HAVING got rid of the major, I desired to change my clothing before supper, and was shown to a snug little room up stairs by a damsel of such exquisite beauty and bashfulness, that my whole soul seemed melting within me, so quickly did her charms enslave me. In answer to a question that hung trembling upon my lips, and which I had only power to put in broken accents, for she passed me the candle, and as she did so, I touched her hand, and saw her bosom heave gently, and her eyes fill with liquid light, out of which came the language of love, she said, with a smile and a lisp, that they called her Bessie. Nature had been all bountiful in bestowing her gifts, for surely, thought I, the nation can boast of no prettier Bessie. I thought of the garden of Eden, of the palm groves of Campania, of every rural beauty that just then beguiled my fancies. But in neither of them did there seem happiness for me without Bessie for the idol of my worship. I had, indeed, touched the hidden spring of her sympathy, and as it gushed forth in unison with my own, I read the flutterings of her heart in her crimsoning cheeks, and contemplated the bounties of that Providence which forgets not the humblest of its creatures. "Oh, sir," said she, "what will my father say?" and she attempted a frown, and started back as I stole a kiss of the cheek now suffused with blushes. Then with an arch toss of the head, she turned her great black eyes rogueishly upon me, and said in a half whisper that I must not attempt it again. But I could not resist the magic of her glance, while, together with the cherry-like freshness of her lips, and the raven blackness of those glossy curls that hung so ravishingly over her fair blushing cheeks, discovering a delicately arched brow, and enhancing the sweetness of her oval face, carried me away captive, and made it seem as if heaven had created our loves to flow on in one unhallowed stream of joy. Her dapper figure was neatly set off with a dress of black silk, buttoned close about the neck, and showing the symmetry of her bust to great advantage; and over this she wore an apron of brown silk, gimped at the edge, and her collar and wristbands were of snowy white linen. "Heaven knows I would not harm thee, for thou art even too fair; only a knave would rob one so innocent." And I held her tremblingly by the hand, in the open door, as she attempted to draw herself away, beseeching me with a bewitching glance to "remember her youth." Bessie was the landlord's daughter; and though she was scarce passed her seventeenth summer, had became so famous for her beauty, as to number her admirers in every village of the county; and many were the travelers that way who tarried to do homage to her charms. I had just raised her warm hand to my lips, hoping, after I had kissed it, to engage her in conversation, when the door of a room on the opposite side of the passage opened, and a queer little man, with a hump on his back, and otherwise deformed, issued therefrom, and with a nervous step hurried down stairs, muttering to himself like one lost in his own contemplations. Bessie, with the suddenness of one surprised, vaulted in an opposite direction, and, ere I had time to cast a glance after her, disappeared down a back stair, leaving her image behind only to haunt my fancy, and make me think there was no one else in this world with whom I could be happy.
A few minutes, and having completed my toilet, I appeared at the supper table, which the blushing Bessie had spread with all the niceties of the season, and was waiting to do the honors. My appetite was indeed keen, but the flashing of her eyes so troubled my sensitive nature, that I entirely forgot the supper, and began to inquire, half resolved to end my journey here, if mine host could accommodate me for a month. Bessie heaved a sigh, saying it should be done if she had to give up her own room. To which I replied that nothing could induce me to give her trouble for my sake; that I would take up my lodgings upon the corn shed, where, with the stars and her charms to occupy my musings, I could be so happy.
When supper was over, Bessie ushered me into a large sitting room, on the left of the hall, and bid me good night. A large, square table, upon which was a copy of Godey's Lady's Book, the New England Cultivator, the New Bedford Mercury, and sundry other papers of good morals, stood in the center of the room. The walls were papered in bright colors, and the floor was covered with an Uxbridge carpet, the colors of which were green and red, and made fresh by the glare of a spirit lamp that burned upon the table. A chart of the South Shoal, a map of Massachusetts and Rhode Island, and sundry rude drawings in crayon and water colors, hung suspended from the walls. The air of quiet cheerfulness that pervaded the sitting room, bespoke the care Bessie had bestowed upon it, and the active part she took in the management of the household. And, too, there was a piano standing open at one end of the room, for Bessie, in addition to having studied Latin and algebra two years at the high school, had taken music lessons of Monsieur Pensiné, and could play seven tunes right off.
