SUPPLEMENT TO THE CONNECTICUT COURANT. VOL. III. BY J. G. PERCIVAL. I feel a newer life in every gale; The winds that fan the flowers, MAY 29, 1832. And with their welcome breathings fill the sail, Of hours that glide unfelt away The spirit of the gentle south-wind calls From his blue throne of air, And where his whispering voice in music falls, The bright ones of the valley break The waving verdure rolls along the plain, To welcome back its playful mates again, And from its darkening shadow floats Fairer and brighter spreads the reign of May; With the light dallying of the west-wind play ; From Frazer's Magazine for March. MARY FENWICK. NO: 7. were astir at that early hour, it was impossible to avoid auguring a great deal. The coach-door was opened, and with swimming eye, flushed cheek, and silver hair blowing about in the morning wind, a venerable looking old man took leave, with more than parental tenderness, of a simply dressed, yet genteel-looking young woman; who, returning his tremulous "God bless you and reward you!" with an almost filial farewell, drew over her face a thick black veil, and sat down opposite to me. I never felt more inclined, and at the same time at a loss, to open a conversation. To intrude on female sorrow is unjustifiable; to treat it with indifference, impossible.That of my new companion seemed of a gentle subdued sort, arising more from syn pathy for others, than personal causes; and, ere long, putting back her veil with the revivng cheerfulness of one whose heart is lightened of an unmerited burden, she looked calmly out on the fresh morning aspect of nature, (so in unison with her own pure and innocent countenance,) and said, in the tone of one breathing at length from the pressure of painful thoughts, How beautiful every thing does look this fine spring morning!" "It does, indeed," said I, struck with the confiding naivete of this involuntary remark; Ir was on one of those bright and beauti-" and I suppose you are the more sensible of ful April mornings which nature sometimes throws in upon our eastern shores, as if in compensation for months of fog and fickleness, that I awoke from the uneasy slumbers of a mail-coach passenger, just in time to drink in, at eye, ear, and nose, the brilliant sparkle, enlivening dash, and invigorating odour of my native waves, as they leaped up in exulting fondness to kiss the rocky barrier which Scotland opposes to the fury of the German Ocean. I was, ere long, to pass a barrier of a different description, (now, happily, a nominal one,) between two sister nations: or, in plain English, to enter the town of Berwick upon Tweed, a few miles beyond which, on the southern side of the border, business obliged me to proceed. At the inn-door, where we stopped to change horses, in this capital of" no man's land," whose inhabitants assert their anomalous independence by speaking a dialect which they take care shall be neither Scotch nor English-I also exchanged, for the brief remainder of my journey, a taciturn, commou-place sort of a fellow-passenger, from whose wooden physiognomy I never dreampt of extracting any thing, for one, from whose modest, yet speaking countenance, and the interest she evidently excited in the ferv who it from being a young traveller." Her only answer was one of those quiet intelligent smiles which admit of various translations, and which I chose to construe into assent. Coupling the remark with the circumstance of her only luggage being a small band-box, I set her down for a farmer's daughter of the neighborhood; and added, "I suppose, like myself, you are not going far?" "I am going to London, sir," said she, with a tone of calm self-possession, as if such a journey had been to her a daily occurrence; and so, indeed, it was, not metaphorically, but literally. "To London !" repeated I, with more surprise than I could well account for. "Were you ever there before?" "O yes!" was the reply, rendered more piquant by its singular coinposure. "I came from seventy miles beyond it the day before yesterday." It would be quite superfluous to say that my curiosity was excessively excited by this unexpected answer; and I dare say my readers will set me down (as I did myself when it was too late) as a very stupid fellow for not having the dexterity to gratify it. But my companion as if ashamed of having so far committed herself to a stranger, and rather a young gentleman, (though I have.e wife and five children written upon my face, I believe, pretty legibly,) sat back in the coach, and answered one or two indifferent questious with that laconic gentleness which is infinitely more discouraging than sullen silence. I felt I had not the smallest right to ask in direct terms, "My dear, what could Inake you travel seven hundred miles for one day and as I saw she had not the least mind to tell me, I really must plead guilty to the weakness of being ashamed to use the advantage my station and knowledge of the world gave me, to worm out a secret; which, from a silent tear that I saw trickling down behind her veil, I guessed must be fraught with more of pain than pleasure. The struggle between my curiosity and better feelings was still going