From Bentley's Miscellany. THE WELL IN THE WILDERNESS. A TALE OF THE PRAIRIE. rental pride on the three fine lads, whose healthy and honest countenances might well be contemplated with pleasure, and afford FOUNDED ON FACT. subjects for hopeful anticipations for the fu ture. "We are happy, father," said the eldest, cheerfully. "The cakes and spiced ale would have made us happier," said the second. "Mother makes such nice cakes!" "So she does," cried the third. "It seems so dull to have nothing nice on Annie's birthday. I should not care a fig if it were Dick's birthday, or Owen's, or mine; but not to drink Annie's health seems unlucky." "You shall drink it yet," said Annie, laugh RICHARD STEEL was the son of one of those small landholders who are fast disappearing from Merry Old England. His father left him the sole possessor of twenty-five acres of arable land, and a snug little cottage, which had de-ing. scended from father to son, through many In what?" asked both the boys in a generations. The ground-plot, which had been sufficient to maintain his honest progenitors for several ages, in the palmy days of Britain's glory and independence, ere her vast resources passed into the hands of the few, and left the many to starve, was not enough to provide for the wants of our stout yeoman and his family; which consisted at that period of three sons and one daughter, a lovely, blooming girl of ten years, or thereabouts. Richard and his boys toiled with unceasing diligence; the wife was up late and early, and not one moment was left unemployed; and yet they made no headway, but every succeeding year found them in ar rears. 66 Jane," said the yeoman one evening, thoughtfully, to his wife, after having blessed his homely meal of skimmed milk and brown bread, "couldst thee not have given us a little treat to-night? Hast thee forgotten that it is our Annie's birthday?" 66 breath. "In fine spring water!" And she filled their mugs. "Better God never gave to his creatures. How bright it is! How it sparkles! I will never from this day ask a finer drink. Here is health to you, my brothers, and may we never know what it is to lack a draught of pure water!" Annie nodded to her brothers, and drank off her mug of water; and the good-natured fellows, who dearly loved her, followed her example. Oh, little did the gay-hearted girl think, in that moment of playful glee, of the price she was one day destined to pay for a drink of water! The crops that year were a failure, and the heart of the strong man began to droop. He felt that labor in his native land would no longer give his children bread, and, unwilling to sink into the lowest class, he wisely reNo, Richard, I have not forgotten: how solved, while he retained the means of doing could I forget the anniversary of the day that so, to emigrate to America. His wife made made us all so happy? But times are bad; no opposition to his wishes; his sons were I could not spare the money to buy sugar and delighted with the prospect of any change for plums for the cake; and I wanted to sell all the better, and if Annie felt a passing pang the butter, in order to scrape together enough at leaving the daisied fields, and her pretty to pay the shoemaker for making our darling's playmates, the lambs, she hid it from her pashoes. Annie knows that she is infinitely rents. The dear homestead, with its quiet dear to us all, though we cannot give her lux-rural orchard, and trim hedgerows, fell to the uries to prove it." "It wants no proof, dear mother," said the young girl, flinging her round, but sunburnt arms about her worthy parent's neck. "Your precious love is worth the wealth of the whole world to me. I know how fond you and dear father are of me, and I am more than satisfied." "Annie is right," said Steel, dropping his knife and holding out his arms for a caress. "The world could not purchase such love as we feel for her; and let us bless God that, poor though we be, we are all here to-night, well and strong, ay, and rich, in spite of our homely fare, in each other's affections. What say you, my boys?" And he glanced with pa hammer; nor was the sunburnt cheek of the honest yeoman unmoistened with a tear, when he saw it added to the enormous possessions of the lord of the manor. After the sale was completed, and the money it brought duly paid, Steel lost no time in preparing for his emigration. In less than a fortnight he had secured their passage to New York, and they were already on their voyage across the Atlantic. Favored by wind and weather, after the first effects of the sea had worn off, they were comfortable enough. The steerage passengers were poor, but respectable English emigrants, and they made several pleasant acquaintances among them. One family especially attracted their attention, and so far engaged their affections during the tedious voyage, that they entered into an agreement to settle in the same neighborhood. Mr. Atkins was a widower, with two sons, the ages of Richard and Owen, and an elder sister, a primitive, gentle old woman, who