The Ancient City

Brave Aunt Di! The first stupor over, how she rallied like a Trojan to the fight!

We went out narrow little Charlotte Street – the business avenue of the town.

“A few years ago there was not a sign in St. Augustine,” said John. “People kept a few things for sale in a room on the ground-floor of their dwellings, and you must find them out as best you could. They seemed to consider it a favor that they allowed you to come in and buy. They tolerated you, nothing more.”

“It is beyond any thing, their ideas of business,” said Aunt Diana. “The other day we went into one of the shops to look at some palmetto hats. The mistress sat in a rocking-chair slowly fanning herself. ‘We wish to look at some hats,’ I said. ‘There they are,’ she replied, pointing toward the table. She did not rise, but continued rocking and fanning with an air that said, ‘Yes, I sell hats, but under protest, mind you.’ After an unaided search I found a hat which might have suited me with a slight alteration – five minutes’ work, perhaps. I mentioned what changes I desired, but the mistress interrupted me with, ‘We never alter trimmings.’ ‘But this will not take five minutes,’ I began; ‘just take your scissors and – ’ ‘Oh, I never do the work myself,’ replied Majestic, breaking in again with a languid smile; ‘and really I do not know of any one who could do it at present. Now you Northern ladies are different, I suppose.’ ‘I should think we were,’ I said, laying down the hat and walking out of the little six-by-nine parlor.”

“I wonder if the people still cherish any dislike, against the Northerners?” I said, when Aunt Di had finished her story with a general complaint against the manners of her own sex when they undertake to keep shop, North or South.

“Some of the Minorcans do, I think,” said John; “and many of the people regret the incursion of rich winter residents, who buy up the land for their grand mansions, raise the prices of every thing, and eventually will crowd all the poorer houses beyond the gates. But there are very few of the old leading families left here now. The ancien régime has passed away, the new order of things is distasteful to them, and they have gone, never to return.”

Turning into St. George Street, we found at the northern end of the town the old City Gates, the most picturesque ruin of picturesque St. Augustine. The two pillars are moresque, surmounted by a carved pomegranate, and attached are portions of the wall, which, together with an outer ditch, once extended from the Castle of San Marco, a short distance to the east, across the peninsula to the San Sebastian, on the west, thus fortifying the town against all approaches by land. The position of St. Augustine is almost insular. Tide-water sweeps up around and behind it, and to this and the ever-present sea-breeze must be attributed the wonderful health of the town, which not only exists, but is pre-eminent, in spite of a neglect of sanitary regulations which would not be endured one day in the villages of the North.

Passing through the old gateway, we came out upon the Shell Road, the grand boulevard of the future, as yet but a few yards in length.

“They make about ten feet a year,” said John; “and when they are at work, all I can say unto you is, ‘Beware!’ You suppose it is a load of empty shells they are throwing down; but no. Have they time, forsooth, to take out the oysters, these hard-pressed workmen of St. Augustine? By no means; and so down they go, oysters and all, and the road makes known its extension on the evening breezes.”

The soft moonlight lay on the green waste beyond the gates, lighting up the North River and its silver sand-hills. The old fort loomed up dark and frowning, but the moonlight shone through its ruined turrets, and only the birds of the night kept watch on its desolate battlements. The city lay behind us. It had never dared to stretch much beyond the old gates, and the few people who did live outside were spoken of as very far off – a sort of Bedouins of the desert encamping temporarily on the green. As we went on the moonlight lighted up the white head-stones of a little cemetery on the left side of the road.

“This is one of the disappointing cemeteries that was ‘nothing to speak of,’ I suppose,” said Sara.

“It is the Protestant cemetery,” replied John, “remarkable only for its ugliness and the number of inscriptions telling the same sad story of strangers in a strange land – persons brought here in quest of health from all parts of the country, only to die far away from home.”

“Where is the old Huguenot burying-ground?” asked Aunt Di.

“The Huguenots, poor fellows, never had a burying-ground, nor so much even as a burying, as far as I can learn,” said Sara.

“But there is one somewhere,” pursued Aunt Di. “I have heard it described as a spot of much interest.”

“That has been a standing item for years in all the Florida guide-books,” said John, “systematically repeated in the latest editions. They will give up a good deal, but that cherished Huguenot cemetery they must and will retain. The Huguenots, poor fellows, as Miss St. John says, never had a cemetery here, and it is only within comparatively modern times that there has been any Protestant cemetery whatever. Formerly the bodies of all persons not Romanists were sent across to the island for sepulture.”

The Shell Road having come to an end, we walked on in the moonlight, now on little grass patches, now in the deep sand, passing a ruined stone wall, all that was left of a pleasant home, destroyed, like many other outlying residences, during the war. The myrtle thickets along the road-side were covered with the clambering curling sprays of the yellow jasmine, the lovely wild flower that brings the spring to Florida. We stopped to gather the wreaths of golden blossoms, and decked ourselves with them, Southern fashion. Every one wears the jasmine. When it first appears every one says, “Have you seen it? It has come!” And out they go to gather it, and bring it home in triumph.

Passing through the odd little wicket, which, with the old-fashioned turnstile, is used in Florida instead of a latched gate, we found ourselves in a green lane bordered at the far end with cedars. Here, down on the North River, was the Rose Garden, now standing with its silent house fast asleep in the moonlight.

