Chapter IV

Ravenshoe bay again. Sunlight on the waters; clear blue sky; all nature smiling serenely; Charles Ravenshoe—I adore the man when I think of him—landing a forty-four-pound salmon; ruddy with health, joyous in countenance; two curly-headed boys screaming for joy; his wife, 'she that was' (Americanism picked up among Yorkshiremen in Australia) Mary Corby, laughing heartily at the tout ensemble. William Ravenshoe affectionately helping Charles with a landing-net to secure the salmon, thus speaks to him:

'Charles, this idea of yours of dividing the 'state evenly between us is noble, but I shall not accept it. I would like a small piece of the tail of this salmon for dinner, though, if it will not rob you.'

'William, halves in every thing between us is my motto; so say no more about it. The delightful news that Father Macksham has at last fallen a victim to his love of gain, while trying to run a cargo of cannons, powder, and Enfield rifles to the confederate States, IN DIRECT OPPOSITION TO HER BLESSED MAJESTY'S COMMANDS, rejoices my heart to that extent that I exclaim, perish all Jesuits! Now that you have turned Protestant, and are thoroughly out of the woods of medieval romance, I may say,

'The owl, for all his feathers, was a-cold,'

and quote Tennyson, like poor Cuthbert, all day long. Who is there to hinder?'

'No one,' replied William, with all the warmth of heart of a man who was once a groom and then a bridegroom. 'No one. I saw Adelaide this morning a-carrying flannels and rum to the poor of the parish; how thoroughly she has reformed, I'm sure.'

Reader, let us pause here and dwell on the respective merits of the Bohemian Girl, and Father Rodin in the Mysteries of Paris, compared with the characters described in Ravenshoe. Let us ask if an English novel can be written without allusion to the Derby or Life at Oxford, the accumulation of pounds or the squandering of pounds, rightful heirs or wrongful heirs, false marriages, or the actions of spoiled children generally? An answer is looked for.

'And further this deponent sayeth not.'

The Nashville Union—the new Union newspaper of that city—is emphatically 'an institution,' and a dashing one at that. Its every column is like the charge of a column of infantry into the unhallowed Rebel-ry of Disunion. 'Don't compromise your loyalty with rebels,' says the Union, 'until you are ready to compromise your soul with the devil.'

Some of the humor of this brave pioneer sheet is decidedly piquant. Among its quizzical literary efforts the review of Rev. Dr. McFerrin's Confederate Primer is good enough to form the initial of a series. We make the following extracts:

'Nothing is more worthy of being perpetuated than valuable contributions to literature. The literature of a nation is its crown of glory, whose reflected light shines far down the swift-rolling waves of time and gladdens the eyes of remote generations. This beautiful and—to our notion—finely-expressed sentiment was suggested to our mind in turning over the pages of Rev. Dr. McFerrin's Confederate Primer, which we briefly noticed yesterday. We feel that we then passed too hastily over a work so grand in its conception.... The Primer, after giving the alphabet in due form, offers some little rhymes for youngsters, which are perfect nosegays of sentiment, of which the following will serve as samples:

N. At Nashville's fall We sinned all. T. At Number Ten We sinned again. F. Thy purse to mend, Old Floyd, attend. L. Abe Lincoln bold, Our ports doth hold. D. Jeff Davis tells a lie, And so must you and I. I. Isham doth mourn His case forlorn. P. Brave Pillow's flight Is out of sight. B. Buell doth play, And after slay. O. Yon Oak will be the gallows-tree Of Richmond's fallen majesty.

Governor Ishain Harris 'catches it' in the following extract from the Easy Reading Lessons for Children:

'LESSON FIRST.

'THE SMART DIX-IE BOY.

'Once there was a lit-tle boy, on-ly four years old. His name was Dix-ie. His fa-ther's name was I-sham, and his moth-er's name was All-sham. Dix-ie was ver-y smart, He could drink whis-ky, fight chick-ens, play po-ker, and cuss his moth-er. When he was on-ly two years old, he could steal su-gar, hook pre-serves, drown kit-tens, and tell lies like a man. By and by Dix-ie died, and went to the bad place. But the dev-il would not let Dix-ie stay there, for he said: 'When you get big, Dix-ie, you would be head-devil yourself.' All little Reb-els ought to be like Dix-ie, and so they will, if they will stud-y the Con-fed-e-rate Prim-er.'

