Major Anderson Enters Ft. Sumter (Cont.)

HARPER'S WEEKLY.

[JANUARY 12, 1861.

26

(Major Anderson Enters Ft. sumter, Continued from Previous Page)

at the news. They had calculated, it seems, on taking Fort Sumter without resistance ; and as it commands Fort Moultrie, they would have reduced that work, and taken Major Anderson and his command prisoners whenever they chose. The Major was a little too smart for them, however. With the small force he has he can hold Fort Sumter against a very large body of assailants, and in the event of an attack, can shell Charleston with his heavy bombs. However, to console them-selves, the people of Charleston resolved to occupy Castle Pinckney, a fort of minor importance. The Charleston Mercury gives the following account of the movement :

"The Rifle battalion, under command of Colonel J. J. Pettigrew, assembled promptly upon the Citadel green. They were substantially equipped in winter uniform, with blankets, knapsacks, and revolvers. The battalion numbered some 150 men, and consisted of detachments from the Meagher Guards, the Carolina light infantry. and the Washington light infantry. Shortly after four o'clock the word was given, and the companies advanced in double-quick time, without music, toward the Cooper River. None of them, we believe, excepting the officers, were aware of their destination. They embarked on the steamer Nina, which immediately headed for Castle Pinckney, and the surmise soon became confirmed that the destination of the command was to take possession of that fortress. On nearing the fort, a number of men were observed on the wharf, one of whom, in advance of the others, was observed holding what appeared to be a paper in his hand. This was said to have been the riot act. As soon as the Nina touched the wharf, the storming party who had been detailed for that duty sprang ashore, and rushed round to the rear of the fortress, where the gate is situated. This was found closed, and a cry for storming ladders was soon answered by a detachment bearing a dozen or more of them. These were instantly planted, and under cover of the rifles of the battalion, the walls were escaladed and the gates thrown open.

"On entering the fort it was found to be tenanted only by an officer of engineers and a small party of laborers—none of whom made any resistance. The engineer officer was informed that he was at liberty to leave, and remove his personal effects, and in a few minutes he set out in a boat belonging to the fort, accompanied by four other men. From the direction in which he steered, it is supposed that he went to Fort Moultrie.

"The flag of the Nina, consisting of a white star on a red ground, was then hoisted amidst loud cheers; and when our reporter left a strong guard had been mounted, and preparations for garrisoning the fortress were well advanced."

A DAY'S RIDE :

A LIFE'S ROMANCE.
BY CHARLES LEVER.

AUTHOR OF "CHARLES O'MALLEY," "HARRY LORREQUER,"
ETC., ETC.

CHAPTER XXXI.

WHAT a pleasant little, dinner we had that day ! It was laid out in a little summer-house of the inn garden. All overgrown with a fine old fig-tree, through whose leaves the summer wind played deliciously, while a tiny rivulet rippled close by, and served to cool our "Achten tholer"—an amount of luxury that made Tintenfleck quite wild with laughter.

"Is it cold enough ?" she asked, archly, in her peasant-dialect, each time the old man laid down his glass.

As I came gradually to pick up the occasion-al meaning of her words—a process which her expressive pantomime greatly aided—I was struck by the marvelous acuteness of a mind so totally without culture, and I could not help asking Vaterchen why he had never attempted to instruct her.

"What can I do?" said he, despondently; 4' there are no books in the only language she knows, and the only language she will condescend to speak. She can understand Italian, and I have read stories for her, and sonnets too, ant of Leopardi, but though she will listen in all eagerness till they are finished, no sooner over than she breaks out into some wild Calarian song, and asks me is it not worth all the fine things I have been giving her, thrice told."

"Could you not teach her to write?"

" I tried that. I bought a slate, and I made it bargain with her, that she should have a scar-let knot for her hair when she could ask me for it in written words. Well, all seemed to go on prosperously for a time ; we had got through half the alphabet very successfully, till we came to the letter H. This made her laugh immediately, it was so like a scaffold we had in the circus for certain exercises ; and no sooner had I marked down the letter than she snatched the pencil from me and drew the figure of a man on each bar of the letter. From that hour forth, as though her wayward humor had been only imprisoned, she burst forth into every imaginable absurdity at our lessons. Every ridiculous event of our daily life she drew, and with a rapidity almost incredible. I was not very apt, as you may imagine, in acquiring the few accomplishments they thought to give me, and she caricatured me under all my difficulties."

"Si, si," broke she in at this; for with a wonderful acuteness she could trace something of a speaker's meaning where every word was unknown to her. As she spoke she arose and fled down the garden at top speed.

"Why has she gone? Is she displeased at your telling me all these things about her?" asked I.