on, when the arrival of the coach near .ny friend's gate, gave to the latter an involuntary, and not very meritorious triumph. Now that all idea of intrusion was at an end, I could venture upon kindness, and I said, (I ain sure in honest sincerity,) "The idea of your going such a long journey by yourself, or with a chance company, grieves me. Can I be of any use in recommending you to the protection of the guard, or otherwise? "Thank you, sir, a thousand times," said she, raising for the first time a pair of mild innocent eyes to my face; "but Ile, who put it in my mind to come, and blessed the purpose of my journey, can carry me safe back again; and I should be silly indeed to mind going a few hundred miles by land, when trusting to him, I am about to sail to the other end of the world. I am much obliged to you sir, I am sure though," said she again; and if we had been destined to go another stage together, I should certainly have known all. Time, however, on all occasions despotic, is inexorable when armed with a mail-coach horn. I could only shake hands with the gentle being I left behind me, slip a crown into the guard's palm to look well after her, (which I was glad to see he took as a tacit affront,) and turn my thoughts, by a strong effort, to my Northumbrian friend's affairs. These occupied me fully and disagreeably all the morning; and early in the afternoon I was forced to run away from my friend's old claret, and older stories, (for I had shot snipes on his lands with my first gun about twenty years before,) to fulfil an engagement in Edinburgh early on the following day. I compounded for this outrage on the old gentleman's hospitality, by accepting his carriage to convey me back to Berwick in time for a coach, which I knew would start from thence for the north in the course of the evening; and no sooner did I find myself once more at the door of the King's Arms, than the circumstance brought full on my memory the romantic occurrence which had been, for the last few hours, eclipsed behind a mass of dusty law papers, and the portly persons of a brace of hard featured and harsh-toned Northumbrian attornies. I found myself a few minutes too early; and as I stood on the steps, shivering in the cold even ng breeze, and pondering on the vicissitudes of a northern April day, I could not help asking the landlord, (a civil, oldfashioned Boniface,)“ Pray sir, do you know any thing of the history of that nice decentlooking young woman who started from your house with me this morning for London?" "Know, sir!" said he, as if in compassion for my ignorance. Ay, that I do! and so does all Berwick, and it would be well if all England and Scotland knew it too. If ever there was a kind heart and a pretty face in Berwick bounds, it's pretty surely Mary Fenwick's! "It's rather a long story though, sir, and the horses are just coming round; but I'm thinking there is one goes with you as far as Haddington, that won't want pressing to give you the outs and ins on't." So saying, he pointed to a stout grazier-looking personage, in a thick great coat, and worsted comforter, who, by his open countenance and manly yeomanlike bearing, might have been own brother to Dandie Dinmont himself. "This gentleman," said the landlord, with a respectful glance at myself, and a familiar nod to the Borderer, (a substantial wool-stapler in Berwick, but passing in quest of his pastoral commodity half his life among the neighboring farms,)" wishes to hear all about Mary Fenwick. You've known her from the egg, I may say; and been in court yourself on the trial yesterday; so you'll be able to give it to him to his heart's content." The last words were drowned in the rattle of the advancing coach,-in jumped I, and in clambered the Borderer; reconciled to the durance of an inside birth by the sharp east wind, and the pleasure of talking of Mary Fenwick. Having explained, for the sake of propriety, that my interest in the damsel arose from the singular circumstance of one so young, and apparently inexperienced, travelling above six hundred miles, to pass one day in Berwick, my portly vis-a-vis civilly begged my pardon, and assured me that no one there felt the least uneasiness on the score of Mary's journey. "There's a blessing on her errand, sir, and that the very stones on the road know; and besides, she's so staid and sensible, and has so much dignity about her, that she's as fit to go through the world as her grandmother." To all this I assented the more readily, that this very dignity made me forego all inquiry into what I so much wished to know; and even now I listened to it with all the more satisfaction for the hint she had thrown out, as if of regret, for not having told me herself. "Does she belong to this place," asked I," that you seem to know her so well?" "Yes, sir; born and bred in Berwick bounds. She was a farmer's daughter, a mile out of town, and just what a farmer's daughter should be. Her mother, a clever, notable woman, taught her to bake and brew, and knit and sew; in short, every thing that many girls in her station are now too fine to do. They think these good old-fashioned things make them ungenteel, but they never