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A LAY OF THE REGENT'S PARK.

THE night is dark and dreary,
The grass extremely damp;
My ear, it is aweary

Of yon policeman's stamp ;
I'd call him, but I fear he
Would seize me for a tramp.
Alone within the railings,

And it groweth late and lone;
Vain my repeated hailings-
The porters must have gone;
I may not climb the palings,
For I am sixteen stone.

I passed the gate a quarter
Before the clock tolled seven;
And now it's ten or arter-
By jingo that's eleven!
And here I sit a martyr,
Beneath the cope of 'eaven.
While getting mild and mellow
At DOBBS' pleasant board,
I little thought my pillow
Would be the swampy sward,
With nought but an umbrella
My wretched 'ead to guard!
Cuss on the fatal liquor,

Cuss on the pleasant talk,
That sent the bottle quicker,

And good intents did baulk;
Till I felt that I talked thicker,
And resolved to take a walk.
For in general over drinking 's
An 'abit I abhor,

And I felt an 'usband's shrinkings
From knocking at my door,
To tell my MISSIS JENKINS,

That I'd do so no more.
Therefore I passed the gateway,
To go across the park;
Thinking to save a great way,
And not provoke remark,

By not walking in a straight way,

Which I didn't, 'cause 't was dark.

What man, whate'er the season,
Could reasonably doubt
That all let in, by reason,
Must also be let out;

Not left to perch the trees on,

Or bivouac about?

What man of business habits,

I ask, could e'er suppose,
That the Regent's Park would nab its
Walkers at evening's close,
And passengers, like rabbits,
Within its toils enclose?

My wife will scarce be apt to
Believe me if I say

That the Park gates are clapt to,
At the same hour each day;
That their times they don't adapt to
Let people get away.

The dews fall chill and steady,
And damp me to the skin;
I was cold without already,
And now I'm wet within:
If the porter is in bed, he

Is where I should have been!

And MISSIS JENKINS fretteth
Beside her flaring dip :

And oft her brow she knitteth,
And pulls an injured lip,
While her wretched husband sitteth
In a dreary state of drip.
I'll write the Times to-morrow,
About these vile park-keepers,
And teach them to their sorrow
That men ain't railway-sleepers,
To camp out thus or borrow

Trees to stick on like creepers.
High is the fence and frowning,
And there are spikes a-top,
With a ditch outside for drowning
Poor creatures when they drop.
No! here damp and done brown, in
The Regent's Park I'll stop!-Punch.

CCLXXXVII.

LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII.

21

CHAPTER VI.

THE following morning, as Casimir was driving his mother and his betrothed along the bank of the river, where several peasants were at work breaking up the bridge for the winter, descrying Pavel among them, he drew up, and beckoned him to approach.

"What do you want of that dangerous-looking man?" said the young lady, in some surprise.

"You will see," said Casimir, his eyes flashing with a peculiar delight.

"Remember, Casimir, your father's commands," said the countess. "Do not, I beg, quarrel with that peasant."

into the apartment. But there was one low stool, embroidered by Vanda's own hand, of which few of the household knew the origin; but he remembered how those flowers had grown under the fingers of that hand now cold in death. As he gazed on these familiar objects, remembrances crowded thick upon him; nor did he seem even aware of the presence of the countess so deep was his absorption.

She sat, quite alone, embedded in a chauffeuse near the window. This was the day generally consecrated by her to the remembrance of her brother; she was, accordingly, dressed in a black robe, and had a solemn air about her, which subdued, if it did not altogether destroy, that inso"Never fear," replied Casimir. "I must lence of expression which made her a universal teach the dog proper respect. Come here, Pavel object of dislike to those who were not so fortunate Jakubska. Yesterday I was about to give you a as to be her equals. Had the countess at that lesson; you escaped it then. To-day you shall | hour been inspired by the genius of mildness, not not." So saying, he raised his whip; the lash only would she have obtained at once the intellicut right across Pavel's glowing countenance, immediately raising a weal from which the blood freely spouted; and, before Pavel could recover from the shock, the sledge had borne his enemy far away.

