Evening star. [volume] (Washington, D.C.) 1854-1972, 1917-05-13

and, by Jove, should be one day." So
Nolan was permitted to join the circle
one afternoon when lot of them sat
on deck smoking and reading aloud.
People do not do such things SO often
now: but when | was young we got rid
Of a great deal of time so. Well, so it
happened that in his turn Nolan took
the book and read to the others; and he
read very well, as I know. Nobody in
the circle knew line of the poem, only
it was all magic and border chivalry.
and was 10000 years ago. Poor Nolan
read steadily through the fifth canto.
stopped a minute and drank something
and then began, without thought of
what was coming:
Breathes there the man. with soul so dead.
Who never to himself hath said
1t seems impossible to us that any
body ever heard this for the first time;
but all these fellows did then. and poor
Nolan himself went on, still uncon
sciously or mechanically:
This is my own, my native land.
Then they all saw something was to
pay: but he expected to get through, I
suppose, turned a little pale, but
plunged on:
Whose heart hath neer within him burned.
As home his footsteps he hath turned
From wandering on a foreign strand?
II such there breathe. go, mark him well.
BY this time the men were all beside
themselves, wishing there was any way
to make him turn over two pages; but
he had not quite presence of mind for
that; he gagged a little, colored GRIM
son. and staggered on:
For him minstrel raptures swell;
High though his titles, proud his name
Bonndless his wealth wish claim.
Despite these titles. power and pelf.
The wretch, eoncentered all in self
and here the poor fellow choked, could
book into the sea. vanished into his
stateroom And, by Jove." said Phil
lips. we did not see him for two
months again. And / had to make up
some beggarly story to that English
surgeon why l did not return his Wal
ter Scott to him.
That story shows about the time
when Nolans braggadocio must have
broken down. At first they said, he
took a very high tone. considered his
Impeachment mere farce, affected to
enjoy the voyage. and all that; but
Phillips said that after he came out of
his stateroom he never was the same
man again. He never read aloud again,
unless it was the Bible or Shakespeare
or something else he was sure of. But
it was not that merely. He never en-
tered in with the other young men
exactly as companion again He was
always shy afterward, when 1 knew
him-very seldom spoke, unless he was
spoken to. except to a very few
friends. He lighted up occasionally
remember late in his life hearing him
fairly eloquent on something which
had been suggested to him by one of
F1echiers sermons-but generally he
had the nervous, tired look of heart
wounded man.
When Capt. Shaw was coming home
if, as l say. It was Shaw-rather to
the surprise of everybody. they made
one of the Windward Islands. and lay
off and on for nearly a week. The
boys said the officers We're sick of salt
junk, and meant to have turtle soup
eral days the Warren came to the same
rendezvous; they exchanged signals;
she sent to Phillips, and these home
ward-bound men, letters and papers,
and told them she was outward bound,
perhaps to the Mediterranean, and
took poor Nolan and his traps on the
boat back to try his second cruise. He
looked very blank when he was told
to get ready to Join her. He had
known enough of the signs of the sky
to know that till that moment he was
going home" But this was distinct
evidence of something he had not
thought of. perhops-that there was no
going home for him. even to a prison.
such transfers, which brought him
sooner or later into half our hest yes
sells. but which kept him all his life at
least some hundred miles from the
country he had hoped he might never
hear of again.
it may have been on that second
cruise-it was once when he was up the
Mediterranean-that Mrs Graft. the
celebrated southern beauty of those
days. danced with him. They had been
lying long time i'll the Bay of Naples