Various

“ Frank led her through the garden to the most poetic little arbor ever Eastern dame sighed in. Recal to your mind the most beautiful poetry you ever read or dreamed of—your beau-ideal of poetry—whether it be Byron’s, Shelley’s, Shakspeare’s, your own, or Mother Goose’s, and the little poem of an arbor stands in its beauty before you.
Nina’s delight was rapturous. After exhausting all the known adjectives in its praise, Nina sat quietly down within it, Francis by her side, and talked with him about music, and flowers, and poetry, and all the bright things in nature. ”

“ The mate’s reasoning, therefore, was not only inexplicable to her, but it sounded absurd and impossible.
“Rosy dear,” said the worthy relict, as soon as she saw Mulford stretch his fine frame on his bed of canvas, speaking at the same time in a low, confidential tone to her niece, “what was it that Harry was telling you a little while ago. It sounded to me like rank nonsense; and men will talk nonsense to young girls, as I have so often warned you, child. You must never listen to their nonsense, Rosy; but remember your catechism and confirmation vow, and be a good girl.” ”

“ I marvel at you, Margaret!”
“And I both marvel at you, and grieve for you, Lionel,” cried the fair girl, indignantly. “You are unkind, unreasonable, and ungenerous. I thought you had come hither to say farewell, before riding forth to win honor in the field of loyalty; I thought you had come hither to speak kindly with the woman you pretend to love, the woman whom you may not see again for months, for years, perhaps forever. I thought you had come hither as a man, to console a fond girl’s sorrows, to point a sad girl’s hopes, to strengthen a frail girl’s weakness. ”

“ Frank took her hand at last—her little, soft, warm hand—and calling up a serious, tender look⁠—
“Nina,” said he, “I have traveled the world over, ay, more than once; I have seen many, very many beautiful beings; but never one like thee, sweet Nina. I will not say thou art the most beautiful, but I will say, thou art the most necessary to my existence, to my whole nature, of all earth contains. I love thee. Dearest Nina, may I call thee mine?” ”

“ Rose, you’ve been listening to nonsense now! Remember what I have so often told you about young men, and their way of talking. I admit Harry Mulford is a respectable youth, and has respectable connections, and since you like one another, you may have him, with all my heart, as soon as he gets a full-jiggered ship, for I am resolved no niece of my poor dear husband’s shall ever marry a mate, or a captain even, unless he has a full-jiggered ship under his feet. But do not talk nonsense with him. Nonsense is nonsense, though a sensible man talks it. ”

“ The conference between Jack Tier and Rose was frank and confidential.
“We must depend mainly on you,” said the latter, turning to look toward the spot where Mulford lay, buried in the deepest sleep that had ever gained power over him. “Harry is so fatigued! It would be shameful to awaken him a moment sooner than is necessary.”
“Ay, ay; so it is always with young women, when they lets a young man gain their ears,” answered Jack, without the least circumlocution; “so it is, and so it always will be, I’m afeard. Nevertheless, men is willians.” ”

“ History, written on the model of Hazlitt or Carlyle, would become more corrupting than the most licentious novels. Men of great abilities, loaded though they be with offences against human nature, would be held up as appropriate examples; and every ambitious politician would be practically told, that the way to win the gratitude of posterity was to trample on the rights of the governed, and violate every principle of legislation and morals. No historian of any acuteness can be at a loss for plausible excuses for crimes if his love for the criminal exceeds his love for justice and truth. ”

“ Agnes played and sang well. Frank was an enthusiastic lover of music, and just what and all he loved did she play. Never sang so sweet a voice as hers.
Music! dear Music! What nurse like thee will soothe the world-worn, weary soul? When we are sad and sullen, what will bring us to ourselves—to hope again—like music? Soft, wild music. Bellini music!
Agnes played, Frank listened. Agnes talked, Frank listened—his heart beat a young whirlwind. Time flew by unheeded—unmarked.
Francis recollected himself before it was quite midnight, and rose to go. ”

