diff options
| author | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:41:35 -0700 |
|---|---|---|
| committer | Roger Frank <rfrank@pglaf.org> | 2025-10-15 04:41:35 -0700 |
| commit | a6cb41f2a72884ffa72b0c9baa72ce75616b8143 (patch) | |
| tree | 89bdccbbcbcaaf1786e2999b755a10a3665c1f04 | |
| -rw-r--r-- | .gitattributes | 3 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-0.txt | 7975 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/13195-h.htm | 12618 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/609.png | bin | 0 -> 125764 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/610.png | bin | 0 -> 61315 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/611.png | bin | 0 -> 82271 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/612.png | bin | 0 -> 76639 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/613.png | bin | 0 -> 113208 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/614.png | bin | 0 -> 108737 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/615.png | bin | 0 -> 38803 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/616.png | bin | 0 -> 87381 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/617.png | bin | 0 -> 74766 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/618.png | bin | 0 -> 60979 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/619.png | bin | 0 -> 120206 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/621.png | bin | 0 -> 82396 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/622.png | bin | 0 -> 72756 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/623.png | bin | 0 -> 97174 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/624.png | bin | 0 -> 55926 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/625.png | bin | 0 -> 74532 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/626.png | bin | 0 -> 114094 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/628.png | bin | 0 -> 105427 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/630.png | bin | 0 -> 100850 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/632.png | bin | 0 -> 58702 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | 13195-h/images/633.png | bin | 0 -> 50062 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | LICENSE.txt | 11 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | README.md | 2 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-8.txt | 8363 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-8.zip | bin | 0 -> 179247 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h.zip | bin | 0 -> 1943468 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/13195-h.htm | 13033 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/609.png | bin | 0 -> 125764 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/610.png | bin | 0 -> 61315 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/611.png | bin | 0 -> 82271 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/612.png | bin | 0 -> 76639 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/613.png | bin | 0 -> 113208 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/614.png | bin | 0 -> 108737 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/615.png | bin | 0 -> 38803 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/616.png | bin | 0 -> 87381 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/617.png | bin | 0 -> 74766 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/618.png | bin | 0 -> 60979 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/619.png | bin | 0 -> 120206 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/621.png | bin | 0 -> 82396 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/622.png | bin | 0 -> 72756 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/623.png | bin | 0 -> 97174 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/624.png | bin | 0 -> 55926 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/625.png | bin | 0 -> 74532 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/626.png | bin | 0 -> 114094 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/628.png | bin | 0 -> 105427 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/630.png | bin | 0 -> 100850 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/632.png | bin | 0 -> 58702 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195-h/images/633.png | bin | 0 -> 50062 bytes | |||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195.txt | 8363 | ||||
| -rw-r--r-- | old/13195.zip | bin | 0 -> 179167 bytes |
53 files changed, 50368 insertions, 0 deletions
diff --git a/.gitattributes b/.gitattributes new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6833f05 --- /dev/null +++ b/.gitattributes @@ -0,0 +1,3 @@ +* text=auto +*.txt text +*.md text diff --git a/13195-0.txt b/13195-0.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..e397ea3 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-0.txt @@ -0,0 +1,7975 @@ +*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13195 *** + +Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added +by the transcriber. + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + + +JUNE, 1873. + +Vo. XI, No. 27. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + A NEW ATLANTIS. + + THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + CONCLUDING PAPER. + + A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + + OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT. + CHAPTER III. + CHAPTER IV. + + SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS. + + A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK + CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + + BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + CHAPTER VIII. + CHAPTER IX. + CHAPTER X. + + BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES. + + DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD. + + FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER. + + NOTES. + + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE. + UP THE INLET. + LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET. + CONGRESS HALL. + MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE. + THE SENATE HOUSE. + ON THE SHINING SANDS. + MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE. + THE THOROUGHFARE. + THE EXCURSION HOUSE. + A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL. + ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA. + AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON. + THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL. + A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB. + KABYLE MEN. + KABYLE WOMEN. + DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT. + AN ARAB MARKET. + POVERTY AND JEWELS. + GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA. + + + + + +A NEW ATLANTIS. + +[Illustration: ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.] + +The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day moving is over and settled, +and still a remnant of money is found sticking to the bottom of the +old marmalade pot. Where shall we go? + +There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport? + +But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity +of its _sangre azul_. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us +off to inspect the last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid +us enjoy the gardens, brought every spring in lace-paper out of the +florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, barefooted if we +choose, and Newport is become an affair of toilette and gold-mounted +harness, a bathing-place where people do everything but bathe. + +[Illustration: UP THE INLET.] + +Well, Nahant, then, or Long Branch? + +Too slow and too fast. Besides, we have seen them. + +Suppose we try the Isles of Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island and +White Island, now? Or Nantucket, or Marblehead? + +Too stony, and nothing in particular to eat. You ask for fish, and +they give you a rock. + +In truth, under that moral and physical dyspepsia to which we bring +ourselves regularly every summer, the fine crags of the north become +just the least bit of a bore. They necessitate an amount of heroic +climbing under the command of a sort of romantic and do-nothing Girls +of the Period, who sit about on soft shawls in the lee of the rocks, +and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of +your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, +and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single +ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse +at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels +dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require +more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and +encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making of a +steam-engine or the writing of a proposal. + +No, no, we would admire nothing, dare nothing, do nothing, but only +suck in rosy health at every pore, pin our souls out on the holly +hedge to sweeten, and forget what we had for breakfast. Uneasy daemons +that we are all winter, toiling gnomes of the mine and the forge--"O +spent ones of a workday age"--can we not for one brief month in our +year be Turks? + +[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.] + +Our doctors, slowly acquiring a little sense, are changing their +remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But +hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few +improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician +used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his +watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where +he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise +a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For +lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course +of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di +quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart. +But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy +manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult +the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City." + +--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet +luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea +with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water, +Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite +horizons. + +But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the +continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of +a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest +distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into +the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence +of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for +Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below +Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any +watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have +been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere. +Its success is due to its having nothing importunate about it. It +promises endless sea, sky, liberty and privacy, and, having made you +at home, it leaves you to your devices. + +[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.] + +Two of our best marine painters in their works offer us a choice of +coast-landscape. Kensett paints the bare stiff crags, whitened with +salt, standing out of his foregrounds like the clean and hungry +teeth of a wild animal, and looking hard enough to have worn out the +painter's brush with their implacable enamel. From their treeless +waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen, +fresh, beautiful and severe: it would take a pair of stout New England +lungs to breathe enjoyably in such an air. That is the northern coast. +Mr. William Richards gives us the southern--the landscape, in fact, +of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have the infinitude of soft silver +beach, the rolling tumultuousness of a boundless sea, and twisted +cedars mounted like toiling ships on the crests of undulating +sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, the power and the peace of the +Desert. + +And here let us be indulged with a few words about a section of our +great continent which has never been sung in rhyme, and which it +is almost a matter of course to treat disparagingly. A cheap and +threadbare popular joke assigns the Delaware River as the eastern +boundary of the United States of America, and defines the out-landers +whose homes lie between that current and the Atlantic Ocean as +foreigners, Iberians, and we know not what. Scarcely more of an exile +was Victor Hugo, sitting on the shores of Old Jersey, than is the +denizen of _New_ Jersey when he brings his half-sailor costume and his +beach-learned manners into contrast with the thrift and hardness of +the neighboring commonwealth. The native of the alluvium is another +being from the native of the great mineral State. But, by the very +reason of this difference, there is a strange soft charm that comes +over our thoughts of the younger Jersey when we have done laughing +at it. That broad, pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust, +which droops toward the south like some vast tropical leaf, and +spreads its two edges toward the fresh and salt waters, enervated with +drought and sunshine--that flat leaf of land has characteristics that +are almost Oriental. To make it the sea heaved up her breast, and +showed the whitened sides against which her tides were beating. To +walk upon it is in a sense to walk upon the bottom of the ocean. Here +are strange marls, the relics of infinite animal life, into which +has sunk the lizard or the dragon of antiquity--the gigantic +_Hadrosaurus_, who cranes his snaky throat at us in the museum, +swelling with the tale of immemorial times when he weltered here in +the sunny ooze. The country is a mighty steppe, but not deprived of +trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, dark foliage, and the endless +woods of pine, sand-planted, strew over that boundless beach a murmur +like the sea. The edibles it bears are of the quaintest and most +individual kinds: the cranberry is its native condiment, full of +individuality, unknown to Europe, beautiful as a carbuncle, wild as +a Tartar belle, and rife with a subacid irony that is like the wit of +Heine. + +[Illustration: MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.] + +Here is the _patate douce_, with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd +that loves to gad along the sand--the citron in its carved net, +and the enormous melon, carnation-colored within and dark-green to +blackness outside. The peaches here are golden-pulped, as if trying to +be oranges, and are richly bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid, +fascinating the taste like some enchantress of Venice, the pursuit of +whom is made piquant by a fancy that she may poison you. The farther +you penetrate this huge idle peninsula, the more its idiosyncrasy +is borne in on your mind. Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash of +air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, and heated jungles of dwarf oaks +balancing balmy plantations of pine. Then, toward the sea, the wiry +grasses that dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute possession with +the forests, and finally supplant them: the sand is blown into +coast-hills, whose crests send off into every gale a foam of flying +dust, and which themselves change shape, under pressure of the same +winds, with a slower imitation of the waves. Finally, by the gentlest +of transitions, the deserts and the quicksands become the ocean. + +[Illustration: THE SENATE HOUSE.] + +The shore melts into the sea by a network of creeks and inlets, +edging the territory (as the flying osprey sees it) with an inimitable +lacework of azure waters; the pattern is one of looping channels +with oval interstices, and the dentellated border of the commonwealth +resembles that sort of lace which was made by arranging on glass +the food of a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate and wove, having +voracity always before him and Fine Art behind him. Much of the +solider part of the State is made of the materials which enter into +glass-manufacture: a mighty enchanter might fuse the greater portion +of it into one gigantic goblet. A slight approximation to this work +of magic is already being carried on. The tourist who has crossed +the lagoons of Venice to see the fitful lights flash up from the +glass-furnaces of Murano, will find more than one locality here where +leaping lights, crowning low banks of sand, are preparing the crystal +for our infant industries in glass, and will remind him of his hours +by the Adriatic. Every year bubbles of greater and greater beauty +are being blown in these secluded places, and soon we hope to enrich +commerce with all the elegances of latticinio and schmelze, the +perfected glass of an American Venice. + +But our business is not with the land, but the sea. Here it lies, +basking at our feet, the warm amethystine sea of the South. It does +not boom and thunder, as in the country of the "cold gray stones." +On the contrary, saturating itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk +over the shoal flat beach with a succession of voluptuous curves, it +spreads thence in distance with strands and belts of varied color, +away and away, until blind with light it faints on a prodigiously far +horizon. Its falling noises are as soft as the sighs of Christabel. +Its colors are the pale and milky colors of the opal. But ah! what an +impression of boundlessness! How the silver ribbon of beach unrolls +for miles and miles! And landward, what a parallel sea of marshes, +bottoms and dunes! The sense of having all the kingdoms of the world +spread out beneath one, together with most of the kingdoms of the +mermen, has never so come to one's consciousness before. And again, +what an artist is Nature, with these faint washes and tenderest varied +hues--varied and tender as the flames from burning gases--while her +highest lights (a painter will understand the difficulty of _that_) +are still diaphanous and profound! + +One goes to the seaside not for pomp and peacock's tails, but for +saltness, Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build a city there that +shall not be an insult to the sentiment of the place is a matter of +difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a canvas encampment. A range of +solid stone villas like those of Newport, so far as congruity with +a watering-place goes, pains the taste like a false note in music. +Atlantic City pauses halfway between the stone house and the tent, and +erects herself in woodwork. A quantity of bright, rather giddy-looking +structures, with much open-work and carved ruffling about the eaves +and balconies, are poised lightly on the sand, following the course +of the two main avenues which lead parallel with the shore, and the +series of short, straight, direct streets which leap across them and +run eagerly for the sea. They have a low, brooding look, and evidently +belong to a class of sybarites who are not fond of staircases. Among +them, the great rambling hotel, sprawling in its ungainly length here +and there, looks like one of the ordinary tall New York houses that +had concluded to lie over on its side and grow, rather than take +the trouble of piling on its stories standing. In this encampment of +wooden pavilions is lived the peculiar life of the place. + +[Illustration: ON THE SHINING SANDS.] + +We are sure it is a sincere, natural, sensible kind of life, as +compared with that of other bathing-shores. Although there are brass +bands at the hotels, and hops in the evening, and an unequal struggle +of macassar oil with salt and stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is +kept at a minimum. People really do bathe, really do take walks on the +beach for the love of the ocean, really do pick up shells and throw +them away again, really do go yachting and crab-catching; and if they +try city manners in the evening, they are so tired with their honest +day's work that it is apt to end in misery. On the hotel piazzas you +see beauties that surprise you with exquisite touches of the warm and +languid South. That dark Baltimore girl, her hair a constellation of +jessamines, is beating her lover's shoulders with her fan in a state +of ferocity that you would give worlds to encounter. That pair of +proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured in peach-pulp and +wrapped in gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at the gates of a +temple. Whole rows of unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate but +implacable, waiting for partners equal to them in social position. In +such a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to her old music-teacher +and flirt solemnly with him for a whole evening, sooner than involve +herself with well-looking young chits from Providence or New York, +who may be jewelers' clerks when at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity +beauty of these Southern belles is very striking to one who comes +fresh from Saratoga and the sort of upholstered goddesses who are +served to him there. + +Some years ago the Surf House was the finest place of entertainment, +but it has now many rivals, taller if not finer. Congress Hall, under +the management of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, while the +Senate House, standing under the shadow of the lighthouse, has the +advantage of being the nearest to the beach of all the hotels. Both +are ample and hospitable hostelries, where you are led persuasively +through the Eleusinian mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine. +Schaufler's is an especial resort of our German fellow-citizens, who +may there be seen enjoying themselves in the manner depicted by our +artist, while concocting--as we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski--the +ambitious schemes which they conceal under their ordinary _enveloppe +débonnaire_. + +[Illustration: MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.] + +There is another feature of the place. With its rarely fine +atmosphere, so tonic and bracing, so free from the depressing fog +of the North, it is a great sanitarium. There are seasons when the +Pennsylvania University seems to have bred its wealth of doctors +for the express purpose of marshaling a dying world to the curative +shelter of Atlantic City. The trains are encumbered with the halt and +the infirm, who are got out at the doors like unwieldy luggage in +the arms of nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, they display +considerable mobility in distributing themselves through the three or +four hundred widely-separated cottages which await them for hire. As +you wander through the lanes of these cunning little houses, you catch +strange fragments of conversation. Gentlemen living vis-à -vis, and +standing with one leg in the grave and the other on their own piazzas, +are heard on sunny mornings exciting themselves with the maddest abuse +of each other's doctor. There are large boarding-houses, fifty or more +of them, each of which has its contingent of puling valetudinarians. +The healthy inmates have the privilege of listening to the symptoms, +set forth with that full and conscientious detail not unusual with +invalids describing their own complaints. Or the sufferers turn their +batteries on each other. On the verandah of a select boarding-house we +have seen a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like a dead harlequin, +as she rolled herself in the triangles of a glittering afghan. On a +neighboring seat a gouty subject, and a tropical sun pouring on both. + +"Good-morning! You see I am trying my sun-bath. I am convinced it +relieves my spine." The same remark has introduced seven morning +conversations. + +"And my gout has shot from the index toe to the ring toe. I feared my +slipper was damp, and I am roasting it here. But, dear ma'am, I pity +you so with your spine! Tried acupuncture?" + +[Illustration: THE THOROUGHFARE.] + +The patient probably hears the word as Acapulco. For she answers, "No, +but I tried St. Augustine last winter. Not a morsel of good." + +Among these you encounter sometimes lovely, frail, transparent girls, +who come down with cheeks of wax, and go home in two months with +cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen arriving yellow, and going back in +due time purple. + +Once a hardened siren of many watering-places, large and blooming, +arrived at Atlantic City with her latest capture, a stooping invalid +gentleman of good family in Rhode Island. They boated, they had +croquet on the beach, they paced the shining sands. Both of them +people of the world and past their first youth, they found an +amusement in each other's knowing ways and conversation that kept them +mutually faithful in a kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, however, +was evidently only amusing himself with this travesty of sentiment, +though he was never led away by the charms of younger women. After a +month of it he succeeded in persuading her for the first time to +enter the water, and there he assisted her to take the billows in the +gallant American fashion. Her intention of staying only in the very +edge of the ocean he overruled by main force, playfully drawing her +out where a breaker washed partially over her. As the water touched +her face she screamed, and raised her arm to hide the cheek that had +been wet. She then ran hastily to shore, and her friend, fearing some +accident, made haste to rejoin her. His astonishment was great at +finding one of her cheeks of a ghastly, unhealthy white. Her color had +always been very high. That afternoon she sought him and explained. +She was really an invalid, she said calmly, and had recently undergone +a shocking operation for tumor. But she saw no reason for letting that +interfere with her usual summer life, particularly as she felt youth +and opportunity making away from her with terrible strides. Having +a chance to enjoy his society which might never be repeated, fearing +lest his rapid disease should carry him away from before her eyes, she +had concluded to make the most of time, dissemble her suffering, and +endeavor to conceal by art the cold bloodlessness of her face. This +whimsical, worldly heroism happened to strike the gentleman strangely. +He was affected to the point of proposing marriage. At the same time +he perceived with some amazement that his disease had left him: the, +curative spell of the region had wrought its enchantment upon his +system. They were wedded, with roles reversed--he as the protector and +she as the invalid--and were truly happy during the eighteen months +that the lady lived as his wife. + +[Illustration: THE EXCURSION HOUSE.] + +There are prettier and more innocent stories. Every freckle-nosed girl +from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the +floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is +rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In +the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs +supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless +country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a +delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before +them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary +Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a +day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride +seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the +landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf, +the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and +flat by the keen east wind--their stems twisted like a dishclout or +like the olives around Florence. + +[Illustration: A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.] + +Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in +a boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the railroad bridge, you lean over +the side and see the dark glassy forms moving on the bottom. It is +shallow, and a short bit of string will reach them. The bait is a +morsel of raw beefsteak from the butcher's, and no hook is necessary. +They make for the titbit with strange monkey-like motions, and nip it +with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths; +and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but +tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under +water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on +their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a +freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious +girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill +in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr. +Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading +Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted +into deeper water, a cunning negro boy who was aboard contrived +to slide down one side without remark, and the next trophy of the +feminine chase was a red _boiled_ crab, artificially attached to a +chocolate caramel, and landed with mingled feelings by the pretty +fisherwoman. Then what a tumult of laughter, feigned anger and +becoming blushes! It is said that that crimson shell, carved into +a heart-shape of incorrect proportions, is worn over Mr. Jones's +diaphragm to this day. + +At the Inlet, which penetrates the beach alongside the lighthouse, +is draught for light vessels, and the various kinds of society which +focus at Atlantic City may be seen concentrated there on the wharf any +of these bright warm days. A gay party of beauties and aristocrats, +with a champagne-basket and hamper of lunch, are starting thence for +a sail over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen in flannel, with guns, +are urging a little row-boat up toward the interior country. They will +return at night laden with rail or reed-birds, with the additional +burden perhaps of a great loon, shot as a curiosity. Others, provided +with fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. Laughing farewells, +waving handkerchiefs and the other telegraphic signs of departure, are +all very gay, but the tune may be changed when the great sailing-party +comes back, wet and wretched, and with three of the principal beauties +limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's hands with sea-sickness. + +Another spirited scene takes place at five in the morning--an hour +when the city beauties are abed with all that tenacity of somnolence +which characterizes Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. The husbands and +brothers, who are due in the city before business hours, are out for +a good, royal, irresponsible tumble in the surf. There is the great +yeasty bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, dipping the sleek +shoulder to the combing wave. On the shore, active humanities hastily +undressing. Then the heavens are filled with a new glory, and the +dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same time with all these merry +roisterers who have shared it with him. He takes up his line of +business for the day, and so do the good husbands and brothers, first +going through a little ceremony of toilet from which he is exempt. + +Thus does the New Atlantis provide for her republic, holding health to +her children with one hand, and shaking from the other an infinity of +toys and diversions; while for those of more thoughtful bent the +sea turns without ceasing its ancient pages, written all over with +inexhaustible romance. + +The great architect of the city was the Power who graded those +streets of immaculate sand, and who laid out that park of mellow, +foam-flowered ocean. Its human founders have done what seemed suitable +in providing shelter for a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting +to put up six neat and modest churches, where suitable praise and +adoration may be chanted against the chanting of the sea. In several +respects the place grows somewhat curiously. For instance, a lawn of +turf is made by the simple expedient of fencing off the cattle: the +grass then grows, but if the cows get in they pull up the sod by the +roots, and the wind in a single season excavates a mighty hollow where +the grassy slope was before. So much for building our hopes on +sand. An avenue of trees is prepared by the easy plan of thrusting +willow-stems into the ground: they sprout directly, and alternate +with the fine native cedars and hollies in clothing the streets with +shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C. +Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside +architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life +at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable +culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off +to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally, +remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, the +aediles invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set up the Excursion or +Sea-View House, with its broad piazzas, its numberless facilities +for amusement, and its enormous dining-hall, which can be changed on +occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with flowers and fountains. + +To a great city all the renovating and exhilarating qualities of +sea-breezes and sea-bathing are but as the waters of Tantalus, unless +the place which offers these advantages be easy of access. In this +respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia a superiority over all +its rivals. The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to whose secretary and +treasurer, Mr. D.M. Zimmermann, we are indebted for much information, +has simply drawn a straight line to the coast, which may be reached in +an hour and three-quarters from Vine street wharf. The villages on +the route, like the seaside terminus, owe their existence to the road, +which is now reaping the reward of a far-sighted enterprise. + + + + +THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + +CONCLUDING PAPER. + +[Illustration: ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.] + +A noble life, whose course belongs to the subject of these pages, is, +while they are preparing, apparently drawing to a close. The +severe illness now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming upon old age, +disappointment, war and the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, can +have but one result. Dimmed to-day, as our hurrying century so rapidly +dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's existence has only to cease +and his memory will assume the sacred splendor of the tomb. + +Hapless Washington of a betrayed revolution! In these latter days of +enforced quiet in Palestine how his early scenes of African experience +must have flooded his mind!--his birth, sixty-six years ago, in a +family group of Moslem saints; the teachings of his beautiful mother +Leila and of his marabout father; his pilgrimage when eight years old +to Mecca, and his education in Italy; his visions among the tombs, and +the crown of magic light which was seen on his brows when he began to +taste the enchanted apple; then, with adolescence, the burning sense +of infidel tyranny that made his home at Mascara seem only a cage, +barred upon him by the unclean Franks; and soon, while still a youth, +his amazing election as emir of Mascara and sultan of Oran, at a +moment when the prophet-chief had just four _oukias_ (half-dimes) tied +into the corner of his bornouse! + +"God will send me others," said young Abd-el-Kader. + +[Illustration: AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.] + +The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait of him, by Maxime David, in +the Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his face, framed in its white +hood, is seen in full, in profile and in three-quarters view. The +visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, refined; but we can describe it +more authentically in the terms of one of his enemies, Lieutenant +de France, who became his prisoner in 1836, and who followed his +movements for five months, taking down his daily talk and habits like +a Boswell, but leaving nothing in his narrative that is not to the +sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at twenty-eight the lieutenant says: +"His face is long and deadly pale, his large black eyes are soft +and languishing, his mouth small and delicate, and his nose rather +aquiline: his beard is thin, but jet-black, and he wears a small +moustache, which gives a martial character to his soft, delicate face, +and becomes him vastly. His hands are small and exquisitely formed, +and his feet equally beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a similar +portrait, impressing upon the mind the image of some warrior-saint of +the Middle Ages, born too late, and beating out his noble fanaticism +against our century of machines and chicanery. + +[Illustration: THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.] + +Himself, according to some accounts, a Berber, the young marabout +early saw the importance of inducing the Kabyles to join with him +and his Arabs in expelling the French. He affiliated himself with the +religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, a saint whose tomb is one of the +sacred places of Kabylia; and it is certain that the college of this +order furnished him succor in men and money. He visited the Kabyles in +their rock-built villages, casting aside his military pomp and coming +among them as a simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had received him +better, he could have shown a stouter front to the enemy. But the +mountain Berbers, utterly unused to co-operation and subordination, +met him with surprise and distrust. + +[Illustration: A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.] + +At least, such is the account of General Daumas: in this interesting +relation we are forced to depend on the French. Daumas, amply provided +with documents, letters and evidence, has arranged in his work on _La +Grande Kabylie_ the principal evidence we possess of this epoch of +Abd-el-Kader's life. + +The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa +among the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited him in multitudes. He +addressed them at the door of his tent, and these rude mountaineers +found themselves face to face with that saintly sallow visage, +those long gazelle eyes and the prophetic countenance framed in its +apostolic beard. Raising his arms in the attitude of Raphael's Paul at +Lystra, he said simply, "I am the thorn which Allah has placed in the +eye of the Franks. And if you will help me I will send them weeping +into the sea." + +But when it came to a demand for supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas, +utterly refused. + +"You have come as a pilgrim," said their amins, "and we have fed you +with kouskoussu. If you were to come as a chief, wishing to lay his +authority on us, instead of white kouskoussu we should treat you to +black kouskoussu" (gunpowder). + +Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity of the marabout, argued with +the Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining their reverence and adhesion; +but when he mounted his horse to go the amins significantly told him +to come among them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding hospitality +and white kouskoussu. + +[Illustration: KABYLE MEN.] + +At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of Ameraouas, who promised to submit +to his authority as soon as the fractions surrounding that centre +should do so. The Sons of Aicha received him with honor and games of +horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes +came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber +ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more +wild, discarding his horse and appearing among the villagers as a +simple foot-pilgrim. The natives approached him in throngs, each +family bearing a great dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying the platters +before his tent and planting their clubs in them, all vociferated, +"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the chieftain was constrained to taste +of each. Finally, near Bougie he happened to receive a courier sent by +the French commandant. The Kabyles immediately believed him to be in +treasonable communication with the enemy, and he was forced to retire. + +The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication +with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west, +while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and +founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty +of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the +consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous +tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who +were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality +of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his +political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the +Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing +their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber +and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his +power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the +blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the +zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his +nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his +days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he +resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a +night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he +sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by +the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and +encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had +Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and +with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties toward the sultan's +dominions, protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. Open +conflict followed, and a succession of French razzias. In 1845, +Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under Marshal Bugeaud, conducted +that expedition of eternal infamy during which seven hundred of +Abd-el-Kader's Arabs were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of the Dahra. +This sickening measure was put in force at a _cul-de-sac_, where a few +hours' blockade would have commanded a peaceful surrender. + +[Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN.] + +"The fire was kept up throughout the night, and when the day had fully +dawned the then expiring embers were kicked aside, and as soon as +a sufficient time had elapsed to render the air of the silent cave +breathable, some soldiers were directed to ascertain how matters were +within. They were gone but a few minutes, and then came back, we +are told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly daring, it seemed, to +confront the light of day. No wonder they trembled and looked +pale! They had found all the Arabs dead--men, women, children, +all dead!--had beheld them lying just as death had found and left +them--the old man grasping his gray beard; the dead mother clasping +her dead child with the steel gripe of the last struggle, when all +gave way but her strong love." + +Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 was due less to the prowess of +Lamoricière and Bugeaud than to the cunning of his traitorous ally, +the sultan of Morocco, who, after having induced many of the princely +saint's adherents to desert, finally drove him by force of numbers +over the French frontier. Confronting the duke of Aumale on the +Morocco borders, he made a gallant fight, but lost half his best men +in warding off an attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued now with a +long effort against overwhelming pressure, and world-weary, he met +the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast close to the Morocco +line. Depositing his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside the French +head-quarters, he awaited the duke's signal to sit down. + +"I should have wished to do this sooner," said the broken chief, "but +I have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. I ask the aman (pardon) of +the king of the French for my family and for myself." + +Louis Philippe could not come in contact with this pure spirit without +an exhibition of Frankish treachery, like tinder illuminating +its foulness at the striking of steel. The sultan's surrender was +conditioned on the freedom to retire to Egypt. The French government +no sooner secured him than it treacherously sent him to prison, first +to the castle of Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, where he was +kept from 1848 to 1852, when the late emperor made an early use of +his imperial power to set him at liberty. Since his freedom, at +Constantinople, Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan has continued to +practice the rigors and holiness of the Oriental saint, proving his +catholic spirit by protecting the Christians from Turkish injustice, +and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a martyr the moment destined to +unite his soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris and L'Ouverture. + +This noble life, which impinges a moment on our course through +Kabylia, is surely the most epical of our century, which can never +be reproached for the lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's name is +remembered. + +[Illustration: DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.] + +The descent from the rock-perched city of Kalaa having been made in +safety, and the animals being remounted at the first plateau, our +Roumi traveler and his guides arrive in a few hours at the modern, +fortified, but altogether Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a letter +from a French personage of importance gives us the acquaintance of a +Kabyle family of the highest rank. + +The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely descended from Mohammed +through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian race, and one of them, +settled in Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a prosperous college of +the Oriental style. Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and residing at +Akbou, receives the tourist with a natural icy dignity which only a +czar among the sovereigns of Europe could hope to equal: those who +have but seen Arabs of inferior class can form no notion of the +distinction and lofty gravity of the chiefs of a grand house (or of a +grand tent, as they are called): the Kabyle noble is quite as superb +as the Arab. + +Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered with viands half French and +half Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, resembling a girl with his +blue head-drapery and slim white hands, places himself at table, +and attracts the conversation of the guest. The young man answers +in monosyllables and with his large eyes downcast, and the agha +significantly observes, "You will excuse him if he does not answer: he +is not used to talk before his father." + +The host, disposing of the time of his guests, has arranged a series +of diversions. The valley of the river Sahel is full of boars, and +panthers and monkeys abound in the neighboring spurs of the Zouaouas. +While the Roumi are examining his orchards of oranges and pomegranates +the agha's courtyard fills with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary +horses, armed with inlaid guns. These are all entertained for the +night, together with the usual throng of parasites, who choke his +doors like the clients of the rich Roman in Horace. + +At sunrise the party is mounted. The mare of the agha, a graceful +creature whose veins form an embroidery over her coat of black satin, +is caparisoned with a slender crimson bridle, and a saddle smaller +than the Arab saddles and furnished with lighter stirrups. The +Christian guests are furnished with veritable arquebuses of the Middle +Ages; that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the stock of which, flattened +and surmounted with a hammer of flints, is ignited by a wheel-shaped +lock, easier to be managed by a Burgundian under Charles the Bold than +by an unpretending modern Roumi. + +The usual features of an Algerian hunt succeed. A phantom-like silence +pervades the column of galloping horsemen up to the moment when the +boar is beaten up. Then, with a formidable clamor of "_Haou! haou!_" +from his pursuers, the tusked monster bursts through the tamarinds and +dwarf palms: after a long chase he suddenly stops, and then his form +instantly disappears under the gigantic African hounds who leap upon +him and hang at his ears. A huntsman dismounts and stabs his shoulder +with the yataghan. After a rest the chase is resumed, but this time +under the form of a hawking-party. + +Only the djouads and marabouts--that is to say, the religious or +secular nobles--have the privilege of hunting with the falcon. +The patrician bird, taken by the agha from the shoulder of his +hawk-bearer, is about as large as a pigeon, the head small, beak short +and strong, the claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. The bird +rides upon his master's leather glove until a hare is started: then, +unhooded and released, his first proceeding is to dart into the zenith +as if commissioned to make a hole in the sky. No fear, however, that +the poor panting quarry is lost for an instant from the vision of that +infallible eye, which follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and +fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an aërolite, and, as the deed is +explained to us, doubles up his yellow hand into a fist, and deals the +animal a sharp blow on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen approach, +he is found with his obtuse head bent over his prey, digging out its +eyes by the spoonful. + +By noontide the troop is naturally famished. A luncheon, has, however, +been prepared by the thoughtfulness of the agha. Riding up to a tent +which appears as by magic in the wilderness, the provisions for a +sumptuous repast are discovered. Two fires are burning in the open +air, and are surrounded by a host of servants or followers. The Roumi +and their host adjourn from the neighborhood of the preparations, and +are served under a plane tree beautiful as that whose limbs were hung +by Xerxes with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set on fire with red +pepper, introduces the repast: pancakes follow, and various meats +smothered with eggs or onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger +up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep +roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes +hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying +a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature--a +contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of +the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating +marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste +the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to +declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible, +they vow to introduce the undissected roast, the bonfire, the spit +and the cook with imperturbable heel into the cuisine of less-favored +lands more distant from the sun. + +[Illustration: AN ARAB MARKET.] + +Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans do not consider as wine, +washes the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed tobacco supplement it. +But when the appetite has retired and permitted some sharpness to the +ordinary senses, the travelers are amazed at the gradual and silent +increase which has taken place in their numbers. Every group of guests +is augmented by a circle of prone and creeping forms that, springing +apparently from the earth, are busily breaking the fragments of the +feast under the care of the servitors, who appear, rather to encourage +than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, being interrogated, replies calmly, +"They are Tofailians." + +The Tofailian is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly +into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a +certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules, +respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends +a wedding-feast," says one of his apophthegms, "having no invitation, +avoid glancing here and there dubiously. Choose the best place. If the +guests are numerous, pass through boldly without saluting any one, to +make the guests of the bride think you a friend of the bridegroom, and +those of the groom a friend of the bride." + +An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he saw two buttered pancakes in a +cloud, he would take his flight without hesitation." + +A Tofailian of marked genius once learned that a festival was going +on at a grand mansion. He ran thither, but the door was closed and +entrance impossible. Inquiring here and there, he learned that a son +of the house was absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly he procured +a sheet of parchment, folded it, and sealed it as usual with clay: he +rolled his garments in the dust and bent his spine painfully over a +long staff. Thus perfect in what an actor would call his reading, he +sent word to the host that a messenger had arrived from his son. "You +have seen him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, "and how did he bear +his fatigues?" "He was in excellent health," answered the Tofailian +very feebly. "Speak, speak!" cried the eager father, "and tell me +every detail: how far had he got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," +said the simple fellow. Directly he was seated at the highest place of +the feast, and every guest admired that splendid appetite--an appetite +quite professional, and cultivated as poulterers cultivate the +assimilative powers of livers. "Did my son send no letter?" asked the +poor father in a favorable interval caused by strangulation. "Surely," +replied the good friend, and, comprehending that the critical moment +had arrived, he drew to himself a chine of kid with one hand while he +unwound the letter from his turban with the other. The seal was still +moist, and the pilgrim had not found time to write anything on the +parchment. "Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host with the illumination +of a sudden idea. "Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, +struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble +thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined. + +Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a +proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure. + +[Illustration: POVERTY AND JEWELS.] + +The Algerine coast has enriched our language with at least two words, +respectively warlike and peaceful--_razzia_ and _fantasia_. The latter +is applied to a game of horsemanship, used to express joy or to honor +a distinguished friend. A spirited fantasia is organized by the guests +of the agha on returning to Akbou. Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen +having gone on before, and being completely lost to sight in the +whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden +reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they +gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until +at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the +horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading +as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, +shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine +horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up +to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque +expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere +be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game +with spirit, and the riders, secure in their castellated saddles, sit +with ease as they turn, leap or dance on two feet. Used, too, from +infancy to the society of their mares, they move with them in a degree +of unity, vigor and boldness which the English horseman never attains. +The Arab's love for his horse is not only the pride of the cavalier: +it is an article of faith, and the Prophet comprehended the close +unity between his nation and their beasts when he said, "The blessings +of this world, up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended to the +locks which our horses wear between their eyes." + +[Illustration: GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.] + +Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality has its advantages--on the side +of the obliged party. This haughty ruler, on the simple stress of +a letter from a French commandant, has made himself our servant and +teased his brain for devices to amuse us. His chief cook precedes us +to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange a sumptuous Arab supper. +After a ride made enervating by the simoom, we descend at the arcaded +and galleried Moorish house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, and are +visited by the sheikh of the college which the agha maintains. It is +a strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated to study and +hospitality. Chellata, white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic shadow +of the rock Tisibert, and in its graveyard, among the tombs of sacred +marabouts, walk the small bald-headed students reciting passages +of law or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over with institutions +(_zaouias_) similar to this, which, like monasteries of old, +combine the functions of seminaries and gratuitous inns. That of +Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which he contributes from his own purse a sum equal +to sixteen thousand dollars a year, is enshrined in buildings strewn +around the resting-place of his holy ancestors. The sacred koubba (or +dome) marking the bones of the marabout is swept by shadows of oak +and tamarind trees: professors stray in the shadow, and the pupils con +their tasks on the adjoining tombstones. + +Every impression of Chellata is silvered over, as with a moonlight of +beneficence, by the attentions of Ben-Ali's house-steward, who rains +upon our appetites a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, soothes us +with Moorish coffee, and finishes by the politeness of lighting and +taking the first whiff of our cigarette--a bit of courtesy that might +be spared, but common here as in parts of Spain. + +With daybreak we find the town of Chellata preparing to play its +rôle as a mart or place of industry. The labor seems at first sight, +however, to be confined to the children and the women: the former lead +the flocks out at sunrise to pasture in the mountain, the women make +the town ring with their busy work, whether of grinding at the mill, +weaving stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. The men are at work +in the fields, from which they return at nightfall, sullen, hardy and +silent, in their tattered haiks. These are never changed among the +poor working-people, for the scars of a bornouse are as dignified as +those of the body, and are confided with the garment by a father to +his son. The women, as we have remarked before, are in a state of +far greater liberty than are the female Arabs, but it is more than +anything else the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers the wife +is a chattel from whom it is permissible to extract all the usefulness +possible, and whom it is allowable to sell when a bargain can be +struck. The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is her errand to the +fountain. This is sometimes situated in the valley, far from the +nodding pillar or precipice on which the town is built. There the +traveler finds the good wives talking and laughing together, bending +their lively--sometimes blonde and blue-eyed--faces together over +their jars, and gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets around +Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles--differing therein from the +Arabs--provide a fountain for either sex; and a visit by a man to the +women's fountain is charged, in their singular code of penal fines, +"inspired by Allah," a sum equal to five dollars, or half as much as +the theft of an ox. + +By the white light of day-dawn we quit Chellata, with the naked crests +of the Djurjura printing themselves on the starry vault behind us and +the valley below bathed in clouds. As we descend we seem to waken the +white, red-roofed villages with our steps. The plateaus are gradually +enlivened with spreading herds and men going forth to labor. We skirt +the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, crowned with its marabout's tomb. The +plains at our feet are green and glorious, pearled with white, distant +villages. Opposite the precipice the granite rocks open to let us pass +by a narrow portal where formerly the Kabyles used to stand and levy +a toll on all travelers. This straitened gorge, where snow abounds in +winter, and which has various narrow fissures, is named the Defile +of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways of several tribes, but is +impassable from December to April from the snow and the storms which +rage among the cliffs. We are still four thousand feet above the +plain, whose depth the swimming eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the +snowy peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending chains of rocks +mingled with flint and lime, we attain a more clement landscape. +Kabyle girls crowd around a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, a +naked boy plays melancholy tunes on a reed, and the signs of a lower +level are abundant in the fields of corn and orchards of olive. But +the rugged mountains, in whose grasp we have found so many wonders, +are not left without regret. The most picturesque part of our +course is now behind us, and as day dies upon our crossing through +Iferaouenen, we turn back to behold the fine line of the mountains, +half sad and regretful, + + While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. + +Fourteen expeditions were found necessary by the French between 1838 +and 1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under leaders such as Ben-Salem, +Ben-Kassim, the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, and other +chiefs less celebrated, defended their territory step by step. In the +great chastisement of 1857, Marshal Randon, after subduing this part +of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined to preserve the fruits of +victory by two new constructions--a fort and a military road. France +was to reside among her unwilling colonists, and she was to possess +an avenue of escape. The building of these two conveniences, as we +may call them, over the smoking ruins of victory, was a conspicuous +example of the excellent engineering genius of the nation. An English +officer, Lieutenant-colonel Walmsley, witnessed, and has left a +spirited account of, the great conquest, and the immediate improvement +of it. The strongholds of the Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were +taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was soon to fall, yielding +only to the assault of the Foreign Legion--that troop of Arabs and of +Kabyles from the Zouaoua plain wherefrom we derive the word _zouave_. +Marshal Randon selected for his fort the key of the whole district: it +was a place known as the Souk-el-Arba ("Market of Wednesday"). It was +in the heart of the Beni Raten land, and in a spot where three great +mountain-ridges ran down into the plain of the Sebaou. These ridges, +subdued and friendly, would be held in respect by the garrison of the +fort, and the other ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would likewise +terminate at the fort. The works were immediately laid out and quickly +built. As the road sprang into its level flight like magic, the +peeping Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they were conquered, laughed +in derision. "It is to help the cowards to run away," they said. In +due time rose the pale walls of the citadel, with mountains above and +hills below. The Kabyles call it the White Phantom. Their songs, the +"traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite the building of the terrible +stronghold: "The Roumi has arrived at the Market: he is building +there. Weep, O my eyes! tears of blood. The children of Raten are +valiant men: they are known as masters of the warlike art. They fell +upon the enemy at Icheriden. The Franks fell like lopped branches. +Glory to those brave men! But the Roumi has peeled us like seeds. The +powder talks no more. The warlike men are fainting. Cover thyself with +mourning, O my head!" + +As the tourist turns the summit of Aboudid suddenly appears, like an +ornamental detail in a panorama, this vast fortress, originally +named Fort Napoléon, and since the collapse of the empire called Fort +National. During the French troubles of 1871, in the month of August, +General Cérès was obliged to inspire terror by burning the village of +Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and then went on to relieve the fort. When the +next opportunity will occur for the Beni Raten to assert their rights +it is impossible to tell. We descend from the fort, and all becomes +commonplace. The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in its valley-bed are +being replaced by new buildings. All wears a look of every-day thrift. +The Arab, moving his household goods, drives before him his poor +dingy wife, loaded down with worthless valuables and also with copper +jewels, in which she clanks like a fettered slave. A negro musician +from the Desert, a true African minstrel, capers before us and beats +the tom-tom, until, distracted with his noise, we pay him and bombard +him off the face of the road with projectiles. + +From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is but four hours' journey, and +the four hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, our circumstances are +subdued to the conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our spahi guides, +like figures from _Lalla Rookh!_ Adieu, our dream of an African +Switzerland! The Roumi, outside of Kabylia, quickly fades into the +light of common day, and becomes plain Tom or Harry. + + + + +A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867. + + +"And you traveled alone?" + +"There were two of us--Annie Foster and I." + +"You found no difficulty?" + +"Not a bit," she replied laughing. + +"But you had adventures: I see it in your face." + +"Who would travel without adventures?" and she made an expressive +gesture. + +"Romantic?" + +"Hm!--_tant soit peu_." + +"I am all attention: begin." + +"You promise not to tell?" + +"Not for the world: torture could not induce me to divulge a single +word." + +"Well, the way it came about was this: Annie and I had been sent from +England to a small French town on the coast, for the benefit of the +warm sea-water baths. It was a quaint little port; all the houses +reminded you of ships in their fitting up; the beds were set into the +wall like berths; closets were stowed away in all sorts of impossible +places; the floors were uncarpeted and white as a main deck; and +articles from distant countries hung about the walls or stood in the +corners--East Indian sugar-cane, cotton from America, Chinese +crockery and piles of sea-shells. The great sea by which we lodged was +represented everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps and water-fowl--our +acquaintance, fishermen, shrimpers and sailors. The leading event of +the day was the coming in and going out of the tide, and ducks and +geese were the chief domestic animals. On one side was a prospect of +wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, on the other wind-beaten +fields and the sails of mills: the few cabins that had rashly ventured +beyond the protection of the village shortly lost courage, and, with +their thatched roofs not a yard from the earth, seemed crouching low +to avoid the continuous blasts. The church alone on the high sea-wall +raised itself fearlessly against the tyrant, and though his baffled +voice still howled without, within the pious prayed securely before a +faith-inspiring altarpiece of Christ stilling the tempest. + +"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted every amusement that the dull +town afforded, become intimate with all the old gossips, tired of +listening to the yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven the donkeys +over the country until they instinctively avoided us whenever +we appeared, sailed in the bay and suffered periodic attacks of +sea-sickness therefrom, finished the circulating library, and half +learned some barbarous sentences of Norman patois, we sat down +disconsolate one afternoon to devise some means of employing the +remainder of our time. It was then that the bright idea struck Annie, +and she exclaimed, 'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!' + +"'Just the thing!' I answered with enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next +train starts?' + +"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and pack the trunks. If we can get +off to-day, by to-morrow morning we can begin seeing it;' and she left +the room in great excitement. + +"The result was, that by seven o'clock that evening we had made our +hasty preparations, and were ready to set out. It was raining terribly +when the only hack of the village (which, by the by, was an omnibus) +called for us at the door. The dripping fluid oozed and sparkled over +the blinking lamps, the ribbed sides of the antiquated machine were +varnished with moisture, and the horses looked as if each hair was a +water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's patriarchal mansion might +have presented a similar appearance during the first days of that +celebrated wet season. + +"The motherly woman with whom we had been boarding turned dismally +from the weather to her invalids and tried to dissuade us from leaving +that night, little understanding that we considered it 'fun.' As +a parting advice she told us to call each other _madame_: it would +procure us more consideration. 'For you know, young ladies,' she +remonstrated mildly, 'it is not quite proper for you to travel alone.' +After this prudent counsel and many warm adieus we sallied forth. + +"The omnibus was crowded, and I had perforce to sit on Annie's knees. +This, with the jolting, the queer effect of the half-light in the +rickety interior, together with the expression of the good people, who +evidently could see no fun in rain, excited my risibility so strongly +that I indulged in a smothered laugh, tempered to fit the publicity of +the occasion. + +"'You must not laugh in France,' whispered Nan, pulling my dress. + +"'I thought the French admired gayety,' I answered in the same tone. + +"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.' + +"The rest of the way was accomplished in silence. We soon arrived +at the station and bought our tickets. Of course we had half a dozen +bundles: in gathering them up a most gentlemanly person accosted us +and asked, 'Avez vous perdu quelque chose, mademoiselle?' + +"Annie replied in the negative with great dignity, and so cut off any +chance of adventure in that quarter. + +"On came the train. In France there is fortunately a provision made +for women traveling without an escort. In your country they have, I +believe, smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: in that blessed +land there is a compartment for 'ladies alone,' or _Dames Seules,_ +as it is called. A good American once read this inscription with much +commiseration, _D---- souls_, and returning told his friends that the +'wicked' French allowed His Satanic Majesty the right of running a +special car on their roads for his greater accommodation. + +"As we were hastening to this most desired refuge I noticed two very +student-looking young men walking near us, and caught a bit of their +conversation. + +"'They will.' + +"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it we go up in the same car with +them.' + +"'I told you so!' + +"As we found our car and entered the students passed on, not daring to +ignore the magic words on the door; so Adventure No. 2 was nipped in +the bud. + +"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, and we sank back into the +soft cushions with the pleasant sense that no further effort would +be needed during the journey. We had been told that the train would +arrive in Paris about midnight, but the lateness of the hour caused +us no uneasiness, as we had been there before and remembered the city +pretty well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed in our ability to +take care of ourselves. + +"In an interval of wakefulness we discussed our plans, and concluded +to spend the night at some hotel near the station, the next morning +looking up our friends (several of whom we knew to be in town) and +consulting them about our future proceedings, feeling that a midnight +visit from us would scarcely be welcome to any one. Annie recalled a +fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, and, having made our +selection in its favor, we dozed off again very comfortably. + +"I think we had been on the way some four hours when the welcome +lights began to appear--first in the sky above the city, as if the +earth in this favored spot threw out rays like the sun; next through +the darkness over the country below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise +into the earth under the busy streets and fortifications, to emerge at +the end of our route. + +"We gathered up our bundles in haste, thanking the stars that we had +accomplished our ride so safely, and were walking off to the hotel +when we suddenly thought of the trunks. Another consultation was held, +and we decided to leave them in the baggage-room until morning. + +"'But we must go and see that they are safe,' suggested Annie. + +"'Where is the baggage-room?' I asked of a porter. + +"'This way, mademoiselle.' + +"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in a weak voice. + +"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite official as we entered +the door, and another laid hands on the satchels we carried, to +examine them. + +"We had entirely forgotten the octroi officers. 'Oh my! this affair +may keep us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I am so sleepy!' I +have often found (I confide this to you as an inviolable secret) that +to be unreasonable is a woman's strongest weakness: it is a shield +against which man's sharpest logic is invariably turned aside. The +next thing to there not being a necessity, is not seeing a necessity, +and this I prepared in the most innocent manner to do. + +"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed--or its French equivalent, which I suppose +is 'Mon Dieu'--'you don't mean to detain us here opening those bags, +and we so tired, and they packed so full that we could scarcely shut +them; and if you _do_ open them, we cannot get all the things into +them again, and shall have no end of trouble!' Then I looked as +injured as if they had been thieves or highway-men. + +"Had a man made this speech they would have mistrusted him, but as +women have a reputation for shallowness, such talk is never thought +suspicious in them. + +"'What do they contain?' asked the officer, hesitating. + +"'I don't know what all: we have been at the sea-side, and they are +full of trash. There are some shells and an old hat in mine, and--and +things.' + +"He tried to conceal a smile, and looked toward the other, who nodded, +and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in chalk, upon which the bags were +given back to us. + +"'Now the trunks,' said the first who had spoken, holding out his hand +for the keys. + +"'Oh, we are going to leave them here till to-morrow: they are all +right--you can mark them too;' and without further ceremony we moved +toward the door. One of the men stepped after us. I thought it was to +make us return, but it was only to ask if he should get us a carriage. + +"We thanked him and replied that we were going to the hotel opposite, +and did not need one: he then turned to a person who seemed to be the +porter of the establishment, and told him to carry our satchels for +us. Now we felt our journey was well at an end, for the windows of our +welcome asylum were blazing not more than a hundred feet off. + +"We crossed the street, rang at the ladies' entrance and asked for +rooms. After a few moments the servant returned, and, much to our +chagrin, said that there were none to be had, every corner was full. + +"'Do let us see the clerk. We _must_ have a room: you can surely find +us one somewhere.' + +"The man shook his head. + +"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we shall be satisfied with +anything for the night. Won't you go and ask again?' + +"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, à cause de l'Exposition;' +and he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to every other effort at +persuasion that we made. + +"Just then a chambermaid passed. 'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you +find us a room? I will pay you;' and I put my hand significantly in my +pocket. + +"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,' + +"This was a contingency we had not provided for: we looked at each +other blankly, and, though loath to do so, we both came to the +conclusion that they were telling the truth. + +"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, speaking to me in English. + +"'I suppose we shall have to take a carriage and go down town, after +all,' + +"'They may be full there too,' she said in a rueful tone. + +"Just then the porter with our satchels spoke: 'There is another hotel +near, ladies, and if you will come I will show you to it,' + +"I consulted Annie with a look, and she assented. Any prospect was +better than a midnight drive of several miles, with no certainty as to +our lot at the end of it. So we turned from the inhospitable door and +followed our guide. + +"The latter walked quickly for perhaps a square, stopped before a +neat-looking house and rang. Our courage rose as the door opened and +revealed a clean-looking court surrounded by orange trees in boxes, +with small coffee-tables under them for the convenience of the guests. + +"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded our attendant with the voice of a +herald. + +"The trim but sleepy servant looked at us a moment, as if not +comprehending the situation, then slowly pronounced our sentence in +two words, 'No rooms!' and as if to emphasize them threw up the palms +of his hands, shook his head and added 'Full!' after which he closed +the door with a hasty click and returned to his nap. + +"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed with this reception--not +more so than we were--but without allowing us time to speak he said +in his most reassuring voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there are plenty +of hotels about here, and we shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having +undertaken the task, he seemed to think it his duty to comfort and +provide for us. + +"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. Two other hotels were +successively tried in vain, and still our indefatigable guide went +on. It appeared as if we had walked a considerable distance, but the +streets cut each other at odd angles, and we had been turning so often +that I confess I had but little idea where we were, or how far we had +come, when we entered a quarter where the ways became narrower, passed +into a dingy alley, thence plunged through a still darker court, from +that to another alley, and the next moment our porter was ringing at +the door of a tall, sombre house. I truly hoped that we should not +find rooms here, and was turning to Annie to advise a cab and an +attempt in a more civilized-looking locality, when the bell was +answered and the old question repeated. + +"To my surprise and dismay the servant said they could accommodate us. +Should we stay? I knew that in the older parts of Paris the best of +houses are sometimes found in the poorer streets, and that in no city +is a person less able to judge of the interior comfort of a building +by its external aspect. We were very tired, and should we turn away +from this open door where should we find another open for us? The +porter, however good-natured, could not continue to run about with us +all night, and our faith in ourselves was considerably diluted since +we left the cars: even a cab might be difficult to get at this hour +of the night. Annie did not object: indeed, she looked too worn out to +have an opinion in the matter, and as I could think of nothing better +to do, I began to make the usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining +rooms?' + +"'Yes, mademoiselle.' + +"I remembered the advice that had been given us on starting: here +surely was a place to use it, so I said to the servant in a marked +tone, 'Take _madame's_ bag and show us to our chambers.' + +"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered with the most provoking +coolness. + +"I dismissed our faithful porter with regret, and followed the +other up stairs. While ascending I racked my brain to determine +what peculiarity of manner we could adopt that would give us a more +matronly air while traveling, but I could think of nothing. I may as +well tell you now that we never for an instant deceived any one on +this subject during our stay, and we soon ceased trying to do so. + +"Our rooms were much better than I had expected to find them, but even +this caused in me a feeling of doubt. They had a hypocritical air, a +grasping after appearances that I believe always accompanies deceit +and imposition--a sleek shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct +that if I examined I should find the carpets worn out under the mats, +and the chairs faded beneath their smart chintz covers. There was not +a candid-looking piece of furniture in the apartment: the table was an +impostor with one short leg; the drawers of the bureau would not open; +the glasses were all askew, and twisted your face to such a degree +that it frightened you to catch a glimpse of yourself in passing. But +this was not the worst: from the moment I entered the rooms I felt +that they _had been waiting for us_. + +"I did not venture to mention my suspicions to Annie, and tried to +keep up a cheery sort of conversation while we undressed, but I could +see that she too began to be uneasy. We carefully inspected our doors, +and found the locks were good, then looked to see that there was no +one lurking under the beds. It would be difficult to tell you exactly +what I feared, but somehow everything impressed me as mysterious--the +quiet of the streets through which we had come, and the quiet of the +house. It was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: our feet echoed +on the stairways as if human feet seldom ascended them; the shadows +appeared especially dark; our candles' small light made little +impression on the gloom; the very air seemed harder to breathe than +ordinary; and on recalling the face of the impertinent servant I +thought that it had a sinister look. + +"I tried to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but +could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into +arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the +window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased, +darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood +there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then +_one_, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing I was glad +to know--namely, that we could not have wandered very far during our +walk; but there was little comfort in that, after all, since the walk +had terminated here. + +"Stories that I had read of strange adventures and accidents to +midnight guests now trooped into my head. I thought of one in +particular, in which the tester of the bed slowly descended to smother +the sleeping inmate for purposes of robbery; whereupon I minutely +examined mine, and found to my satisfaction that it was scarcely able +to discharge the single duty of holding up the curtains, and looked +most innocent of further intentions. Finding myself again peering into +corners I had already searched, and feeling this general unrest to +be growing upon me, I began to think I must be nervous from +over-exertion, and determined to get rid of my silly fancies in sleep. +Then, as if to take myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out the light, +sprang under the covers and shut my eyes tight, afraid that something +hateful might glare upon me in the dark. + +"Just then Annie came to the communicating doorway, and with an effort +to speak in her natural voice she said, 'Jane, I am going to +sleep here.' And as if this endeavor had consumed her last bit of +resistance, she closed and locked the door quickly, ran to my bed and +threw herself shivering beside me. + +"'What is the matter?' I whispered, feeling my presentiment of evil +confirmed. + +"She put her lips to my ear and answered, 'I found a door in my room +behind the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't know _where_." + +"'Did you open it?' + +"'No indeed! I would not open it for the world. There might be +something horrible in it;' and she shuddered. + +"'You have left your light burning.' + +"'I don't care. I won't go back: no indeed, I _could_ not.' There +was silence for a few minutes: neither of us moved, when Nan again +whispered, 'Do you think this room quite safe?' + +"'I looked all around before I blew out the light.' + +"'Did you look _behind_ your curtains?' + +"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable sensation. + +"'You are next the wall: feel along it,' in her most persuasive voice. + +"The very idea made me creep. Put my hand behind those curtains and +touch--what? Even the cold wall would be sufficient to terrify me. For +reply I remarked suggestively, 'If we had the light we could see.' + +"'Yes, that would be just the thing. Go bring it--do!' + +"I felt that something must be done, and soon, or I should be in no +state to accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I must: when we had the +light half our trouble would be over, and, after all, she might have +been mistaken. + +"'Did the door move?' I ventured to ask. + +"'No, it didn't do anything--at least I don't think it did--but it +_looked_ so awful that it frightened me.' + +"'That light in there may set something on fire,' I remarked. + +"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a minute. Do go!' + +"'You are sure the door didn't open?' I asked, far from liking my +task. + +"'I will go with you half-way,' she volunteered, 'and stand there +while you run in quick. Come on, and don't let us talk any more about +it: we shall only get more and more frightened.' You will see that +Annie's gifts lay more in persuasion than in action. + +"Thus adjured, I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously +listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was +oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an +effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the +key and opened the door. + +"At that moment it seemed to me that I heard distant footsteps. I +rushed for the light and turned to go back, when I ran against some +one: the candle was extinguished by being jerked from the holder to +the floor, and a hand which I vainly tried to shake off clasped my +arm. My blood grew thick and still with sudden terror. I tried to +speak, but could not. What increased my dread was that I could not +tell whether the _Thing_ by my side was a reality or a spectre. I had +caught a glimpse of something white as the light disappeared, and I +believe that a pistol at my head would have caused me less alarm than +this horrible idea of the supernatural. I began to feel that I could +endure it no longer, that I should stifle, should die, when Annie's +voice spoke in the darkness quite near, and I found it was she who had +grasped my arm. + +"'I could not stay in that room alone,' she whispered. 'Don't you +hear?--_footsteps!_ They are coming.' + +"'You have half frightened me to death,' I murmured trembling: 'I +thought you were something.' + +"'No, I ain't anything, but something _is_ coming. Don't you hear?' + +"It was true enough. Through the quiet of the house came stealthy +footsteps. Nearer, nearer. They were ascending the stairs, at times +delaying an instant, as if groping for the way, then on. + +"'Come into your room,' said Annie convulsively: 'come, and we can +lock ourselves in. Oh, where _is_ your door? I cannot find it, and +they are coming. What shall we do? what shall we do?' + +"We were in total darkness: not a ray of light came from the window, +and in our confusion we had lost our bearings. Neither of us had the +least idea in what direction the other room lay. + +"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps we may find it. Do try,' said +I. + +"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we had never come. I am dying.' She +was shaking with fright, and would not leave my arm for an instant. + +"Just then, from somewhere near us, we could not tell from what +side, came a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, with such a +summons in its tone, that I shivered: then a faint movement followed +from the same place. + +"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped Annie: 'it is in that door: +they are coming, they are here. Shall I scream murder? shall I?' +giving my arm an emphasizing grip. + +"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.' + +"She groaned, slipped down on her knees, with one arm still round +me, her face pressed against my side, holding her other hand over the +unprotected ear, so that she should hear no more; and in this position +she began to repeat 'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as fast as she +could gabble it. + +"I was no less frightened, and would willingly have crouched down +also, but she held me so tight that I could not without a struggle, +and above all things I did not want to make a noise. + +"It was thus we awaited the crisis. The steps were certainly coming to +our room, but whether by the door we had entered or by the one Annie +had seen behind the bed, I could not tell. I was too bewildered to +locate the sound, nor did I know whether the bed was at my right or +left hand. I had a slight hope that the steps might pass on. + +"It was for that I waited. + +"They came--near, nearer. For a time my heart ceased beating. Annie +slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, and I could no longer hear +her breathe. My whole being was merged in listening to that step. I +could feel that now it was on a level with our room--was there almost +beside us. Lightly though distinctly a hand passed over the door, as +if fumbling for the latch. This was the intense moment. Had the person +paused or hesitated an instant, I think it would have killed us both. +But no, he did not falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by the hand, +went as it had come, and as I stood, not daring to move, I heard it +receding in the distance of the great house. Then all was silence. + +"When sensation returned to me I felt as if I had awakened from a +nightmare, and found myself shaking from the nervous reaction and the +cold. I stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, and said through my +chattering teeth, 'It must have been only a late boarder. Don't be +afraid. It is all over: come, get up.' + +"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. 'I cannot move until you have a +light. I am still afraid.' + +"I now remembered that the bureau must be behind me, for I had merely +turned when I encountered Annie and dropped the candle. There were +probably matches upon it: yes, there they were. I struck one and +easily found the candle: then Annie rose with the meekest air +possible, and, without looking at the obnoxious corner where the bed +stood, we walked into the other room and locked the door. + +"It was not until the gray morning light crept into the window that we +felt quite safe. Every crack in the floor or nibbling mouse caused us +to start, and at each quarter the clock of the station would strike +as if to warn us to be on the alert. But the bed was not bad, and the +house remained quiet; and as soon as the dawn made our candle useless, +we began to think we had been very foolish, and the result was a sound +sleep. + +"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: the morning was bright and clear, +and the terrors of the night had all departed during our refreshing +rest. The room certainly looked shabby, but if that were a crime, half +the houses in the world would be sent to prison. There was nothing in +the least mysterious about it. Our courage rose with the day, and we +teased and joked each other about our fright. Then, anticipating the +glories of the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves that we had +come. + +"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie as she was dressing: 'we will +go down town to a nice restaurant, and sit at a window and see the +people go by. Afterward we will look up our friends and find a good +hotel or boarding-house; and we _must_ go to the Exposition this very +day. We shall have a famous time. We can make up parties to drive out, +and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, and to the theatre. Ain't +you glad you came?' + +"'The first thing we do must be to go back to the station and leave +these bags with our trunks until we find lodgings,' I remarked. + +"Nan went into the next room to get some of the clothing she had left +there. When she returned, lowering her voice she said, 'Jane, there +_is_ a door behind my curtains.' + +"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose it is a closet.' + +"'No such thing: it don't look like a closet; and why would they hide +a closet, I should like to know? Come in and see it.' + +"She walked back, and as I followed drew the curtain aside, and there +in fact it was. + +"'I am going to open it before I leave the room,' she said in a +determined tone: 'there is something not right about it.' + +"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some one may be in there.' + +"'I am going to see: I must look into it. It is daylight, you know, +and we sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to push away the bed.' + +"'I won't do anything so absurd. This is a hotel, Annie, and there +must be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose that room is now +occupied by a boarder?' + +"'If it is occupied they will lock the door on the other side, and I +will try the latch softly to see; but I know it is not. Don't you +see that the only entrance must be from here? There is the entry. +opposite, and here is the court: now, how could any one get into it +but through this room? It must be a small place, too, for here is +the corner of the house, and it has been evidently planned to be kept +_concealed_." + +"'No matter: we have no right to any rooms but these we are in. Come +away, and let well enough alone.' + +"'It is not "well enough," as you call it. I am going to see into +it, and why they hide it. I declare,' and she examined the door +critically, 'it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look +at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been +a struggle. It is our duty to investigate;' and her voice grew +impressive. 'Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose, +and, Jane, if there _is_ a dead body in there, I shall inform the +police.' Annie was very brave in daylight. + +"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine speech. 'What you call duty, +I call curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and I wish you would finish +dressing and let us get to breakfast.' + +"'I will just tell you this,' she answered indignantly, and yet with a +quiver in her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I did last night when +I saw that door. It was quite like what people write of a mysterious +influence, or the presence of some one unseen; and that whistle or +voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, came from here; and you must +help me to find out what it really was, for I can't go away without +knowing.' + +"I saw it was useless to try longer to dissuade her. The bed moved +easily: she took my hand and led me behind it; then warily tried the +latch. It rose, but she was obliged to lean all her weight against the +door before it would give way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly +that she almost fell forward. + +"What did I see? At the first glimpse a faint light from a cobwebbed +window, a narrow room and a floor--red. Was it blood? A sickening +mouldy smell came forth, but as I forced myself to look again I saw +that it was only red tiles that had startled me. There was an upright +brick range in a corner, an old water-tank, some shelves and a +cupboard. A missing pane of glass left a space through which the air +had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above +the range. This was the ominous 'signal' we had heard in answer to the +footsteps. The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs +of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. We stood still for a few +moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult 'influence' that +had so subtly acted on Annie's nerves, and filled me with no less +terror. + +"The house had been built for a _hôtel garni_; that is, a house with +furnished rooms or apartments, something like a tenement-house in your +country. This was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged to the two +rooms we had taken. Being unused for its proper object, and too small +for a bed-chamber, it had been closed, and appeared as if it had been +unentered for years. I turned to Annie to see how she would bear this +prosaic explanation of our alarm, but with the air of one who had +expected nothing but this from the beginning, she remarked, 'Now you +see how much better it is to look into such things. This room would +have furnished me with bad dreams for the remainder of my life, and +here I find it is only a commonplace kitchen. Think how ludicrous to +have the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I tell of your fright when +we get home--how you didn't want to open the door, and wanted to 'let +well enough alone'? The place _might_ be haunted by the ghost of +a chicken or a rabbit, but, my dear, you should not allow that to +terrify you.' + +"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken that you feared last night, +and that caused your presentiments this morning. I hope you will +inform the police of what you have discovered here,' I remarked +quietly. + +"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will say no more. We were both +boobies. But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you and me, and make +our own breakfast? Look at the hole for charcoal, and the little +cupboard, the nails for the pots and pans to hang on: everything is +complete. That room could be for dining, the other a parlor, and--' + +"'The only drawback would be that, except at the North Pole, the night +comes once in twenty-four hours.' + +"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in here a minute: it's a dear little +place.' + +"'You will certainly make a housekeeper if a kitchen gives you such +ecstasy. Come out, I am so hungry. Put on your bonnet and leave this +elysium: I have had enough of it.' + +"'You come in for a second: it will shake the terror off and you +won't dream of it. That is a cure my old nurse once gave me for laying +ghosts.' + +"'It may be a good plan to shake off the terror, but the dust on you +will not be shaken off so easily.' + +"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot--'suppose that the floor should +be hollow, and that this were only a pretended kitchen after all, or +that there was a trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a sliding +panel.' Here she felt over the surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel +so queer last night if this was really nothing but a kitchen?' + +"'Because you are a goose,' I answered impatiently, 'and if you don't +come I will leave you. If you like, you can engage boarding here for a +week, and raise the tiles one by one with a knife and fork. As for me, +I am going to breakfast.' + +"'But don't you think it really has an uncanny look?' she asked, +giving a last glance over her shoulder as she came out. + +"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is plenty of that. Shut the door, +and I will push back the bed.' + +"'Jane,' she again remarked as she was trying on her bonnet before the +crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this night, I think I will say that +there _was_ a trap-door in the kitchen: you know there might be one +and we not see it.' + +"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as I could, 'I suppose a fib more +or less will make but little difference in your lifetime. While you +are at it, however, you may as well make a few more additions.' + +"'Now you are unkind.' + +"'A person is not accountable for temper when famishing. Take up your +satchel.' + +"We found the house a most every-day-looking house, seen by sunlight; +but there had lain the difficulty. The clerk in the office did not +particularly resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, and, strange to +say, did not overcharge us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. We found +we were not far from the station, and depositing our bags there, we +walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette. + +"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel alone in this way,' said +Nan gayly, her spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When I was here +before with all the family, it was not near so jolly; and I think we +manage well, don't you? Oh, there is an omnibus not _complet_: let us +get in. I am too hungry to walk.' + +"After we were seated she continued: 'I wonder what will happen to +us to-night. Suppose we find every place full, and have to sleep in a +garden or on the steps of a church, or something? Isn't it delightful +not to know in the least what is going to happen next?--just as in +fairy-land. Don't you hope we may have an adventure every night?' + +"'I should not call last night an adventure: it seems to me it was +more like a panic,' I said drily. + +"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' in a hurt tone: then +recovering her good temper, she went on: 'Well, call it a panic if +you like. Now, suppose we had one every night, and we stayed here two +weeks, there would be fourteen panics before we go home. Wouldn't that +be glorious?' + +"'You did not appear to enjoy it so much last night.' + +"'At the time I did not,' she admitted frankly. 'Weren't we +frightened? But then, you know, how nice it will be to talk of it +afterward!' + +"We arrived at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and found a seat by +the window, and a breakfast. We had already finished the latter, and +were playing with our fruit, when a party entered who attracted our +attention by speaking English. + +"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie whispered excitedly. 'I know her +well: hadn't we better run away? What will she think of our being here +alone?' + +"'Nonsense! You had better ask her where she is staying. Remember, we +are houseless as yet.' + +"'I don't like to ask her.' + +"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The idea of spending the night in a +garden or on a church-step did not possess the same charms for me as +for Nan. Thus prompted, she walked forward and spoke to her friend, +afterward presenting me. We chatted a few minutes, when Miss Rodgers +asked Annie where she was staying, and how her mamma was. + +"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's embarrassed reply. + +"I went to her rescue, and diverted the questions by asking some +myself: 'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? We do not like our hotel +and want to change.' + +"'There is not a room in our house that is unoccupied, and you won't +find good accommodation anywhere. You had better not change if you +have a place to lay your head. Paris is so crowded that everything +has been taken up long ago. You can ask at a dozen hotels or +boarding-houses and not find a garret to let. You have no idea of the +difficulty.' + +"Yes, we had an idea, and believed every word she said: in fact, +we would rather have felt less convinced on the subject. Even Annie +seemed to think that traveling alone might present some disagreeable +features, and looked quite unhappy, notwithstanding her love of +adventure. But before our mental anguish had time to become unbearable +a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, spoke: 'Auntie, if the young +ladies would like, I know of just the place that would suit them.' +Then turning to us, she continued: 'I am at school a few miles out of +the city, and madame told me that if I knew of any one, she had room +for a few parlor-boarders. It is a lovely spot, and no end of trains +coming and going all day; so that it would be just as convenient as +living here, and you would have excellent accommodation. Then, too, +I could speak English to you sometimes. I am so tired of talking for +ever without half knowing what I am saying.' + +"I could have embraced the chatterbox on the spot for this opportune +proposal, but controlled my feelings and looked at Nan to see if +she approved. She was consenting with every one of her expressive +features, and did not appear at all anxious to enjoy one of her +fourteen delightful panics this evening if it could be avoided. +Being spokesman, I said, 'I would willingly try the school on your +recommendation, Miss Ada, if you think madame could be ready for us +this evening.' + +"'Of course she could: come out with me now and see her. I must go +at one, and can show you the way. Will you meet me at the station? or +shall we call for you at your hotel?' + +"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, glad to settle it so +quickly, 'if you are quite sure that your madame will like our +unceremonious arrival.' + +"'That will be all right, I know. She has several empty rooms, and +will be happy to have them filled. You can leave your trunks until +to-morrow if you don't like to come bag and baggage.' + +"We needed no further pressing. Here was deliverance and safety, and +we bade good-morning to the party with light hearts. + +"We found the school all that Miss Ada had promised, and thus ended +the nearest approach to an adventure that we had during the two weeks +that we remained." + +"And now tell me about the Exposition." + +"Well, we saw it." + +"Saw what?" + +"Why, everything." + +"Describe it to me." + +"Certainly. In the first place, it was very big, and everybody was +there, so it was crowded; and you met your friends and you talked; +and--and you got fearfully tired; and it was wonderful; and there were +ever so many restaurants, and a soda-water fountain, and queer things +that you never expected to see there, like the Mexican techcatl and +Russian horses; and everything was _real_--real lace and cashmeres and +diamonds, and nothing but what was very nice. But, after all, I think +you had better get a file of old newspapers and read about it, for I +really have no talent for description--or, better still, go and see +the one in Vienna this summer." + +ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + + + +SLAINS CASTLE. + + +In traveling over the old lands of Europe one is sometimes apt to +think more of historical and genealogical traditions than of the +natural beauties or peculiarities of the country. The old landmarks +of a nation, whether monuments built by the hand of man or archives +carefully preserved by him, tell us of its growth, just as the strata +of the mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; and as every +successive layer has some relation both to its predecessor and its +successor, so the traditions of each generation have a perceptible +influence upon the moral development of the generation following. +Every nation is thus the growing fruit of its own history, and every +visible step of the grand ladder of facts that has led up to the +present result must needs have for a student of human nature an +intrinsic interest. + +This comes very clearly before my mind as I think of Slains Castle +(Aberdeen), a massive crown of granite set on the brow of the rocks of +the German Ocean, and the seat of one of those old Scottish families +whose origin is hidden away among the suggestive mists of tradition. + +Slains Castle stands alone, a giant watchman upon giant cliffs, +built up only one story high, on account of the tremendous winds that +prevail there in spring and autumn, and cased with the gray Aberdeen +granite of the famous quarries near by. The surrounding country is +as bare and uninviting as one could imagine; the road from Aberdeen +(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the young trees near the castle are +stunted, and in many cases disfigured by the inroads of hungry cows +among their lower branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs perpetually +over the scene, softening the landscape, but sometimes depressing +the spirits. As the hours pass the place grows on you: a weird beauty +begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the +restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself +displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the +desolate sea. + +The original building is of the time of James VI. (of Scotland), and +is due to Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more ancient castle, bearing +the same name, was destroyed by the king to punish his vassal for +the part he had taken in a rebellion. In the seventeenth century Earl +Gilbert made great improvements in it, and early in the eighteenth +Earl Charles added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt by Earl William +George, the father of the present owner, with the exception of the +lower part of the original tower. In this there used to be in olden +times an _oubliette_ in which unhappy prisoners were let down. All at +first appeared dark around them, but when they had thankfully assured +themselves that they at last stood upon solid ground, they would look +about them and presently descry a line of fitful light coming from a +door ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims would then go in haste +to this door, pull it open and, blinded by the sudden light, step out +upon the green slope terminating quickly in a precipice, which went +sheer down to the sea. + +The rest of the house is built around a large covered piazza, +intersected by corridors where pictures, armor and all kinds of old +family relics decorate the walls. The drawing-room is on the very edge +of the rock, and on stormy days the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost +flap their wings against its window-panes, while the clouds of +spray dash up against them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks in the +immediate neighborhood of the castle are rugged in the extreme, here +and there rent by a gigantic fissure reaching far inland, and up which +the foaming waters gurgle continually as if in impatience of their +narrow bounds, now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic staircase +and thickly matted with coarse sea-weed, and again reared up on high, +a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny for the steadiest foot, and +with Niagaras of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging face. +In wonderful hollows you will come upon pools of green water with +sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of pink, yellow or purple hue, and +gem-like shells resting on a bottom of clearest sand; and while the +waves are roaring on every side, and flinging their dampness into your +very face, these fairy pools will lie at your feet without a breath or +ripple on their surface. + +The most magnificent of these rocks is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug" +("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of the white sea-gulls. It stands +alone, as if torn from the land and hurled into the tossing waves +by some giant hand. Two hundred feet in height and a thousand in +circumference, it forms a natural arch, being pierced from its base +upward by an opening that widens as it ascends. The waves dash through +it with terrific violence, and the very sight of its grim splendor +conjures up a vision of shipwreck and danger. Scott has made +mention of it in _The Antiquary_, and Johnson in his _Journey to the +Hebrides_, recalling the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, has +said that though he could not wish for a storm, still as storms, +whether wished for or not, will sometimes happen, he would prefer +to look at them from Slains Castle. These rocks and the caves that +alternate with them were once famous as a smuggling rendezvous, and +as such Scott has again immortalized them in his _Guy Mannering_. The +Crooked Mary, a noted lugger, had many an adventure along this coast +during the last century. The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked for +at certain stated times, the preconcerted signal was given by him, +and the inhabitants bestirred themselves with commendable haste. +All ordinary business was immediately suspended: men might be seen +stealing along from house to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and +barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring village, and deliver a +brief message which to a bystander would sound very like nonsense, but +which nevertheless was well understood by the person to whom it was +given. Soon after a plaid or blanket might be seen spread out, as if +to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. Other beacons, not calculated +to draw general notice, but sufficiently understood by the initiated, +soon made their appearance, telegraphing the news from place to place. +As soon as the evening began to close in the Crooked Mary would be +observed rapidly approaching the land, and occasionally giving out +signals indicating the creek into which she meant to run. Both on sea +and land hairbreadth escapes were the rule rather than the exception, +and it is related of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates on shore, +poor Philip Kennedy, that one night, while clearing the way for the +cargo just landed from the contraband trader's hold, he was simply +murdered by the excise-officers. The heavy cart laden with the +cargo was yet some distance behind, and Kennedy with some dastardly +companions was slowly going forward to ascertain if all was safe, +when three officers of the customs suddenly made their unwelcome +appearance. Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked two of them, and +actually succeeded for a time in keeping them down in his powerful +grasp, while he called to his party to secure the third. They, +however, thinking prudence the better part of valor, decamped +ignominiously, and the enemy remained master of the brave man's life. +Anderson, the third officer, was observed to hold up his sword to the +moon, as if to ascertain if he were using the edge, and then to bring +it down with accurate aim and tremendous force upon the smuggler's +skull. Strange to say, Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually +succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, nearly a quarter of a mile +away, but expired a few moments after his arrival. His last words +were: "If all had been true as I was, the goods would have been safe, +and I should not have been bleeding to death." The brave fellow was +buried in the churchyard of Slains, where a plain stone marks his +grave, and bears the simple inscription, "To the memory of Philip +Kennedy, _in Ward_, who died the 19th of December, 1798. Aged 38." + +My own earliest recollections of the grand, desolate old castle are +derived, not from my first visit to it made in infancy, but from the +descriptions of one whose home it was during a brief but intensely +observant period of childhood. There came one day a storm such as +seldom even on that coast lashes up the gray, livid ocean. The waves, +as far out as sight could reach, were one mass of foam, and the +ghastly lightning flashed upon the torn sails of a ship as near +destruction as it well could be. Cries came up from below in the brief +pauses of the storm, and above lanterns were quickly carried to and +fro, while pale attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed the signals +of a more collected master. The occupants of the castle hardly knew to +what its chambers might be destined--whether to receive the dead or to +afford rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials were in readiness, +and strong men bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading from beneath. +The ship broke in pieces on the merciless rocks, and many a drowned +sailor went down to meet the army of his fellow-victims of all times +who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine caves of Slains. Those who +survived soon disappeared, full of gratitude for the timely relief +offered them at the castle, but one old man remained. He was never +known by any other name than "Monsieur," and was beloved by every +individual member of the household. A French _émigré_ of the old +school, with the dainty, gallant ways of the _ancien régime_, he still +clung to the dress of his earlier days, and wore a veritable _queue_, +silk stockings and buckled shoes. For some time he remained a welcome +guest in the "red chamber," where the host's little children would +sometimes join him and play with his watch and jeweled baubles. But +one day poor little "Monsieur" sickened, and the tiny feet that had +made such haste to run to him, now trod the corridor softly and bore a +baby-nurse to the gentle invalid. It was a high and coveted reward for +the little girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to his bedside, and +everything that kindness and hospitality could suggest was equally +lavished on him; but his feeble life, which had no doubt received a +shock from the shipwreck it had barely escaped, went out peacefully +like the soft flame of a lamp. + +Slains Castle had many gentle and pleasant memories about it, as well +as its traditional horrors, and among these were many connected with +the history of the old family that owned it. In one of the corridors +hangs the picture of James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced boy, +tall and athletic, standing with a cricket-bat in his hand. He would +have been earl of Erroll had he lived, but if we follow him in his +short life from classic Eton to the field of Quatre-Bras, we shall +find him again, on a bright June day in 1815, lying as if asleep, as +fair and noble-looking as before, but silent in death. Simple Flemish +peasants stand in a group around him, awed and admiring, asking each +other if this beautiful youth is an angel fallen from heaven, or +only a mortal man slain for the Honor of his country. His was a noble +death, and worthy of the suggestive memento of his early boyhood +before which we stood just now in the corridor of Slains Castle. + +A little farther down this corridor, which to all intents and purposes +is a family picture-gallery, we shall be forced to stop before the +portrait of a dark woman, masculine and resolute, not beautiful nor +like the handsome race of the Hays, of which she was yet the last +direct representative. This is the famous Countess Mary, one of the +central figures of the family traditions. The Hays were hereditary +lords high constable of Scotland, and also one of the few Scottish +families in which titles and offices, as well as lands, are +transmitted through the female line. So this Countess Mary found +herself, at the death of her brother, countess of Erroll in her +own right and _lord_ high constable of Scotland. In one of the two +pictures of her at Slains, if I remember right, she is represented +with the bâton of her office, with which badge she also appeared at +court before her marriage (after this it was borne by her husband +in the character of her deputy). Her husband was a commoner, a Mr. +Falconer of Dalgaty, whose reported history in connection with her is +curious and deserves to be told, though the old tradition is moulded +into so many different forms that it is very difficult to disentangle +the truth from its manifold embellishments. Toward the beginning of +the eighteenth century this intrepid and independent lady fell in love +with Mr. Falconer, who at first did not seem eager to return or notice +her affection. High-strung and chivalric by nature, she did not droop +and pine under her disappointment, but vowed to herself that she would +bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer coner left the country after some +time, and went to London. The Countess Mary also traveled south the +same year, and no news of her was heard at Slains for some time. +Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter, +who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young +cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely +bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each +other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship +of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as +often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance, +and one day some trifling difference having occurred between the +friends, a cartel reached Mr. Falconer couched in very haughty though +perfectly courteous language. These things were every-day matters in +such times, and very nonchalantly the challenged went in the early +morning to the appointed place to meet the challenger. Here the +versions of the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer and his +antagonist fought, but without witnesses; that the former got the +worst of the encounter, and remained at the other's mercy; that then, +_and not before_, the Countess Mary made herself known to him and +gave him his choice--a thrust from her sword or a speedy marriage with +herself. Others say that it was before the duel that she astonished +her lover by this discovery, and that the choice she gave him was +between marriage and ridicule.[A] + +The fact of her marriage, and that it proved a happy one, is certain. +Mr. Falconer dropped his own name to assume that of Hay. The +countess was a devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. When +Presbyterianism had got the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying +church persecutions with terrible interest, a Mr. Keith was +appointed to the Anglican parish of Deer. This was within the Erroll +jurisdiction, and it was not long before the zealous Countess Mary +came to the rescue of the congregation, who had assembled for some +time in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she had the upper floor of +a large granary fitted up for their accommodation, and this afforded +them a grateful shelter for more than a quarter of a century. Of +this same parish of Deer a curious story is told in the local annals, +showing how conservative and tenacious of traditions the north of +Scotland still was in 1711. The skirmish to which it relates goes +by the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," and is thus reported: +"Some people of Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of +Deer, to the number of seventy horse or thereby, assembled on the +twenty-third of March, 1711, to force in a Presbyterian teacher in +opposition to the parish; but the presbytry and their satellites were +soundly beat off by the people, not without blood on both sides." + +There was little of the martyr about the Scot of that warlike day, and +most emphatically and literally did he show himself a "_soldier_ of +the Lord." + +The aisle of the old church of Slains contains the graves of Countess +Mary and her husband, with an epitaph in Latin, of which the following +is a translation: "Beneath this tombstone there are buried neither +gold nor silver, nor treasures of any kind, but the bodies of the most +chaste wedded pair, Mary, countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay +of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and lovingly in matrimony for +twenty-seven years. They wished to be buried here beside each other, +and pray that this stone may not be moved nor their remains disturbed, +but that these be allowed to rest in the Lord until He shall call +them to the happy resurrection of that life which they expect from the +mercy of God and the merits of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ." + +The central figure, however, in the history of the Hays of Erroll, +and that which no one who bears the name of Hay can think of without a +thrill of pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, in 1746, a victim +to the last unsuccessful but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts. +I have heard it whispered as an instance of "second sight" that some +years before he had any reason to anticipate such a death he was once +startled by the ghostly opening of a door in the apartment where +he was sitting alone, and by the apparition, horribly distinct and +realistic, of a bloody head rolling slowly toward him across the room; +till it rested at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned to his, +and the bonny locks were clotted with blood: it was as if it had +just rolled from under the axe of the executioner; and the features, +plainly discerned, _were his own!_ + +His part in the rising of 1745 belongs to history, but his personal +demeanor concerns my narrative more closely. All the contemporary +accounts are loud in praise of his beauty and elegance of person, his +refinement of manner, his variety of accomplishments; and Scott, +in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, relates a curious circumstance +concerning his fine presence at the moment of his execution. A lady of +fashion who had never seen him before, and who was herself, I +believe, the wife of one who had much to do with Lord Kilmarnock's +death-warrant, seeing him pass on his way to the block, formed a most +violent attachment for his person, "which in a less serious affair +would have, been little less than a ludicrous frenzy." + +The grace and dignity of his appearance, together with the resignation +and mildness of his address, melted all the spectators to tears as +they gathered round the fatal Tower prison to witness his death: the +chaplain who attended him says his behavior was so humble and resigned +that even the executioner burst into tears, and was obliged to use +strong cordials to support him in his terrible duty. Lord Kilmarnock +himself was deeply impressed by the sight of the block draped in +funereal black, the plain coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust +that was so disposed as speedily to suck up the bloody traces of the +execution, and the sea of faces surrounding the open enclosure kept +for this his last earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from fear that +he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, melancholy nature was thrilled +through every nerve by this dread publicity, and we cannot wonder +that, leaning heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, he should have +whispered, almost with his last breath, the simple words, "Home, this +is dreadful!" + +One who was the lineal descendant of this earl of Kilmarnock, +and whose only brother long bore the same blood-stained and +laurel-wreathed title, has often told me of the strange link that +bridged the chasm of four generations from 1746 to 1829, and bound her +recollections to those of a living witness of the scene. She was so +young as not to have any distinct impression of other events that +happened at the same time, but this lived in her mind because of the +importance and solemnity with which her own parents had purposely +invested it in her eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little +great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought +down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier +who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank +of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age, +took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in +simple words the story she was never to forget--how he had been a +tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel +lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the +Tower quarter, he was tempted to play truant, and flinging his satchel +of books over his shoulder, had pushed his way as far as the great +state prison. Then of his frantic efforts to secure a point of vantage +whence to see the great death-pageant--of his childish admiration for +the handsome, manly form of Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm when +Lord Balmerino, the other victim, had cried in a loud voice, "Long +live the king!" and of the fascination he could not resist which led +his eyes from the shining axe and the draped block to the auburn locks +of the prisoner, and soon after to his bleeding head laid low in the +sawdust around the coffin. All this the old veteran told thrillingly, +the shadow of a boy's awed recollection mingling with his Scottish +exultation as a compatriot of the victim, and even with a touch of +humor as he recalled the domestic scolding which marked the truant's +return. + +In the charter-room at Slains Castle, where the records, genealogies, +private journals, official deeds, etc. of the family are kept, +one might find ample material for curious investigation of our +forefathers' way of living. Among other papers is a kind of inventory +headed, "My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing within Logg and +Slanis." The list of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly of brass +pots, pewter pans and oil barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg +(another residence of the Errolls), "quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir +followis, quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) to the half," contains +an ample list of curtains of purple velvet, green serge, green-and-red +drugget and other stuffs hardly translatable to the modern +understanding, and shows that in those days women were not more +backward than now in plaguing their liege lords about upholstery and +millinery. But the most amusing and natural touch of all is in the +endorsement, hardly gallant, but _very_ conjugal, made by the fair +petitioner's husband: "To my Ladyes gredie (greedy) and vnressonable +(unreasonable) desyris it is answerit...." Here follows a distinct +admission that the furniture of both houses, put together, is too +little to furnish the half of each of them, and therefore nothing can +be spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains. + +The family coat-of-arms commemorates to this day the poetical +genealogy of the Hays. Its supporters are two tall, naked peasants +bearing plough-yokes on their shoulders: the crest is a falcon, while +the motto is also significant--"_Serva jugum._" Scottish tradition +tells us that in 980, when the Danes had shamefully routed the Scots +at Loncarty, a little village near Perth, and were pursuing the +fugitives, an old man and his two stalwart sons, who were ploughing in +a field close by, were seized with indignation, and, shouldering their +plough-yokes, placed themselves resolutely in a narrow defile through +which their countrymen must pass to evade a second slaughter by +the victors. As the Scots came on the three patriots opposed their +passage, crying shame upon them for cowards and no men, and exhorting +them thus: "Why! would ye rather be certainly killed by the +heathen Danes than die in arms for your own land?" Ashamed, and +yet encouraged, the fugitives rallied, and with the three dauntless +peasants at their head fell upon their astonished pursuers, and fought +with such desperation that they turned defeat into victory. Kenneth +III., the Scottish king, instantly sent for the saviors of his army, +gave them a large share of the enemy's spoils, and made them march in +triumph into Perth with their bloody plough-yokes on their shoulders. +More than that, he ennobled them, and gave them a fair tract of land, +to be measured, according to the fashion of that day, by the flight of +a falcon. From the name of this land the Hays came to be called; +lords of Erroll, and it is said that the Hawk Stone at St. Madoes, +Perthshire, which stands upon what is known to have been the ancient +boundary of the possessions of the Hays, is the identical stone from +which the lucky falcon started. It was left standing as a special +memorial of the defeat of the Danes at Loncarty. Another stone famous +in the Hay annals, and conspicuously placed in front of the entrance +to Slains Castle, is said to be the same on which the peasant general +rested after his toilsome leadership in the battle. + +Our walks over the bleak moors on one side, with the heather in +bloom and the blackberries in low--lying purple clusters fringing the +granite rocks, were sometimes rendered more interesting, though more +dangerous, by the sudden falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it +would come at first, gathering little filmy clouds together as it +were, and hovering over the gray sea in curling tufts, and then, +growing strong and dense, would swoop down irresistibly, till what was +clear five minutes before was impenetrably walled off, and one seemed +to stand alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or again, our walks would +take us on the other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a desolate tract +where nothing grows save the coarse grass called _bent_ by the Scotch, +and where the wearied eye rests on nothing but mounds of shifting +sand, drearily shaped into the semblance of graves by the keen winds +that blow from over the German Ocean. + +This miniature desert, tradition says, was an Eden four hundred years +ago, but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless orphan heiresses of it +by fraud and violence, and the maidens threw a spell or _weird_ upon +it in these terms: + + "Yf evyr maydens malysone + Did licht upon drye lande, + Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys + Bot thystl, bente and sande." + +I must not forget the "Bullers," a natural curiosity which is the +boast of the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover connected with +a feat performed by a former guest and friend of one of the lords of +Erroll. We drove there in a large party, and passed through an untidy, +picturesque little fishing-hamlet on our way, where the women talked +to each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted at the doors of +their cabins, and where the children looked so hardy, fearless and +determined that the wildest dreams of future possible achievement +seemed hardly unlikely of realization in connection with any one of +them. + +"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a huge rocky cavern, +irregularly circular and open to the sky, into which the sea rushes +through a natural archway. A narrow pathway is left quite round +the basin, from which one looks down a sheer descent of more than a +hundred feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth and coarse grass +that carpet it so deceptive and loose, and the wind almost always +so high on this spot, that only the most foolhardy or youngest of +visitors would dare in broad daylight to attempt to _walk_ round it. +Yet it is on record that the duke of Richmond, some sixty or seventy +years ago, made a bet at Lord Erroll's dinner-table that he would +_ride round it after dark_. He accomplished the feat in safety. His +picture, life-size, hangs in the dining-room to this day, and as he +is represented standing in all the pride of a vigorous manhood by +the side of his beautiful charger, he does not seem to belie the +reputation which this incident created for him in the old district of +Buchan. + +The peasants of this wild and primitive neighborhood, though to some +extent slightly infected by modernization, are yet very fair specimens +of the hardy, trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and the present +owners of Slains certainly give them every reason to keep up the old +bonds of affectionate interest with every one and everything belonging +to "the family." To my own observation of the ancient seat of the Hays +I owe one of the most delightful recollections of my life, that of +a Christian home. Not only the outward observances, but the inner +spiritual vitality of religion, were there, while unselfish devotion +to all within the range of her influence or authority marked the +character of her who was at the head of this little family kingdom. +The present head of the house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly +carried on the martial traditions of his ancestry, and on the roll of +England's victorious sons at the battle of the Alma his name is to be +found. He was there disabled by a wound that shattered his right arm +and cut short his military career. Domestic happiness, however, is +no bad substitute for a brilliant public life, and there are duties, +higher yet than a soldier's, that go far toward making up that +background of rural prosperity which alone ensures the grand effect of +military successes. After having done one's duty in the field, it +is to the full as noble, and perhaps more patriotic, to turn to the +duties of the glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord the work begun as +a soldier. + +It is a touching custom, hardly yet obliterated in the district over +which my reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, when coming upon +another employed in his lawful calling, thus to salute him: "Guid +speed the wark!" the rejoinder being, in the same broad Buchan +dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye weel." + +I can end these pages with no more fitting sentiment. As a tribute of +grateful recollection to those who made my days at Slains a happiness +to me, and in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement offered +me distractions the more alluring because the more associated with +Nature's changeless, silent grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning them +with the homely Scottish wish that wherever they are and whatever they +do, "Guid speed the wark!" + +LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + +[Footnote A: There is another version of her courtship, and this a +metrical one. This old ballad was not much known beyond the district +round Slains, and the old servants and farmers on the estate were the +chief depositaries of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than +a very small fragment of it, which is itself only written down from +memory by one of these old women. The rhyme and rhythm are both +_original_: + + Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding + Near the famous town of Reading: + There a gentleman she saw + That belonged to the law.... + +Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which some account is +probably begun of her unreturned attachment, for a little later we +find in the very primitive manuscript from which we quote these words +of the countess: + + I that have so many slighted, + I am at last--(unrequited?) + +The story is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten +the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged +him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in +disguise), "and that his father told him to go." Neither father +nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's rank, though the +following words point to their being aware of her sex, for the elder +Falconer is represented as saying, + + If she is rich she will raise your fame, + And if poor you are the same. +] + + + + +OUR HOME IN THE TYROL + + +CHAPTER III. + + +We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious +rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate +blossoms--Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's +special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, +veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according +to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good +for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But +soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St. +Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and +the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the +wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the +more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake +and worked as hard as any woman in the field. + +On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our +picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus +sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men +and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ +Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to +praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their +honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay +was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should +consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The +newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three +crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and +sometimes but one. + +The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of +buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for +the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of +_krapfen_, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter. + +Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's +work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the +humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us, +until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the +evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check. +We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows +of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes, +whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and +Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the +kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings; +but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family +were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive +that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered +by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival, +and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old +pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the +younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up +singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet: + + Green, green is the clover + On the hills as I go, + And my maiden as fresh is + As spring water's flow. + +And the chorus joined in-- + + As spring water's flow, + +winding up with a jodel. + +Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in a clear, flexible voice, which +trembled no little when she perceived that the Herrschaft now formed +part of the audience in the balcony-- + +A WEEK'S SORROW. + + On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore, + Like a poor little child outside the church door; + On Monday I felt so afeard and alone, + And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone: + Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow! + + On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day, + For him that I love best is far, far away; + On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill, + For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill; + On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day; + On Friday, and one of the cows went astray; + On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain, + As though I should never be happy again. + Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again. + +In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong +dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer +looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away +with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood +alone with her whether anything were troubling her father. + +"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music. +Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been +celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing, +and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death." + +"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three +handsomest, best--grown men in the parish, living happily together +without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by +a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a +sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when +she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children, +not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is +wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her +mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob." + +"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice. + +"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you +knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have +sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would +have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such +were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and +with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains +some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so +good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm +to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often +bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his +back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human +blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that +when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so +clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold +up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did +have him to dine with him every day." + +"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to +reassure her. + +"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven more long years must he serve, +and always as a private. I thought like you, until the Hofbauer +explained to me that all the officers were foreigners--Saxons, +Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by the Austrian ministry, who are +tyrants to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor would only interfere, for +he loves Tyrol! but he leaves everything to the ministry. Austria may +itself be overthrown in these unrighteous days before my Jakobi is +free." Now it was the good soul's turn to wipe her eye with the corner +of her ample blue apron. + +We were venturing some fresh attempt at consolation when fortunately +an event occurred which drew her thoughts from the deep shadow which +we had just discovered hung over the peaceful Hof. Jodokus, the +village schoolmaster in the winter, when the children had time +to learn, but during the busy summer months one of the men, had +challenged Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly had the two antagonists +encountered each other on the grass in a stout set-to, when the sound +of the goatherd's whip was heard on the hilly common above, sending +forth a succession of reports like those of a pistol, becoming +stronger and louder when the game and the assembled company were seen. +At last the young "whipper-snapper," as we called him, made one long +final succession of cracks and reports, and springing over the +wall, and casting his instrument of torture on one side, he boldly +challenged Anton. + +The young man, whose skill and strength were well known, smiled, half +amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. The younger athlete, a +lad of thirteen, firmly built and agile, mistook the look for a sneer, +and the blood ran fast and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting +the challenge, they immediately began to spar. They first fearlessly +regarded each other, then bowing their heads they rushed forward, +butting like rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm in Anton's chest, +tried to find his adversary's weakest point, and with his arms round +his waist endeavored cunningly to make him slip; but it was soon the +young champion who was tripped up, and who in playful, half-serious +anger dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost managing to bring +Anton sprawling to the ground. The lad, however, suddenly stopped: +he had lost a little tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer piece +from his pocket--too great a loss for a shepherd-boy. The combat +therefore was speedily closed, both antagonists and their partisans +hunting in the unmowed grass until the treasures were again trove. + +At the same time an elderly man approached and opened the gate--a +peasant evidently, although, instead of the usual long white apron +and bib, he wore one of new green linen, shining as satin--a man of a +strong although delicate make, the head slightly stooping forward, +and a face that beamed with genuine pleasure as half a dozen voices +simultaneously burst forth with a "God greet you, Alois!" + +This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of +whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had +beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a +large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who +came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in +the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through +the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no +less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in +long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the +pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet, +busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white. + +Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the +tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants, +according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being +chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots +for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the +cattle to the Alpine pastures. + +I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited +upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids. +Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might +now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of +Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on +the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger +at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat +between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied +his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry. + +The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of +about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the +pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days +he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a +week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man; +and the river had swollen to such a height that it had carried two +houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even +life had been lost." + +This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning +Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten +o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the +adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared +different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are +often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of +mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste +hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which +formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a +melancholy, soul-touching little poem. + +"You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?" + +He smiled and said, "Do your work betimes, and then rest; and where +better than under the shadow of the cross?" + +"Yes, and the crucifix which you have chosen is more pleasing than the +generality which are sown broadcast over the fields of the Tyrol. Why +are they made so hideous and revolting?" + +We spoke out freely, because the unusually intelligent face before +us evidently belonged to a thinker. Candor of speech pleased him. +Nevertheless, he answered as if musing, "They appear ugly to you: well +they may be. Ja, but the most who look upon them are men and women +acquainted with many sorrows--sudden deaths by falls from precipices, +destruction of house and home by lightning, floods, avalanches, +failure of crops, and many another visitation--and it soothes their +perhaps selfish natures to see these anguished features, these +blood-stained limbs--signs of still greater suffering--whilst they +pray that only such crosses may be laid on them as will keep them in +obedience to His will. Just before you came up the hill I was thinking +of a strange history connected with a crucifix--one that I read only +ten days ago in the house of a Hochmair himself." + +It merely needed silence for Schuster Alois to repeat the tale, and he +soon began: "It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler who narrates it. He says +that once in his rambles he came to a little chapel, over which hung a +blasted larch--such a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally asked +the guide he had with him why it was not cut down. Now, the guide +was an old man who knew every, tradition and legend, besides all the +family histories in that part of the Tyrol. 'That tree,' said he, 'is +left there purposely, as the reminder of a great crime, and nobody +would think of touching it. If you look into the chapel, you'll see a +Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast. That was +once a crucifix under this very tree.' Then the guide made a remark +which had often struck myself--that there are some families in which +everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are +others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than +the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they +were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was +at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations +back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more +for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the +game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put +more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such +a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would +not give him absolution. This put him in a great rage, and it is +remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him. He +could not take aim--a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand +trembled. People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost +of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with +his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse. Be that as it may, he +would be absent for weeks in the mountains. He did no good, and the +little he possessed fell into ruin. + +"His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he +put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself. It +was Corpus Christi Day: the bells were ringing and the procession +moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys +singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the +golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a +crucifix. Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked +Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames. An awful +cry rang from the bushes: the procession rushed forward, the priest +only remaining with the Host and a few attendants. And what did they +see? There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet, +and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands +clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy. +Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained +motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in +gloomy silence. After they had talked together alone for some time, +the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in +prayer. The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared +into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him. In the mean while +the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church. So years +went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from +the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after +years of penitence he had received the forgiveness of the Church and +of God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, 'let all forgive him, and +remember only their own sins, and pray Christ to be merciful to them.' +After that it was known that he had become possessed with the crazy +notion that if he fired into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus +Christi Day, just when the Host was being elevated and the benediction +spoken, it would make his gun unerring. He fired therefore, and at the +same moment the Saviour on the cross raised His head and, fixing on +him His eyes full of tears, gave him a look which pierced him to the +very marrow, and that terrified him far more than the lightning +which, flashing from his forehead, set fire to his house, whilst the +thorn-crowned countenance seemed to float before him, and he knew that +this was his punishment. Such was his confession at the time to the +priest who laid the penance of the Church upon him. So he went out +into the world like another Cain, and God in His own time was merciful +to him. Still, the wounded effigy of the Saviour and the blasted larch +tree remain as witnesses on earth against him. + +"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that is only one tale amongst the +hundreds which could be related concerning these crucifixes. Ah, +there is many an old, bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on crag or +highway-side from which the anguished face of the Saviour has both +smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes cut deeper into most +Tyrolese hearts than shrines, some way." + +"Strange," we replied, "for these old shrines are not only quaint, +but often beautiful, as, for instance, the one on the roadside turning +into town." + +"Ah, I am glad you like it," said Alois, "for there are those who +would wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden cross, as a landmark, +placed there instead. The Capuchins in the adjoining monastery are +opposed to it, however, and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," he +continued, becoming quite aglow, "that although it is greatly injured +and many of the figures lost, still there are others who look at you +so calmly and seriously with their marred, dilapidated countenances +that you feel a peace steal into your heart? And whoever the painter +was, he must have loved his work, for Saint Gregory could never have +been more dignified in real life than he looks in the shrine." + +"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost without knowing what we were +saying, for it was hardly probable. + +"Oh, I only touch colors now and then, when there's a purpose in it +or I can serve the Church," he returned. He became embarrassed, and +explained that it was time to return to his work. + +We afterward learnt from Moidel that Alois bore in the neighborhood +far and wide the reputation of an artist, although he did not consider +himself such, seeing he could not paint saints and angels. It was, +however, a great source of pleasure to him to paint mottoes and +devices and to arrange floral decorations, especially when they could +serve as a surprise for some private name-day or church festival. + +One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had +brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread +were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the +preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the +Olm. First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o'clock in the +afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable +to keep up with the cattle. Then a _leiterwagen_ which had been drawn +into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and +the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers, +whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men's +backs up to the huts. + +In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us +good-bye. He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white +apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he +presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us +down a larger supply by his brother. We talked with him about the Olm, +and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that, +as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his +stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed. The Olm was very +extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow +for about three months in the year. When, however, the snow was off, +the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, +all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound +of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful +beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper +mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers +were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, +so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a +considerable distance apart. + +Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too. "Could we +go thither," we asked, "and pay him a visit?" + +"That we could," he replied, "if we did not mind sleeping in the hay. +Only we had better wait for settled weather in August." + +There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi. The +Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until +Martinmas--longer if we wanted it. He also fell into the scheme of +our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying +that all the dairy produce would be at our service. + +In the night, exactly at one o'clock, Jakob and Jodokus started: we +heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the "Leben Sie wohl!" +"Behüt Euch Gott!" shouted lovingly after them from the open door and +the lower windows of the silent old mansion. Six and twenty head of +cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later. It was a calm +and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the +mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless +sky. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The Alpine caravansary was hardly settled at the Olm when the air +became intensely hot and oppressive. Day by day black thunder-clouds +gathered on the horizon. They crested the mountains in three +directions, at times appearing to repel each other, at others marching +fiercely on to conflict, when, the zenith becoming pitch-dark, they +flung out long spears of lightning and exploded in overwhelming +thunder. Very terrible were these perpetual storms. With the first +peal the church-bells along the valley began solemnly to toll. It +mattered not whether by night or day, the faithful bellringer was +at his post, and with rain pouring down outside and fiery, vivid +lightning playing around him, he still went tolling on, for evil +spirits must be driven away, and people reminded to make the sign of +the cross and pray God to protect them. + +At length, to use an expression of Alois's, "Saint Florian had left +off playing at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had driven his hay over +the heavenly bridge." The warring elements were still, but the earth +seemed smouldering with heat, and we panted and gasped after the lofty +mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. At the same time it came +most opportunely to our knowledge that the Tyrol was rich in +baths--primitive establishments most of them, but dotted over mountain +and valley, so that each village had half a dozen to choose from, +where every peasant, be he ever so poor, could at least dip and soak +for an eight-days' _sommerfrisch_. Why, then, should not the two +Margarets, they being the most desirous of a change, have at least a +_sommerfrisch_? + +But which amongst all these baths was the one to choose? Good Kathi +recommended her baths at Innichen. She herself evidently did not +derive much pleasure from her yearly visits there. Still, we, being +ladies, would find more people to talk to, and the bath-house, which +was always full to overflowing, stood in a wood, and we liked trees. +Schuster Alois--for the conversation took place before he left--said +that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. There was not only _luxus_, +but a great deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty Emperor Max +as early as 1511 took up his quarters at Maistall during his campaign +against the Venetians, and he had heard say that in the last century +the visitors formed a society and made it a rule that none but the +purest German should be spoken. Every fault of pronunciation cost a +kreuzer to the offender: the money went to the chapel, and amounted +one season to twenty-one florins six kreuzers. + +But one Margaret decidedly objected to going to a place where there +was the faintest chance of her _loiter wagon_ for _leiterwagen_, her +_pison_ for _speisen_, her _vulgarborn_ for _wohlgeboren_, being fined +by a _gazel-schaft (gesellschaft)_. Besides, these places sounded too +grand: we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, if one could be +found that did not belie its name. So the peasant-baths of St. Vigil, +Mühlbach and Scharst were named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, +we having heard that all the school-children in town had just been +taken there for a long day's holiday, and had returned to their proud +and happy parents, who waited for them in double ranks below, radiant +with pleasure, waving their banners and Alpine roses. + +It was accordingly arranged that on the following Sunday Anton should +drive us to Reischach, where there was to be a great festival, with +candles in the church as big as a man's arm: so said a woman from +Reischach. Anton was of a retiring nature, and did not like crowds, +but he would gladly drive the ladies over. And at Reischach we should +be sure to find some peasant returning that evening by Scharst, who +could carry our belongings. + +Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for +vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations +and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct +decorations for a festival. And Anton!--how to present him to you as +he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best +ornament: nevertheless, he too wears carnations and rosemary caught +in the silver cord and vieing with the silver tassels of his +broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat. His rough jacket, made by the +tailor last autumn, and therefore too new to be worn on a less special +occasion, is short and loose enough to leave ample space for the +display of his _rauge_, or broad leather belt of softest chamois-skin, +worked in scrolls surrounding his name, with split peacock quills, +no little resembling Indian handicraft. His snow-white knees appear +between his short leather breeches and his bright blue knitted +stockings. These Nature's garters, when perfectly white, are regarded +as a mark of great distinction amongst the dandies, and those of our +Anton may be considered the very _knee plus ultra_. + +A parliament of men--a few still in breeches with Hessian boots, +which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having +succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers--were seated in the shadow +of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye +and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural +impulse, were already kneeling in church, confiding their cares of +kitchen and farmyard to the ever-ready ear of _Mutter Gottes_--one +dense mass of simple, believing women, in broad-brimmed beaver hats, +with here and there a conical woolen beehive as a contrast. + +The church in itself, although it lacked the candles as big as a man's +arm, must truly have shone like the gate of heaven to peasant eyes. +Many of the more substantial families had lent their private saints +for the occasion. They had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint Leonhards +and Virgins, generally preserved in wardrobes at home, but now brought +to participate in the festival, besides adding to its great solemnity. +It was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, and although the words conveyed +no clear idea to us, we were soon to learn their significance. A +Tyrolese anthem having been sung by some invisible voices, in which +jodels leapt up and smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged Capuchin took +his stand in the pulpit, and having greeted the congregation, +promised to explain to them the mystery and the advantage of the Holy +Scapulary. + +"My beloved," he began, "there are some who think too little of the +scapulary, and there are others who lay too great a stress on this +aid to faith. Let us meditate on both these conditions. But first, how +must we ourselves regard the scapulary? Now, we are told not to love +the world nor the things of the world. The scapulary, with its sacred +image of Mary worn next the heart, is a great shield against this love +of the world. It places you under the especial protection of the Queen +of Heaven: you are as much her servant as those who serve king or +kaiser, and equally wear her livery. Some think too little of the +scapulary. Yet what incidents can be told of its efficacy! Let one +suffice. In the year 1866, when the war raged between Austria and +Prussia, the Catholic soldiers of the latter country immediately +before the war entered by hundreds into the Society of the Scapulary. +Wearing this sacred charm upon their hearts, they went into the +battle-field, and the cannons roared and the bullets whizzed thick +and fast around them, and not one of them fell, for they wore the +scapulary. Indeed, their miraculous preservation created so much +excitement that Lutherans marveled over it, and asked the Catholics +how it came that they were no whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear +the scapulary of Mary, and she saves us.' Then many Lutherans said, +'Come, we will have scapularies,' and wrote their names down in the +society. And now hark ye, my brethren. There was a Catholic soldier, +and there was a Lutheran, and the latter said, 'Lend me thy scapulary +for this one day only, and see, here is a thaler for thee.' Then the +foolish Catholic drew the scapulary off his neck, handed it to the +Lutheran, took the thaler, went into battle: whiz went the bullets +round him, and he fell." + +We could stand no more. The church, now crowded with men as well as +women, reeked with perspiration, the sermon oppressed us, and thus our +sense and senses drove us out into the open air. Here the fresh breeze +came across from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving as a breath +from heaven. Peasant-women who were too late to squeeze into +church were seated amongst the iron crosses of the graves. The more +serious-minded had managed to cluster together round a side-door +which, being adjacent to the pulpit, proved an advantageous spot for +hearing. The less particular sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient +to be in holy ground and to pass their beads through their fingers +whilst they studied up our novel attire. Approaching the more +attentive members, we found that the Capuchin had reached the second +part of his discourse, and was dilating on those who thought too +highly of the scapulary. We gathered the following fragment: + +"Now, the man was nigh unto death, and it was neither for confession +nor for the death-sacrament that he craved. No, it was for a +scapulary. 'A scapulary!' he cried, 'a scapulary!' My brethren, you +know well he should have asked for the priest and for the blessing of +the Church, but it was merely for a scapulary." + +Later on we asked permission to see a scapulary. It consisted of two +small squares of cloth, herring-boned round the edge, and united by a +narrow ribbon of sufficient length to permit one square to rest on +the breast, whilst the other hung between the shoulders. That in front +bore the image of the Virgin, designed by the nuns in the convent, +whilst the simpler work had been given to some poor old woman, or even +man, who was past harder employment. The privilege of wearing this +charmed badge entailed the payment of a small yearly subscription and +the repetition of seven Paternosters daily. + +The procession followed the sermon. Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once +a good peasant-girl, now a saint) were paraded round the village by +children, and borne back to church. Peasant-men staggered under large +silk banners, which swayed and fluttered in the blustery wind, +and, but for the steady grasp of the strong men who carried them, +threatening at each moment to crush the pious throng. The four chief +peasants of the district, wearing their robes of state, the Noah's ark +coats in which they were married, bore the baldachin over the head +of the Capuchin who elevated the Host: the village priest, in white +surplice and Hessian boots, swung the censer at his side. The men were +in front, the women, a long, broad file, divided in the procession by +the priests from their male relations, followed--a dense black mass, +but relieved in color by the whiteness of their short linen sleeves. + +Men and women, carefully severed in their prayers and on the very +steps of the altar by Holy Church, were soon able to come together +again under the spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, the wirth. +Innumerable clean wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged wooden +chairs were ranged up stairs and down stairs and in the orchard +without, for the accommodation of the scapularists and their friends. + +We sat at a side-table in an upper room partaking of grilled fowl and +salad, whilst _buben_ and their _dirnen_, or lads and their lasses, +middle-aged couples, old men and women, poured into the house, +filling every chair, bench and table. They came thither from all +the country-side, and endless were the greetings amongst cousins and +cousins' cousins. The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep up every link +of relationship, claiming the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, +never does die out; and though it may become an abstract during busy +seasons of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a strong reality at +wakes and festivals. Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, +Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin drank with "Cousin Barthel," and +Seppl's sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel Seppl." There was +one square-built, good-humored old man who appeared to be the whole +world's cousin: he passed from table to table, and had to sip from +fifty offered glasses. + +With our delicious coffee and boiled cream we ordered the host, as a +suitable person, to find us a guide to carry our valise and shawls to +Bad Scharst. Probably the perpetual and loud demands for pints of wine +left him but little time to make a wise selection, seeing that there +soon stood before us a small man with so subtle and malignant a look +that his exorbitant demand made us only too gladly dismiss him. Our +confidence shaken in the landlord's powers of discrimination, we sent +word below that if Anton had returned we should be glad to speak with +him. He had been in the village to visit his cousins, but was waiting +our orders below. Although his native shyness made it hard for him +to step forward and address ladies under the curious gaze of all the +relative Seppls and Barthels, he did it with manliness, and turning +round and addressing the popular old man as Hansel, asked him if his +brother Jörgel were below; and being answered in the affirmative, he +hastened away, and returned with another compact little peasant, whom +he introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, with an aside, that he +was "a friendly mortal and Count Arlberg's forester." + +The agreement was soon made, the sullen-looking man glowering at us +from behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel and Anton packed a +_kraxe_ or wooden frame and fixed it on Jörgel's back. As we set +off, Anton drove away homeward, although the skittle-balls were just +beginning to roll, and the sound of "I bin a lustiger bua" and other +Tyrolese songs came floating from the windows. + +MARGARET HOWITT. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +SAINT ROMUALDO. + + I give God thanks that I, a lean old man, + Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains + By austere penance and continuous toil, + Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace + Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh, + Though the beginning is as yesterday, + And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that-- + A favored life, though outwardly the butt + Of ignominy, malice and affront, + Yet lighted from within by the clear star + Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged + To see at last its utmost goal attained. + I speak not of mine Order and my House, + Here founded by my hands and filled with saints-- + A white society of snowy souls, + Swayed by my voice, by mine example led; + For this is but the natural harvest reaped + From labors such as mine when blessed by God. + Though I rejoice to think my spirit still + Will work my purposes, through worthy hands, + After my bones are shriveled into dust, + Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit + Of holy satisfaction, sure and real, + Though subtler than the tissue of the air-- + The power completely to detach the soul + From her companion through this life, the flesh; + So that in blessed privacy of peace, + Communing with high angels, she can hold, + Serenely rapt, her solitary course. + + Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne + Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash + Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs; + Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh + Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones, + And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores, + Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung; + Exposure to the fever and the frost, + When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked + From persecution of misguided folk, + Accustoming my spirit to ignore + The burden of the cross, while picturing + The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace + Of holiness, the lives of sainted men, + And entertaining all exalted thoughts, + That nowise touched the trouble of the hour, + Until the grief and pain seemed far less real + Than the creations of my brain inspired. + The vision, the beatitude, were true: + The agony was but an evil dream. + I speak not now as one who hath not learned + The purport of those lightly-bandied words, + Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows + The thunders of the terrors of the world. + No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock, + Can move or reach my soul, securely throned + On heights of contemplation and calm prayer, + Happy, serene, no less with actual joy + Of present peace than faith in joys to come. + + This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees + Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky! + How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine, + Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes + Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light! + Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes + Find the same sense of exquisite delight, + My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy + In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high, + And youth coursed through my veins! This the one link + That binds the wan old man that now I am + To the wild lad who followed up the hounds + Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea. + For there how oft would I lose all delight + In the pursuit, the triumph or the game, + To stray alone among the shadowy glades, + And gaze, as one who is not satisfied + With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea, + The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between + The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees, + On gold-green turf, sweetbrier and wild pink rose! + How rich that buoyant air with changing scent + Of pungent pine, fresh flowers and salt cool seas! + And when all echoes of the chase had died, + Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds, + How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide + On that fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds, + The rustling of the tangled undergrowth, + And the deep lyric murmur of the pines, + When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze! + There was my world, there would my heart dilate, + And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer + Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies + Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered + In the unsearchable, unbodied air, + Made itself felt, but reigned invisible. + This ere the day that from my past divides + My present, and that made me what I am. + Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea + illimitably sparkling, as they showed + That morning. Though I deemed I took no note + Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind + Retains to-day the vivid portraiture + Of every line and feature of the scene. + Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared + Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught + Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink + Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust + Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan; + And pressing forward I beheld the sight + That seared itself for ever on my brain-- + My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf, + Fallen upon his side, his bright young head + Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close + Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched + A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth, + Uprooted in his anguish as he fell, + And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed, + Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face + Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes + Staring in blankness on that other one + Who triumphed over him. With hot desire + Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword + To rush upon the slayer, when he turned + In his first terror of blood-guiltiness. + + * * * * * + + Within my heart a something snapped and brake. + What was it but the chord of rapturous joy + For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall, + Had I not leaned against the friendly pine; + For all realities of life, unmoored + From their firm anchorage, appeared to float + Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain. + The strange delusion wrought upon my soul + That this had been enacted ages since. + This very horror curdled at my heart, + This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens, + Were closing over me when I had stood, + Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted _him,_ + My father; and he felt mine eyes as now, + Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form, + The one thing real, lay stretched between us both. + The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong + To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all-- + A few fierce words between them yester eve + Concerning some poor plot of pasturage, + Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm: + This was the end. I could not meet him now, + To curse him, to accuse him, or to save, + And draw him from the red entanglement + Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life. + God pardon me! My heart that moment held + No drop of pity toward this wretched soul; + And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine, + I fled amidst the savage silences + Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone + My boundless desolation, shame and grief. + + There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon, + The quiet of the still, suspended air, + Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged, + Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed + A solemn prayer, conceived in agony, + Blessed with response instant, miraculous; + For in that hour my spirit was at one + With Him who knows and satisfies her needs. + The supplication and the blessing sprang + From the same source, inspired divinely both. + I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, + And these like heavenly manna were rained down + To feed my hungered soul. His guilt _was_ mine. + What angel had been sent to stay mine arm + Until the fateful moment passed away + That would have ushered an eternity + Of withering remorse? I found the germs + In mine own heart of every human sin, + That waited but occasion's tempting breath + To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. + What God thus far had saved me from myself? + Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each + Must feel himself in all, must know where'er + The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys, + His proper soul in kinship there is bound. + Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind, + Encouraging as morning. As I lay, + Crushed by the weight of universal love, + Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself, + I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell. + I knew it--whence it came and what it sang. + From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed, + And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer, + Clean lives, white days of strict austerity: + Such were the offerings of these holy saints. + How far might such not tend to expiate + A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life, + Doubly austere and doubly sanctified, + Might even for that other one atone, + So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven. + + They sheltered me, not questioning the need + That led me to their cloistered solitude. + How rich, how freighted with pure influence, + With dear security of perfect peace, + Was the first day I passed within those walls! + The holy habit of perpetual prayer, + The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech, + The chastening discipline, the atmosphere + Of settled and profound tranquillity, + Were even as living waters unto one + Who perisheth of thirst. Was this the world + That yesterday seemed one huge battle-field + For brutish passions? Could the soul of man + Withdraw so easily, and erect apart + Her own fair temple for her own high ends? + But this serene contentment slowly waned + As I discerned the broad disparity + Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws + That bound the order in strait brotherhood. + Yet when I sought to gain a larger love, + More rigid discipline, severer truth, + And more complete surrender of the soul + Unto her God, this was to my reproach, + And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides. + In mine own cell I mortified my flesh, + I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts + To wrestle with my viewless enemies, + Till they should leave their blessing on my head; + For nightly was I haunted by that face, + White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns, + Now staring out of darkness, and it held + Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest + And drove me from my straw to weep and pray. + Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought + Upon my spirit that I lay day-long + In dumb despair, until the blessed hope + Of mercy dawned again upon my soul, + As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts + The airy steps of heaven. My faith arose + With sure perception that disaster, wrong, + And every shadow of man's destiny + Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch + The soul's fine essence: they exist or die + Only as she affirms them or denies. + + This faith sustains me even to the end: + It floods my heart with peace as surely now + As on that day the friars drove me forth, + Urging that my asceticism, too harsh, + Endured through pride, would bring into reproach + Their customs and their order. Then began + My exile in the mountains, where I bode + A hunted man. The elements conspired + Against me, and I was the seasons' sport, + Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately, + Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats, + Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains, + And buffeted by all the winds of heaven. + Yet was this period my time of joy: + My daily thoughts perpetual converse held + With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed + With sweet accordance of celestial sounds, + Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air. + And visions were revealed unto mine eyes + By night and day of Heaven's very courts, + In shadowless, undimmed magnificence. + I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me, + And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air-- + For had I perished, this too had been well-- + But for the revelation of His truth, + The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed + To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire; + So that the pinched, lean excommunicate + Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure, + Than all the comfort of the vales could bring. + Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts, + Aspiring toward His love, to come to me, + Timid and few at first; but as they heard + From mine own lips the precious oracles, + That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased + Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed + All of the God within them to themselves, + They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint, + And sware to follow and to serve the good + Which my word published and my life declared. + Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top + Descended leader of a band of saints, + And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale + I perched my convent. Yet I bated not + One whit of strict restraint and abstinence. + And they who love me and who serve the truth + Have learned to suffer with me, and have won + The supreme joy that is not of the flesh, + Foretasting the delights of Paradise. + This faith, to them imparted, will endure + After my tongue hath ceased to utter it, + And the great peace hath settled on my soul. + +EMMA LAZARUS. + + + + + +A PRINCESS OF THULE. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A +PHAETON." + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +"O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + + +Consider what a task this unhappy man Ingram had voluntarily +undertaken! Here were two young people presumably in love. One of them +was laid under suspicion by several previous love-affairs, though none +of these, doubtless, had been so serious as the present. The other +scarcely knew her own mind, or perhaps was afraid to question herself +too closely, lest all the conflict between duty and inclination, with +its fears and anxieties and troubles, should be too suddenly revealed. +Moreover, this girl was the only daughter of a solitary and irascible +old gentleman living in a remote island; and Ingram had not only +undertaken that the love-affairs of the young folks should come all +right--thus assuming a responsibility which might have appalled the +bravest--but was also expected to inform the King of Borva that his +daughter was about to be taken away from him. + +Of course, if Sheila had been a properly brought-up young lady, +nothing of this sort would have been necessary. We all know what the +properly brought-up young lady does under such circumstances. She goes +straight to her papa and mamma and says, "My dear papa and mamma, I +have been taught by my various instructors that I ought to have no +secrets from my dear parents; and I therefore hasten to lay aside any +little shyness or modesty or doubt of my own wishes I might feel, for +the purpose of explaining to you the extent to which I have become a +victim to the tender passion, and of soliciting your advice. I also +place before you these letters I have received from the gentleman +in question: probably they were sent in confidence to me, but I must +banish any scruples that do not coincide with my duty to you. I may +say that I respect, and even admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be +unworthy of the care bestowed upon my education by my dear parents +if I were altogether insensible to the advantages of his worldly +position. But beyond this point I am at a loss to define my +sentiments; and so I ask you, my dear papa and mamma, for permission +to study the question for some little time longer, when I may be able +to furnish you with a more accurate report of my feelings. At the same +time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict +with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the +fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of +that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher +calls and interests of life." Happy the man who marries such a woman! +No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous +entreaties and fits of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices await +him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate +and steadily progressive as the multiplication table. His household +will be a miracle of perfect arrangement. The relations between the +members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper +on the walls. And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the +emotions is close at hand to say where the divergence of opinion or +interest began? and how can a fit of jealousy be provoked in the case +of a person who will split up her affections into fifteen parts, give +ten-fifteenths to her children, three-fifteenths to her parents, and +the remainder to her husband? Should there be any dismal fractions +going about, friends and acquaintances may come in for them. + +But how was Sheila to go to her father and explain to him what she +could not explain to herself? She had never dreamed of marriage. She +had never thought of having to leave Borva and her father's house. +But she had some vague feeling that in the future lay many terrible +possibilities that she did not as yet dare to look at--until, at +least, she was more satisfied as to the present. And how could she go +to her father with such a chaos of unformed wishes and fears to place +before him? That such a duty should have devolved upon Ingram was +certainly odd enough, but it was not her doing. His knowledge of the +position of these young people was not derived from her. But, having +got it, he had himself asked her to leave the whole affair in his +hands, with that kindness and generosity which had more than once +filled her heart with an unspeakable gratitude toward him. + +"Well, you _are_ a good fellow!" said Lavender to him when he heard of +this decision. + +"Bah!" said the other with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean to amuse +myself. I shall move you about like pieces on a chess-board, and have +a pretty game with you. How to checkmate the king with a knight and a +princess, in any number of moves you like--that is the problem; and my +princess has a strong power over the king where she is just now." + +"It's an uncommonly awkward business, you know, Ingram," said Lavender +ruefully. + +"Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough old fellow to deal with, and +you'll do no good by making a fight of it. Wait! Difficulties don't +look so formidable when you take them one by one as they turn up. If +you really love the girl, and mean to take your chance of getting +her, and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice a good deal for your +sake, there is nothing to fear." + +"I can answer for myself, any way," said Lavender in a tone of voice +that Ingram rather liked: the young man did not always speak with the +same quietness, thoughtfulness and modesty. + +And how naturally and easily it came about, after all! They were +back again at Borva. They had driven round and about Lewis, and had +finished up with Stornoway; and, now that they had got back to the +island in Loch Roag, the quaint little drawing-room had even to +Lavender a homely and friendly look. The big stuffed fishes and the +sponge shells were old acquaintances; and he went to hunt up Sheila's +music just as if he had known that dusky corner for years. + +"Yes, yes," called Mackenzie, "it iss the English songs we will try +now." + +He had a notion that he was himself rather a good hand at a part +song--just as Sheila had innocently taught him to believe that he was +a brilliant whist-player when he had mastered the art of returning his +partner's lead--but fortunately at this moment he was engaged with +a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot whisky and water. Ingram was +similarly employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed easy-chair, and +placidly watching the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes he cast +an eye to the young folks at the other end of the room. They formed a +pretty sight, he thought. Lavender was a good-looking fellow enough, +and there was something pleasing in the quiet and assiduous fashion in +which he waited upon Sheila, and in the almost timid way in which he +spoke to her. Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all in slate-gray +silk, with a narrow band of scarlet velvet round her neck; and it was +only by a chance turning of the head that Ingram caught the tender +and handsome profile, broken only by the outward sweep of the long +eyelashes. + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +Sheila sang, with her father keeping time by patting his forefinger on +the table. + + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +sang Lavender; and then the two voices joined together: + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +Or were there not three voices? Surely, from the back part of the +room, the musicians could hear a wandering bass come in from time +to time, especially at such portions as "Ah, he never--ah, he never +touched thy heart!" which old Mackenzie considered very touching. But +there was something quaint and friendly and pleasant in the pathos of +those English songs, which made them far more acceptable to him than +Sheila's wild and melancholy legends of the sea. He sang "Ah, he +never, never touched thy heart!" with an outward expression of grief, +but with much inward satisfaction. Was it the quaint phraseology of +the old duets that awoke in him some faint ambition after histrionic +effect? At all events, Sheila proceeded to another of his favorites, +"All's Well," and here, amid the brisk music, the old man had an +excellent opportunity of striking in at random-- + + The careful watch patrols the deck + To guard the ship from foes or wreck. + +These two lines he had absolutely mastered, and always sang them, +whatever might be the key he happened to light on, with great vigor. +He soon went the length of improvising a part for himself in the +closing passages, and laid down his pipe altogether as he sang-- + + What cheer? Brother, quickly tell! + Above! Below! Good-night! All, all's well! + +From that point, however, Sheila and her companion wandered away into +fields of melody whither the King of Borva could not follow them; so +he was content to resume his pipe and listen placidly to the pretty +airs. He caught but bits and fragments of phrases and sentiments, but +they evidently were comfortable, merry, good-natured songs for young +folks to sing. There was a good deal of love-making, and rosy morns +appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such odd things, which, sung briskly +and gladly by two young and fresh voices, rather drew the hearts of +contemplative listeners to the musicians. + +"They sing very well whatever," said Mackenzie with a critical air +to Ingram when the young people were so busily engaged with their own +affairs as apparently to forget the presence of the others. "Oh yes, +they sing very well whatever; and what should the young folks sing +about but making love and courting, and all that?" + +"Natural enough," said Ingram, looking rather wistfully at the two at +the other end of the room. "I suppose Sheila will have a sweetheart +some day?" + +"Oh yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart some day," said her father +good-humoredly. "Sheila is a good-looking girl: she will hef a +sweetheart some day." + +"She will be marrying too, I suppose," said Ingram cautiously. + +"Oh yes, she will marry--Sheila will marry: what will be the life of a +young girl if she does not marry?" + +At this moment, as Ingram afterward described it, a sort of "flash +of inspiration" darted in upon him, and he resolved there and then to +brave the wrath of the old king, and place all the conspiracy +before him, if only the music kept loud enough to prevent his being +overheard. + +"It will be hard on you to part with Sheila when she marries," said +Ingram, scarcely daring to look up. + +"Oh, ay, it will be that," said Mackenzie cheerfully enough. "But it +iss every one will hef to do that, and no great harm comes of it. Oh +no, it will not be much whatever; and Sheila, she will be very glad in +a little while after, and it will be enough for me to see that she is +ferry contented and happy. The young folk must marry, you will see; +and what is the use of marrying if it is not when they are young? +But Sheila, she will think of none of these things. It was young Mr. +MacIntyre of Sutherland--you hef seen him last year in Stornoway: he +hass three thousand acres of a deer forest in Sutherland--and he will +be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. But I will say to him, 'It is not +for me to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: it is Sheila herself +will tell you that.' But he wass afraid to speak to her; and Sheila +herself will know nothing of why he came twice to Borva the last +year." + +"It is very good of you to leave Sheila quite unbiased in her choice," +said Ingram: "many fathers would have been sorely tempted by that deer +forest." + +Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh of derision, that fortunately +did not stop Lavender's execution of "I would that my love would +silently." + +"What the teffle," said Mackenzie, "hef I to want a deer forest for my +Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman's lass. She has plenty for herself, +and she will marry just the young man she wants to marry, and no other +one: that is what she will do, by Kott!" + +All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie had himself been advocating +Lavender's suit, could he have said more? But notwithstanding all +these frank and generous promises, dealing with a future which the old +man considered as indefinitely remote, Ingram was still afraid of the +announcement he was about to make. + +"Sheila is fortunately situated," he said, "in having a father who +thinks only of her happiness. But I suppose she has never yet shown a +preference for any one?" + +"Not for any one but yourself," said her father with a laugh. + +And Ingram laughed too, but in an embarrassed way, and his sallow +face grew darker with a blush. Was there not something painful in +the unintentional implication that of course Ingram could not be +considered a possible lover of Sheila's, and that the girl herself was +so well aware of it that she could openly testify to her regard for +him? + +"And it would be a good thing for Sheila," continued her father, more +gravely, "if there wass any young man about the Lewis that she would +tek a liking to; for it will be some day I can no more look after her, +and it would be bad for her to be left alone all by herself in the +island." + +"And you don't think you see before you now some one who might take +on him the charge of Sheila's future?" said Ingram, looking toward +Lavender. + +"The English gentleman?" said Mackenzie with a smile. "No, that any +way is not possible." + +"I fancy it is more than possible," said Ingram, resolved to go +straight at it. "I know for a fact that he would like to marry your +daughter, and I think that Sheila, without knowing it herself almost, +is well inclined toward him." + +The old man started up from his chair: "Eh? what! my Sheila?" + +"Yes, papa," said the girl, turning round at once. + +She caught sight of a strange look on his face, and in an instant was +by his side: "Papa, what is the matter with you?" + +"Nothing, Sheila, nothing," he said impatiently. "I am a little tired +of the music, that is all. But go on with the music. Go back to the +piano, Sheila, and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram and me, we +will go outside for a little while." + +Mackenzie walked out of the room, and said aloud in the hall, "Ay, are +you coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night this night, and the wind +is in a very good way for the weather." + +And then, as he went out to the front, he hummed aloud, so that Sheila +should hear, + + Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell! + A friend! The word! Good-night! All's well! + All's well! Good-night! All's well! + +Ingram followed the old man outside, with a somewhat guilty conscience +suggesting odd things to him. Would it not be possible now to shut +one's ears for the next half hour? Angry words were only little +perturbations in the air. If you shut your ears till they were all +over, what harm could be done? All the big facts of life would remain +the same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the human beings around you, +even your desire of sleep for the night and your wholesome longing for +breakfast in the morning, would all remain, and the angry words would +have passed away. But perhaps it was a proper punishment that he +should now go out and bear all the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, +whose daughter he had conspired to carry off. Mackenzie was walking up +and down the path outside in the cool and silent night. There was +not much moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight showed all the +familiar features of Loch Roag and the southern hills, and down there +in the bay you could vaguely make out the Maighdean-mhara rocking in +the tiny waves that washed in on the white shore. Ingram had never +looked on this pretty picture with a less feeling of delight. + +"Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie," he was beginning, "you must make this +excuse for him--" + +But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at once. It was all about Sheila +that he wanted to know. There was no anger in his words; only a great +anxiety, and sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic effort to take a +philosophical view of the situation. What had Sheila said? Was Sheila +deeply interested in the young man? Would it please Sheila if he was +to go in-doors and give at once his free consent to her marrying this +Mr. Lavender? + +"Oh, you must not think," said Mackenzie, with a certain loftiness +of air even amidst his great perturbation and anxiety--"you must not +think I hef not foreseen all this. It wass some day or other Sheila +will be sure to marry; and although I did not expect--no, I did not +expect _that_--that she would marry a stranger and an Englishman, if +it will please her that is enough. You cannot tell a young lass the +one she should marry: it iss all a chance the one she likes, and if +she does not marry him it is better she will not marry at all. Oh yes, +I know that ferry well. And I hef known there wass a time coming when +I would give away my Sheila to some young man; and there iss no use +complaining of it. But you hef not told me much about this young man, +or I hef forgotten: it is the same thing whatever. He has not much +money, you said--he is waiting for some money. Well, this is what I +will do: I will give him all my money if he will come and live in the +Lewis." + +All the philosophy he had been mustering up fell away from that last +sentence. It was like the cry of a drowning man who sees the last +life-boat set out for shore, leaving him to his fate. And Ingram had +not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty. + +"I do not ask him to stop in Borva: no, it iss a small place for one +that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and +there iss ferry good houses in Stornoway." + +"But surely, sir," said Ingram, "you need not consider all this just +yet. I am sure neither of them has thought of any such thing." + +"No," said Mackenzie, recovering himself, "perhaps not. But we hef our +duties to look at the future of young folks. And you will say that Mr. +Lavender hass only expectations of money?" + +"Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. His aunt, I have told +you, is a very rich old lady, who has no other near relations, and she +is exceedingly fond of him, and would do anything for him. I am sure +the allowance he has now is greatly in excess of what she spends on +herself." + +"But they might quarrel, you know--they might quarrel. You hef always +to look to the future: they might quarrel, and what will he do then?" + +"Why, you don't suppose he couldn't support himself if the worst were +to come to the worst? He is an amazingly clever fellow--" + +"Ay, that is very good," said Mackenzie in a cautious sort of way, +"but has he ever made any money?" + +"Oh, I fancy not--nothing to speak of. He has sold some pictures, but +I think he has given more away." + +"Then it iss not easy, tek my word for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new +trade if you are twenty-five years of age; and the people who will tek +your pictures for nothing, will they pay for them if you wanted the +money?" + +It was obviously the old man's eager wish to prove to himself that, +somehow or other, Lavender might come to have no money, and be made +dependent on his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from sharing the +sentiments ordinarily attributed to that important relative, he would +have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the information that the man +who, as he expected, was about to marry his daughter was absolutely +penniless. Not even all the attractions of that deer forest in +Sutherlandshire--particularly fascinating as they must have been to a +man of his education and surroundings--had been able to lead the old +King of Borva even into hinting to his daughter that the owner of that +property would like to marry her. Sheila was to choose for herself. +She was not like a fisherman's lass, bound to consider ways and means. +And now that she had chosen, or at least indicated the possibility of +her doing so, her father's chief desire was that his future son-in-law +should come and take and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila might +not be carried away from him for ever. + +"Well, I will see about it," said Mackenzie with an affectation of +cheerful and practical shrewdness. "Oh yes, I will see about it when +Sheila has made up her mind. He is a very good young man, whatever--" + +"He is the best-hearted fellow I know," said Ingram warmly. "I don't +think Sheila has much to fear if she marries him. If you had known him +as long as I have, you would know how considerate he is to everybody +about him, how generous he is, how good-natured and cheerful, and so +forth: in short, he is a thorough good fellow, that's what I have to +say about him." + +"It iss well for him he will hef such a champion," said Mackenzie with +a smile: "there is not many Sheila will pay attention to as she does +to you." + +They went in-doors again, Ingram scarcely knowing how he had got so +easily through the ordeal, but very glad it was over. + +Sheila was still at the piano, and on their entering she said, "Papa, +here is a song you must learn to sing with me." + +"And what iss it, Sheila?" he said, going over to her. + +"'Time has not thinned my flowing hair.'" + +He put his hand on her head and said, "I hope it will be a long time +before he will thin your hair, Sheila." + +The girl looked up surprised. Scotch folks are, as a rule, somewhat +reticent in their display of affection, and it was not often that her +father talked to her in that way. What was there in his face that +made her glance instinctively toward Ingram. Somehow or other her hand +sought her father's hand, and she rose and went away from the piano, +with her head bent down and tears beginning to tell in her eyes. + +"Yes, that is a capital song," said Ingram loudly. Sing 'The +Arethusa,' Lavender--'Said the saucy Arethusa.'" + +Lavender, knowing what had taken place, and not daring to follow with +his eyes Sheila and her father, who had gone to the other end of the +room, sang the song. Never was a gallant and devil-may-care sea-song +sung so hopelessly without spirit. But the piano made a noise and the +verses took up time. When he had finished he almost feared to +turn round, and yet there was nothing dreadful in the picture that +presented itself. Sheila was sitting on her father's knee, with her +head buried in his bosom, while he was patting her head and talking +in a low voice to her. The King of Borva did not look particularly +fierce. + +"Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song," he said suddenly. "Now get up, +Sheila, and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit of bread and cheese +before going to bed. And there will be a little hot water wanted in +the other room, for this room it iss too full of the smoke." + +Sheila, as she went out of the room, had her head cast down and +perhaps an extra tinge of color in her young and pretty face. But +surely, Lavender thought to himself as he watched her anxiously, she +did not look grieved. As for her father, what should he do now? Turn +suddenly round and beg Mackenzie's pardon, and throw himself on +his generosity? When he did, with much inward trembling, venture to +approach the old man, he found no such explanation possible. The +King of Borva was in one of his grandest moods--dignified, courteous, +cautious, and yet inclined to treat everybody and everything with a +sort of lofty good-humor. He spoke to Lavender in the most friendly +way, but it was about the singular and startling fact that modern +research had proved many of the Roman legends to be utterly +untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie observed that the man was wanting in +proper courage who feared to accept the results of such inquiries. It +was better that we should know the truth, and then the kings who had +really made Rome great might emerge from the fog of tradition in their +proper shape. There was something quite sympathetic in the way he +talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, whom the vulgar mind had +clothed in mist. + +Lavender was sorely beset by the rival claims of Rome and Borva upon +his attention. He was inwardly inclined to curse Numa Pompilius--which +would have been ineffectual--when he found that personage interfering +with a wild effort to discover why Mackenzie should treat him in this +way. And then it occurred to him that, as he had never said a word to +Mackenzie about this affair, it was too much to expect that Sheila's +father should himself open the subject. On the contrary, Mackenzie was +bent on extending a grave courtesy to his guest, so that the latter +should not feel ill at ease until it suited himself to make any +explanations he might choose. It was not Mackenzie's business to ask +this young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. No. The king's daughter, +if she were to be won at all, was to be won by a suitor, and it was +not for her father to be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got back +into the region of early Roman history, and tried to recall what he +had learned in Livy, and quite coincided with everything that Niebuhr +had said or proved, and with everything that Mackenzie thought Niebuhr +had said or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, to find himself +talking to Sheila's father in this friendly fashion. + +Then Sheila came in and told them that supper was laid in the +adjoining room. At that modest meal a great good-humor prevailed. +Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila occasionally +cast an anxious glance to her father, as if she were trying to +discover whether he was really satisfied, or whether he were not +merely pretending satisfaction to please her; but for the rest the +party was a most friendly and merry one. Lavender, naturally +enough, was in the highest of spirits, and nothing could exceed the +lighthearted endeavors he made to amuse and interest and cheer his +companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up later than usual, even although +pipes were lit again, and the slate-gray silk likely to bear witness +to the fact in the morning. How comfortable and homely was this sort +of life in the remote stone building overlooking the sea! He began to +think that he could live always in Borva if only Sheila were with him +as his companion. + +Was it an actual fact, then, he asked himself next morning, that +he stood confessed to the small world of Borva as Sheila's accepted +lover? Not a word on the subject had passed between Mackenzie and +himself, and yet he found himself assuming the position of a younger +relative, and rather expecting advice from the old man. He began to +take a great interest, too, in the local administration of the island: +he examined the window-fastenings of Mackenzie's house and saw that +they would be useful in the winter, and expressed to Sheila's father +his confidential opinion that the girl should not be allowed to go out +in the Maighdean-mhara without Duncan. + +"She will know as much about boats as Duncan himself," said her father +with a smile. "But Sheila will not go out when the rough weather +begins." + +"Of course you keep her in-doors then," said the younger man, already +assuming some little charge over Sheila's comfort. + +The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the +Englishman: "If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad weather, it would +be all the winter we would be in-doors! There iss no day at all Sheila +will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the +hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, +and hef plenty of exercise and amusement." + +"She is not often ailing, I suppose?" said Lavender. + +"She is as strong as a young pony, that is what Sheila is," said her +father proudly. "And there is no one in the island will run so fast, +or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she +will--not one." + +But here he suddenly checked himself. "That is," he said with some +little expression of annoyance, "I wass saying Sheila could do that if +it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman's +lass that hass to keep in the work." + +"Oh, of course not," said Lavender hastily. "But still, you know, it +is pleasant to know she is so strong and well." + +And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great +deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the +assurances of her health her father had been giving. She had just come +up and over the hill from Borvabost, while as yet breakfast had not +been served. Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so +bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh +sea-air tingling the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in +the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect +teeth. But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as +usual. She patted the deerhound's head, and rather kept her eyes away +from her father and his companion. And then she took Bras away to give +him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and +ask her what she meant by being about so early. + +How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of +their stay in Borva! They seemed so few. He got up at preposterously +early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away +with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the +Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had said no more to +her of any pledge as regarded the future. He was content to see that +she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles +about the island, their excursions in Sheila's boat, their visits to +the White Water in search of salmon. Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila's +father. He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for +granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila +herself should make her wishes known. That, indeed, was the only +aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of +Borva. He forgot altogether those precautions and investigations which +are supposed to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, and only +sought to see how Sheila was affected toward the young man who was +soon about to leave the island. When he saw her pleased to be walking +with Lavender and talking with him of an evening, he was pleased, and +would rather have a cold dinner than break in upon them to hurry +them home. When he saw her disappointed because Lavender had been +unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, he was ready to swear at Duncan +for not having had the fish in a better temper. And the most of his +conversation with Ingram consisted of an endeavor to convince himself +that, after all, what had happened was for the best, and that Sheila +seemed to be happy. + +But somehow or other, when the time for their departure was drawing +near, Mackenzie showed a strange desire that his guests should +spend the last two days in Stornoway. When Lavender first heard this +proposal he glanced toward Sheila, and his face showed clearly his +disappointment. + +"But Sheila will go with us too," said her father, replying to that +unuttered protest in the most innocent fashion; and then Lavender's +face brightened again, and he said that nothing would give him greater +pleasure than to spend two days in Stornoway. + +"And you must not think," said Mackenzie anxiously, "that it is one +day or two days or a great many days will show you all the fine things +about Stornoway. And if you were to live in Stornoway you would find +very good acquaintances and friends there; and in the autumn, when the +shooting begins, there are many English who will come up, and there +will be ferry great doings at the castle. And there is some gentlemen +now at Grimersta whom you hef not seen, and they are ferry fine +gentlemen; and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more gentlemen for the +salmon-fishing. Oh, there iss a great many fine people in the Lewis, +and it iss not all as lonely as Borva." + +"If it is half as pleasant a place to live in as Borva, it will do," +said Lavender, with a flush of enthusiasm in his face as he looked +toward Sheila and saw her pleased and downcast eyes. + +"But it iss not to be compared," said Mackenzie eagerly. "Borva, that +is nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a ferry different thing to +live in the Lewis; and many English gentlemen hef told me they would +like to live always in the Lewis." + +"I think I should too," said Lavender lightly and carelessly, little +thinking what importance the old man immediately and gladly put upon +the admission. + +From that moment, Lavender, although unconscious of what had happened, +had nothing to fear in the way of opposition from Sheila's father. If +he had there and then boldly asked Mackenzie for his daughter, the +old man would have given his consent freely, and bade Lavender go to +Sheila herself. + +And so they set sail, one pleasant forenoon, from Borvabost, and +the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the +mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous +channel. + +"I don't like to go away from Borva," said Lavender in a low voice to +Sheila, "but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, +for, you know, I expect to be back soon." + +"We shall always be glad to see you," said the girl; and although he +would rather have had her say "I" than "we," there was something in +the tone of her voice that contented him. + +At Garra-na-hina Mackenzie pointed out with a great interest to +Lavender a tall man who was going down through some meadows to the +Amhuinn Dhubh, "the Black River." He had a long rod over his shoulder, +and behind him, at some distance, followed a shorter man, who carried +a gaff and landing-net. Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender +that the tall figure was that of an Englishman. Lavender accepted +the statement. But would he not go down to the river and make his +acquaintance? Lavender could not understand why he should be expected +to take so great an interest in an ordinary English sportsman. + +"Ferry well," said Mackenzie, a trifle disappointed, "but you would +find several of the English in the Lewis if you wass living here." + +These last two days in Stornoway were very pleasant. On their previous +visit to the town Mackenzie had given up much of his time to business +affairs, and was a good deal away from his guests, but now he devoted +himself to making them particularly comfortable in the place and +amusing them in every possible way. He introduced Lavender, in +especial, to all his friends there, and was most anxious to impress +on the young man that life in Stornoway was, on the whole, rather a +brilliant affair. Then was there a finer point from which you +could start at will for Inverness, Oban and such great centres of +civilization? Very soon there would even be a telegraphic cable laid +to the mainland. Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently you could see +the Sutherlandshire hills from this very town of Stornoway? + +There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, who kept watching her face always +to read all her fancies and sentiments and wishes in the shifting +lights of it, immediately demanded an explanation. + +"It is no good thing," said Sheila, "to see the Sutherland hills +often, for when you see them it means to rain." + +But Lavender had not been taught to fear the rain of the Western +Isles. The very weather seemed to have conspired with Mackenzie to +charm the young man with the island. At this moment, for example, they +were driving away from Stornoway along the side of the great bay that +stretches northward until it finds its furthest promontory in Tiumpan +Head. What magnificence of color shone all around them in the hot +sunlight! Where the ruffled blue sea came near the long sweep of +yellow sand it grew to be a bright, transparent green. The splendid +curve of the bay showed a gleaming line of white where the waves +broke in masses of hissing foam; and beyond that curve again long +promontories of dark red conglomerate ran out into the darker waters +of the sea, with their summits shining with the bright sea-grass. +Here, close at hand, were warm meadows, with calves and lambs cropping +the sweet-scented Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like beehives, +stood by the roadside, close by some deep peat cuttings. There was a +cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for the pulling up of captured +whales. Now and again you could see a solan dart down from the blue +heavens into the blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty +feet high as he disappeared; and far out there, between the red +precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, white sea-fowl flew from +crag to crag or dropped down upon the sea to rise and fall with the +waves. + +At the small hamlet of Gress they got a large rowing-boat manned by +sturdy fishermen, and set out to explore the great caves formed in the +mighty wall of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. The wild-fowl +flew about them, screaming and yelling at being disturbed. The long +swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed from under it, and went on +with majestic force to crash on the glowing red crags and send jets of +foam flying up the face of them. They captured one of the sea-birds--a +young thing about as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant feathers, +and a long beak with which it instinctively tried to bite its +enemies--and the parents of it kept swooping down over the boat, +uttering shrill cries, until their offspring was restored to the +surface of the water. They went into the great loud-sounding caverns, +getting a new impression of the extraordinary clearness of the +sea-water by the depth at which the bottom was visible; and here their +shouts occasionally called up from some dim twilight recess, far +in among the perilous rocks, the head of a young seal, which would +instantly dive again and be seen no more. They watched the salmon +splash in the shallower creeks where the sea had scooped out a tiny +bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly rolling porpoise would show his +black back above the water and silently disappear again. All this was +pleasant enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh sea-air and sunlight, +in holiday-time; and was there any reason, Mackenzie may fairly have +thought, why this young man, if he did marry Sheila, should not come +and live in a place where so much healthy amusement was to be found? + +And in the evening, too, when they had climbed to the top of the +hills on the south of Stornoway harbor, did not the little town look +sufficiently picturesque, with its white houses, its shipping, its +great castle and plantations lying in shadow under the green of the +eastern sky? Then away to the west what a strange picture presented +itself! Thick bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, and the sunlight +from behind them sent down great rays of misty yellow on the endless +miles of moor. But how was it that, as these shafts of sunlight struck +on the far and successive ridges of the moorland, each long undulation +seemed to become transparent, and all the island appeared to consist +of great golden-brown shells heaped up behind each other, with the +sunlight shining through? + +"I have tried a good many new effects since coming up here," said +Lavender, "but I shall not try _that_." + +"Oh, it iss nothing--it is nothing at all," said Mackenzie with a +studied air of unconcern. "There iss much more beautiful things than +that in the island, but you will hef need of a ferry long time before +you will find it all out. That--that iss nothing at all." + +"You will perhaps make a picture of it some other time," said Sheila +with her eyes cast down, and as he was standing by her at the time, he +took her hand and pressed it, and said, "I hope so." + +Then, that night! Did not every hour produce some new and wonderful +scene, or was it only that each minute grew to be so precious, and +that the enchantment of Sheila's presence filled the air around him? +There was no moon, but the stars shone over the bay and the harbor and +the dusky hills beyond the castle. Every few seconds the lighthouse at +Arnish Point sent out its wild glare of orange fire into the heart, of +the clear darkness, and then as suddenly faded out and left the eyes +too bewildered to make out the configuration of the rocks. All over +the north-west there still remained the pale glow of the twilight, and +somehow Lavender seemed to think that that strange glow belonged +to Sheila's home in the west, and that the people in Stornoway knew +nothing of the wonders of Loch Roag and of the strange nights there. +Was he likely ever to forget? + +"Good-bye, Sheila," he said next morning, when the last signal had +been given and the Clansman was about to move from her moorings. + +She had bidden good-bye to Ingram already, but somehow she could not +speak to his companion just at this last moment. She pressed his hand +and turned away, and went ashore with her father. Then the big steamer +throbbed its way out of the harbor, and by and by the island of Lewis +lay but as a thin blue cloud along the horizon; and who could tell +that human beings, with strange hopes and fancies and griefs, were +hidden away in that pale line of vapor? + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + +A night journey from Greenock to London is a sufficiently prosaic +affair in ordinary circumstances, but it need not be always so. What +if a young man, apparently occupied in making himself comfortable and +in talking nonsense to his friend and companion, should be secretly +calculating how the journey could be made most pleasant to a bride, +and that bride his bride? Lavender made experiments with regard to the +ways and tempers of guards; he borrowed planks of wood with which to +make sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class carriage; he bribed a +certain official to have the compartment secured; he took note of the +time when, and the place where, refreshments could be procured: all +these things he did, thinking of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes +surprised by his good-nature, and occasionally remonstrating against +his extravagance, at last fell asleep on the more or less comfortable +cushions stretched across the planks, Lavender would have him wake up +again, that he might be induced to talk once more about Sheila. Ingram +would make use of some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask what was the +last station they had passed, and then begin to preach to Lavender +about the great obligations he was under to Sheila, and what would be +expected of him in after times. + +"You are coming away just now," he would say, while Lavender, who +could not sleep at all, was only anxious that Sheila's name should be +mentioned, "enriched with a greater treasure than falls to the lot of +most men. If you know how to value that treasure, there is not a king +or emperor in Europe who should not envy you." + +"But don't you think I value it?" the other would say anxiously. + +"We'll see about that afterward, by what you do. But in the mean +time you don't know what you have won. You don't know the magnificent +single-heartedness of that girl, her keen sense of honor, nor the +strength of character, of judgment and decision that lies beneath her +apparent simplicity. Why, I have known Sheila, now--But what's the use +of talking?" + +"I wish you would talk, though, Ingram," said his companion quite +submissively. "You have known her longer than I. I am willing to +believe all you say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know as much about +her as possible. You don't suppose I fancy she is anything less than +you say?" + +"Well," said Ingram doubtfully, "perhaps not. The worst of it is, that +you take such odd readings of people. However, when you marry her, as +I now hope you may, you will soon find out; and then, if you are +not grateful, if you don't understand and appreciate _then_ the fine +qualities of this girl, the sooner you put a millstone round your neck +and drop over Chelsea Bridge the better." + +"She will always have in you a good friend to look after her when she +comes to London." + +"Oh, don't imagine I mean to thrust myself in at your breakfast-table +to give you advice. If a husband and wife cannot manage their own +affairs satisfactorily, no third person can; and I am getting to be an +elderly man, who likes peace and comfort and his own quiet." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!" said Lavender impetuously. +"You know you are bound to marry; and the woman you ask to marry you +will be a precious fool if she refuses. I don't know, indeed, how you +and Sheila ever escaped--" + +"Look here, Lavender," said his companion, speaking in a somewhat more +earnest fashion, "if you marry Sheila Mackenzie I suppose I may see +something of both of you from time to time. But you are naturally +jealous and exacting, as is the way with many good fellows who have +had too much of their own will in the world; and if you start off with +the notion now that Sheila and I might ever have married, or that such +a thing was ever thought of by either of us, the certain consequence +will be that you will become jealous of me, and that in time I shall +have to stop seeing either of you if you happen to be living in +London." + +"And if ever the time comes," said Lavender lightly, "when I prove +myself such a fool, I hope I shall remember that a millstone can be +bought in Victoria road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy." + +"All right: I'm going to sleep." + +For some time after Ingram was permitted to rest in peace, and it was +not until they had reached some big station or other toward morning +that he woke. Lavender had never closed his eyes. + +"Haven't you been asleep?" + +"No." + +"What's the matter now?" + +"My aunt." + +"You seem to have acquired a trick recently of looking at all the +difficulties of your position at once. Why don't you take them +singly? You've just got rid of Mackenzie's opposition: that might have +contented you for a while." + +"I think the best plan will be to say nothing of this to my aunt at +present. I think we ought to get married first, and when I take Sheila +to see her as my wife, what can she say then?" + +"But what is Sheila likely to say before then? And Sheila's father? +You must be out of your mind!" + +"There will be a pretty scene, then, when I tell her." + +"Scenes don't hurt anybody, unless when they end in brickbats or +decanters. Your aunt must know you would marry some day." + +"Yes, but you know whom she wished me to marry." + +"That is nothing. Every old lady has a fancy for imagining possible +marriages; but your aunt is a reasonable woman, and could not possibly +object to your marrying a girl like Sheila?" + +"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are +the arms borne by your wife's family?' 'My dear aunt, I will describe +them to you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The arms are quarterly: +first and fourth, vert, a herring, argent; second and third, azure, a +solan-goose, volant, or. The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, +a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, dexter, a gillie; sinister, a +fisherman.'" + +"And a very good coat-of-arms, too. You might add the motto _Ultimus +regum_. Or _Atavis editus regibus_. Or _Tyrrhena regum progenies_. To +think that your aunt would forbid your wedding a king's daughter!" + +"I should wed the king's daughter, aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, +you see, it would be uncommonly awkward, just as old Mackenzie would +want to know something more particular about my circumstances; and he +might ask for references to the old lady herself, just as if I were a +tenant about to take a house." + +"I have given him enough references. Go to sleep, and don't bother +yourself." + +But now Ingram felt himself just as unable as his companion to escape +into unconsciousness, and so he roused himself thoroughly, and began +to talk about Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, and the duties and +responsibilities Lavender would undertake in marrying Sheila. + +"Mackenzie," he said, "will expect you to live in Stornoway at least +half the year, and it will be very hard on him if you don't." + +"Oh, as to that," said the other, "I should have no objection; but, +you see, if I am to get married I really think I ought to try to get +into some position of earning my own living or helping toward it, you +know. I begin to see how galling this sort of dependence on my aunt +might be if I wished to act for myself. Now, if I were to begin to +do anything, I could not go and bury myself in Lewis for half the +year--just at first: by and by, you know, it might be different. But +don't you think I ought to begin and do something?" + +"Most certainly. I have often wished you had been born a carpenter or +painter or glazier." + +"People are not born carpenters or glaziers, but sometimes they are +born painters. I think I have been born nothing; but I am willing to +try, more especially as I think Sheila would like it." + +"I know she would." + +"I will write and tell her the moment I get to London." + +"I would fix first what your occupation was to be, if I were you. +There is no hurry about telling Sheila, although she will be very glad +to get as much news of you as possible, and I hope you will spare +no time or trouble in pleasing her in that line. By the way, what an +infamous shame it was of you to go and gammon old Mackenzie into the +belief that he can read poetry! Why, he will make that girl's life a +burden to her. I heard him propose to read _Paradise Lost_ to her as +soon as the rain set in." + +"I didn't gammon him," said Lavender with a laugh. "Every man thinks +he can read poetry better than every other man, even as every man +fancies that no one gets cigars as good and as cheap as he does, and +that no one can drive a horse safely but himself. My talking about +his reading was not as bad as Sheila's persuading him that he can +play whist. Did you ever know a man who did not believe that everybody +else's reading of poetry was affected, stilted and unbearable? I +know Mackenzie must have been reading poetry to Sheila long before I +mentioned it to him." + +"But that suggestion about his resonant voice and the Crystal Palace?" + +"That was a joke." + +"He did not take it as a joke, and neither did Sheila." + +"Well, Sheila would believe that her father could command the Channel +fleet, or turn out the present ministry, or build a bridge to America, +if only anybody hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal Palace: did +you observe how little notion of size she could have got from pictures +when she asked me if the Crystal Palace was much bigger than the +hot-houses at Lewis Castle?" + +"What a world of wonder the girl is coming into!" said the other +meditatively. "But it will be all lit up by one sun if only you take +care of her and justify her belief in you." + +"I have not much doubt," said Lavender with a certain modest +confidence in his manner which had repeatedly of late pleased his +friend. + +Even Sheila herself could scarcely have found London more strange than +did the two men who had just returned from a month's sojourn in the +northern Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston Square, the pale sunlight +that shone down on the gray pavements, the noise of the omnibuses and +carts, the multitude of strangers, the blue and mist-like smoke that +hung about Tottenham Court road,--all were as strange to them as the +sensation of sitting in a hansom and being driven along by an unseen +driver. Lavender confessed afterward that he was pervaded by an odd +sort of desire to know whether there was anybody in London at all +like Sheila. Now and again a smartly-dressed girl passed along the +pavement: what was it that made the difference between her and that +other girl whom he had just left? Yet he wished to have the +difference as decided as possible. When some bright, fresh-colored, +pleasant-looking girl passed, he was anxious to prove to himself that +she was not to be compared with Sheila. Where in all London could +you find eyes that told so much? He forgot to place the specialty of +Sheila's eyes in the fact of their being a dark gray-blue under black +eyelashes. What he did remember was that no eyes could possibly say +the same things to him as they had said. And where in all London was +the same sweet aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously proud +and gentle demeanor, or the same tender friendliness expressed in a +beautiful face? He would not say anything against London women, for +all that. It was no fault of theirs that they could not be sea-kings' +daughters, with the courage and frankness and sweetness of the sea +gone into their blood. He was only too pleased to have proved to +himself, by looking at some half dozen pretty shop-girls, that not in +London was there any one to compare with Princess Sheila. + +For many a day thereafter Ingram had to suffer a good deal of this +sort of lover's logic, and bore it with great fortitude. Indeed, +nothing pleased him more than to observe that Lavender's affection, so +far from waning, engrossed more and more of his thought and his +time; and he listened with unfailing good-nature and patience to the +perpetual talk of his friend about Sheila and her home, and the future +that might be in store for both of them. If he had accepted half the +invitations to dinner sent down to him at the Board of Trade by his +friend, he would scarcely ever have been out of Lavender's club. Many +a long evening they passed in this way--either in Lavender's rooms +in King street or in Ingram's lodgings in Sloane street. Ingram quite +consented to lie in a chair and smoke, sometimes putting in a word of +caution to bring Lavender back from the romantic Sheila to the real +Sheila, sometimes smiling at some wild proposal or statement on the +part of his friend, but always glad to see that the pretty idealisms +planted during their stay in the far North were in no danger of dying +out down here in the South. Those were great days, too, when a letter +arrived from Sheila. Nothing had been said about their corresponding, +but Lavender had written shortly after his arrival in London, and +Sheila had answered for her father and herself. It wanted but a very +little amount of ingenuity to continue the interchange of letters +thus begun; and when the well-known envelope arrived high holiday was +immediately proclaimed by the recipient of it. He did not show Ingram +these letters, of course, but the contents of them were soon bit +by bit revealed. He was also permitted to see the envelope, as if +Sheila's handwriting had some magical charm about it. Sometimes, +indeed, Ingram had himself a letter from Sheila, and that was +immediately shown to Lavender. Was he pleased to find that these +communications were excessively business-like--describing how the +fishing was going on, what was doing in the schools, and how John +the Piper was conducting himself, with talk about the projected +telegraphic cable, the shooting in Harris, the health of Bras, and +other esoteric matters? + +Lavender's communications with the King of Borva were of a different +nature. Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture and what not, +tobacco hailing from certain royal sources in the neighborhood of +the Pyramids, and now and again a new sort of rifle or some fresh +invention in fishing-tackle,--these were the sort of things that found +their way to Lewis. And then in reply came haunches of venison, +and kegs of rare whisky, and skins of wild animals, which, all very +admirable in their way, were a trifle cumbersome in a couple of +moderate rooms in King street, St. James's. But here Lavender hit upon +a happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt of the mysterious +potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and +fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. +Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given +to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage +monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn +Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man +laughed, and would come down to Sloane street with another story of +his success as an envoy of the distant king. + +And so the months went slowly by, and Lavender raved about Sheila, +and dreamed about Sheila, and was always going to begin some splendid +achievement for Sheila's sake, but never just managed to begin. +After all, the future did not look very terrible, and the present +was satisfactory enough. Mrs. Lavender had no objection whatever to +listening to his praises of Sheila, and had even gone the length of +approving of the girl's photograph when it was shown her. But at the +end of six months Lavender suddenly went down to Sloane street, +found Ingram in his lodgings, and said, "Ingram, I start for Lewis +to-morrow." + +"The more fool you!" was the complacent reply. + +"I can't bear this any longer: I must go and see her." + +"You'll have to bear worse if you go. You don't know what getting to +Lewis is in the winter. You'll be killed with cold before you see the +Minch." + +"I can stand a good bit of cold when there's a reason for it," said +the young man; "and I have written to Sheila to say I should start +to-morrow." + +"In that case I had better make use of you. I suppose you won't mind +taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket that I have bought for her." + +"That you have bought for her!" said the other. + +How could he have spared fifteen pounds out of his narrow income for +such a present? And yet he laughed at the idea of his ever having been +in love with Sheila. + +Lavender took the sealskin jacket with him, and started on his journey +to the North. It was certainly all that Ingram had prophesied in the +way of discomfort, hardship and delay. But one forenoon, Lavender, +coming up from the cabin of the steamer into which he had descended +to escape from the bitter wind and the sleet, saw before him a strange +thing. In the middle of the black sea and under a dark gray sky lay +a long wonder-land of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could see the +successive headlands of pale white jutted out into the dark ocean, +until in the south they faded into a gray mist and became invisible. +And when they got into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed the waters +of the little bay and the hulls of the boats and the windows of the +houses against the blinding white of the encircling hills! + +"Yes," said Lavender to the captain, "it will be a cold drive across +to Loch Roag. I shall give Mackenzie's man a good dram before we +start." + +But it was not Mackenzie's notion of hospitality to send Duncan to +meet an honored guest, and ere the vessel was fast moored Lavender had +caught sight of the well-known pair of horses and the brown wagonette, +and Mackenzie stamping up and down in the trampled snow. And this +figure close down to the edge of the quay? Surely, there was something +about the thick gray shawl, the white feather, the set of the head, +that he knew! + +"Why, Sheila!" he cried, jumping ashore before the gangway was shoved +across, "whatever made you come to Stornoway on such a day?" + +"And it is not much my coming to Stornoway if you will come all the +way from England to the Lewis," said Sheila, looking up with her +bright and glad eyes. + +For six months he had been trying to recall the tones of her voice in +looking at her picture, and had failed: now he fancied that she spoke +more sweetly and musically than ever. + +"Ay, ay," said Mackenzie when he had shaken hands with the young +man, "it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming over to meet you in +Styornoway; but the girl will be neither to hold nor to bind when she +teks a foolishness into her head." + +"Is this the character I hear of you, Sheila?" he said; and Mackenzie +laughed at his daughter's embarrassment, and said she was a good lass +for all that, and bundled both the young folks into the inn, where +luncheon had been provided, with a blazing fire in the room, and a +kettle of hot water steaming beside it. + +When they got to Borva, Lavender began to see that Mackenzie had laid +the most subtle plans for reconciling him to the hard weather of these +northern winters; and the young man, nothing loath, fell into his +ways, and was astonished at the amusement and interest that could +be got out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season. +Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protections against cold and +wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his +own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat +borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a +sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they +started on many a rare expedition round the coast. But on their first +going out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said with some chagrin, "Will +they wear gloves when they go shooting in your country?" + +"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only a pair of old dogskins I +use chiefly to keep my hands clean. You see I have cut out the +trigger-finger. And they keep your hands from being numbed, you know, +with the cold or the rain." + +"There will be not much need of that after a little while," said +Mackenzie; and indeed, after half an hour's tramping over snow and +climbing over rocks, Lavender was well inclined to please the old man +by tossing the gloves into the sea, for his hands were burning with +heat. + +Then the pleasant evenings after all the fatigues of the day were +over, clothes changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila at the open piano +in that warm little drawing-room, with its strange shells and fish and +birds! + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays; + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +they sang, just as in the bygone times of summer; and now old +Mackenzie had got on a bit farther in his musical studies, and could +hum with the best of them, + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +There was no winter at all in the snug little room, with its crimson +fire and closed shutters and songs of happier times. "When the +rosy morn appearing" had nothing inappropriate in it; and if they +particularly studied the words of "Oh wert thou in the cauld +blast," it was only that Sheila might teach her companion the Scotch +pronunciation, as far as she knew it. And once, half in joke, Lavender +said he could believe it was summer again if Sheila had only on her +slate-gray silk dress, with the red ribbon round her neck; and sure +enough, after dinner she came down in that dress, and Lavender +took her hand and kissed it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, +Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for not having brought him his +pipe, and not only went out of the room to look for it, but was a +full half hour in finding it. When he came in again he was singing +carelessly, + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +just as if he had got his pipe round the corner. + +For it had been all explained by this time, you know, and Sheila had +in a couple of trembling words pledged away her life, and her father +had given his consent. More than that he would have done for the girl, +if need were; and when he saw the perfect happiness shining in her +eyes--when he saw that, through some vague feelings of compunction +or gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was more than usually +affectionate toward himself--he grew reconciled to the ways of +Providence, and was ready to believe that Ingram had done them all a +good turn in bringing his friend from the South with him. If there +was any haunting fear at all, it was about the possibility of Sheila's +husband refusing to live in Stornoway, even for half the year or a +portion of the year; but did not the young man express himself as +delighted beyond measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, and the +sports and scenery and climate of the island? If Mackenzie could have +bought fine weather at twenty pounds a day, Lavender would have gone +back to London with the conviction that there was only one thing +better than Lewis in summer-time, and that was Lewis in time of snow +and frost. + +The blow fell. One evening a distinct thaw set in, during the night +the wind went round to the south-west, and in the morning, lo! the +very desolation of desolation. Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal were +all hidden away behind dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady rain +poured down from the lowering skies on the wet rocks, the marshy +pasture-land and the leafless bushes; the Atlantic lay dark under a +gray fog, and you could scarcely see across the loch in front of the +house. Sometimes the wind freshened a bit, and howled about the house +or dashed showers against the streaming panes; but ordinarily there +was no sound but the ceaseless hissing of the rain on the wet gravel +at the door and the rush of the waves along the black rocks. All signs +of life seemed to have fled from the earth and the sky. Bird and beast +had alike taken shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye crossed the +melancholy lines of moorland, which were half obscured by the mist of +the rain. + +"Well, it can't be fine weather always," said Lavender cheerfully when +Mackenzie was affecting to be greatly surprised to find such a thing +as rain in the island of Lewis. + +"No, that iss quite true," said the old man. "It wass ferry good +weather we were having since you hef come here. And what iss a little +rain?--oh, nothing at all. You will see it will go away whenever the +wind goes round." + +With that Mackenzie would again go out to the front of the house, +take a turn up and down the wet gravel, and pretend to be scanning the +horizon for signs of a change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, went +about her household duties, saying merely to Lavender, "I am very +sorry the weather has broken, but it may clear before you go away from +Borva." + +"Before I go? Do you expect it to rain for a week?" + +"Perhaps it will not, but it is looking very bad to-day," said Sheila. + +"Well, I don't care," said the young man, "though it should rain the +skies down, if only you would keep in-doors, Sheila. But you do go +out in such a reckless fashion. You don't seem to reflect that it is +raining." + +"I do not get wet," she said. + +"Why, when you came up from the shore half an hour ago your hair was +as wet as possible, and your face all red and gleaming with the rain." + +"But I am none the worse. And I am not wet now. It is impossible that +you will always keep in a room if you have things to do; and a little +rain does not hurt any one." + +"It occurs to me, Sheila," he observed slowly, "that you are an +exceedingly obstinate and self-willed young person, and that no one +has ever exercised any proper control over you." + +She looked up for a moment with a sudden glance of surprise and pain: +then she saw in his eyes that he meant nothing, and she went forward +to him, putting her hand in his hand, and saying with a smile, "I am +very willing to be controlled." + +"Are you really?" + +"Yes." + +"Then hear my commands. You shall _not_ go out in time of rain without +putting something over your head or taking an umbrella. You shall +_not_ go out in the Maighdean-mhara without taking some one with you +besides Mairi. You shall never, if you are away from home, go within +fifty yards of the sea, so long as there is snow on the rocks." + +"But that is so very many things already: is it not enough?" said +Sheila. + +"You will faithfully remember and observe these rules?" + +"I will." + +"Then you are a more obedient girl than I imagined or expected; and +you may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction of offering me +a glass of sherry and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis is a +dreadful place for making people hungry." + +Mackenzie need not have been afraid. Strange as it may appear, +Lavender was well content with the wet weather. No depression or +impatience or remonstrance was visible on his face when he went to +the blurred windows, day after day, to see only the same desolate +picture--the dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists over the moorland +and the shining of the red gravel before the house. He would stand +with his hands in his pocket and whistle "Love in thine eyes for ever +plays," just as if he were looking out on a cheerful summer sunrise. +When he and Sheila went to the door, and were received by a cold blast +of wet wind and a driving shower of rain, he would slam the door to +again with a laugh, and pull the girl back into the house. Sometimes +she would not be controlled; and then he would accompany her about the +garden as she attended to her duties, or would go down to the shore +with her to give Bras a run. From these excursions he returned in +the best of spirits, with a fine color in his face; until, having got +accustomed to heavy boots, impervious frieze and the discomfort of +wet hands, he grew to be about as indifferent to the rain as Sheila +herself, and went fishing or shooting or boating with much content, +whether it was wet or dry. + +"It has been the happiest month of my life--I know that," he said to +Mackenzie as they stood together on the quay at Stornoway. + +"And I hope you will hef many like it in the Lewis," said the old man +cheerfully. + +"I think I should soon learn to become a Highlander up here," said +Lavender, "if Sheila would only teach me the Gaelic." + +"The Gaelic!" cried Mackenzie impatiently. "The Gaelic! It is none of +the gentlemen who will come here in the autumn will want the Gaelic; +and what for would you want the Gaelic--ay, if you was staying here +the whole year round?" + +"But Sheila will teach me all the same--won't you, Sheila?" he said, +turning to his companion, who was gazing somewhat blankly at the rough +steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond the harbor. + +"Yes," said the girl: she seemed in no mood for joking. + +Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news +of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his +club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How +could a man in Lavender's position marry anybody but an heiress? He +could not afford to go and marry a fisherman's daughter. Others came +to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people +were incomprehensible, and said "Poor beggar!" when they thought of +the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His +lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of +romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity +for a little while after she came to town? Was she like any of the +pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a +sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he +had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some +little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in +vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to +the little world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his +future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some +presentiment of the coming princess. + +He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward +Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently +indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, +that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere +of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would +prove a good wife to him. + +"I hope he will prove a good husband to her," said Ingram with unusual +sharpness. + +"Frank is very impetuous." That was all Mrs. Lavender would say. + +By and by, as the spring drew on and the time of the marriage was +coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house +for Sheila's reception occupied the attention of the young man from +morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold +fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything +he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval +of his conduct or hope about the future; but now she showed herself +most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with +abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own +fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in +Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. +He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew +designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling;, +and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila's future home +beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, +but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the +eccentricities of his fancy. + +"Isn't she a dear old lady?" said Lavender one night to Ingram. "Look +here! A cheque, received this morning, for two hundred pounds, for +plate and glass." + +Ingram looked at the bit of pale green paper: "I wish you had earned +the money yourself, or done without the plate until you could buy it +with your own money." + +"Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry your puritanical theories too far. +Doubtless I shall earn my own living by and by. Give me time." + +"It is now nearly a year since you thought of marrying Sheila +Mackenzie, and you have not done a stroke of work yet." + +"I beg your pardon. I have worked a good deal of late, as you will see +when you come up to my rooms." + +"Have you sold a single picture since last summer?" + +"I cannot make people buy my pictures if they don't choose to do so." + +"Have you made any effort to get them sold, or to come to any +arrangement with any of the dealers?" + +"I have been too busy of late--looking after this house, you know," +said Lavender with an air of apology. + +"You were not too busy to paint a fan for Mrs. Lorraine, that people +say must have occupied you for months." + +Lavender laughed: "Do you know, Ingram, I think you are jealous of +Mrs. Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, you shall go and see her." + +"No, thank you." + +"Are you afraid of your Puritan principles giving way?" + +"I am afraid that you are a very foolish boy," said the other with a +good-humored shrug of resignation, "but I hope to see you mend when +you marry." + +"Ah, then you _will_ see a difference!" said Lavender seriously; and +so the dispute ended. + +It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the +marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with +Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment +Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious +illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started +by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride. His stay in +Borva was short enough on this occasion. At the end of it there came a +certain wet and boisterous day, the occurrences in which he afterward +remembered as if they had taken place in a dream. There were many +faces about, a confusion of tongues, a good deal of dram-drinking, +a skirl of pipes, and a hurry through the rain; but all these things +gave place to the occasional glance that he got from a pair of timid +and trusting and beautiful eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that +dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. She was more his own +Sheila when she had donned her rough garments of blue, and when she +stood on the wet deck of the vessel, with a great gray shawl around +her, talking to her father with a brave effort at cheerfulness, +although her lip would occasionally quiver as one or other, of her +friends from Borva--many of them barefooted children--came up to bid +her good-bye. Her father talked rapidly, with a grand affectation of +indifference. He swore at the weather. He bade her see that Bras was +properly fed, and if the sea broke over his box in the night, he was +to be rubbed dry, and let out in the morning for a run up and down +the deck. She was not to forget the parcel directed to an innkeeper +at Oban. They would find Oban a very nice place at which to break the +journey to London, but as for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no words +with which to describe Greenock. + +And then, in the midst of all this, Sheila suddenly said, "Papa, when +does the steamer leave?" + +"In a few minutes. They have got nearly all the cargo on board." + +"Will you do me a great favor, papa?" + +"Ay, but what is it, Sheila?" + +"I want you not to stay here till the boat sails, and then you will +have all the people on the quay vexing you when you are going away. I +want you to bid good-bye to us now, and drive away round to the point, +and we shall see you the last of all when the steamer has got out of +the harbor." + +"Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that," he said, knowing well why the +girl wished it. + +So father and daughter bade good-bye to each other; and Mackenzie went +on shore with his face down, and said not a word to any of his friends +on the quay, but got into the wagonette, and, lashing the horses, +drove rapidly away. As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had +said to him, "Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;" +and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left. + +The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, the throb of the engines struck +the water, and the great steamer steamed away from the quay and out of +the plain of the harbor into a wide world of gray waves and wind and +rain. There stood Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure clearly +seen against the pallid colors of the dismal day; and Sheila waved +a handkerchief to him until Stornoway and its lighthouse and all the +promontories and bays of the great island had faded into the white +mists that lay along the horizon. And then her arm fell to her side, +and for a moment she stood bewildered, with a strange look in her eyes +of grief, and almost of despair. + +"Sheila, my darling, you must go below now," said her companion: "you +are almost dead with cold." + +She looked at him for a moment, as though she had scarcely heard what +he said. But his eyes were full of pity for her: he drew her closer +to him, and put his arms round her, and then she hid her head in his +bosom and sobbed there like a child. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +THE EMERALD. + + +Dutens and several others who have written upon gems and precious +stones during the last two centuries have asserted that the ancients +were unacquainted with the true emerald, and that Heliodorus, when +speaking nearly two thousand years ago of "gems green as a meadow in +the spring," or Pliny, when describing stone of a "soft green lustre," +referred to the peridot, the plasma, the malachite, or the far rarer +gem, the green sapphire. But the antiquary has come to the rescue with +the treasures of the despoiled mounds of Tuscany, the exposed ashes of +Herculaneum and Pompeii, and now exhibits emeralds which were mounted +in gold two thousand years before Columbus dreamed of the New World, +or Pizarro and his remorseless band gathered the precious stones by +the hundred-weight from the spoils of Peru. Although these specimens +of antique jewelry set with emeralds may be numbered by the score or +more in the museums and "reliquaries" of Europe, but very few engraved +emeralds have descended to us from ancient times: This rarity is not +due to the hardness of the stone, for the ancient lapidaries cut the +difficult and still harder sapphire: therefore we must believe the +statement of the early gem-writers that the emerald was exempted +from the glyptic art by common consent on account of its beauty and +costliness. + +The emerald is now one of the rarest of gems, and its scarcity gives +rise to the inquiry as to what has become of the abundant shower of +emeralds which fairly rained upon Spain during the early days of the +conquest of Mexico and Peru, bringing down the value of fine stones +to a trifling price. As with all commercial articles, there is a waste +and loss to be accounted for during the wear of three centuries, +but this alone will not explain their present rarity in civilized +countries. Even in the times of Charles II., when the destitution of +the country was extreme, the dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque had +millions in diamonds, rubies and precious stones, yet hardly possessed +a single sou. So impoverished was the land, and so slender were the +purses of all, that the duke of Albuquerque dined on an egg and a +pigeon, yet it required six weeks to make an inventory of his plate. +At this period, when the nobles gave fêtes the lamps were often +decorated with emeralds and the ceilings garlanded with precious +stones. The women fairly blazed with sparkling gems of fabulous value, +while the country was starving. Most, if not all, of this missing +treasure was transferred to Asia, and with the silver current which +flowed steadily from the Spanish coffers into India went many of the +emeralds also; for in those regions this gem is regarded as foreign +stone, and the natives, investing it with the possession of certain +talismanic properties, prize it above all earthly treasures. + +When the Spaniards commenced their march toward the capital of Mexico, +they were astonished at the magnificence of the costumes of the chiefs +who came to meet them as envoys or join them as allies, and among the +splendid gems which adorned their persons they recognized emeralds and +turquoises of such rare perfection and beauty that their cupidity was +excited to the highest degree. During the after years of conquest and +occupation the avaricious spoilers sought in vain for the parent ledge +where these precious stones were found. Recent times have, however, +revealed the home of the Mexican turquoise, which has proved to be in +the northern part of Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the inquiring +Spaniards. The first of these mines, which is of great antiquity, is +situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, eighteen miles from Santa Fé. +The deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and an immense cavity of several +hundred feet in extent has been excavated by the Indians while +searching for this gem in past times. Probably some of the fine +turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at the time of the Spanish +Conquest came from this mine. Another mine is located in the Sierra +Blanca Mountains in New Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow +strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent beauty have been taken +from it, and handed down in the tribe from generation to generation +as heirlooms. Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians to dispose of +these gems, and gratitude alone causes them to part with any of these +treasures, which, like the mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with +mystical reverence. The Navajos wear them as ear-drops, by boring them +and attaching them to the ear by means of a deer sinew. Lesser stones +are pierced, then strung on sinews and worn as neck-laces. Even the +nobler Ute Indians, when stripping the ornaments of turquoise from +the ears of the conquered Navajos, value them as sacred treasures, and +refuse to part with them even for gold or silver. + +All the Spanish accounts of the invasion of Mexico agree in the great +abundance of emeralds, both in the adornment of the chiefs and +nobles and also in the decoration of the gods, the thrones and the +paraphernalia. The Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl says the throne +of gold in the palace of Tezcuco was inlaid with turquoises and other +precious stones--that a human skull in front of it was crowned with an +immense emerald of a pyramidal form. + +The great standard of the republic of Tlascala was richly ornamented +with emeralds and silver-work. The fantastic helmets of the chiefs +glittered with gold and precious stones, and their plumes were set +with emeralds. The mantle of Montezuma was held together by a clasp of +the green chalchivitl (jade), and the same precious gem, with emeralds +of uncommon size, ornamented other parts of his dress. + +The Mexicans carved the obdurate jade and emerald with wonderful +skill, using, like the Peruvians, nothing but silicious powder and +copper instruments alloyed with tin. They also worked with exquisite +taste in gold and silver, and they represented Nature so faithfully +and so beautifully that the great naturalist Hernandez took many +of these objects thus portrayed for his models when describing the +natural history of the country. + +When Cortés returned home he displayed five emeralds of extraordinary +size and beauty, and presented them to his bride, the niece of the +duke de Bejar. On his famous expedition along the Pacific coast and up +the Gulf of California he was reduced to such want as to be obliged to +pawn these jewels for a time. One of them was as precious as Shylock's +turquoise, and Gomara states that some Genoese merchants who examined +it in Seville offered forty thousand golden ducats for it. One of the +emeralds was in the form of a rose; the second in that of a horn; +the third like a fish with eyes of gold; the fourth was like a little +bell, with a fine pearl for a tongue, and it bore on its rim the +following inscription in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created thee!" +The fifth, which was the most valuable of all, was in the form of a +small cup with a foot of gold, and with four little chains of the same +metal attached to a large pearl as a button: the edge of the cup was +of gold, on which was engraved in Latin words, "Inter natos mulierum +non surrexit major." These splendid gems are now buried deep in the +sand on the coast of Barbary, where they were lost in 1529, when +Cortés was shipwrecked with the admiral of Castile whilst on their way +to assist Charles V. at the siege of Algiers. + +The quantity of emeralds obtained by the Spaniards in their pillage +of Mexico was large, but it was trifling when compared with that +collected by Pizarro and his remorseless followers in the sack +of Peru. Many large and magnificent stones were obtained by the +Spaniards, but the transcendent gem of all, called by the Peruvians +the Great Mother, and nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was concealed +by the natives, and all the efforts of Pizarro and his successors to +discover it proved unavailing. + +The immense uncut Peruvian emerald given by Rudolph II. to the elector +of Saxony is still preserved in the Green Vaults at Dresden. This +collection is the finest in the world, and is of the value of many +millions of dollars. The treasures are arranged in eight apartments, +each surpassing the previous one in the splendor and richness of its +contents. This museum dates from the early period when the Freyburg +silver-mines yielded vast revenues, and made the Saxon princes among +the richest sovereigns in Europe. With lavish hand these potentates +purchased jewels and works of art, and the treasures they have thus +accumulated are of immense value, and remind the traveler of the +gorgeous descriptions of Oriental magnificence. + +The finest emerald in Europe is said to belong to the emperor of +Russia. It weighs but thirty carats, but it is of the most perfect +transparency and of the most beautiful color. There are many other +fine emeralds among the imperial jewels of the czar, some of which are +of great size and rare beauty. The ancient crown of Vladimir glitters +with four great stones of unusual brilliancy. The grand state sceptre +is surmounted by another emerald of great size. The sceptre of +Poland, which is now treasured in the Kremlin, has a long green stone, +fractured in the middle. It is not described, and may be one of the +Siberian tourmalines, some of which closely approach the emerald in +hue. The imperial _orb_ of Russia, which is of Byzantine workmanship +of the tenth century, has fifty emeralds. This fact alone would seem +to prove that emeralds were known in Europe or Asia Minor long before +the discovery of America; but, on the other hand, the ancient crown +which was taken when Kasan was subjugated in 1553 is destitute of +emeralds. And hence we are inclined to believe the imperial orb to be +of modern workmanship, especially as some of the ancient state chairs +do not exhibit emeralds among their decorations of gems and precious +stones. + +Nowhere in North America do the true emeralds occur. Professor +Cleaveland, who was one of the best authorities of his day, maintained +nearly half a century ago that emeralds which exhibited a lively and +beautiful green hue were found in blasting a canal through a ledge +of graphic granite in the town of Topsham in Maine. Several of the +crystals presented so pure, uniform and rich a green that he ventured +to pronounce them precious emeralds. But to-day we are unable to verify +the assertion, or point to a single specimen similar in hue to the +emerald from the above-mentioned locality. + +The nearest approach to the emerald in color, with the exception of +the incomparable green tourmalines from Maine, are the beryls of North +and South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts. These beautiful +stones exhibit the physical, characteristics of emeralds with the +exception of the color, in which they differ very perceptibly. But to +appreciate fully the difference in hue we must compare the two gems. +Then the lively green of the beryl fades away before the overpowering +hue of the emerald, whose rich prismatic green may be taken as the +purest type of that color known to the chemist or the painter. + +Two summers ago we visited the localities in Massachusetts which were +famous in the days of Hitchcock and Webster. We found that the beryls +occurred in a very coarse granite, where the quartz appeared in masses +and the felspar in huge crystals. These also occur in finer granite, +and exhibit no indications of veins or connection with each other. +They are few in number, and are soon exhausted by blasting, being +generally very superficial. After removing several tons of the rock at +the locality at North Royalston, where the beryls appear on the summit +of the loftiest hill, our labors were at length rewarded with two +beautiful crystals. One of them was a fine prism an inch in diameter, +of perfect transparency and of a deep sea-green color, which, however +is far from being similar to the transcendent hue of the Granada +emeralds, which exhibit an excess of neither blue nor yellow. The +other was yellowish-green, resembling the chrysoberyls of Brazil. + +Other but imperfect crystals were brought to light, some fragments of +which exhibited the deepest golden tints of the topaz, and others +the tints of the sherry-wine colored topazes of Siberia. Magnificent +crystals have been found in these localities in times long past, and +from the fragments and sections of crystals found in the débris of +early explorations we observed the wide range of color and the deep +longitudinal striae which characterize the renowned beryls from the +Altai Mountains, in Siberia. Lively sea- and grass-green, light and +deep yellow, also blue crystals of various shades, have been found +here. + +At the quarries on Rollestone Mountain in Fitchburg beryls of a +rich golden color have been blasted out. Some of these approach the +chrysoberyl and topaz in hardness and hue. Others so closely resemble +the yellow diamond that they may readily be taken for that superior +gem. The refractive power of these yellow stones is remarkable, and +the goniometer will probably reveal a higher index than is accorded to +all the varieties of beryl by the learned Abbé Haüy. + +Beautiful transparent beryls have been found among the granite hills +of Oxford county in Maine, and the late Governor Lincoln nearly half a +century ago possessed a splendid crystal which would have rivaled the +superb prism found at Mouzzinskaia, and which the Russians value so +highly. The extended and unexplored ledges of granite which rise +from the shores of the ocean at Harpswell in Maine, and stretch +north-westward for nearly a hundred miles, quite to the base of the +White Mountain group, are not only rich in beryls, but they contain +many of the rarest minerals known to the mineralogist. And perhaps +there is no other field of equal extent in the country which offers to +the mineralogist such a harvest of the rare and curious productions of +the mineral kingdom. + +At Haddam in Connecticut beautiful crystals of beryl have been +discovered, and one of these, of fine green color, an inch in diameter +and several inches in length, was preserved in the cabinet of Colonel +Gibbs. Professor Silliman possessed another fine one, seven inches in +length. + +The mountains in Colorado have yielded some fine specimens. But the +finest of the beryl species come from Russia. In the Ural Mountains +the crystals are small, but of fine color; in the Altai Mountains they +are very large and of a greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges of +Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier of China, they are found in +the greatest perfection. They occur on the summit of the mountain +in irregular veins of micaceous and white indurated clay, and are +greenish-yellow, pure pale green, greenish-blue and sky-blue. The +chief matrix of the beryl all over the world is graphic granite, but +it may occur in other rocks. The light green stones of Limoges in +France appear in a vein of quartz traversing granite. At Royalston we +observed them to spring seemingly from the felspar and project into +smoky quartz, becoming more transparent as they advanced into the +harder stone. + +The beryl possesses the same crystalline form and specific gravity as +the emerald, but its hardness (especially in the yellow varieties) is +sometimes greater. The only perceptible difference in the two stones +is in the color. Cleaveland thought that as the emerald and beryl had +the same essential characters, they might gradually pass into each +other; and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both chrome and iron in one +specimen, was led to take the same view. The crystals of true emerald +are almost always small (with the exception of those found in the Wald +district in Siberia), whilst those of the beryl vary from a few +grains to more than a ton in weight. The crystals of both are almost +invariably regular hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly modified. +Those of the beryl we sometimes find quite flat, as though they +had been compressed by force: then again they are acicular and of +extraordinary length, considering their slender diameter. Sometimes +their lateral faces are longitudinally striated, and as deeply as the +tourmaline, so that the edges of the prism are rendered indistinct. +Other crystals are curved, and some perforated in the axis like +the tourmaline, so as to contain other minerals. Sometimes they are +articulated like the pillars of basalt, and separated at some distance +by the intervening quartz. These modified forms give rise to curious +speculations as to their formation and origin. If we admit the action +of fire (which is improbable), then the separation may be easily +explained; but if we insist that they were deposited in the wet way +and by slow process, how can we account for the dislocation? "By +electricity," whispers a friend--"by telluric magnetism, that +wonderful unexplained and mysterious force which has caused the grand +geological changes of the globe, and is still at work." + +No other gem has been counterfeited with such perfection as the +emerald; and in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish the +artificial from the real gems by the aid of the eye alone: even the +little flaws which lull the suspicions of the inexperienced are easily +produced by a dexterous blow from the mallet of the skilled artisan. +Not only emeralds, but most of the gems and precious stones, are now +imitated with such consummate skill as to deceive the eye, and none +but experts are aware of the extent to which these fictitious gems +are worn in fashionable society, for oftentimes the wearers themselves +imagine that they possess the real stones. There is not one in a +hundred jewelers who is acquainted with the physical properties of the +gems, and very few can distinguish the diamond from the white zircon +or the white topaz, the emerald from the tourmaline of similar hue, +the sapphire from iolite, or the topaz from the Bohemian yellow +quartz. Jewelers are governed generally by sight, which they believe +to be infallible, whilst hardness and specific gravity are the only +sure tests. + +Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of color the most brilliant and +delicately tinted of the productions of Nature are now made at Paris +and in other European cities. The establishments at Septmoncel in the +Jura alone employ a thousand persons, and fabulous quantities of the +glittering pastes are made there and sent to all parts of the world. + +A fine specimen of prase when cut affords a fair imitation of +the emerald. The green fluor-spar which Haüy called "emeraude de +Carthagène" may also be substituted, but the application of the file +detects the trick with ease. Some of the green tourmalines approach +the emeralds in hue very closely, and by artificial light it is +impossible to distinguish them from each other. Fragments of quartz +may be stained by being steeped in green-colored tinctures. The Greeks +stained quartz so like the real gem that Pliny exclaimed against the +fraud while declining to tell how it was done. The Ancona rubies at +the present day are made by plunging quartz into a hot tincture of +cochineal, which penetrates the minute fissures of the rock. + +But notwithstanding the high art reached by modern glass-makers, they +are yet far behind the ancients in imitating the emerald in point of +hardness and lustre. Many emerald pastes of Roman times still extant +are with difficulty distinguished from the real gem, so much harder +and lustrous are they than modern glass. The ancient Phoenician +remains found in the island of Sardinia by Cavalier Cara in 1856 show +fine color in their enamels and glass-works. The green pigment brought +home from the ruins of Thebes by Mr. Wilkinson was shown by Dr. Ure +to consist of blue glass in powder, with yellow ochre and colorless +glass. From Greek inscriptions dating from the period of the +Peloponnesian war we learn that there were signets of colored glass +among the gems in the treasury of the Parthenon. + +Of all the emerald imitations that have descended to us from +antiquity, none are more remarkable, none more interesting to the +antiquary and historian, than the famous Sacro Catino of the cathedral +of Genoa. This celebrated relic is a glass dish or patera fourteen +inches in width, five inches in depth and of the richest transparent +green color, though disfigured by several flaws. It was bestowed upon +the republic of Genoa by the Crusaders after the capture of Caesarea +in 1101, and was regarded as an equivalent for a large sum of money +due from the Christian army. It was traditionally believed to have +been presented to King Solomon by the queen of Sheba, and afterward +preserved in the Temple, and some accounts relate that it was used by +Christ at the institution of the Lord's Supper. The Genoese received +it with so much veneration and faith that twelve nobles were appointed +to guard it, and it was exhibited but once a year, when a priest held +it up in his hand to the view of the passing throng. The state in +1319, in a time of pressing need, pawned the holy relic for twelve +hundred marks of gold (two hundred thousand dollars), and redeemed +it with a promptness which proved its belief in the reality of the +material as well as in its sanctity. And it is also related that the +Jews, during a period of fifty years, lent the republic four million +francs, holding the sacred relic as a pledge of security. Seven +hundred years passed away, when Napoleon came, and as he swept down +over Italy, gathering her art-treasures, he ordered the "Holy +Grail" to be conveyed to Paris. It was deposited in the Cabinet of +Antiquities in the Imperial Library, and the mineralogists quickly +discovered it to be glass. It is due to the memory of Condamine to +state that he was the first to doubt the material of the Sacro Catino, +for, when examining it by lamplight in 1757, in the presence of the +princes Corsini, he observed none of the cracks, clouds and specks +common to emeralds, but detected little bubbles of air. In 1815 the +Allies ordered its return to the cathedral of Genoa. During this +journey the beautiful relic was broken, but its fragments were +restored by a skillful artisan, and it is now supported upon a tripod, +the fragments being held together by a band of gold filigree. This +remarkable object of antiquity, which is of extraordinary beauty of +material and workmanship, furnishes a theme over which the antiquaries +love to muse and wrangle. + +Another of the antique monster emeralds, weighing twenty-nine pounds, +was presented to the abbey of Reichenau near Constance by Charlemagne. +Beckman has also detected this precious relic to be glass. And +probably the great emerald of two pounds weight brought home from the +Holy Land by one of the dukes of Austria, and now deposited in the +collection at Vienna, is of the same material. The hardness of our +glass is yet far inferior to that of the ancients, and even the +ruby lustre of the potters of Umbria, which was so precious to the +dilettanti of the Cinque Cento period, has not been recovered. + +The emerald has been a subject of controversy among the chemists +and mineralogists, and its character, especially the cause of its +beautiful color, is not clearly defined even at the present day. But +that distinguished chemist, Professor Lewy of Paris, seems to offer, +thus far, the most correct and plausible theory. Ten years ago he +boldly asserted that the hue is not due to the oxide of chromium, +and with this opinion he confronted such eminent men as Vauquelin, +Klaproth and others of high rank in the scientific world. Not content +with his researches in his laboratory in Paris, he resolutely crossed +the ocean and sought the emerald in its parent ledges in the lofty +table-lands of New Granada. Here he obtained new information of a +geological character which goes far to strengthen his position. +The experiments of M. Lewy indicate, if they do not prove, that the +coloring matter of the emerald is organic, and readily destroyed +by heat, which would not be the case if it was due to the oxide of +chromium. All my own fire-tests with the Granada emerald corroborate +the views of M. Lewy, for in every instance the gem lost its hue when +submitted to a red heat. + +Nevertheless, the recent researches of Wöhler and Rose give negative +results. These experienced chemists kept an emerald at the temperature +of melted copper for an hour, and found that, although the stone had +become opaque, the color was not affected. They therefore considered +the oxide of chromium to be the coloring agent, without, however, +denying the presence of organic matter. The amount of the oxide of +chromium found by many chemists varies from one to two per cent., +while Lewy and others found it in a quantity so small as to be +inappreciable, and too minute to be weighed. + +Before the ordinary blowpipe the emerald passes rapidly into a whitish +vesicular glass, and with borax it forms a fine green glass, while its +sub-species, the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: with salt of +phosphorus it slowly dissolves, leaving a silicious skeleton.[A] + +M. Lewy visited the mines at Muzo in Granada, and from the results +of his analyses, together with the fact of finding emeralds in +conjunction with the presence of fossil shells in the limestone in +which they occur, he arrived at the conclusion that they have been +formed in the wet way--deposited from a chemical solution. He also +found that when extracted they are so soft and fragile that the +largest and finest fragments can be reduced to powder by merely +rubbing them between the fingers, and the crystals often crack and +fall to pieces after being removed from the mine, apparently from loss +of water. Consequently, when the emeralds are first extracted they are +laid aside carefully for a few days until the water is evaporated. + +This statement relative to the softness of the gem and its subsequent +hardening has been met with a shout of derision from some of the +gem-seekers--none louder than that of Barbot, the retired jeweler. +Barbot seems to forget that the rock of which his own house in Paris +is constructed undergoes the same change after being removed from +the deep quarries in the catacombs under the city. This phenomenon is +observed with many rocks. Flints acquire additional toughness by the +evaporation of water contained in them. The steatite of St. Anthony's +Falls grows harder on exposure, and other minerals when quarried from +considerable depths become firmer on exposure to the action of the +air. Observations of this kind led Kuhlman to investigate the cause, +and he believes that the hardening of rocks is not owing solely to +the evaporation of quarry-water, but that it depends upon the +tendency which all earthy matters possess to undergo a spontaneous +crystallization by slow dessication, which commences the moment the +rock is exposed to the air. + +The coloring matter of the emerald seems to be derived from the +decomposition of the remains of animals who have lived in a bygone +age, and whose remains are now found fossilized in the rock which +forms the matrix of the gem. This rock in Granada is a black +limestone, with white veins containing ammonites. Specimens of these +rocks exhibiting fragments of emeralds _in situ_, and also ammonites, +are to be seen in the mineralogical gallery of the Jardin des Plantes +in Paris. Lewy believes that the beautiful tint of these gems is +produced by an organic substance, which he considers to be a carburet +of hydrogen, similar to that called chlorophyll, which constitutes +the coloring matter of the leaves of plants; and he has shown that +the emeralds of the darkest hue, which contain the greatest amount +of organic matter, lose their color completely at a low red heat, +and become opaque and white; while minerals and pastes which are +well known to be colored by chromium, like the green garnets (the +lime-chrome garnets) of Siberia, are unchanged in hue by the action of +heat. + +Since the time of the Spanish Conquest, New Granada has furnished +the world with the most of its emeralds. The most famous mines are at +Muzo, in the valley of Tunca, between the mountains of New Granada and +Popayan, about seventy-five miles from Santa Fé de Bogota, where +every rock, it is said, contains an emerald. At present the supply of +emeralds is very limited, owing to restrictions on trade and want of +capital and energy in mining operations. + +Blue as well as green emeralds are found in the Cordillera of the +Cubillari. The Esmeraldas mines in Equador are said to have been +worked successfully at one period by the Jesuits. The Peruvians +obtained many emeralds from the barren district of Atacama, and in +the times of the Conquest there were quarries on the River of Emeralds +near Barbacoas. + +Emeralds are found in Siberia, and some of the localities may have +furnished to the ancients the Scythian gems which Pliny and others +mention. In the Wald district magnificent crystals have been found +embedded in mica-slate. One of these--a twin-crystal, now in the +Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg--is seven inches long, four inches +broad, and weighs four and a half pounds. There is another mass in the +same collection which measures fourteen inches long by twelve broad +and five thick, weighing sixteen and three-quarter pounds troy. This +group shows twenty crystals from a half inch to five inches long, +and from one to two inches broad. They were discovered by a peasant +cutting wood near the summit of the mountain. His eye was attracted +by the lustrous sparkling amongst the decomposed mica and where the +ground had been exposed by the uprooting of a tree by the violence of +the wind. He collected a number of the crystals, and brought them to +Katharineburg and showed them to M. Kokawin, who recognized them and +sent them to St. Petersburg, where they were critically examined by +Van Worth and pronounced to be emeralds. One of these crystals was +presented by the emperor to Humboldt when he visited St. Petersburg, +and it is now deposited in the Berlin collection. Quite a number +of emeralds are now brought from the Siberian localities, and it is +believed that enterprise and capital would produce a large supply of +the gem.[B] + +The supply of emeralds from South America is very limited, and may +be ascribed to want of skillful mining, as well as to climate, +the political condition of the country and the indolence of its +inhabitants. The localities cannot be exhausted, for they are too +numerous and extensive. The elevated regions in Granada admit of +scientific exploration by Europeans, and at the present day the +only emerald-mining operations conducted in South America have been +prosecuted near Santa Fé de Bogota by a French company, which has +paid the government fourteen thousand dollars yearly for the right of +mining, all the emeralds obtained being sent to Paris to be cut by the +lapidaries of that city. + +In the Atacama districts, and along the banks of the River of +Emeralds, the physical obstructions are difficult to overcome, and +pestilential diseases of malignant character forbid the long sojourn +of the European. Yet the introduction of Chinese labor may prove +successful and highly remunerative, since the coolie reared among +the jungles and rice-swamps of Southern China is quite as exempt from +malarial fevers as the negro. + +The price of the emerald has no fixed and extended scale, like that of +the diamond, and the fluctuations of its value during the past three +centuries form an interesting chapter in the history of gems. + +In the time of Dutens (1777) the price of small stones of the first +quality was one louis the carat; one and a half carats, five louis; +two carats, ten louis; and beyond this weight no rule of value could +be established. In De Boot's day (1600) emeralds were so plenty as +to be worth only a quarter as much as the diamond. The markets were +glutted with the frequent importations from Peru, and thirteen years +before the above-mentioned period one vessel brought from South +America two hundred and three pounds of fine emeralds, worth at +the present valuation more than seven millions of dollars. At the +beginning of this century, according to Caire, they were worth no more +than twenty-four francs (or about five dollars) the carat, and for a +long time antecedent to 1850 they were valued at only fifteen dollars +the carat. Since this period they have become very rare, and their +valuation has advanced enormously. In fact, the value of the emerald +now exceeds that of the diamond, and is rapidly approaching the ratio +fixed by Benevenuto Cellini in the middle of the sixteenth century, +which rated the emerald at four times, and the ruby at eight times, +the value of the diamond. Perfect stones (the emerald is exceedingly +liable to flaw, the beryl is more free, and the green sapphire is +rarely impaired by fissures or cracks) of one carat in weight are +worth at the present day two hundred dollars in gold. Perfect gems +of two carats weight will command five hundred dollars in gold, while +larger stones are sold at extravagant prices. + +Most of our aqua-marinas come from Brazil and Siberia, and small +stones are sold at trifling prices. Some of them, however, when +perfect and of fine color, command fabulous sums. The superb little +beryl found at Mouzzinskaia is valued by the Russians at the enormous +sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, although the crystal +weighs but little more than one ounce. Another rough prism preserved +in the Museum at Paris, and weighing less than one hundred grains, has +received the tempting offer of fifteen thousand francs. + +A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + +[Footnote A: A curious result happened to the elder Silliman when +experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before the compound blowpipe. +The reducing flame instantly melted it into a transparent green +globule. Perhaps the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which +reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which disappear at a +lower temperature. But this could not be done if the color was due +to organic matter, which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by +combustion.] + +[Footnote B: Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian emeralds +of large size and beautiful color are now to be seen in the valuable +and choice collections of Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of +Philadelphia.] + + + + +BERRYTOWN. + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +It rained during the night. The wind blew feebly in the morning, +and the sunlight glimmered dully from behind the flying gray clouds. +Catharine looked out of her window, anxiously pushing aside the boughs +full of wet white roses. The sense of desolation was not strong enough +upon her to make her forget that Peter had not yet cut the clover +in the lower meadow, and that such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. +Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping up an old Bourbon rose, an +especial favorite of her father's. Somebody tapped at her door, and +Miss Muller rustled in in a flounced white muslin and rose-colored +ribbons. She too hurried to the window and looked down. + +"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. I can't make you understand, +probably, but the Water-cure House is so bald and bare! There is +something in the shade here, and the old books, and this wilderness +of roses, that forms a fitting background for a friendship like ours, +aesthetically considered." + +"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told Jane to have waffles--" + +"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, "and direct her about the +table. Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would jar against the finest +emotions. What very pretty shoulders you have, child! Such women as +you, like potatoes, are best _au naturel_. Now, with those corsets, +and this red shawl over the back of your chair, you would make a very +good Madonna of the Rubens school. Men's ideal of womanhood then was +to be plump, insipid and a mother." + +"But about the oily butter?" said Kitty, glancing back over the +aforesaid shoulders as she stooped to lace her shoes, while Maria +hurried off to the kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer emotions, +I fancy, when she begins to order her about." + +But Kitty lost all relish for fun before she sat down to the +breakfast-table. Mr. Muller came in. The poor little man hurried to +her side: "I passed a sleepless night, Catharine. I feared that I had +been rough with you. I forget so often how gentle and tender you are, +my darling." + +Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my word, I've forgotten what happened. +And I really never feel especially gentle or tender. You are mistaken +about that." + +When she took her place behind the urn, Maria motioned her brother to +the foot of the table, and then nodded significantly. "Now you two can +imagine a month or two has passed," she said. + +Even Doctor McCall smiled meaningly. Mr. Muller blushed, and glanced +shyly at Catharine. But she looked at him unmoved. "Our table will +not be like this," gravely. "You forget the three hundred blue-coats +between." Maria laughed, but Doctor McCall for the first time looked +steadily at the girl. + +First of all, perhaps, Kitty was just then a housekeeper. She waited +anxiously to see if the steak was properly rare and the omelette +light, nodded brightly to Jane, who stood watchful behind her, and +then looked over at her betrothed, thinking how soon they would sit +down tête-à -tête for the rest of their lives, perhaps for eternity, +for, according to her orthodoxy, there could be no new loves in +heaven. How fat he was, and bald! The mild blue eyes behind their +glasses took possession of her and held her. + +She listened to the talk between Doctor McCall and Miss Muller in a +language she had never learned. Maria's share of it was largely made +up of headlong dives into Spencer and Darwin, with reminiscences of +_The Dial_, while Doctor McCall's was anchored fast down to facts; but +it was all alive, suggestive, brilliant. They were young. They were +drinking life and love with full cups. She (looking over at the bald +head and spectacled eyes) had gone straight out of childhood into +middle age and respectability. + +The breakfast was over at last. Miss Muller followed Doctor McCall +into the shop, where he fell to turning over the old books, and then +to the garden. What was the use of a stage properly set if the drama +would not begin? + +"Pray do not worry any longer with that old bush," as he went back +to Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours to be persistent about +trifles. Or stay: give me a bud for my hair." + +"Not these!" sharply, holding her hand. "I could not see one of these +roses on any woman's head." + +She smiled, very well pleased: "You perceive some subtle connection +between me and the flower?" + +"Nothing of the sort. There are some, planted, I suppose, by that +little girl, which will be more becoming to your face." + +"You are repelled by 'the little girl,' I see, John. I always told you +your instincts were magnetic. That type of woman is antipathetic to +you." + +He laughed: "I have no instincts, hardly ideas, about either roses +or types of women. If I avoided Miss Vogdes, it was because her name +recalled one of the old hard experiences of my boyhood. The girl +herself is harmless enough, no doubt." + +"And the rose?" + +"The rose? Why, we have no time to waste in such talk as this. You +have not yet told me how you managed to get your profession. When I +last saw you you had set all the old professors in the university at +defiance. Did you carry lectures and cliniques by strategy or assault? +You have good fighting qualities, Maria." + +She would rather not have gone over her battle with the doctors just +then: she would rather he had talked of her "magnetic instincts," her +hair, her eyes--anything else than her fighting qualities. But she +told him. There was an inexplicable delight to her in telling him +anything--even the time of day. Was he not a pioneer, a captain among +men, a seer in the realms of thought, keeping step with her in all her +high imaginings? Ordinary people, it is true, set McCall down as an +ordinary fellow, genial and hearty--not a very skillful physician, +perhaps, but a shrewd farmer, and the best judge of mules or peaches +in Kent county. Maria, however, saw him with the soul's eye. + +Kitty meanwhile sat by the window mending the clothes that had come +out of the wash. Mr. Muller was reading some letters relative to the +school to her. This was the day of the week on which she always mended +the clothes, and Mr. Muller had fallen into the habit of reading to +her while she did so. But to-day the Reformatory rose before her a +prison, the gates of which were about to close on her. The heap of +stockings, the touch of the darning cotton, the sound of Mr. Muller's +droning voice, were maddening to her: every moment she made a tangle +in her thread, looking down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, and the +attentive face bent over her. Where should she go? What should she do? +Had the world nothing in it for her but this? Yesterday she had made +up her mind to go to Delaware to find Hugh Guinness, alive or dead, +and bring him to his father. That would be work worth doing. This +morning she remembered that Delaware was a wide hunting-ground--that +she had never been ten miles from home in her life. If there were +anybody to give her advice! This Doctor McCall had seemed to her +to-day as, in fact, he did to most people, practical, honest, full +of information. He would too, she somehow felt, understand her wild +fancy. But-- + +"Why should Doctor McCall dislike _me_?" she broke in at the close of +one of Mr. Muller's expositions. + +"What an absurd fancy, child!" looking up in amazement. "The man was +civil enough to you for so slight an acquaintance." + +"It was more than dislike," vehemently. "He watched me all through +breakfast as though he owed me a grudge. I could see it in his eyes." + +"You oughtn't to see any eyes but mine, Cathie dear," with anxious +playfulness. "Why should you care for the opinion of any man?" + +"Because he is different from any man I ever knew. He belongs to the +world outside. I always did wonder if people would like me out there," +said Kitty, too doggedly in earnest to see how her words hurt her +listener. "If one could be like those two people yonder! They seem to +know everything--they can do everything!" + +"Maria is well enough--for a woman," dryly. "But I never heard McCall +credited with exceptional ability of any sort." + +Kitty glanced at him: "Of course you're right," quickly. "Men only can +judge of character: we women are apt to be silly about such things." +Her kind heart felt a wrench at having hurt this good soul. She put +her fingers on his fat hand with a touch that was almost a caress. He +turned red with surprise and pleasure. "But it is pleasant," she said, +glancing down again to the Bourbon rose, "to see such love as that. +They will be married soon, I suppose?" + +"Very likely. I never knew of any love in the case before. But Maria +is such a manager! And you think of love, then, sometimes?" timidly +putting his arm about her. + +"Oh to be sure! How can you doubt that? But it grows chilly. I must +bring a sacque," hurrying away; and in fact she looked cold, and +shivered. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"Doctor McCall recognizes the Book-house, just as I did, as the right +background for communion like ours," Miss Muller said complacently to +Kitty a week later. "He meets me here every day." + +"Yes," said Catharine with a perplexed look. She had no special +instincts or intuitions, but her eyes were as keen and observant as a +lynx's. He came, she saw, to the Book-house every day. But had he no +other purpose than to meet Maria? + +"I did not know that McCall affected scholarship," said Mr. Muller +tartly the next day. "He tells me that he has a peach-farm to manage. +August is no time to loiter away, poring over old books. Just the +peach season." + +"No," Kitty replied demurely. But her face wore again the puzzled +look. She began to watch Doctor McCall. He really knew but little, she +saw, of rare books: his reading of them was a mere pretence. He +was neither a lazy nor a morbid man: what pleasure could he have in +neglecting his work day after day, sitting alone in the dusky old shop +as if held there by some enchantment? Kitty knew that she herself had +nothing to do with it: she appeared to be no more in his way than a +tame dog would be, and, after the first annoyance which she gave +him, was really little more noticed. But there is a certain sense of +home-snugness and comfort in the presence of tame dogs and of women +like Kitty: one cannot be long in the room with either without +throwing them a kind word or petting them in some way. Doctor McCall +was just the man to fall into such a habit. Down on the farm, his +cattle, his hands, even the neighbors with whom he argued on politics, +could all have testified to his easy, large good-humor. + +"Oh, we are the best of friends," he said indifferently when Maria +found Kitty chattering to him once, very much as she did to old Peter. +But when Miss Muller, who had no petty jealousies, enlarged on the +singular beauty of her eyes and some good points in her shape, he did +not respond. "I never could talk of a woman as if she were a horse," +he said. "And this little girl seems to me unusually human." + +"There's really nothing in her, though. Poor William! He is marrying +eyes, I tell him. It's a pitiable marriage!" + +"Yes, it is," said Doctor McCall gravely. + +After that he neglected the old books sometimes to talk to Kitty. He +thought she was such an immature, thoughtless creature that she would +not notice that the subject he chose was always the same--her daily +life, with old Peter for her chum and confidant. + +"Mr. Guinness, then, has had no companion but you?" he said one day, +after a searching inspection of her face. + +"No, nobody but me," quite forgetful, as she and Peter were too apt to +be, that her mother was alive. + +"And has had none for years?" + +"Not since his son died. Hugh Guinness is dead, you know." + +Doctor McCall was looking thoughtfully at the floor. He rose presently +and took up his hat: "The old man cannot have been unhappy with such +love as you could give him. No man could." + +Kitty was sitting, as usual, on a low stool pasting labels on some +dog-eared books: as long as McCall stood looking at her round cheeks +and double chin she pasted on, apparently unconscious that he was +there, but when he turned away she watched him shrewdly as he went +uneasily up and down the shop, and finally, with a curt good-bye, +turned out of the door. As the stout figure passed through the low +branches of the walnuts her gray eyes began to shine. Her Mystery was +nearly solved. + +Dropping paste and books in a heap, she ran after him, taking a short +cut through the currant bushes, so that when he passed on the outer +side of the garden fence there she was quietly waiting, her head and +face darkly framed by a thick creeper. + +"Well?" smiling down, amused, as he might to a playful kitten. + +"Doctor McCall," in the queer formal fashion that was Kitty's own, "I +should be glad if you would come back this evening. Without Maria. +I have some business--that is, a plan of mine. Well, it is a certain +thing that--" + +"That you wish to consult me about?" after waiting for her to finish. + +"Yes, that's it," nodding energetically. + +"Very well." He stood looking at her arm on the fence, and the face +resting with its chin upon it. McCall, of all men, hated a scene, and +he had an uneasy consciousness that he had just betrayed unexplained +feeling in the house, and was therefore glad to slip back to +commonplaces. Besides, Kitty was exactly the kind of woman whom all +men feel an insane desire to help at first sight. "You have a plan, +eh? and you want advice, not knowing much about business?" + +There was not the least necessity for him to say this, having asked +it before. But he did it, and waited to hear Kitty say yes again, and +waited still, before he lifted his hat and said good-bye, to see the +shadow of a waving branch creep over her white chin and lose itself in +her neck. Most men would have done the same, just as they would stop +to whistle a laugh from a fat, pretty baby on the street, and then go +on, leaving it behind. The last thing in the world to consult on their +business, or to ask for help or comfort when trouble met them, or +death. + + * * * * * + +Miss Muller spent the whole day at the Book-house, but Doctor McCall +did not come, as she expected. As evening approached she began to +shiver, and had premonitory symptoms of clairvoyance, and went home at +last, to Kitty's relief. A slow drizzling rain set in: the damp fogs +that belong to that river-bottom walled in the house and hung flat +over the walnuts like a roof. Catharine had made her own corner of the +Book-shop snug and cheerful. The space was wide, the light soft and +bright. She placed her own chair by the table, Peter's not far from +it. She meant to produce a great effect on this man to-night, to +change the whole current of his life, without having the help of +either love or even friendship. Unconsciously she planned to bring +him close to her, though very likely she had never heard of personal +magnetism, or any of the curious secrets political speakers or +actors or revivalists could have told her of the deadening effects of +distance and empty benches. + +Then Kitty, in her room overhead, looked at herself in the glass, +arrayed in a soft cashmere, in color blue, still farther toned down, +by certain softer fringes and loops, into the very ideal garb for +a man's type of "yielding, lovely woman." It was one of the sacred +wedding-dresses. + +"Maria could never look like this," tying a lace handkerchief about +her neck, pulling the soft rings of hair looser about her ears, +setting her head on one side, and half shutting her eyes to see the +thick and curly lashes. + +There was no danger of interruption. Maria was safely lodged in the +Water-cure House, and the very idea of Mr. Muller's glossy black shoes +and dainty brown umbrella venturing out in the rain made Kitty laugh. + +"The dear, good soul is finical as a cat," with the good-natured +indulgence of a mother for a child. Suddenly she stopped, stared at +herself in the glass. "Why, he is my husband!" she said, speaking to +the blushing, blue-robed figure as to another person. Then she hastily +unbuttoned, unlooped the pretty dress, threw it off, putting on her +usual gray wrapper and knotting her hair more tightly back than ever +in a comb. "He has been very good to me--very good to me," her chin +trembling a good deal. + +Then she went down to meet Doctor McCall, who that moment came into +the Book-shop, stopping at the door to take off and shake his oilskin +coat. + +"It is a wet night," she said, just as though he were a stranger. She +did not know what else to say or what he answered as she went about, +trimming the lamp, dragging out a chair for him, closing the window +curtains. Both McCall and Catharine were ordinary people, accustomed +to keep up a good flow of talk on ordinary subjects, the weather +or any joke or gossip that was nearest to them. There had been no +passages of love or hate between them to account for her forced +formality, her trembling and flushing, and urgent almost angry wish +to remind him that she was Mr. Muller's affianced wife. She felt this +with a new contempt for herself. + +As for Doctor McCall, he leaned comfortably back in his arm-chair +and dried his legs at the grate filled with red-hot coals, while he +listened to the soft rustle of her skirts as she moved noiselessly +about him. It is the peculiarity of women like Kitty, to whom Nature +has denied the governing power of ideas or great personal beauty or +magnetism, such as she gave to Miss Muller, that there is a certain +impalpable force and attraction in their most petty actions and words, +to which men yield. Miss Muller could have watched Kitty all day +dragging chairs and trimming lamps, unmoved farther than to pronounce +her little better than an idiot. But Peter, Muller or John McCall +could not look at her for five minutes without classing her with +Cordelia and Desdemona and all the other sweet fools for whom men have +died, and whom the world yet keeps sacred in pathetic memory. Some +day too, when Catharine should be a mother--though giving to her older +children, little more than to the baby on her breast, soft touches and +gentle words--she would bind them to her as no other kind, of mother +could do--by such bonds that until they were gray-haired no power +should be like hers. Miss Muller neither saw nor foresaw such things. +But Doctor McCall did. "If I had had such a mother I should not have +been what I am," he thought. It was a curious fancy to have about a +young girl. But she seemed to embody all the womanliness that had been +lacking in his life. Of course she was nothing to him. She was to be +that prig Muller's wife, and he was quite satisfied that she should +be. If he married, Maria Muller would be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, +he felt to-night, for the first time, the necessity that Maria should +know how marriage was barred out from him, and felt, for the first +time, too, a maddening anger that it was so barred. However, Doctor +McCall was never meant by Nature for a solitary man housed alone with +morbid thoughts: he was the stuff out of which useful citizens are +made--John Andersons of husbands, doting, gullible fathers. + +Remembering the bar in his life, his skeleton, ghost or whatever it +was, he was only moved to get up and stretch himself, saying, "I've +stayed in Berrytown too long. When you have told me your plan, I'll +say good-bye to you, Miss Vogdes, and this old house. I shall be off +to-morrow." + +Kitty had just caught a moth in the flame of the candle. She carried +it to the window. "You will come back soon, of course?" her back still +toward him. + +"No, I think not. I am neglecting my business. And I, of all men in +the world, have least right to loiter about this old house, to look in +on its home-life or on you." + +Kitty gave him a sharp glance, as though some sudden emergency was +clear before her which her tact failed to meet. She was folding the +bits of muslin at which she had been sewing in a basket: she finished +slowly, put the basket away, and sat down at the table, with her elbow +on it and her chin on her hand, her gray eyes suggesting a deeper and +unspoken meaning to her words: "But for my plan?" + +"Ah! to be sure! You want advice?" seating himself comfortably. Her +confusion was a pretty thing to watch, the red creeping up her neck +into her face, blotting out its delicate tints, the uncertain glances, +the full bitten lip. Doctor McCall quite forgot his own trouble in the +keen pleasure of the sight. + +"Perhaps--You do not quite understand my position here? Mr. Guinness +is not my own father." + +"No, I knew that." + +"But you cannot know what he has been to me: _I_ never knew until the +last few days." + +"Why within these few days, Miss Vogdes?" + +"Because I saw you and Maria: I saw what love was. I began to think +about it. I never have loved anybody but him," she went on headlong, +utterly blind to all inferences. "There's a thing I can do for him, +Doctor McCall, before I marry Mr. Muller, and I must do it. It will +make his old age happier than any other part of his life has been." + +McCall nodded, leaning forward. It was nothing but an imprudent girl +dragging out her secrets before a stranger; nothing but a heated face, +wet eyes, a sweet milky breath; but no tragedy he had ever seen on the +stage had moved him so uncontrollably--no, not any crisis in his own +life--with such delicious, inexplicable emotion. + +"Well, what is it you can do?" after waiting for her to go on. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"My father," said Kitty, "had once a great trouble. It has made an old +man of him before his time. I find that I can take it from him." +She looked up at him with this. Now, there was a certain shrewd +penetration under the softness of Kitty's eyes. Noting it, McCall +instantly lost sight of her beauty and tears. He returned her look +coolly. + +"What was his trouble?" + +"Mr. Guinness had a son. He has believed him to be dead for years: I +know that he is not dead." + +Doctor McCall waited, with her eyes still upon him. "Well?" he said, +attentive. + +"And then," pushing back the table and rising, "when I heard that, I +meant to go and find Hugh Guinness, and bring him back to his father." + +Whatever this matter might be to her hearer, it was the most real +thing in life to Catharine, and putting it into words gave it a sudden +new force. She felt that she ought to hold her tongue, but she could +not. She only knew that the lighted room, the beating of the rain +without, the watchful guarded face on the other side of the table, +shook and frightened and angered her unaccountably. + +"You should not laugh at me," she said. "This is the first work I ever +set myself to do. It is better than nursing three hundred children." + +"I am not laughing at you, God knows! But this Guinness, if he be +alive, remains away voluntarily. There must be a reason for that. You +do not consider." + +"I do not care to consider. Is the man a log or a stone? If I found +him," crossing the room in her heat until she stood beside him--"if +I brought him to the old house and to his father? Why, look at this!" +dragging open the drawer and taking out the broken gun and rod. "See +what he has kept for years--all that was left him of his boy! Look, +at that single hair! If Hugh Guinness stood where you do, and touched +these things as you are touching them, could he turn his back on the +old man?" + +Now, Doctor McCall did not touch gun nor cap nor hair, but he bent +over the table, looking at them as if he were looking at the dead. He +seemed to have forgotten that Kitty was there. + +At last he stood upright: "Poor little chap!" with a laugh. "There +seemed to be no reason, when he went gunning and fishing like other +boys, why he should not stand here to-day with as fair a chance for +happiness as any other man. Did there? Just a trifling block laid in +his way, a push down hill, and no force could ever drag him up again." + +Kitty, her eyes on his, stood silent. Do what he would, he could not +shake off her eyes: they wrenched the truth from him, "I knew this man +Guinness once," he said. + +She nodded: "Yes, I know you did." + +"Sit down beside me here, and I will tell you what kind of man he +was." + +But she did not sit down. An unaccountable terror or timidity seemed +to have paralyzed her. She looked aside--everywhere but in his face: +"I wanted you to tell me how to reach him, how to touch him: I know +what manner of man he is." + +"You have heard from your mother? A mixed Border Pike and +Mephistopheles, eh? The devil and his victim rolled into one?" He +shifted his heavy body uneasily, glancing toward the door. Chief +among the graver secret emotions which she had roused in him was +the momentary annoyance of not knowing how to deal with this +chicken-hearted little girl before him, scared, but on fire from head +to foot. + +Kitty was quite confident. If it had been Maria Muller who had thus +set herself to tamper with a man's life, she would have done it +trembling, with fear and self-distrust. She had brains which could +feel and react against the passions she evoked, and were competent to +warn her of the peril of her work. But as for Kitty-- + +Here was Hugh Guinness before her, a Cain with the curse of God +upon him. It was clearly her business to bring him back again to his +father, and afterward convert him into a member of the church, if +possible. She went about the work with as little doubt as if it had +been the making of a pudding. + +But she was shy, tender, womanly withal. Doctor McCall laughed as +he looked down at her, and spoke deliberately, as though giving his +opinion of a patient to another physician. "I'll tell you honestly my +opinion of Hugh Guinness. He was, first of all, a thoroughly ordinary, +commonplace man, with neither great virtues nor great vices, nor force +of any kind. If he had had that, he could have recovered himself when +he began to fall. But he did not recover himself." + +"What drove him down in the first place?" + +He hesitated: "I suppose that his home and religion became hateful to +him. Boys have unreasonable prejudices at times." + +"And then, in despair--" + +"Despair? Nonsense! Now don't figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of +a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's gate was shut on him. +At nineteen Hugh Guinness drank and fought and gambled, as +other ill-managed boys do to work off the rank fever of blood. +Unfortunately--" he stopped, and then added in a lower voice, +quickly, "he made a mistake while the fever was on him which was +irretrievable." + +"A mistake?" Kitty was always of an inquiring turn of mind, but now +she felt as if her curiosity was more than she could bear, while she +stood, her eyes passing over the burly figure in summer clothes and +the high-featured, pleasant face with its close-cut moustache. What +dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, every-day propriety +of linen duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache over a mouth that +often smiled? You might meet their like any day upon the streets. Was +it a murder? At best some crime, perhaps, which had sent him to +the penitentiary. Or--and church taught Kitty shuddered as a vague +remembrance of the "unpardonable sin" rose before her like an actual +horror. Whatever it was, it stood between herself and him, keeping +them apart for ever. + +"Irretrievable?" she said. It was only curiosity, she knew, but her +voice sounded oddly far off to herself, the room was hazy, her whole +body seemed to shrink together. + +"What can it matter to you? You belong to another man, Miss Vogdes." +She lifted herself erect. Doctor McCall was speaking more loudly than +usual and looking keenly into her face. + +"I know: I shall be Mr. Muller's wife. Of course, I recollect. But +you--this Hugh Guinness is my father's son," stammered Kitty, her face +very white. "I had some interest in him." + +"Yes, that's true. He is, as you say, in some sort a brother of +yours." He took her hand for the first time, looking down at her face +with some meaning in his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, +though the thoughts in Kitty's shallow brain were clear enough to him. +"You are tired of standing," seating her gently in Peter's chair. A +thick lock of hair had fallen over her face: he put out his hand +to remove it, but drew back quickly. "We have talked too long, Miss +Vogdes," in a brisk, cheerful tone. "Some other time, perhaps, we can +return to this question of Hugh Guinness. That is," with a certain +significance of manner, "if it be one in which Mr. Muller wishes you +to take an interest." Nodding good-humoredly to her, he buttoned on +his oilskin cape and went out into the rain without another word. He +pulled off his cap outside to let the rain and wind reach his head, +drawing a long breath as if to get rid of some foul air and heat. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Of all that wet August the next morning was the freshest and +cheerfulest. Doctor McCall had packed his valise, carried it to the +station, and was now walking up the street, his hands clasped behind +him and his head down, after the leisurely fashion of Delaware and +Jersey farmers. People nodded an approving good-morning to him. +Busy Berrytown had passed verdict on him as a man who was idle for a +purpose, who permitted his brain to lie fallow, and who "loafed +and invited his soul" during these two weeks for the best spiritual +hygienic reasons. + +"Too much brain-work, my friend Doctor Maria Muller tells me," said +the lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at the station as McCall passed +them. "Is here for repose." + +"Advanced?" said little Herr Bluhm, the phrenologist. + +"Well, no. But Doctor Maria thinks his mind is open to conviction, +and that he would prove a strong worker should he remain here. She +has already begun to enlighten him on our newest theories as to a +Spontaneous Creation and a Consolidated Republic." + +"Should think his properer study would be potatoes. Smells of the +barn-yard in his talk," rejoined one of the party. + +"Doctor Maria's a fool!" snapped Bluhm. "She has read the index to +Bastian's book, and denies her Creator, and gabbles of Bacteria, +boiled and unboiled, ever since." + +Doctor McCall meanwhile went down the cinder-path, to all passers-by +a clean-shaven, healthy gentleman out in search of an appetite for +breakfast. But in reality he was deciding his whole life in that brief +walk. Why, he asked himself once or twice, should he be unlike the +other clean-shaven, healthy men that he met? God knows he had no +relish for mystery. He was, as he had told Kitty, a commonplace man, a +thrifty Delaware farmer, in hearty good-fellowship with his neighbors, +his cattle, the ground he tilled, and, he thought reverently, with +the God who had made him and them. He had made a mistake in his early +youth, but it was a mistake which every tenth man makes--which had no +doubt driven half these men and women about him into their visionary +creeds and hard work--that of an unhappy marriage. It was many years +since he had heard of his wife: she had grown tired of warning him of +the new paths of shame and crime she had found for herself. In fact, +the year in which they had lived together was now so long past as to +seem like a miserable half-forgotten dream. + +Irretrievable? Yes, it was irretrievable. There was, first of all, +the stupid, boyish error of a change of name. If he came back as this +child wished, all the annoyance which that entailed would follow him, +and the humiliating circumstances which had led to it would be brought +to life from their unclean graves. His father believed him dead. +Better the quiet, softened grief which that had left than the disgrace +which would follow his return. "I should have to tell him my wife's +story," muttered McCall. But he did not turn pale nor break into a +cold sweat at the remembrance, as Miss Muller's hero should have done. +This was an old sore--serious enough, but one which he meant to make +the best of, according to his habit. He had been a fool, he thought, +to come back and hang about the old place for the pleasure of hearing +his father talked of, and of touching the things he had handled a day +or two before. Growing into middle age, Hugh Guinness's likeness to +his father had increased year by year. The two men were simple as boys +in some respects, and would have been satisfied alone together. The +younger man halted now on the foot-bridge which crossed the creek, +looking out the different hollows where his father had taken him to +fish when he was a boy, and thinking of their life then. "But his wife +and mine would have to be put into the scales now," with an attempt at +whistling which died out discordantly. + +There was one person to whom the shameful confession of his marriage +must be made--Miss Muller. That was the result, he thought, of his +absurd whim of loitering about Berry town. When he had met Maria +Muller before, he had no reason to think she cared a doit whether he +was married or single. Now--McCall's color changed, alone as he was, +with shame and annoyance. With all his experience of life and of +women, he had as little self-confidence as an awkward girl. But Maria +had left him no room for doubt. + +"It would be the right thing to do. I ought to tell her. But it will +be a slight matter to her, no doubt." + +If he had been a single man, in all probability he would have asked +Maria Muller to marry him that day. He was a susceptible fellow, with +a man's ordinary vanity and passions; and Maria's bright sweet face, +their loiterings along shady lanes and under Bourbon roses, the +perpetual deference she paid to his stupendous intellect, had had due +effect. He was not the man to see a strong, beautiful woman turn pale +and tremble at his touch, and preserve his phlegm. + +He threw away his cigar, and jumped the fence into the Water-cure +grounds. "I'll tell her now, and then be off from old Berry town for +ever." + +Miss Muller was standing in the porch. She leaned over the railing, +looking at the ragged rain-clouds driven swiftly over the blue +distance, and at the wet cornfields and clumps of bay bushes gray with +berries which filled the damp air with their pungent smell. Her dog, +a little black-and-tan terrier, bit at her skirt. She had just been +lecturing to her three students on the vertebrae, and when she +took him up could not help fumbling over his bones, even while she +perceived the color and scent of the morning. They gave her so keen a +pleasure that the tears rushed to her eyes, and she stopped punching +Hero's back. + +"'The rain is over and gone,'" she recited softly to herself, "'the +vines with the tender grape give a good smell, and the time of the +singing of birds has come.' There is no poetry like that old Hebrew +love-song. If only it had not been hackneyed by being turned into a +theological allegory! Ha, doggy, doggy! There comes a friend of ours!" +suddenly laughing and hugging him as she caught sight of a large man +coming up the road with a swinging gait and loose white overcoat. She +broke off a rose and put it in her breast, tied on her hat and hurried +down to meet him, the Song of Solomon still keeping time with her +thoughts in a lofty cadence: "'Who is this that cometh up from the +wilderness leaning upon his beloved? Set me as a seal upon thine +heart, as a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death.'" + +"What's that, Maria? I heard you intoning as I came up the hill?" Her +eyes were soft and luminous and her voice unsteady. I am afraid Doctor +McCall's eyes were warmer in their admiration than they should +have been under the circumstances. Why should she not tell him? She +repeated it. She had been chattering for two hours on cervical, dorsal +and lumbar vertebrae, without stopping to take breath. But she grew +red now and broke down miserably. + +"'Love is strong as death,' eh?" said McCall, awkwardly holding the +gate open for her. "Friendship ought to be tough enough to bear a +pretty stout strain, then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. For I +think a man and woman can be friends without--without--Well, what do +you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden imbecility in all his big body. + +The little woman beside him looked up scared and ready to cry: "I +don't know, John, I'm sure. Do be quiet, Hero!" Then like a flash she +saw that he meant to ask her to marry him: he meant to place love upon +the higher basis of friendship. Maria was used to people who found new +names for old things. Why! why! what folly was this, as she grew cold +and hot by turns? So often she had pictured his coming to claim her, +and how she would go out as one calm controlling soul should to meet +another, to be dual yet united through all eternity; and here she was +shivering and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! Love-making and +marriage were at a discount with the Advanced Club of which she was a +member, and classed with dancing, fashionable dressing and other such +paltry feminine frivolities. But Maria had meant to show them that a +woman could really love and marry, and preserve her own dignity. She +tried to find her footing now. + +"Come into the summer-house, John. I should think our friendship would +bear any strain, for it does not depend on external ties." + +"No, that's true. Now, as to your phalansteries and women's clubs and +sitz-baths, why that's all flummery to me. But young women must have +their whims until they have husbands to occupy their minds, I suppose. +There's that little girl at the Book-shop: how many leagues of tatting +do you suppose she makes in a year?" + +"I really cannot say," sharply. + +"But as to our friendship, Maria--" + +"Yes. There may be a lack of external bonds" (speaking deliberately, +for she wanted to remember this crisis of her life as accurate in all +its minutiae); "but there is a primal unity, a mysterious sympathy, in +power and emotion. At least, so it seems to me," suddenly stammering +and picking up Hero to avoid looking at McCall, who stood in front of +her. + +"I don't know. Primal unities are rather hazy to me. I can tell by a +woman's eye and hand-shake if she is pure-minded and sweet-tempered, +and pretty well, too, what she thinks of me. That's about as far as I +go." + +"It pleases you to wear this mask of dullness, I know," with an +indulgent smile, with which Titania might have fondled the ass's head. + +"But as to our friendship," gravely, "I feel I've hardly been fair +to you. Friendship demands candor, and there is one matter on which I +have not dealt plainly with you. You have been an honest, firm friend +to me, Maria. I had no right to withhold my confidence from you." + +If Miss Muller had not been known as an advanced philosopher, basing +her life upon the Central Truths, she would have gained some credit +as a shrewd woman of business. "What do you mean, John?" she said, +turning a cool I steady countenance toward him. + +"Sit down and I will tell you what I mean." + + * * * * * + +The patients, taking soon after their two hours' exercise, made their +jokes on the battle between the two systems, seeing the allopathist +McCall and Doctor Maria Haynes Muller in the summer-house engaged in +such long and earnest converse. Homoeopathy, they guessed, had the +worst of it, for the lady was visibly agitated and McCall apparently +unmoved. Indeed, when he left her and crossed the garden, nodding to +such of them as he knew, he had a satisfied, relieved face. + +Maria went immediately in to visit her ward as usual. The patients +observed that she was milder than was her wont, and deadly pale. +One of them, addressing her as "Miss Muller," however, was sharply +rebuked: "I earned my right to the title of physician too hardly to +give it up for that which belongs to every simpering school-girl," she +said. "Besides," with a queer pitiful smile, "the sooner we doctors +sink the fact that we are women the better for the cause--and for us." + +She met her brother in the course of the morning, and drew him into +the consulting-room. + +"William," she said, fumbling with the buttons of his coat, "he is +going: he is going to take the afternoon train." + +"Who? That fellow McCall?" + +"Why do you speak so of him, William? He has just told me his story. +He is so wretched! he has been used so hardly!" She could scarcely +keep back the tears. In her new weakness and weariness it was such +comfort to talk to and hang upon this fat, stupid little brother, whom +usually she despised. + +"Wretched, eh? He don't look it, then. As stout and easy-going a +fellow as I know. Come, come, Maria! The man has been imposing some +story on you to work on your sensibilities. I never fancied him, as +you know. He doesn't want to borrow money, eh?" with sudden alarm. + +"Money? No." + +"What is it, then? Don't look at me in that dazed way. You, are going +to have one of your attacks. I do wish you had Kitty's constitution +and some sense." + +"William," rousing herself, "he is going. He will never come back to +Berrytown or to me. Our whole lives depend on my seeing him once more. +Ask him to wait for a day--an hour." + +"If he doesn't take the noon express, he can't go in an hour. You +certainly know that, Maria. Well, if I have to find him, I'd better go +at once," buttoning his coat irritably. "I never did like the fellow." + +"Beg him to stay. Tell him that I have thought of a way of escape," +following him, catching him by his sleeve, her small face absolutely +without color and her eyes glittering. + +"Yes, I'm going. But I must find my overshoes first. It begins to look +like rain." + +Miss Muller watched him to the door, and then crossed the hall to her +own room, locking the door behind her. The square table was piled with +medical books. She sat down and dropped her head on her arms. Over +went a bound volume of the _Lancet_ and a folio on diseases of the +kidneys to the floor. She looked down at them. "And I was willing to +give him up for that--that trash!" sobbing and rubbing her arms like +a beaten child. But she had so strong a habit of talking that even in +this pain the words would come: "I loved him so. He would have married +me! And I must be kept from him by a law of society! It is--it is," +rising and wrenching her hands together, "a damnable law!" + +For Miss Muller had taught herself to think and talk like a man. + +REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +BOWERY ENGLAND. + + +A party of four Americans in London--Mr. Hill Bunker of Boston, Mrs. +Bunker, his wife, Miss Amy Abell of New York, and myself--we find +ourselves growing weary of that noisy town. We talk of a trip to the +country. It is the merry month of May. + +"Just the time for 'bowery England, as Bulwer phrases it," says Amy. +"Let us go to Romsey and see the Boyces." + +Carried unanimously. We take the train from the Waterloo Station +two hours later. When we get down at Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the +attentive porter--carries our luggage, calls the fly and touches +his hat thankfully for three-pence. The Romsey fly is a lumbering, +two-seated carriage, rather more pretentious than a London cab, but +far behind the glossy gorgeousness of a New York hackney-coach. + +A short drive brings us to the White Horse Inn, under whose covered +arch we roll, and are met at the door by a maid. She conducts us to +a stuffy coffee-room up a flight of crumbling old stairs, and meekly +desires to know our will. + +"Send the landlord, please." + +The landlord comes, bowing low, and we make inquiries concerning the +distance to Paultons, the estate where the Boyces have been spending +the summer, and where we venture to hope they still are. He says it +is a matter of four miles, and that we can have a fly over for six +shillings. We order the fly to be got ready at once, and inquire if we +can have dinner now, it being late in the afternoon. + +"Yes, sir," he replies. "Would you like some chicken and +sparrowgrass?" + +"How long will they be in cooking?" + +"Matter of arf an hour, sir." + +As this means a matter of an hour, I ask if he can't get us up +something in a shorter time. He suggests that chops can be cooked +sooner. + +"Chops be it, then. In the words of the immortal Pickwick, chops and +tomato sauce." + +"No tomarter sauce, sir," with profound gravity. + +"Sparrowgrass, then--chops and sparrowgrass." + +He retires, and we all rush to the windows and look out upon the +quaint old village--a curious, old-fashioned scene. We feel as if +we had somehow become transmogrified, and instead of being +flesh-and-blood men and women from practical New York, were playing +our parts in some old English novel. Odd little tumble-down houses, +with peaked roofs and mullioned windows, ranged about a triangular +common, look sleepily out upon a statue of Palmerston in the middle of +the open place, the gray walls of Romsey Abbey, a thousand years old, +against the blue sky behind them. + +About six o'clock our fly is at the door, and we are off, rattling +through the ancient streets into the smooth open country. Oh the +quaint, delightful old hedge-lined road, deep down below the level +of the fields on either side--a green lane shut in with fragrance and +delicious quiet! The hedges, perched upon the bank, tower high above +our heads, and there is no break in them save at rustic gates. We meet +characters on the road who have just stepped out of Trollope's novels. +A young man and girl stand on a bridge across which we trundle, +leaning companionably on the old stone parapet, and looking up the +little river through a long avenue of trees to the pillared mansion of +"Broadlands." A laborer, with a gay flower stuck in the buttonhole +of his smock-frock, goes whistling along the brown road under the +hedgerows. A country gentleman, driving alone in a basket phaeton, +looks inquisitively at our half-closed windows as if expecting the +sight of an acquaintance. Crumbling milestones stand by the wayside, +with deep-cut letters so smoothed by the hand of time that we cannot +read them as we pass. Flowers grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is +lolling on the green grass in front of a cottage door--an uncombed +English hind, with a face of rustic simplicity and stolid ignorance. + +At last we come to a gate which bars the road. The driver gets down +and opens it, and when we have passed through in the fly he tells us +we are now on Mr. Stanley's broad estate of Paultons. The driver wears +corduroy trousers, and touches his hat every time we speak to him and +every time he answers. He does not merely touch it when he is first +addressed, but he touches it continually throughout the conversation. +Bunker considers his conduct extremely touching. + +We are presently driving through a bosky wood, and the driver touches +his hat to remark that we are nearly there now, he thinks. + +"But where is the bad road the landlord spoke of?" + +"Bad road, sir?" touching hat. + +"Yes: the landlord said we could not drive fast because the road was +bad. Where is it bad?" + +"All along back of 'ere, sir," touching hat. "We have pahst the worst +of it naow, sir: the rest is not so 'illy, sir," touching hat. + +"Hilly? We haven't passed over anything bigger than a knoll. If this +is what the landlord meant by a hilly road, it _is_ a rich joke. Why, +it's as smooth as a floor, almost." + +"He should go to California," says Amy, who has feeling reminiscences. +"He should go to the Yosemite Valley, over the road which runs through +Chinese Camp and Hodgden's. Probably the man never saw a rough road in +his life. I doubt if there is such a thing in England." + +After half an hour's trundling along the unfenced roads of this fine +old estate, crossing ancient stone bridges, rolling through leafy +groves, startling fat cattle from their browsing, getting a hat-touch +from a shepherd who is leading his flocks across the fields in true +pastoral style, we reach the manor-house, standing stately amid dells +and dingles, pollards of fantastic growth and patches of fern and +gorse. The Boyces have returned to Paris, but nurse and the children +are still at the gardener's house, and thither we drive along the +banks of a sylvan lake, beyond which the rooks are cawing about the +chimneys. + +The old gardener is nurse's father, and though he is now so old that +he no longer does any work, he is maintained in comfort by the family +in whose service he has spent a lifetime. Forty years of honest +service in one family! No wonder he feels that his destiny is for ever +linked with that of the people who have been his masters, man and boy, +for forty years. He has a delightful little cottage with thatched roof +and mullioned windows, and pretty vines rioting all over it, and in +front of it a flower-garden full of early bloom. The lilacs which +grow about so profusely are not of the color of our lilacs in America, +being of a rich purple; we should not know they were lilacs but for +the familiar odor. + +A delicious ride back to Romsey in the twilight, carrying two of the +Boyce children with us. In the evening I stroll out alone, to look at +the village in the moonlight. The streets are like narrow lanes. The +houses are very old, and for the most part dilapidated, but streets +and houses are all as clean and neat as wax. Presently I come upon +the old abbey, its rugged walls and towers looming solemnly in the +moonlight, and pass the parson's house near by, all overrun with +vines, thinking of Trollope again and Framley parsonage. + +Before going back to the White Horse Inn I wander round the village +until I find that I am lost. The discovery is not very alarming in a +place so small as this, even at night. I resolve to turn every corner +to the left, and see what will come of it. I presently find that +getting out into the country comes of it; and having crossed a bridge +and come upon a silent brickyard, and seen the long road winding +away into the open country, I am reminded of Oliver Twist--or was +it Pip?--running away from home and trudging off under the stars to +London. Somehow, it seems this road must lead to London. + +Turning about, but still walking at random and turning left-hand +corners, I presently see the abbey tower again, and make for it. The +street through which I pass is apparently the home of the British +working man. A light burning in any house is most rare. Occasionally a +man can be seen through the odd little windows, smoking a pipe by the +blaze of the fire on the hearth. Here are the abbey windows, and now +I know where I am. Down this narrow, winding street, across the open +place where Lord Palmerston stands stonily in the moonlight, and I am +at the White Horse Inn again. + +At nine o'clock next morning there is a rap at the door of my room. +The door being opened a man-servant is discovered, who touches his +forehead (having no hat to touch) and says, "The ladies would like to +'ave you breakfast with them, sir." + +He is so very respectful in his manner of saying this that he is +inaudible, and being asked what he said, repeats the touching his +forehead and then repeats his words. + +There are no muffins at breakfast--a fact which I record merely +because this is the first time since we have been in England that this +peculiarly English dish has been omitted at breakfast. It appears on +inquiry that muffins are a luxury of large towns. In villages they +are rarely obtainable at less than about a week's notice. In fact, you +can't get anything to eat, of any sort, without pretty liberal notice. + +After breakfast we go to see the old abbey. It is an imposing and +well-preserved pile. It was founded by Ethelwold, a thane--one of +those righting, praying, thieving old rascals who lived in the tenth +century, and made things lively for any one who went past their houses +with money on his person. When Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large +sum one day, he founded the monastery and stocked it with nuns. It +was but a wooden shanty at first, but after having served till it was +worm-eaten and rotting with age, it was torn down and a fine stone +convent was built. + +We walk about in that part of the abbey which is free from pews--by +far the larger part--and stare at the monumental stones let into the +floor and walls. If we did not know that Romsey had been the home +of Palmerston, we should learn it now, for these stones are thickly +covered with the legends of virtue in his family--wives, sisters, sons +and so forth, whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." After perusing +these numerous testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues of an +aristocracy whom we are permitted to survive, and after dropping some +shillings in the charity-box, which rather startle us by the noise +they make, we pass out of the cool abbey into the hot churchyard, and +read on a lonely stone which stands in a corner by the gate that +here lies the dust of Mary Ann Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful +servant to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no doubt had other virtues, but +they are not recorded: this is sufficient for a servant. + +An hour's ride on the velvet cushions of a railway carriage brings us, +with our Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to Southampton, which was +an old town when King Canute was young. We take rooms at a pretentious +marble hotel with a mansard roof, attached to the station--a railroad +hotel, in fact, but strikingly unlike that institution as we know it +in America. Wide halls, solid stone staircases, gorgeous coffee-room, +black-coated waiters, and the inevitable buxom landlady with a +regiment of blooming daughters for assistants--one presiding over the +accounts, another officiating at the beer-pumps, a third to answer +questions, and all very much under the influence of their back hair +and other charms of person. One of them alleviates the monotony of the +office duties by working at embroidery in bright worsteds. + +Strolling out, Bunker and I consult certain shabby worthies who are +yawning on the boxes of a long line of wretched hacks drawn up by the +sidewalk across the street, and find that we can charter a vehicle for +two shillings an hour. These cabbies have more nearly the air of our +own noble hackmen than any we have seen in England. Americans are no +novelty to them, for ship-loads of American tourists are put off here +at frequent intervals, and the cabbies have a thin imitation of +the voting hackman's independence. They stop short, however, of his +impudence. They are lazy, but they touch their hats occasionally. + +We choose two of the tumble-down vehicles and go after the ladies. My +driver is an elderly man with a hat which has seen better days, and +I have chosen his hack, not because it is less likely to drop off +its wheels than the others, but because he himself looks like a seedy +Bohemian. He proves to be a very intelligent fellow, with a ready turn +for description which serves him in good stead whenever his horse gets +tired of walking and stops short. At such times our Bohemian pretends +that he has stopped the horse himself in order to point out and +comment upon some curious thing in the immediate vicinity. + +It is pleasant driving. The hack is open, and we hoist sun-umbrellas +and look about comfortably. Presently the weary horse stops in the +middle of the street. + +"'Ere you are, sir," says Cabby briskly, turning half round on his box +and pointing to an old stone structure which stretches quite across +the High street. "This 'ere is the old Bar Gate, sir, one of the +hancient gates of the town. Part of the horiginal town wall. Was a +large ditch 'ere, sir, and another there, and a stone bridge betwixt +the two, and the young bucks in them days did use to practice harchery +right 'ere where you see the lamp-post. The Guild'all is _hin_ the +gate, sir, right hinside it, with a passage hup. I'll drive through +the harch, sir, and you'll see the hother side. Cluck!" (to the +horse). + +On the other side, the horse not taking a notion to stop again, the +driver is not forced to resume his remarks. Turning about as we pass +on, we look up at the old Norman gate-tower, with its handsome archway +and projecting buttresses, and Amy says she fancies she sees a knight +in armor looking out through the narrow crevice which may have been a +window in olden times. This, being an altogether proper fancy for the +place, is received with applause. + +The next time the horse concludes to stop we are in the midst of what +is here called the Common--in fact, a magnificent old forest park, +with a smooth road running through it, and numberless winding paths in +among the bosky depths. I fancy Central Park might come to look like +this if allowed to go untrimmed and unfussed-over for two or three +hundred years. + +"The Common, sir," says Cabby, turning about, "where King Chawles did +use to 'unt wild boars. Fav'rite walk of Halexander Pope, sir, the +poet, and Doctor Watts, which wrote the 'ymn-book. Cluck!" + +From the top of a high hill a splendid wide landscape is seen, with +Romsey in the distance, and (the horse having stopped again) Cabby +points out Queen Elizabeth's shooting-box across the fields. In a lot +close by cricketers are at play, and a little farther on, where there +is a vine-covered beerhouse, a crowd of clod-hoppers are gathered in +a green field, looking at two of their number engaged in a +rough-and-tumble fight in their shirt-sleeves. + +The road after this running down hill, the horse continues to jog +along for a considerable distance, stopping at last under a towering +old wall looking out on the sea. + +"Wind Whistle Tower, sir," says Cabby, pointing up at a square tower +projecting from the old wall overhead, and above it the remains of +an old round tower thickly overrun with ivy. And, using his fingers +industriously, Cabby proceeds to call off the names of various castles +and towers here visible--notably, Prince Edward's Tower, bold and +round, from whose summit three men were looking down. + +"What are those?" asks Bunker in the carriage behind us, pointing to +the old brass guns which sit on the wall like Humpty Dumpty. + +"Them, sir," says Cabby, "was put there by 'Enry the Heighth, and this +'ere wall was the purtection of the town when the Frenchmen hassaulted +it." + +"Ho!" says Bunker, contemptuously. "Just fancy one of our ironclads +paying any attention to the barking of those popguns!" + +Whereupon the horse starts again, and we go lazily on, Cabby dropping +in a word of enlightenment here and there to the effect that this old +tumble-down part of the ancient wall is the celebrated Arcade, which +formed part of the wall of the King's Palace; and this queer old lane +running up through the walls like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that is +Bugle street, where in olden times the warden blew; and here are the +remains of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and circular arches +and curious mouldings. + +Discharging the cab in the High street, we walk about. In a shop where +we pause for a moment there is a quartette of half-naked barbarians, +such as, with all our boasted varieties of humanity, were never yet +seen in New York. We have abundant Chinese and Japanese there, and +occasionally an Arab or a Turk, and the word African means with us a +man and a brother behind our chair at dinner or wielding a razor in +a barber-shop. These men here are pure barbarians, just landed from a +vessel direct from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and their heads shaved +in regular ridges of black wool, with narrow patches of black scalp +between, they are here in a small tradesman's shop in bowery England +buying shirts. They know not a word of English, but chatter among +themselves the most horrible lingo known to the Hamitic group of +tongues. They grimace in a frightful manner, and skip and dance, and +writhe their half-naked bodies into the most exaggerated contortions +known to the language of signs. The dignified English salesmen are +at their wits' end how to treat them. The instinct of the British +shopkeeper fights desperately with his disposition to be shocked. From +the Ashantee gentlemen's gestures it can only be concluded that white +shirts are wanted, but when white shirts are shown the negroes make +furious objection to the plaited bosoms. They want shirts such as are +fashionable at home. It is easy to be seen that they are Dandy Jims +in Africa. They are all young, and, in a sense, spruce. One of them +carries a little switch cane, evidently just bought: while he examines +the shirts, testing the strength of the stuff by pulling it with his +two hands, he holds his cane between his bare legs for safe-keeping. + +Sitting in the billiard-room of the hotel in the evening smoking our +cigars, Bunker and I are accosted by a brisk little man, who asks us +if we play billiards. Bunker doesn't. I do sometimes at home, but not +the English game. + +"Oh, we play the 'Merican game too. 'Appy to play the 'Merican game +with you, sir." + +"Try him a game," says Bunker. "It won't hurt you." + +Not liking to refuse an invitation from a polite Englishman, who +appears to be a stranger here, I consent. This is billiard-room +etiquette the world over. + +The cue is like a whip-stock. It positively runs down to a point not +bigger than a shirt-button, and it bends like a switch. The balls are +not much larger than marbles. To make up for this, the table is big +enough for a back yard, broad, high, dull of cushion, and with six +huge pockets. I am ignominiously beaten. My ball jumps like a living +thing. It hops off the table upon the floor at almost every shot, and +when it does not go on the floor it goes into one of the six yawning +pockets. The pockets bear the same relative proportion to the balls +that a tea-cup bears to a French pea. At the end of the game my ball +has been everywhere except where I intended it to go, and I have +"scratched" thirty. + +"A hundred's the game," says the Englishman, putting up his cue. "One +shilling." + +I wonder if this is an English custom--to pay your victor a shilling, +instead of paying the keeper of the tables. But as there is no one +else to pay, I pay the Englishman. Bunker has fallen asleep in his +chair. + +"Going on the Continent?" the Englishman asks. + +"Not at present. We return to London first, and go from there." + +"'Ave you got a guide?" + +I am on the point of saying that guides are a nuisance I do not +tolerate, when the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. "There is +my card, sir," he says. "A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." On the +opposite side I read-- + + SPEAKS SPRICHT PARLE PARLA + French, Französich, Frangais, Francese, + German, Deutsch, Allemand, Tedesco, + Italian and Italienisch u. Italien et Italiano ed + English Englisch Anglais Inglese + fluently sehr geläufig. courrament. correntemente. + +At present he has charge of this billiard-room, but he is ready to +follow me to the ends of the earth for a period of not less than three +months. I tell him I can get on without a guide. + +"But I would go on the most reasonable terms. I would go for as low as +ten pounds a month and my expenses." + +"Would you go for nothing?" Bunker wakes up and pops this out at him +so suddenly as to quite take his breath away. + +He expands his hands at his trousers pockets, shrugs his shoulders and +looks volumes of reproach. + +"Because," Bunker adds, in a soothing tone, "I shouldn't like to have +you along, even at that price." + +He immediately goes to putting the room to rights. + +"Horrible breath that man had," says Bunker when we come out: "did you +notice it?" + +"Yes." + +"Take that breath around with us on the Continent! Why, if he was in +Cologne itself, his breath would be in the majority." + +I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, and next morning I can't find +it anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous head-waiter if he knows of +my umbrella. He states that he does not. After breakfast I look in the +billiard-room. It is not there. I go down to the office, and interrupt +the worsted work there in progress by requesting that a search be made +for my missing umbrella. The young lady whose ear I have gained +kindly condescends to call the porter, and turning me over to that +functionary returns to her worsted. The porter is respectful, but +doubtful. The moment he learns that the lost article is an umbrella +his manner is pervaded with a gentle hopelessness. He, however, +listens forbearingly to my story. + +"And aboot what time was it, sir, when ye went ty bed?" + +"About half-past eleven." + +"Oh, then the night porter ull know of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll +ask him when he gets oop." + +And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, I take a covered cab, because of +my lost umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella to keep off the sun. +Nobody can make an umbrella like an Englishman. I should be sorry +to lose it. I bought it in Regent street only a few days ago, but I +already love it with a passionate affection. + +Through the hot paved streets, over a floating bridge, past the +cliff at the river's mouth, through a shady grove of noble yews +and sycamores, past a picturesque hamlet full of vine-curtained and +straw-thatched cottages, through a forest of oaks and past a willow +copse, and there is the grand old ruin of Netley Abbey lifting its +picturesque and solemn fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops of the +trees which surround and shelter it in its hoary age. + +It is really curious how dramatically effective a grand old ruin is. +The weird sense of being in the presence of olden time comes over us +immediately. We look about us to see the spirit of some cloistered +monk come stealing by with hood and girdle. Here--actually here, +in these nooks all crumbling under Time's gnawing tooth--did old +Cistercian monks kneel with shaved heads and confess their sins, and +their bones have been powdered into dust three hundred years! +Romsey Abbey--within whose well-kept walls we rather yawned over +Palmerstonian eulogiums--is a thousand years old. This abbey is only +six hundred and thirty-two years old. Romsey has been restored, and +modern men go to church there on Sunday decorously. Netley has been +left to go to utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn aisles. Owls +hoot in its moss-clothed chimneys. It is dramatically effective. + +We wander through cloistered courts into the main body of the church. +Yonder stood the pulpit, here gathered the worshipers. The carpet is +green grass. Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers from side to +side of the tall windows, in place of the stained glass once there. +Most of the windows have tumbled to decay, walls and all. The roof is +the sky--naught else. + +We climb up the stone staircase in the turret. All the stone steps are +worn with deep hollows where human feet have trodden up and down for +centuries, and storms have sent rivulets of water pouring through many +a wild night. Some of the steps are worn quite in two and broken away, +which makes the ascent frightening to the ladies. + +Up here ("on the second floor," as Bunker says) the carpet is again +grass, and Bunker and I clamber through a little archway into the +cloister gallery, where the monks used to look down on the service +below when they felt inclined. The ladies look after us, brave +adventurers that we are (only two or three million men have been here +before us, perhaps, since the ruin became a popular success), and +refuse to follow in our rash footsteps. The crumbling wall is full of +owls' nests. Rooks and swallows fly continually in and out of their +holes. We could kick a loose stone down into the chancel if there were +any stones to kick. + +The ladies declare themselves dizzy and afraid, and we help them down +the dark winding turret staircase again, and go into the enclosed +parts of the ruin. Here is where the monks lived. The walls still +stand, and parts of the roof. The windows are thickly ivy-hung and +moss-grown. Here is the room where the monks did whilom dine. For +three hundred years this dining-room was in daily use, and in the spot +where erst the dining-table stood now grows a stalwart tree, whose +branches tower and spread beyond the crumbling walls. Passing strange! + +More strange is the sight in the next room, the chapter-house, where +the abbot held his gravest councils, and where the most honored of the +monks were buried beneath the floor when they died. And since the +roof fell in, after long battling with storms, perhaps a hundred years +after the last monk was buried, one day a seed fell. A tree grew up in +the room. It spread its tall branches high above the piled-up stones, +and shook its brown leaves down, autumn after autumn, for years and +years. It grew slowly old, and at last it died. It fell down in its +death in the room where it had grown, and its once sturdy trunk struck +against the old ruined walls and broke. Its roots were torn out of the +ground by the fall, and stuck up their gnarled fingers in the empty +room. And the grass grew over the roots, weaving a green cloak to hide +their nakedness. The old trunk stretches now across the space in the +room, and leans its old head against the abbey wall. I didn't read +this story in a guide-book. It was told to me by the principal actor, +the tree. + +In the abbot's kitchen we get into the huge hooded fireplace--seven +of us--and there is room for more. We look up the chimney and see +the glossy green ivy leaves overhead, and the blue sky shining beyond +them. We toss a pebble down into the subterranean passage where, they +say, the monks were wont to pass out after provisions during a time +of siege; which must have been somewhat demoralizing to the besiegers, +whoever they were. I stoop to pick up something in the grass of +the kitchen floor, which has a glitter of gold upon it, and my face +flushes with eager anticipation as I seize it. + +"What have you found?" asks Amy. + +"A relic of the monks?" asks Bunker. + +"It's a champagne cork," I am forced to reply. "The truth is, Netley +Abbey is a show, like Niagara Falls and Bunker Hill Monument. Of +course crowds of tourists come here, and of course they pop champagne +and ginger beer, and cut their confounded initials in the venerable +stones." + +"Yes," says Bunker, "I saw 'W.S.' cut in the wall at the top of the +turret stairs. Saves you the trouble, you know." + +"I don't do that sort of thing, thank you." + +Nevertheless, it was curious to see some nobody's name cut at full +length in the stone, with the date underneath--1770. + +When we return to the hotel the night porter reports that he has not +found my umbrella. So I must go off without it. Our train leaves at +ten minutes past five this afternoon, and we shall be in London early +in the evening. It is now four o'clock: we have ordered dinner for +this hour, and so we sit down to our soup. + +"Please give us our dinner without any delay now," I say to the +pompous head-waiter, "for we must take the train at ten minutes past +five." + +The man bows stiffly and retires. We finish the soup, and wait. +When we get tired of waiting we call the head-waiter to us: "Are you +hastening our dinner?" + +"Fish directly, sir," he answers, and walks solemnly away. We begin to +grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the soup, and no fish yet. Bunker +swears he'll blow the head-waiter up in another minute. Just as he is +quite ready for this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! I lay it +open. + +"Why, it's not done!" I cry in consternation. "There, there! Take it +away, and bring the meat." + +With an air of grave offence the man bears it solemnly out. Then we +wait again. And wait. And wait. + +"Good gracious!" cries Bunker, "here's half an hour gone, and we've +had nothing but soup! I really must blow this fellow up." + +"Stop! there it comes." + +Enter the waiter with great dignity, and solemnly deposits before +us--the fish again! + +He has had it recooked. We attack it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for +Goodness' sake bring the rest of the dinner _instantly_, or we must +leave it. + +"And I'm about half starved," growls Bunker. + +More waiting. Five minutes pass. Ten. + +"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries Bunker, jumping up with his +napkin round his neck, and striding over to the head-waiter, where he +stands in a Turveydroppy attitude, leaning against a sideboard with +his arms folded. "Look here!" Bunker ejaculates: "_can_ you be made +to understand that we are in a hurry? Would half a dollar be any +inducement to you to wake up and look around lively? Because we have +got to take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," showing his watch, +"and as the dinner is already paid for, I want to get it before I go." + +"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass with slow indifference, "dinner +directly. John!" to our waiter, who is now placing the meat on the +table, "serve the genl'm'n's dinner _directly_." + +Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown stares at Harlequin after having +cut him in two, in dumb amazement at the fact that Harlequin is not in +the least disturbed by being cut in two. + +"I wonder," he mutters as he returns to the table, "if that +unmitigated wooden image of a dunderhead would pay any attention if I +were to kick him?" + +"No--not if you were to tie a pack of fire-crackers to his coat-tail +and light them. He knows his business too well. The first duty of +an English head-waiter is to be dignified, as it is that of a French +head-waiter to be vigilant and polite." + +"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I don't suppose the man had an idea +of what you meant by 'those cars,' if he even knew what a half dollar +signified." + +"Well, we must be off. Time's up. We shall miss the train. Good-bye, +boys. You can sit still and finish your dinner in peace." + +Good-bye to our friends from Paultons--good-bye. And then we rush out, +and _do_ miss the train. It is five o'clock ten minutes and a quarter. + +English trains go on time--English dinners don't. + +We finally get off at seven o'clock. Just before we leave a waiter +comes up to me and says in a casual manner, "Found your humbreller +yet, sir?" + +"No." + +"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, sir?" + +"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with an ivory handle." + +"W'y, I wouldn't wonder if that was your humbreller in the corner now +in the reading-room, sir." + +I make haste to look. Yes, there it is, my beloved, long-lost +umbrella, quietly leaning against the wall in a dark corner, behind a +pillar, behind a big arm-chair, where nobody ever placed it, I'll take +my oath, but this rascally waiter, who expects to get a shilling for +showing where he hid it. + +"Is _that_ your humbreller, sir?" the waiter says, rubbing his +hands and getting in my way as I walk briskly out, at peril of being +stumbled over by my hurrying feet. I scorn to reply, but I give him +a glance of such withering contempt that I trust it pierced to his +wicked heart, and will remain there, a punishment and a warning, to +the last day of his base life. An English waiter's hide is very thick, +however. He has probably hidden many a gentleman's umbrella since. + +At eleven o'clock we are back in our cozy London lodgings, and at +twelve we are sleeping the sleep of profound fatigue, and dreaming of +ghostly monks wandering among the weird old ruins of Netley. + +WIRT SIKES. + + + + +DAY-DREAM. + + + Here, in the heart of the hills, I lie, + Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky-- + An amethyst and an emerald stone + Hung and hollowed for me alone! + + Is it a dream, or can it be + That there is life apart from me?-- + A larger world than the circling bound + Of light and color that lap me round? + + Drowsily, dully, through my brain, + Like some recurrent, vague refrain, + A world of fancy comes and goes-- + Shadowy pleasures, shadowy woes. + + Spectral toils and troubles seem + Fashioned out of this foolish dream: + Round my charmèd quiet creep + Phantom creatures that laugh and weep. + + Nay, I know they are meaningless, + Visions of utter idleness: + Nothing was, nor ever will be, + Save the hills and the heavens and me. + +KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + + +There is no doubt that had Mr. Gladstone followed his personal +inclinations when his Irish education scheme broke down last March, +he would have retired from office. He is now sixty-four, and it may be +fairly questioned whether there exists a man who for forty-six years +has worked his brain harder. It is no light labor to read for the +highest honors in even one school at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone read +for them in two. He gained "a double first," which meant at that time +a first class both in classics and mathematics. Forthwith he plunged +into political essay-writing, until in 1834 he further added to his +labors by entering the House of Commons as M.P. for Newark. + +Mr. Gladstone's father was, as most people are aware, a Liverpool +merchant of Scotch descent. This gentleman was the architect of his +own fortunes, which arose in no slight degree out of his connection +with the United States. Having been sent to this country by a firm +largely interested in the corn trade, he discharged their business +to their entire satisfaction, whilst at the same time he made very +valuable business connections on his own account, which materially +served him when at a later period he himself embarked in business. +He made a large fortune, but it did not appear at his death to be so +great as it was, because he gave his younger sons the bulk of their +portions during his lifetime--to avoid legacy duty, people said. +To his eldest son he left considerable estates in Scotland--to the +younger sons, about one hundred thousand pounds apiece. The eldest, +Sir Thomas Gladstone, is a very worthy man, but nowise remarkable for +ability. He has one son, and has had six daughters. Four survive, and +all are unmarried. + +The next brother, Robertson, an eccentric person whose indiscreet +speeches must often have made his statesman brother feel very hot, +continues the paternal business at Liverpool. The third, John Neilson, +was, socially speaking, the flower of the flock. He was a captain in +the navy, from which he had retired many years prior to his death in +1863, and a member of Parliament. By his wife, a singularly excellent +and charming woman, he had several children, who may be said to pretty +nearly monopolize the feminine charms of the Gladstone family. One +of these married the earl of Belmore, an Irish nobleman, who lately +returned from a not very successful gubernatorial career in New +South Wales. Both Sir Thomas and Captain Gladstone were decided +Conservatives. + +William Ewart is the fourth brother. "That young brother of mine will +make a noise in the world some of these days," said Captain Gladstone +to a fellow-middy as his brother turned away from bidding him good-bye +just before he was about to start on a cruise; and the words were +certainly prophetic. Mr. Gladstone married when he was thirty. His +wife was one of the two sisters of Sir Stephen Glynne. The English +aristocracy contains a great many sets, and the Glynnes were in the +intellectual set, comprising such men as the dukes of Argyll and +Devonshire, and Lords Derby, Stanhope and Lyttelton. Mrs. Gladstone +and her sister were married on the same day to two of the finest +intellects of their time. The younger, whose mental gifts were far +superior to those of her sister, married Lord Lyttelton. + +Mr. Gladstone has a large family. The eldest son has for some time +been in Parliament, but has established no reputation for notable +capacity, and it is said that, with the exception of one of his +younger brothers, none of the family are remarkable in this respect. +Mrs. Gladstone is a person of great kindness of heart and untiring +benevolence. She is full of schemes for doing good: hospitals, +convalescent institutions, etc. find in her an ever-ready friend, +to the neglect, it is whispered, of her domestic duties. There is an +amusing story told of how some time ago a few guests arrived at her +house in response to an invitation to dinner. They waited in vain for +the rest of the party, for whose delay their hostess was at a loss +to account. At length she turned aside and opened her blotting-book, +which quickly revealed the cause of the guests' non-appearance--the +invitations were lying there. They had been written, but never sent. + +In London the prime minister--who has an indifferent official +residence, which he and his family have occasionally occupied, in +Downing street--lives in Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful +house, but not by any means well adapted for party-giving, for it is +so constructed that circulation is almost impossible. If you once +get into a room, you must stay there; whereas half the charm of +Lady Palmerston's famous parties at Cambridge House was the free +circulation the rooms afforded, enabling you to pass right round a +quadrangle, and thus easily find an acquaintance or get away from a +bore. Mr. Gladstone's house has a fine double staircase, and it will +derive interest in after days from the circumstance that, standing at +the head, Lord Russell took leave of the party he had led, and pointed +to his then host as his successor. + +Carlton-House Terrace is in many respects the most delightful +situation in London, for, whilst extremely central, it is very quiet. +It stands between Pall Mall and St. James's Park. One side faces a +strip of beautifully kept garden, which lies between the terrace and +the row of palaces formed by the Senior United Service, Athenaeum, +Travelers' and Carlton Clubs. The other side has a charming prospect +over St. James's Park. In summer this is really lovely, for all ugly +objects are obscured by the foliage, amid which glimpses are obtained +of the pinnacles and fretted towers of the palace of Parliament on the +one hand, and those of its venerable neighbor, the majestic abbey, +on the other. It was here that Bunsen passed his London days, and the +reader of his memoirs will remember frequent references to the charms +of his house. It may well be imagined how great a boon it is to the +toil-worn minister to find himself, as it were, in a garden, with only +the distant roar, like that of the sea, to remind him as he sits in +his study that five minutes walk across that pleasant park will bring +him to Downing street, and three more to the Treasury bench in the +House of Commons. + +In the country most of his time is spent at Hawarden Castle in +Flintshire, about six hours from London. This is the ancestral seat of +Mrs. Gladstone's brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, lord lieutenant of +the county, whose family have held this property for centuries. Sir +Stephen is a very shy man of retired habits. By a family arrangement +his house is the country abode of his sister and brother-in-law. + +In earlier life, Sir Stephen and his two brothers-in-law, Mr. +Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton, formed an unfortunately favorable +estimate of certain mines, into which much of the fortune of Sir +Stephen and his sisters went, and from which it never came out again. +There was one other brother, the late rector of Hawarden. He died +about a year ago, and Mr. Gladstone's second son, Stephen, was +appointed his successor. The living, in the gift of Sir Stephen, is +very valuable. Mr. Glynne, the clergyman, died without a son, and the +title will therefore on Sir Stephen's death be extinct. As matters +now stand, it may be presumed that Mr. W.H. Gladstone, the prime +minister's eldest son, will succeed to the Hawarden estates. + +Mr. Gladstone has himself recently increased the family interest +around Hawarden by purchase. About five years ago the state of his +finances were the talk of the town, and a number of people, especially +of the Conservative party, avowed themselves in a position to assert +from personal knowledge that he was ruined. There was no just ground +for such a statement, and like so many other absurd rumors it died +out. None of Mr. Gladstone's daughters are married, nor is his eldest +son. + + + + +WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + + +Certain great festivals of the Christian Church which were ignored by +the Puritans and Quakers have always continued in high repute among +the Pennsylvania Germans. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and +Ascension Day are celebrated not only in the Lutheran, the Reformed +or Calvinistic and the Moravian churches, but among the descendants +of those Swiss Anabaptists who, being driven from their homes by +religious persecution, finally took shelter in that part of the land +of Penn now called Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians being +known among us by the names of Mennists and Amish (pronounced +Menneests and Ommish). + +The movable feast of Whitsunday or Pentecost, which occurs on the +seventh Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion in the Mennonite +meetings, for at this time is held one of the great semi-annual +observances of bread-breaking and feet-washing. The ensuing day, +Whitmonday, is a great secular festival. All the spring bonnets are +then in readiness for the "Dutch" girls. The young farmer of eighteen +or more, whose father has granted his heart's desire in the form of a +buggy, or who has otherwise attained to that summit of rural felicity, +harnesses and attaches to it one of the horses with which the farm is +so well supplied, and takes his girl into the county-town. Here +they walk the streets, partake of simple refreshments, meet their +acquaintances or talk with them in the tavern parlor. Sometimes they +visit a circus or menagerie whose managers have made a timely visit to +our inland city. + +On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while the Dutch boys are working the +corn, you may perchance hear their father's voice raised to a higher +pitch than usual, which circumstance he explains when he comes in +sight, thus: "The boys is sleepy to-day. Yesterday was Whissuntide, +you know. They got home late." For custom forbids their leaving +the girl of their choice before the small hours, and allows them, +nevertheless, no remission from labor on the succeeding day. + +The people, however, whose religious services I am about to describe +impose upon their members a stricter rule of earlier hours, etc. They +are called New (or Reformed) Mennists. + +It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, that I paid a visit to one of +our New Mennist meeting-houses, and found before nine o'clock in the +morning that the services had already begun. The first apartment we +entered was a sort of tiring-room, where along the walls hung +the shawls and black sun-bonnets of the sisters. Here were also +traveling-bags, and a cradle stood ready to receive one or more of the +babies that were in attendance. In the adjoining room were heard +the familiar notes of "Old Hundred," and "Du bist der Weg" was sung +pleasantly without any instrumental accompaniment. + +When we entered the whitewashed apartment in which the meeting had +assembled I saw upon a small platform at the farther end five men, who +were apparently preachers or elders. At the same end of the room were +seated the soberly clad members of the sect--the men on one side of +the apartment, with their broad-brimmed hats removed; on the other +side the sisters, with their extremely plain book-muslin caps and +otherwise sober attire. + +A portion of the services was in English. Dr. ----, a practitioner of +medicine and a bishop in this Church, spoke extemporaneously in our +language. He gave a long account of the ordinances of the Jewish +Church, and then of those which the "Lord Jesus instituted in the +place of these--the baptism that was celebrated a week ago, and this +Lord's Supper, this feet-washing, this kiss of peace, this manner of +visiting offenders;" the last phrase being an allusion to the severe +rule which forbids the New or Reformed Mennists to eat, etc. with +those excommunicated by the society. + +The Mennists, as I understand, hold in general those doctrines that +are considered evangelical. The services were much prolonged, and the +congregation became restless. But at length, while a younger brother +was speaking in "Dutch" or German, there came in another bearing +a parcel wrapped in a white cloth. He was followed by one carrying +something tied in a blue-and-white cloth, which being opened disclosed +a demijohn. The white parcel was received by the preacher upon the +desk, and when opened showed a great loaf of our beautiful Lancaster +county bread divided into slices. After prayer several preachers took +slices, and passing around among the congregation broke off bits +which they gave to the communicants. The wine in the demijohn was then +poured into small, bright tin cups, like milkmen's measures, and was +distributed among the members. A hymn in the German language was sung, +two lines at a time, while the wine was handed round. + +After these services were concluded feet-washing began by reading the +passage from the 13th chapter of John on the subject, and this +was followed by many remarks. I observed that one elderly brother, +speaking in a mournful tone and in our Dutch manner, quoted, +"Nimmermehr soll du mein Fees wasche" ("Thou shalt never wash my +feet"). These discourses were followed by the announcement, "Next +Sunday there will be bread-breaking at Landisville." + +Now arose a confusion from carrying out benches, from arranging others +in two long rows facing each other, etc. The two principal preachers +were seen disencumbered of their coats, much animated conversation +began, and feet-washing did not seem to be observed with so much +seriousness as the Supper. I took a seat near the end of two long +benches which were arranged to face each other, and on which sat some +of the brethren whose feet were to be washed by one of the preachers. +Common unpainted tubs containing water were brought in by two men. Dr. +----, the bishop already mentioned, had a great piece of white linen +tied around his waist. He passed along between the two rows of men as +they sat facing each other, bearing his tub alternately from a brother +in one row to one in the other, so that both rows were finished +at about the same time. Quietly the men took off their shoes and +stockings. They did not put their feet forward much. As Dr. ---- came +to each participant he set his tub down before him, washed his feet a +little, wiped them on the long white apron or towel, then shook hands +with him and kissed him. He thus ministered to thirty persons, a +somewhat laborious undertaking, but his powerful frame was suited to +the exertion. The same water and the same towel served for all. + +Meantime, the sisters, in another part of the room, were arranged in +smaller companies on benches placed in a similar manner. I said to a +sister, "Do the preachers wash the sisters' feet?" + +"Oh no," she answered: "the sisters does it." + +Some of the sisters were very friendly, and not unwilling to converse. +One said, "One sister washes as many as she is pretty well able: it's +hard on the back." + +"And does she have a towel?" said I. + +"She girds a towel, and then she washes and wipes them, and gives them +a kiss." + +"Do you all have your feet washed?" I inquired further. + +"No, not those that have any weakness that prevents." + +"And will all these brothers have their feet washed?" + +"All that communes." + +"And do not all commune?" + +"Yes, without they feel that they have something against another. Now +if I feel that I have something against her--placing her hand upon a +sister. + +"I understand," interrupted I. "'If thou bring thy gift to the +altar--' And how many," I continued, "will there be in such a meeting +as this that will not commune? Will there be half a dozen?" + +"Oh yes; but by another year all will likely be right, and then they +will commune. Now, I did not commune nor have my feet washed." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"Why, I felt at this time such confusion of mind, as if the Enemy was +against me--" + +"Well, it was not anything against a brother or sister?" + +"No, I count them all ahead of me: I count myself the poorest member." + +At the conclusion of the feet-washing a hymn was sung. Among those who +had their feet washed was a young man apparently about twenty-two, and +who looked full of fun. It seems that even such may be in membership +with so strict a sect. It was about one o'clock when the meeting +ended, having been in session four hours and a half. + +The great simplicity of the surroundings on this occasion may lead +the reader to suppose that the congregation was poor. It was, however, +composed in a great measure of some of the thriftiest farmers in one +of the richest upland sections of the United States. + +Some time after attending this meeting I called upon an aged Amish man +to converse with him upon their religious society, etc. The Amish +are another branch of the Mennonites, and those among us are likewise +descendants of Swiss refugees. They are the most primitive of the +three divisions of the sect, preserving the use of the Dutch or German +language not only in their religious meetings, but almost entirely in +their own families. + +I mentioned to this aged man the feet-washing that I had attended, +and told how Dr. ----, the bishop, had washed the feet of the other +brethren. + +"Did he wash them all?" said my Amish acquaintance. + +"Yes, all that were assigned to him. How is it among you?" + +"They wash each other's, every two and two. If he washes them all, he +puts himself in Christ's place. _He_ says, 'Wash each other's feet.'" + +This, I am also informed, is the rule among the third division, the +Old Mennists, the most numerous branch of these remarkable people. + +P.E.G. + + + + +THE RAW AMERICAN. + + +London at present abounds in Americans on their way to the Vienna +Exposition. Many of them are commissioners from various States. Some +have lands to sell or other financial axes to grind. Of such the +Langham Hotel is full. The Langham is the nearest approach to an +American hotel in London. There, though not a guest, you may pass in +and out without explaining to the hall-porter who you are, what you +are, where you come from or what you want: you may there enter and +retire without giving your pedigree, naturalization papers or a +certificate of good character. At other English hotels something +analogous to this is commonly required. + +We, who have been in England a full year, look down with an air of +superiority on the raw, the newly-arrived American. We are quite +English. We have worn out our American clothes. We have on English +hats with tightly-curled rims and English stub-toed boots. We know the +intricacies of London street navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, +Camden Town, Hackney, the "Surrey Side," Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford +streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are all mapped out distinctly +in our mind's eye. We are skilled in English money, and no longer pass +off half crowns for two-shilling pieces. We are real Anglo-Americans. + +But the raw American, only arrived a week, is in a maze, a confusion, +a hurry. He is excited and mystified. He tries to appear cool and +unconcerned, and is simply ridiculous. His cards, bearing his name, +title and official status, he distributes as freely as doth the winter +wind the snow-flakes. Inquire at the Langham office for Mr. Smith, and +you find he has blossomed into General Smith. + +He is always partaking or about to partake of official dinners. He +feels that the eyes of all England are upon him. He is dressed _à la_ +bandbox--hat immaculate in its pristine gloss, white cravat, umbrella +of the slimmest encased in silken wrapper. A speck of mud on his +boots would tarnish the national honor. Commonly, he is taken for a +head-butler. He drinks much stout. He eats a whitebait dinner before +being forty-eight hours in London, and tells of it. All this makes him +feel English. + +You meet him. He is overjoyed. He would talk of everything--your +mutual experience in America, his sensations and impressions since +arriving in England. He talks intelligibly of nothing. His brain is +a mere rag-bag, shreddy, confused, parti-colored. Thus he empties it: +"Passage over rough;" "London wonderful;" "Dined with the earl of +---- yesterday;" "Dine with Sir ---- to-day;" "To the Tower;" +"Westminster;" "New York growing;" "Saint Paul's"--going, going, gone! +and he shakes hands with you, and is off at a Broadway gait straight +toward the East End of London for his hotel, which lies at the West +End. + +In reality, the man is not in his right mind. He is undergoing the +mental acclimatization fever. Should he stay in London for three +months, he might recover and begin to find out where he is. But six +months hence he will have returned to America, fancying he has seen +London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, and whatever other places +his body has been hurried through, not his mind; for that, in the +excitement and rapidity of his flight, has streamed behind him like +the tail of a comet, light, attenuated, vapory, catching nothing, +absorbing nothing. + +Occasionally this fever takes an abusive phase. He finds in England +nothing to like, nothing to admire. Sometimes he wishes immediately to +revolutionize the government. He is incensed at the cost of royalty. +He sees on every side indications of political upheaval. Or he becomes +culinarily disgusted. Because there are no buckwheat cakes, no codfish +cakes, no hot bread, no pork and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, +fried and roasted, he can find nothing fit to eat. The English +cannot cook. Because he can find no noisy, clattering, dish-smashing +restaurant, full of acrobatic waiters racing and balancing under +immense piles of plates, and shouting jargon untranslatable, +unintelligible and unpronounceable down into the lower kitchen, he +cannot, cannot eat. + +PRENTICE MULFORD. + + + + +FAREWELL. + + +The occasion commemorated in the following verses--one of those +festive meetings with which tender-hearted Philadelphians are wont to +brace themselves up for sorrowful partings--called forth expressions +of deep regret and cordial good wishes, in which many of our readers, +we doubt not, will readily join: + + If from my quivering lips in vain + The faltering accents strove to flow, + It was because my heart's deep pain + Bade tears be swift and utterance slow; + For in that moment rose the ghosts + Of pleasant hours in bygone years; + And your kind faces, O my hosts! + Showed blurred and dimly through my tears. + + I could not tell you of the pride + That thrilled me in that parting hour: + Grief held command all undenied, + And only o'er my speech had power. + I found no words to tell the thoughts + That strove for utterance in my brain: + With gratitude my soul was fraught, + And yet I only spoke of pain. + + O friends! 'tis you, and such as you, + That make this parting hard to bear! + Pass all things else my past life knew: + I scarcely heed--I do not care. + I lose in you the dearest part + Of pleasant time that here now ends: + Hand parts from hand, _not_ heart from heart, + And I must leave you, O my friends! + + What can the future's fairest hours + Bring me to recompense for these? + Acquaintances spring like the flowers-- + Friends are slow growth, like forest trees. + Come hope or gladness, what there will-- + Days bright as sunshine after rain-- + The past gave life's best blessings still: + We'll find no friends like these again. + + I leave you in the dear old home + That once was mine--now mine no more: + Henceforth a stranger I must come + To haunts so well beloved of yore; + Yet if your faces turn to mine + The kindly smile I'm wont to see, + Not all, not all I must resign-- + My lost home's light still shines for me! + + Whatever chance or change be mine + In other climes, 'neath foreign skies, + Your love, your kindness, I shall hold + Dearest amid dear memories. + O eyes grown dim with falling tears! + O lips where Sorrow lays her spell! + The saddest task of all life's years + Is yours--to look and say farewell! + + LUCY H. HOOPER. + AUGUSTIN'S, April 7, 1873. + + + + +NOTES. + + +Between the careers of Cavour and Thiers no sound parallel can easily +be traced, but in their characters--or rather in their diplomatic +methods and arts--there would seem to be some curious and almost +ludicrous points of resemblance, if we may accept as true a sketch +of the great Italian statesman made by M. Plattel, the author of +"Causeries Franco-Italiennes," fifteen years ago. M. Plattel, who +wrote from close personal observation, at that time described Count +Cavour as being physically "M. Thiers magnified;" or, if you prefer, +M. Thiers is the count viewed through the big end of an opera-glass. +The count, says M. Plattel, "has the spectacles, and even a similar +expression of finesse. When things take a serious turn, the count puts +both hands in his pockets; and if you see him do that, expect to hear +this threat: 'If you do not pass this bill, _signori deputati_, I +consider you incapable of longer managing the affairs of the country: +I have the honor of bidding you good-evening.' For (and this is a +strange peculiarity) this first minister is never steadier than when +in danger of falling; and his grand oratorical, or rather ministerial, +figure of speech is to seize his hat and his cane, whereupon the +chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour to sit down. M. de Cavour lets +them plead a while, and then--he sits down again! Reading his speeches +now in Paris, I can fancy the count with his hat by his side and his +hand on the door-knob. Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb +of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been +gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" +It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this +curious description, _à propos_ of the perpetual repetition of the +drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which +the constant threats of resignation on the one hand are invariably +followed by passionate and despairing entreaties to "stay" on the +other. It is the old story of Cavour and the door-knob over again; +and even the great Bismarck, by the way, does not disdain a resort +occasionally to the same terrible pantomime. "The only _coup d'état_ +to be feared from M. Thiers," said M. Dufaure in the Assembly, "is his +withdrawal." It is, the quarreling and reconciliation of Horace and +Lydia: "What if the door of the repudiated Lydia again open to me?" +"Though you are stormier than blustering Adriatic, I should love to +live with you," etc. Such is the billing and cooing, after quarrel, +between the president and the Assembly. Still, it is clear that the +puissant hat-and-cane argument must date back to Cavour. + + * * * * * + +The recent proposition of some English writers to elevate a certain +class of suicides to the rank of a legalized "institution," under the +pleasant name of "euthanasia," suggests the inquiry whether, without +any scientific vindication of the practice, there will not always be +suicides enough in ordinary society. At any rate, however it may be in +England, just across the Channel, in France, thousands of people every +year break the "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," leaving the ills they +have to "fly to others that they know not of." The official figures +show that in a period of twenty-two years no less than 71,207 persons +committed suicide in France. The causes were various--business +embarrassments, domestic chagrins, the brutishness produced by liquor, +poverty, insanity, the desire to put an end to physical suffering by +"euthanasia," and so on; but they are pretty nearly all included in +the "fardels" which Hamlet mentions, from the physical troubles of the +"heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," up +to the mental distress wrought by the "whips and scorns of time, the +oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised +love," and so on in the well-remembered catalogue. Perhaps the most +interesting point in these statistics concerns the means employed for +suicide. These are thus tabulated: Hanging, 24,536; drowning, 23,221; +shooting, 10,197; asphyxia by charcoal fumes (a true Paris appliance), +5587; various cutting instruments, 2871; plunging or jumping from an +elevated place (an astonishing number), 2841; poison, 1500; sundry +other methods, 454. Hanging and drowning are thus accountable for more +than half the French suicides. The little stove of charcoal suggests +itself as a remedy at hand to many a wretch without the means to buy +a pistol or the nerve to use a knife. The cases of voluntary resort +to poison are astonishingly few, but it must be remembered that the +foregoing figures only embrace successful suicides, and antidotes to +poison often come in season where the rope or the river would +have made quick and fatal work. _La France_ notes, regarding these +statistics, that their details show that men oftenest use pistols, and +women oftenest try poison, in their attempts at suicide. What is more +curious, each man is likely to employ an instrument familiar to him: +thus, hunters and soldiers resort to the pistol, barbers trust +the razor, shoemakers use the knife, engravers the graving-tool, +washerwomen poison themselves with potash or Prussian blue; though, +of course, these are only general rules, with a great many exceptions. +And in Paris it is said that among all ranks and professions, and in +both sexes, at least half of the suicides are by asphyxiation with +charcoal. Surely in France one hardly needs to preach any doctrine of +not patiently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. +A healthier and more inspiring morality would be that of the story of +the baron of Grogzwig and his adventure with the "Genius of Despair +and Suicide," as narrated in an episode of _Nicholas Nickleby_; for +the stout baron, after thinking over his purpose of making a voluntary +departure from this world, and finding he had no security of being any +the better for going out of it, abandoned the plan, and adopted as a +rule in all cases of melancholy to look at both sides of the question, +and to apply a magnifying-glass to the better one. + + * * * * * + +In Philadelphia, at least, where there is still a respect for age, the +tidings will be received with respectful regret of the death of Nono, +a noted pensionary of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the ripe age +of more than a hundred years. To have achieved the celebrity of being +the oldest inmate of that institution was no despicable distinction, +but the venerable centenarian had other claims to honor. A native of +the Marquesas Islands, he was brought by Bougainville in 1776 to +the Royal Museum, afterward known as the Jardin des Plantes. It has +frequently been alleged that parrots may live a hundred years: +Nono has established the fact by living still longer. As he thus +contributes an illustration to science, so surely he might point a +general moral and adorn a historic tale. If Thackeray could discourse +so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," the vicissitudes which this +veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873, +under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be +worth a rhapsody. Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot. +Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his +plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his +houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and +bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest +needlework; and it had the _narquois_, lightly skeptical look of those +who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and +eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, +who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed +and mounted the illustrious Nono as a testimonial of affection and +respect. + + * * * * * + +The connection between war and botany is, at first, not specially +obvious, and yet a very clear bit of testimony to their relation was +disclosed by the siege of Paris. Two naturalists have published a +_Florula Obsidionalis_, which, as its name partly indicates, is a +catalogue of the accidental flora of the late investment of Paris. +They reckon in their list not less than one hundred and ninety species +before unknown to the neighborhood of the French capital, whereof +fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, beans, etc.), thirty-four +are composite, thirty-two are _plantes grasses_, and sixty-six belong +to other families. Almost all are to be found chiefly on the left bank +of the Seine, though also discoverable at Neuilly and in the Bois de +Boulogne. Of course, these new-comers are all accounted for as the +produce of seeds brought by the German army. They will gradually die +out; and yet some few may remain as permanent conquerors of the soil, +since among the flora of Paris is still reckoned one plant whose seed +was brought into France by some Russian forage-train in 1815. + + * * * * * + +As the impudence, dishonesty, laziness and rapacity of servants at +watering-places have long been familiar subjects of satire, it is +just to say a word on the other side in favor of some extreme +Northern resorts. At the White Mountains, for example, the waiters and +waitresses are of a better class than is generally met. Some of the +young girls are farmers' daughters, who go to the hotels to see the +fashions and earn a little pocket-money. The colored cook at one of +the great houses teaches dancing during the winters. Not a few are +school-teachers, others students at country academies, who pass their +vacation in this way in order to earn enough to buy text-books or +pay the winter's tuition. Many of them are more intelligent and well +educated than some of the shoddies they wait upon. They are usually +quicker in movement and of more retentive memory than the average +American waiter; and though each has a great deal to do at times, yet +even during the tremendous moment of dinner they contrive to find a +few little intervals for harmless flirtations in the dining-room. They +are for the most part well-mannered too, and if they talk to you of +each other as "this lady" or "that gentleman," what is it more than +some waiters do with far less reason? The New Hampshire villages +become versed every summer in the latest imported fashions, thanks to +the quick eyes of the hotel waitresses. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: Osgood & Co. + +Mr. Taylor's muse has of late become very still-faced, decorous and +mindful of the art-proprieties. Cautious is she, and there is perhaps +nothing in this pastoral that will cause the grammarian to wince, or +make the censorious rhetorician writhe in his judgment-seat with +the sense that she is committing herself. Not such were the early +attributes of the great itinerant's poetry. When he used to unsling +his minstrel harp in the wilds of California or on the sunrise +mountains of the Orient, there were plenty of false notes, plenty +of youthful vivacities that overbore the strings and were heard as a +sudden crack, and, withal, a good deal of young frank fire. Now there +is much finish and the least possible suspicion of ennui. But the +life-history of _Lars_ is worth reading. It is a calm procession of +pictures, without pretence, except the slight pretence of classical +correctness. The first part, which reflects Norwegian manners in a way +reminding us more or less of the exquisite stories of Bjornsen, tells +how two swains of Ulvik, Lars the hunter and Per the fisher, quarrel +for love of Brita, and at a public wrestling decide the question by a +combat, fighting with knives, in Norse fashion, while hooked to each +other at the belt. They strip, _à la_ Heenan and Sayers. Mr. Taylor, +who does not often come behind the occasion when he can get a human +figure to describe statue-wise or under a studio light, is perhaps a +trifle too Phidian in bringing out the good looks of his fish-eating +gladiators: + + The low daylight clad + Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now + Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet + So near the beauty terrible of Death. + +Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His foe falls lifeless, his +sweetheart calls him a murderer, and he flies from the law. Another +scene quickly shows him crossing the broad ocean, as so many +Norwegians and Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking the +protection of Swedish forts on Delaware banks. Long, sad days pass on +the ocean, + + Till shining fisher-sails + Came, stars of land that rose before the land; + +and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, only to find that the +civilization he seeks has set like a sinking planet into the abiding +enlightenment of another race and creed. Governor Printz's fortress +on Tinicum isle is a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays up the +broad stream + + To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington + Looks to the river over marshy weeds. + He saw the low brick church with stunted tower, + The portal-arches, ivied now and old, + And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones + Bore Norland names and dear familiar words! + It seemed the dead a comfort spake. + +The governor is a myth, the Swedes are dead, the Scandinavian tongues +have been changed to English, and an English exactly conformed to King +James's translation of the Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to +checks him for addressing her with a civility: + + "Nay," she said, "not _lady_! call me Ruth." + +With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, on Hockessin Farm, the +wanderer abides as herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of Ruth's +soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the Delawarean society, he joins the +peaceful sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, though, to +change his plural pronouns to the scriptural _thou_ and _thee_ of King +James's translators than to tame his heroic Viking blood, swift to +boil into wrath at the show of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a +quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, where lies + + Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads, + The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house. + +Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts forth in tears and +supplications among the worshipers, and is received into full harmony +with them: + + So into joy revolved the doubtful year, + And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends + Sheltered another member, even Lars.... + And all the country-side assembled there + One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky + The colors of transfiguration shone, + Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars + Together sat upon the women's side; + And when the peace was perfect, they arose: + He took her by the hand, and spake these words, + As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord + And this assembly, by the hand I take + Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her, + Divine assistance blessing me, to be + A loving and a faithful husband, even + Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth + The like sweet words; and so the twain were one. + +It is not often that a liturgy has been translated into metre with +less change of its form and substance. + +The imbedding of a raw Northern native in this lap of repose and in +this transfiguring matrimonial alliance is the grand problem of the +poem. What will Lars do, now that he is a man of peace and a Child of +Light, with the burden of conscience? In America he is a saint and an +apostle. In Europe he is known but as a proscribed murderer. The later +scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his true and tender wife, meets his +old love, his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, are of a more +ambitious character than any that have preceded. The holy principles +imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made to triumph, and Lars, +dropping the sharp blade from his hand in the thronged arena whither +he is forced once more, stands first as a laughing-stock, and then as +an apostle, among his old neighbors. It is a position full of moral +force, and we find ourselves--suddenly recovering in a degree from the +calm view we had taken of the poem as a work of art--asking _how_ we +should be so sensible of the grandeur of the situation if the poet by +his skill had not brought out its peculiarity. + + * * * * * + +A Lady of the Last Century. By Dr. Doran. London: Bentley. + +This is the life of a lady remarkable in herself and in her +surroundings. Of every day in her life she could say, in the words of +Horace, "I have lived." "She never had a fool for an acquaintance," +says her biographer, "nor an idle hour in the sense of idleness." Her +father, Mr. Robinson, who belonged to an eminent family which had been +settled about a century at Rokeby, subsequently the seat of Scott's +friend Morritt, in Yorkshire, married when a boy of eighteen a rich +young lady of very superior quality in every respect, and by her had +a large family. His wife's mother married secondly Middleton, the +biographer of Cicero, who took a great fancy to her grand-daughter, +Elizabeth Robinson, and paid much attention to her intellectual +development. In fact, from the cradle to the grave she was thrown +amongst the erudite and cultivated in a very uncultivated age. During +her girlhood Elizabeth Robinson had every advantage and pleasure which +wealthy and devoted parents could give her, and when twenty-two she +married Mr. Edward Montagu, a grandson of the first earl of Sandwich, +and first cousin of the celebrated Lady Mary's husband. + +Mrs. Montagu was far more fortunate in her choice than the brilliant +daughter of the duke of Kingston. Her husband was in every way +estimable and amiable, and her letters afford ample evidence how +thoroughly she appreciated his character. They had only one child, who +died in infancy, and when Mr. Montagu died he bequeathed to his widow +the whole of his property, which she in turn left to her nephew, who +took the name of Montagu and became Lord Rokeby. + +A few years after their marriage Mr. Montagu, already affluent, +received a great accession of fortune in the shape of colliery +property in the north of England. This enabled his wife to entertain +very liberally, and, in conjunction with her talents and high +connections, gave her a commanding place in society. They took a large +house in Hill street, then the extremity of the West End, which became +the resort of that class who, being anxious to put an end to eternal +card-playing and introduce rather more of the intellectual into +social intercourse, received from a chance circumstance the name +of "blue-stockings." There were to be seen Burke, Fox, Hannah More, +Johnson, Lord Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu fitted up +a room whose walls were hung with feathers, and thence came Cowper's +well-known lines and Macaulay's passage: "There were the members +of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised and exchanged +repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montagu." After +her husband's death a great deal of business devolved on her in the +management of his estates, and here she showed those qualities which +are singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of rank. She went down to +Northumberland, inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and +made acquaintance with her tenants. She seems particularly to have +appreciated the people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of them +recall in no slight degree some of those of the sisters Bronté. Her +principal seat was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she spent +large sums in improvements under the celebrated landscape-gardener +"Capability Brown." + +She survived her husband twenty-five years, and about twenty years +before her death removed to a fine house which she had erected in a +then new part of London, Portman Square, and which is still known as +Montagu House. But the entertainments there given were, though more +splendid, less notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill street, for +Mrs. Montagu herself was getting into years, and many of those who had +been the brightest ornaments of the Hill street parties were passing +away. Mrs. Montagu died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She was of an +affectionate disposition, but had somewhat less sensibility perhaps +than most men would like to see in a woman; yet, on the whole, she +played her part in life extremely well, being wise, generous and true. + +The book is particularly interesting for the rich aroma of association +around it, and would have been far more so had Dr. Doran taken the +trouble to give a few notes, of which there is not a single one in the +whole book--a serious drawback, more especially to American readers. + + * * * * * + +The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the +Discussions relating thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +Mr. Cushing has given another proof of the great capacity of some +men to do very clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an adequate +account of the work itself or of the way in which it was done. Trained +by long experience in public business, and intimately acquainted +by long residence in Washington with the methods of diplomatic +negotiation and interpretation, he was eminently fitted to be the +colleague of Mr. Evarts as counsel for the government before the +Geneva arbitration. Here he undertakes to give an account of the +task there brought to a result so favorable to the United States. +Unluckily, he shows that he is always and only an advocate. Much that +may have been useful for his duties in that office is prominent in a +disagreeable way in his recital of the Geneva award. His language is +loose and offensive, often without meaning to be so, but oftener in +a way that shows how much he must have been galled by the lord +chief-justice of England. Whatever Sir Alexander Cockburn may have +done there, and however much he may have fallen from his high estate +as one of the arbitrators to the less dignified position of an +advocate for English claims, he will have a sweet revenge in seeing +the anger that he has excited in one of the American representatives, +now become their spokesman. Mr. Cushing falls into the blunder that +was once so common in our American state papers as to give good cause +for that happy phrase of Nicholas Biddle--"Western Orientalisms." The +tone of the book, which ought to be a simple story, is stilted and +rhetorical. The result of all the long discussions is the best praise +of our American statesmen who were its authors, but it is dwarfed and +lessened by the fulsome praise given to the foreign representatives +who brought it about. Of "bad language," in keeping with the +bad spirit of the book, the following may serve as specimens: +"Pretensiveness," "frequentation," "annexion," "capitulations" +instead of "treaties," "monogram" for "monograph," "it needs to," +"howmuchsoever," "law-books invested with the reflection of fine +scenery," "imposed itself," "I demand of myself," and other such +phrases without number. + +Once done with Sir Alexander Cockburn and the work at Geneva, Mr. +Cushing shows himself and his country to much better advantage in +discussing the "Mixed Commission" now sitting at Washington, the +Northwest Boundary, the Fisheries, and the general provisions of the +Washington treaty. He has, however, simply forestalled the ground +for some better writer on the important history which belongs to that +negotiation, and will give the reading and reflecting public, both +abroad and at home, a very unfavorable impression of the great task in +which he played so important a part, and of the qualities of mind and +temper he must have brought to it, since at this late day he finds +no better impetus to the work of writing its history than unexplained +anger at one of the members of the board before which Mr. Cushing +argued the cause of his country, and helped to win it. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The Drawing-Room Stage: A Series of Original Dramas, Comedies, Farces, +and Entertainments for Amateur Theatricals and School Exhibitions. By +George M. Baker. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Five Years in an English University. By Charles Astor Bristed, late +Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third edition. +Revised by the Author. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. By the late C.A. Sainte-Beuve. +With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. +Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Livingstone and his African Explorations: together with a Full Account +of the Young, Stanley and Dawson Search Expeditions. New York: Adams, +Victor & Co. + +The Mother's Register: Current Notes of the Health of Children. From +the French of Professor J.B. Fonssagrines. New York: G.P. Putnam & +Sons. + +Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene Plon. Translated from the +French by J. M. Luyster. Illustrated. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Scientific and Industrial Education: its Importance to our Country. By +G.B. Stebbins. Detroit: Daily Post Printing Establishment. + +Never Again. By W.S. Mayo, M.D., author of "Kaloolah," "The Berber," +etc. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +The World-Priest. From the German of Leopold Schafer. By Charles T. +Brooks. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The Cuban Question in the Spanish Parliament. London: Press of the +Anglo-American Times. + +Treason at Home: A Novel. By Mrs. Greenough. Philadelphia: T.B. +Peterson & Brothers. + +Myths and Myth-Makers. By John Fiske, M.A., LL.B. Boston: James R. +Osgood & Co. + +An Account of the Sphynx at Mount Auburn. Illustrated. Boston: Little, +Brown & Co. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, by Various + +*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13195 *** diff --git a/13195-h/13195-h.htm b/13195-h/13195-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..984f4b2 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/13195-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,12618 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=UTF-8" /> + + <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873.</title> + + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + h1 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h2 {margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h3 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + .book {text-indent: 2em; font-size: 1.1em;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .note {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + + .figure, .figcenter, .figright, .figleft + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center;} + .figure img, .figcenter img, .figright img, .figleft img + {border: none;} + .figure p, .figcenter p, .figright p, .figleft p + {margin: 0; text-indent: 1em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto;} + .figright {float: right;} + .figleft {float: left;} + + .inline {border: none; vertical-align: middle;} + + .footnote {font-size: 0.9em; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%;} + + .side {float:right; + font-size: 75%; + width: 25%; + padding-left:10px; + border-left: dashed thin; + margin-left: 10px; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: italic;} + + div.trans-note {border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: center;} + + .illustrations {margin: 0.5em 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + .toc {margin: 0 10%; text-align: left; font-size: 0.9em;} + .toc p {margin: 0.5em 0;} + .toc p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + + p.author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + + a:link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:visited {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:hover {color: red;} + --> + </style> +</head> +<body> +<div>*** START OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13195 ***</div> + + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of + illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> +<h3>OF</h3> +<h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2> +<hr class="short" /> +<h4>June, 1873.<br /> +Vol. XI., No. 27.</h4> +<hr class="short" /> + <h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + + <div class="toc"> + <p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p> + +<p>A NEW ATLANTIS.<a href="#page609">609</a></p> + +<p>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</p> +<p class="i4">CONCLUDING PAPER. <a href="#page621">621</a></p> + +<p>A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP.<a href="#page636">636</a></p> + +<p>SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. <a href="#page646">646</a></p> + +<p>OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT.</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER III.<a href="#page654">654</a></p> + +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IV. <a href="#page659">659</a></p> + +<p>SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS.<a href="#page663">663</a></p> + +<p>A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!"<a href="#page669">669</a></p> + +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!"<a href="#page679">679</a></p> + +<p>THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. <a href="#page688">688</a></p> + +<p>BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER VIII. <a href="#page697">697</a></p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IX. <a href="#page699">699</a></p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER X. <a href="#page704">704</a></p> + +<p>BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES. <a href="#page708">708</a></p> +<p>DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. <a href="#page716">716</a></p> + +<p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p> +<p class="i4">THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. <a href="#page717">717</a></p> +<p class="i4">WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. <a href="#page721">721</a></p> + +<p class="i4">THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD. <a href="#page722">722</a></p> + +<p>FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER <a href="#page722">722</a></p> +<p>NOTES. <a href="#page723">723</a></p> +<p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page725">725</a></p> +<p class="i4"><i>Books Received.</i> <a href="#page728">728</a></p> + + + </div> + <hr /> + <a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a> + + <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> + +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig609">ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig610">UP THE INLET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig611">LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig612">CONGRESS HALL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig613">MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig614">THE SENATE HOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig615">ON THE SHINING SANDS.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig616">MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig617">THE THOROUGHFARE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig618">THE EXCURSION HOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig619">A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig621">ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig622">AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig623">THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig624">A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig625">KABYLE MEN.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig626">KABYLE WOMEN.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig628">DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig630">AN ARAB MARKET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig632">POVERTY AND JEWELS.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig633">GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.</a></p> + + <hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page609" id="page609"></a>[pg 609]</span> + +<h2>A NEW ATLANTIS.</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/609.png" name="fig609" id="fig609"><img width="100%" src="images/609.png" alt="ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE." /></a></div> + +<p>The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day +moving is over and settled, and still +a remnant of money is found sticking to the +bottom of the old marmalade pot. Where +shall we go?</p> + +<p>There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport?</p> + +<p>But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity of its +<i>sangre azul</i>. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us off to inspect the +last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid us enjoy the gardens, brought every +spring in lace-paper out of the florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page610" id="page610"></a>[pg 610]</span> +barefooted if we choose, and Newport +is become an affair of toilette and +gold-mounted harness, a bathing-place +where people do everything +but bathe.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/610.png" name="fig610" id="fig610"><img width="100%" src="images/610.png" alt="UP THE INLET." /></a>UP THE INLET.</div> + +<p>Well, Nahant, then, or Long +Branch?</p> + +<p>Too slow and too fast. Besides, +we have seen them.</p> + +<p>Suppose we try the Isles of +Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island +and White Island, now? Or +Nantucket, or Marblehead?</p> + +<p>Too stony, and nothing in particular +to eat. You ask for fish, +and they give you a rock.</p> + +<p>In truth, under that moral and +physical dyspepsia to which we +bring ourselves regularly every +summer, the fine crags of the north +become just the least bit of a bore. +They necessitate an amount of +heroic climbing under the command +of a sort of romantic and do-nothing +Girls of the Period, who +sit about on soft shawls in the lee +of the rocks, and gather their shells +and anemones vicariously at the +expense of your tendon achilles. +We know it, for we have suffered. +We calculate, and are prepared to +prove, that the successful collection +of a single ribbon of ruffled seaweed, +procured in a slimy haystack +of red dulse at the beck of +one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping +her brass heels dry on a safe +and sunny ledge of the Purgatory +at Newport, may require more mental +calculation, involve more anguish +of equilibrium, and encourage +more heartfelt secret profanity +than the making of a steam-engine +or the writing of a proposal.</p> + +<p>No, no, we would admire nothing, +dare nothing, do nothing, but +only suck in rosy health at every +pore, pin our souls out on the holly +hedge to sweeten, and forget what +we had for breakfast. Uneasy +daemons that we are all winter, +toiling gnomes of the mine and the +forge—"O spent ones of a workday +age"—can we not for one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page611" id="page611"></a>[pg 611]</span> +brief month in our year be +Turks?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/611.png" name="fig611" id="fig611"><img width="100%" src="images/611.png" alt="LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET." /></a>LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.</div> + +<p>Our doctors, slowly acquiring a +little sense, are changing their +remedies. Where the cry used to +be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." +But hygiene itself might be +changed for the better. We can +imagine a few improvements in +the materia medica of the future. +Where the physician used to order +a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will +simply hold his watch thoughtfully +for sixty seconds and prescribe +"Paris." Where he was wont to +recommend a strong emetic, he +will in future advise a week's study +of the works of art at our National +Capital. For lassitude, a donkey-ride +up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, +a course of sunrises from +the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel +in his song of "Di quella Pira." +For melancolia, Naples. For fever, +driving an ice-cart. But when +the doctor's most remunerative +patient comes along, the pursy +manufacturer able to afford the +luxury of a bad liver, let him consult +the knob of his cane a moment +and order "Atlantic City."</p> + +<p>—Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. +Because it is unspoilt, yet +luxurious. Because the air there +is filled with iodine and the sea +with chloride of sodium. Because, +with a whole universe of water, +Atlantic City is dry. Because of +its perfect rest and its infinite +horizons.</p> + +<p>But where and what <i>is</i> Atlantic +City? It is a refuge thrown up by +the continent-building sea. Fashion +took a caprice, and shook it +out of a fold of her flounce. A +railroad laid a wager to find the +shortest distance from Penn's +treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: +it dashed into the water, and a +City emerged from its freight-cars +as a consequence of the manoeuvre. +Almost any kind of a parent-age +will account for Atlantis. It +is beneath shoddy and above +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page612" id="page612"></a>[pg 612]</span> +mediocrity. It is below Long Branch and +higher up than Cape May. It is different +from any watering-place in the world, yet +its strong individuality might have been +planted in any other spot; and a few +years ago it was nowhere. Its success +is due to its having nothing importunate +about it. It promises endless sea, sky, +liberty and privacy, and, having made +you at home, it leaves you to your devices.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/612.png" name="fig612" id="fig612"><img width="100%" src="images/612.png" alt="CONGRESS HALL." /></a>CONGRESS HALL.</div> + +<p>Two of our best marine painters in +their works offer us a choice of coast-landscape. +Kensett paints the bare stiff +crags, whitened with salt, standing out +of his foregrounds like the clean and +hungry teeth of a wild animal, and looking +hard enough to have worn out the +painter's brush with their implacable +enamel. From their treeless waste extends +the sea, a bath of deep, pure +color. All seems keen, fresh, beautiful +and severe: it would take a pair of stout +New England lungs to breathe enjoyably +in such an air. That is the northern +coast. Mr. William Richards gives +us the southern—the landscape, in fact, +of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have +the infinitude of soft silver beach, the +rolling tumultuousness of a boundless +sea, and twisted cedars mounted like +toiling ships on the crests of undulating +sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, +the power and the peace of the Desert.</p> + +<p>And here let us be indulged with a few +words about a section of our great continent +which has never been sung in +rhyme, and which it is almost a matter +of course to treat disparagingly. A +cheap and threadbare popular joke assigns +the Delaware River as the eastern +boundary of the United States of America, +and defines the out-landers whose +homes lie between that current and the +Atlantic Ocean as foreigners, Iberians, +and we know not what. Scarcely more +of an exile was Victor Hugo, sitting on +the shores of Old Jersey, than is the +denizen of <i>New</i> Jersey when he brings +his half-sailor costume and his beach-learned +manners into contrast with the +thrift and hardness of the neighboring +commonwealth. The native of the alluvium +is another being from the native +of the great mineral State. But, by the +very reason of this difference, there is a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page613" id="page613"></a>[pg 613]</span> +strange soft charm that comes over our +thoughts of the younger Jersey when we +have done laughing at it. That broad, +pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust, +which droops toward the south +like some vast tropical leaf, and spreads +its two edges toward the fresh and salt +waters, enervated with drought and sunshine—that +flat leaf of land has characteristics +that are almost Oriental. To +make it the sea heaved up her breast, +and showed the whitened sides against +which her tides were beating. To walk +upon it is in a sense to walk upon the +bottom of the ocean. Here are strange +marls, the relics of infinite animal life, +into which has sunk the lizard or the +dragon of antiquity—the gigantic <i>Hadrosaurus</i>, +who cranes his snaky throat +at us in the museum, swelling with the +tale of immemorial times when he weltered +here in the sunny ooze. The country +is a mighty steppe, but not deprived +of trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, +dark foliage, and the endless woods +of pine, sand-planted, strew over that +boundless beach a murmur like the sea. +The edibles it bears are of the quaintest +and most individual kinds: the cranberry +is its native condiment, full of individuality, +unknown to Europe, beautiful +as a carbuncle, wild as a Tartar +belle, and rife with a subacid irony that +is like the wit of Heine.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/613.png" name="fig613" id="fig613"><img width="100%" src="images/613.png" alt="MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE." /></a>MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.</div> + +<p>Here is the <i>patate douce</i>, +with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd +that loves to gad along the sand—the +citron in its carved net, and the enormous +melon, carnation-colored within +and dark-green to blackness outside. +The peaches here are golden-pulped, as +if trying to be oranges, and are richly +bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid, +fascinating the taste like some enchantress +of Venice, the pursuit of whom is +made piquant by a fancy that she may +poison you. The farther you penetrate +this huge idle peninsula, the more its +idiosyncrasy is borne in on your mind. +Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash +of air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, +and heated jungles of dwarf oaks balancing +balmy plantations of pine. Then, +toward the sea, the wiry grasses that +dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute +possession with the forests, and finally +supplant them: the sand is blown into +coast-hills, whose crests send off into +every gale a foam of flying dust, and +which themselves change shape, under +pressure of the same winds, with a slower +imitation of the waves. Finally, by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page614" id="page614"></a>[pg 614]</span> +the gentlest of transitions, the deserts +and the quicksands become the ocean.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/614.png" name="fig614" id="fig614"><img width="100%" src="images/614.png" alt="THE SENATE HOUSE." /></a>THE SENATE HOUSE.</div> + +<p>The shore melts into the sea by a network +of creeks and inlets, edging the +territory (as the flying osprey sees it) +with an inimitable lacework of azure +waters; the pattern is one of looping +channels with oval interstices, and the +dentellated border of the commonwealth +resembles that sort of lace which was +made by arranging on glass the food of +a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate +and wove, having voracity always +before him and Fine Art behind +him. Much of the solider part +of the State is made of the materials +which enter into glass-manufacture: a +mighty enchanter might fuse the greater +portion of it into one gigantic goblet. A +slight approximation to this work of +magic is already being carried on. The +tourist who has crossed the lagoons of +Venice to see the fitful lights flash up +from the glass-furnaces of Murano, will +find more than one locality here where +leaping lights, crowning low banks of +sand, are preparing the crystal for our +infant industries in glass, and will remind +him of his hours by the Adriatic. +Every year bubbles of greater and greater +beauty are being blown in these secluded +places, and soon we hope to enrich +commerce with all the elegances of +latticinio and schmelze, the perfected +glass of an American Venice.</p> + +<p>But our business is not with the land, +but the sea. Here it lies, basking at +our feet, the warm amethystine sea of +the South. It does not boom and thunder, +as in the country of the "cold gray +stones." On the contrary, saturating +itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk +over the shoal flat beach with a succession +of voluptuous curves, it spreads +thence in distance with strands and belts +of varied color, away and away, until +blind with light it faints on a prodigiously +far horizon. Its falling noises are as +soft as the sighs of Christabel. Its colors +are the pale and milky colors of the +opal. But ah! what an impression of +boundlessness! How the silver ribbon +of beach unrolls for miles and miles! +And landward, what a parallel sea of +marshes, bottoms and dunes! The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page615" id="page615"></a>[pg 615]</span> +sense of having all the kingdoms of the +world spread out beneath one, together +with most of the kingdoms of the mermen, +has never so come to one's consciousness +before. And again, what an +artist is Nature, with these faint washes +and tenderest varied hues—varied and +tender as the flames from burning gases—while +her highest lights (a painter will +understand the difficulty of <i>that</i>) are +still diaphanous and profound!</p> + +<p>One goes to the seaside not for pomp +and peacock's tails, but for saltness, +Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build +a city there that shall not be an insult +to the sentiment of the place is a matter +of difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a +canvas encampment. A range of solid +stone villas like those of Newport, so far +as congruity with a watering-place goes, +pains the taste like a false note in music. +Atlantic City pauses halfway between +the stone house and the tent, and erects +herself in woodwork. A quantity of +bright, rather giddy-looking structures, +with much open-work and carved ruffling +about the eaves and balconies, are +poised lightly on the sand, following the +course of the two main avenues which +lead parallel with the shore, and the +series of short, straight, direct streets +which leap across them and run eagerly +for the sea. They have a low, brooding +look, and evidently belong to a class of +sybarites who are not fond of staircases. +Among them, the great rambling hotel, +sprawling in its ungainly length here and +there, looks like one of the ordinary tall +New York houses that had concluded to +lie over on its side and grow, rather than +take the trouble of piling on its stories +standing. In this encampment of wooden +pavilions is lived the peculiar life of +the place.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/615.png" name="fig615" id="fig615"><img width="100%" src="images/615.png" alt="ON THE SHINING SANDS." /></a>ON THE SHINING SANDS.</div> + +<p>We are sure it is a sincere, natural, +sensible kind of life, as compared with +that of other bathing-shores. Although +there are brass bands at the hotels, and +hops in the evening, and an unequal +struggle of macassar oil with salt and +stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is +kept at a minimum. People really do +bathe, really do take walks on the beach +for the love of the ocean, really do pick +up shells and throw them away again, +really do go yachting and crab-catching; +and if they try city manners in the evening, +they are so tired with their honest +day's work that it is apt to end in misery. +On the hotel piazzas you see beauties that +surprise you +with exquisite +touches +of the warm +and languid +South. That +dark Baltimore +girl, +her hair a constellation of jessamines, is +beating her lover's shoulders with her +fan in a state of ferocity that you would +give worlds to encounter. That pair of +proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured +in peach-pulp and wrapped in +gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at +the gates of a temple. Whole rows of +unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate +but implacable, waiting for partners +equal to them in social position. In such +a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to +her old music-teacher and flirt solemnly +with him for a whole evening, sooner +than involve herself with well-looking +young chits from Providence or New +York, who may be jewelers' clerks when +at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity +beauty of these Southern belles is very +striking to one who comes fresh from +Saratoga and the sort of upholstered +goddesses who are served to him there.</p> + +<p>Some years ago the Surf House was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page616" id="page616"></a>[pg 616]</span> +the finest place of entertainment, but it +has now many rivals, taller if not finer. +Congress Hall, under the management +of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, +while the Senate House, standing +under the shadow of the lighthouse, has +the advantage of being the nearest to the +beach of all the hotels. Both are ample +and hospitable hostelries, where you +are led persuasively through the Eleusinian +mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine. +Schaufler's is an especial resort of our +German fellow-citizens, who may there be +seen enjoying themselves in the manner +depicted by our artist, while concocting—as +we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski—the +ambitious schemes which they conceal +under their ordinary <i>enveloppe débonnaire</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/616.png" name="fig616" id="fig616"><img width="100%" src="images/616.png" alt="MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE." /></a>MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.</div> + +<p>There is another feature of the place. +With its rarely fine atmosphere, so tonic +and bracing, so free from the depressing +fog of the North, it is a great sanitarium. +There are seasons when the Pennsylvania +University seems to have bred +its wealth of doctors for the express purpose +of marshaling a dying world to the +curative shelter of Atlantic +City. The trains +are encumbered with the +halt and the infirm, who +are got out at the doors +like unwieldy luggage in the arms of +nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, +they display considerable mobility +in distributing themselves through the +three or four hundred widely-separated +cottages which await them for hire. As +you wander through the lanes of these +cunning little houses, you catch strange +fragments of conversation. Gentlemen +living vis-à -vis, and standing with one +leg in the grave and the other on their +own piazzas, are heard on sunny mornings +exciting themselves with the maddest +abuse of each other's doctor. There +are large boarding-houses, fifty or more +of them, each of which has its contingent +of puling valetudinarians. The healthy +inmates have the privilege of listening +to the symptoms, set forth with that full +and conscientious detail not unusual +with invalids describing their own complaints. +Or the sufferers turn their batteries +on each other. On the verandah +of a select boarding-house we have seen +a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like +a dead harlequin, as she rolled herself +in the triangles of a glittering afghan. +On a neighboring seat a gouty subject, +and a tropical sun pouring on both.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning! You see I am trying +my sun-bath. I am convinced it +relieves my spine." The same remark +has introduced seven +morning conversations.</p> + +<p>"And my gout has shot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page617" id="page617"></a>[pg 617]</span> +from the index toe to the ring toe. +I feared my slipper was damp, and +I am roasting it here. But, dear +ma'am, I pity you so with your +spine! Tried acupuncture?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/617.png" name="fig617" id="fig617"><img width="100%" src="images/617.png" alt="THE THOROUGHFARE." /></a>THE THOROUGHFARE.</div> + +<p>The patient probably hears the +word as Acapulco. For she answers, +"No, but I tried St. Augustine +last winter. Not a morsel of +good."</p> + +<p>Among these you encounter +sometimes lovely, frail, transparent +girls, who come down with cheeks +of wax, and go home in two months +with cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen +arriving yellow, and going +back in due time purple.</p> + +<p>Once a hardened siren of many +watering-places, large and blooming, +arrived at Atlantic City with +her latest capture, a stooping invalid +gentleman of good family in +Rhode Island. They boated, they +had croquet on the beach, they +paced the shining sands. Both of +them people of the world and past +their first youth, they found an +amusement in each other's knowing +ways and conversation that +kept them mutually faithful in a +kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, +however, was evidently +only amusing himself with this travesty +of sentiment, though he was +never led away by the charms of +younger women. After a month +of it he succeeded in persuading +her for the first time to enter the +water, and there he assisted her +to take the billows in the gallant +American fashion. Her intention +of staying only in the very edge of +the ocean he overruled by main +force, playfully drawing her out +where a breaker washed partially +over her. As the water touched +her face she screamed, and raised +her arm to hide the cheek that had +been wet. She then ran hastily to +shore, and her friend, fearing some +accident, made haste to rejoin her. +His astonishment was great at finding +one of her cheeks of a ghastly, +unhealthy white. Her color had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page618" id="page618"></a>[pg 618]</span> +always been very high. That afternoon +she sought him and explained. +She was really an invalid, she said +calmly, and had recently undergone +a shocking operation for tumor. +But she saw no reason for +letting that interfere with her usual +summer life, particularly as she felt +youth and opportunity making away +from her with terrible strides. Having +a chance to enjoy his society +which might never be repeated, +fearing lest his rapid disease should +carry him away from before her +eyes, she had concluded to make +the most of time, dissemble her suffering, +and endeavor to conceal by +art the cold bloodlessness of her +face. This whimsical, worldly heroism +happened to strike the gentleman +strangely. He was affected to +the point of proposing marriage. At +the same time he perceived with +some amazement that his disease +had left him: the, curative spell of +the region had wrought its enchantment +upon his system. They were +wedded, with roles reversed—he as +the protector and she as the invalid—and +were truly happy during the +eighteen months that the lady lived +as his wife.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/618.png" name="fig618" id="fig618"><img width="100%" src="images/618.png" alt="THE EXCURSION HOUSE." /></a>THE EXCURSION HOUSE.</div> + +<p>There are prettier and more innocent +stories. Every freckle-nosed +girl from the Alleghany valleys who +sweeps with her polka-muslin the +floors of these generous hotels has +an idyl of her own, which she is rehearsing +with young Jefferson Jones +or little Madison Addison. In the +golden afternoons they ride together—not +in the fine turn-outs supplied +by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, +but in guiltless country wagons +guided by Jersey Jehus, where +close propinquity is a delightful necessity. +Ten miles of uninterrupted +beach spread before them, which +the ocean, transformed for the purpose +into a temporary Haussmann, +is rolling into a marble boulevard +for their use twice a day. On the +hard level the wheels scarcely leave +a trace. The ride seems like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> +eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, +and the landscape is so impressively +similar: everywhere the plunging surf, +the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with +foliage sliced off sharp and flat by the +keen east wind—their stems twisted like +a dishclout or like the olives around +Florence.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/619.png" name="fig619" id="fig619"><img width="100%" src="images/619.png" alt="A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL." /></a>A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.</div> + +<p>Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison +on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in a +boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the +railroad bridge, you lean over the side +and see the dark glassy forms moving +on the bottom. It is shallow, and a +short bit of string will reach them. The +bait is a morsel of raw beefsteak from +the butcher's, and no hook is necessary. +They make for the titbit with strange +monkey-like motions, and nip it with +their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck +it into their mouths; and so you bring +them up into blue air, sprawling and +astonished, but tenacious. You can put +them through their paces where they +roost under water, moving the beef +about, and seeing them sidle and back +on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like +legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed +cousin almost into hysterics. But +one day a vivacious girl had committed +the offence of boasting too much of her +skill in crab-catching, besides being quite +unnecessarily gracious to Mr. Jefferson +Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, +who must have been reading Plutarch, +did a sly thing indeed. The boat having +been drawn unnoted into deeper water, +a cunning negro boy who was aboard +contrived to slide down one side without +remark, and the next trophy of the feminine +chase was a red <i>boiled</i> crab, artificially +attached to a chocolate caramel, +and landed with mingled feelings by the +pretty fisherwoman. Then what a tumult +of laughter, feigned anger and becoming +blushes! It is said that that crimson +shell, carved into a heart-shape of incorrect +proportions, is worn over Mr. +Jones's diaphragm to this day.</p> + +<p>At the Inlet, which penetrates the +beach alongside the lighthouse, is draught +for light vessels, and the various kinds +of society which focus at Atlantic City +may be seen concentrated there on the +wharf any of these bright warm days. +A gay party of beauties and aristocrats, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page620" id="page620"></a>[pg 620]</span> +with a champagne-basket and hamper +of lunch, are starting thence for a sail +over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen +in flannel, with guns, are urging +a little row-boat up toward the interior +country. They will return at night laden +with rail or reed-birds, with the additional +burden perhaps of a great loon, shot +as a curiosity. Others, provided with +fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. +Laughing farewells, waving handkerchiefs +and the other telegraphic signs +of departure, are all very gay, but the +tune may be changed when the great +sailing-party comes back, wet and +wretched, and with three of the principal +beauties limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's +hands with sea-sickness.</p> + +<p>Another spirited scene takes place at +five in the morning—an hour when the +city beauties are abed with all that +tenacity of somnolence which characterizes +Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. +The husbands and brothers, who are +due in the city before business hours, are +out for a good, royal, irresponsible tumble +in the surf. There is the great yeasty +bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, +dipping the sleek shoulder to the combing +wave. On the shore, active humanities +hastily undressing. Then the heavens +are filled with a new glory, and the +dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same +time with all these merry roisterers who +have shared it with him. He takes up +his line of business for the day, and so +do the good husbands and brothers, first +going through a little ceremony of toilet +from which he is exempt.</p> + +<p>Thus does the New Atlantis provide +for her republic, holding health to her +children with one hand, and shaking +from the other an infinity of toys and +diversions; while for those of more +thoughtful bent the sea turns without +ceasing its ancient pages, written all over +with inexhaustible romance.</p> + +<p>The great architect of the city was the +Power who graded those streets of immaculate +sand, and who laid out that +park of mellow, foam-flowered ocean. +Its human founders have done what +seemed suitable in providing shelter for +a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting +to put up six neat and modest +churches, where suitable praise and adoration +may be chanted against the +chanting of the sea. In several respects +the place grows somewhat curiously. +For instance, a lawn of turf is made by +the simple expedient of fencing off the +cattle: the grass then grows, but if the +cows get in they pull up the sod by the +roots, and the wind in a single season +excavates a mighty hollow where the +grassy slope was before. So much for +building our hopes on sand. An avenue +of trees is prepared by the easy plan of +thrusting willow-stems into the ground: +they sprout directly, and alternate with +the fine native cedars and hollies in +clothing the streets with shadow. Several +citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and +Mr. Thomas C. Hand, whose handsome +cottages are tasteful specimens of our +seaside architecture, have been tempted +by this facility of vegetable life at Atlantic +City to lay out elaborate gardens, +which with suitable culture are successful. +Fine avenues of the best construction +lead off to Shell Beach or to the single +hill boasted by the locality. Finally, +remembering the claims of the great +democracy to a wash-basin, the aediles +invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set +up the Excursion or Sea-View House, +with its broad piazzas, its numberless +facilities for amusement, and its enormous +dining-hall, which can be changed +on occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with +flowers and fountains.</p> + +<p>To a great city all the renovating and +exhilarating qualities of sea-breezes and +sea-bathing are but as the waters of +Tantalus, unless the place which offers +these advantages be easy of access. In +this respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia +a superiority over all its rivals. +The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to +whose secretary and treasurer, Mr. D.M. +Zimmermann, we are indebted for much +information, has simply drawn a straight +line to the coast, which may be reached +in an hour and three-quarters from Vine +street wharf. The villages on the route, +like the seaside terminus, owe their existence +to the road, which is now reaping +the reward of a far-sighted enterprise.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page621" id="page621"></a>[pg 621]</span> + + + + +<h2>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</h2> + +<h3>CONCLUDING PAPER.</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/621.png" name="fig621" id="fig621"><img width="100%" src="images/621.png" alt="ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA." /></a>ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.</div> + +<p>A noble life, whose course belongs +to the subject of these pages, is, +while they are preparing, apparently +drawing to a close. The severe illness +now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming +upon old age, disappointment, war and +the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, +can have but one result. Dimmed to-day, +as our hurrying century so rapidly +dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's +existence has only to cease and +his memory will assume the sacred +splendor of the tomb.</p> + +<p>Hapless Washington of a betrayed +revolution! In these latter days of enforced +quiet in Palestine how his early +scenes of African experience must have +flooded his mind!—his birth, sixty-six +years ago, in a family group of Moslem +saints; the teachings of his beautiful +mother Leila and of his marabout father; +his pilgrimage when eight years old to +Mecca, and his education in Italy; his +visions among the tombs, and the crown +of magic light which was seen on his +brows when he began to taste the enchanted +apple; then, with adolescence, +the burning sense of infidel tyranny that +made his home at Mascara seem only a +cage, barred upon him by the unclean +Franks; and soon, while still a youth, +his amazing election as emir of Mascara +and sultan of Oran, at a moment when +the prophet-chief had just four <i>oukias</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page622" id="page622"></a>[pg 622]</span> +(half-dimes) tied into the corner of his +bornouse!</p> + +<p>"God will send me others," said young +Abd-el-Kader.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/622.png" name="fig622" id="fig622"><img width="100%" src="images/622.png" alt="AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON." /></a>AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.</div> + +<p>The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait +of him, by Maxime David, in the +Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his +face, framed in its white hood, is seen +in full, in profile and in three-quarters +view. The visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, +refined; but we can describe it +more authentically in the terms of one +of his enemies, Lieutenant de France, +who became his prisoner in 1836, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page623" id="page623"></a>[pg 623]</span> +who followed his movements for five +months, taking down his daily talk and +habits like a Boswell, but leaving nothing +in his narrative that is not to the +sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at +twenty-eight the lieutenant says: "His +face is long and deadly pale, his large +black eyes are soft and languishing, his +mouth small and delicate, and his nose +rather aquiline: his beard is thin, but +jet-black, and he wears a small moustache, +which gives a martial character +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page624" id="page624"></a>[pg 624]</span> +to his soft, delicate face, and becomes +him vastly. His hands are small and +exquisitely formed, and his feet equally +beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a +similar portrait, impressing upon the +mind the image of some warrior-saint +of the Middle Ages, born too late, and +beating out his noble fanaticism against +our century of machines and chicanery.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/623.png" name="fig623" id="fig623"><img width="100%" src="images/623.png" alt="THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL." /></a>THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.</div> + +<p>Himself, according to some accounts, +a Berber, the young marabout early saw +the importance of inducing the Kabyles +to join with him and his Arabs in expelling +the French. He affiliated himself +with the religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, +a saint whose tomb is one of +the sacred places of Kabylia; and it is +certain that the college of this order furnished +him succor in men and money. +He visited the Kabyles in their rock-built +villages, casting aside his military +pomp and coming among them as a +simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had +received him better, he could have +shown a stouter front to the enemy. +But the mountain Berbers, utterly unused +to co-operation and subordination, +met him with surprise and distrust.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/624.png" name="fig624" id="fig624"><img width="100%" src="images/624.png" alt="A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB." /></a>A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.</div> + +<p>At least, such is the account of General +Daumas: in this interesting relation +we are forced to depend on the French. +Daumas, amply provided with documents, +letters and evidence, has arranged +in his work on <i>La Grande Kabylie</i> +the principal evidence we possess +of this epoch of Abd-el-Kader's life.</p> + +<p>The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni +and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa among +the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited +him in multitudes. He addressed +them at the door of his tent, and these +rude mountaineers found themselves +face to face with that saintly sallow visage, +those long gazelle eyes and the +prophetic countenance framed in its +apostolic beard. Raising his arms in +the attitude of Raphael's Paul at Lystra, +he said simply, "I am the thorn which +Allah has placed in the eye of the +Franks. And if you will help me I will +send them weeping into the sea."</p> + +<p>But when it came to a demand for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page625" id="page625"></a>[pg 625]</span> +supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas, +utterly refused.</p> + +<p>"You have come as a pilgrim," said +their amins, "and we have fed you with +kouskoussu. If you were to come as a +chief, wishing to lay his authority on us, +instead of white kouskoussu we should +treat you to black kouskoussu" (gunpowder).</p> + +<p>Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity +of the marabout, argued with the +Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining +their reverence and adhesion; but when +he mounted his horse to go the amins +significantly told him to come among +them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding +hospitality and white kouskoussu.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/625.png" name="fig625" id="fig625"><img width="100%" src="images/625.png" alt="KABYLE MEN." /></a>KABYLE MEN.</div> + +<p>At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of +Ameraouas, who promised to submit to +his authority as soon as the fractions +surrounding that centre should do so. +The Sons of Aicha received him with +honor and games of horsemanship. At +the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of +several tribes came to render homage to +the noble marabout, descendant of Berber +ancestry and of the Prophet. From +thence he sought tribes still more wild, +discarding his horse and appearing +among the villagers as a simple foot-pilgrim. +The natives approached him +in throngs, each family bearing a great +dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying +the platters before his tent and planting +their clubs in them, all vociferated, +"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the +chieftain was constrained to taste of +each. Finally, near Bougie he happened +to receive a courier sent by the +French commandant. The Kabyles immediately +believed him to be in treasonable +communication with the enemy, and +he was forced to retire.</p> + +<p>The young chief was in fact at that +time in peaceful communication with the +French, having made himself respected +by them in the west, while they were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page626" id="page626"></a>[pg 626]</span> +attending to the subjugation of Constantina +and founding of Philippeville in the +east. Protected by the treaty of Taafna +in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to +attempt the consolidation of his little +empire and the fusion of the jealous +tribes which composed it. The low +moral condition of his Arabs, who were +for the most part thieves and cowards, +and the rude individuality of his Kabyles, +who would respect his religious but +scoff at his political claims, made the +task of the leader a difficult one. To +the Kabyles he confided the care of his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page627" id="page627"></a>[pg 627]</span> +saintly reputation, renouncing their +contributions, and asking only for their +prayers as a Berber and as a khouan of +the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For +a few years his power increased, without +one base measure, without any soilure +on the blazon of increasing prosperity. +In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the zenith +of his influence, swept the plains beneath +the Atlas with his nomad court, defended +by two hundred and fifty horsemen. +Passing his days in reviewing his troops +and in actions of splendid gallantry, he +resumed the humility of the saint at +evening prayers: his palace of a night +received him, watched by thirty negro +tent-guards; and here he sheltered his +lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually +bowed by the habitual weight of +his cowl. The French soon became +jealous, and encroached upon their +treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are +told, had Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited +by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and +with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties +toward the sultan's dominions, +protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. +Open conflict followed, and a +succession of French razzias. In 1845, +Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under +Marshal Bugeaud, conducted that expedition +of eternal infamy during which +seven hundred of Abd-el-Kader's Arabs +were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of +the Dahra. This sickening measure was +put in force at a <i>cul-de-sac</i>, where a few +hours' blockade would have commanded +a peaceful surrender.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/626.png" name="fig626" id="fig626"><img width="100%" src="images/626.png" alt="KABYLE WOMEN." /></a>KABYLE WOMEN.</div> + +<p>"The fire was kept up throughout the +night, and when the day had fully dawned +the then expiring embers were kicked +aside, and as soon as a sufficient time +had elapsed to render the air of the +silent cave breathable, some soldiers +were directed to ascertain how matters +were within. They were gone but a few +minutes, and then came back, we are +told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly +daring, it seemed, to confront the light +of day. No wonder they trembled and +looked pale! They had found all the +Arabs dead—men, women, children, all +dead!—had beheld them lying just as +death had found and left them—the old +man grasping his gray beard; the dead +mother clasping her dead child with the +steel gripe of the last struggle, when all +gave way but her strong love."</p> + +<p>Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 +was due less to the prowess of Lamoricière +and Bugeaud than to the cunning +of his traitorous ally, the sultan of Morocco, +who, after having induced many +of the princely saint's adherents to desert, +finally drove him by force of numbers +over the French frontier. Confronting +the duke of Aumale on the Morocco +borders, he made a gallant fight, but +lost half his best men in warding off an +attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued +now with a long effort against overwhelming +pressure, and world-weary, +he met the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast +close to the Morocco line. Depositing +his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside +the French head-quarters, he awaited the +duke's signal to sit down.</p> + +<p>"I should have wished to do this +sooner," said the broken chief, "but I +have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. +I ask the aman (pardon) of the +king of the French for my family and +for myself."</p> + +<p>Louis Philippe could not come in contact +with this pure spirit without an +exhibition of Frankish treachery, like +tinder illuminating its foulness at the +striking of steel. The sultan's surrender +was conditioned on the freedom to retire +to Egypt. The French government no +sooner secured him than it treacherously +sent him to prison, first to the castle of +Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, +where he was kept from 1848 to 1852, +when the late emperor made an early +use of his imperial power to set him at +liberty. Since his freedom, at Constantinople, +Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan +has continued to practice the rigors +and holiness of the Oriental saint, +proving his catholic spirit by protecting +the Christians from Turkish injustice, +and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a +martyr the moment destined to unite his +soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris +and L'Ouverture.</p> + +<p>This noble life, which impinges a moment +on our course through Kabylia, is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page628" id="page628"></a>[pg 628]</span> +surely the most epical of our century, +which can never be reproached for the +lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's +name is remembered.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/628.png" name="fig628" id="fig628"><img width="100%" src="images/628.png" alt="DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT." /></a>DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.</div> + +<p>The descent from the rock-perched +city of Kalaa having been made in safety, +and the animals being remounted at +the first plateau, our Roumi traveler and +his guides arrive in a few hours at the +modern, fortified, but altogether +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page629" id="page629"></a>[pg 629]</span> +Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a +letter from a French personage of importance +gives us the acquaintance of a +Kabyle family of the highest rank.</p> + +<p>The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely +descended from Mohammed +through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian +race, and one of them, settled in +Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a +prosperous college of the Oriental style. +Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and +residing at Akbou, receives the tourist +with a natural icy dignity which only a +czar among the sovereigns of Europe +could hope to equal: those who have +but seen Arabs of inferior class can form +no notion of the distinction and lofty +gravity of the chiefs of a grand house +(or of a grand tent, as they are called): +the Kabyle noble is quite as superb as +the Arab.</p> + +<p>Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered +with viands half French and half +Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, +resembling a girl with his blue head-drapery +and slim white hands, places +himself at table, and attracts the conversation +of the guest. The young man +answers in monosyllables and with his +large eyes downcast, and the agha significantly +observes, "You will excuse +him if he does not answer: he is not +used to talk before his father."</p> + +<p>The host, disposing of the time of his +guests, has arranged a series of diversions. +The valley of the river Sahel is +full of boars, and panthers and monkeys +abound in the neighboring spurs of the +Zouaouas. While the Roumi are examining +his orchards of oranges and +pomegranates the agha's courtyard fills +with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary +horses, armed with inlaid guns. +These are all entertained for the night, +together with the usual throng of parasites, +who choke his doors like the clients +of the rich Roman in Horace.</p> + +<p>At sunrise the party is mounted. The +mare of the agha, a graceful creature +whose veins form an embroidery over +her coat of black satin, is caparisoned +with a slender crimson bridle, and a +saddle smaller than the Arab saddles +and furnished with lighter stirrups. The +Christian guests are furnished with veritable +arquebuses of the Middle Ages; +that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the +stock of which, flattened and surmounted +with a hammer of flints, is ignited by +a wheel-shaped lock, easier to be managed +by a Burgundian under Charles +the Bold than by an unpretending modern +Roumi.</p> + +<p>The usual features of an Algerian hunt +succeed. A phantom-like silence pervades +the column of galloping horsemen +up to the moment when the boar is beaten +up. Then, with a formidable clamor +of "<i>Haou! haou!</i>" from his pursuers, +the tusked monster bursts through the +tamarinds and dwarf palms: after a long +chase he suddenly stops, and then his +form instantly disappears under the gigantic +African hounds who leap upon +him and hang at his ears. A huntsman +dismounts and stabs his shoulder with +the yataghan. After a rest the chase is +resumed, but this time under the form +of a hawking-party.</p> + +<p>Only the djouads and marabouts—that +is to say, the religious or secular nobles—have +the privilege of hunting with the +falcon. The patrician bird, taken by +the agha from the shoulder of his hawk-bearer, +is about as large as a pigeon, the +head small, beak short and strong, the +claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. +The bird rides upon his master's +leather glove until a hare is started: +then, unhooded and released, his first +proceeding is to dart into the zenith as +if commissioned to make a hole in the +sky. No fear, however, that the poor +panting quarry is lost for an instant from +the vision of that infallible eye, which +follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and +fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an +aërolite, and, as the deed is explained to +us, doubles up his yellow hand into a +fist, and deals the animal a sharp blow +on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen +approach, he is found with his obtuse +head bent over his prey, digging out its +eyes by the spoonful.</p> + +<p>By noontide the troop is naturally +famished. A luncheon, has, however, +been prepared by the thoughtfulness of +the agha. Riding up to a tent which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page630" id="page630"></a>[pg 630]</span> +appears as by magic in the wilderness, the +provisions for a sumptuous repast are +discovered. Two fires are burning in +the open air, and are surrounded by a +host of servants or followers. The Roumi +and their host adjourn from the neighborhood +of the preparations, and are +served under a plane tree beautiful as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page631" id="page631"></a>[pg 631]</span> +that whose limbs were hung by Xerxes +with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set +on fire with red pepper, introduces the +repast: pancakes follow, and various +meats smothered with eggs or onions. +Then two half-naked cooks stagger up +bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered +napkin, a sheep roasted entire +and still impaled with the spit. The +chief cook takes hold of the skewer and +draws it violently toward himself, applying +a smart stroke with his naked heel +to the tail of the creature—a contact +which would seem almost as trying as +the ancient ordeal of the ploughshares, +or as the red-hot horseshoes which the +fire-eating marabouts are accustomed to +dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste +the succulent viand, taste again, eat till +ashamed, and are ready to declare that +never was mutton properly dressed before. +If possible, they vow to introduce +the undissected roast, the bonfire, the +spit and the cook with imperturbable +heel into the cuisine of less-favored lands +more distant from the sun.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/630.png" name="fig630" id="fig630"><img width="100%" src="images/630.png" alt="AN ARAB MARKET." /></a>AN ARAB MARKET.</div> + +<p>Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans +do not consider as wine, washes +the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed +tobacco supplement it. But when the +appetite has retired and permitted some +sharpness to the ordinary senses, the +travelers are amazed at the gradual and +silent increase which has taken place in +their numbers. Every group of guests +is augmented by a circle of prone and +creeping forms that, springing apparently +from the earth, are busily breaking +the fragments of the feast under the care +of the servitors, who appear, rather to +encourage than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, +being interrogated, replies calmly, +"They are Tofailians."</p> + +<p>The Tofailian is a parasite on system, +an idler who elevates his belly into a +divinity, or at least a principle. His +prophet or exemplar is a certain Tofail, +whose doctrine is expressed in a few +practical rules, respectfully observed and +numerously followed. "Let him who attends +a wedding-feast," says one of his +apophthegms, "having no invitation, +avoid glancing here and there dubiously. +Choose the best place. If the guests +are numerous, pass through boldly without +saluting any one, to make the guests +of the bride think you a friend of the +bridegroom, and those of the groom a +friend of the bride."</p> + +<p>An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he +saw two buttered pancakes in a cloud, +he would take his flight without hesitation."</p> + +<p>A Tofailian of marked genius once +learned that a festival was going on at +a grand mansion. He ran thither, but +the door was closed and entrance impossible. +Inquiring here and there, he +learned that a son of the house was +absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly +he procured a sheet of parchment, +folded it, and sealed it as usual +with clay: he rolled his garments in the +dust and bent his spine painfully over a +long staff. Thus perfect in what an +actor would call his reading, he sent +word to the host that a messenger had +arrived from his son. "You have seen +him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, +"and how did he bear his fatigues?" +"He was in excellent health," answered +the Tofailian very feebly. "Speak, +speak!" cried the eager father, "and +tell me every detail: how far had he +got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," +said the simple fellow. Directly +he was seated at the highest place of +the feast, and every guest admired that +splendid appetite—an appetite quite professional, +and cultivated as poulterers +cultivate the assimilative powers of livers. +"Did my son send no letter?" asked the +poor father in a favorable interval caused +by strangulation. "Surely," replied the +good friend, and, comprehending that +the critical moment had arrived, he +drew to himself a chine of kid with one +hand while he unwound the letter from +his turban with the other. The seal was +still moist, and the pilgrim had not found +time to write anything on the parchment. +"Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host +with the illumination of a sudden idea. +"Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, +struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, +then, and may Sheytan trouble thy digestion!" +The parasite was shown the +door, but he had dined.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page632" id="page632"></a>[pg 632]</span> + +<p>Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, +turn the Tofailian into a proverb, +and thus laugh at a plague they +cannot cure.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/632.png" name="fig632" id="fig632"><img width="100%" src="images/632.png" alt="POVERTY AND JEWELS." /></a>POVERTY AND JEWELS.</div> + +<p>The Algerine coast has enriched our +language with at least two words, respectively +warlike and peaceful—<i>razzia</i> +and <i>fantasia</i>. The latter is applied to a +game of horsemanship, used to express +joy or to honor a distinguished friend. +A spirited fantasia is organized by the +guests of the agha on returning to Akbou. +Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen +having gone on before, and being +completely lost to sight in the whirlwind +of dust created by their departure, all +of a sudden reappear. Menacing their +host and his companions like an army, +they gallop up, their bornouses flying +and their weapons flashing, until at a +few paces they discharge their long guns +under the bodies of the horses opposite, +and take flight like a covey of birds. +Loading as they retire and quickly forming, +again they dash to the charge, shouting, +galloping, and shooting among the +legs of their host's fine horses: this sham +attack is repeated a score or two of times, +up to the door of the agha's house. The +Bedouins, in their picturesque expression, +are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship +can nowhere be seen. Their +horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter +into the game with spirit, and the riders, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page633" id="page633"></a>[pg 633]</span> +secure in their castellated saddles, sit with +ease as they turn, leap or dance on two +feet. Used, too, from infancy to the +society of their mares, they move with +them in a degree of unity, vigor and +boldness which the English horseman +never attains. The Arab's love for his +horse is not only the pride of the cavalier: +it is an article of faith, and the +Prophet comprehended the close unity +between his nation and their beasts when +he said, "The blessings of this world, +up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended +to the locks which our horses +wear between their eyes."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/633.png" name="fig633" id="fig633"><img width="100%" src="images/633.png" alt="GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA." /></a>GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.</div> + +<p>Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality +has its advantages—on the side of the +obliged party. This haughty ruler, on +the simple stress of a letter from a French +commandant, has made himself our servant +and teased his brain for devices to +amuse us. His chief cook precedes us +to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange +a sumptuous Arab supper. After a ride +made enervating by the simoom, we descend +at the arcaded and galleried Moorish +house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, +and are visited by the sheikh of the college +which the agha maintains. It is a +strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated +to study and hospitality. Chellata, +white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic +shadow of the rock Tisibert, and +in its graveyard, among the tombs of +sacred marabouts, walk the small bald-headed +students reciting passages of law +or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over +with institutions (<i>zaouias</i>) similar to this, +which, like monasteries of old, combine +the functions of seminaries and gratuitous +inns. That of Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which +he contributes from his own purse a sum +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page634" id="page634"></a>[pg 634]</span> +equal to sixteen thousand dollars a year, +is enshrined in buildings strewn around +the resting-place of his holy ancestors. +The sacred koubba (or dome) marking +the bones of the marabout is swept by +shadows of oak and tamarind trees: +professors stray in the shadow, and the +pupils con their tasks on the adjoining +tombstones.</p> + +<p>Every impression of Chellata is silvered +over, as with a moonlight of beneficence, +by the attentions of Ben-Ali's +house-steward, who rains upon our appetites +a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, +soothes us with Moorish coffee, +and finishes by the politeness of lighting +and taking the first whiff of our cigarette—a +bit of courtesy that might be spared, +but common here as in parts of Spain.</p> + +<p>With daybreak we find the town of +Chellata preparing to play its rôle as a +mart or place of industry. The labor +seems at first sight, however, to be confined +to the children and the women: +the former lead the flocks out at sunrise +to pasture in the mountain, the women +make the town ring with their busy work, +whether of grinding at the mill, weaving +stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. +The men are at work in the fields, from +which they return at nightfall, sullen, +hardy and silent, in their tattered haiks. +These are never changed among the +poor working-people, for the scars of a +bornouse are as dignified as those of the +body, and are confided with the garment +by a father to his son. The women, as +we have remarked before, are in a state +of far greater liberty than are the female +Arabs, but it is more than anything else +the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers +the wife is a chattel from whom +it is permissible to extract all the usefulness +possible, and whom it is allowable +to sell when a bargain can be struck. +The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is +her errand to the fountain. This is +sometimes situated in the valley, far +from the nodding pillar or precipice on +which the town is built. There the traveler +finds the good wives talking and +laughing together, bending their lively—sometimes +blonde and blue-eyed—faces +together over their jars, and +gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets +around Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles—differing +therein from the Arabs—provide +a fountain for either sex; and +a visit by a man to the women's fountain +is charged, in their singular code of +penal fines, "inspired by Allah," a sum +equal to five dollars, or half as much as +the theft of an ox.</p> + +<p>By the white light of day-dawn we +quit Chellata, with the naked crests of +the Djurjura printing themselves on the +starry vault behind us and the valley +below bathed in clouds. As we descend +we seem to waken the white, red-roofed +villages with our steps. The plateaus +are gradually enlivened with spreading +herds and men going forth to labor. +We skirt the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, +crowned with its marabout's tomb. The +plains at our feet are green and glorious, +pearled with white, distant villages. +Opposite the precipice the granite rocks +open to let us pass by a narrow portal +where formerly the Kabyles used to +stand and levy a toll on all travelers. +This straitened gorge, where snow +abounds in winter, and which has various +narrow fissures, is named the Defile +of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways +of several tribes, but is impassable from +December to April from the snow and +the storms which rage among the cliffs. +We are still four thousand feet above +the plain, whose depth the swimming +eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the snowy +peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending +chains of rocks mingled with +flint and lime, we attain a more clement +landscape. Kabyle girls crowd around +a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, +a naked boy plays melancholy tunes on +a reed, and the signs of a lower level +are abundant in the fields of corn and +orchards of olive. But the rugged mountains, +in whose grasp we have found so +many wonders, are not left without regret. +The most picturesque part of our +course is now behind us, and as day +dies upon our crossing through Iferaouenen, +we turn back to behold the fine +line of the mountains, half sad and regretful,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page635" id="page635"></a>[pg 635]</span> + +<p>Fourteen expeditions were found necessary +by the French between 1838 and +1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under +leaders such as Ben-Salem, Ben-Kassim, +the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, +and other chiefs less celebrated, +defended their territory step by +step. In the great chastisement of 1857, +Marshal Randon, after subduing this part +of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined +to preserve the fruits of victory +by two new constructions—a fort and +a military road. France was to reside +among her unwilling colonists, and she +was to possess an avenue of escape. +The building of these two conveniences, +as we may call them, over the smoking +ruins of victory, was a conspicuous example +of the excellent engineering genius +of the nation. An English officer, Lieutenant-colonel +Walmsley, witnessed, and +has left a spirited account of, the great +conquest, and the immediate improvement +of it. The strongholds of the +Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were +taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was +soon to fall, yielding only to the assault +of the Foreign Legion—that troop of +Arabs and of Kabyles from the Zouaoua +plain wherefrom we derive the word <i>zouave</i>. +Marshal Randon selected for his +fort the key of the whole district: it was +a place known as the Souk-el-Arba +("Market of Wednesday"). It was in +the heart of the Beni Raten land, and +in a spot where three great mountain-ridges +ran down into the plain of the +Sebaou. These ridges, subdued and +friendly, would be held in respect by +the garrison of the fort, and the other +ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would +likewise terminate at the fort. The +works were immediately laid out and +quickly built. As the road sprang into +its level flight like magic, the peeping +Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they +were conquered, laughed in derision. +"It is to help the cowards to run away," +they said. In due time rose the pale +walls of the citadel, with mountains +above and hills below. The Kabyles +call it the White Phantom. Their songs, +the "traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite +the building of the terrible stronghold: +"The Roumi has arrived at the Market: +he is building there. Weep, O my eyes! +tears of blood. The children of Raten +are valiant men: they are known as +masters of the warlike art. They fell +upon the enemy at Icheriden. The +Franks fell like lopped branches. Glory +to those brave men! But the Roumi +has peeled us like seeds. The powder +talks no more. The warlike men are +fainting. Cover thyself with mourning, +O my head!"</p> + +<p>As the tourist turns the summit of +Aboudid suddenly appears, like an ornamental +detail in a panorama, this +vast fortress, originally named Fort Napoléon, +and since the collapse of the +empire called Fort National. During +the French troubles of 1871, in the +month of August, General Cérès was +obliged to inspire terror by burning the +village of Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and +then went on to relieve the fort. When +the next opportunity will occur for the +Beni Raten to assert their rights it is impossible +to tell. We descend from the +fort, and all becomes commonplace. +The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in +its valley-bed are being replaced by +new buildings. All wears a look of +every-day thrift. The Arab, moving his +household goods, drives before him his +poor dingy wife, loaded down with worthless +valuables and also with copper jewels, +in which she clanks like a fettered +slave. A negro musician from the Desert, +a true African minstrel, capers before +us and beats the tom-tom, until, +distracted with his noise, we pay him +and bombard him off the face of the +road with projectiles.</p> + +<p>From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is +but four hours' journey, and the four +hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, +our circumstances are subdued to the +conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our +spahi guides, like figures from <i>Lalla +Rookh!</i> Adieu, our dream of an African +Switzerland! The Roumi, outside +of Kabylia, quickly fades into the light +of common day, and becomes plain +Tom or Harry.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page636" id="page636"></a>[pg 636]</span> + + + + +<h2>A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867.</h2> + + +<p>"And you traveled alone?"</p> + +<p>"There were two of us—Annie +Foster and I."</p> + +<p>"You found no difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," she replied laughing.</p> + +<p>"But you had adventures: I see it in +your face."</p> + +<p>"Who would travel without adventures?" +and she made an expressive +gesture.</p> + +<p>"Romantic?"</p> + +<p>"Hm!—<i>tant soit peu</i>."</p> + +<p>"I am all attention: begin."</p> + +<p>"You promise not to tell?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the world: torture could not +induce me to divulge a single word."</p> + +<p>"Well, the way it came about was this: +Annie and I had been sent from England +to a small French town on the +coast, for the benefit of the warm sea-water +baths. It was a quaint little port; +all the houses reminded you of ships in +their fitting up; the beds were set into +the wall like berths; closets were stowed +away in all sorts of impossible places; +the floors were uncarpeted and white as +a main deck; and articles from distant +countries hung about the walls or stood +in the corners—East Indian sugar-cane, +cotton from America, Chinese crockery +and piles of sea-shells. The great sea +by which we lodged was represented +everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps +and water-fowl—our acquaintance, fishermen, +shrimpers and sailors. The leading +event of the day was the coming in +and going out of the tide, and ducks +and geese were the chief domestic animals. +On one side was a prospect of +wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, +on the other wind-beaten fields and the +sails of mills: the few cabins that had +rashly ventured beyond the protection +of the village shortly lost courage, and, +with their thatched roofs not a yard from +the earth, seemed crouching low to avoid +the continuous blasts. The church alone +on the high sea-wall raised itself fearlessly +against the tyrant, and though his +baffled voice still howled without, within +the pious prayed securely before a faith-inspiring +altarpiece of Christ stilling the +tempest.</p> + +<p>"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted +every amusement that the dull town +afforded, become intimate with all the +old gossips, tired of listening to the +yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven +the donkeys over the country until they +instinctively avoided us whenever we appeared, +sailed in the bay and suffered +periodic attacks of sea-sickness therefrom, +finished the circulating library, +and half learned some barbarous sentences +of Norman patois, we sat down +disconsolate one afternoon to devise +some means of employing the remainder +of our time. It was then that the bright +idea struck Annie, and she exclaimed, +'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!'</p> + +<p>"'Just the thing!' I answered with +enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next +train starts?'</p> + +<p>"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and +pack the trunks. If we can get off to-day, +by to-morrow morning we can begin +seeing it;' and she left the room in great +excitement.</p> + +<p>"The result was, that by seven o'clock +that evening we had made our hasty +preparations, and were ready to set out. +It was raining terribly when the only +hack of the village (which, by the by, +was an omnibus) called for us at the +door. The dripping fluid oozed and +sparkled over the blinking lamps, the +ribbed sides of the antiquated machine +were varnished with moisture, and the +horses looked as if each hair was a +water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's +patriarchal mansion might have presented +a similar appearance during the first +days of that celebrated wet season.</p> + +<p>"The motherly woman with whom we +had been boarding turned dismally from +the weather to her invalids and tried to +dissuade us from leaving that night, little +understanding that we considered it 'fun.' +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page637" id="page637"></a>[pg 637]</span> +As a parting advice she told us to call +each other <i>madame</i>: it would procure +us more consideration. 'For you know, +young ladies,' she remonstrated mildly, +'it is not quite proper for you to travel +alone.' After this prudent counsel and +many warm adieus we sallied forth.</p> + +<p>"The omnibus was crowded, and I +had perforce to sit on Annie's knees. +This, with the jolting, the queer effect +of the half-light in the rickety interior, +together with the expression of the good +people, who evidently could see no fun +in rain, excited my risibility so strongly +that I indulged in a smothered laugh, +tempered to fit the publicity of the occasion.</p> + +<p>"'You must not laugh in France,' +whispered Nan, pulling my dress.</p> + +<p>"'I thought the French admired gayety,' +I answered in the same tone.</p> + +<p>"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.'</p> + +<p>"The rest of the way was accomplished +in silence. We soon arrived at the +station and bought our tickets. Of course +we had half a dozen bundles: in gathering +them up a most gentlemanly person +accosted us and asked, 'Avez vous perdu +quelque chose, mademoiselle?'</p> + +<p>"Annie replied in the negative with +great dignity, and so cut off any chance +of adventure in that quarter.</p> + +<p>"On came the train. In France there +is fortunately a provision made for women +traveling without an escort. In +your country they have, I believe, +smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: +in that blessed land there is a compartment +for 'ladies alone,' or <i>Dames +Seules,</i> as it is called. A good American +once read this inscription with much +commiseration, <i>D—— souls</i>, and returning +told his friends that the 'wicked' +French allowed His Satanic Majesty the +right of running a special car on their +roads for his greater accommodation.</p> + +<p>"As we were hastening to this most +desired refuge I noticed two very student-looking +young men walking near us, and +caught a bit of their conversation.</p> + +<p>"'They will.'</p> + +<p>"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it +we go up in the same car with them.'</p> + +<p>"'I told you so!'</p> + +<p>"As we found our car and entered the +students passed on, not daring to ignore +the magic words on the door; so Adventure +No. 2 was nipped in the bud.</p> + +<p>"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, +and we sank back into the soft +cushions with the pleasant sense that no +further effort would be needed during +the journey. We had been told that the +train would arrive in Paris about midnight, +but the lateness of the hour caused +us no uneasiness, as we had been there +before and remembered the city pretty +well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed +in our ability to take care of ourselves.</p> + +<p>"In an interval of wakefulness we +discussed our plans, and concluded to +spend the night at some hotel near the +station, the next morning looking up our +friends (several of whom we knew to be +in town) and consulting them about our +future proceedings, feeling that a midnight +visit from us would scarcely be +welcome to any one. Annie recalled a +fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, +and, having made our selection +in its favor, we dozed off again very +comfortably.</p> + +<p>"I think we had been on the way +some four hours when the welcome +lights began to appear—first in the sky +above the city, as if the earth in this favored +spot threw out rays like the sun; +next through the darkness over the country +below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise +into the earth under the busy streets +and fortifications, to emerge at the end +of our route.</p> + +<p>"We gathered up our bundles in haste, +thanking the stars that we had accomplished +our ride so safely, and were +walking off to the hotel when we suddenly +thought of the trunks. Another consultation +was held, and we decided to +leave them in the baggage-room until +morning.</p> + +<p>"'But we must go and see that they +are safe,' suggested Annie.</p> + +<p>"'Where is the baggage-room?' I +asked of a porter.</p> + +<p>"'This way, mademoiselle.'</p> + +<p>"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in +a weak voice.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page638" id="page638"></a>[pg 638]</span> + +<p>"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite +official as we entered the door, and another +laid hands on the satchels we carried, +to examine them.</p> + +<p>"We had entirely forgotten the octroi +officers. 'Oh my! this affair may keep +us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I +am so sleepy!' I have often found (I +confide this to you as an inviolable secret) +that to be unreasonable is a woman's +strongest weakness: it is a shield +against which man's sharpest logic is invariably +turned aside. The next thing +to there not being a necessity, is not seeing +a necessity, and this I prepared in +the most innocent manner to do.</p> + +<p>"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed—or its +French equivalent, which I suppose is +'Mon Dieu'—'you don't mean to detain +us here opening those bags, and we so +tired, and they packed so full that we +could scarcely shut them; and if you <i>do</i> +open them, we cannot get all the things +into them again, and shall have no end +of trouble!' Then I looked as injured +as if they had been thieves or highway-men.</p> + +<p>"Had a man made this speech they +would have mistrusted him, but as women +have a reputation for shallowness, +such talk is never thought suspicious in +them.</p> + +<p>"'What do they contain?' asked the +officer, hesitating.</p> + +<p>"'I don't know what all: we have +been at the sea-side, and they are full +of trash. There are some shells and an +old hat in mine, and—and things.'</p> + +<p>"He tried to conceal a smile, and +looked toward the other, who nodded, +and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in +chalk, upon which the bags were given +back to us.</p> + +<p>"'Now the trunks,' said the first who +had spoken, holding out his hand for +the keys.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, we are going to leave them +here till to-morrow: they are all right—you +can mark them too;' and without +further ceremony we moved toward the +door. One of the men stepped after us. +I thought it was to make us return, but +it was only to ask if he should get us a +carriage.</p> + +<p>"We thanked him and replied that +we were going to the hotel opposite, and +did not need one: he then turned to a +person who seemed to be the porter of +the establishment, and told him to carry +our satchels for us. Now we felt our +journey was well at an end, for the windows +of our welcome asylum were blazing +not more than a hundred feet off.</p> + +<p>"We crossed the street, rang at the +ladies' entrance and asked for rooms. +After a few moments the servant returned, +and, much to our chagrin, said that +there were none to be had, every corner +was full.</p> + +<p>"'Do let us see the clerk. We <i>must</i> +have a room: you can surely find us +one somewhere.'</p> + +<p>"The man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we +shall be satisfied with anything for the +night. Won't you go and ask again?'</p> + +<p>"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, +à cause de l'Exposition;' and +he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to +every other effort at persuasion that we +made.</p> + +<p>"Just then a chambermaid passed. +'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you +find us a room? I will pay you;' and I +put my hand significantly in my pocket.</p> + +<p>"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,'</p> + +<p>"This was a contingency we had not +provided for: we looked at each other +blankly, and, though loath to do so, we +both came to the conclusion that they +were telling the truth.</p> + +<p>"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, +speaking to me in English.</p> + +<p>"'I suppose we shall have to take a +carriage and go down town, after all,'</p> + +<p>"'They may be full there too,' she +said in a rueful tone.</p> + +<p>"Just then the porter with our satchels +spoke: 'There is another hotel near, +ladies, and if you will come I will show +you to it,'</p> + +<p>"I consulted Annie with a look, and +she assented. Any prospect was better +than a midnight drive of several miles, +with no certainty as to our lot at the end +of it. So we turned from the inhospitable +door and followed our guide.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page639" id="page639"></a>[pg 639]</span> + +<p>"The latter walked quickly for perhaps +a square, stopped before a neat-looking +house and rang. Our courage +rose as the door opened and revealed +a clean-looking court surrounded by +orange trees in boxes, with small coffee-tables +under them for the convenience +of the guests.</p> + +<p>"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded +our attendant with the voice of a herald.</p> + +<p>"The trim but sleepy servant looked +at us a moment, as if not comprehending +the situation, then slowly pronounced +our sentence in two words, 'No rooms!' +and as if to emphasize them threw up +the palms of his hands, shook his head +and added 'Full!' after which he closed +the door with a hasty click and returned +to his nap.</p> + +<p>"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed +with this reception—not more so +than we were—but without allowing us +time to speak he said in his most reassuring +voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there +are plenty of hotels about here, and we +shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having +undertaken the task, he seemed to think +it his duty to comfort and provide for us.</p> + +<p>"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. +Two other hotels were successively +tried in vain, and still our indefatigable +guide went on. It appeared as if we +had walked a considerable distance, but +the streets cut each other at odd angles, +and we had been turning so often that I +confess I had but little idea where we +were, or how far we had come, when +we entered a quarter where the ways +became narrower, passed into a dingy +alley, thence plunged through a still +darker court, from that to another alley, +and the next moment our porter was +ringing at the door of a tall, sombre +house. I truly hoped that we should not +find rooms here, and was turning to +Annie to advise a cab and an attempt in +a more civilized-looking locality, when +the bell was answered and the old question +repeated.</p> + +<p>"To my surprise and dismay the servant +said they could accommodate us. +Should we stay? I knew that in the +older parts of Paris the best of houses +are sometimes found in the poorer streets, +and that in no city is a person less able to +judge of the interior comfort of a building +by its external aspect. We were very +tired, and should we turn away from this +open door where should we find another +open for us? The porter, however good-natured, +could not continue to run about +with us all night, and our faith in ourselves +was considerably diluted since +we left the cars: even a cab might be +difficult to get at this hour of the night. +Annie did not object: indeed, she looked +too worn out to have an opinion in +the matter, and as I could think of nothing +better to do, I began to make the +usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining +rooms?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, mademoiselle.'</p> + +<p>"I remembered the advice that had +been given us on starting: here surely +was a place to use it, so I said to the +servant in a marked tone, 'Take <i>madame's</i> +bag and show us to our chambers.'</p> + +<p>"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered +with the most provoking coolness.</p> + +<p>"I dismissed our faithful porter with +regret, and followed the other up stairs. +While ascending I racked my brain to +determine what peculiarity of manner +we could adopt that would give us a +more matronly air while traveling, but I +could think of nothing. I may as well +tell you now that we never for an instant +deceived any one on this subject during +our stay, and we soon ceased trying to +do so.</p> + +<p>"Our rooms were much better than I +had expected to find them, but even this +caused in me a feeling of doubt. They +had a hypocritical air, a grasping after +appearances that I believe always accompanies +deceit and imposition—a sleek +shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct +that if I examined I should find +the carpets worn out under the mats, +and the chairs faded beneath their smart +chintz covers. There was not a candid-looking +piece of furniture in the apartment: +the table was an impostor with +one short leg; the drawers of the bureau +would not open; the glasses were all +askew, and twisted your face to such a +degree that it frightened you to catch a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page640" id="page640"></a>[pg 640]</span> +glimpse of yourself in passing. But this +was not the worst: from the moment I +entered the rooms I felt that they <i>had +been waiting for us</i>.</p> + +<p>"I did not venture to mention my +suspicions to Annie, and tried to keep +up a cheery sort of conversation while +we undressed, but I could see that she +too began to be uneasy. We carefully +inspected our doors, and found the locks +were good, then looked to see that there +was no one lurking under the beds. It +would be difficult to tell you exactly +what I feared, but somehow everything +impressed me as mysterious—the quiet +of the streets through which we had +come, and the quiet of the house. It +was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: +our feet echoed on the stairways as if +human feet seldom ascended them; the +shadows appeared especially dark; our +candles' small light made little impression +on the gloom; the very air seemed +harder to breathe than ordinary; and on +recalling the face of the impertinent servant +I thought that it had a sinister look.</p> + +<p>"I tried to recall whether we were in +a good or bad faubourg, but could not; +and then I remembered that Paris was +now divided into arrondissements, which +had a much less ill-omened sound. I +went to the window to reconnoitre the +locality, but, though the rain had ceased, +darkness covered all so thickly that I +could see nothing. As I stood there the +clock on the station struck, first the quarters, +and then <i>one</i>, in a doleful, muffled +tone. It told me one thing I was glad +to know—namely, that we could not +have wandered very far during our walk; +but there was little comfort in that, after +all, since the walk had terminated here.</p> + +<p>"Stories that I had read of strange +adventures and accidents to midnight +guests now trooped into my head. I +thought of one in particular, in which +the tester of the bed slowly descended +to smother the sleeping inmate for purposes +of robbery; whereupon I minutely +examined mine, and found to my +satisfaction that it was scarcely able to +discharge the single duty of holding up +the curtains, and looked most innocent +of further intentions. Finding myself +again peering into corners I had already +searched, and feeling this general unrest +to be growing upon me, I began to think +I must be nervous from over-exertion, +and determined to get rid of my silly +fancies in sleep. Then, as if to take +myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out +the light, sprang under the covers and +shut my eyes tight, afraid that something +hateful might glare upon me in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Just then Annie came to the communicating +doorway, and with an effort +to speak in her natural voice she said, +'Jane, I am going to sleep here.' And +as if this endeavor had consumed her +last bit of resistance, she closed and +locked the door quickly, ran to my bed +and threw herself shivering beside me.</p> + +<p>"'What is the matter?' I whispered, +feeling my presentiment of evil confirmed.</p> + +<p>"She put her lips to my ear and answered, +'I found a door in my room behind +the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't +know <i>where</i>."</p> + +<p>"'Did you open it?'</p> + +<p>"'No indeed! I would not open it for +the world. There might be something +horrible in it;' and she shuddered.</p> + +<p>"'You have left your light burning.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't care. I won't go back: no +indeed, I <i>could</i> not.' There was silence +for a few minutes: neither of us moved, +when Nan again whispered, 'Do you +think this room quite safe?'</p> + +<p>"'I looked all around before I blew +out the light.'</p> + +<p>"'Did you look <i>behind</i> your curtains?'</p> + +<p>"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable +sensation.</p> + +<p>"'You are next the wall: feel along +it,' in her most persuasive voice.</p> + +<p>"The very idea made me creep. Put +my hand behind those curtains and touch—what? +Even the cold wall would be +sufficient to terrify me. For reply I remarked +suggestively, 'If we had the light +we could see.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, that would be just the thing. +Go bring it—do!'</p> + +<p>"I felt that something must be done, +and soon, or I should be in no state to +accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I +must: when we had the light half our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page641" id="page641"></a>[pg 641]</span> +trouble would be over, and, after all, she +might have been mistaken.</p> + +<p>"'Did the door move?' I ventured to +ask.</p> + +<p>"'No, it didn't do anything—at least I +don't think it did—but it <i>looked</i> so awful +that it frightened me.'</p> + +<p>"'That light in there may set something +on fire,' I remarked.</p> + +<p>"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a +minute. Do go!'</p> + +<p>"'You are sure the door didn't open?' +I asked, far from liking my task.</p> + +<p>"'I will go with you half-way,' she +volunteered, 'and stand there while you +run in quick. Come on, and don't let +us talk any more about it: we shall only +get more and more frightened.' You +will see that Annie's gifts lay more in +persuasion than in action.</p> + +<p>"Thus adjured, I went with her to the +communicating door, cautiously listened, +then looked through the keyhole. The +silence within was oppressive, but the +flickering bougie warned me that I must +make an effort, and without allowing +myself time to think I hastily turned the +key and opened the door.</p> + +<p>"At that moment it seemed to me that +I heard distant footsteps. I rushed for +the light and turned to go back, when I +ran against some one: the candle was +extinguished by being jerked from the +holder to the floor, and a hand which I +vainly tried to shake off clasped my +arm. My blood grew thick and still +with sudden terror. I tried to speak, but +could not. What increased my dread +was that I could not tell whether the +<i>Thing</i> by my side was a reality or a +spectre. I had caught a glimpse of +something white as the light disappeared, +and I believe that a pistol at my head +would have caused me less alarm than +this horrible idea of the supernatural. +I began to feel that I could endure it no +longer, that I should stifle, should die, +when Annie's voice spoke in the darkness +quite near, and I found it was she +who had grasped my arm.</p> + +<p>"'I could not stay in that room alone,' +she whispered. 'Don't you hear?—<i>footsteps!</i> +They are coming.'</p> + +<p>"'You have half frightened me to +death,' I murmured trembling: 'I thought +you were something.'</p> + +<p>"'No, I ain't anything, but something +<i>is</i> coming. Don't you hear?'</p> + +<p>"It was true enough. Through the +quiet of the house came stealthy footsteps. +Nearer, nearer. They were ascending +the stairs, at times delaying an +instant, as if groping for the way, then +on.</p> + +<p>"'Come into your room,' said Annie +convulsively: 'come, and we can lock +ourselves in. Oh, where <i>is</i> your door? +I cannot find it, and they are coming. +What shall we do? what shall we do?'</p> + +<p>"We were in total darkness: not a +ray of light came from the window, and +in our confusion we had lost our bearings. +Neither of us had the least idea +in what direction the other room lay.</p> + +<p>"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps +we may find it. Do try,' said I.</p> + +<p>"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we +had never come. I am dying.' She +was shaking with fright, and would not +leave my arm for an instant.</p> + +<p>"Just then, from somewhere near us, +we could not tell from what side, came +a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, +with such a summons in its tone, +that I shivered: then a faint movement +followed from the same place.</p> + +<p>"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped +Annie: 'it is in that door: they are +coming, they are here. Shall I scream +murder? shall I?' giving my arm an +emphasizing grip.</p> + +<p>"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.'</p> + +<p>"She groaned, slipped down on her +knees, with one arm still round me, her +face pressed against my side, holding +her other hand over the unprotected ear, +so that she should hear no more; and +in this position she began to repeat +'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as +fast as she could gabble it.</p> + +<p>"I was no less frightened, and would +willingly have crouched down also, but +she held me so tight that I could not +without a struggle, and above all things +I did not want to make a noise.</p> + +<p>"It was thus we awaited the crisis. +The steps were certainly coming to our +room, but whether by the door we had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page642" id="page642"></a>[pg 642]</span> +entered or by the one Annie had seen +behind the bed, I could not tell. I was +too bewildered to locate the sound, nor +did I know whether the bed was at my +right or left hand. I had a slight hope +that the steps might pass on.</p> + +<p>"It was for that I waited.</p> + +<p>"They came—near, nearer. For a +time my heart ceased beating. Annie +slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, +and I could no longer hear her breathe. +My whole being was merged in listening +to that step. I could feel that now it +was on a level with our room—was there +almost beside us. Lightly though distinctly +a hand passed over the door, as +if fumbling for the latch. This was the +intense moment. Had the person paused +or hesitated an instant, I think it would +have killed us both. But no, he did not +falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by +the hand, went as it had come, and as I +stood, not daring to move, I heard it receding +in the distance of the great house. +Then all was silence.</p> + +<p>"When sensation returned to me I +felt as if I had awakened from a nightmare, +and found myself shaking from +the nervous reaction and the cold. I +stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, +and said through my chattering teeth, +'It must have been only a late boarder. +Don't be afraid. It is all over: come, +get up.'</p> + +<p>"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. +'I cannot move until you have a light. +I am still afraid.'</p> + +<p>"I now remembered that the bureau +must be behind me, for I had merely +turned when I encountered Annie and +dropped the candle. There were probably +matches upon it: yes, there they +were. I struck one and easily found the +candle: then Annie rose with the meekest +air possible, and, without looking +at the obnoxious corner where the bed +stood, we walked into the other room +and locked the door.</p> + +<p>"It was not until the gray morning +light crept into the window that we felt +quite safe. Every crack in the floor or +nibbling mouse caused us to start, and +at each quarter the clock of the station +would strike as if to warn us to be on +the alert. But the bed was not bad, and +the house remained quiet; and as soon +as the dawn made our candle useless, +we began to think we had been very +foolish, and the result was a sound sleep.</p> + +<p>"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: +the morning was bright and clear, and +the terrors of the night had all departed +during our refreshing rest. The room +certainly looked shabby, but if that were +a crime, half the houses in the world +would be sent to prison. There was +nothing in the least mysterious about it. +Our courage rose with the day, and we +teased and joked each other about our +fright. Then, anticipating the glories of +the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves +that we had come.</p> + +<p>"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie +as she was dressing: 'we will go +down town to a nice restaurant, and sit +at a window and see the people go by. +Afterward we will look up our friends +and find a good hotel or boarding-house; +and we <i>must</i> go to the Exposition this +very day. We shall have a famous time. +We can make up parties to drive out, +and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, +and to the theatre. Ain't you +glad you came?'</p> + +<p>"'The first thing we do must be to go +back to the station and leave these bags +with our trunks until we find lodgings,' +I remarked.</p> + +<p>"Nan went into the next room to get +some of the clothing she had left there. +When she returned, lowering her voice +she said, 'Jane, there <i>is</i> a door behind +my curtains.'</p> + +<p>"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose +it is a closet.'</p> + +<p>"'No such thing: it don't look like a +closet; and why would they hide a closet, +I should like to know? Come in and +see it.'</p> + +<p>"She walked back, and as I followed +drew the curtain aside, and there in fact +it was.</p> + +<p>"'I am going to open it before I leave +the room,' she said in a determined +tone: 'there is something not right about +it.'</p> + +<p>"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some +one may be in there.'</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page643" id="page643"></a>[pg 643]</span> + +<p>"'I am going to see: I must look into +it. It is daylight, you know, and we +sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to +push away the bed.'</p> + +<p>"'I won't do anything so absurd. +This is a hotel, Annie, and there must +be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose +that room is now occupied by a +boarder?'</p> + +<p>"'If it is occupied they will lock the +door on the other side, and I will try the +latch softly to see; but I know it is not. +Don't you see that the only entrance +must be from here? There is the entry. +opposite, and here is the court: now, +how could any one get into it but through +this room? It must be a small place, +too, for here is the corner of the house, +and it has been evidently planned to be +kept <i>concealed</i>."</p> + +<p>"'No matter: we have no right to any +rooms but these we are in. Come away, +and let well enough alone.'</p> + +<p>"'It is not "well enough," as you call +it. I am going to see into it, and why +they hide it. I declare,' and she examined +the door critically, 'it looks like the +entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look +at these queer marks, these dents and +stains, as if there had been a struggle. +It is our duty to investigate;' and her +voice grew impressive. 'Perhaps we +have been brought here for that very +purpose, and, Jane, if there <i>is</i> a dead +body in there, I shall inform the police.' +Annie was very brave in daylight.</p> + +<p>"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine +speech. 'What you call duty, I call +curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and +I wish you would finish dressing and let +us get to breakfast.'</p> + +<p>"'I will just tell you this,' she answered +indignantly, and yet with a quiver in +her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I +did last night when I saw that door. It +was quite like what people write of a +mysterious influence, or the presence of +some one unseen; and that whistle or +voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, +came from here; and you must help me +to find out what it really was, for I can't +go away without knowing.'</p> + +<p>"I saw it was useless to try longer to +dissuade her. The bed moved easily: +she took my hand and led me behind it; +then warily tried the latch. It rose, but +she was obliged to lean all her weight +against the door before it would give +way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly +that she almost fell forward.</p> + +<p>"What did I see? At the first glimpse +a faint light from a cobwebbed window, +a narrow room and a floor—red. Was +it blood? A sickening mouldy smell +came forth, but as I forced myself to +look again I saw that it was only red +tiles that had startled me. There was +an upright brick range in a corner, an +old water-tank, some shelves and a cupboard. +A missing pane of glass left a +space through which the air had entered +and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue +that opened above the range. This was +the ominous 'signal' we had heard in +answer to the footsteps. The dust was +thick over everything, and the only signs +of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. +We stood still for a few moments, overwhelmed +at this solution of the occult +'influence' that had so subtly acted on +Annie's nerves, and filled me with no +less terror.</p> + +<p>"The house had been built for a <i>hôtel +garni</i>; that is, a house with furnished +rooms or apartments, something like a +tenement-house in your country. This +was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged +to the two rooms we had taken. +Being unused for its proper object, and +too small for a bed-chamber, it had been +closed, and appeared as if it had been +unentered for years. I turned to Annie +to see how she would bear this prosaic +explanation of our alarm, but with the +air of one who had expected nothing +but this from the beginning, she remarked, +'Now you see how much better it +is to look into such things. This room +would have furnished me with bad +dreams for the remainder of my life, +and here I find it is only a commonplace +kitchen. Think how ludicrous to have +the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I +tell of your fright when we get home—how +you didn't want to open the door, +and wanted to 'let well enough alone'? +The place <i>might</i> be haunted by the +ghost of a chicken or a rabbit, but, my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page644" id="page644"></a>[pg 644]</span> +dear, you should not allow that to terrify +you.'</p> + +<p>"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken +that you feared last night, and that +caused your presentiments this morning. +I hope you will inform the police of what +you have discovered here,' I remarked +quietly.</p> + +<p>"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will +say no more. We were both boobies. +But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you +and me, and make our own breakfast? +Look at the hole for charcoal, and the +little cupboard, the nails for the pots +and pans to hang on: everything is +complete. That room could be for +dining, the other a parlor, and—'</p> + +<p>"'The only drawback would be that, +except at the North Pole, the night comes +once in twenty-four hours.'</p> + +<p>"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in +here a minute: it's a dear little place.'</p> + +<p>"'You will certainly make a housekeeper +if a kitchen gives you such ecstasy. +Come out, I am so hungry. Put +on your bonnet and leave this elysium: +I have had enough of it.'</p> + +<p>"'You come in for a second: it will +shake the terror off and you won't dream +of it. That is a cure my old nurse once +gave me for laying ghosts.'</p> + +<p>"'It may be a good plan to shake off +the terror, but the dust on you will not +be shaken off so easily.'</p> + +<p>"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot—'suppose +that the floor should be hollow, +and that this were only a pretended +kitchen after all, or that there was a +trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a +sliding panel.' Here she felt over the +surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel +so queer last night if this was really nothing +but a kitchen?'</p> + +<p>"'Because you are a goose,' I answered +impatiently, 'and if you don't come +I will leave you. If you like, you can +engage boarding here for a week, and +raise the tiles one by one with a knife +and fork. As for me, I am going to +breakfast.'</p> + +<p>"'But don't you think it really has an +uncanny look?' she asked, giving a last +glance over her shoulder as she came +out.</p> + +<p>"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is +plenty of that. Shut the door, and I +will push back the bed.'</p> + +<p>"'Jane,' she again remarked as she +was trying on her bonnet before the +crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this +night, I think I will say that there <i>was</i> +a trap-door in the kitchen: you know +there might be one and we not see it.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as +I could, 'I suppose a fib more or less +will make but little difference in your +lifetime. While you are at it, however, +you may as well make a few more additions.'</p> + +<p>"'Now you are unkind.'</p> + +<p>"'A person is not accountable for +temper when famishing. Take up your +satchel.'</p> + +<p>"We found the house a most every-day-looking +house, seen by sunlight; +but there had lain the difficulty. The +clerk in the office did not particularly +resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, +and, strange to say, did not overcharge +us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. +We found we were not far from the +station, and depositing our bags there, +we walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette.</p> + +<p>"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel +alone in this way,' said Nan gayly, her +spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When +I was here before with all the family, it +was not near so jolly; and I think we +manage well, don't you? Oh, there is +an omnibus not <i>complet</i>: let us get in. +I am too hungry to walk.'</p> + +<p>"After we were seated she continued: +'I wonder what will happen to us to-night. +Suppose we find every place full, +and have to sleep in a garden or on the +steps of a church, or something? Isn't it +delightful not to know in the least what is +going to happen next?—just as in fairy-land. +Don't you hope we may have an +adventure every night?'</p> + +<p>"'I should not call last night an adventure: +it seems to me it was more like a +panic,' I said drily.</p> + +<p>"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' +in a hurt tone: then recovering +her good temper, she went on: 'Well, +call it a panic if you like. Now, suppose +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page645" id="page645"></a>[pg 645]</span> +we had one every night, and we stayed +here two weeks, there would be fourteen +panics before we go home. Wouldn't +that be glorious?'</p> + +<p>"'You did not appear to enjoy it so +much last night.'</p> + +<p>"'At the time I did not,' she admitted +frankly. 'Weren't we frightened? But +then, you know, how nice it will be to +talk of it afterward!'</p> + +<p>"We arrived at a restaurant in the +Palais Royal, and found a seat by the +window, and a breakfast. We had already +finished the latter, and were playing +with our fruit, when a party entered +who attracted our attention by speaking +English.</p> + +<p>"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie +whispered excitedly. 'I know her +well: hadn't we better run away? What +will she think of our being here alone?'</p> + +<p>"'Nonsense! You had better ask her +where she is staying. Remember, we +are houseless as yet.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't like to ask her.'</p> + +<p>"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The +idea of spending the night in a garden +or on a church-step did not possess the +same charms for me as for Nan. Thus +prompted, she walked forward and spoke +to her friend, afterward presenting me. +We chatted a few minutes, when Miss +Rodgers asked Annie where she was +staying, and how her mamma was.</p> + +<p>"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's +embarrassed reply.</p> + +<p>"I went to her rescue, and diverted +the questions by asking some myself: +'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? +We do not like our hotel and want to +change.'</p> + +<p>"'There is not a room in our house +that is unoccupied, and you won't find +good accommodation anywhere. You +had better not change if you have a +place to lay your head. Paris is so +crowded that everything has been taken +up long ago. You can ask at a dozen +hotels or boarding-houses and not find +a garret to let. You have no idea of the +difficulty.'</p> + +<p>"Yes, we had an idea, and believed +every word she said: in fact, we would +rather have felt less convinced on the +subject. Even Annie seemed to think +that traveling alone might present some +disagreeable features, and looked quite +unhappy, notwithstanding her love of +adventure. But before our mental anguish +had time to become unbearable +a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, +spoke: 'Auntie, if the young ladies +would like, I know of just the place that +would suit them.' Then turning to us, +she continued: 'I am at school a few +miles out of the city, and madame told +me that if I knew of any one, she had +room for a few parlor-boarders. It is a +lovely spot, and no end of trains coming +and going all day; so that it would be +just as convenient as living here, and +you would have excellent accommodation. +Then, too, I could speak English +to you sometimes. I am so tired of +talking for ever without half knowing +what I am saying.'</p> + +<p>"I could have embraced the chatterbox +on the spot for this opportune proposal, +but controlled my feelings and +looked at Nan to see if she approved. +She was consenting with every one of +her expressive features, and did not appear +at all anxious to enjoy one of her +fourteen delightful panics this evening +if it could be avoided. Being spokesman, +I said, 'I would willingly try the +school on your recommendation, Miss +Ada, if you think madame could be +ready for us this evening.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course she could: come out with +me now and see her. I must go at one, +and can show you the way. Will you +meet me at the station? or shall we call +for you at your hotel?'</p> + +<p>"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, +glad to settle it so quickly, 'if +you are quite sure that your madame +will like our unceremonious arrival.'</p> + +<p>"'That will be all right, I know. She +has several empty rooms, and will be +happy to have them filled. You can +leave your trunks until to-morrow if you +don't like to come bag and baggage.'</p> + +<p>"We needed no further pressing. +Here was deliverance and safety, and +we bade good-morning to the party with +light hearts.</p> + +<p>"We found the school all that Miss +Ada had promised, and thus ended the +nearest approach to an adventure that +we had during the two weeks that we +remained."</p> + +<p>"And now tell me about the Exposition."</p> + +<p>"Well, we saw it."</p> + +<p>"Saw what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, everything."</p> + +<p>"Describe it to me."</p> + +<p>"Certainly. In the first place, it was +very big, and everybody was there, so it +was crowded; and you met your friends +and you talked; and—and you got fearfully +tired; and it was wonderful; and +there were ever so many restaurants, +and a soda-water fountain, and queer +things that you never expected to see +there, like the Mexican techcatl and +Russian horses; and everything was +<i>real</i>—real lace and cashmeres and diamonds, +and nothing but what was very +nice. But, after all, I think you had +better get a file of old newspapers and +read about it, for I really have no talent +for description—or, better still, go and +see the one in Vienna this summer."</p> + +<p class="author">ITA ANIOL PROKOP.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page646" id="page646"></a>[pg 646]</span> + + + + +<h2>SLAINS CASTLE.</h2> + + +<p>In traveling over the old lands of Europe +one is sometimes apt to think +more of historical and genealogical traditions +than of the natural beauties or +peculiarities of the country. The old +landmarks of a nation, whether monuments +built by the hand of man or archives +carefully preserved by him, tell +us of its growth, just as the strata of the +mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; +and as every successive layer has +some relation both to its predecessor and +its successor, so the traditions of each +generation have a perceptible influence +upon the moral development of the generation +following. Every nation is thus +the growing fruit of its own history, and +every visible step of the grand ladder +of facts that has led up to the present +result must needs have for a student of +human nature an intrinsic interest.</p> + +<p>This comes very clearly before my +mind as I think of Slains Castle (Aberdeen), +a massive crown of granite set +on the brow of the rocks of the German +Ocean, and the seat of one of those old +Scottish families whose origin is hidden +away among the suggestive mists of +tradition.</p> + +<p>Slains Castle stands alone, a giant +watchman upon giant cliffs, built up +only one story high, on account of the +tremendous winds that prevail there in +spring and autumn, and cased with the +gray Aberdeen granite of the famous +quarries near by. The surrounding +country is as bare and uninviting as one +could imagine; the road from Aberdeen +(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the +young trees near the castle are stunted, +and in many cases disfigured by the inroads +of hungry cows among their lower +branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs +perpetually over the scene, softening the +landscape, but sometimes depressing the +spirits. As the hours pass the place +grows on you: a weird beauty begins to +loom up from among the mist-wreaths, +the jagged rocks, the restless waves, and +you forget the desolate moor, which in +itself displays attractions you will realize +later, in the grandeur of the desolate sea.</p> + +<p>The original building is of the time of +James VI. (of Scotland), and is due to +Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more +ancient castle, bearing the same name, +was destroyed by the king to punish his +vassal for the part he had taken in a rebellion. +In the seventeenth century Earl +Gilbert made great improvements in it, +and early in the eighteenth Earl Charles +added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page647" id="page647"></a>[pg 647]</span> +by Earl William George, the father of the +present owner, with the exception of the +lower part of the original tower. In this +there used to be in olden times an <i>oubliette</i> +in which unhappy prisoners were +let down. All at first appeared dark +around them, but when they had thankfully +assured themselves that they at +last stood upon solid ground, they would +look about them and presently descry a +line of fitful light coming from a door +ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims +would then go in haste to this door, pull +it open and, blinded by the sudden light, +step out upon the green slope terminating +quickly in a precipice, which went sheer +down to the sea.</p> + +<p>The rest of the house is built around +a large covered piazza, intersected by +corridors where pictures, armor and all +kinds of old family relics decorate the +walls. The drawing-room is on the very +edge of the rock, and on stormy days +the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost +flap their wings against its window-panes, +while the clouds of spray dash up against +them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks +in the immediate neighborhood of the +castle are rugged in the extreme, here +and there rent by a gigantic fissure +reaching far inland, and up which the +foaming waters gurgle continually as if +in impatience of their narrow bounds, +now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic +staircase and thickly matted with coarse +sea-weed, and again reared up on high, +a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny +for the steadiest foot, and with Niagaras +of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging +face. In wonderful hollows +you will come upon pools of green water +with sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of +pink, yellow or purple hue, and gem-like +shells resting on a bottom of clearest +sand; and while the waves are roaring +on every side, and flinging their dampness +into your very face, these fairy +pools will lie at your feet without a +breath or ripple on their surface.</p> + +<p>The most magnificent of these rocks +is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug" +("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of +the white sea-gulls. It stands alone, as +if torn from the land and hurled into the +tossing waves by some giant hand. Two +hundred feet in height and a thousand +in circumference, it forms a natural arch, +being pierced from its base upward by +an opening that widens as it ascends. +The waves dash through it with terrific +violence, and the very sight of its grim +splendor conjures up a vision of shipwreck +and danger. Scott has made mention +of it in <i>The Antiquary</i>, and Johnson +in his <i>Journey to the Hebrides</i>, recalling +the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, +has said that though he could not wish +for a storm, still as storms, whether wished +for or not, will sometimes happen, he +would prefer to look at them from Slains +Castle. These rocks and the caves that +alternate with them were once famous +as a smuggling rendezvous, and as such +Scott has again immortalized them in his +<i>Guy Mannering</i>. The Crooked Mary, +a noted lugger, had many an adventure +along this coast during the last century. +The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked +for at certain stated times, the preconcerted +signal was given by him, and the +inhabitants bestirred themselves with +commendable haste. All ordinary business +was immediately suspended: men +might be seen stealing along from house +to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and +barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring +village, and deliver a brief message +which to a bystander would sound very +like nonsense, but which nevertheless +was well understood by the person to +whom it was given. Soon after a plaid +or blanket might be seen spread out, as +if to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. +Other beacons, not calculated to draw +general notice, but sufficiently understood +by the initiated, soon made their +appearance, telegraphing the news from +place to place. As soon as the evening +began to close in the Crooked Mary +would be observed rapidly approaching +the land, and occasionally giving out +signals indicating the creek into which +she meant to run. Both on sea and +land hairbreadth escapes were the rule +rather than the exception, and it is related +of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates +on shore, poor Philip Kennedy, +that one night, while clearing the way for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page648" id="page648"></a>[pg 648]</span> +the cargo just landed from the contraband +trader's hold, he was simply murdered +by the excise-officers. The heavy +cart laden with the cargo was yet some +distance behind, and Kennedy with +some dastardly companions was slowly +going forward to ascertain if all was +safe, when three officers of the customs +suddenly made their unwelcome appearance. +Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked +two of them, and actually succeeded +for a time in keeping them down in his +powerful grasp, while he called to his +party to secure the third. They, however, +thinking prudence the better part +of valor, decamped ignominiously, and +the enemy remained master of the brave +man's life. Anderson, the third officer, +was observed to hold up his sword to the +moon, as if to ascertain if he were using +the edge, and then to bring it down with +accurate aim and tremendous force upon +the smuggler's skull. Strange to say, +Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually +succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, +nearly a quarter of a mile away, but +expired a few moments after his arrival. +His last words were: "If all had been +true as I was, the goods would have +been safe, and I should not have been +bleeding to death." The brave fellow +was buried in the churchyard of Slains, +where a plain stone marks his grave, +and bears the simple inscription, "To +the memory of Philip Kennedy, <i>in Ward</i>, +who died the 19th of December, 1798. +Aged 38."</p> + +<p>My own earliest recollections of the +grand, desolate old castle are derived, +not from my first visit to it made in infancy, +but from the descriptions of one +whose home it was during a brief but +intensely observant period of childhood. +There came one day a storm such as +seldom even on that coast lashes up the +gray, livid ocean. The waves, as far out +as sight could reach, were one mass of +foam, and the ghastly lightning flashed +upon the torn sails of a ship as near +destruction as it well could be. Cries +came up from below in the brief pauses +of the storm, and above lanterns were +quickly carried to and fro, while pale +attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed +the signals of a more collected master. +The occupants of the castle hardly knew +to what its chambers might be destined—whether +to receive the dead or to afford +rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials +were in readiness, and strong men +bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading +from beneath. The ship broke in +pieces on the merciless rocks, and many +a drowned sailor went down to meet the +army of his fellow-victims of all times +who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine +caves of Slains. Those who survived +soon disappeared, full of gratitude for +the timely relief offered them at the castle, +but one old man remained. He was +never known by any other name than +"Monsieur," and was beloved by every +individual member of the household. A +French <i>émigré</i> of the old school, with +the dainty, gallant ways of the <i>ancien +régime</i>, he still clung to the dress of his +earlier days, and wore a veritable <i>queue</i>, +silk stockings and buckled shoes. For +some time he remained a welcome guest +in the "red chamber," where the host's +little children would sometimes join him +and play with his watch and jeweled +baubles. But one day poor little "Monsieur" +sickened, and the tiny feet that +had made such haste to run to him, now +trod the corridor softly and bore a baby-nurse +to the gentle invalid. It was a +high and coveted reward for the little +girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to +his bedside, and everything that kindness +and hospitality could suggest was +equally lavished on him; but his feeble +life, which had no doubt received a +shock from the shipwreck it had barely +escaped, went out peacefully like the +soft flame of a lamp.