them some distance ahead and wait for us, we will not be long about it, I promise."
Glad of the excuse to be absent from such a scene, I put spurs to my horse, and rode forward, followed by the females of the party. On reaching the circle near the middle of the paseo I halted.
It was quite dark, and we could see nothing of those we had left behind us. We could hear nothing – nothing but the wind moaning high up among the branches of the tall poplars; but this, with the knowledge I had of what was going on so near me, impressed me with an indescribable feeling of sadness.
L – had kept his promise; he was not long about it. In less than ten minutes the party came trotting up, chatting gayly as they rode, but their prisoners had been left behind!..
As the American army moved down the road to Vera Cruz, many traveling carriages were in its train. In one of these were a girl and a gray-haired old man. Almost constantly during the march a young officer might be seen riding by this carriage, conversing through the windows with its occupants within.
A short time after the return-troops landed at New Orleans, a bridal party were seen to enter the old Spanish cathedral; the bridegroom was an officer who had lost an arm. His fame, and the reputed beauty of the bride, had brought together a large concourse of spectators.
"She loved me," said L – to me on the morning this his happiest day; "she loved me in spite of my mutilated limb, and should I cease to love her because she has – no, I see it not; she is to me the same as ever."
And there were none present who saw it; few were there who knew that under those dark folds of raven hair were the souvenirs of a terrible tragedy…
The Mexican government behaved better to the Ayankeeados than was expected. They did not confiscate the property; and L – is now enjoying his fortune in a snug hacienda, somewhere in the neighborhood of San Angel.
THE POOLS OF ELLENDEEN
Joel Jerdan was a thriving retail hosier, in a close street at the eastern end of the vast metropolis. He had a snug little shop, and a nice, snug little wife, together with an annually increasing nice little family; and Joel himself, if we except one weakness, was the most diligent and steady little fellow to be found within the circuit where the musical bells of Bow are heard. Small in person, pleasing in exterior, and scrupulously neat in his attire, Joel Jerdan was always considered a peculiarly dapper, civil, smart tradesman. His father had pursued the same business in the same house; and though there were not large profits, there was certainly contentment, which Joel very wisely judged was far better. It did not require any vivid stretch of imagination to form a comparison between the venerable Izaak Walton, of piscatorial celebrity, and our hosier; for, like that immortal angler, Joel was devoted to his calling and usually confined to precincts of no large dimensions, but making his escape whenever he could to enjoy the sole recreation of his existence – that recreation being the sport with which Izaak's name is ever associated.
Joel Jerdan was a worthy disciple of this renowned piscator – at least, he would have been had he strictly followed that master's injunctions; but, if truth must be all confessed, the one weakness already alluded to in our little hosier, consisted of indulgence beyond the bounds of strict sobriety, when any prolonged or favorable "sport" more than usually elated his spirits. On such occasions, Patty, his faithful wife, of course lectured the recreant hosier most severely; while he, shocked and humbled, meekly promised "never to do so any more," and kept his word until betrayed into temptation again. Being a water-drinker at home, from motives of prudence, not to say necessity, it did not require much in the way of stimulus to render poor little Joel addle-headed. Whenever he could spare an hour or two on the long summer evenings, after the business of the day was pretty well over, leaving the shop to Patty's care, away sallied Joel to the docks, there to watch his float and forget his cares, until night's sombre shadows warned him that all sober citizens were retiring bedward. It was only at rare intervals that Joel enjoyed a whole day's fishing; for, in the first place, he could not absent himself from pressing daily duties, and, in the second, he had no friend resident in the country within easy access, to whom he could resort for an introduction to babbling streams and flowery meads. He had toiled early and late, as his excellent father had done before him; and when Patty's brother retired from official life (he was a nobleman's butler), and became proprietor of a small public-house about fifty miles from London, situated on the banks of a river much resorted to by anglers, and sent a hearty invitation to Joel to come and visit him, what words may paint the bright anticipations of the exulting hosier? He had not been well of late – needed summer holidays; and, in short Joel could not resist the tempting offer.
Patty urged her husband with affectionate solicitude, to "keep watch" over himself; but she loved him too well, and was too unselfish, to object to his accepting her brother's hospitality. "Make hay while the sun shines, my dear," she said; "you may never have such another opportunity. Business is slack just now – besides, baby is weaned, and I can mind the shop with Charlie; only – " here there was a private whispered admonition, the tenor of which may be inferred from Joel's answer, accompanied by a hearty kiss: "I promise you, my ducky, that I will never taste a drop, except when I get wet-footed, and then only just enough to keep the cold out."
"Ah, that cold, Joel!" replied Patty, "it's a queer thing, that cold is! always trying to gain a footing; and nothing but a sip of brandy to keep it out!" And the wife shook her head.
It was too much felicity for Joel Jerdan! – the gathering together his scanty assortment of rods and tackle – the laying out his hard-earned money to purchase more – the packing his portmanteau and setting out on a gay summer's morning!
Yet his dreams fell short of reality when Joel first beheld the paradise of greenerie wherein "The Swan" nestled on the picturesque beauties of Wood End. Here he could fish off the bank from a variegated flower-garden, whose roses hung over the broad, deep waters, where monsters of the finny tribes abounded. Here he did fish off the emerald bank; but, alas! the fish were strangely shy or cunning. Joel labored most assiduously; but somehow, he caught nothing. There was always something wrong; either it was too hot, or the water was too clear, or the fish wouldn't take the particular bait at that particular spot, and they must be sought up or down stream for miles. And so Joel followed the river's course patiently, day by day striving most manfully to ensnare the wary inhabitants of the treacherous element, on whose tranquil bosom wan lilies reposed as peacefully as primroses on the hill-side graves reflected nigh. "Try the pools of Ellendeen," said one; and "Try the pools of Ellendeen," said another, until Joel determined he would try these far-famed still waters, though it was a good way up stream to reach them. However, a farmer offered to give him a lift in his cart, and drop him on the road to market, leaving Joel to work his way back to Wood End as might suit his sport or inclination; and well supplied with refreshing viands, stowed away in his basket, slung across his shoulder sportsman-like with leathern belt, Joel set forth to try his luck in the "bottomless pit," for so the deepest pool of Ellendeen was significantly named by the peasant-folk, with whom the domain bounding the water was in ill-repute.
Solemn and stately were the neighboring woods, and a gray castellated mansion frowned on the summit of a high hill overhanging the water. It was uninhabited now, the family were extinct, and, of course, there was a legend attached.
A former lord of Ellendeen was most anxious for a son and heir; but on his unhappy lady presenting him with nothing but daughters, he swore that on the birth of the next he would throw it into the pool beside the wood. He did so with his own wicked hands more than once; and tradition said that no less than four baby daughters of the ancient race of Ellendeen were engulfed in those deep, dismal waters, which refused to yield their dead, and, in short, proved to be "bottomless." However, whether it was that they were left very much to themselves, or that the fish in Ellendeen Pools were really finer than elsewhere, report had not exaggerated their abundance and size; and Joel, to his infinite satisfaction, managed to capture some "splendid
