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~ one whom they might suspect was trying to
Dodge's Literary Wluseam. ~ -
(WattTEN ror Dopas’s Litznary Muses.)
Che Bowher’s Half-Crown:
A DEATI-BED CONFESSION.
BY JOHN COOPER VAIL.
IN THREE PARTS.---PART SECOND.
Chapter Fifth.
66 A SI suspected, De: Percy had taken
£ every precaution to hinder pur-
suit. The toll-gates were opened for me
most tardily, and I knew that the keepers
had been bribed with gold to detain any
overtake the fugitives. -
“arrived in London, weary and heart-
sick, and immediately repaired to the Belle
Sauvage Inn; but I found, to’ my chagrin,
that no such persons as 1 described had been
stopping there, and I gave up in despair of
rescuing Mary from the villain’s toils.
Charger, poor beast! had foundered with
such furious riding, and would never be
worth a pound to his owner again. JI hard-
ly knew what to do, or where to go. I was
desperate, but I resolved, that night, never
to return to my native village again until
Thad found the villain out, and avenged
Mary’s wrongs and mine. .
“T wrote a letter to my mother, and also
one to Mrs. Walton, about my unsuccessful
efforts to find the fugitives, and inclosed to
my mother forty pounds, to remunerate the
stable-kceper for the injury caused to his
horse. °
“ After this, I knew I must find employ-
ment immediately, for my funds were near-
ly gone. The next day I resolved to seek
asituation in the great modern Babylon.
My heart had been so torn and wrung with
anguish, that it had become as hard to every
like a star throughout the-land, and that
autograph was mine.*
“ All this time I had heard but twice of
Mary ‘Walton. and Edward De Percy,
though I set every engine at work, and
never ceased in my inquiry. They had
been seen together by a spy whom I em-
ployed, in the mountains of Switzerland, as
if ona tour of pleasure through that wild
and romantic clime, but my agent discover-
ed, by an intrigue with one of their female
servants, that there was bickering and an-
imosity between them that-must shortly end
in a separation. Ie had grown jealous of
her, and she had grown tired of him, who
had blotted virtue from her heart.
“ “In their wild life-drama, humanity seem-
ed reversed. learned afterwards that they
parted in Italy—she to become the mistress
of the rich Karl of Oxford, a nobleman of
three score and ten, and that he, maddened
with frenzy at the act, rushed into every
avenue of dissipation and vice.
“Tie drew on his doating father for large
amounts that he squandered at the gaming
table, and the father speculated wildly, to
retrieve what his son scattered to thé winds.
Ina few months the name of Algernon De
Percy, the time-honored London banker,
figured in the list of insolvents, and in a fit
of despair at his son’s misconduct and his
own irreparable disgrace, he took poison.
“We were equal in heritage now, and I
was his peer in all else. . The scale had long
feeling of humanity as the ncther millstone.
I resolved to play the hypocrite, to fawn, to
flatter, and use every scheme to rise to em-
inence and power—to stand on an equality
with my wronger, and if I rose above him
in the scale, crush him to atoms.
“T found, the next day, the very situation
I would have chosen in preference to any
other in the world. It was a clerkship in a
broker’s office, near the Bank of England.
I know not how it was, but something whis-
pered to my soul that this was the employ-
ment in which my scheme of vengeance was
to be realized. ele
“Twas true to my employer's interests,
and early and late I toiled like a galley-
slave at the oar, My assiduity and attention
to business were appreciated, and with my
kind mother’s assistance, in three years I
became a junior partner of the house. This,
and a handsome legacy left me by a bachel-
or uncle, in the West Indies, (whom I had
not heard of for years,) placed me in afflu-
ent circumstances.
“TJ took apartments at the west end, and
found time to devote myself to literature
and art. I wrote a successful play, under a
fictitious name, and it was trumpeted to the
world as the best drama of the age. I
courted the Muses and produced an Epic
with equal facility, and the gullible public
quoted it as a miracle of beauty and power.
