Harper's New Monthly Magazine, Vol. V, No. XXV, June, 1852

About the year 1798, James Bradshaw and William Drysdale, both invalided masters of the Royal Navy, cast anchor for the remainder of their lives at about twelve miles' distance from Exeter, on the London road. Bradshaw named his domicile, an old-fashioned straggling building, "Rodney Place," in honor of the Admiral in whose great victory he had fought. Drysdale's smaller and snugger dwelling, about half a mile away from "Rodney Place," was called "Poplar Cottage," and about midway between them stood the "Hunter's Inn," a road-side public-house, kept by one Thomas Burnham, a stout-hearted, jolly-bellied individual, the comeliness of whose rubicund figure-head was considerably damaged by the loss of an eye, of which, however, it is right to say, the extinguished light appeared to have been transferred in undiminished intensity to its fiery, piercing fellow. The retired masters, who had long known each other, were intimate as brothers, notwithstanding that Bradshaw was much the richest of the two, having contrived to pick up a considerable amount of prize-money, in addition to a rather large sum inherited from his father. Neither did the difference of circumstances oppose, in Bradshaw's opinion, the slightest obstacle to the union of his niece and heiress, Rachel Elford, with Edward Drysdale, his fellow-veteran's only surviving offspring. The precedent condition, however, was, that Edward should attain permanent rank in the Royal Navy, and with this view, a midshipman's warrant was obtained in '99 for the young man, then in his eighteenth year, and he was dispatched to sea.

The naval profession proved to be, unfortunately, one for which Edward Drysdale was altogether unfitted by temperament and bent of mind, and sad consequences followed. He had been at sea about eighteen months, when news reached England of a desperate, but successful cutting-out affair by the boats of the frigate to which he belonged. His name was not mentioned in the official report – but that could hardly have been hoped for – neither was it in the list of killed and wounded. A map of the coast where the fight took place was procured; the battle was fought over and over again by the two veterans, and they were still indulging in those pleasures of the imagination in the parlor of the "Hunter's Inn," when the landlord entered with a Plymouth paper in his hand, upon one paragraph in which his single orb of vision glared with fiery indignation. It was an extract from a letter written by one of the frigate's officers, plainly intimating that midshipman Drysdale had shown the white feather in the late brush with the enemy, and would be sent home by the first opportunity. The stroke of a dagger could have been nothing compared with the sharp agony which such an announcement inflicted on the young man's father, and Bradshaw was for a few moments equally thunder-stricken. But he quickly rallied. William Drysdale's son a coward! Pooh! The thing was out of nature – impossible; and very hearty were his maledictions, savagely echoed by Burnham, with whom young Drysdale was a great favorite, of the lying lubber that wrote the letter, and the newspaper rascals that printed it.

Alas! it was but too true! On the third evening after the appearance of the alarming paragraph the two mariners were sitting in the porch of Poplar Cottage, separated only by a flower-garden from the main-road, conversing upon the sad, and constantly-recurring topic, when the coach from London came in sight. A youthful figure in naval uniform on the box-seat instantly riveted their attention, as it did that of Rachel Elford, who was standing in the little garden, apparently absorbed till that moment by the shrubs and flowers. The coach rapidly drew near, stopped, and Edward Drysdale alighted from it. The two seamen, instead of waiting for his approach, hastily arose from their seats and went into the cottage, as much perhaps to avoid the humiliating, though compassionate glances of the outside passengers, as from any other motive. The young man was deadly pale, and seemed to have hardly sufficient strength to move back the light wicket-gate which admitted to the garden. He held by it till the coach had passed on, and then turned with a beseeching, half-reproachful look toward Rachel. She, poor girl, was as much agitated as himself, and appeared to be eagerly scanning his countenance, as if hopeful of reading there a contradiction of the dishonoring rumor that had got abroad. In answer to his mute appeal, she stepped quickly toward him, clasped his proffered hand in both hers, and with a faint and trembling voice ejaculated – "Dear, dear Edward! It is not true – I am sure it is not, that you – that you – "

"That I, Rachel, have been dismissed the naval service, as unfit to serve his majesty, is quite true," rejoined Edward Drysdale, slowly, and with partially-recovered calm – "quite true!"

The young woman shrank indignantly from him – fire glanced in her suffused eyes, and her light, elegant figure appeared to grow and dilate with irrepressible scorn, as this avowal fell upon her ear. "A coward!" she vehemently exclaimed; "you that – but no," she added, giving way again to grief and tenderness, as she looked upon the fine, intelligent countenance of her lover, "it can not be; there must be some error – some mistake. It is impossible!"

"There is error and mistake, Rachel; but the world will never, I fear, admit so much. But, come, let us in: you will go with me?"

We will not follow them till the first outburst of angry excitement is past; till the father's passionate, heart-broken reproaches have subsided to a more patient, subdued, faintly-hopeful sorrow, and Rachel's wavering faith in the manhood of her betrothed has regained something of its old firmness. Entering then, we shall find that only Mr. Bradshaw has remained obstinately and contemptuously deaf to what the young man has falteringly urged in vindication of his behavior in the unhappy affair which led to his dismissal from the service. He had, it appeared, suddenly fainted at the sight of the hideous carnage in which, for the first time in his life, he found himself involved.

