Read Ebook: Tieck's Essay on the Boydell Shakspere Gallery by Danton George H George Henry

Font size: 10 px 15 px 20 px 25 px 30 px 35 px

Background color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Text color: BlackWhiteGrayLight GrayDark GrayDim Gray

Apply/Save settings

Ebook has 435 lines and 29552 words, and 9 pages

In a short time he was mounted on a spare horse, and was plying his conductor with questions as they traversed the streets of the town of Harlem and passed over the undulating hills dotted with handsome residences that adorned Manhattan Island. As they came into the city the ravages of the fire were visible to the westward; almost one-third of the town had suffered. There appeared to be soldiers, soldiers everywhere. They were quartered in every house, barracked in every large building. They passed a gloomy-looking structure that had once been "The City Farms."

"For what do they use that?" inquired George.

"'Tis jammed to the top with 'rebel' prisoners," replied the officer. "I wish they could tow it out into the river and sink it there."

George flushed hotly, but said nothing, and they made their way from the King's Road into one of the cross streets.

"You had best stop at the 'City Arms,'" said the officer. "I will come to-morrow myself to conduct you to General Howe."

"Thank you most kindly," said George. "But I must get some clothes first. I could not appear before the honorable gentlemen in this costume."

"Do you intend seeking an appointment?" inquired his companion.

"No," answered George; "I am lame."

The officer reddened, for he was a gentleman. "I hope I shall see you to-morrow then," he said. "Good-rest to you."

They had halted before the inn with the broad verandas. The whole scene looked very natural. Some church bell struck the hour, and a finely emblazoned coach came bowling down Broadway. Red and the mark of the crown were everywhere. George walked into the inn and called for the landlord. Taking the handsomest room in the house, and kept to it, feigning fatigue, the rest of that afternoon; how odd it seemed to Mr. Richard Blount! When he came down for his dinner he noticed that the landlord was unusually polite, and called him at once by name. He could not help but smile, for he remembered how he had watched this fat palm-rubbing individual stand in his doorway when he and his brother William had gone on that well-remembered walk about the city only a few years before.

"Ah! Mr. Blount," said the landlord, "we are glad to have you here. I know your family in Albany well, and your father has often been a guest under my roof. My humble regards to him."

"Indeed!" said George. "Have you seen any of my people lately?"

"Your uncle, of course," the landlord responded.

George's heart almost stopped beating. What if this uncle were in New York at present? How foolish it was for him to have undertaken any venture so certain of detection and surrounded with so many obstacles!

"Oh, yes, yes!" went on the landlord. "He told me you were coming."

"I wish I could see him," said George--adding to himself, "From a place where he could not see me."

"He will be away for some time. He has gone to Connecticut," said his host.

"Ah! indeed!" quoth young Frothingham, with a sigh of relief. Then he added, below his breath, "I wish it were Kamchatka. I forgot that I had an uncle. This will never do." But the humor of the situation struck him, and he smiled.

Sitting near a window he watched the groups passing up and down the street. How easy it had been; no danger had confronted him as yet. Everything seemed to fall into his hands. He began to whistle softly to himself; then suddenly stopped and fairly shivered. The air he had been whistling was "The White Cockade." He remembered how that tune and "Yankee Doodle" had stirred the half-starving soldiers on the banks of the Delaware. And this reminded him of something else.

"Take care, Richard Blount, take care," he said, "or your Yankee blood will get the better of you."

He wrinkled his forehead in a perplexed way for a minute, and placed his hand inside his coat. Yes, there it was, sewed up with the rest--the letter of poor Luke Bonsall to his mother. It would be a sad thing to break the news, but it was a trust. At last he went up stairs to his room, and ripped the letters from his waistcoat lining. He had pasted the cipher alphabet on a stiff bit of leather which hung from a cord around his neck. Tacked loosely over it, so as to hide it carefully, was a miniature of none other than Aunt Clarissa in her days of youth and beauty. It was the only one he could procure, and a safe hiding-place it would have made, for no one would have thought of looking back of a lady's portrait, and especially Aunt Clarissa's, for an important Yankee cipher. The magnifying-glass was covered with snuff in his small round snuff-box. He lit a candle, and began to write carefully and laboriously. It was late at night when he had finished. His chamber window opened upon a sloping roof which was bordered by a high stone wall. It was but the work of a moment to slip from the wall to the ground. He found himself in Waddell Lane. The despatch which he had written with the aid of the hieroglyphics was safe in his pocket, and now for the post-box of the conspirators.