</p> + +<p>Slains Castle had many gentle and +pleasant memories about it, as well as +its traditional horrors, and among these +were many connected with the history +of the old family that owned it. In one +of the corridors hangs the picture of +James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced +boy, tall and athletic, standing +with a cricket-bat in his hand. He +would have been earl of Erroll had he +lived, but if we follow him in his short +life from classic Eton to the field of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page649" id="page649"></a>[pg 649]</span> +Quatre-Bras, we shall find him again, on +a bright June day in 1815, lying as if +asleep, as fair and noble-looking as before, +but silent in death. Simple Flemish +peasants stand in a group around +him, awed and admiring, asking each +other if this beautiful youth is an angel +fallen from heaven, or only a mortal +man slain for the Honor of his country. +His was a noble death, and worthy of +the suggestive memento of his early boyhood +before which we stood just now in +the corridor of Slains Castle.</p> + +<p>A little farther down this corridor, +which to all intents and purposes is a +family picture-gallery, we shall be forced +to stop before the portrait of a dark +woman, masculine and resolute, not +beautiful nor like the handsome race of +the Hays, of which she was yet the last +direct representative. This is the famous +Countess Mary, one of the central +figures of the family traditions. The +Hays were hereditary lords high constable +of Scotland, and also one of the few +Scottish families in which titles and offices, +as well as lands, are transmitted +through the female line. So this Countess +Mary found herself, at the death of +her brother, countess of Erroll in her +own right and <i>lord</i> high constable of +Scotland. In one of the two pictures of +her at Slains, if I remember right, she +is represented with the bâton of her +office, with which badge she also appeared +at court before her marriage (after +this it was borne by her husband in +the character of her deputy). Her husband +was a commoner, a Mr. Falconer +of Dalgaty, whose reported history in +connection with her is curious and deserves +to be told, though the old tradition +is moulded into so many different +forms that it is very difficult to disentangle +the truth from its manifold embellishments. +Toward the beginning of +the eighteenth century this intrepid and +independent lady fell in love with Mr. +Falconer, who at first did not seem eager +to return or notice her affection. High-strung +and chivalric by nature, she did +not droop and pine under her disappointment, +but vowed to herself that she +would bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer +coner left the country after some time, +and went to London. The Countess +Mary also traveled south the same year, +and no news of her was heard at Slains +for some time. Meanwhile, she and +Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the +latter, who about the same time became +acquainted with a very dashing young +cavalier, evidently a man of high birth +and standing, but resolutely bent on +mystifying his friends as to his origin. +The two saw each other frequently, and +were linked by that desultory companionship +of London life which sometimes +indeed ripens into friendship, but as +often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such +was the end of this acquaintance, and +one day some trifling difference having +occurred between the friends, a cartel +reached Mr. Falconer couched in very +haughty though perfectly courteous language. +These things were every-day +matters in such times, and very nonchalantly +the challenged went in the early +morning to the appointed place to meet +the challenger. Here the versions of +the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer +and his antagonist fought, but +without witnesses; that the former got +the worst of the encounter, and remained +at the other's mercy; that then, <i>and +not before</i>, the Countess Mary made herself +known to him and gave him his +choice—a thrust from her sword or a +speedy marriage with herself. Others +say that it was before the duel that she +astonished her lover by this discovery, +and that the choice she gave him was +between marriage and ridicule.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href= + "#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a></p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page650" id="page650"></a>[pg 650]</span> + +<p>The fact of her marriage, and that it +proved a happy one, is certain. Mr. +Falconer dropped his own name to assume +that of Hay. The countess was a +devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. +When Presbyterianism had got +the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying +church persecutions with terrible +interest, a Mr. Keith was appointed to +the Anglican parish of Deer. This was +within the Erroll jurisdiction, and it was +not long before the zealous Countess +Mary came to the rescue of the congregation, +who had assembled for some time +in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she +had the upper floor of a large granary +fitted up for their accommodation, and +this afforded them a grateful shelter for +more than a quarter of a century. Of +this same parish of Deer a curious story +is told in the local annals, showing how +conservative and tenacious of traditions +the north of Scotland still was in 1711. +The skirmish to which it relates goes by +the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," +and is thus reported: "Some people of +Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of +Deer, to the number of seventy +horse or thereby, assembled on the twenty-third +of March, 1711, to force in a +Presbyterian teacher in opposition to the +parish; but the presbytry and their satellites +were soundly beat off by the people, +not without blood on both sides."</p> + +<p>There was little of the martyr about +the Scot of that warlike day, and most +emphatically and literally did he show +himself a "<i>soldier</i> of the Lord."</p> + +<p>The aisle of the old church of Slains +contains the graves of Countess Mary +and her husband, with an epitaph in +Latin, of which the following is a translation: +"Beneath this tombstone there +are buried neither gold nor silver, nor +treasures of any kind, but the bodies +of the most chaste wedded pair, Mary, +countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay +of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and +lovingly in matrimony for twenty-seven +years. They wished to be buried here +beside each other, and pray that this +stone may not be moved nor their remains +disturbed, but that these be allowed +to rest in the Lord until He shall call +them to the happy resurrection of that +life which they expect from the mercy +of God and the merits of the Saviour +and Lord Jesus Christ."</p> + +<p>The central figure, however, in the +history of the Hays of Erroll, and that +which no one who bears the name of +Hay can think of without a thrill of +pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, +in 1746, a victim to the last unsuccessful +but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts. +I have heard it whispered as an instance +of "second sight" that some years before +he had any reason to anticipate +such a death he was once startled by the +ghostly opening of a door in the apartment +where he was sitting alone, and by +the apparition, horribly distinct and realistic, +of a bloody head rolling slowly +toward him across the room; till it rested +at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned +to his, and the bonny locks were +clotted with blood: it was as if it had +just rolled from under the axe of the +executioner; and the features, plainly +discerned, <i>were his own!</i></p> + +<p>His part in the rising of 1745 belongs +to history, but his personal demeanor +concerns my narrative more closely. +All the contemporary accounts are loud +in praise of his beauty and elegance of +person, his refinement of manner, his +variety of accomplishments; and Scott, +in his <i>Tales of a Grandfather</i>, relates a +curious circumstance concerning his fine +presence at the moment of his execution. +A lady of fashion who had never seen +him before, and who was herself, I believe, +the wife of one who had much to +do with Lord Kilmarnock's death-warrant, +seeing him pass on his way to the +block, formed a most violent attachment +for his person, "which in a less serious +affair would have, been little less than a +ludicrous frenzy."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page651" id="page651"></a>[pg 651]</span> + +<p>The grace and dignity of his appearance, +together with the resignation and +mildness of his address, melted all the +spectators to tears as they gathered round +the fatal Tower prison to witness his +death: the chaplain who attended him +says his behavior was so humble and resigned +that even the executioner burst +into tears, and was obliged to use strong +cordials to support him in his terrible +duty. Lord Kilmarnock himself was +deeply impressed by the sight of the +block draped in funereal black, the plain +coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust +that was so disposed as speedily to suck +up the bloody traces of the execution, +and the sea of faces surrounding the +open enclosure kept for this his last +earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from +fear that he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, +melancholy nature was thrilled +through every nerve by this dread publicity, +and we cannot wonder that, leaning +heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, +he should have whispered, almost with +his last breath, the simple words, "Home, +this is dreadful!"</p> + +<p>One who was the lineal descendant of +this earl of Kilmarnock, and whose only +brother long bore the same blood-stained +and laurel-wreathed title, has often +told me of the strange link that bridged +the chasm of four generations from 1746 +to 1829, and bound her recollections to +those of a living witness of the scene. +She was so young as not to have any +distinct impression of other events that +happened at the same time, but this lived +in her mind because of the importance +and solemnity with which her own parents +had purposely invested it in her +eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little +great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord +Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought down +from the nursery to see an old, more +than octogenarian, soldier who had distinguished +himself in recent wars, and +reached the rank of general. This tottering +old man, more than fourscore +years of age, took the wee maiden of +hardly four upon his knee, and told her +in simple words the story she was never +to forget—how he had been a tiny boy +running to school on the day of the +execution of the "rebel lords," and how, +seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting +toward the Tower quarter, he was tempted +to play truant, and flinging his satchel +of books over his shoulder, had pushed +his way as far as the great state prison. +Then of his frantic efforts to secure a +point of vantage whence to see the great +death-pageant—of his childish admiration +for the handsome, manly form of +Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm +when Lord Balmerino, the other victim, +had cried in a loud voice, "Long live +the king!" and of the fascination he +could not resist which led his eyes from +the shining axe and the draped block to +the auburn locks of the prisoner, and +soon after to his bleeding head laid low +in the sawdust around the coffin. All +this the old veteran told thrillingly, the +shadow of a boy's awed recollection +mingling with his Scottish exultation as +a compatriot of the victim, and even +with a touch of humor as he recalled +the domestic scolding which marked the +truant's return.</p> + +<p>In the charter-room at Slains Castle, +where the records, genealogies, private +journals, official deeds, etc. of the family +are kept, one might find ample material +for curious investigation of our forefathers' +way of living. Among other +papers is a kind of inventory headed, +"My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing +within Logg and Slanis." The list +of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly +of brass pots, pewter pans and oil +barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg +(another residence of the Errolls), +"quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir followis, +quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) +to the half," contains an ample list of +curtains of purple velvet, green serge, +green-and-red drugget and other stuffs +hardly translatable to the modern understanding, +and shows that in those days +women were not more backward than +now in plaguing their liege lords about +upholstery and millinery. But the most +amusing and natural touch of all is in +the endorsement, hardly gallant, but +<i>very</i> conjugal, made by the fair petitioner's +husband: "To my Ladyes gredie +(greedy) and vnressonable (unreasonable) +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page652" id="page652"></a>[pg 652]</span> +desyris it is answerit...." Here +follows a distinct admission that the furniture +of both houses, put together, is +too little to furnish the half of each of +them, and therefore nothing can be +spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains.</p> + +<p>The family coat-of-arms commemorates +to this day the poetical genealogy +of the Hays. Its supporters are two +tall, naked peasants bearing plough-yokes +on their shoulders: the crest is a +falcon, while the motto is also significant—"<i>Serva +jugum.</i>" Scottish tradition +tells us that in 980, when the Danes had +shamefully routed the Scots at Loncarty, +a little village near Perth, and were pursuing +the fugitives, an old man and his +two stalwart sons, who were ploughing +in a field close by, were seized with indignation, +and, shouldering their plough-yokes, +placed themselves resolutely in a +narrow defile through which their countrymen +must pass to evade a second +slaughter by the victors. As the Scots +came on the three patriots opposed their +passage, crying shame upon them for +cowards and no men, and exhorting +them thus: "Why! would ye rather be +certainly killed by the heathen Danes +than die in arms for your own land?" +Ashamed, and yet encouraged, the fugitives +rallied, and with the three dauntless +peasants at their head fell upon their +astonished pursuers, and fought with +such desperation that they turned defeat +into victory. Kenneth III., the Scottish +king, instantly sent for the saviors of his +army, gave them a large share of the +enemy's spoils, and made them march +in triumph into Perth with their bloody +plough-yokes on their shoulders. More +than that, he ennobled them, and gave +them a fair tract of land, to be measured, +according to the fashion of that day, by +the flight of a falcon. From the name +of this land the Hays came to be called; +lords of Erroll, and it is said that the +Hawk Stone at St. Madoes, Perthshire, +which stands upon what is known to +have been the ancient boundary of the +possessions of the Hays, is the identical +stone from which the lucky falcon started. +It was left standing as a special +memorial of the defeat of the Danes at +Loncarty. Another stone famous in the +Hay annals, and conspicuously placed +in front of the entrance to Slains Castle, +is said to be the same on which the +peasant general rested after his toilsome +leadership in the battle.</p> + +<p>Our walks over the bleak moors on +one side, with the heather in bloom and +the blackberries in low—lying purple +clusters fringing the granite rocks, were +sometimes rendered more interesting, +though more dangerous, by the sudden +falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it +would come at first, gathering little filmy +clouds together as it were, and hovering +over the gray sea in curling tufts, and +then, growing strong and dense, would +swoop down irresistibly, till what was +clear five minutes before was impenetrably +walled off, and one seemed to stand +alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or +again, our walks would take us on the +other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a +desolate tract where nothing grows save +the coarse grass called <i>bent</i> by the Scotch, +and where the wearied eye rests on nothing +but mounds of shifting sand, drearily +shaped into the semblance of graves +by the keen winds that blow from over +the German Ocean.</p> + +<p>This miniature desert, tradition says, +was an Eden four hundred years ago, +but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless +orphan heiresses of it by fraud and +violence, and the maidens threw a spell +or <i>weird</i> upon it in these terms:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yf evyr maydens malysone</p> +<p class="i2">Did licht upon drye lande,</p> +<p>Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys</p> +<p class="i2">Bot thystl, bente and sande."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>I must not forget the "Bullers," a +natural curiosity which is the boast of +the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover +connected with a feat performed by +a former guest and friend of one of the +lords of Erroll. We drove there in a +large party, and passed through an untidy, +picturesque little fishing-hamlet on +our way, where the women talked to +each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted +at the doors of their cabins, and +where the children looked so hardy, fearless +and determined that the wildest +dreams of future possible achievement +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page653" id="page653"></a>[pg 653]</span> +seemed hardly unlikely of realization in +connection with any one of them.</p> + +<p>"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a +huge rocky cavern, irregularly circular +and open to the sky, into which the sea +rushes through a natural archway. A +narrow pathway is left quite round the +basin, from which one looks down a +sheer descent of more than a hundred +feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth +and coarse grass that carpet it so deceptive +and loose, and the wind almost always +so high on this spot, that only the +most foolhardy or youngest of visitors +would dare in broad daylight to attempt +to <i>walk</i> round it. Yet it is on record +that the duke of Richmond, some sixty +or seventy years ago, made a bet at Lord +Erroll's dinner-table that he would <i>ride +round it after dark</i>. He accomplished +the feat in safety. His picture, life-size, +hangs in the dining-room to this day, +and as he is represented standing in all +the pride of a vigorous manhood by the +side of his beautiful charger, he does not +seem to belie the reputation which this +incident created for him in the old district +of Buchan.</p> + +<p>The peasants of this wild and primitive +neighborhood, though to some extent +slightly infected by modernization, +are yet very fair specimens of the hardy, +trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and +the present owners of Slains certainly +give them every reason to keep up the +old bonds of affectionate interest with +every one and everything belonging to +"the family." To my own observation +of the ancient seat of the Hays I owe +one of the most delightful recollections +of my life, that of a Christian home. +Not only the outward observances, but +the inner spiritual vitality of religion, +were there, while unselfish devotion to +all within the range of her influence or +authority marked the character of her +who was at the head of this little family +kingdom. The present head of the +house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly +carried on the martial traditions +of his ancestry, and on the roll of +England's victorious sons at the battle +of the Alma his name is to be found. +He was there disabled by a wound that +shattered his right arm and cut short his +military career. Domestic happiness, +however, is no bad substitute for a brilliant +public life, and there are duties, +higher yet than a soldier's, that go far +toward making up that background of +rural prosperity which alone ensures the +grand effect of military successes. After +having done one's duty in the field, it is +to the full as noble, and perhaps more +patriotic, to turn to the duties of the +glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord +the work begun as a soldier.</p> + +<p>It is a touching custom, hardly yet +obliterated in the district over which my +reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, +when coming upon another employed +in his lawful calling, thus to salute +him: "Guid speed the wark!" the rejoinder +being, in the same broad Buchan +dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye +weel."</p> + +<p>I can end these pages with no more +fitting sentiment. As a tribute of grateful +recollection to those who made my +days at Slains a happiness to me, and +in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement +offered me distractions the +more alluring because the more associated +with Nature's changeless, silent +grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning +them with the homely Scottish wish that +wherever they are and whatever they do, +"Guid speed the wark!"</p> + +<p class="author">LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.</p> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b><a href="#footnotetag1"> (return) </a> +<p>There is another version of her courtship, and this +a metrical one. This old ballad was not much known +beyond the district round Slains, and the old servants +and farmers on the estate were the chief depositaries +of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than a +very small fragment of it, which is itself only written +down from memory by one of these old women. The +rhyme and rhythm are both <i>original</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding</p> +<p>Near the famous town of Reading:</p> +<p>There a gentleman she saw</p> +<p>That belonged to the law....</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which +some account is probably begun of her unreturned +attachment, for a little later we find in the very primitive +manuscript from which we quote these words of +the countess:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I that have so many slighted,</p> +<p>I am at last—(unrequited?)</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The story is now carried on in prose (my informant +having forgotten the text of the ballad), and says that +"Lady Mary wanted or challenged him to meet her +in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in disguise), +"and that his father told him to go." Neither +father nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's +rank, though the following words point to their being +aware of her sex, for the elder Falconer is represented +as saying,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>If she is rich she will raise your fame,</p> +<p>And if poor you are the same.</p> + </div> </div> +</blockquote> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page654" id="page654"></a>[pg 654]</span> + + + + +<h2>OUR HOME IN THE TYROL</h2> + + +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + + +<p>We were soon comfortably settled +in the old Hof. The spacious +rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant +with rare and delicate blossoms—Alpine +roses from the rocks, white lilies +from Moidel's special little garden-plot, +grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, +veronicas, melisot, potentillas and +lady's bedstraw, which, according to +Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the +roots of others were good for man or +beast, their various qualities being all +known to him. But soon the waving +flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was +the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul's Day, +a festival when all work must cease, and +the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had +given orders that the hay in the wood-meadow +must be carried that evening. +Seeing, therefore, that the more hands +there were the better, the two Margarets +seized each a rake and worked as hard +as any woman in the field.</p> + +<p>On we labored, the golden evening +sun glinting down upon our picturesque +row of haymakers, nor did we cease +until the angelus sounded from the village +spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, +their men and maids, fell devoutly upon +their knees and thanked God that Christ +Jesus had been born. These humble +Tyrolese remember thrice daily to praise +the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, +subdued look upon their honest faces, +they arose, and we joining them the +fresh, fragrant hay was carted triumphantly +home. The hay is cut long before +we should consider it ready, and is +housed whilst still green and moist. +The newer the hay the richer the cream, +they say. The Hofbauer has three +crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie +higher, have only two, and sometimes +but one.</p> + +<p>The good old Kathi stood at the door +cooling a gigantic pan of buckwheat +polenta, and when she had set down +this dish, intended for the haymakers' +supper, she brought us each, as our pay, +a couple of <i>krapfen</i>, which are oblong +dough-cakes fried in butter.</p> + +<p>Although the haymakers were worn +out and weary with a long day's work +of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded +in the chapel like the humming of +bees in lime trees. This pious custom +duly impressed us, until on the very next +day, as we walked up our village street +on the evening of the festival, our solemn +feelings received a great check. +We observed that the prayer-leaders, +who knelt at the open windows of each +separate house, followed our every movement +with their eyes, whilst their mouths +mechanically repeated sonorous Ave +Marias and Paternosters. Nay, there +was our own pious Moidel watching us +from the kitchen window, her Hail Marys +mingling with her friendly greetings; but +then Moidel was waiting upon us and +our supper whilst her family were on +their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon +learnt to perceive that Rosenkranz was +considered quite as efficacious if merely +uttered by the tongue, whilst the mind +was far away. This being a festival, +and no one tired with work, the household +trooped into the old pleasaunce +after supper. The elders sat together +in a row, whilst the younger members +congregated on a second long stone +bench and struck up singing, Moidel +and her elder brother beginning with a +duet:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Green, green is the clover</p> +<p class="i2">On the hills as I go,</p> +<p>And my maiden as fresh is</p> +<p class="i2">As spring water's flow.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And the chorus joined in—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">As spring water's flow,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>winding up with a jodel.</p> + +<p>Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in +a clear, flexible voice, which trembled +no little when she perceived that the +Herrschaft now formed part of the audience +in the balcony—</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page655" id="page655"></a>[pg 655]</span> + +<h4>A WEEK'S SORROW.</h4> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore,</p> +<p>Like a poor little child outside the church door;</p> +<p>On Monday I felt so afeard and alone,</p> +<p>And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone:</p> +<p>Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day,</p> +<p>For him that I love best is far, far away;</p> +<p>On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill,</p> +<p>For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill;</p> +<p>On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day;</p> +<p>On Friday, and one of the cows went astray;</p> +<p>On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain,</p> +<p>As though I should never be happy again.</p> +<p>Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In order to catch the meaning of +the words, which were sung in strong dialect, +Margaret and I had descended to +the garden. The Hofbauer looked sad +when he saw us approach, and quietly +brushed a tear away with his shirt-sleeve. +We consequently asked Moidel when we +stood alone with her whether anything +were troubling her father.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me not," she said. "I +fancy that it is but the music. Father +and uncle may both seem quiet and +dull now, yet they have been celebrated +singers; only when my mother died +father left off singing, and so did uncle +after Uncle Jakob's death."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had +also joined us, "they were the three +handsomest, best—grown men in the +parish, living happily together without +an ill word, until four years ago Jakob +was trampled upon by a yoke of vicious +oxen, and in three days he was dead. +Yes, that was a sorrow almost as cutting +as the death of the Hofbauerin, so +young when she died. Only married +five years, and leaving four little children, +not one of whom ever knew her! +Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is wearing +her linen now, but she can never +come up in looks to her mother. Ah +ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob."</p> + +<p>"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, +astonished voice.</p> + +<p>"Why yes, that he has been drawn +for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you +knew. It was last autumn that he was +drawn. The Hofbauer would have sold +his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer +would have no nay: +Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young +fellow, and such were needed in the +army. He had to serve two months +this spring, and with his comrades day +by day had to run up the face of mountains +some four thousand feet. It quite +wore Jakob out, though he is so good-tempered. +He declared that he was +used, to be sure, at the Olm to climb up +to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after +his goats, often bringing the kids in his +arms down the precipices, but to have +his back broken and his feet blistered +in order to know how to shed human +blood was what he hated. Yet he bore +it so well, doing his best, that when the +other recruits could return to their +homes, Jakob, being so clever and well-behaved, +had to stay a fortnight longer +to brush, fold up and put away all the +regimentals. However, the under-officer +did have him to dine with him every +day."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be +an officer," we replied, trying to reassure +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven +more long years must he serve, and +always as a private. I thought like you, +until the Hofbauer explained to me that +all the officers were foreigners—Saxons, +Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by +the Austrian ministry, who are tyrants +to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor +would only interfere, for he loves Tyrol! +but he leaves everything to the ministry. +Austria may itself be overthrown in these +unrighteous days before my Jakobi is +free." Now it was the good soul's turn +to wipe her eye with the corner of her +ample blue apron.</p> + +<p>We were venturing some fresh attempt +at consolation when fortunately an event +occurred which drew her thoughts from +the deep shadow which we had just discovered +hung over the peaceful Hof. +Jodokus, the village schoolmaster in the +winter, when the children had time to +learn, but during the busy summer +months one of the men, had challenged +Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly +had the two antagonists encountered +each other on the grass in a stout set-to, +when the sound of the goatherd's whip +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page656" id="page656"></a>[pg 656]</span> +was heard on the hilly common above, +sending forth a succession of reports like +those of a pistol, becoming stronger and +louder when the game and the assembled +company were seen. At last the +young "whipper-snapper," as we called +him, made one long final succession of +cracks and reports, and springing over +the wall, and casting his instrument of +torture on one side, he boldly challenged +Anton.</p> + +<p>The young man, whose skill and +strength were well known, smiled, half +amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. +The younger athlete, a lad of thirteen, +firmly built and agile, mistook the +look for a sneer, and the blood ran fast +and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting +the challenge, they immediately +began to spar. They first fearlessly regarded +each other, then bowing their +heads they rushed forward, butting like +rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm +in Anton's chest, tried to find his adversary's +weakest point, and with his arms +round his waist endeavored cunningly +to make him slip; but it was soon the +young champion who was tripped up, +and who in playful, half-serious anger +dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost +managing to bring Anton sprawling +to the ground. The lad, however, +suddenly stopped: he had lost a little +tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer +piece from his pocket—too great a loss +for a shepherd-boy. The combat therefore +was speedily closed, both antagonists +and their partisans hunting in the +unmowed grass until the treasures were +again trove.</p> + +<p>At the same time an elderly man approached +and opened the gate—a peasant +evidently, although, instead of the +usual long white apron and bib, he wore +one of new green linen, shining as satin—a +man of a strong although delicate +make, the head slightly stooping forward, +and a face that beamed with genuine +pleasure as half a dozen voices +simultaneously burst forth with a "God +greet you, Alois!"</p> + +<p>This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) +Alois, in preparation of whose +advent the good aunt had scrubbed a +bed-room, and Moidel had beautified +the window with pots of blooming geraniums. +The room was a large chamber, +set apart for the different ambulatory +work-people who came to the Hof +in the course of the year. The weaver, +who arrived in the spring to weave the +flax which the busy womankind had +spun through the winter, had been the +last occupant of the room, and had +woven no less than two hundred and +ninety-three ells of linen, which now in +long symmetrical lines were carefully +pegged down on the turf of the pleasaunce +by Moidel, who walked over them +daily with her bare feet, busily watering +until the gray threads were turning +snowy white.</p> + +<p>Later on in the year the sewing-woman +would appear, and then the tailor, to +make the clothing for this large household, +the servants, according to an old +custom long since extinct in most countries, +being chiefly paid in kind. Schuster +Alois had now come to make the +boots for Jakob and the Senner Franz +preparatory to their going with the cattle +to the Alpine pastures.</p> + +<p>I greatly doubt whether the tailor or +the weaver was so well waited upon as +the shoemaker: I fancy they were left +more to the maids. Passing the open +door of the family house-place, aunt and +niece might now be seen sitting hour +after hour, the elder lining the soles of +Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong +woolen to prevent mending on the Alp, +or attending to other needs of his homely +toilet; the younger at her paste-board +or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois +sat between them in the sunny oriel window, +and while he steadily plied his awl +appeared to be either telling them tales +or reciting poetry.</p> + +<p>The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial +word), lay at the distance of about six +hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine +the state of the pasturage before +his son and the cattle finally started. +In two days he returned. "The going +up of the cattle must be postponed at +least a week," he said, "for snow had +fallen at the huts the depth of a man; +and the river had swollen to such a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page657" id="page657"></a>[pg 657]</span> +height that it had carried two houses +away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; +and even life had been +lost."</p> + +<p>This delay caused a respite from hard +work. The next morning Alois's arms +did not move like unwearying machinery, +and, the ten o'clock-dinner being over, +we saw him seated at his ease on the +adjoining hillside. Should we go and +speak to him? He appeared different +from the ordinary run of his class (though +cobblers are often clever men enough), +and moreover of a decidedly friendly +turn of mind. We determined that we +would. We joined Alois on the stony, +waste hillside, crowned by two trees +with a crucifix in the centre, which formed +from the house, with its background +of mountains, ever a melancholy, soul-touching +little poem.</p> + +<p>"You have not quite such hard work +to-day, Schuster?"</p> + +<p>He smiled and said, "Do your work +betimes, and then rest; and where better +than under the shadow of the cross?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the crucifix which you have +chosen is more pleasing than the generality +which are sown broadcast over +the fields of the Tyrol. Why are they +made so hideous and revolting?"</p> + +<p>We spoke out freely, because the unusually +intelligent face before us evidently +belonged to a thinker. Candor of +speech pleased him. Nevertheless, he +answered as if musing, "They appear +ugly to you: well they may be. Ja, but +the most who look upon them are men +and women acquainted with many sorrows—sudden +deaths by falls from precipices, +destruction of house and home +by lightning, floods, avalanches, failure +of crops, and many another visitation—and +it soothes their perhaps selfish natures +to see these anguished features, +these blood-stained limbs—signs of still +greater suffering—whilst they pray that +only such crosses may be laid on them +as will keep them in obedience to His +will. Just before you came up the hill +I was thinking of a strange history connected +with a crucifix—one that I read +only ten days ago in the house of a +Hochmair himself."</p> + +<p>It merely needed silence for Schuster +Alois to repeat the tale, and he soon began: +"It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler +who narrates it. He says that once in +his rambles he came to a little chapel, +over which hung a blasted larch—such +a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally +asked the guide he had with him +why it was not cut down. Now, the +guide was an old man who knew every, +tradition and legend, besides all the +family histories in that part of the Tyrol. +'That tree,' said he, 'is left there purposely, +as the reminder of a great crime, +and nobody would think of touching it. +If you look into the chapel, you'll see a +Christ on the cross which has been shot +through the breast. That was once a +crucifix under this very tree.' Then the +guide made a remark which had often +struck myself—that there are some families +in which everything that is strange +and dreadful happens, whilst there are +others that go on for generations and +are no more distinguishable than the +very weeds themselves. In that valley +were the Hochmairs, and they were of +this prominent sort, and odd enough, +as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's +house that I read this account. Well, +some generations back there was a +Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. +He cared no more for the life of a man +than that of a chamois. The government +kept the game strictly on the mountains, +and he was suspected of having +put more than one of their keepers out +of the way. In short, he had such a +bad character that when he went to confession +the priest would not give him +absolution. This put him in a great +rage, and it is remarkable that from that +day his luck in hunting forsook him. +He could not take aim—a sort of mist +was ever before his eyes, his hand trembled. +People believed that he was perpetually +haunted by the ghost of a young +man whom, after he had shot, he had +beaten to death with his gunstock, and +then flung down a crevasse. Be that as +it may, he would be absent for weeks in +the mountains. He did no good, and +the little he possessed fell into ruin.</p> + +<p>"His creditors were about to sell him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page658" id="page658"></a>[pg 658]</span> +up, stick and stone, when he put, as one +may say, the finishing stroke to everything +himself. It was Corpus Christi +Day: the bells were ringing and the +procession moving through the fields, +the holy banners waving, the choir-boys +singing the sanctus, when just as the +priest lifted the Host in the golden monstrance, +a shot was fired from the bushes +in front of a crucifix. Lightning flashed +from heaven, and the house of the +wicked Hochmair, which was at no great +distance, burst into flames. An awful +cry rang from the bushes: the procession +rushed forward, the priest only remaining +with the Host and a few attendants. +And what did they see? There was the +image of the crucified Saviour pierced +by a bullet, and out in the road stood +the wretched Hochmair, with his hands +clasped on the lock of his gun and his +eyes rolling in frenzy. Everybody perceived +the crime he had committed, and +remained motionless, whilst he beckoned +wildly to the priest, who came up in +gloomy silence. After they had talked +together alone for some time, the priest +went into the church, where he remained +all night in prayer. The wretched man, +whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared +into the thicket, and all trace was +lost of him. In the mean while the injured +image of the Saviour was removed +into the church. So years went on, and +then one Sunday after service the priest +announced from the pulpit that the former +sinner Hochmair was dead, but that +after years of penitence he had received +the forgiveness of the Church and of +God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, +'let all forgive him, and remember only +their own sins, and pray Christ to be +merciful to them.' After that it was +known that he had become possessed +with the crazy notion that if he fired +into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus +Christi Day, just when the Host was +being elevated and the benediction +spoken, it would make his gun unerring. +He fired therefore, and at the same moment +the Saviour on the cross raised His +head and, fixing on him His eyes full of +tears, gave him a look which pierced him +to the very marrow, and that terrified +him far more than the lightning which, +flashing from his forehead, set fire to his +house, whilst the thorn-crowned countenance +seemed to float before him, and +he knew that this was his punishment. +Such was his confession at the time to +the priest who laid the penance of the +Church upon him. So he went out into +the world like another Cain, and God in +His own time was merciful to him. Still, +the wounded effigy of the Saviour and +the blasted larch tree remain as witnesses +on earth against him.</p> + +<p>"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that +is only one tale amongst the hundreds +which could be related concerning these +crucifixes. Ah, there is many an old, +bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on +crag or highway-side from which the +anguished face of the Saviour has both +smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes +cut deeper into most Tyrolese hearts +than shrines, some way."</p> + +<p>"Strange," we replied, "for these old +shrines are not only quaint, but often +beautiful, as, for instance, the one on +the roadside turning into town."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I am glad you like it," said +Alois, "for there are those who would +wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden +cross, as a landmark, placed there instead. +The Capuchins in the adjoining +monastery are opposed to it, however, +and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," +he continued, becoming quite +aglow, "that although it is greatly injured +and many of the figures lost, still +there are others who look at you so +calmly and seriously with their marred, +dilapidated countenances that you feel +a peace steal into your heart? And +whoever the painter was, he must have +loved his work, for Saint Gregory could +never have been more dignified in real +life than he looks in the shrine."</p> + +<p>"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost +without knowing what we were saying, +for it was hardly probable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I only touch colors now and +then, when there's a purpose in it or I +can serve the Church," he returned. He +became embarrassed, and explained that +it was time to return to his work.</p> + +<p>We afterward learnt from Moidel that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page659" id="page659"></a>[pg 659]</span> +Alois bore in the neighborhood far and +wide the reputation of an artist, although +he did not consider himself such, seeing +he could not paint saints and angels. It +was, however, a great source of pleasure +to him to paint mottoes and devices and +to arrange floral decorations, especially +when they could serve as a surprise for +some private name-day or church festival.</p> + +<p>One afternoon we were told that the +boots were made, that Anton had brought +the flour from the mill, that two hundred +loaves of rye bread were baked, and, +the weather being sufficiently fine and +all the preparations being completed, the +cattle would now start for the Olm. First, +Anton and the Senner Franz set off at +four o'clock in the afternoon, with the +calves in advance, the young things +being unable to keep up with the cattle. +Then a <i>leiterwagen</i> which had been +drawn into the lower corridor and filled +with sacks of flour, meal, salt and the +two hundred loaves, was driven by the +Hofbauer as far as Taufers, whence the +supplies for the Alpine residents would +be borne on men's backs up to the huts.</p> + +<p>In the evening Jakob came into the +grand old sitting-room to bid us good-bye. +He appeared in his shirt-sleeves +and the indispensable white apron, and +with the utmost self-possession and refinement +of manner he presented us +with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising +to send us down a larger supply by +his brother. We talked with him about +the Olm, and found him enthusiastic on +the subject, his one regret being that, as +he must return for several weeks of drilling +on August 22d, his stay there this +summer would be greatly curtailed. The +Olm was very extensive, lying on a mountain-platform +which was only bare of +snow for about three months in the year. +When, however, the snow was off, the +flowers came up by thousands, the grass +sprang up by magic, all the mountains +were filled with the rushing and roaring +sound of waters, which came down in +foaming cascades, often of wonderful +beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine +woods which clothed the steeper mountain-sides. +Nor was the life at all solitary, +for various farmers were sending +up their cattle to other Olms about the +same time, so that no one was without +neighbors, although they might be at a +considerable distance apart.</p> + +<p>Jakob spoke on until we became wild +to go up to the Olm too. "Could we +go thither," we asked, "and pay him a +visit?"</p> + +<p>"That we could," he replied, "if we +did not mind sleeping in the hay. Only +we had better wait for settled weather in +August."</p> + +<p>There was now no talk of our leaving +the Hof at St. Jakobi. The Hofbauer +had declared that the house was at our +disposal until Martinmas—longer if we +wanted it. He also fell into the scheme +of our visiting his Olm, where he intimated +his desire to be host, saying that +all the dairy produce would be at our +service.</p> + +<p>In the night, exactly at one o'clock, +Jakob and Jodokus started: we heard +them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the +"Leben Sie wohl!" "Behüt Euch Gott!" +shouted lovingly after them from the +open door and the lower windows of +the silent old mansion. Six and twenty +head of cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep +were to follow later. It was a calm and +beautiful night, the three-quarters moon +just dropping behind the mountains, and +the stars shining out brightly from the +dark cloudless sky.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + + +<p>The Alpine caravansary was hardly +settled at the Olm when the air became +intensely hot and oppressive. Day by +day black thunder-clouds gathered on +the horizon. They crested the mountains +in three directions, at times appearing +to repel each other, at others marching +fiercely on to conflict, when, the +zenith becoming pitch-dark, they flung +out long spears of lightning and exploded +in overwhelming thunder. Very +terrible were these perpetual storms. +With the first peal the church-bells +along the valley began solemnly to toll. +It mattered not whether by night or day, +the faithful bellringer was at his post, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page660" id="page660"></a>[pg 660]</span> +with rain pouring down outside and fiery, +vivid lightning playing around him, he +still went tolling on, for evil spirits must +be driven away, and people reminded to +make the sign of the cross and pray +God to protect them.</p> + +<p>At length, to use an expression of +Alois's, "Saint Florian had left off playing +at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had +driven his hay over the heavenly bridge." +The warring elements were still, but the +earth seemed smouldering with heat, and +we panted and gasped after the lofty +mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. +At the same time it came most opportunely +to our knowledge that the Tyrol +was rich in baths—primitive establishments +most of them, but dotted over +mountain and valley, so that each village +had half a dozen to choose from, where +every peasant, be he ever so poor, could +at least dip and soak for an eight-days' +<i>sommerfrisch</i>. Why, then, should not +the two Margarets, they being the most +desirous of a change, have at least a +<i>sommerfrisch</i>?</p> + +<p>But which amongst all these baths +was the one to choose? Good Kathi +recommended her baths at Innichen. +She herself evidently did not derive +much pleasure from her yearly visits +there. Still, we, being ladies, would find +more people to talk to, and the bath-house, +which was always full to overflowing, +stood in a wood, and we liked +trees. Schuster Alois—for the conversation +took place before he left—said +that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. +There was not only <i>luxus</i>, but a great +deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty +Emperor Max as early as 1511 took +up his quarters at Maistall during his +campaign against the Venetians, and +he had heard say that in the last century +the visitors formed a society and made +it a rule that none but the purest German +should be spoken. Every fault of +pronunciation cost a kreuzer to the offender: +the money went to the chapel, +and amounted one season to twenty-one +florins six kreuzers.</p> + +<p>But one Margaret decidedly objected +to going to a place where there was +the faintest chance of her <i>loiter wagon</i> +for <i>leiterwagen</i>, her <i>pison</i> for <i>speisen</i>, +her <i>vulgarborn</i> for <i>wohlgeboren</i>, being +fined by a <i>gazel-schaft (gesellschaft)</i>. +Besides, these places sounded too grand: +we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, +if one could be found that did not +belie its name. So the peasant-baths +of St. Vigil, Mühlbach and Scharst were +named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, +we having heard that all the school-children +in town had just been taken there +for a long day's holiday, and had returned +to their proud and happy parents, +who waited for them in double ranks below, +radiant with pleasure, waving their +banners and Alpine roses.</p> + +<p>It was accordingly arranged that on +the following Sunday Anton should drive +us to Reischach, where there was to +be a great festival, with candles in the +church as big as a man's arm: so said +a woman from Reischach. Anton was +of a retiring nature, and did not like +crowds, but he would gladly drive the +ladies over. And at Reischach we should +be sure to find some peasant returning +that evening by Scharst, who could carry +our belongings.</p> + +<p>Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, +the church-bell ringing for vespers, which +begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets +of carnations and rosemary, presented +to us by the family at the Hof, as +correct decorations for a festival. And +Anton!—how to present him to you as +he deserves to be presented? His truthful, +guileless face is his best ornament: +nevertheless, he too wears carnations and +rosemary caught in the silver cord and +vieing with the silver tassels of his broad-brimmed, +low-crowned beaver hat. His +rough jacket, made by the tailor last +autumn, and therefore too new to be +worn on a less special occasion, is short +and loose enough to leave ample space for +the display of his <i>rauge</i>, or broad leather +belt of softest chamois-skin, worked in +scrolls surrounding his name, with split +peacock quills, no little resembling Indian +handicraft. His snow-white knees +appear between his short leather breeches +and his bright blue knitted stockings. +These Nature's garters, when perfectly +white, are regarded as a mark of great +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page661" id="page661"></a>[pg 661]</span> +distinction amongst the dandies, and +those of our Anton may be considered +the very <i>knee plus ultra</i>.</p> + +<p>A parliament of men—a few still in +breeches with Hessian boots, which appeared +a characteristic of Reischach, but +the majority, having succumbed to modern +ideas, wearing trowsers—were seated +in the shadow of a comfortable house, +discussing the different stages of their +rye and flax crops. Their wives and +daughters, following their natural impulse, +were already kneeling in church, +confiding their cares of kitchen and +farmyard to the ever-ready ear of <i>Mutter +Gottes</i>—one dense mass of simple, +believing women, in broad-brimmed +beaver hats, with here and there a conical +woolen beehive as a contrast.</p> + +<p>The church in itself, although it lacked +the candles as big as a man's arm, +must truly have shone like the gate of +heaven to peasant eyes. Many of the +more substantial families had lent their +private saints for the occasion. They +had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint +Leonhards and Virgins, generally preserved +in wardrobes at home, but now +brought to participate in the festival, besides +adding to its great solemnity. It +was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, +and although the words conveyed no +clear idea to us, we were soon to learn +their significance. A Tyrolese anthem +having been sung by some invisible +voices, in which jodels leapt up and +smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged +Capuchin took his stand in the pulpit, +and having greeted the congregation, +promised to explain to them the mystery +and the advantage of the Holy +Scapulary.</p> + +<p>"My beloved," he began, "there are +some who think too little of the scapulary, +and there are others who lay too +great a stress on this aid to faith. Let +us meditate on both these conditions. +But first, how must we ourselves regard +the scapulary? Now, we are told not to +love the world nor the things of the +world. The scapulary, with its sacred +image of Mary worn next the heart, is +a great shield against this love of the +world. It places you under the especial +protection of the Queen of Heaven: you +are as much her servant as those who +serve king or kaiser, and equally wear +her livery. Some think too little of the +scapulary. Yet what incidents can be +told of its efficacy! Let one suffice. In +the year 1866, when the war raged between +Austria and Prussia, the Catholic +soldiers of the latter country immediately +before the war entered by hundreds +into the Society of the Scapulary. Wearing +this sacred charm upon their hearts, +they went into the battle-field, and the +cannons roared and the bullets whizzed +thick and fast around them, and not one +of them fell, for they wore the scapulary. +Indeed, their miraculous preservation +created so much excitement that Lutherans +marveled over it, and asked the +Catholics how it came that they were no +whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear +the scapulary of Mary, and she saves +us.' Then many Lutherans said, 'Come, +we will have scapularies,' and wrote +their names down in the society. And +now hark ye, my brethren. There was +a Catholic soldier, and there was a Lutheran, +and the latter said, 'Lend me thy +scapulary for this one day only, and see, +here is a thaler for thee.' Then the foolish +Catholic drew the scapulary off his +neck, handed it to the Lutheran, took +the thaler, went into battle: whiz went +the bullets round him, and he fell."</p> + +<p>We could stand no more. The church, +now crowded with men as well as women, +reeked with perspiration, the sermon +oppressed us, and thus our sense +and senses drove us out into the open +air. Here the fresh breeze came across +from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving +as a breath from heaven. Peasant-women +who were too late to squeeze into +church were seated amongst the iron +crosses of the graves. The more serious-minded +had managed to cluster together +round a side-door which, being adjacent +to the pulpit, proved an advantageous +spot for hearing. The less particular +sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient to +be in holy ground and to pass their +beads through their fingers whilst they +studied up our novel attire. Approaching +the more attentive members, we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page662" id="page662"></a>[pg 662]</span> +found that the Capuchin had reached +the second part of his discourse, and was +dilating on those who thought too highly +of the scapulary. We gathered the following +fragment:</p> + +<p>"Now, the man was nigh unto death, +and it was neither for confession nor for +the death-sacrament that he craved. +No, it was for a scapulary. 'A scapulary!' +he cried, 'a scapulary!' My +brethren, you know well he should have +asked for the priest and for the blessing +of the Church, but it was merely for a +scapulary."</p> + +<p>Later on we asked permission to see a +scapulary. It consisted of two small +squares of cloth, herring-boned round +the edge, and united by a narrow ribbon +of sufficient length to permit one +square to rest on the breast, whilst the +other hung between the shoulders. That +in front bore the image of the Virgin, +designed by the nuns in the convent, +whilst the simpler work had been given +to some poor old woman, or even man, +who was past harder employment. The +privilege of wearing this charmed badge +entailed the payment of a small yearly +subscription and the repetition of seven +Paternosters daily.</p> + +<p>The procession followed the sermon. +Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once a +good peasant-girl, now a saint) were +paraded round the village by children, +and borne back to church. Peasant-men +staggered under large silk banners, +which swayed and fluttered in the blustery +wind, and, but for the steady grasp +of the strong men who carried them, +threatening at each moment to crush the +pious throng. The four chief peasants +of the district, wearing their robes of +state, the Noah's ark coats in which they +were married, bore the baldachin over +the head of the Capuchin who elevated +the Host: the village priest, in white +surplice and Hessian boots, swung the +censer at his side. The men were in +front, the women, a long, broad file, divided +in the procession by the priests +from their male relations, followed—a +dense black mass, but relieved in color +by the whiteness of their short linen +sleeves.</p> + +<p>Men and women, carefully severed in +their prayers and on the very steps of +the altar by Holy Church, were soon +able to come together again under the +spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, +the wirth. Innumerable clean +wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged +wooden chairs were ranged up +stairs and down stairs and in the orchard +without, for the accommodation of the +scapularists and their friends.</p> + +<p>We sat at a side-table in an upper +room partaking of grilled fowl and salad, +whilst <i>buben</i> and their <i>dirnen</i>, or lads +and their lasses, middle-aged couples, +old men and women, poured into the +house, filling every chair, bench and +table. They came thither from all the +country-side, and endless were the greetings +amongst cousins and cousins' cousins. +The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep +up every link of relationship, claiming +the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, +never does die out; and though it may +become an abstract during busy seasons +of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a +strong reality at wakes and festivals. +Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, +Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin +drank with "Cousin Barthel," and Seppl's +sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel +Seppl." There was one square-built, +good-humored old man who appeared +to be the whole world's cousin: he passed +from table to table, and had to sip +from fifty offered glasses.</p> + +<p>With our delicious coffee and boiled +cream we ordered the host, as a suitable +person, to find us a guide to carry our +valise and shawls to Bad Scharst. Probably +the perpetual and loud demands +for pints of wine left him but little time +to make a wise selection, seeing that +there soon stood before us a small man +with so subtle and malignant a look that +his exorbitant demand made us only +too gladly dismiss him. Our confidence +shaken in the landlord's powers +of discrimination, we sent word below +that if Anton had returned we should be +glad to speak with him. He had been +in the village to visit his cousins, but +was waiting our orders below. Although +his native shyness made it hard for him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page663" id="page663"></a>[pg 663]</span> +to step forward and address ladies under +the curious gaze of all the relative Seppls +and Barthels, he did it with manliness, +and turning round and addressing the +popular old man as Hansel, asked him +if his brother Jörgel were below; and +being answered in the affirmative, he +hastened away, and returned with another +compact little peasant, whom he +introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, +with an aside, that he was "a friendly +mortal and Count Arlberg's forester."</p> + +<p>The agreement was soon made, the +sullen-looking man glowering at us from +behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel +and Anton packed a <i>kraxe</i> or wooden +frame and fixed it on Jörgel's back. +As we set off, Anton drove away homeward, +although the skittle-balls were just +beginning to roll, and the sound of "I +bin a lustiger bua" and other Tyrolese +songs came floating from the windows.</p> + +<p class="author">MARGARET HOWITT.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + + + +<h2>SAINT ROMUALDO.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,</p> +<p>Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains</p> +<p>By austere penance and continuous toil,</p> +<p>Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace</p> +<p>Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,</p> +<p>Though the beginning is as yesterday,</p> +<p>And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that—</p> +<p>A favored life, though outwardly the butt</p> +<p>Of ignominy, malice and affront,</p> +<p>Yet lighted from within by the clear star</p> +<p>Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged</p> +<p>To see at last its utmost goal attained.</p> +<p>I speak not of mine Order and my House,</p> +<p>Here founded by my hands and filled with saints—</p> +<p>A white society of snowy souls,</p> +<p>Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;</p> +<p>For this is but the natural harvest reaped</p> +<p>From labors such as mine when blessed by God.</p> +<p>Though I rejoice to think my spirit still</p> +<p>Will work my purposes, through worthy hands,</p> +<p>After my bones are shriveled into dust,</p> +<p>Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit</p> +<p>Of holy satisfaction, sure and real,</p> +<p>Though subtler than the tissue of the air—</p> +<p>The power completely to detach the soul</p> +<p>From her companion through this life, the flesh;</p> +<p>So that in blessed privacy of peace,</p> +<p>Communing with high angels, she can hold,</p> +<p>Serenely rapt, her solitary course.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne</p> +<p>Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page664" id="page664"></a>[pg 664]</span> +<p>Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs;</p> +<p>Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh</p> +<p>Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones,</p> +<p>And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores,</p> +<p>Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung;</p> +<p>Exposure to the fever and the frost,</p> +<p>When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked</p> +<p>From persecution of misguided folk,</p> +<p>Accustoming my spirit to ignore</p> +<p>The burden of the cross, while picturing</p> +<p>The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace</p> +<p>Of holiness, the lives of sainted men,</p> +<p>And entertaining all exalted thoughts,</p> +<p>That nowise touched the trouble of the hour,</p> +<p>Until the grief and pain seemed far less real</p> +<p>Than the creations of my brain inspired.</p> +<p>The vision, the beatitude, were true:</p> +<p>The agony was but an evil dream.</p> +<p>I speak not now as one who hath not learned</p> +<p>The purport of those lightly-bandied words,</p> +<p>Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows</p> +<p>The thunders of the terrors of the world.</p> +<p>No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock,</p> +<p>Can move or reach my soul, securely throned</p> +<p>On heights of contemplation and calm prayer,</p> +<p>Happy, serene, no less with actual joy</p> +<p>Of present peace than faith in joys to come.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees</p> +<p>Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky!</p> +<p>How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine,</p> +<p>Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes</p> +<p>Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light!</p> +<p>Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes</p> +<p>Find the same sense of exquisite delight,</p> +<p>My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy</p> +<p>In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high,</p> +<p>And youth coursed through my veins! This the one link</p> +<p>That binds the wan old man that now I am</p> +<p>To the wild lad who followed up the hounds</p> +<p>Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea.</p> +<p>For there how oft would I lose all delight</p> +<p>In the pursuit, the triumph or the game,</p> +<p>To stray alone among the shadowy glades,</p> +<p>And gaze, as one who is not satisfied</p> +<p>With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea,</p> +<p>The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between</p> +<p>The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees,</p> +<p>On gold-green turf, sweetbrier and wild pink rose!</p> +<p>How rich that buoyant air with changing scent</p> +<p>Of pungent pine, fresh flowers and salt cool seas!</p> +<p>And when all echoes of the chase had died,</p> +<p>Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds,</p> +<p>How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page665" id="page665"></a>[pg 665]</span> +<p>On that fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds,</p> +<p>The rustling of the tangled undergrowth,</p> +<p>And the deep lyric murmur of the pines,</p> +<p>When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze!</p> +<p>There was my world, there would my heart dilate,</p> +<p>And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer</p> +<p>Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies</p> +<p>Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered</p> +<p>In the unsearchable, unbodied air,</p> +<p>Made itself felt, but reigned invisible.</p> +<p>This ere the day that from my past divides</p> +<p>My present, and that made me what I am.</p> +<p>Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea</p> +<p>illimitably sparkling, as they showed</p> +<p>That morning. Though I deemed I took no note</p> +<p>Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind</p> +<p>Retains to-day the vivid portraiture</p> +<p>Of every line and feature of the scene.</p> +<p>Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared</p> +<p>Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught</p> +<p>Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink</p> +<p>Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust</p> +<p>Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan;</p> +<p>And pressing forward I beheld the sight</p> +<p>That seared itself for ever on my brain—</p> +<p>My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf,</p> +<p>Fallen upon his side, his bright young head</p> +<p>Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close</p> +<p>Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched</p> +<p>A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth,</p> +<p>Uprooted in his anguish as he fell,</p> +<p>And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed,</p> +<p>Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face</p> +<p>Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes</p> +<p>Staring in blankness on that other one</p> +<p>Who triumphed over him. With hot desire</p> +<p>Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword</p> +<p>To rush upon the slayer, when he turned</p> +<p>In his first terror of blood-guiltiness.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<hr /> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Within my heart a something snapped and brake.</p> +<p>What was it but the chord of rapturous joy</p> +<p>For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall,</p> +<p>Had I not leaned against the friendly pine;</p> +<p>For all realities of life, unmoored</p> +<p>From their firm anchorage, appeared to float</p> +<p>Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain.</p> +<p>The strange delusion wrought upon my soul</p> +<p>That this had been enacted ages since.</p> +<p>This very horror curdled at my heart,</p> +<p>This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens,</p> +<p>Were closing over me when I had stood,</p> +<p>Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted <i>him,</i></p> +<p>My father; and he felt mine eyes as now,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page666" id="page666"></a>[pg 666]</span> +<p>Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form,</p> +<p>The one thing real, lay stretched between us both.</p> +<p>The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong</p> +<p>To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all—</p> +<p>A few fierce words between them yester eve</p> +<p>Concerning some poor plot of pasturage,</p> +<p>Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:</p> +<p>This was the end. I could not meet him now,</p> +<p>To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,</p> +<p>And draw him from the red entanglement</p> +<p>Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life.</p> +<p>God pardon me! My heart that moment held</p> +<p>No drop of pity toward this wretched soul;</p> +<p>And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,</p> +<p>I fled amidst the savage silences</p> +<p>Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone</p> +<p>My boundless desolation, shame and grief.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon,</p> +<p>The quiet of the still, suspended air,</p> +<p>Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged,</p> +<p>Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed</p> +<p>A solemn prayer, conceived in agony,</p> +<p>Blessed with response instant, miraculous;</p> +<p>For in that hour my spirit was at one</p> +<p>With Him who knows and satisfies her needs.</p> +<p>The supplication and the blessing sprang</p> +<p>From the same source, inspired divinely both.</p> +<p>I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth,</p> +<p>And these like heavenly manna were rained down</p> +<p>To feed my hungered soul. His guilt <i>was</i> mine.</p> +<p>What angel had been sent to stay mine arm</p> +<p>Until the fateful moment passed away</p> +<p>That would have ushered an eternity</p> +<p>Of withering remorse? I found the germs</p> +<p>In mine own heart of every human sin,</p> +<p>That waited but occasion's tempting breath</p> +<p>To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life.</p> +<p>What God thus far had saved me from myself?</p> +<p>Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each</p> +<p>Must feel himself in all, must know where'er</p> +<p>The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys,</p> +<p>His proper soul in kinship there is bound.</p> +<p>Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind,</p> +<p>Encouraging as morning. As I lay,</p> +<p>Crushed by the weight of universal love,</p> +<p>Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself,</p> +<p>I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell.</p> +<p>I knew it—whence it came and what it sang.</p> +<p>From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed,</p> +<p>And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer,</p> +<p>Clean lives, white days of strict austerity:</p> +<p>Such were the offerings of these holy saints.</p> +<p>How far might such not tend to expiate</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6790" id="page6790"></a>[pg 6790]</span> +<p>A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life,</p> +<p>Doubly austere and doubly sanctified,</p> +<p>Might even for that other one atone,</p> +<p>So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">They sheltered me, not questioning the need</p> +<p>That led me to their cloistered solitude.</p> +<p>How rich, how freighted with pure influence,</p> +<p>With dear security of perfect peace,</p> +<p>Was the first day I passed within those walls!</p> +<p>The holy habit of perpetual prayer,</p> +<p>The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech,</p> +<p>The chastening discipline, the atmosphere</p> +<p>Of settled and profound tranquillity,</p> +<p>Were even as living waters unto one</p> +<p>Who perisheth of thirst. Was this the world</p> +<p>That yesterday seemed one huge battle-field</p> +<p>For brutish passions? Could the soul of man</p> +<p>Withdraw so easily, and erect apart</p> +<p>Her own fair temple for her own high ends?</p> +<p>But this serene contentment slowly waned</p> +<p>As I discerned the broad disparity</p> +<p>Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws</p> +<p>That bound the order in strait brotherhood.</p> +<p>Yet when I sought to gain a larger love,</p> +<p>More rigid discipline, severer truth,</p> +<p>And more complete surrender of the soul</p> +<p>Unto her God, this was to my reproach,</p> +<p>And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides.</p> +<p>In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,</p> +<p>I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts</p> +<p>To wrestle with my viewless enemies,</p> +<p>Till they should leave their blessing on my head;</p> +<p>For nightly was I haunted by that face,</p> +<p>White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns,</p> +<p>Now staring out of darkness, and it held</p> +<p>Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest</p> +<p>And drove me from my straw to weep and pray.</p> +<p>Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought</p> +<p>Upon my spirit that I lay day-long</p> +<p>In dumb despair, until the blessed hope</p> +<p>Of mercy dawned again upon my soul,</p> +<p>As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts</p> +<p>The airy steps of heaven. My faith arose</p> +<p>With sure perception that disaster, wrong,</p> +<p>And every shadow of man's destiny</p> +<p>Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch</p> +<p>The soul's fine essence: they exist or die</p> +<p>Only as she affirms them or denies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">This faith sustains me even to the end:</p> +<p>It floods my heart with peace as surely now</p> +<p>As on that day the friars drove me forth,</p> +<p>Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page668" id="page668"></a>[pg 668]</span> +<p>Endured through pride, would bring into reproach</p> +<p>Their customs and their order. Then began</p> +<p>My exile in the mountains, where I bode</p> +<p>A hunted man. The elements conspired</p> +<p>Against me, and I was the seasons' sport,</p> +<p>Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,</p> +<p>Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,</p> +<p>Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains,</p> +<p>And buffeted by all the winds of heaven.</p> +<p>Yet was this period my time of joy:</p> +<p>My daily thoughts perpetual converse held</p> +<p>With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed</p> +<p>With sweet accordance of celestial sounds,</p> +<p>Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air.</p> +<p>And visions were revealed unto mine eyes</p> +<p>By night and day of Heaven's very courts,</p> +<p>In shadowless, undimmed magnificence.</p> +<p>I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,</p> +<p>And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air—</p> +<p>For had I perished, this too had been well—</p> +<p>But for the revelation of His truth,</p> +<p>The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed</p> +<p>To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;</p> +<p>So that the pinched, lean excommunicate</p> +<p>Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure,</p> +<p>Than all the comfort of the vales could bring.</p> +<p>Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,</p> +<p>Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,</p> +<p>Timid and few at first; but as they heard</p> +<p>From mine own lips the precious oracles,</p> +<p>That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased</p> +<p>Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed</p> +<p>All of the God within them to themselves,</p> +<p>They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,</p> +<p>And sware to follow and to serve the good</p> +<p>Which my word published and my life declared.</p> +<p>Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top</p> +<p>Descended leader of a band of saints,</p> +<p>And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale</p> +<p>I perched my convent. Yet I bated not</p> +<p>One whit of strict restraint and abstinence.</p> +<p>And they who love me and who serve the truth</p> +<p>Have learned to suffer with me, and have won</p> +<p>The supreme joy that is not of the flesh,</p> +<p>Foretasting the delights of Paradise.</p> +<p>This faith, to them imparted, will endure</p> +<p>After my tongue hath ceased to utter it,</p> +<p>And the great peace hath settled on my soul.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">EMMA LAZARUS.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page669" id="page669"></a>[pg 669]</span> + + + + +<h2>A PRINCESS OF THULE.</h2> + +<h4>BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."</h4> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h3>"O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!"</h3> + + +<p>Consider what a task this unhappy +man Ingram had voluntarily undertaken! +Here were two young people +presumably in love. One of them was +laid under suspicion by several previous +love-affairs, though none of these, doubtless, +had been so serious as the present. +The other scarcely knew her own mind, +or perhaps was afraid to question herself +too closely, lest all the conflict between +duty and inclination, with its fears and +anxieties and troubles, should be too +suddenly revealed. Moreover, this girl +was the only daughter of a solitary and +irascible old gentleman living in a remote +island; and Ingram had not only +undertaken that the love-affairs of the +young folks should come all right—thus +assuming a responsibility which might +have appalled the bravest—but was also +expected to inform the King of Borva +that his daughter was about to be taken +away from him.</p> + +<p>Of course, if Sheila had been a properly +brought-up young lady, nothing of +this sort would have been necessary. +We all know what the properly brought-up +young lady does under such circumstances. +She goes straight to her papa +and mamma and says, "My dear papa +and mamma, I have been taught by my +various instructors that I ought to have +no secrets from my dear parents; and I +therefore hasten to lay aside any little +shyness or modesty or doubt of my own +wishes I might feel, for the purpose of +explaining to you the extent to which +I have become a victim to the tender +passion, and of soliciting your advice. I +also place before you these letters I have +received from the gentleman in question: +probably they were sent in confidence +to me, but I must banish any scruples +that do not coincide with my duty to +you. I may say that I respect, and even +admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be +unworthy of the care bestowed upon my +education by my dear parents if I were +altogether insensible to the advantages +of his worldly position. But beyond this +point I am at a loss to define my sentiments; +and so I ask you, my dear papa +and mamma, for permission to study the +question for some little time longer, when +I may be able to furnish you with a more +accurate report of my feelings. At the +same time, if the interest I have in this +young man is likely to conflict with the +duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to +be informed of the fact; and I shall then +teach myself to guard against the approach +of that insidious passion which +might make me indifferent to the higher +calls and interests of life." Happy the +man who marries such a woman! No +agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, +no piteous entreaties and fits +of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices +await him, but a beautiful, methodical, +placid life, as calm and accurate and +steadily progressive as the multiplication +table. His household will be a miracle +of perfect arrangement. The relations +between the members of it will be as +strictly defined as the pattern of the +paper on the walls. And how can a +quarrel arise when a dissecter of the +emotions is close at hand to say where +the divergence of opinion or interest began? +and how can a fit of jealousy be +provoked in the case of a person who +will split up her affections into fifteen +parts, give ten-fifteenths to her children, +three-fifteenths to her parents, and the +remainder to her husband? Should +there be any dismal fractions going +about, friends and acquaintances may +come in for them.</p> + +<p>But how was Sheila to go to her father +and explain to him what she could not explain +to herself? She had never dreamed +of marriage. She had never thought +of having to leave Borva and her father's +house. But she had some vague feeling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page670" id="page670"></a>[pg 670]</span> +that in the future lay many terrible possibilities +that she did not as yet dare to +look at—until, at least, she was more +satisfied as to the present. And how +could she go to her father with such a +chaos of unformed wishes and fears to +place before him? That such a duty +should have devolved upon Ingram was +certainly odd enough, but it was not her +doing. His knowledge of the position +of these young people was not derived +from her. But, having got it, he had +himself asked her to leave the whole +affair in his hands, with that kindness +and generosity which had more than +once filled her heart with an unspeakable +gratitude toward him.</p> + +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> a good fellow!" said +Lavender to him when he heard of this +decision.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said the other with a shrug +of his shoulders. "I mean to amuse myself. +I shall move you about like pieces +on a chess-board, and have a pretty +game with you. How to checkmate the +king with a knight and a princess, in +any number of moves you like—that +is the problem; and my princess has a +strong power over the king where she is +just now."</p> + +<p>"It's an uncommonly awkward business, +you know, Ingram," said Lavender +ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough +old fellow to deal with, and you'll do no +good by making a fight of it. Wait! +Difficulties don't look so formidable +when you take them one by one as they +turn up. If you really love the girl, and +mean to take your chance of getting her, +and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice +a good deal for your sake, there is +nothing to fear."</p> + +<p>"I can answer for myself, any way," +said Lavender in a tone of voice that +Ingram rather liked: the young man +did not always speak with the same +quietness, thoughtfulness and modesty.</p> + +<p>And how naturally and easily it came +about, after all! They were back again +at Borva. They had driven round and +about Lewis, and had finished up with +Stornoway; and, now that they had got +back to the island in Loch Roag, the +quaint little drawing-room had even to +Lavender a homely and friendly look. +The big stuffed fishes and the sponge +shells were old acquaintances; and he +went to hunt up Sheila's music just as +if he had known that dusky corner for +years.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," called Mackenzie, "it iss +the English songs we will try now."</p> + +<p>He had a notion that he was himself +rather a good hand at a part song—just +as Sheila had innocently taught him to +believe that he was a brilliant whist-player +when he had mastered the art of +returning his partner's lead—but fortunately +at this moment he was engaged +with a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot +whisky and water. Ingram was similarly +employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed +easy-chair, and placidly watching +the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes +he cast an eye to the young folks +at the other end of the room. They +formed a pretty sight, he thought. Lavender +was a good-looking fellow enough, +and there was something pleasing in the +quiet and assiduous fashion in which he +waited upon Sheila, and in the almost +timid way in which he spoke to her. +Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all +in slate-gray silk, with a narrow band of +scarlet velvet round her neck; and it +was only by a chance turning of the +head that Ingram caught the tender and +handsome profile, broken only by the +outward sweep of the long eyelashes.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Sheila sang, with her father keeping time +by patting his forefinger on the table.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He in thy snowy bosom strays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>sang Lavender; and then the two voices +joined together:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He makes thy rosy lips his care,</p> +<p>And walks the mazes of thy hair.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Or were there not three voices? Surely, +from the back part of the room, the +musicians could hear a wandering bass +come in from time to time, especially +at such portions as "Ah, he never—ah, +he never touched thy heart!" which old +Mackenzie considered very touching. +But there was something quaint and +friendly and pleasant in the pathos of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page671" id="page671"></a>[pg 671]</span> +those English songs, which made them +far more acceptable to him than Sheila's +wild and melancholy legends of the sea. +He sang "Ah, he never, never touched +thy heart!" with an outward expression +of grief, but with much inward satisfaction. +Was it the quaint phraseology of +the old duets that awoke in him some +faint ambition after histrionic effect? At +all events, Sheila proceeded to another +of his favorites, "All's Well," and here, +amid the brisk music, the old man had +an excellent opportunity of striking in +at random—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The careful watch patrols the deck</p> +<p>To guard the ship from foes or wreck.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>These two lines he had absolutely mastered, +and always sang them, whatever +might be the key he happened to light +on, with great vigor. He soon went the +length of improvising a part for himself +in the closing passages, and laid down +his pipe altogether as he sang—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>What cheer? Brother, quickly tell!</p> +<p>Above! Below! Good-night! All, all's well!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>From that point, however, Sheila and +her companion wandered away into +fields of melody whither the King of +Borva could not follow them; so he was +content to resume his pipe and listen +placidly to the pretty airs. He caught +but bits and fragments of phrases and +sentiments, but they evidently were comfortable, +merry, good-natured songs for +young folks to sing. There was a good +deal of love-making, and rosy morns +appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such +odd things, which, sung briskly and +gladly by two young and fresh voices, +rather drew the hearts of contemplative +listeners to the musicians.</p> + +<p>"They sing very well whatever," said +Mackenzie with a critical air to Ingram +when the young people were so busily +engaged with their own affairs as apparently +to forget the presence of the +others. "Oh yes, they sing very well +whatever; and what should the young +folks sing about but making love and +courting, and all that?"</p> + +<p>"Natural enough," said Ingram, looking +rather wistfully at the two at the other +end of the room. "I suppose Sheila will +have a sweetheart some day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart +some day," said her father good-humoredly. +"Sheila is a good-looking girl: she +will hef a sweetheart some day."</p> + +<p>"She will be marrying too, I suppose," +said Ingram cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, she will marry—Sheila will +marry: what will be the life of a young +girl if she does not marry?"</p> + +<p>At this moment, as Ingram afterward +described it, a sort of "flash of inspiration" +darted in upon him, and he resolved +there and then to brave the wrath +of the old king, and place all the conspiracy +before him, if only the music +kept loud enough to prevent his being +overheard.</p> + +<p>"It will be hard on you to part with +Sheila when she marries," said Ingram, +scarcely daring to look up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, ay, it will be that," said Mackenzie +cheerfully enough. "But it iss +every one will hef to do that, and no +great harm comes of it. Oh no, it will +not be much whatever; and Sheila, she +will be very glad in a little while after, +and it will be enough for me to see that +she is ferry contented and happy. The +young folk must marry, you will see; +and what is the use of marrying if it is +not when they are young? But Sheila, +she will think of none of these things. +It was young Mr. MacIntyre of Sutherland—you +hef seen him last year in +Stornoway: he hass three thousand acres +of a deer forest in Sutherland—and he +will be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. +But I will say to him, 'It is not for me +to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: +it is Sheila herself will tell you that.' +But he wass afraid to speak to her; and +Sheila herself will know nothing of why +he came twice to Borva the last year."</p> + +<p>"It is very good of you to leave Sheila +quite unbiased in her choice," said Ingram: +"many fathers would have been +sorely tempted by that deer forest."</p> + +<p>Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh +of derision, that fortunately did not stop +Lavender's execution of "I would that +my love would silently."</p> + +<p>"What the teffle," said Mackenzie, +"hef I to want a deer forest for my +Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman's lass. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page672" id="page672"></a>[pg 672]</span> +She has plenty for herself, and she will +marry just the young man she wants to +marry, and no other one: that is what +she will do, by Kott!"</p> + +<p>All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie +had himself been advocating +Lavender's suit, could he have said +more? But notwithstanding all these +frank and generous promises, dealing +with a future which the old man considered +as indefinitely remote, Ingram was +still afraid of the announcement he was +about to make.</p> + +<p>"Sheila is fortunately situated," he +said, "in having a father who thinks only +of her happiness. But I suppose she +has never yet shown a preference for any +one?"</p> + +<p>"Not for any one but yourself," said +her father with a laugh.</p> + +<p>And Ingram laughed too, but in an +embarrassed way, and his sallow face +grew darker with a blush. Was there +not something painful in the unintentional +implication that of course Ingram +could not be considered a possible lover +of Sheila's, and that the girl herself was +so well aware of it that she could openly +testify to her regard for him?</p> + +<p>"And it would be a good thing for +Sheila," continued her father, more +gravely, "if there wass any young man +about the Lewis that she would tek a +liking to; for it will be some day I can +no more look after her, and it would be +bad for her to be left alone all by herself +in the island."</p> + +<p>"And you don't think you see before +you now some one who might take on +him the charge of Sheila's future?" said +Ingram, looking toward Lavender.</p> + +<p>"The English gentleman?" said Mackenzie +with a smile. "No, that any way +is not possible."</p> + +<p>"I fancy it is more than possible," +said Ingram, resolved to go straight at +it. "I know for a fact that he would +like to marry your daughter, and I think +that Sheila, without knowing it herself +almost, is well inclined toward him."</p> + +<p>The old man started up from his chair: +"Eh? what! my Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa," said the girl, turning +round at once.</p> + +<p>She caught sight of a strange look on +his face, and in an instant was by his +side: "Papa, what is the matter with +you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Sheila, nothing," he said +impatiently. "I am a little tired of the +music, that is all. But go on with the +music. Go back to the piano, Sheila, +and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram +and me, we will go outside for a +little while."</p> + +<p>Mackenzie walked out of the room, +and said aloud in the hall, "Ay, are you +coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night +this night, and the wind is in a very +good way for the weather."</p> + +<p>And then, as he went out to the front, +he hummed aloud, so that Sheila should +hear,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell!</p> +<p>A friend! The word! Good-night! All's well!</p> +<p>All's well! Good-night! All's well!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Ingram followed the old man outside, +with a somewhat guilty conscience suggesting +odd things to him. Would it +not be possible now to shut one's ears +for the next half hour? Angry words +were only little perturbations in the air. +If you shut your ears till they were all +over, what harm could be done? All +the big facts of life would remain the +same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the +human beings around you, even your +desire of sleep for the night and your +wholesome longing for breakfast in the +morning, would all remain, and the +angry words would have passed away. +But perhaps it was a proper punishment +that he should now go out and bear all +the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, +whose daughter he had conspired to +carry off. Mackenzie was walking up +and down the path outside in the cool +and silent night. There was not much +moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight +showed all the familiar features of +Loch Roag and the southern hills, and +down there in the bay you could vaguely +make out the Maighdean-mhara rocking +in the tiny waves that washed in on +the white shore. Ingram had never +looked on this pretty picture with a less +feeling of delight.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie," he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page673" id="page673"></a>[pg 673]</span> +was beginning, "you must make this +excuse for him—"</p> + +<p>But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at +once. It was all about Sheila that he +wanted to know. There was no anger +in his words; only a great anxiety, and +sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic +effort to take a philosophical view of the +situation. What had Sheila said? Was +Sheila deeply interested in the young +man? Would it please Sheila if he was +to go in-doors and give at once his free +consent to her marrying this Mr. Lavender?</p> + +<p>"Oh, you must not think," said Mackenzie, +with a certain loftiness of air +even amidst his great perturbation and +anxiety—"you must not think I hef not +foreseen all this. It wass some day or +other Sheila will be sure to marry; and +although I did not expect—no, I did not +expect <i>that</i>—that she would marry a +stranger and an Englishman, if it will +please her that is enough. You cannot +tell a young lass the one she should +marry: it iss all a chance the one she +likes, and if she does not marry him it +is better she will not marry at all. Oh +yes, I know that ferry well. And I hef +known there wass a time coming when +I would give away my Sheila to some +young man; and there iss no use complaining +of it. But you hef not told me +much about this young man, or I hef +forgotten: it is the same thing whatever. +He has not much money, you said—he +is waiting for some money. Well, this +is what I will do: I will give him all my +money if he will come and live in the +Lewis."</p> + +<p>All the philosophy he had been mustering +up fell away from that last sentence. +It was like the cry of a drowning +man who sees the last life-boat set +out for shore, leaving him to his fate. +And Ingram had not a word to say in +reply to that piteous entreaty.</p> + +<p>"I do not ask him to stop in Borva: +no, it iss a small place for one that hass +lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is +quite different; and there iss ferry good +houses in Stornoway."</p> + +<p>"But surely, sir," said Ingram, "you +need not consider all this just yet. I +am sure neither of them has thought of +any such thing."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mackenzie, recovering +himself, "perhaps not. But we hef our +duties to look at the future of young +folks. And you will say that Mr. Lavender +hass only expectations of money?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. +His aunt, I have told you, is a +very rich old lady, who has no other near +relations, and she is exceedingly fond of +him, and would do anything for him. I +am sure the allowance he has now is +greatly in excess of what she spends on +herself."</p> + +<p>"But they might quarrel, you know—they +might quarrel. You hef always to +look to the future: they might quarrel, +and what will he do then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't suppose he couldn't +support himself if the worst were to come +to the worst? He is an amazingly clever +fellow—"</p> + +<p>"Ay, that is very good," said Mackenzie +in a cautious sort of way, "but +has he ever made any money?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I fancy not—nothing to speak +of. He has sold some pictures, but I +think he has given more away."</p> + +<p>"Then it iss not easy, tek my word +for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new trade +if you are twenty-five years of age; and +the people who will tek your pictures for +nothing, will they pay for them if you +wanted the money?"</p> + +<p>It was obviously the old man's eager +wish to prove to himself that, somehow +or other, Lavender might come to have +no money, and be made dependent on +his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from +sharing the sentiments ordinarily attributed +to that important relative, he would +have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the +information that the man who, as he expected, +was about to marry his daughter +was absolutely penniless. Not even +all the attractions of that deer forest +in Sutherlandshire—particularly fascinating +as they must have been to a man +of his education and surroundings—had +been able to lead the old King of Borva +even into hinting to his daughter that +the owner of that property would like to +marry her. Sheila was to choose for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page674" id="page674"></a>[pg 674]</span> +herself. She was not like a fisherman's +lass, bound to consider ways and means. +And now that she had chosen, or at least +indicated the possibility of her doing so, +her father's chief desire was that his future +son-in-law should come and take +and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila +might not be carried away from him for +ever.</p> + +<p>"Well, I will see about it," said Mackenzie +with an affectation of cheerful +and practical shrewdness. "Oh yes, I +will see about it when Sheila has made +up her mind. He is a very good young +man, whatever—"</p> + +<p>"He is the best-hearted fellow I know," +said Ingram warmly. "I don't think +Sheila has much to fear if she marries +him. If you had known him as long as +I have, you would know how considerate +he is to everybody about him, how +generous he is, how good-natured and +cheerful, and so forth: in short, he is a +thorough good fellow, that's what I have +to say about him."</p> + +<p>"It iss well for him he will hef such a +champion," said Mackenzie with a smile: +"there is not many Sheila will pay attention +to as she does to you."</p> + +<p>They went in-doors again, Ingram +scarcely knowing how he had got so +easily through the ordeal, but very glad +it was over.</p> + +<p>Sheila was still at the piano, and on +their entering she said, "Papa, here is a +song you must learn to sing with me."</p> + +<p>"And what iss it, Sheila?" he said, +going over to her.</p> + +<p>"'Time has not thinned my flowing +hair.'"</p> + +<p>He put his hand on her head and +said, "I hope it will be a long time before +he will thin your hair, Sheila."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up surprised. Scotch +folks are, as a rule, somewhat reticent +in their display of affection, and it was +not often that her father talked to her +in that way. What was there in his +face that made her glance instinctively +toward Ingram. Somehow or other her +hand sought her father's hand, and she +rose and went away from the piano, with +her head bent down and tears beginning +to tell in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is a capital song," said +Ingram loudly. Sing 'The Arethusa,' +Lavender—'Said the saucy Arethusa.'"</p> + +<p>Lavender, knowing what had taken +place, and not daring to follow with his +eyes Sheila and her father, who had +gone to the other end of the room, sang +the song. Never was a gallant and +devil-may-care sea-song sung so hopelessly +without spirit. But the piano made +a noise and the verses took up time. +When he had finished he almost feared +to turn round, and yet there was nothing +dreadful in the picture that presented +itself. Sheila was sitting on her father's +knee, with her head buried in his bosom, +while he was patting her head and talking +in a low voice to her. The King of +Borva did not look particularly fierce.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song," he +said suddenly. "Now get up, Sheila, +and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit +of bread and cheese before going to bed. +And there will be a little hot water wanted +in the other room, for this room it iss +too full of the smoke."</p> + +<p>Sheila, as she went out of the room, +had her head cast down and perhaps +an extra tinge of color in her young +and pretty face. But surely, Lavender +thought to himself as he watched her +anxiously, she did not look grieved. As +for her father, what should he do now? +Turn suddenly round and beg Mackenzie's +pardon, and throw himself on his +generosity? When he did, with much +inward trembling, venture to approach +the old man, he found no such explanation +possible. The King of Borva was +in one of his grandest moods—dignified, +courteous, cautious, and yet inclined to +treat everybody and everything with a +sort of lofty good-humor. He spoke to +Lavender in the most friendly way, but +it was about the singular and startling +fact that modern research had proved +many of the Roman legends to be utterly +untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie +observed that the man was wanting in +proper courage who feared to accept the +results of such inquiries. It was better +that we should know the truth, and then +the kings who had really made Rome +great might emerge from the fog of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page675" id="page675"></a>[pg 675]</span> +tradition in their proper shape. There was +something quite sympathetic in the way +he talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, +whom the vulgar mind had clothed in +mist.</p> + +<p>Lavender was sorely beset by the rival +claims of Rome and Borva upon his attention. +He was inwardly inclined to +curse Numa Pompilius—which would +have been ineffectual—when he found +that personage interfering with a wild +effort to discover why Mackenzie should +treat him in this way. And then it occurred +to him that, as he had never said +a word to Mackenzie about this affair, it +was too much to expect that Sheila's +father should himself open the subject. +On the contrary, Mackenzie was bent +on extending a grave courtesy to his +guest, so that the latter should not feel +ill at ease until it suited himself to make +any explanations he might choose. It +was not Mackenzie's business to ask this +young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. +No. The king's daughter, if she were +to be won at all, was to be won by a +suitor, and it was not for her father to +be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got +back into the region of early Roman +history, and tried to recall what he had +learned in Livy, and quite coincided +with everything that Niebuhr had said +or proved, and with everything that +Mackenzie thought Niebuhr had said +or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, +to find himself talking to Sheila's +father in this friendly fashion.</p> + +<p>Then Sheila came in and told them +that supper was laid in the adjoining +room. At that modest meal a great +good-humor prevailed. Sometimes, it +is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila +occasionally cast an anxious glance to +her father, as if she were trying to discover +whether he was really satisfied, or +whether he were not merely pretending +satisfaction to please her; but for the +rest the party was a most friendly and +merry one. Lavender, naturally enough, +was in the highest of spirits, and nothing +could exceed the lighthearted endeavors +he made to amuse and interest and cheer +his companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up +later than usual, even although pipes +were lit again, and the slate-gray silk +likely to bear witness to the fact in the +morning. How comfortable and homely +was this sort of life in the remote +stone building overlooking the sea! He +began to think that he could live always +in Borva if only Sheila were with him +as his companion.</p> + +<p>Was it an actual fact, then, he asked +himself next morning, that he stood confessed +to the small world of Borva as +Sheila's accepted lover? Not a word on +the subject had passed between Mackenzie +and himself, and yet he found himself +assuming the position of a younger +relative, and rather expecting advice +from the old man. He began to take a +great interest, too, in the local administration +of the island: he examined the +window-fastenings of Mackenzie's house +and saw that they would be useful in the +winter, and expressed to Sheila's father +his confidential opinion that the girl +should not be allowed to go out in the +Maighdean-mhara without Duncan.</p> + +<p>"She will know as much about boats +as Duncan himself," said her father with +a smile. "But Sheila will not go out +when the rough weather begins."</p> + +<p>"Of course you keep her in-doors +then," said the younger man, already +assuming some little charge over Sheila's +comfort.</p> + +<p>The father laughed aloud at this simplicity +on the part of the Englishman: +"If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad +weather, it would be all the winter we +would be in-doors! There iss no day at +all Sheila will not be out some time or +other; and she is never so well as in +the hard weather, when she will be out +always in the snow and the frost, and +hef plenty of exercise and amusement."</p> + +<p>"She is not often ailing, I suppose?" +said Lavender.</p> + +<p>"She is as strong as a young pony, +that is what Sheila is," said her father +proudly. "And there is no one in the +island will run so fast, or walk so long +without tiring, or carry things from the +shore as she will—not one."</p> + +<p>But here he suddenly checked himself. +"That is," he said with some little expression +of annoyance, "I wass saying +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page676" id="page676"></a>[pg 676]</span> +Sheila could do that if it wass any use; +but she will not do such things, like a +fisherman's lass that hass to keep in the +work."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course not," said Lavender +hastily. "But still, you know, it is +pleasant to know she is so strong and +well."</p> + +<p>And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, +accompanied by her great deerhound, +and testifying by the bright color +in her face to the assurances of her health +her father had been giving. She had +just come up and over the hill from Borvabost, +while as yet breakfast had not +been served. Somehow or other, Lavender +fancied she never looked so bright +and bold and handsome as in the early +morning, with the fresh sea-air tingling +the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight +shining in the clear eyes or giving from +time to time a glimpse of her perfect +teeth. But this morning she did not +seem quite so frankly merry as usual. +She patted the deerhound's head, and +rather kept her eyes away from her +father and his companion. And then +she took Bras away to give him his +breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to +bid her good-morning and ask her what +she meant by being about so early.</p> + +<p>How anxiously Lavender now began +to calculate on the remaining days of +their stay in Borva! They seemed so +few. He got up at preposterously early +hours to make each day as long as possible, +but it slipped away with a fatal +speed; and already he began to think +of Stornoway and the Clansman and +his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had +said no more to her of any pledge as +regarded the future. He was content to +see that she was pleased to be with him; +and happy indeed were their rambles +about the island, their excursions in +Sheila's boat, their visits to the White +Water in search of salmon. Nor had +he yet spoken to Sheila's father. He +knew that Mackenzie knew, and both +seemed to take it for granted that no +good could come of a formal explanation +until Sheila herself should make her +wishes known. That, indeed, was the +only aspect of the case that apparently +presented itself to the old King of Borva. +He forgot altogether those precautions +and investigations which are supposed +to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, +and only sought to see how Sheila +was affected toward the young man who +was soon about to leave the island. +When he saw her pleased to be walking +with Lavender and talking with him of +an evening, he was pleased, and would +rather have a cold dinner than break in +upon them to hurry them home. When +he saw her disappointed because Lavender +had been unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, +he was ready to swear at Duncan +for not having had the fish in a better +temper. And the most of his conversation +with Ingram consisted of an +endeavor to convince himself that, after +all, what had happened was for the best, +and that Sheila seemed to be happy.</p> + +<p>But somehow or other, when the time +for their departure was drawing near, +Mackenzie showed a strange desire that +his guests should spend the last two days +in Stornoway. When Lavender first +heard this proposal he glanced toward +Sheila, and his face showed clearly his +disappointment.</p> + +<p>"But Sheila will go with us too," said +her father, replying to that unuttered +protest in the most innocent fashion; +and then Lavender's face brightened +again, and he said that nothing would +give him greater pleasure than to spend +two days in Stornoway.</p> + +<p>"And you must not think," said Mackenzie +anxiously, "that it is one day or +two days or a great many days will show +you all the fine things about Stornoway. +And if you were to live in Stornoway +you would find very good acquaintances +and friends there; and in the autumn, +when the shooting begins, there are +many English who will come up, and +there will be ferry great doings at the +castle. And there is some gentlemen +now at Grimersta whom you hef not +seen, and they are ferry fine gentlemen; +and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more +gentlemen for the salmon-fishing. Oh, +there iss a great many fine people in +the Lewis, and it iss not all as lonely as +Borva."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page677" id="page677"></a>[pg 677]</span> + +<p>"If it is half as pleasant a place to +live in as Borva, it will do," said Lavender, +with a flush of enthusiasm in his +face as he looked toward Sheila and +saw her pleased and downcast eyes.</p> + +<p>"But it iss not to be compared," said +Mackenzie eagerly. "Borva, that is +nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a +ferry different thing to live in the Lewis; +and many English gentlemen hef told +me they would like to live always in the +Lewis."</p> + +<p>"I think I should too," said Lavender +lightly and carelessly, little thinking what +importance the old man immediately and +gladly put upon the admission.</p> + +<p>From that moment, Lavender, although +unconscious of what had happened, had +nothing to fear in the way of opposition +from Sheila's father. If he had there +and then boldly asked Mackenzie for +his daughter, the old man would have +given his consent freely, and bade Lavender +go to Sheila herself.</p> + +<p>And so they set sail, one pleasant +forenoon, from Borvabost, and the light +wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag +gently filled the mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara +as she lightly ran down the +tortuous channel.</p> + +<p>"I don't like to go away from Borva," +said Lavender in a low voice to Sheila, +"but I might have been leaving the island +with greater regret, for, you know, +I expect to be back soon."</p> + +<p>"We shall always be glad to see you," +said the girl; and although he would +rather have had her say "I" than "we," +there was something in the tone of her +voice that contented him.</p> + +<p>At Garra-na-hina Mackenzie pointed +out with a great interest to Lavender a +tall man who was going down through +some meadows to the Amhuinn Dhubh, +"the Black River." He had a long rod +over his shoulder, and behind him, at +some distance, followed a shorter man, +who carried a gaff and landing-net. +Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender +that the tall figure was that of an +Englishman. Lavender accepted the +statement. But would he not go down +to the river and make his acquaintance? +Lavender could not understand why he +should be expected to take so great an +interest in an ordinary English sportsman.</p> + +<p>"Ferry well," said Mackenzie, a trifle +disappointed, "but you would find several +of the English in the Lewis if you +wass living here."</p> + +<p>These last two days in Stornoway were +very pleasant. On their previous visit +to the town Mackenzie had given up +much of his time to business affairs, and +was a good deal away from his guests, +but now he devoted himself to making +them particularly comfortable in the +place and amusing them in every possible +way. He introduced Lavender, +in especial, to all his friends there, and +was most anxious to impress on the +young man that life in Stornoway was, +on the whole, rather a brilliant affair. +Then was there a finer point from which +you could start at will for Inverness, +Oban and such great centres of civilization? +Very soon there would even be +a telegraphic cable laid to the mainland. +Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently +you could see the Sutherlandshire hills +from this very town of Stornoway?</p> + +<p>There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, +who kept watching her face always to +read all her fancies and sentiments and +wishes in the shifting lights of it, immediately +demanded an explanation.</p> + +<p>"It is no good thing," said Sheila, "to +see the Sutherland hills often, for when +you see them it means to rain."</p> + +<p>But Lavender had not been taught to +fear the rain of the Western Isles. The +very weather seemed to have conspired +with Mackenzie to charm the young man +with the island. At this moment, for example, +they were driving away from Stornoway +along the side of the great bay +that stretches northward until it finds its +furthest promontory in Tiumpan Head. +What magnificence of color shone all +around them in the hot sunlight! Where +the ruffled blue sea came near the long +sweep of yellow sand it grew to be a +bright, transparent green. The splendid +curve of the bay showed a gleaming line +of white where the waves broke in masses +of hissing foam; and beyond that curve +again long promontories of dark red +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page678" id="page678"></a>[pg 678]</span> +conglomerate ran out into the darker waters +of the sea, with their summits shining +with the bright sea-grass. Here, close at +hand, were warm meadows, with calves +and lambs cropping the sweet-scented +Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like +beehives, stood by the roadside, close by +some deep peat cuttings. There was a +cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for +the pulling up of captured whales. Now +and again you could see a solan dart +down from the blue heavens into the +blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of +water twenty feet high as he disappeared; +and far out there, between the red +precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, +white sea-fowl flew from crag to crag or +dropped down upon the sea to rise and +fall with the waves.</p> + +<p>At the small hamlet of Gress they got +a large rowing-boat manned by sturdy +fishermen, and set out to explore the +great caves formed in the mighty wall +of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. +The wild-fowl flew about them, screaming +and yelling at being disturbed. The +long swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed +from under it, and went on with majestic +force to crash on the glowing red +crags and send jets of foam flying up +the face of them. They captured one +of the sea-birds—a young thing about +as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant +feathers, and a long beak with which it +instinctively tried to bite its enemies—and +the parents of it kept swooping +down over the boat, uttering shrill cries, +until their offspring was restored to the +surface of the water. They went into +the great loud-sounding caverns, getting +a new impression of the extraordinary +clearness of the sea-water by the depth at +which the bottom was visible; and here +their shouts occasionally called up from +some dim twilight recess, far in among +the perilous rocks, the head of a young +seal, which would instantly dive again +and be seen no more. They watched +the salmon splash in the shallower creeks +where the sea had scooped out a tiny +bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly +rolling porpoise would show his black +back above the water and silently disappear +again. All this was pleasant +enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh +sea-air and sunlight, in holiday-time; +and was there any reason, Mackenzie +may fairly have thought, why this young +man, if he did marry Sheila, should not +come and live in a place where so much +healthy amusement was to be found?</p> + +<p>And in the evening, too, when they +had climbed to the top of the hills on the +south of Stornoway harbor, did not the +little town look sufficiently picturesque, +with its white houses, its shipping, its +great castle and plantations lying in +shadow under the green of the eastern +sky? Then away to the west what a +strange picture presented itself! Thick +bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, +and the sunlight from behind them sent +down great rays of misty yellow on the +endless miles of moor. But how was it +that, as these shafts of sunlight struck on +the far and successive ridges of the moorland, +each long undulation seemed to +become transparent, and all the island +appeared to consist of great golden-brown +shells heaped up behind each +other, with the sunlight shining through?</p> + +<p>"I have tried a good many new effects +since coming up here," said Lavender, +"but I shall not try <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it iss nothing—it is nothing at +all," said Mackenzie with a studied air +of unconcern. "There iss much more +beautiful things than that in the island, +but you will hef need of a ferry long +time before you will find it all out. That—that +iss nothing at all."</p> + +<p>"You will perhaps make a picture of +it some other time," said Sheila with her +eyes cast down, and as he was standing +by her at the time, he took her hand +and pressed it, and said, "I hope so."</p> + +<p>Then, that night! Did not every hour +produce some new and wonderful scene, +or was it only that each minute grew to +be so precious, and that the enchantment +of Sheila's presence filled the air +around him? There was no moon, but +the stars shone over the bay and the +harbor and the dusky hills beyond the +castle. Every few seconds the lighthouse +at Arnish Point sent out its wild +glare of orange fire into the heart, of +the clear darkness, and then as suddenly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page679" id="page679"></a>[pg 679]</span> +faded out and left the eyes too bewildered +to make out the configuration of +the rocks. All over the north-west there +still remained the pale glow of the twilight, +and somehow Lavender seemed to +think that that strange glow belonged to +Sheila's home in the west, and that the +people in Stornoway knew nothing of +the wonders of Loch Roag and of the +strange nights there. Was he likely +ever to forget?</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Sheila," he said next +morning, when the last signal had been +given and the Clansman was about to +move from her moorings.</p> + +<p>She had bidden good-bye to Ingram +already, but somehow she could not +speak to his companion just at this last +moment. She pressed his hand and +turned away, and went ashore with her +father. Then the big steamer throbbed +its way out of the harbor, and by and by +the island of Lewis lay but as a thin +blue cloud along the horizon; and who +could tell that human beings, with +strange hopes and fancies and griefs, +were hidden away in that pale line of +vapor?</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h3>"FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!"</h3> + + +<p>A night journey from Greenock to +London is a sufficiently prosaic affair in +ordinary circumstances, but it need not +be always so. What if a young man, +apparently occupied in making himself +comfortable and in talking nonsense to +his friend and companion, should be secretly +calculating how the journey could +be made most pleasant to a bride, and +that bride his bride? Lavender made +experiments with regard to the ways +and tempers of guards; he borrowed +planks of wood with which to make +sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class +carriage; he bribed a certain official +to have the compartment secured; +he took note of the time when, and the +place where, refreshments could be procured: +all these things he did, thinking +of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes +surprised by his good-nature, and +occasionally remonstrating against his +extravagance, at last fell asleep on the +more or less comfortable cushions stretched +across the planks, Lavender would +have him wake up again, that he might +be induced to talk once more about +Sheila. Ingram would make use of +some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask +what was the last station they had passed, +and then begin to preach to Lavender +about the great obligations he was +under to Sheila, and what would be expected +of him in after times.</p> + +<p>"You are coming away just now," he +would say, while Lavender, who could +not sleep at all, was only anxious that +Sheila's name should be mentioned, "enriched +with a greater treasure than falls +to the lot of most men. If you know +how to value that treasure, there is not +a king or emperor in Europe who should +not envy you."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think I value it?" the +other would say anxiously.</p> + +<p>"We'll see about that afterward, by +what you do. But in the mean time you +don't know what you have won. You +don't know the magnificent single-heartedness +of that girl, her keen sense of +honor, nor the strength of character, of +judgment and decision that lies beneath +her apparent simplicity. Why, I have +known Sheila, now—But what's the +use of talking?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would talk, though, Ingram," +said his companion quite submissively. +"You have known her longer +than I. I am willing to believe all you +say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know +as much about her as possible. You +don't suppose I fancy she is anything +less than you say?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ingram doubtfully, "perhaps +not. The worst of it is, that you +take such odd readings of people. However, +when you marry her, as I now +hope you may, you will soon find out; +and then, if you are not grateful, if you +don't understand and appreciate <i>then</i> +the fine qualities of this girl, the sooner +you put a millstone round your neck and +drop over Chelsea Bridge the better."</p> + +<p>"She will always have in you a good +friend to look after her when she comes +to London."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page680" id="page680"></a>[pg 680]</span> + +<p>"Oh, don't imagine I mean to thrust +myself in at your breakfast-table to give +you advice. If a husband and wife cannot +manage their own affairs satisfactorily, +no third person can; and I am +getting to be an elderly man, who likes +peace and comfort and his own quiet."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!" +said Lavender impetuously. +"You know you are bound to marry; +and the woman you ask to marry you +will be a precious fool if she refuses. I +don't know, indeed, how you and Sheila +ever escaped—"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lavender," said his companion, +speaking in a somewhat more +earnest fashion, "if you marry Sheila +Mackenzie I suppose I may see something +of both of you from time to time. +But you are naturally jealous and exacting, +as is the way with many good fellows +who have had too much of their +own will in the world; and if you start +off with the notion now that Sheila and +I might ever have married, or that such +a thing was ever thought of by either of +us, the certain consequence will be that +you will become jealous of me, and that +in time I shall have to stop seeing either +of you if you happen to be living in +London."</p> + +<p>"And if ever the time comes," said +Lavender lightly, "when I prove myself +such a fool, I hope I shall remember that +a millstone can be bought in Victoria +road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy."</p> + +<p>"All right: I'm going to sleep."</p> + +<p>For some time after Ingram was permitted +to rest in peace, and it was not +until they had reached some big station +or other toward morning that he woke. +Lavender had never closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you been asleep?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now?"</p> + +<p>"My aunt."</p> + +<p>"You seem to have acquired a trick +recently of looking at all the difficulties +of your position at once. Why don't you +take them singly? You've just got rid +of Mackenzie's opposition: that might +have contented you for a while."</p> + +<p>"I think the best plan will be to say +nothing of this to my aunt at present. I +think we ought to get married first, and +when I take Sheila to see her as my wife, +what can she say then?"</p> + +<p>"But what is Sheila likely to say before +then? And Sheila's father? You must +be out of your mind!"</p> + +<p>"There will be a pretty scene, then, +when I tell her."</p> + +<p>"Scenes don't hurt anybody, unless +when they end in brickbats or decanters. +Your aunt must know you would marry +some day."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you know whom she wished +me to marry."</p> + +<p>"That is nothing. Every old lady +has a fancy for imagining possible marriages; +but your aunt is a reasonable +woman, and could not possibly object +to your marrying a girl like Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't +know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are +the arms borne by your wife's family?' +'My dear aunt, I will describe them to +you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The +arms are quarterly: first and fourth, +vert, a herring, argent; second and +third, azure, a solan-goose, volant, or. +The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, +a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, +dexter, a gillie; sinister, a fisherman.'"</p> + +<p>"And a very good coat-of-arms, too. +You might add the motto <i>Ultimus regum</i>. +Or <i>Atavis editus regibus</i>. Or <i>Tyrrhena +regum progenies</i>. To think that your +aunt would forbid your wedding a king's +daughter!"</p> + +<p>"I should wed the king's daughter, +aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, you +see, it would be uncommonly awkward, +just as old Mackenzie would want to +know something more particular about +my circumstances; and he might ask +for references to the old lady herself, +just as if I were a tenant about to take +a house."</p> + +<p>"I have given him enough references. +Go to sleep, and don't bother yourself."</p> + +<p>But now Ingram felt himself just as +unable as his companion to escape into +unconsciousness, and so he roused himself +thoroughly, and began to talk about +Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, +and the duties and responsibilities +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page681" id="page681"></a>[pg 681]</span> +Lavender would undertake in marrying +Sheila.</p> + +<p>"Mackenzie," he said, "will expect +you to live in Stornoway at least half +the year, and it will be very hard on +him if you don't."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that," said the other, "I +should have no objection; but, you see, +if I am to get married I really think I +ought to try to get into some position of +earning my own living or helping toward +it, you know. I begin to see how +galling this sort of dependence on my +aunt might be if I wished to act for myself. +Now, if I were to begin to do anything, +I could not go and bury myself +in Lewis for half the year—just at first: +by and by, you know, it might be different. +But don't you think I ought to +begin and do something?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly. I have often wished +you had been born a carpenter or painter +or glazier."</p> + +<p>"People are not born carpenters or +glaziers, but sometimes they are born +painters. I think I have been born +nothing; but I am willing to try, more +especially as I think Sheila would like +it."</p> + +<p>"I know she would."</p> + +<p>"I will write and tell her the moment +I get to London."</p> + +<p>"I would fix first what your occupation +was to be, if I were you. There is +no hurry about telling Sheila, although +she will be very glad to get as much +news of you as possible, and I hope you +will spare no time or trouble in pleasing +her in that line. By the way, what +an infamous shame it was of you to go +and gammon old Mackenzie into the +belief that he can read poetry! Why, +he will make that girl's life a burden to +her. I heard him propose to read <i>Paradise +Lost</i> to her as soon as the rain set +in."</p> + +<p>"I didn't gammon him," said Lavender +with a laugh. "Every man thinks +he can read poetry better than every +other man, even as every man fancies +that no one gets cigars as good and as +cheap as he does, and that no one can +drive a horse safely but himself. My +talking about his reading was not as bad +as Sheila's persuading him that he can +play whist. Did you ever know a man +who did not believe that everybody else's +reading of poetry was affected, stilted +and unbearable? I know Mackenzie +must have been reading poetry to Sheila +long before I mentioned it to him."</p> + +<p>"But that suggestion about his resonant +voice and the Crystal Palace?"</p> + +<p>"That was a joke."</p> + +<p>"He did not take it as a joke, and +neither did Sheila."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sheila would believe that her +father could command the Channel fleet, +or turn out the present ministry, or build +a bridge to America, if only anybody +hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal +Palace: did you observe how little notion +of size she could have got from pictures +when she asked me if the Crystal Palace +was much bigger than the hot-houses at +Lewis Castle?"</p> + +<p>"What a world of wonder the girl is +coming into!" said the other meditatively. +"But it will be all lit up by one sun +if only you take care of her and justify +her belief in you."</p> + +<p>"I have not much doubt," said Lavender +with a certain modest confidence +in his manner which had repeatedly of +late pleased his friend.</p> + +<p>Even Sheila herself could scarcely +have found London more strange than +did the two men who had just returned +from a month's sojourn in the northern +Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston +Square, the pale sunlight that shone +down on the gray pavements, the noise +of the omnibuses and carts, the multitude +of strangers, the blue and mist-like +smoke that hung about Tottenham Court +road,—all were as strange to them as the +sensation of sitting in a hansom and being +driven along by an unseen driver. Lavender +confessed afterward that he was +pervaded by an odd sort of desire to +know whether there was anybody in +London at all like Sheila. Now and +again a smartly-dressed girl passed along +the pavement: what was it that made +the difference between her and that other +girl whom he had just left? Yet he wished +to have the difference as decided as +possible. When some bright, fresh-colored, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page682" id="page682"></a>[pg 682]</span> +pleasant-looking girl passed, he was +anxious to prove to himself that she was +not to be compared with Sheila. Where +in all London could you find eyes that +told so much? He forgot to place the +specialty of Sheila's eyes in the fact of +their being a dark gray-blue under black +eyelashes. What he did remember was +that no eyes could possibly say the same +things to him as they had said. And +where in all London was the same sweet +aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously +proud and gentle demeanor, or +the same tender friendliness expressed +in a beautiful face? He would not say +anything against London women, for all +that. It was no fault of theirs that they +could not be sea-kings' daughters, with +the courage and frankness and sweetness +of the sea gone into their blood. He +was only too pleased to have proved to +himself, by looking at some half dozen +pretty shop-girls, that not in London was +there any one to compare with Princess +Sheila.</p> + +<p>For many a day thereafter Ingram +had to suffer a good deal of this sort of +lover's logic, and bore it with great fortitude. +Indeed, nothing pleased him +more than to observe that Lavender's +affection, so far from waning, engrossed +more and more of his thought and his +time; and he listened with unfailing +good-nature and patience to the perpetual +talk of his friend about Sheila and her +home, and the future that might be in +store for both of them. If he had accepted +half the invitations to dinner sent +down to him at the Board of Trade by +his friend, he would scarcely ever have +been out of Lavender's club. Many a +long evening they passed in this way—either +in Lavender's rooms in King street +or in Ingram's lodgings in Sloane street. +Ingram quite consented to lie in a chair +and smoke, sometimes putting in a word +of caution to bring Lavender back from +the romantic Sheila to the real Sheila, +sometimes smiling at some wild proposal +or statement on the part of his friend, +but always glad to see that the pretty +idealisms planted during their stay in +the far North were in no danger of dying +out down here in the South. Those were +great days, too, when a letter arrived +from Sheila. Nothing had been said +about their corresponding, but Lavender +had written shortly after his arrival in +London, and Sheila had answered for +her father and herself. It wanted but +a very little amount of ingenuity to continue +the interchange of letters thus begun; +and when the well-known envelope +arrived high holiday was immediately +proclaimed by the recipient of it. He +did not show Ingram these letters, of +course, but the contents of them were +soon bit by bit revealed. He was also +permitted to see the envelope, as if +Sheila's handwriting had some magical +charm about it. Sometimes, indeed, Ingram +had himself a letter from Sheila, +and that was immediately shown to Lavender. +Was he pleased to find that these +communications were excessively business-like—describing +how the fishing was going on, what was doing in the +schools, and how John the Piper was +conducting himself, with talk about the +projected telegraphic cable, the shooting +in Harris, the health of Bras, and other +esoteric matters?</p> + +<p>Lavender's communications with the +King of Borva were of a different nature. +Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture +and what not, tobacco hailing +from certain royal sources in the neighborhood +of the Pyramids, and now and +again a new sort of rifle or some fresh +invention in fishing-tackle,—these were +the sort of things that found their way to +Lewis. And then in reply came haunches +of venison, and kegs of rare whisky, and +skins of wild animals, which, all very +admirable in their way, were a trifle +cumbersome in a couple of moderate +rooms in King street, St. James's. But +here Lavender hit upon a happy device. +He had long ago talked to his aunt of +the mysterious potentate in the far North, +who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, +and who had an only daughter. When +these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender +was informed that they were meant for +her, and was given to understand that +they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage +monarch who wished to seek her +friendship. In vain did Ingram warn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page683" id="page683"></a>[pg 683]</span> +Lavender of the possible danger of this +foolish joke. The young man laughed, +and would come down to Sloane street +with another story of his success as an +envoy of the distant king.</p> + +<p>And so the months went slowly by, and +Lavender raved about Sheila, and dreamed +about Sheila, and was always going +to begin some splendid achievement for +Sheila's sake, but never just managed to +begin. After all, the future did not look +very terrible, and the present was satisfactory +enough. Mrs. Lavender had no +objection whatever to listening to his +praises of Sheila, and had even gone +the length of approving of the girl's photograph +when it was shown her. But at +the end of six months Lavender suddenly +went down to Sloane street, found +Ingram in his lodgings, and said, "Ingram, +I start for Lewis to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"The more fool you!" was the complacent +reply.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear this any longer: I must +go and see her."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to bear worse if you go. +You don't know what getting to Lewis +is in the winter. You'll be killed with +cold before you see the Minch."</p> + +<p>"I can stand a good bit of cold when +there's a reason for it," said the young +man; "and I have written to Sheila to +say I should start to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"In that case I had better make use +of you. I suppose you won't mind +taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket +that I have bought for her."</p> + +<p>"That you have bought for her!" said +the other.</p> + +<p>How could he have spared fifteen +pounds out of his narrow income for +such a present? And yet he laughed at +the idea of his ever having been in love +with Sheila.</p> + +<p>Lavender took the sealskin jacket with +him, and started on his journey to the +North. It was certainly all that Ingram +had prophesied in the way of discomfort, +hardship and delay. But one forenoon, +Lavender, coming up from the cabin of +the steamer into which he had descended +to escape from the bitter wind and +the sleet, saw before him a strange thing. +In the middle of the black sea and under +a dark gray sky lay a long wonder-land +of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could +see the successive headlands of pale white +jutted out into the dark ocean, until in +the south they faded into a gray mist and +became invisible. And when they got +into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed +the waters of the little bay and the +hulls of the boats and the windows of +the houses against the blinding white of +the encircling hills!</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lavender to the captain, +"it will be a cold drive across to Loch +Roag. I shall give Mackenzie's man a +good dram before we start."</p> + +<p>But it was not Mackenzie's notion of +hospitality to send Duncan to meet an +honored guest, and ere the vessel was +fast moored Lavender had caught sight +of the well-known pair of horses and the +brown wagonette, and Mackenzie stamping +up and down in the trampled snow. +And this figure close down to the edge +of the quay? Surely, there was something +about the thick gray shawl, the +white feather, the set of the head, that +he knew!</p> + +<p>"Why, Sheila!" he cried, jumping +ashore before the gangway was shoved +across, "whatever made you come to +Stornoway on such a day?"</p> + +<p>"And it is not much my coming to +Stornoway if you will come all the way +from England to the Lewis," said Sheila, +looking up with her bright and glad +eyes.</p> + +<p>For six months he had been trying to +recall the tones of her voice in looking +at her picture, and had failed: now he +fancied that she spoke more sweetly and +musically than ever.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," said Mackenzie when he +had shaken hands with the young man, +"it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming +over to meet you in Styornoway; +but the girl will be neither to hold nor +to bind when she teks a foolishness into +her head."</p> + +<p>"Is this the character I hear of you, +Sheila?" he said; and Mackenzie laughed +at his daughter's embarrassment, and +said she was a good lass for all that, and +bundled both the young folks into the +inn, where luncheon had been provided, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page684" id="page684"></a>[pg 684]</span> +with a blazing fire in the room, and a +kettle of hot water steaming beside it.</p> + +<p>When they got to Borva, Lavender +began to see that Mackenzie had laid +the most subtle plans for reconciling +him to the hard weather of these northern +winters; and the young man, nothing +loath, fell into his ways, and was +astonished at the amusement and interest +that could be got out of a residence +in this bleak island at such a season. +Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble +protections against cold and wet which +his guest had brought with him. He +gave him a pair of his own knickerbockers +and enormous boots; he made him +wear a frieze coat borrowed from Duncan; +he insisted on his turning down +the flap of a sealskin cap and tying the +ends under his chin; and thus equipped +they started on many a rare expedition +round the coast. But on their first going +out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said +with some chagrin, "Will they wear +gloves when they go shooting in your +country?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only +a pair of old dogskins I use chiefly to +keep my hands clean. You see I have +cut out the trigger-finger. And they +keep your hands from being numbed, +you know, with the cold or the rain."</p> + +<p>"There will be not much need of that +after a little while," said Mackenzie; +and indeed, after half an hour's tramping +over snow and climbing over rocks, +Lavender was well inclined to please +the old man by tossing the gloves into +the sea, for his hands were burning with +heat.</p> + +<p>Then the pleasant evenings after all +the fatigues of the day were over, clothes +changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila +at the open piano in that warm little +drawing-room, with its strange shells +and fish and birds!</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays;</p> +<p>He in thy snowy bosom strays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>they sang, just as in the bygone times of +summer; and now old Mackenzie had +got on a bit farther in his musical studies, +and could hum with the best of them,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He makes thy rosy lips his care,</p> +<p>And walks the mazes of thy hair.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>There was no winter at all in the snug +little room, with its crimson fire and +closed shutters and songs of happier +times. "When the rosy morn appearing" +had nothing inappropriate in it; +and if they particularly studied the words +of "Oh wert thou in the cauld blast," it +was only that Sheila might teach her +companion the Scotch pronunciation, as +far as she knew it. And once, half in +joke, Lavender said he could believe it +was summer again if Sheila had only on +her slate-gray silk dress, with the red +ribbon round her neck; and sure enough, +after dinner she came down in that dress, +and Lavender took her hand and kissed +it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, +Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for +not having brought him his pipe, and +not only went out of the room to look +for it, but was a full half hour in finding +it. When he came in again he was +singing carelessly,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>just as if he had got his pipe round the +corner.</p> + +<p>For it had been all explained by this +time, you know, and Sheila had in a +couple of trembling words pledged away +her life, and her father had given his +consent. More than that he would have +done for the girl, if need were; and when +he saw the perfect happiness shining in +her eyes—when he saw that, through +some vague feelings of compunction or +gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was +more than usually affectionate toward +himself—he grew reconciled to the ways +of Providence, and was ready to believe +that Ingram had done them all a good +turn in bringing his friend from the South +with him. If there was any haunting +fear at all, it was about the possibility of +Sheila's husband refusing to live in Stornoway, +even for half the year or a portion +of the year; but did not the young man +express himself as delighted beyond +measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, +and the sports and scenery and +climate of the island? If Mackenzie +could have bought fine weather at twenty +pounds a day, Lavender would have +gone back to London with the conviction +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page685" id="page685"></a>[pg 685]</span> +that there was only one thing better than +Lewis in summer-time, and that was +Lewis in time of snow and frost.</p> + +<p>The blow fell. One evening a distinct +thaw set in, during the night the wind +went round to the south-west, and in the +morning, lo! the very desolation of desolation. +Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal +were all hidden away behind +dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady +rain poured down from the lowering +skies on the wet rocks, the marshy pasture-land +and the leafless bushes; the +Atlantic lay dark under a gray fog, +and you could scarcely see across the +loch in front of the house. Sometimes +the wind freshened a bit, and howled +about the house or dashed showers +against the streaming panes; but ordinarily +there was no sound but the ceaseless +hissing of the rain on the wet gravel +at the door and the rush of the waves +along the black rocks. All signs of life +seemed to have fled from the earth and +the sky. Bird and beast had alike taken +shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye +crossed the melancholy lines of moorland, +which were half obscured by the +mist of the rain.</p> + +<p>"Well, it can't be fine weather always," +said Lavender cheerfully when Mackenzie +was affecting to be greatly surprised +to find such a thing as rain in the island +of Lewis.</p> + +<p>"No, that iss quite true," said the old +man. "It wass ferry good weather we +were having since you hef come here. +And what iss a little rain?—oh, nothing +at all. You will see it will go away +whenever the wind goes round."</p> + +<p>With that Mackenzie would again go +out to the front of the house, take a turn +up and down the wet gravel, and pretend +to be scanning the horizon for signs of a +change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, +went about her household duties, +saying merely to Lavender, "I am very +sorry the weather has broken, but it may +clear before you go away from Borva."</p> + +<p>"Before I go? Do you expect it to +rain for a week?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it will not, but it is looking +very bad to-day," said Sheila.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care," said the young +man, "though it should rain the skies +down, if only you would keep in-doors, +Sheila. But you do go out in such a +reckless fashion. You don't seem to reflect +that it is raining."</p> + +<p>"I do not get wet," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why, when you came up from the +shore half an hour ago your hair was as +wet as possible, and your face all red +and gleaming with the rain."</p> + +<p>"But I am none the worse. And I +am not wet now. It is impossible that +you will always keep in a room if you +have things to do; and a little rain does +not hurt any one."</p> + +<p>"It occurs to me, Sheila," he observed +slowly, "that you are an exceedingly +obstinate and self-willed young person, +and that no one has ever exercised any +proper control over you."</p> + +<p>She looked up for a moment with a +sudden glance of surprise and pain: +then she saw in his eyes that he meant +nothing, and she went forward to him, +putting her hand in his hand, and saying +with a smile, "I am very willing to +be controlled."</p> + +<p>"Are you really?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then hear my commands. You +shall <i>not</i> go out in time of rain without +putting something over your head or +taking an umbrella. You shall <i>not</i> go +out in the Maighdean-mhara without +taking some one with you besides Mairi. +You shall never, if you are away from +home, go within fifty yards of the sea, so +long as there is snow on the rocks."</p> + +<p>"But that is so very many things +already: is it not enough?" said Sheila.</p> + +<p>"You will faithfully remember and +observe these rules?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"Then you are a more obedient girl +than I imagined or expected; and you +may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction +of offering me a glass of sherry +and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis +is a dreadful place for making people +hungry."</p> + +<p>Mackenzie need not have been afraid. +Strange as it may appear, Lavender was +well content with the wet weather. No +depression or impatience or remonstrance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page686" id="page686"></a>[pg 686]</span> +was visible on his face when he went to +the blurred windows, day after day, to +see only the same desolate picture—the +dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists +over the moorland and the shining of +the red gravel before the house. He +would stand with his hands in his pocket +and whistle "Love in thine eyes for ever +plays," just as if he were looking out on +a cheerful summer sunrise. When he +and Sheila went to the door, and were +received by a cold blast of wet wind and +a driving shower of rain, he would slam +the door to again with a laugh, and pull +the girl back into the house. Sometimes +she would not be controlled; and +then he would accompany her about the +garden as she attended to her duties, or +would go down to the shore with her to +give Bras a run. From these excursions +he returned in the best of spirits, with a +fine color in his face; until, having got +accustomed to heavy boots, impervious +frieze and the discomfort of wet hands, +he grew to be about as indifferent to the +rain as Sheila herself, and went fishing +or shooting or boating with much content, +whether it was wet or dry.</p> + +<p>"It has been the happiest month of +my life—I know that," he said to Mackenzie +as they stood together on the +quay at Stornoway.</p> + +<p>"And I hope you will hef many like +it in the Lewis," said the old man cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"I think I should soon learn to become +a Highlander up here," said Lavender, +"if Sheila would only teach me +the Gaelic."</p> + +<p>"The Gaelic!" cried Mackenzie impatiently. +"The Gaelic! It is none of +the gentlemen who will come here in the +autumn will want the Gaelic; and what +for would you want the Gaelic—ay, if +you was staying here the whole year +round?"</p> + +<p>"But Sheila will teach me all the +same—won't you, Sheila?" he said, +turning to his companion, who was +gazing somewhat blankly at the rough +steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond +the harbor.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl: she seemed in +no mood for joking.</p> + +<p>Lavender returned to town more in +love than ever; and soon the news of +his engagement was spread abroad, he +nothing loath. Most of his club-friends +laughed, and prophesied it would come +to nothing. How could a man in Lavender's +position marry anybody but an +heiress? He could not afford to go and +marry a fisherman's daughter. Others +came to the conclusion that artists and +writers and all that sort of people were +incomprehensible, and said "Poor beggar!" +when they thought of the fashion +in which Lavender had ruined his +chances in life. His lady friends, however, +were much more sympathetic. +There was a dash of romance in the +story; and would not the Highland girl +be a curiosity for a little while after she +came to town? Was she like any of +the pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging +up in his rooms? Had he not even a +sketch of her? An artist, and yet not +have a portrait of the girl he had chosen +to marry? Lavender had no portrait of +Sheila to show. Some little photographs +he had he kept for his own pocket-book, +while in vain had he tried to get some +sketch or picture that would convey to +the little world of his friends and +acquaintances some notion of his future +bride. They were left to draw on their +imagination for some presentiment of +the coming princess.</p> + +<p>He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. +She said little, but sent for Edward +Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, +close and yet apparently indifferent way, +and then merely said that Frank was +very impetuous, that it was a pity he had +resolved on marrying out of his own +sphere of life, but that she hoped the +young lady from the Highlands would +prove a good wife to him.</p> + +<p>"I hope he will prove a good husband +to her," said Ingram with unusual sharpness.</p> + +<p>"Frank is very impetuous." That +was all Mrs. Lavender would say.</p> + +<p>By and by, as the spring drew on and +the time of the marriage was coming +nearer, the important business of taking +and furnishing a house for Sheila's reception +occupied the attention of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page687" id="page687"></a>[pg 687]</span> +young man from morning till night. He +had been somewhat disappointed at the +cold fashion in which his aunt looked +upon his choice, admitting everything he +had to say in praise of Sheila, but never +expressing any approval of his conduct +or hope about the future; but now she +showed herself most amiably and generously +disposed. She supplied the young +man with abundant funds wherewith to +furnish the house according to his own +fancy. It was a small place, fronting a +somewhat commonplace square in Notting +Hill, but it was to be a miracle of +artistic adornment inside. He tortured +himself for days over rival shades and +hues; he drew designs for the chairs; +he himself painted a good deal of paneling;, +and, in short, gave up his whole +time to making Sheila's future home +beautiful. His aunt regarded these +preparations with little interest, but she +certainly gave her nephew ample means +to indulge the eccentricities of his fancy.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a dear old lady?" said Lavender +one night to Ingram. "Look here! +A cheque, received this morning, for two +hundred pounds, for plate and glass."</p> + +<p>Ingram looked at the bit of pale green +paper: "I wish you had earned the +money yourself, or done without the +plate until you could buy it with your +own money."</p> + +<p>"Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry +your puritanical theories too far. Doubtless +I shall earn my own living by and +by. Give me time."</p> + +<p>"It is now nearly a year since you +thought of marrying Sheila Mackenzie, +and you have not done a stroke of work +yet."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon. I have worked +a good deal of late, as you will see when +you come up to my rooms."</p> + +<p>"Have you sold a single picture since +last summer?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot make people buy my pictures +if they don't choose to do so."</p> + +<p>"Have you made any effort to get +them sold, or to come to any arrangement +with any of the dealers?"</p> + +<p>"I have been too busy of late—looking +after this house, you know," said +Lavender with an air of apology.</p> + +<p>"You were not too busy to paint a fan +for Mrs. Lorraine, that people say must +have occupied you for months."</p> + +<p>Lavender laughed: "Do you know, +Ingram, I think you are jealous of Mrs. +Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, +you shall go and see her."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Are you afraid of your Puritan principles +giving way?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that you are a very foolish +boy," said the other with a good-humored +shrug of resignation, "but I +hope to see you mend when you marry."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then you <i>will</i> see a difference!" +said Lavender seriously; and so the dispute +ended.</p> + +<p>It had been arranged that Ingram +should go up to Lewis to the marriage, +and after the ceremony in Stornoway +return to Borva with Mr. Mackenzie, to +remain with him a few days. But at +the last moment Ingram was summoned +down to Devonshire on account of the +serious illness of some near relative, and +accordingly Frank Lavender started by +himself to bring back with him his +Highland bride. His stay in Borva was +short enough on this occasion. At the +end of it there came a certain wet and +boisterous day, the occurrences in which +he afterward remembered as if they had +taken place in a dream. There were +many faces about, a confusion of tongues, +a good deal of dram-drinking, a skirl of +pipes, and a hurry through the rain; +but all these things gave place to the +occasional glance that he got from a +pair of timid and trusting and beautiful +eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that +dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. +She was more his own Sheila when she +had donned her rough garments of blue, +and when she stood on the wet deck +of the vessel, with a great gray shawl +around her, talking to her father with a +brave effort at cheerfulness, although +her lip would occasionally quiver as one +or other, of her friends from Borva—many +of them barefooted children—came +up to bid her good-bye. Her father +talked rapidly, with a grand affectation +of indifference. He swore at the +weather. He bade her see that Bras +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page688" id="page688"></a>[pg 688]</span> +was properly fed, and if the sea broke +over his box in the night, he was to be +rubbed dry, and let out in the morning +for a run up and down the deck. She +was not to forget the parcel directed to +an innkeeper at Oban. They would +find Oban a very nice place at which +to break the journey to London, but as +for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no +words with which to describe Greenock.</p> + +<p>And then, in the midst of all this, +Sheila suddenly said, "Papa, when does +the steamer leave?"</p> + +<p>"In a few minutes. They have got +nearly all the cargo on board."</p> + +<p>"Will you do me a great favor, papa?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but what is it, Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"I want you not to stay here till the +boat sails, and then you will have all +the people on the quay vexing you when +you are going away. I want you to bid +good-bye to us now, and drive away +round to the point, and we shall see you +the last of all when the steamer has got +out of the harbor."</p> + +<p>"Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that," he +said, knowing well why the girl wished it.</p> + +<p>So father and daughter bade good-bye +to each other; and Mackenzie went on +shore with his face down, and said not +a word to any of his friends on the quay, +but got into the wagonette, and, lashing +the horses, drove rapidly away. As he +had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender +had said to him, "Well, we shall +soon be back in Borva again to see you;" +and the old man had merely tightened +the grip of his hand as he left.</p> + +<p>The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, +the throb of the engines struck the water, +and the great steamer steamed away +from the quay and out of the plain of +the harbor into a wide world of gray +waves and wind and rain. There stood +Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure +clearly seen against the pallid colors +of the dismal day; and Sheila waved +a handkerchief to him until Stornoway +and its lighthouse and all the promontories +and bays of the great island had +faded into the white mists that lay along +the horizon. And then her arm fell to +her side, and for a moment she stood +bewildered, with a strange look in her +eyes of grief, and almost of despair.</p> + +<p>"Sheila, my darling, you must go below +now," said her companion: "you +are almost dead with cold."</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment, as +though she had scarcely heard what he +said. But his eyes were full of pity for +her: he drew her closer to him, and put +his arms round her, and then she hid +her head in his bosom and sobbed there +like a child.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + + + +<h2>THE EMERALD.</h2> + + +<p>Dutens and several others who +have written upon gems and precious +stones during the last two centuries +have asserted that the ancients were +unacquainted with the true emerald, and +that Heliodorus, when speaking nearly +two thousand years ago of "gems green +as a meadow in the spring," or Pliny, +when describing stone of a "soft green +lustre," referred to the peridot, the plasma, +the malachite, or the far rarer gem, +the green sapphire. But the antiquary +has come to the rescue with the treasures +of the despoiled mounds of Tuscany, the +exposed ashes of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +and now exhibits emeralds which +were mounted in gold two thousand years +before Columbus dreamed of the New +World, or Pizarro and his remorseless +band gathered the precious stones by +the hundred-weight from the spoils of +Peru. Although these specimens of antique +jewelry set with emeralds may be +numbered by the score or more in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page689" id="page689"></a>[pg 689]</span> +museums and "reliquaries" of Europe, +but very few engraved emeralds have +descended to us from ancient times: +This rarity is not due to the hardness of +the stone, for the ancient lapidaries cut +the difficult and still harder sapphire: +therefore we must believe the statement +of the early gem-writers that the emerald +was exempted from the glyptic art by +common consent on account of its beauty +and costliness.</p> + +<p>The emerald is now one of the rarest +of gems, and its scarcity gives rise to +the inquiry as to what has become of the +abundant shower of emeralds which fairly +rained upon Spain during the early +days of the conquest of Mexico and +Peru, bringing down the value of fine +stones to a trifling price. As with all +commercial articles, there is a waste and +loss to be accounted for during the wear +of three centuries, but this alone will not +explain their present rarity in civilized +countries. Even in the times of Charles +II., when the destitution of the country +was extreme, the dukes of Infantado and +Albuquerque had millions in diamonds, +rubies and precious stones, yet hardly +possessed a single sou. So impoverished +was the land, and so slender were the +purses of all, that the duke of +Albuquerque dined on an egg and a pigeon, +yet it required six weeks to make an inventory +of his plate. At this period, +when the nobles gave fêtes the lamps +were often decorated with emeralds and +the ceilings garlanded with precious +stones. The women fairly blazed with +sparkling gems of fabulous value, while +the country was starving. Most, if not +all, of this missing treasure was transferred +to Asia, and with the silver current +which flowed steadily from the +Spanish coffers into India went many of +the emeralds also; for in those regions +this gem is regarded as foreign stone, +and the natives, investing it with the +possession of certain talismanic properties, +prize it above all earthly treasures.</p> + +<p>When the Spaniards commenced their +march toward the capital of Mexico, they +were astonished at the magnificence of +the costumes of the chiefs who came to +meet them as envoys or join them as +allies, and among the splendid gems +which adorned their persons they recognized +emeralds and turquoises of such +rare perfection and beauty that their +cupidity was excited to the highest degree. +During the after years of conquest +and occupation the avaricious spoilers +sought in vain for the parent ledge where +these precious stones were found. Recent +times have, however, revealed the +home of the Mexican turquoise, which +has proved to be in the northern part of +Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the +inquiring Spaniards. The first of these +mines, which is of great antiquity, is +situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, +eighteen miles from Santa Fé. The +deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and +an immense cavity of several hundred +feet in extent has been excavated by the +Indians while searching for this gem in +past times. Probably some of the fine +turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at +the time of the Spanish Conquest came +from this mine. Another mine is located +in the Sierra Blanca Mountains in New +Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow +strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent +beauty have been taken from +it, and handed down in the tribe from +generation to generation as heirlooms. +Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians +to dispose of these gems, and +gratitude alone causes them to part with +any of these treasures, which, like the +mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with +mystical reverence. The Navajos wear +them as ear-drops, by boring them and +attaching them to the ear by means of +a deer sinew. Lesser stones are pierced, +then strung on sinews and worn as neck-laces. +Even the nobler Ute Indians, +when stripping the ornaments of turquoise +from the ears of the conquered +Navajos, value them as sacred treasures, +and refuse to part with them even for +gold or silver.</p> + +<p>All the Spanish accounts of the invasion +of Mexico agree in the great abundance +of emeralds, both in the adornment +of the chiefs and nobles and also in the +decoration of the gods, the thrones and +the paraphernalia. The Mexican historian +Ixtlilxochitl says the throne of gold +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page690" id="page690"></a>[pg 690]</span> +in the palace of Tezcuco was inlaid with +turquoises and other precious stones—that +a human skull in front of it was +crowned with an immense emerald of a +pyramidal form.</p> + +<p>The great standard of the republic +of Tlascala was richly ornamented with +emeralds and silver-work. The fantastic +helmets of the chiefs glittered with gold +and precious stones, and their plumes +were set with emeralds. The mantle of +Montezuma was held together by a clasp +of the green chalchivitl (jade), and the +same precious gem, with emeralds of +uncommon size, ornamented other parts +of his dress.</p> + +<p>The Mexicans carved the obdurate +jade and emerald with wonderful skill, +using, like the Peruvians, nothing but +silicious powder and copper instruments +alloyed with tin. They also worked with +exquisite taste in gold and silver, and +they represented Nature so faithfully and +so beautifully that the great naturalist +Hernandez took many of these objects +thus portrayed for his models when +describing the natural history of the +country.</p> + +<p>When Cortés returned home he displayed +five emeralds of extraordinary +size and beauty, and presented them to +his bride, the niece of the duke de Bejar. +On his famous expedition along the Pacific +coast and up the Gulf of California +he was reduced to such want as to be +obliged to pawn these jewels for a time. +One of them was as precious as Shylock's +turquoise, and Gomara states that +some Genoese merchants who examined +it in Seville offered forty thousand golden +ducats for it. One of the emeralds was +in the form of a rose; the second in that +of a horn; the third like a fish with eyes +of gold; the fourth was like a little bell, +with a fine pearl for a tongue, and it +bore on its rim the following inscription +in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created +thee!" The fifth, which was the most +valuable of all, was in the form of a +small cup with a foot of gold, and with +four little chains of the same metal attached +to a large pearl as a button: the +edge of the cup was of gold, on which +was engraved in Latin words, "Inter +natos mulierum non surrexit major." +These splendid gems are now buried +deep in the sand on the coast of Barbary, +where they were lost in 1529, when +Cortés was shipwrecked with the admiral +of Castile whilst on their way to assist +Charles V. at the siege of Algiers.</p> + +<p>The quantity of emeralds obtained by +the Spaniards in their pillage of Mexico +was large, but it was trifling when compared +with that collected by Pizarro and +his remorseless followers in the sack +of Peru. Many large and magnificent +stones were obtained by the Spaniards, +but the transcendent gem of all, called +by the Peruvians the Great Mother, and +nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was +concealed by the natives, and all the +efforts of Pizarro and his successors to +discover it proved unavailing.</p> + +<p>The immense uncut Peruvian emerald +given by Rudolph II. to the elector of +Saxony is still preserved in the Green +Vaults at Dresden. This collection is +the finest in the world, and is of the +value of many millions of dollars. The +treasures are arranged in eight apartments, +each surpassing the previous one +in the splendor and richness of its contents. +This museum dates from the +early period when the Freyburg silver-mines +yielded vast revenues, and made +the Saxon princes among the richest +sovereigns in Europe. With lavish hand +these potentates purchased jewels and +works of art, and the treasures they have +thus accumulated are of immense value, +and remind the traveler of the gorgeous +descriptions of Oriental magnificence.</p> + +<p>The finest emerald in Europe is said +to belong to the emperor of Russia. It +weighs but thirty carats, but it is of the +most perfect transparency and of the +most beautiful color. There are many +other fine emeralds among the imperial +jewels of the czar, some of which are +of great size and rare beauty. The +ancient crown of Vladimir glitters with +four great stones of unusual brilliancy. +The grand state sceptre is surmounted +by another emerald of great size. The +sceptre of Poland, which is now treasured +in the Kremlin, has a long green +stone, fractured in the middle. It is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page691" id="page691"></a>[pg 691]</span> +described, and may be one of the Siberian +tourmalines, some of which closely +approach the emerald in hue. The imperial +<i>orb</i> of Russia, which is of Byzantine +workmanship of the tenth century, +has fifty emeralds. This fact alone would +seem to prove that emeralds were known +in Europe or Asia Minor long before the +discovery of America; but, on the other +hand, the ancient crown which was taken +when Kasan was subjugated in 1553 is +destitute of emeralds. And hence we +are inclined to believe the imperial orb +to be of modern workmanship, especially +as some of the ancient state chairs do +not exhibit emeralds among their decorations +of gems and precious stones.</p> + +<p>Nowhere in North America do the +true emeralds occur. Professor Cleaveland, +who was one of the best authorities +of his day, maintained nearly half +a century ago that emeralds which exhibited +a lively and beautiful green hue +were found in blasting a canal through +a ledge of graphic granite in the town +of Topsham in Maine. Several of the +crystals presented so pure, uniform and +rich a green that he ventured to pronounce +them precious emeralds. But +to-day we are unable to verify the assertion, +or point to a single specimen similar +in hue to the emerald from the +above-mentioned locality.</p> + +<p>The nearest approach to the emerald +in color, with the exception of the incomparable +green tourmalines from +Maine, are the beryls of North and +South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts. +These beautiful stones exhibit +the physical, characteristics of emeralds +with the exception of the color, in which +they differ very perceptibly. But to appreciate +fully the difference in hue we +must compare the two gems. Then the +lively green of the beryl fades away before +the overpowering hue of the emerald, +whose rich prismatic green may be +taken as the purest type of that color +known to the chemist or the painter.</p> + +<p>Two summers ago we visited the localities +in Massachusetts which were +famous in the days of Hitchcock and +Webster. We found that the beryls occurred +in a very coarse granite, where +the quartz appeared in masses and the +felspar in huge crystals. These also +occur in finer granite, and exhibit no +indications of veins or connection with +each other. They are few in number, +and are soon exhausted by blasting, +being generally very superficial. After +removing several tons of the rock at the +locality at North Royalston, where the +beryls appear on the summit of the loftiest +hill, our labors were at length rewarded +with two beautiful crystals. One +of them was a fine prism an inch in +diameter, of perfect transparency and +of a deep sea-green color, which, however +is far from being similar to the +transcendent hue of the Granada emeralds, +which exhibit an excess of neither +blue nor yellow. The other was yellowish-green, +resembling the chrysoberyls +of Brazil.</p> + +<p>Other but imperfect crystals were +brought to light, some fragments of +which exhibited the deepest golden tints +of the topaz, and others the tints of the +sherry-wine colored topazes of Siberia. +Magnificent crystals have been found in +these localities in times long past, and +from the fragments and sections of crystals +found in the débris of early explorations +we observed the wide range of color +and the deep longitudinal striae which +characterize the renowned beryls from +the Altai Mountains, in Siberia. Lively +sea- and grass-green, light and deep yellow, +also blue crystals of various shades, +have been found here.</p> + +<p>At the quarries on Rollestone Mountain +in Fitchburg beryls of a rich golden +color have been blasted out. Some of +these approach the chrysoberyl and topaz +in hardness and hue. Others so +closely resemble the yellow diamond +that they may readily be taken for that +superior gem. The refractive power of +these yellow stones is remarkable, and +the goniometer will probably reveal a +higher index than is accorded to all the +varieties of beryl by the learned Abbé +Haüy.</p> + +<p>Beautiful transparent beryls have been +found among the granite hills of Oxford +county in Maine, and the late Governor +Lincoln nearly half a century ago +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page692" id="page692"></a>[pg 692]</span> +possessed a splendid crystal which would +have rivaled the superb prism found at +Mouzzinskaia, and which the Russians +value so highly. The extended and unexplored +ledges of granite which rise from +the shores of the ocean at Harpswell in +Maine, and stretch north-westward for +nearly a hundred miles, quite to the base +of the White Mountain group, are not +only rich in beryls, but they contain +many of the rarest minerals known to +the mineralogist. And perhaps there is +no other field of equal extent in the +country which offers to the mineralogist +such a harvest of the rare and curious +productions of the mineral kingdom.</p> + +<p>At Haddam in Connecticut beautiful +crystals of beryl have been discovered, +and one of these, of fine green color, an +inch in diameter and several inches in +length, was preserved in the cabinet of +Colonel Gibbs. Professor Silliman possessed +another fine one, seven inches in +length.</p> + +<p>The mountains in Colorado have yielded +some fine specimens. But the finest +of the beryl species come from Russia. +In the Ural Mountains the crystals are +small, but of fine color; in the Altai +Mountains they are very large and of a +greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges +of Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier +of China, they are found in the greatest +perfection. They occur on the summit +of the mountain in irregular veins of +micaceous and white indurated clay, and +are greenish-yellow, pure pale green, +greenish-blue and sky-blue. The chief +matrix of the beryl all over the world +is graphic granite, but it may occur in +other rocks. The light green stones of +Limoges in France appear in a vein of +quartz traversing granite. At Royalston +we observed them to spring seemingly +from the felspar and project into smoky +quartz, becoming more transparent as +they advanced into the harder stone.</p> + +<p>The beryl possesses the same crystalline +form and specific gravity as the emerald, +but its hardness (especially in the +yellow varieties) is sometimes greater. +The only perceptible difference in the +two stones is in the color. Cleaveland +thought that as the emerald and beryl +had the same essential characters, they +might gradually pass into each other; +and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both +chrome and iron in one specimen, was +led to take the same view. The crystals +of true emerald are almost always small +(with the exception of those found in the +Wald district in Siberia), whilst those of +the beryl vary from a few grains to +more than a ton in weight. The crystals +of both are almost invariably regular +hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly +modified. Those of the beryl we sometimes +find quite flat, as though they had +been compressed by force: then again +they are acicular and of extraordinary +length, considering their slender diameter. +Sometimes their lateral faces are +longitudinally striated, and as deeply as +the tourmaline, so that the edges of the +prism are rendered indistinct. Other +crystals are curved, and some perforated +in the axis like the tourmaline, so as to +contain other minerals. Sometimes they +are articulated like the pillars of basalt, +and separated at some distance by the +intervening quartz. These modified +forms give rise to curious speculations +as to their formation and origin. If we +admit the action of fire (which is improbable), +then the separation may be +easily explained; but if we insist that +they were deposited in the wet way and +by slow process, how can we account +for the dislocation? "By electricity," +whispers a friend—"by telluric magnetism, +that wonderful unexplained and +mysterious force which has caused the +grand geological changes of the globe, +and is still at work."</p> + +<p>No other gem has been counterfeited +with such perfection as the emerald; and +in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish +the artificial from the real gems by +the aid of the eye alone: even the little +flaws which lull the suspicions of the +inexperienced are easily produced by a +dexterous blow from the mallet of the +skilled artisan. Not only emeralds, but +most of the gems and precious stones, +are now imitated with such consummate +skill as to deceive the eye, and +none but experts are aware of the extent +to which these fictitious gems are worn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page693" id="page693"></a>[pg 693]</span> +in fashionable society, for oftentimes the +wearers themselves imagine that they +possess the real stones. There is not one +in a hundred jewelers who is acquainted +with the physical properties of the gems, +and very few can distinguish the diamond +from the white zircon or the white +topaz, the emerald from the tourmaline +of similar hue, the sapphire from iolite, +or the topaz from the Bohemian yellow +quartz. Jewelers are governed generally +by sight, which they believe to be infallible, +whilst hardness and specific gravity +are the only sure tests.</p> + +<p>Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of +color the most brilliant and delicately +tinted of the productions of Nature are +now made at Paris and in other European +cities. The establishments at +Septmoncel in the Jura alone employ a +thousand persons, and fabulous quantities +of the glittering pastes are made +there and sent to all parts of the world.</p> + +<p>A fine specimen of prase when cut +affords a fair imitation of the emerald. +The green fluor-spar which Haüy called +"emeraude de Carthagène" may also be +substituted, but the application of the +file detects the trick with ease. Some of +the green tourmalines approach the emeralds +in hue very closely, and by artificial +light it is impossible to distinguish +them from each other. Fragments of +quartz may be stained by being steeped +in green-colored tinctures. The Greeks +stained quartz so like the real gem that +Pliny exclaimed against the fraud while +declining to tell how it was done. The +Ancona rubies at the present day are +made by plunging quartz into a hot +tincture of cochineal, which penetrates +the minute fissures of the rock.</p> + +<p>But notwithstanding the high art reached +by modern glass-makers, they are yet +far behind the ancients in imitating the +emerald in point of hardness and lustre. +Many emerald pastes of Roman times +still extant are with difficulty distinguished +from the real gem, so much +harder and lustrous are they than modern +glass. The ancient Phoenician remains +found in the island of Sardinia +by Cavalier Cara in 1856 show fine color +in their enamels and glass-works. The +green pigment brought home from the +ruins of Thebes by Mr. Wilkinson was +shown by Dr. Ure to consist of blue +glass in powder, with yellow ochre and +colorless glass. From Greek inscriptions +dating from the period of the Peloponnesian +war we learn that there +were signets of colored glass among the +gems in the treasury of the Parthenon.</p> + +<p>Of all the emerald imitations that have +descended to us from antiquity, none are +more remarkable, none more interesting +to the antiquary and historian, than the +famous Sacro Catino of the cathedral of +Genoa. This celebrated relic is a glass +dish or patera fourteen inches in width, +five inches in depth and of the richest +transparent green color, though disfigured +by several flaws. It was bestowed upon +the republic of Genoa by the Crusaders +after the capture of Caesarea in 1101, +and was regarded as an equivalent for +a large sum of money due from the +Christian army. It was traditionally believed +to have been presented to King +Solomon by the queen of Sheba, and +afterward preserved in the Temple, and +some accounts relate that it was used by +Christ at the institution of the Lord's +Supper. The Genoese received it with +so much veneration and faith that twelve +nobles were appointed to guard it, and +it was exhibited but once a year, when +a priest held it up in his hand to the +view of the passing throng. The state +in 1319, in a time of pressing need, +pawned the holy relic for twelve hundred +marks of gold (two hundred thousand +dollars), and redeemed it with a +promptness which proved its belief in +the reality of the material as well as in +its sanctity. And it is also related that +the Jews, during a period of fifty years, +lent the republic four million francs, +holding the sacred relic as a pledge of +security. Seven hundred years passed +away, when Napoleon came, and as he +swept down over Italy, gathering her +art-treasures, he ordered the "Holy +Grail" to be conveyed to Paris. It was +deposited in the Cabinet of Antiquities +in the Imperial Library, and the mineralogists +quickly discovered it to be +glass. It is due to the memory of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page694" id="page694"></a>[pg 694]</span> +Condamine to state that he was the first to +doubt the material of the Sacro Catino, +for, when examining it by lamplight in +1757, in the presence of the princes Corsini, +he observed none of the cracks, +clouds and specks common to emeralds, +but detected little bubbles of air. In +1815 the Allies ordered its return to the +cathedral of Genoa. During this journey +the beautiful relic was broken, but +its fragments were restored by a skillful +artisan, and it is now supported upon a +tripod, the fragments being held together +by a band of gold filigree. This remarkable +object of antiquity, which is +of extraordinary beauty of material and +workmanship, furnishes a theme over +which the antiquaries love to muse and +wrangle.</p> + +<p>Another of the antique monster emeralds, +weighing twenty-nine pounds, was +presented to the abbey of Reichenau +near Constance by Charlemagne. Beckman +has also detected this precious relic +to be glass. And probably the great +emerald of two pounds weight brought +home from the Holy Land by one of the +dukes of Austria, and now deposited in +the collection at Vienna, is of the same +material. The hardness of our glass is +yet far inferior to that of the ancients, +and even the ruby lustre of the potters +of Umbria, which was so precious to the +dilettanti of the Cinque Cento period, has +not been recovered.</p> + +<p>The emerald has been a subject of +controversy among the chemists and +mineralogists, and its character, especially +the cause of its beautiful color, is not +clearly defined even at the present day. +But that distinguished chemist, Professor +Lewy of Paris, seems to offer, thus far, +the most correct and plausible theory. +Ten years ago he boldly asserted that +the hue is not due to the oxide of chromium, +and with this opinion he confronted +such eminent men as Vauquelin, +Klaproth and others of high rank in the +scientific world. Not content with his +researches in his laboratory in Paris, he +resolutely crossed the ocean and sought +the emerald in its parent ledges in the +lofty table-lands of New Granada. Here +he obtained new information of a +geological character which goes far to +strengthen his position. The experiments +of M. Lewy indicate, if they do +not prove, that the coloring matter of +the emerald is organic, and readily destroyed +by heat, which would not be the +case if it was due to the oxide of chromium. +All my own fire-tests with the +Granada emerald corroborate the views +of M. Lewy, for in every instance the +gem lost its hue when submitted to a +red heat.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the recent researches of +Wöhler and Rose give negative results. +These experienced chemists kept +an emerald at the temperature of melted +copper for an hour, and found that, although +the stone had become opaque, +the color was not affected. They therefore +considered the oxide of chromium +to be the coloring agent, without, however, +denying the presence of organic +matter. The amount of the oxide of +chromium found by many chemists varies +from one to two per cent., while +Lewy and others found it in a quantity +so small as to be inappreciable, and too +minute to be weighed.</p> + +<p>Before the ordinary blowpipe the emerald +passes rapidly into a whitish vesicular +glass, and with borax it forms a +fine green glass, while its sub-species, +the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: +with salt of phosphorus it slowly dissolves, +leaving a silicious skeleton.<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href= + "#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> + +<p>M. Lewy visited the mines at Muzo +in Granada, and from the results of his +analyses, together with the fact of finding +emeralds in conjunction with the +presence of fossil shells in the limestone +in which they occur, he arrived at the +conclusion that they have been formed +in the wet way—deposited from a chemical +solution. He also found that when +extracted they are so soft and fragile +that the largest and finest fragments can +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page695" id="page695"></a>[pg 695]</span> +be reduced to powder by merely rubbing +them between the fingers, and the crystals +often crack and fall to pieces after +being removed from the mine, apparently +from loss of water. Consequently, +when the emeralds are first extracted +they are laid aside carefully for a few +days until the water is evaporated.</p> + +<p>This statement relative to the softness +of the gem and its subsequent hardening +has been met with a shout of derision +from some of the gem-seekers—none +louder than that of Barbot, the retired +jeweler. Barbot seems to forget that the +rock of which his own house in Paris is +constructed undergoes the same change +after being removed from the deep quarries +in the catacombs under the city. +This phenomenon is observed with many +rocks. Flints acquire additional toughness +by the evaporation of water contained +in them. The steatite of St. Anthony's +Falls grows harder on exposure, +and other minerals when quarried from +considerable depths become firmer on +exposure to the action of the air. Observations +of this kind led Kuhlman to +investigate the cause, and he believes that +the hardening of rocks is not owing solely +to the evaporation of quarry-water, +but that it depends upon the tendency +which all earthy matters possess to undergo +a spontaneous crystallization by +slow dessication, which commences the +moment the rock is exposed to the air.</p> + +<p>The coloring matter of the emerald +seems to be derived from the decomposition +of the remains of animals who +have lived in a bygone age, and whose +remains are now found fossilized in the +rock which forms the matrix of the gem. +This rock in Granada is a black limestone, +with white veins containing ammonites. +Specimens of these rocks exhibiting +fragments of emeralds <i>in situ</i>, +and also ammonites, are to be seen in +the mineralogical gallery of the Jardin +des Plantes in Paris. Lewy believes that +the beautiful tint of these gems is produced +by an organic substance, which +he considers to be a carburet of hydrogen, +similar to that called chlorophyll, +which constitutes the coloring matter of +the leaves of plants; and he has shown +that the emeralds of the darkest hue, +which contain the greatest amount of organic +matter, lose their color completely +at a low red heat, and become opaque +and white; while minerals and pastes +which are well known to be colored by +chromium, like the green garnets (the +lime-chrome garnets) of Siberia, are unchanged +in hue by the action of heat.</p> + +<p>Since the time of the Spanish Conquest, +New Granada has furnished the +world with the most of its emeralds. +The most famous mines are at Muzo, in +the valley of Tunca, between the mountains +of New Granada and Popayan, +about seventy-five miles from Santa Fé +de Bogota, where every rock, it is said, +contains an emerald. At present the +supply of emeralds is very limited, owing +to restrictions on trade and want of +capital and energy in mining operations.</p> + +<p>Blue as well as green emeralds are +found in the Cordillera of the Cubillari. +The Esmeraldas mines in Equador are +said to have been worked successfully +at one period by the Jesuits. The Peruvians +obtained many emeralds from +the barren district of Atacama, and in +the times of the Conquest there were +quarries on the River of Emeralds near +Barbacoas.</p> + +<p>Emeralds are found in Siberia, and +some of the localities may have furnished +to the ancients the Scythian gems +which Pliny and others mention. In +the Wald district magnificent crystals +have been found embedded in mica-slate. +One of these—a twin-crystal, now +in the Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg—is +seven inches long, four inches broad, +and weighs four and a half pounds. +There is another mass in the same collection +which measures fourteen inches +long by twelve broad and five thick, +weighing sixteen and three-quarter +pounds troy. This group shows twenty +crystals from a half inch to five inches +long, and from one to two inches broad. +They were discovered by a peasant cutting +wood near the summit of the mountain. +His eye was attracted by the lustrous +sparkling amongst the decomposed +mica and where the ground had been +exposed by the uprooting of a tree by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page696" id="page696"></a>[pg 696]</span> +the violence of the wind. He collected +a number of the crystals, and brought +them to Katharineburg and showed them +to M. Kokawin, who recognized them +and sent them to St. Petersburg, where +they were critically examined by Van +Worth and pronounced to be emeralds. +One of these crystals was presented by +the emperor to Humboldt when he visited +St. Petersburg, and it is now deposited +in the Berlin collection. Quite a +number of emeralds are now brought +from the Siberian localities, and it is believed +that enterprise and capital would +produce a large supply of the gem.<a id="footnotetag3" +name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a></p> + +<p>The supply of emeralds from South +America is very limited, and may be +ascribed to want of skillful mining, as +well as to climate, the political condition +of the country and the indolence of its +inhabitants. The localities cannot be +exhausted, for they are too numerous +and extensive. The elevated regions in +Granada admit of scientific exploration +by Europeans, and at the present day +the only emerald-mining operations conducted +in South America have been +prosecuted near Santa Fé de Bogota by +a French company, which has paid the +government fourteen thousand dollars +yearly for the right of mining, all the +emeralds obtained being sent to Paris +to be cut by the lapidaries of that city.</p> + +<p>In the Atacama districts, and along +the banks of the River of Emeralds, the +physical obstructions are difficult to +overcome, and pestilential diseases of +malignant character forbid the long sojourn +of the European. Yet the introduction +of Chinese labor may prove +successful and highly remunerative, +since the coolie reared among the jungles +and rice-swamps of Southern China is +quite as exempt from malarial fevers as +the negro.</p> + +<p>The price of the emerald has no fixed +and extended scale, like that of the diamond, +and the fluctuations of its value +during the past three centuries form an +interesting chapter in the history of gems.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>[pg 146]</span> + +<p>In the time of Dutens (1777) the price +of small stones of the first quality was +one louis the carat; one and a half carats, +five louis; two carats, ten louis; and +beyond this weight no rule of value could +be established. In De Boot's day (1600) +emeralds were so plenty as to be worth +only a quarter as much as the diamond. +The markets were glutted with the frequent +importations from Peru, and thirteen +years before the above-mentioned +period one vessel brought from South +America two hundred and three pounds +of fine emeralds, worth at the present +valuation more than seven millions of +dollars. At the beginning of this century, +according to Caire, they were worth +no more than twenty-four francs (or +about five dollars) the carat, and for a +long time antecedent to 1850 they were +valued at only fifteen dollars the carat. +Since this period they have become very +rare, and their valuation has advanced +enormously. In fact, the value of the emerald +now exceeds that of the diamond, +and is rapidly approaching the ratio +fixed by Benevenuto Cellini in the middle +of the sixteenth century, which rated +the emerald at four times, and the ruby +at eight times, the value of the diamond. +Perfect stones (the emerald is exceedingly +liable to flaw, the beryl is more free, +and the green sapphire is rarely impaired +by fissures or cracks) of one carat in +weight are worth at the present day two +hundred dollars in gold. Perfect gems +of two carats weight will command five +hundred dollars in gold, while larger +stones are sold at extravagant prices.</p> + +<p>Most of our aqua-marinas come from +Brazil and Siberia, and small stones are +sold at trifling prices. Some of them, +however, when perfect and of fine color, +command fabulous sums. The superb +little beryl found at Mouzzinskaia is valued +by the Russians at the enormous +sum of one hundred and twenty thousand +dollars, although the crystal weighs +but little more than one ounce. Another +rough prism preserved in the Museum +at Paris, and weighing less than one +hundred grains, has received the tempting +offer of fifteen thousand francs.</p> + +<p class="author">A.C. HAMLIN, M.D.</p> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b><a href="#footnotetag2"> (return) </a><p>A curious result happened to the elder Silliman +when experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before +the compound blowpipe. The reducing flame instantly +melted it into a transparent green globule. Perhaps +the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which +reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which +disappear at a lower temperature. But this could +not be done if the color was due to organic matter, +which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by +combustion.</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b><a href="#footnotetag3"> (return) </a><p>Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian +emeralds of large size and beautiful color are now +to be seen in the valuable and choice collections of +Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of Philadelphia.</p></blockquote> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page697" id="page697"></a>[pg 697]</span> + + + + +<h2>BERRYTOWN.</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + + +<p>It rained during the night. The wind +blew feebly in the morning, and +the sunlight glimmered dully from behind +the flying gray clouds. Catharine +looked out of her window, anxiously +pushing aside the boughs full of wet +white roses. The sense of desolation +was not strong enough upon her to make +her forget that Peter had not yet cut the +clover in the lower meadow, and that +such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. +Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping +up an old Bourbon rose, an especial +favorite of her father's. Somebody +tapped at her door, and Miss Muller +rustled in in a flounced white muslin +and rose-colored ribbons. She too hurried +to the window and looked down.</p> + +<p>"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. +I can't make you understand, probably, +but the Water-cure House is so bald +and bare! There is something in the +shade here, and the old books, and this +wilderness of roses, that forms a fitting +background for a friendship like ours, +aesthetically considered."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told +Jane to have waffles—"</p> + +<p>"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, +"and direct her about the table. +Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would +jar against the finest emotions. What +very pretty shoulders you have, child! +Such women as you, like potatoes, are +best <i>au naturel</i>. Now, with those corsets, +and this red shawl over the back +of your chair, you would make a very +good Madonna of the Rubens school. +Men's ideal of womanhood then was to +be plump, insipid and a mother."</p> + +<p>"But about the oily butter?" said +Kitty, glancing back over the aforesaid +shoulders as she stooped to lace her +shoes, while Maria hurried off to the +kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer +emotions, I fancy, when she begins to +order her about."</p> + +<p>But Kitty lost all relish for fun before +she sat down to the breakfast-table. Mr. +Muller came in. The poor little man +hurried to her side: "I passed a sleepless +night, Catharine. I feared that I +had been rough with you. I forget so +often how gentle and tender you are, my +darling."</p> + +<p>Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my +word, I've forgotten what happened. +And I really never feel especially gentle +or tender. You are mistaken about +that."</p> + +<p>When she took her place behind the +urn, Maria motioned her brother to the +foot of the table, and then nodded significantly. +"Now you two can imagine +a month or two has passed," she said.</p> + +<p>Even Doctor McCall smiled meaningly. +Mr. Muller blushed, and glanced +shyly at Catharine. But she looked at +him unmoved. "Our table will not be +like this," gravely. "You forget the +three hundred blue-coats between." Maria +laughed, but Doctor McCall for the +first time looked steadily at the girl.</p> + +<p>First of all, perhaps, Kitty was just +then a housekeeper. She waited anxiously +to see if the steak was properly +rare and the omelette light, nodded +brightly to Jane, who stood watchful behind +her, and then looked over at her +betrothed, thinking how soon they would +sit down tête-à -tête for the rest of their +lives, perhaps for eternity, for, according +to her orthodoxy, there could be no new +loves in heaven. How fat he was, and +bald! The mild blue eyes behind their +glasses took possession of her and held +her.</p> + +<p>She listened to the talk between Doctor +McCall and Miss Muller in a language +she had never learned. Maria's +share of it was largely made up of headlong +dives into Spencer and Darwin, +with reminiscences of <i>The Dial</i>, while +Doctor McCall's was anchored fast down +to facts; but it was all alive, suggestive, +brilliant. They were young. They were +drinking life and love with full cups. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page698" id="page698"></a>[pg 698]</span> +She (looking over at the bald head and +spectacled eyes) had gone straight out +of childhood into middle age and respectability.</p> + +<p>The breakfast was over at last. Miss +Muller followed Doctor McCall into the +shop, where he fell to turning over the +old books, and then to the garden. +What was the use of a stage properly +set if the drama would not begin?</p> + +<p>"Pray do not worry any longer with +that old bush," as he went back to +Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours +to be persistent about trifles. Or stay: +give me a bud for my hair."</p> + +<p>"Not these!" sharply, holding her +hand. "I could not see one of these roses +on any woman's head."</p> + +<p>She smiled, very well pleased: "You +perceive some subtle connection between +me and the flower?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the sort. There are some, +planted, I suppose, by that little girl, +which will be more becoming to your +face."</p> + +<p>"You are repelled by 'the little girl,' +I see, John. I always told you your instincts +were magnetic. That type of +woman is antipathetic to you."</p> + +<p>He laughed: "I have no instincts, +hardly ideas, about either roses or types +of women. If I avoided Miss Vogdes, +it was because her name recalled one of +the old hard experiences of my boyhood. +The girl herself is harmless enough, no +doubt."</p> + +<p>"And the rose?"</p> + +<p>"The rose? Why, we have no time +to waste in such talk as this. You have +not yet told me how you managed to get +your profession. When I last saw you +you had set all the old professors in the +university at defiance. Did you carry +lectures and cliniques by strategy or assault? +You have good fighting qualities, +Maria."</p> + +<p>She would rather not have gone over +her battle with the doctors just then: +she would rather he had talked of her +"magnetic instincts," her hair, her eyes—anything +else than her fighting qualities. +But she told him. There was an +inexplicable delight to her in telling him +anything—even the time of day. Was +he not a pioneer, a captain among men, +a seer in the realms of thought, keeping +step with her in all her high imaginings? +Ordinary people, it is true, set McCall +down as an ordinary fellow, genial and +hearty—not a very skillful physician, +perhaps, but a shrewd farmer, and the +best judge of mules or peaches in Kent +county. Maria, however, saw him with +the soul's eye.</p> + +<p>Kitty meanwhile sat by the window +mending the clothes that had come out +of the wash. Mr. Muller was reading +some letters relative to the school to her. +This was the day of the week on which +she always mended the clothes, and Mr. +Muller had fallen into the habit of reading +to her while she did so. But to-day +the Reformatory rose before her a prison, +the gates of which were about to close +on her. The heap of stockings, the +touch of the darning cotton, the sound +of Mr. Muller's droning voice, were +maddening to her: every moment she +made a tangle in her thread, looking +down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, +and the attentive face bent over her. +Where should she go? What should +she do? Had the world nothing in it +for her but this? Yesterday she had +made up her mind to go to Delaware to +find Hugh Guinness, alive or dead, and +bring him to his father. That would be +work worth doing. This morning she +remembered that Delaware was a wide +hunting-ground—that she had never +been ten miles from home in her life. +If there were anybody to give her advice! +This Doctor McCall had seemed to her +to-day as, in fact, he did to most people, +practical, honest, full of information. +He would too, she somehow felt, understand +her wild fancy. But—</p> + +<p>"Why should Doctor McCall dislike +<i>me</i>?" she broke in at the close of one +of Mr. Muller's expositions.</p> + +<p>"What an absurd fancy, child!" looking +up in amazement. "The man was +civil enough to you for so slight an acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"It was more than dislike," vehemently. +"He watched me all through breakfast +as though he owed me a grudge. I +could see it in his eyes."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page699" id="page699"></a>[pg 699]</span> + +<p>"You oughtn't to see any eyes but +mine, Cathie dear," with anxious playfulness. +"Why should you care for the +opinion of any man?"</p> + +<p>"Because he is different from any man +I ever knew. He belongs to the world +outside. I always did wonder if people +would like me out there," said Kitty, too +doggedly in earnest to see how her words +hurt her listener. "If one could be like +those two people yonder! They seem +to know everything—they can do everything!"</p> + +<p>"Maria is well enough—for a woman," +dryly. "But I never heard McCall credited +with exceptional ability of any sort."</p> + +<p>Kitty glanced at him: "Of course +you're right," quickly. "Men only can +judge of character: we women are apt +to be silly about such things." Her +kind heart felt a wrench at having hurt +this good soul. She put her fingers on +his fat hand with a touch that was almost +a caress. He turned red with surprise +and pleasure. "But it is pleasant," she +said, glancing down again to the Bourbon +rose, "to see such love as that. +They will be married soon, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Very likely. I never knew of any +love in the case before. But Maria is +such a manager! And you think of +love, then, sometimes?" timidly putting +his arm about her.</p> + +<p>"Oh to be sure! How can you doubt +that? But it grows chilly. I must bring +a sacque," hurrying away; and in fact +she looked cold, and shivered.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + + +<p>"Doctor McCall recognizes the +Book-house, just as I did, as the right +background for communion like ours," +Miss Muller said complacently to Kitty +a week later. "He meets me here every +day."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Catharine with a perplexed +look. She had no special instincts +or intuitions, but her eyes were as keen +and observant as a lynx's. He came, +she saw, to the Book-house every day. +But had he no other purpose than to +meet Maria?</p> + +<p>"I did not know that McCall affected +scholarship," said Mr. Muller tartly the +next day. "He tells me that he has a +peach-farm to manage. August is no +time to loiter away, poring over old +books. Just the peach season."</p> + +<p>"No," Kitty replied demurely. But +her face wore again the puzzled look. +She began to watch Doctor McCall. +He really knew but little, she saw, of +rare books: his reading of them was a +mere pretence. He was neither a lazy +nor a morbid man: what pleasure could +he have in neglecting his work day after +day, sitting alone in the dusky old shop +as if held there by some enchantment? +Kitty knew that she herself had nothing +to do with it: she appeared to be no +more in his way than a tame dog would +be, and, after the first annoyance which +she gave him, was really little more noticed. +But there is a certain sense of +home-snugness and comfort in the presence +of tame dogs and of women like +Kitty: one cannot be long in the room +with either without throwing them a kind +word or petting them in some way. +Doctor McCall was just the man to fall +into such a habit. Down on the farm, +his cattle, his hands, even the neighbors +with whom he argued on politics, could +all have testified to his easy, large good-humor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we are the best of friends," he +said indifferently when Maria found +Kitty chattering to him once, very much +as she did to old Peter. But when Miss +Muller, who had no petty jealousies, +enlarged on the singular beauty of her +eyes and some good points in her shape, +he did not respond. "I never could talk +of a woman as if she were a horse," he +said. "And this little girl seems to me +unusually human."</p> + +<p>"There's really nothing in her, though. +Poor William! He is marrying eyes, +I tell him. It's a pitiable marriage!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," said Doctor McCall +gravely.</p> + +<p>After that he neglected the old books +sometimes to talk to Kitty. He thought +she was such an immature, thoughtless +creature that she would not notice that +the subject he chose was always the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page700" id="page700"></a>[pg 700]</span> +same—her daily life, with old Peter for +her chum and confidant.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Guinness, then, has had no companion +but you?" he said one day, after +a searching inspection of her face.</p> + +<p>"No, nobody but me," quite forgetful, +as she and Peter were too apt to be, that +her mother was alive.</p> + +<p>"And has had none for years?"</p> + +<p>"Not since his son died. Hugh Guinness +is dead, you know."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall was looking thoughtfully +at the floor. He rose presently and +took up his hat: "The old man cannot +have been unhappy with such love as +you could give him. No man could."</p> + +<p>Kitty was sitting, as usual, on a low +stool pasting labels on some dog-eared +books: as long as McCall stood looking +at her round cheeks and double chin she +pasted on, apparently unconscious that +he was there, but when he turned away +she watched him shrewdly as he went +uneasily up and down the shop, and +finally, with a curt good-bye, turned out +of the door. As the stout figure passed +through the low branches of the walnuts +her gray eyes began to shine. Her +Mystery was nearly solved.</p> + +<p>Dropping paste and books in a heap, +she ran after him, taking a short cut +through the currant bushes, so that when +he passed on the outer side of the garden +fence there she was quietly waiting, +her head and face darkly framed by a +thick creeper.</p> + +<p>"Well?" smiling down, amused, as +he might to a playful kitten.</p> + +<p>"Doctor McCall," in the queer formal +fashion that was Kitty's own, "I should +be glad if you would come back this +evening. Without Maria. I have some +business—that is, a plan of mine. Well, +it is a certain thing that—"</p> + +<p>"That you wish to consult me about?" +after waiting for her to finish.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it," nodding energetically.</p> + +<p>"Very well." He stood looking at +her arm on the fence, and the face resting +with its chin upon it. McCall, of all +men, hated a scene, and he had an uneasy +consciousness that he had just betrayed +unexplained feeling in the house, +and was therefore glad to slip back to +commonplaces. Besides, Kitty was exactly +the kind of woman whom all men +feel an insane desire to help at first sight. +"You have a plan, eh? and you want +advice, not knowing much about business?"</p> + +<p>There was not the least necessity for +him to say this, having asked it before. +But he did it, and waited to hear Kitty +say yes again, and waited still, before +he lifted his hat and said good-bye, to +see the shadow of a waving branch +creep over her white chin and lose itself +in her neck. Most men would have +done the same, just as they would stop +to whistle a laugh from a fat, pretty +baby on the street, and then go on, +leaving it behind. The last thing in the +world to consult on their business, or to +ask for help or comfort when trouble +met them, or death.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Miss Muller spent the whole day at +the Book-house, but Doctor McCall did +not come, as she expected. As evening +approached she began to shiver, and +had premonitory symptoms of clairvoyance, +and went home at last, to Kitty's +relief. A slow drizzling rain set in: the +damp fogs that belong to that river-bottom +walled in the house and hung +flat over the walnuts like a roof. Catharine +had made her own corner of the +Book-shop snug and cheerful. The +space was wide, the light soft and bright. +She placed her own chair by the table, +Peter's not far from it. She meant to +produce a great effect on this man to-night, +to change the whole current of +his life, without having the help of either +love or even friendship. Unconsciously +she planned to bring him close to her, +though very likely she had never heard +of personal magnetism, or any of the +curious secrets political speakers or actors +or revivalists could have told her +of the deadening effects of distance and +empty benches.</p> + +<p>Then Kitty, in her room overhead, +looked at herself in the glass, arrayed +in a soft cashmere, in color blue, still +farther toned down, by certain softer +fringes and loops, into the very ideal +garb for a man's type of "yielding, lovely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page701" id="page701"></a>[pg 701]</span> +woman." It was one of the sacred +wedding-dresses.</p> + +<p>"Maria could never look like this," +tying a lace handkerchief about her +neck, pulling the soft rings of hair looser +about her ears, setting her head on one +side, and half shutting her eyes to see +the thick and curly lashes.</p> + +<p>There was no danger of interruption. +Maria was safely lodged in the Water-cure +House, and the very idea of Mr. +Muller's glossy black shoes and dainty +brown umbrella venturing out in the +rain made Kitty laugh.</p> + +<p>"The dear, good soul is finical as a +cat," with the good-natured indulgence +of a mother for a child. Suddenly she +stopped, stared at herself in the glass. +"Why, he is my husband!" she said, +speaking to the blushing, blue-robed +figure as to another person. Then she +hastily unbuttoned, unlooped the pretty +dress, threw it off, putting on her usual +gray wrapper and knotting her hair more +tightly back than ever in a comb. "He +has been very good to me—very good +to me," her chin trembling a good deal.</p> + +<p>Then she went down to meet Doctor +McCall, who that moment came into the +Book-shop, stopping at the door to take +off and shake his oilskin coat.</p> + +<p>"It is a wet night," she said, just as +though he were a stranger. She did not +know what else to say or what he answered +as she went about, trimming the +lamp, dragging out a chair for him, +closing the window curtains. Both McCall +and Catharine were ordinary people, +accustomed to keep up a good flow +of talk on ordinary subjects, the weather +or any joke or gossip that was nearest to +them. There had been no passages of +love or hate between them to account +for her forced formality, her trembling +and flushing, and urgent almost angry +wish to remind him that she was Mr. +Muller's affianced wife. She felt this +with a new contempt for herself.</p> + +<p>As for Doctor McCall, he leaned comfortably +back in his arm-chair and dried +his legs at the grate filled with red-hot +coals, while he listened to the soft rustle +of her skirts as she moved noiselessly +about him. It is the peculiarity of +women like Kitty, to whom Nature has +denied the governing power of ideas or +great personal beauty or magnetism, +such as she gave to Miss Muller, that +there is a certain impalpable force and +attraction in their most petty actions and +words, to which men yield. Miss Muller +could have watched Kitty all day +dragging chairs and trimming lamps, +unmoved farther than to pronounce her +little better than an idiot. But Peter, +Muller or John McCall could not look +at her for five minutes without classing +her with Cordelia and Desdemona and +all the other sweet fools for whom men +have died, and whom the world yet +keeps sacred in pathetic memory. Some +day too, when Catharine should be a +mother—though giving to her older children, +little more than to the baby on her +breast, soft touches and gentle words—she +would bind them to her as no other +kind, of mother could do—by such bonds +that until they were gray-haired no power +should be like hers. Miss Muller +neither saw nor foresaw such things. +But Doctor McCall did. "If I had had +such a mother I should not have been +what I am," he thought. It was a curious +fancy to have about a young girl. +But she seemed to embody all the womanliness +that had been lacking in his +life. Of course she was nothing to him. +She was to be that prig Muller's wife, +and he was quite satisfied that she should +be. If he married, Maria Muller would +be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, he felt +to-night, for the first time, the necessity +that Maria should know how marriage +was barred out from him, and felt, for +the first time, too, a maddening anger +that it was so barred. However, Doctor +McCall was never meant by Nature +for a solitary man housed alone with +morbid thoughts: he was the stuff out +of which useful citizens are made—John +Andersons of husbands, doting, gullible +fathers.</p> + +<p>Remembering the bar in his life, his +skeleton, ghost or whatever it was, he +was only moved to get up and stretch +himself, saying, "I've stayed in Berrytown +too long. When you have told me +your plan, I'll say good-bye to you, Miss +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page702" id="page702"></a>[pg 702]</span> +Vogdes, and this old house. I shall be +off to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Kitty had just caught a moth in the +flame of the candle. She carried it to +the window. "You will come back soon, +of course?" her back still toward him.</p> + +<p>"No, I think not. I am neglecting +my business. And I, of all men in the +world, have least right to loiter about +this old house, to look in on its home-life +or on you."</p> + +<p>Kitty gave him a sharp glance, as +though some sudden emergency was +clear before her which her tact failed to +meet. She was folding the bits of muslin +at which she had been sewing in a +basket: she finished slowly, put the basket +away, and sat down at the table, +with her elbow on it and her chin on her +hand, her gray eyes suggesting a deeper +and unspoken meaning to her words: +"But for my plan?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! to be sure! You want advice?" +seating himself comfortably. Her confusion +was a pretty thing to watch, the +red creeping up her neck into her face, +blotting out its delicate tints, the uncertain +glances, the full bitten lip. Doctor +McCall quite forgot his own trouble in +the keen pleasure of the sight.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps—You do not quite understand +my position here? Mr. Guinness +is not my own father."</p> + +<p>"No, I knew that."</p> + +<p>"But you cannot know what he has +been to me: <i>I</i> never knew until the last +few days."</p> + +<p>"Why within these few days, Miss +Vogdes?"</p> + +<p>"Because I saw you and Maria: I saw +what love was. I began to think about +it. I never have loved anybody but +him," she went on headlong, utterly +blind to all inferences. "There's a thing +I can do for him, Doctor McCall, before +I marry Mr. Muller, and I must do it. +It will make his old age happier than +any other part of his life has been."</p> + +<p>McCall nodded, leaning forward. It +was nothing but an imprudent girl dragging +out her secrets before a stranger; +nothing but a heated face, wet eyes, a +sweet milky breath; but no tragedy he +had ever seen on the stage had moved +him so uncontrollably—no, not any crisis +in his own life—with such delicious, +inexplicable emotion.</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it you can do?" after +waiting for her to go on.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"My father," said Kitty, "had once a +great trouble. It has made an old man +of him before his time. I find that I +can take it from him." She looked up +at him with this. Now, there was a certain +shrewd penetration under the softness +of Kitty's eyes. Noting it, McCall +instantly lost sight of her beauty and +tears. He returned her look coolly.</p> + +<p>"What was his trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Guinness had a son. He has +believed him to be dead for years: I +know that he is not dead."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall waited, with her eyes +still upon him. "Well?" he said, attentive.</p> + +<p>"And then," pushing back the table +and rising, "when I heard that, I meant +to go and find Hugh Guinness, and bring +him back to his father."</p> + +<p>Whatever this matter might be to her +hearer, it was the most real thing in life +to Catharine, and putting it into words +gave it a sudden new force. She felt +that she ought to hold her tongue, but +she could not. She only knew that the +lighted room, the beating of the rain +without, the watchful guarded face on +the other side of the table, shook and +frightened and angered her unaccountably.</p> + +<p>"You should not laugh at me," she +said. "This is the first work I ever set +myself to do. It is better than nursing +three hundred children."</p> + +<p>"I am not laughing at you, God +knows! But this Guinness, if he be +alive, remains away voluntarily. There +must be a reason for that. You do not +consider."</p> + +<p>"I do not care to consider. Is the +man a log or a stone? If I found him," +crossing the room in her heat until she +stood beside him—"if I brought him to +the old house and to his father? Why, +look at this!" dragging open the drawer +and taking out the broken gun and rod. +"See what he has kept for years—all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page703" id="page703"></a>[pg 703]</span> +that was left him of his boy! Look, at +that single hair! If Hugh Guinness +stood where you do, and touched these +things as you are touching them, could +he turn his back on the old man?"</p> + +<p>Now, Doctor McCall did not touch +gun nor cap nor hair, but he bent over +the table, looking at them as if he were +looking at the dead. He seemed to +have forgotten that Kitty was there.</p> + +<p>At last he stood upright: "Poor little +chap!" with a laugh. "There seemed +to be no reason, when he went gunning +and fishing like other boys, why he +should not stand here to-day with as +fair a chance for happiness as any other +man. Did there? Just a trifling block +laid in his way, a push down hill, and +no force could ever drag him up again."</p> + +<p>Kitty, her eyes on his, stood silent. +Do what he would, he could not shake +off her eyes: they wrenched the truth +from him, "I knew this man Guinness +once," he said.</p> + +<p>She nodded: "Yes, I know you did."</p> + +<p>"Sit down beside me here, and I will +tell you what kind of man he was."</p> + +<p>But she did not sit down. An unaccountable +terror or timidity seemed to +have paralyzed her. She looked aside—everywhere +but in his face: "I wanted +you to tell me how to reach him, how to +touch him: I know what manner of man +he is."</p> + +<p>"You have heard from your mother? +A mixed Border Pike and Mephistopheles, +eh? The devil and his victim rolled +into one?" He shifted his heavy +body uneasily, glancing toward the door. +Chief among the graver secret emotions +which she had roused in him was the +momentary annoyance of not knowing +how to deal with this chicken-hearted +little girl before him, scared, but on fire +from head to foot.</p> + +<p>Kitty was quite confident. If it had +been Maria Muller who had thus set +herself to tamper with a man's life, she +would have done it trembling, with fear +and self-distrust. She had brains which +could feel and react against the passions +she evoked, and were competent to warn +her of the peril of her work. But as for +Kitty—</p> + +<p>Here was Hugh Guinness before her, +a Cain with the curse of God upon him. +It was clearly her business to bring him +back again to his father, and afterward +convert him into a member of the church, +if possible. She went about the work +with as little doubt as if it had been the +making of a pudding.</p> + +<p>But she was shy, tender, womanly +withal. Doctor McCall laughed as he +looked down at her, and spoke deliberately, +as though giving his opinion of a +patient to another physician. "I'll tell +you honestly my opinion of Hugh Guinness. +He was, first of all, a thoroughly +ordinary, commonplace man, with neither +great virtues nor great vices, nor force +of any kind. If he had had that, he +could have recovered himself when he +began to fall. But he did not recover +himself."</p> + +<p>"What drove him down in the first +place?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated: "I suppose that his +home and religion became hateful to +him. Boys have unreasonable prejudices +at times."</p> + +<p>"And then, in despair—"</p> + +<p>"Despair? Nonsense! Now don't +figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of +a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's +gate was shut on him. At nineteen +Hugh Guinness drank and fought and +gambled, as other ill-managed boys do +to work off the rank fever of blood. +Unfortunately—" he stopped, and then +added in a lower voice, quickly, "he +made a mistake while the fever was on +him which was irretrievable."</p> + +<p>"A mistake?" Kitty was always of +an inquiring turn of mind, but now she +felt as if her curiosity was more than she +could bear, while she stood, her eyes +passing over the burly figure in summer +clothes and the high-featured, pleasant +face with its close-cut moustache. What +dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, +every-day propriety of linen +duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache +over a mouth that often smiled? +You might meet their like any day upon +the streets. Was it a murder? At best +some crime, perhaps, which had sent him +to the penitentiary. Or—and church +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page704" id="page704"></a>[pg 704]</span> +taught Kitty shuddered as a vague remembrance +of the "unpardonable sin" +rose before her like an actual horror. +Whatever it was, it stood between herself +and him, keeping them apart for +ever.</p> + +<p>"Irretrievable?" she said. It was only +curiosity, she knew, but her voice sounded +oddly far off to herself, the room was +hazy, her whole body seemed to shrink +together.</p> + +<p>"What can it matter to you? You +belong to another man, Miss Vogdes." +She lifted herself erect. Doctor McCall +was speaking more loudly than usual +and looking keenly into her face.</p> + +<p>"I know: I shall be Mr. Muller's wife. +Of course, I recollect. But you—this +Hugh Guinness is my father's son," +stammered Kitty, her face very white. +"I had some interest in him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's true. He is, as you say, +in some sort a brother of yours." He +took her hand for the first time, looking +down at her face with some meaning in +his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, +though the thoughts in Kitty's shallow +brain were clear enough to him. +"You are tired of standing," seating her +gently in Peter's chair. A thick lock +of hair had fallen over her face: he put +out his hand to remove it, but drew +back quickly. "We have talked too long, +Miss Vogdes," in a brisk, cheerful tone. +"Some other time, perhaps, we can return +to this question of Hugh Guinness. That +is," with a certain significance of manner, +"if it be one in which Mr. Muller +wishes you to take an interest." Nodding +good-humoredly to her, he buttoned +on his oilskin cape and went out into +the rain without another word. He +pulled off his cap outside to let the rain +and wind reach his head, drawing a +long breath as if to get rid of some foul +air and heat.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3> + + +<p>Of all that wet August the next morning +was the freshest and cheerfulest. +Doctor McCall had packed his valise, +carried it to the station, and was now +walking up the street, his hands clasped +behind him and his head down, after the +leisurely fashion of Delaware and Jersey +farmers. People nodded an approving +good-morning to him. Busy Berrytown +had passed verdict on him as a man +who was idle for a purpose, who permitted +his brain to lie fallow, and who +"loafed and invited his soul" during +these two weeks for the best spiritual +hygienic reasons.</p> + +<p>"Too much brain-work, my friend +Doctor Maria Muller tells me," said the +lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at +the station as McCall passed them. "Is +here for repose."</p> + +<p>"Advanced?" said little Herr Bluhm, +the phrenologist.</p> + +<p>"Well, no. But Doctor Maria thinks +his mind is open to conviction, and that +he would prove a strong worker should +he remain here. She has already begun +to enlighten him on our newest theories +as to a Spontaneous Creation and a Consolidated +Republic."</p> + +<p>"Should think his properer study +would be potatoes. Smells of the barn-yard +in his talk," rejoined one of the +party.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Maria's a fool!" snapped +Bluhm. "She has read the index to +Bastian's book, and denies her Creator, +and gabbles of Bacteria, boiled and unboiled, +ever since."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall meanwhile went down +the cinder-path, to all passers-by a clean-shaven, +healthy gentleman out in search +of an appetite for breakfast. But in +reality he was deciding his whole life in +that brief walk. Why, he asked himself +once or twice, should he be unlike +the other clean-shaven, healthy men +that he met? God knows he had no +relish for mystery. He was, as he had +told Kitty, a commonplace man, a thrifty +Delaware farmer, in hearty good-fellowship +with his neighbors, his cattle, the +ground he tilled, and, he thought reverently, +with the God who had made him +and them. He had made a mistake in +his early youth, but it was a mistake +which every tenth man makes—which +had no doubt driven half these men and +women about him into their visionary +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page705" id="page705"></a>[pg 705]</span> +creeds and hard work—that of an unhappy +marriage. It was many years +since he had heard of his wife: she had +grown tired of warning him of the new +paths of shame and crime she had found +for herself. In fact, the year in which +they had lived together was now so long +past as to seem like a miserable half-forgotten +dream.</p> + +<p>Irretrievable? Yes, it was irretrievable. +There was, first of all, the stupid, +boyish error of a change of name. If +he came back as this child wished, all +the annoyance which that entailed would +follow him, and the humiliating circumstances +which had led to it would be +brought to life from their unclean graves. +His father believed him dead. Better +the quiet, softened grief which that had +left than the disgrace which would follow +his return. "I should have to tell +him my wife's story," muttered McCall. +But he did not turn pale nor break into +a cold sweat at the remembrance, as +Miss Muller's hero should have done. +This was an old sore—serious enough, +but one which he meant to make the +best of, according to his habit. He had +been a fool, he thought, to come back +and hang about the old place for the +pleasure of hearing his father talked of, +and of touching the things he had handled +a day or two before. Growing into +middle age, Hugh Guinness's likeness +to his father had increased year by year. +The two men were simple as boys in +some respects, and would have been +satisfied alone together. The younger +man halted now on the foot-bridge which +crossed the creek, looking out the different +hollows where his father had taken +him to fish when he was a boy, and +thinking of their life then. "But his +wife and mine would have to be put +into the scales now," with an attempt at +whistling which died out discordantly.</p> + +<p>There was one person to whom the +shameful confession of his marriage +must be made—Miss Muller. That was +the result, he thought, of his absurd +whim of loitering about Berry town. +When he had met Maria Muller before, +he had no reason to think she cared a +doit whether he was married or single. +Now—McCall's color changed, alone +as he was, with shame and annoyance. +With all his experience of life and of +women, he had as little self-confidence +as an awkward girl. But Maria had +left him no room for doubt.</p> + +<p>"It would be the right thing to do. I +ought to tell her. But it will be a slight +matter to her, no doubt."</p> + +<p>If he had been a single man, in all +probability he would have asked Maria +Muller to marry him that day. He was +a susceptible fellow, with a man's ordinary +vanity and passions; and Maria's +bright sweet face, their loiterings along +shady lanes and under Bourbon roses, +the perpetual deference she paid to +his stupendous intellect, had had due +effect. He was not the man to see a +strong, beautiful woman turn pale and +tremble at his touch, and preserve his +phlegm.</p> + +<p>He threw away his cigar, and jumped +the fence into the Water-cure grounds. +"I'll tell her now, and then be off from +old Berry town for ever."</p> + +<p>Miss Muller was standing in the porch. +She leaned over the railing, looking at +the ragged rain-clouds driven swiftly +over the blue distance, and at the wet +cornfields and clumps of bay bushes +gray with berries which filled the damp +air with their pungent smell. Her dog, +a little black-and-tan terrier, bit at her +skirt. She had just been lecturing to +her three students on the vertebrae, and +when she took him up could not help +fumbling over his bones, even while she +perceived the color and scent of the +morning. They gave her so keen a +pleasure that the tears rushed to her +eyes, and she stopped punching Hero's +back.</p> + +<p>"'The rain is over and gone,'" she recited +softly to herself, "'the vines with +the tender grape give a good smell, and +the time of the singing of birds has +come.' There is no poetry like that old +Hebrew love-song. If only it had not +been hackneyed by being turned into a +theological allegory! Ha, doggy, doggy! +There comes a friend of ours!" +suddenly laughing and hugging him as +she caught sight of a large man coming +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page706" id="page706"></a>[pg 706]</span> +up the road with a swinging gait and +loose white overcoat. She broke off a +rose and put it in her breast, tied on her +hat and hurried down to meet him, the +Song of Solomon still keeping time with +her thoughts in a lofty cadence: "'Who +is this that cometh up from the wilderness +leaning upon his beloved? Set me +as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal +upon thine arm. For love is strong as +death.'"</p> + +<p>"What's that, Maria? I heard you +intoning as I came up the hill?" Her +eyes were soft and luminous and her +voice unsteady. I am afraid Doctor +McCall's eyes were warmer in their admiration +than they should have been +under the circumstances. Why should +she not tell him? She repeated it. She +had been chattering for two hours on +cervical, dorsal and lumbar vertebrae, +without stopping to take breath. But +she grew red now and broke down miserably.</p> + +<p>"'Love is strong as death,' eh?" said +McCall, awkwardly holding the gate +open for her. "Friendship ought to be +tough enough to bear a pretty stout strain, +then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. +For I think a man and woman can be +friends without—without—Well, what +do you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden +imbecility in all his big body.</p> + +<p>The little woman beside him looked +up scared and ready to cry: "I don't +know, John, I'm sure. Do be quiet, +Hero!" Then like a flash she saw that +he meant to ask her to marry him: he +meant to place love upon the higher +basis of friendship. Maria was used to +people who found new names for old +things. Why! why! what folly was +this, as she grew cold and hot by turns? +So often she had pictured his coming to +claim her, and how she would go out as +one calm controlling soul should to meet +another, to be dual yet united through +all eternity; and here she was shivering +and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! +Love-making and marriage were +at a discount with the Advanced Club +of which she was a member, and classed +with dancing, fashionable dressing +and other such paltry feminine frivolities. +But Maria had meant to show them that +a woman could really love and marry, +and preserve her own dignity. She tried +to find her footing now.</p> + +<p>"Come into the summer-house, John. +I should think our friendship would bear +any strain, for it does not depend on external +ties."</p> + +<p>"No, that's true. Now, as to your +phalansteries and women's clubs and +sitz-baths, why that's all flummery to +me. But young women must have their +whims until they have husbands to occupy +their minds, I suppose. There's +that little girl at the Book-shop: how +many leagues of tatting do you suppose +she makes in a year?"</p> + +<p>"I really cannot say," sharply.</p> + +<p>"But as to our friendship, Maria—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There may be a lack of external +bonds" (speaking deliberately, +for she wanted to remember this crisis +of her life as accurate in all its minutiae); +"but there is a primal unity, a mysterious +sympathy, in power and emotion. +At least, so it seems to me," suddenly +stammering and picking up Hero to +avoid looking at McCall, who stood in +front of her.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Primal unities are +rather hazy to me. I can tell by a woman's +eye and hand-shake if she is pure-minded +and sweet-tempered, and pretty +well, too, what she thinks of me. That's +about as far as I go."</p> + +<p>"It pleases you to wear this mask of +dullness, I know," with an indulgent +smile, with which Titania might have +fondled the ass's head.</p> + +<p>"But as to our friendship," gravely, +"I feel I've hardly been fair to you. +Friendship demands candor, and there +is one matter on which I have not dealt +plainly with you. You have been an +honest, firm friend to me, Maria. I had +no right to withhold my confidence from +you."</p> + +<p>If Miss Muller had not been known +as an advanced philosopher, basing her +life upon the Central Truths, she would +have gained some credit as a shrewd +woman of business. "What do you +mean, John?" she said, turning a cool +I steady countenance toward him.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page707" id="page707"></a>[pg 707]</span> + +<p>"Sit down and I will tell you what I +mean."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The patients, taking soon after their +two hours' exercise, made their jokes on +the battle between the two systems, seeing +the allopathist McCall and Doctor +Maria Haynes Muller in the summer-house +engaged in such long and earnest +converse. Homoeopathy, they guessed, +had the worst of it, for the lady was +visibly agitated and McCall apparently +unmoved. Indeed, when he left her +and crossed the garden, nodding to such +of them as he knew, he had a satisfied, +relieved face.</p> + +<p>Maria went immediately in to visit her +ward as usual. The patients observed +that she was milder than was her wont, +and deadly pale. One of them, addressing +her as "Miss Muller," however, was +sharply rebuked: "I earned my right to +the title of physician too hardly to give +it up for that which belongs to every +simpering school-girl," she said. "Besides," +with a queer pitiful smile, "the +sooner we doctors sink the fact that we +are women the better for the cause—and +for us."</p> + +<p>She met her brother in the course of +the morning, and drew him into the +consulting-room.</p> + +<p>"William," she said, fumbling with +the buttons of his coat, "he is going: he +is going to take the afternoon train."</p> + +<p>"Who? That fellow McCall?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you speak so of him, William? +He has just told me his story. +He is so wretched! he has been used so +hardly!" She could scarcely keep back +the tears. In her new weakness and +weariness it was such comfort to talk +to and hang upon this fat, stupid little +brother, whom usually she despised.</p> + +<p>"Wretched, eh? He don't look it, +then. As stout and easy-going a fellow +as I know. Come, come, Maria! The +man has been imposing some story on +you to work on your sensibilities. I +never fancied him, as you know. He +doesn't want to borrow money, eh?" +with sudden alarm.</p> + +<p>"Money? No."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then? Don't look at me +in that dazed way. You, are going to +have one of your attacks. I do wish +you had Kitty's constitution and some +sense."</p> + +<p>"William," rousing herself, "he is going. +He will never come back to Berrytown +or to me. Our whole lives depend +on my seeing him once more. Ask him +to wait for a day—an hour."</p> + +<p>"If he doesn't take the noon express, +he can't go in an hour. You certainly +know that, Maria. Well, if I have to +find him, I'd better go at once," buttoning +his coat irritably. "I never did like +the fellow."</p> + +<p>"Beg him to stay. Tell him that I +have thought of a way of escape," following +him, catching him by his sleeve, +her small face absolutely without color +and her eyes glittering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm going. But I must find my +overshoes first. It begins to look like +rain."</p> + +<p>Miss Muller watched him to the door, +and then crossed the hall to her own +room, locking the door behind her. +The square table was piled with medical +books. She sat down and dropped her +head on her arms. Over went a bound +volume of the <i>Lancet</i> and a folio on +diseases of the kidneys to the floor. She +looked down at them. "And I was willing +to give him up for that—that trash!" +sobbing and rubbing her arms like a +beaten child. But she had so strong a +habit of talking that even in this pain +the words would come: "I loved him +so. He would have married me! And +I must be kept from him by a law of society! +It is—it is," rising and wrenching +her hands together, "a damnable +law!"</p> + +<p>For Miss Muller had taught herself to +think and talk like a man.</p> + +<p class="author">REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page708" id="page708"></a>[pg 708]</span> + + + + +<h2>BOWERY ENGLAND.</h2> + + +<p>A party of four Americans in London—Mr. +Hill Bunker of Boston, +Mrs. Bunker, his wife, Miss Amy Abell +of New York, and myself—we find ourselves +growing weary of that noisy town. +We talk of a trip to the country. It is +the merry month of May.</p> + +<p>"Just the time for 'bowery England, +as Bulwer phrases it," says Amy. "Let +us go to Romsey and see the Boyces."</p> + +<p>Carried unanimously. We take the +train from the Waterloo Station two +hours later. When we get down at +Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the attentive +porter—carries our luggage, calls the fly +and touches his hat thankfully for three-pence. +The Romsey fly is a lumbering, +two-seated carriage, rather more pretentious +than a London cab, but far behind +the glossy gorgeousness of a New York +hackney-coach.</p> + +<p>A short drive brings us to the White +Horse Inn, under whose covered arch +we roll, and are met at the door by a +maid. She conducts us to a stuffy coffee-room +up a flight of crumbling old +stairs, and meekly desires to know our +will.</p> + +<p>"Send the landlord, please."</p> + +<p>The landlord comes, bowing low, and +we make inquiries concerning the distance +to Paultons, the estate where the +Boyces have been spending the summer, +and where we venture to hope they still +are. He says it is a matter of four miles, +and that we can have a fly over for six +shillings. We order the fly to be got +ready at once, and inquire if we can +have dinner now, it being late in the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," he replies. "Would you +like some chicken and sparrowgrass?"</p> + +<p>"How long will they be in cooking?"</p> + +<p>"Matter of arf an hour, sir."</p> + +<p>As this means a matter of an hour, I +ask if he can't get us up something in a +shorter time. He suggests that chops +can be cooked sooner.</p> + +<p>"Chops be it, then. In the words of +the immortal Pickwick, chops and tomato +sauce."</p> + +<p>"No tomarter sauce, sir," with profound +gravity.</p> + +<p>"Sparrowgrass, then—chops and sparrowgrass."</p> + +<p>He retires, and we all rush to the windows +and look out upon the quaint old +village—a curious, old-fashioned scene. +We feel as if we had somehow become +transmogrified, and instead of being flesh-and-blood +men and women from practical +New York, were playing our parts +in some old English novel. Odd +little tumble-down houses, with peaked +roofs and mullioned windows, ranged +about a triangular common, look sleepily +out upon a statue of Palmerston in +the middle of the open place, the gray +walls of Romsey Abbey, a thousand +years old, against the blue sky behind +them.</p> + +<p>About six o'clock our fly is at the door, +and we are off, rattling through the ancient +streets into the smooth open country. +Oh the quaint, delightful old hedge-lined +road, deep down below the level +of the fields on either side—a green lane +shut in with fragrance and delicious +quiet! The hedges, perched upon the +bank, tower high above our heads, and +there is no break in them save at rustic +gates. We meet characters on the road +who have just stepped out of Trollope's +novels. A young man and girl stand +on a bridge across which we trundle, +leaning companionably on the old stone +parapet, and looking up the little river +through a long avenue of trees to the +pillared mansion of "Broadlands." A +laborer, with a gay flower stuck in the +buttonhole of his smock-frock, goes +whistling along the brown road under +the hedgerows. A country gentleman, +driving alone in a basket phaeton, looks +inquisitively at our half-closed windows +as if expecting the sight of an acquaintance. +Crumbling milestones stand by +the wayside, with deep-cut letters so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page709" id="page709"></a>[pg 709]</span> +smoothed by the hand of time that we +cannot read them as we pass. Flowers +grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is +lolling on the green grass in front of +a cottage door—an uncombed English +hind, with a face of rustic simplicity and +stolid ignorance.</p> + +<p>At last we come to a gate which bars +the road. The driver gets down and +opens it, and when we have passed +through in the fly he tells us we are now +on Mr. Stanley's broad estate of Paultons. +The driver wears corduroy trousers, +and touches his hat every time we +speak to him and every time he answers. +He does not merely touch it when he is +first addressed, but he touches it continually +throughout the conversation. +Bunker considers his conduct extremely +touching.</p> + +<p>We are presently driving through a +bosky wood, and the driver touches his +hat to remark that we are nearly there +now, he thinks.</p> + +<p>"But where is the bad road the landlord +spoke of?"</p> + +<p>"Bad road, sir?" touching hat.</p> + +<p>"Yes: the landlord said we could not +drive fast because the road was bad. +Where is it bad?"</p> + +<p>"All along back of 'ere, sir," touching +hat. "We have pahst the worst of it +naow, sir: the rest is not so 'illy, sir," +touching hat.</p> + +<p>"Hilly? We haven't passed over anything +bigger than a knoll. If this is +what the landlord meant by a hilly road, +it <i>is</i> a rich joke. Why, it's as smooth as +a floor, almost."</p> + +<p>"He should go to California," says +Amy, who has feeling reminiscences. +"He should go to the Yosemite Valley, +over the road which runs through Chinese +Camp and Hodgden's. Probably +the man never saw a rough road in his +life. I doubt if there is such a thing in +England."</p> + +<p>After half an hour's trundling along +the unfenced roads of this fine old estate, +crossing ancient stone bridges, rolling +through leafy groves, startling fat cattle +from their browsing, getting a hat-touch +from a shepherd who is leading his flocks +across the fields in true pastoral style, we +reach the manor-house, standing stately +amid dells and dingles, pollards of fantastic +growth and patches of fern and +gorse. The Boyces have returned to +Paris, but nurse and the children are +still at the gardener's house, and thither +we drive along the banks of a sylvan +lake, beyond which the rooks are cawing +about the chimneys.</p> + +<p>The old gardener is nurse's father, +and though he is now so old that he no +longer does any work, he is maintained +in comfort by the family in whose service +he has spent a lifetime. Forty +years of honest service in one family! +No wonder he feels that his destiny is +for ever linked with that of the people +who have been his masters, man and +boy, for forty years. He has a delightful +little cottage with thatched roof and +mullioned windows, and pretty vines +rioting all over it, and in front of it a +flower-garden full of early bloom. The +lilacs which grow about so profusely are +not of the color of our lilacs in America, +being of a rich purple; we should +not know they were lilacs but for the +familiar odor.</p> + +<p>A delicious ride back to Romsey in +the twilight, carrying two of the Boyce +children with us. In the evening I stroll +out alone, to look at the village in the +moonlight. The streets are like narrow +lanes. The houses are very old, and +for the most part dilapidated, but streets +and houses are all as clean and neat as +wax. Presently I come upon the old +abbey, its rugged walls and towers looming +solemnly in the moonlight, and pass +the parson's house near by, all overrun +with vines, thinking of Trollope again +and Framley parsonage.</p> + +<p>Before going back to the White Horse +Inn I wander round the village until I +find that I am lost. The discovery is +not very alarming in a place so small +as this, even at night. I resolve to turn +every corner to the left, and see what +will come of it. I presently find that +getting out into the country comes of it; +and having crossed a bridge and come +upon a silent brickyard, and seen the +long road winding away into the open +country, I am reminded of Oliver Twist—or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page710" id="page710"></a>[pg 710]</span> +was it Pip?—running away from +home and trudging off under the stars +to London. Somehow, it seems this road +must lead to London.</p> + +<p>Turning about, but still walking at +random and turning left-hand corners, +I presently see the abbey tower again, +and make for it. The street through +which I pass is apparently the home of +the British working man. A light burning +in any house is most rare. Occasionally +a man can be seen through the +odd little windows, smoking a pipe by +the blaze of the fire on the hearth. Here +are the abbey windows, and now I know +where I am. Down this narrow, winding +street, across the open place where +Lord Palmerston stands stonily in the +moonlight, and I am at the White Horse +Inn again.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock next morning there is +a rap at the door of my room. The +door being opened a man-servant is discovered, +who touches his forehead (having +no hat to touch) and says, "The +ladies would like to 'ave you breakfast +with them, sir."</p> + +<p>He is so very respectful in his manner +of saying this that he is inaudible, and +being asked what he said, repeats the +touching his forehead and then repeats +his words.</p> + +<p>There are no muffins at breakfast—a +fact which I record merely because this +is the first time since we have been in +England that this peculiarly English +dish has been omitted at breakfast. It +appears on inquiry that muffins are a +luxury of large towns. In villages they +are rarely obtainable at less than about a +week's notice. In fact, you can't get anything +to eat, of any sort, without pretty +liberal notice.</p> + +<p>After breakfast we go to see the old +abbey. It is an imposing and well-preserved +pile. It was founded by Ethelwold, +a thane—one of those righting, +praying, thieving old rascals who lived +in the tenth century, and made things +lively for any one who went past their +houses with money on his person. When +Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large +sum one day, he founded the monastery +and stocked it with nuns. It was but a +wooden shanty at first, but after having +served till it was worm-eaten and rotting +with age, it was torn down and a fine +stone convent was built.</p> + +<p>We walk about in that part of the abbey +which is free from pews—by far the +larger part—and stare at the monumental +stones let into the floor and walls. +If we did not know that Romsey had +been the home of Palmerston, we should +learn it now, for these stones are thickly +covered with the legends of virtue in his +family—wives, sisters, sons and so forth, +whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." +After perusing these numerous +testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues +of an aristocracy whom we are permitted +to survive, and after dropping +some shillings in the charity-box, which +rather startle us by the noise they make, +we pass out of the cool abbey into the +hot churchyard, and read on a lonely +stone which stands in a corner by the +gate that here lies the dust of Mary Ann +Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful servant +to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no +doubt had other virtues, but they are not +recorded: this is sufficient for a servant.</p> + +<p>An hour's ride on the velvet cushions +of a railway carriage brings us, with our +Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to +Southampton, which was an old town +when King Canute was young. We +take rooms at a pretentious marble hotel +with a mansard roof, attached to the +station—a railroad hotel, in fact, but +strikingly unlike that institution as we +know it in America. Wide halls, solid +stone staircases, gorgeous coffee-room, +black-coated waiters, and the inevitable +buxom landlady with a regiment of +blooming daughters for assistants—one +presiding over the accounts, another +officiating at the beer-pumps, a third to +answer questions, and all very much +under the influence of their back hair +and other charms of person. One of +them alleviates the monotony of the +office duties by working at embroidery +in bright worsteds.</p> + +<p>Strolling out, Bunker and I consult +certain shabby worthies who are yawning +on the boxes of a long line of wretched +hacks drawn up by the sidewalk +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page711" id="page711"></a>[pg 711]</span> +across the street, and find that we can +charter a vehicle for two shillings an +hour. These cabbies have more nearly +the air of our own noble hackmen than +any we have seen in England. Americans +are no novelty to them, for ship-loads +of American tourists are put off +here at frequent intervals, and the cabbies +have a thin imitation of the voting +hackman's independence. They stop +short, however, of his impudence. They +are lazy, but they touch their hats occasionally.</p> + +<p>We choose two of the tumble-down +vehicles and go after the ladies. My +driver is an elderly man with a hat +which has seen better days, and I have +chosen his hack, not because it is less +likely to drop off its wheels than the +others, but because he himself looks +like a seedy Bohemian. He proves to +be a very intelligent fellow, with a ready +turn for description which serves him in +good stead whenever his horse gets tired +of walking and stops short. At such +times our Bohemian pretends that he +has stopped the horse himself in order +to point out and comment upon some +curious thing in the immediate vicinity.</p> + +<p>It is pleasant driving. The hack is +open, and we hoist sun-umbrellas and +look about comfortably. Presently the +weary horse stops in the middle of the +street.</p> + +<p>"'Ere you are, sir," says Cabby briskly, +turning half round on his box and +pointing to an old stone structure which +stretches quite across the High street. +"This 'ere is the old Bar Gate, sir, one +of the hancient gates of the town. Part +of the horiginal town wall. Was a large +ditch 'ere, sir, and another there, and a +stone bridge betwixt the two, and the +young bucks in them days did use to +practice harchery right 'ere where you +see the lamp-post. The Guild'all is <i>hin</i> +the gate, sir, right hinside it, with a passage +hup. I'll drive through the harch, +sir, and you'll see the hother side. +Cluck!" (to the horse).</p> + +<p>On the other side, the horse not taking +a notion to stop again, the driver is not +forced to resume his remarks. Turning +about as we pass on, we look up at the +old Norman gate-tower, with its handsome +archway and projecting buttresses, +and Amy says she fancies she sees a +knight in armor looking out through the +narrow crevice which may have been a +window in olden times. This, being an +altogether proper fancy for the place, is +received with applause.</p> + +<p>The next time the horse concludes to +stop we are in the midst of what is here +called the Common—in fact, a magnificent +old forest park, with a smooth road +running through it, and numberless winding +paths in among the bosky depths. +I fancy Central Park might come to look +like this if allowed to go untrimmed and +unfussed-over for two or three hundred +years.</p> + +<p>"The Common, sir," says Cabby, +turning about, "where King Chawles did +use to 'unt wild boars. Fav'rite walk of +Halexander Pope, sir, the poet, and Doctor +Watts, which wrote the 'ymn-book. +Cluck!"</p> + +<p>From the top of a high hill a splendid +wide landscape is seen, with Romsey in +the distance, and (the horse having +stopped again) Cabby points out Queen +Elizabeth's shooting-box across the fields. +In a lot close by cricketers are at play, +and a little farther on, where there is a +vine-covered beerhouse, a crowd of clod-hoppers +are gathered in a green field, +looking at two of their number engaged +in a rough-and-tumble fight in their +shirt-sleeves.</p> + +<p>The road after this running down hill, +the horse continues to jog along for a +considerable distance, stopping at last +under a towering old wall looking out +on the sea.</p> + +<p>"Wind Whistle Tower, sir," says Cabby, +pointing up at a square tower projecting +from the old wall overhead, and +above it the remains of an old round +tower thickly overrun with ivy. And, +using his fingers industriously, Cabby +proceeds to call off the names of various +castles and towers here visible—notably, +Prince Edward's Tower, bold and round, +from whose summit three men were looking +down.</p> + +<p>"What are those?" asks Bunker in +the carriage behind us, pointing to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page712" id="page712"></a>[pg 712]</span> +old brass guns which sit on the wall like +Humpty Dumpty.</p> + +<p>"Them, sir," says Cabby, "was put +there by 'Enry the Heighth, and this +'ere wall was the purtection of the town +when the Frenchmen hassaulted it."</p> + +<p>"Ho!" says Bunker, contemptuously. +"Just fancy one of our ironclads paying +any attention to the barking of those +popguns!"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the horse starts again, and +we go lazily on, Cabby dropping in a +word of enlightenment here and there +to the effect that this old tumble-down +part of the ancient wall is the celebrated +Arcade, which formed part of the wall +of the King's Palace; and this queer +old lane running up through the walls +like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that +is Bugle street, where in olden times the +warden blew; and here are the remains +of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and +circular arches and curious mouldings.</p> + +<p>Discharging the cab in the High street, +we walk about. In a shop where we +pause for a moment there is a quartette +of half-naked barbarians, such as, with +all our boasted varieties of humanity, +were never yet seen in New York. We +have abundant Chinese and Japanese +there, and occasionally an Arab or a +Turk, and the word African means with +us a man and a brother behind our chair +at dinner or wielding a razor in a barber-shop. +These men here are pure barbarians, +just landed from a vessel direct +from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and +their heads shaved in regular ridges of +black wool, with narrow patches of black +scalp between, they are here in a small +tradesman's shop in bowery England +buying shirts. They know not a word of +English, but chatter among themselves +the most horrible lingo known to the +Hamitic group of tongues. They grimace +in a frightful manner, and skip and +dance, and writhe their half-naked bodies +into the most exaggerated contortions +known to the language of signs. +The dignified English salesmen are at +their wits' end how to treat them. The +instinct of the British shopkeeper fights +desperately with his disposition to be +shocked. From the Ashantee gentlemen's +gestures it can only be concluded +that white shirts are wanted, but when +white shirts are shown the negroes make +furious objection to the plaited bosoms. +They want shirts such as are fashionable +at home. It is easy to be seen that +they are Dandy Jims in Africa. They +are all young, and, in a sense, spruce. +One of them carries a little switch cane, +evidently just bought: while he examines +the shirts, testing the strength of the stuff +by pulling it with his two hands, he holds +his cane between his bare legs for safe-keeping.</p> + +<p>Sitting in the billiard-room of the hotel +in the evening smoking our cigars, Bunker +and I are accosted by a brisk little +man, who asks us if we play billiards. +Bunker doesn't. I do sometimes at +home, but not the English game.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we play the 'Merican game too. +'Appy to play the 'Merican game with +you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Try him a game," says Bunker. "It +won't hurt you."</p> + +<p>Not liking to refuse an invitation from +a polite Englishman, who appears to be +a stranger here, I consent. This is billiard-room +etiquette the world over.</p> + +<p>The cue is like a whip-stock. It positively +runs down to a point not bigger +than a shirt-button, and it bends like a +switch. The balls are not much larger +than marbles. To make up for this, the +table is big enough for a back yard, +broad, high, dull of cushion, and with +six huge pockets. I am ignominiously +beaten. My ball jumps like a living +thing. It hops off the table upon the +floor at almost every shot, and when it +does not go on the floor it goes into one +of the six yawning pockets. The pockets +bear the same relative proportion to +the balls that a tea-cup bears to a French +pea. At the end of the game my ball +has been everywhere except where I intended +it to go, and I have "scratched" +thirty.</p> + +<p>"A hundred's the game," says the +Englishman, putting up his cue. "One +shilling."</p> + +<p>I wonder if this is an English custom—to +pay your victor a shilling, instead +of paying the keeper of the tables. But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page713" id="page713"></a>[pg 713]</span> +as there is no one else to pay, I pay the +Englishman. Bunker has fallen asleep +in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Going on the Continent?" the Englishman +asks.</p> + +<p>"Not at present. We return to London +first, and go from there."</p> + +<p>"'Ave you got a guide?"</p> + +<p>I am on the point of saying that guides +are a nuisance I do not tolerate, when +the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. +"There is my card, sir," he says. +"A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." +On the opposite side I read—</p> + +<table summary="interpreter's card" align="center" width="90%"> +<tr> +<td>SPEAKS</td> +<td>SPRICHT</td> +<td>PARLE</td> +<td>PARLA</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>French,</td> +<td>Französich,</td> +<td>Frangais,</td> +<td>Francese,</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>German,</td> +<td>Deutsch,</td> +<td>Allemand,</td> +<td>Tedesco,</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Italian and</td> +<td>Italienisch u.</td> +<td>Italien et</td> +<td>Italiano ed</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>English</td> +<td>Englisch</td> +<td>Anglais</td> +<td>Inglese</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>fluently.</td> +<td>sehr geläufig.</td> +<td>courrament.</td> +<td>correntemente.</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>At present he has charge of this billiard-room, +but he is ready to follow me +to the ends of the earth for a period of +not less than three months. I tell him +I can get on without a guide.</p> + +<p>"But I would go on the most reasonable +terms. I would go for as low as +ten pounds a month and my expenses."</p> + +<p>"Would you go for nothing?" Bunker +wakes up and pops this out at him +so suddenly as to quite take his breath +away.</p> + +<p>He expands his hands at his trousers +pockets, shrugs his shoulders and looks +volumes of reproach.</p> + +<p>"Because," Bunker adds, in a soothing +tone, "I shouldn't like to have you +along, even at that price."</p> + +<p>He immediately goes to putting the +room to rights.</p> + +<p>"Horrible breath that man had," says +Bunker when we come out: "did you +notice it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Take that breath around with us on +the Continent! Why, if he was in Cologne +itself, his breath would be in the +majority."</p> + +<p>I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, +and next morning I can't find it +anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous +head-waiter if he knows of my +umbrella. He states that he does not. +After breakfast I look in the billiard-room. +It is not there. I go down to +the office, and interrupt the worsted +work there in progress by requesting +that a search be made for my missing +umbrella. The young lady whose ear I +have gained kindly condescends to call +the porter, and turning me over to that +functionary returns to her worsted. The +porter is respectful, but doubtful. The +moment he learns that the lost article +is an umbrella his manner is pervaded +with a gentle hopelessness. He, however, +listens forbearingly to my story.</p> + +<p>"And aboot what time was it, sir, when +ye went ty bed?"</p> + +<p>"About half-past eleven."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then the night porter ull know +of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll ask him +when he gets oop."</p> + +<p>And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, +I take a covered cab, because of my lost +umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella +to keep off the sun. Nobody can make +an umbrella like an Englishman. I +should be sorry to lose it. I bought it +in Regent street only a few days ago, +but I already love it with a passionate +affection.</p> + +<p>Through the hot paved streets, over a +floating bridge, past the cliff at the river's +mouth, through a shady grove of +noble yews and sycamores, past a picturesque +hamlet full of vine-curtained +and straw-thatched cottages, through a +forest of oaks and past a willow copse, +and there is the grand old ruin of Netley +Abbey lifting its picturesque and solemn +fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops +of the trees which surround and shelter +it in its hoary age.</p> + +<p>It is really curious how dramatically +effective a grand old ruin is. The weird +sense of being in the presence of olden +time comes over us immediately. We +look about us to see the spirit of some +cloistered monk come stealing by with +hood and girdle. Here—actually here, +in these nooks all crumbling under +Time's gnawing tooth—did old Cistercian +monks kneel with shaved heads +and confess their sins, and their bones +have been powdered into dust three +hundred years! Romsey Abbey—within +whose well-kept walls we rather yawned +over Palmerstonian eulogiums—is a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page714" id="page714"></a>[pg 714]</span> +thousand years old. This abbey is only +six hundred and thirty-two years old. +Romsey has been restored, and modern +men go to church there on Sunday decorously. +Netley has been left to go to +utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn +aisles. Owls hoot in its moss-clothed +chimneys. It is dramatically +effective.</p> + +<p>We wander through cloistered courts +into the main body of the church. Yonder +stood the pulpit, here gathered the +worshipers. The carpet is green grass. +Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers +from side to side of the tall windows, +in place of the stained glass once there. +Most of the windows have tumbled to +decay, walls and all. The roof is the +sky—naught else.</p> + +<p>We climb up the stone staircase in the +turret. All the stone steps are worn +with deep hollows where human feet have +trodden up and down for centuries, and +storms have sent rivulets of water pouring +through many a wild night. Some +of the steps are worn quite in two and +broken away, which makes the ascent +frightening to the ladies.</p> + +<p>Up here ("on the second floor," as +Bunker says) the carpet is again grass, +and Bunker and I clamber through a +little archway into the cloister gallery, +where the monks used to look down on +the service below when they felt inclined. +The ladies look after us, brave adventurers +that we are (only two or three +million men have been here before us, +perhaps, since the ruin became a popular +success), and refuse to follow in our +rash footsteps. The crumbling wall is +full of owls' nests. Rooks and swallows +fly continually in and out of their holes. +We could kick a loose stone down into +the chancel if there were any stones to +kick.</p> + +<p>The ladies declare themselves dizzy +and afraid, and we help them down the +dark winding turret staircase again, and +go into the enclosed parts of the ruin. +Here is where the monks lived. The +walls still stand, and parts of the roof. +The windows are thickly ivy-hung and +moss-grown. Here is the room where +the monks did whilom dine. For three +hundred years this dining-room was in +daily use, and in the spot where erst the +dining-table stood now grows a stalwart +tree, whose branches tower and spread +beyond the crumbling walls. Passing +strange!</p> + +<p>More strange is the sight in the next +room, the chapter-house, where the abbot +held his gravest councils, and where +the most honored of the monks were +buried beneath the floor when they died. +And since the roof fell in, after long +battling with storms, perhaps a hundred +years after the last monk was buried, +one day a seed fell. A tree grew up in +the room. It spread its tall branches +high above the piled-up stones, and +shook its brown leaves down, autumn +after autumn, for years and years. It +grew slowly old, and at last it died. It +fell down in its death in the room where +it had grown, and its once sturdy trunk +struck against the old ruined walls and +broke. Its roots were torn out of the +ground by the fall, and stuck up their +gnarled fingers in the empty room. And +the grass grew over the roots, weaving +a green cloak to hide their nakedness. +The old trunk stretches now across the +space in the room, and leans its old +head against the abbey wall. I didn't +read this story in a guide-book. It was +told to me by the principal actor, the tree.</p> + +<p>In the abbot's kitchen we get into the +huge hooded fireplace—seven of us—and +there is room for more. We look +up the chimney and see the glossy green +ivy leaves overhead, and the blue sky +shining beyond them. We toss a pebble +down into the subterranean passage +where, they say, the monks were wont +to pass out after provisions during a time +of siege; which must have been somewhat +demoralizing to the besiegers, whoever +they were. I stoop to pick up something +in the grass of the kitchen floor, +which has a glitter of gold upon it, and +my face flushes with eager anticipation +as I seize it.</p> + +<p>"What have you found?" asks Amy.</p> + +<p>"A relic of the monks?" asks Bunker.</p> + +<p>"It's a champagne cork," I am forced +to reply. "The truth is, Netley Abbey +is a show, like Niagara Falls and Bunker +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page715" id="page715"></a>[pg 715]</span> +Hill Monument. Of course crowds +of tourists come here, and of course +they pop champagne and ginger beer, +and cut their confounded initials in the +venerable stones."</p> + +<p>"Yes," says Bunker, "I saw 'W.S.' +cut in the wall at the top of the turret +stairs. Saves you the trouble, you +know."</p> + +<p>"I don't do that sort of thing, thank +you."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was curious to see +some nobody's name cut at full length +in the stone, with the date underneath—1770.</p> + +<p>When we return to the hotel the night +porter reports that he has not found my +umbrella. So I must go off without it. +Our train leaves at ten minutes past five +this afternoon, and we shall be in London +early in the evening. It is now four +o'clock: we have ordered dinner for this +hour, and so we sit down to our soup.</p> + +<p>"Please give us our dinner without any +delay now," I say to the pompous head-waiter, +"for we must take the train at +ten minutes past five."</p> + +<p>The man bows stiffly and retires. We +finish the soup, and wait. When we get +tired of waiting we call the head-waiter +to us: "Are you hastening our dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Fish directly, sir," he answers, and +walks solemnly away. We begin to +grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the +soup, and no fish yet. Bunker swears +he'll blow the head-waiter up in another +minute. Just as he is quite ready for +this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! +I lay it open.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's not done!" I cry in consternation. +"There, there! Take it +away, and bring the meat."</p> + +<p>With an air of grave offence the man +bears it solemnly out. Then we wait +again. And wait. And wait.