The ladies' garland. [volume], November 25, 1826, Image 1

About The ladies' garland. [volume] (Harpers-Ferry, Va. [W. Va.]) 1824-1828

Image provided by: West Virginia University

                
Zi)t Garland.
HASFESS-FSRRY, VIRGINIA, NOVEMBER 25, 1326.
VOL. 3
NO. 42
rrllUSHKl) KVLHT SATl'IlllAT tVISIMi,
IiV JOHN S. (iAI.I.AIlKH,
Wr the Office if iht l'irgiuiu Free /'ress.
TI'.UMS_One dollar and fifty cents per annum
payable quarterly in advance; or one dollar and
twenty-five cents, to be paid at the time of sub
scribing. l'ayment in advance, from il.-taut sub
scribers, who are not known to the pubhslar, will
invariably be expected. Should pnwncnt be deli r
red to the end of the year, #2 w di lie required.
Postage on all letters Ml ST be p.» 1.
THE KEPOSiTOKY.
FROM II LACK wonn’s M il! A’/.l M. FIIU Ainivr.
llAKliY HOWARD AMI I.LTY I l.KMi.NG.
Many a tame tradition, embalmed in a few
pathetic \ rises, fives fur ages, while the nieino
i v of the must p dhctic incidents, to which ge
mils has allied nogeueial emotion, fades like
tlie mist, and leaves heart tending griefs nude
I'h-rcd I '.legies and dirges might indeed have
will been sung amid the green ruins of yonder
cottage, that looks now almost like a fallen wall
—at best. the remnants of a cattle sfied shaken
down by the storm. Twenty year-ago—how
-liort a time in national history—how long in
that of private sorrow s ! ail tongues were -peak
mg ' i tlie death that there, befell, and to have
m • [i the. wri pirig. you would haw- thouu.lit that
the fiim jii 1 could never have been forgotten,
i'ut sf .p now the shepherd on the ldl!. and ask
him who lived ol old in licit noi l;, and chance,
i lie know* not even their inline, much less the
s! iry of their aiilictiiins. 'l icit farm-house was
micihitcd by Allan Fleming, his wile, and an
only child, known tcnciiaiU in her own sniail
world by the name of l.ucy of the Fold. In
almost evny vale among the mountains, there
is its peculiar pride—some otic creature to
whom nature has been especially kind, and
".hose pe;sonal beauty, sweetness <ij disposition,
and felt .superiority of mind and ncuiin r. single
her out. unconsciously, as an object of tv trac
tion and praise, making her the .May-day queen
cl the unending year. iSuch a darling was l.ucv
Fleming ere she had finished her thirteenth
year; and strangers, who had heard tell of her
loveliness, often dropped in. as if by accident, to
.••re the beauty of Rydalmere. Her parents
rejoiced in their child ; nor was there any rea
son why they should dislike the expression of
delight and wonder with which so many regard
ed her. Shy was she as a woodland hiid, hut as
fond of her nest too; and when there was no
thing near to disturb, her life was almost a per
petual hymn. From joy to sadness, and from
sadness to joy ; from silence to song, and from
song to silence; from stillness, like that of the
butterfly on the flower, to motion like that of the
same creature wavering in the sunshine ou r
tile wood-top, was to l.ucv as welcome a change
as the change of lights and shadows, breezes
and calms, in the mountain country of her birth
One summer day. a youthful stranger appear
rd at the door of the house, and after an hour's
st.vv, during which l.ucy was from home, asked
if they would h t him have lodging with them
for a few months—a single room for bed and
books, and that he would take his meals with
the family. Enthusiastic hoy I to him poetry
hail been the light of life, nor did ever hero of
p ietry he long more entirely than he to the
"orld of imagination ! lie had come into the
free mountain-region from the confinement of
college- walls, and his spirit was expanded with
in him like a rainbow. Iso eyes had he for reali
ties—all nature was seen in the light of fancy—
not a single object at sunrise and sunset the
same. All was beautiful within the circle of the
green lull tups, whether shrouded in tbe soft
mists, or rlearly outlined in a cloudless sky.
Ihunr. friends, colleges, cities—all sunk into
oblivion, and Harry Howard felt as if wafted
oil oil wings of a spilSt, and set down in a land
beyond the sea, foreign to all he had before
experienced, yet in its perfect and endless beau
ty appealing every hour more tenderly and
strongly to a spirit awakened to a new power,
and revelling in new emotion In that cottage
he took up bis abode. In a few weeks came a
library of hooks in all languages ; and there was
much wondering talk over all the country side,
about the mysterious young stranger who now
liv ed at the Fold.
r.verv tiny, and wllien ho chose to absent him
sell from his haunts among the hills, every hour
"as Fury before the young poet's eyes—and
every hour did her beauty wax more beautiful
in his imagination Who Mr Howard was, or i
ea en ll that were indeed Ins real name, no one j
kin-w ; hot none doubted that lie was of gentle
j birth, and all with w hoin he had ever conversed !
in hi-- elegant amenity, could have sworn that a
youth so bland and tree, and with such a voire, <
■ and such eyes, would not Inn e injured the hum j
