University of Virginia Library

BITTER FRUITS FROM CHANCE-SOWN SEEDS.

In an attempt at mere fiction, I should scarcely have ventured
upon the invention of a chain of circumstances so improbable as
those which form the groundwork of the following sketch. We
accept the axiom that Truth is often stranger than fiction; yet
the mind instinctively refuses sympathy when fiction ventures too
far beyond the bounds of our own experience or observation.
Men are usually supposed to be actuated by sufficient motives,
and by those which correspond, in some degree, with the springs
of action in their kind at large; and where we see a striking departure
from this general rule, we are apt to class the erratic
somewhere in the many-graded list of the insane—a list which
has, of late years, been made, by some speculators, long and
wide enough to include Rousseau and Byron, as well as the
most fiendish murderer, and any divine who ventures to look
over the pale of his church.

Those who are acquainted with the peculiar tone of society in
the new country may not, perhaps, find my characters unnatuarl;
but it can hardly be expected that others would not doubt
the truth of a description which supposes such deep-seated enmity
towards those who had committed no offence, and such intolerable
wrongs suffered without a possibility of legal redress. In ancient
feudal times, small excuse served when the superior chose to vent
his evil passions upon those whom Fate had rendered subject to
his caprice. At this day, in the newly settled part of the Western
country, the feudality is reversed; and it is the inferior who
has it in his power, by means of an unenlightened or corrupt public
sentiment, (referring always with more or lese distinctness to
brute force,) to lord it over any one who, by an inconvenient integrity,
or an unpopular refinement, is rendered obnoxious to those

who are more disposed to resent than to imitate what pretends to
superiority. Thus much for the probability of what may naturally
be expected to shock the credulity of the reader.

As to the main facts of the case—the character of the Coddington
family—their adoption of the young girl—the unprovoked enmity
of the Blanchards—their threats and plots—the catastrophe
to which they contributed—and the unsatisfactory result of the
effort to obtain justice—these were all communicated to me circumstantially,
(by an intelligent friend who had resided near the
spot where the occurrences took place,) as a sort of psychological
problem which, even in that country it was not easy to solve.
The same friend afterwards sent me a newspaper published in
the same county, in which various details were given, to which
details was appended a public protest of the aggrieved party, with
other matters touching the case—all which remained uncontradicted
so far as I have ever heard.

I should not have occupied so much time with these explanatory
remarks, but for objections which have been made to the
probability of my story. The old man, though sketched from life,
is introduced here arbitrarily, to supply what was wanting as to
the origin of the young girl who exhibited traits so remarkable.
Nothing of her parentage has reached me; but it seems natural
to suppose that a soul which partook of the passionate and poetic
energy of a Sappho, must have been moulded by no common lot.
One can scarcely imagine the descendant of a line of sober farmers,
kindling into a love as ideal as that of Petrarch, and pouring
out her feelings in poetic measures like an Improvisatrice, in
a mental climate too frigid to call into life any but irrepressible
germs of genius. Smothered fire there must have been some-where,
among our Julia's rough ancestry. I have supposed it to
descend to her through the old Indian-killer, from the more genial
and impulsive South.

1. CHAPTER I.

—Milnes.

In wandering through the woods where solitude seems to hold
undivided reign, so that one learns to fancy companionable qualities
in the flowers, and decided sympathetic intelligence in the
bright-eyed squirrel, it is not uncommon to find originals odd
enough to make the fortune of a human menagerie, such as will
doubtless form, at no distant day, a new resource for the curious.
If any of the experimental philosophers of the day should undertake
a collection of this nature, I recommend the woods of the
West as a hopeful field for the search. Odd people are odder in
the country than in town, because there is nothing like collision
to smooth down their salient points, and because solitude is the
nurse of reverie, which is well known to be the originator of many
an erratic freak. There is a foster relationship, at least between
solitude and oddity, and nowhere is this more evident than in the
free and easy new country. A fair specimen used to thrive in a
certain green wood, not a thousand miles from this spot; a veteran
who bore in his furrowed front the traces of many a year of hardship
and exposure, and whose eyes retained but little of the twinkling
light which must have distinguished them in early life, but
which had become submerged in at least a twilight darkness,
which scarce allowed him to distinguish the light of a candle.
His limbs were withered, and almost useless; his voice shrunk to
a piping treble, and his trembling hands but imperfectly performed
their favourite office of carrying a tumbler to his lips. His tongue

alone escaped the general decay; and in this one organ were
concentrated (as it is with the touch in cases of blindness,) the
potency of all the rest. If we may trust his own account, his
adventures had been only less varied and wonderful, than those
of Sinbad or Baron Munchausen. But we used sometimes to
think distance may be the source of deception, in matters of time
as well as of space, and so made due allowance for faulty perspective
in his reminiscences.

His house was as different from all other houses, as he himself
was from all other men. It was shaped somewhat like a beehive;
and, instead of ordinary walls, the shingles continued in uninterrupted
courses from the peak to the ground. At one side was a
stick chimney, and this was finished on the top by the remnant
of a stone churn; whether put there to perform the legitimate
office of a chimney-pot, or merely as an architectural ornament, I
cannot say. It had an unique air, at any rate, when one first
espied it after miles of solitary riding, where no tree had fallen,
except those which were removed in making the road. A luxuriant
hop-vine crept up the shingles until it wound itself around
this same broken churn, and then, seeking further support, the
long ends still stretched out in every direction, so numerous and
so lithe, that every passing breeze made them whirl like greenrobed
fairies dancing hornpipes about the chimney, in preparation
for a descent upon the inhabitants below.

At the side opposite the chimney, was a sort of stair-case,
scarcely more than a ladder, leading to the upper chamber, carried
up outside through lack of room in the little cottage; and
this airy flight was the visible sign of a change which took place
in the old man's establishment, towards the latter part of his life.
A grand-daughter, the orphan of his only son, had come to him
in utter destitution, and this made it necessary to have a second
apartment in the shingled hive; so the stairs were built outside
as we have said, and Julia Brand was installed in the wee chamber
to which it led. She was a girl of twelve, perhaps, at this
time, and soon became all in all to her aged relative. But we
will put her off for the present, that we may recall at more length
our recollections of old Richard Brand. The race of rough old
pioneers, to which he belonged, was fast passing away; and emigration

and improvement are sweeping from the face of the land,
every trace of their existence. The spirit by which they were
animated has no fellowship with steamboats and railroads; their
pleasures were not increased but diminished by the rapid accession
of population, for whom they had done much to prepare
the way. The younger and hardier of their number felt themselves
elbowed, and so pressed onward to the boundless prairies
of the far West; the old shrunk from contact with society, and
gathered themselves, as if to await the mighty hunter in characteristic
fashion. Old Brand belonged to the latter class. He
looked ninety; but much allowance must be made for winter
storms and night-watches, and such irregularities and exposure as
are sure to keep an account against man, and to score their demands
upon his body, both within and without.