made Mary Fenwick so; for I am sure, sir, but for her suitable dress and simple manner, you might have taken her for a lady. "Well! Mary came often in her father's little cart to market, to sell her butter and eggs, (we've agreat trade in eggs here, you Anow sir ;) and, somehow or other, she fell in with a young man of our town, a merchant's clerk, who was taken with her good looks, and cared for very little else. His old father, however, (the old man who put Mary in the coach this morning,) made many inquiries about his son's sweetheart; and as he heard nothing but good of her, he had the sense to see, that though one of a large hardworking family, she would be the very wife to reclaim his gay, idle, thoughtless son, if any thing would. And very idle and extravagant he was, sir! The only son of people well to do in the world, and a good deal spoilt from a | child, he neglected his business whenever he could, and loved dress, and company, and horse-racing, and all that, far too well. But he really loved Mary Fenwick; and no sooner saw that she would not so much as listen to him while all this went on, than he quite left off all his wild courses, and became a new man, to gain her favor. "It was not done in a hurry; for Mary had been brought up very piously, and had a horror for every thing evil. But Dick Mansel was very clever as well as handsome; and when he pleased, could make one believe any thing; and really, to give him his due, as long as he had any doubts of Mary's love, no saint could behave better. At last, however, be fairly gained her innocent heart; though I believe it was as much by the aid of his good father and mother's constant praises of him self, and doating fondness for Mary, as by his own winning ways. "When he saw she loved him, and it was not by halves, though in her own gentle way, he wanted to marry her immediately; and Mary's father would have consented, for it was a capital match for his portionless girl. But Mary said, Richard, you have kept free of cards, and dice, and folly, one half year, to gain your own wishes; let me see you do it another, to make my mind easy, and then I'll trust you till death divides us." Dick stormed, and got into a passion, and swore she did not love him; but she answered,' It is just because I do, that I wish to give you a habit of goodness before you are your own master and mine. Surely it is no hardship to be for six months what you intend to be all the rest of your life?" "Richard was forced to submit; and for three of the six months behaved better than ever. But habit as Mary said, is every thing: and his had for years set the wrong way. With the summer came fairs, and idleness, and junkettings, and, worst of all, races, into the neighborhood. Dick first stayed away with a bad grace; then went, just to shew how well he could behave; and ended by losing his money, and getting into scrapes, just as bad as ever. "For a time he was much ashamed, and felt real sorrow; and feared Mary would never forgive him. But when she did so, sweet gentle soul! once or twice, (though her pale face was reproach enough to any man,) he began to get hardened, and to laugh at what he called her pensiveness. Mary was twenty times near giving him up; but his parents hung about her, and told her she only could save him from perdition; and in truth she thought so herself; and this, joined to the love for him, which was all the deeper for its slow growth, made her still ready to risk her own welfare for his. "It is not to be told how much she bore of idleness, extravagance, and folly,-for vice was never as yet laid to his door,-in the hopes that when these wild days were past, Richard would settle again into a sober man of business. At last, however, to crown all, there came players to the town; and Dick was not to be kept from either before or behind the curtain. He fell in with a gay madame of an actress, very showy to be sure, but no more to be compared with Mary Fenwick than a flaring crockery jug to my best China punchbowl. She pursuaded him, that to marry a poor farmer's daughter was quite beneath him; and to be kept in awe by her, inore contemptible still. So, to make a long story short, sir, Dick, after trying in vain to force his poor heart broken Mary to give him up, (that he might lay his ruin at her door,) had the cruelty to tell her one night, as he met her going home to her father's from nursing his own sick mother, that he saw she was not a fit match for him, either in birth or breeding; and that if ever he married, it should be a wife of more liberal ways of thinking! "He had been drinking a good deal, it is true, and was put up to this base conduct by his stage favorite; but when he found that instead of a storm of reproaches, or even a flood of tears, poor Mary only stood pale, and shaking, and kept saying, Poor Richard! poor, poor Richard! he grew sobered, and would fain have softened matters a little. But she summoned all her strength, and ran) till she came to her father's gate; and two days after, when the old Mansels drove out in a post-chaise, to try and make it all up, and get their son put once more upon his trial, Mary was off-her parents would not tell whither." "And where did she go?" asked I, for the first time venturing to interrupt the honest Berwicker's con amore narration. "It came out, sir, afterwards, that an uncle in London had formerly invited her to come up and visit him; and now that her engagement was so sadly broken off, she told her parents it would save her much misery to leave home for a while, and even go to service, to keep out of the way till Dick Mansel should be married. "Or hanged!" cried her father, in his passion, (as he afterwards acknowl edged,) little thinking how near it was being the case. There was a salmon-smack lying in the river just then, whose master was Mary's cousin; so she slipped quietly on board in the dark, and got safely to London." 