“ Mulford then regained all his powers. He sprang to the fore-sheet, calling on the others for aid. The violent surges produced by the wind prevented his grasping the sheet as soon as he could wish, and the vessel whirled round on her heel, like a steed that is frightened. At that critical and dangerous instant, when the schooner was nearly without motion through the water, a squall struck the flattened sails, and bowed her down as the willow bends to the gale. Mrs. Budd and Biddy screamed as usual, and Jack shouted until his voice seemed cracked, to “let go the head-sheets.” ”

“ But, he’s a great willian—a prodigious willian! I cannot say I actually wish him hanged; but I would rather have him hanged than see him get pretty Rose in his power. What has he to do with girls of nineteen? If the rascal is one year old he’s fifty-six. I hope the sloop-of-war will find her match, and I think she will. The Molly’s a great traveler, and not to be outdone easily. ’Twould be a thousand pities so lovely a craft should be cut off in the flower of her days, as it might be, and I do hope she’ll lead that bloody sloop on some sunken rock. ”

“ The feeling I have for you is love. God is love, and all his creation is ruled by the laws of love.”
“Cousin Edward, what is your definition of love?”
“Love,” said Edward, looking into the depths of her laughing blue eyes, “love is love.”
“Good!—that will do for you. So now, Frank, it is your turn Francis—brother.”
“What, Clara?”
“Where are you wandering?”
“To the vine-covered cottage you were telling me of.”
“Well, come back from there, and tell me what love is.”
“Love? Love is the devil! An angel of light—madness—gladness! ”

“ So you were watching me in these wild woods;” and then altering her tone in an instant, as if she had become aware that the effort was in vain, “but no,” she added, “no, no—you are mistaken; I am not mad, indeed I am not mad, only most miserable; though God knows, and he only, how soon they may make me mad also. Now listen to me, Jeremy, you must promise me here, and now, that you will do from this time forth whatever I may ask of you. I know that in old times you were good to my mother, and now, God help me, unless it be you alone, there is no one left to be good to her daughter. ”

“ I like elm trees; I like them in the moonlight, when the silver-tipped shadows flit among their dark green leaves; they bring to mind old ruined castles. I can fancy ivy-clad turrets, and the soft eyes of fairy maidens gazing from them. Their eyes, as they gleam forth from amid the night-colored boughs, look dreamy and fitful. I see them twine, with snowy, shadowy arms the dark green ivy amid their coal-black tresses. I love elm trees thus bathed in moonlight, they remind me of all the wild things I have ever read, thought or dreamed. ”

“ The glen expanded rapidly, sloping from the park palings downward toward the mansion, but so thick were the woods on either slope and in the bottom, that nothing could be distinguished in the foreground but the huge trunks of the giant oaks and beeches, with the tall lady fern growing in rank luxuriance under them, nor any thing in the distance but the twilight foliage of their heads, as they descended rank below rank in the great amphitheatre. ”

“ Considerably taller than the ordinary height of women, her figure, although very delicate and slender, with feet and ankles of the smallest and most fairy model, was yet so exquisitely rounded, so perfect in the rise and fall of every graceful and voluptuous outline, that it was not until you stood beside her, and compared her stature with your own, that you perceived how far she overtopped her fellow fair ones in height as in beauty. ”

“ Here was a flight in science and nautical language that poor Mulford could not have anticipated, even in the captain’s relict! That Mrs. Budd should mistake “setting the watch” for “setting our watches,” was not so very violent a blunder that one ought to be much astonished at it in her; but that she should expect to find a chronometer that was intended to keep the time of Greenwich agreeing with a watch that was set for the time of New York, betrayed a degree of ignorance that the handsome mate was afraid Rose would resent on him, when the mistake was made to appear. ”

“ I was ready to sign myself Esau, jun.—barter my birthright of intellect, and power, and independence, in short, every thing we had gained by the Reform, for but the strong arm and protecting presence to take me through that crowd. Luckily, I lacked the means of making my madness practical, for not an arm offered itself, and not a face turned toward me for any better purpose than to favor me with a familiar stare—an expressive acknowledgment of equality, which had been one of the first features of the Reform. ”