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cries Bunker, +"here's half an hour gone, and we've +had nothing but soup! I really must +blow this fellow up."</p> + +<p>"Stop! there it comes."</p> + +<p>Enter the waiter with great dignity, +and solemnly deposits before us—the +fish again!</p> + +<p>He has had it recooked. We attack +it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for Goodness' +sake bring the rest of the dinner +<i>instantly</i>, or we must leave it.</p> + +<p>"And I'm about half starved," growls +Bunker.</p> + +<p>More waiting. Five minutes pass. +Ten.</p> + +<p>"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries +Bunker, jumping up with his napkin +round his neck, and striding over to the +head-waiter, where he stands in a Turveydroppy +attitude, leaning against a +sideboard with his arms folded. "Look +here!" Bunker ejaculates: "<i>can</i> you be +made to understand that we are in a +hurry? Would half a dollar be any inducement +to you to wake up and look +around lively? Because we have got to +take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," +showing his watch, "and as the +dinner is already paid for, I want to get +it before I go."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass +with slow indifference, "dinner directly. +John!" to our waiter, who is now placing +the meat on the table, "serve the genl'm'n's +dinner <i>directly</i>."</p> + +<p>Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown +stares at Harlequin after having cut him +in two, in dumb amazement at the fact +that Harlequin is not in the least disturbed +by being cut in two.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he mutters as he returns +to the table, "if that unmitigated wooden +image of a dunderhead would pay any +attention if I were to kick him?"</p> + +<p>"No—not if you were to tie a pack +of fire-crackers to his coat-tail and light +them. He knows his business too well. +The first duty of an English head-waiter +is to be dignified, as it is that of a French +head-waiter to be vigilant and polite."</p> + +<p>"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I +don't suppose the man had an idea of +what you meant by 'those cars,' if he +even knew what a half dollar signified."</p> + +<p>"Well, we must be off. Time's up. +We shall miss the train. Good-bye, +boys. You can sit still and finish your +dinner in peace."</p> + +<p>Good-bye to our friends from Paultons—good-bye. +And then we rush out, and +<i>do</i> miss the train. It is five o'clock ten +minutes and a quarter.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page716" id="page716"></a>[pg 716]</span> + +<p>English trains go on time—English +dinners don't.</p> + +<p>We finally get off at seven o'clock. +Just before we leave a waiter comes up +to me and says in a casual manner, +"Found your humbreller yet, sir?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, +sir?"</p> + +<p>"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with +an ivory handle."</p> + +<p>"W'y, I wouldn't wonder if that was +your humbreller in the corner now in the +reading-room, sir."</p> + +<p>I make haste to look. Yes, there it +is, my beloved, long-lost umbrella, quietly +leaning against the wall in a dark +corner, behind a pillar, behind a big +arm-chair, where nobody ever placed it, +I'll take my oath, but this rascally waiter, +who expects to get a shilling for +showing where he hid it.</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> your humbreller, sir?" the +waiter says, rubbing his hands and getting +in my way as I walk briskly out, at +peril of being stumbled over by my hurrying +feet. I scorn to reply, but I give +him a glance of such withering contempt +that I trust it pierced to his wicked heart, +and will remain there, a punishment and +a warning, to the last day of his base +life. An English waiter's hide is very +thick, however. He has probably hidden +many a gentleman's umbrella since.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock we are back in our +cozy London lodgings, and at twelve +we are sleeping the sleep of profound +fatigue, and dreaming of ghostly monks +wandering among the weird old ruins of +Netley.</p> + +<p class="author">WIRT SIKES.</p> + + + + +<h2>DAY-DREAM.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Here, in the heart of the hills, I lie,</p> +<p>Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky—</p> +<p>An amethyst and an emerald stone</p> +<p>Hung and hollowed for me alone!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Is it a dream, or can it be</p> +<p>That there is life apart from me?—</p> +<p>A larger world than the circling bound</p> +<p>Of light and color that lap me round?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Drowsily, dully, through my brain,</p> +<p>Like some recurrent, vague refrain,</p> +<p>A world of fancy comes and goes—</p> +<p>Shadowy pleasures, shadowy woes.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Spectral toils and troubles seem</p> +<p>Fashioned out of this foolish dream:</p> +<p>Round my charmèd quiet creep</p> +<p>Phantom creatures that laugh and weep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nay, I know they are meaningless,</p> +<p>Visions of utter idleness:</p> +<p>Nothing was, nor ever will be,</p> +<p>Save the hills and the heavens and me.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page717" id="page717"></a>[pg 717]</span> + + + + +<h2>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + +<h3>THE GLADSTONE FAMILY.</h3> + + +<p>There is no doubt that had Mr. +Gladstone followed his personal +inclinations when his Irish education +scheme broke down last March, he +would have retired from office. He is +now sixty-four, and it may be fairly +questioned whether there exists a man +who for forty-six years has worked his +brain harder. It is no light labor to +read for the highest honors in even one +school at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone +read for them in two. He gained "a +double first," which meant at that time +a first class both in classics and mathematics. +Forthwith he plunged into political +essay-writing, until in 1834 he +further added to his labors by entering +the House of Commons as M.P. for +Newark.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone's father was, as most +people are aware, a Liverpool merchant +of Scotch descent. This gentleman was +the architect of his own fortunes, which +arose in no slight degree out of his connection +with the United States. Having +been sent to this country by a firm largely +interested in the corn trade, he discharged +their business to their entire +satisfaction, whilst at the same time he +made very valuable business connections +on his own account, which materially +served him when at a later period he +himself embarked in business. He +made a large fortune, but it did not appear +at his death to be so great as it was, +because he gave his younger sons the +bulk of their portions during his lifetime—to +avoid legacy duty, people said. To +his eldest son he left considerable estates +in Scotland—to the younger sons, about +one hundred thousand pounds apiece. +The eldest, Sir Thomas Gladstone, is +a very worthy man, but nowise remarkable +for ability. He has one son, and +has had six daughters. Four survive, +and all are unmarried.</p> + +<p>The next brother, Robertson, an eccentric +person whose indiscreet speeches +must often have made his statesman +brother feel very hot, continues the paternal +business at Liverpool. The third, +John Neilson, was, socially speaking, +the flower of the flock. He was a captain +in the navy, from which he had retired +many years prior to his death in +1863, and a member of Parliament. +By his wife, a singularly excellent and +charming woman, he had several children, +who may be said to pretty nearly +monopolize the feminine charms of the +Gladstone family. One of these married +the earl of Belmore, an Irish nobleman, +who lately returned from a not very +successful gubernatorial career in New +South Wales. Both Sir Thomas and +Captain Gladstone were decided Conservatives.</p> + +<p>William Ewart is the fourth brother. +"That young brother of mine will make +a noise in the world some of these days," +said Captain Gladstone to a fellow-middy +as his brother turned away from bidding +him good-bye just before he was +about to start on a cruise; and the words +were certainly prophetic. Mr. Gladstone +married when he was thirty. His wife +was one of the two sisters of Sir Stephen +Glynne. The English aristocracy +contains a great many sets, and the +Glynnes were in the intellectual set, +comprising such men as the dukes of +Argyll and Devonshire, and Lords Derby, +Stanhope and Lyttelton. Mrs. Gladstone +and her sister were married on the +same day to two of the finest intellects +of their time. The younger, whose mental +gifts were far superior to those of her +sister, married Lord Lyttelton.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone has a large family. +The eldest son has for some time been +in Parliament, but has established no +reputation for notable capacity, and it is +said that, with the exception of one of +his younger brothers, none of the family +are remarkable in this respect. Mrs. +Gladstone is a person of great kindness +of heart and untiring benevolence. She +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page718" id="page718"></a>[pg 718]</span> +is full of schemes for doing good: hospitals, +convalescent institutions, etc. find +in her an ever-ready friend, to the neglect, +it is whispered, of her domestic +duties. There is an amusing story told +of how some time ago a few guests arrived +at her house in response to an invitation +to dinner. They waited in vain +for the rest of the party, for whose delay +their hostess was at a loss to account. +At length she turned aside and opened +her blotting-book, which quickly revealed +the cause of the guests' non-appearance—the +invitations were lying there. +They had been written, but never sent.</p> + +<p>In London the prime minister—who +has an indifferent official residence, +which he and his family have occasionally +occupied, in Downing street—lives in +Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful +house, but not by any means well +adapted for party-giving, for it is so +constructed that circulation is almost +impossible. If you once get into a +room, you must stay there; whereas +half the charm of Lady Palmerston's +famous parties at Cambridge House was +the free circulation the rooms afforded, +enabling you to pass right round a quadrangle, +and thus easily find an acquaintance +or get away from a bore. Mr. +Gladstone's house has a fine double +staircase, and it will derive interest in +after days from the circumstance that, +standing at the head, Lord Russell took +leave of the party he had led, and pointed +to his then host as his successor.</p> + +<p>Carlton-House Terrace is in many +respects the most delightful situation in +London, for, whilst extremely central, it +is very quiet. It stands between Pall Mall +and St. James's Park. One side faces a +strip of beautifully kept garden, which +lies between the terrace and the row of +palaces formed by the Senior United +Service, Athenaeum, Travelers' and Carlton +Clubs. The other side has a charming +prospect over St. James's Park. In +summer this is really lovely, for all ugly +objects are obscured by the foliage, amid +which glimpses are obtained of the pinnacles +and fretted towers of the palace +of Parliament on the one hand, and +those of its venerable neighbor, the +majestic abbey, on the other. It was here +that Bunsen passed his London days, +and the reader of his memoirs will +remember frequent references to the +charms of his house. It may well be +imagined how great a boon it is to the +toil-worn minister to find himself, as it +were, in a garden, with only the distant +roar, like that of the sea, to remind him +as he sits in his study that five minutes +walk across that pleasant park will bring +him to Downing street, and three more +to the Treasury bench in the House of +Commons.</p> + +<p>In the country most of his time is +spent at Hawarden Castle in Flintshire, +about six hours from London. This is +the ancestral seat of Mrs. Gladstone's +brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, lord lieutenant +of the county, whose family have +held this property for centuries. Sir +Stephen is a very shy man of retired +habits. By a family arrangement his +house is the country abode of his sister +and brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>In earlier life, Sir Stephen and his two +brothers-in-law, Mr. Gladstone and Lord +Lyttelton, formed an unfortunately favorable +estimate of certain mines, into +which much of the fortune of Sir Stephen +and his sisters went, and from which it +never came out again. There was one +other brother, the late rector of Hawarden. +He died about a year ago, and +Mr. Gladstone's second son, Stephen, +was appointed his successor. The living, +in the gift of Sir Stephen, is very valuable. +Mr. Glynne, the clergyman, died +without a son, and the title will therefore +on Sir Stephen's death be extinct. As +matters now stand, it may be presumed +that Mr. W.H. Gladstone, the prime +minister's eldest son, will succeed to the +Hawarden estates.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone has himself recently increased +the family interest around Hawarden +by purchase. About five years +ago the state of his finances were the +talk of the town, and a number of people, +especially of the Conservative party, +avowed themselves in a position to assert +from personal knowledge that he was +ruined. There was no just ground for +such a statement, and like so many other +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page719" id="page719"></a>[pg 719]</span> +absurd rumors it died out. None of Mr. +Gladstone's daughters are married, nor +is his eldest son.</p> + + + + +<h3>WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS.</h3> + + +<p>Certain great festivals of the Christian +Church which were ignored by the +Puritans and Quakers have always continued +in high repute among the Pennsylvania +Germans. Christmas, Easter, +Whitsuntide and Ascension Day are celebrated +not only in the Lutheran, the +Reformed or Calvinistic and the Moravian +churches, but among the descendants +of those Swiss Anabaptists who, +being driven from their homes by religious +persecution, finally took shelter in +that part of the land of Penn now called +Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians +being known among us by the names +of Mennists and Amish (pronounced +Menneests and Ommish).</p> + +<p>The movable feast of Whitsunday or +Pentecost, which occurs on the seventh +Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion +in the Mennonite meetings, for at +this time is held one of the great semi-annual +observances of bread-breaking +and feet-washing. The ensuing day, +Whitmonday, is a great secular festival. +All the spring bonnets are then in readiness +for the "Dutch" girls. The young +farmer of eighteen or more, whose father +has granted his heart's desire in the form +of a buggy, or who has otherwise attained +to that summit of rural felicity, harnesses +and attaches to it one of the horses +with which the farm is so well supplied, +and takes his girl into the county-town. +Here they walk the streets, partake of +simple refreshments, meet their acquaintances +or talk with them in the tavern +parlor. Sometimes they visit a circus or +menagerie whose managers have made +a timely visit to our inland city.</p> + +<p>On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while +the Dutch boys are working the corn, +you may perchance hear their father's +voice raised to a higher pitch than usual, +which circumstance he explains when +he comes in sight, thus: "The boys is +sleepy to-day. Yesterday was Whissuntide, +you know. They got home late." +For custom forbids their leaving the girl +of their choice before the small hours, +and allows them, nevertheless, no remission +from labor on the succeeding +day.</p> + +<p>The people, however, whose religious +services I am about to describe impose +upon their members a stricter rule of +earlier hours, etc. They are called New +(or Reformed) Mennists.</p> + +<p>It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, +that I paid a visit to one of our New +Mennist meeting-houses, and found before +nine o'clock in the morning that the +services had already begun. The first +apartment we entered was a sort of tiring-room, +where along the walls hung the +shawls and black sun-bonnets of the +sisters. Here were also traveling-bags, +and a cradle stood ready to receive one +or more of the babies that were in attendance. +In the adjoining room were heard +the familiar notes of "Old Hundred," +and "Du bist der Weg" was sung pleasantly +without any instrumental accompaniment.</p> + +<p>When we entered the whitewashed +apartment in which the meeting had assembled +I saw upon a small platform at +the farther end five men, who were apparently +preachers or elders. At the +same end of the room were seated the +soberly clad members of the sect—the +men on one side of the apartment, with +their broad-brimmed hats removed; on +the other side the sisters, with their extremely +plain book-muslin caps and +otherwise sober attire.</p> + +<p>A portion of the services was in English. +Dr. ——, a practitioner of medicine +and a bishop in this Church, spoke +extemporaneously in our language. He +gave a long account of the ordinances +of the Jewish Church, and then of those +which the "Lord Jesus instituted in the +place of these—the baptism that was +celebrated a week ago, and this Lord's +Supper, this feet-washing, this kiss of +peace, this manner of visiting offenders;" +the last phrase being an allusion +to the severe rule which forbids the New +or Reformed Mennists to eat, etc. with +those excommunicated by the society.</p> + +<p>The Mennists, as I understand, hold +in general those doctrines that are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page720" id="page720"></a>[pg 720]</span> +considered evangelical. The services were +much prolonged, and the congregation +became restless. But at length, while +a younger brother was speaking in +"Dutch" or German, there came in another +bearing a parcel wrapped in a white +cloth. He was followed by one +carrying something tied in a blue-and-white +cloth, which being opened disclosed +a demijohn. The white parcel +was received by the preacher upon the +desk, and when opened showed a great +loaf of our beautiful Lancaster county +bread divided into slices. After prayer +several preachers took slices, and passing +around among the congregation +broke off bits which they gave to the +communicants. The wine in the demijohn +was then poured into small, bright +tin cups, like milkmen's measures, and +was distributed among the members. A +hymn in the German language was +sung, two lines at a time, while the wine +was handed round.</p> + +<p>After these services were concluded +feet-washing began by reading the passage +from the 13th chapter of John on +the subject, and this was followed by +many remarks. I observed that one +elderly brother, speaking in a mournful +tone and in our Dutch manner, quoted, +"Nimmermehr soll du mein Fees +wasche" ("Thou shalt never wash my +feet"). These discourses were followed +by the announcement, "Next Sunday +there will be bread-breaking at +Landisville."</p> + +<p>Now arose a confusion from carrying +out benches, from arranging others in two +long rows facing each other, etc. The +two principal preachers were seen disencumbered +of their coats, much animated +conversation began, and feet-washing +did not seem to be observed +with so much seriousness as the Supper. +I took a seat near the end of two long +benches which were arranged to face +each other, and on which sat some of +the brethren whose feet were to be washed +by one of the preachers. Common +unpainted tubs containing water were +brought in by two men. Dr. ——, the +bishop already mentioned, had a great +piece of white linen tied around his +waist. He passed along between the +two rows of men as they sat facing +each other, bearing his tub alternately +from a brother in one row to one in the +other, so that both rows were finished at +about the same time. Quietly the men +took off their shoes and stockings. They +did not put their feet forward much. As +Dr. —— came to each participant he +set his tub down before him, washed his +feet a little, wiped them on the long +white apron or towel, then shook hands +with him and kissed him. He thus +ministered to thirty persons, a somewhat +laborious undertaking, but his powerful +frame was suited to the exertion. The +same water and the same towel served +for all.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the sisters, in another part +of the room, were arranged in smaller +companies on benches placed in a similar +manner. I said to a sister, "Do the +preachers wash the sisters' feet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," she answered: "the sisters +does it."</p> + +<p>Some of the sisters were very friendly, +and not unwilling to converse. One +said, "One sister washes as many as she +is pretty well able: it's hard on the +back."</p> + +<p>"And does she have a towel?" said I.</p> + +<p>"She girds a towel, and then she +washes and wipes them, and gives them +a kiss."</p> + +<p>"Do you all have your feet washed?" +I inquired further.</p> + +<p>"No, not those that have any weakness +that prevents."</p> + +<p>"And will all these brothers have their +feet washed?"</p> + +<p>"All that communes."</p> + +<p>"And do not all commune?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, without they feel that they have +something against another. Now if I +feel that I have something against her—placing +her hand upon a sister.</p> + +<p>"I understand," interrupted I. "'If +thou bring thy gift to the altar—' And +how many," I continued, "will there +be in such a meeting as this that will +not commune? Will there be half a +dozen?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; but by another year all will +likely be right, and then they will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page721" id="page721"></a>[pg 721]</span> +commune. Now, I did not commune nor +have my feet washed."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said I.</p> + +<p>"Why, I felt at this time such confusion +of mind, as if the Enemy was +against me—"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was not anything against a +brother or sister?"</p> + +<p>"No, I count them all ahead of me: +I count myself the poorest member."</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the feet-washing +a hymn was sung. Among those who +had their feet washed was a young man +apparently about twenty-two, and who +looked full of fun. It seems that even +such may be in membership with so +strict a sect. It was about one o'clock +when the meeting ended, having been +in session four hours and a half.</p> + +<p>The great simplicity of the surroundings +on this occasion may lead the reader +to suppose that the congregation was +poor. It was, however, composed in a +great measure of some of the thriftiest +farmers in one of the richest upland sections +of the United States.</p> + +<p>Some time after attending this meeting +I called upon an aged Amish man to +converse with him upon their religious +society, etc. The Amish are another +branch of the Mennonites, and those +among us are likewise descendants of +Swiss refugees. They are the most +primitive of the three divisions of the +sect, preserving the use of the Dutch or +German language not only in their religious +meetings, but almost entirely in +their own families.</p> + +<p>I mentioned to this aged man the feet-washing +that I had attended, and told +how Dr. ——, the bishop, had washed +the feet of the other brethren.</p> + +<p>"Did he wash them all?" said my +Amish acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all that were assigned to him. +How is it among you?"</p> + +<p>"They wash each other's, every two +and two. If he washes them all, he +puts himself in Christ's place. <i>He</i> says, +'Wash each other's feet.'"</p> + +<p>This, I am also informed, is the rule +among the third division, the Old Mennists, +the most numerous branch of these +remarkable people.</p> + +<p class="author">P.E.G.</p> + + + + +<h3>THE RAW AMERICAN.</h3> + + +<p>London at present abounds in Americans +on their way to the Vienna Exposition. +Many of them are commissioners +from various States. Some have +lands to sell or other financial axes to +grind. Of such the Langham Hotel is +full. The Langham is the nearest approach +to an American hotel in London. +There, though not a guest, you may pass +in and out without explaining to the +hall-porter who you are, what you are, +where you come from or what you want: +you may there enter and retire without +giving your pedigree, naturalization papers +or a certificate of good character. +At other English hotels something analogous +to this is commonly required.</p> + +<p>We, who have been in England a full +year, look down with an air of superiority +on the raw, the newly-arrived American. +We are quite English. We have +worn out our American clothes. We +have on English hats with tightly-curled +rims and English stub-toed boots. We +know the intricacies of London street +navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, +Camden Town, Hackney, the "Surrey +Side," Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford +streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are +all mapped out distinctly in our mind's +eye. We are skilled in English money, +and no longer pass off half crowns for +two-shilling pieces. We are real Anglo-Americans.</p> + +<p>But the raw American, only arrived a +week, is in a maze, a confusion, a hurry. +He is excited and mystified. He tries +to appear cool and unconcerned, and is +simply ridiculous. His cards, bearing +his name, title and official status, he distributes +as freely as doth the winter wind +the snow-flakes. Inquire at the Langham +office for Mr. Smith, and you find +he has blossomed into General Smith.</p> + +<p>He is always partaking or about to +partake of official dinners. He feels +that the eyes of all England are upon +him. He is dressed <i>à la</i> bandbox—hat +immaculate in its pristine gloss, white +cravat, umbrella of the slimmest encased +in silken wrapper. A speck of mud on +his boots would tarnish the national +honor. Commonly, he is taken for a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page722" id="page722"></a>[pg 722]</span> +head-butler. He drinks much stout. +He eats a whitebait dinner before being +forty-eight hours in London, and tells of +it. All this makes him feel English.</p> + +<p>You meet him. He is overjoyed. He +would talk of everything—your mutual +experience in America, his sensations +and impressions since arriving in England. +He talks intelligibly of nothing. +His brain is a mere rag-bag, shreddy, +confused, parti-colored. Thus he empties +it: "Passage over rough;" "London +wonderful;" "Dined with the earl of —— yesterday;" +"Dine with Sir —— +to-day;" "To the Tower;" "Westminster;" +"New York growing;" "Saint +Paul's"—going, going, gone! and he +shakes hands with you, and is off at a +Broadway gait straight toward the East +End of London for his hotel, which lies +at the West End.</p> + +<p>In reality, the man is not in his right +mind. He is undergoing the mental acclimatization +fever. Should he stay in +London for three months, he might recover +and begin to find out where he is. +But six months hence he will have returned +to America, fancying he has seen +London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, +and whatever other places his body has +been hurried through, not his mind; for +that, in the excitement and rapidity of +his flight, has streamed behind him like +the tail of a comet, light, attenuated, +vapory, catching nothing, absorbing +nothing.</p> + +<p>Occasionally this fever takes an abusive +phase. He finds in England nothing +to like, nothing to admire. Sometimes +he wishes immediately to revolutionize +the government. He is incensed +at the cost of royalty. He sees on every +side indications of political upheaval. +Or he becomes culinarily disgusted. +Because there are no buckwheat cakes, +no codfish cakes, no hot bread, no pork +and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, +fried and roasted, he can find nothing +fit to eat. The English cannot cook. +Because he can find no noisy, clattering, +dish-smashing restaurant, full of acrobatic +waiters racing and balancing under +immense piles of plates, and shouting +jargon untranslatable, unintelligible and +unpronounceable down into the lower +kitchen, he cannot, cannot eat.</p> + +<p class="author">PRENTICE MULFORD.</p> + + + + +<h2>FAREWELL.</h2> + + +<p>The occasion commemorated in the +following verses—one of those festive +meetings with which tender-hearted +Philadelphians are wont to brace themselves +up for sorrowful partings—called +forth expressions of deep regret and cordial +good wishes, in which many of our +readers, we doubt not, will readily join:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>If from my quivering lips in vain</p> +<p class="i2">The faltering accents strove to flow,</p> +<p>It was because my heart's deep pain</p> +<p class="i2">Bade tears be swift and utterance slow;</p> +<p>For in that moment rose the ghosts</p> +<p class="i2">Of pleasant hours in bygone years;</p> +<p>And your kind faces, O my hosts!</p> +<p class="i2">Showed blurred and dimly through my tears.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>I could not tell you of the pride</p> +<p class="i2">That thrilled me in that parting hour:</p> +<p>Grief held command all undenied,</p> +<p class="i2">And only o'er my speech had power.</p> +<p>I found no words to tell the thoughts</p> +<p class="i2">That strove for utterance in my brain:</p> +<p>With gratitude my soul was fraught,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet I only spoke of pain.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>O friends! 'tis you, and such as you,</p> +<p class="i2">That make this parting hard to bear!</p> +<p>Pass all things else my past life knew:</p> +<p class="i2">I scarcely heed—I do not care.</p> +<p>I lose in you the dearest part</p> +<p class="i2">Of pleasant time that here now ends:</p> +<p>Hand parts from hand, <i>not</i> heart from heart,</p> +<p class="i2">And I must leave you, O my friends!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>What can the future's fairest hours</p> +<p class="i2">Bring me to recompense for these?</p> +<p>Acquaintances spring like the flowers—</p> +<p class="i2">Friends are slow growth, like forest trees.</p> +<p>Come hope or gladness, what there will—</p> +<p class="i2">Days bright as sunshine after rain—</p> +<p>The past gave life's best blessings still:</p> +<p class="i2">We'll find no friends like these again.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>I leave you in the dear old home</p> +<p class="i2">That once was mine—now mine no more:</p> +<p>Henceforth a stranger I must come</p> +<p class="i2">To haunts so well beloved of yore;</p> +<p>Yet if your faces turn to mine</p> +<p class="i2">The kindly smile I'm wont to see,</p> +<p>Not all, not all I must resign—</p> +<p class="i2">My lost home's light still shines for me!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whatever chance or change be mine</p> +<p class="i2">In other climes, 'neath foreign skies,</p> +<p>Your love, your kindness, I shall hold</p> +<p class="i2">Dearest amid dear memories.</p> +<p>O eyes grown dim with falling tears!</p> +<p class="i2">O lips where Sorrow lays her spell!</p> +<p>The saddest task of all life's years</p> +<p class="i2">Is yours—to look and say farewell!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">LUCY H. HOOPER.</p> +<p>AUGUSTIN'S, April 7, 1873.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page723" id="page723"></a>[pg 723]</span> + + + + +<h2>NOTES.</h2> + + +<p>Between the careers of Cavour and +Thiers no sound parallel can easily be +traced, but in their characters—or rather +in their diplomatic methods and arts—there +would seem to be some curious +and almost ludicrous points of resemblance, +if we may accept as true a sketch +of the great Italian statesman made +by M. Plattel, the author of "Causeries +Franco-Italiennes," fifteen years ago. +M. Plattel, who wrote from close personal +observation, at that time described +Count Cavour as being physically "M. +Thiers magnified;" or, if you prefer, M. +Thiers is the count viewed through the +big end of an opera-glass. The count, +says M. Plattel, "has the spectacles, and +even a similar expression of finesse. +When things take a serious turn, the +count puts both hands in his pockets; +and if you see him do that, expect to +hear this threat: 'If you do not pass +this bill, <i>signori deputati</i>, I consider you +incapable of longer managing the affairs +of the country: I have the honor of bidding +you good-evening.' For (and this +is a strange peculiarity) this first minister +is never steadier than when in danger +of falling; and his grand oratorical, or +rather ministerial, figure of speech is to +seize his hat and his cane, whereupon +the chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour +to sit down. M. de Cavour lets +them plead a while, and then—he sits +down again! Reading his speeches now +in Paris, I can fancy the count with his +hat by his side and his hand on the +door-knob. Heaven knows how many +times that comedy-proverb of Musset +called 'A door must either be open or +shut,' has been gravely played by the +Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" +It is with a very droll effect that +a French paper has revived this curious +description, <i>à propos</i> of the perpetual +repetition of the drama played by the +French Assembly and the French president, +in which the constant threats of +resignation on the one hand are invariably +followed by passionate and despairing +entreaties to "stay" on the other. +It is the old story of Cavour and the +door-knob over again; and even the +great Bismarck, by the way, does not +disdain a resort occasionally to the same +terrible pantomime. "The only <i>coup +d'état</i> to be feared from M. Thiers," said +M. Dufaure in the Assembly, "is his +withdrawal." It is, the quarreling and +reconciliation of Horace and Lydia: +"What if the door of the repudiated +Lydia again open to me?" "Though +you are stormier than blustering Adriatic, +I should love to live with you," etc. Such +is the billing and cooing, after quarrel, +between the president and the Assembly. +Still, it is clear that the puissant +hat-and-cane argument must date back +to Cavour.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> +<p>The recent proposition of some English +writers to elevate a certain class +of suicides to the rank of a legalized +"institution," under the pleasant name of +"euthanasia," suggests the inquiry +whether, without any scientific vindication +of the practice, there will not always +be suicides enough in ordinary society. +At any rate, however it may be in England, +just across the Channel, in France, +thousands of people every year break +the "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," leaving +the ills they have to "fly to others +that they know not of." The official +figures show that in a period of twenty-two +years no less than 71,207 persons +committed suicide in France. The causes +were various—business embarrassments, +domestic chagrins, the brutishness produced +by liquor, poverty, insanity, the +desire to put an end to physical suffering +by "euthanasia," and so on; but +they are pretty nearly all included in the +"fardels" which Hamlet mentions, from +the physical troubles of the "heartache +and the thousand natural shocks that +flesh is heir to," up to the mental distress +wrought by the "whips and scorns of +time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud +man's contumely, the pangs of despised +love," and so on in the well-remembered +catalogue. Perhaps the most interesting +point in these statistics concerns the +means employed for suicide. These are +thus tabulated: Hanging, 24,536; drowning, +23,221; shooting, 10,197; asphyxia +by charcoal fumes (a true Paris appliance), +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page724" id="page724"></a>[pg 724]</span> +5587; various cutting instruments, +2871; plunging or jumping from an +elevated place (an astonishing number), +2841; poison, 1500; sundry other methods, +454. Hanging and drowning are +thus accountable for more than half the +French suicides. The little stove of +charcoal suggests itself as a remedy at +hand to many a wretch without the +means to buy a pistol or the nerve to +use a knife. The cases of voluntary +resort to poison are astonishingly few, +but it must be remembered that the foregoing +figures only embrace successful +suicides, and antidotes to poison often +come in season where the rope or the +river would have made quick and fatal +work. <i>La France</i> notes, regarding these +statistics, that their details show that men +oftenest use pistols, and women oftenest +try poison, in their attempts at suicide. +What is more curious, each man is likely +to employ an instrument familiar to +him: thus, hunters and soldiers resort +to the pistol, barbers trust the razor, +shoemakers use the knife, engravers the +graving-tool, washerwomen poison themselves +with potash or Prussian blue; +though, of course, these are only general +rules, with a great many exceptions. +And in Paris it is said that among all +ranks and professions, and in both sexes, +at least half of the suicides are by +asphyxiation with charcoal. Surely in +France one hardly needs to preach any +doctrine of not patiently suffering the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. +A healthier and more inspiring morality +would be that of the story of the baron +of Grogzwig and his adventure with the +"Genius of Despair and Suicide," as +narrated in an episode of <i>Nicholas +Nickleby</i>; for the stout baron, after +thinking over his purpose of making a +voluntary departure from this world, +and finding he had no security of being +any the better for going out of it, abandoned +the plan, and adopted as a rule +in all cases of melancholy to look at +both sides of the question, and to apply +a magnifying-glass to the better one.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>In Philadelphia, at least, where there +is still a respect for age, the tidings will +be received with respectful regret of the +death of Nono, a noted pensionary of +the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the +ripe age of more than a hundred years. +To have achieved the celebrity of being +the oldest inmate of that institution +was no despicable distinction, but +the venerable centenarian had other +claims to honor. A native of the Marquesas +Islands, he was brought by Bougainville +in 1776 to the Royal Museum, +afterward known as the Jardin des +Plantes. It has frequently been alleged +that parrots may live a hundred years: +Nono has established the fact by living +still longer. As he thus contributes an +illustration to science, so surely he might +point a general moral and adorn a historic +tale. If Thackeray could discourse +so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," +the vicissitudes which this veteran Parisian +witnessed in the French capital +from 1776 to 1873, under two empires, +two royal dynasties and three republics, +might be worth a rhapsody. Nono seems +to have been a well-preserved old parrot. +Magnificent in youth, he attained +literally a green old age, for his plumage +was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, +he had lost his houppe, and was +almost totally bald. However, his eye +was clear and bright enough to have +read the finest print or followed the +finest needlework; and it had the <i>narquois</i>, +lightly skeptical look of those who +have seen a great deal of life. In short, +Nono was a stylish and eminently respectable +old bird. That worthy person, +Monsieur Chavreul, who treats the +animals of the Jardin like a father, +has stuffed and mounted the illustrious +Nono as a testimonial of affection and +respect.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The connection between war and +botany is, at first, not specially obvious, +and yet a very clear bit of testimony to +their relation was disclosed by the siege +of Paris. Two naturalists have published +a <i>Florula Obsidionalis</i>, which, as its +name partly indicates, is a catalogue of +the accidental flora of the late investment +of Paris. They reckon in their +list not less than one hundred and ninety +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page725" id="page725"></a>[pg 725]</span> +species before unknown to the neighborhood +of the French capital, whereof +fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, +beans, etc.), thirty-four are composite, +thirty-two are <i>plantes grasses</i>, and sixty-six +belong to other families. Almost all +are to be found chiefly on the left bank +of the Seine, though also discoverable +at Neuilly and in the Bois de Boulogne. +Of course, these new-comers are all +accounted for as the produce of seeds +brought by the German army. They +will gradually die out; and yet some few +may remain as permanent conquerors +of the soil, since among the flora of +Paris is still reckoned one plant whose +seed was brought into France by some +Russian forage-train in 1815.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>As the impudence, dishonesty, laziness +and rapacity of servants at watering-places +have long been familiar subjects +of satire, it is just to say a word on +the other side in favor of some extreme +Northern resorts. At the White Mountains, +for example, the waiters and waitresses +are of a better class than is generally +met. Some of the young girls are +farmers' daughters, who go to the hotels +to see the fashions and earn a little +pocket-money. The colored cook at +one of the great houses teaches dancing +during the winters. Not a few are +school-teachers, others students at country +academies, who pass their vacation +in this way in order to earn enough +to buy text-books or pay the winter's +tuition. Many of them are more intelligent +and well educated than some of +the shoddies they wait upon. They are +usually quicker in movement and of +more retentive memory than the average +American waiter; and though each has +a great deal to do at times, yet even +during the tremendous moment of dinner +they contrive to find a few little intervals +for harmless flirtations in the +dining-room. They are for the most +part well-mannered too, and if they talk +to you of each other as "this lady" or +"that gentleman," what is it more than +some waiters do with far less reason? +The New Hampshire villages become +versed every summer in the latest imported +fashions, thanks to the quick eyes +of the hotel waitresses.</p> + + + + +<h2>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2> + + +<p class="book">Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard +Taylor. Boston: Osgood & Co.</p> +<p>Mr. Taylor's muse has of late become very +still-faced, decorous and mindful of the art-proprieties. +Cautious is she, and there is +perhaps nothing in this pastoral that will +cause the grammarian to wince, or make the +censorious rhetorician writhe in his judgment-seat +with the sense that she is committing +herself. Not such were the early attributes +of the great itinerant's poetry. When he +used to unsling his minstrel harp in the wilds +of California or on the sunrise mountains of +the Orient, there were plenty of false notes, +plenty of youthful vivacities that overbore +the strings and were heard as a sudden +crack, and, withal, a good deal of young +frank fire. Now there is much finish and +the least possible suspicion of ennui. But +the life-history of <i>Lars</i> is worth reading. It +is a calm procession of pictures, without pretence, +except the slight pretence of classical +correctness. The first part, which reflects +Norwegian manners in a way reminding us +more or less of the exquisite stories of Bjornsen, +tells how two swains of Ulvik, Lars the +hunter and Per the fisher, quarrel for love +of Brita, and at a public wrestling decide the +question by a combat, fighting with knives, +in Norse fashion, while hooked to each other +at the belt. They strip, <i>à la</i> Heenan and +Sayers. Mr. Taylor, who does not often +come behind the occasion when he can get +a human figure to describe statue-wise or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page726" id="page726"></a>[pg 726]</span> +under a studio light, is perhaps a trifle too +Phidian in bringing out the good looks of +his fish-eating gladiators:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10"> The low daylight clad</p> +<p>Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now</p> +<p>Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet</p> +<p>So near the beauty terrible of Death.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His +foe falls lifeless, his sweetheart calls him a +murderer, and he flies from the law. Another +scene quickly shows him crossing the +broad ocean, as so many Norwegians and +Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking +the protection of Swedish forts on Delaware +banks. Long, sad days pass on the ocean,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10"> Till shining fisher-sails</p> +<p>Came, stars of land that rose before the land;</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, +only to find that the civilization he seeks has +set like a sinking planet into the abiding +enlightenment of another race and creed. +Governor Printz's fortress on Tinicum isle is +a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays +up the broad stream</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington</p> +<p>Looks to the river over marshy weeds.</p> +<p>He saw the low brick church with stunted tower,</p> +<p>The portal-arches, ivied now and old,</p> +<p>And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones</p> +<p>Bore Norland names and dear familiar words!</p> +<p>It seemed the dead a comfort spake.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The governor is a myth, the Swedes are +dead, the Scandinavian tongues have been +changed to English, and an English exactly +conformed to King James's translation of the +Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to checks +him for addressing her with a civility:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Nay," she said, "not <i>lady</i>! call me Ruth."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, +on Hockessin Farm, the wanderer abides as +herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of +Ruth's soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the +Delawarean society, he joins the peaceful +sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, +though, to change his plural pronouns to the +scriptural <i>thou</i> and <i>thee</i> of King James's +translators than to tame his heroic Viking +blood, swift to boil into wrath at the show +of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a +quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, +where lies</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads,</p> +<p>The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts +forth in tears and supplications among the +worshipers, and is received into full harmony +with them:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>So into joy revolved the doubtful year,</p> +<p>And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends</p> +<p>Sheltered another member, even Lars....</p> +<p>And all the country-side assembled there</p> +<p>One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky</p> +<p>The colors of transfiguration shone,</p> +<p>Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars</p> +<p>Together sat upon the women's side;</p> +<p>And when the peace was perfect, they arose:</p> +<p>He took her by the hand, and spake these words,</p> +<p>As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord</p> +<p>And this assembly, by the hand I take</p> +<p>Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her,</p> +<p>Divine assistance blessing me, to be</p> +<p>A loving and a faithful husband, even</p> +<p>Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth</p> +<p>The like sweet words; and so the twain were one.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It is not often that a liturgy has been translated +into metre with less change of its form +and substance.</p> + +<p>The imbedding of a raw Northern native +in this lap of repose and in this transfiguring +matrimonial alliance is the grand problem +of the poem. What will Lars do, now that +he is a man of peace and a Child of Light, +with the burden of conscience? In America +he is a saint and an apostle. In Europe he +is known but as a proscribed murderer. The +later scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his +true and tender wife, meets his old love, +his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, +are of a more ambitious character than any +that have preceded. The holy principles +imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made +to triumph, and Lars, dropping the sharp +blade from his hand in the thronged arena +whither he is forced once more, stands first +as a laughing-stock, and then as an apostle, +among his old neighbors. It is a position +full of moral force, and we find ourselves—suddenly +recovering in a degree from the +calm view we had taken of the poem as a +work of art—asking <i>how</i> we should be so +sensible of the grandeur of the situation if +the poet by his skill had not brought out its +peculiarity.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="book">A Lady of the Last Century. By Dr. Doran. +London: Bentley.</p> + +<p>This is the life of a lady remarkable in +herself and in her surroundings. Of every +day in her life she could say, in the words +of Horace, "I have lived." "She never +had a fool for an acquaintance," says her +biographer, "nor an idle hour in the sense of +idleness." Her father, Mr. Robinson, who +belonged to an eminent family which had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page727" id="page727"></a>[pg 727]</span> +been settled about a century at Rokeby, subsequently +the seat of Scott's friend Morritt, +in Yorkshire, married when a boy of eighteen +a rich young lady of very superior quality in +every respect, and by her had a large family. +His wife's mother married secondly Middleton, +the biographer of Cicero, who took a +great fancy to her grand-daughter, Elizabeth +Robinson, and paid much attention to her +intellectual development. In fact, from the +cradle to the grave she was thrown amongst +the erudite and cultivated in a very uncultivated +age. During her girlhood Elizabeth +Robinson had every advantage and pleasure +which wealthy and devoted parents could +give her, and when twenty-two she married +Mr. Edward Montagu, a grandson of the first +earl of Sandwich, and first cousin of the +celebrated Lady Mary's husband.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Montagu was far more fortunate in +her choice than the brilliant daughter of +the duke of Kingston. Her husband was in +every way estimable and amiable, and her +letters afford ample evidence how thoroughly +she appreciated his character. They had +only one child, who died in infancy, and +when Mr. Montagu died he bequeathed to +his widow the whole of his property, which +she in turn left to her nephew, who took the +name of Montagu and became Lord Rokeby.</p> + +<p>A few years after their marriage Mr. Montagu, +already affluent, received a great accession +of fortune in the shape of colliery +property in the north of England. This enabled +his wife to entertain very liberally, +and, in conjunction with her talents and +high connections, gave her a commanding +place in society. They took a large house +in Hill street, then the extremity of the West +End, which became the resort of that class +who, being anxious to put an end to eternal +card-playing and introduce rather more of the +intellectual into social intercourse, received +from a chance circumstance the name of +"blue-stockings." There were to be seen +Burke, Fox, Hannah More, Johnson, Lord +Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu +fitted up a room whose walls were hung with +feathers, and thence came Cowper's well-known +lines and Macaulay's passage: "There +were the members of that brilliant society +which quoted, criticised and exchanged +repartees under the rich peacock hangings +of Mrs. Montagu." After her husband's +death a great deal of business devolved on +her in the management of his estates, and +here she showed those qualities which are +singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of +rank. She went down to Northumberland, +inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and +made acquaintance with her tenants. She +seems particularly to have appreciated the +people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of +them recall in no slight degree some of those +of the sisters Bronté. Her principal seat +was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she +spent large sums in improvements under the +celebrated landscape-gardener "Capability +Brown."</p> + +<p>She survived her husband twenty-five +years, and about twenty years before her +death removed to a fine house which she +had erected in a then new part of London, +Portman Square, and which is still known +as Montagu House. But the entertainments +there given were, though more splendid, less +notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill +street, for Mrs. Montagu herself was getting +into years, and many of those who had been +the brightest ornaments of the Hill street +parties were passing away. Mrs. Montagu +died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She +was of an affectionate disposition, but had +somewhat less sensibility perhaps than most +men would like to see in a woman; yet, on +the whole, she played her part in life extremely +well, being wise, generous and true.</p> + +<p>The book is particularly interesting for the +rich aroma of association around it, and +would have been far more so had Dr. Doran +taken the trouble to give a few notes, of +which there is not a single one in the whole +book—a serious drawback, more especially +to American readers.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="book">The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, +Execution, and the Discussions relating +thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: +Harper & Brothers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cushing has given another proof of +the great capacity of some men to do very +clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an +adequate account of the work itself or of the +way in which it was done. Trained by long +experience in public business, and intimately +acquainted by long residence in Washington +with the methods of diplomatic negotiation +and interpretation, he was eminently fitted +to be the colleague of Mr. Evarts as counsel +for the government before the Geneva arbitration. +Here he undertakes to give an account +of the task there brought to a result so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page728" id="page728"></a>[pg 728]</span> +favorable to the United States. Unluckily, +he shows that he is always and only an advocate. +Much that may have been useful +for his duties in that office is prominent in a +disagreeable way in his recital of the Geneva +award. His language is loose and offensive, +often without meaning to be so, but oftener +in a way that shows how much he must have +been galled by the lord chief-justice of England. +Whatever Sir Alexander Cockburn +may have done there, and however much he +may have fallen from his high estate as one +of the arbitrators to the less dignified position +of an advocate for English claims, he will +have a sweet revenge in seeing the anger +that he has excited in one of the American +representatives, now become their spokesman. +Mr. Cushing falls into the blunder +that was once so common in our American +state papers as to give good cause for that +happy phrase of Nicholas Biddle—"Western +Orientalisms." The tone of the book, which +ought to be a simple story, is stilted and +rhetorical. The result of all the long discussions +is the best praise of our American +statesmen who were its authors, but it is +dwarfed and lessened by the fulsome praise +given to the foreign representatives who +brought it about. Of "bad language," in +keeping with the bad spirit of the book, the +following may serve as specimens: "Pretensiveness," +"frequentation," "annexion," +"capitulations" instead of "treaties," "monogram" +for "monograph," "it needs to," +"howmuchsoever," "law-books invested +with the reflection of fine scenery," "imposed +itself," "I demand of myself," and +other such phrases without number.</p> + +<p>Once done with Sir Alexander Cockburn +and the work at Geneva, Mr. Cushing shows +himself and his country to much better advantage +in discussing the "Mixed Commission" +now sitting at Washington, the Northwest +Boundary, the Fisheries, and the general +provisions of the Washington treaty. +He has, however, simply forestalled the +ground for some better writer on the important +history which belongs to that negotiation, +and will give the reading and reflecting public, +both abroad and at home, a very unfavorable +impression of the great task in which +he played so important a part, and of the +qualities of mind and temper he must have +brought to it, since at this late day he finds +no better impetus to the work of writing its +history than unexplained anger at one of the +members of the board before which Mr. +Cushing argued the cause of his country, +and helped to win it.</p> + + + + +<h3><i>Books Received.</i></h3> + + +<p>The Drawing-Room Stage: A Series of +Original Dramas, Comedies, Farces, and +Entertainments for Amateur Theatricals +and School Exhibitions. By George M. +Baker. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & +Shepard.</p> + +<p>Five Years in an English University. By +Charles Astor Bristed, late Foundation +Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. +Third edition. Revised by the Author. +New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. +By the late C.A. Sainte-Beuve. With a +Selection from her Poems. Translated +by Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts +Brothers.</p> + +<p>Livingstone and his African Explorations: +together with a Full Account of the Young, +Stanley and Dawson Search Expeditions. +New York: Adams, Victor & Co.</p> + +<p>The Mother's Register: Current Notes of +the Health of Children. From the French +of Professor J.B. Fonssagrines. New +York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene +Plon. Translated from the French +by J. M. Luyster. Illustrated. Boston: +Roberts Brothers.</p> + +<p>Scientific and Industrial Education: its Importance +to our Country. By G.B. Stebbins. +Detroit: Daily Post Printing Establishment.</p> + +<p>Never Again. By W.S. Mayo, M.D., +author of "Kaloolah," "The Berber," +etc. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>The World-Priest. From the German of +Leopold Schafer. By Charles T. Brooks. +Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + +<p>The Cuban Question in the Spanish Parliament. +London: Press of the Anglo-American +Times.</p> + +<p>Treason at Home: A Novel. By Mrs. +Greenough. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson +& Brothers.</p> + +<p>Myths and Myth-Makers. By John Fiske, +M.A., LL.B. Boston: James R. Osgood +& Co.</p> + +<p>An Account of the Sphynx at Mount Auburn. +Illustrated. Boston: Little, Brown +& Co.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + +<div>*** END OF THE PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK 13195 ***</div> +</body> +</html> diff --git a/13195-h/images/609.png b/13195-h/images/609.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac77345 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/609.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/610.png b/13195-h/images/610.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..27317c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/610.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/611.png b/13195-h/images/611.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3f490a --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/611.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/612.png b/13195-h/images/612.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6fb0ba --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/612.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/613.png b/13195-h/images/613.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..15cd1fe --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/613.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/614.png b/13195-h/images/614.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd7a2f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/614.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/615.png b/13195-h/images/615.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a001584 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/615.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/616.png b/13195-h/images/616.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..844f3f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/616.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/617.png b/13195-h/images/617.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85444b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/617.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/618.png b/13195-h/images/618.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c90d208 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/618.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/619.png b/13195-h/images/619.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2d22fc --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/619.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/621.png b/13195-h/images/621.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..14d23fd --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/621.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/622.png b/13195-h/images/622.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d696a4a --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/622.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/623.png b/13195-h/images/623.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cec41a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/623.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/624.png b/13195-h/images/624.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..72efa6e --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/624.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/625.png b/13195-h/images/625.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3be0c68 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/625.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/626.png b/13195-h/images/626.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c7e6c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/626.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/628.png b/13195-h/images/628.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bc76bc --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/628.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/630.png b/13195-h/images/630.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..202d3b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/630.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/632.png b/13195-h/images/632.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..51cd928 --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/632.png diff --git a/13195-h/images/633.png b/13195-h/images/633.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..48bc61a --- /dev/null +++ b/13195-h/images/633.png diff --git a/LICENSE.txt b/LICENSE.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..6312041 --- /dev/null +++ b/LICENSE.txt @@ -0,0 +1,11 @@ +This eBook, including all associated images, markup, improvements, +metadata, and any other content or labor, has been confirmed to be +in the PUBLIC DOMAIN IN THE UNITED STATES. + +Procedures for determining public domain status are described in +the "Copyright How-To" at https://www.gutenberg.org. + +No investigation has been made concerning possible copyrights in +jurisdictions other than the United States. Anyone seeking to utilize +this eBook outside of the United States should confirm copyright +status under the laws that apply to them. diff --git a/README.md b/README.md new file mode 100644 index 0000000..2514021 --- /dev/null +++ b/README.md @@ -0,0 +1,2 @@ +Project Gutenberg (https://www.gutenberg.org) public repository for +eBook #13195 (https://www.gutenberg.org/ebooks/13195) diff --git a/old/13195-8.txt b/old/13195-8.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..ad9b8ec --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-8.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science + Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13195] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added +by the transcriber. + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + + +JUNE, 1873. + +Vo. XI, No. 27. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + A NEW ATLANTIS. + + THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + CONCLUDING PAPER. + + A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + + OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT. + CHAPTER III. + CHAPTER IV. + + SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS. + + A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK + CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + + BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + CHAPTER VIII. + CHAPTER IX. + CHAPTER X. + + BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES. + + DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD. + + FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER. + + NOTES. + + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE. + UP THE INLET. + LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET. + CONGRESS HALL. + MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE. + THE SENATE HOUSE. + ON THE SHINING SANDS. + MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE. + THE THOROUGHFARE. + THE EXCURSION HOUSE. + A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL. + ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA. + AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON. + THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL. + A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB. + KABYLE MEN. + KABYLE WOMEN. + DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT. + AN ARAB MARKET. + POVERTY AND JEWELS. + GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA. + + + + + +A NEW ATLANTIS. + +[Illustration: ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.] + +The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day moving is over and settled, +and still a remnant of money is found sticking to the bottom of the +old marmalade pot. Where shall we go? + +There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport? + +But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity +of its _sangre azul_. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us +off to inspect the last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid +us enjoy the gardens, brought every spring in lace-paper out of the +florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, barefooted if we +choose, and Newport is become an affair of toilette and gold-mounted +harness, a bathing-place where people do everything but bathe. + +[Illustration: UP THE INLET.] + +Well, Nahant, then, or Long Branch? + +Too slow and too fast. Besides, we have seen them. + +Suppose we try the Isles of Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island and +White Island, now? Or Nantucket, or Marblehead? + +Too stony, and nothing in particular to eat. You ask for fish, and +they give you a rock. + +In truth, under that moral and physical dyspepsia to which we bring +ourselves regularly every summer, the fine crags of the north become +just the least bit of a bore. They necessitate an amount of heroic +climbing under the command of a sort of romantic and do-nothing Girls +of the Period, who sit about on soft shawls in the lee of the rocks, +and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of +your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, +and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single +ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse +at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels +dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require +more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and +encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making of a +steam-engine or the writing of a proposal. + +No, no, we would admire nothing, dare nothing, do nothing, but only +suck in rosy health at every pore, pin our souls out on the holly +hedge to sweeten, and forget what we had for breakfast. Uneasy daemons +that we are all winter, toiling gnomes of the mine and the forge--"O +spent ones of a workday age"--can we not for one brief month in our +year be Turks? + +[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.] + +Our doctors, slowly acquiring a little sense, are changing their +remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But +hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few +improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician +used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his +watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where +he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise +a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For +lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course +of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di +quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart. +But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy +manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult +the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City." + +--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet +luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea +with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water, +Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite +horizons. + +But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the +continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of +a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest +distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into +the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence +of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for +Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below +Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any +watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have +been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere. +Its success is due to its having nothing importunate about it. It +promises endless sea, sky, liberty and privacy, and, having made you +at home, it leaves you to your devices. + +[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.] + +Two of our best marine painters in their works offer us a choice of +coast-landscape. Kensett paints the bare stiff crags, whitened with +salt, standing out of his foregrounds like the clean and hungry +teeth of a wild animal, and looking hard enough to have worn out the +painter's brush with their implacable enamel. From their treeless +waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen, +fresh, beautiful and severe: it would take a pair of stout New England +lungs to breathe enjoyably in such an air. That is the northern coast. +Mr. William Richards gives us the southern--the landscape, in fact, +of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have the infinitude of soft silver +beach, the rolling tumultuousness of a boundless sea, and twisted +cedars mounted like toiling ships on the crests of undulating +sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, the power and the peace of the +Desert. + +And here let us be indulged with a few words about a section of our +great continent which has never been sung in rhyme, and which it +is almost a matter of course to treat disparagingly. A cheap and +threadbare popular joke assigns the Delaware River as the eastern +boundary of the United States of America, and defines the out-landers +whose homes lie between that current and the Atlantic Ocean as +foreigners, Iberians, and we know not what. Scarcely more of an exile +was Victor Hugo, sitting on the shores of Old Jersey, than is the +denizen of _New_ Jersey when he brings his half-sailor costume and his +beach-learned manners into contrast with the thrift and hardness of +the neighboring commonwealth. The native of the alluvium is another +being from the native of the great mineral State. But, by the very +reason of this difference, there is a strange soft charm that comes +over our thoughts of the younger Jersey when we have done laughing +at it. That broad, pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust, +which droops toward the south like some vast tropical leaf, and +spreads its two edges toward the fresh and salt waters, enervated with +drought and sunshine--that flat leaf of land has characteristics that +are almost Oriental. To make it the sea heaved up her breast, and +showed the whitened sides against which her tides were beating. To +walk upon it is in a sense to walk upon the bottom of the ocean. Here +are strange marls, the relics of infinite animal life, into which +has sunk the lizard or the dragon of antiquity--the gigantic +_Hadrosaurus_, who cranes his snaky throat at us in the museum, +swelling with the tale of immemorial times when he weltered here in +the sunny ooze. The country is a mighty steppe, but not deprived of +trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, dark foliage, and the endless +woods of pine, sand-planted, strew over that boundless beach a murmur +like the sea. The edibles it bears are of the quaintest and most +individual kinds: the cranberry is its native condiment, full of +individuality, unknown to Europe, beautiful as a carbuncle, wild as +a Tartar belle, and rife with a subacid irony that is like the wit of +Heine. + +[Illustration: MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.] + +Here is the _patate douce_, with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd +that loves to gad along the sand--the citron in its carved net, +and the enormous melon, carnation-colored within and dark-green to +blackness outside. The peaches here are golden-pulped, as if trying to +be oranges, and are richly bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid, +fascinating the taste like some enchantress of Venice, the pursuit of +whom is made piquant by a fancy that she may poison you. The farther +you penetrate this huge idle peninsula, the more its idiosyncrasy +is borne in on your mind. Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash of +air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, and heated jungles of dwarf oaks +balancing balmy plantations of pine. Then, toward the sea, the wiry +grasses that dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute possession with +the forests, and finally supplant them: the sand is blown into +coast-hills, whose crests send off into every gale a foam of flying +dust, and which themselves change shape, under pressure of the same +winds, with a slower imitation of the waves. Finally, by the gentlest +of transitions, the deserts and the quicksands become the ocean. + +[Illustration: THE SENATE HOUSE.] + +The shore melts into the sea by a network of creeks and inlets, +edging the territory (as the flying osprey sees it) with an inimitable +lacework of azure waters; the pattern is one of looping channels +with oval interstices, and the dentellated border of the commonwealth +resembles that sort of lace which was made by arranging on glass +the food of a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate and wove, having +voracity always before him and Fine Art behind him. Much of the +solider part of the State is made of the materials which enter into +glass-manufacture: a mighty enchanter might fuse the greater portion +of it into one gigantic goblet. A slight approximation to this work +of magic is already being carried on. The tourist who has crossed +the lagoons of Venice to see the fitful lights flash up from the +glass-furnaces of Murano, will find more than one locality here where +leaping lights, crowning low banks of sand, are preparing the crystal +for our infant industries in glass, and will remind him of his hours +by the Adriatic. Every year bubbles of greater and greater beauty +are being blown in these secluded places, and soon we hope to enrich +commerce with all the elegances of latticinio and schmelze, the +perfected glass of an American Venice. + +But our business is not with the land, but the sea. Here it lies, +basking at our feet, the warm amethystine sea of the South. It does +not boom and thunder, as in the country of the "cold gray stones." +On the contrary, saturating itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk +over the shoal flat beach with a succession of voluptuous curves, it +spreads thence in distance with strands and belts of varied color, +away and away, until blind with light it faints on a prodigiously far +horizon. Its falling noises are as soft as the sighs of Christabel. +Its colors are the pale and milky colors of the opal. But ah! what an +impression of boundlessness! How the silver ribbon of beach unrolls +for miles and miles! And landward, what a parallel sea of marshes, +bottoms and dunes! The sense of having all the kingdoms of the world +spread out beneath one, together with most of the kingdoms of the +mermen, has never so come to one's consciousness before. And again, +what an artist is Nature, with these faint washes and tenderest varied +hues--varied and tender as the flames from burning gases--while her +highest lights (a painter will understand the difficulty of _that_) +are still diaphanous and profound! + +One goes to the seaside not for pomp and peacock's tails, but for +saltness, Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build a city there that +shall not be an insult to the sentiment of the place is a matter of +difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a canvas encampment. A range of +solid stone villas like those of Newport, so far as congruity with +a watering-place goes, pains the taste like a false note in music. +Atlantic City pauses halfway between the stone house and the tent, and +erects herself in woodwork. A quantity of bright, rather giddy-looking +structures, with much open-work and carved ruffling about the eaves +and balconies, are poised lightly on the sand, following the course +of the two main avenues which lead parallel with the shore, and the +series of short, straight, direct streets which leap across them and +run eagerly for the sea. They have a low, brooding look, and evidently +belong to a class of sybarites who are not fond of staircases. Among +them, the great rambling hotel, sprawling in its ungainly length here +and there, looks like one of the ordinary tall New York houses that +had concluded to lie over on its side and grow, rather than take +the trouble of piling on its stories standing. In this encampment of +wooden pavilions is lived the peculiar life of the place. + +[Illustration: ON THE SHINING SANDS.] + +We are sure it is a sincere, natural, sensible kind of life, as +compared with that of other bathing-shores. Although there are brass +bands at the hotels, and hops in the evening, and an unequal struggle +of macassar oil with salt and stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is +kept at a minimum. People really do bathe, really do take walks on the +beach for the love of the ocean, really do pick up shells and throw +them away again, really do go yachting and crab-catching; and if they +try city manners in the evening, they are so tired with their honest +day's work that it is apt to end in misery. On the hotel piazzas you +see beauties that surprise you with exquisite touches of the warm and +languid South. That dark Baltimore girl, her hair a constellation of +jessamines, is beating her lover's shoulders with her fan in a state +of ferocity that you would give worlds to encounter. That pair of +proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured in peach-pulp and +wrapped in gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at the gates of a +temple. Whole rows of unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate but +implacable, waiting for partners equal to them in social position. In +such a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to her old music-teacher +and flirt solemnly with him for a whole evening, sooner than involve +herself with well-looking young chits from Providence or New York, +who may be jewelers' clerks when at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity +beauty of these Southern belles is very striking to one who comes +fresh from Saratoga and the sort of upholstered goddesses who are +served to him there. + +Some years ago the Surf House was the finest place of entertainment, +but it has now many rivals, taller if not finer. Congress Hall, under +the management of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, while the +Senate House, standing under the shadow of the lighthouse, has the +advantage of being the nearest to the beach of all the hotels. Both +are ample and hospitable hostelries, where you are led persuasively +through the Eleusinian mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine. +Schaufler's is an especial resort of our German fellow-citizens, who +may there be seen enjoying themselves in the manner depicted by our +artist, while concocting--as we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski--the +ambitious schemes which they conceal under their ordinary _enveloppe +débonnaire_. + +[Illustration: MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.] + +There is another feature of the place. With its rarely fine +atmosphere, so tonic and bracing, so free from the depressing fog +of the North, it is a great sanitarium. There are seasons when the +Pennsylvania University seems to have bred its wealth of doctors +for the express purpose of marshaling a dying world to the curative +shelter of Atlantic City. The trains are encumbered with the halt and +the infirm, who are got out at the doors like unwieldy luggage in +the arms of nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, they display +considerable mobility in distributing themselves through the three or +four hundred widely-separated cottages which await them for hire. As +you wander through the lanes of these cunning little houses, you catch +strange fragments of conversation. Gentlemen living vis-à-vis, and +standing with one leg in the grave and the other on their own piazzas, +are heard on sunny mornings exciting themselves with the maddest abuse +of each other's doctor. There are large boarding-houses, fifty or more +of them, each of which has its contingent of puling valetudinarians. +The healthy inmates have the privilege of listening to the symptoms, +set forth with that full and conscientious detail not unusual with +invalids describing their own complaints. Or the sufferers turn their +batteries on each other. On the verandah of a select boarding-house we +have seen a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like a dead harlequin, +as she rolled herself in the triangles of a glittering afghan. On a +neighboring seat a gouty subject, and a tropical sun pouring on both. + +"Good-morning! You see I am trying my sun-bath. I am convinced it +relieves my spine." The same remark has introduced seven morning +conversations. + +"And my gout has shot from the index toe to the ring toe. I feared my +slipper was damp, and I am roasting it here. But, dear ma'am, I pity +you so with your spine! Tried acupuncture?" + +[Illustration: THE THOROUGHFARE.] + +The patient probably hears the word as Acapulco. For she answers, "No, +but I tried St. Augustine last winter. Not a morsel of good." + +Among these you encounter sometimes lovely, frail, transparent girls, +who come down with cheeks of wax, and go home in two months with +cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen arriving yellow, and going back in +due time purple. + +Once a hardened siren of many watering-places, large and blooming, +arrived at Atlantic City with her latest capture, a stooping invalid +gentleman of good family in Rhode Island. They boated, they had +croquet on the beach, they paced the shining sands. Both of them +people of the world and past their first youth, they found an +amusement in each other's knowing ways and conversation that kept them +mutually faithful in a kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, however, +was evidently only amusing himself with this travesty of sentiment, +though he was never led away by the charms of younger women. After a +month of it he succeeded in persuading her for the first time to +enter the water, and there he assisted her to take the billows in the +gallant American fashion. Her intention of staying only in the very +edge of the ocean he overruled by main force, playfully drawing her +out where a breaker washed partially over her. As the water touched +her face she screamed, and raised her arm to hide the cheek that had +been wet. She then ran hastily to shore, and her friend, fearing some +accident, made haste to rejoin her. His astonishment was great at +finding one of her cheeks of a ghastly, unhealthy white. Her color had +always been very high. That afternoon she sought him and explained. +She was really an invalid, she said calmly, and had recently undergone +a shocking operation for tumor. But she saw no reason for letting that +interfere with her usual summer life, particularly as she felt youth +and opportunity making away from her with terrible strides. Having +a chance to enjoy his society which might never be repeated, fearing +lest his rapid disease should carry him away from before her eyes, she +had concluded to make the most of time, dissemble her suffering, and +endeavor to conceal by art the cold bloodlessness of her face. This +whimsical, worldly heroism happened to strike the gentleman strangely. +He was affected to the point of proposing marriage. At the same time +he perceived with some amazement that his disease had left him: the, +curative spell of the region had wrought its enchantment upon his +system. They were wedded, with roles reversed--he as the protector and +she as the invalid--and were truly happy during the eighteen months +that the lady lived as his wife. + +[Illustration: THE EXCURSION HOUSE.] + +There are prettier and more innocent stories. Every freckle-nosed girl +from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the +floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is +rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In +the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs +supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless +country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a +delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before +them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary +Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a +day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride +seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the +landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf, +the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and +flat by the keen east wind--their stems twisted like a dishclout or +like the olives around Florence. + +[Illustration: A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.] + +Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in +a boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the railroad bridge, you lean over +the side and see the dark glassy forms moving on the bottom. It is +shallow, and a short bit of string will reach them. The bait is a +morsel of raw beefsteak from the butcher's, and no hook is necessary. +They make for the titbit with strange monkey-like motions, and nip it +with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths; +and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but +tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under +water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on +their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a +freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious +girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill +in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr. +Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading +Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted +into deeper water, a cunning negro boy who was aboard contrived +to slide down one side without remark, and the next trophy of the +feminine chase was a red _boiled_ crab, artificially attached to a +chocolate caramel, and landed with mingled feelings by the pretty +fisherwoman. Then what a tumult of laughter, feigned anger and +becoming blushes! It is said that that crimson shell, carved into +a heart-shape of incorrect proportions, is worn over Mr. Jones's +diaphragm to this day. + +At the Inlet, which penetrates the beach alongside the lighthouse, +is draught for light vessels, and the various kinds of society which +focus at Atlantic City may be seen concentrated there on the wharf any +of these bright warm days. A gay party of beauties and aristocrats, +with a champagne-basket and hamper of lunch, are starting thence for +a sail over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen in flannel, with guns, +are urging a little row-boat up toward the interior country. They will +return at night laden with rail or reed-birds, with the additional +burden perhaps of a great loon, shot as a curiosity. Others, provided +with fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. Laughing farewells, +waving handkerchiefs and the other telegraphic signs of departure, are +all very gay, but the tune may be changed when the great sailing-party +comes back, wet and wretched, and with three of the principal beauties +limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's hands with sea-sickness. + +Another spirited scene takes place at five in the morning--an hour +when the city beauties are abed with all that tenacity of somnolence +which characterizes Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. The husbands and +brothers, who are due in the city before business hours, are out for +a good, royal, irresponsible tumble in the surf. There is the great +yeasty bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, dipping the sleek +shoulder to the combing wave. On the shore, active humanities hastily +undressing. Then the heavens are filled with a new glory, and the +dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same time with all these merry +roisterers who have shared it with him. He takes up his line of +business for the day, and so do the good husbands and brothers, first +going through a little ceremony of toilet from which he is exempt. + +Thus does the New Atlantis provide for her republic, holding health to +her children with one hand, and shaking from the other an infinity of +toys and diversions; while for those of more thoughtful bent the +sea turns without ceasing its ancient pages, written all over with +inexhaustible romance. + +The great architect of the city was the Power who graded those +streets of immaculate sand, and who laid out that park of mellow, +foam-flowered ocean. Its human founders have done what seemed suitable +in providing shelter for a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting +to put up six neat and modest churches, where suitable praise and +adoration may be chanted against the chanting of the sea. In several +respects the place grows somewhat curiously. For instance, a lawn of +turf is made by the simple expedient of fencing off the cattle: the +grass then grows, but if the cows get in they pull up the sod by the +roots, and the wind in a single season excavates a mighty hollow where +the grassy slope was before. So much for building our hopes on +sand. An avenue of trees is prepared by the easy plan of thrusting +willow-stems into the ground: they sprout directly, and alternate +with the fine native cedars and hollies in clothing the streets with +shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C. +Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside +architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life +at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable +culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off +to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally, +remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, the +aediles invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set up the Excursion or +Sea-View House, with its broad piazzas, its numberless facilities +for amusement, and its enormous dining-hall, which can be changed on +occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with flowers and fountains. + +To a great city all the renovating and exhilarating qualities of +sea-breezes and sea-bathing are but as the waters of Tantalus, unless +the place which offers these advantages be easy of access. In this +respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia a superiority over all +its rivals. The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to whose secretary and +treasurer, Mr. D.M. Zimmermann, we are indebted for much information, +has simply drawn a straight line to the coast, which may be reached in +an hour and three-quarters from Vine street wharf. The villages on +the route, like the seaside terminus, owe their existence to the road, +which is now reaping the reward of a far-sighted enterprise. + + + + +THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + +CONCLUDING PAPER. + +[Illustration: ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.] + +A noble life, whose course belongs to the subject of these pages, is, +while they are preparing, apparently drawing to a close. The +severe illness now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming upon old age, +disappointment, war and the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, can +have but one result. Dimmed to-day, as our hurrying century so rapidly +dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's existence has only to cease +and his memory will assume the sacred splendor of the tomb. + +Hapless Washington of a betrayed revolution! In these latter days of +enforced quiet in Palestine how his early scenes of African experience +must have flooded his mind!--his birth, sixty-six years ago, in a +family group of Moslem saints; the teachings of his beautiful mother +Leila and of his marabout father; his pilgrimage when eight years old +to Mecca, and his education in Italy; his visions among the tombs, and +the crown of magic light which was seen on his brows when he began to +taste the enchanted apple; then, with adolescence, the burning sense +of infidel tyranny that made his home at Mascara seem only a cage, +barred upon him by the unclean Franks; and soon, while still a youth, +his amazing election as emir of Mascara and sultan of Oran, at a +moment when the prophet-chief had just four _oukias_ (half-dimes) tied +into the corner of his bornouse! + +"God will send me others," said young Abd-el-Kader. + +[Illustration: AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.] + +The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait of him, by Maxime David, in +the Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his face, framed in its white +hood, is seen in full, in profile and in three-quarters view. The +visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, refined; but we can describe it +more authentically in the terms of one of his enemies, Lieutenant +de France, who became his prisoner in 1836, and who followed his +movements for five months, taking down his daily talk and habits like +a Boswell, but leaving nothing in his narrative that is not to the +sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at twenty-eight the lieutenant says: +"His face is long and deadly pale, his large black eyes are soft +and languishing, his mouth small and delicate, and his nose rather +aquiline: his beard is thin, but jet-black, and he wears a small +moustache, which gives a martial character to his soft, delicate face, +and becomes him vastly. His hands are small and exquisitely formed, +and his feet equally beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a similar +portrait, impressing upon the mind the image of some warrior-saint of +the Middle Ages, born too late, and beating out his noble fanaticism +against our century of machines and chicanery. + +[Illustration: THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.] + +Himself, according to some accounts, a Berber, the young marabout +early saw the importance of inducing the Kabyles to join with him +and his Arabs in expelling the French. He affiliated himself with the +religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, a saint whose tomb is one of the +sacred places of Kabylia; and it is certain that the college of this +order furnished him succor in men and money. He visited the Kabyles in +their rock-built villages, casting aside his military pomp and coming +among them as a simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had received him +better, he could have shown a stouter front to the enemy. But the +mountain Berbers, utterly unused to co-operation and subordination, +met him with surprise and distrust. + +[Illustration: A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.] + +At least, such is the account of General Daumas: in this interesting +relation we are forced to depend on the French. Daumas, amply provided +with documents, letters and evidence, has arranged in his work on _La +Grande Kabylie_ the principal evidence we possess of this epoch of +Abd-el-Kader's life. + +The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa +among the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited him in multitudes. He +addressed them at the door of his tent, and these rude mountaineers +found themselves face to face with that saintly sallow visage, +those long gazelle eyes and the prophetic countenance framed in its +apostolic beard. Raising his arms in the attitude of Raphael's Paul at +Lystra, he said simply, "I am the thorn which Allah has placed in the +eye of the Franks. And if you will help me I will send them weeping +into the sea." + +But when it came to a demand for supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas, +utterly refused. + +"You have come as a pilgrim," said their amins, "and we have fed you +with kouskoussu. If you were to come as a chief, wishing to lay his +authority on us, instead of white kouskoussu we should treat you to +black kouskoussu" (gunpowder). + +Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity of the marabout, argued with +the Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining their reverence and adhesion; +but when he mounted his horse to go the amins significantly told him +to come among them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding hospitality +and white kouskoussu. + +[Illustration: KABYLE MEN.] + +At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of Ameraouas, who promised to submit +to his authority as soon as the fractions surrounding that centre +should do so. The Sons of Aicha received him with honor and games of +horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes +came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber +ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more +wild, discarding his horse and appearing among the villagers as a +simple foot-pilgrim. The natives approached him in throngs, each +family bearing a great dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying the platters +before his tent and planting their clubs in them, all vociferated, +"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the chieftain was constrained to taste +of each. Finally, near Bougie he happened to receive a courier sent by +the French commandant. The Kabyles immediately believed him to be in +treasonable communication with the enemy, and he was forced to retire. + +The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication +with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west, +while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and +founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty +of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the +consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous +tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who +were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality +of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his +political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the +Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing +their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber +and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his +power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the +blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the +zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his +nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his +days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he +resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a +night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he +sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by +the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and +encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had +Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and +with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties toward the sultan's +dominions, protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. Open +conflict followed, and a succession of French razzias. In 1845, +Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under Marshal Bugeaud, conducted +that expedition of eternal infamy during which seven hundred of +Abd-el-Kader's Arabs were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of the Dahra. +This sickening measure was put in force at a _cul-de-sac_, where a few +hours' blockade would have commanded a peaceful surrender. + +[Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN.] + +"The fire was kept up throughout the night, and when the day had fully +dawned the then expiring embers were kicked aside, and as soon as +a sufficient time had elapsed to render the air of the silent cave +breathable, some soldiers were directed to ascertain how matters were +within. They were gone but a few minutes, and then came back, we +are told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly daring, it seemed, to +confront the light of day. No wonder they trembled and looked +pale! They had found all the Arabs dead--men, women, children, +all dead!--had beheld them lying just as death had found and left +them--the old man grasping his gray beard; the dead mother clasping +her dead child with the steel gripe of the last struggle, when all +gave way but her strong love." + +Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 was due less to the prowess of +Lamoricière and Bugeaud than to the cunning of his traitorous ally, +the sultan of Morocco, who, after having induced many of the princely +saint's adherents to desert, finally drove him by force of numbers +over the French frontier. Confronting the duke of Aumale on the +Morocco borders, he made a gallant fight, but lost half his best men +in warding off an attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued now with a +long effort against overwhelming pressure, and world-weary, he met +the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast close to the Morocco +line. Depositing his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside the French +head-quarters, he awaited the duke's signal to sit down. + +"I should have wished to do this sooner," said the broken chief, "but +I have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. I ask the aman (pardon) of +the king of the French for my family and for myself." + +Louis Philippe could not come in contact with this pure spirit without +an exhibition of Frankish treachery, like tinder illuminating +its foulness at the striking of steel. The sultan's surrender was +conditioned on the freedom to retire to Egypt. The French government +no sooner secured him than it treacherously sent him to prison, first +to the castle of Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, where he was +kept from 1848 to 1852, when the late emperor made an early use of +his imperial power to set him at liberty. Since his freedom, at +Constantinople, Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan has continued to +practice the rigors and holiness of the Oriental saint, proving his +catholic spirit by protecting the Christians from Turkish injustice, +and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a martyr the moment destined to +unite his soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris and L'Ouverture. + +This noble life, which impinges a moment on our course through +Kabylia, is surely the most epical of our century, which can never +be reproached for the lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's name is +remembered. + +[Illustration: DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.] + +The descent from the rock-perched city of Kalaa having been made in +safety, and the animals being remounted at the first plateau, our +Roumi traveler and his guides arrive in a few hours at the modern, +fortified, but altogether Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a letter +from a French personage of importance gives us the acquaintance of a +Kabyle family of the highest rank. + +The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely descended from Mohammed +through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian race, and one of them, +settled in Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a prosperous college of +the Oriental style. Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and residing at +Akbou, receives the tourist with a natural icy dignity which only a +czar among the sovereigns of Europe could hope to equal: those who +have but seen Arabs of inferior class can form no notion of the +distinction and lofty gravity of the chiefs of a grand house (or of a +grand tent, as they are called): the Kabyle noble is quite as superb +as the Arab. + +Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered with viands half French and +half Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, resembling a girl with his +blue head-drapery and slim white hands, places himself at table, +and attracts the conversation of the guest. The young man answers +in monosyllables and with his large eyes downcast, and the agha +significantly observes, "You will excuse him if he does not answer: he +is not used to talk before his father." + +The host, disposing of the time of his guests, has arranged a series +of diversions. The valley of the river Sahel is full of boars, and +panthers and monkeys abound in the neighboring spurs of the Zouaouas. +While the Roumi are examining his orchards of oranges and pomegranates +the agha's courtyard fills with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary +horses, armed with inlaid guns. These are all entertained for the +night, together with the usual throng of parasites, who choke his +doors like the clients of the rich Roman in Horace. + +At sunrise the party is mounted. The mare of the agha, a graceful +creature whose veins form an embroidery over her coat of black satin, +is caparisoned with a slender crimson bridle, and a saddle smaller +than the Arab saddles and furnished with lighter stirrups. The +Christian guests are furnished with veritable arquebuses of the Middle +Ages; that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the stock of which, flattened +and surmounted with a hammer of flints, is ignited by a wheel-shaped +lock, easier to be managed by a Burgundian under Charles the Bold than +by an unpretending modern Roumi. + +The usual features of an Algerian hunt succeed. A phantom-like silence +pervades the column of galloping horsemen up to the moment when the +boar is beaten up. Then, with a formidable clamor of "_Haou! haou!_" +from his pursuers, the tusked monster bursts through the tamarinds and +dwarf palms: after a long chase he suddenly stops, and then his form +instantly disappears under the gigantic African hounds who leap upon +him and hang at his ears. A huntsman dismounts and stabs his shoulder +with the yataghan. After a rest the chase is resumed, but this time +under the form of a hawking-party. + +Only the djouads and marabouts--that is to say, the religious or +secular nobles--have the privilege of hunting with the falcon. +The patrician bird, taken by the agha from the shoulder of his +hawk-bearer, is about as large as a pigeon, the head small, beak short +and strong, the claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. The bird +rides upon his master's leather glove until a hare is started: then, +unhooded and released, his first proceeding is to dart into the zenith +as if commissioned to make a hole in the sky. No fear, however, that +the poor panting quarry is lost for an instant from the vision of that +infallible eye, which follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and +fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an aërolite, and, as the deed is +explained to us, doubles up his yellow hand into a fist, and deals the +animal a sharp blow on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen approach, +he is found with his obtuse head bent over his prey, digging out its +eyes by the spoonful. + +By noontide the troop is naturally famished. A luncheon, has, however, +been prepared by the thoughtfulness of the agha. Riding up to a tent +which appears as by magic in the wilderness, the provisions for a +sumptuous repast are discovered. Two fires are burning in the open +air, and are surrounded by a host of servants or followers. The Roumi +and their host adjourn from the neighborhood of the preparations, and +are served under a plane tree beautiful as that whose limbs were hung +by Xerxes with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set on fire with red +pepper, introduces the repast: pancakes follow, and various meats +smothered with eggs or onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger +up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep +roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes +hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying +a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature--a +contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of +the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating +marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste +the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to +declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible, +they vow to introduce the undissected roast, the bonfire, the spit +and the cook with imperturbable heel into the cuisine of less-favored +lands more distant from the sun. + +[Illustration: AN ARAB MARKET.] + +Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans do not consider as wine, +washes the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed tobacco supplement it. +But when the appetite has retired and permitted some sharpness to the +ordinary senses, the travelers are amazed at the gradual and silent +increase which has taken place in their numbers. Every group of guests +is augmented by a circle of prone and creeping forms that, springing +apparently from the earth, are busily breaking the fragments of the +feast under the care of the servitors, who appear, rather to encourage +than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, being interrogated, replies calmly, +"They are Tofailians." + +The Tofailian is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly +into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a +certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules, +respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends +a wedding-feast," says one of his apophthegms, "having no invitation, +avoid glancing here and there dubiously. Choose the best place. If the +guests are numerous, pass through boldly without saluting any one, to +make the guests of the bride think you a friend of the bridegroom, and +those of the groom a friend of the bride." + +An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he saw two buttered pancakes in a +cloud, he would take his flight without hesitation." + +A Tofailian of marked genius once learned that a festival was going +on at a grand mansion. He ran thither, but the door was closed and +entrance impossible. Inquiring here and there, he learned that a son +of the house was absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly he procured +a sheet of parchment, folded it, and sealed it as usual with clay: he +rolled his garments in the dust and bent his spine painfully over a +long staff. Thus perfect in what an actor would call his reading, he +sent word to the host that a messenger had arrived from his son. "You +have seen him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, "and how did he bear +his fatigues?" "He was in excellent health," answered the Tofailian +very feebly. "Speak, speak!" cried the eager father, "and tell me +every detail: how far had he got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," +said the simple fellow. Directly he was seated at the highest place of +the feast, and every guest admired that splendid appetite--an appetite +quite professional, and cultivated as poulterers cultivate the +assimilative powers of livers. "Did my son send no letter?" asked the +poor father in a favorable interval caused by strangulation. "Surely," +replied the good friend, and, comprehending that the critical moment +had arrived, he drew to himself a chine of kid with one hand while he +unwound the letter from his turban with the other. The seal was still +moist, and the pilgrim had not found time to write anything on the +parchment. "Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host with the illumination +of a sudden idea. "Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, +struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble +thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined. + +Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a +proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure. + +[Illustration: POVERTY AND JEWELS.] + +The Algerine coast has enriched our language with at least two words, +respectively warlike and peaceful--_razzia_ and _fantasia_. The latter +is applied to a game of horsemanship, used to express joy or to honor +a distinguished friend. A spirited fantasia is organized by the guests +of the agha on returning to Akbou. Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen +having gone on before, and being completely lost to sight in the +whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden +reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they +gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until +at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the +horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading +as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, +shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine +horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up +to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque +expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere +be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game +with spirit, and the riders, secure in their castellated saddles, sit +with ease as they turn, leap or dance on two feet. Used, too, from +infancy to the society of their mares, they move with them in a degree +of unity, vigor and boldness which the English horseman never attains. +The Arab's love for his horse is not only the pride of the cavalier: +it is an article of faith, and the Prophet comprehended the close +unity between his nation and their beasts when he said, "The blessings +of this world, up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended to the +locks which our horses wear between their eyes." + +[Illustration: GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.] + +Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality has its advantages--on the side +of the obliged party. This haughty ruler, on the simple stress of +a letter from a French commandant, has made himself our servant and +teased his brain for devices to amuse us. His chief cook precedes us +to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange a sumptuous Arab supper. +After a ride made enervating by the simoom, we descend at the arcaded +and galleried Moorish house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, and are +visited by the sheikh of the college which the agha maintains. It is +a strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated to study and +hospitality. Chellata, white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic shadow +of the rock Tisibert, and in its graveyard, among the tombs of sacred +marabouts, walk the small bald-headed students reciting passages +of law or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over with institutions +(_zaouias_) similar to this, which, like monasteries of old, +combine the functions of seminaries and gratuitous inns. That of +Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which he contributes from his own purse a sum equal +to sixteen thousand dollars a year, is enshrined in buildings strewn +around the resting-place of his holy ancestors. The sacred koubba (or +dome) marking the bones of the marabout is swept by shadows of oak +and tamarind trees: professors stray in the shadow, and the pupils con +their tasks on the adjoining tombstones. + +Every impression of Chellata is silvered over, as with a moonlight of +beneficence, by the attentions of Ben-Ali's house-steward, who rains +upon our appetites a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, soothes us +with Moorish coffee, and finishes by the politeness of lighting and +taking the first whiff of our cigarette--a bit of courtesy that might +be spared, but common here as in parts of Spain. + +With daybreak we find the town of Chellata preparing to play its +rôle as a mart or place of industry. The labor seems at first sight, +however, to be confined to the children and the women: the former lead +the flocks out at sunrise to pasture in the mountain, the women make +the town ring with their busy work, whether of grinding at the mill, +weaving stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. The men are at work +in the fields, from which they return at nightfall, sullen, hardy and +silent, in their tattered haiks. These are never changed among the +poor working-people, for the scars of a bornouse are as dignified as +those of the body, and are confided with the garment by a father to +his son. The women, as we have remarked before, are in a state of +far greater liberty than are the female Arabs, but it is more than +anything else the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers the wife +is a chattel from whom it is permissible to extract all the usefulness +possible, and whom it is allowable to sell when a bargain can be +struck. The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is her errand to the +fountain. This is sometimes situated in the valley, far from the +nodding pillar or precipice on which the town is built. There the +traveler finds the good wives talking and laughing together, bending +their lively--sometimes blonde and blue-eyed--faces together over +their jars, and gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets around +Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles--differing therein from the +Arabs--provide a fountain for either sex; and a visit by a man to the +women's fountain is charged, in their singular code of penal fines, +"inspired by Allah," a sum equal to five dollars, or half as much as +the theft of an ox. + +By the white light of day-dawn we quit Chellata, with the naked crests +of the Djurjura printing themselves on the starry vault behind us and +the valley below bathed in clouds. As we descend we seem to waken the +white, red-roofed villages with our steps. The plateaus are gradually +enlivened with spreading herds and men going forth to labor. We skirt +the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, crowned with its marabout's tomb. The +plains at our feet are green and glorious, pearled with white, distant +villages. Opposite the precipice the granite rocks open to let us pass +by a narrow portal where formerly the Kabyles used to stand and levy +a toll on all travelers. This straitened gorge, where snow abounds in +winter, and which has various narrow fissures, is named the Defile +of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways of several tribes, but is +impassable from December to April from the snow and the storms which +rage among the cliffs. We are still four thousand feet above the +plain, whose depth the swimming eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the +snowy peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending chains of rocks +mingled with flint and lime, we attain a more clement landscape. +Kabyle girls crowd around a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, a +naked boy plays melancholy tunes on a reed, and the signs of a lower +level are abundant in the fields of corn and orchards of olive. But +the rugged mountains, in whose grasp we have found so many wonders, +are not left without regret. The most picturesque part of our +course is now behind us, and as day dies upon our crossing through +Iferaouenen, we turn back to behold the fine line of the mountains, +half sad and regretful, + + While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. + +Fourteen expeditions were found necessary by the French between 1838 +and 1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under leaders such as Ben-Salem, +Ben-Kassim, the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, and other +chiefs less celebrated, defended their territory step by step. In the +great chastisement of 1857, Marshal Randon, after subduing this part +of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined to preserve the fruits of +victory by two new constructions--a fort and a military road. France +was to reside among her unwilling colonists, and she was to possess +an avenue of escape. The building of these two conveniences, as we +may call them, over the smoking ruins of victory, was a conspicuous +example of the excellent engineering genius of the nation. An English +officer, Lieutenant-colonel Walmsley, witnessed, and has left a +spirited account of, the great conquest, and the immediate improvement +of it. The strongholds of the Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were +taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was soon to fall, yielding +only to the assault of the Foreign Legion--that troop of Arabs and of +Kabyles from the Zouaoua plain wherefrom we derive the word _zouave_. +Marshal Randon selected for his fort the key of the whole district: it +was a place known as the Souk-el-Arba ("Market of Wednesday"). It was +in the heart of the Beni Raten land, and in a spot where three great +mountain-ridges ran down into the plain of the Sebaou. These ridges, +subdued and friendly, would be held in respect by the garrison of the +fort, and the other ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would likewise +terminate at the fort. The works were immediately laid out and quickly +built. As the road sprang into its level flight like magic, the +peeping Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they were conquered, laughed +in derision. "It is to help the cowards to run away," they said. In +due time rose the pale walls of the citadel, with mountains above and +hills below. The Kabyles call it the White Phantom. Their songs, the +"traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite the building of the terrible +stronghold: "The Roumi has arrived at the Market: he is building +there. Weep, O my eyes! tears of blood. The children of Raten are +valiant men: they are known as masters of the warlike art. They fell +upon the enemy at Icheriden. The Franks fell like lopped branches. +Glory to those brave men! But the Roumi has peeled us like seeds. The +powder talks no more. The warlike men are fainting. Cover thyself with +mourning, O my head!" + +As the tourist turns the summit of Aboudid suddenly appears, like an +ornamental detail in a panorama, this vast fortress, originally +named Fort Napoléon, and since the collapse of the empire called Fort +National. During the French troubles of 1871, in the month of August, +General Cérès was obliged to inspire terror by burning the village of +Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and then went on to relieve the fort. When the +next opportunity will occur for the Beni Raten to assert their rights +it is impossible to tell. We descend from the fort, and all becomes +commonplace. The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in its valley-bed are +being replaced by new buildings. All wears a look of every-day thrift. +The Arab, moving his household goods, drives before him his poor +dingy wife, loaded down with worthless valuables and also with copper +jewels, in which she clanks like a fettered slave. A negro musician +from the Desert, a true African minstrel, capers before us and beats +the tom-tom, until, distracted with his noise, we pay him and bombard +him off the face of the road with projectiles. + +From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is but four hours' journey, and +the four hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, our circumstances are +subdued to the conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our spahi guides, +like figures from _Lalla Rookh!_ Adieu, our dream of an African +Switzerland! The Roumi, outside of Kabylia, quickly fades into the +light of common day, and becomes plain Tom or Harry. + + + + +A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867. + + +"And you traveled alone?" + +"There were two of us--Annie Foster and I." + +"You found no difficulty?" + +"Not a bit," she replied laughing. + +"But you had adventures: I see it in your face." + +"Who would travel without adventures?" and she made an expressive +gesture. + +"Romantic?" + +"Hm!--_tant soit peu_." + +"I am all attention: begin." + +"You promise not to tell?" + +"Not for the world: torture could not induce me to divulge a single +word." + +"Well, the way it came about was this: Annie and I had been sent from +England to a small French town on the coast, for the benefit of the +warm sea-water baths. It was a quaint little port; all the houses +reminded you of ships in their fitting up; the beds were set into the +wall like berths; closets were stowed away in all sorts of impossible +places; the floors were uncarpeted and white as a main deck; and +articles from distant countries hung about the walls or stood in the +corners--East Indian sugar-cane, cotton from America, Chinese +crockery and piles of sea-shells. The great sea by which we lodged was +represented everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps and water-fowl--our +acquaintance, fishermen, shrimpers and sailors. The leading event of +the day was the coming in and going out of the tide, and ducks and +geese were the chief domestic animals. On one side was a prospect of +wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, on the other wind-beaten +fields and the sails of mills: the few cabins that had rashly ventured +beyond the protection of the village shortly lost courage, and, with +their thatched roofs not a yard from the earth, seemed crouching low +to avoid the continuous blasts. The church alone on the high sea-wall +raised itself fearlessly against the tyrant, and though his baffled +voice still howled without, within the pious prayed securely before a +faith-inspiring altarpiece of Christ stilling the tempest. + +"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted every amusement that the dull +town afforded, become intimate with all the old gossips, tired of +listening to the yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven the donkeys +over the country until they instinctively avoided us whenever +we appeared, sailed in the bay and suffered periodic attacks of +sea-sickness therefrom, finished the circulating library, and half +learned some barbarous sentences of Norman patois, we sat down +disconsolate one afternoon to devise some means of employing the +remainder of our time. It was then that the bright idea struck Annie, +and she exclaimed, 'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!' + +"'Just the thing!' I answered with enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next +train starts?' + +"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and pack the trunks. If we can get +off to-day, by to-morrow morning we can begin seeing it;' and she left +the room in great excitement. + +"The result was, that by seven o'clock that evening we had made our +hasty preparations, and were ready to set out. It was raining terribly +when the only hack of the village (which, by the by, was an omnibus) +called for us at the door. The dripping fluid oozed and sparkled over +the blinking lamps, the ribbed sides of the antiquated machine were +varnished with moisture, and the horses looked as if each hair was a +water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's patriarchal mansion might +have presented a similar appearance during the first days of that +celebrated wet season. + +"The motherly woman with whom we had been boarding turned dismally +from the weather to her invalids and tried to dissuade us from leaving +that night, little understanding that we considered it 'fun.' As +a parting advice she told us to call each other _madame_: it would +procure us more consideration. 'For you know, young ladies,' she +remonstrated mildly, 'it is not quite proper for you to travel alone.' +After this prudent counsel and many warm adieus we sallied forth. + +"The omnibus was crowded, and I had perforce to sit on Annie's knees. +This, with the jolting, the queer effect of the half-light in the +rickety interior, together with the expression of the good people, who +evidently could see no fun in rain, excited my risibility so strongly +that I indulged in a smothered laugh, tempered to fit the publicity of +the occasion. + +"'You must not laugh in France,' whispered Nan, pulling my dress. + +"'I thought the French admired gayety,' I answered in the same tone. + +"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.' + +"The rest of the way was accomplished in silence. We soon arrived +at the station and bought our tickets. Of course we had half a dozen +bundles: in gathering them up a most gentlemanly person accosted us +and asked, 'Avez vous perdu quelque chose, mademoiselle?' + +"Annie replied in the negative with great dignity, and so cut off any +chance of adventure in that quarter. + +"On came the train. In France there is fortunately a provision made +for women traveling without an escort. In your country they have, I +believe, smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: in that blessed +land there is a compartment for 'ladies alone,' or _Dames Seules,_ +as it is called. A good American once read this inscription with much +commiseration, _D---- souls_, and returning told his friends that the +'wicked' French allowed His Satanic Majesty the right of running a +special car on their roads for his greater accommodation. + +"As we were hastening to this most desired refuge I noticed two very +student-looking young men walking near us, and caught a bit of their +conversation. + +"'They will.' + +"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it we go up in the same car with +them.' + +"'I told you so!' + +"As we found our car and entered the students passed on, not daring to +ignore the magic words on the door; so Adventure No. 2 was nipped in +the bud. + +"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, and we sank back into the +soft cushions with the pleasant sense that no further effort would +be needed during the journey. We had been told that the train would +arrive in Paris about midnight, but the lateness of the hour caused +us no uneasiness, as we had been there before and remembered the city +pretty well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed in our ability to +take care of ourselves. + +"In an interval of wakefulness we discussed our plans, and concluded +to spend the night at some hotel near the station, the next morning +looking up our friends (several of whom we knew to be in town) and +consulting them about our future proceedings, feeling that a midnight +visit from us would scarcely be welcome to any one. Annie recalled a +fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, and, having made our +selection in its favor, we dozed off again very comfortably. + +"I think we had been on the way some four hours when the welcome +lights began to appear--first in the sky above the city, as if the +earth in this favored spot threw out rays like the sun; next through +the darkness over the country below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise +into the earth under the busy streets and fortifications, to emerge at +the end of our route. + +"We gathered up our bundles in haste, thanking the stars that we had +accomplished our ride so safely, and were walking off to the hotel +when we suddenly thought of the trunks. Another consultation was held, +and we decided to leave them in the baggage-room until morning. + +"'But we must go and see that they are safe,' suggested Annie. + +"'Where is the baggage-room?' I asked of a porter. + +"'This way, mademoiselle.' + +"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in a weak voice. + +"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite official as we entered +the door, and another laid hands on the satchels we carried, to +examine them. + +"We had entirely forgotten the octroi officers. 'Oh my! this affair +may keep us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I am so sleepy!' I +have often found (I confide this to you as an inviolable secret) that +to be unreasonable is a woman's strongest weakness: it is a shield +against which man's sharpest logic is invariably turned aside. The +next thing to there not being a necessity, is not seeing a necessity, +and this I prepared in the most innocent manner to do. + +"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed--or its French equivalent, which I suppose +is 'Mon Dieu'--'you don't mean to detain us here opening those bags, +and we so tired, and they packed so full that we could scarcely shut +them; and if you _do_ open them, we cannot get all the things into +them again, and shall have no end of trouble!' Then I looked as +injured as if they had been thieves or highway-men. + +"Had a man made this speech they would have mistrusted him, but as +women have a reputation for shallowness, such talk is never thought +suspicious in them. + +"'What do they contain?' asked the officer, hesitating. + +"'I don't know what all: we have been at the sea-side, and they are +full of trash. There are some shells and an old hat in mine, and--and +things.' + +"He tried to conceal a smile, and looked toward the other, who nodded, +and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in chalk, upon which the bags were +given back to us. + +"'Now the trunks,' said the first who had spoken, holding out his hand +for the keys. + +"'Oh, we are going to leave them here till to-morrow: they are all +right--you can mark them too;' and without further ceremony we moved +toward the door. One of the men stepped after us. I thought it was to +make us return, but it was only to ask if he should get us a carriage. + +"We thanked him and replied that we were going to the hotel opposite, +and did not need one: he then turned to a person who seemed to be the +porter of the establishment, and told him to carry our satchels for +us. Now we felt our journey was well at an end, for the windows of our +welcome asylum were blazing not more than a hundred feet off. + +"We crossed the street, rang at the ladies' entrance and asked for +rooms. After a few moments the servant returned, and, much to our +chagrin, said that there were none to be had, every corner was full. + +"'Do let us see the clerk. We _must_ have a room: you can surely find +us one somewhere.' + +"The man shook his head. + +"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we shall be satisfied with +anything for the night. Won't you go and ask again?' + +"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, à cause de l'Exposition;' +and he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to every other effort at +persuasion that we made. + +"Just then a chambermaid passed. 'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you +find us a room? I will pay you;' and I put my hand significantly in my +pocket. + +"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,' + +"This was a contingency we had not provided for: we looked at each +other blankly, and, though loath to do so, we both came to the +conclusion that they were telling the truth. + +"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, speaking to me in English. + +"'I suppose we shall have to take a carriage and go down town, after +all,' + +"'They may be full there too,' she said in a rueful tone. + +"Just then the porter with our satchels spoke: 'There is another hotel +near, ladies, and if you will come I will show you to it,' + +"I consulted Annie with a look, and she assented. Any prospect was +better than a midnight drive of several miles, with no certainty as to +our lot at the end of it. So we turned from the inhospitable door and +followed our guide. + +"The latter walked quickly for perhaps a square, stopped before a +neat-looking house and rang. Our courage rose as the door opened and +revealed a clean-looking court surrounded by orange trees in boxes, +with small coffee-tables under them for the convenience of the guests. + +"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded our attendant with the voice of a +herald. + +"The trim but sleepy servant looked at us a moment, as if not +comprehending the situation, then slowly pronounced our sentence in +two words, 'No rooms!' and as if to emphasize them threw up the palms +of his hands, shook his head and added 'Full!' after which he closed +the door with a hasty click and returned to his nap. + +"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed with this reception--not +more so than we were--but without allowing us time to speak he said +in his most reassuring voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there are plenty +of hotels about here, and we shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having +undertaken the task, he seemed to think it his duty to comfort and +provide for us. + +"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. Two other hotels were +successively tried in vain, and still our indefatigable guide went +on. It appeared as if we had walked a considerable distance, but the +streets cut each other at odd angles, and we had been turning so often +that I confess I had but little idea where we were, or how far we had +come, when we entered a quarter where the ways became narrower, passed +into a dingy alley, thence plunged through a still darker court, from +that to another alley, and the next moment our porter was ringing at +the door of a tall, sombre house. I truly hoped that we should not +find rooms here, and was turning to Annie to advise a cab and an +attempt in a more civilized-looking locality, when the bell was +answered and the old question repeated. + +"To my surprise and dismay the servant said they could accommodate us. +Should we stay? I knew that in the older parts of Paris the best of +houses are sometimes found in the poorer streets, and that in no city +is a person less able to judge of the interior comfort of a building +by its external aspect. We were very tired, and should we turn away +from this open door where should we find another open for us? The +porter, however good-natured, could not continue to run about with us +all night, and our faith in ourselves was considerably diluted since +we left the cars: even a cab might be difficult to get at this hour +of the night. Annie did not object: indeed, she looked too worn out to +have an opinion in the matter, and as I could think of nothing better +to do, I began to make the usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining +rooms?' + +"'Yes, mademoiselle.' + +"I remembered the advice that had been given us on starting: here +surely was a place to use it, so I said to the servant in a marked +tone, 'Take _madame's_ bag and show us to our chambers.' + +"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered with the most provoking +coolness. + +"I dismissed our faithful porter with regret, and followed the +other up stairs. While ascending I racked my brain to determine +what peculiarity of manner we could adopt that would give us a more +matronly air while traveling, but I could think of nothing. I may as +well tell you now that we never for an instant deceived any one on +this subject during our stay, and we soon ceased trying to do so. + +"Our rooms were much better than I had expected to find them, but even +this caused in me a feeling of doubt. They had a hypocritical air, a +grasping after appearances that I believe always accompanies deceit +and imposition--a sleek shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct +that if I examined I should find the carpets worn out under the mats, +and the chairs faded beneath their smart chintz covers. There was not +a candid-looking piece of furniture in the apartment: the table was an +impostor with one short leg; the drawers of the bureau would not open; +the glasses were all askew, and twisted your face to such a degree +that it frightened you to catch a glimpse of yourself in passing. But +this was not the worst: from the moment I entered the rooms I felt +that they _had been waiting for us_. + +"I did not venture to mention my suspicions to Annie, and tried to +keep up a cheery sort of conversation while we undressed, but I could +see that she too began to be uneasy. We carefully inspected our doors, +and found the locks were good, then looked to see that there was no +one lurking under the beds. It would be difficult to tell you exactly +what I feared, but somehow everything impressed me as mysterious--the +quiet of the streets through which we had come, and the quiet of the +house. It was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: our feet echoed +on the stairways as if human feet seldom ascended them; the shadows +appeared especially dark; our candles' small light made little +impression on the gloom; the very air seemed harder to breathe than +ordinary; and on recalling the face of the impertinent servant I +thought that it had a sinister look. + +"I tried to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but +could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into +arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the +window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased, +darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood +there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then +_one_, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing I was glad +to know--namely, that we could not have wandered very far during our +walk; but there was little comfort in that, after all, since the walk +had terminated here. + +"Stories that I had read of strange adventures and accidents to +midnight guests now trooped into my head. I thought of one in +particular, in which the tester of the bed slowly descended to smother +the sleeping inmate for purposes of robbery; whereupon I minutely +examined mine, and found to my satisfaction that it was scarcely able +to discharge the single duty of holding up the curtains, and looked +most innocent of further intentions. Finding myself again peering into +corners I had already searched, and feeling this general unrest to +be growing upon me, I began to think I must be nervous from +over-exertion, and determined to get rid of my silly fancies in sleep. +Then, as if to take myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out the light, +sprang under the covers and shut my eyes tight, afraid that something +hateful might glare upon me in the dark. + +"Just then Annie came to the communicating doorway, and with an effort +to speak in her natural voice she said, 'Jane, I am going to +sleep here.' And as if this endeavor had consumed her last bit of +resistance, she closed and locked the door quickly, ran to my bed and +threw herself shivering beside me. + +"'What is the matter?' I whispered, feeling my presentiment of evil +confirmed. + +"She put her lips to my ear and answered, 'I found a door in my room +behind the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't know _where_." + +"'Did you open it?' + +"'No indeed! I would not open it for the world. There might be +something horrible in it;' and she shuddered. + +"'You have left your light burning.' + +"'I don't care. I won't go back: no indeed, I _could_ not.' There +was silence for a few minutes: neither of us moved, when Nan again +whispered, 'Do you think this room quite safe?' + +"'I looked all around before I blew out the light.' + +"'Did you look _behind_ your curtains?' + +"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable sensation. + +"'You are next the wall: feel along it,' in her most persuasive voice. + +"The very idea made me creep. Put my hand behind those curtains and +touch--what? Even the cold wall would be sufficient to terrify me. For +reply I remarked suggestively, 'If we had the light we could see.' + +"'Yes, that would be just the thing. Go bring it--do!' + +"I felt that something must be done, and soon, or I should be in no +state to accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I must: when we had the +light half our trouble would be over, and, after all, she might have +been mistaken. + +"'Did the door move?' I ventured to ask. + +"'No, it didn't do anything--at least I don't think it did--but it +_looked_ so awful that it frightened me.' + +"'That light in there may set something on fire,' I remarked. + +"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a minute. Do go!' + +"'You are sure the door didn't open?' I asked, far from liking my +task. + +"'I will go with you half-way,' she volunteered, 'and stand there +while you run in quick. Come on, and don't let us talk any more about +it: we shall only get more and more frightened.' You will see that +Annie's gifts lay more in persuasion than in action. + +"Thus adjured, I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously +listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was +oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an +effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the +key and opened the door. + +"At that moment it seemed to me that I heard distant footsteps. I +rushed for the light and turned to go back, when I ran against some +one: the candle was extinguished by being jerked from the holder to +the floor, and a hand which I vainly tried to shake off clasped my +arm. My blood grew thick and still with sudden terror. I tried to +speak, but could not. What increased my dread was that I could not +tell whether the _Thing_ by my side was a reality or a spectre. I had +caught a glimpse of something white as the light disappeared, and I +believe that a pistol at my head would have caused me less alarm than +this horrible idea of the supernatural. I began to feel that I could +endure it no longer, that I should stifle, should die, when Annie's +voice spoke in the darkness quite near, and I found it was she who had +grasped my arm. + +"'I could not stay in that room alone,' she whispered. 'Don't you +hear?--_footsteps!_ They are coming.' + +"'You have half frightened me to death,' I murmured trembling: 'I +thought you were something.' + +"'No, I ain't anything, but something _is_ coming. Don't you hear?' + +"It was true enough. Through the quiet of the house came stealthy +footsteps. Nearer, nearer. They were ascending the stairs, at times +delaying an instant, as if groping for the way, then on. + +"'Come into your room,' said Annie convulsively: 'come, and we can +lock ourselves in. Oh, where _is_ your door? I cannot find it, and +they are coming. What shall we do? what shall we do?' + +"We were in total darkness: not a ray of light came from the window, +and in our confusion we had lost our bearings. Neither of us had the +least idea in what direction the other room lay. + +"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps we may find it. Do try,' said +I. + +"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we had never come. I am dying.' She +was shaking with fright, and would not leave my arm for an instant. + +"Just then, from somewhere near us, we could not tell from what +side, came a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, with such a +summons in its tone, that I shivered: then a faint movement followed +from the same place. + +"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped Annie: 'it is in that door: +they are coming, they are here. Shall I scream murder? shall I?' +giving my arm an emphasizing grip. + +"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.' + +"She groaned, slipped down on her knees, with one arm still round +me, her face pressed against my side, holding her other hand over the +unprotected ear, so that she should hear no more; and in this position +she began to repeat 'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as fast as she +could gabble it. + +"I was no less frightened, and would willingly have crouched down +also, but she held me so tight that I could not without a struggle, +and above all things I did not want to make a noise. + +"It was thus we awaited the crisis. The steps were certainly coming to +our room, but whether by the door we had entered or by the one Annie +had seen behind the bed, I could not tell. I was too bewildered to +locate the sound, nor did I know whether the bed was at my right or +left hand. I had a slight hope that the steps might pass on. + +"It was for that I waited. + +"They came--near, nearer. For a time my heart ceased beating. Annie +slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, and I could no longer hear +her breathe. My whole being was merged in listening to that step. I +could feel that now it was on a level with our room--was there almost +beside us. Lightly though distinctly a hand passed over the door, as +if fumbling for the latch. This was the intense moment. Had the person +paused or hesitated an instant, I think it would have killed us both. +But no, he did not falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by the hand, +went as it had come, and as I stood, not daring to move, I heard it +receding in the distance of the great house. Then all was silence. + +"When sensation returned to me I felt as if I had awakened from a +nightmare, and found myself shaking from the nervous reaction and the +cold. I stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, and said through my +chattering teeth, 'It must have been only a late boarder. Don't be +afraid. It is all over: come, get up.' + +"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. 'I cannot move until you have a +light. I am still afraid.' + +"I now remembered that the bureau must be behind me, for I had merely +turned when I encountered Annie and dropped the candle. There were +probably matches upon it: yes, there they were. I struck one and +easily found the candle: then Annie rose with the meekest air +possible, and, without looking at the obnoxious corner where the bed +stood, we walked into the other room and locked the door. + +"It was not until the gray morning light crept into the window that we +felt quite safe. Every crack in the floor or nibbling mouse caused us +to start, and at each quarter the clock of the station would strike +as if to warn us to be on the alert. But the bed was not bad, and the +house remained quiet; and as soon as the dawn made our candle useless, +we began to think we had been very foolish, and the result was a sound +sleep. + +"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: the morning was bright and clear, +and the terrors of the night had all departed during our refreshing +rest. The room certainly looked shabby, but if that were a crime, half +the houses in the world would be sent to prison. There was nothing in +the least mysterious about it. Our courage rose with the day, and we +teased and joked each other about our fright. Then, anticipating the +glories of the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves that we had +come. + +"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie as she was dressing: 'we will +go down town to a nice restaurant, and sit at a window and see the +people go by. Afterward we will look up our friends and find a good +hotel or boarding-house; and we _must_ go to the Exposition this very +day. We shall have a famous time. We can make up parties to drive out, +and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, and to the theatre. Ain't +you glad you came?' + +"'The first thing we do must be to go back to the station and leave +these bags with our trunks until we find lodgings,' I remarked. + +"Nan went into the next room to get some of the clothing she had left +there. When she returned, lowering her voice she said, 'Jane, there +_is_ a door behind my curtains.' + +"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose it is a closet.' + +"'No such thing: it don't look like a closet; and why would they hide +a closet, I should like to know? Come in and see it.' + +"She walked back, and as I followed drew the curtain aside, and there +in fact it was. + +"'I am going to open it before I leave the room,' she said in a +determined tone: 'there is something not right about it.' + +"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some one may be in there.' + +"'I am going to see: I must look into it. It is daylight, you know, +and we sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to push away the bed.' + +"'I won't do anything so absurd. This is a hotel, Annie, and there +must be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose that room is now +occupied by a boarder?' + +"'If it is occupied they will lock the door on the other side, and I +will try the latch softly to see; but I know it is not. Don't you +see that the only entrance must be from here? There is the entry. +opposite, and here is the court: now, how could any one get into it +but through this room? It must be a small place, too, for here is +the corner of the house, and it has been evidently planned to be kept +_concealed_." + +"'No matter: we have no right to any rooms but these we are in. Come +away, and let well enough alone.' + +"'It is not "well enough," as you call it. I am going to see into +it, and why they hide it. I declare,' and she examined the door +critically, 'it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look +at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been +a struggle. It is our duty to investigate;' and her voice grew +impressive. 'Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose, +and, Jane, if there _is_ a dead body in there, I shall inform the +police.' Annie was very brave in daylight. + +"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine speech. 'What you call duty, +I call curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and I wish you would finish +dressing and let us get to breakfast.' + +"'I will just tell you this,' she answered indignantly, and yet with a +quiver in her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I did last night when +I saw that door. It was quite like what people write of a mysterious +influence, or the presence of some one unseen; and that whistle or +voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, came from here; and you must +help me to find out what it really was, for I can't go away without +knowing.' + +"I saw it was useless to try longer to dissuade her. The bed moved +easily: she took my hand and led me behind it; then warily tried the +latch. It rose, but she was obliged to lean all her weight against the +door before it would give way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly +that she almost fell forward. + +"What did I see? At the first glimpse a faint light from a cobwebbed +window, a narrow room and a floor--red. Was it blood? A sickening +mouldy smell came forth, but as I forced myself to look again I saw +that it was only red tiles that had startled me. There was an upright +brick range in a corner, an old water-tank, some shelves and a +cupboard. A missing pane of glass left a space through which the air +had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above +the range. This was the ominous 'signal' we had heard in answer to the +footsteps. The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs +of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. We stood still for a few +moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult 'influence' that +had so subtly acted on Annie's nerves, and filled me with no less +terror. + +"The house had been built for a _hôtel garni_; that is, a house with +furnished rooms or apartments, something like a tenement-house in your +country. This was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged to the two +rooms we had taken. Being unused for its proper object, and too small +for a bed-chamber, it had been closed, and appeared as if it had been +unentered for years. I turned to Annie to see how she would bear this +prosaic explanation of our alarm, but with the air of one who had +expected nothing but this from the beginning, she remarked, 'Now you +see how much better it is to look into such things. This room would +have furnished me with bad dreams for the remainder of my life, and +here I find it is only a commonplace kitchen. Think how ludicrous to +have the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I tell of your fright when +we get home--how you didn't want to open the door, and wanted to 'let +well enough alone'? The place _might_ be haunted by the ghost of +a chicken or a rabbit, but, my dear, you should not allow that to +terrify you.' + +"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken that you feared last night, +and that caused your presentiments this morning. I hope you will +inform the police of what you have discovered here,' I remarked +quietly. + +"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will say no more. We were both +boobies. But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you and me, and make +our own breakfast? Look at the hole for charcoal, and the little +cupboard, the nails for the pots and pans to hang on: everything is +complete. That room could be for dining, the other a parlor, and--' + +"'The only drawback would be that, except at the North Pole, the night +comes once in twenty-four hours.' + +"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in here a minute: it's a dear little +place.' + +"'You will certainly make a housekeeper if a kitchen gives you such +ecstasy. Come out, I am so hungry. Put on your bonnet and leave this +elysium: I have had enough of it.' + +"'You come in for a second: it will shake the terror off and you +won't dream of it. That is a cure my old nurse once gave me for laying +ghosts.' + +"'It may be a good plan to shake off the terror, but the dust on you +will not be shaken off so easily.' + +"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot--'suppose that the floor should +be hollow, and that this were only a pretended kitchen after all, or +that there was a trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a sliding +panel.' Here she felt over the surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel +so queer last night if this was really nothing but a kitchen?' + +"'Because you are a goose,' I answered impatiently, 'and if you don't +come I will leave you. If you like, you can engage boarding here for a +week, and raise the tiles one by one with a knife and fork. As for me, +I am going to breakfast.' + +"'But don't you think it really has an uncanny look?' she asked, +giving a last glance over her shoulder as she came out. + +"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is plenty of that. Shut the door, +and I will push back the bed.' + +"'Jane,' she again remarked as she was trying on her bonnet before the +crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this night, I think I will say that +there _was_ a trap-door in the kitchen: you know there might be one +and we not see it.' + +"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as I could, 'I suppose a fib more +or less will make but little difference in your lifetime. While you +are at it, however, you may as well make a few more additions.' + +"'Now you are unkind.' + +"'A person is not accountable for temper when famishing. Take up your +satchel.' + +"We found the house a most every-day-looking house, seen by sunlight; +but there had lain the difficulty. The clerk in the office did not +particularly resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, and, strange to +say, did not overcharge us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. We found +we were not far from the station, and depositing our bags there, we +walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette. + +"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel alone in this way,' said +Nan gayly, her spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When I was here +before with all the family, it was not near so jolly; and I think we +manage well, don't you? Oh, there is an omnibus not _complet_: let us +get in. I am too hungry to walk.' + +"After we were seated she continued: 'I wonder what will happen to +us to-night. Suppose we find every place full, and have to sleep in a +garden or on the steps of a church, or something? Isn't it delightful +not to know in the least what is going to happen next?--just as in +fairy-land. Don't you hope we may have an adventure every night?' + +"'I should not call last night an adventure: it seems to me it was +more like a panic,' I said drily. + +"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' in a hurt tone: then +recovering her good temper, she went on: 'Well, call it a panic if +you like. Now, suppose we had one every night, and we stayed here two +weeks, there would be fourteen panics before we go home. Wouldn't that +be glorious?' + +"'You did not appear to enjoy it so much last night.' + +"'At the time I did not,' she admitted frankly. 'Weren't we +frightened? But then, you know, how nice it will be to talk of it +afterward!' + +"We arrived at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and found a seat by +the window, and a breakfast. We had already finished the latter, and +were playing with our fruit, when a party entered who attracted our +attention by speaking English. + +"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie whispered excitedly. 'I know her +well: hadn't we better run away? What will she think of our being here +alone?' + +"'Nonsense! You had better ask her where she is staying. Remember, we +are houseless as yet.' + +"'I don't like to ask her.' + +"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The idea of spending the night in a +garden or on a church-step did not possess the same charms for me as +for Nan. Thus prompted, she walked forward and spoke to her friend, +afterward presenting me. We chatted a few minutes, when Miss Rodgers +asked Annie where she was staying, and how her mamma was. + +"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's embarrassed reply. + +"I went to her rescue, and diverted the questions by asking some +myself: 'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? We do not like our hotel +and want to change.' + +"'There is not a room in our house that is unoccupied, and you won't +find good accommodation anywhere. You had better not change if you +have a place to lay your head. Paris is so crowded that everything +has been taken up long ago. You can ask at a dozen hotels or +boarding-houses and not find a garret to let. You have no idea of the +difficulty.' + +"Yes, we had an idea, and believed every word she said: in fact, +we would rather have felt less convinced on the subject. Even Annie +seemed to think that traveling alone might present some disagreeable +features, and looked quite unhappy, notwithstanding her love of +adventure. But before our mental anguish had time to become unbearable +a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, spoke: 'Auntie, if the young +ladies would like, I know of just the place that would suit them.' +Then turning to us, she continued: 'I am at school a few miles out of +the city, and madame told me that if I knew of any one, she had room +for a few parlor-boarders. It is a lovely spot, and no end of trains +coming and going all day; so that it would be just as convenient as +living here, and you would have excellent accommodation. Then, too, +I could speak English to you sometimes. I am so tired of talking for +ever without half knowing what I am saying.' + +"I could have embraced the chatterbox on the spot for this opportune +proposal, but controlled my feelings and looked at Nan to see if +she approved. She was consenting with every one of her expressive +features, and did not appear at all anxious to enjoy one of her +fourteen delightful panics this evening if it could be avoided. +Being spokesman, I said, 'I would willingly try the school on your +recommendation, Miss Ada, if you think madame could be ready for us +this evening.' + +"'Of course she could: come out with me now and see her. I must go +at one, and can show you the way. Will you meet me at the station? or +shall we call for you at your hotel?' + +"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, glad to settle it so +quickly, 'if you are quite sure that your madame will like our +unceremonious arrival.' + +"'That will be all right, I know. She has several empty rooms, and +will be happy to have them filled. You can leave your trunks until +to-morrow if you don't like to come bag and baggage.' + +"We needed no further pressing. Here was deliverance and safety, and +we bade good-morning to the party with light hearts. + +"We found the school all that Miss Ada had promised, and thus ended +the nearest approach to an adventure that we had during the two weeks +that we remained." + +"And now tell me about the Exposition." + +"Well, we saw it." + +"Saw what?" + +"Why, everything." + +"Describe it to me." + +"Certainly. In the first place, it was very big, and everybody was +there, so it was crowded; and you met your friends and you talked; +and--and you got fearfully tired; and it was wonderful; and there were +ever so many restaurants, and a soda-water fountain, and queer things +that you never expected to see there, like the Mexican techcatl and +Russian horses; and everything was _real_--real lace and cashmeres and +diamonds, and nothing but what was very nice. But, after all, I think +you had better get a file of old newspapers and read about it, for I +really have no talent for description--or, better still, go and see +the one in Vienna this summer." + +ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + + + +SLAINS CASTLE. + + +In traveling over the old lands of Europe one is sometimes apt to +think more of historical and genealogical traditions than of the +natural beauties or peculiarities of the country. The old landmarks +of a nation, whether monuments built by the hand of man or archives +carefully preserved by him, tell us of its growth, just as the strata +of the mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; and as every +successive layer has some relation both to its predecessor and its +successor, so the traditions of each generation have a perceptible +influence upon the moral development of the generation following. +Every nation is thus the growing fruit of its own history, and every +visible step of the grand ladder of facts that has led up to the +present result must needs have for a student of human nature an +intrinsic interest. + +This comes very clearly before my mind as I think of Slains Castle +(Aberdeen), a massive crown of granite set on the brow of the rocks of +the German Ocean, and the seat of one of those old Scottish families +whose origin is hidden away among the suggestive mists of tradition. + +Slains Castle stands alone, a giant watchman upon giant cliffs, +built up only one story high, on account of the tremendous winds that +prevail there in spring and autumn, and cased with the gray Aberdeen +granite of the famous quarries near by. The surrounding country is +as bare and uninviting as one could imagine; the road from Aberdeen +(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the young trees near the castle are +stunted, and in many cases disfigured by the inroads of hungry cows +among their lower branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs perpetually +over the scene, softening the landscape, but sometimes depressing +the spirits. As the hours pass the place grows on you: a weird beauty +begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the +restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself +displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the +desolate sea. + +The original building is of the time of James VI. (of Scotland), and +is due to Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more ancient castle, bearing +the same name, was destroyed by the king to punish his vassal for +the part he had taken in a rebellion. In the seventeenth century Earl +Gilbert made great improvements in it, and early in the eighteenth +Earl Charles added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt by Earl William +George, the father of the present owner, with the exception of the +lower part of the original tower. In this there used to be in olden +times an _oubliette_ in which unhappy prisoners were let down. All at +first appeared dark around them, but when they had thankfully assured +themselves that they at last stood upon solid ground, they would look +about them and presently descry a line of fitful light coming from a +door ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims would then go in haste +to this door, pull it open and, blinded by the sudden light, step out +upon the green slope terminating quickly in a precipice, which went +sheer down to the sea. + +The rest of the house is built around a large covered piazza, +intersected by corridors where pictures, armor and all kinds of old +family relics decorate the walls. The drawing-room is on the very edge +of the rock, and on stormy days the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost +flap their wings against its window-panes, while the clouds of +spray dash up against them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks in the +immediate neighborhood of the castle are rugged in the extreme, here +and there rent by a gigantic fissure reaching far inland, and up which +the foaming waters gurgle continually as if in impatience of their +narrow bounds, now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic staircase +and thickly matted with coarse sea-weed, and again reared up on high, +a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny for the steadiest foot, and +with Niagaras of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging face. +In wonderful hollows you will come upon pools of green water with +sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of pink, yellow or purple hue, and +gem-like shells resting on a bottom of clearest sand; and while the +waves are roaring on every side, and flinging their dampness into your +very face, these fairy pools will lie at your feet without a breath or +ripple on their surface. + +The most magnificent of these rocks is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug" +("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of the white sea-gulls. It stands +alone, as if torn from the land and hurled into the tossing waves +by some giant hand. Two hundred feet in height and a thousand in +circumference, it forms a natural arch, being pierced from its base +upward by an opening that widens as it ascends. The waves dash through +it with terrific violence, and the very sight of its grim splendor +conjures up a vision of shipwreck and danger. Scott has made +mention of it in _The Antiquary_, and Johnson in his _Journey to the +Hebrides_, recalling the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, has +said that though he could not wish for a storm, still as storms, +whether wished for or not, will sometimes happen, he would prefer +to look at them from Slains Castle. These rocks and the caves that +alternate with them were once famous as a smuggling rendezvous, and +as such Scott has again immortalized them in his _Guy Mannering_. The +Crooked Mary, a noted lugger, had many an adventure along this coast +during the last century. The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked for +at certain stated times, the preconcerted signal was given by him, +and the inhabitants bestirred themselves with commendable haste. +All ordinary business was immediately suspended: men might be seen +stealing along from house to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and +barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring village, and deliver a +brief message which to a bystander would sound very like nonsense, but +which nevertheless was well understood by the person to whom it was +given. Soon after a plaid or blanket might be seen spread out, as if +to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. Other beacons, not calculated +to draw general notice, but sufficiently understood by the initiated, +soon made their appearance, telegraphing the news from place to place. +As soon as the evening began to close in the Crooked Mary would be +observed rapidly approaching the land, and occasionally giving out +signals indicating the creek into which she meant to run. Both on sea +and land hairbreadth escapes were the rule rather than the exception, +and it is related of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates on shore, +poor Philip Kennedy, that one night, while clearing the way for the +cargo just landed from the contraband trader's hold, he was simply +murdered by the excise-officers. The heavy cart laden with the +cargo was yet some distance behind, and Kennedy with some dastardly +companions was slowly going forward to ascertain if all was safe, +when three officers of the customs suddenly made their unwelcome +appearance. Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked two of them, and +actually succeeded for a time in keeping them down in his powerful +grasp, while he called to his party to secure the third. They, +however, thinking prudence the better part of valor, decamped +ignominiously, and the enemy remained master of the brave man's life. +Anderson, the third officer, was observed to hold up his sword to the +moon, as if to ascertain if he were using the edge, and then to bring +it down with accurate aim and tremendous force upon the smuggler's +skull. Strange to say, Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually +succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, nearly a quarter of a mile +away, but expired a few moments after his arrival. His last words +were: "If all had been true as I was, the goods would have been safe, +and I should not have been bleeding to death." The brave fellow was +buried in the churchyard of Slains, where a plain stone marks his +grave, and bears the simple inscription, "To the memory of Philip +Kennedy, _in Ward_, who died the 19th of December, 1798. Aged 38." + +My own earliest recollections of the grand, desolate old castle are +derived, not from my first visit to it made in infancy, but from the +descriptions of one whose home it was during a brief but intensely +observant period of childhood. There came one day a storm such as +seldom even on that coast lashes up the gray, livid ocean. The waves, +as far out as sight could reach, were one mass of foam, and the +ghastly lightning flashed upon the torn sails of a ship as near +destruction as it well could be. Cries came up from below in the brief +pauses of the storm, and above lanterns were quickly carried to and +fro, while pale attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed the signals +of a more collected master. The occupants of the castle hardly knew to +what its chambers might be destined--whether to receive the dead or to +afford rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials were in readiness, +and strong men bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading from beneath. +The ship broke in pieces on the merciless rocks, and many a drowned +sailor went down to meet the army of his fellow-victims of all times +who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine caves of Slains. Those who +survived soon disappeared, full of gratitude for the timely relief +offered them at the castle, but one old man remained. He was never +known by any other name than "Monsieur," and was beloved by every +individual member of the household. A French _émigré_ of the old +school, with the dainty, gallant ways of the _ancien régime_, he still +clung to the dress of his earlier days, and wore a veritable _queue_, +silk stockings and buckled shoes. For some time he remained a welcome +guest in the "red chamber," where the host's little children would +sometimes join him and play with his watch and jeweled baubles. But +one day poor little "Monsieur" sickened, and the tiny feet that had +made such haste to run to him, now trod the corridor softly and bore a +baby-nurse to the gentle invalid. It was a high and coveted reward for +the little girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to his bedside, and +everything that kindness and hospitality could suggest was equally +lavished on him; but his feeble life, which had no doubt received a +shock from the shipwreck it had barely escaped, went out peacefully +like the soft flame of a lamp. + +Slains Castle had many gentle and pleasant memories about it, as well +as its traditional horrors, and among these were many connected with +the history of the old family that owned it. In one of the corridors +hangs the picture of James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced boy, +tall and athletic, standing with a cricket-bat in his hand. He would +have been earl of Erroll had he lived, but if we follow him in his +short life from classic Eton to the field of Quatre-Bras, we shall +find him again, on a bright June day in 1815, lying as if asleep, as +fair and noble-looking as before, but silent in death. Simple Flemish +peasants stand in a group around him, awed and admiring, asking each +other if this beautiful youth is an angel fallen from heaven, or +only a mortal man slain for the Honor of his country. His was a noble +death, and worthy of the suggestive memento of his early boyhood +before which we stood just now in the corridor of Slains Castle. + +A little farther down this corridor, which to all intents and purposes +is a family picture-gallery, we shall be forced to stop before the +portrait of a dark woman, masculine and resolute, not beautiful nor +like the handsome race of the Hays, of which she was yet the last +direct representative. This is the famous Countess Mary, one of the +central figures of the family traditions. The Hays were hereditary +lords high constable of Scotland, and also one of the few Scottish +families in which titles and offices, as well as lands, are +transmitted through the female line. So this Countess Mary found +herself, at the death of her brother, countess of Erroll in her +own right and _lord_ high constable of Scotland. In one of the two +pictures of her at Slains, if I remember right, she is represented +with the bâton of her office, with which badge she also appeared at +court before her marriage (after this it was borne by her husband +in the character of her deputy). Her husband was a commoner, a Mr. +Falconer of Dalgaty, whose reported history in connection with her is +curious and deserves to be told, though the old tradition is moulded +into so many different forms that it is very difficult to disentangle +the truth from its manifold embellishments. Toward the beginning of +the eighteenth century this intrepid and independent lady fell in love +with Mr. Falconer, who at first did not seem eager to return or notice +her affection. High-strung and chivalric by nature, she did not droop +and pine under her disappointment, but vowed to herself that she would +bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer coner left the country after some +time, and went to London. The Countess Mary also traveled south the +same year, and no news of her was heard at Slains for some time. +Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter, +who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young +cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely +bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each +other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship +of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as +often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance, +and one day some trifling difference having occurred between the +friends, a cartel reached Mr. Falconer couched in very haughty though +perfectly courteous language. These things were every-day matters in +such times, and very nonchalantly the challenged went in the early +morning to the appointed place to meet the challenger. Here the +versions of the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer and his +antagonist fought, but without witnesses; that the former got the +worst of the encounter, and remained at the other's mercy; that then, +_and not before_, the Countess Mary made herself known to him and +gave him his choice--a thrust from her sword or a speedy marriage with +herself. Others say that it was before the duel that she astonished +her lover by this discovery, and that the choice she gave him was +between marriage and ridicule.[A] + +The fact of her marriage, and that it proved a happy one, is certain. +Mr. Falconer dropped his own name to assume that of Hay. The +countess was a devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. When +Presbyterianism had got the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying +church persecutions with terrible interest, a Mr. Keith was +appointed to the Anglican parish of Deer. This was within the Erroll +jurisdiction, and it was not long before the zealous Countess Mary +came to the rescue of the congregation, who had assembled for some +time in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she had the upper floor of +a large granary fitted up for their accommodation, and this afforded +them a grateful shelter for more than a quarter of a century. Of +this same parish of Deer a curious story is told in the local annals, +showing how conservative and tenacious of traditions the north of +Scotland still was in 1711. The skirmish to which it relates goes +by the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," and is thus reported: +"Some people of Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of +Deer, to the number of seventy horse or thereby, assembled on the +twenty-third of March, 1711, to force in a Presbyterian teacher in +opposition to the parish; but the presbytry and their satellites were +soundly beat off by the people, not without blood on both sides." + +There was little of the martyr about the Scot of that warlike day, and +most emphatically and literally did he show himself a "_soldier_ of +the Lord." + +The aisle of the old church of Slains contains the graves of Countess +Mary and her husband, with an epitaph in Latin, of which the following +is a translation: "Beneath this tombstone there are buried neither +gold nor silver, nor treasures of any kind, but the bodies of the most +chaste wedded pair, Mary, countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay +of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and lovingly in matrimony for +twenty-seven years. They wished to be buried here beside each other, +and pray that this stone may not be moved nor their remains disturbed, +but that these be allowed to rest in the Lord until He shall call +them to the happy resurrection of that life which they expect from the +mercy of God and the merits of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ." + +The central figure, however, in the history of the Hays of Erroll, +and that which no one who bears the name of Hay can think of without a +thrill of pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, in 1746, a victim +to the last unsuccessful but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts. +I have heard it whispered as an instance of "second sight" that some +years before he had any reason to anticipate such a death he was once +startled by the ghostly opening of a door in the apartment where +he was sitting alone, and by the apparition, horribly distinct and +realistic, of a bloody head rolling slowly toward him across the room; +till it rested at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned to his, +and the bonny locks were clotted with blood: it was as if it had +just rolled from under the axe of the executioner; and the features, +plainly discerned, _were his own!_ + +His part in the rising of 1745 belongs to history, but his personal +demeanor concerns my narrative more closely. All the contemporary +accounts are loud in praise of his beauty and elegance of person, his +refinement of manner, his variety of accomplishments; and Scott, +in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, relates a curious circumstance +concerning his fine presence at the moment of his execution. A lady of +fashion who had never seen him before, and who was herself, I +believe, the wife of one who had much to do with Lord Kilmarnock's +death-warrant, seeing him pass on his way to the block, formed a most +violent attachment for his person, "which in a less serious affair +would have, been little less than a ludicrous frenzy." + +The grace and dignity of his appearance, together with the resignation +and mildness of his address, melted all the spectators to tears as +they gathered round the fatal Tower prison to witness his death: the +chaplain who attended him says his behavior was so humble and resigned +that even the executioner burst into tears, and was obliged to use +strong cordials to support him in his terrible duty. Lord Kilmarnock +himself was deeply impressed by the sight of the block draped in +funereal black, the plain coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust +that was so disposed as speedily to suck up the bloody traces of the +execution, and the sea of faces surrounding the open enclosure kept +for this his last earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from fear that +he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, melancholy nature was thrilled +through every nerve by this dread publicity, and we cannot wonder +that, leaning heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, he should have +whispered, almost with his last breath, the simple words, "Home, this +is dreadful!" + +One who was the lineal descendant of this earl of Kilmarnock, +and whose only brother long bore the same blood-stained and +laurel-wreathed title, has often told me of the strange link that +bridged the chasm of four generations from 1746 to 1829, and bound her +recollections to those of a living witness of the scene. She was so +young as not to have any distinct impression of other events that +happened at the same time, but this lived in her mind because of the +importance and solemnity with which her own parents had purposely +invested it in her eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little +great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought +down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier +who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank +of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age, +took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in +simple words the story she was never to forget--how he had been a +tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel +lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the +Tower quarter, he was tempted to play truant, and flinging his satchel +of books over his shoulder, had pushed his way as far as the great +state prison. Then of his frantic efforts to secure a point of vantage +whence to see the great death-pageant--of his childish admiration for +the handsome, manly form of Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm when +Lord Balmerino, the other victim, had cried in a loud voice, "Long +live the king!" and of the fascination he could not resist which led +his eyes from the shining axe and the draped block to the auburn locks +of the prisoner, and soon after to his bleeding head laid low in the +sawdust around the coffin. All this the old veteran told thrillingly, +the shadow of a boy's awed recollection mingling with his Scottish +exultation as a compatriot of the victim, and even with a touch of +humor as he recalled the domestic scolding which marked the truant's +return. + +In the charter-room at Slains Castle, where the records, genealogies, +private journals, official deeds, etc. of the family are kept, +one might find ample material for curious investigation of our +forefathers' way of living. Among other papers is a kind of inventory +headed, "My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing within Logg and +Slanis." The list of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly of brass +pots, pewter pans and oil barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg +(another residence of the Errolls), "quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir +followis, quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) to the half," contains +an ample list of curtains of purple velvet, green serge, green-and-red +drugget and other stuffs hardly translatable to the modern +understanding, and shows that in those days women were not more +backward than now in plaguing their liege lords about upholstery and +millinery. But the most amusing and natural touch of all is in the +endorsement, hardly gallant, but _very_ conjugal, made by the fair +petitioner's husband: "To my Ladyes gredie (greedy) and vnressonable +(unreasonable) desyris it is answerit...." Here follows a distinct +admission that the furniture of both houses, put together, is too +little to furnish the half of each of them, and therefore nothing can +be spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains. + +The family coat-of-arms commemorates to this day the poetical +genealogy of the Hays. Its supporters are two tall, naked peasants +bearing plough-yokes on their shoulders: the crest is a falcon, while +the motto is also significant--"_Serva jugum._" Scottish tradition +tells us that in 980, when the Danes had shamefully routed the Scots +at Loncarty, a little village near Perth, and were pursuing the +fugitives, an old man and his two stalwart sons, who were ploughing in +a field close by, were seized with indignation, and, shouldering their +plough-yokes, placed themselves resolutely in a narrow defile through +which their countrymen must pass to evade a second slaughter by +the victors. As the Scots came on the three patriots opposed their +passage, crying shame upon them for cowards and no men, and exhorting +them thus: "Why! would ye rather be certainly killed by the +heathen Danes than die in arms for your own land?" Ashamed, and +yet encouraged, the fugitives rallied, and with the three dauntless +peasants at their head fell upon their astonished pursuers, and fought +with such desperation that they turned defeat into victory. Kenneth +III., the Scottish king, instantly sent for the saviors of his army, +gave them a large share of the enemy's spoils, and made them march in +triumph into Perth with their bloody plough-yokes on their shoulders. +More than that, he ennobled them, and gave them a fair tract of land, +to be measured, according to the fashion of that day, by the flight of +a falcon. From the name of this land the Hays came to be called; +lords of Erroll, and it is said that the Hawk Stone at St. Madoes, +Perthshire, which stands upon what is known to have been the ancient +boundary of the possessions of the Hays, is the identical stone from +which the lucky falcon started. It was left standing as a special +memorial of the defeat of the Danes at Loncarty. Another stone famous +in the Hay annals, and conspicuously placed in front of the entrance +to Slains Castle, is said to be the same on which the peasant general +rested after his toilsome leadership in the battle. + +Our walks over the bleak moors on one side, with the heather in +bloom and the blackberries in low--lying purple clusters fringing the +granite rocks, were sometimes rendered more interesting, though more +dangerous, by the sudden falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it +would come at first, gathering little filmy clouds together as it +were, and hovering over the gray sea in curling tufts, and then, +growing strong and dense, would swoop down irresistibly, till what was +clear five minutes before was impenetrably walled off, and one seemed +to stand alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or again, our walks would +take us on the other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a desolate tract +where nothing grows save the coarse grass called _bent_ by the Scotch, +and where the wearied eye rests on nothing but mounds of shifting +sand, drearily shaped into the semblance of graves by the keen winds +that blow from over the German Ocean. + +This miniature desert, tradition says, was an Eden four hundred years +ago, but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless orphan heiresses of it +by fraud and violence, and the maidens threw a spell or _weird_ upon +it in these terms: + + "Yf evyr maydens malysone + Did licht upon drye lande, + Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys + Bot thystl, bente and sande." + +I must not forget the "Bullers," a natural curiosity which is the +boast of the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover connected with +a feat performed by a former guest and friend of one of the lords of +Erroll. We drove there in a large party, and passed through an untidy, +picturesque little fishing-hamlet on our way, where the women talked +to each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted at the doors of +their cabins, and where the children looked so hardy, fearless and +determined that the wildest dreams of future possible achievement +seemed hardly unlikely of realization in connection with any one of +them. + +"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a huge rocky cavern, +irregularly circular and open to the sky, into which the sea rushes +through a natural archway. A narrow pathway is left quite round +the basin, from which one looks down a sheer descent of more than a +hundred feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth and coarse grass +that carpet it so deceptive and loose, and the wind almost always +so high on this spot, that only the most foolhardy or youngest of +visitors would dare in broad daylight to attempt to _walk_ round it. +Yet it is on record that the duke of Richmond, some sixty or seventy +years ago, made a bet at Lord Erroll's dinner-table that he would +_ride round it after dark_. He accomplished the feat in safety. His +picture, life-size, hangs in the dining-room to this day, and as he +is represented standing in all the pride of a vigorous manhood by +the side of his beautiful charger, he does not seem to belie the +reputation which this incident created for him in the old district of +Buchan. + +The peasants of this wild and primitive neighborhood, though to some +extent slightly infected by modernization, are yet very fair specimens +of the hardy, trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and the present +owners of Slains certainly give them every reason to keep up the old +bonds of affectionate interest with every one and everything belonging +to "the family." To my own observation of the ancient seat of the Hays +I owe one of the most delightful recollections of my life, that of +a Christian home. Not only the outward observances, but the inner +spiritual vitality of religion, were there, while unselfish devotion +to all within the range of her influence or authority marked the +character of her who was at the head of this little family kingdom. +The present head of the house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly +carried on the martial traditions of his ancestry, and on the roll of +England's victorious sons at the battle of the Alma his name is to be +found. He was there disabled by a wound that shattered his right arm +and cut short his military career. Domestic happiness, however, is +no bad substitute for a brilliant public life, and there are duties, +higher yet than a soldier's, that go far toward making up that +background of rural prosperity which alone ensures the grand effect of +military successes. After having done one's duty in the field, it +is to the full as noble, and perhaps more patriotic, to turn to the +duties of the glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord the work begun as +a soldier. + +It is a touching custom, hardly yet obliterated in the district over +which my reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, when coming upon +another employed in his lawful calling, thus to salute him: "Guid +speed the wark!" the rejoinder being, in the same broad Buchan +dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye weel." + +I can end these pages with no more fitting sentiment. As a tribute of +grateful recollection to those who made my days at Slains a happiness +to me, and in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement offered +me distractions the more alluring because the more associated with +Nature's changeless, silent grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning them +with the homely Scottish wish that wherever they are and whatever they +do, "Guid speed the wark!" + +LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + +[Footnote A: There is another version of her courtship, and this a +metrical one. This old ballad was not much known beyond the district +round Slains, and the old servants and farmers on the estate were the +chief depositaries of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than +a very small fragment of it, which is itself only written down from +memory by one of these old women. The rhyme and rhythm are both +_original_: + + Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding + Near the famous town of Reading: + There a gentleman she saw + That belonged to the law.... + +Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which some account is +probably begun of her unreturned attachment, for a little later we +find in the very primitive manuscript from which we quote these words +of the countess: + + I that have so many slighted, + I am at last--(unrequited?) + +The story is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten +the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged +him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in +disguise), "and that his father told him to go." Neither father +nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's rank, though the +following words point to their being aware of her sex, for the elder +Falconer is represented as saying, + + If she is rich she will raise your fame, + And if poor you are the same. +] + + + + +OUR HOME IN THE TYROL + + +CHAPTER III. + + +We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious +rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate +blossoms--Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's +special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, +veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according +to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good +for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But +soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St. +Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and +the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the +wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the +more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake +and worked as hard as any woman in the field. + +On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our +picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus +sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men +and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ +Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to +praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their +honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay +was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should +consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The +newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three +crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and +sometimes but one. + +The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of +buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for +the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of +_krapfen_, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter. + +Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's +work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the +humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us, +until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the +evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check. +We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows +of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes, +whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and +Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the +kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings; +but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family +were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive +that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered +by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival, +and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old +pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the +younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up +singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet: + + Green, green is the clover + On the hills as I go, + And my maiden as fresh is + As spring water's flow. + +And the chorus joined in-- + + As spring water's flow, + +winding up with a jodel. + +Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in a clear, flexible voice, which +trembled no little when she perceived that the Herrschaft now formed +part of the audience in the balcony-- + +A WEEK'S SORROW. + + On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore, + Like a poor little child outside the church door; + On Monday I felt so afeard and alone, + And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone: + Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow! + + On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day, + For him that I love best is far, far away; + On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill, + For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill; + On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day; + On Friday, and one of the cows went astray; + On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain, + As though I should never be happy again. + Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again. + +In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong +dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer +looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away +with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood +alone with her whether anything were troubling her father. + +"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music. +Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been +celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing, +and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death." + +"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three +handsomest, best--grown men in the parish, living happily together +without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by +a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a +sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when +she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children, +not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is +wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her +mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob." + +"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice. + +"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you +knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have +sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would +have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such +were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and +with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains +some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so +good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm +to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often +bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his +back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human +blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that +when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so +clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold +up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did +have him to dine with him every day." + +"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to +reassure her. + +"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven more long years must he serve, +and always as a private. I thought like you, until the Hofbauer +explained to me that all the officers were foreigners--Saxons, +Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by the Austrian ministry, who are +tyrants to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor would only interfere, for +he loves Tyrol! but he leaves everything to the ministry. Austria may +itself be overthrown in these unrighteous days before my Jakobi is +free." Now it was the good soul's turn to wipe her eye with the corner +of her ample blue apron. + +We were venturing some fresh attempt at consolation when fortunately +an event occurred which drew her thoughts from the deep shadow which +we had just discovered hung over the peaceful Hof. Jodokus, the +village schoolmaster in the winter, when the children had time +to learn, but during the busy summer months one of the men, had +challenged Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly had the two antagonists +encountered each other on the grass in a stout set-to, when the sound +of the goatherd's whip was heard on the hilly common above, sending +forth a succession of reports like those of a pistol, becoming +stronger and louder when the game and the assembled company were seen. +At last the young "whipper-snapper," as we called him, made one long +final succession of cracks and reports, and springing over the +wall, and casting his instrument of torture on one side, he boldly +challenged Anton. + +The young man, whose skill and strength were well known, smiled, half +amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. The younger athlete, a +lad of thirteen, firmly built and agile, mistook the look for a sneer, +and the blood ran fast and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting +the challenge, they immediately began to spar. They first fearlessly +regarded each other, then bowing their heads they rushed forward, +butting like rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm in Anton's chest, +tried to find his adversary's weakest point, and with his arms round +his waist endeavored cunningly to make him slip; but it was soon the +young champion who was tripped up, and who in playful, half-serious +anger dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost managing to bring +Anton sprawling to the ground. The lad, however, suddenly stopped: +he had lost a little tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer piece +from his pocket--too great a loss for a shepherd-boy. The combat +therefore was speedily closed, both antagonists and their partisans +hunting in the unmowed grass until the treasures were again trove. + +At the same time an elderly man approached and opened the gate--a +peasant evidently, although, instead of the usual long white apron +and bib, he wore one of new green linen, shining as satin--a man of a +strong although delicate make, the head slightly stooping forward, +and a face that beamed with genuine pleasure as half a dozen voices +simultaneously burst forth with a "God greet you, Alois!" + +This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of +whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had +beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a +large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who +came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in +the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through +the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no +less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in +long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the +pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet, +busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white. + +Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the +tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants, +according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being +chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots +for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the +cattle to the Alpine pastures. + +I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited +upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids. +Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might +now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of +Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on +the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger +at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat +between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied +his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry. + +The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of +about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the +pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days +he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a +week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man; +and the river had swollen to such a height that it had carried two +houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even +life had been lost." + +This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning +Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten +o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the +adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared +different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are +often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of +mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste +hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which +formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a +melancholy, soul-touching little poem. + +"You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?" + +He smiled and said, "Do your work betimes, and then rest; and where +better than under the shadow of the cross?" + +"Yes, and the crucifix which you have chosen is more pleasing than the +generality which are sown broadcast over the fields of the Tyrol. Why +are they made so hideous and revolting?" + +We spoke out freely, because the unusually intelligent face before +us evidently belonged to a thinker. Candor of speech pleased him. +Nevertheless, he answered as if musing, "They appear ugly to you: well +they may be. Ja, but the most who look upon them are men and women +acquainted with many sorrows--sudden deaths by falls from precipices, +destruction of house and home by lightning, floods, avalanches, +failure of crops, and many another visitation--and it soothes their +perhaps selfish natures to see these anguished features, these +blood-stained limbs--signs of still greater suffering--whilst they +pray that only such crosses may be laid on them as will keep them in +obedience to His will. Just before you came up the hill I was thinking +of a strange history connected with a crucifix--one that I read only +ten days ago in the house of a Hochmair himself." + +It merely needed silence for Schuster Alois to repeat the tale, and he +soon began: "It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler who narrates it. He says +that once in his rambles he came to a little chapel, over which hung a +blasted larch--such a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally asked +the guide he had with him why it was not cut down. Now, the guide +was an old man who knew every, tradition and legend, besides all the +family histories in that part of the Tyrol. 'That tree,' said he, 'is +left there purposely, as the reminder of a great crime, and nobody +would think of touching it. If you look into the chapel, you'll see a +Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast. That was +once a crucifix under this very tree.' Then the guide made a remark +which had often struck myself--that there are some families in which +everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are +others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than +the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they +were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was +at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations +back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more +for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the +game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put +more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such +a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would +not give him absolution. This put him in a great rage, and it is +remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him. He +could not take aim--a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand +trembled. People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost +of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with +his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse. Be that as it may, he +would be absent for weeks in the mountains. He did no good, and the +little he possessed fell into ruin. + +"His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he +put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself. It +was Corpus Christi Day: the bells were ringing and the procession +moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys +singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the +golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a +crucifix. Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked +Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames. An awful +cry rang from the bushes: the procession rushed forward, the priest +only remaining with the Host and a few attendants. And what did they +see? There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet, +and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands +clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy. +Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained +motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in +gloomy silence. After they had talked together alone for some time, +the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in +prayer. The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared +into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him. In the mean while +the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church. So years +went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from +the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after +years of penitence he had received the forgiveness of the Church and +of God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, 'let all forgive him, and +remember only their own sins, and pray Christ to be merciful to them.' +After that it was known that he had become possessed with the crazy +notion that if he fired into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus +Christi Day, just when the Host was being elevated and the benediction +spoken, it would make his gun unerring. He fired therefore, and at the +same moment the Saviour on the cross raised His head and, fixing on +him His eyes full of tears, gave him a look which pierced him to the +very marrow, and that terrified him far more than the lightning +which, flashing from his forehead, set fire to his house, whilst the +thorn-crowned countenance seemed to float before him, and he knew that +this was his punishment. Such was his confession at the time to the +priest who laid the penance of the Church upon him. So he went out +into the world like another Cain, and God in His own time was merciful +to him. Still, the wounded effigy of the Saviour and the blasted larch +tree remain as witnesses on earth against him. + +"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that is only one tale amongst the +hundreds which could be related concerning these crucifixes. Ah, +there is many an old, bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on crag or +highway-side from which the anguished face of the Saviour has both +smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes cut deeper into most +Tyrolese hearts than shrines, some way." + +"Strange," we replied, "for these old shrines are not only quaint, +but often beautiful, as, for instance, the one on the roadside turning +into town." + +"Ah, I am glad you like it," said Alois, "for there are those who +would wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden cross, as a landmark, +placed there instead. The Capuchins in the adjoining monastery are +opposed to it, however, and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," he +continued, becoming quite aglow, "that although it is greatly injured +and many of the figures lost, still there are others who look at you +so calmly and seriously with their marred, dilapidated countenances +that you feel a peace steal into your heart? And whoever the painter +was, he must have loved his work, for Saint Gregory could never have +been more dignified in real life than he looks in the shrine." + +"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost without knowing what we were +saying, for it was hardly probable. + +"Oh, I only touch colors now and then, when there's a purpose in it +or I can serve the Church," he returned. He became embarrassed, and +explained that it was time to return to his work. + +We afterward learnt from Moidel that Alois bore in the neighborhood +far and wide the reputation of an artist, although he did not consider +himself such, seeing he could not paint saints and angels. It was, +however, a great source of pleasure to him to paint mottoes and +devices and to arrange floral decorations, especially when they could +serve as a surprise for some private name-day or church festival. + +One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had +brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread +were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the +preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the +Olm. First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o'clock in the +afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable +to keep up with the cattle. Then a _leiterwagen_ which had been drawn +into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and +the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers, +whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men's +backs up to the huts. + +In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us +good-bye. He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white +apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he +presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us +down a larger supply by his brother. We talked with him about the Olm, +and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that, +as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his +stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed. The Olm was very +extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow +for about three months in the year. When, however, the snow was off, +the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, +all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound +of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful +beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper +mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers +were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, +so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a +considerable distance apart. + +Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too. "Could we +go thither," we asked, "and pay him a visit?" + +"That we could," he replied, "if we did not mind sleeping in the hay. +Only we had better wait for settled weather in August." + +There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi. The +Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until +Martinmas--longer if we wanted it. He also fell into the scheme of +our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying +that all the dairy produce would be at our service. + +In the night, exactly at one o'clock, Jakob and Jodokus started: we +heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the "Leben Sie wohl!" +"Behüt Euch Gott!" shouted lovingly after them from the open door and +the lower windows of the silent old mansion. Six and twenty head of +cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later. It was a calm +and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the +mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless +sky. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The Alpine caravansary was hardly settled at the Olm when the air +became intensely hot and oppressive. Day by day black thunder-clouds +gathered on the horizon. They crested the mountains in three +directions, at times appearing to repel each other, at others marching +fiercely on to conflict, when, the zenith becoming pitch-dark, they +flung out long spears of lightning and exploded in overwhelming +thunder. Very terrible were these perpetual storms. With the first +peal the church-bells along the valley began solemnly to toll. It +mattered not whether by night or day, the faithful bellringer was +at his post, and with rain pouring down outside and fiery, vivid +lightning playing around him, he still went tolling on, for evil +spirits must be driven away, and people reminded to make the sign of +the cross and pray God to protect them. + +At length, to use an expression of Alois's, "Saint Florian had left +off playing at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had driven his hay over +the heavenly bridge." The warring elements were still, but the earth +seemed smouldering with heat, and we panted and gasped after the lofty +mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. At the same time it came +most opportunely to our knowledge that the Tyrol was rich in +baths--primitive establishments most of them, but dotted over mountain +and valley, so that each village had half a dozen to choose from, +where every peasant, be he ever so poor, could at least dip and soak +for an eight-days' _sommerfrisch_. Why, then, should not the two +Margarets, they being the most desirous of a change, have at least a +_sommerfrisch_? + +But which amongst all these baths was the one to choose? Good Kathi +recommended her baths at Innichen. She herself evidently did not +derive much pleasure from her yearly visits there. Still, we, being +ladies, would find more people to talk to, and the bath-house, which +was always full to overflowing, stood in a wood, and we liked trees. +Schuster Alois--for the conversation took place before he left--said +that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. There was not only _luxus_, +but a great deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty Emperor Max +as early as 1511 took up his quarters at Maistall during his campaign +against the Venetians, and he had heard say that in the last century +the visitors formed a society and made it a rule that none but the +purest German should be spoken. Every fault of pronunciation cost a +kreuzer to the offender: the money went to the chapel, and amounted +one season to twenty-one florins six kreuzers. + +But one Margaret decidedly objected to going to a place where there +was the faintest chance of her _loiter wagon_ for _leiterwagen_, her +_pison_ for _speisen_, her _vulgarborn_ for _wohlgeboren_, being fined +by a _gazel-schaft (gesellschaft)_. Besides, these places sounded too +grand: we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, if one could be +found that did not belie its name. So the peasant-baths of St. Vigil, +Mühlbach and Scharst were named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, +we having heard that all the school-children in town had just been +taken there for a long day's holiday, and had returned to their proud +and happy parents, who waited for them in double ranks below, radiant +with pleasure, waving their banners and Alpine roses. + +It was accordingly arranged that on the following Sunday Anton should +drive us to Reischach, where there was to be a great festival, with +candles in the church as big as a man's arm: so said a woman from +Reischach. Anton was of a retiring nature, and did not like crowds, +but he would gladly drive the ladies over. And at Reischach we should +be sure to find some peasant returning that evening by Scharst, who +could carry our belongings. + +Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for +vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations +and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct +decorations for a festival. And Anton!--how to present him to you as +he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best +ornament: nevertheless, he too wears carnations and rosemary caught +in the silver cord and vieing with the silver tassels of his +broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat. His rough jacket, made by the +tailor last autumn, and therefore too new to be worn on a less special +occasion, is short and loose enough to leave ample space for the +display of his _rauge_, or broad leather belt of softest chamois-skin, +worked in scrolls surrounding his name, with split peacock quills, +no little resembling Indian handicraft. His snow-white knees appear +between his short leather breeches and his bright blue knitted +stockings. These Nature's garters, when perfectly white, are regarded +as a mark of great distinction amongst the dandies, and those of our +Anton may be considered the very _knee plus ultra_. + +A parliament of men--a few still in breeches with Hessian boots, +which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having +succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers--were seated in the shadow +of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye +and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural +impulse, were already kneeling in church, confiding their cares of +kitchen and farmyard to the ever-ready ear of _Mutter Gottes_--one +dense mass of simple, believing women, in broad-brimmed beaver hats, +with here and there a conical woolen beehive as a contrast. + +The church in itself, although it lacked the candles as big as a man's +arm, must truly have shone like the gate of heaven to peasant eyes. +Many of the more substantial families had lent their private saints +for the occasion. They had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint Leonhards +and Virgins, generally preserved in wardrobes at home, but now brought +to participate in the festival, besides adding to its great solemnity. +It was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, and although the words conveyed +no clear idea to us, we were soon to learn their significance. A +Tyrolese anthem having been sung by some invisible voices, in which +jodels leapt up and smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged Capuchin took +his stand in the pulpit, and having greeted the congregation, +promised to explain to them the mystery and the advantage of the Holy +Scapulary. + +"My beloved," he began, "there are some who think too little of the +scapulary, and there are others who lay too great a stress on this +aid to faith. Let us meditate on both these conditions. But first, how +must we ourselves regard the scapulary? Now, we are told not to love +the world nor the things of the world. The scapulary, with its sacred +image of Mary worn next the heart, is a great shield against this love +of the world. It places you under the especial protection of the Queen +of Heaven: you are as much her servant as those who serve king or +kaiser, and equally wear her livery. Some think too little of the +scapulary. Yet what incidents can be told of its efficacy! Let one +suffice. In the year 1866, when the war raged between Austria and +Prussia, the Catholic soldiers of the latter country immediately +before the war entered by hundreds into the Society of the Scapulary. +Wearing this sacred charm upon their hearts, they went into the +battle-field, and the cannons roared and the bullets whizzed thick +and fast around them, and not one of them fell, for they wore the +scapulary. Indeed, their miraculous preservation created so much +excitement that Lutherans marveled over it, and asked the Catholics +how it came that they were no whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear +the scapulary of Mary, and she saves us.' Then many Lutherans said, +'Come, we will have scapularies,' and wrote their names down in the +society. And now hark ye, my brethren. There was a Catholic soldier, +and there was a Lutheran, and the latter said, 'Lend me thy scapulary +for this one day only, and see, here is a thaler for thee.' Then the +foolish Catholic drew the scapulary off his neck, handed it to the +Lutheran, took the thaler, went into battle: whiz went the bullets +round him, and he fell." + +We could stand no more. The church, now crowded with men as well as +women, reeked with perspiration, the sermon oppressed us, and thus our +sense and senses drove us out into the open air. Here the fresh breeze +came across from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving as a breath +from heaven. Peasant-women who were too late to squeeze into +church were seated amongst the iron crosses of the graves. The more +serious-minded had managed to cluster together round a side-door +which, being adjacent to the pulpit, proved an advantageous spot for +hearing. The less particular sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient +to be in holy ground and to pass their beads through their fingers +whilst they studied up our novel attire. Approaching the more +attentive members, we found that the Capuchin had reached the second +part of his discourse, and was dilating on those who thought too +highly of the scapulary. We gathered the following fragment: + +"Now, the man was nigh unto death, and it was neither for confession +nor for the death-sacrament that he craved. No, it was for a +scapulary. 'A scapulary!' he cried, 'a scapulary!' My brethren, you +know well he should have asked for the priest and for the blessing of +the Church, but it was merely for a scapulary." + +Later on we asked permission to see a scapulary. It consisted of two +small squares of cloth, herring-boned round the edge, and united by a +narrow ribbon of sufficient length to permit one square to rest on +the breast, whilst the other hung between the shoulders. That in front +bore the image of the Virgin, designed by the nuns in the convent, +whilst the simpler work had been given to some poor old woman, or even +man, who was past harder employment. The privilege of wearing this +charmed badge entailed the payment of a small yearly subscription and +the repetition of seven Paternosters daily. + +The procession followed the sermon. Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once +a good peasant-girl, now a saint) were paraded round the village by +children, and borne back to church. Peasant-men staggered under large +silk banners, which swayed and fluttered in the blustery wind, +and, but for the steady grasp of the strong men who carried them, +threatening at each moment to crush the pious throng. The four chief +peasants of the district, wearing their robes of state, the Noah's ark +coats in which they were married, bore the baldachin over the head +of the Capuchin who elevated the Host: the village priest, in white +surplice and Hessian boots, swung the censer at his side. The men were +in front, the women, a long, broad file, divided in the procession by +the priests from their male relations, followed--a dense black mass, +but relieved in color by the whiteness of their short linen sleeves. + +Men and women, carefully severed in their prayers and on the very +steps of the altar by Holy Church, were soon able to come together +again under the spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, the wirth. +Innumerable clean wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged wooden +chairs were ranged up stairs and down stairs and in the orchard +without, for the accommodation of the scapularists and their friends. + +We sat at a side-table in an upper room partaking of grilled fowl and +salad, whilst _buben_ and their _dirnen_, or lads and their lasses, +middle-aged couples, old men and women, poured into the house, +filling every chair, bench and table. They came thither from all +the country-side, and endless were the greetings amongst cousins and +cousins' cousins. The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep up every link +of relationship, claiming the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, +never does die out; and though it may become an abstract during busy +seasons of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a strong reality at +wakes and festivals. Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, +Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin drank with "Cousin Barthel," and +Seppl's sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel Seppl." There was +one square-built, good-humored old man who appeared to be the whole +world's cousin: he passed from table to table, and had to sip from +fifty offered glasses. + +With our delicious coffee and boiled cream we ordered the host, as a +suitable person, to find us a guide to carry our valise and shawls to +Bad Scharst. Probably the perpetual and loud demands for pints of wine +left him but little time to make a wise selection, seeing that there +soon stood before us a small man with so subtle and malignant a look +that his exorbitant demand made us only too gladly dismiss him. Our +confidence shaken in the landlord's powers of discrimination, we sent +word below that if Anton had returned we should be glad to speak with +him. He had been in the village to visit his cousins, but was waiting +our orders below. Although his native shyness made it hard for him +to step forward and address ladies under the curious gaze of all the +relative Seppls and Barthels, he did it with manliness, and turning +round and addressing the popular old man as Hansel, asked him if his +brother Jörgel were below; and being answered in the affirmative, he +hastened away, and returned with another compact little peasant, whom +he introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, with an aside, that he +was "a friendly mortal and Count Arlberg's forester." + +The agreement was soon made, the sullen-looking man glowering at us +from behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel and Anton packed a +_kraxe_ or wooden frame and fixed it on Jörgel's back. As we set +off, Anton drove away homeward, although the skittle-balls were just +beginning to roll, and the sound of "I bin a lustiger bua" and other +Tyrolese songs came floating from the windows. + +MARGARET HOWITT. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +SAINT ROMUALDO. + + I give God thanks that I, a lean old man, + Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains + By austere penance and continuous toil, + Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace + Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh, + Though the beginning is as yesterday, + And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that-- + A favored life, though outwardly the butt + Of ignominy, malice and affront, + Yet lighted from within by the clear star + Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged + To see at last its utmost goal attained. + I speak not of mine Order and my House, + Here founded by my hands and filled with saints-- + A white society of snowy souls, + Swayed by my voice, by mine example led; + For this is but the natural harvest reaped + From labors such as mine when blessed by God. + Though I rejoice to think my spirit still + Will work my purposes, through worthy hands, + After my bones are shriveled into dust, + Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit + Of holy satisfaction, sure and real, + Though subtler than the tissue of the air-- + The power completely to detach the soul + From her companion through this life, the flesh; + So that in blessed privacy of peace, + Communing with high angels, she can hold, + Serenely rapt, her solitary course. + + Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne + Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash + Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs; + Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh + Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones, + And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores, + Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung; + Exposure to the fever and the frost, + When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked + From persecution of misguided folk, + Accustoming my spirit to ignore + The burden of the cross, while picturing + The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace + Of holiness, the lives of sainted men, + And entertaining all exalted thoughts, + That nowise touched the trouble of the hour, + Until the grief and pain seemed far less real + Than the creations of my brain inspired. + The vision, the beatitude, were true: + The agony was but an evil dream. + I speak not now as one who hath not learned + The purport of those lightly-bandied words, + Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows + The thunders of the terrors of the world. + No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock, + Can move or reach my soul, securely throned + On heights of contemplation and calm prayer, + Happy, serene, no less with actual joy + Of present peace than faith in joys to come. + + This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees + Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky! + How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine, + Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes + Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light! + Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes + Find the same sense of exquisite delight, + My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy + In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high, + And youth coursed through my veins! This the one link + That binds the wan old man that now I am + To the wild lad who followed up the hounds + Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea. + For there how oft would I lose all delight + In the pursuit, the triumph or the game, + To stray alone among the shadowy glades, + And gaze, as one who is not satisfied + With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea, + The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between + The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees, + On gold-green turf, sweetbrier and wild pink rose! + How rich that buoyant air with changing scent + Of pungent pine, fresh flowers and salt cool seas! + And when all echoes of the chase had died, + Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds, + How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide + On that fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds, + The rustling of the tangled undergrowth, + And the deep lyric murmur of the pines, + When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze! + There was my world, there would my heart dilate, + And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer + Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies + Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered + In the unsearchable, unbodied air, + Made itself felt, but reigned invisible. + This ere the day that from my past divides + My present, and that made me what I am. + Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea + illimitably sparkling, as they showed + That morning. Though I deemed I took no note + Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind + Retains to-day the vivid portraiture + Of every line and feature of the scene. + Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared + Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught + Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink + Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust + Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan; + And pressing forward I beheld the sight + That seared itself for ever on my brain-- + My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf, + Fallen upon his side, his bright young head + Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close + Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched + A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth, + Uprooted in his anguish as he fell, + And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed, + Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face + Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes + Staring in blankness on that other one + Who triumphed over him. With hot desire + Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword + To rush upon the slayer, when he turned + In his first terror of blood-guiltiness. + + * * * * * + + Within my heart a something snapped and brake. + What was it but the chord of rapturous joy + For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall, + Had I not leaned against the friendly pine; + For all realities of life, unmoored + From their firm anchorage, appeared to float + Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain. + The strange delusion wrought upon my soul + That this had been enacted ages since. + This very horror curdled at my heart, + This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens, + Were closing over me when I had stood, + Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted _him,_ + My father; and he felt mine eyes as now, + Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form, + The one thing real, lay stretched between us both. + The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong + To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all-- + A few fierce words between them yester eve + Concerning some poor plot of pasturage, + Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm: + This was the end. I could not meet him now, + To curse him, to accuse him, or to save, + And draw him from the red entanglement + Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life. + God pardon me! My heart that moment held + No drop of pity toward this wretched soul; + And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine, + I fled amidst the savage silences + Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone + My boundless desolation, shame and grief. + + There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon, + The quiet of the still, suspended air, + Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged, + Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed + A solemn prayer, conceived in agony, + Blessed with response instant, miraculous; + For in that hour my spirit was at one + With Him who knows and satisfies her needs. + The supplication and the blessing sprang + From the same source, inspired divinely both. + I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, + And these like heavenly manna were rained down + To feed my hungered soul. His guilt _was_ mine. + What angel had been sent to stay mine arm + Until the fateful moment passed away + That would have ushered an eternity + Of withering remorse? I found the germs + In mine own heart of every human sin, + That waited but occasion's tempting breath + To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. + What God thus far had saved me from myself? + Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each + Must feel himself in all, must know where'er + The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys, + His proper soul in kinship there is bound. + Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind, + Encouraging as morning. As I lay, + Crushed by the weight of universal love, + Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself, + I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell. + I knew it--whence it came and what it sang. + From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed, + And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer, + Clean lives, white days of strict austerity: + Such were the offerings of these holy saints. + How far might such not tend to expiate + A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life, + Doubly austere and doubly sanctified, + Might even for that other one atone, + So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven. + + They sheltered me, not questioning the need + That led me to their cloistered solitude. + How rich, how freighted with pure influence, + With dear security of perfect peace, + Was the first day I passed within those walls! + The holy habit of perpetual prayer, + The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech, + The chastening discipline, the atmosphere + Of settled and profound tranquillity, + Were even as living waters unto one + Who perisheth of thirst. Was this the world + That yesterday seemed one huge battle-field + For brutish passions? Could the soul of man + Withdraw so easily, and erect apart + Her own fair temple for her own high ends? + But this serene contentment slowly waned + As I discerned the broad disparity + Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws + That bound the order in strait brotherhood. + Yet when I sought to gain a larger love, + More rigid discipline, severer truth, + And more complete surrender of the soul + Unto her God, this was to my reproach, + And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides. + In mine own cell I mortified my flesh, + I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts + To wrestle with my viewless enemies, + Till they should leave their blessing on my head; + For nightly was I haunted by that face, + White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns, + Now staring out of darkness, and it held + Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest + And drove me from my straw to weep and pray. + Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought + Upon my spirit that I lay day-long + In dumb despair, until the blessed hope + Of mercy dawned again upon my soul, + As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts + The airy steps of heaven. My faith arose + With sure perception that disaster, wrong, + And every shadow of man's destiny + Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch + The soul's fine essence: they exist or die + Only as she affirms them or denies. + + This faith sustains me even to the end: + It floods my heart with peace as surely now + As on that day the friars drove me forth, + Urging that my asceticism, too harsh, + Endured through pride, would bring into reproach + Their customs and their order. Then began + My exile in the mountains, where I bode + A hunted man. The elements conspired + Against me, and I was the seasons' sport, + Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately, + Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats, + Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains, + And buffeted by all the winds of heaven. + Yet was this period my time of joy: + My daily thoughts perpetual converse held + With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed + With sweet accordance of celestial sounds, + Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air. + And visions were revealed unto mine eyes + By night and day of Heaven's very courts, + In shadowless, undimmed magnificence. + I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me, + And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air-- + For had I perished, this too had been well-- + But for the revelation of His truth, + The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed + To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire; + So that the pinched, lean excommunicate + Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure, + Than all the comfort of the vales could bring. + Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts, + Aspiring toward His love, to come to me, + Timid and few at first; but as they heard + From mine own lips the precious oracles, + That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased + Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed + All of the God within them to themselves, + They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint, + And sware to follow and to serve the good + Which my word published and my life declared. + Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top + Descended leader of a band of saints, + And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale + I perched my convent. Yet I bated not + One whit of strict restraint and abstinence. + And they who love me and who serve the truth + Have learned to suffer with me, and have won + The supreme joy that is not of the flesh, + Foretasting the delights of Paradise. + This faith, to them imparted, will endure + After my tongue hath ceased to utter it, + And the great peace hath settled on my soul. + +EMMA LAZARUS. + + + + + +A PRINCESS OF THULE. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A +PHAETON." + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +"O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + + +Consider what a task this unhappy man Ingram had voluntarily +undertaken! Here were two young people presumably in love. One of them +was laid under suspicion by several previous love-affairs, though none +of these, doubtless, had been so serious as the present. The other +scarcely knew her own mind, or perhaps was afraid to question herself +too closely, lest all the conflict between duty and inclination, with +its fears and anxieties and troubles, should be too suddenly revealed. +Moreover, this girl was the only daughter of a solitary and irascible +old gentleman living in a remote island; and Ingram had not only +undertaken that the love-affairs of the young folks should come all +right--thus assuming a responsibility which might have appalled the +bravest--but was also expected to inform the King of Borva that his +daughter was about to be taken away from him. + +Of course, if Sheila had been a properly brought-up young lady, +nothing of this sort would have been necessary. We all know what the +properly brought-up young lady does under such circumstances. She goes +straight to her papa and mamma and says, "My dear papa and mamma, I +have been taught by my various instructors that I ought to have no +secrets from my dear parents; and I therefore hasten to lay aside any +little shyness or modesty or doubt of my own wishes I might feel, for +the purpose of explaining to you the extent to which I have become a +victim to the tender passion, and of soliciting your advice. I also +place before you these letters I have received from the gentleman +in question: probably they were sent in confidence to me, but I must +banish any scruples that do not coincide with my duty to you. I may +say that I respect, and even admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be +unworthy of the care bestowed upon my education by my dear parents +if I were altogether insensible to the advantages of his worldly +position. But beyond this point I am at a loss to define my +sentiments; and so I ask you, my dear papa and mamma, for permission +to study the question for some little time longer, when I may be able +to furnish you with a more accurate report of my feelings. At the same +time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict +with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the +fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of +that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher +calls and interests of life." Happy the man who marries such a woman! +No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous +entreaties and fits of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices await +him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate +and steadily progressive as the multiplication table. His household +will be a miracle of perfect arrangement. The relations between the +members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper +on the walls. And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the +emotions is close at hand to say where the divergence of opinion or +interest began? and how can a fit of jealousy be provoked in the case +of a person who will split up her affections into fifteen parts, give +ten-fifteenths to her children, three-fifteenths to her parents, and +the remainder to her husband? Should there be any dismal fractions +going about, friends and acquaintances may come in for them. + +But how was Sheila to go to her father and explain to him what she +could not explain to herself? She had never dreamed of marriage. She +had never thought of having to leave Borva and her father's house. +But she had some vague feeling that in the future lay many terrible +possibilities that she did not as yet dare to look at--until, at +least, she was more satisfied as to the present. And how could she go +to her father with such a chaos of unformed wishes and fears to place +before him? That such a duty should have devolved upon Ingram was +certainly odd enough, but it was not her doing. His knowledge of the +position of these young people was not derived from her. But, having +got it, he had himself asked her to leave the whole affair in his +hands, with that kindness and generosity which had more than once +filled her heart with an unspeakable gratitude toward him. + +"Well, you _are_ a good fellow!" said Lavender to him when he heard of +this decision. + +"Bah!" said the other with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean to amuse +myself. I shall move you about like pieces on a chess-board, and have +a pretty game with you. How to checkmate the king with a knight and a +princess, in any number of moves you like--that is the problem; and my +princess has a strong power over the king where she is just now." + +"It's an uncommonly awkward business, you know, Ingram," said Lavender +ruefully. + +"Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough old fellow to deal with, and +you'll do no good by making a fight of it. Wait! Difficulties don't +look so formidable when you take them one by one as they turn up. If +you really love the girl, and mean to take your chance of getting +her, and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice a good deal for your +sake, there is nothing to fear." + +"I can answer for myself, any way," said Lavender in a tone of voice +that Ingram rather liked: the young man did not always speak with the +same quietness, thoughtfulness and modesty. + +And how naturally and easily it came about, after all! They were +back again at Borva. They had driven round and about Lewis, and had +finished up with Stornoway; and, now that they had got back to the +island in Loch Roag, the quaint little drawing-room had even to +Lavender a homely and friendly look. The big stuffed fishes and the +sponge shells were old acquaintances; and he went to hunt up Sheila's +music just as if he had known that dusky corner for years. + +"Yes, yes," called Mackenzie, "it iss the English songs we will try +now." + +He had a notion that he was himself rather a good hand at a part +song--just as Sheila had innocently taught him to believe that he was +a brilliant whist-player when he had mastered the art of returning his +partner's lead--but fortunately at this moment he was engaged with +a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot whisky and water. Ingram was +similarly employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed easy-chair, and +placidly watching the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes he cast +an eye to the young folks at the other end of the room. They formed a +pretty sight, he thought. Lavender was a good-looking fellow enough, +and there was something pleasing in the quiet and assiduous fashion in +which he waited upon Sheila, and in the almost timid way in which he +spoke to her. Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all in slate-gray +silk, with a narrow band of scarlet velvet round her neck; and it was +only by a chance turning of the head that Ingram caught the tender +and handsome profile, broken only by the outward sweep of the long +eyelashes. + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +Sheila sang, with her father keeping time by patting his forefinger on +the table. + + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +sang Lavender; and then the two voices joined together: + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +Or were there not three voices? Surely, from the back part of the +room, the musicians could hear a wandering bass come in from time +to time, especially at such portions as "Ah, he never--ah, he never +touched thy heart!" which old Mackenzie considered very touching. But +there was something quaint and friendly and pleasant in the pathos of +those English songs, which made them far more acceptable to him than +Sheila's wild and melancholy legends of the sea. He sang "Ah, he +never, never touched thy heart!" with an outward expression of grief, +but with much inward satisfaction. Was it the quaint phraseology of +the old duets that awoke in him some faint ambition after histrionic +effect? At all events, Sheila proceeded to another of his favorites, +"All's Well," and here, amid the brisk music, the old man had an +excellent opportunity of striking in at random-- + + The careful watch patrols the deck + To guard the ship from foes or wreck. + +These two lines he had absolutely mastered, and always sang them, +whatever might be the key he happened to light on, with great vigor. +He soon went the length of improvising a part for himself in the +closing passages, and laid down his pipe altogether as he sang-- + + What cheer? Brother, quickly tell! + Above! Below! Good-night! All, all's well! + +From that point, however, Sheila and her companion wandered away into +fields of melody whither the King of Borva could not follow them; so +he was content to resume his pipe and listen placidly to the pretty +airs. He caught but bits and fragments of phrases and sentiments, but +they evidently were comfortable, merry, good-natured songs for young +folks to sing. There was a good deal of love-making, and rosy morns +appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such odd things, which, sung briskly +and gladly by two young and fresh voices, rather drew the hearts of +contemplative listeners to the musicians. + +"They sing very well whatever," said Mackenzie with a critical air +to Ingram when the young people were so busily engaged with their own +affairs as apparently to forget the presence of the others. "Oh yes, +they sing very well whatever; and what should the young folks sing +about but making love and courting, and all that?" + +"Natural enough," said Ingram, looking rather wistfully at the two at +the other end of the room. "I suppose Sheila will have a sweetheart +some day?" + +"Oh yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart some day," said her father +good-humoredly. "Sheila is a good-looking girl: she will hef a +sweetheart some day." + +"She will be marrying too, I suppose," said Ingram cautiously. + +"Oh yes, she will marry--Sheila will marry: what will be the life of a +young girl if she does not marry?" + +At this moment, as Ingram afterward described it, a sort of "flash +of inspiration" darted in upon him, and he resolved there and then to +brave the wrath of the old king, and place all the conspiracy +before him, if only the music kept loud enough to prevent his being +overheard. + +"It will be hard on you to part with Sheila when she marries," said +Ingram, scarcely daring to look up. + +"Oh, ay, it will be that," said Mackenzie cheerfully enough. "But it +iss every one will hef to do that, and no great harm comes of it. Oh +no, it will not be much whatever; and Sheila, she will be very glad in +a little while after, and it will be enough for me to see that she is +ferry contented and happy. The young folk must marry, you will see; +and what is the use of marrying if it is not when they are young? +But Sheila, she will think of none of these things. It was young Mr. +MacIntyre of Sutherland--you hef seen him last year in Stornoway: he +hass three thousand acres of a deer forest in Sutherland--and he will +be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. But I will say to him, 'It is not +for me to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: it is Sheila herself +will tell you that.' But he wass afraid to speak to her; and Sheila +herself will know nothing of why he came twice to Borva the last +year." + +"It is very good of you to leave Sheila quite unbiased in her choice," +said Ingram: "many fathers would have been sorely tempted by that deer +forest." + +Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh of derision, that fortunately +did not stop Lavender's execution of "I would that my love would +silently." + +"What the teffle," said Mackenzie, "hef I to want a deer forest for my +Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman's lass. She has plenty for herself, +and she will marry just the young man she wants to marry, and no other +one: that is what she will do, by Kott!" + +All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie had himself been advocating +Lavender's suit, could he have said more? But notwithstanding all +these frank and generous promises, dealing with a future which the old +man considered as indefinitely remote, Ingram was still afraid of the +announcement he was about to make. + +"Sheila is fortunately situated," he said, "in having a father who +thinks only of her happiness. But I suppose she has never yet shown a +preference for any one?" + +"Not for any one but yourself," said her father with a laugh. + +And Ingram laughed too, but in an embarrassed way, and his sallow +face grew darker with a blush. Was there not something painful in +the unintentional implication that of course Ingram could not be +considered a possible lover of Sheila's, and that the girl herself was +so well aware of it that she could openly testify to her regard for +him? + +"And it would be a good thing for Sheila," continued her father, more +gravely, "if there wass any young man about the Lewis that she would +tek a liking to; for it will be some day I can no more look after her, +and it would be bad for her to be left alone all by herself in the +island." + +"And you don't think you see before you now some one who might take +on him the charge of Sheila's future?" said Ingram, looking toward +Lavender. + +"The English gentleman?" said Mackenzie with a smile. "No, that any +way is not possible." + +"I fancy it is more than possible," said Ingram, resolved to go +straight at it. "I know for a fact that he would like to marry your +daughter, and I think that Sheila, without knowing it herself almost, +is well inclined toward him." + +The old man started up from his chair: "Eh? what! my Sheila?" + +"Yes, papa," said the girl, turning round at once. + +She caught sight of a strange look on his face, and in an instant was +by his side: "Papa, what is the matter with you?" + +"Nothing, Sheila, nothing," he said impatiently. "I am a little tired +of the music, that is all. But go on with the music. Go back to the +piano, Sheila, and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram and me, we +will go outside for a little while." + +Mackenzie walked out of the room, and said aloud in the hall, "Ay, are +you coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night this night, and the wind +is in a very good way for the weather." + +And then, as he went out to the front, he hummed aloud, so that Sheila +should hear, + + Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell! + A friend! The word! Good-night! All's well! + All's well! Good-night! All's well! + +Ingram followed the old man outside, with a somewhat guilty conscience +suggesting odd things to him. Would it not be possible now to shut +one's ears for the next half hour? Angry words were only little +perturbations in the air. If you shut your ears till they were all +over, what harm could be done? All the big facts of life would remain +the same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the human beings around you, +even your desire of sleep for the night and your wholesome longing for +breakfast in the morning, would all remain, and the angry words would +have passed away. But perhaps it was a proper punishment that he +should now go out and bear all the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, +whose daughter he had conspired to carry off. Mackenzie was walking up +and down the path outside in the cool and silent night. There was +not much moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight showed all the +familiar features of Loch Roag and the southern hills, and down there +in the bay you could vaguely make out the Maighdean-mhara rocking in +the tiny waves that washed in on the white shore. Ingram had never +looked on this pretty picture with a less feeling of delight. + +"Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie," he was beginning, "you must make this +excuse for him--" + +But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at once. It was all about Sheila +that he wanted to know. There was no anger in his words; only a great +anxiety, and sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic effort to take a +philosophical view of the situation. What had Sheila said? Was Sheila +deeply interested in the young man? Would it please Sheila if he was +to go in-doors and give at once his free consent to her marrying this +Mr. Lavender? + +"Oh, you must not think," said Mackenzie, with a certain loftiness +of air even amidst his great perturbation and anxiety--"you must not +think I hef not foreseen all this. It wass some day or other Sheila +will be sure to marry; and although I did not expect--no, I did not +expect _that_--that she would marry a stranger and an Englishman, if +it will please her that is enough. You cannot tell a young lass the +one she should marry: it iss all a chance the one she likes, and if +she does not marry him it is better she will not marry at all. Oh yes, +I know that ferry well. And I hef known there wass a time coming when +I would give away my Sheila to some young man; and there iss no use +complaining of it. But you hef not told me much about this young man, +or I hef forgotten: it is the same thing whatever. He has not much +money, you said--he is waiting for some money. Well, this is what I +will do: I will give him all my money if he will come and live in the +Lewis." + +All the philosophy he had been mustering up fell away from that last +sentence. It was like the cry of a drowning man who sees the last +life-boat set out for shore, leaving him to his fate. And Ingram had +not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty. + +"I do not ask him to stop in Borva: no, it iss a small place for one +that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and +there iss ferry good houses in Stornoway." + +"But surely, sir," said Ingram, "you need not consider all this just +yet. I am sure neither of them has thought of any such thing." + +"No," said Mackenzie, recovering himself, "perhaps not. But we hef our +duties to look at the future of young folks. And you will say that Mr. +Lavender hass only expectations of money?" + +"Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. His aunt, I have told +you, is a very rich old lady, who has no other near relations, and she +is exceedingly fond of him, and would do anything for him. I am sure +the allowance he has now is greatly in excess of what she spends on +herself." + +"But they might quarrel, you know--they might quarrel. You hef always +to look to the future: they might quarrel, and what will he do then?" + +"Why, you don't suppose he couldn't support himself if the worst were +to come to the worst? He is an amazingly clever fellow--" + +"Ay, that is very good," said Mackenzie in a cautious sort of way, +"but has he ever made any money?" + +"Oh, I fancy not--nothing to speak of. He has sold some pictures, but +I think he has given more away." + +"Then it iss not easy, tek my word for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new +trade if you are twenty-five years of age; and the people who will tek +your pictures for nothing, will they pay for them if you wanted the +money?" + +It was obviously the old man's eager wish to prove to himself that, +somehow or other, Lavender might come to have no money, and be made +dependent on his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from sharing the +sentiments ordinarily attributed to that important relative, he would +have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the information that the man +who, as he expected, was about to marry his daughter was absolutely +penniless. Not even all the attractions of that deer forest in +Sutherlandshire--particularly fascinating as they must have been to a +man of his education and surroundings--had been able to lead the old +King of Borva even into hinting to his daughter that the owner of that +property would like to marry her. Sheila was to choose for herself. +She was not like a fisherman's lass, bound to consider ways and means. +And now that she had chosen, or at least indicated the possibility of +her doing so, her father's chief desire was that his future son-in-law +should come and take and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila might +not be carried away from him for ever. + +"Well, I will see about it," said Mackenzie with an affectation of +cheerful and practical shrewdness. "Oh yes, I will see about it when +Sheila has made up her mind. He is a very good young man, whatever--" + +"He is the best-hearted fellow I know," said Ingram warmly. "I don't +think Sheila has much to fear if she marries him. If you had known him +as long as I have, you would know how considerate he is to everybody +about him, how generous he is, how good-natured and cheerful, and so +forth: in short, he is a thorough good fellow, that's what I have to +say about him." + +"It iss well for him he will hef such a champion," said Mackenzie with +a smile: "there is not many Sheila will pay attention to as she does +to you." + +They went in-doors again, Ingram scarcely knowing how he had got so +easily through the ordeal, but very glad it was over. + +Sheila was still at the piano, and on their entering she said, "Papa, +here is a song you must learn to sing with me." + +"And what iss it, Sheila?" he said, going over to her. + +"'Time has not thinned my flowing hair.'" + +He put his hand on her head and said, "I hope it will be a long time +before he will thin your hair, Sheila." + +The girl looked up surprised. Scotch folks are, as a rule, somewhat +reticent in their display of affection, and it was not often that her +father talked to her in that way. What was there in his face that +made her glance instinctively toward Ingram. Somehow or other her hand +sought her father's hand, and she rose and went away from the piano, +with her head bent down and tears beginning to tell in her eyes. + +"Yes, that is a capital song," said Ingram loudly. Sing 'The +Arethusa,' Lavender--'Said the saucy Arethusa.'" + +Lavender, knowing what had taken place, and not daring to follow with +his eyes Sheila and her father, who had gone to the other end of the +room, sang the song. Never was a gallant and devil-may-care sea-song +sung so hopelessly without spirit. But the piano made a noise and the +verses took up time. When he had finished he almost feared to +turn round, and yet there was nothing dreadful in the picture that +presented itself. Sheila was sitting on her father's knee, with her +head buried in his bosom, while he was patting her head and talking +in a low voice to her. The King of Borva did not look particularly +fierce. + +"Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song," he said suddenly. "Now get up, +Sheila, and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit of bread and cheese +before going to bed. And there will be a little hot water wanted in +the other room, for this room it iss too full of the smoke." + +Sheila, as she went out of the room, had her head cast down and +perhaps an extra tinge of color in her young and pretty face. But +surely, Lavender thought to himself as he watched her anxiously, she +did not look grieved. As for her father, what should he do now? Turn +suddenly round and beg Mackenzie's pardon, and throw himself on +his generosity? When he did, with much inward trembling, venture to +approach the old man, he found no such explanation possible. The +King of Borva was in one of his grandest moods--dignified, courteous, +cautious, and yet inclined to treat everybody and everything with a +sort of lofty good-humor. He spoke to Lavender in the most friendly +way, but it was about the singular and startling fact that modern +research had proved many of the Roman legends to be utterly +untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie observed that the man was wanting in +proper courage who feared to accept the results of such inquiries. It +was better that we should know the truth, and then the kings who had +really made Rome great might emerge from the fog of tradition in their +proper shape. There was something quite sympathetic in the way he +talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, whom the vulgar mind had +clothed in mist. + +Lavender was sorely beset by the rival claims of Rome and Borva upon +his attention. He was inwardly inclined to curse Numa Pompilius--which +would have been ineffectual--when he found that personage interfering +with a wild effort to discover why Mackenzie should treat him in this +way. And then it occurred to him that, as he had never said a word to +Mackenzie about this affair, it was too much to expect that Sheila's +father should himself open the subject. On the contrary, Mackenzie was +bent on extending a grave courtesy to his guest, so that the latter +should not feel ill at ease until it suited himself to make any +explanations he might choose. It was not Mackenzie's business to ask +this young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. No. The king's daughter, +if she were to be won at all, was to be won by a suitor, and it was +not for her father to be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got back +into the region of early Roman history, and tried to recall what he +had learned in Livy, and quite coincided with everything that Niebuhr +had said or proved, and with everything that Mackenzie thought Niebuhr +had said or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, to find himself +talking to Sheila's father in this friendly fashion. + +Then Sheila came in and told them that supper was laid in the +adjoining room. At that modest meal a great good-humor prevailed. +Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila occasionally +cast an anxious glance to her father, as if she were trying to +discover whether he was really satisfied, or whether he were not +merely pretending satisfaction to please her; but for the rest the +party was a most friendly and merry one. Lavender, naturally +enough, was in the highest of spirits, and nothing could exceed the +lighthearted endeavors he made to amuse and interest and cheer his +companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up later than usual, even although +pipes were lit again, and the slate-gray silk likely to bear witness +to the fact in the morning. How comfortable and homely was this sort +of life in the remote stone building overlooking the sea! He began to +think that he could live always in Borva if only Sheila were with him +as his companion. + +Was it an actual fact, then, he asked himself next morning, that +he stood confessed to the small world of Borva as Sheila's accepted +lover? Not a word on the subject had passed between Mackenzie and +himself, and yet he found himself assuming the position of a younger +relative, and rather expecting advice from the old man. He began to +take a great interest, too, in the local administration of the island: +he examined the window-fastenings of Mackenzie's house and saw that +they would be useful in the winter, and expressed to Sheila's father +his confidential opinion that the girl should not be allowed to go out +in the Maighdean-mhara without Duncan. + +"She will know as much about boats as Duncan himself," said her father +with a smile. "But Sheila will not go out when the rough weather +begins." + +"Of course you keep her in-doors then," said the younger man, already +assuming some little charge over Sheila's comfort. + +The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the +Englishman: "If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad weather, it would +be all the winter we would be in-doors! There iss no day at all Sheila +will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the +hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, +and hef plenty of exercise and amusement." + +"She is not often ailing, I suppose?" said Lavender. + +"She is as strong as a young pony, that is what Sheila is," said her +father proudly. "And there is no one in the island will run so fast, +or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she +will--not one." + +But here he suddenly checked himself. "That is," he said with some +little expression of annoyance, "I wass saying Sheila could do that if +it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman's +lass that hass to keep in the work." + +"Oh, of course not," said Lavender hastily. "But still, you know, it +is pleasant to know she is so strong and well." + +And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great +deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the +assurances of her health her father had been giving. She had just come +up and over the hill from Borvabost, while as yet breakfast had not +been served. Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so +bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh +sea-air tingling the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in +the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect +teeth. But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as +usual. She patted the deerhound's head, and rather kept her eyes away +from her father and his companion. And then she took Bras away to give +him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and +ask her what she meant by being about so early. + +How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of +their stay in Borva! They seemed so few. He got up at preposterously +early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away +with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the +Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had said no more to +her of any pledge as regarded the future. He was content to see that +she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles +about the island, their excursions in Sheila's boat, their visits to +the White Water in search of salmon. Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila's +father. He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for +granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila +herself should make her wishes known. That, indeed, was the only +aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of +Borva. He forgot altogether those precautions and investigations which +are supposed to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, and only +sought to see how Sheila was affected toward the young man who was +soon about to leave the island. When he saw her pleased to be walking +with Lavender and talking with him of an evening, he was pleased, and +would rather have a cold dinner than break in upon them to hurry +them home. When he saw her disappointed because Lavender had been +unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, he was ready to swear at Duncan +for not having had the fish in a better temper. And the most of his +conversation with Ingram consisted of an endeavor to convince himself +that, after all, what had happened was for the best, and that Sheila +seemed to be happy. + +But somehow or other, when the time for their departure was drawing +near, Mackenzie showed a strange desire that his guests should +spend the last two days in Stornoway. When Lavender first heard this +proposal he glanced toward Sheila, and his face showed clearly his +disappointment. + +"But Sheila will go with us too," said her father, replying to that +unuttered protest in the most innocent fashion; and then Lavender's +face brightened again, and he said that nothing would give him greater +pleasure than to spend two days in Stornoway. + +"And you must not think," said Mackenzie anxiously, "that it is one +day or two days or a great many days will show you all the fine things +about Stornoway. And if you were to live in Stornoway you would find +very good acquaintances and friends there; and in the autumn, when the +shooting begins, there are many English who will come up, and there +will be ferry great doings at the castle. And there is some gentlemen +now at Grimersta whom you hef not seen, and they are ferry fine +gentlemen; and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more gentlemen for the +salmon-fishing. Oh, there iss a great many fine people in the Lewis, +and it iss not all as lonely as Borva." + +"If it is half as pleasant a place to live in as Borva, it will do," +said Lavender, with a flush of enthusiasm in his face as he looked +toward Sheila and saw her pleased and downcast eyes. + +"But it iss not to be compared," said Mackenzie eagerly. "Borva, that +is nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a ferry different thing to +live in the Lewis; and many English gentlemen hef told me they would +like to live always in the Lewis." + +"I think I should too," said Lavender lightly and carelessly, little +thinking what importance the old man immediately and gladly put upon +the admission. + +From that moment, Lavender, although unconscious of what had happened, +had nothing to fear in the way of opposition from Sheila's father. If +he had there and then boldly asked Mackenzie for his daughter, the +old man would have given his consent freely, and bade Lavender go to +Sheila herself. + +And so they set sail, one pleasant forenoon, from Borvabost, and +the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the +mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous +channel. + +"I don't like to go away from Borva," said Lavender in a low voice to +Sheila, "but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, +for, you know, I expect to be back soon." + +"We shall always be glad to see you," said the girl; and although he +would rather have had her say "I" than "we," there was something in +the tone of her voice that contented him. + +At Garra-na-hina Mackenzie pointed out with a great interest to +Lavender a tall man who was going down through some meadows to the +Amhuinn Dhubh, "the Black River." He had a long rod over his shoulder, +and behind him, at some distance, followed a shorter man, who carried +a gaff and landing-net. Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender +that the tall figure was that of an Englishman. Lavender accepted +the statement. But would he not go down to the river and make his +acquaintance? Lavender could not understand why he should be expected +to take so great an interest in an ordinary English sportsman. + +"Ferry well," said Mackenzie, a trifle disappointed, "but you would +find several of the English in the Lewis if you wass living here." + +These last two days in Stornoway were very pleasant. On their previous +visit to the town Mackenzie had given up much of his time to business +affairs, and was a good deal away from his guests, but now he devoted +himself to making them particularly comfortable in the place and +amusing them in every possible way. He introduced Lavender, in +especial, to all his friends there, and was most anxious to impress +on the young man that life in Stornoway was, on the whole, rather a +brilliant affair. Then was there a finer point from which you +could start at will for Inverness, Oban and such great centres of +civilization? Very soon there would even be a telegraphic cable laid +to the mainland. Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently you could see +the Sutherlandshire hills from this very town of Stornoway? + +There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, who kept watching her face always +to read all her fancies and sentiments and wishes in the shifting +lights of it, immediately demanded an explanation. + +"It is no good thing," said Sheila, "to see the Sutherland hills +often, for when you see them it means to rain." + +But Lavender had not been taught to fear the rain of the Western +Isles. The very weather seemed to have conspired with Mackenzie to +charm the young man with the island. At this moment, for example, they +were driving away from Stornoway along the side of the great bay that +stretches northward until it finds its furthest promontory in Tiumpan +Head. What magnificence of color shone all around them in the hot +sunlight! Where the ruffled blue sea came near the long sweep of +yellow sand it grew to be a bright, transparent green. The splendid +curve of the bay showed a gleaming line of white where the waves +broke in masses of hissing foam; and beyond that curve again long +promontories of dark red conglomerate ran out into the darker waters +of the sea, with their summits shining with the bright sea-grass. +Here, close at hand, were warm meadows, with calves and lambs cropping +the sweet-scented Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like beehives, +stood by the roadside, close by some deep peat cuttings. There was a +cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for the pulling up of captured +whales. Now and again you could see a solan dart down from the blue +heavens into the blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty +feet high as he disappeared; and far out there, between the red +precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, white sea-fowl flew from +crag to crag or dropped down upon the sea to rise and fall with the +waves. + +At the small hamlet of Gress they got a large rowing-boat manned by +sturdy fishermen, and set out to explore the great caves formed in the +mighty wall of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. The wild-fowl +flew about them, screaming and yelling at being disturbed. The long +swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed from under it, and went on +with majestic force to crash on the glowing red crags and send jets of +foam flying up the face of them. They captured one of the sea-birds--a +young thing about as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant feathers, +and a long beak with which it instinctively tried to bite its +enemies--and the parents of it kept swooping down over the boat, +uttering shrill cries, until their offspring was restored to the +surface of the water. They went into the great loud-sounding caverns, +getting a new impression of the extraordinary clearness of the +sea-water by the depth at which the bottom was visible; and here their +shouts occasionally called up from some dim twilight recess, far +in among the perilous rocks, the head of a young seal, which would +instantly dive again and be seen no more. They watched the salmon +splash in the shallower creeks where the sea had scooped out a tiny +bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly rolling porpoise would show his +black back above the water and silently disappear again. All this was +pleasant enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh sea-air and sunlight, +in holiday-time; and was there any reason, Mackenzie may fairly have +thought, why this young man, if he did marry Sheila, should not come +and live in a place where so much healthy amusement was to be found? + +And in the evening, too, when they had climbed to the top of the +hills on the south of Stornoway harbor, did not the little town look +sufficiently picturesque, with its white houses, its shipping, its +great castle and plantations lying in shadow under the green of the +eastern sky? Then away to the west what a strange picture presented +itself! Thick bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, and the sunlight +from behind them sent down great rays of misty yellow on the endless +miles of moor. But how was it that, as these shafts of sunlight struck +on the far and successive ridges of the moorland, each long undulation +seemed to become transparent, and all the island appeared to consist +of great golden-brown shells heaped up behind each other, with the +sunlight shining through? + +"I have tried a good many new effects since coming up here," said +Lavender, "but I shall not try _that_." + +"Oh, it iss nothing--it is nothing at all," said Mackenzie with a +studied air of unconcern. "There iss much more beautiful things than +that in the island, but you will hef need of a ferry long time before +you will find it all out. That--that iss nothing at all." + +"You will perhaps make a picture of it some other time," said Sheila +with her eyes cast down, and as he was standing by her at the time, he +took her hand and pressed it, and said, "I hope so." + +Then, that night! Did not every hour produce some new and wonderful +scene, or was it only that each minute grew to be so precious, and +that the enchantment of Sheila's presence filled the air around him? +There was no moon, but the stars shone over the bay and the harbor and +the dusky hills beyond the castle. Every few seconds the lighthouse at +Arnish Point sent out its wild glare of orange fire into the heart, of +the clear darkness, and then as suddenly faded out and left the eyes +too bewildered to make out the configuration of the rocks. All over +the north-west there still remained the pale glow of the twilight, and +somehow Lavender seemed to think that that strange glow belonged +to Sheila's home in the west, and that the people in Stornoway knew +nothing of the wonders of Loch Roag and of the strange nights there. +Was he likely ever to forget? + +"Good-bye, Sheila," he said next morning, when the last signal had +been given and the Clansman was about to move from her moorings. + +She had bidden good-bye to Ingram already, but somehow she could not +speak to his companion just at this last moment. She pressed his hand +and turned away, and went ashore with her father. Then the big steamer +throbbed its way out of the harbor, and by and by the island of Lewis +lay but as a thin blue cloud along the horizon; and who could tell +that human beings, with strange hopes and fancies and griefs, were +hidden away in that pale line of vapor? + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + +A night journey from Greenock to London is a sufficiently prosaic +affair in ordinary circumstances, but it need not be always so. What +if a young man, apparently occupied in making himself comfortable and +in talking nonsense to his friend and companion, should be secretly +calculating how the journey could be made most pleasant to a bride, +and that bride his bride? Lavender made experiments with regard to the +ways and tempers of guards; he borrowed planks of wood with which to +make sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class carriage; he bribed a +certain official to have the compartment secured; he took note of the +time when, and the place where, refreshments could be procured: all +these things he did, thinking of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes +surprised by his good-nature, and occasionally remonstrating against +his extravagance, at last fell asleep on the more or less comfortable +cushions stretched across the planks, Lavender would have him wake up +again, that he might be induced to talk once more about Sheila. Ingram +would make use of some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask what was the +last station they had passed, and then begin to preach to Lavender +about the great obligations he was under to Sheila, and what would be +expected of him in after times. + +"You are coming away just now," he would say, while Lavender, who +could not sleep at all, was only anxious that Sheila's name should be +mentioned, "enriched with a greater treasure than falls to the lot of +most men. If you know how to value that treasure, there is not a king +or emperor in Europe who should not envy you." + +"But don't you think I value it?" the other would say anxiously. + +"We'll see about that afterward, by what you do. But in the mean +time you don't know what you have won. You don't know the magnificent +single-heartedness of that girl, her keen sense of honor, nor the +strength of character, of judgment and decision that lies beneath her +apparent simplicity. Why, I have known Sheila, now--But what's the use +of talking?" + +"I wish you would talk, though, Ingram," said his companion quite +submissively. "You have known her longer than I. I am willing to +believe all you say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know as much about +her as possible. You don't suppose I fancy she is anything less than +you say?" + +"Well," said Ingram doubtfully, "perhaps not. The worst of it is, that +you take such odd readings of people. However, when you marry her, as +I now hope you may, you will soon find out; and then, if you are +not grateful, if you don't understand and appreciate _then_ the fine +qualities of this girl, the sooner you put a millstone round your neck +and drop over Chelsea Bridge the better." + +"She will always have in you a good friend to look after her when she +comes to London." + +"Oh, don't imagine I mean to thrust myself in at your breakfast-table +to give you advice. If a husband and wife cannot manage their own +affairs satisfactorily, no third person can; and I am getting to be an +elderly man, who likes peace and comfort and his own quiet." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!" said Lavender impetuously. +"You know you are bound to marry; and the woman you ask to marry you +will be a precious fool if she refuses. I don't know, indeed, how you +and Sheila ever escaped--" + +"Look here, Lavender," said his companion, speaking in a somewhat more +earnest fashion, "if you marry Sheila Mackenzie I suppose I may see +something of both of you from time to time. But you are naturally +jealous and exacting, as is the way with many good fellows who have +had too much of their own will in the world; and if you start off with +the notion now that Sheila and I might ever have married, or that such +a thing was ever thought of by either of us, the certain consequence +will be that you will become jealous of me, and that in time I shall +have to stop seeing either of you if you happen to be living in +London." + +"And if ever the time comes," said Lavender lightly, "when I prove +myself such a fool, I hope I shall remember that a millstone can be +bought in Victoria road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy." + +"All right: I'm going to sleep." + +For some time after Ingram was permitted to rest in peace, and it was +not until they had reached some big station or other toward morning +that he woke. Lavender had never closed his eyes. + +"Haven't you been asleep?" + +"No." + +"What's the matter now?" + +"My aunt." + +"You seem to have acquired a trick recently of looking at all the +difficulties of your position at once. Why don't you take them +singly? You've just got rid of Mackenzie's opposition: that might have +contented you for a while." + +"I think the best plan will be to say nothing of this to my aunt at +present. I think we ought to get married first, and when I take Sheila +to see her as my wife, what can she say then?" + +"But what is Sheila likely to say before then? And Sheila's father? +You must be out of your mind!" + +"There will be a pretty scene, then, when I tell her." + +"Scenes don't hurt anybody, unless when they end in brickbats or +decanters. Your aunt must know you would marry some day." + +"Yes, but you know whom she wished me to marry." + +"That is nothing. Every old lady has a fancy for imagining possible +marriages; but your aunt is a reasonable woman, and could not possibly +object to your marrying a girl like Sheila?" + +"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are +the arms borne by your wife's family?' 'My dear aunt, I will describe +them to you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The arms are quarterly: +first and fourth, vert, a herring, argent; second and third, azure, a +solan-goose, volant, or. The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, +a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, dexter, a gillie; sinister, a +fisherman.'" + +"And a very good coat-of-arms, too. You might add the motto _Ultimus +regum_. Or _Atavis editus regibus_. Or _Tyrrhena regum progenies_. To +think that your aunt would forbid your wedding a king's daughter!" + +"I should wed the king's daughter, aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, +you see, it would be uncommonly awkward, just as old Mackenzie would +want to know something more particular about my circumstances; and he +might ask for references to the old lady herself, just as if I were a +tenant about to take a house." + +"I have given him enough references. Go to sleep, and don't bother +yourself." + +But now Ingram felt himself just as unable as his companion to escape +into unconsciousness, and so he roused himself thoroughly, and began +to talk about Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, and the duties and +responsibilities Lavender would undertake in marrying Sheila. + +"Mackenzie," he said, "will expect you to live in Stornoway at least +half the year, and it will be very hard on him if you don't." + +"Oh, as to that," said the other, "I should have no objection; but, +you see, if I am to get married I really think I ought to try to get +into some position of earning my own living or helping toward it, you +know. I begin to see how galling this sort of dependence on my aunt +might be if I wished to act for myself. Now, if I were to begin to +do anything, I could not go and bury myself in Lewis for half the +year--just at first: by and by, you know, it might be different. But +don't you think I ought to begin and do something?" + +"Most certainly. I have often wished you had been born a carpenter or +painter or glazier." + +"People are not born carpenters or glaziers, but sometimes they are +born painters. I think I have been born nothing; but I am willing to +try, more especially as I think Sheila would like it." + +"I know she would." + +"I will write and tell her the moment I get to London." + +"I would fix first what your occupation was to be, if I were you. +There is no hurry about telling Sheila, although she will be very glad +to get as much news of you as possible, and I hope you will spare +no time or trouble in pleasing her in that line. By the way, what an +infamous shame it was of you to go and gammon old Mackenzie into the +belief that he can read poetry! Why, he will make that girl's life a +burden to her. I heard him propose to read _Paradise Lost_ to her as +soon as the rain set in." + +"I didn't gammon him," said Lavender with a laugh. "Every man thinks +he can read poetry better than every other man, even as every man +fancies that no one gets cigars as good and as cheap as he does, and +that no one can drive a horse safely but himself. My talking about +his reading was not as bad as Sheila's persuading him that he can +play whist. Did you ever know a man who did not believe that everybody +else's reading of poetry was affected, stilted and unbearable? I +know Mackenzie must have been reading poetry to Sheila long before I +mentioned it to him." + +"But that suggestion about his resonant voice and the Crystal Palace?" + +"That was a joke." + +"He did not take it as a joke, and neither did Sheila." + +"Well, Sheila would believe that her father could command the Channel +fleet, or turn out the present ministry, or build a bridge to America, +if only anybody hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal Palace: did +you observe how little notion of size she could have got from pictures +when she asked me if the Crystal Palace was much bigger than the +hot-houses at Lewis Castle?" + +"What a world of wonder the girl is coming into!" said the other +meditatively. "But it will be all lit up by one sun if only you take +care of her and justify her belief in you." + +"I have not much doubt," said Lavender with a certain modest +confidence in his manner which had repeatedly of late pleased his +friend. + +Even Sheila herself could scarcely have found London more strange than +did the two men who had just returned from a month's sojourn in the +northern Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston Square, the pale sunlight +that shone down on the gray pavements, the noise of the omnibuses and +carts, the multitude of strangers, the blue and mist-like smoke that +hung about Tottenham Court road,--all were as strange to them as the +sensation of sitting in a hansom and being driven along by an unseen +driver. Lavender confessed afterward that he was pervaded by an odd +sort of desire to know whether there was anybody in London at all +like Sheila. Now and again a smartly-dressed girl passed along the +pavement: what was it that made the difference between her and that +other girl whom he had just left? Yet he wished to have the +difference as decided as possible. When some bright, fresh-colored, +pleasant-looking girl passed, he was anxious to prove to himself that +she was not to be compared with Sheila. Where in all London could +you find eyes that told so much? He forgot to place the specialty of +Sheila's eyes in the fact of their being a dark gray-blue under black +eyelashes. What he did remember was that no eyes could possibly say +the same things to him as they had said. And where in all London was +the same sweet aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously proud +and gentle demeanor, or the same tender friendliness expressed in a +beautiful face? He would not say anything against London women, for +all that. It was no fault of theirs that they could not be sea-kings' +daughters, with the courage and frankness and sweetness of the sea +gone into their blood. He was only too pleased to have proved to +himself, by looking at some half dozen pretty shop-girls, that not in +London was there any one to compare with Princess Sheila. + +For many a day thereafter Ingram had to suffer a good deal of this +sort of lover's logic, and bore it with great fortitude. Indeed, +nothing pleased him more than to observe that Lavender's affection, so +far from waning, engrossed more and more of his thought and his +time; and he listened with unfailing good-nature and patience to the +perpetual talk of his friend about Sheila and her home, and the future +that might be in store for both of them. If he had accepted half the +invitations to dinner sent down to him at the Board of Trade by his +friend, he would scarcely ever have been out of Lavender's club. Many +a long evening they passed in this way--either in Lavender's rooms +in King street or in Ingram's lodgings in Sloane street. Ingram quite +consented to lie in a chair and smoke, sometimes putting in a word of +caution to bring Lavender back from the romantic Sheila to the real +Sheila, sometimes smiling at some wild proposal or statement on the +part of his friend, but always glad to see that the pretty idealisms +planted during their stay in the far North were in no danger of dying +out down here in the South. Those were great days, too, when a letter +arrived from Sheila. Nothing had been said about their corresponding, +but Lavender had written shortly after his arrival in London, and +Sheila had answered for her father and herself. It wanted but a very +little amount of ingenuity to continue the interchange of letters +thus begun; and when the well-known envelope arrived high holiday was +immediately proclaimed by the recipient of it. He did not show Ingram +these letters, of course, but the contents of them were soon bit +by bit revealed. He was also permitted to see the envelope, as if +Sheila's handwriting had some magical charm about it. Sometimes, +indeed, Ingram had himself a letter from Sheila, and that was +immediately shown to Lavender. Was he pleased to find that these +communications were excessively business-like--describing how the +fishing was going on, what was doing in the schools, and how John +the Piper was conducting himself, with talk about the projected +telegraphic cable, the shooting in Harris, the health of Bras, and +other esoteric matters? + +Lavender's communications with the King of Borva were of a different +nature. Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture and what not, +tobacco hailing from certain royal sources in the neighborhood of +the Pyramids, and now and again a new sort of rifle or some fresh +invention in fishing-tackle,--these were the sort of things that found +their way to Lewis. And then in reply came haunches of venison, +and kegs of rare whisky, and skins of wild animals, which, all very +admirable in their way, were a trifle cumbersome in a couple of +moderate rooms in King street, St. James's. But here Lavender hit upon +a happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt of the mysterious +potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and +fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. +Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given +to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage +monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn +Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man +laughed, and would come down to Sloane street with another story of +his success as an envoy of the distant king. + +And so the months went slowly by, and Lavender raved about Sheila, +and dreamed about Sheila, and was always going to begin some splendid +achievement for Sheila's sake, but never just managed to begin. +After all, the future did not look very terrible, and the present +was satisfactory enough. Mrs. Lavender had no objection whatever to +listening to his praises of Sheila, and had even gone the length of +approving of the girl's photograph when it was shown her. But at the +end of six months Lavender suddenly went down to Sloane street, +found Ingram in his lodgings, and said, "Ingram, I start for Lewis +to-morrow." + +"The more fool you!" was the complacent reply. + +"I can't bear this any longer: I must go and see her." + +"You'll have to bear worse if you go. You don't know what getting to +Lewis is in the winter. You'll be killed with cold before you see the +Minch." + +"I can stand a good bit of cold when there's a reason for it," said +the young man; "and I have written to Sheila to say I should start +to-morrow." + +"In that case I had better make use of you. I suppose you won't mind +taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket that I have bought for her." + +"That you have bought for her!" said the other. + +How could he have spared fifteen pounds out of his narrow income for +such a present? And yet he laughed at the idea of his ever having been +in love with Sheila. + +Lavender took the sealskin jacket with him, and started on his journey +to the North. It was certainly all that Ingram had prophesied in the +way of discomfort, hardship and delay. But one forenoon, Lavender, +coming up from the cabin of the steamer into which he had descended +to escape from the bitter wind and the sleet, saw before him a strange +thing. In the middle of the black sea and under a dark gray sky lay +a long wonder-land of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could see the +successive headlands of pale white jutted out into the dark ocean, +until in the south they faded into a gray mist and became invisible. +And when they got into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed the waters +of the little bay and the hulls of the boats and the windows of the +houses against the blinding white of the encircling hills! + +"Yes," said Lavender to the captain, "it will be a cold drive across +to Loch Roag. I shall give Mackenzie's man a good dram before we +start." + +But it was not Mackenzie's notion of hospitality to send Duncan to +meet an honored guest, and ere the vessel was fast moored Lavender had +caught sight of the well-known pair of horses and the brown wagonette, +and Mackenzie stamping up and down in the trampled snow. And this +figure close down to the edge of the quay? Surely, there was something +about the thick gray shawl, the white feather, the set of the head, +that he knew! + +"Why, Sheila!" he cried, jumping ashore before the gangway was shoved +across, "whatever made you come to Stornoway on such a day?" + +"And it is not much my coming to Stornoway if you will come all the +way from England to the Lewis," said Sheila, looking up with her +bright and glad eyes. + +For six months he had been trying to recall the tones of her voice in +looking at her picture, and had failed: now he fancied that she spoke +more sweetly and musically than ever. + +"Ay, ay," said Mackenzie when he had shaken hands with the young +man, "it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming over to meet you in +Styornoway; but the girl will be neither to hold nor to bind when she +teks a foolishness into her head." + +"Is this the character I hear of you, Sheila?" he said; and Mackenzie +laughed at his daughter's embarrassment, and said she was a good lass +for all that, and bundled both the young folks into the inn, where +luncheon had been provided, with a blazing fire in the room, and a +kettle of hot water steaming beside it. + +When they got to Borva, Lavender began to see that Mackenzie had laid +the most subtle plans for reconciling him to the hard weather of these +northern winters; and the young man, nothing loath, fell into his +ways, and was astonished at the amusement and interest that could +be got out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season. +Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protections against cold and +wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his +own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat +borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a +sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they +started on many a rare expedition round the coast. But on their first +going out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said with some chagrin, "Will +they wear gloves when they go shooting in your country?" + +"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only a pair of old dogskins I +use chiefly to keep my hands clean. You see I have cut out the +trigger-finger. And they keep your hands from being numbed, you know, +with the cold or the rain." + +"There will be not much need of that after a little while," said +Mackenzie; and indeed, after half an hour's tramping over snow and +climbing over rocks, Lavender was well inclined to please the old man +by tossing the gloves into the sea, for his hands were burning with +heat. + +Then the pleasant evenings after all the fatigues of the day were +over, clothes changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila at the open piano +in that warm little drawing-room, with its strange shells and fish and +birds! + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays; + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +they sang, just as in the bygone times of summer; and now old +Mackenzie had got on a bit farther in his musical studies, and could +hum with the best of them, + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +There was no winter at all in the snug little room, with its crimson +fire and closed shutters and songs of happier times. "When the +rosy morn appearing" had nothing inappropriate in it; and if they +particularly studied the words of "Oh wert thou in the cauld +blast," it was only that Sheila might teach her companion the Scotch +pronunciation, as far as she knew it. And once, half in joke, Lavender +said he could believe it was summer again if Sheila had only on her +slate-gray silk dress, with the red ribbon round her neck; and sure +enough, after dinner she came down in that dress, and Lavender +took her hand and kissed it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, +Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for not having brought him his +pipe, and not only went out of the room to look for it, but was a +full half hour in finding it. When he came in again he was singing +carelessly, + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +just as if he had got his pipe round the corner. + +For it had been all explained by this time, you know, and Sheila had +in a couple of trembling words pledged away her life, and her father +had given his consent. More than that he would have done for the girl, +if need were; and when he saw the perfect happiness shining in her +eyes--when he saw that, through some vague feelings of compunction +or gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was more than usually +affectionate toward himself--he grew reconciled to the ways of +Providence, and was ready to believe that Ingram had done them all a +good turn in bringing his friend from the South with him. If there +was any haunting fear at all, it was about the possibility of Sheila's +husband refusing to live in Stornoway, even for half the year or a +portion of the year; but did not the young man express himself as +delighted beyond measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, and the +sports and scenery and climate of the island? If Mackenzie could have +bought fine weather at twenty pounds a day, Lavender would have gone +back to London with the conviction that there was only one thing +better than Lewis in summer-time, and that was Lewis in time of snow +and frost. + +The blow fell. One evening a distinct thaw set in, during the night +the wind went round to the south-west, and in the morning, lo! the +very desolation of desolation. Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal were +all hidden away behind dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady rain +poured down from the lowering skies on the wet rocks, the marshy +pasture-land and the leafless bushes; the Atlantic lay dark under a +gray fog, and you could scarcely see across the loch in front of the +house. Sometimes the wind freshened a bit, and howled about the house +or dashed showers against the streaming panes; but ordinarily there +was no sound but the ceaseless hissing of the rain on the wet gravel +at the door and the rush of the waves along the black rocks. All signs +of life seemed to have fled from the earth and the sky. Bird and beast +had alike taken shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye crossed the +melancholy lines of moorland, which were half obscured by the mist of +the rain. + +"Well, it can't be fine weather always," said Lavender cheerfully when +Mackenzie was affecting to be greatly surprised to find such a thing +as rain in the island of Lewis. + +"No, that iss quite true," said the old man. "It wass ferry good +weather we were having since you hef come here. And what iss a little +rain?--oh, nothing at all. You will see it will go away whenever the +wind goes round." + +With that Mackenzie would again go out to the front of the house, +take a turn up and down the wet gravel, and pretend to be scanning the +horizon for signs of a change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, went +about her household duties, saying merely to Lavender, "I am very +sorry the weather has broken, but it may clear before you go away from +Borva." + +"Before I go? Do you expect it to rain for a week?" + +"Perhaps it will not, but it is looking very bad to-day," said Sheila. + +"Well, I don't care," said the young man, "though it should rain the +skies down, if only you would keep in-doors, Sheila. But you do go +out in such a reckless fashion. You don't seem to reflect that it is +raining." + +"I do not get wet," she said. + +"Why, when you came up from the shore half an hour ago your hair was +as wet as possible, and your face all red and gleaming with the rain." + +"But I am none the worse. And I am not wet now. It is impossible that +you will always keep in a room if you have things to do; and a little +rain does not hurt any one." + +"It occurs to me, Sheila," he observed slowly, "that you are an +exceedingly obstinate and self-willed young person, and that no one +has ever exercised any proper control over you." + +She looked up for a moment with a sudden glance of surprise and pain: +then she saw in his eyes that he meant nothing, and she went forward +to him, putting her hand in his hand, and saying with a smile, "I am +very willing to be controlled." + +"Are you really?" + +"Yes." + +"Then hear my commands. You shall _not_ go out in time of rain without +putting something over your head or taking an umbrella. You shall +_not_ go out in the Maighdean-mhara without taking some one with you +besides Mairi. You shall never, if you are away from home, go within +fifty yards of the sea, so long as there is snow on the rocks." + +"But that is so very many things already: is it not enough?" said +Sheila. + +"You will faithfully remember and observe these rules?" + +"I will." + +"Then you are a more obedient girl than I imagined or expected; and +you may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction of offering me +a glass of sherry and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis is a +dreadful place for making people hungry." + +Mackenzie need not have been afraid. Strange as it may appear, +Lavender was well content with the wet weather. No depression or +impatience or remonstrance was visible on his face when he went to +the blurred windows, day after day, to see only the same desolate +picture--the dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists over the moorland +and the shining of the red gravel before the house. He would stand +with his hands in his pocket and whistle "Love in thine eyes for ever +plays," just as if he were looking out on a cheerful summer sunrise. +When he and Sheila went to the door, and were received by a cold blast +of wet wind and a driving shower of rain, he would slam the door to +again with a laugh, and pull the girl back into the house. Sometimes +she would not be controlled; and then he would accompany her about the +garden as she attended to her duties, or would go down to the shore +with her to give Bras a run. From these excursions he returned in +the best of spirits, with a fine color in his face; until, having got +accustomed to heavy boots, impervious frieze and the discomfort of +wet hands, he grew to be about as indifferent to the rain as Sheila +herself, and went fishing or shooting or boating with much content, +whether it was wet or dry. + +"It has been the happiest month of my life--I know that," he said to +Mackenzie as they stood together on the quay at Stornoway. + +"And I hope you will hef many like it in the Lewis," said the old man +cheerfully. + +"I think I should soon learn to become a Highlander up here," said +Lavender, "if Sheila would only teach me the Gaelic." + +"The Gaelic!" cried Mackenzie impatiently. "The Gaelic! It is none of +the gentlemen who will come here in the autumn will want the Gaelic; +and what for would you want the Gaelic--ay, if you was staying here +the whole year round?" + +"But Sheila will teach me all the same--won't you, Sheila?" he said, +turning to his companion, who was gazing somewhat blankly at the rough +steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond the harbor. + +"Yes," said the girl: she seemed in no mood for joking. + +Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news +of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his +club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How +could a man in Lavender's position marry anybody but an heiress? He +could not afford to go and marry a fisherman's daughter. Others came +to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people +were incomprehensible, and said "Poor beggar!" when they thought of +the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His +lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of +romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity +for a little while after she came to town? Was she like any of the +pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a +sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he +had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some +little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in +vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to +the little world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his +future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some +presentiment of the coming princess. + +He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward +Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently +indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, +that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere +of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would +prove a good wife to him. + +"I hope he will prove a good husband to her," said Ingram with unusual +sharpness. + +"Frank is very impetuous." That was all Mrs. Lavender would say. + +By and by, as the spring drew on and the time of the marriage was +coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house +for Sheila's reception occupied the attention of the young man from +morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold +fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything +he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval +of his conduct or hope about the future; but now she showed herself +most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with +abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own +fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in +Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. +He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew +designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling;, +and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila's future home +beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, +but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the +eccentricities of his fancy. + +"Isn't she a dear old lady?" said Lavender one night to Ingram. "Look +here! A cheque, received this morning, for two hundred pounds, for +plate and glass." + +Ingram looked at the bit of pale green paper: "I wish you had earned +the money yourself, or done without the plate until you could buy it +with your own money." + +"Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry your puritanical theories too far. +Doubtless I shall earn my own living by and by. Give me time." + +"It is now nearly a year since you thought of marrying Sheila +Mackenzie, and you have not done a stroke of work yet." + +"I beg your pardon. I have worked a good deal of late, as you will see +when you come up to my rooms." + +"Have you sold a single picture since last summer?" + +"I cannot make people buy my pictures if they don't choose to do so." + +"Have you made any effort to get them sold, or to come to any +arrangement with any of the dealers?" + +"I have been too busy of late--looking after this house, you know," +said Lavender with an air of apology. + +"You were not too busy to paint a fan for Mrs. Lorraine, that people +say must have occupied you for months." + +Lavender laughed: "Do you know, Ingram, I think you are jealous of +Mrs. Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, you shall go and see her." + +"No, thank you." + +"Are you afraid of your Puritan principles giving way?" + +"I am afraid that you are a very foolish boy," said the other with a +good-humored shrug of resignation, "but I hope to see you mend when +you marry." + +"Ah, then you _will_ see a difference!" said Lavender seriously; and +so the dispute ended. + +It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the +marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with +Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment +Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious +illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started +by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride. His stay in +Borva was short enough on this occasion. At the end of it there came a +certain wet and boisterous day, the occurrences in which he afterward +remembered as if they had taken place in a dream. There were many +faces about, a confusion of tongues, a good deal of dram-drinking, +a skirl of pipes, and a hurry through the rain; but all these things +gave place to the occasional glance that he got from a pair of timid +and trusting and beautiful eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that +dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. She was more his own +Sheila when she had donned her rough garments of blue, and when she +stood on the wet deck of the vessel, with a great gray shawl around +her, talking to her father with a brave effort at cheerfulness, +although her lip would occasionally quiver as one or other, of her +friends from Borva--many of them barefooted children--came up to bid +her good-bye. Her father talked rapidly, with a grand affectation of +indifference. He swore at the weather. He bade her see that Bras was +properly fed, and if the sea broke over his box in the night, he was +to be rubbed dry, and let out in the morning for a run up and down +the deck. She was not to forget the parcel directed to an innkeeper +at Oban. They would find Oban a very nice place at which to break the +journey to London, but as for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no words +with which to describe Greenock. + +And then, in the midst of all this, Sheila suddenly said, "Papa, when +does the steamer leave?" + +"In a few minutes. They have got nearly all the cargo on board." + +"Will you do me a great favor, papa?" + +"Ay, but what is it, Sheila?" + +"I want you not to stay here till the boat sails, and then you will +have all the people on the quay vexing you when you are going away. I +want you to bid good-bye to us now, and drive away round to the point, +and we shall see you the last of all when the steamer has got out of +the harbor." + +"Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that," he said, knowing well why the +girl wished it. + +So father and daughter bade good-bye to each other; and Mackenzie went +on shore with his face down, and said not a word to any of his friends +on the quay, but got into the wagonette, and, lashing the horses, +drove rapidly away. As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had +said to him, "Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;" +and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left. + +The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, the throb of the engines struck +the water, and the great steamer steamed away from the quay and out of +the plain of the harbor into a wide world of gray waves and wind and +rain. There stood Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure clearly +seen against the pallid colors of the dismal day; and Sheila waved +a handkerchief to him until Stornoway and its lighthouse and all the +promontories and bays of the great island had faded into the white +mists that lay along the horizon. And then her arm fell to her side, +and for a moment she stood bewildered, with a strange look in her eyes +of grief, and almost of despair. + +"Sheila, my darling, you must go below now," said her companion: "you +are almost dead with cold." + +She looked at him for a moment, as though she had scarcely heard what +he said. But his eyes were full of pity for her: he drew her closer +to him, and put his arms round her, and then she hid her head in his +bosom and sobbed there like a child. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +THE EMERALD. + + +Dutens and several others who have written upon gems and precious +stones during the last two centuries have asserted that the ancients +were unacquainted with the true emerald, and that Heliodorus, when +speaking nearly two thousand years ago of "gems green as a meadow in +the spring," or Pliny, when describing stone of a "soft green lustre," +referred to the peridot, the plasma, the malachite, or the far rarer +gem, the green sapphire. But the antiquary has come to the rescue with +the treasures of the despoiled mounds of Tuscany, the exposed ashes of +Herculaneum and Pompeii, and now exhibits emeralds which were mounted +in gold two thousand years before Columbus dreamed of the New World, +or Pizarro and his remorseless band gathered the precious stones by +the hundred-weight from the spoils of Peru. Although these specimens +of antique jewelry set with emeralds may be numbered by the score or +more in the museums and "reliquaries" of Europe, but very few engraved +emeralds have descended to us from ancient times: This rarity is not +due to the hardness of the stone, for the ancient lapidaries cut the +difficult and still harder sapphire: therefore we must believe the +statement of the early gem-writers that the emerald was exempted +from the glyptic art by common consent on account of its beauty and +costliness. + +The emerald is now one of the rarest of gems, and its scarcity gives +rise to the inquiry as to what has become of the abundant shower of +emeralds which fairly rained upon Spain during the early days of the +conquest of Mexico and Peru, bringing down the value of fine stones +to a trifling price. As with all commercial articles, there is a waste +and loss to be accounted for during the wear of three centuries, +but this alone will not explain their present rarity in civilized +countries. Even in the times of Charles II., when the destitution of +the country was extreme, the dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque had +millions in diamonds, rubies and precious stones, yet hardly possessed +a single sou. So impoverished was the land, and so slender were the +purses of all, that the duke of Albuquerque dined on an egg and a +pigeon, yet it required six weeks to make an inventory of his plate. +At this period, when the nobles gave fêtes the lamps were often +decorated with emeralds and the ceilings garlanded with precious +stones. The women fairly blazed with sparkling gems of fabulous value, +while the country was starving. Most, if not all, of this missing +treasure was transferred to Asia, and with the silver current which +flowed steadily from the Spanish coffers into India went many of the +emeralds also; for in those regions this gem is regarded as foreign +stone, and the natives, investing it with the possession of certain +talismanic properties, prize it above all earthly treasures. + +When the Spaniards commenced their march toward the capital of Mexico, +they were astonished at the magnificence of the costumes of the chiefs +who came to meet them as envoys or join them as allies, and among the +splendid gems which adorned their persons they recognized emeralds and +turquoises of such rare perfection and beauty that their cupidity was +excited to the highest degree. During the after years of conquest and +occupation the avaricious spoilers sought in vain for the parent ledge +where these precious stones were found. Recent times have, however, +revealed the home of the Mexican turquoise, which has proved to be in +the northern part of Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the inquiring +Spaniards. The first of these mines, which is of great antiquity, is +situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, eighteen miles from Santa Fé. +The deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and an immense cavity of several +hundred feet in extent has been excavated by the Indians while +searching for this gem in past times. Probably some of the fine +turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at the time of the Spanish +Conquest came from this mine. Another mine is located in the Sierra +Blanca Mountains in New Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow +strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent beauty have been taken +from it, and handed down in the tribe from generation to generation +as heirlooms. Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians to dispose of +these gems, and gratitude alone causes them to part with any of these +treasures, which, like the mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with +mystical reverence. The Navajos wear them as ear-drops, by boring them +and attaching them to the ear by means of a deer sinew. Lesser stones +are pierced, then strung on sinews and worn as neck-laces. Even the +nobler Ute Indians, when stripping the ornaments of turquoise from +the ears of the conquered Navajos, value them as sacred treasures, and +refuse to part with them even for gold or silver. + +All the Spanish accounts of the invasion of Mexico agree in the great +abundance of emeralds, both in the adornment of the chiefs and +nobles and also in the decoration of the gods, the thrones and the +paraphernalia. The Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl says the throne +of gold in the palace of Tezcuco was inlaid with turquoises and other +precious stones--that a human skull in front of it was crowned with an +immense emerald of a pyramidal form. + +The great standard of the republic of Tlascala was richly ornamented +with emeralds and silver-work. The fantastic helmets of the chiefs +glittered with gold and precious stones, and their plumes were set +with emeralds. The mantle of Montezuma was held together by a clasp of +the green chalchivitl (jade), and the same precious gem, with emeralds +of uncommon size, ornamented other parts of his dress. + +The Mexicans carved the obdurate jade and emerald with wonderful +skill, using, like the Peruvians, nothing but silicious powder and +copper instruments alloyed with tin. They also worked with exquisite +taste in gold and silver, and they represented Nature so faithfully +and so beautifully that the great naturalist Hernandez took many +of these objects thus portrayed for his models when describing the +natural history of the country. + +When Cortés returned home he displayed five emeralds of extraordinary +size and beauty, and presented them to his bride, the niece of the +duke de Bejar. On his famous expedition along the Pacific coast and up +the Gulf of California he was reduced to such want as to be obliged to +pawn these jewels for a time. One of them was as precious as Shylock's +turquoise, and Gomara states that some Genoese merchants who examined +it in Seville offered forty thousand golden ducats for it. One of the +emeralds was in the form of a rose; the second in that of a horn; +the third like a fish with eyes of gold; the fourth was like a little +bell, with a fine pearl for a tongue, and it bore on its rim the +following inscription in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created thee!" +The fifth, which was the most valuable of all, was in the form of a +small cup with a foot of gold, and with four little chains of the same +metal attached to a large pearl as a button: the edge of the cup was +of gold, on which was engraved in Latin words, "Inter natos mulierum +non surrexit major." These splendid gems are now buried deep in the +sand on the coast of Barbary, where they were lost in 1529, when +Cortés was shipwrecked with the admiral of Castile whilst on their way +to assist Charles V. at the siege of Algiers. + +The quantity of emeralds obtained by the Spaniards in their pillage +of Mexico was large, but it was trifling when compared with that +collected by Pizarro and his remorseless followers in the sack +of Peru. Many large and magnificent stones were obtained by the +Spaniards, but the transcendent gem of all, called by the Peruvians +the Great Mother, and nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was concealed +by the natives, and all the efforts of Pizarro and his successors to +discover it proved unavailing. + +The immense uncut Peruvian emerald given by Rudolph II. to the elector +of Saxony is still preserved in the Green Vaults at Dresden. This +collection is the finest in the world, and is of the value of many +millions of dollars. The treasures are arranged in eight apartments, +each surpassing the previous one in the splendor and richness of its +contents. This museum dates from the early period when the Freyburg +silver-mines yielded vast revenues, and made the Saxon princes among +the richest sovereigns in Europe. With lavish hand these potentates +purchased jewels and works of art, and the treasures they have thus +accumulated are of immense value, and remind the traveler of the +gorgeous descriptions of Oriental magnificence. + +The finest emerald in Europe is said to belong to the emperor of +Russia. It weighs but thirty carats, but it is of the most perfect +transparency and of the most beautiful color. There are many other +fine emeralds among the imperial jewels of the czar, some of which are +of great size and rare beauty. The ancient crown of Vladimir glitters +with four great stones of unusual brilliancy. The grand state sceptre +is surmounted by another emerald of great size. The sceptre of +Poland, which is now treasured in the Kremlin, has a long green stone, +fractured in the middle. It is not described, and may be one of the +Siberian tourmalines, some of which closely approach the emerald in +hue. The imperial _orb_ of Russia, which is of Byzantine workmanship +of the tenth century, has fifty emeralds. This fact alone would seem +to prove that emeralds were known in Europe or Asia Minor long before +the discovery of America; but, on the other hand, the ancient crown +which was taken when Kasan was subjugated in 1553 is destitute of +emeralds. And hence we are inclined to believe the imperial orb to be +of modern workmanship, especially as some of the ancient state chairs +do not exhibit emeralds among their decorations of gems and precious +stones. + +Nowhere in North America do the true emeralds occur. Professor +Cleaveland, who was one of the best authorities of his day, maintained +nearly half a century ago that emeralds which exhibited a lively and +beautiful green hue were found in blasting a canal through a ledge +of graphic granite in the town of Topsham in Maine. Several of the +crystals presented so pure, uniform and rich a green that he ventured +to pronounce them precious emeralds. But to-day we are unable to verify +the assertion, or point to a single specimen similar in hue to the +emerald from the above-mentioned locality. + +The nearest approach to the emerald in color, with the exception of +the incomparable green tourmalines from Maine, are the beryls of North +and South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts. These beautiful +stones exhibit the physical, characteristics of emeralds with the +exception of the color, in which they differ very perceptibly. But to +appreciate fully the difference in hue we must compare the two gems. +Then the lively green of the beryl fades away before the overpowering +hue of the emerald, whose rich prismatic green may be taken as the +purest type of that color known to the chemist or the painter. + +Two summers ago we visited the localities in Massachusetts which were +famous in the days of Hitchcock and Webster. We found that the beryls +occurred in a very coarse granite, where the quartz appeared in masses +and the felspar in huge crystals. These also occur in finer granite, +and exhibit no indications of veins or connection with each other. +They are few in number, and are soon exhausted by blasting, being +generally very superficial. After removing several tons of the rock at +the locality at North Royalston, where the beryls appear on the summit +of the loftiest hill, our labors were at length rewarded with two +beautiful crystals. One of them was a fine prism an inch in diameter, +of perfect transparency and of a deep sea-green color, which, however +is far from being similar to the transcendent hue of the Granada +emeralds, which exhibit an excess of neither blue nor yellow. The +other was yellowish-green, resembling the chrysoberyls of Brazil. + +Other but imperfect crystals were brought to light, some fragments of +which exhibited the deepest golden tints of the topaz, and others +the tints of the sherry-wine colored topazes of Siberia. Magnificent +crystals have been found in these localities in times long past, and +from the fragments and sections of crystals found in the débris of +early explorations we observed the wide range of color and the deep +longitudinal striae which characterize the renowned beryls from the +Altai Mountains, in Siberia. Lively sea- and grass-green, light and +deep yellow, also blue crystals of various shades, have been found +here. + +At the quarries on Rollestone Mountain in Fitchburg beryls of a +rich golden color have been blasted out. Some of these approach the +chrysoberyl and topaz in hardness and hue. Others so closely resemble +the yellow diamond that they may readily be taken for that superior +gem. The refractive power of these yellow stones is remarkable, and +the goniometer will probably reveal a higher index than is accorded to +all the varieties of beryl by the learned Abbé Haüy. + +Beautiful transparent beryls have been found among the granite hills +of Oxford county in Maine, and the late Governor Lincoln nearly half a +century ago possessed a splendid crystal which would have rivaled the +superb prism found at Mouzzinskaia, and which the Russians value so +highly. The extended and unexplored ledges of granite which rise +from the shores of the ocean at Harpswell in Maine, and stretch +north-westward for nearly a hundred miles, quite to the base of the +White Mountain group, are not only rich in beryls, but they contain +many of the rarest minerals known to the mineralogist. And perhaps +there is no other field of equal extent in the country which offers to +the mineralogist such a harvest of the rare and curious productions of +the mineral kingdom. + +At Haddam in Connecticut beautiful crystals of beryl have been +discovered, and one of these, of fine green color, an inch in diameter +and several inches in length, was preserved in the cabinet of Colonel +Gibbs. Professor Silliman possessed another fine one, seven inches in +length. + +The mountains in Colorado have yielded some fine specimens. But the +finest of the beryl species come from Russia. In the Ural Mountains +the crystals are small, but of fine color; in the Altai Mountains they +are very large and of a greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges of +Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier of China, they are found in +the greatest perfection. They occur on the summit of the mountain +in irregular veins of micaceous and white indurated clay, and are +greenish-yellow, pure pale green, greenish-blue and sky-blue. The +chief matrix of the beryl all over the world is graphic granite, but +it may occur in other rocks. The light green stones of Limoges in +France appear in a vein of quartz traversing granite. At Royalston we +observed them to spring seemingly from the felspar and project into +smoky quartz, becoming more transparent as they advanced into the +harder stone. + +The beryl possesses the same crystalline form and specific gravity as +the emerald, but its hardness (especially in the yellow varieties) is +sometimes greater. The only perceptible difference in the two stones +is in the color. Cleaveland thought that as the emerald and beryl had +the same essential characters, they might gradually pass into each +other; and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both chrome and iron in one +specimen, was led to take the same view. The crystals of true emerald +are almost always small (with the exception of those found in the Wald +district in Siberia), whilst those of the beryl vary from a few +grains to more than a ton in weight. The crystals of both are almost +invariably regular hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly modified. +Those of the beryl we sometimes find quite flat, as though they +had been compressed by force: then again they are acicular and of +extraordinary length, considering their slender diameter. Sometimes +their lateral faces are longitudinally striated, and as deeply as the +tourmaline, so that the edges of the prism are rendered indistinct. +Other crystals are curved, and some perforated in the axis like +the tourmaline, so as to contain other minerals. Sometimes they are +articulated like the pillars of basalt, and separated at some distance +by the intervening quartz. These modified forms give rise to curious +speculations as to their formation and origin. If we admit the action +of fire (which is improbable), then the separation may be easily +explained; but if we insist that they were deposited in the wet way +and by slow process, how can we account for the dislocation? "By +electricity," whispers a friend--"by telluric magnetism, that +wonderful unexplained and mysterious force which has caused the grand +geological changes of the globe, and is still at work." + +No other gem has been counterfeited with such perfection as the +emerald; and in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish the +artificial from the real gems by the aid of the eye alone: even the +little flaws which lull the suspicions of the inexperienced are easily +produced by a dexterous blow from the mallet of the skilled artisan. +Not only emeralds, but most of the gems and precious stones, are now +imitated with such consummate skill as to deceive the eye, and none +but experts are aware of the extent to which these fictitious gems +are worn in fashionable society, for oftentimes the wearers themselves +imagine that they possess the real stones. There is not one in a +hundred jewelers who is acquainted with the physical properties of the +gems, and very few can distinguish the diamond from the white zircon +or the white topaz, the emerald from the tourmaline of similar hue, +the sapphire from iolite, or the topaz from the Bohemian yellow +quartz. Jewelers are governed generally by sight, which they believe +to be infallible, whilst hardness and specific gravity are the only +sure tests. + +Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of color the most brilliant and +delicately tinted of the productions of Nature are now made at Paris +and in other European cities. The establishments at Septmoncel in the +Jura alone employ a thousand persons, and fabulous quantities of the +glittering pastes are made there and sent to all parts of the world. + +A fine specimen of prase when cut affords a fair imitation of +the emerald. The green fluor-spar which Haüy called "emeraude de +Carthagène" may also be substituted, but the application of the file +detects the trick with ease. Some of the green tourmalines approach +the emeralds in hue very closely, and by artificial light it is +impossible to distinguish them from each other. Fragments of quartz +may be stained by being steeped in green-colored tinctures. The Greeks +stained quartz so like the real gem that Pliny exclaimed against the +fraud while declining to tell how it was done. The Ancona rubies at +the present day are made by plunging quartz into a hot tincture of +cochineal, which penetrates the minute fissures of the rock. + +But notwithstanding the high art reached by modern glass-makers, they +are yet far behind the ancients in imitating the emerald in point of +hardness and lustre. Many emerald pastes of Roman times still extant +are with difficulty distinguished from the real gem, so much harder +and lustrous are they than modern glass. The ancient Phoenician +remains found in the island of Sardinia by Cavalier Cara in 1856 show +fine color in their enamels and glass-works. The green pigment brought +home from the ruins of Thebes by Mr. Wilkinson was shown by Dr. Ure +to consist of blue glass in powder, with yellow ochre and colorless +glass. From Greek inscriptions dating from the period of the +Peloponnesian war we learn that there were signets of colored glass +among the gems in the treasury of the Parthenon. + +Of all the emerald imitations that have descended to us from +antiquity, none are more remarkable, none more interesting to the +antiquary and historian, than the famous Sacro Catino of the cathedral +of Genoa. This celebrated relic is a glass dish or patera fourteen +inches in width, five inches in depth and of the richest transparent +green color, though disfigured by several flaws. It was bestowed upon +the republic of Genoa by the Crusaders after the capture of Caesarea +in 1101, and was regarded as an equivalent for a large sum of money +due from the Christian army. It was traditionally believed to have +been presented to King Solomon by the queen of Sheba, and afterward +preserved in the Temple, and some accounts relate that it was used by +Christ at the institution of the Lord's Supper. The Genoese received +it with so much veneration and faith that twelve nobles were appointed +to guard it, and it was exhibited but once a year, when a priest held +it up in his hand to the view of the passing throng. The state in +1319, in a time of pressing need, pawned the holy relic for twelve +hundred marks of gold (two hundred thousand dollars), and redeemed +it with a promptness which proved its belief in the reality of the +material as well as in its sanctity. And it is also related that the +Jews, during a period of fifty years, lent the republic four million +francs, holding the sacred relic as a pledge of security. Seven +hundred years passed away, when Napoleon came, and as he swept down +over Italy, gathering her art-treasures, he ordered the "Holy +Grail" to be conveyed to Paris. It was deposited in the Cabinet of +Antiquities in the Imperial Library, and the mineralogists quickly +discovered it to be glass. It is due to the memory of Condamine to +state that he was the first to doubt the material of the Sacro Catino, +for, when examining it by lamplight in 1757, in the presence of the +princes Corsini, he observed none of the cracks, clouds and specks +common to emeralds, but detected little bubbles of air. In 1815 the +Allies ordered its return to the cathedral of Genoa. During this +journey the beautiful relic was broken, but its fragments were +restored by a skillful artisan, and it is now supported upon a tripod, +the fragments being held together by a band of gold filigree. This +remarkable object of antiquity, which is of extraordinary beauty of +material and workmanship, furnishes a theme over which the antiquaries +love to muse and wrangle. + +Another of the antique monster emeralds, weighing twenty-nine pounds, +was presented to the abbey of Reichenau near Constance by Charlemagne. +Beckman has also detected this precious relic to be glass. And +probably the great emerald of two pounds weight brought home from the +Holy Land by one of the dukes of Austria, and now deposited in the +collection at Vienna, is of the same material. The hardness of our +glass is yet far inferior to that of the ancients, and even the +ruby lustre of the potters of Umbria, which was so precious to the +dilettanti of the Cinque Cento period, has not been recovered. + +The emerald has been a subject of controversy among the chemists +and mineralogists, and its character, especially the cause of its +beautiful color, is not clearly defined even at the present day. But +that distinguished chemist, Professor Lewy of Paris, seems to offer, +thus far, the most correct and plausible theory. Ten years ago he +boldly asserted that the hue is not due to the oxide of chromium, +and with this opinion he confronted such eminent men as Vauquelin, +Klaproth and others of high rank in the scientific world. Not content +with his researches in his laboratory in Paris, he resolutely crossed +the ocean and sought the emerald in its parent ledges in the lofty +table-lands of New Granada. Here he obtained new information of a +geological character which goes far to strengthen his position. +The experiments of M. Lewy indicate, if they do not prove, that the +coloring matter of the emerald is organic, and readily destroyed +by heat, which would not be the case if it was due to the oxide of +chromium. All my own fire-tests with the Granada emerald corroborate +the views of M. Lewy, for in every instance the gem lost its hue when +submitted to a red heat. + +Nevertheless, the recent researches of Wöhler and Rose give negative +results. These experienced chemists kept an emerald at the temperature +of melted copper for an hour, and found that, although the stone had +become opaque, the color was not affected. They therefore considered +the oxide of chromium to be the coloring agent, without, however, +denying the presence of organic matter. The amount of the oxide of +chromium found by many chemists varies from one to two per cent., +while Lewy and others found it in a quantity so small as to be +inappreciable, and too minute to be weighed. + +Before the ordinary blowpipe the emerald passes rapidly into a whitish +vesicular glass, and with borax it forms a fine green glass, while its +sub-species, the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: with salt of +phosphorus it slowly dissolves, leaving a silicious skeleton.[A] + +M. Lewy visited the mines at Muzo in Granada, and from the results +of his analyses, together with the fact of finding emeralds in +conjunction with the presence of fossil shells in the limestone in +which they occur, he arrived at the conclusion that they have been +formed in the wet way--deposited from a chemical solution. He also +found that when extracted they are so soft and fragile that the +largest and finest fragments can be reduced to powder by merely +rubbing them between the fingers, and the crystals often crack and +fall to pieces after being removed from the mine, apparently from loss +of water. Consequently, when the emeralds are first extracted they are +laid aside carefully for a few days until the water is evaporated. + +This statement relative to the softness of the gem and its subsequent +hardening has been met with a shout of derision from some of the +gem-seekers--none louder than that of Barbot, the retired jeweler. +Barbot seems to forget that the rock of which his own house in Paris +is constructed undergoes the same change after being removed from +the deep quarries in the catacombs under the city. This phenomenon is +observed with many rocks. Flints acquire additional toughness by the +evaporation of water contained in them. The steatite of St. Anthony's +Falls grows harder on exposure, and other minerals when quarried from +considerable depths become firmer on exposure to the action of the +air. Observations of this kind led Kuhlman to investigate the cause, +and he believes that the hardening of rocks is not owing solely to +the evaporation of quarry-water, but that it depends upon the +tendency which all earthy matters possess to undergo a spontaneous +crystallization by slow dessication, which commences the moment the +rock is exposed to the air. + +The coloring matter of the emerald seems to be derived from the +decomposition of the remains of animals who have lived in a bygone +age, and whose remains are now found fossilized in the rock which +forms the matrix of the gem. This rock in Granada is a black +limestone, with white veins containing ammonites. Specimens of these +rocks exhibiting fragments of emeralds _in situ_, and also ammonites, +are to be seen in the mineralogical gallery of the Jardin des Plantes +in Paris. Lewy believes that the beautiful tint of these gems is +produced by an organic substance, which he considers to be a carburet +of hydrogen, similar to that called chlorophyll, which constitutes +the coloring matter of the leaves of plants; and he has shown that +the emeralds of the darkest hue, which contain the greatest amount +of organic matter, lose their color completely at a low red heat, +and become opaque and white; while minerals and pastes which are +well known to be colored by chromium, like the green garnets (the +lime-chrome garnets) of Siberia, are unchanged in hue by the action of +heat. + +Since the time of the Spanish Conquest, New Granada has furnished +the world with the most of its emeralds. The most famous mines are at +Muzo, in the valley of Tunca, between the mountains of New Granada and +Popayan, about seventy-five miles from Santa Fé de Bogota, where +every rock, it is said, contains an emerald. At present the supply of +emeralds is very limited, owing to restrictions on trade and want of +capital and energy in mining operations. + +Blue as well as green emeralds are found in the Cordillera of the +Cubillari. The Esmeraldas mines in Equador are said to have been +worked successfully at one period by the Jesuits. The Peruvians +obtained many emeralds from the barren district of Atacama, and in +the times of the Conquest there were quarries on the River of Emeralds +near Barbacoas. + +Emeralds are found in Siberia, and some of the localities may have +furnished to the ancients the Scythian gems which Pliny and others +mention. In the Wald district magnificent crystals have been found +embedded in mica-slate. One of these--a twin-crystal, now in the +Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg--is seven inches long, four inches +broad, and weighs four and a half pounds. There is another mass in the +same collection which measures fourteen inches long by twelve broad +and five thick, weighing sixteen and three-quarter pounds troy. This +group shows twenty crystals from a half inch to five inches long, +and from one to two inches broad. They were discovered by a peasant +cutting wood near the summit of the mountain. His eye was attracted +by the lustrous sparkling amongst the decomposed mica and where the +ground had been exposed by the uprooting of a tree by the violence of +the wind. He collected a number of the crystals, and brought them to +Katharineburg and showed them to M. Kokawin, who recognized them and +sent them to St. Petersburg, where they were critically examined by +Van Worth and pronounced to be emeralds. One of these crystals was +presented by the emperor to Humboldt when he visited St. Petersburg, +and it is now deposited in the Berlin collection. Quite a number +of emeralds are now brought from the Siberian localities, and it is +believed that enterprise and capital would produce a large supply of +the gem.[B] + +The supply of emeralds from South America is very limited, and may +be ascribed to want of skillful mining, as well as to climate, +the political condition of the country and the indolence of its +inhabitants. The localities cannot be exhausted, for they are too +numerous and extensive. The elevated regions in Granada admit of +scientific exploration by Europeans, and at the present day the +only emerald-mining operations conducted in South America have been +prosecuted near Santa Fé de Bogota by a French company, which has +paid the government fourteen thousand dollars yearly for the right of +mining, all the emeralds obtained being sent to Paris to be cut by the +lapidaries of that city. + +In the Atacama districts, and along the banks of the River of +Emeralds, the physical obstructions are difficult to overcome, and +pestilential diseases of malignant character forbid the long sojourn +of the European. Yet the introduction of Chinese labor may prove +successful and highly remunerative, since the coolie reared among +the jungles and rice-swamps of Southern China is quite as exempt from +malarial fevers as the negro. + +The price of the emerald has no fixed and extended scale, like that of +the diamond, and the fluctuations of its value during the past three +centuries form an interesting chapter in the history of gems. + +In the time of Dutens (1777) the price of small stones of the first +quality was one louis the carat; one and a half carats, five louis; +two carats, ten louis; and beyond this weight no rule of value could +be established. In De Boot's day (1600) emeralds were so plenty as +to be worth only a quarter as much as the diamond. The markets were +glutted with the frequent importations from Peru, and thirteen years +before the above-mentioned period one vessel brought from South +America two hundred and three pounds of fine emeralds, worth at +the present valuation more than seven millions of dollars. At the +beginning of this century, according to Caire, they were worth no more +than twenty-four francs (or about five dollars) the carat, and for a +long time antecedent to 1850 they were valued at only fifteen dollars +the carat. Since this period they have become very rare, and their +valuation has advanced enormously. In fact, the value of the emerald +now exceeds that of the diamond, and is rapidly approaching the ratio +fixed by Benevenuto Cellini in the middle of the sixteenth century, +which rated the emerald at four times, and the ruby at eight times, +the value of the diamond. Perfect stones (the emerald is exceedingly +liable to flaw, the beryl is more free, and the green sapphire is +rarely impaired by fissures or cracks) of one carat in weight are +worth at the present day two hundred dollars in gold. Perfect gems +of two carats weight will command five hundred dollars in gold, while +larger stones are sold at extravagant prices. + +Most of our aqua-marinas come from Brazil and Siberia, and small +stones are sold at trifling prices. Some of them, however, when +perfect and of fine color, command fabulous sums. The superb little +beryl found at Mouzzinskaia is valued by the Russians at the enormous +sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, although the crystal +weighs but little more than one ounce. Another rough prism preserved +in the Museum at Paris, and weighing less than one hundred grains, has +received the tempting offer of fifteen thousand francs. + +A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + +[Footnote A: A curious result happened to the elder Silliman when +experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before the compound blowpipe. +The reducing flame instantly melted it into a transparent green +globule. Perhaps the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which +reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which disappear at a +lower temperature. But this could not be done if the color was due +to organic matter, which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by +combustion.] + +[Footnote B: Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian emeralds +of large size and beautiful color are now to be seen in the valuable +and choice collections of Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of +Philadelphia.] + + + + +BERRYTOWN. + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +It rained during the night. The wind blew feebly in the morning, +and the sunlight glimmered dully from behind the flying gray clouds. +Catharine looked out of her window, anxiously pushing aside the boughs +full of wet white roses. The sense of desolation was not strong enough +upon her to make her forget that Peter had not yet cut the clover +in the lower meadow, and that such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. +Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping up an old Bourbon rose, an +especial favorite of her father's. Somebody tapped at her door, and +Miss Muller rustled in in a flounced white muslin and rose-colored +ribbons. She too hurried to the window and looked down. + +"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. I can't make you understand, +probably, but the Water-cure House is so bald and bare! There is +something in the shade here, and the old books, and this wilderness +of roses, that forms a fitting background for a friendship like ours, +aesthetically considered." + +"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told Jane to have waffles--" + +"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, "and direct her about the +table. Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would jar against the finest +emotions. What very pretty shoulders you have, child! Such women as +you, like potatoes, are best _au naturel_. Now, with those corsets, +and this red shawl over the back of your chair, you would make a very +good Madonna of the Rubens school. Men's ideal of womanhood then was +to be plump, insipid and a mother." + +"But about the oily butter?" said Kitty, glancing back over the +aforesaid shoulders as she stooped to lace her shoes, while Maria +hurried off to the kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer emotions, +I fancy, when she begins to order her about." + +But Kitty lost all relish for fun before she sat down to the +breakfast-table. Mr. Muller came in. The poor little man hurried to +her side: "I passed a sleepless night, Catharine. I feared that I had +been rough with you. I forget so often how gentle and tender you are, +my darling." + +Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my word, I've forgotten what happened. +And I really never feel especially gentle or tender. You are mistaken +about that." + +When she took her place behind the urn, Maria motioned her brother to +the foot of the table, and then nodded significantly. "Now you two can +imagine a month or two has passed," she said. + +Even Doctor McCall smiled meaningly. Mr. Muller blushed, and glanced +shyly at Catharine. But she looked at him unmoved. "Our table will +not be like this," gravely. "You forget the three hundred blue-coats +between." Maria laughed, but Doctor McCall for the first time looked +steadily at the girl. + +First of all, perhaps, Kitty was just then a housekeeper. She waited +anxiously to see if the steak was properly rare and the omelette +light, nodded brightly to Jane, who stood watchful behind her, and +then looked over at her betrothed, thinking how soon they would sit +down tête-à-tête for the rest of their lives, perhaps for eternity, +for, according to her orthodoxy, there could be no new loves in +heaven. How fat he was, and bald! The mild blue eyes behind their +glasses took possession of her and held her. + +She listened to the talk between Doctor McCall and Miss Muller in a +language she had never learned. Maria's share of it was largely made +up of headlong dives into Spencer and Darwin, with reminiscences of +_The Dial_, while Doctor McCall's was anchored fast down to facts; but +it was all alive, suggestive, brilliant. They were young. They were +drinking life and love with full cups. She (looking over at the bald +head and spectacled eyes) had gone straight out of childhood into +middle age and respectability. + +The breakfast was over at last. Miss Muller followed Doctor McCall +into the shop, where he fell to turning over the old books, and then +to the garden. What was the use of a stage properly set if the drama +would not begin? + +"Pray do not worry any longer with that old bush," as he went back +to Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours to be persistent about +trifles. Or stay: give me a bud for my hair." + +"Not these!" sharply, holding her hand. "I could not see one of these +roses on any woman's head." + +She smiled, very well pleased: "You perceive some subtle connection +between me and the flower?" + +"Nothing of the sort. There are some, planted, I suppose, by that +little girl, which will be more becoming to your face." + +"You are repelled by 'the little girl,' I see, John. I always told you +your instincts were magnetic. That type of woman is antipathetic to +you." + +He laughed: "I have no instincts, hardly ideas, about either roses +or types of women. If I avoided Miss Vogdes, it was because her name +recalled one of the old hard experiences of my boyhood. The girl +herself is harmless enough, no doubt." + +"And the rose?" + +"The rose? Why, we have no time to waste in such talk as this. You +have not yet told me how you managed to get your profession. When I +last saw you you had set all the old professors in the university at +defiance. Did you carry lectures and cliniques by strategy or assault? +You have good fighting qualities, Maria." + +She would rather not have gone over her battle with the doctors just +then: she would rather he had talked of her "magnetic instincts," her +hair, her eyes--anything else than her fighting qualities. But she +told him. There was an inexplicable delight to her in telling him +anything--even the time of day. Was he not a pioneer, a captain among +men, a seer in the realms of thought, keeping step with her in all her +high imaginings? Ordinary people, it is true, set McCall down as an +ordinary fellow, genial and hearty--not a very skillful physician, +perhaps, but a shrewd farmer, and the best judge of mules or peaches +in Kent county. Maria, however, saw him with the soul's eye. + +Kitty meanwhile sat by the window mending the clothes that had come +out of the wash. Mr. Muller was reading some letters relative to the +school to her. This was the day of the week on which she always mended +the clothes, and Mr. Muller had fallen into the habit of reading to +her while she did so. But to-day the Reformatory rose before her a +prison, the gates of which were about to close on her. The heap of +stockings, the touch of the darning cotton, the sound of Mr. Muller's +droning voice, were maddening to her: every moment she made a tangle +in her thread, looking down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, and the +attentive face bent over her. Where should she go? What should she do? +Had the world nothing in it for her but this? Yesterday she had made +up her mind to go to Delaware to find Hugh Guinness, alive or dead, +and bring him to his father. That would be work worth doing. This +morning she remembered that Delaware was a wide hunting-ground--that +she had never been ten miles from home in her life. If there were +anybody to give her advice! This Doctor McCall had seemed to her +to-day as, in fact, he did to most people, practical, honest, full +of information. He would too, she somehow felt, understand her wild +fancy. But-- + +"Why should Doctor McCall dislike _me_?" she broke in at the close of +one of Mr. Muller's expositions. + +"What an absurd fancy, child!" looking up in amazement. "The man was +civil enough to you for so slight an acquaintance." + +"It was more than dislike," vehemently. "He watched me all through +breakfast as though he owed me a grudge. I could see it in his eyes." + +"You oughtn't to see any eyes but mine, Cathie dear," with anxious +playfulness. "Why should you care for the opinion of any man?" + +"Because he is different from any man I ever knew. He belongs to the +world outside. I always did wonder if people would like me out there," +said Kitty, too doggedly in earnest to see how her words hurt her +listener. "If one could be like those two people yonder! They seem to +know everything--they can do everything!" + +"Maria is well enough--for a woman," dryly. "But I never heard McCall +credited with exceptional ability of any sort." + +Kitty glanced at him: "Of course you're right," quickly. "Men only can +judge of character: we women are apt to be silly about such things." +Her kind heart felt a wrench at having hurt this good soul. She put +her fingers on his fat hand with a touch that was almost a caress. He +turned red with surprise and pleasure. "But it is pleasant," she said, +glancing down again to the Bourbon rose, "to see such love as that. +They will be married soon, I suppose?" + +"Very likely. I never knew of any love in the case before. But Maria +is such a manager! And you think of love, then, sometimes?" timidly +putting his arm about her. + +"Oh to be sure! How can you doubt that? But it grows chilly. I must +bring a sacque," hurrying away; and in fact she looked cold, and +shivered. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"Doctor McCall recognizes the Book-house, just as I did, as the right +background for communion like ours," Miss Muller said complacently to +Kitty a week later. "He meets me here every day." + +"Yes," said Catharine with a perplexed look. She had no special +instincts or intuitions, but her eyes were as keen and observant as a +lynx's. He came, she saw, to the Book-house every day. But had he no +other purpose than to meet Maria? + +"I did not know that McCall affected scholarship," said Mr. Muller +tartly the next day. "He tells me that he has a peach-farm to manage. +August is no time to loiter away, poring over old books. Just the +peach season." + +"No," Kitty replied demurely. But her face wore again the puzzled +look. She began to watch Doctor McCall. He really knew but little, she +saw, of rare books: his reading of them was a mere pretence. He +was neither a lazy nor a morbid man: what pleasure could he have in +neglecting his work day after day, sitting alone in the dusky old shop +as if held there by some enchantment? Kitty knew that she herself had +nothing to do with it: she appeared to be no more in his way than a +tame dog would be, and, after the first annoyance which she gave +him, was really little more noticed. But there is a certain sense of +home-snugness and comfort in the presence of tame dogs and of women +like Kitty: one cannot be long in the room with either without +throwing them a kind word or petting them in some way. Doctor McCall +was just the man to fall into such a habit. Down on the farm, his +cattle, his hands, even the neighbors with whom he argued on politics, +could all have testified to his easy, large good-humor. + +"Oh, we are the best of friends," he said indifferently when Maria +found Kitty chattering to him once, very much as she did to old Peter. +But when Miss Muller, who had no petty jealousies, enlarged on the +singular beauty of her eyes and some good points in her shape, he did +not respond. "I never could talk of a woman as if she were a horse," +he said. "And this little girl seems to me unusually human." + +"There's really nothing in her, though. Poor William! He is marrying +eyes, I tell him. It's a pitiable marriage!" + +"Yes, it is," said Doctor McCall gravely. + +After that he neglected the old books sometimes to talk to Kitty. He +thought she was such an immature, thoughtless creature that she would +not notice that the subject he chose was always the same--her daily +life, with old Peter for her chum and confidant. + +"Mr. Guinness, then, has had no companion but you?" he said one day, +after a searching inspection of her face. + +"No, nobody but me," quite forgetful, as she and Peter were too apt to +be, that her mother was alive. + +"And has had none for years?" + +"Not since his son died. Hugh Guinness is dead, you know." + +Doctor McCall was looking thoughtfully at the floor. He rose presently +and took up his hat: "The old man cannot have been unhappy with such +love as you could give him. No man could." + +Kitty was sitting, as usual, on a low stool pasting labels on some +dog-eared books: as long as McCall stood looking at her round cheeks +and double chin she pasted on, apparently unconscious that he was +there, but when he turned away she watched him shrewdly as he went +uneasily up and down the shop, and finally, with a curt good-bye, +turned out of the door. As the stout figure passed through the low +branches of the walnuts her gray eyes began to shine. Her Mystery was +nearly solved. + +Dropping paste and books in a heap, she ran after him, taking a short +cut through the currant bushes, so that when he passed on the outer +side of the garden fence there she was quietly waiting, her head and +face darkly framed by a thick creeper. + +"Well?" smiling down, amused, as he might to a playful kitten. + +"Doctor McCall," in the queer formal fashion that was Kitty's own, "I +should be glad if you would come back this evening. Without Maria. +I have some business--that is, a plan of mine. Well, it is a certain +thing that--" + +"That you wish to consult me about?" after waiting for her to finish. + +"Yes, that's it," nodding energetically. + +"Very well." He stood looking at her arm on the fence, and the face +resting with its chin upon it. McCall, of all men, hated a scene, and +he had an uneasy consciousness that he had just betrayed unexplained +feeling in the house, and was therefore glad to slip back to +commonplaces. Besides, Kitty was exactly the kind of woman whom all +men feel an insane desire to help at first sight. "You have a plan, +eh? and you want advice, not knowing much about business?" + +There was not the least necessity for him to say this, having asked +it before. But he did it, and waited to hear Kitty say yes again, and +waited still, before he lifted his hat and said good-bye, to see the +shadow of a waving branch creep over her white chin and lose itself in +her neck. Most men would have done the same, just as they would stop +to whistle a laugh from a fat, pretty baby on the street, and then go +on, leaving it behind. The last thing in the world to consult on their +business, or to ask for help or comfort when trouble met them, or +death. + + * * * * * + +Miss Muller spent the whole day at the Book-house, but Doctor McCall +did not come, as she expected. As evening approached she began to +shiver, and had premonitory symptoms of clairvoyance, and went home at +last, to Kitty's relief. A slow drizzling rain set in: the damp fogs +that belong to that river-bottom walled in the house and hung flat +over the walnuts like a roof. Catharine had made her own corner of the +Book-shop snug and cheerful. The space was wide, the light soft and +bright. She placed her own chair by the table, Peter's not far from +it. She meant to produce a great effect on this man to-night, to +change the whole current of his life, without having the help of +either love or even friendship. Unconsciously she planned to bring +him close to her, though very likely she had never heard of personal +magnetism, or any of the curious secrets political speakers or +actors or revivalists could have told her of the deadening effects of +distance and empty benches. + +Then Kitty, in her room overhead, looked at herself in the glass, +arrayed in a soft cashmere, in color blue, still farther toned down, +by certain softer fringes and loops, into the very ideal garb for +a man's type of "yielding, lovely woman." It was one of the sacred +wedding-dresses. + +"Maria could never look like this," tying a lace handkerchief about +her neck, pulling the soft rings of hair looser about her ears, +setting her head on one side, and half shutting her eyes to see the +thick and curly lashes. + +There was no danger of interruption. Maria was safely lodged in the +Water-cure House, and the very idea of Mr. Muller's glossy black shoes +and dainty brown umbrella venturing out in the rain made Kitty laugh. + +"The dear, good soul is finical as a cat," with the good-natured +indulgence of a mother for a child. Suddenly she stopped, stared at +herself in the glass. "Why, he is my husband!" she said, speaking to +the blushing, blue-robed figure as to another person. Then she hastily +unbuttoned, unlooped the pretty dress, threw it off, putting on her +usual gray wrapper and knotting her hair more tightly back than ever +in a comb. "He has been very good to me--very good to me," her chin +trembling a good deal. + +Then she went down to meet Doctor McCall, who that moment came into +the Book-shop, stopping at the door to take off and shake his oilskin +coat. + +"It is a wet night," she said, just as though he were a stranger. She +did not know what else to say or what he answered as she went about, +trimming the lamp, dragging out a chair for him, closing the window +curtains. Both McCall and Catharine were ordinary people, accustomed +to keep up a good flow of talk on ordinary subjects, the weather +or any joke or gossip that was nearest to them. There had been no +passages of love or hate between them to account for her forced +formality, her trembling and flushing, and urgent almost angry wish +to remind him that she was Mr. Muller's affianced wife. She felt this +with a new contempt for herself. + +As for Doctor McCall, he leaned comfortably back in his arm-chair +and dried his legs at the grate filled with red-hot coals, while he +listened to the soft rustle of her skirts as she moved noiselessly +about him. It is the peculiarity of women like Kitty, to whom Nature +has denied the governing power of ideas or great personal beauty or +magnetism, such as she gave to Miss Muller, that there is a certain +impalpable force and attraction in their most petty actions and words, +to which men yield. Miss Muller could have watched Kitty all day +dragging chairs and trimming lamps, unmoved farther than to pronounce +her little better than an idiot. But Peter, Muller or John McCall +could not look at her for five minutes without classing her with +Cordelia and Desdemona and all the other sweet fools for whom men have +died, and whom the world yet keeps sacred in pathetic memory. Some +day too, when Catharine should be a mother--though giving to her older +children, little more than to the baby on her breast, soft touches and +gentle words--she would bind them to her as no other kind, of mother +could do--by such bonds that until they were gray-haired no power +should be like hers. Miss Muller neither saw nor foresaw such things. +But Doctor McCall did. "If I had had such a mother I should not have +been what I am," he thought. It was a curious fancy to have about a +young girl. But she seemed to embody all the womanliness that had been +lacking in his life. Of course she was nothing to him. She was to be +that prig Muller's wife, and he was quite satisfied that she should +be. If he married, Maria Muller would be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, +he felt to-night, for the first time, the necessity that Maria should +know how marriage was barred out from him, and felt, for the first +time, too, a maddening anger that it was so barred. However, Doctor +McCall was never meant by Nature for a solitary man housed alone with +morbid thoughts: he was the stuff out of which useful citizens are +made--John Andersons of husbands, doting, gullible fathers. + +Remembering the bar in his life, his skeleton, ghost or whatever it +was, he was only moved to get up and stretch himself, saying, "I've +stayed in Berrytown too long. When you have told me your plan, I'll +say good-bye to you, Miss Vogdes, and this old house. I shall be off +to-morrow." + +Kitty had just caught a moth in the flame of the candle. She carried +it to the window. "You will come back soon, of course?" her back still +toward him. + +"No, I think not. I am neglecting my business. And I, of all men in +the world, have least right to loiter about this old house, to look in +on its home-life or on you." + +Kitty gave him a sharp glance, as though some sudden emergency was +clear before her which her tact failed to meet. She was folding the +bits of muslin at which she had been sewing in a basket: she finished +slowly, put the basket away, and sat down at the table, with her elbow +on it and her chin on her hand, her gray eyes suggesting a deeper and +unspoken meaning to her words: "But for my plan?" + +"Ah! to be sure! You want advice?" seating himself comfortably. Her +confusion was a pretty thing to watch, the red creeping up her neck +into her face, blotting out its delicate tints, the uncertain glances, +the full bitten lip. Doctor McCall quite forgot his own trouble in the +keen pleasure of the sight. + +"Perhaps--You do not quite understand my position here? Mr. Guinness +is not my own father." + +"No, I knew that." + +"But you cannot know what he has been to me: _I_ never knew until the +last few days." + +"Why within these few days, Miss Vogdes?" + +"Because I saw you and Maria: I saw what love was. I began to think +about it. I never have loved anybody but him," she went on headlong, +utterly blind to all inferences. "There's a thing I can do for him, +Doctor McCall, before I marry Mr. Muller, and I must do it. It will +make his old age happier than any other part of his life has been." + +McCall nodded, leaning forward. It was nothing but an imprudent girl +dragging out her secrets before a stranger; nothing but a heated face, +wet eyes, a sweet milky breath; but no tragedy he had ever seen on the +stage had moved him so uncontrollably--no, not any crisis in his own +life--with such delicious, inexplicable emotion. + +"Well, what is it you can do?" after waiting for her to go on. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"My father," said Kitty, "had once a great trouble. It has made an old +man of him before his time. I find that I can take it from him." +She looked up at him with this. Now, there was a certain shrewd +penetration under the softness of Kitty's eyes. Noting it, McCall +instantly lost sight of her beauty and tears. He returned her look +coolly. + +"What was his trouble?" + +"Mr. Guinness had a son. He has believed him to be dead for years: I +know that he is not dead." + +Doctor McCall waited, with her eyes still upon him. "Well?" he said, +attentive. + +"And then," pushing back the table and rising, "when I heard that, I +meant to go and find Hugh Guinness, and bring him back to his father." + +Whatever this matter might be to her hearer, it was the most real +thing in life to Catharine, and putting it into words gave it a sudden +new force. She felt that she ought to hold her tongue, but she could +not. She only knew that the lighted room, the beating of the rain +without, the watchful guarded face on the other side of the table, +shook and frightened and angered her unaccountably. + +"You should not laugh at me," she said. "This is the first work I ever +set myself to do. It is better than nursing three hundred children." + +"I am not laughing at you, God knows! But this Guinness, if he be +alive, remains away voluntarily. There must be a reason for that. You +do not consider." + +"I do not care to consider. Is the man a log or a stone? If I found +him," crossing the room in her heat until she stood beside him--"if +I brought him to the old house and to his father? Why, look at this!" +dragging open the drawer and taking out the broken gun and rod. "See +what he has kept for years--all that was left him of his boy! Look, +at that single hair! If Hugh Guinness stood where you do, and touched +these things as you are touching them, could he turn his back on the +old man?" + +Now, Doctor McCall did not touch gun nor cap nor hair, but he bent +over the table, looking at them as if he were looking at the dead. He +seemed to have forgotten that Kitty was there. + +At last he stood upright: "Poor little chap!" with a laugh. "There +seemed to be no reason, when he went gunning and fishing like other +boys, why he should not stand here to-day with as fair a chance for +happiness as any other man. Did there? Just a trifling block laid in +his way, a push down hill, and no force could ever drag him up again." + +Kitty, her eyes on his, stood silent. Do what he would, he could not +shake off her eyes: they wrenched the truth from him, "I knew this man +Guinness once," he said. + +She nodded: "Yes, I know you did." + +"Sit down beside me here, and I will tell you what kind of man he +was." + +But she did not sit down. An unaccountable terror or timidity seemed +to have paralyzed her. She looked aside--everywhere but in his face: +"I wanted you to tell me how to reach him, how to touch him: I know +what manner of man he is." + +"You have heard from your mother? A mixed Border Pike and +Mephistopheles, eh? The devil and his victim rolled into one?" He +shifted his heavy body uneasily, glancing toward the door. Chief +among the graver secret emotions which she had roused in him was +the momentary annoyance of not knowing how to deal with this +chicken-hearted little girl before him, scared, but on fire from head +to foot. + +Kitty was quite confident. If it had been Maria Muller who had thus +set herself to tamper with a man's life, she would have done it +trembling, with fear and self-distrust. She had brains which could +feel and react against the passions she evoked, and were competent to +warn her of the peril of her work. But as for Kitty-- + +Here was Hugh Guinness before her, a Cain with the curse of God +upon him. It was clearly her business to bring him back again to his +father, and afterward convert him into a member of the church, if +possible. She went about the work with as little doubt as if it had +been the making of a pudding. + +But she was shy, tender, womanly withal. Doctor McCall laughed as +he looked down at her, and spoke deliberately, as though giving his +opinion of a patient to another physician. "I'll tell you honestly my +opinion of Hugh Guinness. He was, first of all, a thoroughly ordinary, +commonplace man, with neither great virtues nor great vices, nor force +of any kind. If he had had that, he could have recovered himself when +he began to fall. But he did not recover himself." + +"What drove him down in the first place?" + +He hesitated: "I suppose that his home and religion became hateful to +him. Boys have unreasonable prejudices at times." + +"And then, in despair--" + +"Despair? Nonsense! Now don't figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of +a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's gate was shut on him. +At nineteen Hugh Guinness drank and fought and gambled, as +other ill-managed boys do to work off the rank fever of blood. +Unfortunately--" he stopped, and then added in a lower voice, +quickly, "he made a mistake while the fever was on him which was +irretrievable." + +"A mistake?" Kitty was always of an inquiring turn of mind, but now +she felt as if her curiosity was more than she could bear, while she +stood, her eyes passing over the burly figure in summer clothes and +the high-featured, pleasant face with its close-cut moustache. What +dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, every-day propriety +of linen duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache over a mouth that +often smiled? You might meet their like any day upon the streets. Was +it a murder? At best some crime, perhaps, which had sent him to +the penitentiary. Or--and church taught Kitty shuddered as a vague +remembrance of the "unpardonable sin" rose before her like an actual +horror. Whatever it was, it stood between herself and him, keeping +them apart for ever. + +"Irretrievable?" she said. It was only curiosity, she knew, but her +voice sounded oddly far off to herself, the room was hazy, her whole +body seemed to shrink together. + +"What can it matter to you? You belong to another man, Miss Vogdes." +She lifted herself erect. Doctor McCall was speaking more loudly than +usual and looking keenly into her face. + +"I know: I shall be Mr. Muller's wife. Of course, I recollect. But +you--this Hugh Guinness is my father's son," stammered Kitty, her face +very white. "I had some interest in him." + +"Yes, that's true. He is, as you say, in some sort a brother of +yours." He took her hand for the first time, looking down at her face +with some meaning in his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, +though the thoughts in Kitty's shallow brain were clear enough to him. +"You are tired of standing," seating her gently in Peter's chair. A +thick lock of hair had fallen over her face: he put out his hand +to remove it, but drew back quickly. "We have talked too long, Miss +Vogdes," in a brisk, cheerful tone. "Some other time, perhaps, we can +return to this question of Hugh Guinness. That is," with a certain +significance of manner, "if it be one in which Mr. Muller wishes you +to take an interest." Nodding good-humoredly to her, he buttoned on +his oilskin cape and went out into the rain without another word. He +pulled off his cap outside to let the rain and wind reach his head, +drawing a long breath as if to get rid of some foul air and heat. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Of all that wet August the next morning was the freshest and +cheerfulest. Doctor McCall had packed his valise, carried it to the +station, and was now walking up the street, his hands clasped behind +him and his head down, after the leisurely fashion of Delaware and +Jersey farmers. People nodded an approving good-morning to him. +Busy Berrytown had passed verdict on him as a man who was idle for a +purpose, who permitted his brain to lie fallow, and who "loafed +and invited his soul" during these two weeks for the best spiritual +hygienic reasons. + +"Too much brain-work, my friend Doctor Maria Muller tells me," said +the lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at the station as McCall passed +them. "Is here for repose." + +"Advanced?" said little Herr Bluhm, the phrenologist. + +"Well, no. But Doctor Maria thinks his mind is open to conviction, +and that he would prove a strong worker should he remain here. She +has already begun to enlighten him on our newest theories as to a +Spontaneous Creation and a Consolidated Republic." + +"Should think his properer study would be potatoes. Smells of the +barn-yard in his talk," rejoined one of the party. + +"Doctor Maria's a fool!" snapped Bluhm. "She has read the index to +Bastian's book, and denies her Creator, and gabbles of Bacteria, +boiled and unboiled, ever since." + +Doctor McCall meanwhile went down the cinder-path, to all passers-by +a clean-shaven, healthy gentleman out in search of an appetite for +breakfast. But in reality he was deciding his whole life in that brief +walk. Why, he asked himself once or twice, should he be unlike the +other clean-shaven, healthy men that he met? God knows he had no +relish for mystery. He was, as he had told Kitty, a commonplace man, a +thrifty Delaware farmer, in hearty good-fellowship with his neighbors, +his cattle, the ground he tilled, and, he thought reverently, with +the God who had made him and them. He had made a mistake in his early +youth, but it was a mistake which every tenth man makes--which had no +doubt driven half these men and women about him into their visionary +creeds and hard work--that of an unhappy marriage. It was many years +since he had heard of his wife: she had grown tired of warning him of +the new paths of shame and crime she had found for herself. In fact, +the year in which they had lived together was now so long past as to +seem like a miserable half-forgotten dream. + +Irretrievable? Yes, it was irretrievable. There was, first of all, +the stupid, boyish error of a change of name. If he came back as this +child wished, all the annoyance which that entailed would follow him, +and the humiliating circumstances which had led to it would be brought +to life from their unclean graves. His father believed him dead. +Better the quiet, softened grief which that had left than the disgrace +which would follow his return. "I should have to tell him my wife's +story," muttered McCall. But he did not turn pale nor break into a +cold sweat at the remembrance, as Miss Muller's hero should have done. +This was an old sore--serious enough, but one which he meant to make +the best of, according to his habit. He had been a fool, he thought, +to come back and hang about the old place for the pleasure of hearing +his father talked of, and of touching the things he had handled a day +or two before. Growing into middle age, Hugh Guinness's likeness to +his father had increased year by year. The two men were simple as boys +in some respects, and would have been satisfied alone together. The +younger man halted now on the foot-bridge which crossed the creek, +looking out the different hollows where his father had taken him to +fish when he was a boy, and thinking of their life then. "But his wife +and mine would have to be put into the scales now," with an attempt at +whistling which died out discordantly. + +There was one person to whom the shameful confession of his marriage +must be made--Miss Muller. That was the result, he thought, of his +absurd whim of loitering about Berry town. When he had met Maria +Muller before, he had no reason to think she cared a doit whether he +was married or single. Now--McCall's color changed, alone as he was, +with shame and annoyance. With all his experience of life and of +women, he had as little self-confidence as an awkward girl. But Maria +had left him no room for doubt. + +"It would be the right thing to do. I ought to tell her. But it will +be a slight matter to her, no doubt." + +If he had been a single man, in all probability he would have asked +Maria Muller to marry him that day. He was a susceptible fellow, with +a man's ordinary vanity and passions; and Maria's bright sweet face, +their loiterings along shady lanes and under Bourbon roses, the +perpetual deference she paid to his stupendous intellect, had had due +effect. He was not the man to see a strong, beautiful woman turn pale +and tremble at his touch, and preserve his phlegm. + +He threw away his cigar, and jumped the fence into the Water-cure +grounds. "I'll tell her now, and then be off from old Berry town for +ever." + +Miss Muller was standing in the porch. She leaned over the railing, +looking at the ragged rain-clouds driven swiftly over the blue +distance, and at the wet cornfields and clumps of bay bushes gray with +berries which filled the damp air with their pungent smell. Her dog, +a little black-and-tan terrier, bit at her skirt. She had just been +lecturing to her three students on the vertebrae, and when she +took him up could not help fumbling over his bones, even while she +perceived the color and scent of the morning. They gave her so keen a +pleasure that the tears rushed to her eyes, and she stopped punching +Hero's back. + +"'The rain is over and gone,'" she recited softly to herself, "'the +vines with the tender grape give a good smell, and the time of the +singing of birds has come.' There is no poetry like that old Hebrew +love-song. If only it had not been hackneyed by being turned into a +theological allegory! Ha, doggy, doggy! There comes a friend of ours!" +suddenly laughing and hugging him as she caught sight of a large man +coming up the road with a swinging gait and loose white overcoat. She +broke off a rose and put it in her breast, tied on her hat and hurried +down to meet him, the Song of Solomon still keeping time with her +thoughts in a lofty cadence: "'Who is this that cometh up from the +wilderness leaning upon his beloved? Set me as a seal upon thine +heart, as a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death.'" + +"What's that, Maria? I heard you intoning as I came up the hill?" Her +eyes were soft and luminous and her voice unsteady. I am afraid Doctor +McCall's eyes were warmer in their admiration than they should +have been under the circumstances. Why should she not tell him? She +repeated it. She had been chattering for two hours on cervical, dorsal +and lumbar vertebrae, without stopping to take breath. But she grew +red now and broke down miserably. + +"'Love is strong as death,' eh?" said McCall, awkwardly holding the +gate open for her. "Friendship ought to be tough enough to bear a +pretty stout strain, then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. For I +think a man and woman can be friends without--without--Well, what do +you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden imbecility in all his big body. + +The little woman beside him looked up scared and ready to cry: "I +don't know, John, I'm sure. Do be quiet, Hero!" Then like a flash she +saw that he meant to ask her to marry him: he meant to place love upon +the higher basis of friendship. Maria was used to people who found new +names for old things. Why! why! what folly was this, as she grew cold +and hot by turns? So often she had pictured his coming to claim her, +and how she would go out as one calm controlling soul should to meet +another, to be dual yet united through all eternity; and here she was +shivering and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! Love-making and +marriage were at a discount with the Advanced Club of which she was a +member, and classed with dancing, fashionable dressing and other such +paltry feminine frivolities. But Maria had meant to show them that a +woman could really love and marry, and preserve her own dignity. She +tried to find her footing now. + +"Come into the summer-house, John. I should think our friendship would +bear any strain, for it does not depend on external ties." + +"No, that's true. Now, as to your phalansteries and women's clubs and +sitz-baths, why that's all flummery to me. But young women must have +their whims until they have husbands to occupy their minds, I suppose. +There's that little girl at the Book-shop: how many leagues of tatting +do you suppose she makes in a year?" + +"I really cannot say," sharply. + +"But as to our friendship, Maria--" + +"Yes. There may be a lack of external bonds" (speaking deliberately, +for she wanted to remember this crisis of her life as accurate in all +its minutiae); "but there is a primal unity, a mysterious sympathy, in +power and emotion. At least, so it seems to me," suddenly stammering +and picking up Hero to avoid looking at McCall, who stood in front of +her. + +"I don't know. Primal unities are rather hazy to me. I can tell by a +woman's eye and hand-shake if she is pure-minded and sweet-tempered, +and pretty well, too, what she thinks of me. That's about as far as I +go." + +"It pleases you to wear this mask of dullness, I know," with an +indulgent smile, with which Titania might have fondled the ass's head. + +"But as to our friendship," gravely, "I feel I've hardly been fair +to you. Friendship demands candor, and there is one matter on which I +have not dealt plainly with you. You have been an honest, firm friend +to me, Maria. I had no right to withhold my confidence from you." + +If Miss Muller had not been known as an advanced philosopher, basing +her life upon the Central Truths, she would have gained some credit +as a shrewd woman of business. "What do you mean, John?" she said, +turning a cool I steady countenance toward him. + +"Sit down and I will tell you what I mean." + + * * * * * + +The patients, taking soon after their two hours' exercise, made their +jokes on the battle between the two systems, seeing the allopathist +McCall and Doctor Maria Haynes Muller in the summer-house engaged in +such long and earnest converse. Homoeopathy, they guessed, had the +worst of it, for the lady was visibly agitated and McCall apparently +unmoved. Indeed, when he left her and crossed the garden, nodding to +such of them as he knew, he had a satisfied, relieved face. + +Maria went immediately in to visit her ward as usual. The patients +observed that she was milder than was her wont, and deadly pale. +One of them, addressing her as "Miss Muller," however, was sharply +rebuked: "I earned my right to the title of physician too hardly to +give it up for that which belongs to every simpering school-girl," she +said. "Besides," with a queer pitiful smile, "the sooner we doctors +sink the fact that we are women the better for the cause--and for us." + +She met her brother in the course of the morning, and drew him into +the consulting-room. + +"William," she said, fumbling with the buttons of his coat, "he is +going: he is going to take the afternoon train." + +"Who? That fellow McCall?" + +"Why do you speak so of him, William? He has just told me his story. +He is so wretched! he has been used so hardly!" She could scarcely +keep back the tears. In her new weakness and weariness it was such +comfort to talk to and hang upon this fat, stupid little brother, whom +usually she despised. + +"Wretched, eh? He don't look it, then. As stout and easy-going a +fellow as I know. Come, come, Maria! The man has been imposing some +story on you to work on your sensibilities. I never fancied him, as +you know. He doesn't want to borrow money, eh?" with sudden alarm. + +"Money? No." + +"What is it, then? Don't look at me in that dazed way. You, are going +to have one of your attacks. I do wish you had Kitty's constitution +and some sense." + +"William," rousing herself, "he is going. He will never come back to +Berrytown or to me. Our whole lives depend on my seeing him once more. +Ask him to wait for a day--an hour." + +"If he doesn't take the noon express, he can't go in an hour. You +certainly know that, Maria. Well, if I have to find him, I'd better go +at once," buttoning his coat irritably. "I never did like the fellow." + +"Beg him to stay. Tell him that I have thought of a way of escape," +following him, catching him by his sleeve, her small face absolutely +without color and her eyes glittering. + +"Yes, I'm going. But I must find my overshoes first. It begins to look +like rain." + +Miss Muller watched him to the door, and then crossed the hall to her +own room, locking the door behind her. The square table was piled with +medical books. She sat down and dropped her head on her arms. Over +went a bound volume of the _Lancet_ and a folio on diseases of the +kidneys to the floor. She looked down at them. "And I was willing to +give him up for that--that trash!" sobbing and rubbing her arms like +a beaten child. But she had so strong a habit of talking that even in +this pain the words would come: "I loved him so. He would have married +me! And I must be kept from him by a law of society! It is--it is," +rising and wrenching her hands together, "a damnable law!" + +For Miss Muller had taught herself to think and talk like a man. + +REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +BOWERY ENGLAND. + + +A party of four Americans in London--Mr. Hill Bunker of Boston, Mrs. +Bunker, his wife, Miss Amy Abell of New York, and myself--we find +ourselves growing weary of that noisy town. We talk of a trip to the +country. It is the merry month of May. + +"Just the time for 'bowery England, as Bulwer phrases it," says Amy. +"Let us go to Romsey and see the Boyces." + +Carried unanimously. We take the train from the Waterloo Station +two hours later. When we get down at Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the +attentive porter--carries our luggage, calls the fly and touches +his hat thankfully for three-pence. The Romsey fly is a lumbering, +two-seated carriage, rather more pretentious than a London cab, but +far behind the glossy gorgeousness of a New York hackney-coach. + +A short drive brings us to the White Horse Inn, under whose covered +arch we roll, and are met at the door by a maid. She conducts us to +a stuffy coffee-room up a flight of crumbling old stairs, and meekly +desires to know our will. + +"Send the landlord, please." + +The landlord comes, bowing low, and we make inquiries concerning the +distance to Paultons, the estate where the Boyces have been spending +the summer, and where we venture to hope they still are. He says it +is a matter of four miles, and that we can have a fly over for six +shillings. We order the fly to be got ready at once, and inquire if we +can have dinner now, it being late in the afternoon. + +"Yes, sir," he replies. "Would you like some chicken and +sparrowgrass?" + +"How long will they be in cooking?" + +"Matter of arf an hour, sir." + +As this means a matter of an hour, I ask if he can't get us up +something in a shorter time. He suggests that chops can be cooked +sooner. + +"Chops be it, then. In the words of the immortal Pickwick, chops and +tomato sauce." + +"No tomarter sauce, sir," with profound gravity. + +"Sparrowgrass, then--chops and sparrowgrass." + +He retires, and we all rush to the windows and look out upon the +quaint old village--a curious, old-fashioned scene. We feel as if +we had somehow become transmogrified, and instead of being +flesh-and-blood men and women from practical New York, were playing +our parts in some old English novel. Odd little tumble-down houses, +with peaked roofs and mullioned windows, ranged about a triangular +common, look sleepily out upon a statue of Palmerston in the middle of +the open place, the gray walls of Romsey Abbey, a thousand years old, +against the blue sky behind them. + +About six o'clock our fly is at the door, and we are off, rattling +through the ancient streets into the smooth open country. Oh the +quaint, delightful old hedge-lined road, deep down below the level +of the fields on either side--a green lane shut in with fragrance and +delicious quiet! The hedges, perched upon the bank, tower high above +our heads, and there is no break in them save at rustic gates. We meet +characters on the road who have just stepped out of Trollope's novels. +A young man and girl stand on a bridge across which we trundle, +leaning companionably on the old stone parapet, and looking up the +little river through a long avenue of trees to the pillared mansion of +"Broadlands." A laborer, with a gay flower stuck in the buttonhole +of his smock-frock, goes whistling along the brown road under the +hedgerows. A country gentleman, driving alone in a basket phaeton, +looks inquisitively at our half-closed windows as if expecting the +sight of an acquaintance. Crumbling milestones stand by the wayside, +with deep-cut letters so smoothed by the hand of time that we cannot +read them as we pass. Flowers grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is +lolling on the green grass in front of a cottage door--an uncombed +English hind, with a face of rustic simplicity and stolid ignorance. + +At last we come to a gate which bars the road. The driver gets down +and opens it, and when we have passed through in the fly he tells us +we are now on Mr. Stanley's broad estate of Paultons. The driver wears +corduroy trousers, and touches his hat every time we speak to him and +every time he answers. He does not merely touch it when he is first +addressed, but he touches it continually throughout the conversation. +Bunker considers his conduct extremely touching. + +We are presently driving through a bosky wood, and the driver touches +his hat to remark that we are nearly there now, he thinks. + +"But where is the bad road the landlord spoke of?" + +"Bad road, sir?" touching hat. + +"Yes: the landlord said we could not drive fast because the road was +bad. Where is it bad?" + +"All along back of 'ere, sir," touching hat. "We have pahst the worst +of it naow, sir: the rest is not so 'illy, sir," touching hat. + +"Hilly? We haven't passed over anything bigger than a knoll. If this +is what the landlord meant by a hilly road, it _is_ a rich joke. Why, +it's as smooth as a floor, almost." + +"He should go to California," says Amy, who has feeling reminiscences. +"He should go to the Yosemite Valley, over the road which runs through +Chinese Camp and Hodgden's. Probably the man never saw a rough road in +his life. I doubt if there is such a thing in England." + +After half an hour's trundling along the unfenced roads of this fine +old estate, crossing ancient stone bridges, rolling through leafy +groves, startling fat cattle from their browsing, getting a hat-touch +from a shepherd who is leading his flocks across the fields in true +pastoral style, we reach the manor-house, standing stately amid dells +and dingles, pollards of fantastic growth and patches of fern and +gorse. The Boyces have returned to Paris, but nurse and the children +are still at the gardener's house, and thither we drive along the +banks of a sylvan lake, beyond which the rooks are cawing about the +chimneys. + +The old gardener is nurse's father, and though he is now so old that +he no longer does any work, he is maintained in comfort by the family +in whose service he has spent a lifetime. Forty years of honest +service in one family! No wonder he feels that his destiny is for ever +linked with that of the people who have been his masters, man and boy, +for forty years. He has a delightful little cottage with thatched roof +and mullioned windows, and pretty vines rioting all over it, and in +front of it a flower-garden full of early bloom. The lilacs which +grow about so profusely are not of the color of our lilacs in America, +being of a rich purple; we should not know they were lilacs but for +the familiar odor. + +A delicious ride back to Romsey in the twilight, carrying two of the +Boyce children with us. In the evening I stroll out alone, to look at +the village in the moonlight. The streets are like narrow lanes. The +houses are very old, and for the most part dilapidated, but streets +and houses are all as clean and neat as wax. Presently I come upon +the old abbey, its rugged walls and towers looming solemnly in the +moonlight, and pass the parson's house near by, all overrun with +vines, thinking of Trollope again and Framley parsonage. + +Before going back to the White Horse Inn I wander round the village +until I find that I am lost. The discovery is not very alarming in a +place so small as this, even at night. I resolve to turn every corner +to the left, and see what will come of it. I presently find that +getting out into the country comes of it; and having crossed a bridge +and come upon a silent brickyard, and seen the long road winding +away into the open country, I am reminded of Oliver Twist--or was +it Pip?--running away from home and trudging off under the stars to +London. Somehow, it seems this road must lead to London. + +Turning about, but still walking at random and turning left-hand +corners, I presently see the abbey tower again, and make for it. The +street through which I pass is apparently the home of the British +working man. A light burning in any house is most rare. Occasionally a +man can be seen through the odd little windows, smoking a pipe by the +blaze of the fire on the hearth. Here are the abbey windows, and now +I know where I am. Down this narrow, winding street, across the open +place where Lord Palmerston stands stonily in the moonlight, and I am +at the White Horse Inn again. + +At nine o'clock next morning there is a rap at the door of my room. +The door being opened a man-servant is discovered, who touches his +forehead (having no hat to touch) and says, "The ladies would like to +'ave you breakfast with them, sir." + +He is so very respectful in his manner of saying this that he is +inaudible, and being asked what he said, repeats the touching his +forehead and then repeats his words. + +There are no muffins at breakfast--a fact which I record merely +because this is the first time since we have been in England that this +peculiarly English dish has been omitted at breakfast. It appears on +inquiry that muffins are a luxury of large towns. In villages they +are rarely obtainable at less than about a week's notice. In fact, you +can't get anything to eat, of any sort, without pretty liberal notice. + +After breakfast we go to see the old abbey. It is an imposing and +well-preserved pile. It was founded by Ethelwold, a thane--one of +those righting, praying, thieving old rascals who lived in the tenth +century, and made things lively for any one who went past their houses +with money on his person. When Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large +sum one day, he founded the monastery and stocked it with nuns. It +was but a wooden shanty at first, but after having served till it was +worm-eaten and rotting with age, it was torn down and a fine stone +convent was built. + +We walk about in that part of the abbey which is free from pews--by +far the larger part--and stare at the monumental stones let into the +floor and walls. If we did not know that Romsey had been the home +of Palmerston, we should learn it now, for these stones are thickly +covered with the legends of virtue in his family--wives, sisters, sons +and so forth, whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." After perusing +these numerous testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues of an +aristocracy whom we are permitted to survive, and after dropping some +shillings in the charity-box, which rather startle us by the noise +they make, we pass out of the cool abbey into the hot churchyard, and +read on a lonely stone which stands in a corner by the gate that +here lies the dust of Mary Ann Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful +servant to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no doubt had other virtues, but +they are not recorded: this is sufficient for a servant. + +An hour's ride on the velvet cushions of a railway carriage brings us, +with our Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to Southampton, which was +an old town when King Canute was young. We take rooms at a pretentious +marble hotel with a mansard roof, attached to the station--a railroad +hotel, in fact, but strikingly unlike that institution as we know it +in America. Wide halls, solid stone staircases, gorgeous coffee-room, +black-coated waiters, and the inevitable buxom landlady with a +regiment of blooming daughters for assistants--one presiding over the +accounts, another officiating at the beer-pumps, a third to answer +questions, and all very much under the influence of their back hair +and other charms of person. One of them alleviates the monotony of the +office duties by working at embroidery in bright worsteds. + +Strolling out, Bunker and I consult certain shabby worthies who are +yawning on the boxes of a long line of wretched hacks drawn up by the +sidewalk across the street, and find that we can charter a vehicle for +two shillings an hour. These cabbies have more nearly the air of our +own noble hackmen than any we have seen in England. Americans are no +novelty to them, for ship-loads of American tourists are put off here +at frequent intervals, and the cabbies have a thin imitation of +the voting hackman's independence. They stop short, however, of his +impudence. They are lazy, but they touch their hats occasionally. + +We choose two of the tumble-down vehicles and go after the ladies. My +driver is an elderly man with a hat which has seen better days, and +I have chosen his hack, not because it is less likely to drop off +its wheels than the others, but because he himself looks like a seedy +Bohemian. He proves to be a very intelligent fellow, with a ready turn +for description which serves him in good stead whenever his horse gets +tired of walking and stops short. At such times our Bohemian pretends +that he has stopped the horse himself in order to point out and +comment upon some curious thing in the immediate vicinity. + +It is pleasant driving. The hack is open, and we hoist sun-umbrellas +and look about comfortably. Presently the weary horse stops in the +middle of the street. + +"'Ere you are, sir," says Cabby briskly, turning half round on his box +and pointing to an old stone structure which stretches quite across +the High street. "This 'ere is the old Bar Gate, sir, one of the +hancient gates of the town. Part of the horiginal town wall. Was a +large ditch 'ere, sir, and another there, and a stone bridge betwixt +the two, and the young bucks in them days did use to practice harchery +right 'ere where you see the lamp-post. The Guild'all is _hin_ the +gate, sir, right hinside it, with a passage hup. I'll drive through +the harch, sir, and you'll see the hother side. Cluck!" (to the +horse). + +On the other side, the horse not taking a notion to stop again, the +driver is not forced to resume his remarks. Turning about as we pass +on, we look up at the old Norman gate-tower, with its handsome archway +and projecting buttresses, and Amy says she fancies she sees a knight +in armor looking out through the narrow crevice which may have been a +window in olden times. This, being an altogether proper fancy for the +place, is received with applause. + +The next time the horse concludes to stop we are in the midst of what +is here called the Common--in fact, a magnificent old forest park, +with a smooth road running through it, and numberless winding paths in +among the bosky depths. I fancy Central Park might come to look like +this if allowed to go untrimmed and unfussed-over for two or three +hundred years. + +"The Common, sir," says Cabby, turning about, "where King Chawles did +use to 'unt wild boars. Fav'rite walk of Halexander Pope, sir, the +poet, and Doctor Watts, which wrote the 'ymn-book. Cluck!" + +From the top of a high hill a splendid wide landscape is seen, with +Romsey in the distance, and (the horse having stopped again) Cabby +points out Queen Elizabeth's shooting-box across the fields. In a lot +close by cricketers are at play, and a little farther on, where there +is a vine-covered beerhouse, a crowd of clod-hoppers are gathered in +a green field, looking at two of their number engaged in a +rough-and-tumble fight in their shirt-sleeves. + +The road after this running down hill, the horse continues to jog +along for a considerable distance, stopping at last under a towering +old wall looking out on the sea. + +"Wind Whistle Tower, sir," says Cabby, pointing up at a square tower +projecting from the old wall overhead, and above it the remains of +an old round tower thickly overrun with ivy. And, using his fingers +industriously, Cabby proceeds to call off the names of various castles +and towers here visible--notably, Prince Edward's Tower, bold and +round, from whose summit three men were looking down. + +"What are those?" asks Bunker in the carriage behind us, pointing to +the old brass guns which sit on the wall like Humpty Dumpty. + +"Them, sir," says Cabby, "was put there by 'Enry the Heighth, and this +'ere wall was the purtection of the town when the Frenchmen hassaulted +it." + +"Ho!" says Bunker, contemptuously. "Just fancy one of our ironclads +paying any attention to the barking of those popguns!" + +Whereupon the horse starts again, and we go lazily on, Cabby dropping +in a word of enlightenment here and there to the effect that this old +tumble-down part of the ancient wall is the celebrated Arcade, which +formed part of the wall of the King's Palace; and this queer old lane +running up through the walls like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that is +Bugle street, where in olden times the warden blew; and here are the +remains of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and circular arches +and curious mouldings. + +Discharging the cab in the High street, we walk about. In a shop where +we pause for a moment there is a quartette of half-naked barbarians, +such as, with all our boasted varieties of humanity, were never yet +seen in New York. We have abundant Chinese and Japanese there, and +occasionally an Arab or a Turk, and the word African means with us a +man and a brother behind our chair at dinner or wielding a razor in +a barber-shop. These men here are pure barbarians, just landed from a +vessel direct from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and their heads shaved +in regular ridges of black wool, with narrow patches of black scalp +between, they are here in a small tradesman's shop in bowery England +buying shirts. They know not a word of English, but chatter among +themselves the most horrible lingo known to the Hamitic group of +tongues. They grimace in a frightful manner, and skip and dance, and +writhe their half-naked bodies into the most exaggerated contortions +known to the language of signs. The dignified English salesmen are +at their wits' end how to treat them. The instinct of the British +shopkeeper fights desperately with his disposition to be shocked. From +the Ashantee gentlemen's gestures it can only be concluded that white +shirts are wanted, but when white shirts are shown the negroes make +furious objection to the plaited bosoms. They want shirts such as are +fashionable at home. It is easy to be seen that they are Dandy Jims +in Africa. They are all young, and, in a sense, spruce. One of them +carries a little switch cane, evidently just bought: while he examines +the shirts, testing the strength of the stuff by pulling it with his +two hands, he holds his cane between his bare legs for safe-keeping. + +Sitting in the billiard-room of the hotel in the evening smoking our +cigars, Bunker and I are accosted by a brisk little man, who asks us +if we play billiards. Bunker doesn't. I do sometimes at home, but not +the English game. + +"Oh, we play the 'Merican game too. 'Appy to play the 'Merican game +with you, sir." + +"Try him a game," says Bunker. "It won't hurt you." + +Not liking to refuse an invitation from a polite Englishman, who +appears to be a stranger here, I consent. This is billiard-room +etiquette the world over. + +The cue is like a whip-stock. It positively runs down to a point not +bigger than a shirt-button, and it bends like a switch. The balls are +not much larger than marbles. To make up for this, the table is big +enough for a back yard, broad, high, dull of cushion, and with six +huge pockets. I am ignominiously beaten. My ball jumps like a living +thing. It hops off the table upon the floor at almost every shot, and +when it does not go on the floor it goes into one of the six yawning +pockets. The pockets bear the same relative proportion to the balls +that a tea-cup bears to a French pea. At the end of the game my ball +has been everywhere except where I intended it to go, and I have +"scratched" thirty. + +"A hundred's the game," says the Englishman, putting up his cue. "One +shilling." + +I wonder if this is an English custom--to pay your victor a shilling, +instead of paying the keeper of the tables. But as there is no one +else to pay, I pay the Englishman. Bunker has fallen asleep in his +chair. + +"Going on the Continent?" the Englishman asks. + +"Not at present. We return to London first, and go from there." + +"'Ave you got a guide?" + +I am on the point of saying that guides are a nuisance I do not +tolerate, when the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. "There is +my card, sir," he says. "A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." On the +opposite side I read-- + + SPEAKS SPRICHT PARLE PARLA + French, Französich, Frangais, Francese, + German, Deutsch, Allemand, Tedesco, + Italian and Italienisch u. Italien et Italiano ed + English Englisch Anglais Inglese + fluently sehr geläufig. courrament. correntemente. + +At present he has charge of this billiard-room, but he is ready to +follow me to the ends of the earth for a period of not less than three +months. I tell him I can get on without a guide. + +"But I would go on the most reasonable terms. I would go for as low as +ten pounds a month and my expenses." + +"Would you go for nothing?" Bunker wakes up and pops this out at him +so suddenly as to quite take his breath away. + +He expands his hands at his trousers pockets, shrugs his shoulders and +looks volumes of reproach. + +"Because," Bunker adds, in a soothing tone, "I shouldn't like to have +you along, even at that price." + +He immediately goes to putting the room to rights. + +"Horrible breath that man had," says Bunker when we come out: "did you +notice it?" + +"Yes." + +"Take that breath around with us on the Continent! Why, if he was in +Cologne itself, his breath would be in the majority." + +I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, and next morning I can't find +it anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous head-waiter if he knows of +my umbrella. He states that he does not. After breakfast I look in the +billiard-room. It is not there. I go down to the office, and interrupt +the worsted work there in progress by requesting that a search be made +for my missing umbrella. The young lady whose ear I have gained +kindly condescends to call the porter, and turning me over to that +functionary returns to her worsted. The porter is respectful, but +doubtful. The moment he learns that the lost article is an umbrella +his manner is pervaded with a gentle hopelessness. He, however, +listens forbearingly to my story. + +"And aboot what time was it, sir, when ye went ty bed?" + +"About half-past eleven." + +"Oh, then the night porter ull know of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll +ask him when he gets oop." + +And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, I take a covered cab, because of +my lost umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella to keep off the sun. +Nobody can make an umbrella like an Englishman. I should be sorry +to lose it. I bought it in Regent street only a few days ago, but I +already love it with a passionate affection. + +Through the hot paved streets, over a floating bridge, past the +cliff at the river's mouth, through a shady grove of noble yews +and sycamores, past a picturesque hamlet full of vine-curtained and +straw-thatched cottages, through a forest of oaks and past a willow +copse, and there is the grand old ruin of Netley Abbey lifting its +picturesque and solemn fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops of the +trees which surround and shelter it in its hoary age. + +It is really curious how dramatically effective a grand old ruin is. +The weird sense of being in the presence of olden time comes over us +immediately. We look about us to see the spirit of some cloistered +monk come stealing by with hood and girdle. Here--actually here, +in these nooks all crumbling under Time's gnawing tooth--did old +Cistercian monks kneel with shaved heads and confess their sins, and +their bones have been powdered into dust three hundred years! +Romsey Abbey--within whose well-kept walls we rather yawned over +Palmerstonian eulogiums--is a thousand years old. This abbey is only +six hundred and thirty-two years old. Romsey has been restored, and +modern men go to church there on Sunday decorously. Netley has been +left to go to utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn aisles. Owls +hoot in its moss-clothed chimneys. It is dramatically effective. + +We wander through cloistered courts into the main body of the church. +Yonder stood the pulpit, here gathered the worshipers. The carpet is +green grass. Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers from side to +side of the tall windows, in place of the stained glass once there. +Most of the windows have tumbled to decay, walls and all. The roof is +the sky--naught else. + +We climb up the stone staircase in the turret. All the stone steps are +worn with deep hollows where human feet have trodden up and down for +centuries, and storms have sent rivulets of water pouring through many +a wild night. Some of the steps are worn quite in two and broken away, +which makes the ascent frightening to the ladies. + +Up here ("on the second floor," as Bunker says) the carpet is again +grass, and Bunker and I clamber through a little archway into the +cloister gallery, where the monks used to look down on the service +below when they felt inclined. The ladies look after us, brave +adventurers that we are (only two or three million men have been here +before us, perhaps, since the ruin became a popular success), and +refuse to follow in our rash footsteps. The crumbling wall is full of +owls' nests. Rooks and swallows fly continually in and out of their +holes. We could kick a loose stone down into the chancel if there were +any stones to kick. + +The ladies declare themselves dizzy and afraid, and we help them down +the dark winding turret staircase again, and go into the enclosed +parts of the ruin. Here is where the monks lived. The walls still +stand, and parts of the roof. The windows are thickly ivy-hung and +moss-grown. Here is the room where the monks did whilom dine. For +three hundred years this dining-room was in daily use, and in the spot +where erst the dining-table stood now grows a stalwart tree, whose +branches tower and spread beyond the crumbling walls. Passing strange! + +More strange is the sight in the next room, the chapter-house, where +the abbot held his gravest councils, and where the most honored of the +monks were buried beneath the floor when they died. And since the +roof fell in, after long battling with storms, perhaps a hundred years +after the last monk was buried, one day a seed fell. A tree grew up in +the room. It spread its tall branches high above the piled-up stones, +and shook its brown leaves down, autumn after autumn, for years and +years. It grew slowly old, and at last it died. It fell down in its +death in the room where it had grown, and its once sturdy trunk struck +against the old ruined walls and broke. Its roots were torn out of the +ground by the fall, and stuck up their gnarled fingers in the empty +room. And the grass grew over the roots, weaving a green cloak to hide +their nakedness. The old trunk stretches now across the space in the +room, and leans its old head against the abbey wall. I didn't read +this story in a guide-book. It was told to me by the principal actor, +the tree. + +In the abbot's kitchen we get into the huge hooded fireplace--seven +of us--and there is room for more. We look up the chimney and see +the glossy green ivy leaves overhead, and the blue sky shining beyond +them. We toss a pebble down into the subterranean passage where, they +say, the monks were wont to pass out after provisions during a time +of siege; which must have been somewhat demoralizing to the besiegers, +whoever they were. I stoop to pick up something in the grass of +the kitchen floor, which has a glitter of gold upon it, and my face +flushes with eager anticipation as I seize it. + +"What have you found?" asks Amy. + +"A relic of the monks?" asks Bunker. + +"It's a champagne cork," I am forced to reply. "The truth is, Netley +Abbey is a show, like Niagara Falls and Bunker Hill Monument. Of +course crowds of tourists come here, and of course they pop champagne +and ginger beer, and cut their confounded initials in the venerable +stones." + +"Yes," says Bunker, "I saw 'W.S.' cut in the wall at the top of the +turret stairs. Saves you the trouble, you know." + +"I don't do that sort of thing, thank you." + +Nevertheless, it was curious to see some nobody's name cut at full +length in the stone, with the date underneath--1770. + +When we return to the hotel the night porter reports that he has not +found my umbrella. So I must go off without it. Our train leaves at +ten minutes past five this afternoon, and we shall be in London early +in the evening. It is now four o'clock: we have ordered dinner for +this hour, and so we sit down to our soup. + +"Please give us our dinner without any delay now," I say to the +pompous head-waiter, "for we must take the train at ten minutes past +five." + +The man bows stiffly and retires. We finish the soup, and wait. +When we get tired of waiting we call the head-waiter to us: "Are you +hastening our dinner?" + +"Fish directly, sir," he answers, and walks solemnly away. We begin to +grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the soup, and no fish yet. Bunker +swears he'll blow the head-waiter up in another minute. Just as he is +quite ready for this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! I lay it +open. + +"Why, it's not done!" I cry in consternation. "There, there! Take it +away, and bring the meat." + +With an air of grave offence the man bears it solemnly out. Then we +wait again. And wait. And wait. + +"Good gracious!" cries Bunker, "here's half an hour gone, and we've +had nothing but soup! I really must blow this fellow up." + +"Stop! there it comes." + +Enter the waiter with great dignity, and solemnly deposits before +us--the fish again! + +He has had it recooked. We attack it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for +Goodness' sake bring the rest of the dinner _instantly_, or we must +leave it. + +"And I'm about half starved," growls Bunker. + +More waiting. Five minutes pass. Ten. + +"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries Bunker, jumping up with his +napkin round his neck, and striding over to the head-waiter, where he +stands in a Turveydroppy attitude, leaning against a sideboard with +his arms folded. "Look here!" Bunker ejaculates: "_can_ you be made +to understand that we are in a hurry? Would half a dollar be any +inducement to you to wake up and look around lively? Because we have +got to take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," showing his watch, +"and as the dinner is already paid for, I want to get it before I go." + +"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass with slow indifference, "dinner +directly. John!" to our waiter, who is now placing the meat on the +table, "serve the genl'm'n's dinner _directly_." + +Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown stares at Harlequin after having +cut him in two, in dumb amazement at the fact that Harlequin is not in +the least disturbed by being cut in two. + +"I wonder," he mutters as he returns to the table, "if that +unmitigated wooden image of a dunderhead would pay any attention if I +were to kick him?" + +"No--not if you were to tie a pack of fire-crackers to his coat-tail +and light them. He knows his business too well. The first duty of +an English head-waiter is to be dignified, as it is that of a French +head-waiter to be vigilant and polite." + +"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I don't suppose the man had an idea +of what you meant by 'those cars,' if he even knew what a half dollar +signified." + +"Well, we must be off. Time's up. We shall miss the train. Good-bye, +boys. You can sit still and finish your dinner in peace." + +Good-bye to our friends from Paultons--good-bye. And then we rush out, +and _do_ miss the train. It is five o'clock ten minutes and a quarter. + +English trains go on time--English dinners don't. + +We finally get off at seven o'clock. Just before we leave a waiter +comes up to me and says in a casual manner, "Found your humbreller +yet, sir?" + +"No." + +"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, sir?" + +"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with an ivory handle." + +"W'y, I wouldn't wonder if that was your humbreller in the corner now +in the reading-room, sir." + +I make haste to look. Yes, there it is, my beloved, long-lost +umbrella, quietly leaning against the wall in a dark corner, behind a +pillar, behind a big arm-chair, where nobody ever placed it, I'll take +my oath, but this rascally waiter, who expects to get a shilling for +showing where he hid it. + +"Is _that_ your humbreller, sir?" the waiter says, rubbing his +hands and getting in my way as I walk briskly out, at peril of being +stumbled over by my hurrying feet. I scorn to reply, but I give him +a glance of such withering contempt that I trust it pierced to his +wicked heart, and will remain there, a punishment and a warning, to +the last day of his base life. An English waiter's hide is very thick, +however. He has probably hidden many a gentleman's umbrella since. + +At eleven o'clock we are back in our cozy London lodgings, and at +twelve we are sleeping the sleep of profound fatigue, and dreaming of +ghostly monks wandering among the weird old ruins of Netley. + +WIRT SIKES. + + + + +DAY-DREAM. + + + Here, in the heart of the hills, I lie, + Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky-- + An amethyst and an emerald stone + Hung and hollowed for me alone! + + Is it a dream, or can it be + That there is life apart from me?-- + A larger world than the circling bound + Of light and color that lap me round? + + Drowsily, dully, through my brain, + Like some recurrent, vague refrain, + A world of fancy comes and goes-- + Shadowy pleasures, shadowy woes. + + Spectral toils and troubles seem + Fashioned out of this foolish dream: + Round my charmèd quiet creep + Phantom creatures that laugh and weep. + + Nay, I know they are meaningless, + Visions of utter idleness: + Nothing was, nor ever will be, + Save the hills and the heavens and me. + +KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + + +There is no doubt that had Mr. Gladstone followed his personal +inclinations when his Irish education scheme broke down last March, +he would have retired from office. He is now sixty-four, and it may be +fairly questioned whether there exists a man who for forty-six years +has worked his brain harder. It is no light labor to read for the +highest honors in even one school at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone read +for them in two. He gained "a double first," which meant at that time +a first class both in classics and mathematics. Forthwith he plunged +into political essay-writing, until in 1834 he further added to his +labors by entering the House of Commons as M.P. for Newark. + +Mr. Gladstone's father was, as most people are aware, a Liverpool +merchant of Scotch descent. This gentleman was the architect of his +own fortunes, which arose in no slight degree out of his connection +with the United States. Having been sent to this country by a firm +largely interested in the corn trade, he discharged their business +to their entire satisfaction, whilst at the same time he made very +valuable business connections on his own account, which materially +served him when at a later period he himself embarked in business. +He made a large fortune, but it did not appear at his death to be so +great as it was, because he gave his younger sons the bulk of their +portions during his lifetime--to avoid legacy duty, people said. +To his eldest son he left considerable estates in Scotland--to the +younger sons, about one hundred thousand pounds apiece. The eldest, +Sir Thomas Gladstone, is a very worthy man, but nowise remarkable for +ability. He has one son, and has had six daughters. Four survive, and +all are unmarried. + +The next brother, Robertson, an eccentric person whose indiscreet +speeches must often have made his statesman brother feel very hot, +continues the paternal business at Liverpool. The third, John Neilson, +was, socially speaking, the flower of the flock. He was a captain in +the navy, from which he had retired many years prior to his death in +1863, and a member of Parliament. By his wife, a singularly excellent +and charming woman, he had several children, who may be said to pretty +nearly monopolize the feminine charms of the Gladstone family. One +of these married the earl of Belmore, an Irish nobleman, who lately +returned from a not very successful gubernatorial career in New +South Wales. Both Sir Thomas and Captain Gladstone were decided +Conservatives. + +William Ewart is the fourth brother. "That young brother of mine will +make a noise in the world some of these days," said Captain Gladstone +to a fellow-middy as his brother turned away from bidding him good-bye +just before he was about to start on a cruise; and the words were +certainly prophetic. Mr. Gladstone married when he was thirty. His +wife was one of the two sisters of Sir Stephen Glynne. The English +aristocracy contains a great many sets, and the Glynnes were in the +intellectual set, comprising such men as the dukes of Argyll and +Devonshire, and Lords Derby, Stanhope and Lyttelton. Mrs. Gladstone +and her sister were married on the same day to two of the finest +intellects of their time. The younger, whose mental gifts were far +superior to those of her sister, married Lord Lyttelton. + +Mr. Gladstone has a large family. The eldest son has for some time +been in Parliament, but has established no reputation for notable +capacity, and it is said that, with the exception of one of his +younger brothers, none of the family are remarkable in this respect. +Mrs. Gladstone is a person of great kindness of heart and untiring +benevolence. She is full of schemes for doing good: hospitals, +convalescent institutions, etc. find in her an ever-ready friend, +to the neglect, it is whispered, of her domestic duties. There is an +amusing story told of how some time ago a few guests arrived at her +house in response to an invitation to dinner. They waited in vain for +the rest of the party, for whose delay their hostess was at a loss +to account. At length she turned aside and opened her blotting-book, +which quickly revealed the cause of the guests' non-appearance--the +invitations were lying there. They had been written, but never sent. + +In London the prime minister--who has an indifferent official +residence, which he and his family have occasionally occupied, in +Downing street--lives in Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful +house, but not by any means well adapted for party-giving, for it is +so constructed that circulation is almost impossible. If you once +get into a room, you must stay there; whereas half the charm of +Lady Palmerston's famous parties at Cambridge House was the free +circulation the rooms afforded, enabling you to pass right round a +quadrangle, and thus easily find an acquaintance or get away from a +bore. Mr. Gladstone's house has a fine double staircase, and it will +derive interest in after days from the circumstance that, standing at +the head, Lord Russell took leave of the party he had led, and pointed +to his then host as his successor. + +Carlton-House Terrace is in many respects the most delightful +situation in London, for, whilst extremely central, it is very quiet. +It stands between Pall Mall and St. James's Park. One side faces a +strip of beautifully kept garden, which lies between the terrace and +the row of palaces formed by the Senior United Service, Athenaeum, +Travelers' and Carlton Clubs. The other side has a charming prospect +over St. James's Park. In summer this is really lovely, for all ugly +objects are obscured by the foliage, amid which glimpses are obtained +of the pinnacles and fretted towers of the palace of Parliament on the +one hand, and those of its venerable neighbor, the majestic abbey, +on the other. It was here that Bunsen passed his London days, and the +reader of his memoirs will remember frequent references to the charms +of his house. It may well be imagined how great a boon it is to the +toil-worn minister to find himself, as it were, in a garden, with only +the distant roar, like that of the sea, to remind him as he sits in +his study that five minutes walk across that pleasant park will bring +him to Downing street, and three more to the Treasury bench in the +House of Commons. + +In the country most of his time is spent at Hawarden Castle in +Flintshire, about six hours from London. This is the ancestral seat of +Mrs. Gladstone's brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, lord lieutenant of +the county, whose family have held this property for centuries. Sir +Stephen is a very shy man of retired habits. By a family arrangement +his house is the country abode of his sister and brother-in-law. + +In earlier life, Sir Stephen and his two brothers-in-law, Mr. +Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton, formed an unfortunately favorable +estimate of certain mines, into which much of the fortune of Sir +Stephen and his sisters went, and from which it never came out again. +There was one other brother, the late rector of Hawarden. He died +about a year ago, and Mr. Gladstone's second son, Stephen, was +appointed his successor. The living, in the gift of Sir Stephen, is +very valuable. Mr. Glynne, the clergyman, died without a son, and the +title will therefore on Sir Stephen's death be extinct. As matters +now stand, it may be presumed that Mr. W.H. Gladstone, the prime +minister's eldest son, will succeed to the Hawarden estates. + +Mr. Gladstone has himself recently increased the family interest +around Hawarden by purchase. About five years ago the state of his +finances were the talk of the town, and a number of people, especially +of the Conservative party, avowed themselves in a position to assert +from personal knowledge that he was ruined. There was no just ground +for such a statement, and like so many other absurd rumors it died +out. None of Mr. Gladstone's daughters are married, nor is his eldest +son. + + + + +WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + + +Certain great festivals of the Christian Church which were ignored by +the Puritans and Quakers have always continued in high repute among +the Pennsylvania Germans. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and +Ascension Day are celebrated not only in the Lutheran, the Reformed +or Calvinistic and the Moravian churches, but among the descendants +of those Swiss Anabaptists who, being driven from their homes by +religious persecution, finally took shelter in that part of the land +of Penn now called Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians being +known among us by the names of Mennists and Amish (pronounced +Menneests and Ommish). + +The movable feast of Whitsunday or Pentecost, which occurs on the +seventh Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion in the Mennonite +meetings, for at this time is held one of the great semi-annual +observances of bread-breaking and feet-washing. The ensuing day, +Whitmonday, is a great secular festival. All the spring bonnets are +then in readiness for the "Dutch" girls. The young farmer of eighteen +or more, whose father has granted his heart's desire in the form of a +buggy, or who has otherwise attained to that summit of rural felicity, +harnesses and attaches to it one of the horses with which the farm is +so well supplied, and takes his girl into the county-town. Here +they walk the streets, partake of simple refreshments, meet their +acquaintances or talk with them in the tavern parlor. Sometimes they +visit a circus or menagerie whose managers have made a timely visit to +our inland city. + +On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while the Dutch boys are working the +corn, you may perchance hear their father's voice raised to a higher +pitch than usual, which circumstance he explains when he comes in +sight, thus: "The boys is sleepy to-day. Yesterday was Whissuntide, +you know. They got home late." For custom forbids their leaving +the girl of their choice before the small hours, and allows them, +nevertheless, no remission from labor on the succeeding day. + +The people, however, whose religious services I am about to describe +impose upon their members a stricter rule of earlier hours, etc. They +are called New (or Reformed) Mennists. + +It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, that I paid a visit to one of +our New Mennist meeting-houses, and found before nine o'clock in the +morning that the services had already begun. The first apartment we +entered was a sort of tiring-room, where along the walls hung +the shawls and black sun-bonnets of the sisters. Here were also +traveling-bags, and a cradle stood ready to receive one or more of the +babies that were in attendance. In the adjoining room were heard +the familiar notes of "Old Hundred," and "Du bist der Weg" was sung +pleasantly without any instrumental accompaniment. + +When we entered the whitewashed apartment in which the meeting had +assembled I saw upon a small platform at the farther end five men, who +were apparently preachers or elders. At the same end of the room were +seated the soberly clad members of the sect--the men on one side of +the apartment, with their broad-brimmed hats removed; on the other +side the sisters, with their extremely plain book-muslin caps and +otherwise sober attire. + +A portion of the services was in English. Dr. ----, a practitioner of +medicine and a bishop in this Church, spoke extemporaneously in our +language. He gave a long account of the ordinances of the Jewish +Church, and then of those which the "Lord Jesus instituted in the +place of these--the baptism that was celebrated a week ago, and this +Lord's Supper, this feet-washing, this kiss of peace, this manner of +visiting offenders;" the last phrase being an allusion to the severe +rule which forbids the New or Reformed Mennists to eat, etc. with +those excommunicated by the society. + +The Mennists, as I understand, hold in general those doctrines that +are considered evangelical. The services were much prolonged, and the +congregation became restless. But at length, while a younger brother +was speaking in "Dutch" or German, there came in another bearing +a parcel wrapped in a white cloth. He was followed by one carrying +something tied in a blue-and-white cloth, which being opened disclosed +a demijohn. The white parcel was received by the preacher upon the +desk, and when opened showed a great loaf of our beautiful Lancaster +county bread divided into slices. After prayer several preachers took +slices, and passing around among the congregation broke off bits +which they gave to the communicants. The wine in the demijohn was then +poured into small, bright tin cups, like milkmen's measures, and was +distributed among the members. A hymn in the German language was sung, +two lines at a time, while the wine was handed round. + +After these services were concluded feet-washing began by reading the +passage from the 13th chapter of John on the subject, and this +was followed by many remarks. I observed that one elderly brother, +speaking in a mournful tone and in our Dutch manner, quoted, +"Nimmermehr soll du mein Fees wasche" ("Thou shalt never wash my +feet"). These discourses were followed by the announcement, "Next +Sunday there will be bread-breaking at Landisville." + +Now arose a confusion from carrying out benches, from arranging others +in two long rows facing each other, etc. The two principal preachers +were seen disencumbered of their coats, much animated conversation +began, and feet-washing did not seem to be observed with so much +seriousness as the Supper. I took a seat near the end of two long +benches which were arranged to face each other, and on which sat some +of the brethren whose feet were to be washed by one of the preachers. +Common unpainted tubs containing water were brought in by two men. Dr. +----, the bishop already mentioned, had a great piece of white linen +tied around his waist. He passed along between the two rows of men as +they sat facing each other, bearing his tub alternately from a brother +in one row to one in the other, so that both rows were finished +at about the same time. Quietly the men took off their shoes and +stockings. They did not put their feet forward much. As Dr. ---- came +to each participant he set his tub down before him, washed his feet a +little, wiped them on the long white apron or towel, then shook hands +with him and kissed him. He thus ministered to thirty persons, a +somewhat laborious undertaking, but his powerful frame was suited to +the exertion. The same water and the same towel served for all. + +Meantime, the sisters, in another part of the room, were arranged in +smaller companies on benches placed in a similar manner. I said to a +sister, "Do the preachers wash the sisters' feet?" + +"Oh no," she answered: "the sisters does it." + +Some of the sisters were very friendly, and not unwilling to converse. +One said, "One sister washes as many as she is pretty well able: it's +hard on the back." + +"And does she have a towel?" said I. + +"She girds a towel, and then she washes and wipes them, and gives them +a kiss." + +"Do you all have your feet washed?" I inquired further. + +"No, not those that have any weakness that prevents." + +"And will all these brothers have their feet washed?" + +"All that communes." + +"And do not all commune?" + +"Yes, without they feel that they have something against another. Now +if I feel that I have something against her--placing her hand upon a +sister. + +"I understand," interrupted I. "'If thou bring thy gift to the +altar--' And how many," I continued, "will there be in such a meeting +as this that will not commune? Will there be half a dozen?" + +"Oh yes; but by another year all will likely be right, and then they +will commune. Now, I did not commune nor have my feet washed." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"Why, I felt at this time such confusion of mind, as if the Enemy was +against me--" + +"Well, it was not anything against a brother or sister?" + +"No, I count them all ahead of me: I count myself the poorest member." + +At the conclusion of the feet-washing a hymn was sung. Among those who +had their feet washed was a young man apparently about twenty-two, and +who looked full of fun. It seems that even such may be in membership +with so strict a sect. It was about one o'clock when the meeting +ended, having been in session four hours and a half. + +The great simplicity of the surroundings on this occasion may lead +the reader to suppose that the congregation was poor. It was, however, +composed in a great measure of some of the thriftiest farmers in one +of the richest upland sections of the United States. + +Some time after attending this meeting I called upon an aged Amish man +to converse with him upon their religious society, etc. The Amish +are another branch of the Mennonites, and those among us are likewise +descendants of Swiss refugees. They are the most primitive of the +three divisions of the sect, preserving the use of the Dutch or German +language not only in their religious meetings, but almost entirely in +their own families. + +I mentioned to this aged man the feet-washing that I had attended, +and told how Dr. ----, the bishop, had washed the feet of the other +brethren. + +"Did he wash them all?" said my Amish acquaintance. + +"Yes, all that were assigned to him. How is it among you?" + +"They wash each other's, every two and two. If he washes them all, he +puts himself in Christ's place. _He_ says, 'Wash each other's feet.'" + +This, I am also informed, is the rule among the third division, the +Old Mennists, the most numerous branch of these remarkable people. + +P.E.G. + + + + +THE RAW AMERICAN. + + +London at present abounds in Americans on their way to the Vienna +Exposition. Many of them are commissioners from various States. Some +have lands to sell or other financial axes to grind. Of such the +Langham Hotel is full. The Langham is the nearest approach to an +American hotel in London. There, though not a guest, you may pass in +and out without explaining to the hall-porter who you are, what you +are, where you come from or what you want: you may there enter and +retire without giving your pedigree, naturalization papers or a +certificate of good character. At other English hotels something +analogous to this is commonly required. + +We, who have been in England a full year, look down with an air of +superiority on the raw, the newly-arrived American. We are quite +English. We have worn out our American clothes. We have on English +hats with tightly-curled rims and English stub-toed boots. We know the +intricacies of London street navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, +Camden Town, Hackney, the "Surrey Side," Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford +streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are all mapped out distinctly +in our mind's eye. We are skilled in English money, and no longer pass +off half crowns for two-shilling pieces. We are real Anglo-Americans. + +But the raw American, only arrived a week, is in a maze, a confusion, +a hurry. He is excited and mystified. He tries to appear cool and +unconcerned, and is simply ridiculous. His cards, bearing his name, +title and official status, he distributes as freely as doth the winter +wind the snow-flakes. Inquire at the Langham office for Mr. Smith, and +you find he has blossomed into General Smith. + +He is always partaking or about to partake of official dinners. He +feels that the eyes of all England are upon him. He is dressed _à la_ +bandbox--hat immaculate in its pristine gloss, white cravat, umbrella +of the slimmest encased in silken wrapper. A speck of mud on his +boots would tarnish the national honor. Commonly, he is taken for a +head-butler. He drinks much stout. He eats a whitebait dinner before +being forty-eight hours in London, and tells of it. All this makes him +feel English. + +You meet him. He is overjoyed. He would talk of everything--your +mutual experience in America, his sensations and impressions since +arriving in England. He talks intelligibly of nothing. His brain is +a mere rag-bag, shreddy, confused, parti-colored. Thus he empties it: +"Passage over rough;" "London wonderful;" "Dined with the earl of +---- yesterday;" "Dine with Sir ---- to-day;" "To the Tower;" +"Westminster;" "New York growing;" "Saint Paul's"--going, going, gone! +and he shakes hands with you, and is off at a Broadway gait straight +toward the East End of London for his hotel, which lies at the West +End. + +In reality, the man is not in his right mind. He is undergoing the +mental acclimatization fever. Should he stay in London for three +months, he might recover and begin to find out where he is. But six +months hence he will have returned to America, fancying he has seen +London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, and whatever other places +his body has been hurried through, not his mind; for that, in the +excitement and rapidity of his flight, has streamed behind him like +the tail of a comet, light, attenuated, vapory, catching nothing, +absorbing nothing. + +Occasionally this fever takes an abusive phase. He finds in England +nothing to like, nothing to admire. Sometimes he wishes immediately to +revolutionize the government. He is incensed at the cost of royalty. +He sees on every side indications of political upheaval. Or he becomes +culinarily disgusted. Because there are no buckwheat cakes, no codfish +cakes, no hot bread, no pork and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, +fried and roasted, he can find nothing fit to eat. The English +cannot cook. Because he can find no noisy, clattering, dish-smashing +restaurant, full of acrobatic waiters racing and balancing under +immense piles of plates, and shouting jargon untranslatable, +unintelligible and unpronounceable down into the lower kitchen, he +cannot, cannot eat. + +PRENTICE MULFORD. + + + + +FAREWELL. + + +The occasion commemorated in the following verses--one of those +festive meetings with which tender-hearted Philadelphians are wont to +brace themselves up for sorrowful partings--called forth expressions +of deep regret and cordial good wishes, in which many of our readers, +we doubt not, will readily join: + + If from my quivering lips in vain + The faltering accents strove to flow, + It was because my heart's deep pain + Bade tears be swift and utterance slow; + For in that moment rose the ghosts + Of pleasant hours in bygone years; + And your kind faces, O my hosts! + Showed blurred and dimly through my tears. + + I could not tell you of the pride + That thrilled me in that parting hour: + Grief held command all undenied, + And only o'er my speech had power. + I found no words to tell the thoughts + That strove for utterance in my brain: + With gratitude my soul was fraught, + And yet I only spoke of pain. + + O friends! 'tis you, and such as you, + That make this parting hard to bear! + Pass all things else my past life knew: + I scarcely heed--I do not care. + I lose in you the dearest part + Of pleasant time that here now ends: + Hand parts from hand, _not_ heart from heart, + And I must leave you, O my friends! + + What can the future's fairest hours + Bring me to recompense for these? + Acquaintances spring like the flowers-- + Friends are slow growth, like forest trees. + Come hope or gladness, what there will-- + Days bright as sunshine after rain-- + The past gave life's best blessings still: + We'll find no friends like these again. + + I leave you in the dear old home + That once was mine--now mine no more: + Henceforth a stranger I must come + To haunts so well beloved of yore; + Yet if your faces turn to mine + The kindly smile I'm wont to see, + Not all, not all I must resign-- + My lost home's light still shines for me! + + Whatever chance or change be mine + In other climes, 'neath foreign skies, + Your love, your kindness, I shall hold + Dearest amid dear memories. + O eyes grown dim with falling tears! + O lips where Sorrow lays her spell! + The saddest task of all life's years + Is yours--to look and say farewell! + + LUCY H. HOOPER. + AUGUSTIN'S, April 7, 1873. + + + + +NOTES. + + +Between the careers of Cavour and Thiers no sound parallel can easily +be traced, but in their characters--or rather in their diplomatic +methods and arts--there would seem to be some curious and almost +ludicrous points of resemblance, if we may accept as true a sketch +of the great Italian statesman made by M. Plattel, the author of +"Causeries Franco-Italiennes," fifteen years ago. M. Plattel, who +wrote from close personal observation, at that time described Count +Cavour as being physically "M. Thiers magnified;" or, if you prefer, +M. Thiers is the count viewed through the big end of an opera-glass. +The count, says M. Plattel, "has the spectacles, and even a similar +expression of finesse. When things take a serious turn, the count puts +both hands in his pockets; and if you see him do that, expect to hear +this threat: 'If you do not pass this bill, _signori deputati_, I +consider you incapable of longer managing the affairs of the country: +I have the honor of bidding you good-evening.' For (and this is a +strange peculiarity) this first minister is never steadier than when +in danger of falling; and his grand oratorical, or rather ministerial, +figure of speech is to seize his hat and his cane, whereupon the +chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour to sit down. M. de Cavour lets +them plead a while, and then--he sits down again! Reading his speeches +now in Paris, I can fancy the count with his hat by his side and his +hand on the door-knob. Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb +of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been +gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" +It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this +curious description, _à propos_ of the perpetual repetition of the +drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which +the constant threats of resignation on the one hand are invariably +followed by passionate and despairing entreaties to "stay" on the +other. It is the old story of Cavour and the door-knob over again; +and even the great Bismarck, by the way, does not disdain a resort +occasionally to the same terrible pantomime. "The only _coup d'état_ +to be feared from M. Thiers," said M. Dufaure in the Assembly, "is his +withdrawal." It is, the quarreling and reconciliation of Horace and +Lydia: "What if the door of the repudiated Lydia again open to me?" +"Though you are stormier than blustering Adriatic, I should love to +live with you," etc. Such is the billing and cooing, after quarrel, +between the president and the Assembly. Still, it is clear that the +puissant hat-and-cane argument must date back to Cavour. + + * * * * * + +The recent proposition of some English writers to elevate a certain +class of suicides to the rank of a legalized "institution," under the +pleasant name of "euthanasia," suggests the inquiry whether, without +any scientific vindication of the practice, there will not always be +suicides enough in ordinary society. At any rate, however it may be in +England, just across the Channel, in France, thousands of people every +year break the "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," leaving the ills they +have to "fly to others that they know not of." The official figures +show that in a period of twenty-two years no less than 71,207 persons +committed suicide in France. The causes were various--business +embarrassments, domestic chagrins, the brutishness produced by liquor, +poverty, insanity, the desire to put an end to physical suffering by +"euthanasia," and so on; but they are pretty nearly all included in +the "fardels" which Hamlet mentions, from the physical troubles of the +"heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," up +to the mental distress wrought by the "whips and scorns of time, the +oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised +love," and so on in the well-remembered catalogue. Perhaps the most +interesting point in these statistics concerns the means employed for +suicide. These are thus tabulated: Hanging, 24,536; drowning, 23,221; +shooting, 10,197; asphyxia by charcoal fumes (a true Paris appliance), +5587; various cutting instruments, 2871; plunging or jumping from an +elevated place (an astonishing number), 2841; poison, 1500; sundry +other methods, 454. Hanging and drowning are thus accountable for more +than half the French suicides. The little stove of charcoal suggests +itself as a remedy at hand to many a wretch without the means to buy +a pistol or the nerve to use a knife. The cases of voluntary resort +to poison are astonishingly few, but it must be remembered that the +foregoing figures only embrace successful suicides, and antidotes to +poison often come in season where the rope or the river would +have made quick and fatal work. _La France_ notes, regarding these +statistics, that their details show that men oftenest use pistols, and +women oftenest try poison, in their attempts at suicide. What is more +curious, each man is likely to employ an instrument familiar to him: +thus, hunters and soldiers resort to the pistol, barbers trust +the razor, shoemakers use the knife, engravers the graving-tool, +washerwomen poison themselves with potash or Prussian blue; though, +of course, these are only general rules, with a great many exceptions. +And in Paris it is said that among all ranks and professions, and in +both sexes, at least half of the suicides are by asphyxiation with +charcoal. Surely in France one hardly needs to preach any doctrine of +not patiently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. +A healthier and more inspiring morality would be that of the story of +the baron of Grogzwig and his adventure with the "Genius of Despair +and Suicide," as narrated in an episode of _Nicholas Nickleby_; for +the stout baron, after thinking over his purpose of making a voluntary +departure from this world, and finding he had no security of being any +the better for going out of it, abandoned the plan, and adopted as a +rule in all cases of melancholy to look at both sides of the question, +and to apply a magnifying-glass to the better one. + + * * * * * + +In Philadelphia, at least, where there is still a respect for age, the +tidings will be received with respectful regret of the death of Nono, +a noted pensionary of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the ripe age +of more than a hundred years. To have achieved the celebrity of being +the oldest inmate of that institution was no despicable distinction, +but the venerable centenarian had other claims to honor. A native of +the Marquesas Islands, he was brought by Bougainville in 1776 to +the Royal Museum, afterward known as the Jardin des Plantes. It has +frequently been alleged that parrots may live a hundred years: +Nono has established the fact by living still longer. As he thus +contributes an illustration to science, so surely he might point a +general moral and adorn a historic tale. If Thackeray could discourse +so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," the vicissitudes which this +veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873, +under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be +worth a rhapsody. Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot. +Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his +plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his +houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and +bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest +needlework; and it had the _narquois_, lightly skeptical look of those +who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and +eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, +who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed +and mounted the illustrious Nono as a testimonial of affection and +respect. + + * * * * * + +The connection between war and botany is, at first, not specially +obvious, and yet a very clear bit of testimony to their relation was +disclosed by the siege of Paris. Two naturalists have published a +_Florula Obsidionalis_, which, as its name partly indicates, is a +catalogue of the accidental flora of the late investment of Paris. +They reckon in their list not less than one hundred and ninety species +before unknown to the neighborhood of the French capital, whereof +fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, beans, etc.), thirty-four +are composite, thirty-two are _plantes grasses_, and sixty-six belong +to other families. Almost all are to be found chiefly on the left bank +of the Seine, though also discoverable at Neuilly and in the Bois de +Boulogne. Of course, these new-comers are all accounted for as the +produce of seeds brought by the German army. They will gradually die +out; and yet some few may remain as permanent conquerors of the soil, +since among the flora of Paris is still reckoned one plant whose seed +was brought into France by some Russian forage-train in 1815. + + * * * * * + +As the impudence, dishonesty, laziness and rapacity of servants at +watering-places have long been familiar subjects of satire, it is +just to say a word on the other side in favor of some extreme +Northern resorts. At the White Mountains, for example, the waiters and +waitresses are of a better class than is generally met. Some of the +young girls are farmers' daughters, who go to the hotels to see the +fashions and earn a little pocket-money. The colored cook at one of +the great houses teaches dancing during the winters. Not a few are +school-teachers, others students at country academies, who pass their +vacation in this way in order to earn enough to buy text-books or +pay the winter's tuition. Many of them are more intelligent and well +educated than some of the shoddies they wait upon. They are usually +quicker in movement and of more retentive memory than the average +American waiter; and though each has a great deal to do at times, yet +even during the tremendous moment of dinner they contrive to find a +few little intervals for harmless flirtations in the dining-room. They +are for the most part well-mannered too, and if they talk to you of +each other as "this lady" or "that gentleman," what is it more than +some waiters do with far less reason? The New Hampshire villages +become versed every summer in the latest imported fashions, thanks to +the quick eyes of the hotel waitresses. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: Osgood & Co. + +Mr. Taylor's muse has of late become very still-faced, decorous and +mindful of the art-proprieties. Cautious is she, and there is perhaps +nothing in this pastoral that will cause the grammarian to wince, or +make the censorious rhetorician writhe in his judgment-seat with +the sense that she is committing herself. Not such were the early +attributes of the great itinerant's poetry. When he used to unsling +his minstrel harp in the wilds of California or on the sunrise +mountains of the Orient, there were plenty of false notes, plenty +of youthful vivacities that overbore the strings and were heard as a +sudden crack, and, withal, a good deal of young frank fire. Now there +is much finish and the least possible suspicion of ennui. But the +life-history of _Lars_ is worth reading. It is a calm procession of +pictures, without pretence, except the slight pretence of classical +correctness. The first part, which reflects Norwegian manners in a way +reminding us more or less of the exquisite stories of Bjornsen, tells +how two swains of Ulvik, Lars the hunter and Per the fisher, quarrel +for love of Brita, and at a public wrestling decide the question by a +combat, fighting with knives, in Norse fashion, while hooked to each +other at the belt. They strip, _à la_ Heenan and Sayers. Mr. Taylor, +who does not often come behind the occasion when he can get a human +figure to describe statue-wise or under a studio light, is perhaps a +trifle too Phidian in bringing out the good looks of his fish-eating +gladiators: + + The low daylight clad + Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now + Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet + So near the beauty terrible of Death. + +Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His foe falls lifeless, his +sweetheart calls him a murderer, and he flies from the law. Another +scene quickly shows him crossing the broad ocean, as so many +Norwegians and Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking the +protection of Swedish forts on Delaware banks. Long, sad days pass on +the ocean, + + Till shining fisher-sails + Came, stars of land that rose before the land; + +and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, only to find that the +civilization he seeks has set like a sinking planet into the abiding +enlightenment of another race and creed. Governor Printz's fortress +on Tinicum isle is a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays up the +broad stream + + To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington + Looks to the river over marshy weeds. + He saw the low brick church with stunted tower, + The portal-arches, ivied now and old, + And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones + Bore Norland names and dear familiar words! + It seemed the dead a comfort spake. + +The governor is a myth, the Swedes are dead, the Scandinavian tongues +have been changed to English, and an English exactly conformed to King +James's translation of the Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to +checks him for addressing her with a civility: + + "Nay," she said, "not _lady_! call me Ruth." + +With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, on Hockessin Farm, the +wanderer abides as herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of Ruth's +soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the Delawarean society, he joins the +peaceful sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, though, to +change his plural pronouns to the scriptural _thou_ and _thee_ of King +James's translators than to tame his heroic Viking blood, swift to +boil into wrath at the show of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a +quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, where lies + + Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads, + The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house. + +Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts forth in tears and +supplications among the worshipers, and is received into full harmony +with them: + + So into joy revolved the doubtful year, + And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends + Sheltered another member, even Lars.... + And all the country-side assembled there + One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky + The colors of transfiguration shone, + Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars + Together sat upon the women's side; + And when the peace was perfect, they arose: + He took her by the hand, and spake these words, + As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord + And this assembly, by the hand I take + Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her, + Divine assistance blessing me, to be + A loving and a faithful husband, even + Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth + The like sweet words; and so the twain were one. + +It is not often that a liturgy has been translated into metre with +less change of its form and substance. + +The imbedding of a raw Northern native in this lap of repose and in +this transfiguring matrimonial alliance is the grand problem of the +poem. What will Lars do, now that he is a man of peace and a Child of +Light, with the burden of conscience? In America he is a saint and an +apostle. In Europe he is known but as a proscribed murderer. The later +scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his true and tender wife, meets his +old love, his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, are of a more +ambitious character than any that have preceded. The holy principles +imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made to triumph, and Lars, +dropping the sharp blade from his hand in the thronged arena whither +he is forced once more, stands first as a laughing-stock, and then as +an apostle, among his old neighbors. It is a position full of moral +force, and we find ourselves--suddenly recovering in a degree from the +calm view we had taken of the poem as a work of art--asking _how_ we +should be so sensible of the grandeur of the situation if the poet by +his skill had not brought out its peculiarity. + + * * * * * + +A Lady of the Last Century. By Dr. Doran. London: Bentley. + +This is the life of a lady remarkable in herself and in her +surroundings. Of every day in her life she could say, in the words of +Horace, "I have lived." "She never had a fool for an acquaintance," +says her biographer, "nor an idle hour in the sense of idleness." Her +father, Mr. Robinson, who belonged to an eminent family which had been +settled about a century at Rokeby, subsequently the seat of Scott's +friend Morritt, in Yorkshire, married when a boy of eighteen a rich +young lady of very superior quality in every respect, and by her had +a large family. His wife's mother married secondly Middleton, the +biographer of Cicero, who took a great fancy to her grand-daughter, +Elizabeth Robinson, and paid much attention to her intellectual +development. In fact, from the cradle to the grave she was thrown +amongst the erudite and cultivated in a very uncultivated age. During +her girlhood Elizabeth Robinson had every advantage and pleasure which +wealthy and devoted parents could give her, and when twenty-two she +married Mr. Edward Montagu, a grandson of the first earl of Sandwich, +and first cousin of the celebrated Lady Mary's husband. + +Mrs. Montagu was far more fortunate in her choice than the brilliant +daughter of the duke of Kingston. Her husband was in every way +estimable and amiable, and her letters afford ample evidence how +thoroughly she appreciated his character. They had only one child, who +died in infancy, and when Mr. Montagu died he bequeathed to his widow +the whole of his property, which she in turn left to her nephew, who +took the name of Montagu and became Lord Rokeby. + +A few years after their marriage Mr. Montagu, already affluent, +received a great accession of fortune in the shape of colliery +property in the north of England. This enabled his wife to entertain +very liberally, and, in conjunction with her talents and high +connections, gave her a commanding place in society. They took a large +house in Hill street, then the extremity of the West End, which became +the resort of that class who, being anxious to put an end to eternal +card-playing and introduce rather more of the intellectual into +social intercourse, received from a chance circumstance the name +of "blue-stockings." There were to be seen Burke, Fox, Hannah More, +Johnson, Lord Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu fitted up +a room whose walls were hung with feathers, and thence came Cowper's +well-known lines and Macaulay's passage: "There were the members +of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised and exchanged +repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montagu." After +her husband's death a great deal of business devolved on her in the +management of his estates, and here she showed those qualities which +are singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of rank. She went down to +Northumberland, inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and +made acquaintance with her tenants. She seems particularly to have +appreciated the people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of them +recall in no slight degree some of those of the sisters Bronté. Her +principal seat was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she spent +large sums in improvements under the celebrated landscape-gardener +"Capability Brown." + +She survived her husband twenty-five years, and about twenty years +before her death removed to a fine house which she had erected in a +then new part of London, Portman Square, and which is still known as +Montagu House. But the entertainments there given were, though more +splendid, less notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill street, for +Mrs. Montagu herself was getting into years, and many of those who had +been the brightest ornaments of the Hill street parties were passing +away. Mrs. Montagu died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She was of an +affectionate disposition, but had somewhat less sensibility perhaps +than most men would like to see in a woman; yet, on the whole, she +played her part in life extremely well, being wise, generous and true. + +The book is particularly interesting for the rich aroma of association +around it, and would have been far more so had Dr. Doran taken the +trouble to give a few notes, of which there is not a single one in the +whole book--a serious drawback, more especially to American readers. + + * * * * * + +The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the +Discussions relating thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +Mr. Cushing has given another proof of the great capacity of some +men to do very clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an adequate +account of the work itself or of the way in which it was done. Trained +by long experience in public business, and intimately acquainted +by long residence in Washington with the methods of diplomatic +negotiation and interpretation, he was eminently fitted to be the +colleague of Mr. Evarts as counsel for the government before the +Geneva arbitration. Here he undertakes to give an account of the +task there brought to a result so favorable to the United States. +Unluckily, he shows that he is always and only an advocate. Much that +may have been useful for his duties in that office is prominent in a +disagreeable way in his recital of the Geneva award. His language is +loose and offensive, often without meaning to be so, but oftener in +a way that shows how much he must have been galled by the lord +chief-justice of England. Whatever Sir Alexander Cockburn may have +done there, and however much he may have fallen from his high estate +as one of the arbitrators to the less dignified position of an +advocate for English claims, he will have a sweet revenge in seeing +the anger that he has excited in one of the American representatives, +now become their spokesman. Mr. Cushing falls into the blunder that +was once so common in our American state papers as to give good cause +for that happy phrase of Nicholas Biddle--"Western Orientalisms." The +tone of the book, which ought to be a simple story, is stilted and +rhetorical. The result of all the long discussions is the best praise +of our American statesmen who were its authors, but it is dwarfed and +lessened by the fulsome praise given to the foreign representatives +who brought it about. Of "bad language," in keeping with the +bad spirit of the book, the following may serve as specimens: +"Pretensiveness," "frequentation," "annexion," "capitulations" +instead of "treaties," "monogram" for "monograph," "it needs to," +"howmuchsoever," "law-books invested with the reflection of fine +scenery," "imposed itself," "I demand of myself," and other such +phrases without number. + +Once done with Sir Alexander Cockburn and the work at Geneva, Mr. +Cushing shows himself and his country to much better advantage in +discussing the "Mixed Commission" now sitting at Washington, the +Northwest Boundary, the Fisheries, and the general provisions of the +Washington treaty. He has, however, simply forestalled the ground +for some better writer on the important history which belongs to that +negotiation, and will give the reading and reflecting public, both +abroad and at home, a very unfavorable impression of the great task in +which he played so important a part, and of the qualities of mind and +temper he must have brought to it, since at this late day he finds +no better impetus to the work of writing its history than unexplained +anger at one of the members of the board before which Mr. Cushing +argued the cause of his country, and helped to win it. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The Drawing-Room Stage: A Series of Original Dramas, Comedies, Farces, +and Entertainments for Amateur Theatricals and School Exhibitions. By +George M. Baker. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Five Years in an English University. By Charles Astor Bristed, late +Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third edition. +Revised by the Author. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. By the late C.A. Sainte-Beuve. +With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. +Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Livingstone and his African Explorations: together with a Full Account +of the Young, Stanley and Dawson Search Expeditions. New York: Adams, +Victor & Co. + +The Mother's Register: Current Notes of the Health of Children. From +the French of Professor J.B. Fonssagrines. New York: G.P. Putnam & +Sons. + +Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene Plon. Translated from the +French by J. M. Luyster. Illustrated. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Scientific and Industrial Education: its Importance to our Country. By +G.B. Stebbins. Detroit: Daily Post Printing Establishment. + +Never Again. By W.S. Mayo, M.D., author of "Kaloolah," "The Berber," +etc. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +The World-Priest. From the German of Leopold Schafer. By Charles T. +Brooks. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The Cuban Question in the Spanish Parliament. London: Press of the +Anglo-American Times. + +Treason at Home: A Novel. By Mrs. Greenough. Philadelphia: T.B. +Peterson & Brothers. + +Myths and Myth-Makers. By John Fiske, M.A., LL.B. Boston: James R. +Osgood & Co. + +An Account of the Sphynx at Mount Auburn. Illustrated. Boston: Little, +Brown & Co. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13195-8.txt or 13195-8.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/9/13195/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13195-8.zip b/old/13195-8.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..f733362 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-8.zip diff --git a/old/13195-h.zip b/old/13195-h.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ba44c1b --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h.zip diff --git a/old/13195-h/13195-h.htm b/old/13195-h/13195-h.htm new file mode 100644 index 0000000..5f88f19 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/13195-h.htm @@ -0,0 +1,13033 @@ +<!DOCTYPE html PUBLIC "-//W3C//DTD XHTML 1.0 Transitional//EN" + "http://www.w3.org/TR/xhtml1/DTD/xhtml1-transitional.dtd"> + +<html xmlns="http://www.w3.org/1999/xhtml"> +<head> + <meta http-equiv="Content-Type" content="text/html; charset=iso-8859-1" /> + + <title>The Project Gutenberg eBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873.</title> + + <style type="text/css"> + <!-- + body {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%;} + p {text-align: justify;} + blockquote {text-align: justify;} + h1,h2,h3,h4,h5,h6 {text-align: center;} + h1 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h2 {margin-top: 4em; margin-bottom: 2em} + h3 {margin-top: 2em; margin-bottom: 2em} + + pre {font-size: 0.7em;} + + hr {text-align: center; width: 50%;} + html>body hr {margin-right: 25%; margin-left: 25%; width: 50%;} + hr.full {width: 100%;} + html>body hr.full {margin-right: 0%; margin-left: 0%; width: 100%;} + hr.short {text-align: center; width: 20%;} + html>body hr.short {margin-right: 40%; margin-left: 40%; width: 20%;} + .book {text-indent: 2em; font-size: 1.1em;} + .center {text-align: center;} + .note {margin-left: 10%; margin-right: 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + span.pagenum {position: absolute; left: 1%; right: 91%; font-size: 8pt;} + + .poem {margin-left:10%; margin-right:10%; margin-bottom: 1em; + text-align: left;} + .poem .stanza {margin: 1em 0em 1em 0em;} + .poem p {margin: 0; padding-left: 3em; text-indent: -3em;} + .poem p.i2 {margin-left: 1em;} + .poem p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + .poem p.i6 {margin-left: 3em;} + .poem p.i8 {margin-left: 4em;} + .poem p.i10 {margin-left: 5em;} + + .figure, .figcenter, .figright, .figleft + {padding: 1em; margin: 0; text-align: center;} + .figure img, .figcenter img, .figright img, .figleft img + {border: none;} + .figure p, .figcenter p, .figright p, .figleft p + {margin: 0; text-indent: 1em;} + .figcenter {margin: auto;} + .figright {float: right;} + .figleft {float: left;} + + .inline {border: none; vertical-align: middle;} + + .footnote {font-size: 0.9em; margin-right: 10%; margin-left: 10%;} + + .side {float:right; + font-size: 75%; + width: 25%; + padding-left:10px; + border-left: dashed thin; + margin-left: 10px; + text-align: left; + text-indent: 0; + font-weight: bold; + font-style: italic;} + + div.trans-note {border-style: solid; border-width: 1px; + margin: 3em 15%; padding: 1em; text-align: center;} + + .illustrations {margin: 0.5em 10%; font-size: 0.9em;} + + .toc {margin: 0 10%; text-align: left; font-size: 0.9em;} + .toc p {margin: 0.5em 0;} + .toc p.i4 {margin-left: 2em;} + + p.author {text-align: right; margin-right: 5%;} + + a:link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + link {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:visited {color: blue; text-decoration: none;} + a:hover {color: red;} + --> + </style> +</head> +<body> + + +<pre> + +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science + Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13195] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1 + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + + +</pre> + + <div class="trans-note"> + Transcriber's Note: The Table of Contents and the list of + illustrations were added by the transcriber. + </div> +<hr class="full" /> + +<h1>LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE</h1> +<h3>OF</h3> +<h2><i>POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE.</i></h2> +<hr class="short" /> +<h4>June, 1873.<br /> +Vol. XI., No. 27.</h4> +<hr class="short" /> + <h3>TABLE OF CONTENTS</h3> + + <div class="toc"> + <p><a href="#illustrations">ILLUSTRATIONS</a></p> + +<p>A NEW ATLANTIS.<a href="#page609">609</a></p> + +<p>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</p> +<p class="i4">CONCLUDING PAPER. <a href="#page621">621</a></p> + +<p>A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP.<a href="#page636">636</a></p> + +<p>SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. <a href="#page646">646</a></p> + +<p>OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT.</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER III.<a href="#page654">654</a></p> + +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IV. <a href="#page659">659</a></p> + +<p>SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS.<a href="#page663">663</a></p> + +<p>A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!"<a href="#page669">669</a></p> + +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!"<a href="#page679">679</a></p> + +<p>THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. <a href="#page688">688</a></p> + +<p>BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.</p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER VIII. <a href="#page697">697</a></p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER IX. <a href="#page699">699</a></p> +<p class="i4">CHAPTER X. <a href="#page704">704</a></p> + +<p>BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES. <a href="#page708">708</a></p> +<p>DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. <a href="#page716">716</a></p> + +<p>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</p> +<p class="i4">THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. <a href="#page717">717</a></p> +<p class="i4">WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. <a href="#page721">721</a></p> + +<p class="i4">THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD. <a href="#page722">722</a></p> + +<p>FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER <a href="#page722">722</a></p> +<p>NOTES. <a href="#page723">723</a></p> +<p>LITERATURE OF THE DAY. <a href="#page725">725</a></p> +<p class="i4"><i>Books Received.</i> <a href="#page728">728</a></p> + + + </div> + <hr /> + <a name="illustrations" id="illustrations"></a> + + <h4>ILLUSTRATIONS</h4> + +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig609">ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig610">UP THE INLET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig611">LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig612">CONGRESS HALL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig613">MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig614">THE SENATE HOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig615">ON THE SHINING SANDS.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig616">MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig617">THE THOROUGHFARE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig618">THE EXCURSION HOUSE.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig619">A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig621">ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig622">AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig623">THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig624">A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig625">KABYLE MEN.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig626">KABYLE WOMEN.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig628">DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig630">AN ARAB MARKET.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig632">POVERTY AND JEWELS.</a></p> +<p class="illustrations"><a href="#fig633">GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.</a></p> + + <hr /> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page609" id="page609"></a>[pg 609]</span> + +<h2>A NEW ATLANTIS.</h2> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/609.png" name="fig609" id="fig609"><img width="100%" src="images/609.png" alt="ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE." /></a></div> + +<p>The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day +moving is over and settled, and still +a remnant of money is found sticking to the +bottom of the old marmalade pot. Where +shall we go?</p> + +<p>There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport?</p> + +<p>But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity of its +<i>sangre azul</i>. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us off to inspect the +last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid us enjoy the gardens, brought every +spring in lace-paper out of the florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page610" id="page610"></a>[pg 610]</span> +barefooted if we choose, and Newport +is become an affair of toilette and +gold-mounted harness, a bathing-place +where people do everything +but bathe.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/610.png" name="fig610" id="fig610"><img width="100%" src="images/610.png" alt="UP THE INLET." /></a>UP THE INLET.</div> + +<p>Well, Nahant, then, or Long +Branch?</p> + +<p>Too slow and too fast. Besides, +we have seen them.</p> + +<p>Suppose we try the Isles of +Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island +and White Island, now? Or +Nantucket, or Marblehead?</p> + +<p>Too stony, and nothing in particular +to eat. You ask for fish, +and they give you a rock.</p> + +<p>In truth, under that moral and +physical dyspepsia to which we +bring ourselves regularly every +summer, the fine crags of the north +become just the least bit of a bore. +They necessitate an amount of +heroic climbing under the command +of a sort of romantic and do-nothing +Girls of the Period, who +sit about on soft shawls in the lee +of the rocks, and gather their shells +and anemones vicariously at the +expense of your tendon achilles. +We know it, for we have suffered. +We calculate, and are prepared to +prove, that the successful collection +of a single ribbon of ruffled seaweed, +procured in a slimy haystack +of red dulse at the beck of +one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping +her brass heels dry on a safe +and sunny ledge of the Purgatory +at Newport, may require more mental +calculation, involve more anguish +of equilibrium, and encourage +more heartfelt secret profanity +than the making of a steam-engine +or the writing of a proposal.</p> + +<p>No, no, we would admire nothing, +dare nothing, do nothing, but +only suck in rosy health at every +pore, pin our souls out on the holly +hedge to sweeten, and forget what +we had for breakfast. Uneasy +daemons that we are all winter, +toiling gnomes of the mine and the +forge—"O spent ones of a workday +age"—can we not for one +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page611" id="page611"></a>[pg 611]</span> +brief month in our year be +Turks?</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/611.png" name="fig611" id="fig611"><img width="100%" src="images/611.png" alt="LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET." /></a>LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.</div> + +<p>Our doctors, slowly acquiring a +little sense, are changing their +remedies. Where the cry used to +be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." +But hygiene itself might be +changed for the better. We can +imagine a few improvements in +the materia medica of the future. +Where the physician used to order +a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will +simply hold his watch thoughtfully +for sixty seconds and prescribe +"Paris." Where he was wont to +recommend a strong emetic, he +will in future advise a week's study +of the works of art at our National +Capital. For lassitude, a donkey-ride +up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, +a course of sunrises from +the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel +in his song of "Di quella Pira." +For melancolia, Naples. For fever, +driving an ice-cart. But when +the doctor's most remunerative +patient comes along, the pursy +manufacturer able to afford the +luxury of a bad liver, let him consult +the knob of his cane a moment +and order "Atlantic City."</p> + +<p>—Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. +Because it is unspoilt, yet +luxurious. Because the air there +is filled with iodine and the sea +with chloride of sodium. Because, +with a whole universe of water, +Atlantic City is dry. Because of +its perfect rest and its infinite +horizons.</p> + +<p>But where and what <i>is</i> Atlantic +City? It is a refuge thrown up by +the continent-building sea. Fashion +took a caprice, and shook it +out of a fold of her flounce. A +railroad laid a wager to find the +shortest distance from Penn's +treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: +it dashed into the water, and a +City emerged from its freight-cars +as a consequence of the manoeuvre. +Almost any kind of a parent-age +will account for Atlantis. It +is beneath shoddy and above +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page612" id="page612"></a>[pg 612]</span> +mediocrity. It is below Long Branch and +higher up than Cape May. It is different +from any watering-place in the world, yet +its strong individuality might have been +planted in any other spot; and a few +years ago it was nowhere. Its success +is due to its having nothing importunate +about it. It promises endless sea, sky, +liberty and privacy, and, having made +you at home, it leaves you to your devices.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/612.png" name="fig612" id="fig612"><img width="100%" src="images/612.png" alt="CONGRESS HALL." /></a>CONGRESS HALL.</div> + +<p>Two of our best marine painters in +their works offer us a choice of coast-landscape. +Kensett paints the bare stiff +crags, whitened with salt, standing out +of his foregrounds like the clean and +hungry teeth of a wild animal, and looking +hard enough to have worn out the +painter's brush with their implacable +enamel. From their treeless waste extends +the sea, a bath of deep, pure +color. All seems keen, fresh, beautiful +and severe: it would take a pair of stout +New England lungs to breathe enjoyably +in such an air. That is the northern +coast. Mr. William Richards gives +us the southern—the landscape, in fact, +of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have +the infinitude of soft silver beach, the +rolling tumultuousness of a boundless +sea, and twisted cedars mounted like +toiling ships on the crests of undulating +sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, +the power and the peace of the Desert.</p> + +<p>And here let us be indulged with a few +words about a section of our great continent +which has never been sung in +rhyme, and which it is almost a matter +of course to treat disparagingly. A +cheap and threadbare popular joke assigns +the Delaware River as the eastern +boundary of the United States of America, +and defines the out-landers whose +homes lie between that current and the +Atlantic Ocean as foreigners, Iberians, +and we know not what. Scarcely more +of an exile was Victor Hugo, sitting on +the shores of Old Jersey, than is the +denizen of <i>New</i> Jersey when he brings +his half-sailor costume and his beach-learned +manners into contrast with the +thrift and hardness of the neighboring +commonwealth. The native of the alluvium +is another being from the native +of the great mineral State. But, by the +very reason of this difference, there is a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page613" id="page613"></a>[pg 613]</span> +strange soft charm that comes over our +thoughts of the younger Jersey when we +have done laughing at it. That broad, +pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust, +which droops toward the south +like some vast tropical leaf, and spreads +its two edges toward the fresh and salt +waters, enervated with drought and sunshine—that +flat leaf of land has characteristics +that are almost Oriental. To +make it the sea heaved up her breast, +and showed the whitened sides against +which her tides were beating. To walk +upon it is in a sense to walk upon the +bottom of the ocean. Here are strange +marls, the relics of infinite animal life, +into which has sunk the lizard or the +dragon of antiquity—the gigantic <i>Hadrosaurus</i>, +who cranes his snaky throat +at us in the museum, swelling with the +tale of immemorial times when he weltered +here in the sunny ooze. The country +is a mighty steppe, but not deprived +of trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, +dark foliage, and the endless woods +of pine, sand-planted, strew over that +boundless beach a murmur like the sea. +The edibles it bears are of the quaintest +and most individual kinds: the cranberry +is its native condiment, full of individuality, +unknown to Europe, beautiful +as a carbuncle, wild as a Tartar +belle, and rife with a subacid irony that +is like the wit of Heine.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/613.png" name="fig613" id="fig613"><img width="100%" src="images/613.png" alt="MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE." /></a>MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.</div> + +<p>Here is the <i>patate douce</i>, +with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd +that loves to gad along the sand—the +citron in its carved net, and the enormous +melon, carnation-colored within +and dark-green to blackness outside. +The peaches here are golden-pulped, as +if trying to be oranges, and are richly +bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid, +fascinating the taste like some enchantress +of Venice, the pursuit of whom is +made piquant by a fancy that she may +poison you. The farther you penetrate +this huge idle peninsula, the more its +idiosyncrasy is borne in on your mind. +Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash +of air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, +and heated jungles of dwarf oaks balancing +balmy plantations of pine. Then, +toward the sea, the wiry grasses that +dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute +possession with the forests, and finally +supplant them: the sand is blown into +coast-hills, whose crests send off into +every gale a foam of flying dust, and +which themselves change shape, under +pressure of the same winds, with a slower +imitation of the waves. Finally, by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page614" id="page614"></a>[pg 614]</span> +the gentlest of transitions, the deserts +and the quicksands become the ocean.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/614.png" name="fig614" id="fig614"><img width="100%" src="images/614.png" alt="THE SENATE HOUSE." /></a>THE SENATE HOUSE.</div> + +<p>The shore melts into the sea by a network +of creeks and inlets, edging the +territory (as the flying osprey sees it) +with an inimitable lacework of azure +waters; the pattern is one of looping +channels with oval interstices, and the +dentellated border of the commonwealth +resembles that sort of lace which was +made by arranging on glass the food of +a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate +and wove, having voracity always +before him and Fine Art behind +him. Much of the solider part +of the State is made of the materials +which enter into glass-manufacture: a +mighty enchanter might fuse the greater +portion of it into one gigantic goblet. A +slight approximation to this work of +magic is already being carried on. The +tourist who has crossed the lagoons of +Venice to see the fitful lights flash up +from the glass-furnaces of Murano, will +find more than one locality here where +leaping lights, crowning low banks of +sand, are preparing the crystal for our +infant industries in glass, and will remind +him of his hours by the Adriatic. +Every year bubbles of greater and greater +beauty are being blown in these secluded +places, and soon we hope to enrich +commerce with all the elegances of +latticinio and schmelze, the perfected +glass of an American Venice.</p> + +<p>But our business is not with the land, +but the sea. Here it lies, basking at +our feet, the warm amethystine sea of +the South. It does not boom and thunder, +as in the country of the "cold gray +stones." On the contrary, saturating +itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk +over the shoal flat beach with a succession +of voluptuous curves, it spreads +thence in distance with strands and belts +of varied color, away and away, until +blind with light it faints on a prodigiously +far horizon. Its falling noises are as +soft as the sighs of Christabel. Its colors +are the pale and milky colors of the +opal. But ah! what an impression of +boundlessness! How the silver ribbon +of beach unrolls for miles and miles! +And landward, what a parallel sea of +marshes, bottoms and dunes! The +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page615" id="page615"></a>[pg 615]</span> +sense of having all the kingdoms of the +world spread out beneath one, together +with most of the kingdoms of the mermen, +has never so come to one's consciousness +before. And again, what an +artist is Nature, with these faint washes +and tenderest varied hues—varied and +tender as the flames from burning gases—while +her highest lights (a painter will +understand the difficulty of <i>that</i>) are +still diaphanous and profound!</p> + +<p>One goes to the seaside not for pomp +and peacock's tails, but for saltness, +Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build +a city there that shall not be an insult +to the sentiment of the place is a matter +of difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a +canvas encampment. A range of solid +stone villas like those of Newport, so far +as congruity with a watering-place goes, +pains the taste like a false note in music. +Atlantic City pauses halfway between +the stone house and the tent, and erects +herself in woodwork. A quantity of +bright, rather giddy-looking structures, +with much open-work and carved ruffling +about the eaves and balconies, are +poised lightly on the sand, following the +course of the two main avenues which +lead parallel with the shore, and the +series of short, straight, direct streets +which leap across them and run eagerly +for the sea. They have a low, brooding +look, and evidently belong to a class of +sybarites who are not fond of staircases. +Among them, the great rambling hotel, +sprawling in its ungainly length here and +there, looks like one of the ordinary tall +New York houses that had concluded to +lie over on its side and grow, rather than +take the trouble of piling on its stories +standing. In this encampment of wooden +pavilions is lived the peculiar life of +the place.</p> + +<div class="figright" style="width:50%;"><a href="images/615.png" name="fig615" id="fig615"><img width="100%" src="images/615.png" alt="ON THE SHINING SANDS." /></a>ON THE SHINING SANDS.</div> + +<p>We are sure it is a sincere, natural, +sensible kind of life, as compared with +that of other bathing-shores. Although +there are brass bands at the hotels, and +hops in the evening, and an unequal +struggle of macassar oil with salt and +stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is +kept at a minimum. People really do +bathe, really do take walks on the beach +for the love of the ocean, really do pick +up shells and throw them away again, +really do go yachting and crab-catching; +and if they try city manners in the evening, +they are so tired with their honest +day's work that it is apt to end in misery. +On the hotel piazzas you see beauties that +surprise you +with exquisite +touches +of the warm +and languid +South. That +dark Baltimore +girl, +her hair a constellation of jessamines, is +beating her lover's shoulders with her +fan in a state of ferocity that you would +give worlds to encounter. That pair of +proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured +in peach-pulp and wrapped in +gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at +the gates of a temple. Whole rows of +unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate +but implacable, waiting for partners +equal to them in social position. In such +a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to +her old music-teacher and flirt solemnly +with him for a whole evening, sooner +than involve herself with well-looking +young chits from Providence or New +York, who may be jewelers' clerks when +at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity +beauty of these Southern belles is very +striking to one who comes fresh from +Saratoga and the sort of upholstered +goddesses who are served to him there.</p> + +<p>Some years ago the Surf House was +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page616" id="page616"></a>[pg 616]</span> +the finest place of entertainment, but it +has now many rivals, taller if not finer. +Congress Hall, under the management +of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, +while the Senate House, standing +under the shadow of the lighthouse, has +the advantage of being the nearest to the +beach of all the hotels. Both are ample +and hospitable hostelries, where you +are led persuasively through the Eleusinian +mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine. +Schaufler's is an especial resort of our +German fellow-citizens, who may there be +seen enjoying themselves in the manner +depicted by our artist, while concocting—as +we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski—the +ambitious schemes which they conceal +under their ordinary <i>enveloppe débonnaire</i>.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/616.png" name="fig616" id="fig616"><img width="100%" src="images/616.png" alt="MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE." /></a>MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.</div> + +<p>There is another feature of the place. +With its rarely fine atmosphere, so tonic +and bracing, so free from the depressing +fog of the North, it is a great sanitarium. +There are seasons when the Pennsylvania +University seems to have bred +its wealth of doctors for the express purpose +of marshaling a dying world to the +curative shelter of Atlantic +City. The trains +are encumbered with the +halt and the infirm, who +are got out at the doors +like unwieldy luggage in the arms of +nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, +they display considerable mobility +in distributing themselves through the +three or four hundred widely-separated +cottages which await them for hire. As +you wander through the lanes of these +cunning little houses, you catch strange +fragments of conversation. Gentlemen +living vis-à-vis, and standing with one +leg in the grave and the other on their +own piazzas, are heard on sunny mornings +exciting themselves with the maddest +abuse of each other's doctor. There +are large boarding-houses, fifty or more +of them, each of which has its contingent +of puling valetudinarians. The healthy +inmates have the privilege of listening +to the symptoms, set forth with that full +and conscientious detail not unusual +with invalids describing their own complaints. +Or the sufferers turn their batteries +on each other. On the verandah +of a select boarding-house we have seen +a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like +a dead harlequin, as she rolled herself +in the triangles of a glittering afghan. +On a neighboring seat a gouty subject, +and a tropical sun pouring on both.</p> + +<p>"Good-morning! You see I am trying +my sun-bath. I am convinced it +relieves my spine." The same remark +has introduced seven +morning conversations.</p> + +<p>"And my gout has shot +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page617" id="page617"></a>[pg 617]</span> +from the index toe to the ring toe. +I feared my slipper was damp, and +I am roasting it here. But, dear +ma'am, I pity you so with your +spine! Tried acupuncture?"</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/617.png" name="fig617" id="fig617"><img width="100%" src="images/617.png" alt="THE THOROUGHFARE." /></a>THE THOROUGHFARE.</div> + +<p>The patient probably hears the +word as Acapulco. For she answers, +"No, but I tried St. Augustine +last winter. Not a morsel of +good."</p> + +<p>Among these you encounter +sometimes lovely, frail, transparent +girls, who come down with cheeks +of wax, and go home in two months +with cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen +arriving yellow, and going +back in due time purple.</p> + +<p>Once a hardened siren of many +watering-places, large and blooming, +arrived at Atlantic City with +her latest capture, a stooping invalid +gentleman of good family in +Rhode Island. They boated, they +had croquet on the beach, they +paced the shining sands. Both of +them people of the world and past +their first youth, they found an +amusement in each other's knowing +ways and conversation that +kept them mutually faithful in a +kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, +however, was evidently +only amusing himself with this travesty +of sentiment, though he was +never led away by the charms of +younger women. After a month +of it he succeeded in persuading +her for the first time to enter the +water, and there he assisted her +to take the billows in the gallant +American fashion. Her intention +of staying only in the very edge of +the ocean he overruled by main +force, playfully drawing her out +where a breaker washed partially +over her. As the water touched +her face she screamed, and raised +her arm to hide the cheek that had +been wet. She then ran hastily to +shore, and her friend, fearing some +accident, made haste to rejoin her. +His astonishment was great at finding +one of her cheeks of a ghastly, +unhealthy white. Her color had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page618" id="page618"></a>[pg 618]</span> +always been very high. That afternoon +she sought him and explained. +She was really an invalid, she said +calmly, and had recently undergone +a shocking operation for tumor. +But she saw no reason for +letting that interfere with her usual +summer life, particularly as she felt +youth and opportunity making away +from her with terrible strides. Having +a chance to enjoy his society +which might never be repeated, +fearing lest his rapid disease should +carry him away from before her +eyes, she had concluded to make +the most of time, dissemble her suffering, +and endeavor to conceal by +art the cold bloodlessness of her +face. This whimsical, worldly heroism +happened to strike the gentleman +strangely. He was affected to +the point of proposing marriage. At +the same time he perceived with +some amazement that his disease +had left him: the, curative spell of +the region had wrought its enchantment +upon his system. They were +wedded, with roles reversed—he as +the protector and she as the invalid—and +were truly happy during the +eighteen months that the lady lived +as his wife.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/618.png" name="fig618" id="fig618"><img width="100%" src="images/618.png" alt="THE EXCURSION HOUSE." /></a>THE EXCURSION HOUSE.</div> + +<p>There are prettier and more innocent +stories. Every freckle-nosed +girl from the Alleghany valleys who +sweeps with her polka-muslin the +floors of these generous hotels has +an idyl of her own, which she is rehearsing +with young Jefferson Jones +or little Madison Addison. In the +golden afternoons they ride together—not +in the fine turn-outs supplied +by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, +but in guiltless country wagons +guided by Jersey Jehus, where +close propinquity is a delightful necessity. +Ten miles of uninterrupted +beach spread before them, which +the ocean, transformed for the purpose +into a temporary Haussmann, +is rolling into a marble boulevard +for their use twice a day. On the +hard level the wheels scarcely leave +a trace. The ride seems like +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page11" id="page11"></a>[pg 11]</span> +eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, +and the landscape is so impressively +similar: everywhere the plunging surf, +the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with +foliage sliced off sharp and flat by the +keen east wind—their stems twisted like +a dishclout or like the olives around +Florence.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/619.png" name="fig619" id="fig619"><img width="100%" src="images/619.png" alt="A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL." /></a>A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.</div> + +<p>Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison +on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in a +boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the +railroad bridge, you lean over the side +and see the dark glassy forms moving +on the bottom. It is shallow, and a +short bit of string will reach them. The +bait is a morsel of raw beefsteak from +the butcher's, and no hook is necessary. +They make for the titbit with strange +monkey-like motions, and nip it with +their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck +it into their mouths; and so you bring +them up into blue air, sprawling and +astonished, but tenacious. You can put +them through their paces where they +roost under water, moving the beef +about, and seeing them sidle and back +on their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like +legs: it is a sight to bring a freckle-nosed +cousin almost into hysterics. But +one day a vivacious girl had committed +the offence of boasting too much of her +skill in crab-catching, besides being quite +unnecessarily gracious to Mr. Jefferson +Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, +who must have been reading Plutarch, +did a sly thing indeed. The boat having +been drawn unnoted into deeper water, +a cunning negro boy who was aboard +contrived to slide down one side without +remark, and the next trophy of the feminine +chase was a red <i>boiled</i> crab, artificially +attached to a chocolate caramel, +and landed with mingled feelings by the +pretty fisherwoman. Then what a tumult +of laughter, feigned anger and becoming +blushes! It is said that that crimson +shell, carved into a heart-shape of incorrect +proportions, is worn over Mr. +Jones's diaphragm to this day.</p> + +<p>At the Inlet, which penetrates the +beach alongside the lighthouse, is draught +for light vessels, and the various kinds +of society which focus at Atlantic City +may be seen concentrated there on the +wharf any of these bright warm days. +A gay party of beauties and aristocrats, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page620" id="page620"></a>[pg 620]</span> +with a champagne-basket and hamper +of lunch, are starting thence for a sail +over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen +in flannel, with guns, are urging +a little row-boat up toward the interior +country. They will return at night laden +with rail or reed-birds, with the additional +burden perhaps of a great loon, shot +as a curiosity. Others, provided with +fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. +Laughing farewells, waving handkerchiefs +and the other telegraphic signs +of departure, are all very gay, but the +tune may be changed when the great +sailing-party comes back, wet and +wretched, and with three of the principal +beauties limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's +hands with sea-sickness.</p> + +<p>Another spirited scene takes place at +five in the morning—an hour when the +city beauties are abed with all that +tenacity of somnolence which characterizes +Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. +The husbands and brothers, who are +due in the city before business hours, are +out for a good, royal, irresponsible tumble +in the surf. There is the great yeasty +bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, +dipping the sleek shoulder to the combing +wave. On the shore, active humanities +hastily undressing. Then the heavens +are filled with a new glory, and the +dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same +time with all these merry roisterers who +have shared it with him. He takes up +his line of business for the day, and so +do the good husbands and brothers, first +going through a little ceremony of toilet +from which he is exempt.</p> + +<p>Thus does the New Atlantis provide +for her republic, holding health to her +children with one hand, and shaking +from the other an infinity of toys and +diversions; while for those of more +thoughtful bent the sea turns without +ceasing its ancient pages, written all over +with inexhaustible romance.</p> + +<p>The great architect of the city was the +Power who graded those streets of immaculate +sand, and who laid out that +park of mellow, foam-flowered ocean. +Its human founders have done what +seemed suitable in providing shelter for +a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting +to put up six neat and modest +churches, where suitable praise and adoration +may be chanted against the +chanting of the sea. In several respects +the place grows somewhat curiously. +For instance, a lawn of turf is made by +the simple expedient of fencing off the +cattle: the grass then grows, but if the +cows get in they pull up the sod by the +roots, and the wind in a single season +excavates a mighty hollow where the +grassy slope was before. So much for +building our hopes on sand. An avenue +of trees is prepared by the easy plan of +thrusting willow-stems into the ground: +they sprout directly, and alternate with +the fine native cedars and hollies in +clothing the streets with shadow. Several +citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and +Mr. Thomas C. Hand, whose handsome +cottages are tasteful specimens of our +seaside architecture, have been tempted +by this facility of vegetable life at Atlantic +City to lay out elaborate gardens, +which with suitable culture are successful. +Fine avenues of the best construction +lead off to Shell Beach or to the single +hill boasted by the locality. Finally, +remembering the claims of the great +democracy to a wash-basin, the aediles +invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set +up the Excursion or Sea-View House, +with its broad piazzas, its numberless +facilities for amusement, and its enormous +dining-hall, which can be changed +on occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with +flowers and fountains.</p> + +<p>To a great city all the renovating and +exhilarating qualities of sea-breezes and +sea-bathing are but as the waters of +Tantalus, unless the place which offers +these advantages be easy of access. In +this respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia +a superiority over all its rivals. +The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to +whose secretary and treasurer, Mr. D.M. +Zimmermann, we are indebted for much +information, has simply drawn a straight +line to the coast, which may be reached +in an hour and three-quarters from Vine +street wharf. The villages on the route, +like the seaside terminus, owe their existence +to the road, which is now reaping +the reward of a far-sighted enterprise.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page621" id="page621"></a>[pg 621]</span> + + + + +<h2>THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA.</h2> + +<h3>CONCLUDING PAPER.</h3> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/621.png" name="fig621" id="fig621"><img width="100%" src="images/621.png" alt="ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA." /></a>ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.</div> + +<p>A noble life, whose course belongs +to the subject of these pages, is, +while they are preparing, apparently +drawing to a close. The severe illness +now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming +upon old age, disappointment, war and +the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, +can have but one result. Dimmed to-day, +as our hurrying century so rapidly +dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's +existence has only to cease and +his memory will assume the sacred +splendor of the tomb.</p> + +<p>Hapless Washington of a betrayed +revolution! In these latter days of enforced +quiet in Palestine how his early +scenes of African experience must have +flooded his mind!—his birth, sixty-six +years ago, in a family group of Moslem +saints; the teachings of his beautiful +mother Leila and of his marabout father; +his pilgrimage when eight years old to +Mecca, and his education in Italy; his +visions among the tombs, and the crown +of magic light which was seen on his +brows when he began to taste the enchanted +apple; then, with adolescence, +the burning sense of infidel tyranny that +made his home at Mascara seem only a +cage, barred upon him by the unclean +Franks; and soon, while still a youth, +his amazing election as emir of Mascara +and sultan of Oran, at a moment when +the prophet-chief had just four <i>oukias</i> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page622" id="page622"></a>[pg 622]</span> +(half-dimes) tied into the corner of his +bornouse!</p> + +<p>"God will send me others," said young +Abd-el-Kader.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:60%;"><a href="images/622.png" name="fig622" id="fig622"><img width="100%" src="images/622.png" alt="AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON." /></a>AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.</div> + +<p>The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait +of him, by Maxime David, in the +Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his +face, framed in its white hood, is seen +in full, in profile and in three-quarters +view. The visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, +refined; but we can describe it +more authentically in the terms of one +of his enemies, Lieutenant de France, +who became his prisoner in 1836, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page623" id="page623"></a>[pg 623]</span> +who followed his movements for five +months, taking down his daily talk and +habits like a Boswell, but leaving nothing +in his narrative that is not to the +sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at +twenty-eight the lieutenant says: "His +face is long and deadly pale, his large +black eyes are soft and languishing, his +mouth small and delicate, and his nose +rather aquiline: his beard is thin, but +jet-black, and he wears a small moustache, +which gives a martial character +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page624" id="page624"></a>[pg 624]</span> +to his soft, delicate face, and becomes +him vastly. His hands are small and +exquisitely formed, and his feet equally +beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a +similar portrait, impressing upon the +mind the image of some warrior-saint +of the Middle Ages, born too late, and +beating out his noble fanaticism against +our century of machines and chicanery.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/623.png" name="fig623" id="fig623"><img width="100%" src="images/623.png" alt="THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL." /></a>THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.</div> + +<p>Himself, according to some accounts, +a Berber, the young marabout early saw +the importance of inducing the Kabyles +to join with him and his Arabs in expelling +the French. He affiliated himself +with the religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, +a saint whose tomb is one of +the sacred places of Kabylia; and it is +certain that the college of this order furnished +him succor in men and money. +He visited the Kabyles in their rock-built +villages, casting aside his military +pomp and coming among them as a +simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had +received him better, he could have +shown a stouter front to the enemy. +But the mountain Berbers, utterly unused +to co-operation and subordination, +met him with surprise and distrust.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/624.png" name="fig624" id="fig624"><img width="100%" src="images/624.png" alt="A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB." /></a>A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.</div> + +<p>At least, such is the account of General +Daumas: in this interesting relation +we are forced to depend on the French. +Daumas, amply provided with documents, +letters and evidence, has arranged +in his work on <i>La Grande Kabylie</i> +the principal evidence we possess +of this epoch of Abd-el-Kader's life.</p> + +<p>The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni +and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa among +the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited +him in multitudes. He addressed +them at the door of his tent, and these +rude mountaineers found themselves +face to face with that saintly sallow visage, +those long gazelle eyes and the +prophetic countenance framed in its +apostolic beard. Raising his arms in +the attitude of Raphael's Paul at Lystra, +he said simply, "I am the thorn which +Allah has placed in the eye of the +Franks. And if you will help me I will +send them weeping into the sea."</p> + +<p>But when it came to a demand for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page625" id="page625"></a>[pg 625]</span> +supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas, +utterly refused.</p> + +<p>"You have come as a pilgrim," said +their amins, "and we have fed you with +kouskoussu. If you were to come as a +chief, wishing to lay his authority on us, +instead of white kouskoussu we should +treat you to black kouskoussu" (gunpowder).</p> + +<p>Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity +of the marabout, argued with the +Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining +their reverence and adhesion; but when +he mounted his horse to go the amins +significantly told him to come among +them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding +hospitality and white kouskoussu.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/625.png" name="fig625" id="fig625"><img width="100%" src="images/625.png" alt="KABYLE MEN." /></a>KABYLE MEN.</div> + +<p>At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of +Ameraouas, who promised to submit to +his authority as soon as the fractions +surrounding that centre should do so. +The Sons of Aicha received him with +honor and games of horsemanship. At +the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of +several tribes came to render homage to +the noble marabout, descendant of Berber +ancestry and of the Prophet. From +thence he sought tribes still more wild, +discarding his horse and appearing +among the villagers as a simple foot-pilgrim. +The natives approached him +in throngs, each family bearing a great +dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying +the platters before his tent and planting +their clubs in them, all vociferated, +"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the +chieftain was constrained to taste of +each. Finally, near Bougie he happened +to receive a courier sent by the +French commandant. The Kabyles immediately +believed him to be in treasonable +communication with the enemy, and +he was forced to retire.</p> + +<p>The young chief was in fact at that +time in peaceful communication with the +French, having made himself respected +by them in the west, while they were +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page626" id="page626"></a>[pg 626]</span> +attending to the subjugation of Constantina +and founding of Philippeville in the +east. Protected by the treaty of Taafna +in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to +attempt the consolidation of his little +empire and the fusion of the jealous +tribes which composed it. The low +moral condition of his Arabs, who were +for the most part thieves and cowards, +and the rude individuality of his Kabyles, +who would respect his religious but +scoff at his political claims, made the +task of the leader a difficult one. To +the Kabyles he confided the care of his +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page627" id="page627"></a>[pg 627]</span> +saintly reputation, renouncing their +contributions, and asking only for their +prayers as a Berber and as a khouan of +the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For +a few years his power increased, without +one base measure, without any soilure +on the blazon of increasing prosperity. +In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the zenith +of his influence, swept the plains beneath +the Atlas with his nomad court, defended +by two hundred and fifty horsemen. +Passing his days in reviewing his troops +and in actions of splendid gallantry, he +resumed the humility of the saint at +evening prayers: his palace of a night +received him, watched by thirty negro +tent-guards; and here he sheltered his +lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually +bowed by the habitual weight of +his cowl. The French soon became +jealous, and encroached upon their +treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are +told, had Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited +by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and +with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties +toward the sultan's dominions, +protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. +Open conflict followed, and a +succession of French razzias. In 1845, +Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under +Marshal Bugeaud, conducted that expedition +of eternal infamy during which +seven hundred of Abd-el-Kader's Arabs +were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of +the Dahra. This sickening measure was +put in force at a <i>cul-de-sac</i>, where a few +hours' blockade would have commanded +a peaceful surrender.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/626.png" name="fig626" id="fig626"><img width="100%" src="images/626.png" alt="KABYLE WOMEN." /></a>KABYLE WOMEN.</div> + +<p>"The fire was kept up throughout the +night, and when the day had fully dawned +the then expiring embers were kicked +aside, and as soon as a sufficient time +had elapsed to render the air of the +silent cave breathable, some soldiers +were directed to ascertain how matters +were within. They were gone but a few +minutes, and then came back, we are +told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly +daring, it seemed, to confront the light +of day. No wonder they trembled and +looked pale! They had found all the +Arabs dead—men, women, children, all +dead!—had beheld them lying just as +death had found and left them—the old +man grasping his gray beard; the dead +mother clasping her dead child with the +steel gripe of the last struggle, when all +gave way but her strong love."</p> + +<p>Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 +was due less to the prowess of Lamoricière +and Bugeaud than to the cunning +of his traitorous ally, the sultan of Morocco, +who, after having induced many +of the princely saint's adherents to desert, +finally drove him by force of numbers +over the French frontier. Confronting +the duke of Aumale on the Morocco +borders, he made a gallant fight, but +lost half his best men in warding off an +attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued +now with a long effort against overwhelming +pressure, and world-weary, +he met the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast +close to the Morocco line. Depositing +his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside +the French head-quarters, he awaited the +duke's signal to sit down.</p> + +<p>"I should have wished to do this +sooner," said the broken chief, "but I +have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. +I ask the aman (pardon) of the +king of the French for my family and +for myself."</p> + +<p>Louis Philippe could not come in contact +with this pure spirit without an +exhibition of Frankish treachery, like +tinder illuminating its foulness at the +striking of steel. The sultan's surrender +was conditioned on the freedom to retire +to Egypt. The French government no +sooner secured him than it treacherously +sent him to prison, first to the castle of +Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, +where he was kept from 1848 to 1852, +when the late emperor made an early +use of his imperial power to set him at +liberty. Since his freedom, at Constantinople, +Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan +has continued to practice the rigors +and holiness of the Oriental saint, +proving his catholic spirit by protecting +the Christians from Turkish injustice, +and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a +martyr the moment destined to unite his +soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris +and L'Ouverture.</p> + +<p>This noble life, which impinges a moment +on our course through Kabylia, is +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page628" id="page628"></a>[pg 628]</span> +surely the most epical of our century, +which can never be reproached for the +lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's +name is remembered.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:100%;"><a href="images/628.png" name="fig628" id="fig628"><img width="100%" src="images/628.png" alt="DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT." /></a>DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.</div> + +<p>The descent from the rock-perched +city of Kalaa having been made in safety, +and the animals being remounted at +the first plateau, our Roumi traveler and +his guides arrive in a few hours at the +modern, fortified, but altogether +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page629" id="page629"></a>[pg 629]</span> +Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a +letter from a French personage of importance +gives us the acquaintance of a +Kabyle family of the highest rank.</p> + +<p>The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely +descended from Mohammed +through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian +race, and one of them, settled in +Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a +prosperous college of the Oriental style. +Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and +residing at Akbou, receives the tourist +with a natural icy dignity which only a +czar among the sovereigns of Europe +could hope to equal: those who have +but seen Arabs of inferior class can form +no notion of the distinction and lofty +gravity of the chiefs of a grand house +(or of a grand tent, as they are called): +the Kabyle noble is quite as superb as +the Arab.</p> + +<p>Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered +with viands half French and half +Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, +resembling a girl with his blue head-drapery +and slim white hands, places +himself at table, and attracts the conversation +of the guest. The young man +answers in monosyllables and with his +large eyes downcast, and the agha significantly +observes, "You will excuse +him if he does not answer: he is not +used to talk before his father."</p> + +<p>The host, disposing of the time of his +guests, has arranged a series of diversions. +The valley of the river Sahel is +full of boars, and panthers and monkeys +abound in the neighboring spurs of the +Zouaouas. While the Roumi are examining +his orchards of oranges and +pomegranates the agha's courtyard fills +with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary +horses, armed with inlaid guns. +These are all entertained for the night, +together with the usual throng of parasites, +who choke his doors like the clients +of the rich Roman in Horace.</p> + +<p>At sunrise the party is mounted. The +mare of the agha, a graceful creature +whose veins form an embroidery over +her coat of black satin, is caparisoned +with a slender crimson bridle, and a +saddle smaller than the Arab saddles +and furnished with lighter stirrups. The +Christian guests are furnished with veritable +arquebuses of the Middle Ages; +that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the +stock of which, flattened and surmounted +with a hammer of flints, is ignited by +a wheel-shaped lock, easier to be managed +by a Burgundian under Charles +the Bold than by an unpretending modern +Roumi.</p> + +<p>The usual features of an Algerian hunt +succeed. A phantom-like silence pervades +the column of galloping horsemen +up to the moment when the boar is beaten +up. Then, with a formidable clamor +of "<i>Haou! haou!</i>" from his pursuers, +the tusked monster bursts through the +tamarinds and dwarf palms: after a long +chase he suddenly stops, and then his +form instantly disappears under the gigantic +African hounds who leap upon +him and hang at his ears. A huntsman +dismounts and stabs his shoulder with +the yataghan. After a rest the chase is +resumed, but this time under the form +of a hawking-party.</p> + +<p>Only the djouads and marabouts—that +is to say, the religious or secular nobles—have +the privilege of hunting with the +falcon. The patrician bird, taken by +the agha from the shoulder of his hawk-bearer, +is about as large as a pigeon, the +head small, beak short and strong, the +claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. +The bird rides upon his master's +leather glove until a hare is started: +then, unhooded and released, his first +proceeding is to dart into the zenith as +if commissioned to make a hole in the +sky. No fear, however, that the poor +panting quarry is lost for an instant from +the vision of that infallible eye, which +follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and +fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an +aërolite, and, as the deed is explained to +us, doubles up his yellow hand into a +fist, and deals the animal a sharp blow +on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen +approach, he is found with his obtuse +head bent over his prey, digging out its +eyes by the spoonful.</p> + +<p>By noontide the troop is naturally +famished. A luncheon, has, however, +been prepared by the thoughtfulness of +the agha. Riding up to a tent which +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page630" id="page630"></a>[pg 630]</span> +appears as by magic in the wilderness, the +provisions for a sumptuous repast are +discovered. Two fires are burning in +the open air, and are surrounded by a +host of servants or followers. The Roumi +and their host adjourn from the neighborhood +of the preparations, and are +served under a plane tree beautiful as +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page631" id="page631"></a>[pg 631]</span> +that whose limbs were hung by Xerxes +with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set +on fire with red pepper, introduces the +repast: pancakes follow, and various +meats smothered with eggs or onions. +Then two half-naked cooks stagger up +bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered +napkin, a sheep roasted entire +and still impaled with the spit. The +chief cook takes hold of the skewer and +draws it violently toward himself, applying +a smart stroke with his naked heel +to the tail of the creature—a contact +which would seem almost as trying as +the ancient ordeal of the ploughshares, +or as the red-hot horseshoes which the +fire-eating marabouts are accustomed to +dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste +the succulent viand, taste again, eat till +ashamed, and are ready to declare that +never was mutton properly dressed before. +If possible, they vow to introduce +the undissected roast, the bonfire, the +spit and the cook with imperturbable +heel into the cuisine of less-favored lands +more distant from the sun.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:75%;"><a href="images/630.png" name="fig630" id="fig630"><img width="100%" src="images/630.png" alt="AN ARAB MARKET." /></a>AN ARAB MARKET.</div> + +<p>Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans +do not consider as wine, washes +the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed +tobacco supplement it. But when the +appetite has retired and permitted some +sharpness to the ordinary senses, the +travelers are amazed at the gradual and +silent increase which has taken place in +their numbers. Every group of guests +is augmented by a circle of prone and +creeping forms that, springing apparently +from the earth, are busily breaking +the fragments of the feast under the care +of the servitors, who appear, rather to +encourage than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, +being interrogated, replies calmly, +"They are Tofailians."</p> + +<p>The Tofailian is a parasite on system, +an idler who elevates his belly into a +divinity, or at least a principle. His +prophet or exemplar is a certain Tofail, +whose doctrine is expressed in a few +practical rules, respectfully observed and +numerously followed. "Let him who attends +a wedding-feast," says one of his +apophthegms, "having no invitation, +avoid glancing here and there dubiously. +Choose the best place. If the guests +are numerous, pass through boldly without +saluting any one, to make the guests +of the bride think you a friend of the +bridegroom, and those of the groom a +friend of the bride."</p> + +<p>An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he +saw two buttered pancakes in a cloud, +he would take his flight without hesitation."</p> + +<p>A Tofailian of marked genius once +learned that a festival was going on at +a grand mansion. He ran thither, but +the door was closed and entrance impossible. +Inquiring here and there, he +learned that a son of the house was +absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly +he procured a sheet of parchment, +folded it, and sealed it as usual +with clay: he rolled his garments in the +dust and bent his spine painfully over a +long staff. Thus perfect in what an +actor would call his reading, he sent +word to the host that a messenger had +arrived from his son. "You have seen +him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, +"and how did he bear his fatigues?" +"He was in excellent health," answered +the Tofailian very feebly. "Speak, +speak!" cried the eager father, "and +tell me every detail: how far had he +got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," +said the simple fellow. Directly +he was seated at the highest place of +the feast, and every guest admired that +splendid appetite—an appetite quite professional, +and cultivated as poulterers +cultivate the assimilative powers of livers. +"Did my son send no letter?" asked the +poor father in a favorable interval caused +by strangulation. "Surely," replied the +good friend, and, comprehending that +the critical moment had arrived, he +drew to himself a chine of kid with one +hand while he unwound the letter from +his turban with the other. The seal was +still moist, and the pilgrim had not found +time to write anything on the parchment. +"Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host +with the illumination of a sudden idea. +"Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, +struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, +then, and may Sheytan trouble thy digestion!" +The parasite was shown the +door, but he had dined.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page632" id="page632"></a>[pg 632]</span> + +<p>Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, +turn the Tofailian into a proverb, +and thus laugh at a plague they +cannot cure.</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/632.png" name="fig632" id="fig632"><img width="100%" src="images/632.png" alt="POVERTY AND JEWELS." /></a>POVERTY AND JEWELS.</div> + +<p>The Algerine coast has enriched our +language with at least two words, respectively +warlike and peaceful—<i>razzia</i> +and <i>fantasia</i>. The latter is applied to a +game of horsemanship, used to express +joy or to honor a distinguished friend. +A spirited fantasia is organized by the +guests of the agha on returning to Akbou. +Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen +having gone on before, and being +completely lost to sight in the whirlwind +of dust created by their departure, all +of a sudden reappear. Menacing their +host and his companions like an army, +they gallop up, their bornouses flying +and their weapons flashing, until at a +few paces they discharge their long guns +under the bodies of the horses opposite, +and take flight like a covey of birds. +Loading as they retire and quickly forming, +again they dash to the charge, shouting, +galloping, and shooting among the +legs of their host's fine horses: this sham +attack is repeated a score or two of times, +up to the door of the agha's house. The +Bedouins, in their picturesque expression, +are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship +can nowhere be seen. Their +horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter +into the game with spirit, and the riders, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page633" id="page633"></a>[pg 633]</span> +secure in their castellated saddles, sit with +ease as they turn, leap or dance on two +feet. Used, too, from infancy to the +society of their mares, they move with +them in a degree of unity, vigor and +boldness which the English horseman +never attains. The Arab's love for his +horse is not only the pride of the cavalier: +it is an article of faith, and the +Prophet comprehended the close unity +between his nation and their beasts when +he said, "The blessings of this world, +up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended +to the locks which our horses +wear between their eyes."</p> + +<div class="figcenter" style="width:80%;"><a href="images/633.png" name="fig633" id="fig633"><img width="100%" src="images/633.png" alt="GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA." /></a>GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.</div> + +<p>Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality +has its advantages—on the side of the +obliged party. This haughty ruler, on +the simple stress of a letter from a French +commandant, has made himself our servant +and teased his brain for devices to +amuse us. His chief cook precedes us +to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange +a sumptuous Arab supper. After a ride +made enervating by the simoom, we descend +at the arcaded and galleried Moorish +house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, +and are visited by the sheikh of the college +which the agha maintains. It is a +strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated +to study and hospitality. Chellata, +white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic +shadow of the rock Tisibert, and +in its graveyard, among the tombs of +sacred marabouts, walk the small bald-headed +students reciting passages of law +or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over +with institutions (<i>zaouias</i>) similar to this, +which, like monasteries of old, combine +the functions of seminaries and gratuitous +inns. That of Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which +he contributes from his own purse a sum +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page634" id="page634"></a>[pg 634]</span> +equal to sixteen thousand dollars a year, +is enshrined in buildings strewn around +the resting-place of his holy ancestors. +The sacred koubba (or dome) marking +the bones of the marabout is swept by +shadows of oak and tamarind trees: +professors stray in the shadow, and the +pupils con their tasks on the adjoining +tombstones.</p> + +<p>Every impression of Chellata is silvered +over, as with a moonlight of beneficence, +by the attentions of Ben-Ali's +house-steward, who rains upon our appetites +a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, +soothes us with Moorish coffee, +and finishes by the politeness of lighting +and taking the first whiff of our cigarette—a +bit of courtesy that might be spared, +but common here as in parts of Spain.</p> + +<p>With daybreak we find the town of +Chellata preparing to play its rôle as a +mart or place of industry. The labor +seems at first sight, however, to be confined +to the children and the women: +the former lead the flocks out at sunrise +to pasture in the mountain, the women +make the town ring with their busy work, +whether of grinding at the mill, weaving +stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. +The men are at work in the fields, from +which they return at nightfall, sullen, +hardy and silent, in their tattered haiks. +These are never changed among the +poor working-people, for the scars of a +bornouse are as dignified as those of the +body, and are confided with the garment +by a father to his son. The women, as +we have remarked before, are in a state +of far greater liberty than are the female +Arabs, but it is more than anything else +the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers +the wife is a chattel from whom +it is permissible to extract all the usefulness +possible, and whom it is allowable +to sell when a bargain can be struck. +The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is +her errand to the fountain. This is +sometimes situated in the valley, far +from the nodding pillar or precipice on +which the town is built. There the traveler +finds the good wives talking and +laughing together, bending their lively—sometimes +blonde and blue-eyed—faces +together over their jars, and +gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets +around Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles—differing +therein from the Arabs—provide +a fountain for either sex; and +a visit by a man to the women's fountain +is charged, in their singular code of +penal fines, "inspired by Allah," a sum +equal to five dollars, or half as much as +the theft of an ox.