Very good, too, is the powerful and thrilling sermon on the 'Curse of Cowardice,' delivered by the Rev. Dr. Meroz Armageddon Baldwin, from which we take 'the annexed:'

'Then there is Gideon Pillow, who has undertaken a contract for digging that 'last ditch,' of which you have heard so much. I am afraid that the white 'feathers will fly' whenever that Case is opened, and that Pillow will give us the slip. 'The sword of the Lord' isn't 'the sword of Gideon' Pillow—that's certain—so I shall bolster him up no longer. Gideon is 'a cuss,' and a 'cuss of cowardice.''

We are glad to see that the good cause has so stalwart and keen a defender in Tennessee.

We have our opinion that the following anecdote is true. If not, it is 'well found'—or founded.

Not long since, an eminent 'Conserve' of Boston was arguing with a certain eminent official in Washington, drilling away, of course, on the old pro-slavery, pro-Southern, pro-give-it-up platform.

'But what can you do with the Southerners?' he remarked, for 'the frequenth' time. 'You can't conquer them—you can't reconcile them—you can't bring them back—you can't do any thing with them.'

'But we may annihilate them,' was the crushing reply.

And Conserve took his hat and departed.

It is, when we come to facts, really remarkable that it has not occurred to the world that there can be but one solution to a dispute which has gone so far. There is no stopping this war. Secession is an impossibility. If we willed it, we could not prevent 'an institutional race' from absorbing one which has no accretive principle of growth. It is thought, as we write, that during the week preceding July 4th, seventy thousand of the Secession army perished! They are exhausting, annihilating themselves; and by whom will the vacancy be filled? Not by the children of States which, under the old system, fell behindhand in population. By whom, then? By Northern men and European emigrants, of course.

But European intervention? If Louis Napoleon wants to keep his crown—if England wishes Europe to remain quiet—if they both dread our good friend Russia, who in event of a war would 'annex,' for aught we can see, all Austria and an illimitable share of the East—if they wish to avoid such an upstirring, riot, and infernal carnival of revolution as the world never saw—they will let us alone.

The London Herald declares that 'America is a nuisance among nations!' When they undertake to meddle with us, they will find us one. We would not leave them a ship on the sea or a seaboard town un-ruined. The whole world would wail one wild ruin, and there should be the smoke as of nations, when despotism should dare to lay its hand on the sacred cause of freedom. For we of the North are living and dying in that cause which never yet went backward, and we shall prevail, though the powers of all Europe and all the powers of darkness should ally against us. Let them come. They do but bring grapes to the wine-press of the Lord; and it will be a bloody vintage which will be pressed forth in that day, as the great cause goes marching on.

Let no one imagine that our military draft has been one whit too great. Our great folly hitherto has been to underrate the power of the enemy. In the South every male who can bear arms is now either bearing them or otherwise directly aiding the rebellion. When the sheriffs of every county in the seceding States made their returns to their Secretary of War, they reported one million four hundred thousand men capable of bearing arms. And they have the arms and will use them. It is 'an united rising of the people,' such as the world has seldom seen.

But then it is all they can do—it is the last card and the last man, and if we make one stupendous effort, we must inevitably crush it. There is no other course—it is drag or be dragged, hammer or anvil now. If we do not beat them thoroughly and completely, they will make us rue the day that ever we were born.

The South is stronger than we thought, and its unity and ferocity add to its strength. It will never be conciliated—it must be crushed. When we have gained the victory, we can be what our foes never were to us—generous and merciful.

A GENTLEMAN of Massachusetts, who has held a position in McClellan's army that gave him an opportunity to know whereof he speaks, states that for weeks, while the army on the Peninsula were in a grain-growing country, surrounded by fields of wheat and oats belonging to well-known rebels, the Commissary Department was not allowed to turn its cattle into a rich pasturage of young grain, from the fear of offending the absent rebel owners, or of using in any way the property of Our Southern Brethren in arms against us. The result was, that the cattle kept with the army for the use of our hard-worked soldiers, were penned up, and half-starved on the forage carried in the regular subsistence trains, and the men got mere skin and bones for beef.

So endeth the month. The rest with the next. But may we, in conclusion, beg sundry kind correspondents to have patience? Time is scant with us, and labor fast and hard. Our editorial friends who have kindly cheered us by applauding 'the outspoken and straightforward young magazine,' will accept our most grateful thanks. It has seldom happened to any journal to be so genially and warmly commended as we have been since our entrance on the stormy field of political discussion.

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