"You have a letter, you say, from Captain Otway," said Mr. Drysdale, partially raising his head from his hands, in which it had been buried while his son was speaking. "Where is it? Give it to Rachel – I can not see the words."

The note was directed to Mr. Drysdale, whom Captain Otway personally knew, and was no doubt kindly intended to soften the blow, the return of his son under such circumstances must inflict. Although deciding that Edward Drysdale was unfit for the naval profession, he did not think that the failure of the young man's physical nerve in one of the most murderous encounters that had occurred during the war, was attributable to deficiency of true courage, and as a proof that it was not, Captain Otway mentioned that the young man had jumped overboard during half a gale of wind, and when night was falling, and saved, at much peril to himself, a seaman's life. This was the substance of the note. As soon as Rachel ceased reading, Mr. Drysdale looked deprecatingly in his friend's face and murmured, "You hear?"

"Yes, William Drysdale, I do. I never doubted that your son was a good swimmer, no more than I do that coward means coward, and that all the letters in the alphabet can not spell it to mean any thing else. Come, Rachel," added the grim, unreasoning, iron-tempered veteran, "let us be gone. And God bless, and if it be possible, comfort you, old friend! Good-by! No, thank-ye, young sir!" he continued, with renewed fierceness, as Edward Drysdale snatched at his hand. "That hand was once grasped by Rodney in some such another business as the letter speaks of, when its owner did not faint! It must not be touched by you!"

The elder Drysdale took, not long afterward, to his bed. He had been ailing for some time; but no question that mortification at his son's failure in the profession to which he had with so much pride devoted him, helped to weaken the springs of life and accelerate his end, which took place about six months after Edward's return home. The father and son had become entirely reconciled with each other, and almost the last accents which faltered from the lips of the dying seaman, were a prayer to Bradshaw to forget and forgive what had past, and renew his sanction to the marriage of Edward and his niece. The stern man was inexorable; and his pitiless reply was, that he would a thousand times rather follow Rachel to her grave.

The constancy of the young people was not, however, to be subdued, and something more than a year after Mr. Drysdale's death, they married; their present resources, the rents – about one hundred and twenty pounds per annum – of a number of small tenements at Exeter. They removed to within three miles of that city, and dwelt there in sufficiency and peace for about five years, when the exigencies of a fast-increasing family induced them to dispose, not very advantageously, of their cottage property, and embark the proceeds in a showy speculation promising, of course, immense results, and really ending in the brief space of six months in their utter ruin. Edward Drysdale found himself, in lieu of his golden hopes, worth about two hundred pounds less than nothing. The usual consequences followed. An undefended suit at law speedily reached the stage at which execution might be issued, and unless a considerable sum of money could be instantly raised, his furniture would be seized under a fi. fa., and sacrificed to no purpose.

One only possible expedient remained – that of once more endeavoring to soften the obduracy of Mr. Bradshaw. This it was finally determined to attempt, and Mr. and Mrs. Drysdale set off by a London morning coach upon the well-nigh hopeless speculation. They alighted at the "Hunter's Inn," where Drysdale remained, while his wife proceeded alone to Rodney Place. Thomas Burnham was friendly and good-natured as ever. The old mariner, he told Drysdale, was visibly failing, and his chief amusement seemed to be scraping together and hoarding up money. James Berry, a broken-down tailor, and a chap, according to Burnham, who knew how many beans made five as well as any man in Devonshire, had been for some time valet, gardener, and general factotum at Rodney Place, and appeared to exercise great influence over Mr. Bradshaw. The only other person in the establishment was the old cook, Margery Deans, who, never otherwise, since he had known her, than desperately hard of hearing, was now become deaf as a stone. Drysdale, it was afterward remembered, listened to all this with eager attention, and was especially inquisitive and talkative respecting Mr. Bradshaw's hoarding propensities, and the solitary, unprotected state in which he lived.

Mrs. Drysdale was long gone; but the tremulous hopes which her protracted stay called feebly forth, vanished at the sight of her pale, tearful, yet resolved aspect. "It is useless, Edward," she murmured, with her arms cast lovingly about her husband's neck, and looking in his face with far more lavish expression of affection than when, with orange blossoms in her hair, she stood a newly-consecrated wife beside him. "It is useless to expect relief from my uncle, save upon the heartless, impossible condition you know of. But let us home. God's heaven is still above our heads, though clouds and darkness rest between. We will trust in Him, Edward, and fear not!"

So brave a woman should have been matched with a stout-hearted man; but this, unhappily, was not the case. Edward Drysdale was utterly despondent, and he listened, as his wife was afterward fain to admit to myself and others, with impatient reluctance to all she said as they journeyed homeward, save when the condition of help spoken of, namely, that she should abandon her husband, and take up her abode with her children at Rodney Place, was discussed – by her indignantly. Once also, when she mentioned that the old will in her favor was not yet destroyed, but would be, her uncle threatened, if she did not soon return, a bright, almost fiery expression seemed to leap from his usually mild, reflective eyes, and partially dissipate the thick gloom which mantled his features.

