YESTERDAY. How fair regret hath made the sepulchre ! And, "Well-a-day!" she sighs, "I once was fair, Our sacred ashes once were common dust, And thou To-day, whose beauty none can see, Shalt be avenged when thou art named the Past; So shall the unborn future weep for thee. Oh for one day to live in, glorified With the strange glamour to the past allied! Α UNEXPECTED BLOWS. T first he did not know whether he had been thrown over the dasher of his carriage upon the horse, or whether the horse had come over the dasher and fallen upon him, he was so confused and amazed at the accident which had so suddenly happened in this unknown country, and landed him by the roadside. The trampling of the horse on the broken harness and a disagreeable trickling on the side of his head brought him to the conclusion that he was badly hurt, and that the Satanic brute had escaped injury, and was able to enjoy a quiet nibble of clover. He looked up the long road he had rode over, wondered how long he had been riding, and why he had come away from the little town he had not half seen, merely to be upset and pay a heavy bill for breaking the wagon! He must still get on; in that direction was no habitation nor sign of life, only wide fields, and dark strips of woodland; he looked ahead, a rod beyond the road made an abrupt turn, a band of trees again hid the view; but something must be done; he would round that corner. "If this is the last ditch," he muttered, "I wish I could get a little of its water; why can't that wretched beast assist me?" The scheme of finding his handkerchief, and reaching it in the water, possessed him, but his right hand would not move, his arm was broken. He fainted with the effort and rolled backward; his face rested on the border of the ditch, through which sluggishly ran a thread of root-stained water; its coolness checked the trickling of blood from the wound in his head, and in a moment he rallied, staggered to his feet, fixed his eyes on the bend of the road, determined to pass it, and then die if no help should come. His energy met its reward; counting the line of elms one by one he reached the last, and saw beyond it tall red chimneys, then the walls of a house filled with shining windows and open doors. Somebody was lounging about one of the doors; he waved his hand wildly, signaling distress, lurched forward, and went down headlong. you stand there bawling, and not moving? Father! Louisa! murder!" There was an instantaneous rush toward the gate of old Sally from the kitchen, Mr. Shelby from the middle room, and Louisa from the parlor, who let her book, Lallah Rookh, fall. The big dog, Bole, accompanied the party, and joined in the general consternation with a disImal howl. Mrs. Shelby was already by the stranger, endeavoring to heave him up by the shoulders as if he were a bale of merchandise altogether too heavy for her. "It isn't any body murdered," said old Sally, indignantly; "it's somebody slewed-too much swipes. Mussey! A young man too. The country is pizened with whisky; that's what ails my youth here. Mussey! see his black curls all a-dust and wet with blood! Mussey! there's a horse, with part of his gear on, coming down the road!" "Sally, Sally, hold your tongue," said Mr. Shelby, mildly, and placing his hand over the heart of the man hurt; "it is an accident: Providence has sent him to our gate, and he must be cared for. Jeremiah Brown, are you coming? Leave him to us, Mrs. Shelby." "Oh, I am on hand, Sir!" answered Jeremiah. "I wasn't out of the way so much that I couldn't see that I should have to take him by the legs, Sir, pervided you were ready to take him by the head. Marm will bring him round with camphor, and the wash-biler is full of hot water. This man is hurt, Sir; easy; now we have him." Louisa Shelby stood inside the gate, pale and agitated at the sight of the prone, helpless figure which was carried past her, up the path leading to the porch. "Now, Loizy," said Sally, "there's no occasion and no time for you to go off in a fit; you ought to be prepared to have a man left at our gate, to be cured or buried any time; your pa is always talking about Providential circumstances, and he has got one, bang. Come right along, Loizy, and face the music.' Sally perceived that she was not heard; Louisa's ears were following her eyes. "Out at one ear and not in at the other," Sally