had been once both wife and mother, but had outlived all her family. Abigail Winchester (for so she was called) took an especial fancy to our Annie, in whom she fancied that she recognized a strong resemblance to a daughter whom she had lost. Her affection was warmly returned by the kind girl, who, by a thousand little attentions, strove to evince her gratitude to Abigail for her good opinion. They had not completed half their voyage before the scarlet fever broke out among the passengers, and made dreadful havoc among the younger portion. Steel's whole family were down with it at the same time, and, in spite of the constant nursing of himself and his devoted partner, and the unremitting attentions of Abigail Winchester, who never left the sick ward for many nights and days, the two youngest boys died, and were committed to the waters of the great deep before Annie and Richard recovered to a consciousness of their dreadful loss. This threw a sad gloom over the whole party. Steel said nothing, but he often retired to some corner of the ship to bewail his loss in secret. His wife was wasted and worn to a shadow, and poor Annie looked the ghost of her former self. "Had we never left England," she thought, my brothers had not died." But she was wrong; God, who watches with parental love over all his creatures, knows the best season in which to reclaim His own; but human love in its vain yearnings is slow in receiving this great truth. It lives in the present, lingers over the past, and cannot bear to give up that which now is for the promise of that which shall be. The future separated from the things of time has always an awful aspect. A perfect and childlike reliance upon God can alone divest it of those thrilling doubts and fears which at times shake the firmest mind, and urge the proud, unyielding spirit of man to cleave so strongly to kindred dust. The sight of the American shores, that the poor lads had desired so eagerly to see, seemed to renew their grief, and a sadder party never set foot upon a foreign strand than our emigrant and his family. Steel had brought letters of introduction to a respectable merchant in the city; who advised him to purchase a tract of land in the then new State of Illinois. The beauty of the country, the fine climate, and fruitful soil, were urged upon him in the strongest manner. The merchant had scrip to dispose of in that remote settlement, and, as is usual in such cases, he consulted his own interest in the matter. Steel thought that the merchant, who was a native of the country, must know best what would suit him; and he not only became a purchaser of land in Illinois, but induced his new friends to follow his example. We will pass over their journey to the Far West. The novelty of the scents through which they passed contributed not a little to raise their drooping spirits. Richard had recovered his health, and amused the party not a little by his lively anticipations of the future. They were to have the most comfortable log-house, and the neatest farm in the district. He would raise the finest cattle the largest crops, and the best garden stuff in the neighborhood. Frugal and industrious habits would soon render them wealthy and independent. His mother listened to these sallies with a delighted smile; and even the grave yeoman's brow relaxed from its habitual frown. Annie entered warmly into all her brother's plans; and if he laid the foundation of his fine castle in the air, she certainly provided the cement and all the lighter materials. As their long route led them further from the habitations of men, and deeper and deeper into the wilderness, the stern realities of their solitary locality became hourly more apparent to the poor emigrants. They began to think that they had acted too precipitately in going so far back into the woods, unaoquainted as they were with the usages of the country. But repentance came too late; and, when at length they reached their destination, they found themselves upon the edge of a vast forest, with a noble open prairie stretching away as far as the eye could reach in front of them, and no human habitation in sight, or indeed existing for miles around them. In a moment the yeoman comprehended all the difficulties and dangers of his situation; but his was a stout heart, not easily daunted by circumstances. He possessed a vigorous constitution and a strong arm; and he was not alone. Richard was an active, energetic lad, and his friend Atkins, and his two sons, were a host in themselves. Having settled with his guides, and ascertained by the maps, that he had received at Mr. -'s office, the extent and situation of his new estate, he set about unyoking the cattle which he had purchased, and securing them, while Atkins and his sons pitched a tent for the night, and collected wood for their fire. The young people were in raptures with the ocean of verdure, redolent with blossoms, that lay smiling in the last rays of the sun before them; never did garden appear to them so lovely, as that vast wilderness