But the world knew not that the mantle of
the father had fallen on the son, with a
double portion of inspiration. William
Grey, the suicide’s heir, would have been
scouted from the ranks of literature by every
snarling critic’s judgment, though his works
had been as sublime_as the records of an
angel. But the name of ‘Junivs’ shone
since turned in the avenger’s favor. I took
his half-crown from my safe the night of his
father’s death, and kissed it with the devo-
| tion of eternal hate!
Chapter Sixth, :
66 N Y business flourished like the bay
q tree of the proverb. The sails of
my ships whitened every sea; gold poured
into my coffers from countless streams, and
my. cheque was good for any amount on
Change.
a plum, and sought my judgment in affairs
of note. Hoary bankers bowed the knee at
my shrine of Mammon, and thoughtful fa-
thers charged their sons to emulate my ex-
ample. Midas-like, everything I touched
turned to gold; but [looked on it as dross,
in all other respects, save to accomplish the
one great act of my. life. .
“One evening, a lad in livery brought
a note to my lodgings, in Cavendish square.
My servant observed that it was stamped
with a lord’s coat of arms, and placed it in
my possession immediately. I knew the
hand-writing at a glance.* It was the ele-
gant and unique style of Mary Walton, and
I tore it open with feverish anxiety. I was
not deceived. It ran thus:
of Oxford’s residence, at No. — Revent
street, to-morrow night, between the hours
of eight and nine, he may have the pleasure
of conversing with an old friend. -
“ «Mary,
“«P.S, The time is opportune, as the
* Towerfully-written articles, under this nom de
plume, were exccedingly-popular throughout Eng-
land, about the middle of the eighteenth century,
and although the utmost endeavors were made by
the most talented in the land to know the author's
Staid merchants sct me down at | >
“<«Te William Grey will call at the Earl y
Earl is in Paris, and will not return: for
eight days. . M’
“T cannot describe the impatience I felt
for the next twenty-four hours. The time
seemed to pass so slowly that every moment
was an hour, and every hour an age.
“T thought of the bright vision of the
past, when we had exchanged hearts, and
yowed eternal love; and of the darker time
when she had cast my pledge like a leper
from the sanctuary of her bosom. And
now, fallen from the high estate of’ virtue,
she was the mistress of a man of three score
and ten—a very Venus de Medicis bound
to a Satyr. et
“JT was true to the appointment. As the
clock pealed the last chime ‘of eight; the
ensuing night, I waa~ ushered‘ by’an .aged |.
domestic into the gorgeous palace. of the
Earl, The folding-doors were thrown open,
and I entered a chamber literally blazing
with glory. But there was no one there to
receive me, for, as the servant motioned me
to be seated, he said, ‘Presently,’ and re-
tired. ,
“T gazed on the magnificence around me
with astonishment.*. A golden chandelier
hung pendant by an ivory Cupid, and shed
its perfumed light on the most exquisite
paintings of Raphael, framed in mosaic and
earl. Onasilver table lay a miniature,
set in diamonds—the value of which was
immense. The curtains and tapestry. were
of green and gold, and their work repre-
sented the wars of the Plantaganets, and the
guilty love of Henry II. and fair Rosamond.
Two crystal’ vases adorned. the mantle-
piece, filled with the rarest exotics of the
torrid zone. The carpet was of the style
of Louis Quatorze, and as soft as the down
on the cygnet’s wing. In fact, the lamp of
Aladdin could not have added a deeper
enchantment to the scene. It was beyond
the power of the genii’s art.
“ While my senses were almost entranc-
ed with the splendor that surrounded me,
Theard a clear, ringing laugh, and Mary
Walton, dressed in superb oriental style,
bounded into the room:
“¢ Why, Willie Grey!” she exclaimed,
rushing up to me, and taking both my hands
in hers, ‘how glad Iam to sce you! And
you have grown so handsome, too, a very
Don Juan! Ah, you naughty man, won’t
you smile on poor Haidee?? . -
“ She looked at me, with her great blue
eyes, as I rose to receive her, and all the
seeming joy of innocence and virtue ap-
peared depicted in her lovely face.’ I never
saw a human being half so beautiful. No
flush of shame on her brow, no line of care
or sorrow. I was thunderstruck, and could
only murmur,
“¢O, Mary, is it you ?”
