66

wards, in an attack upon the "covered ravine," he was severely wounded by a bullet; but all beyond this is such, and so told, as to cast the most violent discredit even upon the few facts stated which are, in the nature of things, feasible. In the first place, although the hero himself is but the lowest commissioned officer in his company, he is distinctly made to be in command of the whole. Nay, the lieutenant is set before us, as submitting, under the threat of instant death, to a command the most insane that Bedlam itself could have is sued. Thus one superior officer appears, even in Houston's own tale: but what had become of the rest?-the Captain? the two other lieutenants (for, in that day, every Company of the Line had three lieutenants)? How, then, could Houston have threatened, with the uplifted sword with which he was keeping the command," to cut down his superior officer, because he did not tear, " deep out of his thigh," a bearded shaft? What did he want that amazing surgical operation performed for? Well, after all, he must have had his head full of the Iliad or Paradise Lost; for 'tis in them only that one reads how, no matter how pierced or cloven, the flesh of celestials (Mars, Satan, and the like) reunites and is whole, as soon as the weapon is withdrawn. Such a wound as H. here fables of would, even without the plucking-out of the arrow-head by main force, have instantly disabled anything but a Homeric God and rendered all personal locomotion impossible but Houston, as if more than a god, adds the disruption to the wound, climbs the wall like a rope-dancer, gets his torn tendons and muscles mended by the doctor; and lo! leaping the wall again, at a bound, (like the pagan in Ariosto, Rodomont, from whose enor mous brags comes the word rodomontade,) he is again in the thick of the fight: not (as it well appears) to do anything sane or serviceable, nor even to hurt any opposite foeman; but only for the excellent and useful purpose of receiving fresh wounds, as senselessly earned as the first was stupidly treated.

So much for the main points of story No. 1 and now for achievement No. 2. Had General Jackson called only for a

platoon of men, without crow-bars, mattocks, or any instrument in the smallest degree fit for breaking a way into a strong, close work of logs, guarded by a large body of Indians bent on selling their lives as dear as possible, and only to be got at through loop-holes? They must have shot down, at their ease, forty such successive platoons, every man of them. Less than a number equal to that of the defenders could not have been sent to the attack, unless to get them all killed. But Houston did not command more than the fourth of one Company; and not that independently of his captain and lieutenants: he was in the Regular Service, in which little military freedoms like this of breaking the ranks just when one likes are not tolerated. The movement itself is executed, in this ludicrous onset, as totally without plan or purpose as it is undertaken without subordination: the gentleman in the dismembered thigh outstrips his whole-limbed platoon so much as to make, in effect, only a singlehanded assault, with his sword, upon a wall of loop-holes bristling with rifles; and, after getting himself shot, at somewhere about arm's-length, deliberately walks off again, to be put upon the doctor's books for the remainder of the war: for this is his first field and his last, as a soldier of the United States. Here ends his military career, in this country, except certain exploits of the bludgeon, hereafter to be commemorated. A brief civil service, partly Congressional-the latter utterly undistinguished, except by the fact that, dumb within the Capitol, his debaucheries and ribaldry were its disgrace without, in days when yet the House of Representatives could be disgraced ensues; then the conjugal outrage which, while Governor of his State, drove him forth an outlaw; next, his second naturalization among savages more congenial to his habits. All these may be very briefly dispatched, when we shall perhaps resume his life, in order to examine its greater events-the Texan part of his history.

Mightiest of magnanimous men! most deserving of worthies! thou fag-end of False Heroism! for the present adieu ! IL SECRETARIO.

DEEP night lay upon the mountains. The outlines of their peaks could alone be distinguished, drawn in relief against the somewhat lighter heavens, and at times a thick grove, of vast overhanging oaks, beech, or fir trees, which, in their strange forms, when stirred by the night wind, appeared more like giants than like

trees.

Thus at least, it seemed to a young man who, about two hundred years ago, returned to his old home in the Hartz forest, from a journey into foreign lands, which he had undertaken for the purpose of perfecting himself in his noble craft, which was that of an armorer. The cottage of his father, an honest collier, could not be more than a league farther up the mountain. During the five years of his absence, many things seemed to have changed in the Hartz. Or it might be that he himself had changed, and thus things around him appeared much more altered than they actually

mist.

