at that time. He learned from Master McNorton, a teacher from the north of Ireland, to read without the eastern accentuation or orthoepy, and was prevented, by his out-o-door practice in language, from acquiring a slight touch of the brogue which adhered pertinaciously to his teacher's tongue. He was taught to write a decent hand (there were then no Wriffards or other doctors, native or foreign, travelling through the land to teach elegant penmanship). He was taught to cipher as far as the rule of three; and at the same time he learned to take care of the cattle, the horses and the sheep. He could run barefoot into the meadow and halter a horse, first enticing him within striking distance by holding out an ear of corn, he would then mount him by placing his toe on the joint of sorrel's hind leg— “making stepping stones," as Master McNorton said, “ of the poor brute's bones to get a saddle-sate on his bare back”—and he could then, without saddle or bridle, ride as fearlessly through woods or over rocks, as a Virginia negro, or a wild Arab.

Such were the attainments of Zebediah Spiffard, and he might have gone on in the steps of his father, that is-stepped from Vermont to Ohio, or further; emigrating, and clearing, and settling, and pulling up stakes, and emigrating again; or he might have founded another Spiffard-town in the valley of the Mississippi, and filled the great house of the founder with little Zebs and Jerrys, never arriving at the prodigious honour of being the hero of a book, but for certain circumstances, which though still introductory, must be told before we can get at the marrow of our story.

CHAPTER VII.

We go from Home to Boston.

"A barefoot pilgrim on a flinty world.”—Unknown Play.
"O that clear honour was purchased by the merit of the wearer!"
"I never knew so young a body with so old a head."—Shakspeare.

It is not a new observation that a man's destination for life is often fixed at an age when animal spirits are most abundant, and reason most powerless. Impressions then made are indelible, and habits are acquired which never, or at least not without great trouble and pain, can be counteracted or shaken off. At this perilous period of man's life our hero was sent from home.

A raw boy of sixteen, who had never been out of the precincts of Spiffard-town, or seen man greater than squire Spiffard, was suddenly transported to the famous metropolis of Massachusetts. In the town of Boston, celebrated as the cradle, if not the birth-place, of American independence, lived the uncle of Zeb Spiff (as his schoolmates persisted in calling him, and as his intimates always called him) Mr. Abraham Spiffard, who having attained the mature age of sixty-eight in a state of single blessedness, and having made his property procreate as fast as Jacob's flocks or Shylock's ducats, now looked about him for an heir, and bethought him of his long-neglected brother, who had travelled to the wilderness of Vermont at his father's death on finding himself left nearly penniless by the will-according to the praiseworthy usage of the dear mother country, and the still more praiseworthy motive-a desire to support the name of Spiffard by devising his property to the elder born son. The brothers had not met since Jeremiah married the beautiful Louisa Atherton. Abraham had at this time a two-fold motive for thinking of one of his brother's children as an heir. He, too, wished to keep up the august family name: and he had a remaining sense of justice-a sense which is inherent with and strong in every man, if not stifled by worldliness-and that sense of justice told him, that every law or custom founded on a miscalled right of primogeniture, is contrary to the law of nature and of God; and consequently, that his younger brother had been wronged, and he himself had been living and thriving on the fruits of injustice. He therefore wrote to his brother, desiring him to send his eldest boy (for still the old leaven stuck to him, and the first-born must have preference) promising to educate and adopt him as his own. This was an opening not to be neglected, and Zeb was accordingly fitted out for a journey to the far-famed town of Boston.

We must, before taking our hero from home, mention one circumstance, which had affected the domestic happiness of Squire Spiffard's family, and made an impression upon little Zebediah that moulded his character into the form which our readers will find displayed, as we proceed with his story-fixing within him an image that was through his future life ever present to his mind, and was the moving cause of thought and action. The scenes he had witnessed in his father's household, mingled with all his ideas of his fellow-creatures, coloured all the future scenes of his existence, and were the springs which impelled him in his course through his journey, until they were obliterated by the hand of death.

We approach most unwillingly to this part of our subject. To draw aside the decent veil that hides domestic misery, though that misery proceeds from an accidental cause, is an irksome task; but to expose the failings of one of that lovely sex from which we have derived all the choice blessings of life, is inexpressibly painful. But we owe it to truth and to the world, for our hero's character and actions would be inexplicable if we did not give our readers this key to them.

It has been said that Mrs. Spiffard, the beautiful London lady, was discontented, although placed in the paradise of Spiffard town. She regretted her banishment from her dear native land. And who can blame her? She had there enjoyed luxuries of which she was here deprived, and she had there enjoyed youth, beauty and flattery. She could not but feel, that if she returned, she would find the same delightful articles -for in her mind they were associated with the place. In despite of reason or even of experience, the returning wanderer still expects to find in home, the home of his youth.