'How long was this ago?" said J. Oh! about five or six months, perhaps; let me see, it was in October, and this is April.Well, sir, Mary stayed but a short time at her uncle's, as idleness was a thing she never liked; but through his wife, (who had been housekeeper to a nobleman,) she got a delightful place in the same family, as upper nursery-maid, which her gentle manners, and steady temper, and long experience in her father's family, made her every way fit for. "She had not been long with thein, when Lord S was appointed to a government in the Indies; and as he resolved to take out some of his young children, nothing would serve Lady S but Mary must go with them. They were grown so fond of her, that her cares of the voyage would be worth gold; and then her staid, sober, dignified ways made her a perfect treasure in a country where I understand girl's heads are apt to be turned. Lady Sknew her story, and thought it recommendation enough; so her parents were written to, half Mary's ample wages secured them by her desire; and she went down to the sea-side to be in the way to embark at the last moment, when all the tedious outfit for a great man's voyage was over." "So this explains a hint she threw out, about going to the world's end!" said I. whom none but such idle dogs as Dick Mansel would keep company with. This man, sir, was known to be in or about town last autumn, and to have won money of Richard both on the turf and at the card table. They had a row about it, it seems, high words, and even a scaffle; but few knew or cared; and Jack Osborn went away as he came, with none the wiser. "But about six weeks or two months ago, it began to be whispered that he had been missed of late from his old haunts, and that Berwick was the last place where he had been seen; and, good for nothing as he was, he had decent relations who began to think it worth while to inquire into it. The last person in whose company he had been seen, in our town, was certainly Dick Mansel; who, when asked about him denied all knowledge of his old comrade. But Dick's own character by this time was grown very notorious, and though no one here, from respect to his family, would have breathed such a notion, Jack Osborne's stranger uncle felt no scruple in insinuating that his nephew had met with foul play, and insisting on an inquiry. "In the course of this, a very suspicious circumstance came out; a pair of pistols, well known to be Osborne's, were found in Dick's possession; and a story, of his having received them in part payment of some gamb ling debt, was of course very little, if at all believed. There were plenty of people who could depose, that on the 23d of October, at a tavern dinner, the two quarrelled, and had high words; though they were afterwards seen to go out separately, and seemingly good friends. "The next step in evidence was, two peo ple having returned late that evening, and on passing a little stunted thicket, about half a mile from town, hearing something like groans and cries; which, however, they paid little attention to, being in a great hurry. This caused the place to be searched; and in an old sand-pit near the spot, to the sur prise and horror of all Berwick, were found the remains of poor Jack Osborne; his clothes, from the dry nature of the ground, quite in good preservation. "Things began now to put on a face terribly serious for Dick Mansel; especially as another man now came forward to say (people should be very cautious, sir!) that he had met Dick-or some one so like him, that he had no doubt of its being him-on the road to that very spot, just before the hour when the groans were heard; and that on being addressed by his name, he passed on and gave "Yes, sir; she would have been half way there already, if it had not pleased God to send contrary wind, to save Dick Mansel's life." "His life! poor wretch!" said I; "did he take to worse courses still? "Pret- no answer. ty bad, sir; but not quite so bad as he got credit for. I'll tell you as short as I can. "There came about Berwick, now and then, a scamp of a fellow, whom every body knew to be a gambler and a cheat; and "Between the quarrel and the pistols, and the groans, and the dead body, and above all, the evidence of this man, a complete case was made out for a jury, and there were many things besides to give it a color; espe cially poor Dick's own reckless habits, and his evident confusion when first asked what he had been