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CkuotcD to literature, Science, anil CArt, % Sons of temperance, ©bir JfcUomsljip, illasonrn, anb ©eneral imteUioencc.
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VOLUME I.
SISiSeWSi®- VOBVBV.’
From the Oxford Edition of Milton’s Works.
MILTON ON THE LOSS OF SIGHT.
1 am old and blind!
Men point at me as smitten by God’s frown ;
Afflicted and deserted of my kind,
Yet I am not cast down.
I am weak, yet strong ;
1 murmur not that T no longer see ;
Poor, old, and helpless, I the more belong,
Father Supreme ! to Thee.
O merciful One !
When men are farthest, then Thou art most near;
When friends pass by, my weakness to shun, y
Thy chariot I hear.
Thy glorious face
Is leaning towards me, and its holy light
Shines in upon my lonely dwelling place—
And there is no more nijrht.
On my bended knee,
I recognise Thy purpose, clearly shown;
My vision Thou hast dimmed, that I may see
Thyself, Thyself alone.
I have nought to fear ;
This darkness is the shadow of thy wing;
Beneath it I am almost sacred —here
Cun come no evil thins:.
o
Oh ! I seem to stand
Trembling, where foot of mortal ne’er hath been,
Wrapped in the radiance from thy sinless land,
Which eye hath never seen.
* Visions come and go ;
Shapes of resplendent beauty round me throng;
From angel lips I seem to hear the llow
Os soft and holy song.
It is nothing now,
When heaven is opening on my sightless eyes,
When airs from Paradise refresh my brow,
The earth in darkness lies.
In a purer clime,
My being fills with rapture—waves of thought
Roll in upon my spirit—strains sublime
Break over me unsought
Give me now my lyre !
I feel the stirrings of a gift divine ;
Within my bosom glows unearthly lire
Lit by no skill of mine.
f 1Mfll&SIl Tr A Is 1.
From Ned Buntline’s Own.
THE HAUNTED DRAM-DEALER,
A SEQUEL TO THF. “COURT OF SIN.”
BV THE VEILED AUTHOR.
Squire Barker, of liquor-dealing memory, and
w ( 10se name lam compelled to connect an
mlier picture, sat in his comfortable chair, in his
com tort able parlor, in the midst of his comforta
f e family, taking a comfortable glance at a com
ortable annual, which he had just purchased for
his comfortable daughter.
I lie dram-dealer was aroused from a wrapt
( ontemplation of the beauty of the illustrated title-
P a o e i w a very strange question from the lips of
f. U . q ou^o est °f his children. This was a round
g^ Ce , plump, and intelligent looking boy, about
— a desperate little prattler, with a
■- a g r ain of curiosity and marvelousness.
Wh Pra L ller ’ t^lcn ’ Polled in a chair about as
tight w* l Y-° Wn ea d> and drumming the air
in hU r! 1 * hls feet, suddenly pausing
“Fathe ’ T C u Padon ’ an d exclaimed:
house?” dtaer ’ * s there a murderer in the
looking wS asmJ’k in< l uired . the dram-dealer,
“Am i tom& hment at his son.
house” ro't erCf ’ at l' er —ls there one in our
1L j rate , (lthe Prattler.
Put tint ’ i ‘ nr 30 ’ ■No ! What under Heaven
TUe l^ a y° ur
m ent# rr m " (iea ier showed the utmost astonish
thouah to e 1 first sharply at the boy, as
member* meanin g 5 and then at the other
they all * us Panr nly lor an explanation. But
secme d as much surprised as himself.
consQj" 5 ‘ Vcat to the heart of the dram-dealer, as
the ho whis pered-“ There is a murderer in
Yjj ” *
ofa the stove for the period
and then continued confidently ; and
his words were fearfully in unison with his father’s
secret thoughts.
O
“But then there is a murderer in the house—
there is —and I won’t go to sleep till he’s put out!”
“What does the child mean V” cried the dram
dealer, nervously.
“I’m sure I don’t know!” said the mother; “I
guess some of the school-children have been try
ing to frighten him. Jimmy don’t be foolish—
there’s no such man here.”
“ But there is tho’, and I know it!” urged the
prattler.
“"Vou little dunce, who told you so?” cried the
father, in much anger” for there was a constant
response within him to the child’s words.
“Who told me so?—why, ’twas Mrs. P .”
“ Mrs. P !” cried the dra m-dealer, rising
from his chair, ’twas /cer, eh ? Well—you musn’t
talk with her—you musn’t speak to her—she’s
an ugly woman!”
“ Mrs. P —an ugly woman!” echoed several
voices, “why, she’s called one of the best of
women by her neighbors, though her husband,
people say, don’t provide well at all.”
