Chapter 7
CHAPTER III.
Let the reader transport himself to a small stone cottage on the Hudson, and he will behold me as I was at the age of twenty-one. I had reached that acme of woman's career when common sense is to her as nothing, and the world with all its follies bursts upon her ravished ears with ten-fold succulence. My grandfather had been dead some fifty years, and I was even thinking of him, when the door opened, and Mr. Higgins entered. I felt my heart palpitate, and was about to quit the room, when he cast a searching glance at me, and said:
"Well, girl--are you as big a fool as ever?"
I hung my head, for the tell-tale blush _would_ bloom.
"Come," said Mr. Higgins, "don't speak like a donkey. I'm no priestly confessor. Curse the priests! Curse the world! Curse everybody! Curse everything!" And he placed his feet upon the mantel-piece, and gazed meditatively into the fire.
I could hear the beatings of my own heart, and all the warmth of my nature went forth to meet this sublime embodiment of human majesty; yet I dared not speak.
After a short silence, Mr. Higgins took a chew of tobacco, and placing his hand on my shoulder, exclaimed:
"Why should I deceive you, girl? Last night I poisoned my only remaining sister because she would have wed a circus-keeper, and scarcely an hour ago I lost two millions at faro. Your priests would say this was wrong--hey?"
I stifled my sobs and said, as calmly as I could:
"Our Church looks at the motive, not the deed. If a high sense of honor compelled you to poison all your relatives and play faro, the sin was rather the effect of vice in others than in your own n.o.ble heart, and I doubt not you may be called innocent."
He glanced into the fire a few hours, and then said:
"Go, Galus.h.i.+anna!--I would be alone! Go, innocent young scorpion."
Oh, Higgins, Higgins, if I could have died for thee then, I don't know but I should have done it!
CHAPTER IV.
Seventy-five years have rolled by since last I met the reader, and I am still a thoughtless girl. But oh, how changed! The raven of despair has flapped his hideous brood over the
When I look back I can see nothing before me, and when I look forward I can see nothing behind me. Thus it is with life. We fancy that each hour is a b.u.t.terfly made to play with, and all is gall and bitterness.
I was chastened by misfortune, and occupied a secluded cavern in the city of New Orleans, when my faithful old nurse entered my dressing-room, and burst into a fit of hysterical laughter.
"Sa.s.safrina!" I exclaimed, half angrily.
"Please don't be angry, miss," responded the tired old creature; "but I knew it would come all right at last. I told you Sir Claude Higgins hadn't married his youngest sister, but you wouldn't believe me. Now he's down stairs in the parlor waiting for you."
And the attached domestic fell dead at my feet.
After hastily putting on a pair of clean stockings and reading a chapter in my mother's family Bible, I left the room, murmuring to myself, "Be still, my throbbing heart, be still."
CHAPTER V.
When I entered the parlor, Mr. Higgins sat gazing into the fire in an att.i.tude of deep reflection, and did not note my entrance until I had touched him. His dishevelled hair hung from his ma.s.sive temples in majestic discomposure, and an extinguished torch lay smouldering at his glorious feet.
O my soul's idol! I can see thee now as I saw thee then, with the firelight glowing over thee, like a smile from the cerulean skies!
As I touched him, he awoke.
"Miserable girl!" he exclaimed, in those old familiar tones, drawing me towards him, while a delicious tremor shook my every nerve. "Wretched little serpent! And is it thus we meet? Poor idiot, you are but a woman, and I--alas! what am I? Two hours ago, I set fire to three churches, and crushed a s.e.xton 'neath my iron heel. Do you not shrink? 'Tis well. Then hear me, viper, _I lovest thee_."
Was it the music of a higher sphere that I smelt, or was I still in this world of folly and sin? And were all my toils, my cares, my heart-breathings, my hope-sobbings, my soul-writhings to end thus gloriously at last in the adoration of a being on whom I lavished all the spirit's purest gloatings?
My bliss was more than I could endure. Tearing all the hair-pins from my hair and tying my pocket handkerchief about my heaving neck, I flung myself upon his steaming chest.
"_My_ Higgins!"
"YOUR Higgins!!"
"OUR Higgins!!!"
THE BLISSFUL FINIS.
The intellectual women of America draw it rather tempestuously when they try to reproduce gorgeous manhood; but they mean well, my boy,--they mean well.
Yours, in a brown study,
ORPHEUS C. KERR.
LETTER X.
MAKING CONSERVATIVE MENTION OF THE BATTLE OF BULL RUN AND ITS EVENTS.
THE FIRE-ZOUAVE'S VERSION OF THE AFFAIR, AND SO ON.
WAs.h.i.+NGTON, D.C., July 28th, 1861.
We have met the enemy at last, my boy; but I don't see that he's ours.
We went after him with flying banners, and I noticed when we came back that they were flying still! Honor to the brave who fell on that b.l.o.o.d.y field! and may we kill enough secessionists to give each of them a monument of Southern skulls!
I was present at the great battle, my boy, and appointed myself a special guard of one of the baggage-wagons in the extreme rear. The driver saw me coming, and says he:
"You can't cut behind this here wehicle, my fine little boy."
I looked at him for a moment, after the manner of the late great actor, Mr. Kirby, and says I:
"Soldier, hast thou a wife?"