“ With a degree of natural eloquence, unusual among her sex, she recounted briefly, but feelingly, all those deep and burning wrongs which had been heaped by British arrogance upon our land. She spoke of the martyrs who had already laid down their lives in its behalf and the self-denying labors and perils of those great men who were still engaged in the cause, and who were destined, she said, to an immortality of fame, and to the unceasing gratitude of posterity.
“Do not think, dear Frank,” she concluded, “that I am transcending my proper line of duty. I talk only to you. ”

“ I go, I say, before breakfast, for then I’m lost altogether with the hunger, and I’m not able hardly to move, and I come to the trench, and it bothers me entirely, and I’m obligated to wade. And, Mehicle, Eileen tells me it’s the same way at breakfast, and he allows them but the two meals a-day; but, and listen to me, now. She says he gets up in the night, and gets things that’s left from the dinner, and ates them within in his bed, the dirty, unmannerly brute! ”

“ One stride brought him to the table, one stroke swept posset-cup and goblets from the board. Then, reverentially he composed the dead form thereon, while the soul-stricken pair gazed on him, scarcely conscious, and aghast, and at a single motion removing his hat and unsheathing his rapier,
“If that,” he said, pointing to the body, “if that sight slay not, swords are useless. For the rest, you, who have done this thing, and another that is yet to be, look to it! Margaret! Margaret! I tarried not; and if I came too late—nor do I tarry now—Margaret! Margaret! my wife, I come!” ”

“ It come easy enough to the next man that tried. That Spike’s a willian, and the gold was too good for him. He has no conscience at all to think of a gal of nineteen! And one fit for his betters, in the bargain. The time has been when Stephen Spike might have pretended to Rose Budd’s equal. That much I’ll ever maintain, but that time’s gone; and, what is more, it will never come again. I should like Mulford better if he had a little less conscience. Conscience may do for Uncle Sam’s ships, but it is sometimes in the way aboard a trading craft. ”

“ A fore-and-aft vessel, sailing close by the wind, is not difficult to steer; will almost steer herself, indeed, in smooth water. Jack Tier could take his trick at the helm, in any weather, even in running before the wind, the time when it is most difficult to guide a craft, and Rose might be made to understand the use of the tiller, and taught to govern the motions of a vessel so small and so simply rigged, when on a wind and in smooth water. On the score of managing the schooner, therefore, Mulford thought there would be little cause for apprehension. ”

“ Her hair, profuse even to redundance, of the richest and sunniest brown, with a golden tinge running through it where it met the light, fell down in soft and silky masses on either side of the pale oval face and the swan-like neck, and waved in floods of heavy ringlets over the splendid arch of her falling shoulders, and the dazzling fairness of her bust, so far as it was shown by the square cut bodice of her dark velvet dress.
“Margaret,” said the young man, as he sprang forward joyously to meet her, “my own sweet Margaret, is it at length thou? Oh! ”

“ I could have sworn he was an honest, frank, well-meaning sailor—a character, of all others, that I love; but it has turned out otherwise.”
“He’s a willian!” muttered Jack Tier.
Mulford smiled; at which speech we must leave to conjecture; but he answered Rose, as he ever did, promptly and with pleasure.
“The schooner is ready, and this must be our last meal ashore,” he said. “Our outfit will be no great matter; but if it will carry us down to Key West, I shall ask no more of it. As for the return of the Swash, I look upon it as certain. ”

“ We shall now advance the time eight-and-forty hours. The baffling winds and calms that succeeded the tornado had gone, and the trades blew in their stead. Both vessels had disappeared, the brig leading, doubling the western extremity of the reef, and going off before both wind and current, with flowing sheets, fully three hours before the sloop-of-war could beat up against the latter, to a point that enabled her to do the same thing. By that time, the Swash was five-and-twenty miles to the eastward, and consequently but just discernible in her loftiest sails, from the ship’s royal yards. ”