We have said that the house had a wild and strange look, and
the aspect of the tenant of the little nest was that of an old wizard.
He would sit by the side of the door, enjoying the sunshine, and
making marks on the sand with the long staff which seldom
quitted his feeble hands, while his favourite cat purred at his feet,
or perched herself on his shoulder, rubbing herself against his
grey locks, unreproved. Weird and sad was his silent aspect;
but once set him talking, or place in his hands his battered violin,
and you would no longer find silence tiresome. One string was
generally all that the instrument could boast; but that one, like
the tongue of the owner, performed more than its share. It
could say,

as plain as any human lips and teeth could make the same taunting
observation; but if you ventured to compare the old magician
to Paganini, “Humph!” he would say, with a toss of his little
grey head, “ninny I may be, but pagan I a'n't, any how; for do
I eat little babies, and drink nothing but water?”

Nobody ever ventured to give an affirmative answer to either

branch of this question; so the old man triumphed in the refutation
of the slander.

Directly in front of the door by which old Brand usually sat,
was a pit, four or five feet deep, perhaps, and two feet in diameter
at the top, and still wider at the bottom, where it was strewn with
broken bottles and jugs. (Mr. Brand had, by some accident,
good store of these.) This pit was generally covered during the
day, but for many years the platform was at night drawn within
the door, with all the circumspection that attended the raising of
a draw-bridge before a castle gate in ancient times.

“Is that a wolf-trap?” inquired an uninitiated guest. An explosion
of laughter met this truly green question.

“A wolf-trap! O! massy! what a wolf-hunter you be! You
bought that 'ere fine broadcloth coat out of bounty money, didn't
ye? How I should laugh to see ye where our Jake was once,
when he war'n't more than twelve year old! You'd grin till a
wolf would be a fool to ye! I had a real wolf-trap then, I tell
ye! There had been a wolf around, that was the hungriest critter
you ever heard tell on. Nobody pretended to keep a sheep,
and as for little pigs, they war'n't a circumstance. He'd eat a
litter in one night. Well! I dug my trap plenty deep enough,
and all the dirt I took out on't was laid up o' one side, slantindicler,
up hill like, so as to make the jump a pretty good one; and
then the other sides was built up close with logs. It was a sneezer
of a trap. So there I baited and baited, and watched and waited;
but pigs was plenty where they was easier come at, and no wolf
came. By-and-by our old yellow mare died, and what does I do
but goes and whops th' old mare into the trap. `There!' says I
to Jake, says I, `that would catch th' old Nick; let's see what
the old wolf 'll say to it.' So the next night we watch'd, and it
war'n't hardly midnight, when the wolf come along to go to the
hog-pen. He scented old Poll quick enough; and I tell ye! the
way he went into the trap war'n't slow. It was jist as a young
feller falls in love; head over heels. Well! now the question
was, how we should kill the villain; and while we was a consultin'
about that, and one old hunter proposin' one thing, and
another another, our Jake says to me, says he, `Father,' says he,
`I've got a plan in my head that I know'll do! I'll bang him

over the head with this knotty stick.' And before you could say
Jack Robinson, in that tarnal critter jump'd, and went at him.
It was a tough battle, I tell ye! The wolf grinned; but Jake he
never stopped to grin, but put it on to him as cool as a cowcumber,
till he got so he could see his brains, and then he was satisfied.
`Now pull me out!' says little Jake, says he, `And I tell ye what!
if it a'n't daylight, I want my breakfast!' And Jake was a show,
any how! What with his own scratches and the spatters of the
wolf's blood, he look'd as if the Indians had scalped him all over.”

“But what is this hole for?” persisted the visiter, who found
himself as far from the point as ever.

“Did you ever see a Indian?” said the wizard.

“No! oh yes; I saw Black Hawk and his party, at Washington
—”

“Black Hawk! ho, ho, ho! and Tommy Hawk too, I 'spose!
Indians dress'd off to fool the big bugs up there! But I mean
real Indians—Indians at home, in the woods—devils that's as
thirsty for white men's blood as painters![1] Why, when I come
first into the Michigan, they were as thick as huckleberries.
We didn't mind shooting 'em any more than if they'd had four legs.
That's a foolish law that won't let a man kill an Indian! Some
people pretend to think the niggers haven't got souls, but for my
part I know they have; as for Indians, it's all nonsense! I was
brought up right in with the blacks. My father own'd a real
raft on 'em, and they was as human as any body. When my
father died, and every thing he had in the world wouldn't half
pay his debts, our old Momma Venus took mother home to her
cabin, and done for her as long as she lived. Not but what we
boys helped her as much as we could, but we had nothing to begin
with, and never had no larnin'. I was the oldest, and father
died when I was twelve year old, and he hadn't begun to think
about gettin' a schoolmaster on the plantation. I used to be in
with our niggers, that is, them that used to be ours; and though
I'd lick'd 'em and kick'd 'em many a time, they was jist as good
to me as if I'd been their own colour. But I wanted to get some
larnin', so I used to lie on the floor of their cabins, with my head
to the fire, and so study a spellin'-book some Yankees had gi'n

me, by the light of the pine knots and hickory bark. The Yankee
people was good friends to me too, and when I got old enough,
some on 'em sent me down to New Orleans with a flat, loaded
with flour and bacon.

“Now in them days there was no goin' up and down the Mississippi
in comfort, upon 'count of the Spaniards. The very first
village I came to, they hailed me and asked for my pass. I told
'em the niggers carried passes, but that I was a free-born American,
and didn't need a pass to go any where upon airth. So I
took no further notice of the whiskerandoes, till jist as I turn'd the
next pint, what should I see but a mud fort, and a passel of sojers
gettin' ready to fire into me. This looked squally, and I come to.
They soon boarded me, and had my boat tied to a tree and my
hands behind my back before you could whistle. I told the boy
that was with me to stick by and see that nothing happened to the
cargo, and off I went to prison; nothing but a log-prison, but
strong as thunder, and only a trap-door in the roof. So there I
was, in limbo, tucked up pretty nice. They gi'n me nothing to
eat but stale corn bread and pork rinds; not even a pickle to
make it go down. I think the days was squeez'd out longer, in
that black hole, than ever they was in Greenland. But there's
an end to most everything, and so there was to that. As good luck
would have it, the whiskerando governor came along down the
river and landed at the village, and hearin' of the Yankee, (they
call'd me a Yankee 'cause I was clear white,) hearin' that there
was a Yankee in the man-trap, he order'd me before him. There
he jabber'd away, and I jabber'd as fast as he did; but he was a
gentleman, and gentlemen is like free-masons, they can understand
each other all over the world. So the governor let me go,
and then he and the dons that were with him, walk'd down with
me to my craft, and gave me to understand they wanted to buy
some o' my fixins. So I roll'd 'em out a barrel of flour, and flung
up a passel of bacon, till they made signs there was enough, and
then the governor he pull'd out his gold-netted purse to pay me.
I laughed at him for thinkin' I would take pay from one that had
used me so well; and when he laid the money upon a box slily,
I tied it up in an old rag and chucked it ashore to him after I
pushed off; so he smil'd and nodded to me, and Peleg and I we

took off our hats and gi'n him a rousin' hurrah, and I thought
that was the last I should see on him. But lo and behold! when
I got to New Orleans, there was my gentleman got there before
me, and remitted all government costs and charges, and found
buyers for my perduce and my craft, and like to have bought
me too. But I lik'd the bush, so I took my gun and set off afoot
through the wilderness, and found my way home again, with my
money all safe. When I come to settle with the Yankees, there
was a good slice for me and mother, so I come off to buy a tract
in the Michigan. I come streakin' along till I got to the Huron
river, and undertook to swim that with my clothes on and my
money tied round my neck. The stream was so high that I come
pretty near givin' up. It was `pull devil, pull baker,' with me,
and I was glad to ontie my money and let it go. That was before
these blessed banks eased a fellow of his money so slick, and you
had to carry hard cash. So mine went to the bottom, and it's
there yet for what I know. I went to work choppin' till I got
enough to buy me an eighty; and I bought and sold fourteen
times before I could get a farm to suit me; and like enough may
try again before I die.”