“ I can’t help that, she’s ugly; that is—the fact
is, she came asking a favor the other day that ]
couldn’t grant; and so she went away cursing me
and mine.”
“ That’s very strange; you never told us of it
before. What favor did she want?” asked the
dram-dealer’s daughter—a fair, sprightly maiden
of sixteen.
“Fudge! how d’ye think I can remember,
when I’ve fifty like it every day?” returned the
father, confusedly.
“I should think, if you have so many, you
might remember all the better, was the daughter’s
answer.
“ Well it’s of no consequence, anyhow. Here’s
a book I’ve just bought you. Come here, Jimmy.”
And he held out his hands to the boy.
“ No I won’t!” said the prattler, “you kill peo
ple, father—don’t you kill people?”
/kill people? you little saucy fool! If you
open your head again—l’ll—l’ll—whip you
soundly!”
“Jimmy,” interposed the mother, “you talk
strangely to your father to-night. You must
not ”
“ But don’t father poison “people ?—and ain’t
that murder?” continued the prattler.
“Put that boy to bed!” cried the dram-dealer,
as he took his hat from the table, and went out.
It was nine o’clock in the evening—l forgot to say
so before—but it was moonlight; he took a walk
in his garden to cool his brow, which had become
suddenly feverish, aAd to stifle the painful reflec
tion that arose within him.
He strolled along the principal walks, until he
hail traversed iheextent of the garden. Then
he leaned upon the fence that bounded the spot
on one side, and muttered a few strange, harsh
words, that seemed to bubble up irresistibly from
his writhing mind. If the springs of conscience
had ever become rested to inaction within him,
the child’s words had touched them with an elec
tric thrill, and they performed their office now.
The matuyng verdure that arose all around
him had a reproachful voice given it, as the night
wind crept through its fragrant chambers. The
stars above him, vaulted in their serene eternity,
wore a changeless glance of displeasure so the
bud man thought —as their solemn lustre fell on
him. • i • ii
. That night he tossed for many hours in Ins bed,
half in anger, and bait in repentance and slept
very little. .
A few evenings afterward, returning latei than
usual to his house, after a day spent in his usual
“business,” Squire Barker was surprised to find
a woman leaning upon his gate, and became in
dignant that she did not change her position w en
she saw that he desired to enter the yaid. kJie
was poorly clad, and the hood she wore was
thrown back, far enough to reveal her features by
SAVANNAH, GA.. THURSDAY, MAY 17, 1849.
the moonlight. Their expression was stern, wild,
and fierce, as she turned and confronted the
Squire, tho’ without moving from the gate.
“ Who are you?—let me pass, won’t you —
move aside?”
And he advanced and laid his hand on the gate.
But the woman did not move.
“You know me, I fancy!” she replied. “You
have cursed me and mine. You have robbed us,
and now you don’t know us? —ha! ha! ha! Yes,
I thought you’d know me—you do.
The Squire recoiled a step or two, as he recog
nized the woman.
“Well —yes —I know you, so let me pass —
come, come !”
“Where would you go?” asked the woman,
with a hollow laugh.
“Go?—into my house, of course! Stand
aside, or I’ll call the watch !”
“ I our house !ha! ha !—it is a very nice house
—built with corpses, and cemented with blood !”
“Here the Squire caught the woman by one
arm, and jerked her forcibly from the gate; but
she clung to his hands with the gripe ofa lioness;
shot her ferocious glances into his face, and
shrieked —much louder, the Squire thought, than
the state of the case demanded, and certainly
much louder than he desired, for he saw men ap
proaching from the opposite corner of the street,
and felt that his situation was by no means agree
able.
“Let me go, you infamous hag!” cried the
noble Squire, vainly striving to release himself
from the woman’s grasp.
“Hag!—infamous!” shouted the woman; and
she grated her teeth as she spoke. Dare you ap
ply those terms to me, when you have taken ad
vantage of my husband’s frailty to strip me of
all life’s comforts?—even of the Bible my moth
er gave me on her death-bed! You call that
O
your house ; it is more mine than yours, in the
sight of the just God —for my money helped to
build it. You may say that my husband gave it
to you freely; but you lie when you say it. It
was appetite that seduced and bound him, and
compelled him to rob his family—the appetite that
you fed and strengthened by a thousand devilish
arts ”
Ho ! ho ! Squire !—What means this?” cried
two gentleman, who at that moment drew near
the spot.
“ Why here’s a mad woman or devil, whom i
chanced to encounter here,” answered the squire,
much confused and much enraged, “and I’ll call
the watch this moment, and have her taken care
of. Let me go, you vile hag !”
