One after another the cards are turned up, placed in piles, then put together and shuffled. Cut them three times; it is done. Ah! a good sign, first comes a king. The girls are a perfect picture-two mouths breathless and speechless, four eyes, smiling and yet awe-struck, follow closely the motion of the fingers. Upon the lips of Martha a sweet smile slowly rests, like a fairy flower. The queen of hearts is turned up; then the knave of clubs. If now no black malignant spade appears, Jacques will be saved. Seven spades are already out; only one remains in the pack; there is nothing to fear. The beautiful dealer is smiling, is joking-stop! like a grinning skull cast into the midst of a festive crowd, the queen of spades comes up to announce some dire misfor

tune!

Hark! on the highway the noisy drum strikes in like a mocking laugh, mingled with the strains of the shrill fife and wild bursts of song. It is easy to guess that these are the happy fellows who have escaped the draft, whom the great Moloch of war, with a lingering touch of pity, is going to leave to the country. Here they come in two long lines, dancing, leaping, each one wearing in his hat his lucky number. Soon a crowd of mothers gathers around them, many weeping for joy, and some for grief.

What a moment for the two young girls whom the cards have just smitten with sorrow! The noisy group comes nearer still. Martha, wishing to put an end to the torturing suspense, flies to the little window, but immediately recoils, utters a faint cry, and falls cold and fainting beside Annette, who is herself shivering with fear. The cards had not deceived them. In the midst of the lucky crowd whose lives are saved to their country stands Joseph. Jacques was not there; he had drawn "number 3."

Two weeks pass, and the light-hearted Annette steps out at the threshold of the flowerbedecked church, fast married to Joseph; while in the house of mourning, Jacques, the unhappy conscript, with tears in his eyes, and a knapsack on his shoulders, bids farewell to his betrothed in touching words as she stands overwhelmed with grief. "Martha," he says, "they compel me to depart; happiness deserts us, but take courage; men come back from the You know I have nothing, no father, no mother; I have only you to love. If death spares my life, it belongs to you. Let us hope, still hope for the happy day when I shall lead you to the marriage altar like a gift of loveflowers."

wars.

II.

A great sorrow.—Martha snatched from the tomb.—The handsome girl-merchant.-Jacques will find a rival.

The beautiful month of May, whose new birth brings universal pleasure, king of all the months, let it wear the crown, and surround itself with joys!--The month of May has come again. Upon the hill-side and in the valleys happy hearts unite to chant its praises; it comes softly and sweetly, and like lightning it is gone. But, while it lasts, everywhere is heard the sound of melodious song; everywhere you behold happy festive groups entwining in the joyous dance.

At length the spring is past, and while its pleasures still linger in the groves and fields, in yonder little cabin, one sweet and lonely voice thus moans in a song of sorrow: "The swallows have come back; up there are my two in their nest; they have not been parted as we have. Now they fly down; see, I can put my hand upon them. How sleek and pretty they are; they still have upon their necks the ribbons which Jacques tied there on my last birthday, when they came to peck from our united hands the little golden flies we had caught for them. They loved Jacques. Their little eyes are looking for him just where I am sitting. Ah! you may circle round my chair, poor birds, but Jacques is no longer here. I am alone, without a friend, weeping for him, weary too, for the friendship of tears fatigues itself. But stay with me; I will do everything to make you love me. Stay, dear birds that Jacques loved; I want to talk to you of him. They seem to know how their presence consoles me. They kiss each other, happy little things. Kiss, a long kiss; your joy is balm to my heart. I love them, for they are faithful to me, as Jacques also is. But no one kills swallows; men only kill each other. Why does he write no more? Mon Dieu! who knows where he is; I always feel as if some one is going to tell me that he is dead. I shudder; that terrible fear chokes my heart. Holy Virgin, take it away; the fever of the grave is burning me up; and oh! good Mother of God, I want to live if Jacques still lives! Where are you, beautiful swallows? Ah! my grief has been too noisy; I have frightened you away. Come back, and bring me happiness; I will mourn more softly. Stay with me, birds whom Jacques loved, for I must talk to you of him."