And still, at times again, everything around him looked so kindly and familiarly upon him. "O heavens!" he sighed, the joy, the feeling that I am at home, start up suddenly before me, and then vanish, like the sparks from a forge, and I cannot grasp them!"

Overcome by the toils of his long day's journey, and still more by a keen feeling of sadness which mastered him at these words, he sank down upon a heap of stones which were almost hidden by the tall grass. But then, at once starting lustily up, he said:

66

his teeth; now, some old ballad of his childhood, now, new and strange ones, which he had learned in foreign lands.

"Have a care with the stuff!" said some one close behind him. He turned, and beheld a little old man who had probably followed him for some time unobserved.

The young man, with that almost frightful violence, which at times surprises even brave men at the sudden ap pearance of a stranger, cried out, "Who is there? Wherefore do you warn me ? and against what stuff do you mean I should take care?"

66

Against the singing," replied the old man, coldly. Against inward singing, I mean especially. For, in good sooth, so long as you sing it out into the open air, you will thwart others therewith more than yourself. But when the sound is within yourself, unheard by all men, unheard even by your own outward senses, but to your inward sense and self is a constant companion, even in your slumbers, even in your faintest dreamsthen the thing is much more serious and dangerous."

And still," said Barthold, (thus was the young man called,)—“ still such a condition appears to me rather enviable than fearful.”

66

That depends upon the songs," replied the old man.

"There are some that make us first mad, and then dead. So has it in part fared with me, although 1 was ever more of a soldier than a singer."

66

Yet you live still," said the youth, filled with strange terror.

"A little," said the old man, " and even that little only for a few hours. When, to wit, a truly living being has rested upon my grave, as you did a moment gone, then it trickles in my cold breast, like a soft sun stream, and like a warm breeze in the first days of May. And when the guest goes onward again -man or beast-I arise and follow him a little way. Wolves and boars commonly take it ill, and bite and strike, howl and grunt fearfully. But still I follow

after them, and they cannot touch me with their teeth and tusks. Stags and roes, on the other hand, run in wild terror through the forest before me, but with a leap I am upon their backs, and though they dash beneath the thickest branches to sweep me off, I sit firm, and take no hurt. Many a slender roe has thus plunged over the cliffs, and many a lofty stag has beaten his head to pieces against the giant trunks of the forest. But nimble and sound, I leap up from the fall like a goblin. Yet I return to my grave weeping. That men have done to me, and magic. But the inward singing also."

And he wrapped his face in his dark and tattered garment, and it seemed to the youth as if he heard him sob softly. He was then moved with compassion for the gray-haired maniac, for he could think him nought else, and he said with a voice and gesture of encouragement: "Go now to rest, thou poor distempered creature, and seek me at noon to-morrow in my father's dwelling. We will then all take counsel together."

But the little old man laughed sadly. "At noon to-morrow? By early dawn I must leave thee, or at latest by sunrise, and I cannot seek thee again before midnight; or rather, I cannot seek thee at all, unless thou comest again to rest upon my grave. But that thou wilt probably never do."

"It does not seem likely," laughed Barthold, his youthful gaiety returning. "For the present, I need neither a companion nor a guide. So then, good night!"

"I wish it to us both," said the little old man. "What is right for one of us, is certainly so for the other. For until the morning twilight, I shall continue thine inseparable companion, constant even as the sullen mother Night. Conduct thyself toward me as thou wilt, I shall still go with thee!"

"Against my will wilt thou venture it?" said the youth in a threatening tone. And the old man replied: "Yet the hateful singing ventured, and still ven

tures it even so with me!"

Barthold knew not what to reply to the strange old man. The two, side by side, walked on in silence and in haste. No one could have supposed that the shrunken and shrivelled old man could thus keep pace with the tall and vigorous youth. It excited Barthold's wonder

also, and the fears which he had suppressed stirred anew within his bosom.

In order to banish it by cheerful discourse, he began: "You seem to be well acquainted here in the mountains. Do you know my father, the honest collier, Gottfried Wahrmund.

The old man started fearfully, and exclaimed in furions tones: "No, no! Ei no! I do not-I do not know him. Ei no! Do not suspect me of such"

The indignant youth then cried: "You may be mad at your own cost, strange comrade, as much as seems good to you, but leave my father's honor and fair name 'tis for your own sake I counsel you-leave these out of your mummery, if you would walk with me in safety."