“She laughed again, in the same mellow
tones of childhood.
“*'To be sure it is, Willie. No fairy’s
wand has ‘changed my nature; Lam your
dear little playmate, and,’ she added, co-
quettishly, ‘true love, Mary Walton: But
come, sit down; I've a thousand things to
tell you, and you must listen, but not chide
your old friend? .
“T thought she was deranged, and I felt
a thrill of terror through my frame, but I
did as she desired.
“<«Mary Walton!’ I exclaimed, passion-
ately, ‘how can you, once so pure and vir-
tuous, remain the passive mistress of shame
to driveling dotate ?’
“* Why, Willie, how unreasonable you
are! I love the Earl dearly, he is so kind
and amiable. He calls me his ‘charming
Sybarite,” and & score of prelly names. I
name, it has to this time been shrouded in mystery.
se caer it,
eed se ee
enjoy every luxury, and my wishes are
obeyed like a queen’s. My banker’s ac-
count is unlimited—see.’ »
“She rose and took a check for a thou-
sand guineas that lay on the toilet-table, and
ere I could interfere to prevent her, burned
it to ashes by the flame of the candelabra.
“« And now, Willie, since my little freak
is over, let us talk about my former, cava-
lier, the gay, gallant, and charming De
Perey. They say he is terribly involved,
poor fellow! and his beautiful, and innocent
sister Maude has to seek a home with an
old friend of her father’s. . What a pity that
some good, eccentric friend, like mine, does
not place her in the same enviable position
that Lenjoy’——
“«What mean you?’ T inquired. ‘I can
not understand”, “ . . .
«\ Dear sweetheart, she replied, ‘how
dull you are! Isee I'll have to explain.”
Do you remember the old willow-tree by
the brook, back of my mother’s cottage, at
Torquay, where we used’ to wander, band
in hand together, and when we got tired of
hunting the butterflies, or hearing the birds
sing, we used to sit down in: its shade,‘and
play a game called * guess ?”? Lots
“T nodded. .
“Well, when each one came near find-
ing out the other's thought, according to the
rules, we had to cry “ hot.” . Now, suppose
we are children again; this chandelier above
is the old willow-tree ; this ottoman on which
we sit, the mossy bank, and the border of
the carpet thé murmuring brook. I'll com-
mence first. I have a thought—guess, and
when you are very near, I'll ery “hot”? *
[To BE CONCLUDED IN OUR NEXT.] .
~ [Written for Dodge’s Literary Museum.}
“MY MOTHER.
BY D. GILBERT DEXTER.
My mother? ! can ne'er forget
A mother’s hopes and fears,
For often has my cheek becn wet
By her maternal tears.
Their memory still round me clings, /
Where’er my footsteps rove; ~ >...
I may forget a thousand things, ~
But not a mother’s love!
For O, how often have I clang”
.To that fond mother's breast,
And listened while she sweetly sung _
My little cares to rest. - ~ Poe
And when I'd slumbered there awhile,
And from a dream would start,
How often was my infant smile
The sunshine of her heart! |.
: LON :
Now, when the lapse of many years
Over early scenes are fled,) |“ )-°-,
Ilove the memory of those tears ,
Maternal fondness shed.
Wuaaxotox, Vr. November, 1854,
Cupid Out West.
Tne young god of love, in his old age,
seems to be getting reckless as to the dirce-
tion in which he flings his fatal shafts.’ . In
Somerset, Ohio, a short. time since, two girls
were so captivated with the war-whoop and
dances of a band of Indians who were ex-
hibiting in that town, that they eloped with
two of them, and -proceeded’as far as the
town of Putnam, when they were | over-
taken by their angry mother, a widow lady,
who called on the police to rescue her
daughters from their newly chosen husbands.
Finding all her efforts of no avail, she at
length yiclded to the solicitations of a third
dusky warrior, and joining her fortunes to
his for better or worse, accompanied -her
daughters on their western tour. :
ee
AN. inveterate’ bachelor, being asked hy
ascntimental miss why he did not secure
some fond one’s company, in his voyage on
the ocean of life, replied, ‘
“T would, if I were sure such an ocean
would be Pacific.? += ~~ -
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