A group of drunken soldiers reeled by him. One was singing at the top of his voice. From the light of a window at his elbow George saw that it was Corporal McCune, whom he remembered as the tall soldier to whom he and his beloved brother had asserted their loyalty to the King when on their first trip to the city.

What surprised George the most as he walked along was the smoothness with which everything had worked. Perhaps Colonel Hewes's reputation for rashness was entirely undeserved. Though he did not know exactly as yet what the project was in which he was to be a factor, yet, inflamed by the excitement, he could not doubt its successful accomplishment.

What the morrow would bring forth it was hard to tell. In the letter which he had written, or, better, printed, he had told his name, who had sent him, what he had come for, where he was stopping--in fact, had given an accurate description of himself and his supposed individuality. The letter added that he was waiting for his course of action to be determined upon by any orders he might receive.

It had again commenced to snow, and the board sidewalk was already covered with the downy film of white. How well he remembered everything! He knew the little shop across the way with the tops and candy jars in the window. And here was the blacksmith's, where he had stood in the doorway, with his arm around William's shoulder, and watched the sparks fly, and heard the anvil sing and clang. Oh, what good times they were! Would he ever have his arm around his brother's shoulder again, or would he ever feel the comforting touch of William's arm about his own? Thoughts began to rush through his mind, and the harder he thought the faster he walked.

But here he was at the orchard; here was the picket-fence. Now he recalled the signal, for he bent down and picked up a branch. He broke it into three pieces, and placed the first piece behind the third picket, the second behind the sixth, and the third behind the ninth. Colonel Hewes had instructed him to do this as a signal to the others of his safe arrival. Then he walked to the turn-stile and stopped for a minute, his heart beating fast. Even in the darkness, although objects at a distance were most indistinct, he could see that footprints had been lately made in the snow ahead of him. He stepped through the turn-stile, keeping his eyes on the footprints ahead of him; they ran to the second tree and stopped! Now, strange to say, the tracks ahead led directly to the trunk of the second tree, and instinctively George felt that whoever it was that made them was not far off. Without apparently raising his head, he glanced up with his eyes, stumbling at the same time in a way that might account for the slight halt. Yes, he had seen it plainly. There was a figure sitting cross-legged on the lower branch, so close that he could have touched it with a stick. On an occasion like this thoughts must be quick, and George did the best thing that he could have done, for he hastened across the orchard as if nothing had occurred. When he reached the other side and the little lane that ran from some farm buildings, he turned about the corner of a hay-stack.

It was not hard for him to work himself a little way into the damp, yielding hay. He waited patiently, and his patience was rewarded, for, following the footprints that he had made, came a thick-set, muffled figure in a voluminous cape. How a man as large as that could ever hoist himself up on the branch of an apple-tree seven feet from the ground so easily and so noiselessly he could not see, nor could he make out the stranger's features. He was muffled to the eyes. When he had passed, the young spy drew himself cautiously out of the hay, and walked after the retreating footsteps, bending over, and keeping well behind the piles of hay and fodder. But the other's hearing must have been acute, for he paused.

"What's that, I say?" came an intense voice.

George thought he detected a sharp metallic clicking. It was the cocking of the hammer of a pistol.

The only answer to the man's hail, however, was the quick, half-frightened barking of a dog.

"Get out, you beast!" said the voice, and a bit of stick struck the ground where George was crouching on all-fours.

Further down the street the man passed by a lighted window. He turned down his collar, and if George had been there, he would have been most astounded.

It was Rivington, the King's Printer!