It must not be supposed that Casimir's heart was thoroughly bad, though certainly hardened by the consciousness of much power, and by his education having been neglected. He considered Pavel as an obstinate, ill-natured fellow, whose spirit wanted the curb, and whose temper deserved chastisement; but he left him in a state bordering on frenzy.

gence she wished to extract from Pavel, but she might have turned away many a dark thought from his stubborn breast. But that good angel had never visited her. Many an influential member whom her husband had sought to gain over to the Polish cause, the countess, in spite of herself, had cooled; incapable as she was of conquering her pride to the degree of yielding herself up to the tide of conversation with that forgetfulness of her own claims to social distinction, with that sincere acknowledgment of the mental or moral qualifications of others, which wins golden opinions from all sorts of men. She never remembered, or, perhaps, scorned to believe-what is, nevertheless, true-that the great, when they seek to attach those whom they deem their inferiors, should be lenient and forgiving, having also something for which they need forgiveness—namely, those very advantages they are so proud of, and which excite enough of malignant feeling in the less-favored of mankind, without any gratuitous effort of their own to augment it. But the countess had a sort of feverish consciousness of superiority, which made her infinitely exaggerate to herself the value, in the eyes of others, of those advantages she really possessed. She fancied she had yielded much, where people perceived no concession; that people were flattered by advances which they, on their side, took as a matter of course. With those completely beneath her, the distance seemed so great that they never troubled her thoughts, nor occupied her attention in any way; they were as if they existed not. Like the trees and rocks in the landscape, they were part of the creation, and that was all. She had, indeed, a vague consciousness of its being a wise dispensation that they should exist-of its being quite in the order of things that there should be laborers in the hive to feed and tend the queen-bee

Not many hours after this infliction, whilst yet smarting, both physically and mentally, under the sting of the insult, he received a summons from the Countess Stanoiki to repair to her presence. Enraged as he was, even against the innocent witnesses of his disgrace, he dared not disobey; accordingly, with bosom full of vengeful thoughts, he took his way to the chateau. He now crossed that threshold for the first time since he had bounded over it with joy to leap into the general's carriage, on that memorable occasion in his life which was never absent from his mind. He paused there for a moment, overcome with the notion of profaning that dwelling with such feelings as now agitated him. His knees trembled; he could with difficulty support himself as he entered that saloon where he had so often played in the unconscious glee of childhood. He stared around in bewilderment. On yon couch once sat she whose memory had never faded from his thoughts; whom he venerated more than any saint that his religion acknowledged; who was enshrined in his innermost heart. That gentle being, whom prosperity could not spoil, had in this very apartment fondled him as her son! Through that door used to slip noiselessly in, the meek Seraphinka; through the other, the knight--beyond that, her philosophy of life went not. ly figure of the count-whose countenance, now Such a woinan as Vanda would, with one look, averted, was then turned to him full of benevolent one word, have melted the ice at Pavel's heart. tenderness-would present itself. Some few ad- Such a woman as the Countess Sophie was likely ditional things, not many, had found their way to turn it to stone. In this room, so fraught with CCLXXXVII. LIVING AGE. VOL. XXIII. 20

One kind word would

the past, there seemed to enter a breath of that | you have never extended to me.
past into the young man's soul; to touch there
the easily-vibrating chord of emotion which lies
hidden in every breast.
have sufficed; but of kind words or soft looks the
Countess Sophie had not the gift. Her sterile
nature was reflected from her eyes, as, from her
reclining position, looking carelessly on the oppo-
site wall, she said, in her habitual hauteur,

"I understand, young man, you have spread about the village a report that you have a clue to the fate of the count, my brother. Is this true?" "It is not," said Pavel, firmly. "I never spread such a report."

You have made me wretched; and, because I looked my wretchedness, I have been made a butt to persecution. That was not enough; your son struck me!-and I understand the countess means to have me fustigated! This I cannot, and will not, forgive! For your own sake, as well as mine, I entreat you to let me go. But I cannot go unassisted, to be everywhere beaten and imprisoned as a vagabond! This much, under our peculiar circumstances, I have a right to demand; and this I do now demand for the last time. I await your answer.

Had the unfortunate young man sincerely wished for the boon he asked, it is probable that he would have couched his demand in another tone-in a tone

"But you do know something," said the count-more calculated, according to the manners of his ess; you have a clue."

66

Pavel remained silent.

"Come, young man," resumed the countess, her eyes wandering from the wall to the window, "no trifling. If you have any knowledge of the count's fate, tell quickly what you do know, for your own sake."