Thus, day after day, mourned the orphan girl her lover's absence. Her old uncle, her

only guardian, beheld her sorrow, and was grieved. She saw him weeping, and dissembled her own pain to chase away his tears. She tried to keep her troubles from the world, that frivolous, heartless world which is ready to find evil in everything; which laughed at her sorrows, and had no sympathy with them. At length, when All-Saints' Day came round, they saw two wax candles burning for the dying, on the Virgin's altar, and when the priest said: 'Death is hovering over the couch of a young and suffering girl; good souls, pray for poor Martha," every one bent his head in shame, and out of every heart came the Paters bathed in tears.

But she will not die; it was the dark hour before the dawn. Grim Death may fill up his new-made grave. Her uncle, at her bedside, has said but one word; it sinks into her heart. That sweet word has brought her back to life; she is saved! The fire comes back to her eye, her blood begins to course again under her white skin. Life returns in great tidal waves of light. "Everything is ready, my child," says her smiling uncle, and her answer is: "Yes, let us work, let us work." Then, to the astonishment of every one, Martha requickened, lives for another love,-the love of money! She craves money, she is a miser, money is her only concern. She would coin it with her own blood. Well, hard work will give money to every brave hand, and Martha's hand is more than brave.

Under the rustic archway, who is that girlmerchant, rousing the hamlet with her chatter and noise; who is buying and selling incessantly? That is Martha; how every one praises her, so good, so complaisant, so charming. Her buyers increase in numbers like a rolling ball of snow. Yesterday she had twenty, today forty. Gold pours down upon her little arcade. Thus a year passes. Martha is happy while she works, for Jacques is not dead. No, he has been seen more than once in the army. Sometimes when the report of a battle arrives, her arm drops, and her eye loses its light; but her courage soon returns if rumour makes no mention of a regiment which is always in her thoughts.

One day her uncle says to her: "In order to attain your long-desired happiness, you need a thousand pistoles, and you will soon have them. A little pile soon becomes large. We need not sell the cottage. Look at your moneybox. With the proceeds of my vineyard, and what you have already earned, you have already more than half the sum. Have patience for six months more. Why! my child, happiness

costs time and labour and money. You have nearly three-quarters. Finish the good work yourself. I am content; before I die I hope to see you perfectly happy.

Alas! the poor old man was mistaken. Two weeks later, death closed his eyes, and Martha sat in the churchyard, weeping upon his grave. There, one evening, she was heard to murmur: "My strength is exhausted; sainted spirit of my loving uncle, I can wait no longer; forgive me; the good priest sanctions the act;" and, without delay, to the astonishment of the vil lagers, furniture, shop, house, all that she possesses, change hands. She sells everything, except a gilded cross, and the rose-coloured dress with little blue flowers in which Jacques loved to see her. She had wanted silver, she was now laden with gold; her thousand pistoles are in her hands; but so young and inexperienced as she is, what is she going to do with them? "What is the poor child going to do with them?" do you ask? The very thought lacerates my heart. She goes out; she seems, as she leaves her little home, an impersonation of the angel of sorrow slowly rising towards happiness, which is beginning to smile upon her flight. That is not a flash of lightning; it is her little foot which with lightning speed spurns the path. She enters the quiet little house, where sits a man with hair as white as snow; it is the priest, who welcomes her with an affectionate air. "Good father," she cries, falling on her knees, "I bring you my all. Now you can write and purchase his freedom. Don't tell him who it is that buys his ransom: he will guess soon enough. Don't even mention my name, and don't tremble for me. I have strength in my arm. I can work for a living. Good father, have pity; bring him back to me!"

III.

The country priest.-The young girl's happiness. — Jacques is free.-Return of Jacques.—Who would have thought it?