of sweets, planted by the munificent hand of Nature with such profuse magnificence. Annie could scarcely tear herself away from the enchant- beyond simple remedies, which were perfectly ing scene, to assist her mother in preparing inefficacious in their situation, the poor chiltheir evening meal. dren's only chance for life was their youth, "Mother, where shall we get water?" asked a good sound constitution, and the merciful Annie, glancing wistfully toward their empty interposition of a benevolent and overruling cask; I have seen no indications of water Providence. for the last three miles." "Annie has raised a startling doubt," said Steel; "I can perceive no appearance of stream or creek in any direction." "Hist! father, do you hear that?" cried Richard. "The croaking of those frogs is music to me just now, for I am dying with thirst; and, seizing the can, he ran off in the direction of the discordant sounds. It was near dark when he returned with his pailful of clear cold water; with which the whole of the party slaked their thirst, before asking any questions. "What delicious water- -as clear as crystal -as cold as ice! How fortunate to obtain it so near at hand!" exclaimed several in a breath. "Ay, but it is an ugly place," said Richard thoughtfully. "I should not like to go to that well at early day, or after night-fall." 66 Why not, my boy?" It was towards the close of a sultry day that Annie, burning with fever, implored the faithful Abigail to give her a drink of cold water. Hastening to the water-cask, the old woman was disappointed by finding it exhausted, Richard having drunk the last drop, who was still raving in the delirium of fever for more drink. "My dear child, there is no water." "Oh! I am burning-dying with thirst! Give me but one drop, dear Abigail — one drop of cold water!" Just then Mrs. Steel returned from milking the cows, and Abigail proffered to the lips of the child a bowl of new milk, but she shrank from it with disgust, and, sinking back on her pillow, murmured, "Water! water! for the love of God! give me a drink of water!" "Where is the pail ?" said Mrs. Steel. "I don't much like going alone to that well; but it is still broad day, and I know that in reality there is nothing to fear; I cannot bear to hear the child moan for drink in that terrible way." "It is in the heart of a dark swamp, just about a hundred yards within the forest; and the water trickles from beneath the roots of an old tree into a natural stone tank; but all "Dear mother," said Richard, faintly, around is involved in frightful gloom; I" don't go; father will be in soon; we can fancied I heard a low growl as I stooped to wait till then." fill my pail, while a horrid speckled snake glided from between my feet, and darted hissing and rattling its tail into the brake. Father, you must never let any of the people go alone to that well." The yeoman laughed at his son's fears, and shortly after the party retired into the tent, and, overcome with fatigue, were soon asleep. The first thing that engaged the attention of our emigrants was the erection of a log shanty for the reception of their respective families. This important task was soon accomplished. Atkins preferred the open prairie for the site of his; but Steel, for the nearer proximity of wood and water, chose the edge of the forest, but the habitations of the pioneers were so near that they were within call of each other. "Oh! the poor dear child is burning!" cried Abigail; "she cannot wait till then; do, neighbor, go for the water; I will stay with the children, and put out the milk while you are away." Mrs. Steel left the shanty, and a few minutes after, the patients, exhausted by suffering, fell into a profound sleep. Abigail busied herself scalding the milk-pans, and, in her joy at the young people's cessation from pain, forgot the mother altogether. About half an hour had elapsed, and the mellow light of evening had faded into night, when Steel returned with his oxen from the field. The moment he entered the shanty he went up to the bed which contained his sick children, and, satisfied that the fever was abating, he looked round for his supper, surprised that it was not, as usual, ready for him upon the table. To fence in a piece of land for their cattle, and prepare a plot for wheat and corn for the ensuing year, was the next thing to be ac- "No water!" he cried, " in the cask, and complished; and by the time these prepara- supper not ready. After working all day in tions were completed the long bright summer the burning sun, a man wants to have things had passed away, and the fall was at hand. made comfortable for him at night. Mrs. Up to this period both families had enjoyed Winchester, are you here? Where is my excellent health, but in the month of Sep-wife?" tember, Annie, and then Richard, fell sick with intermittent fever, and old Abigail kindly came across to help Mrs. Steel to nurse her suffering children. Medical aid was not to be had in that remote place, and "Merciful goodness!" exclaimed the old