McGuffey's Sixth Eclectic Reader Part 48

NOTES.--Iago is represented as a crafty, unscrupulous villain. He applies for the position of lieutenant under Oth.e.l.lo, but the latter has already appointed Ca.s.sio--who is honest, but of a weak character--to that position; he, however, makes Iago his ensign. Then Iago, to revenge himself for this and other fancied wrongs, enters upon a systematic course of villainy, part of which is to bring about the intoxication of Ca.s.sio, and his consequent discharge from the lieutenancy.

The Hydra was a fabled monster of Grecian mythology, having nine heads, one of which was immortal.

Desdemona was the wife of Oth.e.l.lo.

XC. STARVED ROCK. (325)

Francis Parkman, 1823-1893, the son of a clergyman of the same name, was born in Boston, and graduated at Harvard University in 1844. He spent more than twenty years in a careful study of the early French explorations and settlements in America; and he published the fruits of his labor in twelve large volumes. Although troubled with an affection of the eyes, which sometimes wholly prevented reading or writing, his work was most carefully and successfully done. His narratives are written in a clear and animated style, and his volumes are a rich contribution to American history.

The cliff called "Starved Rock," now pointed out to travelers as the chief natural curiosity of the region, rises, steep on three sides as a castle wall, to the height of a hundred and twenty-five feet above the river. In front, it overhangs the water that washes its base; its western brow looks down on the tops of the forest trees below; and on the east lies a wide gorge, or ravine, choked with the mingled foliage of oaks, walnuts, and elms; while in its rocky depths a little brook creeps down to mingle with the river.

From the rugged trunk of the stunted cedar that leans forward from the brink, you may drop a plummet into the river below, where the catfish and the turtles may plainly be seen gliding over the wrinkled sands of the clear and shallow current. The cliff is accessible only from the south, where a man may climb up, not without difficulty, by a steep and narrow pa.s.sage. The top is about an acre in extent.

Here, in the month of December, 1682, La Salle and Tonty began to entrench themselves. They cut away the forest that crowned the rock, built storehouses and dwellings of its remains, dragged timber up the rugged pathway, and encircled the summit with a palisade. Thus the winter was pa.s.sed, and meanwhile the work of negotiation went prosperously on. The minds of the Indians had been already prepared. In La Salle they saw their champion against the Iroquois, the standing terror of all this region.

They gathered around his stronghold like the timorous peasantry of the Middle Ages around the rock-built castle of their feudal lord.

From the wooden ramparts of St. Louis,--for so he named his fort,--high and inaccessible as an eagle's nest, a strange scene lay before his eye.

The broad, flat valley of the Illinois was spread beneath him like a map, bounded in the distance by its low wall of wooded hills. The river wound at his feet in devious channels among islands bordered with lofty trees; then, far on the left, flowed calmly westward through the vast meadows, till its glimmering blue ribbon was lost in hazy distance.

There had been a time, and that not remote, when these fair meadows were a waste of death and desolation, scathed with fire, and strewn with the ghastly relics of an Iroquois victory. Now, all was changed. La Salle looked down from his rock on a concourse of wild human life. Lodges of bark and rushes, or cabins of logs, were cl.u.s.tered on the open plain, or along the edges of the bordering forests. Squaws labored, warriors lounged in the sun, naked children whooped and gamboled on the gra.s.s.

Beyond the river, a mile and a half on the left, the banks were studded once more with the lodges of the Illinois, who, to the number of six thousand, had returned, since their defeat, to this their favorite dwelling place. Scattered along the valley, among the adjacent hills, or over the neighboring prairie, were the cantonments of a half score of other tribes, and fragments of tribes, gathered under the protecting aegis of the French.

NOTES.--The curious elevation called Starved Rock is on the south side of Illinois River, between La Salle and Ottawa. There is a legend according to which it is said that over one hundred years ago, a party of Illinois Indians took refuge here from the Pottawatomies; their besiegers, however, confined them so closely that the whole party perished of starvation, or, as some say, of thirst. From this circ.u.mstance the rock takes its name.