Mrs. Spiffard's health declined in proportion as she filled her husband's house with health and life in the shape of little Yankees. Her countrywoman, Mrs. Lovedog, had taught her that ether and opium were most pleasant, and she said innocent remedies for low spirits. In time other stimulants were resorted to, "for it was necessary," as has more than once been said in excuse for such acknowledged weakness, "to change the current of her ideas, or she would go mad." The current was changed; but it was only to increase, not remedy ill-to save her from the apprehension of that madness we pity and deplore, with sympathy in nature's frailty, and consign her to that which we despise and turn from with disgust.

Can any situation in life be so deplorable as that of a husband under such circumstances ?-Yes. We shall see that that of a wife, whose husband is a victim to this vice, is even worse. Our business at present is with the first case. To see his neglected children gazing with expressions varied according to their respective ages on the idiotic countenance and inconsistent behaviour of their mother, to no, we will not enter into the disgusting detail. Spiffard behaved like a good and discreet— a humane and determined man. He did not invite (as was his wish) his friends or strangers to his house; his plea was his wife's indisposition. He did not take her abroad; for he dreaded to expose her. He did not pretend to excuse her, when notwithstanding his care she was exposed; nor did he by falsehoods outrage the good sense of his acquaintance. But it is

upon

the effect which this disgraceful conduct in a mother had
his eldest son, that is our only object in recording it; and that
effect was seen, though not understood, in all he said or did to
the end of his life.

As a child it was long before he could comprehend the nature of behaviour, in his mother, which was apparently causeless; and was so unlike that of other females. When the truth burst upon him, it produced a revolution in his feelings that seemed to transport him from infancy to intellectual manhood-made him observant and thoughtful, instead of joyous and careless-and in short, was quickly indicated by appearances inconsistent with his age and previous sprightly disposition. The further he advanced in life and became capable of appreciating his mother's degradation and his father's misery, the more intense were his feelings until they became almost insupportable. He thought as constantly upon the torturing subject as the nature of mind will permit; for happily we are so constructed that one unbroken chain of thought cannot be continued. One continuous chain or circle of thought is either the cause or the effect of insanity. Yet he strove to banish other thoughts, and avoided the sports and pursuits incident to his happy age. He could not speak of the subject of his meditations. There were none to whom the deep coloured and indefinable images which poured upon his mind could be communicated in conversation. He feared lest his father should see that he noticed and understood the cause of his woe. "He became a recluse. Always devoted to books, although reading without plan and almost without improvement, he now appeared more than ever studious, and yet his mind was frequently far from the page over which his eves wandered. He watched the behaviour of his father and mother anxiously, and as anxiously avoided the appearance of attending to their conduct. He seemed to become years older as months passed away, and to advance in knowledge as if by miracle-knowledge gained by thought-self-examination— not reading. It was a knowledge as bitter as that of our first parents and without fault in him, it deprived him of his paradise, the joys without care of childhood. It is thus that by the undeviating chain of cause and effect, even the lot of the guiltless is not pure good, since we must partake of the good or ill of others.

Our hero's father and the neighbours thought that Zebediah's mprovement was owing to his books, but it was the intense operation of a vigorous mind set in action by one circumstance, which affected him deeply and mysteriously; one spring, which

became the mainspring of his life and actions; and which caused observation, comparison and combination in the boy, far beyond his years-in the man, a state of mind nearly monomaniacal.

When he was told that his uncle had sent for him, the first sensation was joyous. He felt as if he should escape from what was ever present to his imagination; his mother's infirmity and his father's misery. But soon his heart sunk, and he could not bear the thought of leaving the object which, as if by a power of fascination, attracted his unceasing attention, and bound him to the spot-the object to which his eyes were constantly turned, as it is said the poor bird cannot be diverted from its gaze on the hateful serpent doomed to destroy it. These feelings however soon passed away, and the wish for change prevailed. He was scarce sixteen years of age, and at that time of life when all abroad is new, fresh and refreshing— when even the circulation of the blood is pleasure, and when it is impossible, if in health, to be long unhappy-at such an age, to see the wonders of the great city and become one in a new and loftier state of existence, raised hopes and images which though undefined, made him impatient to obey the summons. The very consciousness of being alive-as youth is alive-is happiness; and though clouds and storms cross the morning o life, they must pass away quickly, and the sunny beams of hope and joy are sure to succeed.

Before we turn Zeb out upon the great world of Boston, we will describe his person, that the reader, who we feel assured will go with him, may have a clearer idea of his travelling com panion. We have seen what his appearance was at five and twenty, but we cannot do him justice, or justice to our story without a full description of his beauties at sixteen.

Zeb was not only the oldest but the ugliest of his father's children; and was formed as if in direct opposition to the re ceived notions of Yankee proportion and symmetry. At th period of which we speak, he was exactly five feet two inche in height, and from the strong knitting of his joints, and the un common breadth as well as muscularity of his whole person, i might have been judged that he never would attain a greate altitude; but happily, a few years after, a hard fit of fever-and ague shook him so long, that he became some inches longer Although remarkably square built and powerful in muscle, h yet looked meagre. His knees were rather bowed outwards always a mark of firmness on the feet; his joints were all large but his limbs well proportioned to his body. His head wa