Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 1, No. 7, May, 1858 by Various

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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
Elysees, 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 chateau 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.

The gendarme spoke the truth. Napoleon was in Paris. His army no longer
existed, and his star had been blotted from the heavens. His plans,
wonderfully conceived, had been indifferently executed; a series of
blunders, beyond his control, interrupted his combinations, and delay in
important movements, added to the necessity of meeting two enemies at
the same moment, destroyed the centralization on which he had depended
for overthrowing both in succession. The orders he sent to his Marshals
were intercepted, and they were left to an uncertainty which prevented
any unity of action. The accusation of treason, sometimes brought
against them, is false and ungenerous; and the insinuations of Napoleon
himself were unworthy of him. They may have erred in judgment, but they
acted as they thought expedient, and they never showed more devotion to
their country and to their chief than on the fatal day of Waterloo.

I have been twice over that field, and have heard remarks of military
men, which have only convinced me that it is easier to criticize a
battle than to fight one. Had Grouchy, with his thirty thousand men,
joined the Emperor, the British would have been destroyed. But he
stopped at Wavre, to fight, as he supposed, the whole Prussian army,
thinking to do good service by keeping it from the main battle. Bluecher
outwitted him, and, leaving ten thousand men to deceive and keep him in
check, hurried on to turn the scale. The fate of both contending hosts
rested on the cloud of dust that arose on the eastern horizon, and the
eyes of Napoleon and Wellington watched its approach, knowing that it
brought victory or defeat. The one was still precipitating his impetuous
columns on the sometimes penetrated, but never broken, squares of
infantry, which seemed rooted to the earth, and which, though torn by
shot and shell, and harassed by incessant charges of cavalry, closed
their thinned ranks with an obstinacy and determination such as he had
never before encountered. The other stood amidst the growing grain,
seeing his army wasting away before those terrible assaults; and when
the officers around him saw inevitable ruin, unless the order for
retreat was given, he tore up the unripened corn, and, grinding it
between his hands, groaned out, in his agony,--"Oh, that Bluecher, or
night, would come!"

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