around her. The worn-out garments, and many rude traces of rough toil, and the toys, few and simple, which had belonged to Gabriel, constituted her treasures. What was before her? A life of labor and of watching; and Clarice was growing older every day.

Her hair turned gray ere she was old. The hopes that had specially concerned her had failed her,—all of them. She surveyed her experience, and said, weighing the result, the more need that she should strive to avert from others the evils they might bring upon themselves, so that, when the Lord should smite them, they, too, might be strong. The missionary had long since left this field of labor and gone to another, and his place at Diver's Bay was unfilled by a new preacher. The more need, then, of her. Remembering her lost child, she taught the children of others. She taught them to read and sew and knit, and, what was more important, taught them obedience and thankfulness, and endeavored to inspire in them some reverence and faith. The Church did not fall into ruin there.

I wish that I might write here,—it were so easy, if it were but true!—that Bondo Emmins came back to Diver's Bay in one of those long years during which she was looking for him, and that he came scourged by conscience to ask forgiveness of his diabolic vengeance.

I wish that I might write,—which were far easier, if it were but fact,—that all the patience and courage of the Pure Heart of Diver's Bay, all the constancy that sought to bring order and decency and reverence into the cabins there, met at last with another external reward than merely beholding, as the children grew up to their duties and she drew near to death, the results of all her teaching; that those results were attended by another, also an external reward; that the youth, who came down like an angel to fill her place when she was gone, had walked into her house one morning, and surprised her, as the Angel Gabriel once surprised the world, by his glad tidings. I wish, that, instead of kneeling down beside her grave in the sand, and vowing there, "Oh, mother! I, who have found no mother but thee in all the world, am here, in thy place, to strive as thou didst for the ignorant and the helpless and unclean," he had thrown his arms around her living presence, and vowed that vow in spite of Bondo Emmins, and all the world beside.

But it seems that the gate is strait, and the path is ever narrow, and the hill is difficult. And the kinds of victory are various, and the badges of the conquerors are not all one. And the pure heart can wear its pearl as purely, and more safely, in the heavens, where the white array is spotless,—where the desolate heart shall be no more forsaken,—where the BRIDEGROOM, who stands waiting the Bride, says, "Come, for all things are now ready!"—where the SON makes glad. Pure Pearl of Diver's Bay! not for the cheap sake of any mortal romance will I grieve to write that He has plucked thee from the deep to reckon thee among His pearls of price.

* * * * *

CAMILLE

  I bore my mystic chalice unto Earth    With vintage which no lips of hers might name;  Only, in token of its alien birth,    Love crowned it with his soft, immortal flame,           And, 'mid the world's wide sound,      Sacred reserves and silences breathed round,—    A spell to keep it pure from low acclaim.  With joy that dulled me to the touch of scorn,    I served;—not knowing that of all life's deeds  Service was first; nor that high powers are born    In humble uses. Fragrance-folding seeds         Must so through flowers expand,      Then die. God witness that I blessed the Hand   Which laid upon my heart such golden needs!  And yet I felt, through all the blind, sweet ways    Of life, for some clear shape its dreams to blend,—  Some thread of holy art, to knit the days    Each unto each, and all to some fair end,        Which, through unmarked removes,      Should draw me upward, even as it behooves    One whose deep spring-tides from His heart descend.  To swell some vast refrain beyond the sun,    The very weed breathed music from its sod;  And night and day in ceaseless antiphon    Rolled off through windless arches in the broad        Abyss.—Thou saw'st I, too,      Would in my place have blent accord as true,    And justified this great enshrining, God!  Dreams!—Stain it on the bending amethyst,    That one who came with visions of the Prime  For guide somehow her radiant pathway missed,    And wandered in the darkest gulf of Time.          No deed divine thenceforth      Stood royal in its far-related worth;    No god, in truth, might heal the wounded chime.  Oh, how? I darkly ask;—and if I dare    Take up a thought from this tumultuous street  To the forgotten Silence soaring there    Above the hiving roofs, its calm depths meet           My glance with no reply.      Might I go back and spell this mystery    In the new stillness at my mother's feet,—  I would recall with importunings long    That so sad soul, once pierced as with a knife,  And cry, Forgive! Oh, think Youth's tide was strong,    And the full torrent, shut from brain and life,           Plunged through the heart, until      It rocked to madness, and the o'erstrained will    Grew wild, then weak, in the despairing strife!  And ever I think, What warning voice should call,    Or show me bane from food, with tedious art,  When love—the perfect instinct, flower of all    Divinest potencies of choice, whose part           Was set 'mid stars and flame      To keep the inner place of God—became    A blind and ravening fever of the heart?  I laugh with scorn that men should think them praised    In women's love,—chance-flung in weary hours,  By sickly fire to bloated worship raised!—    O long-lost dream, so sweet of vernal flowers!           Wherein I stood, it seemed,      And gave a gift of queenly mark!—I dreamed    Of Passion's joy aglow in rounded powers.  I dreamed! The roar, the tramp, the burdened air    Pour round their sharp and subtle mockery.  Here go the eager-footed men; and there    The costly beggars of the world float by;—              Lilies, that toil nor spin,      How should they know so well the weft of sin,    And hide me from them with such sudden eye?  But all the roaming crowd begins to make    A whirl of humming shade;—for, since the day  Is done, and there's no lower step to take,    Life drops me here. Some rough, kind hand, I pray,                 Thrust the sad wreck aside,      And shut the door on it!—a little pride,    That I may not offend who pass this way.  And this is all!—Oh, thou wilt yet give heed!    No soul but trusts some late redeeming care,—  But walks the narrow plank with bitter speed,    And, straining through the sweeping mist of air,              In the great tempest-call,      And greater silence deepening through it all,    Refuses still, refuses to despair!  Some further end, whence thou refitt'st with aim    Bewildered souls, perhaps?—Some breath in me,  By thee, the purest, found devoid of blame,    Fit for large teaching?—Look!—I cannot see,—           I can but feel!—Far off,      Life seethes and frets,—and from its shame and scoff    I take my broken crystal up to thee.* * * * *

THE HUNDRED DAYS

PERSONAL REMINISCENCES[Concluded.]

