LITERATURE.

Globe, Volume XXII, Issue 1991, 12 July 1880, Page 3

LITERATURE.

HAWK’S NEST. I.— The Colonel gets his own Again. The war of 1812 had been over nearly a score of yevs, and Colonel Lawrence, who had served with distinction in that conflict, lived in what was then known as the Hawk’s Neat Mansion on Washington Heights. He was an able as well as an opnlent man, and the Government of the Jay had made him advance,!, but he declined every proffered office, at first through pride, and afterwards through an unconquerable indolence. Whether it was that he had expended all his energies in martial strife, or whether a residence in Paris for a lustrum had rendered him somewhat of a Sybarite, it was certain that ho had a fixed aversion to anything like sericus work. On tho other hand, pleasure in every form seemed good to him. The enjoyments of the table, the gratifications of variety, the excitement of play, and the piquancies of gallantry found him from year to year with undirainished appetite. His wife was the happiest woman in the city and county of New York, but she was not the only one whose felicity he fa-hioned. He sang with joy at the b rth of his daughter in 1820, and in the afternoon of the same day he hired, in Hoboken, a villa for a dancer of whom he was enamoured. The dinner he gave at Hawk’s Nest had no rivals, unless it were his suppers in the boudoir of the dansruse.

The world always deals leniently with its wealthy prodigals. So long as Mrs Lawrence did not complain, society winked one of its ei es, and said that the Colonel managed things handsomely. Human nature was the same then as now, and does anyone nowadays presume to reproach a magnificent Timon for scattering everywhere about him a little of the superfluity of his purse and his heart? Colonel Lawrence’s double mode of living, and the circumspection with which a gay man tries to conceal his illicit pleasures, encroached rapidly down upon his capital. Assiduous attentions to the gaming-table did not repair those ravages. He obtained mortgage after mortgage upon Hawk’s Nest. When his only daughter was a child of seven his wife died, and he saw a bottomless abyss of financial ruin opening beneath his feet.

One day the Colonel and his little daughter Helen met a friend on the pier. ‘lam going to Europe,’ he said, ‘until the storm blows over. My luck is about played out here, but I shall turn up again like a bad shilling. Good-bye, my friend; fortune likes me too well to desert me. An revoir, till we meet again.’ A fortnight after Hawk’s Nest, by the order of the sheriff, came under the auctioneer's hammer, and was knocked down to a wealthy market gardener of Westchester County, named Aaron Biker, The propagator of ‘ garden tuck ’ took immediate possession, and, with his accustomed energy, began to improve the neglected property. The gardens again blossomed like a rose: the woods exhibited the benefits of a skilled forester’s hand, and the estate was enlarged by the acquisition of adjacent parcels of land.

Aaron Biker was a widower, with au only son, ten years old. He was an austere but just man, and was anything but popular among his new neighbors. Indeed, Madame Depan, who rented an old mansion on the Kingsbridge road, was the only one who cared to associate with ‘ Old Biker,’ as he was contemptuously called, or to show him any kindness. The antecedents of this attractive and skilful woman were said to have been anomalous ; but this did not prevent her drawing-rooms from being the rendezvous of several distinguished men. Artists, authors, men of business, and men of leisure, all served her simultaneously, in proportion to their means. ‘ Old Riley ’ received her wily advances with coldness ; but he was not averse to his boy, Philip, making a playmate of Madame’s only son, Alphonse. It was known that Madame Depau was often very much in need of money; yet, during her ten years’ acquaintance with the parsimonious owner of Hawk’s Nest she never asked him for the loan of a cent.

When Young Philip Biker left school he was possessed of an inordinate longing to go to sea. He had read Robinson Crusoe and all the tales of adventure, in which buccaneers figured, that the sparse literature of the day supplied. * Old Biker ’ was inexorably opposed to his son’s maritime predilection. The young lad found a sympathiser in Madame Depau, She hinted that several of the world’s great naval commanders had begun life by disobeying their parents’ commands and running away to sea. Philip acted upon her suggestion. He went down to South street, and embarked on board of a brig, bound for South America.

Years passed, but * Old Biker ’ never received tidings of his runaway son. At last he gave him up for dead. On this son all his hopes had been centered. For him he had toiled and saved. For him he had purchased Hawk’s Nost.