“But you were going to tell me about this hole.”

“Oh, the hole! yes—that 'ere hole! You see, when I first
settled, and the Indians was as thick as snakes, so that I used to
sleep with my head in an iron pot for fear they should shoot me
through the logs, I dug that hole and fix'd it just right for 'em, in
case they came prowlin' about in the night. I laid a teterin'
board over it, so that if you stepped on it, down you went; and
there was a stout string stretch'd acrost it and tied to the lock of
my rifle, and the rifle was pointed through a hole in the door; so
whoever fell into the hole let off the rifle, and stood a good
chance for a sugar-plum. I sot it so for years and never caught
an Indian, they're so cunning; and after they'd all pretty much
left these parts, I used to set it from habit. But at last I got
tired of it and put up my rifle at night, though I still sot my
trap; and the very first night after I left off puttin' the rifle
through the hole, who should come along but my own brother
from old Kentuck, that I hadn't seen for twenty year! He went
into the hole about the slickest, but it only tore his trowsers a little;
and wasn't I glad I hadn't sot the rifle?”

2. CHAPTER II.

Alfieri.

Old Brand's hatred of the Indians had not always expended
itself in words. When war in its worst shape ravaged the frontiers,
there were, besides those regularly commissioned and paid
to destroy, many who took the opportunity of wreaking personal
wrongs, or gratifying that insane hatred of the very name of Indian,
which appears to have instigated a portion of the original
settlers. These were a sort of land privateers;—the more merciless
and inhuman that their deeds were perpetrated from the
worst and most selfish impulses, and without even a pretence of
the sanction of law. We may look in vain among the horrors of
savage warfare for any act more atrocious, than some of those
by which the white man has shown his red brother how the
Christian can hate.

The achievement of which the old trapper boasted loudest was
the burning of an Indian wigwam. He would recount, with circumstantial
minuteness, every item of his preparation for the
murderous deed; the stratagem by which he approached the
place unobserved: and the pleasure that he felt when he saw the
flames curling round the dry bark roof on four sides at once. He
laughed when he told how the father of the family burst through
the pile of burning brush which barricaded the only door, and
how he was shot down before he had time to recognise his cruel
enemy. Then the agonized shrieks of the women and children;
their fleeing half naked and half roasted into the forest; and the
mother and babe found dead in the path the next day,—these
were never-failing topics; and, strange to say, old Brand, though
not born a fiend, could exult in the recollection of such exaggerated
wickedness. War, the concentrated essence of cruelty and
injustice, gave the opportunity, and some wrong, real or pretended,

committed by the red man, the excuse; and the outrage was
only remembered as one of the incidental horrors of a border
contest.

As Richard Brand became more infirm, his garrulity seemed
rather to increase, and his grand-daughter, who was his constant
attendant, used to sit for hours drinking in his wild stories, and
imbibing unconsciously, something of the daring and reckless
spirit of the reciter. She grew up to be a tall, majestic-looking
girl, with the eye of Sappho herself; proud and high-spirited,
impatient of control, and peculiarly jealous of any assumption of
superiority in others; yet capable of attachment of the most ardent
and generous kind to those from whom she experienced kindness
and consideration. With these qualities she became an object
of a good deal of interest in the neighbourhood, and none the
less that her grandfather was known to have saved property enough
to be accounted rich where all are nearly alike poor.

Julia Brand had just completed her fourteenth year when her
aged relative failed suddenly; as people who have led rough
lives are apt to do; and his mind and body became so much enfeebled
that it was thought advisable to remove him to the vicinity
of more competent aid in case of illness, as well as to more
comfortable shelter than the old shingled hive could now afford.
More than one offer was made by the neighbours, and the old
man, though seeming at first scarcely to understand or accede to
the plan, yet showed a gleam of his former acuteness by making
choice voluntarily of Allen Coddington's house as his future home.

This Coddington was a man whose early advantages had been
such as to place him far above the ordinary class of settlers in
point of intelligence and ability. He was an industrious and
thriving farmer, whose education, begun at one of the best New
England academies, had been furthered by a good deal of solid
reading, and made effective by a habit of observation without
which reading can be of but little practical utility. He stood
decidedly in the first rank among the citizens of his town and
county. He was among the earlier adventurers in that region,
and, having had the wisdom or the forethought, during the time
of extravagant prices, when producers were few and consumers
many, to bestow his whole attention on raising food for the gold-hunters,

who forgot to plough or to plant, and yet must eat, he
had turned the speculating mania to good account, and become
comparatively wealthy. His house was ample in size, and well
provided with ordinary accommodations, and his farm presented
the somewhat rare spectacle (in new country experience,) of a
complete supply of every thing requisite for carrying on business
to the best advantage.

Whether Allen Coddington was naturally of a self-satisfied and
exclusive temper, or whether he had become somewhat overbearing
through success and prosperity, or whether his good fortune,
and that alone, had had the effect of rendering him an object
of jealousy and ill-will,—he was certainly no favourite in his neighbourhood.
He had a certain influence, but it was that which
arises from a sense of power, and not from a feeling of confidence
and attachment. People found his advice valuable, but they
complained that his manner was cold and unsympathizing; and
they remembered the offence long after the benefit was forgotten.
Mr. Coddington's family were still less liked than himself, in consequence
of their retired habits, which were supposed to argue a
desire to keep themselves aloof from the society about them.

To one man in particular the whole house of Coddington was
an object of the bitterest hatred and envy. This man was their
nearest neighbour; a person of violent passions, and an ambitious
and designing mind, capable of almost any extreme of malignity,
when his pride was hurt, or his favourite objects thwarted. Blanchard
was not habitually an ill-tempered man. He had often
proved himself capable of great kindness towards those whom he
liked; but he belonged to a class emphatically termed good haters—a
dreadful anomaly in this erring world, where every man
stands so much in need of the forbearance and kindness of his
fellow man. Whoever had the misfortune to excite his vindictive
feelings was sure of a life-long and uncompromising enmity; and
though prudence might restrain him from overt acts, yet he was
not above many mean arts and secret efforts to lower those
against whom he had conceived any dislike.

