66 'My lad," said Salazar, "we shall give you two silver duros for it." The boy at once brightened and consented. His mother seized the basin in one hand, a wet rag in the other, with her toe scraped out some ashes from the fire, and was about to fall upon it with housewifely fury, and in a trice, had I not stopped her, would have scraped away the mellow green film, the very writing and sign-manual of the artist Time. A few silver duros in the smiling lad's palm, a bit of gold to the mother, a shudder of long unknown joy in the widow's heart, a tear, a quiver of the lip, then a smile-and the bargain was made. I was grasping her hand and saying "adios!" she was asking the Virgin to give me "a thousand years," when Salazar said: "No, no! it is not yet adios. This basin and bargain must be certified to by the Ayuntamiento in a document stamped with the seal of the pueblo, and setting forth that here in La Mancha itself was bought this barber's basin." "Seguro!" replied the woman, who flung over her head a tattered black shawl, tossing the end over her left shoulder. We all walked, Salazar and I leading our beasts, to the door of the Alcalderia. The group of loungers who sat around the whitewashed wall of the chamber of the Ayuntamiento showed no interest in our arrival. To our story the secretary himself listened with official indifference, sipped his morning coffee, only occasionally asking a question of idle curiosity, or offering objection to the execution of so trivial a document. "Ridiculous!" he exclaimed; "the authorities of Spain have not provided in the Codex for such jesting. What is all this for ?" "Señor Secretario," I replied, "I have conceived this innocent little caprice of legalizing my purchase of the basin, to gratify a certain Don Horacio, known in America as the Bachelor of San Francisco, a gentleman whose fine literary taste has led him to venerate your great Cervantes, and whose knightly sentiments have made him the intimate friend of Don Quixote." 66 'But," said the secretary, "no contract of sale with a minor for vendor can be legalized by me. The Codex provides" He was going on to explain what the Codex did provide, when Salazar, who knew more about the legal practice of provincial Spain than the Codex itself, stepped forward, passed behind the august judicial table, and made some communication in a whisper, which was not quite loud enough to drown a curious metallic clink, as of coins in collision. Thus softened, the cold eye of the secretary warmed perceptibly, and he resumed "As I was about to say when my friend here offered me a-acigarette, the Codex does not in terms recognize the right of an infant to vend, transfer, give over, or relinquish real or personal property; but on reflection, in a case like this, I shall not hesitate to celebrate the act of sale." A servant was despatched for some strong paper, and the softened magistrate fell into general conversation. "You have had a great war in your country." 66 "Yes," I replied, "very destructive, very exhausting; but, thank God, North and South are now beginning to be friends again." 66 Are you of the North or of the South?" "The North." "Do you not find it very trying to have those Chilians in your Lima, señor ?" Weeks before this I had given up trying to stretch the Spanish conception of America to include a country north of Mexico, for the land of Cortes is the limit of imagination in that direction; so I helplessly assented. Yes, it was trying. The boy returned with the paper; ink-horns and pens were successfully searched for, and the document was executed and sealed. Salazar and I withdrew after saluting the upright official, mounted our beasts, received the soft benediction of the smiling widow, and pricked forward down a narrow way which led to the open plain. We were descending a gentle slope on the outskirts of the pueblo when we were overtaken by the secretary's servant, who charged down upon us, his donkey nearly upsetting mine in the collision. Like a wizard in a show, he drew from under his jacket an incredibly bright and brand-new barber's basin. "The secretary," he said, "remembered, just after you had gone, that the old Duchess of Molino had deposited with him, as security for a large loan, this basin, which is proved to have been the authentic and only one from which Cervantes was shaved every day while prisoner at Argamosillo. The secretary knew that you would like to see this valued relic, and to touch it with your own hand. The duchess, señor" (lowering his eyes and face), "is in gloria. For ten duros you can have this undoubted memento; and full documents shall follow you to Madrid or Lima by the next mail." "Hombre!" I replied, "do me the favor to present to the secretary my most respectful compliments, and say that the supposed death of the duchess is a curious mistake. The old lady is living in great luxury in Seville, and her steward is already on the way to redeem her favorite relic." The man, who saw the force of my pleasantry, laughed explosively, and shamelessly offered me