" Scarcely that ; she loves to be noticed. No-thing really seems to pain her so much as when she is passed over unremarked. When such an event would occur in the circus, I have seen her sob through her sleep all the night after. 1 half suspect now that she is piqued at the little notice yon have bestowed upon her. All the better if it be so."

"But here she comes again." With the same speed she now came back to us, holding her slate over her head, and show

ing that she rightly interpreted what the old man had said of her.

" Now for my turn !" said Vaterchen, with a smile. " She is never weary of drawing me in every absurd and impossible posture."

" What is it to be, Tintenfleck ?" asked he. " How am I to figure this time ?"

She shook her head without replying, and, making a sign that she was not to be questioned or interrupted, she nestled down at the foot of the fig-tree, and began to draw.

The old man now drew near me, and proceeded to give me further details of her strange temper and ways. I could mark that throughout all he said a tone of intense anxiety and care prevailed, and that he felt her disposition was exactly that which exposed her to the greatest perils for her future. There was a young artist who used to follow her through all the South Tyrol, affecting to be madly in love with her, but of whose sincerity and honor Vaterchen professed to have great misgivings. Ile gave her lessons in drawing, and, what was less to be liked, he made several studies of herself. "The artless way," said the old man, "she would come and repeat to me all his raptures about her, was at first a sort of comfort to me. I felt reassured by her confidence, and also by the little impression his praises seemed to make, but I saw later on that I was mistaken. She grew each day more covetous of these flatteries, and it was no longer laughingly, but in earnest seriousness she would tell me that the 'Fornarina' in some gallery had not such eyes as hers, and that some great statue that all the world admired was far inferior to her in shape. If I had dared to rebuke her vanity, or to ridicule her pretensions, all my influence would have been gone forever. She would have left us, gone who knows whither, and been lost, so that I had nothing for it but to seem to credit all she said and yet hold the matter lightly, and I said beauty has no value except when associated with rank and station. If queens and princesses be handsome, they are more fitted to adorn this high estate, but for humble folk it is as great a mockery as these tinsel gems we wear in the circus.

"' Max says not,' said she to me one evening, after one of my usual lectures. ' Max says there are queens would give their coronets to have my hair, ay, or even one of the dimples in my cheek.'

"'Max is a villain,' said I, before I could control my words.

"' Max is a vero signor !' said she, haughtily, 'and not like one of us ; and more, too, I'll go and tell him what you have called him.' She bounded away from me at this, and I saw her no more till nightfall.

"' What has happened to you, poor child?' said I, as I saw her lying on the floor of her room, her forehead bleeding, and her dress all draggled and torn. She would not speak to me for a long while, but by much entreating and caressing I won upon her to tell me what had befallen her. She had gone to the top of the 'Glucksberg' and thrown herself down. It was a fearful height, and only was she saved by being caught by the brambles and tangled foliage of the cliff; and all this for ' one harsh word of mine,' she said. But I knew better; the struggle was deeper in her heart than she was aware of, and Max had gone suddenly away, and we saw no more of him."

" Did she grieve after him ?"

"I scarcely can say she did. She fretted, but I think it was for her own loneliness and the want of that daily flattery she had grown so fond of. She became overbearing, and even insolent, too, with all her equals, and though for many a day she had been the spoiled child of the troop, many began to weary of her waywardness. I don't know how all this might have turned out, when, just as suddenly, she changed and became every thing that she used to be."

When the old man had got thus far the girl arose, and, without saying a word, laid the slate before us. Vaterchen, not very quick-sighted, could not at once understand the picture, but I caught it at once, and laughed immoderately. She had taken the scene where I had presented Vaterchen and herself to the ladies at the tea-table, and with an intense humor sketched all the varying emotions of the incident. The offended" dignity of the old lady, the surprise and mortification of Miss Herbert, and my own unconscious pretension as I pointed to the " friends" who accompanied me, were drawn with the spirit of high caricature. Nor did she spare Vaterchen or herself ; they were drawn, perhaps, with a more exaggerated satire than all the rest.

The old man no sooner comprehended the subject than he drew his hand across it, and turned to her with words of anger and reproach. I meant, of course, to interfere in her behalf, but it was needless; she fled, laughing, into the garden, and before many minutes were over we heard her merry voice, with the tinkle of a guitar to assist it.

"There it is," said Vaterchen, moodily. " What are you to do with a temperament like that ?"

That was a question I was in no wise prepared to answer. Tintenfleck's temperament seemed to be the very converse of my own. I was over-eager to plan out every thing in life. She appeared to be just as impulsively bent on risking all. My head was always calculating eventualities ; hers, it struck me, never worried itself about difficulties till in the midst of them. Now, Jean Paul tells us that when a man detects any exaggerated bias in his character, in-stead of endeavoring, by daily watching, to correct it, he will be far more successful if he ally himself with some one of a diametrically opposite humor. If he be rash, for instance, let him

seek companionship with the sluggish. If his tendency bear to over-imagination, let him frequent the society of realists. Why, therefore, should not I and Tintenfleck be mutually beneficial ? Take the two different kinds of wood in a bow : one will supply resistance, the other flexibility. It was a pleasant notion, and I re-solved to test it.