‘ My son shall be a gentleman,’ he used to say to his old gardener comrades ; ‘he shall marry a fine wife, and ride in his carriage.’ When five years passed without any tidings of his son, the old man stood on the brink of the tomb. In his unutterable loneliness the prolonged suspense was killing him slowly. His intellectual faculties had sensibly deteriorated. His memory began to fail him. He interested himself in nothing; private and public affairs, his household, his woods, his gardens, all were equally indifferent to him.

Madame Depart tended him like a child whenever she called* He would tolerate the presence of no one else. She labored in every possible way _to make herself necessary to him* She tried to introduce Alphonse into the vacant niche of the old man’s heart. Somehow or another he had conceived r an aversion to the serene and studious young man. But this consideration did not have the effect of relaxing Madame’s tenderness. For, as she said to her visitors : 4 The poor darling old thing hasn’t a relative or friend in the world, and I am trying to be mother, nurse, daughter, and son in all to him.’ Whereat her audience would smile, inwardly wondering whether the artful lady’s motives were entirely disinterested, and whether it was not her ambition to add the role of heiress to her already Protean assumption. The most obvious inference is the correct one. Meantime Colonel Lawrence had placed his daughter at a Parisian academy, and was himself drifting about Hamburg and BadenBaden, trying his luck at roulette and rouge et noir. Three or four times he had ‘broken the bank,’ and had left the gambling room with a resolution never to play again. Just as regularly had he returned next day, and lost everything except a reserved sum, which he termed his ‘ nest egg.’ Somehow he contrived to keep his head above water, and to pay for his daughter's board and education in advance. His old friends and comrades-in-arms travelling in Europe aided him with their credit. He borrowed without scruple, as he had always lent without security. Thus a dozen years passed. Helen was a young lady of nineteen, and he—he would have been puzzled to tell exactly what he was. 4 My dear father,’ said the beautiful girl to him one day, as he was leaving her to go to a gambling house, ‘ let ns return to New York, I am sure you would be better and hanpier there.’ ‘ Well, well; we’ll see, my dear ; wait till to-morrow ; who knows what may happen to-night?" He never by any means alluded to his passion for play in the presence of his innocent daughter, and the poor girl herself had not the remotest suspioicion of his infatuatlon. That night Colonel Lawrence was as lucky as proverbially are those who touch cards for the first time. He began by a desperate step. His sole surviving cash was the ’nest-egg. He stood for a while at the table and watched the game. Before long ho sat down ; and muttering, 4 It’s no use making two bites of a cherry,’ put the entire 4 nest-egg ’ on the red. It won. Ho doubled. He won again. His eyes began to scintillate and his cheeks to flush; , 4 Neck or nothing, he said aloud, as he placed his whole pile on black. Black won , . c Once more, Helen, by God 1* be ened, pushing bis pile back to the red, Red won !

There was a short whisper after the rak pushed him his cheques, and then th» croupier, in a suave voice, intimated that th amonnt appropriated for that table was ex* hauated for the day. Colonel Lawranoe had once more broken the bank. ‘We will leave Paris to-morrow, darling, r he said, as he bent ever his daughter and kissed her. ‘ Oh, I am so delighted,’ she cried ; * I shall begin to pack my tranks immediately. ’ It wanted some minutes to midnight* Helen had never known her father return home at so early an hour. After being tempest-tossed on the Atlantic for three months, on board one of the swift, sailing clippers of our grandfather’s time. Colonel Lawrence. and his daughter reached New York. He had been more than a dozen years absent from his native land, and he found many changes, Several of his best friend* were dead. Some whom he had left in poverty had attained wealth ; others had made the deicaut of fortune’s ladder. He called upon some of his old acquaintances and hinted that as he was a poor man he must really find something to do. A manufacturing company offered him a position ; but the salary was eo small that he declined. He had still a portion of his winnings left, and he spent a few weeks, pleasantly enough, in marking the improvement that bad taken place in his absence. One day Helen and he rambled up to Washington Heights to take a look at their old home. As they stood looking over tho fence, Madame Depau, who was within with the forlorn owner of Hawk’s Nest, saw them from the window. * Good God 1’ she exclaimed, in impetuous surprise, ‘ that is Colonel Lawrence 1' ‘Colonel Lawrence,’ the old man repeated ; ‘ who is he ?’ ‘Why, the gentleman who owned this property before you did.’ ‘Let us go and invite him to come in, 1 said ‘ Old Hiker, * rising from his easy chair. (To ie continued . 3