the basin at two duros and a half. We shook our heads and rode away. Having gone a hundred yards, we heard a voice, and looking back beheld the servant, who brandished aloft the basin and shouted: "One duro ?" I answered "Never," and we rode out upon the brown and sunburnt plain. Some sheep lay dozing, huddled in the shadow of a few stunted corktrees. Brown and dim as if clad in dusty leather, the Sierra Morena lay sleeping in the warm light. Away up among the hazy summits were pencillings of soft, cool color; but we were too far away to discern the rocks and groves where Don Quixote did his amorous penance. After riding long and silently, Salazar addressed me: 66 Señor, this friend of yours, this Don Horacio, will he ever come to La Mancha?" "Quien sabe?” I replied; "but if he comes you will certainly know him and love him as he is known and loved by his friend." To the Bachelor of San Francisco. K. THE Francis Fisher Browne. BORN in South Halifax, Vt., 1843. UNDER THE BLUE. HE skies are low, the winds are slow, the woods are filled with Autumn glory; The mists are still, on field and hill; the brooklet sings its dreamy story. I careless rove through glen and grove; I dream by hill, and copse, and river; Or in the shade by aspen made I watch the restless shadows quiver. I lift my eyes to azure skies that shed their tinted glory o'er me; While memories sweet around me fleet, as radiant as the scene before me. For while I muse upon the hues of Autumn skies in splendor given, Sweet thoughts arise of rare deep eyes whose blue is like the blue of heaven. Bend low, fair skies! Smile sweet, fair eyes! from radiant skies rich hues are streaming; But in the blue of pure eyes true the radiance of my life is beaming. O skies of blue! ye fade from view; faint grow the hues that o'er me quiver; IV. The Hero woke: rose undismayed: V. The Conqueror of a hundred fields THER Helen Kendrick Johnson. BORN in Hamilton, Madison Co., N. Y., 1843. "WHEN SHALL WE THREE MEET AGAIN?” [The Meaning of Song. The North American Review. 1884.] HERE is a thrice familiar and yet half-forgotten song which illustrates in an odd way the power of association against that of language, if not of melody. It is "When Shall We Three Meet Again ?" It is known that Samuel Webbe, a celebrated composer, born in London in 1740, wrote the music; but the words have been claimed for our country through two college traditions. One attributes them to a member of the first company of young men who devoted themselves to foreign missions, and so links them with the famous hay-stack of Williams College. Another speaks of them confidently as the work of an Indian, an early graduate of Dartmouth. In proof of the latter theory the following stanza is quoted : "When around this youthful pine The apparent allusion to the old pine at Dartmouth, and the word "burnished," so descriptive of an Indian's hair, constitute an argument. An old resident of New Hampshire told me that his sister and he learned the song from hearing it sung in his mother's house by an Indian graduate of the class of 1840. In an old English collection the lyric appears without the quoted stanza. It is there attributed to "a lady." I judge it to be English, perhaps written by the wife of a missionary. It was so appropriately sung by the first foreign missionaries in this country that it might easily be attributed to one of them. That was about 1810, when Dartmouth College was still known as Moor's Indian School. An Indian graduate, I conjecture, wrote for the graduating exercises, perhaps the tree-planting of his class, the stanza given above, which, although good for an Indian, is as much out of place in the lyric as a bit of wampum would be in a pearl necklace. I like to recall the beautiful original verses without the poor stanza: "When shall we three meet again? When shall we three meet again? "Though in distant lands we sigh, "When the dreams of life are fled, There shall we three meet again." If words could keep a song upon the lip, would not this one be often heard? If association were not as powerful as melody, would not the Indian stanza have been rejected? Samuel Willoughby Duffield. BORN in Brooklyn, N. Y., 1843. DIED at Bloomfield, N. J., 1887. THE GREAT HYMN OF ABÉLARD. [Letter to The New-York Tribune. 1883.] THA HAT hymn-" O quanta qualia sunt illa Sabbata❞—has a romantic history. For its true text and its proper order of stanzas it is necessary to consult the immense compilation which passes under the name of J. P. Migne-volume 178 of the "Patrilogia Cursus Completus." It is the "XXVIII. Ad Vesperas" of the ninety-three hymns written by the unfortunate Abélard for the Abbey of the Paraclete, to be sung there by the sweet voices of Héloïse and her nuns. For many years these hymns were utterly lost, except as they were to be detected floating around anonymously, and ascribed to an earlier or later date. We now know that they must have been written about the year 1150, and that this present splendid lyric was therefore not "of the thirteenth century" at all. |