“ Tut, Squire how you talk !” said one of the
gents, “why, this is poor P ’s wife—the man
you turned into the street to-night, because he
had no more money to spend. Poor woman !”
and he approached near to the drunkard’s wife,
“ l pity you —you are a great sufferer!”
“A sufferer!” echoed the woman, “yes! and
this robber, this murderer, has caused it all, and*
then he calls me ‘hag,’ and ‘infamous!” Oh, I
will curse him while I live ! and my children
shall curse him !—living and dead, we will curse
him ! Let him tremble, for I’ve sworn to haunt
him with curses as long as the sun shines ! Now
go, and may your dreams” —she looked the dram
dealer full in the face—“may your dreams be of
famine, blood, and death. Think of all that and
go!”
And with these words, the wronged and infu
riated woman walked slowly away.
The dram-dealer muttered a few hasty words
to the gents, partly byway of apology, and partly
to give vent to his swollen anger, and then passed
into his own dwelling.
No fact is more evident than that punishment
always follows wrong-doing ; yet, in some cases,
the severest retributions seem to be for a time de
layed—as masses of snow accumulate before the
avalanche falls —but only that they may fall with
more crashing, overwhelming power, when their
hour comes. It was so with your present sub
ject. His heart had not throbbed without its pangs
befoie—it is true ; but yet he had blindly, and
partly effectually, too, resisted his conscience
hitherto ; but it was impossible to do so longer.—
Vengeance came, audit was unmistakable—and
it came from sources, too, that were as unlooked
for as they were appalling.
Vengeance had commenced in his own family ;
his prattling boy had accused him of crime, and
had shrunk from his arms. An infant’s tongue
had smote him as with a sword!
A week passed away without the occurrence
of anything remarkable in the history of the dram
dealer, if we except a continual dread which
brooded over him from morning till midnight—a
vague, undellnable dread, of which he had only
recently become sensible.
At the end of that period he had occasion to
visit a neighboring town. >lt was near sunset,
when, passing along the principal street, he ob
served a knot of people fathering around a pros
trate form', in the vicinity of the main hotel. Cu
riosity, rather than humanity, it is probable, drew
him among the crowd. He pressed forward to
get a view of the form, when he discovered, to
his surprise and horror, that one of his old cus
tomers was writhing in the agonies of death.
His body was bruised and crushed, his face
was blackened, his lips were white with foam,
and his eyes were rolling with toiture, and al
ready bright with the lustre of death.
“Scrantum’s four horse team ran over him,
poor wretch ! ” said one in the crowd, in answer
to an inquiry how the accident happened.
“Hebelongs, it seems, in N . What did
he say about his sick wife and lame son ? Some
repentance, I fancy —bnt see —he’s dying I—
heavens !—what agony !—what a look ? ”
And while the lineaments of horror were clear
ly traced on each countenance, the dying man
writhed in his last earthly struggles. His glazing
eyes glanced around on the faces in the crowd,
when suddenly he lifted his head from the bloody
ground, glared forth one earnest look, with foam
ing mouth and dilated nostrils, muttered a terrific
sentence, and fell back and expired.
There was but one person in the crowd who
understood that last look.
The dying man had seen the dram.-dealer and
the latter felt that he could never forget the last
glance of his victim. It would haunt him through
life—and it has !
The body was carried away, but most of the
crowd still remained to gossip over the tragical
event. The dram-dealer tarried, too, for a chain
of bitter thoughts bound him to the spot.
“He was evidently a miserable wretch,” re
turned one of the men, speaking of the dead
man, “yet it’s a bad sight to see, I declare.”
“Yes, that it is,” was the reply, “and yet to
me, the curses he uttered against a certain dram
dealer in N were far more terrible. 1 tell
you, Jones, I wouldn’t have a dying man’s curse
for any amount of money ; you may think it a
kind of superstition, but I wouldn’t. It would
blister my heart so long as I live. And yet such
men as this Squire somebody —this drain
dealer, must bear a good many such burning
things, or I’m mistaken. Blast it, Jones, it’s a
bad business, this liquor-dealing, as some prac
tise it.”
“ Hem !—well, I’m not a temp’rance man—l
never signed the pledge, and I won’t, ’cause [
like a glass now and then, and I won’t sign aw ay
my liberty. But still I don’t like the ruin licker
makes sometimes, myself, It does a blam’d sight
of harm, if men use it too freely, I grant.”
“Yes, and then it gives a man a bad conscience
to die on, you know. Here’s this man, who said,
you know, he wouldn’t hate to die if he had al
ways done his duty to his sick wife and la me hoy.
But licker seduced him, he said, and made him a
brute, and hence he did so anti so. He saw it all
clear enough, then. And then he broke out in
NUMBER 11.