SAMUEL A. ANDR?E, THE NORTH-POLE BALLOONIST.

BY WILFRID DE FOUVIELLE.

The year 1881 was a great date in North Pole exploration. The most influential civilized nations sent out a dozen scientific parties to study the peculiarities of those desolate regions as accurately as can be determined without paying a visit to the centre of that mysterious territory.

The Swedish explorers made their headquarters at Cape Thorsden, on the southeastern island of the Spitzberg archipelago. This expedition, led by Mr. Elkholm, a distinguished physicist attached to the celebrated Upsal University, achieved considerable success. The members returned home in good condition, after having wintered in an excellent observatory, collected a large number of important readings, and carrying back hundreds of photograms, minerals, and specimens of vegetable and animal life in that far northern land.

The youngest member of this party was Mr. Samuel A. Andr?e, son of an apothecary in business near Stockholm, and a graduate of the Swedish Polytechnic School. At that moment Mr. Andr?e had not completed his twenty-fifth year. He had been appointed a member of the scientific staff through the influence of the Baron Nordenskj?ld, the greatest living Scandinavian polar explorer, and an intimate friend of the Swedish King. Mr. Andr?e's special duty on this first expedition was to keep track of Sir William Thomson's electrometers, and to report on other scientific peculiarities.

Mr. Andr?e is a genuine offspring of the famous sea-kings. He is very tall, powerfully built, with a prominent forehead, blue eyes, and a forest of fair early hair, and is endowed with great muscular strength. As for his mental capacities, he is a talented writer and speaker, and can converse in German and English as fluently as in his native tongue, while he speaks French well enough to make himself easily understood by an audience. Mr. Andr?e's practical education has not been neglected, and he knows how to use a hammer, a file, or a chisel as well as any trained workman. On account of his manual acquirements he was selected by the chief of the exploring party to keep the registering apparatus in order, a difficult and painful operation during the terrific cold of the dreary polar nights.

Before he had attained his thirtieth year Mr. Andr?e received the appointment of chief engineer of the Swedish Patent-Office. It is probable that he would have devoted the whole of his life to the performance of these attractive official duties had he not felt, during his wintering in the northern regions, the irresistible spell of a more risky and enticing vocation. When he visited me in Paris last summer on his way to the International Geographical Congress, held in London, he confessed that it was in the presence of those grand and impressive scenes he had resolved to win for his native country the fame of having reached the North Pole first.

On October 19th of the same year Mr. Andr?e made another ascension, in the course of which almost any inexperienced aeronaut would have been lost. As soon as he had passed through a layer of clouds, which up to that moment had entirely concealed the earth from view, he saw that he was passing at an immense distance from land over the very centre of the Baltic. With a calm hand he gently lowered his guide-rope, and observed that the friction on the water was greatly diminishing the velocity with which the wind was carrying the Swea away from the sea-ports, where he could reasonably expect to be rescued by casual ships. Then he tried to reduce the velocity even more by attaching two sacks of ballast to the end of his guide-rope. This simple combination, conceived under the pressure of a great danger, led him to a discovery. He found that he could make the balloon turn slightly to the right or left by using a sail when lowering the guide-rope, not only on sea, but on a vast expanse of land. Mr. Andr?e tried this important experiment during an ascension made on July 14, 1894, at Gottenburg. The change of course that he obtained with a moderate-sized sail and a heavy guide-rope was estimated from ten to thirty degrees, not only as shown by his compass, but also according to the testimony of competent persons who had witnessed this extraordinary ascension, when, for the first time, a man had made a balloon sail on the wind.

An eventful ending was reserved for this ascension, during which the young Swedish engineer had so cleverly combined the force of the wind with the friction it generates, and utilized both for varying at will the direction of the balloon to the right or left from the air current. The sun was fast declining when Mr. Andr?e conceived for the first time this great idea, which may prove so useful for reaching the North Pole. He soon observed a small island straight ahead in the direction he was then following, and at once threw out a sack of ballast. His guide-rope was freed from the waves in an instant, and the Swea darted forward at a rapid rate for the desired land. Ten minutes had not elapsed when Mr. Andr?e saw, with a feeling of deep satisfaction and even rapture, the shore lying about a hundred yards directly under his feet. Then he threw his whole weight on his valve-rope, hundreds of cubic feet of gas instantly escaped, the Swea struck land with a shock, and the car was overturned. Our aeronaut, to his great satisfaction, was thrown, at full length on the ground.