La Salle (b. 1643, d. 1687) was a celebrated French explorer and fur trader. He established many forts throughout the Mississippi Valley,-- among them, Fort St. Louis, in 1683.

Tonty was an Italian, who formerly served in both the French army and navy, and afterwards joined La Salle in his explorations.

XCI. PRINCE HENRY AND FALSTAFF. (327)

PRINCE HENRY and POINS, in a back room, in a tavern.

Enter FALSTAFF, GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO.

Poins. Welcome, Jack. Where hast thou been?

Falstaff. A plague of all cowards, I say, and a vengeance too! marry, and amen! Give me a cup of sack, boy. Ere I lead this life long, I'll sew nether stocks, and mend them, and foot them, too. A plague of all cowards!

Give me a cup of sack, rogue. Is there no virtue extant? (He drinks, and then continues.) You rogue, here's lime in this sack, too; there is nothing but roguery to be found in villainous man: yet a coward is worse than a cup of sack with lime in it. A villainous coward! Go thy ways, old Jack; die when thou wilt: if manhood, good manhood, be not forgot upon the face of the earth, then am I a shotten herring. There live not three good men unhanged, in England; and one of them is fat and grows old; a bad world, I say! I would I were a weaver; I could sing psalms, or anything. A plague of all cowards, I say still.

Prince Henry. How now, woolsack? What mutter you?

Fal. A king's son! If I do not beat thee out of thy kingdom with a dagger of lath, and drive all thy subjects afore thee like a flock of wild geese, I'll never wear hair on my face more. You, Prince of Wales!

P. Henry. Why, you baseborn dog! What's the matter?

Fal. Are you not a coward? Answer me to that; and Poins there?

Poins. Ye fat braggart, an ye call me coward, I'll stab thee.

Fal. I call thee coward? I'll see thee gibbeted ere I call thee coward: but I would give a thousand pounds I could run as fast as thou canst. You are straight enough in the shoulders, you care not who sees your back: call you that backing of your friends? A plague upon such backing! Give me them that will face me. Give me a cup of sack. I am a rogue, if I have drunk to-day.

P. Henry. O villain! thy lips ate scarce wiped since thou drunkest last.

Fal. All's one for that. A plague of all cowards, still say 1. (He drinks.)

P. Henry. What's the matter?

Fal. What's the matter! There be four of us here have ta'en a thousand pounds this morning.

P. Henry. Where is it, Jack? where is it?

Fal. Where is it? Taken from us it is; a hundred upon poor four of us.

P. Henry. What! a hundred, man?

Fal. I am a rogue, if I were not at half-sword with a dozen of them two hours together. I have 'scaped by miracle. I am eight times thrust through the doublet; four, through the hose; my buckler cut through and through; my sword hacked like a handsaw; look here! (shows his sword.) I never dealt better since I was a man; all would not do. A plague of all cowards!

Let them speak (pointing to GADSHILL, BARDOLPH, and PETO); if they speak more or less than truth, they are villains and the sons of darkness.

P. Henry. Speak, sirs; how was it?

Gadshill. We four set upon some dozen--

Fal. Sixteen, at least, my lord.

Gad. And bound them.

Peta. No, no, they were not bound.

Fal. You rogue, they were bound, every man of them; or I am a Jew, else--an Ebrew Jew.

Gad. As we were sharing, some six or seven fresh men set upon us--

Fal. And unbound the rest; and then come in the other.

P. Henry. What! fought ye with them all?

Fal. All? I know not what ye call all; but if I fought not with fifty of them, I am a bunch of radish: if there were not two or three and fifty upon poor old Jack, then I am no two-legged creature.

P. Henry. Pray heaven, you have not murdered some of them.

Fal. Nay, that's past praying for; for I have peppered two of them; two I am sure I have paid; two rogues in buckram suits. I tell thee what, Hal, if I tell thee a lie, spit in my face, and call me a horse. Thou knowest my old ward; (he draws his sword and stands if about to fight) here I lay, and thus I bore my point. Four rogues in buckram let drive at me--