This occurred on a winter's day in early March, and the evening up to seven o'clock had passed gloomily away with the Drysdales, when all at once the husband, starting from a profound reverie, said he would take a walk as far as Exeter, see the attorney in the suit against him, and, if possible, gain a little time for the arrangement of the debt. His wife acquiesced, though with small hope of any favorable result, and the strangely-abstracted man left the house.

Ten o'clock, the hour by which Edward Drysdale had promised to return, chimed from a dial on the mantle-piece. Mrs. Drysdale trimmed the fire, lit the candles, which, for economy's sake, she had extinguished, and had their frugal supper laid. He came not. Eleven o'clock! What could be detaining him so late? Twelve! – half-past twelve! Rachel Drysdale was just about to bid the servant-maid, who was sitting up in the kitchen, go to bed, when the sound of carriage-wheels going toward Exeter stopped at the door. It was a return post-chaise, and brought Edward Drysdale. He staggered, as if intoxicated, into the kitchen, reached down a half-bottle of brandy from a cupboard, and took it to the post-boy, who immediately drove off. Anne Moody, the servant-girl, was greatly startled by her master's appearance: he looked, she afterward stated, more the color of a whited wall, than of flesh and blood, and shook and "cowered," as if he had the ague. Mrs. Drysdale came into the kitchen, and stood gazing at her husband in a white, dumb kind of way (I am transcribing literally from the girl's statement), till the outer door was fastened, when they both went up-stairs into a front sitting-room. Curiosity induced Anne Moody to follow, and she heard, just as the door closed upon them, Mrs. Moody say, "You have not been to Exeter, I am sure?" This was said in a nervous, shaking, voice, and her master replied in the same tone, "No; I changed my mind," or words to that effect. Then there was a quick whispering for a minute or two, interrupted by a half-stifled cry or scream from Mrs. Drysdale. A sort of hubbub of words followed, which the girl – a very intelligent person of her class, by-the-by – could not hear, or at least not make out, till Mr. Drysdale said in a louder, slower way, "You, Rachel – the children are provided for; but, O God! at what a dreadful price!" Anne Moody, fearful of detection, did not wait to hear more, but crept stealthily up-stairs to bed, as her mistress had ordered her to do when she left the kitchen. On the following morning the girl found her master and mistress both up, the kitchen and parlor fires lit, and breakfast nearly over. Mr. Drysdale said he was in a hurry to get to Exeter, and they had not thought it worth while to call her at unseasonable hours. Both husband and wife looked wild and haggard, and this, Moody, when she looked into their bed-chamber, was not at all surprised at, as it was clear that neither of them had retired to rest. One thing and the other, especially kissing and fondling the children over and over again, detained Mr. Drysdale till half-past eight o'clock, and then, just as he was leaving the house, three men confronted him! A constable of the name of Parsons, James Berry, Mr. Bradshaw's servant, and Burnham, the landlord of the Hunter's Inn. They came to arrest him on a charge of burglary and murder! Mr. Bradshaw had been found early in the morning cruelly stabbed to death beside his plundered strong-box!

I must pass lightly over the harrowing scenes which followed – the tumultuous agony of the wife, and the despairing asseverations of the husband, impossible to be implicitly believed in even by that wife, for the criminating evidence was overwhelming. Drysdale had been seen skulking about Rodney Place till very late by both Burnham and Berry. In the room through which he must have passed in going and returning from the scene of his frightful crime, his hat had been found, and it was now discovered that he, Drysdale, had taken away and worn home one of Berry's – no doubt from hurry and inadvertence. In addition to all this, a considerable sum of money in gold and silver, inclosed in a canvas-bag, well known to have belonged to the deceased, was found upon his person! It appeared probable that the aim of the assassin had been only robbery in the first instance, for the corpse of the unfortunate victim was found clothed only in a night-dress. The fair inference, therefore, seemed to be that the robber, disturbed at his plunder by the wakeful old seaman, had been compelled, perhaps reluctantly, to add the dreadful crime of murder to that which he had originally contemplated. The outcry through the county was terrific, and as Edward Drysdale, by the advice of Mr. Sims, the attorney, who subsequently instructed Mr. Prince, reserved his defense, there appeared to be nothing of a feather's weight to oppose against the tremendous mass of circumstance arrayed against the prisoner.