Still Pavel spoke not; nor did the countess turn her eyes towards him.

country, to make a favorable impression; but crime, which had been hovering for years around his heart, had now a firm gripe of him. He felt Satan busy within his breast, and made one last desperate effort to save the count and himself; but without any hope, and, certainly, at that moment, without any sincere desire of success.

"Wretched boy!" exclaimed the general, pacing up and down the apartment, in great agitation; "I will force her to look at me," thought Pavel;"wretched boy!" The count saw nought in this "her eyes shall be contaminated by the conscious-letter beyond the insolence of a boor who knows ness of my individual existence." he has his master's secret in his own keeping.

After a slight pause, the countess said "I" He dares to threaten me! However, this spirit might resort to severity, but I prefer trying mild might extend among the serfs; it must be checked means first. Here is money." She threw a few in the bud. Had he been good and resigned, I silver coins on the floor. "If your intelligence might But it does not matter. These be worth more, you shall have it." are not times, with the French propaganda in our "I am no beggar," said Pavel, coldly; "and villages, to overlook such things. This letter is a I know nothing."

The countess now turned full upon him, to see the man who could refuse her money. 66 I perceive what I have heard of your temper is true," said she. "Ring that bell."

serious grievance." And the general left the room.

The infliction of corporal chastisement on Pavel he did not deem sufficient; the additional punishment of close confinement seemed to him necessary, in order to bring the young man to a sense of his

Both parties were silent until the servant en-grave offence; and he gave orders accordingly. tered.

"Take this man below," she said; "and look to it that he do not leave the house until you have the count's further orders."

A short time subsequently, Casimir reëntering, the countess, in a few brief words, informed him of what had passed between herself and Pavel.

"We must have him before the justice," said the young count, "and get this obstinacy drubbed out of him; he is the most incorrigible man on the whole estate."

The general, coming in at that moment, overheard these words, and demanded an explanation. "Again, Jakubska!" he exclaimed. "That unfortunate young man is never out of trouble!"

That the matter weighed on his mind, however,
was clear, from the earnestness with which he
defended his principles, some hours later, at din-
ner. A young Frenchman, just arrived from Paris
with letters from the committee of Polish emi-
grants, dined that day with the family; and, after
making assiduous inquiries into the state of Galicia,
passed judgment with the usual French rapidity.
"You are far too feudal here," he said.
"Do you think so?" said the countess, with an
ineffable sneer; since, as the Frenchman bore no
title, for the Countess Sophie, he was "not born;"
and his opinions had such an utter want of all
value in her eyes, that she was surprised at his
giving himself the trouble to emit them.
Not so
the general.

A domestic presented a paper to the count,
whose cheek flushed, and whose brow became dark,
as he cast his eyes over the few hasty lines, scrawled"
under the impulse of violent passion. They ran centuries have inured all parties."
thus :-

"We and our people," he replied, gravely, are content with this state of things, to which

I know my crime is, that I am not humble enough, where humility is the only road to favor. Let not that weigh against me. Let mercy inspire you! Permit me to leave the estate-nay, furnish me with he means of doing so. You owe me a protection

"Are you quite certain that they have inured your peasantry?"

"Our peasantry, sir, like most people, are happiest when submitted to wise restrictions. Come, there has been a great deal said of our bar barities hereabouts by the liberty-mongers of other

lands; they traduce us in a laughable manner. One would imagine, when listening to their representations, that, from the moment we get up to the time we go to bed, we occupy ourselves in devising plans for the annoyance of our serfs, or in ordering and witnessing corporal punishment.'

"But," argued the Frenchman, "you cannot deny that corporal punishment is sometimes inflicted. I have myself seen a gypsy boy cruelly maltreated, in the presence of one of the lords, hereabouts; and, by his orders, the coachman apply his whip to the naked shoulders of a gypsy girl, who came begging on the road."

"Granted," said the count. "But you do not find yourself here in the midst of the civilization and refinement of your western capital. We are surrounded by semi-barbarians, and must treat them as such. These very gypsies you speak of, despite all the efforts made to redeem them, and though a large number have consented to settle in villages, and even profess the forms of Christianity, have, for the most part, remained as unreclaimed as ever. They know no law, human or divine. They are the Parias of our provinces, who, like vultures, feed on carrion. You fancy I speak figuratively, but it is literally true; they are not less disgusting in their habits than abandoned in their charac

ters.