</p> + +<p>By the white light of day-dawn we +quit Chellata, with the naked crests of +the Djurjura printing themselves on the +starry vault behind us and the valley +below bathed in clouds. As we descend +we seem to waken the white, red-roofed +villages with our steps. The plateaus +are gradually enlivened with spreading +herds and men going forth to labor. +We skirt the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, +crowned with its marabout's tomb. The +plains at our feet are green and glorious, +pearled with white, distant villages. +Opposite the precipice the granite rocks +open to let us pass by a narrow portal +where formerly the Kabyles used to +stand and levy a toll on all travelers. +This straitened gorge, where snow +abounds in winter, and which has various +narrow fissures, is named the Defile +of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways +of several tribes, but is impassable from +December to April from the snow and +the storms which rage among the cliffs. +We are still four thousand feet above +the plain, whose depth the swimming +eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the snowy +peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending +chains of rocks mingled with +flint and lime, we attain a more clement +landscape. Kabyle girls crowd around +a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, +a naked boy plays melancholy tunes on +a reed, and the signs of a lower level +are abundant in the fields of corn and +orchards of olive. But the rugged mountains, +in whose grasp we have found so +many wonders, are not left without regret. +The most picturesque part of our +course is now behind us, and as day +dies upon our crossing through Iferaouenen, +we turn back to behold the fine +line of the mountains, half sad and regretful,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa.</p> + </div> </div> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page635" id="page635"></a>[pg 635]</span> + +<p>Fourteen expeditions were found necessary +by the French between 1838 and +1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under +leaders such as Ben-Salem, Ben-Kassim, +the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, +and other chiefs less celebrated, +defended their territory step by +step. In the great chastisement of 1857, +Marshal Randon, after subduing this part +of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined +to preserve the fruits of victory +by two new constructions—a fort and +a military road. France was to reside +among her unwilling colonists, and she +was to possess an avenue of escape. +The building of these two conveniences, +as we may call them, over the smoking +ruins of victory, was a conspicuous example +of the excellent engineering genius +of the nation. An English officer, Lieutenant-colonel +Walmsley, witnessed, and +has left a spirited account of, the great +conquest, and the immediate improvement +of it. The strongholds of the +Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were +taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was +soon to fall, yielding only to the assault +of the Foreign Legion—that troop of +Arabs and of Kabyles from the Zouaoua +plain wherefrom we derive the word <i>zouave</i>. +Marshal Randon selected for his +fort the key of the whole district: it was +a place known as the Souk-el-Arba +("Market of Wednesday"). It was in +the heart of the Beni Raten land, and +in a spot where three great mountain-ridges +ran down into the plain of the +Sebaou. These ridges, subdued and +friendly, would be held in respect by +the garrison of the fort, and the other +ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would +likewise terminate at the fort. The +works were immediately laid out and +quickly built. As the road sprang into +its level flight like magic, the peeping +Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they +were conquered, laughed in derision. +"It is to help the cowards to run away," +they said. In due time rose the pale +walls of the citadel, with mountains +above and hills below. The Kabyles +call it the White Phantom. Their songs, +the "traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite +the building of the terrible stronghold: +"The Roumi has arrived at the Market: +he is building there. Weep, O my eyes! +tears of blood. The children of Raten +are valiant men: they are known as +masters of the warlike art. They fell +upon the enemy at Icheriden. The +Franks fell like lopped branches. Glory +to those brave men! But the Roumi +has peeled us like seeds. The powder +talks no more. The warlike men are +fainting. Cover thyself with mourning, +O my head!"</p> + +<p>As the tourist turns the summit of +Aboudid suddenly appears, like an ornamental +detail in a panorama, this +vast fortress, originally named Fort Napoléon, +and since the collapse of the +empire called Fort National. During +the French troubles of 1871, in the +month of August, General Cérès was +obliged to inspire terror by burning the +village of Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and +then went on to relieve the fort. When +the next opportunity will occur for the +Beni Raten to assert their rights it is impossible +to tell. We descend from the +fort, and all becomes commonplace. +The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in +its valley-bed are being replaced by +new buildings. All wears a look of +every-day thrift. The Arab, moving his +household goods, drives before him his +poor dingy wife, loaded down with worthless +valuables and also with copper jewels, +in which she clanks like a fettered +slave. A negro musician from the Desert, +a true African minstrel, capers before +us and beats the tom-tom, until, +distracted with his noise, we pay him +and bombard him off the face of the +road with projectiles.</p> + +<p>From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is +but four hours' journey, and the four +hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, +our circumstances are subdued to the +conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our +spahi guides, like figures from <i>Lalla +Rookh!</i> Adieu, our dream of an African +Switzerland! The Roumi, outside +of Kabylia, quickly fades into the light +of common day, and becomes plain +Tom or Harry.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page636" id="page636"></a>[pg 636]</span> + + + + +<h2>A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867.</h2> + + +<p>"And you traveled alone?"</p> + +<p>"There were two of us—Annie +Foster and I."</p> + +<p>"You found no difficulty?"</p> + +<p>"Not a bit," she replied laughing.</p> + +<p>"But you had adventures: I see it in +your face."</p> + +<p>"Who would travel without adventures?" +and she made an expressive +gesture.</p> + +<p>"Romantic?"</p> + +<p>"Hm!—<i>tant soit peu</i>."</p> + +<p>"I am all attention: begin."</p> + +<p>"You promise not to tell?"</p> + +<p>"Not for the world: torture could not +induce me to divulge a single word."</p> + +<p>"Well, the way it came about was this: +Annie and I had been sent from England +to a small French town on the +coast, for the benefit of the warm sea-water +baths. It was a quaint little port; +all the houses reminded you of ships in +their fitting up; the beds were set into +the wall like berths; closets were stowed +away in all sorts of impossible places; +the floors were uncarpeted and white as +a main deck; and articles from distant +countries hung about the walls or stood +in the corners—East Indian sugar-cane, +cotton from America, Chinese crockery +and piles of sea-shells. The great sea +by which we lodged was represented +everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps +and water-fowl—our acquaintance, fishermen, +shrimpers and sailors. The leading +event of the day was the coming in +and going out of the tide, and ducks +and geese were the chief domestic animals. +On one side was a prospect of +wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, +on the other wind-beaten fields and the +sails of mills: the few cabins that had +rashly ventured beyond the protection +of the village shortly lost courage, and, +with their thatched roofs not a yard from +the earth, seemed crouching low to avoid +the continuous blasts. The church alone +on the high sea-wall raised itself fearlessly +against the tyrant, and though his +baffled voice still howled without, within +the pious prayed securely before a faith-inspiring +altarpiece of Christ stilling the +tempest.</p> + +<p>"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted +every amusement that the dull town +afforded, become intimate with all the +old gossips, tired of listening to the +yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven +the donkeys over the country until they +instinctively avoided us whenever we appeared, +sailed in the bay and suffered +periodic attacks of sea-sickness therefrom, +finished the circulating library, +and half learned some barbarous sentences +of Norman patois, we sat down +disconsolate one afternoon to devise +some means of employing the remainder +of our time. It was then that the bright +idea struck Annie, and she exclaimed, +'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!'</p> + +<p>"'Just the thing!' I answered with +enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next +train starts?'</p> + +<p>"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and +pack the trunks. If we can get off to-day, +by to-morrow morning we can begin +seeing it;' and she left the room in great +excitement.</p> + +<p>"The result was, that by seven o'clock +that evening we had made our hasty +preparations, and were ready to set out. +It was raining terribly when the only +hack of the village (which, by the by, +was an omnibus) called for us at the +door. The dripping fluid oozed and +sparkled over the blinking lamps, the +ribbed sides of the antiquated machine +were varnished with moisture, and the +horses looked as if each hair was a +water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's +patriarchal mansion might have presented +a similar appearance during the first +days of that celebrated wet season.</p> + +<p>"The motherly woman with whom we +had been boarding turned dismally from +the weather to her invalids and tried to +dissuade us from leaving that night, little +understanding that we considered it 'fun.' +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page637" id="page637"></a>[pg 637]</span> +As a parting advice she told us to call +each other <i>madame</i>: it would procure +us more consideration. 'For you know, +young ladies,' she remonstrated mildly, +'it is not quite proper for you to travel +alone.' After this prudent counsel and +many warm adieus we sallied forth.</p> + +<p>"The omnibus was crowded, and I +had perforce to sit on Annie's knees. +This, with the jolting, the queer effect +of the half-light in the rickety interior, +together with the expression of the good +people, who evidently could see no fun +in rain, excited my risibility so strongly +that I indulged in a smothered laugh, +tempered to fit the publicity of the occasion.</p> + +<p>"'You must not laugh in France,' +whispered Nan, pulling my dress.</p> + +<p>"'I thought the French admired gayety,' +I answered in the same tone.</p> + +<p>"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.'</p> + +<p>"The rest of the way was accomplished +in silence. We soon arrived at the +station and bought our tickets. Of course +we had half a dozen bundles: in gathering +them up a most gentlemanly person +accosted us and asked, 'Avez vous perdu +quelque chose, mademoiselle?'</p> + +<p>"Annie replied in the negative with +great dignity, and so cut off any chance +of adventure in that quarter.</p> + +<p>"On came the train. In France there +is fortunately a provision made for women +traveling without an escort. In +your country they have, I believe, +smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: +in that blessed land there is a compartment +for 'ladies alone,' or <i>Dames +Seules,</i> as it is called. A good American +once read this inscription with much +commiseration, <i>D—— souls</i>, and returning +told his friends that the 'wicked' +French allowed His Satanic Majesty the +right of running a special car on their +roads for his greater accommodation.</p> + +<p>"As we were hastening to this most +desired refuge I noticed two very student-looking +young men walking near us, and +caught a bit of their conversation.</p> + +<p>"'They will.'</p> + +<p>"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it +we go up in the same car with them.'</p> + +<p>"'I told you so!'</p> + +<p>"As we found our car and entered the +students passed on, not daring to ignore +the magic words on the door; so Adventure +No. 2 was nipped in the bud.</p> + +<p>"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, +and we sank back into the soft +cushions with the pleasant sense that no +further effort would be needed during +the journey. We had been told that the +train would arrive in Paris about midnight, +but the lateness of the hour caused +us no uneasiness, as we had been there +before and remembered the city pretty +well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed +in our ability to take care of ourselves.</p> + +<p>"In an interval of wakefulness we +discussed our plans, and concluded to +spend the night at some hotel near the +station, the next morning looking up our +friends (several of whom we knew to be +in town) and consulting them about our +future proceedings, feeling that a midnight +visit from us would scarcely be +welcome to any one. Annie recalled a +fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, +and, having made our selection +in its favor, we dozed off again very +comfortably.</p> + +<p>"I think we had been on the way +some four hours when the welcome +lights began to appear—first in the sky +above the city, as if the earth in this favored +spot threw out rays like the sun; +next through the darkness over the country +below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise +into the earth under the busy streets +and fortifications, to emerge at the end +of our route.</p> + +<p>"We gathered up our bundles in haste, +thanking the stars that we had accomplished +our ride so safely, and were +walking off to the hotel when we suddenly +thought of the trunks. Another consultation +was held, and we decided to +leave them in the baggage-room until +morning.</p> + +<p>"'But we must go and see that they +are safe,' suggested Annie.</p> + +<p>"'Where is the baggage-room?' I +asked of a porter.</p> + +<p>"'This way, mademoiselle.'</p> + +<p>"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in +a weak voice.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page638" id="page638"></a>[pg 638]</span> + +<p>"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite +official as we entered the door, and another +laid hands on the satchels we carried, +to examine them.</p> + +<p>"We had entirely forgotten the octroi +officers. 'Oh my! this affair may keep +us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I +am so sleepy!' I have often found (I +confide this to you as an inviolable secret) +that to be unreasonable is a woman's +strongest weakness: it is a shield +against which man's sharpest logic is invariably +turned aside. The next thing +to there not being a necessity, is not seeing +a necessity, and this I prepared in +the most innocent manner to do.</p> + +<p>"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed—or its +French equivalent, which I suppose is +'Mon Dieu'—'you don't mean to detain +us here opening those bags, and we so +tired, and they packed so full that we +could scarcely shut them; and if you <i>do</i> +open them, we cannot get all the things +into them again, and shall have no end +of trouble!' Then I looked as injured +as if they had been thieves or highway-men.</p> + +<p>"Had a man made this speech they +would have mistrusted him, but as women +have a reputation for shallowness, +such talk is never thought suspicious in +them.</p> + +<p>"'What do they contain?' asked the +officer, hesitating.</p> + +<p>"'I don't know what all: we have +been at the sea-side, and they are full +of trash. There are some shells and an +old hat in mine, and—and things.'</p> + +<p>"He tried to conceal a smile, and +looked toward the other, who nodded, +and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in +chalk, upon which the bags were given +back to us.</p> + +<p>"'Now the trunks,' said the first who +had spoken, holding out his hand for +the keys.</p> + +<p>"'Oh, we are going to leave them +here till to-morrow: they are all right—you +can mark them too;' and without +further ceremony we moved toward the +door. One of the men stepped after us. +I thought it was to make us return, but +it was only to ask if he should get us a +carriage.</p> + +<p>"We thanked him and replied that +we were going to the hotel opposite, and +did not need one: he then turned to a +person who seemed to be the porter of +the establishment, and told him to carry +our satchels for us. Now we felt our +journey was well at an end, for the windows +of our welcome asylum were blazing +not more than a hundred feet off.</p> + +<p>"We crossed the street, rang at the +ladies' entrance and asked for rooms. +After a few moments the servant returned, +and, much to our chagrin, said that +there were none to be had, every corner +was full.</p> + +<p>"'Do let us see the clerk. We <i>must</i> +have a room: you can surely find us +one somewhere.'</p> + +<p>"The man shook his head.</p> + +<p>"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we +shall be satisfied with anything for the +night. Won't you go and ask again?'</p> + +<p>"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, +à cause de l'Exposition;' and +he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to +every other effort at persuasion that we +made.</p> + +<p>"Just then a chambermaid passed. +'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you +find us a room? I will pay you;' and I +put my hand significantly in my pocket.</p> + +<p>"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,'</p> + +<p>"This was a contingency we had not +provided for: we looked at each other +blankly, and, though loath to do so, we +both came to the conclusion that they +were telling the truth.</p> + +<p>"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, +speaking to me in English.</p> + +<p>"'I suppose we shall have to take a +carriage and go down town, after all,'</p> + +<p>"'They may be full there too,' she +said in a rueful tone.</p> + +<p>"Just then the porter with our satchels +spoke: 'There is another hotel near, +ladies, and if you will come I will show +you to it,'</p> + +<p>"I consulted Annie with a look, and +she assented. Any prospect was better +than a midnight drive of several miles, +with no certainty as to our lot at the end +of it. So we turned from the inhospitable +door and followed our guide.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page639" id="page639"></a>[pg 639]</span> + +<p>"The latter walked quickly for perhaps +a square, stopped before a neat-looking +house and rang. Our courage +rose as the door opened and revealed +a clean-looking court surrounded by +orange trees in boxes, with small coffee-tables +under them for the convenience +of the guests.</p> + +<p>"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded +our attendant with the voice of a herald.</p> + +<p>"The trim but sleepy servant looked +at us a moment, as if not comprehending +the situation, then slowly pronounced +our sentence in two words, 'No rooms!' +and as if to emphasize them threw up +the palms of his hands, shook his head +and added 'Full!' after which he closed +the door with a hasty click and returned +to his nap.</p> + +<p>"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed +with this reception—not more so +than we were—but without allowing us +time to speak he said in his most reassuring +voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there +are plenty of hotels about here, and we +shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having +undertaken the task, he seemed to think +it his duty to comfort and provide for us.</p> + +<p>"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. +Two other hotels were successively +tried in vain, and still our indefatigable +guide went on. It appeared as if we +had walked a considerable distance, but +the streets cut each other at odd angles, +and we had been turning so often that I +confess I had but little idea where we +were, or how far we had come, when +we entered a quarter where the ways +became narrower, passed into a dingy +alley, thence plunged through a still +darker court, from that to another alley, +and the next moment our porter was +ringing at the door of a tall, sombre +house. I truly hoped that we should not +find rooms here, and was turning to +Annie to advise a cab and an attempt in +a more civilized-looking locality, when +the bell was answered and the old question +repeated.</p> + +<p>"To my surprise and dismay the servant +said they could accommodate us. +Should we stay? I knew that in the +older parts of Paris the best of houses +are sometimes found in the poorer streets, +and that in no city is a person less able to +judge of the interior comfort of a building +by its external aspect. We were very +tired, and should we turn away from this +open door where should we find another +open for us? The porter, however good-natured, +could not continue to run about +with us all night, and our faith in ourselves +was considerably diluted since +we left the cars: even a cab might be +difficult to get at this hour of the night. +Annie did not object: indeed, she looked +too worn out to have an opinion in +the matter, and as I could think of nothing +better to do, I began to make the +usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining +rooms?'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, mademoiselle.'</p> + +<p>"I remembered the advice that had +been given us on starting: here surely +was a place to use it, so I said to the +servant in a marked tone, 'Take <i>madame's</i> +bag and show us to our chambers.'</p> + +<p>"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered +with the most provoking coolness.</p> + +<p>"I dismissed our faithful porter with +regret, and followed the other up stairs. +While ascending I racked my brain to +determine what peculiarity of manner +we could adopt that would give us a +more matronly air while traveling, but I +could think of nothing. I may as well +tell you now that we never for an instant +deceived any one on this subject during +our stay, and we soon ceased trying to +do so.</p> + +<p>"Our rooms were much better than I +had expected to find them, but even this +caused in me a feeling of doubt. They +had a hypocritical air, a grasping after +appearances that I believe always accompanies +deceit and imposition—a sleek +shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct +that if I examined I should find +the carpets worn out under the mats, +and the chairs faded beneath their smart +chintz covers. There was not a candid-looking +piece of furniture in the apartment: +the table was an impostor with +one short leg; the drawers of the bureau +would not open; the glasses were all +askew, and twisted your face to such a +degree that it frightened you to catch a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page640" id="page640"></a>[pg 640]</span> +glimpse of yourself in passing. But this +was not the worst: from the moment I +entered the rooms I felt that they <i>had +been waiting for us</i>.</p> + +<p>"I did not venture to mention my +suspicions to Annie, and tried to keep +up a cheery sort of conversation while +we undressed, but I could see that she +too began to be uneasy. We carefully +inspected our doors, and found the locks +were good, then looked to see that there +was no one lurking under the beds. It +would be difficult to tell you exactly +what I feared, but somehow everything +impressed me as mysterious—the quiet +of the streets through which we had +come, and the quiet of the house. It +was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: +our feet echoed on the stairways as if +human feet seldom ascended them; the +shadows appeared especially dark; our +candles' small light made little impression +on the gloom; the very air seemed +harder to breathe than ordinary; and on +recalling the face of the impertinent servant +I thought that it had a sinister look.</p> + +<p>"I tried to recall whether we were in +a good or bad faubourg, but could not; +and then I remembered that Paris was +now divided into arrondissements, which +had a much less ill-omened sound. I +went to the window to reconnoitre the +locality, but, though the rain had ceased, +darkness covered all so thickly that I +could see nothing. As I stood there the +clock on the station struck, first the quarters, +and then <i>one</i>, in a doleful, muffled +tone. It told me one thing I was glad +to know—namely, that we could not +have wandered very far during our walk; +but there was little comfort in that, after +all, since the walk had terminated here.</p> + +<p>"Stories that I had read of strange +adventures and accidents to midnight +guests now trooped into my head. I +thought of one in particular, in which +the tester of the bed slowly descended +to smother the sleeping inmate for purposes +of robbery; whereupon I minutely +examined mine, and found to my +satisfaction that it was scarcely able to +discharge the single duty of holding up +the curtains, and looked most innocent +of further intentions. Finding myself +again peering into corners I had already +searched, and feeling this general unrest +to be growing upon me, I began to think +I must be nervous from over-exertion, +and determined to get rid of my silly +fancies in sleep. Then, as if to take +myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out +the light, sprang under the covers and +shut my eyes tight, afraid that something +hateful might glare upon me in the dark.</p> + +<p>"Just then Annie came to the communicating +doorway, and with an effort +to speak in her natural voice she said, +'Jane, I am going to sleep here.' And +as if this endeavor had consumed her +last bit of resistance, she closed and +locked the door quickly, ran to my bed +and threw herself shivering beside me.</p> + +<p>"'What is the matter?' I whispered, +feeling my presentiment of evil confirmed.</p> + +<p>"She put her lips to my ear and answered, +'I found a door in my room behind +the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't +know <i>where</i>."</p> + +<p>"'Did you open it?'</p> + +<p>"'No indeed! I would not open it for +the world. There might be something +horrible in it;' and she shuddered.</p> + +<p>"'You have left your light burning.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't care. I won't go back: no +indeed, I <i>could</i> not.' There was silence +for a few minutes: neither of us moved, +when Nan again whispered, 'Do you +think this room quite safe?'</p> + +<p>"'I looked all around before I blew +out the light.'</p> + +<p>"'Did you look <i>behind</i> your curtains?'</p> + +<p>"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable +sensation.</p> + +<p>"'You are next the wall: feel along +it,' in her most persuasive voice.</p> + +<p>"The very idea made me creep. Put +my hand behind those curtains and touch—what? +Even the cold wall would be +sufficient to terrify me. For reply I remarked +suggestively, 'If we had the light +we could see.'</p> + +<p>"'Yes, that would be just the thing. +Go bring it—do!'</p> + +<p>"I felt that something must be done, +and soon, or I should be in no state to +accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I +must: when we had the light half our +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page641" id="page641"></a>[pg 641]</span> +trouble would be over, and, after all, she +might have been mistaken.</p> + +<p>"'Did the door move?' I ventured to +ask.</p> + +<p>"'No, it didn't do anything—at least I +don't think it did—but it <i>looked</i> so awful +that it frightened me.'</p> + +<p>"'That light in there may set something +on fire,' I remarked.</p> + +<p>"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a +minute. Do go!'</p> + +<p>"'You are sure the door didn't open?' +I asked, far from liking my task.</p> + +<p>"'I will go with you half-way,' she +volunteered, 'and stand there while you +run in quick. Come on, and don't let +us talk any more about it: we shall only +get more and more frightened.' You +will see that Annie's gifts lay more in +persuasion than in action.</p> + +<p>"Thus adjured, I went with her to the +communicating door, cautiously listened, +then looked through the keyhole. The +silence within was oppressive, but the +flickering bougie warned me that I must +make an effort, and without allowing +myself time to think I hastily turned the +key and opened the door.</p> + +<p>"At that moment it seemed to me that +I heard distant footsteps. I rushed for +the light and turned to go back, when I +ran against some one: the candle was +extinguished by being jerked from the +holder to the floor, and a hand which I +vainly tried to shake off clasped my +arm. My blood grew thick and still +with sudden terror. I tried to speak, but +could not. What increased my dread +was that I could not tell whether the +<i>Thing</i> by my side was a reality or a +spectre. I had caught a glimpse of +something white as the light disappeared, +and I believe that a pistol at my head +would have caused me less alarm than +this horrible idea of the supernatural. +I began to feel that I could endure it no +longer, that I should stifle, should die, +when Annie's voice spoke in the darkness +quite near, and I found it was she +who had grasped my arm.</p> + +<p>"'I could not stay in that room alone,' +she whispered. 'Don't you hear?—<i>footsteps!</i> +They are coming.'</p> + +<p>"'You have half frightened me to +death,' I murmured trembling: 'I thought +you were something.'</p> + +<p>"'No, I ain't anything, but something +<i>is</i> coming. Don't you hear?'</p> + +<p>"It was true enough. Through the +quiet of the house came stealthy footsteps. +Nearer, nearer. They were ascending +the stairs, at times delaying an +instant, as if groping for the way, then +on.</p> + +<p>"'Come into your room,' said Annie +convulsively: 'come, and we can lock +ourselves in. Oh, where <i>is</i> your door? +I cannot find it, and they are coming. +What shall we do? what shall we do?'</p> + +<p>"We were in total darkness: not a +ray of light came from the window, and +in our confusion we had lost our bearings. +Neither of us had the least idea +in what direction the other room lay.</p> + +<p>"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps +we may find it. Do try,' said I.</p> + +<p>"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we +had never come. I am dying.' She +was shaking with fright, and would not +leave my arm for an instant.</p> + +<p>"Just then, from somewhere near us, +we could not tell from what side, came +a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, +with such a summons in its tone, +that I shivered: then a faint movement +followed from the same place.</p> + +<p>"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped +Annie: 'it is in that door: they are +coming, they are here. Shall I scream +murder? shall I?' giving my arm an +emphasizing grip.</p> + +<p>"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.'</p> + +<p>"She groaned, slipped down on her +knees, with one arm still round me, her +face pressed against my side, holding +her other hand over the unprotected ear, +so that she should hear no more; and +in this position she began to repeat +'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as +fast as she could gabble it.</p> + +<p>"I was no less frightened, and would +willingly have crouched down also, but +she held me so tight that I could not +without a struggle, and above all things +I did not want to make a noise.</p> + +<p>"It was thus we awaited the crisis. +The steps were certainly coming to our +room, but whether by the door we had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page642" id="page642"></a>[pg 642]</span> +entered or by the one Annie had seen +behind the bed, I could not tell. I was +too bewildered to locate the sound, nor +did I know whether the bed was at my +right or left hand. I had a slight hope +that the steps might pass on.</p> + +<p>"It was for that I waited.</p> + +<p>"They came—near, nearer. For a +time my heart ceased beating. Annie +slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, +and I could no longer hear her breathe. +My whole being was merged in listening +to that step. I could feel that now it +was on a level with our room—was there +almost beside us. Lightly though distinctly +a hand passed over the door, as +if fumbling for the latch. This was the +intense moment. Had the person paused +or hesitated an instant, I think it would +have killed us both. But no, he did not +falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by +the hand, went as it had come, and as I +stood, not daring to move, I heard it receding +in the distance of the great house. +Then all was silence.</p> + +<p>"When sensation returned to me I +felt as if I had awakened from a nightmare, +and found myself shaking from +the nervous reaction and the cold. I +stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, +and said through my chattering teeth, +'It must have been only a late boarder. +Don't be afraid. It is all over: come, +get up.'</p> + +<p>"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. +'I cannot move until you have a light. +I am still afraid.'</p> + +<p>"I now remembered that the bureau +must be behind me, for I had merely +turned when I encountered Annie and +dropped the candle. There were probably +matches upon it: yes, there they +were. I struck one and easily found the +candle: then Annie rose with the meekest +air possible, and, without looking +at the obnoxious corner where the bed +stood, we walked into the other room +and locked the door.</p> + +<p>"It was not until the gray morning +light crept into the window that we felt +quite safe. Every crack in the floor or +nibbling mouse caused us to start, and +at each quarter the clock of the station +would strike as if to warn us to be on +the alert. But the bed was not bad, and +the house remained quiet; and as soon +as the dawn made our candle useless, +we began to think we had been very +foolish, and the result was a sound sleep.</p> + +<p>"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: +the morning was bright and clear, and +the terrors of the night had all departed +during our refreshing rest. The room +certainly looked shabby, but if that were +a crime, half the houses in the world +would be sent to prison. There was +nothing in the least mysterious about it. +Our courage rose with the day, and we +teased and joked each other about our +fright. Then, anticipating the glories of +the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves +that we had come.</p> + +<p>"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie +as she was dressing: 'we will go +down town to a nice restaurant, and sit +at a window and see the people go by. +Afterward we will look up our friends +and find a good hotel or boarding-house; +and we <i>must</i> go to the Exposition this +very day. We shall have a famous time. +We can make up parties to drive out, +and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, +and to the theatre. Ain't you +glad you came?'</p> + +<p>"'The first thing we do must be to go +back to the station and leave these bags +with our trunks until we find lodgings,' +I remarked.</p> + +<p>"Nan went into the next room to get +some of the clothing she had left there. +When she returned, lowering her voice +she said, 'Jane, there <i>is</i> a door behind +my curtains.'</p> + +<p>"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose +it is a closet.'</p> + +<p>"'No such thing: it don't look like a +closet; and why would they hide a closet, +I should like to know? Come in and +see it.'</p> + +<p>"She walked back, and as I followed +drew the curtain aside, and there in fact +it was.</p> + +<p>"'I am going to open it before I leave +the room,' she said in a determined +tone: 'there is something not right about +it.'</p> + +<p>"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some +one may be in there.'</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page643" id="page643"></a>[pg 643]</span> + +<p>"'I am going to see: I must look into +it. It is daylight, you know, and we +sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to +push away the bed.'</p> + +<p>"'I won't do anything so absurd. +This is a hotel, Annie, and there must +be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose +that room is now occupied by a +boarder?'</p> + +<p>"'If it is occupied they will lock the +door on the other side, and I will try the +latch softly to see; but I know it is not. +Don't you see that the only entrance +must be from here? There is the entry. +opposite, and here is the court: now, +how could any one get into it but through +this room? It must be a small place, +too, for here is the corner of the house, +and it has been evidently planned to be +kept <i>concealed</i>."</p> + +<p>"'No matter: we have no right to any +rooms but these we are in. Come away, +and let well enough alone.'</p> + +<p>"'It is not "well enough," as you call +it. I am going to see into it, and why +they hide it. I declare,' and she examined +the door critically, 'it looks like the +entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look +at these queer marks, these dents and +stains, as if there had been a struggle. +It is our duty to investigate;' and her +voice grew impressive. 'Perhaps we +have been brought here for that very +purpose, and, Jane, if there <i>is</i> a dead +body in there, I shall inform the police.' +Annie was very brave in daylight.</p> + +<p>"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine +speech. 'What you call duty, I call +curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and +I wish you would finish dressing and let +us get to breakfast.'</p> + +<p>"'I will just tell you this,' she answered +indignantly, and yet with a quiver in +her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I +did last night when I saw that door. It +was quite like what people write of a +mysterious influence, or the presence of +some one unseen; and that whistle or +voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, +came from here; and you must help me +to find out what it really was, for I can't +go away without knowing.'</p> + +<p>"I saw it was useless to try longer to +dissuade her. The bed moved easily: +she took my hand and led me behind it; +then warily tried the latch. It rose, but +she was obliged to lean all her weight +against the door before it would give +way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly +that she almost fell forward.</p> + +<p>"What did I see? At the first glimpse +a faint light from a cobwebbed window, +a narrow room and a floor—red. Was +it blood? A sickening mouldy smell +came forth, but as I forced myself to +look again I saw that it was only red +tiles that had startled me. There was +an upright brick range in a corner, an +old water-tank, some shelves and a cupboard. +A missing pane of glass left a +space through which the air had entered +and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue +that opened above the range. This was +the ominous 'signal' we had heard in +answer to the footsteps. The dust was +thick over everything, and the only signs +of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. +We stood still for a few moments, overwhelmed +at this solution of the occult +'influence' that had so subtly acted on +Annie's nerves, and filled me with no +less terror.</p> + +<p>"The house had been built for a <i>hôtel +garni</i>; that is, a house with furnished +rooms or apartments, something like a +tenement-house in your country. This +was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged +to the two rooms we had taken. +Being unused for its proper object, and +too small for a bed-chamber, it had been +closed, and appeared as if it had been +unentered for years. I turned to Annie +to see how she would bear this prosaic +explanation of our alarm, but with the +air of one who had expected nothing +but this from the beginning, she remarked, +'Now you see how much better it +is to look into such things. This room +would have furnished me with bad +dreams for the remainder of my life, +and here I find it is only a commonplace +kitchen. Think how ludicrous to have +the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I +tell of your fright when we get home—how +you didn't want to open the door, +and wanted to 'let well enough alone'? +The place <i>might</i> be haunted by the +ghost of a chicken or a rabbit, but, my +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page644" id="page644"></a>[pg 644]</span> +dear, you should not allow that to terrify +you.'</p> + +<p>"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken +that you feared last night, and that +caused your presentiments this morning. +I hope you will inform the police of what +you have discovered here,' I remarked +quietly.</p> + +<p>"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will +say no more. We were both boobies. +But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you +and me, and make our own breakfast? +Look at the hole for charcoal, and the +little cupboard, the nails for the pots +and pans to hang on: everything is +complete. That room could be for +dining, the other a parlor, and—'</p> + +<p>"'The only drawback would be that, +except at the North Pole, the night comes +once in twenty-four hours.'</p> + +<p>"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in +here a minute: it's a dear little place.'</p> + +<p>"'You will certainly make a housekeeper +if a kitchen gives you such ecstasy. +Come out, I am so hungry. Put +on your bonnet and leave this elysium: +I have had enough of it.'</p> + +<p>"'You come in for a second: it will +shake the terror off and you won't dream +of it. That is a cure my old nurse once +gave me for laying ghosts.'</p> + +<p>"'It may be a good plan to shake off +the terror, but the dust on you will not +be shaken off so easily.'</p> + +<p>"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot—'suppose +that the floor should be hollow, +and that this were only a pretended +kitchen after all, or that there was a +trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a +sliding panel.' Here she felt over the +surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel +so queer last night if this was really nothing +but a kitchen?'</p> + +<p>"'Because you are a goose,' I answered +impatiently, 'and if you don't come +I will leave you. If you like, you can +engage boarding here for a week, and +raise the tiles one by one with a knife +and fork. As for me, I am going to +breakfast.'</p> + +<p>"'But don't you think it really has an +uncanny look?' she asked, giving a last +glance over her shoulder as she came +out.</p> + +<p>"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is +plenty of that. Shut the door, and I +will push back the bed.'</p> + +<p>"'Jane,' she again remarked as she +was trying on her bonnet before the +crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this +night, I think I will say that there <i>was</i> +a trap-door in the kitchen: you know +there might be one and we not see it.'</p> + +<p>"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as +I could, 'I suppose a fib more or less +will make but little difference in your +lifetime. While you are at it, however, +you may as well make a few more additions.'</p> + +<p>"'Now you are unkind.'</p> + +<p>"'A person is not accountable for +temper when famishing. Take up your +satchel.'</p> + +<p>"We found the house a most every-day-looking +house, seen by sunlight; +but there had lain the difficulty. The +clerk in the office did not particularly +resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, +and, strange to say, did not overcharge +us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. +We found we were not far from the +station, and depositing our bags there, +we walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette.</p> + +<p>"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel +alone in this way,' said Nan gayly, her +spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When +I was here before with all the family, it +was not near so jolly; and I think we +manage well, don't you? Oh, there is +an omnibus not <i>complet</i>: let us get in. +I am too hungry to walk.'</p> + +<p>"After we were seated she continued: +'I wonder what will happen to us to-night. +Suppose we find every place full, +and have to sleep in a garden or on the +steps of a church, or something? Isn't it +delightful not to know in the least what is +going to happen next?—just as in fairy-land. +Don't you hope we may have an +adventure every night?'</p> + +<p>"'I should not call last night an adventure: +it seems to me it was more like a +panic,' I said drily.</p> + +<p>"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' +in a hurt tone: then recovering +her good temper, she went on: 'Well, +call it a panic if you like. Now, suppose +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page645" id="page645"></a>[pg 645]</span> +we had one every night, and we stayed +here two weeks, there would be fourteen +panics before we go home. Wouldn't +that be glorious?'</p> + +<p>"'You did not appear to enjoy it so +much last night.'</p> + +<p>"'At the time I did not,' she admitted +frankly. 'Weren't we frightened? But +then, you know, how nice it will be to +talk of it afterward!'</p> + +<p>"We arrived at a restaurant in the +Palais Royal, and found a seat by the +window, and a breakfast. We had already +finished the latter, and were playing +with our fruit, when a party entered +who attracted our attention by speaking +English.</p> + +<p>"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie +whispered excitedly. 'I know her +well: hadn't we better run away? What +will she think of our being here alone?'</p> + +<p>"'Nonsense! You had better ask her +where she is staying. Remember, we +are houseless as yet.'</p> + +<p>"'I don't like to ask her.'</p> + +<p>"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The +idea of spending the night in a garden +or on a church-step did not possess the +same charms for me as for Nan. Thus +prompted, she walked forward and spoke +to her friend, afterward presenting me. +We chatted a few minutes, when Miss +Rodgers asked Annie where she was +staying, and how her mamma was.</p> + +<p>"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's +embarrassed reply.</p> + +<p>"I went to her rescue, and diverted +the questions by asking some myself: +'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? +We do not like our hotel and want to +change.'</p> + +<p>"'There is not a room in our house +that is unoccupied, and you won't find +good accommodation anywhere. You +had better not change if you have a +place to lay your head. Paris is so +crowded that everything has been taken +up long ago. You can ask at a dozen +hotels or boarding-houses and not find +a garret to let. You have no idea of the +difficulty.'</p> + +<p>"Yes, we had an idea, and believed +every word she said: in fact, we would +rather have felt less convinced on the +subject. Even Annie seemed to think +that traveling alone might present some +disagreeable features, and looked quite +unhappy, notwithstanding her love of +adventure. But before our mental anguish +had time to become unbearable +a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, +spoke: 'Auntie, if the young ladies +would like, I know of just the place that +would suit them.' Then turning to us, +she continued: 'I am at school a few +miles out of the city, and madame told +me that if I knew of any one, she had +room for a few parlor-boarders. It is a +lovely spot, and no end of trains coming +and going all day; so that it would be +just as convenient as living here, and +you would have excellent accommodation. +Then, too, I could speak English +to you sometimes. I am so tired of +talking for ever without half knowing +what I am saying.'</p> + +<p>"I could have embraced the chatterbox +on the spot for this opportune proposal, +but controlled my feelings and +looked at Nan to see if she approved. +She was consenting with every one of +her expressive features, and did not appear +at all anxious to enjoy one of her +fourteen delightful panics this evening +if it could be avoided. Being spokesman, +I said, 'I would willingly try the +school on your recommendation, Miss +Ada, if you think madame could be +ready for us this evening.'</p> + +<p>"'Of course she could: come out with +me now and see her. I must go at one, +and can show you the way. Will you +meet me at the station? or shall we call +for you at your hotel?'</p> + +<p>"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, +glad to settle it so quickly, 'if +you are quite sure that your madame +will like our unceremonious arrival.'</p> + +<p>"'That will be all right, I know. She +has several empty rooms, and will be +happy to have them filled. You can +leave your trunks until to-morrow if you +don't like to come bag and baggage.'</p> + +<p>"We needed no further pressing. +Here was deliverance and safety, and +we bade good-morning to the party with +light hearts.</p> + +<p>"We found the school all that Miss +Ada had promised, and thus ended the +nearest approach to an adventure that +we had during the two weeks that we +remained."</p> + +<p>"And now tell me about the Exposition."</p> + +<p>"Well, we saw it."</p> + +<p>"Saw what?"</p> + +<p>"Why, everything."</p> + +<p>"Describe it to me."</p> + +<p>"Certainly. In the first place, it was +very big, and everybody was there, so it +was crowded; and you met your friends +and you talked; and—and you got fearfully +tired; and it was wonderful; and +there were ever so many restaurants, +and a soda-water fountain, and queer +things that you never expected to see +there, like the Mexican techcatl and +Russian horses; and everything was +<i>real</i>—real lace and cashmeres and diamonds, +and nothing but what was very +nice. But, after all, I think you had +better get a file of old newspapers and +read about it, for I really have no talent +for description—or, better still, go and +see the one in Vienna this summer."</p> + +<p class="author">ITA ANIOL PROKOP.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page646" id="page646"></a>[pg 646]</span> + + + + +<h2>SLAINS CASTLE.</h2> + + +<p>In traveling over the old lands of Europe +one is sometimes apt to think +more of historical and genealogical traditions +than of the natural beauties or +peculiarities of the country. The old +landmarks of a nation, whether monuments +built by the hand of man or archives +carefully preserved by him, tell +us of its growth, just as the strata of the +mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; +and as every successive layer has +some relation both to its predecessor and +its successor, so the traditions of each +generation have a perceptible influence +upon the moral development of the generation +following. Every nation is thus +the growing fruit of its own history, and +every visible step of the grand ladder +of facts that has led up to the present +result must needs have for a student of +human nature an intrinsic interest.</p> + +<p>This comes very clearly before my +mind as I think of Slains Castle (Aberdeen), +a massive crown of granite set +on the brow of the rocks of the German +Ocean, and the seat of one of those old +Scottish families whose origin is hidden +away among the suggestive mists of +tradition.</p> + +<p>Slains Castle stands alone, a giant +watchman upon giant cliffs, built up +only one story high, on account of the +tremendous winds that prevail there in +spring and autumn, and cased with the +gray Aberdeen granite of the famous +quarries near by. The surrounding +country is as bare and uninviting as one +could imagine; the road from Aberdeen +(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the +young trees near the castle are stunted, +and in many cases disfigured by the inroads +of hungry cows among their lower +branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs +perpetually over the scene, softening the +landscape, but sometimes depressing the +spirits. As the hours pass the place +grows on you: a weird beauty begins to +loom up from among the mist-wreaths, +the jagged rocks, the restless waves, and +you forget the desolate moor, which in +itself displays attractions you will realize +later, in the grandeur of the desolate sea.</p> + +<p>The original building is of the time of +James VI. (of Scotland), and is due to +Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more +ancient castle, bearing the same name, +was destroyed by the king to punish his +vassal for the part he had taken in a rebellion. +In the seventeenth century Earl +Gilbert made great improvements in it, +and early in the eighteenth Earl Charles +added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page647" id="page647"></a>[pg 647]</span> +by Earl William George, the father of the +present owner, with the exception of the +lower part of the original tower. In this +there used to be in olden times an <i>oubliette</i> +in which unhappy prisoners were +let down. All at first appeared dark +around them, but when they had thankfully +assured themselves that they at +last stood upon solid ground, they would +look about them and presently descry a +line of fitful light coming from a door +ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims +would then go in haste to this door, pull +it open and, blinded by the sudden light, +step out upon the green slope terminating +quickly in a precipice, which went sheer +down to the sea.</p> + +<p>The rest of the house is built around +a large covered piazza, intersected by +corridors where pictures, armor and all +kinds of old family relics decorate the +walls. The drawing-room is on the very +edge of the rock, and on stormy days +the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost +flap their wings against its window-panes, +while the clouds of spray dash up against +them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks +in the immediate neighborhood of the +castle are rugged in the extreme, here +and there rent by a gigantic fissure +reaching far inland, and up which the +foaming waters gurgle continually as if +in impatience of their narrow bounds, +now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic +staircase and thickly matted with coarse +sea-weed, and again reared up on high, +a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny +for the steadiest foot, and with Niagaras +of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging +face. In wonderful hollows +you will come upon pools of green water +with sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of +pink, yellow or purple hue, and gem-like +shells resting on a bottom of clearest +sand; and while the waves are roaring +on every side, and flinging their dampness +into your very face, these fairy +pools will lie at your feet without a +breath or ripple on their surface.</p> + +<p>The most magnificent of these rocks +is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug" +("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of +the white sea-gulls. It stands alone, as +if torn from the land and hurled into the +tossing waves by some giant hand. Two +hundred feet in height and a thousand +in circumference, it forms a natural arch, +being pierced from its base upward by +an opening that widens as it ascends. +The waves dash through it with terrific +violence, and the very sight of its grim +splendor conjures up a vision of shipwreck +and danger. Scott has made mention +of it in <i>The Antiquary</i>, and Johnson +in his <i>Journey to the Hebrides</i>, recalling +the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, +has said that though he could not wish +for a storm, still as storms, whether wished +for or not, will sometimes happen, he +would prefer to look at them from Slains +Castle. These rocks and the caves that +alternate with them were once famous +as a smuggling rendezvous, and as such +Scott has again immortalized them in his +<i>Guy Mannering</i>. The Crooked Mary, +a noted lugger, had many an adventure +along this coast during the last century. +The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked +for at certain stated times, the preconcerted +signal was given by him, and the +inhabitants bestirred themselves with +commendable haste. All ordinary business +was immediately suspended: men +might be seen stealing along from house +to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and +barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring +village, and deliver a brief message +which to a bystander would sound very +like nonsense, but which nevertheless +was well understood by the person to +whom it was given. Soon after a plaid +or blanket might be seen spread out, as +if to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. +Other beacons, not calculated to draw +general notice, but sufficiently understood +by the initiated, soon made their +appearance, telegraphing the news from +place to place. As soon as the evening +began to close in the Crooked Mary +would be observed rapidly approaching +the land, and occasionally giving out +signals indicating the creek into which +she meant to run. Both on sea and +land hairbreadth escapes were the rule +rather than the exception, and it is related +of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates +on shore, poor Philip Kennedy, +that one night, while clearing the way for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page648" id="page648"></a>[pg 648]</span> +the cargo just landed from the contraband +trader's hold, he was simply murdered +by the excise-officers. The heavy +cart laden with the cargo was yet some +distance behind, and Kennedy with +some dastardly companions was slowly +going forward to ascertain if all was +safe, when three officers of the customs +suddenly made their unwelcome appearance. +Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked +two of them, and actually succeeded +for a time in keeping them down in his +powerful grasp, while he called to his +party to secure the third. They, however, +thinking prudence the better part +of valor, decamped ignominiously, and +the enemy remained master of the brave +man's life. Anderson, the third officer, +was observed to hold up his sword to the +moon, as if to ascertain if he were using +the edge, and then to bring it down with +accurate aim and tremendous force upon +the smuggler's skull. Strange to say, +Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually +succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, +nearly a quarter of a mile away, but +expired a few moments after his arrival. +His last words were: "If all had been +true as I was, the goods would have +been safe, and I should not have been +bleeding to death." The brave fellow +was buried in the churchyard of Slains, +where a plain stone marks his grave, +and bears the simple inscription, "To +the memory of Philip Kennedy, <i>in Ward</i>, +who died the 19th of December, 1798. +Aged 38."</p> + +<p>My own earliest recollections of the +grand, desolate old castle are derived, +not from my first visit to it made in infancy, +but from the descriptions of one +whose home it was during a brief but +intensely observant period of childhood. +There came one day a storm such as +seldom even on that coast lashes up the +gray, livid ocean. The waves, as far out +as sight could reach, were one mass of +foam, and the ghastly lightning flashed +upon the torn sails of a ship as near +destruction as it well could be. Cries +came up from below in the brief pauses +of the storm, and above lanterns were +quickly carried to and fro, while pale +attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed +the signals of a more collected master. +The occupants of the castle hardly knew +to what its chambers might be destined—whether +to receive the dead or to afford +rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials +were in readiness, and strong men +bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading +from beneath. The ship broke in +pieces on the merciless rocks, and many +a drowned sailor went down to meet the +army of his fellow-victims of all times +who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine +caves of Slains. Those who survived +soon disappeared, full of gratitude for +the timely relief offered them at the castle, +but one old man remained. He was +never known by any other name than +"Monsieur," and was beloved by every +individual member of the household. A +French <i>émigré</i> of the old school, with +the dainty, gallant ways of the <i>ancien +régime</i>, he still clung to the dress of his +earlier days, and wore a veritable <i>queue</i>, +silk stockings and buckled shoes. For +some time he remained a welcome guest +in the "red chamber," where the host's +little children would sometimes join him +and play with his watch and jeweled +baubles. But one day poor little "Monsieur" +sickened, and the tiny feet that +had made such haste to run to him, now +trod the corridor softly and bore a baby-nurse +to the gentle invalid. It was a +high and coveted reward for the little +girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to +his bedside, and everything that kindness +and hospitality could suggest was +equally lavished on him; but his feeble +life, which had no doubt received a +shock from the shipwreck it had barely +escaped, went out peacefully like the +soft flame of a lamp.</p> + +<p>Slains Castle had many gentle and +pleasant memories about it, as well as +its traditional horrors, and among these +were many connected with the history +of the old family that owned it. In one +of the corridors hangs the picture of +James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced +boy, tall and athletic, standing +with a cricket-bat in his hand. He +would have been earl of Erroll had he +lived, but if we follow him in his short +life from classic Eton to the field of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page649" id="page649"></a>[pg 649]</span> +Quatre-Bras, we shall find him again, on +a bright June day in 1815, lying as if +asleep, as fair and noble-looking as before, +but silent in death. Simple Flemish +peasants stand in a group around +him, awed and admiring, asking each +other if this beautiful youth is an angel +fallen from heaven, or only a mortal +man slain for the Honor of his country. +His was a noble death, and worthy of +the suggestive memento of his early boyhood +before which we stood just now in +the corridor of Slains Castle.</p> + +<p>A little farther down this corridor, +which to all intents and purposes is a +family picture-gallery, we shall be forced +to stop before the portrait of a dark +woman, masculine and resolute, not +beautiful nor like the handsome race of +the Hays, of which she was yet the last +direct representative. This is the famous +Countess Mary, one of the central +figures of the family traditions. The +Hays were hereditary lords high constable +of Scotland, and also one of the few +Scottish families in which titles and offices, +as well as lands, are transmitted +through the female line. So this Countess +Mary found herself, at the death of +her brother, countess of Erroll in her +own right and <i>lord</i> high constable of +Scotland. In one of the two pictures of +her at Slains, if I remember right, she +is represented with the bâton of her +office, with which badge she also appeared +at court before her marriage (after +this it was borne by her husband in +the character of her deputy). Her husband +was a commoner, a Mr. Falconer +of Dalgaty, whose reported history in +connection with her is curious and deserves +to be told, though the old tradition +is moulded into so many different +forms that it is very difficult to disentangle +the truth from its manifold embellishments. +Toward the beginning of +the eighteenth century this intrepid and +independent lady fell in love with Mr. +Falconer, who at first did not seem eager +to return or notice her affection. High-strung +and chivalric by nature, she did +not droop and pine under her disappointment, +but vowed to herself that she +would bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer +coner left the country after some time, +and went to London. The Countess +Mary also traveled south the same year, +and no news of her was heard at Slains +for some time. Meanwhile, she and +Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the +latter, who about the same time became +acquainted with a very dashing young +cavalier, evidently a man of high birth +and standing, but resolutely bent on +mystifying his friends as to his origin. +The two saw each other frequently, and +were linked by that desultory companionship +of London life which sometimes +indeed ripens into friendship, but as +often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such +was the end of this acquaintance, and +one day some trifling difference having +occurred between the friends, a cartel +reached Mr. Falconer couched in very +haughty though perfectly courteous language. +These things were every-day +matters in such times, and very nonchalantly +the challenged went in the early +morning to the appointed place to meet +the challenger. Here the versions of +the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer +and his antagonist fought, but +without witnesses; that the former got +the worst of the encounter, and remained +at the other's mercy; that then, <i>and +not before</i>, the Countess Mary made herself +known to him and gave him his +choice—a thrust from her sword or a +speedy marriage with herself. Others +say that it was before the duel that she +astonished her lover by this discovery, +and that the choice she gave him was +between marriage and ridicule.<a id="footnotetag1" name="footnotetag1"></a><a href= + "#footnote1"><sup>1</sup></a></p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page650" id="page650"></a>[pg 650]</span> + +<p>The fact of her marriage, and that it +proved a happy one, is certain. Mr. +Falconer dropped his own name to assume +that of Hay. The countess was a +devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. +When Presbyterianism had got +the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying +church persecutions with terrible +interest, a Mr. Keith was appointed to +the Anglican parish of Deer. This was +within the Erroll jurisdiction, and it was +not long before the zealous Countess +Mary came to the rescue of the congregation, +who had assembled for some time +in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she +had the upper floor of a large granary +fitted up for their accommodation, and +this afforded them a grateful shelter for +more than a quarter of a century. Of +this same parish of Deer a curious story +is told in the local annals, showing how +conservative and tenacious of traditions +the north of Scotland still was in 1711. +The skirmish to which it relates goes by +the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," +and is thus reported: "Some people of +Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of +Deer, to the number of seventy +horse or thereby, assembled on the twenty-third +of March, 1711, to force in a +Presbyterian teacher in opposition to the +parish; but the presbytry and their satellites +were soundly beat off by the people, +not without blood on both sides."</p> + +<p>There was little of the martyr about +the Scot of that warlike day, and most +emphatically and literally did he show +himself a "<i>soldier</i> of the Lord."</p> + +<p>The aisle of the old church of Slains +contains the graves of Countess Mary +and her husband, with an epitaph in +Latin, of which the following is a translation: +"Beneath this tombstone there +are buried neither gold nor silver, nor +treasures of any kind, but the bodies +of the most chaste wedded pair, Mary, +countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay +of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and +lovingly in matrimony for twenty-seven +years. They wished to be buried here +beside each other, and pray that this +stone may not be moved nor their remains +disturbed, but that these be allowed +to rest in the Lord until He shall call +them to the happy resurrection of that +life which they expect from the mercy +of God and the merits of the Saviour +and Lord Jesus Christ."</p> + +<p>The central figure, however, in the +history of the Hays of Erroll, and that +which no one who bears the name of +Hay can think of without a thrill of +pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, +in 1746, a victim to the last unsuccessful +but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts. +I have heard it whispered as an instance +of "second sight" that some years before +he had any reason to anticipate +such a death he was once startled by the +ghostly opening of a door in the apartment +where he was sitting alone, and by +the apparition, horribly distinct and realistic, +of a bloody head rolling slowly +toward him across the room; till it rested +at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned +to his, and the bonny locks were +clotted with blood: it was as if it had +just rolled from under the axe of the +executioner; and the features, plainly +discerned, <i>were his own!</i></p> + +<p>His part in the rising of 1745 belongs +to history, but his personal demeanor +concerns my narrative more closely. +All the contemporary accounts are loud +in praise of his beauty and elegance of +person, his refinement of manner, his +variety of accomplishments; and Scott, +in his <i>Tales of a Grandfather</i>, relates a +curious circumstance concerning his fine +presence at the moment of his execution. +A lady of fashion who had never seen +him before, and who was herself, I believe, +the wife of one who had much to +do with Lord Kilmarnock's death-warrant, +seeing him pass on his way to the +block, formed a most violent attachment +for his person, "which in a less serious +affair would have, been little less than a +ludicrous frenzy."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page651" id="page651"></a>[pg 651]</span> + +<p>The grace and dignity of his appearance, +together with the resignation and +mildness of his address, melted all the +spectators to tears as they gathered round +the fatal Tower prison to witness his +death: the chaplain who attended him +says his behavior was so humble and resigned +that even the executioner burst +into tears, and was obliged to use strong +cordials to support him in his terrible +duty. Lord Kilmarnock himself was +deeply impressed by the sight of the +block draped in funereal black, the plain +coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust +that was so disposed as speedily to suck +up the bloody traces of the execution, +and the sea of faces surrounding the +open enclosure kept for this his last +earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from +fear that he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, +melancholy nature was thrilled +through every nerve by this dread publicity, +and we cannot wonder that, leaning +heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, +he should have whispered, almost with +his last breath, the simple words, "Home, +this is dreadful!"</p> + +<p>One who was the lineal descendant of +this earl of Kilmarnock, and whose only +brother long bore the same blood-stained +and laurel-wreathed title, has often +told me of the strange link that bridged +the chasm of four generations from 1746 +to 1829, and bound her recollections to +those of a living witness of the scene. +She was so young as not to have any +distinct impression of other events that +happened at the same time, but this lived +in her mind because of the importance +and solemnity with which her own parents +had purposely invested it in her +eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little +great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord +Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought down +from the nursery to see an old, more +than octogenarian, soldier who had distinguished +himself in recent wars, and +reached the rank of general. This tottering +old man, more than fourscore +years of age, took the wee maiden of +hardly four upon his knee, and told her +in simple words the story she was never +to forget—how he had been a tiny boy +running to school on the day of the +execution of the "rebel lords," and how, +seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting +toward the Tower quarter, he was tempted +to play truant, and flinging his satchel +of books over his shoulder, had pushed +his way as far as the great state prison. +Then of his frantic efforts to secure a +point of vantage whence to see the great +death-pageant—of his childish admiration +for the handsome, manly form of +Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm +when Lord Balmerino, the other victim, +had cried in a loud voice, "Long live +the king!" and of the fascination he +could not resist which led his eyes from +the shining axe and the draped block to +the auburn locks of the prisoner, and +soon after to his bleeding head laid low +in the sawdust around the coffin. All +this the old veteran told thrillingly, the +shadow of a boy's awed recollection +mingling with his Scottish exultation as +a compatriot of the victim, and even +with a touch of humor as he recalled +the domestic scolding which marked the +truant's return.</p> + +<p>In the charter-room at Slains Castle, +where the records, genealogies, private +journals, official deeds, etc. of the family +are kept, one might find ample material +for curious investigation of our forefathers' +way of living. Among other +papers is a kind of inventory headed, +"My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing +within Logg and Slanis." The list +of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly +of brass pots, pewter pans and oil +barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg +(another residence of the Errolls), +"quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir followis, +quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) +to the half," contains an ample list of +curtains of purple velvet, green serge, +green-and-red drugget and other stuffs +hardly translatable to the modern understanding, +and shows that in those days +women were not more backward than +now in plaguing their liege lords about +upholstery and millinery. But the most +amusing and natural touch of all is in +the endorsement, hardly gallant, but +<i>very</i> conjugal, made by the fair petitioner's +husband: "To my Ladyes gredie +(greedy) and vnressonable (unreasonable) +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page652" id="page652"></a>[pg 652]</span> +desyris it is answerit...." Here +follows a distinct admission that the furniture +of both houses, put together, is +too little to furnish the half of each of +them, and therefore nothing can be +spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains.</p> + +<p>The family coat-of-arms commemorates +to this day the poetical genealogy +of the Hays. Its supporters are two +tall, naked peasants bearing plough-yokes +on their shoulders: the crest is a +falcon, while the motto is also significant—"<i>Serva +jugum.</i>" Scottish tradition +tells us that in 980, when the Danes had +shamefully routed the Scots at Loncarty, +a little village near Perth, and were pursuing +the fugitives, an old man and his +two stalwart sons, who were ploughing +in a field close by, were seized with indignation, +and, shouldering their plough-yokes, +placed themselves resolutely in a +narrow defile through which their countrymen +must pass to evade a second +slaughter by the victors. As the Scots +came on the three patriots opposed their +passage, crying shame upon them for +cowards and no men, and exhorting +them thus: "Why! would ye rather be +certainly killed by the heathen Danes +than die in arms for your own land?" +Ashamed, and yet encouraged, the fugitives +rallied, and with the three dauntless +peasants at their head fell upon their +astonished pursuers, and fought with +such desperation that they turned defeat +into victory. Kenneth III., the Scottish +king, instantly sent for the saviors of his +army, gave them a large share of the +enemy's spoils, and made them march +in triumph into Perth with their bloody +plough-yokes on their shoulders. More +than that, he ennobled them, and gave +them a fair tract of land, to be measured, +according to the fashion of that day, by +the flight of a falcon. From the name +of this land the Hays came to be called; +lords of Erroll, and it is said that the +Hawk Stone at St. Madoes, Perthshire, +which stands upon what is known to +have been the ancient boundary of the +possessions of the Hays, is the identical +stone from which the lucky falcon started. +It was left standing as a special +memorial of the defeat of the Danes at +Loncarty. Another stone famous in the +Hay annals, and conspicuously placed +in front of the entrance to Slains Castle, +is said to be the same on which the +peasant general rested after his toilsome +leadership in the battle.</p> + +<p>Our walks over the bleak moors on +one side, with the heather in bloom and +the blackberries in low—lying purple +clusters fringing the granite rocks, were +sometimes rendered more interesting, +though more dangerous, by the sudden +falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it +would come at first, gathering little filmy +clouds together as it were, and hovering +over the gray sea in curling tufts, and +then, growing strong and dense, would +swoop down irresistibly, till what was +clear five minutes before was impenetrably +walled off, and one seemed to stand +alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or +again, our walks would take us on the +other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a +desolate tract where nothing grows save +the coarse grass called <i>bent</i> by the Scotch, +and where the wearied eye rests on nothing +but mounds of shifting sand, drearily +shaped into the semblance of graves +by the keen winds that blow from over +the German Ocean.</p> + +<p>This miniature desert, tradition says, +was an Eden four hundred years ago, +but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless +orphan heiresses of it by fraud and +violence, and the maidens threw a spell +or <i>weird</i> upon it in these terms:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Yf evyr maydens malysone</p> +<p class="i2">Did licht upon drye lande,</p> +<p>Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys</p> +<p class="i2">Bot thystl, bente and sande."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>I must not forget the "Bullers," a +natural curiosity which is the boast of +the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover +connected with a feat performed by +a former guest and friend of one of the +lords of Erroll. We drove there in a +large party, and passed through an untidy, +picturesque little fishing-hamlet on +our way, where the women talked to +each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted +at the doors of their cabins, and +where the children looked so hardy, fearless +and determined that the wildest +dreams of future possible achievement +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page653" id="page653"></a>[pg 653]</span> +seemed hardly unlikely of realization in +connection with any one of them.</p> + +<p>"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a +huge rocky cavern, irregularly circular +and open to the sky, into which the sea +rushes through a natural archway. A +narrow pathway is left quite round the +basin, from which one looks down a +sheer descent of more than a hundred +feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth +and coarse grass that carpet it so deceptive +and loose, and the wind almost always +so high on this spot, that only the +most foolhardy or youngest of visitors +would dare in broad daylight to attempt +to <i>walk</i> round it. Yet it is on record +that the duke of Richmond, some sixty +or seventy years ago, made a bet at Lord +Erroll's dinner-table that he would <i>ride +round it after dark</i>. He accomplished +the feat in safety. His picture, life-size, +hangs in the dining-room to this day, +and as he is represented standing in all +the pride of a vigorous manhood by the +side of his beautiful charger, he does not +seem to belie the reputation which this +incident created for him in the old district +of Buchan.</p> + +<p>The peasants of this wild and primitive +neighborhood, though to some extent +slightly infected by modernization, +are yet very fair specimens of the hardy, +trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and +the present owners of Slains certainly +give them every reason to keep up the +old bonds of affectionate interest with +every one and everything belonging to +"the family." To my own observation +of the ancient seat of the Hays I owe +one of the most delightful recollections +of my life, that of a Christian home. +Not only the outward observances, but +the inner spiritual vitality of religion, +were there, while unselfish devotion to +all within the range of her influence or +authority marked the character of her +who was at the head of this little family +kingdom. The present head of the +house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly +carried on the martial traditions +of his ancestry, and on the roll of +England's victorious sons at the battle +of the Alma his name is to be found. +He was there disabled by a wound that +shattered his right arm and cut short his +military career. Domestic happiness, +however, is no bad substitute for a brilliant +public life, and there are duties, +higher yet than a soldier's, that go far +toward making up that background of +rural prosperity which alone ensures the +grand effect of military successes. After +having done one's duty in the field, it is +to the full as noble, and perhaps more +patriotic, to turn to the duties of the +glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord +the work begun as a soldier.</p> + +<p>It is a touching custom, hardly yet +obliterated in the district over which my +reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, +when coming upon another employed +in his lawful calling, thus to salute +him: "Guid speed the wark!" the rejoinder +being, in the same broad Buchan +dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye +weel."</p> + +<p>I can end these pages with no more +fitting sentiment. As a tribute of grateful +recollection to those who made my +days at Slains a happiness to me, and +in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement +offered me distractions the +more alluring because the more associated +with Nature's changeless, silent +grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning +them with the homely Scottish wish that +wherever they are and whatever they do, +"Guid speed the wark!"</p> + +<p class="author">LADY BLANCHE MURPHY.</p> +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote1" name="footnote1"></a><b>Footnote 1:</b><a href="#footnotetag1"> (return) </a> +<p>There is another version of her courtship, and this +a metrical one. This old ballad was not much known +beyond the district round Slains, and the old servants +and farmers on the estate were the chief depositaries +of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than a +very small fragment of it, which is itself only written +down from memory by one of these old women. The +rhyme and rhythm are both <i>original</i>:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding</p> +<p>Near the famous town of Reading:</p> +<p>There a gentleman she saw</p> +<p>That belonged to the law....</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which +some account is probably begun of her unreturned +attachment, for a little later we find in the very primitive +manuscript from which we quote these words of +the countess:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I that have so many slighted,</p> +<p>I am at last—(unrequited?)</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The story is now carried on in prose (my informant +having forgotten the text of the ballad), and says that +"Lady Mary wanted or challenged him to meet her +in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in disguise), +"and that his father told him to go." Neither +father nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's +rank, though the following words point to their being +aware of her sex, for the elder Falconer is represented +as saying,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>If she is rich she will raise your fame,</p> +<p>And if poor you are the same.</p> + </div> </div> +</blockquote> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page654" id="page654"></a>[pg 654]</span> + + + + +<h2>OUR HOME IN THE TYROL</h2> + + +<h3>CHAPTER III.</h3> + + +<p>We were soon comfortably settled +in the old Hof. The spacious +rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant +with rare and delicate blossoms—Alpine +roses from the rocks, white lilies +from Moidel's special little garden-plot, +grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, +veronicas, melisot, potentillas and +lady's bedstraw, which, according to +Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the +roots of others were good for man or +beast, their various qualities being all +known to him. But soon the waving +flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was +the eve of St. Peter and St. Paul's Day, +a festival when all work must cease, and +the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had +given orders that the hay in the wood-meadow +must be carried that evening. +Seeing, therefore, that the more hands +there were the better, the two Margarets +seized each a rake and worked as hard +as any woman in the field.</p> + +<p>On we labored, the golden evening +sun glinting down upon our picturesque +row of haymakers, nor did we cease +until the angelus sounded from the village +spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, +their men and maids, fell devoutly upon +their knees and thanked God that Christ +Jesus had been born. These humble +Tyrolese remember thrice daily to praise +the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, +subdued look upon their honest faces, +they arose, and we joining them the +fresh, fragrant hay was carted triumphantly +home. The hay is cut long before +we should consider it ready, and is +housed whilst still green and moist. +The newer the hay the richer the cream, +they say. The Hofbauer has three +crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie +higher, have only two, and sometimes +but one.</p> + +<p>The good old Kathi stood at the door +cooling a gigantic pan of buckwheat +polenta, and when she had set down +this dish, intended for the haymakers' +supper, she brought us each, as our pay, +a couple of <i>krapfen</i>, which are oblong +dough-cakes fried in butter.</p> + +<p>Although the haymakers were worn +out and weary with a long day's work +of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded +in the chapel like the humming of +bees in lime trees. This pious custom +duly impressed us, until on the very next +day, as we walked up our village street +on the evening of the festival, our solemn +feelings received a great check. +We observed that the prayer-leaders, +who knelt at the open windows of each +separate house, followed our every movement +with their eyes, whilst their mouths +mechanically repeated sonorous Ave +Marias and Paternosters. Nay, there +was our own pious Moidel watching us +from the kitchen window, her Hail Marys +mingling with her friendly greetings; but +then Moidel was waiting upon us and +our supper whilst her family were on +their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon +learnt to perceive that Rosenkranz was +considered quite as efficacious if merely +uttered by the tongue, whilst the mind +was far away. This being a festival, +and no one tired with work, the household +trooped into the old pleasaunce +after supper. The elders sat together +in a row, whilst the younger members +congregated on a second long stone +bench and struck up singing, Moidel +and her elder brother beginning with a +duet:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Green, green is the clover</p> +<p class="i2">On the hills as I go,</p> +<p>And my maiden as fresh is</p> +<p class="i2">As spring water's flow.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>And the chorus joined in—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">As spring water's flow,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>winding up with a jodel.</p> + +<p>Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in +a clear, flexible voice, which trembled +no little when she perceived that the +Herrschaft now formed part of the audience +in the balcony—</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page655" id="page655"></a>[pg 655]</span> + +<h4>A WEEK'S SORROW.</h4> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore,</p> +<p>Like a poor little child outside the church door;</p> +<p>On Monday I felt so afeard and alone,</p> +<p>And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone:</p> +<p>Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day,</p> +<p>For him that I love best is far, far away;</p> +<p>On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill,</p> +<p>For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill;</p> +<p>On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day;</p> +<p>On Friday, and one of the cows went astray;</p> +<p>On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain,</p> +<p>As though I should never be happy again.</p> +<p>Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>In order to catch the meaning of +the words, which were sung in strong dialect, +Margaret and I had descended to +the garden. The Hofbauer looked sad +when he saw us approach, and quietly +brushed a tear away with his shirt-sleeve. +We consequently asked Moidel when we +stood alone with her whether anything +were troubling her father.</p> + +<p>"It strikes me not," she said. "I +fancy that it is but the music. Father +and uncle may both seem quiet and +dull now, yet they have been celebrated +singers; only when my mother died +father left off singing, and so did uncle +after Uncle Jakob's death."</p> + +<p>"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had +also joined us, "they were the three +handsomest, best—grown men in the +parish, living happily together without +an ill word, until four years ago Jakob +was trampled upon by a yoke of vicious +oxen, and in three days he was dead. +Yes, that was a sorrow almost as cutting +as the death of the Hofbauerin, so +young when she died. Only married +five years, and leaving four little children, +not one of whom ever knew her! +Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is wearing +her linen now, but she can never +come up in looks to her mother. Ah +ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob."</p> + +<p>"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, +astonished voice.</p> + +<p>"Why yes, that he has been drawn +for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you +knew. It was last autumn that he was +drawn. The Hofbauer would have sold +his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer +would have no nay: +Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young +fellow, and such were needed in the +army. He had to serve two months +this spring, and with his comrades day +by day had to run up the face of mountains +some four thousand feet. It quite +wore Jakob out, though he is so good-tempered. +He declared that he was +used, to be sure, at the Olm to climb up +to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after +his goats, often bringing the kids in his +arms down the precipices, but to have +his back broken and his feet blistered +in order to know how to shed human +blood was what he hated. Yet he bore +it so well, doing his best, that when the +other recruits could return to their +homes, Jakob, being so clever and well-behaved, +had to stay a fortnight longer +to brush, fold up and put away all the +regimentals. However, the under-officer +did have him to dine with him every +day."</p> + +<p>"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be +an officer," we replied, trying to reassure +her.</p> + +<p>"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven +more long years must he serve, and +always as a private. I thought like you, +until the Hofbauer explained to me that +all the officers were foreigners—Saxons, +Bavarians, Würtembergers, put in by +the Austrian ministry, who are tyrants +to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor +would only interfere, for he loves Tyrol! +but he leaves everything to the ministry. +Austria may itself be overthrown in these +unrighteous days before my Jakobi is +free." Now it was the good soul's turn +to wipe her eye with the corner of her +ample blue apron.</p> + +<p>We were venturing some fresh attempt +at consolation when fortunately an event +occurred which drew her thoughts from +the deep shadow which we had just discovered +hung over the peaceful Hof. +Jodokus, the village schoolmaster in the +winter, when the children had time to +learn, but during the busy summer +months one of the men, had challenged +Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly +had the two antagonists encountered +each other on the grass in a stout set-to, +when the sound of the goatherd's whip +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page656" id="page656"></a>[pg 656]</span> +was heard on the hilly common above, +sending forth a succession of reports like +those of a pistol, becoming stronger and +louder when the game and the assembled +company were seen. At last the +young "whipper-snapper," as we called +him, made one long final succession of +cracks and reports, and springing over +the wall, and casting his instrument of +torture on one side, he boldly challenged +Anton.</p> + +<p>The young man, whose skill and +strength were well known, smiled, half +amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. +The younger athlete, a lad of thirteen, +firmly built and agile, mistook the +look for a sneer, and the blood ran fast +and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting +the challenge, they immediately +began to spar. They first fearlessly regarded +each other, then bowing their +heads they rushed forward, butting like +rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm +in Anton's chest, tried to find his adversary's +weakest point, and with his arms +round his waist endeavored cunningly +to make him slip; but it was soon the +young champion who was tripped up, +and who in playful, half-serious anger +dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost +managing to bring Anton sprawling +to the ground. The lad, however, +suddenly stopped: he had lost a little +tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer +piece from his pocket—too great a loss +for a shepherd-boy. The combat therefore +was speedily closed, both antagonists +and their partisans hunting in the +unmowed grass until the treasures were +again trove.</p> + +<p>At the same time an elderly man approached +and opened the gate—a peasant +evidently, although, instead of the +usual long white apron and bib, he wore +one of new green linen, shining as satin—a +man of a strong although delicate +make, the head slightly stooping forward, +and a face that beamed with genuine +pleasure as half a dozen voices +simultaneously burst forth with a "God +greet you, Alois!"</p> + +<p>This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) +Alois, in preparation of whose +advent the good aunt had scrubbed a +bed-room, and Moidel had beautified +the window with pots of blooming geraniums. +The room was a large chamber, +set apart for the different ambulatory +work-people who came to the Hof +in the course of the year. The weaver, +who arrived in the spring to weave the +flax which the busy womankind had +spun through the winter, had been the +last occupant of the room, and had +woven no less than two hundred and +ninety-three ells of linen, which now in +long symmetrical lines were carefully +pegged down on the turf of the pleasaunce +by Moidel, who walked over them +daily with her bare feet, busily watering +until the gray threads were turning +snowy white.</p> + +<p>Later on in the year the sewing-woman +would appear, and then the tailor, to +make the clothing for this large household, +the servants, according to an old +custom long since extinct in most countries, +being chiefly paid in kind. Schuster +Alois had now come to make the +boots for Jakob and the Senner Franz +preparatory to their going with the cattle +to the Alpine pastures.</p> + +<p>I greatly doubt whether the tailor or +the weaver was so well waited upon as +the shoemaker: I fancy they were left +more to the maids. Passing the open +door of the family house-place, aunt and +niece might now be seen sitting hour +after hour, the elder lining the soles of +Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong +woolen to prevent mending on the Alp, +or attending to other needs of his homely +toilet; the younger at her paste-board +or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois +sat between them in the sunny oriel window, +and while he steadily plied his awl +appeared to be either telling them tales +or reciting poetry.</p> + +<p>The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial +word), lay at the distance of about six +hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine +the state of the pasturage before +his son and the cattle finally started. +In two days he returned. "The going +up of the cattle must be postponed at +least a week," he said, "for snow had +fallen at the huts the depth of a man; +and the river had swollen to such a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page657" id="page657"></a>[pg 657]</span> +height that it had carried two houses +away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; +and even life had been +lost."</p> + +<p>This delay caused a respite from hard +work. The next morning Alois's arms +did not move like unwearying machinery, +and, the ten o'clock-dinner being over, +we saw him seated at his ease on the +adjoining hillside. Should we go and +speak to him? He appeared different +from the ordinary run of his class (though +cobblers are often clever men enough), +and moreover of a decidedly friendly +turn of mind. We determined that we +would. We joined Alois on the stony, +waste hillside, crowned by two trees +with a crucifix in the centre, which formed +from the house, with its background +of mountains, ever a melancholy, soul-touching +little poem.</p> + +<p>"You have not quite such hard work +to-day, Schuster?"</p> + +<p>He smiled and said, "Do your work +betimes, and then rest; and where better +than under the shadow of the cross?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, and the crucifix which you have +chosen is more pleasing than the generality +which are sown broadcast over +the fields of the Tyrol. Why are they +made so hideous and revolting?"</p> + +<p>We spoke out freely, because the unusually +intelligent face before us evidently +belonged to a thinker. Candor of +speech pleased him. Nevertheless, he +answered as if musing, "They appear +ugly to you: well they may be. Ja, but +the most who look upon them are men +and women acquainted with many sorrows—sudden +deaths by falls from precipices, +destruction of house and home +by lightning, floods, avalanches, failure +of crops, and many another visitation—and +it soothes their perhaps selfish natures +to see these anguished features, +these blood-stained limbs—signs of still +greater suffering—whilst they pray that +only such crosses may be laid on them +as will keep them in obedience to His +will. Just before you came up the hill +I was thinking of a strange history connected +with a crucifix—one that I read +only ten days ago in the house of a +Hochmair himself."</p> + +<p>It merely needed silence for Schuster +Alois to repeat the tale, and he soon began: +"It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler +who narrates it. He says that once in +his rambles he came to a little chapel, +over which hung a blasted larch—such +a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally +asked the guide he had with him +why it was not cut down. Now, the +guide was an old man who knew every, +tradition and legend, besides all the +family histories in that part of the Tyrol. +'That tree,' said he, 'is left there purposely, +as the reminder of a great crime, +and nobody would think of touching it. +If you look into the chapel, you'll see a +Christ on the cross which has been shot +through the breast. That was once a +crucifix under this very tree.' Then the +guide made a remark which had often +struck myself—that there are some families +in which everything that is strange +and dreadful happens, whilst there are +others that go on for generations and +are no more distinguishable than the +very weeds themselves. In that valley +were the Hochmairs, and they were of +this prominent sort, and odd enough, +as I said before, it was at a Hochmair's +house that I read this account. Well, +some generations back there was a +Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. +He cared no more for the life of a man +than that of a chamois. The government +kept the game strictly on the mountains, +and he was suspected of having +put more than one of their keepers out +of the way. In short, he had such a +bad character that when he went to confession +the priest would not give him +absolution. This put him in a great +rage, and it is remarkable that from that +day his luck in hunting forsook him. +He could not take aim—a sort of mist +was ever before his eyes, his hand trembled. +People believed that he was perpetually +haunted by the ghost of a young +man whom, after he had shot, he had +beaten to death with his gunstock, and +then flung down a crevasse. Be that as +it may, he would be absent for weeks in +the mountains. He did no good, and +the little he possessed fell into ruin.</p> + +<p>"His creditors were about to sell him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page658" id="page658"></a>[pg 658]</span> +up, stick and stone, when he put, as one +may say, the finishing stroke to everything +himself. It was Corpus Christi +Day: the bells were ringing and the +procession moving through the fields, +the holy banners waving, the choir-boys +singing the sanctus, when just as the +priest lifted the Host in the golden monstrance, +a shot was fired from the bushes +in front of a crucifix. Lightning flashed +from heaven, and the house of the +wicked Hochmair, which was at no great +distance, burst into flames. An awful +cry rang from the bushes: the procession +rushed forward, the priest only remaining +with the Host and a few attendants. +And what did they see? There was the +image of the crucified Saviour pierced +by a bullet, and out in the road stood +the wretched Hochmair, with his hands +clasped on the lock of his gun and his +eyes rolling in frenzy. Everybody perceived +the crime he had committed, and +remained motionless, whilst he beckoned +wildly to the priest, who came up in +gloomy silence. After they had talked +together alone for some time, the priest +went into the church, where he remained +all night in prayer. The wretched man, +whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared +into the thicket, and all trace was +lost of him. In the mean while the injured +image of the Saviour was removed +into the church. So years went on, and +then one Sunday after service the priest +announced from the pulpit that the former +sinner Hochmair was dead, but that +after years of penitence he had received +the forgiveness of the Church and of +God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, +'let all forgive him, and remember only +their own sins, and pray Christ to be +merciful to them.' After that it was +known that he had become possessed +with the crazy notion that if he fired +into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus +Christi Day, just when the Host was +being elevated and the benediction +spoken, it would make his gun unerring. +He fired therefore, and at the same moment +the Saviour on the cross raised His +head and, fixing on him His eyes full of +tears, gave him a look which pierced him +to the very marrow, and that terrified +him far more than the lightning which, +flashing from his forehead, set fire to his +house, whilst the thorn-crowned countenance +seemed to float before him, and +he knew that this was his punishment. +Such was his confession at the time to +the priest who laid the penance of the +Church upon him. So he went out into +the world like another Cain, and God in +His own time was merciful to him. Still, +the wounded effigy of the Saviour and +the blasted larch tree remain as witnesses +on earth against him.</p> + +<p>"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that +is only one tale amongst the hundreds +which could be related concerning these +crucifixes. Ah, there is many an old, +bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on +crag or highway-side from which the +anguished face of the Saviour has both +smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes +cut deeper into most Tyrolese hearts +than shrines, some way."</p> + +<p>"Strange," we replied, "for these old +shrines are not only quaint, but often +beautiful, as, for instance, the one on +the roadside turning into town."</p> + +<p>"Ah, I am glad you like it," said +Alois, "for there are those who would +wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden +cross, as a landmark, placed there instead. +The Capuchins in the adjoining +monastery are opposed to it, however, +and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," +he continued, becoming quite +aglow, "that although it is greatly injured +and many of the figures lost, still +there are others who look at you so +calmly and seriously with their marred, +dilapidated countenances that you feel +a peace steal into your heart? And +whoever the painter was, he must have +loved his work, for Saint Gregory could +never have been more dignified in real +life than he looks in the shrine."</p> + +<p>"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost +without knowing what we were saying, +for it was hardly probable.</p> + +<p>"Oh, I only touch colors now and +then, when there's a purpose in it or I +can serve the Church," he returned. He +became embarrassed, and explained that +it was time to return to his work.</p> + +<p>We afterward learnt from Moidel that +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page659" id="page659"></a>[pg 659]</span> +Alois bore in the neighborhood far and +wide the reputation of an artist, although +he did not consider himself such, seeing +he could not paint saints and angels. It +was, however, a great source of pleasure +to him to paint mottoes and devices and +to arrange floral decorations, especially +when they could serve as a surprise for +some private name-day or church festival.</p> + +<p>One afternoon we were told that the +boots were made, that Anton had brought +the flour from the mill, that two hundred +loaves of rye bread were baked, and, +the weather being sufficiently fine and +all the preparations being completed, the +cattle would now start for the Olm. First, +Anton and the Senner Franz set off at +four o'clock in the afternoon, with the +calves in advance, the young things +being unable to keep up with the cattle. +Then a <i>leiterwagen</i> which had been +drawn into the lower corridor and filled +with sacks of flour, meal, salt and the +two hundred loaves, was driven by the +Hofbauer as far as Taufers, whence the +supplies for the Alpine residents would +be borne on men's backs up to the huts.</p> + +<p>In the evening Jakob came into the +grand old sitting-room to bid us good-bye. +He appeared in his shirt-sleeves +and the indispensable white apron, and +with the utmost self-possession and refinement +of manner he presented us +with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising +to send us down a larger supply by +his brother. We talked with him about +the Olm, and found him enthusiastic on +the subject, his one regret being that, as +he must return for several weeks of drilling +on August 22d, his stay there this +summer would be greatly curtailed. The +Olm was very extensive, lying on a mountain-platform +which was only bare of +snow for about three months in the year. +When, however, the snow was off, the +flowers came up by thousands, the grass +sprang up by magic, all the mountains +were filled with the rushing and roaring +sound of waters, which came down in +foaming cascades, often of wonderful +beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine +woods which clothed the steeper mountain-sides. +Nor was the life at all solitary, +for various farmers were sending +up their cattle to other Olms about the +same time, so that no one was without +neighbors, although they might be at a +considerable distance apart.</p> + +<p>Jakob spoke on until we became wild +to go up to the Olm too. "Could we +go thither," we asked, "and pay him a +visit?"</p> + +<p>"That we could," he replied, "if we +did not mind sleeping in the hay. Only +we had better wait for settled weather in +August."</p> + +<p>There was now no talk of our leaving +the Hof at St. Jakobi. The Hofbauer +had declared that the house was at our +disposal until Martinmas—longer if we +wanted it. He also fell into the scheme +of our visiting his Olm, where he intimated +his desire to be host, saying that +all the dairy produce would be at our +service.</p> + +<p>In the night, exactly at one o'clock, +Jakob and Jodokus started: we heard +them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the +"Leben Sie wohl!" "Behüt Euch Gott!" +shouted lovingly after them from the +open door and the lower windows of +the silent old mansion. Six and twenty +head of cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep +were to follow later. It was a calm and +beautiful night, the three-quarters moon +just dropping behind the mountains, and +the stars shining out brightly from the +dark cloudless sky.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IV.</h3> + + +<p>The Alpine caravansary was hardly +settled at the Olm when the air became +intensely hot and oppressive. Day by +day black thunder-clouds gathered on +the horizon. They crested the mountains +in three directions, at times appearing +to repel each other, at others marching +fiercely on to conflict, when, the +zenith becoming pitch-dark, they flung +out long spears of lightning and exploded +in overwhelming thunder. Very +terrible were these perpetual storms. +With the first peal the church-bells +along the valley began solemnly to toll. +It mattered not whether by night or day, +the faithful bellringer was at his post, and +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page660" id="page660"></a>[pg 660]</span> +with rain pouring down outside and fiery, +vivid lightning playing around him, he +still went tolling on, for evil spirits must +be driven away, and people reminded to +make the sign of the cross and pray +God to protect them.</p> + +<p>At length, to use an expression of +Alois's, "Saint Florian had left off playing +at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had +driven his hay over the heavenly bridge." +The warring elements were still, but the +earth seemed smouldering with heat, and +we panted and gasped after the lofty +mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. +At the same time it came most opportunely +to our knowledge that the Tyrol +was rich in baths—primitive establishments +most of them, but dotted over +mountain and valley, so that each village +had half a dozen to choose from, where +every peasant, be he ever so poor, could +at least dip and soak for an eight-days' +<i>sommerfrisch</i>. Why, then, should not +the two Margarets, they being the most +desirous of a change, have at least a +<i>sommerfrisch</i>?</p> + +<p>But which amongst all these baths +was the one to choose? Good Kathi +recommended her baths at Innichen. +She herself evidently did not derive +much pleasure from her yearly visits +there. Still, we, being ladies, would find +more people to talk to, and the bath-house, +which was always full to overflowing, +stood in a wood, and we liked +trees. Schuster Alois—for the conversation +took place before he left—said +that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. +There was not only <i>luxus</i>, but a great +deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty +Emperor Max as early as 1511 took +up his quarters at Maistall during his +campaign against the Venetians, and +he had heard say that in the last century +the visitors formed a society and made +it a rule that none but the purest German +should be spoken. Every fault of +pronunciation cost a kreuzer to the offender: +the money went to the chapel, +and amounted one season to twenty-one +florins six kreuzers.</p> + +<p>But one Margaret decidedly objected +to going to a place where there was +the faintest chance of her <i>loiter wagon</i> +for <i>leiterwagen</i>, her <i>pison</i> for <i>speisen</i>, +her <i>vulgarborn</i> for <i>wohlgeboren</i>, being +fined by a <i>gazel-schaft (gesellschaft)</i>. +Besides, these places sounded too grand: +we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, +if one could be found that did not +belie its name. So the peasant-baths +of St. Vigil, Mühlbach and Scharst were +named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, +we having heard that all the school-children +in town had just been taken there +for a long day's holiday, and had returned +to their proud and happy parents, +who waited for them in double ranks below, +radiant with pleasure, waving their +banners and Alpine roses.</p> + +<p>It was accordingly arranged that on +the following Sunday Anton should drive +us to Reischach, where there was to +be a great festival, with candles in the +church as big as a man's arm: so said +a woman from Reischach. Anton was +of a retiring nature, and did not like +crowds, but he would gladly drive the +ladies over. And at Reischach we should +be sure to find some peasant returning +that evening by Scharst, who could carry +our belongings.</p> + +<p>Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, +the church-bell ringing for vespers, which +begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets +of carnations and rosemary, presented +to us by the family at the Hof, as +correct decorations for a festival. And +Anton!—how to present him to you as +he deserves to be presented? His truthful, +guileless face is his best ornament: +nevertheless, he too wears carnations and +rosemary caught in the silver cord and +vieing with the silver tassels of his broad-brimmed, +low-crowned beaver hat. His +rough jacket, made by the tailor last +autumn, and therefore too new to be +worn on a less special occasion, is short +and loose enough to leave ample space for +the display of his <i>rauge</i>, or broad leather +belt of softest chamois-skin, worked in +scrolls surrounding his name, with split +peacock quills, no little resembling Indian +handicraft. His snow-white knees +appear between his short leather breeches +and his bright blue knitted stockings. +These Nature's garters, when perfectly +white, are regarded as a mark of great +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page661" id="page661"></a>[pg 661]</span> +distinction amongst the dandies, and +those of our Anton may be considered +the very <i>knee plus ultra</i>.</p> + +<p>A parliament of men—a few still in +breeches with Hessian boots, which appeared +a characteristic of Reischach, but +the majority, having succumbed to modern +ideas, wearing trowsers—were seated +in the shadow of a comfortable house, +discussing the different stages of their +rye and flax crops. Their wives and +daughters, following their natural impulse, +were already kneeling in church, +confiding their cares of kitchen and +farmyard to the ever-ready ear of <i>Mutter +Gottes</i>—one dense mass of simple, +believing women, in broad-brimmed +beaver hats, with here and there a conical +woolen beehive as a contrast.</p> + +<p>The church in itself, although it lacked +the candles as big as a man's arm, +must truly have shone like the gate of +heaven to peasant eyes. Many of the +more substantial families had lent their +private saints for the occasion. They +had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint +Leonhards and Virgins, generally preserved +in wardrobes at home, but now +brought to participate in the festival, besides +adding to its great solemnity. It +was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, +and although the words conveyed no +clear idea to us, we were soon to learn +their significance. A Tyrolese anthem +having been sung by some invisible +voices, in which jodels leapt up and +smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged +Capuchin took his stand in the pulpit, +and having greeted the congregation, +promised to explain to them the mystery +and the advantage of the Holy +Scapulary.</p> + +<p>"My beloved," he began, "there are +some who think too little of the scapulary, +and there are others who lay too +great a stress on this aid to faith. Let +us meditate on both these conditions. +But first, how must we ourselves regard +the scapulary? Now, we are told not to +love the world nor the things of the +world. The scapulary, with its sacred +image of Mary worn next the heart, is +a great shield against this love of the +world. It places you under the especial +protection of the Queen of Heaven: you +are as much her servant as those who +serve king or kaiser, and equally wear +her livery. Some think too little of the +scapulary. Yet what incidents can be +told of its efficacy! Let one suffice. In +the year 1866, when the war raged between +Austria and Prussia, the Catholic +soldiers of the latter country immediately +before the war entered by hundreds +into the Society of the Scapulary. Wearing +this sacred charm upon their hearts, +they went into the battle-field, and the +cannons roared and the bullets whizzed +thick and fast around them, and not one +of them fell, for they wore the scapulary. +Indeed, their miraculous preservation +created so much excitement that Lutherans +marveled over it, and asked the +Catholics how it came that they were no +whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear +the scapulary of Mary, and she saves +us.' Then many Lutherans said, 'Come, +we will have scapularies,' and wrote +their names down in the society. And +now hark ye, my brethren. There was +a Catholic soldier, and there was a Lutheran, +and the latter said, 'Lend me thy +scapulary for this one day only, and see, +here is a thaler for thee.' Then the foolish +Catholic drew the scapulary off his +neck, handed it to the Lutheran, took +the thaler, went into battle: whiz went +the bullets round him, and he fell."</p> + +<p>We could stand no more. The church, +now crowded with men as well as women, +reeked with perspiration, the sermon +oppressed us, and thus our sense +and senses drove us out into the open +air. Here the fresh breeze came across +from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving +as a breath from heaven. Peasant-women +who were too late to squeeze into +church were seated amongst the iron +crosses of the graves. The more serious-minded +had managed to cluster together +round a side-door which, being adjacent +to the pulpit, proved an advantageous +spot for hearing. The less particular +sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient to +be in holy ground and to pass their +beads through their fingers whilst they +studied up our novel attire. Approaching +the more attentive members, we +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page662" id="page662"></a>[pg 662]</span> +found that the Capuchin had reached +the second part of his discourse, and was +dilating on those who thought too highly +of the scapulary. We gathered the following +fragment:</p> + +<p>"Now, the man was nigh unto death, +and it was neither for confession nor for +the death-sacrament that he craved. +No, it was for a scapulary. 'A scapulary!' +he cried, 'a scapulary!' My +brethren, you know well he should have +asked for the priest and for the blessing +of the Church, but it was merely for a +scapulary."</p> + +<p>Later on we asked permission to see a +scapulary. It consisted of two small +squares of cloth, herring-boned round +the edge, and united by a narrow ribbon +of sufficient length to permit one +square to rest on the breast, whilst the +other hung between the shoulders. That +in front bore the image of the Virgin, +designed by the nuns in the convent, +whilst the simpler work had been given +to some poor old woman, or even man, +who was past harder employment. The +privilege of wearing this charmed badge +entailed the payment of a small yearly +subscription and the repetition of seven +Paternosters daily.</p> + +<p>The procession followed the sermon. +Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once a +good peasant-girl, now a saint) were +paraded round the village by children, +and borne back to church. Peasant-men +staggered under large silk banners, +which swayed and fluttered in the blustery +wind, and, but for the steady grasp +of the strong men who carried them, +threatening at each moment to crush the +pious throng. The four chief peasants +of the district, wearing their robes of +state, the Noah's ark coats in which they +were married, bore the baldachin over +the head of the Capuchin who elevated +the Host: the village priest, in white +surplice and Hessian boots, swung the +censer at his side. The men were in +front, the women, a long, broad file, divided +in the procession by the priests +from their male relations, followed—a +dense black mass, but relieved in color +by the whiteness of their short linen +sleeves.</p> + +<p>Men and women, carefully severed in +their prayers and on the very steps of +the altar by Holy Church, were soon +able to come together again under the +spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, +the wirth. Innumerable clean +wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged +wooden chairs were ranged up +stairs and down stairs and in the orchard +without, for the accommodation of the +scapularists and their friends.</p> + +<p>We sat at a side-table in an upper +room partaking of grilled fowl and salad, +whilst <i>buben</i> and their <i>dirnen</i>, or lads +and their lasses, middle-aged couples, +old men and women, poured into the +house, filling every chair, bench and +table. They came thither from all the +country-side, and endless were the greetings +amongst cousins and cousins' cousins. +The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep +up every link of relationship, claiming +the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, +never does die out; and though it may +become an abstract during busy seasons +of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a +strong reality at wakes and festivals. +Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, +Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin +drank with "Cousin Barthel," and Seppl's +sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel +Seppl." There was one square-built, +good-humored old man who appeared +to be the whole world's cousin: he passed +from table to table, and had to sip +from fifty offered glasses.</p> + +<p>With our delicious coffee and boiled +cream we ordered the host, as a suitable +person, to find us a guide to carry our +valise and shawls to Bad Scharst. Probably +the perpetual and loud demands +for pints of wine left him but little time +to make a wise selection, seeing that +there soon stood before us a small man +with so subtle and malignant a look that +his exorbitant demand made us only +too gladly dismiss him. Our confidence +shaken in the landlord's powers +of discrimination, we sent word below +that if Anton had returned we should be +glad to speak with him. He had been +in the village to visit his cousins, but +was waiting our orders below. Although +his native shyness made it hard for him +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page663" id="page663"></a>[pg 663]</span> +to step forward and address ladies under +the curious gaze of all the relative Seppls +and Barthels, he did it with manliness, +and turning round and addressing the +popular old man as Hansel, asked him +if his brother Jörgel were below; and +being answered in the affirmative, he +hastened away, and returned with another +compact little peasant, whom he +introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, +with an aside, that he was "a friendly +mortal and Count Arlberg's forester."</p> + +<p>The agreement was soon made, the +sullen-looking man glowering at us from +behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel +and Anton packed a <i>kraxe</i> or wooden +frame and fixed it on Jörgel's back. +As we set off, Anton drove away homeward, +although the skittle-balls were just +beginning to roll, and the sound of "I +bin a lustiger bua" and other Tyrolese +songs came floating from the windows.</p> + +<p class="author">MARGARET HOWITT.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + + + +<h2>SAINT ROMUALDO.</h2> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>I give God thanks that I, a lean old man,</p> +<p>Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains</p> +<p>By austere penance and continuous toil,</p> +<p>Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace</p> +<p>Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh,</p> +<p>Though the beginning is as yesterday,</p> +<p>And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that—</p> +<p>A favored life, though outwardly the butt</p> +<p>Of ignominy, malice and affront,</p> +<p>Yet lighted from within by the clear star</p> +<p>Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged</p> +<p>To see at last its utmost goal attained.</p> +<p>I speak not of mine Order and my House,</p> +<p>Here founded by my hands and filled with saints—</p> +<p>A white society of snowy souls,</p> +<p>Swayed by my voice, by mine example led;</p> +<p>For this is but the natural harvest reaped</p> +<p>From labors such as mine when blessed by God.</p> +<p>Though I rejoice to think my spirit still</p> +<p>Will work my purposes, through worthy hands,</p> +<p>After my bones are shriveled into dust,</p> +<p>Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit</p> +<p>Of holy satisfaction, sure and real,</p> +<p>Though subtler than the tissue of the air—</p> +<p>The power completely to detach the soul</p> +<p>From her companion through this life, the flesh;</p> +<p>So that in blessed privacy of peace,</p> +<p>Communing with high angels, she can hold,</p> +<p>Serenely rapt, her solitary course.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne</p> +<p>Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page664" id="page664"></a>[pg 664]</span> +<p>Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs;</p> +<p>Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh</p> +<p>Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones,</p> +<p>And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores,</p> +<p>Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung;</p> +<p>Exposure to the fever and the frost,</p> +<p>When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked</p> +<p>From persecution of misguided folk,</p> +<p>Accustoming my spirit to ignore</p> +<p>The burden of the cross, while picturing</p> +<p>The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace</p> +<p>Of holiness, the lives of sainted men,</p> +<p>And entertaining all exalted thoughts,</p> +<p>That nowise touched the trouble of the hour,</p> +<p>Until the grief and pain seemed far less real</p> +<p>Than the creations of my brain inspired.</p> +<p>The vision, the beatitude, were true:</p> +<p>The agony was but an evil dream.</p> +<p>I speak not now as one who hath not learned</p> +<p>The purport of those lightly-bandied words,</p> +<p>Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows</p> +<p>The thunders of the terrors of the world.</p> +<p>No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock,</p> +<p>Can move or reach my soul, securely throned</p> +<p>On heights of contemplation and calm prayer,</p> +<p>Happy, serene, no less with actual joy</p> +<p>Of present peace than faith in joys to come.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees</p> +<p>Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky!</p> +<p>How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine,</p> +<p>Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes</p> +<p>Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light!</p> +<p>Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes</p> +<p>Find the same sense of exquisite delight,</p> +<p>My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy</p> +<p>In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high,</p> +<p>And youth coursed through my veins! This the one link</p> +<p>That binds the wan old man that now I am</p> +<p>To the wild lad who followed up the hounds</p> +<p>Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea.</p> +<p>For there how oft would I lose all delight</p> +<p>In the pursuit, the triumph or the game,</p> +<p>To stray alone among the shadowy glades,</p> +<p>And gaze, as one who is not satisfied</p> +<p>With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea,</p> +<p>The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between</p> +<p>The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees,</p> +<p>On gold-green turf, sweetbrier and wild pink rose!</p> +<p>How rich that buoyant air with changing scent</p> +<p>Of pungent pine, fresh flowers and salt cool seas!</p> +<p>And when all echoes of the chase had died,</p> +<p>Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds,</p> +<p>How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page665" id="page665"></a>[pg 665]</span> +<p>On that fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds,</p> +<p>The rustling of the tangled undergrowth,</p> +<p>And the deep lyric murmur of the pines,</p> +<p>When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze!</p> +<p>There was my world, there would my heart dilate,</p> +<p>And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer</p> +<p>Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies</p> +<p>Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered</p> +<p>In the unsearchable, unbodied air,</p> +<p>Made itself felt, but reigned invisible.</p> +<p>This ere the day that from my past divides</p> +<p>My present, and that made me what I am.</p> +<p>Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea</p> +<p>illimitably sparkling, as they showed</p> +<p>That morning. Though I deemed I took no note</p> +<p>Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind</p> +<p>Retains to-day the vivid portraiture</p> +<p>Of every line and feature of the scene.</p> +<p>Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared</p> +<p>Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught</p> +<p>Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink</p> +<p>Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust</p> +<p>Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan;</p> +<p>And pressing forward I beheld the sight</p> +<p>That seared itself for ever on my brain—</p> +<p>My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf,</p> +<p>Fallen upon his side, his bright young head</p> +<p>Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close</p> +<p>Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched</p> +<p>A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth,</p> +<p>Uprooted in his anguish as he fell,</p> +<p>And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed,</p> +<p>Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face</p> +<p>Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes</p> +<p>Staring in blankness on that other one</p> +<p>Who triumphed over him. With hot desire</p> +<p>Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword</p> +<p>To rush upon the slayer, when he turned</p> +<p>In his first terror of blood-guiltiness.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<hr /> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Within my heart a something snapped and brake.</p> +<p>What was it but the chord of rapturous joy</p> +<p>For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall,</p> +<p>Had I not leaned against the friendly pine;</p> +<p>For all realities of life, unmoored</p> +<p>From their firm anchorage, appeared to float</p> +<p>Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain.</p> +<p>The strange delusion wrought upon my soul</p> +<p>That this had been enacted ages since.</p> +<p>This very horror curdled at my heart,</p> +<p>This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens,</p> +<p>Were closing over me when I had stood,</p> +<p>Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted <i>him,</i></p> +<p>My father; and he felt mine eyes as now,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page666" id="page666"></a>[pg 666]</span> +<p>Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form,</p> +<p>The one thing real, lay stretched between us both.</p> +<p>The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong</p> +<p>To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all—</p> +<p>A few fierce words between them yester eve</p> +<p>Concerning some poor plot of pasturage,</p> +<p>Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm:</p> +<p>This was the end. I could not meet him now,</p> +<p>To curse him, to accuse him, or to save,</p> +<p>And draw him from the red entanglement</p> +<p>Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life.</p> +<p>God pardon me! My heart that moment held</p> +<p>No drop of pity toward this wretched soul;</p> +<p>And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine,</p> +<p>I fled amidst the savage silences</p> +<p>Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone</p> +<p>My boundless desolation, shame and grief.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon,</p> +<p>The quiet of the still, suspended air,</p> +<p>Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged,</p> +<p>Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed</p> +<p>A solemn prayer, conceived in agony,</p> +<p>Blessed with response instant, miraculous;</p> +<p>For in that hour my spirit was at one</p> +<p>With Him who knows and satisfies her needs.</p> +<p>The supplication and the blessing sprang</p> +<p>From the same source, inspired divinely both.</p> +<p>I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth,</p> +<p>And these like heavenly manna were rained down</p> +<p>To feed my hungered soul. His guilt <i>was</i> mine.</p> +<p>What angel had been sent to stay mine arm</p> +<p>Until the fateful moment passed away</p> +<p>That would have ushered an eternity</p> +<p>Of withering remorse? I found the germs</p> +<p>In mine own heart of every human sin,</p> +<p>That waited but occasion's tempting breath</p> +<p>To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life.</p> +<p>What God thus far had saved me from myself?</p> +<p>Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each</p> +<p>Must feel himself in all, must know where'er</p> +<p>The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys,</p> +<p>His proper soul in kinship there is bound.</p> +<p>Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind,</p> +<p>Encouraging as morning. As I lay,</p> +<p>Crushed by the weight of universal love,</p> +<p>Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself,</p> +<p>I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell.</p> +<p>I knew it—whence it came and what it sang.</p> +<p>From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed,</p> +<p>And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer,</p> +<p>Clean lives, white days of strict austerity:</p> +<p>Such were the offerings of these holy saints.</p> +<p>How far might such not tend to expiate</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page6790" id="page6790"></a>[pg 6790]</span> +<p>A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life,</p> +<p>Doubly austere and doubly sanctified,</p> +<p>Might even for that other one atone,</p> +<p>So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">They sheltered me, not questioning the need</p> +<p>That led me to their cloistered solitude.</p> +<p>How rich, how freighted with pure influence,</p> +<p>With dear security of perfect peace,</p> +<p>Was the first day I passed within those walls!</p> +<p>The holy habit of perpetual prayer,</p> +<p>The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech,</p> +<p>The chastening discipline, the atmosphere</p> +<p>Of settled and profound tranquillity,</p> +<p>Were even as living waters unto one</p> +<p>Who perisheth of thirst. Was this the world</p> +<p>That yesterday seemed one huge battle-field</p> +<p>For brutish passions? Could the soul of man</p> +<p>Withdraw so easily, and erect apart</p> +<p>Her own fair temple for her own high ends?</p> +<p>But this serene contentment slowly waned</p> +<p>As I discerned the broad disparity</p> +<p>Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws</p> +<p>That bound the order in strait brotherhood.</p> +<p>Yet when I sought to gain a larger love,</p> +<p>More rigid discipline, severer truth,</p> +<p>And more complete surrender of the soul</p> +<p>Unto her God, this was to my reproach,</p> +<p>And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides.</p> +<p>In mine own cell I mortified my flesh,</p> +<p>I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts</p> +<p>To wrestle with my viewless enemies,</p> +<p>Till they should leave their blessing on my head;</p> +<p>For nightly was I haunted by that face,</p> +<p>White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns,</p> +<p>Now staring out of darkness, and it held</p> +<p>Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest</p> +<p>And drove me from my straw to weep and pray.</p> +<p>Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought</p> +<p>Upon my spirit that I lay day-long</p> +<p>In dumb despair, until the blessed hope</p> +<p>Of mercy dawned again upon my soul,</p> +<p>As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts</p> +<p>The airy steps of heaven. My faith arose</p> +<p>With sure perception that disaster, wrong,</p> +<p>And every shadow of man's destiny</p> +<p>Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch</p> +<p>The soul's fine essence: they exist or die</p> +<p>Only as she affirms them or denies.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p class="i2">This faith sustains me even to the end:</p> +<p>It floods my heart with peace as surely now</p> +<p>As on that day the friars drove me forth,</p> +<p>Urging that my asceticism, too harsh,</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page668" id="page668"></a>[pg 668]</span> +<p>Endured through pride, would bring into reproach</p> +<p>Their customs and their order. Then began</p> +<p>My exile in the mountains, where I bode</p> +<p>A hunted man. The elements conspired</p> +<p>Against me, and I was the seasons' sport,</p> +<p>Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately,</p> +<p>Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats,</p> +<p>Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains,</p> +<p>And buffeted by all the winds of heaven.</p> +<p>Yet was this period my time of joy:</p> +<p>My daily thoughts perpetual converse held</p> +<p>With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed</p> +<p>With sweet accordance of celestial sounds,</p> +<p>Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air.</p> +<p>And visions were revealed unto mine eyes</p> +<p>By night and day of Heaven's very courts,</p> +<p>In shadowless, undimmed magnificence.</p> +<p>I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me,</p> +<p>And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air—</p> +<p>For had I perished, this too had been well—</p> +<p>But for the revelation of His truth,</p> +<p>The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed</p> +<p>To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire;</p> +<p>So that the pinched, lean excommunicate</p> +<p>Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure,</p> +<p>Than all the comfort of the vales could bring.</p> +<p>Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts,</p> +<p>Aspiring toward His love, to come to me,</p> +<p>Timid and few at first; but as they heard</p> +<p>From mine own lips the precious oracles,</p> +<p>That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased</p> +<p>Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed</p> +<p>All of the God within them to themselves,</p> +<p>They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint,</p> +<p>And sware to follow and to serve the good</p> +<p>Which my word published and my life declared.</p> +<p>Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top</p> +<p>Descended leader of a band of saints,</p> +<p>And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale</p> +<p>I perched my convent. Yet I bated not</p> +<p>One whit of strict restraint and abstinence.</p> +<p>And they who love me and who serve the truth</p> +<p>Have learned to suffer with me, and have won</p> +<p>The supreme joy that is not of the flesh,</p> +<p>Foretasting the delights of Paradise.</p> +<p>This faith, to them imparted, will endure</p> +<p>After my tongue hath ceased to utter it,</p> +<p>And the great peace hath settled on my soul.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">EMMA LAZARUS.</p> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page669" id="page669"></a>[pg 669]</span> + + + + +<h2>A PRINCESS OF THULE.</h2> + +<h4>BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A PHAETON."</h4> + + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + +<h3>"O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!"</h3> + + +<p>Consider what a task this unhappy +man Ingram had voluntarily undertaken! +Here were two young people +presumably in love. One of them was +laid under suspicion by several previous +love-affairs, though none of these, doubtless, +had been so serious as the present. +The other scarcely knew her own mind, +or perhaps was afraid to question herself +too closely, lest all the conflict between +duty and inclination, with its fears and +anxieties and troubles, should be too +suddenly revealed. Moreover, this girl +was the only daughter of a solitary and +irascible old gentleman living in a remote +island; and Ingram had not only +undertaken that the love-affairs of the +young folks should come all right—thus +assuming a responsibility which might +have appalled the bravest—but was also +expected to inform the King of Borva +that his daughter was about to be taken +away from him.</p> + +<p>Of course, if Sheila had been a properly +brought-up young lady, nothing of +this sort would have been necessary. +We all know what the properly brought-up +young lady does under such circumstances. +She goes straight to her papa +and mamma and says, "My dear papa +and mamma, I have been taught by my +various instructors that I ought to have +no secrets from my dear parents; and I +therefore hasten to lay aside any little +shyness or modesty or doubt of my own +wishes I might feel, for the purpose of +explaining to you the extent to which +I have become a victim to the tender +passion, and of soliciting your advice. I +also place before you these letters I have +received from the gentleman in question: +probably they were sent in confidence +to me, but I must banish any scruples +that do not coincide with my duty to +you. I may say that I respect, and even +admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be +unworthy of the care bestowed upon my +education by my dear parents if I were +altogether insensible to the advantages +of his worldly position. But beyond this +point I am at a loss to define my sentiments; +and so I ask you, my dear papa +and mamma, for permission to study the +question for some little time longer, when +I may be able to furnish you with a more +accurate report of my feelings. At the +same time, if the interest I have in this +young man is likely to conflict with the +duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to +be informed of the fact; and I shall then +teach myself to guard against the approach +of that insidious passion which +might make me indifferent to the higher +calls and interests of life." Happy the +man who marries such a woman! No +agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, +no piteous entreaties and fits +of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices +await him, but a beautiful, methodical, +placid life, as calm and accurate and +steadily progressive as the multiplication +table. His household will be a miracle +of perfect arrangement. The relations +between the members of it will be as +strictly defined as the pattern of the +paper on the walls. And how can a +quarrel arise when a dissecter of the +emotions is close at hand to say where +the divergence of opinion or interest began? +and how can a fit of jealousy be +provoked in the case of a person who +will split up her affections into fifteen +parts, give ten-fifteenths to her children, +three-fifteenths to her parents, and the +remainder to her husband? Should +there be any dismal fractions going +about, friends and acquaintances may +come in for them.</p> + +<p>But how was Sheila to go to her father +and explain to him what she could not explain +to herself? She had never dreamed +of marriage. She had never thought +of having to leave Borva and her father's +house. But she had some vague feeling +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page670" id="page670"></a>[pg 670]</span> +that in the future lay many terrible possibilities +that she did not as yet dare to +look at—until, at least, she was more +satisfied as to the present. And how +could she go to her father with such a +chaos of unformed wishes and fears to +place before him? That such a duty +should have devolved upon Ingram was +certainly odd enough, but it was not her +doing. His knowledge of the position +of these young people was not derived +from her. But, having got it, he had +himself asked her to leave the whole +affair in his hands, with that kindness +and generosity which had more than +once filled her heart with an unspeakable +gratitude toward him.</p> + +<p>"Well, you <i>are</i> a good fellow!" said +Lavender to him when he heard of this +decision.</p> + +<p>"Bah!" said the other with a shrug +of his shoulders. "I mean to amuse myself. +I shall move you about like pieces +on a chess-board, and have a pretty +game with you. How to checkmate the +king with a knight and a princess, in +any number of moves you like—that +is the problem; and my princess has a +strong power over the king where she is +just now."</p> + +<p>"It's an uncommonly awkward business, +you know, Ingram," said Lavender +ruefully.</p> + +<p>"Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough +old fellow to deal with, and you'll do no +good by making a fight of it. Wait! +Difficulties don't look so formidable +when you take them one by one as they +turn up. If you really love the girl, and +mean to take your chance of getting her, +and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice +a good deal for your sake, there is +nothing to fear."</p> + +<p>"I can answer for myself, any way," +said Lavender in a tone of voice that +Ingram rather liked: the young man +did not always speak with the same +quietness, thoughtfulness and modesty.</p> + +<p>And how naturally and easily it came +about, after all! They were back again +at Borva. They had driven round and +about Lewis, and had finished up with +Stornoway; and, now that they had got +back to the island in Loch Roag, the +quaint little drawing-room had even to +Lavender a homely and friendly look. +The big stuffed fishes and the sponge +shells were old acquaintances; and he +went to hunt up Sheila's music just as +if he had known that dusky corner for +years.</p> + +<p>"Yes, yes," called Mackenzie, "it iss +the English songs we will try now."</p> + +<p>He had a notion that he was himself +rather a good hand at a part song—just +as Sheila had innocently taught him to +believe that he was a brilliant whist-player +when he had mastered the art of +returning his partner's lead—but fortunately +at this moment he was engaged +with a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot +whisky and water. Ingram was similarly +employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed +easy-chair, and placidly watching +the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes +he cast an eye to the young folks +at the other end of the room. They +formed a pretty sight, he thought. Lavender +was a good-looking fellow enough, +and there was something pleasing in the +quiet and assiduous fashion in which he +waited upon Sheila, and in the almost +timid way in which he spoke to her. +Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all +in slate-gray silk, with a narrow band of +scarlet velvet round her neck; and it +was only by a chance turning of the +head that Ingram caught the tender and +handsome profile, broken only by the +outward sweep of the long eyelashes.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Sheila sang, with her father keeping time +by patting his forefinger on the table.</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He in thy snowy bosom strays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>sang Lavender; and then the two voices +joined together:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He makes thy rosy lips his care,</p> +<p>And walks the mazes of thy hair.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Or were there not three voices? Surely, +from the back part of the room, the +musicians could hear a wandering bass +come in from time to time, especially +at such portions as "Ah, he never—ah, +he never touched thy heart!" which old +Mackenzie considered very touching. +But there was something quaint and +friendly and pleasant in the pathos of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page671" id="page671"></a>[pg 671]</span> +those English songs, which made them +far more acceptable to him than Sheila's +wild and melancholy legends of the sea. +He sang "Ah, he never, never touched +thy heart!" with an outward expression +of grief, but with much inward satisfaction. +Was it the quaint phraseology of +the old duets that awoke in him some +faint ambition after histrionic effect? At +all events, Sheila proceeded to another +of his favorites, "All's Well," and here, +amid the brisk music, the old man had +an excellent opportunity of striking in +at random—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>The careful watch patrols the deck</p> +<p>To guard the ship from foes or wreck.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>These two lines he had absolutely mastered, +and always sang them, whatever +might be the key he happened to light +on, with great vigor. He soon went the +length of improvising a part for himself +in the closing passages, and laid down +his pipe altogether as he sang—</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>What cheer? Brother, quickly tell!</p> +<p>Above! Below! Good-night! All, all's well!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>From that point, however, Sheila and +her companion wandered away into +fields of melody whither the King of +Borva could not follow them; so he was +content to resume his pipe and listen +placidly to the pretty airs. He caught +but bits and fragments of phrases and +sentiments, but they evidently were comfortable, +merry, good-natured songs for +young folks to sing. There was a good +deal of love-making, and rosy morns +appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such +odd things, which, sung briskly and +gladly by two young and fresh voices, +rather drew the hearts of contemplative +listeners to the musicians.</p> + +<p>"They sing very well whatever," said +Mackenzie with a critical air to Ingram +when the young people were so busily +engaged with their own affairs as apparently +to forget the presence of the +others. "Oh yes, they sing very well +whatever; and what should the young +folks sing about but making love and +courting, and all that?"</p> + +<p>"Natural enough," said Ingram, looking +rather wistfully at the two at the other +end of the room. "I suppose Sheila will +have a sweetheart some day?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart +some day," said her father good-humoredly. +"Sheila is a good-looking girl: she +will hef a sweetheart some day."</p> + +<p>"She will be marrying too, I suppose," +said Ingram cautiously.</p> + +<p>"Oh yes, she will marry—Sheila will +marry: what will be the life of a young +girl if she does not marry?"</p> + +<p>At this moment, as Ingram afterward +described it, a sort of "flash of inspiration" +darted in upon him, and he resolved +there and then to brave the wrath +of the old king, and place all the conspiracy +before him, if only the music +kept loud enough to prevent his being +overheard.</p> + +<p>"It will be hard on you to part with +Sheila when she marries," said Ingram, +scarcely daring to look up.</p> + +<p>"Oh, ay, it will be that," said Mackenzie +cheerfully enough. "But it iss +every one will hef to do that, and no +great harm comes of it. Oh no, it will +not be much whatever; and Sheila, she +will be very glad in a little while after, +and it will be enough for me to see that +she is ferry contented and happy. The +young folk must marry, you will see; +and what is the use of marrying if it is +not when they are young? But Sheila, +she will think of none of these things. +It was young Mr. MacIntyre of Sutherland—you +hef seen him last year in +Stornoway: he hass three thousand acres +of a deer forest in Sutherland—and he +will be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. +But I will say to him, 'It is not for me +to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: +it is Sheila herself will tell you that.' +But he wass afraid to speak to her; and +Sheila herself will know nothing of why +he came twice to Borva the last year."</p> + +<p>"It is very good of you to leave Sheila +quite unbiased in her choice," said Ingram: +"many fathers would have been +sorely tempted by that deer forest."</p> + +<p>Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh +of derision, that fortunately did not stop +Lavender's execution of "I would that +my love would silently."</p> + +<p>"What the teffle," said Mackenzie, +"hef I to want a deer forest for my +Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman's lass. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page672" id="page672"></a>[pg 672]</span> +She has plenty for herself, and she will +marry just the young man she wants to +marry, and no other one: that is what +she will do, by Kott!"</p> + +<p>All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie +had himself been advocating +Lavender's suit, could he have said +more? But notwithstanding all these +frank and generous promises, dealing +with a future which the old man considered +as indefinitely remote, Ingram was +still afraid of the announcement he was +about to make.</p> + +<p>"Sheila is fortunately situated," he +said, "in having a father who thinks only +of her happiness. But I suppose she +has never yet shown a preference for any +one?"</p> + +<p>"Not for any one but yourself," said +her father with a laugh.</p> + +<p>And Ingram laughed too, but in an +embarrassed way, and his sallow face +grew darker with a blush. Was there +not something painful in the unintentional +implication that of course Ingram +could not be considered a possible lover +of Sheila's, and that the girl herself was +so well aware of it that she could openly +testify to her regard for him?</p> + +<p>"And it would be a good thing for +Sheila," continued her father, more +gravely, "if there wass any young man +about the Lewis that she would tek a +liking to; for it will be some day I can +no more look after her, and it would be +bad for her to be left alone all by herself +in the island."</p> + +<p>"And you don't think you see before +you now some one who might take on +him the charge of Sheila's future?" said +Ingram, looking toward Lavender.</p> + +<p>"The English gentleman?" said Mackenzie +with a smile. "No, that any way +is not possible."</p> + +<p>"I fancy it is more than possible," +said Ingram, resolved to go straight at +it. "I know for a fact that he would +like to marry your daughter, and I think +that Sheila, without knowing it herself +almost, is well inclined toward him."</p> + +<p>The old man started up from his chair: +"Eh? what! my Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, papa," said the girl, turning +round at once.</p> + +<p>She caught sight of a strange look on +his face, and in an instant was by his +side: "Papa, what is the matter with +you?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing, Sheila, nothing," he said +impatiently. "I am a little tired of the +music, that is all. But go on with the +music. Go back to the piano, Sheila, +and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram +and me, we will go outside for a +little while."</p> + +<p>Mackenzie walked out of the room, +and said aloud in the hall, "Ay, are you +coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night +this night, and the wind is in a very +good way for the weather."</p> + +<p>And then, as he went out to the front, +he hummed aloud, so that Sheila should +hear,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell!</p> +<p>A friend! The word! Good-night! All's well!</p> +<p>All's well! Good-night! All's well!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Ingram followed the old man outside, +with a somewhat guilty conscience suggesting +odd things to him. Would it +not be possible now to shut one's ears +for the next half hour? Angry words +were only little perturbations in the air. +If you shut your ears till they were all +over, what harm could be done? All +the big facts of life would remain the +same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the +human beings around you, even your +desire of sleep for the night and your +wholesome longing for breakfast in the +morning, would all remain, and the +angry words would have passed away. +But perhaps it was a proper punishment +that he should now go out and bear all +the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, +whose daughter he had conspired to +carry off. Mackenzie was walking up +and down the path outside in the cool +and silent night. There was not much +moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight +showed all the familiar features of +Loch Roag and the southern hills, and +down there in the bay you could vaguely +make out the Maighdean-mhara rocking +in the tiny waves that washed in on +the white shore. Ingram had never +looked on this pretty picture with a less +feeling of delight.</p> + +<p>"Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie," he +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page673" id="page673"></a>[pg 673]</span> +was beginning, "you must make this +excuse for him—"</p> + +<p>But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at +once. It was all about Sheila that he +wanted to know. There was no anger +in his words; only a great anxiety, and +sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic +effort to take a philosophical view of the +situation. What had Sheila said? Was +Sheila deeply interested in the young +man? Would it please Sheila if he was +to go in-doors and give at once his free +consent to her marrying this Mr. Lavender?</p> + +<p>"Oh, you must not think," said Mackenzie, +with a certain loftiness of air +even amidst his great perturbation and +anxiety—"you must not think I hef not +foreseen all this. It wass some day or +other Sheila will be sure to marry; and +although I did not expect—no, I did not +expect <i>that</i>—that she would marry a +stranger and an Englishman, if it will +please her that is enough. You cannot +tell a young lass the one she should +marry: it iss all a chance the one she +likes, and if she does not marry him it +is better she will not marry at all. Oh +yes, I know that ferry well. And I hef +known there wass a time coming when +I would give away my Sheila to some +young man; and there iss no use complaining +of it. But you hef not told me +much about this young man, or I hef +forgotten: it is the same thing whatever. +He has not much money, you said—he +is waiting for some money. Well, this +is what I will do: I will give him all my +money if he will come and live in the +Lewis."</p> + +<p>All the philosophy he had been mustering +up fell away from that last sentence. +It was like the cry of a drowning +man who sees the last life-boat set +out for shore, leaving him to his fate. +And Ingram had not a word to say in +reply to that piteous entreaty.</p> + +<p>"I do not ask him to stop in Borva: +no, it iss a small place for one that hass +lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is +quite different; and there iss ferry good +houses in Stornoway."</p> + +<p>"But surely, sir," said Ingram, "you +need not consider all this just yet. I +am sure neither of them has thought of +any such thing."</p> + +<p>"No," said Mackenzie, recovering +himself, "perhaps not. But we hef our +duties to look at the future of young +folks. And you will say that Mr. Lavender +hass only expectations of money?"</p> + +<p>"Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. +His aunt, I have told you, is a +very rich old lady, who has no other near +relations, and she is exceedingly fond of +him, and would do anything for him. I +am sure the allowance he has now is +greatly in excess of what she spends on +herself."</p> + +<p>"But they might quarrel, you know—they +might quarrel. You hef always to +look to the future: they might quarrel, +and what will he do then?"</p> + +<p>"Why, you don't suppose he couldn't +support himself if the worst were to come +to the worst? He is an amazingly clever +fellow—"</p> + +<p>"Ay, that is very good," said Mackenzie +in a cautious sort of way, "but +has he ever made any money?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, I fancy not—nothing to speak +of. He has sold some pictures, but I +think he has given more away."</p> + +<p>"Then it iss not easy, tek my word +for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new trade +if you are twenty-five years of age; and +the people who will tek your pictures for +nothing, will they pay for them if you +wanted the money?"</p> + +<p>It was obviously the old man's eager +wish to prove to himself that, somehow +or other, Lavender might come to have +no money, and be made dependent on +his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from +sharing the sentiments ordinarily attributed +to that important relative, he would +have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the +information that the man who, as he expected, +was about to marry his daughter +was absolutely penniless. Not even +all the attractions of that deer forest +in Sutherlandshire—particularly fascinating +as they must have been to a man +of his education and surroundings—had +been able to lead the old King of Borva +even into hinting to his daughter that +the owner of that property would like to +marry her. Sheila was to choose for +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page674" id="page674"></a>[pg 674]</span> +herself. She was not like a fisherman's +lass, bound to consider ways and means. +And now that she had chosen, or at least +indicated the possibility of her doing so, +her father's chief desire was that his future +son-in-law should come and take +and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila +might not be carried away from him for +ever.</p> + +<p>"Well, I will see about it," said Mackenzie +with an affectation of cheerful +and practical shrewdness. "Oh yes, I +will see about it when Sheila has made +up her mind. He is a very good young +man, whatever—"</p> + +<p>"He is the best-hearted fellow I know," +said Ingram warmly. "I don't think +Sheila has much to fear if she marries +him. If you had known him as long as +I have, you would know how considerate +he is to everybody about him, how +generous he is, how good-natured and +cheerful, and so forth: in short, he is a +thorough good fellow, that's what I have +to say about him."</p> + +<p>"It iss well for him he will hef such a +champion," said Mackenzie with a smile: +"there is not many Sheila will pay attention +to as she does to you."</p> + +<p>They went in-doors again, Ingram +scarcely knowing how he had got so +easily through the ordeal, but very glad +it was over.</p> + +<p>Sheila was still at the piano, and on +their entering she said, "Papa, here is a +song you must learn to sing with me."</p> + +<p>"And what iss it, Sheila?" he said, +going over to her.</p> + +<p>"'Time has not thinned my flowing +hair.'"</p> + +<p>He put his hand on her head and +said, "I hope it will be a long time before +he will thin your hair, Sheila."</p> + +<p>The girl looked up surprised. Scotch +folks are, as a rule, somewhat reticent +in their display of affection, and it was +not often that her father talked to her +in that way. What was there in his +face that made her glance instinctively +toward Ingram. Somehow or other her +hand sought her father's hand, and she +rose and went away from the piano, with +her head bent down and tears beginning +to tell in her eyes.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that is a capital song," said +Ingram loudly. Sing 'The Arethusa,' +Lavender—'Said the saucy Arethusa.'"</p> + +<p>Lavender, knowing what had taken +place, and not daring to follow with his +eyes Sheila and her father, who had +gone to the other end of the room, sang +the song. Never was a gallant and +devil-may-care sea-song sung so hopelessly +without spirit. But the piano made +a noise and the verses took up time. +When he had finished he almost feared +to turn round, and yet there was nothing +dreadful in the picture that presented +itself. Sheila was sitting on her father's +knee, with her head buried in his bosom, +while he was patting her head and talking +in a low voice to her. The King of +Borva did not look particularly fierce.</p> + +<p>"Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song," he +said suddenly. "Now get up, Sheila, +and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit +of bread and cheese before going to bed. +And there will be a little hot water wanted +in the other room, for this room it iss +too full of the smoke."</p> + +<p>Sheila, as she went out of the room, +had her head cast down and perhaps +an extra tinge of color in her young +and pretty face. But surely, Lavender +thought to himself as he watched her +anxiously, she did not look grieved. As +for her father, what should he do now? +Turn suddenly round and beg Mackenzie's +pardon, and throw himself on his +generosity? When he did, with much +inward trembling, venture to approach +the old man, he found no such explanation +possible. The King of Borva was +in one of his grandest moods—dignified, +courteous, cautious, and yet inclined to +treat everybody and everything with a +sort of lofty good-humor. He spoke to +Lavender in the most friendly way, but +it was about the singular and startling +fact that modern research had proved +many of the Roman legends to be utterly +untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie +observed that the man was wanting in +proper courage who feared to accept the +results of such inquiries. It was better +that we should know the truth, and then +the kings who had really made Rome +great might emerge from the fog of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page675" id="page675"></a>[pg 675]</span> +tradition in their proper shape. There was +something quite sympathetic in the way +he talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, +whom the vulgar mind had clothed in +mist.</p> + +<p>Lavender was sorely beset by the rival +claims of Rome and Borva upon his attention. +He was inwardly inclined to +curse Numa Pompilius—which would +have been ineffectual—when he found +that personage interfering with a wild +effort to discover why Mackenzie should +treat him in this way. And then it occurred +to him that, as he had never said +a word to Mackenzie about this affair, it +was too much to expect that Sheila's +father should himself open the subject. +On the contrary, Mackenzie was bent +on extending a grave courtesy to his +guest, so that the latter should not feel +ill at ease until it suited himself to make +any explanations he might choose. It +was not Mackenzie's business to ask this +young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. +No. The king's daughter, if she were +to be won at all, was to be won by a +suitor, and it was not for her father to +be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got +back into the region of early Roman +history, and tried to recall what he had +learned in Livy, and quite coincided +with everything that Niebuhr had said +or proved, and with everything that +Mackenzie thought Niebuhr had said +or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, +to find himself talking to Sheila's +father in this friendly fashion.</p> + +<p>Then Sheila came in and told them +that supper was laid in the adjoining +room. At that modest meal a great +good-humor prevailed. Sometimes, it +is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila +occasionally cast an anxious glance to +her father, as if she were trying to discover +whether he was really satisfied, or +whether he were not merely pretending +satisfaction to please her; but for the +rest the party was a most friendly and +merry one. Lavender, naturally enough, +was in the highest of spirits, and nothing +could exceed the lighthearted endeavors +he made to amuse and interest and cheer +his companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up +later than usual, even although pipes +were lit again, and the slate-gray silk +likely to bear witness to the fact in the +morning. How comfortable and homely +was this sort of life in the remote +stone building overlooking the sea! He +began to think that he could live always +in Borva if only Sheila were with him +as his companion.</p> + +<p>Was it an actual fact, then, he asked +himself next morning, that he stood confessed +to the small world of Borva as +Sheila's accepted lover? Not a word on +the subject had passed between Mackenzie +and himself, and yet he found himself +assuming the position of a younger +relative, and rather expecting advice +from the old man. He began to take a +great interest, too, in the local administration +of the island: he examined the +window-fastenings of Mackenzie's house +and saw that they would be useful in the +winter, and expressed to Sheila's father +his confidential opinion that the girl +should not be allowed to go out in the +Maighdean-mhara without Duncan.</p> + +<p>"She will know as much about boats +as Duncan himself," said her father with +a smile. "But Sheila will not go out +when the rough weather begins."</p> + +<p>"Of course you keep her in-doors +then," said the younger man, already +assuming some little charge over Sheila's +comfort.</p> + +<p>The father laughed aloud at this simplicity +on the part of the Englishman: +"If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad +weather, it would be all the winter we +would be in-doors! There iss no day at +all Sheila will not be out some time or +other; and she is never so well as in +the hard weather, when she will be out +always in the snow and the frost, and +hef plenty of exercise and amusement."</p> + +<p>"She is not often ailing, I suppose?" +said Lavender.</p> + +<p>"She is as strong as a young pony, +that is what Sheila is," said her father +proudly. "And there is no one in the +island will run so fast, or walk so long +without tiring, or carry things from the +shore as she will—not one."</p> + +<p>But here he suddenly checked himself. +"That is," he said with some little expression +of annoyance, "I wass saying +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page676" id="page676"></a>[pg 676]</span> +Sheila could do that if it wass any use; +but she will not do such things, like a +fisherman's lass that hass to keep in the +work."</p> + +<p>"Oh, of course not," said Lavender +hastily. "But still, you know, it is +pleasant to know she is so strong and +well."</p> + +<p>And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, +accompanied by her great deerhound, +and testifying by the bright color +in her face to the assurances of her health +her father had been giving. She had +just come up and over the hill from Borvabost, +while as yet breakfast had not +been served. Somehow or other, Lavender +fancied she never looked so bright +and bold and handsome as in the early +morning, with the fresh sea-air tingling +the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight +shining in the clear eyes or giving from +time to time a glimpse of her perfect +teeth. But this morning she did not +seem quite so frankly merry as usual. +She patted the deerhound's head, and +rather kept her eyes away from her +father and his companion. And then +she took Bras away to give him his +breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to +bid her good-morning and ask her what +she meant by being about so early.</p> + +<p>How anxiously Lavender now began +to calculate on the remaining days of +their stay in Borva! They seemed so +few. He got up at preposterously early +hours to make each day as long as possible, +but it slipped away with a fatal +speed; and already he began to think +of Stornoway and the Clansman and +his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had +said no more to her of any pledge as +regarded the future. He was content to +see that she was pleased to be with him; +and happy indeed were their rambles +about the island, their excursions in +Sheila's boat, their visits to the White +Water in search of salmon. Nor had +he yet spoken to Sheila's father. He +knew that Mackenzie knew, and both +seemed to take it for granted that no +good could come of a formal explanation +until Sheila herself should make her +wishes known. That, indeed, was the +only aspect of the case that apparently +presented itself to the old King of Borva. +He forgot altogether those precautions +and investigations which are supposed +to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, +and only sought to see how Sheila +was affected toward the young man who +was soon about to leave the island. +When he saw her pleased to be walking +with Lavender and talking with him of +an evening, he was pleased, and would +rather have a cold dinner than break in +upon them to hurry them home. When +he saw her disappointed because Lavender +had been unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, +he was ready to swear at Duncan +for not having had the fish in a better +temper. And the most of his conversation +with Ingram consisted of an +endeavor to convince himself that, after +all, what had happened was for the best, +and that Sheila seemed to be happy.</p> + +<p>But somehow or other, when the time +for their departure was drawing near, +Mackenzie showed a strange desire that +his guests should spend the last two days +in Stornoway. When Lavender first +heard this proposal he glanced toward +Sheila, and his face showed clearly his +disappointment.</p> + +<p>"But Sheila will go with us too," said +her father, replying to that unuttered +protest in the most innocent fashion; +and then Lavender's face brightened +again, and he said that nothing would +give him greater pleasure than to spend +two days in Stornoway.</p> + +<p>"And you must not think," said Mackenzie +anxiously, "that it is one day or +two days or a great many days will show +you all the fine things about Stornoway. +And if you were to live in Stornoway +you would find very good acquaintances +and friends there; and in the autumn, +when the shooting begins, there are +many English who will come up, and +there will be ferry great doings at the +castle. And there is some gentlemen +now at Grimersta whom you hef not +seen, and they are ferry fine gentlemen; +and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more +gentlemen for the salmon-fishing. Oh, +there iss a great many fine people in +the Lewis, and it iss not all as lonely as +Borva."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page677" id="page677"></a>[pg 677]</span> + +<p>"If it is half as pleasant a place to +live in as Borva, it will do," said Lavender, +with a flush of enthusiasm in his +face as he looked toward Sheila and +saw her pleased and downcast eyes.</p> + +<p>"But it iss not to be compared," said +Mackenzie eagerly. "Borva, that is +nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a +ferry different thing to live in the Lewis; +and many English gentlemen hef told +me they would like to live always in the +Lewis."</p> + +<p>"I think I should too," said Lavender +lightly and carelessly, little thinking what +importance the old man immediately and +gladly put upon the admission.</p> + +<p>From that moment, Lavender, although +unconscious of what had happened, had +nothing to fear in the way of opposition +from Sheila's father. If he had there +and then boldly asked Mackenzie for +his daughter, the old man would have +given his consent freely, and bade Lavender +go to Sheila herself.</p> + +<p>And so they set sail, one pleasant +forenoon, from Borvabost, and the light +wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag +gently filled the mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara +as she lightly ran down the +tortuous channel.</p> + +<p>"I don't like to go away from Borva," +said Lavender in a low voice to Sheila, +"but I might have been leaving the island +with greater regret, for, you know, +I expect to be back soon."</p> + +<p>"We shall always be glad to see you," +said the girl; and although he would +rather have had her say "I" than "we," +there was something in the tone of her +voice that contented him.</p> + +<p>At Garra-na-hina Mackenzie pointed +out with a great interest to Lavender a +tall man who was going down through +some meadows to the Amhuinn Dhubh, +"the Black River." He had a long rod +over his shoulder, and behind him, at +some distance, followed a shorter man, +who carried a gaff and landing-net. +Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender +that the tall figure was that of an +Englishman. Lavender accepted the +statement. But would he not go down +to the river and make his acquaintance? +Lavender could not understand why he +should be expected to take so great an +interest in an ordinary English sportsman.</p> + +<p>"Ferry well," said Mackenzie, a trifle +disappointed, "but you would find several +of the English in the Lewis if you +wass living here."</p> + +<p>These last two days in Stornoway were +very pleasant. On their previous visit +to the town Mackenzie had given up +much of his time to business affairs, and +was a good deal away from his guests, +but now he devoted himself to making +them particularly comfortable in the +place and amusing them in every possible +way. He introduced Lavender, +in especial, to all his friends there, and +was most anxious to impress on the +young man that life in Stornoway was, +on the whole, rather a brilliant affair. +Then was there a finer point from which +you could start at will for Inverness, +Oban and such great centres of civilization? +Very soon there would even be +a telegraphic cable laid to the mainland. +Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently +you could see the Sutherlandshire hills +from this very town of Stornoway?</p> + +<p>There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, +who kept watching her face always to +read all her fancies and sentiments and +wishes in the shifting lights of it, immediately +demanded an explanation.</p> + +<p>"It is no good thing," said Sheila, "to +see the Sutherland hills often, for when +you see them it means to rain."</p> + +<p>But Lavender had not been taught to +fear the rain of the Western Isles. The +very weather seemed to have conspired +with Mackenzie to charm the young man +with the island. At this moment, for example, +they were driving away from Stornoway +along the side of the great bay +that stretches northward until it finds its +furthest promontory in Tiumpan Head. +What magnificence of color shone all +around them in the hot sunlight! Where +the ruffled blue sea came near the long +sweep of yellow sand it grew to be a +bright, transparent green. The splendid +curve of the bay showed a gleaming line +of white where the waves broke in masses +of hissing foam; and beyond that curve +again long promontories of dark red +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page678" id="page678"></a>[pg 678]</span> +conglomerate ran out into the darker waters +of the sea, with their summits shining +with the bright sea-grass. Here, close at +hand, were warm meadows, with calves +and lambs cropping the sweet-scented +Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like +beehives, stood by the roadside, close by +some deep peat cuttings. There was a +cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for +the pulling up of captured whales. Now +and again you could see a solan dart +down from the blue heavens into the +blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of +water twenty feet high as he disappeared; +and far out there, between the red +precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, +white sea-fowl flew from crag to crag or +dropped down upon the sea to rise and +fall with the waves.</p> + +<p>At the small hamlet of Gress they got +a large rowing-boat manned by sturdy +fishermen, and set out to explore the +great caves formed in the mighty wall +of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. +The wild-fowl flew about them, screaming +and yelling at being disturbed. The +long swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed +from under it, and went on with majestic +force to crash on the glowing red +crags and send jets of foam flying up +the face of them. They captured one +of the sea-birds—a young thing about +as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant +feathers, and a long beak with which it +instinctively tried to bite its enemies—and +the parents of it kept swooping +down over the boat, uttering shrill cries, +until their offspring was restored to the +surface of the water. They went into +the great loud-sounding caverns, getting +a new impression of the extraordinary +clearness of the sea-water by the depth at +which the bottom was visible; and here +their shouts occasionally called up from +some dim twilight recess, far in among +the perilous rocks, the head of a young +seal, which would instantly dive again +and be seen no more. They watched +the salmon splash in the shallower creeks +where the sea had scooped out a tiny +bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly +rolling porpoise would show his black +back above the water and silently disappear +again. All this was pleasant +enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh +sea-air and sunlight, in holiday-time; +and was there any reason, Mackenzie +may fairly have thought, why this young +man, if he did marry Sheila, should not +come and live in a place where so much +healthy amusement was to be found?</p> + +<p>And in the evening, too, when they +had climbed to the top of the hills on the +south of Stornoway harbor, did not the +little town look sufficiently picturesque, +with its white houses, its shipping, its +great castle and plantations lying in +shadow under the green of the eastern +sky? Then away to the west what a +strange picture presented itself! Thick +bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, +and the sunlight from behind them sent +down great rays of misty yellow on the +endless miles of moor. But how was it +that, as these shafts of sunlight struck on +the far and successive ridges of the moorland, +each long undulation seemed to +become transparent, and all the island +appeared to consist of great golden-brown +shells heaped up behind each +other, with the sunlight shining through?</p> + +<p>"I have tried a good many new effects +since coming up here," said Lavender, +"but I shall not try <i>that</i>."</p> + +<p>"Oh, it iss nothing—it is nothing at +all," said Mackenzie with a studied air +of unconcern. "There iss much more +beautiful things than that in the island, +but you will hef need of a ferry long +time before you will find it all out. That—that +iss nothing at all."</p> + +<p>"You will perhaps make a picture of +it some other time," said Sheila with her +eyes cast down, and as he was standing +by her at the time, he took her hand +and pressed it, and said, "I hope so."</p> + +<p>Then, that night! Did not every hour +produce some new and wonderful scene, +or was it only that each minute grew to +be so precious, and that the enchantment +of Sheila's presence filled the air +around him? There was no moon, but +the stars shone over the bay and the +harbor and the dusky hills beyond the +castle. Every few seconds the lighthouse +at Arnish Point sent out its wild +glare of orange fire into the heart, of +the clear darkness, and then as suddenly +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page679" id="page679"></a>[pg 679]</span> +faded out and left the eyes too bewildered +to make out the configuration of +the rocks. All over the north-west there +still remained the pale glow of the twilight, +and somehow Lavender seemed to +think that that strange glow belonged to +Sheila's home in the west, and that the +people in Stornoway knew nothing of +the wonders of Loch Roag and of the +strange nights there. Was he likely +ever to forget?</p> + +<p>"Good-bye, Sheila," he said next +morning, when the last signal had been +given and the Clansman was about to +move from her moorings.</p> + +<p>She had bidden good-bye to Ingram +already, but somehow she could not +speak to his companion just at this last +moment. She pressed his hand and +turned away, and went ashore with her +father. Then the big steamer throbbed +its way out of the harbor, and by and by +the island of Lewis lay but as a thin +blue cloud along the horizon; and who +could tell that human beings, with +strange hopes and fancies and griefs, +were hidden away in that pale line of +vapor?</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + +<h3>"FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!"</h3> + + +<p>A night journey from Greenock to +London is a sufficiently prosaic affair in +ordinary circumstances, but it need not +be always so. What if a young man, +apparently occupied in making himself +comfortable and in talking nonsense to +his friend and companion, should be secretly +calculating how the journey could +be made most pleasant to a bride, and +that bride his bride? Lavender made +experiments with regard to the ways +and tempers of guards; he borrowed +planks of wood with which to make +sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class +carriage; he bribed a certain official +to have the compartment secured; +he took note of the time when, and the +place where, refreshments could be procured: +all these things he did, thinking +of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes +surprised by his good-nature, and +occasionally remonstrating against his +extravagance, at last fell asleep on the +more or less comfortable cushions stretched +across the planks, Lavender would +have him wake up again, that he might +be induced to talk once more about +Sheila. Ingram would make use of +some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask +what was the last station they had passed, +and then begin to preach to Lavender +about the great obligations he was +under to Sheila, and what would be expected +of him in after times.</p> + +<p>"You are coming away just now," he +would say, while Lavender, who could +not sleep at all, was only anxious that +Sheila's name should be mentioned, "enriched +with a greater treasure than falls +to the lot of most men. If you know +how to value that treasure, there is not +a king or emperor in Europe who should +not envy you."</p> + +<p>"But don't you think I value it?" the +other would say anxiously.</p> + +<p>"We'll see about that afterward, by +what you do. But in the mean time you +don't know what you have won. You +don't know the magnificent single-heartedness +of that girl, her keen sense of +honor, nor the strength of character, of +judgment and decision that lies beneath +her apparent simplicity. Why, I have +known Sheila, now—But what's the +use of talking?"</p> + +<p>"I wish you would talk, though, Ingram," +said his companion quite submissively. +"You have known her longer +than I. I am willing to believe all you +say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know +as much about her as possible. You +don't suppose I fancy she is anything +less than you say?"</p> + +<p>"Well," said Ingram doubtfully, "perhaps +not. The worst of it is, that you +take such odd readings of people. However, +when you marry her, as I now +hope you may, you will soon find out; +and then, if you are not grateful, if you +don't understand and appreciate <i>then</i> +the fine qualities of this girl, the sooner +you put a millstone round your neck and +drop over Chelsea Bridge the better."</p> + +<p>"She will always have in you a good +friend to look after her when she comes +to London."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page680" id="page680"></a>[pg 680]</span> + +<p>"Oh, don't imagine I mean to thrust +myself in at your breakfast-table to give +you advice. If a husband and wife cannot +manage their own affairs satisfactorily, +no third person can; and I am +getting to be an elderly man, who likes +peace and comfort and his own quiet."</p> + +<p>"I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!" +said Lavender impetuously. +"You know you are bound to marry; +and the woman you ask to marry you +will be a precious fool if she refuses. I +don't know, indeed, how you and Sheila +ever escaped—"</p> + +<p>"Look here, Lavender," said his companion, +speaking in a somewhat more +earnest fashion, "if you marry Sheila +Mackenzie I suppose I may see something +of both of you from time to time. +But you are naturally jealous and exacting, +as is the way with many good fellows +who have had too much of their +own will in the world; and if you start +off with the notion now that Sheila and +I might ever have married, or that such +a thing was ever thought of by either of +us, the certain consequence will be that +you will become jealous of me, and that +in time I shall have to stop seeing either +of you if you happen to be living in +London."</p> + +<p>"And if ever the time comes," said +Lavender lightly, "when I prove myself +such a fool, I hope I shall remember that +a millstone can be bought in Victoria +road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy."</p> + +<p>"All right: I'm going to sleep."</p> + +<p>For some time after Ingram was permitted +to rest in peace, and it was not +until they had reached some big station +or other toward morning that he woke. +Lavender had never closed his eyes.</p> + +<p>"Haven't you been asleep?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"What's the matter now?"</p> + +<p>"My aunt."</p> + +<p>"You seem to have acquired a trick +recently of looking at all the difficulties +of your position at once. Why don't you +take them singly? You've just got rid +of Mackenzie's opposition: that might +have contented you for a while."</p> + +<p>"I think the best plan will be to say +nothing of this to my aunt at present. I +think we ought to get married first, and +when I take Sheila to see her as my wife, +what can she say then?"</p> + +<p>"But what is Sheila likely to say before +then? And Sheila's father? You must +be out of your mind!"</p> + +<p>"There will be a pretty scene, then, +when I tell her."</p> + +<p>"Scenes don't hurt anybody, unless +when they end in brickbats or decanters. +Your aunt must know you would marry +some day."</p> + +<p>"Yes, but you know whom she wished +me to marry."</p> + +<p>"That is nothing. Every old lady +has a fancy for imagining possible marriages; +but your aunt is a reasonable +woman, and could not possibly object +to your marrying a girl like Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't +know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are +the arms borne by your wife's family?' +'My dear aunt, I will describe them to +you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The +arms are quarterly: first and fourth, +vert, a herring, argent; second and +third, azure, a solan-goose, volant, or. +The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, +a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, +dexter, a gillie; sinister, a fisherman.'"</p> + +<p>"And a very good coat-of-arms, too. +You might add the motto <i>Ultimus regum</i>. +Or <i>Atavis editus regibus</i>. Or <i>Tyrrhena +regum progenies</i>. To think that your +aunt would forbid your wedding a king's +daughter!"</p> + +<p>"I should wed the king's daughter, +aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, you +see, it would be uncommonly awkward, +just as old Mackenzie would want to +know something more particular about +my circumstances; and he might ask +for references to the old lady herself, +just as if I were a tenant about to take +a house."</p> + +<p>"I have given him enough references. +Go to sleep, and don't bother yourself."</p> + +<p>But now Ingram felt himself just as +unable as his companion to escape into +unconsciousness, and so he roused himself +thoroughly, and began to talk about +Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, +and the duties and responsibilities +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page681" id="page681"></a>[pg 681]</span> +Lavender would undertake in marrying +Sheila.</p> + +<p>"Mackenzie," he said, "will expect +you to live in Stornoway at least half +the year, and it will be very hard on +him if you don't."</p> + +<p>"Oh, as to that," said the other, "I +should have no objection; but, you see, +if I am to get married I really think I +ought to try to get into some position of +earning my own living or helping toward +it, you know. I begin to see how +galling this sort of dependence on my +aunt might be if I wished to act for myself. +Now, if I were to begin to do anything, +I could not go and bury myself +in Lewis for half the year—just at first: +by and by, you know, it might be different. +But don't you think I ought to +begin and do something?"</p> + +<p>"Most certainly. I have often wished +you had been born a carpenter or painter +or glazier."</p> + +<p>"People are not born carpenters or +glaziers, but sometimes they are born +painters. I think I have been born +nothing; but I am willing to try, more +especially as I think Sheila would like +it."</p> + +<p>"I know she would."</p> + +<p>"I will write and tell her the moment +I get to London."</p> + +<p>"I would fix first what your occupation +was to be, if I were you. There is +no hurry about telling Sheila, although +she will be very glad to get as much +news of you as possible, and I hope you +will spare no time or trouble in pleasing +her in that line. By the way, what +an infamous shame it was of you to go +and gammon old Mackenzie into the +belief that he can read poetry! Why, +he will make that girl's life a burden to +her. I heard him propose to read <i>Paradise +Lost</i> to her as soon as the rain set +in."</p> + +<p>"I didn't gammon him," said Lavender +with a laugh. "Every man thinks +he can read poetry better than every +other man, even as every man fancies +that no one gets cigars as good and as +cheap as he does, and that no one can +drive a horse safely but himself. My +talking about his reading was not as bad +as Sheila's persuading him that he can +play whist. Did you ever know a man +who did not believe that everybody else's +reading of poetry was affected, stilted +and unbearable? I know Mackenzie +must have been reading poetry to Sheila +long before I mentioned it to him."</p> + +<p>"But that suggestion about his resonant +voice and the Crystal Palace?"</p> + +<p>"That was a joke."</p> + +<p>"He did not take it as a joke, and +neither did Sheila."</p> + +<p>"Well, Sheila would believe that her +father could command the Channel fleet, +or turn out the present ministry, or build +a bridge to America, if only anybody +hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal +Palace: did you observe how little notion +of size she could have got from pictures +when she asked me if the Crystal Palace +was much bigger than the hot-houses at +Lewis Castle?"</p> + +<p>"What a world of wonder the girl is +coming into!" said the other meditatively. +"But it will be all lit up by one sun +if only you take care of her and justify +her belief in you."</p> + +<p>"I have not much doubt," said Lavender +with a certain modest confidence +in his manner which had repeatedly of +late pleased his friend.</p> + +<p>Even Sheila herself could scarcely +have found London more strange than +did the two men who had just returned +from a month's sojourn in the northern +Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston +Square, the pale sunlight that shone +down on the gray pavements, the noise +of the omnibuses and carts, the multitude +of strangers, the blue and mist-like +smoke that hung about Tottenham Court +road,—all were as strange to them as the +sensation of sitting in a hansom and being +driven along by an unseen driver. Lavender +confessed afterward that he was +pervaded by an odd sort of desire to +know whether there was anybody in +London at all like Sheila. Now and +again a smartly-dressed girl passed along +the pavement: what was it that made +the difference between her and that other +girl whom he had just left? Yet he wished +to have the difference as decided as +possible. When some bright, fresh-colored, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page682" id="page682"></a>[pg 682]</span> +pleasant-looking girl passed, he was +anxious to prove to himself that she was +not to be compared with Sheila. Where +in all London could you find eyes that +told so much? He forgot to place the +specialty of Sheila's eyes in the fact of +their being a dark gray-blue under black +eyelashes. What he did remember was +that no eyes could possibly say the same +things to him as they had said. And +where in all London was the same sweet +aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously +proud and gentle demeanor, or +the same tender friendliness expressed +in a beautiful face? He would not say +anything against London women, for all +that. It was no fault of theirs that they +could not be sea-kings' daughters, with +the courage and frankness and sweetness +of the sea gone into their blood. He +was only too pleased to have proved to +himself, by looking at some half dozen +pretty shop-girls, that not in London was +there any one to compare with Princess +Sheila.</p> + +<p>For many a day thereafter Ingram +had to suffer a good deal of this sort of +lover's logic, and bore it with great fortitude. +Indeed, nothing pleased him +more than to observe that Lavender's +affection, so far from waning, engrossed +more and more of his thought and his +time; and he listened with unfailing +good-nature and patience to the perpetual +talk of his friend about Sheila and her +home, and the future that might be in +store for both of them. If he had accepted +half the invitations to dinner sent +down to him at the Board of Trade by +his friend, he would scarcely ever have +been out of Lavender's club. Many a +long evening they passed in this way—either +in Lavender's rooms in King street +or in Ingram's lodgings in Sloane street. +Ingram quite consented to lie in a chair +and smoke, sometimes putting in a word +of caution to bring Lavender back from +the romantic Sheila to the real Sheila, +sometimes smiling at some wild proposal +or statement on the part of his friend, +but always glad to see that the pretty +idealisms planted during their stay in +the far North were in no danger of dying +out down here in the South. Those were +great days, too, when a letter arrived +from Sheila. Nothing had been said +about their corresponding, but Lavender +had written shortly after his arrival in +London, and Sheila had answered for +her father and herself. It wanted but +a very little amount of ingenuity to continue +the interchange of letters thus begun; +and when the well-known envelope +arrived high holiday was immediately +proclaimed by the recipient of it. He +did not show Ingram these letters, of +course, but the contents of them were +soon bit by bit revealed. He was also +permitted to see the envelope, as if +Sheila's handwriting had some magical +charm about it. Sometimes, indeed, Ingram +had himself a letter from Sheila, +and that was immediately shown to Lavender. +Was he pleased to find that these +communications were excessively business-like—describing +how the fishing was going on, what was doing in the +schools, and how John the Piper was +conducting himself, with talk about the +projected telegraphic cable, the shooting +in Harris, the health of Bras, and other +esoteric matters?</p> + +<p>Lavender's communications with the +King of Borva were of a different nature. +Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture +and what not, tobacco hailing +from certain royal sources in the neighborhood +of the Pyramids, and now and +again a new sort of rifle or some fresh +invention in fishing-tackle,—these were +the sort of things that found their way to +Lewis. And then in reply came haunches +of venison, and kegs of rare whisky, and +skins of wild animals, which, all very +admirable in their way, were a trifle +cumbersome in a couple of moderate +rooms in King street, St. James's. But +here Lavender hit upon a happy device. +He had long ago talked to his aunt of +the mysterious potentate in the far North, +who was the ruler of man, beast and fish, +and who had an only daughter. When +these presents arrived, Mrs. Lavender +was informed that they were meant for +her, and was given to understand that +they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage +monarch who wished to seek her +friendship. In vain did Ingram warn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page683" id="page683"></a>[pg 683]</span> +Lavender of the possible danger of this +foolish joke. The young man laughed, +and would come down to Sloane street +with another story of his success as an +envoy of the distant king.</p> + +<p>And so the months went slowly by, and +Lavender raved about Sheila, and dreamed +about Sheila, and was always going +to begin some splendid achievement for +Sheila's sake, but never just managed to +begin. After all, the future did not look +very terrible, and the present was satisfactory +enough. Mrs. Lavender had no +objection whatever to listening to his +praises of Sheila, and had even gone +the length of approving of the girl's photograph +when it was shown her. But at +the end of six months Lavender suddenly +went down to Sloane street, found +Ingram in his lodgings, and said, "Ingram, +I start for Lewis to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"The more fool you!" was the complacent +reply.</p> + +<p>"I can't bear this any longer: I must +go and see her."</p> + +<p>"You'll have to bear worse if you go. +You don't know what getting to Lewis +is in the winter. You'll be killed with +cold before you see the Minch."</p> + +<p>"I can stand a good bit of cold when +there's a reason for it," said the young +man; "and I have written to Sheila to +say I should start to-morrow."</p> + +<p>"In that case I had better make use +of you. I suppose you won't mind +taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket +that I have bought for her."</p> + +<p>"That you have bought for her!" said +the other.</p> + +<p>How could he have spared fifteen +pounds out of his narrow income for +such a present? And yet he laughed at +the idea of his ever having been in love +with Sheila.</p> + +<p>Lavender took the sealskin jacket with +him, and started on his journey to the +North. It was certainly all that Ingram +had prophesied in the way of discomfort, +hardship and delay. But one forenoon, +Lavender, coming up from the cabin of +the steamer into which he had descended +to escape from the bitter wind and +the sleet, saw before him a strange thing. +In the middle of the black sea and under +a dark gray sky lay a long wonder-land +of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could +see the successive headlands of pale white +jutted out into the dark ocean, until in +the south they faded into a gray mist and +became invisible. And when they got +into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed +the waters of the little bay and the +hulls of the boats and the windows of +the houses against the blinding white of +the encircling hills!</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Lavender to the captain, +"it will be a cold drive across to Loch +Roag. I shall give Mackenzie's man a +good dram before we start."</p> + +<p>But it was not Mackenzie's notion of +hospitality to send Duncan to meet an +honored guest, and ere the vessel was +fast moored Lavender had caught sight +of the well-known pair of horses and the +brown wagonette, and Mackenzie stamping +up and down in the trampled snow. +And this figure close down to the edge +of the quay? Surely, there was something +about the thick gray shawl, the +white feather, the set of the head, that +he knew!</p> + +<p>"Why, Sheila!" he cried, jumping +ashore before the gangway was shoved +across, "whatever made you come to +Stornoway on such a day?"</p> + +<p>"And it is not much my coming to +Stornoway if you will come all the way +from England to the Lewis," said Sheila, +looking up with her bright and glad +eyes.</p> + +<p>For six months he had been trying to +recall the tones of her voice in looking +at her picture, and had failed: now he +fancied that she spoke more sweetly and +musically than ever.</p> + +<p>"Ay, ay," said Mackenzie when he +had shaken hands with the young man, +"it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming +over to meet you in Styornoway; +but the girl will be neither to hold nor +to bind when she teks a foolishness into +her head."</p> + +<p>"Is this the character I hear of you, +Sheila?" he said; and Mackenzie laughed +at his daughter's embarrassment, and +said she was a good lass for all that, and +bundled both the young folks into the +inn, where luncheon had been provided, +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page684" id="page684"></a>[pg 684]</span> +with a blazing fire in the room, and a +kettle of hot water steaming beside it.</p> + +<p>When they got to Borva, Lavender +began to see that Mackenzie had laid +the most subtle plans for reconciling +him to the hard weather of these northern +winters; and the young man, nothing +loath, fell into his ways, and was +astonished at the amusement and interest +that could be got out of a residence +in this bleak island at such a season. +Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble +protections against cold and wet which +his guest had brought with him. He +gave him a pair of his own knickerbockers +and enormous boots; he made him +wear a frieze coat borrowed from Duncan; +he insisted on his turning down +the flap of a sealskin cap and tying the +ends under his chin; and thus equipped +they started on many a rare expedition +round the coast. But on their first going +out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said +with some chagrin, "Will they wear +gloves when they go shooting in your +country?"</p> + +<p>"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only +a pair of old dogskins I use chiefly to +keep my hands clean. You see I have +cut out the trigger-finger. And they +keep your hands from being numbed, +you know, with the cold or the rain."</p> + +<p>"There will be not much need of that +after a little while," said Mackenzie; +and indeed, after half an hour's tramping +over snow and climbing over rocks, +Lavender was well inclined to please +the old man by tossing the gloves into +the sea, for his hands were burning with +heat.</p> + +<p>Then the pleasant evenings after all +the fatigues of the day were over, clothes +changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila +at the open piano in that warm little +drawing-room, with its strange shells +and fish and birds!</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays;</p> +<p>He in thy snowy bosom strays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>they sang, just as in the bygone times of +summer; and now old Mackenzie had +got on a bit farther in his musical studies, +and could hum with the best of them,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>He makes thy rosy lips his care,</p> +<p>And walks the mazes of thy hair.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>There was no winter at all in the snug +little room, with its crimson fire and +closed shutters and songs of happier +times. "When the rosy morn appearing" +had nothing inappropriate in it; +and if they particularly studied the words +of "Oh wert thou in the cauld blast," it +was only that Sheila might teach her +companion the Scotch pronunciation, as +far as she knew it. And once, half in +joke, Lavender said he could believe it +was summer again if Sheila had only on +her slate-gray silk dress, with the red +ribbon round her neck; and sure enough, +after dinner she came down in that dress, +and Lavender took her hand and kissed +it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, +Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for +not having brought him his pipe, and +not only went out of the room to look +for it, but was a full half hour in finding +it. When he came in again he was +singing carelessly,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Love in thine eyes for ever plays,</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>just as if he had got his pipe round the +corner.</p> + +<p>For it had been all explained by this +time, you know, and Sheila had in a +couple of trembling words pledged away +her life, and her father had given his +consent. More than that he would have +done for the girl, if need were; and when +he saw the perfect happiness shining in +her eyes—when he saw that, through +some vague feelings of compunction or +gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was +more than usually affectionate toward +himself—he grew reconciled to the ways +of Providence, and was ready to believe +that Ingram had done them all a good +turn in bringing his friend from the South +with him. If there was any haunting +fear at all, it was about the possibility of +Sheila's husband refusing to live in Stornoway, +even for half the year or a portion +of the year; but did not the young man +express himself as delighted beyond +measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, +and the sports and scenery and +climate of the island? If Mackenzie +could have bought fine weather at twenty +pounds a day, Lavender would have +gone back to London with the conviction +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page685" id="page685"></a>[pg 685]</span> +that there was only one thing better than +Lewis in summer-time, and that was +Lewis in time of snow and frost.</p> + +<p>The blow fell. One evening a distinct +thaw set in, during the night the wind +went round to the south-west, and in the +morning, lo! the very desolation of desolation. +Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal +were all hidden away behind +dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady +rain poured down from the lowering +skies on the wet rocks, the marshy pasture-land +and the leafless bushes; the +Atlantic lay dark under a gray fog, +and you could scarcely see across the +loch in front of the house. Sometimes +the wind freshened a bit, and howled +about the house or dashed showers +against the streaming panes; but ordinarily +there was no sound but the ceaseless +hissing of the rain on the wet gravel +at the door and the rush of the waves +along the black rocks. All signs of life +seemed to have fled from the earth and +the sky. Bird and beast had alike taken +shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye +crossed the melancholy lines of moorland, +which were half obscured by the +mist of the rain.</p> + +<p>"Well, it can't be fine weather always," +said Lavender cheerfully when Mackenzie +was affecting to be greatly surprised +to find such a thing as rain in the island +of Lewis.</p> + +<p>"No, that iss quite true," said the old +man. "It wass ferry good weather we +were having since you hef come here. +And what iss a little rain?—oh, nothing +at all. You will see it will go away +whenever the wind goes round."</p> + +<p>With that Mackenzie would again go +out to the front of the house, take a turn +up and down the wet gravel, and pretend +to be scanning the horizon for signs of a +change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, +went about her household duties, +saying merely to Lavender, "I am very +sorry the weather has broken, but it may +clear before you go away from Borva."</p> + +<p>"Before I go? Do you expect it to +rain for a week?"</p> + +<p>"Perhaps it will not, but it is looking +very bad to-day," said Sheila.</p> + +<p>"Well, I don't care," said the young +man, "though it should rain the skies +down, if only you would keep in-doors, +Sheila. But you do go out in such a +reckless fashion. You don't seem to reflect +that it is raining."</p> + +<p>"I do not get wet," she said.</p> + +<p>"Why, when you came up from the +shore half an hour ago your hair was as +wet as possible, and your face all red +and gleaming with the rain."</p> + +<p>"But I am none the worse. And I +am not wet now. It is impossible that +you will always keep in a room if you +have things to do; and a little rain does +not hurt any one."</p> + +<p>"It occurs to me, Sheila," he observed +slowly, "that you are an exceedingly +obstinate and self-willed young person, +and that no one has ever exercised any +proper control over you."</p> + +<p>She looked up for a moment with a +sudden glance of surprise and pain: +then she saw in his eyes that he meant +nothing, and she went forward to him, +putting her hand in his hand, and saying +with a smile, "I am very willing to +be controlled."</p> + +<p>"Are you really?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Then hear my commands. You +shall <i>not</i> go out in time of rain without +putting something over your head or +taking an umbrella. You shall <i>not</i> go +out in the Maighdean-mhara without +taking some one with you besides Mairi. +You shall never, if you are away from +home, go within fifty yards of the sea, so +long as there is snow on the rocks."</p> + +<p>"But that is so very many things +already: is it not enough?" said Sheila.</p> + +<p>"You will faithfully remember and +observe these rules?"</p> + +<p>"I will."</p> + +<p>"Then you are a more obedient girl +than I imagined or expected; and you +may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction +of offering me a glass of sherry +and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis +is a dreadful place for making people +hungry."</p> + +<p>Mackenzie need not have been afraid. +Strange as it may appear, Lavender was +well content with the wet weather. No +depression or impatience or remonstrance +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page686" id="page686"></a>[pg 686]</span> +was visible on his face when he went to +the blurred windows, day after day, to +see only the same desolate picture—the +dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists +over the moorland and the shining of +the red gravel before the house. He +would stand with his hands in his pocket +and whistle "Love in thine eyes for ever +plays," just as if he were looking out on +a cheerful summer sunrise. When he +and Sheila went to the door, and were +received by a cold blast of wet wind and +a driving shower of rain, he would slam +the door to again with a laugh, and pull +the girl back into the house. Sometimes +she would not be controlled; and +then he would accompany her about the +garden as she attended to her duties, or +would go down to the shore with her to +give Bras a run. From these excursions +he returned in the best of spirits, with a +fine color in his face; until, having got +accustomed to heavy boots, impervious +frieze and the discomfort of wet hands, +he grew to be about as indifferent to the +rain as Sheila herself, and went fishing +or shooting or boating with much content, +whether it was wet or dry.</p> + +<p>"It has been the happiest month of +my life—I know that," he said to Mackenzie +as they stood together on the +quay at Stornoway.</p> + +<p>"And I hope you will hef many like +it in the Lewis," said the old man cheerfully.</p> + +<p>"I think I should soon learn to become +a Highlander up here," said Lavender, +"if Sheila would only teach me +the Gaelic."</p> + +<p>"The Gaelic!" cried Mackenzie impatiently. +"The Gaelic! It is none of +the gentlemen who will come here in the +autumn will want the Gaelic; and what +for would you want the Gaelic—ay, if +you was staying here the whole year +round?"</p> + +<p>"But Sheila will teach me all the +same—won't you, Sheila?" he said, +turning to his companion, who was +gazing somewhat blankly at the rough +steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond +the harbor.</p> + +<p>"Yes," said the girl: she seemed in +no mood for joking.</p> + +<p>Lavender returned to town more in +love than ever; and soon the news of +his engagement was spread abroad, he +nothing loath. Most of his club-friends +laughed, and prophesied it would come +to nothing. How could a man in Lavender's +position marry anybody but an +heiress? He could not afford to go and +marry a fisherman's daughter. Others +came to the conclusion that artists and +writers and all that sort of people were +incomprehensible, and said "Poor beggar!" +when they thought of the fashion +in which Lavender had ruined his +chances in life. His lady friends, however, +were much more sympathetic. +There was a dash of romance in the +story; and would not the Highland girl +be a curiosity for a little while after she +came to town? Was she like any of +the pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging +up in his rooms? Had he not even a +sketch of her? An artist, and yet not +have a portrait of the girl he had chosen +to marry? Lavender had no portrait of +Sheila to show. Some little photographs +he had he kept for his own pocket-book, +while in vain had he tried to get some +sketch or picture that would convey to +the little world of his friends and +acquaintances some notion of his future +bride. They were left to draw on their +imagination for some presentiment of +the coming princess.</p> + +<p>He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. +She said little, but sent for Edward +Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, +close and yet apparently indifferent way, +and then merely said that Frank was +very impetuous, that it was a pity he had +resolved on marrying out of his own +sphere of life, but that she hoped the +young lady from the Highlands would +prove a good wife to him.</p> + +<p>"I hope he will prove a good husband +to her," said Ingram with unusual sharpness.</p> + +<p>"Frank is very impetuous." That +was all Mrs. Lavender would say.</p> + +<p>By and by, as the spring drew on and +the time of the marriage was coming +nearer, the important business of taking +and furnishing a house for Sheila's reception +occupied the attention of the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page687" id="page687"></a>[pg 687]</span> +young man from morning till night. He +had been somewhat disappointed at the +cold fashion in which his aunt looked +upon his choice, admitting everything he +had to say in praise of Sheila, but never +expressing any approval of his conduct +or hope about the future; but now she +showed herself most amiably and generously +disposed. She supplied the young +man with abundant funds wherewith to +furnish the house according to his own +fancy. It was a small place, fronting a +somewhat commonplace square in Notting +Hill, but it was to be a miracle of +artistic adornment inside. He tortured +himself for days over rival shades and +hues; he drew designs for the chairs; +he himself painted a good deal of paneling;, +and, in short, gave up his whole +time to making Sheila's future home +beautiful. His aunt regarded these +preparations with little interest, but she +certainly gave her nephew ample means +to indulge the eccentricities of his fancy.</p> + +<p>"Isn't she a dear old lady?" said Lavender +one night to Ingram. "Look here! +A cheque, received this morning, for two +hundred pounds, for plate and glass."</p> + +<p>Ingram looked at the bit of pale green +paper: "I wish you had earned the +money yourself, or done without the +plate until you could buy it with your +own money."</p> + +<p>"Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry +your puritanical theories too far. Doubtless +I shall earn my own living by and +by. Give me time."</p> + +<p>"It is now nearly a year since you +thought of marrying Sheila Mackenzie, +and you have not done a stroke of work +yet."</p> + +<p>"I beg your pardon. I have worked +a good deal of late, as you will see when +you come up to my rooms."</p> + +<p>"Have you sold a single picture since +last summer?"</p> + +<p>"I cannot make people buy my pictures +if they don't choose to do so."</p> + +<p>"Have you made any effort to get +them sold, or to come to any arrangement +with any of the dealers?"</p> + +<p>"I have been too busy of late—looking +after this house, you know," said +Lavender with an air of apology.</p> + +<p>"You were not too busy to paint a fan +for Mrs. Lorraine, that people say must +have occupied you for months."</p> + +<p>Lavender laughed: "Do you know, +Ingram, I think you are jealous of Mrs. +Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, +you shall go and see her."</p> + +<p>"No, thank you."</p> + +<p>"Are you afraid of your Puritan principles +giving way?"</p> + +<p>"I am afraid that you are a very foolish +boy," said the other with a good-humored +shrug of resignation, "but I +hope to see you mend when you marry."</p> + +<p>"Ah, then you <i>will</i> see a difference!" +said Lavender seriously; and so the dispute +ended.</p> + +<p>It had been arranged that Ingram +should go up to Lewis to the marriage, +and after the ceremony in Stornoway +return to Borva with Mr. Mackenzie, to +remain with him a few days. But at +the last moment Ingram was summoned +down to Devonshire on account of the +serious illness of some near relative, and +accordingly Frank Lavender started by +himself to bring back with him his +Highland bride. His stay in Borva was +short enough on this occasion. At the +end of it there came a certain wet and +boisterous day, the occurrences in which +he afterward remembered as if they had +taken place in a dream. There were +many faces about, a confusion of tongues, +a good deal of dram-drinking, a skirl of +pipes, and a hurry through the rain; +but all these things gave place to the +occasional glance that he got from a +pair of timid and trusting and beautiful +eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that +dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. +She was more his own Sheila when she +had donned her rough garments of blue, +and when she stood on the wet deck +of the vessel, with a great gray shawl +around her, talking to her father with a +brave effort at cheerfulness, although +her lip would occasionally quiver as one +or other, of her friends from Borva—many +of them barefooted children—came +up to bid her good-bye. Her father +talked rapidly, with a grand affectation +of indifference. He swore at the +weather. He bade her see that Bras +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page688" id="page688"></a>[pg 688]</span> +was properly fed, and if the sea broke +over his box in the night, he was to be +rubbed dry, and let out in the morning +for a run up and down the deck. She +was not to forget the parcel directed to +an innkeeper at Oban. They would +find Oban a very nice place at which +to break the journey to London, but as +for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no +words with which to describe Greenock.</p> + +<p>And then, in the midst of all this, +Sheila suddenly said, "Papa, when does +the steamer leave?"</p> + +<p>"In a few minutes. They have got +nearly all the cargo on board."</p> + +<p>"Will you do me a great favor, papa?"</p> + +<p>"Ay, but what is it, Sheila?"</p> + +<p>"I want you not to stay here till the +boat sails, and then you will have all +the people on the quay vexing you when +you are going away. I want you to bid +good-bye to us now, and drive away +round to the point, and we shall see you +the last of all when the steamer has got +out of the harbor."</p> + +<p>"Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that," he +said, knowing well why the girl wished it.</p> + +<p>So father and daughter bade good-bye +to each other; and Mackenzie went on +shore with his face down, and said not +a word to any of his friends on the quay, +but got into the wagonette, and, lashing +the horses, drove rapidly away. As he +had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender +had said to him, "Well, we shall +soon be back in Borva again to see you;" +and the old man had merely tightened +the grip of his hand as he left.</p> + +<p>The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, +the throb of the engines struck the water, +and the great steamer steamed away +from the quay and out of the plain of +the harbor into a wide world of gray +waves and wind and rain. There stood +Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure +clearly seen against the pallid colors +of the dismal day; and Sheila waved +a handkerchief to him until Stornoway +and its lighthouse and all the promontories +and bays of the great island had +faded into the white mists that lay along +the horizon. And then her arm fell to +her side, and for a moment she stood +bewildered, with a strange look in her +eyes of grief, and almost of despair.</p> + +<p>"Sheila, my darling, you must go below +now," said her companion: "you +are almost dead with cold."</p> + +<p>She looked at him for a moment, as +though she had scarcely heard what he +said. But his eyes were full of pity for +her: he drew her closer to him, and put +his arms round her, and then she hid +her head in his bosom and sobbed there +like a child.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> + + + + +<h2>THE EMERALD.</h2> + + +<p>Dutens and several others who +have written upon gems and precious +stones during the last two centuries +have asserted that the ancients were +unacquainted with the true emerald, and +that Heliodorus, when speaking nearly +two thousand years ago of "gems green +as a meadow in the spring," or Pliny, +when describing stone of a "soft green +lustre," referred to the peridot, the plasma, +the malachite, or the far rarer gem, +the green sapphire. But the antiquary +has come to the rescue with the treasures +of the despoiled mounds of Tuscany, the +exposed ashes of Herculaneum and Pompeii, +and now exhibits emeralds which +were mounted in gold two thousand years +before Columbus dreamed of the New +World, or Pizarro and his remorseless +band gathered the precious stones by +the hundred-weight from the spoils of +Peru. Although these specimens of antique +jewelry set with emeralds may be +numbered by the score or more in the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page689" id="page689"></a>[pg 689]</span> +museums and "reliquaries" of Europe, +but very few engraved emeralds have +descended to us from ancient times: +This rarity is not due to the hardness of +the stone, for the ancient lapidaries cut +the difficult and still harder sapphire: +therefore we must believe the statement +of the early gem-writers that the emerald +was exempted from the glyptic art by +common consent on account of its beauty +and costliness.</p> + +<p>The emerald is now one of the rarest +of gems, and its scarcity gives rise to +the inquiry as to what has become of the +abundant shower of emeralds which fairly +rained upon Spain during the early +days of the conquest of Mexico and +Peru, bringing down the value of fine +stones to a trifling price. As with all +commercial articles, there is a waste and +loss to be accounted for during the wear +of three centuries, but this alone will not +explain their present rarity in civilized +countries. Even in the times of Charles +II., when the destitution of the country +was extreme, the dukes of Infantado and +Albuquerque had millions in diamonds, +rubies and precious stones, yet hardly +possessed a single sou. So impoverished +was the land, and so slender were the +purses of all, that the duke of +Albuquerque dined on an egg and a pigeon, +yet it required six weeks to make an inventory +of his plate. At this period, +when the nobles gave fêtes the lamps +were often decorated with emeralds and +the ceilings garlanded with precious +stones. The women fairly blazed with +sparkling gems of fabulous value, while +the country was starving. Most, if not +all, of this missing treasure was transferred +to Asia, and with the silver current +which flowed steadily from the +Spanish coffers into India went many of +the emeralds also; for in those regions +this gem is regarded as foreign stone, +and the natives, investing it with the +possession of certain talismanic properties, +prize it above all earthly treasures.</p> + +<p>When the Spaniards commenced their +march toward the capital of Mexico, they +were astonished at the magnificence of +the costumes of the chiefs who came to +meet them as envoys or join them as +allies, and among the splendid gems +which adorned their persons they recognized +emeralds and turquoises of such +rare perfection and beauty that their +cupidity was excited to the highest degree. +During the after years of conquest +and occupation the avaricious spoilers +sought in vain for the parent ledge where +these precious stones were found. Recent +times have, however, revealed the +home of the Mexican turquoise, which +has proved to be in the northern part of +Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the +inquiring Spaniards. The first of these +mines, which is of great antiquity, is +situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, +eighteen miles from Santa Fé. The +deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and +an immense cavity of several hundred +feet in extent has been excavated by the +Indians while searching for this gem in +past times. Probably some of the fine +turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at +the time of the Spanish Conquest came +from this mine. Another mine is located +in the Sierra Blanca Mountains in New +Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow +strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent +beauty have been taken from +it, and handed down in the tribe from +generation to generation as heirlooms. +Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians +to dispose of these gems, and +gratitude alone causes them to part with +any of these treasures, which, like the +mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with +mystical reverence. The Navajos wear +them as ear-drops, by boring them and +attaching them to the ear by means of +a deer sinew. Lesser stones are pierced, +then strung on sinews and worn as neck-laces. +Even the nobler Ute Indians, +when stripping the ornaments of turquoise +from the ears of the conquered +Navajos, value them as sacred treasures, +and refuse to part with them even for +gold or silver.</p> + +<p>All the Spanish accounts of the invasion +of Mexico agree in the great abundance +of emeralds, both in the adornment +of the chiefs and nobles and also in the +decoration of the gods, the thrones and +the paraphernalia. The Mexican historian +Ixtlilxochitl says the throne of gold +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page690" id="page690"></a>[pg 690]</span> +in the palace of Tezcuco was inlaid with +turquoises and other precious stones—that +a human skull in front of it was +crowned with an immense emerald of a +pyramidal form.</p> + +<p>The great standard of the republic +of Tlascala was richly ornamented with +emeralds and silver-work. The fantastic +helmets of the chiefs glittered with gold +and precious stones, and their plumes +were set with emeralds. The mantle of +Montezuma was held together by a clasp +of the green chalchivitl (jade), and the +same precious gem, with emeralds of +uncommon size, ornamented other parts +of his dress.</p> + +<p>The Mexicans carved the obdurate +jade and emerald with wonderful skill, +using, like the Peruvians, nothing but +silicious powder and copper instruments +alloyed with tin. They also worked with +exquisite taste in gold and silver, and +they represented Nature so faithfully and +so beautifully that the great naturalist +Hernandez took many of these objects +thus portrayed for his models when +describing the natural history of the +country.</p> + +<p>When Cortés returned home he displayed +five emeralds of extraordinary +size and beauty, and presented them to +his bride, the niece of the duke de Bejar. +On his famous expedition along the Pacific +coast and up the Gulf of California +he was reduced to such want as to be +obliged to pawn these jewels for a time. +One of them was as precious as Shylock's +turquoise, and Gomara states that +some Genoese merchants who examined +it in Seville offered forty thousand golden +ducats for it. One of the emeralds was +in the form of a rose; the second in that +of a horn; the third like a fish with eyes +of gold; the fourth was like a little bell, +with a fine pearl for a tongue, and it +bore on its rim the following inscription +in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created +thee!" The fifth, which was the most +valuable of all, was in the form of a +small cup with a foot of gold, and with +four little chains of the same metal attached +to a large pearl as a button: the +edge of the cup was of gold, on which +was engraved in Latin words, "Inter +natos mulierum non surrexit major." +These splendid gems are now buried +deep in the sand on the coast of Barbary, +where they were lost in 1529, when +Cortés was shipwrecked with the admiral +of Castile whilst on their way to assist +Charles V. at the siege of Algiers.</p> + +<p>The quantity of emeralds obtained by +the Spaniards in their pillage of Mexico +was large, but it was trifling when compared +with that collected by Pizarro and +his remorseless followers in the sack +of Peru. Many large and magnificent +stones were obtained by the Spaniards, +but the transcendent gem of all, called +by the Peruvians the Great Mother, and +nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was +concealed by the natives, and all the +efforts of Pizarro and his successors to +discover it proved unavailing.</p> + +<p>The immense uncut Peruvian emerald +given by Rudolph II. to the elector of +Saxony is still preserved in the Green +Vaults at Dresden. This collection is +the finest in the world, and is of the +value of many millions of dollars. The +treasures are arranged in eight apartments, +each surpassing the previous one +in the splendor and richness of its contents. +This museum dates from the +early period when the Freyburg silver-mines +yielded vast revenues, and made +the Saxon princes among the richest +sovereigns in Europe. With lavish hand +these potentates purchased jewels and +works of art, and the treasures they have +thus accumulated are of immense value, +and remind the traveler of the gorgeous +descriptions of Oriental magnificence.</p> + +<p>The finest emerald in Europe is said +to belong to the emperor of Russia. It +weighs but thirty carats, but it is of the +most perfect transparency and of the +most beautiful color. There are many +other fine emeralds among the imperial +jewels of the czar, some of which are +of great size and rare beauty. The +ancient crown of Vladimir glitters with +four great stones of unusual brilliancy. +The grand state sceptre is surmounted +by another emerald of great size. The +sceptre of Poland, which is now treasured +in the Kremlin, has a long green +stone, fractured in the middle. It is not +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page691" id="page691"></a>[pg 691]</span> +described, and may be one of the Siberian +tourmalines, some of which closely +approach the emerald in hue. The imperial +<i>orb</i> of Russia, which is of Byzantine +workmanship of the tenth century, +has fifty emeralds. This fact alone would +seem to prove that emeralds were known +in Europe or Asia Minor long before the +discovery of America; but, on the other +hand, the ancient crown which was taken +when Kasan was subjugated in 1553 is +destitute of emeralds. And hence we +are inclined to believe the imperial orb +to be of modern workmanship, especially +as some of the ancient state chairs do +not exhibit emeralds among their decorations +of gems and precious stones.</p> + +<p>Nowhere in North America do the +true emeralds occur. Professor Cleaveland, +who was one of the best authorities +of his day, maintained nearly half +a century ago that emeralds which exhibited +a lively and beautiful green hue +were found in blasting a canal through +a ledge of graphic granite in the town +of Topsham in Maine. Several of the +crystals presented so pure, uniform and +rich a green that he ventured to pronounce +them precious emeralds. But +to-day we are unable to verify the assertion, +or point to a single specimen similar +in hue to the emerald from the +above-mentioned locality.</p> + +<p>The nearest approach to the emerald +in color, with the exception of the incomparable +green tourmalines from +Maine, are the beryls of North and +South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts. +These beautiful stones exhibit +the physical, characteristics of emeralds +with the exception of the color, in which +they differ very perceptibly. But to appreciate +fully the difference in hue we +must compare the two gems. Then the +lively green of the beryl fades away before +the overpowering hue of the emerald, +whose rich prismatic green may be +taken as the purest type of that color +known to the chemist or the painter.</p> + +<p>Two summers ago we visited the localities +in Massachusetts which were +famous in the days of Hitchcock and +Webster. We found that the beryls occurred +in a very coarse granite, where +the quartz appeared in masses and the +felspar in huge crystals. These also +occur in finer granite, and exhibit no +indications of veins or connection with +each other. They are few in number, +and are soon exhausted by blasting, +being generally very superficial. After +removing several tons of the rock at the +locality at North Royalston, where the +beryls appear on the summit of the loftiest +hill, our labors were at length rewarded +with two beautiful crystals. One +of them was a fine prism an inch in +diameter, of perfect transparency and +of a deep sea-green color, which, however +is far from being similar to the +transcendent hue of the Granada emeralds, +which exhibit an excess of neither +blue nor yellow. The other was yellowish-green, +resembling the chrysoberyls +of Brazil.</p> + +<p>Other but imperfect crystals were +brought to light, some fragments of +which exhibited the deepest golden tints +of the topaz, and others the tints of the +sherry-wine colored topazes of Siberia. +Magnificent crystals have been found in +these localities in times long past, and +from the fragments and sections of crystals +found in the débris of early explorations +we observed the wide range of color +and the deep longitudinal striae which +characterize the renowned beryls from +the Altai Mountains, in Siberia. Lively +sea- and grass-green, light and deep yellow, +also blue crystals of various shades, +have been found here.</p> + +<p>At the quarries on Rollestone Mountain +in Fitchburg beryls of a rich golden +color have been blasted out. Some of +these approach the chrysoberyl and topaz +in hardness and hue. Others so +closely resemble the yellow diamond +that they may readily be taken for that +superior gem. The refractive power of +these yellow stones is remarkable, and +the goniometer will probably reveal a +higher index than is accorded to all the +varieties of beryl by the learned Abbé +Haüy.</p> + +<p>Beautiful transparent beryls have been +found among the granite hills of Oxford +county in Maine, and the late Governor +Lincoln nearly half a century ago +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page692" id="page692"></a>[pg 692]</span> +possessed a splendid crystal which would +have rivaled the superb prism found at +Mouzzinskaia, and which the Russians +value so highly. The extended and unexplored +ledges of granite which rise from +the shores of the ocean at Harpswell in +Maine, and stretch north-westward for +nearly a hundred miles, quite to the base +of the White Mountain group, are not +only rich in beryls, but they contain +many of the rarest minerals known to +the mineralogist. And perhaps there is +no other field of equal extent in the +country which offers to the mineralogist +such a harvest of the rare and curious +productions of the mineral kingdom.</p> + +<p>At Haddam in Connecticut beautiful +crystals of beryl have been discovered, +and one of these, of fine green color, an +inch in diameter and several inches in +length, was preserved in the cabinet of +Colonel Gibbs. Professor Silliman possessed +another fine one, seven inches in +length.</p> + +<p>The mountains in Colorado have yielded +some fine specimens. But the finest +of the beryl species come from Russia. +In the Ural Mountains the crystals are +small, but of fine color; in the Altai +Mountains they are very large and of a +greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges +of Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier +of China, they are found in the greatest +perfection. They occur on the summit +of the mountain in irregular veins of +micaceous and white indurated clay, and +are greenish-yellow, pure pale green, +greenish-blue and sky-blue. The chief +matrix of the beryl all over the world +is graphic granite, but it may occur in +other rocks. The light green stones of +Limoges in France appear in a vein of +quartz traversing granite. At Royalston +we observed them to spring seemingly +from the felspar and project into smoky +quartz, becoming more transparent as +they advanced into the harder stone.</p> + +<p>The beryl possesses the same crystalline +form and specific gravity as the emerald, +but its hardness (especially in the +yellow varieties) is sometimes greater. +The only perceptible difference in the +two stones is in the color. Cleaveland +thought that as the emerald and beryl +had the same essential characters, they +might gradually pass into each other; +and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both +chrome and iron in one specimen, was +led to take the same view. The crystals +of true emerald are almost always small +(with the exception of those found in the +Wald district in Siberia), whilst those of +the beryl vary from a few grains to +more than a ton in weight. The crystals +of both are almost invariably regular +hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly +modified. Those of the beryl we sometimes +find quite flat, as though they had +been compressed by force: then again +they are acicular and of extraordinary +length, considering their slender diameter. +Sometimes their lateral faces are +longitudinally striated, and as deeply as +the tourmaline, so that the edges of the +prism are rendered indistinct. Other +crystals are curved, and some perforated +in the axis like the tourmaline, so as to +contain other minerals. Sometimes they +are articulated like the pillars of basalt, +and separated at some distance by the +intervening quartz. These modified +forms give rise to curious speculations +as to their formation and origin. If we +admit the action of fire (which is improbable), +then the separation may be +easily explained; but if we insist that +they were deposited in the wet way and +by slow process, how can we account +for the dislocation? "By electricity," +whispers a friend—"by telluric magnetism, +that wonderful unexplained and +mysterious force which has caused the +grand geological changes of the globe, +and is still at work."</p> + +<p>No other gem has been counterfeited +with such perfection as the emerald; and +in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish +the artificial from the real gems by +the aid of the eye alone: even the little +flaws which lull the suspicions of the +inexperienced are easily produced by a +dexterous blow from the mallet of the +skilled artisan. Not only emeralds, but +most of the gems and precious stones, +are now imitated with such consummate +skill as to deceive the eye, and +none but experts are aware of the extent +to which these fictitious gems are worn +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page693" id="page693"></a>[pg 693]</span> +in fashionable society, for oftentimes the +wearers themselves imagine that they +possess the real stones. There is not one +in a hundred jewelers who is acquainted +with the physical properties of the gems, +and very few can distinguish the diamond +from the white zircon or the white +topaz, the emerald from the tourmaline +of similar hue, the sapphire from iolite, +or the topaz from the Bohemian yellow +quartz. Jewelers are governed generally +by sight, which they believe to be infallible, +whilst hardness and specific gravity +are the only sure tests.</p> + +<p>Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of +color the most brilliant and delicately +tinted of the productions of Nature are +now made at Paris and in other European +cities. The establishments at +Septmoncel in the Jura alone employ a +thousand persons, and fabulous quantities +of the glittering pastes are made +there and sent to all parts of the world.</p> + +<p>A fine specimen of prase when cut +affords a fair imitation of the emerald. +The green fluor-spar which Haüy called +"emeraude de Carthagène" may also be +substituted, but the application of the +file detects the trick with ease. Some of +the green tourmalines approach the emeralds +in hue very closely, and by artificial +light it is impossible to distinguish +them from each other. Fragments of +quartz may be stained by being steeped +in green-colored tinctures. The Greeks +stained quartz so like the real gem that +Pliny exclaimed against the fraud while +declining to tell how it was done. The +Ancona rubies at the present day are +made by plunging quartz into a hot +tincture of cochineal, which penetrates +the minute fissures of the rock.</p> + +<p>But notwithstanding the high art reached +by modern glass-makers, they are yet +far behind the ancients in imitating the +emerald in point of hardness and lustre. +Many emerald pastes of Roman times +still extant are with difficulty distinguished +from the real gem, so much +harder and lustrous are they than modern +glass. The ancient Phoenician remains +found in the island of Sardinia +by Cavalier Cara in 1856 show fine color +in their enamels and glass-works. The +green pigment brought home from the +ruins of Thebes by Mr. Wilkinson was +shown by Dr. Ure to consist of blue +glass in powder, with yellow ochre and +colorless glass. From Greek inscriptions +dating from the period of the Peloponnesian +war we learn that there +were signets of colored glass among the +gems in the treasury of the Parthenon.</p> + +<p>Of all the emerald imitations that have +descended to us from antiquity, none are +more remarkable, none more interesting +to the antiquary and historian, than the +famous Sacro Catino of the cathedral of +Genoa. This celebrated relic is a glass +dish or patera fourteen inches in width, +five inches in depth and of the richest +transparent green color, though disfigured +by several flaws. It was bestowed upon +the republic of Genoa by the Crusaders +after the capture of Caesarea in 1101, +and was regarded as an equivalent for +a large sum of money due from the +Christian army. It was traditionally believed +to have been presented to King +Solomon by the queen of Sheba, and +afterward preserved in the Temple, and +some accounts relate that it was used by +Christ at the institution of the Lord's +Supper. The Genoese received it with +so much veneration and faith that twelve +nobles were appointed to guard it, and +it was exhibited but once a year, when +a priest held it up in his hand to the +view of the passing throng. The state +in 1319, in a time of pressing need, +pawned the holy relic for twelve hundred +marks of gold (two hundred thousand +dollars), and redeemed it with a +promptness which proved its belief in +the reality of the material as well as in +its sanctity. And it is also related that +the Jews, during a period of fifty years, +lent the republic four million francs, +holding the sacred relic as a pledge of +security. Seven hundred years passed +away, when Napoleon came, and as he +swept down over Italy, gathering her +art-treasures, he ordered the "Holy +Grail" to be conveyed to Paris. It was +deposited in the Cabinet of Antiquities +in the Imperial Library, and the mineralogists +quickly discovered it to be +glass. It is due to the memory of +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page694" id="page694"></a>[pg 694]</span> +Condamine to state that he was the first to +doubt the material of the Sacro Catino, +for, when examining it by lamplight in +1757, in the presence of the princes Corsini, +he observed none of the cracks, +clouds and specks common to emeralds, +but detected little bubbles of air. In +1815 the Allies ordered its return to the +cathedral of Genoa. During this journey +the beautiful relic was broken, but +its fragments were restored by a skillful +artisan, and it is now supported upon a +tripod, the fragments being held together +by a band of gold filigree. This remarkable +object of antiquity, which is +of extraordinary beauty of material and +workmanship, furnishes a theme over +which the antiquaries love to muse and +wrangle.</p> + +<p>Another of the antique monster emeralds, +weighing twenty-nine pounds, was +presented to the abbey of Reichenau +near Constance by Charlemagne. Beckman +has also detected this precious relic +to be glass. And probably the great +emerald of two pounds weight brought +home from the Holy Land by one of the +dukes of Austria, and now deposited in +the collection at Vienna, is of the same +material. The hardness of our glass is +yet far inferior to that of the ancients, +and even the ruby lustre of the potters +of Umbria, which was so precious to the +dilettanti of the Cinque Cento period, has +not been recovered.</p> + +<p>The emerald has been a subject of +controversy among the chemists and +mineralogists, and its character, especially +the cause of its beautiful color, is not +clearly defined even at the present day. +But that distinguished chemist, Professor +Lewy of Paris, seems to offer, thus far, +the most correct and plausible theory. +Ten years ago he boldly asserted that +the hue is not due to the oxide of chromium, +and with this opinion he confronted +such eminent men as Vauquelin, +Klaproth and others of high rank in the +scientific world. Not content with his +researches in his laboratory in Paris, he +resolutely crossed the ocean and sought +the emerald in its parent ledges in the +lofty table-lands of New Granada. Here +he obtained new information of a +geological character which goes far to +strengthen his position. The experiments +of M. Lewy indicate, if they do +not prove, that the coloring matter of +the emerald is organic, and readily destroyed +by heat, which would not be the +case if it was due to the oxide of chromium. +All my own fire-tests with the +Granada emerald corroborate the views +of M. Lewy, for in every instance the +gem lost its hue when submitted to a +red heat.</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, the recent researches of +Wöhler and Rose give negative results. +These experienced chemists kept +an emerald at the temperature of melted +copper for an hour, and found that, although +the stone had become opaque, +the color was not affected. They therefore +considered the oxide of chromium +to be the coloring agent, without, however, +denying the presence of organic +matter. The amount of the oxide of +chromium found by many chemists varies +from one to two per cent., while +Lewy and others found it in a quantity +so small as to be inappreciable, and too +minute to be weighed.</p> + +<p>Before the ordinary blowpipe the emerald +passes rapidly into a whitish vesicular +glass, and with borax it forms a +fine green glass, while its sub-species, +the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: +with salt of phosphorus it slowly dissolves, +leaving a silicious skeleton.<a id="footnotetag2" name="footnotetag2"></a><a href= + "#footnote2"><sup>2</sup></a></p> + +<p>M. Lewy visited the mines at Muzo +in Granada, and from the results of his +analyses, together with the fact of finding +emeralds in conjunction with the +presence of fossil shells in the limestone +in which they occur, he arrived at the +conclusion that they have been formed +in the wet way—deposited from a chemical +solution. He also found that when +extracted they are so soft and fragile +that the largest and finest fragments can +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page695" id="page695"></a>[pg 695]</span> +be reduced to powder by merely rubbing +them between the fingers, and the crystals +often crack and fall to pieces after +being removed from the mine, apparently +from loss of water. Consequently, +when the emeralds are first extracted +they are laid aside carefully for a few +days until the water is evaporated.</p> + +<p>This statement relative to the softness +of the gem and its subsequent hardening +has been met with a shout of derision +from some of the gem-seekers—none +louder than that of Barbot, the retired +jeweler. Barbot seems to forget that the +rock of which his own house in Paris is +constructed undergoes the same change +after being removed from the deep quarries +in the catacombs under the city. +This phenomenon is observed with many +rocks. Flints acquire additional toughness +by the evaporation of water contained +in them. The steatite of St. Anthony's +Falls grows harder on exposure, +and other minerals when quarried from +considerable depths become firmer on +exposure to the action of the air. Observations +of this kind led Kuhlman to +investigate the cause, and he believes that +the hardening of rocks is not owing solely +to the evaporation of quarry-water, +but that it depends upon the tendency +which all earthy matters possess to undergo +a spontaneous crystallization by +slow dessication, which commences the +moment the rock is exposed to the air.</p> + +<p>The coloring matter of the emerald +seems to be derived from the decomposition +of the remains of animals who +have lived in a bygone age, and whose +remains are now found fossilized in the +rock which forms the matrix of the gem. +This rock in Granada is a black limestone, +with white veins containing ammonites. +Specimens of these rocks exhibiting +fragments of emeralds <i>in situ</i>, +and also ammonites, are to be seen in +the mineralogical gallery of the Jardin +des Plantes in Paris. Lewy believes that +the beautiful tint of these gems is produced +by an organic substance, which +he considers to be a carburet of hydrogen, +similar to that called chlorophyll, +which constitutes the coloring matter of +the leaves of plants; and he has shown +that the emeralds of the darkest hue, +which contain the greatest amount of organic +matter, lose their color completely +at a low red heat, and become opaque +and white; while minerals and pastes +which are well known to be colored by +chromium, like the green garnets (the +lime-chrome garnets) of Siberia, are unchanged +in hue by the action of heat.</p> + +<p>Since the time of the Spanish Conquest, +New Granada has furnished the +world with the most of its emeralds. +The most famous mines are at Muzo, in +the valley of Tunca, between the mountains +of New Granada and Popayan, +about seventy-five miles from Santa Fé +de Bogota, where every rock, it is said, +contains an emerald. At present the +supply of emeralds is very limited, owing +to restrictions on trade and want of +capital and energy in mining operations.</p> + +<p>Blue as well as green emeralds are +found in the Cordillera of the Cubillari. +The Esmeraldas mines in Equador are +said to have been worked successfully +at one period by the Jesuits. The Peruvians +obtained many emeralds from +the barren district of Atacama, and in +the times of the Conquest there were +quarries on the River of Emeralds near +Barbacoas.</p> + +<p>Emeralds are found in Siberia, and +some of the localities may have furnished +to the ancients the Scythian gems +which Pliny and others mention. In +the Wald district magnificent crystals +have been found embedded in mica-slate. +One of these—a twin-crystal, now +in the Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg—is +seven inches long, four inches broad, +and weighs four and a half pounds. +There is another mass in the same collection +which measures fourteen inches +long by twelve broad and five thick, +weighing sixteen and three-quarter +pounds troy. This group shows twenty +crystals from a half inch to five inches +long, and from one to two inches broad. +They were discovered by a peasant cutting +wood near the summit of the mountain. +His eye was attracted by the lustrous +sparkling amongst the decomposed +mica and where the ground had been +exposed by the uprooting of a tree by +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page696" id="page696"></a>[pg 696]</span> +the violence of the wind. He collected +a number of the crystals, and brought +them to Katharineburg and showed them +to M. Kokawin, who recognized them +and sent them to St. Petersburg, where +they were critically examined by Van +Worth and pronounced to be emeralds. +One of these crystals was presented by +the emperor to Humboldt when he visited +St. Petersburg, and it is now deposited +in the Berlin collection. Quite a +number of emeralds are now brought +from the Siberian localities, and it is believed +that enterprise and capital would +produce a large supply of the gem.<a id="footnotetag3" +name="footnotetag3"></a><a href="#footnote3"><sup>3</sup></a></p> + +<p>The supply of emeralds from South +America is very limited, and may be +ascribed to want of skillful mining, as +well as to climate, the political condition +of the country and the indolence of its +inhabitants. The localities cannot be +exhausted, for they are too numerous +and extensive. The elevated regions in +Granada admit of scientific exploration +by Europeans, and at the present day +the only emerald-mining operations conducted +in South America have been +prosecuted near Santa Fé de Bogota by +a French company, which has paid the +government fourteen thousand dollars +yearly for the right of mining, all the +emeralds obtained being sent to Paris +to be cut by the lapidaries of that city.</p> + +<p>In the Atacama districts, and along +the banks of the River of Emeralds, the +physical obstructions are difficult to +overcome, and pestilential diseases of +malignant character forbid the long sojourn +of the European. Yet the introduction +of Chinese labor may prove +successful and highly remunerative, +since the coolie reared among the jungles +and rice-swamps of Southern China is +quite as exempt from malarial fevers as +the negro.</p> + +<p>The price of the emerald has no fixed +and extended scale, like that of the diamond, +and the fluctuations of its value +during the past three centuries form an +interesting chapter in the history of gems.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page146" id="page146"></a>[pg 146]</span> + +<p>In the time of Dutens (1777) the price +of small stones of the first quality was +one louis the carat; one and a half carats, +five louis; two carats, ten louis; and +beyond this weight no rule of value could +be established. In De Boot's day (1600) +emeralds were so plenty as to be worth +only a quarter as much as the diamond. +The markets were glutted with the frequent +importations from Peru, and thirteen +years before the above-mentioned +period one vessel brought from South +America two hundred and three pounds +of fine emeralds, worth at the present +valuation more than seven millions of +dollars. At the beginning of this century, +according to Caire, they were worth +no more than twenty-four francs (or +about five dollars) the carat, and for a +long time antecedent to 1850 they were +valued at only fifteen dollars the carat. +Since this period they have become very +rare, and their valuation has advanced +enormously. In fact, the value of the emerald +now exceeds that of the diamond, +and is rapidly approaching the ratio +fixed by Benevenuto Cellini in the middle +of the sixteenth century, which rated +the emerald at four times, and the ruby +at eight times, the value of the diamond. +Perfect stones (the emerald is exceedingly +liable to flaw, the beryl is more free, +and the green sapphire is rarely impaired +by fissures or cracks) of one carat in +weight are worth at the present day two +hundred dollars in gold. Perfect gems +of two carats weight will command five +hundred dollars in gold, while larger +stones are sold at extravagant prices.</p> + +<p>Most of our aqua-marinas come from +Brazil and Siberia, and small stones are +sold at trifling prices. Some of them, +however, when perfect and of fine color, +command fabulous sums. The superb +little beryl found at Mouzzinskaia is valued +by the Russians at the enormous +sum of one hundred and twenty thousand +dollars, although the crystal weighs +but little more than one ounce. Another +rough prism preserved in the Museum +at Paris, and weighing less than one +hundred grains, has received the tempting +offer of fifteen thousand francs.</p> + +<p class="author">A.C. HAMLIN, M.D.</p> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote2" name="footnote2"></a><b>Footnote 2:</b><a href="#footnotetag2"> (return) </a><p>A curious result happened to the elder Silliman +when experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before +the compound blowpipe. The reducing flame instantly +melted it into a transparent green globule. Perhaps +the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which +reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which +disappear at a lower temperature. But this could +not be done if the color was due to organic matter, +which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by +combustion.</p></blockquote> + +<blockquote class="footnote"><a id="footnote3" name="footnote3"></a><b>Footnote 3:</b><a href="#footnotetag3"> (return) </a><p>Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian +emeralds of large size and beautiful color are now +to be seen in the valuable and choice collections of +Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of Philadelphia.</p></blockquote> + +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page697" id="page697"></a>[pg 697]</span> + + + + +<h2>BERRYTOWN.</h2> + +<h3>CHAPTER VIII.</h3> + + +<p>It rained during the night. The wind +blew feebly in the morning, and +the sunlight glimmered dully from behind +the flying gray clouds. Catharine +looked out of her window, anxiously +pushing aside the boughs full of wet +white roses. The sense of desolation +was not strong enough upon her to make +her forget that Peter had not yet cut the +clover in the lower meadow, and that +such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. +Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping +up an old Bourbon rose, an especial +favorite of her father's. Somebody +tapped at her door, and Miss Muller +rustled in in a flounced white muslin +and rose-colored ribbons. She too hurried +to the window and looked down.</p> + +<p>"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. +I can't make you understand, probably, +but the Water-cure House is so bald +and bare! There is something in the +shade here, and the old books, and this +wilderness of roses, that forms a fitting +background for a friendship like ours, +aesthetically considered."</p> + +<p>"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told +Jane to have waffles—"</p> + +<p>"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, +"and direct her about the table. +Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would +jar against the finest emotions. What +very pretty shoulders you have, child! +Such women as you, like potatoes, are +best <i>au naturel</i>. Now, with those corsets, +and this red shawl over the back +of your chair, you would make a very +good Madonna of the Rubens school. +Men's ideal of womanhood then was to +be plump, insipid and a mother."</p> + +<p>"But about the oily butter?" said +Kitty, glancing back over the aforesaid +shoulders as she stooped to lace her +shoes, while Maria hurried off to the +kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer +emotions, I fancy, when she begins to +order her about."</p> + +<p>But Kitty lost all relish for fun before +she sat down to the breakfast-table. Mr. +Muller came in. The poor little man +hurried to her side: "I passed a sleepless +night, Catharine. I feared that I +had been rough with you. I forget so +often how gentle and tender you are, my +darling."</p> + +<p>Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my +word, I've forgotten what happened. +And I really never feel especially gentle +or tender. You are mistaken about +that."</p> + +<p>When she took her place behind the +urn, Maria motioned her brother to the +foot of the table, and then nodded significantly. +"Now you two can imagine +a month or two has passed," she said.</p> + +<p>Even Doctor McCall smiled meaningly. +Mr. Muller blushed, and glanced +shyly at Catharine. But she looked at +him unmoved. "Our table will not be +like this," gravely. "You forget the +three hundred blue-coats between." Maria +laughed, but Doctor McCall for the +first time looked steadily at the girl.</p> + +<p>First of all, perhaps, Kitty was just +then a housekeeper. She waited anxiously +to see if the steak was properly +rare and the omelette light, nodded +brightly to Jane, who stood watchful behind +her, and then looked over at her +betrothed, thinking how soon they would +sit down tête-à-tête for the rest of their +lives, perhaps for eternity, for, according +to her orthodoxy, there could be no new +loves in heaven. How fat he was, and +bald! The mild blue eyes behind their +glasses took possession of her and held +her.</p> + +<p>She listened to the talk between Doctor +McCall and Miss Muller in a language +she had never learned. Maria's +share of it was largely made up of headlong +dives into Spencer and Darwin, +with reminiscences of <i>The Dial</i>, while +Doctor McCall's was anchored fast down +to facts; but it was all alive, suggestive, +brilliant. They were young. They were +drinking life and love with full cups. +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page698" id="page698"></a>[pg 698]</span> +She (looking over at the bald head and +spectacled eyes) had gone straight out +of childhood into middle age and respectability.</p> + +<p>The breakfast was over at last. Miss +Muller followed Doctor McCall into the +shop, where he fell to turning over the +old books, and then to the garden. +What was the use of a stage properly +set if the drama would not begin?</p> + +<p>"Pray do not worry any longer with +that old bush," as he went back to +Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours +to be persistent about trifles. Or stay: +give me a bud for my hair."</p> + +<p>"Not these!" sharply, holding her +hand. "I could not see one of these roses +on any woman's head."</p> + +<p>She smiled, very well pleased: "You +perceive some subtle connection between +me and the flower?"</p> + +<p>"Nothing of the sort. There are some, +planted, I suppose, by that little girl, +which will be more becoming to your +face."</p> + +<p>"You are repelled by 'the little girl,' +I see, John. I always told you your instincts +were magnetic. That type of +woman is antipathetic to you."</p> + +<p>He laughed: "I have no instincts, +hardly ideas, about either roses or types +of women. If I avoided Miss Vogdes, +it was because her name recalled one of +the old hard experiences of my boyhood. +The girl herself is harmless enough, no +doubt."</p> + +<p>"And the rose?"</p> + +<p>"The rose? Why, we have no time +to waste in such talk as this. You have +not yet told me how you managed to get +your profession. When I last saw you +you had set all the old professors in the +university at defiance. Did you carry +lectures and cliniques by strategy or assault? +You have good fighting qualities, +Maria."</p> + +<p>She would rather not have gone over +her battle with the doctors just then: +she would rather he had talked of her +"magnetic instincts," her hair, her eyes—anything +else than her fighting qualities. +But she told him. There was an +inexplicable delight to her in telling him +anything—even the time of day. Was +he not a pioneer, a captain among men, +a seer in the realms of thought, keeping +step with her in all her high imaginings? +Ordinary people, it is true, set McCall +down as an ordinary fellow, genial and +hearty—not a very skillful physician, +perhaps, but a shrewd farmer, and the +best judge of mules or peaches in Kent +county. Maria, however, saw him with +the soul's eye.</p> + +<p>Kitty meanwhile sat by the window +mending the clothes that had come out +of the wash. Mr. Muller was reading +some letters relative to the school to her. +This was the day of the week on which +she always mended the clothes, and Mr. +Muller had fallen into the habit of reading +to her while she did so. But to-day +the Reformatory rose before her a prison, +the gates of which were about to close +on her. The heap of stockings, the +touch of the darning cotton, the sound +of Mr. Muller's droning voice, were +maddening to her: every moment she +made a tangle in her thread, looking +down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, +and the attentive face bent over her. +Where should she go? What should +she do? Had the world nothing in it +for her but this? Yesterday she had +made up her mind to go to Delaware to +find Hugh Guinness, alive or dead, and +bring him to his father. That would be +work worth doing. This morning she +remembered that Delaware was a wide +hunting-ground—that she had never +been ten miles from home in her life. +If there were anybody to give her advice! +This Doctor McCall had seemed to her +to-day as, in fact, he did to most people, +practical, honest, full of information. +He would too, she somehow felt, understand +her wild fancy. But—</p> + +<p>"Why should Doctor McCall dislike +<i>me</i>?" she broke in at the close of one +of Mr. Muller's expositions.</p> + +<p>"What an absurd fancy, child!" looking +up in amazement. "The man was +civil enough to you for so slight an acquaintance."</p> + +<p>"It was more than dislike," vehemently. +"He watched me all through breakfast +as though he owed me a grudge. I +could see it in his eyes."</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page699" id="page699"></a>[pg 699]</span> + +<p>"You oughtn't to see any eyes but +mine, Cathie dear," with anxious playfulness. +"Why should you care for the +opinion of any man?"</p> + +<p>"Because he is different from any man +I ever knew. He belongs to the world +outside. I always did wonder if people +would like me out there," said Kitty, too +doggedly in earnest to see how her words +hurt her listener. "If one could be like +those two people yonder! They seem +to know everything—they can do everything!"</p> + +<p>"Maria is well enough—for a woman," +dryly. "But I never heard McCall credited +with exceptional ability of any sort."</p> + +<p>Kitty glanced at him: "Of course +you're right," quickly. "Men only can +judge of character: we women are apt +to be silly about such things." Her +kind heart felt a wrench at having hurt +this good soul. She put her fingers on +his fat hand with a touch that was almost +a caress. He turned red with surprise +and pleasure. "But it is pleasant," she +said, glancing down again to the Bourbon +rose, "to see such love as that. +They will be married soon, I suppose?"</p> + +<p>"Very likely. I never knew of any +love in the case before. But Maria is +such a manager! And you think of +love, then, sometimes?" timidly putting +his arm about her.</p> + +<p>"Oh to be sure! How can you doubt +that? But it grows chilly. I must bring +a sacque," hurrying away; and in fact +she looked cold, and shivered.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER IX.</h3> + + +<p>"Doctor McCall recognizes the +Book-house, just as I did, as the right +background for communion like ours," +Miss Muller said complacently to Kitty +a week later. "He meets me here every +day."</p> + +<p>"Yes," said Catharine with a perplexed +look. She had no special instincts +or intuitions, but her eyes were as keen +and observant as a lynx's. He came, +she saw, to the Book-house every day. +But had he no other purpose than to +meet Maria?</p> + +<p>"I did not know that McCall affected +scholarship," said Mr. Muller tartly the +next day. "He tells me that he has a +peach-farm to manage. August is no +time to loiter away, poring over old +books. Just the peach season."</p> + +<p>"No," Kitty replied demurely. But +her face wore again the puzzled look. +She began to watch Doctor McCall. +He really knew but little, she saw, of +rare books: his reading of them was a +mere pretence. He was neither a lazy +nor a morbid man: what pleasure could +he have in neglecting his work day after +day, sitting alone in the dusky old shop +as if held there by some enchantment? +Kitty knew that she herself had nothing +to do with it: she appeared to be no +more in his way than a tame dog would +be, and, after the first annoyance which +she gave him, was really little more noticed. +But there is a certain sense of +home-snugness and comfort in the presence +of tame dogs and of women like +Kitty: one cannot be long in the room +with either without throwing them a kind +word or petting them in some way. +Doctor McCall was just the man to fall +into such a habit. Down on the farm, +his cattle, his hands, even the neighbors +with whom he argued on politics, could +all have testified to his easy, large good-humor.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we are the best of friends," he +said indifferently when Maria found +Kitty chattering to him once, very much +as she did to old Peter. But when Miss +Muller, who had no petty jealousies, +enlarged on the singular beauty of her +eyes and some good points in her shape, +he did not respond. "I never could talk +of a woman as if she were a horse," he +said. "And this little girl seems to me +unusually human."</p> + +<p>"There's really nothing in her, though. +Poor William! He is marrying eyes, +I tell him. It's a pitiable marriage!"</p> + +<p>"Yes, it is," said Doctor McCall +gravely.</p> + +<p>After that he neglected the old books +sometimes to talk to Kitty. He thought +she was such an immature, thoughtless +creature that she would not notice that +the subject he chose was always the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page700" id="page700"></a>[pg 700]</span> +same—her daily life, with old Peter for +her chum and confidant.</p> + +<p>"Mr. Guinness, then, has had no companion +but you?" he said one day, after +a searching inspection of her face.</p> + +<p>"No, nobody but me," quite forgetful, +as she and Peter were too apt to be, that +her mother was alive.</p> + +<p>"And has had none for years?"</p> + +<p>"Not since his son died. Hugh Guinness +is dead, you know."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall was looking thoughtfully +at the floor. He rose presently and +took up his hat: "The old man cannot +have been unhappy with such love as +you could give him. No man could."</p> + +<p>Kitty was sitting, as usual, on a low +stool pasting labels on some dog-eared +books: as long as McCall stood looking +at her round cheeks and double chin she +pasted on, apparently unconscious that +he was there, but when he turned away +she watched him shrewdly as he went +uneasily up and down the shop, and +finally, with a curt good-bye, turned out +of the door. As the stout figure passed +through the low branches of the walnuts +her gray eyes began to shine. Her +Mystery was nearly solved.</p> + +<p>Dropping paste and books in a heap, +she ran after him, taking a short cut +through the currant bushes, so that when +he passed on the outer side of the garden +fence there she was quietly waiting, +her head and face darkly framed by a +thick creeper.</p> + +<p>"Well?" smiling down, amused, as +he might to a playful kitten.</p> + +<p>"Doctor McCall," in the queer formal +fashion that was Kitty's own, "I should +be glad if you would come back this +evening. Without Maria. I have some +business—that is, a plan of mine. Well, +it is a certain thing that—"</p> + +<p>"That you wish to consult me about?" +after waiting for her to finish.</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's it," nodding energetically.</p> + +<p>"Very well." He stood looking at +her arm on the fence, and the face resting +with its chin upon it. McCall, of all +men, hated a scene, and he had an uneasy +consciousness that he had just betrayed +unexplained feeling in the house, +and was therefore glad to slip back to +commonplaces. Besides, Kitty was exactly +the kind of woman whom all men +feel an insane desire to help at first sight. +"You have a plan, eh? and you want +advice, not knowing much about business?"</p> + +<p>There was not the least necessity for +him to say this, having asked it before. +But he did it, and waited to hear Kitty +say yes again, and waited still, before +he lifted his hat and said good-bye, to +see the shadow of a waving branch +creep over her white chin and lose itself +in her neck. Most men would have +done the same, just as they would stop +to whistle a laugh from a fat, pretty +baby on the street, and then go on, +leaving it behind. The last thing in the +world to consult on their business, or to +ask for help or comfort when trouble +met them, or death.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>Miss Muller spent the whole day at +the Book-house, but Doctor McCall did +not come, as she expected. As evening +approached she began to shiver, and +had premonitory symptoms of clairvoyance, +and went home at last, to Kitty's +relief. A slow drizzling rain set in: the +damp fogs that belong to that river-bottom +walled in the house and hung +flat over the walnuts like a roof. Catharine +had made her own corner of the +Book-shop snug and cheerful. The +space was wide, the light soft and bright. +She placed her own chair by the table, +Peter's not far from it. She meant to +produce a great effect on this man to-night, +to change the whole current of +his life, without having the help of either +love or even friendship. Unconsciously +she planned to bring him close to her, +though very likely she had never heard +of personal magnetism, or any of the +curious secrets political speakers or actors +or revivalists could have told her +of the deadening effects of distance and +empty benches.</p> + +<p>Then Kitty, in her room overhead, +looked at herself in the glass, arrayed +in a soft cashmere, in color blue, still +farther toned down, by certain softer +fringes and loops, into the very ideal +garb for a man's type of "yielding, lovely +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page701" id="page701"></a>[pg 701]</span> +woman." It was one of the sacred +wedding-dresses.