To such a man as Blanchard the peaceful and softening counsels
of an amiable and judicious wife would have been invaluable.
Many a ruthless and violent character is kept within

bounds by a gentle influence, which is not the less powerful for
being exerted in a manner unperceived by all but the person most
interested; perhaps unacknowledged even by him. Blessed, indeed,
are such peace-makers, and all who belong to them! But
Mrs. Blanchard was a spirit of another tone. Wholly uneducated,
both in mind and heart; tormented with a vague and vulgar
ambition to be first, without reference to means or ends; and especially
jealous of the pretence to superior delicacy and refinement,
which she conceived to be implied in the quiet and secluded
habits of Mrs. Coddington and her children—this woman's soul
was consumed with bitterness; and her ingenuity was constantly
exercised to discover some means of pulling down what she called
the pride of her neighbours;—a term with which we sometimes
deceive ourselves, when in fact we mean only their superiority.

As was the accusation of witchcraft in olden times—a charge
on which neither evidence, judge nor jury, was necessary to condemn
the unfortunate suspected,—so with us of the West is the
suspicion of pride—an undefined and undefinable crime, described
alike by no two accusers, yet held unpardonable by all.
Once establish the impression that a man is guilty of this high
offence against society, and you have succeeded in ruining his
reputation as a good neighbour. Nobody will ask you for proof;
accusation is proof. This is one of the cases where one has no
right to be suspected. The cry of “Mad dog!” is not more
surely destructive.

This powerful engine was put in operation by the Blanchard
family, into every member of which the parental hatred of the
Coddingtons had been instilled. They made incessant complaints
of the indignities which they suffered from the pride of people
whose true offence consisted in letting them alone, until the whole
neighbourhood had learned from them to look upon the Coddingtons
as covert enemies.

When Richard Brand made choice of the great house as an
asylum for himself and Julia, he unconsciously gave yet another
tinge of bitterness to the hatred of the Blanchards. They had
been among the most urgent of the inviters, and they felt the
preference given to their detested neighbour as a new insult to
their own pretensions. We have said that old Brand had shown

a glimmering of his ancient sagacity in the decision. The establishment
to which he was removed was one of extreme regularity,
industry and order; the Blanchards were known to be
careless, wild, passionate, and rather thriftless people; whose business
was done by violent efforts at intervals, instead of habitual
application and method. Their children were ill-governed, and
their eldest son bore a character which was by no means to be
coveted, although he maintained an exterior of decency, and
even affected with some success the manners of a squire of
dames.

Martha Coddington was a sweet, gentle girl; lovely in appearance
and manners, and in all respects a most desirable companion
for Julia, whose education had not been such as was calculated
to endow her with all the feminine graces, although she was
far from being deficient in the stronger and more active qualities
which are no less valuable if something less attractive. Martha
was in very feeble health, and confined almost entirely to sedentary
occupations; and she had thus enjoyed opportunities for
mental cultivation which would scarcely have fallen to her rustic
lot if she had been blest with full health and strength. It was
partly with a view to constant companionship for this beloved
daughter, that Mr. Coddington had been induced to offer a home
to Richard Brand. The old man himself was becoming almost
a nonentity, and Julia had that indescribable something about her
which attracts the attention and awakens interest without our
being able to define satisfactorily the source of the fascination.
Her manners were singularly simple, child-like and trustful:
while her eye had a power and her step a firmness which betokened
her ability to judge for herself, and to read the thoughts
of others. She was as yet almost totally undeveloped; but it
was impossible not to perceive at a glance that there was abundance
of material, either for good or evil, as after circumstances
might sway the balance of her destiny.

Once established in Mr. Coddington's family, Julia enjoyed all
the privileges of a daughter of the house, and shared with Martha,
and one or two younger children, the occasional instruction
of the parents. Her quickness of apprehension was remarkable;
and the activity of her habits and the cheerfulness of her temper

made her a valuable assistant to Mrs. Coddington in the various
departments of householdry which would have fallen to Martha's
share if she had been stout like the rest. So that the arrangement
was one of mutual advantage, and the evening of Richard
Brand's life bid fair to be as calm as its morning had been boisterous.

The Blanchards made many attempts at something like intimacy
with Julia, but these were quietly discouraged by her protectors,
probably from a sincere belief that such association would
be unprofitable for her. They were at this time not at all aware
of the deep enmity of the Blanchards, although they had not been
blind to various indications of ill will. So, in silence and secrecy
grew this baleful hatred! as the deadly nightshade becomes
more intensely poisonous when sheltered from the sun-light and
the breeze. Imagination is the most potent auxiliary of the passions.
Nothing so effectually moderates personal dislike as personal
intercourse. Any circumstance which had thrown these
neighbouring families into contact, in such a way as to bring into
action the good qualities of either, would have done away with
much of their mutual aversion. What a world of misery would
thus have been spared to both!

3. CHAPTER III.

Dryden.

Nearly three years had Julia Brand passed in Mr. Coddington's
family; years, for the most part, of quiet happiness and
continual improvement. No care had been omitted by her kind
friends to make her all that a woman should be; and Julia had
imbibed instruction eagerly, and repaid all their efforts by her attachment
and her increasing usefulness. To Martha she was as
a dear younger sister, whose buoyant spirits had always the
power to cheer, and whose kind alacrity could make even the
disadvantages of ill-health appear less formidable. Yet the untamed
quality of her earlier nature broke forth sometimes in
starts of strange fierceness, which struck the gentle invalid with
dismay. These flashes of passion almost always originated in
some unpalatable advice, or some attempt at judicious control on
the part of Mrs. Coddington, who had learned to feel a mother's
love for the beautiful orphan; and, although such storms would
end in showers of tears and promises of better self-government,
they were a source of much grief to both Martha and her mother,
who felt the dangers of this impetuosity when they reflected that
no one but the imbecile grandfather possessed a natural right to
direct the course of Julia's actions.

These, however, were but transient clouds. Peace and love
reigned in this well-ordered household, and the old man, now reduced

to absolute second infancy, received from the family all
the attention that would have been due from his own children
Every fine morning saw his easy chair wheeled into the orchard,
and there, in the pleasant shade, and with Julia at his side, he
would hum fragments of his ancient ditties, or touch, with aimless
finger, the old violin held up for him by Robert Coddington, a boy
about Julia's age, who shared with her much of the care of her
helpless charge. The old man's life was certainly prolonged by
the circumstances of ease and comfort which attended its setting;
to what good end, we might perhaps be disposed to inquire, were
it not that he was, in his present condition at least, so like a human
grasshopper, that we may suppose he was allowed existence
on the same terms. His dependent state afforded certainly most
ample opportunity for the exercise of kindly feeling in those
about him; and we must believe this to be no unimportant object,
since one part of the lesson of life is to be learned only by such
means.

Julia, loved and cherished, full of ruddy health, and exalted
by intellectual culture, opened gradually into splendid womanhood;
her eye deepened in expression by a sense of happiness,
and her movements rendered graceful by continual and willing
activity. Even in the country, where such beauty and grace as
hers are but little appreciated, she could not pass unnoticed.
Though necessarily much secluded, both by the requisite attendance
on her aged relative, and by the habits of the family of
which she formed a part, her charms were a frequent theme with
the young people of the neighbourhood, and it was sometimes
said, half jest, half earnest, that the Coddingtons kept her shut up,
lest she should “take the shine off their sickly daughter.” The
Blanchards in particular, took unwearied pains to have it understood
that poor Julia was a mere drudge, and that all their own
efforts to lighten the weary hours of their fair neighbour were repelled
by her tyrants, who evidently feared that Julia might be
induced to throw off their yoke if she should have an opportunity
of contrasting her condition with that of other young persons.
There seems to be in the forming stages of society, at least in this
Western country, a burning, restless desire to subject all habits
and manners to one Procrustean rule. Whoever ventures to differ

essentially from the mass, is sure to become the object of unkind
feeling, even without supposing any bitter personal animosity,
such as existed in the case before us. The retired and
exclusive habits of the Coddington family had centered upon them
almost all the ill-will of the neighbourhood.

