Chapter 49

CARLO

There was on board our ship, among the emigrant passengers, a rich-
cheeked, chestnut-haired Italian boy, arrayed in a faded, olive-hued
velvet jacket, and tattered trowsers rolled up to his knee. He was not
above fifteen years of age; but in the twilight pensiveness of his full
morning eyes, there seemed to sleep experiences so sad and various, that
his days must have seemed to him years. It was not an eye like Harry's
tho' Harry's was large and womanly. It shone with a soft and spiritual
radiance, like a moist star in a tropic sky; and spoke of humility,
deep-seated thoughtfulness, yet a careless endurance of all the ills of
life.

The head was if any thing small; and heaped with thick clusters of
tendril curls, half overhanging the brows and delicate ears, it somehow
reminded you of a classic vase, piled up with Falernian foliage.

From the knee downward, the naked leg was beautiful to behold as any
lady's arm; so soft and rounded, with infantile ease and grace. His
whole figure was free, fine, and indolent; he was such a boy as might
have ripened into life in a Neapolitan vineyard; such a boy as gipsies
steal in infancy; such a boy as Murillo often painted, when he went
among the poor and outcast, for subjects wherewith to captivate the eyes
of rank and wealth; such a boy, as only Andalusian beggars are, full of
poetry, gushing from every rent.

Carlo was his name; a poor and friendless son of earth, who had no sire;
and on life's ocean was swept along, as spoon-drift in a gale.

Some months previous, he had landed in Prince's Dock, with his hand-
organ, from a Messina vessel; and had walked the streets of Liverpool,
playing the sunny airs of southern chines, among the northern fog and
drizzle. And now, having laid by enough to pay his passage over the
Atlantic, he had again embarked, to seek his fortunes in America.

From the first, Harry took to the boy.

"Carlo," said Harry, "how did you succeed in England?"

He was reclining upon an old sail spread on the long-boat; and throwing
back his soiled but tasseled cap, and caressing one leg like a child, he
looked up, and said in his broken English--that seemed like mixing the
potent wine of Oporto with some delicious syrup:--said he, "Ah! I succeed
very well!--for I have tunes for the young and the old, the gay and the
sad. I have marches for military young men, and love-airs for the
ladies, and solemn sounds for the aged. I never draw a crowd, but I know
from their faces what airs will best please them; I never stop before a
house, but I judge from its portico for what tune they will soonest toss
me some silver. And I ever play sad airs to the merry, and merry airs to
the sad; and most