The little old man laughed-but it sounded also like a painful gasping and groaning-and he said: "Alas! alas! why make this little life so wearisome, both to yourself and others? I speak nothing ill and black of your dear mountain father. I will simply confess to you that I fear him beyond measure. Is that abuse? So far as I am concerned, I wish all men felt thus toward me.”

"I wish no such thing. I wish that all men loved me!" replied Barthold, quickly. He did not observe how, at these words, the dark form glided behind him, shaking its head. For the stars shone joyfully to the young man's eye, and his spirit rose swelling with mysterious emotion up toward the blue heaven.

But the old man began now to laugh again, and said: "Thou art not the first star-gazer, probably, who has fallen into a well. Just gaze before thee, for example," and then, with a scream, he added, "Where dost thou stand, boy?”

Barthold, greatly startled, cast his eyes to the ground, and saw that he was walking close along the edge of a dizzy precipice. So sudden was his alarm, that it required an exertion of his utmost strength to keep himself from falling into the abyss below; he was obliged, indeed, to grasp the branch of a fir tree, by the aid of which, he hastily swung himself upon the moss within the secure shadow of the trees. When he had recovered his powers again, he said, laughing:

Well, I must say this, comrade, you have a peculiar manner of warning a fellow-traveller! a manner which seems, in reality, contrived to break one's neck.

It is well that I am no night-walker.* In that case you had plunged me with your startling cry over the cliffs."

"Thou art a night-walker," said the old man, in a hollow voice. "Thou walkest, forsooth, and it is night. But so, in truth, walk all men. And if thou canst find thy whereabouts without me— ei! then try it once! Thy father's cottage must stand close at hand. Seek for it; I am not mocking you. Look nicely and carefully about you."

Barthold did so with intense eagerness, sure of being able to confute the disordered babble of his mad guide. But what was his astonishment, as cliff and meadow and the old pines seemed to grow so familiar to him that he could not deny that near by must stand the dwelling of his parents. He walked through the bushes, searching on all sides. He began to call upon his beloved father. No answer; no hospitable roof arose between the branches. Suddenly his foot struck against a large flat stone. Heavens! it was once his paternal hearth, now in ruins; half-charred beams lay scattered upon the ground. Shuddering, and scarcely able to speak, Barthold said with a groan, Alas, what has happened here? Where are my dear friends? My parents, where are they? Where is their sweet foster-child, Gertrude?"

Oh, they are alive; they are all three alive," replied the old man, “my word for it; and thou shalt, at once, see them too. But as to what has happened here; do not take it amiss, my friend, but the question seems to me somewhat silly. The old heathen god of fire, whom the learned call Vulcan, once stopped here at night as a pilgrim, with a soot-black garment closely wrapped about his shoulders. Thy parents did not know him, and let him make his bed comfortably upon a couch of hay and straw in the barn. Bad dreams came upon him in the night, as often happens to him, and with this he started up in all the pomp and glow of his mighty nature, broke in the roof with his head, and with his arms dashed the rafters in pieces, and with his foot stamped the hearth deep into the earth. Here upon house and barn vanished, and thy worthy friends dwell in a cavern not far from here. But he who was the messenger of the Fire-God in this strange business-see, good friend, that was I." Barthold, drawing from his scabbard

his well-tempered blade, the work of his own hands, turned upon the author of the mischief. The latter made not a motion of self-defence, and as is usually the case with brave men under such circumstances, this behavior checked the arm of the indignant youth.

The old man then said, "If you kill me because I was Vulcan's messenger to your dear friends, I cannot now be your guide to them, and you yourself would find them upon the earth never, and never more, in sooth."

Barthold, with a shudder, thrust the blade into its sheath again, and said, "Lead me to them then! Onward!"

The little old man hurried quickly from the desolate ruins; he himself seemed seized with deep terror. They went onward upon a rocky path, close along the edge of the precipice, until they stood before a high cavern in the face of the rock, which was overshadowed by gloomy firs.

"But show them to me !" said Barthold, wishfully, although at the same time, he felt his hair stand erect from a feeling of horror that he could not comprehend.

Striking steel and stone together three times with a solemn gesture, the old man lighted the little horn lantern, which he carried concealed beneath his mantle, and with outstretched arm held it within the mouth of the cave.

Something white stirred therein, as if upon a bed of moss.