muttered, moving forward with Louisa. "Mussey, he's kicking!" "Oh!" gasped Louisa, "he resists being carried; he must be reviving. Do hurry, mother, to him. Sally, where can she be?" "She has run in to get your father's 'Oil of the Good Samaritan.' It is on the third shelf, right-hand side of the pot-closet, but she doesn't know where it is, and by this time she is getting mad; we shall all be called dolts, blockheads, and trollops." A slight struggle was occurring in the open porch between Mr. Shelby, Jeremiah, and their hitherto inanimate burden. "A man's tumbled down right afore our "Let us stand on ceremony, if you please," gate, marm. Mrs. Shelby, I say!" cried the said a voice, and Mr. Shelby and Jeremiah person by the door. Mrs. Shelby came running were obliged to let the man stand on his feet. and screaming, "My foot is where ?" he asked. "My "Dumb, stupid Jeremiah Brown, why do name is Dunstan." He sank back on the wooden settee: "This castle hath a pleasant seat: the air Nimbly and sweetly recommends itself Unto our gentle senses.' Can I have a doctor?" he was stung somewhere. "Where the bee Gentle His eyes fell on Louisa, who stood close to quickly. Look down the road for the doctor." him, "One arm aloft He Gown'd in pure white that fitted to the shape" clasping the cedar pillar of the porch. never forgot the picture, and ever afterward was fond of the Virginia creeper, for the pretty leaves of that vine also clung to the pillar. The wild, exhausted expression in his eyes made her cry out, "You are terribly hurt, Sir. You must be carried in; my mother can do something for you." "I am going in," he replied. "I have another blow, I fancy. Did you spring from the ground?" Mrs. Shelby reappeared with a glass in her hand, which she put to Mr. Dunstan's lips. "Down with it," she ordered, and he swallowed it. Louisa, with a tearful, pitying glance at Mr. Dunstan, which was of course unheeded by him, withdrew, shutting all the doors behind her, that no groans or ravings might reach her. "Sally, Sally," she called, softly, putting her head in at the kitchen door, "mother is cutting his hair off; his wits have left him." But Sally was not visible. Silence reigned there in spite of the bubbling and hissing of pots over the fire, the ticking of the clock high on the wall, and the snapping of Bole's jaws upon the flies buzzing round him. Louisa went into the yard and saw Sally trotting in the middle of the road. "Do you see the doctor, Sally?" "I have been the other way. I went up the road to find the carriage. Jeremiah has dragged it out of the ruts; it is one of them fancy wagons. It belongs to no peddler, nor to an agent for maps and them revolutionary works that's always going round, bepraised by mealy-mouthed men in bombazine trowsers all skin and bone. I guess it belongs to one of them trouting chaps "Now, Jeremiah," she continued, "gear up and trot after the doctor, quick as the Lord will let you. Father, take hold of the gentleman and bring him into the parlor; I've laid a bed on the sofa. Louisa, you had better go back-all boots and artificial flies, to say nothing of to your poetry, if you have done hugging that cedar post. Sally, something is burning on the stove in the kitchen, as sure as you live and breathe. Come, Sir, you are in a raging fever; if you were my son I'd give you a sound shaking for getting upset and half killing yourself." "I am at your mercy, Madam," replied Mr. Dunstan; "but if I hadn't been upset how could I have caught a-Tartar?" Mr. Shelby coughed to conceal a smile and his surprise at the temerity of this disabled youth. brandy flasks. We've escaped till now this sort of gentleman, but he's come at last. I'll bet John Plummer can catch more trout in an hour with a birch bean-pole than this man can in a week. How is he now? Come to any? He'll be trouted before he leaves this house, or I'm mistaken. Mussey! I wouldn't have put that plaster on that head, as your mother did, for fifty cents. Is she going to set his arm? She set a chicken's leg last fall, but it never grew together." "When will Jeremiah come ?" "Now, my dear," he said, "recollect your- "It is nigh time. Run up stairs and look self. I know you are overcome, but we all de- out the back chamber winder, and let me know pend on your judgment and firmness in such a when you see him. I've got slippery elum crisis as this. Louisa