woman, turning as pale as death, "is she not back from the well?" "The well!" cried Steel, grasping her arm; "how long has she been gone?" "This half hour, or more. Steel made no answer - - his cheek was as pale as her own; and, taking his gun from the beam to which it was slung, he carefully loaded it with ball; and, without uttering a word, left the house. Day still lingered upon the open prairie, but the moment he entered the bush it was deep night. He had crossed the plain with rapid strides, but as he approached the swamp, his step became slow and cautious. The well was in the centre of a jungle, from the front of which Richard had cleared away the brush to facilitate their access to the water; as he drew near the spot, his ears were chilled by a low deep growling, and the crunching of teeth, as if some wild animal was devouring the bones of its prey. The dreadful truth, with all its shocking, heart-revolting reality, flashed upon the mind of the yeoman, and for a moment paralyzed him. The precincts of the well were within range of his rifle, and dropping down upon his hands and knees, and nerving his arm for a clear aim, he directed his gaze to the spot from whence the fatal sounds proceeded. A little on one side of the well, a pair of luminous eyes glared like green lamps at the edge of the dark wood; and the horrid sounds which curdled the blood of the yeoman became more distinctly audible. Slowly Steel raised the rifle to his shoulder, and setting his teeth, and holding his breath, he steadily aimed at a space between those glowing balls of fire. The sharp report of the rifle awoke the far echoes of the forest. The deer leaped up from his lair, the wolf howled and fled into the depths of the wood, and the panther, for such it was, uttering a hoarse growl, sprang several feet into the air, then fell across the mangled remains of his victun. Richard Steel rose from the ground; the perspiration was streaming from his brow; his limbs trembled and shook, his lips moved convulsively, and he pressed his hands upon his heaving breast to keep down the violent throbbings of his agitated heart. It was not fear that chained him to the spot, and hindered him from approaching his dead enemy. It was horror. He dared not look upon the mangled remains of his wife the dear partner of his joys and sorrows - the com DAWN. DAWN cometh; and the weary stars wax pale And o'er the fathomless, deep, azure veil A sweet, uncertain smile of infant light Before the breath of Morn; and now more It mantles o'er the unreposing sea, panion of his boyhood the love of his youth the friend and counsellor of his middle age the beloved mother of his children. How could he recognize in that crushed and defiled heap his poor Jane? The pang was too great for his agonized mind to bear. Sense and sight alike forsook him, and, staggering a few paces forward, he fell insensible across the path. Alarmed by the report of the rifle, Atkins and his sons proceeded with torches to the spot, followed by Abigail, who, unconscious of the extent of the calamity, was yet sufficiently convinced that something dreadful had occurred. When the full horrors of the scene were presented to the sight of the terrorstricken group, their grief burst forth in tears and lamentations. Atkins alone retained his presence of mind. Dragging the panther from the remains of the unfortunate Mrs. Steel, he beckoned to one of his sons, and suggested to him the propriety of instantly burying the disfigured and mutilated body before the feelings of her husband and children were agonized by the sight. First removing the insensible husband to his own dwelling, Atkins and his sons returned to the fatal spot, and conveying the body to the edge of the prairie, they selected a quiet, lovely spot beneath the wide-spreading boughs of a magnificent chestnut-tree, and wrapping all that remained of the wife of Richard Steel in a sheet, they committed it to the earth in solemn silence; nor were prayers or tears wanting in that lonely hour to consecrate the nameless grave where the English mother slept. Annie and Richard recovered to mourn their irreparable loss to feel that their mother's life had been sacrificed to her maternal love. Time, as it ever does, softened the deep anguish of the bereaved husband. During the ensuing summer, their little colony was joined by a hardy band of British and American pioneers. The little settlement grew into a prosperous village, and Richard Steel died a wealthy man, and was buried by the side of his wife, in the centre of the village churchyard, that spot having been chosen for the first temple in which the emigrants met to worship in his own house the God of their fathers. From Household Words. A WALK THROUGH A MOUNTAIN. through these until the bell from the adjacent pier warned me, at five o'clock in the evening, to go on board the steamer that was quite I TOOK a walk last year through the sub-ready to puff and splash its way across the stance of a mountain, entering at the top, and beautiful green lake. We went