Being young in the art of balloon management, Mr. Andr?e could not imagine how quickly events happen in aerial navigation. Before he could grasp a rope the Swea had vanished in the air, and he was left alone on the island, without any food or covering, exposed to the cold of those latitudes during a long and dismal October night. Naturally enough, he found in his pocket a box of matches, for the manufacture of these useful objects is a specialty in his native country. He gathered a few dry weeds and dead shrubs and lighted a fire. While warming his tired and hungry body he had plenty of time to meditate over the hardships of his unenviable position. The island, which seemed allotted to him by fate, was not two furlongs long and one wide, and had no water. It was one of the thousand rocky and barren islets composing the Finnish archipelago, and there was but slight possibility that any vessel sent from Sweden could discover his retreat in time to save him from the most terrible of fates, death from hunger and thirst.

As soon as the sun was up on the following morning Mr. Andr?e ran to the crest of a little rocky eminence, and kept screaming at the top of his voice for more than an hour. Then he sat down exhausted and burst into tears. Finally his swollen eyes perceived a cloud of smoke upon the horizon. Surely it must be a steamer! No doubt the steamer was rapidly nearing the island! The unfortunate aeronaut wrecked from the skies was about to be rescued! In his joy he danced and resumed his screamings. For a while he was elated. He had some right to believe that he had been seen from the deck, as the ship was steering straight towards the island. But the vessel changed its course, and in spite of the balloonist's piercing cries, disappeared.

This unlucky departure would have driven many a resolute man to despair. For Mr. Andr?e it was a lesson. He at once understood that it was impossible for any one on a vessel to see a human figure on this desolate island, and that he must contrive a more showy signal than his body, notwithstanding he was tall and strongly built. After having meditated for half an hour--an eternity under the circumstances--he made a sort of stout stick by tying together with weeds a lot of branches torn from the shrubs. At the end of this stick he attached his trousers, and waved them wildly over his head, after having mounted to the top of the hill.

This unnamed island where Mr. Andr?e was left is situated a few miles from Brunsk?r, which has two houses. One of the two is owned by a tailor, who goes around once or twice a week in a boat to visit his customers, who are dispersed over the archipelago. Of course the tailor's eyes were attracted by the sight of a pair of trousers floating in the air, and he rowed to the spot to see what such a signal meant. And this is how Mr. Andr?e was restored to life, and thus enabled to pursue his grand idea of reaching the North Pole in a balloon.

Having given some idea of Mr. Andr?e's career, and shown a few traits of his energetic character, I purpose, as soon as possible, to tell my young readers the story of the preparations he is now making for this great aerial voyage, which is attracting the interest of scientific people all over the world. Mr. Andr?e will start on this perilous voyage some time this year, probably in July, if he can get all things ready by that time. His friend, Mr. Elkholm, will accompany him, and it is not impossible that the explorers may land somewhere in America, after having passed, perhaps, over the North Pole, or at least very near it.

A BATTER THAT WORKS THREE WAYS.

With very slight change one may convert the same material into several varieties of fancy bread. Southern cooks understand this so well that they frequently set aside a mixture, after having supplied the breakfast-table with griddle-cakes, only to have it reappear at luncheon in quite different guise--as "pone," muffins, egg-bread, or "pop-overs." If kept in a cool place an ordinary batter will remain sweet for twenty-four hours, and the addition of an egg or a spoonful of baking-powder will quickly restore its lightness.

The Virginia puffs will require everything except the half-pint of flour reserved for fritters.

Set aside a coffee-cup of milk, and put the rest in a farina-kettle over a brisk fire.

Share on: WhatsApp @Hash Facebook Tweet