is a child and Sally is ready, and valerian, but I can't find the bonechildish, and I am a poor tool.” set." "Yes, yes, Mr. Shelby, I'll do my best; but you must expect some flusteration." “Cream of Tartar, I meant," said Mr. Dunstan, feebly, as he reached the sofa, and dropped upon it with an irrepressible groan. Jeremiah was already clattering into the barn-yard, followed by the doctor in his gig. To Louisa's indignation he delayed a moment to joke with Sally on some ancient swain he pretended to have met on his rounds. "Whatever you meant," replied Mrs. Shelby, "Go long, doctor," said Sally; "you smell reddening, and with tears in her eyes, "you so of your pizen drugs you'll spile my dinner must keep very still. You are in a high fever. if you stay. If you must have your joke, take Scissors, father; a basin of warm water. Lou- Miss Louizy here; she is going to be married." isa, go out; if you stay you'll faint. "So I hear," answered the doctor, passing ing to cut his hair; and I am going to cut his through. "John Plummer should be transcoat off." ported for taking Puss away from the chimney corner." I am go The pain in Mr. Dunstan's head and arm already made him half delirious. He begged her to cut them both off; nobody would ever miss them, he urged; his head had led him into a ditch; and as for his right hand, who would ever accept it, to be led by? Was it time for the bees to swarm? he asked then-he thought VOL. XXXVI.—No. 211.-E "Gals, like swallows, will fly away and forget the empty nests," replied Sally. "I have not departed yet," said Louisa, "but shall continue to homeward fly.'" "But you will. With Mrs. Shelby on one side, and the Widow Plummer on the other, you and John will have to make a match-pull | for that matter, he said. "Sally, you are most disgusting. I have no refuge to-day; there seems to be no place in the house for me. I'll retire to the garret." The doctor, having carried his whip into the parlor, gnawed its handle reflectively when he looked at Mr. Dunstan. it. "He has a good head; pity he should lose How long has he been here ?" Mr. Shelby coughed again. It appeared to him that his old friend, the doctor, was growing fumbling, and that the essence of medicine about him was worse than usual. He must have broken a bottle or two in his pockets-he was a careless doctor! "How are you, Shelby?" asked the doctor. "I didn't see you. Um, um, um!" He slipped his fingers about Mr. Dunstan. "Good as the rack to set his arm. You have done as well as could be expected, Mrs. Shelby-worth forty of Shelby, who has not thought of splints." "I told you as much, my dear," said Mr. Shelby. The doctor took off his rusty blue coat and turned up a pair of enormous wristbands. Mr. Dunstan was an erratic gentleman, whom he had known for several seasons, in the way of trout, pickerel, quail, and plover. If Mr. Dunstan had selected the neighborhood of Mr. Shelby's house to be upset in, it was no doubt agreeable to him. No one could foretell what such a man might devise for amusement. "You had better go over to Shelby's to-morrow," said the doctor, "and look after your team. "Not I," replied the landlord. "It will be time enough for me to go when Mr. Dunstan sends for me." "You will not go in some time, then. I calculate he is in a brain-fever." "I told him he'd have one last week. He loafed too much o' nights round Owl Creek, when you could cut the mist like cheese. He liked it, he said, and felt comfortable in a clear, silver mist. That he was familiar with in the city was beer-colored, and was flavored with old umbrellas. Queer chap, Mr. Dunstan! Good pay, though; first-rate and a half.” "He won't pay if he dies, you ass, will he ?" "Never had a man die on my hands; maybe as he is in yours he will. In that case I can write to the bank he draws on." "Has he no friends? Do no letters come to him ?" "Nary. I asked him once what made him so yaller all at once, and he replied that he believed the remains of his liver was coming over from India to him again. Putting this and that together, I think he was born in India; the old woman says he has articles in his room that came from there, and that he showed her a miniature one day of a lady in a high tur "Bring in my boy, will you, Shelby? and call in Jeremiah. He is a scoundrel for saying nothing serious had happened here, and making me leave something desirable