As a proof of this we may mention, that when a large barn of
Mr. Coddington's, filled to the very roof with the product of an
abundant harvest, chanced to be struck by lightning and utterly
consumed, instead of the general sympathy which such occurrences
usually excite in the country, scarce an expression of regret
was heard. Mr. Blanchard, who was not averse to “making
capital” of his neighbour's misfortunes, declared his solemn
belief that this loss was a judgment upon the Coddingtons, and
one which their pride richly deserved. He even went so far, in
private, before his own family, as to wish it had been the house
instead of only one of the barns. The tone of feeling cultivated
in that house may be judged by this specimen. Evil was the
seed, and bitter the fruit it was destined to produce!

Mr. Coddington felt the loss as any farmer must; and he
would still more keenly have felt the unkind sentiment of the
neighbourhood if he had become aware of it. But he was on the
point of revisiting his native State with his family; and in the
bustle of preparation, and the anxiety that attended Martha's
declining health, which formed the main inducement to the journey,
the venomous whispers were unheard. He left home supposing
himself at peace with all the world, always excepting his
nearest neighbour, whose enmity had evinced itself in too many
ways to pass unregarded.

Julia and her grandfather were left in possession of the house,
with the domestics necessary to carry on the affairs of the farm;
and she prepared for a close attention to the household cares, and
a regular course of intellectual improvement, which should make
the long interval of comparative solitude not only profitable, but
pleasant. Mrs. Coddington had learned such confidence in Julia,
that she scarcely thought it necessary to caution her as to her
conduct during her absence. Far less did she exact a promise
as to the long-settled point of free intercourse with the Blanchard
family. She gave only the general advice which a mother's

heart suggests on such occasions, and bade farewell to her blooming
pupil in full trust that all would go on as usual under Julia's
well-trained eye.

But the Blanchard family, one and all, had settled matters far
otherwise. The very first time that old Brand's chair was wheeled
into the orchard after the departure of the Coddingtons, a
bunch of beautiful flowers lay on the rude seat beneath the tree
where Julia usually took her station. When she snatched it up
with delight and wonder, she was still more surprised to find under
it a small volume of poetry. Julia loved flowers dearly, but
poetry was her passion; and she not only read it with delight,
but had herself made some not ungraceful attempts at verse, which
had elicited warm commendations from her kind protectors. Here
was a new author, and one whose style gave the most fascinating
dress to passionate and rather exaggerated sentiment. Julia's attention
was enchained at once. When she first opened the volume
her only feeling was a curious desire to know whence it
had come; but when she had read a page she thought no more
of this. The poetry to which alone she had been accustomed,
was not only of a high-toned and severe morality, but of an abstract
or didactic cast; calculated to quicken her perceptions of
right, rather than to call forth her latent enthusiasm of character.
Cowper and Milton, and Young and Pollok had fed her young
thoughts. But here was a new world opened to her; and it was
not a safe world for the ardent and unschooled child of genius,
who found in the glowing picturings of a spirit like her own, a
power which at once took prisoner her understanding, aroused
her sensibilities, and lulled that cautious and even timid discrimination,
with which it had been the object of her friends to inspire
her. She finished the reading at a sitting, and as she returned to
the house with her grandfather, the excitement of her imagination
was such that the whole face of nature seemed changed. A new
set of emotions had been called into play, and the effect was proportioned
to the wild energy of her character. Poor Julia! she
had tasted the forbidden fruit.

In the afternoon she repeated the pleasure; and it was only
when she laid the volume under her pillow before she retired for
the night, that the question as to the appearance of the book recurred

to her. It surely could not have been any of the Blanchards,
she thought; yet who else had access to the orchard,
which divided the two domains? The next day solved the doubt.

Julia was sitting by the side of her charge, holding with one
hand the old violin, and clasping in the other the source of many
a fair dream, in the shape of the magic volume, when a step
broke the golden meshes of her reverie. She looked up, and
young Blanchard stood before her. She started and blushed, she
knew not why, for she had seen the young man a thousand times
with no other emotion than a vague feeling of dislike.

“Have you been pleased with the book my sisters took the liberty
of sending you, Miss Brand?” he said; “they wished me to
offer you another, knowing you were fond of reading.”

Julia expressed her pleasure eagerly, and received the new
volume with a thrill of delight; accompanied, however, with some
misgiving as to the propriety of obtaining it just in that way.

Blanchard, encouraged by her manner, proceeded to say that
his sisters would have brought the books themselves, if they had
supposed a visit would be agreeable. Having accepted the civility
in one shape, Julia felt that she could not decline it in another,
and the invitation was given, and the visit made.

4. CHAPTER IV.

Praed.

The accomplishment of the first visit by the Blanchards was
only the first step of a regular plan of attack. Each successive
day witnessed successive advances; and the bewildering influence
of poetry, music, and yet sweeter flattery, made rapid inroads
upon Julia's prudence. Still she declined all invitations to visit
at Mr. Blanchard's, knowing how disagreeable such a step would
be to her absent friends; and the young man and his sisters found
they had reached the limit of their power over her, before they
had ventured upon any direct effort to alienate her from her protectors.

Whether they would have relinquished the attempt in despair
we cannot tell, for the depths of malice have never yet been
sounded; but a new and potent auxiliary now appeared, who all
unconsciously favoured their plans by attracting Julia's attention
in a remarkable degree. This was a young clergyman—a nephew
of Mrs. Blanchard's—who had injured his health by study,
and had come to the country to recruit. He was a tall, well-looking
young man, with no very particular attractions, except a pale
face, dark, melancholy eyes, and a manner which betokened very
little interest in anything about him. He spent his time principally
in reading; but he played the flute very well, and was invited
by the young Blanchards to join them in their visits to their
pretty neighbour in the orchard.

This young clergyman, who had seen something of society, was
not unobservant of Julia's beauty and talent; and although he
does not appear to have had the slightest wish to interest her particularly,
the silent flattery of his manner,—preferring her upon
all occasions,—joined with his graceful person and delicate health,
provide more dangerous to Julia than the direct efforts of his
coarser relations. In short, he proved irresistible to Julia's newly
excited imagination, and after that time the Blanchards found victory
easy. Before many days Julia suffered herself to be led a
willing visiter to the forbidden doors, conscious all the while that
this was almost equivalent to a renunciation of her long-tried and
still loved friends.