The most remarkable event of the "Hundred Days" was the celebrated "Champ de Mai," where Napoleon met deputies from the Departments, and distributed eagles to representatives of his forces. He intended it as an assembly of the French people, which should sanction and legalize his second accession to the throne, and pledge itself, by solemn adjuration, to preserve the sovereignty of his family. It was a day of wholesale swearing, and the deputies uttered any quantity of oaths of eternal fidelity, which they barely kept three weeks. The distribution of the eagles was the only real and interesting part of the performance, and the deep sympathy between both parties was very evident. The Emperor stood in the open field, on a raised platform, from which a broad flight of steps descended; and pages of his household were continually running up and down, communicating with the detachments from various branches of the army, which passed in front of him, halting for a moment to receive the eagles and give the oath to defend them.

I was present during the whole of this latter ceremony. Through the forbearance of a portion of the Imperial Guard, into whose ranks I obtruded myself, I had a very favorable position, and felt that in this part of the day's work there was no sham.

I would here bear testimony to the character of those veterans known as the "Old Guard." I frequently came in contact with individuals of them, and liked so well to talk with them, that I never lost a chance of making their acquaintance. One, who was partial to me because I was an American, had served in this country with Rochambeau, had fought under the eye of Washington, and was at the surrender of Cornwallis. He had borne his share in the vicissitudes of the Republic, the Consulate, and the Empire. He was scarred with wounds, and his breast was decorated with the cross of the Legion of Honor, which he considered an ample equivalent for all his services. My intercourse with these old soldiers confirmed what has been said of them, that they were singularly mild and courteous. There was a gentleness of manner about them that was remarkable. They had seen too much service to boast of it, and they left the bragging to younger men. Terrible as they were on the field of battle, they seemed to have adopted as a rule of conduct, that

  "In peace, there's nothing so becomes a man  As modest stillness and humility."

On this memorable day, I saw Napoleon more distinctly than at any other time. I was frequently present when he was reviewing troops, but either he or they were in motion, and I had to catch a glimpse of him as opportunities offered. At this time, as he passed through the Champs Elysées, I stood among my friends, the soldiers, who lined the way, and who suffered me to remain where a man would not have been tolerated. He was escorted by the Horse Grenadiers of the Guard. His four brothers preceded him in one carriage, while he sat alone in a state coach, all glass and gold, to which pages clung wherever they could find footing. He was splendidly attired, and wore a Spanish hat with drooping feathers. As he moved slowly through the crowd, he bowed to the right and left, not in the hasty, abrupt way which is generally attributed to him, but in a calm, dignified, though absent manner. His face was one not to be forgotten. I saw it repeatedly; but whenever I bring it up, it comes before me, not as it appeared from the window of the Tuileries, or when riding among his troops, or when standing, with folded arms or his hands behind him, as they defiled before him; but it rises on my vision as it looked that morning, under the nodding plumes,—smooth, massive, and so tranquil, that it seemed impossible a storm of passion could ever ruffle it. The complexion was clear olive, without a particle of color, and no trace was on it to indicate what agitated the man within. The repose of that marble countenance told nothing of the past, nor of anxiety for the deadly struggle that awaited him. The cheering sounds around him did not change it; they fell on an ear that heard them not. His eye glanced on the multitudes; but it saw them not. There was more machinery than soul in the recognition, as his head instinctively swayed towards them. The idol of stone was there, joyless and impassive amidst its worshippers, taking its lifeless part in this last pageant. But the thinking, active man was elsewhere, and returned only when he found himself in the presence of delegated France, and in the more congenial occupation which succeeded.

Immediately after this event, all the available troops remaining in Paris were sent toward the Belgian frontier, and in a few days were followed by the Emperor. Then came an interval of anxious suspense, which Rumor, with her thousand tongues, occupied to the best of her ability. I was in the country when news of the first collision arrived, and a printed sheet was sent to the château where I was visiting, with an account of the defeat of the Prussians at Ligny and the retreat of the British at Quatre Bras. Madame Ney was staying in the vicinity; and, as the Marshal had taken an active part in the engagement, I was sent to communicate to her the victory. She was ill, and I gave the message to a lady, her connection, much pleased to be the bearer of such welcome intelligence. I returned that day to Paris, and found my schoolmates in the highest exhilaration. Every hour brought confirmation of a decisive victory. It was thought that the great battle of the campaign had been fought, and that the French had only to follow up their advantage. Letters from officers were published, representing that the Allies were thoroughly routed, and describing the conflict so minutely, that there could be no doubt of the result. All was now joy and congratulation; and conjectures were freely made as to the terms to be vouchsafed to the conquered, and the boundary limits which should be assigned to the territory of France.

A day or two after this, we made a customary visit to a swimming-school on the Seine, and some of us entered into conversation with the gendarme, or police soldier, placed there to preserve order. He was very reserved and unwilling to say much; but, at last, when we dwelt on the recent successes, he shook his head mournfully, and said he feared there had been some great disaster; adding, "The Emperor is in Paris. I saw him alight from his carriage this morning, when on duty; he had very few attendants, and it was whispered that our army had been defeated." That my companions did not seek relief at the bottom of the river can be ascribed only to their entire disbelief of the gendarme's story. But, as they returned home, discussing his words at every step, fears began to steal over them when they reflected how seriously he talked and how sorrowful he looked.