“I do not see Iris,” said Aunt Diana, anxiously.

“There is somebody over on the other side of the hedge,” said Sara.

We looked, and beheld two figures bending down and apparently scratching in the earth with sticks.

“What in the world are they doing?” said Aunt Diana. “They can not be sowing seed in the middle of the night, can they?”

“They look like two ghouls,” said Sara, “and one of them has – yes, I am sure one of them has a bone.”

“It is Miss Sharp and the Professor,” said John.

It was. We streamed over in a body and confronted them. “So interesting!” began Miss Sharp, in explanatory haste. “At various times the fragments of no less than eight skeletons have been discovered here, it seems, and we have been so fortunate as to secure a relic, a valuable Huguenot relic;” and with pride she displayed her bone.

“Of course,” said Sara, “a massacre! What did I tell you, Martha, about their arising from the past and glaring at me?”

“Miss Sharp,” began Aunt Diana, grimly, “where is Iris?”

“Oh, she is right here, the dear child. Iris! Iris!”

But no Iris appeared.

“I assure you she has not left my side until – until now,” said the negligent shepherdess, peering about the shadowy garden. “Iris! Iris!”

“And pray, Miss Sharp, how long may be your ‘now?’ ” demanded Aunt Diana, with cutting emphasis.

This feminine colloquy had taken place at one side. The Professor dug on meanwhile with eager enthusiasm, only stopping to hand John another relic which he had just unearthed.

“Thank you,” said John, gravely; “but I could not think of depriving you.”

“Oh, I only meant you to hold it a while for me,” replied the Professor.

On the front steps leading to the piazza of the sleeping house we found the two delinquents. They rose as we came solemnly up the path.

“Why, Aunt Di, is that you? Who would have thought of your coming out here at this time of night?” began Iris, in her most innocent voice. The Captain stood twirling his blonde mustache with the air of a disinterested outsider.

“Don’t make a fuss, Aunt Di,” I whispered, warningly, under my breath. “It can’t be helped now. Take it easy; it’s the only way.”

Poor Aunt Di – take it easy! She gave a sort of gulp, and then came up equal to the occasion. “You may well be surprised, my dear,” she said, in a brisk tone, “but I have long wished to see the Rose Garden, and by moonlight the effect, of course, is much finer; quite – quite sylph-like, I should say,” she continued, looking around at the shadowy bushes. “We were out for a little stroll, Niece Martha, Miss St. John, and myself, and meeting Mr. Hoffman, he mentioned that you were out here, and so we thought we would stroll out and join you. Charming night, Captain?”

The Captain thought it was; and all the dangerous places having been thus nicely coated over, we started homeward. The roses grew in ranks between two high hedges, and blossomed all the year round. They were all asleep now on their stems, the full-bosomed, creamy beauties, the delicate white sylphs, and the gorgeous crimson sirens; but John woke up a superb souvenir-de-Malmaison, and fastened it in Iris’s dark hair: her hat, as usual, hung on her arm. Aunt Diana felt herself a little comforted; evidently the undoubted Knickerbocker antecedents were not frightened off by this midnight escapade, and Iris certainly looked enchantingly lovely in the moonlight, with her white dress and the rose in her hair. If Mokes were only here, and reconciled too. Happy thought! why should Mokes know? Aunt Diana was a skillful general: Mokes never knew.

“How large and still the house looks!” I said, as we turned toward the wicket; “who lives there?”

“Only the Rose Gardener,” answered John; “an old bachelor who loves his flowers and hates womankind. He lives all alone in his great airy house, cooks his solitary meals, tends his roses, and no doubt enjoys himself extremely.”

“Oh yes, extremely,” said Sara, in a sarcastic tone.

“You speak whereof you do know, I suppose, Miss St. John!”

“Precisely; I have tried the life, Mr. Hoffman.”

The Professor joined us at the gate, radiant and communicative. “All this soil, you will observe, is mingled with oyster shells to the depth of several feet,” he began. “This was done by the Spaniards for the purpose of enriching the ground. Ah! Miss Iris, I did not at first perceive you in the shadow. You have a rose, I see. Although – ahem – not given to the quotation of poetry, nevertheless there is one verse which, with your permission, I will now repeat as applicable to the present occasion:

“ ‘Fair Phillis walks the dewy green;
A happy rose lies in her hair;
But, ah! the roses in her cheeks
Are yet more fair!’ ”

“Pray, Miss Sharp, can you not dispense with that horrible bone?” said Aunt Diana, in an under-tone. “Really, it makes me quite nervous to see it dangling.”

“Oh, certainly,” replied the governess, affably, dropping the relic into her pocket. “I myself, however, am never nervous where science is concerned.”

“Over there on the left,” began the Professor again, “is the site of a little mission church built as long ago as 1592 on the banks of a tide-water creek. A young Indian chieftain, a convert, conceiving himself aggrieved by the rules of the new religion, incited his followers to attack the missionary. They rushed in upon him, and informed him of his fate. He reasoned with them, but in vain; and at last, as a final request, he obtained permission to celebrate mass before he died. The Indians sat down on the floor of the little chapel, the father put on his robes and began. No doubt he hoped to soften their hearts by the holy service, but in vain; the last word spoken, they fell upon him and – ”