doing on the evening of the 23d of October. To those who saw his conScience-stricken look, when taken by surprise, and his angry defiance afterwards, when aware of the drift of the question, there was ao doubt of his guilt. cent head down once more on her mother's bosom, in the bed where she was born, and where she had hardly expected ever to lay it again. She rose quite refreshed, and able for the hard trial (and hard it was to one so modest and retiring) of appearing in court before her whole towns-people on so melancholy an occasion. "She was indulged with a chair, and sat as much out of sight as possible, surrounded by kind friends, till she should be called on. The case for the prosecution was gone into; and a chain of circumstantial evidence made out so desperately against poor Dick, that the crown counsel-a rather flippant young man-said, 'This is a hollow case, you will see, my lord. Nothing short of an ALIBI can bring him off." "Dick was committed for trial; and, oh! it was a sad day for all who knew his worthy parents, and had seen the creature himself grow up before them, a pretty curly-haired child, and then a manly, spirited boy! His behaviour in prison was chiefly dogged and sullen; and he seemed to scorn even denying the fact to those who could suppose him guilty, as most did; but on his poor father (who never would credit it) urging him to think for the sake of his grey hairs, whether "And that shall be proved immediately, some means of proving his innocence might my lord,' replied-very unexpectedly-some not yet be found, he at length said, though it of the prisoner's friends. We have a witseemed wrung from him by his parent's dis-ness here come more than thee hundred tress, There's one person on earth who could clear me of this horrible charge, (but even if she were angel enough to do it, I suppose she's left England), and thats Mary Fenwick! This is a judgment on me, father, for my usage to that girl!' The agonized parents lost not a moment in writing to Mary the most pathetic letter broken heart ever penned. They feared she would have sailed, but it pleased God otherwise; and though the wind that first kept them had changed, they were detained one week longer for reason of state. Mary carried the letter to her good mistress, and told her all. miles for the purpose;' and Mary, shaking like a leaf, and deadly pale, was placed in the box. The counsel had nothing for it but to examine her. I should be sorry to say, sir, he wished to find her testimony false; but lawyers have a frightful pride in shewing their ingenuity; and he did not quite like his hollow case to be overturned. At all events his manner was any thing but encouraging to a poor frightened girl; but he little knew that Mary could be firm as a rock where duty was concerned. "On being desired to say what she knew of this business, Mary simply averred, in as few words as possible, that Richard Mansel could not have been in Overton wood at the hour assigned for the Murder of Jack Osborne; as he was at that very time with her, on the road to S― farm, exactly on the "Very pleasantly engaged, I dare say, my dear!' said the counsel flippantly; but I am afraid the court will not be the more disposed to admit your evidence on that account.' 'I am sure they ought,' said Mary, in a tone of deep and solemn sincerity, which dashed the lawyer a good deal. "She readily got leave for the journey, and was offered a fellow-servant to take care of her; but she was steadfast in declining it. I would wish no unnecessary witness of poor Richard's shame and his parents' sor-other side of the town. row, my lady,' said she; and God will protect one who is going to return good for evil.' "There was not a moment to be lost, to let Mary appear at the assizes yesterday, and get back to Portsmouth in time; so into the mail she stepped, and arrived here as soon as a letter could have done. When they saw her, the poor old Mansels almost fainted 'But,' said he recovering himself, Richfor joy. They kissed and wept over her, asard Mansel met you, you say, on the road to they had done many a time when their son's S- -, at a little after the hour of nine on wildness grieved her gentle spirit, but they a certain evening. Pray what reason may soon came to look up to her as a guardian you have for remembering the hour?" angel come to save their grey hairs from despair and disgrace. "They would have proposed to her to see and comfort Richard; but she said mildly, We have both need of our strength for tomorrow. Tell him I forgive him; and bless God for bringing me to save him; and pray that it may not be from danger in this world alone.' "Because I had stayed to give his mother her nine o'clock draught before I left town; and because, just as I got to my father's gate, the church clock struck ten.' "Very accurate! and pray what leads you to be so positive as to the day?'"Because that very next evening I sailed for London in a smack, whose sailing day is alwayson a Friday, and Thursday must have been the 23d.' "She was quite worn out with fatigue, it Very logical indeed! And now, my may be supposed, and glad to lay her inno-dear, to come more to the point, how come |