</p> + +<p>"Maria could never look like this," +tying a lace handkerchief about her +neck, pulling the soft rings of hair looser +about her ears, setting her head on one +side, and half shutting her eyes to see +the thick and curly lashes.</p> + +<p>There was no danger of interruption. +Maria was safely lodged in the Water-cure +House, and the very idea of Mr. +Muller's glossy black shoes and dainty +brown umbrella venturing out in the +rain made Kitty laugh.</p> + +<p>"The dear, good soul is finical as a +cat," with the good-natured indulgence +of a mother for a child. Suddenly she +stopped, stared at herself in the glass. +"Why, he is my husband!" she said, +speaking to the blushing, blue-robed +figure as to another person. Then she +hastily unbuttoned, unlooped the pretty +dress, threw it off, putting on her usual +gray wrapper and knotting her hair more +tightly back than ever in a comb. "He +has been very good to me—very good +to me," her chin trembling a good deal.</p> + +<p>Then she went down to meet Doctor +McCall, who that moment came into the +Book-shop, stopping at the door to take +off and shake his oilskin coat.</p> + +<p>"It is a wet night," she said, just as +though he were a stranger. She did not +know what else to say or what he answered +as she went about, trimming the +lamp, dragging out a chair for him, +closing the window curtains. Both McCall +and Catharine were ordinary people, +accustomed to keep up a good flow +of talk on ordinary subjects, the weather +or any joke or gossip that was nearest to +them. There had been no passages of +love or hate between them to account +for her forced formality, her trembling +and flushing, and urgent almost angry +wish to remind him that she was Mr. +Muller's affianced wife. She felt this +with a new contempt for herself.</p> + +<p>As for Doctor McCall, he leaned comfortably +back in his arm-chair and dried +his legs at the grate filled with red-hot +coals, while he listened to the soft rustle +of her skirts as she moved noiselessly +about him. It is the peculiarity of +women like Kitty, to whom Nature has +denied the governing power of ideas or +great personal beauty or magnetism, +such as she gave to Miss Muller, that +there is a certain impalpable force and +attraction in their most petty actions and +words, to which men yield. Miss Muller +could have watched Kitty all day +dragging chairs and trimming lamps, +unmoved farther than to pronounce her +little better than an idiot. But Peter, +Muller or John McCall could not look +at her for five minutes without classing +her with Cordelia and Desdemona and +all the other sweet fools for whom men +have died, and whom the world yet +keeps sacred in pathetic memory. Some +day too, when Catharine should be a +mother—though giving to her older children, +little more than to the baby on her +breast, soft touches and gentle words—she +would bind them to her as no other +kind, of mother could do—by such bonds +that until they were gray-haired no power +should be like hers. Miss Muller +neither saw nor foresaw such things. +But Doctor McCall did. "If I had had +such a mother I should not have been +what I am," he thought. It was a curious +fancy to have about a young girl. +But she seemed to embody all the womanliness +that had been lacking in his +life. Of course she was nothing to him. +She was to be that prig Muller's wife, +and he was quite satisfied that she should +be. If he married, Maria Muller would +be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, he felt +to-night, for the first time, the necessity +that Maria should know how marriage +was barred out from him, and felt, for +the first time, too, a maddening anger +that it was so barred. However, Doctor +McCall was never meant by Nature +for a solitary man housed alone with +morbid thoughts: he was the stuff out +of which useful citizens are made—John +Andersons of husbands, doting, gullible +fathers.</p> + +<p>Remembering the bar in his life, his +skeleton, ghost or whatever it was, he +was only moved to get up and stretch +himself, saying, "I've stayed in Berrytown +too long. When you have told me +your plan, I'll say good-bye to you, Miss +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page702" id="page702"></a>[pg 702]</span> +Vogdes, and this old house. I shall be +off to-morrow."</p> + +<p>Kitty had just caught a moth in the +flame of the candle. She carried it to +the window. "You will come back soon, +of course?" her back still toward him.</p> + +<p>"No, I think not. I am neglecting +my business. And I, of all men in the +world, have least right to loiter about +this old house, to look in on its home-life +or on you."</p> + +<p>Kitty gave him a sharp glance, as +though some sudden emergency was +clear before her which her tact failed to +meet. She was folding the bits of muslin +at which she had been sewing in a +basket: she finished slowly, put the basket +away, and sat down at the table, +with her elbow on it and her chin on her +hand, her gray eyes suggesting a deeper +and unspoken meaning to her words: +"But for my plan?"</p> + +<p>"Ah! to be sure! You want advice?" +seating himself comfortably. Her confusion +was a pretty thing to watch, the +red creeping up her neck into her face, +blotting out its delicate tints, the uncertain +glances, the full bitten lip. Doctor +McCall quite forgot his own trouble in +the keen pleasure of the sight.</p> + +<p>"Perhaps—You do not quite understand +my position here? Mr. Guinness +is not my own father."</p> + +<p>"No, I knew that."</p> + +<p>"But you cannot know what he has +been to me: <i>I</i> never knew until the last +few days."</p> + +<p>"Why within these few days, Miss +Vogdes?"</p> + +<p>"Because I saw you and Maria: I saw +what love was. I began to think about +it. I never have loved anybody but +him," she went on headlong, utterly +blind to all inferences. "There's a thing +I can do for him, Doctor McCall, before +I marry Mr. Muller, and I must do it. +It will make his old age happier than +any other part of his life has been."</p> + +<p>McCall nodded, leaning forward. It +was nothing but an imprudent girl dragging +out her secrets before a stranger; +nothing but a heated face, wet eyes, a +sweet milky breath; but no tragedy he +had ever seen on the stage had moved +him so uncontrollably—no, not any crisis +in his own life—with such delicious, +inexplicable emotion.</p> + +<p>"Well, what is it you can do?" after +waiting for her to go on.</p> + +<p>There was a moment's silence.</p> + +<p>"My father," said Kitty, "had once a +great trouble. It has made an old man +of him before his time. I find that I +can take it from him." She looked up +at him with this. Now, there was a certain +shrewd penetration under the softness +of Kitty's eyes. Noting it, McCall +instantly lost sight of her beauty and +tears. He returned her look coolly.</p> + +<p>"What was his trouble?"</p> + +<p>"Mr. Guinness had a son. He has +believed him to be dead for years: I +know that he is not dead."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall waited, with her eyes +still upon him. "Well?" he said, attentive.</p> + +<p>"And then," pushing back the table +and rising, "when I heard that, I meant +to go and find Hugh Guinness, and bring +him back to his father."</p> + +<p>Whatever this matter might be to her +hearer, it was the most real thing in life +to Catharine, and putting it into words +gave it a sudden new force. She felt +that she ought to hold her tongue, but +she could not. She only knew that the +lighted room, the beating of the rain +without, the watchful guarded face on +the other side of the table, shook and +frightened and angered her unaccountably.</p> + +<p>"You should not laugh at me," she +said. "This is the first work I ever set +myself to do. It is better than nursing +three hundred children."</p> + +<p>"I am not laughing at you, God +knows! But this Guinness, if he be +alive, remains away voluntarily. There +must be a reason for that. You do not +consider."</p> + +<p>"I do not care to consider. Is the +man a log or a stone? If I found him," +crossing the room in her heat until she +stood beside him—"if I brought him to +the old house and to his father? Why, +look at this!" dragging open the drawer +and taking out the broken gun and rod. +"See what he has kept for years—all +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page703" id="page703"></a>[pg 703]</span> +that was left him of his boy! Look, at +that single hair! If Hugh Guinness +stood where you do, and touched these +things as you are touching them, could +he turn his back on the old man?"</p> + +<p>Now, Doctor McCall did not touch +gun nor cap nor hair, but he bent over +the table, looking at them as if he were +looking at the dead. He seemed to +have forgotten that Kitty was there.</p> + +<p>At last he stood upright: "Poor little +chap!" with a laugh. "There seemed +to be no reason, when he went gunning +and fishing like other boys, why he +should not stand here to-day with as +fair a chance for happiness as any other +man. Did there? Just a trifling block +laid in his way, a push down hill, and +no force could ever drag him up again."</p> + +<p>Kitty, her eyes on his, stood silent. +Do what he would, he could not shake +off her eyes: they wrenched the truth +from him, "I knew this man Guinness +once," he said.</p> + +<p>She nodded: "Yes, I know you did."</p> + +<p>"Sit down beside me here, and I will +tell you what kind of man he was."</p> + +<p>But she did not sit down. An unaccountable +terror or timidity seemed to +have paralyzed her. She looked aside—everywhere +but in his face: "I wanted +you to tell me how to reach him, how to +touch him: I know what manner of man +he is."</p> + +<p>"You have heard from your mother? +A mixed Border Pike and Mephistopheles, +eh? The devil and his victim rolled +into one?" He shifted his heavy +body uneasily, glancing toward the door. +Chief among the graver secret emotions +which she had roused in him was the +momentary annoyance of not knowing +how to deal with this chicken-hearted +little girl before him, scared, but on fire +from head to foot.</p> + +<p>Kitty was quite confident. If it had +been Maria Muller who had thus set +herself to tamper with a man's life, she +would have done it trembling, with fear +and self-distrust. She had brains which +could feel and react against the passions +she evoked, and were competent to warn +her of the peril of her work. But as for +Kitty—</p> + +<p>Here was Hugh Guinness before her, +a Cain with the curse of God upon him. +It was clearly her business to bring him +back again to his father, and afterward +convert him into a member of the church, +if possible. She went about the work +with as little doubt as if it had been the +making of a pudding.</p> + +<p>But she was shy, tender, womanly +withal. Doctor McCall laughed as he +looked down at her, and spoke deliberately, +as though giving his opinion of a +patient to another physician. "I'll tell +you honestly my opinion of Hugh Guinness. +He was, first of all, a thoroughly +ordinary, commonplace man, with neither +great virtues nor great vices, nor force +of any kind. If he had had that, he +could have recovered himself when he +began to fall. But he did not recover +himself."</p> + +<p>"What drove him down in the first +place?"</p> + +<p>He hesitated: "I suppose that his +home and religion became hateful to +him. Boys have unreasonable prejudices +at times."</p> + +<p>"And then, in despair—"</p> + +<p>"Despair? Nonsense! Now don't +figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of +a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's +gate was shut on him. At nineteen +Hugh Guinness drank and fought and +gambled, as other ill-managed boys do +to work off the rank fever of blood. +Unfortunately—" he stopped, and then +added in a lower voice, quickly, "he +made a mistake while the fever was on +him which was irretrievable."</p> + +<p>"A mistake?" Kitty was always of +an inquiring turn of mind, but now she +felt as if her curiosity was more than she +could bear, while she stood, her eyes +passing over the burly figure in summer +clothes and the high-featured, pleasant +face with its close-cut moustache. What +dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, +every-day propriety of linen +duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache +over a mouth that often smiled? +You might meet their like any day upon +the streets. Was it a murder? At best +some crime, perhaps, which had sent him +to the penitentiary. Or—and church +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page704" id="page704"></a>[pg 704]</span> +taught Kitty shuddered as a vague remembrance +of the "unpardonable sin" +rose before her like an actual horror. +Whatever it was, it stood between herself +and him, keeping them apart for +ever.</p> + +<p>"Irretrievable?" she said. It was only +curiosity, she knew, but her voice sounded +oddly far off to herself, the room was +hazy, her whole body seemed to shrink +together.</p> + +<p>"What can it matter to you? You +belong to another man, Miss Vogdes." +She lifted herself erect. Doctor McCall +was speaking more loudly than usual +and looking keenly into her face.</p> + +<p>"I know: I shall be Mr. Muller's wife. +Of course, I recollect. But you—this +Hugh Guinness is my father's son," +stammered Kitty, her face very white. +"I had some interest in him."</p> + +<p>"Yes, that's true. He is, as you say, +in some sort a brother of yours." He +took her hand for the first time, looking +down at her face with some meaning in +his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, +though the thoughts in Kitty's shallow +brain were clear enough to him. +"You are tired of standing," seating her +gently in Peter's chair. A thick lock +of hair had fallen over her face: he put +out his hand to remove it, but drew +back quickly. "We have talked too long, +Miss Vogdes," in a brisk, cheerful tone. +"Some other time, perhaps, we can return +to this question of Hugh Guinness. That +is," with a certain significance of manner, +"if it be one in which Mr. Muller +wishes you to take an interest." Nodding +good-humoredly to her, he buttoned +on his oilskin cape and went out into +the rain without another word. He +pulled off his cap outside to let the rain +and wind reach his head, drawing a +long breath as if to get rid of some foul +air and heat.</p> + + + + +<h3>CHAPTER X.</h3> + + +<p>Of all that wet August the next morning +was the freshest and cheerfulest. +Doctor McCall had packed his valise, +carried it to the station, and was now +walking up the street, his hands clasped +behind him and his head down, after the +leisurely fashion of Delaware and Jersey +farmers. People nodded an approving +good-morning to him. Busy Berrytown +had passed verdict on him as a man +who was idle for a purpose, who permitted +his brain to lie fallow, and who +"loafed and invited his soul" during +these two weeks for the best spiritual +hygienic reasons.</p> + +<p>"Too much brain-work, my friend +Doctor Maria Muller tells me," said the +lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at +the station as McCall passed them. "Is +here for repose."</p> + +<p>"Advanced?" said little Herr Bluhm, +the phrenologist.</p> + +<p>"Well, no. But Doctor Maria thinks +his mind is open to conviction, and that +he would prove a strong worker should +he remain here. She has already begun +to enlighten him on our newest theories +as to a Spontaneous Creation and a Consolidated +Republic."</p> + +<p>"Should think his properer study +would be potatoes. Smells of the barn-yard +in his talk," rejoined one of the +party.</p> + +<p>"Doctor Maria's a fool!" snapped +Bluhm. "She has read the index to +Bastian's book, and denies her Creator, +and gabbles of Bacteria, boiled and unboiled, +ever since."</p> + +<p>Doctor McCall meanwhile went down +the cinder-path, to all passers-by a clean-shaven, +healthy gentleman out in search +of an appetite for breakfast. But in +reality he was deciding his whole life in +that brief walk. Why, he asked himself +once or twice, should he be unlike +the other clean-shaven, healthy men +that he met? God knows he had no +relish for mystery. He was, as he had +told Kitty, a commonplace man, a thrifty +Delaware farmer, in hearty good-fellowship +with his neighbors, his cattle, the +ground he tilled, and, he thought reverently, +with the God who had made him +and them. He had made a mistake in +his early youth, but it was a mistake +which every tenth man makes—which +had no doubt driven half these men and +women about him into their visionary +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page705" id="page705"></a>[pg 705]</span> +creeds and hard work—that of an unhappy +marriage. It was many years +since he had heard of his wife: she had +grown tired of warning him of the new +paths of shame and crime she had found +for herself. In fact, the year in which +they had lived together was now so long +past as to seem like a miserable half-forgotten +dream.</p> + +<p>Irretrievable? Yes, it was irretrievable. +There was, first of all, the stupid, +boyish error of a change of name. If +he came back as this child wished, all +the annoyance which that entailed would +follow him, and the humiliating circumstances +which had led to it would be +brought to life from their unclean graves. +His father believed him dead. Better +the quiet, softened grief which that had +left than the disgrace which would follow +his return. "I should have to tell +him my wife's story," muttered McCall. +But he did not turn pale nor break into +a cold sweat at the remembrance, as +Miss Muller's hero should have done. +This was an old sore—serious enough, +but one which he meant to make the +best of, according to his habit. He had +been a fool, he thought, to come back +and hang about the old place for the +pleasure of hearing his father talked of, +and of touching the things he had handled +a day or two before. Growing into +middle age, Hugh Guinness's likeness +to his father had increased year by year. +The two men were simple as boys in +some respects, and would have been +satisfied alone together. The younger +man halted now on the foot-bridge which +crossed the creek, looking out the different +hollows where his father had taken +him to fish when he was a boy, and +thinking of their life then. "But his +wife and mine would have to be put +into the scales now," with an attempt at +whistling which died out discordantly.</p> + +<p>There was one person to whom the +shameful confession of his marriage +must be made—Miss Muller. That was +the result, he thought, of his absurd +whim of loitering about Berry town. +When he had met Maria Muller before, +he had no reason to think she cared a +doit whether he was married or single. +Now—McCall's color changed, alone +as he was, with shame and annoyance. +With all his experience of life and of +women, he had as little self-confidence +as an awkward girl. But Maria had +left him no room for doubt.</p> + +<p>"It would be the right thing to do. I +ought to tell her. But it will be a slight +matter to her, no doubt."</p> + +<p>If he had been a single man, in all +probability he would have asked Maria +Muller to marry him that day. He was +a susceptible fellow, with a man's ordinary +vanity and passions; and Maria's +bright sweet face, their loiterings along +shady lanes and under Bourbon roses, +the perpetual deference she paid to +his stupendous intellect, had had due +effect. He was not the man to see a +strong, beautiful woman turn pale and +tremble at his touch, and preserve his +phlegm.</p> + +<p>He threw away his cigar, and jumped +the fence into the Water-cure grounds. +"I'll tell her now, and then be off from +old Berry town for ever."</p> + +<p>Miss Muller was standing in the porch. +She leaned over the railing, looking at +the ragged rain-clouds driven swiftly +over the blue distance, and at the wet +cornfields and clumps of bay bushes +gray with berries which filled the damp +air with their pungent smell. Her dog, +a little black-and-tan terrier, bit at her +skirt. She had just been lecturing to +her three students on the vertebrae, and +when she took him up could not help +fumbling over his bones, even while she +perceived the color and scent of the +morning. They gave her so keen a +pleasure that the tears rushed to her +eyes, and she stopped punching Hero's +back.</p> + +<p>"'The rain is over and gone,'" she recited +softly to herself, "'the vines with +the tender grape give a good smell, and +the time of the singing of birds has +come.' There is no poetry like that old +Hebrew love-song. If only it had not +been hackneyed by being turned into a +theological allegory! Ha, doggy, doggy! +There comes a friend of ours!" +suddenly laughing and hugging him as +she caught sight of a large man coming +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page706" id="page706"></a>[pg 706]</span> +up the road with a swinging gait and +loose white overcoat. She broke off a +rose and put it in her breast, tied on her +hat and hurried down to meet him, the +Song of Solomon still keeping time with +her thoughts in a lofty cadence: "'Who +is this that cometh up from the wilderness +leaning upon his beloved? Set me +as a seal upon thine heart, as a seal +upon thine arm. For love is strong as +death.'"</p> + +<p>"What's that, Maria? I heard you +intoning as I came up the hill?" Her +eyes were soft and luminous and her +voice unsteady. I am afraid Doctor +McCall's eyes were warmer in their admiration +than they should have been +under the circumstances. Why should +she not tell him? She repeated it. She +had been chattering for two hours on +cervical, dorsal and lumbar vertebrae, +without stopping to take breath. But +she grew red now and broke down miserably.</p> + +<p>"'Love is strong as death,' eh?" said +McCall, awkwardly holding the gate +open for her. "Friendship ought to be +tough enough to bear a pretty stout strain, +then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. +For I think a man and woman can be +friends without—without—Well, what +do you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden +imbecility in all his big body.</p> + +<p>The little woman beside him looked +up scared and ready to cry: "I don't +know, John, I'm sure. Do be quiet, +Hero!" Then like a flash she saw that +he meant to ask her to marry him: he +meant to place love upon the higher +basis of friendship. Maria was used to +people who found new names for old +things. Why! why! what folly was +this, as she grew cold and hot by turns? +So often she had pictured his coming to +claim her, and how she would go out as +one calm controlling soul should to meet +another, to be dual yet united through +all eternity; and here she was shivering +and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! +Love-making and marriage were +at a discount with the Advanced Club +of which she was a member, and classed +with dancing, fashionable dressing +and other such paltry feminine frivolities. +But Maria had meant to show them that +a woman could really love and marry, +and preserve her own dignity. She tried +to find her footing now.</p> + +<p>"Come into the summer-house, John. +I should think our friendship would bear +any strain, for it does not depend on external +ties."</p> + +<p>"No, that's true. Now, as to your +phalansteries and women's clubs and +sitz-baths, why that's all flummery to +me. But young women must have their +whims until they have husbands to occupy +their minds, I suppose. There's +that little girl at the Book-shop: how +many leagues of tatting do you suppose +she makes in a year?"</p> + +<p>"I really cannot say," sharply.</p> + +<p>"But as to our friendship, Maria—"</p> + +<p>"Yes. There may be a lack of external +bonds" (speaking deliberately, +for she wanted to remember this crisis +of her life as accurate in all its minutiae); +"but there is a primal unity, a mysterious +sympathy, in power and emotion. +At least, so it seems to me," suddenly +stammering and picking up Hero to +avoid looking at McCall, who stood in +front of her.</p> + +<p>"I don't know. Primal unities are +rather hazy to me. I can tell by a woman's +eye and hand-shake if she is pure-minded +and sweet-tempered, and pretty +well, too, what she thinks of me. That's +about as far as I go."</p> + +<p>"It pleases you to wear this mask of +dullness, I know," with an indulgent +smile, with which Titania might have +fondled the ass's head.</p> + +<p>"But as to our friendship," gravely, +"I feel I've hardly been fair to you. +Friendship demands candor, and there +is one matter on which I have not dealt +plainly with you. You have been an +honest, firm friend to me, Maria. I had +no right to withhold my confidence from +you."</p> + +<p>If Miss Muller had not been known +as an advanced philosopher, basing her +life upon the Central Truths, she would +have gained some credit as a shrewd +woman of business. "What do you +mean, John?" she said, turning a cool +I steady countenance toward him.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page707" id="page707"></a>[pg 707]</span> + +<p>"Sit down and I will tell you what I +mean."</p> + +<hr /> + +<p>The patients, taking soon after their +two hours' exercise, made their jokes on +the battle between the two systems, seeing +the allopathist McCall and Doctor +Maria Haynes Muller in the summer-house +engaged in such long and earnest +converse. Homoeopathy, they guessed, +had the worst of it, for the lady was +visibly agitated and McCall apparently +unmoved. Indeed, when he left her +and crossed the garden, nodding to such +of them as he knew, he had a satisfied, +relieved face.</p> + +<p>Maria went immediately in to visit her +ward as usual. The patients observed +that she was milder than was her wont, +and deadly pale. One of them, addressing +her as "Miss Muller," however, was +sharply rebuked: "I earned my right to +the title of physician too hardly to give +it up for that which belongs to every +simpering school-girl," she said. "Besides," +with a queer pitiful smile, "the +sooner we doctors sink the fact that we +are women the better for the cause—and +for us."</p> + +<p>She met her brother in the course of +the morning, and drew him into the +consulting-room.</p> + +<p>"William," she said, fumbling with +the buttons of his coat, "he is going: he +is going to take the afternoon train."</p> + +<p>"Who? That fellow McCall?"</p> + +<p>"Why do you speak so of him, William? +He has just told me his story. +He is so wretched! he has been used so +hardly!" She could scarcely keep back +the tears. In her new weakness and +weariness it was such comfort to talk +to and hang upon this fat, stupid little +brother, whom usually she despised.</p> + +<p>"Wretched, eh? He don't look it, +then. As stout and easy-going a fellow +as I know. Come, come, Maria! The +man has been imposing some story on +you to work on your sensibilities. I +never fancied him, as you know. He +doesn't want to borrow money, eh?" +with sudden alarm.</p> + +<p>"Money? No."</p> + +<p>"What is it, then? Don't look at me +in that dazed way. You, are going to +have one of your attacks. I do wish +you had Kitty's constitution and some +sense."</p> + +<p>"William," rousing herself, "he is going. +He will never come back to Berrytown +or to me. Our whole lives depend +on my seeing him once more. Ask him +to wait for a day—an hour."</p> + +<p>"If he doesn't take the noon express, +he can't go in an hour. You certainly +know that, Maria. Well, if I have to +find him, I'd better go at once," buttoning +his coat irritably. "I never did like +the fellow."</p> + +<p>"Beg him to stay. Tell him that I +have thought of a way of escape," following +him, catching him by his sleeve, +her small face absolutely without color +and her eyes glittering.</p> + +<p>"Yes, I'm going. But I must find my +overshoes first. It begins to look like +rain."</p> + +<p>Miss Muller watched him to the door, +and then crossed the hall to her own +room, locking the door behind her. +The square table was piled with medical +books. She sat down and dropped her +head on her arms. Over went a bound +volume of the <i>Lancet</i> and a folio on +diseases of the kidneys to the floor. She +looked down at them. "And I was willing +to give him up for that—that trash!" +sobbing and rubbing her arms like a +beaten child. But she had so strong a +habit of talking that even in this pain +the words would come: "I loved him +so. He would have married me! And +I must be kept from him by a law of society! +It is—it is," rising and wrenching +her hands together, "a damnable +law!"</p> + +<p>For Miss Muller had taught herself to +think and talk like a man.</p> + +<p class="author">REBECCA HARDING DAVIS.</p> + +<p class="center">[TO BE CONTINUED.]</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page708" id="page708"></a>[pg 708]</span> + + + + +<h2>BOWERY ENGLAND.</h2> + + +<p>A party of four Americans in London—Mr. +Hill Bunker of Boston, +Mrs. Bunker, his wife, Miss Amy Abell +of New York, and myself—we find ourselves +growing weary of that noisy town. +We talk of a trip to the country. It is +the merry month of May.</p> + +<p>"Just the time for 'bowery England, +as Bulwer phrases it," says Amy. "Let +us go to Romsey and see the Boyces."</p> + +<p>Carried unanimously. We take the +train from the Waterloo Station two +hours later. When we get down at +Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the attentive +porter—carries our luggage, calls the fly +and touches his hat thankfully for three-pence. +The Romsey fly is a lumbering, +two-seated carriage, rather more pretentious +than a London cab, but far behind +the glossy gorgeousness of a New York +hackney-coach.</p> + +<p>A short drive brings us to the White +Horse Inn, under whose covered arch +we roll, and are met at the door by a +maid. She conducts us to a stuffy coffee-room +up a flight of crumbling old +stairs, and meekly desires to know our +will.</p> + +<p>"Send the landlord, please."</p> + +<p>The landlord comes, bowing low, and +we make inquiries concerning the distance +to Paultons, the estate where the +Boyces have been spending the summer, +and where we venture to hope they still +are. He says it is a matter of four miles, +and that we can have a fly over for six +shillings. We order the fly to be got +ready at once, and inquire if we can +have dinner now, it being late in the +afternoon.</p> + +<p>"Yes, sir," he replies. "Would you +like some chicken and sparrowgrass?"</p> + +<p>"How long will they be in cooking?"</p> + +<p>"Matter of arf an hour, sir."</p> + +<p>As this means a matter of an hour, I +ask if he can't get us up something in a +shorter time. He suggests that chops +can be cooked sooner.</p> + +<p>"Chops be it, then. In the words of +the immortal Pickwick, chops and tomato +sauce."</p> + +<p>"No tomarter sauce, sir," with profound +gravity.</p> + +<p>"Sparrowgrass, then—chops and sparrowgrass."</p> + +<p>He retires, and we all rush to the windows +and look out upon the quaint old +village—a curious, old-fashioned scene. +We feel as if we had somehow become +transmogrified, and instead of being flesh-and-blood +men and women from practical +New York, were playing our parts +in some old English novel. Odd +little tumble-down houses, with peaked +roofs and mullioned windows, ranged +about a triangular common, look sleepily +out upon a statue of Palmerston in +the middle of the open place, the gray +walls of Romsey Abbey, a thousand +years old, against the blue sky behind +them.</p> + +<p>About six o'clock our fly is at the door, +and we are off, rattling through the ancient +streets into the smooth open country. +Oh the quaint, delightful old hedge-lined +road, deep down below the level +of the fields on either side—a green lane +shut in with fragrance and delicious +quiet! The hedges, perched upon the +bank, tower high above our heads, and +there is no break in them save at rustic +gates. We meet characters on the road +who have just stepped out of Trollope's +novels. A young man and girl stand +on a bridge across which we trundle, +leaning companionably on the old stone +parapet, and looking up the little river +through a long avenue of trees to the +pillared mansion of "Broadlands." A +laborer, with a gay flower stuck in the +buttonhole of his smock-frock, goes +whistling along the brown road under +the hedgerows. A country gentleman, +driving alone in a basket phaeton, looks +inquisitively at our half-closed windows +as if expecting the sight of an acquaintance. +Crumbling milestones stand by +the wayside, with deep-cut letters so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page709" id="page709"></a>[pg 709]</span> +smoothed by the hand of time that we +cannot read them as we pass. Flowers +grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is +lolling on the green grass in front of +a cottage door—an uncombed English +hind, with a face of rustic simplicity and +stolid ignorance.</p> + +<p>At last we come to a gate which bars +the road. The driver gets down and +opens it, and when we have passed +through in the fly he tells us we are now +on Mr. Stanley's broad estate of Paultons. +The driver wears corduroy trousers, +and touches his hat every time we +speak to him and every time he answers. +He does not merely touch it when he is +first addressed, but he touches it continually +throughout the conversation. +Bunker considers his conduct extremely +touching.</p> + +<p>We are presently driving through a +bosky wood, and the driver touches his +hat to remark that we are nearly there +now, he thinks.</p> + +<p>"But where is the bad road the landlord +spoke of?"</p> + +<p>"Bad road, sir?" touching hat.</p> + +<p>"Yes: the landlord said we could not +drive fast because the road was bad. +Where is it bad?"</p> + +<p>"All along back of 'ere, sir," touching +hat. "We have pahst the worst of it +naow, sir: the rest is not so 'illy, sir," +touching hat.</p> + +<p>"Hilly? We haven't passed over anything +bigger than a knoll. If this is +what the landlord meant by a hilly road, +it <i>is</i> a rich joke. Why, it's as smooth as +a floor, almost."</p> + +<p>"He should go to California," says +Amy, who has feeling reminiscences. +"He should go to the Yosemite Valley, +over the road which runs through Chinese +Camp and Hodgden's. Probably +the man never saw a rough road in his +life. I doubt if there is such a thing in +England."</p> + +<p>After half an hour's trundling along +the unfenced roads of this fine old estate, +crossing ancient stone bridges, rolling +through leafy groves, startling fat cattle +from their browsing, getting a hat-touch +from a shepherd who is leading his flocks +across the fields in true pastoral style, we +reach the manor-house, standing stately +amid dells and dingles, pollards of fantastic +growth and patches of fern and +gorse. The Boyces have returned to +Paris, but nurse and the children are +still at the gardener's house, and thither +we drive along the banks of a sylvan +lake, beyond which the rooks are cawing +about the chimneys.</p> + +<p>The old gardener is nurse's father, +and though he is now so old that he no +longer does any work, he is maintained +in comfort by the family in whose service +he has spent a lifetime. Forty +years of honest service in one family! +No wonder he feels that his destiny is +for ever linked with that of the people +who have been his masters, man and +boy, for forty years. He has a delightful +little cottage with thatched roof and +mullioned windows, and pretty vines +rioting all over it, and in front of it a +flower-garden full of early bloom. The +lilacs which grow about so profusely are +not of the color of our lilacs in America, +being of a rich purple; we should +not know they were lilacs but for the +familiar odor.</p> + +<p>A delicious ride back to Romsey in +the twilight, carrying two of the Boyce +children with us. In the evening I stroll +out alone, to look at the village in the +moonlight. The streets are like narrow +lanes. The houses are very old, and +for the most part dilapidated, but streets +and houses are all as clean and neat as +wax. Presently I come upon the old +abbey, its rugged walls and towers looming +solemnly in the moonlight, and pass +the parson's house near by, all overrun +with vines, thinking of Trollope again +and Framley parsonage.</p> + +<p>Before going back to the White Horse +Inn I wander round the village until I +find that I am lost. The discovery is +not very alarming in a place so small +as this, even at night. I resolve to turn +every corner to the left, and see what +will come of it. I presently find that +getting out into the country comes of it; +and having crossed a bridge and come +upon a silent brickyard, and seen the +long road winding away into the open +country, I am reminded of Oliver Twist—or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page710" id="page710"></a>[pg 710]</span> +was it Pip?—running away from +home and trudging off under the stars +to London. Somehow, it seems this road +must lead to London.</p> + +<p>Turning about, but still walking at +random and turning left-hand corners, +I presently see the abbey tower again, +and make for it. The street through +which I pass is apparently the home of +the British working man. A light burning +in any house is most rare. Occasionally +a man can be seen through the +odd little windows, smoking a pipe by +the blaze of the fire on the hearth. Here +are the abbey windows, and now I know +where I am. Down this narrow, winding +street, across the open place where +Lord Palmerston stands stonily in the +moonlight, and I am at the White Horse +Inn again.</p> + +<p>At nine o'clock next morning there is +a rap at the door of my room. The +door being opened a man-servant is discovered, +who touches his forehead (having +no hat to touch) and says, "The +ladies would like to 'ave you breakfast +with them, sir."</p> + +<p>He is so very respectful in his manner +of saying this that he is inaudible, and +being asked what he said, repeats the +touching his forehead and then repeats +his words.</p> + +<p>There are no muffins at breakfast—a +fact which I record merely because this +is the first time since we have been in +England that this peculiarly English +dish has been omitted at breakfast. It +appears on inquiry that muffins are a +luxury of large towns. In villages they +are rarely obtainable at less than about a +week's notice. In fact, you can't get anything +to eat, of any sort, without pretty +liberal notice.</p> + +<p>After breakfast we go to see the old +abbey. It is an imposing and well-preserved +pile. It was founded by Ethelwold, +a thane—one of those righting, +praying, thieving old rascals who lived +in the tenth century, and made things +lively for any one who went past their +houses with money on his person. When +Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large +sum one day, he founded the monastery +and stocked it with nuns. It was but a +wooden shanty at first, but after having +served till it was worm-eaten and rotting +with age, it was torn down and a fine +stone convent was built.</p> + +<p>We walk about in that part of the abbey +which is free from pews—by far the +larger part—and stare at the monumental +stones let into the floor and walls. +If we did not know that Romsey had +been the home of Palmerston, we should +learn it now, for these stones are thickly +covered with the legends of virtue in his +family—wives, sisters, sons and so forth, +whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." +After perusing these numerous +testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues +of an aristocracy whom we are permitted +to survive, and after dropping +some shillings in the charity-box, which +rather startle us by the noise they make, +we pass out of the cool abbey into the +hot churchyard, and read on a lonely +stone which stands in a corner by the +gate that here lies the dust of Mary Ann +Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful servant +to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no +doubt had other virtues, but they are not +recorded: this is sufficient for a servant.</p> + +<p>An hour's ride on the velvet cushions +of a railway carriage brings us, with our +Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to +Southampton, which was an old town +when King Canute was young. We +take rooms at a pretentious marble hotel +with a mansard roof, attached to the +station—a railroad hotel, in fact, but +strikingly unlike that institution as we +know it in America. Wide halls, solid +stone staircases, gorgeous coffee-room, +black-coated waiters, and the inevitable +buxom landlady with a regiment of +blooming daughters for assistants—one +presiding over the accounts, another +officiating at the beer-pumps, a third to +answer questions, and all very much +under the influence of their back hair +and other charms of person. One of +them alleviates the monotony of the +office duties by working at embroidery +in bright worsteds.</p> + +<p>Strolling out, Bunker and I consult +certain shabby worthies who are yawning +on the boxes of a long line of wretched +hacks drawn up by the sidewalk +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page711" id="page711"></a>[pg 711]</span> +across the street, and find that we can +charter a vehicle for two shillings an +hour. These cabbies have more nearly +the air of our own noble hackmen than +any we have seen in England. Americans +are no novelty to them, for ship-loads +of American tourists are put off +here at frequent intervals, and the cabbies +have a thin imitation of the voting +hackman's independence. They stop +short, however, of his impudence. They +are lazy, but they touch their hats occasionally.</p> + +<p>We choose two of the tumble-down +vehicles and go after the ladies. My +driver is an elderly man with a hat +which has seen better days, and I have +chosen his hack, not because it is less +likely to drop off its wheels than the +others, but because he himself looks +like a seedy Bohemian. He proves to +be a very intelligent fellow, with a ready +turn for description which serves him in +good stead whenever his horse gets tired +of walking and stops short. At such +times our Bohemian pretends that he +has stopped the horse himself in order +to point out and comment upon some +curious thing in the immediate vicinity.</p> + +<p>It is pleasant driving. The hack is +open, and we hoist sun-umbrellas and +look about comfortably. Presently the +weary horse stops in the middle of the +street.</p> + +<p>"'Ere you are, sir," says Cabby briskly, +turning half round on his box and +pointing to an old stone structure which +stretches quite across the High street. +"This 'ere is the old Bar Gate, sir, one +of the hancient gates of the town. Part +of the horiginal town wall. Was a large +ditch 'ere, sir, and another there, and a +stone bridge betwixt the two, and the +young bucks in them days did use to +practice harchery right 'ere where you +see the lamp-post. The Guild'all is <i>hin</i> +the gate, sir, right hinside it, with a passage +hup. I'll drive through the harch, +sir, and you'll see the hother side. +Cluck!" (to the horse).</p> + +<p>On the other side, the horse not taking +a notion to stop again, the driver is not +forced to resume his remarks. Turning +about as we pass on, we look up at the +old Norman gate-tower, with its handsome +archway and projecting buttresses, +and Amy says she fancies she sees a +knight in armor looking out through the +narrow crevice which may have been a +window in olden times. This, being an +altogether proper fancy for the place, is +received with applause.</p> + +<p>The next time the horse concludes to +stop we are in the midst of what is here +called the Common—in fact, a magnificent +old forest park, with a smooth road +running through it, and numberless winding +paths in among the bosky depths. +I fancy Central Park might come to look +like this if allowed to go untrimmed and +unfussed-over for two or three hundred +years.</p> + +<p>"The Common, sir," says Cabby, +turning about, "where King Chawles did +use to 'unt wild boars. Fav'rite walk of +Halexander Pope, sir, the poet, and Doctor +Watts, which wrote the 'ymn-book. +Cluck!"</p> + +<p>From the top of a high hill a splendid +wide landscape is seen, with Romsey in +the distance, and (the horse having +stopped again) Cabby points out Queen +Elizabeth's shooting-box across the fields. +In a lot close by cricketers are at play, +and a little farther on, where there is a +vine-covered beerhouse, a crowd of clod-hoppers +are gathered in a green field, +looking at two of their number engaged +in a rough-and-tumble fight in their +shirt-sleeves.</p> + +<p>The road after this running down hill, +the horse continues to jog along for a +considerable distance, stopping at last +under a towering old wall looking out +on the sea.</p> + +<p>"Wind Whistle Tower, sir," says Cabby, +pointing up at a square tower projecting +from the old wall overhead, and +above it the remains of an old round +tower thickly overrun with ivy. And, +using his fingers industriously, Cabby +proceeds to call off the names of various +castles and towers here visible—notably, +Prince Edward's Tower, bold and round, +from whose summit three men were looking +down.</p> + +<p>"What are those?" asks Bunker in +the carriage behind us, pointing to the +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page712" id="page712"></a>[pg 712]</span> +old brass guns which sit on the wall like +Humpty Dumpty.</p> + +<p>"Them, sir," says Cabby, "was put +there by 'Enry the Heighth, and this +'ere wall was the purtection of the town +when the Frenchmen hassaulted it."</p> + +<p>"Ho!" says Bunker, contemptuously. +"Just fancy one of our ironclads paying +any attention to the barking of those +popguns!"</p> + +<p>Whereupon the horse starts again, and +we go lazily on, Cabby dropping in a +word of enlightenment here and there +to the effect that this old tumble-down +part of the ancient wall is the celebrated +Arcade, which formed part of the wall +of the King's Palace; and this queer +old lane running up through the walls +like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that +is Bugle street, where in olden times the +warden blew; and here are the remains +of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and +circular arches and curious mouldings.</p> + +<p>Discharging the cab in the High street, +we walk about. In a shop where we +pause for a moment there is a quartette +of half-naked barbarians, such as, with +all our boasted varieties of humanity, +were never yet seen in New York. We +have abundant Chinese and Japanese +there, and occasionally an Arab or a +Turk, and the word African means with +us a man and a brother behind our chair +at dinner or wielding a razor in a barber-shop. +These men here are pure barbarians, +just landed from a vessel direct +from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and +their heads shaved in regular ridges of +black wool, with narrow patches of black +scalp between, they are here in a small +tradesman's shop in bowery England +buying shirts. They know not a word of +English, but chatter among themselves +the most horrible lingo known to the +Hamitic group of tongues. They grimace +in a frightful manner, and skip and +dance, and writhe their half-naked bodies +into the most exaggerated contortions +known to the language of signs. +The dignified English salesmen are at +their wits' end how to treat them. The +instinct of the British shopkeeper fights +desperately with his disposition to be +shocked. From the Ashantee gentlemen's +gestures it can only be concluded +that white shirts are wanted, but when +white shirts are shown the negroes make +furious objection to the plaited bosoms. +They want shirts such as are fashionable +at home. It is easy to be seen that +they are Dandy Jims in Africa. They +are all young, and, in a sense, spruce. +One of them carries a little switch cane, +evidently just bought: while he examines +the shirts, testing the strength of the stuff +by pulling it with his two hands, he holds +his cane between his bare legs for safe-keeping.</p> + +<p>Sitting in the billiard-room of the hotel +in the evening smoking our cigars, Bunker +and I are accosted by a brisk little +man, who asks us if we play billiards. +Bunker doesn't. I do sometimes at +home, but not the English game.</p> + +<p>"Oh, we play the 'Merican game too. +'Appy to play the 'Merican game with +you, sir."</p> + +<p>"Try him a game," says Bunker. "It +won't hurt you."</p> + +<p>Not liking to refuse an invitation from +a polite Englishman, who appears to be +a stranger here, I consent. This is billiard-room +etiquette the world over.</p> + +<p>The cue is like a whip-stock. It positively +runs down to a point not bigger +than a shirt-button, and it bends like a +switch. The balls are not much larger +than marbles. To make up for this, the +table is big enough for a back yard, +broad, high, dull of cushion, and with +six huge pockets. I am ignominiously +beaten. My ball jumps like a living +thing. It hops off the table upon the +floor at almost every shot, and when it +does not go on the floor it goes into one +of the six yawning pockets. The pockets +bear the same relative proportion to +the balls that a tea-cup bears to a French +pea. At the end of the game my ball +has been everywhere except where I intended +it to go, and I have "scratched" +thirty.</p> + +<p>"A hundred's the game," says the +Englishman, putting up his cue. "One +shilling."</p> + +<p>I wonder if this is an English custom—to +pay your victor a shilling, instead +of paying the keeper of the tables. But +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page713" id="page713"></a>[pg 713]</span> +as there is no one else to pay, I pay the +Englishman. Bunker has fallen asleep +in his chair.</p> + +<p>"Going on the Continent?" the Englishman +asks.</p> + +<p>"Not at present. We return to London +first, and go from there."</p> + +<p>"'Ave you got a guide?"</p> + +<p>I am on the point of saying that guides +are a nuisance I do not tolerate, when +the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. +"There is my card, sir," he says. +"A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." +On the opposite side I read—</p> + +<table summary="interpreter's card" align="center" width="90%"> +<tr> +<td>SPEAKS</td> +<td>SPRICHT</td> +<td>PARLE</td> +<td>PARLA</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>French,</td> +<td>Französich,</td> +<td>Frangais,</td> +<td>Francese,</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>German,</td> +<td>Deutsch,</td> +<td>Allemand,</td> +<td>Tedesco,</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>Italian and</td> +<td>Italienisch u.</td> +<td>Italien et</td> +<td>Italiano ed</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>English</td> +<td>Englisch</td> +<td>Anglais</td> +<td>Inglese</td> +</tr> +<tr> +<td>fluently.</td> +<td>sehr geläufig.</td> +<td>courrament.</td> +<td>correntemente.</td> +</tr> +</table> + +<p>At present he has charge of this billiard-room, +but he is ready to follow me +to the ends of the earth for a period of +not less than three months. I tell him +I can get on without a guide.</p> + +<p>"But I would go on the most reasonable +terms. I would go for as low as +ten pounds a month and my expenses."</p> + +<p>"Would you go for nothing?" Bunker +wakes up and pops this out at him +so suddenly as to quite take his breath +away.</p> + +<p>He expands his hands at his trousers +pockets, shrugs his shoulders and looks +volumes of reproach.</p> + +<p>"Because," Bunker adds, in a soothing +tone, "I shouldn't like to have you +along, even at that price."</p> + +<p>He immediately goes to putting the +room to rights.</p> + +<p>"Horrible breath that man had," says +Bunker when we come out: "did you +notice it?"</p> + +<p>"Yes."</p> + +<p>"Take that breath around with us on +the Continent! Why, if he was in Cologne +itself, his breath would be in the +majority."</p> + +<p>I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, +and next morning I can't find it +anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous +head-waiter if he knows of my +umbrella. He states that he does not. +After breakfast I look in the billiard-room. +It is not there. I go down to +the office, and interrupt the worsted +work there in progress by requesting +that a search be made for my missing +umbrella. The young lady whose ear I +have gained kindly condescends to call +the porter, and turning me over to that +functionary returns to her worsted. The +porter is respectful, but doubtful. The +moment he learns that the lost article +is an umbrella his manner is pervaded +with a gentle hopelessness. He, however, +listens forbearingly to my story.</p> + +<p>"And aboot what time was it, sir, when +ye went ty bed?"</p> + +<p>"About half-past eleven."</p> + +<p>"Oh, then the night porter ull know +of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll ask him +when he gets oop."</p> + +<p>And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, +I take a covered cab, because of my lost +umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella +to keep off the sun. Nobody can make +an umbrella like an Englishman. I +should be sorry to lose it. I bought it +in Regent street only a few days ago, +but I already love it with a passionate +affection.</p> + +<p>Through the hot paved streets, over a +floating bridge, past the cliff at the river's +mouth, through a shady grove of +noble yews and sycamores, past a picturesque +hamlet full of vine-curtained +and straw-thatched cottages, through a +forest of oaks and past a willow copse, +and there is the grand old ruin of Netley +Abbey lifting its picturesque and solemn +fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops +of the trees which surround and shelter +it in its hoary age.</p> + +<p>It is really curious how dramatically +effective a grand old ruin is. The weird +sense of being in the presence of olden +time comes over us immediately. We +look about us to see the spirit of some +cloistered monk come stealing by with +hood and girdle. Here—actually here, +in these nooks all crumbling under +Time's gnawing tooth—did old Cistercian +monks kneel with shaved heads +and confess their sins, and their bones +have been powdered into dust three +hundred years! Romsey Abbey—within +whose well-kept walls we rather yawned +over Palmerstonian eulogiums—is a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page714" id="page714"></a>[pg 714]</span> +thousand years old. This abbey is only +six hundred and thirty-two years old. +Romsey has been restored, and modern +men go to church there on Sunday decorously. +Netley has been left to go to +utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn +aisles. Owls hoot in its moss-clothed +chimneys. It is dramatically +effective.</p> + +<p>We wander through cloistered courts +into the main body of the church. Yonder +stood the pulpit, here gathered the +worshipers. The carpet is green grass. +Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers +from side to side of the tall windows, +in place of the stained glass once there. +Most of the windows have tumbled to +decay, walls and all. The roof is the +sky—naught else.</p> + +<p>We climb up the stone staircase in the +turret. All the stone steps are worn +with deep hollows where human feet have +trodden up and down for centuries, and +storms have sent rivulets of water pouring +through many a wild night. Some +of the steps are worn quite in two and +broken away, which makes the ascent +frightening to the ladies.</p> + +<p>Up here ("on the second floor," as +Bunker says) the carpet is again grass, +and Bunker and I clamber through a +little archway into the cloister gallery, +where the monks used to look down on +the service below when they felt inclined. +The ladies look after us, brave adventurers +that we are (only two or three +million men have been here before us, +perhaps, since the ruin became a popular +success), and refuse to follow in our +rash footsteps. The crumbling wall is +full of owls' nests. Rooks and swallows +fly continually in and out of their holes. +We could kick a loose stone down into +the chancel if there were any stones to +kick.</p> + +<p>The ladies declare themselves dizzy +and afraid, and we help them down the +dark winding turret staircase again, and +go into the enclosed parts of the ruin. +Here is where the monks lived. The +walls still stand, and parts of the roof. +The windows are thickly ivy-hung and +moss-grown. Here is the room where +the monks did whilom dine. For three +hundred years this dining-room was in +daily use, and in the spot where erst the +dining-table stood now grows a stalwart +tree, whose branches tower and spread +beyond the crumbling walls. Passing +strange!</p> + +<p>More strange is the sight in the next +room, the chapter-house, where the abbot +held his gravest councils, and where +the most honored of the monks were +buried beneath the floor when they died. +And since the roof fell in, after long +battling with storms, perhaps a hundred +years after the last monk was buried, +one day a seed fell. A tree grew up in +the room. It spread its tall branches +high above the piled-up stones, and +shook its brown leaves down, autumn +after autumn, for years and years. It +grew slowly old, and at last it died. It +fell down in its death in the room where +it had grown, and its once sturdy trunk +struck against the old ruined walls and +broke. Its roots were torn out of the +ground by the fall, and stuck up their +gnarled fingers in the empty room. And +the grass grew over the roots, weaving +a green cloak to hide their nakedness. +The old trunk stretches now across the +space in the room, and leans its old +head against the abbey wall. I didn't +read this story in a guide-book. It was +told to me by the principal actor, the tree.</p> + +<p>In the abbot's kitchen we get into the +huge hooded fireplace—seven of us—and +there is room for more. We look +up the chimney and see the glossy green +ivy leaves overhead, and the blue sky +shining beyond them. We toss a pebble +down into the subterranean passage +where, they say, the monks were wont +to pass out after provisions during a time +of siege; which must have been somewhat +demoralizing to the besiegers, whoever +they were. I stoop to pick up something +in the grass of the kitchen floor, +which has a glitter of gold upon it, and +my face flushes with eager anticipation +as I seize it.</p> + +<p>"What have you found?" asks Amy.</p> + +<p>"A relic of the monks?" asks Bunker.</p> + +<p>"It's a champagne cork," I am forced +to reply. "The truth is, Netley Abbey +is a show, like Niagara Falls and Bunker +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page715" id="page715"></a>[pg 715]</span> +Hill Monument. Of course crowds +of tourists come here, and of course +they pop champagne and ginger beer, +and cut their confounded initials in the +venerable stones."</p> + +<p>"Yes," says Bunker, "I saw 'W.S.' +cut in the wall at the top of the turret +stairs. Saves you the trouble, you +know."</p> + +<p>"I don't do that sort of thing, thank +you."</p> + +<p>Nevertheless, it was curious to see +some nobody's name cut at full length +in the stone, with the date underneath—1770.</p> + +<p>When we return to the hotel the night +porter reports that he has not found my +umbrella. So I must go off without it. +Our train leaves at ten minutes past five +this afternoon, and we shall be in London +early in the evening. It is now four +o'clock: we have ordered dinner for this +hour, and so we sit down to our soup.</p> + +<p>"Please give us our dinner without any +delay now," I say to the pompous head-waiter, +"for we must take the train at +ten minutes past five."</p> + +<p>The man bows stiffly and retires. We +finish the soup, and wait. When we get +tired of waiting we call the head-waiter +to us: "Are you hastening our dinner?"</p> + +<p>"Fish directly, sir," he answers, and +walks solemnly away. We begin to +grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the +soup, and no fish yet. Bunker swears +he'll blow the head-waiter up in another +minute. Just as he is quite ready for +this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! +I lay it open.</p> + +<p>"Why, it's not done!" I cry in consternation. +"There, there! Take it +away, and bring the meat."</p> + +<p>With an air of grave offence the man +bears it solemnly out. Then we wait +again. And wait. And wait.</p> + +<p>"Good gracious!" cries Bunker, +"here's half an hour gone, and we've +had nothing but soup! I really must +blow this fellow up."</p> + +<p>"Stop! there it comes."</p> + +<p>Enter the waiter with great dignity, +and solemnly deposits before us—the +fish again!</p> + +<p>He has had it recooked. We attack +it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for Goodness' +sake bring the rest of the dinner +<i>instantly</i>, or we must leave it.</p> + +<p>"And I'm about half starved," growls +Bunker.</p> + +<p>More waiting. Five minutes pass. +Ten.</p> + +<p>"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries +Bunker, jumping up with his napkin +round his neck, and striding over to the +head-waiter, where he stands in a Turveydroppy +attitude, leaning against a +sideboard with his arms folded. "Look +here!" Bunker ejaculates: "<i>can</i> you be +made to understand that we are in a +hurry? Would half a dollar be any inducement +to you to wake up and look +around lively? Because we have got to +take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," +showing his watch, "and as the +dinner is already paid for, I want to get +it before I go."</p> + +<p>"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass +with slow indifference, "dinner directly. +John!" to our waiter, who is now placing +the meat on the table, "serve the genl'm'n's +dinner <i>directly</i>."</p> + +<p>Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown +stares at Harlequin after having cut him +in two, in dumb amazement at the fact +that Harlequin is not in the least disturbed +by being cut in two.</p> + +<p>"I wonder," he mutters as he returns +to the table, "if that unmitigated wooden +image of a dunderhead would pay any +attention if I were to kick him?"</p> + +<p>"No—not if you were to tie a pack +of fire-crackers to his coat-tail and light +them. He knows his business too well. +The first duty of an English head-waiter +is to be dignified, as it is that of a French +head-waiter to be vigilant and polite."</p> + +<p>"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I +don't suppose the man had an idea of +what you meant by 'those cars,' if he +even knew what a half dollar signified."</p> + +<p>"Well, we must be off. Time's up. +We shall miss the train. Good-bye, +boys. You can sit still and finish your +dinner in peace."</p> + +<p>Good-bye to our friends from Paultons—good-bye. +And then we rush out, and +<i>do</i> miss the train. It is five o'clock ten +minutes and a quarter.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page716" id="page716"></a>[pg 716]</span> + +<p>English trains go on time—English +dinners don't.</p> + +<p>We finally get off at seven o'clock. +Just before we leave a waiter comes up +to me and says in a casual manner, +"Found your humbreller yet, sir?"</p> + +<p>"No."</p> + +<p>"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, +sir?"</p> + +<p>"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with +an ivory handle."</p> + +<p>"W'y, I wouldn't wonder if that was +your humbreller in the corner now in the +reading-room, sir."</p> + +<p>I make haste to look. Yes, there it +is, my beloved, long-lost umbrella, quietly +leaning against the wall in a dark +corner, behind a pillar, behind a big +arm-chair, where nobody ever placed it, +I'll take my oath, but this rascally waiter, +who expects to get a shilling for +showing where he hid it.</p> + +<p>"Is <i>that</i> your humbreller, sir?" the +waiter says, rubbing his hands and getting +in my way as I walk briskly out, at +peril of being stumbled over by my hurrying +feet. I scorn to reply, but I give +him a glance of such withering contempt +that I trust it pierced to his wicked heart, +and will remain there, a punishment and +a warning, to the last day of his base +life. An English waiter's hide is very +thick, however. He has probably hidden +many a gentleman's umbrella since.</p> + +<p>At eleven o'clock we are back in our +cozy London lodgings, and at twelve +we are sleeping the sleep of profound +fatigue, and dreaming of ghostly monks +wandering among the weird old ruins of +Netley.</p> + +<p class="author">WIRT SIKES.</p> + + + + +<h2>DAY-DREAM.</h2> + + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Here, in the heart of the hills, I lie,</p> +<p>Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky—</p> +<p>An amethyst and an emerald stone</p> +<p>Hung and hollowed for me alone!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Is it a dream, or can it be</p> +<p>That there is life apart from me?—</p> +<p>A larger world than the circling bound</p> +<p>Of light and color that lap me round?</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Drowsily, dully, through my brain,</p> +<p>Like some recurrent, vague refrain,</p> +<p>A world of fancy comes and goes—</p> +<p>Shadowy pleasures, shadowy woes.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Spectral toils and troubles seem</p> +<p>Fashioned out of this foolish dream:</p> +<p>Round my charmèd quiet creep</p> +<p>Phantom creatures that laugh and weep.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Nay, I know they are meaningless,</p> +<p>Visions of utter idleness:</p> +<p>Nothing was, nor ever will be,</p> +<p>Save the hills and the heavens and me.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page717" id="page717"></a>[pg 717]</span> + + + + +<h2>OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP.</h2> + +<h3>THE GLADSTONE FAMILY.</h3> + + +<p>There is no doubt that had Mr. +Gladstone followed his personal +inclinations when his Irish education +scheme broke down last March, he +would have retired from office. He is +now sixty-four, and it may be fairly +questioned whether there exists a man +who for forty-six years has worked his +brain harder. It is no light labor to +read for the highest honors in even one +school at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone +read for them in two. He gained "a +double first," which meant at that time +a first class both in classics and mathematics. +Forthwith he plunged into political +essay-writing, until in 1834 he +further added to his labors by entering +the House of Commons as M.P. for +Newark.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone's father was, as most +people are aware, a Liverpool merchant +of Scotch descent. This gentleman was +the architect of his own fortunes, which +arose in no slight degree out of his connection +with the United States. Having +been sent to this country by a firm largely +interested in the corn trade, he discharged +their business to their entire +satisfaction, whilst at the same time he +made very valuable business connections +on his own account, which materially +served him when at a later period he +himself embarked in business. He +made a large fortune, but it did not appear +at his death to be so great as it was, +because he gave his younger sons the +bulk of their portions during his lifetime—to +avoid legacy duty, people said. To +his eldest son he left considerable estates +in Scotland—to the younger sons, about +one hundred thousand pounds apiece. +The eldest, Sir Thomas Gladstone, is +a very worthy man, but nowise remarkable +for ability. He has one son, and +has had six daughters. Four survive, +and all are unmarried.</p> + +<p>The next brother, Robertson, an eccentric +person whose indiscreet speeches +must often have made his statesman +brother feel very hot, continues the paternal +business at Liverpool. The third, +John Neilson, was, socially speaking, +the flower of the flock. He was a captain +in the navy, from which he had retired +many years prior to his death in +1863, and a member of Parliament. +By his wife, a singularly excellent and +charming woman, he had several children, +who may be said to pretty nearly +monopolize the feminine charms of the +Gladstone family. One of these married +the earl of Belmore, an Irish nobleman, +who lately returned from a not very +successful gubernatorial career in New +South Wales. Both Sir Thomas and +Captain Gladstone were decided Conservatives.</p> + +<p>William Ewart is the fourth brother. +"That young brother of mine will make +a noise in the world some of these days," +said Captain Gladstone to a fellow-middy +as his brother turned away from bidding +him good-bye just before he was +about to start on a cruise; and the words +were certainly prophetic. Mr. Gladstone +married when he was thirty. His wife +was one of the two sisters of Sir Stephen +Glynne. The English aristocracy +contains a great many sets, and the +Glynnes were in the intellectual set, +comprising such men as the dukes of +Argyll and Devonshire, and Lords Derby, +Stanhope and Lyttelton. Mrs. Gladstone +and her sister were married on the +same day to two of the finest intellects +of their time. The younger, whose mental +gifts were far superior to those of her +sister, married Lord Lyttelton.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone has a large family. +The eldest son has for some time been +in Parliament, but has established no +reputation for notable capacity, and it is +said that, with the exception of one of +his younger brothers, none of the family +are remarkable in this respect. Mrs. +Gladstone is a person of great kindness +of heart and untiring benevolence. She +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page718" id="page718"></a>[pg 718]</span> +is full of schemes for doing good: hospitals, +convalescent institutions, etc. find +in her an ever-ready friend, to the neglect, +it is whispered, of her domestic +duties. There is an amusing story told +of how some time ago a few guests arrived +at her house in response to an invitation +to dinner. They waited in vain +for the rest of the party, for whose delay +their hostess was at a loss to account. +At length she turned aside and opened +her blotting-book, which quickly revealed +the cause of the guests' non-appearance—the +invitations were lying there. +They had been written, but never sent.</p> + +<p>In London the prime minister—who +has an indifferent official residence, +which he and his family have occasionally +occupied, in Downing street—lives in +Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful +house, but not by any means well +adapted for party-giving, for it is so +constructed that circulation is almost +impossible. If you once get into a +room, you must stay there; whereas +half the charm of Lady Palmerston's +famous parties at Cambridge House was +the free circulation the rooms afforded, +enabling you to pass right round a quadrangle, +and thus easily find an acquaintance +or get away from a bore. Mr. +Gladstone's house has a fine double +staircase, and it will derive interest in +after days from the circumstance that, +standing at the head, Lord Russell took +leave of the party he had led, and pointed +to his then host as his successor.</p> + +<p>Carlton-House Terrace is in many +respects the most delightful situation in +London, for, whilst extremely central, it +is very quiet. It stands between Pall Mall +and St. James's Park. One side faces a +strip of beautifully kept garden, which +lies between the terrace and the row of +palaces formed by the Senior United +Service, Athenaeum, Travelers' and Carlton +Clubs. The other side has a charming +prospect over St. James's Park. In +summer this is really lovely, for all ugly +objects are obscured by the foliage, amid +which glimpses are obtained of the pinnacles +and fretted towers of the palace +of Parliament on the one hand, and +those of its venerable neighbor, the +majestic abbey, on the other. It was here +that Bunsen passed his London days, +and the reader of his memoirs will +remember frequent references to the +charms of his house. It may well be +imagined how great a boon it is to the +toil-worn minister to find himself, as it +were, in a garden, with only the distant +roar, like that of the sea, to remind him +as he sits in his study that five minutes +walk across that pleasant park will bring +him to Downing street, and three more +to the Treasury bench in the House of +Commons.</p> + +<p>In the country most of his time is +spent at Hawarden Castle in Flintshire, +about six hours from London. This is +the ancestral seat of Mrs. Gladstone's +brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, lord lieutenant +of the county, whose family have +held this property for centuries. Sir +Stephen is a very shy man of retired +habits. By a family arrangement his +house is the country abode of his sister +and brother-in-law.</p> + +<p>In earlier life, Sir Stephen and his two +brothers-in-law, Mr. Gladstone and Lord +Lyttelton, formed an unfortunately favorable +estimate of certain mines, into +which much of the fortune of Sir Stephen +and his sisters went, and from which it +never came out again. There was one +other brother, the late rector of Hawarden. +He died about a year ago, and +Mr. Gladstone's second son, Stephen, +was appointed his successor. The living, +in the gift of Sir Stephen, is very valuable. +Mr. Glynne, the clergyman, died +without a son, and the title will therefore +on Sir Stephen's death be extinct. As +matters now stand, it may be presumed +that Mr. W.H. Gladstone, the prime +minister's eldest son, will succeed to the +Hawarden estates.</p> + +<p>Mr. Gladstone has himself recently increased +the family interest around Hawarden +by purchase. About five years +ago the state of his finances were the +talk of the town, and a number of people, +especially of the Conservative party, +avowed themselves in a position to assert +from personal knowledge that he was +ruined. There was no just ground for +such a statement, and like so many other +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page719" id="page719"></a>[pg 719]</span> +absurd rumors it died out. None of Mr. +Gladstone's daughters are married, nor +is his eldest son.</p> + + + + +<h3>WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS.</h3> + + +<p>Certain great festivals of the Christian +Church which were ignored by the +Puritans and Quakers have always continued +in high repute among the Pennsylvania +Germans. Christmas, Easter, +Whitsuntide and Ascension Day are celebrated +not only in the Lutheran, the +Reformed or Calvinistic and the Moravian +churches, but among the descendants +of those Swiss Anabaptists who, +being driven from their homes by religious +persecution, finally took shelter in +that part of the land of Penn now called +Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians +being known among us by the names +of Mennists and Amish (pronounced +Menneests and Ommish).</p> + +<p>The movable feast of Whitsunday or +Pentecost, which occurs on the seventh +Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion +in the Mennonite meetings, for at +this time is held one of the great semi-annual +observances of bread-breaking +and feet-washing. The ensuing day, +Whitmonday, is a great secular festival. +All the spring bonnets are then in readiness +for the "Dutch" girls. The young +farmer of eighteen or more, whose father +has granted his heart's desire in the form +of a buggy, or who has otherwise attained +to that summit of rural felicity, harnesses +and attaches to it one of the horses +with which the farm is so well supplied, +and takes his girl into the county-town. +Here they walk the streets, partake of +simple refreshments, meet their acquaintances +or talk with them in the tavern +parlor. Sometimes they visit a circus or +menagerie whose managers have made +a timely visit to our inland city.</p> + +<p>On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while +the Dutch boys are working the corn, +you may perchance hear their father's +voice raised to a higher pitch than usual, +which circumstance he explains when +he comes in sight, thus: "The boys is +sleepy to-day. Yesterday was Whissuntide, +you know. They got home late." +For custom forbids their leaving the girl +of their choice before the small hours, +and allows them, nevertheless, no remission +from labor on the succeeding +day.</p> + +<p>The people, however, whose religious +services I am about to describe impose +upon their members a stricter rule of +earlier hours, etc. They are called New +(or Reformed) Mennists.</p> + +<p>It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, +that I paid a visit to one of our New +Mennist meeting-houses, and found before +nine o'clock in the morning that the +services had already begun. The first +apartment we entered was a sort of tiring-room, +where along the walls hung the +shawls and black sun-bonnets of the +sisters. Here were also traveling-bags, +and a cradle stood ready to receive one +or more of the babies that were in attendance. +In the adjoining room were heard +the familiar notes of "Old Hundred," +and "Du bist der Weg" was sung pleasantly +without any instrumental accompaniment.</p> + +<p>When we entered the whitewashed +apartment in which the meeting had assembled +I saw upon a small platform at +the farther end five men, who were apparently +preachers or elders. At the +same end of the room were seated the +soberly clad members of the sect—the +men on one side of the apartment, with +their broad-brimmed hats removed; on +the other side the sisters, with their extremely +plain book-muslin caps and +otherwise sober attire.</p> + +<p>A portion of the services was in English. +Dr. ——, a practitioner of medicine +and a bishop in this Church, spoke +extemporaneously in our language. He +gave a long account of the ordinances +of the Jewish Church, and then of those +which the "Lord Jesus instituted in the +place of these—the baptism that was +celebrated a week ago, and this Lord's +Supper, this feet-washing, this kiss of +peace, this manner of visiting offenders;" +the last phrase being an allusion +to the severe rule which forbids the New +or Reformed Mennists to eat, etc. with +those excommunicated by the society.</p> + +<p>The Mennists, as I understand, hold +in general those doctrines that are +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page720" id="page720"></a>[pg 720]</span> +considered evangelical. The services were +much prolonged, and the congregation +became restless. But at length, while +a younger brother was speaking in +"Dutch" or German, there came in another +bearing a parcel wrapped in a white +cloth. He was followed by one +carrying something tied in a blue-and-white +cloth, which being opened disclosed +a demijohn. The white parcel +was received by the preacher upon the +desk, and when opened showed a great +loaf of our beautiful Lancaster county +bread divided into slices. After prayer +several preachers took slices, and passing +around among the congregation +broke off bits which they gave to the +communicants. The wine in the demijohn +was then poured into small, bright +tin cups, like milkmen's measures, and +was distributed among the members. A +hymn in the German language was +sung, two lines at a time, while the wine +was handed round.</p> + +<p>After these services were concluded +feet-washing began by reading the passage +from the 13th chapter of John on +the subject, and this was followed by +many remarks. I observed that one +elderly brother, speaking in a mournful +tone and in our Dutch manner, quoted, +"Nimmermehr soll du mein Fees +wasche" ("Thou shalt never wash my +feet"). These discourses were followed +by the announcement, "Next Sunday +there will be bread-breaking at +Landisville."</p> + +<p>Now arose a confusion from carrying +out benches, from arranging others in two +long rows facing each other, etc. The +two principal preachers were seen disencumbered +of their coats, much animated +conversation began, and feet-washing +did not seem to be observed +with so much seriousness as the Supper. +I took a seat near the end of two long +benches which were arranged to face +each other, and on which sat some of +the brethren whose feet were to be washed +by one of the preachers. Common +unpainted tubs containing water were +brought in by two men. Dr. ——, the +bishop already mentioned, had a great +piece of white linen tied around his +waist. He passed along between the +two rows of men as they sat facing +each other, bearing his tub alternately +from a brother in one row to one in the +other, so that both rows were finished at +about the same time. Quietly the men +took off their shoes and stockings. They +did not put their feet forward much. As +Dr. —— came to each participant he +set his tub down before him, washed his +feet a little, wiped them on the long +white apron or towel, then shook hands +with him and kissed him. He thus +ministered to thirty persons, a somewhat +laborious undertaking, but his powerful +frame was suited to the exertion. The +same water and the same towel served +for all.</p> + +<p>Meantime, the sisters, in another part +of the room, were arranged in smaller +companies on benches placed in a similar +manner. I said to a sister, "Do the +preachers wash the sisters' feet?"</p> + +<p>"Oh no," she answered: "the sisters +does it."</p> + +<p>Some of the sisters were very friendly, +and not unwilling to converse. One +said, "One sister washes as many as she +is pretty well able: it's hard on the +back."</p> + +<p>"And does she have a towel?" said I.</p> + +<p>"She girds a towel, and then she +washes and wipes them, and gives them +a kiss."</p> + +<p>"Do you all have your feet washed?" +I inquired further.</p> + +<p>"No, not those that have any weakness +that prevents."</p> + +<p>"And will all these brothers have their +feet washed?"</p> + +<p>"All that communes."</p> + +<p>"And do not all commune?"</p> + +<p>"Yes, without they feel that they have +something against another. Now if I +feel that I have something against her—placing +her hand upon a sister.</p> + +<p>"I understand," interrupted I. "'If +thou bring thy gift to the altar—' And +how many," I continued, "will there +be in such a meeting as this that will +not commune? Will there be half a +dozen?"</p> + +<p>"Oh yes; but by another year all will +likely be right, and then they will +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page721" id="page721"></a>[pg 721]</span> +commune. Now, I did not commune nor +have my feet washed."</p> + +<p>"Why not?" said I.</p> + +<p>"Why, I felt at this time such confusion +of mind, as if the Enemy was +against me—"</p> + +<p>"Well, it was not anything against a +brother or sister?"</p> + +<p>"No, I count them all ahead of me: +I count myself the poorest member."</p> + +<p>At the conclusion of the feet-washing +a hymn was sung. Among those who +had their feet washed was a young man +apparently about twenty-two, and who +looked full of fun. It seems that even +such may be in membership with so +strict a sect. It was about one o'clock +when the meeting ended, having been +in session four hours and a half.</p> + +<p>The great simplicity of the surroundings +on this occasion may lead the reader +to suppose that the congregation was +poor. It was, however, composed in a +great measure of some of the thriftiest +farmers in one of the richest upland sections +of the United States.</p> + +<p>Some time after attending this meeting +I called upon an aged Amish man to +converse with him upon their religious +society, etc. The Amish are another +branch of the Mennonites, and those +among us are likewise descendants of +Swiss refugees. They are the most +primitive of the three divisions of the +sect, preserving the use of the Dutch or +German language not only in their religious +meetings, but almost entirely in +their own families.</p> + +<p>I mentioned to this aged man the feet-washing +that I had attended, and told +how Dr. ——, the bishop, had washed +the feet of the other brethren.</p> + +<p>"Did he wash them all?" said my +Amish acquaintance.</p> + +<p>"Yes, all that were assigned to him. +How is it among you?"</p> + +<p>"They wash each other's, every two +and two. If he washes them all, he +puts himself in Christ's place. <i>He</i> says, +'Wash each other's feet.'"</p> + +<p>This, I am also informed, is the rule +among the third division, the Old Mennists, +the most numerous branch of these +remarkable people.</p> + +<p class="author">P.E.G.</p> + + + + +<h3>THE RAW AMERICAN.</h3> + + +<p>London at present abounds in Americans +on their way to the Vienna Exposition. +Many of them are commissioners +from various States. Some have +lands to sell or other financial axes to +grind. Of such the Langham Hotel is +full. The Langham is the nearest approach +to an American hotel in London. +There, though not a guest, you may pass +in and out without explaining to the +hall-porter who you are, what you are, +where you come from or what you want: +you may there enter and retire without +giving your pedigree, naturalization papers +or a certificate of good character. +At other English hotels something analogous +to this is commonly required.</p> + +<p>We, who have been in England a full +year, look down with an air of superiority +on the raw, the newly-arrived American. +We are quite English. We have +worn out our American clothes. We +have on English hats with tightly-curled +rims and English stub-toed boots. We +know the intricacies of London street +navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, +Camden Town, Hackney, the "Surrey +Side," Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford +streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are +all mapped out distinctly in our mind's +eye. We are skilled in English money, +and no longer pass off half crowns for +two-shilling pieces. We are real Anglo-Americans.</p> + +<p>But the raw American, only arrived a +week, is in a maze, a confusion, a hurry. +He is excited and mystified. He tries +to appear cool and unconcerned, and is +simply ridiculous. His cards, bearing +his name, title and official status, he distributes +as freely as doth the winter wind +the snow-flakes. Inquire at the Langham +office for Mr. Smith, and you find +he has blossomed into General Smith.</p> + +<p>He is always partaking or about to +partake of official dinners. He feels +that the eyes of all England are upon +him. He is dressed <i>à la</i> bandbox—hat +immaculate in its pristine gloss, white +cravat, umbrella of the slimmest encased +in silken wrapper. A speck of mud on +his boots would tarnish the national +honor. Commonly, he is taken for a +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page722" id="page722"></a>[pg 722]</span> +head-butler. He drinks much stout. +He eats a whitebait dinner before being +forty-eight hours in London, and tells of +it. All this makes him feel English.</p> + +<p>You meet him. He is overjoyed. He +would talk of everything—your mutual +experience in America, his sensations +and impressions since arriving in England. +He talks intelligibly of nothing. +His brain is a mere rag-bag, shreddy, +confused, parti-colored. Thus he empties +it: "Passage over rough;" "London +wonderful;" "Dined with the earl of —— yesterday;" +"Dine with Sir —— +to-day;" "To the Tower;" "Westminster;" +"New York growing;" "Saint +Paul's"—going, going, gone! and he +shakes hands with you, and is off at a +Broadway gait straight toward the East +End of London for his hotel, which lies +at the West End.</p> + +<p>In reality, the man is not in his right +mind. He is undergoing the mental acclimatization +fever. Should he stay in +London for three months, he might recover +and begin to find out where he is. +But six months hence he will have returned +to America, fancying he has seen +London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, +and whatever other places his body has +been hurried through, not his mind; for +that, in the excitement and rapidity of +his flight, has streamed behind him like +the tail of a comet, light, attenuated, +vapory, catching nothing, absorbing +nothing.</p> + +<p>Occasionally this fever takes an abusive +phase. He finds in England nothing +to like, nothing to admire. Sometimes +he wishes immediately to revolutionize +the government. He is incensed +at the cost of royalty. He sees on every +side indications of political upheaval. +Or he becomes culinarily disgusted. +Because there are no buckwheat cakes, +no codfish cakes, no hot bread, no pork +and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, +fried and roasted, he can find nothing +fit to eat. The English cannot cook. +Because he can find no noisy, clattering, +dish-smashing restaurant, full of acrobatic +waiters racing and balancing under +immense piles of plates, and shouting +jargon untranslatable, unintelligible and +unpronounceable down into the lower +kitchen, he cannot, cannot eat.</p> + +<p class="author">PRENTICE MULFORD.</p> + + + + +<h2>FAREWELL.</h2> + + +<p>The occasion commemorated in the +following verses—one of those festive +meetings with which tender-hearted +Philadelphians are wont to brace themselves +up for sorrowful partings—called +forth expressions of deep regret and cordial +good wishes, in which many of our +readers, we doubt not, will readily join:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>If from my quivering lips in vain</p> +<p class="i2">The faltering accents strove to flow,</p> +<p>It was because my heart's deep pain</p> +<p class="i2">Bade tears be swift and utterance slow;</p> +<p>For in that moment rose the ghosts</p> +<p class="i2">Of pleasant hours in bygone years;</p> +<p>And your kind faces, O my hosts!</p> +<p class="i2">Showed blurred and dimly through my tears.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>I could not tell you of the pride</p> +<p class="i2">That thrilled me in that parting hour:</p> +<p>Grief held command all undenied,</p> +<p class="i2">And only o'er my speech had power.</p> +<p>I found no words to tell the thoughts</p> +<p class="i2">That strove for utterance in my brain:</p> +<p>With gratitude my soul was fraught,</p> +<p class="i2">And yet I only spoke of pain.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>O friends! 'tis you, and such as you,</p> +<p class="i2">That make this parting hard to bear!</p> +<p>Pass all things else my past life knew:</p> +<p class="i2">I scarcely heed—I do not care.</p> +<p>I lose in you the dearest part</p> +<p class="i2">Of pleasant time that here now ends:</p> +<p>Hand parts from hand, <i>not</i> heart from heart,</p> +<p class="i2">And I must leave you, O my friends!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>What can the future's fairest hours</p> +<p class="i2">Bring me to recompense for these?</p> +<p>Acquaintances spring like the flowers—</p> +<p class="i2">Friends are slow growth, like forest trees.</p> +<p>Come hope or gladness, what there will—</p> +<p class="i2">Days bright as sunshine after rain—</p> +<p>The past gave life's best blessings still:</p> +<p class="i2">We'll find no friends like these again.</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>I leave you in the dear old home</p> +<p class="i2">That once was mine—now mine no more:</p> +<p>Henceforth a stranger I must come</p> +<p class="i2">To haunts so well beloved of yore;</p> +<p>Yet if your faces turn to mine</p> +<p class="i2">The kindly smile I'm wont to see,</p> +<p>Not all, not all I must resign—</p> +<p class="i2">My lost home's light still shines for me!</p> + </div><div class="stanza"> +<p>Whatever chance or change be mine</p> +<p class="i2">In other climes, 'neath foreign skies,</p> +<p>Your love, your kindness, I shall hold</p> +<p class="i2">Dearest amid dear memories.</p> +<p>O eyes grown dim with falling tears!</p> +<p class="i2">O lips where Sorrow lays her spell!</p> +<p>The saddest task of all life's years</p> +<p class="i2">Is yours—to look and say farewell!</p> + </div> </div> + +<p class="author">LUCY H. HOOPER.</p> +<p>AUGUSTIN'S, April 7, 1873.</p> +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page723" id="page723"></a>[pg 723]</span> + + + + +<h2>NOTES.</h2> + + +<p>Between the careers of Cavour and +Thiers no sound parallel can easily be +traced, but in their characters—or rather +in their diplomatic methods and arts—there +would seem to be some curious +and almost ludicrous points of resemblance, +if we may accept as true a sketch +of the great Italian statesman made +by M. Plattel, the author of "Causeries +Franco-Italiennes," fifteen years ago. +M. Plattel, who wrote from close personal +observation, at that time described +Count Cavour as being physically "M. +Thiers magnified;" or, if you prefer, M. +Thiers is the count viewed through the +big end of an opera-glass. The count, +says M. Plattel, "has the spectacles, and +even a similar expression of finesse. +When things take a serious turn, the +count puts both hands in his pockets; +and if you see him do that, expect to +hear this threat: 'If you do not pass +this bill, <i>signori deputati</i>, I consider you +incapable of longer managing the affairs +of the country: I have the honor of bidding +you good-evening.' For (and this +is a strange peculiarity) this first minister +is never steadier than when in danger +of falling; and his grand oratorical, or +rather ministerial, figure of speech is to +seize his hat and his cane, whereupon +the chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour +to sit down. M. de Cavour lets +them plead a while, and then—he sits +down again! Reading his speeches now +in Paris, I can fancy the count with his +hat by his side and his hand on the +door-knob. Heaven knows how many +times that comedy-proverb of Musset +called 'A door must either be open or +shut,' has been gravely played by the +Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" +It is with a very droll effect that +a French paper has revived this curious +description, <i>à propos</i> of the perpetual +repetition of the drama played by the +French Assembly and the French president, +in which the constant threats of +resignation on the one hand are invariably +followed by passionate and despairing +entreaties to "stay" on the other. +It is the old story of Cavour and the +door-knob over again; and even the +great Bismarck, by the way, does not +disdain a resort occasionally to the same +terrible pantomime. "The only <i>coup +d'état</i> to be feared from M. Thiers," said +M. Dufaure in the Assembly, "is his +withdrawal." It is, the quarreling and +reconciliation of Horace and Lydia: +"What if the door of the repudiated +Lydia again open to me?" "Though +you are stormier than blustering Adriatic, +I should love to live with you," etc. Such +is the billing and cooing, after quarrel, +between the president and the Assembly. +Still, it is clear that the puissant +hat-and-cane argument must date back +to Cavour.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> +<p>The recent proposition of some English +writers to elevate a certain class +of suicides to the rank of a legalized +"institution," under the pleasant name of +"euthanasia," suggests the inquiry +whether, without any scientific vindication +of the practice, there will not always +be suicides enough in ordinary society. +At any rate, however it may be in England, +just across the Channel, in France, +thousands of people every year break +the "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," leaving +the ills they have to "fly to others +that they know not of." The official +figures show that in a period of twenty-two +years no less than 71,207 persons +committed suicide in France. The causes +were various—business embarrassments, +domestic chagrins, the brutishness produced +by liquor, poverty, insanity, the +desire to put an end to physical suffering +by "euthanasia," and so on; but +they are pretty nearly all included in the +"fardels" which Hamlet mentions, from +the physical troubles of the "heartache +and the thousand natural shocks that +flesh is heir to," up to the mental distress +wrought by the "whips and scorns of +time, the oppressor's wrong, the proud +man's contumely, the pangs of despised +love," and so on in the well-remembered +catalogue. Perhaps the most interesting +point in these statistics concerns the +means employed for suicide. These are +thus tabulated: Hanging, 24,536; drowning, +23,221; shooting, 10,197; asphyxia +by charcoal fumes (a true Paris appliance), +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page724" id="page724"></a>[pg 724]</span> +5587; various cutting instruments, +2871; plunging or jumping from an +elevated place (an astonishing number), +2841; poison, 1500; sundry other methods, +454. Hanging and drowning are +thus accountable for more than half the +French suicides. The little stove of +charcoal suggests itself as a remedy at +hand to many a wretch without the +means to buy a pistol or the nerve to +use a knife. The cases of voluntary +resort to poison are astonishingly few, +but it must be remembered that the foregoing +figures only embrace successful +suicides, and antidotes to poison often +come in season where the rope or the +river would have made quick and fatal +work. <i>La France</i> notes, regarding these +statistics, that their details show that men +oftenest use pistols, and women oftenest +try poison, in their attempts at suicide. +What is more curious, each man is likely +to employ an instrument familiar to +him: thus, hunters and soldiers resort +to the pistol, barbers trust the razor, +shoemakers use the knife, engravers the +graving-tool, washerwomen poison themselves +with potash or Prussian blue; +though, of course, these are only general +rules, with a great many exceptions. +And in Paris it is said that among all +ranks and professions, and in both sexes, +at least half of the suicides are by +asphyxiation with charcoal. Surely in +France one hardly needs to preach any +doctrine of not patiently suffering the +slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. +A healthier and more inspiring morality +would be that of the story of the baron +of Grogzwig and his adventure with the +"Genius of Despair and Suicide," as +narrated in an episode of <i>Nicholas +Nickleby</i>; for the stout baron, after +thinking over his purpose of making a +voluntary departure from this world, +and finding he had no security of being +any the better for going out of it, abandoned +the plan, and adopted as a rule +in all cases of melancholy to look at +both sides of the question, and to apply +a magnifying-glass to the better one.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>In Philadelphia, at least, where there +is still a respect for age, the tidings will +be received with respectful regret of the +death of Nono, a noted pensionary of +the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the +ripe age of more than a hundred years. +To have achieved the celebrity of being +the oldest inmate of that institution +was no despicable distinction, but +the venerable centenarian had other +claims to honor. A native of the Marquesas +Islands, he was brought by Bougainville +in 1776 to the Royal Museum, +afterward known as the Jardin des +Plantes. It has frequently been alleged +that parrots may live a hundred years: +Nono has established the fact by living +still longer. As he thus contributes an +illustration to science, so surely he might +point a general moral and adorn a historic +tale. If Thackeray could discourse +so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," +the vicissitudes which this veteran Parisian +witnessed in the French capital +from 1776 to 1873, under two empires, +two royal dynasties and three republics, +might be worth a rhapsody. Nono seems +to have been a well-preserved old parrot. +Magnificent in youth, he attained +literally a green old age, for his plumage +was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, +he had lost his houppe, and was +almost totally bald. However, his eye +was clear and bright enough to have +read the finest print or followed the +finest needlework; and it had the <i>narquois</i>, +lightly skeptical look of those who +have seen a great deal of life. In short, +Nono was a stylish and eminently respectable +old bird. That worthy person, +Monsieur Chavreul, who treats the +animals of the Jardin like a father, +has stuffed and mounted the illustrious +Nono as a testimonial of affection and +respect.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>The connection between war and +botany is, at first, not specially obvious, +and yet a very clear bit of testimony to +their relation was disclosed by the siege +of Paris. Two naturalists have published +a <i>Florula Obsidionalis</i>, which, as its +name partly indicates, is a catalogue of +the accidental flora of the late investment +of Paris. They reckon in their +list not less than one hundred and ninety +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page725" id="page725"></a>[pg 725]</span> +species before unknown to the neighborhood +of the French capital, whereof +fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, +beans, etc.), thirty-four are composite, +thirty-two are <i>plantes grasses</i>, and sixty-six +belong to other families. Almost all +are to be found chiefly on the left bank +of the Seine, though also discoverable +at Neuilly and in the Bois de Boulogne. +Of course, these new-comers are all +accounted for as the produce of seeds +brought by the German army. They +will gradually die out; and yet some few +may remain as permanent conquerors +of the soil, since among the flora of +Paris is still reckoned one plant whose +seed was brought into France by some +Russian forage-train in 1815.</p> + +<hr class="short" /> + +<p>As the impudence, dishonesty, laziness +and rapacity of servants at watering-places +have long been familiar subjects +of satire, it is just to say a word on +the other side in favor of some extreme +Northern resorts. At the White Mountains, +for example, the waiters and waitresses +are of a better class than is generally +met. Some of the young girls are +farmers' daughters, who go to the hotels +to see the fashions and earn a little +pocket-money. The colored cook at +one of the great houses teaches dancing +during the winters. Not a few are +school-teachers, others students at country +academies, who pass their vacation +in this way in order to earn enough +to buy text-books or pay the winter's +tuition. Many of them are more intelligent +and well educated than some of +the shoddies they wait upon. They are +usually quicker in movement and of +more retentive memory than the average +American waiter; and though each has +a great deal to do at times, yet even +during the tremendous moment of dinner +they contrive to find a few little intervals +for harmless flirtations in the +dining-room. They are for the most +part well-mannered too, and if they talk +to you of each other as "this lady" or +"that gentleman," what is it more than +some waiters do with far less reason? +The New Hampshire villages become +versed every summer in the latest imported +fashions, thanks to the quick eyes +of the hotel waitresses.</p> + + + + +<h2>LITERATURE OF THE DAY.</h2> + + +<p class="book">Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard +Taylor. Boston: Osgood & Co.</p> +<p>Mr. Taylor's muse has of late become very +still-faced, decorous and mindful of the art-proprieties. +Cautious is she, and there is +perhaps nothing in this pastoral that will +cause the grammarian to wince, or make the +censorious rhetorician writhe in his judgment-seat +with the sense that she is committing +herself. Not such were the early attributes +of the great itinerant's poetry. When he +used to unsling his minstrel harp in the wilds +of California or on the sunrise mountains of +the Orient, there were plenty of false notes, +plenty of youthful vivacities that overbore +the strings and were heard as a sudden +crack, and, withal, a good deal of young +frank fire. Now there is much finish and +the least possible suspicion of ennui. But +the life-history of <i>Lars</i> is worth reading. It +is a calm procession of pictures, without pretence, +except the slight pretence of classical +correctness. The first part, which reflects +Norwegian manners in a way reminding us +more or less of the exquisite stories of Bjornsen, +tells how two swains of Ulvik, Lars the +hunter and Per the fisher, quarrel for love +of Brita, and at a public wrestling decide the +question by a combat, fighting with knives, +in Norse fashion, while hooked to each other +at the belt. They strip, <i>à la</i> Heenan and +Sayers. Mr. Taylor, who does not often +come behind the occasion when he can get +a human figure to describe statue-wise or +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page726" id="page726"></a>[pg 726]</span> +under a studio light, is perhaps a trifle too +Phidian in bringing out the good looks of +his fish-eating gladiators:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10"> The low daylight clad</p> +<p>Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now</p> +<p>Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet</p> +<p>So near the beauty terrible of Death.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His +foe falls lifeless, his sweetheart calls him a +murderer, and he flies from the law. Another +scene quickly shows him crossing the +broad ocean, as so many Norwegians and +Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking +the protection of Swedish forts on Delaware +banks. Long, sad days pass on the ocean,</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p class="i10"> Till shining fisher-sails</p> +<p>Came, stars of land that rose before the land;</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, +only to find that the civilization he seeks has +set like a sinking planet into the abiding +enlightenment of another race and creed. +Governor Printz's fortress on Tinicum isle is +a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays +up the broad stream</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington</p> +<p>Looks to the river over marshy weeds.</p> +<p>He saw the low brick church with stunted tower,</p> +<p>The portal-arches, ivied now and old,</p> +<p>And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones</p> +<p>Bore Norland names and dear familiar words!</p> +<p>It seemed the dead a comfort spake.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>The governor is a myth, the Swedes are +dead, the Scandinavian tongues have been +changed to English, and an English exactly +conformed to King James's translation of the +Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to checks +him for addressing her with a civility:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>"Nay," she said, "not <i>lady</i>! call me Ruth."</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, +on Hockessin Farm, the wanderer abides as +herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of +Ruth's soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the +Delawarean society, he joins the peaceful +sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, +though, to change his plural pronouns to the +scriptural <i>thou</i> and <i>thee</i> of King James's +translators than to tame his heroic Viking +blood, swift to boil into wrath at the show +of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a +quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, +where lies</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads,</p> +<p>The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts +forth in tears and supplications among the +worshipers, and is received into full harmony +with them:</p> + +<div class="poem"> <div class="stanza"> +<p>So into joy revolved the doubtful year,</p> +<p>And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends</p> +<p>Sheltered another member, even Lars....</p> +<p>And all the country-side assembled there</p> +<p>One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky</p> +<p>The colors of transfiguration shone,</p> +<p>Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars</p> +<p>Together sat upon the women's side;</p> +<p>And when the peace was perfect, they arose:</p> +<p>He took her by the hand, and spake these words,</p> +<p>As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord</p> +<p>And this assembly, by the hand I take</p> +<p>Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her,</p> +<p>Divine assistance blessing me, to be</p> +<p>A loving and a faithful husband, even</p> +<p>Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth</p> +<p>The like sweet words; and so the twain were one.</p> + </div> </div> + +<p>It is not often that a liturgy has been translated +into metre with less change of its form +and substance.</p> + +<p>The imbedding of a raw Northern native +in this lap of repose and in this transfiguring +matrimonial alliance is the grand problem +of the poem. What will Lars do, now that +he is a man of peace and a Child of Light, +with the burden of conscience? In America +he is a saint and an apostle. In Europe he +is known but as a proscribed murderer. The +later scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his +true and tender wife, meets his old love, +his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, +are of a more ambitious character than any +that have preceded. The holy principles +imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made +to triumph, and Lars, dropping the sharp +blade from his hand in the thronged arena +whither he is forced once more, stands first +as a laughing-stock, and then as an apostle, +among his old neighbors. It is a position +full of moral force, and we find ourselves—suddenly +recovering in a degree from the +calm view we had taken of the poem as a +work of art—asking <i>how</i> we should be so +sensible of the grandeur of the situation if +the poet by his skill had not brought out its +peculiarity.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="book">A Lady of the Last Century. By Dr. Doran. +London: Bentley.</p> + +<p>This is the life of a lady remarkable in +herself and in her surroundings. Of every +day in her life she could say, in the words +of Horace, "I have lived." "She never +had a fool for an acquaintance," says her +biographer, "nor an idle hour in the sense of +idleness." Her father, Mr. Robinson, who +belonged to an eminent family which had +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page727" id="page727"></a>[pg 727]</span> +been settled about a century at Rokeby, subsequently +the seat of Scott's friend Morritt, +in Yorkshire, married when a boy of eighteen +a rich young lady of very superior quality in +every respect, and by her had a large family. +His wife's mother married secondly Middleton, +the biographer of Cicero, who took a +great fancy to her grand-daughter, Elizabeth +Robinson, and paid much attention to her +intellectual development. In fact, from the +cradle to the grave she was thrown amongst +the erudite and cultivated in a very uncultivated +age. During her girlhood Elizabeth +Robinson had every advantage and pleasure +which wealthy and devoted parents could +give her, and when twenty-two she married +Mr. Edward Montagu, a grandson of the first +earl of Sandwich, and first cousin of the +celebrated Lady Mary's husband.</p> + +<p>Mrs. Montagu was far more fortunate in +her choice than the brilliant daughter of +the duke of Kingston. Her husband was in +every way estimable and amiable, and her +letters afford ample evidence how thoroughly +she appreciated his character. They had +only one child, who died in infancy, and +when Mr. Montagu died he bequeathed to +his widow the whole of his property, which +she in turn left to her nephew, who took the +name of Montagu and became Lord Rokeby.</p> + +<p>A few years after their marriage Mr. Montagu, +already affluent, received a great accession +of fortune in the shape of colliery +property in the north of England. This enabled +his wife to entertain very liberally, +and, in conjunction with her talents and +high connections, gave her a commanding +place in society. They took a large house +in Hill street, then the extremity of the West +End, which became the resort of that class +who, being anxious to put an end to eternal +card-playing and introduce rather more of the +intellectual into social intercourse, received +from a chance circumstance the name of +"blue-stockings." There were to be seen +Burke, Fox, Hannah More, Johnson, Lord +Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu +fitted up a room whose walls were hung with +feathers, and thence came Cowper's well-known +lines and Macaulay's passage: "There +were the members of that brilliant society +which quoted, criticised and exchanged +repartees under the rich peacock hangings +of Mrs. Montagu." After her husband's +death a great deal of business devolved on +her in the management of his estates, and +here she showed those qualities which are +singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of +rank. She went down to Northumberland, +inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and +made acquaintance with her tenants. She +seems particularly to have appreciated the +people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of +them recall in no slight degree some of those +of the sisters Bronté. Her principal seat +was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she +spent large sums in improvements under the +celebrated landscape-gardener "Capability +Brown."</p> + +<p>She survived her husband twenty-five +years, and about twenty years before her +death removed to a fine house which she +had erected in a then new part of London, +Portman Square, and which is still known +as Montagu House. But the entertainments +there given were, though more splendid, less +notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill +street, for Mrs. Montagu herself was getting +into years, and many of those who had been +the brightest ornaments of the Hill street +parties were passing away. Mrs. Montagu +died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She +was of an affectionate disposition, but had +somewhat less sensibility perhaps than most +men would like to see in a woman; yet, on +the whole, she played her part in life extremely +well, being wise, generous and true.</p> + +<p>The book is particularly interesting for the +rich aroma of association around it, and +would have been far more so had Dr. Doran +taken the trouble to give a few notes, of +which there is not a single one in the whole +book—a serious drawback, more especially +to American readers.</p> + +<hr /> + +<p class="book">The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, +Execution, and the Discussions relating +thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: +Harper & Brothers.</p> + +<p>Mr. Cushing has given another proof of +the great capacity of some men to do very +clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an +adequate account of the work itself or of the +way in which it was done. Trained by long +experience in public business, and intimately +acquainted by long residence in Washington +with the methods of diplomatic negotiation +and interpretation, he was eminently fitted +to be the colleague of Mr. Evarts as counsel +for the government before the Geneva arbitration. +Here he undertakes to give an account +of the task there brought to a result so +<span class="pagenum"><a name="page728" id="page728"></a>[pg 728]</span> +favorable to the United States. Unluckily, +he shows that he is always and only an advocate. +Much that may have been useful +for his duties in that office is prominent in a +disagreeable way in his recital of the Geneva +award. His language is loose and offensive, +often without meaning to be so, but oftener +in a way that shows how much he must have +been galled by the lord chief-justice of England. +Whatever Sir Alexander Cockburn +may have done there, and however much he +may have fallen from his high estate as one +of the arbitrators to the less dignified position +of an advocate for English claims, he will +have a sweet revenge in seeing the anger +that he has excited in one of the American +representatives, now become their spokesman. +Mr. Cushing falls into the blunder +that was once so common in our American +state papers as to give good cause for that +happy phrase of Nicholas Biddle—"Western +Orientalisms." The tone of the book, which +ought to be a simple story, is stilted and +rhetorical. The result of all the long discussions +is the best praise of our American +statesmen who were its authors, but it is +dwarfed and lessened by the fulsome praise +given to the foreign representatives who +brought it about. Of "bad language," in +keeping with the bad spirit of the book, the +following may serve as specimens: "Pretensiveness," +"frequentation," "annexion," +"capitulations" instead of "treaties," "monogram" +for "monograph," "it needs to," +"howmuchsoever," "law-books invested +with the reflection of fine scenery," "imposed +itself," "I demand of myself," and +other such phrases without number.</p> + +<p>Once done with Sir Alexander Cockburn +and the work at Geneva, Mr. Cushing shows +himself and his country to much better advantage +in discussing the "Mixed Commission" +now sitting at Washington, the Northwest +Boundary, the Fisheries, and the general +provisions of the Washington treaty. +He has, however, simply forestalled the +ground for some better writer on the important +history which belongs to that negotiation, +and will give the reading and reflecting public, +both abroad and at home, a very unfavorable +impression of the great task in which +he played so important a part, and of the +qualities of mind and temper he must have +brought to it, since at this late day he finds +no better impetus to the work of writing its +history than unexplained anger at one of the +members of the board before which Mr. +Cushing argued the cause of his country, +and helped to win it.</p> + + + + +<h3><i>Books Received.</i></h3> + + +<p>The Drawing-Room Stage: A Series of +Original Dramas, Comedies, Farces, and +Entertainments for Amateur Theatricals +and School Exhibitions. By George M. +Baker. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & +Shepard.</p> + +<p>Five Years in an English University. By +Charles Astor Bristed, late Foundation +Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. +Third edition. Revised by the Author. +New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. +By the late C.A. Sainte-Beuve. With a +Selection from her Poems. Translated +by Harriet W. Preston. Boston: Roberts +Brothers.</p> + +<p>Livingstone and his African Explorations: +together with a Full Account of the Young, +Stanley and Dawson Search Expeditions. +New York: Adams, Victor & Co.</p> + +<p>The Mother's Register: Current Notes of +the Health of Children. From the French +of Professor J.B. Fonssagrines. New +York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene +Plon. Translated from the French +by J. M. Luyster. Illustrated. Boston: +Roberts Brothers.</p> + +<p>Scientific and Industrial Education: its Importance +to our Country. By G.B. Stebbins. +Detroit: Daily Post Printing Establishment.</p> + +<p>Never Again. By W.S. Mayo, M.D., +author of "Kaloolah," "The Berber," +etc. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons.</p> + +<p>The World-Priest. From the German of +Leopold Schafer. By Charles T. Brooks. +Boston: Roberts Brothers.</p> + +<p>The Cuban Question in the Spanish Parliament. +London: Press of the Anglo-American +Times.</p> + +<p>Treason at Home: A Novel. By Mrs. +Greenough. Philadelphia: T.B. Peterson +& Brothers.</p> + +<p>Myths and Myth-Makers. By John Fiske, +M.A., LL.B. Boston: James R. Osgood +& Co.</p> + +<p>An Account of the Sphynx at Mount Auburn. +Illustrated. Boston: Little, Brown +& Co.</p> + +<hr class="full" /> + + + + + + + + +<pre> + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13195-h.htm or 13195-h.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/9/13195/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + + + +</pre> + +</body> +</html> diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/609.png b/old/13195-h/images/609.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..ac77345 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/609.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/610.png b/old/13195-h/images/610.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..27317c3 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/610.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/611.png b/old/13195-h/images/611.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..e3f490a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/611.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/612.png b/old/13195-h/images/612.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a6fb0ba --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/612.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/613.png b/old/13195-h/images/613.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..15cd1fe --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/613.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/614.png b/old/13195-h/images/614.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cd7a2f6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/614.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/615.png b/old/13195-h/images/615.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a001584 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/615.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/616.png b/old/13195-h/images/616.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..844f3f4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/616.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/617.png b/old/13195-h/images/617.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..85444b4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/617.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/618.png b/old/13195-h/images/618.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..c90d208 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/618.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/619.png b/old/13195-h/images/619.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..a2d22fc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/619.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/621.png b/old/13195-h/images/621.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..14d23fd --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/621.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/622.png b/old/13195-h/images/622.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..d696a4a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/622.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/623.png b/old/13195-h/images/623.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..cec41a4 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/623.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/624.png b/old/13195-h/images/624.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..72efa6e --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/624.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/625.png b/old/13195-h/images/625.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..3be0c68 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/625.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/626.png b/old/13195-h/images/626.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..2c7e6c7 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/626.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/628.png b/old/13195-h/images/628.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..4bc76bc --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/628.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/630.png b/old/13195-h/images/630.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..202d3b6 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/630.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/632.png b/old/13195-h/images/632.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..51cd928 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/632.png diff --git a/old/13195-h/images/633.png b/old/13195-h/images/633.png Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..48bc61a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195-h/images/633.png diff --git a/old/13195.txt b/old/13195.txt new file mode 100644 index 0000000..c06215a --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195.txt @@ -0,0 +1,8363 @@ +The Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature +and Science, by Various + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + + +Title: Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science + Vol. XI, No. 27, June, 1873 + +Author: Various + +Release Date: August 16, 2004 [EBook #13195] + +Language: English + +Character set encoding: ASCII + +*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + + + + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + + + + +Note: The Table of Contents and the list of illustrations were added +by the transcriber. + + + +LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE + +OF + +_POPULAR LITERATURE AND SCIENCE_. + + +JUNE, 1873. + +Vo. XI, No. 27. + + + + +TABLE OF CONTENTS + + A NEW ATLANTIS. + + THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + CONCLUDING PAPER. + + A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867 by ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + SLAINS CASTLE by LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + + OUR HOME IN THE TYROL by MARGARET HOWITT. + CHAPTER III. + CHAPTER IV. + + SAINT ROMUALDO by EMMA LAZARUS. + + A PRINCESS OF THULE by WILLIAM BLACK + CHAPTER VIII. "O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + CHAPTER IX. "FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + THE EMERALD by A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + + BERRYTOWN by REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + CHAPTER VIII. + CHAPTER IX. + CHAPTER X. + + BOWERY ENGLAND by WIRT SIKES. + + DAY-DREAM by KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + THE RAW AMERICAN by PRENTICE MULFORD. + + FAREWELL by LUCY H. HOOPER. + + NOTES. + + LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + _Books Received._ + + + + +ILLUSTRATIONS + + ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE. + UP THE INLET. + LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET. + CONGRESS HALL. + MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE. + THE SENATE HOUSE. + ON THE SHINING SANDS. + MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE. + THE THOROUGHFARE. + THE EXCURSION HOUSE. + A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL. + ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA. + AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON. + THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL. + A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB. + KABYLE MEN. + KABYLE WOMEN. + DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT. + AN ARAB MARKET. + POVERTY AND JEWELS. + GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA. + + + + + +A NEW ATLANTIS. + +[Illustration: ATLANTIC CITY FROM THE LIGHTHOUSE.] + +The New Year's debts are paid, the May-day moving is over and settled, +and still a remnant of money is found sticking to the bottom of the +old marmalade pot. Where shall we go? + +There is nothing like the sea. Shall it be Newport? + +But Newport is no longer the ocean pure and deep, in the rich severity +of its _sangre azul_. We want to admire the waves, and they drag us +off to inspect the last new villa: we like the beach, and they bid +us enjoy the gardens, brought every spring in lace-paper out of the +florist's shop. We like to stroll on the shore, barefooted if we +choose, and Newport is become an affair of toilette and gold-mounted +harness, a bathing-place where people do everything but bathe. + +[Illustration: UP THE INLET.] + +Well, Nahant, then, or Long Branch? + +Too slow and too fast. Besides, we have seen them. + +Suppose we try the Isles of Shoals? Appledore and Duck Island and +White Island, now? Or Nantucket, or Marblehead? + +Too stony, and nothing in particular to eat. You ask for fish, and +they give you a rock. + +In truth, under that moral and physical dyspepsia to which we bring +ourselves regularly every summer, the fine crags of the north become +just the least bit of a bore. They necessitate an amount of heroic +climbing under the command of a sort of romantic and do-nothing Girls +of the Period, who sit about on soft shawls in the lee of the rocks, +and gather their shells and anemones vicariously at the expense of +your tendon achilles. We know it, for we have suffered. We calculate, +and are prepared to prove, that the successful collection of a single +ribbon of ruffled seaweed, procured in a slimy haystack of red dulse +at the beck of one inconsiderate girl, who is keeping her brass heels +dry on a safe and sunny ledge of the Purgatory at Newport, may require +more mental calculation, involve more anguish of equilibrium, and +encourage more heartfelt secret profanity than the making of a +steam-engine or the writing of a proposal. + +No, no, we would admire nothing, dare nothing, do nothing, but only +suck in rosy health at every pore, pin our souls out on the holly +hedge to sweeten, and forget what we had for breakfast. Uneasy daemons +that we are all winter, toiling gnomes of the mine and the forge--"O +spent ones of a workday age"--can we not for one brief month in our +year be Turks? + +[Illustration: LANDING-PLACE ON THE INLET.] + +Our doctors, slowly acquiring a little sense, are changing their +remedies. Where the cry used to be "drugs," it now is "hygiene." But +hygiene itself might be changed for the better. We can imagine a few +improvements in the materia medica of the future. Where the physician +used to order a tonic for a feeble pulse, he will simply hold his +watch thoughtfully for sixty seconds and prescribe "Paris." Where +he was wont to recommend a strong emetic, he will in future advise +a week's study of the works of art at our National Capital. For +lassitude, a donkey-ride up Vesuvius. For color-blindness, a course +of sunrises from the Rigi. For deafness, Wachtel in his song of "Di +quella Pira." For melancolia, Naples. For fever, driving an ice-cart. +But when the doctor's most remunerative patient comes along, the pursy +manufacturer able to afford the luxury of a bad liver, let him consult +the knob of his cane a moment and order "Atlantic City." + +--Because it is lazy, yet stimulating. Because it is unspoilt, yet +luxurious. Because the air there is filled with iodine and the sea +with chloride of sodium. Because, with a whole universe of water, +Atlantic City is dry. Because of its perfect rest and its infinite +horizons. + +But where and what _is_ Atlantic City? It is a refuge thrown up by the +continent-building sea. Fashion took a caprice, and shook it out of +a fold of her flounce. A railroad laid a wager to find the shortest +distance from Penn's treaty-elm to the Atlantic Ocean: it dashed into +the water, and a City emerged from its freight-cars as a consequence +of the manoeuvre. Almost any kind of a parent-age will account for +Atlantis. It is beneath shoddy and above mediocrity. It is below +Long Branch and higher up than Cape May. It is different from any +watering-place in the world, yet its strong individuality might have +been planted in any other spot; and a few years ago it was nowhere. +Its success is due to its having nothing importunate about it. It +promises endless sea, sky, liberty and privacy, and, having made you +at home, it leaves you to your devices. + +[Illustration: CONGRESS HALL.] + +Two of our best marine painters in their works offer us a choice of +coast-landscape. Kensett paints the bare stiff crags, whitened with +salt, standing out of his foregrounds like the clean and hungry +teeth of a wild animal, and looking hard enough to have worn out the +painter's brush with their implacable enamel. From their treeless +waste extends the sea, a bath of deep, pure color. All seems keen, +fresh, beautiful and severe: it would take a pair of stout New England +lungs to breathe enjoyably in such an air. That is the northern coast. +Mr. William Richards gives us the southern--the landscape, in fact, +of Atlantic City. In his scenes we have the infinitude of soft silver +beach, the rolling tumultuousness of a boundless sea, and twisted +cedars mounted like toiling ships on the crests of undulating +sand-hills. It is the charm, the dream, the power and the peace of the +Desert. + +And here let us be indulged with a few words about a section of our +great continent which has never been sung in rhyme, and which it +is almost a matter of course to treat disparagingly. A cheap and +threadbare popular joke assigns the Delaware River as the eastern +boundary of the United States of America, and defines the out-landers +whose homes lie between that current and the Atlantic Ocean as +foreigners, Iberians, and we know not what. Scarcely more of an exile +was Victor Hugo, sitting on the shores of Old Jersey, than is the +denizen of _New_ Jersey when he brings his half-sailor costume and his +beach-learned manners into contrast with the thrift and hardness of +the neighboring commonwealth. The native of the alluvium is another +being from the native of the great mineral State. But, by the very +reason of this difference, there is a strange soft charm that comes +over our thoughts of the younger Jersey when we have done laughing +at it. That broad, pale peninsula, built of shells and crystal-dust, +which droops toward the south like some vast tropical leaf, and +spreads its two edges toward the fresh and salt waters, enervated with +drought and sunshine--that flat leaf of land has characteristics that +are almost Oriental. To make it the sea heaved up her breast, and +showed the whitened sides against which her tides were beating. To +walk upon it is in a sense to walk upon the bottom of the ocean. Here +are strange marls, the relics of infinite animal life, into which +has sunk the lizard or the dragon of antiquity--the gigantic +_Hadrosaurus_, who cranes his snaky throat at us in the museum, +swelling with the tale of immemorial times when he weltered here in +the sunny ooze. The country is a mighty steppe, but not deprived of +trees: the ilex clothes it with its set, dark foliage, and the endless +woods of pine, sand-planted, strew over that boundless beach a murmur +like the sea. The edibles it bears are of the quaintest and most +individual kinds: the cranberry is its native condiment, full of +individuality, unknown to Europe, beautiful as a carbuncle, wild as +a Tartar belle, and rife with a subacid irony that is like the wit of +Heine. + +[Illustration: MR. RICHARD WRIGHT'S COTTAGE.] + +Here is the _patate douce_, with every kind of sweet-fleshed gourd +that loves to gad along the sand--the citron in its carved net, +and the enormous melon, carnation-colored within and dark-green to +blackness outside. The peaches here are golden-pulped, as if trying to +be oranges, and are richly bitter, with a dark hint of prussic acid, +fascinating the taste like some enchantress of Venice, the pursuit of +whom is made piquant by a fancy that she may poison you. The farther +you penetrate this huge idle peninsula, the more its idiosyncrasy +is borne in on your mind. Infinite horizons, "an everlasting wash of +air," the wild pure warmth of Arabia, and heated jungles of dwarf oaks +balancing balmy plantations of pine. Then, toward the sea, the wiry +grasses that dry into "salt hay" begin to dispute possession with +the forests, and finally supplant them: the sand is blown into +coast-hills, whose crests send off into every gale a foam of flying +dust, and which themselves change shape, under pressure of the same +winds, with a slower imitation of the waves. Finally, by the gentlest +of transitions, the deserts and the quicksands become the ocean. + +[Illustration: THE SENATE HOUSE.] + +The shore melts into the sea by a network of creeks and inlets, +edging the territory (as the flying osprey sees it) with an inimitable +lacework of azure waters; the pattern is one of looping channels +with oval interstices, and the dentellated border of the commonwealth +resembles that sort of lace which was made by arranging on glass +the food of a silk-spinning worm: the creature ate and wove, having +voracity always before him and Fine Art behind him. Much of the +solider part of the State is made of the materials which enter into +glass-manufacture: a mighty enchanter might fuse the greater portion +of it into one gigantic goblet. A slight approximation to this work +of magic is already being carried on. The tourist who has crossed +the lagoons of Venice to see the fitful lights flash up from the +glass-furnaces of Murano, will find more than one locality here where +leaping lights, crowning low banks of sand, are preparing the crystal +for our infant industries in glass, and will remind him of his hours +by the Adriatic. Every year bubbles of greater and greater beauty +are being blown in these secluded places, and soon we hope to enrich +commerce with all the elegances of latticinio and schmelze, the +perfected glass of an American Venice. + +But our business is not with the land, but the sea. Here it lies, +basking at our feet, the warm amethystine sea of the South. It does +not boom and thunder, as in the country of the "cold gray stones." +On the contrary, saturating itself with sunny ease, thinning its bulk +over the shoal flat beach with a succession of voluptuous curves, it +spreads thence in distance with strands and belts of varied color, +away and away, until blind with light it faints on a prodigiously far +horizon. Its falling noises are as soft as the sighs of Christabel. +Its colors are the pale and milky colors of the opal. But ah! what an +impression of boundlessness! How the silver ribbon of beach unrolls +for miles and miles! And landward, what a parallel sea of marshes, +bottoms and dunes! The sense of having all the kingdoms of the world +spread out beneath one, together with most of the kingdoms of the +mermen, has never so come to one's consciousness before. And again, +what an artist is Nature, with these faint washes and tenderest varied +hues--varied and tender as the flames from burning gases--while her +highest lights (a painter will understand the difficulty of _that_) +are still diaphanous and profound! + +One goes to the seaside not for pomp and peacock's tails, but for +saltness, Nature and a bite of fresh fish. To build a city there that +shall not be an insult to the sentiment of the place is a matter of +difficulty. One's ideal, after all, is a canvas encampment. A range of +solid stone villas like those of Newport, so far as congruity with +a watering-place goes, pains the taste like a false note in music. +Atlantic City pauses halfway between the stone house and the tent, and +erects herself in woodwork. A quantity of bright, rather giddy-looking +structures, with much open-work and carved ruffling about the eaves +and balconies, are poised lightly on the sand, following the course +of the two main avenues which lead parallel with the shore, and the +series of short, straight, direct streets which leap across them and +run eagerly for the sea. They have a low, brooding look, and evidently +belong to a class of sybarites who are not fond of staircases. Among +them, the great rambling hotel, sprawling in its ungainly length here +and there, looks like one of the ordinary tall New York houses that +had concluded to lie over on its side and grow, rather than take +the trouble of piling on its stories standing. In this encampment of +wooden pavilions is lived the peculiar life of the place. + +[Illustration: ON THE SHINING SANDS.] + +We are sure it is a sincere, natural, sensible kind of life, as +compared with that of other bathing-shores. Although there are brass +bands at the hotels, and hops in the evening, and an unequal struggle +of macassar oil with salt and stubborn locks, yet the artificiality is +kept at a minimum. People really do bathe, really do take walks on the +beach for the love of the ocean, really do pick up shells and throw +them away again, really do go yachting and crab-catching; and if they +try city manners in the evening, they are so tired with their honest +day's work that it is apt to end in misery. On the hotel piazzas you +see beauties that surprise you with exquisite touches of the warm and +languid South. That dark Baltimore girl, her hair a constellation of +jessamines, is beating her lover's shoulders with her fan in a state +of ferocity that you would give worlds to encounter. That pair of +proud Philadelphia sisters, statues sculptured in peach-pulp and +wrapped in gauze, look somehow like twin Muses at the gates of a +temple. Whole rows of unmatched girls stare at the sea, desolate but +implacable, waiting for partners equal to them in social position. In +such a dearth a Philadelphia girl will turn to her old music-teacher +and flirt solemnly with him for a whole evening, sooner than involve +herself with well-looking young chits from Providence or New York, +who may be jewelers' clerks when at home. Yet the unspoiled and fruity +beauty of these Southern belles is very striking to one who comes +fresh from Saratoga and the sort of upholstered goddesses who are +served to him there. + +Some years ago the Surf House was the finest place of entertainment, +but it has now many rivals, taller if not finer. Congress Hall, under +the management of Mr. G.W. Hinkle, is a universal favorite, while the +Senate House, standing under the shadow of the lighthouse, has the +advantage of being the nearest to the beach of all the hotels. Both +are ample and hospitable hostelries, where you are led persuasively +through the Eleusinian mystery of the Philadelphia cuisine. +Schaufler's is an especial resort of our German fellow-citizens, who +may there be seen enjoying themselves in the manner depicted by our +artist, while concocting--as we are warned by M. Henri Kowalski--the +ambitious schemes which they conceal under their ordinary _enveloppe +debonnaire_. + +[Illustration: MR. THOMAS C. HAND'S COTTAGE.] + +There is another feature of the place. With its rarely fine +atmosphere, so tonic and bracing, so free from the depressing fog +of the North, it is a great sanitarium. There are seasons when the +Pennsylvania University seems to have bred its wealth of doctors +for the express purpose of marshaling a dying world to the curative +shelter of Atlantic City. The trains are encumbered with the halt and +the infirm, who are got out at the doors like unwieldy luggage in +the arms of nurses and porters. Once arrived, however, they display +considerable mobility in distributing themselves through the three or +four hundred widely-separated cottages which await them for hire. As +you wander through the lanes of these cunning little houses, you catch +strange fragments of conversation. Gentlemen living vis-a-vis, and +standing with one leg in the grave and the other on their own piazzas, +are heard on sunny mornings exciting themselves with the maddest abuse +of each other's doctor. There are large boarding-houses, fifty or more +of them, each of which has its contingent of puling valetudinarians. +The healthy inmates have the privilege of listening to the symptoms, +set forth with that full and conscientious detail not unusual with +invalids describing their own complaints. Or the sufferers turn their +batteries on each other. On the verandah of a select boarding-house we +have seen a fat lady of forty lying on a bench like a dead harlequin, +as she rolled herself in the triangles of a glittering afghan. On a +neighboring seat a gouty subject, and a tropical sun pouring on both. + +"Good-morning! You see I am trying my sun-bath. I am convinced it +relieves my spine." The same remark has introduced seven morning +conversations. + +"And my gout has shot from the index toe to the ring toe. I feared my +slipper was damp, and I am roasting it here. But, dear ma'am, I pity +you so with your spine! Tried acupuncture?" + +[Illustration: THE THOROUGHFARE.] + +The patient probably hears the word as Acapulco. For she answers, "No, +but I tried St. Augustine last winter. Not a morsel of good." + +Among these you encounter sometimes lovely, frail, transparent girls, +who come down with cheeks of wax, and go home in two months with +cheeks of apple. Or stout gentlemen arriving yellow, and going back in +due time purple. + +Once a hardened siren of many watering-places, large and blooming, +arrived at Atlantic City with her latest capture, a stooping invalid +gentleman of good family in Rhode Island. They boated, they had +croquet on the beach, they paced the shining sands. Both of them +people of the world and past their first youth, they found an +amusement in each other's knowing ways and conversation that kept them +mutually faithful in a kind of mock-courtship. The gentleman, however, +was evidently only amusing himself with this travesty of sentiment, +though he was never led away by the charms of younger women. After a +month of it he succeeded in persuading her for the first time to +enter the water, and there he assisted her to take the billows in the +gallant American fashion. Her intention of staying only in the very +edge of the ocean he overruled by main force, playfully drawing her +out where a breaker washed partially over her. As the water touched +her face she screamed, and raised her arm to hide the cheek that had +been wet. She then ran hastily to shore, and her friend, fearing some +accident, made haste to rejoin her. His astonishment was great at +finding one of her cheeks of a ghastly, unhealthy white. Her color had +always been very high. That afternoon she sought him and explained. +She was really an invalid, she said calmly, and had recently undergone +a shocking operation for tumor. But she saw no reason for letting that +interfere with her usual summer life, particularly as she felt youth +and opportunity making away from her with terrible strides. Having +a chance to enjoy his society which might never be repeated, fearing +lest his rapid disease should carry him away from before her eyes, she +had concluded to make the most of time, dissemble her suffering, and +endeavor to conceal by art the cold bloodlessness of her face. This +whimsical, worldly heroism happened to strike the gentleman strangely. +He was affected to the point of proposing marriage. At the same time +he perceived with some amazement that his disease had left him: the, +curative spell of the region had wrought its enchantment upon his +system. They were wedded, with roles reversed--he as the protector and +she as the invalid--and were truly happy during the eighteen months +that the lady lived as his wife. + +[Illustration: THE EXCURSION HOUSE.] + +There are prettier and more innocent stories. Every freckle-nosed girl +from the Alleghany valleys who sweeps with her polka-muslin the +floors of these generous hotels has an idyl of her own, which she is +rehearsing with young Jefferson Jones or little Madison Addison. In +the golden afternoons they ride together--not in the fine turn-outs +supplied by the office-clerks, nor yet on horse-back, but in guiltless +country wagons guided by Jersey Jehus, where close propinquity is a +delightful necessity. Ten miles of uninterrupted beach spread before +them, which the ocean, transformed for the purpose into a temporary +Haussmann, is rolling into a marble boulevard for their use twice a +day. On the hard level the wheels scarcely leave a trace. The ride +seems like eternity, it lapses off so gentle and smooth, and the +landscape is so impressively similar: everywhere the plunging surf, +the gray sand-hills, the dark cedars with foliage sliced off sharp and +flat by the keen east wind--their stems twisted like a dishclout or +like the olives around Florence. + +[Illustration: A SCENE IN FRONT OF SCHAUFLER'S HOTEL.] + +Or she goes with Jefferson and Madison on a "crabbing" hunt. Out in +a boat at the "Thoroughfare," near the railroad bridge, you lean over +the side and see the dark glassy forms moving on the bottom. It is +shallow, and a short bit of string will reach them. The bait is a +morsel of raw beefsteak from the butcher's, and no hook is necessary. +They make for the titbit with strange monkey-like motions, and nip it +with their hard skeleton ringers, trying to tuck it into their mouths; +and so you bring them up into blue air, sprawling and astonished, but +tenacious. You can put them through their paces where they roost under +water, moving the beef about, and seeing them sidle and back on +their aimless, Cousin Feenix-like legs: it is a sight to bring a +freckle-nosed cousin almost into hysterics. But one day a vivacious +girl had committed the offence of boasting too much of her skill +in crab-catching, besides being quite unnecessarily gracious to Mr. +Jefferson Jones. Then Mr. Madison Addison, who must have been reading +Plutarch, did a sly thing indeed. The boat having been drawn unnoted +into deeper water, a cunning negro boy who was aboard contrived +to slide down one side without remark, and the next trophy of the +feminine chase was a red _boiled_ crab, artificially attached to a +chocolate caramel, and landed with mingled feelings by the pretty +fisherwoman. Then what a tumult of laughter, feigned anger and +becoming blushes! It is said that that crimson shell, carved into +a heart-shape of incorrect proportions, is worn over Mr. Jones's +diaphragm to this day. + +At the Inlet, which penetrates the beach alongside the lighthouse, +is draught for light vessels, and the various kinds of society which +focus at Atlantic City may be seen concentrated there on the wharf any +of these bright warm days. A gay party of beauties and aristocrats, +with a champagne-basket and hamper of lunch, are starting thence for +a sail over to Brigantine Beach. Two gentlemen in flannel, with guns, +are urging a little row-boat up toward the interior country. They will +return at night laden with rail or reed-birds, with the additional +burden perhaps of a great loon, shot as a curiosity. Others, provided +with fishing-tackle, are going out for flounder. Laughing farewells, +waving handkerchiefs and the other telegraphic signs of departure, are +all very gay, but the tune may be changed when the great sailing-party +comes back, wet and wretched, and with three of the principal beauties +limp as bolsters on the gentlemen's hands with sea-sickness. + +Another spirited scene takes place at five in the morning--an hour +when the city beauties are abed with all that tenacity of somnolence +which characterizes Kathleen Mavourneen in the song. The husbands and +brothers, who are due in the city before business hours, are out for +a good, royal, irresponsible tumble in the surf. There is the great +yeasty bath-tub, full of merry dashing figures, dipping the sleek +shoulder to the combing wave. On the shore, active humanities hastily +undressing. Then the heavens are filled with a new glory, and the +dazzling sun leaves his bath at the same time with all these merry +roisterers who have shared it with him. He takes up his line of +business for the day, and so do the good husbands and brothers, first +going through a little ceremony of toilet from which he is exempt. + +Thus does the New Atlantis provide for her republic, holding health to +her children with one hand, and shaking from the other an infinity of +toys and diversions; while for those of more thoughtful bent the +sea turns without ceasing its ancient pages, written all over with +inexhaustible romance. + +The great architect of the city was the Power who graded those +streets of immaculate sand, and who laid out that park of mellow, +foam-flowered ocean. Its human founders have done what seemed suitable +in providing shelter for a throng of fitful sojourners, not forgetting +to put up six neat and modest churches, where suitable praise and +adoration may be chanted against the chanting of the sea. In several +respects the place grows somewhat curiously. For instance, a lawn of +turf is made by the simple expedient of fencing off the cattle: the +grass then grows, but if the cows get in they pull up the sod by the +roots, and the wind in a single season excavates a mighty hollow where +the grassy slope was before. So much for building our hopes on +sand. An avenue of trees is prepared by the easy plan of thrusting +willow-stems into the ground: they sprout directly, and alternate +with the fine native cedars and hollies in clothing the streets with +shadow. Several citizens, as Mr. Richard Wright and Mr. Thomas C. +Hand, whose handsome cottages are tasteful specimens of our seaside +architecture, have been tempted by this facility of vegetable life +at Atlantic City to lay out elaborate gardens, which with suitable +culture are successful. Fine avenues of the best construction lead off +to Shell Beach or to the single hill boasted by the locality. Finally, +remembering the claims of the great democracy to a wash-basin, the +aediles invited Tom, Dick and Harry, and set up the Excursion or +Sea-View House, with its broad piazzas, its numberless facilities +for amusement, and its enormous dining-hall, which can be changed on +occasion into a Jardin Mabille, with flowers and fountains. + +To a great city all the renovating and exhilarating qualities of +sea-breezes and sea-bathing are but as the waters of Tantalus, unless +the place which offers these advantages be easy of access. In this +respect Atlantic City has for Philadelphia a superiority over all +its rivals. The Camden and Atlantic Railroad, to whose secretary and +treasurer, Mr. D.M. Zimmermann, we are indebted for much information, +has simply drawn a straight line to the coast, which may be reached in +an hour and three-quarters from Vine street wharf. The villages on +the route, like the seaside terminus, owe their existence to the road, +which is now reaping the reward of a far-sighted enterprise. + + + + +THE ROUMI IN KABYLIA. + +CONCLUDING PAPER. + +[Illustration: ABD-EL-KADER IN KABYLIA.] + +A noble life, whose course belongs to the subject of these pages, is, +while they are preparing, apparently drawing to a close. The +severe illness now reported of Abd-el-Kader, coming upon old age, +disappointment, war and the lassitude of a great purpose foiled, can +have but one result. Dimmed to-day, as our hurrying century so rapidly +dims her brightest renowns, Abd-el-Kader's existence has only to cease +and his memory will assume the sacred splendor of the tomb. + +Hapless Washington of a betrayed revolution! In these latter days of +enforced quiet in Palestine how his early scenes of African experience +must have flooded his mind!--his birth, sixty-six years ago, in a +family group of Moslem saints; the teachings of his beautiful mother +Leila and of his marabout father; his pilgrimage when eight years old +to Mecca, and his education in Italy; his visions among the tombs, and +the crown of magic light which was seen on his brows when he began to +taste the enchanted apple; then, with adolescence, the burning sense +of infidel tyranny that made his home at Mascara seem only a cage, +barred upon him by the unclean Franks; and soon, while still a youth, +his amazing election as emir of Mascara and sultan of Oran, at a +moment when the prophet-chief had just four _oukias_ (half-dimes) tied +into the corner of his bornouse! + +"God will send me others," said young Abd-el-Kader. + +[Illustration: AN AGHA OF KABYLIA HUNTING WITH THE FALCON.] + +The tourist remembers the trinity-portrait of him, by Maxime David, in +the Luxembourg Gallery at Paris, where his face, framed in its white +hood, is seen in full, in profile and in three-quarters view. The +visage is aquiline, olive-tinted, refined; but we can describe it +more authentically in the terms of one of his enemies, Lieutenant +de France, who became his prisoner in 1836, and who followed his +movements for five months, taking down his daily talk and habits like +a Boswell, but leaving nothing in his narrative that is not to the +sultan's credit. Of Abd-el-Kader at twenty-eight the lieutenant says: +"His face is long and deadly pale, his large black eyes are soft +and languishing, his mouth small and delicate, and his nose rather +aquiline: his beard is thin, but jet-black, and he wears a small +moustache, which gives a martial character to his soft, delicate face, +and becomes him vastly. His hands are small and exquisitely formed, +and his feet equally beautiful." Every interlocutor leaves a similar +portrait, impressing upon the mind the image of some warrior-saint of +the Middle Ages, born too late, and beating out his noble fanaticism +against our century of machines and chicanery. + +[Illustration: THE DISCIPLES OF TOFAIL.] + +Himself, according to some accounts, a Berber, the young marabout +early saw the importance of inducing the Kabyles to join with him +and his Arabs in expelling the French. He affiliated himself with the +religious order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman, a saint whose tomb is one of the +sacred places of Kabylia; and it is certain that the college of this +order furnished him succor in men and money. He visited the Kabyles in +their rock-built villages, casting aside his military pomp and coming +among them as a simple pilgrim. If the Kabyles had received him +better, he could have shown a stouter front to the enemy. But the +mountain Berbers, utterly unused to co-operation and subordination, +met him with surprise and distrust. + +[Illustration: A KOUBBA, OR MARABOUT'S TOMB.] + +At least, such is the account of General Daumas: in this interesting +relation we are forced to depend on the French. Daumas, amply provided +with documents, letters and evidence, has arranged in his work on _La +Grande Kabylie_ the principal evidence we possess of this epoch of +Abd-el-Kader's life. + +The chief appeared in 1836 at Bordj-Boghni and at Si-Ali-ou-Moussa +among the mountains. The Kabyle tribes visited him in multitudes. He +addressed them at the door of his tent, and these rude mountaineers +found themselves face to face with that saintly sallow visage, +those long gazelle eyes and the prophetic countenance framed in its +apostolic beard. Raising his arms in the attitude of Raphael's Paul at +Lystra, he said simply, "I am the thorn which Allah has placed in the +eye of the Franks. And if you will help me I will send them weeping +into the sea." + +But when it came to a demand for supplies, the Kabyles, says Daumas, +utterly refused. + +"You have come as a pilgrim," said their amins, "and we have fed you +with kouskoussu. If you were to come as a chief, wishing to lay his +authority on us, instead of white kouskoussu we should treat you to +black kouskoussu" (gunpowder). + +Abd-el-Kader, without losing the serenity of the marabout, argued with +the Kabyles, and succeeded in obtaining their reverence and adhesion; +but when he mounted his horse to go the amins significantly told him +to come among them always as a simple pilgrim, demanding hospitality +and white kouskoussu. + +[Illustration: KABYLE MEN.] + +At Thizzi-Ouzzou he met the tribe of Ameraouas, who promised to submit +to his authority as soon as the fractions surrounding that centre +should do so. The Sons of Aicha received him with honor and games of +horsemanship. At the camp of Ben Salem the chiefs of several tribes +came to render homage to the noble marabout, descendant of Berber +ancestry and of the Prophet. From thence he sought tribes still more +wild, discarding his horse and appearing among the villagers as a +simple foot-pilgrim. The natives approached him in throngs, each +family bearing a great dish of rancid kouskoussu. Laying the platters +before his tent and planting their clubs in them, all vociferated, +"Eat! thou art our guest;" and the chieftain was constrained to taste +of each. Finally, near Bougie he happened to receive a courier sent by +the French commandant. The Kabyles immediately believed him to be in +treasonable communication with the enemy, and he was forced to retire. + +The young chief was in fact at that time in peaceful communication +with the French, having made himself respected by them in the west, +while they were attending to the subjugation of Constantina and +founding of Philippeville in the east. Protected by the treaty +of Taafna in 1837, Abd-el-Kader was at leisure to attempt the +consolidation of his little empire and the fusion of the jealous +tribes which composed it. The low moral condition of his Arabs, who +were for the most part thieves and cowards, and the rude individuality +of his Kabyles, who would respect his religious but scoff at his +political claims, made the task of the leader a difficult one. To the +Kabyles he confided the care of his saintly reputation, renouncing +their contributions, and asking only for their prayers as a Berber +and as a khouan of the order of Ben-abd-er-Rhaman. For a few years his +power increased, without one base measure, without any soilure on the +blazon of increasing prosperity. In 1840 the sultan of Oran, at the +zenith of his influence, swept the plains beneath the Atlas with his +nomad court, defended by two hundred and fifty horsemen. Passing his +days in reviewing his troops and in actions of splendid gallantry, he +resumed the humility of the saint at evening prayers: his palace of a +night received him, watched by thirty negro tent-guards; and here he +sheltered his lowly head, whose attitude was perpetually bowed by +the habitual weight of his cowl. The French soon became jealous, and +encroached upon their treaty. The duke of Orleans, we are told, had +Abd-el-Kader's seal counterfeited by a Jewish coiner at Oran, and +with passports thus stamped sent scouting-parties toward the sultan's +dominions, protected by the sultan's forged safe-conduct. Open +conflict followed, and a succession of French razzias. In 1845, +Colonels Pelissier and St. Arnaud, under Marshal Bugeaud, conducted +that expedition of eternal infamy during which seven hundred of +Abd-el-Kader's Arabs were suffocated in a cave-sanctuary of the Dahra. +This sickening measure was put in force at a _cul-de-sac_, where a few +hours' blockade would have commanded a peaceful surrender. + +[Illustration: KABYLE WOMEN.] + +"The fire was kept up throughout the night, and when the day had fully +dawned the then expiring embers were kicked aside, and as soon as +a sufficient time had elapsed to render the air of the silent cave +breathable, some soldiers were directed to ascertain how matters were +within. They were gone but a few minutes, and then came back, we +are told, pale, trembling, terrified, hardly daring, it seemed, to +confront the light of day. No wonder they trembled and looked +pale! They had found all the Arabs dead--men, women, children, +all dead!--had beheld them lying just as death had found and left +them--the old man grasping his gray beard; the dead mother clasping +her dead child with the steel gripe of the last struggle, when all +gave way but her strong love." + +Abd-el-Kader's final defeat in 1848 was due less to the prowess of +Lamoriciere and Bugeaud than to the cunning of his traitorous ally, +the sultan of Morocco, who, after having induced many of the princely +saint's adherents to desert, finally drove him by force of numbers +over the French frontier. Confronting the duke of Aumale on the +Morocco borders, he made a gallant fight, but lost half his best men +in warding off an attack of the Mencer Kabyles. Fatigued now with a +long effort against overwhelming pressure, and world-weary, he met +the duke at Nemours, on the sea-coast close to the Morocco +line. Depositing his sandals, Arab-fashion, outside the French +head-quarters, he awaited the duke's signal to sit down. + +"I should have wished to do this sooner," said the broken chief, "but +I have awaited the hour decreed by Allah. I ask the aman (pardon) of +the king of the French for my family and for myself." + +Louis Philippe could not come in contact with this pure spirit without +an exhibition of Frankish treachery, like tinder illuminating +its foulness at the striking of steel. The sultan's surrender was +conditioned on the freedom to retire to Egypt. The French government +no sooner secured him than it treacherously sent him to prison, first +to the castle of Pau, then to that of Amboise near Blois, where he was +kept from 1848 to 1852, when the late emperor made an early use of +his imperial power to set him at liberty. Since his freedom, at +Constantinople, Broussa and Damascus the ex-sultan has continued to +practice the rigors and holiness of the Oriental saint, proving his +catholic spirit by protecting the Christians from Turkish injustice, +and awaiting with the deep fatigue of a martyr the moment destined to +unite his soul with the souls of Washington, Bozzaris and L'Ouverture. + +This noble life, which impinges a moment on our course through +Kabylia, is surely the most epical of our century, which can never +be reproached for the lack of a hero while Abd-el-Kader's name is +remembered. + +[Illustration: DEFILE OF THIFILKOULT.] + +The descent from the rock-perched city of Kalaa having been made in +safety, and the animals being remounted at the first plateau, our +Roumi traveler and his guides arrive in a few hours at the modern, +fortified, but altogether Kabylian stronghold of Akbou. Here a letter +from a French personage of importance gives us the acquaintance of a +Kabyle family of the highest rank. + +The ancestors of Ben-Ali-Cherif, remotely descended from Mohammed +through one of his sisters, were of Kabylian race, and one of them, +settled in Chellata, near Akbou, founded there a prosperous college of +the Oriental style. Ben-Ali-Cherif, born in Chellata and residing at +Akbou, receives the tourist with a natural icy dignity which only a +czar among the sovereigns of Europe could hope to equal: those who +have but seen Arabs of inferior class can form no notion of the +distinction and lofty gravity of the chiefs of a grand house (or of a +grand tent, as they are called): the Kabyle noble is quite as superb +as the Arab. + +Ben-Ali seats us at a rich table covered with viands half French and +half Oriental: a beautiful youth, his son, resembling a girl with his +blue head-drapery and slim white hands, places himself at table, +and attracts the conversation of the guest. The young man answers +in monosyllables and with his large eyes downcast, and the agha +significantly observes, "You will excuse him if he does not answer: he +is not used to talk before his father." + +The host, disposing of the time of his guests, has arranged a series +of diversions. The valley of the river Sahel is full of boars, and +panthers and monkeys abound in the neighboring spurs of the Zouaouas. +While the Roumi are examining his orchards of oranges and pomegranates +the agha's courtyard fills with guests, magnificent sheikhs on Barbary +horses, armed with inlaid guns. These are all entertained for the +night, together with the usual throng of parasites, who choke his +doors like the clients of the rich Roman in Horace. + +At sunrise the party is mounted. The mare of the agha, a graceful +creature whose veins form an embroidery over her coat of black satin, +is caparisoned with a slender crimson bridle, and a saddle smaller +than the Arab saddles and furnished with lighter stirrups. The +Christian guests are furnished with veritable arquebuses of the Middle +Ages; that is to say, with Kabyle guns, the stock of which, flattened +and surmounted with a hammer of flints, is ignited by a wheel-shaped +lock, easier to be managed by a Burgundian under Charles the Bold than +by an unpretending modern Roumi. + +The usual features of an Algerian hunt succeed. A phantom-like silence +pervades the column of galloping horsemen up to the moment when the +boar is beaten up. Then, with a formidable clamor of "_Haou! haou!_" +from his pursuers, the tusked monster bursts through the tamarinds and +dwarf palms: after a long chase he suddenly stops, and then his form +instantly disappears under the gigantic African hounds who leap upon +him and hang at his ears. A huntsman dismounts and stabs his shoulder +with the yataghan. After a rest the chase is resumed, but this time +under the form of a hawking-party. + +Only the djouads and marabouts--that is to say, the religious or +secular nobles--have the privilege of hunting with the falcon. +The patrician bird, taken by the agha from the shoulder of his +hawk-bearer, is about as large as a pigeon, the head small, beak short +and strong, the claws yellow and armed with sharp talons. The bird +rides upon his master's leather glove until a hare is started: then, +unhooded and released, his first proceeding is to dart into the zenith +as if commissioned to make a hole in the sky. No fear, however, that +the poor panting quarry is lost for an instant from the vision of that +infallible eye, which follows far aloft in the blue, invisible and +fatal. Soon the cruel bird drops like an aerolite, and, as the deed is +explained to us, doubles up his yellow hand into a fist, and deals the +animal a sharp blow on the skull. Directly, as the horsemen approach, +he is found with his obtuse head bent over his prey, digging out its +eyes by the spoonful. + +By noontide the troop is naturally famished. A luncheon, has, however, +been prepared by the thoughtfulness of the agha. Riding up to a tent +which appears as by magic in the wilderness, the provisions for a +sumptuous repast are discovered. Two fires are burning in the open +air, and are surrounded by a host of servants or followers. The Roumi +and their host adjourn from the neighborhood of the preparations, and +are served under a plane tree beautiful as that whose limbs were hung +by Xerxes with bracelets. A soup, absolutely set on fire with red +pepper, introduces the repast: pancakes follow, and various meats +smothered with eggs or onions. Then two half-naked cooks stagger +up bearing on a wooden dish, under a gold-bordered napkin, a sheep +roasted entire and still impaled with the spit. The chief cook takes +hold of the skewer and draws it violently toward himself, applying +a smart stroke with his naked heel to the tail of the creature--a +contact which would seem almost as trying as the ancient ordeal of +the ploughshares, or as the red-hot horseshoes which the fire-eating +marabouts are accustomed to dance upon. The Roumi travelers taste +the succulent viand, taste again, eat till ashamed, and are ready to +declare that never was mutton properly dressed before. If possible, +they vow to introduce the undissected roast, the bonfire, the spit +and the cook with imperturbable heel into the cuisine of less-favored +lands more distant from the sun. + +[Illustration: AN ARAB MARKET.] + +Champagne, which the cunning Mussulmans do not consider as wine, +washes the meal, and coffee and pale perfumed tobacco supplement it. +But when the appetite has retired and permitted some sharpness to the +ordinary senses, the travelers are amazed at the gradual and silent +increase which has taken place in their numbers. Every group of guests +is augmented by a circle of prone and creeping forms that, springing +apparently from the earth, are busily breaking the fragments of the +feast under the care of the servitors, who appear, rather to encourage +than repel them. Ben-Ali-Cherif, being interrogated, replies calmly, +"They are Tofailians." + +The Tofailian is a parasite on system, an idler who elevates his belly +into a divinity, or at least a principle. His prophet or exemplar is a +certain Tofail, whose doctrine is expressed in a few practical rules, +respectfully observed and numerously followed. "Let him who attends +a wedding-feast," says one of his apophthegms, "having no invitation, +avoid glancing here and there dubiously. Choose the best place. If the +guests are numerous, pass through boldly without saluting any one, to +make the guests of the bride think you a friend of the bridegroom, and +those of the groom a friend of the bride." + +An Arab poet said of Tofail: "If he saw two buttered pancakes in a +cloud, he would take his flight without hesitation." + +A Tofailian of marked genius once learned that a festival was going +on at a grand mansion. He ran thither, but the door was closed and +entrance impossible. Inquiring here and there, he learned that a son +of the house was absent on the Mecca pilgrimage. Instantly he procured +a sheet of parchment, folded it, and sealed it as usual with clay: he +rolled his garments in the dust and bent his spine painfully over a +long staff. Thus perfect in what an actor would call his reading, he +sent word to the host that a messenger had arrived from his son. "You +have seen him?" said the delighted Amphitryon, "and how did he bear +his fatigues?" "He was in excellent health," answered the Tofailian +very feebly. "Speak, speak!" cried the eager father, "and tell me +every detail: how far had he got?" "I cannot, I am faint with hunger," +said the simple fellow. Directly he was seated at the highest place of +the feast, and every guest admired that splendid appetite--an appetite +quite professional, and cultivated as poulterers cultivate the +assimilative powers of livers. "Did my son send no letter?" asked the +poor father in a favorable interval caused by strangulation. "Surely," +replied the good friend, and, comprehending that the critical moment +had arrived, he drew to himself a chine of kid with one hand while he +unwound the letter from his turban with the other. The seal was still +moist, and the pilgrim had not found time to write anything on the +parchment. "Are you a Tofailian?" asked the host with the illumination +of a sudden idea. "Yea, in truth, verily," said the stranger, +struggling with his last mouthful. "Eat, then, and may Sheytan trouble +thy digestion!" The parasite was shown the door, but he had dined. + +Men of rank and wealth, like Ben-Ali-Cherif, turn the Tofailian into a +proverb, and thus laugh at a plague they cannot cure. + +[Illustration: POVERTY AND JEWELS.] + +The Algerine coast has enriched our language with at least two words, +respectively warlike and peaceful--_razzia_ and _fantasia_. The latter +is applied to a game of horsemanship, used to express joy or to honor +a distinguished friend. A spirited fantasia is organized by the guests +of the agha on returning to Akbou. Twenty of the best-mounted horsemen +having gone on before, and being completely lost to sight in the +whirlwind of dust created by their departure, all of a sudden +reappear. Menacing their host and his companions like an army, they +gallop up, their bornouses flying and their weapons flashing, until +at a few paces they discharge their long guns under the bodies of the +horses opposite, and take flight like a covey of birds. Loading +as they retire and quickly forming, again they dash to the charge, +shouting, galloping, and shooting among the legs of their host's fine +horses: this sham attack is repeated a score or two of times, up +to the door of the agha's house. The Bedouins, in their picturesque +expression, are making the powder talk. Finer horsemanship can nowhere +be seen. Their horses, accustomed to the exercise, enter into the game +with spirit, and the riders, secure in their castellated saddles, sit +with ease as they turn, leap or dance on two feet. Used, too, from +infancy to the society of their mares, they move with them in a degree +of unity, vigor and boldness which the English horseman never attains. +The Arab's love for his horse is not only the pride of the cavalier: +it is an article of faith, and the Prophet comprehended the close +unity between his nation and their beasts when he said, "The blessings +of this world, up to the day of judgment, shall be suspended to the +locks which our horses wear between their eyes." + +[Illustration: GEORGE CHRISTY IN AFRICA.] + +Truly the Oriental idea of hospitality has its advantages--on the side +of the obliged party. This haughty ruler, on the simple stress of +a letter from a French commandant, has made himself our servant and +teased his brain for devices to amuse us. His chief cook precedes us +to his birthplace at Chellata, to arrange a sumptuous Arab supper. +After a ride made enervating by the simoom, we descend at the arcaded +and galleried Moorish house where Ben-Ali-Cherif was born, and are +visited by the sheikh of the college which the agha maintains. It is +a strange, peaceful, cloistered scene, consecrated to study and +hospitality. Chellata, white and silent, sleeps in the gigantic shadow +of the rock Tisibert, and in its graveyard, among the tombs of sacred +marabouts, walk the small bald-headed students reciting passages +of law or of the Koran. Algeria is dotted over with institutions +(_zaouias_) similar to this, which, like monasteries of old, +combine the functions of seminaries and gratuitous inns. That of +Ben-Ali-Cherif, to which he contributes from his own purse a sum equal +to sixteen thousand dollars a year, is enshrined in buildings strewn +around the resting-place of his holy ancestors. The sacred koubba (or +dome) marking the bones of the marabout is swept by shadows of oak +and tamarind trees: professors stray in the shadow, and the pupils con +their tasks on the adjoining tombstones. + +Every impression of Chellata is silvered over, as with a moonlight of +beneficence, by the attentions of Ben-Ali's house-steward, who rains +upon our appetites a shower of most delicious kouskoussu, soothes us +with Moorish coffee, and finishes by the politeness of lighting and +taking the first whiff of our cigarette--a bit of courtesy that might +be spared, but common here as in parts of Spain. + +With daybreak we find the town of Chellata preparing to play its +role as a mart or place of industry. The labor seems at first sight, +however, to be confined to the children and the women: the former lead +the flocks out at sunrise to pasture in the mountain, the women make +the town ring with their busy work, whether of grinding at the mill, +weaving stuff or making graceful vases in pottery. The men are at work +in the fields, from which they return at nightfall, sullen, hardy and +silent, in their tattered haiks. These are never changed among the +poor working-people, for the scars of a bornouse are as dignified as +those of the body, and are confided with the garment by a father to +his son. The women, as we have remarked before, are in a state of +far greater liberty than are the female Arabs, but it is more than +anything else the liberty to toil. Among these mountaineers the wife +is a chattel from whom it is permissible to extract all the usefulness +possible, and whom it is allowable to sell when a bargain can be +struck. The Kabyle woman's sole recreation is her errand to the +fountain. This is sometimes situated in the valley, far from the +nodding pillar or precipice on which the town is built. There the +traveler finds the good wives talking and laughing together, bending +their lively--sometimes blonde and blue-eyed--faces together over +their jars, and gossiping as in Naples or as in the streets around +Notre Dame in Paris. The Kabyles--differing therein from the +Arabs--provide a fountain for either sex; and a visit by a man to the +women's fountain is charged, in their singular code of penal fines, +"inspired by Allah," a sum equal to five dollars, or half as much as +the theft of an ox. + +By the white light of day-dawn we quit Chellata, with the naked crests +of the Djurjura printing themselves on the starry vault behind us and +the valley below bathed in clouds. As we descend we seem to waken the +white, red-roofed villages with our steps. The plateaus are gradually +enlivened with spreading herds and men going forth to labor. We skirt +the precipice of Azrou-n'hour, crowned with its marabout's tomb. The +plains at our feet are green and glorious, pearled with white, distant +villages. Opposite the precipice the granite rocks open to let us pass +by a narrow portal where formerly the Kabyles used to stand and levy +a toll on all travelers. This straitened gorge, where snow abounds in +winter, and which has various narrow fissures, is named the Defile +of Thifilkoult: it connects the highways of several tribes, but is +impassable from December to April from the snow and the storms which +rage among the cliffs. We are still four thousand feet above the +plain, whose depth the swimming eye tries in vain to fathom, yet the +snowy peaks above us are inaccessible. Descending chains of rocks +mingled with flint and lime, we attain a more clement landscape. +Kabyle girls crowd around a well called the Mosquitoes' Fountain, a +naked boy plays melancholy tunes on a reed, and the signs of a lower +level are abundant in the fields of corn and orchards of olive. But +the rugged mountains, in whose grasp we have found so many wonders, +are not left without regret. The most picturesque part of our +course is now behind us, and as day dies upon our crossing through +Iferaouenen, we turn back to behold the fine line of the mountains, +half sad and regretful, + + While Jove's planet rises yonder, silent over Africa. + +Fourteen expeditions were found necessary by the French between 1838 +and 1857 to subdue the Kabyles, who under leaders such as Ben-Salem, +Ben-Kassim, the Man-with-the-Mule, the Man-with-the-She-Ass, and other +chiefs less celebrated, defended their territory step by step. In the +great chastisement of 1857, Marshal Randon, after subduing this part +of the Djurjura ridge in detail, determined to preserve the fruits of +victory by two new constructions--a fort and a military road. France +was to reside among her unwilling colonists, and she was to possess +an avenue of escape. The building of these two conveniences, as we +may call them, over the smoking ruins of victory, was a conspicuous +example of the excellent engineering genius of the nation. An English +officer, Lieutenant-colonel Walmsley, witnessed, and has left a +spirited account of, the great conquest, and the immediate improvement +of it. The strongholds of the Djurjura (it being May, 1857) were +taken: the most difficult, Icheriden, was soon to fall, yielding +only to the assault of the Foreign Legion--that troop of Arabs and of +Kabyles from the Zouaoua plain wherefrom we derive the word _zouave_. +Marshal Randon selected for his fort the key of the whole district: it +was a place known as the Souk-el-Arba ("Market of Wednesday"). It was +in the heart of the Beni Raten land, and in a spot where three great +mountain-ridges ran down into the plain of the Sebaou. These ridges, +subdued and friendly, would be held in respect by the garrison of the +fort, and the other ridge of Agacha, still rebellious, would likewise +terminate at the fort. The works were immediately laid out and quickly +built. As the road sprang into its level flight like magic, the +peeping Kabyles, perfectly unaware that they were conquered, laughed +in derision. "It is to help the cowards to run away," they said. In +due time rose the pale walls of the citadel, with mountains above and +hills below. The Kabyles call it the White Phantom. Their songs, the +"traditions" of illiterate tribes, recite the building of the terrible +stronghold: "The Roumi has arrived at the Market: he is building +there. Weep, O my eyes! tears of blood. The children of Raten are +valiant men: they are known as masters of the warlike art. They fell +upon the enemy at Icheriden. The Franks fell like lopped branches. +Glory to those brave men! But the Roumi has peeled us like seeds. The +powder talks no more. The warlike men are fainting. Cover thyself with +mourning, O my head!" + +As the tourist turns the summit of Aboudid suddenly appears, like an +ornamental detail in a panorama, this vast fortress, originally +named Fort Napoleon, and since the collapse of the empire called Fort +National. During the French troubles of 1871, in the month of August, +General Ceres was obliged to inspire terror by burning the village of +Thizzi-Ouzzou beneath, and then went on to relieve the fort. When the +next opportunity will occur for the Beni Raten to assert their rights +it is impossible to tell. We descend from the fort, and all becomes +commonplace. The charred ruins of Thizzi-Ouzzou in its valley-bed are +being replaced by new buildings. All wears a look of every-day thrift. +The Arab, moving his household goods, drives before him his poor +dingy wife, loaded down with worthless valuables and also with copper +jewels, in which she clanks like a fettered slave. A negro musician +from the Desert, a true African minstrel, capers before us and beats +the tom-tom, until, distracted with his noise, we pay him and bombard +him off the face of the road with projectiles. + +From Thizzi-Ouzzou to Algiers it is but four hours' journey, and +the four hours are passed in a diligence. Yes, our circumstances are +subdued to the conditions of the diligence! Adieu, our spahi guides, +like figures from _Lalla Rookh!_ Adieu, our dream of an African +Switzerland! The Roumi, outside of Kabylia, quickly fades into the +light of common day, and becomes plain Tom or Harry. + + + + +A REMINISCENCE OF THE EXPOSITION OF 1867. + + +"And you traveled alone?" + +"There were two of us--Annie Foster and I." + +"You found no difficulty?" + +"Not a bit," she replied laughing. + +"But you had adventures: I see it in your face." + +"Who would travel without adventures?" and she made an expressive +gesture. + +"Romantic?" + +"Hm!--_tant soit peu_." + +"I am all attention: begin." + +"You promise not to tell?" + +"Not for the world: torture could not induce me to divulge a single +word." + +"Well, the way it came about was this: Annie and I had been sent from +England to a small French town on the coast, for the benefit of the +warm sea-water baths. It was a quaint little port; all the houses +reminded you of ships in their fitting up; the beds were set into the +wall like berths; closets were stowed away in all sorts of impossible +places; the floors were uncarpeted and white as a main deck; and +articles from distant countries hung about the walls or stood in the +corners--East Indian sugar-cane, cotton from America, Chinese +crockery and piles of sea-shells. The great sea by which we lodged was +represented everywhere. Our food was fish, shrimps and water-fowl--our +acquaintance, fishermen, shrimpers and sailors. The leading event of +the day was the coming in and going out of the tide, and ducks and +geese were the chief domestic animals. On one side was a prospect of +wind-tossed waves and the sails of ships, on the other wind-beaten +fields and the sails of mills: the few cabins that had rashly ventured +beyond the protection of the village shortly lost courage, and, with +their thatched roofs not a yard from the earth, seemed crouching low +to avoid the continuous blasts. The church alone on the high sea-wall +raised itself fearlessly against the tyrant, and though his baffled +voice still howled without, within the pious prayed securely before a +faith-inspiring altarpiece of Christ stilling the tempest. + +"In a few weeks, after we had exhausted every amusement that the dull +town afforded, become intimate with all the old gossips, tired of +listening to the yarns of the pilot-tars off duty, driven the donkeys +over the country until they instinctively avoided us whenever +we appeared, sailed in the bay and suffered periodic attacks of +sea-sickness therefrom, finished the circulating library, and half +learned some barbarous sentences of Norman patois, we sat down +disconsolate one afternoon to devise some means of employing the +remainder of our time. It was then that the bright idea struck Annie, +and she exclaimed, 'Let us go to the Paris Exposition!' + +"'Just the thing!' I answered with enthusiasm. 'I wonder when the next +train starts?' + +"'I'll go and inquire: you begin and pack the trunks. If we can get +off to-day, by to-morrow morning we can begin seeing it;' and she left +the room in great excitement. + +"The result was, that by seven o'clock that evening we had made our +hasty preparations, and were ready to set out. It was raining terribly +when the only hack of the village (which, by the by, was an omnibus) +called for us at the door. The dripping fluid oozed and sparkled over +the blinking lamps, the ribbed sides of the antiquated machine were +varnished with moisture, and the horses looked as if each hair was a +water-spout to drain the sky. Noah's patriarchal mansion might +have presented a similar appearance during the first days of that +celebrated wet season. + +"The motherly woman with whom we had been boarding turned dismally +from the weather to her invalids and tried to dissuade us from leaving +that night, little understanding that we considered it 'fun.' As +a parting advice she told us to call each other _madame_: it would +procure us more consideration. 'For you know, young ladies,' she +remonstrated mildly, 'it is not quite proper for you to travel alone.' +After this prudent counsel and many warm adieus we sallied forth. + +"The omnibus was crowded, and I had perforce to sit on Annie's knees. +This, with the jolting, the queer effect of the half-light in the +rickety interior, together with the expression of the good people, who +evidently could see no fun in rain, excited my risibility so strongly +that I indulged in a smothered laugh, tempered to fit the publicity of +the occasion. + +"'You must not laugh in France,' whispered Nan, pulling my dress. + +"'I thought the French admired gayety,' I answered in the same tone. + +"'Be quiet: it isn't proper.' + +"The rest of the way was accomplished in silence. We soon arrived +at the station and bought our tickets. Of course we had half a dozen +bundles: in gathering them up a most gentlemanly person accosted us +and asked, 'Avez vous perdu quelque chose, mademoiselle?' + +"Annie replied in the negative with great dignity, and so cut off any +chance of adventure in that quarter. + +"On came the train. In France there is fortunately a provision made +for women traveling without an escort. In your country they have, I +believe, smoking-cars especially for the gentlemen: in that blessed +land there is a compartment for 'ladies alone,' or _Dames Seules,_ +as it is called. A good American once read this inscription with much +commiseration, _D---- souls_, and returning told his friends that the +'wicked' French allowed His Satanic Majesty the right of running a +special car on their roads for his greater accommodation. + +"As we were hastening to this most desired refuge I noticed two very +student-looking young men walking near us, and caught a bit of their +conversation. + +"'They will.' + +"'They won't: a bottle of wine on it we go up in the same car with +them.' + +"'I told you so!' + +"As we found our car and entered the students passed on, not daring to +ignore the magic words on the door; so Adventure No. 2 was nipped in +the bud. + +"Nan and I were the only lady-passengers, and we sank back into the +soft cushions with the pleasant sense that no further effort would +be needed during the journey. We had been told that the train would +arrive in Paris about midnight, but the lateness of the hour caused +us no uneasiness, as we had been there before and remembered the city +pretty well; and, besides, we thoroughly believed in our ability to +take care of ourselves. + +"In an interval of wakefulness we discussed our plans, and concluded +to spend the night at some hotel near the station, the next morning +looking up our friends (several of whom we knew to be in town) and +consulting them about our future proceedings, feeling that a midnight +visit from us would scarcely be welcome to any one. Annie recalled a +fine-looking hotel just opposite the terminus, and, having made our +selection in its favor, we dozed off again very comfortably. + +"I think we had been on the way some four hours when the welcome +lights began to appear--first in the sky above the city, as if the +earth in this favored spot threw out rays like the sun; next through +the darkness over the country below; and then we plunged tunnel-wise +into the earth under the busy streets and fortifications, to emerge at +the end of our route. + +"We gathered up our bundles in haste, thanking the stars that we had +accomplished our ride so safely, and were walking off to the hotel +when we suddenly thought of the trunks. Another consultation was held, +and we decided to leave them in the baggage-room until morning. + +"'But we must go and see that they are safe,' suggested Annie. + +"'Where is the baggage-room?' I asked of a porter. + +"'This way, mademoiselle.' + +"'Madame!' I ventured to correct in a weak voice. + +"'Vos clefs, s'il vous plait,' said a polite official as we entered +the door, and another laid hands on the satchels we carried, to +examine them. + +"We had entirely forgotten the octroi officers. 'Oh my! this affair +may keep us another half hour,' thought I, 'and I am so sleepy!' I +have often found (I confide this to you as an inviolable secret) that +to be unreasonable is a woman's strongest weakness: it is a shield +against which man's sharpest logic is invariably turned aside. The +next thing to there not being a necessity, is not seeing a necessity, +and this I prepared in the most innocent manner to do. + +"'Gracious me!' I exclaimed--or its French equivalent, which I suppose +is 'Mon Dieu'--'you don't mean to detain us here opening those bags, +and we so tired, and they packed so full that we could scarcely shut +them; and if you _do_ open them, we cannot get all the things into +them again, and shall have no end of trouble!' Then I looked as +injured as if they had been thieves or highway-men. + +"Had a man made this speech they would have mistrusted him, but as +women have a reputation for shallowness, such talk is never thought +suspicious in them. + +"'What do they contain?' asked the officer, hesitating. + +"'I don't know what all: we have been at the sea-side, and they are +full of trash. There are some shells and an old hat in mine, and--and +things.' + +"He tried to conceal a smile, and looked toward the other, who nodded, +and we saw the welcome 'O' put on in chalk, upon which the bags were +given back to us. + +"'Now the trunks,' said the first who had spoken, holding out his hand +for the keys. + +"'Oh, we are going to leave them here till to-morrow: they are all +right--you can mark them too;' and without further ceremony we moved +toward the door. One of the men stepped after us. I thought it was to +make us return, but it was only to ask if he should get us a carriage. + +"We thanked him and replied that we were going to the hotel opposite, +and did not need one: he then turned to a person who seemed to be the +porter of the establishment, and told him to carry our satchels for +us. Now we felt our journey was well at an end, for the windows of our +welcome asylum were blazing not more than a hundred feet off. + +"We crossed the street, rang at the ladies' entrance and asked for +rooms. After a few moments the servant returned, and, much to our +chagrin, said that there were none to be had, every corner was full. + +"'Do let us see the clerk. We _must_ have a room: you can surely find +us one somewhere.' + +"The man shook his head. + +"'Please go and try,' we insisted: 'we shall be satisfied with +anything for the night. Won't you go and ask again?' + +"'It is of no use,' he answered obstinately, a cause de l'Exposition;' +and he opposed a shrug of his shoulders to every other effort at +persuasion that we made. + +"Just then a chambermaid passed. 'Do come here,' I called. 'Can't you +find us a room? I will pay you;' and I put my hand significantly in my +pocket. + +"'Very sorry, ladies, but it is impossible,' + +"This was a contingency we had not provided for: we looked at each +other blankly, and, though loath to do so, we both came to the +conclusion that they were telling the truth. + +"'What shall we do?' asked Annie, speaking to me in English. + +"'I suppose we shall have to take a carriage and go down town, after +all,' + +"'They may be full there too,' she said in a rueful tone. + +"Just then the porter with our satchels spoke: 'There is another hotel +near, ladies, and if you will come I will show you to it,' + +"I consulted Annie with a look, and she assented. Any prospect was +better than a midnight drive of several miles, with no certainty as to +our lot at the end of it. So we turned from the inhospitable door and +followed our guide. + +"The latter walked quickly for perhaps a square, stopped before a +neat-looking house and rang. Our courage rose as the door opened and +revealed a clean-looking court surrounded by orange trees in boxes, +with small coffee-tables under them for the convenience of the guests. + +"'Rooms for two ladies!' demanded our attendant with the voice of a +herald. + +"The trim but sleepy servant looked at us a moment, as if not +comprehending the situation, then slowly pronounced our sentence in +two words, 'No rooms!' and as if to emphasize them threw up the palms +of his hands, shook his head and added 'Full!' after which he closed +the door with a hasty click and returned to his nap. + +"Our night-errant was visibly disappointed with this reception--not +more so than we were--but without allowing us time to speak he said +in his most reassuring voice, 'Never mind, ladies: there are plenty +of hotels about here, and we shall soon find lodgings for you.' Having +undertaken the task, he seemed to think it his duty to comfort and +provide for us. + +"Alas! this was not soon accomplished. Two other hotels were +successively tried in vain, and still our indefatigable guide went +on. It appeared as if we had walked a considerable distance, but the +streets cut each other at odd angles, and we had been turning so often +that I confess I had but little idea where we were, or how far we had +come, when we entered a quarter where the ways became narrower, passed +into a dingy alley, thence plunged through a still darker court, from +that to another alley, and the next moment our porter was ringing at +the door of a tall, sombre house. I truly hoped that we should not +find rooms here, and was turning to Annie to advise a cab and an +attempt in a more civilized-looking locality, when the bell was +answered and the old question repeated. + +"To my surprise and dismay the servant said they could accommodate us. +Should we stay? I knew that in the older parts of Paris the best of +houses are sometimes found in the poorer streets, and that in no city +is a person less able to judge of the interior comfort of a building +by its external aspect. We were very tired, and should we turn away +from this open door where should we find another open for us? The +porter, however good-natured, could not continue to run about with us +all night, and our faith in ourselves was considerably diluted since +we left the cars: even a cab might be difficult to get at this hour +of the night. Annie did not object: indeed, she looked too worn out to +have an opinion in the matter, and as I could think of nothing better +to do, I began to make the usual inquiries: 'Have you two adjoining +rooms?' + +"'Yes, mademoiselle.' + +"I remembered the advice that had been given us on starting: here +surely was a place to use it, so I said to the servant in a marked +tone, 'Take _madame's_ bag and show us to our chambers.' + +"'This way, mesdemoiselles,' he answered with the most provoking +coolness. + +"I dismissed our faithful porter with regret, and followed the +other up stairs. While ascending I racked my brain to determine +what peculiarity of manner we could adopt that would give us a more +matronly air while traveling, but I could think of nothing. I may as +well tell you now that we never for an instant deceived any one on +this subject during our stay, and we soon ceased trying to do so. + +"Our rooms were much better than I had expected to find them, but even +this caused in me a feeling of doubt. They had a hypocritical air, a +grasping after appearances that I believe always accompanies deceit +and imposition--a sleek shabbiness that I detest. I knew by instinct +that if I examined I should find the carpets worn out under the mats, +and the chairs faded beneath their smart chintz covers. There was not +a candid-looking piece of furniture in the apartment: the table was an +impostor with one short leg; the drawers of the bureau would not open; +the glasses were all askew, and twisted your face to such a degree +that it frightened you to catch a glimpse of yourself in passing. But +this was not the worst: from the moment I entered the rooms I felt +that they _had been waiting for us_. + +"I did not venture to mention my suspicions to Annie, and tried to +keep up a cheery sort of conversation while we undressed, but I could +see that she too began to be uneasy. We carefully inspected our doors, +and found the locks were good, then looked to see that there was no +one lurking under the beds. It would be difficult to tell you exactly +what I feared, but somehow everything impressed me as mysterious--the +quiet of the streets through which we had come, and the quiet of the +house. It was such a lonely, eerie kind of place: our feet echoed +on the stairways as if human feet seldom ascended them; the shadows +appeared especially dark; our candles' small light made little +impression on the gloom; the very air seemed harder to breathe than +ordinary; and on recalling the face of the impertinent servant I +thought that it had a sinister look. + +"I tried to recall whether we were in a good or bad faubourg, but +could not; and then I remembered that Paris was now divided into +arrondissements, which had a much less ill-omened sound. I went to the +window to reconnoitre the locality, but, though the rain had ceased, +darkness covered all so thickly that I could see nothing. As I stood +there the clock on the station struck, first the quarters, and then +_one_, in a doleful, muffled tone. It told me one thing I was glad +to know--namely, that we could not have wandered very far during our +walk; but there was little comfort in that, after all, since the walk +had terminated here. + +"Stories that I had read of strange adventures and accidents to +midnight guests now trooped into my head. I thought of one in +particular, in which the tester of the bed slowly descended to smother +the sleeping inmate for purposes of robbery; whereupon I minutely +examined mine, and found to my satisfaction that it was scarcely able +to discharge the single duty of holding up the curtains, and looked +most innocent of further intentions. Finding myself again peering into +corners I had already searched, and feeling this general unrest to +be growing upon me, I began to think I must be nervous from +over-exertion, and determined to get rid of my silly fancies in sleep. +Then, as if to take myself by surprise, I suddenly blew out the light, +sprang under the covers and shut my eyes tight, afraid that something +hateful might glare upon me in the dark. + +"Just then Annie came to the communicating doorway, and with an effort +to speak in her natural voice she said, 'Jane, I am going to +sleep here.' And as if this endeavor had consumed her last bit of +resistance, she closed and locked the door quickly, ran to my bed and +threw herself shivering beside me. + +"'What is the matter?' I whispered, feeling my presentiment of evil +confirmed. + +"She put her lips to my ear and answered, 'I found a door in my room +behind the bed-curtains, and it leads I don't know _where_." + +"'Did you open it?' + +"'No indeed! I would not open it for the world. There might be +something horrible in it;' and she shuddered. + +"'You have left your light burning.' + +"'I don't care. I won't go back: no indeed, I _could_ not.' There +was silence for a few minutes: neither of us moved, when Nan again +whispered, 'Do you think this room quite safe?' + +"'I looked all around before I blew out the light.' + +"'Did you look _behind_ your curtains?' + +"'No!' I answered with an uncomfortable sensation. + +"'You are next the wall: feel along it,' in her most persuasive voice. + +"The very idea made me creep. Put my hand behind those curtains and +touch--what? Even the cold wall would be sufficient to terrify me. For +reply I remarked suggestively, 'If we had the light we could see.' + +"'Yes, that would be just the thing. Go bring it--do!' + +"I felt that something must be done, and soon, or I should be in no +state to accomplish it. If Nan would not go, I must: when we had the +light half our trouble would be over, and, after all, she might have +been mistaken. + +"'Did the door move?' I ventured to ask. + +"'No, it didn't do anything--at least I don't think it did--but it +_looked_ so awful that it frightened me.' + +"'That light in there may set something on fire,' I remarked. + +"'Go fetch it: it will only take you a minute. Do go!' + +"'You are sure the door didn't open?' I asked, far from liking my +task. + +"'I will go with you half-way,' she volunteered, 'and stand there +while you run in quick. Come on, and don't let us talk any more about +it: we shall only get more and more frightened.' You will see that +Annie's gifts lay more in persuasion than in action. + +"Thus adjured, I went with her to the communicating door, cautiously +listened, then looked through the keyhole. The silence within was +oppressive, but the flickering bougie warned me that I must make an +effort, and without allowing myself time to think I hastily turned the +key and opened the door. + +"At that moment it seemed to me that I heard distant footsteps. I +rushed for the light and turned to go back, when I ran against some +one: the candle was extinguished by being jerked from the holder to +the floor, and a hand which I vainly tried to shake off clasped my +arm. My blood grew thick and still with sudden terror. I tried to +speak, but could not. What increased my dread was that I could not +tell whether the _Thing_ by my side was a reality or a spectre. I had +caught a glimpse of something white as the light disappeared, and I +believe that a pistol at my head would have caused me less alarm than +this horrible idea of the supernatural. I began to feel that I could +endure it no longer, that I should stifle, should die, when Annie's +voice spoke in the darkness quite near, and I found it was she who had +grasped my arm. + +"'I could not stay in that room alone,' she whispered. 'Don't you +hear?--_footsteps!_ They are coming.' + +"'You have half frightened me to death,' I murmured trembling: 'I +thought you were something.' + +"'No, I ain't anything, but something _is_ coming. Don't you hear?' + +"It was true enough. Through the quiet of the house came stealthy +footsteps. Nearer, nearer. They were ascending the stairs, at times +delaying an instant, as if groping for the way, then on. + +"'Come into your room,' said Annie convulsively: 'come, and we can +lock ourselves in. Oh, where _is_ your door? I cannot find it, and +they are coming. What shall we do? what shall we do?' + +"We were in total darkness: not a ray of light came from the window, +and in our confusion we had lost our bearings. Neither of us had the +least idea in what direction the other room lay. + +"'Let us creep along the floor, perhaps we may find it. Do try,' said +I. + +"'No, no, I cannot move. I wish we had never come. I am dying.' She +was shaking with fright, and would not leave my arm for an instant. + +"Just then, from somewhere near us, we could not tell from what +side, came a long low whistle, so mournful and unearthly, with such a +summons in its tone, that I shivered: then a faint movement followed +from the same place. + +"'It is a signal for the other,' gasped Annie: 'it is in that door: +they are coming, they are here. Shall I scream murder? shall I?' +giving my arm an emphasizing grip. + +"'No, no, wait: it will do no good.' + +"She groaned, slipped down on her knees, with one arm still round +me, her face pressed against my side, holding her other hand over the +unprotected ear, so that she should hear no more; and in this position +she began to repeat 'Now I lay me down to sleep' just as fast as she +could gabble it. + +"I was no less frightened, and would willingly have crouched down +also, but she held me so tight that I could not without a struggle, +and above all things I did not want to make a noise. + +"It was thus we awaited the crisis. The steps were certainly coming to +our room, but whether by the door we had entered or by the one Annie +had seen behind the bed, I could not tell. I was too bewildered to +locate the sound, nor did I know whether the bed was at my right or +left hand. I had a slight hope that the steps might pass on. + +"It was for that I waited. + +"They came--near, nearer. For a time my heart ceased beating. Annie +slipped lower, until she lay on the floor, and I could no longer hear +her breathe. My whole being was merged in listening to that step. I +could feel that now it was on a level with our room--was there almost +beside us. Lightly though distinctly a hand passed over the door, as +if fumbling for the latch. This was the intense moment. Had the person +paused or hesitated an instant, I think it would have killed us both. +But no, he did not falter. Steadily on, the step, guided by the hand, +went as it had come, and as I stood, not daring to move, I heard it +receding in the distance of the great house. Then all was silence. + +"When sensation returned to me I felt as if I had awakened from a +nightmare, and found myself shaking from the nervous reaction and the +cold. I stooped to find poor Nan on the floor, and said through my +chattering teeth, 'It must have been only a late boarder. Don't be +afraid. It is all over: come, get up.' + +"'Can't you get a light?' she begged. 'I cannot move until you have a +light. I am still afraid.' + +"I now remembered that the bureau must be behind me, for I had merely +turned when I encountered Annie and dropped the candle. There were +probably matches upon it: yes, there they were. I struck one and +easily found the candle: then Annie rose with the meekest air +possible, and, without looking at the obnoxious corner where the bed +stood, we walked into the other room and locked the door. + +"It was not until the gray morning light crept into the window that we +felt quite safe. Every crack in the floor or nibbling mouse caused us +to start, and at each quarter the clock of the station would strike +as if to warn us to be on the alert. But the bed was not bad, and the +house remained quiet; and as soon as the dawn made our candle useless, +we began to think we had been very foolish, and the result was a sound +sleep. + +"When we awoke it was ten o'clock: the morning was bright and clear, +and the terrors of the night had all departed during our refreshing +rest. The room certainly looked shabby, but if that were a crime, half +the houses in the world would be sent to prison. There was nothing in +the least mysterious about it. Our courage rose with the day, and we +teased and joked each other about our fright. Then, anticipating the +glories of the Exposition, we congratulated ourselves that we had +come. + +"'We won't breakfast here,' said Annie as she was dressing: 'we will +go down town to a nice restaurant, and sit at a window and see the +people go by. Afterward we will look up our friends and find a good +hotel or boarding-house; and we _must_ go to the Exposition this very +day. We shall have a famous time. We can make up parties to drive out, +and go monument-hunting and sight-seeing, and to the theatre. Ain't +you glad you came?' + +"'The first thing we do must be to go back to the station and leave +these bags with our trunks until we find lodgings,' I remarked. + +"Nan went into the next room to get some of the clothing she had left +there. When she returned, lowering her voice she said, 'Jane, there +_is_ a door behind my curtains.' + +"'Very well, let it alone: I suppose it is a closet.' + +"'No such thing: it don't look like a closet; and why would they hide +a closet, I should like to know? Come in and see it.' + +"She walked back, and as I followed drew the curtain aside, and there +in fact it was. + +"'I am going to open it before I leave the room,' she said in a +determined tone: 'there is something not right about it.' + +"'I wouldn't,' I remonstrated: 'some one may be in there.' + +"'I am going to see: I must look into it. It is daylight, you know, +and we sha'n't be much frightened. Help me to push away the bed.' + +"'I won't do anything so absurd. This is a hotel, Annie, and there +must be plenty of adjoining rooms in it. Suppose that room is now +occupied by a boarder?' + +"'If it is occupied they will lock the door on the other side, and I +will try the latch softly to see; but I know it is not. Don't you +see that the only entrance must be from here? There is the entry. +opposite, and here is the court: now, how could any one get into it +but through this room? It must be a small place, too, for here is +the corner of the house, and it has been evidently planned to be kept +_concealed_." + +"'No matter: we have no right to any rooms but these we are in. Come +away, and let well enough alone.' + +"'It is not "well enough," as you call it. I am going to see into +it, and why they hide it. I declare,' and she examined the door +critically, 'it looks like the entrance to Bluebeard's chamber. Look +at these queer marks, these dents and stains, as if there had been +a struggle. It is our duty to investigate;' and her voice grew +impressive. 'Perhaps we have been brought here for that very purpose, +and, Jane, if there _is_ a dead body in there, I shall inform the +police.' Annie was very brave in daylight. + +"'Fiddle-de-dee!' I replied to this fine speech. 'What you call duty, +I call curiosity. I am ravenously hungry, and I wish you would finish +dressing and let us get to breakfast.' + +"'I will just tell you this,' she answered indignantly, and yet with a +quiver in her voice, 'I never in my life felt as I did last night when +I saw that door. It was quite like what people write of a mysterious +influence, or the presence of some one unseen; and that whistle or +voice or moan, as if a soul was calling, came from here; and you must +help me to find out what it really was, for I can't go away without +knowing.' + +"I saw it was useless to try longer to dissuade her. The bed moved +easily: she took my hand and led me behind it; then warily tried the +latch. It rose, but she was obliged to lean all her weight against the +door before it would give way, and finally it opened so unexpectedly +that she almost fell forward. + +"What did I see? At the first glimpse a faint light from a cobwebbed +window, a narrow room and a floor--red. Was it blood? A sickening +mouldy smell came forth, but as I forced myself to look again I saw +that it was only red tiles that had startled me. There was an upright +brick range in a corner, an old water-tank, some shelves and a +cupboard. A missing pane of glass left a space through which the air +had entered and moaned up the broad-mouthed flue that opened above +the range. This was the ominous 'signal' we had heard in answer to the +footsteps. The dust was thick over everything, and the only signs +of life were the rat-tracks on the floor. We stood still for a few +moments, overwhelmed at this solution of the occult 'influence' that +had so subtly acted on Annie's nerves, and filled me with no less +terror. + +"The house had been built for a _hotel garni_; that is, a house with +furnished rooms or apartments, something like a tenement-house in your +country. This was the kitchen of the suite, and belonged to the two +rooms we had taken. Being unused for its proper object, and too small +for a bed-chamber, it had been closed, and appeared as if it had been +unentered for years. I turned to Annie to see how she would bear this +prosaic explanation of our alarm, but with the air of one who had +expected nothing but this from the beginning, she remarked, 'Now you +see how much better it is to look into such things. This room would +have furnished me with bad dreams for the remainder of my life, and +here I find it is only a commonplace kitchen. Think how ludicrous to +have the horrors over a kitchen! Sha'n't I tell of your fright when +we get home--how you didn't want to open the door, and wanted to 'let +well enough alone'? The place _might_ be haunted by the ghost of +a chicken or a rabbit, but, my dear, you should not allow that to +terrify you.' + +"'Perhaps it was the ghost of a chicken that you feared last night, +and that caused your presentiments this morning. I hope you will +inform the police of what you have discovered here,' I remarked +quietly. + +"'A truce, a truce, good Jane! I will say no more. We were both +boobies. But wouldn't it be 'cute to live here, you and me, and make +our own breakfast? Look at the hole for charcoal, and the little +cupboard, the nails for the pots and pans to hang on: everything is +complete. That room could be for dining, the other a parlor, and--' + +"'The only drawback would be that, except at the North Pole, the night +comes once in twenty-four hours.' + +"'Don't be mean, Jane! Do come in here a minute: it's a dear little +place.' + +"'You will certainly make a housekeeper if a kitchen gives you such +ecstasy. Come out, I am so hungry. Put on your bonnet and leave this +elysium: I have had enough of it.' + +"'You come in for a second: it will shake the terror off and you +won't dream of it. That is a cure my old nurse once gave me for laying +ghosts.' + +"'It may be a good plan to shake off the terror, but the dust on you +will not be shaken off so easily.' + +"'Suppose,' and she stamped her foot--'suppose that the floor should +be hollow, and that this were only a pretended kitchen after all, or +that there was a trap-door painted to resemble tiles, or a sliding +panel.' Here she felt over the surface of the wall. 'Why should I feel +so queer last night if this was really nothing but a kitchen?' + +"'Because you are a goose,' I answered impatiently, 'and if you don't +come I will leave you. If you like, you can engage boarding here for a +week, and raise the tiles one by one with a knife and fork. As for me, +I am going to breakfast.' + +"'But don't you think it really has an uncanny look?' she asked, +giving a last glance over her shoulder as she came out. + +"'If you call dirt uncanny, there is plenty of that. Shut the door, +and I will push back the bed.' + +"'Jane,' she again remarked as she was trying on her bonnet before the +crooked glass, 'if ever I tell of this night, I think I will say that +there _was_ a trap-door in the kitchen: you know there might be one +and we not see it.' + +"'Oh yes,' I answered as patiently as I could, 'I suppose a fib more +or less will make but little difference in your lifetime. While you +are at it, however, you may as well make a few more additions.' + +"'Now you are unkind.' + +"'A person is not accountable for temper when famishing. Take up your +satchel.' + +"We found the house a most every-day-looking house, seen by sunlight; +but there had lain the difficulty. The clerk in the office did not +particularly resemble a cutthroat, or even a cutpurse, and, strange to +say, did not overcharge us: in fact, he behaved very civilly. We found +we were not far from the station, and depositing our bags there, we +walked down the beautiful Rue La Fayette. + +"'It is a great deal pleasanter to travel alone in this way,' said +Nan gayly, her spirits rising in the delightful air. 'When I was here +before with all the family, it was not near so jolly; and I think we +manage well, don't you? Oh, there is an omnibus not _complet_: let us +get in. I am too hungry to walk.' + +"After we were seated she continued: 'I wonder what will happen to +us to-night. Suppose we find every place full, and have to sleep in a +garden or on the steps of a church, or something? Isn't it delightful +not to know in the least what is going to happen next?--just as in +fairy-land. Don't you hope we may have an adventure every night?' + +"'I should not call last night an adventure: it seems to me it was +more like a panic,' I said drily. + +"'You will never let anything be agreeable,' in a hurt tone: then +recovering her good temper, she went on: 'Well, call it a panic if +you like. Now, suppose we had one every night, and we stayed here two +weeks, there would be fourteen panics before we go home. Wouldn't that +be glorious?' + +"'You did not appear to enjoy it so much last night.' + +"'At the time I did not,' she admitted frankly. 'Weren't we +frightened? But then, you know, how nice it will be to talk of it +afterward!' + +"We arrived at a restaurant in the Palais Royal, and found a seat by +the window, and a breakfast. We had already finished the latter, and +were playing with our fruit, when a party entered who attracted our +attention by speaking English. + +"'One of them is Miss Rodgers,' Annie whispered excitedly. 'I know her +well: hadn't we better run away? What will she think of our being here +alone?' + +"'Nonsense! You had better ask her where she is staying. Remember, we +are houseless as yet.' + +"'I don't like to ask her.' + +"'Introduce me: I will ask.' The idea of spending the night in a +garden or on a church-step did not possess the same charms for me as +for Nan. Thus prompted, she walked forward and spoke to her friend, +afterward presenting me. We chatted a few minutes, when Miss Rodgers +asked Annie where she was staying, and how her mamma was. + +"'Mamma is not with us,' was Nan's embarrassed reply. + +"I went to her rescue, and diverted the questions by asking some +myself: 'Miss Rodgers, where are you staying? We do not like our hotel +and want to change.' + +"'There is not a room in our house that is unoccupied, and you won't +find good accommodation anywhere. You had better not change if you +have a place to lay your head. Paris is so crowded that everything +has been taken up long ago. You can ask at a dozen hotels or +boarding-houses and not find a garret to let. You have no idea of the +difficulty.' + +"Yes, we had an idea, and believed every word she said: in fact, +we would rather have felt less convinced on the subject. Even Annie +seemed to think that traveling alone might present some disagreeable +features, and looked quite unhappy, notwithstanding her love of +adventure. But before our mental anguish had time to become unbearable +a young girl, a niece of Miss Rodgers, spoke: 'Auntie, if the young +ladies would like, I know of just the place that would suit them.' +Then turning to us, she continued: 'I am at school a few miles out of +the city, and madame told me that if I knew of any one, she had room +for a few parlor-boarders. It is a lovely spot, and no end of trains +coming and going all day; so that it would be just as convenient as +living here, and you would have excellent accommodation. Then, too, +I could speak English to you sometimes. I am so tired of talking for +ever without half knowing what I am saying.' + +"I could have embraced the chatterbox on the spot for this opportune +proposal, but controlled my feelings and looked at Nan to see if +she approved. She was consenting with every one of her expressive +features, and did not appear at all anxious to enjoy one of her +fourteen delightful panics this evening if it could be avoided. +Being spokesman, I said, 'I would willingly try the school on your +recommendation, Miss Ada, if you think madame could be ready for us +this evening.' + +"'Of course she could: come out with me now and see her. I must go +at one, and can show you the way. Will you meet me at the station? or +shall we call for you at your hotel?' + +"'We will meet at the station,' I replied, glad to settle it so +quickly, 'if you are quite sure that your madame will like our +unceremonious arrival.' + +"'That will be all right, I know. She has several empty rooms, and +will be happy to have them filled. You can leave your trunks until +to-morrow if you don't like to come bag and baggage.' + +"We needed no further pressing. Here was deliverance and safety, and +we bade good-morning to the party with light hearts. + +"We found the school all that Miss Ada had promised, and thus ended +the nearest approach to an adventure that we had during the two weeks +that we remained." + +"And now tell me about the Exposition." + +"Well, we saw it." + +"Saw what?" + +"Why, everything." + +"Describe it to me." + +"Certainly. In the first place, it was very big, and everybody was +there, so it was crowded; and you met your friends and you talked; +and--and you got fearfully tired; and it was wonderful; and there were +ever so many restaurants, and a soda-water fountain, and queer things +that you never expected to see there, like the Mexican techcatl and +Russian horses; and everything was _real_--real lace and cashmeres and +diamonds, and nothing but what was very nice. But, after all, I think +you had better get a file of old newspapers and read about it, for I +really have no talent for description--or, better still, go and see +the one in Vienna this summer." + +ITA ANIOL PROKOP. + + + + +SLAINS CASTLE. + + +In traveling over the old lands of Europe one is sometimes apt to +think more of historical and genealogical traditions than of the +natural beauties or peculiarities of the country. The old landmarks +of a nation, whether monuments built by the hand of man or archives +carefully preserved by him, tell us of its growth, just as the strata +of the mountain tell of its progress to the geologist; and as every +successive layer has some relation both to its predecessor and its +successor, so the traditions of each generation have a perceptible +influence upon the moral development of the generation following. +Every nation is thus the growing fruit of its own history, and every +visible step of the grand ladder of facts that has led up to the +present result must needs have for a student of human nature an +intrinsic interest. + +This comes very clearly before my mind as I think of Slains Castle +(Aberdeen), a massive crown of granite set on the brow of the rocks of +the German Ocean, and the seat of one of those old Scottish families +whose origin is hidden away among the suggestive mists of tradition. + +Slains Castle stands alone, a giant watchman upon giant cliffs, +built up only one story high, on account of the tremendous winds that +prevail there in spring and autumn, and cased with the gray Aberdeen +granite of the famous quarries near by. The surrounding country is +as bare and uninviting as one could imagine; the road from Aberdeen +(twenty miles) is bleak and stony; the young trees near the castle are +stunted, and in many cases disfigured by the inroads of hungry cows +among their lower branches, and a damp veil of mist hangs perpetually +over the scene, softening the landscape, but sometimes depressing +the spirits. As the hours pass the place grows on you: a weird beauty +begins to loom up from among the mist-wreaths, the jagged rocks, the +restless waves, and you forget the desolate moor, which in itself +displays attractions you will realize later, in the grandeur of the +desolate sea. + +The original building is of the time of James VI. (of Scotland), and +is due to Francis, earl of Erroll, whose more ancient castle, bearing +the same name, was destroyed by the king to punish his vassal for +the part he had taken in a rebellion. In the seventeenth century Earl +Gilbert made great improvements in it, and early in the eighteenth +Earl Charles added the front. In 1836 it was rebuilt by Earl William +George, the father of the present owner, with the exception of the +lower part of the original tower. In this there used to be in olden +times an _oubliette_ in which unhappy prisoners were let down. All at +first appeared dark around them, but when they had thankfully assured +themselves that they at last stood upon solid ground, they would look +about them and presently descry a line of fitful light coming from a +door ajar in their dungeon. The poor victims would then go in haste +to this door, pull it open and, blinded by the sudden light, step out +upon the green slope terminating quickly in a precipice, which went +sheer down to the sea. + +The rest of the house is built around a large covered piazza, +intersected by corridors where pictures, armor and all kinds of old +family relics decorate the walls. The drawing-room is on the very edge +of the rock, and on stormy days the flocks of uneasy sea-gulls almost +flap their wings against its window-panes, while the clouds of +spray dash up against them in miniature waterfalls. The rocks in the +immediate neighborhood of the castle are rugged in the extreme, here +and there rent by a gigantic fissure reaching far inland, and up which +the foaming waters gurgle continually as if in impatience of their +narrow bounds, now jutting far into the sea like a Titanic staircase +and thickly matted with coarse sea-weed, and again reared up on high, +a sheer glistening wall, with not a cranny for the steadiest foot, and +with Niagaras of spray for ever veiling its smooth, unchanging face. +In wonderful hollows you will come upon pools of green water with +sea-anemones, delicate sea-weed of pink, yellow or purple hue, and +gem-like shells resting on a bottom of clearest sand; and while the +waves are roaring on every side, and flinging their dampness into your +very face, these fairy pools will lie at your feet without a breath or +ripple on their surface. + +The most magnificent of these rocks is one called in Gaelic "Dun-Bug" +("Yellow Rock"), the favorite haunt of the white sea-gulls. It stands +alone, as if torn from the land and hurled into the tossing waves +by some giant hand. Two hundred feet in height and a thousand in +circumference, it forms a natural arch, being pierced from its base +upward by an opening that widens as it ascends. The waves dash through +it with terrific violence, and the very sight of its grim splendor +conjures up a vision of shipwreck and danger. Scott has made +mention of it in _The Antiquary_, and Johnson in his _Journey to the +Hebrides_, recalling the grandeur of the rocky coast of Slains, has +said that though he could not wish for a storm, still as storms, +whether wished for or not, will sometimes happen, he would prefer +to look at them from Slains Castle. These rocks and the caves that +alternate with them were once famous as a smuggling rendezvous, and +as such Scott has again immortalized them in his _Guy Mannering_. The +Crooked Mary, a noted lugger, had many an adventure along this coast +during the last century. The skipper's arrival was eagerly looked for +at certain stated times, the preconcerted signal was given by him, +and the inhabitants bestirred themselves with commendable haste. +All ordinary business was immediately suspended: men might be seen +stealing along from house to house, or a fisher-girl, bareheaded and +barefooted, would hurry to the neighboring village, and deliver a +brief message which to a bystander would sound very like nonsense, but +which nevertheless was well understood by the person to whom it was +given. Soon after a plaid or blanket might be seen spread out, as if +to dry, upon the top of a peat-stack. Other beacons, not calculated +to draw general notice, but sufficiently understood by the initiated, +soon made their appearance, telegraphing the news from place to place. +As soon as the evening began to close in the Crooked Mary would be +observed rapidly approaching the land, and occasionally giving out +signals indicating the creek into which she meant to run. Both on sea +and land hairbreadth escapes were the rule rather than the exception, +and it is related of one of the Crooked Mary's confederates on shore, +poor Philip Kennedy, that one night, while clearing the way for the +cargo just landed from the contraband trader's hold, he was simply +murdered by the excise-officers. The heavy cart laden with the +cargo was yet some distance behind, and Kennedy with some dastardly +companions was slowly going forward to ascertain if all was safe, +when three officers of the customs suddenly made their unwelcome +appearance. Brave as a lion, Kennedy attacked two of them, and +actually succeeded for a time in keeping them down in his powerful +grasp, while he called to his party to secure the third. They, +however, thinking prudence the better part of valor, decamped +ignominiously, and the enemy remained master of the brave man's life. +Anderson, the third officer, was observed to hold up his sword to the +moon, as if to ascertain if he were using the edge, and then to bring +it down with accurate aim and tremendous force upon the smuggler's +skull. Strange to say, Kennedy, streaming with blood, actually +succeeded in reaching Kirkton of Slains, nearly a quarter of a mile +away, but expired a few moments after his arrival. His last words +were: "If all had been true as I was, the goods would have been safe, +and I should not have been bleeding to death." The brave fellow was +buried in the churchyard of Slains, where a plain stone marks his +grave, and bears the simple inscription, "To the memory of Philip +Kennedy, _in Ward_, who died the 19th of December, 1798. Aged 38." + +My own earliest recollections of the grand, desolate old castle are +derived, not from my first visit to it made in infancy, but from the +descriptions of one whose home it was during a brief but intensely +observant period of childhood. There came one day a storm such as +seldom even on that coast lashes up the gray, livid ocean. The waves, +as far out as sight could reach, were one mass of foam, and the +ghastly lightning flashed upon the torn sails of a ship as near +destruction as it well could be. Cries came up from below in the brief +pauses of the storm, and above lanterns were quickly carried to and +fro, while pale attendants hurriedly and silently obeyed the signals +of a more collected master. The occupants of the castle hardly knew to +what its chambers might be destined--whether to receive the dead or to +afford rest to the saved. Beds, fires and cordials were in readiness, +and strong men bore dread burdens up dizzy paths leading from beneath. +The ship broke in pieces on the merciless rocks, and many a drowned +sailor went down to meet the army of his fellow-victims of all times +who no doubt lay sleeping in the submarine caves of Slains. Those who +survived soon disappeared, full of gratitude for the timely relief +offered them at the castle, but one old man remained. He was never +known by any other name than "Monsieur," and was beloved by every +individual member of the household. A French _emigre_ of the old +school, with the dainty, gallant ways of the _ancien regime_, he still +clung to the dress of his earlier days, and wore a veritable _queue_, +silk stockings and buckled shoes. For some time he remained a welcome +guest in the "red chamber," where the host's little children would +sometimes join him and play with his watch and jeweled baubles. But +one day poor little "Monsieur" sickened, and the tiny feet that had +made such haste to run to him, now trod the corridor softly and bore a +baby-nurse to the gentle invalid. It was a high and coveted reward for +the little girls to carry "Monsieur's" medicine to his bedside, and +everything that kindness and hospitality could suggest was equally +lavished on him; but his feeble life, which had no doubt received a +shock from the shipwreck it had barely escaped, went out peacefully +like the soft flame of a lamp. + +Slains Castle had many gentle and pleasant memories about it, as well +as its traditional horrors, and among these were many connected with +the history of the old family that owned it. In one of the corridors +hangs the picture of James, Lord Hay, a fair-haired, sunny-faced boy, +tall and athletic, standing with a cricket-bat in his hand. He would +have been earl of Erroll had he lived, but if we follow him in his +short life from classic Eton to the field of Quatre-Bras, we shall +find him again, on a bright June day in 1815, lying as if asleep, as +fair and noble-looking as before, but silent in death. Simple Flemish +peasants stand in a group around him, awed and admiring, asking each +other if this beautiful youth is an angel fallen from heaven, or +only a mortal man slain for the Honor of his country. His was a noble +death, and worthy of the suggestive memento of his early boyhood +before which we stood just now in the corridor of Slains Castle. + +A little farther down this corridor, which to all intents and purposes +is a family picture-gallery, we shall be forced to stop before the +portrait of a dark woman, masculine and resolute, not beautiful nor +like the handsome race of the Hays, of which she was yet the last +direct representative. This is the famous Countess Mary, one of the +central figures of the family traditions. The Hays were hereditary +lords high constable of Scotland, and also one of the few Scottish +families in which titles and offices, as well as lands, are +transmitted through the female line. So this Countess Mary found +herself, at the death of her brother, countess of Erroll in her +own right and _lord_ high constable of Scotland. In one of the two +pictures of her at Slains, if I remember right, she is represented +with the baton of her office, with which badge she also appeared at +court before her marriage (after this it was borne by her husband +in the character of her deputy). Her husband was a commoner, a Mr. +Falconer of Dalgaty, whose reported history in connection with her is +curious and deserves to be told, though the old tradition is moulded +into so many different forms that it is very difficult to disentangle +the truth from its manifold embellishments. Toward the beginning of +the eighteenth century this intrepid and independent lady fell in love +with Mr. Falconer, who at first did not seem eager to return or notice +her affection. High-strung and chivalric by nature, she did not droop +and pine under her disappointment, but vowed to herself that she would +bring him to her feet. Mr. Falconer coner left the country after some +time, and went to London. The Countess Mary also traveled south the +same year, and no news of her was heard at Slains for some time. +Meanwhile, she and Mr. Falconer met, but unknown to the latter, +who about the same time became acquainted with a very dashing young +cavalier, evidently a man of high birth and standing, but resolutely +bent on mystifying his friends as to his origin. The two saw each +other frequently, and were linked by that desultory companionship +of London life which sometimes indeed ripens into friendship, but as +often ends in a sudden quarrel. Such was the end of this acquaintance, +and one day some trifling difference having occurred between the +friends, a cartel reached Mr. Falconer couched in very haughty though +perfectly courteous language. These things were every-day matters in +such times, and very nonchalantly the challenged went in the early +morning to the appointed place to meet the challenger. Here the +versions of the story differ. Some say that Mr. Falconer and his +antagonist fought, but without witnesses; that the former got the +worst of the encounter, and remained at the other's mercy; that then, +_and not before_, the Countess Mary made herself known to him and +gave him his choice--a thrust from her sword or a speedy marriage with +herself. Others say that it was before the duel that she astonished +her lover by this discovery, and that the choice she gave him was +between marriage and ridicule.[A] + +The fact of her marriage, and that it proved a happy one, is certain. +Mr. Falconer dropped his own name to assume that of Hay. The +countess was a devoted Jacobite and an earnest churchwoman. When +Presbyterianism had got the upper hand in Scotland, and was repaying +church persecutions with terrible interest, a Mr. Keith was +appointed to the Anglican parish of Deer. This was within the Erroll +jurisdiction, and it was not long before the zealous Countess Mary +came to the rescue of the congregation, who had assembled for some +time in an old farmhouse. In 1719 or '20 she had the upper floor of +a large granary fitted up for their accommodation, and this afforded +them a grateful shelter for more than a quarter of a century. Of +this same parish of Deer a curious story is told in the local annals, +showing how conservative and tenacious of traditions the north of +Scotland still was in 1711. The skirmish to which it relates goes +by the quaint title of the "Rabbling of Deer," and is thus reported: +"Some people of Aberdeen, in conjunction with the presbytry of +Deer, to the number of seventy horse or thereby, assembled on the +twenty-third of March, 1711, to force in a Presbyterian teacher in +opposition to the parish; but the presbytry and their satellites were +soundly beat off by the people, not without blood on both sides." + +There was little of the martyr about the Scot of that warlike day, and +most emphatically and literally did he show himself a "_soldier_ of +the Lord." + +The aisle of the old church of Slains contains the graves of Countess +Mary and her husband, with an epitaph in Latin, of which the following +is a translation: "Beneath this tombstone there are buried neither +gold nor silver, nor treasures of any kind, but the bodies of the most +chaste wedded pair, Mary, countess of Erroll, and Alexander Hay +of Dalgaty, who lived peaceably and lovingly in matrimony for +twenty-seven years. They wished to be buried here beside each other, +and pray that this stone may not be moved nor their remains disturbed, +but that these be allowed to rest in the Lord until He shall call +them to the happy resurrection of that life which they expect from the +mercy of God and the merits of the Saviour and Lord Jesus Christ." + +The central figure, however, in the history of the Hays of Erroll, +and that which no one who bears the name of Hay can think of without a +thrill of pride, is the Lord Kilmarnock who fell, in 1746, a victim +to the last unsuccessful but heroic rising in favor of the Stuarts. +I have heard it whispered as an instance of "second sight" that some +years before he had any reason to anticipate such a death he was once +startled by the ghostly opening of a door in the apartment where +he was sitting alone, and by the apparition, horribly distinct and +realistic, of a bloody head rolling slowly toward him across the room; +till it rested at his feet. The glassy eyes were upturned to his, +and the bonny locks were clotted with blood: it was as if it had +just rolled from under the axe of the executioner; and the features, +plainly discerned, _were his own!_ + +His part in the rising of 1745 belongs to history, but his personal +demeanor concerns my narrative more closely. All the contemporary +accounts are loud in praise of his beauty and elegance of person, his +refinement of manner, his variety of accomplishments; and Scott, +in his _Tales of a Grandfather_, relates a curious circumstance +concerning his fine presence at the moment of his execution. A lady of +fashion who had never seen him before, and who was herself, I +believe, the wife of one who had much to do with Lord Kilmarnock's +death-warrant, seeing him pass on his way to the block, formed a most +violent attachment for his person, "which in a less serious affair +would have, been little less than a ludicrous frenzy." + +The grace and dignity of his appearance, together with the resignation +and mildness of his address, melted all the spectators to tears as +they gathered round the fatal Tower prison to witness his death: the +chaplain who attended him says his behavior was so humble and resigned +that even the executioner burst into tears, and was obliged to use +strong cordials to support him in his terrible duty. Lord Kilmarnock +himself was deeply impressed by the sight of the block draped in +funereal black, the plain coffin placed just beside it, the sawdust +that was so disposed as speedily to suck up the bloody traces of the +execution, and the sea of faces surrounding the open enclosure kept +for this his last earthly ordeal. It was certainly not from fear that +he recoiled, but his proud, sensitive, melancholy nature was thrilled +through every nerve by this dread publicity, and we cannot wonder +that, leaning heavily on the arm of a trusty friend, he should have +whispered, almost with his last breath, the simple words, "Home, this +is dreadful!" + +One who was the lineal descendant of this earl of Kilmarnock, +and whose only brother long bore the same blood-stained and +laurel-wreathed title, has often told me of the strange link that +bridged the chasm of four generations from 1746 to 1829, and bound her +recollections to those of a living witness of the scene. She was so +young as not to have any distinct impression of other events that +happened at the same time, but this lived in her mind because of the +importance and solemnity with which her own parents had purposely +invested it in her eyes. One day, at Brighton, this little +great-great-grand-daughter of the Lord Kilmarnock of 1745 was brought +down from the nursery to see an old, more than octogenarian, soldier +who had distinguished himself in recent wars, and reached the rank +of general. This tottering old man, more than fourscore years of age, +took the wee maiden of hardly four upon his knee, and told her in +simple words the story she was never to forget--how he had been a +tiny boy running to school on the day of the execution of the "rebel +lords," and how, seeing a vast, eager crowd all setting toward the +Tower quarter, he was tempted to play truant, and flinging his satchel +of books over his shoulder, had pushed his way as far as the great +state prison. Then of his frantic efforts to secure a point of vantage +whence to see the great death-pageant--of his childish admiration for +the handsome, manly form of Lord Kilmarnock, of his enthusiasm when +Lord Balmerino, the other victim, had cried in a loud voice, "Long +live the king!" and of the fascination he could not resist which led +his eyes from the shining axe and the draped block to the auburn locks +of the prisoner, and soon after to his bleeding head laid low in the +sawdust around the coffin. All this the old veteran told thrillingly, +the shadow of a boy's awed recollection mingling with his Scottish +exultation as a compatriot of the victim, and even with a touch of +humor as he recalled the domestic scolding which marked the truant's +return. + +In the charter-room at Slains Castle, where the records, genealogies, +private journals, official deeds, etc. of the family are kept, +one might find ample material for curious investigation of our +forefathers' way of living. Among other papers is a kind of inventory +headed, "My Ladies Petition anent the Plenissing within Logg and +Slanis." The list of things wanted for Slains speaks chiefly of brass +pots, pewter pans and oil barrels, but, the "plenissing" of Logg +(another residence of the Errolls), "quhilk my Ladie desyris as eftir +followis, quhilk extendis skantlie (scantily) to the half," contains +an ample list of curtains of purple velvet, green serge, green-and-red +drugget and other stuffs hardly translatable to the modern +understanding, and shows that in those days women were not more +backward than now in plaguing their liege lords about upholstery and +millinery. But the most amusing and natural touch of all is in the +endorsement, hardly gallant, but _very_ conjugal, made by the fair +petitioner's husband: "To my Ladyes gredie (greedy) and vnressonable +(unreasonable) desyris it is answerit...." Here follows a distinct +admission that the furniture of both houses, put together, is too +little to furnish the half of each of them, and therefore nothing can +be spared from Logie to "pleniss" Slains. + +The family coat-of-arms commemorates to this day the poetical +genealogy of the Hays. Its supporters are two tall, naked peasants +bearing plough-yokes on their shoulders: the crest is a falcon, while +the motto is also significant--"_Serva jugum._" Scottish tradition +tells us that in 980, when the Danes had shamefully routed the Scots +at Loncarty, a little village near Perth, and were pursuing the +fugitives, an old man and his two stalwart sons, who were ploughing in +a field close by, were seized with indignation, and, shouldering their +plough-yokes, placed themselves resolutely in a narrow defile through +which their countrymen must pass to evade a second slaughter by +the victors. As the Scots came on the three patriots opposed their +passage, crying shame upon them for cowards and no men, and exhorting +them thus: "Why! would ye rather be certainly killed by the +heathen Danes than die in arms for your own land?" Ashamed, and +yet encouraged, the fugitives rallied, and with the three dauntless +peasants at their head fell upon their astonished pursuers, and fought +with such desperation that they turned defeat into victory. Kenneth +III., the Scottish king, instantly sent for the saviors of his army, +gave them a large share of the enemy's spoils, and made them march in +triumph into Perth with their bloody plough-yokes on their shoulders. +More than that, he ennobled them, and gave them a fair tract of land, +to be measured, according to the fashion of that day, by the flight of +a falcon. From the name of this land the Hays came to be called; +lords of Erroll, and it is said that the Hawk Stone at St. Madoes, +Perthshire, which stands upon what is known to have been the ancient +boundary of the possessions of the Hays, is the identical stone from +which the lucky falcon started. It was left standing as a special +memorial of the defeat of the Danes at Loncarty. Another stone famous +in the Hay annals, and conspicuously placed in front of the entrance +to Slains Castle, is said to be the same on which the peasant general +rested after his toilsome leadership in the battle. + +Our walks over the bleak moors on one side, with the heather in +bloom and the blackberries in low--lying purple clusters fringing the +granite rocks, were sometimes rendered more interesting, though more +dangerous, by the sudden falling of a thick white mist. Slowly it +would come at first, gathering little filmy clouds together as it +were, and hovering over the gray sea in curling tufts, and then, +growing strong and dense, would swoop down irresistibly, till what was +clear five minutes before was impenetrably walled off, and one seemed +to stand alone in a silent world of ghosts. Or again, our walks would +take us on the other side, over the Sands of Forvie, a desolate tract +where nothing grows save the coarse grass called _bent_ by the Scotch, +and where the wearied eye rests on nothing but mounds of shifting +sand, drearily shaped into the semblance of graves by the keen winds +that blow from over the German Ocean. + +This miniature desert, tradition says, was an Eden four hundred years +ago, but a wicked guardian robbed the helpless orphan heiresses of it +by fraud and violence, and the maidens threw a spell or _weird_ upon +it in these terms: + + "Yf evyr maydens malysone + Did licht upon drye lande, + Let nocht bee funde in Furvye's glebys + Bot thystl, bente and sande." + +I must not forget the "Bullers," a natural curiosity which is the +boast of the neighborhood of Slains, and is moreover connected with +a feat performed by a former guest and friend of one of the lords of +Erroll. We drove there in a large party, and passed through an untidy, +picturesque little fishing-hamlet on our way, where the women talked +to each other in Gaelic as they stood barefooted at the doors of +their cabins, and where the children looked so hardy, fearless and +determined that the wildest dreams of future possible achievement +seemed hardly unlikely of realization in connection with any one of +them. + +"The Pot," as it is locally called, is a huge rocky cavern, +irregularly circular and open to the sky, into which the sea rushes +through a natural archway. A narrow pathway is left quite round +the basin, from which one looks down a sheer descent of more than a +hundred feet; but this is so dangerous, the earth and coarse grass +that carpet it so deceptive and loose, and the wind almost always +so high on this spot, that only the most foolhardy or youngest of +visitors would dare in broad daylight to attempt to _walk_ round it. +Yet it is on record that the duke of Richmond, some sixty or seventy +years ago, made a bet at Lord Erroll's dinner-table that he would +_ride round it after dark_. He accomplished the feat in safety. His +picture, life-size, hangs in the dining-room to this day, and as he +is represented standing in all the pride of a vigorous manhood by +the side of his beautiful charger, he does not seem to belie the +reputation which this incident created for him in the old district of +Buchan. + +The peasants of this wild and primitive neighborhood, though to some +extent slightly infected by modernization, are yet very fair specimens +of the hardy, trusty clansmen of Scottish history, and the present +owners of Slains certainly give them every reason to keep up the old +bonds of affectionate interest with every one and everything belonging +to "the family." To my own observation of the ancient seat of the Hays +I owe one of the most delightful recollections of my life, that of +a Christian home. Not only the outward observances, but the inner +spiritual vitality of religion, were there, while unselfish devotion +to all within the range of her influence or authority marked the +character of her who was at the head of this little family kingdom. +The present head of the house, a Hay to the backbone, has triumphantly +carried on the martial traditions of his ancestry, and on the roll of +England's victorious sons at the battle of the Alma his name is to be +found. He was there disabled by a wound that shattered his right arm +and cut short his military career. Domestic happiness, however, is +no bad substitute for a brilliant public life, and there are duties, +higher yet than a soldier's, that go far toward making up that +background of rural prosperity which alone ensures the grand effect of +military successes. After having done one's duty in the field, it +is to the full as noble, and perhaps more patriotic, to turn to the +duties of the glebe, thereby finishing as a landlord the work begun as +a soldier. + +It is a touching custom, hardly yet obliterated in the district over +which my reminiscences have led me, for one peasant, when coming upon +another employed in his lawful calling, thus to salute him: "Guid +speed the wark!" the rejoinder being, in the same broad Buchan +dialect, "Thank ye: I wish ye weel." + +I can end these pages with no more fitting sentiment. As a tribute of +grateful recollection to those who made my days at Slains a happiness +to me, and in the first fresh sorrow of a deep bereavement offered +me distractions the more alluring because the more associated with +Nature's changeless, silent grandeur, I pen these lines, crowning them +with the homely Scottish wish that wherever they are and whatever they +do, "Guid speed the wark!" + +LADY BLANCHE MURPHY. + +[Footnote A: There is another version of her courtship, and this a +metrical one. This old ballad was not much known beyond the district +round Slains, and the old servants and farmers on the estate were the +chief depositaries of the tradition. I have failed to secure more than +a very small fragment of it, which is itself only written down from +memory by one of these old women. The rhyme and rhythm are both +_original_: + + Lady Mary Hay went to a wedding + Near the famous town of Reading: + There a gentleman she saw + That belonged to the law.... + +Here evidently there occurs a hiatus, during which some account is +probably begun of her unreturned attachment, for a little later we +find in the very primitive manuscript from which we quote these words +of the countess: + + I that have so many slighted, + I am at last--(unrequited?) + +The story is now carried on in prose (my informant having forgotten +the text of the ballad), and says that "Lady Mary wanted or challenged +him to meet her in a masquerade" (probably meaning a duel in +disguise), "and that his father told him to go." Neither father +nor son seems to have known the fair challenger's rank, though the +following words point to their being aware of her sex, for the elder +Falconer is represented as saying, + + If she is rich she will raise your fame, + And if poor you are the same. +] + + + + +OUR HOME IN THE TYROL + + +CHAPTER III. + + +We were soon comfortably settled in the old Hof. The spacious +rooms, always deliciously cool, were fragrant with rare and delicate +blossoms--Alpine roses from the rocks, white lilies from Moidel's +special little garden-plot, grasses and nodding flowers, campanulas, +veronicas, melisot, potentillas and lady's bedstraw, which, according +to Anton, no cattle would touch, whilst the roots of others were good +for man or beast, their various qualities being all known to him. But +soon the waving flowers bent beneath the scythe. It was the eve of St. +Peter and St. Paul's Day, a festival when all work must cease, and +the Hofbauer, whose word was law, had given orders that the hay in the +wood-meadow must be carried that evening. Seeing, therefore, that the +more hands there were the better, the two Margarets seized each a rake +and worked as hard as any woman in the field. + +On we labored, the golden evening sun glinting down upon our +picturesque row of haymakers, nor did we cease until the angelus +sounded from the village spire. Then Anton, Jakob, Moidel, their men +and maids, fell devoutly upon their knees and thanked God that Christ +Jesus had been born. These humble Tyrolese remember thrice daily to +praise the Lord, as David did. With a hushed, subdued look upon their +honest faces, they arose, and we joining them the fresh, fragrant hay +was carted triumphantly home. The hay is cut long before we should +consider it ready, and is housed whilst still green and moist. The +newer the hay the richer the cream, they say. The Hofbauer has three +crops yearly, but his neighbors, who lie higher, have only two, and +sometimes but one. + +The good old Kathi stood at the door cooling a gigantic pan of +buckwheat polenta, and when she had set down this dish, intended for +the haymakers' supper, she brought us each, as our pay, a couple of +_krapfen_, which are oblong dough-cakes fried in butter. + +Although the haymakers were worn out and weary with a long day's +work of twelve hours, still Rosenkranz sounded in the chapel like the +humming of bees in lime trees. This pious custom duly impressed us, +until on the very next day, as we walked up our village street on the +evening of the festival, our solemn feelings received a great check. +We observed that the prayer-leaders, who knelt at the open windows +of each separate house, followed our every movement with their eyes, +whilst their mouths mechanically repeated sonorous Ave Marias and +Paternosters. Nay, there was our own pious Moidel watching us from the +kitchen window, her Hail Marys mingling with her friendly greetings; +but then Moidel was waiting upon us and our supper whilst her family +were on their knees in the chapel. Still, we soon learnt to perceive +that Rosenkranz was considered quite as efficacious if merely uttered +by the tongue, whilst the mind was far away. This being a festival, +and no one tired with work, the household trooped into the old +pleasaunce after supper. The elders sat together in a row, whilst the +younger members congregated on a second long stone bench and struck up +singing, Moidel and her elder brother beginning with a duet: + + Green, green is the clover + On the hills as I go, + And my maiden as fresh is + As spring water's flow. + +And the chorus joined in-- + + As spring water's flow, + +winding up with a jodel. + +Nanni, the chief maid, next sang in a clear, flexible voice, which +trembled no little when she perceived that the Herrschaft now formed +part of the audience in the balcony-- + +A WEEK'S SORROW. + + On Sunday I cried, for my heart was so sore, + Like a poor little child outside the church door; + On Monday I felt so afeard and alone, + And thought, Were I a swallow, I'd quickly begone: + Woe's me! were I but a swallow, were I but a swallow! + + On Tuesday, and nothing could please me all day, + For him that I love best is far, far away; + On Wednesday whatever I did, I did ill, + For when the heart's heavy the hand has no skill; + On Thursday I was weary and sleepy all day; + On Friday, and one of the cows went astray; + On Saturday down poured my tears like the rain, + As though I should never be happy again. + Woe's me! never be happy again; woe's me! never again. + +In order to catch the meaning of the words, which were sung in strong +dialect, Margaret and I had descended to the garden. The Hofbauer +looked sad when he saw us approach, and quietly brushed a tear away +with his shirt-sleeve. We consequently asked Moidel when we stood +alone with her whether anything were troubling her father. + +"It strikes me not," she said. "I fancy that it is but the music. +Father and uncle may both seem quiet and dull now, yet they have been +celebrated singers; only when my mother died father left off singing, +and so did uncle after Uncle Jakob's death." + +"Ah yes!" said the aunt, who had also joined us, "they were the three +handsomest, best--grown men in the parish, living happily together +without an ill word, until four years ago Jakob was trampled upon by +a yoke of vicious oxen, and in three days he was dead. Yes, that was a +sorrow almost as cutting as the death of the Hofbauerin, so young when +she died. Only married five years, and leaving four little children, +not one of whom ever knew her! Yes, Moidel is a good girl, and is +wearing her linen now, but she can never come up in looks to her +mother. Ah ja! and now the trouble is about Jakob." + +"About Jakob?" asked we in a low, astonished voice. + +"Why yes, that he has been drawn for the Landwehr. Ah, I thought you +knew. It was last autumn that he was drawn. The Hofbauer would have +sold his best acres to release him, but the recruiting-officer would +have no nay: Jakobi was a fine, well-behaved young fellow, and such +were needed in the army. He had to serve two months this spring, and +with his comrades day by day had to run up the face of mountains +some four thousand feet. It quite wore Jakob out, though he is so +good-tempered. He declared that he was used, to be sure, at the Olm +to climb up to the glaciers of the Hoch Gall after his goats, often +bringing the kids in his arms down the precipices, but to have his +back broken and his feet blistered in order to know how to shed human +blood was what he hated. Yet he bore it so well, doing his best, that +when the other recruits could return to their homes, Jakob, being so +clever and well-behaved, had to stay a fortnight longer to brush, fold +up and put away all the regimentals. However, the under-officer did +have him to dine with him every day." + +"Yes, and Jakob will in his turn be an officer," we replied, trying to +reassure her. + +"Oh, na, na, that can never be: eleven more long years must he serve, +and always as a private. I thought like you, until the Hofbauer +explained to me that all the officers were foreigners--Saxons, +Bavarians, Wuertembergers, put in by the Austrian ministry, who are +tyrants to Tyrol. Ah, if the good emperor would only interfere, for +he loves Tyrol! but he leaves everything to the ministry. Austria may +itself be overthrown in these unrighteous days before my Jakobi is +free." Now it was the good soul's turn to wipe her eye with the corner +of her ample blue apron. + +We were venturing some fresh attempt at consolation when fortunately +an event occurred which drew her thoughts from the deep shadow which +we had just discovered hung over the peaceful Hof. Jodokus, the +village schoolmaster in the winter, when the children had time +to learn, but during the busy summer months one of the men, had +challenged Jakobi to a wrestling-match. Hardly had the two antagonists +encountered each other on the grass in a stout set-to, when the sound +of the goatherd's whip was heard on the hilly common above, sending +forth a succession of reports like those of a pistol, becoming +stronger and louder when the game and the assembled company were seen. +At last the young "whipper-snapper," as we called him, made one long +final succession of cracks and reports, and springing over the +wall, and casting his instrument of torture on one side, he boldly +challenged Anton. + +The young man, whose skill and strength were well known, smiled, half +amused, half incredulous, on his antagonist. The younger athlete, a +lad of thirteen, firmly built and agile, mistook the look for a sneer, +and the blood ran fast and hot into his face. So, Anton accepting +the challenge, they immediately began to spar. They first fearlessly +regarded each other, then bowing their heads they rushed forward, +butting like rams. The lad, with his head fixed firm in Anton's chest, +tried to find his adversary's weakest point, and with his arms round +his waist endeavored cunningly to make him slip; but it was soon the +young champion who was tripped up, and who in playful, half-serious +anger dealt blows and tugs right and left, almost managing to bring +Anton sprawling to the ground. The lad, however, suddenly stopped: +he had lost a little tin ring off his finger and a four-kreuzer piece +from his pocket--too great a loss for a shepherd-boy. The combat +therefore was speedily closed, both antagonists and their partisans +hunting in the unmowed grass until the treasures were again trove. + +At the same time an elderly man approached and opened the gate--a +peasant evidently, although, instead of the usual long white apron +and bib, he wore one of new green linen, shining as satin--a man of a +strong although delicate make, the head slightly stooping forward, +and a face that beamed with genuine pleasure as half a dozen voices +simultaneously burst forth with a "God greet you, Alois!" + +This then was Schuster (or Shoe-maker) Alois, in preparation of +whose advent the good aunt had scrubbed a bed-room, and Moidel had +beautified the window with pots of blooming geraniums. The room was a +large chamber, set apart for the different ambulatory work-people who +came to the Hof in the course of the year. The weaver, who arrived in +the spring to weave the flax which the busy womankind had spun through +the winter, had been the last occupant of the room, and had woven no +less than two hundred and ninety-three ells of linen, which now in +long symmetrical lines were carefully pegged down on the turf of the +pleasaunce by Moidel, who walked over them daily with her bare feet, +busily watering until the gray threads were turning snowy white. + +Later on in the year the sewing-woman would appear, and then the +tailor, to make the clothing for this large household, the servants, +according to an old custom long since extinct in most countries, being +chiefly paid in kind. Schuster Alois had now come to make the boots +for Jakob and the Senner Franz preparatory to their going with the +cattle to the Alpine pastures. + +I greatly doubt whether the tailor or the weaver was so well waited +upon as the shoemaker: I fancy they were left more to the maids. +Passing the open door of the family house-place, aunt and niece might +now be seen sitting hour after hour, the elder lining the soles of +Jakob's stockings with pieces of strong woolen to prevent mending on +the Alp, or attending to other needs of his homely toilet; the younger +at her paste-board or kneading-trough, whilst Schuster Alois sat +between them in the sunny oriel window, and while he steadily plied +his awl appeared to be either telling them tales or reciting poetry. + +The Alp, or Olm (to use the provincial word), lay at the distance of +about six hours, and the Hofbauer went up to examine the state of the +pasturage before his son and the cattle finally started. In two days +he returned. "The going up of the cattle must be postponed at least a +week," he said, "for snow had fallen at the huts the depth of a man; +and the river had swollen to such a height that it had carried two +houses away in St. Wolfgang, the highest mountain-village; and even +life had been lost." + +This delay caused a respite from hard work. The next morning +Alois's arms did not move like unwearying machinery, and, the ten +o'clock-dinner being over, we saw him seated at his ease on the +adjoining hillside. Should we go and speak to him? He appeared +different from the ordinary run of his class (though cobblers are +often clever men enough), and moreover of a decidedly friendly turn of +mind. We determined that we would. We joined Alois on the stony, waste +hillside, crowned by two trees with a crucifix in the centre, which +formed from the house, with its background of mountains, ever a +melancholy, soul-touching little poem. + +"You have not quite such hard work to-day, Schuster?" + +He smiled and said, "Do your work betimes, and then rest; and where +better than under the shadow of the cross?" + +"Yes, and the crucifix which you have chosen is more pleasing than the +generality which are sown broadcast over the fields of the Tyrol. Why +are they made so hideous and revolting?" + +We spoke out freely, because the unusually intelligent face before +us evidently belonged to a thinker. Candor of speech pleased him. +Nevertheless, he answered as if musing, "They appear ugly to you: well +they may be. Ja, but the most who look upon them are men and women +acquainted with many sorrows--sudden deaths by falls from precipices, +destruction of house and home by lightning, floods, avalanches, +failure of crops, and many another visitation--and it soothes their +perhaps selfish natures to see these anguished features, these +blood-stained limbs--signs of still greater suffering--whilst they +pray that only such crosses may be laid on them as will keep them in +obedience to His will. Just before you came up the hill I was thinking +of a strange history connected with a crucifix--one that I read only +ten days ago in the house of a Hochmair himself." + +It merely needed silence for Schuster Alois to repeat the tale, and he +soon began: "It is the Tyroler Adolph Pichler who narrates it. He says +that once in his rambles he came to a little chapel, over which hung a +blasted larch--such a desolate wreck of a tree that he naturally asked +the guide he had with him why it was not cut down. Now, the guide +was an old man who knew every, tradition and legend, besides all the +family histories in that part of the Tyrol. 'That tree,' said he, 'is +left there purposely, as the reminder of a great crime, and nobody +would think of touching it. If you look into the chapel, you'll see a +Christ on the cross which has been shot through the breast. That was +once a crucifix under this very tree.' Then the guide made a remark +which had often struck myself--that there are some families in which +everything that is strange and dreadful happens, whilst there are +others that go on for generations and are no more distinguishable than +the very weeds themselves. In that valley were the Hochmairs, and they +were of this prominent sort, and odd enough, as I said before, it was +at a Hochmair's house that I read this account. Well, some generations +back there was a Hochmair who was a regular ruffian. He cared no more +for the life of a man than that of a chamois. The government kept the +game strictly on the mountains, and he was suspected of having put +more than one of their keepers out of the way. In short, he had such +a bad character that when he went to confession the priest would +not give him absolution. This put him in a great rage, and it is +remarkable that from that day his luck in hunting forsook him. He +could not take aim--a sort of mist was ever before his eyes, his hand +trembled. People believed that he was perpetually haunted by the ghost +of a young man whom, after he had shot, he had beaten to death with +his gunstock, and then flung down a crevasse. Be that as it may, he +would be absent for weeks in the mountains. He did no good, and the +little he possessed fell into ruin. + +"His creditors were about to sell him up, stick and stone, when he +put, as one may say, the finishing stroke to everything himself. It +was Corpus Christi Day: the bells were ringing and the procession +moving through the fields, the holy banners waving, the choir-boys +singing the sanctus, when just as the priest lifted the Host in the +golden monstrance, a shot was fired from the bushes in front of a +crucifix. Lightning flashed from heaven, and the house of the wicked +Hochmair, which was at no great distance, burst into flames. An awful +cry rang from the bushes: the procession rushed forward, the priest +only remaining with the Host and a few attendants. And what did they +see? There was the image of the crucified Saviour pierced by a bullet, +and out in the road stood the wretched Hochmair, with his hands +clasped on the lock of his gun and his eyes rolling in frenzy. +Everybody perceived the crime he had committed, and remained +motionless, whilst he beckoned wildly to the priest, who came up in +gloomy silence. After they had talked together alone for some time, +the priest went into the church, where he remained all night in +prayer. The wretched man, whom nobody dared to touch, disappeared +into the thicket, and all trace was lost of him. In the mean while +the injured image of the Saviour was removed into the church. So years +went on, and then one Sunday after service the priest announced from +the pulpit that the former sinner Hochmair was dead, but that after +years of penitence he had received the forgiveness of the Church and +of God. 'Therefore,' said the good man, 'let all forgive him, and +remember only their own sins, and pray Christ to be merciful to them.' +After that it was known that he had become possessed with the crazy +notion that if he fired into the breast of the Saviour on Corpus +Christi Day, just when the Host was being elevated and the benediction +spoken, it would make his gun unerring. He fired therefore, and at the +same moment the Saviour on the cross raised His head and, fixing on +him His eyes full of tears, gave him a look which pierced him to the +very marrow, and that terrified him far more than the lightning +which, flashing from his forehead, set fire to his house, whilst the +thorn-crowned countenance seemed to float before him, and he knew that +this was his punishment. Such was his confession at the time to the +priest who laid the penance of the Church upon him. So he went out +into the world like another Cain, and God in His own time was merciful +to him. Still, the wounded effigy of the Saviour and the blasted larch +tree remain as witnesses on earth against him. + +"And," continued Schuster Alois, "that is only one tale amongst the +hundreds which could be related concerning these crucifixes. Ah, +there is many an old, bleached, weather-beaten crucifix on crag or +highway-side from which the anguished face of the Saviour has both +smitten and healed the sinner. Crucifixes cut deeper into most +Tyrolese hearts than shrines, some way." + +"Strange," we replied, "for these old shrines are not only quaint, +but often beautiful, as, for instance, the one on the roadside turning +into town." + +"Ah, I am glad you like it," said Alois, "for there are those who +would wish it pulled down and a lofty wooden cross, as a landmark, +placed there instead. The Capuchins in the adjoining monastery are +opposed to it, however, and no wonder. Have you ever remarked," he +continued, becoming quite aglow, "that although it is greatly injured +and many of the figures lost, still there are others who look at you +so calmly and seriously with their marred, dilapidated countenances +that you feel a peace steal into your heart? And whoever the painter +was, he must have loved his work, for Saint Gregory could never have +been more dignified in real life than he looks in the shrine." + +"Are you a painter?" we asked, almost without knowing what we were +saying, for it was hardly probable. + +"Oh, I only touch colors now and then, when there's a purpose in it +or I can serve the Church," he returned. He became embarrassed, and +explained that it was time to return to his work. + +We afterward learnt from Moidel that Alois bore in the neighborhood +far and wide the reputation of an artist, although he did not consider +himself such, seeing he could not paint saints and angels. It was, +however, a great source of pleasure to him to paint mottoes and +devices and to arrange floral decorations, especially when they could +serve as a surprise for some private name-day or church festival. + +One afternoon we were told that the boots were made, that Anton had +brought the flour from the mill, that two hundred loaves of rye bread +were baked, and, the weather being sufficiently fine and all the +preparations being completed, the cattle would now start for the +Olm. First, Anton and the Senner Franz set off at four o'clock in the +afternoon, with the calves in advance, the young things being unable +to keep up with the cattle. Then a _leiterwagen_ which had been drawn +into the lower corridor and filled with sacks of flour, meal, salt and +the two hundred loaves, was driven by the Hofbauer as far as Taufers, +whence the supplies for the Alpine residents would be borne on men's +backs up to the huts. + +In the evening Jakob came into the grand old sitting-room to bid us +good-bye. He appeared in his shirt-sleeves and the indispensable white +apron, and with the utmost self-possession and refinement of manner he +presented us with a little bouquet of edelweiss, promising to send us +down a larger supply by his brother. We talked with him about the Olm, +and found him enthusiastic on the subject, his one regret being that, +as he must return for several weeks of drilling on August 22d, his +stay there this summer would be greatly curtailed. The Olm was very +extensive, lying on a mountain-platform which was only bare of snow +for about three months in the year. When, however, the snow was off, +the flowers came up by thousands, the grass sprang up by magic, +all the mountains were filled with the rushing and roaring sound +of waters, which came down in foaming cascades, often of wonderful +beauty, amongst the rocks and the pine woods which clothed the steeper +mountain-sides. Nor was the life at all solitary, for various farmers +were sending up their cattle to other Olms about the same time, +so that no one was without neighbors, although they might be at a +considerable distance apart. + +Jakob spoke on until we became wild to go up to the Olm too. "Could we +go thither," we asked, "and pay him a visit?" + +"That we could," he replied, "if we did not mind sleeping in the hay. +Only we had better wait for settled weather in August." + +There was now no talk of our leaving the Hof at St. Jakobi. The +Hofbauer had declared that the house was at our disposal until +Martinmas--longer if we wanted it. He also fell into the scheme of +our visiting his Olm, where he intimated his desire to be host, saying +that all the dairy produce would be at our service. + +In the night, exactly at one o'clock, Jakob and Jodokus started: we +heard them go, the cattle-bells ringing and the "Leben Sie wohl!" +"Behuet Euch Gott!" shouted lovingly after them from the open door and +the lower windows of the silent old mansion. Six and twenty head of +cattle: the goats, pigs and sheep were to follow later. It was a calm +and beautiful night, the three-quarters moon just dropping behind the +mountains, and the stars shining out brightly from the dark cloudless +sky. + + + + +CHAPTER IV. + + +The Alpine caravansary was hardly settled at the Olm when the air +became intensely hot and oppressive. Day by day black thunder-clouds +gathered on the horizon. They crested the mountains in three +directions, at times appearing to repel each other, at others marching +fiercely on to conflict, when, the zenith becoming pitch-dark, they +flung out long spears of lightning and exploded in overwhelming +thunder. Very terrible were these perpetual storms. With the first +peal the church-bells along the valley began solemnly to toll. It +mattered not whether by night or day, the faithful bellringer was +at his post, and with rain pouring down outside and fiery, vivid +lightning playing around him, he still went tolling on, for evil +spirits must be driven away, and people reminded to make the sign of +the cross and pray God to protect them. + +At length, to use an expression of Alois's, "Saint Florian had left +off playing at skittles, and Saint Leonhard had driven his hay over +the heavenly bridge." The warring elements were still, but the earth +seemed smouldering with heat, and we panted and gasped after the lofty +mountain-slopes which lay on all sides. At the same time it came +most opportunely to our knowledge that the Tyrol was rich in +baths--primitive establishments most of them, but dotted over mountain +and valley, so that each village had half a dozen to choose from, +where every peasant, be he ever so poor, could at least dip and soak +for an eight-days' _sommerfrisch_. Why, then, should not the two +Margarets, they being the most desirous of a change, have at least a +_sommerfrisch_? + +But which amongst all these baths was the one to choose? Good Kathi +recommended her baths at Innichen. She herself evidently did not +derive much pleasure from her yearly visits there. Still, we, being +ladies, would find more people to talk to, and the bath-house, which +was always full to overflowing, stood in a wood, and we liked trees. +Schuster Alois--for the conversation took place before he left--said +that most gentlefolks went to Maistall. There was not only _luxus_, +but a great deal of life and spirit there. His Majesty Emperor Max +as early as 1511 took up his quarters at Maistall during his campaign +against the Venetians, and he had heard say that in the last century +the visitors formed a society and made it a rule that none but the +purest German should be spoken. Every fault of pronunciation cost a +kreuzer to the offender: the money went to the chapel, and amounted +one season to twenty-one florins six kreuzers. + +But one Margaret decidedly objected to going to a place where there +was the faintest chance of her _loiter wagon_ for _leiterwagen_, her +_pison_ for _speisen_, her _vulgarborn_ for _wohlgeboren_, being fined +by a _gazel-schaft (gesellschaft)_. Besides, these places sounded too +grand: we did not want a Gastein, but a Wildbad, if one could be +found that did not belie its name. So the peasant-baths of St. Vigil, +Muehlbach and Scharst were named to us, and the lot fell upon Scharst, +we having heard that all the school-children in town had just been +taken there for a long day's holiday, and had returned to their proud +and happy parents, who waited for them in double ranks below, radiant +with pleasure, waving their banners and Alpine roses. + +It was accordingly arranged that on the following Sunday Anton should +drive us to Reischach, where there was to be a great festival, with +candles in the church as big as a man's arm: so said a woman from +Reischach. Anton was of a retiring nature, and did not like crowds, +but he would gladly drive the ladies over. And at Reischach we should +be sure to find some peasant returning that evening by Scharst, who +could carry our belongings. + +Imagine us, therefore, at Reischach, the church-bell ringing for +vespers, which begin at one o'clock. We wear bouquets of carnations +and rosemary, presented to us by the family at the Hof, as correct +decorations for a festival. And Anton!