under the coming out at the bottom, after a two or three shadow of the black and lofty Traunstein, and mile journey underground. Perhaps the story among pine-covered rocks, of which the reflecof this trip is worth narrating. The moun- tions were mingled in the water with a ruddy tain was part of an extensive property be-glow, that streamed across a low shore from longing to the Emperor of Austria, in his character of salt merchant, and contained the famous salt mine of Hallein. some fires towards which we were steering. The glow proceeded from the fires of the Imperial Saltern, erected at Ebensee. I paid The whole salt district of Upper Austria, a short visit to the works, which have been called the Salzkammergut, forms part of a erected at great cost; and display all the most range of rocks that extends from Halle in the recent improvements in the art of getting the Tyrol, passes through Reichenthal in Bavaria, best marketable salt from saline water. I and continues by way of Hallein in Salzburg, found that the water, heavily impregnated, is to end at Ausse in Styria. The Austrian part conducted from the distant mines by wooden of the range is now included in what is called troughs into the drying-pan. The pan is a the district of Salzburg, and that district large shallow vessel of metal, supported by abounds, as might be expected, in salt springs, small piles of brick, and a low brick wall hot and cold, which form in fact the baths of about three feet high, extending round two Gastein, Ischl, and some other places. The thirds of its circumference, and leaving one names of Salzburg (Saltborough), the capital, third, as the mouth of the furnace, open to and of the Salzack (Saltbrook), on the left bank the air. Among the brick columns, and of which that pleasant city stands, indicate within the wall, the fire flashed and curled clearly enough the character of the surrounding country. Hallein is a small town eight miles to the south-east of Salzburg, and it was to the mine of Hallein, as before said, that I paid my visit. On the way thither I passed through much delightful rock and water scenery. From Linz, the capital of Upper Austria, I got through Wells and Laimbach to the river Traun, and trudged afoot beside its winding waters till I reached the point of its junction with the Traunsee, or Lake of Traun. From the village on the opposite shore, I followed the same stream again upon its wanderings by mountain steep, and wooded bank, along the valley called after the river's name, until I came to Gmunden, where the Traun flows through another lake. At Gmunden I stopped to look over the Imperial Salt Warehouses. The Emperor of Austria, as most people know, is the only dealer in salt and tobacco with whom his subjects are allowed to trade. His salt warehouses, therefore, must needs be extensive. They are situated at Gmunden to the left of the landing-place, from which a little steamer plies across the lake; and they are so built as to afford every facility for the unloading of boats that bring salt barrels from the mine by the highway of the Traun. The warehouses consisted simply of a large number of sheds piled with the salt in barrels, a few offices, and a low but spacious hall, filled, in a confused way, with dusty models. There were models of river-boats and salt moulds, mining tools, and tram-ways, hydraulic models of all kinds, miniature furnaces, wooden troughs, and seething pans. I looked under the seething pan. Ascending next into the house over the great pan, and looking down upon the surface and its contents through sliding doors upon the floor, I saw the white salt crusting like a coat of snow over the boiling water, and being raked as it' is formed by workmen stationed at each of the trap-doors in the floor above me. As the water evaporated, the salt was stirred and turned from rake to rake; and, finally, when quite dry, raked into the neighborhood of a long-handled spade, with which one workman was shovelling among the dried salt, and filling a long row of wooden moulds, placed ready to his hand. These moulds are sugarloaf shaped, and perforated at the bottom like a sugar mould, in order that any remaining moisture may drain out of them. The moulds will be placed finally in a heated room before the salt will be considered dry enough for storage as a manufactured article. The brine that pours with an equable flow into the seething-pan at Ebensee, is brought by wooden troughs from the salt mine at Hallein, a distance of thirty miles in a direct line. It comes by way of mountains and along a portion of the valley of the Traun, through which I continued my journey the same evening from Ebensee, until the darkness compelled me to rest for the night at a small inn on a hill side. The next day I went through Ischl and Wolfgang, and spent three hours of afternoon in climbing up the Scharfberg, which is more than a thousand feet higher than Snowdon, to see the sunset and the sunrise. There was sleeping accommodation on the top: so there is on the top of Snowdon. |