And when, upon the arrival of the King's Commission at Exeter, Mr. Prince received a very full and carefully-drawn brief in defense – a specious, but almost wholly unsupported story of the prisoner's appeared all that could be relied upon in rebuttal of the evidence for the crown. According to Edward Drysdale, he merely sought Mr. Bradshaw upon the evening in question for the purpose of concluding with that gentleman an arrangement for the separation of himself from his wife and children, and their domiciliation at Rodney Place. It was further averred that he was received with greater civility than he expected; that the interview was a long one, during which he, Drysdale, had seen nobody but Mr. Bradshaw, although he believed the aged and deaf cook was in the kitchen. That he had arranged that Mrs. Drysdale and his children should be early on the morrow with her uncle, and that he had received the money found on his person and at his house from the deceased's own hands, in order to pay the debt and costs in the suit wherein execution was about to be levied on his furniture, and that the residue was to be applied to his, the prisoner's, own use. That the expressions deposed to by Anne Moody, and his own and Mrs. Drysdale's emotion after his return home, which had told so heavily against him in the examinations before the magistrates, were perfectly reconcilable with this statement – as, indeed, they were – and did not, therefore, bear the frightful meaning that had been attached to them. With respect to the change of hats, that might easily have happened, because his hat had been left on entering in the hall-passage, and in his hurry, in coming out by the same way, he had no doubt mistaken Berry's for his own; but he solemnly denied having been in the room, or near the part of the house where his hat was alleged to have been found. This was the gist of the explanation; but, unfortunately, it was not sustained by any receivable testimony in any material particular. True, Mrs. Drysdale, whom every body fully believed, declared that this account exactly coincided with what her husband told her immediately on arriving home in the post-chaise – but what of that? It was not what story the prisoner had told, nor how many times he had told it, that could avail, especially against the heavy improbabilities that weighed upon his, at first view, plausible statement. How was it that, knowing Mr. Bradshaw's almost insane dislike of himself, he did not counsel his wife to make terms with her uncle, preparatory to her returning to Rodney Place? And was it at all likely that Mr. Bradshaw, whose implacable humor Mrs. Drysdale had experienced on the very day previous to the murder, should have so suddenly softened toward the man he so thoroughly hated and despised? I trow not; and the first consultation on the case wore a wretchedly-dismal aspect, till the hawk-eye of Mr. Prince lit upon an assertion of Thomas Burnham's, that he had gone to Mr. Bradshaw's house upon some particular business at a quarter past twelve on the night of the murder, and had seen the deceased alive at that time, who had answered him, as he frequently did, from his bedroom window. "Rodney Place," said Mr. Prince, "is nine miles from Drysdale's residence. I understood you to say, Mr. Sims, that Mrs. Drysdale declares her husband was at home at twenty minutes to one?"

"Certainly she does; but the wife's evidence, you are aware, can not avail her husband."

"True; but the servant girl! The driver of the post-chaise! This is a vital point, and must be cleared up without delay."

I and Williams, Sims' clerk, set off instantly to see Mrs. Drysdale, who had not left her room since her husband's apprehension. She was confident it was barely so late as twenty minutes to one when the post-chaise drove up to the door. Her evidence was, however, legally inadmissible, and our hopes rested on Anne Moody, who was immediately called in. Her answer was exasperating. She had been asleep in the kitchen, and could not positively say whether it was twelve, one, or two o'clock when her master reached home. There was still a chance left – that of the post-chaise driver. He did not, we found, reach Exeter, a distance of three miles only from Mr. Drysdale's, till a quarter to three o'clock, and was then much the worse of liquor. So much for our chance of proving an alibi!

There was one circumstance perpetually harped upon by our bright, one-eyed friend of the Hunter's Inn; Cyclops, I and Williams called him. What had become of a large sum in notes paid, it was well known, to Mr. Bradshaw three or four days before his death? What also of a ruby ring, and some unset precious stones he had brought from abroad, and which he had always estimated, rightly or wrongly, at so high a price? Drysdale's house and garden had been turned inside out, but nothing had been found, and so for that matter had been Rodney Place, and its two remaining inmates had been examined with the like ill success. Burnham, who was excessively dissatisfied with the progress of affairs, swore there was an infernal mystery somewhere, and that he shouldn't sleep till he had ferreted it out. That was his business: ours was to make the best of the wretched materials at our disposal; but the result we all expected followed. The foregone conclusion of the jury that were empaneled in the case was just about to be formally recorded in a verdict of guilty, when a note was handed across to Mr. Sims. One Mr. Jay, a timber merchant, who had heard the evidence of the postillion, desired to be examined. This the judge at once consented to, and Mr. Jay deposed, that having left Exeter in his gig upon pressing business, at about two o'clock on the morning of the murder, he had observed a post-chaise at the edge of a pond about a mile and a half out of the city, where the jaded horses had been, he supposed, drinking. They were standing still, and the post-boy, who was inside, and had reins to drive with passed through the front windows, was fast asleep – a drunken sleep it seemed, and he, Mr. Jay, had to bawl for some time, and strike the chaise with his whip, before he could awake the man, who, at last, with a growl and a curse, drove on. He believed, but would not like to positively swear, that the postillion he had heard examined was that man. This testimony, strongly suggestive as it was, his lordship opined, did not materially affect the case; the jury concurred, and a verdict of guilty was pronounced and recorded amidst the death-like silence of a hushed and anxious auditory.