The main point being thus accomplished, the rest followed as
of course. We are not able to trace step by step the process by
which the Blanchards sought to root out from Julia's heart the
love and reverence with which she regarded Mr. Coddington and
his family; but sadly true it is that they succeeded in convincing
her that far from having been benefited by their care, she had
been secluded from all natural and proper enjoyments, and persuaded
to become a family-drudge, under the specious veil of a
desire for her improvement. A thousand reminiscences were
called up by these designing people in order to find materials for
mischief. Long-forgotten occurrences were cited and explained
in such a way as to make it appear that the Coddingtons had for
their own purposes deprived Julia of the acquaintance and sympathy
of the neighbourhood. The seclusion in which she had
grown up was represented as the fruit of a sordid desire to get as
much household duty out of her as possible, while at the same
time her beauty and talents were prevented from appearing to the
disadvantage of the sickly Martha. These things cunningly insinuated
were like “juice of cursed hebenon” in Julia's ears. In
her days of calm and healthful feeling she would have scorned
such vile constructions; but under such influences as we have
described, and especially wrapt in the bewildering spell of a passion
as violent as it was sudden, she was a transformed creature.
Her virtue would have stood the test if her judgment had remained
clear: but the opium-eater is not more completely the

victim of delusive impressions than such a character as hers when
it is once abandoned to the power of love.

And this love—it carried shame in its very life, for was it not
unsought? Had its object by word or even look evinced a preference
for Julia? Burning blushes would have answered if we
could have asked such questions of Julia herself. Indeed, this
Mr. Milgrove was a young man of reserved and rather self-enclosed
habits, who, feeling himself quite superior to the people
among whom he found it convenient to remain for the time, had
given himself very little concern as to the impression he was
making. Thus was unlimited scope given to Julia's unpractised
imagination. She idolized an idea. If the object who chanced
to stand for an embodiment of her dreams had made love like a
mere mortal, her naturally keen perception of character would
have been awakened, and she would have become aware of a cold
indifference of temperament in Milgrove, with which her own
could never harmonize, and which would consequently have disgusted
her. But such passion as hers does most truly “make the
meat it feeds on,” and in the exercise of this power its growth is
portentous, and all independent of the real value of its material.
It soon filled the heart of the unfortunate girl to the exclusion of
all better sentiments.

Time flew by, until nearly two months had endowed Julia's delirium
with the force of habit. Frequent letters from her absent
friends had brought intervals of self-recollection and self-reproach;
but the intoxication was too delicious; and with a sigh over the
conscious disingenuousness, she wrote again and again without
once mentioning her intimacy with the Blanchards or the presence
of their relative. It is true, she tried to say to herself, that Mrs.
Coddington had no right to control her movements; but hers was
not a heart to satisfy itself with such fallacies. She felt deeply
guilty, and she deliberately endured the dreadful load, for the
sake of the dreams which attended it. Her fear now was the
speedy return of her best friends. That must, as she well knew,
put a stop at once to all intercourse with those malevolent neighbours,
and deprive her of the sight of one to whom she had devoted
her whole soul, unsought and unappreciated.

At length the period arrived when a letter from Mrs. Coddington

announced that the family were about to return, travelling
very slowly on account of Martha's sinking state, now more alarming
than ever before. Julia's emotions on receiving this intelligence
were of the most violent kind. She sat with the letter before
her—her eyes fixed on the account given by the afflicted
mother of the state of her dying child; and as she gazed, her
mind may truly be said to have “suffered the nature of an insurrection.”
All her better self was roused by the thought of Martha's
rapid decay, and a flood of tears attested the reality and the
tenderness of her affection for this excellent friend; yet, on the
other side, the fascinations of the past two months were present in
all their power; and as she reflected that these must now be renounced,
she groaned aloud, and grasped her throbbing temples
with both hands, as if to preserve them during the agony of the
struggle. In this condition she was found by one of the daughters
of Mr. Blanchard, who had, by various arts, succeeded in
gaining her confidence completely.

These young women, who were in every way inferior to Julia,
derived all their interest in her eyes from their connection with
the object of her mad attachment. She saw them as she saw him
—through a medium of utter delusion. The elder, more particularly,
was a designing and malicious girl, who hated Martha Coddington
with a perfect hatred, and who had always assisted in
fomenting the enmity which had arisen between the two families.

Julia's state of mind rendered her incapable of any disguise.
Her passionate worship of the young clergyman had been a thing
only suspected; but she now threw herself upon Sophia Blanchard's
neck, and bewailed herself in the wildest terms, wishing for
death to rid her of her misery, and declaring that she would not
support an existence which had become odious to her. In the
course of these frantic declarations, the whole history of her feelings
came out, and Sophia, far from reasoning with her on the
destructive effects of such self-abandonment, artfully condoled
with her on being obliged to remain with the Coddingtons, and
urged her to break with them at once, and remove with her grandfather
to a home where she would find welcome and happiness.

But courage for this step was more than Julia could assume.
She had suffered herself to receive unfavourable impressions of her

absent protectors, but her habitual reverence for them was such
that she dared not think of braving their ill opinion. And besides,
she well knew that the old man, childish as he was in
many respects, could never be persuaded to the change. So she
shook her head despairingly, and repeated her conviction that
death alone could relieve wretchedness like hers.

Sophia Blanchard, bold and designing as she was, trembled at
these words. She knew Julia well enough to believe that such
feelings, acting upon such a spirit, might not improbably result in
some rash act. Finding Julia resolute in her rejection of the expedient
proposed, she set herself about contriving some other
which should serve the double purpose of securing Julia and annoying
the Coddingtons.

Are there moments when all guardian angels leave us at the
mercy of the evil influences within? If it be so, such times are
surely those when we have wilfully given the rein to passion, and
avowed ourselves its slaves, to the scorn of that better principle
which watches for us as long as we allow its benign sway. “Why
hath Satan entered into thine heart?” Alas! do we not invite
him? Poor Julia! his emissary is even now at thine ear!

Things too wild for fiction must yet find place in a real record
of human actions. The plan which presented itself to the thoughts
of Sophia Blanchard, was probably suggested by the bitter expressions
she had heard under the parental roof; yet it was too
outrageous to have been broached seriously by a person more advanced
in age or better acquainted with the ordinary course of
affairs. To set fire to Mr. Coddington's house after the family
were asleep;—then to give the alarm, and remove the old man
and such articles as could be saved—this was the diabolical advice
which this ill-taught girl gave boldly to the wretched Julia,
carefully keeping out of view the promptings of her own hereditary
spite, and making it appear that the loss would be a matter
of no vital importance to a man of Mr. Coddington's property,
while it would set Julia free to remove at once to Mr. Blanchard's,
where Mr. Milgrove had decided to remain for some
time.

5. CHAPTER V.

George Herbert.

Instead of rejecting this atrocious proposal with horror, as the
Julia of purer days would have done, the unhappy girl listened in
silence to all Sophia's baleful whispers, and with this tacit permission
the whole plan was gradually developed; Sophia's ready
ingenuity devising expedients to obviate each objection as it presented
itself, till all was made to appear easy of accomplishment,
and secure from detection. Still Julia did not speak. She
sat with glazed eyes fixed upon her tempter, and not a muscle
moved, whether in approval or rejection of the plan. Frightened
by her ghastly face, Sophia Blanchard took her hand: it was cold
and clammy as that of a corpse. Thinking Julia about to faint,
she ran for water, and was about to use it as a restorative,
when her victim, rousing herself, put it back with a motion of her
hand.