behind. It is a serious case. How are you now, young man? Where are you from to-day?" Mr. Dunstan shook his head. His mouth ban, and said that it was his mother done by a opened and shut stupidly. native artist, just before he left Calcutta, and "Light-headed," continued the doctor. "I that he never saw her afterward. If you adthought so." vise it, I'll send down a lot of his things, shirts "Why, doctor, you know he is in a raging and gimcracks. Shelby may send back the team fever," said Mrs. Shelby. "Shut up, marm! No, on the whole, you needn't. Make me some pads. Is your old linen on hand? I must have a cold lotion. Pound some ice up, marm, for his head; put it in oil silk or bladders, and come back as quick as you can." Jeremiah came in as Mr. Shelby had ordered, and the doctor saying, "Now, then," went to work. Mr. Dunstan's arm was set, his head re-dressed, his bed carefully adjusted, medicine administered to him, and Jeremiah, with written instructions, was installed beside him as watcher for the night before the doctor left the house. Instead of going homeward he took the road Mr. Dunstan had traveled over, and drove to the Owl Tavern, twelve miles from Mr. Shelby's, for the purpose of making inquiries concerning Mr. Dunstan. He learned that it was the place from which Mr. Dunstan had started, and that it was his temporary residence. The landlord of the Owl did not expect Mr. Dunstan's return at any particular hour or day, if he likes at his own risk. You see Mr. Dunstan gets on with me because I strictly follow his lead. I must own that I like him about as well as any man I ever set eyes on-mashed if I don't!" "You are sure he is not a native Prince, and the turban in the miniature one that he wears?" "He ought to be. Last summer when he was here my daughter was fool enough to get over the wall where my bull was-the feller I took a prize for; she had a basket in her hand; he roared, and tore up a sod or two; she stood stock-still, lost her wits; it drove him mad I reckon; he made at her; and Mr. Dunstan shot him with a pistol as big as my Jim's pop-gun. It makes me sweat to think on't now; the creetur's slaver actilly blew on her arm, he was so near, and when he dropped his horn grazed Mr. Dunstan's knee. How he came there I never knew; but my wife says she saw him flying over the wall while she was screeching out of the window. If you'll believe me he paid for that bull, he would do it; said it was as good sport "What! Put my head in a hornet's nestrun against Madam Shelby! No, Sir-ee. You know as well as I do that he could not be in better hands though." as ever Cumming had in Africa, and with more | stans, or whomsoever they may be, I goes to of a beast too than he ever killed. Now if you your mother, who was kiting back and forth in think I am going to disturb Mr. Dunstan, or the front-entry with a solemn phiz, and says I, worry after my horse and wagon, you are mis-Do come to dinner while it is fit to eat; Jeretaken." miah is all right inside there.' Says she 'Sal"You might be of service to your champion ly, don't talk to me of dinner while 'tis a matat Shelby's." ter of life and death; and Jeremiah needs watching, he is such a goose; and I can't tell why the doctor put me out and him in. Eat your own dinner, Sally, and be sure to make Louisa comfortable.' I thought to myself, 'You have got to drink a cup of tea, any how ;' and I made green tea, strong as all possessed, and carried it to her. 'Drink this, marm,' I said; you have got to keep up on account of the young man. The doctor hinted to me, as he got into his gig, that he guessed we would have a kind of a raving time for a while, and that was the reason he'd set up Jeremiah as a nuss.' Your ma rolled up her eyes and drank the tea. Then I had to go to the barn and do Jeremiah's chores, and, to tell the truth, I forgot to call you, Louizy. Look here: this is gooseberry tart, green-gooseberry-tart. You know how you love it; this is the first I've made. Have a piece ?" "Well, well, send his traps down. Give me some bitters and let me go; I have had enough of the Owl's wisdom for to-day. Does your wife's tongue run like yours?" What was going on below after the doctor's departure Louisa in her retreat could not surmise; the house was fearfully still. She crept down the back-stairs, looked into the middleroom, and saw the dinner set out, but that