I love the country priest. He does not need, like the city pastor, in order to make men believe in the good God, or the wicked devil, to exhaust his strength in proving, with the book open before him, that there is a paradise as well as a hell. Around him all men believe, every one prays. In spite of this they sin. as we all do everywhere. Let him however but elevate his cross, and evil bows before him; the new-born sin is nipped in the bud. From his every-day seat, the wooden bench, nothing escapes his sight. His bell drives far off the

hail and the thunder. His eyes are always open upon his flock. The sinner evades him: he knows it, and he goes in search of the sinner. For offences he has pardon, for griefs a soothing balm. His name is on every lip, a blessed name; the valleys resound with it. He is called, in each heart, the great physician for trouble. And this is the reason that Martha went to him with hers, and found a balm. But from the obscure centre of his little parish, the man of God was far better able to detect sin and drive away malignant thoughts, than to find the nameless soldier, in the heart of an army, who had not written a word of inquiry or information for three years, especially when, to the sound of cymbal, trumpets, and cannon, six hundred thousand excited Frenchmen were proudly marching to conquer all the capitals of Europe. They shattered all obstructions, they put to flight all who stood against them, and only stopped to take breath upon the foreign soil, that they might go on to further and greater conquests.

It is true that during the past spring Martha's uncle had written often, but the army had just then made a triple campaign; Jacques, they learned, had been transferred to another regiment. Some one had seen him in Prussia; another, elsewhere in Germany. Nothing definite was known about him. He had no relatives, for, let the truth be told, the fine fellow had no parents. He had come out of that asylum where a throng of infants live upon the public pity, which takes the place of a mother. As a boy he had been long searching for his mother, but never could find her. He had an ardent desire to be loved, and as he knew he was loved at Lafitte, had it not been for the war, he would have lived and died there. And now, leaving the good priest to his benevolent task, let us turn aside into a very humble cottage, where poor Martha is hard at work. What a change! Yesterday she had her trousseau; there was gold in her wardrobe. To-day she has nothing but her stool, a thimble, a needle-case, and a spinning-wheel. She spins and sews incessantly. We need not lament that she is tiring her fingers; when she was rich, she wept; now that she is poor, she smiles constantly. Jacques will be saved for a long and happy life; and life, liberty, everything he will owe to her, and her alone. How he will love her! and where one loves and is loved, poverty is powerless. How happy she is; the cup of her future is crowned with honey; already has her heart tasted its first, rich, overflowing drop. Everything is flowering around her. Thus she works on from week to week, sipping

VOL. I.

drops of honey amid waves of perfume. Her wheel whirls without ceasing, and hope is entwining as many cloudless days in the future, as her bobbin spins out armfuls of wool, and her needle makes points in the cloth.

You may be sure that all this is well known in the meadow-lands. All the people are now enlisted in her cause. In the clear nights she has serenades, and garlands of flowers are hung upon her door. In the morning the girls come with loving eyes to give her little presents of sympathy and esteem.

One Sunday morning, the dear old priest comes to her after mass, his face beaming with joy, and in his right hand an open letter. He is trembling, but more with joy than with age.

"My daughter," he cries, "Heaven has blessed thee and answered my prayers; I have found him; he was in Paris. It is accomplished; Jacques is free. He will be here next Sunday, and he has not a suspicion of your part in this matter. He thinks that his mother has at last come to light; that she is rich, and has purchased his freedom. Let him come, and when he knows that he owes everything to you, how much you have done for him, he will love you more than ever, more than any one except God. My dear daughter, the day of your reward is about to dawn; prepare your heart for it. Jacques will surely come, and when that happy hour arrives, I want to be near you. I want to make him understand, in the presence of all the people, how happy he ought to be in being loved by such an angel as you."

We are told that blessed spirits in paradise are bathed in bliss when they hear the harmonies of heaven. Such is the joy of Martha as these words sink into her heart.

But the Sunday has arrived. All nature shines in green and gold under the beautiful sun of June. Crowds are singing everywhere. It is a double festival for all. The clock strikes noon; leaving the holy altar, the good old priest advances with the loving, pure-faced girl. Her eyelids drop over her azure eyes, she is timid and speechless; but an inner voice cries "happiness.' The crowd gathers around her. All is grand; you would say that the whole countryside is awaiting the arrival of a great lord. Thus marshalled, they go forth from the village, and with laughing joy take their post at the entrance of the highway.