An aged, clerical-looking man, his visage lean and careworn, with his newly-married bride, a simply clad country girl of eighteen, sat at a window, looking out upon a little square, and every few minutes exchanging caresses they imagined were seen by no one else in the room. Indeed, when they were not caressing, they were whispering in very affectionate proximity. Once or twice I overheard, "My darling," and, "You know, my love," which curt but meaning sentences are much in fashion with persons on a bridal tour, and who set out with the belief that earth has no ill that can disturb the solace of their perhaps weak love.
The little deformed man, of the nervous temperament, and whose well formed head seemed to have been thrown by accident upon his distended chest, paced, or rather oscillated up and down the room, swinging his arms restlessly, now casting a glance of his keen gray eye at me, then pausing at the farther end of the room to read the notice of a lecture on Crabbe, inscribed upon a great red poster. There was something in the lettering of the poster that displeased him exceedingly, for, having scanned over it, he would turn away with a quickened pace, and mutter some incoherent sentences no one present could comprehend, but which his increasing nervousness betold were expressive of anger. The thought of Bessie made me impatient, and following the example of the little deformed man, I also commenced pacing the room, but on the opposite side of the table, meeting and exchanging glances with him in the center. The maps upon the walls furnished me themes for contemplation in my sallies; and I read and reread the exact latitude and longitude of the South Shoal, as it appeared on the charts. Then I paused at a front window, and peered out into the starlight night, and saw the tree tops in a little square opposite, move gently to the breeze, while my fancies recurred to the association of that home, at the fireside of which I pictured my father and mother, sitting thinking of me. At the opposite end of the room I read, for it was there printed upon the red colored poster, that the celebrated Giles Sheridan, (who was no less a person than the little deformed man who paced the room so briskly,) would lecture on Crabbe, in the basement of the "Orthodox Meeting House," at seven o'clock, on the following evening.
It perplexed me not a little to know why this Giles Sheridan, this queer little man, had selected for the subject of his lecture, a person so little known in the rural districts of Massachusetts. Had he consulted either the political or mechanical tastes of the people, instead of their literary, the cause would not have been involved in so deep a mystery; but this will be explained hereafter.
The clerical looking man had just kissed his young bride, and muttered something about the joys of paradise, as I, for the ninth time, paused to ponder over the curious announcement. And as I did so, the little man, with that sensitiveness common to true genius, looked up at me with an eye beaming with intelligence, while his lips quivered, his fingers became restless, and he locked his hands before him and behind him, in quick succession, then frisked his straight hair back over his ears with his fingers, and gave out such other signs of timidity as convinced me that he was a stranger in the land, and would engage me in conversation merely to unburden his thoughts. I have said true genius, in speaking of this queer little man, for indeed, if strange nature had so disfigured his person as to make it unsightly, she had more than compensated him with the gifts of a brilliant mind. "Like myself, sir, you are a traveler this way?" he spoke, with a voice clear and musical, and with just enough of a refined brogue to discover the land of his nativity, or to give melody to his conversation. "You will pardon me, sir; but I saw you evinced an interest in the notice of my lecture. Ah! sir; even a look of encouragement cheers and fortifies this misgiving heart of mine. Few, sir, very few, think of me, seeing that there is nothing about me pleasing to the eye." And as he said this, he sighed, frisked his left hand across his forehead, and shook his head. I saw he was troubled with that lack of confidence in himself, so common to men of his kind; he was also too timid for one thrown upon a strange land with only genius to aid him in struggling against adversity. On discovering to him who I was, and that I had written a Life and Times of Captain Seth Brewster, which my publisher, and several independent critics he kept in his employ, had praised into an unprecedented sale, though it was indeed the veriest rubbish, his pent up enthusiasm gushed forth in a rhapsody of joy. I told him, too, that two sonnets which I had written, over the signature of Mary, had been published in the "New Bedford Mercury," the editor of which very excellent paper said they were charming, though he never paid me a penny for them. It may interest all aspiring female poets to know that these little attempts at verse found their way into the "Home Journal," and were highly praised by it, as is everything written by Marys of sixteen.
"Men ............