nobody had dined: the meat was not carved, and the water-pitcher stood full. "He must be dead," she thought; "and so handsome a man as he was! If he had a mother and sister their hearts would be broken." She sat down at the table, and tears of pity ran down her cheeks at their supposed loss. She was afraid to approach the parlor lest some evidence of the fact should terrify her, and she shrank from seeking Sally lest her plain speech concerning him should shock her. The silence continued. Presently her attention was claimed by a noble piece of roast beef; the sight of it created a sentiment of hunger, which she would have preferred to stifle. The well-baked cone of mashed potatoes also thrust itself upon her observation; she could not resist speculating on its flavor, and yielded to the temptation of digging into it with a spoon and eating it in nibbles. "Mussey!" said Sally at her elbow, "I am glad somebody's come to eat my vittles; but the potatoes are salted, Louizy; you needn't drop any tears on them." Louisa looked round imploringly, and, with her mouth full, asked, "Is he living?" "Yes; but why should I be so hungry at a time when nobody else can eat? It is heartless." "'Cause you are young. Grief and anxiety slip away from the minds of the young as water runs off a duck's back." "I am not so young; eighteen, nearly." "Mussey! so you are. Now how can we get out that Jeremiah? He is dead with hunger by this time; death nor eternity can scare him from eating. Go persuade your mother to let him out for a few minutes. The man is still enough now; warrant ye he's full of opium. You can stand guard outside. I'll run to you, if I hear the least noise." "Yes, yes," said Mrs. Shelby, when Louisa gave her Sally's message; "Jeremiah shall have his dinner, of course. Mr. Dunstan appears to be asleep; if he continues tractable I shall take charge of him myself; but, oh, what "Who? The old tom-cat, or Bole, or the a responsibility!" lame chicken?" "Mr. Dunstan," said Louisa, with a sob. “Fiddle-stick, yes. Let me cut you a slice of beef; it is cold, but as tender and juicy as can be." "Mother, how long do you expect to keep this Mr. Dunstan here?" "If he lives, a month at least." The parlor door already stood ajar, and Mrs. Shelby softly pushed it open, and beckoned to "Yes;" and Louisa held her plate out with Jeremiah, who would not stir; he sat beside an air of deprecation. "Pickles?" inquired Sally, brandishing the carving-knife in the air; "little teenty, tonty cucumbers, you know, crisp and sharp-best we have." "Excellent," added Louisa, biting one. "This dinner," continued Sally, in an indignant tone, “will be thrown to the pigs and— Jeremiah. After the doctor left Mr. Shelby had to go right to bed with sick headache, of course. When I put the dinner on the table, as hot and nice as if we hadn't been turned upside down by your Dunstans and your Stun Mr. Dunstan, with the written instructions pinned to the breast of his coat. "Was there ever such an obstinate dunderhead ?" muttered Mrs. Shelby. "I could shake him to pieces. Jeremiah," she whispered, come and get your dinner, or you'll have nothing till morning." Jeremiah's coutenance fell, but duty triumphed. "I'll take a plate of something here-over in the corner. Doctor said I was not to leave till I had chucked four powders into this creetur; he has had two, and he feels 'em. I'd a poured all down him at once and settled his | hash." "Go to the other side of the room, then, and Louisa will bring you something to eat," said Mrs. Shelby. Jeremiah, in his stocking feet, crept to the door where Louisa stood, and asked her to bring him a quart bowl of coffee and a dish of doughnuts; "somehow his stomach felt riled, and he only felt like eating light vittles." "Be sure not to eat your instructions, Jeremiah," said Mrs. Shelby, in a sarcastic whisper. "I am almost afraid to leave the medicine with you." "If there should be any pills left, marm, I shall take 'em; pills do me a sight of good." Louisa silently set before him a pan of doughnuts, in which Sally placed several delicacies she thought he would like, and then crossed the room and stood beside her mother, who was watching Mr. Dunstan. His regular features were pale and pinched with pain; his black hair was tangled and stained; his tall, slender figure was stretched upon the bed as if lifeless. Yet Louisa never