There is nothing to be seen in it; nothing at the far end of that road-furrow; nothing but the shadows checkered by the sunlight. Suddenly a small black point appears; it increases in size, it moves, it is a man; two men, two soldiers; the latter, it is he! How well he looks;

8

how he has grown in the army! Both continue to advance; the other, who is he? he looks like a woman. Ah! it is a woman; how pretty and graceful she is, dressed like a cantinière. A woman! my God! and with Jacques? where can she be going? Martha's eyes are upon her, sad as the eyes of the dead. Even the priest, who escorts her, is trembling all over. The crowd is dumb. They approach still nearer; now they are only twenty paces off, smiling and out of breath. But what now! Jacques has suddenly a look of pain; he has seen Martha'

Trembling, asiamed, he stops. The priest can contain him. elf no longer. With the strong full voice with which he confounds the sinner, he cries. "Jacques, who is that woman?" and, like a criminal, lowering his head, Jacques replies, "Mine, M. le Curé, mine; I am married."

A woman's scream is heard; the priest returning to himself, and frightened for Martha, "My daughter," he said, "Courage! here below we all must suffer."

But Martha does not even sigh. Everybody looks at her; they think she is going to die. She does not die, she even seems to console herself. She curtsies graciously to Jacques, and then bursts out into a wild mad laugh. Alas! she was never to laugh again otherwise the poor thing is mad. At the words which issued from the lips of her unfaithful lover, the poor sufferer had at once lost her reason, never to regain it.

When Jacques learned all, he fled the country. They say that, mad with remorse, he reentered the army, and, like a lost spirit weary of his wretched existence, he flung it away at the cannon's mouth. Be that as it may, what is truc, alas! too true! is that Martha escaped from friendly vigilance one night, and ever since, for thirty years past, the poor idiot has been periodically seen in our village stretching out her hands for our charity. In Agen, people said as she passed, "Martha has come out again; she must be hungry." They knew nothing about her, and yet every one loved her. Only the children, who have no pity for anything, who laugh at all that is rad, would cry out, Martha, a soldier!" when she, with a mortal fear of soldiers, would fly at the sound.

66

And now you all know why she shuddered at these words. I, who have screamed them after her more than a hundred times, when I heard the touching story of her life, would like to cover her tattered frock with kisses. I would like to ask her pardon on my knees. I find nothing but a tomb. I cover it with flowers.

THE COMPLAINT.

A POEM ATTRIBUTED TO CHATTERTON.
Addressed to Miss PL, of Bristul.

Love, lawless tyrant of my breast,
When will my passions be at rest,
And in soft murmurs roll-
When will the dove-ey'd goddess, Peace,
Bid black despair and torment cease,
And wake to joy my soul?

Adieu! ye flow'r-bespangled hills;
Adieu! ye softly purling rills,

That through the meadows play.
Adieu! the cool refreshing shade,
By hoary oaks and woodbines made,
Where oft with joy I lay.

No more beneath your boughs I hear,
With pleasure unallay'd by fear,

The distant Severne roar—
Adieu! the forest's mossy side
Deck'd out in Flora's richest pride:
Ye can delight no more.

Oft at the solitary hour
When Melancholy's silent pow'r

Is gliding through the shade;
With raging madness by her side,
Whose hands, in blood and murder dy'd,
Display the reeking blade;

I catch the echo of their feet,
And follow to their drear retreat

Of deadliest nightshade wove;
There, stretch'd upon the dewy ground,
Whilst noxious vapours rise around,
I sigh my tale of love.

Oft has the solemn bird of night,
When rising to his gloomy flight,

Unseen against me fled!
Whilst snakes in curling orbs uproll'd
Bedrop'd with azure, flame, and gold,
Hurl'd poison at my head.

O say! thou best of womankind,
Thou miracle, in whom we find

Wit, charms, and sense unite,
Can plagues like these be always borne?
No; if I still must meet your scorn,
I'll seek the realms of night.

This poem appeared in the Universal Magazine, November, 1769. The Rev. W. W. Skeat, whose thorough knowledge of English poetry enables him to speak with authority, says that the poem has every claim to be one of Chatterton's, although it is not included in any edition of his works.