Our only check upon their lawlessness is by inspiring them with a wholesome terror." "But your own people-you allow them to remain in brutalizing ignorance."

some.

"Has education," said the count, "improved people in other lands-I mean, made them happier? It has only rendered abortive the control of governments, which is necessary and wholeI have been in German villages that are relieved, in part, from feudal tenure, where the people are what you call educated, and belong to the state. I cannot say I found them so mild, or their morals and conduct looked after as they would have been under the eye of a residing nobleman. In one village, a man beat his wife under circumstances of aggravated cruelty. Had this occurred in one of my villages, I would have had the fellow severely punished. I witnessed, at other times, acts of cruelty to animals that pass belief; and yet the authorities took no notice whatever. I should have had the perpetrators taught humanity in a lesson they would not easily have forgotten. Believe me, a certain degree of restraint is to the advantage of the people themselves."

"True," said the Frenchman, "if you spent your time improving the morality of your people, your feudal system would be a useful institution; but when this power devolves, as it does in many cases, for years upon stewards, the masters being far away, it becomes pernicious. All these rights were given at a time when people lived wholly on their estates. I doubt not that in some instances this unrestrained power is wielded with lenity; but the system, as a system, is bad."

The count's color rose as the stranger thus unconsciously touched upon his own long absence from his estate. He answered, evasively-"One

must be born in a country, to enter fully into the spirit of its manners and institutions."

"And I hold," said the Frenchman, laughing, "that none but foreigners can judge sanely of what touches too nearly a nation's interests."

The general did not let the subject fall, but attacked it again and again with great persistence. Perhaps it was expecting too much of human disinterestedness to suppose that the nobles would have tacitly consented to the abolition of these feudal rights, especially of the robot, which diminishes their fortunes by at least one good half, as any one will see who takes the trouble to compute the value of an estate having no outlay for labor, teams, &c.—whose profits are equal to the highest state of cultivation, and whose tillage, if paid for, would absorb a large yearly revenueand compare it with the value of one of equal size, entailing the necessary outlay for cattle and husbandry; and in so doing he will easily understand why the nobles of the Austrian states clung so steadfastly to this feudal prerogative.*

The right of private justice, which, until very recently, existed in the greater part of Germany, and those countries subject to its sway, and which was certainly very hard upon the peasantry-for the lord thus became accuser and judge at the same time-they were not unwilling to resign; for it was a right as onerous to the noble as to the serf. A man purchasing an estate of feudal tenure could not dispense with it. He was obliged, at his own cost, to provide subaltern officers of the law, rural police, and so forth; governments, heretofore, having been but too glad to get rid of the enormous outlay which the maintenance of these servants of the state throughout so vast a country would have imposed. The right, too, of naming authorities in the villages and townlets, being a mere matter of pomp and circumstance, they would probably have given up without much opposition; but their rights of fishing and hunting were part and parcel of the German nobility, the fairest fruit of their parchments, and, if not the most profitable, certainly the highest-prized of their privileges. And these were precisely what weighed most on the lower class; for they were the only relics of more barbarous times that placed the life of the boor at the mercy of the lord. Any poacher, or man supposed to be poaching, found in the forest, might be shot by the noble or his gamekeeper. Until the memorable year 1848, perhaps not one season passed without many lives being lost in this manner; certainly there is scarcely an estate, from north to south, in which an event of this * The several constituent assemblies of Germany, especially that of Frankfort, have abolished all these feudal rights and privileges; and it does not seem very likely, it will ever be possible to reestablish them. But to enadisputed as their authority may be in other respects, that ble the reader to form some notion of the difference the cancelling of these rights makes in the worth of landed property, it may suffice to instance the case of a lady known to the writer, who, on an estate of moderate size and value, had, immediately after the change effected in March, 1848, to disburse no less than £500, merely to procure the necessary cattle to continue the labor that had yet to be done.