The unfortunate convict staggered visibly beneath the blow, fully expected, as it must have been, and a terrible spasm convulsed his features and shook his frame. It passed away; and his bearing and speech, when asked what he had to say why sentence of death should not be pronounced according to law, was not without a certain calm dignity and power, while his tones, tremulous, it is true, were silvery and unassuming as a child's.

"I can not blame the gentlemen of the jury," he said. "Their fatal verdict is, I am sure, as conscientious as God and myself know it to be erroneous – false! Circumstances are, I feel, strangely arrayed against me; and it has been my fate through life to be always harshly judged, save only by one whose truth and affection have shed over my checkered existence the only happiness it has ever known. I observed, too, the telling sneer of the prosecuting counsel, connecting the circumstances under which I left the navy with the cowardice of the deed with which I stand here accused – convicted, I suppose, I should say. I forgive that gentleman his cruel sneer as freely as I do you, gentlemen of the jury, your mistaken verdict – you, my lord, the death-sentence you are about to pronounce. The manner in which I hope to pass through the brief, but dark and bitter passage lying between me and the grave will, I trust, be a sufficient answer to the taunt of cowardice, and the future vindication of my innocence, not for my own, but my wife and children's sake, I confidently leave them to Him into whose hands I shall soon, untimely, render up my spirit. This is all I have to say."

The prisoner's calm, simple, unhurried words, produced a marvelous effect upon the court and auditory. The judge, Chief Baron Macdonald, a conscientious, and somewhat nervous man, paused in the act of assuming the black-cap, and presently said, rather hastily, "Let the prisoner be removed; I will pass sentence to-morrow." The court then immediately adjourned.

I was miserably depressed in spirits, which the cold, sleety weather that greeted us on emerging from the hot and crowded court considerably increased. I was thinking – excuse the seeming bathos – I was only a clerk, and used to such tragedies; I was thinking, I say, that a glass of brandy and water might not be amiss, when whom should I rudely jostle against but Cyclops, alias Thomas Burnham. He was going the same way as myself in prodigious haste – his eye bright and flaming as a live coal, and his whole manner denoting intense excitement. "Is that you?" he broke out. "Come along, then, and quick, for the love of God! I've missed Sims and his clerk, but you'll do as well; perhaps better." I had no power, if I had the inclination to refuse, for the enthusiastic man seized me by the arm, and hurried me along at a tremendous rate toward the outskirts of the city. "This is the place," he exclaimed, as he burst into a tavern parlor, where two trunks had been deposited. "He's not come yet," Burnham went on, "but the coach is to call for him here. He thinks to be off to London this very night."

"Whom are you talking of? Who's off to London to-night?"

"James Berry, if he's clever enough! Look there!"

"I see; 'James Berry, Passenger, London.' These, then, are his trunks, I suppose."

"Right, my boy; but there is nothing of importance in them. Sly, steady-going Margery has well ascertained that. You know Margery? – but hush! here he comes."

Berry – it was he – could not repress a nervous start, as he unexpectedly encountered Burnham's burly person and fierce glare.

"You here?" he stammered, as he mechanically took a chair by the fire. "Who would have thought it?"

"Not you, Jim, I'm sure; it must be, therefore, an unexpected pleasure. I'm come to have a smoke and a bit of chat with you, Berry – there isn't a riper Berry than you are in the kingdom – before you go to London, Jim – do you mark? – before you go to London – ha, ha! ho, ho! But, zounds! how pale and shaky you're looking, and before this rousing fire, too! D – n thee, villain!" shouted Burnham, jumping suddenly up from his chair, and dashing his pipe to fragments on the floor. "I can't play with thee any longer. Tell me – when did the devil teach thee to stuff coat-collars with the spoils of murdered men, eh?"

A yell of dismay escaped Berry, and he made a desperate rush to get past Burnham. Vainly did so. The fierce publican caught him by the throat, and held him by a grip of steel. "You're caught, scoundrel! – nicked, trapped, found out, and by whom, think you? Why, by deaf, paralytic, Margery, whose old eyes have never wearied in watching you from the hour you slew and robbed her good old master till to-day, when you dreamed yourself alone, and she discovered the mystery of the coat-collar."

"Let me go!" gasped the miscreant, down whose pallid cheeks big drops of agony were streaming. "Take all, and let me go."

A fierce imprecation followed by a blow, replied to the despairing felon. A constable, attracted by the increasing uproar, soon arrived; the thick coat-collar was ripped, and in it were found a considerable sum in Exeter notes – the ruby ring, and other valuables well known to have belonged to Mr. Bradshaw. Berry was quickly lodged in jail. A true bill was returned the next day by the grand jury before noon, and by the time the clock struck four, the murderer was, on his own confession, convicted of the foul crime of which a perfectly innocent man had been not many hours before pronounced guilty! A great lesson this was felt to be at the time in Exeter, and in the western country generally. A lesson of the watchfulness of Providence over innocent lives; of rebuke to the self-sufficing infallibility of men, however organized or empaneled, and of patience under unmerited obloquy and slander.

Edward Drysdale was, I need hardly say, liberated by the king's pardon – pardoned for an uncommitted offense, and he and his true-hearted wife, the heiress of her uncle, are still living, I believe, in competence, content, and harmony.