--how to present him to you as +he deserves to be presented? His truthful, guileless face is his best +ornament: nevertheless, he too wears carnations and rosemary caught +in the silver cord and vieing with the silver tassels of his +broad-brimmed, low-crowned beaver hat. His rough jacket, made by the +tailor last autumn, and therefore too new to be worn on a less special +occasion, is short and loose enough to leave ample space for the +display of his _rauge_, or broad leather belt of softest chamois-skin, +worked in scrolls surrounding his name, with split peacock quills, +no little resembling Indian handicraft. His snow-white knees appear +between his short leather breeches and his bright blue knitted +stockings. These Nature's garters, when perfectly white, are regarded +as a mark of great distinction amongst the dandies, and those of our +Anton may be considered the very _knee plus ultra_. + +A parliament of men--a few still in breeches with Hessian boots, +which appeared a characteristic of Reischach, but the majority, having +succumbed to modern ideas, wearing trowsers--were seated in the shadow +of a comfortable house, discussing the different stages of their rye +and flax crops. Their wives and daughters, following their natural +impulse, were already kneeling in church, confiding their cares of +kitchen and farmyard to the ever-ready ear of _Mutter Gottes_--one +dense mass of simple, believing women, in broad-brimmed beaver hats, +with here and there a conical woolen beehive as a contrast. + +The church in itself, although it lacked the candles as big as a man's +arm, must truly have shone like the gate of heaven to peasant eyes. +Many of the more substantial families had lent their private saints +for the occasion. They had brought Holy Nothburgs and Saint Leonhards +and Virgins, generally preserved in wardrobes at home, but now brought +to participate in the festival, besides adding to its great solemnity. +It was Scapulary Sunday, we were told, and although the words conveyed +no clear idea to us, we were soon to learn their significance. A +Tyrolese anthem having been sung by some invisible voices, in which +jodels leapt up and smothered Gregorians, a middle-aged Capuchin took +his stand in the pulpit, and having greeted the congregation, +promised to explain to them the mystery and the advantage of the Holy +Scapulary. + +"My beloved," he began, "there are some who think too little of the +scapulary, and there are others who lay too great a stress on this +aid to faith. Let us meditate on both these conditions. But first, how +must we ourselves regard the scapulary? Now, we are told not to love +the world nor the things of the world. The scapulary, with its sacred +image of Mary worn next the heart, is a great shield against this love +of the world. It places you under the especial protection of the Queen +of Heaven: you are as much her servant as those who serve king or +kaiser, and equally wear her livery. Some think too little of the +scapulary. Yet what incidents can be told of its efficacy! Let one +suffice. In the year 1866, when the war raged between Austria and +Prussia, the Catholic soldiers of the latter country immediately +before the war entered by hundreds into the Society of the Scapulary. +Wearing this sacred charm upon their hearts, they went into the +battle-field, and the cannons roared and the bullets whizzed thick +and fast around them, and not one of them fell, for they wore the +scapulary. Indeed, their miraculous preservation created so much +excitement that Lutherans marveled over it, and asked the Catholics +how it came that they were no whit hurt. And they answered, 'We wear +the scapulary of Mary, and she saves us.' Then many Lutherans said, +'Come, we will have scapularies,' and wrote their names down in the +society. And now hark ye, my brethren. There was a Catholic soldier, +and there was a Lutheran, and the latter said, 'Lend me thy scapulary +for this one day only, and see, here is a thaler for thee.' Then the +foolish Catholic drew the scapulary off his neck, handed it to the +Lutheran, took the thaler, went into battle: whiz went the bullets +round him, and he fell." + +We could stand no more. The church, now crowded with men as well as +women, reeked with perspiration, the sermon oppressed us, and thus our +sense and senses drove us out into the open air. Here the fresh breeze +came across from the Ziller snow-fields, health-giving as a breath +from heaven. Peasant-women who were too late to squeeze into +church were seated amongst the iron crosses of the graves. The more +serious-minded had managed to cluster together round a side-door +which, being adjacent to the pulpit, proved an advantageous spot for +hearing. The less particular sat in the shade, feeling it sufficient +to be in holy ground and to pass their beads through their fingers +whilst they studied up our novel attire. Approaching the more +attentive members, we found that the Capuchin had reached the second +part of his discourse, and was dilating on those who thought too +highly of the scapulary. We gathered the following fragment: + +"Now, the man was nigh unto death, and it was neither for confession +nor for the death-sacrament that he craved. No, it was for a +scapulary. 'A scapulary!' he cried, 'a scapulary!' My brethren, you +know well he should have asked for the priest and for the blessing of +the Church, but it was merely for a scapulary." + +Later on we asked permission to see a scapulary. It consisted of two +small squares of cloth, herring-boned round the edge, and united by a +narrow ribbon of sufficient length to permit one square to rest on +the breast, whilst the other hung between the shoulders. That in front +bore the image of the Virgin, designed by the nuns in the convent, +whilst the simpler work had been given to some poor old woman, or even +man, who was past harder employment. The privilege of wearing this +charmed badge entailed the payment of a small yearly subscription and +the repetition of seven Paternosters daily. + +The procession followed the sermon. Mary, Joseph, Saint Nothburg (once +a good peasant-girl, now a saint) were paraded round the village by +children, and borne back to church. Peasant-men staggered under large +silk banners, which swayed and fluttered in the blustery wind, +and, but for the steady grasp of the strong men who carried them, +threatening at each moment to crush the pious throng. The four chief +peasants of the district, wearing their robes of state, the Noah's ark +coats in which they were married, bore the baldachin over the head +of the Capuchin who elevated the Host: the village priest, in white +surplice and Hessian boots, swung the censer at his side. The men were +in front, the women, a long, broad file, divided in the procession by +the priests from their male relations, followed--a dense black mass, +but relieved in color by the whiteness of their short linen sleeves. + +Men and women, carefully severed in their prayers and on the very +steps of the altar by Holy Church, were soon able to come together +again under the spacious, hospitable roof of Herr Kappler, the wirth. +Innumerable clean wooden tables, forms, and stiff, high-legged wooden +chairs were ranged up stairs and down stairs and in the orchard +without, for the accommodation of the scapularists and their friends. + +We sat at a side-table in an upper room partaking of grilled fowl and +salad, whilst _buben_ and their _dirnen_, or lads and their lasses, +middle-aged couples, old men and women, poured into the house, +filling every chair, bench and table. They came thither from all +the country-side, and endless were the greetings amongst cousins and +cousins' cousins. The Tyrolese, like the Scotch, keep up every link +of relationship, claiming the fiftieth cousin. Relationship, in fact, +never does die out; and though it may become an abstract during busy +seasons of ploughing and sowing, it becomes a strong reality at +wakes and festivals. Thus, at Kappler's, on this scapulary afternoon, +Barthel's brother-in-law's cousin drank with "Cousin Barthel," and +Seppl's sister-in-law's niece was treated by "Onkel Seppl." There was +one square-built, good-humored old man who appeared to be the whole +world's cousin: he passed from table to table, and had to sip from +fifty offered glasses. + +With our delicious coffee and boiled cream we ordered the host, as a +suitable person, to find us a guide to carry our valise and shawls to +Bad Scharst. Probably the perpetual and loud demands for pints of wine +left him but little time to make a wise selection, seeing that there +soon stood before us a small man with so subtle and malignant a look +that his exorbitant demand made us only too gladly dismiss him. Our +confidence shaken in the landlord's powers of discrimination, we sent +word below that if Anton had returned we should be glad to speak with +him. He had been in the village to visit his cousins, but was waiting +our orders below. Although his native shyness made it hard for him +to step forward and address ladies under the curious gaze of all the +relative Seppls and Barthels, he did it with manliness, and turning +round and addressing the popular old man as Hansel, asked him if his +brother Joergel were below; and being answered in the affirmative, he +hastened away, and returned with another compact little peasant, whom +he introduced to us as Senner Franz's brother, with an aside, that he +was "a friendly mortal and Count Arlberg's forester." + +The agreement was soon made, the sullen-looking man glowering at us +from behind a stack of firewood, whilst Hansel and Anton packed a +_kraxe_ or wooden frame and fixed it on Joergel's back. As we set +off, Anton drove away homeward, although the skittle-balls were just +beginning to roll, and the sound of "I bin a lustiger bua" and other +Tyrolese songs came floating from the windows. + +MARGARET HOWITT. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +SAINT ROMUALDO. + + I give God thanks that I, a lean old man, + Wrinkled, infirm, and crippled with keen pains + By austere penance and continuous toil, + Now rest in spirit, and possess "the peace + Which passeth understanding." Th' end draws nigh, + Though the beginning is as yesterday, + And a broad lifetime spreads 'twixt this and that-- + A favored life, though outwardly the butt + Of ignominy, malice and affront, + Yet lighted from within by the clear star + Of a high aim, and graciously prolonged + To see at last its utmost goal attained. + I speak not of mine Order and my House, + Here founded by my hands and filled with saints-- + A white society of snowy souls, + Swayed by my voice, by mine example led; + For this is but the natural harvest reaped + From labors such as mine when blessed by God. + Though I rejoice to think my spirit still + Will work my purposes, through worthy hands, + After my bones are shriveled into dust, + Yet have I gleaned a finer, sweeter fruit + Of holy satisfaction, sure and real, + Though subtler than the tissue of the air-- + The power completely to detach the soul + From her companion through this life, the flesh; + So that in blessed privacy of peace, + Communing with high angels, she can hold, + Serenely rapt, her solitary course. + + Ye know, O saints of heaven, what I have borne + Of discipline and scourge; the twisted lash + Of knotted rope that striped my shrinking limbs; + Vigils and fasts protracted, till my flesh + Wasted and crumbled from mine aching bones, + And the last skin, one woof of pain and sores, + Thereto like yellow parchment loosely clung; + Exposure to the fever and the frost, + When 'mongst the hollows of the hills I lurked + From persecution of misguided folk, + Accustoming my spirit to ignore + The burden of the cross, while picturing + The bliss of disembodied souls, the grace + Of holiness, the lives of sainted men, + And entertaining all exalted thoughts, + That nowise touched the trouble of the hour, + Until the grief and pain seemed far less real + Than the creations of my brain inspired. + The vision, the beatitude, were true: + The agony was but an evil dream. + I speak not now as one who hath not learned + The purport of those lightly-bandied words, + Evil and Fate, but rather one who knows + The thunders of the terrors of the world. + No mortal chance or change, no earthly shock, + Can move or reach my soul, securely throned + On heights of contemplation and calm prayer, + Happy, serene, no less with actual joy + Of present peace than faith in joys to come. + + This soft, sweet, yellow evening, how the trees + Stand crisp against the clear, bright-colored sky! + How the white mountain-tops distinctly shine, + Taking and giving radiance, and the slopes + Are purpled with rich floods of peach-hued light! + Thank God, my filmy, old dislustred eyes + Find the same sense of exquisite delight, + My heart vibrates to the same touch of joy + In scenes like this, as when my pulse danced high, + And youth coursed through my veins! This the one link + That binds the wan old man that now I am + To the wild lad who followed up the hounds + Among Ravenna's pine-woods by the sea. + For there how oft would I lose all delight + In the pursuit, the triumph or the game, + To stray alone among the shadowy glades, + And gaze, as one who is not satisfied + With gazing, at the large, bright, breathing sea, + The forest glooms, and shifting gleams between + The fine dark fringes of the fadeless trees, + On gold-green turf, sweetbrier and wild pink rose! + How rich that buoyant air with changing scent + Of pungent pine, fresh flowers and salt cool seas! + And when all echoes of the chase had died, + Of horn and halloo, bells and baying hounds, + How mine ears drank the ripple of the tide + On that fair shore, the chirp of unseen birds, + The rustling of the tangled undergrowth, + And the deep lyric murmur of the pines, + When through their high tops swept the sudden breeze! + There was my world, there would my heart dilate, + And my aspiring soul dissolve in prayer + Unto that Spirit of Love whose energies + Were active round me, yet whose presence, sphered + In the unsearchable, unbodied air, + Made itself felt, but reigned invisible. + This ere the day that from my past divides + My present, and that made me what I am. + Still can I see the hot, bright sky, the sea + illimitably sparkling, as they showed + That morning. Though I deemed I took no note + Of heaven or earth or waters, yet my mind + Retains to-day the vivid portraiture + Of every line and feature of the scene. + Light-hearted 'midst the dewy lanes I fared + Unto the sea, whose jocund gleam I caught + Between the slim boles, when I heard the clink + Of naked weapons, then a sudden thrust + Sickening to hear, and then a stifled groan; + And pressing forward I beheld the sight + That seared itself for ever on my brain-- + My kinsman, Ser Ranieri, on the turf, + Fallen upon his side, his bright young head + Among the pine-spurs, and his cheek pressed close + Unto the moist, chill sod: his fingers clutched + A handful of loose weeds and grass and earth, + Uprooted in his anguish as he fell, + And slowly from his heart the thick stream flowed, + Fouling the green, leaving the fair, sweet face + Ghastly, transparent, with blue, stony eyes + Staring in blankness on that other one + Who triumphed over him. With hot desire + Of instant vengeance I unsheathed my sword + To rush upon the slayer, when he turned + In his first terror of blood-guiltiness. + + * * * * * + + Within my heart a something snapped and brake. + What was it but the chord of rapturous joy + For ever stilled? I tottered and would fall, + Had I not leaned against the friendly pine; + For all realities of life, unmoored + From their firm anchorage, appeared to float + Like hollow phantoms past my dizzy brain. + The strange delusion wrought upon my soul + That this had been enacted ages since. + This very horror curdled at my heart, + This net of trees spread round, these iron heavens, + Were closing over me when I had stood, + Unnumbered cycles back, and fronted _him,_ + My father; and he felt mine eyes as now, + Yet saw me not; and then, as now, that form, + The one thing real, lay stretched between us both. + The fancy passed, and I stood sane and strong + To grasp the truth. Then I remembered all-- + A few fierce words between them yester eve + Concerning some poor plot of pasturage, + Soon silenced into courteous, frigid calm: + This was the end. I could not meet him now, + To curse him, to accuse him, or to save, + And draw him from the red entanglement + Coiled by his own hands round his ruined life. + God pardon me! My heart that moment held + No drop of pity toward this wretched soul; + And cowering down, as though his guilt were mine, + I fled amidst the savage silences + Of that grim wood, resolved to nurse alone + My boundless desolation, shame and grief. + + There, in that thick-leaved twilight of high noon, + The quiet of the still, suspended air, + Once more my wandering thoughts were calmly ranged, + Shepherded by my will. I wept, I prayed + A solemn prayer, conceived in agony, + Blessed with response instant, miraculous; + For in that hour my spirit was at one + With Him who knows and satisfies her needs. + The supplication and the blessing sprang + From the same source, inspired divinely both. + I prayed for light, self-knowledge, guidance, truth, + And these like heavenly manna were rained down + To feed my hungered soul. His guilt _was_ mine. + What angel had been sent to stay mine arm + Until the fateful moment passed away + That would have ushered an eternity + Of withering remorse? I found the germs + In mine own heart of every human sin, + That waited but occasion's tempting breath + To overgrow with poisoned bloom my life. + What God thus far had saved me from myself? + Here was the lofty truth revealed, that each + Must feel himself in all, must know where'er + The great soul acts or suffers or enjoys, + His proper soul in kinship there is bound. + Then my life-purpose dawned upon my mind, + Encouraging as morning. As I lay, + Crushed by the weight of universal love, + Which mine own thoughts had heaped upon myself, + I heard the clear chime of a slow, sweet bell. + I knew it--whence it came and what it sang. + From the gray convent nigh the wood it pealed, + And called the monks to prayer. Vigil and prayer, + Clean lives, white days of strict austerity: + Such were the offerings of these holy saints. + How far might such not tend to expiate + A riotous world's indulgence? Here my life, + Doubly austere and doubly sanctified, + Might even for that other one atone, + So bound to mine, till both should be forgiven. + + They sheltered me, not questioning the need + That led me to their cloistered solitude. + How rich, how freighted with pure influence, + With dear security of perfect peace, + Was the first day I passed within those walls! + The holy habit of perpetual prayer, + The gentle greetings, the rare temperate speech, + The chastening discipline, the atmosphere + Of settled and profound tranquillity, + Were even as living waters unto one + Who perisheth of thirst. Was this the world + That yesterday seemed one huge battle-field + For brutish passions? Could the soul of man + Withdraw so easily, and erect apart + Her own fair temple for her own high ends? + But this serene contentment slowly waned + As I discerned the broad disparity + Betwixt the form and spirit of the laws + That bound the order in strait brotherhood. + Yet when I sought to gain a larger love, + More rigid discipline, severer truth, + And more complete surrender of the soul + Unto her God, this was to my reproach, + And scoffs and gibes beset me on all sides. + In mine own cell I mortified my flesh, + I held aloof from all my brethren's feasts + To wrestle with my viewless enemies, + Till they should leave their blessing on my head; + For nightly was I haunted by that face, + White, bloodless, as I saw it 'midst the ferns, + Now staring out of darkness, and it held + Mine eyes from slumber and my brain from rest + And drove me from my straw to weep and pray. + Rebellious thoughts such subtle torture wrought + Upon my spirit that I lay day-long + In dumb despair, until the blessed hope + Of mercy dawned again upon my soul, + As gradual as the slow gold moon that mounts + The airy steps of heaven. My faith arose + With sure perception that disaster, wrong, + And every shadow of man's destiny + Are merely circumstance, and cannot touch + The soul's fine essence: they exist or die + Only as she affirms them or denies. + + This faith sustains me even to the end: + It floods my heart with peace as surely now + As on that day the friars drove me forth, + Urging that my asceticism, too harsh, + Endured through pride, would bring into reproach + Their customs and their order. Then began + My exile in the mountains, where I bode + A hunted man. The elements conspired + Against me, and I was the seasons' sport, + Drenched, parched, and scorched and frozen alternately, + Burned with shrewd frosts, prostrated by fierce heats, + Shivering 'neath chilling dews and gusty rains, + And buffeted by all the winds of heaven. + Yet was this period my time of joy: + My daily thoughts perpetual converse held + With angels ministrant; mine ears were charmed + With sweet accordance of celestial sounds, + Song, harp and choir, clear ringing through the air. + And visions were revealed unto mine eyes + By night and day of Heaven's very courts, + In shadowless, undimmed magnificence. + I gave God thanks, not that He sheltered me, + And fed me as He feeds the fowls of air-- + For had I perished, this too had been well-- + But for the revelation of His truth, + The glory, the beatitude vouchsafed + To exalt, to heal, to quicken, to inspire; + So that the pinched, lean excommunicate + Was crowned with joy more solid, more secure, + Than all the comfort of the vales could bring. + Then the good Lord touched certain fervid hearts, + Aspiring toward His love, to come to me, + Timid and few at first; but as they heard + From mine own lips the precious oracles, + That soothed the trouble of their souls, appeased + Their spiritual hunger, and disclosed + All of the God within them to themselves, + They flocked about me, and they hailed me saint, + And sware to follow and to serve the good + Which my word published and my life declared. + Thus the lone hermit of the mountain-top + Descended leader of a band of saints, + And midway 'twixt the summit and the vale + I perched my convent. Yet I bated not + One whit of strict restraint and abstinence. + And they who love me and who serve the truth + Have learned to suffer with me, and have won + The supreme joy that is not of the flesh, + Foretasting the delights of Paradise. + This faith, to them imparted, will endure + After my tongue hath ceased to utter it, + And the great peace hath settled on my soul. + +EMMA LAZARUS. + + + + + +A PRINCESS OF THULE. + +BY WILLIAM BLACK, AUTHOR OF "THE STRANGE ADVENTURES OF A +PHAETON." + + +CHAPTER VIII. + +"O TERQUE QUATERQUE BEATE!" + + +Consider what a task this unhappy man Ingram had voluntarily +undertaken! Here were two young people presumably in love. One of them +was laid under suspicion by several previous love-affairs, though none +of these, doubtless, had been so serious as the present. The other +scarcely knew her own mind, or perhaps was afraid to question herself +too closely, lest all the conflict between duty and inclination, with +its fears and anxieties and troubles, should be too suddenly revealed. +Moreover, this girl was the only daughter of a solitary and irascible +old gentleman living in a remote island; and Ingram had not only +undertaken that the love-affairs of the young folks should come all +right--thus assuming a responsibility which might have appalled the +bravest--but was also expected to inform the King of Borva that his +daughter was about to be taken away from him. + +Of course, if Sheila had been a properly brought-up young lady, +nothing of this sort would have been necessary. We all know what the +properly brought-up young lady does under such circumstances. She goes +straight to her papa and mamma and says, "My dear papa and mamma, I +have been taught by my various instructors that I ought to have no +secrets from my dear parents; and I therefore hasten to lay aside any +little shyness or modesty or doubt of my own wishes I might feel, for +the purpose of explaining to you the extent to which I have become a +victim to the tender passion, and of soliciting your advice. I also +place before you these letters I have received from the gentleman +in question: probably they were sent in confidence to me, but I must +banish any scruples that do not coincide with my duty to you. I may +say that I respect, and even admire, Mr. So-and-So; and I should be +unworthy of the care bestowed upon my education by my dear parents +if I were altogether insensible to the advantages of his worldly +position. But beyond this point I am at a loss to define my +sentiments; and so I ask you, my dear papa and mamma, for permission +to study the question for some little time longer, when I may be able +to furnish you with a more accurate report of my feelings. At the same +time, if the interest I have in this young man is likely to conflict +with the duty I owe to my dear parents, I ask to be informed of the +fact; and I shall then teach myself to guard against the approach of +that insidious passion which might make me indifferent to the higher +calls and interests of life." Happy the man who marries such a woman! +No agonizing quarrels and delirious reconciliations, no piteous +entreaties and fits of remorse and impetuous self-sacrifices await +him, but a beautiful, methodical, placid life, as calm and accurate +and steadily progressive as the multiplication table. His household +will be a miracle of perfect arrangement. The relations between the +members of it will be as strictly defined as the pattern of the paper +on the walls. And how can a quarrel arise when a dissecter of the +emotions is close at hand to say where the divergence of opinion or +interest began? and how can a fit of jealousy be provoked in the case +of a person who will split up her affections into fifteen parts, give +ten-fifteenths to her children, three-fifteenths to her parents, and +the remainder to her husband? Should there be any dismal fractions +going about, friends and acquaintances may come in for them. + +But how was Sheila to go to her father and explain to him what she +could not explain to herself? She had never dreamed of marriage. She +had never thought of having to leave Borva and her father's house. +But she had some vague feeling that in the future lay many terrible +possibilities that she did not as yet dare to look at--until, at +least, she was more satisfied as to the present. And how could she go +to her father with such a chaos of unformed wishes and fears to place +before him? That such a duty should have devolved upon Ingram was +certainly odd enough, but it was not her doing. His knowledge of the +position of these young people was not derived from her. But, having +got it, he had himself asked her to leave the whole affair in his +hands, with that kindness and generosity which had more than once +filled her heart with an unspeakable gratitude toward him. + +"Well, you _are_ a good fellow!" said Lavender to him when he heard of +this decision. + +"Bah!" said the other with a shrug of his shoulders. "I mean to amuse +myself. I shall move you about like pieces on a chess-board, and have +a pretty game with you. How to checkmate the king with a knight and a +princess, in any number of moves you like--that is the problem; and my +princess has a strong power over the king where she is just now." + +"It's an uncommonly awkward business, you know, Ingram," said Lavender +ruefully. + +"Well, it is. Old Mackenzie is a tough old fellow to deal with, and +you'll do no good by making a fight of it. Wait! Difficulties don't +look so formidable when you take them one by one as they turn up. If +you really love the girl, and mean to take your chance of getting +her, and if she cares enough for you to sacrifice a good deal for your +sake, there is nothing to fear." + +"I can answer for myself, any way," said Lavender in a tone of voice +that Ingram rather liked: the young man did not always speak with the +same quietness, thoughtfulness and modesty. + +And how naturally and easily it came about, after all! They were +back again at Borva. They had driven round and about Lewis, and had +finished up with Stornoway; and, now that they had got back to the +island in Loch Roag, the quaint little drawing-room had even to +Lavender a homely and friendly look. The big stuffed fishes and the +sponge shells were old acquaintances; and he went to hunt up Sheila's +music just as if he had known that dusky corner for years. + +"Yes, yes," called Mackenzie, "it iss the English songs we will try +now." + +He had a notion that he was himself rather a good hand at a part +song--just as Sheila had innocently taught him to believe that he was +a brilliant whist-player when he had mastered the art of returning his +partner's lead--but fortunately at this moment he was engaged with +a long pipe and a big tumbler of hot whisky and water. Ingram was +similarly employed, lying back in a cane-bottomed easy-chair, and +placidly watching the smoke ascending to the roof. Sometimes he cast +an eye to the young folks at the other end of the room. They formed a +pretty sight, he thought. Lavender was a good-looking fellow enough, +and there was something pleasing in the quiet and assiduous fashion in +which he waited upon Sheila, and in the almost timid way in which he +spoke to her. Sheila herself sat at the piano, clad all in slate-gray +silk, with a narrow band of scarlet velvet round her neck; and it was +only by a chance turning of the head that Ingram caught the tender +and handsome profile, broken only by the outward sweep of the long +eyelashes. + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +Sheila sang, with her father keeping time by patting his forefinger on +the table. + + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +sang Lavender; and then the two voices joined together: + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +Or were there not three voices? Surely, from the back part of the +room, the musicians could hear a wandering bass come in from time +to time, especially at such portions as "Ah, he never--ah, he never +touched thy heart!" which old Mackenzie considered very touching. But +there was something quaint and friendly and pleasant in the pathos of +those English songs, which made them far more acceptable to him than +Sheila's wild and melancholy legends of the sea. He sang "Ah, he +never, never touched thy heart!" with an outward expression of grief, +but with much inward satisfaction. Was it the quaint phraseology of +the old duets that awoke in him some faint ambition after histrionic +effect? At all events, Sheila proceeded to another of his favorites, +"All's Well," and here, amid the brisk music, the old man had an +excellent opportunity of striking in at random-- + + The careful watch patrols the deck + To guard the ship from foes or wreck. + +These two lines he had absolutely mastered, and always sang them, +whatever might be the key he happened to light on, with great vigor. +He soon went the length of improvising a part for himself in the +closing passages, and laid down his pipe altogether as he sang-- + + What cheer? Brother, quickly tell! + Above! Below! Good-night! All, all's well! + +From that point, however, Sheila and her companion wandered away into +fields of melody whither the King of Borva could not follow them; so +he was content to resume his pipe and listen placidly to the pretty +airs. He caught but bits and fragments of phrases and sentiments, but +they evidently were comfortable, merry, good-natured songs for young +folks to sing. There was a good deal of love-making, and rosy morns +appearing, and merry zephyrs, and such odd things, which, sung briskly +and gladly by two young and fresh voices, rather drew the hearts of +contemplative listeners to the musicians. + +"They sing very well whatever," said Mackenzie with a critical air +to Ingram when the young people were so busily engaged with their own +affairs as apparently to forget the presence of the others. "Oh yes, +they sing very well whatever; and what should the young folks sing +about but making love and courting, and all that?" + +"Natural enough," said Ingram, looking rather wistfully at the two at +the other end of the room. "I suppose Sheila will have a sweetheart +some day?" + +"Oh yes, Sheila will hef a sweetheart some day," said her father +good-humoredly. "Sheila is a good-looking girl: she will hef a +sweetheart some day." + +"She will be marrying too, I suppose," said Ingram cautiously. + +"Oh yes, she will marry--Sheila will marry: what will be the life of a +young girl if she does not marry?" + +At this moment, as Ingram afterward described it, a sort of "flash +of inspiration" darted in upon him, and he resolved there and then to +brave the wrath of the old king, and place all the conspiracy +before him, if only the music kept loud enough to prevent his being +overheard. + +"It will be hard on you to part with Sheila when she marries," said +Ingram, scarcely daring to look up. + +"Oh, ay, it will be that," said Mackenzie cheerfully enough. "But it +iss every one will hef to do that, and no great harm comes of it. Oh +no, it will not be much whatever; and Sheila, she will be very glad in +a little while after, and it will be enough for me to see that she is +ferry contented and happy. The young folk must marry, you will see; +and what is the use of marrying if it is not when they are young? +But Sheila, she will think of none of these things. It was young Mr. +MacIntyre of Sutherland--you hef seen him last year in Stornoway: he +hass three thousand acres of a deer forest in Sutherland--and he will +be ferry glad to marry my Sheila. But I will say to him, 'It is not +for me to say yes or no to you, Mr. MacIntyre: it is Sheila herself +will tell you that.' But he wass afraid to speak to her; and Sheila +herself will know nothing of why he came twice to Borva the last +year." + +"It is very good of you to leave Sheila quite unbiased in her choice," +said Ingram: "many fathers would have been sorely tempted by that deer +forest." + +Old Mackenzie laughed a loud laugh of derision, that fortunately +did not stop Lavender's execution of "I would that my love would +silently." + +"What the teffle," said Mackenzie, "hef I to want a deer forest for my +Sheila? Sheila is no fisherman's lass. She has plenty for herself, +and she will marry just the young man she wants to marry, and no other +one: that is what she will do, by Kott!" + +All this was most hopeful. If Mackenzie had himself been advocating +Lavender's suit, could he have said more? But notwithstanding all +these frank and generous promises, dealing with a future which the old +man considered as indefinitely remote, Ingram was still afraid of the +announcement he was about to make. + +"Sheila is fortunately situated," he said, "in having a father who +thinks only of her happiness. But I suppose she has never yet shown a +preference for any one?" + +"Not for any one but yourself," said her father with a laugh. + +And Ingram laughed too, but in an embarrassed way, and his sallow +face grew darker with a blush. Was there not something painful in +the unintentional implication that of course Ingram could not be +considered a possible lover of Sheila's, and that the girl herself was +so well aware of it that she could openly testify to her regard for +him? + +"And it would be a good thing for Sheila," continued her father, more +gravely, "if there wass any young man about the Lewis that she would +tek a liking to; for it will be some day I can no more look after her, +and it would be bad for her to be left alone all by herself in the +island." + +"And you don't think you see before you now some one who might take +on him the charge of Sheila's future?" said Ingram, looking toward +Lavender. + +"The English gentleman?" said Mackenzie with a smile. "No, that any +way is not possible." + +"I fancy it is more than possible," said Ingram, resolved to go +straight at it. "I know for a fact that he would like to marry your +daughter, and I think that Sheila, without knowing it herself almost, +is well inclined toward him." + +The old man started up from his chair: "Eh? what! my Sheila?" + +"Yes, papa," said the girl, turning round at once. + +She caught sight of a strange look on his face, and in an instant was +by his side: "Papa, what is the matter with you?" + +"Nothing, Sheila, nothing," he said impatiently. "I am a little tired +of the music, that is all. But go on with the music. Go back to the +piano, Sheila, and go on with the music, and Mr. Ingram and me, we +will go outside for a little while." + +Mackenzie walked out of the room, and said aloud in the hall, "Ay, are +you coming, Mr. Ingram? It iss a fine night this night, and the wind +is in a very good way for the weather." + +And then, as he went out to the front, he hummed aloud, so that Sheila +should hear, + + Who goes there? Stranger, quickly tell! + A friend! The word! Good-night! All's well! + All's well! Good-night! All's well! + +Ingram followed the old man outside, with a somewhat guilty conscience +suggesting odd things to him. Would it not be possible now to shut +one's ears for the next half hour? Angry words were only little +perturbations in the air. If you shut your ears till they were all +over, what harm could be done? All the big facts of life would remain +the same. The sea, the sky, the hills, the human beings around you, +even your desire of sleep for the night and your wholesome longing for +breakfast in the morning, would all remain, and the angry words would +have passed away. But perhaps it was a proper punishment that he +should now go out and bear all the wrath of this fierce old gentleman, +whose daughter he had conspired to carry off. Mackenzie was walking up +and down the path outside in the cool and silent night. There was +not much moon now, but a clear and lambent twilight showed all the +familiar features of Loch Roag and the southern hills, and down there +in the bay you could vaguely make out the Maighdean-mhara rocking in +the tiny waves that washed in on the white shore. Ingram had never +looked on this pretty picture with a less feeling of delight. + +"Well, you see, Mr. Mackenzie," he was beginning, "you must make this +excuse for him--" + +But Mackenzie put aside Lavender at once. It was all about Sheila +that he wanted to know. There was no anger in his words; only a great +anxiety, and sometimes an extraordinary and pathetic effort to take a +philosophical view of the situation. What had Sheila said? Was Sheila +deeply interested in the young man? Would it please Sheila if he was +to go in-doors and give at once his free consent to her marrying this +Mr. Lavender? + +"Oh, you must not think," said Mackenzie, with a certain loftiness +of air even amidst his great perturbation and anxiety--"you must not +think I hef not foreseen all this. It wass some day or other Sheila +will be sure to marry; and although I did not expect--no, I did not +expect _that_--that she would marry a stranger and an Englishman, if +it will please her that is enough. You cannot tell a young lass the +one she should marry: it iss all a chance the one she likes, and if +she does not marry him it is better she will not marry at all. Oh yes, +I know that ferry well. And I hef known there wass a time coming when +I would give away my Sheila to some young man; and there iss no use +complaining of it. But you hef not told me much about this young man, +or I hef forgotten: it is the same thing whatever. He has not much +money, you said--he is waiting for some money. Well, this is what I +will do: I will give him all my money if he will come and live in the +Lewis." + +All the philosophy he had been mustering up fell away from that last +sentence. It was like the cry of a drowning man who sees the last +life-boat set out for shore, leaving him to his fate. And Ingram had +not a word to say in reply to that piteous entreaty. + +"I do not ask him to stop in Borva: no, it iss a small place for one +that hass lived in a town. But the Lewis, that is quite different; and +there iss ferry good houses in Stornoway." + +"But surely, sir," said Ingram, "you need not consider all this just +yet. I am sure neither of them has thought of any such thing." + +"No," said Mackenzie, recovering himself, "perhaps not. But we hef our +duties to look at the future of young folks. And you will say that Mr. +Lavender hass only expectations of money?" + +"Well, the expectation is almost a certainty. His aunt, I have told +you, is a very rich old lady, who has no other near relations, and she +is exceedingly fond of him, and would do anything for him. I am sure +the allowance he has now is greatly in excess of what she spends on +herself." + +"But they might quarrel, you know--they might quarrel. You hef always +to look to the future: they might quarrel, and what will he do then?" + +"Why, you don't suppose he couldn't support himself if the worst were +to come to the worst? He is an amazingly clever fellow--" + +"Ay, that is very good," said Mackenzie in a cautious sort of way, +"but has he ever made any money?" + +"Oh, I fancy not--nothing to speak of. He has sold some pictures, but +I think he has given more away." + +"Then it iss not easy, tek my word for it, Mr. Ingram, to begin a new +trade if you are twenty-five years of age; and the people who will tek +your pictures for nothing, will they pay for them if you wanted the +money?" + +It was obviously the old man's eager wish to prove to himself that, +somehow or other, Lavender might come to have no money, and be made +dependent on his father-in-law. So far, indeed, from sharing the +sentiments ordinarily attributed to that important relative, he would +have welcomed with a heartfelt joy the information that the man +who, as he expected, was about to marry his daughter was absolutely +penniless. Not even all the attractions of that deer forest in +Sutherlandshire--particularly fascinating as they must have been to a +man of his education and surroundings--had been able to lead the old +King of Borva even into hinting to his daughter that the owner of that +property would like to marry her. Sheila was to choose for herself. +She was not like a fisherman's lass, bound to consider ways and means. +And now that she had chosen, or at least indicated the possibility of +her doing so, her father's chief desire was that his future son-in-law +should come and take and enjoy his money, so only that Sheila might +not be carried away from him for ever. + +"Well, I will see about it," said Mackenzie with an affectation of +cheerful and practical shrewdness. "Oh yes, I will see about it when +Sheila has made up her mind. He is a very good young man, whatever--" + +"He is the best-hearted fellow I know," said Ingram warmly. "I don't +think Sheila has much to fear if she marries him. If you had known him +as long as I have, you would know how considerate he is to everybody +about him, how generous he is, how good-natured and cheerful, and so +forth: in short, he is a thorough good fellow, that's what I have to +say about him." + +"It iss well for him he will hef such a champion," said Mackenzie with +a smile: "there is not many Sheila will pay attention to as she does +to you." + +They went in-doors again, Ingram scarcely knowing how he had got so +easily through the ordeal, but very glad it was over. + +Sheila was still at the piano, and on their entering she said, "Papa, +here is a song you must learn to sing with me." + +"And what iss it, Sheila?" he said, going over to her. + +"'Time has not thinned my flowing hair.'" + +He put his hand on her head and said, "I hope it will be a long time +before he will thin your hair, Sheila." + +The girl looked up surprised. Scotch folks are, as a rule, somewhat +reticent in their display of affection, and it was not often that her +father talked to her in that way. What was there in his face that +made her glance instinctively toward Ingram. Somehow or other her hand +sought her father's hand, and she rose and went away from the piano, +with her head bent down and tears beginning to tell in her eyes. + +"Yes, that is a capital song," said Ingram loudly. Sing 'The +Arethusa,' Lavender--'Said the saucy Arethusa.'" + +Lavender, knowing what had taken place, and not daring to follow with +his eyes Sheila and her father, who had gone to the other end of the +room, sang the song. Never was a gallant and devil-may-care sea-song +sung so hopelessly without spirit. But the piano made a noise and the +verses took up time. When he had finished he almost feared to +turn round, and yet there was nothing dreadful in the picture that +presented itself. Sheila was sitting on her father's knee, with her +head buried in his bosom, while he was patting her head and talking +in a low voice to her. The King of Borva did not look particularly +fierce. + +"Yes, it iss a teffle of a good song," he said suddenly. "Now get up, +Sheila, and go and tell Mairi we will have a bit of bread and cheese +before going to bed. And there will be a little hot water wanted in +the other room, for this room it iss too full of the smoke." + +Sheila, as she went out of the room, had her head cast down and +perhaps an extra tinge of color in her young and pretty face. But +surely, Lavender thought to himself as he watched her anxiously, she +did not look grieved. As for her father, what should he do now? Turn +suddenly round and beg Mackenzie's pardon, and throw himself on +his generosity? When he did, with much inward trembling, venture to +approach the old man, he found no such explanation possible. The +King of Borva was in one of his grandest moods--dignified, courteous, +cautious, and yet inclined to treat everybody and everything with a +sort of lofty good-humor. He spoke to Lavender in the most friendly +way, but it was about the singular and startling fact that modern +research had proved many of the Roman legends to be utterly +untrustworthy. Mr. Mackenzie observed that the man was wanting in +proper courage who feared to accept the results of such inquiries. It +was better that we should know the truth, and then the kings who had +really made Rome great might emerge from the fog of tradition in their +proper shape. There was something quite sympathetic in the way he +talked of those ill-treated sovereigns, whom the vulgar mind had +clothed in mist. + +Lavender was sorely beset by the rival claims of Rome and Borva upon +his attention. He was inwardly inclined to curse Numa Pompilius--which +would have been ineffectual--when he found that personage interfering +with a wild effort to discover why Mackenzie should treat him in this +way. And then it occurred to him that, as he had never said a word to +Mackenzie about this affair, it was too much to expect that Sheila's +father should himself open the subject. On the contrary, Mackenzie was +bent on extending a grave courtesy to his guest, so that the latter +should not feel ill at ease until it suited himself to make any +explanations he might choose. It was not Mackenzie's business to ask +this young man if he wanted to marry Sheila. No. The king's daughter, +if she were to be won at all, was to be won by a suitor, and it was +not for her father to be in a hurry about it. So Lavender got back +into the region of early Roman history, and tried to recall what he +had learned in Livy, and quite coincided with everything that Niebuhr +had said or proved, and with everything that Mackenzie thought Niebuhr +had said or proved. He was only too glad, indeed, to find himself +talking to Sheila's father in this friendly fashion. + +Then Sheila came in and told them that supper was laid in the +adjoining room. At that modest meal a great good-humor prevailed. +Sometimes, it is true, it occurred to Ingram that Sheila occasionally +cast an anxious glance to her father, as if she were trying to +discover whether he was really satisfied, or whether he were not +merely pretending satisfaction to please her; but for the rest the +party was a most friendly and merry one. Lavender, naturally +enough, was in the highest of spirits, and nothing could exceed the +lighthearted endeavors he made to amuse and interest and cheer his +companions. Sheila, indeed, sat up later than usual, even although +pipes were lit again, and the slate-gray silk likely to bear witness +to the fact in the morning. How comfortable and homely was this sort +of life in the remote stone building overlooking the sea! He began to +think that he could live always in Borva if only Sheila were with him +as his companion. + +Was it an actual fact, then, he asked himself next morning, that +he stood confessed to the small world of Borva as Sheila's accepted +lover? Not a word on the subject had passed between Mackenzie and +himself, and yet he found himself assuming the position of a younger +relative, and rather expecting advice from the old man. He began to +take a great interest, too, in the local administration of the island: +he examined the window-fastenings of Mackenzie's house and saw that +they would be useful in the winter, and expressed to Sheila's father +his confidential opinion that the girl should not be allowed to go out +in the Maighdean-mhara without Duncan. + +"She will know as much about boats as Duncan himself," said her father +with a smile. "But Sheila will not go out when the rough weather +begins." + +"Of course you keep her in-doors then," said the younger man, already +assuming some little charge over Sheila's comfort. + +The father laughed aloud at this simplicity on the part of the +Englishman: "If we wass to keep in-doors in the bad weather, it would +be all the winter we would be in-doors! There iss no day at all Sheila +will not be out some time or other; and she is never so well as in the +hard weather, when she will be out always in the snow and the frost, +and hef plenty of exercise and amusement." + +"She is not often ailing, I suppose?" said Lavender. + +"She is as strong as a young pony, that is what Sheila is," said her +father proudly. "And there is no one in the island will run so fast, +or walk so long without tiring, or carry things from the shore as she +will--not one." + +But here he suddenly checked himself. "That is," he said with some +little expression of annoyance, "I wass saying Sheila could do that if +it wass any use; but she will not do such things, like a fisherman's +lass that hass to keep in the work." + +"Oh, of course not," said Lavender hastily. "But still, you know, it +is pleasant to know she is so strong and well." + +And at this moment Sheila herself appeared, accompanied by her great +deerhound, and testifying by the bright color in her face to the +assurances of her health her father had been giving. She had just come +up and over the hill from Borvabost, while as yet breakfast had not +been served. Somehow or other, Lavender fancied she never looked so +bright and bold and handsome as in the early morning, with the fresh +sea-air tingling the color in her cheeks, and the sunlight shining in +the clear eyes or giving from time to time a glimpse of her perfect +teeth. But this morning she did not seem quite so frankly merry as +usual. She patted the deerhound's head, and rather kept her eyes away +from her father and his companion. And then she took Bras away to give +him his breakfast, just as Ingram appeared to bid her good-morning and +ask her what she meant by being about so early. + +How anxiously Lavender now began to calculate on the remaining days of +their stay in Borva! They seemed so few. He got up at preposterously +early hours to make each day as long as possible, but it slipped away +with a fatal speed; and already he began to think of Stornoway and the +Clansman and his bidding good-bye to Sheila. He had said no more to +her of any pledge as regarded the future. He was content to see that +she was pleased to be with him; and happy indeed were their rambles +about the island, their excursions in Sheila's boat, their visits to +the White Water in search of salmon. Nor had he yet spoken to Sheila's +father. He knew that Mackenzie knew, and both seemed to take it for +granted that no good could come of a formal explanation until Sheila +herself should make her wishes known. That, indeed, was the only +aspect of the case that apparently presented itself to the old King of +Borva. He forgot altogether those precautions and investigations which +are supposed to occupy the mind of a future father-in-law, and only +sought to see how Sheila was affected toward the young man who was +soon about to leave the island. When he saw her pleased to be walking +with Lavender and talking with him of an evening, he was pleased, and +would rather have a cold dinner than break in upon them to hurry +them home. When he saw her disappointed because Lavender had been +unfortunate in his salmon-fishing, he was ready to swear at Duncan +for not having had the fish in a better temper. And the most of his +conversation with Ingram consisted of an endeavor to convince himself +that, after all, what had happened was for the best, and that Sheila +seemed to be happy. + +But somehow or other, when the time for their departure was drawing +near, Mackenzie showed a strange desire that his guests should +spend the last two days in Stornoway. When Lavender first heard this +proposal he glanced toward Sheila, and his face showed clearly his +disappointment. + +"But Sheila will go with us too," said her father, replying to that +unuttered protest in the most innocent fashion; and then Lavender's +face brightened again, and he said that nothing would give him greater +pleasure than to spend two days in Stornoway. + +"And you must not think," said Mackenzie anxiously, "that it is one +day or two days or a great many days will show you all the fine things +about Stornoway. And if you were to live in Stornoway you would find +very good acquaintances and friends there; and in the autumn, when the +shooting begins, there are many English who will come up, and there +will be ferry great doings at the castle. And there is some gentlemen +now at Grimersta whom you hef not seen, and they are ferry fine +gentlemen; and at Garra-na-hina there iss two more gentlemen for the +salmon-fishing. Oh, there iss a great many fine people in the Lewis, +and it iss not all as lonely as Borva." + +"If it is half as pleasant a place to live in as Borva, it will do," +said Lavender, with a flush of enthusiasm in his face as he looked +toward Sheila and saw her pleased and downcast eyes. + +"But it iss not to be compared," said Mackenzie eagerly. "Borva, that +is nothing at all; but the Lewis, it is a ferry different thing to +live in the Lewis; and many English gentlemen hef told me they would +like to live always in the Lewis." + +"I think I should too," said Lavender lightly and carelessly, little +thinking what importance the old man immediately and gladly put upon +the admission. + +From that moment, Lavender, although unconscious of what had happened, +had nothing to fear in the way of opposition from Sheila's father. If +he had there and then boldly asked Mackenzie for his daughter, the +old man would have given his consent freely, and bade Lavender go to +Sheila herself. + +And so they set sail, one pleasant forenoon, from Borvabost, and +the light wind that ruffled the blue of Loch Roag gently filled the +mainsail of the Maigh-dean-mhara as she lightly ran down the tortuous +channel. + +"I don't like to go away from Borva," said Lavender in a low voice to +Sheila, "but I might have been leaving the island with greater regret, +for, you know, I expect to be back soon." + +"We shall always be glad to see you," said the girl; and although he +would rather have had her say "I" than "we," there was something in +the tone of her voice that contented him. + +At Garra-na-hina Mackenzie pointed out with a great interest to +Lavender a tall man who was going down through some meadows to the +Amhuinn Dhubh, "the Black River." He had a long rod over his shoulder, +and behind him, at some distance, followed a shorter man, who carried +a gaff and landing-net. Mackenzie anxiously explained to Lavender +that the tall figure was that of an Englishman. Lavender accepted +the statement. But would he not go down to the river and make his +acquaintance? Lavender could not understand why he should be expected +to take so great an interest in an ordinary English sportsman. + +"Ferry well," said Mackenzie, a trifle disappointed, "but you would +find several of the English in the Lewis if you wass living here." + +These last two days in Stornoway were very pleasant. On their previous +visit to the town Mackenzie had given up much of his time to business +affairs, and was a good deal away from his guests, but now he devoted +himself to making them particularly comfortable in the place and +amusing them in every possible way. He introduced Lavender, in +especial, to all his friends there, and was most anxious to impress +on the young man that life in Stornoway was, on the whole, rather a +brilliant affair. Then was there a finer point from which you +could start at will for Inverness, Oban and such great centres of +civilization? Very soon there would even be a telegraphic cable laid +to the mainland. Was Mr. Lavender aware that frequently you could see +the Sutherlandshire hills from this very town of Stornoway? + +There Sheila laughed, and Lavender, who kept watching her face always +to read all her fancies and sentiments and wishes in the shifting +lights of it, immediately demanded an explanation. + +"It is no good thing," said Sheila, "to see the Sutherland hills +often, for when you see them it means to rain." + +But Lavender had not been taught to fear the rain of the Western +Isles. The very weather seemed to have conspired with Mackenzie to +charm the young man with the island. At this moment, for example, they +were driving away from Stornoway along the side of the great bay that +stretches northward until it finds its furthest promontory in Tiumpan +Head. What magnificence of color shone all around them in the hot +sunlight! Where the ruffled blue sea came near the long sweep of +yellow sand it grew to be a bright, transparent green. The splendid +curve of the bay showed a gleaming line of white where the waves +broke in masses of hissing foam; and beyond that curve again long +promontories of dark red conglomerate ran out into the darker waters +of the sea, with their summits shining with the bright sea-grass. +Here, close at hand, were warm meadows, with calves and lambs cropping +the sweet-scented Dutch clover. A few huts, shaped like beehives, +stood by the roadside, close by some deep peat cuttings. There was a +cutting in the yellow sand of the bay for the pulling up of captured +whales. Now and again you could see a solan dart down from the blue +heavens into the blue of the sea, sending up a spurt of water twenty +feet high as he disappeared; and far out there, between the red +precipices and the ruffled waters beneath, white sea-fowl flew from +crag to crag or dropped down upon the sea to rise and fall with the +waves. + +At the small hamlet of Gress they got a large rowing-boat manned by +sturdy fishermen, and set out to explore the great caves formed in the +mighty wall of conglomerate that here fronts the sea. The wild-fowl +flew about them, screaming and yelling at being disturbed. The long +swell of the sea lifted the boat, passed from under it, and went on +with majestic force to crash on the glowing red crags and send jets of +foam flying up the face of them. They captured one of the sea-birds--a +young thing about as big as a hen, with staring eyes, scant feathers, +and a long beak with which it instinctively tried to bite its +enemies--and the parents of it kept swooping down over the boat, +uttering shrill cries, until their offspring was restored to the +surface of the water. They went into the great loud-sounding caverns, +getting a new impression of the extraordinary clearness of the +sea-water by the depth at which the bottom was visible; and here their +shouts occasionally called up from some dim twilight recess, far +in among the perilous rocks, the head of a young seal, which would +instantly dive again and be seen no more. They watched the salmon +splash in the shallower creeks where the sea had scooped out a tiny +bay of ruddy sand, and then a slowly rolling porpoise would show his +black back above the water and silently disappear again. All this was +pleasant enough on a pleasant morning, in fresh sea-air and sunlight, +in holiday-time; and was there any reason, Mackenzie may fairly have +thought, why this young man, if he did marry Sheila, should not come +and live in a place where so much healthy amusement was to be found? + +And in the evening, too, when they had climbed to the top of the +hills on the south of Stornoway harbor, did not the little town look +sufficiently picturesque, with its white houses, its shipping, its +great castle and plantations lying in shadow under the green of the +eastern sky? Then away to the west what a strange picture presented +itself! Thick bands of gray cloud lay across the sky, and the sunlight +from behind them sent down great rays of misty yellow on the endless +miles of moor. But how was it that, as these shafts of sunlight struck +on the far and successive ridges of the moorland, each long undulation +seemed to become transparent, and all the island appeared to consist +of great golden-brown shells heaped up behind each other, with the +sunlight shining through? + +"I have tried a good many new effects since coming up here," said +Lavender, "but I shall not try _that_." + +"Oh, it iss nothing--it is nothing at all," said Mackenzie with a +studied air of unconcern. "There iss much more beautiful things than +that in the island, but you will hef need of a ferry long time before +you will find it all out. That--that iss nothing at all." + +"You will perhaps make a picture of it some other time," said Sheila +with her eyes cast down, and as he was standing by her at the time, he +took her hand and pressed it, and said, "I hope so." + +Then, that night! Did not every hour produce some new and wonderful +scene, or was it only that each minute grew to be so precious, and +that the enchantment of Sheila's presence filled the air around him? +There was no moon, but the stars shone over the bay and the harbor and +the dusky hills beyond the castle. Every few seconds the lighthouse at +Arnish Point sent out its wild glare of orange fire into the heart, of +the clear darkness, and then as suddenly faded out and left the eyes +too bewildered to make out the configuration of the rocks. All over +the north-west there still remained the pale glow of the twilight, and +somehow Lavender seemed to think that that strange glow belonged +to Sheila's home in the west, and that the people in Stornoway knew +nothing of the wonders of Loch Roag and of the strange nights there. +Was he likely ever to forget? + +"Good-bye, Sheila," he said next morning, when the last signal had +been given and the Clansman was about to move from her moorings. + +She had bidden good-bye to Ingram already, but somehow she could not +speak to his companion just at this last moment. She pressed his hand +and turned away, and went ashore with her father. Then the big steamer +throbbed its way out of the harbor, and by and by the island of Lewis +lay but as a thin blue cloud along the horizon; and who could tell +that human beings, with strange hopes and fancies and griefs, were +hidden away in that pale line of vapor? + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + +"FAREWELL, MACKRIMMON!" + + +A night journey from Greenock to London is a sufficiently prosaic +affair in ordinary circumstances, but it need not be always so. What +if a young man, apparently occupied in making himself comfortable and +in talking nonsense to his friend and companion, should be secretly +calculating how the journey could be made most pleasant to a bride, +and that bride his bride? Lavender made experiments with regard to the +ways and tempers of guards; he borrowed planks of wood with which to +make sleeping-couches of an ordinary first-class carriage; he bribed a +certain official to have the compartment secured; he took note of the +time when, and the place where, refreshments could be procured: all +these things he did, thinking of Sheila. And when Ingram, sometimes +surprised by his good-nature, and occasionally remonstrating against +his extravagance, at last fell asleep on the more or less comfortable +cushions stretched across the planks, Lavender would have him wake up +again, that he might be induced to talk once more about Sheila. Ingram +would make use of some wicked words, rub his eyes, ask what was the +last station they had passed, and then begin to preach to Lavender +about the great obligations he was under to Sheila, and what would be +expected of him in after times. + +"You are coming away just now," he would say, while Lavender, who +could not sleep at all, was only anxious that Sheila's name should be +mentioned, "enriched with a greater treasure than falls to the lot of +most men. If you know how to value that treasure, there is not a king +or emperor in Europe who should not envy you." + +"But don't you think I value it?" the other would say anxiously. + +"We'll see about that afterward, by what you do. But in the mean +time you don't know what you have won. You don't know the magnificent +single-heartedness of that girl, her keen sense of honor, nor the +strength of character, of judgment and decision that lies beneath her +apparent simplicity. Why, I have known Sheila, now--But what's the use +of talking?" + +"I wish you would talk, though, Ingram," said his companion quite +submissively. "You have known her longer than I. I am willing to +believe all you say of her, and anxious, indeed, to know as much about +her as possible. You don't suppose I fancy she is anything less than +you say?" + +"Well," said Ingram doubtfully, "perhaps not. The worst of it is, that +you take such odd readings of people. However, when you marry her, as +I now hope you may, you will soon find out; and then, if you are +not grateful, if you don't understand and appreciate _then_ the fine +qualities of this girl, the sooner you put a millstone round your neck +and drop over Chelsea Bridge the better." + +"She will always have in you a good friend to look after her when she +comes to London." + +"Oh, don't imagine I mean to thrust myself in at your breakfast-table +to give you advice. If a husband and wife cannot manage their own +affairs satisfactorily, no third person can; and I am getting to be an +elderly man, who likes peace and comfort and his own quiet." + +"I wish you wouldn't talk such nonsense!" said Lavender impetuously. +"You know you are bound to marry; and the woman you ask to marry you +will be a precious fool if she refuses. I don't know, indeed, how you +and Sheila ever escaped--" + +"Look here, Lavender," said his companion, speaking in a somewhat more +earnest fashion, "if you marry Sheila Mackenzie I suppose I may see +something of both of you from time to time. But you are naturally +jealous and exacting, as is the way with many good fellows who have +had too much of their own will in the world; and if you start off with +the notion now that Sheila and I might ever have married, or that such +a thing was ever thought of by either of us, the certain consequence +will be that you will become jealous of me, and that in time I shall +have to stop seeing either of you if you happen to be living in +London." + +"And if ever the time comes," said Lavender lightly, "when I prove +myself such a fool, I hope I shall remember that a millstone can be +bought in Victoria road and that Chelsea Bridge is handy." + +"All right: I'm going to sleep." + +For some time after Ingram was permitted to rest in peace, and it was +not until they had reached some big station or other toward morning +that he woke. Lavender had never closed his eyes. + +"Haven't you been asleep?" + +"No." + +"What's the matter now?" + +"My aunt." + +"You seem to have acquired a trick recently of looking at all the +difficulties of your position at once. Why don't you take them +singly? You've just got rid of Mackenzie's opposition: that might have +contented you for a while." + +"I think the best plan will be to say nothing of this to my aunt at +present. I think we ought to get married first, and when I take Sheila +to see her as my wife, what can she say then?" + +"But what is Sheila likely to say before then? And Sheila's father? +You must be out of your mind!" + +"There will be a pretty scene, then, when I tell her." + +"Scenes don't hurt anybody, unless when they end in brickbats or +decanters. Your aunt must know you would marry some day." + +"Yes, but you know whom she wished me to marry." + +"That is nothing. Every old lady has a fancy for imagining possible +marriages; but your aunt is a reasonable woman, and could not possibly +object to your marrying a girl like Sheila?" + +"Oh, couldn't she? Then you don't know her: 'Frank, my dear, what are +the arms borne by your wife's family?' 'My dear aunt, I will describe +them to you as becomes a dutiful nephew. The arms are quarterly: +first and fourth, vert, a herring, argent; second and third, azure, a +solan-goose, volant, or. The crest, out of a crown vallery, argent, +a cask of whisky, gules. Supporters, dexter, a gillie; sinister, a +fisherman.'" + +"And a very good coat-of-arms, too. You might add the motto _Ultimus +regum_. Or _Atavis editus regibus_. Or _Tyrrhena regum progenies_. To +think that your aunt would forbid your wedding a king's daughter!" + +"I should wed the king's daughter, aunt or no aunt, in any case; but, +you see, it would be uncommonly awkward, just as old Mackenzie would +want to know something more particular about my circumstances; and he +might ask for references to the old lady herself, just as if I were a +tenant about to take a house." + +"I have given him enough references. Go to sleep, and don't bother +yourself." + +But now Ingram felt himself just as unable as his companion to escape +into unconsciousness, and so he roused himself thoroughly, and began +to talk about Lewis and Borva and the Mackenzies, and the duties and +responsibilities Lavender would undertake in marrying Sheila. + +"Mackenzie," he said, "will expect you to live in Stornoway at least +half the year, and it will be very hard on him if you don't." + +"Oh, as to that," said the other, "I should have no objection; but, +you see, if I am to get married I really think I ought to try to get +into some position of earning my own living or helping toward it, you +know. I begin to see how galling this sort of dependence on my aunt +might be if I wished to act for myself. Now, if I were to begin to +do anything, I could not go and bury myself in Lewis for half the +year--just at first: by and by, you know, it might be different. But +don't you think I ought to begin and do something?" + +"Most certainly. I have often wished you had been born a carpenter or +painter or glazier." + +"People are not born carpenters or glaziers, but sometimes they are +born painters. I think I have been born nothing; but I am willing to +try, more especially as I think Sheila would like it." + +"I know she would." + +"I will write and tell her the moment I get to London." + +"I would fix first what your occupation was to be, if I were you. +There is no hurry about telling Sheila, although she will be very glad +to get as much news of you as possible, and I hope you will spare +no time or trouble in pleasing her in that line. By the way, what an +infamous shame it was of you to go and gammon old Mackenzie into the +belief that he can read poetry! Why, he will make that girl's life a +burden to her. I heard him propose to read _Paradise Lost_ to her as +soon as the rain set in." + +"I didn't gammon him," said Lavender with a laugh. "Every man thinks +he can read poetry better than every other man, even as every man +fancies that no one gets cigars as good and as cheap as he does, and +that no one can drive a horse safely but himself. My talking about +his reading was not as bad as Sheila's persuading him that he can +play whist. Did you ever know a man who did not believe that everybody +else's reading of poetry was affected, stilted and unbearable? I +know Mackenzie must have been reading poetry to Sheila long before I +mentioned it to him." + +"But that suggestion about his resonant voice and the Crystal Palace?" + +"That was a joke." + +"He did not take it as a joke, and neither did Sheila." + +"Well, Sheila would believe that her father could command the Channel +fleet, or turn out the present ministry, or build a bridge to America, +if only anybody hinted it to her. Touching that Crystal Palace: did +you observe how little notion of size she could have got from pictures +when she asked me if the Crystal Palace was much bigger than the +hot-houses at Lewis Castle?" + +"What a world of wonder the girl is coming into!" said the other +meditatively. "But it will be all lit up by one sun if only you take +care of her and justify her belief in you." + +"I have not much doubt," said Lavender with a certain modest +confidence in his manner which had repeatedly of late pleased his +friend. + +Even Sheila herself could scarcely have found London more strange than +did the two men who had just returned from a month's sojourn in the +northern Hebrides. The dingy trees in Euston Square, the pale sunlight +that shone down on the gray pavements, the noise of the omnibuses and +carts, the multitude of strangers, the blue and mist-like smoke that +hung about Tottenham Court road,--all were as strange to them as the +sensation of sitting in a hansom and being driven along by an unseen +driver. Lavender confessed afterward that he was pervaded by an odd +sort of desire to know whether there was anybody in London at all +like Sheila. Now and again a smartly-dressed girl passed along the +pavement: what was it that made the difference between her and that +other girl whom he had just left? Yet he wished to have the +difference as decided as possible. When some bright, fresh-colored, +pleasant-looking girl passed, he was anxious to prove to himself that +she was not to be compared with Sheila. Where in all London could +you find eyes that told so much? He forgot to place the specialty of +Sheila's eyes in the fact of their being a dark gray-blue under black +eyelashes. What he did remember was that no eyes could possibly say +the same things to him as they had said. And where in all London was +the same sweet aspect to be found, or the same unconsciously proud +and gentle demeanor, or the same tender friendliness expressed in a +beautiful face? He would not say anything against London women, for +all that. It was no fault of theirs that they could not be sea-kings' +daughters, with the courage and frankness and sweetness of the sea +gone into their blood. He was only too pleased to have proved to +himself, by looking at some half dozen pretty shop-girls, that not in +London was there any one to compare with Princess Sheila. + +For many a day thereafter Ingram had to suffer a good deal of this +sort of lover's logic, and bore it with great fortitude. Indeed, +nothing pleased him more than to observe that Lavender's affection, so +far from waning, engrossed more and more of his thought and his +time; and he listened with unfailing good-nature and patience to the +perpetual talk of his friend about Sheila and her home, and the future +that might be in store for both of them. If he had accepted half the +invitations to dinner sent down to him at the Board of Trade by his +friend, he would scarcely ever have been out of Lavender's club. Many +a long evening they passed in this way--either in Lavender's rooms +in King street or in Ingram's lodgings in Sloane street. Ingram quite +consented to lie in a chair and smoke, sometimes putting in a word of +caution to bring Lavender back from the romantic Sheila to the real +Sheila, sometimes smiling at some wild proposal or statement on the +part of his friend, but always glad to see that the pretty idealisms +planted during their stay in the far North were in no danger of dying +out down here in the South. Those were great days, too, when a letter +arrived from Sheila. Nothing had been said about their corresponding, +but Lavender had written shortly after his arrival in London, and +Sheila had answered for her father and herself. It wanted but a very +little amount of ingenuity to continue the interchange of letters +thus begun; and when the well-known envelope arrived high holiday was +immediately proclaimed by the recipient of it. He did not show Ingram +these letters, of course, but the contents of them were soon bit +by bit revealed. He was also permitted to see the envelope, as if +Sheila's handwriting had some magical charm about it. Sometimes, +indeed, Ingram had himself a letter from Sheila, and that was +immediately shown to Lavender. Was he pleased to find that these +communications were excessively business-like--describing how the +fishing was going on, what was doing in the schools, and how John +the Piper was conducting himself, with talk about the projected +telegraphic cable, the shooting in Harris, the health of Bras, and +other esoteric matters? + +Lavender's communications with the King of Borva were of a different +nature. Wonderful volumes on building, agriculture and what not, +tobacco hailing from certain royal sources in the neighborhood of +the Pyramids, and now and again a new sort of rifle or some fresh +invention in fishing-tackle,--these were the sort of things that found +their way to Lewis. And then in reply came haunches of venison, +and kegs of rare whisky, and skins of wild animals, which, all very +admirable in their way, were a trifle cumbersome in a couple of +moderate rooms in King street, St. James's. But here Lavender hit upon +a happy device. He had long ago talked to his aunt of the mysterious +potentate in the far North, who was the ruler of man, beast and +fish, and who had an only daughter. When these presents arrived, Mrs. +Lavender was informed that they were meant for her, and was given +to understand that they were the propitiatory gifts of a half-savage +monarch who wished to seek her friendship. In vain did Ingram warn +Lavender of the possible danger of this foolish joke. The young man +laughed, and would come down to Sloane street with another story of +his success as an envoy of the distant king. + +And so the months went slowly by, and Lavender raved about Sheila, +and dreamed about Sheila, and was always going to begin some splendid +achievement for Sheila's sake, but never just managed to begin. +After all, the future did not look very terrible, and the present +was satisfactory enough. Mrs. Lavender had no objection whatever to +listening to his praises of Sheila, and had even gone the length of +approving of the girl's photograph when it was shown her. But at the +end of six months Lavender suddenly went down to Sloane street, +found Ingram in his lodgings, and said, "Ingram, I start for Lewis +to-morrow." + +"The more fool you!" was the complacent reply. + +"I can't bear this any longer: I must go and see her." + +"You'll have to bear worse if you go. You don't know what getting to +Lewis is in the winter. You'll be killed with cold before you see the +Minch." + +"I can stand a good bit of cold when there's a reason for it," said +the young man; "and I have written to Sheila to say I should start +to-morrow." + +"In that case I had better make use of you. I suppose you won't mind +taking up to Sheila a sealskin jacket that I have bought for her." + +"That you have bought for her!" said the other. + +How could he have spared fifteen pounds out of his narrow income for +such a present? And yet he laughed at the idea of his ever having been +in love with Sheila. + +Lavender took the sealskin jacket with him, and started on his journey +to the North. It was certainly all that Ingram had prophesied in the +way of discomfort, hardship and delay. But one forenoon, Lavender, +coming up from the cabin of the steamer into which he had descended +to escape from the bitter wind and the sleet, saw before him a strange +thing. In the middle of the black sea and under a dark gray sky lay +a long wonder-land of gleaming snow. Far as the eye could see the +successive headlands of pale white jutted out into the dark ocean, +until in the south they faded into a gray mist and became invisible. +And when they got into Stornoway harbor, how black seemed the waters +of the little bay and the hulls of the boats and the windows of the +houses against the blinding white of the encircling hills! + +"Yes," said Lavender to the captain, "it will be a cold drive across +to Loch Roag. I shall give Mackenzie's man a good dram before we +start." + +But it was not Mackenzie's notion of hospitality to send Duncan to +meet an honored guest, and ere the vessel was fast moored Lavender had +caught sight of the well-known pair of horses and the brown wagonette, +and Mackenzie stamping up and down in the trampled snow. And this +figure close down to the edge of the quay? Surely, there was something +about the thick gray shawl, the white feather, the set of the head, +that he knew! + +"Why, Sheila!" he cried, jumping ashore before the gangway was shoved +across, "whatever made you come to Stornoway on such a day?" + +"And it is not much my coming to Stornoway if you will come all the +way from England to the Lewis," said Sheila, looking up with her +bright and glad eyes. + +For six months he had been trying to recall the tones of her voice in +looking at her picture, and had failed: now he fancied that she spoke +more sweetly and musically than ever. + +"Ay, ay," said Mackenzie when he had shaken hands with the young +man, "it wass a piece of foolishness, her coming over to meet you in +Styornoway; but the girl will be neither to hold nor to bind when she +teks a foolishness into her head." + +"Is this the character I hear of you, Sheila?" he said; and Mackenzie +laughed at his daughter's embarrassment, and said she was a good lass +for all that, and bundled both the young folks into the inn, where +luncheon had been provided, with a blazing fire in the room, and a +kettle of hot water steaming beside it. + +When they got to Borva, Lavender began to see that Mackenzie had laid +the most subtle plans for reconciling him to the hard weather of these +northern winters; and the young man, nothing loath, fell into his +ways, and was astonished at the amusement and interest that could +be got out of a residence in this bleak island at such a season. +Mackenzie discarded at once the feeble protections against cold and +wet which his guest had brought with him. He gave him a pair of his +own knickerbockers and enormous boots; he made him wear a frieze coat +borrowed from Duncan; he insisted on his turning down the flap of a +sealskin cap and tying the ends under his chin; and thus equipped they +started on many a rare expedition round the coast. But on their first +going out, Mackenzie, looking at him, said with some chagrin, "Will +they wear gloves when they go shooting in your country?" + +"Oh," said Lavender, "these are only a pair of old dogskins I +use chiefly to keep my hands clean. You see I have cut out the +trigger-finger. And they keep your hands from being numbed, you know, +with the cold or the rain." + +"There will be not much need of that after a little while," said +Mackenzie; and indeed, after half an hour's tramping over snow and +climbing over rocks, Lavender was well inclined to please the old man +by tossing the gloves into the sea, for his hands were burning with +heat. + +Then the pleasant evenings after all the fatigues of the day were +over, clothes changed, dinner despatched, and Sheila at the open piano +in that warm little drawing-room, with its strange shells and fish and +birds! + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays; + He in thy snowy bosom strays, + +they sang, just as in the bygone times of summer; and now old +Mackenzie had got on a bit farther in his musical studies, and could +hum with the best of them, + + He makes thy rosy lips his care, + And walks the mazes of thy hair. + +There was no winter at all in the snug little room, with its crimson +fire and closed shutters and songs of happier times. "When the +rosy morn appearing" had nothing inappropriate in it; and if they +particularly studied the words of "Oh wert thou in the cauld +blast," it was only that Sheila might teach her companion the Scotch +pronunciation, as far as she knew it. And once, half in joke, Lavender +said he could believe it was summer again if Sheila had only on her +slate-gray silk dress, with the red ribbon round her neck; and sure +enough, after dinner she came down in that dress, and Lavender +took her hand and kissed it in gratitude. Just at that moment, too, +Mackenzie began to swear at Duncan for not having brought him his +pipe, and not only went out of the room to look for it, but was a +full half hour in finding it. When he came in again he was singing +carelessly, + + Love in thine eyes for ever plays, + +just as if he had got his pipe round the corner. + +For it had been all explained by this time, you know, and Sheila had +in a couple of trembling words pledged away her life, and her father +had given his consent. More than that he would have done for the girl, +if need were; and when he saw the perfect happiness shining in her +eyes--when he saw that, through some vague feelings of compunction +or gratitude, or even exuberant joy, she was more than usually +affectionate toward himself--he grew reconciled to the ways of +Providence, and was ready to believe that Ingram had done them all a +good turn in bringing his friend from the South with him. If there +was any haunting fear at all, it was about the possibility of Sheila's +husband refusing to live in Stornoway, even for half the year or a +portion of the year; but did not the young man express himself as +delighted beyond measure with Lewis and the Lewis people, and the +sports and scenery and climate of the island? If Mackenzie could have +bought fine weather at twenty pounds a day, Lavender would have gone +back to London with the conviction that there was only one thing +better than Lewis in summer-time, and that was Lewis in time of snow +and frost. + +The blow fell. One evening a distinct thaw set in, during the night +the wind went round to the south-west, and in the morning, lo! the +very desolation of desolation. Suainabhal, Mealasabhal, Cracabhal were +all hidden away behind dreary folds of mist; a slow and steady rain +poured down from the lowering skies on the wet rocks, the marshy +pasture-land and the leafless bushes; the Atlantic lay dark under a +gray fog, and you could scarcely see across the loch in front of the +house. Sometimes the wind freshened a bit, and howled about the house +or dashed showers against the streaming panes; but ordinarily there +was no sound but the ceaseless hissing of the rain on the wet gravel +at the door and the rush of the waves along the black rocks. All signs +of life seemed to have fled from the earth and the sky. Bird and beast +had alike taken shelter, and not even a gull or a sea-pye crossed the +melancholy lines of moorland, which were half obscured by the mist of +the rain. + +"Well, it can't be fine weather always," said Lavender cheerfully when +Mackenzie was affecting to be greatly surprised to find such a thing +as rain in the island of Lewis. + +"No, that iss quite true," said the old man. "It wass ferry good +weather we were having since you hef come here. And what iss a little +rain?--oh, nothing at all. You will see it will go away whenever the +wind goes round." + +With that Mackenzie would again go out to the front of the house, +take a turn up and down the wet gravel, and pretend to be scanning the +horizon for signs of a change. Sheila, a good deal more honest, went +about her household duties, saying merely to Lavender, "I am very +sorry the weather has broken, but it may clear before you go away from +Borva." + +"Before I go? Do you expect it to rain for a week?" + +"Perhaps it will not, but it is looking very bad to-day," said Sheila. + +"Well, I don't care," said the young man, "though it should rain the +skies down, if only you would keep in-doors, Sheila. But you do go +out in such a reckless fashion. You don't seem to reflect that it is +raining." + +"I do not get wet," she said. + +"Why, when you came up from the shore half an hour ago your hair was +as wet as possible, and your face all red and gleaming with the rain." + +"But I am none the worse. And I am not wet now. It is impossible that +you will always keep in a room if you have things to do; and a little +rain does not hurt any one." + +"It occurs to me, Sheila," he observed slowly, "that you are an +exceedingly obstinate and self-willed young person, and that no one +has ever exercised any proper control over you." + +She looked up for a moment with a sudden glance of surprise and pain: +then she saw in his eyes that he meant nothing, and she went forward +to him, putting her hand in his hand, and saying with a smile, "I am +very willing to be controlled." + +"Are you really?" + +"Yes." + +"Then hear my commands. You shall _not_ go out in time of rain without +putting something over your head or taking an umbrella. You shall +_not_ go out in the Maighdean-mhara without taking some one with you +besides Mairi. You shall never, if you are away from home, go within +fifty yards of the sea, so long as there is snow on the rocks." + +"But that is so very many things already: is it not enough?" said +Sheila. + +"You will faithfully remember and observe these rules?" + +"I will." + +"Then you are a more obedient girl than I imagined or expected; and +you may now, if you are good, have the satisfaction of offering me +a glass of sherry and a biscuit, for, rain or no rain, Lewis is a +dreadful place for making people hungry." + +Mackenzie need not have been afraid. Strange as it may appear, +Lavender was well content with the wet weather. No depression or +impatience or remonstrance was visible on his face when he went to +the blurred windows, day after day, to see only the same desolate +picture--the dark sea, the wet rocks, the gray mists over the moorland +and the shining of the red gravel before the house. He would stand +with his hands in his pocket and whistle "Love in thine eyes for ever +plays," just as if he were looking out on a cheerful summer sunrise. +When he and Sheila went to the door, and were received by a cold blast +of wet wind and a driving shower of rain, he would slam the door to +again with a laugh, and pull the girl back into the house. Sometimes +she would not be controlled; and then he would accompany her about the +garden as she attended to her duties, or would go down to the shore +with her to give Bras a run. From these excursions he returned in +the best of spirits, with a fine color in his face; until, having got +accustomed to heavy boots, impervious frieze and the discomfort of +wet hands, he grew to be about as indifferent to the rain as Sheila +herself, and went fishing or shooting or boating with much content, +whether it was wet or dry. + +"It has been the happiest month of my life--I know that," he said to +Mackenzie as they stood together on the quay at Stornoway. + +"And I hope you will hef many like it in the Lewis," said the old man +cheerfully. + +"I think I should soon learn to become a Highlander up here," said +Lavender, "if Sheila would only teach me the Gaelic." + +"The Gaelic!" cried Mackenzie impatiently. "The Gaelic! It is none of +the gentlemen who will come here in the autumn will want the Gaelic; +and what for would you want the Gaelic--ay, if you was staying here +the whole year round?" + +"But Sheila will teach me all the same--won't you, Sheila?" he said, +turning to his companion, who was gazing somewhat blankly at the rough +steamer and at the rough gray sea beyond the harbor. + +"Yes," said the girl: she seemed in no mood for joking. + +Lavender returned to town more in love than ever; and soon the news +of his engagement was spread abroad, he nothing loath. Most of his +club-friends laughed, and prophesied it would come to nothing. How +could a man in Lavender's position marry anybody but an heiress? He +could not afford to go and marry a fisherman's daughter. Others came +to the conclusion that artists and writers and all that sort of people +were incomprehensible, and said "Poor beggar!" when they thought of +the fashion in which Lavender had ruined his chances in life. His +lady friends, however, were much more sympathetic. There was a dash of +romance in the story; and would not the Highland girl be a curiosity +for a little while after she came to town? Was she like any of the +pictures Mr. Lavender had hanging up in his rooms? Had he not even a +sketch of her? An artist, and yet not have a portrait of the girl he +had chosen to marry? Lavender had no portrait of Sheila to show. Some +little photographs he had he kept for his own pocket-book, while in +vain had he tried to get some sketch or picture that would convey to +the little world of his friends and acquaintances some notion of his +future bride. They were left to draw on their imagination for some +presentiment of the coming princess. + +He told Mrs. Lavender, of course. She said little, but sent for Edward +Ingram. Him she questioned in a cautious, close and yet apparently +indifferent way, and then merely said that Frank was very impetuous, +that it was a pity he had resolved on marrying out of his own sphere +of life, but that she hoped the young lady from the Highlands would +prove a good wife to him. + +"I hope he will prove a good husband to her," said Ingram with unusual +sharpness. + +"Frank is very impetuous." That was all Mrs. Lavender would say. + +By and by, as the spring drew on and the time of the marriage was +coming nearer, the important business of taking and furnishing a house +for Sheila's reception occupied the attention of the young man from +morning till night. He had been somewhat disappointed at the cold +fashion in which his aunt looked upon his choice, admitting everything +he had to say in praise of Sheila, but never expressing any approval +of his conduct or hope about the future; but now she showed herself +most amiably and generously disposed. She supplied the young man with +abundant funds wherewith to furnish the house according to his own +fancy. It was a small place, fronting a somewhat commonplace square in +Notting Hill, but it was to be a miracle of artistic adornment inside. +He tortured himself for days over rival shades and hues; he drew +designs for the chairs; he himself painted a good deal of paneling;, +and, in short, gave up his whole time to making Sheila's future home +beautiful. His aunt regarded these preparations with little interest, +but she certainly gave her nephew ample means to indulge the +eccentricities of his fancy. + +"Isn't she a dear old lady?" said Lavender one night to Ingram. "Look +here! A cheque, received this morning, for two hundred pounds, for +plate and glass." + +Ingram looked at the bit of pale green paper: "I wish you had earned +the money yourself, or done without the plate until you could buy it +with your own money." + +"Oh, confound it, Ingram! you carry your puritanical theories too far. +Doubtless I shall earn my own living by and by. Give me time." + +"It is now nearly a year since you thought of marrying Sheila +Mackenzie, and you have not done a stroke of work yet." + +"I beg your pardon. I have worked a good deal of late, as you will see +when you come up to my rooms." + +"Have you sold a single picture since last summer?" + +"I cannot make people buy my pictures if they don't choose to do so." + +"Have you made any effort to get them sold, or to come to any +arrangement with any of the dealers?" + +"I have been too busy of late--looking after this house, you know," +said Lavender with an air of apology. + +"You were not too busy to paint a fan for Mrs. Lorraine, that people +say must have occupied you for months." + +Lavender laughed: "Do you know, Ingram, I think you are jealous of +Mrs. Lorraine, on account of Sheila? Come, you shall go and see her." + +"No, thank you." + +"Are you afraid of your Puritan principles giving way?" + +"I am afraid that you are a very foolish boy," said the other with a +good-humored shrug of resignation, "but I hope to see you mend when +you marry." + +"Ah, then you _will_ see a difference!" said Lavender seriously; and +so the dispute ended. + +It had been arranged that Ingram should go up to Lewis to the +marriage, and after the ceremony in Stornoway return to Borva with +Mr. Mackenzie, to remain with him a few days. But at the last moment +Ingram was summoned down to Devonshire on account of the serious +illness of some near relative, and accordingly Frank Lavender started +by himself to bring back with him his Highland bride. His stay in +Borva was short enough on this occasion. At the end of it there came a +certain wet and boisterous day, the occurrences in which he afterward +remembered as if they had taken place in a dream. There were many +faces about, a confusion of tongues, a good deal of dram-drinking, +a skirl of pipes, and a hurry through the rain; but all these things +gave place to the occasional glance that he got from a pair of timid +and trusting and beautiful eyes. Yet Sheila was not Sheila in that +dress of white, with her face a trifle pale. She was more his own +Sheila when she had donned her rough garments of blue, and when she +stood on the wet deck of the vessel, with a great gray shawl around +her, talking to her father with a brave effort at cheerfulness, +although her lip would occasionally quiver as one or other, of her +friends from Borva--many of them barefooted children--came up to bid +her good-bye. Her father talked rapidly, with a grand affectation of +indifference. He swore at the weather. He bade her see that Bras was +properly fed, and if the sea broke over his box in the night, he was +to be rubbed dry, and let out in the morning for a run up and down +the deck. She was not to forget the parcel directed to an innkeeper +at Oban. They would find Oban a very nice place at which to break the +journey to London, but as for Greenock, Mackenzie could find no words +with which to describe Greenock. + +And then, in the midst of all this, Sheila suddenly said, "Papa, when +does the steamer leave?" + +"In a few minutes. They have got nearly all the cargo on board." + +"Will you do me a great favor, papa?" + +"Ay, but what is it, Sheila?" + +"I want you not to stay here till the boat sails, and then you will +have all the people on the quay vexing you when you are going away. I +want you to bid good-bye to us now, and drive away round to the point, +and we shall see you the last of all when the steamer has got out of +the harbor." + +"Ferry well, Sheila, I will do that," he said, knowing well why the +girl wished it. + +So father and daughter bade good-bye to each other; and Mackenzie went +on shore with his face down, and said not a word to any of his friends +on the quay, but got into the wagonette, and, lashing the horses, +drove rapidly away. As he had shaken hands with Lavender, Lavender had +said to him, "Well, we shall soon be back in Borva again to see you;" +and the old man had merely tightened the grip of his hand as he left. + +The roar of the steam-pipes ceased, the throb of the engines struck +the water, and the great steamer steamed away from the quay and out of +the plain of the harbor into a wide world of gray waves and wind and +rain. There stood Mackenzie as they passed, the dark figure clearly +seen against the pallid colors of the dismal day; and Sheila waved +a handkerchief to him until Stornoway and its lighthouse and all the +promontories and bays of the great island had faded into the white +mists that lay along the horizon. And then her arm fell to her side, +and for a moment she stood bewildered, with a strange look in her eyes +of grief, and almost of despair. + +"Sheila, my darling, you must go below now," said her companion: "you +are almost dead with cold." + +She looked at him for a moment, as though she had scarcely heard what +he said. But his eyes were full of pity for her: he drew her closer +to him, and put his arms round her, and then she hid her head in his +bosom and sobbed there like a child. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +THE EMERALD. + + +Dutens and several others who have written upon gems and precious +stones during the last two centuries have asserted that the ancients +were unacquainted with the true emerald, and that Heliodorus, when +speaking nearly two thousand years ago of "gems green as a meadow in +the spring," or Pliny, when describing stone of a "soft green lustre," +referred to the peridot, the plasma, the malachite, or the far rarer +gem, the green sapphire. But the antiquary has come to the rescue with +the treasures of the despoiled mounds of Tuscany, the exposed ashes of +Herculaneum and Pompeii, and now exhibits emeralds which were mounted +in gold two thousand years before Columbus dreamed of the New World, +or Pizarro and his remorseless band gathered the precious stones by +the hundred-weight from the spoils of Peru. Although these specimens +of antique jewelry set with emeralds may be numbered by the score or +more in the museums and "reliquaries" of Europe, but very few engraved +emeralds have descended to us from ancient times: This rarity is not +due to the hardness of the stone, for the ancient lapidaries cut the +difficult and still harder sapphire: therefore we must believe the +statement of the early gem-writers that the emerald was exempted +from the glyptic art by common consent on account of its beauty and +costliness. + +The emerald is now one of the rarest of gems, and its scarcity gives +rise to the inquiry as to what has become of the abundant shower of +emeralds which fairly rained upon Spain during the early days of the +conquest of Mexico and Peru, bringing down the value of fine stones +to a trifling price. As with all commercial articles, there is a waste +and loss to be accounted for during the wear of three centuries, +but this alone will not explain their present rarity in civilized +countries. Even in the times of Charles II., when the destitution of +the country was extreme, the dukes of Infantado and Albuquerque had +millions in diamonds, rubies and precious stones, yet hardly possessed +a single sou. So impoverished was the land, and so slender were the +purses of all, that the duke of Albuquerque dined on an egg and a +pigeon, yet it required six weeks to make an inventory of his plate. +At this period, when the nobles gave fetes the lamps were often +decorated with emeralds and the ceilings garlanded with precious +stones. The women fairly blazed with sparkling gems of fabulous value, +while the country was starving. Most, if not all, of this missing +treasure was transferred to Asia, and with the silver current which +flowed steadily from the Spanish coffers into India went many of the +emeralds also; for in those regions this gem is regarded as foreign +stone, and the natives, investing it with the possession of certain +talismanic properties, prize it above all earthly treasures. + +When the Spaniards commenced their march toward the capital of Mexico, +they were astonished at the magnificence of the costumes of the chiefs +who came to meet them as envoys or join them as allies, and among the +splendid gems which adorned their persons they recognized emeralds and +turquoises of such rare perfection and beauty that their cupidity was +excited to the highest degree. During the after years of conquest and +occupation the avaricious spoilers sought in vain for the parent ledge +where these precious stones were found. Recent times have, however, +revealed the home of the Mexican turquoise, which has proved to be in +the northern part of Mexico, as the Totonacs informed the inquiring +Spaniards. The first of these mines, which is of great antiquity, is +situated in the Cerrillos Mountains, eighteen miles from Santa Fe. +The deposit occurs in soft trachyte, and an immense cavity of several +hundred feet in extent has been excavated by the Indians while +searching for this gem in past times. Probably some of the fine +turquoises worn by the Aztec nobles at the time of the Spanish +Conquest came from this mine. Another mine is located in the Sierra +Blanca Mountains in New Mexico, but the Navajos will not allow +strangers to visit it. Stones of transcendent beauty have been taken +from it, and handed down in the tribe from generation to generation +as heirlooms. Nothing tempts the cupidity of the Indians to dispose of +these gems, and gratitude alone causes them to part with any of these +treasures, which, like the mountaineers of Thibet, they regard with +mystical reverence. The Navajos wear them as ear-drops, by boring them +and attaching them to the ear by means of a deer sinew. Lesser stones +are pierced, then strung on sinews and worn as neck-laces. Even the +nobler Ute Indians, when stripping the ornaments of turquoise from +the ears of the conquered Navajos, value them as sacred treasures, and +refuse to part with them even for gold or silver. + +All the Spanish accounts of the invasion of Mexico agree in the great +abundance of emeralds, both in the adornment of the chiefs and +nobles and also in the decoration of the gods, the thrones and the +paraphernalia. The Mexican historian Ixtlilxochitl says the throne +of gold in the palace of Tezcuco was inlaid with turquoises and other +precious stones--that a human skull in front of it was crowned with an +immense emerald of a pyramidal form. + +The great standard of the republic of Tlascala was richly ornamented +with emeralds and silver-work. The fantastic helmets of the chiefs +glittered with gold and precious stones, and their plumes were set +with emeralds. The mantle of Montezuma was held together by a clasp of +the green chalchivitl (jade), and the same precious gem, with emeralds +of uncommon size, ornamented other parts of his dress. + +The Mexicans carved the obdurate jade and emerald with wonderful +skill, using, like the Peruvians, nothing but silicious powder and +copper instruments alloyed with tin. They also worked with exquisite +taste in gold and silver, and they represented Nature so faithfully +and so beautifully that the great naturalist Hernandez took many +of these objects thus portrayed for his models when describing the +natural history of the country. + +When Cortes returned home he displayed five emeralds of extraordinary +size and beauty, and presented them to his bride, the niece of the +duke de Bejar. On his famous expedition along the Pacific coast and up +the Gulf of California he was reduced to such want as to be obliged to +pawn these jewels for a time. One of them was as precious as Shylock's +turquoise, and Gomara states that some Genoese merchants who examined +it in Seville offered forty thousand golden ducats for it. One of the +emeralds was in the form of a rose; the second in that of a horn; +the third like a fish with eyes of gold; the fourth was like a little +bell, with a fine pearl for a tongue, and it bore on its rim the +following inscription in Spanish: "Blessed is he who created thee!" +The fifth, which was the most valuable of all, was in the form of a +small cup with a foot of gold, and with four little chains of the same +metal attached to a large pearl as a button: the edge of the cup was +of gold, on which was engraved in Latin words, "Inter natos mulierum +non surrexit major." These splendid gems are now buried deep in the +sand on the coast of Barbary, where they were lost in 1529, when +Cortes was shipwrecked with the admiral of Castile whilst on their way +to assist Charles V. at the siege of Algiers. + +The quantity of emeralds obtained by the Spaniards in their pillage +of Mexico was large, but it was trifling when compared with that +collected by Pizarro and his remorseless followers in the sack +of Peru. Many large and magnificent stones were obtained by the +Spaniards, but the transcendent gem of all, called by the Peruvians +the Great Mother, and nearly as large as an ostrich egg, was concealed +by the natives, and all the efforts of Pizarro and his successors to +discover it proved unavailing. + +The immense uncut Peruvian emerald given by Rudolph II. to the elector +of Saxony is still preserved in the Green Vaults at Dresden. This +collection is the finest in the world, and is of the value of many +millions of dollars. The treasures are arranged in eight apartments, +each surpassing the previous one in the splendor and richness of its +contents. This museum dates from the early period when the Freyburg +silver-mines yielded vast revenues, and made the Saxon princes among +the richest sovereigns in Europe. With lavish hand these potentates +purchased jewels and works of art, and the treasures they have thus +accumulated are of immense value, and remind the traveler of the +gorgeous descriptions of Oriental magnificence. + +The finest emerald in Europe is said to belong to the emperor of +Russia. It weighs but thirty carats, but it is of the most perfect +transparency and of the most beautiful color. There are many other +fine emeralds among the imperial jewels of the czar, some of which are +of great size and rare beauty. The ancient crown of Vladimir glitters +with four great stones of unusual brilliancy. The grand state sceptre +is surmounted by another emerald of great size. The sceptre of +Poland, which is now treasured in the Kremlin, has a long green stone, +fractured in the middle. It is not described, and may be one of the +Siberian tourmalines, some of which closely approach the emerald in +hue. The imperial _orb_ of Russia, which is of Byzantine workmanship +of the tenth century, has fifty emeralds. This fact alone would seem +to prove that emeralds were known in Europe or Asia Minor long before +the discovery of America; but, on the other hand, the ancient crown +which was taken when Kasan was subjugated in 1553 is destitute of +emeralds. And hence we are inclined to believe the imperial orb to be +of modern workmanship, especially as some of the ancient state chairs +do not exhibit emeralds among their decorations of gems and precious +stones. + +Nowhere in North America do the true emeralds occur. Professor +Cleaveland, who was one of the best authorities of his day, maintained +nearly half a century ago that emeralds which exhibited a lively and +beautiful green hue were found in blasting a canal through a ledge +of graphic granite in the town of Topsham in Maine. Several of the +crystals presented so pure, uniform and rich a green that he ventured +to pronounce them precious emeralds. But to-day we are unable to verify +the assertion, or point to a single specimen similar in hue to the +emerald from the above-mentioned locality. + +The nearest approach to the emerald in color, with the exception of +the incomparable green tourmalines from Maine, are the beryls of North +and South Royalston in the State of Massachusetts. These beautiful +stones exhibit the physical, characteristics of emeralds with the +exception of the color, in which they differ very perceptibly. But to +appreciate fully the difference in hue we must compare the two gems. +Then the lively green of the beryl fades away before the overpowering +hue of the emerald, whose rich prismatic green may be taken as the +purest type of that color known to the chemist or the painter. + +Two summers ago we visited the localities in Massachusetts which were +famous in the days of Hitchcock and Webster. We found that the beryls +occurred in a very coarse granite, where the quartz appeared in masses +and the felspar in huge crystals. These also occur in finer granite, +and exhibit no indications of veins or connection with each other. +They are few in number, and are soon exhausted by blasting, being +generally very superficial. After removing several tons of the rock at +the locality at North Royalston, where the beryls appear on the summit +of the loftiest hill, our labors were at length rewarded with two +beautiful crystals. One of them was a fine prism an inch in diameter, +of perfect transparency and of a deep sea-green color, which, however +is far from being similar to the transcendent hue of the Granada +emeralds, which exhibit an excess of neither blue nor yellow. The +other was yellowish-green, resembling the chrysoberyls of Brazil. + +Other but imperfect crystals were brought to light, some fragments of +which exhibited the deepest golden tints of the topaz, and others +the tints of the sherry-wine colored topazes of Siberia. Magnificent +crystals have been found in these localities in times long past, and +from the fragments and sections of crystals found in the debris of +early explorations we observed the wide range of color and the deep +longitudinal striae which characterize the renowned beryls from the +Altai Mountains, in Siberia. Lively sea- and grass-green, light and +deep yellow, also blue crystals of various shades, have been found +here. + +At the quarries on Rollestone Mountain in Fitchburg beryls of a +rich golden color have been blasted out. Some of these approach the +chrysoberyl and topaz in hardness and hue. Others so closely resemble +the yellow diamond that they may readily be taken for that superior +gem. The refractive power of these yellow stones is remarkable, and +the goniometer will probably reveal a higher index than is accorded to +all the varieties of beryl by the learned Abbe Hauey. + +Beautiful transparent beryls have been found among the granite hills +of Oxford county in Maine, and the late Governor Lincoln nearly half a +century ago possessed a splendid crystal which would have rivaled the +superb prism found at Mouzzinskaia, and which the Russians value so +highly. The extended and unexplored ledges of granite which rise +from the shores of the ocean at Harpswell in Maine, and stretch +north-westward for nearly a hundred miles, quite to the base of the +White Mountain group, are not only rich in beryls, but they contain +many of the rarest minerals known to the mineralogist. And perhaps +there is no other field of equal extent in the country which offers to +the mineralogist such a harvest of the rare and curious productions of +the mineral kingdom. + +At Haddam in Connecticut beautiful crystals of beryl have been +discovered, and one of these, of fine green color, an inch in diameter +and several inches in length, was preserved in the cabinet of Colonel +Gibbs. Professor Silliman possessed another fine one, seven inches in +length. + +The mountains in Colorado have yielded some fine specimens. But the +finest of the beryl species come from Russia. In the Ural Mountains +the crystals are small, but of fine color; in the Altai Mountains they +are very large and of a greenish blue; but in the granitic ledges of +Odon Tchelon in Daouria, on the frontier of China, they are found in +the greatest perfection. They occur on the summit of the mountain +in irregular veins of micaceous and white indurated clay, and are +greenish-yellow, pure pale green, greenish-blue and sky-blue. The +chief matrix of the beryl all over the world is graphic granite, but +it may occur in other rocks. The light green stones of Limoges in +France appear in a vein of quartz traversing granite. At Royalston we +observed them to spring seemingly from the felspar and project into +smoky quartz, becoming more transparent as they advanced into the +harder stone. + +The beryl possesses the same crystalline form and specific gravity as +the emerald, but its hardness (especially in the yellow varieties) is +sometimes greater. The only perceptible difference in the two stones +is in the color. Cleaveland thought that as the emerald and beryl had +the same essential characters, they might gradually pass into each +other; and Klaproth, finding the oxides of both chrome and iron in one +specimen, was led to take the same view. The crystals of true emerald +are almost always small (with the exception of those found in the Wald +district in Siberia), whilst those of the beryl vary from a few +grains to more than a ton in weight. The crystals of both are almost +invariably regular hexahedral prisms, sometimes slightly modified. +Those of the beryl we sometimes find quite flat, as though they +had been compressed by force: then again they are acicular and of +extraordinary length, considering their slender diameter. Sometimes +their lateral faces are longitudinally striated, and as deeply as the +tourmaline, so that the edges of the prism are rendered indistinct. +Other crystals are curved, and some perforated in the axis like +the tourmaline, so as to contain other minerals. Sometimes they are +articulated like the pillars of basalt, and separated at some distance +by the intervening quartz. These modified forms give rise to curious +speculations as to their formation and origin. If we admit the action +of fire (which is improbable), then the separation may be easily +explained; but if we insist that they were deposited in the wet way +and by slow process, how can we account for the dislocation? "By +electricity," whispers a friend--"by telluric magnetism, that +wonderful unexplained and mysterious force which has caused the grand +geological changes of the globe, and is still at work." + +No other gem has been counterfeited with such perfection as the +emerald; and in fact it is utterly impossible to distinguish the +artificial from the real gems by the aid of the eye alone: even the +little flaws which lull the suspicions of the inexperienced are easily +produced by a dexterous blow from the mallet of the skilled artisan. +Not only emeralds, but most of the gems and precious stones, are now +imitated with such consummate skill as to deceive the eye, and none +but experts are aware of the extent to which these fictitious gems +are worn in fashionable society, for oftentimes the wearers themselves +imagine that they possess the real stones. There is not one in a +hundred jewelers who is acquainted with the physical properties of the +gems, and very few can distinguish the diamond from the white zircon +or the white topaz, the emerald from the tourmaline of similar hue, +the sapphire from iolite, or the topaz from the Bohemian yellow +quartz. Jewelers are governed generally by sight, which they believe +to be infallible, whilst hardness and specific gravity are the only +sure tests. + +Artificial gems rivaling in beauty of color the most brilliant and +delicately tinted of the productions of Nature are now made at Paris +and in other European cities. The establishments at Septmoncel in the +Jura alone employ a thousand persons, and fabulous quantities of the +glittering pastes are made there and sent to all parts of the world. + +A fine specimen of prase when cut affords a fair imitation of +the emerald. The green fluor-spar which Hauey called "emeraude de +Carthagene" may also be substituted, but the application of the file +detects the trick with ease. Some of the green tourmalines approach +the emeralds in hue very closely, and by artificial light it is +impossible to distinguish them from each other. Fragments of quartz +may be stained by being steeped in green-colored tinctures. The Greeks +stained quartz so like the real gem that Pliny exclaimed against the +fraud while declining to tell how it was done. The Ancona rubies at +the present day are made by plunging quartz into a hot tincture of +cochineal, which penetrates the minute fissures of the rock. + +But notwithstanding the high art reached by modern glass-makers, they +are yet far behind the ancients in imitating the emerald in point of +hardness and lustre. Many emerald pastes of Roman times still extant +are with difficulty distinguished from the real gem, so much harder +and lustrous are they than modern glass. The ancient Phoenician +remains found in the island of Sardinia by Cavalier Cara in 1856 show +fine color in their enamels and glass-works. The green pigment brought +home from the ruins of Thebes by Mr. Wilkinson was shown by Dr. Ure +to consist of blue glass in powder, with yellow ochre and colorless +glass. From Greek inscriptions dating from the period of the +Peloponnesian war we learn that there were signets of colored glass +among the gems in the treasury of the Parthenon. + +Of all the emerald imitations that have descended to us from +antiquity, none are more remarkable, none more interesting to the +antiquary and historian, than the famous Sacro Catino of the cathedral +of Genoa. This celebrated relic is a glass dish or patera fourteen +inches in width, five inches in depth and of the richest transparent +green color, though disfigured by several flaws. It was bestowed upon +the republic of Genoa by the Crusaders after the capture of Caesarea +in 1101, and was regarded as an equivalent for a large sum of money +due from the Christian army. It was traditionally believed to have +been presented to King Solomon by the queen of Sheba, and afterward +preserved in the Temple, and some accounts relate that it was used by +Christ at the institution of the Lord's Supper. The Genoese received +it with so much veneration and faith that twelve nobles were appointed +to guard it, and it was exhibited but once a year, when a priest held +it up in his hand to the view of the passing throng. The state in +1319, in a time of pressing need, pawned the holy relic for twelve +hundred marks of gold (two hundred thousand dollars), and redeemed +it with a promptness which proved its belief in the reality of the +material as well as in its sanctity. And it is also related that the +Jews, during a period of fifty years, lent the republic four million +francs, holding the sacred relic as a pledge of security. Seven +hundred years passed away, when Napoleon came, and as he swept down +over Italy, gathering her art-treasures, he ordered the "Holy +Grail" to be conveyed to Paris. It was deposited in the Cabinet of +Antiquities in the Imperial Library, and the mineralogists quickly +discovered it to be glass. It is due to the memory of Condamine to +state that he was the first to doubt the material of the Sacro Catino, +for, when examining it by lamplight in 1757, in the presence of the +princes Corsini, he observed none of the cracks, clouds and specks +common to emeralds, but detected little bubbles of air. In 1815 the +Allies ordered its return to the cathedral of Genoa. During this +journey the beautiful relic was broken, but its fragments were +restored by a skillful artisan, and it is now supported upon a tripod, +the fragments being held together by a band of gold filigree. This +remarkable object of antiquity, which is of extraordinary beauty of +material and workmanship, furnishes a theme over which the antiquaries +love to muse and wrangle. + +Another of the antique monster emeralds, weighing twenty-nine pounds, +was presented to the abbey of Reichenau near Constance by Charlemagne. +Beckman has also detected this precious relic to be glass. And +probably the great emerald of two pounds weight brought home from the +Holy Land by one of the dukes of Austria, and now deposited in the +collection at Vienna, is of the same material. The hardness of our +glass is yet far inferior to that of the ancients, and even the +ruby lustre of the potters of Umbria, which was so precious to the +dilettanti of the Cinque Cento period, has not been recovered. + +The emerald has been a subject of controversy among the chemists +and mineralogists, and its character, especially the cause of its +beautiful color, is not clearly defined even at the present day. But +that distinguished chemist, Professor Lewy of Paris, seems to offer, +thus far, the most correct and plausible theory. Ten years ago he +boldly asserted that the hue is not due to the oxide of chromium, +and with this opinion he confronted such eminent men as Vauquelin, +Klaproth and others of high rank in the scientific world. Not content +with his researches in his laboratory in Paris, he resolutely crossed +the ocean and sought the emerald in its parent ledges in the lofty +table-lands of New Granada. Here he obtained new information of a +geological character which goes far to strengthen his position. +The experiments of M. Lewy indicate, if they do not prove, that the +coloring matter of the emerald is organic, and readily destroyed +by heat, which would not be the case if it was due to the oxide of +chromium. All my own fire-tests with the Granada emerald corroborate +the views of M. Lewy, for in every instance the gem lost its hue when +submitted to a red heat. + +Nevertheless, the recent researches of Woehler and Rose give negative +results. These experienced chemists kept an emerald at the temperature +of melted copper for an hour, and found that, although the stone had +become opaque, the color was not affected. They therefore considered +the oxide of chromium to be the coloring agent, without, however, +denying the presence of organic matter. The amount of the oxide of +chromium found by many chemists varies from one to two per cent., +while Lewy and others found it in a quantity so small as to be +inappreciable, and too minute to be weighed. + +Before the ordinary blowpipe the emerald passes rapidly into a whitish +vesicular glass, and with borax it forms a fine green glass, while its +sub-species, the beryl, changes into a colorless bead: with salt of +phosphorus it slowly dissolves, leaving a silicious skeleton.[A] + +M. Lewy visited the mines at Muzo in Granada, and from the results +of his analyses, together with the fact of finding emeralds in +conjunction with the presence of fossil shells in the limestone in +which they occur, he arrived at the conclusion that they have been +formed in the wet way--deposited from a chemical solution. He also +found that when extracted they are so soft and fragile that the +largest and finest fragments can be reduced to powder by merely +rubbing them between the fingers, and the crystals often crack and +fall to pieces after being removed from the mine, apparently from loss +of water. Consequently, when the emeralds are first extracted they are +laid aside carefully for a few days until the water is evaporated. + +This statement relative to the softness of the gem and its subsequent +hardening has been met with a shout of derision from some of the +gem-seekers--none louder than that of Barbot, the retired jeweler. +Barbot seems to forget that the rock of which his own house in Paris +is constructed undergoes the same change after being removed from +the deep quarries in the catacombs under the city. This phenomenon is +observed with many rocks. Flints acquire additional toughness by the +evaporation of water contained in them. The steatite of St. Anthony's +Falls grows harder on exposure, and other minerals when quarried from +considerable depths become firmer on exposure to the action of the +air. Observations of this kind led Kuhlman to investigate the cause, +and he believes that the hardening of rocks is not owing solely to +the evaporation of quarry-water, but that it depends upon the +tendency which all earthy matters possess to undergo a spontaneous +crystallization by slow dessication, which commences the moment the +rock is exposed to the air. + +The coloring matter of the emerald seems to be derived from the +decomposition of the remains of animals who have lived in a bygone +age, and whose remains are now found fossilized in the rock which +forms the matrix of the gem. This rock in Granada is a black +limestone, with white veins containing ammonites. Specimens of these +rocks exhibiting fragments of emeralds _in situ_, and also ammonites, +are to be seen in the mineralogical gallery of the Jardin des Plantes +in Paris. Lewy believes that the beautiful tint of these gems is +produced by an organic substance, which he considers to be a carburet +of hydrogen, similar to that called chlorophyll, which constitutes +the coloring matter of the leaves of plants; and he has shown that +the emeralds of the darkest hue, which contain the greatest amount +of organic matter, lose their color completely at a low red heat, +and become opaque and white; while minerals and pastes which are +well known to be colored by chromium, like the green garnets (the +lime-chrome garnets) of Siberia, are unchanged in hue by the action of +heat. + +Since the time of the Spanish Conquest, New Granada has furnished +the world with the most of its emeralds. The most famous mines are at +Muzo, in the valley of Tunca, between the mountains of New Granada and +Popayan, about seventy-five miles from Santa Fe de Bogota, where +every rock, it is said, contains an emerald. At present the supply of +emeralds is very limited, owing to restrictions on trade and want of +capital and energy in mining operations. + +Blue as well as green emeralds are found in the Cordillera of the +Cubillari. The Esmeraldas mines in Equador are said to have been +worked successfully at one period by the Jesuits. The Peruvians +obtained many emeralds from the barren district of Atacama, and in +the times of the Conquest there were quarries on the River of Emeralds +near Barbacoas. + +Emeralds are found in Siberia, and some of the localities may have +furnished to the ancients the Scythian gems which Pliny and others +mention. In the Wald district magnificent crystals have been found +embedded in mica-slate. One of these--a twin-crystal, now in the +Imperial Cabinet at St. Petersburg--is seven inches long, four inches +broad, and weighs four and a half pounds. There is another mass in the +same collection which measures fourteen inches long by twelve broad +and five thick, weighing sixteen and three-quarter pounds troy. This +group shows twenty crystals from a half inch to five inches long, +and from one to two inches broad. They were discovered by a peasant +cutting wood near the summit of the mountain. His eye was attracted +by the lustrous sparkling amongst the decomposed mica and where the +ground had been exposed by the uprooting of a tree by the violence of +the wind. He collected a number of the crystals, and brought them to +Katharineburg and showed them to M. Kokawin, who recognized them and +sent them to St. Petersburg, where they were critically examined by +Van Worth and pronounced to be emeralds. One of these crystals was +presented by the emperor to Humboldt when he visited St. Petersburg, +and it is now deposited in the Berlin collection. Quite a number +of emeralds are now brought from the Siberian localities, and it is +believed that enterprise and capital would produce a large supply of +the gem.[B] + +The supply of emeralds from South America is very limited, and may +be ascribed to want of skillful mining, as well as to climate, +the political condition of the country and the indolence of its +inhabitants. The localities cannot be exhausted, for they are too +numerous and extensive. The elevated regions in Granada admit of +scientific exploration by Europeans, and at the present day the +only emerald-mining operations conducted in South America have been +prosecuted near Santa Fe de Bogota by a French company, which has +paid the government fourteen thousand dollars yearly for the right of +mining, all the emeralds obtained being sent to Paris to be cut by the +lapidaries of that city. + +In the Atacama districts, and along the banks of the River of +Emeralds, the physical obstructions are difficult to overcome, and +pestilential diseases of malignant character forbid the long sojourn +of the European. Yet the introduction of Chinese labor may prove +successful and highly remunerative, since the coolie reared among +the jungles and rice-swamps of Southern China is quite as exempt from +malarial fevers as the negro. + +The price of the emerald has no fixed and extended scale, like that of +the diamond, and the fluctuations of its value during the past three +centuries form an interesting chapter in the history of gems. + +In the time of Dutens (1777) the price of small stones of the first +quality was one louis the carat; one and a half carats, five louis; +two carats, ten louis; and beyond this weight no rule of value could +be established. In De Boot's day (1600) emeralds were so plenty as +to be worth only a quarter as much as the diamond. The markets were +glutted with the frequent importations from Peru, and thirteen years +before the above-mentioned period one vessel brought from South +America two hundred and three pounds of fine emeralds, worth at +the present valuation more than seven millions of dollars. At the +beginning of this century, according to Caire, they were worth no more +than twenty-four francs (or about five dollars) the carat, and for a +long time antecedent to 1850 they were valued at only fifteen dollars +the carat. Since this period they have become very rare, and their +valuation has advanced enormously. In fact, the value of the emerald +now exceeds that of the diamond, and is rapidly approaching the ratio +fixed by Benevenuto Cellini in the middle of the sixteenth century, +which rated the emerald at four times, and the ruby at eight times, +the value of the diamond. Perfect stones (the emerald is exceedingly +liable to flaw, the beryl is more free, and the green sapphire is +rarely impaired by fissures or cracks) of one carat in weight are +worth at the present day two hundred dollars in gold. Perfect gems +of two carats weight will command five hundred dollars in gold, while +larger stones are sold at extravagant prices. + +Most of our aqua-marinas come from Brazil and Siberia, and small +stones are sold at trifling prices. Some of them, however, when +perfect and of fine color, command fabulous sums. The superb little +beryl found at Mouzzinskaia is valued by the Russians at the enormous +sum of one hundred and twenty thousand dollars, although the crystal +weighs but little more than one ounce. Another rough prism preserved +in the Museum at Paris, and weighing less than one hundred grains, has +received the tempting offer of fifteen thousand francs. + +A.C. HAMLIN, M.D. + +[Footnote A: A curious result happened to the elder Silliman when +experimenting with a Peruvian emerald before the compound blowpipe. +The reducing flame instantly melted it into a transparent green +globule. Perhaps the intense heat of this all-powerful flame, which +reduces even the diamond, recalled the colors which disappear at a +lower temperature. But this could not be done if the color was due +to organic matter, which is annihilated or modified beyond recall by +combustion.] + +[Footnote B: Several of the natural crystals of the Siberian emeralds +of large size and beautiful color are now to be seen in the valuable +and choice collections of Messrs. Clay and William S. Vaux of +Philadelphia.] + + + + +BERRYTOWN. + +CHAPTER VIII. + + +It rained during the night. The wind blew feebly in the morning, +and the sunlight glimmered dully from behind the flying gray clouds. +Catharine looked out of her window, anxiously pushing aside the boughs +full of wet white roses. The sense of desolation was not strong enough +upon her to make her forget that Peter had not yet cut the clover +in the lower meadow, and that such a rain was bad for the tomatoes. +Doctor McCall was at the gate, propping up an old Bourbon rose, an +especial favorite of her father's. Somebody tapped at her door, and +Miss Muller rustled in in a flounced white muslin and rose-colored +ribbons. She too hurried to the window and looked down. + +"I asked him to meet me here, Kitty. I can't make you understand, +probably, but the Water-cure House is so bald and bare! There is +something in the shade here, and the old books, and this wilderness +of roses, that forms a fitting background for a friendship like ours, +aesthetically considered." + +"I'm very glad. It's lucky I told Jane to have waffles--" + +"I'll go down," interrupted Miss Muller, "and direct her about the +table. Coarse tablecloths and oily butter would jar against the finest +emotions. What very pretty shoulders you have, child! Such women as +you, like potatoes, are best _au naturel_. Now, with those corsets, +and this red shawl over the back of your chair, you would make a very +good Madonna of the Rubens school. Men's ideal of womanhood then was +to be plump, insipid and a mother." + +"But about the oily butter?" said Kitty, glancing back over the +aforesaid shoulders as she stooped to lace her shoes, while Maria +hurried off to the kitchen. "Jane will jar against her finer emotions, +I fancy, when she begins to order her about." + +But Kitty lost all relish for fun before she sat down to the +breakfast-table. Mr. Muller came in. The poor little man hurried to +her side: "I passed a sleepless night, Catharine. I feared that I had +been rough with you. I forget so often how gentle and tender you are, +my darling." + +Catharine was puzzled: "Upon my word, I've forgotten what happened. +And I really never feel especially gentle or tender. You are mistaken +about that." + +When she took her place behind the urn, Maria motioned her brother to +the foot of the table, and then nodded significantly. "Now you two can +imagine a month or two has passed," she said. + +Even Doctor McCall smiled meaningly. Mr. Muller blushed, and glanced +shyly at Catharine. But she looked at him unmoved. "Our table will +not be like this," gravely. "You forget the three hundred blue-coats +between." Maria laughed, but Doctor McCall for the first time looked +steadily at the girl. + +First of all, perhaps, Kitty was just then a housekeeper. She waited +anxiously to see if the steak was properly rare and the omelette +light, nodded brightly to Jane, who stood watchful behind her, and +then looked over at her betrothed, thinking how soon they would sit +down tete-a-tete for the rest of their lives, perhaps for eternity, +for, according to her orthodoxy, there could be no new loves in +heaven. How fat he was, and bald! The mild blue eyes behind their +glasses took possession of her and held her. + +She listened to the talk between Doctor McCall and Miss Muller in a +language she had never learned. Maria's share of it was largely made +up of headlong dives into Spencer and Darwin, with reminiscences of +_The Dial_, while Doctor McCall's was anchored fast down to facts; but +it was all alive, suggestive, brilliant. They were young. They were +drinking life and love with full cups. She (looking over at the bald +head and spectacled eyes) had gone straight out of childhood into +middle age and respectability. + +The breakfast was over at last. Miss Muller followed Doctor McCall +into the shop, where he fell to turning over the old books, and then +to the garden. What was the use of a stage properly set if the drama +would not begin? + +"Pray do not worry any longer with that old bush," as he went back +to Peter's rose. "It is not a trait of yours to be persistent about +trifles. Or stay: give me a bud for my hair." + +"Not these!" sharply, holding her hand. "I could not see one of these +roses on any woman's head." + +She smiled, very well pleased: "You perceive some subtle connection +between me and the flower?" + +"Nothing of the sort. There are some, planted, I suppose, by that +little girl, which will be more becoming to your face." + +"You are repelled by 'the little girl,' I see, John. I always told you +your instincts were magnetic. That type of woman is antipathetic to +you." + +He laughed: "I have no instincts, hardly ideas, about either roses +or types of women. If I avoided Miss Vogdes, it was because her name +recalled one of the old hard experiences of my boyhood. The girl +herself is harmless enough, no doubt." + +"And the rose?" + +"The rose? Why, we have no time to waste in such talk as this. You +have not yet told me how you managed to get your profession. When I +last saw you you had set all the old professors in the university at +defiance. Did you carry lectures and cliniques by strategy or assault? +You have good fighting qualities, Maria." + +She would rather not have gone over her battle with the doctors just +then: she would rather he had talked of her "magnetic instincts," her +hair, her eyes--anything else than her fighting qualities. But she +told him. There was an inexplicable delight to her in telling him +anything--even the time of day. Was he not a pioneer, a captain among +men, a seer in the realms of thought, keeping step with her in all her +high imaginings? Ordinary people, it is true, set McCall down as an +ordinary fellow, genial and hearty--not a very skillful physician, +perhaps, but a shrewd farmer, and the best judge of mules or peaches +in Kent county. Maria, however, saw him with the soul's eye. + +Kitty meanwhile sat by the window mending the clothes that had come +out of the wash. Mr. Muller was reading some letters relative to the +school to her. This was the day of the week on which she always mended +the clothes, and Mr. Muller had fallen into the habit of reading to +her while she did so. But to-day the Reformatory rose before her a +prison, the gates of which were about to close on her. The heap of +stockings, the touch of the darning cotton, the sound of Mr. Muller's +droning voice, were maddening to her: every moment she made a tangle +in her thread, looking down at Maria under the Bourbon rose, and the +attentive face bent over her. Where should she go? What should she do? +Had the world nothing in it for her but this? Yesterday she had made +up her mind to go to Delaware to find Hugh Guinness, alive or dead, +and bring him to his father. That would be work worth doing. This +morning she remembered that Delaware was a wide hunting-ground--that +she had never been ten miles from home in her life. If there were +anybody to give her advice! This Doctor McCall had seemed to her +to-day as, in fact, he did to most people, practical, honest, full +of information. He would too, she somehow felt, understand her wild +fancy. But-- + +"Why should Doctor McCall dislike _me_?" she broke in at the close of +one of Mr. Muller's expositions. + +"What an absurd fancy, child!" looking up in amazement. "The man was +civil enough to you for so slight an acquaintance." + +"It was more than dislike," vehemently. "He watched me all through +breakfast as though he owed me a grudge. I could see it in his eyes." + +"You oughtn't to see any eyes but mine, Cathie dear," with anxious +playfulness. "Why should you care for the opinion of any man?" + +"Because he is different from any man I ever knew. He belongs to the +world outside. I always did wonder if people would like me out there," +said Kitty, too doggedly in earnest to see how her words hurt her +listener. "If one could be like those two people yonder! They seem to +know everything--they can do everything!" + +"Maria is well enough--for a woman," dryly. "But I never heard McCall +credited with exceptional ability of any sort." + +Kitty glanced at him: "Of course you're right," quickly. "Men only can +judge of character: we women are apt to be silly about such things." +Her kind heart felt a wrench at having hurt this good soul. She put +her fingers on his fat hand with a touch that was almost a caress. He +turned red with surprise and pleasure. "But it is pleasant," she said, +glancing down again to the Bourbon rose, "to see such love as that. +They will be married soon, I suppose?" + +"Very likely. I never knew of any love in the case before. But Maria +is such a manager! And you think of love, then, sometimes?" timidly +putting his arm about her. + +"Oh to be sure! How can you doubt that? But it grows chilly. I must +bring a sacque," hurrying away; and in fact she looked cold, and +shivered. + + + + +CHAPTER IX. + + +"Doctor McCall recognizes the Book-house, just as I did, as the right +background for communion like ours," Miss Muller said complacently to +Kitty a week later. "He meets me here every day." + +"Yes," said Catharine with a perplexed look. She had no special +instincts or intuitions, but her eyes were as keen and observant as a +lynx's. He came, she saw, to the Book-house every day. But had he no +other purpose than to meet Maria? + +"I did not know that McCall affected scholarship," said Mr. Muller +tartly the next day. "He tells me that he has a peach-farm to manage. +August is no time to loiter away, poring over old books. Just the +peach season." + +"No," Kitty replied demurely. But her face wore again the puzzled +look. She began to watch Doctor McCall. He really knew but little, she +saw, of rare books: his reading of them was a mere pretence. He +was neither a lazy nor a morbid man: what pleasure could he have in +neglecting his work day after day, sitting alone in the dusky old shop +as if held there by some enchantment? Kitty knew that she herself had +nothing to do with it: she appeared to be no more in his way than a +tame dog would be, and, after the first annoyance which she gave +him, was really little more noticed. But there is a certain sense of +home-snugness and comfort in the presence of tame dogs and of women +like Kitty: one cannot be long in the room with either without +throwing them a kind word or petting them in some way. Doctor McCall +was just the man to fall into such a habit. Down on the farm, his +cattle, his hands, even the neighbors with whom he argued on politics, +could all have testified to his easy, large good-humor. + +"Oh, we are the best of friends," he said indifferently when Maria +found Kitty chattering to him once, very much as she did to old Peter. +But when Miss Muller, who had no petty jealousies, enlarged on the +singular beauty of her eyes and some good points in her shape, he did +not respond. "I never could talk of a woman as if she were a horse," +he said. "And this little girl seems to me unusually human." + +"There's really nothing in her, though. Poor William! He is marrying +eyes, I tell him. It's a pitiable marriage!" + +"Yes, it is," said Doctor McCall gravely. + +After that he neglected the old books sometimes to talk to Kitty. He +thought she was such an immature, thoughtless creature that she would +not notice that the subject he chose was always the same--her daily +life, with old Peter for her chum and confidant. + +"Mr. Guinness, then, has had no companion but you?" he said one day, +after a searching inspection of her face. + +"No, nobody but me," quite forgetful, as she and Peter were too apt to +be, that her mother was alive. + +"And has had none for years?" + +"Not since his son died. Hugh Guinness is dead, you know." + +Doctor McCall was looking thoughtfully at the floor. He rose presently +and took up his hat: "The old man cannot have been unhappy with such +love as you could give him. No man could." + +Kitty was sitting, as usual, on a low stool pasting labels on some +dog-eared books: as long as McCall stood looking at her round cheeks +and double chin she pasted on, apparently unconscious that he was +there, but when he turned away she watched him shrewdly as he went +uneasily up and down the shop, and finally, with a curt good-bye, +turned out of the door. As the stout figure passed through the low +branches of the walnuts her gray eyes began to shine. Her Mystery was +nearly solved. + +Dropping paste and books in a heap, she ran after him, taking a short +cut through the currant bushes, so that when he passed on the outer +side of the garden fence there she was quietly waiting, her head and +face darkly framed by a thick creeper. + +"Well?" smiling down, amused, as he might to a playful kitten. + +"Doctor McCall," in the queer formal fashion that was Kitty's own, "I +should be glad if you would come back this evening. Without Maria. +I have some business--that is, a plan of mine. Well, it is a certain +thing that--" + +"That you wish to consult me about?" after waiting for her to finish. + +"Yes, that's it," nodding energetically. + +"Very well." He stood looking at her arm on the fence, and the face +resting with its chin upon it. McCall, of all men, hated a scene, and +he had an uneasy consciousness that he had just betrayed unexplained +feeling in the house, and was therefore glad to slip back to +commonplaces. Besides, Kitty was exactly the kind of woman whom all +men feel an insane desire to help at first sight. "You have a plan, +eh? and you want advice, not knowing much about business?" + +There was not the least necessity for him to say this, having asked +it before. But he did it, and waited to hear Kitty say yes again, and +waited still, before he lifted his hat and said good-bye, to see the +shadow of a waving branch creep over her white chin and lose itself in +her neck. Most men would have done the same, just as they would stop +to whistle a laugh from a fat, pretty baby on the street, and then go +on, leaving it behind. The last thing in the world to consult on their +business, or to ask for help or comfort when trouble met them, or +death. + + * * * * * + +Miss Muller spent the whole day at the Book-house, but Doctor McCall +did not come, as she expected. As evening approached she began to +shiver, and had premonitory symptoms of clairvoyance, and went home at +last, to Kitty's relief. A slow drizzling rain set in: the damp fogs +that belong to that river-bottom walled in the house and hung flat +over the walnuts like a roof. Catharine had made her own corner of the +Book-shop snug and cheerful. The space was wide, the light soft and +bright. She placed her own chair by the table, Peter's not far from +it. She meant to produce a great effect on this man to-night, to +change the whole current of his life, without having the help of +either love or even friendship. Unconsciously she planned to bring +him close to her, though very likely she had never heard of personal +magnetism, or any of the curious secrets political speakers or +actors or revivalists could have told her of the deadening effects of +distance and empty benches. + +Then Kitty, in her room overhead, looked at herself in the glass, +arrayed in a soft cashmere, in color blue, still farther toned down, +by certain softer fringes and loops, into the very ideal garb for +a man's type of "yielding, lovely woman." It was one of the sacred +wedding-dresses. + +"Maria could never look like this," tying a lace handkerchief about +her neck, pulling the soft rings of hair looser about her ears, +setting her head on one side, and half shutting her eyes to see the +thick and curly lashes. + +There was no danger of interruption. Maria was safely lodged in the +Water-cure House, and the very idea of Mr. Muller's glossy black shoes +and dainty brown umbrella venturing out in the rain made Kitty laugh. + +"The dear, good soul is finical as a cat," with the good-natured +indulgence of a mother for a child. Suddenly she stopped, stared at +herself in the glass. "Why, he is my husband!" she said, speaking to +the blushing, blue-robed figure as to another person. Then she hastily +unbuttoned, unlooped the pretty dress, threw it off, putting on her +usual gray wrapper and knotting her hair more tightly back than ever +in a comb. "He has been very good to me--very good to me," her chin +trembling a good deal. + +Then she went down to meet Doctor McCall, who that moment came into +the Book-shop, stopping at the door to take off and shake his oilskin +coat. + +"It is a wet night," she said, just as though he were a stranger. She +did not know what else to say or what he answered as she went about, +trimming the lamp, dragging out a chair for him, closing the window +curtains. Both McCall and Catharine were ordinary people, accustomed +to keep up a good flow of talk on ordinary subjects, the weather +or any joke or gossip that was nearest to them. There had been no +passages of love or hate between them to account for her forced +formality, her trembling and flushing, and urgent almost angry wish +to remind him that she was Mr. Muller's affianced wife. She felt this +with a new contempt for herself. + +As for Doctor McCall, he leaned comfortably back in his arm-chair +and dried his legs at the grate filled with red-hot coals, while he +listened to the soft rustle of her skirts as she moved noiselessly +about him. It is the peculiarity of women like Kitty, to whom Nature +has denied the governing power of ideas or great personal beauty or +magnetism, such as she gave to Miss Muller, that there is a certain +impalpable force and attraction in their most petty actions and words, +to which men yield. Miss Muller could have watched Kitty all day +dragging chairs and trimming lamps, unmoved farther than to pronounce +her little better than an idiot. But Peter, Muller or John McCall +could not look at her for five minutes without classing her with +Cordelia and Desdemona and all the other sweet fools for whom men have +died, and whom the world yet keeps sacred in pathetic memory. Some +day too, when Catharine should be a mother--though giving to her older +children, little more than to the baby on her breast, soft touches and +gentle words--she would bind them to her as no other kind, of mother +could do--by such bonds that until they were gray-haired no power +should be like hers. Miss Muller neither saw nor foresaw such things. +But Doctor McCall did. "If I had had such a mother I should not have +been what I am," he thought. It was a curious fancy to have about a +young girl. But she seemed to embody all the womanliness that had been +lacking in his life. Of course she was nothing to him. She was to be +that prig Muller's wife, and he was quite satisfied that she should +be. If he married, Maria Muller would be his wife. Yet, oddly enough, +he felt to-night, for the first time, the necessity that Maria should +know how marriage was barred out from him, and felt, for the first +time, too, a maddening anger that it was so barred. However, Doctor +McCall was never meant by Nature for a solitary man housed alone with +morbid thoughts: he was the stuff out of which useful citizens are +made--John Andersons of husbands, doting, gullible fathers. + +Remembering the bar in his life, his skeleton, ghost or whatever it +was, he was only moved to get up and stretch himself, saying, "I've +stayed in Berrytown too long. When you have told me your plan, I'll +say good-bye to you, Miss Vogdes, and this old house. I shall be off +to-morrow." + +Kitty had just caught a moth in the flame of the candle. She carried +it to the window. "You will come back soon, of course?" her back still +toward him. + +"No, I think not. I am neglecting my business. And I, of all men in +the world, have least right to loiter about this old house, to look in +on its home-life or on you." + +Kitty gave him a sharp glance, as though some sudden emergency was +clear before her which her tact failed to meet. She was folding the +bits of muslin at which she had been sewing in a basket: she finished +slowly, put the basket away, and sat down at the table, with her elbow +on it and her chin on her hand, her gray eyes suggesting a deeper and +unspoken meaning to her words: "But for my plan?" + +"Ah! to be sure! You want advice?" seating himself comfortably. Her +confusion was a pretty thing to watch, the red creeping up her neck +into her face, blotting out its delicate tints, the uncertain glances, +the full bitten lip. Doctor McCall quite forgot his own trouble in the +keen pleasure of the sight. + +"Perhaps--You do not quite understand my position here? Mr. Guinness +is not my own father." + +"No, I knew that." + +"But you cannot know what he has been to me: _I_ never knew until the +last few days." + +"Why within these few days, Miss Vogdes?" + +"Because I saw you and Maria: I saw what love was. I began to think +about it. I never have loved anybody but him," she went on headlong, +utterly blind to all inferences. "There's a thing I can do for him, +Doctor McCall, before I marry Mr. Muller, and I must do it. It will +make his old age happier than any other part of his life has been." + +McCall nodded, leaning forward. It was nothing but an imprudent girl +dragging out her secrets before a stranger; nothing but a heated face, +wet eyes, a sweet milky breath; but no tragedy he had ever seen on the +stage had moved him so uncontrollably--no, not any crisis in his own +life--with such delicious, inexplicable emotion. + +"Well, what is it you can do?" after waiting for her to go on. + +There was a moment's silence. + +"My father," said Kitty, "had once a great trouble. It has made an old +man of him before his time. I find that I can take it from him." +She looked up at him with this. Now, there was a certain shrewd +penetration under the softness of Kitty's eyes. Noting it, McCall +instantly lost sight of her beauty and tears. He returned her look +coolly. + +"What was his trouble?" + +"Mr. Guinness had a son. He has believed him to be dead for years: I +know that he is not dead." + +Doctor McCall waited, with her eyes still upon him. "Well?" he said, +attentive. + +"And then," pushing back the table and rising, "when I heard that, I +meant to go and find Hugh Guinness, and bring him back to his father." + +Whatever this matter might be to her hearer, it was the most real +thing in life to Catharine, and putting it into words gave it a sudden +new force. She felt that she ought to hold her tongue, but she could +not. She only knew that the lighted room, the beating of the rain +without, the watchful guarded face on the other side of the table, +shook and frightened and angered her unaccountably. + +"You should not laugh at me," she said. "This is the first work I ever +set myself to do. It is better than nursing three hundred children." + +"I am not laughing at you, God knows! But this Guinness, if he be +alive, remains away voluntarily. There must be a reason for that. You +do not consider." + +"I do not care to consider. Is the man a log or a stone? If I found +him," crossing the room in her heat until she stood beside him--"if +I brought him to the old house and to his father? Why, look at this!" +dragging open the drawer and taking out the broken gun and rod. "See +what he has kept for years--all that was left him of his boy! Look, +at that single hair! If Hugh Guinness stood where you do, and touched +these things as you are touching them, could he turn his back on the +old man?" + +Now, Doctor McCall did not touch gun nor cap nor hair, but he bent +over the table, looking at them as if he were looking at the dead. He +seemed to have forgotten that Kitty was there. + +At last he stood upright: "Poor little chap!" with a laugh. "There +seemed to be no reason, when he went gunning and fishing like other +boys, why he should not stand here to-day with as fair a chance for +happiness as any other man. Did there? Just a trifling block laid in +his way, a push down hill, and no force could ever drag him up again." + +Kitty, her eyes on his, stood silent. Do what he would, he could not +shake off her eyes: they wrenched the truth from him, "I knew this man +Guinness once," he said. + +She nodded: "Yes, I know you did." + +"Sit down beside me here, and I will tell you what kind of man he +was." + +But she did not sit down. An unaccountable terror or timidity seemed +to have paralyzed her. She looked aside--everywhere but in his face: +"I wanted you to tell me how to reach him, how to touch him: I know +what manner of man he is." + +"You have heard from your mother? A mixed Border Pike and +Mephistopheles, eh? The devil and his victim rolled into one?" He +shifted his heavy body uneasily, glancing toward the door. Chief +among the graver secret emotions which she had roused in him was +the momentary annoyance of not knowing how to deal with this +chicken-hearted little girl before him, scared, but on fire from head +to foot. + +Kitty was quite confident. If it had been Maria Muller who had thus +set herself to tamper with a man's life, she would have done it +trembling, with fear and self-distrust. She had brains which could +feel and react against the passions she evoked, and were competent to +warn her of the peril of her work. But as for Kitty-- + +Here was Hugh Guinness before her, a Cain with the curse of God +upon him. It was clearly her business to bring him back again to his +father, and afterward convert him into a member of the church, if +possible. She went about the work with as little doubt as if it had +been the making of a pudding. + +But she was shy, tender, womanly withal. Doctor McCall laughed as +he looked down at her, and spoke deliberately, as though giving his +opinion of a patient to another physician. "I'll tell you honestly my +opinion of Hugh Guinness. He was, first of all, a thoroughly ordinary, +commonplace man, with neither great virtues nor great vices, nor force +of any kind. If he had had that, he could have recovered himself when +he began to fall. But he did not recover himself." + +"What drove him down in the first place?" + +He hesitated: "I suppose that his home and religion became hateful to +him. Boys have unreasonable prejudices at times." + +"And then, in despair--" + +"Despair? Nonsense! Now don't figure to yourself a romantic Hotspur of +a fellow rushing into hell because heaven's gate was shut on him. +At nineteen Hugh Guinness drank and fought and gambled, as +other ill-managed boys do to work off the rank fever of blood. +Unfortunately--" he stopped, and then added in a lower voice, +quickly, "he made a mistake while the fever was on him which was +irretrievable." + +"A mistake?" Kitty was always of an inquiring turn of mind, but now +she felt as if her curiosity was more than she could bear, while she +stood, her eyes passing over the burly figure in summer clothes and +the high-featured, pleasant face with its close-cut moustache. What +dreadful secret was hid behind this good-humored, every-day propriety +of linen duck, friendly eyes and reddish moustache over a mouth that +often smiled? You might meet their like any day upon the streets. Was +it a murder? At best some crime, perhaps, which had sent him to +the penitentiary. Or--and church taught Kitty shuddered as a vague +remembrance of the "unpardonable sin" rose before her like an actual +horror. Whatever it was, it stood between herself and him, keeping +them apart for ever. + +"Irretrievable?" she said. It was only curiosity, she knew, but her +voice sounded oddly far off to herself, the room was hazy, her whole +body seemed to shrink together. + +"What can it matter to you? You belong to another man, Miss Vogdes." +She lifted herself erect. Doctor McCall was speaking more loudly than +usual and looking keenly into her face. + +"I know: I shall be Mr. Muller's wife. Of course, I recollect. But +you--this Hugh Guinness is my father's son," stammered Kitty, her face +very white. "I had some interest in him." + +"Yes, that's true. He is, as you say, in some sort a brother of +yours." He took her hand for the first time, looking down at her face +with some meaning in his own, inexplicable, very likely, to himself, +though the thoughts in Kitty's shallow brain were clear enough to him. +"You are tired of standing," seating her gently in Peter's chair. A +thick lock of hair had fallen over her face: he put out his hand +to remove it, but drew back quickly. "We have talked too long, Miss +Vogdes," in a brisk, cheerful tone. "Some other time, perhaps, we can +return to this question of Hugh Guinness. That is," with a certain +significance of manner, "if it be one in which Mr. Muller wishes you +to take an interest." Nodding good-humoredly to her, he buttoned on +his oilskin cape and went out into the rain without another word. He +pulled off his cap outside to let the rain and wind reach his head, +drawing a long breath as if to get rid of some foul air and heat. + + + + +CHAPTER X. + + +Of all that wet August the next morning was the freshest and +cheerfulest. Doctor McCall had packed his valise, carried it to the +station, and was now walking up the street, his hands clasped behind +him and his head down, after the leisurely fashion of Delaware and +Jersey farmers. People nodded an approving good-morning to him. +Busy Berrytown had passed verdict on him as a man who was idle for a +purpose, who permitted his brain to lie fallow, and who "loafed +and invited his soul" during these two weeks for the best spiritual +hygienic reasons. + +"Too much brain-work, my friend Doctor Maria Muller tells me," said +the lawyer, De Camp, to a group of men at the station as McCall passed +them. "Is here for repose." + +"Advanced?" said little Herr Bluhm, the phrenologist. + +"Well, no. But Doctor Maria thinks his mind is open to conviction, +and that he would prove a strong worker should he remain here. She +has already begun to enlighten him on our newest theories as to a +Spontaneous Creation and a Consolidated Republic." + +"Should think his properer study would be potatoes. Smells of the +barn-yard in his talk," rejoined one of the party. + +"Doctor Maria's a fool!" snapped Bluhm. "She has read the index to +Bastian's book, and denies her Creator, and gabbles of Bacteria, +boiled and unboiled, ever since." + +Doctor McCall meanwhile went down the cinder-path, to all passers-by +a clean-shaven, healthy gentleman out in search of an appetite for +breakfast. But in reality he was deciding his whole life in that brief +walk. Why, he asked himself once or twice, should he be unlike the +other clean-shaven, healthy men that he met? God knows he had no +relish for mystery. He was, as he had told Kitty, a commonplace man, a +thrifty Delaware farmer, in hearty good-fellowship with his neighbors, +his cattle, the ground he tilled, and, he thought reverently, with +the God who had made him and them. He had made a mistake in his early +youth, but it was a mistake which every tenth man makes--which had no +doubt driven half these men and women about him into their visionary +creeds and hard work--that of an unhappy marriage. It was many years +since he had heard of his wife: she had grown tired of warning him of +the new paths of shame and crime she had found for herself. In fact, +the year in which they had lived together was now so long past as to +seem like a miserable half-forgotten dream. + +Irretrievable? Yes, it was irretrievable. There was, first of all, +the stupid, boyish error of a change of name. If he came back as this +child wished, all the annoyance which that entailed would follow him, +and the humiliating circumstances which had led to it would be brought +to life from their unclean graves. His father believed him dead. +Better the quiet, softened grief which that had left than the disgrace +which would follow his return. "I should have to tell him my wife's +story," muttered McCall. But he did not turn pale nor break into a +cold sweat at the remembrance, as Miss Muller's hero should have done. +This was an old sore--serious enough, but one which he meant to make +the best of, according to his habit. He had been a fool, he thought, +to come back and hang about the old place for the pleasure of hearing +his father talked of, and of touching the things he had handled a day +or two before. Growing into middle age, Hugh Guinness's likeness to +his father had increased year by year. The two men were simple as boys +in some respects, and would have been satisfied alone together. The +younger man halted now on the foot-bridge which crossed the creek, +looking out the different hollows where his father had taken him to +fish when he was a boy, and thinking of their life then. "But his wife +and mine would have to be put into the scales now," with an attempt at +whistling which died out discordantly. + +There was one person to whom the shameful confession of his marriage +must be made--Miss Muller. That was the result, he thought, of his +absurd whim of loitering about Berry town. When he had met Maria +Muller before, he had no reason to think she cared a doit whether he +was married or single. Now--McCall's color changed, alone as he was, +with shame and annoyance. With all his experience of life and of +women, he had as little self-confidence as an awkward girl. But Maria +had left him no room for doubt. + +"It would be the right thing to do. I ought to tell her. But it will +be a slight matter to her, no doubt." + +If he had been a single man, in all probability he would have asked +Maria Muller to marry him that day. He was a susceptible fellow, with +a man's ordinary vanity and passions; and Maria's bright sweet face, +their loiterings along shady lanes and under Bourbon roses, the +perpetual deference she paid to his stupendous intellect, had had due +effect. He was not the man to see a strong, beautiful woman turn pale +and tremble at his touch, and preserve his phlegm. + +He threw away his cigar, and jumped the fence into the Water-cure +grounds. "I'll tell her now, and then be off from old Berry town for +ever." + +Miss Muller was standing in the porch. She leaned over the railing, +looking at the ragged rain-clouds driven swiftly over the blue +distance, and at the wet cornfields and clumps of bay bushes gray with +berries which filled the damp air with their pungent smell. Her dog, +a little black-and-tan terrier, bit at her skirt. She had just been +lecturing to her three students on the vertebrae, and when she +took him up could not help fumbling over his bones, even while she +perceived the color and scent of the morning. They gave her so keen a +pleasure that the tears rushed to her eyes, and she stopped punching +Hero's back. + +"'The rain is over and gone,'" she recited softly to herself, "'the +vines with the tender grape give a good smell, and the time of the +singing of birds has come.' There is no poetry like that old Hebrew +love-song. If only it had not been hackneyed by being turned into a +theological allegory! Ha, doggy, doggy! There comes a friend of ours!" +suddenly laughing and hugging him as she caught sight of a large man +coming up the road with a swinging gait and loose white overcoat. She +broke off a rose and put it in her breast, tied on her hat and hurried +down to meet him, the Song of Solomon still keeping time with her +thoughts in a lofty cadence: "'Who is this that cometh up from the +wilderness leaning upon his beloved? Set me as a seal upon thine +heart, as a seal upon thine arm. For love is strong as death.'" + +"What's that, Maria? I heard you intoning as I came up the hill?" Her +eyes were soft and luminous and her voice unsteady. I am afraid Doctor +McCall's eyes were warmer in their admiration than they should +have been under the circumstances. Why should she not tell him? She +repeated it. She had been chattering for two hours on cervical, dorsal +and lumbar vertebrae, without stopping to take breath. But she grew +red now and broke down miserably. + +"'Love is strong as death,' eh?" said McCall, awkwardly holding the +gate open for her. "Friendship ought to be tough enough to bear a +pretty stout strain, then. Such friendship as ours, I mean. For I +think a man and woman can be friends without--without--Well, what do +you think, Maria?" feeling a sudden imbecility in all his big body. + +The little woman beside him looked up scared and ready to cry: "I +don't know, John, I'm sure. Do be quiet, Hero!" Then like a flash she +saw that he meant to ask her to marry him: he meant to place love upon +the higher basis of friendship. Maria was used to people who found new +names for old things. Why! why! what folly was this, as she grew cold +and hot by turns? So often she had pictured his coming to claim her, +and how she would go out as one calm controlling soul should to meet +another, to be dual yet united through all eternity; and here she was +shivering and tongue-tied, like any silly school-girl! Love-making and +marriage were at a discount with the Advanced Club of which she was a +member, and classed with dancing, fashionable dressing and other such +paltry feminine frivolities. But Maria had meant to show them that a +woman could really love and marry, and preserve her own dignity. She +tried to find her footing now. + +"Come into the summer-house, John. I should think our friendship would +bear any strain, for it does not depend on external ties." + +"No, that's true. Now, as to your phalansteries and women's clubs and +sitz-baths, why that's all flummery to me. But young women must have +their whims until they have husbands to occupy their minds, I suppose. +There's that little girl at the Book-shop: how many leagues of tatting +do you suppose she makes in a year?" + +"I really cannot say," sharply. + +"But as to our friendship, Maria--" + +"Yes. There may be a lack of external bonds" (speaking deliberately, +for she wanted to remember this crisis of her life as accurate in all +its minutiae); "but there is a primal unity, a mysterious sympathy, in +power and emotion. At least, so it seems to me," suddenly stammering +and picking up Hero to avoid looking at McCall, who stood in front of +her. + +"I don't know. Primal unities are rather hazy to me. I can tell by a +woman's eye and hand-shake if she is pure-minded and sweet-tempered, +and pretty well, too, what she thinks of me. That's about as far as I +go." + +"It pleases you to wear this mask of dullness, I know," with an +indulgent smile, with which Titania might have fondled the ass's head. + +"But as to our friendship," gravely, "I feel I've hardly been fair +to you. Friendship demands candor, and there is one matter on which I +have not dealt plainly with you. You have been an honest, firm friend +to me, Maria. I had no right to withhold my confidence from you." + +If Miss Muller had not been known as an advanced philosopher, basing +her life upon the Central Truths, she would have gained some credit +as a shrewd woman of business. "What do you mean, John?" she said, +turning a cool I steady countenance toward him. + +"Sit down and I will tell you what I mean." + + * * * * * + +The patients, taking soon after their two hours' exercise, made their +jokes on the battle between the two systems, seeing the allopathist +McCall and Doctor Maria Haynes Muller in the summer-house engaged in +such long and earnest converse. Homoeopathy, they guessed, had the +worst of it, for the lady was visibly agitated and McCall apparently +unmoved. Indeed, when he left her and crossed the garden, nodding to +such of them as he knew, he had a satisfied, relieved face. + +Maria went immediately in to visit her ward as usual. The patients +observed that she was milder than was her wont, and deadly pale. +One of them, addressing her as "Miss Muller," however, was sharply +rebuked: "I earned my right to the title of physician too hardly to +give it up for that which belongs to every simpering school-girl," she +said. "Besides," with a queer pitiful smile, "the sooner we doctors +sink the fact that we are women the better for the cause--and for us." + +She met her brother in the course of the morning, and drew him into +the consulting-room. + +"William," she said, fumbling with the buttons of his coat, "he is +going: he is going to take the afternoon train." + +"Who? That fellow McCall?" + +"Why do you speak so of him, William? He has just told me his story. +He is so wretched! he has been used so hardly!" She could scarcely +keep back the tears. In her new weakness and weariness it was such +comfort to talk to and hang upon this fat, stupid little brother, whom +usually she despised. + +"Wretched, eh? He don't look it, then. As stout and easy-going a +fellow as I know. Come, come, Maria! The man has been imposing some +story on you to work on your sensibilities. I never fancied him, as +you know. He doesn't want to borrow money, eh?" with sudden alarm. + +"Money? No." + +"What is it, then? Don't look at me in that dazed way. You, are going +to have one of your attacks. I do wish you had Kitty's constitution +and some sense." + +"William," rousing herself, "he is going. He will never come back to +Berrytown or to me. Our whole lives depend on my seeing him once more. +Ask him to wait for a day--an hour." + +"If he doesn't take the noon express, he can't go in an hour. You +certainly know that, Maria. Well, if I have to find him, I'd better go +at once," buttoning his coat irritably. "I never did like the fellow." + +"Beg him to stay. Tell him that I have thought of a way of escape," +following him, catching him by his sleeve, her small face absolutely +without color and her eyes glittering. + +"Yes, I'm going. But I must find my overshoes first. It begins to look +like rain." + +Miss Muller watched him to the door, and then crossed the hall to her +own room, locking the door behind her. The square table was piled with +medical books. She sat down and dropped her head on her arms. Over +went a bound volume of the _Lancet_ and a folio on diseases of the +kidneys to the floor. She looked down at them. "And I was willing to +give him up for that--that trash!" sobbing and rubbing her arms like +a beaten child. But she had so strong a habit of talking that even in +this pain the words would come: "I loved him so. He would have married +me! And I must be kept from him by a law of society! It is--it is," +rising and wrenching her hands together, "a damnable law!" + +For Miss Muller had taught herself to think and talk like a man. + +REBECCA HARDING DAVIS. + +[TO BE CONTINUED.] + + + + +BOWERY ENGLAND. + + +A party of four Americans in London--Mr. Hill Bunker of Boston, Mrs. +Bunker, his wife, Miss Amy Abell of New York, and myself--we find +ourselves growing weary of that noisy town. We talk of a trip to the +country. It is the merry month of May. + +"Just the time for 'bowery England, as Bulwer phrases it," says Amy. +"Let us go to Romsey and see the Boyces." + +Carried unanimously. We take the train from the Waterloo Station +two hours later. When we get down at Romsey, "Fly, sir?" asks the +attentive porter--carries our luggage, calls the fly and touches +his hat thankfully for three-pence. The Romsey fly is a lumbering, +two-seated carriage, rather more pretentious than a London cab, but +far behind the glossy gorgeousness of a New York hackney-coach. + +A short drive brings us to the White Horse Inn, under whose covered +arch we roll, and are met at the door by a maid. She conducts us to +a stuffy coffee-room up a flight of crumbling old stairs, and meekly +desires to know our will. + +"Send the landlord, please." + +The landlord comes, bowing low, and we make inquiries concerning the +distance to Paultons, the estate where the Boyces have been spending +the summer, and where we venture to hope they still are. He says it +is a matter of four miles, and that we can have a fly over for six +shillings. We order the fly to be got ready at once, and inquire if we +can have dinner now, it being late in the afternoon. + +"Yes, sir," he replies. "Would you like some chicken and +sparrowgrass?" + +"How long will they be in cooking?" + +"Matter of arf an hour, sir." + +As this means a matter of an hour, I ask if he can't get us up +something in a shorter time. He suggests that chops can be cooked +sooner. + +"Chops be it, then. In the words of the immortal Pickwick, chops and +tomato sauce." + +"No tomarter sauce, sir," with profound gravity. + +"Sparrowgrass, then--chops and sparrowgrass." + +He retires, and we all rush to the windows and look out upon the +quaint old village--a curious, old-fashioned scene. We feel as if +we had somehow become transmogrified, and instead of being +flesh-and-blood men and women from practical New York, were playing +our parts in some old English novel. Odd little tumble-down houses, +with peaked roofs and mullioned windows, ranged about a triangular +common, look sleepily out upon a statue of Palmerston in the middle of +the open place, the gray walls of Romsey Abbey, a thousand years old, +against the blue sky behind them. + +About six o'clock our fly is at the door, and we are off, rattling +through the ancient streets into the smooth open country. Oh the +quaint, delightful old hedge-lined road, deep down below the level +of the fields on either side--a green lane shut in with fragrance and +delicious quiet! The hedges, perched upon the bank, tower high above +our heads, and there is no break in them save at rustic gates. We meet +characters on the road who have just stepped out of Trollope's novels. +A young man and girl stand on a bridge across which we trundle, +leaning companionably on the old stone parapet, and looking up the +little river through a long avenue of trees to the pillared mansion of +"Broadlands." A laborer, with a gay flower stuck in the buttonhole +of his smock-frock, goes whistling along the brown road under the +hedgerows. A country gentleman, driving alone in a basket phaeton, +looks inquisitively at our half-closed windows as if expecting the +sight of an acquaintance. Crumbling milestones stand by the wayside, +with deep-cut letters so smoothed by the hand of time that we cannot +read them as we pass. Flowers grow thick in the hedgerows. A boy is +lolling on the green grass in front of a cottage door--an uncombed +English hind, with a face of rustic simplicity and stolid ignorance. + +At last we come to a gate which bars the road. The driver gets down +and opens it, and when we have passed through in the fly he tells us +we are now on Mr. Stanley's broad estate of Paultons. The driver wears +corduroy trousers, and touches his hat every time we speak to him and +every time he answers. He does not merely touch it when he is first +addressed, but he touches it continually throughout the conversation. +Bunker considers his conduct extremely touching. + +We are presently driving through a bosky wood, and the driver touches +his hat to remark that we are nearly there now, he thinks. + +"But where is the bad road the landlord spoke of?" + +"Bad road, sir?" touching hat. + +"Yes: the landlord said we could not drive fast because the road was +bad. Where is it bad?" + +"All along back of 'ere, sir," touching hat. "We have pahst the worst +of it naow, sir: the rest is not so 'illy, sir," touching hat. + +"Hilly? We haven't passed over anything bigger than a knoll. If this +is what the landlord meant by a hilly road, it _is_ a rich joke. Why, +it's as smooth as a floor, almost." + +"He should go to California," says Amy, who has feeling reminiscences. +"He should go to the Yosemite Valley, over the road which runs through +Chinese Camp and Hodgden's. Probably the man never saw a rough road in +his life. I doubt if there is such a thing in England." + +After half an hour's trundling along the unfenced roads of this fine +old estate, crossing ancient stone bridges, rolling through leafy +groves, startling fat cattle from their browsing, getting a hat-touch +from a shepherd who is leading his flocks across the fields in true +pastoral style, we reach the manor-house, standing stately amid dells +and dingles, pollards of fantastic growth and patches of fern and +gorse. The Boyces have returned to Paris, but nurse and the children +are still at the gardener's house, and thither we drive along the +banks of a sylvan lake, beyond which the rooks are cawing about the +chimneys. + +The old gardener is nurse's father, and though he is now so old that +he no longer does any work, he is maintained in comfort by the family +in whose service he has spent a lifetime. Forty years of honest +service in one family! No wonder he feels that his destiny is for ever +linked with that of the people who have been his masters, man and boy, +for forty years. He has a delightful little cottage with thatched roof +and mullioned windows, and pretty vines rioting all over it, and in +front of it a flower-garden full of early bloom. The lilacs which +grow about so profusely are not of the color of our lilacs in America, +being of a rich purple; we should not know they were lilacs but for +the familiar odor. + +A delicious ride back to Romsey in the twilight, carrying two of the +Boyce children with us. In the evening I stroll out alone, to look at +the village in the moonlight. The streets are like narrow lanes. The +houses are very old, and for the most part dilapidated, but streets +and houses are all as clean and neat as wax. Presently I come upon +the old abbey, its rugged walls and towers looming solemnly in the +moonlight, and pass the parson's house near by, all overrun with +vines, thinking of Trollope again and Framley parsonage. + +Before going back to the White Horse Inn I wander round the village +until I find that I am lost. The discovery is not very alarming in a +place so small as this, even at night. I resolve to turn every corner +to the left, and see what will come of it. I presently find that +getting out into the country comes of it; and having crossed a bridge +and come upon a silent brickyard, and seen the long road winding +away into the open country, I am reminded of Oliver Twist--or was +it Pip?--running away from home and trudging off under the stars to +London. Somehow, it seems this road must lead to London. + +Turning about, but still walking at random and turning left-hand +corners, I presently see the abbey tower again, and make for it. The +street through which I pass is apparently the home of the British +working man. A light burning in any house is most rare. Occasionally a +man can be seen through the odd little windows, smoking a pipe by the +blaze of the fire on the hearth. Here are the abbey windows, and now +I know where I am. Down this narrow, winding street, across the open +place where Lord Palmerston stands stonily in the moonlight, and I am +at the White Horse Inn again. + +At nine o'clock next morning there is a rap at the door of my room. +The door being opened a man-servant is discovered, who touches his +forehead (having no hat to touch) and says, "The ladies would like to +'ave you breakfast with them, sir." + +He is so very respectful in his manner of saying this that he is +inaudible, and being asked what he said, repeats the touching his +forehead and then repeats his words. + +There are no muffins at breakfast--a fact which I record merely +because this is the first time since we have been in England that this +peculiarly English dish has been omitted at breakfast. It appears on +inquiry that muffins are a luxury of large towns. In villages they +are rarely obtainable at less than about a week's notice. In fact, you +can't get anything to eat, of any sort, without pretty liberal notice. + +After breakfast we go to see the old abbey. It is an imposing and +well-preserved pile. It was founded by Ethelwold, a thane--one of +those righting, praying, thieving old rascals who lived in the tenth +century, and made things lively for any one who went past their houses +with money on his person. When Ethelwold had stolen an unusually large +sum one day, he founded the monastery and stocked it with nuns. It +was but a wooden shanty at first, but after having served till it was +worm-eaten and rotting with age, it was torn down and a fine stone +convent was built. + +We walk about in that part of the abbey which is free from pews--by +far the larger part--and stare at the monumental stones let into the +floor and walls. If we did not know that Romsey had been the home +of Palmerston, we should learn it now, for these stones are thickly +covered with the legends of virtue in his family--wives, sisters, sons +and so forth, whose remains lie "in the vault beneath." After perusing +these numerous testimonials to the truly wonderful virtues of an +aristocracy whom we are permitted to survive, and after dropping some +shillings in the charity-box, which rather startle us by the noise +they make, we pass out of the cool abbey into the hot churchyard, and +read on a lonely stone which stands in a corner by the gate that +here lies the dust of Mary Ann Brown, "for thirty-five years faithful +servant to Mr. Appleford." Mary Ann no doubt had other virtues, but +they are not recorded: this is sufficient for a servant. + +An hour's ride on the velvet cushions of a railway carriage brings us, +with our Paultons friends, the Boyce boys, to Southampton, which was +an old town when King Canute was young. We take rooms at a pretentious +marble hotel with a mansard roof, attached to the station--a railroad +hotel, in fact, but strikingly unlike that institution as we know it +in America. Wide halls, solid stone staircases, gorgeous coffee-room, +black-coated waiters, and the inevitable buxom landlady with a +regiment of blooming daughters for assistants--one presiding over the +accounts, another officiating at the beer-pumps, a third to answer +questions, and all very much under the influence of their back hair +and other charms of person. One of them alleviates the monotony of the +office duties by working at embroidery in bright worsteds. + +Strolling out, Bunker and I consult certain shabby worthies who are +yawning on the boxes of a long line of wretched hacks drawn up by the +sidewalk across the street, and find that we can charter a vehicle for +two shillings an hour. These cabbies have more nearly the air of our +own noble hackmen than any we have seen in England. Americans are no +novelty to them, for ship-loads of American tourists are put off here +at frequent intervals, and the cabbies have a thin imitation of +the voting hackman's independence. They stop short, however, of his +impudence. They are lazy, but they touch their hats occasionally. + +We choose two of the tumble-down vehicles and go after the ladies. My +driver is an elderly man with a hat which has seen better days, and +I have chosen his hack, not because it is less likely to drop off +its wheels than the others, but because he himself looks like a seedy +Bohemian. He proves to be a very intelligent fellow, with a ready turn +for description which serves him in good stead whenever his horse gets +tired of walking and stops short. At such times our Bohemian pretends +that he has stopped the horse himself in order to point out and +comment upon some curious thing in the immediate vicinity. + +It is pleasant driving. The hack is open, and we hoist sun-umbrellas +and look about comfortably. Presently the weary horse stops in the +middle of the street. + +"'Ere you are, sir," says Cabby briskly, turning half round on his box +and pointing to an old stone structure which stretches quite across +the High street. "This 'ere is the old Bar Gate, sir, one of the +hancient gates of the town. Part of the horiginal town wall. Was a +large ditch 'ere, sir, and another there, and a stone bridge betwixt +the two, and the young bucks in them days did use to practice harchery +right 'ere where you see the lamp-post. The Guild'all is _hin_ the +gate, sir, right hinside it, with a passage hup. I'll drive through +the harch, sir, and you'll see the hother side. Cluck!" (to the +horse). + +On the other side, the horse not taking a notion to stop again, the +driver is not forced to resume his remarks. Turning about as we pass +on, we look up at the old Norman gate-tower, with its handsome archway +and projecting buttresses, and Amy says she fancies she sees a knight +in armor looking out through the narrow crevice which may have been a +window in olden times. This, being an altogether proper fancy for the +place, is received with applause. + +The next time the horse concludes to stop we are in the midst of what +is here called the Common--in fact, a magnificent old forest park, +with a smooth road running through it, and numberless winding paths in +among the bosky depths. I fancy Central Park might come to look like +this if allowed to go untrimmed and unfussed-over for two or three +hundred years. + +"The Common, sir," says Cabby, turning about, "where King Chawles did +use to 'unt wild boars. Fav'rite walk of Halexander Pope, sir, the +poet, and Doctor Watts, which wrote the 'ymn-book. Cluck!" + +From the top of a high hill a splendid wide landscape is seen, with +Romsey in the distance, and (the horse having stopped again) Cabby +points out Queen Elizabeth's shooting-box across the fields. In a lot +close by cricketers are at play, and a little farther on, where there +is a vine-covered beerhouse, a crowd of clod-hoppers are gathered in +a green field, looking at two of their number engaged in a +rough-and-tumble fight in their shirt-sleeves. + +The road after this running down hill, the horse continues to jog +along for a considerable distance, stopping at last under a towering +old wall looking out on the sea. + +"Wind Whistle Tower, sir," says Cabby, pointing up at a square tower +projecting from the old wall overhead, and above it the remains of +an old round tower thickly overrun with ivy. And, using his fingers +industriously, Cabby proceeds to call off the names of various castles +and towers here visible--notably, Prince Edward's Tower, bold and +round, from whose summit three men were looking down. + +"What are those?" asks Bunker in the carriage behind us, pointing to +the old brass guns which sit on the wall like Humpty Dumpty. + +"Them, sir," says Cabby, "was put there by 'Enry the Heighth, and this +'ere wall was the purtection of the town when the Frenchmen hassaulted +it." + +"Ho!" says Bunker, contemptuously. "Just fancy one of our ironclads +paying any attention to the barking of those popguns!" + +Whereupon the horse starts again, and we go lazily on, Cabby dropping +in a word of enlightenment here and there to the effect that this old +tumble-down part of the ancient wall is the celebrated Arcade, which +formed part of the wall of the King's Palace; and this queer old lane +running up through the walls like a sewer is Cuckoo lane; and that is +Bugle street, where in olden times the warden blew; and here are the +remains of Canute's palace, with its elliptical and circular arches +and curious mouldings. + +Discharging the cab in the High street, we walk about. In a shop where +we pause for a moment there is a quartette of half-naked barbarians, +such as, with all our boasted varieties of humanity, were never yet +seen in New York. We have abundant Chinese and Japanese there, and +occasionally an Arab or a Turk, and the word African means with us a +man and a brother behind our chair at dinner or wielding a razor in +a barber-shop. These men here are pure barbarians, just landed from a +vessel direct from Africa. Hideously tattooed, and their heads shaved +in regular ridges of black wool, with narrow patches of black scalp +between, they are here in a small tradesman's shop in bowery England +buying shirts. They know not a word of English, but chatter among +themselves the most horrible lingo known to the Hamitic group of +tongues. They grimace in a frightful manner, and skip and dance, and +writhe their half-naked bodies into the most exaggerated contortions +known to the language of signs. The dignified English salesmen are +at their wits' end how to treat them. The instinct of the British +shopkeeper fights desperately with his disposition to be shocked. From +the Ashantee gentlemen's gestures it can only be concluded that white +shirts are wanted, but when white shirts are shown the negroes make +furious objection to the plaited bosoms. They want shirts such as are +fashionable at home. It is easy to be seen that they are Dandy Jims +in Africa. They are all young, and, in a sense, spruce. One of them +carries a little switch cane, evidently just bought: while he examines +the shirts, testing the strength of the stuff by pulling it with his +two hands, he holds his cane between his bare legs for safe-keeping. + +Sitting in the billiard-room of the hotel in the evening smoking our +cigars, Bunker and I are accosted by a brisk little man, who asks us +if we play billiards. Bunker doesn't. I do sometimes at home, but not +the English game. + +"Oh, we play the 'Merican game too. 'Appy to play the 'Merican game +with you, sir." + +"Try him a game," says Bunker. "It won't hurt you." + +Not liking to refuse an invitation from a polite Englishman, who +appears to be a stranger here, I consent. This is billiard-room +etiquette the world over. + +The cue is like a whip-stock. It positively runs down to a point not +bigger than a shirt-button, and it bends like a switch. The balls are +not much larger than marbles. To make up for this, the table is big +enough for a back yard, broad, high, dull of cushion, and with six +huge pockets. I am ignominiously beaten. My ball jumps like a living +thing. It hops off the table upon the floor at almost every shot, and +when it does not go on the floor it goes into one of the six yawning +pockets. The pockets bear the same relative proportion to the balls +that a tea-cup bears to a French pea. At the end of the game my ball +has been everywhere except where I intended it to go, and I have +"scratched" thirty. + +"A hundred's the game," says the Englishman, putting up his cue. "One +shilling." + +I wonder if this is an English custom--to pay your victor a shilling, +instead of paying the keeper of the tables. But as there is no one +else to pay, I pay the Englishman. Bunker has fallen asleep in his +chair. + +"Going on the Continent?" the Englishman asks. + +"Not at present. We return to London first, and go from there." + +"'Ave you got a guide?" + +I am on the point of saying that guides are a nuisance I do not +tolerate, when the Englishman hands me a bit of paste-board. "There is +my card, sir," he says. "A. SHARPE, Interpreter and Courier." On the +opposite side I read-- + + SPEAKS SPRICHT PARLE PARLA + French, Franzoesich, Frangais, Francese, + German, Deutsch, Allemand, Tedesco, + Italian and Italienisch u. Italien et Italiano ed + English Englisch Anglais Inglese + fluently sehr gelaeufig. courrament. correntemente. + +At present he has charge of this billiard-room, but he is ready to +follow me to the ends of the earth for a period of not less than three +months. I tell him I can get on without a guide. + +"But I would go on the most reasonable terms. I would go for as low as +ten pounds a month and my expenses." + +"Would you go for nothing?" Bunker wakes up and pops this out at him +so suddenly as to quite take his breath away. + +He expands his hands at his trousers pockets, shrugs his shoulders and +looks volumes of reproach. + +"Because," Bunker adds, in a soothing tone, "I shouldn't like to have +you along, even at that price." + +He immediately goes to putting the room to rights. + +"Horrible breath that man had," says Bunker when we come out: "did you +notice it?" + +"Yes." + +"Take that breath around with us on the Continent! Why, if he was in +Cologne itself, his breath would be in the majority." + +I had my umbrella in the billiard-room, and next morning I can't find +it anywhere. At breakfast I ask the pompous head-waiter if he knows of +my umbrella. He states that he does not. After breakfast I look in the +billiard-room. It is not there. I go down to the office, and interrupt +the worsted work there in progress by requesting that a search be made +for my missing umbrella. The young lady whose ear I have gained +kindly condescends to call the porter, and turning me over to that +functionary returns to her worsted. The porter is respectful, but +doubtful. The moment he learns that the lost article is an umbrella +his manner is pervaded with a gentle hopelessness. He, however, +listens forbearingly to my story. + +"And aboot what time was it, sir, when ye went ty bed?" + +"About half-past eleven." + +"Oh, then the night porter ull know of it, sir. He's abed now. I'll +ask him when he gets oop." + +And so, when we go to Netley Abbey, I take a covered cab, because of +my lost umbrella. It was a beautiful umbrella to keep off the sun. +Nobody can make an umbrella like an Englishman. I should be sorry +to lose it. I bought it in Regent street only a few days ago, but I +already love it with a passionate affection. + +Through the hot paved streets, over a floating bridge, past the +cliff at the river's mouth, through a shady grove of noble yews +and sycamores, past a picturesque hamlet full of vine-curtained and +straw-thatched cottages, through a forest of oaks and past a willow +copse, and there is the grand old ruin of Netley Abbey lifting its +picturesque and solemn fingers of ivy-hung stone above the tops of the +trees which surround and shelter it in its hoary age. + +It is really curious how dramatically effective a grand old ruin is. +The weird sense of being in the presence of olden time comes over us +immediately. We look about us to see the spirit of some cloistered +monk come stealing by with hood and girdle. Here--actually here, +in these nooks all crumbling under Time's gnawing tooth--did old +Cistercian monks kneel with shaved heads and confess their sins, and +their bones have been powdered into dust three hundred years! +Romsey Abbey--within whose well-kept walls we rather yawned over +Palmerstonian eulogiums--is a thousand years old. This abbey is only +six hundred and thirty-two years old. Romsey has been restored, and +modern men go to church there on Sunday decorously. Netley has been +left to go to utter ruin. Grass grows in its long-drawn aisles. Owls +hoot in its moss-clothed chimneys. It is dramatically effective. + +We wander through cloistered courts into the main body of the church. +Yonder stood the pulpit, here gathered the worshipers. The carpet is +green grass. Trees grow within the walls. Ivy clambers from side to +side of the tall windows, in place of the stained glass once there. +Most of the windows have tumbled to decay, walls and all. The roof is +the sky--naught else. + +We climb up the stone staircase in the turret. All the stone steps are +worn with deep hollows where human feet have trodden up and down for +centuries, and storms have sent rivulets of water pouring through many +a wild night. Some of the steps are worn quite in two and broken away, +which makes the ascent frightening to the ladies. + +Up here ("on the second floor," as Bunker says) the carpet is again +grass, and Bunker and I clamber through a little archway into the +cloister gallery, where the monks used to look down on the service +below when they felt inclined. The ladies look after us, brave +adventurers that we are (only two or three million men have been here +before us, perhaps, since the ruin became a popular success), and +refuse to follow in our rash footsteps. The crumbling wall is full of +owls' nests. Rooks and swallows fly continually in and out of their +holes. We could kick a loose stone down into the chancel if there were +any stones to kick. + +The ladies declare themselves dizzy and afraid, and we help them down +the dark winding turret staircase again, and go into the enclosed +parts of the ruin. Here is where the monks lived. The walls still +stand, and parts of the roof. The windows are thickly ivy-hung and +moss-grown. Here is the room where the monks did whilom dine. For +three hundred years this dining-room was in daily use, and in the spot +where erst the dining-table stood now grows a stalwart tree, whose +branches tower and spread beyond the crumbling walls. Passing strange! + +More strange is the sight in the next room, the chapter-house, where +the abbot held his gravest councils, and where the most honored of the +monks were buried beneath the floor when they died. And since the +roof fell in, after long battling with storms, perhaps a hundred years +after the last monk was buried, one day a seed fell. A tree grew up in +the room. It spread its tall branches high above the piled-up stones, +and shook its brown leaves down, autumn after autumn, for years and +years. It grew slowly old, and at last it died. It fell down in its +death in the room where it had grown, and its once sturdy trunk struck +against the old ruined walls and broke. Its roots were torn out of the +ground by the fall, and stuck up their gnarled fingers in the empty +room. And the grass grew over the roots, weaving a green cloak to hide +their nakedness. The old trunk stretches now across the space in the +room, and leans its old head against the abbey wall. I didn't read +this story in a guide-book. It was told to me by the principal actor, +the tree. + +In the abbot's kitchen we get into the huge hooded fireplace--seven +of us--and there is room for more. We look up the chimney and see +the glossy green ivy leaves overhead, and the blue sky shining beyond +them. We toss a pebble down into the subterranean passage where, they +say, the monks were wont to pass out after provisions during a time +of siege; which must have been somewhat demoralizing to the besiegers, +whoever they were. I stoop to pick up something in the grass of +the kitchen floor, which has a glitter of gold upon it, and my face +flushes with eager anticipation as I seize it. + +"What have you found?" asks Amy. + +"A relic of the monks?" asks Bunker. + +"It's a champagne cork," I am forced to reply. "The truth is, Netley +Abbey is a show, like Niagara Falls and Bunker Hill Monument. Of +course crowds of tourists come here, and of course they pop champagne +and ginger beer, and cut their confounded initials in the venerable +stones." + +"Yes," says Bunker, "I saw 'W.S.' cut in the wall at the top of the +turret stairs. Saves you the trouble, you know." + +"I don't do that sort of thing, thank you." + +Nevertheless, it was curious to see some nobody's name cut at full +length in the stone, with the date underneath--1770. + +When we return to the hotel the night porter reports that he has not +found my umbrella. So I must go off without it. Our train leaves at +ten minutes past five this afternoon, and we shall be in London early +in the evening. It is now four o'clock: we have ordered dinner for +this hour, and so we sit down to our soup. + +"Please give us our dinner without any delay now," I say to the +pompous head-waiter, "for we must take the train at ten minutes past +five." + +The man bows stiffly and retires. We finish the soup, and wait. +When we get tired of waiting we call the head-waiter to us: "Are you +hastening our dinner?" + +"Fish directly, sir," he answers, and walks solemnly away. We begin to +grow fidgety. Fifteen minutes since the soup, and no fish yet. Bunker +swears he'll blow the head-waiter up in another minute. Just as he is +quite ready for this explosion the fish arrives. All hail! I lay it +open. + +"Why, it's not done!" I cry in consternation. "There, there! Take it +away, and bring the meat." + +With an air of grave offence the man bears it solemnly out. Then we +wait again. And wait. And wait. + +"Good gracious!" cries Bunker, "here's half an hour gone, and we've +had nothing but soup! I really must blow this fellow up." + +"Stop! there it comes." + +Enter the waiter with great dignity, and solemnly deposits before +us--the fish again! + +He has had it recooked. We attack it hurriedly, and bid the waiter for +Goodness' sake bring the rest of the dinner _instantly_, or we must +leave it. + +"And I'm about half starved," growls Bunker. + +More waiting. Five minutes pass. Ten. + +"Oh come, I can't stand this!" cries Bunker, jumping up with his +napkin round his neck, and striding over to the head-waiter, where he +stands in a Turveydroppy attitude, leaning against a sideboard with +his arms folded. "Look here!" Bunker ejaculates: "_can_ you be made +to understand that we are in a hurry? Would half a dollar be any +inducement to you to wake up and look around lively? Because we have +got to take those cars in exactly twelve minutes," showing his watch, +"and as the dinner is already paid for, I want to get it before I go." + +"Certainly, sir," says the pompous ass with slow indifference, "dinner +directly. John!" to our waiter, who is now placing the meat on the +table, "serve the genl'm'n's dinner _directly_." + +Bunker stares at the fellow as Clown stares at Harlequin after having +cut him in two, in dumb amazement at the fact that Harlequin is not in +the least disturbed by being cut in two. + +"I wonder," he mutters as he returns to the table, "if that +unmitigated wooden image of a dunderhead would pay any attention if I +were to kick him?" + +"No--not if you were to tie a pack of fire-crackers to his coat-tail +and light them. He knows his business too well. The first duty of +an English head-waiter is to be dignified, as it is that of a French +head-waiter to be vigilant and polite." + +"Besides," remarks Amy quietly, "I don't suppose the man had an idea +of what you meant by 'those cars,' if he even knew what a half dollar +signified." + +"Well, we must be off. Time's up. We shall miss the train. Good-bye, +boys. You can sit still and finish your dinner in peace." + +Good-bye to our friends from Paultons--good-bye. And then we rush out, +and _do_ miss the train. It is five o'clock ten minutes and a quarter. + +English trains go on time--English dinners don't. + +We finally get off at seven o'clock. Just before we leave a waiter +comes up to me and says in a casual manner, "Found your humbreller +yet, sir?" + +"No." + +"Wat kind of er humbreller was it, sir?" + +"Neat little brown silk umbrella, with an ivory handle." + +"W'y, I wouldn't wonder if that was your humbreller in the corner now +in the reading-room, sir." + +I make haste to look. Yes, there it is, my beloved, long-lost +umbrella, quietly leaning against the wall in a dark corner, behind a +pillar, behind a big arm-chair, where nobody ever placed it, I'll take +my oath, but this rascally waiter, who expects to get a shilling for +showing where he hid it. + +"Is _that_ your humbreller, sir?" the waiter says, rubbing his +hands and getting in my way as I walk briskly out, at peril of being +stumbled over by my hurrying feet. I scorn to reply, but I give him +a glance of such withering contempt that I trust it pierced to his +wicked heart, and will remain there, a punishment and a warning, to +the last day of his base life. An English waiter's hide is very thick, +however. He has probably hidden many a gentleman's umbrella since. + +At eleven o'clock we are back in our cozy London lodgings, and at +twelve we are sleeping the sleep of profound fatigue, and dreaming of +ghostly monks wandering among the weird old ruins of Netley. + +WIRT SIKES. + + + + +DAY-DREAM. + + + Here, in the heart of the hills, I lie, + Nothing but me 'twixt earth and sky-- + An amethyst and an emerald stone + Hung and hollowed for me alone! + + Is it a dream, or can it be + That there is life apart from me?-- + A larger world than the circling bound + Of light and color that lap me round? + + Drowsily, dully, through my brain, + Like some recurrent, vague refrain, + A world of fancy comes and goes-- + Shadowy pleasures, shadowy woes. + + Spectral toils and troubles seem + Fashioned out of this foolish dream: + Round my charmed quiet creep + Phantom creatures that laugh and weep. + + Nay, I know they are meaningless, + Visions of utter idleness: + Nothing was, nor ever will be, + Save the hills and the heavens and me. + +KATE PUTNAM OSGOOD. + + + + +OUR MONTHLY GOSSIP. + +THE GLADSTONE FAMILY. + + +There is no doubt that had Mr. Gladstone followed his personal +inclinations when his Irish education scheme broke down last March, +he would have retired from office. He is now sixty-four, and it may be +fairly questioned whether there exists a man who for forty-six years +has worked his brain harder. It is no light labor to read for the +highest honors in even one school at Oxford, and Mr. Gladstone read +for them in two. He gained "a double first," which meant at that time +a first class both in classics and mathematics. Forthwith he plunged +into political essay-writing, until in 1834 he further added to his +labors by entering the House of Commons as M.P. for Newark. + +Mr. Gladstone's father was, as most people are aware, a Liverpool +merchant of Scotch descent. This gentleman was the architect of his +own fortunes, which arose in no slight degree out of his connection +with the United States. Having been sent to this country by a firm +largely interested in the corn trade, he discharged their business +to their entire satisfaction, whilst at the same time he made very +valuable business connections on his own account, which materially +served him when at a later period he himself embarked in business. +He made a large fortune, but it did not appear at his death to be so +great as it was, because he gave his younger sons the bulk of their +portions during his lifetime--to avoid legacy duty, people said. +To his eldest son he left considerable estates in Scotland--to the +younger sons, about one hundred thousand pounds apiece. The eldest, +Sir Thomas Gladstone, is a very worthy man, but nowise remarkable for +ability. He has one son, and has had six daughters. Four survive, and +all are unmarried. + +The next brother, Robertson, an eccentric person whose indiscreet +speeches must often have made his statesman brother feel very hot, +continues the paternal business at Liverpool. The third, John Neilson, +was, socially speaking, the flower of the flock. He was a captain in +the navy, from which he had retired many years prior to his death in +1863, and a member of Parliament. By his wife, a singularly excellent +and charming woman, he had several children, who may be said to pretty +nearly monopolize the feminine charms of the Gladstone family. One +of these married the earl of Belmore, an Irish nobleman, who lately +returned from a not very successful gubernatorial career in New +South Wales. Both Sir Thomas and Captain Gladstone were decided +Conservatives. + +William Ewart is the fourth brother. "That young brother of mine will +make a noise in the world some of these days," said Captain Gladstone +to a fellow-middy as his brother turned away from bidding him good-bye +just before he was about to start on a cruise; and the words were +certainly prophetic. Mr. Gladstone married when he was thirty. His +wife was one of the two sisters of Sir Stephen Glynne. The English +aristocracy contains a great many sets, and the Glynnes were in the +intellectual set, comprising such men as the dukes of Argyll and +Devonshire, and Lords Derby, Stanhope and Lyttelton. Mrs. Gladstone +and her sister were married on the same day to two of the finest +intellects of their time. The younger, whose mental gifts were far +superior to those of her sister, married Lord Lyttelton. + +Mr. Gladstone has a large family. The eldest son has for some time +been in Parliament, but has established no reputation for notable +capacity, and it is said that, with the exception of one of his +younger brothers, none of the family are remarkable in this respect. +Mrs. Gladstone is a person of great kindness of heart and untiring +benevolence. She is full of schemes for doing good: hospitals, +convalescent institutions, etc. find in her an ever-ready friend, +to the neglect, it is whispered, of her domestic duties. There is an +amusing story told of how some time ago a few guests arrived at her +house in response to an invitation to dinner. They waited in vain for +the rest of the party, for whose delay their hostess was at a loss +to account. At length she turned aside and opened her blotting-book, +which quickly revealed the cause of the guests' non-appearance--the +invitations were lying there. They had been written, but never sent. + +In London the prime minister--who has an indifferent official +residence, which he and his family have occasionally occupied, in +Downing street--lives in Carlton-House Terrace. It is a beautiful +house, but not by any means well adapted for party-giving, for it is +so constructed that circulation is almost impossible. If you once +get into a room, you must stay there; whereas half the charm of +Lady Palmerston's famous parties at Cambridge House was the free +circulation the rooms afforded, enabling you to pass right round a +quadrangle, and thus easily find an acquaintance or get away from a +bore. Mr. Gladstone's house has a fine double staircase, and it will +derive interest in after days from the circumstance that, standing at +the head, Lord Russell took leave of the party he had led, and pointed +to his then host as his successor. + +Carlton-House Terrace is in many respects the most delightful +situation in London, for, whilst extremely central, it is very quiet. +It stands between Pall Mall and St. James's Park. One side faces a +strip of beautifully kept garden, which lies between the terrace and +the row of palaces formed by the Senior United Service, Athenaeum, +Travelers' and Carlton Clubs. The other side has a charming prospect +over St. James's Park. In summer this is really lovely, for all ugly +objects are obscured by the foliage, amid which glimpses are obtained +of the pinnacles and fretted towers of the palace of Parliament on the +one hand, and those of its venerable neighbor, the majestic abbey, +on the other. It was here that Bunsen passed his London days, and the +reader of his memoirs will remember frequent references to the charms +of his house. It may well be imagined how great a boon it is to the +toil-worn minister to find himself, as it were, in a garden, with only +the distant roar, like that of the sea, to remind him as he sits in +his study that five minutes walk across that pleasant park will bring +him to Downing street, and three more to the Treasury bench in the +House of Commons. + +In the country most of his time is spent at Hawarden Castle in +Flintshire, about six hours from London. This is the ancestral seat of +Mrs. Gladstone's brother, Sir Stephen Glynne, lord lieutenant of +the county, whose family have held this property for centuries. Sir +Stephen is a very shy man of retired habits. By a family arrangement +his house is the country abode of his sister and brother-in-law. + +In earlier life, Sir Stephen and his two brothers-in-law, Mr. +Gladstone and Lord Lyttelton, formed an unfortunately favorable +estimate of certain mines, into which much of the fortune of Sir +Stephen and his sisters went, and from which it never came out again. +There was one other brother, the late rector of Hawarden. He died +about a year ago, and Mr. Gladstone's second son, Stephen, was +appointed his successor. The living, in the gift of Sir Stephen, is +very valuable. Mr. Glynne, the clergyman, died without a son, and the +title will therefore on Sir Stephen's death be extinct. As matters +now stand, it may be presumed that Mr. W.H. Gladstone, the prime +minister's eldest son, will succeed to the Hawarden estates. + +Mr. Gladstone has himself recently increased the family interest +around Hawarden by purchase. About five years ago the state of his +finances were the talk of the town, and a number of people, especially +of the Conservative party, avowed themselves in a position to assert +from personal knowledge that he was ruined. There was no just ground +for such a statement, and like so many other absurd rumors it died +out. None of Mr. Gladstone's daughters are married, nor is his eldest +son. + + + + +WHITSUNTIDE AMONG THE MENNISTS. + + +Certain great festivals of the Christian Church which were ignored by +the Puritans and Quakers have always continued in high repute among +the Pennsylvania Germans. Christmas, Easter, Whitsuntide and +Ascension Day are celebrated not only in the Lutheran, the Reformed +or Calvinistic and the Moravian churches, but among the descendants +of those Swiss Anabaptists who, being driven from their homes by +religious persecution, finally took shelter in that part of the land +of Penn now called Lancaster county, these quiet sectarians being +known among us by the names of Mennists and Amish (pronounced +Menneests and Ommish). + +The movable feast of Whitsunday or Pentecost, which occurs on the +seventh Sunday after Easter, is a solemn occasion in the Mennonite +meetings, for at this time is held one of the great semi-annual +observances of bread-breaking and feet-washing. The ensuing day, +Whitmonday, is a great secular festival. All the spring bonnets are +then in readiness for the "Dutch" girls. The young farmer of eighteen +or more, whose father has granted his heart's desire in the form of a +buggy, or who has otherwise attained to that summit of rural felicity, +harnesses and attaches to it one of the horses with which the farm is +so well supplied, and takes his girl into the county-town. Here +they walk the streets, partake of simple refreshments, meet their +acquaintances or talk with them in the tavern parlor. Sometimes they +visit a circus or menagerie whose managers have made a timely visit to +our inland city. + +On the ensuing day, Tuesday, while the Dutch boys are working the +corn, you may perchance hear their father's voice raised to a higher +pitch than usual, which circumstance he explains when he comes in +sight, thus: "The boys is sleepy to-day. Yesterday was Whissuntide, +you know. They got home late." For custom forbids their leaving +the girl of their choice before the small hours, and allows them, +nevertheless, no remission from labor on the succeeding day. + +The people, however, whose religious services I am about to describe +impose upon their members a stricter rule of earlier hours, etc. They +are called New (or Reformed) Mennists. + +It was on Whitsunday, May 31, 1868, that I paid a visit to one of +our New Mennist meeting-houses, and found before nine o'clock in the +morning that the services had already begun. The first apartment we +entered was a sort of tiring-room, where along the walls hung +the shawls and black sun-bonnets of the sisters. Here were also +traveling-bags, and a cradle stood ready to receive one or more of the +babies that were in attendance. In the adjoining room were heard +the familiar notes of "Old Hundred," and "Du bist der Weg" was sung +pleasantly without any instrumental accompaniment. + +When we entered the whitewashed apartment in which the meeting had +assembled I saw upon a small platform at the farther end five men, who +were apparently preachers or elders. At the same end of the room were +seated the soberly clad members of the sect--the men on one side of +the apartment, with their broad-brimmed hats removed; on the other +side the sisters, with their extremely plain book-muslin caps and +otherwise sober attire. + +A portion of the services was in English. Dr. ----, a practitioner of +medicine and a bishop in this Church, spoke extemporaneously in our +language. He gave a long account of the ordinances of the Jewish +Church, and then of those which the "Lord Jesus instituted in the +place of these--the baptism that was celebrated a week ago, and this +Lord's Supper, this feet-washing, this kiss of peace, this manner of +visiting offenders;" the last phrase being an allusion to the severe +rule which forbids the New or Reformed Mennists to eat, etc. with +those excommunicated by the society. + +The Mennists, as I understand, hold in general those doctrines that +are considered evangelical. The services were much prolonged, and the +congregation became restless. But at length, while a younger brother +was speaking in "Dutch" or German, there came in another bearing +a parcel wrapped in a white cloth. He was followed by one carrying +something tied in a blue-and-white cloth, which being opened disclosed +a demijohn. The white parcel was received by the preacher upon the +desk, and when opened showed a great loaf of our beautiful Lancaster +county bread divided into slices. After prayer several preachers took +slices, and passing around among the congregation broke off bits +which they gave to the communicants. The wine in the demijohn was then +poured into small, bright tin cups, like milkmen's measures, and was +distributed among the members. A hymn in the German language was sung, +two lines at a time, while the wine was handed round. + +After these services were concluded feet-washing began by reading the +passage from the 13th chapter of John on the subject, and this +was followed by many remarks. I observed that one elderly brother, +speaking in a mournful tone and in our Dutch manner, quoted, +"Nimmermehr soll du mein Fees wasche" ("Thou shalt never wash my +feet"). These discourses were followed by the announcement, "Next +Sunday there will be bread-breaking at Landisville." + +Now arose a confusion from carrying out benches, from arranging others +in two long rows facing each other, etc. The two principal preachers +were seen disencumbered of their coats, much animated conversation +began, and feet-washing did not seem to be observed with so much +seriousness as the Supper. I took a seat near the end of two long +benches which were arranged to face each other, and on which sat some +of the brethren whose feet were to be washed by one of the preachers. +Common unpainted tubs containing water were brought in by two men. Dr. +----, the bishop already mentioned, had a great piece of white linen +tied around his waist. He passed along between the two rows of men as +they sat facing each other, bearing his tub alternately from a brother +in one row to one in the other, so that both rows were finished +at about the same time. Quietly the men took off their shoes and +stockings. They did not put their feet forward much. As Dr. ---- came +to each participant he set his tub down before him, washed his feet a +little, wiped them on the long white apron or towel, then shook hands +with him and kissed him. He thus ministered to thirty persons, a +somewhat laborious undertaking, but his powerful frame was suited to +the exertion. The same water and the same towel served for all. + +Meantime, the sisters, in another part of the room, were arranged in +smaller companies on benches placed in a similar manner. I said to a +sister, "Do the preachers wash the sisters' feet?" + +"Oh no," she answered: "the sisters does it." + +Some of the sisters were very friendly, and not unwilling to converse. +One said, "One sister washes as many as she is pretty well able: it's +hard on the back." + +"And does she have a towel?" said I. + +"She girds a towel, and then she washes and wipes them, and gives them +a kiss." + +"Do you all have your feet washed?" I inquired further. + +"No, not those that have any weakness that prevents." + +"And will all these brothers have their feet washed?" + +"All that communes." + +"And do not all commune?" + +"Yes, without they feel that they have something against another. Now +if I feel that I have something against her--placing her hand upon a +sister. + +"I understand," interrupted I. "'If thou bring thy gift to the +altar--' And how many," I continued, "will there be in such a meeting +as this that will not commune? Will there be half a dozen?" + +"Oh yes; but by another year all will likely be right, and then they +will commune. Now, I did not commune nor have my feet washed." + +"Why not?" said I. + +"Why, I felt at this time such confusion of mind, as if the Enemy was +against me--" + +"Well, it was not anything against a brother or sister?" + +"No, I count them all ahead of me: I count myself the poorest member." + +At the conclusion of the feet-washing a hymn was sung. Among those who +had their feet washed was a young man apparently about twenty-two, and +who looked full of fun. It seems that even such may be in membership +with so strict a sect. It was about one o'clock when the meeting +ended, having been in session four hours and a half. + +The great simplicity of the surroundings on this occasion may lead +the reader to suppose that the congregation was poor. It was, however, +composed in a great measure of some of the thriftiest farmers in one +of the richest upland sections of the United States. + +Some time after attending this meeting I called upon an aged Amish man +to converse with him upon their religious society, etc. The Amish +are another branch of the Mennonites, and those among us are likewise +descendants of Swiss refugees. They are the most primitive of the +three divisions of the sect, preserving the use of the Dutch or German +language not only in their religious meetings, but almost entirely in +their own families. + +I mentioned to this aged man the feet-washing that I had attended, +and told how Dr. ----, the bishop, had washed the feet of the other +brethren. + +"Did he wash them all?" said my Amish acquaintance. + +"Yes, all that were assigned to him. How is it among you?" + +"They wash each other's, every two and two. If he washes them all, he +puts himself in Christ's place. _He_ says, 'Wash each other's feet.'" + +This, I am also informed, is the rule among the third division, the +Old Mennists, the most numerous branch of these remarkable people. + +P.E.G. + + + + +THE RAW AMERICAN. + + +London at present abounds in Americans on their way to the Vienna +Exposition. Many of them are commissioners from various States. Some +have lands to sell or other financial axes to grind. Of such the +Langham Hotel is full. The Langham is the nearest approach to an +American hotel in London. There, though not a guest, you may pass in +and out without explaining to the hall-porter who you are, what you +are, where you come from or what you want: you may there enter and +retire without giving your pedigree, naturalization papers or a +certificate of good character. At other English hotels something +analogous to this is commonly required. + +We, who have been in England a full year, look down with an air of +superiority on the raw, the newly-arrived American. We are quite +English. We have worn out our American clothes. We have on English +hats with tightly-curled rims and English stub-toed boots. We know the +intricacies of London street navigation, and Islington, Blackfriars, +Camden Town, Hackney, the "Surrey Side," Piccadilly, Regent and Oxford +streets, the Strand and Fleet street, are all mapped out distinctly +in our mind's eye. We are skilled in English money, and no longer pass +off half crowns for two-shilling pieces. We are real Anglo-Americans. + +But the raw American, only arrived a week, is in a maze, a confusion, +a hurry. He is excited and mystified. He tries to appear cool and +unconcerned, and is simply ridiculous. His cards, bearing his name, +title and official status, he distributes as freely as doth the winter +wind the snow-flakes. Inquire at the Langham office for Mr. Smith, and +you find he has blossomed into General Smith. + +He is always partaking or about to partake of official dinners. He +feels that the eyes of all England are upon him. He is dressed _a la_ +bandbox--hat immaculate in its pristine gloss, white cravat, umbrella +of the slimmest encased in silken wrapper. A speck of mud on his +boots would tarnish the national honor. Commonly, he is taken for a +head-butler. He drinks much stout. He eats a whitebait dinner before +being forty-eight hours in London, and tells of it. All this makes him +feel English. + +You meet him. He is overjoyed. He would talk of everything--your +mutual experience in America, his sensations and impressions since +arriving in England. He talks intelligibly of nothing. His brain is +a mere rag-bag, shreddy, confused, parti-colored. Thus he empties it: +"Passage over rough;" "London wonderful;" "Dined with the earl of +---- yesterday;" "Dine with Sir ---- to-day;" "To the Tower;" +"Westminster;" "New York growing;" "Saint Paul's"--going, going, gone! +and he shakes hands with you, and is off at a Broadway gait straight +toward the East End of London for his hotel, which lies at the West +End. + +In reality, the man is not in his right mind. He is undergoing the +mental acclimatization fever. Should he stay in London for three +months, he might recover and begin to find out where he is. But six +months hence he will have returned to America, fancying he has seen +London, Paris, Rome, Geneva, Vienna, and whatever other places +his body has been hurried through, not his mind; for that, in the +excitement and rapidity of his flight, has streamed behind him like +the tail of a comet, light, attenuated, vapory, catching nothing, +absorbing nothing. + +Occasionally this fever takes an abusive phase. He finds in England +nothing to like, nothing to admire. Sometimes he wishes immediately to +revolutionize the government. He is incensed at the cost of royalty. +He sees on every side indications of political upheaval. Or he becomes +culinarily disgusted. Because there are no buckwheat cakes, no codfish +cakes, no hot bread, no pork and beans, no mammoth oysters, stewed, +fried and roasted, he can find nothing fit to eat. The English +cannot cook. Because he can find no noisy, clattering, dish-smashing +restaurant, full of acrobatic waiters racing and balancing under +immense piles of plates, and shouting jargon untranslatable, +unintelligible and unpronounceable down into the lower kitchen, he +cannot, cannot eat. + +PRENTICE MULFORD. + + + + +FAREWELL. + + +The occasion commemorated in the following verses--one of those +festive meetings with which tender-hearted Philadelphians are wont to +brace themselves up for sorrowful partings--called forth expressions +of deep regret and cordial good wishes, in which many of our readers, +we doubt not, will readily join: + + If from my quivering lips in vain + The faltering accents strove to flow, + It was because my heart's deep pain + Bade tears be swift and utterance slow; + For in that moment rose the ghosts + Of pleasant hours in bygone years; + And your kind faces, O my hosts! + Showed blurred and dimly through my tears. + + I could not tell you of the pride + That thrilled me in that parting hour: + Grief held command all undenied, + And only o'er my speech had power. + I found no words to tell the thoughts + That strove for utterance in my brain: + With gratitude my soul was fraught, + And yet I only spoke of pain. + + O friends! 'tis you, and such as you, + That make this parting hard to bear! + Pass all things else my past life knew: + I scarcely heed--I do not care. + I lose in you the dearest part + Of pleasant time that here now ends: + Hand parts from hand, _not_ heart from heart, + And I must leave you, O my friends! + + What can the future's fairest hours + Bring me to recompense for these? + Acquaintances spring like the flowers-- + Friends are slow growth, like forest trees. + Come hope or gladness, what there will-- + Days bright as sunshine after rain-- + The past gave life's best blessings still: + We'll find no friends like these again. + + I leave you in the dear old home + That once was mine--now mine no more: + Henceforth a stranger I must come + To haunts so well beloved of yore; + Yet if your faces turn to mine + The kindly smile I'm wont to see, + Not all, not all I must resign-- + My lost home's light still shines for me! + + Whatever chance or change be mine + In other climes, 'neath foreign skies, + Your love, your kindness, I shall hold + Dearest amid dear memories. + O eyes grown dim with falling tears! + O lips where Sorrow lays her spell! + The saddest task of all life's years + Is yours--to look and say farewell! + + LUCY H. HOOPER. + AUGUSTIN'S, April 7, 1873. + + + + +NOTES. + + +Between the careers of Cavour and Thiers no sound parallel can easily +be traced, but in their characters--or rather in their diplomatic +methods and arts--there would seem to be some curious and almost +ludicrous points of resemblance, if we may accept as true a sketch +of the great Italian statesman made by M. Plattel, the author of +"Causeries Franco-Italiennes," fifteen years ago. M. Plattel, who +wrote from close personal observation, at that time described Count +Cavour as being physically "M. Thiers magnified;" or, if you prefer, +M. Thiers is the count viewed through the big end of an opera-glass. +The count, says M. Plattel, "has the spectacles, and even a similar +expression of finesse. When things take a serious turn, the count puts +both hands in his pockets; and if you see him do that, expect to hear +this threat: 'If you do not pass this bill, _signori deputati_, I +consider you incapable of longer managing the affairs of the country: +I have the honor of bidding you good-evening.' For (and this is a +strange peculiarity) this first minister is never steadier than when +in danger of falling; and his grand oratorical, or rather ministerial, +figure of speech is to seize his hat and his cane, whereupon the +chamber rises and begs M. de Cavour to sit down. M. de Cavour lets +them plead a while, and then--he sits down again! Reading his speeches +now in Paris, I can fancy the count with his hat by his side and his +hand on the door-knob. Heaven knows how many times that comedy-proverb +of Musset called 'A door must either be open or shut,' has been +gravely played by the Sardinian Parliament and the prime minister!" +It is with a very droll effect that a French paper has revived this +curious description, _a propos_ of the perpetual repetition of the +drama played by the French Assembly and the French president, in which +the constant threats of resignation on the one hand are invariably +followed by passionate and despairing entreaties to "stay" on the +other. It is the old story of Cavour and the door-knob over again; +and even the great Bismarck, by the way, does not disdain a resort +occasionally to the same terrible pantomime. "The only _coup d'etat_ +to be feared from M. Thiers," said M. Dufaure in the Assembly, "is his +withdrawal." It is, the quarreling and reconciliation of Horace and +Lydia: "What if the door of the repudiated Lydia again open to me?" +"Though you are stormier than blustering Adriatic, I should love to +live with you," etc. Such is the billing and cooing, after quarrel, +between the president and the Assembly. Still, it is clear that the +puissant hat-and-cane argument must date back to Cavour. + + * * * * * + +The recent proposition of some English writers to elevate a certain +class of suicides to the rank of a legalized "institution," under the +pleasant name of "euthanasia," suggests the inquiry whether, without +any scientific vindication of the practice, there will not always be +suicides enough in ordinary society. At any rate, however it may be in +England, just across the Channel, in France, thousands of people every +year break the "canon 'gainst self-slaughter," leaving the ills they +have to "fly to others that they know not of." The official figures +show that in a period of twenty-two years no less than 71,207 persons +committed suicide in France. The causes were various--business +embarrassments, domestic chagrins, the brutishness produced by liquor, +poverty, insanity, the desire to put an end to physical suffering by +"euthanasia," and so on; but they are pretty nearly all included in +the "fardels" which Hamlet mentions, from the physical troubles of the +"heartache and the thousand natural shocks that flesh is heir to," up +to the mental distress wrought by the "whips and scorns of time, the +oppressor's wrong, the proud man's contumely, the pangs of despised +love," and so on in the well-remembered catalogue. Perhaps the most +interesting point in these statistics concerns the means employed for +suicide. These are thus tabulated: Hanging, 24,536; drowning, 23,221; +shooting, 10,197; asphyxia by charcoal fumes (a true Paris appliance), +5587; various cutting instruments, 2871; plunging or jumping from an +elevated place (an astonishing number), 2841; poison, 1500; sundry +other methods, 454. Hanging and drowning are thus accountable for more +than half the French suicides. The little stove of charcoal suggests +itself as a remedy at hand to many a wretch without the means to buy +a pistol or the nerve to use a knife. The cases of voluntary resort +to poison are astonishingly few, but it must be remembered that the +foregoing figures only embrace successful suicides, and antidotes to +poison often come in season where the rope or the river would +have made quick and fatal work. _La France_ notes, regarding these +statistics, that their details show that men oftenest use pistols, and +women oftenest try poison, in their attempts at suicide. What is more +curious, each man is likely to employ an instrument familiar to him: +thus, hunters and soldiers resort to the pistol, barbers trust +the razor, shoemakers use the knife, engravers the graving-tool, +washerwomen poison themselves with potash or Prussian blue; though, +of course, these are only general rules, with a great many exceptions. +And in Paris it is said that among all ranks and professions, and in +both sexes, at least half of the suicides are by asphyxiation with +charcoal. Surely in France one hardly needs to preach any doctrine of +not patiently suffering the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune. +A healthier and more inspiring morality would be that of the story of +the baron of Grogzwig and his adventure with the "Genius of Despair +and Suicide," as narrated in an episode of _Nicholas Nickleby_; for +the stout baron, after thinking over his purpose of making a voluntary +departure from this world, and finding he had no security of being any +the better for going out of it, abandoned the plan, and adopted as a +rule in all cases of melancholy to look at both sides of the question, +and to apply a magnifying-glass to the better one. + + * * * * * + +In Philadelphia, at least, where there is still a respect for age, the +tidings will be received with respectful regret of the death of Nono, +a noted pensionary of the Jardin des Plantes in Paris, at the ripe age +of more than a hundred years. To have achieved the celebrity of being +the oldest inmate of that institution was no despicable distinction, +but the venerable centenarian had other claims to honor. A native of +the Marquesas Islands, he was brought by Bougainville in 1776 to +the Royal Museum, afterward known as the Jardin des Plantes. It has +frequently been alleged that parrots may live a hundred years: +Nono has established the fact by living still longer. As he thus +contributes an illustration to science, so surely he might point a +general moral and adorn a historic tale. If Thackeray could discourse +so wisely on "Some Carp at Sans Souci," the vicissitudes which this +veteran Parisian witnessed in the French capital from 1776 to 1873, +under two empires, two royal dynasties and three republics, might be +worth a rhapsody. Nono seems to have been a well-preserved old parrot. +Magnificent in youth, he attained literally a green old age, for his +plumage was still fresh and thick. Very naturally, he had lost his +houppe, and was almost totally bald. However, his eye was clear and +bright enough to have read the finest print or followed the finest +needlework; and it had the _narquois_, lightly skeptical look of those +who have seen a great deal of life. In short, Nono was a stylish and +eminently respectable old bird. That worthy person, Monsieur Chavreul, +who treats the animals of the Jardin like a father, has stuffed +and mounted the illustrious Nono as a testimonial of affection and +respect. + + * * * * * + +The connection between war and botany is, at first, not specially +obvious, and yet a very clear bit of testimony to their relation was +disclosed by the siege of Paris. Two naturalists have published a +_Florula Obsidionalis_, which, as its name partly indicates, is a +catalogue of the accidental flora of the late investment of Paris. +They reckon in their list not less than one hundred and ninety species +before unknown to the neighborhood of the French capital, whereof +fifty-eight are leguminous (such as peas, beans, etc.), thirty-four +are composite, thirty-two are _plantes grasses_, and sixty-six belong +to other families. Almost all are to be found chiefly on the left bank +of the Seine, though also discoverable at Neuilly and in the Bois de +Boulogne. Of course, these new-comers are all accounted for as the +produce of seeds brought by the German army. They will gradually die +out; and yet some few may remain as permanent conquerors of the soil, +since among the flora of Paris is still reckoned one plant whose seed +was brought into France by some Russian forage-train in 1815. + + * * * * * + +As the impudence, dishonesty, laziness and rapacity of servants at +watering-places have long been familiar subjects of satire, it is +just to say a word on the other side in favor of some extreme +Northern resorts. At the White Mountains, for example, the waiters and +waitresses are of a better class than is generally met. Some of the +young girls are farmers' daughters, who go to the hotels to see the +fashions and earn a little pocket-money. The colored cook at one of +the great houses teaches dancing during the winters. Not a few are +school-teachers, others students at country academies, who pass their +vacation in this way in order to earn enough to buy text-books or +pay the winter's tuition. Many of them are more intelligent and well +educated than some of the shoddies they wait upon. They are usually +quicker in movement and of more retentive memory than the average +American waiter; and though each has a great deal to do at times, yet +even during the tremendous moment of dinner they contrive to find a +few little intervals for harmless flirtations in the dining-room. They +are for the most part well-mannered too, and if they talk to you of +each other as "this lady" or "that gentleman," what is it more than +some waiters do with far less reason? The New Hampshire villages +become versed every summer in the latest imported fashions, thanks to +the quick eyes of the hotel waitresses. + + + + +LITERATURE OF THE DAY. + + +Lars: A Pastoral of Norway. By Bayard Taylor. Boston: Osgood & Co. + +Mr. Taylor's muse has of late become very still-faced, decorous and +mindful of the art-proprieties. Cautious is she, and there is perhaps +nothing in this pastoral that will cause the grammarian to wince, or +make the censorious rhetorician writhe in his judgment-seat with +the sense that she is committing herself. Not such were the early +attributes of the great itinerant's poetry. When he used to unsling +his minstrel harp in the wilds of California or on the sunrise +mountains of the Orient, there were plenty of false notes, plenty +of youthful vivacities that overbore the strings and were heard as a +sudden crack, and, withal, a good deal of young frank fire. Now there +is much finish and the least possible suspicion of ennui. But the +life-history of _Lars_ is worth reading. It is a calm procession of +pictures, without pretence, except the slight pretence of classical +correctness. The first part, which reflects Norwegian manners in a way +reminding us more or less of the exquisite stories of Bjornsen, tells +how two swains of Ulvik, Lars the hunter and Per the fisher, quarrel +for love of Brita, and at a public wrestling decide the question by a +combat, fighting with knives, in Norse fashion, while hooked to each +other at the belt. They strip, _a la_ Heenan and Sayers. Mr. Taylor, +who does not often come behind the occasion when he can get a human +figure to describe statue-wise or under a studio light, is perhaps a +trifle too Phidian in bringing out the good looks of his fish-eating +gladiators: + + The low daylight clad + Their forms with awful fairness, beauty now + Of life, so warm and ripe and glorious, yet + So near the beauty terrible of Death. + +Lars, the victor, has all the ill-luck. His foe falls lifeless, his +sweetheart calls him a murderer, and he flies from the law. Another +scene quickly shows him crossing the broad ocean, as so many +Norwegians and Swedes had crossed before him, and seeking the +protection of Swedish forts on Delaware banks. Long, sad days pass on +the ocean, + + Till shining fisher-sails + Came, stars of land that rose before the land; + +and soon he leaps to shore in New Sweden, only to find that the +civilization he seeks has set like a sinking planet into the abiding +enlightenment of another race and creed. Governor Printz's fortress +on Tinicum isle is a ruin of yellow bricks: the wanderer strays up the +broad stream + + To where, upon her hill, fair Wilmington + Looks to the river over marshy weeds. + He saw the low brick church with stunted tower, + The portal-arches, ivied now and old, + And passed the gate: lo! there the ancient stones + Bore Norland names and dear familiar words! + It seemed the dead a comfort spake. + +The governor is a myth, the Swedes are dead, the Scandinavian tongues +have been changed to English, and an English exactly conformed to King +James's translation of the Scriptures. The first girl he speaks to +checks him for addressing her with a civility: + + "Nay," she said, "not _lady_! call me Ruth." + +With the father of this primitive Nausicaa, on Hockessin Farm, the +wanderer abides as herdsman. Soon, under the propaganda of Ruth's +soft eyes and the drowsy spell of the Delawarean society, he joins the +peaceful sect amongst which he labors. It is easier, though, to +change his plural pronouns to the scriptural _thou_ and _thee_ of King +James's translators than to tame his heroic Viking blood, swift to +boil into wrath at the show of oppression. Such an outburst leads to a +quaint scene of acknowledgment and repentance, where lies + + Up beyond the woods, at crossing-roads, + The heart of all, the ancient meeting-house. + +Lars, prayed over by the brethren, bursts forth in tears and +supplications among the worshipers, and is received into full harmony +with them: + + So into joy revolved the doubtful year, + And, ere it closed, the gentle fold of Friends + Sheltered another member, even Lars.... + And all the country-side assembled there + One winter Sabbath, when in snow and sky + The colors of transfiguration shone, + Within the meeting-house. There Ruth and Lars + Together sat upon the women's side; + And when the peace was perfect, they arose: + He took her by the hand, and spake these words, + As ordered: "In the presence of the Lord + And this assembly, by the hand I take + Ruth Mendenhall, and promise unto her, + Divine assistance blessing me, to be + A loving and a faithful husband, even + Till death shall separate us." Then spake Ruth + The like sweet words; and so the twain were one. + +It is not often that a liturgy has been translated into metre with +less change of its form and substance. + +The imbedding of a raw Northern native in this lap of repose and in +this transfiguring matrimonial alliance is the grand problem of the +poem. What will Lars do, now that he is a man of peace and a Child of +Light, with the burden of conscience? In America he is a saint and an +apostle. In Europe he is known but as a proscribed murderer. The later +scenes, where Lars, accompanied by his true and tender wife, meets his +old love, his neighbors, and his rival restored to life, are of a more +ambitious character than any that have preceded. The holy principles +imbibed on the shores of Delaware are made to triumph, and Lars, +dropping the sharp blade from his hand in the thronged arena whither +he is forced once more, stands first as a laughing-stock, and then as +an apostle, among his old neighbors. It is a position full of moral +force, and we find ourselves--suddenly recovering in a degree from the +calm view we had taken of the poem as a work of art--asking _how_ we +should be so sensible of the grandeur of the situation if the poet by +his skill had not brought out its peculiarity. + + * * * * * + +A Lady of the Last Century. By Dr. Doran. London: Bentley. + +This is the life of a lady remarkable in herself and in her +surroundings. Of every day in her life she could say, in the words of +Horace, "I have lived." "She never had a fool for an acquaintance," +says her biographer, "nor an idle hour in the sense of idleness." Her +father, Mr. Robinson, who belonged to an eminent family which had been +settled about a century at Rokeby, subsequently the seat of Scott's +friend Morritt, in Yorkshire, married when a boy of eighteen a rich +young lady of very superior quality in every respect, and by her had +a large family. His wife's mother married secondly Middleton, the +biographer of Cicero, who took a great fancy to her grand-daughter, +Elizabeth Robinson, and paid much attention to her intellectual +development. In fact, from the cradle to the grave she was thrown +amongst the erudite and cultivated in a very uncultivated age. During +her girlhood Elizabeth Robinson had every advantage and pleasure which +wealthy and devoted parents could give her, and when twenty-two she +married Mr. Edward Montagu, a grandson of the first earl of Sandwich, +and first cousin of the celebrated Lady Mary's husband. + +Mrs. Montagu was far more fortunate in her choice than the brilliant +daughter of the duke of Kingston. Her husband was in every way +estimable and amiable, and her letters afford ample evidence how +thoroughly she appreciated his character. They had only one child, who +died in infancy, and when Mr. Montagu died he bequeathed to his widow +the whole of his property, which she in turn left to her nephew, who +took the name of Montagu and became Lord Rokeby. + +A few years after their marriage Mr. Montagu, already affluent, +received a great accession of fortune in the shape of colliery +property in the north of England. This enabled his wife to entertain +very liberally, and, in conjunction with her talents and high +connections, gave her a commanding place in society. They took a large +house in Hill street, then the extremity of the West End, which became +the resort of that class who, being anxious to put an end to eternal +card-playing and introduce rather more of the intellectual into +social intercourse, received from a chance circumstance the name +of "blue-stockings." There were to be seen Burke, Fox, Hannah More, +Johnson, Lord Lyttelton, etc. Subsequently, Mrs. Montagu fitted up +a room whose walls were hung with feathers, and thence came Cowper's +well-known lines and Macaulay's passage: "There were the members +of that brilliant society which quoted, criticised and exchanged +repartees under the rich peacock hangings of Mrs. Montagu." After +her husband's death a great deal of business devolved on her in the +management of his estates, and here she showed those qualities which +are singularly conspicuous in Englishwomen of rank. She went down to +Northumberland, inspected her farms, visited her colliers, and +made acquaintance with her tenants. She seems particularly to have +appreciated the people in Yorkshire, and her descriptions of them +recall in no slight degree some of those of the sisters Bronte. Her +principal seat was at Sandleford in Berkshire, where she spent +large sums in improvements under the celebrated landscape-gardener +"Capability Brown." + +She survived her husband twenty-five years, and about twenty years +before her death removed to a fine house which she had erected in a +then new part of London, Portman Square, and which is still known as +Montagu House. But the entertainments there given were, though more +splendid, less notable than in the humbler mansion in Hill street, for +Mrs. Montagu herself was getting into years, and many of those who had +been the brightest ornaments of the Hill street parties were passing +away. Mrs. Montagu died in 1800, at the age of seventy. She was of an +affectionate disposition, but had somewhat less sensibility perhaps +than most men would like to see in a woman; yet, on the whole, she +played her part in life extremely well, being wise, generous and true. + +The book is particularly interesting for the rich aroma of association +around it, and would have been far more so had Dr. Doran taken the +trouble to give a few notes, of which there is not a single one in the +whole book--a serious drawback, more especially to American readers. + + * * * * * + +The Treaty of Washington: Its Negotiation, Execution, and the +Discussions relating thereto. By Caleb Cushing. New York: Harper & +Brothers. + +Mr. Cushing has given another proof of the great capacity of some +men to do very clever work, but to fail utterly in giving an adequate +account of the work itself or of the way in which it was done. Trained +by long experience in public business, and intimately acquainted +by long residence in Washington with the methods of diplomatic +negotiation and interpretation, he was eminently fitted to be the +colleague of Mr. Evarts as counsel for the government before the +Geneva arbitration. Here he undertakes to give an account of the +task there brought to a result so favorable to the United States. +Unluckily, he shows that he is always and only an advocate. Much that +may have been useful for his duties in that office is prominent in a +disagreeable way in his recital of the Geneva award. His language is +loose and offensive, often without meaning to be so, but oftener in +a way that shows how much he must have been galled by the lord +chief-justice of England. Whatever Sir Alexander Cockburn may have +done there, and however much he may have fallen from his high estate +as one of the arbitrators to the less dignified position of an +advocate for English claims, he will have a sweet revenge in seeing +the anger that he has excited in one of the American representatives, +now become their spokesman. Mr. Cushing falls into the blunder that +was once so common in our American state papers as to give good cause +for that happy phrase of Nicholas Biddle--"Western Orientalisms." The +tone of the book, which ought to be a simple story, is stilted and +rhetorical. The result of all the long discussions is the best praise +of our American statesmen who were its authors, but it is dwarfed and +lessened by the fulsome praise given to the foreign representatives +who brought it about. Of "bad language," in keeping with the +bad spirit of the book, the following may serve as specimens: +"Pretensiveness," "frequentation," "annexion," "capitulations" +instead of "treaties," "monogram" for "monograph," "it needs to," +"howmuchsoever," "law-books invested with the reflection of fine +scenery," "imposed itself," "I demand of myself," and other such +phrases without number. + +Once done with Sir Alexander Cockburn and the work at Geneva, Mr. +Cushing shows himself and his country to much better advantage in +discussing the "Mixed Commission" now sitting at Washington, the +Northwest Boundary, the Fisheries, and the general provisions of the +Washington treaty. He has, however, simply forestalled the ground +for some better writer on the important history which belongs to that +negotiation, and will give the reading and reflecting public, both +abroad and at home, a very unfavorable impression of the great task in +which he played so important a part, and of the qualities of mind and +temper he must have brought to it, since at this late day he finds +no better impetus to the work of writing its history than unexplained +anger at one of the members of the board before which Mr. Cushing +argued the cause of his country, and helped to win it. + + + + +_Books Received._ + + +The Drawing-Room Stage: A Series of Original Dramas, Comedies, Farces, +and Entertainments for Amateur Theatricals and School Exhibitions. By +George M. Baker. Illustrated. Boston: Lee & Shepard. + +Five Years in an English University. By Charles Astor Bristed, late +Foundation Scholar of Trinity College, Cambridge. Third edition. +Revised by the Author. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +Memoirs of Madame Desbordes-Valmore. By the late C.A. Sainte-Beuve. +With a Selection from her Poems. Translated by Harriet W. Preston. +Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Livingstone and his African Explorations: together with a Full Account +of the Young, Stanley and Dawson Search Expeditions. New York: Adams, +Victor & Co. + +The Mother's Register: Current Notes of the Health of Children. From +the French of Professor J.B. Fonssagrines. New York: G.P. Putnam & +Sons. + +Thorvaldsen: His Life and Works. By Eugene Plon. Translated from the +French by J. M. Luyster. Illustrated. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +Scientific and Industrial Education: its Importance to our Country. By +G.B. Stebbins. Detroit: Daily Post Printing Establishment. + +Never Again. By W.S. Mayo, M.D., author of "Kaloolah," "The Berber," +etc. New York: G.P. Putnam & Sons. + +The World-Priest. From the German of Leopold Schafer. By Charles T. +Brooks. Boston: Roberts Brothers. + +The Cuban Question in the Spanish Parliament. London: Press of the +Anglo-American Times. + +Treason at Home: A Novel. By Mrs. Greenough. Philadelphia: T.B. +Peterson & Brothers. + +Myths and Myth-Makers. By John Fiske, M.A., LL.B. Boston: James R. +Osgood & Co. + +An Account of the Sphynx at Mount Auburn. Illustrated. Boston: Little, +Brown & Co. + + + + + + + +End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of Lippincott's Magazine of Popular +Literature and Science, by Various + +*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK LIPPINCOTT'S MAGAZINE *** + +***** This file should be named 13195.txt or 13195.zip ***** +This and all associated files of various formats will be found in: + https://www.gutenberg.org/1/3/1/9/13195/ + +Produced by Juliet Sutherland, Sandra Brown and the Online Distributed +Proofreading Team. + + +Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions +will be renamed. + +Creating the works from public domain print editions means that no +one owns a United States copyright in these works, so the Foundation +(and you!) can copy and distribute it in the United States without +permission and without paying copyright royalties. Special rules, +set forth in the General Terms of Use part of this license, apply to +copying and distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works to +protect the PROJECT GUTENBERG-tm concept and trademark. Project +Gutenberg is a registered trademark, and may not be used if you +charge for the eBooks, unless you receive specific permission. If you +do not charge anything for copies of this eBook, complying with the +rules is very easy. You may use this eBook for nearly any purpose +such as creation of derivative works, reports, performances and +research. They may be modified and printed and given away--you may do +practically ANYTHING with public domain eBooks. Redistribution is +subject to the trademark license, especially commercial +redistribution. + + + +*** START: FULL LICENSE *** + +THE FULL PROJECT GUTENBERG LICENSE +PLEASE READ THIS BEFORE YOU DISTRIBUTE OR USE THIS WORK + +To protect the Project Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting the free +distribution of electronic works, by using or distributing this work +(or any other work associated in any way with the phrase "Project +Gutenberg"), you agree to comply with all the terms of the Full Project +Gutenberg-tm License (available with this file or online at +https://gutenberg.org/license). + + +Section 1. General Terms of Use and Redistributing Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic works + +1.A. By reading or using any part of this Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work, you indicate that you have read, understand, agree to +and accept all the terms of this license and intellectual property +(trademark/copyright) agreement. If you do not agree to abide by all +the terms of this agreement, you must cease using and return or destroy +all copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in your possession. +If you paid a fee for obtaining a copy of or access to a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work and you do not agree to be bound by the +terms of this agreement, you may obtain a refund from the person or +entity to whom you paid the fee as set forth in paragraph 1.E.8. + +1.B. "Project Gutenberg" is a registered trademark. It may only be +used on or associated in any way with an electronic work by people who +agree to be bound by the terms of this agreement. There are a few +things that you can do with most Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works +even without complying with the full terms of this agreement. See +paragraph 1.C below. There are a lot of things you can do with Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works if you follow the terms of this agreement +and help preserve free future access to Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. See paragraph 1.E below. + +1.C. The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation ("the Foundation" +or PGLAF), owns a compilation copyright in the collection of Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic works. Nearly all the individual works in the +collection are in the public domain in the United States. If an +individual work is in the public domain in the United States and you are +located in the United States, we do not claim a right to prevent you from +copying, distributing, performing, displaying or creating derivative +works based on the work as long as all references to Project Gutenberg +are removed. Of course, we hope that you will support the Project +Gutenberg-tm mission of promoting free access to electronic works by +freely sharing Project Gutenberg-tm works in compliance with the terms of +this agreement for keeping the Project Gutenberg-tm name associated with +the work. You can easily comply with the terms of this agreement by +keeping this work in the same format with its attached full Project +Gutenberg-tm License when you share it without charge with others. + +1.D. The copyright laws of the place where you are located also govern +what you can do with this work. Copyright laws in most countries are in +a constant state of change. If you are outside the United States, check +the laws of your country in addition to the terms of this agreement +before downloading, copying, displaying, performing, distributing or +creating derivative works based on this work or any other Project +Gutenberg-tm work. The Foundation makes no representations concerning +the copyright status of any work in any country outside the United +States. + +1.E. Unless you have removed all references to Project Gutenberg: + +1.E.1. The following sentence, with active links to, or other immediate +access to, the full Project Gutenberg-tm License must appear prominently +whenever any copy of a Project Gutenberg-tm work (any work on which the +phrase "Project Gutenberg" appears, or with which the phrase "Project +Gutenberg" is associated) is accessed, displayed, performed, viewed, +copied or distributed: + +This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with +almost no restrictions whatsoever. You may copy it, give it away or +re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included +with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org + +1.E.2. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is derived +from the public domain (does not contain a notice indicating that it is +posted with permission of the copyright holder), the work can be copied +and distributed to anyone in the United States without paying any fees +or charges. If you are redistributing or providing access to a work +with the phrase "Project Gutenberg" associated with or appearing on the +work, you must comply either with the requirements of paragraphs 1.E.1 +through 1.E.7 or obtain permission for the use of the work and the +Project Gutenberg-tm trademark as set forth in paragraphs 1.E.8 or +1.E.9. + +1.E.3. If an individual Project Gutenberg-tm electronic work is posted +with the permission of the copyright holder, your use and distribution +must comply with both paragraphs 1.E.1 through 1.E.7 and any additional +terms imposed by the copyright holder. Additional terms will be linked +to the Project Gutenberg-tm License for all works posted with the +permission of the copyright holder found at the beginning of this work. + +1.E.4. Do not unlink or detach or remove the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License terms from this work, or any files containing a part of this +work or any other work associated with Project Gutenberg-tm. + +1.E.5. Do not copy, display, perform, distribute or redistribute this +electronic work, or any part of this electronic work, without +prominently displaying the sentence set forth in paragraph 1.E.1 with +active links or immediate access to the full terms of the Project +Gutenberg-tm License. + +1.E.6. You may convert to and distribute this work in any binary, +compressed, marked up, nonproprietary or proprietary form, including any +word processing or hypertext form. However, if you provide access to or +distribute copies of a Project Gutenberg-tm work in a format other than +"Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other format used in the official version +posted on the official Project Gutenberg-tm web site (www.gutenberg.org), +you must, at no additional cost, fee or expense to the user, provide a +copy, a means of exporting a copy, or a means of obtaining a copy upon +request, of the work in its original "Plain Vanilla ASCII" or other +form. Any alternate format must include the full Project Gutenberg-tm +License as specified in paragraph 1.E.1. + +1.E.7. Do not charge a fee for access to, viewing, displaying, +performing, copying or distributing any Project Gutenberg-tm works +unless you comply with paragraph 1.E.8 or 1.E.9. + +1.E.8. You may charge a reasonable fee for copies of or providing +access to or distributing Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works provided +that + +- You pay a royalty fee of 20% of the gross profits you derive from + the use of Project Gutenberg-tm works calculated using the method + you already use to calculate your applicable taxes. The fee is + owed to the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark, but he + has agreed to donate royalties under this paragraph to the + Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation. Royalty payments + must be paid within 60 days following each date on which you + prepare (or are legally required to prepare) your periodic tax + returns. Royalty payments should be clearly marked as such and + sent to the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation at the + address specified in Section 4, "Information about donations to + the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation." + +- You provide a full refund of any money paid by a user who notifies + you in writing (or by e-mail) within 30 days of receipt that s/he + does not agree to the terms of the full Project Gutenberg-tm + License. You must require such a user to return or + destroy all copies of the works possessed in a physical medium + and discontinue all use of and all access to other copies of + Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +- You provide, in accordance with paragraph 1.F.3, a full refund of any + money paid for a work or a replacement copy, if a defect in the + electronic work is discovered and reported to you within 90 days + of receipt of the work. + +- You comply with all other terms of this agreement for free + distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm works. + +1.E.9. If you wish to charge a fee or distribute a Project Gutenberg-tm +electronic work or group of works on different terms than are set +forth in this agreement, you must obtain permission in writing from +both the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation and Michael +Hart, the owner of the Project Gutenberg-tm trademark. Contact the +Foundation as set forth in Section 3 below. + +1.F. + +1.F.1. Project Gutenberg volunteers and employees expend considerable +effort to identify, do copyright research on, transcribe and proofread +public domain works in creating the Project Gutenberg-tm +collection. Despite these efforts, Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works, and the medium on which they may be stored, may contain +"Defects," such as, but not limited to, incomplete, inaccurate or +corrupt data, transcription errors, a copyright or other intellectual +property infringement, a defective or damaged disk or other medium, a +computer virus, or computer codes that damage or cannot be read by +your equipment. + +1.F.2. LIMITED WARRANTY, DISCLAIMER OF DAMAGES - Except for the "Right +of Replacement or Refund" described in paragraph 1.F.3, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation, the owner of the Project +Gutenberg-tm trademark, and any other party distributing a Project +Gutenberg-tm electronic work under this agreement, disclaim all +liability to you for damages, costs and expenses, including legal +fees. YOU AGREE THAT YOU HAVE NO REMEDIES FOR NEGLIGENCE, STRICT +LIABILITY, BREACH OF WARRANTY OR BREACH OF CONTRACT EXCEPT THOSE +PROVIDED IN PARAGRAPH F3. YOU AGREE THAT THE FOUNDATION, THE +TRADEMARK OWNER, AND ANY DISTRIBUTOR UNDER THIS AGREEMENT WILL NOT BE +LIABLE TO YOU FOR ACTUAL, DIRECT, INDIRECT, CONSEQUENTIAL, PUNITIVE OR +INCIDENTAL DAMAGES EVEN IF YOU GIVE NOTICE OF THE POSSIBILITY OF SUCH +DAMAGE. + +1.F.3. LIMITED RIGHT OF REPLACEMENT OR REFUND - If you discover a +defect in this electronic work within 90 days of receiving it, you can +receive a refund of the money (if any) you paid for it by sending a +written explanation to the person you received the work from. If you +received the work on a physical medium, you must return the medium with +your written explanation. The person or entity that provided you with +the defective work may elect to provide a replacement copy in lieu of a +refund. If you received the work electronically, the person or entity +providing it to you may choose to give you a second opportunity to +receive the work electronically in lieu of a refund. If the second copy +is also defective, you may demand a refund in writing without further +opportunities to fix the problem. + +1.F.4. Except for the limited right of replacement or refund set forth +in paragraph 1.F.3, this work is provided to you 'AS-IS', WITH NO OTHER +WARRANTIES OF ANY KIND, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, INCLUDING BUT NOT LIMITED TO +WARRANTIES OF MERCHANTIBILITY OR FITNESS FOR ANY PURPOSE. + +1.F.5. Some states do not allow disclaimers of certain implied +warranties or the exclusion or limitation of certain types of damages. +If any disclaimer or limitation set forth in this agreement violates the +law of the state applicable to this agreement, the agreement shall be +interpreted to make the maximum disclaimer or limitation permitted by +the applicable state law. The invalidity or unenforceability of any +provision of this agreement shall not void the remaining provisions. + +1.F.6. INDEMNITY - You agree to indemnify and hold the Foundation, the +trademark owner, any agent or employee of the Foundation, anyone +providing copies of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works in accordance +with this agreement, and any volunteers associated with the production, +promotion and distribution of Project Gutenberg-tm electronic works, +harmless from all liability, costs and expenses, including legal fees, +that arise directly or indirectly from any of the following which you do +or cause to occur: (a) distribution of this or any Project Gutenberg-tm +work, (b) alteration, modification, or additions or deletions to any +Project Gutenberg-tm work, and (c) any Defect you cause. + + +Section 2. Information about the Mission of Project Gutenberg-tm + +Project Gutenberg-tm is synonymous with the free distribution of +electronic works in formats readable by the widest variety of computers +including obsolete, old, middle-aged and new computers. It exists +because of the efforts of hundreds of volunteers and donations from +people in all walks of life. + +Volunteers and financial support to provide volunteers with the +assistance they need, is critical to reaching Project Gutenberg-tm's +goals and ensuring that the Project Gutenberg-tm collection will +remain freely available for generations to come. In 2001, the Project +Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation was created to provide a secure +and permanent future for Project Gutenberg-tm and future generations. +To learn more about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation +and how your efforts and donations can help, see Sections 3 and 4 +and the Foundation web page at https://www.pglaf.org. + + +Section 3. Information about the Project Gutenberg Literary Archive +Foundation + +The Project Gutenberg Literary Archive Foundation is a non profit +501(c)(3) educational corporation organized under the laws of the +state of Mississippi and granted tax exempt status by the Internal +Revenue Service. The Foundation's EIN or federal tax identification +number is 64-6221541. Its 501(c)(3) letter is posted at +https://pglaf.org/fundraising. Contributions to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation are tax deductible to the full extent +permitted by U.S. federal laws and your state's laws. + +The Foundation's principal office is located at 4557 Melan Dr. S. +Fairbanks, AK, 99712., but its volunteers and employees are scattered +throughout numerous locations. Its business office is located at +809 North 1500 West, Salt Lake City, UT 84116, (801) 596-1887, email +business@pglaf.org. Email contact links and up to date contact +information can be found at the Foundation's web site and official +page at https://pglaf.org + +For additional contact information: + Dr. Gregory B. Newby + Chief Executive and Director + gbnewby@pglaf.org + +Section 4. Information about Donations to the Project Gutenberg +Literary Archive Foundation + +Project Gutenberg-tm depends upon and cannot survive without wide +spread public support and donations to carry out its mission of +increasing the number of public domain and licensed works that can be +freely distributed in machine readable form accessible by the widest +array of equipment including outdated equipment. Many small donations +($1 to $5,000) are particularly important to maintaining tax exempt +status with the IRS. + +The Foundation is committed to complying with the laws regulating +charities and charitable donations in all 50 states of the United +States. Compliance requirements are not uniform and it takes a +considerable effort, much paperwork and many fees to meet and keep up +with these requirements. We do not solicit donations in locations +where we have not received written confirmation of compliance. To +SEND DONATIONS or determine the status of compliance for any +particular state visit https://pglaf.org + +While we cannot and do not solicit contributions from states where we +have not met the solicitation requirements, we know of no prohibition +against accepting unsolicited donations from donors in such states who +approach us with offers to donate. + +International donations are gratefully accepted, but we cannot make +any statements concerning tax treatment of donations received from +outside the United States. U.S. laws alone swamp our small staff. + +Please check the Project Gutenberg Web pages for current donation +methods and addresses. Donations are accepted in a number of other +ways including including checks, online payments and credit card +donations. To donate, please visit: https://pglaf.org/donate + + +Section 5. General Information About Project Gutenberg-tm electronic +works. + +Professor Michael S. Hart was the originator of the Project Gutenberg-tm +concept of a library of electronic works that could be freely shared +with anyone. For thirty years, he produced and distributed Project +Gutenberg-tm eBooks with only a loose network of volunteer support. + +Project Gutenberg-tm eBooks are often created from several printed +editions, all of which are confirmed as Public Domain in the U.S. +unless a copyright notice is included. Thus, we do not necessarily +keep eBooks in compliance with any particular paper edition. + +Most people start at our Web site which has the main PG search facility: + + https://www.gutenberg.org + +This Web site includes information about Project Gutenberg-tm, +including how to make donations to the Project Gutenberg Literary +Archive Foundation, how to help produce our new eBooks, and how to +subscribe to our email newsletter to hear about new eBooks. + diff --git a/old/13195.zip b/old/13195.zip Binary files differnew file mode 100644 index 0000000..41c3a73 --- /dev/null +++ b/old/13195.zip |