“Enough, Sophia,” she said; “no more of this now; leave me
to myself! Go—go—no more!” and no entreaties could induce
her to say one word as to her acceptance of the proposition upon
which her adviser had ventured. Sophia Blanchard was obliged
to return home in no very easy state of mind, and all her efforts
to obtain admittance again proved fruitless. Julia resolutely refused
to see any one of the family.

Three days passed in this sort of suspense—an ominous pause,
and one which gave Sophia ample time to reflect on the step she
had taken, and to consider its consequences. The old man went
not forth to his place in the orchard. He sat whimpering in the

corner, scolding at Julia's laziness, and wishing that Robert Coddington
would come back, that he might have somebody to take
care of him. Julia, stern and silent, moved about the house with
more than her usual activity, regulating matters which had of
late been less carefully attended to than usual, and insisting upon
extra efforts on the part of the domestics, in order that every thing
might be in order for the reception of the family. On the evening
of the third day all was pronounced ready, and the morrow
was talked of as the time for the probable arrival.

At midnight a loud knocking and shouting at Mr. Blanchard's
doors announced that a fire had broken out; and at the same moment
a broad sheet of flame burst from the further end of Mr.
Coddington's house. The neighbourhood was soon aroused, and
all the efforts that country resources allow, were used to save the
main body of the building. Meanwhile, old Brand was carried,
in spite of his angry struggles and repeated declarations that he
would not go, to Mr. Blanchard's, and laid on a bed in one of the
lower rooms, Julia herself superintending the removal with solicitous
care. This done, she took the lead in bringing out from the
blazing pile, everything of value; herself secured Mr. Coddington's
papers, and suggested, from her knowledge of the affairs of
the family, what might best engage the attention of the assistants.
Most of the effects were thus placed in safety; but with scanty
supplies of water, and nothing more effectual than buckets, the
attempt to preserve any part of the house was soon discovered to
be hopeless. The neighbours, having done their best, were
obliged to withdraw to some distance, where they could only
stand and gaze upon the flames, and listen to their appalling
roar.

It was during this pause that the general attention was called
by the most agonizing shrieks, and Julia, who had been all composure
during the agitation of the night, was seen coming from
Mr. Blanchard's in a state of absolute distraction. She had hastened
from the fire to look after her helpless charge, but on reaching
the bed on which he had been placed, she found it empty and
cold. A blanket that had been wrapped round him lay in the
path through the orchard, and the conviction had struck Julia at
once, as it did the minds of all present, that the old man, feeble

as he was, had, with the obstinacy of dotage, taken the opportunity
when all were engrossed with the fire, to return to his own
chamber, now surrounded by flames. Julia darted towards the
door of the burning dwelling, but she was forcibly withheld by
the men present, who declared the attempt certain destruction.
While she still struggled and shrieked in their arms, the whole
roof fell in, and a fresh volume of flame went roaring and crackling
up to the very stars. The old man was gone!—gone to his
account, of which the midnight burning of the helpless formed so
dread an item. And Julia—it is scarcely to be wondered at that
she envied him his fate. We dare not attempt a picture of her
condition.

The grey light of dawn began to chill the glare of the dying
flames. The contrast produced a ghastly tint on all around, till
the countenances of those who continued to watch the smouldering
fire looked as if death, instead of only fatigue and exhaustion,
was doing its work upon them. Julia, having resisted all entreaties
of the Blanchards to go with them to their house, stood
with fixed gaze, and rigid as a statue, contemplating the ruin
before her; when the sound of approaching wheels was heard;
and the dreary light disclosed the return of the unfortunate family,
not with one carriage only, as they left home, but with two;
and travelling at so slow a pace that it seemed as if they brought
calamity with them in addition to that which awaited them at
their desolate home.

“They are coming!” The whisper went round, and then an
awe-struck silence pervaded the assembly. Julia's perceptions
seemed almost gone, although she was denied the refuge of temporary
insensibility. She had already suffered all that nature
could bear, and a stupid calm had succeeded her agonizing cries.
Yet she drew near the carriage which contained her friends, and
cast her eyes eagerly around.

“Where is Martha?” she said, in a voice so altered, so hollow,
that the hearers started.

Mrs. Coddington burst into tears, but could not speak. Her
husband answered with a forced calmness, “Julia, my love, our
dear Martha is at rest! We have brought home only her cold
remains.”

Julia uttered not a sound, but, tossing her arms wildly in the
air, fell back, utterly lifeless, and in this state was carried to the
house of one of the neighbours.

The funeral was necessarily hurried, for poor Martha had died
two days before; so that the ruins of the home of her childhood
were still smoking when the sad procession passed them on its
way to the grave. Julia, recovered from that kind swoon, had
made a strong effort to master her feelings, and to take some part
in the last duties, but so violent had been the action of the overtasked
nerves, that she was feeble and faint, and utterly incapable
of the least exertion. No vestige of the old man's body could
be found among the ruins, so that she was spared the vain anguish
of so horrible a sight; yet the reality could have been
scarcely more dreadful than the picturings of her own guilt-quickened
fancy. She shrunk from joining, according to the
custom of the country, in the funeral solemnities of her friend,
and passed the dread interval alone in her chamber.

When the bereaved parents returned to the house, Mrs. Coddington
went immediately to Julia.

“My daughter!” she said, “my dear—my only daughter!
what should I be now without you! You must take the place of
the blessed creature who is gone!” And she threw herself sobbing
upon Julia's bosom, clasping her in her arms, and bestowing
upon her all the fulness of a mother's heart.

Like a blighted thing did the wretched girl shrink from her
embrace, and sinking prostrate on the floor at her feet, pour out
at once the whole shameful story of her guilt. Not a shade was
omitted, not even the unsought and frantic love which was now
loathsome in her own eyes, nor the suspicions of Mr. and Mrs.
Coddington which had been instilled into her heart until its very
springs were poisoned.

Mrs. Coddington shook like an aspen leaf. She tried to speak
—to ask—to exclaim—but words came not from her paralyzed
lips. At length—“Julia!” she faltered out,—“Julia—are you
mad? You cannot surely mean, my child—you cannot mean all
this! You cannot intend me to believe that you are the—”

She stopped, for Julia, still prostrate, groaned and shuddered,

deprecating by a motion of her hand, any recapitulation of the
horrors she had disclosed.

“It is true,” she said; “I am all that I have told you; I have
burned your dwelling, so long my happy home; I have committed
murder,—all I ask now is punishment. I have thought of
all; I am ready for what is to follow; I wish for the worst;
make haste, for I must die soon,—very soon!”

She concluded so wildly, and with such an outburst of agony
that Mrs. Coddington again thought her mind had become unsettled
by the dreadful occurrences of the last few hours.

But these tears somewhat relieved her, and she was comparatively
calm after the paroxysm had subsided. And now, in a
collected manner, and in the presence of Mr. Coddington, did she
firmly repeat all that she had said, gathering courage as she proceeded,
and anxiously entreating to have her statement taken
down in legal form.