A PRISON-SCENE DURING THE REIGN OF TERROR

I was mentioning one day to an old friend and fellow-rambler of mine the pleasure I had derived from a visit to the Palais du Luxembourg, in Paris. "Oh," said he, "my recollections of the Luxembourg Palace are any thing but pleasant. One entire generation has passed away, and a second has followed far on the same road, since I entered it; but were I to live to the age of an antediluvian, I imagine the remembrance of the period which I passed in the Luxembourg would dwell with me to the last hour of my life."

These words naturally raised my curiosity, and, from the character of the speaker, whom I had known for many years as a man of much and varied knowledge and unimpeachable probity, also aroused my sympathy; I pressed him, therefore, to favor me with the incidents which had made so indelible an impression upon his mind. He made no difficulty of complying with my request; but, stirring the fire, and leaning back in his easy chair, delivered his brief narrative very nearly in the following words.

You do not perhaps remember that the Palais du Luxembourg was at one period used as a prison. Some of those splendid saloons which you so much admire were once bordered with cells hastily erected with rough planks, the centre of the area being used as a common room for the whole of the prisoners. When the Revolution of 1798 broke out in France, I was the junior partner of an English house doing business in a certain kind of merchandise in the Rue St. Honoré. I was very young, almost a lad, indeed, but I had invested the whole of my small fortune in the concern. I was active and sedulous, and I devoted my entire energies to the prosecution of our joint interests, which throve considerably. When the troubles came, my partners, who conceived that they had grounds for apprehension, resolved to quit the country; and they offered me the whole of the business upon terms so advantageous that I did not feel justified in refusing them. I had never meddled with politics (for which, indeed, I had no talent or inclination), I was too young to have any enemies or to be suspected of partisanship; so I closed with the offer that was made me, and resolved to brave the perils of the time, making my business the sole object of my care and solicitude, and leaving all things else to take their course. I pursued this plan rigidly, avoiding all participation in the excitement of the period, and not even conversing on the subject of public affairs, concerning which upon all occasions I professed, what indeed was the truth, that I knew nothing. I went on thus for some years, and amidst all the horrors and vicissitudes of the Revolution my business throve prosperously. I experienced no sort of interruption – never received a single domiciliary visit from any one of the factions upon whom the sovereign authority so suddenly devolved – and, to all appearance, had escaped suspicion under each and all of the rapidly-changing dynasties. I had well-nigh doubled my wealth by unwearied diligence, and had long banished all thought of peril in the course I was pursuing, when, one rainy night in the summer of 1793, I was roused from my rest after I had been a full hour asleep in bed, compelled to hurry on a few clothes at a minute's notice, pushed into a carriage waiting at my door, and driven off to a midnight tribunal. Arrived at the Hôtel de Ville, I requested to hear the charge which had been made against me but was desired to hold my peace. I was brought there for identification, and not for a hearing, the ruffian in office informed me, and it would be time enough for me to hear the charge when I was called upon to answer it. It was in vain that I pleaded the injustice of such a proceeding; I was obliged to submit to their pleasure. A pen was put into my hand, and I was ordered to write my protest, if I had any to make. I did so in a few words, claiming protection as a French citizen. The presiding scoundrel pretended to compare my writing with some imaginary seditious document of which it was not possible that I could have been the author, and at once committed me to prison. I was kept in waiting while some other pretended examinations were gone through, and then, in company with three more unfortunates, was driven off to the Luxembourg, where, at about two o'clock in the morning, I was bundled into a cell furnished with a straw paillasse and rug, a deal table and a single chair, and lighted by a small lamp suspended aloft out of my reach.

When I could find time to reflect upon the sudden calamity which had overtaken me, I could come to no other conclusion than that I had been made the victim of the cupidity of some villain or villains who had contrived to incarcerate me out of the way, while they made a plunder of my property. The imputation of seditious correspondence, which I knew to be nothing but a pretense, bore me out in this conjecture; and upon thinking the matter over again and again, I came to the conviction at last, that, bad as the matter was, it might have been much worse. I thought I saw that there was little chance of my being brought up for trial, as it would be more for the interest of my enemies, whoever they were, to keep me out of the way, than to bring me before a tribunal which might or might not condemn me to death, but which could hardly fail of discovering the motive of my abduction and imprisonment. Thus I got rid of the fear of the guillotine, and I soon found another cause for gratulation in the fact that I had not been searched. I had a considerable sum of money in my pocket-book, and, by a piece of good fortune, the book containing my banking-account was in the breast-pocket of my overcoat, which I had put on on the previous evening in consequence of a sudden storm, and which, on hearing the pattering rain, I had instinctively seized upon coming away. Before I lay down upon my miserable couch I contrived effectually to secrete my valuables, in the fear that they might be abstracted in case I should be so fortunate as to sleep. I had been locked in by the jailer, and I imagined that the ten square feet which limited my view would confine all my motions during the term of my imprisonment. In spite of all my anxieties and the disagreeable novelty of my position, I fell off to slumber about sunrise, and into a pleasant dream of home in England, and the sunny fields of childhood.