Vaterchen," said I, "call me to-morrow, when you get ready for the road. I will keep you company as far as Constance."

"Ah, Sir," said he, with a sigh, " you will be well weary of us before half the journey is over; but you shall be obeyed."

CHAPTER XXXII.

NEXT morning, just as day was breaking, we set out on foot on our road to Constance. There was a pinkish-gray streak of light on the horizon, sure sign of a fine day, and the bright stars twinkled still in the clear half-sombre sky, and all was calm and noiseless—nothing to be heard but the tramp of our own feet on the hard causeway.

With the cowardly caution of one who feels the water with his foot before he springs in to swim, I was glad that I made my first experiences of companionship with these humble friends while it was yet dark and none could see us. The old leaven of snobbery was unsubdued in my heart, and as I turned to look at poor old Vaterchen, and then at the tinsel finery of Catinka, I bethought me of the little consideration the world extends to such as these and their be-longings. "Vagabonds all!" would say some rich banker, as he rolled by in his massive traveling-carriage, creaking with imperials and jingling with bells ; " Vagabonds all !" would mutter the Jew peddler as he looked down from the banquette of the diligence. How slight is the sympathy of the realist for the poor creature whose life-labor is to please ! How prone to regard him as useless, or, even worse, forgetting the while how a wiser than he has made many things in this beautiful world of ours that they should merely minister to enjoyment, gladden the eye and ear, and make our pilgrimage less weary ! Where would be the crimson jay ? where the scarlet bustard? where the gorgeous peacock, with the nosegay on his tail ? where the rose, and the honey-suckle, and the purple foxglove, mingling with the wild thorns in our hedgerows, if the universe were of their creation, and this great globe but one big workshop ? You never insist that the daisy and the daffodil should be pot-herbs ; and why are there not to be wild flowers in humanity as in the fields? Is it not a great pride to you who live under a bell-glass, nurtured and cared for, and with your name attached to a cleft-stick at your side—is it not a great pride to know that you are not like one of us poor dog-roses? Be satisfied, then, with that glory ; we only ask to live! Shame on me for that "only!" As if there could be any thing more delightful than life. Life, with all its capacities for love, and friend-ship, and heroism, and self-devotion, for generous actions and noble aspirations ! Life to feel life ; to know that we are in a sphere specially constructed for the exercise of our senses and the play of our faculties ; free to choose the road we would take, and with a glorious reward if our choice be the right one !

" Vagabonds !' Yes," thought I, " there was once on a time such a vagabond, and he strolled along from village to village making of his flute a livelihood ; a poor performer, too, he tells us he was, but he could touch the hearts of these simple villagers with his tones as be could move the hearts of thousands more learned than they with his marvelous pathos, and this vagabond was called Oliver Goldsmith." I have no words to say the ecstasy this thought gave me. Many a proud traveler doubtless swept past the poor wayfarer as he went, dusty and footsore, and who was, nevertheless, journeying onward to a great immortality ; to be a name remembered with blessings by generations when the haughty man that scorned him was forgotten forever. "And so now," thought I, "some splendid Russian or some Saxon Croesus will crash by and not be conscious that the thin and weary-looking youth, with the girl's bundle on his stick and the red umbrella under his arm, that this is Potts ! Ay, Sir, you fancy that to be threadbare and footsore is to be vulgar-minded and ignoble, and you never so much as suspect that the heart inside that poor plaid waistcoat is throbbing with ambitions high as a Kaiser's, and that the brain within that battered Jim Crow is the realm of thoughts profound as Bacon's and high-soaring as Milton's."

If I make my reader a sharer in these musings of mine, it is because they occupied me for some miles of the way. Vaterchen was not talkative, and loved to smoke on uninterruptedly. I fancy that, in his way, he was as great a dreamer as myself. Catinka would have talked incessantly if any one had listened, or could understand her. As it was, she recited legends and sang songs for herself; as happy as ever a blackbird was to listen to his own melody ; and though I paid no especial attention to her mu-sic, still did the sounds float through all my thoughts, bathing them with a soothing flood; lust as the air we breathe is often loaded with a sweet and perfumed breath, that steals into our blood ere we know it. On the whole, we journeyed along very pleasantly, and what between the fresh morning air, the brisk exercise, and the novelty of the situation, I felt in a train of spirits that made me delighted with every thing. "This, after all," thought I, " is more like the original plan I sketched out for myself. This is the true mode to see life and the world. The student of Nature never begins his studies with the more complicated organizations; he