The blow did not
Still, it was not

nature has not taken place within the last ten | advanced boldly to the work. years. This law of summary justice, joined with | fall unexpectedly upon Austria. that which compels the peasant to assist in the to be parried easily; and one decided advantage battues, has caused more bitter blood between the on the side of the Poles, and the partial ignition lord and the serf, than, perhaps, any other. It is would spread rapidly into a general and unquenchsingular, that not even the rents in kind-nor the able conflagration. But to obtain that advantage, right of grazing for the lord's cattle, to whatever the peasantry must be brought to join heart and amount, upon their vassals' meadows-nor that of hand with the nobles; a climax that seemed not laying these same meadows under water at all easy of attainment. The clergy and Polish emistimes and seasons, for the purpose of damming the saries had moved heaven and earth to rouse the brooks and rivulets for fishing-not all these villagers; whose obstinacy or indifference pregrievances, small and great, which the revolution sented inert, though, in most instances, immovable of 1793 put an end to in France, and which sub- obstacles. But nowhere was this felt more than sisted more or less throughout Germany and its on the estate of Stanoiki. Insensibly, indeed, an dependencies until 1848, weighed so heavily upon uncomfortable feeling had crept between the inthe peasantry as these compulsory laws of the habitants of the castle and those of the villages. chase. The count had held up golden promises, and had recourse to persuasion, to induce the latter to embrace the cause; but in vain. They alleged their duty to the emperor-he was a kind master, they said; they could not think of turning against him. If the enterprise failed, they did not know what punishment might come upon them. Threats were as vain as promises and persuasions. Against the former they pleaded the protection afforded them by the law of the empire; and as to the promises, they shook their heads, with looks that said, as plainly as looks could say, "We know their worth." Had this passive resistance been confined to the general's estate, it would have been an omen of less significance; but the same thing occurred on all the neighboring domains, and on those of other provinces; nay, even the nobility of the different circles of Gallicia were not all fired with equal zeal—all were, indeed, secretly attached to the cause, but many had not the courage openly to avow it.

It is in vain for the nobles to contend, as they used to do, that this and other feudal exactions were the custom of the land. It is a custom to which the boors never patiently submitted, which caused the peasants' war in 1500, and certainly will not leave Germany quiet until the last trace of feudality has ceased to exist.

Events were now drawing to a head. The Count Soboski having fled to Lemberg, in order to place himself beyond the reach of suspicion or intrigue, from thence penned a last admonitory letter to the general.

"Withdraw before it is too late," so ran the epistle, "I entreat-I conjure you, my noble friend. I see you surrounded with dangers, some of which you do not even suspect. Not but I know that fear has no power over you; but to throw away life uselessly, is unpardonable in a man like you, whose existence is, in so many ways, useful to his country. Even should your party succeed in restoring Poland to itself, it would be only to establish, in spite of yourselves, a Polish republic; not an anarchy of nobles, such as you dream of-the Poland of 1700, with its perpetual feuds, desolating elections, and unbounded aristocratic power. But, no; I do you wrong, generous Stanoiki; your noble mind contemplates but one thing-the liberation of your country. You see nothing beyond that bare fact, and therein do you err

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The general scarce gave himself the trouble to peruse this friendly scroll, but threw it by disdainfully; the salutary advice was forgotten, and the monitor despised. Stanoiki was altogether engrossed with one idea, and he would see it in but one light. He was about to stake his all-honor -freedom-fortune-life-upon a die. All minor considerations, every other care, faded away before that one thought-to restore Poland, or perish in the attempt. This was the heroic resolve that filled his breast, which he was proud to inculcate in his son; and never was patriotism mixed with less alloy. Alas, the blindness that will not permit us to see things through any medium but our own narrow views!

The rebellion now began to assume a formidable character; it flung away the mask, and

Such was the state of things when Pavel, boiling with indignation at the treatment he had received, was set at liberty. He had suffered more during his confinement than the general would have permitted, had he been consulted; but he was far too much preoccupied to attend to such matters. February had set in cold and foggy. Duski had been repeatedly urged by some of the villagers to put Jakubska's cottage in a state to face the severity of the season; but, secure now of the disgrace the young man had fallen into at the castle, although the demand was in rule, he obstinately refused. Accordingly, when Pavel reentered his house, it was to find it in a far worse condition than that in which he had left it. Old Jakubska, too, profiting by his absence to sell every vendible article she possessed, and all the provisions her son had laid by for the winter, and having spent every farthing she could lay her hands upon in drink, now lay on a bed of sickness, from which it did not seem likely that she would rise again, the baneful habit having told at last on her enfeebled constitution. The count, since the receipt of Pavel's last letter, had withdrawn the pension, leaving her in a state of utter destitution; but Pavel hailed the struggles of want with a feeling approximating to pleasure, for it permitted

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