! blest of God's creatures, much loss such a erea- !
! tore as Lucy of the Fold. It was, indeed, e> on
j so—fir. before the loon' summer days were gone, i
lie who had inner had a sister, loved her even
as il she had slept on the same maternal bosom
Father or mother lie now had none—indeed
scarcely one near relation—although he was
rich in this world’s riches, but in them poor in
Comparison with the noble endowments that
nature had lavished upon his mind. Ills guar- ;
(bans took little heed of the splendid but way
"ard youth—and knew not now whither Ins
fannies had carried him, wo re it even to some
savage land Thus, the Fold became to him
the one dearest roof under the roof of heaven
All the simple on goings of that humble home,
foe and imagination headtilied into poetry,
and all the rough and coarser edges id' lowly
life, were softened away in the light of genius
that transmuted every thing on which it tell ;
"bile all the silent intimations which nature
Cave there of her primal sympathies, in the hut
as fine and forceful as m the hall, showed to his
excited spirit prr eminently beautiful.and chain
ed it to the hearth, around which was read the
morning and evening prayer.
^ hat wild scheme does not love imagine,
and in the lace o! every impossibility achieve ?
: “ I "ill take Fucy to myself, if it should he in
the place of all the world' I will myself breathe
I bght over her being, till ill a new spring it shall
he adorned with living (lowers that fade not
away, perennial and self renewed. In a few
wars, the bright, docile creature shall have the
'iml of a very ang- 1—and then, before God. and
■ it his holy altar, mine shall she become forever
—here and hereafter—in this paradise of earth,
and if more celestial lie, in the paradise of Ik a
r en !’’
Tims two summers and two winters wheeled
away into the past; and in the change, imper
ceptilde Ironi day to day, lint glorious at last,
wrought on l.uey s nature by communication
with one so prodigally endowed, scarcely could
her parents believe it was their same rbiltl,
except that she was as dutiful as before, a
affectionate, and as fond of all the familial
objects, dead or living, round and about in i
birth place. She had now grown to a woman •
stature—tall, though she scarcely seemed so.
except when among her playmates ; and in her
maturing loveliness, fulfilling, and far more than
fulfilling, the fair promise of her childhood.—
Never once had the young stranger—stranger
no more—spoken to daughter, father, or mo
ther, of his love Indeed, for all that he ti lt
towards l.uey, there must have been some other
word than love Tenderness, w hich was almost
pity—an affection that was often sad—wonder
at her surprising beauty, nor les> at her uncoil
sciousness of its power—-admiration of her spi
ritual qualities, that ever rose up to meet instruc
tion as it already formed—and that heart-throb
liing that stirs the blood of youth when the inrio
cent eyes it loves are beaming in the twilight
through smiles, or through tears—these, and a
thousand other feelings, anil above all, the ere
ative faculty ol a poet's soul, now constituted his
very being when Lucy was in his presence, nor
forsook him vvnen he was alone among the
mountains.
At last it was known through (hr country that
Mr. Howard—tin1 stranger, lln*. scholar, the
poet, tin: elegant gentleman, of wliom nobody
knew nmrli, but whom every body loved, and
whose father must at least lone been a lord, was
going—ill a year or les—to marry the daugh
ter ol Allan Fleming—l.uey of the l-'old. O
pi iel and shame to the parents—if still living—
of the noble boy ! O sorrow for himself when
his passion dies—-when the dream is dissolved ;
and when, in the place of the angel of light who
now moves before liitn, be sees only a child id
earth, lowly born, and Ion" rudely bred, a hemp
only lair as many others are lair, sister in In r
simplicity to maidens no less pleasing than she,
and partakin" of many weaknesses. frailties and
faults, now unknow n to herself in her happiness,
and to him in his love! Was there no one. to
rescue them from such a fate—from a few
months ol imaginary bliss, and from many years
of real hale ? Mow could such a man as Allan
Fleming, be so infatuated as to sell bis child to
a fickle youth, who would soon deseit by bin
ken hearted:’ Act kind thoughts, u isbes, hopes,
and belief-, pievailed, nor were there wanting
stories of the olden time, of low born maidens
married to youths of high estate, and raised
from lint to ball, becoming mothers of a lordly
line ot sons, that vs ere councillors to kings and
princes,
In spring Air 1 low aid rvent away for a few
months—it was said to the great eity of Hon
don—and on bis return at midsummer, Huey
"as to be b’s bride. They parted with a f-w
peaceful tears, and though absent, were still
together And noiv a letter came to the Fold,
saving, that before another Sabbath he would he
at the Fold. A few beautiful lit 1 Is in F.asdal.
long mortgaged beyond tle ii ti e -imple by tie
Irani yvorkuig statesnmn from whom they r>-bief