sets out with what is simplest in structure, and least intricate in function ; he begins with the extreme link of the chain : so, too, I start with the investigation of those whose lives of petty cares and small ambitions must. render easy of appreciation. This poor Mollusca Vaterchen, for instance. To see is to know him ; and the girl, how absurd to connect such a guileless child of nature as that with those stereotyped notions of feminine craft and subtlety !" I then went on to imagine such future biographer of mine engaged on this portion of my life, puzzled for materials, puzzled, still more, to catch the clew to my meaning in it. " At this time," will he say, " Potts, by one of those strange ca-prices which often were the mainspring of his actions, resolved to lead a gipsy life. His ardent love of nature, his heartfelt enjoyment of scenery, and, more than even these, a certain breadth and generosity of character, disposed him to sympathize with those who have few to pity and fewer to succor them. With these wild children of the roadside he lived for months, joyfully sharing the burdens they carried, and taking his part in their privations. It was here he first met Catinka." I stopped at this sentence, and slowly repeated to myself, "' It was here he first met Catinka !' What will he have next to record?" thought I. "Is Potts now to claim sympathy as the victim of a passion that regarded not station, nor class, nor fortune; that despised the cold conventionalities of a selfish world, and asked only a heart for a heart ? Is he to be remembered as the faithful believer in his own theory—Love, above all ? Are we to hear of him clasping rapturously to his bosom the poor forlorn girl?" So intensely were my feelings engaged in my speculations, that, at this critical pass, I threw my arms around Catinka's neck and kissed her. A rebuke, not very cruel, not in the least angry or peevish, brought me quickly to myself, and as Vaterchen was fortunately in front and saw nothing of what passed, I speedily made my peace. I do not know how it happened, but in that same peace-making I had passed my arm round her waist and there it remained—an army of occupation after the treaty was signed—and we went along, side by side, very amicably—very happily.

We are often told that a small competence—the just enough to live on—is the bane of all enterprise ; that men thus placed are removed from the stimulus of necessity, and yet not lifted into the higher atmosphere of ambitions. Exactly in the same way do I believe that equality is the grave of love. The passion thrives on difficulty, and requires sacrifice. You must bid defiance to mankind as your choice, or you are a mere fortune-hunter. Show the world the blushing peasant girl you have made your wife, and say, " Yes, I have had courage to do this." Or else strive for a princess—a Russian princess. Better, far better, however, the humble-hearted child of nature and the fields, the simple, trusting, confiding girl, who regarded her lover as a sort of demi-god, would, while she clung to him

" You pressed me so hard!" murmured Catinka, half rebukingly, but with a sort of pouting expression that became her marvelously.

"I was thinking of something that interested me, dearest," said 1; but I'm not sure that I made my meaning very clear to her, and yet there was a roguish look in her black eye that muzzled me greatly. I began to like her, or, if you prefer the phrase, to fall in love with her. I knew it—I felt it just the way that a man who has once had the ague never mistakes when he is going to have a return of the fever. In the same way exactly did I recognize all the premonitory symptoms; the giddiness, the shivering, increased action of the heart

Halt, Potts ! and reflect a bit ; are you describing love, or a tertian?

How will the biographer conduct himself here? Whether will he have to say, "Potts resisted manfully this fatal attachment : had he yielded to the seductions of this early passion, it is more than probable we should never have seen him this, that, and t'other, nor would the world have been enriched with—Heaven knows what ;" or shall he record, "Potts loved her, loved her as only such a nature as his ever loves? He felt keenly all that, in a mere worldly point of view, he must sacrifice; but it was exactly in that love and that sacrifice was born the poet, the wondrous child of song, who has given s the most glorious lyrics of our language. He had the manliness to share his fortune with this poor girl. ' It was,' he tells us him-self, in one of those little touching passages in his diary, which place him immeasurably above the mock sentimentality of Jean-Jacques-se' it was on the road to Constance, of a bright and breezy summer morning, that I told her of my love. We were walking along, our arms around each other, as might two happy, guiltless children. I was very young in what is called the world, but I had a boundless confidence in my-self: my theory was, " If I be strengthened by the deep devotion of one loving heart, I have no fears of failure." Beautiful words, and worthy of all memory ! And then he goes on : 'I drew her gently over to a grassy bench on the roadside, and taking my purse from my pocket, poured out before her its humble con-tents, in all something less than twenty sovereigns, but to her eyes a very Pactolus of wealth.' "

"What if I were to try this experiment?" thought I ; " what if I were, so to say, to anticipate my own biography?" The notion pleased me much. There was something novel in it, too. It was making the experiment in the "corpore vile" of accident, to see what might come of it.

"Come here, Catinka," said I, pointing to a moss-covered rock at the roadside, with a little