I was awoke soon after seven o'clock by the sound of laughter and loud voices mingled with the twanging of a lute. I started up, and seeing that the door of my cell was standing ajar, I bent forward and looked out. My apparition in a red night-cap was received with a burst of merriment loud and prolonged from some fifty well-dressed individuals seated on chairs or lounging on tables in the centre of a large arena, surrounded on all sides with cells, the counterpart of my own. They hailed me as "Le Bonnet Rouge," and wished me joy of my advent among them. Making my toilet as speedily as possible, I joined them with the best grace I could, and requested to be allowed the pleasure of their society, if, as I supposed from what I saw, the rules of the prison permitted me the indulgence. A young man politely stepped forward, and volunteered to instruct me in the constitution and the etiquette of the society into which I had been so abruptly introduced. He was the model of courtesy and good breeding, and soon initiated me into the mysteries of the association which the prisoners had set on foot for the purpose of relieving the tedium of confinement, and for banishing the gloomy shadow of speedy and certain death impending over the major part of them. He informed me that we were at liberty either to take our meals in common at the general table in the saloon where we then were, or to withdraw with our several messes to our own cells; but that no gentleman who could not show a cheerful countenance, under the peculiar circumstances of the case, was expected to make his appearance either at dinner or supper, or, indeed, in the saloon at all, save for the purpose of periodical exercise. He argued that a dejected and sorrowful face, though it might be allowable in the case of a solitary prisoner, was clearly an offense against the whole assembly, each of whom having his own burden to bear, was entitled to at least as good an example of courage as he could furnish himself; and that upon those grounds they had come to the understanding, which was perfectly well known and acted upon among them, that those who had not sufficient fortitude to oppose a smile to the scowl of Fate should confine their sorrows to their own cabins, and not disturb the enjoyments, short-lived as they were, nor unsettle the constancy of their fellows by the parade of unavailing dejection. He added, that if I could conduce to the amusement of their circle by any means, no matter how, I should be regarded in the light of a benefactor; that they had music, public debates, and dramatic representations, though without scenery or appropriate dresses; and that in all or any of these amusements I might take a part if I chose, and might feel sure of their candid appreciation of my endeavors. He then, with the utmost sang froid, gave me to understand that their first violin would that morning leave them, though he would give them a parting cavatina before he mounted the tumbril, which would call on its way to the guillotine about twelve o'clock. Fifteen other gentlemen of their community were bound on the same voyage; they were liable to such deductions from their social circle, he was sorry to say – and he shrugged his shoulders – on occasions far too frequent for their repose; but then they were constantly receiving fresh additions, and their number was generally very nearly if not quite complete. He told me that among the twenty or thirty gentlemen conversing so cheerfully at the next table, seven would die that morning, and apologized for not pointing out the particular individuals, on the score of its being hardly polite to do so.

I was perfectly horrified at the communication of my voluble companion. Though living so long in the very centre and focus of revolution, I had kept so carefully clear of the terrible drama which had been acting, and had been so wrapped up in my own concerns, that I was altogether unprepared for the recognition of such a state of feeling on the subject of certain, sudden, and murderous death, as I now found existing around me. It required all the courage and self-control I was master of to repress the natural exclamations of dismay that rose to my lips. I thanked my new friend for his courtesy, expressed my determination not to appear in the social circle at any time when my spirits were not up to the mark, and, bowing ceremoniously, withdrew to my own cell to ruminate alone upon what I had heard. You may imagine what passed in my mind. I had been religiously educated in a Protestant country; I had never, even in France, neglected the daily duties of religion. I had knelt, morning, and evening, from my earliest childhood, to my father's God; and I had devoutly sought the especial direction of his providence both in taking the step which led me to Paris in the first instance, and in that which had fixed me there when my partners had fled in apprehension of calamity. The idea of death had been to me always one of unmingled solemnity; and the thought of opposing laughter and merriment to the grim aspect of the grisly king was abhorrent to my imagination. I remained all the morning in my cell, a prey to miserable and anxious thought. I heard the cavatina played with firmness and brilliancy by the musician who knew to a certainty that within an hour he would be a headless corpse. I heard the tumbril drive up to the door which was to convey sixteen of my fellow-prisoners to feed the dripping ax. I saw them defile past my cell as the jailer checked them off on his list, and heard them respond gayly to the "Bon voyage" of their companions ere they departed in the fatal cart which was to carry them "out of the world."