"That is thy mother!" said the old man; "but, as I said, wait a little; let her come to her senses by degrees; otherwise, nothing good will happen from it. She might, from excess of joy, dash thee down the precipice at our heels. She often behaves frightfully wild, since I brought Vulcan into the house in the guise of a courteous guest. And seest thou, above yonder in the second storyit may seem to thee, perhaps, like a projection of the rock-there dwells thy parent's foster-child, the dear, sweet Ger

trude. Yes, she makes her bed high and solitary, in maidenly wise. Mark, what a strange, gray night-dress she has put on! When you marry her, you need not purchase costly garments for her, for by night she is contented with this dark attire, and by day she scarcely ever leaves the hall. Hark! she stirs. Hei, she sees that her bridegroom comes, and she flutters toward him. Hei, see!"

And a large horned owl, disturbed by the glare of the light, flew down from her nest in the cavern wall, and dashed wildly against the lantern, breaking it in pieces and extinguishing the light, while a white roe started up from its lair, and rushed madly by the two men. Half bowling, half laughing, the old man called after the two creatures: " Ei, stay now! ei, come back again to your home! It is your bridegroom, fair maiden; it is your son, worthy dame, who has come to visit you."

He hearkened for a while, through the now still night. Sighing softly, he then said: "I have done wrong, to put so mischievous a spell upon them; and the worst of it all is this, I have forgotten the magic word by which I could disenchant them again. Believe me, poor youth, but for this I would gladly do it. Besides-ah me, thy father-I could not bring him back to thee, the stout collier Wahrmund. For no spell did I cast upon him. And, in sooth, he lives, as I before assured thee; but not here below any longer. I sent him to heaven by a cast of his own axe, and he will take good care, doubtless, not to return to our dark and midnight world. Ah, we may call him ever so long, and with the wisest sayings-he will not come to us again!" With these words he began to weep in silence, and sank upon his knees as if in

prayer.

"Man, unhappy man!" cried Barthold, "if thou-O thou, whose presence thrills me with compassion and with terror-if thou couldst tell me, in plain human language, how and what I should pardon! truly, I would gladly do it!"

The old man groped anxiously amid the moss in the cavern. After a while he brought forth an axe, and letting its bright edge play in the beams of the rising moon, he said, in a solemn tone: "See there that was a sharp key, that opened to thy father the abode of eternal peace. See there! his blood still cleaves to it. I cast it at him, and-woe's me! my aim was good."

The edge of the axe shone red with blood in the moonlight.

Barthold, beside himself with anger and terror, tore the frightful weapon from the stranger's hand, and swung it threatening over his head; but the latter glided backward into the gloom of the cavern and disappeared. From an immeasurable depth, the youth heard him he knew not rightly whether laugh or weep. Barthold ran wildly forth, as if in feverish delirium, with the axe clasped convulsively in his right hand.

He sank down at last in death-like faintness upon the sweet-scented moss, by the border of a murmuring brook. A kind of sleep fell upon him. He was soon aroused again, however, by his anxiety about the fate of his parents, and that of his long-wished for bride, as well as by the fearful thought that yon spectral old man, in case he bore a living soul within his body, had, to avoid his threatening, fallen into the abyss of the cavern, and had there miserably perished. Or was it a restless spirit that had been his fellowtraveller?

His senses were bewildered.

It now seemed to him, as if in a dream that he was lying upon a far softer couch than the moss upon which he had fallen, and as if a voice whispered near him, "He must sleep yet for three hours; then all will be well."

The voice sounded like a dear and familiar one. At the same time an odor of perfumed balsam breathed around him. Willingly yielding, he sank back into a deep and pleasant slumber; every trace of consciousness vanished from him.

When his senses returned, it seemed as if he were transported to his father's dwelling, everything around appeared so familiar to him. That, doubtless, was the old round oaken table, at which the family were accustomed to eat! There stood his mother's spinning-wheel, curiously wrought and carved. And ah, his Gertrude's lute, to which she was wont to sing so sweetly her sacred songs, hung in mild light against the wall.

Much around him, however, was changed. Instead of the little cottage windows, with the creeping wintergreen, the sun now shone through a high and somewhat ruinous arched window into an apartment which resembled a hall rather than a chamber, and in place of the chirping of the merry finches in the branches of the wood without, solemn