Mr. Coddington, once convinced that there was a dreadful reality
in all this, felt it as any other man would; but he treated
it with a calmness and forbearance which not every man could
have commanded. He heard Julia's statement through, asked
some questions as to certain particulars, and then, taking her
hand with his old air of fatherly kindness, he said, “My poor
child! you have been dreadfully deluded! Those who have led
you astray have much to answer for, and I shall take care that
they do not escape the reckoning. You I can forgive. The
mental sufferings you must endure are atonement enough; but
for those who wilfully poisoned your young mind—”

“Oh no—no!” exclaimed Julia; “no one is to blame but myself.
I alone am answerable for my crime! I did all with my
own free will—out of my own wicked heart! And oh! how I
wish this wretched heart were cold and still, even now! How I
envy dear Martha her peaceful grave! Make haste and take
down what I have said, for I cannot live!”

“Julia!” said Mr. Coddington, interrupting her, with an air of
severity very different from his former manner, “do you wish me
to believe that all your expressions of remorse and self-abasement
are false and hollow? What do you mean? That you would
raise your hand against your own life? Rash girl! your thoughts

are impious. Suicide is not the resource of the true penitent,
but of the proud and self-worshipping hypocrite. If you are sincere
in your desire to atone for the injury you have done me,
show it by entire submission to what I shall see fit to direct.
You know me; you know you have no reason to dread harshness
at my hand. Be quiet then; command yourself, and to-morrow
I will talk with you again.”

So saying he left the room, seeing Julia too much exhausted
for further conference, but Mrs. Coddington remained long with
her, soothing her perturbed spirit by every thing that a mother's
love could have suggested, and assuring her of Mr. Coddington's
kindness and of his forgiveness. “You have already suffered
enough, my poor child,” said this kind-hearted woman; “now go
to rest, pray for pardon and for peace, and fit yourself by a quiet
night for the duties of to-morrow.”

And such friends Julia had been persuaded to believe harsh
and unsympathizing!

We shall not venture to give a fictitious conclusion to this story
of real life. It might not be difficult to award poetical justice;
but neither that nor any other was the result of Mr. Coddington's
efforts. He adhered firmly to his resolution of holding Julia's
advisers answerable for what she had done. She was not yet
sixteen, and her account of all that had passed during the absence
of her friends plainly showed a conspiracy on the part of
the Blanchard family to do him a deep injury. Slanderous fabrications
of the vilest character had been employed to prejudice
Julia against her benefactors. She had been urged to treacherous
and injurious conduct; persuaded that Mr. Coddington was planning
to possess himself of her property, on her grandfather's
death; and frequently reminded that whatever injury should be
done to the Coddingtons, would be considered as no worse than
they merited; in attestation of which the sentiment of the neighbourhood
on the occasion of the burning of the barn, was frequently
cited. On the whole, Mr. Coddington, who was a man
of strong and decided character, was fully of opinion that he had
just cause of complaint against Blanchard, as answerable not
only for his own share of these misdemeanours, but for those
which his family, by his instigation, had carried more fully into

practice. He refused, therefore, to listen to Julia's entreaties,
that she alone might bear the burthen of her crime, and proceeded
to seek redress from his malicious neighbour.

His first care was to obtain an interview with Mr. Blanchard,
and endeavour to induce him to make reparation and acknowledgment,
from a sense of justice. But this course, however accordant
with the sound principles of the injured party, was wholly
lost upon the virulent enmity of his opponent. Blanchard, who
did not believe in Julia's deep repentance, treated his neighbour's
remonstrances with scorn and derision. He heaped abuse and
insult upon Mr. Coddington, telling him that it was well known
that his premises had been insured beyond their value, and more
than suspected that the fire had been a matter of his own planning,
in order that the insurance money might help to build a
more modern house. He said, as to Julia, that the young men
of the neighbourhood had resolved to release her by force, in case
she was not given up peaceably, since she was believed to be detained
against her will. In short, this bold, bad man, strong in
the knowledge that the prejudices of the country, (so easily
awakened on the subject of caste,) had been thoroughly turned
against the Coddington family, defied him with contempt, and left
nothing unsaid that could exasperate his temper.

Mr. Coddington now resolved to appeal to the laws, his last resort
against this determined enmity. That Blanchard was morally
accountable he felt no doubt; to render him legally so, he
thought required only that the fact should be plainly set forth to
a jury. The ends of justice seemed to sanction if they did not
require such a course; since it is always desirable to ascertain
what protection the laws do really afford to those who give them
their support. He probably thought this necessary also on Julia's
account; for her dread secret was in possession of the declared
enemies of the family; and a judicial investigation, by showing the
influence under which she had acted, would place the matter in
its true light, and set forth the palliation with the crime. So the
matter was laid before the grand jury.

It might, perhaps, be inquiring too curiously, to ask whether,
in coming to this conclusion, Mr. Coddington did not consult his
passions rather than his judgment. It is difficult to know exactly

how much love we bear to abstract justice. That another course
would better have promoted both his happiness and his pecuniary
interests, is highly probable; since it is at least as true in a new
country, as elsewhere, that the law is a great gulf which is apt
to swallow up both parties. Yet the desire to appeal to public
justice was at all events a natural, if not a prudent one.

But a grand jury, though sworn to “diligently inquire and a
true presentment make” of such matters as the foregoing, and
that “without fear, favour, or affection,” are far from being above
prejudice, and, perhaps, not always secure from influences likely
to obstruct the even flow of justice. When the matter is not a
“foregone conclusion,” a judgment prejudged,—it too often happens
that the story first told has the advantage. There is no
room for more than one set of ideas on the same theme. The
prominent and tangible fact in this case was, that a young girl
confessed having burned a house; this might bring her to the
penitentiary, and the jury would not find a “true bill.” In vain
did the deeply penitent Julia make her statement in presence of
the court. She was represented as under compulsion. She was
taken aside again and again, at the repeated instigation of
Blanchard, as if, like prince Balak, he still hoped “peradventure
she will curse me them from thence;”—but although her story
was unaltered, it remained unheeded. She was now offered half
the homes in the neighbourhood, and repeatedly reminded that
she was under the protection of the court, and could go where
she liked; but she insisted on remaining with Mr. Coddington,
and declared that she desired life only that it might be spent in
atoning the injury she had done him. Foiled, as we have seen,
in his attempt to make the shame and the punishment due to so
great an offence fall on those whom he considered most guilty,
Mr. Coddington's next thought was to vindicate his own character
from the boundless calumnies of his envious neighbour. But a
better consideration of the case determined him to let his reputation
clear itself; trusting that the past and the future would alike
be his vouchers to all those whose opinion he valued. So he contented
himself with having placed Julia in comparative safety,
and resolved to live down the calumnies which had been so industriously
propagated against him. Instead of quitting the neighbourhood,

as a man of weaker character might have done, he has
rebuilt his house, and adopted Julia as his daughter, fully convinced
of the change in her character, as well as of the violent
mental excitement under which she yielded to temptation; and if
there be any truth in the doctrine of compensations, it cannot be
doubted that a man of his character must, in time, obtain a complete
though silent triumph over the desperate malignity of such
people as the Blanchards.