There is, however, a force in circumstances strong enough to overcome the habits and instincts of a life-time. I had not been a month in the Luxembourg before the idea of death by violence, once so terrible and appalling, began to assume a very different aspect in my mind. Our society consisted of above a hundred in number, and the major part of them, incarcerated for political offenses, were but in the position of losers in a game in which they had played the stake of life for the chance of power. They paid the penalty as readily and as recklessly as they had played the game; and the spectacle which their fate presented to my view, though it never reconciled me to their repulsive indifference to the importance of life, yet gradually undermined my own estimate of its value. Every means of amusement that could be thought of was resorted to for diversion. Plays were acted night after night, the female characters being personated by the youngest of the party in robes borrowed from the wardrobe of the jailer's wife. Concerts were got up, and the songs of all nations were sung with much taste to the accompaniment of the lute in the hands of an old professor, who, it afterward came out, had been imprisoned by mistake, because he bore the name of an offender. Card-parties sat down to play every evening; and men would continue the game, and deal the cards with a steady hand, though they heard their names called over in the list of those who were to grace the guillotine on the morrow. It was rare that executions followed on two successive days; there was often, indeed, a respite for a fortnight together; but I noticed with a shudder that, whenever the cells were all occupied, an execution, and usually of a large number, speedily followed.

Months passed away. I was unhappy beyond expression, from the want of sympathy and of occupation. I had been allowed to receive a box of clothes and linen from my residence; and my servant had put a few English books into the box, with a design to relieve the tedium of confinement. Among the books was Baxter's "Call to the Unconverted." It came into my head that I might find occupation in translating this work into French, and that by circulating it very cheaply among the populace I might perhaps do something to stem the course of bloodshed and profanity in which all seemed hurrying headlong forward. I procured writing-materials, and shutting myself up several hours a day in my cell, commenced the translation. I did not make very rapid progress; my attention was too much distracted by what was going on around me to permit me to do much during the day. At eleven at night we were locked in our cells, and then I generally wrote for a quiet hour before going to bed.

I had been thus engaged for some three or four months, and had completed more than half my undertaking, when, as I sat one morning at my writing, one of the attendants knocked at my cell door, and announced a visitor in the person of an Englishman, who, having been consigned to prison, had inquired if any of his fellow-countrymen were in confinement, and having been referred to me, now sought an introduction. I rose, of course, immediately, and proceeded to offer him such welcome as the place afforded. He was a man already stricken in years of a rather forbidding aspect, but with the fire of intellect in his restless eye. He introduced himself to me as Thomas Paine, the author of the "Rights of Man," and he hoped he might add, the consistent friend of liberty, though for the present at least, he had lost his own. I condoled with him as well as I could, and assisted in installing him in a cell next to mine which happened to be vacant. I may confess that I was much more astonished than gratified by the accession of such a companion; but as he never sought to intrude upon my privacy, I was enabled to proceed with my work unmolested. I made him acquainted with the etiquette of the prison, and the necessity of a cheerful face if he went into company; and he warmly approved of the regulation, though he rarely complied with it, as he kept himself almost constantly in his cell. He wrote for several hours every day; and told me that he was approaching fast toward the completion of a work, which, under the title of "The Age of Reason," would one day make a noise in the world, and do something toward putting the forces of Priestcraft to the rout. At my request, he lent me a portion of the manuscript, which having perused with indignation, I returned with my unqualified condemnation, at which he laughed good-humoredly, and said I had been too effectually nursed in prejudices to be able to judge impartially. I did not return the confidence with which he had honored me by making him acquainted with the purpose for which I was laboring. The winter of '93-94 was nearly over before I had got my manuscript in a fit condition to be put into the hands of the printer. I remember being much troubled in the preparation of the last few pages by the crowded state of the prison. Not only were all the cells occupied, but a full half of them contained a couple of inmates each, and I was obliged myself to purchase immunity from partnership with a stranger at a considerable sum. We who had been long in prison knew well enough what to look for from such a state of things, and every night after supper we expected the summons of the bell which preceded the reading over of the black list. It came at last after a respite of eighteen days, an interval which had caused many to hope that these judicial slaughters were at an end. The first stroke of the bell produced a dead silence, and we listened with horror while twenty-seven names were deliberately called over, together with the numbers of the cells in which their owners domiciled. I saw Mr. Paine seated in his cell, and clutching the door in his hand, as he looked sternly through the partial opening upon the face of the jailer as he read over the list. When it was concluded, he shut himself in, and I heard him moving about at intervals during the whole night. I did not sleep myself, and I felt sure that he did not attempt to sleep.

When the victims were mustered the next morning previous to the arrival of the tumbrils which were to bear them to death, the jailer declared that the number was short by one; that he was bound to furnish the full complement of twenty-eight, which he asserted was the number he had read off the night before. He was requested to refer to the list, and read it again; but, by some strange management this could not be found.

"Gentlemen," said the jailer, "you must manage it among you somehow: it is as much as my own head is worth – though to be sure heads are at a discount just now – to send short weight in bargains of this sort. Be so good as to settle it among yourselves." At these words a volunteer stepped forward. "What signifies a day or two more or less?" he cried, "I will go! Gentlemen, do not trouble yourselves – the affair is finished!" A light murmur of applause was deemed a sufficient reward for his gratuitous act of self-devotion, which under different circumstances might have won an immortality of fame. The voluntary victim could have been barely five-and-twenty. He was allowed to lead off the dance in the grim tragedy of the morning. He did so with an alacrity altogether and exceedingly French. I do not recollect his name; his exploit was no more than a three days' wonder.