beheld a more attractive, mysterious subject. "The Veiled Prophet of Khorassan," he of the "Silver Veil," was nothing to the spectacle before her, enveloped in a red and white patch-quilt. "Louisa, you will dream about him if you stare at him so," whispered her mother; "he is a frightful sight. What a beard he has got! Better go and see how your father is. Strange how easily he is overcome." "Both can go, marm," said Jeremiah; "what little I wanted I have had, and I am on hand again. You must go. I can't answer for the man; he may be running round like a tiger within five minutes." "Come, mother," begged Louisa; "should he frighten you, what will become of us?" Mrs. Shelby yielded to her persuasion, and consented to withdraw entirely from the sickroom for the night. Jeremiah, however, was deposed upon the doctor's second visit, and the sick-room became an institution with Mrs. Shelby. Sally declared that she was "swallowed up alive by this outlandish young man, who seemed to have no friends or relations to come after him." When the landlord of the Owl sent up some luggage belonging to Mr. Dunstan, Sally laid it out carefully in the drawers of the best bureau, and examined it in the hope of obtaining some biographical hint; the shirts and handkerchiefs were marked John Dunstan. rocco case containing toilet articles had a crest upon it, which Sally not comprehending asked an explanation of from Louisa. A mo "So I should think, so old and decrepit that not one of 'em are able to look him up and attend to him. Here he is, a world of trouble, and we shall have nothing to show for it unless it is your mother's lumbago." So many days glided by while Mr. Dunstan remained in an unvarying condition of prostration that insensibly the family got to consider it as a fixed thing, and, with the exception of Mrs. Shelby, ceased to speculate or feel any agitation concerning its object. Mr. Shelby, when driving to market or to church, and questioned, looked serious, and gave the doctor's opinion, instead of his own, adding that the ways of Providence were past finding out, and Mrs. Shelby was an able instrument, if it was so to be that Mr. Dunstan should recover. Jeremiah pursued his usual avocations with less noise and the same appetite. Sally reigned every where outside Mr. Dunstan's domain; and Louisa, left more to her own devices, sent for more books from the library in a neighboring town, and browsed upon ideas as a lamb nibbles grass, which had no connection with the facts of her life. John Plummer, the young man to whom she was engaged, came and went after his lover-like fashion, and she received him and parted from him with an equanimity that was not exactly agreeable to him. All that he did for her-his gifts of flowers, pictorial newspapers, magazines, and delicate edibles were taken with the same placid, smiling, "Thank you, John." Whether he held her hand morn, noon, or eve, its temperature was the same, growing neither hot nor cold, as his did. John was manly and sensible, but particularly ignorant upon one subject-the theory and practice of that natural science-Love. When, in his fondness, disappointment, and anger, he cogitated within himself, he argued that there was every reason why he and Louisa should marry: his mother's farm, to be his own, joined that of Mr. Shelby; he was an only child, and so was Louisa; they were about the same age; had grown up and been educated together. If Louisa married any man besides himself she must leave her native place and all her happy associations, for there was no eligible man within twenty miles-that is, none had been seen by her. If he married any girl besides Louisa he must bring a stranger to live by his mother's hearth; and who could foretell the troubles that might arise from such a state of things? The Widow Plummer, his mother, shared his misgivings, but never mentioned it. She watched Louisa sharply, and had, more than once, seen her eyes wander from John in the midst "It proves that Mr. Dunstan is of noble ex- of his conversation; had seen her look up from traction." her book with an unconscious frown, and keep her fingers shut in the page when he approached; and had heard her say "No," from absentmindedness, when she should have said "Yes" to him; and had heard her ask questions and express ideas which John could not answer or meet, and which had made herself-his mo |